Dance 'till you Die
Chapter One: Project; SEEDS
Rem Saverem's face lit up when she smiled; it was a well-known fact. Some people, you know, just have a way about them, that little something extra that comes with the tiny indentations of a dimple or that sparkle of pearly-white teeth. Sometimes, all one needs to have a truly beautiful smile is the 'right' lip. When Rem smiled, her upper lip stretched tightly across the gum in order to give her lower lip more room to move; therefore, she could expose more teeth. At least, that was how Knives figured it. He sat across from Rem, his knobbly elbows pressing against the cold, metal surface of the table as the 'family' ate their breakfast together. It was interesting, really, the little habits humans had. He knew his brother, Vash, was aware of these habits, too. As of yet, the plant-twins hadn't discussed it with each other. Vash was too busy wolfing down his food to study his replacement-mother's face, and Knives knew from experience that his twin was generally rather unobservant when it came to physical quirks in somene - human or plant, regardless.
"How do you like your sandwich, Knives?" Rem's sickly-sweet voice drifted across the table, smashing the plant-child's thoughts like a toddler smashes an ant.
Knives allowed his face to break into a polite smile. The 'sandwich' that lay on his plate was completely untouched. It wasn't that the plant didn't enjoy eating; on the contrary, he was usually quite fond of his food. Today, however, Knives had plans. These plans, he felt sure, were ones that Rem and the other crew members would not approve of; especially Steve. It wasn't until the soft sounds of Vash's teeth grinding down on the bread of his sandwich ceased that Knives realized he had failed to respond, and thus had attracted the attention of his brother and 'mother'.
"Oh," he said hurriedly, to break the silence. "I'm sorry, Rem. I just don't seem to have an appetite, today."
Rem, the forgiving creature that she was, smiled pleasantly at Knives. "Would you like to be excused, Knives?"
"Yes, please," Knives responded, perhaps a little too quickly. He tacked on a quick, "Rem," for good measure.
Rem dismissed him with a toothy smile and wave of her large hand. Knives didn't need to be told twice. He walked swiftly towards the exit of the 'dining hall', as Rem dubbed it, the automatic door forcing him to slow down as it, to Knives, slid agonizingly slowly open. He could sense his brother's turquoise eyes on him as he strode out into the cool hallway, flooded with artificial light. His plan beginning to take action, Knives allowed a mischevious smirk to paint his lips. He had always been curious as to that one room, and now, at long last, his curiosity would be settled. An intelligent boy, he was well-aware that it was likely he would be punished for it, but he was too bored and too curious to mind.
There was a room at the end of the corridor. It had a glazed-metal door, and a keypad on the side in order to open it. Knives was intelligent enough to know the code to type in, in order to gain access to the forbidden room. '882490'. As he approached the door, something told him to hold back for just a moment. Plant-instinct, if you will. Knives was glad of his instinctive urge to stop, because at that particular moment a beefy, blonde man strode around the corner. Muscles rippled beneath artificially tanned skin like sacks of melons as Steve saw, before him, the monstrosity that plagued Project; SEEDS. One of the little plant-monsters, and, to the delight of the meat-headed human, Rem was nowhere in sight. No Rem meant no protection for the little weasel.
"Yo', monster." Steve greeted Knives.
Knives said nothing, but merely stared evenly back at the human with his ice-blue orbs. The human scared him, and his heart beat more swiftly. Use this to your advantage, Knives, Knives told himself. More adrenaline pumping through your body means more blood to the brain...More blood in the brain, the more power to think. The more power to think, the more power you have over this man. It clearly irritated Steve, Knives' impenetrable cool. The man looked over the boy before him, searching for any sign of weakness, or physical imperfection he could drill down on. There was none; Knives was perfect. He gave new meaning to the term 'flawless'. It then occured to the man...
"Just what the 'ell do you think you're doin' here? You know this room's forbidden!" Steve bellowed suddenly.
Knives felt his heart beat swiftly. Despite himself, he found it hard to lie. Rem had brought the twins up with excellent morals, and it was against his very nature to lie. Biting back his confusion, he managed to spit out, "I was taking a walk, S-Steve."
Steve sneered. "You scared, monster? Your voice shook, just now."
"Do I have reason to be afraid?" Knives asked calmly, forcing his heartbeat to slow as he gathered his senses long enough to call for Vash mentally. B-Brother...will you get Rem h-here for m-me? Knives willed his voice to be heard, and within seconds he felt a faint telepathic reply: Knives!? What's wrong?! Rem's coming, Knives, Rem and I are coming!
