I do not own Trigun / Vash, or any other characters from the anime or manga. They belong to the amazing Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.
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Stampede in Stealth
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Year 1735 month 3 day 11, at Seeds Village
For some unaccountable reason, the preceding night, Vash dreamed of the time when he'd first crossed paths with Marshal Marianne.
Why, he hadn't thought of her since… well, hardly at all since the second time he saw her. That happened about 33 years after she'd arrested the water-hoarder whose greed had nearly destroyed a town.
Back in the year 143, when he saw Marshal Marianne for the second and final time, Vash was pursuing and dealing with a false "Stampede."
His thoughts wandered back to that time, so many centuries ago, as he began his pre-breakfast morning workout…
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Year 0143 month 10 day 23, early morning, near New Oregon
There had been a few rumors, as he traveled, of a "Vash the Stampede" ruining lives in New Oregon.
He'd hurried there, to learn the truth. New Oregon was practically within shouting distance of Seeds. Only a few days' journey on Thomas-back were needed to pass from one to the other.
It was bad enough that he could not use his own name, outside of Seeds, at that time. Lawmen and bounty hunters would go into a feeding frenzy, if he were so foolish as to attempt it. However, it was worse that others used his name like a weapon when they decided to commit crimes.
He grew increasingly determined to disarm all who misused his name as a weapon when they set out to harm others.
His other plans at that time had been only tentative. He'd wanted to search in places he had not yet checked, or else to search more thoroughly in places where he had. Knives' fate remained a mystery. If possible, Vash intended to solve that mystery.
However, a band of cutthroats, so near to Seeds, was a clear and present danger. He could neither fail to notice that threat, nor could he ignore it. He would not permit those he loved like family to be endangered again. Not while there was anything that he could do about it.
If another bandit really was stealing his name, to commit crimes so near to the Seeds Village… He must put a stop to that, immediately.
He walked day and night, and night and day. He'd not succeeded in matching schedules with the nearest sand-steamer going that direction, nor any busses.
He didn't expect to return by the same route, so renting a Thomas was not an option either… even if he had been good enough at riding one to find that a desirable option. His recollection of the saddle-sores that came from a prior attempt had discouraged him from repeating that experiment.
Finally, he saw the town in the distance. Vash untied the cord at the back of his neck, which held his shoulder-length black hair pulled back into a tail. That action released his hair to form curtains that partially concealed the sides of his face.
He left his hat and Wolfwood's sunglasses in his bag. He did not want to create a new identity that might become recognized. So he deliberately chose a different set of innocuous clothing from when he was in other towns hunting after different imposters.
He put ordinary jeans and a faded shirt over his Seeds-provided body armor. Over that, he wore his Seeds-tailored dark brown leather vest, and a neckerchief to conceal the leather that partly covered his neck.
He put on some plain, cheap sunglasses he'd purchased in the last town he passed through. His gloves covered the scars on his right hand. He checked that his revolver rested snugly in its holster, and that the leg-tie held the lower end of that holster correctly and firmly in place… without interfering with his circulation.
Everything checked out. He adjusted the sand-colored over-wrap he wore to better shield him from the sun, and the wind, and from prying eyes. He adjusted the weight of his bag, where it was slung over his shoulder. He set his eyes toward the town, and took a step in that direction.
It was time to finish this desert walk, and go into the town.
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Year 0143 month 10 day 23, later, in New Oregon
It had become a habit, in recent years, to pass by the local law-enforcement offices soon after he arrived in any town. That gave him a feel for how attentive, or lax, the men and women were who enforced the law in that place.
That information helped him to know how careful he would need to be.
This particular office had no one lounging out in front, shooting the breeze with passers-by. Through the windows, his quick glances detected a bustle of activity. Together, those things suggested that this office held people who were reasonably alert.
A wisp of conversation came through the open doorway.
"Well, Marshal, I don't know what you hope to accomplish here that we couldn't," a man's voice said. "We keep patrols out, night and day, but somehow he always manages to be somewhere that we aren't. It's not that your help is unwelcome; it's merely that I'm not sure how much difference any one person can make against this… menace."
"It's my job to do whatever I can," a woman's voice responded firmly. "This isn't the first time I've dealt with someone who was called 'Vash the Stampede.' Let me see where your people are patrolling, and I'll try patrolling somewhere else…"
Vash nearly interrupted the rhythm of his walking as he risked another swift glance past his hair toward the voices. There. That one. It had to be.
As he looked, the woman turned her head. The wind shifted direction, so he could no longer catch the words. However, he saw her profile as she spoke and gestured to the local deputy. That view was more than enough to verify his guess.
No Man's Land was not particularly kind to its human residents. The endless dry air had an effect on most voices, as people aged. Three decades of breathing and speaking in that dry air had altered her voice, just as it had done to many others.
