Chapter2

-Rhez-

He walked for what seemed like forever. The hot sun beating down on him like it had a score to settle. He had walked in the same direction since he had emerged from the lab. Something was pulling him this way, drawing him like a magnet. He could hear the words over and over in his head, but he didn't know what they meant.

"This way little seed… come to me, come to me and grow." He kept walking, every once in a while turning back to see how far he had come. He couldn't see the little hill that he had crawled out of anymore, so he assumed he had came a long way. "This way little seed… come to me, come to me and grow." He heard it again. "Who are you?" He finally said out loud. No response came back, so he was going to ask again, but then someone answered him. "Family." Was all it said. He thought about it for a second, than decided it was a good enough answer. "And who am I?" He asked as he kept walking. The voice waited a long time to respond. "Family… my family." He shook his head and frowned. "A name, what is my name?" He stopped walking and looked around, he didn't see anyone. The voice didn't say anything, so he started walking again. "I must be crazy…" He said as he wiped sweat from his forehead. "Rhez…" the voice said after a long time. Rhez stopped walking again and looked around. "Am I crazy?" He smiled when he said it as the thought of a man asking himself if he was crazy struck him as funny. "Perhaps…" The voice said. Rhez started walking again as he talked to himself. "Where are you?" The voice took its usual long time to respond. "This way…" He smiled and shook his head. "Figures…"

He kept walking, for hours, maybe days, he had no idea, the suns never seemed to move in this place. Rhez slowly came to realize that he was lying down. He opened his eyes and found that he was in a bed. He sat up quickly and jumped out of the bed. His head spun as he did and he went sprawling to the ground. Rhez thudded loudly as he hit and banged his forehead on the floor. "Shit…"

The door opened up and a woman walked in. "Are you awake, I thought I heard… oh my!" She rushed over to Rhez and helped him up and sat him on the bed. "Where am I?" He asked for the second time recently. "You're in a safe place now friend, wandered in near the edge of town and passed out from heat stroke a couple of hours ago." He let the swirling in his head subside and nodded to her. "Thank you for helping me." He said. She smiled and gave him a glass of water. "Here, you need to re-hydrate." He drank the water and gave the glass back to her. "Are you hungry?" She asked. He hadn't noticed the rumbling in his stomach until she said 'hungry'. "Yeah, I feel like I could eat a whole cow." He said laughing. She smiled and helped him up. "Luckily for you this is a hotel and restaurant." She walked over to the door and he followed, a little shaky at first, but doing just fine as he got his balance. She led him downstairs and sat him down at a table. There were a few other people here, eating and talking. She came back a few minutes later with a plate with a big steak on it. She gave him a fork and a knife and he dug in. She sat across from him, just staring at him with a smile on her face the whole time. Rhez looked up, and with a full mouth, spoke to her. "What? Is there something wrong?" She shook her head and laughed. "No, it's just… you just remind me of someone I knew once… his name was Ericks… But I heard that he was called Vash the Stampede too." The name struck Rhez like a gunshot. "Vash… Vash the Stampede?" He said absently. He knew that name from somewhere… but where? The voice came back to him just then, and said something that he didn't want to hear. The girl spoke up and interrupted the voice in his head. "I said, my name is Lena, what's yours?"

The voice spoke up again, louder this time. "Kill them, kill them all. You must kill them all right now…" Rhez looked down at the knife in his hand and gripped it tight. "I can't… I can't do that…" he said to himself. Lena cocked her head to the side. "Huh? What do you mean you can't do that? Don't you have a name?" He closed his eyes, just for a second, but when he opened them, something was wrong. He looked around the room, he was standing in the middle of the bar he had just been sitting in. He was covered in blood, the knife in his hand was dripping with it. "Oh shit… oh shit what did I do?" Panic began to grip him as he spun around, looking for someone to ask. His blood ran cold when he noticed that everyone who had been in the bar with him were still there, but they were all brutally murdered. "Oh shit…" He backed away slowly, terror gripping him. He tripped over something and fell down. "What?" He looked at what he had tripped over, it was Lena's body. Rhez couldn't bring himself to say anything. He slowly stood up and back away from her bloody body. The doors swung open and an older man walked in. "Hey everyone, I got paid and I'm ready to drink it away!!!" He stopped and looked around the bar in horror. "I… Oh my god…" He looked over and saw Rhez standing there covered in blood. "It's not what it looks like I swear!" He yelled as he dropped the knife. The man turned and ran screaming out of the bar. Rhez tried to run after him, but couldn't move his body. "What have I done?"

-Stran-

After 6 or 7 hours of silent walking Vash and Stran finally top a hill looking down upon an old tattered space ship with the word seed written real big across the center of the ship. "Is this what where looking for Vash" "Yes where here follow me and stay close who knows what will find inside." Upon approaching the ship Vash has flash backs of all the ships crashing into the planets crust on that fateful day. "Vash…Vash hey are you alright." "I'm fine why." "You where spac'n out on me man is everything alright." "Yeah just old memory's"

Vash and Stran head in to the gigantic hole in the side of the ship. Shortly after entering the almost archaic looking vessel Vash drops to a knee and grabs his head. "Knives" and image of his older brother's hysterically psychotic grin and blood shot eyes flash in and out of his head. "How can this be I haven't been gone that long it's only been a couple of days a week tops" "Vash who's knives?" Asks Stran "It's time you told me what's going on. For at least 2 years now I've trained with you almost every day and once every week we go back to that town except this week and now your freaking out on me it's time you told me what's going on" Vash looks at Stran with an expression that Stran had never seen before so much pain so much sadness so…much hatred. How could one man's eyes hold so much emotion Stran thought to him self it didn't seem possible. He had never seen Vash like this before the whole time the young man had known Vash he had always been smiles and happiness, peace and love, a level of tranquility that seemed equally unbelievable. "I guess its time for me to tell you every thing. Who I was, who he was, why we've been training everyday so hard an… and who she was." Vash begins to tell Stran the story of the last hundred and thirty three years. Flash backs and tales of Knives, Wolfwood, the insurance girls, Rem, Lena, and the Gunho Guns fill the hopelessly desolate ship. After all was said Vash wiped a tear from his eye as he stared into the darkness that seemed to fill every nook and seam of the vessel as he did so he told Stran about the last chapter of the story of how he had almost killed Knives but instead took pity upon him again and instead imprisoned him in a cell where someone he trusted not to be manipulated by his tricks could watch over him. "I…I had no idea Vash why didn't you tell me sooner?" Stran said slightly annoyed but with a sympathetic tone in his voice. "I was hoping that it would never come to this Stran I thought I almost thought there for a while we could live our lives in peace and I wouldn't have to tell you about your oldest brother I thought you could have the peace full life I always wanted for you and all of humanity to have I thought the terror and treachery was over 3 years ago but as it is so blatantly obvious I was wrong. I believe some how knives got to this one I think he started the shut down sequence I think he's trying to start again. I don't want to kill him I don't want to kill any one but this time I think I might have to I think this time I actually have to kill him." As Vash finish's his sentence another tear fall's from his eye.

"Well let's get back to inspecting this thing." Vash instantly perking back up to his normal self but Stran could see that it was all just a front. The way he always did to try and make those around him more comfortable. But Stran decided to just go along. No sense in pushing the matter after all he did just have a be shock to the system more siblings, gun sling tales and O ya finding out that he's a damn near immortal super plant.