Blood Stained Barrel
"We really hit it big time angel. What did I tell ya? I said this man would
lead us to something big and I was right!" manifesto said so gleefully. He
continued to announce his great luck like he had been doing for 2 hours
now. Finally archangel dropped his bag on the ground. " You talk any louder
and your going to ask for some bandits to come and get us killed."
manifesto keeps going on with out a care to what archangel has to say. "
hey! Will ya listen to me already you old bastard your going to get us all
killed with your yelling!" Rodriguez stops his pronouncing and turns to
archangel. " Well it looks like your doing a horrible job as well."
Manifesto looks down at the bag that archangel had put on to the ground."
Hey whatcha got inside of here?" Archangel picks it up so that Rodriguez
couldn't look at it anymore. " It's a gift for Vash." " Oh well now I got
to see what is in that." Rodriguez starts jump at archangel in order to get
hold of that bag, but archangel keeps it held right outside of his reach.
Angel stands there watching the two of them fight and then she starts to
laugh lightly. Archangel stops for a second looking at angel almost as if
he was in shock. Manifesto takes advantage of this moment and grabs his
bag away from him and starts to rummage through it. He pulls out a large
red duster coat and a gun that looked a lot like the one that archangel
used earlier but was a lighter color. Manifesto starts to check over the
gun and notices that the name 'Vash the Stampede' was edged into the bottom
of the barrel. " Hey does this stuff belong to the stampede?" archangel
snaps out of his trance. " Umm yeah.." Rodriguez finally strays his eyes
from the items and then looks at archangel and angel. " Oh I nearly
forgot." He stands up and moves between the two of them. " I am manifesto
Rodriguez, and my beautiful companion over here is marlean, but we all call
her angel." Marlene smiles a little" it's just a nickname I picked up over
the years." " so what about you? What 's your real name?" Rodriguez adds.
Archangel turns around from them and looks at the city that isn't too far
away. " I don't have a real name I only go by archangel." Archangel
starts to survey the area around them. " Oh uh.. Say why do you wear
clothes like the stampede if you're not him?" Archangel quickly responds"
for one reason or another.. well it looks like we are going to have to set
up camp here for the night." " huh? What! Were are not that far from the
city it wont take us more then the rest of the day to get there!" " yes
but look at the clouds and the wind. A sandstorm is going to go right
through that city. If we go any closer to it we will get sucked into it as
well." Manifesto looks at the city. " Well at least we wont be alone." He
says as he points down at the base of the city as a small black line of
people in cars and on foot starts marching our way. Archangel doesn't take
to lightly to this and only responds with " great only more targets."
The crowd of people meets up with us but only greets us with guns pointed at our heads." If your bandits you might turn around right now because we are not going to give in to you." A lady says from the group. Rodruguies taking to action quickly responds" hey come on we are bounty hunters we after bandits not one of them." The crowd starts to agree with them but there was only one question from them. " Even him!" a little boy says pointing at archangel who does not look very friendly at the moment. " Oh don't worry about him he is our secret weapon for bandits you should see go if he so much as looks at a bandit they go running for the sky I tell you! Beside s this guy is as harmless as a fly wouldn't hurt anybody." " But I you just said that he was your secret weapon and is so deadly?" " Only to evil duh! " Rodriguez keeps fighting with the little boy but by this point everyone had agreed with rodgueies or were just flat out ignoring him. Either way they were safe with townspeople now. Angel starts to go in search for information. " So you people have trouble with bandits?" an old lady answers for her " normally no but every 5 years a sandstorm blows through our town and every five years with out fail bandits would come and take what they want from us. This year we have decided that we are not going to let them continue this year we take a stand!" " Well don't worry anymore because Rodguies, archangel and me are going to help you from the bandits!" the lady eyes dilate as she hears the name. " Archangel!" She turns to look at him with his cold malice eyes looking back at her. " So you actually remember me old hag." Archangel says to her with no sign of expression. The old lady starts to tremble until she falls over and faints. Angel holds her up, as she stays unconscious. She turns to look at archangel. " You know her?" people start to point guns at him again. "Something smells fishy about you." archangel continues to show no emotion over the matter at all. " I wouldn't do that you might make my friends angry." " What the hell does that mean!" " It means that I have not been traveling alone even with these two people. They follow me on the outskirts of where my eye meets the horizon. They have perfect aim and will shoot when they feel that I am at a risk." " you're lying! That's impossible for someone to do that! And besides what does that prove we still think that you're a bandit!" rodreguies stands there as he listens