TWO DAYS LATER
Thank you, little sister...
Completely regenerated, Knives disengaged himself from the angel flesh that encased his entire body. His back felt the cool air first, then his shoulders, his legs, his arms as he retook his shape. Once separated, long angel arms lowered him against the base of the bulb.
Delicate fingers pushed his bangs off his brow, and patted his cheek tenderly before withdrawing back to the meaty core of the container. Knives wiped the pinkish, placenta residue from his eyes and opened them to behold his healer as she still hovered overhead in apparent indecision. She communicated to him her concern. Not with words. Never with words, but with sentiment.
He offered a half smile as he changed his molecular structure to sift through the glass, falling with a soft thud on the platform on the other side. Feathers were everywhere. You're worried about me? Don't be. It'll all be okay soon.
As he rolled off and stood to his feet, another wave of emotion bled from the entity encased in the plant. One that filled his mind with images of the insurance girl, accompanied with taboo feelings of trust. Approval. Hope. It almost made him mad.
"No human is trustworthy. You read her wrong," he said sternly, and watched with a sliver of regret how her cherubic face saddened. Without a farewell, she curled in on herself and withdrew to the recesses of her container like a fading apparition.
With a sigh, Knives stretched pseudo-stiff limbs, and cracked his neck. He didn't mean to snap at her. But she was still so naive. They all were. Including, and especially Vash.
He stepped over his old heap of clothes and bandages, with half a thought for his naked, slime-covered body. But more important matters were at the forefront of his mind. Like his guest. He had left her for two days, unsupervised in the sanctuary.
Knives briskly made his way through the ship. In the main entryway the desert beast was grazing peacefully, which meant that Hn. She's still here, then... He strode down another hallway and into an open chamber filled with mirror-reflected sunbeams.
The soothing trickle of running water fell on his sensitive ears, as he padded barefoot through soft grass and into the leafy haven. It was a room he had taken more time manicuring than the rest, linking it directly to Gunsmoke's elusive water table. As a result, a stream literally ran through it, filling a large clay basin embedded in the soil, and spilling over to irrigate the remainder of his small, indoor desert oasis.
Knives ducked under some low, leafy saplings, his alert eyes searching the foliage until he found her. Curled up like a marsupial on a patch of moss by the basin.
Sleeping.
He neared, his footsteps as quiet as a whisper. Upon closer observation, he noted that she'd bathed. Damp hair, long dark lashes feathered against a fair-skinned, unblemished face… She was wearing cotton pajamas, with her old clothes hung to dry on a nearby vine. And the woman had found the sustenance easily enough. He noticed a tidy little pile of fruit cores and pod skins beside her from the protein-rich plants that grew about the area.
So you made yourself at home…
Her chest rose and fell with each slumbering breath, only the slightest furrow to her brow on her otherwise tranquil expression. So unaware… he mused, remembering her dizzying intensity from earlier.
For the first time in weeks, Knives' thoughts were uncluttered with pain and drugs. So he took advantage of the quiet moment to analyze exactly how she was going to be his loophole in bringing his long lost brother to his senses.
She was small, for a human. One might even mistake her as harmless in this slumbering state. He crossed his arms and held his chin between his thumb and forefinger. What to do with her…
He went down the mental checklist of all his prior attempts to make Vash see why humanity was destined to self-terminate. Simply letting the fool live with them hadn't worked. For 82 years, Knives had tried that. The humans had scarred his brother's body beyond recognition, betrayed him, treated him like the dirt under their feet. But instead of learning how despicable they were, Vash had only gotten more endeared to them.
Knives rubbed his brow in exasperation, just thinking about it.
He'd shown Vash his angel arm, as well. That hadn't worked either. Had backfired horribly. Instead of being convinced of his superiority, and wielding his newfound weapon with an intoxicating sense of righteous indignation, the fool had turned it instead on Knives, himself. Damn near blew him from existence.
And the Gung-ho Guns… Humans so bloodthirsty, and so screwed up that they reveled in massacring their own. Had jumped on the platform Knives had given them to satisfy their unquenchable thirst for domination, and mayhem. They tortured Vash with their mindless slaughter, over and over.
And still he didn't get it.
Knives' shoulders knotted, as an old familiar pang in his heart flared up. The one that was tied to the woman who had done more damage to Vash with one year of sentimental conditioning than the past century and a half combined. He didn't like thinking about her. The more time that passed, it was like the more conflicted his thoughts were concerning the matter.
Rem...
He banished the invasive memories of her lung-crushing hugs. The silly way she snorted when she laughed. The tickling games, the hide-and-go-seek...
