By Siona Ward (Blue Daemon)
A thank you to Magnet-Rose for your continued support and everyone else who reviewed! ^_^
This chapter is still set in the past as a sort-of flashback carrying straight on from chapter 4. Just so you know.
~~*~~
Knives smiled. It had worked.
Vash was lying unconscious on the mound representing a bed in the battered wreckage of the SEED ship. He had come rather unwillingly to Knives' summons but had arrived several days before without resisting. His 'helpers', Siros and Irinoep had brought in Vash amazed at what they had single-handedly been able to do. 'Nobody else has captured Vash before…' they both thought proudly.
Knives let them think what they wanted. They were reliable and that was all that was required of them, for the time being. Now they were sitting in the corner of the cramped ship, staring wildly at the plant that had grown half the height of a man overnight.
"I told you it would work." Knives couldn't help stating as he smirked at their amusing faces. He flicked a small knife from his work area and gripped it with a triumphant smile.
All he had needed to do was remove the selected gene from a sample of Vash's tissue, with the help of the ship's equipment, and insert it into the DNA of a normal seed. This particular seed had accepted the gene immediately and had started growing at once needing hardly any water and no soil.
"Here." Knives said, knife still in his hand, as he passed the surprisingly heavy plant to Irinoep, "Take this and plant it somewhere. Make sure it is unharmed."
His hand holding the knife snagged Irinoep's arm as he did so, drawing blood.
"Ah!" he cried in alarm, almost dropping the plant. Knives said nothing, but smiled his apology. The two men went to complete their task. Knives turned to his twin.
"Now, what to do with you…I can't simply kill you, I'll be needing you later now. I can certainly clear up those ugly marks for you though brother."
He snatched a syringe from close by and injected a pale green substance into Vash's arm. He didn't twitch.
"Let's just say you owe me one. Though you probably won't remember." He said with another of his common smirks. He was thoroughly enjoying himself today. "I'll just be needing some backup samples of tissue and…" After carefully placing his current blade to one side, he roughly hacked a small chunk of flesh from Vash's forearm with a fresh one.
"We're done! See you later, Vash The Stampede!" and with that, Knives unstrapped Vash from the uncomfortable bed and threw him outside. He would let those two humans deal with him later. He wouldn't wake for hours, and he was taking up too much room anyway.
~~*~~
"Why are we taking this thing all the way to Jeneora Rock!?" cried Siros, "Let's leave it in our New Oregon! The tourism alone could help us no end!"
"Listen." hissed Irinoep, demanding attention, "I've been thinking. Our town would benefit from this beauty yes, but you don't think Mr Knives is gonna stop at one do you?" he didn't wait for an answer, "He's gonna make loads of these things! We'll get more for our town, I'm sure. Don't worry."
"But why Jeneora?" Siros asked again. He was confused.
"I got a friend up there. He's in high authority, close to the sheriff, and best of all, he can hardly count! I know he'll just love this plant as much as we do, and he'll be so shocked he won't care what the price is!"
Now Siros understood, "You mean get ourselves a little profit in the deal eh? I'm in! To Jeneora Rock!"
~~*~~
Even standing on tiptoe, Tama couldn't see over the gasping crowd. All she knew was that some strangers had just arrived and brought something amazing with them; but nobody would tell her what it was! She tugged at her mothers arm, and was promptly lifted up above the crowds onto her mother's shoulders. She gasped with them.
"It's beautiful!" she exclaimed, she had seen plants before in pictures, and on that one time with her visit to New Arcadia when her family had visited that friendly old couple with all the trees…But this plant, no, this tree was so healthy looking, so green, Tama couldn't explain why it made her feel so moved. She wanted to touch it, but so, she realized, did everybody else in the crowd so she would have to wait.
"Let us have it!" cried a random person from the crowd.
"We'll pay anything!" yelled another near the front of the mob. The two man struggling to hold the thing up were smiling at each other.
"We're quite happy to sell it," said the first, his voice loud so that everyone could hear, "But as it's such a rare beauty, not for less than $$2 billion." Tama heard some sharp intakes of breath at the amount. She knew they were not a rich town, and that 2 billion was an awful lot of money. She hoped with all her might that the tree wouldn't go away…
There was some whispering, some arguing back and forth but the people of Jeneora Rock saw it as a blessing and were willing to part with all their savings and some borrowed money to claim the spectacular find as their own. They paid the men in full, with a bit of protestation from some and were left with the tree. It was planted, after a long time digging, in the rock hard earth at one side of the town where there was a clearing. Tama's mother sighed happily.
"This means a lot to us, you know. This is the end of our hard times, Tama dear. Don't forget that." She took her daughter's hand and reluctantly left the tree to go home.
"Can I see it tomorrow?" Tama asked quietly. Her mother chuckled,
"Of course Tama! We can all see it whenever we want to now. It's ours."
As they walked happily back to their home, neither Tama, nor her mother had any idea that they would rue those words.
~~*~~
Knives was getting irritated. After two days, the word of new plants had spread like the wind. There they all were now, sheriffs, leaders, ordinary men and women standing, sitting, shouting, whining outside his ship. They were all practically begging for more plants.
"Well, those two goons work fast; fortunately so do I." He picked up a bag of seeds. They had already been grown from two parent plants that he treated. They were already starting to grow with little green shoots sprouting everywhere, poking through the fabric of the bag. He turned and left the room to face the crowd.
"We'll give you anything!" cried a rather fat man in an old, brown leather jacket. Knives loathed these filthy, greedy creatures. But he decided to have some fun with them however. He tossed the bag of precious seedlings into the air, watched their faces light up with hope and every eye staring, fixated, and then hope turned to anger as they fought each other fiercely for the seeds.
Smiling, Knives stood watching as the many hands of his hated enemy snatched every last seed from sight and left like wild animals coveting a large kill. Everything was coming together. The seeds would grow quickly, and easily reproduce sprouting more and more trees. Knives' plan was at last in motion.