CHAPTER 9: GIFTS AND RESCUES
The sinewy blonde outlaw peered cautiously into the darkness that surrounded him, every fiber in his lean body tuned to detect any hint of danger. He was filled with grim determination. He had never felt such a sense of urgency.
He was so butt lost.
"Damn it!" he grunted, punching the dry wall of the cave. The sand trap he had slipped into seemed to be connected to a vast system of underground caverns. Oddly enough, the tunnels were all lined with dim overhead lights, some of which had long burned out, but a stubborn few still gave out a weak blue light. This must have been an old mine at one point. The light threw shifting shapes up on the walls, giving it an eerie feeling.
As Vash picked his way through the rocks and craters in his way, he couldn't help but think about what he was going to do when he finally caught up with Knives.
What would he do? What would he say?
How am I going to save him this time? he asked himself.
Can you save him? His brain responded.
Does he want to be saved?
"Shit! This is too confusing! I don't know what I'm suppose do when I see him." and then there was Meryl. How could he save her without hurting his brother? He wanted to ask someone what to do. If Rem were here, she would know.
"Rem?"
But Rem wasn't here. He had promised himself that he would look for his own answers in the future, but now that the future was here, all he wanted to do was look to somebody else. He hated thinking about the past. And he hated the way Knives made him remember things that should have been buried long ago.
"Why are you leading me back there, Knives?" he voice echoed off the hollow tunnel walls. "Why there, again? What are you planning to do?"
The last time Vash had been inside the central plant ship was ninety years ago...
"Knives! Knives stop!" the younger Vash yelled out, trying desperately to keep up with his brother.
"Then hurry up slow poke," Knives called out over his shoulder.
"Why are we here, Knives?" Vash continued to pout, "You know I don't like this place, it's the ship SHE was on when she died."
"Tch," Knives huffed, "aren't you over that yet?" he scrambled up the iron grating and began prying open a heavy set of doors which had the word P.L.A.N.T. written across them in block letters.
"Besides," he grunted as he pushed the doors apart, "we've been neglecting our real family, brother."
The connecters sparked suddenly and the doors slid soundlessly open, filling the dim passage with light. Vash held his hands up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the brilliant glow. The light burned Knives eyes but he refused to look away. He strode purposefully into the massive room, lined with plants of all different shapes and sizes.
When Vash felt his eyes finally adjust to the light, he focused on the room himself. Knives was already halfway down the path, and heading toward the central plant.
"Wait up, Knives!" Vash followed along doggedly.
They walked on until they had reached the base of the plant itself, a humongous blue plant that filled the middle of the room completely so you couldn't see from one end to the other. Knives was already fiddling with the monitor on the plant's control panel.
"I remember this one," Vash said quietly, "I remember Rem telling me about it. It was important. It was suppose to help us make our new planet a home," his eyes began to water. Knives listened grimly to his brother's pathetic rambling, determinedly working at patching back into the computer of the plant above him.
"Rem loved this place. She used to call it a flower garden, remember?
"Shut up! Don't you realize by now that the woman you called Rem was just using you, using us? The only reason she was 'nice' to either of us was to lull us into a false sense of security. She was the real monster, she and those pathetic humans."
"You're wrong, Knives! Rem was good! Humans are good! Yeah, humans make mistakes, but all of them have the ability to right their wrongs, don't you see! I loved Rem, and you took her away! She died to save us!"
"She died to save her human species, you whining baby. This," he hissed, pointing to the open file on the monitor, "was what she was planning to do to us, to YOU."
Vash wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at the plant's main display. His face widened in shock as he took in the information glowing benignly on the monitor.
Vash suddenly felt the air had been sucked out of the room.
"No..." he chocked out, his voice swelling in pain, "I don't believe it. That can't be right."
"It is right, brother." Knives said more gently than before. "I first saw it eleven years ago. The file is unchanged. This is what those filthy spiders were planning to do to us all along. Do you understand now why they all must die?"
Vash fell to the floor. For a moment, he was silent, too stunned by the sudden revelation to speak. Knives sighed and sat down next to his brother, his only family, on the cold floor. He spoke softly, head bowed.
"Do you understand, Vash? The reason the humans took care of us when we were little was not because they cared about us. All the talk of peace, and creating a new Eden, and...love. It was all a lie. A lie, designed to trap us, to use us. None of them cared. None of them ever loved us."
"Rem did," Vash said defensively, "Rem loved me and you, she told us both, Knives."
