Welcome back my darlings to our next episode of My Kind! I hope that you guys enjoy the chapter and thank you for all the support and continued interest in my work! Live I've said before, this fic has become my baby, and the overwhelmingly positive response (omg thank you I don't know why!) even inspired me to change my major to Creative Writing. Seriously, all of you guys have influenced me so much, and I hope that I have somehow influenced you in a positive way even if you just come for the little bits of entertainment I try to give! Thank you!
WELCOME x-Chappy-x AND JaviSwan TO THE FOLLOW FAMILY! ALSO THANK YOU GUYS BOTH FOR FAVORITING THIS FIC! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL DARLINGS!
I created dorky voice headcanons for Pem, Teem, Kez, and Sledhob and posted them on my Instagram. They were highly requested and the link is below, or can be found at my Instagram charlocatty! Here is the piece of the link that FanFiction allows me to post!
p/B58X8HJAU4y/ (post found on Instagram at charlocatty)
(THIS CHAPTER IS NOT BETAED. I AM CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR A NEW BETA READER BECAUSE TOM HAD TO STEP AWAY UNFORTUNATELY FOR FAMILY REASONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATINECE AND I AM WORKING ON BETAING THIS CHAPTER AS SOON AS THIS UPDATE GOES UP!)
Chapter rated a soft M for graphic depictions of blood/violence/death/suicide in the past tense, brief heavy language, non-graphic/non-explicit nudity, suggestive themes, and general adult themes.
"Looks like Hypatia 3, huh?" Pem mused in growing interest, leaning forward over his transmitter with a wide-eyed gawk as he searched the rust colored beaches behind his target as Red reeled from the wraithlike, utterly impossible image flashing back at him. "I read that you two are on your honey-"
"What the hell is going on?! You're fucking dead!" Red yelled in disgusted shock, nearly dropping the transmitter again as Purple shot up in alarm behind him at the sudden change of volume. He gripped at the protective rubber casing, unable to overcome his disbelief and feeling his pulse escalate at the thought of the phantom scrutinizing his floral shirt with a naive simplicity coming back from his haunting grave. "Lard Nar if this is a joke, it's not funny! This is serious!"
Pem blinked with a deep frown. "Dead?" He repeated slowly, sticking his tongue out as he mulled over the weight of the word and stared blankly into the distance when peculiar, frightening images began to flood his battered memory followed by a dull ache in his once obliterated ribs. He reached up with a confused, tentative palm, grazing his front and feeling the soft flesh he found there as he attempted to rationalize the bizarre, ghostly pains resurfacing in his renewed body. He shook away the strange, unsettled connotations from his mind and forced himself to grin back in order to keep himself on track, refusing to succumb to Red's words. "I'm not dead! You're the one who's supposed to be dead! A cute little message showed me you two were evading justice and galivanting around together as adorable husbands!"
Purple groaned in mounting irritation as he watched his partner shake with fury from behind, flopping over on his back and shucking his rose gold sunglasses before tossing them carelessly to the sand. "Honey, who is it?" He called, pouting when Red refused to answer and remained unenthusiastically stiff. "Geez, would you hang up already? I don't know about you, but I wanna know where you were going with this massage." He giggled, rolling back over on his front and trying to entice his irate partner into submission with a soft purr and a generous gaze across the sand that would normally have Red's spooch in knots.
Silence.
"Hey, is that the other tall guy?" Pem craned closer to the camera as if it would somehow give him a better view as he chuckled in genuine fascination laced with something more sinister. "You gonna let me say hello? I actually called for a reason, you know, so let's get this over with, shall we?"
"Lard Nar, I mean it. This isn't like you." Red growled ominously, narrowing his eyes hotly down at the LCD as Pem curled his lip in perplexity. "Quit with the stupid games! I don't know how you're doing this but I'm on my honeymoon and this is really low of you!"
Pem groaned, bringing his fingers to his temples as he sighed long and low. "Look, will you just go sit down next to him or something? My boyfriend is in the shower and I'd like to speed this along before he finds out I hacked his stuff. I'm…well…let's just say I'm trying to be good, ok?" He almost choked on the word and gestured wildly to where Purple was reclining leisurely in the sun, satisfied when Red rolled his eyes at the perceived prank and trudged along kicking up sand as he went to throw himself down next to Purple.
"Ha, ha, very funny. We all know Pem had a total thing for you, but you're taking this way too far, Lard Nar. Honestly, it's getting kind of dark at this point." Red grumbled out his annoyance when his partner sat up and froze, locking eyes with the horrendous monster that had shot him as he waved with a wide toothy grin and watching as the once sun kissed color drained from his cheeks. He thrust the transmitter in his hands and laid back, reaching for his sunhat and throwing it leisurely over his face to block out the light. "Can you believe this, Pur? He's totally messing with us and it's beginning to piss me off."
Purple said nothing, swallowing thickly as he ran his gaze over the vision of perfectly restored flesh and bone blinking back at him with an undeniable glimmer of hatred deep in his steely, olive green eyes.
No.
There was…this was…wait. He was…he was dead. Pem couldn't be here. He just couldn't. His body had been rotting sordidly in the middle of the flower covered Hatalca gardens for over a cycle, a stinking pile of charred ash and grisly bits of flesh barely hanging onto bone and unrecognizable from the hatred inflicted upon his razed, battered body in the form of a blazing inferno of revenge. He had been reduced to nothing more than a figment of demented psychology and horrendously outdated philosophies slowly leaking away from their star system in bloody trickles as Vort healed, not the uncanny, bored picture of fine health waiting patiently for Purple to overcome his mind-numbing shock. He checked back through his immediate PAK memories, hunting for anything he could remember reading in the newspaper over coffee with Red in the morning; there had been hundreds of false Pem sightings in the past month alone, children and adults alike claiming to have conversed briefly with individuals who looked strikingly similar to the menace and hoping for a quick five minutes of fame on the Vortian nightly news. None of the bogus, absolutely ridiculous findings had been confirmed but Purple had always felt a bit of slowly creeping disquiet in the pit of his spooch over the menacing, worryingly toxic thought of his deepest nightmare coming back to physically haunt him in his already precarious tangible reality. He squinted at the bright colors of the screen when Pem moved back in revulsion and shrouded his naked form with a shaggy blanket, shying away out of exasperated awkwardness as Purple let his jaw go slack in unfathomable terror and tried desperately to see though Lard Nar's supposed falsehood for the insensitive prank that it was. Three dimensional horns. Light mauve skin. Nauseatingly thin, wiry smile. Shrill, nasally voice. Nervous hands wringing nervous claws as glittering green eyes reflected pale, orange candlelight and grew uneasy with the silence.
