.

Resisty Attack

It had been a month since the attempted assassination. They were both still on high alert because the assassin and the Resisty had disappeared into thin air. Which meant Lard Nar had probably found said assassin and took a gamble, spiriting him away instead of handing him over. Which meant their lives were still at risk and enemies would get bolder because of how close to successful the attempt had been. After all, if one assassin could get away with it, why not another? Another factor that was probably emboldening people was the Resisty and their growing presence. In the wake of all that, neither Tallest could shake the feeling that plotting was being done…

IZ

"So, Bob was it? What exactly was your plan with this little attempted assassination?" Lard Nar asked the would-be assassin.

"To poison them," Bob said like it was obvious.

"Not just Tallest Purple?" Lard Nar asked.

"Nope," Bob replied, shaking his head. "They're strong together. Exceedingly strong."

"But that doesn't make any sense! If they're exceedingly strong together, then divide and conquer them," Lard Nar exclaimed.

"That would be even worse!" Bob quickly said. "The Almighty Tallest are a duo, sir. Not just any duo, but a duo of twins. Brothers. You can't take them out separate from one another. If you do, the other is going to retaliate with a fury untold! They might not look like much, and they may not seem all that useful, but if you so much as tick one of them off, the other one is gonna start paying attention. You don't wanna be on the bad side of either of them as is. Kill one and you'll be on worse than the other's bad side. Either they go down together or not at all. There isn't an in-between. I'm a hunted Irken for the rest of my life! I'm looking at probably torture if I'm caught."

"What if you removed the strongest link?" Lard Nar asked. "Tallest Purple looks like a joke next to Tallest Red at the top of his game!"

"You haven't seen Tallest Purple at the top of his own game. He's reliant on Tallest Red because Tallest Red has this sort of protective thing going on and is more independent anyway, but if Red were to go down, Purple would have to step up, and I get the bad feeling that Tallest Red might be the lesser of two evils," Bob said.

"How so?" Lard Nar asked.

"Tallest Red is more competent, but Tallest Purple is more ruthless. Tallest Red likes to get things over and done with so he can move onto other stuff. Tallest Purple likes to drag it out. Tallest Red is a Canid to Tallest Purple's Felid. A Canid is going to maul you to death in seconds flat. A Felid is going to play with you first and kill you slow."

"If you're being killed slowly, you still have a chance to get away," Lard Nar pointed out.

"Yeah, but the odds of that are like slim to none," Bob replied.

"Well better some than none!" Lard Nar replied.

"And neither are ever going to stop hunting," Bob added.

Lard Nar grimaced. Bob had a point. "So how do we get two in one?" he asked. Bob helplessly shrugged.

Lard Nar leaned back in his seat considering the question. The thing was if they couldn't get two in one, they were going to have to strike opportunely whether it was for the best or not. That was a path he'd rather not take, but between the two brothers, every Resisty attempt on their lives had failed. Then again, with every failure, the Resisty learned a little bit more. Dividing and conquering was plausible if they attacked while both rulers were asleep and made sure both died. The two Tallest didn't share a room, according to his spies. They had their own. Except infiltrating the citadel was nigh impossible and finding two defective Irkens living in the same place who would be willing to take the risk was extraordinarily unlikely. Filling such a criteria was probably going to take a long, long time, and they'd have to extend the net outside the citadel before they could even consider something like a sandman kill. Even if they did find two defective Irkens willing to do it, actually getting them into the palace would be another matter entirely. The place was like a fortress. An already difficult task was made even harder by the fact that the Resisty was still being mercilessly hunted by Red, and now Purple had joined in the campaign against them too, clearly not inclined to lose his twin brother anytime soon. Red's search parties were brash and showy, and you knew when they were coming, and you were horrified by it because you couldn't escape. Purple's were insidious and subdued and you didn't know when they were coming or where they were coming from, so you didn't have the chance to be horrified before they were on you. The fear those search parties struck into everyone almost guaranteed that even if they found defectives who might have otherwise lent their hands to the Resisty cause, they probably weren't going to now because of terror.