Knives eyes flashed dangerously as he quickly stood, fists clenched, "Rem was the worst out of all the humans! It was her ability to fool you so completely that made it easy for her to control you. Look at you! The stupid bitch has been dead for over a decade and you're still spouting her nonsense! Open your eyes, brother! Look at the screen! Don't you see what she intended to do to you? How can you say she loved us?!"
"I don't beleive that Rem would do that to us! No matter what you say! She loved us! She saved us!" Vash was on his feet now.
"She saved us only to kill us later! Her love was a lie! She was a monster!" Knives reached his breaking point and lunged out at Vash, knocking him to the floor.
It only took a second for Knives to feel the remorse of his action, looking down at his brother on the hard floor.
Why? Why must Vash always make everything so difficult? Didn't he see the truth? In the entire world, all they had was each other.
Why could they never be at peace?
"Come on." Knives said quietly, offering his brother a hand up, "We should find a place to camp for the night. I think there's an old storage compartment over in..."
"You're the monster..."
He barely heard his brother's comment, but it stopped Knives in his tracks.
"What?" he asked, paralyzed.
Vash sat up, but refused to look at his twin, "I said, you are the monster, Knives."
It was at that moment, both plants knew, they would never be able to convince each other of their very different points of view.
Each brother would walk his own path, and he would walk it alone.
Vash drug his sleeve across his wet face, wiping the tears away that stained his handsome features. The more he thought about the old plant and the possibility of Knives actually using it, the more he felt he had to get there without delay. If his brother were crazy enough to really activate the PTD machine, then nothing he could do would stop the destruction it could wreak on the humans. And Meryl...she would die.
A sudden vision flashed in his brain of a small dark haired woman in white, and deep violet eyes, which were filled with fear. If what he suspected of Knives plan came true, then Meryl's life was in jeopardy. He absolutely would not let that happen to her. He couldn't lose her, not when he had just found her.
"Gotta hurry,"
He could tell by the gentle upward slope of the tunnel that he was almost out of the cave system.
The only good thing about the situation so far was that he hadn't had any more of those disturbing dreams. Not that the first part of the vision wasn't enjoyable, but he dreaded the ending. Still, sleep seemed a distant and nerve wracking ordeal whenever he had to stop to recoup.
"Only dreams, stupid," he berated himself, "It's dumb to be scared of a dream. Besides, there's no way they could have ever been real. For one thing, Knives can't stand being in the same room as a human, let alone..." he swallowed, "It's just ridiculous."
Vash realized with frustration that the dreams had made him jealous, extremely jealous when he thought Meryl's affections lay somewhere other than with him. She had always made it pretty clear that she liked him, even though she wore a tough girl exterior around him most of the time.
However, there were times when he could plainly see her inner struggle to hide her feelings. The way her skin would blush across her face and neck, and the way her eyes would focus on anything other than him when she was close.
He'd been reliving the time when they were alone in the kitchen. Sitting there, distraught over Knives and sobbing like a little kid, she had walked in on him. Any other girl would have been turned off at the sight of a grown man crying, but Meryl had nothing but kind words and support for him.
And she held him. Well, threw herself on him was more like it, but still, it had felt...nice.
NO, it felt glorious! An aching need began beating through his blood. Vash felt himself wanting to hold her again, to sit her on his lap, her arms wrapped around his back, the delicate feel of her bare skin on his own scarred body, and the way they had melded together sitting there, fitting perfectly into each other as if by design. Just a little bit longer and he could have felt her lips. He had wanted to at the time, but things had just been too complicated then. There was always Knives to worry about.
So he decided to give her a "gift" instead.
He knew he wouldn't be able to be with her at all times. She would have kicked him out of the house for some peace and quiet for starters.
Still, he knew of something else he could do for her. So the very same night when he and Wolfwood had gone out to the bar and left Meryl alone with his brother, Vash had planted a small button shaped device on the back of her jacket collar as he embraced her on the stoop. The device was called a neural inhibitor, sometimes refered to as a "blocker", and it had been used on the old ships to steam the flow of mental force that leaked out from the plant machines. It would, in a sense, absorb and relay all strong mental energy back to the source, thereby making it impossible for the person wearing it to be controlled or damaged.
From the mental kickback he felt from Knives a while back, he guessed that his brother had already tried to control Meryl and she, unwittingly, sent his energy right back at him. A pretty powerful kickback too. He could bet Knives had one hell of a headache after that. Vash could only pray that his sibling hadn't discovered the little piece of lost technology yet, or that Meryl hadn't tossed it, or, god forbid, gotten it wet, but the chances of that were petty much nil.
