Greetings and salutations! I'm back with the next installment of Maria's Adventures! And this one is certainly going to be...interesting. And not just because I'm following the Trigun manga instead of the anime. It's also because Maria's going to change some of the events of the storyline and attempt to turn the whole thing on its head. :3
I've written up to 20 chapters on this thing, and I think I'm about halfway done, give or take. I'll have to see how long this goes.
Here we go!
Chapter 1 – Wake-up Call
Sandstorms were terrible.
Of course, everyone knew that, but Meryl was really aware of it now.
"If I have to be stuck out in a sandstorm like this one more time in my career I'm really going to make sure that I stay put in my office for the rest of my life!" the short, dark-haired woman ranted.
Especially since she and her partner were stuck in a cave waiting for the storm to blow over so they could keep going in looking for a missing person who had recently – probably – hopefully – turned up not-so-missing.
"It's not that bad out here, Meryl," the taller of the two women spoke up. "At least we were able to find shelter in time!"
Meryl growled between her teeth. "I know, Millie, but I wish that the weather didn't have to work against us for once in our lives! We have to get to Vash!"
"Well, yes, but—"
Meryl slammed a fist into a cave wall. "If I find out that he's—"
Clang!
Meryl stopped short and cursed loudly as she pulled her hand away from the wall, shaking out the stinging sensation in the side of her fist. She hissed through her teeth, then paused. "Wait. That wasn't a rock wall, that's a metal one." She started tapping against the walls again, frowning. "Millie, do you have a light—"
Millie flicked a lighter on. "I always keep one with me in case we run into Pastor-san again!"
Meryl gave her partner a deadpan look, then snatched the lighter from the other's hands. "Of course you do. Well, at least there's a chance of running into him again at this rate."
"I know, right?"
Meryl shook her head, but smiled a little as she held the lighter up to the wall to get a better look, since the sandstorm outside blocked out a good deal of the light. "Metal panels…this must be –"
There was a loud clunking sound on the other side of the cave, followed by Millie letting out an "oop!" before lights flickered on.
Meryl was startled enough to nearly drop the lighter. "Oh! There must be a Plant still – wait." She whirled sharply on Millie. "Millie! This is a part of one of the colony ships!"
"Well, it would have to be if it was made out of metal," Millie commented. "Or an old steamer that crashed…." She tapped her chin, then looked around. "Well, do you want to see if there's anything else to this ship?"
"I'd rather we didn't end up getting into trouble with anything that might still be running in this place," Meryl responded. "You remember those robots that Wolfwood and Vash had to fight off that one time, right?"
"Oh, yeah! Well, if there were any here, we'd end up seeing some by now, wouldn't we?"
Meryl was about to object, but then she held up a finger and paused to consider that.
The area was quiet – except for the howling sandstorm back at the entrance to their shelter, which was only a few yards from where they were standing. If there was any sort of security system to this place, it probably would have reached them by now.
Especially since Meryl had been making all sorts of noise before that. She winced at the thought of her temper.
I have to work on reining that in.
"Well, no use standing around over here," Millie said cheerily. She started to move deeper into the large, alien steel cavern.
"H-hey! Millie, we don't know—"
"Come on! These things have been abandoned for years; might as well have a look around." Millie was already heading deeper into the weather-beaten ruins, towards a door that looked like it had been wrenched open as a result of the crash.
"Millie, wait!" Meryl quickly ran after her, glancing back over her shoulder at the two tomas they'd rented for their trip across the desert. The two bird-like mounts looked fine where they were, tied down near the cave's entrance, and considering the sandstorm there wasn't all that much of a chance of bandits….
Meryl gripped one of her pistols, then moved to follow after Millie and deeper into the remains of the colony ship.
"Do you think the sandstorms out here unearthed this thing?" Meryl asked as Millie pushed the remains of the door aside. This lost technology had probably been lying here for the last one hundred fifty years… "It doesn't look like it's been gutted by the towns that are located nearby."
Millie hummed as they moved down the smaller corridor on the other side of the door.
"Was probably buried by the sand around here and then unearthed because of the sandstorms…." Meryl looked around at the doors they passed by. They looked like they were sealed shut, and there was no way that either one of them was going to tear them open in order to figure out what lay on the other side.
