"NOOOO!" Olive cried in agony as Tan and I dragged him towards the pilaster. His pad fell from his belt and hit the solid ground, powering off. "ABSOLUTE INSANE FREAKS! YOU'RE BOTH GONNA DIE!"
A huge spear-like tongue fired from Olive's helmet, which shattered as a long, toothy mouth had erupted down Olive's front and had grown so much the helmet popped into pieces and fell off either side of the pilaster, landing in the magma, as it wasn't close enough to be the full roiling lava. The hulking, green, scaly mass I'd come to know was the standard Imposter form like Maroon had revealed just weeks ago stood in front of us with blazing auburn eyes, tracking our every move as Olive's suit fell apart, only for Olive to grasp his alien knife and a laser pistol as they flew out of their concealment compartments in his shimmering amythest claws. His tongue lashed at me, and I tripped, my pants being sliced so I just had shorts and boots and long black socks under my waist, and my skin was grazed. Tan pulled me off the pilaster and charged into the Imposter in an attempt to push them off the pilaster. She then fell back as Olive kicked her stomach, landing on me, where I pulled her to solid ground as the Imposter grew more.
"FOOLS!" his icy voice screeched, making my ears feel like they were bleeding. "YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN DAMN WELL THAT YOU WOULDN'T GET OFF OF ATTEMPTING TO BURN ME ALIVE SO EASILY!" He aimed his loaded laser pistol at Tan. "I THOUGHT WE HAD AN ALLIANCE, SCREWHEAD. GUESS NOT." He tilted his head to once side as if to suggest a shrug before firing at Tan.
Fast as humanly possible, I yanked Tan out of the way just as a line of smoking holes disfigured the solid, frozen rock in a blue flash. Olive recovered from the large kickback that the pistol had, and after that reloaded with a flick of a claw on a button, and then he pointed the pistol at me, who was bolting towards the Office while Tan went for the Laboratory.
"C'MON, RATS! WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY! I HAVE SOME OTHER OUTPOSTS TO ELIMINATE!" Olive thundered. He took a few lumbering steps forward, getting off the pilaster with ease, with it creaking as his weight was released off of it. He shot his pistol wildly at the Office, bucking from the kickback again.
I slipped inside the Office, taking a quick glance at all of the machines there. None of them could do me any good...wait. The Vitals Monitor! I looked at it to see the worlds OK next to Pink's name, with an unsteady heartbeat aside it. My visor widened. She is still alive! She hasn't bled out quite yet! Besides her, Tan, Olive the Imposter and I, though, we really were the last ones left.
My mind reeled for ideas. The Emergency Meeting button won't do anything...Communications is down, so I can't message MIRA, and our pads serve only to check for tasks, learn of critical issues in our workspaces, or for seeing the map...the Admin Map doesn't help either, nor do the cams...WAIT. Doesn't the Dropship have a way to contact MIRA HQ? IT MUST!
With as much speed as I can muster, I ran out the Office through the west exit and ducked behind the wrecked Communications, aiming for the Dropship. If I can stay out of Olive's detection...I heard heavy footsteps as Olive started to look for us, but as I moved from Communications to try and hide behind Storage for a moment, I heard a scream. I peeked around Storage to see Tan being dragged towards Olive's rotating mouth as his tongue had wrapped around her, clawing the ground uselessly. She turned back to stare Olive down with a threatening gaze, as if she was trying to muster the power of an Imposter herself to beat Olive up, but then she was flipped into the air as Olive thrust her upwards with his tongue. She screamed again as she fell, but then Olive chucked aside his knife to snatch her up with a free hand. She writhed in his grasp, but he only tightened his grip, and she began to gasp for air, and her air tank started putting out more and more oxygen into her system.
"GOTCHA NOW, YOU LITTLE SHY PIECE OF TRASH!" Olive spat, raising his pistol to her chest. "GOT ANY LAST WORDS FOR OL' BLUEY?" He glanced in the general direction of the Office. "ONCE YOU'RE FINISHED, I THINK I'LL SCOOP YOUR SWEETHEART FROM OUTTA HIS SUIT, STAB HIM A COUPLE TIMES, AND THEN WHERE HIS GEAR AS MY NEXT CREWMATE DISGUSIE. WHADDYA THINK OF THAT, TAN?"
Tan began to growl like a beast.
"WOW. WHAT INSPIRING SOUNDS TO CARVE ON YOUR HEADSTONE WITH YOUR BONES." Olive licked his lips. "...OR NOT. I THINK YOU'LL MAKE A TASY MEAL INSTEAD. I CAN CARVE IT WITH YOUR BLOOD INSTEAD."
