Chapter Text
Arsonist’s Lullaby
ACT ONE
Takes place ten years after the bulk of “There’s No Telling What You’ll Find” and five years after the epilogue. There’s a few next-gen characters, the most important of which is Periwinkle/Peri, only child of Jude and Andar. She’s 8 years old at the start.
The family of three is off-planet for a vacation, but cut it short when they overhear a human mention finding out where those “dirty fucking impostors” are coming from, and that he’s excited for the Terra United Strike Force to wipe them out in a few weeks. His buddy shoves and shushes him because the attack is confidential and he definitely Should Not be mentioning it outside of their base.
Jude and Andar quickly return home to alert the higher-ups, who start organizing ships to help evacuate the planet before the invasion. They also take volunteers to help defend in case the invasion comes early (which it does).
Somewhere in the chaos of evacuation, Andar gets separated from Jude and Peri, but they have a rendezvous point set up on an allied planet (Langra, home of the serpentine people known as the Rephra, who appeared briefly at the end of the original). Jude and Peri stay there for a week, a month, half a year, and Andar never shows up. Jude forges paperwork to board a MIRA ship/crew to look for information on what may have happened to the remaining Phiri/Impostors during the invasion, taking up the cyan suit once again (with mini crewmate Peri).
At some point, Jude encounters one of the ship’s Phiri/Impostors (Latra, black suit) seconds after a kill and has to explain that they’re not going to turn her in. She doesn’t believe them until they explain that their bonded is, in fact, another Phiri, and that they were one of the humans from the Skeld some years ago (which is a famous moment in recent history). This Phiri has her own kid (a son, Trodec) with her.
Eventually, Jude gets caught as one of the Skeld crew who disappeared some years ago, and taken for “questioning.” Peri stays with Latra until the latter gets ejected. Then, her and Trodec, being children, get put into an orphanage that essentially raises MIRA fodder (for kids who don’t get adopted).
(Note that the orphanage is pretty full; they took any juvenile Phiri they found when Terra United attacked Chenis. The young Phiri are separated from the Terrans, though Trodec slips under the radar and gets to stay with Peri for quite a while until he gets found out. They sneak around to hang out, though, whenever they can. The young Phiri are not used for experimentation by MIRA until adulthood.)
END ACT ONE
INTERLUDE
(lasts for one chapter)
Andar is stuck in a small, specialized cell with a large observation window and solid walls. They can’t see much through it since the cell across from them is empty, but Ustyl and Onat are somewhere further down the hallway. They’ve lost track of how long they’ve been captured for. They reflect on the experiments they’ve been subjected to and how it’s effected the others. Onat is a shell of her former self and Ustyl has lost his sense of wonder and liveliness. Andar is subdued and cooperative, often dissociating and losing theirself in thought while their captors take tissue and blood samples, among other things.
The interlude ends when a group of guards approach Andar’s cell with General Helena Plumm, who’s holding a box with a large, thick metal ring in it (a specially designed shock collar).
END INTERLUDE
ACT TWO
Sixteen years after Act 1, Peri (cyan) and Trodec (black) are assigned to the same MIRA ship, the Ridge, on the way to an off-planet science facility (possibly a more advanced Polus?). Peri is the lead scientist on board, and Trodec is essentially her bodyguard. Security on ships is much tighter now, and every member of every crew, regardless of species, is required to wear “safety collars.” Keys to remove the collars only exist on the guards at bases and sometimes on long-employed Terran/Human captains. The majority of Act 2 is simply living under the effects of these collars while on the way to a secondary location about a month’s trip away.
The collars are designed with Phiri/Impostors in mind, the scientists who designed them having used Phiri/Impostor DNA in their creation. Anyone with Phiri genes is effected, with the damage output increasing based on emotional level and quantity of Phiri genes. The collars shock the subject if the subject experiences intense emotion, though they are specialized and do not harm pure-blooded Terrans/Humans. As mentioned before, every single person on board any given ship is required to wear these. This is because the Phiri are known shapeshifters, and can easily take on a Human form to blend in, making it easier to do harm.
(Example: An aggressive Human wears the safety collar and isn’t shocked for anger or heightened emotion. A Phiri with the same type of personality would be strongly shocked for experiencing the same emotions at the same level. It allows Human crewmates to more easily find Impostors to eject. A part-Phiri, such as Peri, would experience nothing more than a strong static shock for the same emotions.)
Romance starts to bloom between Peri and Trodec during the journey, though they are incapable of anything more… passionate than the occasional deep kiss and cuddling. They find this out the hard way, when Trodec gets shocked strongly and Peri less-strongly. They resolve to steal a key when they get the chance, so they can actually enjoy each other’s company more… actively without the threat of harm.
