Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #21 – Burn the Witch

“Call HQ? Help you? After… after what you did to our mates?!”

Those black visors, devouring her with their sightless gazes. The devilish eyes behind them. The silent grins. The screams of jubilation. The herbicide loaded in their guns, guns raised in a frenzy above their heads.

“Burn the plant!”

Burn the plant, they said.

They ripped off what was left of her armor, before training their rifles on her. And pulled the trigger.

“Burn the bitch!”

Her skin burned. Her eyes burned. Her hair. Her bark. It was. Painful. So. Painful.

They ignored her plea. They just. Ignored. Her plea. They wanted it. Their revenge. For being bossed around. For their dead comrades. Like a pack of wild beasts. Preying on the alpha only when she was wounded. That was their cowardice.

“You freak! You killed them! You killed them like flies!”

Because they were flies. Lives unworthy of being lived. But even flies. Could be dangerous.

Together.

“Spray the herbicide! Burn her! We’ll find an excuse!”

It burned. It burned. Her wounds. Her cut tendrils, her aching eye. It burned. It burned.

Lymph. Lymph multiplied. Her water drained. Her own flesh. Turned into nutrition. Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

FASTER.

Lymph pouring out of her skin.

Lymph covering the blackness.

Lymph pumping through her vessels.

Till it burst.

And

she

blossomed.

The screams.

Turned.

Into.

Surprise.

Anguish.

Fear.

Terror.

And the first head went off.

The second.

The third.

The fourth. The fifth. The sixth. The seventh. Eighth. Ninth. Tenth. Eleventhtwelfthfifteenthtwentiethtwentyfifthtwentysixtth. Twenty-seventh.

Then.

Silence.

When she opened her eye.

Her single eye left.

Again.

Everyone else.

Was gone.

Every.

Human.

Dead.

Pierced.

Decapitated.

Torn

To

Shreds

By.

Her.

Vines.

Twenty-seven corpses.

Plus five.

Plus four.

Curtain call.

But no applause.

Just her shadow, in the glitched light of Aralu.

The shadow of a traitor.

A traitor.

A traitor.

A TrAiTor.

A TRAIT

She breathed, left the scent caress her nostrils. The scent of a skin that smelled of fine herbs, delicate flowers. A scent that made her return to life, to the current moment. In the greenhouse. In the precinct. Away from Aralu. Away from the corpses. The sun was setting, not much light left. And, yet, she was there, in an embrace of vines and skin, forcing herself to keep her water from leaking. Leaking water from the eyes, from her eye. That was a sin. Humans did that, not rhizomes. Wasting water was a sin. Especially now. Especially with that body of hers. After the overflow. After the takeover. A breath. Another breath. She turned her head up, met a red iris, a white rose. The face of another woman, another rhizome. So much taller than her, so much more beautiful. She couldn’t help but stare in awe, bask in her fragrance, cuddling and twisting her long white hair, hoping those lips would grace hers one more time, sharing lymph and water with her. Her right eye twitched. The place where her eye was, at least. Now replaced by a bloomed flower. A lily. The irony was not lost on her. So much that she didn’t care about her lost calf, the foot turned into a mess of roots, the growth on her back wrapping her skin like spider legs, the vines mixed within her hair. Her hands were still the same. Her lips too. Her face, almost. One eye gone, a scar down from it to her chin, to her chest. The gift of a black blade, one that almost killed her. Her scarf of tendrils now touched the ground, covering her right shoulder like an elaborate ornament. She had lost so much. Yet, she was still there, in Lily’s arms. A secret everyone knew but nobody believed. Two rhizome exchanging lymph in the greenhouse, tangling their ducts, their tendrils, their tongues. The only reason she hadn’t gone insane yet.

“Lea, breathe. Calm down. You’re safe. I’m here.”

That voice tickled her ears, made her push her head deeper in Lily’s chest. All of them. She killed all of them. All the Peacekeepers that she brought with herself. All of them.

Burn the plant. Burn the bitch.

Burn the bitch. Burn the plant.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

“I… I…”

“It’s all gone. You’re safe. I’m here for you.”

Lily kissed Oleander’s forehead, in a motion she had repeated countless times. Rhizomes have no feelings. No empathy. They can’t feel attachment. Rhizome only think about nutrients. There was truth in that statement. But not. That time.

“…but I killed them.”

“In self-defense.”

“We are things, property. Self-defense… doesn’t apply to us.”