That pushed me to my breaking point. I couldn't bear to hear those words being thrown at Tan any longer. I shot forward towards his alien knife and picked it up in one swift move. It looked like some sort of butcher's knife made of red plasma, but it felt like it was made of some kind of metal alloy from a foreign galaxy not of even MIRA's knowledge. It gave me a sense of power and strength, and before thinking of any possible ramifications, I darted forward and plunged the deadly weapon deep into Olive's scaly leg.
The scream that was exerted from his mouth was unheavenly as he dropped Tan to the ground, knocking the wind out of the scarred crewmate. I pushed the knife in as deep as it could, ignoring the grotesque thoughts that popped into my head as I did so. Greenish fluids squirted out from around the knife as his foot began to pulsate rapidly and swell. I stepped back in fright, and so did he.
"YOU ACTUAL SON OF—" Olive began to say before he screamed again as red sparks trailed up through between his scales from the knife. He fumbled with his laser pistol and fired at me, but missed badly. I didn't even have to move.
His foot was now larger than his head, and he belted backwards in pain as his alien knife discharged another swarm of red sparks that would've killed any normal crewmate three times over by now. He stumbled back onto the pilaster, causing it to creak desperately again. Olive reloaded his laser pistol and shot at me again as I tried to drag Tan away, but I threw her and myself to the ground, and he missed again. This time, though, the massive kickback sent him even farther down the pilaster. Olive looked down in fear and, realizing his situation as the metal groaned terribly again, took a teetering step back forward. The metal couldn't handle it any longer, though, and finally, the pilaster collapsed under the Imposter's weight, and Olive's hideous true form fell down the chasm with a terrible screech and a tremendous splash.
Tan and I helped each other to our feet. I walked to the edge and peered down, but Olive had already vanished under the outcrop of purple rock that was just under the pilaster.
"Welp," I said casually, "it's over now." I laughed somewhat dryly, my heart still racing at an insane rate.
CLICK-CLICK.
Slowly I turned around to see Tan holding an ion handgun, loaded and pointed at my head. She had an upturned visor, and she was trying to appear more broad, more assertive, but I could see her hands and feet were trembling, and the pistol was loose.
"Tan…" I put my hands out, making sure the bracelet she had gifted me so recently was showing. "PLEASE. Please don't, Tan. Not after we've won. Not after all of this time. Please. No…"
"I-I-I-I have to, Blue," she choked, fighting back tears. Her grip on the handgun tightened. "I'm the third Imposter. Not Fortegreen or Coral. I haven't killed once, but now…I have to put an end to this. To the outpost. To Pink. To you. Us Imposters have to take over and take back our research. The projects and lives stolen by you stupid crewmate colonists."
"It just c-can't be, Tan," I said sadly, "why didn't you kill me before? Why didn't you kill others?...Why did Gray try to kill you?"
"I-I heard him and Olive discussing something about me being too weak, not wanting to kill, before I had that headache," Tan responded. "That headache was real, too. He was trying to dispose of me quietly. He worried I'd slip up, reveal them. Olive took that into his own hands when he tried to have you vote me off hear, too. He always had a twisted sense of thinking, trying to inflict maximum terror and confusion onto his victims. But it doesn't matter now. I'll do the other Imposters justice. I am strong now. I…I can kill…I can kill you…"
"This just doesn't make sense, I…" I gripped my helmet and swallowed nervously. "Just shoot me. Get it done with. End the suffering." If I had to go out to an Imposter, let it be Tan more than anyone else. At least I'll make her feel stronger, happier, I guess…even if I die…
"There's another way."
I looked up at her, taking my hands away from my helmet. Tan approached me, tossing the pistol into a little swath of snow near the Office.
"I…I can explain," she muttered, taking my hands into hers. "According to Olive, Gray was an Alpha. Not an Assassin, like the others you've probably seen and how Olive was, nor a Queen or Shapeshifter." These terms didn't make that much sense to me, but I tried to understand. "The Alpha's job in our Hives is to breed with not just the Queen, but other humans as well. Doing so converts them into us—my "adopted" species. What you call Imposters."
"So…" I furrowed my brow and thus visor, "Gray made you an Imposter?"
Tan shrugged. "He was a nice human at first, but when he turned me into one of him like a zombie or parasite, he took me away from MIRA HQ to meet up with his Hive. I kinda became his slave. Servant. I didn't love him, but I was bound to him, in a sense. Just a bit ago, Olive, Gray, and I were dispatched here to kill by Commander White before The Skeld's destruction, and before then I had only blurry memories of my past crewmate life. Olive explained to me on the voyage how I was a crewmate before, but how I was not allowed to attach to them. I had to murder them in cold blood instead.
