000 ♥ Biography for Project Purity
☣ Character
Character Name: Vash the Stampede
Character Age: About 153; looks like he's in his early 20s
Canon + Format: Trigun Maximum (manga)
Background:
(Since there are no good wiki links for Tri Max, tl;dr full steam ahead!)
Vash and his twin brother Knives were born on the primary SEEDS colony ship, the offspring of the Plants that had been created by humanity as an energy source. They were kept hidden from the rest of the crew by a woman named Rem, and while they had a happy childhood being raised by her, that changed when the brothers discovered that they were not the first to have been born from a Plant - and that the one who had, Tessla, died after being subjected to horrible experiments. Both brothers came away from this in shock, and while Vash was able to act out and get past it, Knives never truly did.
Knives' growing hatred of humans was finally shown when he sabotaged the colony ships to crash on a desert planet. Rem successfully ushered the twins into an escape pod, but stayed behind, sacrificing herself to change the ship's courses enough to save thousands of others. After landing on the planet themselves, Vash was understandably extremely upset, but the two had no choice but to remain together. It was a far better option than wandering the desert alone.
They stayed together for years, watching as the humans who survived began to slowly spread across the planet, and all the while the two only aged slowly. After eighty years, the differences in their views erupted into a fight, Knives severing Vash's left arm and leaving him on his own. Vash wasn't able to handle both his injury and the harsh environment; he collapsed and was very close to death when he was found by residents of one of the last remaining colony ships. They gave him a new arm, and his symbolic red coat, aiding Vash so that he may find Knives and put a stop to him.
During the sixty years afterward, Vash wandered the planet in search of his brother, training extensively as a sharpshooter. When he did meet up with Knives again, it was in the city of July. That confrontation ended in the first activation of Vash's Angel Arm, which destroyed the entire city, killing most of the residents outright. This was the first time Vash became known as 'Vash the Stampede', with a huge bounty put on his head and a legend that only grew thanks to his incredible skill with getting out of bad situations.
He was later found by two members of the Bernardelli Insurance Society, who let him know that his bounty had been rendered invalid thanks to him being declared a localized disaster - but they also insisted on following him around, in an attempt to lessen the damage that followed in his wake. It was shortly afterward that Vash met Legato, and was told of the Gung-Ho Guns, a group of assassins that would be sent after him. It was after defeating the first three that Vash met up with Knives again, this time in May City. It again ended with the activation of Vash's Angel Arm, and while the city was luckily abandoned, the blast also blew a crater into the fifth moon.
Vash went into hiding after that for two years, using the name 'Eriks' and living with a small family. He was found by Wolfwood, and came out of hiding to continue the hunt for Knives. When the Gung-Ho Guns attacked the colony ship he called home, Vash was forced to return, the fights landing him in the hospital ward there for a short time. That was when Earth finally managed to contact Gunsmoke via the satellites they had in place, an act which restored hope for rescue - but also did not go unnoticed by Knives.
This was when Knives' plans started to visibly move forward. The Gung-Ho Guns were appearing in force, and in threes when Zazie the Beast kidnapped Meryl, forcing her friends to walk into the trap they had laid. During the fight, Vash finally regained his memories of the events that had led up to July, the trauma leading to him nearly manifesting his Angel Arm. He was able to reign it in just in time, the rescue successful even though two more of the Gung-Ho Guns lay dead. After that, Vash and Wolfwood left the Insurance Girls to travel to Knives' hideout, the Ark, and confront him.
It only led to Vash's capture, which lasted for nine months before Wolfwood helped him break out. They fled the Ark and were picked up by the last remaining colony ship, which was now aloft. However, Wolfwood left again shortly afterward, and Vash followed him to the orphanage the man had called home. Wolfwood died after fighting Chapel and Livio, two members of the Eye of Michael. With Chapel dead, Livio accompanied Vash to the city of December, where the last line of defense against Knives was being set up.
Knives had been absorbing the other remaining Plants all during his assault on the planet, and did the same in December. Vash confronted Legato while Livio handled Elendira, the last remaining Gung-Ho Gun. This was all complicated by the arrival of the Earth ships, who also set their sights on destroying Knives. While Livio did kill Elendira, Legato reanimated her dead body and came very close to murdering Livio that way. With no other option left to him, Vash shot and killed Legato to stop him. After that, Vash was successful in communicating to the Plants that Knives had absorbed, causing them to break away from him. Instead of killing him, though, Vash took an attack from the Earth ships that was meant for Knives, and the two fled December.
They were found by a man and his son, who took them in and helped nurse Vash back to health. Not only did both the twins have black hair thanks to having so little energy left, but the Earth Army had put a bounty on both their heads, Vash's now for $$600,000,000,000. While Vash was still recovering, which took a full six months, Knives mysteriously disappeared. When the small church they stayed in was attacked by the Earth Army, it was while fleeing both them and a group of bounty hunters that Vash saw the Insurance Girls again (now News Reporter Girls) before running off once more.
