You, Plus Me, Equals Three

by Charlokitty

Two snarky, tall dads struggle to figure out how to raise a tiny firecracker of a smeet while balancing an entire Empire on their shoulders. But, through all the gross drooling, tiny giggles, and messes left in her wake, they still somehow manage to hold it all together. After all, how hard could parenthood be? (Collection of requested RAPR family AU shorts).

14. Descent to Urth

Chapter Requested By: Larrimeme

Comment Request: "Also, if you're still taking requests, how about this: Zil meets Dib and finally has to face her fear of humans, specifically one who is older than her and could pose a real threat to her. Alternatively, she realizes humans are completely ridiculous and she has nothing to be afraid of. You can push this chapter (should you choose to accept it) as far back as you like to give time for character development. Thank you."

Genre: Adventure/Family

Rating: Rated T for canon typical violence, brief light language, and perceived perilous situations that may be slightly unnerving to some readers.

Author Comment(s): This. This has been a long awaited chapter I have been wanting to publish for a while now! DIB'S IN THIS ONE DIB'S IN THIS ONE! This chapter is based off of volume 4 of the Invader Zim comic series! For those of you who haven't read the comic (it's free online yay!) our two idiot tall stringbeans are shown a dimensional wormhole that one of their scientists has developed to send important equipment directly to the bases of invaders scattered around the cosmos. Unfortunately, the Tallest can only send things out, not receive anything back out of fear of half of the universe exploding because the technology is unstable. So, things can go in but cannot come back out. Keep this in mind for this chapter lovelies! Thanks Larrimeme for this really kickin request because this is right up my semi-dark alley!

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"My esteemed Tallest, I am proud to present to you our new and improved model for the Subquantum Wormtunnel Enactulator, or the SWE for short. My team and I think we have finally cracked the enigma of two-way object retrieval, in which you may send foreign objects through at five lightyears per second and receive them back at a similar rate without any foreseeable dangers."

The little scientist perked up expectantly when Purple pushed off his chair at the head of the room and stood, slinging his arms behind his back as he narrowed his eyes skeptically at the gargantuan, swirling technology raised behind him. It was disturbing, a formless void ebbing and flowing from within a ring of carefully manufactured technology used to keep it somewhat stable as it pulsed and writhed like a tidal wave, bowing out and shrinking back as it tried to destroy its bonds. He strode past, reaching out with a curious palm to poke at the grotesque plasma shuddering before his curious sight, the tiny scientist immediately reaching out and flailing him back with a terrified gawk that was quickly drowned out by shame when Purple sneered in disinterest and crossed his arms indifferently over his chest.

"Ah! Please, sir, the moment you pass the threshold you'll be transported near an unknown Irken base at an unknown location!" The scientist exclaimed breathlessly, bringing his hands together to anxiously wring his fingers as Red shook his head in displeasure from where he leaned over their long conference table.

"Huh. I'm not impressed." He said frankly, resting his chin in his palm as he scrutinized the mess of receding, amorphous color and glittering hues casting strange spectrums over the room.

"I'm not either." Purple snorted, hastily blowing off the conference with the flippant flick of his wrist as he picked at his claws out of habit. "The last time your team brought this to us it was a total disaster. I don't want anyone sending something back and it exploding again." He grumbled, drawing his antennae back to scent at his partner's tedium oozing from behind him and only finding his own apathy growing. "Gor, you've been writing for the past hour. What do you think of this thing?"

General Gor shot up from where he sat amongst an extensive team of engineers and chattering advisors scrawling notes over electronic readers, squinting and eyeing the bizarre, unstable apparatus from behind his newly enhanced ocular lenses. He mumbled a few things to himself, glancing down at his own notes before clearing his throat and asking a few carefully placed questions, glancing to where his indifferent Tallest sat with his overly bored daughter dozing lightly on his lap.

"Science Drone…Skrang, was it?" He began firmly but tentatively, standing and weaving through the group for a better look as Skrang swallowed thickly and visibly began to sweat as he gave a tiny nod. "I will be performing a second wave of attack against the Guarven home world in a week's time to overtake the capitol. My question is," he paused and leaned forward on the toes of his polished pointed boots, blinking against the blinding radiance of the wormhole staring back at him, "would this technology be conducive to transporting ammunition and rations to my troops on the surface? If the time estimate you're giving us is true, this would greatly reduce the shipping costs of provisions and improve our chances of success against the enemy."

Red's antennae perked when Purple glanced over his shoulder to shoot him a look of genuine interest as Skrang thought carefully, scratching at his chin as he flipped through his own reader and poured over lines of equations and what little safety information he had collected since the last catastrophe.

"W-Well at the time…um…no." He mumbled, pursing his lips when he lost the last shred of fleeting interest flashing over Purple's face, watching in mounting unease as he crossed back and delicately positioned himself next to his partner. "The technology is far too unstable to lock onto just any specific coordinates at the moment. The only place we can safely transport munitions are to planets with registered Invader technology attached to the surface, but we are unable to conclusively say where those munitions will end up, meaning they could still appear miles off course. Other than that, it would be too great a risk until we're able to properly-"

"Uh huh." Red chimed in leisurely, looking down when Zil began to toy innocently with the latch of his breastplate. "So you thought it was a good idea to pull me and my husband from the bridge for an engineering conference just to listen to you talk about what could be?"

Skrang blinked, taken aback by the abrupt waver in his leader's tone. He opened his mouth so speak, thinking better of himself and instead pouring back over his talking points clutched in his now trembling hands. "Sir, with all do respect, I have come before you today to ask for further funding in order to properly debug our project. In a cycle's time, we should be able to transport not just inanimate objects, but troops, my Tallest, to the surface of whatever planet you wish. Unfortunately, my lab on Irk has run out of governmental support and we were wondering…um…if you would be willing to renew our five-cycle contract?"

Purple reached out and scrawled a few things on the back of a fast food receipt he had been casually using as a notepad. "Do you have evidence that this will be able to transport biological material without tearing it apart?" He delicately placed his hands atop the table and watched the apprehensively shifting drone from where he stood, growing edgy with the silence flooding around him. "I've looked into this a bit myself and it seems like a faulty investment if you ask me. Too much friction, too much gravitational force, too much speed. I need to have confidence that your project won't destroy half of my men before they even make it to the battlefield."

Skrang's short antennae twitched as he rehooked his leader's attention, fumbling for any feasible answer he could find in order to maintain the lilting curiosity he so desperately craved. Gor continued to poke at the frame behind him as he grinned up at his Tallest, nodding wildly in agreeance as he continued on his now jittery rant.

"Yes, sir! We have utilized dark matter technology to successfully rip open the space time continuum and create this wormhole for ourselves. It's all about physics; at its peak performance, we will have the ability to regulate the speed, direction, and even the molecular stability of objects traversing the path we have chosen! Fascinating, right?" Skrang giggled, clearing his throat to keep himself on track. "I can say with complete confidence that this will work when it is properly functioning. We will run many more tests to be sure, but we cannot do that without the support of the Empire."

Red gave a long exhale and leaned back in his plush seat, snapping for a reader and immediately taking one from Rarl Kove when he bounded forward with a quick bow of compliance before moving back and dissolving into the crowd. He flicked on his ocular implants and scrolled through lines of code, gradually reading every tedious equation and theory over in his mind before tugging the screen gently away from the grabbing hands of his daughter rolling in his lap. Purple reached out for her, plopping her down atop his robes and snatching a cracker from the table to distract her as he leaned over and followed along with his husband, whispering fervent questions against his antennae in hushed secrecy and pointing out something that turned his usually jovial features to something more serious and intent as they carefully weighed the pros and cons of the whopping forty-five million dollar investment they would need to drop in order to see the hypothetically revolutionizing technology through to completion.

After a few minutes of exchanging thought-provoking glances through tiny mumbles and hands smoothing up over weary antennae, Red looked back with a frown. "I'm not sure we want to invest in something this volatile, science drone." He began tersely, passing Zil another snack when she whined and tried to climb her way onto the polished surface of the table. He shook his head as he battled with a combination of racing questions and rational logic, finally giving up and flipping the reader to point out a discrepancy in Skrang's code. "Do you see this?"

Skrang panicked, turning on his heel and throwing his hands out to gesture wildly at the fantastical spatial anomaly he had birthed before flying back around and ducking his head in defeated, forlorn shame, taking a step forward when Red beckoned him on. "My Tallest, I'm not sure I understand." He took the reader, scrolling the four thousandth line of code that Red had tediously examined before a look of puzzled confusion flooded over him. "Sir, I-"

"Here," Red reached out and tapped the screen with a domineering claw, grazing it down the glass to intimidate the little scientist into submission as Purple struggled to rip open a vanilla snack cake for himself. "You're looking at the stabilizers all wrong, and these are the formulations for matter, not dark matter. If we tried to use this following your calculations we'd have a repeat of what happened last time. I'm not going to lie, this has potential, but I'm not funding anything until you and your team get their act together and present us with something that won't blow half the Massive in the process."

"H-How did you…how did you see that, sir?! I-I apologize! I can't believe I didn't catch onto something so crutial!" Skrang stuttered, appalled at his own carelessness as he frantically flipped through notes and glanced back to the trembling cosmic tunnel sputtering at the forefront of the room when the rest of their entourage erupted in a fit of ferocious chatter and officially dismissed his idea.

Red shrugged and nodded to where Purple sat bouncing their now fully awake smeet on his knee, feeding her tiny bites of moist cake and wiping icing from her chin when she coughed. "I didn't see it, he did. He just explained it to me."