Another option was to drive the Irken rulers out of their citadel and ensure the Massive wasn't a viable escape plan. If they were out of the palace, they were exposed. They'd have to find a safe house where they could go into hiding, and that would be a lot less secure than the Massive or the palace would be. Or maybe, if the Resisty could take on the Massive and get it into bad enough shape, escape pods would have to be used. The Tallest would be ripe for the picking then. Lard Nar frowned a little. The problem with that option was the Massive was nearly as impenetrable as the palace. Maybe they could just cut off the Massive as a viable escape route and hope the Tallest fled to a backup ship? Yes. A backup ship would be easier to destroy, and either the two would be killed in its destruction or be separated by escape pods. Even if they escaped together, they'd be doomed in a shared pod. Getting them to a ship that wasn't the Massive was most viable, but that still left the problem of how to drive them out of the Citadel. That was about as unlikely as taking over the Massive. Lard Nar groaned, slamming his head on his desk.

There was that Irken Invader the two Tallest hated that seemed to have a fondness for wanton destruction. But he was all the way on Earth and that was a long trip for a standard ship like the one he had now, after the first had been destroyed. Hmm… The Tallest couldn't live in the Citadel forever! They had to go out sometimes, right? Right! Right to the Massive, he hopelessly recalled. He wondered if that was intentional or just a happy coincidence on their parts. It was a pretty clever maneuver if intentional. Surely the two visited other planets! Almighty Tallest Miyuki had, to get updates and the like. They would be exposed then! Except it seemed these two were a lot fonder of blowing planets up than visiting them to try and forge peace, and if they forged peace, they tended to do it on their terms in their palace. Oh there had to be something! Some weakness, some slip, some anything! But even if they figured out how to reach them, how would they kill them? Poisoning wasn't an option anymore. They had testers now. Melee weapons maybe? Ranged weapons?

"What about bladed weapons or blasters?" Lard Nar asked, looking at Bob.

"If the first blows don't kill them and they can scream for help, or if the sound of a blaster or laser is heard at all, the Resisty will be had. If you go at the two separately, the other twin will be up and at his sibling's side in a heartbeat. If you go at the two separately at the same time, or even if you go at them together, their guards will be the ones to intervene."

Lard Nar screamed in frustration. Blowing them up maybe? But if one lived and the other died, they were done for unless it was Red who died, because there was a chance that in the wake of that, Purple would end up just broken and lost enough that he couldn't recover in time to save himself before the Resisty caught up to him too. That was viable. Another option was removing their Paks or puncturing them. Over the centuries, Paks had become the lifelines of Irkens to their own detriment. Wait… Lard Nar sat slowly up, blinking. Maybe directly attacking the Tallest with explosions was a bad idea, but directly attacking the Citadel? It might be possible. If there was a risk of the building being breached, the guards would want to spirit the Tallest away. Ugh, but to a safe room or something! But it was still better than nothing, and of all his considered options, it was the one most likely to work. Panic could be incredibly useful, and even if they failed to finish the brothers off, it would still serve as a strong warning and threat to them. They just had to be sure that one twin wasn't injured while the other stayed unscathed. So long as they didn't directly attack the location where the Tallest were, that was doable.

"Or you could try the mech's of doom," Bob said from behind. Lard Nar yelped, spinning around with heart racing. Bob was still standing there looking incredulous.

"Have I been talking out loud to myself?" Lard Nar sheepishly asked.

"Yep," Bob replied. Lard Nar face palmed. "The Resisty got its hands on some Mechs of Doom and defective SIR units, didn't they? Turn Irk's own technology against it and you have a pretty good chance of getting the Tallest out of their haunt. The last time they left the safety of that Citadel of their own initiative was when Invader Zim was 'invading' Irk and shooting everything to bits. No one could stop him, so the Tallest decided that job was delegated to them. They wanted to secure their positions and prove themselves worthy rulers so they didn't have to deal with resistance movements forming a few hours into their reign. That's why they went out there themselves and took Zim on directly. They won too."

"Really?" Lard Nar asked, intrigued. Bob nodded and proceeded to explain.

