Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
- . -
Aces and eights.
It used to be referred to, on old Earth, as dead-man's hand. She didn't remember why; it had something to do with a famous gunslinger having that hand and getting killed. The idea of getting shot in the back with a bullet was pretty funny, all things considered. It make her smirk. It was a break in her poker face, but it was just too ironic to keep to herself. Tony was sitting right next to her, so she flashed him the three eights and two aces.
Tony flicked his eyes over, but he didn't seem to think that it was as funny as she did.
He had no sense of humor anymore.
She sighed a little, carefully not glancing up as the saloon doors squeaked again. Collins had a lot of bars and taverns, and their rotation had taken them through a good many that were fairly difficult to secure easily. They'd lucked out; the Journeyman even had a decent distiller supplying the beer.
Not that they were indulging on duty, she thought, but then again, this was the first assignment she'd ever been given where playing poker and starting brawls were actually orders. And there were beers sitting around the table, and they were indeed consuming small amounts of alcohol to keep the barkeep and other patrons believing the act.
She shifted again, easing her little man a little further left. These hard, flat wooden seats were hell on your balls after a few hours –
She found herself starting, and for a brief moment the cards were hard to read.
She was a man.
After a moment's concentration, it occurred to her that of course she was a man, and there was nothing wrong with that. The cards came back into focus, and she glanced furtively at the bar.
The line of red was the first thing she noticed, the collar turned up but not enough to hide the inch or so of spiky blonde hair tips still peering over. The guy was waving down the barkeep with a leather-clad left arm –
That was him.
That was a Plant. A walking, talking –
Talking in an awfully whiny, high-pitched voice.
Sighting that Plant wasn't as shocking as she'd imagined it. She cleared her throat and downed another swallow of beer, catching Sol's eye across the table and flicking them to her left. Solomon nodded, pushing all his chips into the center of the table.
"I'm all in," he growled, and crunched a peanut for added emphasis.
Rod leaned back in his seat and belched loudly, then tossed a few hundred double dollars' worth of chips at the pile. "I'll see that."
She glanced at Tony, and he shrugged, then reached down – slowly, when he saw the way Sol was glaring at him – and eased his piece onto the pile of chips. "It'll more than cover that bet," he said, a little defensively at their suddenly appraising looks. Sure, it wasn't much more than an old Colt, but it might have been from old Earth.
It certainly got the attention of several of their onlookers, which was really the point.
She looked down at her own pile of chips, then grinned disarmingly at the other three men. "I'm all in." She shoved them noisily into the center of the table, and shot Tony a slightly barbed look, which he pretended to ignore.
"Then I guess I call," came Sol's slightly slurred words, and he slapped a pair of kings and a pair of queens on the table. His fifth card was a three.
Rod swore loudly and hurled his cards into the pile of chips.
She knew she was next, and she really didn't have a clue what Tony had. After all, they'd all really had shit to escalate the bets that high, but they couldn't very well proceed with the plan without pretending to have bet it all.
"Aces and eights, gentlemen," she purred, laying them across the table in a pretty fan.
Tony looked over the cards and grunted. "Huh." He tossed his cards face-down on the pile as well – probably because he hadn't had so much as a pair. They'd only been in the Journeyman for about four hours, so they hadn't attracted much attention.
She leaned forward and reached out with her right hand to sweep the pile. At least her hand had squarely beaten Sol's, otherwise they'd have had to play another round. The other man violently lunged forward, clapping a hand down on her wrist.
"You just hold it right there."
She stared at him for a moment, then tried to pull her wrist away. Sol wouldn't let go.
"A pair of aces and three of a kind beat two pairs," she heard herself declare. "Everybody knows that."
"Your eights ain't as high as my royalty," he growled back. "This hand goes to me."
"But it was three of a kind," she heard Tony protest, on her right. A little plaintively – after all, if she took the winnings, he'd get his gun back. They'd entered the bar together as friends, so it was pretty clear they were playing as a team.
Even if they were playing badly. Wasn't much time for poker in cold-sleep.
"Shuddup," Rod glared, also leaning forward. "Looks ta me like Solomon here won this hand."
Tony looked taken aback, and he glanced subtly at her. She shook her head slightly in return; she didn't have a gun, after all.
Even though she really did, tucked into her boot. Just in case. It wasn't like she'd accept a mission like this and go in unarmed, even with three guys she knew well.
That Plant could probably move fast, and even heal fast, but it had already proven that Plants weren't bulletproof.
"You'd best lay off, boy," Sol growled, still keeping a death-grip on her wrist.
