"Ahem."

Red continued to stare into Purple's eyes, holding the other close.

Zim pointed his gun at Red. Louder this time, "Ahem."

Red pulled away from Purple and turned to face Zim promptly. "Of course. Of course. The two you had brought are just outside the door." He started to turn back.

"Are there guards behind the door?" Zim asked.

"Uh," Red thought for a quick, somewhat panicked moment, "probably." His leg wound, as well as the various other injuries he sustained, started to hurt now that things were calming down.

"Yes?"

"Yes." Red leaned over his shoulder and gestured to the watching navigators to come thither.

"I want us to be escorted back to the shipyard, as you had said."

"Oh. Well, there aren't any guards left alive in here, thanks to you." Red gestured around to the bridge, wincing. The only other living organisms being the navigators, worried and vaguely cowering, despite being completely uninvolved. One of which rushed to the injured Tallest.

"I'd prefer to not get shot by a brigade of soldiers rushing in after I open that door."

"They're the only people able to escort you," Red argued, his voice raising slightly.

"Zim, open the door and we'll order them to stand down," Purple stated, his voice audibly wavering in a 'just finished crying' sort of way, despite not having visibly shed any tears. Red glanced over at Purple with a, yet still anxious, but content gaze.

Dib stood at the side, close to the Tallest as Zim approached the terminal he'd disabled not but two minutes ago. He was glad that he'd had the foresight to simply disable it, a less effective fix, rather than completely destroy the controls. That would've made leaving a more cumbersome task.

As Zim typed, Red got some bandages, or at least a temporary substitute for them, from the navigator he'd called to him. He stopped leaning on purple and uneasily got down on one knee and tightly began to wrap the bandages around his wound. Luckily, it was only something of a graze, although one that bled quite a bit. He'd need to get it sorted out soon. Red needed Zim to leave quickly.

But, as it were, it was relatively easy to get the door open again. The moment he slammed his finger down on the final key, he backed up quickly. Rightfully so, as there was a massive group of guards on the other side. A plucky engineer had been trying to get it open, and was nearly trampled as the divisions funneled in, quickly. They pulled their guns up quickly and took aim.

"Stop! Put down your guns!" Red shouted with authority as he stood up again. Although, the vague shakiness in his voice did betray his message a tiny bit.

The soldiers slowed as they saw Dib and Zim completely unarmed, and the Tallest standing by them, with Red giving his order. Purple somewhat loudly added, "Don't shoot," his voice nearly devoid of authority. The guards stopped dead in their tracks, lowering their guns. They looked up to the Tallest for any other orders.

Red sighed. "Would some of you escort Zim and his partners back to the shipyard?"

From somewhere in the middle of the group, a guard spoke up, "Why?"

Another, in the front, asked, "Are you okay, my Tallest?"

"Purple and I will— we're alright," Red grunted as he tried to shift weight off of his disfigured leg. How the hell had he not really noticed it a minute ago? "And Zim has got what he wants. He's going to leave without any further trouble." Zim seemed to puff his chest and take in the glances from the guards.

From near the back of the horde, "But my Tallest, he's killed so many Irkens!"

"All the more reason for him to leave as soon as possible," Red cringed. Purple was clearly in pain too, but he wasn't in need of any medical attention like Red was.

"But my Tallest, he's—"

"Escort Zim to the shipyard! We don't need to talk about what he's done." Red took in a breath. "As for the rest of you, not accompanying Zim, begin helping clean up this mess."

Zim turned to Red, "And my ship?"

Red looked down at Zim, "What about your ship?"

"It's damaged, and it won't fly without repairs."

"What do you want me to do about that?"

"I want it repaired."

That would take far too long. "You can take one of the ships in the shipyard instead."

"No, I— any ship?"

"Any ship in the shipyard." Zim needed to get out of here now.

"Alright then. Agreed."

"Great. Now go. Leave. Get your friends and go; the guard will escort you."

"Thank you, my Tallest," Zim said before he ushered Dib to come along as they began to walk out. That final courtesy, most likely given as a result of the constant propaganda Zim had been subject to, was in stark contrast to all the rest of the treatment the Tallest had had directed their way, and it confused them in a rather unpleasant, facetious-feeling way.

