Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
-x-
Space.
Vash gazed around him in wonder at it. So many stars, large and small and every hue imaginable. They all seemed millions of light-years away, yet when he reached out to a large orange one, he found it was actually quite small, and the little girl sidled up to him shyly while he pretended to staunchly ignore that her grubby little fingers were reaching for the last of his honey-glazed donuts.
His memories.
Vash smiled at it and let it go, drifting back into the massive universe around him. Rem's rec room was the place he constructed, the place he chose his mind to be, but this . . . this is what it looked like to everyone else.
This is what it had looked like to A-20034.
He stared deep into that spaces, a little surprised that he couldn't spot her. Tami had called him here; he remembered her voice clearly, even through the pain-
Now that was odd. He could sense it, there on the edge of deep space, but here, he felt cool and hydrated. It was so distant he could ignore it, just as he ignored so much worse.
"Thank you," he said, into the darkness.
An irritated huff was his reply.
Vash spun, surprised, and the re-oriented himself forty degrees. They were there, where the heels of his feet had been, blinding and glorious. Tami, Aliya, and Fron. Behind them, not so close, he could see Pelu, Nidi, Wendi, Lise, and Jain, forming a more distant ring.
Bodies orbiting a star.
Only he was not a star. He was a dead, lightless body in his own universe. He was a sun that had burned out. He looked down at himself ruefully, at the worn red duster, the handle of his Colt blinking dully up at him.
Vash reached up with his real forefinger, adjusting his glasses – and Aliya came forward with two arms and gently took them away. She held them in front of him, frowning, and they erupted into flames.
He made a grab for them with a surprised sound, but she'd melted them down to slag in an instant. She even flicked the pads of her fingers against each other, like a human ridding their skin of a particle of dust.
He left his rueful look in place. "I really like those glasses, you know," he complained. "They provide contrast."
Aliya glared at him through her eyebrows, then her gaze drifted to his duster.
Vash leaned back, just a little. She leaned forward. Tami gave him a mischievous little smile, and Vash looked to Fron hopefully, backpedaling.
"Uh, sisters . . . ?"
They were on him in an instant. Vash yelled and flailed, but they were unimpressed with his antics, and the duster disappeared in heatless blue and purple fire. He held up his arms, trying to ward them off, and Tami swallowed his mechanical arm whole. His boots had quite simply vanished, and Aliya yanked off the armor, hurling it through space. Vash watched it collect ice, a slim, fitted comet on a collision course with a pink-ringed planetoid.
Once they had unencumbered him of every stitch of clothing he'd worn, they drifted back, looking at him expectantly. Vash tried very hard not to blush.
"I wasn't wearing anything in the bulb, in case you missed it," he pointed out lightly. He didn't want to bring in anything that might have compromised the bulb's integrity. It was a longshot and he knew it, but on the off chance he really could unseal his Gate, it was imperative that the bulb's containment held.
The scars of collapsed, half-healed blisters flashed across his mind's eye, and Vash gritted his teeth. Doc had already gotten a taste of what his Gate was capable of, and was missing an arm because of it.
"I don't want to hurt them," he explained softly. "Or you. This is the only way."
Aliya frowned at him more deeply, and pointed at his chest.
Vash glanced down, afraid that he would be bleeding again, that the scars would be melting in a hot white wax river down his abdomen. But there was nothing there; his own pale flesh was intact, scars and all. No light pouring out. No damage. The stump of his arm seemed even lighter than the rest, a little glossy, like a glowstick that had nearly spent its chemical reaction. He looked back up at her, expecting guidance – and Aliya was right there. Her hands became those of a human, flesh and muscle, with long, strong fingers, and she took his face and rotated him 180 degrees.
Her hands smelled like Millie Thompson.
Vash recoiled, but she didn't try to hold him, and he was suddenly facing darkness. There were still stars, all around, but there was a curious circular void where there was no light. There was nothing. It was cooler than the space around it, and Vash hesitated, then glanced uncertainly at his sisters.
Fron sent him an impatient thought, like a parent urging their child to open a package on Christmas morning.
Vash swallowed. "Is my hand gonna get eaten or something . . . ?" What did a black hole in his mind signify? Yet he reached out obediently – and stubbed his fingers on something solid, much closer than he'd thought. Vash withdrew his smarting fingers, popping them in his mouth, and then he drifted in a circle around the object.
