Just a Glimpse
Trigun Fusion: Trapped in the past, I, legendary gunman Vash the Stampede must survive on Earth. This is my story, under my moniker John Grayson. The subject is life and love. You'll quit reading after three seconds.
Chapter One: The Lost Technology
Year: 2250; Planet: Gunsmoke; Location: Oregon City
Vash the Stampede wandered through the wreckage of the abandoned SEEDS ship. It'd been years since he'd been there. The former inhabitants of the vessel had abandoned it after it had crashed when Leonof the Puppet-Master, Gray the Ninelives, and Hoppered the Gauntlet attacked the ship.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood, the "Churchman" and "Preacher" had helped him fight off the Gung-Ho Guns. Although Vash disapproved of murder, which didn't seem to bother Wolfwood that much, together, they saved the surviving inhabitants and made sure the ship landed safely on the planet below.
Vash believed there could be peaceful solutions, but Wolfwood was set in his ways, he didn't value life like Vash did. Eventually he realized that Vash was right and that no one had the right to take the life of another, but he had learned that the hard way after being in a gunfight with his mentor, Chapel the Evergreen. He had died bravely, although he regretted the fact that he had not realized his mistake sooner.
Vash walked though the empty corridors of the ship as he made his way toward the storage closet. Maybe there was something he could salvage to use to help the people in the town. Vash opened the closet and began searching through it; there were spoiled food canisters and useless scraps of metal lying around; nothing else interesting inside.
His eye fell on a strange, rectangular box; it had a padlock on it and was labeled Fragile: Handle with Care. Picking it up, he was tempted to shake it. He was curious, how could anyone just leave a box here if it was important. And why was it locked? Was there something valuable inside? He found a box full of old tools and decided to take that too, maybe it would help him open the box.
Making his way back to the city, Vash found Meryl and Milly walking through the streets, having just finished lunch.
"Well hello Mr. Vash," Milly greeted him warmly. "What's in the box?"
"I don't know," Vash looked at it thoughtfully, "but I intend to find out."
Vash held up the box and looked at it some more. There didn't seem to be a way to open it besides the primitive lock that kept the lid shut. He set it on the ground and pulled out his the Mateba Autorevolver and fired.
Meryl and Milly looked at him.
"What was that for?" Milly asked.
"To open the box," Vash answered.
"Now, lets see what you are," Vash said, taking out the device inside. It looked like a belt. "Why would a belt have a Fragile: Handle with Care label on it?"
Vash peered through the box's other contents. He found a manual of sorts, old yellow pages containing formulas and diagrams. He began reading. The manual was by someone named Emil LaSalle. The manual spoke of time travel and being able to go back into the past or further into the future, depending on what the wearer wanted. The object on the belt was called a vortex regulator.
"What is it, Vash?" Meryl asked.
"It's ancient technology, capable of time travel, or so it claims," Vash replied, showing the device to Meryl, his girlfriend, they'd known each other for two years, but he'd never gotten up the courage to propose to her properly.
"If this technology has existed then why can't we use it to go back to save Earth from deteriorating?" she asked.
"Well according to the records I found, it says that time travel is very risky and changing the past, even in subtle ways can alter the future," Vash stared at the circular device, it could have been a belt, perhaps the user wore it while they traveled through time.
"Do you think you could use it to save Mr. Wolfwood?" Milly asked. She had loved Nicholas D. Wolfwood, so much so that she had become pregnant with their child, who was named Nicholas, after his father, who had died in a firefight with the Gung-Ho Gun known as Chapel the Evergreen. He had bled to death in a nearby church as Vash arrived too late to save him.
"I don't know, Milly. If I can get it to work, I'll try to go back and save him," Vash said, he picked up the belt and walked off to the hotel where they were staying.
Inside the hotel, Vash pulled out some tools he had taken from the ship. He began examining the equipment; he found a welding tool and began using it, trying to repair the vortex regulator.
"This shouldn't be too hard," Vash said to himself, the technology was very simplistic, why no one else had tried to repair it was mind boggling. After a few hours, he finally finished the repairs.
"Well ladies, the vortex regulator is fixed and now, I'm gonna try it out," Vash smiled in triumph. He went over to the drawer and removed a hologram diary and put it in his coat pocket, then he took out his red duster styled, trench coat.
