"I can't believe THI-" Purple bellowed, slamming his fists into the energized bars for another robust zap. "Ow!"
"How many times will it take for you to learn?" Red sneered, huffing. "Anything glowing like that isn't good for your health."
"Well I don't see you tryin' anything!" He countered, shaking the stinging wrath out of his hands. "The help locked us in here! US!"
"I'm aware. I'm here with you. Idiot."
One IIA guard doing his rounds came along and ran his baton along the bars.
"Hey, shut up in there-uh, Mighty Ones."
"No, you shut up! We are your leaders! This is ridiculous!" Purple retorted, Red quickly drifting forward to pull his co-ruler back.
"Stop arguing with him," Red intervened, looking to the IIA guard. "Listen, he gets like this when he's hungry. Can you be a pal and get us something to eat?"
"Uh, no can do, Great One."
"Tallest! I am Almighty Tallest Purple!"
"Shut up!" Red snarled at him. "They obviously don't care!"
"They will when we get outta here! I'm tellin' the Control Brains aaaaall about this! Outrageous!"
"Next chow time is in three hours, you can go with the rest of the prisoners then."
"I'm hungry now!" Purple pouted, folding his arms with a displeased scowl at the guard. "This tour is awful and I hate it! Zero out of five stars!"
The guard put a finger to his helmet. "Having some trouble at one three three."
"Ah, ah, ah, that's not necessary, really." Red attempted to mediate, realizing the gravity of the situation they were in as he unkindly smacked Purple upside the back of the head. "Knock it off!"
"OW! I'm not the one that put us in here!"
"Yes you are! You wanted to go on their dumb tour!"
"Yeah, well you came with me! You're just as much at fault as I am!"
Niz was walking down the cell block racking a slide of an older Irken mass driven sidearm as the call went out over the radio. She stopped at the cell and holstered the weapon, looking at the Guard.
"Situation?"
"They refuse to shut up, Colonel."
Niz rubbed her chin, thinking. Tuning the Tallest up would be something new but no, something more creative… she lowered the energy shield of the cell and opened it.
"Finally!" Red greeted Colonel Niz's entry into their holding cell with relief. "Look, we're willing to overlook all of this. I understand you're following your programming and doing your job. These things happen. Be a dear an-"
Rather than freeing the two, she took out her own baton and struck them both in their floatation devices, forcing both Red and Purple to their feet before exiting their cell, slamming the bars shut, and reactivating the energy shield.
The direct impact to their equipment bearing the brunt saw their personal gravitational fields falter, sputtering until they came back to the bonds of the floor beneath them. Their feet soiled, forced to bear weight once more.
"You- You monster!" Purple decried, jumping up and down in place, attempting to hover once more in vain. "This is cruel and unusual! I demand to speak to your manager-"
"Commanding officer." Red corrected with a sigh.
"Commanding officer, yes! Bring her here, at once!"
"I refuse to comply with orders of the accused. My prison, my rules. You are already getting preferred treatment per High Marshal Xilch's orders. Don't push your luck." Niz warned, gesturing with her baton towards the pair. "Ask your neighbor High Marshal Zha where bravado and contempt will get you."
The guard went back to his rounds with the situation dealt with. General Cagir, still Niz's relatively free captive, looked at the two in the cell and shook his head.
"I genuinely cannot believe I faithfully served two idiots who willingly walked into an open prison cell without even asking questions."
"Hey! We were tricked! They were giving us a tour! Who arrests their leaders for nothing?" Purple defended.
"Mind your tongue, soldier. We will get out of here and there will be consequences. Don't include yourself in them willingly." Red warned, gesturing to Cagir.
"...try doing everything…ever asked of you…and still end up here." Zha wearily commented from the cell next door.
"Hey, they say possession is nine tenths of the law, and this is IIA's prison. They threw you two dolts in there, I'm not making Niz angry. Lucky she's letting me walk around nearby as she is." He looked up to the next tier as she pulled Lieutenant Kuru out of his cell and started bringing him down to the ground floor
The Colonel stopped with Kuru right in front of High Marshal Zha's cell, looking her right in the eyes.
"So, Zha, you think yourself so strong? You think you can resist? Can you look your Lieutenant in the face and tell him he's about to die because you won't talk?"
"I talked…you didn't listen…you've already passed judgment. No matter what I say…yet you persist." Zha spoke, taking every ounce of concentration she had left to focus on Niz. "...your case isn't as airtight…as you think it is…is it?"
About that time, Xilch, having concluded her private conversation with Grimm and setting into motion events to transpire accordingly, moved to join the gathering outside of the Tallest and High Marshal's holding cells.
