Trigun

Trigun

Volume 1 Chapter 2
Deep Space Planet Future Gun Action by: Yasuhiro Nightow

Not all that far in the past, we crashed on this hot, sandy world. Before long, towns were built around those Ships which, by some miracle, survived the Fall mostly intact, the people relying on what scattered production facilities were still operable. Of these towns, there were seven that became Cities. Over 100 years passed, and a time came when even the steady population decline slowed

Then, a nightmare.
One of the Cities vanished utterly in the space of a single night, torn out by its very foundations. Third City July; to this day, people call it "Lost July". And a story is passed on, from generation to generation---

about the shadow of a blond haired man that still lingers around a mountain of rubble. And, for the first time, the name "Vash the Stampede" appears in the annals of History.

how he got away from the first mob, don’t ask me, but he managed somehow. now there’s just the small matter of this plunge from who knows how many stories up…

Vash- UWAH-WAH-AAH-hmp!

feet and hands go out to skid along the walls, hopefully slowing the fall.

Vash- DOWAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! ::Will this work?!::

uhhhmmm…

THUD

Vash- agk!

…nope. head first probably wasn’t that bright an idea either.
Citizen-Soldier 1- There he is! The bountyhead!

Vash- AAAOOOOWWWW~~~~~

Citizen-Soldier 1- Over there! Surround him!

Vash- EEEEEEEEPP!!! Why do these things keep happening to me, Maman? I don’t do anything bad, but everyone’s always after me, Maman!

Vash- …… But this really isn’t the time to be blubbering in French, now is it? And what’s up with this many of the locals chasing me? Geeeez.

nimble as a thief, Our Harried Hero steals up the alley walls, disappearing into a conveniently open second story window.

Citizen-Soldier 2- Oi oi, he’s disappeared again.

::Vash- heh heh heh heh::

Citizen-Soldier 1- It’s like fighting a freakin’ ghost.

on the edge of town…

Meryl- Oh for crying out loud, do these people value their lives? To say that whatever amount of money is fine, so let’s bring out the SS Class…

Millie- Please don’t threaten like that, Sempai. And how bad are things here, really?

Meryl- Something along the lines of children playing baseball with a nuclear warhead. Screw up and the whole place gets blown sky high!

Meryl- ? What, Millie?

Millie- Sempai, I don’t wanna go.

Meryl- Ai yai, now that is a problem. But don’t worry, Millie. It’s not like we’re walking into this without having put any thought into it.

Millie- Really?

Meryl- They may be a crazed mob, but they’re still human.

fwip, out comes a megaphone. and it’s not one of those little funnel jobbies, this is the real, electric deal.

Meryl- IF I TALK USING THIS, THERE WON’T BE ANY WAY ANYONE CAN MISUNDERSTAND ME. WHAT’S WRONG MILLIE? YOUR FACE JUST GOT VERY PALE.

back in town, Vash again finds himself on the wrong side of a hail of bullets, this time dashing across rooftops with a few citizens turned soldiers hot on his heels…

Citizen-Soldier- We’ve got you now! …?!

that’s what you thought. roof-edges are no dead-ends for Our Fearless Hero, as he jumps with little qualm and lots of panache.

Citizen-Soldier- The bastard jumped…?

but actually, he wasn’t really jumping. he just needed to get to that clothes-line, which doubles quite nicely as a Tarzan-esque vine. one smashed window and a hard thump of a landing later, Vash is in a completely different building, quite safe from the previous shooters. not from the guy in the window opposite though. he fires off something that makes a suspicious, deep "fump"….

Vash- ?!

yup, grenade launcher. Vash has about half a second for the shock and "you’ve GOT to be kidding" to register on his face before---

there’s an explosion in the distance. not the greatest welcome into what’s supposed to be a peaceful town. Meryl and Mille find out just how much of an understatement the bartender made when he said there was "something going down". Gunfire drowns out the sound of just about everything else. Meryl and Mille stand stupified, trying to absorb all the idiocy that’s going on. the backwash of a nearby explosion wooshes by, and deposits a very badly wounded sap practically by their feet…

Poor sap- gaaaaaaaaaauugh…. oooooowwwwwwww…..

