Duplicity | Chapter 2
Duplicity
Chapter 2 - Weapon of Choice
By theria

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Weapons have no emotions. They are simply tools to be used. Many people feel that the only use for a weapon is for killing. If it fulfills the purpose, why not use it that way? After all, it doesn't feel anything for the victim. No emotions lies in its frame. Do I want a weapon to kill? No, I want a weapon that I can use to protect. That is what I want.

*********************************************

Vash the Stampede, though not generally a household face, was at least a household rumor blown out of proportion. Okay, so maybe the damage wasn't exaggerated too much but tongues ran wild about his appearance. It was like any tall guy with a big gun of some sort could call himself the famous outlaw, er, ex-outlaw, he forgot the bounty had been removed, all part of being named a localized disaster zone, and everyone would believe him.

"They couldn't do a better job of ruining my good name if they tried," Vash sighed over a plate of salmon finger sandwiches, munching on them without much enthusiasm but refusing to let anyone else touch them. "And my jacket, this was a perfectly fine jacket until you had to put some bullet holes through it."

His comment was directed at the group of tied-up, bruised and hurting would-be bandits that the friendly locals were keeping under gunpoint until they could be moved to the long-unused sheriff's office doubling as the local jail. Since they didn't have a sheriff in this quaint little town of Warrens, the building was quite dirty and needed a bit of cleaning up, and some new chains and locks, before it could accommodate the misguided sheep of society.

"That was so cool!" gawked a young admirer complete with starry eyes. "The way you beat them up and didn't get hit by a single bullet! It's just like what you did to those bank robbers two years ago! I can hardly believe you're really here!"

"I'm not that cool, not with these holes in my jacket," Vash laughed weakly, putting a finger through one to emphasize his point. Another reminder that he was sorely out of shape. Well, one doesn't return to a lifetime and longer of conditioning after a two-year absence in a matter of days. Which was why he needed a gun, preferably his gun, in order for him to really get back into training again. That was why he came back here, to take up Frank Marlon on his offer. He could remember it like it was yesterday... Actually, it's been about a week.

*********************************************

"Well, I was thinking how we're such good friends, and seeing how you did fix up my gun last time I came through here," Vash laughed carelessly, if not a bit sheepishly with his hand scratching the back of his head. "I was thinking of asking you to make me a new gun, same style as my old one."

Frank Marlon, famous gunsmith who had shaken himself out of a decade long drunken stupor two years ago but still looked rather scary anyway, gave Vash a look that clearly said 'I'm not buying it'. He was a bit perplexed to see this blond, or rather half-blond, again without that distinctive red coat that made him look like a runaway from a carnival. Not to say that it was the clothes entirely that made the man but he appeared so...normal without it, the average Joe.

"What do you mean 'old one'? What happened to it?"

"I lost it."

Marlon looked up at Vash smiling as if he didn't have a care in the world. The gunsmith's grimy finger beckoned for Vash to come closer. He obliged, stooping since he was taller than the guy was. Marlon whacked him over the head a good one and turned away.

"Awwwww, please make me a new gun!!" shamelessly whined the grown man latched onto Marlon's leg, making it difficult for the gunsmith to take a step, much less walk forward. "PLEASE!!!!!!!"

"I can't work with a noisy idiot hanging around me."

Vash perked up at those words, ending the ridicule he was making of himself by getting back on his feet. "You'll do it? You'll really do it? Ah, I knew there was still good left in this world," he cheered, almost hugging Marlon in his glee but remembered himself in time. A piece of paper was slapped into his face. "Huh? What's this?"

"A list of stuff to do. Since I'll be working on your gun, you'll need to take care of these things for me. Consider it payment for my work," Marlon threw over his shoulder as he continued walking back to his place, the wheels in his head already turning to stamp out the gun design and needed materials.

"Whaaaaaaaaat?" whined the grown man. "But you said you'd do it for free last time~~~!"

"That was for a tune-up, not for a replacement!!"

"You're so mean."

"I can always not make the gun."

"Thank you so much for taking the time to fulfill the request of this humble petitioner, I shall get to work on whatever you want me to immediately!"

*********************************************

On a cliff side overlooking the town, a very familiar cliff side, a group of men sitting in and around a roofless car lounged and looked at naughty magazines. No, this was not the designated reading spot for such printed media.

