Angels and Fallen Ones
Okay, here' the next chapter! Sorry it took a while, gathering ideas and time…
"Elizabeth, there's something wrong, look at these readings!"
The named woman leaned over the technician's shoulder and her eyes widened as she looked at the statistics. Oh God… It's going to explode if we don't do something! She bit her lip. Something like this hadn't happened since that once with Vash, and then she had manipulated the system, planned it out so it would overload like this. Standing up straight, she lifted her skirts and ran to the main room where the plant was located, yelling over her shoulder for the others to get out if she levels didn't go down or she wasn't back in ten minutes.
I'm going to have to go and manually shut it off, like I said I was going to that once with Vash, she decided, grasping her skirts into one hand and her hat with the other. She ran faster. I have to, or this whole town will be gone. However, when she reached the plant and got the door open she found the last thing she expected.
A baby.
The child screamed as he lay there on the floor, and Elizabeth looked on in confusion and awe at the sight of him. An infant, newly born, with an umbilical cord leading into the plant? "Impossible…" she breathed. She looked down at the bawling little boy, shaking her head. "This can't be real…"
And yet, there he was, laying there, screaming. And she couldn't just leave him. She knelt down in front of him and pulled him into her violet-clothed lap. Almost immediately he stopped crying and looked up at her with big brown eyes, eyes full of as much wonder and awe as her own. Tentatively, she held out a finger and he gasped it, just like any normal child his age would. But still he looked at her as though she were just as curious to him as he was to her.
The umbilical cord disintegrated, making Elizabeth jump. She could tell from the feeling in the air, from the coloration of the place, that the power overload was at an end and the plant was calming down.
Yet here was this tiny boy-child in her lap, staring up at her with that inquisitive look in his eyes.
There was nothing else to do. She gathered the infant into her arms and stood, beginning the walk back to the control room.
***
I'm beginning to think human ought to be slaughtered on sight for the crime of monotony, thought Knives dully. Yawning, he continued to trudge step after step down the street. He had just arrived, and the sun was touching the western horizon, but he did not think he would stay the night here. That would mean another dull night in a hotel room that looked like every other, which would inevitably drive him down to the pub for want of any difference, any at all, and of course, that would be the same as everywhere else too.
Unless he started something, that was. But then, if Vash traced it back to him… He winced at the thought. His brother wouldn't kill him, true; he would do worse. He would coop him up in that god-awful shack he called a house out in the middle of nowhere for another year or two, when he trusted him enough to let him out again. And those years wouldn't be spent just staring at a wall and listening to Vash yammer this time; they would also involve some annoying niece or nephew. That was not a thought he wanted to contemplate…
Then again, not staying meant camping out alone, in the middle of the desert, like last night. And the night before that. And not to forget the night before that. To trade one dull scene for another, that was no choice in his mind. If this went on much longer he might decide to kill himself and get it over with. Better than another hopeless showdown with his brother, and that damned shack and some kid running around…
He was beginning to wonder if camping on the rooftop of one of these buildings might make a difference when something caught his attention. A sudden movement, a flash of color, something all too familiar that he could not put his finger on. Vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite put a memory to it. That was odd; perhaps it was someone left from his olden days. God, how those days were starting to sound good. Anything to get out of this constant cycle…
It was boredom more than anything that led him searching through the town for what he had sensed when he did not see it with a quick glance around him. At this point, anything that could make his day a little different was worth it.
However, when he found himself at the local bar, he almost turned and walked away, difference or no. Pubs were traps of sheer boredom, he knew, and he had no desire to enter one again unless it was absolutely necessary.
After a moment, he decided that it was absolutely necessary for him to enter; if something out of the ordinary did not happen soon, he was tempted just go out and kill someone because he was that bored.
Upon entering the place he headed back to the area he sat in every one of these bar, in that one dark corner they always seemed to have. Only, there was already someone there.
It was she that had caught his attention before, he quickly realized. And he knew why. Long black hair reached her waist in thick, dirty curls, a once too big white blouse with long sleeves was now sleeveless and frayed, fitting too tightly across the chest and drawing short of her waist to show her stomach. A once knee-length skirt was hard-pressed to cover everything it needed to. Long ivory legs were out in the open for the world to see. She was as tall as Millie now, probably not finished growing, and it was all in her legs. She might have looked to be in her early teens when he had seen her roughly four months ago, and now she might look to be nearly out of them, but by those startled green eyes if nothing else, he knew this was the same girl who had made an Angel arm. In fact, the way she looked only confirmed it; his kind matured quickly.
"Water!" he called to the bar as he sat. Meeting the girl's eyes and making his own hard, he said, "Two of them." A waitress complied as they sat there. Only after she had left the two glasses and left did the girl speak.
"What do you want from me?" she demanded hoarsely.
"Drink some of this water," he commented pleasantly. "It's quite good, and you look parched.
"I said-"
"Drink."
She glowered for a moment, then snatched the glass and downed it all in one go like Vash would have a shot of whiskey. "What do you want?" she demanded again.
"Why should I want something?" he asked in turn, setting his glass back down on the table and pushing it towards her. He could not afford to find someone of his own race only to have her die of dehydration on him, after all. "Drink."
Again, she downed it quickly. "You know what happened back at Virginia," she muttered darkly.
