GUNS AND KNIVES
I think my
gun is broken. What a thought. My gun is broken. I'm Vash The Stampede, the
horrible Humanoid Typhoon who eats small children and spends all his time
plotting on how to do the most evil he can possibly manage in as short of a
period of time as possible, destroyer of July and wrecker of five cities. Or
was it six? Seven? I can't remember anymore. To listen to the rumors, I'm
supposed to be immune to such earthly concerns as broken guns.
Of course,
I suppose the Vash the Stampede of the rumors wouldn't be prone to running out
of bullets, be ovelry fond of donuts, utterly unable to hold his liquor, unable
to get a date despite being dashing and good looking, and incapable of killing
a fly without feelings of guilt and regret, and I'm all of those things. I'd
better leave the list off right there at risk of depressing myself.
I take
another shot at the mostly empty bottle of Wild Turkey, aiming carefully at
it's center. As expected, the bullet doesn't follow the appropriate and intended
trajectory, and instead misses the glass bottle entirely and imbeds itself in
an old tabletop I propped up behind it. On the up side, I hate to see a
perfectly good bottle of booze wasted. On the down side, this confirms my
suspicions that the calibration's off by quite a bit.
I take the
bottle and uncork it, sitting in a rickety chair and taking a long sip. First,
I was out of bullets, and let me tell you, finding bullets that work well in
this thing is a serious pain in the ass. My gun is custom made, only two like
it in the world, and when Knives made them, he clearly wasn't overly concerned
about the difficulty of finding ammunition that would fit a custom made piece.
I can find a good number of bullets that will work, but very few that
work well, which has nearly cost me my neck more than once. No sooner did I
find appropriate bullets than I realized that it's aim has got to be off—I'm
not quite hitting things I should in target practice. I suppose I
shouldn't be overly surprised—my gun gets used more as a bludgeoning weapon
than it does as a firearm and it certainly wasn't built with that in mind. Come
to think of it, I'm surprised I haven't managed to knock something out of
alignment before this.
I take
another sip and stare at the bullet hole in the plastic of the old tabletop.
Somewhere between three and six inches off; I can compensate for it, but I'd
really rather not. Over a hundred years of having my gun perfectly aligned and
calibrated are working against me there; with my luck, I'd forget it's out of
alignment right in the middle of a firefight and hit something vital on
accident instead of something non-life threatening.
I can't
allow that. I will not take human life. I have never taken human life. I'm not
about to start just because my gun's calibration is off.
I sigh and
stare down at the silver weapon in my hand. Despite all that's happened, I
can't help but find myself a little bit angry that I managed to break my
brother's gun. I mean, hell, more than a century is a bloody long time to go
without needing more than basic maintenance, and intellectually I understand
that. Emotionally, however, I'm angry at myself, and more than a bit ashamed.
Knives made this gun for me, and I damaged it.
Conversely,
I'm angry at myself for being angry at myself. For the vast majority of our
lives, Knives has done his best to make mine a living hell. In large part, he's
succeeded. He killed Rem, the person that meant the most to me—though
admittedly he'd meant to spare her for my sake. I know he's somehow tied up in
the whole July incident, even though I can't quite remember how. Everything he
does, believes, and is goes totally against what I know to be true.
None of
which changes the fact that he's my brother, even though I wish it did. I hate
him. I hate what he's done. I hate what I know he wants to do, what I somehow
know he'll try eventually. And yet I can't help but be angry at myself for
breaking my gun, because Knives made it for me and I should have taken better
care of it. Somewhere deep in my mind I'm still that child who's life revolved
around two people—my surrogate mother, and my brother—and those two people I
loved unconditionally.
I suppose
you could say I still love Rem unconditionally, despite the fact that she's
been dead for over a hundred years now. She haunts my mind and dreams, like a
guiding, guardian angel. She taught me, in that one short year, everything
there was to know about how to actually live ones life by ones own moral
code, and not say one thing and do another, as far too many people do. She gave
me the moral structure I've built my life on. She shaped me. Without Rem,
without her early influence, I don't know how I'd have been able to cope with
my life as it's been. Sometimes I can almost understand where Knives went
wrong. It's hard to live as we do, among humans, but not truly human, watching
them be born, live their short lives, and die while we live on, and on, and on.
