Welcome back to this episode of Fire in the Snow! We left off on quite the cliffhanger and damn, I've been ready to write more for this! As always, thanks for the support you've consistently given me, and I love you all! Thank you angels!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: For those of you who followed my other work "My Kind," I will be launching a second part to that story on Saturday! (Saturday February 22, 2020 at 10:00 pm CDT, UTC -5) This came with popular demand and tons of messaging on my Instagram and Tumblr asking me to bring it back, so now it'll have a second part! We're naming it My Kind: Honey, I'm Home! The entire cast will be returning; Purple, Red, Zil, Teem, Kez, Lard Nar, and Pem will all play major roles along with someone…new. I hope this is exciting to some of you, and I hope I can see some of you show up for the release!

Thanks to pupupumirrorbat for adding this fic to your favorites and thank you SilverSong8 for joining the follow family! I love you both!

Chapter rated M for graphic depictions of blood/gore/violence, graphic depictions of medical procedures, brief heavy language, suggestive themes, perilous situations, and general adult content!


Sen reached up and ran a palm over the gooey, ashen razed half of her melting visage, plucking free stray tendons and peeling them away from her jawline like worms before letting them slop to the concrete. She tapped her heel incessantly, watching as Red scrambled to grab for Zim and sling him behind his back with Purple who stood completely dumbfounded by the lack of physical agony she was experiencing from such an extensive blow. None of them could comprehend what was happening anymore; first Lire's spooch deflated before their very eyes and his blood turned to a dusty, crusted mess of intergalactic stars and now this? Sen looked terrible, disgusting, and wholly mutilated as she crossed her arms and waited for a response, turning away in appalled hatred when Red stifled a gag and averted his gaze, clamping a hand over his mouth as he willed himself to breathe through the torture of seeing something so disturbingly dark and gruesome. Purple reached up and frantically grabbed at his shoulders when he threatened to break down, eyeing Sen from afar and gripping into his friend's scapula with tender fingers as he stared her down and crept at a snail's pace towards Red's calf boots, running his exhausted touch down his side when he violently retched before snatching rapidly for the sharp titanium of his sheathed boot knife and throwing himself into the forefront to take on the grisly monster crossing her arms over her petite chest.

"Honey, that's not going to do you much good at this point. Why won't you just give in and come upstairs with me?" Sen asked, growing oddly exasperated as her broken voice was muffled by the squelching of deep black blood dripping against her slimy tongue. "You love me and we're meant to be together so-"

"I don't love you! I don't love any of you!" Purple cried back, feeling a spike of anger hit him square in the spooch and blind him to his usually calm disposition. "I didn't love Lire, I don't love Del, and I sure as hell don't love a freak like you! I'm my own man and I don't have to follow your orders like your little violet eyed pet!"

Red wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and shot Purple a woozy look from where he'd collapsed to his knees, forcing himself back up to face his bottomless, gnawing fears and stand strong by his side. "You don't own him, Sen. You don't own any of us and," He thought a moment, narrowing his eyes when he came around and noticed the tiny twitch in her fingers and the anxious shifting of her intact eye darting around the dimly lit medical chamber. "What's wrong with you? You…haven't made a move."

