Log is of the completed type.

[notjigsaw]

When; Monday the 26th, going into Tuesday the 27th.
Rating; Strong R/NC-17ish, violence and language and poor Vash breakage.
Characters; Vash the Stampede (mildlyreckless), Amanda Young (notjigsaw), four NPCs and a guest star.
Summary; Amanda's "Wolfwood Must Suffer" campaign continues.
Log;

It was set up with the best of care. An amount of care that would have, no doubt, made him proud. It took more work than she would have cared to think about at that point, and a lot more money than she would have liked. But in the end, the stage was set. The game could begin, as soon as her next contestant on her vindictive path woke up from the medicinally induced sleep he was placed under.

Six traps in total. Five small ones, all equalling up to a sixth in their entirety. They were designed specifically to cater to his difficulties with hurting those around him, or watching them be hurt by others. He was that bastard priest's closest association from what she could tell, conversations that she found denoting this would hurt him well beyond anything she could do to any of the others he knew.

Vash the Stampede. Poster boy for eternal optimists everywhere. Optimism was a dangerous thing, the woman decided, so it'd be fun to break this one aside from breaking the other. She mused over this several times, as she watched the room over closed circuit video feed.

The room was one of tans and rusted colors, the drywall over stone basement walls dark in certain areas where humidity from behind turned to mold in the warmth of the building, and it smelled musty and was itchy in that room, she knew well. A lot of time and care went into that room, that was lined with stuffed animals and old, rotting candy. It was a happy room and a sad room, in perfect contradiction to itself. Elaborate, the floor was patterned in short carpet with balloons and stars, placed in a circular pattern around the center of the room where the dark haired man laid, and shooting out directly to the first door. That door, which was carved with chubby cherubs and other playful creatures, led out to a dank hallway with only one way to go: to the Rotary.

Her subject, upon waking up, would find himself chained in place by one foot at the center of that circular pattern, and with a tape recorder placed perfectly on its end before him. On it was a speech explaining the rules of the game, and the reason he was there. The front reason, anyway. And she was proud of herself for it, too. She was getting to sound more and more... professional, so to speak.

Vash the Stampede. You spend your days living blind as your mother with optimism that everyone is good and kind, and much like her, this optimism does little more than cause agony for those you love. Your inability to sacrifice pacifist days and wanting everything to be okay will come to an end today. You can't please everyone, you can't save everyone.

It's time to play a game of life or death, Vash. The rules... well, they're pretty gosh darn simple.

Upon exiting this room successfully, you will find yourself placed in a position to decide whether someone will live, or if they will die. If you chose to save that individual, it will start the next in a different room on a path of death. Your failure will be marked by a red light blinking on above the door; your success, if you simply allow that person to die, will be with a green light. Green light? You're free to go.

But before you can save others, you have to save yourself. Follow the yellow brick road. Find the wizard, but don't expect magic to help you home here... You have until the red light above the cherub door blinks on to break free before the first event launches. Let the game begin.

Vash was getting pretty tired of waking up with no idea of where he was and how he got there. But out of the recent revival sessions he'd undergone over the past few months, this one was probably the weirdest. It looked like a nursery from hell. He pushed himself up with a grunt and put his hand to his head, trying to piece together exactly what had happened. There had been a woman asking for help...

He took another look around and suddenly noticed the chain around his ankle and felt his heart drop into his stomach. All he could think about were stories of those "traps". Then he caught sight of the tape player and eyed it warily before picking it up and cautiously pushing "play".

"Perfect," he muttered after the speech was over. He had to get out of here fast. He had no doubt that the person on the tape wasn't bluffing, and he wasn't going to just sit there and think while someone was in danger. He took another look around and noticed a faded illustration of a yellow path in the carpet and followed it with his eyes to a toy wizard.

"Right," he said with a slight sneer. He reached out to take the toy and found himself just barely unable to reach because of the chain. Shit. He looked down at the shackle and moved around to run his fingers over it thoughtfully. He'd broken out of handcuffs before. But this looked a bit different. It would take time.

