Welcome back to another episode of Fire in the Snow! I'm glad you guys are continuing to enjoy this story, and come back for more!
To Larrimeme: AH I SAW YOU REVIEW AND I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT YOU SENT IN A REQUEST FOR MY OTHER FIC, YOU PLUS ME, EQUALS THREE! I HONESTLY FORGOT AND ILL WORK ON GETTING THAT DONE TONIGHT NOW THAT I HAVE MORE TIME! Your prompts are always really nice and thank you so, so much for your patience! I really do appreciate it and I'll get back to writing our little Tallest smeet soon!
Chapter rated M for graphic depictions of gore/body modifications, brief light violence, mentions of political assassination/intent to kill, brief heavy language, suggestive themes, and general adult content.
She was a virus, a literal plague hitting Red directly in the spooch and squeezing. He froze, one hand on Purple's hip as he hung petrified through the broken glass of the window and one hand curling into a defensive fist as his ex-fiancé looked him up and down with a half sneer of appalled disgust. Why did she have to show up? Why did she have to exist at this point? Anytime anything in his life seemed to pick up and take a turn for the better, Sen would slither her way back into his life and show off her extensively cruel political clout by stealing his blood and murdering his family to laugh back in their faces as their corpses rotted to nothing in the darkness of the forest outside. She was a menace at best, taking a wobbly step forward on poorly self-stitched heels that cracked and strained under her weight, trying to support her rapidly deteriorating body to little avail as she plunged a now gnarled hand forward to grip at the edge of the hatch frame before she took a tumble. She reached up and smoothed the reeking, black velveteen fabric of her enshrouding hood over her crusted, matted face to hide her grisly wounds that would never close before taking another shuddering step and growling as she kicked her dangerously high shoes away to walk on the scaly pads of her clawed toes.
Red clamped a hand over his mouth when the stench of putrid cells hit him, urging Purple to move but finding that his partner had all but gone catatonic to the terrifying visions swarming in his retinas and showing him the worst of the Irken and Callnowian Empires combined. How could Del and Ipi ever think that an abomination of nature, a literal pus-filled, festering wound of a woman would be able to stop them in their tracks as her tongue lolled in her flaccid jaw and what little blood her body was able to produce slogged to the floor in tiny patters dotting the tops of her feet. Was she dead? Alive? Something hanging hazardously inbetween the two extremes? Red had to think fast, flying down and snatching for a shard of glass as his PAK legs threatened to burst free from their casing and defend everything he had left, bristling in the dark and feeling a protective growl flutter up the back of his throat when Sen coughed and gagged a bit on her own failing throat. She attempted to speak, thrusting a finger forward to halt their advances when Purple finally came to and yelped, scrambling to unhook himself from the piercing shards digging into his skin and keeping him in place as she waved frantically for their attention and cleared her throat once more. Red fought back, squinting and chucking the ruthless shard and watching with wide eyes when it careened forward and lodged in their enemy's shoulder before falling away to the floor with an empty clatter as Sen rolled her remaining eyes and shook her head in disappointment, finally finding the strength to clear her throat and warble out something broken and hollow.
"Would you stop fighting me and listen to what I have to say before you assume that I'm still your enemy?"
Red scoffed in her direction, scrambling to unhook his idiot of a partner from the glass as Flicky chattered and screeched in distress outside, circling in the snow and desperate to find a way inside the hostel to defend the two Irkens that she viewed as her babies. "Irk, why won't you die already?!" He screeched, throwing out his lasers and heating them to perfection with a snarl. "I'll give you a chance to get out of here or I'll blow you all over the damn wall! I don't care if you can't die, but the thought of you suffering in thousands of pieces for eternity is sounding pretty good to me!"
Sen didn't listen, admiring the spark of deep magenta plasma radiating from the coiled tips of Red's extensions and moving forward once more on a courageous whim to address Purple directly. "Nemi, will you give me a second chance to explain myself? Call off your rabid hound and let's talk about this like adults. I know I tricked you in the past, love, but I really do need your help with this whole mess I've gotten myself into." She paused, swallowing a blood clot and shuddering at the taste. "I…I can't do this alone anymore."
