FN: I'd like to start off by thanking Aira Slytherin and chibi-selene because of them I've decided to post this chapter. That said if you two enjoy this story you should go reading and reviewing Twilight Perfection since I wrote it and its a FFVII fic, and Ronin Trip (you can either fic just by searching for it by title since I choose such outrageous titles that there aren't any other stories posted which share those titles) becuase frankly if I can't find more people who like that thing I'm going to throw my self out a window because I spent the last year and a half of my life writing it and two sequels.
Sorry if it I'm seeming a bit like a jerk but updating this story means I now have to worry about keeping serval fics updating, editing my full length novel to the point that I can read it aloud without spelling errors and better ways to phrase the lines jumping out of the page at me like spiders with springs for legs and a job up in the air all at the same time, well if its any conciliation no one seems to care much about Ronin Trip since only two people have checked the last chapter so I can probably let that one go to once a month updates anyway, hopefully enjoy.
Oh and by the way the story only gets more Trigunesq (minus the refusal to kill people) from here, I say a blatant cry for you people to tell me that this fic was more of the crap that came out of my first attempts at writing so that I can delete it from , shove the files that make it up back into the depths of my hardrive and remove this particular ten ton weight from my shoulders. I mean, yee gods, I'm had to rewrite practically every other sentence of this thing, but because you asked for it, here it is faithfully edited so that it's fully readable, whatever it is.
Also the version of Vincent's past I give in this chapter (which Sephiroth knows because Lucrecia told it to him) was written by me well before Dirge of Cerberus came out (which I have yet to play) so, yeah.
The Immortal Gunman chapter two: Take no prisoners, here in this nock down drag out war.
The bus came to a stop and four people stepped off. They had no choice but to slowly work their way through a veritable wave of people who where trying to get onto the bus before it departed. The quartet however refused to allow themselves to be trampled underfoot or deterred from their goal.
Sephiroth and Vincent (who was now wearing a pair of glasses with red tinted lenses to hide the mako glow of his eyes) managed to push aside a large enough gap in the crowd that Lucrecia and Aeris could easily follow in their wake. Lucrecia was wearing a simple white labcoat, and pair of blue long pants with a rather large backpack strung over her shoulders. Aeris on the other hand was wearing her normal pink dress with red travel jacket on top of it.
As it turned out however the bus that people had been so frantic to get aboard would not be going anywhere; scarcely less then twenty seconds after the bus stopped a bullet punctured one of its tired.
The suddenly dilapidated state of their previous mode of conveyance didn't particular affect the four who had no further need of it. Three of them didn't even bother looking back as they proceeded to the largest building in sight which just like Vincent had expected turned out to be a tavern/inn.
The former Turk knew that such places were good for gathering information and at the moment none of them had much of a clue as to where Jenova was. Since if they could find and defeat her, the worst of the damage to the Promise Land should be undone, all four considered this their top priority.
The people who had been trying to get on board the bus now departed in just about every conceivable direction with equally frantic haste, once again without seriously disturbing the four newcomers.
Inside a minute they were seated fairly close to the bar with Vincent having order drink. The bartender took a moment to look at Sephiroth, giving the silver haired man a humorless smile while he prepared Vincent's drink. "You're a priest?" Sephiroth nodded slowly as he carefully unslung his cross and left it leaning against one of the building's walls. "Of sorts, why?"
The bartender shook his head slowly as he placed Vincent's drink before him. "We could really use someone like you out here." Another shot rang out though no scream of pain accompanied it, that was no guarantee it had failed to pierce human flesh. The bartender began to slowly polish a glass as he spoke. "We don't want anything fancy, but dead people need funerals all the same. Even the Cetra, like to believe something is looking after their dead."
Lucrecia raised an eyebrow, her eyes focussing on Sephiroth's cross. "Just how many people can you think of who need to be buried?" The bartender looked at her oddly. "It's hard to figure out, given that the number keeps going up so frequently. This town has been practically held at gun point by bandits for a couple months now. No one really gets out, and few people get in. For one thing the bandits have a few of their snipers take up a few positions in various run down houses during the day and then more or less pick people off at random..."
