Subsequent Fall Part 38: Planters

Once they landed on the surface they looked about, the flora spread about the planet as they walked about. They saw nothing walking around as they advanced deeper into the planet's flora. "What is this place, it seems so unnatural?" Wash looked around as Airsoft was leading the eight of them.

The vines on the ground moved as humans consumed by the plants walked slowly around, paying no attention to the fireteam. "Magically enhanced plant. It can't be a Bloom flower, can it?" Proto asked Airsoft.

"If it is just that, we could be fine. I still feel like its worse than that." Airsoft put his hand up as they halted in the spot they stood, a giant ent walked past them as they slid by it quietly. "Marker puts the core seventeen miles north."

Groans were heard from all of them as Nevada looked ahead on the map as they continued to move. It was quiet for the first ten miles as the creatures didn't bother them. It confused him more than the others. "Airsoft, could it be a trap?" Nevada asked as the plants around them became more densely packed. 

"Heh, it knows that as much as we do, but why hasn't it acted?" Airsoft pressed a button which pinged all the moving things in their area as stuff was moving away from the eight of them. "Either its regrouping."

"Or it wants to tell us something." Omaha commented on as they all saw their path in front of them close with a slam of the vines, it moved like a snake as they all stood in place. Jumping a half a step back they saw how cornered they were. Airsoft looked up as a vine came in and pulled Washington away from the rest of them as he shot his tether around the vine and saved Wash from being pulled away.

Locking into the ground Airsoft wasn't losing anyone else. "Don't fire at the creature unless we start getting attacked!" Airsoft threw his arm in a loop and wrapped the tether around the vine as he pulled it like a ripcord, cutting the vine apart as Wash clung to the tether and was pulled in by Airsoft.

The wall opened up once more as a flood of plant like humans started attacking them with vine whips. Airsoft gave the signal as the other six opened fire without mercy onto the plants as he saw a new friendly marker appeared. Looking at Wash he had green algae all over his suit. "Proto, Omaha, full speed back to the shuttle that just landed and take Wash with you."

"But the thing didn't get me!" Wash demanded as he burped.

"Not the point, you need to be studied by Doctor Anders, full fire force is allowed by you three. Godspeed." Airsoft clicked his pistol from his holster and toggled its fire setting and opened fire into the creature itself as its vines snuffed it out.

Wash nodded and took off with Proto and Omaha by his side, he felt a touch off. Did it get him? The three of them used their fire ammunition and were working on the way out, burning everything in their wake with the incendiary tipped bullets and firestorm grenades.

Airsoft pushed forward as the others followed him closely. The vines all around them tried to whip the four of them, shooting the whips or avoiding them the three of them were able to close the seven remaining miles in an hour of running and gunning.

Anders looked at a stumbling plant creature as she pointed at it. "Achilles, can you do me a favor and get me a small sample?" Within a blink of an eye her hand held a chunk of the plant's appendage as it flopped on the ground lifeless.

"Thank you very much." with her other hand she pulled out a tray that hovered in air, setting the small vine on the tray as she wiped her hand free and looked at the vine under a microscope. It wasn't purely plant cells, in the center around the nucleus was a virus membrane. "This could be much deadlier than what we thought!" Looking at her hand it turned green.

"What's the issue, can you make a cure?" Achilles asked with a calm tone as Anders held her hand up.

"I need you to sever my hand." Without hesitation he diced it off. The pain was immense as the rest of her hand turned into the same type of plant structure. Falling to her knees softly Achilles caught her. The two of them put a cover patch on her hand as she grabbed the plantified hand and put it on the tray. Viewing it with a microscope once more.

"All I can think of is using a standard antivirus on it and calling it a day." She took out a spray bottle as the two looked up in the distance, hearing shouting as the fires consumed the foliage in the distance.

Wash was turning greener by the second as Proto and Omaha both looked scared for him. He was fighting it to the best of his abilities as the plant was trying to tap into his nervous system. It hit his spinal cord and paralyzed him as he dropped lifeless to the ground. "NOOOOO!" Proto shouted as he opened fire on the brush around him with his weapon and Wash's.

Omaha tied a tether to him and took off, seeing Anders and Achilles in the distance, maybe they have something for him. "Help! Wash got infected!"

"All we can do is spray him down with antivirus and pray." Anders pulled out her spray bottle as Astral and Jaimie slowly were gliding into view. Anders spray was able to slow the spread, but it moved too fast. Astral landed and chanted an incantation in complete gibberish to the rest of them.

All of the plant withered away as Wash groaned. "You are going to make it. Anders. Your hand?" Astral asked for it as she pushed the one on the tray over with her nub. "Oh, so its a virus?" Astral spun his hand in a counter clockwise motion as the plant on her hand vanished. Grabbing it he put it back on her wrist with a incantation as it healed back on.

"Thank you for keeping the doctor safe, now do me a favor and get these two to be checked out in the medical center?" Jaimie asked nicely as Achilles nodded. Proto came into view from the corner of Astral's eye as he was about to be hit by a whip. A beam of fire shot through the air and seared it to ash as Jaimie held her spear.

"Thanks!" Proto shouted as it sounded so quiet from a distance.

"Omaha, want to regroup with the rest of the team or leave now?" Astral asked, pointing to Achilles as he still had the door open.

"Eh, let's burn this forest to the ground." she readied her rifle and toggled the flame setting as Astral and Jaimie charged with their weapons of choice, her spear and his muramasa. Cutting through the vegetation Proto and Omaha stayed in the back row and picked off the creatures walking about as Jaimie and Astral hacked apart the vines.

'This isn't Bloom's vines, I don't sense the Bloom flower pod either, this is something worse.' Astral thought as he flicked his left hand up and pushed forward, a wall of fire incinerating everything in its path as it kept going until it went out.

"Astral, what are we looking for other than just burning it all?" Jaimie asked as she started a separate vine on fire.

"We get rid of all of the evidence of this in order to keep the universe safe from this parasite. If we don't, think of the damage it could do." Astral sliced his hand open on purpose. "By my blood, burn." Astral flicked his blood onto one of the vines as half of the planet caught on fire from the vines.

"Its not all catching on fire! There is two!" Omaha exclaimed, hoping the others were safe and taking care of the other core and taking it down. For these two, no effort was needed as they were much better than a simple plant virus.

'Airsoft, I swear to god, if more fallen appear, run!' Astral was worried as he got a hint of what treaty caused this planet's demise, grabbing one of the creatures skulls and tapping into its hive mind he saw what he feared.