to archangel talks and he starts to realize on how he destroyed his planted guns. "He wasn't waving his sword around.. He was signaling for his friends on where to attack my guns." Rodriguez starts to yell out that what archangel is saying is true but is drowned out by the crowd of angry people. Archangel then starts to take hold of his sword and unshief it. " Oh no he is going to tell them to kill the crowd! I gotta stop him!" manifesto starts to moves toward him but the crowd of angry people continues to hold him down from moving. Finally archangel makes a vertical slash at the crowd and is shortly met by the ground before the people exploding. The blast was so close that the front line of the crowd fell backwards from it. " If I wanted your lives, you would be dead. If I wanted you money, I would have it. And if I wanted to be a bandit I would of picked a better target!" the towns people still didn't like the idea of him being there even if he wasn't a bandit. " You're a monster! What is wrong with you?"
" Hey boss isn't about time to get ready?" one of the bandits says while they are waiting in there hideout. " Yes but it appears that this year the great towns people have prepared for our visit. We are going to have to liven things up a little." The henchmen around look at him waiting for what their boss has to say next. " Gather all the napalm and bombs. It's time to show them the mean of being between a rock and hot place." His man nods their heads and start gathering their equipment. "It's gonna be a hot time in a dusty city tonight!"
Angel runs up to archangel and slaps him. The town's people gasp as they watch each other stare at each other. " How dare you treat these people that way and what did you do that lady!" Archangel takes out his sword and puts it next to angel stomach. " Tell me again why I let you two follow me." Angel stands there not showing too much of a sign that she is afraid of him. " It's because you don't want to be alone." Archangel's shrinks to pen drop as he hears this his hand starts to shake as he holds sword up." It's because you're just a child and your trying to not be alone any more." Archangel backs away from her as he drops the sword onto the ground. The crowd of people watches this silently and cautiously. Archangel murmurs a word that angel thinks was 'rem' and then falls over fainting. While the people did like the idea that this dangerous man was now under control no one said anything for a long time.
Finally Rodriguez started to talk to angel. They have a little argument about something that no one could hear. I remember hearing manifesto say something like. " You're doing it again. You know how much trouble this is going to be.." Archangel remains to stay sleeping.
It is dusk when it happens. All of a sudden charge, bombs, flares, anything that created sparks started to go off. It happened all around us. Finally the blasts faded. And the towns people were given there answer to what was going on. Behind the wall of fire was none other then the bandits that the people were all afraid of. There was only one similarity with all of them. They all had air masks, and they all were holding larges hoses of some kind that were connected to what looked like a fire engine. They could hear a laugh. It wasn't incredibly loud but everyone there could hear it. " Well how about that. This thing really is a fire engine!" archangel still laying on the ground in his sleep. The towns people started to wonder if making him faint like that was really a good idea now that this is happening. " Now you all have you choices you can give in now and only lose your riches. or you can die in flames!" the crowd of people cringes as the boss bandit talks to them. " No way! We're not going to give in to you" on of the towns people say as he lifts his gun up and aims at him. " I was hoping you would say that! Although it is kinda annoying scavenging your dead bodies for your items." The bandit gives the signal to the other s and they start to turn on the pumps to the fire engine as it starts to pour out a liquid. They put a match to the liquid as the hoses turns into flamethrowers. None of the flames hit anybody, but that didn't mean that the town's people did not like it. People started to scream and cry and panic as the bandits started to walked closer to them threatening them. Angel and manifesto began to talk to each other on a way to stop them, but none of it really mattered. All the screaming, crying, laughing.. It was all deafened out by the sound of 5 gunshots. Everyone looked around to see who had shot. There was only one thing that told them who did it. A small puff of gun smoke rising from the mass of people. Everyone moved away from the person to show that it was none other then archangel still lying on the ground, but hold his gun up and wearing a pair of yellow sunglasses with the left eye having cross hairs etched into it. Rodriguez looks down at him a little dumbfounded. " Hey I thought you couldn't shot for you life? And where did you get those glasses?!?" Archangel doesn't rely as he stands up and starts to walk to the boss. Manifesto begins to think to him to understand how he managed to shot right. " Those glasses! They let him am better.." The hoses that the bandits were holding then starts to explode going out of control. " Quick shut off the pump before we are all killed!" the boss turns off the pump knowing that he now has no threat.