Last I checked, Meryl doesn't shower with her clothes on, Vash grinned, remembering the one time he'd snuck a peek and nearly got his head ripped off for his shannanigans.
Rough gravel scraped past his hand as he felt the passageway narrowing and begin to climb upward more rapidly.
"This must be close to the mouth of the cave!" he gasped and rushed foreword.
As he rounded the corner, a small patch of light appeared far off in the distance. Elated, Vash picked up his pace, nearly making it to the exit when...
Pain.
Intense searing pain exploded inside his head.
"Auugh! Shit..what nnuhahhh!" bright light burst in his vision. His hands groped the air, searching for a hold, but found none. Falling to his knees on the hard ground, he took huge gasping breaths to ease the grating of his brain. It felt like his body was being torn apart from the inside.
"What...what i-is this?"
Then, as quick as it had hit him, the pain was gone.
Vash gaped, wide eyed at the ground. What was that? He checked his body quickly for any bullet holes or wounds. None. The pain had apparently been a reaction to something through his neural connection. A link to something, or someone...
"Knives! No!!"
Calm.
Blue.
Water.
His body floated in a weightless dream.
That dream...that God Damn Dream! It wouldn't leave him alone! What the hell does it mean?
Knives scanned the area slowly. As usual there was nothing except the soft rippling waves of blue tinted water in which he was submerged. Over his head, a faraway light glinted off the surface of the water. It was beckoning him...mocking him.
This time, he reached out for the far off light, this time I will get there. I will see the end.
At first, the dream played out like it always had. Knives started to kick himself forcefully up toward the surface until he felt the violent pull and push of the water as it became the whirlpool that tried to suck him down to the bottom again. He fought and finally pulled himself free of the suction. Upward he climbed, closer to his goal. A small ache beat in his limbs as he pumped his muscles to their limit.
Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed onto his ankles and began dragging him back to the whirlpool. Knives heart began to beat wildly in his chest. He did not want to look behind him, because he knew what he would see, but somehow he couldn't help himself and turned his head.
Again, he saw his own eyes staring back at him, cold and bleak. The hands gripped him tighter. Knives kicked and fought against himself, clawing the water in a desperate attempt to get free. A cry of anger tore through his throat.
"I WILL SEE IT!" he roared and gave one final kick. It connected with a sickening crunch and instantly he was loose, his body floating up once more. He was almost there. It was so close now that the nearby light made the surrounding water glow with a soft purple color. Knives could feel his body ache in protest, the pain in his muscles becoming gradually more insistent with each stroke. But, he couldn't stop, he had to see it, see what was waiting at the edge of this dream.
CHOOSE...
Knives froze...
...a voice...
"What..." his eyes darted quickly around, but there was nobody there. Did he imagine it?
CHOOSE...
There it was again. A woman's voice, deep and rich. Again Knives searched and again he saw no one. His fists clenched nervously. There was something unsettling about that voice, almost...familiar. He tried to remember but nothing came. There was no one there. He was alone.
He was always alone.
Knives floated motionless in the purple liquid, eyes closed, feeling for the presence of another person in his strange place. He felt nothing. He listened, and heard nothing. Perhaps it had been all in his head. Looking up, the light filled his eyes. It was so close, just about a dozen feet or so.
Keh, he thought, who cares about a stupid voice. 'Choose'...it didn't make any sense, choose what? There's nothing to choose in this place. Knives narrowed his eyes and began to swim up again. The light was getting brighter. Then...
CHOOSE...
Before he could spin around it hit him.
Pain.
The pain hit him with the speed of a bullet. It erupted through his body and tore through his soul, making his limbs crumble and shrink in on themselves. His mouth opened in a silent scream that was too painful to voice. All around him, the water pressed in, cutting off his air, crushing his body. His teeth felt like they were being ground into dust he was clenching them so hard. Madness...
It's a dream...a dream...a dream...a dream...wake up... he chanted in his head. But the dream refused to loosen its grip, and the pain was so real. Knives managed to raise his eyes. The surface was just inches away, if he could reach up his hand he would be there.
"Gaaaaaahh!"
It was no use; the pain would barely let him move a finger.
CHOOSE...
"Aauughhhhhh!!" he screamed again. The voice echoed and shook his brain until he felt like the contents of his head were being splattered out across the wide expanse of angry water.
