Taking the Scenic Route

Now the plants made their move. Before Elaine could shout out for Amethyst to turn around the vines wrapped around Elaine's mouth. More plants wrapped around her arms and hands to keep her from fighting against the garden any longer. For several seconds Elaine squirmed with all her might to break loose from the foliage holding her captive.

Glimmering lights brightened up the hedge where Thistle kept her berries. Each branch slowly turned down to allow Amethyst to pluck them off. As she reached out her hand, the branch recoiled as Thistle wanted a new condition. "Elaine stays?" Amethyst started to laugh. "You think you can keep her?" As she finished her sentence, she noticed Thistle smiling behind her. When Amethyst took made a one eighty, she shockingly set her gaze on Elaine. "What happened to you?!"

"Mmmphhh!" Elaine went back to squirming under the caress of the deadly plants.

"She stays?" Amethyst repeated Thistle. "Deal." Amethyst put out her hand to broker the transaction until she heard 'feed her to the forest'. Wanting to stay away from the ears of Elaine, Amethyst invited Thistle to the side and lowered her voice. "How about you keep her for a day and teach her the ways of the forest or something?" If Thistle declined, Amethyst would take her up on the berries and assume Elaine could escape. "Well, I really fought for you Elaine. But, you know how these things work. It's complicated."

Amethyst would start her egress as Elaine glued her eyes to her in a harsh gaze.

"How about you keep her for a day and teach her the ways of the forest or something?" That statement brought a cackle from Thistle's lips, before her cancelled any emotion and turned into a blank, emotionless plate. "No." Thistle folded her arms and the bush beside her extended the thin twig again, above the alchemist's hand and dropped them into it. "Well, I really fought for you Elaine. But, you know how these things work. It's complicated."

Her new prey fixed her eyes on the other woman as she began to make her way from the area. Vines descended from the leafy sky and wrapped around Elaine's arms and shoulders and hoisted her into the air. Below her a large, snapping plant brust through the earth and began to snap at her feet; intent on eating her.

"A pleasure doing business with you."

Once out of sight, Amethyst put the berries in a safe place and watched as the garden opened before her. Maybe everything would work out fine for Elaine, it always seemed to in the past. And even if it didn't, it wasn't like she talked to a spirit who gave them all the information they needed for what they were looking for. Amethyst came to a stop. She sighed and turned around.

Struggling in vain, Elaine muffled some varied curses as she hanged over the devouring plant. Giving up on her energetic squirming, Elaine realized the vines wrapping her up weren't all that uncomfortable. Looking down at the vicious plant, Elaine thought of a new plan to escape the clutches of this creature. Wiggling her hands towards her hips, Elaine pressed her fingers along the grip of the pistol.

Beneath her, the plant grew in size and aggression. Rows of savage, sharp thorns awaited to tear into its captive. Thinking no longer of the danger, Elaine wondered where the plant would store her when it ate her? Did it have a stomach or would it turn her into mulch? Out of all the near death experiences, this one raised the most odd questions.

Hovering just above the plant, a row of jaws clamped down on Elaine's boot. Writing in defiance, she sacrificed her boot for her own good. Even though it loosen the tension of the vines binding her ankles, the ever wrapping girth of the vines gave her no leeway. Wiggling her foot felt lighter than usual, more so that just with the loss of a boot. She felt the loss of a gun too.

More than just leather, the plant swallowed Elaine's sidearm she kept for hairy situations. Elaine didn't know if plants had hair, but she knew she kept explosive rounds in her sidearm. While the plant ingested the bounty, Elaine pressed her fingers closer to the grip of her pistol and felt her finger press against the detonation trigger, causing the three explosive rounds to erupt from within the gut of the plant.

Still hanging in a perilous situation, Elaine looked over to see Thistle still within the vicinity. No doubt would she send more of these vile creatures to devour her. Elaine needed to think of something quick or she would fall victim to the dumb plants that couldn't even kill Amethyst.

