A/N: Hi!
So, uh, this is really my first time writing Trigun fanfiction. I hope that everyone is kind! I am always open to constructive criticism, and never hesitate to correct my grammar. I hope everyone enjoys the story and leaves feedback! Oh, and this story takes place somewhere between Trigun: Badlands Rumble and Episode 11, but before Vash encounters the Dodongo Brothers in the manga.
Disclaimer: The Trigun universe and its characters do not belong to me. I do own any and all OCs.
Chapter One
"Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life"
-George Bernard Shaw
It's a well known fact that the average person can survive without water for three days. Same goes for sleep. Food – three weeks. After a while, even the hardiest person will just have to lay down and die, unless he goes insane first.
At first, Max Dunn was positive that he was seeing a walking corpse.
The heat shimmer rising up from the parched ground often led people to believe that they were seeing things. Lost lovers, inviting oases; the wandering traveler might lay eyes on a welcome city that will just turn out to be another dune.
Gunsmoke is not a merciful planet.
Dunn was celebrating his twentieth birthday, and not having a particularly good time. He sat on top of the wall that encompassed Macca City, where he could view the desert undisturbed. Sweat beaded his brow, and he occasionally took a swig from his canteen. About two iles out, a speck appeared on the horizon, shimmery from the heat.
The speck walked at a painfully slow pace as it approached the city, stumbling and weaving.
Dunn, who was slightly drunk by this time, gave an indifferent grunt. "Looks like a corpse."
He took another swig of alcohol, relishing in the bitter flavor. He chuckled a bit as he ran his fingers over the metal exterior of the canteen which was now heating up from the persistent sunlight beating down.
"Some birthday," he grumbled. "I'm old enough to take care of my damned self but the damned old lady keeps naggin' and treatin' me like a damned kid."
To punctuate his words, he sloppily threw his hands up in the air, momentarily forgetting that he had his canteen in his left hand. It flew up in a graceful arc to meet the suns, and then plummeted. The alcohol splashed out into the air, catching the light, and each droplet became liquid amber freefalling to the dusty ground.
"Aw, crap," moaned Dunn.
It was nothing short of a miracle that Dunn managed to climb down the city wall to the ground and walk to the massive gate.
"It's gotta be 'round here somewhere," huffed Dunn. "Some birthday. First the old lady and now this. What's next, I get caught in a shootout?"
Dunn scanned the sandy ground, confident that he would be able to spot the bright silver metal easily. "Gotta be 'round here somewhere," he kept repeating with increasing frustration. "For God's sake, how hard could be to find a simple – "
"Help me."
Dunn nearly jumped a foot in the air. "God," he gasped, "it really is a corpse."
She was alive, but barely. Dunn guessed that she was dehydrated, suffering from heat exhaustion, or sleep deprivation, or all three. Her skin was puckered and she was sweating so intensely that her entire dress was soaked through. Her legs looked so weak that she could barely stand. Her eyes were sunken into her skull and her pupils were dilated. This girl wasn't death warmed over, she was death. If a corpse could walk out of the morgue, it would look exactly like her.
The girl lurched forward and weakly grabbed the front of Dunn's shirt. "Help me," she said again, and her voice was like sandpaper. Her lips were bleeding.
Dunn may have been tipsy and more than a little shaken, but he still had his wits about him, so when the girl's twiggy legs finally gave out from under her, he had the sense to sling her over his shoulder and race into the city to alert the first doctor he saw.
Doctor Pyne was not pleased to have Max Dunn on his doorstep. But then again, he reasoned, who would be?
"Doctor Pyne!" shouted Max from the doorstep. "It's an emergency!"
"Go away Mr. Dunn!" the good doctor shouted back. "I can tell that you're drunk and I'm not having you in here so that you can terrorize the patients in the waiting room. Again."
"No! I mean – yes, I am, but it's something else!"
"For God's sake, John," bellowed a woman from the building next door, "shut him up already! All this shouting is going to wake up the baby!"
"I found a girl outside the gate!" yelled Dunn over the wailing baby next door. "She needs water badly; I think she's dying!"
The door flew open, revealing the surly countenance of Doctor J. Pyne.
"Bring her in."
She was dimly aware of all the activity surrounding her, and that she was lying on a cool, flat surface. A cheap but blinding light fixture buzzed directly above her, and in her dazed mind, she mistook it for the light one sees before they die.
Death was coming at last, she thought wildly, and she tried to raise her arm to reach for Heaven.
"I need restraints!" shouted a far-off voice, and she could feel people holding her down.
There was a sudden sharp pain in her arm and she writhed in agony– it was as if someone had plunged a knife into her vein. She tried to cry out but her mouth was too dry – she could only mouth noiselessly as her throat burned in pain.
Shadowy figures swarmed around her in the half light, distorted by her heat stroke. One of them bumped into the light dangling on the ceiling, and it began to dance, casting new shadows with every second.
She wanted to say, "It looks like the suns," but then some part of her that had retained sanity reminded her that the suns did not dance.
"I think the meds are taking effect," said someone, but to her it did not matter, because she was far away by now, and nothing mattered but the slowly swaying sun.
It's too small to be a sun, said the part of her that was still rational.
Darkness was closing in around her, but she was a million iles away up in space, floating ever so close to the sun that would not burn her but instead ducked and swerved in a drunken, rhythmic dance to a tune that was so old that no one remembered it anymore.