"Forget it," she growled in return. "This one's mine fair and square. Go sober up somewhere and you can play me for it later."
Sol growled out something even she couldn't make out, then yanked on her wrist. He was strong; even if they hadn't been hamming it up for the onlooker's benefit it still served to pull her bodily across the table. Her face and chest plowed through the stack of chips, knocking glasses and cards to the floor with a fairly loud clatter.
Of course, she didn't come in contact with the Colt.
Rod had already picked it up, and when she blinked, she found it was close enough to her left eye to be out of focus unless she tried really hard.
They hadn't seen real, live combat before. Not really. The odd scuffle in keeping disorderly officers in line had really been about it. The barracks seemed a century away, though she'd only been conscious of a few years of it. They were well-trained, they fought each other in games. It wasn't the first time she'd seen the business end of a firearm.
But having a live weapon pointed at your face made you uncomfortable no matter what your training. If this Plant was really telepathic, at least it was going to pick up on honest fear.
She blinked a few times, trying to breathe shallowly lest the jumpy Rod mistake her breathing for an attempt to escape.
"Now wait just a minute-" she started weakly.
"There's no need for this –" Tony sounded surprisingly subdued. He was good with his voice. Could have been an actor.
"Hey, are you guys playing cards?"
Abruptly the gun was gone.
So was Rod.
Her wrist was released and she shot backwards, landing in her chair with a sharp creak and looking around blankly.
The red-coated gunfighter was standing in the place where Rod – and his chair – had been moments ago. Standing, of course, was relative; he was leaning haphazardly on the table as though he were going to fall over any second. His eyes looked glazed but interested, an odd shade of almost malachite, and his grin was positively goofy.
She was shocked at his proximity and appearance, even though she'd read all the reports.
Jesus Christ. That thing looked like a person.
Looked just like a person. Down to the crow's feet giving away the fact that those currently-wide eyes had just as often been narrowed. His grin relaxed into a puzzled smile.
"Hey, you've got an empty spot! Can I play? I got some money . . ." He groped around in the pockets of the red duster clumsily.
Sol was just staring at him. She honestly had no idea what had happened to Rod, so she leaned – slowly – to the left to peer around the back of the Plant. For his part, he didn't pay her the slightest attention.
And there was Rod, lying on the floor with his butt still attached to the chair, blinked dazedly. His arm was still outstretched, but the Colt was gone. She wasn't sure whether he was affecting a drunk having been hit on the head or he was actually stunned.
She leaned back up and stared blankly at Sol.
He had recovered, in typically drunk fashion, by jumping unsteadily to his feet, knocking his chair over and yanking out his own weapon. It was just as unsteady as the rest of him; it didn't shake, but the barrel was weaving in time with Sol's eyes.
The Plant ignored him, still fishing around for money. "I know I had some money, it's just that my pockets keep eating it!" he whined plaintively. "Say, that's a really big pile of chips! Could you guys spare a few –"
"Shuddup!" Sol roared, jamming the gun towards the Plant.
Which placed a single, gloved finger on the open mouth of the barrel, steadying the gun. "It's just a game, friend," he said cheerfully, not moving either his finger or the gun. It was still pointed at his head, but it didn't seem to worry him. "How about you put down your gun and we play cards?"
"I said shaddup!" Sol repeated, at a slightly higher decibel. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
A beer stein came down from the sky, cracking across the back of his head, and Sol slowly collapsed. She winced as he caught his jaw on the table on the way down, and his falling body revealed a shaking Tony behind him, intact glassware still in his hand.
She and Tony exchanged a look, then both of them turned towards the Plant in unison.
Vash the Stampede looked significantly more sober, and rubbed the back of his neck absently. His eyes were no longer childishly large, but they were still fairly open and friendly. His smile, too, was less goofy but no less sincere.
"Thanks," he said. The pitch of his voice was no longer whiny; it sounded quite pleasant. Quite normal.
Nothing like a Plant.
She recovered herself before Tony did. "We should be thanking you, mister!"
Tony nodded and gulped. "I guess I didn't think he was that drunk."
Her blood froze when the Plant laughed softly and said, "He wasn't."
Tony's eyes widened, but he never dropped character. Probably a leftover from his opera background. "Y'mean –"
"He just wanted to take your money," the Plant soothed. "You guys should really be careful who you pick for players in this town. It's pretty cutthroat."
"You ain't kidding," she muttered, finally taking her feet and staring at the mess of chips. "Hey, um –"
The Plant was still smiling, and he opened his right hand. In it gleamed Tony's old Colt.
