A/N: This chapter took longer than i thought it was going to, but it's finally here.

In other news, i now have a tumblr (lifezvictory) So please, if you can, check it out!


The events leading up to Yellow's first mission were strange. They blurred together, and at the same time were more vivid than any other of her memories. Graduating from high school, training, finally getting to wear the yellow suit for the first time! And now, here she was. A fully fledged MIRA crewmate, ready to depart for the stars.

Crew 456, the crew she had been assigned to, was a bit of a mixed bag. There were six members in total, including Yellow. Three of them, like her, were pretty new recruits. The others had been long-time employees, working together to show the others the ropes. They had been rushed off to the Skeld, the ship they'd be working and living on for the next few weeks, so quickly that they hadn't had the time to introduce themselves. So, they now sat around a table in the cafeteria, giving their names (or just colors if they preferred that)pronouns, and a few fun facts about themselves.

White went first. "My name is Mark Whitman, but I'd prefer to be addressed as Captain White, or simply White. I use he/him pronouns. As my alias implies, I am the captain of the crew. I look forward to working with all of you."

If yellow wasn't so preoccupied with being amazed that she was finally on a spaceship, in space, she would've thought the captain's extremely formal way of speaking was a bit odd. Nevertheless, Green went next.

"Aspen Green, he/him, please just call me Green. If anyone doesn't know how to do something, for god's sake, please ask White or me; messing up could get us all killed."

"On that happy note," Blue continues, eliciting a glare from the crewman sitting next to them. "I'm Robbin Waters, they/them, call me Robbin or Blue, I really don't care. The small town I'm from was boring, so I wanted to move out. Way out, know what I'm saying?"

Next was Purple's turn. "My name is Kimber Heatherfall. I identify as female and use she/her pronouns. I have trained as a medic, and this is my first mission as such. Though, I'd like to take the time to point out how odd it is that all of our names seem to correlate with our suit colors. Is it a coincidence, or was it an intentional choice by MIRA? I'd love to discuss this further, but now I think Yellow should go. Yellow?"

"Me? Oh, yeah. Okay…" Yellow takes a deep breath, trying to contain herself. And fails miserably. "I'm the yellow crewmate! I can't believe I'm actually the yellow crewmate! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! This is so awesome! I'm going to explore space, make scientific discoveries and… and… uh… she/her."

Yellow can feel her face heating up. Desperately, to take the attention off herself, she turns to the final person at the table sitting next to her. "Uh, hey. It's your turn."

The person seems to jump, gaze locking with hers. Yellow feels her heart skip a beat. "Red. They/them." They say.

A few moments of silence pass. Green interrupts it. "That's it? No, where I'm from, no what inspired me to join mIRA, not even your name?"

"To be fair, Green, you didn't say anything about yourself either." Green glares at the captain, but he pointedly ignores it.

"I didn't say my name, either." Yellow adds, feeling the need to defend Red. "They're probably shy, or nervous, like me. For a lot of us, this is, like, our very first time leaving Earth. It's a lot."

"They're going for the quiet, mysterious esthetic. I like it," Blue adds.

"With introductions out of the way, let's go over basic rules and expectations." White continues, but his voice is barely a murmur in the back of Yellow's mind. Along with her excitement of achieving her dreams, Yellow's thoughts kept going back to the quiet person sitting next to her. She couldn't help but keep stealing glances at them when no one was looking.

Yellow wasn't sure what it was, but there was something about Red that intrigued her, something different that she couldn't quite place. She really wanted to talk to them one-on-one, get to know them, maybe just hang out with them?

Oh, crap! Yellow thought when she realized what was going on. I have a squish!


Yellow was finally almost done with unpacking. Her quarters were, in complete honesty, lacking. But she had brought a few things to help with this issue. Namely, Axie and Lottie, her pet axolotls. She had worried that MIRA wouldn't let her bring them, and they almost didn't. But it all worked out in the end.

"We're in space, guys!" She whispers shouted to them. "Can you believe we're in space? I can't; it's like a dream!"

The two little creatures didn't seem very enthused about this fact, swimming up towards the surface in a manner Yellow knew all too well. "Oh, you guys must be hungry. When was the last time you ate? Oh jeez, I'm soooo sorry! I was so excited about our first mission, that I—oh, I feel horrible! OH, you poor babies… Don't worry, food's coming up right now. How about pickled worms? Those are one of your favorites, right? Alrighty, hold tight, I'm getting them right now."

As Yellow rambled, fishing in her remaining luggage for a literal can of worms, her new iMira vibrated, emitting the pleasant 'poo-pop!' That meant she'd gotten a notification from the crew's group chat. Meh, it's probably my task list for the day, she mused. Whatever it is, making sure my lil cuties don't starve is more important.

