#agent pol can choke (i say this as though i am not the reason she’s like this)

[ivanttakethis]

Moon, I once again have many thoughts about your writing:

Agent Pol and Agent Irin cameos!! Yippee!!

Loved that Pol clocked Tov and Himei’s close, yet indescribable relationship immediately.

Tov said one sentence in defense of Himei and Pol was like “Hm, bit fruity. I can use this.” (I fear Himei may have taken the bait 😬)

So that’s where Hayate went? Oof.

What do you MEAN Lark’s death was slow and cruel??? Please stop he’s already dead omg

Tov 🤝 Himei (unable to sleep due to The Horrors™️)

Himei choosing rage over love or grief 🚩

Himei trying to emulate Daiki’s look 🚩🚩

Himei spitting vitriol, becoming the poison, turning into what she despised about Daiki 🚩🚩🚩

Something about Himei bowing as the crowd cheered when she won is deeply unsettling to me idk idk

I’m actually Team Noora in the fight, Himei definitely deserved that. I think she needs a wake up call.

“He was my friend.” LARK WAS HER FRIEND 😭😭

No Himei, you’re not animal don’t say that. We can fix this! We (read: you) can be better!!

And once again Himei is collared and covered in her dead opponent’s blood… Please take all of Himei’s suffering and give it to Luka’s primordial goop, amen 🙏

Live Vant Reaction to the Bonus Scene:

TALLIS COMEBACK REAL!!! THEY CALLED ME DELUSIONAL THEY SAID I WAS COPING BUT I NEVER WAVERED!!! I REMAINED FAITHFUL I’M BRAVER THAN ANY US MARINE RAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH 💥💥💥💥

But no really, the amount of serotonin that scene gave me is unquantifiable thank you for the food 😁

The dynamic of the doomed polycule has shifted yet again!!

Himeitovallis stans rise 🫡

I do have A LOT of questions now, though. Like how does Eddy know Tallis? Why did Tallis react so aggressively? Why is the AREPH (assumedly) keeping Tallis alive? Are they planning to use him for something? Are they planning to use him against Himei and Tov?

If Himei and Tov ever find out Tallis is alive, it’s really going to fuck them up. So much of the motivations for their actions (lashing out, fighting, committing murder, issuing death threats, etc.) is tied up in how they grieved him. And then they find out that grief was for nothing?? Oh I am deeply unwell 🥹

And then there’s also the inverse. Himei and Tov have changed so much since Tallis “died”, Himei emotionally shutting down while Tov is opening up. I’m sure it will be a shock to him too.

You’re writing is unbelievable. I still can’t believe you wrote this in an hour and a half. Very excited, but also terrified for what comes next!

Round 21 - Himei POV

The room Himei was brought into was small and stuffy.

Everything was soundproof and the room itself was hidden away in the deepest recesses of the Season 39 site's main complex, so Himei was under no illusions regarding what was about to happen.

At least it wasn't solitary. Anything was better than solitary.

Not for Lark.

"You look sick," an agent told her bluntly. She was shorter and scrawnier than her imposing partner, who for his part looked like he was about as done with this as Himei was. "Not sleeping well? Hm?"

The agent's tone was sickly sweet, swimming with mock concern. Himei was sick of condescension. The corner of her upper lip twitched in a barely concealed snarl.

"I'm sleeping fine," she said primly.

God, she hoped the light on her collar was green. She'd gotten used to the feeling of it around her neck, but not the read it gave others on her emotions, which were already enough of a shitstorm to deal with.

The female agent tilted her head. "Mmm." Skeptical.

Her partner scoffed and pushed off the wall he leaned against. "That's enough, Agent Pol. Hello, Himei. I'm Agent Irin of AREPH and this is Agent Pol. We're here to ask you a few questions about Subject-012864, known by his peers as Lark."

Himei held the lump in her throat. So much as swallowing felt like a guilty tell. So much as twitching a finger felt like a dead giveaway. "Hello."