Red glanced over his shoulder when Purple halted his efforts once more and narrowed his eyes, snaking his other leg back over the sill and ignoring Flicky's mounting cries outside as she snuck her proboscis inside the room to try and urge him into her shielding, motherly legs. "What do you mean? You wanna come in here after everything you put us both through and ask for our help with some vague mission you got stuck in your head? Do you think we're stupid enough to fall for any more of your lies?!" He dropped back to the floor and gripped at Red's arm with tentative claws, sliding his fingers down to bravely take his hand and entwine their fingers. "I'm finally finding some happiness and I'm not going to let you take that away from me before I can figure out what it feels like. Red is right; you have thirty seconds to leave or I'll let him blow you to pieces."
Red felt a powerful determination flood his senses as a wiry grin spread over his cheeks, squeezing around the fingers he always wanted to call his own and willing his weaponized spinal extensions to charge before moving them to his flustering target. There was no more doubt in his mind about it as he stared back at the frightened evil that had taunted and sliced through his life, urging him to scar his own body to hide from her maniacal clutches and burn his once gorgeous eye color to something he was now beginning to vaguely recognize as his own; Purple trusted him. That was all he needed in this life, no matter how short or long it ended up being for them both or how difficult and horrifying their journey together would become on their way to the Green. Purple's trust filled him up and gave him reason to fight, reason to persevere without hesitation…reason to live again.
"W-Wait! Please, Nemi, hear me out! I know I've hurt you and Styx, and I'm willing to provide you with an unmarked Callnowian ship stocked completely with provisions and weaponry if you agree to my terms! You can keep it and leave after all of this is over and I swear on what's left of my life that I won't pursue you any further!" Sen tried to remain tall, sinking down when her flimsy spine popped and hitched in her back, dropping her to her knees with a cry of unexpected shock as she hit the floor and continued her now pathetic, tear-filled begging. "Please just listen to me! This has come too far and they're completely delusional to their own scientific failures! They're going to kill both of our people if you don't listen!"
There was a heavy, soul-crushing moment of silence as Red weighed their options, noticing Purple's fingers twitch at the desperate, frantic tone of Sen's bleating voice reducing her to nothing more than a smeet before them. She folded forward into the floor and bawled out something genuinely frustrated and unfulfilled, nothing like her first rouse and delicate crying atop her operating table as crocodile tears stained her cheek. This was guttural and full of self-loathing hatred, a hollow, eerie resonance of power stripped by biological modifications and a despairing wish for the chilly embrace for death that would never come. She was once so gorgeous and untainted by society, a living work of art glanced upon with awe filled stares and fluttering gasps of excited respect as she waltzed by with more grace than anyone Red had ever known. As much as he hated to be around her and dance with her by force in front of her peers, his hands against her petite waist as he faked a lovestruck smile and let it fade completely when she turned her back to sample ourselves and laugh at the jokes of her council, he respected her in a way. She tried to hard to maintain her carefully cultivated image in the presence of her mother, finding elaborate ways to impress her and prove that she was truly fit to be the heir to the Empire she would once inherit when she was married off to a Tallest that would never be. She had held back to give him space when it was needed and was surprisingly tender when they were crowded together and expected to be intimate under her silk comforter, running her soothing claws up over his cheeks with words of encouragement when he couldn't force his body to adequately respond to her naked form. Of course, she was also a terrifying brat, screaming at service drones and advisors when more news of Irken rebellions would throw hitches in her shopping plans or her claws weren't manicured to sheer, divine perfection by her standards. Sen was a double edged sword, drawing men in with the promise of beauty gone stagnant and cold before them and leaving her only with her horrid personality to keep her afloat in a world that wanted to sever her head from her shoulders and bleed her dry with a calculated slice to the throat. Red wanted to contort her into a knot, chuck her in the frigid depths of the raging Callnowian coastal seas, and never think about her sickening visage again. It would end a chapter of his own harrowing trauma and bloodletting, bringing justice and a close to the nightmare he was forced to walk in the gloom of Ipi's mansion as he writhed against his bonds and was forced to stand naked against an unclean wall with thousands of others, his PAK pulled open and his lifeforce pilfered until he was woozy and nauseous enough to give up the violent protest he would scream back. She had done this. Ipi had done this. As long as they shared DNA, Sen was also a target in his mission to rid this Universe of the scum that had choked and stolen the life away from his kind and everyone he had ever loved, and he wouldn't let them take that away from Purple.
