Notes: I had fun with this, so I hope you do too! These characters, their personalities and objectives, were easy to merge and I'm trying to stay true to the spirit of Trigun episodes too.

Love! And! Peace! (and smithereens)
Ch 2, 'Field' trip


"On my Final Exam I was a messenger girl." The three were breaking the ice and well on their way towards getting acquainted.

"Communications Liason in charge of ensuing clear and precise informational ineterchange between coordinating personnel," Quistis corrected matter-of-factly. This girl knew how to write a job description, alright.

"Communications Liason in charge of telling our guys the party's over, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here, unless you want to park your butt overseas for the rest of your life," Selphie repeated, deepening her natural squeal to match the pitch of the older girl, and giggled.

"It sounds important," Vash said supportively.

"And it should have been easy too. But one Mr. Squad Leader had to make me chase him up and down cliffs and towers before he could get his message, and then we all got chased by a big evil black metal robot killer bug. And if we died, they would have had to tell my friends back at Trabia that I got SQUISHED BY A BUG, and that would have been funny if you think about it, so they probably would laugh and not believe it at first, but really it would suck to be dead, but then we didn't get swatted because Quistis fired at it, pow-pow-pow-pow-pow, and then we were all safe and done and we got to go home and party."

She paused precisely long enough to suck in one quick breath then exclaimed, "Hey Quistis, you saved my life, WOO-HOO!" With that, the triumphant redhead glomped onto the more dignified woman, and hugged her while hopping up and down.

Next thing they knew, Vash had to innocently join in too, and between the both of them Quistis was actually pulled up off her feet. At home, the Trepies hadn't been this bold. Too bad her maturity prevented simply Laser Eye Beaming them. Besides, her body wasn't geared up for a Limit Break right now anyway.

Instructor Trepe extracted herself, leaving Selphie and Vash jumping and hugging onto each other, quite a happy sight. Eventually the sunny-dispositioned girl slipped out as well, so the boy had his arms wrapped around two feet of empty airspace for a minute before noticing the difference. When he found himself alone, he quit jumping, played with his glasses, coughed quietly, and tried to regain his composure.

"So what did you have to do to pass?" Selphie picked up right where she'd left off.

"I suppose you could call it routine; I wouldn't really know since your school is new to me," he began in a humble "go easy on me" tone.

Quistis glanced his way, her lips a thin hard line. "(So you're new. Rub it in, prodigy.)"

"An instructor observed. I had to confirm the identity of a deceased SeeD-" He frowned at this. Hard. "Then I faced a couple of irate shrine guardians, held them off to a standstill and truce, then freed a trapped soul on its way to the Afterlife."

"Wow! You did all that by yourself? SUPER DUPER!"

"It wasn't really anything more special than trying my best," he modestly reported. Then he switched gears and hammed it up, trying to impress and win over the girls. "Actually, they tell me it was pretty spectacular!" Yes, they seemed reasonably impressed.

Then a troubled thought brought a fretful expression to his face. "One thing about those immortal earth spirits..."

"Yes?"

He gulped. "My body is now co-possessed by two tough blue minotaurs. Uh, should I be worried?" Firmly stationed inside his head, the Brothers Minotaur and Sacred laughed.

Quistis twitched. "(A SeeD who doesn't know what a Guardian Force is? Is he truly an exceptional prodigy or was the entire thing a fluke?)" She eyesd him suspiciously, hand resting on her chin, and attempted to size him up. Evaluating his true skills was difficult based on present behavior alone.

Selphie answered for her. "Nope. No problem at all with the spirits. By the way, when we met you haven't told us the rest of your name."

Vash opened his mouth to speak, then halted as the word inexplicably escaped him. He concentrated to himself a moment, and came up with nothing more than an echo of the Sacred brothers' deep-throated rumbles. Eyes popped and yellow-tinted spectacles fell off. "I can't explain this, but I'm having some trouble remembering."

Quistis gave a sweatdrop for pity on his behalf. The man was nothing more than an idiot savant. She was sure of it. And the SeeD trial had to be pure dumb luck. She'd have a piece to say about the state of Galbadia Garden's administration for letting this slip by when she returned to headquarters, that was for certain.

"(I know my last name is not really 'the Stampede' or 'Humanoid Typhoon' although people used to call me that a lot.... Come on, what is it really? Think, Vash, think.)" So far he had no difficulty recalling names, faces, and hearts of people during his earliest years, but this one fact eluded him.

"Until you figure it out, how about we call you Typhoon?" Selphie spoke up.

