this was written before pn2 so this is all speculation about mirtala since all we know about her is that she has giant eyes and has feral baby energy. i had a dream that chloe was in pn2 just so she and mirtala could be foils to bobby and raz' rivalry, and i haven't known peace all day.

Oh, This Is Loathing

"They look really nice," Milka said, leaning over to inspect Chloe's blueprints.

Chloe beamed. The hydro thrusters she had sketched were coming along perfectly, and she was glad her friend agreed. She had spent the majority of the day in the Main Lodge planning the intricate details of her latest spaceship such as where to screw in the nuts and bolts. She even made a few paper planes with coke cans attached to their undersides as scale models, having set them aside to finalize her blueprints with Milka at her side.

"Thank you. All I need to know now is the exact amount of psitanium needed to get them running to break through this planet's atmosphere," she said, smoothing out a few wrinkles on her paper. Tapping her pencil on the nose of her ship, she asked, "Do you think it looks too small?"

Milka hummed, tucking her hands into her lap. "Mm, I dunno. Maybe when you build it, it'll look a lot bigger." She cocked her head. "You still planning on bringing Bobby with you?"

"Of course," she affirmed with a single bob of her head. "He may have graduated from camp, but he is still my second-in-command."

Milka nodded and went back to her own drawing. She was drawing another picture of Elton, her formerly crude stick figures more refined after two years of practice. She swung her legs underneath the picnic bench as she added shadows under Elton's bangs, a tiny grin on her face.

Chloe returned to her work. She was glad to have a friend like Milka sitting with her as she continued sketching. She was quiet, observant, and no-nonsense sense of girl. Chloe would ensure that she'd be spared if Earth's population needed to be thinned under the Galactic Federation's orders.

They didn't need to talk. The silence was comfortable as they continued drawing. Unlike others, they didn't need to keep jabbering about nothing, filling the space between them with dead air. Milka's crayons dug into her page as she lined the stripes on Elton's pants, almost overpowering Chloe's quick pencil strokes as she added more seating to her spaceship. They continued on with their business, the only other sound being Ford's spatula smacking down cold patties on an unlit grill until his snoring filled the lodge, alerting them to the fact that he had fallen asleep standing up again.

"Hey," Milka began, causing Chloe to raise her head, "I'm gonna go show this to Elton."

"He'll be very impressed with your improvement," she said, Milka's cheeks turning a shade of pink.

Milka giggled under her breath. She ran her fingers through her shoulder-length hair and pressed her drawing to her chest. Turning invisible, her skipping footsteps made Chloe smile as she hurried out of the lodge.

Interesting. She still becomes flustered when discussing Elton's appreciation for her work. Human emotions are so bewildering! Chloe thought, leaning down and unzipping her backpack. She pulled out one of her many spiral notebooks and flipped to a recent page. Taking her pencil, she wrote down her observation and clapped her notebook shut, pushing it away to return to her blueprints.

And then, something jingled behind her.

Chloe paused, her eraser pressing against a misspelled word in the margins. Looking over her shoulder, she tilted her head as Raz' little sister flounced inside from the back exit. She remembered her name was Mirtala, and judging from the badge clutched in her tiny fist, she had finally passed Basic Braining, granting her the opportunity to freely explore camp without a chaperone.

Certainly, she was interested in the other girl. Considering she was related to Raz, she expected the same level of levity and wit she had experienced with him. He had humored her in the past, even bantering with her about the Trynaxian galaxy. There was never any irritation in his voice, and when Mirtala caught eyes with her, Chloe expected similar results.

"Hey! You're that alien kid!" Mirtala exclaimed, throwing her finger out.

"Yes, I am that 'alien kid,' but my name is Chloe," she said, nodding.

Mirtala cocked her head and asked, "You know aliens aren't real, right?"

Chloe drew back, the question more like a punch to her stomach. She blinked, her lips parting without any sound. She stared at Mirtala as if she had grown a second head, her own shock too great to fully comprehend.

Although she had encountered that question many times from other children and adults, it still stupefied her when she met someone who doubted her. It was her first conversation with Mirtala, but she was already proposing that she wasn't an alien. Having met others such as Bobby, Elton, and Milka who believed her almost made her forget that others denied her existence, and hearing it from someone like Mirtala made her heart flutter a little faster.

"Aliens aren't real. My sister says they're fake things so people can make up lies about Area 51," Mirtala said, leaping over to the stupefied Psychic Scout. She spun on her heels and quickly dug her elbow on the table, grinning up at Chloe.

Chloe shook her head. Closing her eyes, she sucked down a breath and sighed. The little voice in her head told her that she was being pranked. Kitty had pulled a similar trick on her last summer, putting notes on the bulletin board meant to goad her into an argument about the legitimacy of her alien heritage. She certainly wasn't going to fall for another trap, especially since Bobby had been the one to straighten Kitty out by punching her so hard in the mouth that she lost a tooth, and he had to spend an entire day in the GPC, an endeavor she joined him for out of guilt.

"To say that aliens aren't real is nonfactual. In fact-" Chloe tapped Mirtala's shoulder. "-by saying that, you're denying all aliens who live in other galaxies and universes. You can't say all of them aren't real when there are still many possibilities that they exist elsewhere. I am proof of that."

"So, you're a human pretending to be an alien?" Mirtala asked, pinching another nerve Chloe didn't know she had.

