Meryl finally finished the insurmountable amount of paperwork she had accumulated. That's when a letter arrived with the names Millie Thompson and Meryl Stryfe. Meryl thought this a bit odd; she hadn't received mail from her family in a couple of weeks. She ripped open the letter, scanned through it, then jumped up to find Millie. She was outside, walking happily with Nicholas.
"Millie! Millie!" Meryl called out loudly.
"Nani sempai?" She responded. "We just got a letter from the Bernedelli Insurance Company!"
Millie looked perplexed. "What is it they want?" She questioned.
"They want us to come back," Meryl replied. Meryl was busy packing. Nicholas had agreed to come with them. Meryl highly doubted he'd stray from Millie's side for long. Nicholas was joking and making Millie laugh, which suited Millie much better than the depressant state she'd been in a few months earlier before Nicholas's return. Meryl wondered where Vash was, and prayed one day she'd see him again.
Vash wiped the sweat off his forehead. The desert sun was baking his skin and Knives weren't helping things throwing sarcasm and insults at him every few steps. Vash had managed to salvage his infamous red jacket, although it wasn't helping him much in the scourging heat.
"I will give you credit however, my brother. You killed Legato Bluesummers, something I thought that would be difficult to bring out of you."
Vash whipped around at this comment. "You think I enjoyed that? It went against everything I was ever taught! Killing is wrong! Rem taught me I never have the right to take the life of another!" Knives laughed his cold and cruel laugh. "You still go by the teachings of that pathetic human do you? I would have thought you'd detach yourself from her by now." Vash glared at his sardonic brother. He painfully remembered the damage the so-called "gun" in his hand had done. The look of horror and utter disgust on the inhabitants of the cities he'd accidentally destroyed. How they people had called him a murder, a criminal, and heartless. He did not blame them; from the outside things could be taken that way. Although, Vash lived by his own philosophies these days, he still kept those of his mentor Rem close to his heart. Knives had killed Rem and laughed about it, he found it amusing. How could two brothers be so opposite? Vash glanced up at the blank sky, his brother still attacking humanity as they plunged on towards the abyss.
Meryl was driving and her perception of reality drifted in and out slowly. She only half listened to Millie and Nicholas in the back seat laughing and talking merrily with each other. She wasn't looking forward to going back to Bernedelli. She was sure she'd get yelled at for late paperwork and probably for letting Vash out of her sights as well.
"Sempai you might want to watch out for the potholes in the road," Millie called out.
Meryl shook her head, snapping herself out of her daze. "Oh, gomen-ne." The trip took about a good three hours. Meryl wondered vaguely if they wanted Mille and herself back so they could be fired in person. A black neko was stretched lazily in the sunlight. Meryl wondered why they ran into the same cat everywhere they went. Meryl shrugged it off and went inside the insurance building. It seemed most everyone was gone except for her boss.
"Ah, Meryl Stryfe, welcome back." His voice was irritating to put it mildly; it was almost like puberty had skipped over him.
"Doomo arigato, I have the paperwork you needed." Meryl said grudgingly.
"I was wondering if you were ever going to get this in. I have a new assignment for you and Millie Thompson." Meryl secretly wondered if it was to drag Vash in. "I want you to track a man named Knives as well as Vash the Stampede. Rumor has it Knives is ten times worse than the human tornado." Meryl secretly boiled at this comment; he had no damn idea what the real Vash was like.
"When are we supposed to start?" Meryl asked through gritted teeth as Millie stood behind her listening intensely.
"Tomorrow, and if you mess this up you both are fired," he said with an air of finality in his voice. And with that, Millie and Meryl walked out back out into the silent town. Nicholas was leaning up against a post waiting for Millie. It was apparent he'd just finished off another cigarette because some of the gray smoke lingered around the tips of his hair.
"So are you both out of a job?" He asked Millie.
"No, now our mission it to track both down Mr. Vash and his brother Knives." Millie informed him. Meryl gulped silently, this would not be an easy task to fulfill. Knives could kill them both easily, and Vash couldn't prevent everything that happened. Meryl sighed and non-chantingly ran her fingers through her tousled hair.
"We better get going, they could be miles and miles from here," Meryl said a matter-of-factly.
