The King and the Pawn

By AlantisB

Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun or Gundamwing, I just use them for my own devices. ^.^

**

Knives was not a happy plant. For a century he has been fighting his brother in a battle of wills over beliefs and he couldn't stand it anymore. He always loved Vash-not in the typical brotherly type either. Vash was the one person in the world he cared for, he would bend over backwards to see his brother happy. To see his brother being corrupted by humans, well it just pissed him of royally. The humans were twisting his brother's mind, making him follow their beliefs like a controllable child.

The older brother slammed his drink onto the table, watching the glass crack and break into his gloved hands. The red wine gushed over the white glove, staining the material a nice pinkish red. The color of blood, the countless vermin he exterminated from the planet, they were staining his hands. He hated humans, the stinking rats of the universe that polluted his brother, making him just like them!

Knives stood up and left the mess on the table to clean up later. He didn't feel like doing it now. His footsteps echoed in the halls of the SEEDs ship as he walked to his room, it was not very far. The metal door shushed open with a hiss of air, allowing him access to his room. When he walked inside, the door hissed shut behind him and he swiftly took off all of his clothes and crawled under the covers of his bed naked. He always slept naked, even as a child the twins were not concerned with clothing when sleeping together. He never got out of the habit.

He closed his eyes and forced his body to relax and fall asleep.

**

When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting in front of a chest board, his pieces white. Around the chest board, the air was foggy and hard to see through, he couldn't spot anything in the thickness. The chest board looked old and worn, the pieces and the board itself looked well used like it had played a million games and could still chop out a few more. Knives had never really seen a real chess board before, the ones he used on the SEEDs ship were holographic. Real chest boards carried germs and would rot way before anyone could ever use them to play.

Soon Knives found he couldn't see anything, all he could see was the chest board like nothing else was around him. He felt like he was in a void, a nothing that had no floor and no ceiling, just nothing.

"You know, if you're going to sit here and stare at the board and not make your move, I might as well find myself another player." A voice said through the thickness of the fog.

"Who said that? I demand you to show yourself!" Knives glared around at the fog, demanding for the person to show themselves.

"You demand? Oh-ho! I don't respond to authority, Millions Knives." An impish voice said in the thickness. Knives could just feel the mocking voice all around him. "But I guess it's unnerving to play chess against a guy you can't see, huh?"

Knives snorted and folded his arms as the figure of a teenage human boy appeared in front of him in a sit directly across from him.

His opponent's pieces were black to his white ones. His face was thin, but nicely shaped if a bit odd. The eyes were wide and a strange color of amethyst blue while his long chestnut hair was braided and hung over one shoulder. He wore a priest's attire; black shirt with white sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A silver chain hung around his neck with a simple but elegant silver cross that was clasped around a long slender neck. Instead of the white priest collar, the human boy wore a red collar making him appear more sinister.

"Now that you've thoroughly checked me out, can get back to the game?" His opponent pointed out dryly, a smile on his lips.

"No. Who are you and where am I? Answer me human!" Knives snarled, his eyes glinting dangerously.

His opponent snorted in amusement and flicked his braid over his shoulder with one hand while propping up his head with the other. "Man, don't be so snippy. You wouldn't understand where you are. So don' think about it. Can we get on with the game now? Your move."

Knives glared at him. "You didn't answer my question, human. Who are you and where am I?"

His opponent stared at him calmly. He didn't look the least bit afraid that he had a superior being in his presence. Knives sought to rectify that. "You said my name. You obviously know who I am so why aren't you cowering in front of me like you should be vermin?"

"Why do you kill?" The teenager said suddenly, his strange eyes boring into him, trapping him in the gaze and Knives found himself answering before he was aware he was speaking.

"Humans are disgusting creatures that are corrupting Vash with their fickle beliefs. They are like a virus that will spread across the universe, destroying everything in their path. I will kill them all to save my brothers and sisters from slavery." As Knives finished his sentence, his knight moved forward two spaces and three spaces to the right.

His opponent picked up one of his pawns and moved it two spaces forward as he spoke. "Humans may destroy but that is their nature to, their order in things. Being the highest on the planet's food chain, it is a part of nature for them to destroy. It is there place, their balance."

Knives scowled. "Then all the more reason for them to die! They destroy what they do not understand and while they kill each other they enslave my brothers and sisters for their own uses." One of his pawns moved up two spaces to match his opponent's pawn.

"Humans ain't the only ones that do this, you would think so cause you're biased, but they ain't. Bees will kill an invader to their territory, something they don't understand is in their midst so they must destroy it before it destroys them." Another black pawn moved up two spaces.

Back and forth, Knives and the stranger battled their wills and opinions as their chess pieces moved with each turn of the argument. Neither looked to have a clear victory in sight, each turn Knives would take another one of the black pieces while his opponent seemed to take only a few. Knives was in for a sure victory, he had all of his opponents pieces except two lone pawns that stood out among the white chess pieces on the board. It looked like the teen was going to loose badly by a crushing defeat.

After one of the black pawns moved, the human teen looked up at Knives, staring him down. "Why do you hate humans?"

Knives smirked. This was one question he could answer easily. "Humans disgust me. They are constantly contradicting themselves and believing themselves to be different, more intelligent then their ancestors. But they feed off the blood of my sisters and brothers, using their powers to power up their cities and towns. They are killing them to feed their greedy selves. For their greed before, they destroyed an entire planet. I am doing them a favor by putting them out of their misery."

