driftfleet | Twin Roses Mingle

Yeah, well, I guess I'd be dead otherwise, so all things considered... Not that I'm thanking them for any of this, but it beats that.

What about you? How bad would it have been if your arm discharged back there?

[Crap. They're back to him again. There's a pause as he tries to figure out how he wants to answer that. He doesn't really want to answer it, but he's just had a painful reminder of how people tend to act when he's trying to be evasive.]

Really bad. [Probably should expand on that, huh? He sighs and takes his hand back from her. Instead he uses his left hand to hold his right. Staring down as if by glaring at it that he might change it to being a normal human arm.] Back home, Kitty I-- [How does he say what he needs to say? It seems impossible.] --back home did you know that I'm a wanted man? [Some people have heard about that.] I've joked about it here and there, but it's true. Dead or alive my head back home is worth sixty billion. [He leaves off the double dollars part. While it was a serious currency back home he knows it can sound a bit funny here.] I got that bounty when I destroyed the city of July. A city of millions. Gone. In an instant.

Oh Vash... [She's not sure what to say or do here. She knows how hard it seemed to be for him just to kill Legato, a man who needed to be killed by her way of thinking of it and from what she'd seen, but a city full of seemingly innocent people? Millions? That would be hard for anyone, but for someone like Vash it's hard to even imagine.] I didn't know about July. [She had assumed there was some truth in his jokes about a bounty, but she didn't know it was that bad.] It was an accident? [She can't believe he'd do it on purpose even if it was to save billions it didn't seem like his way. But it also seems a little empty to call something that devastating an accident.]

[He could clarify in that some how the blast didn't kill anyone, but the rubble falling did. Leaving people suddenly stranded out in a desert with no resources did. He was still the cause of all the deaths that happened due to the lost of one of the planets few major cities. So he rarely ever explains that part.]

I lost control. [That's the way he sees it. The fact that his brother was the one who forced him into the transformation didn't matter to him.] I couldn't stop it that time.

[She would be fascinated to know that the blast doesn't harm people directly. She'd probably have more questions so it may be for his well being that he doesn't say so. She does accept "I lost control" as confirming it was an accident for the most part.]

You stopped it this time. [Just wanting to remind him things have changed. They can keep changing.]

Was Knives there in July like he was in the mist?

Yeah. He was.

[He almost leaves it there. He's never been good at talking about himself or his life. It usually drove people away or changed the way they looked at him. It was almost never in a good way.

Then again, Meryl had come back after hearing everything. Kitty also had some experience with being not exactly human as well. It gives him a bit more courage to open up a bit more.]

I went to July to see a relative of Rem's that I found out about. Knives beat me to him and was waiting.

[They've been lying next to each other and holding hands, but this feels like it calls for something more. She breaks that contact but only for a moment to wrap her arms around him instead.] What happened? [Maybe she shouldn't ask. Maybe she doesn't have the right, but she knows half the story and she thinks maybe it would do him some good to share it?]

[Again he's quiet for a moment. Trying to piece together the hazy memories of who saw what in the calibrations. He holds Kitty close when she changes from holding his hand to the hug.]

Knives had already killed him before I got there. We argued and when it escalated he was faster on the draw. [He wasn't as fast back then.] That's when he shot my arm off.

It was while I was dealing with the shock that he trigger the gate he had hidden in my gun. [He probably shouldn't use terms that he hasn't defined to anyone outside of his world before. It was just using the term: "the gate" made it little easier to say out loud then: my species's power source.] My own reacted in a sort of chain reaction.

[She rubs his back as he talks about Knives killing Rem's relative off. She has little doubt Vash probably feels guilt for that death even if he had nothing to do with it.] The gate? Is that what I saw? The cylinder?

Yes. Sort of. [And this is where his life gets complicated. ~~Thanks Nightow for not fully explaining Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff!~~]

It's difficult to explain. [In part because many of the records of the Plants were destroyed in the Great Fall. Vash doesn't really have the full information of what his species really is and is capable of. While he's the second best source of knowledge, only beaten out by Knives, there is still so much that is a mystery.] Plants, the species that I-- [evolved from?] am, have power that allow them to create or destroy nearly anything if used properly. [Which hasn't happened in over a hundred years back home.] We were created to help terraform new planets so a lot of power was required. The majority of that is considered be housed in "gates" within them. [Or at least that's what he gathered from the term that kept popping up in the notes he could find.]

