The sandworm roared as it tore up from the ground, thrashing about while the group of bounty hunters raced to get away. Bullets fired and bounced off its thick hide, and all it could think was that it was hungry for humans, those annoying little creatures that seemed to be spreading all ove the planet.
About half a mile away, a man with long blue hair smirked while he watched the chaos through a pair of binoculars. "Interesting work, Zazie," he commented before turning toward a young and unearthly beautiful teenage girl who seemed to be concentrating. "It's not much, but we should do the Master proud for taking out such a large group of humans at once."
"And what of Vash?" she asked calmly. "If it is him down there, then Lord Knives won't be happy to hear we killed him."
The blue haired man nodded, but he was still smiling. "If that is Vashu down there, he's changed." His right hand came up to his left arm, rubbing around the middle of his bicep. "It seems he's gotten his arm back, and his hair's changed as well." He frowned and looked through the binoculars, now focusing on Vash's face as he was pulling a blonde girl away from the chaos to safety. "Those aren't the same sunglasses he always wore...and where did he get those scars?"
Something didn't add up to him. Vash was vastly different than how he remembered from when they last encountered each other. And did he ever remember that. He still had coordnation problems even after all the work done to repair his brain damage, and it was a wonder he was able to talk without impediment, save a problem of saying his 'sh'es as 'shu'. It was a bit annoying, but he dealt with it.
Wait, something else was odd. Had Vash gotten shorter? He was a man of six and a half feet, yet the Vash he was looking at now was, if he calculated right, no more than maybe five and eight inches. Yes, something was definitely wrong now that he realized that. People like Vash did not shrink in size. How could this be the Humanoid Typhoon? And yet, as he watched, the man found that this red clad young man was every bit as skilled as the Vash he remembered.
And he was actually fighting back with those big guns. The man had to admit, he was starting to have a bit of respect for the talents of this boy, even if he couldn't possibly be Vash the Stampede. He had the skills, that was for sure, and an insane ability in calculations. Wait, did he just shoot down that giant's bullet? That was impossible for anyone save for those of Vash's kind. Who was this blonde boy?
"It seems we have something to keep an eye on," he stated before lowering his binoculars and turning to leave. He'd seen enough, and that sandworm was even now tumbling down the mountain side, along with part of the cliff that was crashing toward Dankin as a land slide. "Vashu or not, this boy is someone to keep track of. Let us leave, Zanzi."
"As you wish."
Two weeks since the incident at Dankin, and Annette Mallard was getting very frustrated. She followed the leads to where Vash was supposed to be, but each time, it actually turned out to be a false alarm. That or some group of maniacs who were actually chasing after the legendary gunman. But she couldn't quit, not since her job was probably on the line. Maybe this is how those two Investigators from Bernardeli felt two decades ago, not to mention how they'd fared as well.
Okay, she had a good lead to go on, but that kid couldn't possible be the real Vash the Stampede. He was far too young, and too short, if she believed that Vash was supposed to be a tall man. Yet, every other point of the rumors fit him perfectly, and at every town Vash had been seen at, he'd passed through, though he was always gone before she got there. Could he possibly be the legendary Humanoid Typhoon?
"No way that's him!" she exclaimed, flopping back into the bed in her room. "He's too nice to be Vash!" And yet, he was incredibly skilled. Either it had been her imagination, or he really had deflected those bullets by shooting them down. No one was that good a marksman, save Vash himself. Even if he wasn't Vash, he seemed to have the skill to warrant having claimed the name. But the question was, why? Why take on that risk, have people going after you for that damn bounty if you didn't have to, if you weren't really Vash?
Or maybe, just maybe, he was the real deal, and some of the rumors had ben corrupted because of all the people who went after him. Certainly, she'd been been given the description of that giant in Dankin instead of the boy, and he had turned out to not be at all the Humanoid Typhoon. The boy, however, matched all the rumors almost perfectly, except, he was nice.
None of it made any sense, but that young man really was her only real lead. Maybe she should at least take him seriously, if only for the fact that he was an insanely god-like gunman. Now the trouble was to find him, and-
"Oh my god! Vash the Stampede is robbing the armored car!"
No way. That boy couldn't possibly be doing that. Annette leapt out of bed, threw her coat on, and ran down the stairs to the door of the inn. She poked her head out of the window, but there was no sign of the boy out there among the gang that she saw waiting outside the local bank while a pair of hostages were forced to pile the money into their get-away car. But then why...
"Duh!" she hissed, now racing around to the back of the inn and going out the rear door. It was the oldest standby of robbers and theives, to claim that they were in the company of Vash the Stampede. This was the kind of thing that made her job a living hell; culling out the frauds in attempt to find the real deal. And just when she'd been making some real progress too.
Wait, who was that hiding in the alleyway? Annette took a few steps back to see that familiar red coat and blonde hair. Could it be him? "Vash?"