Purple mirrored Red's movements, lowering his knife when what was left of Sen's bottom lip quivered dangerously in her obliterated jaw, threatening to spill horrendously searing tears down her skin to wash away the caked blood streaking her chin. She was obviously distressed, hanging back near her operating table and reaching back with erratic hands to grip at the sterile lip of the metal as she sniffed and chewed on her tongue before her thoughts consumed her and turned her on her stiletto heel to grab for her matted coat draped elegantly over the counter. She hectically brushed aside tools and gauze, breaking into a round of terrifyingly out of character bawling that froze everyone in their boots and bewildered Purple beyond recognition. He cocked his head in tentative curiosity as the lanky woman who had claimed him rummaged frantically through drawers in sheer desperation for anything she could find to cover her plasma mauled face. She gave up when another shuddering, mind-numbing sob forced her to sit, instead slinging her furry coat over her trembling shoulders and sniffing thickly as her hood was pulled up around her half full head of wavering, sentient hair to stare blankly at the far wall. She looked away after a few long, drawn out seconds and shook her head, bringing her knees together and kicking her heels from her sore feet as Purple let his guard down completely, flicking his antennae forward when she refused to make coherent eye contact after a few attempts. He kept careful hold of Red's knife, venturing a bit more confidence when he realized they'd somehow pacified Sen into submission and had her cowering at their feet like Flicky had when Red threatened to clout her in the geode cave. She was unsteady and looked ready to collapse in her own despair, a surprisingly insecure one-woman earthquake in lavish clothing stained in foreign blood he still didn't understand and beckoning him on like a siren's song. Was it a trap? This could all be an elaborate ploy to suck him in before she raked through his delicate skin with her long, manicured claws and forced him under the blade of an unforgiving scalpel. Red followed, leaving Zim behind to cover his glassy eyes to the nauseating stench of rotting flesh and metallic, iron-laden platelets staining everything they touched as Purple crept ever closer through the shadows to examine the pathetic, soft crying peaking his innate sense of scientific curiosity. He was muddy, bloody, and coated in the stench of shame and Red's haunting, silvery cologne. He was frozen down to his frostbitten toes and so exhausted he wasn't sure if what he was seeing through his raw eyes was real anymore or a mirage injected into his system to torture him with nightmarish visions he could never escape from. Still, through all of the raw, chapped fingers and thrashing, stabbing pangs of sickening hunger swelling within his abdomen, he kept on towards a being so impure and erroneous he should have never even thought to approach her in the first place. Sen was to be his wife, his arranged forever and eventual half of the Empire he never asked to inherit and most likely wouldn't now that he was to be pegged as an intergalactic anarchist and vicious terrorist in Del's manic, twisted gaze. Still, they needed to find their displaced, tormented people and Sen's supposedly weakened state could, hopefully, prove to be an advantage for a while.

"Sen? Can you hear me?" Purple hissed through the gloom, renewing his white-knuckled grip when Sen panicked and shot a piercing stare back in his direction to halt his front. Three hysterical, frenzied eyes beat back against his own and refused to blink as her stare intensified tenfold in an instant, prickling over Purple's skin and heating him to dangerous, horrific levels. "Sen," he repeated slowly and tenderly, trying to use the same tactic he had with Flicky when she was startled, "I know you're in pain, but you have to listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you if you tell me what I need to know."

"Pain? You really think I still feel anything after all we've done?" Sen mumbled back, her sight bouncing from Purple's look of contemplative unease to Red's shuddering disgust. "T-That's the problem! I feel nothing anymore! Mother told me this would all be ok if I married a purple Irken boy but look how well that turned out! Styx ran away because he thought I was awful and you shot me in the face because you thought I was going to hurt you!"

Purple blinked, taken aback by the abrupt bitterness to Sen's teary tone, lowering his weapon completely when he heard her sigh long and low behind the hood of her plush coat. "Wait, are you telling us you don't feel pain?" He asked, genuinely caught off guard and curling his lip when Sen nodded forlornly. "You don't feel anything at all?"

"Irk, that's what you're worried about?" Red huffed, swallowing down another gag and not seeing the bigger picture in his sickened irritation. "She's literally falling apart and…ugh…" He couldn't finish his sentence, squeezing his eyes shut and holding a hand out for balance as he forced himself to take a deep inhale to keep from doubling over and getting physically sick once again.

"I thought you were going to be kind to me, Styx." Sen whimpered, slumping forward and immediately regretting it when another rogue tooth dislodged from her jawline and pattered to the table. She threw her hands over her face and sobbed, clawing at her destroyed beauty and shivering when her form attempted to go into shock but faltered in a mysterious, medically induced fugue. "I hate it! I-I hate it here! I have to keep up an image in front of mother's guards and be all 'posh and proper' to maintain the royal standards of my family line but that's not me! I hate being rude, I hate being the bitch she wants me to become, and it's hurting everyone around me! I-I had a husband and she…s-she…"

Purple brought a finger to his lips when Red clenched his fists and went to retaliate, gently silencing him but still keeping a safe distance. "Sen, listen to me very carefully. I shot you because you wanted me to shoot Red and Zim when they were completely innocent and I couldn't bring myself to live with that. I was being sold into slavery by my Tallest to marry and serve you, not to be a loving husband. I don't even like women and I'm expected to love one?" He took a step forward, taking Red by the wrist and dragging him along. "Everyone in the star system knows your planet as something ruthless and profane and I've gone through cycles of fear to prepare for more at your own hand so I wasn't about to let myself slip into a lifetime of deprivation and sexual abuse just to satisfy a treaty you think is right."

