TriMax 11 Chapter 4
Feb. 28th, 2005 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Took longer than planned - sorry.
Chapter Four - 'KYOU HITO SAISEI' (Regeneration/Rebirth of the Evil Man) Nightow, I love you, but that title sucks.....
The title page suddenly gives us a timescale for everything - the explosion at the end of chapter 3 took place at 20:47 and 10 seconds, on July 20th of Star Calendar Year 114. And then we go back in time 37 minutes to Zazie's return to the Ark, carried by an enormous butterfly. I'm assuming the butterfly is a construct, like Zazie.
Knives isn't an idiot, and knows why she's there. He asks if she thinks she can do this alone. Zazie points out that she's not exactly alone, with all the voices in her head. Knives warns her not to interfere, he's kind of cranky right now. Zazie tells him it would be a shame to damage such an old friendship with the sandworms.
Knives came to an arrangement with the sandworms a long time ago, it seems. (Knives was such a cute-looking kid. Pity about the genocidal maniac angle, really.) Knives genuinely appears to have a great deal of respect for the worms - he thinks they have an extremely advanced intellect. There is talk of coexistence, but Zazie has concluded this is impossible.
Meanwhile, inside the Ark, Elendira is discovering she has a problem as she loses all control of her body. Legato is waking up....
Zazie elaborates on her last statement some more - the worms are perfectly happy to coexist with the Plants. It's Knives personally that they've decided has to be removed from the equation. She's done something to Knives to temporarily freeze him, and all the other Plants react in shock. You always did wonder what Zazie kept in her trousers, didn't you? *g*
And the answer is, of course, a worm! (I can't decide whether this would be worse if Zazie still looked like a 13-year-old boy or not....) She intends to dose him with a mind-control parasite so beloved of SF, but tells him not to worry - she'll grant his wishes of liberating the Plants and wiping out the humans. Not such a great swap of overlords, then.
But Zazie suddenly finds she shares Elendira's problem - she can't move. She thinks of Legato right away, but Zazie is a weird construct and the control is by means of a direct electric current that over-rides her muscular system. She sends out her insects to find the person doing this and figures out she's being controlled through the wire. She finds herself drawing her gun and turning it towards her own head...
...but then one of her insects breaks the wire and she turns the gun away from herself as it fires. Now she's mad and wanting to kill people. Her insects have found Elendira still lying paralysed on the floor.
Right in front of Elendira is Legato's bearer - and it's empty. Elendira spends a page thinking unflattering thoughts about Legato. Legato uses a bunch of those electrical wires to zap Zazie's insects out of the air, and he's able to creep right up behind her before she realises.
"I'm over here," he says, and Zazie promptly gets her arse kicked.
Knives is awake again, and watching as Legato gloats at Zazie. He's playing with a glowing little sphere of energy like a stress-ball.
Knives hurls that energy down at the planet, and blows up a bunch of sandworms. One big explosion, and it's back to the current time again.
On the Ship, Vash is on the outer deck creating the ammunition he wanted from Marlon's unsuitable supplies. There's a neat trick....
Livio comes out and greets him. Vash jumps, loses concentration and blasts a hole in the deck *g*. Good idea to do that outside, maybe, yeah.
Livio gives Vash his own broken asassin's coin to add to his collection. There's now just one half coin missing. Livio lists off the names of Knives' dead assassins, pausing slightly before the last two - Chapel and himself as Double Fang/Trip of Death. Livio announces that the missing half coin belongs to Zazie the Beast. Vash looks up as a voice calls out, "Hang on!"
And a 1970s hangover guy arrives with the last missing half coin to complete the set. Convenient much?
Hey, look, Vash went a whole chapter without anyone saying anything to stab him through the heart! Probably because he wasn't in it much. Guess that makes up for it happening twice last chapter, anyway.
And Knives had to be saved by a human, poor thing. Something of a bummer for the superior race concept, that.
Chapter Four - 'KYOU HITO SAISEI' (Regeneration/Rebirth of the Evil Man) Nightow, I love you, but that title sucks.....
The title page suddenly gives us a timescale for everything - the explosion at the end of chapter 3 took place at 20:47 and 10 seconds, on July 20th of Star Calendar Year 114. And then we go back in time 37 minutes to Zazie's return to the Ark, carried by an enormous butterfly. I'm assuming the butterfly is a construct, like Zazie.
Knives isn't an idiot, and knows why she's there. He asks if she thinks she can do this alone. Zazie points out that she's not exactly alone, with all the voices in her head. Knives warns her not to interfere, he's kind of cranky right now. Zazie tells him it would be a shame to damage such an old friendship with the sandworms.
Knives came to an arrangement with the sandworms a long time ago, it seems. (Knives was such a cute-looking kid. Pity about the genocidal maniac angle, really.) Knives genuinely appears to have a great deal of respect for the worms - he thinks they have an extremely advanced intellect. There is talk of coexistence, but Zazie has concluded this is impossible.
Meanwhile, inside the Ark, Elendira is discovering she has a problem as she loses all control of her body. Legato is waking up....
Zazie elaborates on her last statement some more - the worms are perfectly happy to coexist with the Plants. It's Knives personally that they've decided has to be removed from the equation. She's done something to Knives to temporarily freeze him, and all the other Plants react in shock. You always did wonder what Zazie kept in her trousers, didn't you? *g*
And the answer is, of course, a worm! (I can't decide whether this would be worse if Zazie still looked like a 13-year-old boy or not....) She intends to dose him with a mind-control parasite so beloved of SF, but tells him not to worry - she'll grant his wishes of liberating the Plants and wiping out the humans. Not such a great swap of overlords, then.
But Zazie suddenly finds she shares Elendira's problem - she can't move. She thinks of Legato right away, but Zazie is a weird construct and the control is by means of a direct electric current that over-rides her muscular system. She sends out her insects to find the person doing this and figures out she's being controlled through the wire. She finds herself drawing her gun and turning it towards her own head...
...but then one of her insects breaks the wire and she turns the gun away from herself as it fires. Now she's mad and wanting to kill people. Her insects have found Elendira still lying paralysed on the floor.
Right in front of Elendira is Legato's bearer - and it's empty. Elendira spends a page thinking unflattering thoughts about Legato. Legato uses a bunch of those electrical wires to zap Zazie's insects out of the air, and he's able to creep right up behind her before she realises.
"I'm over here," he says, and Zazie promptly gets her arse kicked.
Knives is awake again, and watching as Legato gloats at Zazie. He's playing with a glowing little sphere of energy like a stress-ball.
Knives hurls that energy down at the planet, and blows up a bunch of sandworms. One big explosion, and it's back to the current time again.
On the Ship, Vash is on the outer deck creating the ammunition he wanted from Marlon's unsuitable supplies. There's a neat trick....
Livio comes out and greets him. Vash jumps, loses concentration and blasts a hole in the deck *g*. Good idea to do that outside, maybe, yeah.
Livio gives Vash his own broken asassin's coin to add to his collection. There's now just one half coin missing. Livio lists off the names of Knives' dead assassins, pausing slightly before the last two - Chapel and himself as Double Fang/Trip of Death. Livio announces that the missing half coin belongs to Zazie the Beast. Vash looks up as a voice calls out, "Hang on!"
And a 1970s hangover guy arrives with the last missing half coin to complete the set. Convenient much?
Hey, look, Vash went a whole chapter without anyone saying anything to stab him through the heart! Probably because he wasn't in it much. Guess that makes up for it happening twice last chapter, anyway.
And Knives had to be saved by a human, poor thing. Something of a bummer for the superior race concept, that.