He held his hand up, signaling for Annette to be quiet. "You've become a believer, I see," he whispered as she walked over and stood next to him. She noticed there was something missing; his guns were missing from his holsters. Was he completely unarmed? "I hate people who do stuff like this, using my name just to make things easier for their thievery."
"So what are you planning?"
A shrug. "Well, plan A is to let myself be taken as a hostage, and take them out that way."
"They'll shoot you before you can get close enough."
He rolled his eyes at having that plan shot down. "Okay, plan B; go in, guns ablazing, and scare the crap out of them that way."
"Not your style, and again, you end up dead on the road."
Tough person to work with she was. "For someone who's accepted that I'm Vash," he said while glancing at her, "you sure have a massive lack of faith."
"I've accepted to call you Vash, not that you're the Humanoid Typhoon himself," Annette chided to correct him. She wasn't completely convinced that he was the real deal. "But I do accept that you've got the skill to warrant the reputation."
Vash gave a smile and looked back at the robbery. "Your confidence is without compare," came his sarcastic reply while he shifted his footing. "How good are you with those Eagles 9s, by the way?"
Blink, Blink. "How did you know about my Eagles?" Annette asked in surprise. "I never told you about them, and I've never shown you I have them."
"I'm that good." Vash grinned. "I actually saw you using them to scare off a couple drunks back in Augusta. I was tempted to say hi and offer you dinner, but you seemed kind'a busy."
Okay, not as creepy as it had at first seemed. Wait, ask her out to dinner? Was he...no, he couldn't be. "Buy me dinner?" she intoned suspiciously while narrowing her eyes. "If I didn't know better, mister, I'd say you were coming onto me."
"Never on the first date," he replied with a mischievous grin that said he'd caught something very wrong with how she'd worded her response. Damn those sunglasses for covering his eyes like that! Did he ever take them off? She'd never even seen his eyes because of those things. "However, I do have more important things to worry about." He grabbed the lid of a nearby trashcan, looked at it, then smirked and headed out of the alley. "Besides, this situation is not equal."
"Hurry it up!"
Th pair of hostages moved as fast as they could, dumping the last of the money bags into the back of the convertible. They were trembling, sure that with their use to these men done, they were surely going to be shot. "Please, don't kill us," one of the girls begged.
The largest of the robbers grinned and grabbed her by the chin, turning her head forcibly to get a good look at her features. "A couple of pretty girls like you would be a waste to kill. We've got much better uses for you than that."
"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing!"
The man turned to see what was bothering his companions. Now walking toward them was a young man in a red coat, but he had a trashcan lid on his head like it was a wide brim hat. "The hell?" he mutterd while cocking his shotgun. "Hey, hold it there, pal!"
The young man came to a stop beside the car. "Me?" he intoned, keeping that lid angled down so that his face was hidden. "Is there some reason I should be worried?"A smirk, and he tapped the heel of his boot to snap a pair of blade out from the toe region that locked together into a knife. With a flick of his foot, he tore open the front tire he was next to, and chuckled when the car sank down on that side. "Whoops, looks like you guys have a flat. Guess you ain't making a get-away in this junk heep."
Yeah, now they were mad. Good, men like them didn't think clearly when angered. "You son of a bitch!" the apparently leader of the gang screamed. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"
"Don't you know who this man is!" the large built man said, waving his hand to the weasely looking man. "This here is Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon!"
"Funny, I'd heard that Vash was a lot better looking!" he spat back. If they were going to claim they had him, they could at least have someone who didn't look like a rat play the part, the idiots. Oh yeah, they were pissed. He brought the lid down just as they opened fire, shielding against the bullets, then dove aside while letting go of his cover and grinning. Time to have a little fun.
He snapped his hands, dropping his revolvers out of the sleeve holders and into his grip. With a grunt as the rounds ceased firing, he jumped up from behind the car and returned the attack. One shot knocked the large man's shotgun away, the second hitting it just right and splitting the weapon in two. He pulled the triggers again, the second round of bullets now disarming two more of the men. The leader, however, aimed that rather large weapon he had, pulled the pump action, and opened several sections of the gun to reveal more barrels inside.
"Interesting," Vash muttered just before he crossed his arms, left over right, and fired again to hit the man's left leg and his right hand dead on. First the weapon hit the ground, followed by its former wielder as he fell from his feet and screamed in pain while grabbing his wounded leg. "Some Vash the Stampede!" he cried out while the robbers stared in horror at him. "Not even a shot that hit me, and he's down after two rounds! The rest of you you wann'a try me!"
The men stepped back, hesitating as they debated on whether or not to pick up their wounded leader, then ran like hell to get out of there. With a smile, Vash twirled his guns about, then slid them into his side holsters. He walked over to the wounded leader, then, bending down, picked him up and looked around. "Can someone direct me to a medical center! This man needs attention, now!"