The boss stunned by the site of the man resembling only one thing he has ever seen in his life. " Vash. VASH THE STAMPEAD!" "Actually no, I am not him; he is the nicer one of our kind. I am his big brother, but I assure you. I am the worse. You call Vash the humanoid typhoon. Well then call me the humanoid hurricane." And with that archangel lifts up his gun and aims it at the boss. The bandits start to shake with fear, but the boss remains to hold his calm. " Don't worry boys, I wouldn't be a good leader if I didn't come prepared for everything." And with that the boss gives a signal and another truck starts to T-bone the fire engine making it tip over. A hatch on the top of the fire engine open and starts to let out liquids. The boss holds a Zippo as he lights it. " Don't worry, the devil has no fear of fire!" the boss laughs at archangel as he tosses the Zippo at the liquids. Archangel begins to think to himself. " Damn, I haven't learned how to hit a moving target yet.." But he tries anyways as he tries to aim at the lighter as it falls. There is only one sound made at that moment. the sound of one bullet passing through one chamber as it travels to meet the lighter. It fails to meet its companion. The bullet misses as it hits the liquids and actually is the thing that starts the fire. The spark turns into a flame and that flame spreads faster and faster through the gasoline. People start to run from the fire, but what was ironic about it is that while the fire moved fast and was taller. The gas moved so slow that a person could easily get out of the way. And the span of the fire was much smaller then before. It wouldn't have taken to much effort to get around the fire. The bandits looked at the fire not surprised at all by it, but they didn't seem disappointed either.
Then came a shadow from the fire. It started off small but slowly it began to take the form of a human. That DID take the bandits by surprise. The human or at least the form of a human was archangel standing in the fire as his white duster coat started to melt and burn on him. " As you can see I AM the devil." And with that archangel raised his gun again to fire at the boss, but is interrupted by a loud explosion. He looks back to see large pillars of fire start to come from the ground as the fire meets a certain point. The boss laughs, " What did you think this is the best that we can do? This little puddle of fire?" Archangel re-aims his gun at him reminding him whose life is in danger. " Now, now there are people's lives at risk. You shoot me and other lives will be lost." " the devil cares not of others.." And at that moment archangel hears a scream from the fire. He recognized the person screaming. It was angel's voice. He lowers his gun as he starts to run back to find her. As he runs he can hear the sound of the bandit laughing.
Preview: (archangel) and so the wander and merchants traveled. Knowing how far they traveled to gather is impossible to know. Until one night when the wander had to make a choice. He had to decide on what his true path to follow. And to be honest.. He wasn't ready to make such a decision.