"That's just it; I don't think it's right! I've been trapped here by my own mother, modified by your people's crack science and given a disgusting gift I never even wanted! I fought to keep the blood out of my system but they locked me down here and injected me with it anyway against my will and now I've become a rotting shell of what I used to be!" Sen shouted suddenly, rocketing Zim's attention back from where he hung back in shellshocked perplexity. She jabbed a finger at Red, who's frown only deepened in sweltering confusion with her next accusation. "I had to sleep with him, and they told me they would kill me if I didn't make it convincing! They already shot my husband to make room for me marrying off to one of you and I can't stand it anymore!"

What?

Sen…she was on their side?

Lies. This was all an elaborate lie. It had to be.

Blood, so much talk of blood. So many gruesome images flashing across ocular lenses. Molars clattering to the floor, tendons waving in the breeze, eye sockets craning to see when firm flesh blinded what was left of clusters of sputtering nerves. Ipi had shot her husband? No, that couldn't be correct. Purple had learned everything he could about Sen's life and personality in perpetration to become her ideal mate; he knew her shampoo, her favorite foods, her underwear size, and went through training on how to raise their children should they eventually have any in the future. There was never any mention or record of her having a significant other in the past and Lire had always portrayed her as the bachelorette of the century that everyone wanted to have striding at their coattails. Injection. She had mentioned the injections. They had injected her with the blood of someone and turned her into…something. Why? Who? When? How had they modified her? Did this have something to do with Red's claims of DNA harvesting and the bloodletting Purple had been forced to woozily sit through at the greedy hands of his Tallest's private medical team? He could remember Del practically salivating as every last vial of saccharine blood pumped from his veins as he ran his palms over the warmed glass and held them up at the light.

Ah, yes, you're so pure, Nemi. So, so pure.

He shook his head when the silky, smooth voice of Del echoed in his PAK memories and exchanged a lingering glance with Red, who had renewed to something cold and stagnant as if he didn't believe Sen's harrowing sob story in the slightest.

"Cut the bullshit and quit trying to get sympathy." Red sneered in disinterest, tired of being strung along by everyone around him and not able to break free from the constant fury prodding him like a hot poker to take action and end this. "I went through hell to keep you happy and fled when you kept siphoning my blood every week like a freak! You took everything I had from me and threw it away all because you and your monster of a mother wanted to play biggest, baddest Empire in our quadrent! I had a promising career in the military and now I can't even go back to my own planet without getting arrested for defecting!"

Sen blinked to the best of her ability and tried to hold herself together, hating every minute of the overpowering, dominating anger in Red's tone. "I wanted you to defect to save you from the awful future I knew you could avoid! I tried to push you away the whole time and I tried to protect you from my mother's hands because she was going to kill you when they found out your DNA wasn't pure!"

"What do you mean you pushed me away?! I remember you being adamant that you wanted me because my DNA was pure!"

"Styx, she had you set up to be assassinated because your blood didn't work for our cause!"

"Irk, would all of you quit calling me that?! My name is Red and it always will be! Now quit being vague and tell me what you're keeping so I can blast a hole in the other side of your hideous face!"

"Are you even listening to what I'm trying to tell you?! I can't tell you anything else or they'll hurt me!"

That did it. Purple took a deep breath the slammed the knife to the concrete, throwing his head back and bellowing out his own annoyance when the conversation circled back. "Everyone shut up! Shut up!" He barked, balling his fingers into fists and shooting daggers at Red when he threatened to retort but decided wisely against it. "I'm always the one left out of the conversation and I'm sick and tired of it! Sen, you're going to tell us what the hell is going on right now, and Red, you're going to keep your big mouth shut and let her speak so we can get out of this room because it stinks! I'm not going to stand here and listen to you to go after each other like smeets so grow up already and get to the point!"

