(Note: If anyone is confused about the character "Tessla," either pick up a copy of Trigun Maximum (Manga) or find a translation on the web. ^_^)
Chapter 8
Knives stood in the center of a ring of death and destruction. And, strangely enough, he hadn't been the cause of it. It was an odd feeling. The city of November's population had been decimated, and the killer had left the victims of his massacre out to dry in the hot desert sun. Corpses littered the roads, hung over porch railings and out of windows, and lay bloated in the large fountain in the center square. The wind carried the stench of rotting flesh for miles.
The two human girls stood in mute horror as the priest bent over each and every body, arranging their arms and hands in a peaceful pose and saying a brief prayer. Knives simply strode up and down the street, looking at their faces and feeling something he had never before experienced. He felt guilt. Why this was, since he had had nothing at all to do with this incident, he didn't know, but the feeling was there nonetheless. It frustrated him.
As he walked past a small house off the main road, he noticed a shred of red cloth hanging from the doorjamb. He carefully climbed the three steps of the porch and bent to retrieve it, but as he looked up he saw something which sent a jolt of recognition through him.
A young woman lay on her side, clutching a young boy in her arms. They were both dead, shot, like everyone else in the city, but there was something about this scene which struck a chord in Knives' memory.
Knives stood in the doorway, clutching his side and sobbing. Blood ran down the side of his face and into his eyes, and he could feel it running down the length of his long blond hair. Steve had been worse than usual today, and he was still following Knives, stumbling along the corridors in a drunken haze, calling for his little whipping boy to return to him.
"C'mon, ya little monshther! Why'd'ya haff to go runnin' away like that for? I juth wanted to talk a lil more." Steve's voice carried down the hallway, along with his cruel chuckle. "C'mere, monshter, c'mon back and we'll play a lil more..." Knives let out a shuddering cry and began limping towards Rem's quarters. If she wasn't there, he didn't know what he'd do... But she was the only one who could help him...
It took him another five minutes to reach Rem's rooms, and he began pounding on the door the instant he got there. "Rem!" He called out, checking over his shoulder to see if Steve was in sight yet. He wasn't. "Rem! Please open the door! Please help me!"
"Aha!" Knives whirled around and pushed his back against Rem's door as he watched Steve stumbling towards him. "Thought you'dve come thish way," slurred the drunken man, and he lunged for Knives. The boy tried to dodge out of the way, but the pain in his side slowed him just enough for Steve to get a hold of the front of his shirt. He lifted Knives off the ground effortlessly. Even drunk, Knives was less than half the big man's size, and the weight was no problem for him.
Suddenly, he heard a swoosh from behind him, and a pair of arms wrapped themselves protectively around Knives' chest. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Steve?! Let go of him right now!" The big man obediently released his shirt, and Knives found himself gently borne to the ground in Rem's arms. Her dark hair hung down around his face, and he thought that in that moment, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was his savior. "Are you alright?" Rem asked softly, and when Knives nodded she stood up, putting herself between the drunken man and the boy. Knives heard a loud slap echo down the hall, and watched as Steve stumbled away pressing one hand to the side of his face. Rem had saved him that day, quite possibly had saved his life. Who knew what else that man could have done to him?
But she lied to us, another part of Knives' mind reminded him solemnly. She didn't tell Vash and I about Tessla. She let them kill her, our older sister, and she might have let them kill us once they were done observing our growth. Once they deemed us enough of a threat.
Regardless, though, she did save my life, that other voice responded stubbornly. And it was my action that killed her. My choice to destroy the other ships. I signed her death sentence when I changed the coordinates in the computers.
Knives looked down at the woman with the boy in her arms and felt that gut-wrenching sense of guilt again. How many other mothers and sons had died this way, on his orders? How many boys had cried for their mothers in fear, just as he had for Rem, but had gotten no answer and had been slaughtered in their own homes? Knives sank to his knees and began to cry.
* * *
Meryl dragged her face out of her arms when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. Wolfwood was standing in front of her, his face a composed mask hiding the anguish and horror she knew he felt. Because she and Millie felt the exact same way. It was like seeing Legato's handiwork all over again. All of the people had been shot. All of them. They hadn't found one survivor. And supposedly Vash had done this.
