Vash the Stampede (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krispykremefan) wrote2016-09-11 01:25 pm
krispykremefan) wrote2016-09-11 01:25 pm
Just a Slight Calibration
There was a bit of a malfunction. Nothing to be too concerned over and would be fixed right away. One would hardly notice at all. After all, it only happened when you were asleep and dreaming. Nothing to worry about. It was just a hardly worth mentioning malfunction that opened your subconscious up to anyone dreaming or who could travel freely through dreams. With or without your permission. But, really now, who would do something like that? Don't even bother thinking about it.
Which is why Vash's mind is open for anyone interested in rummaging around up there. After all, how could a guy as happy and carefree as Vash have anything hiding around up there that would be interesting in taking a look at anyway?
There are so many rooms on entry. Way more than a normal human should have at the age Vash looks. Instead of the amount expected for roughly 30 years of life there's enough for over a 130 years.
Most rooms are covered in dirt and dust. The smell of gunpowder lingers all around. The doors here look like they were made from hand. Mostly pieces of misshapen scrap nailed together, a few wooden ones, even a few made from hard clay. All have names craved into them. Countless names. A few, however, do repeat. Wolfwood, Meryl, and Milly being the ones that seem to appear the most among others that repeat, but not nearly the same amount. The other name that appears often is Knives. Always painted in blood red.
Then there are others that have wanted posters tacked onto them. Surprisingly most actually feature Vash himself. Yet there are others for people with such creative names like Gasback, Brilliant Dynamites Neon, The Nebraska Family, and group of people that go by the titled The Gun-Ho-Guns. One name appears over and over in that group. Legato.
Then there are two doors. One simply labeled as July in the same fashion as the others. Then there a second door labeled Lost July. This one looks like some sort of wallpaper had covered the door that has has only just been recently ripped away. A bright light glow can be seen around the edges of the door. This same glow can be found behind another door labeled as Fifth Moon.
Then there is a small section of rooms down a side hall with the label Project SEEDS above all of them. The doors here appear much more advanced and the smell of gun smoke vanishes. They open with a electronic switch instead of a poorly made door knob. Almost as if they are from a space ship from science fiction. These have only a handful of names appearing on them: Rem, Knives, Joey, Brad, Steve, Mary, and Rowan. Except for Knives these names do not appear on the dusty doors. The final room labeled as: The Big Fall.
The biggest question is - which door do you try first?
Which is why Vash's mind is open for anyone interested in rummaging around up there. After all, how could a guy as happy and carefree as Vash have anything hiding around up there that would be interesting in taking a look at anyway?
There are so many rooms on entry. Way more than a normal human should have at the age Vash looks. Instead of the amount expected for roughly 30 years of life there's enough for over a 130 years.
Most rooms are covered in dirt and dust. The smell of gunpowder lingers all around. The doors here look like they were made from hand. Mostly pieces of misshapen scrap nailed together, a few wooden ones, even a few made from hard clay. All have names craved into them. Countless names. A few, however, do repeat. Wolfwood, Meryl, and Milly being the ones that seem to appear the most among others that repeat, but not nearly the same amount. The other name that appears often is Knives. Always painted in blood red.
Then there are others that have wanted posters tacked onto them. Surprisingly most actually feature Vash himself. Yet there are others for people with such creative names like Gasback, Brilliant Dynamites Neon, The Nebraska Family, and group of people that go by the titled The Gun-Ho-Guns. One name appears over and over in that group. Legato.
Then there are two doors. One simply labeled as July in the same fashion as the others. Then there a second door labeled Lost July. This one looks like some sort of wallpaper had covered the door that has has only just been recently ripped away. A bright light glow can be seen around the edges of the door. This same glow can be found behind another door labeled as Fifth Moon.
Then there is a small section of rooms down a side hall with the label Project SEEDS above all of them. The doors here appear much more advanced and the smell of gun smoke vanishes. They open with a electronic switch instead of a poorly made door knob. Almost as if they are from a space ship from science fiction. These have only a handful of names appearing on them: Rem, Knives, Joey, Brad, Steve, Mary, and Rowan. Except for Knives these names do not appear on the dusty doors. The final room labeled as: The Big Fall.
The biggest question is - which door do you try first?
3/3 The Fifth Moon
That is except for two. Vash is an adult now, wearing his trademark red duster, and sprawled on the ground up against a building. Both shoulders bleeding. His left arm is actually a prosthetic, shifted to show the gun he hides inside of it. That shoulder bleeding from a deep cut. His other shoulder and lower arm on his right is bleeding from several gun shots.