Silence.

Sen brought her hands together in her lap and swallowed, staring down at her two-toed feet and quivering a bit when Purple calmed himself and crossed in front of her to get a better look, kneeling and looking her in the eyes from within her gloomy hood. He snuck up and fought off his own overpowering, uncomfortable terror as he took her wiry hands in his and waited, squeezing slightly to provide a cozy sense of pressure and friendly intimacy Sen hadn't felt in cycles. She paused, opening her hanging jaw to speak before clamping it back shut, shying away and tugging her fingers back in one swift jerk to shove them under her armpits.

"You're supposed to love me. You're supposed to be the one I'm promised to and this is supposed to be your home. I tried to keep up my mother's front for as long as I could but I can't treat you like I have anymore because it's not fair for you." She tentatively moved back, trailing an anxious, jittery claw along Purple's cheekbone and moving away when he shuddered at the soft, all-too-familiar feeling. "Whatever horrors you've endured, whatever they forced you through, I didn't want you to have to feel that. I'm so sorry you were called to represent an Empire that would sell off its own citizens for the prospect of immoral scientific advancement, but I can't help you. I-I just can't. I've already said far too much and if they find out I've talked, they'll bury me alive and ensure no one in our galaxy ever hears from me again."

Purple took up her hands again, persevering despite his own panicky disposition at being held in the touch of someone other than his own fingers. "Sen, please," He began as softly as he could muster, watching Red shift feverishly out of the corner of his eye and Zim finally stand to join by his side, "I'm giving you a chance to speak up about everything they've done to you. Whoever they are, we've all fallen victim to their motives and had something stolen from us. I spent two long cycles preparing for this alliance and I was tortured, deprived, abused, and touched in ways that will probably never let me trust another man in my life." He stopped himself short, glancing to where Red stood and hastily thrusting himself back into the conversation. "But, I'm putting all of my cards on the table and choosing to trust you for the sake of whatever is happening on the sidelines, but you have to trust me too. I shot you out of self-defense and fear for my own life and the lives of Red and his friend, but you have to believe that if I had known all of this was happening to you too, I would have gone out of my way to free you from everything they've done. I can't help you if you don't help me."

"Pur, this isn't a good idea." Red chimed in firmly, holding his ground and scooping up his knife when Sen shot him a tear streaked look from around the furred edge of her expensive designer coat. "She's manipulative and all she does is lie to get her way all the time. I was living with this woman for over a cycle before we were supposed to be married and she cheated, maneuvered, and sobbed her way through our whole relationship. I don't trust her and neither should you."

Sen grew flustered at his harsh statements, immediately panicking and picking up her feeble, choked sobs as her grip on Purple's wrist tightened. "N-No! Please, you have to understand what they've done to me! T-They ruined me and turned me into something I can never come back from! You have to trust me!"

"What did they do to you? Please, you have to tell me so we can find our people and end this once and for all but we can't do it without your help!" Purple pleaded, wincing at the dig of claws in his skin and trying to pull away but finding himself effectively stuck in Sen's crushingly potent, iron grip.

"Get off of him you snake!" Red lunged forward and grabbed at Sen's wrist, prying her off and grabbing Purple around the waist when she shouted something in unintelligible Callnowian. "Trust me, Purple! Trust me because I know how this place operates and we can't stay here any longer! We have to get to Ipi and end this before they end us and kill you like she's leading us into right now! She never had a husband and her and her mother are closer than anyone I've ever seen. She's lying to you!"