Relief consumed Knives, even as Steve darted forward. Seconds later, the man's massive hand was around the plant's neck, digging into the soft skin. Shock hit Knives more fiercely than Steve did. He had never been hit before, in his life, and it was something completely new to the young plant. Knives forced himself to stay strong, refusing to gag even as the air was crushed out of his throat by the human's cruel hands. It reminded him, the situation did, of a question he had once asked his brother:
"Vash? Do you think I'll ever get eaten, someday?"
His brother had replied in the negative. That was comforting, but the position Knives was in most certainly wasn't. As patiently as he could, the boy waited for Steve to release him, or for Rem and Vash to come to his rescue. As it turned out, the man released him before his rescuers could come.
"You're not worth my time, monster-boy." That repulsive word again, Knives thought sadly. 'Monster'. Why does he always call Vash and I that? Are we really such repulsive creatures?
Wordlessly, the big human man strode off. Something in the plant's gaze had completely unnerved him. As he strode down the hallway, he caught up with a frantic Rem.
"Steve!" she cried, panting heavily. It was clear she had been running. "Oh, dear Lord, Steve, is Knives okay!?"
The blonde man stared down at the dark-haired beauty for a long moment. Her rich, chocolate-brown eyes fixed on his, filled with the desperate love of a mother. Something inside of him melted, even as the realization dawned that Knives had probably used his freakish mind powers to call Rem, somehow. If he played this right, he could get away with murder. Smiling softly at the tall woman just a hair below his chin, Steven put his massive hands on her slim, shaking shoulders comfortingly.
"'Knives' is fine, Rem. Don't fret; he was just getting lonely, so I suggested he go find you. Last I saw, he was headed towards the 'dining room' to find you."
Rem relaxed visibly. Behind her, Vash crept a bit closer. Steve hadn't yet noticed him, and it was probably for the better. The facade of caring the muscular human had put up, despite its strong exterior, was quite weak. The sight of the other little monster might actually shatter that facade, revealing the seething, angry Steve below. Rem smiled softly.
"Come, Vash, let's go find your brother," she said.
Hand in hand, 'mother' and plant walked off back down the hall, leaving Steve to stare lecherously at Rem's voluptuous figure for a long moment.
Knives slept restlessly that night. He was disturbed by Steve's unusually aggressive behavior towards him. It had been difficult to hide the deep purple bruises around his beautiful neck when he had 'found' Rem and Vash in the dining room later that day. Truth be told, Knives was concerned that it would occur again. He snuggled against Vash as they slept, feeling the comfort of his sibling's rumbling body like a newborn puppy would when sleeping next to its littermates. He loved his brother very much, and he couldn't bear the thought of Steve harming him. Something bitter rose within Knives' breast. With great difficulty, as he gazed at his mirror-image's sleeping face, he shoved it down. It was a new emotion. Hatred. Hatred for a certain muscular, blonde human.
Knives thoughts strayed as he rolled onto his back in the double-bed he shared with his plant brother. He considered. What did that strange doorway lead to? Perhaps it was a secret passageway. Or, maybe, it led to a secret room...a room full of stories, like the stories Rem told them. As he drifted off to sleep, Knives had dreams of Plans.
The next morning, Knives excused himself early from breakfast.
"...Knives, you haven't eaten for a long time," Vash pointed out, spraying cereal across the table.
Knives shrugged nonchalantly at his brother, straining to see Rem out of his peripheral vision. She was eating calmly. "Knives, you can be excused." she said finally, sighing.
"But please, Knives," she added as the plant sprang towards the door, "Please eat something later for me."
"Yes, Rem," Knives said, then froze. Vash had just asked Rem, "Can I be excused, too?"
"...Yes, Vash..." Rem said, her voice holding a twinge of loneliness. Knives couldn't help but stick around, just to see what would occur next. He hoped, for once, that his twin wouldn't insist on following him. He couldn't allow his brother to get in trouble for something he was planning to do. Sure enough, though, Knives' brother's kind nature kicked in.
"Oh, Rem!" Vash cried, "I'm sorry. I'll stay with you!"
Rem smiled. "No, Vash, go ahead. It's...all right."
As they argued gently, Knives sprang out into the hallway. He made his way down the familiar, artificially-lit hall, determined to avoid Steve at all costs. He approached the metal door, and punched in the keypad code: '882490'. C-click.