At the word "snipers" Vincent put down his only half finished drink stood up and headed for the door. The bartender starred mouth agape at the swinging door he left in his wake. "Is that guy deaf or crazy?" Sephiroth sure that the wall he'd leaned his cross against wouldn't be collapsing any time soon returned to his seta. "My companion is neither, he is just, very, very, good."
Practically the moment that Vincent set foot outside again bullet landed only about a couple inches to the left of him kicking up a small cloud of sand. "Whoever did that should come out right now, or I'll have to dig you out one at a time, and it won't be pretty fun, for you at least. I much to my surprise am all but chomping at the bit to try out my new toys." His piece spoken Vincent drew Redemption and Death.
Inside the tavern Sephiroth continued speaking regardless of the sound as the first shot rang out. "Have you ever heard the story of the heartless gunman?" The bartender silently shook his head and Sephiroth continued, warming up to the subject. "He was human, once. But something happened to him along the way, and he stopped being like you, like me, like anything this world has ever seen before.
Maybe he was unloved as a child, laughed at by others, no one will ever know, but the results were clear enough. Imagine, if you will, a seven year old child, in his right hand gripping a gun that would be the perfect size for a toy gun other children played with. However it isn't a toy, very real bullets are loaded in it, even if they are a small, when a bullet rips through your head, into your brain and out the back, how large it is rarely matters.
People only laughed at him harder when they first saw him, but they stopped laughing when he fired. No one could laugh when he pointed a gun at them, and they knew that in the next few moments their lives could come to an abrupt end. At first he only did it because it was a way to stay alive, for a seven year old child with no parents to survive in the hell of lower Midgar.
People couldn't believe it at first; they claimed he was some kind of vengeful spirit instead of a human being. The poltergeist of a child who must have died some horrific death, but he proved them wrong. Few could cling to the idea that he was simply a specter as with each passing day he became less a boy and more a man. He grew up like most weeds, simply because no one powerful enough had bothered to kill him."
Sephiroth paused and let another gunshot drive his point home. "Then one day he went too far... The man was one of Shinra's more important bureaucrats, and they found him with very small bullet lodged in his heart. So Shinra eventually found him, and dragged him in kicking, screaming, and biting every in the way. It had taken an entire score of guards, mainly because they couldn't go near him till he ran out of bullets.
Then, when Shinra had one chance to destroy this horrific anomaly, they made a grave mistake. They chose to embrace that anomaly, not realizing that no leash they put over him could possibly last forever. They trained him as a Turk, one of Shinra's professional killers; they took raw burning rage, and refined it into cold skill."
It was just possible to hear the sound of a gunshot, and shortly after it a body slamming against the ground. Sephiroth was of course unshaken: he continued with his tale. "Any sensible man would have been horrified by the way he acted, the way he took to target practice like a fish to water. The way he didn't even care why the person he had been told to kill was to be killed, simply to kill. He grew up, and he did not fall prey to the most common failure of gunmen, because they did not need to push themselves, to exert themselves to kill, they never exert themselves, they grow weak, and grow pathetic, grow unable to survive a fight in which their foes could strike back, either with fists or bullets.
This one didn't, he lived for no reason but to make his body a perfect killing machine, he exercised day after day, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He doesn't have bulging muscles, for those would be wasted, true fighters don't bulge. By looking at him, you couldn't tell what he was until it was too late.
His body grew long and lean, not an ounce of weight on his body is unaccounted for, his muscles are easily concealed beneath his clothing just like the tools of his trade. But he can't hide it in the way he moves, the deadly grace, the perfect fluidity, the hunting instinct.