Flashback

The mech rampaged through the city, razing it to the ground. Zim's maniacal laughter echoed loud and clear. High, high above in one of the few buildings spared this maniac's destruction, the Almighty Tallest watched. In a crisis situation of this nature, most would panic or freak out or give into anger or call for the neutralization of the threat. They did none of that. They observed, totally calm. Vaguely irritated yes, highly unimpressed yes, but calm. Purple scratched his back as they boredly followed the mech with their eyes while it lay siege to the capitol city.

"Y'know, this is gonna reflect badly on our record," Red said.

"We've been Tallest for what, a few hours, and already the capitol city is being destroyed!" Purple exclaimed, gesturing at the sight in agitation.

"Go figure," Red wryly replied with a roll of his eyes.

"We should do something," Purple said with a practical nod. A beat of silence. "Snack time!" he exclaimed out of the blue.

"Seriously? Our city is being destroyed and you want snack time?" Red asked.

"Well what can we do? He's destroying everything! Might as well have the food while we still have a job," Purple said.

"Or we can stop him and prove we can do our jobs," Red said like it was obvious.

"Or we can get dead!" Purple protested.

"If we do nothing, we'll get dead anyway! Clearly no one else can stop him, but we trained with him. We know him. We know his weaknesses too, and the machine's," Red insisted.

"I don't wanna die!" Purple protested fearfully.

"Fine! Stay here and snack, but I'm ending this and salvaging what's left of our reputations," Red said, floating off looking a bit put out by Zim and his incompetence as well as Purple's complaining.

Purple hesitated and grimaced, then sighed and followed albeit a bit slouched, shoulders hunched up and everything. "Fine. Then snacks?" he asked.

"All the snacks we can eat, plus being hailed heroes and solidifying ourselves as Almighty Tallest," Red said, smirking.

"Yeah. That I can do," Purple replied, smirking back.

IZ

"Push those buttons, push those buttons!" Zim ordered before bursting into maniacal laughter. Suddenly a loud impact could be heard outside the mech, sharp and piercing. "What?!" Zim exclaimed. "Find the source of the noises!"

The Irken in charge of that aspect of the machine searched. An immensely relieved look came over his face. "It's Almighty Tallest Red!" he virtually cheered. "Irk is saved!" Whether they were or not was questionable, but still.

"No doubt Almighty Tallest Red wishes to compliment me on my ruthless efficiency," Zim haughtily stated. The Irken soldiers with him grimaced, exchanging dubious looks. Zim cried out in surprise when a hole began to be punched through the mech. "Stop the attacker at once!"

"But sir, it's Tallest…" one of the Irken's began.

"I said stop the attacker!" Zim commanded. The rest of them looked highly uncomfortable, but nonetheless moved to dejectedly obey the order.

IZ

Red clambered up the mech with his mantis legs, annoyed but determined. He dodged around lasers and attacked mechanical limbs, climbing or jumping over them until he found a weak spot and began to break through. The lasers and limbs increased and began going at him from every direction, forcing him to dodge and fight and break what he could. Teeth gritted, he severed one of the limbs before recovering himself and climbing back up to the weak spot where he could seize the power core and shut the thing down. Another limb came at him that he didn't notice until it was almost on him. He looked back and gasped, crying out in alarm. Suddenly, though, that limb too was severed as Purple leapt from a building and attacked. He'd been running across the roofs with his mantis legs to keep up to the mech, just waiting for the opportune time. Purple leapt back from the falling limb, sliding a bit before sinking a mechanical leg into the metal and stopping himself from slipping off the mech itself. Recovering, he quickly charged upwards towards the head to break in and put a stop to Zim's reign of terror.

"It's Almighty Tallest Purple!" one of the soldiers inside cheered. Red and Purple both saw how relieved the soldiers were. Zim, of course, was still utterly oblivious and figured the Tallest were coming to praise him. Purple began stabbing his way through the top of the mech as it swung at him, forcing him to dodge and counter with laser fire of his own. He eventually gave up on entering from the top and took to distracting the limbs and lasers so Red could focus on penetrating into the reactor and grabbing the core. With Red now able to focus on his task, it started going by much quicker. In only seconds, Red had burrowed into the mech and was penetrating his way through while Purple kept the lasers and limbs distracted, shooting at them or breaking them with his mechanical limbs.