Tony grinned, genuinely pleased to see the article, and took it as the gunslinger offered it. "Thanks!" He looked at her and grinned in relief. "Woulda hated to have lost her –"
"That's a nice gun," the Plant complimented. "Can I ask you where you got it?"
Tony inspected the gun, as though it might have been scratched when Rod had snatched it up, and put it back in its holster. "It was my grandfather's," he lied smoothly. Actually, she reflected, it might not have been a lie. Well, a partial lie – it wasn't his grandfather's, but it mighta been the commander's grandfather's gun. It was old, certainly, and they were both treating it like gold.
But it had worked exactly like they'd hoped it would.
The Plant didn't seem to notice the lie, or if he did, he didn't respond to it. "I haven't seen a gun like that in a long time."
Tony beamed as she began to gather up the chips from the table. Rod was still on the floor, and Sol was out, possibly actually unconscious. Tony had had to really hit him to make it look good, but the impact on the table had probably really done him in.
"Yeah, it's a pain to find anyone that can work on 'er," Tony was saying. "I ran across a gunsmith that would, though, a guy named . . . uh, Frank something –"
"Frank Marlin?" the Plant asked incredulously.
Tony nodded. "Yeah, I think that was it. Older guy, gave me the impression of a drunk but did a bang-up job on her." He gestured towards the Plant's holstered weapon. "Say, what are you carrying? That looks an awful lot –"
Vash the Stampede smiled, and she realized that all the previous smiles had been fake compared to this one. His entire face lit up.
It was the weirdest thing she'd ever seen.
He pulled out the gun and the two of them fell into instant conversation as she gathered up the rest of the chips and waved down the barkeep. He trotted up obediently to take the chips, and she motioned to another empty table, and held up three fingers. The barkeep nodded and headed back to the register with the chips.
While Tony guided the Plant to the empty table, still talking guns, she listened for a moment before heading to the bar herself.
Tony had bigger balls than she did, making him take out that gun.
That gun destroyed July.
That gun destroyed Augusta.
Now it was out, and it was in his hand.
She reached into her trouser pockets, fishing out the packet and a few double dollars. The money she slapped onto the bar, and the keep returned with three beers. She juggled the beers, dumping the packet of powder expertly into one of the glasses as she 'fumbled' with them.
Maybe it wasn't a good thing he was so creepily like a human being. The whitecoats figured that the Plant would have a more Plant-like constitution, so the dose she'd just poured into the beer would probably kill a regular human. She considered spilling part of the glass to get it topped off and thus diluted.
But orders were orders. The last thing they wanted was the Plant to be staggering around realizing what had happened.
Particularly now that Tony had gotten the thing to pull its gun. Maybe he thought he could take it away . . .
She returned to the table, plopping the beers down and sloshing them slightly. She winced a little at the mistake as both men looked up from their conversation, and she pushed a beer towards the Plant.
"I figured buying you a drink was the least I could do," she said by way of explanation, glancing at Sol and Rod.
No one seemed particularly concerned that they were still on the floor.
Collins really was a rough town.
"Thanks for stepping in, mister."
Tony grabbed the third beer, and all three raised and clinked their steins and took a deep pull.
The drug was a normal covert sedative, and usually it would remain inert in the victim's stomach while the acids removed a protein coating. This was to allow a time delay, for the intended victim to completely consume the dose before the first effects. This would usually take two to five minutes, and counted on the fact that Vash the Stampede had a stomach, and there was acid in it.
So when the five minute mark came and went with no slowdown in the chipper Plant, she had no choice but to finish the beer and order another round.
It occurred to her it would be quite ironic indeed if the Plant had already gleaned the plan from their minds and was planning on simply drinking them under the table for its own amusement.
"Where are my manners," Tony suddenly exploded angrily. "I ain't even asked you your name, stranger."
The Plant smiled. "Well, my friends call me Vash."
She sucked in a little too much beer, and coughed. "Did you say Vash? Vash the Stampede?"
Tony was staring at the Plant, wide-eyed, but then laughed heartily and clapped a hand on the red-dustered shoulder. "Oh, I get it! That's funny!"
The Plant joined him in his laughter, a high-pitched, fast laugh that sounded slightly insane. She stared at the two of them blankly until they petered off into chuckles, and the barkeep gave both of them an odd look as he cleared the empty steins and replaced them.
Tony was wiping his eyes. "He wears a red coat, get it? His friends call him Vash. Hah!"
She picked up her second beer and sighed. "Well, whatever your nickname, thanks. We owe you."