He had to do something right for once.
He had to keep him safe.
"No." He responded simply, feeling a surge of powerful electricity tingle up his spine and build in his deliciously white-hot lasers, wanting nothing more than to blow her face to gooey, vile hunks of forgotten scales and outdated ideology. "Haven't we already listened enough? Look where it got us," he paused when his own rage threatened to consume him, feeling Purple pacify it with the quick swipe of his thumb over his knuckles, "we ended up displaced, marked for slaughter by your pathetic excuse for an Empire, our friends are dead, and we can't go home because we'll be put on trial as traitors! Do you realize how hard it is to live, really live, after everything you and your people have done to ours?! The only reason we've survived this long is by fighting our way back to the top and we're going to shoot your disgusting mother between the eyes and strangle our Tallest in his sleep to take back our planet and make it for the people!"
"That's what I want, you thick idiot!" Sen choked, pushing up on a shaky arm when her vision lapsed. "If you would have let me speak before going off on a tangent like you do, you would have known that I came here wanting you to assassinate my mother!"
Red felt his argument die on his lips when Purple pulled away and stepped forward at the notion, kneeling and reaching out to smooth back Sen's jet black hood, admiring her face and wincing at the terribly disfigured monster she had become. He held her gaze, a strange sense of poise and grace sweeping he room as he commanded authority in the rare spikes that they tended to appear, throwing another wrench in Red's plans. Purple was so venerable, but so impeccably strong at his core, a virtual warlord beneath the skin clawing to fight his way out and raze the galaxy with Irken excellence when he became Tallest…if he became Tallest. Red hesitated, lowering his lasers when his courageous boyfriend brushed away Sen's tears like a gentle prophet, appalled with himself for the jealousy ripping up through his bouncing immediate thoughts, quickly penetrating the surface and traveling deeper to hook into his own political desires to become the almighty emperor of everything he had ever known. He wanted to take every inch of the starsystem in the name of Irk, to destroy all those threatening to squash his people beneath their boots like the insects they perceived them to be and prove to the Universe that the Irken race was so much more than a manifestation of conscious fleas to laugh at. They were the light in the darkness, the boogyman creeping around corners to steal away the souls of their greatest enemies and thrust them into the pit of swirling cosmic nothingness as they laughed and overtook each and every resource they could find. Didn't they deserve that? They had been deprived of resources for as long as Red could remember, thinking hastily back to his hatching at the Naphrus Smeetery in the last forested region of his home planet and how they had so little to eat that it wasn't even funny. Del didn't care if smeets were stunted in growth, keeping what little provisions he could manage aboard his flagship, the Vortian made Massive commissioned by the benevolent Tallest Miyuki of the past, and swallowing down globs of saccharine sugar and candy as the rest of the public starved.
Would Purple be able to pull them out of the horrors they had lived in for so long?
Would he be able to give up his dreams of becoming Tallest to someone so soft?
But he wasn't soft, was he? He was a powerhouse in the making, stomping deliciously on each and every cognizant belief that Red had ever hatched and cracking open a new internal conflict he hadn't thought of before. Maybe…just maybe…he was the Tallest they all needed. If Purple could come into his own personal power and grow beyond the barriers that Lire had forced him to construct, he could stand proud and resolute on the bloody bridge of the Massive and project his voice out to billions to pave the way for a new era of greatness unlike anything they had ever known in their lifetimes. He could see it in his lavender eyes, the spark of a determined inferno blazing behind his fear and keeping him tethered to the present as Red floated out into the far future and panicked when he realized he wouldn't have a place in that vision. He would be forgotten and left behind if he didn't take Purple to the Green and keep him out of the limelight, loving him so deeply and hating himself so sincerely at the idea that he was potentially stunting his growth for his own selfish gain. What if he didn't take him to the Green and allowed nature to take its course and drive his soul away from the glistening command chair of the Massive like he had somehow known would happen all this time? What if…so many what ifs.