Skrang didn't know what to say, blown away by his ridiculous, utterly humiliating idiocy and the unexpected intelligence of his leader thrown back in his face as he turned and tried to stammer out a hasty, under planned apology to Purple instead, watching as Zil squirmed and hopped down to the floor, crawling her way under the table to poke at dust bunnies and grab for the toes of senior officers. Purple merely laughed in genuine amusement, entertained by the horrendous terror dripping from every pore on Skrang's pitiful face.

"I took my fair share of aerospace engineering and theoretical physics back in the Academy." Purple bragged, finishing of what was left of the sickly-sweet cake in his fingers before rudely licking them clean. "Come back to us when you have something good to show."

"Daddy! Look how pretty it is!"

Purple blinked in confusion as his antennae stiffened over the booming commotion and instinctually locked onto the squeaky voice of his daughter, turning and immediately freezing in absolute, mind-numbing terror when Zil waved from the front of the room and reached out with innocent, inquisitive hands for the massive, dangerously body-razing wormhole mesmerizing her underdeveloped mind beyond belief.

"Zil, no!" He cried out in alarm when his parental instincts kicked in, thrusting Skrang to the side as he rushed forward and Red glanced about in misunderstanding, finally catching sight of their tiny smeet inching forward to stroke the gelatinous, quaking time-stasis machine holding the incredibly infinite power of space travel somewhat stable.

He too barreled his way through confounded advisors, halfway tripping as he called out to his mesmerized child letting her jaw go slack and her bright cherry eyes fly wide to the gorgeous, tempting hues enchanting her complicated senses and drawing her further towards its gnashing embrace as if it were beckoning her like a delectably evil, snarling demon. "Don't touch that, Zil, it's not safe!" He yelled over the collective chaos ensuing around him when he found himself trapped against the edge of the table by shorters, watching in terrified panic as his partner struggled to make his way across the gargantuan room through the mayhem. "Gor, don't just stand there! Grab her, you idiot!"

Zil yelped in sudden shock when General Gor gasped at the pandemonium, spinning on his heel and immediately launching himself forward with arms outstretched before crying out in unabridged fear when Zil squeaked and flew up to cover her face with her hands, stumbling back and clipping the edge of the violently swimming color. Gor landed hard on his front with a pained groan, crying out when Purple bounded over his chest and flew down to flail violently for his smeet, grabbing Zil by the hand only to immediately go blind and squeeze his burning eyes shut against the horrendously disorienting flash of light engulfing them both. The gate wavered and flickered, booming with the roar of a million voices screaming in tandem as the overpowering weight of colossal gravity tugged aggressively through the room, pulling advisors from their feet and slamming Red forward against the table as he fought to maintain his foothold, flickering through his ocular lenses in rapid succession and going completely still when he was finally able to cut through the retina searing light and caught sight of his husband scrambling in a dazed panic to grab for something, anything, when he refused to let go of the tiny hand of their terrified daughter.

"Purple!" Red screamed over the crackling sound and heard his voice dissolve to nothing, straining with all his might to peel himself away from the edge of the metal only to fly back forward and feel the air knocked harshly from his lungs, catching one last pained glance in his partner's direction before the gargantuan stargate flickered and buzzed, sparking wildly at the edges and immediately shutting down without warning.

Bodies dropped, readers and pens fell from where they had been suspended in the air, rogue spurs vaulted from the now obliterated ring.

Then...silence.

Utter, heartbreaking silence.

Red moaned and reached back to pop his spine as he shook the strange effects of unexpected, crushing gravity from his now weakened limbs, blinking in the darkness as the light fazed out and left everyone in a groggy haze. He coughed lightly in the dim glow, pushing himself away amidst a sea of notes and torn free caplets, smacking at his hover belt around his waist and finding that it had been completely shorted of all function. He felt bewildered, stepping in a fugue over the groaning body of Skrang as he pushed himself back up amidst the flashing lights of PAKs alerting their stunned owners that they had sensed an anomaly. He felt his breath hitch when he finally trudged to the forefront of the conference room, reaching out with shaky, unstable hands as a hammer of pure, overwhelming terror ripped through his chest like a lightning bolt when he realized his family had been ripped away and tossed to the cosmos Irk knows where without him.

No...no...n-no. Purple...Purple was gone. Zil was gone. Not a single claw, not a single peachfuzz from either of their antennae remained on the floor as Red stood rigid and stared blankly through the now empty hoop that had swallowed the love of his life and the tiny smeet he had promised himself he would always protect no matter the circumstance.

Gone.

They were gone. Thrown to the mercy of unstable intergalactic travel to be throughout battered and razed beyond their wildest imaginations without Red there to shield them with his already scarred skin and formidable will to preserve the gorgeous light he had fallen so madly in love with all those cycles ago.

"S-Sir…I tried to grab her." Gor swallowed from the floor, wincing at the sharp sting of a popped joint in his elbow. "Tallest Purple, he-"

"Be quiet." Red breathed, unable to process what he had seen as his shot mind went a mile a minute and he felt the beginning fringes of dismayed, hysterical tears prick in the corners of his eyes. "Where….S-Skrang?" He called out, gripping at the edge of the obliterated ring as he clamped a hand over his mouth and took a deep shuddering breath, quickly collecting his slowly spiraling emotions when the little scientist stumbled over to the best of his aghast ability. "Where…w-where is my husband? What did your thing do to my husband?"

Skrang immediately came too, snapping into focus when he realized that his Tallest and their heir were no where to be seen, a whine bubbling up in the back of his throat when Red turned in his direction and blinked away his hot, now irate tears, choking back a furiously untamed bark and keeping his voice surprisingly level. "What did it do to my daughter?!" He growled, following the scientist back against the wall as advisors hopped up and reached out with terrified hands as Red fumbled with his gauntlet and threatened to tug free his blaster, warming it dangerously under his fingers and holding it up to bare his teeth.

"I-I…no! There's no way it should have worked this early in the development! The sheer stress of transporting two biological bodies probably shorted out the stabilizers and threw the whole project offline!" Skrang wailed in terror, flying up to shield his face against the threatening glow of hot plasma aiming between his eyes. "I-It wasn't supposed to be this functional yet, sir, I promise I didn't know this was going to happen!"

"Sir, please, he's the only one here who knows how to fix it!" Rarl Kove shouted from behind, jumping up on his toes to grab for the crook of Red's arm and pull his aim away. "We have to set to work restoring the connection to bring Tallest Purple and Lady Zil back from…well…wherever they are."

Red held firm, brushing off the desperate advances of his advisor to yank him down. "Shut up! All of you!" He barked over the mounting commotion, shakily forcing his hungry weapon back down into his technology before turning and stooping down, pulling Gor forcefully to his feet and plopping him down on his firm heels. "Purple will be smart enough to send out a distress signal. Scramble the fleet and search every planet in the star system for the ping until you find them. If you don't, move on to the next while we work to restore function here. I'm prepared to expend every resource the Empire has to find my husband and my smeet and I don't care how many empires we have to destroy or wars we have to wage, I want them back as soon as possible so get out there and find them before I have to take a ship and do it myself!"

"Yes, my Tallest!" Gor nodded wildly, opening up his own gauntlet and shouting rigid, fanatical orders into his communicator as he took off and threw open the door to the corridor, his words immediately sounding a blaring, antennae-piercing alarm throughout the whole of the ship.

"And you!" Red tried to keep himself from losing his temper as his blood pressure spiked to a dangerous high through his worry, knowing he needed his rationality in the wake of another devastating catastrophe at the hands of the same scientist that had hatched the first.

Skrang straightened his spine and flew into a brazen, overdone salute to try and save face, terrified for his life as Red moved to loom over him, a shadow of pure, unbridled hatred rolled together with the desperate need to find his family tinged with anguish. "Y-Yes, sir?" He whimpered, holding his breath and waiting for his end.

Red ran a hand up the side of his paling face, rubbing his long fingers together when he realized they were quaking. "You will get this thing back online and you will bring my husband and my daughter back to me. I don't care how long it takes, if they're not here in one piece, I'll personally see to it that you end up in thousands."

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145.5 trillion lightyears from the current flightpath of the Massive

Purple yelped in shock and stumbled back when he felt solid ground connect with his boots, falling to his side and crying out when the bizarre wormhole spat his flailing daughter into the atmosphere. She collided hard with his stomach, knocking the wind from his ribcage as they struggled to shake the swimming, bouncing feeling of balance loss from their skulls. Zil was the first to push herself up and take a lungful of the reeking concoction swirling around them, shying away from the greasy dumpster the two had landed behind and whimpering as she reached down to pat Purple firmly on the breastplate. He blinked in the strange lighting, flicking his antennae forward and immediately scooping Zil into his arms before running his concerned hands over her cheeks and scrutinizing her furiously for any damage. He ran his eyes over every finger, every claw, every segment in her trembling antennae before finally exhaling in powerful, mind-numbing relief, bringing her to his chest and squeezing her tight when he finally concluded that no harm had come to her delicate form. She was whole, even if she was a bit shaken up, and she didn't have to wander through this awful place herself.

Whatever this place was.

"Thank Irk, you're alright, Zilly." He breathed in relief, drawing her in closer and feeling her do the same. "Daddy's got you, it's ok."