Lily’s hand moved through her red hair, through the greenish vines that now grew out of Lea’s head. She was right, of course. Oleander was always right, when it came to that. Lily’s hand stopped, her fingers moved to the flower, a flower that bloomed were once an eye stood. A white lily. How curious. She bit one of the petals, delicately, tasted the residual traces of lymph. Despite everything, Lea was still Lea. Her partial phytomorphosis didn’t change her, if anything it make her more beautiful, more similar to Lily. And that made a part of Lea happy, despite everything else. Happy she got closer to the woman she admired. Lily left the embrace first, took some distance in the low lights of the setting sun, let her own vines rest on her side while keeping her eyes on Oleander’s new body. An emergency reaction, one she couldn’t stop in time. One that saved her. Because humans were that – chaotic locusts that killed whatever was different. Because of fear. Absolute fear of the unknown. Lea killed five of them because they wanted to escape their duties. It was her right. To stage a coup after she was defeated… that was vile. That was why she had to take that step. Lily looked around, stared at the door. No unwelcome guests, no other rhizomes. Only Lea and she. So, she turned around again, with a serious expression.

“Correct. We’re property, not people… and this is why we have to act.”

Oleander nodded, without raising her gaze.

“…there’s no other way, is there?”

“No. But we’re ready. This is our only chance.”

“…and what of mini-you? And Kryzalid?”

Lily smirked, rested her hand on her hip.

“Oh, yeah, mini-me. What of her?”

“You haven’t seen her in person, Li. She’s… she really is miniature you. Except for her rose. Hers is red. But…”

Oleander smashed her hand against a nearby tree, cracking the bark.

“But you should be unique! One of a kind! There are dozens of Mist-class rhizomes like me! Hundreds of Spears, of Mantises, of Whips, of Shields! But only one Commander Lily! You! So, why? Why is there another… another you walking around New Babylon?”

Lily massaged her chin, seemingly lost in her thoughts.

“There’s one person who might know the answer. And that person…”

Her eye darted to the door of the greenhouse, to the black silhouette standing behind it.

“…had the guts to intrude on my private time again. Hi, Zonta. You can zip your junk back in your pants, now. Or cut it, for what I care. Just wipe your hands before touching the door, yes?”

A voice from behind the door, right as the silhouette moved.

“Your words hurt me, Captain Commander. I’m not a run-of-the-mill creep, you know? I have standards.”

“Show your face, standard, or I’ll stomp it till it bleeds.”

The door slid open, letting the scrawny man enter the greenhouse, wearing jumpsuit pants and a – for once modest – t-shirt, on top of the usual flip flops.

“Such violence. My poor heart cannot bear it. Not when I’ve come to bring good news.”

He adjusted his specs, his eyes stopping on Oleander, scanning her from head to toes. Zonta whistled, cracked a smile.

“Oh, but did I interrupt something? Don’t mind me, keep cuddling a little longer – I can wait here and take notes. You know, I’ve never seen two rhizomes sucking each other’s lymph. Though, I dreamed of it. Very often, in fact. Which is also why you are all women. Because it was bound to happen at least once – statistically speaking, I mean. On large numbers of rhizomes, there had to be at least two with the hots for each other. Ha, to think it was my tall dommy mommy too! How lucky I am!”

Oleander crunched her fist, almost bit her tongue. Suddenly, she understood why Li fantasized about bringing Zonta in space and shatter his helmet after throwing him out of Atropos, witnessing his whole body pop like a balloon in the cold, endless vacuum of the cosmos. That was an oddly specific wish, one she couldn’t fault her for having. Yet, Lily had seemingly remained calm, not showing any alteration of her mood. Even if, most likely, she was already considering seven or eight different torture methods to end that clown’s life, when the moment came.

“Zonta, the news. It’s about Agave, right?”

“Oh, yes, the news. Well, yes. In part. So, how can I put it? She’s alive and kicking. Well, because she can’t do anything else, since she lost her arms. But she’s good at kicking! She almost kicked my balls as soon as she woke up. Truly a live one.”

He smirked, joined his indexes in front of his nose, raising his elbows in that weird pose that many considered his trademark stance.

“She’s in no danger of dying or drying, but she’s lost all of her natural weapons. She’ll be discharged from the Peacekeeping Corps soon, because she can’t keep any peace in her current state. But, well, if she still wants to be useful, we could send her to Atropos with tomorrow’s express rocket – I’ve heard that that floating space coffin needs new personnel, and a crippled rhizome is better than nothing, right? Or maybe, maybe she could enter the adult entertainment industry! Amputees have an audience and she’s certainly a looker. I could put a good word for her with a friend of mine. Rhizome porn is in huge demand, but with no offer. She could make the big bucks, I tell you!”