"Niz, what are you doing?"
Niz sighed and shook her head, withdrawing the mass driven sidearm from her pistol holster. She didn't say a word, she hoped the type of weapon, one of the prisoners in front of her, and Zha on the opposite side of the bars would be evidence enough of her intentions.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, what's going on there?!" Red interjected at the commotion.
"None of your concern, My Tallest." Xilch did her best to remain impassive.
"The heck it isn't! What kind of operation are you all running here? What's this have to do with regulation enforcement?"
After some silence, the weary Colonel sighed. "My intent was to paint Zha with the Lieutenant's brains for her obstinance, High Marshal."
Xilch did not say anything immediately. Rather, her icy blue gaze studied Zha and Kuru briefly, then Niz before casually approaching the nearest wall locker. A quick credentials check and biometrics reading unlocked it, allowing her to retrieve one of the facility's riot control weapons. A surplus mass-driven shotgun. Her heeled boots casually clipped back towards Niz as she loaded the weapon, cell-by-cell.
"Holster your sidearm, Colonel." She ordered, loading the last cell into the magazine tube before sharply racking the foreend of the weapon and holding it out to Niz. "If you are going to take action, use the appropriate tool. Two of your men, summon them."
"Duly noted, High Marshal." Niz complied and slipped her pistol back into her holster. Snapping her fingers and signaling two guards to come over. Two quickly made their way over and saluted Xilch.
By the time the racking of the weapon echoing through the block assaulted her antenna, Zha's disposition quickly shifted to grave concern. "N-no. Don't do this."
"It's been an honor, High Marshal." Kuru swallowed, struggling to prepare for the imminent. The change of armament and Xilch's intervention made it unbearable.
As the pair of IIA guards showed up, the High Marshal pointed to Zha. "Both of you, restrain her. Forward facing near the bars."
"No! Don-" Zha, horrified, was quickly subdued no sooner than the field dissipated and bars were opened. Weakened and waning physically, she couldn't put up much of a fight even if she wanted to.
The High Marshal unkindly kicked the back of Kuru's legs, forcing him to his knees almost simultaneously with Zha. Near eye-level, bars and mere inches between them. Xilch's gloved hand took hold of the weapon in the Colonel's hands by its muzzle, slowly directing it down until it pointed at the back of the Lieutenant's head.
"You know what you have to do to save his life. All you have to do is confess everything and the Lieutenant lives." Niz, with Xilch's assistance, held the shotgun with her finger on the trigger.
"The others didn't invoke this response in you, Zha." Xilch casually observed. "Something tells me you are quite attached to this one. Colonel Niz seeks your confession. We know Vaukt is a traitor. I want to know how deep that cancerous rot goes…and you are the nearest source of healthy flesh for it to infect. Lieutenant Kuru's life is in your hands. Choose. Does he live or die?"
"All you have to do is tell us everything of Vaukt's treachery and your involvement or lack of due diligence in reporting it and Kuru walks back to his cell and can continue serving the Empire," Niz added.
"My loyalty has been rewarded already." Kuru solemnly commented, swallowing hard as he closed his eyes.
Zha, face contorted in distraught agony, struggled to hold back frustrated, powerless tears at the mercy of her captors.
"I've told you…everything I know! Please!"
"An unfortunate turn of events then. Colonel?"
Niz nodded, pulling the trigger, a loud thunder of the mass driver's blast filling the cell block. In a blinding, deafening flash in close-proximity, Kuru's head was there one moment and gone the next. Its contents turned into high-speed splatter and spray across the front of Zha's body and face. Tendrils of sinew, chunks of tissue, fragments of bone, and brain matter painted the High Marshal in macabre fashion with Kuru's headless body slumping over to spurt and pool blood across the concrete.
Despite the grotesque nature of one of her own's inner anatomy plastering her, she hoarsely cried out, straining against the guards and her own fatigue. They had been nothing but loyal servants to her and the Empire by default. Her actions, her decisions, her choices…all of this was her fault and they willingly bore the brunt of the consequences for her.
The IIA Director sneered with contempt at Zha's display, looking to the IIA guards inside of the cell. "Leave her. Go clean up and return to your posts."
The two guards saluted, leaving the cell and shutting it behind them before departing to go clean themselves up.
Niz looked to a guard on the tier above them. "You, call the trustees down here, get this corpse to the crematorium and this mess cleaned up."
"Right away, ma'am." The guard immediately got on the radio to issue her orders.
Cagir watched the spectacle from some ways away before looking at the Tallest. "Yeah, you two are screwed."
