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The Stampede was well known across the desert sands – a massive tower of a structure, it strode across the dunes on long, thick mechanical feet. It somewhat resembled a metal-plated Toma, laden with packages and wearing a mask, swaying with each step it took. The large glass windows of it’s eyes, glowed an incredible blue, deeper and bluer than the sky itself, making it an eerie and unsettling thing to see in the dark, empty landscape of night. People spoke of the damage that followed it; bullets and sandstorms dogged it’s footsteps and misfortune seemed to lurk in it’s shadow. Those who saw it approaching their towns often took to arms to chase it away but attempts to destroy or capture it outright failed. Something about it was too persistent to break, despite the fact that it looked like it was in constant danger of falling apart. Meryl certainly had thought so, when she had first gone looking for the legendary Stampede and saw it striding over the horizon. It was a huge and imposing thing, an impossibility.
It’s reputation and size meant that many spoke of the wizard Vash, the one who supposedly had created the roaming Stampede to wander the desert. A bad omen, they whispered. A monster, some claimed. A warlock who could steal water from the clouds themselves and cause plants to grow from nothing. Even more dangerous was the rumour that the wizard Vash didn’t travel alone – that Nicholas Wolfwood followed him. A priest of absolution, a merciful executioner. Both men were masters of gun-based magic, using their skills as gunmen and enchanted bullets to unpredictable, often incredible effect. Rumours only, Meryl had thought, even as she pursued the Stampede and studied it, determined to find a way aboard. Turns out she didn’t need to try so hard – Vash himself let her on.
She hadn’t realised it was Vash at first. He had been tied up in some makeshift gallows, hanging upside down out in the middle of nowhere. Not the sort of place or situation she had ever expected to meet an infamous wizard. Truthfully she hadn’t believed him when he had introduced himself. It was only when she saw the Stampede itself loom and approach them that she realised he might truly be Vash, freezing between her animal instinct to flee from the massive machine stomping forward and her determination to get the full story on this strange man. Staying had been the right idea. As the Stampede approached she could see a way into it – hopping onto it’s foot and stepping onto a doorway tucked under the fabric that covered parts of the machine haphazardly. Vash didn’t mind her joining him, another bizarre choice. Instead he joked.
“I don’t normally bring girls home this soon after meeting them, but given you helped me down I should offer you some hospitality.” Things only got stranger when she met Wolfwood reclined on a patchwork sofa in the main room with a huge gun shaped like a cross propped up next to his seat, sipping from a mug of coffee with “I <3 Jesus” printed on it.
---
This wasn’t a normal ambush. Meryl kept track of her guns – six derringers, two shots each, three on each side of her jacket as she ran through the main room to one of the balconies. Most attacks on the Stampede came from below, from raiders who stupidly thought they could throw a wire by it’s feet and make it trip like a common Toma. These ones came from above, a swarm of bug-like wizards. Wolfwood identified them – former wizards who had overused their guns and become fused with them, the bones in their arms replaced with steel barrels and their hands ripped from gunfire tearing through them.
“But there’s so many.” Meryl eyed the skies, tense. She could shoot each of them with a derringer but her aim wasn’t good enough to hit them, not when it was the dead of night and the moon’s light was too weak to pick them out against the stars. “How can so many of them be working together? I thought once they lost their minds they couldn’t co-ordinate like this!”
A barrage of fire hailed down and she ducked under one of the billowing canopies that covered the Stampede, sliding under a table. Wolfwood merely hefted the Punisher in front of him, using it’s bulk as a shield. He was glaring upwards from behind his dark shades.
“Unless someone else is leading them.”
“Someone else-?” Meryl took in how Wolfwood clenched on the cigarette between his teeth, how his eyes flit between each mutated wizard. He knew something. Before she could ask, another wave of gunfire opened up on them. The Stampede gave a screech of metal as it ran, body swaying like a ship in rough waters.
“Million Knives.” Meryl turned sharply as Vash finally approached, eyes locked on their attackers. Meryl and Wolfwood took in a breath. They each had their encounters with Million Knives.
Withut a word, Vash shifted his form – a wing emerged from his back, dark with feathers like the leaves of some exotic flora. White lines illuminated over his skin, highlighting the delicate nature of his wing.
“You better not be planning anything stupid.” Wolfwood glared at him, standing tall.
“I might be. But you two need to stay here and keep out of danger.”