Millie- We really should be going home now, Sempai! Or else we’ll be the ones getting slaughtered!

those two aren’t the only ones who are shocked. back at the site of the explosion, the guy who launched the grenade is also standing slack jawed because his plan didn’t work. Vash dangles from the smashed window by one arm, miffed, but otherwise unharmed. heaving a sigh of relief, he flips a thumbs-up to the guy who just tried to smear him across three rooms, bops up through the window and disappears.

Launcher- Monster!

shifting rapidly again, Meryl now means business. out comes the megaphone.

Meryl- HONORABLE TOWNSPEOPLE. MY PROFOUND APOLOGIES FOR INTERRUPTING THIS CONFUSION.

Citizen-Soldier- What? You mean to tell me that wasn’t a renewal of the attack?

Local Head Cheese- Whoever just fired that grenade, get over here now!

Meryl- MY NAME IS MERYL STRIFE, AND I REPRESENT THE BERNARDELLI INSURANCE SOCIETY.

Local Head Cheese- Damned brainless idiot! Sure, that may have got the guy, but it’d blow him to bits! Do you think we’d get any money for a pile of red goo?

Meryl- WE REQUEST THAT YOU CEASE ALL PURSUIT OF VASH THE STAMPEDE IMMEDIAT---

…KABOOOM…

Local Head Cheese- Aha! He’s over there. Everyone move out!

Meryl- ……

Local Head Cheese- $$60 billion is waiting!

so much for that brilliant plan. just because you talk loud enough to be heard doesn’t mean people will actually listen. so poor Meryl and Millie are left in the lurch with only a small, black cat (niya~~n) and the wind for company.

Meryl- Grrrrrrrr! This is so pointless! I’ve had it with this whole mess!

Millie- //holding the small, black cat// …… Where are you going, Sempai?

Meryl- To the man in charge! I’m going to haul him out and speak with him directly.

Clueless Underling 1- What should we do, Mr. Chairman?

Clueless Underling 2- Yeah. We’ve been at this for a full three hours and we still haven’t brought him down.

Clued In Underling- That’s not all. He’s managed to escape every time without returning even a single shot.

Chairman- I think we may have completely misjudged him. If things are forced to come to a head, what will actually happen?

Clueless Underlings- ?

Clued In Underling- … Chairman?

Chairman- What should I do? This could get very bad. I thought that it was best to fight fire with fire, so I ended up using our last of last resorts!

Everyone Else- ?

my, what a… healthy, uhm, boy, he is. and pretty durn huge too. actually, try VERY durn huge. enter---

Clued In Underling- The Nebraska Family…! Hold on a second, aren’t you and that son of yours supposed to be in jail for the next 700 years?

Gramps Nebraska- Ain’t you the mouthy whipper-snapper. For your information, we released ourselves yesterday.

Clued In Underling- Isn’t that called a "jailbreak"? UWAA---*

Gramps Nebraska- Yeah, yeah. Call it whatever ya want. Anyway, let’s get going, Gofsef. There’s $$60 billion to be had!

Meryl- …… Wh-wh-wh-whaaa--- Just what under both suns and all five moons was that?
Millie- Don’t tell me they’re going to throw "him" into this…?

besides being ace shots with their respective guns, Meryl and Millie apparently also have a decent knowledge of how to beat people into a pulp with just their hands, and, generous people that they are, they show the Chairman their skills first hand……

Meryl- I can’t believe you!

Millie- Why’d you have to pick this worst of bad ideas?

::Chairman- and who are you two?::

Meryl- GRRAAAAH

Millie- I don’t wanna get squished in the streets of some country nowhere!!

not getting left behind this time, the insurance girls dash off after the easily followed, erm, "father" and "son".