"We'll have to alert the next town over," Meryl commented. "They'd probably want a Plant and the lost technology here to help things run better for a little while." Lost in thought as she was, she didn't realize that Millie had stopped until she had bumped into the taller woman. "Millie! What—"
"I don't think it'd be a good idea if we went any further," Millie said, faintly.
Meryl frowned, then moved around her taller friend in order to get a look at what it was that had stopped her so suddenly.
In front of them was a metal door that looked like it had been jarred open from the crash. On it in faded red paint were the letters "R&D."
Meryl blinked, then frowned. "R&D? What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Millie said nervously.
There came a hissing sound from the other side of the door, causing the two women to stiffen sharply. It sounded like something was opening up somewhere in the room on the other side of the falling-apart door.
"Maybe we should—"
There came a muffled groan from the other side, cutting Meryl off.
"Where do we go?" Millie asked worriedly. "There's a sandstorm outside and – and – and something in—"
"We can't exactly face the sandstorm, with how strong it is now." Meryl reached under her coat and gripped one of her pistols. "Looks like we can get ourselves into as much trouble as he does."
Meryl's grip tightened on her pistol as the sound of footsteps stumbled about in the other room, followed shortly by a very human yelp and the sound of someone colliding into something.
"Gah! What the –" There was a hiss of curses as something hopped around on the other side of the door.
Meryl and Millie exchanged cautious looks, then moved forward, Meryl first, pistol out and ready as she squeezed past the door and made her way into the room on the other side.
The "R&D" room – whatever that had meant – was chock full of lost technology that normally littered the sandstone ground near the Plants that helped keep the towns alive with food and water, among other things. It looked like a lot of it had been damaged or destroyed in the crash, but there were some things that were still – strangely – intact.
Like an open, pod shaped-container that was in one corner of the room, and a teenage girl with brown hair rubbing a boot-covered foot with an expression of discomfort.
There was a toppled computer near her, and it looked like the side of it had been dented, but that wasn't what Meryl was focusing on.
"Oh! Are you all right?" Millie quickly pushed the door aside and moved into the room, going straight for the teenage girl, who looked up in surprise at Millie's voice. "You weren't hurt by—"
"I-I'm fine." The girl looked between them with confusion on her blue eyes. There were so shockingly bright that for a second Meryl found herself thinking about Vash's—
Nope. Nope, she wasn't going to think about him right now, they'd just found a girl, alone, in a crashed colony ship.
And if there was that pod lying there, open….
The girl lowered her foot, tapping it against the metal floor a couple times. Besides the red boots she was wearing, Meryl found the rest of her clothes odd: trousers made of a blue material, and a short orange jacket and red shirt that were probably made of something they didn't have access to in No Man's Land.
"Who are you two?" the girl asked, frowning. "The pods aren't supposed to open until Joshua and I scout out the area and make sure everything's a-ok."
"Pods?" Millie blinked in confusion, then giggled. "We didn't come out of pods, silly! When a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much—"
"Millie!" Meryl hissed, aghast. She looked over at the girl. "I'm sorry that—"
"I've already had the Talk," the girl said blandly. "I may look like a kid, but I'm not that young."
Meryl and Millie blinked in surprise at the tone of the girl's voice.
The girl sighed irritably. "I meant the cyropods. You know, the things that people were sleeping in when they left Earth to make a colony world somewhere? You two should still be in yours."
Millie hummed, uncertain. "But…we didn't come out of pods. No one's come out of pods in a long time."
"Why would someone like you be tasked with making sure a colony world was okay, anyway?" Meryl asked, frowning. "You're so…so young."
"That's because I'm – wait." The girl looked between the two of them. "You didn't come out of—" She shook her head slowly. "That…no….but then that's…"
The girl lunged for one of the computers that was still attached to the wall across the room and slammed her hands down into a couple dents in the dash that looked strangely like they were hand-shaped. "Come on, come on—nononononononono!" She pulled back and started pulling at her hair, expression paling sharply. "Of all the – what happened to the flagship?! There's no way that this planet could have been chosen to – gah, and I can't check to see who was last awake, either!" The girl groaned in frustration and ran a hand over her face. "Well, this is just great. First they tell me I have to go into cold sleep and now some moron crashed us on a desert planet with very few resources. And on top of that…."
