Disclaimer: I just watched the episode where Vash killed Legato… and I'm not so sure I want to own Trigun anymore…. :s

Chapter Twenty-Five:

A/N: This is sort of an in-between chapter, just to give you guys a bit of insight as to what Knives is thinking right now. Also, kasianne asked for a link to Gunsmoke and Blood, so here it is: Enjoy the fic! (PS, Chibi Kenie, I hope you don't mind I put the link here, feel free to bitch at me if necessary ^_^)

A small sandy breeze had picked up, causing grains of sand to stick to the sweat lining Knives' forehead. He blinked, trying to keep his vision focused on the spider atop the clothing store they had exited just fifteen minutes earlier. He held his colt steady, feeling the cold metal beneath his gloved fingers, and pulled the trigger. He felt a rush as the bullet sped through the air and drilled itself into the skull of the vermin. It embedded itself in the spider's skull, spurting a fountain of bright red blood into the air, the crimson liquid shining like diamonds in the sunlight.

Knives grinned maliciously. No one was going to hurt one of his kind. No one.

From out of the corner of his eye, he caught the movement of a spider creeping towards them. Without hesitation, he swiveled to his right and blew the vermin's brains out; scattering the grayish, blood-covered goo over the sandy streets. Another caught his attention, and he pulled the trigger almost without thinking, smiling at the screams of the insect and the scent of blood that came his way with the dusty breeze.

He glanced behind him to see his woman kneeling over an infant, his brother close by, keeping an eye out for assailants from behind and taking out their knees or shoulders whenever he got the chance. Knives rolled his eyes and snorted as another spider hit the ground, the life faded in it's eyes already and his shiny black bullet lodged in his skull.

A shot rang out from behind him and swiveled around to see Vash kneeling next to Rhianne, his arm twisted behind him, his gun smoking. A spider lay twitching on the ground, clutching at both leg and shoulder wounds. His gaze traveled to his sibling's face, and saw the worry and hurt it portrayed. He was pained because he had hurt the vermin. Pitiful. How his brother had survived all these years with his pacifistic views, Knives would never understand.

He heard a small gasp from behind him, and turned around after taking out another spider atop the same clothing store. Rhianne was on her knees, crouching over a small child. The little girl's head rested in her lap, her short black hair spilled over her lap, hanging in small clumps stuck together with drying blood. Her small, innocent hazel eyes were quickly loosing their luster as the child gazed up at his woman, a look of awe and fear taking up residence in them. His eyes traveled to the gunshot wound that had torn open her throat. A large bubble of blood swelled up over the tear and exploded with a hideous pop as she attempted to breathe. The child reached up curiously to her throat and prodded at the tissue tenderly, resulting in a coughing fit. Rhianne leaned closer and kissed the girl's forehead.

"Don't do that sweetie, you're bad enough as it is" she crooned softly, her voice barely audible over the gunshots constantly firing around them. Her hand flew up behind her and stopped the rain of bullets from behind, while the unmistakable sound of Vash's gun rang out as an afterthought, nailing the shooter, who was behind a trash can behind the street, in the elbow. Rhianne's attention shifted back to the girl, placing her hand over the wound and closing her eyes.

Knives, his curiosity getting the best of him, moved closer to examine what she was doing. He could feel a power resonating from her hands and entering the child, but was unsure of what she was doing. He leaned closer, taking a second to nail another spider between his beady insect eyes. The child had closed her eyes, and seemed in a state of supreme calmness. Rhianne opened her eyes and smiled a little at him, before throwing up her hand and stopping a barrage of bullets that would have drilled into his skull from behind.

"What did you do?" Knives asked curiously, regarding the child and her sleep-like demeanor. Rhianne placed her hand lightly on the girl's forehead and bit her lip.

"I put her into a coma. I clotted both sides of her brain and paralyzed her. It's perfectly safe, all I did was halt the blood flow to her brain and caused her to have a stroke, putting her into a comatose state so I can operate while she's conscious, because that would cause her a great deal of pain." Knives turned around and shot another sniper across the street

"Why did you do that? It would be much more fun to watch the spider squirm and scream in agony." Rhianne sighed and pulled her pack closer to herself, rummaging through it for a moment before producing a small pair of tweezers. "These will have to do" she sighed. Knives cocked an eyebrow "do for what?"

"Well I have to get the bullet out, don't I?" Rhianne rolled her eyes "no you don't" Knives stated, holding her wrist "she is a spider, the vermin killing our sisters. Leave her be and help me kill off these nuisances so we can be on our way" The female sot him a dark look.

"Her life may be meaningless to you, but she's a child and I can't let her die like this." With that said, she took to the task of picking small clumps of dried blood and skin out of the wound, so as to better access the bullet lodged within the raw pink flesh.

Knives stared at her for a moment, rather unable to comprehend her fascination with saving the child's life. The girl was just another statistic, a human caught in the crossfire of real life, submitted to the harsh realities of the human lifestyle, just another spider to leech off the life of his sisters. He moved back to his place behind a table, taking aim at an elusive spider atop the hotel. He heard Vash gasp, and saw Rhianne poke the insides of the child's neck with the tweezers.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the seemingly never-ending group of human scum that kept bombarding them with bullets. What was so important about the life of an insect that they had to fawn over a stupid wounded little girl? She was going to die anyway, unless his woman was a miracle worker, so it was just a waste of breath and energy. Just like the spiders which were a waste of flesh and blood, this little girl was a waste of time.

But idly, he pondered what she and his brother saw in the life of the vermin that made them fawn over them in such a disgusting fashion. They were trying to kill them every chance they got; they were leeching the life from his sisters and not thinking that the Plant Angels were suffering because of their selfishness.

It isn't their fault Knives…

Rhianne's mental voice challenged him momentarily, then faded away to the recesses of his mind as she concentrated on removing the bullet from the girl's throat. Knives gritted his teeth and took out his anger by shooting the closest spider multiple times in the chest, smiling as it clutched at the wounds momentarily before dropping to the sandy streets, dead. Knives swore he could see the life fade in his eyes, and laughed. One less spider to kill his innocent butterfly sisters. And so what if they couldn't help but leech off his sisters? They were too stupid to think of any other alternative, so what was the point of sitting around and trying to save them when they would ultimately kill you in the end?

Knives gritted his teeth as a bullet whizzed past him, and heard the clang as it fell heavily to the wooden floor as a result of Rhianne's mental abilities. Idly he decided to have her teach him to do these little mind tricks, for they would be useful when he restarted his genocide plans.

He turned to say something rash at the female about wasting her time, but stopped when he saw the look of concern in her eyes for the child. He turned back towards the spiders confronting them, and idly wondered if she would be as worried if it was him laying there.