“No way! Not when you’re throwing yourself to the dogs like this!” Meryl cut in. Her hand hovered over her derringer. She might not have magic but a bullet was a bullet.
“You both need to stay here. This isn’t your fight.” He smiled, one of those smiles that didn’t feel true with how sad his eyes were. Meryl stood and grabbed Vash’s sleeve and pulled him in, glaring up at him.
“You always run. Even when people put a gun to your head, you just run away. Why aren’t you running this time?”
“Normally, they only want me. If they’re threatening you two as well, then I can’t just run.” Wolfwood was no more happy than Meryl. “Don’t you dare go dying on my account,” he growled.
Vash reached for both of them; a hand on Wolfwood’s shoulder, at Meryl’s elbow. Both touches were unmistakably tender, his grip a shy too tight as if he wanted to slip a piece of them into his jacket to keep with him. But he let go and turned, single wing spreading before he launched himself into the sky. The Stampede abruptly turned and broke into a run away from the conflict, jostling Meryl and Wolfwood with it’s sudden change of pace.
“We’re not just staying here.” Meryl huffed, the moment Vash was airborne.
“We’re not exactly staying put here.” Wolfwood pointed out dryly, but he followed Meryl as she ran to the Plant Room, the centre most room hidden from outside view and kept in darkness.
“I can redirect the Stampede, I think.”
“Then do it.” Wolfwood parted from her, Punisher hoisted at his back as always as he seized a pack of boxes of ammo, personally enchanted by him for various purposes and ran for the tallest balcony at the base of the Stampede’s neck, an ideal spot to try and snipe. Meryl crashed into the Plant Room – it didn’t even have a lock, which was ridiculous given what was kept inside.
It housed a single structure; a massive vat of glowing blue liquid, containing a tree. Meryl knew from exploring the Stampede that the vat was the heart of it, the source that every glowing blue pipe led to. The tree itself was Vash, something powerful and still connected to him despite it being torn out of him, it’s gnarled roots contained within the liquid. It’s branches swayed in an ebb that shouldn’t exist, pressed to the glass, leaves vibrant and teal. Meryl approached it and pressed her hands on the glass.
“Listen to me! We’re not abandoning him. Turn us around and take us back so we can help him!” She would have felt silly months ago, demanding to a tree to redirect a massive walking, bird-shaped house. Now she knew that the tree was the house. The tree was Vash’s heart. It was Vash and he stupidly didn’t even put a lock on the door to keep it safe. “We might be out of our league and he might be the Wizard Typhoon, but we’re going to give him back up. It’s not up to him if we leave and we’re not going to let him face this alone. He doesn’t have to be alone.” The leaves glowed softly and reached out, branches coiling over the glass. The Stampede’s gears and metal gave a deep groan, slowing. Meryl dropped her stance down, centring herself as the Stampede turned on it’s heel, rushing back towards the battle.
She ran from the Plant Room to scramble to the nearest balcony, wind whipping at her face and forcing tears from her eyes. Above, Wolfwood twisted a sigil onto the Punisher and took aim, gritting his teeth. A few wizards dove at the Stampede and he took them out, bullets arching to seek out their targets. High above Meryl could only just make out a flurry of dark shapes fluttering like bats in a cave. One had to be Vash but she couldn’t even tell how many remained in the battle. Suddenly, one fell. They plummeted with the force to a misfired bullet and Meryl only just recognised Vash as he crashed into the Stampede’s head – the topmost room of the tower of the Stampede, the head of the Toma. The structure shuddered, it’s gears screaming as it abruptly stopped, turning and breaking into a sprint towards the open desert. Meryl bolted towards the ladder. Wolfwood joined her with a curse, throwing the Punisher on his back as he hoisted himself up the ladder.
“Wolfwood!” She called up to him.
“I know!” They hurried up, their way illuminated by the glowing liquid that snaked up the Stampede’s throat in thin pipes.
She didn’t know what to expect. She had never come up here during her stay. She and Wolfwood emerged from the trapdoor, scrambling into the room. It was taken up by a large vat full the same liquid that housed the tree in the Plant Room – Meryl could see two circles of light, the ‘eyes’ of the Toma-like head that revealed the vat to the outside world. One was shattered, liquid bleeding out of it like a waterfall of tears. Inside the vat was a mass of feathery vines and grassy wings, all etched in glowing white lines.
