A/N: Well…uh…don't have much to say other than this chapter is probably the most important so far when it comes to plot development stuffs. Read and review! I really hope I didn't suck with the fighting…
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Along Came A SpiderChapter Seven: CHERUB THE SERAPHIM
The boy standing atop the metal spire jumped, falling the twenty feet from his perch to land before Vash. The landing sent a cloud of sand into the air and made the boy's stolen black shake and the weaponry within it rattle. Vash was in awe at the presence of this boy; he came to the ruins of Augusta to stop a mass murderer, not meet a kid that claimed to be his nephew.
Despite the unease Vash felt, he needed to admit that the boy did look as he had, long ago during the short time that Vash was a size equivalent to that of a human teenager. The long hair was a bit different, but it reminded him of Knives's before he had cut it.
"Did you hear me?"
Vash shook his head when he realized that the boy was talking to him. "Uh…what?"
The boy 's eyebrows sunk as he apparently grew agitated. "Are you or are you not Vash the Stampede? You look as I thought he would, but I must be sure."
"Oh…heh, yeah, I'm Vash." This kid, if he is a Gung-ho Gun, is a bit more talkative than the others… Vash removed the cross punisher from it's resting place along his back and stood it up on the ground.
"So, Vash—Uncle—you came in the place of Father…I had hoped to see him before you, but there is nothing that can be done about it." Vash couldn't help but note the tone of disappointment in the boy's voice.
"So, um…uh, kid. Hey, you haven't told me your name yet…" Being deeply confused, Vash wanted to figure out what the Hell was going on as quickly as possible; his head was starting to hurt from trying to solve it on his own. He added, "And why are you here? You shouldn't been in a place like this."
The kid smirked. "Oh, so I suppose I must introduce myself. The others did it, so I must, too…" he stood up straight and proud. "I am the Leader, along as the fifteenth and final member of the Gung-Ho Guns.
"I am Cherub the Seraphim!"
Vash let out a sigh and slowly closed his eyes. He had hoped that he had been wrong, that maybe this boy, Cherub, was here coincidentally, but, as always, what Vash wished, he did not receive. He turned Cherub's words over and over in his head, and one piece did not make sense. "Fifteenth?"
"Yes…as you well know, Midvalley was twelfth member, Legato was fourteenth…" as cruel smile, one resembling Knives's, wriggled its way onto the face of Cherub. "And the friend that you and the women held so dear and close, the priest clad in black, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, was the thirteenth member of the Gung-Ho Guns."
"What?! Th-that can't be true!" the words Vash spoke were meant to argue against Cherub's words as much as they were to convince himself that the boy was wrong or lying. But, no. Vash knew now the truth, but all along the thought was in the back of his mind. The thought sprung up when Wolfwood, right before his death, had told him where to find Knives. Only a Gung-Ho Gun would know anything about him, but Vash had hoped otherwise.
"Yes, the priest was one of us, rather, one of them. Chapel the Evergreen announced it too him soon before Legato used the body of the Evergreen to kill the priest."
"It doesn't matter," Vash began slowly, "what Wolfwood was. The only thing that matters is who he was. He was Nicholas D. Wolfwood, he was a great man, and he was a close friend. He was brave and did what he could to help people."
Cherub snorted, "And look at where that got him. He was as flimsy and dense as any other human, and now he is dead, just as the others you killed. You are the murderer of the Gung-Ho Guns, who were to be my toys if it wasn't for your insatiable need to get in their way."
"I…I didn't kill them!" he protested.
"In what way do you think yourself free of the responsibility of their deaths? They died because they lost to you. You killed them all, from Monev, to the child Zazie; from Midvalley to Miss Dominique. And of course, because of you, your friend Nicholas died, and soon after, you shot Mister Bluesummers straight through the skull.
"You, Vash the Stampede, are the Slayer of the Gung-Ho Guns!"
"I had no control over what happened to them! I had no choice to kill Legato, and I could not help Wolfwood!" anger and sadness, spawned by the uprooted memories that had been buried, seeped into Vash. This child, this so-called 'Leader of the Gung-Ho Guns' pressed each and everyone of Vash's buttons, as if they had argued many times before and Cherub had grown accustomed to enraging the man.
Sighing and shaking his head, Cherub's smile turned to a frown. His eyes were closed and he spoke thoughtfully. "You will never admit the truth to yourself, will you?" his eyes opened, staring into Vash's. "But, it does not matter now. You are here, and you posses something that I must have." He reached his hand out, "Give me your weapon. I must have it."
"What?! Don't you think you have enough weapons in that big coat of yours?"
"These pale in comparison to the weapon that you wield! The gun that carved the hole into the Fifth Moon, give it to me! I AM INCOMPLETE WITH OUT IT!" at this point, the kid was shouting his lungs out at Vash, but had not taken a step closer, keeping the space between them roughly ten yars.
