InsaneJournal

And the Children Shall Inherit the Earth
Title: And the Children Shall Inherit the Earth
Rated: hard R
Pairing: Sam/Undergrowth
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Danny Phantom belongs to Nickelodeon and its associates.

-----

This story is a cut scene from the episode Urban Jungle. It contains teen pregnancy, inplied plant-sex, and a blurring of the lines between good and evil.

It was written late 2006.

-----

The young woman, barely more than a child, ran her hands over her belly. It dominated her slight form, swollen with life and potential and the future and everything. The father’s presence surrounded her, comforted her. He supported the weight of her belly, followed her hands in their stroking.

Their children would be so beautiful.

-----

Sam Manson gripped at the vines surrounding her and screamed. The vines held her legs apart, her arms at her sides, her body immobile and still she managed to struggle and scream and curse the owner of those terrible vines, curse them for what they’d done to her.

A vine stroked up the side of her face and she cringed away. It hurt, it all hurt so much. So long, it had gone on so long, when would it end?!

“Just one more,” Undergrowth whispered, his great beaked mouth held close to her ear.

She closed her eyes and nodded in comprehension, bearing down with a grunting scream. Something round and hard was forced out of her womb into her tortured vagina and she screamed.

“Shh, I know it hurts, my Love,” he cooed. “It won’t hurt for long. I promise.”

She gripped at the vines surrounding her, impaling her hands on thorns to keep her focus and pushed again. A shriek wrenched the young life out of her and it fell with a thunk into a pile with the others.

A long spine stabbed into her arm, sending a venom through her veins. She slumped with a groan, pain a distant memory, consciousness on the edge of slipping away. Too limp to move, the vines maneuvered her out of the birthing position into something more comfortable.

Five round bloodstained, fluid-soaked seeds gathered in a pile below where she’d been suspended. A vine picked one up and held it in front of her. “Our children, my daughter,” Undergrowth purred happily. “They’re beautiful.”

Some forgotten instinct in her expected to see a fat pink creature with short fat arms and legs, and a squashed little head. She stayed silent.

“Are you not pleased, my daughter?” he asked, confused.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, not sure if she truly felt that way. “Will they grow?”

“But of course,” Undergrowth assured her. He gestured down to the mulling ranks of chlorophyll zombies. “It is for you to choose their hosts. Take as long as you like, my dearest. Our children will withstand the ages of the world if needed.”

The venom began wearing off, leaving her with a sore feeling in her groin and a sluggish feeling as nerve function returned. She groaned and moved to take a look.

So many. So many of them. They mulled everywhere, slowly destroying the trappings of their former human civilization. Once their work was done they’d all eventually be chosen as hosts for the children, sacrificing their nutrients for food, their bodies for shelter, their minds for knowledge. Nothing would be wasted. And once these eyesores of technology were ravaged they’d all be happier. The plants would flourish once again, sheltering and feeding the animals, humans once again becoming what they truly were.

To be chosen as a host to her firstborn was an honor. She looked again at the ranks, looking for those the remaining vestiges of her human mind would recognize as worthy.

Ah, yes.

-----

While his daughter recovered from the strain of birthing and prepared to carry life in her again Undergrowth bound the five humans chosen as hosts.

Hmph, only one was female and two were juveniles. He pulled the vines from their brainstems, allowing their minds to retake their bodies while purging the control sap from their systems. The process would take awhile. Until then he decided to take the time to listen to their amusing pleas.

“Unhand us!” the female demanded. “Danny! Jazz! Where are they?! What have you done with my children?!”

The largest male pulled the female aside. “I’m sure they’re all right,” he said, not feeling his own words. “I’m sure they got away.”

Ah, a mated pair with a litter. Their parental instincts will make them fine hosts.

“Danny Phantom will stop you!” the dark-skinned juvenile exclaimed. “He’ll stop whatever you’re doing!”

