Lost

Chapter 7- Truce

Red had to admit, he half-expected to break all his bones, if not die.

To his painful surprise the fall only lasted about six seconds before the thin bulk of his body came into contact with the snow. Both he and Lena landed and rolled down a bit further down. The inertia and gravity of the fall (plus the bonus throbbing pain) prevented them from even trying to stop.

The only reason they didn't fall off the cliff a few meters down was that Captain somehow managed to catch up to them and grab them by the collars of their clothing just as they were about to fall.

The ship fell down into the valley and exploded.

"And to think that could have been you." Captain muttered as he placed both Irkens back on the solid ground.

"Ouch…" Red grit his teeth in pain. Every single body part hurt. "Lena, are you alright?"

"I think so…" Lena said in-between heavy panting. "Ow… It's going to hurt even worse in the morning."

Captain snorted. Irkens and their soft hides. "Get over it, what matters is that you're still alive and breathing."

"How can you even stand after falling from a fucking ship at sixty kilometers per hour?!"

"I'm a Sobrekt. All my life I've been trained to grow accustomed to pain, plus I've got a thick scaly hide."

A few meters away GIR was lying on the snow making a strange shape with his arms and legs; really, was that robot as indestructible as Zim? Speaking of Zim, he landed a few steps away, still holding Ilk in his arms, but to Red and Lena's surprise instead of falling down like they had he had used the jets from his PAK to hover down. Then they remembered his PAK hadn't been touched by the Sobrekt virus.

"Success!" Zim cried in delight.

"Huh, Zim, would you mind putting me down?" Ilk said awkwardly, her cheeks red. She had never been held in such a way. "This is getting weird."

"Ilk!" Red was instantly on his feet-he did feel his legs and lower body ache in protest, however,-and rushed over to take Ilk in his arms. "Are you okay, sweetie?!"

If it was even possible, her cheeks had turned even redder. "Dad, not in front of everybody…" She changed her mind when Blue and overall Fury approached. "Nevermind."

"Are you okay?" Blue asked.

"Of course we're not okay!" Lena growled, giving the kryvtor a fulminating glare. "We're in the middle of nowhere with no food, no tools thanks to your virus, and now the others are being held captive by… by… whoever those people were!"

"That Iraa guy said he was a Hothian."

"Thanks, Red. By the Hothians!"

"And how is that our fault?" Captain asked with a frown of his own.

"Are you kidding me?!" Red snarled at him, holding Ilk closer. "If YOU hadn't taken Lena and Ilk in the first place, we wouldn't be here!"

Captain laughed humorlessly. "HA! Look who's talking! If YOU and your purple friend hadn't stolen our sacred flower, NONE of this would have ever happened!"

"What?" Shit. He had forgotten Ilk didn't know about the flower. She was shifting her confused glance between him and Captain. "What are you talking about?"

"Ah, so he hasn't told you?" Captain chuckled. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Tell me what?"

"Will you tell her? Or should I do so?"

"Shut your bifid tongue, lizard," Red growled, glaring darkly at the Sobrekt. "I am her father, I will tell her."

"My tongue is not bifid, Irken. I'm a crocodile, not a snake." Captain stuck out his tongue to make emphasis. Indeed, it looked nothing like a serpent's.

Great, now came the hard part. "Would you mind giving us some privacy?"

Lena and Zim were the first to take some further steps away. Captain and Blue had to be pushed further away by Fury, protesting as to why he was agreeing to that if he was supposed to be on their side.

"Dad, what did he mean…?" Ilk remembered her friend through Spacebook, a screwhead named Smikko (his name is actually longer, but it isn't relevant for the time being) mentioning something about a flower a few years ago…

Apparently two Invaders stole a sacred flower from Sobr. Ever since, the Sobrekt have been very pissed at the Irken Empire.

"Wait a minute… The invaders who stole that flower… It did happen?"

With a heavy sigh, Red gently placed Ilk on the ground and sat down. Ilk didn't need a sign to know he wanted her to sit as well.

For a moment he didn't say anything, but eventually he started talking. "When you were a smeet you got very ill. Drilo's disease. You were especially susceptible because you lacked a PAK. That illness was very rare and the only way to cure it was with the Moondrop Flower. Purple and I…" Red closed his eyes. "…We had no choice but to steal it."

