Blu: hee, me so evil
TK: sure as hell you are
Blu: hee hee
Hustino- Thankies for your wonderful reviews, as always. Your reviews always make me so happy!
Pyro- -is scared- DON'T HURT ME! I UPDATED! XD
Ryoko Kashino- I'll keep that in mind.
TK: -is hit with the shoe your sister threw-
Blu: way to live up to your name
TK: Shut. Up.
Angelarms- Twas very evil of me, whatcha to do? Unlike you, six pages is my limit XD Thankies for reviewing! I hope I didn't wear you patience too thin! XD
Tongarisangel- Yupp, me and my evil, EVL cliff. As for the shooter person…
Chapter Ten- …how the hell did THAT happen? You're chapter ten review can AFTER your chapter eleven. Two to one tis FF.Net, being a jack ass as usual…I didn't just say that…
Black Betty- You wanted action packed, I give you action packed. Hopefully I can pull off some more…
Ali1- oh! We wouldn't want you to run out of shoes! That would just be too cruel! NO SHOES?! What would we have to hit TK with?! OH THE MADDNESS!
Paranoia Central- yessh, I am evil…BUT NOT AS EVIL AS PINK!
TK: …please don't give her any ideas…
Blu: ONCE AGAIN, YOU GUYS ROCK MY SOCKS!
Read, Review, and Wait, the three things that happen on this site.
Chapter Twelve: Beautiful Dreamer
"Good, Nicholas, good."
I empty another cartridge onto the ground, replacing it with a full one. Bullets tare into the targets, reducing them to shreds. I grumble something under my breath, the words being drowned out by gunfire. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that damned apple go up and down and up and down. If I can just…
"Nuh-uh-ah," he says playfully, yanking it out of my range. "Finish what you've started." I grumble again, returning to the task at hand. Just shoot the snot out of this thing THEN grab that damned fruit away. Always with the tossing and the mocking and the-
"Keep focused, Nicholas," he teases, looking out of the side of his glasses. "A man could have walked away from that shot." I growl lowly and try to imagine a face on the target, like I used to when I was a kid. Let's see…yeah that will do.
You're SO going down, Vash the Stampede. Nice big bounty to pay me out of this joint.
"That's what I'm talking about," he chimes, finally stopping with the infernal bouncing. The day with I get that damn thing… "FOCUS!"
"GAH! I'm FOCUSED already, okay?!" I yell, turning to him, my finger still squeezing the trigger every two seconds. Something goes whizzing by my head, which I duck from unconsciously. "What the hell was that?!"
"Your careless aim ricocheted off the wall and nearly offed my student," he says boredly. "See how good focusing is?"
"Yeah, yeah," I mumble, smacking in another pack of ammo, "point taken." Another hour of turning targets to dust and I'm finally off the hook. "Can I go now?" I ask, sounding more like a kid who got stuck with dish duty then a sixteen year old only days from his birthday.
"You're almost ready," he says, patting me on the shoulder. I force a smile. What about this guy suddenly gives me the creeps? "You just have one more test, then you will have finished my training. After that…" He sniffs the air, then glares down at me. "Nicholas," he growls. "I told you about smoking in the training room."
"Uhh…how do you know it's not gunpowder?"
His glare thickens. "I will let you off with a warning," he says, turning around. "But I," he holds up my match book, "will be keeping this." With that he turns around and leaves. After a few seconds of gawking, I quickly search my pockets for my match book, coming up empty.
"No frickin'-"
"-way I'm letting you drive!"
Vash pouts. "Ah, come on!" he whines. "You've been driving all night! Aren't you tired?"
Meryl glares at him, somehow still keeping her eyes on the road. "I'm fine," she snaps. "I don't need to sleep anytime soon, and, anyways, the last thing we need is you crashing into something while Wolfwood's recovering."
"I'll be good, I promise!" he pleads, clasping his hands together. "Just let me take over for awhile!"
"Why?"
"…I'm bored."
"Then no."
"If you're tired, Sempai, I could always take over," Millie offers from the back seat.
"You need to tend to Nick," her partner replies.
"But you or Mr.V-"
"Yeah, you better listen to your partner on this one, Big Girl," the localized disaster infront of her says, turning around in his seat. After mouthing out the word 'Vein' as big as possible, he circles a side of his head with his index finger in the air, motioning the area in question. Millie giggles.
"That's not very nice, Mr. Vash," she snickers quietly. Smiling the closest to a 'real' smile in the past weeks, the Humanoid Typhoon turns back around, face meeting with fist.
"OW!"
"What was that about a 'Vein'?!" Meryl asks through her teeth.
"N-nothing!"
Millie smiles and settles back into her seat. "It's good to have things back to normal," she mumbles to herself while she leans back, her crossed arms acting as a pillow.
"Hey! Where're my-"
"If you're looking for your sunglasses, Mr. Vash," Big Girl says, removing them from a pocket in her coat, "you dropped them when we were leaving."
"Thanks Big Girl!" he chimes, reaching back for his fallen shades, only to find the taller insurance girl is holding them out of his range. "Hey!"
"I don't know, Mr. Vash, I think maybe I should hold on to them for you for a while!" Millie exclaims, pushing them onto the brim of her nose. "Wow, it's a perfect fit! Look, I'm you, Mr. Vash!"
"I swear that girl has it out for me," the Stampede mumbles, turning around as the woman in the seat behind him continues with her ramble by quoting some of the scrapes he's been in while doing her best 'outlaw' voice.
"She just doesn't like it when you hide behind those," Meryl mumbles, not really caring if he hears her or not. "It bugs her when you wear them. She thinks you look better with out them."
