Author's Notes: Another relationship ended in failure, and I'm kinda trapped inside mostly right now due to humanity's new virus, so I've got time to update again.
There's always at least one positive out there if I look hard enough, but enough about me. Onto the chapter.
Warning: May contain slight nudity, something that could be considered torture, and general grossness.
The Horrible Truth
It was 2 days later when an Irken Voot cruiser arrived.
Pain had returned with the promised disk.
There was also a pilot who'd accompanied Pain. Her name was named Lyra. She was dressed in a purple uniform that covered the bottom half of her face like a typical Irken pilot.
At first the Vortians were a bit wary of the Irkens, especially Pain since he'd been given his nickname for a very good reason.
The young blue-grey Vortian who was numbered 343 didn't seem to care though. He hugged Pain (he was probably the only one in history to do so without getting hit) and he stayed close to the soldier.
Negi was orphaned. Both of his parents were dead; his father before the invasion and his mother sometime after. He had an uncle, but the guy wasn't interested in raising him, probably due to all the psychological trauma and being unable to grieve for his brother and his brother's wife for so long.
Laes asked him to pass a wrench the other day and the guy suddenly erupted into tears so... yeah. He really wasn't ready to take care of a child.
There had been a lot of death, and many individuals were suffering after being physically and mentally abused by the Irkens.
Most Vortians were still able to put on a happy face and work because if they didn't they would likely get devoured by horrible giant death worms.
A lot of fractured families had also been reunited, so the emotional pain wasn't as terrible as it could be.
Laes had been helping with the work a bit here and there.
The drugs wore off that morning, and the pain was getting so unbearable he got Bann to administer a few more doses.
This meant he was confined to his chair for who knows how long, but at least he didn't have to suffer through the pain.
He was trying not to think about how his spine had been severed. He figured an injury like that, no matter how good the fix, would cause him problems for the rest of his life.
Now he had the disk. The Tallest had attached a note to it too. It was difficult making out the scribbled Irken letters, but then Irk's leader only had 2 fingers on each hand.
Hadn't the purple Tallest been good at drawing though?
Laes told one of the supervisors he was taking a break, but since he wasn't an essential part of any team no one would mind anyway. It was just the polite thing to do.
He returned to the computer he used to contact Zim. He had to rework it a little since the disk was very outdated and would no longer fit into any of the slots.
He was able to come up with an external holder which he attached to the computer. It took a full hour for the disk to load, and he had to fight off several error messages.
While he was waiting he decided to try and decipher the Tallest's letter again.
Laes,
Irk will be under a barrier for a long time, and
signals won't get through, so there won't be a
way for you to contact me anymore. I drew
a map on the back to show where the worms are
currently coming from, and where the majority
of them are gathered.
Don't involve Zim!
Tallest
Huh... Irk's leader didn't sign with his name.
Why were both Tallest named after colours anyway?
All Irkens were programmed with their names right? Was that something the Control Brains did?
As he was thinking about these things, the video started playing. It was grainy and a bit crackly. He changed a few settings around to try and make the picture more clear and stuffed the Tallest's letter into one of his pockets.
His eyes widened when a tall colourful winged creature appeared on the screen. Even though the quality of the video was awful, he could tell she looked like the drawings he'd seen of the goddess; shining vibrant green-blue skin, translucent wing like appendages, large black eyes and long curved black antennae.
She also wasn't wearing anything...
Oh cripes.
Did the Tallest send him one of 'those' videos?
All of the drawings he'd seen of the goddess had her wearing beautiful robes.
Not in this film though. Nope. She was totally naked.
"What are you watching?" Bann asked with an edge of mischief in his voice.
The Irken's face was hovering over his shoulder.
"Gah!" Laes nearly fell out of his chair, but he managed to hang on. "B-Bann... it's... this isn't..."
He tried to cover the screen with his hand and stump while blushing in embarrassment.
"The Tallest sent this!"
The Tallest was pretty young by Irken standards wasn't he? Even so, Laes didn't expect him to be into this kind of thing.
Weren't Irkens unable to reproduce naturally? All of their smeets were cloned and "hatched" in factories!
"Why would he send me this?"