“Vash!” She banged on the glass and the mass twisted slowly, floating in the liquid. Tendrils reached out and pressed on the glass. It cracked. Meryl didn’t flinch, pressing both palms and flattening her body tot he vat. Wolfwood clambered up after her.
“Vash, I know you can hear me.” Meryl watched the tendrils blossom slowly. “And I know this is your scar. I want to know everything. Everything you’ll tell me, so you don’t have to hide away like this. You might be able to retreat and deal with this by yourself, because it doesn’t mean you should. We want to help!” Behind her, Wolfwood rolled his shoulders and watched with her as the tendrils completely parted.
Vash was floating in the water, still in his transformed state but, more. Vines and feathers blossomed and fluffed out of him, multiplying constantly, filling the vat. He drifted close, eyes completely white and glowing behind the large orange shades. Wolfwood grit his teeth and drifted close to the glass. Vash pressed a hand over the glass towards each of them. His hand was massive compared to Meryl’s. Bony and thin compared to Wolfwood’s. The Stampede groaned and shook, throwing Meryl and Wolfwood. Meryl shouted, scrambling onto her hands and knees. Vash twisted and screamed, overwrought. She watched in horror as his left arm split like a flowerbud. Something black and gnarled sprouted, coiling into something she couldn’t describe. “Vash?” Wolfwood threw himself on her, halting her before she could press and bang on the vat again.
“Don’t!”
“I said we’re not leaving him-!”
“Something's wrong with him. We need to go."
“What's happening to him?”
"He's got too much energy in him. If he doesn't let it out-"
The weapon seemed to suck out light around the vat, absorbing it’s calming glow and filling it with a starry void. Meryl took her gaze from the weapon to Vash. He was looking at them with a fierce look, one she didn't recognise. His lips moved and Meryl tried to hear but he turned and pointed his arm out the Toma’s eye.
A beam of energy shot into the sky. Like the shine of a blade it cut through the dark, firing up and landing upon a distant moon – the sound of the moon cracking from the impact was lost in space. Vash’s vines flexed. The vat shattered. The pushback forced the Stampede’s head back, neck screeching and snapping. Wolfwood grabbed Meryl as they slid towards the ladder hole, throwing his body so he hit the tilting wall with his feet. Meryl tried to correct herself, hands scrambling on Wolfwood’s clothing before a wave of liquid crashed down on them. It rushed, trying to sweep them down the ladder where it violently sprayed out from the Stampede’s twisted neck. Meryl grabbed at the rugs of the ladder but Wolfwood had the strength to hold onto them, an arm wrapped tight around Meryl’s waist to keep her secure. The water was cold and heavy. It was difficult to breathe. Meryl wanted to tip her head up to see Vash but it just wasn’t possible. The back of the Toma’s head smashed into it’s back, throwing them up where they were lodged. Wolfwood shouted as he was smacked into the opposing wall while Meryl could only offer a breathless gasp. They slid further down the neck, further down the rungs before Wolfwood resorted his grasp. There they held on as the last of the water rushed back and the ground seemed to settle.
Her back felt like one singular bruise from the pounding water. “Wolfwood?” Meryl patted his soaked chest and Wolfwood only grunted.
“Don’t thank me.”
“Oh, I won’t.” She checked him over quickly; no doubt he was bruised and going to be feeling the damage. She leaned up to kiss his cheek. He paused and rolled his eyes, forcing himself up with a grunt. Dust hung in the air. Pipes lay, drained and cracked, now along the floor under the once horizontal now vertical ladder. The Stampede was still moving, evidenced by the flap of fabric Meryl could see through the broken walls. How, she had no idea. As Wolfwood gathered himself, she ran, clambering over the debris to reach the head, now resting where it had caved in the back of the Stampede, breaking the roof of the living room.
Vash was lying face down on the floor. His wings and vines had retreated back into himself. His blonde hair darkening to black at the roots. Feathers and leaves and shattered glass laid strewn around the damaged room. Gnarled roots, blackened and splintered, littered the soaked floor. Meryl scrambled over the debris, kneeling down to his side. “Vash?”
“Spikey. Wake up.” Vash slowly rolled onto his back. He looked, exhausted. When he smiled it was vacant.
“Vash.” Meryl brushed back his hair. Wolfwood knelt down at Vash’s other side and curled an arm around his shoulders, hoisting him up. Vash looked between them, before averting his gaze down at where his arm once had been.
“You guys probably should have left, you know.”
“Yeah, we should have.” Wolfwood agreed readily. Meryl shot him a glare.