"Huh. You…um…you gonna ask why I called? Like I said I'm on a bit of a teensy tinsy time limit and I really need to drill what I have to say into that thick skull of yours before I have to fly over there and do it with my hands." Pem threatened with a smooth chuckle and a whistle of amusement. "I'm feeling in a pretty good mood right now so let's just make a deal and-"
"…alive?" Purple breathed in horror, feeling every tendon and cell in his body scream for him end the call and fly as fast as possible back to Vort to see for himself. "A-Alive? You…you're not…you're not dead?! H-How?! You…you were…Oh, Vort, this is so weird I-I don't understand!"
Red shot back up from where he had begun to doze in the balmy breeze, chucking his hat to the ground in a fright before turning back to Purple in uncertainty at the mind-bending distress carrying against the wind through his escalating voice and anguish. He did a frantic double-take before Pem spoke up once again, equally captivated and terrified that he was still dancing innocently over their device and growing excruciatingly more realistic with every passing second.
"Why does everyone keep thinking I'm dead? Geez!" He rolled his eyes, growing somewhat miffed when his words kept getting cut off. "Did everyone around me get, I dunno, zapped or something? I'm here. Yeah. Big deal, tall guy, I've always been here. Can I speak now?" He was growing impatient, his voice cracking a bit from its usual sweetness as he picked up the twitch in his fingers and tried desperately to keep them still. "First, I'm surprised the Control Brains didn't go through with their plan to kill you but, hey, I'm not one to judge or ask questions. So-"
Purple cut him off again, not caring when Pem shrieked sharply in frustration and threw his blanket up behind him in blind enragement at the vexingly disrespectful breaks in his time sensitive conversation. "The Control Brains?! Are you kidding me?! They're gone!" He shouted, growing shaky and unstable in his knees as he flew to his feet and began to erratically pace, trying with all his might to keep his sights on his greatest nemesis through the glare of the hot sun as he scrambled to grab for his things and shoot off across the beach in a cloud of oozing panic and scorching dread. "This isn't possible! Y-You're dead! I-Is this another nightmare or something?!" He reached down and pinched himself, dropping the martini glass he had scooped up to the sand and yelling again in guttural terror when he didn't wake up.
"Pur, wait!" Red stumbled after him, frantically craning his antennae into the swelteringly repulsive sound of Pem's squeaky voice as his partner began to unravel, snatching the device back and memorizing everything he could of the background to try and pinpoint a location to no avail. "This isn't a joke?! Y-You're fucking alive?! But…but your body…it's buried in Hatalca! How the hell are you here?! Shit, that's not even the point is is?!" He grabbed Purple by the arm and tugged him along with a bit more force than he was anticipating towards his personal ship further up the embankment as he irately shouted out his incoherent hysteria. "T-This…I saw the photos! I saw you burned to a crisp in the street over a cycle ago and this…I…What's happening?!"
Pem was beginning to grow uneasy and jittery, calming down from his bubbling outburst at his recipient's insolence and glancing down to his bare lap with incredulous skepticism before narrowing his eyes and redirecting his apprehensive attention back to his screen. "Are you trying to confuse me?" He asked slowly, letting his menacing visage fall flat when Red genuinely didn't understand, dragging his husband along against his will as he panicked and threw open the hatch to his Vortian runner. "Hey…is that a Vortian ship? Why do you have one of our ships?!"
"Shut up! Tell me where you are and what you've done to Lard Nar or this is about to get really ugly!" Red hissed dangerously through his uneven teeth, shoving Purple through the hatch and throwing himself down in the cockpit to grab at tangles of dusty wires and oil slicked connection ports as Pem shrunk back in horrendous, swimming misunderstanding. Red fumbled hastily to start his ship as his blood pressure skyrocketed, yanking a long, curled cable from the main console and fumbling with unsteady hands to plug it into his device as his ship sputtered awake and immediately began displaying information across the massive window of the cockpit.
"L-Lard Nar? I didn't do anything to him. We…we're…" Pem repeated, feeling his head began to ache and swim as he wrangled with information he couldn't understand but somehow did deep in the reaches of his overly fogged, sickened mind, reaching up and running an erratic palm over his wide eyes as he stared down at his knees. "What? What's happening? Something isn't right anymore!" He coughed and groaned, flying up to cover his vision completely with the balls of his hands as he clamped his jaw shut. "Shut up! Shut up and let me f-finish! I called you for a reason! I wanna make a deal!"
Figures Pem would be back on his gambling ploy, taking chances and making bets with life that he couldn't reciprocate as he floated through the aether and tried to weasel his way out of every damming situation he had somehow squeezed his tiny body into.
Purple played along with Red's plot, taking the device from his hands as he ran his swift, experienced fingers up over the images displayed across the interactive window shield and broke through intensive layers of security firewalls attached to his missing brother's transmitter, hunting for the telltale ping that would triangulate Pem's location into their desperate, terrified grasp.
"Tell me. You said you wanted to make a deal. What is it?" Purple blinked, trying to look inconspicuous as his partner fervently worked and mumbled under his breath, throwing on his pilot's visor as the ship heated.
Pem remained silent for a few seconds longer, swallowing down his nausea as his thoughts began to race and his spine prickled with a deep-seated, incomprehensible restlessness that forced him up to his feet and made Purple sneer in sudden disgust at the blatant showing of his nude form trudging unevenly across towards the half-open hatch of wherever he had presumably, somehow, hidden himself away for the past cycle without any form of detection. He didn't look right, swaying where he stood as his swirling, ill dizziness consumed him and his horns paled and went flaccid over his forehead when churning thoughts took over his already questionable judgement and threatened to make him physically sick where he stood. He was surrounded by beautiful, emerald green wallpaper and delicious opulence in every way, shape, and form; expensive hand dipped and electronic candles alike dotted every pristine surface of luxurious Vortian made furniture as they flickered lazily through the darkness and cascaded indolently over Pem's boyish face with eerie, unsettling shadows to make him look twice his age as he mumbled silently to himself under his warm breath. Gilded portraits hung barely in sight against the immaculate walls and showed off what looked like freshly commissioned oil paintings of rebuilt Vortian towns dotting the countryside, hooking Purple's keen interest as he stared them down with growing anxiety when the first inkling of sticky, disturbing awareness peaked in his rapidly sputtering ocular lenses. Huh…Purple was almost positive he had seen those before, thinking back to Lard Nar's birthday several months before as a sudden idea crossed his mind. He recognized the faint brushstroke through the pixilated image, freezing in sudden understanding as Red continued to furiously scan the immeasurable vastness of the cosmos for their enemy's location as he leaned haphazardly against his doorframe and struggled to stay upright through his mounting understanding for things that made absolutely no sense bogging his mind down in a gooey, viscous biliousness.
