Right as Red finished drawing his leg back, a tiny voice cried out in panic. "Stop!" it shouted.
Red jumped a good two feet in the air, hoverbelt or not. That had sounded like an adult's voice, but it had also sounded so tiny… how could someone tiny possibly be questioning his will?
Red whipped around, ready to bean the intruder on the head. No one there. He turned to the left. Again, he saw nothing. He turned the to the right. Only empty space met his gaze. That meant the voice had to come from directly in front of him…
Red turned slowly forward, then let out a scream of shock and fell backwards, smacking the back of his head as he landed. "Ow," he cried, rubbing his wounded skull. "Who the heck are you?"
Floating in the air at barely Red's chest height was a tiny Irken. Not just tiny by a tallest's standards; the little Irken could only have been maybe six inches from foot to antennae tip. It was dressed in a flowing crimson gown. A tiny pink halo floated above the miniature Irken's head, and a pair of scarlet wings fluttered behind it. The little Irken looked up at Red with unhappy crimson eyes.
"I'm your conscience," he answered, not sounding the least bit pleased.
"My conscience? Shouldn't the conscience of a tallest be a bit… I dunno… bigger?" Red asked, confused.
"I wish," it muttered too quietly for Red to hear.
"Didn't I tie you up and launch you out of a cannon the day they announced my name as tallest?" Red inquired, chewing on one finger thoughtfully.
"Yes, but that's not what I'm here to discuss," the conscience cried, flailing his tiny arms. "You can't kick that baby! She's defenseless, and doesn't have the chance to strike back or even attempt to protect herself from harm!"
"It's her fault that Purple got kidnapped, and to keep anyone from knowing I have to do his job as well as mine! That's twice the work!"
"That's not her fault and you know it. Besides, you usually wiggle out of doing your work anyway. Doing some work will be good for you, it builds character!"
"Riiight. Look, little angel-thingie, if you're done ranting at me I've got a baby to punt to the moon…"
"You will not! It's wrong!"
Red leered at his conscience. "How are you going to do that, teeny-tiny thing?"
The conscience held his ground, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you even think of hurting that baby again, I'll set my big brothers on you."
Red nearly collapsed from laughter, doubling over and holding his ribs. Between gasped attempts to fill his lungs with air he said, "What could your big brothers possibly do to ME?" With that, he reached over and flicked the angel's halo off his head.
The conscience's eyes lit with tiny flames. He reached into his front pocket and drew out a new halo, putting it back on his head at an angle. "That's it! I hate to do this, but it's for your own good," the conscience scolded, shaking a skinny finger at Red.
Red was about to wave the conscience off when a tiny voice in his head whispered, "You shouldn't have had that extra donut for breakfast! Now you're going to get fat, and no girl wants to mate with a fat guy!"
"Huh?" Red asked, surprised by the sudden voice in his head. Another one spoke up. "It's all your fault that Purple got kidnapped. You're a baaaaad Irken."
"What did you do to me?" Red screamed, clawing at his head. The two voices weren't done with him by any means, however.
"That dress makes you look ugly! Ugh, it does nothing for your complexion."
"You should have gone left instead of right at that fork in the star system. If you'd done that, none of this would have happened."
"Ooooh, you must be the stupidest Irken ever! You're so stupid, I bet you couldn't even find your way out of a paper bag. By the way, did you remember to turn the stove off when you were done using it? Probably not, you're too dumb to remember that."
"Kicking a baby? What were you THINKING? You must be some kind of monster!"
The angel, still hovering in front of Red, smiled smugly at the tallest. "My big brothers are Guilt and Self-Doubt."
"Make them stop, make them stop!" Red cried, banging his head against the wall. He didn't even notice the pain it was causing him in his panic to get the tiny, obnoxious voices out of his head.
"You agree that kicking Amber is wrong?"
"NEVER!" Red cried defiantly.
In his head, Self-Doubt muttered, "What the heck is up with your voice? It sounds like you swallowed a frog and it died down there!"
"Okay, okay! You win, you win!" Red cried. The two voices instantly diminished to nothingness.
The angel shook his head. "I don't like to win that way. It seems like a hollow victory…"
Red turned back to the angel, his eyes flaming. "If I can't kick Amber, I'm going to punt YOU to the moon!" he cried, grabbing the little conscience out of mid-air and drop kicking it. With a scream, the conscience sailed through the ceiling and out of sight.
Red dusted off his hands. "There, now that that's taken care of I'll just find Amber and…"
"Find Amber and what?" a familiar female voice asked. Red whirled around to see his communication line with the Planet Jackers open, the female looking inquisitively at Red. "It's time to make your decision, my tallest," she said, coyly putting her arms around Purple. He looked bound and gagged, but he could easily have gotten out of the ropes if he'd desired.
Red looked down at his feet. "It was my fault you got kidnapped."
"He can't heeeeear you!"
"It was my fault you got kidnapped, okay?" Red shouted angrily.
The female smiled and squeezed Purple's shoulders. Purple, meanwhile, was doing his best to look both terrified and hurt. "And why was it your fault."
"…"
"Come on, WHY was it your fault."
"I got sick and tired of your stupid whiny baby and paid the Planet Jackers off to kidnap her, okay? FINE! THERE! DONE! Now send him back!"
Purple slowly reached his arms from behind his back and removed his "gag." Grinning at Red, he lolled his tongue out as a show of superiority. "I win," he said simply, letting Red know exactly how much he'd been played with two simple words.