He does not endure hardship, he thrives on it, demands it, to him shooting is not a test of guns, it is a test of wills. He will look down the barrel of his gun, and smile as he pulls the trigger and sends a man to the world beyond. His face shows no fear, he will never flinch, each shot is as much a monument to perfection, he will not allow himself to miss, ever. Shinra didn't realize these things until it was too late, realize what could happen if he was put into proper society as a bodyguard, expected to socialize with others."
Sephiroth allowed the moment to hang suspended in air, even when he already had his audience's undivided attention. "I bet even you can't guess what he did; he didn't kill people for fun like normal. He did the one last thing which could make him a true avatar: he fell in love.
They say the love of a good women can cure any man's sickness, but it simply worsened his. He no longer needed money as a reason to kill, what is money as motivation, when you have a love? A love whom he vowed to protect to the ends of the earth, and whom he failed. He was buried in a coffin, and no one mourned his passing, few even knew of it.
While the fear that another may come like him may already be in your veins, this tale does not end with the gunman's death. He was too good a killer, too motivated, too well trained to allow something like death to stand in his way. For years he slept, for years the world moved on, but for him time stood still, and eventually he rose from the grave, and time had not changed him.
He had not aged a day, and he never again would show the passage of time, he had looked death in the eye, and the grim reaper blinked. He had changed in other ways though, before it had all been a game to him, killing was a game in which the loser lost his life. Now however, killing was a task.
He rose from the dead and struck down the one who had killed his love. To make up for the hesitation that had caused him to fail before, he killed the man twice. His foe's body twisted and contorted even after his own death, turning into a horrific monster determined to kill the gunman even in its death throes. But it failed, because the hate in the gunman's heart for a world that had taken his love from him was more powerful than any monster.
Because that hate gave him strength; he harnessed, and forced it, like death, to serve him. Any who would dare to say that deamons do not exist would be fools if they had seen him then, his eyes blazed red with the fires of hell. His skin turned into leathery scales, wings split from his shoulders as his hands turned into claws.
The deamon that he had become called forth the fires of hell themselves to burn his foe to ash, and in the end, that was all that was left of him. The gunman walked away from that ash, his hatred having only been dimmed, not extinguished.
Now, he is here, and to believe that any of these rag-tag bandits that could defeat him is foolish in the extreme. Particularly because in this world, he has found his love who he lost in the last world, and he will not lose her again. The only fear he has is for her, the only concern for her, the only desire for her, he will not die, not unless she commands it. He once again refuses to bow to Death's call; the Grim Reapers' blade will prove a dulled, rusted stick against him."
Sephiroth finally finished, and he could see a few beads of sweat going down the barkeepers face, the other patrons of the bar where also attempting to press closer without making such actions obvious. The barkeeper's voice was frazzled, and unsteady. "What would a man of God be doing with one like him?"
"I travel with him for the same reason Jesus, son of God, ate with whores and tax collectors. The healthy have no need of a doctor, the sinless no need of a priest. I doubt I will ever be able to expunge the deamon from within him, it has been with him too long; to remove it would be to kill him. However, so long as I am with him I can guide the man and control the deamon.
The hunting dog neither knows, nor cares where it food comes from, he is much the same. Bullets do not care if they draw blood from the wicked or the pure, neither does the gun that fires them. That is all he is, a human gun looking for a hand to aim him, better that it be one like mine then someone with a looser set of morals. That is the flaw in all of evil's works, if one is careful to guard against them they may be used as tools by the pious. Now I must go make sure he does not get carried away by the spilling of blood."
Sephiroth stood up and headed for the door, as he went he herd a low voice. "I find it hard to hard to imagine anyone painting a less complementary picture of your father." Sephiroth shrugged as he turned to face Lucrecia and muttered a response back to her. "Good, it's better for all of us if they're so frightened of him that they won't dare to look too closely at me.
It is the burden of any general to use, and, if needed, abuse his men to fit the tactical situation. Now if you will excuse me, I must see how my new second in command is dealing with the riff-raff outside."
