Disclaimer: No, I do not own Trigun or any of the following characters, except for the ones who aren't in the series ^_^ Enjoy.

Chapter 6. Victim

"Vash," Meryl whispered, worried. "Are . . . Are you all right?" Vash didn't answer. His eyes had grown wide and his hands were trembling as he stared down at them.

"M-Meryl?" Milly whimpered, sounding even more worried than Meryl had.

"What?" Meryl said, looking at Milly. Milly had begun to tug lightly on the shorter woman's sleeve and pointing to the ground. "Do you . . . feel that?" Meryl looked down.

"Just a small tremor-" Meryl was cut short as something was belted into the back wall, in the cell next to Vash's, blowing stone and rock everywhere. Vash, his bars being blown apart, had dove forward, pushing the two former insurance girls to the ground to at least attempt to shield them from the shower of rocks.

Vash stood and pulled the two girls to their feet and rushed them through the enormous hole in the cell wall. As they ran, Meryl caught up with Vash and said, "Vash, what are we doing?"

"We're getting Kate and getting out of here," he replied. He reached for his gun at his side and realized it wasn't there. He didn't stop or hesitate to return for it. Kate quickly caught up with them, as she was near the sheriff's place at the time, and they had soon made their way to the southern side of the caves (away from town) before they stopped.

Meryl and Milly collapsed on the sand, leaning against the rock and basking in its cool shade, however temporary their stay was. Vash spent his time peeking around the rock to look at the city. Kate watched Vash.

How gullible, she thought to herself, then opened her brain waves to begin another telepathic link with Vash.

'Forget something?' Vash tensed his shoulders.

'It was you.'

'Took you long enough. Not all Plants have an angel arm, you know . . . only a select few . . . actually, on Gunsmoke, only two. But Knives aided me so I had just enough power . . .'

'That's cheating.'

'What would you know? Look, I'm here on a secret mission, but right now I'm trying to keep your ass from getting killed. You may think it's impossible for a Plant to die . . . God knows Cal did, and look what happened to him . . . but you can die, Vash, and you will . . . when Knives is through with you.'

'What link do you share with my brother?'

'None of your business . . . right now. Just turn around and take your gun before I give it back to your brother.' Vash turned, Kate holding out the large, silver weapon. Vash took it, not taking his eyes off Kate, and returned it safely to his holster.

'Why does Knives do this? Why go through all this trouble just to get to me instead of giving me a direct confrontation?'

'Good lord, Vash, I thought you were smarter than this! He's trying to make Them suffer . . . for everything they've done . . . to him . . . to me . . . to Joseph . . . and to you, Vash. He's doing this for you. They'll die, all of them, even these two twits sitting by that rock . . . And he's doing it all for us.'

'But he wants to kill me . . .'

'That's none of my business or yours. I trust you shouldn't worry about it. Now come on. We've got work to do.'

Kate turned and began walking away from the rock. As her cloak and long, blonde hair was whipped out behind her, Vash spotting her brown holster, carrying his own gun's twin . . . his twin's gun . . . Knives's Angel Arm . . .

'And you did as you were told?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Yet you saved him?'

'Sir . . . I knew you wanted your chance at him, to harness the power of both angel arms . . . I couldn't just let him die and suffer there because of Rath's idiocies. Please forgive me.'

Kate expected to feel the power clench itself around her mind, like an angry migrain, but none came. She could see in her mind Knives sitting with his legs crossed, his hands clenched tightly over the end arms of his throne, holding back what anger he was hiding.

'And you still have it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Good. Contact Rath and tell him to follow you to Inepril. Also, contact Joseph and tell him to start with the plans. Kate . . . Just go.'

"Damn it. I take it Kate messed up," Rath said, lowering his binoculars. They stood on top of a small mountain, weathered down by sand and wind, and were looking down at the small group of people. Behind Rath stood Joseph, trying to come in contact with either of the other two Plants. "You get anything yet?"

"I think I've got something from Kate, but not from Cal . . . hold on." Joseph tried as best as he could to come into contact with Kate, who was walking little more than a half ile away. 'Kate, come in.'

"Reception" was a little fuzzy. Joseph hadn't had to use his telepathic abilities in a while and had grown a little rusty over the past fifty years. They were also a little farther away than they usually had to be without using two other Plants to communicate.

'Yeah, I'm here, what do you want?'

'I've contacted Knives-'

'So have I.'

'Then you know what you're supposed to do?'

'Yep.'

'Well . . . I might be a little delayed in getting to Fondreake.' Rath was looking down at then through his binoculars again, and Kate had stopped dead and turned to look up at the tiny little dots on top of the mountain.

'Knives is gonna be pissed when he finds out about it.'

'Yeah, probably . . . Can't you take it slow or postpone your arrival or something?'

'I'll try to stall but I don't know how long I could keep it up.'