His mind went to the image of Rem lying in the hospital bed and his eyes flashed viciously . With one sharp motion, he tore the chain right out of the floor, deciding to just worry about getting the thing cut off later. After freeing himself, he grabbed the wizard and glared up towards the ceiling.

"There!" he yelled. "Now what?!"

She wasn't expecting that, but it was certainly less disturbing than the magic act Wolfwood performed during his trap. Her first trap in the City. Fingers tapped at her lips carefully, as she watched the monitors before her, before dropping her hand to the console before her. Her index finger pressed a button to trigger an intercom, her ring finger reaching across to a second button.

In the room, the intercom crackled. "Fast worker. Wouldn't want to see you in bed.

"Strength comes from within, and is the only thing that'll allow you to pass through Heaven and fight through Hell." There was a key in that toy. He'd have to rip it apart to get to it, and that key would get him out the cherub door. If he was smart enough to figure that out. And as she spoke that last word, the red light above the door blinked on, signalling that the first trap had started.

Vash's eyes narrowed at the bed comment. He'd guessed this woman was immature from his conversation with her on the Network a while back, but this was ridiculous.

His mind briefly went to Rue - B - but he forced the thought from his head as his attention went to the red light. Shit.

His brain snapped into action. The man who shrieked and cried when he so much as dropped a book on his own foot was sharp, despite his best efforts to make the exact opposite apparent. He'd been told to pick up that toy. It hadn't done anything to set him free, so it obviously served some other sort of purpose.

From within.

Without even blinking, he broke open the toy and pulled out the key, scooping up the chain still lying on the floor to hold it out of the way as he rushed to unlock and open the door. He'd play the game for now.

Beyond that door, down that hallway, the door was of the basic metal sort. Heavy, to a former storage unit, and rather unassuming. She even designed it to help guide him straight for it with a similar blinking light up above it, another camera there beside the light to watch him.

A scream resounded from the room over the sudden roar of machinery.

Inside was the Rotary. A carefully designed trap modeled from a documentary she once watched on Chinese torture tactics. She was certain they weren't the only ones to use the tactic, but nonetheless, that was the basis of it. A pole stood, pointing skyward and edged like a screw. Below it was a weighted disk that began to spin slowly, causing it to spin the pole up above.

Atop that pole, nude and restrained with his arms winged out, a bearded man covered in terribly-done tattoos was crudely splayed. The rope that bound him were pulled taut and far from the actual contraption, as there were no beams immediately above him. Slowly, with soft hisses of movement, blades swayed on each rope, slicing and slicing further. Causing him to lower a little more... a little more...

And with the lower he was sent, the more weight that was applied, and the faster the Rotary began to spin. He let out another pained scream as he slipped just a little further down, blood already starting to trail down the Rotary's main apparatus.

Vash flat-out ran to the room, picking up speed as he heard the scream, but he stopped dead in horror when he saw the machine inside. After a few seconds of dumbfounded shock, Vash ran over to the man and started frantically straining at the first restraint he could reach, and then deciding it might not be the best idea.

"It's okay!" he said, trying to sound as reassuring as he possibly could. "I'm going to get you out of here!"

He fumbled and swore loudly, moving one hand to the screw in a rather ambitious attempt to try and keep it from moving before trying to get under the man to try and push him up and away from the Rotary.

"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?" he screamed at a camera.

"Fuck!!" the man shrieked, thrashing around until he felt himself sink a little further. Tears from the agonizing pain ripped over his eyes as he began to plead for Vash to get him off. Screaming, begging, trying to get a brace on Vash's shoulders with his feet to push off. "Help me! Please!"

"Help you?" the voice blipped over the intercom of this room. "This man beats his wife and he neglects his children. He spends his days screaming at them and lusting over a fourteen year old girl next door, and at night he spends his wife's hard-earned money paying for company that he should be getting from his wife. You want to save him?"

It was all too familiar... But Vash's response would always the same.