His body was slipping into darkness as his breathing began to get slower and shallower. His fingers twitched as he felt the pain get farther away, like an echo, and he knew he was dying. His body was shutting down, saving him from the pain by killing itself.
The purple water darkened to blood red.
My blood? he wondered dully.
CHOOSE...
The voice was far away. Knives vision began to blur and the red light trickled down before him as if it to was bleeding. Darkness began to creep in from the corners. For a fleeting instant Knives saw his brother's face, sad and distant in the light, his blue eyes filled with tears. However, Vash was not crying over him, but over all the people Knives had murdered.
"Vash..."
But Vash only looked down sadly at him, turned and walked away. Knives heart constricted painfully.
Not even Vash, his own brother, his only family, would save him. He was truly alone and the weight of that knowledge crushed his heart. Nobody would help him, because nobody cared about him, and those who had said they did were only lying to use him. His whole life, he would never love or be loved. At that moment, with the surface of the water so close, Knives lost his will to exist.
I wish I'd never been born.
CHOOSE...
"I choose to die..." he whispered. Knives closed his eyes and exhaled for the last time, floating down to the dark death below him.
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands grabbed him under his arms and began lifting him toward the surface. Knives barely was aware of the water rushing past his limp body as it speed upward. The light became brighter until finally it burst out in front of his vision, blinding him with its radiance. Knives raised his head just in time to see the surface of the water speeding toward him.
It was there; he thought with elation, he was going to see it after all! He reached up a weak hand to touch the surface!
There! He had broken through!
He felt the cool breeze of the open air on his wet arm and face when the light gave an enormous pulse, flashing out across the water, blinding him with it's brilliance. Knives shut his eyes to shield them from the piercing rays.
The first thing he saw when he opened them again were two large lavender eyes staring back at him. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming. Then he blinked and the face above him came into focus.
The woman.
She was hovering over him. The red light on top of the plant directly behind her, made her glow around the edges like an...angel. Knives could see her mouth moving but couldn't hear any sound. It looked like she was calling his name, her face etched with panic and concern.
"Knives...Knives...!" he heard her voice from faraway. Gravity slowly returned to his aching body and the cold metal grating under him solidified. He was dimly aware of the throbbing pain in his limbs. His brain, however, was still having trouble trying to process what was happening.
Why? Why couldn't he see beyond the edge of the water? What was she doing here? Why did his entire body feel like it had been run over by a sand steamer? The plant should have healed him by now...
The plant!
Knives let his head droop to the side and looked at the plant machine. The red waning light was whirling and pulsing madly on the top of the system. Inside the bulb, the unit he had been strapped into was a mess of wire and broken metal that looked like it had melted onto the central column. The entire glass side of the bulb was smashed in and the liquid LCL was still trickling out and on to the floor below. It almost looked as if the plant had exploded from the inside...but..
Knives glanced down at his own arms. No, he didn't have any scratches or bruises, so he couldn't have broken the bulb. The pain in his body was gradually beginning to disappear leaving him exhausted and he rolled himself over on the landing.
"Stop, Knives! You shouldn't move yet!"
Knives turned groggily toward the woman. She was leaning over him with a look he recognized as...concern. Ridiculous...or maybe...
That was when he noticed her appearance. Her hair and clothes were soaked and dripping wet. She was panting for air and her cheeks were flushed like she had just run a mile. She'd shed her large overcoat and collared shirt and was only wearing a small white undershirt. In one hand she held a thick twisted piece of metal. Knives eyes widened when he realized what had happened.
The woman had smashed the plant, gotten inside somehow and pulled him out. She saved him. Meryl had saved his life. He choked. She had saved him when no one else would.
"Why..." was all he managed to get out, staring at her in shock.
"Heh..." Meryl laughed wearily, still gasping for air, "Because...you stupid...jerk...it's what Vash...would have done..." she sighed with relief, "I...told you I can't...let you die while your...in my care..."
Meryl collapsed against the railing, her head flung back and her eyes closed in exhaustion. Knives could only stare. He heard what she said, but he'd also been listening to her mind when she answered his question...
...Why?...he had asked. And she had clearly thought,
Because...I wanted to...
Knives closed his eyes and let the darkness claim him.
Far below the landing, Meryl's white collared shirt lay in a puddle of liquid. From within folds of the material, a tiny electrical spark crackled and fell silent.