Within moments Purple was back on board the Massive via an electronic teleporter. He frowned when he saw Red, busily ripping up a pillow from anger. "Nice to see that you found something to take your anger out on besides an innocent smeet," Purple commented dryly.
Red looked at Purple. Purple looked at Red. Then, with a cry like a wounded animal, Red lunged at Purple. Caught by surprise, Purple felt the impact of Red's hands against his throat and his belly, throwing him backwards and into a wall.
Red made a second lunge. Without really thinking Purple threw up his leg, but the result was an effective and satisfying crack against Red's chest. That wasn't enough to stop Red's advance, however, as Red swung his left fist down to connect with Purple's eye.
Amber, sitting quietly on top of a ripped up pillow and watching, knew something was wrong. Her mommy was pinned against a wall, kicking frantically as a large, strange male attacked him. She saw droplets of blood fly up against the wall as Red managed to rake his claws against Purple's face.
Now, normally a tiny smeet would have no idea what blood was. But Amber, it seemed, actually HAD picked up pieces of tallest Purple's memories from the few moments she'd been attached to him. A quick memory of blood flying against a wall flew through her tiny mind, the ghost of a memory for when Purple had seen several members of his military squad killed by a knife-wielding alien.
Blood was bad, Amber knew. She tried to rush to her mother's rescue but quickly found that tiny hands and knees were neither a fast nor efficient means of transportation. There had to be some other way…
Amber did the only thing she could think of. She threw back her head and let out a wail that could have awakened the dead. Red, caught by surprise, turned his attention the crying smeet. It was only a split second, but long enough for Purple to bring his knee up fast and hard into Red's unprotected groin.
Red fell backwards, landing hard on his side. Purple tried to struggle back into a standing position but a shock of pain through the left side of his body sent him sprawling back to the ground. At least the fact that Red was currently thrashing about in misery kept Purple safe as he reached out, grabbing his bloodied communicator in on hand. "Guards… please… help me," he coughed. At least he wasn't spitting up blood. That would be really bad.
The prompt guards were shocked by what they saw. Tallest Red lay on his side, his robe hiked up to just below his hips, his hands pressed between his legs as he whimpered in pain. Across the room, Tallest Purple lay against the wall, his legs extended before him and blood tricking out of a cut over the front of his face. Amber, being faster than most adults would believe, had scuttled across the room and was draped over Purple's feet, whimpering "mama, mama?" miserably.
Amber set silently by as a doctor set Tallest Purple's fractured arm in a sling. "How did this happen?" he asked, applying a smelly coat of medicine to the front of Purple's face.
"A disagreement," Purple sighed, "about whether or not a joke was funny." Purple felt horrible inside. He'd only wanted Red to lighten up, and perhaps get a chance to realize that he could like Amber. Now the chances of him ever accepting the little bundle of bounces as one of his own was virtually null. After all, between the kicks and the punches, Purple had seen something he'd never be able to forget.
Red was crying.
Even Amber seemed to understand the seriousness of the moment. When Purple tried to offer her a nighttime bottle, she looked at it for a few moments before turning her face away and shutting her eyes. Concerned, Purple sat her down on the bed and massaged her tiny back. Normally his actions would have her squealing with joy, but the oppressive mood had seeped into the uncomprehending child. She simply lay there, occasionally sighing.
Purple called Morris immediately. "She won't eat, she won't giggle when I massage her, she just LIES there."
"Babies are more sensitive to things happening to their parents than you'd believe, my tallest. All your anger, your wild emotions, and seeing her mama being hurt probably got to her. But babies are also more resilient than you'd imagine. She should be fine by the morning, or at the very latest noon luncheon."
"You think so?" Purple asked, cradling Amber against his chest. Amber's thumb was in her mouth, her tiny eyes shut.
"If she's not, I'll look over her, and even have a doctor look over her."
Morris turned out to be the expert on the subject. My six that morning, Amber was awake and wailing hungrily for her Purple, who arrived promptly on the scene despite the fact that his sleepiness left him tripping over his own feet. Amber eagerly accepted the bottle she'd refused the previous night. Any trace of her being upset seemed to have vanished from her shiny eyes.
"I love my Amber, yes I do! Yes I do!" Purple cooed, blowing bubbles on her stomach. Amber giggled joyously. Suddenly her laughter stopped; something in the doorway seemed to have caught her attention.
Seeing a bandaged Red standing in the doorway, his shadow spilling across the floor, Purple held Amber as tightly to his chest as he could with one arm. Before he could say a word, Red spoke.
"Do you love her more than me?" he asked.
Purple's voice caught in his throat. "Red, you're my best friend. I don't "love" you in the way that I love her, but you mean more to me than anything else in the Empire!"
"Anything else except that little brat, of course."
"Don't call my baby a brat!" Purple snapped, backing cautiously away from Red. Red noticed the action.
"So you're afraid of me now?"
"I don't know what to think about you now. Please don't make me chose between Amber and you…"
"Why not?" Red asked, sweeping threatening close to a retreating Purple. His grip on Amber tightened once more. The fingers of his damaged hand curled around the device to call guards quickly to his room.
"Because you won't win," Purple answered before he had a chance to think. He was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth. Judging from the look on Red's face, however, Red was beyond surprised. He was shocked, and above that, he was pissed.
After a few moments of random sputtering, Red turned heel and bolted out of the room. Purple, left behind, sank to the floor.