Knives left me for a year while we were traveling together to go out into space in an old ship that we found that could still fly. I'm not sure exactly what he did, but when he returned he came back with two guns.

I'm not sure how he did it, but that cylinder can help focus and channel that raw power like a gate. I'm not even completely sure if it's artificial or not. [He hasn't really played around and tested it very much.] I don't think it can do much on it's own without a Plant to power it.

[She listens carefully, trying to understand. The guns throw her off. Do they contain the cylinders? She also wonders what that was like with the two of them traveling together. Brothers and eventually enemies. That Knives would manipulate and hurt him in the ways that he does... But he's still all Vash had of his people.] Have you ever used your power intentionally?

Edited 2018-08-25 14:04 (UTC)

[Nothing like walking around alone with the person you saw murder everyone you've ever known including your adoptive mother who you cherished for years.]

No. [Sure, he's always been able to see farther, hear better, heal faster, quicker reflexes, and a few other passive abilities that he can't really turn off. Powers that he can control on and off? Nothing like that.] I haven't.

[She's not sure when he knew everything. Even if Vash was fully informed she thinks she gets it. She's not sure she'd so easily turn away the only other mutant in the world if was only the two of them. Especially if they were family.]

Have you ever created something by accident or force? [She wonders if he's only ever seen his power used to destroy.]

No. I haven't. [He gives that a moment of thought and he can't help but to smile a little. Picturing him creating water or food like his sisters do.] But that certainly would be interesting if I had.

Do you ever want to try? [She's not sure it's a good idea either, but she is curious about how he thinks of it. She does notice his expression shifts. That's something.]

[He hesitates. He knows what his answer is, but he's also pretty sure Kitty won't exactly like his reasoning for it. Then again, maybe she would understand a desire to just be human and not... weird. Although, probably best not to word it that way.

How should he word it. He breaks eye contact and scratches at the back of his head.] No. [He takes another moment to try to bully himself into saying a bit more.] Not really.

[She nods, thinking his reasoning lies in the area of fear. And maybe not just fears related to people getting hurt but failure to do it well or to give enough or who knows. Wanting to be "normal" doesn't really occur to her, but it wouldn't surprise her. After all, he was very reluctant to mention his age. She thought maybe that was fear too. Fear of being seen as different and cast out.

Being different is her whole thing even before she was a mutant but so much more after realizing she was. She embraces it and rebels more at people trying to say she's normal because to her that feels like they aren't really seeing her. Not all of her. Though in her time over the abductions she's felt better about it. There is very little "normal" to judge yourself against in this company.]

It seems like it takes a lot out of you. Or at least holding back did. You were asleep for a long time.

It's a bit of both. [And part that he didn't want to face people once he got up.] I don't usually get a chance to rest so easy right after. So I guess because I could sleep I did. [Something about not seeing a ruined landscape when he first opened his eyes and thus forcing himself to get moving again.] Usually I suffer some short term memory loss with it. [Although it's hard for him to tell if that was due to a trauma response or what happens when he actually fires the weapon.] So it wasn't nearly as bad this time.

[She reaches up, running her fingers through his hair. It's much easier to do when it's not all spiked up.] Do you feel like you have any gaps in your memories from this?

No. Not this time. [Although it's hard to say for sure. After all, how does someone remember a lost memory if it's small enough?] The last two times I had this sense of lost. Knowing the damage left behind was because of me, but not having the memory of the event until later. I remember what happened in the mist. Even if some of the things I saw are still a bit confusing over what was real and not.

[Did he say two? Perhaps he misspoke.]

[Oh, she heard that "two".] Was the time Legato pushed it out of you one of those two? [She is thinking the answer is no, because it didn't seem like he struggled enough to be losing time with it.]

Yeah. It was. [A thoughtful beat as he considers his answer for a moment.] I didn't think anyone saw Augusta. [That's because no one did.]

Augusta? [Not quite understanding.]

Ah... um. [He suddenly feels like he's making a mistake.] The other city I destroyed?

[...] That's not what you were thinking about, was it?

In the memory I saw Legato seemed to engage it, but either he stopped or you fought it back. It was right before you... You know. [Killed him. It's not hard for her to say. She just thinks it might be hard for him to hear.]

I didn't know about Augusta. I'm sorry. What happened?

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