Next Time on Edge: Chapter 10 Trusting and Doubt
The sinewy blonde outlaw peered cautiously into the darkness that surrounded him, every fiber in his lean body tuned to detect any hint of danger. He was filled with grim determination. He had never felt such a sense of urgency.
He was so butt lost.
"Damn it!" he grunted, punching the dry wall of the cave. The sand trap he had slipped into seemed to be connected to a vast system of underground caverns. Oddly enough, the tunnels were all lined with dim overhead lights, some of which had long burned out, but a stubborn few still gave out a weak blue light. This must have been an old mine at one point. The light threw shifting shapes up on the walls, giving it an eerie feeling.
As Vash picked his way through the rocks and craters in his way, he couldn't help but think about what he was going to do when he finally caught up with Knives.
What would he do? What would he say?
How am I going to save him this time? he asked himself.
Can you save him? His brain responded.
Does he want to be saved?
"Shit! This is too confusing! I don't know what I'm suppose do when I see him." and then there was Meryl. How could he save her without hurting his brother? He wanted to ask someone what to do. If Rem were here, she would know.
"Rem?"
But Rem wasn't here. He had promised himself that he would look for his own answers in the future, but now that the future was here, all he wanted to do was look to somebody else. He hated thinking about the past. And he hated the way Knives made him remember things that should have been buried long ago.
"Why are you leading me back there, Knives?" he voice echoed off the hollow tunnel walls. "Why there, again? What are you planning to do?"
The last time Vash had been inside the central plant ship was ninety years ago...
"Knives! Knives stop!" the younger Vash yelled out, trying desperately to keep up with his brother.
"Then hurry up slow poke," Knives called out over his shoulder.
"Why are we here, Knives?" Vash continued to pout, "You know I don't like this place, it's the ship SHE was on when she died."
"Tch," Knives huffed, "aren't you over that yet?" he scrambled up the iron grating and began prying open a heavy set of doors which had the word P.L.A.N.T. written across them in block letters.
"Besides," he grunted as he pushed the doors apart, "we've been neglecting our real family, brother."
The connecters sparked suddenly and the doors slid soundlessly open, filling the dim passage with light. Vash held his hands up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the brilliant glow. The light burned Knives eyes but he refused to look away. He strode purposefully into the massive room, lined with plants of all different shapes and sizes.
When Vash felt his eyes finally adjust to the light, he focused on the room himself. Knives was already halfway down the path, and heading toward the central plant.
"Wait up, Knives!" Vash followed along doggedly.
They walked on until they had reached the base of the plant itself, a humongous blue plant that filled the middle of the room completely so you couldn't see from one end to the other. Knives was already fiddling with the monitor on the plant's control panel.
"I remember this one," Vash said quietly, "I remember Rem telling me about it. It was important. It was suppose to help us make our new planet a home," his eyes began to water. Knives listened grimly to his brother's pathetic rambling, determinedly working at patching back into the computer of the plant above him.
"Rem loved this place. She used to call it a flower garden, remember?
"Shut up! Don't you realize by now that the woman you called Rem was just using you, using us? The only reason she was 'nice' to either of us was to lull us into a false sense of security. She was the real monster, she and those pathetic humans."
"You're wrong, Knives! Rem was good! Humans are good! Yeah, humans make mistakes, but all of them have the ability to right their wrongs, don't you see! I loved Rem, and you took her away! She died to save us!"
"She died to save her human species, you whining baby. This," he hissed, pointing to the open file on the monitor, "was what she was planning to do to us, to YOU."
Vash wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at the plant's main display. His face widened in shock as he took in the information glowing benignly on the monitor.
Vash suddenly felt the air had been sucked out of the room.
"No..." he chocked out, his voice swelling in pain, "I don't believe it. That can't be right."
"It is right, brother." Knives said more gently than before. "I first saw it eleven years ago. The file is unchanged. This is what those filthy spiders were planning to do to us all along. Do you understand now why they all must die?"
Vash fell to the floor. For a moment, he was silent, too stunned by the sudden revelation to speak. Knives sighed and sat down next to his brother, his only family, on the cold floor. He spoke softly, head bowed.
"Do you understand, Vash? The reason the humans took care of us when we were little was not because they cared about us. All the talk of peace, and creating a new Eden, and...love. It was all a lie. A lie, designed to trap us, to use us. None of them cared. None of them ever loved us."
"Rem did," Vash said defensively, "Rem loved me and you, she told us both, Knives."