She burst into tears against his skin, scrambling against the smooth metal of his armor for purchase as he stood and shushed her, cupping a protective palm against the back of her neck before pressing his PAK into the side of a massive, foreign building splitting what little he could see of the disturbing skyline. He tasted the air, immediately becoming repulsed by the disgusting mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, feeling his PAK's internal mechanisms hum to life and begin to filter it into something breathable. This wasn't the Massive, and this definitely wasn't Irk. Purple swallowed and moved to clamp a hand tenderly over Zil's mouth as she wailed, rapidly taking stock of his surroundings from the shadows and letting his deepest, innate predisposition as a soldier take back over after nearly a hundred cycles of being away from the toils of horrendous warfare. He readjusted is grip on his flailing daughter, expertly flipping open his gauntlet and extending a PAK leg to punch in a hidden command he hadn't had to use in an incredibly long while, watching as his equipment dinged out its speedy compliance. He held his clenched fist above his head and backed further into the shadows, dialing down the intense glow in his ocular lenses and bracing himself as a commanding boom resounded from over his wrist, sending out a tiny, robotic drone to scout out the landscape and rapidly collect data on any potential lifeforms in the area that could prove to be hostile. He watched it slingshot into the bright blue sky and zip off to perform its task, turning back instead to the horrified smeet melting down in his grip.

"Sweetheart, look at me. Look at Daddy." He whispered with false excitement under his breath, trying to be her soothing anchor in the chaos despite feeling his own rationality fade. "We're going on an adventure and it's gonna be a lot of fun. Like a vacation."

Zil didn't listen, flapping her tiny hands incessantly as her sensitive nerves were ruthlessly bombarded and dreadfully overloaded by exotic scents and deafening noises from alien equipment and words resounding from just around the corner, something Purple wasn't ready to face without a proper disguise. She couldn't handle it, looking in every direction she could before resorting to burying her face back in the crook of his neck to try and hide herself away from what she didn't understand. Purple himself didn't really understand either, peeking around the corner of the filthy dumpster they had been spat out next to and immediately holding back a gasp when a tall, pink creature lumbered by as it talked hastily into some kind of communicator held to the flappy appendage against its ugly face. It was freezing here, the surface beneath his feet caked in a strange chilly ice he didn't recognize, refraining from trying to touch it out of fear that it could potentially be toxic. The atmosphere stunk of a mixture of waste and smog billowing from the tops of towering skyscrapers laced with something that smelled mildly edible and incredibly unhealthy. Purple could feel his own fingers begin to twitch on impulse, clenching his free hand in an attempt to stim himself to some semblance of calm.

"Zilly, I need you to listen very carefully." He said slowly as he scanned the sky and waited, biting back the waver in his own voice. "Dad is going to come and find us and bring us home. I've been stranded with your Dad before, and he doesn't give up easily, you know that right?" He wasn't sure if he was reassuring her or himself, images of his powerful mate obliterating entire planets somewhere out in the vast, empty reaches of the cosmos flashing in succession through his psyche. "Dad won't let anything happen to us just like I won't let anything happen to you, but right now, we're going to play a game but we have to be very quiet until my drone gets back."

Zil sniffed, squeezing her wide eyes shut and clamping her waving fingers over her antennae as she panted and continued to sob. "N-No! I don't wanna play a game, Daddy! I-I wanna go home!" She shuddered in his arms in the cold and scrunched herself into an overly tense ball. "Too much sound! T-Too much color, Daddy, I don't like it!"

Purple lit up when he noticed the drone return, quickly descending down into the frozen alleyway and flittering back to the empty port in his gauntlet to instantaneously flood his PAK and ocular lenses with vast amounts of information. "I know, Zilly, I don't like it either, but we're just gonna have to work through this ourselves. Let's see where we are." He swallowed, reading over zipping information and downloading code in streams, eyes darting over an invisible screen as he scrunched up his face in confusion and observed the laughing faces of disgusting beings eating cooked foods, rolling primitive cities made of grey stone and flimsy glass, and pitiful vehicles without the capability of flight meandering about the ground like great insects. He felt his jaw tighten when his mind wandered back to the myriad of cheesy horror movies Red enjoyed, noticing the similarities in the horrific alien race portrayed in most and comparing them to the seemingly benevolent group his scout had managed to examine.

"Urth. Why did it have to be Urth?" He mumbled in disgusted irritation when his gaze landed on the image of some form of transportation map outside in the boulevard and immediately peaked his disturbed interest. "Zil, do you remember when Dad and I told you that one day you would be able to see new planets and races, and that you would learn to command them all?"

Zil jutted out her bottom lip and fell silent, finding a bit of comfort in the muffled dip of her palms stamped firmly over her antennae. She nodded faintly in the cold and Purple hesitated as his spooch was set in uncomfortable knots, scrolling through the main screen of his gauntlet before landing on another program he had hoped he would never have to use out of nauseated annoyance of having to give up his own beautifully cultivated image.

"Well, today we're going to learn about some aliens." He explained carefully, scrolling through repulsive images of fur coated humans as he searched for something suitable to mask his highly distinguishable height and attire with, settling on wiry blonde man with thick rimmed glasses and a smart looking sweater and coat. Demeaning. It would have to do. "I want you to understand that we have to be very careful here. I'm going to give us disguises until we can figure out how to send Dad a call, ok?"

Zil sniffed thickly and pulled back, wiping her eyes on the back of one of her hands as she shivered. She glanced down to the glowing screen over her father's wrist and began to panic again, shaking her head wildly and covering her eyes instead as she let out a high pitched whine of a squeak at the terror boiling up in her tiny chest. "No! No, no, no!" She screeched, halting Purple's actions as he scrambled frantically to keep her quiet. "No hoomans! No! I don't have my hooman-melty-beam with me and they're gonna eat me! T-They…they eat smeets!"

Purple was ready to implode in upon himself and rip his antennae out, impulse clicking the hologram and closing his eyes to the strange sensation of static prickling over his skin and sending a shudder up his spine, wanting to gag when he opened his eyes and realized that his perfect minty skin tone had been replaced by the insipid pale pink of the enemy. His PAK had been concealed completely by a black woolen coat reaching to the back of his knee and a strange mop of sandy blonde fur threatened to fall in his eyes with every breeze. He reached over his crying daughter's shoulder and tenderly prodded at his face, feeling a strange, unnerving proboscis protruding from between his now small almond shaped eyes. He felt sickening with his heavy glasses slipping down his odd face appendage, the humiliation that an esteemed Almighty Tallest had to stoop so low drawing a sneer from his now thin, pale lips. He waited for the texture mapping to settle and the fabric shrouding his body to come together in a fictitious weave before smoothing back over Zil's antennae with the five stout digits of his petite hands. She looked up and took a deep inhale to let loose a piercing scream, trying to vault violently out of his grip to rid herself of the terrifying, blunt-toothed monster trying with all his might to get through to her.

"Zilly, Zilly, hey!" He hissed through the shadowy alleyway, glancing tentatively around the dumpster to ensure they hadn't been heard and yelping when Zil smacked him hard on the side of the face with a fervent war cry.

"No! Spit my Daddy out!" She screamed madly with mounting ferocity, landing another blow to her father's cheek as she tried to overcome the demon she was absolutely positive had destroyed her father. "If you don't spit my Daddy out right now I'm gonna call my Dad and he's gonna come beat you up! He's gonna get you and make you hurt and then he's gonna get your planet because you're bad! Y-You're mean and I don't like you and…a-and I want my Daddy back!"

"Zil, stop!" Purple snapped, grabbing her wrist as she thrashed and fought, watching as his voice finally registered in her antennae when she cocked her head and squinted down at the faint trace of deep violet eye color glittering back from behind his oversized glasses. "It's me. See?"

A look of understanding finally overtook Zil's horrified, tear-streaked face as she let her jaw fall slack, poking at the spongy elasticity of the near perfect hologram shrouding her father. "Daddy? Why do you look like a scary hooman? Are you gonna go hide in my closet?" She mumbled, forgetting her qualms and instead becoming unbearably inquisitive with his hair, reaching up to tug and pull at the unfamiliar substance between her cautious fingers and trying to reach up far enough in his arms to shove it in her mouth.

Purple reclined down and let her suck on the unfeeling ends of his choppy style, returning to his technology and looking for something equally normal for her to wear before they ventured out into the street to try and find technology strong enough to hail the Massive and finally reunite their family. Red would be worried sick and Purple could practically see him on the bridge, heading a terrifying path through the current star system they had been drifting through to viciously tear apart and uproot every culture he passed, destroying entire worlds and annihilating whole peoples for the sake of his own blistering anxieties and overpowering terror at having lost the only two beings he loved more than anything. Red talked a big game, and truly was a formidable opponent, but was so soft and nervous at his core. It came out in waves when he didn't get his way or when Purple was called off somewhere for a conference more than a lightcycle away. This…this was a whole new level of uncomfortable and unknown Red's fragile temperament wouldn't be able to adequately handle, Purple swallowing when he finally selected the image of a sweet, chubby, brown headed human girl and starting the texturization process as he reassured his unconfident smeet on a repeated, tender loop that everything would be alright. He and Red hadn't been truly separated for over 150 consistent cycles; They went to war together, ate together, slept together, showered together, and watched television together at the end of the day. It wasn't like Red couldn't handle the Empire on his own, Purple knew he was more than capable with his phenomenal strength and steely resolve to get things done, but he knew his husband wouldn't want to be alone for long. He needed Purple by his side to function.

"It's like playing dress up." Purple comforted Zil once more when she tried to brush away the feeling of static clinging to her sensitive body. "Do you remember dressup from home?"

"Uh huh."

"This is gonna be like a big dress up party. No one here will know where we come from, so we can't talk about Irk, or Dad, or the Massive. Understand?"

"Why?"

"Because…because we're pretty far from home. We're going to pretend and play hide and seek in plain sight. You're the best at hide and seek, and I know you'll be great at this too." Purple clicked a button on the side of his gauntlet, activating the steady ping of an infrared distress signal and feeling it flood up over his antennae and shoot out towards the stars he could no longer see, hoping with every fiber of his being that his other half would be close enough to hear his cry for help. He needed him. He needed Red now more than he ever had, but he also needed to protect his smeet. "In the meantime, we're going to try and find some technology we can use to call your Dad just in case he doesn't hear what I've just sent."

