SIXTEEN: nightmare

Stryker tossed the butt of his cigarette to the sand and stared at the shuttle before him. "SEEDS," he muttered, wondering just what he was looking at. It was odd, every bit of it. His curiosity was only compounded by the strange noises emanating from within.

Quietly, he inspected the gaping hole where somebody had blasted his way through the entrance of the ship. He was amazed at the prospect of where this thing had come from. He had heard tales of this world's short history, how people from the stars had landed here more than a hundred years ago and made the planet habitable. Well, somewhat, anyway.

It's him. Gotta be.

Stryker checked to see that his sidearm was still in its holster. Tapping the butt of his shotgun to the hard limestone floor, he slipped off into the shadows. He took no more than three or four steps when something short and slender crashed into him. It had the same effect of a motorcycle hitting a stone wall. The little man who ran into him dropped like a rock on his backside.

Stryker glared down at the little weasel.

"You're not him," he muttered. He bent down, collecting the weasel by the collar. "Where is he."

"Let go of me! He's crazy, I tell you! He's got shit for brains!"

Stryker frowned. "Vash the Stampede."

"He'll kill ya, man! Is it really worth your life?"

"If it was that easy to end my life, I wouldn't be here." He tossed the pencil-neck to the ground and lit a cigarette. "If you're really that scared of a few bullets, you're in the wrong profession, bounty hunter."

The man's eyes widened.

In that instant, the light of the downed shuttle flickered. He caught a clear view of the man, and in return his own face was bathed in light. The fear came almost instantly. "You?! Who the hell are you?! You're just not human!" Screaming he kicked at Stryker and fought to get away. "Let me go! Get off me, man!"

Stryker let him go. He soon found his way to the exit and disappeared out into the cave.

Stryker set his shotgun over his shoulder and made his way out into the darkness.

----------

She leaned there, stunned at the developments. Vash was in trouble, she could feel it in her bones. Something was desperately wrong. She wished Milly was with her, wished she could be with him as he faced these horrible moments. No one should have to face such times alone. He deserved her to be with him, and she deserved to be at his side.

That was when she heard it. The crack of gunfire made her stiffen. She spun around. She could tell that it wasn't Vash's hidden gun. But what was… Her eyes widened as a cry of pain filled the corridor. "Vash!" She spun into the shadows and raced back the way she had come, desperate to find him again.

The sound of his machine-gun followed. She felt a little better, though not much. She had to find him. She had to be certain that he was okay.

Meryl pulled two derringers free, huffing and puffing all the way.

I'm coming, Vash. Just hold on.

She knew she might only have one chance to hit the bastard. She dodged down the corridor, certain that he was in trouble, feeling that she was his only hope.

She had to reach him, even at the cost of her own life.

After what seemed like forever, she came into the poorly lit corridor where she had left him, as he asked her to. There he was, crumpled against the wall. In a split second, she understood that he'd been hit.

"I never should have left you," she whispered, and fell her knees at his side.

"No, you did exactly what you should have," he replied, leaning back. The pain was evident on his features.

"Vash, you're hurt."

"I'll be okay. He just hit my leg." The gunman shook a little and tried to force himself to his feet. Slipping in his own blood, he slumped back to the floor. She could see the crimson mess oozing from his left calf and dripping to the floor.

"Damnit Vash, you could have been killed!"

"Never that easy. There's only one of them, and he's down to a single gun." He paused, smiling. "Meryl, I'm glad you came back for me."

She gazed at him and blinked. Then she nodded. "We need to get you out of here, out of the open. What if he comes back? Can you move at all?" She doubted he could move without pain, judging the wound in his leg, but she knew Vash, and she knew he'd be able to make it. With her help, he'd make it. She'd drag him to shelter if she had to.

"I can make it," he said softly. He glanced quietly at her, no doubt concerned. "I think he's a bounty hunter. Whoever he is, he's good."

Meryl nodded. "Then let's get out of here."