There was no doubt about it.
Those paintings were done by Kez.
Kez had surprised Lard Nar with two gorgeous, ethereal paintings she had secretly done in her free time in the back room of their tiny, joint home before he had moved out to officially live within the rebuilt Vortian Palace and he had been absolutely enthralled with her flawless comprehension of glistening hues and incredible command of perspective. He had been so eager, in fact, that he had taken her up to his new office in the pinnacle of his massive capitol and requested her help to hang them behind his hand-carved desk, the press snapping several photos of the two beaming back in warmhearted delight in front of her beautiful handiwork.
Those paintings were the same paintings that used to be in Lard Nar's office.
But…that didn't make any sense.
Purple had been up to his personal space dozens of times to propose new options for welfare and housing units for the poor and those two, gargantuan pieces of fine Vortian art had always towered behind them as they spoke at length over piping hot tea. So…why were they now dwarfing Pem where he stood? Lard Nar had never mentioned anything about his treasured, priceless works being stolen by the grimy hands of a terrorist on the weekends when they would get together for the idiotic "family" game nights they had started having, and something that precious to him would have definitely been terribly missed.
"Got him."
Red brushed Purple lightly over the arm with rage trembling fingers and jabbed hotly up at the appalling, radiating signal he had managed to hone in on as a look of unresponsive treachery flashed over his once irate features, confirming the worst of Purple's deepest, darkest suspicions as he felt his finally mended heart shatter under the hammer of the disgusting, overwhelming betrayal he didn't want to believe was true.
Pem was on the outskirts of Hatalca in a research facility.
The same research facility where Lard Nar had fervently claimed he was overseeing new scientific research in cleaner PAK technologies.
Their brother, their best friend, their closest ally, their King, had led them on and kept Pem hidden from their view as he conducted Vort knows what three miles underground with the appalling menace that had shot Purple in the side and hung all out to dry over the spit of their own, long-dead empire. He had lied to their faces, spouted kindhearted words at their wedding, and ate Purple's cooking when he was over at their home. He had fought alongside them in the war but…had he? What was true anymore and what was false? What if Lard Nar had conspired to become King of Vort this entire time with Pem and had only decided to help Purple and Red to get ahead and cause the downfall of Irk once and for all for tormenting his people? Why, then, would he generously perform Yult'nab with them all and seal their blood within each other's bodies to become eternally bonded in brother and sisterhood? Why would he remain benevolent enough to allow displaced Irken citizens to seek asylum with his altruistic administration by the hundreds of thousands? What if…what if Pem's death was all an act? What if they had meticulously practiced it hundreds of times in advance to try and keep Purple and Red in the dark of their true intentions of galactic conquest and revenge in the name of Vort?
Purple blinked and gasped when Red rocketed them away from the soothing, sweet smelling atmosphere of Hypatia 3 and onwards towards the drizzly, overcast afternoon set in motion over the grey skies of Vort's capitol. Faint, uncomfortable memories began to bubble up in the bottom of his PAK, causing Red to twitch in mutual discomfort as he went white knuckled the clutch and punched in their warp codes to have a long, much-needed confrontation with their brother and the wild, disorderly extremist he had been harboring in his protective clutches for Vort knows how long. A long while ago, he and Lard Nar had sat outside of Prime Minister Sledhob's gargantuan flagship in the sunny region of Naphrus on Irk and talked at length about what Pem actually meant to his brother; Purple had learned that Lard Nar couldn't let go of the idea of Pem being gone and felt completely responsible, for some unknown reason, for failing him in life and failing to rid him of his own demons before he committed suicide. Purple had fervently reminded his friend that Pem's precarious, atrocious mental state wasn't his fault and that there was nothing he could have done, reassuring him on a kindhearted loop that he had done the right thing in stepping away. He knew deep in the pit of his spooch that his anxious brother had fallen in love but didn't want to admit it to himself for the longest time, a dastardly feeling of grisly uncleanliness leaking beyond his horrific thought patterns and out into his slowly darkening reality as Red ran over the impeding, stomach-turning evidence one more time and slung his head in his free hand when he realized that what he was seeing was unfortunately correct in all of the wrong ways.
Lard Nar loved Pem.
He loved him and there was no going back from that now.
Purple didn't know why or what his idiot brother somehow saw in someone so pathetically tiny and violently repulsive, but there was no more shadow of doubt left in his heating psyche that he had actively sought to keep their enemy out of harm's way. He had helped him escape and had ruined the precious, once undying sanctity of their family with his appalling, treacherous lies. The more Purple thought about it, the more he wanted to take Lard Nar by the throat and punt him halfway across the countryside over the edge of the tallest, sharpest cliff he could find. He was no better than Pem. He was nothing but the lying, cheating, terroristic monster Red had shot down over Conventia so long ago and they both knew that now, reaching out and gripping at the center consul as Red flipped down his electronic pilot's visor as the ship jerked and jolted, immediately gaining speed and shooting away from the peaceful, well-deserved holiday they thought they were going to be able to take after their incredibly gorgeous, stunningly cosmic wedding.
"Ok…h-hang on." Pem spoke up, taking a deep, trembling breath as he attempted to sluggishly recollect himself through the agonizing, throbbing headache now eating away at his valuable brain tissue. "I called because I want to make a deal. Now that Vort is mine and Lard Nar's for the taking and the Control Brains are undoubtedly going to name me Ambassador, I wanted to…" he paused, sneering to himself at the thought of what he was saying. "I wanted to pardon you."
Red blinked in surprise, officially hitting warp and slingshotting them around the planet's atmosphere and off towards their home world as colors swirled and danced as a gorgeous, eclectic lightshow outside their display. "Number one," he began, annoyed that he was even still humoring someone so nasty and cruel from his past, "the Control Brains and The Collective have been gone for over a cycle now, so they can't make you Ambassador. Number two, Lard Nar is King of Vort. Where have you been all this time, under a rock? Number three, why the hell would you want to pardon us? You've told me millions of times how much you hate me and want to gut me like an animal so why do you want to pardon us now?"
"L-Lard Nar is…" Pem clutched at his face, almost collapsing to his knees at Red's words like they were the first time he was hearing them as he scrambled to catch his breath at the momentous implications of who he had just slept with and what he thought he knew. "No! You're bluffing! That's all you Irken scum do is lie and use other races for your entertainment!"
"Shut up you little cockroach. You must be stupid to not to recognize the imperial broach of your own people."