A gloved hand settled on her forearm, and she almost flinched.
"For what? I just wanted to play cards."
Tony started giggling again, and she shook her head and gave the Plant a conspiritory look. "He's drunk," she mouthed silently.
It was really an excuse to look back into the Plant's face, and it told her something that made the tight ball in her throat relax considerably.
The blue-green eyes looking back were definitely dilated.
The Plant nodded, a little uncoordinatedly. "A little," he conceded. Then his expression became sober, and he stared at his newly filled stein. "How many have we had?" he asked suddenly.
She shrugged. "I dunno. A few. Why? Don't tell me you're surprised at a buzz when Tony there'd probably miss the pisser."
The Plant blinked owlishly, and Tony mock-glared at her. "Hey! What're you tryin' to say?"
She held up a hand. "Just that our friend 'Vash' here probably weighs about half of one of you."
"You callin' me fat?"
"Well you sure ain't thin, Tony," she responded dryly, taking a pull on the beer.
"I'm just strong is all!" Tony protested, flexing an arm. "See? This here's pure muscle."
She snuck another glance at the Plant. His expression was blank, eyes glazed and almost black. The tiny ring of color that was left seemed dull, and with his next blink he was out.
Tony reached out and caught the Plant before it could collapse face-first on the table, and tsked. "Guess our friend here can't hold his liquor."
"You didn't think he was really Vash the Stampede, did you?" she retorted. "But he did save our asses. Seems rude to just leave him here. It's only nine."
Tony frowned. "Well, what do you want to do with him? Ain't like we know where he lives."
She shrugged. "I dunno. We can always put him on the couch till he sobers up."
Tony chewed on that a minute, then stood. "Yeah, I 'spose."
The Plant was, unsurprisingly, very heavy. Not only was he dead weight, but he apparently was wearing enough metal in him to melt down and build a town. She wasn't sure he actually did weigh any less than Tony.
"I'm not fat," he muttered as they hauled the unconscious Plant out of the Journeyman.
"Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?" she shot back, adjusting the arm over her shoulder. It was sort of like hauling around a live and damaged plasma cannon you weren't sure wasn't set to overload. The Plant's head was lolling on his chest, and sweat was dripping down his face to spatter in the dust.
He was sweating a lot. Was that some mechanism to rid himself of the drug?
"Let's go," she muttered. "I don't want him waking up on us."
The truck was where they'd left it, and it was awkward to stuff the six foot tall humanoid Plant into the cab. Part of her wanted to toss him in the bed and forget about him, but if he regained consciousness –
"That was weird," Tony muttered as they finally got all three into the cab and the motor turned over.
"I know," she responded. She'd seen the footage of the Plant's shutdown of their manufacturing line, and he'd acted and spoken like a human, but watching stock footage and then getting to interact with the real thing –
What if they didn't have the right guy?
"You sure this is our target?" She reached into the glove compartment and fished out her computer. Tony was easing them out into the street, so she held it low in her lap, lest any of the civilians see the glow of the screen.
"Modified Colt," he responded. "Leather on the arm, blonde hair, red coat, said his name was Vash . . . took him ten freakin' minutes to pass out. I'd say so."
She regretfully typed up the report. It was short and to the point.
Target neutralized. Civilian casualties zero. Returning to the shack.
She sent the message and tucked the computer away, glancing again at the unconscious Plant tucked safely between the two of them.
Seemed like a nice guy. Wasn't hard to see how he'd gotten by fooling everyone for a century.
"I wonder when Sol's gonna come to," Tony said thoughtfully into the night.
The truck hit a sudden jolt, and Millie started, casting around in the dark a moment. Her head still ached, and she had a numb spot on her forehead that felt oddly flat –
She'd fallen asleep against the window.
The trunk wasn't running.
Millie blinked, glancing around in confusion. She'd been dreaming. Dreaming about . . . about Mr. Vash! And a truck.
And now she was awake. And she was in a truck. But she wasn't in a truck with Mr. Vash.
She held her next breath, stilling herself as she heard a soft sigh. Knives was still there. She could feel his presence, an actual warmth against the left side of her face in what was a quickly cooling cab. He'd killed the lights, so there was no dim glow of the console to illuminate his face, but she didn't need it to realize he was asleep.
She watched him in her peripheral vision, fearing he'd sense an outright stare, and she barely dared to breathe as his head shifted slightly to the right. After a careful moment, his steady breathing resumed.
