Vash the Stampede
From Desaiuniversity
He is played by Ashley.
Contents |
Basic Info
Name: Vash
Current Alias: Eriks Savrem
Nicknames: The Stampede, The Humanoid Typhoon, Diablo, Spikey, Broomhead, Needle Noggin, Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III
Age: 133 (looks 25)
Height: 6'1" (without hair)
Weight: About 230 lbs. Despite his thin body shape, he has quite a lot of metal on him, as well as his fake left arm.
Hair Color: Blonde, worn spiked
Eye Color: Green
Family: Millions Knives (twin brother)
Appearance
Vash, or Eriks as he is known in Desai, is a tall, lanky man looking to be in his mid-twenties. Most of the time, he can be found with a pleasant expression on his face, observeable bad moods being rare. His blonde hair is kept spiked straight upwards, defying all but the wettest weather. He has a slightly long face, along with green eyes and a sharp nose. There is a mole under his left eye, and he habitually wears a small silver ring in his left ear.
His wardrobe is mostly casual, bordering more on business casual when he's at work. While he's given up the red coat he used to wear on Gunsmoke, Vash still wears red quite often; about half the shirts he owns are red. Otherwise, he prefers light, solid colors that are oftentimes bright. However, no matter what he wears, it covers up as much skin as possible without being excessive - all his shirts are long-sleeved, and you'll never catch him wearing shorts. For footwear, he favors apair of worn-in hiking boots.
He's very reluctant to undress in front of others, and there's a good reason for it - his body is marred by horrible, pitted scars, not to mention a few metal plates and bolts. His entire left arm is gone from just above his bicep, replaced by a mechanical prosthetic. While the length of his left arm is rather plain and in a brownish shade, from the wrist down his left hand is covered by a synthetic skin.
Personality
Vash is not quite the man he used to be. He still acts like an idiot in front of strangers, still hides his darker emotions (and indeed much of his true emotions) from the public at large, but his smiles aren't quite as empty as they used to be. Some of the pain he's been carrying is gone, thanks to the new philosophy he's found. For the first time since July, Vash is somewhere where people don't know who he is. The freedom to live peacefully in finally in his grasp, and he's determined to enjoy it as long as possible before he must return to Gunsmoke, and his brother.
Most important of all, he's come to terms with the fact that people die. After fighting with Knives, he came to the conclusion that it's impossible to not do harm - by not doing harm to someone, you're just dooming another to be harmed by your inactions. It doesn't mean that he likes death, or that he won't fight to keep someone from being hurt or killed. It just means that he can better realize now whether or not his presence made a difference, and is far less inclined to feel guilty over what he couldn't prevent. Vash still refuses to hurt anyone unless he has to, and will do all he can to avoid killing. If the circumstances are dire enough, and there's no other alternatives at all... he might pull the trigger.
Even if he doesn't follow Rem's words as closely anymore, Vash still wants to see Eden come to Gunsmoke, or at least something close to it. Coming to Desai has given him an opportunity to work towards that. It's not the same way he strived for peace in the past, but he's going to give it his best shot.
It's worth mentioning that, while Vash is solidly bisexual, he is also extremely avoidant when it comes to relationships. The most interest he is ever likely to show is the rediculous flirting he occasionally indulges in with beautiful women, but even this is never followed through. This might seem odd considering his slogan of 'love and peace', but until he can be absolutely sure that a love interest would be safe from Knives, he will not put someone into that sort of danger.
History
Vash's life began not on the face of the planet that would later call him an outlaw, but far beyond it. The SEEDS ships contained cryogenically-frozen refugees from an Earth destroyed by its own people, searching for a new planet to colonize. On board these ships were the Plants, mysterious beings that would be used as a power source on their new home.
No one knew that the Plants were capable of reproduction. When the crew of the main SEEDS ship discovered two infants there in the Plant bay, it was a woman named Rem who convinced them to let the children live. Rem was also the one who raised the two children, named Vash and Knives. Even if they looked human, and acted human, they grew extremely fast - they were physically the equal to a ten-year-old after only one year - and displayed an amazing level of intelligence for their age.
From the beginning, Knives and Vash were different - Knives more logical, Vash more forgiving. As much as Rem cared for them, there were others in the crew that didn't care so much for the two young Plants. One in particular showed outright hostility towards them, which was perhaps part of the impetus for Knives' increasingly violent behavior. He influenced the crew into killing themselves, and killed the captain himself before altering the SEEDS ship's courses to crash onto a desert planet.
Rem got the two of them onto an escape pod, but stayed behind to try and save the ships. Even though a great number of the refugees perished when their ships crashed on the planet's surface, Rem was able to change the trajectory of a few of them, enough for their inhabitants to survive. On the planet where their pod had crashed, as the sky was filled with red streaks from the ships burning in the atmosphere, Knives revealed why he had killed the crew. Where Vash had taken Rem's teachings of peace to heart, Knives believed that humans were nothing more than animals, and was determined to kill them all. They both strived for Eden, but Knives' Eden was intended only for himself and his brother.
The two of them spent eleven years together wandering the planet, which had been named Gunsmoke by its inhabitants. The brothers never saw eye to eye, as Knives remained obsessed with killing all the humans, despite Vash's protests. Their difference in views finally escalated into a brief struggle, where Vash accidentally shot Knives with one of the guns that Knives had made for them, guns that would allow them to use their energy to destroy. Vash took both guns and fled, wandering on his own for two years before being found by the inhabitants of the one SEEDS ship still hanging in the atmosphere.