A man dressed as a samurai, top knot and all, stands with a sword hilt aimed like a long gun at Vash. A look of mixed disappointment and anger on his face. "Is this all you amount to, Vash the Stampede?" Realization dawns on Vash that this may be the end. Oh, he knows he could kill Rai-Dei, but he wasn't fast enough to stop him without killing him before he was injured. How was he going to get out of this now? There was just no possible way. "I see absolutely nothing." Angry disappointment drips from the samurai's words, as he gives Vash one more chance to do something, and yet the man on the ground fails to try to kill him again. "Tell me, at least give me an answer, what do you see right now? At this very moment. TELL ME!"
Vash closes his eyes and waits for the end. Unable to see a way out besides killing and refusing to see that as an option. He's scared, but at the same time ready. That is until a cool, calming voice echos in his mind.
Do you intend to die, Vash the Stampede?
It's a voice Bill has yet to hear in any memory of Vash's and despite the calm tones the voice sends a shiver to Vash's very core. He knows that voice and it's not that it's because it's coming from his mind that scares him even more than the barrel of the gun currently pointed at him.
The time has come for you to use it.
Vash opens his eyes, yet it's still just him in Rai-Dei in teh city, as his right arm begins to tremble. A familiar warmth starting to tingle within it. Rai-Dei is completely forgotten as Vash focuses on stopping the power he can feel starting to swell up and the voice inside his head.
Go ahead. Use it. As Vash continues to resist the voice becomes more instant, yet still calm. Use it. It's something only you can do. Yet, still Vash resists and finally the voice loses part of it's calm. Use it! Quickly!
"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOOOOP!" Vash shouts, terrified and trying to block out that cold voice in his head. Rai-Dei hesitates a moment. Surprised by the begging. Only he can't hear the voice and misinterprets.
"Coward. I cannot believe that he is begging for his life." He takes aim once again, ready to finally end it all when a white light suddenly burst forth from Vash's handgun still clenched in his right hand. "Wha- what is that?"
The power of a Plant's core begins to radiate. Too bright to look directly at it. A thing of pure energy that begins to meld once again to Vash's hand. "No. Please don't do that." He begs, unable to stop it. Vague memories of a ruined city begin to try to worm their way back into Vash's mind. No, not a ruined city. He can remember July. Before it was destroyed. And Knives, his brother, his brother was there and he-- he--
He remembers now what happened to July. Oh God. He always knew he was involved somehow but now he remembered and that same light was happening again. "Not the light!"
More and more of Vash's arm begins to transform into the canon again as he uses every fiber in his being to fight it. Rai-Dei looks on in amazement. "What is this strange phenomenon? Is this some sort of twisted Christian science?" Vash cries out in pain as fire shoots up his arm as he tries to resist the transformation. From somewhere far, far away he can feel someone twisting his muscles to force the barrel of this new weapon towards Rai-Dei.
"Stop it! Stop it right now!" Vash cries out and throws everything he can into fighting his very own body from aiming at Rai-Dei. He may have cleared the city earlier, but this planet couldn't afford to lose another major one and he was not going to kill this man in front of him.
The samurai who had searched the entire planet in search of a fight he could not win so he could see enlightenment at the moment of his death stares down at the pulsating weapon he now faced. Trembling in fear. Was this the answer he had so long searched for?
"RUN!" Vash's voice breaks the man out of his frozen stupor. Whatever this was; it was not what he had been searching for. "RUN AWAY NOW!" He turns and runs as fast as he can away from Vash, but he doesn't get far. A building, half destroyed from their earlier fight, falls and traps him with Vash.
Unable to escape he dares a look back and see's Vash's arm sucking in more and more power around it. "I- I don't understand! What the hell is that thing!?"
Rai-Dei couldn't escape. Vash couldn't stop the barrel from pointing at him. It was July. July was going to happen all over again. NO! He panics. With his left prosthetic gun arm he shoots point blank into his own arm. The bullets don't do any lasting damage. It stings, but he hardly feels the pain as the force of the bullets as they hit drive his right arm up. He keeps firing until this arm is pointing straight up into the sky. He was out of choices. He couldn't break free out of this spell he was under.
It won't save all the city. A giant blast erupts into the sky. Miles and miles of the city is blasted away in the radius around him. Luckily most of the energy fires up into the sky, through the atmosphere, and finally strikes one of the five moons up in the sky. Leaving a giant crater that can even be seen from the ground behind.