She supported his weight, wrapping an arm around his waist as she helped him to his feet. She gazed up with concern in her violet eyes. She could tell he was in pain, but he didn't complain. She was so used to his wining that this situation was surreal. He seemed so much like a wounded soldier intent on going back for his comrades in the heat of a ferocious battle. Her heart swelled with pride for the simple fact that she knew him.

"We need to get that wound wrapped," she sighed. Her feet came up, and she could feel the soft pressure of blood sticking to the bottom of her shoe. She winced inwardly, longing for the nightmare to simply draw to an end.

She shot a look behind her as she took a derringer in her free hand. She was ready, though she knew that right now, Vash was a wounded duck, an easy target. He could barely walk even with her support. It scared her to death.

They started down the corridor, intent on finding a place to hide.

Vash closed his eyes. He wanted to tell her that the man had run away, that they were safe, but he had an odd feeling eating at the pit of his stomach. He wondered what cruelty was picking at his soul. He winced again as he put too much pressure on his left foot. Meryl fought to keep him on his feet, but he knew she couldn't last long. He was a big man, about six and a half feet tall. Meryl was more than a foot shorter than him. As tough as she was there was no way she could cart him around.

She already knew that. They both did, but she was stubborn as an ox. She wouldn't leave him behind. He wouldn't let her stay. The only option was to compromise, to help each other.

Why did he feel that he had made the wrong decision?

The answer came in the form of a black blur, rushing past them on Meryl's side. A powerful blow knocked the derringer free from her grip, sending it skittering across the ground. Vash screamed. For whatever reason, she knew it was the pain of his leg. He crumpled to the ground at her feet. Her heart sank as she felt the assailant come up in front of her, his face hidden by shadows.

He took a step forward, and he was in her face. An arm came up and he grabbed a fistful of her hair, twisting her head back painfully. The dim light cast a hazy glow on his sneering face, and Meryl felt her heart stop.

What he wanted, why he grabbed her, didn't matter.

What mattered was the familiar face that stared heatedly back at her. Piercing emerald eyes burned deep into her with a fire that she had known only a few times in her life. It couldn't be possible. There was no way. She didn't understand.

"No…"

His hair was different. It was longer than she had ever seen it on Vash and pulled back into a ponytail. Everything else about his face was a spot on a match, from his narrow nose to his sparkling white teeth and to his glistening emerald eyes, a friendly face on every other emotion. He put his gun to her chin, drawing it slowly along her neck. "Hold still," he whispered.

She did. She closed her eyes, begging for it to stop, praying for a miracle, but she couldn't say anything. She knew better than to speak, trembling as the cold steel rolled slowly down and into her Adam's apple. Was this the man who had fired at them before?

No, it wasn't. Not this man. This man wouldn't have missed, if he was who she thought he was.

After a moment, he flung her aside like a sack of potatoes. She hit the wall, her injured arm taking the brunt of the crash, and slid to the ground. The attacker spun toward the injured man.

Vash tried to lift his prosthetic arm, but the other brought his boot down on his wrist. For the first time in a year, Vash missed his angel arm magnum. "Don't move."

His eyes widened.

At the same time, the other man saw Vash's face. Meryl could see his eyes widen as well. She realized that they had only just noticed that their faces were identical. She could see a flood on questions pouring through his psyche, and she realized at that moment that the man wasn't who she thought he was. It wasn't Knives. This was someone else, entirely different, yet so very familiar.

Vash was gazing into his own eyes.

"How…how is this possible?" Vash stammered. "It can't be."

Stryker hesitated, as if trying to sort out the unexpected. He glanced over to the woman, no doubt lost. She wondered what was going on. Vash obviously didn't know who he was. Nor did the stranger standing over him.

"Vash the Stampede?" he said after a time.

The silence was all the confirmation he needed.

He gave Meryl a look out of the corner of his eye. "I have no beef with you, woman. Get outta here." He lifted his gun—a black Colt 8-shooter, Vash identified without hesitation—and calmly rested it between Vash's eyes. At the same time, he turned his attention to the legendary outlaw. "I don't have any clue who you are, but that doesn't matter. You've hurt too many people. I can't let you hurt anyone else."