"Aha!" Yellow exclaimed as she finally retrieved her pets' food. "That took longer than it should have." She opens up the can, not cringing at all as she pinches a long, fat worm between her thumb and forefinger. She carefully drops it into the tank. The two pink beasts within go crazy, racing for it. Lottie gets there first, starting to eat from the tail up, but Axie isn't giving up and grabs the head.

"Hey," Yellow scolds, tapping on the side of the tank hard enough to get the duo's attention but soft enough not to frighten them. Something she had perfected over the years of having these two scamps. "Stop trying to take your sister's worm, Axie. I'm going to give you more, so there'll be plenty for both of you." She adds a second worm, and thankfully it's enough to divert Axie's attention. But as soon as Lottie's finished with her worm, she goes after his! "Oh, what am I going to do with you two?" Yellow mutters good-naturedly.

This time, she drops two worms in at once. Each axolotl takes their own worm. "There we go, I knew you two could play nice. And Aunt Saffron thinks I'm too immature to ever make a good mother, ha! Anyway, are you guys okay with taking a breather before your next course? I gotta text I need to look at. It'll only take a sec."

Wiping her hands on her suit, Yellow pulls her phone out of her pocket and gazes at the message. Her heart jumps into her throat when she reads the text from the captain, mentioning every crewmate.


Captain White: Hello everyone, please report to the cafeteria for a meeting as soon as possible. It's not an emergency meeting, but it is quite urgent.


"Oh, crap!"

Not wasting any more time, Yellow plops two more worms into the tank, running out the door. "If you're still hungry when I get back, I'll give you more," she shouts over her shoulder as she darts out of her room.

Heart pounding, Yellow arrives in the cafeteria about a minute later. "Ah! Sorry I'm late!" She gasps, doubling over. Her training had gotten a bit sedentary at the tail-end, so she was in worse shape than usual. "I had to feed Axie and Lottie."

It was then that she noticed her crewmates' faces, with expressions ranging from worried, to frustrated, to zoned out in thought. Surely, this wasn't caused by her entrance. "Hey, why do you guys look so freaked out? Am I missing something here?"


An impostor. There was an impostor among them.

Yellow hadn't even known what an impostor was up until a second ago. She'd of thought MIRA would've taken the time to explain to her: "Hey, there's a chance that you could, like, be betrayed by one of your supposed crewmates and get brutally murdered during your mission." Isn't it illegal to not tell people about this sort of thing? Although they did make her sign a lot of complicatedly worded documents…

Yellow didn't like thinking this way. This had been her dream for so long, and for it to be tainted like this hurt. Ugh, I hate growing up.

Yellow had signed up for dangers like black holes and asteroids, not murderous impostors. She hated being in this situation where she had to be suspicious of every little thing people did; she hated not being able to just be friends. Maybe she could be both? Be friendly and watch her back? That seemed like as good a plan as any. And also, I'm going to enjoy this.She promises to herself. No matter what happens, no matter how many hardships I face, this is my dream, and I'm going to make it work. I never thought it would be easy, anyway.


There were vents in the Skeld. Yellow supposed they had something to do with temperature regulations and oxygen circulation, but that's not what she was focused on. They were big vents, much larger than the average ones found in homes for heating and air conditioning.

Further investigation revealed that not only could they be easily opened and shut, but they were mapped out along with all the locations on the ship. As she studied the map, an idea began to form. A pretty hair-brained idea, but one she fully intended on going through with.

I could use the vents to get around the ship faster. That way I can get my tasks done quick, so we'll all be done faster! And also, it'll be fun. Now, which vent do I try first?

Scrolling through her task list, Yellow spotted that she had something she needed to do in storage. There's a vent going there!

Like a super spy, yellow makes her way towards the vent leading to her destination. Excitement tingles through her veins as she nears it. Gosh, it's been soooo long since I've crawled around in something I probably shouldn't be!

With a glance around the room to make sure no one was watching, Yellow swung open the vent with ease, darting inside. It shut behind her with a bang.

I hope nobody heard that, Yellow thought to herself with a secret little smile.

A few moments in, Yellow could swear that she could see movement up ahead. But it was quite dark in the vent, so she chalked it up to her eyes playing tricks on her.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" that is, until her ears were filled with screams. It was confusing to her, though, because it sounded like two people were screaming? Then she realized: she was screaming along with whoever was in here with her.