"Technology?" Zil thought a moment and wriggled uncomfortably when the fabric of her thick winter dress wrapped its way around her now fleshy legs. "Hey! I remember something super cool! This is the place where King Zim comes from before you told me not to see him anymore! He has lots of nice things and I think he could call Dad for us!"

Purple blinked and smoothed back his choppy hair, irritated when he could no longer feel his antennae under his fingers. Ask Zim for help?! He tried not to gag on the name alone, shuddering in repulsed, sickened disbelief that he was potentially stuck on this Irk-forsaken planet with only Zim to rescue him. He returned to his tiny screen, pulling up a topographic map of the surrounding landscape and searching for any other possible alternatives to the horrendous menace he would do anything to keep away from, knowing if he was brave enough to ask Zim for help, he would never let him or Red hear the end of it. From then on the nonstop calls would return and the difficult demands would pick up, and then it was a short hop and skip away from returning to Judgementia for another trial for something idiotic the food service drone had managed to dream up.

No. Zim would be a last resort.

"I don't think that's a good idea, sweetie." He tried to sound enthusiastic, fighting off a horrendous meltdown bubbling in the back of his skull as he scanned the city for anything relatively close to Irken technology capable of carrying a signal to the south quadrant of the universe, growing twitchier by the second when he realized the destructive, pyrotechnic menace may be the only individual in the whole of a fifty mile radius that could help.

Irk, please, no. There had to be another way.

"Look at that, Daddy! A thingy like at King Zim's! See? It's right there in that place!" Zil exclaimed, jabbing a concealed claw down at a miniscule pinprick dotting the map on the outskirts of the gargantuan metropolis, radiating outwards from down the street of Zim's own improvised homestead. "Can that call Dad to come find us?"

Purple readjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose when they threatened to slip, awed and equally confused that there was a second telltale ping emanating outwards like a beacon of shining hope only two miles away. Yes. Yes! This was it! This was their chance! Whatever it was and whatever potential alien horrors awaited them out there in the cold, they had to find that blip and take it in the name of the Empire. Purple wouldn't keep his venerable, innocent daughter frozen in a sordidly vile interplanetary winter where the atmosphere could be tinged with pollutants and the inhabitants could be violent beasts capable of swallowing him whole. He had to get her out of here and he would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

As Zil blinked and examined her new body, tugging lightly at her long, fluffy eyelashes and flailing her short fingers about in fascination, Purple stamped the final piece of his disguise over his technology, turning it to a high tech watch before taking a deep breath and letting his eyes flutter shut. He clicked his teeth a few times, relishing in the soothing sound rebounding though his skull as he placed both hands firmly on his daughter and took a cautious, apprehensive step into the light, squinting up at the pale radiance of the single Urth sun shining back against him and illuminating his fogging breath combining with the stinking air of the city. He felt his low human shoes click against the slick concrete, striding forward as he stared stiffly at the ground and mingled into the flood of alien monsters dotting the sidewalks and threatening his very existence at every corner. Zil nearly went catatonic, folding into the scratchy lapel of his fitted coat as he tried not to look conspicuous, stepping around thawing puddles of unknown liquid and papery trash as human vehicles whizzed by on screeching wheels and honked agitatedly at one another when traffic came to a standstill. There was too much noise, Purple freezing in the middle of the crosswalk as strangers flooded around him and bumped his shoulders at irregular intervals, sending an awful flood of stiff, stifling emotion down his spine with every brush. He jolted when an irritated human in a stout yellow transport vehicle pounded down on his horn, rolling down his window and spouting a slew of angry curses as Purple turned in a daze and stared in curious disarray at the bizarre beast flashing back at him.

"Get outta the street, asshole!"

Zil tugged at his collar, urging him on as another tear rolled down her cheek. "T-That's a bad word, Daddy." She whimpered, grabbing for the folds of his coat and hiding her face away when an elderly woman flashed her a warm, happy smile from below. "I-It's scary here….I don't have my hooman-melty-beam. I-I want Dad to come and get us so we can go home and be safe again."

"Shhh. It's going to be ok." Purple growled, feeling his instinct to fight overtake his senses only to be tugged away as Zil slung her arms up around his neck in a desperate attempt to get closer. "They don't look that threatening."

The human slammed his horn once again, shoving his face out of the open window and spitting ominously to the street to try and intimidate Purple on. "What, you got cotton in your ears? Move or I'm gonna run over ya! I'm on a schedule, here!"

"Do you know who you're talking to? I'm one of the most powerful beings in our known universe and you think you can talk to me like that?!" Purple straightened up to the full extent of his height and bristled, narrowing his eyes hotly in his enemy's direction when he felt the itch to engage in grisly combat. "If my husband found out about this he'd blow your planet to a crisp and I'd laugh at every single one of your disgusting worm faces burning in our plasma fire."

"God, what are you? Some kind of method actor or something?" The human rolled his eyes and waved his wrist in agitation. "Really, guy, get outta the street!"

Purple snorted and rolled his eyes. "Fine, but you've just earned your planet a black mark in my book." He hissed, rolling his shoulders back and sticking his nose in the air as a final attempt to display his dominance.

He refused to break eye contact with the driver, frowning and stepping to the side as the machine streaked past and splashed a mixture of tar and gravel up into his face, forcing him to stick out his tongue in disgust and wipe at his improvised skin with the back of his sleeve. This filthy rock didn't deserve to go on living; nothing about this place was remotely pleasant in the slightest. They continued their trek and Purple noticed the continuous feeling of warm tears hitting his neck and keeping him tethered to reality as he pushed himself on, quickly acclimating to the stench of alien perfume and pheromones pouring off of the sweat-laden crowd and adjusting to the sound of screeching sales deals yelled out for an event called Christmas he had no interest in. He managed to match the gait of other males wandering the streets, casually observing their footwork from afar as he hummed and attempted to show Zil how safe she was in his arms as they followed the ping. Towers glinted in the light and stretched in endless waves of primitive, lackadaisical engineering as fluttering creatures flew on ethereal wings and cooed out songs to one another, exotic spices raged and twirled through Purple's disguise and flooded his antennae from warm food stands, and languages of all natures shimmied and bleated against one another in a rapid chain of bewildering, intolerable tones. Nothing was clean, nothing was rational, everything was fast. Humans talked fast, walked fast, ate fast; it was as if no one had slept in cycles, moving about in a perpetual rush through swooshing doors and calling out for taxis on street corners, whatever that was. Was Urth supposed to be a planet bitten by the callous fingers of frost? Purple couldn't remember, struggling to maintain his hazy bearings and glancing down at his watch intermittently as they trudged along and he vaulted awkwardly around strangers threatening to brush the hem of his coat or pass him free samples of street food that was wholly nauseating and equally bizarre to look at.

"Man, these creatures are so tall." Purple pointed out with a bit of genuine fascination at how idiotic they still appeared to be despite their impressive height, feeling his own nerves for the unknown die down when he realized no one was actively staring him down. "And the stink of human meat is awful…Irk, your Dad better not be messing around out there. We have to get off of this stupid planet before I go crazy."

---

The Massive in the midst of Red's fanatical rampage

"What do you mean you can't fix it?!" Red demanded vehemently as Skrang shook in his boots at the edge of the bridge, staring up at his Tallest and seeing right through his concealed nerves to the center of his troubled anguish.

"I-I…there's no way we can fix it, sir. Not in the condition it's in in the time you've allotted me! It could take weeks, months even, to re-stabilize the dark matter to safe enough levels to bring them back through the way they came." Skrang tried to lightly defend himself, wincing when Red growled out his frustrations and turned back to the wide viewing port of the ship, feverishly surveying the drifting Armada returning from their fast paced sweep of the immediate starsystem.

There had been no news of his partner's whereabouts and Red was beginning to worry himself down to the bone, wringing his hands in anxious expectation and popping antacids like candy as he struggled to keep himself unruffled before his subjects. Purple was a tough, hardened warrior who'd seen action beyond the wildest expectations of any cadet under their command to date, but Zil…she was innocent. She was so young, so sweet, so untainted by the mind-numbing terrors of warfare and battle and Red knew deep down that his mate had been right in reminding him before that they needed to preserve that childlike wonder for as long as they could. What was she seeing? Was she forced to watch her father fight? Was she fighting? Were they even together out there or were they drifting alone and confused on separate, desolate worlds?

Red shook the terrifying visions from his mind and slung his nervous hands behind his back after unclasping his collar and shucking it to the side for more air. He couldn't let this get to him. This was a minor setback, yeah, just a minor setback was all. He turned and glanced over his shoulder, looking past Skrang who clutched at a set of engineering tools and catching sight of his communications team scanning transmission channels and eddying frequencies throughout the void of space, antennae pressed to static ridden headsets as eyes narrowed and closed to listen for any sign of where their displaced Tallest could have ended up.

Purple.

Zil.

He was going mad without them here, chewing his claws to nothing as the drone of formless static drew him further into the dark pit of hopelessness. No, they were out there somewhere. Purple took her hand when she touched the wormhole; he was brave enough to sacrifice himself to the unknown so their daughter wouldn't have to be alone and scared. Red shoved another sizzling medication tablet in his mouth and scrunched up his face at the bitter taste, finishing them off completely and crumpling up the wrapper before tossing it carelessly to the side. They were together….they had to be.

"Sir, I have news that you'll want to hear!"