And it was an object. It was quite solid, reflecting no light. It was spherical but it didn't seem to be perfectly so; rather it had so many facets that it was nearly totally round. It was neither hot nor cool, and when Vash prodded it, it remained fixed on its axis. He could rotate it in any direction, but he could not move it within the universe that was his mind.
It was a combination lock.
It was the block on his Gate.
Relief radiated from his sisters at his realization, but Vash felt only dread. This was the block. This was what he had created to stop himself from manifesting. But it hadn't worked. They had forced him to produce power anyway. They had forced him into a Plant form and this had still been there when they'd done that.
Hadn't it?
Vash evaluated the object. He had certainly created it; it could not be rooted so firmly into the fabric of his universe if anyone else had put it there. His immediate thought was that A-22034 would know, she must have been aware of when he created it, but he did not see her among the brightly glowing sisters that were trying very hard to communicate with him.
"Why can't you just tell me?" he asked plaintively. "If you know what this is, just tell me what to do."
Aliya had crossed multiple pairs of arms, apparently in consternation, and Nidi, on the outer ring, glowed brightly at him. Once she had his attention, she toned it down a little, then flared up brightly once more.
In turn, each of his sisters displayed their light like fireflies. The light was unique to each of them, their true 'names,' and it contained every imaginable color, it would have burned his human eyes but to his mind it was simply beautiful.
Aliya tapped his shoulder, and gestured at the black sphere.
Vash followed her gesture, studying the surface once more. His sisters glowed, fighting the darkness, but it stubbornly refused to reflect any part of the spectrum. And he got the feeling it was stubbornness; the thing had a familiar, emotional something about it. Like it was alive, or at least aware.
It was probably a memory, he realized abruptly. If everything else in this universe was a memory or a thought, then this probably was too.
But what memory would be so hard, so unyielding, so utterly devoid of light?
Vash stared into the blackness, willing one of the surfaces to reflect something. Was it watching Rem's ship hit the atmosphere?
A large, red star throbbed at him, from thirty degrees, and he could feel the pane of glass under his gloved fingers as he clung to the window and watched it burn.
Vash withdrew from it. Was it the first time he tasted loneliness? Knives' pained cries burned the tiny hairs in his ears as he fled into the sand, two unfamiliar guns clutched in his hands.
On the other side of the sphere, Pelu looked up at him, smiling gently, and she lit up like the sun.
The black sphere did not respond.
What would he have been thinking about, as a Plant, that he would have folded around his Gate like this?
On a whim, he looked over at Jain, who seemed a little more coherent than her other sisters. "What does your mind look like, sister?"
She seemed to consider that a moment, and he realized she was probably surprised he had to ask, he couldn't just go look, but then she crossed the distance between them, and gently butted his forehead with hers. Vash had the impression of a vast fog, light and silky on his skin, diffuse light spread all across an immense space-
Like A-20034. Like it had been on the ship.
Those wisps of light and fog were her memories. They weren't solid objects like his own, with definite boundaries and contents. Her memories drifted in and out of each other seemingly at random, and then she broke contact, dazzling him.
Vash closed his eyes, flinching back reflexively at the blinding light. "Aye-eye-eye. Do you have to do that so close? I'm gonna go blind-"
Relief.
Vash drifted slightly back, blinking repeatedly to clear his vision, and Jain stared at him expectantly.
His mind would have been like her mind. The memories would have been drifting together. So this . . . this probably wasn't a memory, or rather, it wasn't one memory. It was several memories, or maybe emotions, that had swirled around his Gate and solidified once he had regained his humanoid form. Or maybe . . . his humanoid state of mind . . .?
Elation.
So if he was not in his humanoid form, then perhaps it would become wisps of fog, that he could simply brush away?
But it wasn't that simple. He couldn't regain his Plant form until it was cleared.
Disappointment.
Vash scrubbed his hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm sorry, I don't understand. The humanoid state of mind is the problem, but I can't do anything about that until –
As one, his sisters glowed, illuminating every corner of his mind.
Until he glowed. Until he shifted into a Plant. "Yeah, I get that, but . . . you don't understand, I can't-"
Exasperation.
Vash closed his eyes, forcing himself to be calm, and then he chuckled sheepishly. "Guess it must really be frustrating trying to teach your big brother something so basic, huh. I appreciate your help, really I do."
But what I wouldn't give for one of you to just give me a plain answer.
