Meryl shivered as the sound of grinding teeth reached her ears. A crazed gleam flickered in Knives' eyes. His face began to redden. She saw Vash tense in her peripheral vision. There was a long, intense pause.
She realized that ganging up on Knives might not have been the best idea.
"Evolution…" Knives' words were a whisper, but the white-hot anger that emanated from his being hit her like a blow to the gut. Meryl took a step back, battling a wave of nausea. "Why? Why would I stand in its way when I see such logic in its COURSE!?"
Vash's eyes narrowed to slits. "And what exactly is its course, brother? Because the only end I see to all this is a stalemate."
Knives scoffed. "Stalemate?" He managed to push himself up on all fours. "STALEMATE!?"
Meryl gulped. Uh-oh…
Knives slammed his fist in the ground, clearly not caring that he wasn't the one with a gun. "Of the 1567 plant angels left, over 500 are in their last stages. They're finally burning out, Vash. Turning black." He rose on wobbly knees, his enraged visage like a death sentence in itself. "WE. ARE. DYING! Did you just assume that my aggression these past couple decades was mere coincidence? The result of a deteriorating mind!?"
Vash said nothing, but the news of his sisters' waning health was news to him. Honest distress tugged on his features, which only added fuel to Knives' fire. The latter bowed his head, and a low throaty rumbling reached their ears. Vash stood to his feet and moved protectively in front of Meryl as the sound crescendoed until Knives threw his head back and filled up the room with maniacal cackling.
Cold chills spun like spiders down Meryl's spine. This… This is the side Vash warned me about…
The laughter erupted into incoherent invective as he locked Vash in his fiery gaze. "IMBECILE! I've been trying to save you from yourself, all these years!" He pounded his forehead with the heels of his palms, then tugged at his hair in crazed exasperation. "Tried to show you the obvious. I've even given you tools so you could help preserve our species, and now…"
He swayed, twitching to keep his balance, and looking more hysterical than Meryl had ever seen him. "And now when it's plain that your precious humans are in fact slaying our sisters on a mass scale without hesitation or remorse," he sucked in a deep, gasping breath, "you still betray us! You conspire against me! You'd sooner damn them," he made a spastic sweeping motion at the bulbs along the wall, "than the very beings who are killing them. Curse your sentimentality, Vash! It's an inexcusable, destructive weaknessngh!"
He grimaced, yipped at some internal pain and collapsed against the base of the platform beneath the bulb. Meryl gasped, and reflexively went to aid him, but Vash collared her back. He said nothing, moving his hand from her shirt to her bicep. His grip was firm, emerald eyes fixed on his struggling brother.
"Knives…" Vash said after several moments of silence. "I am saying that I will aid you in freeing them."
"You're not touching them!" he growled. "You'll poison them. Your words have already beguiled those in my care, ripening them up for abuse and exploitation. You've done enough damage!"
Meryl saw the muscles in Vash's jaw jump, and his grip on her shoulder tightened. The room blitzed off and on with light, and Meryl realized that the dozen angels along the wall had floated down to the surface of their bulbs, palms against the glass, large black orbs bouncing back between Vash and Knives. They were hanging on every word.
"We are coming to you with a plan that will work, Knives. A method that will accomplish what you've been trying to do all along. Preserve our species."
"While empowering their predators!"
This conversation was too much for Knives to handle. Meryl thought his head might explode if some resolution wasn't found soon. His fortress of self-conviction seemed impervious to the rationale of Vash's words. Impervious to the numbers against him. She got the distinct impression that every plant in existence could plead with him to spare humanity – and he still wouldn't budge in his resolve. All they were doing was making him angrier, and angrier, and angrier…
"Vash…" She tugged on his arm. "Maybe we should continue this conversation when he's feeling better."
Vash shook his head. "He's dangerous when he's feeling better."
Knives snorted with biting sarcasm. "Still afraid of me, little brother?"
Vash's conflicted expression set. He let go of Meryl and drew his gun, aiming it right at Knives' head. "This was plan B," he said, his eyes clouded with resolution. "I can stick with plan A, and do this without you."