Red spun a bit too quickly, almost tripping over his own feet and wiping the sweat beading on his brow as he cleared his throat and straightened back up. General Gor strode urgently forward across the bridge, his polished heels clinking against the metal as he shook his head and talked furiously with a few young pilots on a hushed chatter before dismissing them completely and struggling his way to the main viewing platform with a strained huff.

"My Tallest! My men have triangulated the location of Almighty Tallest Purple and Lady Zil. They-"

Red yelled out his excitement, flying down and hoisting Gor up from his feet with a victory shout of pure, untamed bliss and spinning him around as the rest of the bridge looked on in unnerved horror as their superior flailed in their leader's ecstatic arms.

"Yes! Yes! Irk, I knew they were close!" Red laughed wildly, dropping Gor back to his feet and not caring when he stumbled, turning instead to the viewing port with a renewed fire behind his ocular lenses and a need to see his partner and his daughter returning from his improvised rescue mission to be shrouded in his powerful embrace. "Where are they? When will they be back? What planet did they end up on?"

Skrang urged Gor on with a hasty, frantic nod, hoping with all his might that no harm had come to his Tallest or their smeet for the sake of his own pathetic life hanging precariously in the balance.

Gor blinked and hesitated, adjusting the bar of wartime ribbons over his chest before speaking back up. "Sir, they're farther than we expected." He began timidly as Red's wide, cheesy beam slowly faded. "One of the officers aboard my Ring Cutter picked up on a faint transmission while we fell into orbit around Lanantis. I had her run scans on the signal and, as we expected, it is coming from the personal gauntlet of Tallest Purple."

"And?" Red commanded sharply, wanting him to get to the point.

Gor sighed to himself and finally spilled the uncomfortable truth. "And, sir, we've traced his location to a place in quadrant one that we are unfortunately all too familiar with…um…Urth, my Tallest."

Almost immediately, a flip switched inside Red's mind and his expression darkened, moving away from Gor and his dastardly news to shoot icy, soul-piercing daggers through Skrang's wide magenta eyes. He said nothing for a long while, simultaneously burning and freezing the drone under his famous gaze and sealing his fate with his eyes before finally peeling his horrendously callous, homicidal look away and barking orders across the bridge.

"Navigation! Set coordinates to Urth!" He wailed, taking a deep breath and settling himself back into the game unfolding before him like an extensive chessboard. "I want all warp thrusters at their fullest potential! Communications, lock onto Tallest Purple's signal. We need to know how many Irken life signatures are on the planet because I'm hoping," he paused when a pang of alarm hit him that he quickly brushed off, "I'm hoping that my daughter is with him."

"Yes, my Tallest!"

Red snapped ruthlessly, refusing to budge as Skrang got the point and moved forward to linger with petrified expectation at his side. "You. This is the second time your technology has caused my husband and I life-threatening problems." He glanced down in disgust at the tears building up at the corners of Skrang's vision. "This time, it's put the life of my beautiful daughter on the line. Do you understand how protective I am of my smeet, science drone?"

Skrang couldn't speak, instead nodding out through his fear when Red waited with horrendous patience for him to respond.

"She's my light, Skrang, and far too good for this kind of treatment." Red snarled. "I will not be funding your project and you can kiss your engineering lab back on Irk goodbye, because I'll be putting it under new management that can handle something as simple as a line of code. You will be transported to Judgementia for trial and I'm personally going to request that you be reencoded as something terrible. I haven't picked what would be worse yet; a janitorial drone on Planet Dirt, or a table headed service drone for my personal staff?"

Skrang gasped in panic when General Gor nodded for two guards to move forward, each grabbing him by the shoulders and hastily taking him away and out of Red's sight as he cried and pleaded for forgiveness against purposefully deaf antennae. Red took a deep inhale, watching the color and bouncing hues flood by outside as the Massive was thrown into powerful warp towards the one planet he loathed more than any other.

"Sir? Are you alright?" Gor fell in next to him and watched alongside his leader, secretly running his careful gaze over every stress line in Red's furrowed brow and the steadily growing murkiness clouding behind his lenses. "Tallest Purple, I've fought alongside him in battle as a cadet before you ascended to your ranks. He's strong, and he can take care of himself."

"I know." Red mumbled despondently, letting his favorite advisor see a tiny spark of his true disquiet shining through or a few quick, rare seconds. "I love him, Gor, and he's my everything. I love them both more than you could ever know and I won't ever risk losing my family."

"I know, my Tallest. We'll find them. I promise."

---

Urth; The outskirts of the city

Finally, the two had managed to break free of the main hustle and bustle of the metropolis, scaling the distance at a faster pace now that Purple didn't have to bob and weave his way around elderly humans and children screaming for parents to buy them toys they didn't need. He could breathe again, running through number sequences over and over in his head as he counted and willed himself back down to calm. They were close, passing by dozens of cardboard box looking homes as Purple kept an expert eye trained on the little marker flashing over his watch screen. Zil had pulled herself together as well, venturing tiny peeks when her profound curiosity became too vast to ignore, eventually blinking away what was left of her salty tears and brushing back the annoying pigtails fluttering into her face with the wind. She became utterly fascinated with everything around her, pointing wordlessly at things Purple paid no mind to as they wandered closer and closer to their unknown destination. Every sticklike bush was a marvel, every slick sheet of ice was enticing, and other tiny children at her age equivalent began to catch her wary gaze as they played tag.

"Mr.! Hey, Mr.! Over here!" A ginger girl splotched with freckles called from across the street, waving wildly for Purple's attention as he bit back a domineering hiss and quickly hid his gauntlet out of carefully tamed distain.

The girl looked both ways before bounding excitedly across the blacktop, following at Purple's heels when he refused to speak and staring up at where Zil watched curiously over the crisp shoulder pad of his coat. "I'm Katelynn! Katelynn Lasserie!" She proclaimed proudly, snorting a glob of something viscous back up into her nose. "Are you new in the neighborhood? Can she come play? I'm the only girl here and all the boys wanna ride bikes together and never let me join!" Katelynn crossed her arms as she stomped along, wearing down Purple's frayed nerves. "Please? I've got lots of new dolls and Christmas is almost here so I'm gonna be getting another Barbie! Do you like Barbie?"

Zil blinked and cocked her head, her PAK quickly translating her accented Irken to English. "What's Barbie?" She asked slowly, trying to sling herself further over her father's shoulder for a better look at the strange red-headed creature following along. "I have a doll at home named Baby but she's a space princess! And I have a Kalopiac named Mama Kitty with lots of leggies who eats the crumbs off our floor!"

Katelynn stopped in her tracks, thinking a moment before flashing a braces stuffed smile up at her new friend. "I dunno what that thing is but you should bring Baby to come play with Barbie! She just broke up with her boyfriend and she needs a makeover to feel better."

Zil grinned back, accidentally showing off her two rows of sharp teeth. "Daddy! Daddy! Can I go play too? Barbie lost her boyfriend and Baby is a Tallest so she can make her feel better!" She bounced in his hold and tried to wiggle free, forcing a pang of dread to rocket through his chest at the accidental mention of his title.

Katelynn's green eyes lit up in the sunlight. "What's a Tallest?"

Purple spun on his heel and loomed over the intrusive nuisance, letting a low, defensive growl escape from his lips as he rumbled and continued to lower himself down over the incredibly confused human worm-thing. "Get out of here, human smeet, or I'm going to have to steal every single one of your organs in alphabetical order!"

Katelynn didn't hesitate, slipping and sliding on the ice as she threw her mittens in the air and screeched wildly, racing all the way back home as Purple rolled his eyes in annoyance that his ridiculous false threat had actually worked. He continued on, feeling his pulse escalate as they rounded the block and neared the home stretch to the place that would finally, hopefully, reunite him with the touch of his husband.

"Aw, Daddy, but that hooman was a…nice one." Zil's strange realization came a bit too late as she rested her chin on Purple's shoulder and mulled over every passerby she had seen so far. "Why aren't they stealing our brains?"

"Because we're disguised as them."

"But can't they smell us?"

"No, they're too stupid and primitive for that."

"Where are their ships? How will they invade Irk without ships?"

"I…huh. I don't think they have any."

Zil grew increasingly perplexed as she ran through every detail she had supposedly known of humanity from Red's horror films, blinking and staring down at the ground when her father veered away from the concrete and followed the signal through someone's yard, crunching on ice covered grass as he went and stopping short at a well worn, wooden fence obscuring his path. He squinted, leaning forward on his toes and attempting to see through the slats between the timber and catch a glimpse at whatever technology was calling out to him through his own. He couldn't see much; the side of a dark home, a well manicured lawn covered in frigid ice and dotted with a couple of underused patio chairs, and a…huh. He didn't know what to call it, flicking his ocular lenses on and scanning the holding chamber evading his understanding.

Shed.

The English rang true in his mind as he craned to look at his daughter, watching as she ran her fingertips down every groove in the pattern dotting the wood, bringing a finger to his lips to usher her to keep quiet before glancing leisurely about and tentatively withdrawing his PAK legs. He hooked his extensions under the seam of the plank, prying it off and gingerly setting it aside as a gaggle of human mothers walked by with fluffy, energetic beasts with waving tails attached to canvas strings. He swallowed, prying his daughter from his clothing and silently thrusting her through the hole he had opened, following quickly behind and laboring to squeeze his feeble human form through with great effort. Finally, after a rib crushing battle with a few nails getting caught in his jacket, he was able to force himself free and land gracelessly on the lawn. He hastily pushed himself up when he realized the back of the home had a glass sliding door, clambering boorishly for his daughter when she skipped innocently through the ice and giggled, stomping it under her goulashes as her mirth picked up in intensity.

