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The only thing in the world that mattered to Bebop was two things. Ms. Shelly above everything else and if he could manage it, humiliating Jacob Lash.
The rivalry started back in the Bear Pit, maybe even before then in the space between the physical and the non physical. Maybe somewhere in the ether before all this mess started, there was an arrogant soul with a stupid moustache and there was another soul with a cockney accent that just found it all so annoying.
Either way if you asked Bebop who he wanted gone from this world first, it would have been Jacob Lash.
The only thing that mattered in the world was Lash. It's one of those simple truths. The sun shines, the birds sing, and brother? The Lash is amazing. And just like the sun shines, there was the stupid moon stealing all the glow from the sun. Bebop was that moon, if you didn't get that.
Bebop knew his luck must have ran out. He didn't come to this conclusion when the nice slime guy turned into a boiling puddle. He didn't come to this conclusion when the gargoyle was somehow trapped in her stone form, unable to help him. No. Bebop came to this conclusion when he realized something.
Lash knew that he’d actually have to sweat a little. The way that this Hidden King guy chose the biggest wimps and suckers meant that The Lash had to watch all these nobodies slowly crumpled into sad little piles of suck, and it meant that The Lash would have to once again save the day. There was just one tiny problem, a sad little problem.
Bebop was stuck with Jacob Lash.
Lash had to carry the dumb tin can golem.
“So… mate, do you got any bright ideas in that chrome dome on how to get out of this mess? I mean. I can get out whenever I want. But the Lash would hate to make an old lady cry.”
Bebop hated him. But he hated him more when he mentioned Ms. Shelly.
“Nah. ArchMother is summoned and I need to get back home before Ms. Shelly realizes I'm gone.”
“Ah what a great son! No really. You didn't tell mommy dearest her little wind up drummer boy was going to a ritual?”
Bebop sucker punched Lash, aiming for his smug face but Lash thrust his chest out, catching the large steel fist in his marvelous pectoral muscles. Bebop was satisfied still as he felt Jacob Lash’s ribs creak from the pressure.
Jacob Lash smiled as he counter punched a fresh “LASH” mark into Bebop’s chest, God he loved his brassknuckles. Bought with his first Bear Pit purse. $200 well spent on gold plated steel.
Before they could go any further, the otherworldly creatures and sentinels of the ArchMother made sounds that forced them to stop. Distant roaring. Crystalline chirps and cracks. They could hear the ArchMother scolding the Hidden King as if he was a misbehaving child. They could hear the ArchMother rip the Hidden King apart.
Inside a building between Greenwich and Broadway, The Lash and Bebop were biding their time. The rest of the Hidden King’s chosen seemed to be dead or they escaped somehow and the Arched were out in full force, little skittering soldiers, giant crystal infested golems scraping by.
“Listen Bomb Boy. The Lash is going to slam down on those freaks, BOOSH! I’ll distract them, you admit I'm better, And then you can run on home and be the sad little Mama's boy you are.”
Bebop’s hand clenched in anger once, then formed into the laser.
“Wow. Cheers mate. I get to take care of Ms. Shelly and I know you die? Are we sure it ain't Christmas?”
He lumbered to the window and saw the Arched shifting and crawling closer to their building, he kept his oculars on the creatures instead of looking at Lash. If he looked at Lash, he knew he would go for another sucker punch.
“Ms. Shelly would hate it if I left anyone to die. Even if it's an asshole like you.”
Bebop then finally looked at Lash, seeing Jacob recheck his wrappings, tying his shoes. Both men were in their own ways preparing for battle. It was always hard to know if Lash was as self obsessed and arrogant as he came off as. Some days, like today, Bebop wondered if it was a very stubborn act being put on as he watched Lash’s eyes focus, his mouth straight laced. Then he opened his moronic mouth.
“If we survive, I'll give your mom an autograph. Just don't blame me if she wants to join the fan club.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh c’mon, Bomb Boy. She’ll get a very nice t-shirt from the Lash Back charity. 100% cotton.”
When they got out of the building, the monsters, the Arched screamed out in anger and an otherworldly bloodlust. But it didn't faze either of the men. The things the mafia made the fighters in the Bear Pit face? Worse than these overgrown mood crystals any day of the week.
Bebop hooked them in, put bombs on the small ones and uppercut them into the sky. Lash was already above them all, flying, in his element as he slammed down, stomping the Arched into tiny angry pathetic shards. Then more Arched came into the streets below the bridges, attracted by the noise.
Lash stood straight and looked at the cyan glowing crowd surrounding them.
“Well, Sidekick. Are you ready to finally feel what it's like to be a winner?”
Bebop sucker punched Lash again, but this time it was on the shoulder with his small hand. Less force, still venting out his frustration with the stevedore.
“Lash. I’m gonna say this once and only once so open up those ears.”
“I knew it. You're gonna admit I'm better than you. I knew you'd always say it before you died.”
“Don't get in my way or I'm gonna use this laser to shave off that caterpillar you call a moustache.”
Jacob Lash laughed as he cracked his back, he smiled at his reflection in a puddle.
Bebop rolled his arms and stretched his limbs, making his servos whirr and clack.
They shared a glance, somehow both feeling like this moment was a long time coming.
