Chapter 9

Spoilers galore: Trigun Maximum 5, 6 & 13

A/N: this tale is all Manga related, not Anime, also a bit of an experiment, a slight deviation from the usual style of telling for this tale

I suppose I should have seen it coming, but by then I was too deep in the darkness to see greater darkness. I took the name Revnant Vasquez early on; perhaps I had an inkling then, that some dark fate was stalking me, and wished to hide my identity as Crewman Bill Conrad. When they found the ship and woke us from cold sleep, it had been over a hundred years since the great malfunction on the mother ship had caused what the settlers called "The Great Fall." My fellow cold sleep passengers numbered fifty seven, everyone else on the great ship had died unaware as it had broken up in the atmosphere. Of those fifty seven, only I was a ship officer, the rest were settlers. They did not understand the significance of having been on the 'mother ship' as relation to the Great Fall. Not at all. They were dismayed to discover the hard life to which they were awoken, but blissfully unaware that the ship they had been travelling on had condemned not only them, but millions of others.

The people of No Man's Land were crude, but helpful and generous with their knowledge of the dry land. They had obviously woken people out of cold sleep before, as they had a training regime, which they put us through. Practical things, like how to conserve water, how to ride a tomas, where to buy the best whiskey, and peculiar things like how to avoid insect contamination, where not to walk in the desert, how to spot the conditions for a sand storm, and how to fire a gun. Not having a gun on this world meant a vulnerability that most could not afford. I think it was the lawlessness which shocked us the most. Sure, we came from some hard places back on Earth, but never to this extent of knife-edge survival. By the end of the first month since our waking, four men were dead, one of alcohol poisoning, one by suicide and two by their own inept dulling talents. That was a wakeup call to the rest of us, we had to take this world seriously, or it would kill us.

I decided then, after observing the way things worked, that it was an opportunistic place. I was a cautious person by nature, and such caution could be greatly assisted by wealth. I was not going to end up scrounging the streets and earning my living as a salesman, or a gunman. No, I did not like the desert, and I did not like poverty, I would find a clerks job or something in banking where I could remain indoors. That decision held, and I studied accounting by night and participated in the various work-training programs by day. The Rescue and Resuscitation team, as they called those who woke folk from cold sleep, gave their newly awakened people six months to find their feet before moving on. It was towards the end of these six months that I had a startling revelation, given to me by the work-training program. I was selected, due to my interest in further study and intelligence, with a group of five others to visit the power plant for engineer assessment. I walked into the plant room with some trepidation, sure, I knew how plants worked on a ship, I had enough training as an operational crew member to assist with maintenance, but I was not a plant engineer. They had asked each one of us, hopefully, if we knew anything of 'lost technology' as they termed anything that had come with us from Earth. I had said no. But then I had not known how pitifully little these people actually knew.

My wish for wealth and a place indoors was granted the moment I curiously asked if configuring the system in another way would not only ease the load on the plants, but also allow them to run at a lower generation rate, while still maintain the same output. They stared at me as if I were some kind of heavenly messenger. By the end of the week, I had been appointed as deputy to the chief engineer. In retrospect, I was lucky, the chief engineer was a humble man and devoutly interested in plants. We worked together for the sake of the plants, not in rivalry and one-upmanship of the other's knowledge and expertise. I made a very comfortable life for myself, but as the years went by, the fact of my survival, and the peculiarity of the disaster that had grounded us on this world bothered me. I, along with the salvage team, often went to the 'mother ship' only I kept its true identity to myself. No one needed to know that it was the heart of the disaster, that would only jeopardise my position. I would spend time on the computers, browsing through the old logs, trying to work out what happened. I came across a series of peculiar commands that had been put into the ships mainframe under the auspices of Crewmember Rem Saverem. I even printed them out so that I could puzzle over them at home. I knew Rem. She was soft hearted and determined and had a stronger will than even I that the settlers found a good home. Why had she entered these peculiar commands that had resulted in millions of deaths? Perhaps she had gone stir crazy in the end, it sometimes happened. What a blight that it happened to the one person to whom we had entrusted our entire fleet. I tried to discover what happened to those who had awoken on crashing, but the local towns and villages all said they had found our ship thirty years back, but R&R had only woken us now, and no they knew of no survivors. Of course, the ship had broken up on impact, perhaps the rest of the people had landed elsewhere, been woken earlier and had lived and died before we even knew of our bitter fate. I never discovered anything solid regarding Rem's fate.