Knives eyes flashed dangerously as he quickly stood, fists clenched, "Rem was the worst out of all the humans! It was her ability to fool you so completely that made it easy for her to control you. Look at you! The stupid bitch has been dead for over a decade and you're still spouting her nonsense! Open your eyes, brother! Look at the screen! Don't you see what she intended to do to you? How can you say she loved us?!"
"I don't beleive that Rem would do that to us! No matter what you say! She loved us! She saved us!" Vash was on his feet now.
"She saved us only to kill us later! Her love was a lie! She was a monster!" Knives reached his breaking point and lunged out at Vash, knocking him to the floor.
It only took a second for Knives to feel the remorse of his action, looking down at his brother on the hard floor.
Why? Why must Vash always make everything so difficult? Didn't he see the truth? In the entire world, all they had was each other.
Why could they never be at peace?
"Come on." Knives said quietly, offering his brother a hand up, "We should find a place to camp for the night. I think there's an old storage compartment over in..."
"You're the monster..."
He barely heard his brother's comment, but it stopped Knives in his tracks.
"What?" he asked, paralyzed.
Vash sat up, but refused to look at his twin, "I said, you are the monster, Knives."
It was at that moment, both plants knew, they would never be able to convince each other of their very different points of view.
Each brother would walk his own path, and he would walk it alone.
Vash drug his sleeve across his wet face, wiping the tears away that stained his handsome features. The more he thought about the old plant and the possibility of Knives actually using it, the more he felt he had to get there without delay. If his brother were crazy enough to really activate the PTD machine, then nothing he could do would stop the destruction it could wreak on the humans. And Meryl...she would die.
A sudden vision flashed in his brain of a small dark haired woman in white, and deep violet eyes, which were filled with fear. If what he suspected of Knives plan came true, then Meryl's life was in jeopardy. He absolutely would not let that happen to her. He couldn't lose her, not when he had just found her.
"Gotta hurry,"
He could tell by the gentle upward slope of the tunnel that he was almost out of the cave system.
The only good thing about the situation so far was that he hadn't had any more of those disturbing dreams. Not that the first part of the vision wasn't enjoyable, but he dreaded the ending. Still, sleep seemed a distant and nerve wracking ordeal whenever he had to stop to recoup.
"Only dreams, stupid," he berated himself, "It's dumb to be scared of a dream. Besides, there's no way they could have ever been real. For one thing, Knives can't stand being in the same room as a human, let alone..." he swallowed, "It's just ridiculous."
Vash realized with frustration that the dreams had made him jealous, extremely jealous when he thought Meryl's affections lay somewhere other than with him. She had always made it pretty clear that she liked him, even though she wore a tough girl exterior around him most of the time.
However, there were times when he could plainly see her inner struggle to hide her feelings. The way her skin would blush across her face and neck, and the way her eyes would focus on anything other than him when she was close.
He'd been reliving the time when they were alone in the kitchen. Sitting there, distraught over Knives and sobbing like a little kid, she had walked in on him. Any other girl would have been turned off at the sight of a grown man crying, but Meryl had nothing but kind words and support for him.
And she held him. Well, threw herself on him was more like it, but still, it had felt...nice.
NO, it felt glorious! An aching need began beating through his blood. Vash felt himself wanting to hold her again, to sit her on his lap, her arms wrapped around his back, the delicate feel of her bare skin on his own scarred body, and the way they had melded together sitting there, fitting perfectly into each other as if by design. Just a little bit longer and he could have felt her lips. He had wanted to at the time, but things had just been too complicated then. There was always Knives to worry about.
So he decided to give her a "gift" instead.
He knew he wouldn't be able to be with her at all times. She would have kicked him out of the house for some peace and quiet for starters.
Still, he knew of something else he could do for her. So the very same night when he and Wolfwood had gone out to the bar and left Meryl alone with his brother, Vash had planted a small button shaped device on the back of her jacket collar as he embraced her on the stoop. The device was called a neural inhibitor, sometimes refered to as a "blocker", and it had been used on the old ships to steam the flow of mental force that leaked out from the plant machines. It would, in a sense, absorb and relay all strong mental energy back to the source, thereby making it impossible for the person wearing it to be controlled or damaged.
From the mental kickback he felt from Knives a while back, he guessed that his brother had already tried to control Meryl and she, unwittingly, sent his energy right back at him. A pretty powerful kickback too. He could bet Knives had one hell of a headache after that. Vash could only pray that his sibling hadn't discovered the little piece of lost technology yet, or that Meryl hadn't tossed it, or, god forbid, gotten it wet, but the chances of that were petty much nil.
