Chapter Twenty-five: Self-destruction
"Why the hell would anyone want to make so many different intersections?!!"
Vash whined in question as he realised he had been going in a circle for the past three minutes. He was fully clothed but that didn't change his extremely tensed muscles. It wasn't surprising he was so stiff because not only did he not know what was going on, but the lights had gone bonkers and a siren had started screeching across his brain just a few steps down the first corridoor.
He had frozen in step, afraid to move as he had thought he had been discovered - but felt no presence nearby and instead stayed balanced in his precarious position for thirty seconds or so before realising he was an idiot.
"Bah,"
Vash muttered when he remembered his ridiculously impossible position... what he found curiously strange was that he didn't feel dizzy or slurred enough to not be able to perform balancing acts like that properly. In fact, he felt very sharply awake - which only made him feel suspiciously alert. What was going on...?
Each step he took echoed about the metal walls, and after a few more minutes of the increasingly irritating wail of the siren and adjusting eye-sight of the blinking lights, the corridoor seemed to be widening out. Cautious, Vash's stride slowed to a slow walk, and he slid his arm down to his waist, automatically reaching for his--
"Naa?"
Vash patted his pockets and his waist with widening eyes.
"NAA??"
A sense of doom overcame him as he searched and searched himself for his trusty six-shooter, then his jaw dropped open as he thought,
'Oh CRAP!! That Rederine jerk probably has it!!!'
Devastated, Vash wondered if it was really worth the trouble finding his way back to the lab he had just been in when the doors suddenly made a loud noise of scraping metal. Startled, Vash watched the thick, metal doors slowly open, a dull gleam reflecting the lights from the huge room within.
A blip sounded through the siren, and the bright, flashing white lights plunged into a darkness so black it seemed to muffle Vash's gasp of surprise. Then, almost as suddenly as it had gone out, the lights were back on again, but a dim and disturbing glow of red. The siren wailed its last before dying into a low drone of a young woman's voice.
Ten minutes before self-destruction.
"Self-destruction?!!"
Four voices yelped in perfect unison despite the fact that most of them were no where near each other.
Count-down starting ... Now.
A laugh echoed from deep inside the room, and Vash turned to face the origin of the laugh.
Perched casually on a chair was Rederine the Temaski, smiling at him as he rested his chin leisurely into his palm.
"Wolfwood-san went down an elevator?? Is he okay??"
Milly cried in alarm. Meryl nodded, smiling inwardly at Milly's urgency.
"He's fine, just a little scarred."
Milly smiled in relief.
"Thank goodness."
She took a look at the cross leaning beside the elevator, and walked over to it. Setting her hands behind the metal cross currently devoid of cloth and buckles, she eased the Cross Punisher up gently. Behind it on the wall, a black button had been pressed in by it, and as Milly lifted the weapon up, the button made a loud click as it was no longer pressured.
Milly let out a small gasp as the cables in the door-frame started to whirr and move smoothly along its pulleys.
"Oh, I see. Wolfwood-san pressed in a button outside with that cross of his, and activated this elevator."
Meryl mused, examining the button. (A/N: While Meryl thinks that was mighty intelligent of Wolfwood, in truth, it was a complete coincidence.) A wall of silvery plastic surfaced, but slid sideways to reveal an inner, darker room that was lit very dimly.
"Then Wolfwood-san must be down there."
Milly said in a voice of concern, and then without a second's hesitation, pushed the large black button in with her palm, shoved the Cross Punisher into the elevator and hopped in herself.
"Eh?? Milly!"
Meryl exclaimed, and watched in half horror as the girl scanned the rows of buttons with her eyes and depressed one quickly. The door started to slide closed, and Meryl knew she couldn't fit in the elevator unless she clung herself onto the ceiling.
"Follow later, sempai!!"
Milly called through the narrowing space,
"I've got to help Wolfwo--"
The door shut and the silver plastic disappeared below Meryl's feet, the wind created brushing her fringe up.
"Arrrrggghhhh!!!!! MILLY!!!"
Meryl calmed herself down, and watch the black button. After a while, it unpressed itself, and popped out with a click again. She pressed it in impatiently, and watched the cables work the other direction.