He gritted his teeth and put his shoulder under the man while wrapping his opposite arm around the screw to try and shove him off the thing.

"It's not your right to choose who lives or dies!" he yelled, suddenly slipping on the blood that was running down the machine and crashing to the ground, knocking his head on the way down. Wasn't this bitch supposed to be telling him how he was supposed to release this man?!

The release of weight from the man was enough to send the Rotary into a faster spin. By that point, in just seconds, it wasn't a matter of the ropes releasing the man, it was that the Rotary had begun to act like a screw hooked into wood. The more it spun, the further he was pulled onto it with sickening slips of blade in flesh.

He screamed as the pole entered his body, but screamed worse yet as the ropes had yet to give way completely, and held strong as he was pulled downward. One shoulder suddenly popped, loud and grotesque as the shoulder socket was torn apart. The bearded man's shrieks of pain and pleading began to stop, however. The new lee-way offered by his ruptured arm causing him to spin partly around with the turning machine, but only a little as what give was given was taken back from the new position, and his body began to spasm.

The screams came back, but in waves as he shook and trembled. It was a cue, almost, as one of the ropes snapped and the new weight caused the Rotary to spin quicker than his body, still attached by one arm and rope in place, was ready to handle. Half a foot. A foot. The spinning machine flicked blood about gratuitously. A foot and a half, and suddenly his body flopped to the side, the machine bursting from the flesh just above his hip.

The machine came to an abrupt stop, leaving the man's body to rattle as trauma-induced shock turned quickly to a cease of life.

Vash had scrambled back up and tried frantically to release the trap victim, but it felt like he might as well hadn't been in the room at all. Vash dropped to his knees and gasped for air in between sobs, putting his arm over his eyes and smearing blood across his face in the process.

"I thought you were going to give me the chance to SAVE them!" he yelled finally. "This isn't any kind of lesson, this is just murder!"

"I told you to let them die. That in attempting to save one, another would be sent down that very same path. You can't save everyone, and thanks to you..."

Another door, across the room. Another red light, on and blinking to call for him like a silent chime.

"Another game has begun."

Beyond that, another room, full of the bones of animals both old and new. Some stripped clean, some still with flesh clinging loosely on like ties around sticks. Toppled furniture littered the room amidst the body parts, but the trap wasn't there. Another door, blinking and blinking with a light above it, waited for him. Beyond it, a dark room, with a figure hanging from the ceiling. Slender in form, with long, tangled blonde locks, it was a woman who weakly grasped and whimpered as she attempted to pull a large, metal apparatus from her body. Blood soaked her skirt and torn pantyhose, and without anything on from the waist up, it was obvious that the massive device--carved out in the shape of feathers on the outer shell--was lodged and hooked into her rib cage by tiers.

Across from her hung a jaw, bubbling from a noxious liquid inside, with a key laying at the bottom. This was what waited for Vash; the woman tearing up as she desperately tried to reach the container.

Vash caught sight of the light and wasted no time in tearing towards the next trap, pausing briefly here and there to make sure he wasn't missing anyone. But when he saw the actual trap, he was fairly certain he hadn't missed a thing.

"Oh my God," he whispered as he ran over to the girl, checking the device she was hooked up to carefully. "Just hold on, it'll be okay! I'm going to get you out of there..."

He groped around the machinery, searching for a way to unhook it, then looked at the jar. Key. Without waiting for his bitch guide to say anything, Vash ran over to one of the animal bones and carefully fished the key out, flicking it out onto the floor.

"See, you're going to be okay!" he said, forcing himself not to shake as he stooped down to pick up the key.

The woman let out a desperate, soft wail as she reached after Vash. Make-up smearing her face, she gasped for air, just enough air, to let out a, "I--I--pl-please... help..." It was no doubt due to the blood loss, her lack of real urgency. It trailed all the way down, and slowly spattered on the ground in intervals.