Purple didn't know who to believe, watching Sen's forlorn, shattered visage as she begged him with her swollen lips and glittery, jet black eyes, white iris' pleading for him to see reason. She was so venerable and visibly sincere, and she had already given them valuable hints into what was happening with the blood and DNA collection, but they still didn't have enough to go on, the answer to what had happened to the mysterious disappearance of five thousand Irken souls hanging on the tip of his tongue like a shot of whiskey he could never take. Blood was being collected and DNA was being extracted for some nefarious, immoral scientific purpose. Sen had mentioned that she had been injected with the blood of, presumably, the Irkens that were held as slaves somewhere beneath the ice and turned into a monstrosity that couldn't feel pain and had a hard time dying. Why? Purple hadn't gotten that far, yet. Then there was Lire. He had crumbled to nothing more than a distraught, feverish jumble of panicked nerves and pungent, rotting scents that turned his blood to nothing more than dust. It was black and goopy, crusting on contact as it flooded away from his perforated spooch, much like Sen's blood did when it spilled to the operating table. Think, Purple, think. What was the link?! They were both obviously destroyed on a molecular level but the injection of Irken blood shouldn't change someone to such a gory extent and leave them without the capacity of pain.

Think!

And then there was Red.

He turned back, noticing his warm, enshrouding hands on his waist and finding a bizarre sense of serenity in his touch despite his annoying need to contest everything he said and scream when he talked. He was loud and obnoxious, with no idea what life meant or how to appreciate the sanctity of it. He'd lost everything he owned along with Purple, and had gone through the same malicious agony and emotional imprisonment at the hands of Sen and Del before enduring the pain of a thousand plasma torches to chemically enhance his eyes and become the man he wanted to be. He was just as volatile and foreign as Sen was in Purple's mind, a ticking time bomb of rage and displeasure but…no. No, he was dedicated. Everything Red had done since their meeting had been for the furtherment of his risky mission and the peace of thousands with a need to prove to himself deep down that he wasn't a total failure or the product of Del's displacement of his very lifeforce to the stars. He was here, and he hadn't abandoned Purple in the snow like he could have hours before. No, Red stuck by his side and put up with every hot word he'd slapped him across the face with, soaking them up and realizing his abuse formed, strict boundaries and respecting them like a true…Huh.

A true…friend?

Purple moved his free hand down to Red's and scratched at the grip of his knife with a tentative nail, searching his face for any morsel of sanity and coming up with the kindest, most protective air he'd ever been allowed.

Red. A name synonymous with safety.

Ok.

Purple gave his friend a tiny, rushed wink before turning back to Sen, hoping he understood his motives as he grinned warmly back and strode to where her long, lanky legs dangled from the edge of the operating table. "I trust you, but you have to tell me what you know so we can help you overcome your mother's advances. I'm just going to ask a few questions." He slung his hands casually behind his back and motioned for Red to move to the right as their target was distracted.

Red narrowed his eyes with a perplexed blink, watching the shudder in his friend's hands and letting the sweltering feeling of supposed betrayal fall away when Purple's plan finally gelled in his dense mind and clicked into place. Slick. He stretched and yawned, pretending to sheathe his knife before striding forward and leaning against the edge of the table with the thin, sharpened blade hidden at his thigh to wait for the right moment to strike. Purple had a knack for leadership that was almost scary to witness, the effortlessness of his lies and coy fibs concealed behind a beautiful, perfectly white smile and two innocently glowing orbs of pure lavender fire submerging him in a feeling of deep, utter infatuation when the sting of rejection finally subsided to be replaced with admiration. Red felt his pulse quicken under his heavy respirator, the thrill of the hunt and the idea of having a partner in crime again digging into every layer of thick skin shrouding his body to allow six long, flawless fingers to grip and contort his willing spooch to their will. He was as formidable in word as he was in battle, even if he had lost most of his muscle tone, and used his perceived softness and effeminate beauty to his advantage despite the lack of confidence he still held from his time without needed independence or respect. Every movement oozed a sense of poised, graceful domination as he cornered the atmosphere and clawed at its throat with more political sense than Red had ever thought was possible, cluing him in to the sheer magnitude of force Purple could batter his enemies with should he reach his peak once more. His wit and sharp tongue slid right against Sen's sensitive, manipulative resolve and unknown intentions, tasting them and never once shying away when he was met with the burning sensation of salt and festering pus. He had hooked, charmed, danced, and made love to her all with a single glance and Red had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep himself from grinning back at the shimmering display of near omnipotent might urging him on towards what he wanted to feel in his own adrenaline spiked grasp. He took a deep inhale and kept himself inconspicuous as Purple worked his cosmic magic, waiting for a chance to strike and completely immobilize Sen from following them along through the mansion. He needed to sever the tendons in her heels and, regardless of if she could feel physical pain or not, she would have no access to chase them down as she bled out.