Meryl- YO!! Wait a second, giant persons!

::Clued In Subordinate- Ch-chairman…?::

back on the trail of Our Elusive Hero… we hear a window rattle on an empty building. a second later, in he comes.

Vash- ……………… the coast is clear.

*click*

Voice- FREEZE.

…or maybe the coast isn’t so clear. Vash finds himself looking at a very familiar face over the pistol’s barrel-- the waitress.

Vash- …… you again.

and she has allies. three more women come up out of crates scattered through the room.

Vash- uh-oohhhh…….

‘uh-oh’ is right. there’s no mercy evident in any of those women’s eyes.

Vash- -------- Now this really is a chilly sight, don’t you think?

Waitress- I truly regret this. How such an honestly good person like you ended up with a $$60 billion bounty, I don’t know.

Vash- And seeing women in aprons toting serious hunting rifles makes it pretty surreal. Kids shouldn’t have to see this.

Mother- That’s right. But I’ll do absolutely anything for my son. He’s sick, and we don’t have any money. Without money, a doctor won’t even come and look at him!

Waitress- This year, all our crops failed. On top of that, thanks to a manufacturing-system bug, more than 50 of our "plants" have "died"… If we don’t call in some engineers, this town won’t be around for much longer.

Vash- ………………

Waitress- So…

Waitress- I’m very sorry!

Vash goes almost cross-eyed looking at the barrel of the gun, but we don’t get to see if either of the girls have the guts to actually pull the trigger. things have gone far enough. it’s time to show them just a little of how freakin’ good Vash is. before anyone can move, the .45 colt long-barrel is out and poised, chamber by the right side of the waitress’ jaw. stunned by his sheer speed, the waitress drops onto the ground in an unceremonious thump, and Vash is back on his feet.

Waitress- …………

Vash- ----I understand your situation very, very well. However, until I see him again…….

Vash- There’s no way I can afford to stop moving!

very dazed, the waitress simply stares up at him. now he looks a lot more like an infamous outlaw.

Waitress- …………

Vash- Please. For the love of God. Don’t make me shoot you.

stalemate. for all of four seconds. then the bottles around the room start to rattle a little… a little more… a LOT more… the crates that hid the women before crash to their sides, those stacked on each other fall to the floor, and the storefront blows open--- and a GIANT fist crashes through into the back wall, sending bits of building and women (fortunately not bits of women) flying everywhere. Our Intrepid Hero has to contort in a very interesting fashion to avoid being hit, since the thing would have hit him dead on otherwise. outside, there’s nothing but a pile of rubble where the building was, a long, heavy metal cord trailing out of the wreckage. a cord that’s attached to Gofsef, the giant Nebraska son.

Gramps- HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO------ Bingo?!

kachik-vreeeeeeeeeeeee and the fist starts reeling in, a lot like those little action figures with parts that shoot out…

Gramps- Well that was easy! Is it possible that one shot was all it took to inflict a mortal blow? That’s funny!! That’s funny, Gofsef!

kaCHUNK, the fist is back in place---

Gramps- …urk.

and Gramps notices what’s on the back of the fist--- scribbled in black marker (hopefully permanent ^.^) are three words--- KISS MY ASS!!

Gramps- ………… GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

::Gofsef- ?::

the smoke from the rubble-pile clears, and there Vash stands, outlaw in all his badass-ness, waitress safely cradled in one hand, and a black marker in the other. utterly unimpressed and more than a little peeved, Vash tosses the marker, and crooks his finger in the classic "c’mon" gesture.

Gramps- HEH!! HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH That’s right! This is what it’s supposed to come down to!

Millie- This is bad. This is very, very bad, Sempai. Mr. Explodo has that look in his eye…

Meryl- uuuuuuurrrrrmpphh! I give up! I give up, Millie!! //Millie hugs Meryl tight….around the face//

To be continued...