This time, when the intercom came on, it was preceded with a happy little chime. Much like the chime heard in grocery stores when a special was about to be announced. "Are you sure you want to do that?" his guide asked, rather playfully. "Not only will the attempt set off another trap, Stampede, but she's as much a worthless pile of shit as the last guy. Every day is spent taking the money of the families of criminals who want her to defend their rapists, pedophiles, and abusers to prevent punishment. She drains their loved ones of all they have, and helps those slime get back on the street to hurt more. Do you really fucking want to help a bitch like that out?"

Vash gritted his teeth and ignored the intercom. It didn't change anything. He reached out towards the woman with a hollow smile and brushed her hair back with one hand to try and calm her down as he reached to unlatch her with the other.

"She deserves the chance to do better things with her life," he said firmly.

"So you say." Much like the new chime of before, there was another in reverse order to signify the connect was severed.

The woman looked a little relieved as she weakly clutched his one hand with both hers. Her hands trembled as she shook her head. "I-I'm not--I'm not like that--thank you, thank you so--"

The key turned in the apparatus, and though she tightened her hands around his one hand, expecting the worse... nothing happened at all. A weak cry escaped her as she released him and tried to pull at the device. "Wh-What--Why i-isn't it--"

The barest hint of a true smile tugged at Vash's mouth as the woman thanked him, but it was instantly dashed again as nothing happened.

His eyes widened in horror and he pried at the latch with his fingers desperately.

"N-No, you can't..." he said wildly as he tried to pull it free. He'd done what he was supposed to and this woman deserved to go home!

She began to plead frantically with Vash, to help her get it open, not understanding why it wasn't opening. She began, she was going to...

Until the light above the next door began to blink red.

Something shift loudly inside the metal casing, and her blue eyes grew wide and they met with Vash's. It was that inherent realization that the device was starting to do something it shouldn't have.

Meat tore, bones snapped, as the device ripped open on each side of her. On each flank, bloody, concave surfaces were exposed as half her lungs went with the metal casings. Embedded in her back, a spring device waited for the moment the pressure of the casing released to shove the woman, who was trembling and spasming like the man had in his final moments, right into Vash. Her body was uncontrollable in its death dance, blood flowing freely from her mouth and the wounds on her torso.

Vash had looked right into the woman's eyes just before the trap sprang and could only stand there in frozen horror as she was flung into him, catching her on instinct and just holding her as she died. He didn't move for a few seconds before dropping to the ground with the woman still in his arms with a loud wail. He knew he couldn't stay there... Someone else was probably being hurt right this moment... So with trembling arms, he laid the woman down on the ground and staggered to his feet.

That bitch. That fucking bitch. If anything, he needed to get out so he could stop her somehow. For the moment, he wasn't even going to dignify her with a response to what had just happened. Whoever was waiting for him in the next room was more important.

Unfortunately, this was going to be more of a haul for Vash. A room of more bones, a black corridor, and another room--this one full of machinery, not furniture, broken and scattered--and finally his target room. Every door guided him with that red blinking bulb.

In the next room, though, it was warm in temperature, and decently lit compared to the rooms before it. It was fairly simple... a medical bed, bolted to the floor... a nude woman, her arms covered in track marks from needles, and her body covered with scars, laid there in metal cuffs, writhing as she attempted to free herself. Wires were embedded deep in her body, in her breasts, in her shoulders, and in her thighs. Periodically, the small sound of something charging would start, and she would let out a cry of pain as a burning surge of electricity would be focused on one of those spots of her body.

As the surge would happen, her skin began to darken from the internal trauma. A ball gag was stuffed against her tightly, leaving her to choke whenever the surge would begin.

Nearby, stood a key making machine and on it a tape recorder with the following message from Vash's new friend:

"It's nice to preach that everyone has the right to live, isn't it? If you've made it this far, you just haven't listened. The woman beside you on the table is being exposed to localized spurts of electrocution. This will, eventually, kill her. Eventually, as the spurts melt and burn at her insides, causing irreversible damage. But she's a sadist, if you couldn't tell. Abuse herself, be abused by others, and at the end of the day her lack of respect and anger is brought out on her children.