"Sorry, but I hate the fact that I have to carry this thing around. I'm not going to let you have it."
Cherub, with obvious disappointment in his face, lowered his arm to his side. "Very well, Uncle. If this is the way you want it, then so be it." Vash saw the movement that Cherub made: a slight and quick jerk of his arm that would have been invisible to anyone else.
Seeing this as quickly as he did, Vash had time to leap behind a nearby pile of twisted metal before the guns that Cherub had pulled out of his sleeves could find their mark. The sound of bullets against steel echoed behind Vash, but the noise soon stopped. Sparing a glance around his shield, he saw the cross punisher, which had been knocked to the ground by the onslaught, but there was no Cherub.
The sound of a single, light tap entered Vash's ear and he rolled forward, twisting as he did so, so to bring his front to face his former hiding place. His revolver in hand, he fired at the figure standing atop the rubble. The single bullet the man fired made contact with the gun in Cherub's left hand, sending it into the air, then landing atop the pile, hidden among the shards of metal.
Not close to victory, Vash scrambled onto his feet and ran, just as bullets from the remaining gun, identical to the first and grasped with Cherub's right hand, shot forth and struck the ground that he had been on. Rushing to a nearby building, Vash shot out a window and jumped through into the building.
He turned and aimed out the hole that he had used for his entrance, expecting to see the boy rushing over, but instead Cherub leapt from his spot, and landed onto the ground, still a good fifty feels from Vash. The boy pulled something from one of the pockets in his coat, and pitched it with all his strength…right into Vash's face.
"Ow! Damn, that was a good shot…" he said while inspecting his forehead with a finger, checking for lumps or a wound. His eyes settled onto the ovoid metallic object Cherub had pummeled him with. Vash's eyes shot wide open in fear, "Shit!" he leapt out the window and back onto the street, scrambling for cover as the grenade detonated behind him.
As he stood still as stone, Vash listened for any signs of the absent Cherub. There were none. Wandering alone down the street, Vash kept his gun in hand. The last sliver of light from the second sun disappeared over the horizon, bathing the town in the light of two full moons.
"Why do you fight?"
The words startled Vash and he spun in a quick circle, while bringing his weapon to bare on the shadowed figure standing atop one of the few erect buildings. The figure was obviously Cherub, although the light of the Fifth Moon, which hung behind the boy, made it impossible to see his features clearly.
The shadowy figure, surrounded by the bloody light of the moon, stared down at Vash. The sight of Cherub's silhouette against the moon—the same moon he had carved the crater into—unsettled him. "What do you mean?" Vash responded.
"Why do fight against me? Why do you fight Father? Why do you fight for them?"
Vash knew right off where the conversation was heading. "Not this again…" he mumbled to himself. "I have told Knives enough times," now speaking directly to the shadow, "People don't deserve to die; we are not better than them; we do not make the choice of who lives and dies."
It was many moments until Cherub replied, "You, along with Father, are Plants. You are greater than any human." The statement was laced with deep confusion; the boy was truly puzzled by Vash.
"That's not true. You seem smart, you should be able to figure that out for yourself."
"…humans have enslaved us. Only you and Father were born into this world with free will…"
"But that does not mean anything!" Vash was hoping that, with a little more prying, he could change Cherub's mind. With any luck, there would be no reason to fight any longer.
Cherub stood silently, and as he did so, the crimson moon lifted higher into the sky, revealing his face to Vash. It was a glazed look that he had in his eyes, one of almost frighteningly deep thought.
The look in the boy's eyes disappeared as he laid his eyes onto Vash. "You hugged one of them?"
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"You hugged, you touched a human…and it was one of affection."
Confused, Vash stared at the boy. Is he talking about me and Meryl? But…how could he possibly… "What are you talking about?"
Nothing more than contempt was in Cherub's eyes as he responded, "The short human. The female with black hair, the one you know as Meryl Stryfe."
Taking a step back in shock, Vash took a moment to speak. "How do you know…"
A short, abrupt laugh was Cherub's only vocal reply. A voice appeared in Vash's skull, "You're mind is nothing more than an open book to me." Vash gasped and quickly used his own powers to create a wall to block the boy's prying consciousness. "It's not very nice to read other people's memories."
"No matter. I could tear that wall of yours down and expose you to every nightmare stored within that bucket of trash you call your mind, but I won't do that. I don't want to risk finding a more sickening thought or memory you have of that thing."
"She is not a thing!" Vash argued. "She is living and breathing, and—"
"Tell me, Uncle," Cherub said, interrupting Vash, "Can you answer me this riddle?
"Humans change their surroundings, they destroy their world and the things in it for what they think is their own personal gain. They do this over and over, annihilating their own life source in a selfish urge to live and consume.
