AN: Now I know we’ve all had this idea in our minds at one time or another. Here’s my little rendition of the best bounty head vs. the best bounty hunter.

Warnings: For once, one of my stories don’t contain any yaoi. Surprising huh? Violence, perhaps a little OOC since this is probably my first serious crossover, and language, stuff we’re all pretty much used to by now.

Disclaimer: I neither own Trigun, nor Cowboy Bebop. All rights belong to the respected owners.

He gazed out the window, his eyes following the endless sea of sand that made up iles and iles of desert. There was nothing there, just dirt, just dead dreams. He smirked. “You remember that young man we discussed earlier, Legato?” He folded his white, gloved hands perfectly in front of his chin while sitting in the over stuffed office chair.

“Yes sir.” The blue-haired man nodded; his one visible golden eye rested on the dusty expanse as well, though it was more focused on his master’s reflection.

Knives narrowed his blue eyes, “You can bring him here, despite the different dimensions, correct?”

Legato nodded again, “Without a problem sir.”

He chuckled sinisterly, “Excellent. I’ll find paradise yet.”

~~~~

A cold, hefty fishing ship drifted along the depths of space, its hardened hull reflected the fluorescence of the stars in the distance.

Spike lay on the hard, yellow couch, bored. “Ed, check the files will ya? See if there are any good heads out there.” His feet at one end, his head at the other, he puffed a cigarette mindlessly while staring at the tiled ceiling above.

Edward sat on the floor near his big, blue shoes, grinning and tic-tacking madly at her laptop. “Aye y-eye Spike-person.” Pictures scrolled up, prices and info followed each mug shot, and yet, nothing, she knew, that would interest her bounty hunting partner. Matter of fact, the 13-year old hacker couldn’t find anyone that was interesting herself. “Mm, no...nothing good so far, so far, so near, so far...” Her voice trailed away. Just as she was about to turn the files off, a small link caught her eye.

To Edward the Fourth however, this translated to “hack me, please.” Like Alice in Wonderland, she followed the white rabbit, unknowing of what awaited in the hole. In an expert fashion, she popped her knuckles and hacked to her heart’s content. Fire walls, please... Tracers? Whatever. Password, already cracked. Her self-made program overrode the security system and in a matter of seconds, she was surfing the top dogs. The most dangerous of dangerous, bounty heads so vicious, so hazardous, even the feds were too afraid to put up for advertising. These guys were swat team, only. Masterminds, psychotics, completely lost causes that no sane man would attempt to pursue. But then again, the Bebop was lacking in the sanity department when it came to big wulongs. As she sifted down the list, she paused--she gasped--she shrieked.

“Spike!! SPIKE! Lookie, lookie, look! Here! Now!”

Damn near biting his tongue in shock, the Martian sprang upwards, his back bone popped. “Christ Ed, what?!”

She raised up her goggles to see the screen in real color, just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing her. “A bounty head worth sixty billion wulongs!” That got his attentions. He leaned over her shoulder to see a mug shot of a tall man, with spiky blonde hair and green eyes in a cumbersome-looking red coat. “Says here, he single-handedly destroyed two whole cities, and put a hole in one of the planet’s moons!!” Spike whistled one of those ‘impressive’ whistles.

Looking at the picture, then at Ed for a moment, he smiled. Yes, this was definitely the right experience. “Well now,” he stretched, “that does sound like a challenge. Come on Ed, we got us a Stampede to chase.” Pulling on his old, blue jacket, he ran calloused fingers through his ragged, green locks and lit another cigarette.

The wild-haired girl cheered and hopped on her bare feet. Watching as he picked up his ignition key to his Swordfish II, she asked, “Aren’t we going to tell Jet-person and Faye-Faye?”

Spike’s broad shoulders hitched up slightly, then he relaxed. He let his smoke bob from his lips as he talked around it. “Actually Ed, why don’t we surprise ‘em both? Let’s just take this one ourselves, you and me, huh?”

She giggled, “Is this about the fight you three had over the last insta-burrito?” He frowned. “That’s okay, Ed understands! She grabbed a small tie-up sack from the table, grinning proudly.

“Besides, it’s about time I teach you how to be a REAL bounty hunter.” He headed out and she followed. Cramming into the Swordfish with Spike, she easily fit, despite what they both thought at first. Ed was limber and extremely thin, so squeezing in was no problem at all. He closed the hatch and fired up the engines, “Ready Ed?”