"If you try to pull the cuffs off the table, that'll be met with poisonous aftershock. I really do recommend you just cut it the fuck out, but if you insist, you could make a key for the cuffs to release her, I guess. Inside the key making machine, you'll find that I've supplied something of enough metal to melt down into a key for you to try to play hero again with... but to save a life, are you able to sacrifice the memory of another?"

This really was like a nightmare. If it hadn't hit Vash earlier, it was definitely hitting him now as the tape finished and he hurried over to the key making machine.

"Just a minute!" he pleaded with the bound woman. What she was going through was too much like what had been done to him not too long ago... "I'm going to just make a key and get you--"

He stopped short as he spotted what he'd be melting down to make that key.

It was the small metal cross he'd taken off of Wolfwood's dead body back home before burying him.

There was no choice to be made here. A woman's life was on the line, and it was just an object. But as he turned on the machine, he couldn't help feel stabs of pain in his heart. While waiting for the thing to work, Vash ran back over to the woman and gently touched her hand.

"It's okay," he said softly. "You're gonna be okay. I'm going to get you out! Just give me a minute!"

The woman whimpered at his touch, and watched him with wide and frightful eyes. She didn't know what to make of him, though she did calm down when he started talking. Nice man, good man...

The sound of the wires charging started again and she started to cry out from behind the gag, arching weakly as she tried to prepare for the shock. It struck her left breast, causing the woman to shudder and scream behind the ball. Soft wisps of white smoke fluttered from the flesh of that breast, the skin starting to turn an awful black.

She cried and thrashed a little, her one leg spasming uncontrollably due to her muscles losing control from the repeatedly electrocution.

Vash tried to be as comforting as he could as the woman was shocked again before fleeing back to the machine to fetch the still-warm key. After grabbing it, he ran over to the lock, fumbling a bit as he tried to see through his tears.

"I just need to--"

As the key slid in, something happened. A connection or something was made, and both the woman and Vash received a good jolt of electricity. The only difference between the two of them was that Vash was only knocked off his feet and found himself unable to see or taste anything, while the woman was electrocuted to death. Vash wasn't even aware of what had happened until about thirty seconds after it had happened, which is how long it took for him to recover. He stared in horror and weakly dragged himself over to the woman's side, reaching up to touch her hand.

"...No," he whimpered, already knowing he was too late. He slumped over, holding onto the edge of the bed as he sobbed. "Please stop this," he begged his guide. "Please. Please stop."

She sat in her safe control room, toggling one of the cameras down to look over the distant look in the victim's eyes, and the ring of foam over her lips. She could hear her object's plea, but only quirked an eyebrow and pushed a button.

In the room he stood in, that happy little chime broke the silence again. "You're a regular Jesus Christ, aren't you?"

The light above his next door had yet to start to blink.

Vash didn't reply. He just alternately tightened and loosened his grip on the edge of the bed and began grinding his teeth. This was insane. SHE was insane. She could've been Legato's best fucking friend or something.

He had to keep moving. But apparently, his tormentor wanted to drag this out a bit.

"You can't save everyone. You shouldn't even try. So, I'm going to give you a choice."

This time, two lights appeared. A red one above the obvious door in the room, and a green one on a door hidden in shadows towards the back. "End your suffering by passing through the door with the green light, or..."

Behind the red lighted door, the agonized scream of a man escalated distantly. Pained, frantic, and it was followed by an array of crashes. Still so distant, because it was down the hall, down a set of stairs, into a deeper basement level where the final pieces laid. "You can continue. Make your choice."

And with a happy ending chime, the intercom turned off.

The scream made Vash's head snap up and he grabbed the key and put it in his pocket before running towards the sound. He wasn't leaving anyone to this hellhole. And if that bitch thought he was pleading for himself... She was about to be proven wrong.