She got into the elevator, but wondered just what button Milly had so confidently pressed when she noticed one of the black buttons was smudged with cigarette ash. Pressing it in, she felt her stomach tug slightly as the elevator sunk down, and closed her eyes.
Funnily enough, her stomach wasn't restored immediately, and still felt elsewhere.
I just hope Vash-san is alright,
She thought worriedly, although her expression said otherwise.
Wolfwood still didn't know where the hell he was until a loud gun-shot echoed along his corridoor.
"Vash?!!"
He yelled, running towards the closest intersection to the sound, and nearly skid just in time to a stop. The toes of his shoes were barely half a step from slipping right over the edge of a platform. The doors to the platform at the intersection were wide open, and Wolfwood took a moment to catch his breath.
The ceiling was a head above him, so he crouched a little as he crept towards the edge of the platform and peered over and down.
He was in a huge room - no, metallic hall - and chairs were scattered in rows. Below and near the centre of the hall, he saw a familiar red-head in a heavy struggle with Vash.
It was too far away to see specifically what was going on, but just as Wolfwood decided to try jumping down, he realised something.
He had been unable to break his way out of the elevator, and when it had opened, it had refused to go back up - or anywhere else - again. (A/N: This is because the black button was still depressed by his cross...) So he had marked the button he had accidentally pressed, and had walked along the unfamiliar corridoors. Wolfwood realised he was unarmed.
He hadn't a single weapon on him. The best thing he could do if he did get down there would be to body-tackle Rederine, but he was sure he would a)be detected and attacked before he even got there, b)even if he did get there he would probably end up being more of a hindrance to Vash than anything else. He hated to admit it - even to himself -, but the fact that the threads had seriously messed up his muscles remained, and he was still in the process of healing it.
Cursing silently, Wolfwood decided to remain where he was until something happened that required his help - even if it did mean risking himself. He just hoped that Milly was okay.
"You found me much more easily than I would've expected, Vash the Stampede."
Vash chose not to admit he had been lost and had found the location of the Temaski purely through dumb luck, and instead walked purposefully into the large hall, his eyes trained on Rederine.
"Tell me."
He said, his tone demanding.
"What the heck is going on?"
Rederine stood up from his chair in the centre of the room, and returned Vash's glare full-on. The smile on his lips curled downwards.
"I'm surprised. You really don't seem to understand what's going on..."
He shrugged carelessly as he stood up from the chair he was sitting on before kicking it aside. He pulled out a gun from a holster at his hip and aimed the barrel pointedly at Vash's head, several feet ahead from him.
"That doesn't mean anything to me. I'll kill you now, if you don't mind. Any last words?"
Vash let out a sigh, taking a step forward and putting his hands up in position of surrender.
"Maa, maa. All I want to know is why you just had to nearly kill the small girl and the priest just to get me. Why didn't you just take me in through force? Like what you did to the car outside the lab?"
Rederine looked visibly surprised for a moment before immediately hiding it with a twisted smile.
"How did you know I did that?"
Vash's features hardened to look more serious now, lowering his hands and looking at Rederine with a cool expression.
"You let loose a load of vibes when you whammed the car over. You're letting loose those same vibes now."
The red-head's eyes darkened.
"That was perceptive. I only let out my vibes, if you like to call it that, for a split second. No matter - it just shows how right the professor was about you."
He bent his chin down slightly, hiding a clear view of his eyes.
"As an answer to your question..., well, I can only use forces like that when you're unattentive. During that car-ride your mind was clogged up with emotions, so I was able to use a strong force against you without you noticing quickly enough to dodge it."
"The gunfire before that was a diversion to confirm my lack of sense, was it?"
"Smart of you to figure that out so quickly."
"I've been unattentive lots of times before. Why attack my... friends?"
"Now that, Vash the Stampede, is simply because I hate you."
There was a pause as Vash stared at Rederine, skin and clothing toned with red due to the soft red lighting, his eyes over-cast by a shock of hair but glinting dangerously at Vash through the shadow.
What Vash asked next, although it was more of a self-question, startled Rederine so much his head snapped up with widened eyes.
"Who did I kill this time...?"
He couldn't stop staring at the blonde gunman, who was looking at Rederine with deep aqua eyes filled with the two things he had not expected. There was a sadness beyond tears and a pain that went iles below skin-deep... but it wasn't enough. It was definitely not enough for Rederine.