Knives tensed. Meryl grabbed Vash's arm. "Vash, no…"
He ignored her. "What'll it be, Knives? If I've learned anything from you in all these years, it's that one has to make sacrifices for the greater good…"
Knives' lips thinned, moving over unvoiced objections. He fisted his hips, and banged his head soundly against the platform. Meryl watched him – or rather, felt him - shift rapidly through a series of emotions, going from frustrated belligerence to apprehensive, to something alarmingly low key. The angels hovered anxiously. An edgy silence passed.
"Idiot," he drawled out finally. Wearily. "I'll never help you save our people's killers."
"Then tell me you won't interfere."
"Of course I'll interfere. You're not qualified for the tremendous undertaking of liberating our kind."
Vash grit his teeth, and clamped a hand over his face, scrunching his eyes shut. "Dammit, Knives. Do you want to die?"
Knives studied him as bitter resolution hardened his face. His chest rose and fell with barely audible panting, as his breathing calmed. He sighed, and tilted his head back. "Ah, Vash. I liked you so much better when you cried every time we discussed humanity's fate."
Vash cocked his gun warningly. Meryl bit her tongue.
Knives spoke to the ceiling in a near-whisper, as though to himself. "I had hoped to do this with fewer casualties, but in the end, the culmination of our negligence is manifesting. We'll lose more if we wait." Expression set, he met Vash's eyes with grim acceptance. "They'll hunt you. And they'll kill some. Your efforts to salvage humanity will fail. Will backfire."
Vash lowered his gun, and Meryl held her breath.
Knives continued, his words dropping like lead weights from his lips. "You want to make this planet habitable for the humans? Then go ahead and try. Give our sisters the incentive they need to leave their prisons, and I'll be a step behind, capitalizing on your blaring ignorance in order to liberate them from their naivety. And as you try in vain to save the six million parasites left on this miserable planet, I'll be preparing a haven that doesn't include humanity or your foolish dreams for co-existence."
As they gaped at him in apprehensive shock, Knives shakily rose to his knees and ambled back on top of the platform, where he reached up and palmed the bulb. "When mankind caves in on itself, the plant angels won't be caught in the rubble," he said as his molecular structure altered, enabling him to rise up through the glass and into the bulb. Encased with his sibling, his final words were broadcasted telepathically…a morbid echo that even Meryl could hear.
And as for you, I did all I could…
.
.
"Are you okay?" Meryl asked, plunking down next to Vash in the soft grass by the quaint little stream. With Knives and his sister still healing, they were alone again. Which was good. Meryl figured they had a lot to talk about. And Vash had lost his vibrato the second they'd left that room, returning once again to his worrisome, conflicted self.
Elbows on knees, head tilted back absorbing the yellow haze of a stray sunbeam, Vash inhaled deeply and sighed. "Hm. If that was a victory," he dropped his chin to give her a rueful smile, the light still catching on his lashes, "then why am I so uneasy about it?"
Meryl blew the bangs out of her eyes and leaned back on her wrists. "At least he isn't going to fight it. I mean, you and your sisters might have to teach yourselves how to do that plant magic stuff—"
"Alchemy."
"Hm?"
"It's alchemy. What our species can do. Take one substance, and make another out of it. Knives is just better at it than the rest of us."
"Oh…" She could only stare. He made it sound so simple – all those things she'd seen them do. Like generate energy from nothing, alter their molecular structure, create an oasis in the barren wasteland that was Gunsmoke… She shook her head. "It's amazing, whatever it is."
Absent nod. His gaze fixed on some random point in the chamber, as the conversation took an expected turn. "I…I had no idea so many of my sisters were dying," he whispered, his guilt nearly palpable. "And here I've wasted so many years living in…in…" his hand tightened into a fist, "denial. Hoping things would just work themselves out. Afraid of Knives. Afraid of myself."
"The answer was somewhere between the two of you, Vash. Your heart, and his protective instinct," she rubbed his forearm for emphasis. "The time is now. Not before. Not in a few years. But now. We have a plan, and we're sticking to it."
He smiled hopelessly at her, as though the reality was just now sinking in. "But over six million lives, Meryl. Six MILLION. Knives will take care of our sisters, but how am I going to be able to provide for all of humanity when I don't even know how to," he ripped some grass blades out of the dirt, and flung them, "how to grow a blade of grass!?"
