Trigun Overload
Chapter One
The desert night was silent and cool, the only sounds being muffled laughter from the town down the hill. Although it was past midnight, the lights were on in the local bar and the beer poured freely. It seemed that half of the town's meager population was crowded into the shabby wooden building. The man who stood on the hill overlooking the town sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He had no reason to believe that this time would be different form any of the others, but he was obligated to try.
Shouldering the small bag he had set in the sand and resting his right hand on the silver pistol on his hip, he trudged down the hill, trying to avoid getting sand in his shoes. As usual, it was a losing battle. Muttering a curse, the man rested one hand on the signpost for the town as he took off his shoe and watched the sand trickle out. Replacing the shoe, he strode to the swinging half-doors of the saloon and took a deep breath. Releasing it, he pushed the doors open and walked through.
The laughter ceased as thirty pairs of eyes turned towards him, no few of them darkening in suspicion at the sight of his firearm. The man raised his hands and smiled charmingly, and the few grizzled men who had been reaching for their side-arms stopped and returned to their drinks or their decks of cards. The man pushed his hands into his pockets and walked to the bar, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied swiveling stools.
"What can I get fer ya?" The barkeep grumbled, drying a glass with a bar rag he had removed from his belt.
"I'm looking for someone," the man replied, resting his elbows on the bar and folding his hands. "Vash the Stampede."
* * *
Vash sneezed.
"Catching a cold?" Meryl asked as she looked back over her shoulder. Her look of concern quickly changed to a condescending grin. "Not that I'd be surprised, the way you're always going out drinking at night and coming back at three o'clock in the morning! I swear, sometimes I wonder if your blood isn't pure alcohol by now!"
"Now Meryl, Mr. Vash never comes home past one o'clock in the morning, you know that! You're always waiting up for him," Millie said cheerfully as she dried a plate and set it on the counter. Meryl blushed furiously and glared at Millie.
"I do NOT wait up for him! I just can't sleep well these days, that's all!"
"Aw, you insurance girls are too hard on me," Vash said, pouting.
"I wish you wouldn't call us that anymore," Meryl said disapprovingly, handing another wet dish to Millie to be dried. "You know we quit our jobs at Bernadelli two months ago. And besides, we HAVE names, you know."
"I know," Vash said, leaning forward over the table and tracing a pattern with his forefinger on the wood. "But I'm so used to calling you the insurance girls that anything else feels funny!"
"I'll give you something that feels funny," Meryl muttered angrily, but her face was lit up by a smile. Suddenly a crash broke her train of thought.
"Oh Millie! Not again," Meryl exclaimed, taking in the shards of broken ceramic plate scattered across the floor. "This is the fourth time this week! At this rate we'll be buying new plates every month!" Millie raised her fists to her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble. Within moments she was sobbing openly.
"I'm so sorry, Meryl! I'm so clumsy... I... I'll go buy new ones tomorrow, I promise, after work!" Meryl put a hand on her friend's shoulder and tried to comfort her. Neither of them noticed as Vash got up from the table and walked silently from the room.
As he strode soundlessly down the hall, Vash's green eyes narrowed, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He wore a white shirt with top button undone, which was tucked messily into tan pants held up by a pair of red suspenders. His blond hair stood up in his usual spikes and he had continued shaving, but sometimes he missed his familiar red coat and the silver gun he had worn on his hip for so long. He hadn't carried a gun since... not since...
Vash sighed as he opened the door to the last room on the right and flicked on the light. He pulled a chair up to the side of the single bed and collapsed into it, letting his head fall forward into his hands. Knives didn't stir. He hadn't woken up once in the month since Vash had brought him here. Looking into his brother's face, Vash wondered at how peaceful he seemed while he slept. He knew his brother's cruel and murderous nature almost as well as he knew his own pacifistic one, but as he slept he reminded Vash of the way they used to be... Before the murders, before the ships had crashed, before... Rem. When Knives woke (If he woke, Vash's mind reminded him,) would he still be the same bloodthirsty killer he was two months ago?
"Was it a mistake to bring you here?" Vash whispered, a tear running down his cheek. "If you wake up, will you kill those dearest to me, will you go back to the way you were, or will you try to change?" Knives moaned in his sleep, and his right hand twitched. Dreaming again, Vash thought, taking his brother's hand in his own. I'll just have to hope that if he wakes up, he'll realize his mistakes and try to start anew. But I'll be here - just in case.
