Disclaimer: Don't own Trigun So leave me be!
Chapter Eight: Explanations
A/N: Some of the concepts for some of the plant abilities Knives and Vash possess I'll be talking about are purely works of fiction, and are not true whatsoever. I just wanted to create a useful purpose for the Angel Arms and try to explain some of the questions I've had while watching the show. These ideas are my own, and are not to be taken seriously. Thanks, L.L.
Rhianne had contemplated with the idea of charging at Knives head-on and kicking the living shit out of him, but that just didn't appeal to her right now. She wanted to get to know her kin better, and had figured that kicking the living crap out of him wouldn't help in the long run. So, instead, she had decided to act silly and suppress her rage by acting like a goofball.
And Knives obviously wasn't surprised for it. The look of utter amazement on Knives' normally well-controlled features was well worth not beating the shit out of him. It was priceless, and something Rhianne would come back to during tough times in the future. But now was a time to think about the present.
"So Knives' ol' buddy, what now?" she asked, folding her arms behind her head in a relaxed pose and leaning against the wall. Knives shot her a waspish look.
"I am not your buddy, nor am I even close to your friend." he spat, crossing his arms like a child that was being told to go to bed and wouldn't. Rhianne backed off a little.
"Geez, okay. I get your point, don't go postal on me." she sighed. Knives sighed as well.
"Hey Knives?" she asked warily. He stared icily at her "what is it now?" he demanded.
"Um... I don't want to seem like a bother (Knives snorted) but I really need some clean clothes. And I was wondering if you would let me go to my pod and-"
"Let you wander around my planet? Not likely." Knives laughed. Rhianne shot him a sad look "please?"
"No."
"Ouch..." Rhianne paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then her face brightened "why don't you come with me then? You don't have to worry about me running off, and I can tell you stuff." Knives blinked at her stupidly. He had never had a captive so willing to divulge information as she. Cool. He resisted the urge to grin.
"Let's go." he stated.
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"So what is it you want to know?" Rhianne asked him as they walked through the sand.
Knives paused thoughtfully. There was so much about her he wanted to know, and he couldn't figure out which question was the most important.
"Alright Knives" Rhianne said after waiting a few minutes "how about this: I'll start telling you about the plants, and you can ask me questions along the way."
At Knives' nod, she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, unsure of where to start. She decided that it would make the most sense to simply start from the beginning, as not to confuse the poor boy.
"About three hundred years ago, the Human race was forced to leave their polluted planet in search for a new home amongst the stars. To be able to do this, Project Seeds was drafted to transport the humans to their new homes. But a few flaws still needed to be worked out. For one: how would the Humans survive on an alien planet? If they had nothing to eat, what would supply them with it? If there was nothing to drink, who would give them water? In short, who would look after the Human race until they were able to take care of themselves. And the answer to these questions came in the form of the Plants. But as I'm sure you know Knives, the Plants were living things, so that provided a challenge, the answer to which I'll get to later. Anyways, the humans needed people to look after the plants, and who were able to communicate with the beings inside the bulbs, so our species of plants were created to upkeep them and make sure nothing went wrong until they were no longer needed.
"Our species of Plant was genetically manipulated so that our life spans were longer, we never grew old, we were faster, smarter, stronger and all-around better than those that created us. We were also granted tools to work with the plants to ensure they didn't run out of life when they were needed. And we were also given the Angel-Blades, which served to protect ourselves and our kin from anything that might try to harm us."
"Then what do our Angel Arms do? Are they also defense mechanisms?" Knives interrupted her. Rhianne shook her head.
"No, Angel Arms serve a much more important function than killing people. Have you encountered another plant with hair that is going black?" Knives nodded "good, that is because they used their Angel Arm multiple times, isn't it? You see, when we use our Angel Arms, our life force depletes, and we begin to make the slow descent into death. What I'm getting at is that the beam you create contains your life force. And the Plant's use their life force to keep working. Have you made the connection yet?"
Knives looked thoughtful "So... our Angel Arms were granted to us to keep our sisters alive? But how does that work?" Rhianne smiled.
"Now you're getting it. And about the hook-ups, they're deep inside the 'belly' of the Plant, as you might call it. There's a large circular opening that your Angel Arm fit's into, and when the energy is released into it, the Plant absorbs part of your life force, and is able to live longer. Let me give you another example: before the cloning process became widely known, humans who had damaged organs could receive those from others. Like if someone had a liver disease, someone could donate one of theirs to save that person. They give part of themselves to save others. And there are also cases where people have given their major organs and died to save others. This is like the function of the Angel-Arm. We give part of our life to the Plants so that they can keep on living as well. That is the real function of our species: we are there to help the other Plants take care of Humans." she inhaled deeply, anticipating Knives' response.
He blinked stupidly for a moment, standing still. And then came the response Rhianne had been waiting for: "no....."
Knives' mind reeled faster than he could keep up with. If what she said was true, then he was meant to keep his sisters alive. That was a good thing, and he knew that he would willingly give all of his life to save his family, and would die a slow and painful death for his idiot brother whom he loved so dear. But not for the vermin. For the vermin he would do nothing save slaughter them all. Hell, he would even pick them off one-by-one if it meant being able to create his Eden. But he certainly wasn't going to give his life support to ensure his sibling's suffering. They were his family, and he would never try to hurt them.