He felt something from them then that tasted just a little bit like despair. This was clearly something that was so simple for them that anyone could figure it out, so maybe he was just overthinking things, but what was there to overthink? They wanted him to become a Plant, so his Gate would be unsuppressed. How could he explain that he had to get his Gate back before-
Before he could become a Plant.
But that wasn't true at all. He couldn't become a Plant. He was a Plant. Even without the Gate, he didn't stop being a Plant.
You've spent so much time hiding that body of yours that you've forgotten what you even are!
So you don't have your gun. So you don't have your armor. Your Plant powers were always off the table, remember? So what's so different about this situation, huh?
Vash opened his eyes, lifting up and studying his hand. His human hand, attached to his human wrist and his human arm. It was his human body they had stripped him down to, taken off all the things that covered him up.
But he wasn't a human.
He'd always hated his Gate. He'd always hated that power, tried to suppress it, hide it, ignore it. He'd never embraced it, not even in his fight with Knives. Not even in Hondelic, not really. He didn't want to be a Plant. He didn't want to be like Knives. He didn't want to be different than Rem or the crew.
And in that bulb, his memories becoming blurred, wisping together – he'd be afraid that he was losing himself, the Vash he wanted to be. The Vash he had constructed. He'd be afraid of what he would turn into, he'd be afraid of what it would feel like to have his energy drained.
He'd been afraid of himself.
This universe, this was how everyone else saw his mind. It was time to see himself their way too.
Vash stared at his hand, stretching it out in front of him, palm towards the sphere. His skin looked dark, opaque, and he willed the top layer to flake off. It drifted out into the space around him, freezing instantly into tiny little crystals of ice, and they picked up the glow of his sisters, sparkling like the tiniest glass dreamcatchers.
Beneath that layer of skin, it seemed lighter. He watched another layer flake off, then another. It didn't . . . didn't hurt. He expected it to burn, but it actually felt cooler. Cleaner. The skin of his wrist and forearm shattered itself and drifted off, and Vash closed his eyes and threw his arm and legs wide, stretching, straining, shucking off the flesh that suddenly seemed more like a bodysuit than skin.
He screwed up his face, flaking it off his cheeks, behind his ears, the back of his neck. When he was sure everything had drifted clear, he opened his eyes, and his bangs floated into view, burning as brightly as if both the suns of Gunsmoke were shining through them.
He had extra arms – and he found them by accidentally bashing one into the sphere. He grabbed it – or at least, he meant to. His dominant arm was now an Angel Arm, but it was not a weapon; the tip of his wing wrapped around the smarting limb. Curiously, he glanced at his left, at the tiny little wing that had sprouted from his shoulder. It was whole, but ridiculously petite, and somehow it seemed cute. He smiled at it.
Joy.
Vash looked out at his sisters, shyly, and they beamed back exuberance, recognition –
Welcome.
Vash looked down at himself in wonder. His body was completely different, and it showed damage, it showed the scars, but not in the same way. They were only skin deep. His muscles, his flesh, it was strong and supple. He stretched his wing out as far as he could, every feather felt like an individual finger – and it felt good, like stretching after waking from a long night's sleep.
He turned to the sphere, the multi-faceted symbol of his self-hatred and fear, and he gave it a long look. Then he took a deep breath, and he let his emotions well up into a blinding ball of light, gathered in the palm of one of his new limbs.
The limb, too, was glowing more brightly – all of him was – and it felt right. Layers of inky blackness began to chip off the sphere like his skin, like the surface of the bricks on the walls of the homes in July and Augusta, like the clothing of the sun-baked dead, like the paint from a dried-up sign. All of the pain he had inflicted on himself, all of the guilt, all of the loathing, it was there in that black sphere.
But underneath all that lightless hopelessness, there was the truth of what he was. Vash held the white-hot ball of light in his hand, then slowly pressed it into the surface of that sphere, burning everything it touched until nothing remained but a dazzling fulgor.
-x-
It was fortuitous that Vash didn't care overmuch for wine.
Oh, his brother would drink anything if he was driven to it, but he tended to aim for a higher alcohol content. He rarely drank for the flavor, really more for the effect. As short-lived as it was. But a fine glass of pinot, or a smooth merlot . . . they were lost on a palate like Vash's.
Which meant his cache of cabernet was always where he'd left it.
Knives reclined in the armchair, letting his head fall back and staring absently at the joint of the wall and ceiling. The wine was sharp on the back of his tongue but more mellow towards the front, and he held it there a long moment, enjoying the difference before swallowing.