"I-I…I don't remember that."
"Exactly my point. Now here's what's gonna happen, kid. I've got your signal pegged and my husband and I are going to call the Vortian authorities on you and your traitorous little friend for crimes against our Empire and our peace. You will go quietly, or I will take you in myself and, believe me, you don't want that."
"Wait, wait, wait! I-I pardoned you! J-Just stay away from me and my boyfriend! I finally have my planet back the way it should be and I don't need your disgusting fingers dipping into it and messing it all up again like she did!"
"Let Miyuki go already! And your boyfriend?!" Red gave a fake gag, trying to get under Pem's skin and keep him on the line as Purple dialed for the Hatalca authorities with an incredible rage he couldn't seem to bite back, shakily punching in the long extension to the main office in his gauntlet as they continued their rickety journey through the universe. "You mean Lard Nar banged a little freak like you?"
Pem clenched his fists and threw a hot finger down at the screen, crowding in close to the camera as visible distain flashed behind his pupils and caused his entire body to bristle. "I said stay away from here! I'm actually giving you a chance because…" He trailed off, thick swathes of color flooding up to stain his humiliated cheeks when Red threw his head back and continued to batter him with horrendous psychological torture and pick him apart like individual threads in a disheveled blanket, glancing to the side when Purple motioned for him to be quiet as he opened up a direct line of communication with the Hatalca authorities.
"Because why?" He gave a false snort of hurtful condescension to try and urge Purple to hurry up with his hushed conversation, earning a sweltering glare in return and forcing him to continue on with Pem and keep him from fleeing the engineering compound.
"Because…b-because I lo-…It's not important!" Pem retorted under his breath, screwing his lips tightly shut over his long, menacing teeth and staring derisively at the floor as Red laughed in his face once more and sent waves of impenetrable emotion stabbing through his chest. "I decided I was trying to be good so stay away."
Red shook his head with a low, sarcastic whistle and raked his long claws over the length of the clutch as he steered them on towards their steely, chilling confrontation and his hands wrapped around that tiny Vortian body to squeeze him until he popped. "I'm still shocked that Lard Nar gave you a chance. You're a nobody and everything wrong with this universe. You shot my husband, consented to the takeover of my mind and Kez's mind, and you indirectly caused Teem's blindness! You don't deserve happiness."
Pem swallowed thickly, trying to keep his quickly wavering composure as his frown deepened and his shoulders sagged with a substantial, uncharacteristic misery, a forced smile stamping up over his face to break up the illusion of someone once so formidable and supposedly strong letting a fallen Tallest slice into his core like he was a meal of dastardly, restricting immorality.
"Why do you keep saying things like that?! I didn't shoot him!"
"Yes you did! You shot him in the war, you little insect!"
"No, I didn't! I don't remember that!"
"Man, you really are proving how stupid you actually are inside, aren't you?"
"Shut up!" Pem barked back as he lost himself to the whirlpool of grueling statements and blinding lies, grabbing for the transmitter and shaking it violently through his excruciating, mind-numbing fear for something he still didn't understand but wanted to, biting back hot, irate tears as he slammed the device back down on the bed and screamed. "Lard Nar told me I deserve happiness! He told me I could be good, so stay away form my planet and out of our lives or I'll have to show you how bad I can be!"
With that, Pem gave a final, disjointed growl of animalistic fervor and bared his perfect teeth down at the camera before chucking the screen across his opulent room, effectively ending the call when it presumably shattered to jagged pieces against the far wall and rained down like the perfect ending to his wrath.
Purple reached out with a shaky finger, tapping to end the transmission as deafening static poured through the cockpit and assaulted their antennae before slumping back in his seat and reaching out for Red's free hand, satisfied when he took it but still incredibly hollow at the dark, twisted situation they had stumbled across
"Do you think he really saved Pem's life? He wouldn't do that, Red. There has to be something else going on that we don't know about."
"I…I don't know anymore, Pur. But I know one thing. I'm gonna make him hurt. I'm going to make them both hurt."
An unnamed Vortian research facility 3 miles below the surface; somewhere outside of Hatalca;
Pem threw his hands in front of him with a final shout of agonizing fury when Lard Nar's transmitter sparked violently against the floor, a torn streak left in the decadent wallpaper he had prepared for them both as a consistent reminder of the words Red had tried to pound into his already fragile skull.
You don't deserve happiness.
He was on the edge of a meltdown at the moment, taking a deep, slow breath and throwing his hands in front of him as he unevenly sunk down on plush edge of the bed and balled his hands into fists before releasing and feeling some of his scorching, frightening tension ground itself down his spinal cord. He repeated the action, crossing his legs and tensing completely before laying back against the bed and releasing the weight of Red's incredibly hurtful words from his shoulders as his emotions threatened to betray him once more.
Questions. Too many strange, devastating questions.
Why did they think he was dead? Why were they alive? Had something happened to the Control Brains that he didn't know about? Why did that evil Irken terrorist have a Vortian ship? Why were they sending Lard Nar excited, romantic honeymoon photos? Why? Why did Red talk about Lard Nar as if they were close? They couldn't be close…could they? He couldn't remember…couldn't see beyond the strange block deep in his fractured, hole-laden consciousness as a single, heartbroken tear landed on his cheek and rolled away to stain the comforter cradling his back beneath him. They were bluffing about the Hatalca security force; there would be no way that two rogue Irken officers could ever have access to such sensitive Vortian information. Pem shuddered, drawing his arms into his quickly chilling chest and forcing himself to stand as he wiped away the evidence of his raw, liquid panic staining his skin out of embarrassment for the sheer amount of soft emotion he had accidently let slip through his carefully masked visage of terror and abhorrence. He grabbed for a comforting, fuzzy blanket and shrouded his sharp shoulders in its soothing, almost motherly warmth like an affectionate hug before making his way back towards the open hatch and stepping into the blinding, all-encroaching darkness of the corridor he had yet to explore. It was unfamiliar and smelled strange, the scent of stiflingly clean medical supplies and anesthetic wafting down the path and only causing his nerves to further spike as his wide eyes adjusted to the shadows. Dozens of unlit doorways dotted the way, each closed off to the prying eyes of the world and opening up into a large room at the end of the hallway that radiated with a pale blue, ethereally phantom-like glow that had him shifting timidly on his delicate feet. The way his enemies had stared at him prickled at his horns and unconsciously drew them back as he listened intently for the sound of rushing liquid hitting porcelain, slogging forlornly along through the overbearing gloom in the opposite direction to find his missing partner where he doused himself in searing hot bromine. There was no way his partner, the anxious, chain-smoking engineer he had come to love over the cycles was…King of Vort. Pol Krin still held office…didn't he? Wait, no. He was shot during the Irken-Vortian conflict and no other king was elected.
