Pausing to revisit Ivy’s answer, Eve nodded satisfied at least superficially with the answer.
Smiling thoughtfully at the mention of ‘family’ she couldn’t help falling into the almost childlike fantasy. She’d never really had one, not as far as she recalled. There were other ‘sisters’ she felt existed in her nursery, but it wasn’t the same. Perhaps her and Aya had been a family – they looked alike – not that she could remember too much – but the same twinge of happiness crept over her when she did, also came with Ivy’s words.
Although the green woman’s next words, weren’t quite what she expected.
Stepping backwards, the tree having entered a to-close-for-comfort vicinity, able to reach out and touch Eve with its branches if it so wished, Eve fought the inescapable feeling of dread rising in her throat.
“Do… I have too.” She murmured wishing not to attack or attacked.
Responding more to the shift of thought rather than the situation, the plant clone jerked to ‘life’. It turned to face the impending danger, the demonic play of shadows across it’s face making it look exceptionally menacing, despite the blankness of emotion on its face. Plant!Eve stepped robotically between host and tree calling upon the various puddles in room to reunite, to fight.
Swinging out at the plant clone almost angrily, the tree snatched her wrist. Pausing in that vital moment, Eve!Clone was bowled backwards, her head slamming into the floor with a crunch.
Using the puddles, sliding them toward a point just shy from the trees roots forming several miniature barbed hybrids that climbed their way up the trunk shellacking the bark with an orange glaze as they ascended Eve stood back. Burrowing into the tree, efficiently tearing at its insides, the orange glaze hardened into a thick blanket off moss, restricting it, keeping it from moving any further or shaking off the hybrids which began pulling of branches, flinging them into nearby walls.
Using all its strength the clone picked itself up, seemingly unaffected by the large gash marring the left side of its head and with a full chested preternatural growl charged at the tree, using her now elongated fingers to rip away at the trunks structure
Narrowing her eyes at the tree Eve began to fell faint. The mitochondria like ravenous wolves, did not really want to be controlled, but had to, too make sure mitochondria host could survive to pass on more DNA., only they weren’t going to give up complete autonomy making it hard for Eve to force the coercion between the different creatures.
Especially now the moss was breaking into numerous creatures, eating at the wood inside, consuming a great section of the tree until it became almost unrecognizable through the solidifying orange mitochondria that fully encased it.
For the time being the clone had done its job – it became – unemotional once again – rejoining the other two. Eve took several shallow breaths trying to stifle any insurrection, from the morbid structure they had just created as she let Ivy survey the scene.