Someone cried out the directions, and with that, Vash headed down into town, knowing well that Annette was following behind him, but not paying her any attention. Maybe she was starting to really believe he was the Humanoid Typhoon, maybe not. But so long as no one else got the right idea, he would be alright for now.
It was an hour later that Vash finally left the hospital after leaving the wounded gang leader in their care. The mayor had been amazed that he hadn't just killed the man, but Vash had simply shrugged and stated that it wasn't his right to take a life. Besides, there had been other options, and while he still lived, at least the leader of that gang would learn from his mistake, and not be a threat to anyone again. He was going to have a hell of a time walking again once that leg healed, but, that was the price he paid for having tried to steal the honest earnings of other people.
Annette was waiting for him outside the main entrance as he walked out. "That was a noble thing you did," she said while now walking alongside him. "Anyone else would have just left things along, or shot to kill. Why didn't you?"
"As I said," Vash replied while now leading the way toward the local restaurant. "The situation wasn't equal. I can't stand to see people like him take what belongs to someone else."
"And why did you only cripple him?"
He sighed, reaching up to his sunglasses and for the first time removing them. "I don't kill people," he replied, and now turned back to reveal to her his shining sky blue eyes. The look on Annette's face showed that she hadn't expected those eyes behind his sunglasses. Must have been the whole 'eyes like the Devil' part of the rumors that no doubt were due to the fact he almost never took his sunglasses off. "No one has the right to take the life of another, Miss Mallard."
Noble words to live by, Annette had to admit that. Wait, then why hadn't he saved that giant from the sandworm back in Dankin? "You let that man die when he was eaten by the sandworm," she stated, noting she'd found a flaw in his apparent creed. "Isn't that taking a life, even if indirectly?"
"I said no one has that right," Vash shot back. He sighed. "Nature, however, is not a person, and thus does have the right to take back what it gave in the first place." He paused for a moment. "Besides, there was nothing I could do to save that man, and in case you forgot, I was saving you from him and the sandworm."
Well, that did make sense, and really, there hadn't been anything he could have done to change things. But this boy was such an enigma in terms of his views. If he was Vash, why did he do what he could to make sure people stayed alive? He was infamous for being a force of nature that tore through and destroyed entire cities. Hell, he was responsible for the massive crater on the fifth moon, an event that had resulted in Vash the Stampede being marked as a living Act of God. Was it all just a big misunderstanding, or was there more to it?
"So, how about lunch?" he offered as they walked into the cafe. "My treat, since I never repaided you for helping me out in Dankin."
Her heart skipped a beat. He was being really nice to her, even though they barely could call each other acquaintances, and yet, he wasn't trying at all to make an attempt of getting in her pants. The feeling she got was that he had no intention of secret motive, just being a nice guy. Was he really giving her his honest friendship? "I...sure."
Again, he smiled, but it was a different kind of smile. It wasn't the self-confident or calculating smiled she'd seen on his face before. Without those sunglasses covering his eyes, it was a kind smile, one that reminded her of a little boy. "Two please," he said to the waitress, who lead them to a table and left a couple of menus. Vash looked at it for a moment, then set it back down, evidentially already knowing what he wanted. "So, tell me. Why are you following me?"
She quickly opened her menu and hid behind it. "I'm not following you, we just happened to end up in the same place."
He wasn't convinced. "Uh-huh, that's why you keep going to every city I'm going through," Vash replied as the waitress came back with a couple glasses of water. He decided to wait for Annette before ordering, though he asked for a plate of donuts and a glass of milk as an appetizer, and simply began sipping down water while waiting . "You're following all leads on Vash the Stampede, and thusly, you're following me wherever I go."
Yes, she was following all leads on Vash, but did he have to play up this whole act of insisting that he was the Humanoid Typhoon? "You are not Vash the Stampede," she finally said bluntly. "Vash the Stampede is a tall man with spiky hair, a red coat and-"
"And eyes like the Devil," he finished for her. He broke into a grin when the waitress came back with the donuts and milk. "Annie, you ready?"
She wasn't going to win this one, she could tell. "Just a beef and cheddar melt platter," she said after a moment. "Also, two glasses of whiskey."
Vash raised a brow, then ordered a large country-fried steak plate. As the waitress left, he started munching down on the donuts, gulping one down in a single bite, much to Annette's amazement. After taking a gulp of milk, Vash sighed. "I fit all those, save I'm not incredibly tall. And let me tell you, that's just something they tagged on to make me all the more impressive. I can outgun sixteen fully armed men with only two six shooters, I can shoot a bullet out the air, which, by the way, no other person on the planet can do, and, last but not least." He pulled back the flap over his left side gun, the shiny black one. "I've got a pair of rather large handguns."
"And eyes like the Devil?"