--
Vincent Valentine was in his element. Even if this was his first time using Redemption and Death in combat, they both felt like long lost friends whom Vincent had merely been out of touch with for years. One particularly foolish sniper decided to fire a second warning shoot, and it could have cost him his life.
Vincent heard the crack of gunfire, spun, his body all but instantly assuming a classic duellist pose before firing a single bullet. It was easy for him to pick up the sound of metal and glass shattering as that bullet perfectly tore through the scope of a bandit's rifle. There was no scream following, whished prove that Vincent own "warning" shot had been far more persuasive. Satisfied with the way this test of his new equipment he didn't even bother shouting, just spoke calmly.
"That was a free sample of a product I've been selling all my life, condensed justice in a clip, universal karma wrapped in lead. If you've been shooting at nothing but ordinary humans for a long time I'm afraid you'll find me something of a harder target to hit."
Another gunshot split the air and Vincent twisted his head to the side, allowing the bullet to pass harmlessly before he returned fire. A few moments later he could make out the slumping body of what might have once been a man as rolled off the roof and falling to the ground, a bloody mess.
"You think I can't see you, but guess what I don't have to, not so long as I can hear you, or at least hear you gunshots. It's amazing what you can do when you've practiced for just about a century straight. I can hear where a shot comes from, observe the path the bullet takes and then do a little simple math to send a bullet right back where your shot came from. So go ahead, try and shoot me."
A third shot rang out, from the exact opposite direction Vincent was facing. Another round left Redemption's chamber even before that bandit's bullet could past through the empty air he no longer occupied.
Vincent calmly returned Death to its holster, evidently figuring he'd only need one of his guns to finish this particular mess. "You're a bunch of slow learners, so let me spell it out for you. Unless you think you can dodge bullets, you shouldn't be taking pot shots at me. Go run back to your master and tell him his fun is over."
Vincent didn't bother to turn in the direction the fourth shot came from, instead, he simply took a quick hop backwards, held Redemption out at more or less ninety degrees to his body, and pulled the trigger. He didn't need his eyes to confirm his hit, he could here the thump of a body falling a story or two just fine. Vincent returned Redemption to its holster as well and began to head back towards the tavern. "I've had enough of you wastes of my time."
A moment later Sephiroth stepped out and gave his father a quick approving nod at the sight of the three dead bodies littering the ground. Sephiroth turned back and walked into the tavern (with Vincent joining him a few moments later) and looked directly at the bartender. "I couldn't help but notice this town appears to be without a house of god. I would prefer to visit such a place before I begin my work."
All the others instantly looked away as if Sephiroth had taken off his glasses and told them who he really was. However the bartender only shuddered and maintained eye contact. "There's a church about one mile east of this place. It was the first to the fall to the bandits, it's their base now."
Sephiroth's face contorted in rage, it was easy to see even with his glasses on. "How many of the godless heathens are there?" The profusely sweating man only shrugged helplessly. "More then we could ever hope to deal with, maybe two hundred of 'em?"
The rage vanished from Sephiroth's face. "The Lord shall turn over the tables of money changers; he will cast out those who have turned his temple into a house of sin. If you will excuse me, I have to go do my part to help make this world a slightly better place. I'd suggest you two stay here, we can deal with this on our own."
Sephiroth strode back out the door and nodded to Vincent. "One mile east, two a hundred bandits in total, that's a hundred for you and a hundred for me." Vincent began to load a new clip into each of his guns saving the only partially used clips. "Well that won't be very fair for them will it?"
Back inside the tavern Aeris looked with slight hesitation at the door through which Sephiroth had walked. Slowly she turned back to face the only memeber of the group who remained. "We need to go after them, they'll get themselves killed trying to fight that many people, and armed with what? Vincent has two pistols and Sephiroth has his bare hands."
Lucrecia chuckled to herself at a private joke. "Sephiroth is armed with god's everlasting love and promise to protect his children in the form of his cross." Aeris glared at the older woman, it wasn't the first time she had waxed poetic about the paper covered lump of metal.