Once, she would have believed it in a second. Vash the Stampede? The Humanoid Typhoon? The outlaw with sixty billion double dollars on his head who had destroyed the city of July? Of course he would be capable of this. But that was before she had come to know him... Had become friends with him. Hell, maybe she even loved the idiot a little. When she looked around at the devastation around her, memories of Vash flooded through her mind, of him scarfing down their donuts, saving their lives, shouting "Peace and Love!" and playing with children. She remembered him crying over all the dead and injured, and walking unarmed into hostage situations. And she remembered him shooting Legato. And him telling her to stay away from him, with those eyes... It was all too much. Vash couldn't have done this. He didn't. She had to believe in him.
"Meryl?" She looked up at Wolfwood, who was looking concerned. "Did you hear a single word I just said?"
"No... Sorry. My mind was somewhere else. What's going on?"
"Have you seen Knives? He's wandered off someplace."
"No. I've... been distracted." Meryl tried to avoid looking at the sea of corpses around her.
"Well, we'd better find him. C'mon." Wolfwood gently placed a hand on Millie's shoulder and steered her down the street. The big girl walked as if in a daze. She hadn't said a word since they had arrived in November, but a steady trickle of tears wound their way down her face. They ran into Knives about halfway down the main street. He was coming out of a small house clutching something in his left hand.
"I found this," he said as he walked up to them, not meeting their eyes. He held out the object he was holding. It was a shred of red cloth. Wolfwood gently took the cloth out of his outstretched hand and inspected it.
"You found this in there?" Knives nodded, his eyes downcast. Meryl wondered what he had seen in that little wooden home. Wolfwood sighed. "I'm going to go in and check it out. There might be something else in there that you missed. Another clue." Knives just nodded, and Meryl followed Wolfwood up the steps into the house. A young woman and a boy were lying on their backs on the bed towards the back, the woman's arm around the boy and the boy's hands folded peacefully across his chest.
"I didn't arrange these two," Wolfwood said softly. He and Meryl looked at each other solemnly, then they glanced out the window to where Millie and Knives waited. The man stood watching the sunset, his hands in his pockets. Wolfwood shrugged.
"Maybe our killer is growing a conscience," he said.
* * *
Vash sighed. He felt very tired, almost as if he hadn't slept in days, and for some reason he kept on waking up in the middle of the night and falling asleep again before the sun rose. He supposed it must have something to do with his being imprisoned. It must be messing with his sleeping schedule... not that he'd ever really had a schedule to begin with, of course. It was hard to keep a bedtime when bounty hunters kept knocking on your door.
"Hey Big Brawn- I mean, sir," Vash quickly amended. The man looked up at him. Vash thought he looked bored. "Any idea how long I'm gonna be kept here?"
"Until the job's done," Big Brawny said. Vash marveled at how the man could answer so many questions and yet not answer them at all. They had been playing this game for about two weeks now.
"Alrighty then. Say, how about we tell each other some stories to pass the time?" Vash grinned at him. The guard just scowled back. "Your turn first. Whaddya say?"
"I don't have any stories." Vash's face fell, but he brightened almost immediately.
"Oh c'mon, everyone has stories! Here, I'll start... Well, there was this one time, when me and this priest, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, were trying to help out this poor starving family, so we both entered a quick draw tournament!" The man sat passively through Vash's story, and he thought that he may have seen Big B. crack a smile once or twice. Could have been his imagination, though. "But I didn't get the girl," Vash finished after about a half an hour. "Her husband wound up coming back after all. It always seems to turn out that way for me. The only girls who are ever interested in me are either deputies who would have to arrest me or weird insurance girls who hit me all the time. Isn't that sad?"
"Are you trying to say that you want a prostitute?"
"No! Not at all, although I wouldn't mind, y'know, seeing a pretty girl, but that's not what I meant at all, I was just trying to tell you a story, and now it's your turn. Come on, you must have at least one good one." Vash smiled, hoping to encourage Big B. to open up a little.
"Alright, I'll tell you a story. I got chosen to pull guard duty once for this really annoying guy who wouldn't shut up."
"Wow, that must have been annoying. What did you do?"
"I let him yack and yack until he finally got tired of talking and shut up. Happy?" Vash leaned back and smiled.