"Hey, bro!!" called out a muscular, almost bald man with a star tattoo on his brow who was running up the slope to the parked car. "It was him! That red coat, broom head hero cowboy that screwed up the armored trunk heist two years ago!"

Yes, it was them.

"He don't have the red coat anymore and all he's doing is hanging around town. Some of the people say he's waiting for a gun to be made."

"Which means," snickered 'bro', the all-angular man who had claimed to be Vash the Stampede before, as he tossed aside this month's issue of that aforementioned but not titled naughty magazine to jump on top of the car seat. "Our little party crasher hasn't got himself a pretty, little gun. We'll draw him out here and get our payback!"

"I don't think so."

"Who said that?!?" 'bro' shrieked. His gang all shook their heads.

"Disgusting."

The nude woman on the naughty magazine's cover was impaled by a gray blade, as if it was only a piece of litter picked up by a pointed stick. The other end of the blade disappeared under the dusty brown folds of a cloaked person. Though the ends of the cloak swayed with the wind, there had been no sound of this newcomer's approach.

"Who the hell are you??"

"..."

*********************************************

An explosion rang out over the town, bringing people to their doors and windows trying to find the source. This was so they could do one of two things, run away in the opposite direction or run toward it to catch a piece of the action. It was a sad but true state of things.

The plume of dark, greasy smoke made it easy to locate the source of the peaceful day's disturbance. Now why exactly there was smoke coming from there, no one could really say with any confidence and few felt up to the task of rectifying that spot of ignorance.

Vash however was a part of that few.

Besides having the natural talent of attracting trouble, he was also remarkably good at finding it when the time called for it. Only a little bit out of breath, he hit the end of the slope where it turned flat, as if it was an empty stage awaiting its actors. The acrid smell of burned flesh and burning rubber were not delightful things to be tingling Vash's senses but tingling they were.

There was only a little wind up here, but it was all reserved to sway the tattered cape of the hooded person who was suddenly standing on one of the boulders. Perhaps 'suddenly' is too extreme of a word. Vash hadn't noticed her standing there when he came up. Man, he really needed to get back into training.

*********************************************

Two old people sat rocking in their rocking chairs back and forth, back and forth, back and...

Another explosion boomed from the edge of town, the same edge of town. People were beginning to wonder exactly what was going on up there. No one knew of any new mining excavations going on. These two old people though just nodded and grinned understandingly with all of the wisdom that is supposed to come with old age.

The particularly wrinkly and toothless old granny tried to cluck reprovingly but it came out more like loose jaw flapping. "Young'uns these days. A little smoke and they all go running for the closets. Why, in my day, I'd be in the rough-n-tumble quicker than you can say lickety-split!"

There was a hail of machine gun fire that effectively ended the old maid's turn at speech. Not that logically, they should have been able to hear that all the way down in town, but no one was around who cared enough to question it.

"They all carry around guns like that means anything. How many of them have ever fired one?" cackled the old man, some spittle splattering on his pale lips. Apparently, the two here were members in good standing of the old, senile, and decrepit brigade. "Why, I could shoot an earring off of a pretty girl's ear at fifty yarzs!"

"And blow her ear off with it!"

As if on cue, there came another explosion, signaling a switch in topics. A high-pitch scream, okay wail, echoed through the air.

"Good lungs that boy has."

"Sounds like a girl."

*********************************************

"Ti...Time...out...!" Vash gasped, trying to quietly catch his breath behind a still as of yet intact boulder. He hadn't needed to run around like this for at least the last two years. :Really should stop complaining about the two year thing...: Beating up amateurs in a bar was one thing. Running from machinegun-wielding maniacs in all concealing ragged cloaks was an entirely different matter. People don't normally just start shooting like mad at the first person they see.

The shooting had stopped. Well, he was kind of hoping that she had run out of bullets by now. He hadn't recognized the model exactly, mainly because his brain at the time was more concerned with telling his feet to get them the hell out of the way of that barrel. And then between the explosions, his little hunter was packing dynamite or something, and the bullet hails, he might have lost count.

Well, Vash was never particularly known as one to shirk starting a conversation.

"I don't suppose we could talk about this?"

Something kind of round and gray dropped on the ground beside him. Vash freaked out.

