Ch. 7 A Price To Pay
Bleeding Sun
Vash walked across the desert with his usual insane grin spread maniacally across his face. His smile faltered as he heard shouting echo from behind him. He stopped angrily and swung around only to have Meryl run into him. She gasped and jumped back and looked back at Milly and Wolfwood.
"Sempai! Slow down, me and Mr. Priest can't keep up!" Milly called out while running towards them with Wolfwood closely following her. They finally caught up and Vash raised his eyebrows, expecting an explanation.
"How the hell do you walk so fast in this heat!" roared Wolfwood as he rested against his cross. Milly giggled and Meryl looked up at Vash, waiting for a reaction. Lately he had been very unpredictable, so she wasn't sure what to expect. Vash, however, remained silent and spun on his heels, continuing his journey to an unknown city. His black coat billowed out behind him, shaking the sand from its thick cloth. Wolfwood gasped and unbuttoned his black suit jacket and persistently followed him and the girls.
Vash stopped for a second time and looked at a body lying in a heap at his feet. He gave it a kick in an uninterested way and it rolled over to reveal the bloody face of that wretched Cyclopes. Vash furrowed his eyebrows down and turn back to see Meryl and the others were trailing behind him again. He quickly unbuckled his traveling bag from his shoulder and threw it at the group. The bag collided with them and they all fell down.
"Stay there!" Vash yelled at them. He tore his sunglasses from his face and looked around for any sign of movement, other than the struggling of the threesome behind him.
"This is her, right? The precious girl you won't kill, am I mistaken?" A muffled yet unreasonably annoying voice called from behind him and Vash turned to see a short, thin man standing between two half-sphere shields. One hand had wires wrapped about every finger, but his right one was extended from within the spiked shield as it held Meryl up by her hair. She cried out in pain and he laughed wickedly at Vash's expression. The Stampede's entire being became a threatening silhouette as the suns lowered behind him. E. G. Mine could vaguely see him rise up his gun and he cried out when the shot just narrowly grazed the skin on his arm. Eugene hollered in fury and he threw Meryl onto the ground and gave her a bone breaking kick in the side. The other two had evidently been knocked out, as they made no movements what-so-ever.
Vash's dull eyes widened in horror and rage as he watched E. G. Mine laugh as he continued kicking Meryl.
"Don't hurt Rem!" Vash cried out as he ran at E. G. Mine. Eugene cackled and turned to the side and flexed his wired fingers.
"Take another step closer and I'll carve her full of holes!" he threatened with wide eyes. The mask covering his mouth loosened and flung open to reveal inhuman sharp teeth and no lips to grace his face. Vash growled and with a whirl of his hand he pointed his gun at him with no emotion running over his facial expressions.
"What makes you think she is of any importance to me? One less human to wipe off this dirty planet!" Vash shouted over the dust storm that was brewing. The remains of a torn down church scattered about them creaked and groaned in protest to the winds.
Meryl cried out as one spike impaled her arm. Vash gasped and reached towards her hopelessly. E. G. Mine laughed triumphantly.
"I beg to differ!" He looked amusedly at Vash's enraged face. He disappeared into his silhouette again and stood menacingly over E. G. Mine and Eugene could faintly hear him growl:
"Its filth like you that remind me why I hate the humans! You will die for your presence…" E.G. Mine laughed at Vash's speech and quickly gave his wires a large tug.
Time seemed to freeze as blood spilled from the young woman. Vash's pupils shrunk to nothing in horror and he watched the life flutter from her eyes. Her face was so full of pain that Vash felt like a million rusty knives were being driven into his black heart.
"REM!" he called out helplessly. E. G. Mine laughed at his pain and looked the Typhoon straight in the black face.
"See how it feels to loose a loved one? You've been doing this for years! Hahaha!"
"She... she's gone..." Vash sobbed. He couldn't think over the fog of her death. "I lost her again... Again! I HAD TO WATCH HER DIE AGAIN!" He ferociously looked to the killer.
"You damn bastard!" Vash roared, kicking E.G. Mine in the face, breaking his nose.
E.G. Mine went sailing back, slamming into a wall, only his huge shields kept the force from killing him. He tried to get back up, but when he looked up, he was staring down the barrel of Vash's gun.
"You hurt Rem! You HURT HER!" Vash cried with an insane look gleaming in his eyes. E.G. Mine stared in silent terror at the psychotic look on Vash's face. "May you rot in hell…" Vash rose up his gun, but only to point it at E. G. Mine's right shoulder. He squeezed the trigger, smiling manically as the bullet sailed down the barrel of his gun, blasting straight through the man's shoulder joint, blowing the limb right off.
"Oh god no! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" E.G. Mine pleaded. He screamed in agony, falling into shock. He let go of his shield to cradle his bleeding stump, but as he moved his remaining arm Vash slammed the heel of his boot on his elbow, smashing the joint in half.
He cried out in horror at the unbearable pain. He looked up at his bringer of death in fear.
Vash widen his crazed smile and pointed his gun at his stomach. He emptied all his bullets in him, pausing his torturing only to reload his gun. Vash cackled at E.G. Mine's cries and pleads for his life. This death would be his greatest cleansing yet!
This one death will be his masterpiece, to show all the imperfects that they too will meet the same end.
And he knew exactly where to showcase the body.
By this point E. G. Mine could hardly move. His lipless face looked up at Vash in absolute fear.
"My Rem's death shan't be left without punishment. Don't you dare even think of mercy from your god." Vash ripped a spike from Meryl's leg and he looked into Eugene's face with cold, dull eyes.
The silhouette could be seen from the next city. And the scream seemed to flood about the planet, and the entire world appeared to freeze at the inhuman sound. People in the beautiful city of January watched in terror to see the spike in the right hand of the Stampede being forced through the skull of yet another one of his victims.
Three days later the people of Augusta stared at the mountainside windmill in shock. People cried out in terror at the blood showering down on them from the body hanging by its twisted feet from the giant windmill. Scrawled clumsily in blood was written:
Prepare For The End
And beneath that was the Stampede's name gracefully signed. The disturbing thing about his blood drawn signature was how steady his hand was as he did it. As though he had no regrets…
NO! THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! It occurred to me that it seems this way, BUT IT IS NOT! And a note, Darkmoon Knight helped write this chapter (more specifically, E.G. Mine's death…) Keep reading, and as my now (somehow) famous line goes: remember to…
PUSH THE PRETTY LAVENDAR BUTTON!