An Arched crystal golem rushed forward first, it's tree trunk sized arm whizzing past Bebop’s head as he weaved away from it, Lash held the arm down with a rope and Bebop put two bombs into the crystal.
An uppercut later and that golem took out half of the crowd. But even then, the numbers grew and grew.
They fought for what felt like days but surely was only hours. Fairfax products like Tankbuster and Radiant Regeneration kept their wounds stitched together and their punches as fresh as when they entered the ritual but the Arched just kept coming.
Bebop and Lash worked together beautifully, naturally, years of fighting each other in and out of the Bear Pit made sure that they knew each other's tells, their timings, their rhythms in battle. Where Bebop would be overwhelmed by tiny four legged crystal creatures, Lash would dive off a rooftop and stomp them away. Where Lash would be overwhelmed by large behemoths pinning him to the wall, Bebop would hook him back to safety.
They kept up this dance of violence and desperation as they traveled all through the Cursed Apple, their only reward being more and more wounds and bruises stacked on top of each other.
It was there that Bebop had the thought again as they climbed the stairs of Fairfax Tower. Going up thirty stories, Bebop knew that his luck had run out. In between punching Arched out of windows and dodging shard shaped bullets, Bebop’s mind kept going back to Ms. Shelly and how he was forced to trust his life with the world’s biggest egotist. He never thought about how he’d go out. It just never occurred to him.
But something made his core inside weep for his mother. The odds just seemed impossible, he was not going to make it home. He came into this ritual to save his mother and now, sadly, she's going to have to bury another son.
“Lash.”
“Not now, tall, orange, and ugly. The Lash is cleaning his wounds. Something a toaster like you wouldn't get.”
“Lash. I’m gonna say it again. Don't get in my way.”
“Heard you loud and clear, Bomb Boy. I couldn't even get in your way even if I wanted to.”
Jacob Lash was pouring vodka on a particular nasty gash, where other men would hiss in pain, Lash just breathed nice and slow.
“You're just so tiny to me, Bebop. That's Reason number 99 why I'm better than you, I can practically fly. You can't. Whenever I'm up there, you look so small. Like a rat.”
Bebop didn't rise to the taunt. He just prepared himself for the eventuality of them reaching the roof of Fairfax Tower.
The clouds were dark, green, and the winds were whipping angrily when they finally reached the rooftop. The Arched were already at the door behind them, Bebop had welded the door shut.
“This is it.” Bebop said solemnly. He looked at Jacob Lash.
“I’m not dying with you, you know that, mate?”
The Lash chuckled to himself.
“You know… Being this close to death made me realize something, Bebop.”
He looked at Bebop then, their eyes meeting again like they did so many times before.
“I’m even better than I thought. I’ve been counting the kills, bot buddy. I’m ahead by forty two.”
The door launched passed between them, the Arched burst through the doorway rushing towards the two men.
Before The Lash could launch into the air, that stupid robot punched him up, another sucker punch. His lame uppercut making The Lash soar into the sky like a majestic bald eagle.
Before Jacob Lash could say another word, Bebop uppercutted him up and away from the roof. The only thing in the world that mattered to Bebop was Ms. Shelly but he knew that if Ms. Shelly was here, she’d want him to spend his last moments finally saving somebody other than her.
He turned to the Arched, his oculars tightening on the hoard in front of him.
His right arm transformed, a death of connection, the fingers he used to hold his mother's hand shifted into the laser she gave him for defense of home and country. The laser he used instead on back alley deals and stupid son killing rituals.
His body was failing, his left arm unable to move, but he could still overclock his core one last time.
“ARGHHH! I’LL MELT ‘EM DOWN! GET OUTTA HERE, LASH!”
But The Lash doesn't get saved by anyone. Especially not Bebop. Reason number 100 The Lash was better than Bebop? The Lash would never make an old woman cry.
Still soaring in the sky thanks to Bebop’s uppercut, The Lash unfurled his ropes, looking down at the swarm of Arched and Bebop’s beam melting each one into bright blue hyperheated puddles. The Lash knew Bebop’s puny laser wouldn't last forever and despite his ropes being tough enough to hold freight, Jacob knew that only one of them would survive the fall off this sky scraper.
He tied a rope around Bebop.
“LASH?! NO! YOU DON’T GET TO TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!”
The Lash smiled as he lifted Bebop up to his level.
Up there in the air, Jacob Lash looked into Bebop’s beady gross eyes and said smugly, “You’re right Bomb Boy. You’re not dying with me.”
Lash gave one last pull, lifting Bebop up above him. He wheezed once as he twisted his grip, throwing Bebop towards the streets below.
“You don't got what it takes. Go home, Bebop. Tell Ms. Shelly The Lash said ‘You’re welcome.’”
Then The Lash threw Bebop away from certain death, proud that for the rest of his life, Bebop would remember he owed his life to The Lash.
Then Jacob Lash threw Bebop off the rooftop, gravity pulling him down and away from the Arched hoard. As Bebop fell, he saw the Arched surround Jacob Lash, their claws and crystalline spear tips piercing his flesh but Jacob Lash didn't look in pain. He was smiling.
Bebop knew that he would remember Jacob Lash for the rest of his life. Before the hard ground knocked his sensors offline, Bebop had one final thought.
“Jacob Lash is an asshole.”