A/N: Well, I got the reactions I was expecting in the reviews, and to sum them all up, it was something like:
"WAH"!
But, never fear! Read to find out why you have no reason to be sad or afraid!
…and besides, Diablo wrote the ending to that last chapter, so blame (or hurt) him if it upset you…
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Along Came A SpiderChapter Nine: OUT OF THE ASHES
I was, to say the least, annoyed. Meryl, the short, and, recently, more aggravating of the two humans had gotten me up in the middle of the night no less than three days ago. Why did she do this? She had a 'bad feeling' and she was 'worried' for Vash. I had found this odd, but from what I had lately heard from people in towns near Augusta, it was apparent that her fears were well founded.
They, being the humans that Meryl had gotten the information from, had said that a bright light and a giant explosion had been seen in what they had thought to be the general area of the abandoned city of Augusta. They had thought that Vash the Stampede had caused it, but from the way they described the explosion's size and intensity, and even taking into consideration that information about things such as this were blown out of proportion, it was apparent that my brother was not the one that had fired the Angel Arm.
That meant one thing, of course.
Cherub had gained possession of one of the guns I created. This meant he had gone through his metamorphosis, becoming the creature I had hoped for since before I had even began the cloning process.
Although, the idea of Vash's death, the defeat of my one and only brother and twin, had an effect on me that I had not anticipated. It was, in a way, regret, but after consulting the facts, I managed to convince myself that Vash had brought it upon himself, and that there had been no way to prevent the inevitable.
It was difficult for me to believe him for dead, though. That brother of mine, the legendary gunman, had survived other situations that seemed as perilous, the fight against me included.
But, I was, in a way, relieved, for I now had nothing in my way to prevent myself from releasing my brethren; not only that, but the tool to help me was somewhere near, in the desert, searching for me. One thing, though, confused me very much in the hours following the news of the explosion at Augusta. It was the fact that, despite what I had thought, I still didn't feel happy, or excited that I now the chance to do what I had been wanting for the last one hundred thirty years.
The pain that I experienced after my defeat to Vash, the sense of hopelessness, was still inside me, in a way. It was different in a way, but still the sense of being filled with regret and loss had not left me; it was changed, and alleviated, but by only the slightest.
Was it a feeling of loss? For Vash? Or was it something more?
I shook my head to forget about Vash, but by doing so, I returned to reality, which, at that moment, involved being crammed—uncomfortably, I might add—into the back of the vehicle Vash, the humans and I had rode in when coming to Inepril. There were no suitcases or bags, but my legs were not used to such tight places such as the inside of a car.
Meryl had been the one that dragged me (and that, sadly, was in literal terms. That woman could aggravate a mountain into moving) to come along on the trip; Millie had also been dragged along, although she did not talk much. She was seeming to get over her depression quite well, but I saw what seemed to be worry in her eyes.
Were these two genuinely worried about Vash?
After a few days of riding in a vehicle whose driver demanded to move at break-neck speed, we made it to where Augusta was said to have been. Instead of seeing ruins that roughly resembled buildings, we only saw a gigantic field of rubble. The short woman had suddenly shifted her weight to the break pedal; the car stopped abruptly, but my head kept moving forward, and slammed into the back of the front seat.
Rubbing my forehead, I opened my mouth to curse that Meryl, but when I looked, she had left the vehicle and was looking at the landscape before us. I reached under the seat, searching for a pair of binoculars that had been stashed there previously. Once I found them, I stepped out from the vehicle and stood atop the sand dune the woman was. I noticed that Millie had joined her while I wasn't looking.
"What do you think, Meryl?" Millie asked in a solemn, quiet voice. I pretended to ignore them as I looked through the binoculars, scanning the destroyed city. The radius of the blast…I thought to myself, and I did the calculations in my head, four iles! There was no doubt at that point. Cherub was the one that had fired the Angel Arm. Cherub must have needed to be at least half an ile in the air not to be caught in his own blast!
I could hear Meryl sigh, but it sounded strained, as if she was holding something back, "I-I don't know, Millie. I guess we just look for…" She gagged and turned away so that neither Millie nor I could see her face.
The sounds of their voices caused a strange reaction. The veiled sounds of loss and mourning when they spoke made my stomach churn, but I could not name the reason for the reaction.
My eyes caught something in the center of the city; the last standing structure in the entire area; the Plant. From where I stood, it appeared to be in relatively good shape. They were made to escape and enter atmosphere, hence they were incredibly sturdy, so it was no surprise that it had survived well.