Good wine was complicated.
He enjoyed complicated. So few things really were. Computer systems, nuclear reactors, spaceships . . . these were things that required study to fully understand.
Humans were not complex. They were simple and flawed, and could be understood in an afternoon. The old man was trying to build an emotional bond to increase his chance of survival. The meddlesome woman was the same. It wasn't complicated.
It was simple. It was so very goddamn simple.
"Why? Why did you do that?"
Her eyes narrowed a little, apparently in contemplation. "Because I had to," she said simply.
He crouched down in front of her, studying her. She was literally holding herself together; he watched the breeze take a bit of the white fabric of her shirt and the moment it left the rest it tuned into half a teacup and shattered on the shingles.
"Why?" Why did you let me in?
Her eyes closed, and he saw the lines of weariness etched permanently into her pale skin. "If . . . if I show you . . . then can I say goodbye?"
He studied her, not understanding, and she loosened the death grip she had on her wrist, and haltingly held out her hand.
He stared at her, but her meaning was clear, and he grasped her reaching fingers.
Suddenly he was out of breath. The room around him was slightly fuzzy, images were trailing in the corner of his eye all wrong, and he was terribly anxious. In front of him, someone said something. Their voice was shaking.
"Mr. Knives?" he tried tentatively. He realized he should be more concerned about the fact that they were cornered in this room, but the Plant's body language was screaming at him that something was wrong. If he didn't know better he would have thought the man in front of him had been terribly injured.
The Plant didn't answer him. He staggered to a stop, about five feet from the wall.
Knives' eyes burned, aching from his crying, and he blinked them in irritation, hesitantly approaching the Plant.
". . . no . . ." It was a whisper, but it reverberated around deafeningly, like their footsteps in the huge chamber.
Knives swallowed around a stinging in his throat, and took a step to the left, to look around him.
The bench wasn't empty. Much like the ones outside, it contained a series of clear plates. These plates, however, rather than holding tiny volumes of liquid in tiny little cylinders, held large pieces of metal. Metal rods, metal pins, even a large mesh, like –
Shaking, he took another step to the left.
Directly in front of the Plant, far too large to have put on a plate, an arm was stretched out. Its fingers were laid out straight and neat, the hand arranged palm down. It was complete, elbow bent at about a forty-five degree angle to ensure the long, thin limb would fit easily on the bench. It ended in a rough series of needles, wires, and worse, and there were dark drops, splotches and smears on the bench top, showing it had not been moved since it had been removed. It was no longer covered in the leather armor that usually housed it, but he knew immediately who that arm belonged to.
There was only one person he knew that had a mechanical arm.
The Plant was staring at it unblinkingly, but his eyes looked dilated and unfocused. The light, coming from an angle beneath his jaw, only served to accentuate the expression of horror on his face.
Knives stared at him, blinking a growing film out of his eyes. He'd seen that look before. It was worse than horror, worse than antipathy. For once, the Plant looked exactly like Vash.
"Mr. Knives?" His voice sounded tiny to him, tiny and quiet and trapped –
He blinked again, fighting for focus, and his brain sluggishly clicked.
"Mr. Knives!" Heedless of the danger, he reached out and grabbed his arm. And then he realized.
It was just like a normal arm.
No feathers.
It wasn't quite where it looked like it ought to be, either, and the Plant reeled, stumbling to the side. He didn't tear his eyes away from the bionic arm.
"The drug! The drug you gave me!" he tried again, this time stumbling so that he was between the Plant and Mr. Vash's arm. He didn't want to think what it meant just now. In a very few moments, he was going to fall down, down in that darkness again, and that meant that the Plant would too. And whatever had happened to Mr. Vash was going to happen to him.
The room drifted away, back to the roof, and Knives fought to keep his composure. She had not just shared a memory with him; she had just dragged him completely into a construct. She had inserted him into her own memory so seamlessly he had not even been aware of himself past gender.
That wasn't possible.
The human stared at him through squinting eyes, and he felt a section of the house give way beneath them. A major structural wall. Her mind was fading quickly. She still had hold of his hand, and when he began to withdraw it, she clamped down on him with startling strength.
"You promised, Mr. Knives!" she cried. "You promised I could say goodbye!"
The human trash had just confused him for Vash. It was nothing more complicated than that.
So why couldn't he get it out of his head?