"See? That wasn't that hard now, was it? I knew you had a story." Big Brawny buried his face in his hands. Vash figured he must have done that because he was so happy.
Chapter 8
Knives stood in the center of a ring of death and destruction. And, strangely enough, he hadn't been the cause of it. It was an odd feeling. The city of November's population had been decimated, and the killer had left the victims of his massacre out to dry in the hot desert sun. Corpses littered the roads, hung over porch railings and out of windows, and lay bloated in the large fountain in the center square. The wind carried the stench of rotting flesh for miles.
The two human girls stood in mute horror as the priest bent over each and every body, arranging their arms and hands in a peaceful pose and saying a brief prayer. Knives simply strode up and down the street, looking at their faces and feeling something he had never before experienced. He felt guilt. Why this was, since he had had nothing at all to do with this incident, he didn't know, but the feeling was there nonetheless. It frustrated him.
As he walked past a small house off the main road, he noticed a shred of red cloth hanging from the doorjamb. He carefully climbed the three steps of the porch and bent to retrieve it, but as he looked up he saw something which sent a jolt of recognition through him.
A young woman lay on her side, clutching a young boy in her arms. They were both dead, shot, like everyone else in the city, but there was something about this scene which struck a chord in Knives' memory.
Knives stood in the doorway, clutching his side and sobbing. Blood ran down the side of his face and into his eyes, and he could feel it running down the length of his long blond hair. Steve had been worse than usual today, and he was still following Knives, stumbling along the corridors in a drunken haze, calling for his little whipping boy to return to him.
"C'mon, ya little monshther! Why'd'ya haff to go runnin' away like that for? I juth wanted to talk a lil more." Steve's voice carried down the hallway, along with his cruel chuckle. "C'mere, monshter, c'mon back and we'll play a lil more..." Knives let out a shuddering cry and began limping towards Rem's quarters. If she wasn't there, he didn't know what he'd do... But she was the only one who could help him...
It took him another five minutes to reach Rem's rooms, and he began pounding on the door the instant he got there. "Rem!" He called out, checking over his shoulder to see if Steve was in sight yet. He wasn't. "Rem! Please open the door! Please help me!"
"Aha!" Knives whirled around and pushed his back against Rem's door as he watched Steve stumbling towards him. "Thought you'dve come thish way," slurred the drunken man, and he lunged for Knives. The boy tried to dodge out of the way, but the pain in his side slowed him just enough for Steve to get a hold of the front of his shirt. He lifted Knives off the ground effortlessly. Even drunk, Knives was less than half the big man's size, and the weight was no problem for him.
Suddenly, he heard a swoosh from behind him, and a pair of arms wrapped themselves protectively around Knives' chest. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Steve?! Let go of him right now!" The big man obediently released his shirt, and Knives found himself gently borne to the ground in Rem's arms. Her dark hair hung down around his face, and he thought that in that moment, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was his savior. "Are you alright?" Rem asked softly, and when Knives nodded she stood up, putting herself between the drunken man and the boy. Knives heard a loud slap echo down the hall, and watched as Steve stumbled away pressing one hand to the side of his face. Rem had saved him that day, quite possibly had saved his life. Who knew what else that man could have done to him?
But she lied to us, another part of Knives' mind reminded him solemnly. She didn't tell Vash and I about Tessla. She let them kill her, our older sister, and she might have let them kill us once they were done observing our growth. Once they deemed us enough of a threat.
Regardless, though, she did save my life, that other voice responded stubbornly. And it was my action that killed her. My choice to destroy the other ships. I signed her death sentence when I changed the coordinates in the computers.
Knives looked down at the woman with the boy in her arms and felt that gut-wrenching sense of guilt again. How many other mothers and sons had died this way, on his orders? How many boys had cried for their mothers in fear, just as he had for Rem, but had gotten no answer and had been slaughtered in their own homes? Knives sank to his knees and began to cry.
* * *
Meryl dragged her face out of her arms when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. Wolfwood was standing in front of her, his face a composed mask hiding the anguish and horror she knew he felt. Because she and Millie felt the exact same way. It was like seeing Legato's handiwork all over again. All of the people had been shot. All of them. They hadn't found one survivor. And supposedly Vash had done this.