Mind full of Adrenalin, Yellow did her best to put space between herself and the other person. She'd messed up, she knew that now. But who was here with her? Were their tasks to be done in the vents? If so, she hadn't been assigned them. Was she going to get in trouble? Oh, if it's Captain White in here…

"Oh crap! Oh, jeez! Oh, no! I'm sorry, I-I didn't think that—augh! Ouch!" Yellow's apology was cut off as she slammed her elbow into the wall of the vent. Struck speechless with the horrible ringing pain, she waited for the person's response.

"What are you doing in here?" Wait, Yellow knew that voice! It had much more of a crazed, incredulous edge than she'd ever heard before this point, but that was none other than Red.

Yellow's fear quickly faded into embarrassment as she realized she had been caught venting by her squish. Who was also in the vents, so maybe they'd understand if she explained herself to them?

Deciding it was worth a shot, Yellow took a deep breath, massaging her elbow as she spoke. "I was taking a shortcut to storage," The crewmate explained sheepishly. "I wanted to make a good impression by getting all my tasks done quickly. Also so I could have more time to chill with Axie and Lottie, the lil cuties! Hehe! I didn't think anyone else would have the same idea of using the vents; they're surprisingly clean. You'd think they'd have some kind of funky space gunk in them."

Yellow forced herself not to cringe; she had fallen back into the bad habit of rambling when she was nervous. And as a result, she had failed miserably in getting her message across to Red. Their remaining flabbergasted expression proved that. "No! I mean, you're not supposed to be in here. Only impostors can go inside the vents."

Shame pulsed in Yellow's cheeks. Of course. Her first strong squish in who knows how long, and she was making a terrible impression by breaking the rules. Resigned, she continued to wiggle away. Moving backwards in small spaces was something she'd have to improve. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that was a rule."

And then what exactly Red had said hit her full force. She froze, as her brain seemed to glitch for a moment like an out of date computer. "…Wait."

Yellow's eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the vent, and she could now make Red out better than she did before. Their eyes were shot wide. They looked like a deer staring into car headlights. "Um, is what I thoughtbefore I saw you down here, so clearly that's not the case. Ahaha."

As sus of a situation this was, Yellow couldn't help feeling bad for her squish. They looked to be on the edge of a breakdown. But then the inadequacy of their explanation hit her. "And you too, right?"

"Uh? Oh, yes, of course! Me too…"

"But hey, why would you come down here if you thought only the impostor could? Like, wouldn't that make you seem…"

"Yeah, I guess that it would make me look sus. I really should've thought about that, huh?"

Yeah, it really doesn't. The crewmate thinks to herself. As strong as her feelings are getting, she's still able to tell how bad this looks for Red. Her too, if she's seen. "Yeah. I mean, I'm new and didn't know what an impostor even was until five minutes ago, what's your excuse?"

"I… I guess I have none, do I?" Instead of looking shocked, Red looks resigned. Yellow wonders what's going through their head?

What do they think I'm gonna do, attack them? She wonders. Or report them? I probably should; this is sus. But all they're doing is venting, just like I am, and I'm not an impostor. Although, the way they're behaving right now seems to make it obvious they're the impostor.

Keyword: seems. Yellow continues to think. What they've been saying right now… it's almost cartoonish how obvious they seem to be right now; as if this were some story somebody made up when they were bored one day. And that… well, it just doesn't seem to match the vibe I've been getting. I was told that impostors are smart; they have to be if they've been killing people for so long and MIRA hasn't been able to stop them for good. So an impostor wouldn't make a mistake like this, right? So, what else is there?

The realization hit her like a truck. Yellow chastised herself for not thinking of it sooner. Maybe they had the same idea as me! She realized. They decided to vent as a shortcut, ran into me in here, and got scared because they think I'm the impostor!

The more she pondered it, the more sense it made. They probably think I pretended not to know what an impostor was to throw the crew off my trail! Which is a pretty good plan, not gonna lie, but I'm not the impostor. Wow, I sound sus even to myself. But forget that for now, I've gotta fix this!

An idea of how to do so hits her next. A way to calm their fears and get acquainted with her squish! She's noticed how Red doesn't seem to be hanging out with anyone like everybody else on the crew; they must feel at least a little lonely. Well, she can help with that!

"Well, it's okay." she tells them. "I won't tell anybody… if you agree to be my vent buddy!"

Red looked bewildered. "Your… what now?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to give away my right to travel on this ship however I dang well please just because some alien or whatever's on the loose. These vents are cool, and I fully intend on exploring them more. But if this is how the impostor commonly gets around, it could be dangerous to go it alone. Plus, you seem pretty cool. I think we could be great friends. So what do you say, Red? Wanna be my vent buddy?"