Ilk just stared up at her father without saying a word. This explained why the Sobrekt were after her, why they had begun a war against the Empire. But she couldn't really judge what dad and uncle Pur did; they had been willing to steal from one of the most violent species and start a war in order to save her life.

Ilk guessed it was fair if she was honest too. "I guess this explains why I can't seem to get hurt."

Red looked down at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Have noticed that when I supposedly get injured I don't have any scratches on me? They all heal quickly and close off in a few seconds."

"Wait… Ilk, aren't you mad?"

"How can I be mad? You were willing to do that for me, even though because of it the Sobrekt are pissed."

"Vocabulary, young lady." Both laughed a bit, before Red smiled at her. "I'd do anything for you. You know that, right?"

Ilk nodded hugged him by the waist. "I know, dad."

And of course, Captain had to ruin the moment. "Hey, if you two are done bonding we have to get going!"

"Go where?" Lena pointed out. "We have no idea where we are exactly and we didn't see in which direction the other ships went."

"Actually, doc, I managed to take something from the enemy ship before I saved Ilk-smeet!" Zim brought out a tablet of some sort from his PAK. It was made of the same metal from the enemy ship. It was currently showing a map of the surrounding area with a particular rectangular shape a few kilometers away from their position.

Blue laughed. "Ha! Good job, Hitorken Zim!"

"Don't give him ropes…" Red muttered, rubbing his temple. Now he'd never hear the end of it. What did Hitorken mean, anyway? Obviously it wasn't an insult, and even if it were Zim probably wouldn't notice.

The little defective snickered. "Indeed, Zim is amazing!"

Red snatched the tablet from Zim and took a look at it. "Okay, if my hunch is right then this shape must be their base," he traced a straight line from the base to their current position (leaving a drawn green line), marked by a yellow spot. "And we are here, on top of a cliff."

"Really, captain obvious?" Captain asked with a roll of his eyes, but the comment caused the Irken leader, along with Ilk, Lena and GIR, to snicker. "What's so funny?" Heck, even Blue looked like he was trying not to laugh. Zim merely blinked, looking as puzzled as Captain.

"Captain obvious!" Red snorted and finally burst into a small fit of laughter. Oh, sweet Irk, if only Purple had heard it! "Did you get it? You just made a fool of your own name!" It took a few seconds, but when Captain finally figured out what just happened, his spines bristled and he snatched the map from Red, muttering something. If Sobrekt could blush his face would have matched Red's own eyes.

"Alright, if you're done laughing at me let's see what to do next before we freeze up here," he snarled, setting the map to show the topography and terrain. "If this information is correct, we are on top of a cliff overlooking the canyon in which the base is located. There are two ways down from here: either we walk along the edge until we reach a smoother escarpment to walk down, or we climb down directly from here."

"Easy, we are taking the escarpment." Red said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said we are taking the escarpment."

"I heard that, what I mean is who put you in charge?"

"Oh, I guess you should be in charge then?"

Zim joined in. "Or Zim could be in charge!" Over my corpse, Red thought.

"Guys, now's not the time for that!" Lena snapped, though she was directing her recriminating gaze at Captain. There was no way she'd glare at her Tallest, for Irk's sake, even though when sometimes he did deserve it. "We should settle this in a peaceful way!"

"I suggest that the leaders of both respective parties settle their differences with a small game to pick the winner's option." All present people stared went to GIR, whose eyes had turned crimson for a few seconds, before going back to the normal cyan. "SNOWBALL FIGHT!"

"Is it me or did GIR just had a... not so bad idea?" Zim whispered as he watched his robot chase after Fury with a gargantuan snowball in both hands.

Red muttered under his breath so that Zim wouldn't hear him. "Just when I thought that piece of garbage couldn't be more crazy." Why is that defective SIR unit still working, now that they're on it? He did have to admit that suggestion wasn't bad.

"Well, any game in particular?" Blue inquired, crossing his arms. "It's not like a tailless Irken can settle it the old-tailored way."

Lena guessed they'd have to save the question of that the old-tailored way implied. "What do you suggest then?"

Ilk recalled the humans had a kind of mini-game to sort these things out. "Hey, dad, remember the 'stone, paper, scissors' game?"