"Vash," Knives sighed, turning onto his side. His face contorted with pain, and Vash gently turned him back onto his back. The wounds he had inflicted on his brother had nearly healed, but he couldn't chance Knives tossing and turning in his sleep and opening them up again. A hand gently squeezed his shoulder, and Vash slapped a grin on his face as he turned to look up at Meryl.
"How's he doing?" She asked, taking her gaze from the man resting on the bed to meet Vash's eyes.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll wake up soon," Vash said, carelessly waving a hand in his brother's direction.
"I still can't get over how much you two look alike," Meryl said, sitting down carefully on the edge of the mattress. Vash's grin faded and he sighed.
"We've always looked alike," he said softly. "It's just too bad we can't think alike as well."
* * *
Knives fought against the blackness that was holding him down, but his body didn't seem to want to respond. Desperately he told his arms and legs to move, that if they didn't cooperate the darkness would claim him, would suffocate him, but it seemed that there was a great weight pressing against his body. With a gasp, Knives realized that he was being held down, and a face swam out of the darkness, leering, mocking, cruel. He struggled in vain against the man who held him, but his child's arms and legs didn't possess the strength to break away from Steve's grasp. He was lifted from the ground by hands gripping his arms like steel clamps, and he tried desperately to kick his assailant as the cold fingers dug into his forearms. Steve sneered at him, his face a grotesque mask of misplaced fear and hatred, then flung him away like so much trash. Knives hit the wall and slid down it, cowering and curling his young body into a protective ball.
Where was Vash? Where was Rem? Surely they would come to rescue him...
But no one came to his aid. Steve kicked him, drew his fists back and pummeled them into his body with sickening thwacks of flesh on flesh, slapped him and hurled him around the room. Knives began to cry, and when he opened his eyes there were twin suns shining above him. The sand beneath his knees was hot, and he looked down at his hands, no longer the hands of a young boy, but of a man. Blood was staining them - his own blood, he realized in shock. He looked up into his brother's green eyes, and into the muzzle of a silver gun. The gun he himself had made for Vash. And which he had just used on his own brother! The pain of betrayal cut deeper than that of the bullet wound, and other memories swept over Knives' mind in a hurricane of images and sounds.
I'm dreaming, Knives realized, and watched one final memory unfold itself before him. Vash stood over him, pointing that same silver gun at his face. His yellow sunglasses reflected the light of the two suns. He should have killed me, Knives thought. It's what I would have done in his place. But then Vash did a strange thing. He threw the gun to one side and began to bandage Knives' wounds. What is he doing? Why didn't he kill me? He knows that as soon as I recover I'll just try to kill him again. So why take the time to heal me? To carry me to safety? To sit by my bedside and wish for my recovery? I never did understand you, Vash. He knew that these events had transpired even though he had been unconscious. Somehow he knew that his twin had cared for him and nursed him back to health with no thought whatsoever for what would happen when he finally awoke.
But then... maybe he had thought about what would happen. And this thought truly made Knives pause. Maybe he hopes that I'll change, that I'll subscribe to his soft thinking. Maybe he thinks that I'll cherish these stupid humans the way that he does, even though he knows he's a higher being. But this compassion... this selflessness... I just don't understand it. I don't understand YOU!
"All life is precious," the words rose out of his subconscious in answer to his unspoken question. "No one has the right to take the life of another."
What if she was right? Knives thought uneasily. What if... all this time... Rem and Vash were right, and I was the one who was wrong? The thought scared him. It was the first time in many long years that Knives had been truly afraid. Perhaps these humans who had tried so desperately to scrape out a living on this forsaken planet weren't the spiders after all. Maybe there was a way to live in harmony, the plants and the humans, and he just never bothered to look for it.
Slowly he opened his eyes, and saw Vash leaning over him, concern and suspicion fighting for precedence in his eyes.
"Hey Vash," Knives said quietly, then was overtaken by a fit of coughing. Apparently his body wasn't quite healed yet. When he recovered, he noticed a woman standing by the door. "Rem," he said, and smiled at her. "You cut your hair, huh? It looks good."