Please say yes, please say yes…

To her great joy, Red nods. "Sure. That sounds like a great idea."

"Yay!" Her excitement getting the better of her, Yellow lunges forward, (undoing all her effort of squirming backwards) and hugs her new friend. Well, tries to, anyway. Embarrassment creeping up on her again, Yellow makes a joke. "Wow! I didn't know I'd be getting vent cuddles as well! This arrangement just gets better and better!"

"Yellow, you are crushing my arm."

"Whoops, sorry Red."

"Urgh!"

Yellow thinks the situation as a whole went as well as it could have, all things considered. She made a friend, a vent buddy to be precise, and now felt more at ease and a part of the crew. There were still some lingering thoughts about Red, but she chalked them up as mostly paranoia. If they do anything else sus, I will report them. She promises herself. Until then, they're innocent until proven otherwise.


Yellow couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned, but couldn't get comfortable in the small bed.

If she were at home, she'd drink some warm milk, maybe even lay down with her uncle B for a while. Some people might think it odd to still sleep in the same bed as her uncle sometimes, but it brought her comfort and wasn't at all weird for her or her uncle.

There was no milk on the Skeld. No Uncle B, either. But maybe she could get a snack?

Her stomach growled loudly as soon as she had that thought. Okay, a snack it is, then.

Green was in the cafeteria, cleaning the tables when she arrived. Red was there, too. Green seemed grumpy, but that was probably because he stayed up to finish his tasks. He'd fed her in the end, which thankfully helped her to subtle.

Red was also in the kitchen. Yellow wondered if they were having trouble sleeping too, but decided it was too early on in their friendship to ask. She knew she could be overbearing at times, especially when she was tired, and didn't want to make them uncomfortable.


A day or two after that, Yellow and Red were in the vents together. It was a nice experience, crawling around with someone else. She wasn't sure whether she had done that before or not. In any case, it was fun.

Yellow noticed Purple having trouble with her card. She hadn't really spent much time with anyone besides Red, and decided that this would be a good opportunity to make more friends.

"Hey Purple! Need some help?"

Purple smiles, not seeming to notice that Yellow hadn't come in through a door. "Hi, Yellow. Oh, yes, please. I can never get this stupid thing to work right."

Now it was Yellow's turn to smile. "Yeah, I hear you. But I've managed to figure out how to make it work. Want me to show you?"

Purple nodded, sighing in relief. "Please do. It pains me that this is the most difficult task for me to complete."

Yellow expected Purple to have her swipe her own card. Instead, she gave Yellow hers. Yellow shrugged, lining the card up to swipe it.

"Now you wanna be sure that you swipe it at just the right speed, and…"

The room went black. "Aaaaaahhhhh!" Purple screamed. "What the!?"

"Wow, that's never happened before."

"It wasn't you, Yellow; I think it was the impostor! We gotta get out of here!"

"Purple, wait!" Yellow's heart began pounding as the other crewmate bolted. She sprinted after the direction of her footsteps, blindly reaching out for her.

Eventually, Yellow smacked into someone. But it wasn't Purple. "Red!? What are you doing out here!" She whisper-shouted. "It's not safe to be alone out here when there's clearly an impostor around." She pulls herself closer and whispers even quieter. "Let's go back into the vents. If the impostor is messing with stuff out here, they can't be in there. We'll be safe."

Yellow can't help but tremble as she huddles close to her vent buddy. Their suit feels a little weird to her, oddly warm and… organic? She shouldn't be able to feel their pulse through their suit, right? And what kind of rhythm is that? She'll have to let White know their suit's malfunctioning later, she supposes. In the meantime…

"W-We left P-Purple out there!" Yellow whimpers in dismay, her heart clenching in fear and despair. "What if… what if she gets killed?" She doesn't know if she can forgive herself if Purple's killed out there, while she and Red are just laying here doing nothing.

"She won't." Red sounds almost casual, as if talking about the weather.

"How do you know?"

"… I just do." If nothing else, Yellow is grateful for Red's confidence in Purple!


Another day. Introducing Red to Axie and Lottie. They seemed to like each other, to Yellow's great joy.

Then it happens. An emergency meeting is gone. White is concerned about the impostor threat. Then, Yellow goofs up.

She didn't mean to tell the rest of the crew that they were vent buddies. She knew what it sounded like; she might as well have said 'accomplices' due to how it sounded. She tried to defend herself. To defend Red, too. And then…

Red was shouting at her. They'd never done that before. They were so angry. They were…

Yellow tried to fight it, but lost quickly. The tears came, and she was unable to stop them.