"...Last Run?"

The doctor looks away for a moment, then looks at Nai. "We have to go."

"Heal them." Fix them, cure them, improve them, bring them back, resurrect them. Human words don't have all the concepts, he can't convey—but the doctor has to obey, anyway.

"...it's too late. At this stage..."

Nai suddenly grimaces and curls up, a soundless scream escaping his mind in harmony with all of the other plants. They start emitting more light, and they're, they're...

...they're dying. The Last Run has begun. They're milking his sisters dry, all of them, and they scream and scream and scream and he hates them hates them hates them. Hates the humans. Kill the humans. He hates them. He tries to straighten up, look at the plant behind him again. He wants to hold them, offer comfort, and he, he can't, there's nothing he can do. Nothing he can do except watch them die. He falls to his knees.

"...I'm sorry," the doctor says, unable to meet his eyes, and unable to look at the plants, either. "Please... please forgive us. Forgive humans. We don't know... what we're doing."

Forgive. Forgive?! He dares ask for forgiveness?!

Which is when Zash finally arrives. "Nai..."

He knew Zash was coming. Could hear him. Wasn't paying attention, because his sisters were dying, but—there's a part of him that's always listening for Zash. He stands up, slowly, then turns to face his brother.

It strikes him, to see his brother matured, grown up. It strikes him much more than seeing himself in the mirror. They've spent... so long apart... "You heard them. Didn't you. Zash."

"I..." [Yes. I did.] His mental voice is full of longing, of misery, of sadness. Concepts and words they can never really communicate with humans.

And not anger. Never anger. Zash isn't angry, and his sisters aren't angry, they're never angry at these humans, they're always forgiving.

Nai supposes that if they won't be angry then he'll have to be angry on their behalf. On the behalf of all of the plants, all of his sisters. On his own behalf.

On Zash's behalf.

[This is the nature of humanity.] Contemptible little creatures, greedy monsters, incapable of cooperation, of helping those who help them. They take and take and take, they take what is freely given and they take what doesn't belong to them, they use and use and use and only consume. [This is what you want to save, want to love.] "These people. Why, Zash?"

The two guards are now painfully aware that there's... something going on here that they don't understand. "The plants were created by humans," one of them tries. "To serve us. They're just machines." Three more guards join the group, these ones more heavily armed. "If they had feelings, I'm sure they would have been happy to be useful."

They were. That makes him angriest of all. Even in their dying screams, even as they crumbled to dust, they didn't hate the humans. They were happy to help. Happy that their lives would buy humans more time, more life, more prosperity.

They won't. Not this time.

The three new guards move to apprehend Nai, and Zash catches his intention before he acts and cries, "Nai—!"

But of course it's too late. The blades appear in his hands almost unbidden, a pure and silver expression of his hurt and his anger and his hatred and his resolve.

The humans will not benefit from this. If they want to destroy the very people who want to help them most of all, then they will need to learn what happens when they do.

"Nai, stop this!" but it is too late, the three men are already lying in pieces around him, and Zash—has never felt his brother so, so, so angry, so desperate, so lost. He's never seen him kill humans like this, in cold blood.

The other two guards look too shocked to react, minds uncomprehending of what just happened. Their three colleagues dead in less than a second, their blood still pooling on the floor, and the blades held by the boy—the monster before them—

The doctor doesn't look surprised, though. Just... sad.

[No, Zash. These people will need to understand.] And he can convey to Zash exactly what they need to understand. He can't convey it to the humans, but he can convey it to his brother. There is so much that mere words cannot communicate, but he doesn't need them. He knows Zash will understand.

"Rem sacrificed herself to save them! Doesn't that mean anything?"

[Rem. The creature who bewitched you.] "She was one of them. She was also a human." The word means a lot more than just the species, now. It's coloured with disgust and loathing, it's a bundle of all that is wrong and ugly and dirty. [If it hadn't been for her, all humans would've died.]

"She was our mother, Nai—!"

"Was she?" She was playing a role, that's for sure. So doting, so nice.

She didn't stop Tesla from happening.

[You know she tried!]

"Do I?" She said she did, but what are the words of humans worth? They lie and manipulate and hurt and kill. Their words mean nothing.

"It wasn't... just her words..."