Purple yelped as a mech arm caught him between its pinchers, raising him high into the air. "Red!" he shouted in terror. The thing was going to snap him in half! Just as the pressure started, the mech suddenly froze and began to shut down. The limb was still firm and tight around him, but at least he wasn't about to be crushed or snapped in two anymore. He let out a relieved sigh.

"Got it!" Red said, crawling back out with the core. He blinked blankly on noticing Purple's position. Purple gave him a sheepish grin, waving. Red stared, then his eyes narrowed and darkened as he turned murderously back to the mech, looking at Zim. Oh, it was on. That little shrimp was going to pay. Zim had come way too close to killing off his sibling, closer than Red was comfortable with, and that wasn't going to fly. Red clambered up to Purple and helped his twin pry the pincher apart to extract him. "Now let's go deal with Zim," Red said as they both landed unharmed on top of the now-deactivated mech that Zim was trying frantically to reactivate again, clearly thinking something had gone horribly wrong. From below, the people of Irk cheered loudly for the two Tallest who'd saved their city and planet.

End Flashback

Lard Nar was grimacing now, looking uncomfortable. This was just getting more and more complicated. Was it worth it to attempt to assassinate a couple of doofy teenage rulers who lazed around most of the time? Then he realized how stupid a question that was, because even lazing about doing next to nothing, they had still proven to be more prolific and potent and deadly than either of their predecessors had been. Or any of a great number of their predecessors, for that matter. Twin synergy, he stubbornly determined. Twinergy. No one would convince him otherwise. He didn't even want to imagine how ruinous they'd be when they grew up, fully matured, and stopped lazing about. After all, eventually they would, and if those two lived long enough to reach adulthood, they were all screwed. With the immaturity of their teenage years left behind, and along with it the inclination towards laziness, a sudden drive to get serious would develop. Plus, the older they got, the more knowledge and experience and wisdom of years they'd have under their belts. The duo would destroy them all and probably end up being the first rulers in Irk's history to actually deserve the exaggerated preface 'Almighty'. Then not even the Control Brains would be able to hold sway over them. Or the twins would just become Control Brains themselves if said Control Brains really were evolutions of particularly spectacular Irkens.

Now obviously, Lard Nar wasn't fond of the idea of murdering a couple of adolescents, but with the search parties hunting them down and slaughtering them now, he'd been given no choice. Besides that, these two absolutely could not be allowed to keep living if the universe was going to have a chance at survival. The twins weren't going to stop until Operation Impending Doom was completed, and that was an operation that absolutely could not be seen through to the end. No. They needed to cut them down before they became too big to cut anymore, whether they liked the idea or not. It wasn't as if the two had loving parents who'd miss them or anything! Even if some of the rumors were true about Red and Purple being the natural-born smeets of Miyuki and Spork, or even smeets conceived by Miyuki and Spork but grown in the pods, it didn't matter. Miyuki and Spork were both dead. There wouldn't be wives or children to mourn them either. Red and Purple were basically still kids. Marriage and offspring hadn't even entered their minds yet. Even if Lard Nar assumed a mating desire had started to develop in the two, as it was wont to do with adolescents, and one or the other of them had acted on that desire and produced a progeny instead of just sending off DNA like was more commonplace these days—traditional mating had become incredibly rare and often frowned on in Irken society you see—neither of them were aware of that progeny, and odds were the progenies weren't aware of them either. Even if said progenies were aware, they certainly weren't attached to their sires. There wouldn't be friends grieving either. Friendship barely even registered in Irken culture.

"How are we going to do this?" Lar Nar groaned, massaging his temples stressfully.

"I told you. Set their own technology on them. It'll draw them to action, if nothing else, and if they don't come out to fight like they did before, then they'll definitely try to escape. Defective SIR units can be sent to the Massive or teleported onto it, so you can cut off escape that way too," Bob said. "Give the Mechs of Doom to the Resisty and anyone else willing to risk their lives to take the Tallest down, then send the SIRs to the Massive under the guise of them being improved editions. The Tallest would probably just go with it because they're too lazy to look into the claim. All you'd have to do at that point is sit back and watch. Worry about the death blows after Red and Purple are flushed out."