C-could he actually be king?
No. That wasn't likely. Lard Nar would have shown off his impressive broach by now if that was the case.
Pem continued on his long trek, inching towards the reassuring mist of hazy steam pouring from a cleansing room at the end of the corridor and shrouding him in the faint scent of his partner's soap and cologne he wanted to extinguish himself with. Why had they insisted repeatedly that he was deceased? And what was that about him being buried in the Hatalca gardens over a cycle ago? He was here, he was flesh, he was unscarred and-
Pem yelped and flew back at the abrupt realization, dropping the light blanket to the ground and scrambling to press his back against the frigid metal of the hallway as he noticed his pristine, beautifully smooth chest he had neglected to see in the low candlelight. He reached up with terrified, shaky fingers and ran his palms lightly over every rib and muscle that had once been swathed with raised reminders of his own never ending suffering and unbearable past experimentation, feeling his breath hitch in excruciating terror when he realized they had been smoothed away somehow. His body was perfect; a silky smooth, continuous swatch of pastel lavender dotted with tiny bruises and accidental pricks from his lover's sharp teeth and gentle lips roaming during their amorous first time as a mated pair.
No. This wasn't right. This wasn't right!
Pem sprinted the rest of the way down the hallway, practically hyperventilating as he pounded on the thick latched door to the cleansing room and heard the gentle swish of bromine splash to a stop when he yelled out in disoriented confusion and clawed at the condensation sweating handle only to find the door firmly locked to barricade him from the only comfort he could think of.
"Lard Nar? There's something wrong! I-I don't feel right! I-I can't remember anymore! I can't remember!" He cried as blistering images of grisly, blood-soaked bodies danced behind his eyelids and the deafening, ghostly boom of thousands of vehement plasma shots rang out in the air from somewhere unseen, rapping firmly on the hatch once more and scrambling back when he heard a single set of soaked footsteps padding hastily across the clean floor to work on unfastening the latch before throwing open the door.
Lard Nar yelped in sudden surprise when Pem practically fell through the warm doorway, colliding hard with his slick shoulders and scrambling to grab furiously at his towel as he was plagued with mind-numbing flashbacks and nauseating cackles flooding from his own past lips as he tore through sensitive flesh and pounded away bloodlines like they were nothing but dust in his claws. He was shaking, reaching up to frantically claw at his temples as a world-shattering headache ripped back through his mind and blinded him in his left eye, sending waves of awful, agonizing pain over every bone in his body and causing him to crumple hard to the ground and clutch at his stomach as he coughed and gagged on the memories of every bone in his fragile body cracking and shattering from the sheer force of his suicidal freefall from the Spike of Judgement. Lard Nar panicked and immediately dropped to his knees against the pale green tile, gently moving to work his wet fingers under Pem's nude waist as he wailed and writhed in unforeseen, sudden torment as the karma of every past death, every life claimed at his once callous fingers flooded back and threatened to yank him down into the pit of fiery hell Lard Nar had plucked him from. He felt his partner convulse in his hold when he brought him to his chest, digging his fingers into the sensitive skin of his undamaged back as he shuddered and jerked through every forgotten memory and past needle stabbed through his arm as he lay strapped on a freezing medical table under searing hot surgical lights. They played in rapid succession like a never-ending movie of appalling choices, gruesome homicide, and scandalous bloodshed from the thousands lost in the Judgementian Conflict alone as screams of excruciating agony deafened him to his partner's frantic voice trying to sing him back to some semblance of rational consciousness. It fanned out over his nervous system and squeezed, rocketing him forward as he vaulted up against Lard Nar's chest and threw his head back in a silent scream of sightless torture, unfeeling to the hysterical hands of his partner raking down his cheeks and trying with every fiber of his desperate being to bring him back from the bizarre, medically-induced dream state he was forced under as every neuron in his exhausted mind fired simultaneously.
"Pem! Pem listen to me! You can be different than what you're seeing! You can be someone else! I-I wanted to give you a chance to be someone new for yourself and only yourself! You're not a monster anymore; you're a man with infinite possibilities and someone who cares about you very much!" Lard Nar yelled over the demented, contorted sting of never-ending syllables of past sentences and threats bubbling up in his lover's throat as he seized and thrashed in his strong, relentless hold like he was possessed by a thousand irate demons. He ran his gentle, erratic touch over his horns as he continued to tremble violently in his clutches. "You have a choice! Please, love, you have a choice and I want you to be happy! We can be happy without the pain and the killing and finally be normal together!"
Suddenly and without warning, Pem collapsed limply forward against his partner's shoulder as his blindly flailing hands softened and feebly fell to his sides on the now cooling floor of the cleansing room. He mumbled something like a broken record, hitching and beginning again as his mind attempted to manually reboot itself from the unbearable overload of cycles of gory, sickening information filling his head with disgusting nonsense and shorting him out like a powerful electric shock.
"Pem?" Lard Nar breathed, scrunching up his face when he continued to stare blankly forward at nothing, burning holes into the horrendously plain walls of the shower walls as he mumbled against his partner's drying skin. "Sweetheart? You're ok. Everything's ok. Shhh, everything is going to be alright, I promise." He readjusted his hold on Pem's slipping shoulders when he lolled back and threatened to fall, pressing a firm kiss to his forehead as he blinked sluggishly and began to come to once more. "I knew this was going to happen to you and I wanted to tell you sooner, but I didn't expect you to remember this quickly." He breathed, flinching when he felt his partner's fingers twitch against his thigh as a weak, undefined groan escaped past his fangs and pierced the atmosphere with the talk Lard Nar still wasn't prepared to have.
"Wassat?" Pem slurred, trying to push off of the slippery floor and only sliding back down into Lard Nar's caring, protective hold and collapsing back against the rapid pulse thumping in his chest. "Where am I?"
He moaned again as his back popped from the intense tension flooding his vertebrae, sighing lethargically when Lard Nar noticed and reached up to massage soothing circles into the nape of his stiff neck, carefully cupping his lover's cheek in his soft palm and bringing him to his to try and remain as close as physically possible through the sweat-slick come down his panting partner was experiencing.
"You're with me." Lard Nar responded with a light kiss to the tip of his horn, watching in apprehension as Pem finally peeled himself back and gracelessly shook the groggy bleariness from is watery eyes before giving a few quick blinks and adjusting to the renewed light. "We're here together."
