Chapter 6: Revelations.
A/N: You guys are all aware of how disappointed I was with Chapter 5 and at this moment I'm going to explain some things that came up in the reviews.
Claymade: IE! I KNEW, I just KNEW I should've written something in about Vash being upset over the dead bartender. I thought about it and was going to add it but I never got around to it! That's bugging me really bad now lol, but thanks for bringing it up, it'll remind me to put those little details like that in.
DarkAngelPearl: Knives having feelings for Sting… hmm I'm not sure where that's coming from (maybe because I'm in love with Knives and unconsciously I'm showing that?) but it likely won't happen. Nearly 99% of what I write is romance (mostly written for my friends) and this was supposed to be my attempt at steering away from it and to appease the need to write fluff I put in the Vash/Meryl pairing. You never know though, maybe I'll take a drastic turn down that way (whatever strikes me on the whim will likely happen because I don't have a lot planned for this fic).
I just realized that I haven't done a disclaimer yet so I will now: I DON'T OWN TRIGUN!!! And that will suffice for every chapter before this and after.
Chap. Summary: Sting's fuzzy past comes into slight focus and there's an occurrence of resurrection.
QUICK POLL!!!
Yes I dare withhold you a
minute more from reading the next chapter:
I'm caught in the folds of another little problem that I need assistance with.
I have proposed the idea of killing off Vann to one of my friends and she has refused and I face pain of death if I dare do so. I want to know who else is against this.
Kill off Vann?
Yes?
No? (No Chichiri Da: VOTE THIS ONE!!!)
I also kind of want to know how many of you would be terribly heart broken if Sting or Scar died. Don't ask what's up with my obsession of killing of chars.
* * *
Sting didn't want to let it bother her as she lay on her back in the hotel room she had rented for her and Vann once they had gotten to Nouvelle, a smaller city south of New Memphis.
She was determined not to let what Knives had said to her when they arrived annoy her.
Sting helped Vash pick Scar up and haul him out of the back of the truck.
"What do we need him for anyways?" Knives asked, glaring at the man's limp frame. Vash was adjusting the man's arm around his neck and supporting most of his weight like that. "I can't imagine you being attached to him after he nearly got you killed." His eyes focused coldly on the woman who was putting the truck's tailgate up.
"I don't know if he nearly got me killed or what, that's what I want to find out," Sting replied.
"Are you sure you're not just jeopardizing this because you know now that he's not dead after thinking he was," the Plant questioned.
The woman didn't answer and instead refused to meet his gaze. "I know what I'm doing, Knives."
He chuckled darkly. "Sure you do, spider… sure you do."
Damn that stupid man! He was making her doubt her own motives and she hated second-guessing herself.
In every aspect Scar was guilty. It couldn't be by sheer coincidence that six other men there wore the same cloaks and bore the same tattoos… that they all had been bent on shooting her and Scar had lead her away from the immediate cover of the bar.
He had betrayed her once years ago.
A betrayal that had etched a deep fissure of a scar across her heart: a wound that would never seal.
She had placed all of her trust into him.
And all of that trust had been misplaced.
So why was she so willing to accept the fact that maybe he was on her side again?
Because I want some other outlet for my trust than a thirteen-year-old and a blond idiot, Sting thought.
Sighing in defeat she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Unconsciously doing so she walked to the door and opened it, followed the hallway a few paces and reached for the doorknob of the room Scar was resting in. She stepped in and found his fists knotted to the bedposts and feet bound together. She wondered what would hold out: Scar's undeniable strength or the knots Knives had tied.
Probably the knots. Knives had seemed pretty sure of himself when he said that no 'spider' could break free of them.
"And Knives' certainty is safer to follow than any of our instincts because Knives is the sociopath with the gun," Sting muttered, sitting down on the bit of bed that Scar didn't take up. He wasn't an obese man but he was muscular, big enough to pick her and Vann up with very little effort, and the bed beneath him was small and seemed to sag with his weight. "Well you certainly haven't changed a bit… hmm… maybe a bit… you're uglier than the last time I saw you, if that's feasible. I suppose dying does that to you, huh? It's hard to imagine you being the womanizer you are. You'd think the only women who'd ever be interested in you are the blind, mentally deficient, or ass-ugly."
"You ain't so pretty yourself, Sting."
The man's eyes were bleary as they gazed up at her. He looked dazed, from pain Sting deduced. She had wrapped the wounds as best she could by herself and removed the bullet as well, though that was no easy, or pleasant, task and that was probably where the soreness was coming from.
"Eh, what do you know?" she replied but he was already passed out again. "You know, it'd figure that you'd faint before I could get my gibe in."
* * *
Sting found Vash sitting by himself about ten minute's walk outside town. He was staring off into oblivion and until she sat down beside him she doubted if he had heard her approach at all.
