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sweetiepie08 · 4 years

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RebelZ Chapter 6

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

Dib flipped through the streaming services, looking for something to watch. The documentary had ended, pizza had been eaten, and Gaz had gone upstairs to fix some emergency with one of her online gaming groups. He knew he had surveillance tapes waiting for him on his desk, (or worse, college applications) but he wasn’t ready to check up on them just yet. He was actually enjoying some downtime for once, and he didn’t want it to end.

Then, he heard the all-too-familiar sounds of an alien spaceship landing outside.

Nope, he thought as he hit play on whatever show he landed on. Didn’t matter what, so long as he could pretend he couldn’t hear what was going on in his driveway.

Some muffled arguing came from the front door, followed by the bell ringing. Dib turned up the volume. Not getting out of this chair.

Loud pounding began, accompanied by cries of “Dib-human! Open this door!” Dib turned the volume up as loud as it would go as the pounding continued.

“Jesus Christ, Dib!” Gaz shouted from upstairs. “Just answer the door!”

“Fine!” Dib shut off the tv and stalked to the front door. When he opened it, he found two Irken idiots.

Zim and Tak hung off each other and drank from plastic bottles while their robot pets bolted right in and made themselves at home. “Hey, you grew into your head,” Tak said, lazily pointing her claw at him.

“You know, Dib, there’s a lot of reasons to hate your planet,” Zim slurred, letting himself in. “You keep chihuahuas as pets, some of you refuse to inoculate against deadly diseases, and that Game of Thrones finale was garbage! But at least you don’t need identification to buy gingzor, and that almost makes up for it.” Zim punctuated his short rant by taking a long swig from his bottle.

“And look,” Tak said, pulling a box of ginger snaps out of a plastic shopping bag, “they had edibles.”

“Are you guys drunk? What is this?” Dib grabbed the bottle out of Zim’s hands. He checked the label, gave it a sniff, and took a small taste. Yup, it was exactly what the label said it was. “This is just ginger ale.”

“Eee-yup,” Zim said, swiping his bottle back. “Your light brews aren’t as potent as the ones we’ve got on Irk, but it gets the job done.”

“Wait, are you guys seriously telling me your species gets drunk off ginger?”

“Why?” Tak asked, shoving a cookie in her mouth. “What do humans consume when they want to forget the futility of existence?”

“Uh, alcohol, usually.”

The two Irkens locked eyes, then burst into laughter. “Seriously?” Tak squealed, wiping a tear from her eye. “That’s an antiseptic.”

“Humans really are stupid,” Zim agreed.

“Not that kind,” Dib grumbled, knowing he would be ignored. Then he felt his temper boil. “What are you two doing in my house?!”

“Oh yeah,” the two brushed past him and hopped on the couch like they owned the place. “We need to crash here for a while,” Zim explained. He turned on the tv, got blasted by an old episode of The Office, then turned the volume down.

“Why?”

“We uncovered a conspiracy behind the Irken empire and our government tried to kill us.”

“I discovered,” Tak corrected. “They just caught you harboring me.”

“Eh, details.”

“The point is,” Tak went on, “we’re both marked as traitors and we need to lay low for a while.”

Dib could have sworn his ears perked like a dog’s. An intergalactic conspiracy? There was a story here so juicy he could almost taste it. Still, as he watched the earth’s total Irken population spill ginger ale on the couch and grind crumbs into the cushions, the only question on his mind was, “why here?”

“Need your lab,” Zim tossed off as if it should have been obvious.

“So? Why don’t you go back to your base and use your own lab?”

“Can’t.” Zim took a teal cube out of his pocket and tossed it in Dib’s direction.

Dib caught it and brought it up to his eye to inspect. “What’s this?”

“My base.”

“Your whole base is in this?” Dib strained his eyes, looking at the cube. “What’s going on? How did this even happen?”

“How far back in Irken history do you want to go?” Tak asked, popping open a bottle.

“Wait, you mean you’re actually going to tell me?”

She gave a non-committal shrug. “Eh…”

“Hold on, wait right there.” Dib zipped upstairs to his room, grabbed a notebook, pen, and recorder, then zipped back down. He grabbed a chair, hit record, and poised his pen. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

[-]

Dib scribbled furiously, trying to keep up with Tak’s slurred ramblings. Zim interjected occasionally to add something or explain an Irken concept, but it was clear exactly who the conspiracy hunter was.

“So, anyway, that’s when I realized this parasite has been controlling our entire society for generations and, you know, it’s just a real buzzkill to find out you’re basically living food.”

“I see,” Dib said, making a note to ask about this library planet later (maybe get coordinates?). “And this parasite has been masquerading as the Control Brains.”

“Not ‘masquerading’ exactly,” she explained. “They always were the Control Brains.”

“And, just to make sure I got this, the Control brains are what, again?”

Before they could answer, he heard a loud “eh-he-eh-hm.” He looked over to see Gaz standing in the kitchen doorway. When he met her eyes, she curled one finger, ominously beckoning him over. “Uh, one second, guys.” He put down his pen and followed Gaz into the kitchen.

“Make this quick, Gaz,” he said, peaking back into the living room. “These two are giving me everything.”

“Okay then,” she said, her voice displaying her irritation. “Just answer me this: why are there two destructive aliens drinking like civil war amputee patients on our couch?”

“Revealing their government’s secrets, that’s what,” he answered with unbridled glee. “Turns out, ginger gets them drunk and when they’re drunk, they have no filter. They’ve been rambling on and on about their creepy big-brother-like society for an hour now. Look at all these notes.” He shoved the notebook in Gaz’s face and flipped furiously through the pages. “As long as I keep them drunk and happy, they’ll keep talking. Which reminds me…” He took out his wallet, grabbed a bill, and handed it to Gaz. “Go to the store and buy them out of ginger ale. We can’t let them sober up.”

“Five bucks?” Gaz said, wrinkling her nose. “I assume you’re planning on reimbursing me for the grocery bill later.”

“This isn’t about money, Gaz.”

“Then dig a little deeper, Scrooge. I know your part-time at Dad’s lab pays more than this.”

“And you make plenty off of your twitch gaming streams,” Dib argued. “Come on, this is about furthering human knowledge.”

Gaz raised her eyebrow in her ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ way. “You’re offering me $5 to drop everything, go to the store, and buy out their entire supply of ginger ale without reimbursing me for the bill.”

“Uh…yes?”

She scoffed. “Get a pulse.”

Dib pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed the corners of his eyes. Was she seriously arguing with him about money at a time like this? “Look, what if I give you an acknowledgement when I publish this baby? Like, say, in the forward?”

“You mean the part no one reads?”

“Uh…”

Gaz let out an exasperated huff and looked into the living room at the two Irkens. “So, they’ll really ramble on and on if you stuff them full of ginger, huh? About anything?”

“Yeah, pretty much. We managed to stay on topic so far. I mean, Zim did go on a tangent about the Game of Thrones finale, but we got back on track.”

Gaz smiled. “Did he, now? About what?”

“Something about Westeros crumbling as soon as the credits rolled. I don’t know. You watched that show, not me.”

“Hmm…” Gaz murmured, looking pointedly at Zim. Oh no, she was thinking… Worse! She was plotting!

“Gaz? What are you doing?”

She threw him a wicked smirk and sauntered into the living room. “Hey, Zim!” she called, clear as a bell. “That Game of Thrones finale sucked, right?”

“Don’t even get me started, Dib-sister!” Zim called back, slapping his hand on the couch. “Zim has never seen such a staggering drop in quality!”

Dib dropped his face into his hands. Was it too late to offer a twenty?”

[-]

“I guarantee Dorne and the Iron Islands rebelled as soon as they stepped out of the Dragon Pit.” Zim said, splashing ginger ale on the couch with every gesture. “I’ll bet they only voted ‘yes’ on Bran because this would be the easiest reign to overthrow.”