"Yupp! I do!" Millie replies, making the two jump in their seats.
"W-when did you start listening?!" her partner demands, trying to turn around and drive at the same time.
"Oh, I think it was something about me having it out for Mr. Vash…"
"YOU HEARD IT ALL?!"
"I guess I did," the girl in the back confesses. "Was I not supposed to be listening or something?"
"No, Big Girl," Vash says, smiling again, "you're perfectly fine…now give my sunglasses!" Once again, the outlaw's hand dives into the back seat, clawing around in the air for his shades.
"Nuh-uh-ah!" Millie scolds, holding them over her head. Meryl lets out a low growl and finally turns around.
"SETTLE DOWN RIGHT NOW, OR I'M TURNING THE DAMN CAR AROUND!"
"Nicholas, why?"
I sling my bag over my shoulder. 'Just ignore him and maybe he'll leave you alone', I tell myself. "I asked you a question, and I'm expecting an answer," he demands, loosing his cool. Never seen that before.
"And I'll give you my answer," I snap, turning around. "I didn't do it caz' he's my friend, alright?" I say coldly . "I wont be the Judas in your twisted nursery rhyme!"
"If you don't do it, you'll never finish your training," he replies sharply.
"Screw you're shitty training," I snarl, trying to keep my voice level under control. "I never wanted in it in the first frickin' place." Pushing past him, I head from my room and down the hall.
"Nicholas," he pleads, following a step behind. "Just listen to me!"
"I DID listen to you!" I roar, spinning on my heel. I give myself a second to calm down before continuing. "I listened to you for ten years, doing whatever you told me. I looked up to you, and I trusted you, but you…" Letting out the frustrated growl that had been building up through out the whole conversation, I grab him by the collar, and make him look down to meet my eyes. "What kind of a test was that?! How could you even ASK me to do that?!" Pushing his hand underneath mine, he forces my grip from his shirt.
"You follow orders," he says clearly, bringing himself to full height. "No. Matter. What."
We stand there, looking at each other, studying the other for any weakness. I can't find one, but I don't think he can either. Without another word, I turn around and head out the front door, my bike and cross waiting for me. "Happy Birthday," I mumble bitterly to myself while swinging my leg over the seat. Without looking back, I rev the engine once and speed off down the road, dust kicking up behind me.
Good Riddance.
I sit up with a jolt, the pain in my shoulder a sick reminder of my current condition. "NICK! You're UP!" Millie yelps, her arms shooting up in surprise.
"Millie," I mumble, my teeth clenched in the sudden burst of pain.
"Lay down an rest!" she scolds. "You just reopened your wound!"
"I did?" I ask stupidly. Sure enough, the bandages on the site of damage are slowly turning red. "Shit."
"Hey…Millie?"
We both turn around to see Vash draped over his seat, chin cradled on the cushion. "What, Mr. Vash?" Big Girl asks, cocking her head to the side.
"Where are my sunglasses?" he asks in a sickeningly sweet tone. The taller insurance girl blinks a couple times as if waiting for her brain to process the message before looking at both hands and feeling her face.
"I musta' threw them out of the car when Nick woke up…" she says in her naive way, blinking dumbly. The Stampede face faults onto the head rest, his fist putting a dent into the shut car door. "You didn't need them, did you?"
Letting out somewhere between a nervous laugh and a groan of frustration, the blonde gunman pulls his head out of the cushion, which has an imprint of his mug smashed into it, and smiles through gritted teeth. "Nope," he grunts. "Didn't need 'em."
"Oh, that's good!" Millie says happily, either happy she's off the hook or not knowing she was ever on one. I'd guess the second.
"Where are we, exactly?" I say, trying to sit up without causing myself any more pain.
"About four hundred iles from the city of December," Meryl says boredly, seeming to not really care whether or not I regained consciousness. I shoot up, probably tearing my wound open further.
"Did you say-"
"-Four hundred iles from the city of December," she repeats.
"Go east."
"Whoa, what?" Meryl spins around, no longer paying any attention to the road. "'East'?" she snaps. "That's pure desert!" I shake my head.
"Nope, there's a small town called 'Faith' about a hundred iles east of here," I correct, making Vash turn his gaze from Big Girl onto me. Good, he remembers. "I need to go there."
"And why the hell would you-"
"Sounds good to me!" Vash interrupts, spinning around in his seat. I'm guessing he made a pout or something, because Meryl lets out a 'Humph' of annoyance and turns the car to the right before driving into the rising suns.
"Man, I could really use my sunglasses!"
"Let it go, Spiky."
TK: there, that wasn't so bad
Blu: I still don't like it, but I can live with it. If you couldn't guess, the spots in italics were Nick's dreams. Those will be popping up more and more, so watch out for them!
TK: well…that's it
Blu: really? Nothing else you wanna say?
TK: …umm…no shoes?
Readers: yeah right! –all chuck their shoes at TK-
TK: ow ow ow ow ow OWWW! HUSTINO! NO HIGH HEELS!
Hustino: MWHHAHAHAHAH! –runs away-
Wolfwood: There is always someone to look up to. The super hero hidden in every day life. Childhood is full of wonder and discovery. Discovery of friendship, of new games to play, of idles and demi-gods. You looking up at them, knowing that is the person that you can look up to, the person that you can trust to understand, no matter what. But what if they don't? What if they aren't the person you thought they were? What happens with your shinning Knight is just hiding his true face under that helmet? A face that would frighten you? A face he's trying to change, just for you.
Next Chapter: Everything You Want