Chapter One
The desert night was silent and cool, the only sounds being muffled laughter from the town down the hill. Although it was past midnight, the lights were on in the local bar and the beer poured freely. It seemed that half of the town's meager population was crowded into the shabby wooden building. The man who stood on the hill overlooking the town sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He had no reason to believe that this time would be different form any of the others, but he was obligated to try.
Shouldering the small bag he had set in the sand and resting his right hand on the silver pistol on his hip, he trudged down the hill, trying to avoid getting sand in his shoes. As usual, it was a losing battle. Muttering a curse, the man rested one hand on the signpost for the town as he took off his shoe and watched the sand trickle out. Replacing the shoe, he strode to the swinging half-doors of the saloon and took a deep breath. Releasing it, he pushed the doors open and walked through.
The laughter ceased as thirty pairs of eyes turned towards him, no few of them darkening in suspicion at the sight of his firearm. The man raised his hands and smiled charmingly, and the few grizzled men who had been reaching for their side-arms stopped and returned to their drinks or their decks of cards. The man pushed his hands into his pockets and walked to the bar, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied swiveling stools.
"What can I get fer ya?" The barkeep grumbled, drying a glass with a bar rag he had removed from his belt.
"I'm looking for someone," the man replied, resting his elbows on the bar and folding his hands. "Vash the Stampede."
* * *
Vash sneezed.
"Catching a cold?" Meryl asked as she looked back over her shoulder. Her look of concern quickly changed to a condescending grin. "Not that I'd be surprised, the way you're always going out drinking at night and coming back at three o'clock in the morning! I swear, sometimes I wonder if your blood isn't pure alcohol by now!"
"Now Meryl, Mr. Vash never comes home past one o'clock in the morning, you know that! You're always waiting up for him," Millie said cheerfully as she dried a plate and set it on the counter. Meryl blushed furiously and glared at Millie.
"I do NOT wait up for him! I just can't sleep well these days, that's all!"
"Aw, you insurance girls are too hard on me," Vash said, pouting.
"I wish you wouldn't call us that anymore," Meryl said disapprovingly, handing another wet dish to Millie to be dried. "You know we quit our jobs at Bernadelli two months ago. And besides, we HAVE names, you know."
"I know," Vash said, leaning forward over the table and tracing a pattern with his forefinger on the wood. "But I'm so used to calling you the insurance girls that anything else feels funny!"
"I'll give you something that feels funny," Meryl muttered angrily, but her face was lit up by a smile. Suddenly a crash broke her train of thought.
"Oh Millie! Not again," Meryl exclaimed, taking in the shards of broken ceramic plate scattered across the floor. "This is the fourth time this week! At this rate we'll be buying new plates every month!" Millie raised her fists to her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble. Within moments she was sobbing openly.
"I'm so sorry, Meryl! I'm so clumsy... I... I'll go buy new ones tomorrow, I promise, after work!" Meryl put a hand on her friend's shoulder and tried to comfort her. Neither of them noticed as Vash got up from the table and walked silently from the room.
As he strode soundlessly down the hall, Vash's green eyes narrowed, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He wore a white shirt with top button undone, which was tucked messily into tan pants held up by a pair of red suspenders. His blond hair stood up in his usual spikes and he had continued shaving, but sometimes he missed his familiar red coat and the silver gun he had worn on his hip for so long. He hadn't carried a gun since... not since...
Vash sighed as he opened the door to the last room on the right and flicked on the light. He pulled a chair up to the side of the single bed and collapsed into it, letting his head fall forward into his hands. Knives didn't stir. He hadn't woken up once in the month since Vash had brought him here. Looking into his brother's face, Vash wondered at how peaceful he seemed while he slept. He knew his brother's cruel and murderous nature almost as well as he knew his own pacifistic one, but as he slept he reminded Vash of the way they used to be... Before the murders, before the ships had crashed, before... Rem. When Knives woke (If he woke, Vash's mind reminded him,) would he still be the same bloodthirsty killer he was two months ago?
"Was it a mistake to bring you here?" Vash whispered, a tear running down his cheek. "If you wake up, will you kill those dearest to me, will you go back to the way you were, or will you try to change?" Knives moaned in his sleep, and his right hand twitched. Dreaming again, Vash thought, taking his brother's hand in his own. I'll just have to hope that if he wakes up, he'll realize his mistakes and try to start anew. But I'll be here - just in case.