He must have been exhausted, she reflected. He'd been driving or – or worse since yesterday evening. The rations he'd made her eat were also probably the only meal he'd had in the same timeframe. He'd headed out of the city with a destination firmly in mind, and she didn't believe he'd stop the truck to nap. He wouldn't waste the time, not when Mr. Vash was in danger.
Which meant they must have arrived .
Millie craned her neck, trying not to move and still get a good look out the front windshield. Two of the moons were full, and the third was on the horizon, a quarter shy of completely round. The other two were either above the truck or currently in shadow. Either way there was more than enough light to see she was looking at the desert.
Millie glanced out her window, ignoring the foggy spot her forehead had generated on the glass. Just more sand. There was no light besides the moons, nothing reflected in the hazy, dust-clogged air to indicate there was a city or even a homestead just over any of the dunes.
There was nothing to indicate Mr. Vash was there.
Millie swallowed, suddenly incredibly thirsty. It was something she had noted during long hours playing hide and seek with her sisters. It never failed, actually. Whenever you had to be perfectly still and quiet, you always got a back-twitching itch, or had to suddenly sneeze, or got the hiccups, or choked on a bug – if she hadn't needed to be absolutely quiet, she wouldn't suddenly be craving the bottles of water still at her feet.
One was empty, and the other – the one she had been drinking out of – was nearly. Millie knew she couldn't get them without the material of her coat whispering loudly enough to wake him. So she remained where she was, and tried to think non-thirsty thoughts.
What if the truck had broken down? But no, she wouldn't have slept through that. Why would he arrive where he wanted to be but let her sleep? Did he wait so long for her to wake up that he fell asleep too? Or did he think he needed a few hours' sleep before he confronted the men that had kidnapped his brother?
Maybe that was a good thing, she reflected. Maybe that meant that Mr. Vash was okay, and he was purposefully wasting the time to make Mr. Vash think he wasn't coming, so he could rub it in that Mr. Vash's humans had ruined everything.
Millie bit back a sigh. Oh, Mr. Knives. How could he blame Mr. Vash for this, when it seemed like the entire point was to stop him, not his brother? Wouldn't it be more like the humans attacking Knives than actually attacking Mr. Vash?
They'd been getting along so well. Talking, which they hadn't done for probably fifty years. Seeing each other without fighting. It would take them a long time to trust each other again, but she was sure they would. And the Plant sisters would help. They seemed so gentle and kind. Surely their influence would discourage Mr. Vash and Mr. Knives from fighting just like her youngest older sister had stopped her Big Big Brother and Big Little Brother when Daddy'd –
Millie pressed her lips together determinedly, holding her breath so she wouldn't make a sound. She looked high, at the moons, to keep the tears from spilling out.
What if she never saw them again? What if everything went wrong?
Millie Thompson stared at the moons for what felt like hours, until finally her tears drained into her nose, and from there, rather unhelpfully, tried to run down her lip. She moved only as much as she needed to, wiping her nose softly with her sleeve. Bringing her eyes back down to the cab, she noticed the pistols, still sitting beside her on the bench seat that stretched the width of the truck cab.
She had four clips in her coat, and had put new clips in them after the 'practice' Knives had made her do.
Two.
She'd counted.
Two out of twenty-four. Each clip held twelve bullets. She'd have to count them, and be very careful with her left hand. Truth be told, she'd missed the small lizard on purpose. He hadn't been doing anything wrong, besides soaking up some heat before the night came, and he'd have to hide away in his lizardhole with his lizardwife and wait for the new day and bugs to eat.
She was pretty sure that had also been a part of Mr. Knives' test, but other than narrowing his eyes he hadn't said anything. Maybe he wanted to see if she'd kill.
And she wouldn't.
Because if she was that kind of person, she would kill him while he slept. She would pick up the pistols, and she would shoot him, and that would stop him from killing everyone else. That would stop him from making Mr. Vash hide in his Eden with the sisters while Mr. Knives went from town to town, disintegrating the homes and stores and families there.
If she were that kind of person, she wouldn't hesitate at all. Because hesitating was the worst thing you could do. Nicholas believed that, even to the day he died.
He wouldn't have hesitated. He would have picked up the pistols and fired, both of them, and then he would have gotten out of the truck and gone to rescue Mr. Vash.
Millie watched the man beside her, upright even in sleep, his head lolling on the too-short, understuffed headrest. His jaw was slack enough to pull his lips slightly apart, and every once in a while his Adam's apple would bob a tiny fraction, as though he were about to say something.
He slept very much like her Big Little Brother. Ready to go even when he wasn't.