"Lard Nar?" Pem mumbled, moving to feebly place his fingers over his lover's pressed to his jawline with a faint smile, folding into the much-needed, comforting touch before letting his relief fade completely to be replaced by something philosophically wrong and erroneous. "You, you're really King? The Inquisitorians…they, um, they chose you?"
Lard Nar flinched when he realized his partner knew about the hushed treaty, squeezing his eyes shut at the first of many haunting questions that he knew were to come flooding out in furious succession as soon as Pem gained his usual fanatical mania back. He took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, peaking and cringing back a bit when Pem looked him over with fresh eyes as if he was dissecting him with an almost logical scrutiny and poking ruthlessly at every heaving organ in his body.
"Yes. I'm King of Vort. I have been for a full cycle now. Um…The Control Brains fell and Purple and Red were labeled as war heroes. I ascended to the…um…to the throne after Irk fell completely." He paused, waiting for the information to sink in before continuing on with everything he could think of that was simple enough for Pem to rationalize in his liminal, uncertain mental state. "I gave amnesty to Purple and Red and several thousand Irkens to live on Vort after the fall because they had no place to go."
"I slept with the King?" Pem breathed in blank disbelief, unsure of what to think when the idea of royalty touching him so intimately came to the forefront of his mind and deeply troubled him. "A full cycle…? And…w-where was I?"
"You…oh, Vort, no…please don't make me say it."
"T-Tell me."
"Y-You," Lard Nar felt himself halfway choke on his own massive surge of profound, gut-wrenching fear when Pem regained his shaky footing and finally worked his way back to his feet, bracing himself against the wall with a single hand as he ran over his unscarred skin with renewed, terrified interest. "You…um…you're buried in the Hatalca gardens."
"Buried? No…no, no, no…I-I jumped. I-I killed myself and finally ended the stupid suffering I always caused. I ended it because I knew my philosophies would be immortalized but I also ended it to protect you from me when I realized I couldn't shoot you in the Ripper. I-I realized you didn't love me. I shouldn't be here. I should be in your head and that's it! O-Only a thought in your head! What…what did you do? What the hell did you do?!" Pem whispered in agonizingly hurt disbelief, wanting to cry but overcome by mind-numbing terror that had him shaking where he stood as he flexed every one of his six fingers and poked with a newly distorted, perverse unwillingness at his horns as if they weren't his own. "Lard Nar, what did you do?!"
"I…I used Irken smeeting technology to clone you from a blood sample I-I kept from our crash into the Spike of Judgement. I couldn't stand how we left things off and I wanted to give you a chance at a life you deserved."
Lard Nar flew to his feet, scrambling to grab for his towel as Pem began back away in horror, taking off down the hallway as he wheezed uncontrollably through the hideous, ethically unjust abomination of a soul he had become.
He wasn't Pem.
Pem was buried six feet below a beautiful flowering garden with poppies and violets kissing lovingly at his grave and creatures picking clean his bones.
He was a copy. An unnatural sack of flesh and bones grown to simulate his first life by forcing him to relive the cruelty and the dreadful, heartbreaking anguish he had been happy to relieve himself from for his eternal rest in the Beyond as his soul floated aimlessly through the cosmos and was kissed by the stars. He didn't look back, tearing around corners and pushing past a group of scientists who had come to clock in for their afternoon shift, staring in disbelief as Pem yelped in tear-streaked terror and vaulted around the disturbing smeet machine he had been birthed to as he slid ungracefully through the now stale, goopy stasis liquid coating the whole of the main work station of the engineering bay. He flailed, falling forward and grabbing onto the edge of the long table in the middle of the room covered in schematics and theories of evolution and age acceleration, reaching out with quivering, dismayed hands and sifting through the mess of photographs that had been compiled of test smeets from laboratories back on Irk. He felt sick to his stomach, crying out in unbridled panic as he knocked the sordid stack to the ground and snatched wildly at medical charts on clipboards and scanned images of his burned body staring back at him as a mangled, jumbled up heap of rotting, charcoal blacked flesh. He clamped an unsteady hand over his mouth and let the papers flutter lightly to the ground, turning on his heel when Lard Nar finally caught up and reached out stopping when Pem held out his trembling free hand to keep him back.
"My King, what's going on here?" One of the scientists asked from afar, gently retrieving Lard Nar's cloak from the floor and attempting to sling the opulent, priceless broach up over his shoulders as Pem watched in visceral disbelief.
He brushed her off, grabbing for his now completely dry shroud and taking tentative, careful step forward, frowning in growing despair when Pem matched his cautious gait by moving back towards the elevator that would take him up to the rainy surface. "Love, please, listen to me. You didn't have a chance at life and I wanted you to know what it was like to feel affection. I wanted you to come home at night and have someone who wanted to hold you. I want to do that with you." He swallowed and threw his arms wide, stopping completely and relinquishing the choice completely to Pem as he hurriedly glanced over his shoulder to his escape route before letting his petrified gaze fall back on his partner. "You can leave, or we can leave together. I won't stop you."
Pem sniffed, wiping at his eyes with the balls of his hands as he broke down and cried feebly to himself through his fingers. "Why? Why did you bring me back to this awful place? Don't you understand I wanted to die?" He admitted tragically refusing to look up and shaking his head despondently when he realized what a mess he had become. "I lost the war so I took the only way out that I could find; I immortalized myself through death as a martyr. You've ruined my cause! Y-You've ruined my philosophies all because you wanted me back?! I-I didn't want this!" His voice escalated as he bared his sharp teeth for his lover to clearly see, swallowing at the brutal glint of pale blue light glimmering back at him from the smile that had moved lovingly against his only an hour before.
"Pem, that wasn't the ending you deserved! You have a chance to be something great with me!" Lard Nar pleaded desperately, growing uneasy when Pem took a step forward instead and clenched his fists in a fit of rage. "Think about this; you have a second chance that no one else has ever been successfully given. Are you going to take it, or are you going to throw it all away?"
"How could you do this to me?! How dare you think you can play with my soul like this and bring me back on command like I'm some pet!" Pem spat back, throwing a finger up in Lard Nar's face and moving to wrap his fingers around his throat with an irate growl, immediately deciding against it and throwing his hands in the air instead. "I'm not yours to command! I-I'm not your plaything for you to run around like your little demolitionist doll!"
Lard Nar hesitated, carefully reaching down and slinging his cloak around his partner's furiously trembling shoulders and hide his delicate form away from the prying eyes of the room as he stared him down with enough fire to reignite a thousand suns and made him writhe under the psychotic reminisces the sweltering look brought him back to. He turned on his heel and immediately motioned for his staff to move into the other room, watching carefully as they all saluted and filed away one by one to leave the two alone to work through the existential, abhorrent crisis Lard Nar had opened up in their immediate future. Pem eyed them dangerously, his soft face shaded with baleful undertones and stained a deep blue with indignation as he slowly turned back to stare up at where his partner hovered over him.
