She woke to the sound of a roaring crowd, and the sound of a familiar voice. No, two familiar voices. She recognized them as the Tallest. She was backstage on the platform where the Invaders' assigning had taken place the previous year. A guard noticed her movement, charged past her, and whispered something to the Red Tallest, who said something to Purple. Purple looked smug. Red signaled for the crowd to be quiet. When the last of the cheering had died down, he raised his hands.
"SHE'S AWAKE!"
That awful sound started up again, so her head started hurting all over again. What was going on? She noticed the Tallest motioning for her to come out of the dark and where all the others could see her. What, they wanted her out there like this?
"You'll have to drag me out there," she yelled at them, "because I'm not coming!"
Purple hit his forehead and Red gestured for a guard to pull her out. Immediately, two guards approached her, apparently with the intention of dragging her onstage. No way was she going. So she used her SIR instinct.
Fight.
The guards were no match for her. The first one was soon thrown on the ground, with a small cut under his eye. The second managed to get a hit in, but she knew he wasn't trying to hurt her. If he did, he'd be in big trouble with the Tallest. But she didn't really want him around anyway. So she hit him back, harder, and he got mad, and started trying harder, and she suddenly realized that she was facing a fully-trained Irken guard, and she didn't have a day's worth of battle training that she remembered. So what now? They started moving around, and she was trying to avoid him. She thought of anything she could do to escape. Then...
SIR units had jets, didn't they, and there were beams all along the ceiling to grab onto, but how could she use them? But her disguise worked when she just thought of it, and if that was the same with everything that she could do now...
Suddenly she was midair, going towards the ceiling. Clutching a beam, she dangled there, an easy target. The guard aimed a gun at her then, and she was about to get shot. How was this happening to her? Then she was mad.
And SIR units, when they are mad, are very dangerous.
She dropped from the roof and crashed to the ground, startling the guard so much that he dropped the gun. She felt her one red eye flare the color of blood, and suddenly all she knew was anger, anger and hate for these guards, and the Tallest, and anyone else who was happy or interested that she looked like this, and she let that feed into her strength, and she grabbed him, lifted him, and threw him as hard as she could. He yelled out in surprise as he flew across the stage, missing the Tallest by about a centimeter, and she heard the crowd gasp as they heard the furious scream that she gave. The Tallest were looking a little scared now, but they still thought they controlled her, and they were wrong, so very wrong. The robotic part of her wanted to prove it, to attack them and make them pay for this, for what they had done, and she took one more step towards them before the first guard, unnoticed by her in the fight, recovered from her attack and had an arm around her neck, and this surprised her so much she didn't fight back. He had her by the neck, and he was trying to pull her out onto the stage, and she couldn't find her footing, but she wasn't going to let them see what she did look like, so she relaxed herself and focused on using her disguise, and felt the now-familiar flickering that meant it was working. She would have to get rid of the guard on the stage. She felt her image flicker again, and she knew that she was looking like her old purple-eyed Irken self. Being dragged on stage looking like herself would surely confuse some people. Now she was onstage and it certainly did confuse some of them. She smiled to herself. She could get away with this... there were a couple of disappointed looks from the crowd that she saw. They were looking at each other, talking, wondering what was going on. A lot of them had probably been taken away from jobs and housework to see this, to see what they couldn't see. She laughed quietly, but not quietly enough. The Tallest heard and looked at each other with slight uncertainty. They couldn't see it how she could. She saw the amusing things that they couldn't possibly have known. Red spoke quietly to her.
"Look, I know this is weird, but you were tested, and you were the best subject for our little... experiment thingy. And you're kinda embarrassing us all in front of everyone here. So could you, maybe, take down the disguise? Please?"
Oh. So that was all he- no, both of them cared about? Their stupid image?
"Fine," she growled at him. But then, she thought to herself, she could have a little fun.
Purple said something to the crowd that she missed. She was too busy concentrating on taking down her disguise, so everyone could see what she was. Red attracted the attention of the crowd to her as she closed her eyes. Why was she even doing this? For someone's fortune, someone's benefit that was not her own? She felt her cloak shimmer, then disappear completely. The crowd gasped, some of them looking quite stunned, at her appearance. She had not yet had a chance to calm down after her fight with the guards. So when the guard made a face of distaste at her, probably because this was what she looked like when he was injured by her, that was it. She was not in a good mood, she was not going to stand for this, and she was not going to let them stare at her like that.
"WHAT?" she yelled at him, stalking over. He stared at her for a few seconds before answering.
"Nothing..."
"Is there a problem? With me?" she snapped at him. Now he got mad. And said something he really shouldn't have.
"Well in case you haven't noticed, you're half robot, and you cut my eye!" he protested. She felt her anger flare.
"What, I should have just let you drag me out here? I don't even want to be here!"
"Well you are, and you're in front of everyone, so you can't even attack." he obviously thought he had won the argument. She grinned and looked him in the eye.
"Oh, yeah?" she put her Irken hand on his neck, pinning him against the wall. She could feel all eyes upon her, she heard the crowd murmuring in concern for the guard. She was smiling now, a mean, fighting smile, and the guard was clearly getting scared. He used his strength from guard training to hit her hand away, push her away, and she laughed, but he didn't know why she was laughing, and she turned her head to him.
"Oh, I was hoping you'd do that." with that she used her SIR hand to slap him across the face, sending him halfway across the stage. The Tallest backed away from the scene of the fight. The guard was up again in a surprisingly short amount of time, and headed straight for her. She let him cross about a meter before she felt like hitting him again. So she jumped and used her jets to clear the space between them, with her arms outstretched and her hands balled into fists she crashed into him. He struck out randomly and hit her in the SIR arm. She slipped her arm up quickly and grabbed his wrist in her strong grip. She held him over the edge of the stage, while he tried to swing back onto the stage.
"Give up?" she asked him.
"No..." wrong answer. Oh, well...
She threw him against the wall and flew over to him, hovering above where he landed. Leaning her head forward to get a better view of her handiwork, she saw the movement of him trying to get back at her. Giggling at him, she once again picked him up, by his sprawling legs this time.
"Are you gonna say sorry?" she asked sweetly. Struggling, he shook his head, unable to answer because his mouth was full of Irken blood. Pity, she thought. So, like with her first fight, she threw him, harder than last time, her body curling with the effort. He shot over the shocked crowd, screaming, and landed somewhere behind them with a satisfying crunch. The Tallest looked at her, their eyes wide and their mouths gaping. So, seeing nothing there to entertain her anymore, she lost interest and flew off, backstage and out the door. As she left, she heard the Tallest announce to the crowd:
"So, everybody, that was Miru. What did you think of our work? Yeah, we- we really won't be making any more." She faltered. So, they had given her a name. Miru. She liked it. She was one of a kind, too. And now she knew who was responsible for her issue, she could work against them. Imagine that, an Irken working against the Tallest themselves. She felt her loyalty slip. She knew who they would hate to be successful, and where to find him.
Now, which direction was Earth, again?