Agh... He forced it away. Fake. It was all fake. On cue, Tessla's emaciated, decaying face appeared. A child that the very same Rem had experimented on, standing by while they ruthlessly picked her angel anatomy apart. Letting it happen.
His hands reflexively curled into fists. His heartbeat sped up. With effort, Knives forced the murderous urges out of his system, remembering why his train of thought had led him to Rem in the first place.
Yes. Her influence over Vash was unparalleled.
Until now.
After he made the connection, Knives pieced together odd behaviors from his brother during his time as an invalid. Like how Vash looked for her approval on how he was treated, or how he always informed her of where he was going, or where he'd been. And especially...especially the way he stared at the short-haired woman when she wasn't looking, with those contented, crinkled eyes. Like he'd finally found a home, after all these years.
Knives knelt down, and leaned over the oblivious female, studying her face. He wasn't so sure now, what it was about her that reminded him of Rem. Fair skin, dark hair...yes, but they really weren't that much alike.
Yet somehow, she had not only gotten past Vash's false smile and guarded thoughts, but had entered a realm of influence over him, that had gone untouched since their foster mother.
He considered it. Perhaps if she were to join Knives in freeing his angels, then through her own conviction, she could somehow convince Vash that his place in life was at the top of the food chain. Not the bottom. And that ultimately, humanity's inevitable self-extinction was only fate.
But to manipulate her into helping... Knives pursed his lips. It might not be so difficult. He recalled with disturbing clarity the woman's violent, aggressive reaction to the visions of Tessla. And something told him that had it been her back then on the ship instead of Rem, Tessla would still be alive.
And with that desire to protect his people, he might not even have to tamper with her head – something that secretly concerned him, since she had somehow blocked his attempt the last time.
Damned drugs... he thought, dismissing the misfire. Or trying to. Truth was, it did bother him. A good deal. In the aftermath of July, Knives' fading awareness had latched onto an immensely psychic boy for aid. A boy named Legato. The child had fought, and the battle that ensued nearly costed Knives' his life. In his frenzied panic, he ultimately overdid the brainwash, fragmenting the youth's sanity, leaving him as little more than a psychotic 'Yes Man'. But even then, Knives had won. That left only one other person who had successfully resisted his mind control. Dr. Conrad. And Dr. Conrad was dead.
"Mmmm…"
She was waking up. Her purr pulled him out of calculation mode, leaving him as a simple observer. He sat back on his heels. Now that he wasn't at her mercy, it'd be interesting to see how she reacted to his presence...
The woman moaned, and shifted - lethargic limbs uncurled and stretched, with an audible yawn that even Knives felt all the way to his toes. She sat up, her back to him, and cracked her neck. Her hair was disheveled, and her pajamas wrinkled. She lifted one hand to scratch the back of her head.
"Sleep well?"
She jumped, and spun around. "Wha...?" Half-lidded lilac eyes flung saucer-wide, and her face turned bright red. Odd little gutteral sounds resounded in her throat as breath rattled between shaky vocal cords. She clapped a hand to her mouth, and pointed at his anatomy. Then she pointed at his face, and screamed.
Knives arched a brow in growing distraction as the woman launched herself backwards, knocking over the pile of neatly-stacked fruit. He hadn't given much thought to it, but it probably wasn't every day she saw a full grown naked male covered in post-birth slime.
"What the...!? HOW...!?" She grimaced, her next words trailing out in a hysterical squeak. "What the hell is going on!?"
Knives smirked. Such a reaction. Ah, it felt good to have the upper hand again.
"p-p-p-PERVERT!!"
His smirk straightened. Pervert?
She twisted, and grabbed one of her bags, holding it directly in front of her, while peeking at him through her peripheral vision. "You sick, dirty... I did not come here for that," she made an embarrassed, sweeping motion below his waist. "So you can just forget—"
"Idiot," he spat, appalled that she would have even thought… That he would even consider… With a human… "You are under the mistaken impression that I find you desirable," he said tersely, leaning forward. "Rest assured, I would sooner cut off my testicles and feed them to that overgrown ostrich out there, than seek any form of sexual intimacy with the likes of you."
Her jaw dropped, her expression rallying back and forth between relieved and highly offended. After several awkward seconds, she stomped to her feet. "Well, believe me, the feeling is MUTUAL!" She half-turned, and faced the wall, giving him a perfect profile of her flushed face. "What kind of person walks around naked when they have company, anyways!?"
Knives felt a smile lift the corners of his mouth. There was something indisputably amusing about seeing her so ruffled over something so trivial. "It makes no difference to me."