"I know I'm a terrible person, but this, Lard Nar, this goes against everything that is natural. And that's coming from me." He hissed, wanting nothing more than to jump out of his skin and peel himself like a soft vegetable to finally be rid of the dastardly uncleanliness that had seeped through to his bone. "I…I'm dead. No…he's dead. I'm something else with his mind and his memories. I thought I felt like nothing before but now, I really am nothing."
"Please don't talk like that. You're not nothing and you never have been." Lard Nar worked up the courage to plant a hand lightly on his lover's shoulder, waiting for him to retreat but holding unsteadily firm through the profound hostility when he stiffened. He could tell Pem was biting his tongue, chewing on his lip as he held back a torrent of insanity lingering in the back of his mouth and threatening to burst like a flimsy damn. "I know this can't possibly fix what you're feeling right now, but I'm sorry. I hated you for a long time after you shot my brother and my friend, but I've come to realize it isn't all your fault. My brother and Urb Yen had become fanatical and out for blood and I didn't know them anymore. I'll never forgive you for shooting Purple, but he and Red also shot me down over Conventia so they're no better than you are and I still love them. You put our planet in danger, Pem, and you're incredibly misguided, but you were trying to fight against the very people who were keeping us oppressed and destroying everything our culture was. Because of you, my friends fell in love, I gained a family, and Irk fell to allow Vort to rise again from the ashes the Irken Empire burned us to. We're all here together because of you." He paused when Pem's look softened to one of distant understanding, diverting his gaze to the floor between their feet as Lard Nar moved forward and shrouded him in another incredibly amorous, devoted embrace and sighing when Pem immediately returned it and buried his face in his partner's shoulder as he listened intently to his improvised speech. "We're all terrible people. My two sisters used to push drugs out of the back of their bar and were working to overthrow the government. My brothers destroyed entire planets, committed genocide, murdered innocent people, and killed my entire crew. And me, I broke out of prison, smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, and I tried to plot the assassination of my brothers more than once when they were still leading the Irken Empire. I guess what I'm saying is that, you're awful, but so are all of us. We're all terrible and we've all murdered. You're still sick and in pain, and I can see it, but when I kiss you and hold you tight all of that goes away and I see the man from this photograph again."
Lard Nar let his hands flutter forward, brushing aside the cloak clinging to his lover's shoulders and feeling for the internal pocket. He smiled faintly when his claws grazed the glossy finish of a priceless image his partner had given to him before his untimely demise, slipping it free from its silken cradle and tenderly moving Pem back just enough to see as he moved a hand to his waist. Pem blinked, reaching out and taking hold of the outdated polaroid he had all but forgotten in his terrified fugue, immediately tearing back up and grinning as he swelled with pride at the image of his tiny daughter clutched in his arms as he laughed vibrantly in a fit of pure joy he hadn't felt for nearly a hundred cycles. It wasn't fair, but Lard Nar was right. They were all awful. All of them had committed massive cultural atrocities, participated in mass homicide, and had overthrown entire regimes because of their strong, unwavering opinions. He thought back to Red and Purple and what he remembered of them before he unfeelingly threw himself from the Spike of Judgement, replaying the images of them fervently working together to bring the monsters that wanted to callously enslave them all offline so their entire universe could live free without the threat of a mass takeover and assimilation into a culture of perfection that would never be their own. They had brought down the Irken Empire and forced them out of Vort, paving the way for the rebuilding of cities and the strong revamping of a powerful, formidable infrastructure as Lard Nar made a safe haven for everyone to live freely regardless of their race or creed. They had defied their entire regime for love and went to the edge of the universe to further every deep, profoundly devoted emotion they felt towards one another and had fought valiantly against him when he had been tricked by the Control Brains to do their dirty work as their fiery puppet.
He was strong…but so were they.
He felt love…but so did they.
He was incredibly talented…but so were they.
Pem felt conflicted, swallowing wiping his cheek on Lard Nar's as he cried and stared down at the image of his tiny, innocent daughter's soft, gentle smile beaming back at him through the mess of soft, homemade textiles his wife had swathed her in. Asha was gone, shot execution style on her knees before him as he was forced to watch and his daughter was ripped from his arms as she screamed and flailed in the claws of a brawny Irken soldier passing her off to a collection's agent for a children's camp like an animal for slaughter. He had been a coward, shrinking back out of primal fear as his wife's sticky blood was splattered unevenly over the surface of his work desk and only then did he have the courage to fight. He had promised himself in that moment, as he tore the antennae from the socket of an Elite officer before having his kneecap shattered by a blistering plasma shot, that he would never be a coward again.
He had failed that promise.
He had lived in fear, fought out of fear, killed out of fear.
But now, as he thought back through the list of beings with the courage to openly challenge and defy his sadistic ranting and heartless, vicious sprees, he realized that they were truly alike. They had all been deprived, all been starved of the love they needed to move on, and Lard Nar and the others had come together to heal from the dastardly toils of war they had endured and thrown themselves into as near martyrs for their causes and with heaving lungs full of love and humanity for their fellow soldier. They were family. That's what family was supposed to do…right?
Could…could he have that?
Could he have a place in this world?
Could he have a family?
Pem brought the photograph to his chest as he thought, looking up and meeting Lard Nar's yellow gaze through his convex lenses and searched his expression for a long while. His partner was right about another thing; he was sick. Pem was sick in the mind and sick in the nervous system, rapidly cycling through thoughts and remembering the atrocious labors of macabre, bloodstained war spilling through his hands in gushes of bright pink and blue to stain at his jacket and pull him away from reality as he lapsed into a psychosis fueled rage and went blind to the world. He hated it. Hated the lack of control and the swimming head sickness that followed when he seemed to come to.
"Do you think I'll ever get better?" He asked suddenly, glancing back up when Lard Nar immediately nodded and flashed him a grin. "I mean, like, in the head? I'm a little bit messed up, you know."
He reached down and gingerly took the photograph from his lover's fingers and replaced it within the folds of his cloak, stooping slightly to capture his mouth and tasting the salty, bitter tears hanging on his lips. "We're all a little bit messed up." He breathed against his skin, feeling his beam widen when Pem snuck a gentle hand up behind his neck to drag him down further with a sob laced laugh.