*I know that Knives...* Rhianne replied, reading his mind *but there's nothing you can do. It's our destiny. It's either them or us…*
"Hold on a moment" Knives said "My brother and I are the only plants that live outside the bulbs, and we can only create our Angel-Arms with the help of our guns, so does that mean that the other plants know how to make the guns as well?" Rhianne shook her head.
"Well… no. You see Knives, as I said before, we are genetically enabled to create Angel Arms, but some of the weaker of our species need the special use of guns to form them. These plants are generally removed from the plant bulbs either too early or too late, so either their Angel Arm abilities are too underdeveloped to use them without the aid of guns, or too overdeveloped and…" she trailed off, looking at her feet as she walked. Knives let her be for a moment, then grew weary of waiting for her to finish, and stood in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders and stopped her. She raised her eyes to meet his, an action that made Knives uneasy.
"Continue." He urged. Rhianne sighed and gazed past him into the billowing sand for a moment, trying to grasp the words.
"They die, Knives. They are born with the Angel Arms in permanent use, and because it requires a great deal of energy to keep an Angel Arm stabilized, most don't make it past a week. The strain is just too much for their newborn bodies to handle, and they die." She sighed, and watched Knives' eyes turn stony.
"It's the vermin's fault. If they would just leave them alone, then they would be able to become Plant Angels and would be fine. It's all the meddling vermin's fault, as usual."
Rhianne stopped in her tracks and watched as Knives walked for a moment, not realizing she wasn't beside him. She watched him walk, slow, deliberate steps that imprinted his footprint firmly into the sand, leaving his mark on his planet. He was such an ignorant fool, she thought angrily.
"Don't call me that, or it will be the last thought you will ever think." Knives spat back at her, after picking up on her thoughts "hurry up and explain to me just why I'm an ignorant fool." Rhianne obeyed and quickly caught up with him.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, a tense quietness building between them. Knives angry with her for calling him an ignorant fool, Rhianne angry with him for being one.
"Come on then, tell me why I'm so ignorant." Knives challenged again.
"Fine then" Rhianne shot back "I'll tell you why: the plants would die anyway. But they would die much more painfully in the bulb than they would outside of it." Knives paused thoughtfully for a moment, chewing thoughtfully on her words.
"Why?" he asked finally "a plant should be able to survive inside its natural habitat. So the baby should be just fine, shouldn't it?"
"Not exactly Knives." his female companion commented " I'll try to be as non-technical as possible. Think of it this way: I'm a woman right? So I can get pregnant and have a baby. While I'm pregnant, my baby lives inside of me and feeds off of me. Which means that I have to eat more, drink more, sleep more, and I become sick and depressed. All of the aforementioned things apply to Plant Angels as well. They have to sustain the baby with their life force, and they become ill and the plant begins to malfunction. That results in not only the Plant Angel getting sick, but the baby inside as well. That harms both mother and child, and it is always safer not only for the humans that depend on the plant, but the plant itself and its child for it to be removed."
"You didn't answer my question" Knives interrupted "why not simply leave the baby inside of the plant and let it stay as a Plant Angel?"
"Ah, good question. You see, as I was getting at, it takes a lot of the Plant's life force to be able to create a new plant baby, and the baby need energy to be able to grow and develop into a properly functioning plant. So, this baby leeches off Mama Plant Angel's energy, slowly killing it. And as you know, we need a lot of energy to survive, so unless the babies are removed, they kill the mother, causing the plant to explode. Which also kills the baby. So if the humans did what you suggested, then you can kiss our race good-bye.
"But getting back to the whole Angel-Arm thing; it's very hard to determine when to remove a plant child from the bulb. One hour can make all the difference, Knives."
She paused for a moment, staring up at the clear blue sky as they walked. Her mouth was dry, and she wanted a few minutes of quiet. But Knives wasn't going to let the subject drop.
"Why is it so hard to figure out when to remove the babies?" he asked. Rhianne sighed, the idea of a few minutes of quiet time going away like her breath in the wind.
"It's hard to pinpoint things like that. Human children are very easy to predict, because they all evolve at the same rate of nine months. In fact, their birth can be pinpointed to the day. But plants are a whole different story, not to mention a whole different species. We go from our cell-state to our birth-state very quickly, within a matter of weeks because of our genetic makeup. And because we evolve so quickly, it's very easy to make a miscalculation. Very few plants are removed from the bulb at the right time. Which makes for a lot of either undeveloped or overdeveloped plants."
"Why is it that we don't stop evolving?" Knives prodded, interrupting her.
"Because we are a superior breed, Knives, and even when we're alive, we're still evolving. How do you think we stay immortal? Our bodies are constantly re-making the parts of our bodies that will die. At the age of 138, you have gone through three hearts, Knives. God only knows how many other organs you have re-created, but that's how it works. And unless we are removed from the bulbs at a certain time, we aren't given the chance to let our bodies function normally. And as a result of that, we continue to create organs we already have, and it kills us."
"So, because of my immense power, that means that I must have been removed at just the right time!" Knives boasted, smiling proudly. Rhianne took a step backwards, unsure of whether or not to break it to him. Then she decided to just leave him be, it wasn't wise to get on Knives' bad side. She grinned a faulty grin and suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.
"You sure are Knives, you sure are."
A/N: Once again, don't take anything here into consideration. It's all my ideas and not to be taken seriously. Thanks and mucho love, LL.
