Author's Notes

I freaking hate electrical storms. They fried my hard drive. They erased all trace of this story from my laptop. They made my family invest $191.04 in surge protectors, because they also killed the TV.

DISCLAIMER HAIKU

By Slenderlouie

IZ is not mine

Nickelodeon owns it

I rock at Haiku.

Tak sipped her water carefully. Half a year had passed since she'd been forced in. She was a little clumsy, but otherwise her walking was pretty normal for a Vortian.

She and Saki Hir were working on with other Vortians on a Megadoomer that day. In the Irken's minds, Vortians didn't deserve to sit on their butts all day, growing fat off of the Empire, so they were forced to work on the weaponry. According to the Irkens, it saved money too. Well, whoop-de-freaking-doo, she'd thought to herself when she heard about that.

Water. She had to conserve it if it was going to last the whole work day, because she only got one bottle. She let the sip rest on her tongue for a while, then swallowed it while clipping the bottle onto her belt. Then she started to scale the half-finished Megadoomer and into the cockpit to wire the leg controls up. "Pass the cable up, please."

A thick cable emerged through a hole in the cockpit. A chill ran down her spine when she saw it, for it reminded her of the very cable that put her in that body. She quickly plugged it in. "Found new hardware. Testing." a voice intoned. The Megadoomer's leg lifted itself five times.

Suddenly, Saki Hir dropped down beside her. "Tak... do you remember what to do now?"

"Oh!" Tak started to pry at the control panel. She managed to wrench it off in a few minutes, then unhooked a wire cutter from her belt and cut the wires that brought energy to the cloaking device. "Hah, let's see them try to hide now." When she was first forced to work on a Megadoomer , she'd found out how easy it was to cut the cloaking device's power. She'd done it ever since – well, actually, all the times she remembered to do so.

Saki Hir started to leave. "Hey Saki Hir? Thanks."

"No problem." Saki Hir hoisted herself out of the rim and was gone.

Work. It was boring, it was tiring, and it always made her thirsty. She unclipped the water bottle and took a sip that caressed her parched tongue and throat on the way down. She then realized how much she'd drank. It's halfway gone already? A feeling of panic rose in her chest, then diminished as she clipped it back onto her belt and told herself not to drink as much anymore. As she crawled out of the cockpit, she wondered how she'd handle the situation if she were still Irken. She'd noticed she was more emotional, but didn't know why. "Hormones," someone told her once, "It's your hormones. You're not used to them, and the former occupant of your body was depressed. Your mind is cheerier, even though you were in despair when you went in, so you're producing happy and sad hormones at the same - this sound stupid, doesn't it?"

She looked up as a rack of Megadoomer armor descended from the ceiling. The Vortians took welding tools off their belts and attached the thick metal plates onto the steel skeleton. The light of the sparks danced across their unprotected faces. A young man cried out. Despite the Irkens trying to stop them, the others rushed over to help him. He held his burning eye while tears welled from the other which was bright yellow, and his short horns quivered. His gray skin had become ashen. "M-m-m-my eye... My eye!" He fell into a kneel and vomited.

Saki Hir was kneeling beside him. Quickly, she unclipped his bottle, pried his hand off of the eye and poured water into it. Steam rose out of it, and she let him cover it up again. "Does that feel better?"

"Y-yes, but... I can't see out of it."

"It's gone, Tayne. There wasn't anything left."

He wailed. "Saki, what do I do? I'll be killed!"

Saki Hir embraced him. "I don't think there's anything left to do but pray."

An older, purple skinned male with red eyes and long, curving horns. "Let us all join hands now, and pray that this fine young man..."

The burnt-eye male looked up. "Mil Tayne. My name is Mil Tayne."

"... Mil Tayne lives a very prosperous afterlife." He joined hands with the nearest ones, and so did the rest. Tak closed her eyes reverently. Please... supreme deity... or deities, although science has quite likely proved your existence false, and you've probably forsaken us anyway, please grant this guy eternal salvation, or something like that. And don't pretend not to hear me just because I was Irken. I heard somewhere that you love everyone, so why would you-

An Irken guard knocked her over. The Vortian next to her caught her, and she looked up just in time to see Saki Hir being grabbed and taken away. "Where... where are they taking her?"

"She... she's going to be executed a week from today."

"I..." Tak felt a tear run down her cheek. Saki Hir, the girl who taught her to walk, the girl who taught her the ropes, and her first Vortian friend was as good as dead? She couldn't believe it.

She knew she'd collapsed into tears. She knew she'd had to be carried back to her cell. She didn't know why fate hated her guts.

She'd decided to sleep to get her mind off of it, but it was too hard. She didn't want Saki Hir to die, but she couldn't do anything.

She'd never felt so helpless, so alone, so inferior.