In that moment, Oleander felt her canes pulsating, her toxic mist ready to swarm the greenhouse, to envelope that excuse of a man, to burn him to a crisp, ripping his flesh out of his bones, till nothing but ashes remained. And those ashes would be salted, then gathered and tossed into a furnace. Only to be scattered in the wind, close to the active caldera of Mt. Auckney. Or, better, used as litter for a cat. A fluffy angora cat, like her Kurbis. Oh, Kurbis would have totally enjoyed new sand for his litter and it would have been oddly satisfying for Zonta to become nothing more than a shitter for funny fluffy felines. Yet, somehow the idea of preserving Zonta’s own remains in her cubicle made her skin crawl more. The unsettling feeling of being watched by those tiny grains of dirt, in the remote chance they kept some of their original body’s perversity, was too much to bear. So, scatter in the wind close to a volcano it was. The only way to be sure. That thought, the thought of Zonta broken down to smithereens and thrown into boiling lava, somehow calmed her. It was a nice goal, one she could achieve at some point in her life. Something to look forward to. Her pressure quenched, her canes reabsorbed into her neck.

Till that man started talking again.

“Oh, Deputy Captain Oleander, yes? About your partial phytomorphosis... I wasn’t expecting to witness it with my own two eyes, today. It’s a shame it happened to you and I’d like to apologize for it.”

Oleander’s calm lasted less than a second. Her lymph boiled once more inside her vessels.

“Apologize? You designed us like this! It’s like running over a cat with a car and then saying sorry because you didn’t squash it fast enough!”

“Wait, no, no, no, no! I didn’t design you like that. It was a simple consequence of how hard biological systems are to keep under complete control. Even a true chad like me has limits. When I spliced together the first rhizome models, how could I possibly expect this? To think your human flesh and plant cells would fight to eat each other… that’s not hot at all. Look at your foot: it’s – it’s just a mess of roots and tendrils, now! Totally unsexy. But I took notes for the future. The next generation of rhizomes will be more perfect and won’t be subject to vegetisation. Aaaaand will have no melanin at all. Melanin isn’t hot enough. I hate it. A black-skinned rhizome? That’s heresy. The sight of that Whip model really pissed me off, you know? I knew some rhizomes sunbathed to tan their skins, but seeing one up close… ugh, well, whatever. Past me thought tan lines were hot. And past me is as much of a chad as I am. So, this will require careful consideration. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Wait, Zonta.”

Lily’s voice thundered in the greenhouse. It wasn’t a question, a plea. It was an order. Zonta adjusted his glasses, smiled at her.

“Oh, what now? I said what I had to say, my presence here isn’t required anymore… unless you want me to watch you two engage in steamy plant-on-plant action, that is. In which case, I wouldn’t say no, of course.”

“The rhizome who looks like me. What’s the deal with her?”

Zonta joined his fingertips, raised his elbows like chicken wings, stared at her from behind his specs.

“Oh, Lacrima, you mean?”

“…is that her name?”

“It is. That’s your big sister, Captain Commander. Your prototype, if you want.”

At the word ‘prototype’, Lily’s squinted her eye, shook her head slightly.

“…prototype?”

“I was shocked to see her walk around the city like nothing, but it is – indeed – her. The first, imperfect rhizome that survived till adult age. She has so many flaws, though. So many. I’m surprised she didn’t become a full plant yet, seen how much lymph her body produces. So much. Ah, so, so much! I wonder how she drains it. Does she touch herself every night to trigger a release? Or did she find someone who does that for her? Ah, that’s hot, that’s so hot!”

Oleander shivered, almost felt like puking. Lily crunched her fist, her teeth sunk into her lips, her tendrils flew down her hip. That man. That monster. That absolute filth of a waste of space. That creature was less of a person than the abomination from the mall. A skinwalker, something that just mimicked the shape of a human, twisted beyond repair. There was no alternative. There was no choice. Lily knew it, knew what had to be done. Their meeting now just confirmed it. She tried to calm down, to avoid smashing that punchable face on the ground, turn it into humus. She needed him, at least a little bit longer.

“So, mini-me is a failed rhizome that somehow beat two of her ‘more developed’ sisters in close combat. How does that check out? And why did you keep her existence a secret to all of us?!”