I think it was that that saved me the day he arrived. Odd that I never even considered him to be part of it all, though now it is all to very clear that he was the heart of it. A young man with blond hair and the most amazing blue eyes appeared like a ghost in the middle of my mansion. Sure he must have walked in, but none of my security had stopped him, and I had the best money could buy. This being No Man's Land, they were trained to shoot first question later if anything remained alive long enough to be questioned. I had requested that they shoot to disable, not kill, but was never sure if they took that request to heart. Yet there he was, sitting on my furniture, as if he belonged, waiting for me. It took a moment, but I recognised him, one of those peculiar children Rem had sought to keep secret. I always had an antsy feeling in my gut about them, those two boys, after what had happened to Tessla. I wondered if God would dole out punishment in this life, or if he would keep it for the next. I never quite expected purgatory on earth to be so awful, or so twisted. I knew what he was, and this was something unusual, as most people did not know the existence of autonomous plants. They looked human, and for the most part, acted human. Knives was friendly enough and determined enough at the beginning for me to go with him. But the moment he said 'throw it all away' in relation to my wealth, I knew I had entered the trial of my guilt. That and the insane expression in his eyes. That had shocked me to the core. What had happened to that innocent boy that had caused such a reaction? And what had happened to his brother, the one who had his back and knew how to read his more sensitive reactions and put them into words? The insanity put a stop to any questions I had. He asked me, as we were leaving, if any others of the crew had survived, I said no. I did not miss the strange haunted relief and furious anger, which swept across his face before he could conceal it again. I felt the intense rage for a second, then he smiled brightly again, and I realised that for an instant I had been within the hand of death.

I learned, during my time of travelling with Knives, of the existence of that brother of his. Vash was a peculiar creature, much like his brother in his subtle non-human nature. He'd become a wandering gunman, elusive yet somehow where he was needed. From the tests Knives asked me to run, and the analysis we did on his own body I gained an insight into how they operated as distinct from humans. For starters, they had a great power at their disposal and with that a peculiar empathic ability to touch minds and the world around them. I suspect that it was this that drew Vash to the places of greatest need to assist the struggling people, just as it drew Knives to the places he could best exploit. That greater awareness and existence in the world, as it were, fascinated me. I would have been eager for more research if I did not have the twin burdens of Tessla and Knives's insanity hanging over me like the sword of Damocles. As such, I kept a business relationship with Knives, I knew my place as his pet researcher and never ventured to push him, I allowed him the lead. In retrospect this was a mistake, but a mistake that allowed me to live, had I challenged him or in any way contradicted his authority I'd be dead. He was a murderer. At first I had thought him a psychopath, but as I watched his actions, I realised that there was something within him, something deep hurt and broken. If he could feel that, and cover it with the great evil with which he lashed out at the world, then he still had a very slim chance of redemption. I had my money on his brother.

I never knew what a disappointment that would be. Or how bitter it would be, but I knew the talents of the brothers, and knew how to school myself into calm. Knives had put out the rumour that I, Count Revnant Vasquez, was alive and an even more subtle hint that I was Crewman Bill Conrad. Yes, I had in my taste for the finer things, acquired a noble title to suit my station in life. It had served me well, until Knives had come. However, I was pleased for Knives to spread this about, for I too hoped to meet with Vash. I wanted to know how the other brother had fared in this god-forsaken world, and if that hope of redemption was real. And Vash had come, it had taken him three years, he was a bit of a dreamer and easily distracted by the hardships of human lives, but he had arrived on my doorstep. Only, Knives had approached his brother in an even more aggressive nature than he had approached me.

It was then that I realised that Knives had a stark awareness of how frail humans were. He only exposed me to the amount of power I could handle, as he held nothing back with his brother. But what he forgot, or chose not to remember, was that he had had years of the both of us working carefully through his abilities, and testing things out. He turned to his brother with all that knowledge and expected him to simply go along with it. When Vash first protested, bewildered and understandably afraid, Knives simply knocked him unconscious. He dragged him down the stairs for me to check his 'gate' potential. What neither of us expected was how badly scarred he was. I knew what life as a gunman must be, and that both of these plants had lived and fought their way through the past hundred and fifty years, even then the evidence was horrific. I knew enough to understand that on any human some were mortal wounds, yet somehow he had survived. Knives paled until his face was almost green with shock. I had to keep a cool head and went about going through the motions of placing the monitors all over him. It took Knives a full five minutes to come out of shock. My hope for redemption strengthened then, he loved his brother, despite his treatment of him. The next shock for Knives, and I must admit for myself too, was the magnitude of the gate. Vash simply possessed more power than anything on this world, and that included Knives. I watched as Knives checked the readouts that I had explained to him and hoped that this unconscious plant that lay between us possessed mercy as great as his power. And not only mercy, but love to balance it, for mercy alone can be cold.