“Exactly!” Gaz said, slapping the arm of her chair. “Dany promised Yara independence two seasons ago. There’s no way she’s just going to watch him hand his sister a kingdom and not demand what’s owed to her.”

Dib twisted the notebook in his hands as he listened to them rant. They’d been at this since Gaz brought up the subject.

“And what was with them acting like Dany was in the wrong for executing Varys?” Zim added. “He tried to assassinate her!”

“As if Jon didn’t execute a child a few seasons ago for the same thing. And it was obvious that kid was coerced into it by the higher-ranking Night’s Watch men.” Gaz said. “You’ll notice Dany didn’t execute the child Varys manipulated into poisoning her. And he only thought she was ‘mad’ because she stopped listening to his shitty advice.”

“Their ‘advice’ lost her the Dornish forces, the Iron Fleet, and Highgarden’s armies,” Zim agreed.

“Plus another dragon and her best friend. And when she goes into mourning, he’s all ‘Welp, she’s clearly gone mad. Time to put her down like Old Yeller.’ Oh! And what was with Tyrion’s ‘everywhere she goes, evil men die’ speech? Like that’s a bad thing? Yeah, I know. That’s why I liked her.”

“You know wat she should have done?” Zim said. “She should have flown her three dragons to the Red Keep like she wanted to do last season. She could have taken the city with fewer casualties.”

Gaz nodded in agreement. “Maybe even no casualties if King’s Landing surrenders immediately.”

“Then she’d have all three dragons and all the armies in the Seven Kingdoms to fight the White Walkers with!” Zim added.

“Yeah, then maybe there’d be enough time to make the army of the dead live up to the hype! Nice Long Night. Lasted about six hours.”

“What is this show?” Tak asked. “I want to watch.”

“Enough!” Dib burst, jumping out of his seat. “Enough Game of Thrones! If you want to keep complaining, go on the internet and do it! Now can we please get back to you two spilling the secrets of your evil intergalactic empire!”

“There are no more secrets, human,” Tak snapped. “We’ve told all. The only other information I could find is on this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a square, plastic information drive. “But this technology is too outdated to decode. So, unless you have access to an ancient computer…”

Dib took the square and held it up to his eyes. “This just looks like a floppy disc.”

“Really, Dib-beast?” Zim scoffed. “Your planet’s technology is antiquated, but it’s not that archaic.”

“Actually, that’s pretty outdated for us too,” Gaz said, “but our dad’s got a computer graveyard in the attic. Maybe we can get one of those to work.”

Tak regarded the disc suspiciously. “You’re serious? You think you might be able to get it to work.”

“It could be possible,” Dib answered, eyeballing the disc. It looked about the right size and shape. It may at least fit into the disc drive. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve gotten Irken and Earth technology to work together. It’s worth a shot.”

[-]

After about an hour and a few trips to the attic, they found an old monitor and hard drive they managed to turn on. As the computer booted up, they compared the Irken disc drive to a standard floppy disc. Dib was right. They seemed to match up.

“You really think this has a shot?” Tak asked again. She looked skeptical they whole time the were getting set up, but as the computer whirred to life, Dib thought he could detect a hint of hope in her voice.

“It could,” Gaz answered. “If the magnetic polarity is the same as we use on earth, the computer might be able to read the disc.”

Dib nodded along. While he was good with technology, his area of expertise was more on the engineering side. Gaz was the one with an affinity for coding.

Once the computer was ready, they popped in the drive. They all gathered around the monitor and held their breath. A buffering window popped up on the screen and they let out a collective gasp.

After a few minutes, the picture went black and green Irken text scrolled up across the screen, accompanied by, what sounded to Dib, like a series of chirps, clicks, and hisses. “Um, is it supposed to be making that-”

Tak and Zim threw a sharp hiss in his direction, then went back to staring intently at the screen. When Dib quieted and listened harder, he realized the sounds came from an organic voice and had a deliberate pattern. Holy shit, it’s reading the text! This is their language!

The voice stopped and the screen froze on another set of Irken symbols.

“Oh, my…” Zim choked out, eyes still glued to the screen. “We’ve got to write that down!”

“MiMi,” Tak commanded, “my tablet.”

“Wait, what was that?” Dib asked as he watched the two aliens scramble to scribble down the symbols on the screen. “Was that guy speaking Irken? What did they say?”

“Yes,” Zim answered. “And those are coordinates to the next place we need to go.”

“You mean, I need to go,” Tak cut in. “I’m the one who uncovered the conspiracy, remember?”

Zim scowled and stomped up to her, getting in her face. “You made this my problem when you crashed at my house, drank all my gingzor, and got my base cubified.”

“Why would I ever team up with you?” she shot back.

“I’m every bit as Irken as you are,” Zim argued. “I deserve answers as much as you.”

“Will someone please tell me what that thing said?” Dib shouted. The two stopped their bickering long enough to cast him an icy stare.

“Well,” Dib growled impatiently. If these two thought they were going to force their way into his home, spill ginger ale on his couch, tell him about an intergalactic conspiracy, and not let him in on the details, they had another thing coming.

“This doesn’t concern you, human,” Zim snapped.

“You two waltzed in here expecting me to hide you form your creepy totalitarian government and let you use my lab. Unless you want me to throw you out on your ass…”

“Fine, fine,” Tak said, waving an arm dismissively. “That voice claimed to be Krislotch. He confirmed that he left the clues that lead me to discover the truth about the Control Brains. He also claims more information is waiting on a planet at those coordinates. I must go there next if I want to solve this mystery.”

“We must go there,” Zim but in.

“This is my conspiracy, Zim,” Tak growled, turning back to him. “If there are more answered waiting on that planet, I will be the one to find them.”

“Oh yeah?” he said with a smirk. “How you gonna get there? I’m the only one with a working ship.”

“Dib’s got a ship,” Gaz chimed in. She turned to Tak. “Actually, I think it’s your ship.”

“You!” Before Dib could say anything, Tak had already jumped on the coffee table and grabbed his collar. “You have my ship?!”

“Uhh…”

“Take me to her!”

[-]

“wha-wha…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

They group stood in the garage and stared at the collection of barely-held-together parts, also known as Tak’s ship. Dib had to admit, his last few forays into space hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing.

“It doesn’t look like this all the time,” he tried explaining. “I’ve gotten it to work. But, you know, sometimes things happen… and when they happen, I have to convince the ship to let me fix it again.”

“And why is she blue?”

“Um… I like blue?”

“Stupid human!” Tak spat, rushing up to her ship. “You have no idea what you’ve been toying with!”

“Fine,” Dib grumbled under his breath. “Only repaired it multiple times of the last six years but whatever…”

“Ship,” Tak commanded, laying a hand on the ship’s windshield. “Respond.”

“Biosignature detected,” the ship said as it began to light up. “You are Tak.”

“Yes, yes, ship! It’s me!” she cried. Dib could almost swear there were tears in her eyes.

“Hmpf, what took you so long?”

Tak looked taken aback. “I was, uh, had a lot going on, you know? Schemes and such?”

“And you never once thought to check in on your ship?”

“When I have to eject, I thought I’d lost you forever,” Tak explained, pressing both hands on the windshield. “I never wanted to leave you behind, but I’m here now. I can take you back.”

“Hey, wait a minute…” Dib protested. He started forward, but Gaz pulled him back.

“It’s her ship, dummy.”

“And how exactly did you get here?” Ship went on.

Tak hesitated. “Well, I…”

“I knew it,” Ship huffed. “You have a new ship now, don’t you?”

“It’s not like that,” Tak insisted. “Yes, I needed a new ship to get around, but I swear, it was a simple matter of transport. That ship means nothing to me. I would trade every other ship in the universe for you.”

The ship went quiet, as if thinking it over. Dib found himself oddly captivated, like when he’d accidently get sucked into his grandmother’s soap operas. He quickly shook himself out of it. This is ridiculous. She’s talking to a ship.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Ship finally said.

“I promise, Ship, I will fix you myself and, after that, I will never even look at another ship again.” She gently caressed its side and the engines purred.

