"Call out the National Guard! Call out the greatest Irken finders in existence! Heck, even call the GHOSTBUSTERS if it'll bring Purple back!" Red shouted, frantically pacing back and forth in the expansive control room. Beyond, Red's poor beloved Purple could be lost anywhere among the shining stars.

"My poor, defenseless Purple is out there somewhere, and it's all because I tried to make him give up that miniature parasite!" Red lamented, careening about the room as through he might swoon.

"Sir, in his defense, tallest Purple is hardly defenseless…"

Red, however, wasn't listening. He was too busy forming a mental picture. In it, soft violins played out a low, melancholy tune. Despite the fact that high florescent lights normally lighted the docking bay, in his mind the only light was thrown from half spent candles.

Purple, his middle swollen and jutting out of his body, stood with two tattered suitcases before a ship about to leave port. He was sniffling loudly, no, he was outright crying, rubbing the tears away with his long fingers as they fell. His free hand patted the round mass that was the young smeet miserably.

"All aboard for parts unknown," the conductor called. Still weeping, Purple hefted one suitcase in each hand, and slowly boarded the ship, not looking back at the home that was booting him out the door.

"Oh Purple," Red cried, tears glistening on his face. "I'll find you, no matter what!"

Meanwhile, the truth about Purple's situation couldn't have been farther from Red's daydream. Figuring that Red would need some time to fume, rant, and kick small service drones Purple had packed up Amber early that morning and headed to a nearby mall.

Amber, wearing her first real Irken smeet uniform, fidgeted unhappily as Purple removed her from his pouch and gently buckled her into a rented stroller. "Now come on honey, mama can't shop and carry you around in her pouch. You just wiggle too much!"

Amber seemed less than convinced and kicked her tiny feet irritably. To Amber, pouch equaled warm and safe, and stoller equaled cold and a good few of dozens of legs that could potentially injure her. She crouched as far back in it as she could, peering cautiously out at the outside world.

It didn't take long, however, for Amber to become convinced that the outside world wasn't as scary as it was interesting. She waved her arms excitedly at passers-by, drooling and popping spit bubbles. Several times Purple was forced to make uncomfortable "granny stops," when old ladies ganged up on him and brought his trip to a halt so they could pat Amber on the head and fuss over how tiny she was.

"You know, Amby, you're a real ham," Purple mock-scolded his little daughter, so giggled in response and pulled on the sun hat Purple had bought her. His basic premise for the shopping trip was simple. Maybe if he made Amber impossibly, unbearably, illegally cute Red would get to like her enough to grudgingly let her stay.

However, all was not well at the mall. A group of three large, hairy spider-beasts were huddled around a table at the food court, picking at the remains of a "Taco Fly" value meal.

"Man," lamented Larry, the biggest and also stupidest of the bunch. "I hate these processed insect bits."

"Yeah," sighed Samson, the smallest and second least intelligent of the group. "I miss the days when we'd just go out and hunt down a big, juicy insect. Now we've got to be all," he raised his voice a pitch, "politically friendly and environomentimally correct."

Tally, perhaps the only one of the group who understood what Samson had meant to say, sighed and ran her legs through her eating appendages unhappily. "Guys, face it. We need fresh meat or we're going to wither away over here."

At that moment, Purple's rather bad timing of late caused him to wander into the food court, Amber pushed ahead of him, searching for something to satisfy his own hunger. The three spider's jaws could almost be heard dropping in unison.

"Holy…"

"Heaven…"

"Someone pinch me!"

"That's the biggest bug I ever sawed!"

After wiping a shining strand of drool from her mouth, Tally turned back to her male companions. "Guys, I think we're having fresh meat tonight."

"Yeah!" the two males cheered.

Tally gestured for them to shush up quickly, drawing them in closer to her and speaking in a rushed whisper. "Not here, though. Too many security guards. We'll follow her back to her ship, then jump her. But remember, I get the infant."

"Why you?" the other two asked, hair bristling.

Tally smacked them on the backs of their heads. "Because I'm the leader, DUH!"

The two males looked at one another. "Oooooh," they commented. Made sense to their pea-sized brains. Tally sank further down in her chair. What they said about good help being hard to find was only partially true. As far as Tally was concerned, good help was impossible to find.

Purple watched the spiders from his seat, noticing their odd behavior but not really thinking anything beyond it other than he was glad he was a member of a far superior race to the spider-people.

Amber waved her hands excitedly as Purple held out an ice-cream cone to her. Using both hands and her entire lower face, she dug into the cone, lapping it with her little corkscrew tongue. "Amber!" Purple chided gently. "You're getting yourself all full of stickies!"

Amber burped in response as Purple cleaned the treat from her gloved fingers and happy green face. "You are so messy, yes you are!" he cooed, letting Amber lean up and lick his face with her sticky tongue. "Hey, none of that! Now, you got your treat, you're full up of grade-P (for Purple) smeet food, I think we're ready to finish our shopping, don't you?" he asked, hefting the smeet up into the air.

Amber giggled in agreement, kicking her feet.

After a busy day of shopping and buying things to hopefully please Red into at least forming a truce with Amber, Purple dragged slowly towards his ship. His hoverbelt hummed sadly, worn out from a day of shopping. Oh well, thought Purple, at least it's not my feet that are exhausted.