Again, he smiled, now taking his sunglasses from in his coat and showing them to her. "Reflective mirror lenses," he answered while demonstrating the effects of the lenses in the light. Truly, you couldn't see into those glasses at all, and from the light reflecting off them, it looked like a pair of demonic eyes. "I don't take them off often, so, most people who see me from a distance think that my eyes are glowing, and those who see me up close assume I have something terrible to hide behind them." Now he indicated his own eyes. "But as you can see, these baby blues are hardy demonic. Unless you believe that the Devil has eyes so beautiful that you can't look away, like the book says he does."
If not for the fact he was pointing out a very good fact about human religion, she'd almost accuse him of being conceited. But he was right; except for his height, which could be explained by exaggeration, he fit every single real description of Vash the Stampede. Wait, there was one other thing. Vash the Stampede was supposed to be the worst kind of womanizer, yet this boy was hardly that sort of person. There was another explanation; perhaps Vash was actually the worst at womanizing and was in fact just a horribly doomed flirt.
Two more donuts gone. "Thus being," he continued after taking a few more gulps of milk. "You can't believe all the things you hear about me. If you did, then how did anyone survive to spread these rumors?"
Yes, that was true, so as he'd proven, you couldn't trust all the hearsay about the Humanoid Typhoon. "So," Annette began while now taking a sip of her water. "What does bring you through here?"
He shrugged, popping down another donut. "Actually, I came into town looking for Frank Marlon, so I could get these old heeps reworked. As good as I am, they're about two or three inches off from five feet, and I was hoping to have a lot of work done to make them into autos."
He wanted them converted? It was an odd idea. Could those revolvers be turned into automatics? "If anyone could do it, it is probably Marlon," she quipped while sipping down her water some more. "If I had any idea how to find him, I might be able to help, but, I've only heard of the guy."
Vash shrugged, then popped down the last two donuts and finished off his milk. Just in time too, the waitress was back with their food and the whiskey. He quickly started munching down on his meal while Annette took a large bite of her beef and cheddar melt sandwich. After swallowing a large mouthful of mashed potatoes, Vash finished drinking his water and smiled. "I'm sure I can find someone who can give me directions," he stated. "You're welcome to tag along if you want, being it's your job to keep an eye on me." He paused while cutting the steak. "You sure you're not working for Bernardeli?"
"I'm an Irregular with Verandil Investigation," Annette replied before gobbling down a handful of french fries. "Bernarndeli turned down the Vash case this time, and Old man Verandil decided to give it to me. That doesn't mean that the Insurance people aren't going nuts over this." She muttered something under her breath and took a swig of whiskey. "Miss Stryfe was quite upset over all the damage in Dankin."
He stopped with his fork and the steak upon it halfway into his mouth. He pulled it back and blinked. "Meryl Stryfe?" he asked curiously. "Short black hair, about five foot two, white outfit, blue pants, and a cape loaded with derringers?"
Even as she nodded, Annette felt something was odd about this. "You know her?"
"Well I should," Vash replied after finally taking that bite of his steak. "She only tailed me for about two years twenty or so years back." He gulped, took another bite of the potatoes, then chewed while he had a thoughtful expression on his face. "Should've stuck around and said hi to her, it's been a long time."
She bite down on her sandwich, eyeing Vash warily. "That's another thing," Annette continued after swallowing. "You look way too young to have been running around twenty years ago. Don't try and tell me you just age really well."
Vash hesitated in replying. If he told her outright that he was a Freeborn Planet Angel, oh boy, would she flip. She'd claim such a thing didn't exist, couldn't exist, and was such a ridiculous notion to begin with. Also, he couldn't very well tell her that he was, in fact, agelessly immortal.
Then again, even that wasn't the complete truth.
"I have my ways," he finally answered while sipping down his glass of whiskey. "Besides, I'm well over a hundred, considering I was at July City when it was destroyed over sixty years ago, so to question my age and how I look after this long is rather moot."
Annette mumbled again. "Smartass," she spat. She finally settled for finishing her lunch, then watched as Vash quickly swallowed down his own meal. How could he eat so much so fast? He was like a vacuum. "I'm still not convinced on you. You don't even look old enough to shave, let alone be Vash the Stampede."
A shrug, and he finished his glass of whiskey. "That's your choice," he said. The waitress came over, gave them the bill, and Vash pulled a couple bills out of his coat that he handed to her while Annette downed the rest of her glass. "Keep the change," he said as they stood up. "Oh, a question, miss," he quickly added before she left. "Could you tell me were I could find Frank Marlon?"
"Old Man Marlon?" she replied. "Yeah, he lives down the road from here, just past the tailor. Why you looking for him, you a friend of his?"
Vash shrugged and smiled while taking out his sunglasses. "You could say that," he stated while slipping the glasses back onto his face and heading out the door with Annette in tow. "Thanks again!"