"Well... I would just watch it then," Bann responded with a shrug. "The Tallest likes pranks, but I don't think he would joke about this kind of thing."
Laes swallowed the lump in his throat as he slowly lowered his hand and his stump away from the screen.
He stared in horror at the fuzzy video... this... this was how Vortians ended up with Invader DNA wasn't it...?
He cringed and covered his eyes.
The Invaders hadn't just come to Invade planets... they were body invaders... She paralyzed her victims and then...
The sounds were awful.
She was cutting into the helpless Vortian. Her poor victim couldn't move or scream, he peeked between his fingers as an egg was deposited into the Vortian's abdominal cavity, much to the silent victim's obvious horror.
Retching, Laes turned away from the monitor, just as Bann leaned over and took control of the key-board. He shut down the video and grabbed Laes by his shoulders.
"Hey... stay with me now... take deep breaths. Laes. Breathe."
Laes fell forward into Bann's arms, succumbing to the peaceful blackness.
It was too late though...
The horrible scene was burned into his memory forever.
He'd almost woken up a few times, but each time he forced himself unconscious before he could start thinking.
Soon his dreams would be plagued with that horrible video, so he needed to get as much sleep as he could before that happened.
That's what he kept telling himself every time he almost opened his eyes.
When he finally gave in to being awake, the first person he saw was Filik... who was actually Bann.
The Irken was standing beside the cot with an impassive look on his face. Bann's expression lifted when he noticed Laes was no longer unconscious. He moved closer to the bed and grasped the Vortian's hand.
"I watched all of it," he remarked; his tone sounding more serious than anything else. "You can ask me whatever you want to know."
Laes blinked up at him. He felt his eyes welling with tears.
Nothing on Vort right now could block out what he'd seen...
"Did you know your people used to have sharper more flexible horns?" Bann asked.
This seemed kind of random... was Bann trying to help him forget what he saw...?
"They were almost like pincers," The Irken commented.
"How did we get Invader DNA?" Laes questioned, pulling his hand out of Bann's. "From... from what I saw... I mean... did having those things inside us alter our DNA?"
"Well the dialogue was pretty hard to make-out... your language has changed a lot over the years, so my PAK couldn't translate it... I recorded down what I could and asked the oldest Vortian I could find..." the former guard paused and rubbed his chin.
"And?" Laes pressed.
"He told me he wasn't that old and to stop mocking him," Bann admitted with a half-smile, and his gaze shifted to the floor for a moment.
His antennae perked up as he raised his head.
"But I asked around a bit more and found a much younger Vortian who apparently studied the old language. What you witnessed were the early stages of this practice. The Invader eventually reduced the amount of venom she injected into her victims, allowing the egg to attach itself to the innards of the host, rather than to free-float around.
I'm assuming this allowed some of its DNA to pass on to the host... though most of the hosts ended up getting eaten... It's good you fainted before that part."
"But if the hosts were eaten..." He placed a hand on the side of his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "Then none of us would have..."
"Later, some of the hosts managed to survive the process, although the venom did cause some memory problems," Bann paused for a little while, giving Laes' a bit of time to catch up.
"That and there may have been some politics involved... their speech was a little vague. According to the translator, it sounded like those who offered sacrifices to the Invader were occasionally rewarded with technology or some kind of intelligence boost."
"Memory problems...?" Laes repeated.
Oh Vort... he was going to throw up. He covered his mouth, rolled onto his side, and curled into a fetal position.
"The hosts forgot where they got the larvae from... or even that the creatures erupted from their bodies. Very few survived, but as more technology was offered, some Vortians managed to live."
"Bann... please don't say "erupted" in that context... please... ughh..."
"So that's how it was..." He patted Laes on the back.
"The Irkens were the body-guards, and you guys were the incubators. Over time Vortians were able to obtain some of the Invader's DNA which made them smarter... and probably more colourful actually... most of the Vortians I saw on the video were either a dark grey or a faded brown colour."
"That doesn't make me feel any better..." Laes shivered and hugged himself. "I think I'm going to puke..."
Bann sighed. "Please don't."
"Ok... I won't because you asked me not to..." Laes remarked without masking his sarcasm.