'That's good enough. It's still about 175 iles to Fondreake, but there's another broken down Plant about 80 iles away from here. Maybe you could check it out. That might buy a little more time.'

Kate sighed openly. 'As I said, I'll try my best, but don't expect too much.' Kate caught up to the other three and continued her trek toward this broken down Plant. Joseph began to move to the east . . . straight for Carcasses.

The small group of people had stopped for a break around a large sand dune surrounded by loads of boulders. The shade was relieving to the two former insurance girls, but Vash seemed not to care. Kate seemed to be standing in the same spot nearly the whole thirty minutes they were there, staring out towards the west; the suns had already begun to set.

"Better get moving," Kate said, turning and walking the direction of the broken-down Plant Joseph had given her directions to go to.

"What? So soon? Can't we stop to make camp?" Milly pleaded.

"Noooo, that would take longer to get to the next town. Just come on, it's not but another . . ." Vash put a hand on Kate's shoulder.

"It would probably be easier for all of us if we waited for a sandsteamer," he said. As much as she hated to admit it, Kate was tired. She was, however, willing to keep traveling if it meant staying off a sandsteamer. It might take too long to get to the town if they got on a sandsteamer, and if they did get on there they'd be able to skip the Plant and go straight to the town, but that still might delay their plans and that would only piss Knives off much more than he was already and would be when he found out about Joseph's tiny change in plans.

But she was just . . . tired.

"Fine," she sighed. "The sandsteamer it is . . ."

"Joseph, what are we doing?" Rath said, tired. He had leaned back in the top-less jeep with his feet on the dashboard as Joseph drove through the desert.

"We just have to take a little stop, that's all."

"What for? We're supposed to be headed the other way."

"I told Kate to stall, don't worry about it . . . I've covered it. Just be patient with me, okay?" Rath sighed.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, just make it snappy, please? I'm trying to avoid Knives's bad side at the moment . . . killing those people back there kinda . . . you know, pissed him off . . ."

"To put it lightly," Joseph joked. Rath chuckled.

"Yeah, actually, that is kind of light on the subject." Rath wasn't a very big person. Being about the same age as Vash and Knives and the other six Plants, he looked similar to Zazzie . . . small, like a child, blonde, a round, boyish face. He was about five feet tall, give or take an inch or three.

Joseph, on the other hand, was much taller, about five feet and eleven inches. He had darker hair, very bright blue eyes, and was in love with none other than Meryl Stryfe . . . which was pretty much the main reason why he was doing this.

"Who is Meryl Stryfe?" Rath asked suddenly.

"What? I thought you couldn't-!"

"I'm new at this, but that doesn't mean I'm completely unable. I can still pick up some little thoughts."

"Meryl Stryfe is just . . . someone, that's all, but- hey! Why were you pickin' through my brain anyway?!"

"That thought just seemed to be in the air, that's all."

"Yeah, well, keep your wavelengths outta my brain, got it?" Rath chuckled again.

"Yeah, okay." They continued into the desert silently.

*Remember, words with ' ' around them are thoughts*

Kate couldn't hear a sandsteamer anywhere near, and had lost hope for it. She figured they'd end up falling asleep and then the sandsteamer would pass. But she knew that behind her Vash was watching for it.

"I think there's a station somewhere over there," Milly said after about an hour of sitting around.

"Yeah, I think you're right, Milly. Think we should go over that way?"

"Yes," Kate said at once. "Let's go." Without another word they were off, but only because Kate had started so suddenly.

"Hey, now, slow down," Vash whimpered. Kate did no such thing. She didn't even think twice on it, just kept going. They traveled only two more hours before they came upon a tiny town. It seemed to be nearly abandoned and Kate could since from here that her sister had died.

'It's dead.'

'Yes, I know,' Vash replied, standing beside her. Surely this wasn't the Plant that Joseph had been talking about? Kate thought about it no more before continuing into the city. The station was, fortunately, only a few blocks away from the entrance that they had come through. They arrived at the sandsteamer station just in time before the sandsteamer was heard in the distance. They waited eagerly for the mass of metal to stop in front of their large platform . . . and Kate noticed that only two other people were boarding.

Author's Notes: THANK YOU TO NO ONE! I really feel loved now *sniffle* no reviews for chappy 5. Tisk tisk. Am I not good enough for you people?! Just kidding ^_^

I play clarinet in our school band and I found the term Legato when I was writing punishment work for the director because I was talking (of course) and the punishment work was fifty lines of terms (and I had to write them five times each, the bizzitch . . . but anyway, Legato means play as smoothly as possible. ^_^ I thought it was funny.

And NO, Joseph and Meryl will not get together in this fic. I don't DO that with OC's. It's just wrong. J/k. But there will be some weird twists, more tragedies, tragic deaths, etc., so prepare for bloodshed! And even by . . . someone very un-expectant o.O