“Heehee...” The red-head hacker prepared herself for take off.

That damn Spike, Jet thought. He thinks he can just do whatever he wants. And Faye’s no better. I swear those two are worse then- “Hey Jet, open the hangar, I’m leaving.” Instead of asking why, like he usually did when Spike went off on his spurred escapades, he quickly hit the button, more than happy to get him off the Bebop. For a while anyway. “Good riddance to ya, and don’t come back til you learn that he who actually buys the food is the one who is entitled to eat it.” He muttered not loud enough for the other man to hear.

They zoomed off the ship and into the black ink of deep space. “So Ed, where is this Vash guy?”

She checked her portable com-unit. “Says here, planet, Gunsmo~oke.” she bellowed dramatically.

What the hell? Spike started to get irked. “Where the hell is that, Ed? Are you sure that was a real bounty head you found...?” He pulled up sharply and hit his air brakes, not wanting to get too far from the ship incase they had to turn around.

“Ed’s not sure, but Ed’s got the coordinates right here for directions. Says its farther out by Jupiter’s moons, there should be a warp gate that will take us there. Warp gate number nine to be exact.”

Feeling the Swordfish rattle with turbulence, Spike powered up her up her engines. “Number nine it is then.” As they cruised, Spike checked behind him to see Ed mindlessly fidgeting with her controller, computer thing, or whatever the hell it was. She was a genius, to say in the least. A brain prodigy, and yet, the by the way she acted, one could never tell. It took him a whole week to figure out Ed was a girl, despite the first day of her arrival when Faye screamed, “You’re a girl?!” Spike was a male, and to him, girl = boobs. Since Ed had none, the equation didn’t compute in his mathematical setup. Not to mention the ridiculously long, male name she gave to herself. But they say the smartest of people are the most eccentric. Because she didn’t act like a normal person on a normal level, she could reach such knowledge and abilities.

Ed hummed, thoroughly psyched about the mega bounty head she was after. And with Spike, no less. The one hunter she really, deeply appreciated on the ship. Sure, Faye and Jet were good people, but they let their worries get to them often enough. Not Spike though. Spike, she could most definitely enjoy his company more often than the others. The only one she preferred to be around even more than Spike was Ein, another genius like herself. Still, Spike came in a very close second.

Yet in the end, she looked up to him, to all of the hunters. They were family, like a mismatched aunt and two uncles. The orphanage couldn’t give her the adventures she had on the Bebop, nothing on Earth could.

“All right Ed, we’re approaching the gate. ETA is about ten minutes. What should we do?”

The girl looked over her com-unit. “It says here...enter gate nine, and follow the yellow brick road?”

Slamming on the air brakes yet again, Spike roared, “Dammit Ed, what the hell is this crap? We’re going back, now!”

Ed whined, “But Spike-person, Ed is sure that this is the right waaay!” She wailed. “We can’t turn back now!”

“Ed,” he fumed, “this is nothing but some stupid prank to make bounty hunters asses out of themselves. And we better quit now before we get to the crack and fall in the hole.”

“But Spike-person-”

He wasn’t listening. Spike pulled back on the throttle and prepared to make a U-turn. Should’ve known that bounty was too good to be true. Can’t believe I fell for a stupid joke like that. Wonder who else went after this dumb bounty...?

However when Spike realized that he was not going the way he wanted, he checked his machinery. The Swordfish II was still headed full speed now, for gate number nine and his controls weren’t responding at all.

“What the--Ed!”

“It’s not Ed! Ed promises!” She held up her hands to show that her module was off. He tried rebooting the system, a timed shut-down, manual control, nothing worked. The ship rattled violently as it sped toward the now visible blue swirling vortex. “The gravitational pull of the gate must have gotten a hold of us.” She held on to Spike’s back, trying not to be thrown out of what small space she could fit in.

“But that still doesn’t explain why this piece of junk won’t respond.” The entire craft lurched forward as it was sucked into the warp. Yellow brightness spun around them, starlight that was being sent forward millions of light years faster than if it were to travel alone. Among that star refuse were Spike, Ed, and a rickety, red ship threatening to burst apart at the slightest sudden jerk.