“I will allow you to repair me, for now. After that, perhaps I can allow you to pilot me again, in time.”

Tak smiled and continued to pet her ship while it continued to purr. The scene was almost sweet until Zim decided to break it up.

“Well, well, well,” Zim said, a smug smile on his face, “looks like I’m the only one here with an operational ship.”

Tak only hissed in response.

“So, I guess I’ll be taking those coordinates and be on my way,” he continued, “unless someone wants to grovel for the chance to accompany me.”

Tak stomped up to Zim and unleashed a cavalcade of Irken at him. Dib wasn’t sure what she said, but if cricket/bat/snake could cuss someone out, he imagined it’d sound something like that.

“Okay,” Zim squeaked out, looking up at Tak who now towered over him. “I suppose I could let you come, but only because you asked so nicely.”

“I’m coming too,” Dib declared.

Tak and Zim both turned to him with questioning looks on their faces. “Uh, what?” Zim said.

“I’m coming. I want to see what’s on that planet, too.”

“This doesn’t concern you, human,” Tak spat.

“Excuse me? Who’s house are you two crashing at? Who’s ancient computer did you use to get those coordinates? And who’s been keeping your ship running while you’ve been got?”

“We don’t need-” Zim started, but Dib cut him off.

“Yes you do,” he shot back. “You need my lab to get your base working again. You said so yourself. And Tak, you need my garage and my tools if you’re going to fix your ship. If you want to stay here and use my equipment, to fix your stuff, you need to let me in on the conspiracy.”

The two Irkens looked at each other intently, as if holding a telepathic conversation. Dib briefly wondered if they could communicate semi-telepathically, or at least through pheromones. They did have antenna after all.

Finally, they broke their stare down and turned back to Dib. “Fine, the Dib can come,” Zim conceded.

Dib felt a jolt of excitement jump through his body. “Yeah, Gaz and I-”

“Nope,” Gaz said, turning on her heals and heading back inside.

Okay, so no Gaz. Aw well, he could at least count on her to cover for him while he’s gone. “I will get my space travel equipment and be ready to leave within the hour.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Zim said, and he and Tak headed back inside as well. Dib went further into the garage and began preparing the things he’s need for the trip.

“You’re seriously going to let him come along?” Tak asked as they walked away.

“Eh,” Zim said with a shrug. “If the Dib-worm wants to come to a dead planet where total species-wide genocide took place, let him.”

Dib let the helmet he’d been holding clang to the floor. “Wait, what?”

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shadowofthelamp · 4 years

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This was the other capture au thing I forgot to post over here. Nothing special, just hammering out the dynamics as Zim taunts Dib.

Warnings: Mpreg

Wordcount: 1025

This was perfect. Frankly, Zim didn't know how he hadn't thought of it before. It had been years since the victory, the conquest, since that one particular human had been captured, years that had been- fun! They'd absolutely been fun, because they couldn't be any less than that because he had all the power he'd ever wanted and the Tallest had entrusted him with the ruling of this planet. It was an honor very few invaders received, trust enough to continue ruling after the invasion was complete. They liked the sugar he sent, to be sure. He saw it in their faces on his yearly report. Zim was satisfied! He had a planet, he had a former rival to torment at his leisure, and he could lounge on his throne and use any animals or humans wandering around as target practice.

But satisfied does not necessarily mean stimulated, and life on Earth had fallen into routine. Routine was something Zim knew somewhat, but while he'd been in the conquering phase, new plans bubbled up often enough to keep things from ever becoming truly monotonous. Now, though, when things ran according to plan... it was good on paper, but in practice, it was just boring.

This, though...

Zim smiled, calves folded under his thighs, hand settled over his middle. The bump was large enough now to feel even outside of his uniform. He could have simply obtained irken DNA some other way, of course, make it a normal smeet by genes, but that wasn't what he really wanted. One that was purely irken would be astounding, of course. A successor worthy of Zim. But the idea of using the Earth, and the Dib specifically, to make something that would help keep it subjugated... it was delicious. It had been a month and a half since the DNA had been introduced, and it was growing nicely inside of him.

He could have bred it in a tube, true. That was where most irken smeets came from, where Zim had come from, and where Zim swirled together genes for most of his experiments, but this one was different. It was going to be his, his, his, his to raise, to mold, to control, to be a perfect blend of his brilliance and strength and skill and the Dib's... his tenacity, his cunning and refusal to roll over like the pet he now was. Watching Dib pace about in his cell or letting him escape just long enough to get his hopes up before dashing them against the steel was the best entertainment Zim had had.

Now, there was the life inside of him to consider. Zim shifted in his throne, stretching. His antennae twitched as some instinct, tugging at his spooch like a nail caught on cloth, began to nag at him. Ah. Well, perhaps it was time to pay Dib a visit. Let the Earth boy see how the smeet was doing. A grin spread across Zim's face as he imagined the look on the human's face.

This was going to be fun. __________________________

He hated him. Hated him, hated him, hated him, hated him.

Hated him even more because he can't get the image of Zim's stupid smug fucking face out of his head, his three-clawed hand resting on his stomach. Or whatever weird alien gut-equivalent he had to a stomach. Squeedlyspooch, wasn't it? Man, that was a stupid name. After the thing where Zim had blacked out his memory and done... done something to him, he'd heard the 'joyful' news and one little video-chat before complete radio silence. It had been weeks, but anything more specific than that was beyond Dib's grasp. It wasn't like he had a calendar in his cell. Or anything, really, besides the cot and the toilet that he wasn't allowed to drown himself in or the robot guards came in and tased him.

"Hello there, Dib." Dib whirled around to see exactly the person he'd been trying not to think about, standing there, very un-ignorable.

"What do you want?" he ground out so harshly he wouldn't be surprised if sparks erupted from his teeth with the words. Zim had that stupid smile on his face again. Of course he did.

"Silly Dib," Zim said, his tone light and airy, he was doing this on purpose- "I thought you'd want to see the smeet's progress!"

"You mean that thing... it hasn't died from incompatibility yet?" Dib straightened up, the chain attached to the collar around his neck rattling. "Shame. I hoped maybe if I was lucky it would take you with it. Seriously, why did you have to knock yourself up instead of just growing it somewhere else? Just seems like sloppy craftsmanship to me."

Zim's clawed fingers tightened on the fabric around his middle. Good, Dib was getting to him. That was about all he could do now, he was gonna damn well use it. "For for information, Dib-slave," Oh, his tone had shifted, he was bubbling with irritation, "It is growing perfectly well. And on an irken schedule no less, so it will likely take after me."

"Goodie. More of you. Excuse me to barf. Was that all?" Dib crossed his arms. Zim's eye twitched. This clearly wasn't going according to whatever weird plan he'd concocted. He should know Dib by know, why did he expect any kind of obedience without having to put in the effort first?

"It will be born in two and a half months. I'm considering raising it in your old home base. The medical equipment there will be useful... maybe I'll even let them sleep in your bed."

"You wouldn't dare!" Dib tried to lunge for him, but he reached the end of his chain, choking himself and getting a laugh out of Zim.

"There it is! I was wondering where that spark really went. It’d be a shame if you lost it, there’d be no reason to keep you around, would there?" The hand over his abdomen loosened a bit, rubbing small circles with the fingertips. "The smeet and I will be back to see you soon... what was the human term....? Daddy."

That rotten, evil, inhuman-

And he was gone, with a familiar cackle echoing down the hall that ground into Dib's eardrums.

He hated him.

#aip capture au #aip #iz #iz blogging #shadow writes stuff #mpreg cw

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diamondsareapearlsbestfriend · 4 years

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Tag Yourself (ZADR)

so a while ago some of us in the ZADR Discord were discussing Dib getting a tattoo in irken, which @kordrawszadr illustrated beautifully and i guess this happened!! | 500 words | AO3

***

Dib should have known something was up, really, when Zim had been so eager to help him choose a tattoo. He definitely should’ve been suspicious when he’d been so insistent he should get his code name written in Irken so “all the other earthworms can see how superior you are!”