Agent Pol took the seat across from her and tipped her chair back so it balanced precariously on its back legs, her feet propped up on the corner of the table. "We had another girl in here earlier. What was her name again?" You fucking know her name. Agent Pol glanced up at Agent Irin boredly. "Toph?"

Agent Irin's throat clicked like he was about to respond, but before he could, Himei snapped, "Tov."

Agent Pol snapped her fingers. "Tov. Right. Well, we had her in here to ask her questions just like you. We asked her about you." She did that annoying head jerk to the side again. "Put in a good word for you. She's your... hmm, friend, right?"

Friend felt reductive. Himei didn't say that out loud. "Yes."

"So she could be covering for you? Or she's just that biased. Or stupid."

Himei's jaw clenched and ticked. If the light on her collar hadn't been red before, it was now. "She's the smartest person I know. Smarter than you, anyway."

Pol snorted, slid a leg off the table, and leaned forward like she was about to say something incredibly important before Agent Irin once again cut her off.

"We won't keep you long, seeing as you have a performance coming up in the next few days," he said after clearing his throat. "I have some questions for you. Did you and Lark associate much, in the Anakt Garden?"

"No." Himei folded her hands and tried not to clench them. Sweat slicked her palms the longer she had them pressed together. "He was quiet."

Agent Irin wrote something down on a tablet. "Did he and Tov associate?"

"No. Tov was... mostly with me."

And Tallis.

More tapping of the tablet. Agent Pol took over the questioning with a sharp, "And you and Tov? You're close. You would have reason to take out an opponent of hers to ensure her victory."

Oh, if only victory was all that mattered. If only it wasn't a game of survival.

"I wouldn't..." Himei flexed her fingers and tried not to let so much as a flicker of guilt cross her face. "I wouldn't do that to someone just to help her win. Not allowing each performer a fair chance is an injustice."

"Yes." Agent Pol lowered her voice to a murmur. "And you know all about injustice, don't you."

A pause.

Agent Irin finished tapping away at his tablet and cleared his throat again. "Recent investigations have shown us that the guard accused of treason, Hayate, is your biological brother. Not only that, but you were not separated at birth and grew up with the same guardian, namely Guardian Iquia. That all sound correct?"

Himei's eyelashes fluttered as she looked down at the table. "That's right."

"Lark had poison in his system when he died," Agent Pol said. "Poison that any ordinary Alien Stage contestant would have a hard time coming by unless it was provided to them. These are experimental drugs used in labs to study humans who know they're dying from the drug and the effects of impending doom on the brain. This isn't just a take-it-and-you're-out type of euthanasia like they use at kill shelters. This is... well, Himei." Agent Pol laughed a little, disbelievingly. "Well, this is just cruel, dare I say. And I'm sure you'd have had no trouble acquiring this drug with the help of your darling brother."

Himei could hardly even hear Agent Pol over the swell of her pulse in her ears. Her skin felt clammy everywhere from sweat.

"I didn't have any drugs," she whispered. "He didn't give me any drugs."

Agent Pol grunted. "You sound hoarse. Need some water?"

The image of Lark with his eyes closed, chugging poisoned water, jumped to the forefront of Himei's mind.

"No." She sat up straighter. "I'm fine, thanks."

The electricity from the harsh overhead lights buzzed in the silence.

Both agents scrutinized her for what was probably only a few seconds but felt like eternity to her. Then Agent Irin folded his tablet shut. "Thank you for your time. We'll escort you back upstairs." He turned to unlock the heavy black door blocking the exit. "I assume you have rehearsals to get to. The show must go on."

The show must go on.

Himei practiced. She tried on the outfit her team had made for her. She didn't sleep a wink the night before her performance, mind plagued with the golden glow of the stage lights, the golden glow of Lark's eyes, the way they morphed into dark hazel.

Another contestant was dead, but the show must go on. That was Alien Stage for you.