“Don’t panic Ed, if we ride out the warp, we can transfer to another gate and get back to the Venus sector in no time.” Knuckles turned ice-white when Spike gripped the handles while he tried his best to stay focused and calm, but with Ed bouncing and giggling, it made staying calm next to impossible.

“Warp away, warp tomorrow to today!!” She cried proudly because this was it! The big bounty that was hidden deep for no one else but her to find. Strangely enough, the hacking it took to get to that site was rather simple, but not so that any mere computer junkie could do it. But none of that mattered now, she was going to be a big bounty hunter, just like her peers on the Bebop. This was what Ed wanted, and this was what Ed would get. Wild, blue and green lights blinded Spike as they were drawn further across the time-space continuum, zipping along the length of the warp path; uncontrollably, but since barfing against the glass of the cockpit wouldn’t sit well among the teenager in the back seat, he swallowed it down.

Just at that particular moment, the ship decided to malfunction, sending conditions from worse, to ‘just fucking dandy’ when the one of the engines failed. She dipped violently along the inner edge of the warp and scraped against the blended, yellowy walls. Pieces of rusty red metal were wrought and the end of the wing was sheared off completely. “God--Dammit!!” Spike flipped three switches on the dash board and pushed up on the controls trying to pull from the side. He needed to throw up. Hot bitter acid was at the back of his throat and his eyes were watering. Bits of sweat formed in his hair, a few droplets even made their way down his jaw line, but it was ok now, because he could see the exit. The ‘white light at the end of the tunnel’ so to speak.

Like a pea from a peashooter, the Swordfish II shot out of the gate exit. “Woohoo!” Edward crowed. “We did it! We’re out Spike! ...Spike?” Her hunting partner lay hunched over, unconscious. “Aw Spike-person, this is not a good time to sleep!” Pushing against his back didn’t help much as he groaned and leaned over to one side breathing shallowly. “Spike-person, are you ok?” No response.

The Swordfish rattled again and the cockpit flashed red all over. Systems went offline, the thermal stabilizers were shot and their was only had one engine to fly with. Her right wing was messed up as well causing the small spacecraft to dip awkwardly.

Eyes darting around nervously, her brilliant mind sifted through any and all possible options. Spike was passed out, the ship was about to explode, and they were out of fuel on top of that. The internal scanners picked up something though, and it beeped to Ed that there was a large mass within their vicinity.

“An unidentified planet, in the Jupiter sector? No way!” But it was close and it would have to do. Her trusty portable computer was on in seconds and with a facile movement, she overrode the Swordfish’s operating system. Steering with the one engine and the one wing it had, she maneuvered in the general direction of the planet.

The ship flew raggedly and Ed had the hardest time trying to breathe as the entire vessel began to heat up. Some sort of fluid started to leak as the oxygen level dropped. Fate obviously did not want them to live today. But the planet was in plane sight and Ed steered down feeling the gravity take over.

Everything got immeasurably hot, as the atmosphere scorched Swordfish. Ed let out a sharp keening cry and pressed herself against Spike’s warm back. He was still breathing since she could hear his lungs inflating somewhat. “Hold on lunkhead...” She strained a hard grin and through the hacked programming she managed to deploy the landing gear and upright the ship as best as she was able. Time of impact appeared on the dashboard’s screen and the numbers raced downward. Three minutes. Ed couldn’t breathe at all now, the oxygen was empty, the ship’s air was burning her insides, and she couldn’t see anything at all except bright yellow. Swordfish rattled and rumbled rapidly sending miscellaneous pieces tinkling around the cockpit. She sighed as she started to black out, “Spike-person, Ed tried, Ed really did. Ed’s sorry she got us into this...” She collapsed on to his strong back and succumbed to that painless dark.

~~~

“He has arrived master.” Legato stood at the back of Knives’ chair.

“Excellent. Now brother, let us see how well you contend with the will of human greed.”

AN: Ok then. I’ve had this idea in my head for years...seriously. I just never knew how to approach it until now. Read and review please. I wanna know if you guys want me to continue this or not.