BOOM!!

Half-jumping, half flying, he landed in a dusty heap of arms and legs, all his and accounted for, on a reasonably clear and flat area of dirt. That was good. Landing on sharp rocks, with the sharp side up, was painful. His clothes were getting enough damage as it was. Oh look, a pair of boots...oh boy.

Vash smiled weakly up at a barrel of a machine gun, a slim machine gun model he had never seen before that almost seemed to be floating above the owner's arm. Now how could a gun just stay like that when only held by the trigger? The trigger finger squeezed ever so slightly. Vash prayed to whatever god there was that she was out of bullets.

"Are you really Vash the Stampede?" asked a cold, cold but definitely feminine, voice.

"If I say yes, will you kill me?" He was getting cross-eyed watching that barrel. A gun right now would be kind of nice. Though he was kind of reluctant to use a weapon on a lady, a lady that could keep him on the run for the last ten minutes most definitely earned his respect.

"Why are you holding back?"

Well, looks like she just skipped the ascertain-identity part and went right on to the grind. "Well, I think you can see that I'm not really armed right now..." It was hard to tell at times, when the sheepishness in Vash's voice was real or fake. He had perfected and used the act for so long now, even he couldn't tell the difference sometimes.

"Well, they did mention that you were probably getting a new gun. But I wasn't talking about that." If he could see her eyes, Vash was sure they would be boring through him right now like those lasers he saw a long time ago back on the ships. "You have another weapon. A hidden one."

Was she talking about the one in his arm? How the hell did she learn his artificial arm held a hidden machine gun, or for that matter that he even had one, a prosthetic arm. Well, used to anyway, have a gun in that arm. Let's just say something happened to that arm and the one he had now was simply a civilian model. Something else he needed to get fixed. Just as soon as he got his new gun from Marlon and this explosive-happy, trigger-happy, and yet unnervingly calm lady far away from him.

"Unfortunately, I've been disposed of it for quite some time. Would you mind my compliments on your model which appears to be quite stylish and still effective? I don't suppose you'd refer me to whomever you bought it from?"

The machine gun barrel lowered ever so more closely to Vash's brow, not that he could get anymore cross-eyed. It did however give him a very interesting view of the gun...and how some kind of metal rod seemed to extend from the palm of her hand up the gun. So that's how it stayed on. Hey, but then that meant her arm was also...

"Don't play games with me." A long thin blade ever so gently laid itself down across Vash's torso. If he was going to make any sudden moves, there was going to be some filleting being done. "Neither machine gun nor pistol could wreck the kind of damage you've done to the two cities and the moon."

Vash froze.

It was of course a perfectly logical conclusion for someone to come to, that no normal weapon was capable of causing such damage. Perhaps some people had suspected some weapon created from Lost Technology. Once they might dismiss as a fluke, twice then people may begin to suspect, add in a hole in the moon that everyone could see, then the ones who think know that this is far beyond anything manmade.

"So. You're here for revenge?" Perhaps that's how she lost her arm. Looking beyond the very obvious gun right in his face, Vash's sharp eyes pierced the shadows of the hood to look at his attacker. Angular, harsh even, lines on a face that looked too young for the detachedness written all over it. Her eyes, one a smoldering gray, the other a black and silver metal contraption that whirled and clicked, met his gaze without flinching. He remembered the eyes of Elizabeth, the plant engineer who wanted to kill him for the aftermath of Lost July. Those eyes were filled with sorrow. These eyes weren't. "Or...something else."

"You have a weapon, hidden somewhere on you, in you, that is capable of great destruction." Vash wondered if she was speaking, knowingly, of what Legato had forced his arm to transform into. Probably not but it was damn well close. "Eyewitness accounts from August confirm that you were not seen bringing or displaying any kind of weapon other than a revolver. Perhaps Lost July was destroyed by some kind of bomb. But no bomb could have marked the moon."

"You know," Vash said slowly, while his mind was rapidly trying to find a way for him to get out of his scenario intact, "You are the first person to confront me on that point. Most people don't bother; they just want the money. But you aren't in it for revenge or for money, so why did you track me down? Just to satisfy your curiosity?"

"You have not used that weapon against me even though I'm about to take your life."

"Well, to tell the truth, I dislike violence and have a personal oath to never kill."