That was the last thing he was able to think before he was struck hard in the back of the neck with a hairy leg, sending him crashing to the ground. Packages scattered everywhere around where he fell. He'd thrown up his hands too late to protect himself from impact; as a result a bloody gash ran down the side of his face.

Purple sat up with a cry of pain, clutching the torn side of his face. His warm blood steamed on the cold pavement. Samson loomed up above him, slamming him hard across the face for a second time with a giant spider leg. Purple heard something crack as he fell back to the cold floor, shocks of pain racing through his hands as they were skinned up and bloodied by the impact.

The spider slammed into his back multiple times, causing Purple's body to twist and convulse against the ground. It hurt so badly, racing up and down his spine. Purple, having been caught entirely by surprise, could do little but curl up in a ball and attempt to defend a sobbing Amber, returned to the supposed safety of his pouch, from the brutal blows being slammed on him by the spider.

The world seemed to spin as Purple was hefted up and slammed hard into a wall. Something in his back made a loud crackling noise and all his surroundings turned to tones of red and black for a few moments, followed by bright lights flashing.

The spider's hairy legs were all over his body, tearing at his clothes, digging into his pouch. Amber, inside, wailed hysterically as the Tally seized her up, ripping her from Purple's pouch. "You're going to taste great," Tally grinned, raising the smeet high above her open mouth by one leg.

What happened next, not even Tallest Purple would be able to testify. All he could remember was hearing something snap in the back of his brain, then the world turning to a brilliant Red. When the tallest would awaken, he would still lying on his side in the parking complex. Amber would be buried in his side, still sobbing miserably from the spider having pulled her antennae, and three rather dead and battered spiders would be lying in a partial circle around him.

Purple stared at the dead spiders for a few moments before strapping their bodies to the back of his ship. Spider leg meat, after all, was one of Red's favorite treats. It couldn't hurt to bribe him.

It was really rather sad that Purple was unable to remember those few ultimate moments of glory, for there is nothing that fights more brutally than a cornered mother protecting the life of her cherished young. Had she lived to tell the tale, Tally would have sworn that the big bug's eyes had glowed with an unnatural Purple flame, right before he'd laid a punch like a semi-truck into her midsection.

The smeet had fallen from her clutch into the bug's arms right as he'd slammed a second kick directly into the middle of her body, flipping her straight over onto her back. Still holding the smeet in one arm, Purple had leaped across her body, expertly unhinging a laser blade from his belt and digging it into her middle. With a single slash of the blade, he dragged it through her middle and let her intestines poke out at the world.

The other two spiders roared in anger, thinking their leader only wounded, and charged the tallest. Dodging lightly underneath them, he'd heard the satisfying sound of their heads clunking together as he rolled to his feet, Amber whimpering and wailing in his grip. With a single slice of the blade he struck into the side of the biggest spider's head, splattering hot blood across the cold walls.

The spider, not wounded enough to die, turned on him and slammed him in the middle, throwing him to the ground. Amber shrieked in smeet horror, clinging to her mother as the two slid across the pavement.

"You frightened my daughter," Purple panted as he struggled to his feet, his hover belt damaged in the battle and giving off thick black smoke that added to his frightening look. "That's unforgivable."

The smaller spider lunged at Purple, who buried the end of his blade up to the hilt straight into the spider's head. The spider, blood leaking from out of his eye sockets, fell dead at Purple's feet.

"You're out of weapons," the wounded giant spider hissed, raising up on his back legs. "I'll avenge them as I gouge out your baby's eyes and make jelly of her brains!"

The spider shot straight at Purple, his legs aimed like weapons, but Purple had deployed his own sharp spider legs. The real spider impaled his chest into the four sharp-ended appendages. Still he was not hurt enough to die, and swung angrily at Purple, hitting him just right to rip Amber from his arms. The smeet tumbled from Purple, falling to the pavement with a screech of pain.

Even Purple and the spider weren't really sure what happened next, but it involved Purple driving his fist into the spider's gut hard enough that, when the spiders would be diced up to serve later, the cooks would find the spider's stomach partially inverted into his throat.

Then, rushing to Amber's side, Purple had collapsed from exhaustion and high amounts of adrenaline coursing through his blood stream but not having any target to act upon. He lay still for only about two minutes, then slowly sat up and rubbed his lavender eyes.

Finding the dead spiders, he did as has already been stated. That night, Red complimented Purple on his excellent choice of "tenderized" spider meat. Purple found it wise not to mention who had tenderized the spiders. No sense in making Red worry, he figured.

"So," Purple cooed, slyly stirring his drink as Amber, inside his pouch, simply took her drink straight out of the source. Purple had to admit, he was intensely looking forward to the day when she'd be at least partially weaned. Frankly, she tended to chew on rather sensitive flaps of flesh. "I heard you went frantic when you thought I'd run away, sending all your available crews to look for me, and they couldn't even find me at a mall?"

"Rumors, all rumors!" Red shouted. "I knew you'd come crawling back, I just hoped it would be without smeet like I ordered."

"Tough. She's mine and she stays."

Red narrowed his eyes. We'll see about that, he thought. We'll see about that.

===

More Art:

First few pictures.