The great legend said nothing to her and for a while they sat together in total silence. Out of habit she removed a cigarette from her pocket and a box of matches. She lit up and then took a drag. "What are you thinking about, Stampede?" she inquired, smoke carried away by the wind.
"A lot of things."
"Like?"
He turned his head so their eyes met. "Like how you haven't told me anything about this yet."
It was her turn to be silent now as the cigarette slowly smoldered, held between the woman's still fingers as she sat, gazing out toward the horizon, eyes blank.
"Can I explain everything without you flying off the handle?" Sting asked after a moment's wait. The wind gently tossed hers and Vash's hair and for a while silence reigned over their gathering.
"Why would I fly off the handle?" the outlaw replied, voice steady and calm, entirely different from the tone she knew him to usually have. The idiotic, loud-mouthed, strangely pacifistic donut monster was now at least half of the legend he was said to be.
She chuckled bitterly and looked down, eyes closing. The scars on the left side of her face smoothed for a second into an oddly chaotic web that told a grisly story. "It doesn't take a moron to know you don't approve of killing. I saw the look in your eyes when you saw that dead bartender… you covered it with that lame joke about the whiskey but I knew it bothered you deep down inside." She flicked the gathering ashes off the butt of the cigarette, which had gone untouched for some time. "There aren't a lot of men like you, Vash… who can go through life… sinless."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"I told you before I'd killed a lot of men."
"And I forgave you."
"You forgave me because in your mind I couldn't have possibly killed more than a few. No more than the average criminal had knocked off." Sting's eyes turned to meet his but the gaze wasn't returned. Instead she burned holes into his profile. "The normal criminal can count the number of stains on his hands. I can't distinguish it anymore. I don't remember how many lives have ended due to me, Stampede. And the worst part is… all I know is the fact that more innocent blood has been shed than evil."
Vash's jaw clenched compulsively. "Why?"
"I don't know."
Their eyes met this time as he stared at her in horrified wonder. "What?"
Sting swallowed once, nerve gathering. She could tell him. What was the worst thing the Humanoid could do to her? Chastise her? Slap her on the wrists? "I take that back… I know why some of them died. But the innocent ones… I can't explain that." Her looks darkened as defiant resolution set in. "The some that I have reasons for killing… they died because they didn't deserve to live. People that rejoice at the sound of another's last breath don't deserve to have ever taken their first."
It didn't surprise her really when he slammed an open palm into the dirt, making some dust rise in a cloud and then settle again. "No one has the right to judge the worth of another," he growled, "and no one should ever take anyone's life."
"I agree," the woman responded quickly, "but the unfortunate reality is that there are people out there who enjoy that line of 'work' and if they are not stopped in someway more severe than just telling them not to do it anymore they will not cease! That is how innocent people die, Vash the Stampede… because those guilty of such crimes are not convicted."
The outlaw didn't look at her. His fist gathered some same into one hand but stopped. "You remind me a lot of him."
"Him who?"
"A friend of mine who died a while back… Nicholas D. Wolfwood. The traveling priest."
"I'm sure I'm honored but this conversation isn't about remembering an old friend."
"He used to think sacrifice was necessary."
"Because it is."
"No it's not!" The shout was allowed to echo in the silence of the desolation. No one was around to hear them bicker so neither was held back by worry that they'd draw attention. "You're such a hypocrite, Sting! You say murderers need to die! Well what separates you from any other murderer out there?!"
"I'll atone for my sins in death when I stand before God but right now I can live with being a hypocrite! But I will not answer to you about what I think! You might be a legend but I've lived long enough to know that legends die eventually because they screw up!" For a moment she paused and when she resumed her voice was much softer. "And I wouldn't be surprised if your death was the result of refusing to kill someone that only needed one thing: a bullet to the heart. People don't change, Vash… they might turn around but the shadows of their darkened past haunt them for the rest of their life and there is always the temptation there to return to a darker side. I know this because I fight those shadows every night before I go to sleep."
Dust was unsettled as Sting rose angrily from where she sat and started off, following their footprints toward town.
Vash's voice stopped her.
"You haven't told me anything you promised to yet."
For a second all was still and she stood unmoving. "The town I grew up in was just outside of a larger city. Because so few people lived there, and even fewer passed by, there was really no call for law enforcement. The men of the town did whatever protecting the needed to themselves. My father was trusted with passing judgments on the few offenders that passed by. His sanity was lost, however, when a band of ruffians stirred some dust* one day and my mother was killed in the process. None of them left town a live."
(Stirred some dust*- My creative way of saying 'caused some trouble' or any alternative of that that means the same thing. I don't know why I thought I should explain myself. Go fig…)
The words hung in the still desert air and she let Vash mull them over for a minute before continuing.