"When I began to mingle with my previous kind and heard chatter about MIRA, memories came back to me. I remembered then, and I remembered more now. I remembered how nice crewmates were, unlike the brutal lives of the species that enslaved me. That was why I was weak. Them seeing me flirting with you, Blue…that was probably the last chance Gray gave me before he tried to kill me.
"Now Olive, who educated me, and Gray, who enslaved me, are both forgotten crisps. Since Gray was an Alpha, though, and he enslaved me, I became a Beta. A female Alpha that is not as powerful as a male but can breed and convert males as Alphas do with females. Still very important to our Hives.
"So you see, Blue? I don't want to kill you. I didn't listen to my peers' advice and I developed feelings for a crewmate. For you. I don't have to kill you. Instead…"
I realized where Tan was going with this, and things were starting to make more sense now anyway. She could kill me, or we could be together as I secretly hoped…but I'd be a mindless assassinating machine that possibly could convert more crewmates into more Imposters.
Die or become a parasite host. I didn't know how to answer that one.
"Well?" Tan asked me after a bit of silence. I heard a strange slithering sound inside her helmet—her alien tongue. I could either go with her and become infected or be impaled by that evil tongue and be consumed by her horrible Imposter mouth in seconds.
"I…"
We then both heard a grotesque squishing sound followed by the sounds of crackling flames, and we looked over the edge of the chasm to see a certain rocky outcropping that had supported the metal pilaster a few minutes ago was now supporting a charred grapple-like thing.
An Imposter tongue!
I heard muffled groans as the badly burned visage of Olive the Imposter creeped up from behind the outcropping. His charred claws grasped the ridge of the chasm, and I saw his blazing auburn eyes digging into my soul with a level of hatred that had never been directed at me before.
Hastily and in a surreal panic, I grabbed Olive's pad from off the ground while, thinking of what Lime had said way back in the first meeting about Imposters using their pads to sabotage things. The pad opened to show a red mischief map. I clicked the first icon I could see, a nuclear symbol over the Laboratory, and a huge rumbling shook the base once again. The Office, Admin, Lower Decontamination, and the hallway leading to the Specimen Room suddenly caved in and fell all the way down along with the ground that started to break apart. Debris piled up, and then there was a loud CRUNCH as the rock supporting the debris gave in, too, and it all fell into the lava-filled ravine hidden below the surface.
Tan and I embraced out of fear as the Specimen Room broke apart and the chasm got bigger as more of the base fell into it. Lava coursed through the debris deep below, and I caught sight of the wretched card reader atop the Office's rubble. I cursed at its presence, but then it rolled off into the lava, and I grinned with malice.
A small crack ran beneath our feet, and we jumped away from it as it got bigger. The crack reached its full width at the rocky outcropping Olive was pulling himself onto. The crack dislodged the outcropping, and Olive slipped and swung back under the outcropping. The outcropping then broke off and crashed into the lava below, but I didn't see if Olive had been crushed under it or not.
"We've gotta get outta here, Blue!" Tan clutched me, obviously terrified.
"We should reset the Seismic Stabilizers instead! We could save the base!" I said back.
"Screw the base! We gotta go!" she hollered, pulling me along.
We bolted for the Dropship, hoping it had enough fuel for us to at least get to MIRA HQ, when I saw Pink across the pit that had formed from the Office caving in. She was awake and crawling as fast as she could for the Dropship too.
"We need to save her!" I cried.
"For what? A meal?" hissed Tan in her adopted icy Imposter voice. "Or for once I convert you, you convert her? You'll become an Alpha, you know…"
"Just help me help her!"
We made a U-turn to get top Pink, who seemed bewildered to be alive right now, and even more so to see us in a better state than her, coming to the rescue.
"Blue? Tan?" she asked in an eccentric voice.
"Don't ask, we're here to help," I said. Tan and I picked her up as we'd picked up Olive when he was still in a crewmate form before, and we made a mad dash for the Dropship. We were almost going to make it, but then some lava sprouted from beneath those giant boulders in the middle of the base when a snowball fight had commenced in much happier times. The lava started to lick at our suits, and our advanced rubbers were only so flame-resistant. The lava creeped towards us, transforming the ground, and spontaneously it slanted upwards, and we slid downwards. The lava outburst was making the ground cave in!