So many what ifs…
Red didn't know what to think anymore, watching as Purple took his sniveling ex-fiancé by the hand and helped her up to some semblance of a sit, groaning in utter disgust when her blood coated his palm and promptly turned to dust.
"You want to kill Ipi?" He asked slowly, snatching Sen by what was left of her jaw and batting her sentient hair away when she went to scent at his wrist, squeezing and holding her in place as he demanded answers. "Speak! You came here for a reason, so look me in the eye like an adult and tell me what you're plotting, and maybe I'll consider adopting your plan as my own."
Power. So much power booming through his voice and sending consistent shivers down Red's spine as he wavered in his hiking boots. He must look ridiculous compared to someone so naturally suited to leadership, an aristocrat in the making and a crimson-eyed servant destined to run from the law forever. They were so different…so utterly distant yet so profoundly close and bonded by the toils of warfare and bloodshed forcing them out of their roles and into something more that they would have never guessed they could ever take on. Red, the impure flea, had become the protector of Purple, the glistening heir to their Empire. Maybe he was being selfish.
Sen warily waved for Red to lower his weapons, drawing him back to the perilous present and urging him over to listen to her planned words when he grumbled in distain and fell in line with his partner, stooping to hear out the flesh he wanted to tear away with his claws. Purple nudged him in the ribcage to keep him in line, drawing an irritated eye roll on impulse before sitting cross-legged on the cold floor and shivering in the wind flooding from the shattered window behind them. Red wrapped an arm around his shoulders to keep him warm, a tiny epiphany hitching over his despondent, depressing thoughts and giving him a new, bottomlessly gorgeous idea.
What if…what if they could rule together?
Miyuki had her right hand man, Spork, before she was assassinated in an unfortunate scientific accident, allowing him to rule in her absence as her benefactor and take over the Empire to continue her work. They were treated as equals, good friends ruling as co-dependents and relying on one another for ideas and opinions before they made decisions on most matters. It was strange to think about Purple as his co-dependent this early into their relationship, but maybe, just maybe…they could be co-Tallests.
"It's simple, really." Sen gurgled, spitting to the side and digging into her pocket to place an ignition starter into Purple's hand and gift him the glossy black ship waiting outside. "I want you to murder my mother and your Tallest before they inject a mixture of purple-eyed blood and Callnowian blood into the systems of their two amassing armies. They want to create a force that is unstoppable and immortal in the galaxy to take everything they can get their claws on, but it's…well…it's not that simple."
"I knew she was going to do something crazy." Purple breathed, thinking a few long moments before forcing himself to meet Sen's gaze once more. "Why do you want out of the Flesh Treaty all of a sudden? Wasn't this also your plan from the beginning?"
"Yeah, why the hell should we trust someone who literally stole my blood for over a cycle to inject into her own body?" Red growled, inching forward and huffing when Purple placed a hand to his chest to keep him at a reasonable distance. "Dammit, let me take care of this and shred her to bite sized bits like she deserves!"
"Shut up you gross little insect! Your filthy blood is what did this to me in the first place!"
"My filthy blood?! What if it was your blood that turned you into a monster, huh?!"
"Please, I come from a line of purity, while you come from the most backwater place I've ever seen. If I had known that you were so impure, I wouldn't have cared how handsome you used to be."
"Excuse me?! What the hell, Pur, you're just gonna let her talk to me like this?!"
"Aw, how sweet! You have nicknames for one another now? Does that mean you've fucked him, then? Poor dear, Nemi…you shouldn't lie with fleas, you could get dirty!"