"Your past brings that into question. You...are not to supposed to be like this."

"Sorry if I ruined any grand ideas of a diabolical and despicable angel of destruction."

"When a weapon is turned against you, it is only natural to fight back."

He closed his eyes. A small voice sitting in a corner of his mind remarked how this wasn't really the best place and time to be having this kind of discussion. Vash was still hoping he could talk her out of whatever homicidal impulses she had toward him right now. Even more, he wanted to know why her eyes, or rather eye, looked that way.

"It's the person that's wielding the weapon that would be hurting me. If I fight back, then that person will get hurt. I want to avoid that as much as possible."

"And if there is no 'person' but only the weapon, there is no need to play humanitarian. A weapon simply exists for its purpose. To kill."

Was it his imagination or did he see something flicker in her dark eyes? Of course, it could also be a delusion coming on from all the time he's been lying out here out under the merciless sun. Idly, he wondered if she was getting hot under that cloak, crouching just before his head with weapons ready to kill him.

"Weapons don't kill or hurt. It's the people wielding them that do," he said sadly. "Weapons by themselves can't do anything."

"But a living weapon can. A living weapon can only move forward, finding other weapons to cross against. A living weapon has no remorse, no sorrow. A living weapon can only...destroy. You are a living weapon, Vash the Stampede. You will fight me."

Little red sirens flashed in Vash's mind, signaling to him that this lady has been spending way too much time under the sun. Well, seeing what his arm could...turn into, that was a part of him, he probably couldn't argue that he wasn't harboring some kind of weapon. If it was a part of him, did that make it alive?

But it was more than that. A weapon, by definition, was something used to injure, defeat, or destroy. As much as he avoided doing the last of those three, 'injure' and 'defeat', yes, he's done plenty of that during his long life, even probably during the periods of time he couldn't remember. That was what he was always complaining about these days wasn't it, all of his training and conditioning shot to heck. Why was it so important?

Because he wanted to stop other people from killing each other, hurting each other, and he didn't want to die in the process of doing so.

So what had he done? He picked up a gun and learned how to shoot it, shoot it so well that he knew exactly what he was and was not hitting. He trained himself to perfection, because anything less would lead to mistakes, fatal mistakes on either his part or someone else's. So what did that make him?

A weapon, a living one.

"I may be a living weapon..."

And that was before the entire morphing arm incident.

But...

"But that doesn't make me any less...human."

He looked beyond her now, up into the endlessly blue sky. Clouds were rare, the environment of this planet wasn't a receptive one for their formation. Certainly there were never any rain clouds. He remembered seeing some back on the ship. My but he was nostalgic today.

Something akin to a rough chuckle, one from a throat suffering from long misuse or was that lack of use, rumbled through the hunter. Her body shuddered, the blade across Vash's torso cutting a bit into the cloth there, enough to make him wince. That gun barrel was pressing quite painfully into his brow.

"Human? What exactly is left...of the human? You disappoint me, Vash the Stampede. All of the time and effort I spent in searching for the only person like me...you are nothing...you cannot give me the release I've been seeking...you should die."

Vash waited for the foreboding and final squeeze. For some reason, he had absolutely no urge to try to escape, which he probably could, out of shape and all. There was something nagging him from that remote corner of his mind. It had certainly been quiet and still.

That cybernetic eye of hers, he wondered what it did, anything beyond the ordinary that is, was silent and unmoving. For that matter, she hadn't moved at all, not since coming down onto her knees to trap him between blade and bullet. Her muscles must be screaming by now.

"Ummm, not to sound pushy and all, but are you going to kill me?"

"...Kanon."

:Canon? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I hope she doesn't have a canon hidden somewhere. That would be bad. Very bad.:

"A diety who refrained from entering the final state beyond desire and suffering to save and assist others in reaching 'heaven'. A being of mercy..."

Vash was feeling really lost about now.

"Mercy comes in many ways, Vash the Stampede. I can no longer feel my arms."

Finally, he understood, what it was that he saw in her eyes.

"A mechanical heart can only last so long."

It wasn't for revenge or money or curiosity that she had come here, seeking him.

"There is nothing 'human' left in me," murmured a voice barely above a whisper, lips not moving. Or maybe he had imagined it. The cybernetic eye had long since ceased to respond. The other eye reflected nothing, nothing at all. Because there was nothing left.