Undergrowth couldn’t help a chuckle. “Your precious Danny Phantom fled at the mere sight of me,” he cackled. “It’s been weeks since his flight. My roots extend to the very base of the mountains, my branches to the tops of the sky. ‘Whatever I’m doing’ has already been assured.”

“He’ll come,” the juvenile repeated.

The second juvenile, a light-skinned male, looked up from his scared crouch. “Will he?” he asked.

“He will. He wouldn’t abandon us. He has to come.”

The dark-skinned juvenile was a predator without claws, a dying breed among the humans evolutionary shift towards sedateness and prey. Excellent. The other juvenile, however, was an average specimen, sedate, scared, a fast-breeding prey animal. Not what he would have favored but then all hosts must be filled eventually. This one was no exception.

Undergrowth snorted in amusement to observe the last of the hosts, a lone mature male. “What’s going to happen to us?” the male asked.

The question caught Undergrowth off-guard. He looked again at the lone male. This human had a spark of intelligence in his eyes, a spark he remembered in the eyes of the herds of wild horses he once knew before the humans came to break them. “You have been granted the honor of becoming hosts for my daughter’s firstborn,” he said grandly.

Amidst the screams of terror from the prey animal, the protestations from the predator and the mated pair, the lone male merely said “I see” and returned to his thoughts.

Hmm. Interesting. He left the humans to their own devices.

-----

Undergrowth returned to check on the humans the next day and the day after and after. Their patterns had little changed and for some reason they refrained from eating each other to save their friends from the supposed terrors that lay before them. Perhaps they were too selfish to award a way out to any other than themselves.

Until the female grew thirsty. Her body finished anabolism of the control sap and found itself lacking in the water the sap provided. Finally.

He cackled with glee, the future becoming certain as he whipped vines into their pen and pulled the screaming female away from her screaming mate. He drew her away from the humans to an area affording privacy.

“I demand you let me GO!” she screamed.

He ignored her.

“I demand you tell me where my children are!”

“Dear female,” Undergrowth said firmly, forming a plan to force her compliance, “I have not implanted swathes into hosts for a very long time and I require your immobility to do so.”

The female squirmed with renewed vigor, just as he’d expected.

“Your son Danny is known to me,” he said nonchalantly, pulling a round nodule from a pile of five. The nodule had a flaking shell of brown over a shiny dark brown seed. In is hand the seed began sprouting ever so slightly. “He is safe, safe and controlled as is your daughter, as everyone is. I figured you’d rather I test my ability on yourself rather than your children. I see you’d rather the risk of death fell on their shoulders than your own.”

At the mention of death the female stopped struggling. “Wait,” she said, a dry sob threatening to burst from her throat.

“Yes?” he asked. The tiny root of the seedling felt around, searched for the warmth it knew was there.

“L-leave him alone,” she whimpered. “Take me first.”

“Are you sure?” he asked mockingly.

“I can’t let them die!” she snarled in a half-scream. “Kill me instead.”

“Very well.” He grabbed her head, smothering her mouth with one hand. With the other he held the seedling swathe next to her abdomen. The tiny seedling snaked its root into her body, burrowing into her flesh.

Maddie screamed.

-----

The vines tossed a limp female in with the other hosts, grabbing a juvenile male as it sensed his thirst. The prey male shrieked in terror as the vines carried him away.

“Maddie!” Jack cried, rushing over to her. He cradled her body close to him and rocked back and forth. “Maddie, oh Maddie…”

“Jack?” she murmured.

“Maddie!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive! Oh my god, what did that… thing do to you?”

She grabbed her abdomen and groaned. She could feel that thing inside her, crawling, growing, invading…

“Maddie? Maddie, what’s wrong?”

“Thing… inside me…” she ground out, doubled over in pain. “It’s moving…”

Jack placed his hand over her belly, jerking it away as though burned when he felt the movement beneath. He pulled her into his lap and rocked her back and forth. “Shh,” he whispered. “This’ll all be over soon and then we can get that nasty thing out of you and you’ll be fine.