The crowd of people meets up with us but only greets us with guns pointed at our heads." If your bandits you might turn around right now because we are not going to give in to you." A lady says from the group. Rodruguies taking to action quickly responds" hey come on we are bounty hunters we after bandits not one of them." The crowd starts to agree with them but there was only one question from them. " Even him!" a little boy says pointing at archangel who does not look very friendly at the moment. " Oh don't worry about him he is our secret weapon for bandits you should see go if he so much as looks at a bandit they go running for the sky I tell you! Beside s this guy is as harmless as a fly wouldn't hurt anybody." " But I you just said that he was your secret weapon and is so deadly?" " Only to evil duh! " Rodriguez keeps fighting with the little boy but by this point everyone had agreed with rodgueies or were just flat out ignoring him. Either way they were safe with townspeople now. Angel starts to go in search for information. " So you people have trouble with bandits?" an old lady answers for her " normally no but every 5 years a sandstorm blows through our town and every five years with out fail bandits would come and take what they want from us. This year we have decided that we are not going to let them continue this year we take a stand!" " Well don't worry anymore because Rodguies, archangel and me are going to help you from the bandits!" the lady eyes dilate as she hears the name. " Archangel!" She turns to look at him with his cold malice eyes looking back at her. " So you actually remember me old hag." Archangel says to her with no sign of expression. The old lady starts to tremble until she falls over and faints. Angel holds her up, as she stays unconscious. She turns to look at archangel. " You know her?" people start to point guns at him again. "Something smells fishy about you." archangel continues to show no emotion over the matter at all. " I wouldn't do that you might make my friends angry." " What the hell does that mean!" " It means that I have not been traveling alone even with these two people. They follow me on the outskirts of where my eye meets the horizon. They have perfect aim and will shoot when they feel that I am at a risk." " you're lying! That's impossible for someone to do that! And besides what does that prove we still think that you're a bandit!" rodreguies stands there as he listens to archangel talks and he starts to realize on how he destroyed his planted guns. "He wasn't waving his sword around.. He was signaling for his friends on where to attack my guns." Rodriguez starts to yell out that what archangel is saying is true but is drowned out by the crowd of angry people. Archangel then starts to take hold of his sword and unshief it. " Oh no he is going to tell them to kill the crowd! I gotta stop him!" manifesto starts to moves toward him but the crowd of angry people continues to hold him down from moving. Finally archangel makes a vertical slash at the crowd and is shortly met by the ground before the people exploding. The blast was so close that the front line of the crowd fell backwards from it. " If I wanted your lives, you would be dead. If I wanted you money, I would have it. And if I wanted to be a bandit I would of picked a better target!" the towns people still didn't like the idea of him being there even if he wasn't a bandit. " You're a monster! What is wrong with you?"
" Hey boss isn't about time to get ready?" one of the bandits says while they are waiting in there hideout. " Yes but it appears that this year the great towns people have prepared for our visit. We are going to have to liven things up a little." The henchmen around look at him waiting for what their boss has to say next. " Gather all the napalm and bombs. It's time to show them the mean of being between a rock and hot place." His man nods their heads and start gathering their equipment. "It's gonna be a hot time in a dusty city tonight!"
Angel runs up to archangel and slaps him. The town's people gasp as they watch each other stare at each other. " How dare you treat these people that way and what did you do that lady!" Archangel takes out his sword and puts it next to angel stomach. " Tell me again why I let you two follow me." Angel stands there not showing too much of a sign that she is afraid of him. " It's because you don't want to be alone." Archangel's shrinks to pen drop as he hears this his hand starts to shake as he holds sword up." It's because you're just a child and your trying to not be alone any more." Archangel backs away from her as he drops the sword onto the ground. The crowd of people watches this silently and cautiously. Archangel murmurs a word that angel thinks was 'rem' and then falls over fainting. While the people did like the idea that this dangerous man was now under control no one said anything for a long time.
Finally Rodriguez started to talk to angel. They have a little argument about something that no one could hear. I remember hearing manifesto say something like. " You're doing it again. You know how much trouble this is going to be.." Archangel remains to stay sleeping.