Right then, he reminded her the least of Mr. Vash. He'd always been a nester, at least as long as she and Meryl had known him. He'd wrap any blanket you gave him around and around himself until he'd made a nest in it, and cuddle up on his side. He always looked oblivious when he slept, like a little boy, and, when there was no danger, awoke in much the same manner.
She had no doubt Mr. Knives was capable of waking and acting without so much as a second's pause in between.
She'd never been that coordinated when she woke up. Her brain could never quite remember where it was at first, and she always spent her first few breaths of consciousness in a state of confusion. Sometimes, in those first few seconds, she would decide she was still tired and go back to sleep even if it was a work day, which was why she was so often late.
Millie suddenly wondered if they were going to be late. It was an immediate drop in her stomach, that feeling that she'd forgotten something followed by the wave of certain dread that usually sent her flying to the shower with the sheets sometimes still wrapped around her legs.
Her chest tightened, and she found her eyes scanning the desert. She was late. She needed to go, right now, she couldn't wait another second or she was going to miss something, something terrible was going to happen –
Beside her, the warmth changed, and her frantic eyes met cool, clear topaz.
The frantic feeling faded away, and her stomach relaxed like she'd slipped into her seat at the Bernardelli home office with a few seconds to spare. Knives stared at her a moment, an inscrutable look on his face, before he opened the driver's door and slipped out.
She hesitated only a second before she followed suit, careful to grab the guns, and she cast one last, longing look at the bottles of water before she trailed after him.
He was dressed in his familiar bodysuit again – when had he changed, she wondered – and this time the thigh holster was not empty, but filled with an ebony version of a familiar Colt. He moved through the sand as though his feet knew exactly how each grain would shift, and despite the fact that she'd always been agile she felt like a floundering young thomas as she struggled up the dunes beside him.
He stopped at the crest, his short-cropped hair fluttering ever so softly in the stronger breeze, and as she slipped in the loose sand she caught sight of, finally, something other than desert.
There was a jeep, sitting between several rather high dunes. If this wind kept up, by tomorrow it would be half-covered. It was difficult to find a place the sand wouldn't shift too much, and those few natural eddies almost always were transformed into the main traveling roads.
This jeep was not in one of them. It was out in the middle of the desert like they were.
It was also empty, and all the doors were closed. It had not been abandoned in a hurry.
Knives headed for it, and she followed, sliding the last little bit and very nearly colliding with him. He turned his head slightly but otherwise paid her no attention, and she reflected on the fact that he was showing her his back.
He was starting to trust her.
She followed him to the jeep, where he spent a moment eyeing the vehicle before going around to the back and yanking open the trunk. Even in the dark, she could see the back was filled with weapons. More weapons than she'd ever seen, except maybe at a dealer's. A red sticker on the bumper marked it as a rental vehicle, and its hood was securely fastened, so it hadn't overheated.
Who would have just left it there?
Knives stared at the pile of munitions for a long moment, then continued walking without taking so much as a grenade.
Millie stared at him a moment. He'd passed up larger weapons at the warehouse, too. Was he trying to make the point that he would fight this fight with only the gun that he'd made?
Was he fighting this fight because of pride, rather than out of concern for his brother?
Or did he just want it to appear that way?
She didn't dare ask him. She just followed him, sludging past the jeep and fighting the urge to close the trunk. It was a rather silly thing to worry about in the middle of attacking the people who had Mr. Vash, she reflected, but it was a habit. If you left a door open, sand got in. Even if it wasn't her jeep or weapons, whoever owned it probably would want their things to stay clean.
And that, of course, immediately led to the question of who would leave a jeep and all those weapons out in the middle of the desert. Was it the people who had kidnapped Mr. Vash?
And if it was, where did they go?
She shifted the pistols in her hands as she struggled over the next dune. Again, he paused, and this time he cocked his head to the side.
She followed his gaze, at first seeing nothing but sand. There were no other shapes on the horizon, no lights – but then she started picking out dozens of odd, round lumps in the sand. Some of them weren't quite buried, while others were apparently quite deep in the sand. They were certainly not natural formations, but their shape was familiar to her, somehow –
Round.
Of course. Those were the robots Mr. Vash and Mr. Priest had disabled when they went to save the little girl. She was right. They were in the desert between Mei and Inepral City.
They were where she'd met Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Well, several iles south, really -
A tingle ran up Millie's spine, making her twitch, as Knives calmly turned to her. He drew his pistol in one smooth motion, a movement that looked casual and unhurried while being quite swift. He fired before she realized it was leveled at her face.
No. Not at her.
Over her shoulder.
He was shooting at something behind her.