He felt too sick to move very much. He was actually starting to gag, although he was fighting it.
Then there were arms around him.
His eyes snapped open as Bann pulled him into a a sitting position, and then into a partial hug.
Suddenly all thoughts of vomiting left his mind.
His muscles stiffened.
"B-Bann?" he stammered.
Irkens usually didn't do this.
"We're not the Invaders' puppets Laes... we're both free from them. There's no reason to be afraid."
"I'm uh... not afraid right now..." Laes responded, feeling a bit surprised and a little dazed that the Irken was actually hugging him. "I'm just disgusted. Really disgusted."
Bann let go, but he remained standing close. It was almost too close actually.
"Your disgusted looks like you being afraid," Bann commented.
"Yeah, I'll um... work on that I guess," Laes said, relaxing a little. "Just... they're all dead right? The Invaders? Your people killed them all didn't they?"
Bann was quiet for a while.
"You know Laes... those Invader spawn were being sent somewhere... they didn't stay on Vort and they weren't brought to Irk... that means somewhere out there... there may have been another colony of Invaders..."
"Oh my ganre what is this!?" someone suddenly shouted from the computers.
Laes shoved Bann away so he could look over at the computer he'd been using to view the disk.
Another Vortian was sitting there staring at the screen with a look of horror on his face.
"Bann... did you take the disk out when you were done...?" Laes questioned the Irken who was rubbing the back of his head and turning his face away.
"Maybe...?" he tried.
"Please take it out before someone else gets mentally scarred for life..."
"Yeah, alright," Bann agreed as he hurried over there.
That disk was the reason the Tallest became nice again?
Laes dragged his hand down his face.
It was probably also one of the reasons Irk's leader didn't want him contacting Zim who had Invader programming. If the defective was running off of an Invader's program, there would be a lot of problems once Zim got involved...
"You didn't stay out of the cot for very long..." Lard Nar commented.
Laes's attention immediately turned to Lard Nar who was standing beside him.
He hadn't heard his former-cellmate at all... did he just get here? Where did he come from? Hold on... wasn't Lard Nar laying in this cot a little while ago?
"Sorry," Laes apologized. "Did you get any sleep?"
"Not yet..." Lard Nar admitted. "I'll try again once another cot opens up..." he studied Laes for a moment. "What happened...? Bann carried you here after you passed out."
"Oh uh... the Tallest gave me a disk from Irk actually..." Laes responded and he could feel his face getting warmer. "It's um... pretty horrifying..."
Lard Nar frowned, but he didn't say anything.
"The Irkens have some Vortian history buried in their archives... it was written by people who knew what was going on..." Laes was trying to explain everything as quickly and simply as possible since he really wanted Lard Nar to believe him.
"Vortians and Irkens had no idea what was happening... even now it's... until the Tallest started digging up all of this information no one really thought about it... but it's gross and horrible and..." he covered his face with his hand and his stump again. "The things they did to our people and to the Irkens... how could anyone do that?"
"I've got the disk," Bann spoke. "There's more video on the other side."
Laes slowly uncovered his face and looked over at him.
Bann was holding out the disk for him to take, but he didn't even want to touch the thing.
"This is the disk from the Tallest...?" Lard Nar asked as he reached out to take it.
Laes quickly snatched it out of Bann's hand and held it close to his chest.
"No! You can't watch it! You're already dealing with too much trauma as it is!" He paused to chew on his lower lip. "Sorry. It's just uh... I don't want you to get even more mental scars from this thing..."
"Ok... Laes... you need to calm down," Bann told him, and he patted Laes on the shoulder. "Just relax, not everyone is as squeamish as you."
"But it's..." Laes tried to protest, but his words were suddenly gone.
Bann looked at Lard Nar.
"Do you want to watch this disk?" he asked, tapping the disk Laes was holding onto so tightly. "It has some pretty disturbing content on it, and it's not a prank."
Lard Nar squared his shoulders and his eyes narrowed at Bann. He seemed determined enough.
"Whatever is on that disk, I want to see it."
"Fine," Bann said as he held his hand out for the disk. "Laes. It's not your job to protect Lard Nar."