Meryl saw the truth behind the situation. She could tell instantly by the sound of his voice that he was seeking to end a nightmare, a nightmare that she already knew didn't truly exist. People feared Vash the Stampede, and this was a man who was trying to put an end to that fear.

She saw the look on Vash's face, heard the confidence in his voice. "I've made my peace with God," he said quietly. "If you pull the trigger, I go with a clear conscience."

"How can you possibly say that after all you've done? You bastard…"

"You're wrong!" Meryl fought herself into a sitting position, grabbing at the pain in her arm. He shot a look to her. She saw his anger at her interruption, but she didn't care. She did the only thing she could think to do at them moment. She couldn't leave, she couldn't fight. The only thing that came to her was that she was Meryl, and that was all she would ever be. It was her best defense, Vash's only defense. "Vash has never intentionally hurt anyone! He's always defended them!"

Stryker glared at her through the corner of his eye, never taking his pistol from Vash's forehead. He didn't move; Vash complied by staying perfectly still. The man in black had the upper hand, and they all knew it.

"My mind tells me to squeeze the trigger, to end the suffering of the people. But my heart has questions of its own. It wants to know how the hell I just happen to look like the most notorious outlaw in the history of this land." He loosened the pressure of the gun against Vash's flesh, but he didn't lower it. Vash never moved. "I should drop you where you sit. End it at that."

"I can't tell you either way."

"I know."

Vash drew a deep breath, taking a moment to look over the man standing over him. I don't believe it. Except for the hair, he looks exactly like me. Same height, build. It…it's perfect.

"I have the same questions," he admitted, refusing to tremble. He wondered how Knives had done it. He knew why it was done, but that wasn't enough.

Meryl closed her eyes for a moment, letting the pain pass over here. The blood seeped through the bandage Milly had so carefully wrapped, but she paid no attention to it.

Instead she opened her eyes and tossed a worried look at Vash, then up to the man standing over him. She wanted to find some way to make him believe that Vash was not the man they said he was, that the title of Humanoid Typhoon was no more than propaganda, stirred up with the intention of causing Vash pain.

It seemed her whole world was coming down around her, and there was nothing she could do about it. Vash was in the hands of an enigma, one that shared his very appearance and perhaps his skills as well.

The Vash duplicate stared at her, and then closed his eyes. "If I am wrong, Lord, then I am sorry. Forgive me this deed which I am forced to commit."

He reapplied the pressure to the gun between Vash's eyes.

"No you don't!"

The compression of Milly's stun gun echoed her shout.

The stun-rod slammed into the Vash duplicate and rammed him into a nearby wall, pinning him down. Milly raced over to Meryl, falling to a knee to help her up. She stared at the man she had downed, her expression one of utter shock.

"M...Meryl?"

She nodded. "I'm okay, I think."

"Who is that?" Her voice was barely audible. "What's going on?"

Meryl sighed, giving the big girl's shoulder a squeeze. She closed her eyes, relieved to see her friend. She had been so worried about her. She was still worried about Vash. She peered over to him. He still knelt in the corridor, eyes wide. "We should get out of here before he comes to."

Vash shot a look to her. Then, gingerly, the Humanoid Typhoon rose to his feet and limped over to his downed duplicate. He leaned over the man, a hand on the wall to support his weight. Sure enough, he hadn't been hallucinating. The man was a spitting image of himself, no doubt a clone. Knives was the only culprit that came to mind.

He would have had plenty of opportunity. During the July incident, over twenty-four years ago, Vash had lost his arm. Knives had taken it and had it surgically attached to Legato Bluesummers, making Legato essentially part plant and giving him special, telepathic powers. Vash couldn't put it past his brother to taking a blood sample and using it to create a clone. That would have been the easiest time, probably the most logical, but there had been various situations that would have sufficed.

He glanced to the ground, catching sight of the black 8-shooter. He kicked the sidearm away with his right foot.