There was a vicious buzz in her left ear, and she was in the process of flinching in shock when the night suddenly became day. Millie had enough time to blink, wondering at the sudden, bright yellow light. She had time to see Knives' smirk, the pistol dangling by its holster but still drawn.
A massive force shoved her face-first into the dune. A second later a sound caught up to the shockwave, a thundering, deafening sound quite like the sound of a sandsteamer grinding against a cliff at extremely high speed. She felt herself yelp silently, and her arms moved instinctively to cover her head, the pistols miraculously still in her hands. She moved so swiftly she accidentally bonked herself in the head with the left one.
With that strike, the world dimmed, and sound returned.
She could hear Knives, walking through the sand towards her.
Millie brought up her head, coughing as a wave of desert heat much like midday boiled over them, and stared at him.
But he had no eyes for her. He was looking at something else, satisfaction written deeply into the lines of his mouth.
She took a deep breath, and rolled onto her side, looking back the way they'd come.
The jeep was gone. In its place was a burning skeleton of a vehicle, and assorted objects, most also in flames, lay scattered in the valley they'd just left.
Two of them vaguely looked like people.
One of those shapes was also aflame, and was trying half-heartedly to do something about it.
Millie turned her head away, swallowing down the urge to be sick. He was burning alive.
The pistols were cool in her hands, their metal not unlike the smooth surface of Mr. Priest's cross. He'd be reminding her that she could stop the man's suffering. She couldn't treat his burns out in the desert, he'd argue, and they were far from a settlement. He would die anyway, and she wouldn't let a thomas struggle on with a broken foreleg, would she?
She glanced backwards again, and found that the shape was barely moving. As she watched, she realized now it was just a trick of the light, a play on shadows.
Millie closed her eyes and climbed slowly to her feet. Her head felt stuffed with fabric, and she shook it before she looked back at Mr. Knives.
He was surveying the horizon, and he still hadn't put away his gun.
And then he was three feet to the left, and looked more than a little irritated. He raised his gun again as a more distant report finally sounded, but this time he wasn't pointing it anywhere near her.
Millie took a deep breath and shook herself again, scanning the sand. Where had the two men come from? The jeep had been empty –
Something sliced her right arm.
It was a sensation she recognized, and she whipped around before she was even sure what she was doing. The red dots on her pistols picked out the source of the bullet, but it was too dark to discern the gun from the rest of him. The explosion had ruined her night vision, she'd have to do something immediately or he was going to shoot again –
Millie held her breath, and hesitated.
The shadow leapt away from view, falling back to the dune. The report of Knives' gun was shockingly familiar, and she dropped her hands after a moment, glancing at her arm. It was just a graze – she was lucky. Maybe he'd been trying to shoot her weapon away, too. It stung something fierce, though.
He hadn't been there earlier. Had he been buried in the sand?
She waited, listening, but all she heard was the wind on the sand, and the popping of flames. Footsteps told her Mr. Knives was walking away, apparently satisfied that he'd taken care of the threat.
Four men.
Twice as many as before.
And she let Knives kill all of them.
Again.
She turned on her heels, staring at his back as he walked away. His gun was still in his hand, and the rigid set of his shoulders told her he was angry.
Did he not expect this, she wondered. Did he not expect that they would try to shoot him?
And why had he saved her?
Nicholas would be furious with her.
She hurried after him, blinking repeatedly to try to restore her nightvision. How many more were out in the dunes? Where had they come from? Where was Knives going?
Obviously they had been expecting Knives to track them down.
She had almost caught up to him before he topped the next dune, surveying the horizon much more closely than before. She was beside him before she could make out his expression, and it made her want to run right back the way she'd come.
Angry wasn't the right word.
He was incensed.
And he was looking at her.
"You knew this was here," he growled suddenly, and his voice was far colder than the night air.
Her blank stare was not the response he was looking for, because he took a step towards her. She took a step back.
"I – I don't understand," she tried, and he raised his gun.
The ebony gun's bolt and barrel popped, and she truly expected a bullet to hit her this time. But instead of flying backwards, they were ejected off the top of the gun, revealing an odd cylindrical component she was fairly sure wasn't supposed to be there. Blue energy crackled around it, and it dawned on her.
Like Mr. Vash's gun.
She watched, transfixed, as Mr. Knives' hand grew almost fibrously, extending into the gun and past it and up his shoulder and growing thicker and feathers, white feathers –
It was his Angel Arm.