"This place isn't so scary, Daddy!" She laughed, grabbing a handful of icy grass and ripping it free from the ground, squeaking in surprise and dropping it when the frozen water stung at her skin. "Owwie! That part is still scary! Don't touch the cold stuff it makes your hand hurt!"

Purple was about to lose his mind, snapping his gaze up when he noticed a light click off on the second floor followed by the rhythmic thump of someone traversing a set of stairs. His pulse lurched and he launched himself forward on skilled PAK legs, sweeping his smeet off the ground when she went for the grass once more to satisfy her need to explore before rocketing them both towards the shed. He didn't waste any time, listening intently to the muffled voices of two creatures lightly arguing from within the home as he warmed his PAK lasers, slicing expertly through the flimsy lock and pushing the rickety door open before slamming it shut behind them.

Almost immediately, he felt his antennae quiver from within his disguise and his spooch flip, dropping Zil to the dusty floor amidst boxes of old photographs and worn out technology as his bewildered eyes caught sight of something completely Irk-shattering and entirely unexpected. It was a ship. An Irken ship.

How?

Zil picked herself up with another excited giggle, slinging herself forward to pat at the rusted, mangled hull as Purple's throughs reeled at what connotation his shocking discovery held. He kept his PAK legs alert, ready to pounce should anything go wrong as he reached out and ran his fingertips over the dented metal of the old, outdated Spittle Runner, letting his attention fall to rest on the emblem painted messily over the rear thrusters. This belonged to a rebel pilot once from an all women's group based on the symbology alone but it had been badly destroyed in what looked like a meteor shower or other heavy cosmic anomaly of some kind. He reached out and hooked his fingers under the lip of the windshield, popping it free and shrinking back at the stench of human clinging to the frayed leather seats and lingering horrendously through the dusty cockpit. He cursed to himself under his breath the more he evaluated the appalling extent of the damage whoever had stolen the ship had unfortunately caused; wires sparked inconsistently from beneath the dash, the front plasma canons had been stripped and gutted, and the cooling units had been razed completely by intergalactic fire. He leaned further into the ship as Zil dug through boxes and threw power tools aimlessly about, opening up his gauntlet and retrieving a mini electric poker before squinting and administering a tiny, but powerful electric shock to the mainframe.

Nothing.

He tried again, digging his ungloved hands into the tangled mess of cords and obliterated wires and choosing to focus solely on the communicator as he pried off the cover and pressed his tool against the motherboard. "Zil? Come here and hold this." He whispered through the low light. "Zil?"

Purple turned and froze as the door slowly creaked open, petrifying in a mix of shock and stunned surprise as a set of thin rimmed, wired glasses glinted in the light and revealed two curious brown eyes staring back up at him from below.

No.

No.

Irk, they were so close! They were so close!

The human stood dumbfounded for a few seconds, jaw slack in equal dismay as the two stared each other down and fought for silent dominance. He didn't look like much, his long black coat swallowing his petite body and his dark, disheveled hair fluttering in the breeze as he struggled to come to grips with what he had caught.

"Hey!" He finally spoke up with a bit more aggression than Purple had been expecting. "Who are you and why are you trespassing in my shed? That's mine!"

Purple hunted for the right words, his PAK working furiously to formulate some kind of rational English and failing drastically, pumping his shorting brain full of another Urthenoid language he didn't recognize spilling from his mouth before he could stop it. "Hallo! Wie…eh…wie gehts dir?" (Hello! How are you?)

The Urth child scrunched up his face in perplexed confusion. "Are you German? Wait, are you a spy sent by the government to steal my ship?! This is the second time this week and I don't care if they think I'm not old enough to handle alien technology! I found it and it's mine!"

Purple tried again, swallowing down the overly accented German changing his voice to something foreign he hated before clearing his throat and trying to save face. "Ah! Hello," he waited for his PAK translator to catch up, "fellow human friend! My name is…Steven? Yeah, Steven, and I'm with the…Bureau of Alien Technological…um…Researches? And they have sent me to your beautiful shed to look at this amazing ship and add it to the…the…alien ship census of the United States?" He wanted to smack himself in the face for how overly robotic he sounded, holding his breath for a moment and relaxing a bit when the child narrowed his eyes and decided to humor him, buying him precious time to sneakily dig his poker into the casing of the ship's communicator to try and restore its long lost life.

"Bureau of Alien Technological Researches, eh?" The Urthenoid gingerly set the box of spare metallic parts he had been carrying at his feet, moving forward as Purple flashed him a cheesy grin and hoped his daughter stayed well hidden like she had been. "How come I've never heard of them?"

"Yes, well, we keep to ourselves!" Purple blurted out through his teeth, watching through the corner of his eye as a brief flash of color illuminated his target machinery. Just a little more and he could call Red.

The kid rolled his eyes with a sneer, taking another step and staring Purple down when he stiffened on impulse and prepared for a fight. "And what exactly do you do at this fictitious bureau?"

Purple fumbled with a few of the words, blinking a few times and chewing on his bottom lip as he worked. "Ah. We document all crashed alien ships in the United States of Alabama to-"

"Wait did you just say the United States of Alabama?"

"No. I said the United States of Arizona."

"That's still not right. Hang on…are you…" The child moved his scrutinizing, overly intelligent gape to Purple's watch, eyeing the screen before his eyes lit up in alarm when he recognized the technology and tried to turn on his heel to call for someone to help. "Aliens! I should have known! Gaz! Dad! They're-"

Purple slammed the electronic poker into the communicator, bringing it back online as he sprung from his mechanical perch and grabbed for the noisy nuisance, clipping his collar and dragging him down as they both landed with a collective shout on the cold floor. The kid put up a fight, raking the heel of his sneaker down the side of Purple's face before going for his wrist and attempting to pry his cloaking technology away.

"Hey! Stop it!" Purple growled, grabbing the child around the waist and flinging him back as Zil popped up in bewildered confusion from around the hull of the ship with a piercing cry of fear, throwing herself behind her father's pantleg as the human quickly collected himself and grabbed for an old baseball bat, turning on his heel to face his opponent when Purple braced himself and threw his fists up in front of his face.

"I'll show you and Zim to mess with-" The kid trailed off, bat still raised above his head as his chest heaved from the strenuous struggle. He wavered a moment, blinking dust from his eyes when he noticed the tear streaked face of the tiny, hyperventilating smeet clutching in agonizing terror at her father's clothes.

Purple noticed, clenching his jaw as his body buzzed with potential energy and the undying need to protect his daughter. He refused to move, watching in uncanny discomfort as the human had some kind of internal struggle with himself, listening uncomfortably to Zil's tiny fear-filled sobs and thick sniffs before she cowered down to the ground and covered her face to let out another shriek.

"Is that one of your," The boy mulled about what to call her, "alien space babies?"

Purple said nothing, slowly retracting his threatening stance and bending, letting his fake glasses slip from his face before scooping up his terrified smeet as she wailed letting her curl back into his chest.

"Well, is it?" The kid asked again, his voice wavering dangerously with an emotion that Purple couldn't comprehend. "Why is it here?"

"She is my daughter, not an it." Purple finally managed to growl out, still refusing to let his overstimulated guard down and glancing back to the ship when it dinged out its sudden compliance. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you between the eyes."

The boy followed Purple's gaze and blinked behind his glasses when he realized the communicator was back online, ignoring his threat out of his own innate inquisitiveness. "Why do you want my ship? Who are you hailing, some kind of military force?!" He renewed his grip on his metal bat when Purple unleashed his PAK legs, training for hot lasers in his enemy's direction and creeping closer to another harrowing confrontation. "You're Irken! I knew it!"

"Wait no!" Zil cried out, flailing her arms in front of her and locking eyes with the monster liquifying her rational judgement. "D-Don't hurt Daddy!" She sniffed before wiping her eyes messily on her false coat. "Scary hooman don't hurt my Daddy! I…I scared a hooman away from my closet with my hooman-melty-beam and I'm sorry if I made you mad but I wanna go home! I-I won't ever kick you outta my closet again! Y-You can come and live in there if you wanna but you havta be nice and you can't hurt my Daddy because I love him!"

Zil's slurred words echoed about the tiny shed through the fat tears rolling down her pink cheeks, her fear permeating every crevice and glinting off of every surface to bombard the two standing locked in a vicious stalemate between one another.

The human faltered once more, swallowing thickly and thinking long and hard before he asked his next question. "How old is she?" He mumbled suddenly, catching Purple off guard. "In Earth years."

Purple rubbed soothing circles into his daughter's shuddering back and urged her to look away to preserve her own innocence. "Six." He kept his answers short, trying to intimidate the stupid creature to move on so he wouldn't have to kill in front of his smeet. She wasn't ready to witness death yet, and he was determined to keep it that way.

"What about you? Again, in Earth years."

"…Thirty-five."

"Is she yours?"

"Yes."

"You're tall. Why?"

"…"

"I asked you why. I know more about your species than you know, and I know that Irkens aren't supposed to be tall unless you're high ranking, so, are you?"

Purple rolled his eyes and merely shook his head, holding true to his own rules he had told Zil in the beginning of their accidental landing on this filthy world. "My height and rank are none of your business."

The boy wasn't buying it but lowered his bat, letting it slip from his hand as he continued to pummel Purple with a barrage of invasive questioning. "Are you one of the Tallest?" He asked curtly, examining Purple's eyecolor from afar and lighting up with a sudden, uncharacteristic excitement as he brought his hands together and took a sharp inhale. "You are! You are one of the Tallest! Do you remember me?! I called you from Zim's base a few years ago and asked you a bunch of questions you never answered!"