Laes bit his bottom lip hard, still hugging the disk to himself. After a little while, he reluctantly handed it over to Bann who gave it to Lard Nar.
He just hoped his former cellmate would be able to handle those terribly graphic images better than he did.
It was a while later when Lard Nar returned from the computer with the disk in his hand. Laes had been looking for any kind of reaction from him, but it was hard to tell what his expression was from half-way across the room.
His former-cellmate hadn't jumped or cringed at all... Maybe Bann was right about others not reacting as badly...
Lard Nar didn't have a readable expression on his face when he returned the disk. He sat down on the cot, staring ahead, not really looking at anything in particular.
"That... that wasn't fake was it...?" he asked. "Those Irkens and Vortians getting tortured... it was real...?"
"There were Irkens getting tortured on this disk too...?" Laes questioned, looking down at the disk laying on top of the blanket.
He was having another 'I don't want to touch this' moment.
"It was on the back," Bann offered.
The ex-guard who was still in Filik's body hadn't gone very far. He was standing a little further down the hallway, but he approached the cot again when he noticed Laes and Lard Nar talking.
"As far as I can tell, it's real. It's similar to the disk I found when I was snooping around in Irk's top-secret heavily secured written vault a while back."
"If the Invaders were so advanced, why did they use disks and why is the quality so bad...?" Laes suddenly asked, curious. "Also the amount of video its holding isn't really a lot... this is like our most basic and outdated technology from like 500 years ago."
"These disks are nearly indestructible. They've lasted for thousands of years."
"Still..."
"Maybe they didn't want to use their best technology on foreign planets just in case it was stolen?"
"That makes a bit more sense..."
"Also I think our technology isn't very compatible with Invader technology, which could be why the quality is so bad, and it might also be why we can't currently access everything on the disks."
"Hold on... Bann... you're like Zim aren't you?" Laes asked, suddenly feeling concerned.
Did Bann consider himself an Invader? It was possible since the former guard didn't seem to care about the Empire.
"You kill your own people..."
Bann scowled and crossed his arms. His antennae lowered too.
"I have some Invader programming, but it's not enough to make me insane."
"Are you sure?"
"Are you calling me insane Laes, really?" Bann questioned.
He muttered something under his breath.
Then he spoke louder and with more clarity.
"You know, I only killed those soldiers because they were threatening you. They weren't bothering me at all. I actually played cards with a couple of them before."
"But if you ever saw an Invader... what would you do?" Laes pressed.
"I don't know," He shrugged before adding, "kill it with fire...?"
Bann winced and clutched his head.
"Shlit..." he swore under his breath.
"I thought I shut him out pretty good, but he's getting impatient again."
"How much time do you have?" Lard Nar questioned, reminding Laes that he was still there.
"A few hours maybe?" Bann responded and he breathed a sigh.
He rubbed some sweat from his forehead.
"But now that the computers are up and running, and Laes isn't in any danger of getting maimed, I think... I won't need to transfer to another PAK again."
"Having you stuck inside a computer would be a lot less creepy than the 'taking over bodies' thing you've been doing recently..." Laes commented.
Body snatching was really creepy... in a way, it was kind of what the Invaders had done to Vortians. Maybe he shouldn't be feeling like this, but he was glad Bann could only take-over other Irkens.
"I don't know if I want to give you full control over this facility though..." Laes continued, tapping his chin.
"That's fine," Bann remarked, shrugging. "I can always continue to haunt your dreams."
"Ew no."
"Why did you say 'ew?" Bann questioned, and one of his antennae twitched.
"I just... I don't think my dreams are going to be very good after watching that stuff..." Laes admitted, eyeing the disk warily as he clutched his stump.
"You were just sleeping Laes..." Bann reminded him. "It didn't look like you were having a nightmare."
"Fainting and sleeping are different..." Laes tried to argue. "Besides, bad dreams aren't something I can control, they just happen."
"Really?" Bann asked, and he gripped his chin lightly while studying Laes. "I don't remember entering a bad dream during your time on the jungle planet, or even after that."
Laes glanced at Lard Nar who was listening quietly with no readable expression on his face. At least he couldn't read the other Vortian's expression... he'd always had a hard time with that though, especially with Lard Nar.