Knives watched the board, waiting to see if one of his pieces would capture the black pawn closest to the ranks when his king moved to the left, towards the pawn. His eyes narrowed and he glared at his opponent. "I didn't want it to move there, why did my king move that way?"

His opponent shrugged. "Maybe it moved the way you answered."

"So you're going to hold their ancestors mistakes against them? That is hardly fair considering what yours was. Plants and humans have been hand in hand since a few hundred years ago. The first plants were in fact, destroying the planet side by side with humans in all out war against each other. One Plant wanted to control the entire Earth using military force. The war was twenty years long, millions died, but the war was stopped by five plants by killing another plant on the opposing side. See my point?"

Knives scowled, glaring down his opponent who didn't seem at all effected by his glares. "No, I do not."

"When it comes down to it, all creatures strive on one instinct: the will to survive. You can not save both the butterfly and the spider nor can you save just the butterfly. Nature must claim one to save another. If you kill humans the way you do now, the way your sisters and brothers are, another race might just see the potential in using them for their own power and then you have another problem on your hands. Another race that could be stronger then you, one that is greater than the humans, so then for destroying the lesser evil, you invite a greater one to your doorstep." The other black pawn moved one space closer.

"Check." The teen whispered quietly, unnoticed by Knives.

"So I let the humans keep killing my brothers and sisters by using them as their power resources? That doesn't make any sense at all, human. They will just keep doing it and I'm supposed to sit back and watch? Humans deserve to die for what their doing, just like the vermin they are!" Knives snarled, he slammed his fist down on the chest board but none of the pieces rocked to the movement.

One of the white bishops moved diagonally away from the white king, three spaces to the right.

"If you show the humans that plants are not machines, that they are living creatures, the humans will treat them differently. You won't have to worry about your sisters and brothers anymore. They will be taken care of. But if you don't show humans their error, then it is not their fault, but yours."

The teen's eyes flashed with emotion as he glanced up at Knives with a wicked grin. "Checkmate."

Knives growled, staring at the board. How could this human have beaten him? Look at all the pieces he had on the board, there was no way that the teen could have outsmarted him in something as simple as a game. "How did you do that? You couldn't have won with all these pieces I have on the board!"

His opponent gave him a knowing smile. "When people speak, a lot of bull shit seems to pass through their lips. They put up all these arguments for what they think is right, convincing themselves that if they speak enough of it, no one can win. But if one is to beat these arguments back, to take the backdoor to each thought, one can find himself suddenly at the heart of the game.

The chess pieces don't care what has happened during the game itself, they don't think about what grudges they should have because of what happened in the game. So they leave the past in the past because," his opponent stared at him, seeing through Knives right down to his soul.

"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back to the same box."

**

Knives snapped awake, his cold eyes staring at the wall as he became aware of the real world again. He sighed. Stupid dreams, it was just his subconscious trying to make him take pity on the humans for all they did. It wouldn't work. He was still going to go about destroying them all.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes but stopped instantly when he saw someone sitting in his desk chair. It was the human from his dream. Sitting next to the figure was a large, slim pole that looked very ordainment and old. The teen grinned. "It wasn't a dream, Knives-baby. It was the real shit. Now you got two choices; you give the humans a chance in your own way OR you can keep on killing until I get fed up and cut your life a bit too short."

"You dare threaten me?"

"Oh it wasn't a threat, it was a statement. If I was threatening you, I would do the whole Scrooge bit with the Christmas of the Future but I think you're a little higher than that aspect." The teen stood up, grabbing the pole next to him, and walked over to the plant.

Now that the teen stood up, Knives saw just how short he was. His dream opponent was two feet shorter than him but his presence gave him a much larger appearance. "You got two choices, Knives-baby. Destroy humans or face me." The voice snapped him out of his thoughts and Knives looked down at the human, sneering at him.

"Not even a challenge." He sneered.

Suddenly the strange started to glow. His form became tall and imposing over Knives. Black robes flirted in the nonexistent wind as the figure shined like a bright, godly light. The plant started to feel like he was as small as a rock compared to this figure. At the end of the pole, a green energy scythe blade activated as the figure spoke.

"I could kill you utterly. Your soul would be cut from your body like a piece of paper. I would fold you until you were just an electron on an atom then thrust you into the void of nothingness for eternity. You would spend the rest of your days reliving every human life you destroyed as the human, you would never see your brother again even in the life after. I am Death, the god of balance."

There was a sudden pop and the unimposing human teen stood in front of him wearing the priest outfit again and holding the pole devoid of any green energy blade. "But I'd hate to do that to such a bishie babe. So just call out your bro to a duel to the death in a battle of wills and whoever wins, follows the other's wishes. You getting me so far, Knives-baby?"

When Knives showed no response, the teen nodded to him self. "Mm. Don't underestimate people again. It could be the death of you." The teen grinned at the pun.

"Watch out, and remember my words, babe. For when your games are over, the king and the pawn have to go back to the same box."

**

Knives snapped awake, glancing around as sweat dripped off of his face. He sighed rubbed his eyes, trying to get the two strange dreams out of his mind. The second one had a good idea that he couldn't deny. He was sick of fighting with his brother in the battle of wills and he wanted it to end. If that was the only way to do it then perhaps he should look into doing that.

It sounded like a good idea at any rate.

Owari

I know this story was strange but I couldn't get it out of my head when I heard that quote. So I just up and wrote this. This isn't part of any of my fics and its meant to be just a random one-shot thing. I would appreciate it though if someone were to draw the chessboard scene? That would look cool. Anyway that's all I gotta say. Oh, this is my first Trigun fanfic, how did I do?