Oh, right! That could work! Yeah. The only pain in the squeedly-spooch would be to explain to Captain how it worked. Two people would make one of three shapes with one hand: rock(closed fist), paper (flat hand) and scissors (fist with two fingers forming a V-sign). Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper and paper beats rock.

The hard part for Captain, though, was to tell which sign Red was making, considering he only had two long spindly fingers. He mistook the paper for the scissors twice. Then he pointed out that chopping off your thumbs was counterproductive and made grip on certain objects difficult to impossible, and Red retorted that it meant he was more than capable of ruling his Empire without such an important finger.

Eventually they managed to make a decent round without Captain mistaking Red's signs: unfortunately for the latter, Captain made a rock and beat his scissors.

"Okay, now that we've settled it, let's go look for that escarpment."

Red blinked. "Wait, what?"

"I said we should get going and find that escarpment. Should I write it down for you?"

"You mean that you intended to go look for that escarpment all along?!"

Captain rolled his eyes. "What did you think, Irken? We don't have any tools to climb down, and even if we did the rock is probably slippery from so much ice."

"Let me get this straight," Red hissed venomously, flattening his antenna against his head. "We've wasted half an hour here playing a stupid game because you didn't agree with my decision of going down the escarpment, and now you tell me that you intended to do precisely that?!"

"Yeah, that's right."

He had no idea what was spiting him the most: the fact that they wasted precious time playing for nothing, or that Captain seemed indifferent about it. "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO FROM THE BEGINNING?!"

Captain was quiet for a few seconds before turning around and walking off, followed by Blue and Fury. "You never asked."

In a sad twist of irony, somehow Zim did understand what Captain just did and burst out in a fit of laughter, leaving Red with his jaw hanging open and an eye twitching. This time it was Lena who had to gently close it.

Planet unknown. Location unknown.

The Hothians' base, if it could be called as such at all, wasn't that much impressive. It was big and whatever half run-down piece of technology they had did work, they'd give them that, but as just mentioned it was in a deep state of disrepair in most areas. Even the area they were locked in wasn't much to brag about, really. It was a big room with only one old bed, a few lights and no windows.

"Hey, when do we get fed?!" Larb complained, banging on the door. "We didn't get to eat!"

"And where's Red and doctor Lena?!" Purple had joined in. "And Ilk! Why didn't you bring them?!"

Skoodge quickly pointed out. "What about Zim?"

"Who cares about Zim?! He can turn into a popsicle for all I care!"

Echo frowned, coughed a few times reflexively because of the even thicker air, and leaned against the wall. "You seem to forget Hitorken Zim brought you snacks."

Oh, shit. He had completely forgotten about that. How embarrassing. Then again, when he's under the DAS effect he could say or do things he'd never do in his whole mental faculties. What did Hitorken mean, by the way? Was it a Sobr nickname of some sorts? "Hey, what does itorcem mean, now that we're on it?" Stupid name.

"It's Hitorken, and it means one-irken army." Foxtrot translated.

The Irkens exchanged glances. Yup, sounds like Zim alright. "And how do you say egomaniac in Sobrekt?" Larb inquired.

"Seriously, we're being held captive by whoever those people are with no idea what they are going to do with us and all you care about is a silly name?" Dib growled. Was he the only one who took the situation seriously or what?

"Nobody asked you, hyooman!"

"He does have a point!" Masouri pointed out. "They want us to fix the Ibris, alright," he took a pause to curse those thieves in Sobrekt (which reminded Dib and Purple of a velociraptor's shrieks and calls). "But what are they going to do with it afterwards? What will they do with us?"

"Plus, if they have their own ships, why do they want that one in particular?" Stink added.

"Or why their freaking ships work at all?!" Bob finished.

Purple couldn't help it, but that sound was annoying the heck out of him! Not the arguing, he was pretty used to it. It was that damn tapping noise the Kryvtors did with that big talon claw of theirs. He had no idea why they did it, but it was irritating! "Would you knock it off?!" he snapped after two minutes.

Masouri cocked his head to one side and tapped his claw. "Stop what?"

"That! That stupid sound with your stupid claw!"

Masouri looked down at his talon. "Oh, you mean this?" he tapped his claw again.