"No, no, you're not understanding me." Chloe steepled her fingers. "What I am saying is that just because humans, with their lack of technological advancements, haven't discovered aliens in other parts of the known galaxy and universe, does not mean they don't exist in other unexplored areas of space."

Mirtala shook her head, the bells on her head ringing in an octave Chloe suddenly found very, very irritating. "But you said you're proof of that despite looking like a human."

"Wh-? I'm not human, you-you earth chimp," she snapped, her hands balling into fists. Leaning back, she splayed her fingers and swallowed. She would not let herself be riled up by someone she hardly knew.

"Raz told me you think you're an alien, but that doesn't make sense, like, you look so human!" Mirtala exclaimed, throwing her arms up. Humming, she leaned forward and clapped her hands around the sides of Chloe's helmet. "Oh, hey! You kinda look bald under your helmet. Maybe that's why you think you're an alien. Your hair just doesn't grow like those weird gray aliens they use in old movies."

Another nerve had been pinched, and Chloe's cheeks burned. Her shoulders tensed, and she screwed her expression into something similar to anger. She ordered Mirtala to release her, scowling when Mirtala continued rocking from side to side, pulling Chloe in either direction of her inane wobbling.

As if she hadn't realized what she said was offensive, Mirtala asked, "So, if you're an alien, you shouldn't be able to breathe oxygen, right?"

"Yes! Yes, that is true," Chloe said, reaching up and gripping her wrists. She tried pulling her hands off, but her grip was too strong. She noticed she wasn't even breaking a sweat as Chloe struggled to push her off, gritting her teeth as she tried her best to remove the nuisance.

"So, let's try it!" Mirtala snatched the underside of Chloe's helmet and shouted, "Yoink!" as she yanked it off her head.

Chloe blinked as air conditioning brushed through her short, buzzed hair. She remained perfectly still, her lungs and heart coming to a full stop. The natural colors of the lodge blurred together, the orange tint of her helmet gone away with as Mirtala grinned down at her.

And then, Chloe snatched her throat, flailed her legs, and collapsed to the floor. She gasped and gagged, struggling for breath. Kicking her seat, she felt her blood rush between her ears. Panic settled in her head, her mind racing for solutions while refusing to cooperate with her body. All she knew was that the poisons of the planet's atmosphere were seeping into her through her exposed mouth, nostrils, and even eyeducts, already feeling lightheadedness plague her senses and numb her body.

"Hey, you're gasping!" Mirtala cried, humor flitting in her tone. She set Chloe's helmet on the picnic bench and crouched, grinning impishly. "See, you're breathing, and point proven, you're a human."

Chloe stopped her struggling. She remained on the ground, her expression blank. Slowly sitting up, she breathed in slowly. The air wasn't poisonous much to her chagrin. She supposed that her own anxiety had caused such a strong reaction, and she breathed through her mouth, the cold air filling her chest.

"The air is...clean," she said, her eyes wide. "That's-that's-no, maybe my genetics have become accustomed to this planet? How curious."

"Oh, whoa! You're really cute with your helmet off," Mirtala said, tilting her head, her jingling bells igniting something like fury inside of Chloe. "Wanna go out? What do you say?"

Dragging her gaze to Mirtala, she narrowed her eyes into slits and remarked, "When the necessary planetary thinning arrives, I will ensure you are the first to be eliminated."

Her shoulders slumped, and Mirtala huffed, "Wow, okay, way to be a sore loser."

And in that moment, Chloe fully understood Bobby's compulsive need to hate Raz.

Grabbing her helmet, Chloe shoved it back on her head. Lowering her voice, she hissed, "You are...very annoying. You are the most annoying creature I have had the misfortune of meeting on this polluted rock."

"I mean, I can live with that. I got four siblings who tell me the same thing on a daily basis," Mirtala replied, Chloe feeling like the blood vessels in her eyes would pop at any second.

"Mark my words," she said, folding her blueprints and looping her backpack over her shoulder, "I will not forget this transgression. When my people come for me, I will forego my natural mercy should they choose to exterminate this planet."

Mirtala winked. "You're cute when you say scarily big vocab of the week words."

Chloe's vision blanked, the memory of what happened in-between those few seconds a complete mystery to her.

The next thing she knew, she had thrown her belongings to the floor and tackled Mirtala into a row of stacked picnic benches.

When Milka returned, she was completely baffled to find Chloe telekinetically shoving Mirtala into a trash can. All Mirtala could do was scream as Milka rushed over and opened the back door for Chloe, allowing her to roll Mirtala out all the way to the parking lot.

"You had to fight a ho, and I missed it?" Milka asked, aghast as Chloe rubbed her hands together.

"Apologizes, Milka. It will not happen again, but if it does, I will graciously accept your help." She raised her head and wiped a bit of blood from her nose. Grabbing Milka's shoulder, she added, "Also, thank you for being a true friend."

Milka bumped her fist into Chloe's and said, "No problem. We gotta stick together to beat the new hos in camp."

"Agreed."

Later on, Chloe penned a very long letter to Bobby telling him of her ordeal with Mirtala, and he wrote back that he was more than supportive of her "kicking Mirtala's ass back to the circus."

chloe, 22, slamming open the door to milka's office: milka you're not gonna believe the shit mirtala pulled today
milka: spill the tea chloe i got your back.