Be patient.

He trusts you, so you need to trust him.

Purple could feel the sweat pool on his dehydrated brow and hoped Sen couldn't smell his terror when her gentle, wavering hair curled and writhed to the side of his cheek, a mauled smile stretching on what was left of her once pristine face before fading completely to something deep and erroneous.

"Oh, darling, I can't tell you any more than what I've already said." She muttered under her warm breath, her onyx sheened hair continuing to coil and smooth against his jawline. "You've been better to me than so many others out there have since my birth, but…" She paused, trailing off and hooking him under the chin to draw him up.

"Y-Yes?" Purple squeaked back, following her cloudy, dreamlike advances as if he had no choice, glancing to Red to get ready when he felt Sen's fingers drag further down his throat and stop to feel his erratic pulse as he hissed. "Now."

"Now? Now, what, love?" Sen giggled, wiping her tears away from her cheeks and flicking them from her fingertips as she sighed. "I've already stalled enough for the guards to arrive, so good luck being shipped back to your planet and tried for treason!"

"Red, now, do it n-!" Purple choked on his words when Sen flew from the table without warning and wrapped her hands around his thin throat, pinning him back and blinding him in a tangle of irate, whipping fronds and guttural snarls as he vehemently thrashed.

Red yelped and flew forward, bringing his knife down as Zim sprung to action and collided hard with Sen's side to send her reeling towards the metal frame of the operating table, her spine cracking with a loud pop before she was on Purple again with just as much anger and intensity as she'd had. The door slammed in and Red turned just in time to cry out and duck when an Irken guard fired a searing, white-hot plasma bolt through the heavy atmosphere, missing him by a few inches and hitting a bottle of peroxide. The plastic immediately combusted and popped, sending burning liquid cascading down over the concrete and stinging at Purple's back as Sen kept on, pitting globs of nauseating blood into his face as she wrung him violently and slammed him back to knock whatever air remained in his fragile lungs free.

Irken?!

Why were there Irken guards here?!

"Zim, the guards!" Red barked, bringing his knife down in Sen's back and twisting before cursing under his breath when she didn't so much as flinch. No, no, he couldn't let her take him away! Not now, not ever! "What's with all of you thinking you own us?!" He screeched, tackling her around the waist and landing blow after bone-crushing blow to her already obliterated eye socket before quickly hatching an idea as Purple hacked and wheezed behind him. "You don't touch him! Don't you ever touch him!"

Zim tore past and threw out his PAK legs as two more Irken guards popped into the room and opened fire, careful not to hit Sen and aiming directly at his stomach to graze at the canvas of his uniform before he was on them like a rabid animal birthed solely from dripping teeth and shredding claws. He caught sight of Red's knife and reached out to skid it back across the floor when he yelled something incoherent, crying out in shock as one of the guards flipped him onto his back and struggled with his PAK legs, stomping hard against his ribcage before taking aim between his eyes. Red panicked and frantically tried to find a way to stop the bloodshed, reaching for a nearby scalpel Sen had knocked free from the cluttered counter during her overdone acting before blindly tossing it and internally praising himself when it collided with Zim's immediate attacker and lodged in his shoulder, drawing an vacillating scream of agony from his mouth and giving his tiny comrade the chance to overpower them once more.

"My Tallers, we have to move!" Zim yelled over the commotion and Sen's agitated, wholly infuriated cries of frustration as she tried to crawl her blindly to her coat to call for help. "If we stay here, they'll find us!"

"Yeah, I know but I'm a little busy at the moment! Pur, the knife!" Red struggled to keep Sen pinned as he scrambled to get his friend's attention as he clutched at his throat and rolled onto his side to escape the encroaching fire. Dammit! Was he going to have to do this the hard way?! "Sen, I'm giving you one chance to tell me where my people are or I'll blind you! Don't test me!"

"You spineless insect, you don't have the fight in you to take me down! I feel nothing but a pinprick of pressure so go ahead and blind me!" Sen hissed brutally, trying to knee Red in the back but failing under his bruising strength on the side of her face. "I-I'm not telling you anything!"