That was probably the best plan, Lard Nar admitted to himself. "Very well. Then the Resisty shall plan like we've never planned before. By the end of this year, the Almighty Tallest will be no more!"

IZ

"Ooh. I just got a chill," Purple said to Red, looking over at him.

"From what?" Red asked.

"I dunno. A sense of impending doom like somewhere someone is talking about us and plotting to end our very lives!"

"The Resisty," Red said.

"We're in danger," Purple remarked.

"We'll be just fine," Red replied, brushing it off. "Now help me torture the suspects."

"Woo!" Purple cheered, throwing his hands up into the air and floating quickly off.

"Hey, save some for me!" Red called, pursuing him.

Some Weeks Later

The Tallest were in the middle of gleefully torturing suspected Resisty sympathizers when a messenger approached. "Excuse me, My Tallest. A shipment of SIR units for the Massive has arrived."

"A shipment? Who ordered a shipment?" Purple asked, looking at Red.

"Not me," Red replied, shrugging. "Did you do it and just forget again?"

"No! ...Maybe." Purple replied.

"We agreed to keep records of this stuff," Red said.

"I'll start doing it when you start doing it," Purple replied.

"Fine. We'll go check on this shipment and this time make sure we note it down," Red said.

The two Tallest made their way up to the Massive landing dock and walked outside onto it. They stopped at a large box, looking up at it. "Why is it chained up?" Purple warily asked.

"Hmm," Red said. He picked up the invoice. "Apparently these are new and improved SIR units just for the Massive."

"New and improved? I like new. New is good," Purple said.

"Then you probably ordered them and forgot," Red said, slapping the paper against his brother's chest.

"Oomph," Purple grunted, holding the paper. He frowned at Red in annoyance.

"Let's see what we have here," Red said, starting to unlock the chains. He pried open the wood and saw no less than fifty SIR units all nicely lined up and shiny. "Everything seems to be in order." He looked towards some of their grunts. "You there, get these SIRs into the Massive!" he called to them. They scrambled to obey his order and quickly began moving the SIRs from the crate into the ship.

"This is strange. I feel like I would have remembered ordering something like this," Purple said, frowning a little at the invoice. "I never forget the really important stuff. Well, almost never."

"The key word is almost," Red replied, snatching back the document and reading it. "Hmm, but you may be onto something. We'll keep an eye on things just in case. Come on. Let's get back into the Citadel." Purple nodded and followed his twin.

As they entered, Red said, "We'll torture a few more prisoners, then…"

Suddenly an explosion rang out so loud and near that it shook the building and caused them both to gasp and fall against the walls. They looked quickly back towards the landing bay and quickly floated out to see what was going on. Their jaws dropped. Down below was a slew of Mech's of Doom marching towards the Citadel! "The Resisty!" Purple blurted in alarm.

"They're destroying the city!" Red said.

"They're gonna be destroying us!" Purple exclaimed in fear, grabbing his brother's attire.

"Get a grip, Pur! We wanted to find them, now here they are. It's time to make them pay," Red said, clenching a fist.

"We didn't expect to find them with Mechs of Doom!"

"Big deal. We've taken one down before, we'll do it again."

"This is a whole lot more than one!" Purple argued

"Keep up or fall behind," Red said, activating his Pak and the two mantis-like legs inside it. Purple swallowed nervously but activated his own. Red sprang into action, leaping from the landing bay with a scowl. Purple followed after him more nervously.

They landed on one of the mechs and immediately began tearing into it. In the hands of the untrained, it was far less dangerous than it had been when Zim had been running his amok. Still, the flailing arms are erratic lasers were posing a problem. Mostly the lasers, which were being fired blind. That made them unpredictable, so disabling them was their primary focus. Purple reached them first and destroyed two quickly before leaping at a third and jamming it. Red leapt over him, tackling a robotic claw and disabling it, then going for the drive core. Like he had with Zim, he began carving his way through to grab it while Purple focused on distracting the limbs and taking out the lasers.