Once, she would have believed it in a second. Vash the Stampede? The Humanoid Typhoon? The outlaw with sixty billion double dollars on his head who had destroyed the city of July? Of course he would be capable of this. But that was before she had come to know him... Had become friends with him. Hell, maybe she even loved the idiot a little. When she looked around at the devastation around her, memories of Vash flooded through her mind, of him scarfing down their donuts, saving their lives, shouting "Peace and Love!" and playing with children. She remembered him crying over all the dead and injured, and walking unarmed into hostage situations. And she remembered him shooting Legato. And him telling her to stay away from him, with those eyes... It was all too much. Vash couldn't have done this. He didn't. She had to believe in him.
"Meryl?" She looked up at Wolfwood, who was looking concerned. "Did you hear a single word I just said?"
"No... Sorry. My mind was somewhere else. What's going on?"
"Have you seen Knives? He's wandered off someplace."
"No. I've... been distracted." Meryl tried to avoid looking at the sea of corpses around her.
"Well, we'd better find him. C'mon." Wolfwood gently placed a hand on Millie's shoulder and steered her down the street. The big girl walked as if in a daze. She hadn't said a word since they had arrived in November, but a steady trickle of tears wound their way down her face. They ran into Knives about halfway down the main street. He was coming out of a small house clutching something in his left hand.
"I found this," he said as he walked up to them, not meeting their eyes. He held out the object he was holding. It was a shred of red cloth. Wolfwood gently took the cloth out of his outstretched hand and inspected it.
"You found this in there?" Knives nodded, his eyes downcast. Meryl wondered what he had seen in that little wooden home. Wolfwood sighed. "I'm going to go in and check it out. There might be something else in there that you missed. Another clue." Knives just nodded, and Meryl followed Wolfwood up the steps into the house. A young woman and a boy were lying on their backs on the bed towards the back, the woman's arm around the boy and the boy's hands folded peacefully across his chest.
"I didn't arrange these two," Wolfwood said softly. He and Meryl looked at each other solemnly, then they glanced out the window to where Millie and Knives waited. The man stood watching the sunset, his hands in his pockets. Wolfwood shrugged.
"Maybe our killer is growing a conscience," he said.
* * *
Vash sighed. He felt very tired, almost as if he hadn't slept in days, and for some reason he kept on waking up in the middle of the night and falling asleep again before the sun rose. He supposed it must have something to do with his being imprisoned. It must be messing with his sleeping schedule... not that he'd ever really had a schedule to begin with, of course. It was hard to keep a bedtime when bounty hunters kept knocking on your door.
"Hey Big Brawn- I mean, sir," Vash quickly amended. The man looked up at him. Vash thought he looked bored. "Any idea how long I'm gonna be kept here?"
"Until the job's done," Big Brawny said. Vash marveled at how the man could answer so many questions and yet not answer them at all. They had been playing this game for about two weeks now.
"Alrighty then. Say, how about we tell each other some stories to pass the time?" Vash grinned at him. The guard just scowled back. "Your turn first. Whaddya say?"
"I don't have any stories." Vash's face fell, but he brightened almost immediately.
"Oh c'mon, everyone has stories! Here, I'll start... Well, there was this one time, when me and this priest, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, were trying to help out this poor starving family, so we both entered a quick draw tournament!" The man sat passively through Vash's story, and he thought that he may have seen Big B. crack a smile once or twice. Could have been his imagination, though. "But I didn't get the girl," Vash finished after about a half an hour. "Her husband wound up coming back after all. It always seems to turn out that way for me. The only girls who are ever interested in me are either deputies who would have to arrest me or weird insurance girls who hit me all the time. Isn't that sad?"
"Are you trying to say that you want a prostitute?"
"No! Not at all, although I wouldn't mind, y'know, seeing a pretty girl, but that's not what I meant at all, I was just trying to tell you a story, and now it's your turn. Come on, you must have at least one good one." Vash smiled, hoping to encourage Big B. to open up a little.
"Alright, I'll tell you a story. I got chosen to pull guard duty once for this really annoying guy who wouldn't shut up."
"Wow, that must have been annoying. What did you do?"
"I let him yack and yack until he finally got tired of talking and shut up. Happy?" Vash leaned back and smiled.
"See? That wasn't that hard now, was it? I knew you had a story." Big Brawny buried his face in his hands. Vash figured he must have done that because he was so happy.