Last I checked, Meryl doesn't shower with her clothes on, Vash grinned, remembering the one time he'd snuck a peek and nearly got his head ripped off for his shannanigans.
Rough gravel scraped past his hand as he felt the passageway narrowing and begin to climb upward more rapidly.
"This must be close to the mouth of the cave!" he gasped and rushed foreword.
As he rounded the corner, a small patch of light appeared far off in the distance. Elated, Vash picked up his pace, nearly making it to the exit when...
Pain.
Intense searing pain exploded inside his head.
"Auugh! Shit..what nnuhahhh!" bright light burst in his vision. His hands groped the air, searching for a hold, but found none. Falling to his knees on the hard ground, he took huge gasping breaths to ease the grating of his brain. It felt like his body was being torn apart from the inside.
"What...what i-is this?"
Then, as quick as it had hit him, the pain was gone.
Vash gaped, wide eyed at the ground. What was that? He checked his body quickly for any bullet holes or wounds. None. The pain had apparently been a reaction to something through his neural connection. A link to something, or someone...
"Knives! No!!"
Calm.
Blue.
Water.
His body floated in a weightless dream.
That dream...that God Damn Dream! It wouldn't leave him alone! What the hell does it mean?
Knives scanned the area slowly. As usual there was nothing except the soft rippling waves of blue tinted water in which he was submerged. Over his head, a faraway light glinted off the surface of the water. It was beckoning him...mocking him.
This time, he reached out for the far off light, this time I will get there. I will see the end.
At first, the dream played out like it always had. Knives started to kick himself forcefully up toward the surface until he felt the violent pull and push of the water as it became the whirlpool that tried to suck him down to the bottom again. He fought and finally pulled himself free of the suction. Upward he climbed, closer to his goal. A small ache beat in his limbs as he pumped his muscles to their limit.
Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed onto his ankles and began dragging him back to the whirlpool. Knives heart began to beat wildly in his chest. He did not want to look behind him, because he knew what he would see, but somehow he couldn't help himself and turned his head.
Again, he saw his own eyes staring back at him, cold and bleak. The hands gripped him tighter. Knives kicked and fought against himself, clawing the water in a desperate attempt to get free. A cry of anger tore through his throat.
"I WILL SEE IT!" he roared and gave one final kick. It connected with a sickening crunch and instantly he was loose, his body floating up once more. He was almost there. It was so close now that the nearby light made the surrounding water glow with a soft purple color. Knives could feel his body ache in protest, the pain in his muscles becoming gradually more insistent with each stroke. But, he couldn't stop, he had to see it, see what was waiting at the edge of this dream.
CHOOSE...
Knives froze...
...a voice...
"What..." his eyes darted quickly around, but there was nobody there. Did he imagine it?
CHOOSE...
There it was again. A woman's voice, deep and rich. Again Knives searched and again he saw no one. His fists clenched nervously. There was something unsettling about that voice, almost...familiar. He tried to remember but nothing came. There was no one there. He was alone.
He was always alone.
Knives floated motionless in the purple liquid, eyes closed, feeling for the presence of another person in his strange place. He felt nothing. He listened, and heard nothing. Perhaps it had been all in his head. Looking up, the light filled his eyes. It was so close, just about a dozen feet or so.
Keh, he thought, who cares about a stupid voice. 'Choose'...it didn't make any sense, choose what? There's nothing to choose in this place. Knives narrowed his eyes and began to swim up again. The light was getting brighter. Then...
CHOOSE...
Before he could spin around it hit him.
Pain.
The pain hit him with the speed of a bullet. It erupted through his body and tore through his soul, making his limbs crumble and shrink in on themselves. His mouth opened in a silent scream that was too painful to voice. All around him, the water pressed in, cutting off his air, crushing his body. His teeth felt like they were being ground into dust he was clenching them so hard. Madness...
It's a dream...a dream...a dream...a dream...wake up... he chanted in his head. But the dream refused to loosen its grip, and the pain was so real. Knives managed to raise his eyes. The surface was just inches away, if he could reach up his hand he would be there.
"Gaaaaaahh!"
It was no use; the pain would barely let him move a finger.
CHOOSE...
"Aauughhhhhh!!" he screamed again. The voice echoed and shook his brain until he felt like the contents of his head were being splattered out across the wide expanse of angry water.