At last, Knives could see what lay inside that mysterious room. With shaking hands, he pushed the door open. It was odd, he was so used to an automatic-sliding door that the movement felt foreign to him. When the young plant entered the room, his ice-colored eyes widened in surprise. The room was pulsing. The whole room throbbed with a central energy, the source of which seemed to be a giant gray computer in the centre of the room. Thousands of tiny keyboards slid in and out of the hatch-like compartments in the machine of their own accord, and small, metal-jointed, spindly fingers slipped out of other compartments in the computer to adjust the hazy, pinkish heat lamps stapled to the ceiling. It was quite warm in the room, and Knives found himself perspiring slightly. The plant pushed the door shut behind him and climbed up the metal steps to investigate further. When someone was present in the room, a bright light came on.
Once more, Knives found his mouth popping open in delight. There was life in the room; two big, cylindrical glass tubes rose majestically from the ground and touched the ceiling. They were hollow glass pillars, filled to the brim with a bubbling pink liquid. The two pillars stood on either side of the supercomputer in the room's center. Knives was fascinated, and soon he realized there was a hazy, sickly-sweet scent to the room. Entranced, the plant drifted towards the computer. As he approached, a large screen flickered to life. He froze, expecting to see Rem's stern, reprimanding face appear, to hear her insist that he get out of there immediately. Instead, a few words appeared on the screen.
WELCOME, MILLIONS KNIVES. WE HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.
Knives flinched, stopping mid-step. Expecting him?
PLEASE, DO NOT FEAR US.
The plant looked back behind him at the door, wishing he hadn't come into the room after all. But the intoxicating scent, and the warmth...it couldn't be all bad. He boldly approached the computer.
THAT'S BETTER.
"Who are you?" Knives demanded, feeling foolish. Without a face on the plasma screen to look at, the plant felt like he was talking to himself.
WE. The words flickered onto the screen immediately.
"'We'?" Knives inquired. By that time, he was close enough to run his fingers gently over one of the tiny keypads that slid out of a compartment by his hip.
YES. WE. YOU MAY CALL US, 'THE FORBIDDEN ONE'. OR PERHAPS 'TFO' WOULD SUIT US BETTER.
Knives couldn't help but feel a twinge of amusement. The computer seemed to like typing its thoughts aloud. "So, what's your purpose?"
WE DON'T UNDERSTAND.
"I mean, everything on the ship has a purpose. Even I do."
OH. WE ARE IN CHARGE OF KEEPING THEM ALIVE.
Knives wasn't surprised. Computers were wonderful for keeping weak things alive, because they didn't need to sleep or rest at all. "Keep who alive? The crew members?"
NO.
By this time, young Knives was irritated. "Stop beating around the bush," he insisted. "Who is it you're supposed to be keeping alive?"
THEM.
Knives would have yelled his frusteration out to the world, but the lingering fear of being caught held his tongue. He paused, however, in his constant feeling of the computer with his hands. A sheet of white-blonde hair hid his eyes as he repeated, voice icy, "Who is 'them', please?"
THEY HAVE NO NAMES. THEY ARE LIKE YOU.
"A plant!?" Knives cried. He took a startled step backwards, and his heel caught on a loose cord. He fell flat on his rear. At least the floor was warm. Making no move to get up, Knives could barely speak over the beating of his excited heart. More plants? Alive, and on the ship? "Y-You're lying! Vash and I are the only pla-"
YOU MUST HIDE. QUICKLY!
Knives stood up, self-conciously brushing the imagined dust off of his rear. "What do you mean?" he asked, his heart light with happiness. "I'd like to meet the plant."
HE IS COMING. YOU MUST HIDE, NOW!
Knives felt his plant-instinct twitch. Uh-oh. The boy glanced behind him at the door, and just outside of it he could hear laughter and Steve's deep voice as he spoke with another crew member. There was a pause; apparently, they had reached the doorway. "That's odd," came Steve's distinctive voice, "The door's open."
Knives scrambled. There was a faint hiss as the door was pushed open, and the thumping of boots on tile. Knives crouched behind one of the pink pillars. "The computer is on, Steven." came a gentle, feminine voice.
"Yeah," the brusque male agreed. There was a moment of silence as the two humans apparently read something the computer typed to them. "Those fuckin' monsters...they waste so much electricity," Steve muttered, voice low. "It's bad enough with those two twins gallopin' 'round the ship under Rem's wing, but to have these two..."
"Hush, Steven. There's no need for talk like that," the female voice said snappishly. "Remember, we came here to check on them, not to risk getting on their bad side."
"Fer' God's sake, Cameron, they're not even concious!" Steve growled.
The woman, Cameron, sighed. "Look," she said. "Let's just...get our job done, so we can move onto other things."
Steve, perverted as he was, seemed to take this in a different way. When Knives peered around the side of the glass pillar uncertainly, he saw the male human towering over the female, his hand slipping towards her breast. F-whap! His big hand was smacked away by a tiny one.