Red quickly disabled the mech then sprang at another that was closing in. Purple followed. He reached the core panel first this time and began carving his way through while Red played distraction. Purple crawled into the hole he'd opened up and kept on going until he saw the drive core and pulled it out like Red had done. He returned quickly to the surface. Red was already on the next mech, and Purple was starting to get worried. Red shouldn't be going so far ahead of him. "Red, wait for me!" he called, following his brother. Red was already disabling the limbs and smirking darkly. Purple knew that look. It meant his brother was in full-on battle mode, his entire focus on the enemy and taking it down whatever it took. Red had always been better at things like that, the commander to Purple's diplomat. When it came to the more militaristic and action-oriented aspects of ruling, you wanted Red on your side. When it came to the more political aspects, you wanted Purple.

Purple went for the core again and began tearing into the mech. Red was suddenly there helping him, and swiftly they burrowed through to it and tore it out before floating back up. Red looked around with eyes narrowed. "Five more," he said.

"Red, we can't keep this up!" Purple said.

"Oh yes we can. You take one, I'll take another. Stay alive!" Red replied. He sprang at the next one. The mechs they'd taken down already began to self-destruct. Purple gasped, looking back at them. The Resisty must be using the explosions as a distraction while they slipped away into hiding.

He leapt to the next mech just before the one he was standing on blew up. He searched worriedly for his brother. Red was on a separate mech, already going for the core and fighting back against the claws and lasers. Purple heard a claw coming and gasped, moving just in time to avoid it. A laser popped up. He shouted in alarm and quickly destroyed it before getting back up. He scrambled quickly down the mech to peer inside. If he could break the window glass, he could take control of the whole thing and use it to destroy the others. When he reached the window and looked in, however, he gasped. There was nothing inside. The mechs were being controlled remotely! The self-destruct was already counting down on this one! "Red!" Purple shouted, looking towards his brother on the neighboring mech. "Red, there's no one inside! It's a trap!"

Red started and turned swiftly, eyes wide. Suddenly he shouted in pain, back arching, and collapsed, falling from his mech. Purple's eyes widened. "Red!" he shouted, leaping from his own mech to try and reach his brother. A claw suddenly struck him, knocking him out of the sky and onto the ground. It went at him again to try and seize him. He shouted in fear and quickly threw up his robotic limbs, trying to keep the claw from clamping down on him. The mech got closer and closer, the self-destruct beeping, and Purple's eyes widened in horror. It was going to explode right on top of him! He shouted in alarm, covering his face. Suddenly the mech made a grinding sound and stopped, the claw going limp. Purple looked over with a gasp. Red was on the ground scowling, his Pak's lasers smoking from a high-powered blast they'd shot right at the mech. The laser had gone right through the control panel, canceling the destruct! Purple hurried to get out from under the claw and floated quickly to his brother, who was still lying on the ground clearly in pain, teeth clenched. "Red!" Purple shouted. He tried to fire into the control panel like his brother had, but his aim was nowhere near as good as Red's. He had to get his brother away from it before it blew! He soared straight to his twin and grabbed him. Red seemed barely conscious right now. Purple flew him quickly behind cover just as the mech blew. He covered his brother's body with his own and felt hot bits of metal burning him all over and shrapnel cutting into him. As long as the debris didn't puncture the Pak, though, he'd be okay.

The second he was sure it was clear, he got off his brother and rolled him quickly over. "Red!" he cried. "Red, please, get up! Red! Red, I can't beat them alone!" What had even hit his brother?! He heard the groaning sound of a mech and looked up, mouth agape. It was towering right above them. It wanted to kill them. It wanted to kill Red! Desperate, Purple suddenly flew directly into the glass and drove the robotic mantis limbs deep into it. Again and again he attacked until at last he was able to scramble inside. What did Red do to take back control of stuff like this again? Oh right, a manual diagnostic. He could do that, right?" He tried to run it, but no matter what he did he couldn't get the sequence right. He cursed and looked around for anything that seemed off. Wait. What was that little round thing? Immediately he floated to it and crouched, examining it with a frown. He didn't know a lot about these machines, but he knew this definitely wasn't part of it. It had a Vortian insignia on it! Immediately Purple seized it and yanked it off the controls. He threw it on the ground and it started to try and scramble away, but a well-placed shot with a laser put a stop to that. Immediately he grabbed the controls and took back over the mech. How the heck did you work this thing again? Wait, it was coming back to him.