“I promise.”

-----

The pale juvenile was returned and the dark-skinned one taken next. But this time Undergrowth left his daughter to implant the host. Instead he stayed to observe the remaining hosts.

The mated pair hadn’t left each other’s arms, preferring the stench of life and the physical comfort it brought to solitary quiet and peace. The lone male sat alone, staring at his hands. Finally he spoke.

“What’s happening to her?” the lone male asked.

“The swathe is growing,” Undergrowth answered absently. “Soon my child will be strong enough to live in her body without my supervision.”

“What will it do to her?”

“Her body will shelter it as it grows, feeding off of her body until growing strong enough to send fronds to the surface of her skin. By then my child will have found a way to exist within the host without causing the host’s death. Enough hosts and my children will be spread far and wide, far enough to repopulate the world with the plants and animals that your unnatural civilization has destroyed.”

The human sat and pondered these words for a time. “But isn’t there a way for our civilizations to coexist? A way that doesn’t involve parasitic intervention?”

“You are the parasites of this earth!” Undergrowth bellowed. “Your kind have taken a beautiful, balanced world and destroyed her, giving back NOTHING! I give your species a chance to return to a balanced world as hosts to my children rather than eradicate you all as you should rightfully be and you call it ‘parasitic intervention’?!” He reached down and grabbed the human in his vines, lifting it up so he could get a good look. Fat, lazy, he knew not why his daughter had considered this… thing worthy of carrying one of their first children.

“I apologize,” the human said, appearing humble and very very scared. “I-it was unwise of me to offend.”

“You are correct about that, puny human.” He carried the human off to his daughter, nodding as he noticed she’d finished with the dark-skinned juvenile. “I have a host for your bloodrose, my daughter,” he snarled, throwing down the human.

“Ms. Manson?!” the human exclaimed upon seeing her.

“Are you sure, Father?” Sam asked. “He is a scholar, his body soft. I don’t know if he’ll survive. I was going to plant the bloodrose in the orange-clad male.”

Undergrowth growled. “This one needs learn humility. The bloodrose will teach him this. Do this for me, my daughter.”

“Yes, Father,” she said, bowing and reaching for a bloodstained seed. A black root snaked out of it, searching and groping for a host. Satisfied, Undergrowth left.

“Samantha,” the human pleaded, standing up to reach for her, “what did that… plant do to you?”

Sam raised a hand and vines wrapped themselves around him, holding him immobile. “Father released me from my prison,” she answered. “Under his guidance I’ve become so much more than I would have as a human.” She gave a bitter chuckle. “Honestly, petitions? Small-scale protests? Carrying signs? I was never going to accomplish my goals that way. Father has given me the chance to see what I’ve always wanted come to pass. Is that so bad?”

“I suppose not,” the human admitted. “But your methods leave much to be desired. You’re going to be killing a great many people!”

Sam brought the black vine over to him and held it against his belly. “People’s lives are worth less than you think,” she assured. The bloodrose unsheathed a great many spines and dug them deep into the human’s flesh, forcing its roots deep into his flesh.

Mr. Lancer screamed and screamed and screamed.

-----

Vines were wrapping around the female and the pale-skinned juvenile when the lone male was brought back. He was dumped unceremoniously into the pen, blood bubbling up from his mouth on the impact.

“Let her go!!” the mated male screamed, trying to pull the vines off of his mate.

Undergrowth raised a hand and more vines entrapped the female’s mate. The human kept screaming as his mate was bound, vines burrowing into her flesh. She screamed her mate’s name over and over until the control sap took over her mind and forced her into sleep. A great flower closed around her, enveloping her in its pink caress.

“NOOOO!!!” the human screamed as the flower was pulled out of the pen and settled down in a safe place next to three more buds. A fourth bud was mature and gaping open as the vines pulled the juvenile inside and bound him same as the female.