The edited soundclips from the infirmary, of her defending him – that was easily explained away as his influence. But before . . . and he had given her reason only to fear him. She should have been elated that his rampage had been so suddenly cut short. She had been nothing but a weeping mess as he had cut through the idiot humans that had dared to oppose him. Likely she had thought about using the guns he had given her against him.
Her fear would have checked that. And that was all her response had been. Fear of the consequences if she had not done everything in her power to help him.
Only there hadn't been fear. There had been a lack of it.
Dampness registered, and Knives realized he was holding only the stem of a glass. The goblet had shattered in his hand, and the wine had spattered onto the armchair and all over him.
For a moment he was incensed, but a deep breath brought calm. It was just wine.
It wasn't complicated. He was angry, and the glass had shattered. It had been a long time since he had felt emotion enough to override his self-control. But it had been happening frequently in the past week, and it had started after her.
The meddling she had done within his mind.
The meddling that he had inadvertently given her the power to do.
Was that really possible? he pondered, setting the stem, with its intact saucer bottom, back on the end table beside him. Was it really possible that he himself had cloaked her mind with the shadow of Rem? That perhaps he had had to, in order to ensure the bond was strong enough to allow him to use her to escape? Was it possible that subconsciously he had identified her as something to be permitted?
And why would he have permitted Rem?
That woman would have left them. Would have abandoned them to the scientists. Just like Tessla. Would have taken her own samples. Would have feared them Would have betrayed them.
Like that goddamn human woman lying dead outside.
She would have. If not for his influence on her mind, she would have betrayed him as well.
But she hadn't.
But she would have!
But she had multiple opportunities.
She confused him for his idiot brother. That was all there was to it!
So why then did the old man vex him so? He'd had all the same opportunities, all the same chances. He knew, full well, the difference between them. He knew that Vash was an idiot and that he himself was not to be trifled with. He comprehended the consequences the humans had brought down upon themselves.
Even knowing everything, and without telepathic influence, the old man had helped him. Had helped Vash, certainly, but had also treated his injuries with no real attempt to use it as leverage.
Again, fear of the consequences of not helping him.
But the old man, he wasn't afraid. He couldn't have been afraid and been so forward with his criticism. He had spoken his mind –
But did he really know that? He had not looked. He had had every opportunity to look, to read the old human's thoughts, to learn the truth, and he had not.
Knives closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose and letting himself experience the headache that was constantly there, just behind his eyes. The injury was still healing. It was simply easier to spare himself the pain than it was to use his telepathy to confirm what he already knew the old man was truly up to.
But what if that was an excuse?
The headache was niggling. In fact, it was wriggling around the back of his head like an insect. Knives paused. It wasn't just the ache of the injury. It was his link to Vash. He had temporarily blocked it, to allow his brother to come to the inevitable conclusion without the excuse of claiming influence, but behind the block, the link was –
Knives left his eyes closed, and lessened his stranglehold on the link. Pain poured into his skull, an echo only, not his own but his brother's. It wasn't emotional pain, it was physical. Vash was in agony.
He was on his feet before he'd even opened his eyes, letting the link flow wide open, staunching the pain information but utilizing the rest. It was essentially worthless, his brother was beyond thought, his eyes were closed, and wherever he was, it was dark.
Vash! Vash, what's wrong?
Knives had linked his office computer to the lab, and his fingers flew over the keys as he accessed his console. The sensors were still online, and they showed that Vash was in the Sanctuary. His vitals were way off; elevated respiration and heartbeat, highly elevated blood pressure, beginning signs of organ failure.
Had he initiated another treatment . . . ? The sensors showed there was no influx of Plant energy, so if he had, something had gone terribly wrong.
The house was built on one end of the underground cavern, and there was a lift that went directly there. It was too slow, Knives paced the platform impatiently until it was low enough that he could make the jump without damage. He reached out to his sisters, there were several of them gathered around Vash, and he could feel their concern and their frustration. They were unable to make contact with him.
So what the hell was going on?
He rounded the corner at a sprint, finding the three remaining humans also near his sisters. They had surrounded a bulb, and the monitor beside it showed him what the console in his office had. A flashing warning. Whoever was in that bulb, they were in imminent danger.
The bodyguard heard him coming and wisely pulled his comrades out of the way. There was no sign of Librett, and Knives acknowledged Wendi as she sank through the ceiling. They were all going to Vash, his pain was excruciating –
No.
That wasn't possible.