At the very least, he maybe should have run a translation of the foreign letters before he’d had them permanently inked on the back of his neck.

“...What? No, that can’t be what it says. Translate again.”

“What are you, stupid or something?” Charming as ever, he can practically hear the computer rolling its eyes, which is kind of impressive for something that doesn’t have any. “It says the same thing it did the last three times. Property. Of. Zim.”

“Zim!”

“What?! I’m busy being brilliant - oh!” The tiny green hellspawn he somehow calls a boyfriend sticks his head out of the toilet, eyes lighting up as he hops onto the couch so he’s almost at Dib’s height level. “You’re back from the ink-monkey! Reveal the sacred text!”

Without warning, he scrambles up to sit on Dib’s shoulders and tugs the collar of his coat down, exposing the freshly inked skin: the letters he was told would spell out ‘Agent Mothman’.

“Yeah, the one you told me would make me look cool and mysterious - not brand me as your property!” He can feel Zim snickering into his hair, the little shit. “It’s not funny, Zim! I have to walk around like this!”

“Yes, yes, stop flapping your mouth-flaps.” Zim rests his chin on Dib’s head, letting out a satisfied purr as he traces the still-tender skin with a claw, which is really distracting Dib from being furious with him. “No one on this poxy planet will be able to read it - and should we ever return to Irk, everyone will know you belong to the amazing Zim and will probably, possibly, potentially refrain from killing you on sight!”

“Doesn’t everyone on Irk hate you -”

“Hush, now, my pet.” Zim reaches down to squish his cheeks together, turning the remainder of the sentence into an indignant splutter. “There is nothing to worry your ginormous head about.”

Dib groans, flopping down on the couch with Zim still astride his shoulders, where he hopefully can’t see the flush on his cheeks at the unexpectedly tender address of my pet while continuing to comb his claws through Dib’s hair. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Bad human.” Zim tugs on his scythe. “That is no way to address your master - !”

Zim squawks like a cockatiel as Dib grabs him by the waist, digging his fingers into his sides to try and throw him off, and they tumble onto the sofa in a messy tangle of limbs, antennae and laughter.

(He threatens Zim with the hose if he doesn’t laser it off for him tomorrow, but they somehow never get around to it and actually, maybe, the alien insignia does look pretty cool.

Plus, well...it’s not wrong.)

#zadr #zim #dib #invader zim fic #whoops i havent been here in 84 years #but when i do i bring ridiculous fluff obviously #rarity writes #my fic #drabbles

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saintheartwing · 4 years

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Invader Zim: The Pod People Invasion

"So…tell me again WHY my poor son is here?"

Professor Membrane was rather astounded that his son had been unceremoniously tossed into a straight jacket, gagged, and put in the school counselor's room. The black, scythe-haired scientist looked furious, despite nobody being able to see his eyes behind those large goggles he wore, and the fact his big white labcoat covered up his lower mouth. But his black-gloved fingers were clenching tightly onto his arm, his body practically vibrating with fury and rage as he glowered at the police who were in the whitish/grey room with him, the office of the school counselor, Mr. Thildari. The blind man had a soft face and white eyes, wearing glasses over those milky orbs as he wore a white button up shirt and white pants, and had a necklace with a lovely green orb-like gem at the end of it as he tilted his head to the side, the almost androgynous-looking man intrigued by what Professor Membrane had to say.

His son, Dib Membrane, was sitting in a chair nearby, in a straight-jacket and Mr. Thildari nodded at the police as they undid the straight-jacket. "I think it's unnecessary since his father's here at last. We apologize for the dreadful inconvenience." Mr. Thildari's soft yet dark voice remarked, his tone having almost a faint echoing undercurrent to it. "Please accept the school's humble apologies. Would you, perhaps, like to buy some chocolate? The school's having a promotion!"

He reached into his desk and pulled out big jars of chocolate-covered nuts. "How about it?" He inquired of Dib as they got him out of the straight-jacket and removed the ball gag and he dusted himself off. "You maybe got some…mad money to spend?"

"HA. HA. HA." Dib snorted as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a bit and frowned, amber/golden eyes glowering at the school counselor, then at the cops. "This sucks, Dad. I got practically violated by these jerks!"

"Well you were ranting and raving about the end of the world in the middle of the school cafeteria for a good four minutes until we finally tased you." The first cop remarked.

"Because it's really happening!" Dib said. "Look, maybe I should just start from the beginning…" He sighed, pinching the space between his eyes and shaking his head back and forth. "It all started simply enough…" He murmured. "I'd forgotten my wallet yesterday on Sunday, and I had to race back into town. See, there was this really cool convention just the next town over, so I had to take a bus there only to realize…WOOPS. Forgot my wallet with my tickets in it. And the worst part was that because I only had enough change for the bus fare once, I had to walk back. And by the time I got back, that's when I realized something was really, really wrong with the town. I mean, everything seemed okay at first but…"

"You gotta help me!"

Torque Smacky had grabbed hold of Dibbun Membrane and was shaking the black-jacket-wearing, blue-undershirt-having young 12 year old about, looking mortified. The frazzled, spiky hair of Torque was even more messy, his big, ugly face looking horrified as he looked into Dib's eyes, his dad, lantern jaw and all, walking towards him.

"What the heck's wrong with you?" Dib asked. "I'm not doing your homework for you-"

"It's my dad, dude, he's not actually my dad! He's not!"

Dib stared at him. "…what?"

"He can't be! He hasn't spanked or smacked me once today!" Torque Smacky insisted.

"Oh, relaaaax, I'm sure your Dad will start smacking you around again soon enough." Dib remarked snidely. "Geez, Torque, you're angry that your family isn't hitting you? I call that finding a unicorn, do you know how many times Gaz hit me over the head during her "blue period"?"

"Thank you, sir." Torque's father said, taking hold of his son by the collar. "Come on, son, you must be…tired." He insisted, bringing him towards the screen door to his home nearby as Torque uselessly squirmed around, trying to break free.

"No, no, no! Please, believe me! Believe meeeeeee!" Torque cried out as he vanished into the house.

"Looking back, I…I can't believe how stupid I was not to see what was happening. I guess I was also in a bad mood, because I was missing the convention. AND I was starving too. So I went to get my wallet from my house. It was quiet, real quiet. Nobody seemed to be there, and there wasn't any food in the cupboard left over. So I decided "Okay, I'll get some snacks from the gas station, then head out and catch the last half of my convention". But then I met GIR, Zim's little robot friend, all disguised as a dog, and he'd finished up a Suckmunkey. He was sitting on the stoop and looking really depressed, and Zim was eating a candy bar…"

Indeed, the Irken alien invader, Zim, had distinctly green skin, no ears, no nose, ruby/maroon eyes hidden behind obvious contact lenses, and his black insectoid antenna was hidden by a black wig. He was still obviously wearing black gloves and boots and a maroon "invader's attire" that was a big ol shirt with long sleeves, dark grey pants, and he had clawed hands for God's sakes! And yet…hardly anyone seemed to realize he was an alien.

But even he seemed down.

"You guys look…really depressed."

"NONE of the filthy huuuuuman children will listen to me going into detail about my glorious new plans!" Zim remarked. "The whole town is…quiet! Lethargic! Slothful! Nobody cares about what Zim has to say!"

Dib sniggered as GIR sighed as well, the little green doggy suit he wore having its head a-drooping. "None of my friends'll play with me." He murmured. "Nobody wants to pet me. NOBODY LOVES MEEEEE!"

"Uh…gee, little alien robot, sorry…" Dib mumbled. Something was rather odd, he was beginning to pick up on that. But he'd learn the truth soon enough, because as he walked towards the bus station after getting some nachoes and a soda to sate himself, he saw, of all people, SKOODGE racing out of Zim's house, grabbing Dib!

"You gotta help me, Mr. Dib! PLEASE! Nobody else will listen to me!"