"Vash," Knives sighed, turning onto his side. His face contorted with pain, and Vash gently turned him back onto his back. The wounds he had inflicted on his brother had nearly healed, but he couldn't chance Knives tossing and turning in his sleep and opening them up again. A hand gently squeezed his shoulder, and Vash slapped a grin on his face as he turned to look up at Meryl.
"How's he doing?" She asked, taking her gaze from the man resting on the bed to meet Vash's eyes.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll wake up soon," Vash said, carelessly waving a hand in his brother's direction.
"I still can't get over how much you two look alike," Meryl said, sitting down carefully on the edge of the mattress. Vash's grin faded and he sighed.
"We've always looked alike," he said softly. "It's just too bad we can't think alike as well."
* * *
Knives fought against the blackness that was holding him down, but his body didn't seem to want to respond. Desperately he told his arms and legs to move, that if they didn't cooperate the darkness would claim him, would suffocate him, but it seemed that there was a great weight pressing against his body. With a gasp, Knives realized that he was being held down, and a face swam out of the darkness, leering, mocking, cruel. He struggled in vain against the man who held him, but his child's arms and legs didn't possess the strength to break away from Steve's grasp. He was lifted from the ground by hands gripping his arms like steel clamps, and he tried desperately to kick his assailant as the cold fingers dug into his forearms. Steve sneered at him, his face a grotesque mask of misplaced fear and hatred, then flung him away like so much trash. Knives hit the wall and slid down it, cowering and curling his young body into a protective ball.
Where was Vash? Where was Rem? Surely they would come to rescue him...
But no one came to his aid. Steve kicked him, drew his fists back and pummeled them into his body with sickening thwacks of flesh on flesh, slapped him and hurled him around the room. Knives began to cry, and when he opened his eyes there were twin suns shining above him. The sand beneath his knees was hot, and he looked down at his hands, no longer the hands of a young boy, but of a man. Blood was staining them - his own blood, he realized in shock. He looked up into his brother's green eyes, and into the muzzle of a silver gun. The gun he himself had made for Vash. And which he had just used on his own brother! The pain of betrayal cut deeper than that of the bullet wound, and other memories swept over Knives' mind in a hurricane of images and sounds.
I'm dreaming, Knives realized, and watched one final memory unfold itself before him. Vash stood over him, pointing that same silver gun at his face. His yellow sunglasses reflected the light of the two suns. He should have killed me, Knives thought. It's what I would have done in his place. But then Vash did a strange thing. He threw the gun to one side and began to bandage Knives' wounds. What is he doing? Why didn't he kill me? He knows that as soon as I recover I'll just try to kill him again. So why take the time to heal me? To carry me to safety? To sit by my bedside and wish for my recovery? I never did understand you, Vash. He knew that these events had transpired even though he had been unconscious. Somehow he knew that his twin had cared for him and nursed him back to health with no thought whatsoever for what would happen when he finally awoke.
But then... maybe he had thought about what would happen. And this thought truly made Knives pause. Maybe he hopes that I'll change, that I'll subscribe to his soft thinking. Maybe he thinks that I'll cherish these stupid humans the way that he does, even though he knows he's a higher being. But this compassion... this selflessness... I just don't understand it. I don't understand YOU!
"All life is precious," the words rose out of his subconscious in answer to his unspoken question. "No one has the right to take the life of another."
What if she was right? Knives thought uneasily. What if... all this time... Rem and Vash were right, and I was the one who was wrong? The thought scared him. It was the first time in many long years that Knives had been truly afraid. Perhaps these humans who had tried so desperately to scrape out a living on this forsaken planet weren't the spiders after all. Maybe there was a way to live in harmony, the plants and the humans, and he just never bothered to look for it.
Slowly he opened his eyes, and saw Vash leaning over him, concern and suspicion fighting for precedence in his eyes.
"Hey Vash," Knives said quietly, then was overtaken by a fit of coughing. Apparently his body wasn't quite healed yet. When he recovered, he noticed a woman standing by the door. "Rem," he said, and smiled at her. "You cut your hair, huh? It looks good."