An explosion burst above Elaine's head. The plant line severed, sending Elaine to the ground amidst shards of broken glass. "Mmmphhh!" Above her stood the person these dumb plants couldn't kill. A line of light shot forth from Amethyst's hand to bind Thistle with magic. A grenade made things look a little better by clouding the area in a thick smoke. Pulling someone bound in vines took more effort than Amethyst thought. Of course Elaine would cause this rescue mission to falter.

"The one thing you can't fight is fire." Amethyst pulled out another flask along with a pistol from Elaine's holster. " I can set everything in here on fire, and it will torch this place before those bindings ever give up."

Her face twisted into one of fury whenever Elaine caused the razor toothed monster to explode. She hadn't quite seen had she did it, all she knew was that vile green sludge had burst into the air, the plant's jaws had stopped snapping and it had fell to the side; flaccid, with it's tongue slopped against the dirty ground. With an aggressive roar, Thistle pointed towards Elaine. "Devour he-ARGH!" She found herself rolling against the floor, bound in what appeared to be sunlight.

She spent a few seconds dazed before trying to force her way from this new prison. With an icy glare in Elaine's direction she saw the one from earlier clutching on to what appeared to be a potion. "Argh! We had a deal!" she cried, before forcing herself to stand on her knees. Small vines, branches and even some flowers had already began curling around the bright bindings and pulling; causing them to gradually stretch, desperate to free their mistress.

" I can set everything in here on fire, and it will torch this place before those bindings ever give up."
Thistle narrowed her eyes.
"Get out of my sight or I swear I will kill you."

Thorns had started growing around Thistle, curling around her thighs, wrists and they also joined the effort in ripping the binds asunder. They would not contain her for long.

Behind the pair, plants began to part like the red sea in order to show them the way out. And if they were lucky, it wouldn't crash down on them like it had done to the Egyptians. While they may escape this time, if either of them ever cross Thistle's path again she will tear them apart.

This deal of getting out needed no condition. With the greatest of pleasure, Amethyst started to pull Elaine out of the garden. Busy work, but stopping to pull the branches from Elaine would take far too long. The constant squirming from Elaine gave Amethyst no help while they made their exodus. Finally giving into Elaine's protest, Amethyst dropped Elaine and cut the vines from around her legs and helped her to her feet. "We don't have time for the rest. I'll cut you loose when we don't have branches all around us."

"Mmmphhh!" Branches parted along the way just as they had before, but all Amethyst could only wonder at which point would Elaine have set her down and continued on foot. Maybe she should keep her mind set to getting the duo out before taking to hypotheticals with the power to unravel the partnership she put her life in danger to keep intact. Taking her newly freed stride towards a tree, Elaine pried the vines from around her mouth. "You left my boot back there!"

"It blew up. Also, saved your ass." Amethyst watched as the sunlight peaked through the windows in the canopy. This place seemed nice enough if it didn't try to kill you. Her next trick involved pulling a beaten brown hat out of her pack and beating it against her hip to knock off some of the built up dust. When Elaine caught up, Amethyst sat it back upon her head. "Nothing to complain about now."

"I can't scratch my nose."

"Scratch it with enlightenment for all I care. We're in a hurry, so I'm not stopping to cut you out." The duo walked their more or less triumphant walk until the vale broke. "Nice to see plants that aren't trying to kill you."

"You don't know what plants are thinking. Stop trying to show off."

"Fine. Walk to the train station like that." In her heart Amethyst knew she couldn't very well walk through the streets of a dangerous town full of metahuman perils with Elaine in her condition, but it did make for a good jab.

"Just get me out of this so we can get back and use those stupid beans to build a beanstalk and kill giants."

"Not what we're doing." The short knife made quick work of the vines, most of which decayed from being separated from the host tree they spawned from. "Although that could be quite an adventure to undertake. I wonder if she is still bound and would be willing to give us some. I figure she wouldn't like it very much."

"Did you just say 'berry'." Elaine crossed her arms in dismay for the first time in twenty minutes.

"I should've let that plant eat you!"