Unfortunately, a few crew members end up dying during the journey thanks to a rogue Phiri attacking them. The crew of 12 decreases to 9 before the attacker is found out. The attacker turns out to be Vitis, the one in the red suit, and he was able to kill off so many people without getting shocked because of his generally apathetic nature. His final victim is the captain. Trodec and Peri find Vitis over the body, and Trodec is the most horrified between them. Vitis disappears into the vents and Peri loots the key to the safety collars off the body before calling an emergency meeting. Vitis gets ejected once he’s tracked down, and Peri, as lead scientist, becomes the de-facto leader until they arrive at their destination.
When questioned about the late captain’s key, she and Trodec play dumb, acting surprised to learn he had one. One of them suggests that maybe the Impostor they ejected had stolen the key, since they hadn’t found it on the body. Luckily for them, they get away with it, and enter the scientific facility.
END ACT 2
INTERLUDE
(lasts for one chapter)
MIRA General Helena Plumm appears again. She’s interrogating Jude after their capture, demanding answers about the Phiri and what secrets the Impostor home planet may be hiding, and whether the aliens are capable of crossbreeding with Terrans/Humans. Jude adamantly refuses to answer her questions, no matter what tortures she puts them through. When all means of interrogation fail, General Plumm gets angry and uses an experimental device to brainwash Jude.
The interlude ends with Jude going slack and monotone, and General Plumm asking a few more simple questions to ensure the brainwashing was successful (and it was).
(Question/answer examples: “Where do your loyalties lie?” “With Terra United.” “What is your mission?” “To follow MIRA’s orders and to destroy any opposition to their rule.”)
END INTERLUDE
ACT THREE
Peri and Trodec are given the tour of their new workplace and escorted to their new in-facility dwelling. Their rooms are small, Trodec’s slightly smaller since he’s a simple bodyguard, and connected by a very narrow corridor that contains a tiny shared restroom. (Peri’s room is about the size of the average hotel room, for scale.) They’re given the first night to get used to their new accommodations before they’re set to begin work the following morning. They spend this time checking for hidden cameras and such, and find a few.
Peri’s assigned to work on anti-alien technology, mostly aimed at the Vonkoll, Earth’s newest allies, in the event that they betray Terra United. When she asks about technology against Impostors (careful not to call them Phiri), she’s told that the experiments involving them are classified but rumored to be at this facility. She shares this information with Trodec later that night and he agrees to snoop around as carefully as he can to learn more.
Weeks pass and Peri is thrown into her work, while Trodec subtly digs up as much information as he can about the Phiri (avoiding using any abilities that would mark him as one), and what happened on Chenis. The biggest thing he learns is the location of the door leading to the captured Phiri, which he tells Peri as soon as they’re safely in their rooms that night. Their mutual excitement leads to their collars shocking them, but they go into Peri’s room to cover the hidden cameras and take the collars off with the key she stole previously. The relief of having emotional freedom again, as well as a lead on the Phiri situation, leads them to a make-out session and a fade-to-black sex scene.
(Note that they put the collars back on before they leave Peri’s room, to avoid suspicion.)
A few days later, Trodec goes missing. Peri is understandably worried, and does what she can to find him. One thing leads to another, and she learns that he’s been discovered as a Phiri and taken for experimentation. She clings to quiet emotions until she gets back to her room, where she has a full-blown panic attack and gets shocked for much longer than she’s ever experienced, too out-of-it to think to use the key.
The next day, while everyone is at lunch, Peri sneaks into the restricted area the Phiri are supposedly in. She finds countless Phiri trapped in cells with no means of escape. She doesn’t even recognize her Mapa, Andar, when she passes by, though Andar calls out Jude’s name when they see her (since she looks similar to them). This gets Peri’s attention and she realizes that this is one of her parents. She tells them she’ll get them out of there, but Andar declines, broken as they are now, saying that it’s too dangerous for her to act alone in this. Peri cries a little before Andar sends her off, mentioning the young Phiri (Trodec) they saw getting dragged down the hall recently.
Peri thanks them and keeps moving, silently vowing to help all the trapped Phiri escape. She looks into some solid doors with little face sliders (like solitary confinement cells) and finally finds one with Trodec in it, trapped in isolation in an attempt to break him. She unlocks the door and reunites with him, and they both cry. Peri tries to get him to leave with her, but someone is blocking the doorway.