Purple slammed a hand down on the floor and snatched Sen by the collar to draw her in close, gripping around the fabric and shredding it with his claws as if it was her throat. He held her gaze with a burning one of his own and watched as she swallowed, submitting to the swathes of radiating domination seeping from his skin and terrifying her into submission. When he spoke, his voice was calm and level with sinister undertones fit to send even the worst of criminals to the highlands to cower and willing Red to hold his tongue out of fear for what his partner would say in his fit of irate irritation. In this moment, Red saw the man under the mask that had barreled his way through the Elite at the top of his company, feeling his breath hitch over his teeth when he wanted to insult Sen further for her insolence but decided against it when Purple narrowed his eyes and shot him a sweltering look out of the corner of his eye. In the time they'd been together, it seemed to be pretty hard to push his buttons, but their childish squabbling had seemingly done the job and the mention of sex had pushed him one inch too far over the line.
Uh oh.
"My name. Isn't. Nemi." He growled long and low, drawing her up with a swift jerk and nearly giving her whiplash as she whimpered. "It's Purple! And don't you dare sit here and beg for my forgiveness while talking to my boyfriend like he doesn't exist! He's not a flea, he's not impure, and he deserves the same respect you'd give me if I was towering above you as your future galactic leader because I'm this close," he waved a had sharply for emphasis, "to throwing you in this ship you just gave me and shooting you out into space to watch you choke! I don't want to hear any more fighting out of either of you or I promise you'll both be sleeping with the stars!"
Silence.
Red sat dumbfounded when Purple dropped their target hard to the floor and stood to pace, grumbling to himself as she coughed and hastily tried to collect herself, smearing her hood back over her mangled features out of humiliation. "Pur? You uh…you ok?"
"I'm thinking." He kept his answers short as he trudged the perimeter of the room to cool off, reaching out to rub over Flicky's proboscis when she scrambled to try and force herself through the tiny window. After a moment longer, he spoke back up. "I asked you a question before you ignored me. Why do you want out of the Flesh Treaty?"
Sen didn't know what to say, bringing her claws together and staring with three glossy black eyes down at her grubby lap as she fiddled with the pads of her fingers. "I…it's not as stable as I'd hoped it would be. Mother changed when she met Del after my father was killed in the war and I think she was afraid she would lose him too over time. They had this crazy idea to hunt for a way to remain immortal in this life and keep themselves from ever having to slip away from one another, and I used to think it was a great idea as a child. The thought of never having to be afraid of death was comforting, and I wanted to do everything I could to get to that point, so I began helping Mother search for a cure to the disease of life on our own planet while Del searched on yours. She came across it on accident when she cut her hand and mixed her blood in with Irken blood and it set her into a frenzy."
"Be more specific. I want to know what prompted you to come to us." Purple demanded, slinging his arms behind his back and striding back to hover over her. "We were part of your project and you used both of our blood to become whatever it is you are now. Why us?"
"It wasn't just you, but the five thousand others that Mother buried in a mass grave outside of the capitol. She over-bled them for as much as she could get, because violet eyes are so rare in your society." Sen explained, disgusting Red to his core and sending a ripple of shock up through his spooch.
Five thousand innocent souls…gone? Buried like nothing?
"I began to get uneasy when she started talking about how everyone's blood was different and didn't have the same results. It depended on the purity of the Irken DNA," Sen explained hastily as she rolled onto her side, "to find yield the results that she wanted. DNA like Styx's…um…I mean Red's was riddled with imperfections we didn't notice until it was too late. We injected myself and Del's advisor, Lire, with his blood and it turned our own toxic. Sure, we can't die, but we began to rot from the inside out without being able to stop it. Mother tried to give me a transfusion of clean Callnowian blood leftover from her experiment, but there's no way to reverse the internal process once it begins."
"So you're telling me…you're a walking corpse because of my blood?" Red breathed pressing a hand to his chest to feel for his pulse and shudder at the thought of himself being so filthy that he'd caused two lives to deteriorate like putty. No, they stole his blood and made the decision themselves. This wasn't his fault.
