Disclaimer: *eats her pizza but wishes she had Trigun instead*

Chapter Forty-Two: Knives' Angel

New Topeka Weekly Gazette Col . Yr 184 AE.

More Than We Expected??

Ever since we humans left our home planet we have depended on Plants to aid us until we can be fully settled upon out new homes. Yet these large contraptions are complicated life-forms that live and breathe like you and I while they supply us with the food and the energy it takes to run our machines. So, like us, they need people who can heal them and give them more energy when it runs low.

March 14th Earth-year 2687, Doctor Marv Collins PHD created the perfect solution to the plant-energy crisis: Plant-Human hybrids. Their predecessors, entrapped in plant bulbs were known as 'Angels' or by their proper name 'Agellos'; so it was only fitting that the new race of Plants be named 'Homo-Agell' (or 'Human Angel' to the public) due to their humanoid appearance. Yet there were secrets these fascinating beings possessed that even they didn't know they possessed: Angel Arms, the feathered keys to the Plants whose destructive energy beams could wipe out entire cities, lock into place deep in the underbellies of the Plants and feed them their own energy; and Angel Blades, the defense mechanism hidden beneath their skin, consisting of rock hard shards of glass that protrude from the skin and embed themselves in the flash of their attackers. They are endowed with near-immortal life and heightened senses far superior to those of Man. Dr Collins was quoted upon saying "they are the next step of man; we would have to evolve for millions of years to even scratch at the surface of the things I've enabled them to do" (readers note: Dr Collins passed away as a result of lung failure due to a puncture created by the Angel Blade of a two-day old Human-Angel upon whom he was testing the reaction time of the Angel Blades)

After perfecting the Homo-Agells Humanity felt confident enough to make their venture out into the unknown, with the (willing) populace cryogenically frozen to preserve them on the long journey ahead. The plants; ever consistent in their endeavors and ever faithful to the humans who had given them life, manned the ships. And one day our sister ship, Seeds Ship No. 3, reached a hospitable planet, and was christened Paradis by the populace. Their Plants were arranged accordingly; with so many miles between plant so they could share each other's power as it seeped into the plant-ridden soil. And their two Angels settled here with us, Aeris and Andan.

Born in Seeds Lab No. 14-2 on our ship on December 22nd, After-Earth year 35, Aeris and Andan were born in the womb that we the Plant Bulb, and raised to know their purpose and to become productive and successful members of society. They became mentors for the settlers and rose above all expectations and were held on a plateau by the populace. After we were firmly settled on our planet and there was no more need for the Plant Angels to expend their power on us, the twins took to finding their own paths. Aeris, who had always been fascinated by the tropical vegetation carpeting her little planet, took to creating medicines for the needy from their juices. Andan, however, felt that he could not neglect his sisters, even though they were not needed. And so he took up Plant Engineering, and has currently saved several towns from Plant-related disasters. These were not caused by the plants themselves, but by the tropical storms that oftentimes ravaged the seaside towns, and it was on one such occasion that a Plant was badly damaged and the Angel could not control her own power and was upon the verge of exploding from within herself that Andan was summoned to fix the problem. He was travelling through a torrent of rain by plane to the site, a large seaside town called Naruay when the plane's tail was struck by lighting and it began to tumble into the sea. The three passengers aboard the plane jumped, trying to escape the craft as it nose-dived down towards the churning waters below. Yet, for two of the passengers, their efforts were in vain and they died in the dark water that night. Yet the third was not destined that night or-perhaps-ever. The few fishermen out braving the storm in order to keep their small fishing boats lashed to the dock swear that they saw them tumble, through the rain, to the ocean. Yet one did not reach the waters that night, for- as the witnesses swore- wings as bright as the lily's petals carried the third to shore, where he took to running to the Plant high upon the hill and the wings disappeared in a melt of ivory feathers.

"It was the most wondrous thing I've ever seen; he was about to hit the water and-poof!- these huge wings popped right out of his back!" says a local fisherman and witness Lokal Mitah, who was out holding his fishing boat to the dock on the night of the incident.

"It was amazing! I never knew Plants could fly!" exclaimed his daughter Liriel Mitah, who was out helping her father and witnessed the miracle.

Like Liriel, this was a power that no one-not even Andan himself, knew of.

"I don't really understand it myself" he was quoted saying "one moment I was falling towards the water and the next I felt a slight pull at my shoulders and I was soaring not three feet above it! I really didn't understand what had happened until later, when someone gave me a white feather, saying it had fallen off my back."

The brave Plant agreed to undergo test trials to determine why, exactly, this power had gone untapped for nearly two hundred Colony Years; especially since the Plants had lived on an unstable planet for so long and had encountered many dangerous situations through their lives. Three months of testing were preformed before the source of the wings was discovered: when the host (a Homo-Agell) is in a life-threatening situation (in this case a fatal fall) the wings sprout from their shoulder blades as an act of self-preservation and defense) "It's very much like if you were to drop a bird from a cliff; it would open it's wings in order to save itself, and it's very much the same case for the Plants." Says Dr. Hazel Furnikan, who spearheaded the research, named Project Eagle to the public.