“Silence, human!” Undergrowth commanded, stuffing a vine down the male’s throat. He snarled in pain as the human bit it in half and continued screaming. He wrapped a vine tightly around the human’s neck and waited for it to pass out. Once silence was restored he left.

The unmated male gasped for air through lungs slowly filling with blood. He crawled over to the unconscious male and tried to rouse him. Slowly he awoke.

“She’s gone,” he whispered, consciousness slowly returning.

“They’re not going to kill us,” the unmated male assured, blood dripping from his mouth as he spoke. It was not as assuring as he’d hoped.

The human gave the host an incredulous look. “You’ve gone mad,” he observed. “And I hate that there’s no water here. I’m so goddamn thirsty.”

“I think we’ve all gone mad.”

Vines reached out and grabbed for the large male. He didn’t even try to evade them; what was the point now that his mate was gone. They pulled him up and dragged him off to Undergrowth.

The lone male leaned over and coughed, blood spraying everywhere.

“Mr. Lancer?” the dark-skinned juvenile asked. “Are you okay?”

Lancer shook his head ‘no’ and tried to wipe away the blood. “It doesn’t hurt you, does it?” he asked.

“Not really.”

The teacher slumped back. “That’s good to hear.”

“You don’t look so good.”

He shook his head ‘no,’ too tired to try speaking. His chest rattled with blood seeping in. Vines reached up to cradle him before he fell backwards. In the darkness above he could see a pair of green, feminine eyes watching him. Even though she’s renounced humanity, he thought, she still remembers mercy.

And then the spined tendril stabbed its thorns all along his back. The juvenile leapt back and screamed. Lancer didn’t move, even relaxed into their sharp embrace. It was easier that way. And for some reason he could breathe easier now and his head was clearing.

-----

The orange-clad male was dumped back into the pen to see the juvenile crouched in a corner away from the slumped over form of the lone male. Vines surrounded him and grew into him, holding him still and keeping him alive as the bloodrose tore his insides apart in an attempt to get comfortable. All he had to do was survive the initial growth spurt of the bloodrose swathe and he would thrive as a host.

Undergrowth hovered over the pen, watching the remaining humans as his children grew within them. The remaining juvenile was almost ready. His daughter had decided to keep the lone male alive and the large male curled into a miserable ball in the center.

“They’ve been broken,” he murmured in the ear of his daughter so the hosts wouldn’t hear. “That will make it easy for our children to take them for their own.”

“Our children,” she said dreamily. She rubbed her belly, pleased that she was almost ready to carry again.

“When you are ready, my daughter, I will impregnate you again,” he purred. “But hurry not for we have all the time in the world”

-----

Danny Phantom stared in horrified disgust at the five flower buds. Within their depths were imprisoned his parents, his best friend, his teacher, and some guy he knew. They slept peacefully in their botanical stasis, silently thriving as their swathes finished a last loving entwine within their hosts.

“They will provide nutrients for the children,” his other best friend purred, stroking a new swell in her belly.

The ghost boy snapped and began spreading icy death over the beautiful landscape. Undergrowth screamed in agony and fought to smash the annoyance like the insect it was.

Sam held her arms over her belly and watched with anger. The ghost boy couldn’t win, he just couldn’t! They had such plans; they were going to retake the world from the terror of the oppressors! Their children depended on it.

She wasn’t going to let her children grow up in a world ruled by humans.

-----

Undergrowth was defeated and the vines covering Amity Park were being cut back. Sam got over a mysterious sickness that put her in the hospital for apparent miscarriage even though any type of fetus was absent. Danny kept trying to make her feel better by giving her ice crystals, not thinking far enough ahead to know that they’d be melting before achieving their intended purpose. She stared out her window at the city.

A voice whispered in the back of her mind. A minor setback, my daughter. Our firstborn continue to thrive. Through them I shall come back for you.

Our children will be so beautiful.

End