Yet, even with that change, he'd recognized her voice immediately.
She wasn't as thin as she had been in her youth. She remained tall and stood straight, even though her hair had all turned from gold to silver. The unconscious grace of her movements, and her profile, indicated that she remained a very beautiful woman.
He'd also noticed a golden gleam on her left hand, as she gestured. He was mildly surprised to discover that his reaction to the presence of that ring, and all that it meant, was simple relief.
All those years later, he could admit it… at least to himself. Back when he'd first met her he had, very briefly, entertained some selfish and highly unrealistic daydreams about her. However, the course his life had taken thereafter had allowed no room for another to travel with him.
Or, at least, none could travel with him during those days and survive.
Wolfwood, as capable as he had been for one so young, had not survived. The insurance girls had nearly been killed, also. It's very likely that those young insurance girls would have been killed, if he had not deliberately parted from them and left them behind.
Partly because they had gone different ways, Marianne had survived. In fact, she had not only survived, but she had also had found someone with whom she could share her life. She seemed reasonably cheerful, so Vash hoped that meant the man she'd chosen was good for her.
He quickly and quietly walked around the corner, away from the Sheriff's office.
The people in that office had all seemed reasonably alert, and interested in protecting the townsfolk. Yet a gang of criminals was running amok, harming those townsfolk. He fully understood why they were more than a little frustrated by that situation.
If any of the lawmen found the culprit, said culprit was likely to find himself dead.
None of those things would make his own task any easier. However, all of those things made it more important that he succeed where they had failed.
Vash shifted his bag on his shoulder, and went looking for the nearest reasonably quiet room where he could sleep.
This time, he wanted to be near the Sheriff's office. He wanted to know which direction the patrols went, so that he, like Marshal Marianne, could be elsewhere and have a greater hope of finding the criminal who currently called himself "Vash the Stampede."
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Year 0143 month 10 day 28, in New Oregon
Five days had passed. He felt no nearer to stopping the man who stole his name than he had been on the day when he arrived.
It didn't help that, nearly every time he found a clue that might lead to the bandit or his gang, he would practically stumble over Marianne. The need to avoid her, since it was slightly possible that she might recognize him, was making his efforts to find and stop the false "Stampede" ten times more difficult.
He wished that she would leave.
Once again, as had happened nearly every night since his arrival, he heard her soft footsteps approaching. Thankfully, Plant senses were slightly more sensitive than those of ordinary humans. If he had failed to detect her presence, she would have caught him.
He leaped to the eaves of the roof immediately overhead, and waited. When he heard her move directly beneath him, he matched his steps to hers. It was easier now, after so many hours of practice. If she sensed anything at all, his steps should sound like either part of the sound of her own, or else like faint echoes.
It was almost like dancing. He matched his movements to hers, step by step, as he had done during each of the prior evenings.
He kept his body low, to prevent himself from either forming a silhouette on the roof or else casting a shadow in the moonlight. Step by step, rustle by rustle, he carefully matched each of her movements.
She paused, and then moved back to the slightly-open window where he had been standing when he heard her come. He moved with her, walking softly on the roof. A careful cat would make more noise than he did.
A gusty night breeze stirred his hair and his dark wrap. For a moment, all was still beneath him. He looked around cautiously, without ceasing to listen.
It was well that he did.
A soft creak, the complaint of an un-oiled hinge, came from the window by Marianne.
Across the street, there was the soft yet distinctive sound of a gun being cocked.
It seemed the rumors that this building was the bandit's hide-out were correct. And the gang had their people posted outside the building, to keep watch over it.
Drat.
No time to get fancy, not now, he thought as he jumped back down to ground level.
He knew from following her sounds that Marianne still had her back to the street. He jumped between her and the sounds of guns being made ready to fire.
He knocked her down, face-down onto the ground. He gently yet firmly held his left hand on the small of her back, to keep her down.
He knelt over her with one knee by her waist. His other leg stretched over her back, and that foot rested on the ground beyond her. He began firing, using his more sensitive sight and hearing to identify the locations of bandits and quickly disable them non-lethally.
He emptied his revolver and quickly reloaded it, returning his left hand to Marianne's back as soon as that was done. Two more bandits heard the voice of his gun, and dropped with wails of pain. He grimaced, not liking the need to injure them. Unfortunately, the alternative was worse.
Marshal Marianne had begun twisting and grunting in her efforts to get free from him.
"Be still," he hissed. "You can't enjoy the credit for these arrests if they kill you."
She subsided. "Who are you?" Her whisper was very faint, but detectible in the brief silence after the gunshots had ceased.
He felt one corner of his mouth quirk upward to form a wry grin. "Just a bodyguard," he quipped very softly, "doing the job I was paid to do."
He heard her soft intake of breath. "I –" she began.