"So, my friend, what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" He was talking to an unconscious duplicate of himself, but that didn't matter. He leaned down and grabbed the clone's left sleeve, pulling it up and away from his arm.

Vash narrowed his eyes. Though the familiar-faced stranger matched him in almost every way, he still had one thing that Vash did not. He still had his flesh and blood left arm. There was no prosthetic with a hidden machine-gun inside. That made this a hell of a lot easier. The question was, how old? Assuming he was created following the July incident, he would have to be somewhere between ten and twenty-four, considering he and Knives had both been done physically growing by the age of ten.

He glanced to his friends. "I think we're okay. I just…we can't leave him here. He'll only come after us. Anyway, I have to know who he is."

Meryl couldn't believe it. She stared at him, trying to convince herself he hadn't gone mad. "Vash, I understand why you want to know more about this man, but he tried to kill you. If he's anything like you…" She clenched her eyes, shaking the thought away. "If he's anything like you, he'll try it again. Without hesitation."

She looked to the stranger, the man who looked so much like the one she loved. It was a terrifying thought, to think that someone could easily assume his place in this world. The personality would be differing, but Vash was so unpredictable that nearly everyone on this treacherous world would probably look past it. A few years ago, she would have made the very same mistake.

She shook the thought away and looked up from the duplicate to the man standing over him. "Vash, the world needs you. They may not understand, but they do. I need you. You have to live, don't you understand? We can't take this chance."

She shot a look to Milly. It was nothing short of a miracle that the big girl had shown up at all, especially in Vash's moment of need. He had been a dead man, and he had resigned himself to that fate. She took her friend's arm. "You agree with me, don't you?" she whispered, fear laced in her voice. She didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. She knew she was right, but she also knew there would be no swaying Vash from this situation. She knew he had to know, but she didn't think the information was worth risking his life over.

She refused to just sit here and wait for the unconscious man to come to and have another chance to take Vash away from her.

Hesitantly, Milly slid closer to Vash, peering down to the man beneath him. It bothered her that he didn't respond to Meryl right away. It bothered her because of a man she had known that lived a life bound by obligation to darkness, only to have him snatched away when she had discovered his true nature. It bothered her because Vash showed the same determination in his eyes now that she had seen on the face of Wolfwood when he had battled his own personal demons over a year ago. Gently, Milly took his arm.

"She's right, Mr. Vash," she whispered. "I don't wanna see what that man can do to you. If he shares more than your looks, we could be in real trouble."

"We'll be all right. Trust me."

Vash went to a knee and pushed the stun-rod off of his counterpart, laying him on his back. He gathered all the firepower lying around and limped with in to lean against the opposite wall.

"When he comes to, we'll ask him a few questions. If you don't want to be here, go find a place to wait for me. I promise you, this man will not kill me."

He glanced to Meryl, showing her the determination in his eyes.

"Trust me."

If it wasn't for the wound in his leg, Meryl might have hit him. She wanted to knock some sense in him, but one look from him quelled all thoughts of arguing further. She sighed and shook her head. "I refuse to sit by and watch you get yourself killed, but I can't leave you alone with him. Not with that hole in your leg." She walked slowly toward him. "So let Milly and I wrap it for you. Then we'll go off to talk. We won't be far. I refuse to leave you alone with him."

Vash nodded slowly. "Okay, fine. But I need to be able to see him." He held the 8-shooter, after checking to see that it was fully loaded, at the ready, peeking back and forth from the girls to his look-alike. He was a little worried about having them here, but he didn't expect the man lying on the floor would be much of a threat now.

He'd instilled a little doubt now, so maybe the guy would be willing to ask questions of his own.

The best way to learn about someone is through conversation, Rem used to say.

Slinging her stun gun over her shoulder, Milly went over and took a seat next to Vash, gazing to his bloodied leg. She reached down to work on the injury. "I'm not leaving him. If he's going to be waiting here, I am too."

Vash winced. Milly was one of the gentler souls on all of Gunsmoke, but she didn't always have the gentlest of hands. "Geesh Milly! Could ya be a little gentler? That really hurt!"

Milly simply smiled.