Deserter. Betrayer.
COWARD.
Millions Knives sat on the crest of a hill, looking down at the small civilization before him. It had been 13 years since the fall. Humanity had picked itself up from the ashes, like it had always done.
He watched the children playing in the town, The women hanging laundry out to dry, the men sitting around, trying to look important. The heat waves shimmered across the surrounding dessert.
A small smile, devoid of all humor, appeared in the corner of Knives' mouth. As he watched the town, he wasn't thinking specifically of the spiders below him, but his brother.
He might as well be one of them, The Traitor!
Painful memories of the year before flooded back to him. Memories of Vash, his brother, shooting him in the leg. That had been the breaking point. Forgiveness was no longer even at option.
My own brother. Maimed me.
Knives had never realized what it truly meant to be alone. The spiders surrounding him were merely animals, beings inferior to him, that could never be true companions of the plant. Vash had been the only one who would have ever accepted Knives...and now he was gone.
There was thought that he had been turning in his head the past year. He kept coming back to it. What if he was to create a race- No, not a race. But a group of humans- superior to all of the rest. Infused with plant DNA. They would still be tainted, of course. Any creature that was created from the blood of that vile race would not be trustworthy or even amount to anywhere near equals. But they would be stronger. They could his bidding.
And they could make Vash's life hell.