The next room was a bit different from the other three, in that it had a trap already executed. A trap involving chains and spikes, and a grated floor underneath. A burnt noose hung between the arm binds that swung freely, and all three objects were soaked in blood from being squeezed out of in desperation. It was obvious that it wasn't the plan, and the automatic backfire--a spray of gasoline from above and fire launching from below--had blasted off when he managed to escape for himself.

Cameras, an absurd amount of cameras, lined this room behind protective shielding, all blinking with little red lights as they were recording, and each watched as this man ran about, shrieking and frantically slamming into things as he desperately tried to put himself out. He was well beyond thinking clearly enough to remember to stop, drop and roll.

Vash darted into the room and was nearly run-over by the frantic man. His mind was still trying to take everything in as he tore off his coat and tackled the man to the ground and slapped the coat over him in an attempt to put him out. Now she was starting things before he could even get there to try and stop them?!

"Take it easy!" he said, patting the man down. "Are you all right?"

Between the physical trauma of whatever came before this, and the actual gasoline-led burning, the man under the coat was in no way going to pull out of his wounds. His body shuddered as burning hot blood drained into his eyes--one of which lost all ability to see, and he craned himself to look ahead of where he sprawled.

Across the floor, turned upside down beside a small tape recorder was a picture of a little boy and a little girl, who looked near identical to one another. He reached out a marred arm--scorched and red with third degree burns--and weakly cried out, "...my b-babies... daddy--daddy's s-sorry..."

Two weak cries escaped him before he balled together despite Vash, despite his jacket, to mourn as his body started to shut down on him. "...my ch-children..."

Vash followed the direction of the man's arm with his eyes and stared in horror before gently peeling his coat away and trying to find a place on the man's body where it would be all right to touch him to try and turn him over.

"Hey, come on," he pleaded, "stay with me! I'll get you help! Please! What happened?!"

He felt the man stop breathing and began to shake.

"No! Don't-- Please wake up!" His eyes turned viciously to the cameras. "What did you do to his children?! What did you do to HIM?!"

That happy chime was heard again.

"He lost his own game." She wasn't repeating herself, and she figured he could listen to the goddamn tape if he was so curious. She made a mental note to handle that piece of the puzzle later.

She was silent for a second, before commenting, "You look like you took a bath in a goddamn blender, you freak."

Vash stiffened. Was she seriously mocking his SCARS right now? A very wrathful part of him contemplated leveling the entire building in the hopes of taking her out with him, but he pushed the notion aside and reached for the tape player, pushing play. He'd find out what had happened in here for himself.

"Hello, Mr. Desmond," the tape played for him on command. "Every day, you spend your life wearing rose colored lenses, perceiving the world in the light that you wish to see it in. Blind, you wander about as a pastor of a religion of love and understanding, helping the aching hearts of those under your leadership while ignoring those who should be under your parental guidance.

"Your "glasses" have prevented you from seeing the violation your children have endured at the hands of your brother; your glasses have prevented you from stopping the sick bastard who touched them, and yet in the night... you're willing to purify those against your stupid faith with flame.

"I want to play a game, Mr. Desmond. Here are the rules: An angel in this building is making his way for you. Is your faith in your 'god' strong enough to allow you to wait for this 'savior' to arrive, knowing that the lives of your children may hang in the balance as you do so? Or are you willing to dismiss your faith and fight the flame you readily use on others to take fate into your own hands? Make your choice. Faith or fire."

And as the message ceased, another red door light began to blink behind him.

Vash listened in horror and then bit his lip with wrath as he whipped the tape player at a camera as the tape ended.

"You BITCH!" he howled, but the light caught his eye and a panic set in. He grabbed his coat and tore for the door, slipping and staggering as he struggled to get to his feet. He had to save the next one. He couldn't lose another.

In contrast to the warm room flooded with cameras he was leaving, this next room was cold and only held two cameras focused on this subject. It was absolutely freezing. Like a meat locker, perhaps.

The subject sat strapped down in a chair with tight leather binds. A small woman in rags, her body was covered in defensive wounds. Her hands trembled, bloody knuckles still raw as though she had just gotten done fighting. She held herself awkwardly, as though she had injury to her chest.