"You killed my father."
He said solidly, and with that, he flicked his wrist up and pulled the trigger of his gun deftly. The moment he used to move his wrist in position was the second Vash used to move out of the way and forward, the bullet just skimming the top of his head as the crack of the gun rebounded on the walls.
Vash moved quickly; he shot forward towards Rederine, and in a swift move, brought an arm up and slammed it against the fingers Rederine was wrapping around the handle.
The gun stayed in his hand, however, but not in a proper grip. Gritting his teeth as pain sharply travelled from the wrist to the whole arm, Rederine jammed his other elbow into Vash's chest. This winded him effectively, but Rederine was forced to let out a sharp exhalement of breath, startled as Vash swung a leg in Rederine's direction, his boot whipping his ankle and causing him to fall hard onto his side.
The gun went off again by accident and caught Vash by surprise, the gunfire echoing again as the stray bullet shot clear-through his left shoulder. Sucking in a painful breath and clenching his teeth, Vash shoved his arm up to reach for the gun.
Rederine had been severely bruised upon falling so roughly, but kept his fingers around the gun and readjusted a proper hold on it quickly. He proceeded to scramble into a half-sitting position as Vash's hand stretched out for the gun, his fingers barely managing to touch the handle before the gun was pointed at his nose.
"Gameover,"
Rederine hissed, his finger pulling at the trigger -- but Vash did something extremely unexpected.
Knowing he didn't have the time to bring his hand up to clutch the gun, Vash opened his mouth and clamped his teeth onto the barrel. The few seconds in which Rederine stared in shock at the incredibly stupid act earned Vash the time to jerk his head to one side, the black metal lodged in his jaw, and the gun slipped out of Rederine's fingers and Vash's mouth to clatter onto the metal floor loudly.
Realising the reason behind the stupidity, Rederine tried to recover his gun immediately but was knocked over with a heavy punch down, feeling a tooth rattle as his skull hit the floor. In turn thrust his palm up onto Vash's chin, throwing Vash's head sideways before rolling onto his knees and scrabbling for the gun.
Vash felt warm blood trickling past his chin, but saw Rederine's yearning hands and reacted by kicking the weapon away with a boot, and with the same leg brought a knee harshly into Rederine's diaphragm.
Letting out a choked sort of gargle, Rederine took a moment to recover as Vash suffered from the effect the kick had had on his arm, as he had leaned on it while kicking. Blood was starting to soak his shoulder, and unhealthy amounts of pain were starting to throb through it.
Resorting to desperate measure, Rederine reached into the folds of his orange cloak and spun two smaller guns into each hand, and pointed them both at Vash.
Vash saw what was coming before the dull shine of the guns met his eyes. He slammed his right heel onto Rederine's foot to gain a little time, the halves of the knife in the boot clinking together. The pain in Rederine's foot delayed him long enough to let Vash swing his leg up and pierce one of Rederine's arms right through with the blade.
Rederine let out a startled cry as the unexpected knife sliced right rhough his fore-arm, the pain forcing the gun out of his left hand, but the other arm stayed trained a foot away from Vash's stomach. However, he had been so distracted by the knife he didn't notice Vash's other arm unfolding into a contraption he and the professor hadn't even noticed.
He squeezed the trigger and the bullet went off - and ricocheted away from Vash's left, a second bullet burying into the metal at Vash's right. Rederine's eyes were wide with shock at Vash's left hand which had quite suddenly been replaced by a black, rifle-like gun.
Rederine still had his fingers tightly wound around his own gun, however, and kept it steadily aimed at Vash's chest. Vash's left arm was pointed at Rederine's heart. Both guns remained still as the two men breathed heavily, blood staining more and more of Vash's coat and the blood from the corner of his mouth trailing past his chin as Rederine's arm dripped blood from where the blade had cleanly left it.
Their eyes bored into the other, droplets of sweat leaving their foreheads, their breathing growing no less laboured than before, when they heard hurried footsteps skid to stop in the opening of the hall. Both gunmen turned.
[A/N: Is this worth the trouble? Hmmm... Shall I continue? O.o; I have no idea! Thanks for the all the reviews. ^^;; This is definitely leading to its climax. Expect it to end in around two or three chapters...! Please R/R ^^* and shyah~!!]