Sen gave him a weakly condescending frown behind Purple's back before he turned to face her once more, waving for her to continue her insane tale. "The process is only one-hundred percent safe when the blood of a pure Callnowian is mixed with the blood of a pure Irken." She reached up and pointed with a gnarled finger to Purple who blinked in return. "You. They want you. You're the only violet-eyed Irken born to the Veloria Smeetery in seven-hundred cycles and they won't wait for another before they inject millions of our people with bad blood. If they get their hands on you, they'll be able to make an unstoppable army of soldiers with skin tougher than diamonds and an inability to ever feel pain. If they don't, they'll still inject with what they have and turn the remainder of everyone we know into rotting messes of flesh to suit their own greed. They don't care about us anymore, or me, and I've been pushed to the sidelines as a useless pet now that I'm falling apart…that's why I need you to kill Mother and Del before they finish this."
Red held up a hand to stop her rambling, standing and smoothing a hot palm up over his buzzing antennae as he tried to process the crux of everything they'd been chasing for so long. This was it…this was the motive. Ipi and Del wanted to take over the Universe with an immortal army willing to do their bidding. Purple had been selected because he was the purest man they could find, a trophy of sorts until Red had stolen him away and opened up the greatest manhunt to retrieve him in history. He could only imagine what Ipi was undergoing to find them both, how much money and resources they were expending as Del probably sent out the whole of the ruthless Armada to scan the skies for any unknown ships passing through. They would be watched at every corner, followed through every alleyway, hunted through every forest and nebula. He couldn't take Purple to the Green. If he did, they'd surely be walking into an ambush for his soul and he'd be lost forever to the system and locked away somewhere where Red would never see him again. He needed to keep him close at his side and practically glue their palms together if he was to keep him safe and unharmed like he'd planned, running through every minute detail Sen had poured out and nodding to himself as he went. They'd tried to kill Ipi, but her blood was so intensely pure, they were unable to sustain a hit with every blow bouncing off of her like liquid, leading him to believe that they were going about this coup the wrong way. Del would be much easier to infiltrate, as Red and Purple both knew their way around the Massive and had his schedule memorized by heart.
Think.
Prove to yourself that you're not as unintelligent as they think.
Red folded forward and rested his chin on his scuffed knees, noticing his antennae twitch when Purple called out to him but not registering what he'd said as he sunk deeper and deeper into his reeling mindscape. Ok, backtrack for a minute and stop thinking so crazy hard about everything. Look at it simply…everything is simple somehow…maybe? Ugh, maybe not. Red huffed and buried his face in his shins with a groan, once again ignoring his partner as he reached up and grabbed at his antennae, overwhelmed and overstimulated by the torrent of mind-numbing information hitting him all at once and wracking his brain to his limits as he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to try and remember everything he could of biology back in the Academy. Wait. He'd failed biology. Or was that mathematics? What was the difference? Math was numbers, biology was science with numbers rolled together and cells and plasma and…and…something having to do with blood and antibodies and antigens and nutrients and too many things with long names he couldn't pin down as his thoughts began to race. Was he actually stupid? Why couldn't he pin anything down?! Was it hot in here? W-Was the building supposed to feel like it was shaking or were those his shoulder shuddering away from Purple's gentle fingers trying to pull him back? What did Sen think of him now, knowing how she boned someone so idiotic and nearly married a loser? Ugh, he wasn't supposed to care about her in a time like this! She was the one who injected her blood in her body and-
Injected?
Red's gaze snapped up to meet Purple's as he stooped in bewildered confusion to place his hands on his slack cheeks before crying out and skittering back when Red shot up and yelled on a continuous loop. That was it! That was it! He'd finally figured out the final puzzle piece to this harrowing, seemingly never ending nightmare. He flew down and cackled as he tugged Purple to his feet and spun him around, pulling him into a tight, forced hug as he squirmed and stuttered out of perplexed shock. Sen tried to struggle up below them, finally moving to her knees as another tooth spilled from her mouth and spilled to the floor, plucking it back and shoving it into the blackened socket to imitate some sense of normalcy.