“We weren’t going to leave you behind. Not when you needed us.” Vash laughed. It was hollow but there was a ring to his laugh, something true.
“Thank you. For staying.”
---
The Stampede ambled over the yawning desert slowly, stepping cautiously as if wary of predators. The three major damages had been fixed; while it’s eyes no longer glowed and one window had been covered in a metal grid, the topmost room had been dried out entirely and cleaned of debris from the vat tank. It’s neck was repaired with fresh sheets of metal and fabric, reinforced with magic to let it twist and turn in a natural way. It’s back was re-enforced and built upon, looking like the Stampede was carrying a backpack. While the Toma wasn’t entirely rebuilt, it was all re-enforced by vines that gave it a skeleton, a set of bones that made it more sturdy than it seemed. The interior was largely the same, steel and wood thrown together in an open plan broken by the support beams and now, the support vines that held the support beams. Wind and sand still got in from various gaps in the walls, the windows and the doorways. In the living room, Vash and Wolfwood were lounging together on the old sofa, legs tangled as they read – Wolfwood with his nose in a copy of some motorcycling magazine, Vash with a book on experimental bullet alchemy. Meryl made a point of tapping their legs so she could get a seat. Both men moved so she could settle but Wolfwood immediately put his shins over her lap.
“Hey!”
“You knew what you were getting into.” Wolfwood answered, not even glancing away from his magazine. Vash kept his feet to himself but shifted his body so he could sit shoulder to shoulder with Meryl.
Vash was still recovering. Repairing the Stampede had been a drain, even for a wizard as powerful as him, even with Wolfwood’s magically enhanced strength and Meryl’s doggedly dedicated help. They hadn’t spoken about the events that led to the damages, how Vash had ended up with so much magical energy in his body he had to discharge it. They didn't mention the new streaks of black in his hair, or the bottle of bleach that appeared in the bathroom when his hair returned to being pure blonde. Meryl let her hand rest on Wolfwood’s knee, leaning into Vash’s side. Vash leaned back into her gently, glancing down at her.
“You okay there?” She hummed in response.
“I’m fine. Better than fine. But what about you?”
“You know me. Takes a lot to keep me down! Ow-!” Vash flinched as Wolfwood carefully aimed a kick at Vash’s shin.
“We were there, needle-noggin.” Wolfwood tipped his head to throw Vash an unimpressed look from the side of his magazine.
“Hey, I’m in recovery!” Vash whined, drawing up his shin and Meryl huffed, grabbing each of their legs before they could start a footsie-war across her lap.
“Don’t start that when I’m sat between you two!” She looked back up at Vash, taking in the little details on his face. The shadows under his eyes and the thinness of his cheeks. “But he has a point. We’re here for you. Even if it’s about something you’re not proud of. Everyone’s done things they’re not happy with, that show the difference between who they want to be and who they are. Don’t get hung up on it. Keep moving towards the person you can be.”
“Thanks Meryl.” Vash’s voice was soft, and Meryl pulled him in for a hug. She could feel him deflate slightly, how his shoulders slumped. Wolfwood shifted down slightly, thighs over Meryl’s lap, shins and ankles over Vash’s. Vash reached down and took one of Wolfwood’s ankles in hand, thumb tracing the delicate bones. Meryl slung an arm over Wolfwood’s thigh and leaned back against the sofa.
Touches lingered. They all breathed in the moment, letting the squeaks and creaks of the Stampede’s joints occupy the air. Meryl stroked over Wolfwood’s thigh, caressing the crook of his knee. The fabric of his trousers was worn, sun-soaked and warm. The muscle underneath was firm. At her side, Vash was slightly cooler. Where he shifted, letting his jacket open, she could feel his chest – lithe and tight and bruised, she knew. Vash’s arm was a solid weigh around her shoulders and Meryl let out a sigh as his fingers found the base of her neck, shivering as the metal digits gently dug into her muscles in a gentle massage. She watched as Vash admired the sharp bones of Wolfwood’s ankle with his fingers. Wolfwood put aside his magazine and leaned up, shifting so he could return their embraces.
As they reclined together, the Stampede whirred in a gentle sigh of it’s own. It paused over a dune, looking each way. The sun was beginning to rest, lowering itself onto the sandy horizon. The Stampede seemed to consider it’s path, it’s lone window-eye reflecting the blue-orange sky, before it turned and trotted onward over the dunes.