Prerogative


A Certain Shade of Blue

Following Knives out of the house Vash looked around at the bustling town, trying to keep the fear he felt for every living human contained within. People brushed by him, some unnoticing, some murmuring polite hellos.

While he constantly bumped into people due to his staggering walk, Knives walked swiftly in a straight direction, somehow managing to avoid all contact with them. Vash was finding it hard to follow his fully energized brother and Knives didn't seem to take any notice that he was lagging behind. Finally clear of the main crowds Vash called out.

"Where are we going?!"

Knives didn't stop but he turned his head. "I already told you I wanted to show you, not tell you. Now do try and keep up."

Vash marveled secretly that his twin had been able to turn, still walk in a straight line and not manage to hit anyone. It didn't seem he was a part of the crowd at all. As if he wasn't really there.

When they reached the desert and were far enough into it that nothing could be seen from any direction Knives stopped, and slowly turned to face Vash who had stopped abruptly.

"Why are we stopping here?" Vash asked, looking around at the vast nothingness that didn't include sand.

Knives didn't say anything for second as he cocked his head to the side, studying his brother.

"I'm sorry to say that I don't exactly trust you yet Vash. You have betrayed me one to many times. Why is it that you cannot be more like Legato?"

"You mean could not?"

"What?" Knives asked dully.

"You're talking as if he's still alive." Vash's voice strained as he continued. "Why did you make me kill him Knives? Why?"

Knives' eyes darted to the side as he refused to reply. He took a few steps towards Vash. "Focus on what is at hand Vash, and that is I cant risk showing you exactly where were going, you're going to have to sleep the remainder of the way."

"What? But I'm not-" Vash was cut off as Knives swiftly knocked the side of his neck. Crumbling, Knives quickly caught his brothers limp body and begun humming as he lifted him and walked towards his destination.

-

He released a loud yawn stretching his tired limbs and licking his cracked lips. Running a hand through his dishevelled blond locks Vash took in his surroundings tiredly.

'What a nice day,' he thought. 'The suns are high in the clear blueness of the sky, the grass is fresh and dewy, the flowers are in full bloom, the-' He stopped mid thought when he realized there were a few things wrong about what he had just thought.

"Grass?" He said quietly in awe. "Flowers? Where am I?"

He peered up at the suns, and noticed a dark shadow to the corner. Sitting up he saw why everything was so abnormal. He wasn't in the desert anymore. It was a large expansive geo plant.

"Good you're up, I didn't think you would be knocked out for that long," came the unmistakable sound of his other half. Knives emerged from the shadows and sat down beside Vash in the greenery, laying down in the dew and giving out a long exhale of contentment.

"Yeah well I wouldn't have been if you hadn't knocked me out," Vash's faint irritation went unnoticed by Knives.

"Gorgeous isnt it?" He murmured breathing in the fresh air that the geo plant created.

"It is." Vash could not disagree. "Is this what you wanted to show me?"

"Yes. This is a small encased geo plant. A model for what I plan to infuse the rest of the planet with. Does it look familiar? It should, it's a representation of that recreation room from that atrocious SEEDS ship."

Vash looked more closely and realized what his brother said was true. The bushes, the grass, the trees and the flowers were replicas of what he could faintly remember for the rec room.

He spoke slowly, he had to take advantage of his brothers relaxed state. "The whole planet of Gunsmoke will look like this?"

"Yes."

Vash watched as Knives got even more comfortable and placed his hands behind his head as he lay, his face up towards the open roof of the sky, closing his eyes.

"How do the... people fit into this?"

Vash could see his brother tense but other than that, he didn't change.

"They don't Vash. Why would you ask such a thing?" It was a rhetorical question and Vash knew this but he pressed the matter while he felt he had the chance too.

"I don't think you ought to kill them-" He barely got to start his case that had been playing in his head for as long as he could remember.

"An old argument Vash. I've heard it before and if you would be so kind as to not replay it. Nothing will change my mind in what I mean to do. Nothing. Especially not your uninteresting speech regarding the preservation of humans."

Knives didn't have to open his eyes to feel the frustration that flowed through his brothers veins. He could "see" Vash's clenched muscles, the biting of the lip, the looking around as if an answer to his problems would jump out at him.

"I am doing this for us," Knives whispered. "Why don't you understand that?"

"I do, and maybe I don't want it, if this is how its going to be done. There are people you want to kill that I care about Knives. Do really expect me to step back and let you do them in?"

"Don't look as I do it."

"Don't be crass about it!"

Knives opened his eyes and straightened the upper half of his body so that he was leaning against his elbows. "Tell me, what did you imagine would have happened if I had lost that last fight?" He let a dark smirk escape. "That I would wake up and see the errors of my ways?"