"Be careful, Vash," Meryl told him. "Good luck."
"Please, bring back Mister Wolfwood if you can save him," Milly said hopefully.
"I'll try," Vash promised. He activated the vortex regulator and having figured out how to program the coordinates, plugged them in for the year 2248. He opened the portal and stepped inside. He saw dozens and dozens of clocks, their hands spinning counterclockwise, he looked down in horror as the vortex regulator began to fizz and spark. It was malfunctioning!
"Aw, man, how am I supposed to get back now?!" Vash shouted to oblivion.
The clocks began to spin faster and faster, where ever he was going, it wasn't his intended destination.
Year: 1990; Planet: Earth; Location Metropolis
Vash landed with a loud crash into a pair of trashcans. He gave a loud groan and sat up.
"Woo! I feel woozy!" Vash said, looking around. He glanced up at the building next to him.
"So where am I? And what year is it?" he asked himself.
"Man, you must've hit your head harder than I thought," a drunken voice told him. "It's Thursday January third, or is it Friday the fourth, I don't know." The man let out a loud "Hic" and continued drinking his can of Bud Light.
"But…where am I?" Vash asked.
"Man, you're an idiot, you're in Metropolis, remember, or did you have too much to drink too?"
"Sorry, just got confused that's all," Vash said. He got up and dusted the dirt off his red trench coat.
Vash began to explore the city, fascinated by the steel buildings. They had plenty of steel on Gunsmoke, but they used it for their Sand Steamers or their guns. The buildings on his homeworld were made of concrete. Steel was used for equipment and weaponry, buildings were easily constructed with other materials.
Vash saw a sign that read, John's Tasty Bakery. They had doughnuts! He could hardly believe that he was 260 years in the past and they still had doughnuts.
Vash looked up at the words on the menu. He saw the familiar dollar symbol and looked at the currency in his hands. It wasn't the right kind of money.
Now, the nagging question, how was he supposed to get money? He'd never worked anywhere, he'd been on the run constantly. Having a 60 billion double dollar bounty on his head hadn't exactly motivated him to go get a job somewhere.
He stared at all the doughnuts, getting hungrier and hungrier by the second. They had glazed and chocolate covered doughnuts and they even had sprinkles on them. Vash had thought he died and gone to Heaven, but then again, if he was in Heaven, the doughnuts would be free.
"Hey, do you know how I can get to a library?" Vash asked, now Vash had never been to Earth before, as it was destroyed after all its resources were used up. But he did know that in every town he had ever visited they had a library of some sort containing records of history or important information.
"Why would you want to go there?" A man on the street asked.
"I need to get some information," Vash said, "Please just tell me where it is."
"Down the street, to the right," the man said. "What an idiot!" he said, staring oddly at Vash. "What kind of person asked for the library at seven in the morning? It doesn't even open until ten."
"Okay, thanks Mister," Vash said begrudgingly. "Wonder what his problem is. I'm not that weird. Vash headed toward the library and sat outside on a nearby bench. He was beginning to feel hungry. What was he supposed to eat?
He decided to get his mind off food and pulled out his hologram journal. Maybe gathering his thoughts would pass the time.
-Hologram Diary Log Entry: Date: January Third, year 1990; Location: Earth-
My name is Vash. I seem to find myself trapped in the past, and when I say the past, I mean the distant past, as in over two hundred and fifty years before I was created kind of past. But anyway, I've finally seen Rem's Earth, where she used to live. I understand why she missed it, it's very nice here.
I'm very fascinated by this place. It's so different from Gunsmoke, where there's endless desert. Here's there's a lot of concrete, and plants and trees. It's so full of life and I like this place. I'm like a hunter of peace. One who chases the elusive mayfly of love...or something like that. Now I the hunter of peace must learn how to fit in here, until I can fix that vortex regulator. Okay, I gotta go, somebody's coming.
He shut off the recorder and slipped quietly into the library. He stared at the rows and rows of books. He saw the words "Non Fiction" and headed toward that aisle.
He grabbed an encyclopedia and books on American history and took the stack back to a table. He bumped into a woman with dark black hair and blue eyes. He dropped his books and stooped quickly to pick them up.
"Sorry, I'm clumsy, Vash said sheepishly.
"Hey, don't worry about it," the woman said. "It happens."
"What's your name, Miss?" Vash asked.