For weeks and weeks since Himei made it through her first round, she's been consulting with her team. First, in the immediate aftermath of Round 4, they thought they should try a ballad next time to contrast her pop performance. After Round 7, once Himei could finally think again in the weeks afterwards, she proposed a ballad about grief. Love. Like Aurien and Vermillion's performance during their round. She wanted to encapsulate that.

But plans had changed.

"Grief is overrated in this competition," her choreographer told her boredly. "No one wants to see another weary widow snivel on stage for four minutes before taking a bullet through the brain. You have to have something more interesting in you, or we've already lost."

Himei couldn't even respond to that at the time. She was too shocked.

Her entire PR team was at a loss until her fight with Daiki. If you could even call it a fight. She only got one damn hit in.

Anger, they said gleefully, like it was some kind of divine revelation. You have anger. No, not anger, you have rage. You're the righteous hand of those old gods.

So instead of capturing her audience with softness after initially presenting a diva image, they were taking it further. Pop princess with an edge. Great.

Himei got to choose her look, if not her image. She poured over magazines Daiki had modeled in and cut out outfit references to give to her designers. They were giddy when she presented the idea - ecstatic.

"We've already won," they told her now.

Himei couldn't even muster a smile.

Min died for her. Lark died because of her.

Now Noora would too.

So Himei won.

She won. She would compete against Cirrus in the quarter finals...

And it didn't even matter.

She tried to ignore Noora as she sang. If she couldn't sing for Tallis, she instead sang at Daiki. She spat vitriol into her mic. She became the poison.

The crowd cheered, she took a bow, the world spun, and then she was on the floor.

Dark hairs were still tangled in Noora's fingers that had been ripped right out of Himei's head before fists and nails rained down on her in a fury, hitting and scratching and pulling. Himei thought she might have screamed, but she couldn't hear it over the sound of the crowd.

Her cheek was marred with scratch marks. Her lip split open and spilled blood. She was in so much pain she could hardly breathe.

She didn't register when it stopped. Everything hurt. Everything throbbed and screamed and burned.

Then Himei felt Noora's breath against her face, harsh and anguished. Something dripped on Himei's cheek. A tear from Noora's startlingly emotional eyes.

"He was my friend," she whispered, shoulders shaking. "He was my friend."

He was her friend, and just like the aliens, just like Daiki, Himei tossed him aside like it was nothing.

A gunshot rang out, piercing Noora's slender, delicate throat. A red arterial spray shot from the wound. Noora was gone in an instant, dead weight against Himei, dying her white suit red.

Get off, Himei pleaded, aloud or silently, she didn't know. She struggled against the corpse. Get off, get off, get off!

She scrambled away on all fours in the pool of blood like an animal.

Wasn't she? A collar clicked around her neck, and she was roughly pulled to her feet.

Aren't I?

Bonus: Sometime Before Round 16...

He'd laid in bed for days, dead to the world.

Needles pumped fluids into his veins. A breathing tube pushed past his chapped mouth into his throat, forcing its way down to lodge behind his breastbone.

When he woke, his eyelids fluttered faintly, the steady beep of some strange monitor next to the bed reaching his ears. His eyebrows twitched, stirring. His eyes widened.

He instinctively reached up to yank the tube out, but to no avail. His hands were tied down to the bed. He made a startled noise, kicking, nostrils flaring in a silent scream. Get it out. Get it out, getitoutgetitout

"Subject 060839 is awake!" a voice shouted. Footsteps rushed in and out of the room. He wouldn't let anyone touch him, jerking and fighting, throat tightening, oh god, he was going to be sick, he would choke on this thing...

"Look, it's me!"

A tall gray-haired stranger entered and waved their arms at him. One of his arms wrested free from its bond in his panic.

"Tallis, it's me!"

He grabbed for the small vase on the table next to him and chucked it at their head.

Cranked this out in an hour and a half, yeehaw

Tov and Agents Pol and Irin belong to @ivanttakethis. Noora and Lark belong to @kamersona and the scene on stage is based on their writing. Daiki belongs to @daiki1k. Cirrus belongs to @cirrusoftheclouds.