By Soshika
This is the story of a bounty hunter. This is not the story of a child growing up, of making and keeping friends. This is the story of a demon who countered the light and came out complete. This is my story. This is the story of a bounty hunter. Not of someone to be comforted when the terrors of life strikes, not someone to cover eyes from blood. This is the story of someone who has seen many things in this world, both real and imaginary, and has nothing more to say except that it is meaningless. This is my story and i shall tell it as i will. This is the story of making a profit.
Chapter One- Time Stands Still
"The entire city of July...that fucker."
I sat at a table in the mostly abandoned saloon outside New St. Lewis. The room was dingy and dark, and the paper i had in my hands wasn't much of a comfort. The man the paper was talking about was my target, or he was going to be. He didn't know it yet, that was all. I reclined carefully in my chair, propped my feet up on the table and read over the article.
"Seven billion doubledollars...that's a lot..." I heard a voice behind me. I didn't turn or look, i simply stood. On my feet i was nothing impressive. I was short, though not too short, and my hair was long and dark. I looked like any fool kid out to make a few dollars in this world. Except i was more determined than any kid. Much more determined.
I looked up at the voice now. A smiling man in a red trenchcoat with blonde hair very nearly towered over me. I looked up passivly, as if it was to one of just barely inequal height. Something in my face discouraged him, and his smile fell slightly. An overly friendly type. "Who are you?"
The man scratched his head a moment and didn't seem to know. Sometimes that meant there was a price on heads. Heads who couldn't remember their names. I slipped my hands into the pockets of my long, dark, dirty coat and glared at him with dark eyes. The man suddenly started laughing. It might have been an irritating laugh, but the look on his face was purely cheerful and confused. A wall seemed to drop away. He seemed too friendly to have a bounty out after him. "Well I'm not quite sure right now, ya see." He smiled and spoke with bright eyes.
"Name's Kaolin."
"Kaolin? Kaolin what?"
"Dimma. Call me kid and you'll regret it." I put ice in my words. Youth was no indication of wisdom or experience.
The man's overly cheerful exterior seemed to fade a little. What had started as being playful had become something more akin to caring, to curiousity. "What brings you all the way out here to New St. Lewis? You're young to be alone."
"I'm not young."
"How old are you?"
"How old are you?" I countered darkly. That laugh again. He didn't seem to know. His attitude was begining to rub off on me. I very nearly smiled back at him. "I suppose it isn't important anyway."
He grinned and motioned out of the saloon. I was on my guard. I had only met this man a moment ago, i did not yet know to trust him for certain. He had the walk about him of someone who would hardly try to hurt a fly, but i'd known others like that before. Others like that before who had wound up with small fountains of blood spurting from thier heads as i stood by with a still smoking revolver. The man's voice was lighthearted, suggesting he enjoyed the company of anyone. "C'mon, walk with me."
We walked down the dirty street a while, my soft leather boots making almost no sound. I noted he did likewise. this man's strid was almost nonhuman, it was so cheerful. It was almost as if he was oblivious to the poverty and danger all around us.
We spoke idoly of proffessions. he admitted to merely being a wanderer, which was not all that uncommon. My voice was level and dark when i spoke. "I am a bounty hunter."
For a moment fear flashed on his face. This was not unusual. Bounty hunters were not welcome most places. We were barely on the list of names to be shot on sight ourselves. I looked straight ahead as i walked. The fear on the man's face passed. "Bounty hunter, huh? Who you after?"
I spoke in an automated tone. Buisness was buisness. "The man in the paper. The humanoid Typhoon."
"Vash the Stampede?"
"Yes."
The man seemed indecisive a moment. Then he paused and shrugged, smiling brightly at me. I walked on. "I'm Vash."
I smile cracked on my lips. "Tell me another one."
He took a few strides to catch up- his legs were longer than mine. He spoke with an almost mournful tone, but not really. "I didn't expect you to believe me."
We walked on in silence. At the stables we parted ways. This was not to be the last is saw of this man.
*****
"You can't lodge here!"
"Why the hell not?" I brought my fist down hard on the hotel desk, making the clerk and bell both jump. The bell dinged when it landed, while the clerk just appeared to sweat. I had an irrational aggressive flare sometimes. This was one of those times.
"Your type aint' allowed here!"
I felt something hot behind my eyes. I identified the feeling as rage. It felt good to over react sometimes. "MY type? MY type?" swiftly, my only silenced handgun was out of its holster and to this man's head, pressing into his flabby wrinkled flesh. In that moment, as it always did, time froze for me. Everything was preserved, the feeling of the hardwood floor, the second hand on the clock above the desk, the flash of worn red carpet i caught out of the corner of my eye, the drop of moisture in the corner of the man's eye.
Time began to move again, very slowly. The man reached a quivering hand towards his registry and pushed it towards me. "I...I...suppose...we could...um..make an exception...ma'm..."