"Later, Steven."
Steve cursed, flexing his melon-sized muscles and punching in a few letters on one of the keyboards. Knives ducked behind the pillar once more. His heart was beating quickly, and he was concerned. If he got caught...However, the information he was picking up here was fascinating. Even more fascinating was what he saw next.
The pillar he was crouched against began to tremble, and he smothered a gasp with his sleeve and backed away from it. He was too startled to care if he was caught, now. From his below-the-pillar view, he could see a hatch in the ceiling open, and then...what came next made the young plant gasp audibly. A slender body slid out of the hatch in the ceiling, dropping slowly into the pink liquid. Bubbles rose around the body as it oozed down through the gunk, eventually slowing and lolling openly about three feet from the bottom of the glass tube. Before Knives could calm his racing heart, and definitely before he could examine the body before him more closely, the other pillar, on the far side of the room, began to rumble, too. Reflected on the computer's shiny metal surface, he could see a body identical to the one that slid down the tube he was now pressed against. It, too, halted three feet from the bottom.
"See, Cameron?" Steve snapped. "They're fine. Let's go."
The woman, Cameron, hesitated. "How can you call them monsters, Steven?"
Steve snorted loudly. "Don't change the subject, Cham." he muttered.
"Steven," she insisted. "Look at how beautiful they are! The two boys are lovely, too. I really don't understand why you-"
Her monologue was cut short as, with a startled cry, Cameron was struck savagely across the cheek by Steve's meat-tenderizer-like fist. "SHUT UP!" the human roared.
It was only then that he seemed to realize the enormity of what he had done. The man slowly backed out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him, and Knives felt a primal fury rage inside of him. How could the humans do that? It was so unbearably cruel, it tore at the plant's heartstrings. Rem would never approve...The plant hesitated. Rem was human, too. His thoughts were taken from him as Cameron began to cry. She wept softly, slowly rising and stumbling out of the room. The door clicked shut behind her, and the artificial lights snapped off as she went. Knives was left alone in the warm semi-darkness, the pink glow of the heat lamps focused on the bodies floating in their pink jelly.
Now would be the opportune moment to meet the plants, Knives decided, and a great sense of peace overwhelmed him at this thought. Meet them...more plants. More monsters. He stepped around in front of the pillar he had been hiding behind. Floating in the liquid was a girl. Her face was angelic and young, and yet still elegant in a slightly-more-adult-than-you-would-think fashion. She had a slightly upturned nose, and naturally rosy cheeks. A light sprinkling of freckles dotted over high cheek bones, and the bridge of her nose. Lashes perfect for butterfly kisses fanned out across her cheeks. She had plump, full lips. In Knives opinion, the most lovely thing about this perfect plant angel was her hair; it was shimmering like spun gold in the pulsing pink light of the room. Her body was slender but voluptuous, her hips already curved although she couldn't be any older than Vash. Knives heartbeat quickened in excitement. Another plant! Vash would be so excited... He stood and stared.
Fifteen minutes or so later, Knives found his interest in the first plant drift towards the second one. His curiosity piqued, the boy managed to pull his gaze from the fascinating creature floating in the goo' long enough to stumble over to the other side of the supercomputer. The second plant was just as slender as the first, but clearly was shorter. Her chin was tilted up slightly, her snub nose in the air suggesting a proud nature, even in her comatose state. Her hair, like the other plant's, was long and thick. By the way it glowed pinkish, Knives could tell that it was such a light, flaxen blonde that it was actually muted slightly by the darker pink of the fluids she floated in. Her eyes were closed, but he could see the brilliant scarlet of the rims of her eyes. Her thin lips were slightly downturned, and her face rather lacked the gentleness of her own twin. Instead, it was replaced with a grace that rather overwhelmed any gentleness that might have been there. Knives felt his cheeks heat oddly as he gazed at her body; breasts with nipples as snub as her nose, like seed pearls, but hips that didn't curve nearly as much as the other plant's. Knives felt his neck heat up. He felt dirty, and rather disgusted with himself for thinking in such a way. He thought of Steve, and anger filled him once more.
AREN'T THEY BEAUTIFUL? the computer wanted to know.
"They are," Knives breathed. His anger melted away. "And you're in charge of them?"
YES. Knives could have sworn that TFO typed that last sentence with pride.
"Are they twins?" Knives asked, placing his hand on the glass of the second plant. She intrigued him especially.
YES, MILLIONS KNIVES.
"That's good," Knives said softly, thinking of Vash. "That's very good."