He turned the mech around to face the remaining mechs and immediately began attacking them. Bringing them down was a whole lot easier when he was the only one who knew how to use them. As soon as the last one was dealt with, he cut the power to his own. "No one messes with my brother," he said, eyes narrowed as he clenched a fist. Immediately he dove out the window, returning to Red's side. Red was just sitting up, clearly in pain. A hand was pressed to his forehead. "Red!" Purple exclaimed. "Red, what happened?"

"Something hit me," Red replied. "I don't know what, but damn it hurt."

"I got control of one of the mechs and took out the rest," Purple said.

"Really?" Red asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't how. All I knew was that you were down and not getting up, they were going to kill you, and the only way I was going to be able to disable the others was by taking control of one," Purple said. "I figured the skills would probably come back to me. They did, so I finished them off." Suddenly the mech they were near exploded violently. Purple shouted in alarm, tackling his brother to the ground so they were both protected from the blast. "Red!" Purple shouted desperately.

"Calm down. We're fine," Red said. "Back to the citadel, now. If this was all just a distraction, the Resisty could be infiltrating as we speak!"

Purple got up, nodding quickly, and flew rapidly away. Red got up behind him and suddenly cried out in pain, almost collapsing. Purple stopped with a gasp, looking back. His brother was clutching his side. "Red?" Purple fearfully asked.

"I'm fine! It's nothing a doctor can't fix. Keep going," Red said, hurrying after him. Purple hesitated briefly, but then nodded and went for it. They entered the citadel together and looked around. Cautiously they began floating down the halls, blasters at the ready.

"I don't like this," Purple said.

"Whoa," Red said, stopping suddenly and putting a hand to his head.

"Red?" Purple asked.

"I feel strange," Red said. "Like there's something wrong. I can't…" Suddenly he shouted as his robotic limbs crossed quickly to his brother and tried to impale him! Purple cried out in alarm, barely blocking in time. Red looked mortified. "Something's controlling my Pak!" he realized.

Purple cried out again and ducked as another limb stabbed at him. The limb pierced straight through a wall and got stuck. Purple rose, looking nervously back at it, then at Red. "I think I know what it is!" Quickly he moved behind his brother and scanned the Pak. Sure enough, he saw the same round little device that he'd seen on the mechs. He grabbed it and tried to pull, but this one didn't come loose. Red shouted in alarm as he spun around and drove another limb at Purple. Purple cried out, dodging to the side and looking at him in alarm. "I can't get it off!"

"Then break it!" Red said. He shouted when his limbs suddenly went wild and relentlessly began hounding his brother, who at this point was completely focused on defending himself.

"I can't! If I do I puncture your Pak!" Purple replied.

"Then puncture it, Pur!" Red desperately said. "I'm going to end up killing you!"

"If I puncture it, I kill you!" Purple argued, eyes wide.

"Resisty!" Red furiously shouted, shaking his fist at the ceiling. His Pak sprang at Purple, knocking him to the ground and pinning him. Immediately it started trying to impale his brother. "Pur!" Red exclaimed in alarm. "Pur, please, kill it! Kill it before it kills you!"

"No! I'm not risking losing you!" Purple replied.

"Purple, I swear to the Brains!" Red shouted.

"I can fix it without killing you!" Purple insisted, eyes large. "I can't kill you, Red! I can't do this without you!"