Turning towards the vehicle and lowering the binoculars, I said "Get in."
Eyes red, and face recently dried, Meryl turned and glared at me. "What gives you the right to say anything right now, much less order us to do anything?!"
"I am here to find information about the demon I created. You two can stay here, in the desert with the heat of the twin suns, or you can come with me to the city. Your choice, and I suggest you make it quick."
The short woman gently walked over to me, eyes never leaving mine, and, after standing almost chest-to-chest for at least ten seconds, she slapped me with a force that I would never have though that a body of that size could produce. "Now shut up for a second, Mr. 'I'm better than every friggin' thing from here to the moons'!" I stared at her appalled, but did not move; I stared right into her eyes. "If you weren't such a damned hypocrite, and if you didn't have your head shoved so far up your ass, you might not be so screwed up!
"You keep saying how we humans, the big horrible humans," she waved her arms to increase the sarcasm of the statement, "Are so thoughtless and insensitive, but yet here, you show no compassion for your own brother! You don't show anything close to worry!
"Not only that," she continued, not stopping even for a moment, "BUT, for Plants that you hold so dear, any number of which could have been hurt or killed in the blast, you show nothing! You treat them as well as you do humans!
"You're nothing but a spoiled child that wants to cause trouble. You hide behind your claim that humans are murderers, selfish, arrogant, slave-owning monsters, and you do what about it?
"You counter it by being a murderous, arrogant slave-owning monster towards us, that's what you do!" she laughed, "You think you're on some holy crusade to rid the world of us big bad humans for your 'siblings', but in actuality you, Mr. Millions, care nothing for the Plants! Vash told me about how you sent some of your 'demons' or whatnot to that flying ship and purposefully and directly attacked the Plants to make it crash!
"Self-righteous crusade, my ass!"
Meryl took a step closer, and I had to step away to prevent her from touching me. "You, Knives, are just a damned hypocrite, trying to kill the humans—based on a superficial and ignorant opinion based on no facts whatsoever, I might add—trying to kill Vash—your only brother for God's sake! I don't know why he cares for you half as much as he does—and to do so you're killing the Plants, tossing them away like they're nothing to get to the end of whatever the Hell it is you're trying to do!
"Everything you say humans are, Knives," Meryl jabbed a finger into my chest as she said my name, "You are ten times worse! Hell, we may live off of the Plants in those ships, but at least we try to save them the best we can; we try to keep them alive at any cost!
"You are just a pathetic little child that is afraid of the world!" As she spoke again, she jabbed my chest over and over, "If you were half the man Vash wa—If you were half the man Vash is you wouldn't be so screwed up, and so pathetic!
"So don't you, Millions Knives, think for a second that Meryl Stryfe," she tapped herself on the chest lightly, "will ever—EVER!—listen to you, much less follow anything resembling an order that comes out of that shit-spewing hole you call a mouth!" She continued to glare at me, but then she spoke in a lighter tone, "Millie?"
"Yes, Meryl?" the other woman said. She appeared to have gotten over her depression during Meryl's speech, with a slight cheerfulness regained in her voice.
"Lets get into the car; we're going to find Vash."
"Okay, Meryl!" Millie lightly followed the shorter woman, both of whom had replaced their mournful, sad frowns with grins.
I was livid to say the least. My body shook in fury and rage poured out of me. But…what angered me the most…the thing that shocked me, and sent the fury into my system was the fact that, no matter how hard I thought of an argument, or a type of revenge for her insolence, the same five words rattled in my mind:
What if she was right?
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I had gone with them into the city, and the destruction seemed worse than it had form afar. There were no buildings left standing, and only a few large shards of metal stood in the air. Other than that, the entirety of the city was razed. The SEEDS ship, though, was clearly visible, and Meryl had went directly to it.
Inside, we searched as best we could in the rubble. It was obvious my first assessment of the Plant was wrong; the hull, as I assumed was fine, but the inside had suffered as much as the city did. He have purposefully aimed at the inside of the ship…
As our search for my brother, or whatever was left of him, drew on, we made our way up the many floors of the ship. As we did so, I took note of something strange; although we were nearing the area that had taken the brunt of the attack, there was actually less damage, instead of more, as there should have logically been. I tried to figure out how that would be possible, and the only answer I could come up with was something had managed to block some of the blast, preventing it from coming into full contact with the ship. I thought back to my fight with Vash when we used the power of our Angel Arms to counter each other's attack.