Her face was hidden under a large device that covered her head, forming a grotesque dome up and around her head, with only narrow slits for her to just barely be able to see. This device--a crude dark iron color with spikes portruding all over, contained spikes that pressed down inside on her and even on the outside, it was obvious the device slipped in her mouth and on the sides had an obvious spring-loaded function.

A ticking sound could be heard coming from the apparatus, and as she fought to get free from the binds to a point she was bleeding, her head fell back from how heavy the device was. Blood covered her neck, coming down from wounds caused inside the hefty helmet.

Nearby, a shoulder-high vat nearly five feet across sat, filled with a thick liquid that looked something akin to blended meats. The happy chime started up again, and that was enough to send the small victim in the chair into a fit that nearly caused her to topple back in the chair.

"There's a specialized key you can find in that vat. Be quick, though. I'd say you have a minute and a half before that... jawsplitter lives up to its name. And calm her down. She takes a fall, that might kill her before it can go off."

Vash ran over to the woman and put his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to keep her still. God, it looked so much like what Knives had latched into his mouth...

"Stop, stop!" he begged frantically. "Please, just calm down, I'm going to help you! Stay still, just keep still! Just hold on!"

Without wasting anymore time, he climbed into the vat. To say it was disgusting was a vast understatement, and on top of that it took a good few minutes of feeling around what was basically slime and gore to find the cylindrical key. Once he had it, Vash climbed back out, slipping and fumbling the entire way.

"There, see, I found it, you're gonna be okay," Vash said, dropping to his knees (and the key in the process) to grab at the lock and try to get the liquid on his fingers somewhat wiped away. He swore quietly as he struggled to get the key in the lock for a few agonizing seconds, but finally got it in, praying to God that this one would actually DO something to release the woman.

The ticking was speeding up, and it felt to the woman in the device like her hears were going to explode from how loud it sounded inside of it. She started screaming against the metal fixing in her mouth, gagging several times and trying to drag her arms free from the leather binds, regardless of the fact that it was ripping her flesh as she did so since the binds were so tight. He was behind her, he was trying to get it off and as one hand was pulled free successfully, she frantically tugged on the device with bleeding fingers as she wailed, stifled.

And just as the key slipped into the hole, the ticking stopped and there was an explosion on each side of the helmet. The victim was sent into a screaming fit in auto-response, not really comprehending that the purpose for which the trap was built failed.

The beginning of a curse word started over the intercom before its ending chime buzzed through, followed by a green light appearing at a door leading up stairs outside to the street.

But still, the woman in the chair had yet to comprehend what had actually happened in a rare piece of good luck.

Vash's muscles slammed tense as the device on the woman's head reacted with a loud sounds to being unlocked, and when he realized that he'd actually DONE it, he dropped to his knees and began to weep. He couldn't even get himself to run for the outside with the now-safe victim. He just slouched there and sobbed, covered in blood and gore and sweat and tears. Part of him wondered if it was over, but the rest of him was too afraid to dare to ask that for fear of finding that the answer was "no".

"G-Go!" he ordered the woman. "Get out, hurry! You're free, you're okay! Please, go get somewhere safe!"

It was said to her just as she tore her other hand free and frantically tugged and tore at the device then unlocked from her head. She fought, she did, she fought hard to keep from getting into a situation like that, but she couldn't...

The metal inside her mouth sliced her open there as she slipped the entire thing off her head and threw it to the side as she fell out of the chair with uncooperative knees and hit the ground with a desperate wail.

Balling together and slapping a hand against the ground as she tried to recuperate from the shock and trauma, it was obvious at that point that it was newly returned Meryl Stryfe that had been in that trap. She didn't even process her best friend's encouragement to her (of whom he had yet to recognize) to leave as she covered her face and cried and gasped into her hands.