"Tell me, Uncle, what is the only other creature in the universe that does the same?" Vash didn't bother guessing. "It is easy. Will you answer? No? Fine…
"The only other being that destroys their surroundings in what seems to be an attempt to live are none other than viruses. Humans have more in common with them than they do chimps!
"Humans are not animals. They are neither mammals nor primates! THEY ARE VIRUSES!"
"That is not completely true!" Vash's voice sounded more of a plea than anything else, "Grant it, many humans do seem to prove what you say, but many, many more don't act the way you think they do!"
"You're even more stubborn than I thought you would be. You are no uncle of mine, you are no better than a human, and if you did not wish to change, then you never will." Cherub tossed three tiny balls at Vash, who tried to duck from them, but was caught in the cloud created by the smoke bombs.
As he coughed, Vash shot into the cloud aimlessly, hoping to keep his opponent away from him. As the dust settled, Vash soon realized that Cherub had not used the smoke as cover to attack him, but as a distraction so he could grad a new weapon: a long steel pole from a pile of debris atop the building.
Lifting up his right hand, Vash revealed his hidden machine gun as Cherub rushed to the edge of the building. He shot a few rounds, but the boy did not jump with his legs alone, using, instead, the rod as a make-shift pole-vault, flying into the air, his long hair and coat flowing behind him.
Cherub the Seraphim flew threw the air with the steel lance, and as he fell towards Vash the Stampede, who was trying to get a non-lethal shot off at him, stuck his staff out. He fell towards Vash, and the lance entered the man's left bicep, puncturing the arm and stabbing into the earth behind him.
Vash let out a yelp of pain and dropped his revolver. Although it was a prosthetic limb, it was created with a fake nervous system so that Vash would have more control over it and it would be as close to a replacement for a real arm as it possibly could. Thanks, Doc…he thought as he grabbed the wound that was seeping a type of black fluid that flowed in the robotic arm.
Ignoring his victory completely, Cherub walked past Vash, towards the gun the Stampede had dropped. Picking it up as if it was some type of tiny animal, Cherub held it before him. "Finally…the weapon that gave the name 'Stampede' to you, along with the title 'Humanoid Typhoon'." He cackled, "and now it is mine! I will finally be complete!"
As he looked on stunned, Vash clutched the 'blood' of his wounded arm. The steel pole had hit something important on its way through, since he could no longer move the hand or fingers of that arm.
"Finally…" Cherub spoke wistfully to the gun, "I will no longer be stuck in this human form…" He pointed the gun at Vash. "I am the most powerful being on Gunsmoke now!"
"It's always charming to see a boy your age with a nice healthy self-esteem."
"I will exterminate the viruses! But, first, I will show you the true power that I wield, and why I am greater than the humans…and greater than even you, Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon!"
With his newly earned possession in hand, Cherub snapped his fingers. Two pieces of the gun fell, revealing the dark, cackling light inside of the chamber.
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I sat in a large room that made up most of the apartment that I was forced to share with the two human females. They were also in the room, each ignoring me. The short one was busy hammering away at her typewriter. Damn that machine…click after click after click. I was wanted to throw it out a window, but I refrained from doing so. Why, I do not know.
As for the other, Millie had been unusually out of character since she had attacked me many days before. Her new routing consisted of sitting and sulking, and when she had to move, she just moped around the apartment.
"He went to find my demon, did he not?"
My voice made the short woman stop her work, but Millie had no noticeable reaction. She soon resumed typing and I let out a snort of laughter. The human slammed her hands against her typewriter and glared at me. She quickly stomped her way over to me. "Tell me," she began, staring in my eyes. "and tell the truth. What chance does Vash have of defeating this 'demon' or whatever the Hell it is?"
This new change in her appearance threw me off guard. Ordinarily she was too frightened to look at me, but now she was ordering me to answer her questions. I decided it would be fun to go along with it. "You mean, if he gives up his pacifistic ideas or he sticks with them? No…it doesn't matter. If he fights Cherub, he will likely lose, no matter how he goes about it."
She kept glaring at me. What was it with this woman? "there is a slight chance of victory for Vash, if he gives up on his 'ideals' and if he suddenly gains an unusual amount of good luck. But…if Cherub, my demon, gets his hands on one of the guns I created, then there is no one in this world, including myself, that could stop him."
It was the truth. I had made up none of it, and I could sense that the woman knew it. "Why do you ask?"
She stared at me a moment more before answering in a proud tone, "because I am afraid that he won't come back."
"You're saying that you fear for my brother? That you are worried for his safety?" I asked skeptically.
"Yes. And I do not give a damn whether you believe me or not, Knives." The look in her eyes, the unwavering determination in the face (literally) of something that frightened her made me fumble for words. Meryl relaxed a bit and took a deep breath. "What is this 'Cherub', anyways? I want to know what Vash is up against."