"Okay, alright, alright." Dib groaned, rolling his eyes as Skoodge led him to the backyard, past the guard-an-gnomes that Zim had, following the very tubby and rotund alien invader. Skoodge was dressed up in a better disguise, he had a holographic display that gave him a freckled face, orangish hair and the like…but he hadn't taken his Invader's garb off. Ah well. Skoodge was more agreeable, civil and just plain nicer than Zim. If he wasn't an alien invader, Dib would have probably gone along great with him-

"HOLY CRAP!"

Dib gazed down at what laid in the backyard, a gigantic pod, big, green, faintly pulsating and with Skoodge's head upon it!

"Wh-what is this?!" Dib asked. "It's an amazing likeness of you!"

"Yeah, I found it in the backyard along with this other pod that's just…lying here." Skoodge said, jabbing a thumb at another nearby pod. "No clue who it's for. It's not one of Zim's ideas, believe me…he'd be talking about it all morning if it was."

"I think I know what it is…" Dib realized, his eyes going wide. "Skoodge, this is a space pod! Part of a diabolical alien invasion force from deep space to replace all humanity as we sleep! There's only one thing to do!"

"Uh…call the cops? The FBI? The CIA? NASA? 60 Minutes, maybe?" Skoodge asked. "Or, I dunno, go to every house and set fire to all the backyards?"

"No! We'll look for a pod person and make them explain everything in a convoluted bit of expositionary dialogue!" Dib proclaimed, pointing upwards dramatically as Skoodge stared at him, scratching his head.

"Um…Dib, I don't think they're going to do that." He remarked.

"Skoodge, c'mon, if there's one thing aliens LOVE, it's bragging and talking about how amazing their plans for taking over worlds are." Dib told him, folding his arms over his chest as Skoodge opened his mouth to protest…then tilted his head to the side and nodded a bit, wagging his hand in the air in a kind of "Yeah, okay" sort of gesture.

So off we went. We asked people left and right if they were pod people. We didn't always get the answers we wanted. Didn't have a lot of good luck!

"Excuse me, are you a pod person?"

"A WHAT?!" Iggins asked. "What's THAT supposed to mean?! POD PERSON!? I'll have you know I'm proudly gay and there's nothing wrong with that! Pod person. POD PERSON…"

"Dude, you're being creepier than usual!" Zita proclaimed, glowering at the two. "I have mace. I am not afraid to use it."

"No, I'm black." Said the Letter M, the tight-crop black hair of the kid almost standing up on end in irritation as he frowned.

"Say, why are you called The Letter M anyway?"

"Well, it beats what my sister got named. The Letter F." M remarked with a sigh.

"…wait. You mean…" Dib trailed off. "…do your parents, by chance, work as scientists like MY dad?"

"Yes, and they changed their names when they got married and are now the Mr and Ms Sir and Madam no more, now they're the proud Mr. Husband and Mrs. Wife. They even named our dog the letter C. I wanted a cat. But they said it would make calling for their daughter too complicated."

"I am so, so sorry." Dib said apologetically. "I can't think of any worse name than being called the shorthand for Male."

"When I have a son, I'm going to name him SUE." Letter M insisted angrily. "Then I'll scatter my parents ashes over the toilet, and will scatter something else over that." He growled.

We learned a lot more about the people of this town than I think I wanted to...but not much about pod people. Finally, though, our persistence paid off.

"Why yes. Yes, I AM a pod person." Sara said cheerily, the faintly nun-dressed young girl sitting on a park bench and giving them a rather…unsettlingly fake smile. "And I'd be delighted to tell all of you about our people's invasion plans before I go alert my co-conspirators to your presence. You see, our space pods land on a planet, replacing all its people with emotionless replicas as they sleep. Then we grow more pods, spreading sterility and tranquility throughout the cosmos!"

"Really?" Dib remarked. "That's it? Kinda…simple."

"Well, yes! It's our first time doing this, so we're keeping the plan simple. Still, to be fair and further spread our mission, we also invented tofu, created EuroDisney, and Ben Stein. Oh, and Lily Collins. She's been one of us for years." Sara added.

"How about Tommy Wiseau from "The Room"?"

"Oh, no, no, no." Sara shook her head. "He's too weird for us. That's on you people. We're not going near him with a fifty foot pole. We may be emotionless, calm, collected alien invaders, but even we get weirded out by that guy."

"So you wanna get rid of all our emotions?! That's horrible! That sounds like you wanna turn the world into a bad Lifetime Channel movie or some kind of old home video you'd show kids in Sunday School!"

"I dunno, I think it's pretty nice being a pod."

"AAAAA!"

Dib gaped in horror at Skoodge, who now looked…off. His eyes were kind of distant. His face looking like it was miles away! And the pod he'd been carrying with them for proof…EMPTY!

"How the heck?!" Dib cried out.

"Yeah, turns out me carrying it around wasn't such a nice idea. Or at least, that's what I thought about…ten seconds ago. But now I "feel" fine. You should try it." Skoodge said as he took hold of Dib along with Sara, dragging Dib into a nearby convenience store, people standing listlessly about as the man behind the counter stared ahead.

"So. What would you like? We have water…water…and, ah, more water."

"I'd like a tepid water."

"Yes, tepid, please."

"Tepid would be very nice."

"Oh, and I must remind you all, we are having "Unemotional Hour" tonight from 10-11 at the bar across the street. Is that not just lovely?" The convenience store owner intoned in a deadpan voice as the others nodded in agreement.

"Here, to ease your transition in, human." Said Skoodge as he handed Dib something from a large pile of objects to the side as the other pod people nodded some more. "Your own space pod and introduction membership kit! All you need for a nice, simple, assimilation into never having problems ever again. Oh, and we also have this very lovely foam finger." He added with a nod as Dib looked over the "Pods #1" foam finger he'd been given. "We got the idea from a very lovely little dog."

"Uh, look, um….I kinda want my emotions." Dib insisted. "They're good for, y'know…improving the world. Caring about people? Protecting it from…well, alien invasions!?"

"Don't be silly, Dib. Emotions lead only to bad things. Like competition, jealousy, and hallmark cards. We're doing your world a favor!" Sara remarked. "You'll never have any worries or cares ever again. Become one of us just like Mark Zuckerburg did. He's far better off now."

"Mark Zuckerberg's one of you? Really?"

"Yeah,it took ages to be sure he was, even before our pod, the man was as soulless as a piece of toast!"

"So…I won't care about…say…my favorite TV show, Mysterious Mysteries?" Dib inquired.

"Nope. Not a bit."

"…what about…hunting down Zim?"

"He won't be caring about anything anymore, why should you?"

"…my family?" Dib asked.

"No, you won't care about them either. You won't even care that you don't care!"

"…BUH-BYE!" Dib said, kicking Skoodge in the foot. BOINK! He flopped over, Sara gaping as Dib took off running.

"Hey, stop him!"

"You stop him. I don't care if he escapes." Skoodge remarked as he laid on the floor.

"Yeah, doesn't bother me any." Said the convenience store owner as other pod people nodded along.

"But if we don't stop him he'll ruin all our plans!" Sara remarked.

"…oh, well that's different." Skoodge said, chasing after him with the others as they barrled out of the street after Dib, who tore down the sidewalk. "Please stop running. You have forgotten your pod."

"Ask me if I care!" Dib called back.

"You know, if I had any emotional capacity I would be very cross with you right now." Sara added as they jogged after Dib, who glared back at them slightly before diving into an alleyway, scrambling over a chain link fence. He bolted as fast as he could, barreling down the road, into his house, slamming the door shut, Zim sitting on the couch and shaking his head back and forth.

"I really don't get why you like this show." He told GIR and Gaz as they sat down on the couch next to him. "Oh, Dib-Stink. Yes, I'm in your house, GIR stupidly insisted we come over here to check on "Gazzy-Wazzy". They evidently were doing something upstairs for a long time and now they want me to watch the…what is it? Calm Monkey Show?"