"So help me I'll rip it off myself if I have to!" Red said. "Pur!" He cried out in fear as his limbs nearly drove themselves through his brother's head. They missed him by a hair. Purple lashed out with his own robotic limbs, knocking Red off, then pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. He grabbed the chip again and began fighting with it, but it was deep in there. He cried out as one of Red's limbs at last met its mark, piercing his arm. "Purple!" Red cried. Purple grabbed at the thing again. Another limb soared out at him, and he fell quickly back. Red was swiftly up again, totally at the mercy of his robotic limbs. He floated high up into the sky to try and get away from his brother before he hurt him, but the limbs thrashed and stabbed into whatever they could to keep him down. They wedged themselves between two pillars and began crawling down them towards Purple, who was gawking in horror. Desperately Red began trying to grab at his Pak to take it off.

"Red, don't! Don't!" Purple exclaimed. Red ignored him. Purple, heart pounding, scrambled frantically to figure out what to do but couldn't think of anything. With a cry of desperation, he floated quickly towards his brother. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there, but he'd figure it out somehow. He tackled Red full-on, forcing the limbs to release the pillars. Red shouted in surprise. "You're not taking it off!" Purple shouted.

"Purple!" Red desperately said. He shouted in pain as Purple slammed him against a pillar.

"I'm not impaling your Pak, but impaling's not the only way to break the stupid Vortian control thingy," Purple said. He pulled Red away from the pillar and dove down at the ground. Red shouted in alarm, then pain as he was slammed violently into the floor. The Pak began to spark and fizzle, but blunt force trauma could be fixed easier than puncture wounds when it came to Paks, Purple knew, so if this was what he had to do, it was what he had to do. He'd figure out a way to keep Red's Pak functional even after it got scrambled. The limbs of Red's Pak began to seize a little. Purple slammed his brother against a wall next. The limbs immediately retracted into the Pack. Purple slammed him against the wall once more and the Pak made a sputtering sound then seemed to give in. Purple immediately rolled his brother over to check. The Vortian device was destroyed and dangling from one little clingy thing. Purple ripped it off the Pak and impaled it for good measure, but said Pak was still on the verge of crashing. He couldn't let it shut down. He couldn't let it die! He quickly linked his own pack to it so that his could begin undoing some of the damage and unscrambling some of the signals that had been messed up in Red's. Irkens weren't actually supposed to be able to do that, but he and his brother had learned that for some reason they could. They'd figured it out a long time ago when during a training session, things went horribly wrong and the only way they could save each other was by linking up. They'd figured only one of them would come out of it alive, so it was a fight over who it would be, but to both their surprises, the Paks had interfaced almost seamlessly and repaired each other.

Linking up bought them time, so grabbing his brother, Purple floated immediately towards Medical and Maintenance. Red was limp and Purple didn't even want to think that one through right now. He burst into the room, looked around for the charging slash healing station, and booked it over. He quickly set his brother up inside, attaching a plug to Red's Pak, unhooked his own from Red's, then lay Red back in said pod and shut the front. Anxiously he stood outside watching. Red was still unconscious, but the Pak was starting to stabilize if the readouts were anything to go by. He checked them. This was the sort of stuff he was better at than Red, funnily enough. The book smart to Red's street smart. Battle smart. Whatever. Purple couldn't figure out the Massive for the life of him, not like Red, but plop him in front of a medical or research station and he was golden. He began entering some codes and diagnostics to help speed up the process and purge the Pak of any lingering corruption, then glanced at Red again. His brother was still.

Purple turned back to the readouts in concern and pulled up the diagnostic reports hoping against hope they weren't horrible. He read them through and let out a shaking breath. The results were inconclusive. There was a fifty-fifty chance Red would make a full recovery, but for the time being and the foreseeable future, he was in a coma. Which meant Irk was in his hands now, and that was the last thing he wanted. Nervously he swallowed and looked over at Red. He floated up to his twin's pod and rested a hand on the glass. He felt a stinging sensation in his eyes. "You have to get up. Don't leave me alone. Please be okay," he said to his brother. Red didn't respond. Purple sniffed a little and sat on a chair next to his sibling, glancing nervously over at him. He couldn't stay here forever he knew, not with a planet to run, but he could get away with it for a while at least, and that was all he wanted. For the time being, he settled in to keep vigil over his brother.