The humans were now on the other side of the bulb, and his sisters had it well lit. Vash was there, huddled at the base, curled over Tami, who was pressed to the bulb but somehow didn't seem capable of penetrating it. She had apparently made contact, and she had him in thrall. He was stationary, his heart was probably no longer beating, but Knives wasn't sure how long Tami could hold Vash in stasis. If she lost focus for even a moment, and she certainly would –
He slid the last few feet to the console, tapping a few quick commands before he realized the keyboard was not responsive. The workstation was locked; all he could get out of it was the lack of life signs in the bulb, the status of the inner and outer bulb containment fields, and a graph that showed normal human lifesigns that had suddenly spiked, then crashed.
The engineer.
Knives turned to his right, letting his eyes blaze through the glass, and on the other side, the human sensed him and quailed.
"He – Vash – he locked out the console," she stammered.
That was easy enough to test. She didn't have the intelligence to keep him out long. Knives started immediately on the operating system, attempting to regain root access. Tami kicked over something by his feet, fabric, of no importance, but there was a metallic ring as something rolled across the rock, and Knives recognized the shape of the sleek silver pen immediately.
The spike in Vash's life signs.
Knives heard his jaw crack, but he kept his voice tightly controlled. "How much?"
She had given Vash stimulant, and she had locked him in a bulb. He would make her pay a hundred thousand times for this mistake.
"I don't know. He self-administered." She sounded pained. "Given his readings, I'd guess twenty ccs or more."
. . . self-administered? That amount was borderline suicide, a healthy Plant would have difficulty regulating with that quantity of chemical to contend with.
Not that Vash would have known that –
Had his brother truly done this to himself?
Knives redoubled his efforts on the console, but the algorithm was complex. He would not be able to solve it before Tami lost focus. But none of his sisters could past through the containment fields, it was one of the reasons he'd modified all these bulbs to have them off by default. Even if he held Vash in stasis, he couldn't work on the console at the same time.
And if the humans were here . . . this was no surprise to them. Vash had either told them of his intention, or they had had a hand in it.
The engineer was not intelligent enough to unlock the console. And holding Vash in stasis would do nothing to get the stimulant out of his blood. The outer bulb containment field fluctuated as Aliya, who was lying atop the bulb, attempted to disrupt it, and Tami opened her eyes as the bulb buzzed angrily. Knives abandoned the console and turned immediately to the glass, laying his hands against it.
Vash! Answer me!
He was not the only one trying to make contact; Vash's mind was there but muted by the rest of their sisters, who had surrounded his mind to such an extreme that Knives wasn't sure he'd have been able to make contact at all without their telepathic bond. He got the impression of light, blinding light, and relief from their sisters. Shouldering between them, he saw Fron, Aliya, and Tami, all gathered around a brilliantly glowing Plant –
One magnificent wing, strong and muscular, totally unlike those of their sisters. His hair was shorter than theirs, it was a true reflection of his physical body, but it was the only one. He held something before him that was burning like a sun, and he was facing a disk of complete darkness, disintegrating in the sheer power of his light.
It was the block. The block on his Gate, that could not be destroyed, crumbled in the face of Vash's true form. It imploded with a roar so loud it was silent, sending rings of energy sweeping out across the vast universe of Vash's mind. No star or planet was untouched, all of them moved by the wave of energy, and Knives warded it off with an arm, surprised at the buffeting he received. Even their sisters had to brace themselves, though more gracefully than he.
He had been correct; that lightless block had held the sun around which all those memories revolved, and energy in every discernable color poured forth like plasma ejected from a red giant. Vash himself was thrown back from it, and he instinctively folded his wing, trying to catch as little of the energy as possible as he fought to brace himself and stop losing ground. Aliya, Fron, and Tami had all retreated back to the outer ring their other sisters had formed, and they greeted Knives with something like relief.
Clearly, they thought he was going to do something about this.
That release of energy was literal. Vash's Gate was open, and it was doing exactly what the data – and the stimulant- had prescribed.
It was free-flowing. If Vash didn't get a handle on it, it would exhaust itself, and he would burn out.
-x-
Author's Notes: I had actually intended to cover more in this chapter, but it took Vash a while to figure out what he needed to do, and Knives really wanted a glass of wine and frankly I've put them both through enough that I didn't see any point in rushing them. So I guess that's another cliffie. Sorry. (No, really, I am!) Next chapter we'll get to see what's happening outside of telepathy-land, and Knives will have his answer, once and for all.