"R-Red what are you-"
Red hushed him, pressing a blinding, adrenaline-fueled kiss to his lips before finally letting him go and turning back to Sen with a renewed determination. "Do you know where the Massive is now?! Can you take us there?!"
Sen shrunk back at the abrupt change of volume and winced when someone in an adjacent room banged on the wall with an annoyed shout. "I-I…yes? Why?" She stammered, squealing when Red snatched her by the wrist and hauled her back to her feet against her will.
"If you ever think about betraying us, I'll shoot you into space and laugh at your suffering." He warned, his grin quickly returning through the violence when he turned back to a very confused Purple trying to collect himself at the bizarre shift in the atmosphere. "Pur, I did it! I figured out what we have to do to kill Del!"
Purple immediately lit up, bounding forward over broken glass and nearly tripping over their backpack as he listened intently and waited with bated breath for Red's epiphany. "What?!" He jabbed him hard in the side. "Don't just keep it to yourself, idiot! Tell me!"
Red rubbed at his sore ribs, taking a deep breath and throwing his hands proudly on his hips when a sense of incredible intelligence flooded his senses and showed him what it felt like to finally be on top. "Sen said it herself, I just put two and two together to get to one word; injections. We know that once someone is injected with bad blood, they start deteriorating and it's irreversible, right?"
Purple frowned and tried to follow along, not seeing the point. "Uh…yeah?"
"That's what we'll do then to take down Del and Ipi! We'll inject them with a mixture of her blood," He shot a finger at Sen before turning it back on himself, "and my blood! I never thought I'd say thank the Star Mother for giving me shit DNA, but thank you Universe!" He threw his hands wide and continued his giddy laughter before stooping down and scooping up their backpack to sling it over his shoulders. "Sen, where does Ipi think you are now?"
Sen thought a moment, struggling to slip her heels back on as Purple brought his hands to his mouth and ran over the plan with intense excitement, practically vibrating across the floor as he picked up his pacing once more. "She thinks I'm coming to find you and arrest you."
Red snapped and went for the door, ushering the two along as he moved. "Perfect! I want you to arrest us and make it convincing to get us both back in the Massive without suspicion. Del trusts you, I'm assuming, and you can bring us to him as prisoners of war."
Purple followed, bounding around their new half-dead frenemy and moving to stop Red in his tracks. "Red, aren't you thinking about this too fast? What happens when we get back to the Massive and Del throws us in the stronghold? There's now we'd be able to make it out of there without someone on the inside to hit the access code." He pointed out, throwing another wrench in Red's original plans. "Plus, we don't have any way to get close enough to Del to, uh, you know." He made a few stabbing motions and scrunched up his face as he pretended to gut the man who threw him in virtual prison for cycles.
Huh. Maybe he had a point.
Red thought back to his time on the gargantuan flagship, thinking back over each and every hall he waltzed in his thick soled boots and trying to pinpoint the stronghold in his mind. It was located in the belly of the vessel, a fortified plasma cage surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed guards dedicated to keeping the most hardened of war criminals contained and away from their Tallest. Del's personal quarters was at the pinnacle of the ship, some seventy floors up and overlooking a gargantuan observatory as he retired to sleep and dream under the stars. He was his most venerable there, from what Red could remember, and the narrow passageway to his chambers was also heavily guarded by the finest of the Elite. Commander Poki, his toughest recruit, patrolled the wing and maintained her rounds through all hours of the night until she was relieved for much needed rest while Del was at his command chair on the bridge during the day. Even there, he would be surrounded by thousands of navigators, pilots, and engineers all scrambling to keep the ship regulated and on course, keeping him perpetually shrouded in the watchful gaze of someone. Shit. And then there was the need for supplies that they most definitely didn't have at the moment; needles, PAK suspension systems to stimulate the flow of blood, vials, and a centrifuge to adequately combine Red's blood with Sen's noxious sludge.
Dammit, this would be a lot harder than he'd anticipated.