"No one, not even the subject, knew he was capable of something like this" she was quoted as saying at a press conference, "the wings are cartilage that emerges on an angle, turning the subject onto a horizontal plane and allowing them to cruise along on the current their swift turn as allowed them to create, and 'flap' with the simple clenching and unclenching of the shoulder blades. We also have come to surmise that they are only used in life-threatening situations, which explains why they weren't previously discovered and researched. As such they were unnamed, and have been given the official title 'Halo-Agellos' or 'Angel Wings'."

The Wings are a new step in understanding the Plants, state scholars currently researching the strange phenomenon. They could be a breakthrough in understanding these very different types of people. But the real question here is this: if these Plants aren't even really human, and aren't susceptible to normal types of extensive research, is there more to them than we know, even yet?

Rhianne remembered reading that very article in her brother's kitchen one groggy Easter morning, Vanessa putting quietly about, making coffee for Corrin and pancakes for the children. She had pointed it out to him, wondering if they, too, were capable of such feats as flying.

"Surely" said Vanessa as she placed a squirming Adrian in his high chair and Mary Anne dug into her syrup-drenched pancakes with gusto "if they can do it, so can you. You're all of the same race, so wouldn't it be acceptable to assume that if they can do it, so can you? If it's something that has deliberately been placed into their genes, it would only make sense to place them into your as well, right?" she finishes, spooning a mouthful of banana-raspberry baby cereal into Adrian's mouth.

"I suppose that makes sense" stated Corrin, leaning in and kissing his wife gently on her baby-food-splattered cheek "smart and beautiful, how did I ever get so lucky?" Rhianne smiled, watching them, and a small tear escaped her eye for the love she never thought she would find.

In the same fashion, now, a tear fell from her eye for her brother as she neared the ground and prayed that Vanessa had been right in her assumptions, or she could be in a great deal of pain upon her landing, she concluded; feelings of mixed anticipation and uncertainty fluttering in her stomach like brightly-colored birds. The ground approached her with increasing speed and she drew up her arms to shield her face from the rocks below and squeezed her eyes shut, fearful of the impact that she was now sure was to come.

This had been a mistake. She was not one of the plants endowed with Angel Wings; she was going to fall to the ground and probably shatter every bone in her body because of a stupid risk. If she landed on her head, as she most likely would, she would be paralyzed, her neck snapping under the impact at the very least, or, at the very worst, her skull cracking against the sandy ground and killing her instantly. Or perhaps she would be left in a state of near-consciousness; able to feel the excruciating pain as the sand blew into her open, bleeding wounds and she died here beneath this alien sky without anyone to love her.

Knives!

The word escaped her lips as a final plea, wishing that he were here beneath her to catch her before she met her doom here on his planet. It lingered on her lips for only a moment before being torn from her lips by the wind, rushing by at phenomenal, if not terrifying, speed. Closer and closer the ground came at her, until she could make out every speck of sand and count the flecks of quartz glinting in the early-morning shine. Terrified, she forced her to close her eyes again, not wanting them open on the moment of impact; to watch the crimson blood squirt sickeningly from her head and to hear the wet crack as her skull split down the middle on the hard earth.

It was at this moment, so close to her demise, that she embraced oblivion. Held hands with death, accepted pain and smelt the stench of fear that reeked deep inside her nostrils, that fire erupted upon her shoulder blades and her world was enveloped by blinding white.

************************************************************************

It had been a good sleep, he had decided as he lay there groggily. A nice, good, heavy sleep the liked of which he hadn't had in the few months since Rhianne's entry into the bulb. He had dreamt of Meryl. Of Meryl and Millie and Wolfwood. He knew he shouldn't think about Wolfwood; doing so would only make him depressed like he had been before. And there had been several bouts of depression that had fallen over him after thinking about him for long periods of time, and Vash tried not to think about the dead priest.

But never to forget.

He refused to forget about Wolfwood, not ever. He would carry his memory to the grave and even then the priest would not fully be dead because others would remember him, too. No one is ever dead as long as they're remembered; that's what Meryl had said as she'd held his head in her lap as he'd wept over the loss of his friend. And, in time, Vash had found it to be true. Small things reminded him of the eccentric man. A cigarette laying on the side of the road; a motorcycle as it roared into town; a small child reaching up for the arms of it's mother. Vash had even found his confessional, tucked away with his things at the hotel.

That's why I have this confessional!!

He remembered the words so clearly; as though it were yesterday. He could still smell the scent of tobacco and gunpowder that was like cologne to the man, always drenched in it, though not always unpleasantly so. With a sigh he remembered the stifling heat of the day, the calmness of the wind, the smell of oil from the bus and the smell of sweat from its passengers. They had saved Wolfwood's life. No; he had saved his life. He had saved his life and then been responsible for taking it. Meryl had told him time and time again that it hadn't been his fault, that Wolfwood had chosen his own path from the very start and had died like an honorable man in a place that he loved, and that he would have wanted it that way.

