Ch. 8 Falling Over The Edge
Bleeding Sun
Vash stood over Meryl, not daring to touch her torn up body. If he had any real respect for the dead, he might have buried her. But she was too angelic to put under the harsh ground. So, he left her there, and maybe the body would keep a wild dog alive for another day. Vash cast an eye over Wolfwood and Milly and watched them stir slightly. This was all for the better, now he could continue his mission with the peace that he knew she was deceased. For real this time.
Vash took in a deep breath of the October air as the sand train tore through the ocean desert. He swept his dull eyes over the crowd as they kept a ten-foot radius from him. The knowledge that he couldn't destroy the train because it was the only transportation across the desert, for him and the crowd, meant safety for them. Vash watched the ground fly behind them after being knocked loose and he let out another hefty sigh. It had been merely two days since he had to watch his most miserable memory for the second time, and his hatred for Knives was amplified beyond human comprehension.
"S-sir…?" a twitchy man behind the Typhoon approached him on the verge of a heart attack. Vash turned to him in oblivion and made no threatening move towards the mousy man.
"We… welcome you on the Black Diamond… sir… But you m-must understand the sort of p-p-people who travel the sea of sand, sir… m-more s-specifically… the B-badland b-b-boys…"
"So?" Vash asked with what resembled a snarl. The fidgety man jumped away with dinner plate sized eyes and quickly did a deep bow.
"W-we ask th-that you j-join the s-security, sir…"
"Me! On security!" Vash's monotonous eyes lit up at the laughable mention of him working with the humans! "You don't honestly expect me to work with you scum, do you? If I have any trouble coming from any of you I'll destroy this whole train!" Vash's teeth widened into a wolfish smile. "Trust me! I can walk to the city from here!" The jumpy man leapt up and ran away from him, not daring to press the matter. Vash turned his back to the crowd again and watched the twin suns setting in the distance. Night would be here very soon, and Vash was sure something was going to happen.
Vash trudged down the hallway looking at the rooms quietly. 777. He opened the door and stepped in silently and threw his bag on the creaky bed. Someone had left his window open, causing a snarl to crawl onto his face.
"Damn maids." He cursed under his breath. He began closing the window but raised an eyebrow when he saw something from the corner of his eye. He turned around just in time to be hit in the face and nearly knocked out the window.
"Gah!" He yelled, hanging by his knees out the window. He swung up and slid back into his room and looked up at the ceiling angrily. The vent swung shut and rattling was heard traveling down the airshaft. Vash's head burst through the chute and he looked at a young boy, maybe eleven, and roared out in fury. He grabbed him by the overalls and dragged him through the hole he had created.
"LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!" Vash yelled, pointing at his bloody nose and bruised forehead.
"Ya did that yourself by bursting through the vents, ya dummy!" The kid shouted while swinging his fists at Vash. He grunted when Vash dropped him on his butt and pushed him on his back with a shoe to his face. He did it gently though, just wanting to cause a threat to the boy, not to start an uproar on the train.
"Get off me ya big lug!" He screamed and pushed Vash's boot off his face. He sat up and started rubbing his nose with his arm.
Vash squatted down and looked at the boy with a twitching eyebrow and irritated eyes.
"Do you even know who I am?" Vash asked impatiently. The boy eyed him and stuck up his scuffed nose.
"Ya're the idiot who busted up yar own head!" He said and crossed his arms. Vash sighed and grabbed the boy by the head with one hand and hung him out the window.
"Give me one reason I shouldn't drop you, and I might think about pulling you back in." The boy yelled in horror. He couldn't see anything because of Vash's palm covering his eyes, but all the wind and no floor made it obvious he was outside.
"I-I have money! I'll buy ya food! Or anything ya want!" He cried out. At the mention of food Vash's stomach growled and he grew even more irritated. He pulled the boy in and threw him on the ground.
"How much you got?" Vash asked with the heel of his steel plated boots digging into the boy's gut. He quickly reached into his pockets and pulled out some crumpled handfuls of money.
"I dunno, but ya can have it all!" Vash took the pressure off the boy's ribcage and grabbed some of the double dollars.
"You're a pickpocket, aren't you?" He asked lazily. The boy leaned up and ignored his question. He looked at a pen with slight interest.
"Ya can't get this kinda stuff anymore. Where did ya get it?" He asked Vash. The Stampede quickly grabbed it and looked at him with the 'evil eye'. He tucked the pen away and spun around and walked out the door.