"What if we could somehow cut the power?" Purple suggested, dropping his voice to a low whisper and keeping a careful eye on Sen as she trudged along close by, still not trusting of her motives, as they wiggled by the front desk. He frowned in disappointment when Red dipped a hand in the tip jar and scrounged up whatever change he could from the bottom of the glass.
Red quickly stuffed his fast cash grab into the pocket of his jacket, holding open the door and groaning when Sen took her time to hobble along in her ridiculously clicking heels. "The power to the whole ship?" He mused, gingerly shutting it and shivering when they were met with a blast of arctic air.
Purple moved back over and hung close for Red's warming touch, happy when he once again took his hand and carefully led him down the icy steps of the front patio. Flicky raced around the side of the building and rooted through the snowy embankment, kicking up ice crystals as she screeched and sang her low, happy tune as her worry faded away and turned to something ecstatic. She pressed her gooey flank into Purple's side and tried to grab him with her piercing mandibles to tug him back into her extensive tunneling system as Red and Sen looked on in utter disgust, knowing full well they couldn't take a fully grown Schloripps with them to the Massive. Red strode forward and reached out to tenderly brush a hand along her coat, shrinking back when she shuddered and gyrated down into the snow to place his partner upright onto his feet when he politely told her no.
"Sorry, Flicky but…how do I say this…Red and I can't stay here with you." Purple mumbled, swiping a finger along her proboscis and watching as her expressionless, elongated eye stalks craned down to stare at him from above. "You've been fantastic to us both and you saved our lives twice now, so thank you. You're…y-you're so nice and jiggly like a jelly donut and I don't wanna leave you but I can't take you because you'll get hurt and…a-and…I don't like this! I don't like it anymore!"
Purple kicked at the snow with the toe of his boot and folded forward to plop into her side, listening to her booming breath expelling from her hard exoskeleton as she shivered into his touch. She already knew from the beginning, Red taking his distraught lover gingerly by the shoulders and pulling him away as Flicky gave him a final warbling hiss, lovingly grazing his antennae with her fur as she unfurled her massive wings and beat them in the gloom of the darkness, a final display of her devotion and kindhearted nature before she made it easy and raced off towards the treeline. The undergrowth welcomed her back as she sang and chirped, bringing a sad, but necessary close to their chapter together and releasing her back to the wild. Red held Purple close for a few seconds longer when he faltered and let his grip slip away from his shoulders, shielding him from the violent winds when Sen yelled something over the blizzard and ushered them all on towards the beautifully painted, glossy black ship she'd come after them in during their reuniting nearly a week in the past. Red turned on his heel, leading his partner on towards the unknown and sighing long and low under his breath when the terrible realization of what was to come hitched in his chest and burned like a star. They were declaring war on the Irken Empire and uprooting thousands upon thousands of cycles of traditional Irken values to take on the formidable powerhouse that Del had become. He let Purple go first, watching him clatter up the metal steps of the main hatch as it fazed open to meet them and gripping at the icy guardrail when he realized there was no going back from this now. They would never be the same…never be looked upon with grace by the Control Brains…never be looked upon the same by their own people. No, this was death, and death was irreparable.
They were assassinating the Almighty Tallest.
Were they really ready for this?
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING, AND I CAN'T WAIT TO GO TO WAR WITH THE NEXT CHAPTER! Let's just say...things don't always go according to plan. I love writing high velocity action scenes with blood and guts and screaming and all of that juicy drama, so I'm gonna deliver a big shebang with chapter 19 ;) Stay tuned!
Next Update: Wednesday, April 1, 2020 by 10:00 pm CDT (UTC -5). Sometimes I get posts done before 10, so they may go up sooner as I learn to type faster! Thank you!
Now I'm going to go write my other ongoing piece, You, Plus Me, Equals Three and get back into the swing of writing comedy and little smeets. Sorry again, Larrimeme, for the wait! I got so wrapped up in things that I genuinely forgot but I have not forgotten your prompt and Zil is gonna give her gay dads hell! :D
Love, Charlie