"Is it true?! Are you injecting others with Irken blood?! Why?! How does that turn you into whatever you've become?!" He spat back, digging into her cheek and moving to slide her closer to the fire. "Tell me now or I'll make sure you never look at your stupid face in the mirror again!"

Sen merely chuckled, shaking her head under Red's profoundly fierce constraint and wiggling an arm free to clock him in the side. He coughed to the side, feeling his spooch instantly bruise as his past fiancé lunged for his boot knife and missed as Purple came to and grabbed it first, beating her back and aiming for her face to slice long, thin, lacerations over her remaining eyes. She screeched, not out of pain but out of horrified shock as her own crusty blood invaded her blackening vision, her voice going up an octave as Purple turned and swiftly swept her off her feet and went for the sensitive backs of her heels, severing her Achilles tendons as soon as she thudded hard to the floor before turning and taking on one of the three remaining guards to pry them from where they had engaged in hand to hand combat with tiny Zim and his flailing mechanical extensions.

"Sir, they can feel pain! They haven't been changed!" Zim noticed, struggling to keep a hot plasma pistol from being pressed into the skin of his cheek. "Their blood is still pink!"

Breathe and remember your training.

One. Under the ribcage, aim for the lower spooch. Purple followed his own hectic advice as Red fell in next to him and snatched him out of the way as another deafening plasma shot set their buzzing antennae to a muffled ring. Red pinned the guard down as Zim powered through with his own lasers, hitting him square in the face and melting his skin to something charred and ruined beyond recognition as bright pink blood pooled and collected at their boots. Purple kept on, dancing in tandem with Red who kept watch over his left flank and Zim snarling and screeching wildly at his right. Two. Take out major arteries. Purple slid past as Red landed a firm punch to the eye of the second guard, elegantly slipping between them when his erratic pulse thumped through his rapidly pounding veins to land a clean cut across his delicate throat and watch in bewildered terror as he instantly fell to his knees and sputtered on his own life force bubbling over his tongue to drown him. Tunnel vision set in and he dropped the knife when his body dissociated from the battle and the swirling scents, losing his winning streak in favor of the appalling terror he'd managed to keep at bay until the feeling of hot sticky blood slipped through his hands, tuning him out to everything but the tips of his feet as Red begged and pleaded for him to come too when Zim was stabbed through the arm by the harsh tip of a rogue PAK leg sharpened to perfection. He tried to shake the fringes of battle from his mind, blearily glancing up and feeling his own mechanical hardware pump him with enough high-inducing norepinephrine to rocket him back into the speed of things just as Red spun him around and shook him violently by the shoulders. He gave up, reaching for the knife himself and going after their attacker when he turned on the two, his intensely deep need to protect overtaking his need to bring Purple back online as his PAK went through an automatic reboot, pinning the surprised officer to the ground and laying into him as he shrieked and cried in searing agony for the pain to end. Zim finally pushed himself up and took pity on his yowls, hitting him with another plasma bolt and splattering his flesh across the floor into the hallway outside to stain the far wall with a fine mist of blow back.

"Follow me, Zim knows the way!" The tiny soldier demanded, tearing off and raking through the growing resistance with four powerful lasers trained on anything that moved.

With that, Red took his shaken up friend by the hand and yanked him on as Zim took off into the shady, surprisingly clean corridor as Callnowian and Irken scientists alike flittered in and out of rooms out of terror at the sickening amount of blood dripping from the hands of the enemy that had invaded their precious, carefully shrouded stronghold. They had to get upstairs before…

Shit.

A blaring alarm sounded overhead when Sen presumably made it to her communicator, crawling her way across the floor and digging her claws into the metal frame of the doorway as Purple glanced back and felt his spooch drop.

"Kill them! Kill them before they make it to mother!"


Sen is a ruthless, coldhearted bitch. Not going to lie. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and thanks for all of your wonderful support! Thank you to our new guest reviewers that show up and I'm glad you guys have found my fic littered amongst thousands! I love you all!

Next Update: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 10:00 PM CDT (UTC -5)! Hope to see you then!