Purple didn't have any recollection of ever sharing a transmission with someone so absolutely annoying, weighing his options and reluctantly choosing to play along. "No. No I don't. And would you stop that? The thing with Zim? We're not actually on the same side, you know."

"You're the purple one! I-It's me, Dib! Remember, I asked for the coordinates to your planet and how many organs you have and-"

"Dib?" Zil blinked, hiding her face behind her father's lapel as he withdrew his PAK legs and finally determined they weren't in any legitimate danger. The kid was a tiny speck, nothing he couldn't handle. "Hooman Dib?"

Purple kept a firm hold on her as he eyed the odd, bizarrely giddy beast, shrinking back with a blind yelp when Dib dug a camera out from within his coat and began furiously snapping picture after picture of his newfound experiment's face as he tried to capture his unnatural eye color. "Man, are you here on an intelligence gathering mission? Tough luck because my ship doesn't fly anymore after the Florpus. You're gonna be stuck with me until I turn you in to the FBI and…hey! Give it back!"

Purple snatched at his camera and held it above his head tauntingly as he jumped and attempted to grab it back with flailing palms. "Look, Urthenoid, you're not doing anything! You're not turning is into this F of BI, you're not taking pictures, and you're not keeping this ship. As soon as my husband gets here I'm sending out coordinates to commandeer it."

"Husband? You mean the red one? You two are married?" Dib tried again, flailing up for his precious camera and grumbling hotly under his breath when Purple shoved it back into his concealed PAK. "I didn't know gay aliens exist. Not that there's anything wrong with that but…never mind."

"I don't know what that word means. It's not in my database." Purple strode hotly past, reaching into the cockpit of Dib's hijacked ship once more and running his fingers over the communicator, pulling up a floating screen and indifferently punching in his partner's personal extension he'd memorized cycles ago when they were still dating.

"Gay? It's when-"

"I don't care."

"I have two dads because I'm special." Zil held up her fingers with a hesitant smile from where she watched over Purple's shoulder as he worked. "I have Daddy and Dad."

"How does that work?"

"What work?"

"Like, how were you born…created…built? Don't you need a mom?"

"I came from an egg! Daddy told me so."

"Huh. Neat!"

"Do hoomans eat smeets like me?"

Dib hoisted himself up on his workbench and thought a moment, mulling over the word and blinking when it finally clicked. "Oh, you mean babies? Why would we eat you? I don't even know where your planet is," he paused, leaning forward and trying to get Purple to turn, "but I'd like to in exchange for you laying your gross hands all over my ship!"

Zil didn't understand, toying with the soft curls of Purple's hair as he desperately tried to find a way to contact Red. "Don't eat smeets? But the movies said so."

Dib shrugged flippantly, more intrigued by how well his retrieved ship was responding to Purple's touch in a few minutes of hasty work than it had responded to his own in months of careful engineering and planning. "Geez, you make us sound like we're monsters or something! Not to say that our society isn't terrible, but no, we don't eat babies." He snorted, aching to get his hands on the tiny electrical poker Zil's father continued to toy with. "What about you? Aren't you supposed to come down here and lay eggs in our eyeballs or something and eat our brains?"

Zil stuck out her tongue in over animated disgust and wildly shook her head at the disgusting image dancing precariously through her mind. "Ew! No! I eat waffles for breakfast and sometimes Dad lets me have a pizza for lunch if I'm good and don't draw on the papers on his desk." She giggled vibrantly, stretching down to try and touch Dib's hair. "Why do you look like that? You have flappy thingies on your head."

"What's up with your race and ears?" He tried to mask a chuckle of his own at the unforeseen, surprisingly compassionate naivety striking him through the chest. "So…you don't want to take over the Earth? I've never really had the chance to ask you that before."

This time it was Purple who threw in his harsh opinion, wanting nothing more than to smack the intrusive child upside the jaw and leave but holding back for the good of his daughter and her valuable purity. "I wouldn't say that. This place is weird and it stinks and I don't like it, so I'm not sure if you really deserve to go on existing." His threat was light and ill-placed, his usually sharp mind distracted by his own dissatisfactions and horrific enervation.

"Does this mean I get to ask as many questions as I want for my research? Can I see what you look like under your disguise?"

"No."

"Come on, what kind of cloaking technology is that?"

"Kid, you're really wearing me down here. Go play with your human toys and leave the Spittle Runner to the adults, ok?"

"But I just want-"

"Look, Urthenoid, consider my kindness an act of mercy. What you're getting is to live but I can easily change my mind if you keep distracting me from reaching my husband!" Purple readjusted his slipping grip as he grew exasperated with the flippant, nonsensical conversation his smeet had opened up with the daft, snooping boy behind them. "Can you not make friends with that thing, please? He's nasty and I don't want him following us home like your pet." He groaned ardently in vehement Irken, flashing her a look of blistering disapproval and mumbling to himself when the ship finally sent out a signal. "I'm trying to call your Dad and I don't want to be covered in the stink of human when he picks us up."

"Hey, what are you saying?" Dib piped up again, trying to look around Purple's side when the strange alien language of clicks and chirps invaded his senses. "Switch back to English! Um, I guess Spanish is fine too, but anyway, I have more questions!"

Zil let her hesitant smile turn into a friendly grin. "Questions? Hoomans have questions too?" She peeped, resting her chin in her palm. "My Dad says there's never a bad question and if I have one I should always ask."

"So, about your Dad and your…Daddy, was it?" Dib began tentatively, listening as Purple opted to ignore him completely and smacked at the communicator, grumbling something in his frustrated native tongue when it threatened to die. He reached into his other coat pocket and inconspicuously clicked on a tiny tape recorder he carried, beaming up when Zil's compliance continued to grow. "How long have they been the leaders of the Irken Empire?"

Zil popped a thumb in her mouth, immediately pulling it free when she realized she couldn't run her sharp claw over her teeth. "Mm. I dunno. A billion cycles!" Her eyes went wide for emphasis as an untamed laugh escaped her lips. "I'm gonna be Tallest too when I get big. The first thing I wanna do when I rule the Universe is give mommies and daddies to the smeets born with a robot so they can have nice parents too like mine."

"Hey…you…you're actually kinda nice. Nothing like Zim and his failed plots to take over the planet."

"I like being nice. If you're nice to strangers they become your friends. Are we friends now?"

"Eh…I dunno. Maybe if you tell me the exact coordinates to your Dad's ship."

"None of your business! If you keep asking stupid questions I will make you hurt so keep your prying face appendage away from my smeet and get out so I can work!" Purple turned and eyed him dangerously before blinking in sudden astonishment and returning to his project when the ship sputtered and managed to latch on to the distant network systems of the Massive looming through the glittering stars.

The traces of a broken voice crackled through the white noise, forcing Purple's pulse up into his throat as he gasped and nearly dropped Zil into the seat of the cockpit when he struggled to get closer, tugging the mouthpiece down from the center console and frantically yelling back when the glorious, beautiful sound of his husband's distant sound called back from where he had forced his way to behind the communications desk.

"Purple?! Is that really you?! Finally!"

Purple felt tears prick in his bright lavender eyes as he yelled out a victory cry and wanted nothing more than to sling his arms up around Red's neck and hold him close, itching to feel every scar dotting his back beneath his fingertips and the comforting warmth of his familiar cheek pressed to his.

"Honey? H-Honey, it's me! It's me, Red!" He laughed, letting his adrenaline take over as Dib reeled behind him from the abrupt change in pitch. "Irk, you have no idea how happy I am to hear your stupid voice! I'm on the Urth planet come so you better hurry up and get me before these awful humans drive me crazy!"

Red audibly sighed in overwhelming relief with a shaky laugh as he choked on his own emotion followed by the sound of him knocking aside readers and papers as he hunted for something specific, the resonance of his heels clicking hastily across the bridge reverberating with every step. "Is she there?! Our team tried to hone in on your life signature but we could only see yours! Please tell me you have Zil!"

Purple blinked away his happy tears and took a deep, uneven breath as he nodded, forgetting his partner couldn't see him. "Zil's here! Don't worry, I've got her!" He wavered a moment when he thought his mate was going to break down at the incredible news of their daughter safe and sound, staying on the line and allowing his antennae to twitch under his disguise into the muffled, frantic voice of Red signaling a transport pod to descend. "Red? Where are you?"

"Hey, what's a Zil? They said that twice." Dib asked, waving for Zil's attention as she craned down to listen to the calming, magnificent sound of her father's cherished voice echoing back. "Would one of you just listen to me?!"

"Shut. Up." Purple growled menacingly, refusing to give him the time of day before returning to his desperate conversation. "Hello? Baby, can you hear me?"

"I'm sending down a pod. Meet me outside."

Purple lit up, flying back to his feet and yelping when Zil hopped down from his arms to curiously eye Dib from below, extending up a nervous hand when he too tried to follow. "I used to be really scared of hoomans but I kinda like you. You're soft and squishy and you have funny face flappies and a cool coat and I'm happy you didn't hurt Daddy." She squeaked out anxiously, holding firm and puffing out her cheeks as she hunted for the right words. "I heard someone say a bad word but the other hoomans are nice ones, too! One of them has a Barbie and you have funny goggles so I think we're friends. I wanna come back someday when I'm bigger so we can play dolls together."