She rolled her eyes, still blushing, and fisted her hips. "Obviously!" With an abrupt turnabout, she began to march out of the room.
But the prospect of prolonging her misery was just too tempting. "Stay," he said with a smirk.
"Pssht!"
"I have to speak with you."
She growled. "About what?"
He deliberately mumbled his next words.
"What?"
"I'm not going to shout it."
"Oh, for cryingoutloud!" She started to retract her steps to the basin…backwards.
Knives couldn't help it. She was so flustered, and was acting so ludicrous… What started out as a tickle in his throat evolved into genuine chuckles.
Her shoulders bunched right up at the sound. "Oh. You find this amusing?" she snapped. "Well, I don't appreciate it--ah!!" Her heel caught on a root. With a curse and a squeal, the woman came crashing down through the shrubbery, right on her rump. "Dammit!"
Knives shook his head, his shoulders shaking with mirth.
"Stop laughing!"
"I was going to recruit your hand in something important," he managed between simmering chuckles, "But you seem better-suited for a personal jester."
She twisted around to peg him with a red-faced glare. "I'm not going to be your personal anything!"
He ran his fingers along his thigh, and flung some of the filmy residue at her feet. "What - you're not going to stick around and help me wipe some of this off?"
"BAH!" Sputtering incoherencies, she hopped up and stormed rigidly out of the chamber, with Knives'crinkled eyes following her all the way. His reservations concerning her involvement in his plans lessened. Especially if she was this entertaining.
.
.
He'd toyed with the idea of strutting around unclothed, just to get another reaction out of her – but Knives already felt slightly guilty for his earlier joviality. He had no right enjoying himself so much, when so many of his people were still suffering. Even now, he could feel the tide of their biorhythms wane and fall above his person, like clashing air currents. One angel in particular was in peril. One he'd tried to save, before.
And in all honesty, he probably would need the woman's help to extract her from the bulb.
So he'd bathed in the basin, and dressed in his utility suit before seeking her out again. Surprisingly, he found her leaning against the entrance to the room with the plant angel. Arms folded. Gaze fixed ahead.
She glanced at his approach, assessing that he was dressed, and turned her attention back to his sister. But he saw her expression. Could feel her emotion, without even trying to penetrate her mind. Her empathy was palpable. Two days later, and it was clear that Tessla was still plaguing her thoughts.
The question was – what was she willing to do about it? He leaned against the wall opposite her, dividing his attention between his plant sister, and her spectator.
She shifted weight from one leg to another, and inhaled deeply. Her words were soft, earlier offenses forgotten. "So is this one in pain?"
Knives considered it. Being honest about his sisters' plight would help her to help him. So he answered. "No. There is little demand on her, here. Unlike in your human cities."
She nodded, as though expecting the answer. Another long pause. "And the ones who are in pain… Do you feel it?"
"Yes."
"So you know where they are…"
"I do."
She unfolded her arms, and met his cold stare with a plea in her eyes. "Knives… Do the plant angels also have the ability to create," she made a sweeping gesture to the floral and fauna that surrounded them, "all this?"
He already didn't like the tone of her voice. So he said nothing.
"Because…because if they could, I was thinking that we could organize a team to—"
"No."
"—cultivate parts of this planet so that they were habitable—"
"No."
"—without the crutch of your people's energy—"
"I said no." Knives bit the words off, his agitation tensing the muscles in his face. "Do not bring this up again."
Her demeanor changed, and she swiped at the air. "Come ON! Think about it! Both species could survive. And you know damn well, that the people who set your kind up for exploitation are dead! Do you really want the blood of so many innocents on your hands?"
"Your innocents killed themselves the day they cannibalized their home planet—"
"If you take away their life support without warning or substitute, then you will have ended their lives. And if that's what you really wanted, then you would have done it already."
He blinked in muted shock at her. Couldn't believe where she was going.
"It's not like you didn't have the ability. And it's certainly not like you haven't had the time--"
He materialized in front of her, and pinned her to the wall with his hand clamped over her mouth. "You're making assumptions you're not qualified to make," he said with acidic calm, belying the inner turmoil her comment had caused – as though his reluctance to wipe them out personally was anything more than the inconvenience.
She stiffened at the contact, but held his gaze with an unwavering one of her own. He could feel the moisture of her lips as they pursed in aggravation beneath his palm. How could she not fear him!?
It was a battle of wills, even now. When it was obvious he could break her neck with one twitch of the hand. If she were anyone else... Rationale quieted his murderous thoughts, remembering that this woman was to be his Deus Ex Machina. So he took three calming breaths, and released her mouth. As they locked stares, he toyed again with with the idea of mind-warping her. It'd be so much easier. Tentative mental probes extended to grip her her awareness...