He supposed that was probably the name of the town where she had 'borrowed' his gun and accidentally made an Angel arm. Instead of answering her aloud, he skipped onto the surface of her mind. Yes, but did you never think that the owner of that gun had made it for the use you put it to?
She blinked, but answered him in the same way. I didn't know it was the gun that did it.
It requires the right type of owner to make it do what you did; the gun is only a tool, a way to funnel that power in you. He made an annoyed noise, both in his mind speech and physically. You cannot be three years old yet. I don't know how the hell you got here, or who you are, but I'd like to know.
Swallowing hard, her eyes full of wonder, she said allowed, "My name is Charlene."
Perhaps this evening wouldn't be so boring after all.
***
"Still sounds like a stupid idea to me."
"Oh come on, Todd!" protested his sister, turning her head so she could see him. She grinned crazily at him, her buttery blonde hair, cut short and layered shaggily around her face, fluttering in the breeze. Her honey-brown eyes were the same exact shade as his own, though far more mischievous than his were. She was always up to some trouble or other. Her schemes were wild at best, and in this case, so far as Todd was concerned, plain old stupid.
He shook his head resolutely. "I'm not helping you out on this one. And you shouldn't go through with it either." His own hair was the same precise shade as hers, though it was cut a bit shorter and spiked up instead of having so many layers the slightest breath of a wind tossed it and set a whole new meaning to the words 'wild' and 'uncontrollable'.
She stuck out her tongue at him. "You're no fun," she told him as she turned back to look down at the ground. They were on the top of the inn, the tallest building in town, and his twin was squatting at the edge, her toes sticking out a good inch or so into thin air. Todd, for his part, was resolutely standing back a yard or two, his arms crossed. He did not care if Millie said he was stubborn; you needed it when someone like Joyce was your sister, in his opinion.
"It's a dumb idea," he proclaimed. "You're lucky I didn't go tell Millie on you."
"Oh come on! I bet we could do it if we tried!" She stood up and walked away from the edge.
"People don't fly, Joyce. I'd rather not break my neck."
"People aren't so good at math as us either."
"Mathematical genius."
"People get sick sometimes."
"Supernaturally strong immune system."
"People get hurt when they fall down."
"Tough skin."
"People can't make an plant go nutty if they get near it."
"Coincidence."
"Or calm down one about to explode."
"Really odd coincidence."
"People don't grow this much in a year!"
"True."
"Hah, point proven! Let's go!"
"No."
She sighed and sat down, looking sullen. "I thought you might say that…."
"Joyce! Todd! Lunch is ready!"
"Coming Aunt Millie!" called the twins.
"Where are you?"
Both leaned over the edge and grinned down at their guardian, the woman who was in control of the orphanage in the town of December. "Up here!" shouted Joyce.
Millie's eyes went wide. "You shouldn't be up there!" she exclaimed. "You might get hurt! Come down right now!"
"Sure!" squealed Joyce, and Todd sighed and put his head in a hand as she leaped off the roof in a spin and landed right in front of her. Perfectly fine, with a good landing.
Millie's wide blue eyes bulged, first incredulously, but then that quickly melted into joy as she clapped her hands and cheered the girl for her accomplishment.
Oh why not… Todd leaped down as well, but at this point, Millie was too caught up in sheer excitement that she nearly knocked him over. After a moment or two, she yelled something about food, and more or less skipped back to the orphanage. Joyce started after her at a walk, and Todd came along last. He hadn't expected anything different from dear Aunt Millie.
***
Vash, absorbed in drawing something, he had yet to figure out precisely what, reached out without looking for the orange he had peeled before. It wasn't there. Figuring it had to have rolled a little, he continued to draw with one hand and search about the tabletop with the other. When, after nearly five minutes of searching and finding nothing, he finally looked up. The orange wasn't there. Then again, he hadn't thought it would be, not at this point. And it certainly wasn't floating above the table and blowing raspberries at him. Or would that be orangberries? But then, oranges aren't berries, so… He let that thought trail off as he looked down and found the culprit.
Little Nicholas stood there, looking up at his with those wide dark blue eyes of his mother's, his longish blonde hair sticking every which way. Orange juice and pulp decorated his face, hair, hands, and shirt. Vash couldn't help it; he burst out laughing. With a returning grin, his son lifted his arms in an invitation to be picked up, and Vash plopped him down on his lap.
Though six months old, Nick looked to be about two, maybe three. A small three. Vash wasn't exactly sure how that worked out; he knew when he was the same age, he had looked like he was around six or seven. And Meryl, knowing things were going to be weird, had nearly gone into shock when she realized she was pregnant and then had Nick only two weeks later.
Vash didn't mind the weirdness of it all though. He had never dared to dream that this might even be possible; he hadn't thought that his kind could honestly have children with humans, and there had never been any evidence of a female Plant. Not that he really would've wanted to, if there was one; he loved Meryl, and no one else.
And he had never minded when things got honestly strange. In truth, as far as he was concerned, Nick was far from the strangest he had ever seen, or even worse, imagined. He didn't think he would ever find anything strange enough to set him off balance again. After over one hundred and thirty years, he had seen more than he thought he honestly wanted to.
He would soon find out how odd the world would get.
Dear God, finally; another chapter. Took me long enough… Review! Any ideas? What do you people think? Tell me!