"New standards were set by an organization my father created in order to prevent that ever happening again. Criminals that came into town didn't leave for some time if they ever left at all. It wasn't long before this idea, which had been put into action for the reason that it was meant to serve in the name of peace, was tainted by my father's predecessor. She was born Diana Kross… but not wanting the name tainted one 'Sting' was created. I never reverted back to being called Diana because I never wanted to destroy that name's reputation and would bear the sins that this one was weighed with without hesitation about what the consequences would be. Besides… I was a different person."
"Go on."
The prompt wasn't as steady as Vash wanted it to sound. In truth he was struggling with himself. He didn't want to hear anymore because he didn't want the image of her that he had built to be destroyed and he had a gut feeling that any second it would be. But curiosity nagged at him.
He needed the truth.
And apparently Sting thought so too because with little hesitation she plunged head first back into her explanation.
"My father's intention had been to take on good, strong men to defend the innocent at whatever cost necessary. I distorted his image by turning the group for the worst. It started off just a little different at the beginning but soon the original purpose was lost and the group became no better than a band of ruthless pirates looking for innocents to prey on and then destroy. We robbed, we stole, we killed. More sand was stained with blood by those under my command than anyone else. I created a monster and, after my eyes were opened, I dedicated my life to destroying the beast I'd once been apart of."
"So these men that have been following you… use to work for you?"
Sting turned to face him again finally. "More or less," she replied. "Mutiny was commonly brought up. A woman running the show wasn't heard of but I was strong and held my ground. Back then I was better conditioned to fight physically and fire a gun without really taking time to aim. I was feared more than respected but there comes a point where the two often coincide. Once I talked about destroying the source of their pleasure and income I'd gone too far and suddenly that fear was no longer existent. I was just lucky I wasn't killed when they took me prisoner and set forth to punishing me as properly as they could. Scar, even though he had supported the mutiny, had done one final act as my friend and partner and helped me escape brutal punishment and torture. After that I marked him an enemy and a traitor. I didn't leave, though, without losing my eye and gaining a few scars."
"And since then?"
"The details would put you through too much pain," Sting replied, voice still steady though the look in her eyes wavered. "Do you regret forgiving me now?"
"If I couldn't forgive someone, what would be the point of doing what I do?" he asked.
"You mean what would be the point of running around and screaming 'love and peace'?" the woman shot back, grinning wryly.
Vash grinned and nodded as he stood up. "Exactly. But where'd you hear about that anyways?"
"Meryl told me," Sting said, shrugging, watching as he dusted off his red trench coat. "What's going on between you two anyway?
The outlaw fell back as if struck physically by the force of the question. "What?! M-me and M-Meryl?! Nothin'! I swear! We're… we're just… friends… yeah that's it, friends!"
"Talk about getting your hand caught in the cookie jar," she chuckled, "I was just asking, you didn't have to spaz out like I was accusing you of sleep-"
"Vash! Sting!"
Vash looked up while Sting whirled around to spot Vann sprinting toward them. He skidded down a sand dune and stumbled a few more steps closer. "They found some guy just outside of the town and dragged him in, he looked pretty sick, his face was all sunken in and he was dehydrated, they think he'll pull through but I thought I should let you know: he was looking for Vash!"
* * *
Vash acted iffy about the situation as they hurried back but Sting didn't blame him. The man was the most wanted person on the planet; there were hundreds of people out there looking for him. This could just be one more who was unfortunate enough to fall to the oppression of the desert.
"The doc ain't letting anyone see him," Vann said as they neared the room the man was said to be.
There was a commotion down the hall and as a door was flung open shouting was made audible.
"I'm not sick damn it!"
"Please, sir, calm down, you should-"
"I should be on my way; I don't have time to be lying down!"
"But, sir, you don't understand, your condition-"
"Forget my condition, man, I need to find Vash!"
"The Stampede?!"
"Who the hell else?!"
Sting and Vann, both of whom looked entirely unruffled by these yells, seemed to be drawn closer.
Vash however paused.
"No, it can't be."
Sting turned to look at him. "No it can't be what?" she asked, eyebrow cocked up at him.
"That voice…" The outlaw trailed off again.
"You're not making any-"
"Sir!"
A man stumbled out into the hallway wearing a button-up, collared shirt that wasn't buttoned up, no shoes, a pair of dusty trousers, and a look of annoyance. His hair was black and unkempt appearing and he looked like he hadn't had the chance to shave in a while but Vash seemed to know him.
"WOLFWOOD?!"
The man's dark eyes turned on them and they widened.
"VASH?!"
A/N: Mwahahaha!! CLIFFHANGER!! Of course you probably all suspected that… REVIEW.