For eighty years after that, Vash was on his own. He never aged past being physically in his twenties, making the time he did spend in towns short out of necessity. He couldn't stand to see people be hurt, and often ended up in violent situations because of it. Through it all, he refused to kill, and took every alternative he could find to avoid doing so. His name was slowly becoming known on Gunsmoke, but it wasn't until July that he became imfamous.
Vash discovered that Rem had a relative living in July, and arrived there only to find that Knives got to him first. Shocked over the man's death, the two fought, resulting in the loss of Vash's left arm and the subsequent activation of his Angel Arm. The blast destroyed July, miraculously killing no one outright, but it left the entire town a wasteland of debris.
From then on, Vash became known as Vash the Stampede, an outlaw with a huge bounty on his head. The rumors that flew weren't always correct, but wherever he went, bounty hunters followed, and the confrontations inevitably caused even more property damage. Even years after July, no one had succeeded in catching him. They called him a devil, and worse, everyone fearing what might happen should Vash the Stampede come to their city.
The status quo started to meet its end with the two insurance girls, Meryl and Milly, who discovered that this idiot really was Vash the Stampede. Determined to keep him from causing any more property damage, they (and a priest named Wolfwood) were there as an assassin group named the Gung-Ho Guns started to hunt Vash down, one by one. One of the confrontations destroyed the city of August, which was thankfully nearly abandoned at the time.
Distraught by what he had done, Vash went into hiding for two years. He took the name Eriks and lived with a girl and her grandmother until Wolfwood found him. It was he who convinced Vash that he couldn't hide anymore, and from that point on Vash decided to take care of Knives once and for all. Wolfwood died, but in the process gave Vash the information he needed to find Knives. The leader of the Gung-Ho Guns, Legato, put Vash in a position where he had no alternative but to kill him in order to save his friends.
As he recovered from his wounds, Vash fell into a depression. He felt that he had failed Rem by taking a life. It wasn't until the townsfolk realized who Vash was, and Meryl's timely intervention, that he regained his determination. He went on to confront Knives, finally defeating him with the help of Wolfwood's Cross Punisher. Vash chose not to kill his brother, but also decided to live by his own philosophy from then on, rather than following Rem's words blindly. He left behind both their guns and his coat, feeling that he was finally able to come to peace with Rem's death.
While Knives wasn't dead, he was left with extensive injuries that would tax even his Plant physiology. Vash knew that his brother wasn't likely to change his viewpoints just because Vash had defeated him, and fretted over what he would do when he finally woke up from his coma. He eventually left Meryl and Milly in order to take Knives to the doctor of the SEEDS ship, which had crashed on the planet some time earlier thanks to the Gung-Ho Guns. The doctor agreed to take care of Knives in secret, but had a more pressing matter he brought to Vash's attention - it seemed that there was rumor of a strange portal in another city. They had enough technology scavenged from the SEEDS ship that there was a possibility of identifying what exactly it was, if only Vash could get past the cavalry guarding it. Though he was relunctant to do it, Vash agreed, as he felt he owed the man for all he had done for him.
It wasn't so easy getting to the portal, but thanks to a few distractions Vash made it past the stationed soldiers. The portal was a rip in the air, sheltered by the remains of a shattered Plant bulb. Most mind-boggling of all, there was something visible inside of it. Unfortunately for Vash, the area near the portal was much more heavily guarded, and he was discovered. As Vash ran for it, one of the soldiers tried to tackle him, but Vash lost his balance, and fell in...
...and came out the other side, on the floor in a pristine white room, surrounded by men in lab coats that had been surprised by the man that came through the portal they were still trying to stabilize.
They ushered Vash off to speak with one of the MDEA's represenatives. They were exceedingly polite, of course, and concerned that Vash might have been hurt. They explained a little about Desai's potals to him, and that the one he had fell through was still being tested by MDEA until they could set it up as a permanent portal to Gunsmoke. They wouldn't send him back, but promised to contact him when the portal was stabilized in case he did wish to return. With that, he was ushered off into Desai proper.
Vash has been in Desai for about six months at this point. He's still been refused to go back to Gunsmoke, but doesn't mind it too much yet, having been completely absorbed in getting over his initial culture shock. Even to someone like Vash, who was used to more advanced technology than almost anyone on Gunsmoke, Desai's own technology (not to mention the magic!) was completely strange and new. Not content to just bide his time, Vash decided that the best thing to do would be to learn about Desai's technology, in order to take some of it home. It was worth trying, if it could make the lives of the people on Gunsmoke easier.
He couldn't just freeload in the city while working towards his goal. Using the name Eriks Savrem, he did a number of odd jobs before earning enough to get a tiny apartment in downtown Desai, and recently landed a more permanent job - as a teacher at Desai University.
Weaponry
Angel Arm
Classes Taught
Head of the Art Department at Desai University
Teaches:
1301: Art Appreciation
1301: General PE
Random Facts
- Vash is the advisor to Yamada Hanatarou.
- Lately he has decided that whoever gives him the most donuts will be his best friend. Nicholas Wolfwood currently holds the top record with no less than three boxes.
