Sprout to Saviour

A Green Epilogue - Looking Ahead

Lathyrus and Helianthus stepped closer and closer as some of the new wave of plant warriors watched in anticipation. Face-to-face, they craned their heads forward bit by bit anticipating the moment of contact until-

BLEURGH!

- the previously sparkling-clean floor was redecorated with Dionaea's last five meals.

Lathyrus grimaced as an expression of killing intent passed over Helianthus's face for a brief moment. Dionaea wasn't sure whether he imagined it, so out of place was the sight, but it almost made him want to vomit again. Catching herself, Helianthus stopped the laser-like glare and reverted to a more appropriate expression of dismay, suddenly finding the floor fascinating. Carnegiea had learned to stop getting exasperated at the antics of her lively teammates, shown when she ignored the scene and challenged another cactus to a bizarre spiky version of a thumb war.

The moment humiliatingly broken, Lathyrus decided to scope out the crowd around him and cheered up as he took in his new celebrity status. A chomper and peashooter approached him, but their enthusiasm suddenly abandoned them as they awkwardly realised that they didn't really have the means to get an autograph. Fortunately, Lathyrus was a quick thinker; shooting a pea at the anchor point of a nearby tire swing, Lathyrus sent the tire rolling toward him whereupon he caught it with one his stubby little leaves and fired another pea at the ground to create a convenient splatter. Using the other leaf, he scooped up some of the pea splatter and wrote on the tyre. Whatever the word was, it only resembled 'Lathyrus' if you squinted at it and had a lot of imagination, but that seemed to satisfy the fans.

Helianthus set off to examine some of the less mobile flowers in the surrounding gardens, not yet in the mood to deal with the crowds. Dave had really gone up in the world, something which shouldn't be too surprising in light of the fact that many of his neighbours had succumbed to the zombie outbreak, so their stuff was basically his. Helianthus shed a sappy tear at the recollection of fallen souls before focusing on the fact that they had won - that years from now, this suburb might (would) be a haven for humans again.

Dionaea was gently escorted away from the scene as some of the bystanders cleared his vomit. Perhaps he should have given some indication that he was still quite ill, but he didn't think that warranted such an intense unspoken accusation. Perhaps he had interrupted something important? He didn't get it. They were just approaching one another. The thought was discarded as Helianthus returned to resume treatment, having clearly forgiven him and communicated her own unspoken apology. Another bystander offered him a pair of salted zombie feet, the kind of gift only a chomper could love, and no-one dared comment on the annoyingly loud chewing noise that should not have been possible.

The thumb war, for lack of a more cactile description, deadlocked for a while until Carnegiea ultimately claimed victory. The entertainment over, Carnegiea examined the crowd more closely and noticed all of them fell into the same four archetypes but a few seemed to have quirks such as clothing, alternative colouration or literally being on fire. If Dave insisted on experimenting wildly with his new plants, Carnegiea believed she should supervise the cultivation process. Then again, fully animate plants seemed a stupid idea in the first place until Dave's mysterious supplier made them work, and whatever bizarre rituals he had taken during the four proto-plant's germination and growth had clearly achieved something, so she relaxed on the thought.

These trifling moments seemed out of place considering the prospect of war - Zomboss was far from defeated after all - but Dave was neither smart nor cruel enough to order them to do something more productive. On that subject...

You would expect our plucky band of protagonists to get airlifted out against the dramatic backdrop of explosions. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The explosions petered out long before their ride arrived.

Having bought an obligatory burger, Dave finally set out to collect his green charges with his not-so-trusty transport. The grapevine didn't give the weary plants an estimated time of arrival and neither Dave nor his van were particularly good at navigation, so what should have been a quiet moment to reflect on their climactic victory dragged on to infinity.

Dionaea swayed a little, probably woozy from being injured, although he'd almost certainly eaten something that disagreed with him along the way as well. Helianthus gave him a suspicious glance which he quickly dismissed with a quick gesture from one of his leaves. Lathyrus grew increasingly annoyed with standing at attention and resorted to running in circles until Carnegiea pointedly stopped him. Not by actually striking him with her spikes, but the more metaphorical kind of pointiness.

Redirecting her attention to the sky, Carnegiea spotted the telltale erratic flight patterns of Crazy Dave's vehicle and began to jump up and down in an improvised and silly-looking hailing gesture. Lathyrus and Dionaea seemed confused, but Helianthus quickly contributed by rooting herself and firing a beam of light directly upward. Understanding the signal through some small miracle, Dave swooped in to pick the plants up. The return trip was rickety, but the relief of finally going back home dulled any kind of panic from Crazy Dave's...driving?

Meanwhile, Dr Zomboss contemplated that he wasn't paid enough for this. No amount of intelligence borne of insane self-experimentation and consumption of high-quality brains could have prepared Zomboss for this humiliating defeat. Inspecting the wreckage that used to be his infrastructure, Zomboss swore revenge.

Grabbing a mysterious one-buttoned remote from his pocket, Zomboss' frown flipped into the kind of smile that could curdle milk as a mountain off in the distance began to open up by the summit, revealing a plethora of clearly artificial structures inside. Zomboss did not make oaths casually.

He would be back, alright...

I didn't think I'd ever draw up the inspiration (and it probably shows), but Christmas magic strikes again! If anyone wants to like making a continuation in light of Garden Warfare 2 or Battle for Neighbourville, feel free, but otherwise this tale has come to an end. Thanks for your time!

Dorylus signing off.