Grrr! It almost felt like he was doing it on purpose just to spite him. "Yes! Stop doing that!"

Foxtrot seemed to catch on and joined his friend in tapping the ground with his claw. "Why should we?"

"Almighty Tallest Purple has given you an order, lizard!" Larb growled.

"He's not our leader, we don't have to obey him."

Tenn got in a fighting position. Her own antennae were twitching. The tapping was annoying. "Don't make us make you!"

Echo bared her teeth and spread out her claws. "I'd like to see you try, Irken."

That was it.

"WOULD YOU KNOCK IT OFF?!" Dib yelled at the top of his lungs (though he quickly regretted it when this caused his lungs to hurt a bit). The last thing they needed was to fight amongst each other when they were in the enemy's hands. He didn't flinch when all eyes set on him; he was pretty used to attention of this kind from tying to expose Zim and being regarded as 'crazy'. "Yeah, you can tell me 'it's not my business' later, but you will listen to me! You're all acting like… whatever you call your young!"

"Smeets."

"Hatchlings."

"Thank you. You're all acting like smeets and hatchlings! Instead of bickering and fighting amongst one another we should be at least try and pretend to cooperate for all of our sakes! I get it, you hate each other, but right now your main concern should be how to get out of this!"

There was an awkward silence afterwards as his words sunk in. The tapping sound stopped, thank Irk, but the same couldn't be said from the short coughing coming from the Kryvtors and dictionally, Dib. Wordless glances between groups were exchanged. They hated to admit it, but the hyooman did have a valid point. Besides, both groups had missing members they were worried about.

"Why don't you make a temporary truce? From what I heard you had already made one before we were brought here, right? Once we're all back home safe and sound you can go back to being mortal enemies. What do you say?"

Seconds later Purple got to his feet and warily took a few steps towards the kryvtors. After a bit of bickering Foxtrot was pushed forward; their official-in-command and the one kryvtor who could be called the unofficial second-in-command were missing, so they needed a substitute.

"I hate to admit it, but the hyooman is right." Purple muttered.

Foxtrot twitched the tip of his tail. "At least that's something we can both agree on."

"In that case…" Purple kept a straight face. Red wasn't here and he had to be the leader the others needed, if only to keep his reputation intact. He stretched out an arm; it was just a formality. He and Red had shook hands with the leader of the Planet-Jackers when the treaty was made official. He never thought he'd ever do it with a Sobrekt, though. Their diplomatic relation was not at its best.

Foxtrot stared at the three-fingered hand for a few seconds before holding out his… tail.

"What's the meaning of this?" Purple asked, trying not to sound too offended. Yet.

"We don't like to do much physical contact," Foxtrot explained. "The only part of our bodies we allow others to touch is the tip of our tails under certain circumstances, such as this one." Dib, of course, only heard clicking sounds, growls and croons coming from the kryvtor, so Bob was nice enough to translate the issue for him.

Purple stared at the tip of the tail with the lavender feathers, uncertain. Would they get offended if he refused to touch it? Oh well, the sooner he was done with the issue, the better. Reaching out his hand tentatively, he grabbed a featherless part of the tail, shook it and then released it. Once he was back on the other side he made sure to wipe his hand unto Skoodge when the Kryvtors weren't looking.

The tapping started again. "Oh, for crying outloud!"

Planet unknown. Somewhere in the wilderness...

Okay, it's now official. Red hated Captain.

It wasn't just the humiliation, even though that was bad enough already. It seemed as though he had self-appointed himself the leader after their little 'game of doom', and of course Red wasn't going to let that happen. He'd rather freeze in this Irk-forsaken planet than take orders from a Sobrekt, especially him.

He also detested the fact that Zim was given more consideration than him, Ilk or Lena. The fucking Indokuro even allowed him on his back like an irkorse alongside that not-so-advanced robot made from trash! So while Red, Lena and Ilk had to walk, Zim and GIR got to ride on Fury like children on a pony. Zim was also allowed to keep the map and guide them through the terrain when GIR didn't momentarily take it to play a game or try to eat it. Red had protested, of course, Zim was capable of sending them walking off a cliff or into the jaws of something, but he was ignored.