Peri recognizes them as her Pama, Jude, and tries calling for them, but they don’t respond. Instead, General Helena Plumm starts laughing a bit, stepping into view. She explains that she was fully aware of Peri and Trodec sneaking around her facility (courtesy of hidden microphones in their rooms) and had been waiting for them to slip up so she could take them into custody. She’s thrilled that Humans and Impostors can interbreed successfully, having learned that via a brainwashed Jude and seeing a healthy adult hybrid before her. She then locks Peri and Trodec back into the isolation cell, promising to return later to take blood and tissue samples of the hybrid. She leaves Jude at the cell as a bodyguard.
END ACT THREE
INTERLUDE
(lasts for one chapter)
Helena Plumm reflects on how hybridizing with Impostors is possible, wondering if the mix grants any immunity or resistance to common Terran diseases (such as cancer or diabetes) or enhanced healing. She gets absorbed in her thoughts, focusing entirely on improving humanity while conveniently forgetting her own and ignoring the fact that she’s experimenting on sentient beings with their own lives and cultures. She wonders if hybrids would make good fodder as super soldiers for Terra United’s army, and whether or not the generally passive nature of Impostors (observed in captured specimens) would interfere with that.
The interlude ends with Plumm musing about possible experiments to run on Peri.
END INTERLUDE
ACT FOUR
Peri and Trodec stay wrapped up in each other’s arms, afraid of what the imminent future holds for them. Eventually, Peri moves toward the door and tries talking to Jude through it, asking them all sorts of questions like “Do you remember me, Pama?” and so on. It takes a few hours of Peri talking about what she remembers of her early childhood on Chenis, and all the stories her parents used to tell her when she was little, before something clicks in Jude. They snap out of their brainwashed stupor and ask what happened and how long they’ve been under Plumm’s control. Peri doesn’t have an exact answer for it, but Jude is horrified to learn that sixteen years have passed since their family was separated.
Eventually, after a lot of plotting and planning, Jude tells Peri to get some sleep and that they’ll keep watch and act as if they’re still under Plumm’s control if anyone comes by. She agrees and, with extreme subtlety, passes her stolen collar key to Jude through the tiny face slider for safekeeping. This turns out to be a good call, because she and Trodec are stripped of everything but their collars before they’re led away for experimentation. They’re given cheap hospital gowns to wear and nothing else.
Jude slips away once Plumm and her team are distracted (as planned with Peri) and frees all the trapped Phiri, encouraging them to rise up against Terra United’s tyranny. They use the key to free everyone of their collars, and there’s a tearful reunion when Jude and Andar can finally embrace again for the first time in years. The group of Phiri, vastly outnumbering the number of scientists and guards in their section of the facility, begin a rebellion, despite being in fairly poor shape. Some of the scientists and guards join them, tired of running cruel experiments on sentient beings. The ones that don’t join in get locked in the cells the Phiri were previously trapped in.
Meanwhile, Plumm and her team have extracted DNA samples from Peri and Trodec, the former due to being a hybrid and the latter as a fresh, unbroken Impostor. Excited beyond belief, Plumm suggests vivisecting the two of them to learn how they tick. She reasons that they have plenty of Impostors already, that Trodec is expendable because of this, and that, while Peri is a “one-of-a-kind” hybrid, it would be entirely possible to create more hybrids between their prisoners and Human volunteers should she (Peri) not survive.
Luckily for Peri and Trodec, the scientists don’t get any further than marking their bodies with places to cut before the rebellion arrives. The young couple, as well as Jude and Andar, flee with most of their group, leaving the more aggressive Phiri to take care of Plumm and her team by whatever means they deem necessary. Soon enough, the entire facility is overrun, with at least half of the staff choosing to side with the rebels, sick as they are of the horrifying experiments they’ve done in the name of Terra United. Several ships are secured to evacuate the facility.
By the time the last ship leaves, all that’s left of the facility is countless half-eaten corpses and imprisoned staff. Finally free after nearly two decades, Onat, Ustyl, Andar, and Jude reunite. Peri and Trodec hold each other while the others cry and hug.
END ACT FOUR
EPILOGUE
The rebels split themselves between two planets, Langra and Strun, homes of the serpentine Rephra and the orc-like Bregzaiks respectively. The Sight, the ship Peri and her group boarded, goes to Langra. It takes a while after the news of refugees spreads for the original Skeld crew to reunite in full, the whole group having evacuated to Langra when Terra United invaded Chenis all those years ago. Miraculously, none of them are dead, but some have scars and limps and permanent damage from the invasion (and old age for some).
The epilogue ends with Peri feeling a sudden wave of nausea and after some brief confusion, realization dawns in her eyes. She looks at Trodec and smiles brightly, pressing a hand to her stomach.
THE END