She understood his anxiety. But she was too enthused to subscribe to it. "You'll learn, Vash, because you finally have a reason to. You found me, didn't you? And it's not like you're going to be alone in this, remember?" She bumped shoulders with him, and smiled. "I've been thinking ahead. Milly's father is a city planner for January – the biggest city of all of Gunsmoke. We'll recruit his skills, and your sisters can map out where the water table is highest to the planet's surface. We could maybe start out with a lake, and a few trees, in the shade of a cliff. You know, one step at a time, and," she stopped, distracted by the shimmer in his eyes, and the gracious smile that split his face. He was so cute when he got emotional. "Vash?"
"I'm beginning to think that if you're by my side, I can do anything."
"Uh…heh." She blushed, and stared down at her knees, forgetting her train of thought. She could feel him grinning at her, like she could feel the moisture in the air. Light breathy laughter, and he drew his legs up to his chest, and rested his chin on his knees. When he looked away, she risked a glance only to see his happy visage simmer down to something more pensive. More desperate. The moisture in his eyes stayed.
"Do you really think he can change, Meryl?" he asked quietly. "Knives, I mean."
"Ah…" she tried to quiet her twitterpated heartbeat, and reluctantly shifted gears. There'd be time later for deducing how he really felt about her. Right now, Vash needed her reassurance that there was hope for Knives. She considered the older brother's temperament. His bullheadedness. His capacity for destruction, all balanced out by this inexplicable, but fierce devotion to the well-being of his people.
"He loves," she said simply. "I saw it, Vash. He was so nurturing with the plant angel, even after she tried to kill him. Like an older brother should be. And with me – I…it's hard to explain. It's just an impression, but I think his attitude was changing in regards to me."
"Really?"
The tone in his voice was so hopeful, she wanted to cry. Vash still loved him. Even after everything he'd done. She smiled and nodded. "I think with time, and experience, we can make him see that plants and humans are siblings in heart and mind."
Pause. Sad smile. "He did, once. Back then."
She frowned. "What?"
Vash shook his head nostalgically. "Knives used to say that. That humans and plants had the same heart. That we were no different. Tried to convince me of it all the time, but I was so skeptical."
Meryl blinked, trying to assimilate this latest bit of information. It contradicted everything she knew about the two brothers. "Eh?"
He shook his head. "You know…" he tugged his bottom lip in between his teeth, suddenly looking so young. "Knives…back then. You would have never believed it if you would have known him. He was crazy about your people. Loved humans more than Milly loves kids. He'd spend hours, and I mean HOURS staring at the cyberpods in the cryo-chamber. Drove me nuts, sometimes. He'd go through thousands of profiles, daydreaming about what people would be like, how exciting it would be when they woke up…"
He laughed, lost somewhere between then and now. Meryl listened wordlessly, marveling at how surreal it was to see Vash talk about his malevolent brother with such fondness. Marveling at the innocence Knives once had. And remembering the way Knives looked at her when he saw her necklace. If he'd spent hours looking at profiles, then he really might have remembered her. Curious as she was, she knew that conversation would have to wait for when he was healed. Now, she needed to listen to Vash's story.
"He was so anxious. So impatient. Didn't want to wait until the ships landed to meet more people, so one time," Vash chuckled, despite the mood, "One time Knives triggered an Emergency level 2. On purpose! Woke the backup crew right up. Oi, Rem was pissed. I think it was the only time I ever saw her get mad…"
Meryl tried to picture it. Vash and Knives cowering while Rem lectured them heartily. It was almost funny. "Did…" she hated interrupting, but she had to know. "Did the crew accept you, like he'd hoped?"
Vash snorted. "They didn't find out. Rem hid us. The crisis was resolved, and they went back into cryo-stasis. All but Dr. Conrad, that was," his eyes grew melancholy. A sweet sadness permeated the air between them. "Dr. Conrad…"
Vash lingered in memory, giving Meryl the impression that this Dr. Conrad was someone very very significant.
"Finally seeing another human froze us both right up, worried stiff over the 'what ifs'. We sat, with our knees knocking as Rem told him everything. And when he approached us, I thought for sure we were in trouble."