"You did. So naive Vash. The only thing accomplished would be you discovering how ruthless you truly are. You wouldn't have been so unlike me after all. I wouldn't have changed, do you honestly think you could have forced me to share your ideals? Foolish."

"Don't insult me Knives."

"You had it coming." Knives erected himself and placed his hands on his hips looking around.

"...When are you going to start making the planet as lush as this geo?" Vash asked looking up at Knives.

"Once I've disposed of the humans. But they need to be eliminated slowly."

"Why slow?"

Knives blinked hard and gave his brother a stone faced look. "All of a sudden you want them annihilated quickly?"

"Of course not, its just not in you to take such slow action when all your stages have been completed."

"Yes... well the planet needs time to transition itself. The bodies will need to decompose. We cant have dead bodies polluting the planet all at once can we? It'd be most unattractive, not to mention I cant really stand the smell of their rotting flesh."

Vash didn't want to know how his brother knew what a rotted corpse smelled like.

"It's going to be a long process Vash, such a nature will require constant love and devotion." Vash watched as his brother knelt down beside a yellow flower with white speckles, and gently brushed his hands over the light petals.

"But first we need to eliminate the tainted images in your head. You'll work better with a clean slate."

Vash gripped the grass tightly, pulling some of the strains loose. "Which images are you talking about?"

"Meryl Stryfe and Millie Thompson of course. I never did get to properly introduce myself to them. And they are awfully worried about you Vash. It's been a couple of months since they last heard from you." Knives smiled.

"Cant you leave them out of this?" Vash clenched out his question through his tightly clamped teeth.

"Leave such important beings in your life out of all this? Nonsense Vash."

"If you do anything to hurt them, I'll-"

The laughter emanating from Knives' core stopped Vash. He watched as his brother's laughter over took him. Knives held his stomach tightly, tears falling from his face as the comedy of it all consumed him.

"You'll...," he continued to laugh trying hard to control himself. "You'll do what?" The laughter broke in abruptness and a tense silence washed over the plant angels as they gazed at one another. Knives' face had lost all traces of the seeming happiness of laughter he had just felt. His face wore no emotion and Vash gazed back just as emotionless.

Knives began to walk towards his brother, Vash held his ground refusing to move but Knives had no intention of stopping in front of his brother. He walked past him, whispering a note in his ear before being swallowed up by the shadow behind him.

"I win, and you lose. The prize? My version of a perfect world. We'll leave tomorrow."

When Vash turned to retort he found his brother gone. Inspecting the shadow that covered a fourth of the geo planet he found no traces of where Knives could have gone too. He sighed to himself and thought, 'What a beautiful disaster all this is.'

-

Lying against the frame he created to keep the geo plant from prying eyes, Knives thought over his plans. They had seemed simple in the beginning. Kill every human on Project SEEDS, land ship, live in an utopia with fellow creatures.

As things hadn't turned out like that, he had to revise his plans. Again, he didn't think it would be all that difficult.

Land, destroy humanity with help from Vash, live in utopia.

When that didn't go as planned...

Gather group of humans to destroy their own kind, in the process cause Vash pain for eternity for his sins against me, he'll come over to my side and we'll destroy humanity, live in utopia.

So far his most recent plan was going well, but already his fiercest bump was placed before his road. Vash was not going to come over to his side, no sooner than if he had lost and was forced to go over to his side. It wasn't in either of their natures to give up their personal plans quite so easily. Vash's unhealthy attachment to humans was a hurdle that caused him constant irritation.

Legato's last words to him floated freely in his mind. Something regarding Vash experiencing eternal pain now. But no, Vash wasn't in pain. Crushed, hurt, confused, frighted for the future, but this was no eternal pain. Legato had failed and he had truly died for it.

'What can I do to have him on my side?' He thought to himself. Nothing was coming and he banged his fist against the soft blades of grass in anger. He shook the thoughts away. It wouldn't matter, when he destroyed the human organism, in its entirety, Vash would have nothing to cling on too. In his loneliness he would reach out for him, wanting his company, if nothing else.

And for Knives that was fine enough. Neither him nor Vash knew what their life expectancy would be, but he observed he had another 390 years in him at the very least. And with such time within him, Vash would have to one day forgive him for killing the precious ones he cared so fully about.

Nodding this to himself, he allowed his body to rest into a peaceful sleep, the images of destruction at the edge of his brain, as the dreamy visions seeping from Vash's, already sleeping mind, entered his. He still dreamt of the same girls. One in particular. He smiled a small tiny smile, coming to the conclusion that she would have to suffer the most.

AN: I have no idea how long this will be. Presently I'm thinking no more than 5 chapters? A short story but I haven't got many ideas right now. But I'm working on them. Please review! More so than any other story I've written, do I want feedback.

Faery Goddyss :)