She trailed off and hugged herself, pulling back a little towards the pod as she looked away from the two women. One hand moved up and covered her mouth.
"Belle, I…I'm sorry."
Meryl and Millie exchanged looks as the strange girl looked away from the two of them, shoulders shaking with repressed sobs.
"Um…" Millie moved forward slowly. "Neither one of us really knows what's going on, so maybe you could explain…? You…you are one of the people who got on these ships way back in the beginning, right?"
The girl looked over at Millie and sniffled a little. She quickly wiped a wetness away from her eyes and nodded, gaining a more serious expression. "Y-yeah, sure. I can do that." She took in a breath and regained the composure she'd lost in her panic. "My name is Maria Carlsdale. My cousin Joshua Langstrom and I were selected to be the ones who made sure any planets we found were habitable for humans. He got to be the one who jumped from the flagship to the other ships to make sure that everything was running smoothly and that there wasn't anything that would jeopardize the journey." She gained an annoyed expression. "They thought I'd be too much of a liability and stuck me in cold sleep because they didn't like the rumors about my temper very much."
Meryl and Millie both didn't quite look like they were following, but Maria didn't give them time to ask very many questions.
"If the colony ships ended up crash landing here and losing contact with each other – and releasing or…" Maria trailed off, then shook her head. "Then that means that something must have gone wrong with the flagship. With the – the power couplings that worked with the Plants or the programming in the computers –" She paused. "Wait. Belle. The power is still – then that might mean –"
She scrambled out of the room with an intent expression that one might find on a woman with a mission – which, now that Maria had talked enough, Meryl realized that she had to be just barely considered an adult.
"Wait!" Millie ran after Maria, causing Meryl to pull herself out of her thoughts and run after them. "Where are you going?"
"To check on Belle!" Maria called back. "She's got to be around here somewhere if there's still power in this part of the ship!" She ran down the corridor, then turned a corner and stopped in front of another sealed door.
"Who's Belle?" Meryl asked, frowning. "What does she have to do with the power you—"
Maria grabbed the door and tore it out of its position, causing the two women to stiffen in shock at how easily the metal screeched aside under her fingers. She looked back at them, breathing a little more heavily, but not like she was about to fall at any moment.
"She's the Plant," Maria replied. "And a good friend of mine."
The young woman turned and took off down the new corridor, lights flickering a little as she went.
"She named the Plant?" Millie asked in confusion. "Earthlings must have been strange people."
"She probably thinks that we're the strange ones," Meryl muttered. "Come on!"
The two of them reached the large room at the end of the corridor seconds after Maria did; she was already up against the flickering bulb that housed the Plant by the time they arrived.
"Isn't it a little bit dangerous to be that close?" Meryl asked as Maria put her hands against the glass. "The radiation that can—"
"Belle, are you okay?"
Meryl stopped when Maria spoke over her and gritted her teeth in some annoyance.
Something moved in the bulb, and the glass cleared up suddenly, revealing…
Well, the best way to describe the figure was that they were female, and possibly some kind of angel. But there wasn't just one pair of wings – there were multiple. And it wasn't just one body – if you looked around behind the female-like creature, one could see more bodies growing off the back, like some human that had mutated to reproduce by budding.
The bright blue eyes and blond-framed face focused on Maria with a tired look of relief, which Meryl found surprising. She hadn't expected that the Plants were capable of really feeling anything – just that they were able to use near-unlimited amounts of energy in order to provide everything that humans ever needed in order to survive.
Maria sighed in relief, but she didn't say anything verbally as she looked at the Plant. Meryl was too busy watching them to see Millie move up to stand behind Maria with a quiet sort of expression.
Maria bowed her head and bumped it against the glass. It almost seemed like her's and the Plant's foreheads were touching, they were so close together.
That's when Meryl noticed something about the Plant.