"Mary Lloyd," the lady replied. "Yours?"
"It doesn't matter, I'm sorry, Ms. Lloyd," Vash apologized.
Mary Lloyd left Vash with the books in his hands. He settled down into a chair and began reading. Having an inhumanly high I.Q. he could merely skim the contents of a page and comprehend the subject he was reading. He studied U.S. history, the constitution, world history and the science of that century, which was far behind his own, but slowly yet steadily making progress. He learned about World War One and Two, Vietnam and the Gulf War, even technology and computers. He read about television, which was something he'd heard about, but it was much different in the future. Movies were new to him; they couldn't afford to bring any entertainment with them onboard the SEEDS ship. So he decided to see one for himself when he got the opportunity.
He also did research on the doughnut, just because he was obsessed with eating them.
"Hey, Mister," the librarian said, "We're closing."
"Okay," Vash replied and made his way out of there. He couldn't take the books with him he didn't have a library card because you needed an address and didn't have one.
He began walking down the sidewalk, watching all the cars pass him by. He hadn't seen so many cars in one place. On Gunsmoke everyone walked everywhere and Sand Steamers were used for mass transportation to far away cities, if you were lucky enough to have a car, as Meryl and Milly had, you could drive most places but it still took awhile. He remembered how he had broken it and had to carry the seat with the girls on it. Man that was tiring.
Vash once again collided with another individual walking down the street.
"What's the matter with you, you idiot?" The man yelled. "Do you even have a name?"
"Yeah, I do," Vash replied. "It's John Frederick Grayson." There was a sign on the street for Frederick and Grayson Streets at the intersection where he was.
Gee, I am an idiot, Vash thought. What kind of a name is John Frederick Grayson? I just got the names off some street signs and a doughnut shop. Oh well, it sounds normal enough around here.
"Well Mr. Grayson, get out of my way!" the man snarled. Vash was surprised at how rude the man was. He was dressed in a suit that reminded him of Nicholas D. Wolfwood. You'd think a man in a nice suit would at least try to be civil.
He continued walking down the street until he came across a large trailer, it seemed to be stuck on the side street and he realize the tire was flat.
"C'mon Harrison! We have to get her fixed before the show tonight!" a man told him in an irritated tone of voice.
"I know that, Stan, but the tire's flat." Harrison Haly replied. This was just great, there first performance in Metropolis and they had a flat tire.
"Uh, excuse me, do you need some help?" Vash asked
"Not unless you can pick up my trailer and carry it for me," Harrison sarcastically remarked.
Vash, or John Grayson as he called himself, taking Harrison's words a little too literally, went over and began pushing the car forward. Stan Rutledge and Garrison Haly stared at him in shock.
"I can't believe you just did that!" Stan shouted.
"You have a job, Mister…uh," Garrison Haly asked, waiting for the man to give his name.
"John, John Grayson," Vash replied. The name rolled off his tongue easily and he felt comfortable with the identity he had created for himself. Now he just needed to come up with a background that would sound normal and not raise any suspicion that he was from the distant future and that he was an inter-dimensional being, a plant.
"Well, Mr. Grayson thanks for your help," Garrison told him. "Say, you wouldn't be interested in a job, would you?
"What kind of job?" John asked. "What would I be doing?"
"Cleaning up the animal cages, help set up and take down before and after the performances, that sort of thing. Interested?" Harrison asked, extending his hand.
"Sure, what kind of performances do you do?" John asked.
"I thought you would've figured it out by the sign on the trailer," Harrison laughed. "I'm one of the owners of Haly Bros. Circus. Garrison Haly at your service, so what's your answer Mister Grayson?"
"I…I'll do it," John said, it would be perfect, he could stay there, have a job, and learn more about life on Earth without drawing too much attention to himself.
"Welcome to Haly Bros. Circus, Mr. Grayson," Garrison said, smiling, he slapped him on the back. "Stan, get our new hire his papers, we'll get all your information and get you set to go."
Vash, A.K.A. John Grayson smiled. Now all he had do was come up with a believable life story for himself.
Oh boy, he thought. I better come up with something believable or I'm gonna blow my cover. They'll think I'm crazy if I say I'm from the future and stuff. I'll come up with something…somehow…Oh, look; Mr. Haly has a box of doughnuts in the back seat.