Carefully extracting the weapon from Niz's grasp, its muzzle and barrel spattered with specks of Kuru's blood, cycling the action to chamber another cell before pushing it through the bars to tip the sobbing mess of Zha's face by the chin to look at them.
"...that is the face of a broken woman, isn't it Colonel?"
Niz glanced over, studying Zha's features closely. "...Not quite…I sense the defiance about her still…but it's thin, wavering. She can't take something like this again…and I know just the one who will break her." The Colonel retreated across the hallway, grabbing Saro and bringing him forward. "She's extremely fond of this one if she has that chubby fatass Inz be his understudy and keep his position when he was to be replaced."
Xilch never tore her attention away from Zha's sickened grief despite Saro's defiant scuffling of resistance. A strong, healthy specimen of an Irken Elite, it took considerable manpower to manage the Captain even this far into their incarceration. He earned quite the infamous moniker on Vort and that tenacity remained true. Her patience tested, she finally intervened by turning to the man and introducing the stock of the shotgun deep into the pit of his spooch.
"Seeing as we lack the luxury of time, Zha…once more, from the top…"
The butt of her weapon smashed into the back of Saro's legs, crumpling him to the floor in front of the High Marshal's cell, his face forcibly pressed into the bars as he struggled still.
"...tell me what we want to know and Captain Saro may yet live to fight another day."
"High Marshal, d-don't." He managed, gritting his teeth in discomfort.
Niz grabbed the back of Saro's head, reeling him back before slamming him into the bars as a warning.
"Shut your mouth, Captain."
Still reeling from Kuru's death, now being presented with the possibility of an encore of yet another faithful subordinate in extremely intimate fashion, her fracturing facade crumbled entirely in a wailing sob, wiping blood and tears from her face with filthy, ruined sleeves.
"I'm sorry, Vaukt…"
"G-General Vaukt…"
"Zha, no!"
Niz's hand then went to Saro's throat to choke him, preventing him from trying to reinforce Zha's fallen will.
"Go on…"
"...Onrek…fell to him. Not…the Empire."
Xilch, realizing she was breaking down and confessing, relented the weapon to rest upon her shoulder for the time being.
"Fell to him? In what context?"
"Agreed…surrendered to Vaukt. Vaukt's appointed man to manage Onrek. Onrek serving Vaukt…not the Empire."
"His own private army…" The High Marshal of Internal Affairs sneered. "How do you know this?"
"...told me…himself. Confronted about rumors…told me."
"And you didn't shoot him then and there? You didn't report this to IIA? Why?"
"I…cared."
"Cared? Cared for what? Who?"
"Him. Cared for him."
The IIA Director masked her realization well that Zha looked upon Vaukt as she did Grimm. She made a decision based on her affections to protect him…no different than she took action to benefit her own lover. The irony was not lost on her.
"...you were fraternizing." She summarized coldly.
"Yes…please…no more…do what you must to me…just…let them go. I'm begging you."
Niz, seeing her gamble paid off, pulled Saro to his feet and practically tossed the man into his cell before slamming the bars and returning across the block.
"High Marshal…I believe we finally have it…you're ranking officer here and Director of IIA, what would you recommend as a course of action?"
"Are you freaking kidding me?!" Purple exclaimed, having an obstructed view of the events that transpired save for the pool of blood running into view and the exchange between the incarcerated and the guards. "All of that was necessary because she was making kissy-face with someone?!"
Purple's interruption saw Xilch round the Colonel and storm forward with an unkind thrust of the still-warm, blood-spattered muzzle of the shotgun through the bars directly into his open mouth with a murderous glare.
"...one more word out of your noise tube and you'll be a head shorter. Be. Quiet. Am I understood?"
"Aaa-ha." The terrified ruler ecked out around the weapon.
Unkindly shoving him back with a gag of his throat, he stumbled, Red catching him before she turned her attention back to Niz and Zha.
"Considering the height of this treachery and how long it has been permitted to fester, Colonel, I am of the belief we need to be thorough and absolute. Ensure that this never happens again. Prepare Zha and her command staff for expedited extradition to Judgmentia. Deactivation is the only way to be sure."
"It will be done, High Marshal."
"What?! I told you everything!" Zha hoarsely cried. "Let the others go! They're not involved!"
"Sometimes healthy cells must also die to cure the cancer, traitor, lest they carry the disease and emerge later." Xilch took her leave of the block, tossing the shotgun to Niz. Niz then departed with Cagir in tow.
The block was about to become extremely vacant save for Red and Purple.