Purple didn't give Dib a chance to respond when he blinked and went to take his daughter's hand, grabbing Zil around the waist and slinging her over his shoulder as he took off into the yard, leaving him behind in the shed in stunned silence as he grinned up at the light blue of the expansive sky and listened to the telltale grind and hum of powerful thrusters descending from the gargantuan flagship above. Red had brought the Massive into orbit, ringing the planet with the formidable, omnipotent force of their infinitely powerful Armada to neutralize any threat as people of all ages scrambled and screeched wildly out of fear in the streets around them. Purple didn't bother with his disguise anymore, catching sight of the pale sun glinting gorgeously off of the deep marron metal of their personal transport pod jetting out into the stratosphere and locking onto his location as he fumbled to turn off his cloaking technology, glancing back over his shoulder in revulsion as Dib skidded to an abrupt halt at the vision of daunting, authoritarian grace standing tall and resolute in his yard. Zil giggled in excitement and poked childishly at Purple's quickly vanishing human form, tugging at his antennae when they reappeared and reaching up to twirl her own between her fingers.

"Hey, alien!" Dib called courageously over the shockwave of the strange ship descending in plain sight behind his once peaceful home. "G-Get outta here and never come back! I don't wanna see your kind on my planet again or I'll…I'll…do something!"

Purple ignored him as Zil waved him on like an old friend, her bright crimson eyes glittering softly in the magenta glow as the landing gear to the pod quickly ascended and latched onto the spongy ground, the main hatch popping prematurely to reveal a slew of frantic advisors trying with all their might to hold back the despairing, panicky sprint of their leader tripping down the steps. Purple didn't have time to react before Red's body collided hard with his own, smashing him into a spine-crushing embrace before pulling back immediately when Zil began to complain, pushing against her father's cheek as he looked her head to toe and moved on to his partner, spinning him around against his protest and noting every tiny nick and scrape in the almost pristine metal of his opulent uniform.

"You're alright." He breathed in near dumbfounded silence, his gaze snapping back up when his palm landed on the side of Zil's round cheek with a faint, airy smile. "You're both alright."

"Dad! Dad! You came to find us!" Zil chirped loudly, grabbing for his breastplate in a trance as she bounced and growing a bit irritated when he refused to peel his firm, deep gaze away from his husband's, instantly igniting the same spark of eager longing that had splayed between them from the moment they had met in the Academy.

Purple rolled his eyes playfully and met his terrified husband halfway, feeling a protective arm sling around his waist to usher him back into the safe, familiar hands of the Empire as their lips connected with unstable smirks and adrenaline-giddy laughs.

"What, you doubted my skill, Red?" Purple pulled away with a tease and laughed when Red continued to assault him with his mouth, fighting against the loving affection he had craved more than anything in the past two hours as his shaken up partner scaled the stairs and extended a palm down to help his family up. "I can handle one alien planet myself. I took down three with my wit and a plasma pistol, remember? And that was back when I was just a cadet."

Red nodded, refusing to let go and pushing Rarl Kove back when he accidentally got in the way. "I remember but…" He flicked his antenna forward to graze his partner's feeling him shudder at the beautiful, intimate contact. "You're gonna think I'm soft but…well…I missed you. Both of you and…dammit."

Purple reached up between them when Zil slung herself into Red's arms and wrapped her excited touch up around his neck, drinking in the uplifting, recognizable scent of his spiced cologne that had captivated her since her hatching. He pressed a tender, still trembling finger to his partner's lips to silence him from saying anything awkward as he stuttered and wrangled with the profound, mind-numbing feelings of fear finally releasing themselves in hazy waves to the heavens, lingering against his balmy skin a moment before sliding leisurely to the side and grazing him with another needed, exorcising kiss that tore down what was left of Red's panic-stricken, horrifying unease.

"Don't ever leave me again." Red mumbled against him, grinning when Zil leaned in and tried to include herself in on the affection, stamping an open mouthed, sharp-toothed smooch to his chin. "I mean it, Pur, I was a mess up there."

"You? A mess? Never." Purple mocked slyly with a featherlight chuckle, listening closely as the gentle hum of the hatch closing buzzed up over his senses followed by the rise and fall of Red's rapidly calming breathing against his chest. He closed his eyes with a sigh and folded forward into the defending, sheltering hold surrounding him with reassuring warmth and welcoming love, not caring in the slightest when he realized they probably appeared incredibly weak in front of their subordinates. "This might be weird, but you smell so good right now."

Red pulled his own antennae back and craned away from the stench clinging to his tiny daughter's milky skin. "And you both smell like an intergalactic zoo." He was only half joking, faking an overdone gag and drawing another genuine, warm laugh from his partner as they swayed gently against the shudder of the ship preparing for takeoff. "First thing I'm gonna do after I hang that idiot Skrang is douse you with perfume until you smell less…revolting."

"Oh, so I'm revolting now, huh?" Purple reached up and patted him lightly on the cheek, purposefully running his fingers and claws over every inch of exposed skin he could find in an effort to smear the nauseating, foreign stench over his uniform and level the playing field. "I'll let you pick whatever you'd like."

Red ignored the tug of General Gor's hands at the back of his robes as he purred and nuzzled further into his partner's neck, hiding away his emotions to try and keep from shattering his logical, rational persona. "Mm…vanilla. It always warms well on your skin."

"Good choice. I should have known you'd go for something delicious."

"What? I like it when you smell sweet…offsets your stupid attitude."

"Shut up, you love my fire and everyone knows it. Who else is strong enough to keep you in check?"

"Ok, ok, you're right…so, what're we gonna do about that thing?" Red jabbed a thumb out the pristine glass of the windshield as the pod moved to a hover, watching as Dib vehemently waved and pounded on the outside hull in a final attempt to restore his obliterated dominance before they rocketed off away from the surface and left him in their dusty wake. "He saw what we looked like and I don't like his face. He looks like the kind of kid to talk and I don't want our credibility in this quadrant destroyed by someone with a head that big."

Purple entwined his fingers with his mate's free hand and led him through the amassed gaggle of frantic advisors and cadets squabbling over his condition and frantically checking him over for bruises. A medical drone with a handheld scanner hopped up onto his toes and ran his screen over Zil's tiny body as she squeaked and tried to bat him away, checking for any internal damage or radiation damage and, thankfully, finding none before moving on to Purple.

"Let's blow it. This place doesn't deserve a chance after the-"

"No! You can't blow it up!" Zil cut him off with a tone laced with genuine worry, staring up from Red's lap when he tentitively lowered himself down into one of the plush back seats and shot a confused glance up at his partner when he did the same. "What about Katelynn and the Barbie! A-And the bad word man who yelled in his big yellow monster thing! Or the Dib! The Dib was nice and let us use his ship to call Dad!" She protested vehemently, throwing her hands out in front of her and staring out at the windshield when the pod finally reconnected with the Massive. "I won't be able to come back and play dolls if you blow it up!"

"Sweetheart, we're not coming back here." Purple tried to soothe her as best as he could, but his tender voice didn't help, only riling Zil up more. "Why do you want to save this place anyway? They're the enemy."

Zil shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. "No, they're not. They're hoomans and hoomans are friends. We can't blow everyone up because you don't like them Daddy, it's not nice." She complained fervently, holding her ground and flattening her quivering antennae to her skull when Purple ran his unnerved gaze over the look of absolute determination flashing behind her ocular lenses.

He saw it.

It was only a glimmer at first, ricocheting back and scorching his better judgement when the same unwavering, dominating inferno he had seen thousands of times flooding behind his partner's own steely crimson gaze on the battlefield now radiated out from their young daughter. She meant what she said, Purple holding up a hand when Red went to argue, silencing him in his tracks as Zil leaned forward over his knee and hammered in her final proclamation with a thoughtful, steadfast tone that sent a proud chill down his spine.

"We're not blowing them up. That's an order."

She sounded like every Tallest before her, the voice of the original Tallest Zil and powerful Miyuki ringing clear in her benevolent eyes as Purple allowed a tiny smile to peak on his weary face. "Is this what you want? Are you really sure you want to spare this place after everything they've done to you?" He asked slowly and methodically, wanting his smeet to really think about her actions as Red finally understood what he was getting at.

They could blow up the planet at any given moment they pleased and could always come back in the event that it's inhabitants got too overly rowdy or stepped out of line beyond their liking, Purple shooting Red a knowing look and smiling when he nodded back in approval.

"Yes, Daddy. I wanna spare the hoomans." Zil concluded after a few moments, leaning back in Red's grip with a beam when he allowed her to have her way for once.

"Fine. Dad and I won't destroy this place. But," Purple paused for dramatic effect, relinquishing control of the strange society of stinking beings to Zil's claws, "this will be your first planet to control. You'll have to take care of it, maintain it's defenses, and deal with the consequences of your actions if something happens to it under your watch. Do you understand?" Of course, he wouldn't let her make any major decisions by herself or call land strikes without his consent, leaving her rule to the purely hypothetical to teach her a valuable lesson about responsibility and political awareness.

Strange.

Why did she suddenly care for the humans so much?

Didn't she fear them not even a week ago?

Zil glanced up at Red for approval, staring up at his stern but loving gaze before giggling and nodding in compliance. "I'll take good care of it, Daddy! I promise!"

Purple leaned in and rested his head against Red's shoulder, happy when he slung his arm up around his and drew him in close to watch the ship shoot away from the menacing, repulsive rock they he had been forcibly stranded upon for two grueling hours with his boisterous daughter. She would make an excellent Tallest someday…hopefully by that time she would let go of her obsessions and blast the humans into the cosmos where they belonged. Yeah, that would be the day. But, for now, they were home.

They were all home, all together, all safe, and that's what mattered.

---

This was a long chapter, and I hope you enjoyed! I tried to get it done before Christmas, but the real life Zil, my tiny daughter, wanted to go a few places as part of her present. Merry late Christmas, and happy Hanukah to all! Thanks lovelies, and we'll have a new chapter coming soon in which Zil tries to get a boyfriend!