"But Dr. Conrad didn't reject you?"
Vash smiled. "No. He accepted us. Just like that. Knives fell apart, he was so relieved. Started bawling like a baby. And after that day, his excitement tripled. So foolishly optimistic, he was insufferable."
Vash's smile faded. Sagged, like he had rocks attached to the corners of his lips. And Meryl knew, without being told, that he was thinking about… "Vash, you don't have to—"
"Tessla…" The name echoed. Vash's eyes were distant. Pained. So far away from Meryl, and this place. "Everything changed, that day."
Meryl allowed the silence to fall. She recalled with gory, hurtful detail the vision she'd been shown. So unspeakable… The horrors those bastards had inflicted on that poor girl child…
Vash's hands were shaking, and he flattened them out over his calves. "I thought Rem was going to do the same thing to us that they had to Tessla. I was sure of it. So I…I tried to kill myself…" a set of tears materialized, and he brushed them aside. "And when Rem stopped me, I tried to kill her."
Meryl's eyes widened, and she stared at the being she thought she knew so well… "You…what?"
Shuddering inhale. Nod. "Sliced her hand in half with a knife, and stabbed her in the gut."
Meryl rested her fingers lightly on his arm, not able to picture it to save her life. "Vash…" She could actually feel how much the memory hurt him, but he bludgeoned through it. Meryl wondered if it was the first time he'd ever told anyone about this.
He wiped his eyes on his shoulder, and continued. "And when she lay there on the floor, with blood everywhere… I realized that I didn't want to kill anybody, especially Rem." His fingers dug little indentions in the black leather of his pants and he bowed his head. He bowed his head, and hid his face. It took several seconds for him to compose himself while Meryl struggled to breathe through a constricted throat.
"I…" he sniffled, and raised his face. "I resolved myself to live, that day. No matter what. I resolved myself to see the good, like her. But…but Knives…"
"What happened?"
Vash's expression turned dark. "He never coped with it at all. His devotion and love for humanity had been tremendous, so when he discovered what his beloved humans had done to someone just like us… He fainted outright. It shattered him completely."
Meryl shook her head. This telling was almost too much for her to handle. No wonder Vash had held onto his hope for so many years.
"He was out for a very long time. And instead of lashing out like I did when he came to, he…he acted like nothing had happened."
Meryl's hand flung to her mouth. "What!?"
"Smiled, apologized for worrying us, and said he was hungry."
Meryl could only gawk. That's…that's where he lost it…
"Oh, he went through the routines of everyday life. Played games with us, engaged in conversation. But something in his brain broke that day. I could see it in the way he'd zone out, sometimes, how deeply he'd withdraw when alone. I could see it when he smiled with false cheer, and empty eyes. Rem saw it, too. But we had no idea…what he was planning…"
"The Great Fall."
Vash grimaced. "To do something that drastic, to prepare to wipe out the entire Seeds Project, along with thousands of his own kind… The compassionate, kind-hearted child that was my brother was overrun by a machine. Everything was pragmatic after that. Robotic. Like a launched missile."
Meryl squeezed his arm, and whether it was to give him reassurance, or herself, she didn't know. He clamped a heavy hand over hers and squeezed back. If only they could somehow get Knives to tap into that lost sentiment. To open up the valve of his heart that had been shut down all those years ago.
"I believe we can reach him, Vash. The opportunity is unprecedented, right?. This project is going to last years. He'll have to work directly with you, myself, Milly for a common goal. And co-working with people can foster friendships, and friendships foster trust, and trust can open eyes, and hearts, and minds… It's going to be awfully hard to pigeonhole all of humanity when he finally has to live alongside some that aren't psychotic or brainwashed."
He smiled broadly at her over his shoulder. And it was an honest smile, finally. Not tinged by sadness or regret. "I hadn't thought of that. But if there's anyone that could reach him, it's you."
"Why…why do you say that?"
"Because you reached me." He winked at her, and made her blush by reaching over and crushing her to him with a big, one-armed hug. "And believe me, when someone helps a lost soul find inner peace after 130 years of hellish turmoil, I'm inclined to believe that that someone can change the perspective of just about anyone."