The guards began to separate off and move throughout the room, in a less dense fashion. Three split off to accompany Zim and Dib as they reassembled with GIR and Minimoose and as they were led to the shipyard in the rear of the Massive.

Standing out of sight from the inside of the bridge, inadvertently hiding behind the threshold, GIR was excited to see Zim again, and ran up to him, hugging his pinkened legs. Minimoose squeaked and floated over to Zim and Dib. He floated over Zim's shoulder, giving his innocent grin to Dib, behind Zim. And after the brief reunion, with the potential for talking about what each group had experienced, they began to let the guards lead them back.

Dib asked about Minimoose; he finally had a pause in the action and tension to ask about what Minimoose had done back when they were nearly surrounded, and about why he was brought in the first place. Zim began to explain about his crafting of Minimoose, and his untapped, destructive power. Dib, and probably the stone-faced and disgruntled guards, listened in.

In the midst of the busy room, with navigators administering instructions and serving to organize and focus the potential of the guards into more efficiently cleaning up the bodies, the blood, the burns on the walls, and the general havoc, the Tallest held each other close for a moment. They were surrounded on all sides with a flurry of movement and activity.

"Are you okay, babe?" Red whispered tenderly.

"Me?" Purple spoke unsteadily, "You got shot."

"I'll be fine. You nearly got killed."

"But I didn't." Purple faltered.

"It sounds like you think you did."

Purple pulled Red in for a tight hug, one that exacerbated the bruises and gashes that they had sustained, yet still felt necessarily intimate. It was silent for a moment— just being savored by the two. Then, "Do you think you made the right decision?"

"What, trusting Zim?"

"Yeah."

"I have no idea. Maybe he wouldn't have had the guts to kill me. But I couldn't let them kill you."

Purple saw, over Red's shoulder, the guards shoot glances at the Tallest. Despite the Tallest's relationship always being something of an open secret, they'd done a pathetic job in keeping it hidden that day. And that open secret was simply going to become open. Not to mention, the bodies of countless guards were riddled throughout the Massive, with Zim having ended many lives. And the Tallest just let him go. Relatively unharmed and completely unpunished. The guards didn't look pleased with either fact.

"Do you think everything's going to be alright after this?" Purple wondered.

Red pulled back from the hug, staring into Purple's eyes. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"What do we do if things go bad?"

"Who knows." Red abruptly leaned in and put his lips against Purple's. Purple hadn't expected it, but quickly reciprocated it. Surrounded by corpses being dragged away, and malcontent guards staring at them, the Tallest once again tried to keep from falling apart by means of the other. Red noticed the faint taste of blood upon Purple's face. And to Red, it felt like their best, and to Purple, it felt like perhaps their last.

They seperated and Red saw the look of anxiety still present upon Purple's face. Red quickly and quietly added, "Don't worry about it right now. Tomorrow we can stress about the repercussions of all of this. Right now, we shouldn't." And with a bit of a smirk, nearly drunken in its formation, "And maybe tonight, in our personal quarters, we can try and alleviate some of that stress."

Purple took on the same dopey grin. "Maybe."

Red pulled back. "But first, I really need to get my leg fixed up."

"Oh, yeah, of course! Here, lean on me, sweetheart, I'll help you out."

Zim and the others were being led by the three armed guards back to a teleporter room, where it was then just straight shot back to the shipyard. As they walked, the group could see the mess that they had made being cleaned up; bodies being dragged away, pools of blood being wiped away, and walls and mechanisms being repaired.

Dib tried to not focus on that. He wanted to try his luck and learn more about Irkens and aliens in general, if he could.

"Well then, how many other empires are there?" Dib asked.

"Some," the guard in front stated.

"Any estimate?"

"Several."

"Well, how many can you name?"

"At least a few."

"Could you—"

Another guard spoke with their teeth nearly gritted, "You and Zim killed hundreds of people today. You nearly killed the Tallest. You've embarrassed and injured the Empire. And that's not even considering everything Zim's done in the past. So stop asking dumb questions."

Zim, with what leverage he had now, could have done something about that guard, but after looking over at Dib, and seeing that he peacefully complied and kept quiet, Zim didn't respond. As such, the rest of the walk was silent. It was only filled with the various thoughts of the two as they tried to comprehend and contemplate everything that they had done that day. There would be a lot to think about.