A tear rolled down his cheek, drenched in heat from the fire and the blanket wrapped around him. He had felt Rhianne's act of kindness through a half-sleep half-awake daze, and was grateful for it; the desert was as cold as Knives' eyes at night. His eyelids had pried themselves sleepily away from each other and watched her retreating back, smiling lopsidedly as she walked away. Then, content with his warmth, he snuggled back into his blanket and closed his weary eyes and dozed for a time; until the winds rose up between the pillars of rock and whistled so loudly in his ears that he had to stuff the sheet in them to keep from ringing with the song of the wind. So, unable to sleep, he had watched Rhianne as she scaled the rock; for it was a long task that she had taken upon herself, and Vash would take no chances in letting her fall. Under his watchful eye she had clambered to the top and lay there for a long while. Long enough that his eyes started to droop again from fatigue until he could barely keep his eyes focused on the pillar of rock upon which she lay, high above him.

Yet when the animalistic and indistinguishable cry of a Sand Worm reached his ears, his eyes shot open as though someone had shot a gun near his face. He knew that sound all too well, and knew also of the danger it carried. He jumped to his feet immediately, searching and straining his ears for the direction of the cry, and not hearing Rhianne's gasp, her voice lost through the wind howling high above. Nor did he notice her plunge from the top of the cliff, plummeting down to the ground across the fire from him, travelling so quickly that she was nearly a blur. She traveled so quickly that he could only watch in terror as she approached the ground with terrible speed and the horrifying thought only had moments to flash into his mind she's going to die before he witnessed the most miraculous scene his aqua eyes had even seen: the chestnut-haired woman plummeted to the ground, and a cry escaped her lips as wings erupted from twixt her shoulder blades in an outburst of ivory and crimson as the blood poured fourth from the open, gaping wounds where the wings protruded. As they fanned out around her as she fell she seemed to level off for a moment, and he hoped that this wonderful angel would reach the ground safely. Yet it seemed not to be so, as the wings shuddered as she made to flap them by clenching her shoulders back into her back, and she resumed her vertical plummet. This wondrous sight had granted him precious moments to dash to where she fell, discarding the shroud like a snake effortlessly sheds it's skin as he ran to her and caught her heaving form in his arms. The blood poured from her wounds and feathers floated listlessly in the breezy air that he not felt not; focusing only on the angel in his arms- and that's what he now thought her to be, for none he knew could do feats such as this.

"Thank you….Vash" she smiled weakly, pushing herself away from him and standing on the ground on unsteady legs. Twice he had to push an arm in to help her stand, but she shrugged his help off in a defiant manner that left the blonde feeling rather useless. She turned, for her back, with it's wings in all their blood-splattered-ivory splendor, had been turned to him, and she now faced him and smiled a weak and tired smile. At that moment Vash saw he for what she truly, in his eyes, must be: an angel sent from Heaven itself to help guide his brother into the light. To show him the way; to show Knives of Rem's way. Never before had he seen someone so wondrous for, though bloody and disheveled, she glowed with a fierce inner light that nearly radiated from her very pores and granted her an aura of serenity and grace.

Yet it was not to last, for as quickly as her serene visage was there, it was wiped away by a look of excruciating pain that widened her eyes, caused her nostrils to flare and her mouth to hang open before a shriek escaped her parted lips and she fell to the ground, helplessly trying to claw at her back as the wings fell away from her. They seemed to peel off of her, skin and dried blood and rubbery cartilage stretching twixt the growing gap between them and her and snapping with heinous popping and snapping that made him cringe and shiver as they spilt from her like spawn, falling heavily to the ground with hollow thuds, although Vash could see that they were not hollow by the white cartilage and meager bone within, and from the substantial amounts of blood pouring both from the wings and the large raw and gaping holes left in Rhianne's skin.

"God Vash, make it stop, please" she sobbed; her face hidden by her hands, attempting to evade the blood cascading down her back and over shoulders from getting onto her face. The blonde panicked, for he knew not what to do and, although was commonly calm in the face of danger, had been taken completely aback by this, and did not know how to deal with phenomena such as he had witnessed.

"Please…just press the skin together" Rhianne cried, tears choking her words and making it difficult to understand her. Yet somehow he managed to discern the words and reached out, albeit somewhat hesitantly, and squeezed the open flesh together, trying mightily to ignore the shriek that escaped the female as he did as she had commanded. He hated the feel of this flesh beneath his fingers, the warm skin and muscle beneath and the blood that now coated his fingers, warm and thick with life. He refused to let go, however, for he was truly afraid that should her gnashes be left unattended, that they would continue to expand (and he had seen such things) and it would be as though she were being skinned alive. And so the gunman clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, wishing that he could close his nostrils against the stench of blood that befouled them. And there he sat. Sat and waited, holding closed the slashed of open skin caused by wondrous phenomena the likes of which he had never seen before, praying that she would be alright.

There under the waning stars and the sunlight that grew ever-brighter over the horizon he sat and prayed that Knives' guardian angel would survive.