His body was slipping into darkness as his breathing began to get slower and shallower. His fingers twitched as he felt the pain get farther away, like an echo, and he knew he was dying. His body was shutting down, saving him from the pain by killing itself.
The purple water darkened to blood red.
My blood? he wondered dully.
CHOOSE...
The voice was far away. Knives vision began to blur and the red light trickled down before him as if it to was bleeding. Darkness began to creep in from the corners. For a fleeting instant Knives saw his brother's face, sad and distant in the light, his blue eyes filled with tears. However, Vash was not crying over him, but over all the people Knives had murdered.
"Vash..."
But Vash only looked down sadly at him, turned and walked away. Knives heart constricted painfully.
Not even Vash, his own brother, his only family, would save him. He was truly alone and the weight of that knowledge crushed his heart. Nobody would help him, because nobody cared about him, and those who had said they did were only lying to use him. His whole life, he would never love or be loved. At that moment, with the surface of the water so close, Knives lost his will to exist.
I wish I'd never been born.
CHOOSE...
"I choose to die..." he whispered. Knives closed his eyes and exhaled for the last time, floating down to the dark death below him.
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands grabbed him under his arms and began lifting him toward the surface. Knives barely was aware of the water rushing past his limp body as it speed upward. The light became brighter until finally it burst out in front of his vision, blinding him with its radiance. Knives raised his head just in time to see the surface of the water speeding toward him.
It was there; he thought with elation, he was going to see it after all! He reached up a weak hand to touch the surface!
There! He had broken through!
He felt the cool breeze of the open air on his wet arm and face when the light gave an enormous pulse, flashing out across the water, blinding him with it's brilliance. Knives shut his eyes to shield them from the piercing rays.
The first thing he saw when he opened them again were two large lavender eyes staring back at him. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming. Then he blinked and the face above him came into focus.
The woman.
She was hovering over him. The red light on top of the plant directly behind her, made her glow around the edges like an...angel. Knives could see her mouth moving but couldn't hear any sound. It looked like she was calling his name, her face etched with panic and concern.
"Knives...Knives...!" he heard her voice from faraway. Gravity slowly returned to his aching body and the cold metal grating under him solidified. He was dimly aware of the throbbing pain in his limbs. His brain, however, was still having trouble trying to process what was happening.
Why? Why couldn't he see beyond the edge of the water? What was she doing here? Why did his entire body feel like it had been run over by a sand steamer? The plant should have healed him by now...
The plant!
Knives let his head droop to the side and looked at the plant machine. The red waning light was whirling and pulsing madly on the top of the system. Inside the bulb, the unit he had been strapped into was a mess of wire and broken metal that looked like it had melted onto the central column. The entire glass side of the bulb was smashed in and the liquid LCL was still trickling out and on to the floor below. It almost looked as if the plant had exploded from the inside...but..
Knives glanced down at his own arms. No, he didn't have any scratches or bruises, so he couldn't have broken the bulb. The pain in his body was gradually beginning to disappear leaving him exhausted and he rolled himself over on the landing.
"Stop, Knives! You shouldn't move yet!"
Knives turned groggily toward the woman. She was leaning over him with a look he recognized as...concern. Ridiculous...or maybe...
That was when he noticed her appearance. Her hair and clothes were soaked and dripping wet. She was panting for air and her cheeks were flushed like she had just run a mile. She'd shed her large overcoat and collared shirt and was only wearing a small white undershirt. In one hand she held a thick twisted piece of metal. Knives eyes widened when he realized what had happened.
The woman had smashed the plant, gotten inside somehow and pulled him out. She saved him. Meryl had saved his life. He choked. She had saved him when no one else would.
"Why..." was all he managed to get out, staring at her in shock.
"Heh..." Meryl laughed wearily, still gasping for air, "Because...you stupid...jerk...it's what Vash...would have done..." she sighed with relief, "I...told you I can't...let you die while your...in my care..."
Meryl collapsed against the railing, her head flung back and her eyes closed in exhaustion. Knives could only stare. He heard what she said, but he'd also been listening to her mind when she answered his question...
...Why?...he had asked. And she had clearly thought,
Because...I wanted to...
Knives closed his eyes and let the darkness claim him.
Far below the landing, Meryl's white collared shirt lay in a puddle of liquid. From within folds of the material, a tiny electrical spark crackled and fell silent.
Next Time on Edge: Chapter 10 Trusting and Doubt