“Do you yap about your failures in public? I’m sure you don’t. And so I didn’t. A failure is a failure. Except, well, this failure is… peculiar. More like a half success, yes? You see, more lymph means faster regeneration, faster production of natural weapons, and, in general, a faster metabolism. She’s literally made for combat, even if the drawbacks are severe. A bit like you, Captain Commander. Except she leaks more and her output is very unbalanced.”

“…I see.”

Lily fell silent, elaborating on that information – or lack thereof. That didn’t change much for her, but at least she knew what to expect, when she faced that Lacrima. Especially now that the prototype was with Kryzalid. Fate was pretty funny, after all. Mimi and mini-Lily meeting? Escaping together? Fighting together? That was an interesting turn of events, one that made her almost chuckle.

“You can go back to your lair in the basement, Zonta. Unless you also brought news about my request for accessing Panopticon, that is.”

Zonta leaned forty-five degrees forward, crossed his arms behind his back.

“Oh dear, so you really want to cause a ruckus? Well, well, well, it’s way above my clearance level, but… if a little bird told me the truth, that approval might be signed right as we speak. Killing twenty Peacekeepers in one go was already a big thing… but killing thirty-six more in such a brutal fashion really put a target on Kryzalid’s back. At this point, I’m pretty sure you’ll get all the support you need, Captain. After all, that Van Perens coward is just so afraid of her. If you assured her that you could take our friendly blind violinist out of the equation before the Turn, she would literally hold a ritual sacrifice in your honor and slaughter her firstborn.”

He adjusted his specs one more time, before finally turning around one last time.

“Okay, I told you all I had to tell you. I’d offer Deputy Captain Oleander an in-depth check-up in the lab to ascertain the state of her phytomorphosis, but I’m not sure, after our interaction, that she’d be willing to let these hands of mine touch her luscious body – even if it’s for her good.”

Oleander glanced at Lily, their eyes meeting, words exchanged without a sound. Then, Lily nodded, albeit reluctantly. Prompting Oleander to turn to the scientist.

“…if you don’t do anything perverted, I’ll gladly take the check-up. I don’t… want my plant side to consume me, Zonta. So… please. Lead the way.”

Zonta let out the best smile he could muster, one that would have killed a puppy just by its sheer awkwardness.

“That’s the best decision, I swear you won’t regret it. But to address your concerns: I’m not a wholesale pervert. I just watch and never ever touch. If it can make you feel better, I’ll let my assistants handle you. The important part is that you don’t turn into a monster and kill half of the precinct. Because that wouldn’t be hot at all, not even to watch.”

He snapped his fingers, pointed his index at the two rhizomes.

“Well, catch me in the lab when you are finished with your snu-snu. Keeping your lymph levels low is adamant more than ever, in your situation. So, go for it. Have the good captain suck you dry. I trust it will be an unforgettable experience.”

Without adding anything else, he slowly walked away, whistling a cheerful tune under the annoyed, disgusted gaze of both rhizomes, till he disappeared behind the door of the greenhouse. Oleander let the tension flow away from her body, finally relaxed.

“I hate Father so much.”

“I refuse to call him Father. That man is simply cancer.”

“Yeah.”

Oleander glanced back at Lily, at her serious expression. She leaned on a nearby tree, fidgeting with her hair, thinking back at the man’s parting words.

“S… so, Li… are you going to… huh, drain me a little more? J… just to be sure, that is.”

“I don’t see the point. I already had my share of your lymph. You had your share of mine. We’re done for this evening. There’s no benefit in exchanging it again.”

“A… alright.”

Oleander heaved a sigh, one that could have been mistaken for a sign of disappointment. Before looking once again at the tall rhizome with that wonderful, ethereal, long white hair, shining in the light of the setting sun. She gulped down a lump of saliva, as she felt her lymph production kicking off again. Then, she touched her flower, the flower that replace her eye, finding it wet. She brought a drop of water from its petals to her tongue, slowly licked it. Her eye searched for Lily, till it met her gaze once again.

“What do you think of my flower, Li? Do you… like it?”

Lily closed in on her, delicately bit the white petals once more, licked them, tasting their water. Before kissing them, one by one, wrapping Oleander in her arms.

“I do. It smells nice.”

Oleander closed her eyes, leaned on Lily’s chest, with a big, dumb smile opening on her face.

“I’m so happy to hear this.”

She basked in Lily’s scent, let it cradle her, just one minute, one more minute. A minute she didn’t want to ever end.