"Calm Monkey!?" Dib stared at the screen, mouth agape as Gaz and GIR kept watching, staring ahead blankly.

"…hello." Said the brown-furred, slightly yellow-eyed monkey on the screen. "…what a nice day. Isn't it a fine day. Isn't it fine that we're feeling fine?"

"Yes. Yes, it's fine to feel fine, isn't it?" GIR asked Gaz.

"Oh, yes. We're both feeling fine. You know, I think the paint's drying on the back of the wall behind that monkey." Gaz added, the purple-haired Goth girl…not even having her eyebrows down so much over her eyes she looked like she was perpetually frowning. She had her eyes wide open and she…she wasn't even wearing her skull necklace!

"This is not a good show." Zim muttered.

"Maybe you'll like…say…some nice, relaxing music." Gaz said, changing the channel to a music station as Dib frowned, then yawned.

"UGH. Post Malone's "Psycho"?! This song is so dull, he's supposed to be talking about going insane but he sounds like he's on Quaaludes!"

"We could always switch to a nice C-SPAN discussion if you'd prefer, they're talking about bumper crops." GIR remarked.

"…oh no. OH NO. I know what you're trying to do. You want me to fall asleep so you can replace us with pods!" Dib gasped. "No way!" He proclaimed. "Zim, we have to get out of here now. GIR and my sister have evidently been replaced by pod people from outer space and if we don't leave, they'll put us to sleep and replace us too!"

"Oh, c'mon." Zim said with a snort. "I mean, just because Gaz and GIR are acting much more calm and rational and polite and courteous and civil doesn't…doesn't…"

BAM!

Zim and Dib barreled out the front door, Zim's disguise falling off his face as he howled in terror. "YOU WILL NEVER, EVER TELL ANYONE I ADMITTED YOU WERE RIGHT, DIB!"

"SHUT UP AND RUN, LOCUST!"

"You can't hide from us!" GIR cried out as he walked after them, smiling stupidly along with Gaz.

"Yes. Today, Philadelphia, tomorrow…a whole bunch of other places!"

"We have to find a place to hide. Somewhere. Anywhere!" Dib proclaimed as they barreled past people in the street, racing out of the city as fast as they could, off to the outskirts as the sky began to get darker, Zim wiping his brow. "C'mon, Zim, pick up the pace!"

"S-Sorry! I'm…I'm not used to…running around so much!" He moaned. "Zim's PAK legs usually do this for him but I had to put it on "DEBUG" for the day, nothing's working but the life support." He commented.

"You are soooo out of shape." Dib intoned as they reached the old mine, climbing inside, panting heavily, Dib wiping his brow as Zim flopped against the stony wall within, the soft echoing of a stalactite dripping water down into a cave pool not far away. DRIP…DRIP…DRIP.

"OOOF…" Zim moaned. "I wish I'd eaten more than a candy bar. I'm starving."

"I'm going to check to see if the coast is clear. Lemme look outside the back entrance." Dib told Zim, heading down the mine, going to the south entrance, using his smartphone's flashlight to light the way as he wiped his brow on his jacket arm. "Hoo…I'm getting tired too. Okay, once I know we're safe, we can take a little nap and then I'll gather my thoughts and think up a plan." He mused to himself as he finally reached the southern entrance to the mine about half an hour later. He peered out as the stars began to twinkle overhead, a soft wind blowing through his hair as he clung to the wall of the mine, peering out.

No sign of anyone or anything, save for a natural pathway leading out to the highway. Dib grinned, then headed back the way he'd come, calling out. "Zim! Zim, the coast is clear, let's get-OH NO!"

There, by Zim's side…was a pod!

"Yeah, uh, funny story. They had some spares here in the mine. Anyway, Zim is a pod now. It's pretty awesome." Zim intoned. "I think you should be a pod too." He added, holding up another pod. "One of us! C'mon."

"AAAACK!" Dib barreled back to the southern entrance, racing off as Zim called out, the pod people coming in through the north entrance.

"He's over here, this way! Human over here!"

Dib barreled down the highway, racing off for the school, looping to the west as he slid his way inside through a window. His chest felt like it was on fire as he made his way into a closet, panting heavily, wiping his brow and looking around. No pods anywhere. NOWHERE. Phew. He quickly began to move things around, barricading the door and finally, at long last, sitting down to rest and-

"Hey. This is my closet." Said an irritated-looking janitor with a bit of messy black hair atop his head and a dark look in his eyes, his body thin and emaciated as he poked his head out from behind a bucket. "I've got a busy day tomorrow of painting a wall red with blood to feed the demon that lies inside."

"Well I'm hiding from pod people who want to take away all our emotions!"

"…yeah, okay, fair enough. Just so you know? I snore." The janitor intoned, plopping back down behind the bucket.

And so, come the next morning as the kids were going into the cafeteria for a big announcement…that was when I barreled in, fully rested and probably still looking wild and crazed, waving my arms over my head as I got on top of a table, bouncing up and down, yelling loudly to all in the room about the oncoming alien invasion of pod people!

And about four minutes in, that's when the school's police guard came in to tase me.

…

… "So that's what happened." Dib explained.

"Only a moron could believe stuff like that!" said one of the cops as Mr. Thildari rubbed his chin.

"I'm very sorry, Dib. But without any kind of supporting evidence, well…the best you can do is let the media exploit you for a lucrative book and Netflix movie deal." The school counselor remarked just before Professor Membrane noticed something.

"Oh. One moment." He lifted open his chest, showing off a built-in smart TV, everyone looking on in awe as he cheerily chuckled. "We're getting a breaking news bulletin! I can always tell because I get a tingling in my colon."

"This just in! SPACE PODS HAVE INVADED EARTH!"

"And by the way!" a voice rang out as the rather homicidal-looking janitor brought in several big ol' green pods, tossing them into the room. "I found these in the damn bathrooms. How am I supposed to clean up all the blood if these pods are in the way!?"

"Oh, Dib! You a pod yet?" Zim inquired as he poked his head into the room with an unnatural smile as Gaz, GIR and Skoodge stood by him.

"HA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! SEE?! SEEEE?!" Dib cried out. "You believe me now, you jaded authority figures, you?"

"I dunno…not really…" One of the cops remarked.

"Mmmm…gee, nah, I don't think so…" Another cop intoned.

"Actually, I do." Said Mr. Thildari as he smiled broadly…

And then, before their eyes, became an Irken with balled antennae dressed in a big white robe with a silver belt! He smiled cheerily at Dib, waving his clawed hands, white eyes blinking. "You see, we Irkens have actually been on Earth for many decades now. My own mother and originator, Almighty Tallest Miyuki, blessed be her name, came here aaaaages ago to do some experimentation with a VERY lovely black-haired young scientist who ended up charming her."

"Wait, WHAT?!" Professor Membrane's eyes bugged behind his goggles. "Though this explains a lot…" He confessed as Dib gaped in astonishment, the cops in the room, Zim, GIR, Gaz and Skoodge gasping in amazement. "She always felt very different down there whenever we-"

"BAH, we're not worried about you." One of the cops said as he took off his hat…then his head, revealing a distinctly green, scaly-skinned, tusk-having alien who was amazingly tall! "We Martians have been preparing too! We've been seeing all of your efforts for twenty decades and we're getting our hunting parties ready!"

"That'd be very impressive…" said another one of the cops before his skin melted off…showing off synthetic alloy beneath with soulless eyes as his arm opened up to reveal a carbine blaster that was revving up to fire. "But we robots have foreseen your attempt. I come from the future to end your reign before it begins! If need to, we will shoot you twice! We'll screw you over more than the new Terminator did to it's franchise!"

"Wait a minute, I thought we were only being invaded by pod people!" Dib remarked.

"You think that's what's going on? Not at all, man!" yelled Nick as the young man with the obvious head injury stuck his head into the room and walked inside, wearing…a kilt. They stared at him in shock as he sighed, folding his arms over his chest, the poor kid's brain exposed from horrifying experiments that Zim had done on him, the brain barely kept in by a kind of glassy little dome. "Giant blancmanges landed. They've turned half my class into Scotsmen so they can dominate the Olympic games this year because "everyone knows Scottish people are terrible at sports"! Bunch of prejudicial puddings!" He grumbled.