Humans can be funny creatures; they rely so extensively on outside sources for
their survival, indeed, on this planet can't survive without them, that you
think they would take better care of what gives them life. All too often,
though, they don't. I believe—I hope—they do it out of a lack of understanding.
Knives thought differently.
Which
brings me back to Knives.
Being
twins, I suppose neither of us could be considered the 'eldest', but for all
intents and purposes, Knives is my elder brother. Once upon a time, I looked up
to him in the way a younger sibling admires the elder. Knives was always
stronger than I was, cleverer, more worldly. I was sillier—still am, and proud
of it—and more inclined to emotional outburst than calm, collected Knives, more
prone to brooding, and laughing, and crying.
I can't
remember Knives ever crying. He did showed real emotion once though, a long,
very long time ago, but it's been so long I don't know if he even remembers
what it's like to feel anything but hatred and the burning need for revenge.
I'm not even sure he knows what he wants revenge for anymore. Exterminating
the humans has become his life's goal, and in pursuing it, he's become like the
worst of them. If I'm emotional to a fault, Knives is horrifyingly logical.
Kill the spiders, and save the butterflies. It sounds so perfectly rational,
until you realize that by striving for it, you become a spider yourself.
I don't
know if that's ever occurred to Knives. What's worse, I don't know if it would
matter much to him if it did. Like I said, it's been such a long time since
Knives experienced a real emotion that I don't think it would bother him to
realize he's being hypocritical. He'd kill the humans to save our kind, but he
sees nothing wrong with planning to use our own brothers and sisters the exact
same way the humans do afterwards. To Knives, there is nothing wrong with this.
To me,
there's everything wrong with it. As much as I loved my brother, as much as I
still do, I can't reconcile my love for my brother with my hatred for the kind
of man he's become and the kind of man he wishes I was.
But I'm still
angry with myself because I broke my brother's gun.
Emotions
are damned complicated things. I take another sip from the bottle, hoping it'll
somehow magically sort out the whole mess inside my head. I know it won't.
Doesn't keep me from trying anyway. I'm stubborn like that. Besides, being
intoxicated can be damned fun under the right circumstances.
Of course,
under the wrong ones it just magnifies ones own feelings of hopelessness and
depression. Alcohol is a depressant, of course. The paradox of drinking a
depressant in hopes of elevating ones mood is actually rather funny now that I
think about it.
However, I
put the bottle away. These are the wrong circumstances, I know it, and the last
thing I need is to work myself up further. I don't need to go from brooding to
all out depression.
What I need is a gunsmith who can
fix my gun, and I've only heard of one that sounds talented enough to even try:
Frank Marlon. It's been years since I heard anything about him, but not too
long ago he was considered the most brilliant gunsmith alive. Surely if he'd
died, it'd have made the news.
I stand up, and re-holster my gun
with grim determination. Someday, I'll have to face it's maker again. I know
it. And when I do, it had better be in good working order, because I'm not at
all sure I'll be.
~FIN~
Author's Notes: Episode 3:
Peacemaker is one of my favorite of the early episodes in the series. I'm sort
of theorizing in this particular fic that part of the reason Vash doesn't use
his gun until episode Five: Hard Puncher, is because it's broken and it's aim
is off (which he states, in the English Dub at least). The one time Vash
misaimed and almost killed people because of it, he was extremely upset, and I
rather doubt he'd use his gun unless it's aim was perfect in order to avoid
accidentally shooting someone somewhere fatal. The relationship between Vash
and Knives is particularly fascinating to me; I've had a thing for exploring
spiritual and blood family ties lately. I'm the elder sister of twin brothers,
so twins have a special place in my heart. Even if they sort of want to kill
each other (or at least hurt each other a lot ^.^;;;).
Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun.
Well, that's not true. I own many, many episodes of Trigun and I own a growing
amount of Trigun merchandise, however, Trigun ITSELF is not mine and in fact
belongs to other people, and is being used without permission for the purposes
of entertainment only. I am in no way profiting from this. In fact, if you
factor in that I could be at work, rather than wasting my time writing
fanfiction, I'm losing money. Not that I have a lot of money anyway and
much of what I have is currently finding ways to spend itself on Trigun
merchandise, so you see, suing would be counterproductive! Right?! =D
…..Never try to write a disclaimer
at three in the morning…. x.x;;