The legendary gunman was taken by surprise. "H-how did you guess-- I mean, come up with that?"

"You remind me of another soldier who I met. He's brave, funny, charming, handsome, tall, funny, cute, handsome--"

"Does this have anything to do with how you feel about 'Sir' Laguna?" Quistis teased and brought the fan of the man with the machine gun to a moment of quiet.

"Aw come on, she said I remind her of somebody cool, brave, funny, charming--" Vash murmured, pleased for himself.

"Anyway, his first name means water, so Vash should get a water force too."

The man tried to decide how he felt about it, and made up his mind that as long as the girl thought he was cool she could call him anything she liked.

Right about then was when the first round of monsters attacked.

* * * * * * * * * *

Off in the other party, Rinoa had her sights lined up. The little monster squiggled in place, waving its limbs, while she reviewed her pointers. Okay, raise her right arm a little more at the shoulder, bend her elbow a little less, hold her wrist down so her hand is safely out of the way, and move her left arm inwards so she can get her left hand on the crossbow's firing mechanism.... any second now....

And Zell Dincht popped in the way, creamed the wildlife with a single two-shot combo, and hopped back into place the second the beast died.

The monster's bad-boy buddies were deceased as well. In the final tally, Squall had decapitated one, Zell had hammered four, and Rinoa had fired one non-lethal shot dropping her lone target's hit points by a third.

"Squa-aaaaalll!" she whined. "He keeps stealing kills from me!"

"And she keeps bugging me about it!"

The leader in question sighed. "(No wonder Quistis calls us all children.)" Wait. Quistis? Was he missing her? Could be, maybe a little.

Whatever. If he was, he couldn't do anything about it right now, so he put it out of his mind.

Back to the problem at hand. Too bad he couldn't just tell them how to act-- shut up and fight monsters instead. Oh. He was team leader. He could.

"Rinoa. Shoot faster and you'll get more kills and experience."

"But I need to aim!" she pleaded, and stamped a foot.

"Then aim faster." Duh. "Zell."

"Yeah?"

"The next troupe of enemies, don't attack. Kill time by, uh, drawing magic instead."

"Oh yeah?! And what are you gonna do?"

A glance kept the Asian girl in view while she skipped ahead in search of dangerous critters to use as target practice. When she was out of earshot and critical risk of a hissy fit, Squall answered, "Keeping us both Cured while we get attacked waiting for her to fight."

"Gotcha." Zell nodded understandingly.

* * * * * * * * * *

~ Vash poetry ~

Animals do not have the luxury of free will. They move by instinct

whether it leads to survival of the race

or disaster.

But for human beings

can they truly claim to always have this privilege? When a person is hurting

or confused

are their actions then a matter of free will? Should it be held against them any more than one can blame

the harvest, treated with pesticides

for carrying poison?



Quistis and Selphie were ready to mop up the field with the first batch of monsters to appear in their way. Resolute metal of the whip and nunchucks flung out, each striking their owner's chosen enemy.

Incredibly, the creatures stood firm. They hadn't yet learned the devastating power of small, mortal humans. If the SeeDs didn't back down either, the fight would go on until all of one side died. Vash cried out, "You really plan to kill them?"

Selphie watched for her next opportunity to swing. "They're monsters," she shrugged.

"But it's not like they mean anything by it! Ow!" While he'd let himself get distracted, one of them had zapped him with Thunder, making his hair stand on end. Never mind, it already did that.

Quistis shot him a look while readying a Potion. "They attack humans and everything else. Their numbers are out of control and scientists hypothesize none of them are native to this habitat or even this world."

"That may be, but--" he began apologetically, "They're just animals who don't know any better. And besides, they're living creatures. Emphasis on living?!" But begging wasn't going to call the battle off. He had to step in and fast. From the hip he fired one shot, rising upwards towards the largest target's skull.

His bullet slipped past the side of its head by a free inch or two, and plunged into the Galbadian mountain range behind the line of monsters. The lightning-fast shell dislodged a stone the size of a human fist, plus its neighbors wedged alongside; as those rocks dropped away they took with it the support for the boulder above them. Granite the size of a charging bull pitched forward and careened downwards, and the group of monsters spooked and ran just as the low meteor whammed the turf where they'd made their stand seconds ago. The impact and fleeing creatures left only prints and an uneven row of flattened craters in the grass and soil.

"I think this is the first incident in recorded history that normal monsters ran from a battle," Quistis observed, bemused.



Da author: Share the love, man, share the love. REVIEW. Aw heck if I suck, say that too and STILL gimme a post! This is getting updated regularly, so I'll keep you posted too.