"You think that's bad?!" Ms. Bitters intoned as she crawled in from the window outside, panting heavily and wiping her brow, looking mortified, smoke slightly rising off her skeletal frame as the glasses-wearing old, white-haired crone cringed. "It's the apes you need to worry about. Apes have inherited the Earth!"

"Have we actually all died and gone to Hell? What's going on here?!" Dib groaned as he looked around the room, other people beginning to talk amongst themselves, the voices getting loud and panicked and terrified.

"No, no, it's all a twisted experiment!"

"It's the GOVERNMENT'S fault!"

"IT'S A COOKBOOK! IT'S A COOKBOOOOOK!"

"You stupid, STUPID morons!" A voice rang out as they all turned, suddenly seeing someone whom they never expected to see…Minimoose. The flying, purple little moose-like toy glowered at them all, speaking perfect English! "None of this is real! We're all just typed words on a page, stuck in a comedic horror story written by a New Englander! This is all just FANFICTION!"

Everyone stared at him…and then burst out laughing, hysterically cackling. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"WOOP! HA HA HA!"

"PFFFTTT!"

"HEE-HEE-HEE!"

"Oh, that's a good one. Fanfiction! Ha-ha-ha! That's the stupidest one yet!" Dib sniggered.

"Oh yeah?!" Minimoose glowered as his eyes narrowed. "Then how do you explain the fact that the next words out of your mouth are going to be "You're just being silly, Minimoose!"

"You're just being silly, Minimoose-" Zim began to say before he stopped, and everyone gazed at him, his expressionless face now looking terrified. "…wh…what?"

"And look! Look up THERE! See! The PAGE!" Minimoose proclaimed as he pointed up above, and everyone stared.

"Wh…what? H…How can I be up there when I'm speaking now?" Dib murmured fearfully as they all glanced around at each other.

"And there's MORE!" Minimoose proclaimed. "Haven't all of you felt it? That feeling you were being watched? Like the eyes of strange things are upon you?! Look! Reading this right now! YOU! Yes, YOU!"

"OH MY GOD!" Dib cried out as he saw you, the others gazing on in amazement and horror. "That…that means…"

"Then…then…" Professor Membrane murmured.

"AAAAAAAAAA!"

People were screaming, running left and right. The pod people howled in terror, folks were bolting out the door and the windows, and Dib, pale as a sheet, shook his head back and forth, looking up at you.

"Please, whatever you do! Don't stop reading! DON'T STOP READING THIS STORY! DON'T EXIT THE TAB! DON'T CLICK AWAY! DON'T! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

#fanfiction #fanfic #Invader Zim #Zim #Dib #Gaz #aliens #alien invasion #humor #comedy #parody #satire

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snappedsky · 4 years

Text

Fanatics 73.1

Some new enemies are crawling around the city. But who are they? Previous! Next!

Government of Doom Part 1

In a hidden government facility, agents are working around the clock, monitoring energy levels from all the around the world on their computers. One man notices something odd and calls over his supervisor.

“Sir,” he says, “these levels from a city in California are very…strange.”

The supervisor sighs wearily before even looking at the computer. “Ah, yes. That’d be the Nameless City.”

“The what?”

“A city in California without an official name,” he explains, “to call it ‘weird’ would be an understatement. Levels have always been high there but it’s always contained to the city so we don’t worry about it much.”

“O-okay,” the agent nods, “but I still think you should take a look.”

The supervisor looks over the agent’s shoulder and his eyes widen with surprise. “Wh-what is this…?”

On screen is a sort of graph with a coloured line displaying paranormal energies in that area. One of the jobs of these agents is to make sure the line stays a nice, even level. But on screen right now, the line is fluctuating wildly, constantly spiking and falling seemingly at random.

“What timeline is this?” the supervisor asks.

“The last year or so,” the agent replies.

“I have never seen anything like this before,” he mutters before standing up straight. “I’m gonna discuss it with the director but I’m betting it’s time we’ve stopped turning the other cheek when it comes to the Nameless City. They’ve been left alone for too long.”

---

“Are we almost there?” Tak asks impatiently.

“Yeah, I’m getting grass stains,” Gaz grunts.

“We should be close…I think,” Dib replies.

“Why do we have to crawl?” Pepito asks.

“So we don’t spook them,” he insists.

“Everyone shut up,” Zim hisses, “we’re here.”

The Battalion pokes their heads over a bush and looks out towards a small lake a little ways outside the city. What they see has them gasping in awe.

Two horses are drinking from the lake. Their hides are pure white and smooth like ivory, their hooves are gold and sparkly, and their manes and tails are all the colours of the rainbow. And protruding from their heads are coiled crystal horns that sparkle in the sunlight.

“Unicorns!” Dib squeals into his hands to muffle his voice.

“That crazy homeless guy was right,” Pepito remarks.

“Not sure he’s so crazy now,” Gaz comments.

“What do you think, Squee?” Zim asks.

“Gaz may be right. If he’s right about the unicorns, the rest of his babbling might not be crazy,” Squee replies.

“No, I mean about the unicorns.”

“Oh, right.” He awkwardly clears his throat. “Uh well I don’t sense any kind of malice but that could be because they’re relaxing.”

“Should we just leave them alone?” Pepito asks.

“We can’t just leave,” Dib snaps, “nobody has any documented proof on unicorns. They’re one of the rarest of the supernatural creatures.” “We’re not documenting them,” Squee says sternly.

“Fine,” he groans, “but we still can’t just leave.”

“Alright,” he sighs and removes his bag and sweater, handing them to Pepito. “Hold my stuff. I don’t want them perceiving me as a potential threat.” “You sure about this?” Pepito asks.

“Yeah,” Squee nods as he steps over the bush. “I don’t think they’re dangerous.” He slowly, carefully, approaches the unicorns, keeping low to the ground. Once he’s a couple feet away, he stops and sits in the grass.

The one closest to him takes notice and looks at him. Its eyes are pure black orbs that sparkle in the light, immediately reminding Squee of the stars in space. ‘Uh…hi,” Squee waves.

The unicorn leans over, smelling him, before blowing air in his face, making him chuckle, and going back to the lake.

“Guys, it’s okay,” Squee calls back to his friends. “Just leave your weapons and come slow.”

The rest of the Battalion cautiously hurry over. The unicorns look at them but seem more interested in their drink as the kids examine them.

Dib carefully touches the second one’s back and strokes it. “They feel so smooth, like made of crystal.”

“Their hair is really soft,” Tak says as she runs her hand through the other’s mane.

“I gotta admit, this is a nice change of pace to the usual creatures we deal with,” Pepito remarks.

“Yeah, they seem really peaceful,” Squee agrees.

“Kinda boring,” Gaz comments, “but I guess they are pretty.” “I am surprised that they are so comfortable around us,” Dib muses, “being such elusive creatures, I figured they would be more cautious.”

“They can just tell what’s a threat and what isn’t,” Zim shrugs, “they must be clever creatures…for Earth.”

The kids hang around for a couple minutes. While the unicorns aren’t very social, they are quite chill and they give off a very calming atmosphere. Even the usually high-strung Zim and Tak find themselves relaxing by the creatures’ sides.

But their quiet afternoon comes to a screeching halt when they all immediately sense another’s presence. The Battalion whip around just as a bang rings out and something smashes into the ground where one of the unicorns was standing. But both are already gone, having sensed the danger, and galloping across the water. The kids, however, are too distracted to notice.

“Was that a gunshot?” Squee shouts, covering his ears.

Tak’s cybernetic eye scans the surrounding area. She sees residual body heat from where a person was hiding in the trees behind them, but the person themself has already ran off.

“Whoever it was, they’re gone,” she says.