He heard a door open on another side of the building. "They're coming," he warned.
As he listened, he heard the group split up. Three… no, four… were working their way around the front. Five more walked around the back.
Those walking around the building, and the guards, accounted for all the numbers the gang was said to have. That left only the leader who might be inside.
Vash cautiously lifted his left hand off Marianne's back, and was relieved that she only adjusted her position barely enough to be less uncomfortable. He heard her draw her weapon.
He leaned over a little farther, so that his head was slightly closer to hers. He whispered very softly, "Four coming from the front, five from the back."
"Got it," she whispered back. He heard her cock her weapon, and could see a single faint lambent gleam off its barrel. She was aiming toward the front, the direction her body was pointed.
He divided his attention between both directions, not knowing which ones would appear first. As he'd been concerned might happen, they came from both directions at once.
Because he'd knocked her down, Marianne was firing from roughly ankle-level. Her shots were effective and – better yet – non-lethal. Oh, those bandits had some hospital time ahead of them, but they would have plenty of time to reconsider their crimes.
He dealt with the ones coming from the back, reloaded again, and shot one of the men coming from the front that Marianne had either missed or not fully disabled.
"Go!" he said. He sprang away from her, without touching her again. He sprinted toward the back, and leaped over the fallen bandits when a glance told him that none were in any condition to fire again.
He needed to get inside, and deal with the leader. Marianne would make sure that the injured would not fire again, hopefully by taking their guns. She would also make certain that they got the help they needed with their wounds.
He threw a barrel through a window, and ducked under the sill to lie flat on the ground against the external side of the wall. As expected, gunshots sounded. Vash heard the bullets whistling through the window where he would have been, had he been so foolish as to attempt to follow the barrel immediately.
Vash counted quietly as more shots were fired toward the window beneath which he lay. When the shots paused, he smiled and jumped through the window.
The lead bandit, in his long red coat, was still reloading when Vash knocked his gun out of his hands. Less than five heartbeats later, the man lay bound on the floor.
After quickly double-checking that the man was securely bound, and in no danger of escaping, Vash jumped back out through the window and hurried around a corner. As soon as he reached the side of the building opposite where he'd left Marianne, he paused to catch his breath.
Nor was he a moment too soon.
"Bodyguard?" he heard her voice calling softly.
He waited until she stepped on some of the broken glass, and then he leaped back up onto the roof.
"Where are you?" she called, slightly louder. "Who are you?"
He cupped his hands around his mouth. He turned toward another building that appeared to be empty. She should catch the echoes of his voice, and have difficulty identifying where the sound came from.
"My work here is done," he said softly. "Farewell, Marianne."
He quickly and quietly ran across that roof and jumped to another, then another.
He heard her voice calling after him. "Wait, please!" she said. "I don't even know your name!"
He did not respond. He could hear other people rushing to the place where she was.
Far better for everyone that he not be found there.
She needed to return to her family, not get distracted by curiosity about him.
He reached his hotel without detecting any indications that anyone had noticed him.
He waited on the roof until his breathing slowed, and there was nobody nearby. Then he jumped down, and sauntered in and up the stairs to his room. He changed, packed his bag, went downstairs, checked out and turned in his key.
He walked out into the town, toward a section well away from the commotion where the bandits were being arrested by Marianne.
The gang had been stopped, at least for the immediately foreseeable future. He hadn't needed to carry any of them to the Sheriff's office, since there was a Marshal on hand to deal with making the arrests. She could arrange their transport to appropriate prison or medical facilities.
Most importantly, nobody had died.
He found himself whistling Rem's favorite song as he walked toward the edge of the town. He would sleep under the stars, and thank their Maker that he was still free.
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Year 1735 month 3 day 11, at Seeds Village
Vash finished his morning workout, and then went into his bathroom to wash up.
He'd read Marianne's reports from that night. He knew that she had credited an anonymous citizen for assisting her. Thirty years later, she had still been the girl he'd always believed she was.
He'd been fortunate to find another girl like that, years later. She was, perhaps, less beautiful in her outward appearance… but she'd been at least equally beautiful within.
Marshal Marianne, like all the others he'd known during the years when he was acquainted with those young insurance girls, was now taking her final rest beneath the desert sands. He hoped, for her sake, that her life had mostly been a pleasant one.
As he had done countless times before, he closed his eyes and let the tears cleanse his soul. It was the morning of a new day. He must set aside the past, remembering only its lessons and learning from them. He must live in the present.
Someone had once told him that "Today is a gift – that's why it's called 'the present.'"
He tried to live according to the wisdom of that statement. It wasn't easy. However, it was the right thing to do.
He smelled something resembling breakfast cooking in the kitchen, and his mouth watered. He wondered which of his children was doing the cooking, this morning…
He finished washing, and went out to investigate.