Canon Point: From shortly after the end of the manga
Personality:
Vash is a complicated person, and often appears contradictory, especially if you only take him at face value. In any normal situation, he's loud, cheerful, and at times acts like a complete idiot. But when the going gets tough, he can go from being a scaredy-cat goofball to being a gunman with a frightening amount of skill - and sometimes he even does both at once, hiding his skills with a veneer of clumsiness.
First impressions are everything, he's learned. Vash is a man that hides behind a lot of masks. That's not to say that everything he does is false, because he doesn't have the guile or the want to do such a thing, but he has a very bad habit of hiding his negative emotions away. The world could be falling apart around him, and he'd be trying to find a reason to smile. It's a defense mechanism, because Vash can never let people get that close to him, for their own safety. He's the perpetual wander, passing through people's lives without revealing anything of his own, hopefully leaving everyone else a little better off through his actions.
He is by no means as heartless as those familiar with the rumors would believe. Vash is a pacifist, who refuses to take a life and will only seriously injure someone at all in self-defense. He would do nearly anything to save another person from death, no matter who they might be or how bad the physical damage might be to himself. Vash might not let people get close to him easily, but at the same time he refuses to think that people as a whole are inherently bad. He is the sort of person who would speak a message of forgiveness even to someone that had committed heinous crimes, because it's his belief that the future is what you make it.
The crimes that made him infamous as Vash the Stampede (the destruction of July and the hole blown into the 5th Moon) were not directly caused by him, but instead prompted by Knives' influence over his powers... still, that he's caused so many deaths gives him quite a lot of guilt, though he's been able to move past the point of letting his sorrow slow him down. Vash has lived long enough to see quite a lot of humanity, and usually he's exposed to the worst of it. But as with all things, he hides it well, though the very fact that he's still mourning Rem's death indicates that he has trouble moving on from the pain of particularly horrific events. (There's also the fact that he could have easily erased his scars by using his powers, but chose not to). Even so, Rem is very special to him; her death was what made Vash so driven, and what made him take up pacifism in her memory, to protect the people that she gave her life to save.
Considering his past goals and obstacles, he's shown himself to be a very determined individual, often not stopping to think at all before throwing himself in harm's way and continuing on even when the outlook is bleak. Vash is slow to anger, but when he's truly angry, it's a fearsome sight. This is the only time that he's ever ruthless with his attacks, toeing the line of his refusal to do fatal damage to an opponent.
Vash's attitude has started to change now that he's finally ended his journey to stop Knives' genocide. He made friends during that time, and lost others, in the process learning a few important lessons. Much of the stress has been lifted from him now; Vash is slowly growing to accept the help of others and he now hides his true emotions less than before. The bounty on his head may have returned with interest, but he was planning on laying low for a long time so that he could live more peacefully from now on.
Appearance:
Like this!
Vash still looks as he's normally portrayed in canon, with the difference that his hair has now turned completely black. What's not immediately visible there is that he is covered in scars from the neck down, which includes a grate over his left upper chest and various bits of metal bolted right onto his skin. Vash also has a mechanical left arm (that houses a hidden machine gun).
Abilities:
Vash is a Plant, a genetically engineered being. This means that he has an extended lifespan and very slow aging, heals at a faster rate than a normal human, and can sense the emotions of other Plants (though only the very strong ones can be felt over a distance).
Formerly, Vash contained vast amounts of energy within his body. He was able to direct it with the use of the Angel Arm - his own right arm, rather elaborately mutated - and it was the force of this power that destroyed July and blew a hole in the Fifth Moon. However, Vash is coming into the game nearly completely drained of this power. Exactly how he survived the loss of power is a mystery, but he is now incapable of blowing up anything in this fashion, and trying to would likely kill him.
He can also form white 'feathers' out of his skin, which can go from being completely normal feathers to being sharp and hard enough to stop bullets. They're much like appendages, of a sort, in that they can be moved and extended. Though he can perhaps still use this ability, it would be dangerous thanks to the potential to drain whatever little energy he has left.
Finally, Vash is a master marksman, thanks to literally decades of training. He is capable of pulling off amazing trick shots and even firing into a room blind without missing his target. There are still plenty of things that can disrupt his aim, of course, but most of the time, if his shots miss it's because he intended them to. During the series, he's shown using revolvers and machine guns, and it's likely he has enough basic knowledge to operate other hand-held guns as well.
Items/Weapons:
His silver revolver, leather bodysuit*, and red coat*.
(* - please note that these things, while part of his normal clothing, also act as armor and are included here since I imagine they'd be weakened as well.)