"Don't. Even. Try. It."
He gasped as they came slamming back, making him grimace from the pain of it. He blinked down at her incredulously. It hadn't been the painkillers. It was her all along. "Dammit woman," he panted, nursing his brow. "How--!?"
"MY head, MY decisions!" She seethed. "Understand!?"
No. He didn't understand. But she was clearly more appalled at his invasive attempts to control her mind, than curious about how she did it. She had no idea how important this was.
"If you want something, you ask me. Like a civil being. I've been civil with you, haven't I?"
How frustrating. He was going to be forced to play these games. He shelved his bewilderment for another time, and straightened his spine, his words as condescending and frustrated as his thoughts. "Fine. You're coming with me to Little Jersey."
She frowned confusion. A second later, recognition quickly lifted her features. She narrowed her eyes at him in pained accusation.
"That town… With the missing people. It was you—" she said.
"No. It was one of yours." He didn't want to go into it. Knives had been deliberately vague when he gave Legato the directive to 'draw out Vash'. Was it any surprise that he murdered an entire town? "Regardless, I have a sibling there who needs to be unshackled from her man-made prison." At her hesitance he added, "There is no one left there to depend on her. And she is ill."
He could see the wheels of thought turning behind her eyes. The compassion. The inner-conflict. The suspicion. "Why…do you need…me?"
"I don't. But she may." It was the truth. And it was all she was going to get, because even Knives wasn't ready to put his apprehension into words. There was a reason he hadn't freed his sisters yet, that had nothing to do with waiting for humanity to wipe itself out.
He held his breath. Her stare was so intense, it almost made him squirm.
"So we free your sister. Then what?"
"I don't know."
"I don't trust you."
He said nothing.
Another long pause, and she sighed heavily and folded her arms. "Alright."
.
.
Knives was her assignment, now. It was her job to monitor him. So with as much as she wanted to run back to Vash and tell him everything was okay, she couldn't. This window of opportunity could close at any second.
Meryl went to Little Jersey without a fight.
Unsurprisingly, he had a highly advanced means of transportation. A hovercraft that crossed the desert as quickly and as easily as a cloud's shadow. She'd kept asking questions on the way over until he exiled her to the back seat. He was utterly incommunicative, and what's more, his anxiety became increasingly noticeable the closer they got.
Visibly, he hid it well, but spiritually... Meryl could actually sense it. Like smelling body odor. She wasn't sure why, or whether it was him, or her. Agh, who cares, she thought, tired of contemplating it. As long as that manipulative jerk can't control my mind...
Knives shifted, and he threw a brief, but angry glare at her over his shoulder. Her thoughts were heard. Meryl shrugged. Served him right for eavesdropping to begin with.
Jerk Jerk Jerk Jerk! "So how much further?"
"We're there."
Little Jersey appeared around a geographic barrier after half-a-day's ride. Several sand-stoned buildings sitting nestled together, baking in the hot sun. Just seeing it changed Meryl's mood entirely. A tremendous sense of loss squeezed her heart, and made her eyes sting. Knives said a human had voided this place, and left it a ghost town, but she knew better. His name had been left in blood on the town monument. He'd somehow been behind it.
One on one, it was easy to forget that he'd caused the Fall, and vicariously blown up July. But now… She was reminded that she was dealing with a genocidal maniac.
What had she gotten herself into?
They entered the outskirts. It might have been her imagination, but as they passed through the vacant buildings, and over the empty streets, Meryl thought she could almost hear the town's victims crying out to them from the dust. Wanting justice. Wanting their lives back. She hunched down in her seat, and hung her head between her knees. So horrible...
Knives parked the hovercraft alongside the town's energy structure, and without a word to her, he hopped off and pushed through the front doors. Meryl followed him.
The plant was stationed in the middle of the large hall, with walkways built around it, over it, and under it. The light it was emitting was sporadic. Blitzing. Like a dying firefly. Knives had stopped several yards back, staring up at it in wary apprehension. She could see his fists as they clenched and unclenched at his sides.
What's making him so nervous?
She watched, and waited. He bounced on his heels. She could hear him breathing. Running a shaky hand through his hair, Knives finally closed the distance between them, lifting tentative hands to palm the glass…
Then there was a scream, so piercing, Meryl clapped her hands over her ears and collapsed to her knees. With a hissing curse, Knives fell back, wide eyes locked on the bulb. But it was too late.
Meryl gasped, and pointed. "Knives! LOOK OUT!!"