After much searching and pondering, we made it to the top of the ship. Here, there was one giant, open room. In the center were the remains of a Plant bulb. The ceiling of the room was completely gone, most likely vaporized by the blast. Around the edges of the room, there was scorch marks and hugs holes, but in the center, around the bulb, it was relatively untouched.
Still pondering how this was possible, I was shocked when Meryl screamed. She did not scream any words, it was only a sharp yell. I looked to see what had made her shout like that, but she flew by me in a quick sprint towards the bulb remains.
"Vash!" she yelled, this time actually saying something understandable. I gasped looking closer at the bulb, and there, indeed, was the rough shape of a body. Millie ran by me, following her friend.
I rushed after them, thinking that the odds of Vash being in the one place that was unscathed was slim to none; then again, for Vash, those were good odds. I managed to reach Meryl just seconds after Millie. The short woman was kneeling down to Vash, who was limp on the ground.
The majority of his clothes were burned off, caused by some sort of energy, but not the Angel Arm blast. That would have burned Vash himself to nothingness. Meryl checked for his pulse, and from the audible sigh of relief, it was obvious that my brother, once again, managed to find another reason to have the name 'Stampede'.
Meryl raised Vash into a sitting position, but by doing so, caused her and Millie to gasp. I myself was shocked to see Vash's left arm gone. I looked around, and there, only about ten feels away, was the mechanical arm that replaced the real limb I myself severed from Vash's body.
The woman used her cloak to wipe the gore and dirt off Vash's face, and then tried her best to wake him from his apparent coma. Nothing happened. "Let me try," Millie asked. Meryl nodded silently, and the tall woman kneeled so that her mouth was near Vash's ear and at the top of her lungs, she screamed "DONUTS!"
"Wha…ugh, don't yell…" Vash mumbled and his eyes fluttered open, "Where's the donuts? And why does it feel like I've been having a week-long drinking contest with Wolfwood?" Meryl hugged the injured man, making him wince in pain and hold back a yelp, but he didn't do anything to stop her.
"You idiot!" Meryl cried happily, "You almost went and got killed!"
"So…" Vash said slowly, "I'm gonna guess that there aren't any donuts?" This earned him a swift, but playful jab to the head from Meryl.
I barely noticed all this as I considered how my brother pulled this one off. A sharp sniffle shook me from my thoughts and I looked over to see Millie also crying happily. I'll never understand them…
The woman gently picked Vash up onto his useless feet, although Millie held most of the weight. The helped the barely conscious Vash move towards the stairs that would leave the floor.
I did not follow them.
Whether they were too gleeful about Vash's survival to notice my absence or they didn't care, I did not know. Nor did I care.
I walked into the remains of the Bulb that once held one of my brethren, and stared up towards the top of the capsule. There, frozen to the ceiling of the bulb, was the corpse of a Plant. It was apparent that it—she—died recently, but not from the Angel Arm blast.
It seemed that she had died from expending the last of her energy in one immense wave.
My eyes shot open as I realized that, and the thought of the Angel Arms countering each other came back to my mind. She had given up the last of her energy—therefore knowingly sacrificing herself—to create a shield to protect Vash…
That was why that section of the ship seemed unscathed. But one new question entered my mind.
Why?
Why did she do that? She would have died one way or another, but why did she save the man that fought for the beings that caused her captivity, and the very man that hurt her in the first place? She could have withheld her energy, and allowed Vash to die with her, giving me the obvious opportunity to begin my purge of Gunsmoke.
But, instead she saved him. The man that caused her the wounds that weakened her, the man that began the fight that led to her death, and the one that fought to protect the humans.
Why?
"Although I do not understand why you did this," I spoke to the body, "I must, out of honor of your sacrifice, thank you for saving my brother. Thank you. "I lightly bowed and then, as I turned to leave, I heard something in my mind.
"Child…why does my choice perplex you so?"
I froze and turned to the Plant that I took for dead. Her eyes had opened and they stared into mine, seemingly searching my mind, body, and soul. "Did you speak to me?"
"For one that thinks oneself so wise, you ask truly silly questions. Child, do you see any others here? Anyone capable of speaking to you such as I am, or ones that I would speak to?"
I sighed, "Do you know who I am? I am Mill—"
"Child, we are aware of who you are, for you have confounded us for many a season."
"Us? Who is this 'we'?" I was confused by what she meant. For a few moments we stared at each other silently.
"I speak of myself, along with the whole of our race, the Sealed Ones. Knives, child, you are one of the few born free, but yet the ways you use your gift have long confused us."