She stumbled backwards away from him, and he followed her with his eyes. They didn't flinch, though she knew from Mr. Vash's hollow description of what had happened in Augusta that it was terribly painful. It took him no time before his arm was nothing like an arm.
It sort of looked like it was part of a wing.
He wouldn't waste that effort on her, no matter how angry she made him. She knew it absolutely. He was going to use it to destroy something else. But what? There was nothing out there but sand and dead robots and –
And the ship that had made them, of course.
She wrinkled her brows in confusion. But that ship had been empty. She and Meryl had run through it after getting accidentally sucked into the same sinkhole that had probably gotten Mr. Priest and Mr. Vash. She'd even used her stungun to punch a hole in the floor when they'd heard Nicholas and Mr. Vash fighting –
There hadn't been any people there.
But if they were truly in the desert between Mei and Inepral City, there was no other place anyone could be hiding Mr. Vash.
He was going to destroy it. And kill all of them. Everyone in that ship.
Including Mr. Vash!
No. He wouldn't do that -
Would he?
She took a step closer to Mr. Knives, still shaking and berating herself mentally. She just hadn't realized -
And how could she not have? Obviously the people that were after Mr. Knives were using Lost Technology, and how many other SEEDs ships had she seen? Just Doc's, really, and a few mostly disassembled wrecks.
Oh, all the time they'd wasted, and Mr. Vash had been waiting for them -
"You can't destroy it!" she told him, taking another step toward him. Now she was directly in front of his Angel Arm, there was only a few feet between them. Maybe he was so angry he wasn't thinking clearly. "What if Mr. Vash is in there?"
He was staring at her as though he'd never seen anything so disgusting. He didn't bother responding with words.
Instead, his Angel Arm began to draw in all the light.
She didn't mean to, but reflex honed by the last few years of following Meryl and Mr. Vash pulled her out of the way, towards the sand. She heard the energy discharge, an odd sound that was unlike anything she'd ever heard before. And she'd been there, when Vash had been forced to fire on the moon. This was –
Quieter.
It felt as though something massive were moving over her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut as another explosion rocked the night air. The ground beneath her shuddered violently, but the sound of the ship disintegrating was softer than she'd expected.
It was softer even than when the jeep had exploded.
But longer. It seemed forever before the rumblings stopped, and everything was still. She clung to the sand, gripping her arm and concentrating on the pain of the stinging wound there.
He'd done it. He'd destroyed it.
Millie was shaking as she dared to look up, and a very natural-looking hand reached down for her. He caught her collar, rather than her throat this time, and he lifted her easily.
"Even if I were that merciful," and it was soft, as though he was not literally vibrating with rage, "my dear brother would have survived just as I survived him."
She blinked uncomprehendingly at him, and he tossed her in the direction he'd fired as though he was discarding an old newspaper.
Millie rolled a few feet before she was able to righten herself, and then she stared.
There was a terrible, fire-ringed hole in the sand. Some had been burned completely away, and more of it had become glass, still glowing slightly orange as it refused the chill of the night air. The hull of the ship, where it had met the energy blast, was alternately burning or red, flowing tackily as globs of metal bled onto the desert.
But they were also bleeding inwardly, as though being sucked in by some invisible force. She watched them drip, fascinated, as Knives strode past.
It wasn't destroyed. He'd just blown a hole in the hull. A sizable one.
He'd created a door.
He'd also warned them that he was coming.
Knives wasn't stopping, and Millie dazedly cast around for her guns. She found them, lying not far away, and numbly picked them back up.
If he had been that merciful. Merciful enough to kill them with one shot. Merciful enough to destroy them in an explosion.
Obviously he was planning on destroying them some other way.
He hadn't killed her yet because –
He probably would have if she hadn't moved out of the way of his Angel Arm.
Millie stared at his back, starting to register other voices in the nights, shouts of people that had survived the initial blast. It wasn't that Mr. Knives trusted her at all. He simply didn't consider her a threat.
She kept hesitating.
And people kept dying.
She watched him striding towards the glowing SEEDs ship, then dropped her eyes down to the pistols.
- . -
Author's Notes: I understand this chapter might be a little confusing – Millie had a dream. In her dream, she was a man playing poker and encountered Mr. Vash in a bar. She woke up in the truck with Knives, who appeared to be sleeping himself, and they proceeded towards the ship in the desert.
I am going by the anime, in which Knives had an Angel Arm (or two) very much like Vash's. I understand this may not be accurate to the manga. If you see some glaring issue, please please please let me know! Sorry for the delay on this chapter – I had to make up a week and a half's worth of work. Never going on vacation again, if this is what I have to face when I get back!