Pem's giggle turned into a wild cackle of a laugh when his horns collided with Lard Nar's goggles, knocking him back to rub at his cheek when the tips dug into his skin. "I'm sorry! I-I'm sorry, it's still kinda weird with my horns." He let his adrenaline take over, snorting through his mind-numbing terror for their future when Lard Nar joined in and couldn't bring himself to stop.
"No, no! It's because I'm too blind up close to see when you're coming!" He chuckled, tapping at his prescription with a single claw and doubling over when Pem continued his childish snorts through his teeth before slinging himself back forward and capturing his target's mouth once more and he continued his warmhearted mirth through his tears.
This was him. This was the man Lard Nar knew Pem was deep inside. He had feared that the DNA alterations had destroyed every last fiber of his inner, beautiful, absolutely radiant self but he had been disgustingly wrong. If there was a glimmer of goodness shimmering in his abused heart, that meant there could be a spark that could turn to a raging inferno of healing and warmth that could radiate out and cast that beautiful glow of intelligent fervor Lard Nar knew as buried deep inside the innermost reaches of his partner's mind. He was there. He was here.
Pem pulled away first, hesitating and thinking a moment as he traced his lover's jawline with the soft pad of his fingertip, memorizing ever ridge and curve as his own personal roadmap to a home he had never had before. He frowned and moved his other hand up, completely immobilizing Lard Nar as he immaturely squished his cheeks between his palms and stepping back just enough so his gaze could focus properly before swallowing the lump forming in the back of his throat. Lard Nar watched in breathless, stunned fascination as the incredibly violent, formidable antagonist that could take out whole armies as he slipped and slid his way through ranks that were not his own spoke up with a voice so genuine, so profound, he wasn't even sure it was coming from Pem.
"I…I'm sorry."
Lard Nar felt the world flood away around them as he watched the phenomenal, gut-wrenching effort it had taken to say something so sincerely kind-hearted begin to chip at the mile thick foundations of Pem's ingrained distain and distrust of everyone around him. He wanted to make things right somehow but, as Lard Nar opened his mouth to say something he found himself at a loss for how to begin with something so unbelievably intense and gratifying. He knew this wouldn't make right most of the terrible, nauseating things Pem had rained down upon him and his unfortunate family, but it was a step in the right direction and he was willing to take the crook of Lard Nar's patient arm and stroll down the million mile long path towards self-love and heartwarming morality for them to have a future together. He had finally realized through death that his actions would only lead to his eventual downfall, ending in another horrific, isolated, wholly repulsive suicide. This way, maybe he could have a shot at a lover…a friend….maybe even a family.
"I'm sorry."
Lard Nar blinked as Pem repeated his statement with a bit more of his usual, cocky arrogance, reaching up and taking his partner's hands in his before returning the simple gesture and sealing the first stitch to mend the trench of a rift that had formed between them over fifty cycles of disturbing power play behind the scenes and forced love they never knew would ever be reciprocated.
"I forgive you."
Before Pem could sling his arms up around Lard Nar's neck and laugh through the incredible feeling of being genuinely honest for once, the sound of the elevator descending behind them rang out, forcing them apart as Lard Nar brought a teasing finger to his lips and hushed him softly against his wiry, overexaggerated grin, excited to show the rest of their team that their beautiful, ethereally stunning project had begun the first operation of thousands to mend his shattered heart and obliterated mind for the better. He turned and took Pem's hand in his, entwining their fingers as he grinned wildly, feeling it immediately fall flat as the door fazed open to reveal two incredibly tall, incredibly familiar faces beating back at him like hot, untamable knives, gazes flittering down to the telltale sign of affection he was sharing with his partner as Lard Nar immediately let go. He glanced to where Pem scrambled to cover himself completely with the cloak, swallowing when Red stalked forward in heartbroken disappointment, Purple hot on his heels and shaking his head in disbelief for the false treachery he believed with all his might that he was witnessing followed by twenty something heavily armed Hatalcan security officers.
"Lard Nar?" Red asked in disbelief, crimson gaze vaulting from Pem to his brother's terrified face trying to stutter out a coherent sentence. "Why are you doing this?"
"W-What are you doing here?!" Lard Nar took a step forward but Red remained gently firm, swallowing down his betrayal. "P-Please! I know this looks terrible, but I have my reasons! C-Can we sit down and talk about this?"
"I told you to stay away, Tall guy." Pem followed defensively, glaring up at Red from within his stained, kingly cloak as Purple fell in to his partner's side, smirking when an officer grabbed Pem around the shoulders and wrestled him wildly to the ground as he fought and thrashed against the sudden weight his new, still developing muscles weren't prepared to combat. "Wait! Let me go! You're making a mistake!"
Lard Nar froze when two guards approached him with a set of electronic cuffs, looks of intense sorrow lacing their eyes and wordlessly motioning for him to turn around and put his hands behind his back. He didn't move, staring up with a look of dumbfounded terror at his two best friends trying to hold it together through the incredible weight of soul-crushing agony that it was taking for them to watch someone so close, so infinitely special to them and the Empire be thwarted from his position at the drop of a hat.
"Red, Purple, please, listen to me!" He tried again, pleading desperately with his friends and shrinking into himself when they caught sight of the massive smeeting machine towering over him in the background. "He's a…he's a clone."
Red squeezed his eyes harshly shut and bit his tongue in bitter, repulsed regret, yanking firmly away from Purple when he opened his mouth to say something and forcing his way through the incoming wave of officers carting Lard Nar's hired engineering and science team by in glowing cuffs as the cried softly and sniffed to themselves in thick, unmistakable dishonor and lucid shame.
Lard Nar tried a final time as Red punched the button, not listening when Purple moved forward to whisper something hotly against his antennae and only growing more irritated when his husband completely brushed him off. He swallowed, calling out to his deepest, closest friend as he stepped into the pod and turned to stare above him at the far wall.
"Red please! I-I did everything I could for your love! Please help me with mine!" Lard Nar was begging at this point, trying to force himself away when the two guards moved in and each grabbed him by an arm to force him into compliance. "Red! I-I'm your King! I-I'm your brother!"
Red blinked and finally met his gaze, all usual warmth and cynicism gone from his voice to be replaced by something acrimonious and decrepit. "You're not my brother anymore."
"King Lard Nar, you are hereby under arrest by order of the Vortian high court for aiding and embedding the wanted war criminal, Pem Goor. May Vort have mercy on your soul."
Oh man this was a fun chapter to write! Hope you guys enjoyed and I hope you have a great rest of your night! Thank you for all of your support my lovely angels! (collective hugs)
Next Update: Sunday, December 15, 2019 at 10:00 pm CDT (UTC -5)! I hope I see you then my darlings!