"That's what i thought." I spun the gun over my trigger finger and caught it in my palm with the grace of an artist, and placed it back in its well worn holster against my left side and under my arm. I signed my name in a few scrawling letters and pushed the registry back at the old geezer. The air smelled of dust and paniced sweat. That smell seemed to follow me.
"Well well well..Kaolin Dimma....Crazy Kaolin."
I whirled, on my toes, fetched the revolver from my pocket with one hand and the silenced handgun from the holster with my other. Voices from behind in such places were not safe. The old man ducked behind the counter, I knew why. No one enjoyed gunfights. No one except me and a few others.
But what faced me didn't faze me in the least. I'd seen the face countless times, on countless posters, in countless places. A fellow bounty hunter. Not one i particularly got along with, unfortunately. We were too evenly matched to be friends or partners.
"You're still using those two?"
Straightening and clearing the rage from my mind, i holstered the silenced weapon and pocketed the revolver. My rival faced me with the same dark, emotionless proffessional void that is expected when bounty hunter meets bounty hunter. "Let's take this outside, May."
May, May D., May the Demon, inclined her head sharply. She walked as if she had a pole up her ass. May had always prefered to walk that way, as long as i'd known her. I prefered the slouching, centered, balanced way of moving. We stepped outside the hotel, and i realized what this would come out to. We would both move on, give up staying at this city.
People walked past us as we stood a few feet apart, oblivious to who we were. May had an overcoat on as well, one that kept out the dust like mine and the blonde man i'd met weeks before. Everyone had such a coat for riding across the vast deserts of this world. May's was grey though. A driveling grey like a rain that would never fall here. Like faded machinery. Like faded past. Like gunsmoke.
"You're still fancying yourself a gunslinger, huh Kaolin?" May spoke with an absolutely cynical tone to her words. I knew why. No one else would.
"Cut the crap." "You're here after Vash the Stampede as well, aren't you?"
"The trail's days cold, you're late too. Forget it."
May smiled in her evil way. The way that meant she thought she was crawling inside your soul and peeking at your thoughts, the smile that said 'you belong to me.' I had no countering face. "But you're still here."
"That's my own buisness."
"You'll never catch him." That sneer, that smirk, that smile! I could feel the rage burning inside me. "You're too much a pacifist."
"I am not a pacifist."
May Demon grinned. "No?"
Without hesistation i drew the revolver and fired. Not at May, not at a person, but into a window. An upstairs window. The shower of glass rained into the room above to tinkle on the floor like chimes. Someone screamed, and kept screaming. Maybe I'd hit them. I didn't know.
But May kept grinning and folded her arms beneith her cape. "Never willing to hurt anyone."
Anger was blazing inside me. I wanted to fire at her, but people were already looking. I did not want to be reported. This city proved to be less than bounty-hunter friendly. "Overconfidence breeds weekness," I spat.
May yawned and looked thouroughly bored with me. "So you say, so you say. But we'll just see who catchs him first."
"f--- off, Demon."
"Try to be a little more proffessional, Dimma." Her eyes darkened a second. I hit a nerve. I lay off it. Hitting nerves was a low way of getting a response.
Turning, returning the revolver to its pocket, i walked away from May Demon. I walked down the road and away from the scene, still angry. We would both be moving on now, quickly as possiable. And on seperate trails. I hoped mine would be the freshest.
Pondering, walking and hardly feeling, i hadn't noticed someone grabbed me by the arm until they began speaking. I looked at who it was and with distaste saw it was the town sheriff. He had bright eyes and a young face, with flaxen hair cut very short. He was all primp and position.
"You can't fire a weapon in my town like that!" He growled at me, and looked as if he might try to arrest me a moment.
For a second, my eyes were unreadable. Then i moved with the quickness of a serpent striking, and the silenced handgun was under his chin. "Who the f--- says?" I spoke with exagerated slowness, venting my aggression.
Time stopped again. Everything slowed. I could see the fear in this man's eyes, the meeting with his own mortality. I also knew what that would do to him since i wasn't going to actually fire. He was going to become angry, and probobly go after me. I was a danger to society, he'd tell himself. Just as bad as the Humanoid Typhoon, they'd say someday.
I let the sheriff go and time started once more. People gathered around gasping and tugging at both of us, trying to pull us into the mass of the crowd. The look on his face was what i expected. He was mad now, mad for my humiliating him. He would get back at me. He thought that.
"I do whatever i damn well please," i said softly to him, and turned into the crowd. People parted from my path at the sudden movement, and i dissapeared into them.
"My name is Hoyes!" The young sheriff shouted after me. "You're gonna remember it, because you'll be hearin it again!"
I indeed supposed i would. I was going to be seeing a lot of faces, hearing
a lot of names and having time stop many many times over before i finally
ended this. I could feel it in the air now.