Nine Years Later
Macca City, despite recent events, was still a bustling hub of activity. Although the majority of the bounty hunters had cleared out, some folks stuck around for a little while longer. The saloons remained full at all hours, and Max Dunn was losing his mind.
"Get out of here, you old drunk!" he hollered at one of his patrons. "If I catch you in here stealing booze again, I'm setting a bounty on your head and revoking my no gun policy!"
"'M goin', 'm goin'," slurred the man, stumbling into the doorframe.
Dunn ran a hand over his face in exhaustion. "God. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I couldn't care less if they caught Gasback; I just wish they'd get the hell out of my saloon!"
A sudden quiet fell over the bounty hunters and they glared at Dunn with sudden hostility.
The twenty nine year old shrunk behind the wooden counter of his bar. "Never mind, carry on."
Over the mutinous muttering, the creak of the door could be heard as a figure sauntered into the saloon.
"Dammit," Dunn protested weakly. "Not you too. Now listen, just clear out of here pronto and I won't call the marshal."
Molly McCall laughed derisively. "Grow a spine, would you, Max? You know as well as I do that I wouldn't dare draw in here."
There was a tone in her voice that could be interpreted as sarcasm, but Dunn decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. "You'll take the usual, I guess?"
Molly grunted, slamming a pile of double dollars half an inch thick on the counter. "Keep the change, Max. You always are running low."
Max Dunn nervously polished a glass as he scanned his bar. It was well known around Macca City that the man was all bark and no bite. Never was it more clear than now – Dunn was up to his ears in bounty hunters, people he strongly disapproved of, but dared not voice his opinion for fear of losing an appendage.
"You've been out of town a while, Molly," he said in a horrid attempt at small talk.
"I had a job," Molly replied, nursing her whisky. "The guy was a pain to hunt down, and the bounty wasn't even worth it."
Over at the next table two thugs appraised her with amusement.
"What is this chick talkin' about?" one muttered, running his thumb over the end of his knife. His companion squinted his eyes.
"Dainty lady thinks she's all tough. Looks like a stiff breeze would blow her over."
Over at the bar, Molly either didn't hear them or was just too bored to care. "There's a lot of hustle around here, Max. Anything I should know about?"
Dunn almost dropped his glass in surprise. "You mean… you don't know?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
Molly McCall narrowed her eyes. "Know what, exactly?"
Two tables over, one of the thugs stood up, laughing like a hyena. "Listen lady, you must be either deaf or stupid. Everyone within a hundred iles of Macca City knows about Gasback."
"Yeah!" said thug number two, bobbing his head in agreement. "Hell of a reward – three hundred million double dollars." His mouth seemed to water at the very mention of such a large sum.
His friend whacked his over the head. "Pull it together, Ira. Anyway, some broad made off with the reward. Damn shame, too. Bounty hunters from iles around came for a crack at the cash, and some inexperienced little nobody got lucky."
Molly slammed her drink down on the counter. Dunn yelped.
"Let's not get testy, now," he whimpered.
"Three hundred million," she murmured, her hand clenching around the shot glass. "Three hundred million and I went after a little snot with barely one…"
"You know what I heard?" called out a man from a corner table drenched in shadow. "I heard that the only reason the lady got the reward in the first place is because Vash the Stampede helped her out."
If it was possible, Dunn looked even more alarmed. "Vash the Stampede? Here? In Macca City? It's a miracle we got out alive!"
"Aw, shut up, spineless!" shouted someone.
Molly McCall propped her chin on her fist thoughtfully. "Vash the Stampede, huh? That's interesting."
Wobbling over to the man in the corner, Molly crossed her arms. "Hey, bozo."
The man scowled, and his hand drifted towards his gun as he slowly rose from his seat. Over at the bar, Dunn bleated like a stuck pig.
With a wide smile on her face, Molly opened her arms in the universal "I'm not armed!" gesture.
"C'mon champ, none of that. I just want some information, is all."
Reluctantly, the man sat down. "Whaddya want?"
If it was possible, Molly widened her smile even more. "Surely a big, strong, intelligent man like you could tell me where Vash the Stampede went?"
The saloon was silent for about five seconds, and the every patron burst out into raucous laughter.
"You're kidding, right?" chuckled the thug, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Little twig like you go after the Humanoid Typhoon?"
Quick as a flash, Molly slid a knife down from her sleeve and pressed it up against the thug's jugular.
"Do I look like I'm kidding, bozo?" she hissed. "Now if you enjoy having your head attached to your neck, I'd suggest that you tell me, pronto."
The thug gulped nervously, and felt his Adam's apple quiver against the cool metal.
"He – he went after the Dodongo Brothers. At least, that's what I heard. Guess he wants some of the bounty."
McCall sheathed her knife, and staggered out of the saloon without saying a word. The entire establishment remained dead silent as the woman was seen through the window mounting a tomas and practically flying out of town.
When the cloud of dust cleared, the thug spoke, massaging his throat. "Who the hell was that?"
A/N: Well. That was long. I hope you are not too angry that Vash or anyone did not show up in person, but they will make an appearance soon! I will try to update as quick as I can, but school is starting soon and I will have a full schedule. I really hoped that you liked the OCs! [WHO WILL NEVER BE IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ANY MAIN CHARACTERS!] Anyway, reviews are love!
~Gilly