Red still made sure to take peeks at the map to make sure they weren't walking to their doom.

"When are we going to stop?" Ilk asked. Her stomach had been growling for the past half hour. They hadn't gotten a chance to eat.

"She has a good point, Captain," Blue said. "We have not eaten and we need all the energy we can get."

Captain saw through the undercurrent sugarcoating. He knew what he was talking about. And he was hungry. "Alright, how about we stop for the night?"

"About time!" Zim cried from atop Fury's back. "Zim is hungry!"

"Waffles!" GIR joined in.

Red crossed his arms. "And just where are we going to stop? Starting up a fire in the middle of a treeless field with nowhere to hide is not precisely smart."

"Are you going to keep looking for any excuse to complain? Because if you are, you can go find your own meal."

"Hey, don't talk to Almighty Tallest Red in such a manner, sobrekt-beast!" Zim snapped.

For the first time ever Zim had actually done something right. Captain's temperament seemed to soothe down forcibly afterwards. Red was surprised he didn't snap at Zim or show any signs of being mad at him for that. Captain did take what he said into account, though.

They found what seemed to be an abandoned settlement of some sorts with primitive houses of brick and wood. Evidently whoever lived here hadn't gone past the stone age before leaving. On the good side, the interior of the homes-or 'dens', as Red put it, refusing to call such a retrograde lair a house-were devoid of snow and had a slightly warmer temperature because of it.

While Fury, Blue and Captain went hunting, Red, Lena, Ilk, Zim and GIR stayed behind at the stone 'den' to start a small bonfire. Of course, Zim had to be sent away with the excuse of looking for something to keep him from blowing the whole ghost town up, while GIR just tagged along with him to go look for 'cheese'.

"Stupid crocodile…" Red muttered as he threw another dry stick at the fire.

"Well, he did have a point, dad. You didn't really ask his opinion." Ilk pointed out.

"Why should we ask what he thinks? We're Irkens, we don't go around fraternizing with inferior species."

"Red, right now's not the time for that," Lena said. "We have to save the others."

"I know… But he's so….! You have no idea of how much I'd like to blow him up for making me look like a fool!" He was partly glad Purple hadn't witnessed the exchange, or he would have never heard the end of it. Oh, once he was back on the Massive he'd so hunt that crocodile down and blow him up.

Ilk narrowed her eyes. "Dad, you're not thinking of blowing him up when we go back, are you?"

"Of course I'm not, Ilk!"

"Dad."

"... Can you blame me for wanting to get even?"

"If you want to get even we can give you a tip," Lena smirked. "But no blowing up."

"Can you?"

"Turns out the Sobrekt do not like their meat cooked."

Half an hour later Captain and Blue returned, dragging one of the bison-like creatures from before. When asked about Fury's whereabouts, Blue explained he had gone hunting for his own meal. Indokuro always fed themselves. They left the meat inside and went back outside to 'do something useful with the fur'.

However, Blue soon sniffed the air when he felt like something was burning coming from…

"What is it?" Captain asked. Whenever he sniffed the seemingly toxin-tainted air, it meant there was something funny going on.

"Captain, don't panic, but the meat…"

The words 'panic' and 'meat' did it. Captain dropped the skin and rushed back inside to find all his juicy red pieces of meat had been cooked to a dry, deep brown.

It took Red all of his willpower to keep himself from bursting out into laughter when he saw Captain's face. "Want some meat?" he asked, lifting a well-cooked thigh on a stick.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Captain snatched the stick and examined the meat, completely and utterly horrified. "You've ruined it!"

"How exactly did we ruin it?" Lena stated. "Raw meat has a lot of bacteria and potential parasites, you could get food poisoning."

"Just because your softie Irken stomachs can't handle it didn't give you right to ruin MY meat!"

Red merely shrugged and took a bite from his cooked piece of meat. He was going so going to enjoy this. Captain just sat down near the fire with a deep frown and crossed arms, refusing to even look at the meal while Red enjoyed every second of it. Blue didn't protest about the cooked meat, though he did look bothered.

Fury, Zim and GIR finally returned a few seconds later. When Zim saw the meat, he screamed and ran to put himself in a fetal position.

"What's wrong, Zim?" Blue asked.

"GET THAT MEAT AWAY FROM ZIM!"