Vash didn't even look at the woman as she tried to recover. He just sank down further and rested his palms on the ground as his stomach heaved. Oh, God, the smell... And the sights that were still painfully burned into his mind's eye...

He needed to get home! He needed to make sure that crazy bitch hadn't...

He began to shake violently and he told himself he needed to get those poor people he hadn't saved... Needed to get them out of here and to a hospital or something, but he couldn't get his body to move.

All the work put into her, and all the patience and the care given to her during her time there, and her time back home, it was blown out of the water by that experience. Her ribs, bruised from events past, kept Meryl on the ground and wailing like she was wasn't helping at all.

She inhaled, choking on some of the blood pooling in her cheeks, before starting to wheeze out his name. She needed him--her friend; he was going to be upset that she was caught but she didn't honestly do anything wrong that time--"V-V-Vash--"

And suddenly the device, nearby them both, exploded and flipped on the ground at the force of the mechanical eruption as it should have in her mouth, causing Meryl to cry out again and stare in horror at the device from where she laid. She'd been shown the video of what it could have done; she'd seen it on an actual person, which only increased the sheer shock she was experiencing.

Vash honestly barely heard his name at all. The first thing that came to mind was Rem. It was the only thing his brain could even really grip at. Rem. Wolfwood. They weren't still here... Right?

He flinched violently as the device snapped open and then slumped over further to rest his forehead on the floor, heaving in ragged breaths.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I couldn't help them... I'm so sorry..."

Her chest burned, it screamed as a matter of fact as she tilted her head a little. There were small gashes from the helmet on her head, which helped explain the headache... and then Vash started apologizing. Why was he...

It took everything she had to push around, one hand bracing her ribs, for him and reach her other wounded hand for him desperately. "Vash." She gagged on more blood, tilting her head down to let it drain out slowly. "...kn-know... know you t-t-tried--" The stammer was shaking and fright induced, and Meryl... no, she didn't know what happened to him before that point of them laying there on the floor, but she knew he tried with whatever happened.

"Pl-Please." Her voice was small as she begged for him and slapped the ground weakly. "V-Vash, l...look at me... God, please."

Vash clawed at the ground as his brain slowly processed the voice speaking to him and he looked up at the hand, only to shrink away in horror and shame.

"Meryl-- No-- Not-- N-No... Go! You have to go! You need to get out of here! THE DOOR'S OPEN, SO PLEASE GO!"

She watched him with wide eyes, her tears only getting worse as he pulled from her. What happened to him... the man before her was always a source of strength for the small woman, even though she never said that much aloud. But even as he recoiled, as much as she wanted to follow him, she couldn't get the energy to move more at that moment.

"...wh-wh-what...what about y-you...?" She asked it after dropping her head against the ground and spitting a little blood onto the concrete as tears fell. Who did this? "...wh-who...who hurt yuh-you...?"

"Please," Vash begged, moving even farther away. "I can't... Please go, Meryl."

He covered his face with his hands and choked back another sob. "I need you to go. Y-You're the only one... Please! Go home!"

His hands fell away and he looked at her with wild eyes.

"The door's open and you need to RUN!"

Meryl wasn't looking at him as he hollered at her to go. Okay... okay... she... she could get someone to get him, right? That's right.

Bracing an arm on the ground and one against her rib cage, she tried to push up. Her ribs were the only things preventing her. They'd been hurt before that, but her fight when she was ambushed worsened the injuries and every movement, particularly then as the adrenaline started to crash on her, killed her. Which was shown as she tried to push up, and immediately cried out with a spurt of blood and crashed onto the floor again.

It wasn't his fault. She didn't tell him about it...

"I... I... c-can't. I... I will b-but... please." The last was said desperately but quietly, because Meryl wished she didn't have to ask for his help like that. Not when he was as he was, especially...

Vash's mouth twitched slightly. He didn't want to touch her like this. Not when he was covered in...

But he gave a slight nod and numbly rose to take her to the door, gently pulling her up and setting her just outside the door before shrinking back inside. He couldn't leave yet. But Meryl had to.