Once the energy is expelled Vash's arm goes back to normal and he bolts. He's not even sure at first where he's running. Just sprinting in what he hopes will be the right direction to take him out of the voice's range. He doesn't actually get too far, utterly exhausted Vash passes out before he can even get to the edge of the city's destruction that he had just caused. If Bill is curious, yes, somehow Rai-Dei survived.
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So who is that voice? And why can he control it if Vash can't? Why'd Vash forget July in the first place?
There won't be answers here. He leaves the memory right away, and looks for one that happens immediately after Vash wakes up.
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"HEY!" There's the owner of the room right near by. He was worried about whoever was here going into either July's or the Firth Moon rooms and he's not happy to see someone coming out of one of those rooms. "Didn't your mother tell you it's rude to spy on people!?" Vash races forward in an attempt to keep Bill from going into any other rooms.
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Bill looks pretty happy to see Vash, in contrast. He doesn't even try to get to the next door.
"GLAD YOU COULD JOIN US!"
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"How many of these rooms have you been in now?" Asked not just because he's wondering how much Bill saw, but just how angry he should be. One or two it might be fair to say that Bill just didn't realize he was wandering around in someone's memories. Vash just has his doubts that the dream creature didn't know what he was doing.
And also Vash wants to know how much Bill saw.
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Bill stabs his cane towards the Fifth Moon door.
"AWFULLY EXCITING ONE, TOO! FIREWORKS AND ALL! PEW!"
Teeny tiny fireworks sparkle around Vash's right arm. It's a party in your sleeves and everyone's invited! EVERYONE.
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The fireworks around his arm he swats away. He knows what Bill is alluding too and it's no laughing matter. "I wouldn't call it exciting." Terrifying is more the correct word in his mind.
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Because you're boooring.
"I DON'T THINK YOU'RE REALLY GETTING THE TICKET YOU'VE GOT HERE, THOUGH, KID. YOU MAY NOT WANT TO GO HOME, BUT YOU COULD FREE ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS. ONE CLEAN SHOT!"
Bill makes a little finger-gun and fires a harmless white beam out of it at Vash's head. It's basically just a laser pointer.
"BOOM!"
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"And do what? Blow my ship out of the sky with myself on it? Or take out a planet that may be uninvolved? And what would that do? Nothing. They'd probably just get a new ship."
Surprisingly he had given it a little thought. Vash didn't really want to go home, except he knows he must, at least long enough to deal with his brother. Then he didn't really care what happens to himself.
"Besides. Even if I--" He doesn't finish that thought. Distractedly he turns down towards his older memories.
It couldn't be, could it? He had found Bill. Was just looking at him. An older feeling of a door he'd been in already? Could there be more Bill's?
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Bill darts around to put himself in Vash's line of sight again.
"YOU COULD TAKE BACK WHAT IT MEANS! MAKE IT BE A TOOL THAT HELPS. ONE THAT YOU CONTROL!"
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It helps when Bill is suddenly in front of him. It also helps that Vash doesn't assume Bill is a bad guy.
Yet.He's mostly just unhappy that someone's in his mind. "Maybe one day I could do that, but I'm not using it to destroy anymore. For any reason."no subject
"DON'T TELL ME HOW SPACE WORKS, SUNSHINE. I WAS THERE WHEN IT BEGAN. DO YOU REALLY WANT ME TO GET INTO THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF HOW AND WHY I KNOW I CAN MAKE IT WORK, OR WOULD YOU RATHER STICK WITH 'MAGIC BUBBLE'?"
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He's seen how little Bill seems to know how a human body works. Granted, his body wasn't a human one, but it was close. Vash also wonders if Bill is telling the truth when it comes to being around when space began. If he was that's pretty old.
"Look, I understand you exists in dreams." He doesn't like the idea of someone coming into a place he can't be fully guarded, but compared to this it doesn't seem too bad anymore. "But this is different. These are my memories. I'd rather you leave."
As he has an inkling someone else is around here somewhere. Something just feels so off and unsettling to him at the moment. It's hard to focus.
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Not true. He totally came in on his own. But blaming the Atroma works like ninety percent of the time around here.
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Nah, Bill's just going to float along after Vash. His other two copies have plenty to do.
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Vash will lead Bill towards a door. It doesn't actually say: Exit like a movie theater, but it's at the end of the line. Past the doors marked with logos of the Three Twins and ships of the fleet. "This one leads, well, I'd say into your own body and mind but I'm not really sure how your body works."
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[Bill tips his hat and glides out backwards.
Or, this copy does, at least.]