"Earth-meat for some reason fuses to Irken skin and burns it." Red said. He couldn't contain a chuckle when he recalled the time Zim was covered in meat and nearly went blind. Oh, that had been hilarious!

GIR had no apparent problem with the meat and just grabbed a piece of burned off leg to chomp on; those who didn't know the little robot wondered how the hell he was eating at all.

"Captain, you should eat. You need the energy."

Lena and Ilk exchanged a look. Why were they always emphazising the word 'energy'? It seemed to snap Captain out of his tantrum and he started eating, though he did grumble every now and then about the meat being dry and tasting like rubber. Red snickered internally.

After dinner, if it could be called as such, Blue was decent enough to share some of the furry hand-made 'blankets' because Captain didn't look like he had any intention to do so. The crocodile instead started to check on the weapons they had retrieved from the ship.

"So what's next?" Lena asked. "Do we have any plan?"

"We go to that base, save the others and kill the bastards." Captain said, sharpening his long black katana-like blade.

"That's not a plan, that's a wish," Red frowned. "A proper plan would be a strategy."

Ilk decided to change the subject before they started with one of their childish arguments again. "So how do we distribute the weapons?"

"Excuse me?"

"How are we going to distribute the weapons."

Blue and Captain exchanged a glance. The latter frowned. "You think we are going to give you our comrades' weapons?" He growled deeply. "We don't give our blades to just anyone, especially to a species who is known for stabbing in the back."

"If you're talking about Operation Impending Doom II, get over it." Red rolled his eyes.

Lena hated to admit it, but Captain had a point. They had every right to be wary about giving them weapons. But she and Red couldn't afford to be weaponless in such an hostile environment. The Sobrekt were reasonable enough to see that, right? However, she could tell that asking nicely wouldn't work with them.

"Listen, you two," Lena spoke in a firm voice, getting to her feet and walking over to Captain to look at him directly in the eyes; she knew enough about Sobrekt culture to know such a gesture was seen as a challenge amongst their people. "We are in an unknown planet filled with hostile people and Irk knows what else. If you know Irkens well, then you realize we cannot defend ourselves without our PAKs, which are useless right now thanks to you.

You cannot expect us to completely depend on you for protection. I have the feeling you do not like acting as 'babysitters', am I right?" his pupils turning into thin slits told her what she needed to know. "Who says we won't get separated at some point for one reason or another? If that were the case, we'll need someway to keep ourselves alive, don't you think? Whether you like it or not, we're together in this!" She took a small glance at Ilk. "Besides, unless my memory fails me, you're supposed to take Ilk to your leader in one piece, am I right?"

Red stared at her agape. What was she thinking? However, Captain's expression seemed to suggest she had pressed the right buttons.

The nerve of the Irken…! How dare she talk to him in such a way? Didn't she realize he could rip her head off her shoulders with his bare hands? He could do it in that moment if he wished. But he had to give her credit for having the courage to actually speak her mind. Not many could bring themselves to do so considering his people were intimidating and had a reputation to match.

Captain looked down at the available weaponry: his own katana Nekusarai, Blue's Konazher blade, Masouri's butterfly swords, Echo's sai blades, Foxtrot's twin swords and a plasma gun. To the Sobrekt people their weapons were more than just self-defense tools; they were part of the individual in question, each blade was uniquely customized according to the warrior's fighting style and personality. To lose or break it was a bad omen.

And lending it was out of the question unless the person who asked for it proved to be both worthy enough to wield a part of the warrior and trustworthy enough. Irkens lacked those two factors (except for Zim).

However, Lena was right. He didn't want to be their babysitter (Ilk was the only exception, and the great Zim could certainly take care of himself), and there was the possibility their already small-group separating, be it by accident or otherwise.

"... Let me consult it with the pilllow."

I had so much fun writing the interaction between Red and Captain. It almost reminded me of an old married couple. I'll certainly enjoy more of these scenes.

Sobrekt fact: kryvtors have a long claw on their feet similar to the velociraptors from JW. When stressed or thinking, they unconsciously tap this claw to relieve stress, but this can get annoying to others, especially Purple. XDXD.

Next chapter: Red and Ilk receive some lessons from the Sobrekt with a surprising outcome.