"You're right, we could be driving for hours." Millie answered back. Nicholas muttered a profanity as he threw his "cross" into the trunk.
"We might be needing that if we run into any of Vash's old buddies," he sneered in a sarcastic tone. It was true; Vash always had someone after his head. Meryl was intending to get to him first; they'd take him in over her dead body. They camped in an almost ghost town, thoughts going around in Meryl's head. She like Millie had decided to write her family. For a short while, it took her mind off her current situation. She was sorely tempted to just quit. She didn't want to hold Vash up, or make things difficult for him. She decided she'd do it soon, but she was desperate for news of a sighting of him. Anything to ease her mind, anything at all, and she would give up her crazy crusade.
Vash was fast asleep under a milky blanket of stars. Knives stood under a precipice. He glanced at his foolhardy brother and smiled.
"He thinks he can control me so easily. I think not. I shall finish what I started." With those words, Knives the human/plant hybrid disappeared before the morning broke.
-Back to Meryl, Millie and Wolfwood-
Meryl tossed and turned in her bed. She had a vision of Vash laughing merrily with a purple-headed woman who spoke with the wisdom of a guru. Vash acted like he had known her most of his life, and by the look on his face was utterly smitten with her. Vash's usual barrages of guns were absent from his side and instead he and this woman seemed happy in what appeared to be a space station. He has his normal haircut, but for some reason he looked ions younger. He had pushed Meryl aside for this woman and her policies of pacifism. Meryl rolled over, could that really happen? She'd heard Vash mention some woman named Rem who eerily resembled the person from her dream.
"I see you're awake." A cold and almost monotone voice declared. Meryl jumped, and bit her lip to stop herself from screaming bloody murder. She shot up out of bed to see the identity of the late night intruder. What she saw made her nearly swoon in dread.
"Anata!" Was all she was able to manage. He grinned in a sick way.
"You're dead, I watched you die surrounded by a pool of your own blood!" Meryl reasoned.
He made a tisk tisk motion. "Ah you foolish humans, I happen to posses the ability to heal myself. My master found me and slowly I healed back to health. I have been sent by my master to complete a mission against the bleeding-heart Vash the Stampede."
Meryl's eyes grew cold and hard. "You're not taking me without a fight!" Meryl groped for the two guns she had put in the nightstand.
"Oh don't be stupid, I'm not supposed to kill you yet." He swiped the guns quickly from her hands. He also struck her violently over the head and carried her away unnoticed into the balmy night air.
Vash awoke with his back aching the next morning. He rolled over to find he'd slept on a rather jagged rock. "Damn" He cursed. He'd learned his lesson about drinking the one time he'd managed to get himself completely plastered.
"Okay Knives we're heading out." Vash turned around to find he'd been talking to thin air. Vash cursed again.
"He ran off, no doubt to some defenseless town." Vash scrambled to adjust his glasses and was off.
-Meanwhile elsewhere-
Meryl awoke with her head throbbing. She felt it gingerly and felt a large slightly bloody lump. The guy who'd kidnapped her had been pretty brutal. What did she expect from a treacherous villain? His odd attire fitted his demonic nature to a T. He looked exactly the way he did Meryl had seen him when he'd died.
"Legato, can't say I'm happy to see you aren't dead as dirt." Meryl grimaced.
He gave that twisted evil grin. "Ah yes you wouldn't be, especially since you'll be the reason that I have the pleasure of either killing Vash or turning him over to evil."
Meryl would have slapped him had her hands been freed. "There's no way in hell Vash will turn evil! I won't let you kill him so you'll just have to kill me!"
Legato shook his head, his hair flailing in all directions. "We were going to kill you regardless." Meryl felt her throat go dry, and the pain in the back of her head throbbed. Once again it would be her fault Vash had to break his own philosophy of not killing.
"So this is the pathetic wretch my bleeding heart brother is so devoted to. What a worthless piece of filth just like the rest of the human scum that inhabits this planet." Meryl felt her stomach lurch violently at the sound of that cold, cruel, and almost monotone voice. "You did gag her I assume?" He directed his comments at Legato.
"Ah no, my master I shall do that." Legato roughly shoved a piece of black cloth into Meryl's mouth. She desperately felt a need to throw up.