Light almost forgot how much money they had invested during this competition already; he had a fantastic time. He’d never really given gardening much thought before now, but resolved to give it a go afterwards. He got stuck into the difficult task of directing the weeds they eventually chose in the right direction. It seemed intent on seeding soil outside of the plot, but all this growth didn’t count towards their score and was promptly zapped by lasers hidden somewhere above them.

At one point the weed grew so voraciously that in a moment of lapsed focus it actually latched onto his suit and grew round him. Light laughed, tickled by the sensation passed through to him by the gel. He swivelled to face Senjen, who was on the same side as him.

“Senjen.” The Utaysi didn’t respond immediately.

“Senjen, look.” The weed suddenly grew over the QV’s face.

“Senjen, help!” He thrashed inside the bush.

The Human team realised quickly that they were outmatched physically. So they focused on distracting the fledgling opposition by accosting the weakest links - Ruknar and Light. During the chaos, they planted moso bamboo and Kudzu together behind enemy lines, which then sprouted ferociously and was difficult to remove.

When the round was over, the patch looked like a warzone. Tangled masses of Russian thistle, bamboo and kelp stretched far beyond the patch, with dozens of dead patches and hastily assembled frameworks.

The officials sent drones to assess each plant’s land area before announcing the winners.

“Sunlight Sowers, 47.69% land area. Eswatini Twistahs, 50.95% land area. 1.36% land area unoccupied. Eswatini Twistahs win.”

“We…lost?” Light mumbled, crestfallen.

“Yes, sorry. That was fun though, right!” Ruk was scratched and bleeding from the various thorns and sharp edges in the plot but seemed content with their performance.

“We should probably make way; they’ll want to cleanse this patch. What a sight - someone take a picture of us with it for posterity!”