"It's turning black!" Meryl yelped in alarm. "Her hair is—"
"I know," Maria spoke aloud. Then, more quietly, almost unheard were it not for the echo of the quiet remains of the colony ship: "I'm sorry."
The Plant shook her head, then pulled back, putting a hand over Maria's head. She focused in concentration for a moment, then closed her eyes as her hair turned completely black.
This wasn't a Final Run like what Meryl was used to seeing from Plants, when they tried to get as much energy as possible out of them. This was more…peaceful.
The creature in the bulb slumped against the glass and fell limp, her hand sliding down and away from Maria's face.
Maria stepped back a little, removing her head from its contact with the bulb but putting a hand where the Plant's had fallen to.
"Good-bye, my friend," Maria said quietly as the lights died. "You will be missed."
Millie started bawling loudly, causing Maria to jump and whirl around like she had been poked in the back with a toma prod. "I-I didn't th-th-think a Pl-Pl—"
"H-hey!" Maria yelped, sounding annoyed.
"Oh! Sorry." Meryl could hear Millie moving back a little. A loud sniff echoed through the chamber. "I j-just get a little e-emotional."
Little nothing. Meryl rolled her eyes, but she still felt troubled at least a little bit by what she had just seen. A human had treated the Plant as a friend. And it looked like the Plant had seen her the same way?
Just what about them did they not quite understand, even after having lived and used them for so long?
The sound of Maria's boots hitting the stairs and coming back down to Meryl shook her out of her thoughts.
"There's nothing else for me here," Maria said as she came to a stop a short distance away from Meryl. "Without Belle being able to run even emergency power, the cyropods opened as soon as we landed. She was the only one who was left running this place, and they didn't know where she was. I guess I should count myself lucky, because she was the only one running the research and development labs."
"So that's what R&D means!" Millie exclaimed.
"What did you think it meant?"
"Well—"
"That doesn't matter," Meryl said quickly, cutting Millie off before she could go into something else. "Let's get back to the tomas. This place is giving me the creeps."
The three of them made their way back to the cave-like entrance into the colony ship, moving hand-over-hand against the walls in order to make sure they didn't lose their way or each other. The sandstorm was still going when they reached the place where the tomas were tied to a piece of metal that was jutting out of the wall. They skittered a little as the three of them got close.
Maria slowed to a stop as Meryl and Millie looked the two animals over. "Those are…tomas?"
"Yup!" Millie replied cheerily. "We can use them to ride everywhere."
"…huh. So it mustn't be completely a desert." Maria looked the creatures over, then approached the large birds cautiously. "Kind of looks like a cross between an ostrich and a turkey."
"A what?" Meryl looked at her blankly.
Maria blinked, then sighed and shook her head. "Nothing. Don't worry about it." She walked over to a wall and sat down with her back to it, watching the sandstorm outside.
Meryl and Millie looked over at her, then exchanged worried looks. Maria – whoever she was, whatever it was she hadn't told them yet – had fallen into cold sleep on Earth, then woken up just moments ago here. In No Man's Land.
Hopefully they'd be able to find a place to drop her off and help her settle into life on this forsaken planet.
"Hey."
Meryl looked over as Maria looked back at her.
"I introduced myself, but you two haven't given me your names yet." Maria looked between the two of them with an unreadable expression. She almost looked…sad, but there was something else to her expression, too.
"Oh! How silly!" Millie moved to stand next to Meryl. "I'm Millie Thompson, and this is Meryl Stryfe. We're employees of the Bernadelli Insurance Company!"
Maria raised an eyebrow. "Insurance agents? What are you two doing out here?"
"Well—"
"We're tracking someone dangerous," Meryl said. "Someone you definitely shouldn't get involved with. We're dropping you off at the nearest town so that someone—"
"Belle told me to find someone that she and her sisters trusted."
Meryl blinked. "She told…?"
"Plants are just as intelligent as any other being that lives in our universe," Maria said evenly. "I should know; I've been friends with Belle for a long time."
Meryl stared, dumbfounded.
"Who is it?" Millie asked. Unlike Meryl, she seemed to be taking this all in stride.
Maria paused at the question, then looked up at them with a curious, almost calculating expression.
"Do you know anyone who goes by the name of Vash?"