I let go, and Tan kept running with Pink. She didn't realize I'd stopped going with her until she got out of the slanted death trap. She set Pink down, the assistant crewmate hobbling after the Dropship, and she began to come down to me.
"Tan! NO!" I called. "Save Pink. She still has a life to live. It's best for me to die here," I looked in the general direction of Electrical, "with Cyan."
"Blue, you're the one who has a life to live. A life with me! I…I promise I won't infect you. We can live in MIRA HQ, and we won't kill, alright? We can be happy! Free!"
I considered it for a moment and started towards her. She held out a hand to me. Then I paused. Maroon didn't want to kill. Had he been infected? Or was he just an Imposter against murder? He may have spared Cyan and I, but not Commander White. "Good" Imposter or not, those alien parasites would always return to their instinct to kill, devour, and make more. How could you trust Tan to not follow the nature she'd been enslaved into?
"I can't, Tan, I can't," I said, feeling a little tearful, kinda dominant, but mostly scared. "I should just die. My other friends are dead, my mother's dead, my father's way out in space doing some "runt" job..."
"I won't LET you!" she cried in a mad-sad voice. She reached for me more, but then she slipped and tumbled down towards me. I side-hopped her so I wouldn't be taken down, and then I reached out my hand and grabbed hers. The lava created a larger hole in the ground, and the molten rock latched onto Tan's boots and pants, and they started to burn. She screamed in agony as if she was giving birth, and I tried to pull her and myself up, but we were both slipping. We were both going to become victims to the lava, as Coral, Gray, Fortegreen, maybe Olive, and possibly others had before us.
"Blue! Blue! Look up!" came Pink's voice. I looked up to see she was holding a steel rod she'd grabbed from the debris of Storage as half of it had collapsed into another new lava starburst.
Without thought I grabbed on, and with a tremendous heave Tan and I were on solid rock once again.
"AHH AHH AHH AHH AHH IT BURNS REALLY BURNS SO BADLY HELP OWWWWWWWW!" came Tan's terrible cries as fire enveloped her bottom half and was continuing to consume its victim.
"Roll!" Pink and I spoke in unison.
Tan rolled back and forth, trying to extinguish the blaze. I took out my pad and beat at the flames, and Pink followed suit. The fire was put out at last, but now we were greeted with the sight of Tan's blackened legs and missing feet. She cried in pain again, making me wince. I pictured myself with the same burns as her, the same pain…
Pink and I hoisted Tan up and carried her up the ramp into the Dropship. Pink limped into the cockpit and slapped a button, and the drawbridge-like door lifted up and shut. Dim lights came on, illuminating the mostly empty Dropship, empty except for a window and the chairs with seatbelts around the walls of the structure. There was no trace of Red's bloody demise anymore; Pink had cleaned it out after the resulting Emergency Meeting. The Dropship shook as the earthquake made one last shake before ending, and the Dropship's engines flared to life as Pink got at the wheel. She was the most experienced driver, and I still felt like I had to comfort Tan, and also remind her to not go full Imposter mode; at least for now. The Dropship then kicked off of the surface of Polus and fired upwards with tremendous velocity and force.
I strapped Tan into one of the chairs and then I got in another, clutching her hand tightly as she groaned in immense pain. The two of us put our heads together and looked out the window as the Polus outpost…Cyan's burial place…was blocked from view as Pink flew us through Polus's dark clouds.
Olive the Imposter clawed his way out of the chasm. He lifted his burnt head up, watching as the Polus base was flooded with lava, metal and sheetrock and technology turning into yellows, oranges, reds, crimsons...blacks. He winced in pain as he reached out and retrieved his pad. It was cracked and the screen was dimmed, and the battery was almost out—just like his life. With the last of his energy, he reverted to human form and closed out of his mischief map, painting his gouged human face in a calm blue light. He opened the private message thread that Commander White had installed into all Imposter pads, one that went straight to Commander White's inner circle. He knew that Commander White was dead now, but it was just sort of a last hurrah for Olive. The Imposters on The Skeld had all sent messages when their partners had been Ejected, and he had messaged on this thread when Gray was burnt the night of his voting that that Imposter in particular had been found out, just to let any other Imposters still watching the messages on the status of their ultimate mission. So, as a subconscious final act, Olive typed into the chat one last message from him.
From Alpha Assassin "Machete" (Olive Crewmate—ID: 021-0868-235): Central polus outpost destroyed along with me i have no regrets except not killing blue + tan who both survive. anyone reading this please do all in your power to kill them for me
Olive then shut off his pad, and with a sigh, watched the Dropship ascend into the skies above as he began to sink into the magma below him.