It is dusk when it happens. All of a sudden charge, bombs, flares, anything that created sparks started to go off. It happened all around us. Finally the blasts faded. And the towns people were given there answer to what was going on. Behind the wall of fire was none other then the bandits that the people were all afraid of. There was only one similarity with all of them. They all had air masks, and they all were holding larges hoses of some kind that were connected to what looked like a fire engine. They could hear a laugh. It wasn't incredibly loud but everyone there could hear it. " Well how about that. This thing really is a fire engine!" archangel still laying on the ground in his sleep. The towns people started to wonder if making him faint like that was really a good idea now that this is happening. " Now you all have you choices you can give in now and only lose your riches. or you can die in flames!" the crowd of people cringes as the boss bandit talks to them. " No way! We're not going to give in to you" on of the towns people say as he lifts his gun up and aims at him. " I was hoping you would say that! Although it is kinda annoying scavenging your dead bodies for your items." The bandit gives the signal to the other s and they start to turn on the pumps to the fire engine as it starts to pour out a liquid. They put a match to the liquid as the hoses turns into flamethrowers. None of the flames hit anybody, but that didn't mean that the town's people did not like it. People started to scream and cry and panic as the bandits started to walked closer to them threatening them. Angel and manifesto began to talk to each other on a way to stop them, but none of it really mattered. All the screaming, crying, laughing.. It was all deafened out by the sound of 5 gunshots. Everyone looked around to see who had shot. There was only one thing that told them who did it. A small puff of gun smoke rising from the mass of people. Everyone moved away from the person to show that it was none other then archangel still lying on the ground, but hold his gun up and wearing a pair of yellow sunglasses with the left eye having cross hairs etched into it. Rodriguez looks down at him a little dumbfounded. " Hey I thought you couldn't shot for you life? And where did you get those glasses?!?" Archangel doesn't rely as he stands up and starts to walk to the boss. Manifesto begins to think to him to understand how he managed to shot right. " Those glasses! They let him am better.." The hoses that the bandits were holding then starts to explode going out of control. " Quick shut off the pump before we are all killed!" the boss turns off the pump knowing that he now has no threat.
The boss stunned by the site of the man resembling only one thing he has ever seen in his life. " Vash. VASH THE STAMPEAD!" "Actually no, I am not him; he is the nicer one of our kind. I am his big brother, but I assure you. I am the worse. You call Vash the humanoid typhoon. Well then call me the humanoid hurricane." And with that archangel lifts up his gun and aims it at the boss. The bandits start to shake with fear, but the boss remains to hold his calm. " Don't worry boys, I wouldn't be a good leader if I didn't come prepared for everything." And with that the boss gives a signal and another truck starts to T-bone the fire engine making it tip over. A hatch on the top of the fire engine open and starts to let out liquids. The boss holds a Zippo as he lights it. " Don't worry, the devil has no fear of fire!" the boss laughs at archangel as he tosses the Zippo at the liquids. Archangel begins to think to himself. " Damn, I haven't learned how to hit a moving target yet.." But he tries anyways as he tries to aim at the lighter as it falls. There is only one sound made at that moment. the sound of one bullet passing through one chamber as it travels to meet the lighter. It fails to meet its companion. The bullet misses as it hits the liquids and actually is the thing that starts the fire. The spark turns into a flame and that flame spreads faster and faster through the gasoline. People start to run from the fire, but what was ironic about it is that while the fire moved fast and was taller. The gas moved so slow that a person could easily get out of the way. And the span of the fire was much smaller then before. It wouldn't have taken to much effort to get around the fire. The bandits looked at the fire not surprised at all by it, but they didn't seem disappointed either.
Then came a shadow from the fire. It started off small but slowly it began to take the form of a human. That DID take the bandits by surprise. The human or at least the form of a human was archangel standing in the fire as his white duster coat started to melt and burn on him. " As you can see I AM the devil." And with that archangel raised his gun again to fire at the boss, but is interrupted by a loud explosion. He looks back to see large pillars of fire start to come from the ground as the fire meets a certain point. The boss laughs, " What did you think this is the best that we can do? This little puddle of fire?" Archangel re-aims his gun at him reminding him whose life is in danger. " Now, now there are people's lives at risk. You shoot me and other lives will be lost." " the devil cares not of others.." And at that moment archangel hears a scream from the fire. He recognized the person screaming. It was angel's voice. He lowers his gun as he starts to run back to find her. As he runs he can hear the sound of the bandit laughing.
Preview: (archangel) and so the wander and merchants traveled. Knowing how far they traveled to gather is impossible to know. Until one night when the wander had to make a choice. He had to decide on what his true path to follow. And to be honest.. He wasn't ready to make such a decision.