"Could we maybe not talk about this right now?"
"Have you two always been like this?" Lard Nar asked.
For some reason the ex-leader of the Resisty's tone was becoming hard to distinguish too... maybe it was just his imagination?
Laes let out an awkward laugh and rubbed the back of his head.
"Bann always talked more than the other guards, but since he was usually on patrol with someone else we couldn't talk very much."
"I could never get Laes to shut-up," Bann responded smiling as he shrugged.
"I was bored."
"And needy."
"No I wasn't."
"You practically clung to me every time I checked on you."
"Th-that's a huge exaggeration," Laes stammered, and he pointed at Bann. "I never touched you. We just talked."
Bann patted him on the head. "There there. I'm not going to leave you alone again."
"You're like one of those vengeful ghosts in those movies I avoided seeing," Laes remarked, ducking and swatting his hand away.
"I'm a vengeful ghost that keeps saving your life," Bann remarked shrugging in an exaggerated fashion. "I keep putting myself in peril to save you, and you're comparing me to those horrible soul eaters?" He sighed and shook his head. "You're kind of rude. You know that?"
"They ate souls...?" Laes asked; his eyes widening in surprise. "Wait, you watched those movies?"
"We don't have conventions on Conventia everyday, and the space needed to be used for something..."
"Ok... but you're already dead. You keep telling me that all the time, so how much danger could you possibly be in?" Laes questioned.
He figured if anything happened to him right now, he'd end up getting Filik hurt or killed, not himself.
"Actually Laes..." Lard Nar interrupted, and both Laes and Bann turned to him. "If Bann's data continues to run off of incompatible technology; it won't be good for him."
Laes looked up at Bann who continued to smile.
"I wasn't going to say anything," the former soldier admitted. "But yeah. Every time I enter another Irken's PAK, or a computer, or anything similar, I lose a bit of data."
"Why weren't you going to say anything!?" Laes exclaimed.
He actually felt a bit offended by the Irken's unwillingness to talk about his problems.
Also why would Bann keep quiet in a room filled with intelligent people who could help him?
Hold on... did he just yell?
He covered his mouth.
Wow... there was no reason to yell at Bann like that... He didn't even like yelling.
"You need to tell me these things ok...?" he spoke as he lowered his hand back down.
"Laes..." Bann paused for a moment then sighed. "I'm dead. What I'm doing right now is not only cheating the Irken system, but also the system of life."
"I'm cheating the system of life too," Laes responded, suddenly feeling a bit stubborn. "If it wasn't for Irken and Vortian technology, I'd be just as dead."
"But I'm actually dead," Bann pressed, and he narrowed an eye at Laes. "I don't even have a body anymore. I'm just data."
"So were some members of the Resisty," Lard Nar spoke as he slid off of the cot.
He stepped passed Bann.
"Some of them were machines, but that didn't mean they weren't alive or that no one was impacted when they were killed..."
He continued walking towards the group in the cafeteria he'd been working with.
Lard Nar was probably talking about those floating robot guys. Most of them had been destroyed on the jungle planet. He was kind of curious to know if Lard Nar had built them or if they were an actual race of robot people from some kind of robot planet.
Now was probably not the right time to ask that question though.
Laes pulled out the crumpled note from the Tallest he'd been keeping in his pocket. He'd been hoping to avoid looking at where the worms were so he wouldn't freak out, but after looking around he realized that the planet's defence project was nearing the final stages, and with the Irken's Voot Cruiser it wouldn't take them long to set up the rest of the reception towers.
He smoothed out the note and flipped it over. Maybe there would be a pattern or... that was kind of strange... the worms seemed to have formed a giant circle.
In the middle of this circle was Irk...
Had the Tallest noticed? The circle wasn't exactly connected, and it wasn't exactly a circle actually... but still.
It seemed a bit ominous.
More Notes: Invaders are based off of the Jewelled Cockroach Wasp. They're a type of parasitic wasp that are both creepy, cool to look at, and horrifying. It gives a more literal meaning when Zim says "I'll lay eggs in your stomach" in Attack of the Saucer Morons.