I did not have the chance to see that. I was called away on legitimate business, plant engineer related. After realising that I would not run off, Knives had allowed me to keep the business up as long as I did what work he wished from me. After all I convinced him that it allowed me to tend to the welfare of plants. I did not say that it was the prospect of being poor and homeless that kept me going. I reconstructed the tale from the snippets I gained from Legato, he being closer to Knives than I. Knives had on occasion brought the waif with him, a strange boy with strange powers of his own and an almost worshipful devotion to him. More than once had sent the boy with me to keep an eye on me, he did so on this occasion. Legato was a quick study of human nature yet careless of it, he did not use it to charm his way into places, he used it to pick his targets. He had a penchant for death, but was so closely connected to Knives that I had only known him to kill at his masters bidding. It was Knives' suspicions of me that saved both Legato and I, and ultimately Knives himself.

Vash had awoken and had challenged Knives, pointed a gun at him. They had fought and again Knives had overwhelmed Vash with his power, only this time had coerced Vash into releasing his own. I saw the after effects of that. Legato and I piled out of the armoured car, on our return and stared. We were perhaps some of the first people there, fortunately. The entire city of July had been levelled. Legato cried for Knives and went running through the rubble and the wreckage, following that uncanny ability of his in knowing where people were. He found Knives bloodied and broken body and set up such a wailing it broke even my heart. I did not have much love for Knives, but his state was pitiful. Then Legato reared up and searched the ruins for another. I knew then that he was after Vash, should that other still be alive. If there was the slightest chance that Knives' brother had lived through this, I wanted him alive. I called sharply to Legato to help me, I would have need his talents. We could save Knives if we worked quickly. That focussed Legato onto his master to the exclusion of all else. We swiftly evacuated Knives' body and went to one of the lesser known of his hideouts, in fact I think that only Legato and I had been there. A ruined ship, with several plants still operational, yet no one had claimed it. It was very difficult to reach, but our car had limited hover capabilities, so we made it in under half an hour. We spent the next two weeks operating on Knives and discussing between us, who else we could trust to enter this sanctuary. We realised that without Knives we trusted no one. I left it up to Legato to suggest to Knives that he recruit those he could rely on in the future. That turned out to be yet another damned mistake of mine. I inadvertently allowed Legato to conceptualise the Gung Ho Guns.

With the entire city of July levelled, we entered a time of limbo. Knives woke on occasion, sometimes raving, most times lucid, but his body was broken beyond my ability to heal it. I did not have the courage to ask if his brother lived. There was something else broken in Knives, as if even he knew he had betrayed his brother, and was terrified that Vash would return from the grave to condemn him. He hid it, but I knew him better than most. I set up shop for a while in my home in May city, returning every weekend to monitor the progress on Knives. Legato despised me for this, but when he ran out of food, understood the necessity of contact with the outside world. The plants in the ship were solely required for Knives's life support. Legato took to wandering as the years passed and I learned then that he was buying and recruiting mercenaries with the money I gave him. But it kept him from trying to hunt Vash, or so I thought, so I let him have what money he needed.

Knives was a different story. In his lucid moments, it was clear he had turned his disgust and self-hatred at what he had done to Vash into further vehemence on his old enemies, the humans. Of which I was painfully aware I was one. I was glad for the weekly sojourns in May city, for it was here that I saw the first Wanted poster. $$60 billion for one Vash the Stampede. I have no idea how they pinned the destruction of the city on him. The only thing I can reason was that if he was as shell-shocked as I think he must have been, he probably wandered the ruins until they had caught him and pinned the crime to him. I showed the poster to Knives, thinking it would help. It did, in a way. He stared at it for a very long time, his face expressionless. He then began to laugh, with relief, remorse, or the strange mixture of feelings that accompany such reactions to fear and loathing I do not know. However, Knives gained a new determination then, a liveliness he had not shown in his former years.

He began to plan, and to plot with me as he had never done before, he wanted to be well again, to heal his body so he could walk the world again. The plan we settled on was completely insane, but one of those insanities which might just work. Our chosen place was Jeneora Rock, it was remote enough for our actions not to draw the authorities, and it had enough plants for us to take the use of one, and was overrun by thugs so we would not need to fight with the law. Legato had enough of an army by then to do things his way. The only problem we knew we would face was Vash; he would be drawn to the place. Knives explained he knew when his brother was up to anything momentous and assumed, bitterly, that his foolish brother would do the same. I had heard from Legato, that Knives had often massacred towns, only to encounter Vash who put a stop to it. They were drawn to each other. The more the years passed, the more I was ever relieved that Vash existed as Knives' counterfoil.