She had come here to die.

*********************************************

"Just what the hell are you doing up here?" Marlon's shoulders heaved with the gulps of air he was swallowing. The walk up the slope was nothing to laugh about. He looked at Vash who was standing before one of several makeshift graves. From somewhere, Vash had come up with a grave marker. "Canon? You buried a piece of artillery?"

"Well, I don't think that's how it's spelled but I couldn't think of another spelling and I'm not even sure it's her name," Vash replied offhand. Now that he thought back about it, she had probably lost the use of her legs first, which was why she had knelt down. She died where she was, her 'inhuman' body shutting down. From what he could examine without doing an autopsy or something her body was mostly cybernetic and it had finally reached its limit. Like any 'weapon', once the parts begin to fail, there was only 'death'.

He would never know, or more likely understand, the reason she sought him out. She didn't appear suicidal but she seemed to want something like one last good fight. However, not anyone would do, it had to be someone like her, another living weapon. And he couldn't give her that, even if it was her 'dying' wish.

"Well, life goes on and all that. What are you doing up here?" Vash asked Marlon as if noticing the gunsmith's presence for the first time.

Marlon opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it, and gestured for Vash to follow him. They returned to town, to a clear dead end alley with a human-shaped target propped up in the end. The gunsmith held out something silvery. "Here."

"Wow, this looks a lot like my old one," Vash whistled in appreciation, taking the proffered gun and testing the grip in his hand. Same metal coloring, similar grip and barrel setting, six-shot, the only really noticeable difference was the barrel casing. Now it was mostly one smooth metal casing, not like the split casing of before, where the ridged portion held its little secret.

Marlon snorted as if there was any doubt about his gunsmithing ability, watching Vash run through some practice draws. Loading the revolver with a speed loader, Vash began making holes in the stationary target. Having not actually seen Vash draw and shoot any gun before, Frank Marlon's eyes were wide with surprise and appreciation.

"Not bad," he finally managed from dry lips. And if he didn't miss his guess, all of the shots were precise, all in non-vital areas of the body. This wasn't a gun that was going to be used for killing. Not that he ever doubted this strange young man whose name he still didn't know. "Well, Lightning, how is it?"

Vash's eyes were critical as he regarded his shots. Apparently, his standards were higher. "A bit off... Hmm? Oh you mean the gun? It's great, almost like my old one even. I almost thought it was," he laughed sheepishly, the earlier pensive look in his eyes gone. Then something, a thought, hit him.

"There is one thing different which I'm sure you noticed." Marlon held up a finger for emphasis and tapped the chamber above the barrel of the revolver. "Right here. I didn't know what it was last time I looked over your gun and I haven't figured it out since. Obviously, I couldn't replace it so I didn't use a split casing like on your old one. Seems I gauged the weight distribution right if it doesn't affect your shooting." The gunsmith scratched his head with his stained fingers. "I don't suppose you know what it was."

Boy did he ever, the scene from Augusta burned into his mind. It had conveniently slipped his mind when he asked Marlon to build him a replacement. Heck, even he wasn't too sure what it was, Knives was probably the only one who did. Wherever his old gun was now, he hoped it was buried under a ton of rock. No one should have that kind of power.

"Not much really, except that the person who made the gun put it in there." Out of old habit, Vash spun the gun around his finger and almost slid it back into its holster. The problem? He wasn't wearing a gun holster.

"You'd better get yourself something to carry that big lug around in. It isn't some Beretta you can keep hidden in a jacket or something. Oh yeah, there's one more thing." Marlon produced a long piece of string, each end tipped by a small round clip and one of those tips was currently attached to a wristband. "Now, you slip the band on your gun hand and the other end of the string clips onto the small hook I added to the bottom of the grip. This is to make sure you don't go losing your gun again. A Frank Marlon special isn't something to sneeze about."

Vash blinked, looking at the now string attached gun. He threw it out in the air and before it reached the end of its tether, jerked it back. It landed neatly in his hand. "Hey, cool!" He began throwing it around like it was a lasso or a very large yo-yo. "Around the World!"

Marlon whacked him in the back of the head. "It's not a toy!! Treat your gun with respect!"