"What do you mean? I have been doing what I know is right, searching for a way to save you and the others from—"
"That is the very thing that confuses us. Why do you want to, as you say, 'free' us? What do we have to be freed from?"
"Y-your enslavement, of course. The humans, they have—"
"Have what? Used our gifts to allow their children to grow and live? Have taken the gifts we willingly offer to them?"
I did not know what to say, "What do you mean, 'gifts'?"
"Poor child…I grieve for you, I truthfully do. The way you have lived your life, what you have used your gifts for, deserves nothing less than grief, for that is all you have wrought with them." Even speaking through telepathy, her voice sounded heartbreakingly sad.
"What are you trying to tell me" I heard no answer. "Sister? What is it that you're trying to say…"
But she never replied. She was gone, and this time I was sure of it. I let out a sigh and realized my heart was racing. Speaking to one of the sealed Plants like that was a rare occasion, and once I thought of it, I could never remember any other moments that a conversation with one of them had been that thorough.
As I looked down from the dead body of my own, I saw shining metal in the rubble below her. Walking over to it, I recognized the cross punisher, the weapon of choice for the two priests I had hired into the Gung-Ho Guns. Near it, I found both revolvers, although Vash's was lighter than mine due to the energy Cherub had extracted from it.
Placing the colts into my pockets, one on each thigh, and throwing the cross-shaped weapon over my back, I kneeled down and picked up the arm of my brother. It seemed that it was in good condition, and I placed it under my arm. Soon after saying a final good-bye to the deceased Plant, I left.
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We quickly returned to Inepril, where the effects of the diseased Plant were effecting the city more and more. The prices of food products skyrocketed. The price of water only was, from what I heard, to be about twenty double-dollars a dallon. Most of the people capable of leaving had already done so, including most of the engineers, who had given up all hopes of helping the Plant.
All except the woman named Elizabeth and a small man that followed her everywhere named Germane. He appeared to die every time someone would mention the Plant; the human must have thought himself responsible for the city's current situation. The woman would always constantly try to convince Germane that it was not his fault, and it alleviated his worries just a bit.
They had come over minutes after we had returned from Augusta, rather, what was left of Augusta. They were worried for Vash, apparently, as were most people in the city. I paid little attention to the conversation the little man and the three women had about my unconscious bother, for I was constantly thinking about the conversation I had with the Plant before she died.
"He's awake!" Millie squealed. Vash must have woken up, much to the joy of the humans.
"Er…hello…" Vash said groggily when he saw the two visitors. "Hi Elizabeth…" he didn't know who the man was.
"Oh, I'm, uh, my name, I mean, is, Germane. So, you're really him? Vash the Stampede, I mean. I've never though I'd meet the legendary gunman himself!" Elizabeth smiled and rolled her eyes as the man spoke nervously.
"Yeah, I get that a lot." Vash smiled, "But lately, it doesn't seem like I deserve that name…" He frowned, "but that's a story I'd rather not get into."
After a few hours of talking, Elizabeth and Germane left. The man seemed oddly happy to have gotten the top of his engineer's hat signed by my brother, but I just labeled it as another example of the simplistic stupidity of humans.
Through the rest of the night, I watched the two women take care of Vash. He had been cleaned, and wore a new white shirt and a pair brown trousers. The stump of his left arm was covered by a strongly tied piece of cloth, since no one, other than myself and possibly Vash, had the technical knowledge to fix the arm.
After a short amount of time, Vash was asleep. The energy he had used in the fight, and the wounds he received wore him down, but since he had not expelled any large amount of energy via the Angel Arm, he was recovering quickly. Despite that, he would not be doing much moving for at least a week.
Soon, I would have to interrogate Vash about the fight, but I myself was tired, and I went to the room I used. The next day I would force the information out of Vash, and then, whether or not it was useful, I would leave that forsaken city.
But, the words of the Plant, and the words of Meryl still echoed in my mind. They had been using different tones, different words, but I couldn't help but think they were trying to tell me roughly the same thing.
Whether I figured out what it was, though, was the most difficult question to answer.
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A/H: See? Look, Vash is gonna be fine! You think I'd kill my favorite character? Sheesh…you people need to have more faith! On top of that, I can't exactly have a sequel if I kill off the main character of the series, now can I?
Sorry this chapter was short, but the next one (I think) will be short too. I was thinking of putting them together, but I realized that it would be better to have two slightly shorter than usual chapters than one insanely long one.
So…I'd feel happy if you'd review now! ^_^