Jeneora Rock was a peculiar testing ground for all of us. My loyalty then was sorely tried. I watched as Legato's minions fell to Vash, and began to grow afraid, but knew that should he wish to take my life I would welcome a way out of this purgatory I now endured. Yet, when the time came and Vash found us, bloodied and missing his coat, he did not come for revenge. No, he came for his brother. Knives stood there naked, fully aware and fully functional and as insane as ever. I had had a small hope that the peculiar regeneration within a plant uterus would do something to alter his mind, but no. Then, just to show how little he had learned in his incarcerated state, Knives did the very same thing that ended him up immobile in the first place. He challenged Vash and activated his power. I had an inkling things were going badly south when he attacked Legato for sending the Gung Ho Guns after Vash, but never expected it to go so fast.

It was fortunate for Knives that I had my whole medical team with me to pick up his sorry arse and to scrape up what was left of Legato. Knives was too new to his body to have taken much damage, but he still ended up in several months of care and physical therapy to regain his former mobility. Legato was not so lucky. He was paralysed from the neck down, thanks to the actions of his master, and yet he still served him. I was sick to my gut of Knives, but knew that should I hint at turning I would be dead. It was cowardice in part that kept me with him, and to do what I could to protect Vash. For I knew now that only Vash had the power to stop him. A few of the other Gung Ho Guns had had an eyeful of what had happened, and were beginning to realise that they were not going to get out of this alive. I'll give Legato this, he did not recruit idiots. Yet, each move has a knock on effect. Knives kept Legato in control, Legato kept the Gung Ho Guns in line, each time any of them has a weakness and I contemplated euthanasia, I realised the potential destruction is too terrible if they are not alive. Every night that the fifth moon is visible I wonder where in the world his brother is, lost, drifting. The bewilderment and hurt I glimpsed in Vash's face made it clear that he did not remember what had happened in July, retrograde amnesia in a plant? It was frightening. It did not do my soul good to know how close to human they were in spite of their powers.

Then, finally, it came to a rather vulnerable request from Knives. He had been exploring the world a little more, and killing folk a little less. In fact, I think his attentions had shifted since emerging. Not that he was not still genocidal towards humans, he was, but he was more interested in plants. He had begun coming with me to visit power plant houses. I hated having him with me, but for the most part, he stood silent and watched. He would make a few suggestions after we left which I would try to put into action. He would never thank me when I did and I never reported back to him, but his demeanour on days that I had eased a plant's load made me realise that he could sense what I had done. This time, he took me through the innards of a ship reactor, which now supplied power to the city surrounding it. I felt my heart plummet when I saw the state of the plant he wished me to heal. The best, the very best, I could do was to ease her suffering at the end of life. I knew I could not explain to Knives that a swift death might be better than the lingering one he naively wished for her. However, the engineers that day must not have been able to sense their impending doom, as they chose that day, that moment while we were there to set the plant through her last run. Even Elendria, one of Legato's recruits and loyal companion to Knives, realised the announcement of a 'Last Run' was not good. Knives must have sensed the human's intent, but he did not move to leave. I watched the murder of a plant that day. I watched the murder of humans that day.

Knives turned to me, having spent his energy and rage and pain on execution. It was then I saw it, the one flaw in the plants, and felt a vast relief and hope for the human race. He had it too, this autonomous plant, his life was not immortal, the decay was beginning to eat at him also. I explained this to him, in hopes that he would begin to learn control, and perhaps stop running and confront the real reasons he lashed out so violently at people. One's own impending death tends to make people a little more reflective of their actions. Only, I had not calculated that Knives was not Knives alone. He was Knives, one of a twin set with Vash, and as recklessly as he lived he was somehow still deeply connected with his brother. In understanding his own weakness, he asked about Vash. When Elendria reported that Vash was in a worse position than Knives himself, Knives turned on me quicker than I knew to see it coming. As these last moments pass before my eyes, I realise that it is Vash on whom we must place our hope, only I had never accounted that his death might be the price of that hope. As for myself, as my life slips away, I am glad that the purgatory this side of life is over. I know that all I can only hope for in death is for many years of back breaking service before I see either heaven or hell. I did what I could in serving the most evil person in this world, trying to decrease the effect to aggravating, yet, I don't think I succeeded.