"You would think that after more than two decades you could tell me what was so important about that cross, Sephiroth takes it everywhere with him, I've seen him sleep with it still strapped to him a few times. More to the point why is it so heavy? I've felt it and I'm sure it would take at least five normal people to lift it from the ground."
Lucrecia out one of the tavern's windows, a smile still tugging at her lips. "As Sephiroth would say 'this cross is heavy because it's so full of mercy.' On to the point about numbers, those two up against a bunch of human bandits who are used to dealing with frightened civilians isn't a very apt analogy. It would be like comparing ill fed nags to the greatest race horse ever, and the horse that sired it. Vincent could take them all shooting right handed."
Aeris raised an eyebrow and for a moment wondered what other things Lucrecia knew about Vincent that he had never bothered to share with AVALANCHE, at least not while she had been alive. "So he's left handed? I can't remember him ever missing a shot, and that was him fighting with his offhand?"
Lucrecia nodded, a rather odd sort of satisfaction in her voice. "That's what years of training will do for you. Now don't worry, if you have any pity in you let it be for those bandits, they will not be enough left of their bodies to identify them."
As the two approached the church Vincent looked up at the sky and back at Sephiroth. "I hate to sound repetitive, but if you have any idea where Masamune is, I would call it to you now." Sephiroth shook his head his head slowly. "As I told you before, I have no need of a sword when I have the Lord's divine protection."
Vincent's eyes flicked back between the church they where approaching and Sephiroth. "Something a bit more tangible would be right about now. I don't see any thunderclouds forming, so I think God must have more pressing work to do than striking down these particular sinners with divine retribution."
Sephiroth shook his head, his right hand running along the huge cross that he held with only his left. "God will strike them down with the fire that purifies; don't you worry, he has simply chosen to wield his righteous wrath through me."
Vincent knew better then to try and argue as they came into range of the three score guns pointing out the church windows. A hurricane of gunfire assailed the two men as they walked forward in complete silence. Or close to complete silence, both men spoke a few words at the exact same thing. "It's show time."
--
"Well that was fun. A bit boring near the end, but fun none the less." Sephiroth shrugged as he stirred some ash with his right boot. "Congratulations are in order by the way, you're much better then you were when we fought against each other."
Vincent shrugged as he spun Death and Redemption back into their respective holsters. "I had a few decades to figure out how to make the most of the enhancements that being injected with mako and Jenova cells gave me, its not the shallowest of learning curves and I was just starting at it back when you were alive. By the way, just out curiosity, what kind of person builds a flame thrower into a cross?"
Sephiroth patted his silvery weapon, its reward for a job well done, before he began to once again bind it in brown paper. "Lucrecia Crescent. It's not a flamethrower, my cross contains some materia which help me better focus my magical powers, I could use it to project just any element I wanted, I just decided on fire today. She made it for me the same reasons he made you the arm and guns, I don't think she wants to loose track of us again."
Sephiroth would never know what exactly it was about fire that made him enjoy it so much, maybe it was because fire was the child of lightning, which was God's divine way of entering the world. On the other hand, Sephiroth would not rule out the suggestion he had heard several times before: that he was at least a pyromaniac.
Either way, his cross filled that church with its flames as he and his father went from level to level. Bandits hardly trained to fight people had no chance against the dangers of fire, particularly in a wooden church.
It took only about 30 minutes till Vincent and Sephiroth stood alone outside the ashes of the temple. "Really? You'd probably need a some blessed clairvoyance to explain why between me putting you in her, and you tearing her apart on the way out we more or less mutually wrote her obituary."
Sephiroth smiled. "It is in those wonderful things which are all but impossible to explain things in life which allow me to most clearly see God's hand." In response to that, Vincent removed his glasses and spat in the ashes. "Somehow I doubt this thing is going to be rebuilt in three days."
Sephiroth crossed his hands in prayer. "Let no one say I currently view myself as the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I merely try to emulate his teachings."