"As you must know now," I began, "Vash and I are not human, we are Plants born long ago. I will spare you the details, since I am quite sure Vash told you of them already. Despite being born from an enslaved being such as Plant, my twin and I were given free will, able to roam along land and whatnot without being confined to the prisons that now contain my siblings.
"But, over the years, I came to realize that the free will that we received was not entirely a blessing. We are only a fraction as strong as a normal Plant, as we are only capable of releasing a minor percentage of our total power. To fix this, I created a…hmm…have you ever heard the term 'clone'?" Meryl shook her head. "thought not…think of it as a doppelganger created on purpose. But this one…this one was more than that…
"I took DNA—the biological building blocks found within every creature, plant, and otherwise—from myself, and the arm I severed from Vash, and combined them. But. That was not enough. Oh no, not even close. I not only wanted a being with the attributes and freedom of Vash and myself, but also the powers and capabilities of a normal Plant. I wanted a being that would be in full control of his powers, capable of doing as little or as much with them as he pleased.
"In the end, after much genetic manipulation, I had a newborn creature—more than a Plant, and much more than Vash and I—that was to be an expert warrior and martyr for my race. He is missing one thing, and one thing only. The key to unlocking his true power. For, without the dark matter stored within the guns that Vash and I wield, my creation is nothing more than a weakened, free-roaming Plant such as Vash or I.
"That is why, if Cherub, if my creation, gets a hold on Vash's gun, this world will have a terror of which that would make the Gung-Ho Guns, Legato, Vash, and myself look like children squabbling on a schoolyard."
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The last of the moons had risen, creating a type of rainbow in the sky and illuminating Augusta with the light. Far below the many moons, Cherub stood with the gun of Vash the Stampede in hand, the crackling dark matter of the gun revealed to the night air.
Instead of his limb mutating into the Angel Arm, Cherub clutched the dark light with his free hand, pulling it from its encasement. He threw to the ground the gun, stumbling back as the dark matter was absorbed into his system.
Vash, out of surprise and with adrenaline, pulled the rod that skewered his arm from the ground and back away from the boy. Cherub stood gasping for breath, the dark light gone, soaked up by the boy's very spirit. He roared in agony and fell to the ground clutching his heart.
Few a few moments Vash stood, staring at the now unmoving figure that lay on the ground. He grabbed onto the rod, which still impaled his bicep, and pulled it free, grinding his teeth past the pain as he did so. Tossing it to the side, Vash picked up his gun and put the pieces together, placing the weapon—now unable to create the Angel Arm—into his pocket. As he took step towards the body of Cherub, the boy moved, standing up as if he was fine.
That quickly ceased, for Cherub began to gag and cough. He wrapped his arms around his stomach. Vash could see two lumps appear on the boy's back, directly over the shoulder blades and pushing the material of the coat up. In one last scream of agony, Cherub bent back and roared at the sky as two large things grew forth from his back. His breath slowly went back to normal, and he stood there in the light of the Fifth Moon reborn.
Gaping in awe, Vash stared at how Cherub had changed. The boy's hair was still a pale whitish blonde for the most part, but a large portion of the bangs, along with many other areas of his hair, were now a shade of blue. For the most part, Vash did not notice this. His gaze was locked onto the two large, silver projections on the boy's back. Each was as long as the boy was tall, and the silvery sheen glowed in the moonlight. They moved, but only slightly, as they aired out and stretched.
"Wings…" Vash said in awe.
Cherub stretched his newly grown wings as blood entered the arteries and veins. He shook them and loose feathers fell to the ground, glittering in the light of the night. As he looked over his new growths, he smiled devilishly. A dark laugh shot from his lungs and he turned to Vash, "See?! Do you not see what I am?! I have taken my first step to completion, and already I have almost unlimited power!" He reached into his coat and pulled something, causing the dozens of firearms, grenades, smoke bombs and other weapons fall to the ground. "I need these pathetic excuses of weapons no longer."
He gestured to the angelic wings and hair, "This is the destiny of our race, Vash. The destiny of becoming almighty!" Cherub pushed off the ground with his legs, and flapped his large wings. At first he toppled, but he quickly learned to use his new limbs. As he hovered in the air, he spoke down to Vash, "I will be going to the Plant of Augusta. Yes, it survived—just barely—your pathetic Angel Arm. If you wish to join me and Father, along with the rest of our siblings, meet me there. If you would rather live among your human friends, then go, and await your destruction how ever you would see fit."
Cherub turned and flew towards the center of Augusta, and he called back to Vash only once, "Make the right choice, Uncle."
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A/N: So, was anyone surprised by Cherub's origin? Or what he became? Hehe…yes, I meant to make this chapter as strange as ever and I hope I did. Well, next chapter: another fight between Vash the Stampede and Cherub the Seraphim!
So…read and review!