"Mr. Stampede! Mr. Stampede!" The mousy man ran to Vash with wide eyes. "It's the Bad Land Boys! They're here, and they want to split the entire train in half! Please," the man dropped to his knees and clutched to his black coat "we need your help!"
"Get off me!" Vash roared out and kicked the man to the wall, cracking his skull. "I said I would not help you! Now stay back!" He tromped away furiously and left the man there to die.
It was pandemonium in the train. The guests were panicking, the engineers were fleeing, and the Bad Land Boys were running a rampage all around him. Vash groaned in disgust. He hated when there was mayhem happening that he didn't cause himself.
"This is a very heavy gun…" The boy said from his side. Vash jumped back and snatched his gun away.
"Cut that out! Why are you following me!" He shouted. The boy shrugged and pointed back at the way they came from.
"Did ya hurt that man back there?"
Vash rubbed his temple with annoyance.
"Why don't you ask that man over there?" He said and motioned towards one of the Bad Land Boys running amuck. One of them approached Vash chuckling.
"Put the goods in the bag!" He said, holding a sack under Vash's nose. He put on his red glasses and pointed the gun at the man's forehead.
"Ah!" was the only sound he could get out before the bullet traveled through the suit and then his brains. Vash smiled and cackled while turning towards the others in the room.
"PREPARE FOR THE END!" His enthusiastic voice echoed in the silent room and he began a ballroom massacre. He swung his arm about and shot each and every person in the room through the forehead, all the time laughing like a mad man. Finally he stopped and looked down at the little boy, the last one living, and pointed the barrel inbetween his wide eyes. He slowly pulled the trigger with his smile widening with each millimeter.
Click.
Vash cackled and turned around, leaving the shocked boy to stare at his back. "Bang!" He cried out in laughter, scaring the unharmed kid even more. He opened his empty gun and pulled a pack of bullets foreword and pushed them into the weapon. He left the ballroom and entered the main steering room.
"Good day gentlemen! I'm afraid your ship had reached its carrying capacity and I was forced to fix it! You'll find the ballroom now clean and awaiting more passengers to arrive!" Vash cried out upon entering the room. The captain was bound and gagged to a chair and one of the engineers was lying dead on the ground. Neon Dynamite sat with his legs crossed and had been studying the control panel and shifted his eyes to look at Vash when he entered.
"Ah! I see we have the infamous Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon on our ship! What an honor!" He said and he slipped off the desk he had been sitting on. His white cowboy suit with neon lights seemed to limit his movements, giving Vash a small advantage.
"The only problem is," Vash continued, "We still have one extra person aboard!" He looked around at the three other underdogs all pointing their guns at him and then he looked back at Dynamite. He raised his gun and aimed for the man's heart. "You'll do."
"Unless you know how to slow the train yourself, you're heroic deed will be all for nothing."
"Heroic deed!" Vash exploded in laughing and shifted the gun's direction towards the control panel.
"I don't care what happens to this ship! I can get off at any time. I just wanted to have some fun before I departed! Have a good time killing everyone aboard, I was going to do so myself! But I won't have complete satisfaction before I see these people's ring-leader slaughtered!" Vash pulled the trigger and the panel smoked and sparked, causing nearly everyone to fall over when the hull exploded and the train began sliding near the edge of the cliff.
"We have seven minutes before we go careening off that edge." Vash said calmly. He looked at Dynamite and his dull eyes shown through his sunglasses. "You have a choice. Be crushed by an unimaginable amount of weight of metal and corpses, or, be shot here and now."
Dynamite growled and slowly raised his own glowing gun and pointed it at Vash. He bowed and nodded, understanding the position he was in, and he aimed the gun at his temple.
"Bravo, Stampede. Bravo." The blast was muffled by the sound of rocks crashing into the sides of the train and Vash smiled in triumph. The other three men faced each other in terror and slowly aimed their own guns at themselves, and committed suicide.
"What have you done?" The boy ran in and looked at the five dead bodies in the room. He unbound the captain and looked at Vash in fear.
"You, too, must prepare for the end…" Vash grinned and swung around, leaving the two of them behind. He walked to the edge of the speeding ship and looked at the ground flying beneath them. They must have been going near 300 mph.
He cackled and jumped over the gate.
'Your end won't come as easy as these souls, Knives.' Vash thought to himself as the wind rushed passed him and the ground grew closer and closer. 'I'll make sure of that.'
"AHAHAHA!"