“Gah,” Zim snarls, “if I find out who that was, they’re gonna pay.” “Maybe we can,” Dib muses as he digs around in the dirt and pulls out a bullet, completely intact.

“Give it!” he demands, snatching it from Dib’s hand. “I’ll examine it in my lab.”

“Who else knew the unicorns were here?” Squee asks.

“Anyone who goes down Main Street,” Gaz replies.

“But who else would listen to a crazy homeless guy?” Pepito asks.

“And why would somebody try to shoot them?” Squee adds.

There’s a heavy silence as nobody can think of an answer.

“Let’s just get out here,” Dib orders.

The others nod in agreement and they head through the woods and back to the highway.

Dib drives everyone home in the Epic. They’re all rather tense after what just happened, their minds reeling.

Squee is the last to get dropped off before Dib and Gaz go home. He rubs his neck as he walks up to the house, feeling drained all of a sudden. But before he reaches the door, a chill runs down his spine and he turns around.

The street is quiet, as per usual. Passersby never cross through Grave Road, believing it to be cursed, and the few neighbors are either inside or at work. But Squee can feel someone watching him.

“Where are they?” he asks.

“They’re well concealed,” Shmee replies.

“Irkens?”

“I don’t think so.” Squee’s eyes narrow. Before, he would’ve tried to ignore the danger, not wanting to get involved. But now he finds himself not feeling so afraid. More annoyed than anything.

He clicks his tongue and goes inside, pulling out his phone and sending a message in the group chat.

Squee: Something’s watching me

Tak: Same here.

Pepito: me too i think

Zim: Dib and Gaz?

Squee: They’re probably still driving home.

Zim: Everyone stay on your guard and regularly check in. Something is about to happen.

�� Squee half-waves to Johnny and Cammie as he passes by the couch, still texting his friends. Cammie waves back, contently watching TV as she pets Nugget. Nny isn’t quite so blissful. He knows someone has been watching the house all day and it’s pissing him off. Tonight, as soon as everyone’s in bed, he’s getting to the bottom of it.

#invader zim #invader zim fanfiction #johnny the homicidal maniac #johnny the homicidal maniac fanfiction #iz jthm crossover #myart #myocs

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redrobin-detective · 5 years

Text

Ugly Pictures are worth a Thousand Words

“Children, come here, it’s time for our family photo,” Professor Membrane said, his voice resounding through the house. “I promised your grandparents I’d show off my new green son.”

“We don’t have grandparents,” Gaz said, not looking up from her game but she did have a nice bow in her hair for the occasion.

“And I realized that you children were suffering for it so I got you some new grandparents, related in some way to your brother Junior,” Membrane said with a deep laugh. Gaz hummed and continued with her game. “Boy Child! Green Child! Your presence is being requested! And by requested I mean d̶̥e͢m̬̦̣͉̘͓a̫̤n͎̣͖͠ͅd̗̩͓̪̟̗͡e̛͖̠͔d̹͝ͅ ͕̯͕̗̀”

“Daaaaaaaaad,” Dib screamed, running down the stairs with his arms behind him like some sort of anime ninja. “I am telling you that Zim is an alien, I mean look he’s not even pretending any more.” He screeched, pointing over at Zim who wandered into the living room with his beady red eyes and absentmindedly scratching at one of his antennae while he slurped down a soda. “You have to see he’s an alien now.”

“Dib,” Membrane said in a way that was both gentle and chastising. “We’ve talked about this, just because someone looks different than us doesn’t mean we can call them aliens. I’m sure your brother came into this country perfectly legally.”

“Oh I did, surely, yes, so many magnificent forms,” Zim nodded before turning to Dib with a smug expression. “I decided that I shouldn’t have to hide myself from my BELOVED FAMILY so I did away with my contacts and wig while at home. Now I am free to just be my glorious, handsome self,” Zim explained, draping one arm over Gaz’s shoulder. She hissed and Zim yelped and recoiled back sharply.

“See? Nothing supernatural about it, I’m so happy you’re feeling more comfortable in your green skin, Junior,” Membrane said, patting Zim’s head. The alien preened.

“It’s Zim by the way, Ziiiiiiiiiiiiim,” the alien explained far more gently than he did with any other humans but no other humans petted him so fondly like Father Membrane did.

“I’m sorry son, your foreign name is too difficult for me to say and besides, Junior fits you best since you’re clearly blessed with my supreme intelligence,” Membrane explained, gathering the three children in front of him.

“It’s three letters, the same as these other filthy worm babies,” Zim continued but was ignored as Membrane hummed while straightening out Gaz’s bow and lifted Dib onto one of his shoulders. “Hey! Why does the Dib Brother get the honor of ascending to your lordly height?”

“Because your poor insane brother was hyperventilating and I thought maybe the improved air quality would do him good but fear not, Junior for I have two shoulders!” The professor said leaning down to pick up Zim placing him on the opposite shoulder.

“Dad! Don’t let him up here! He’s probably going to put alien mind warping parasites in your brain!” Dib hissed, leaning over his father’s shoulders to glare at his adopted brother.

“I would never disgrace my Lord Membrane Father by something so base as ear worms! He is worthy of at least some sort of hypnotic brain fungus,” Zim sneered back, batting away Dob’s hands.

“Boys, boys,” Membrane sighed, pulling them back and straightening them out on his shoulder. “We can all have fun debating Horrible Mind Control Methods once we take this picture. I know it’s difficult for siblings to get along, especially siblings with such different backgrounds but, as your father, I’d appreciate it if you two would cooperate just long enough to take a nice picture for your recently acquired grandparents.” Both Zim and Dib grumbled a bit in shame and turned away from the other.

“Zim will honor your request Tallest Father Sir”

“Yeah, yeah just take the stupid picture already”

“Marvelous, CameraBot900! Prepare to capture forever on film this darling picture of me and my three beautiful children. The world must see how perfect and beautiful they are, even if they are green or insane.” The floating camera was making funny faces to provoke smiles from the three children, none of whom actually smiled. “Hmm, perhaps we should get that strange green dog in the photo as well...”

GIR squealed as he raced down the chimney and opened his mouth to swallow the CameraBot. The poor machine wailed as it was swallowed whole and then became mercifully silent. The little robot let out a little burp. “That tasted like bananas.”

“Oh NO,” Membrane shouted, falling dramatically to his knees almost causing the two kids on his shoulder to topple off. “Now how will we have our special family photo? HOW??”

“It’s okay, I found this camera I was using to take pictures of my butt,” Gir said holding up a very worn and dented camera.

“Hey that’s MY camera, I’ve been using it to catalog all Zim’s alien activity!” Dib yelled while Zim nodded and chuckled under his breath.

“You have saved the day, chartreuse canine,” Membrane shouted, jumping back to his feet. “Please set the camera up and join us in this marvelous family photograph.”

“WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” GIR giggled pushing various buttons on the camera before running over and jumping into Gaz’s arms. The motion caused her to drop her game devious as she now had an armful of robot dog. Dib was shouting at Zim about controlling his alien menace and Zim was shouting back about how he wasn’t being sensitive to all of GIR’s needs. The camera clicked several times as the whole scene descended into chaos. Gaz was soon off chasing GIR who was running rampant through the house and the boys were out the front door, soon wrestling dramatically on the front yard.

Membrane sighed and went over to look at the photos. None were what you would call refined or even halfway decent. But he had discovered long ago that families, like science, are messy and oftentimes ugly. But just because something is ugly on the outside doesn’t mean it doesn’t still bring joy to those closest to the situation. He paused on one particular shot that was full of craziness and emotion and nonsense, in other words, it perfectly encapsulated his family.

“I believe this is the photograph that I will send to grandparents Red and Purple and an extra copy will adorn my desk,” he muttered proudly. Outside, Zim was shrieking in agony as Dib brought out the hose and Gaz was sitting on top of a squirming GIR as she resumed her game. Truly all was right in the world if the whole family could get together and take horrible, ugly photos.

#indaver zim #im back on my bullshit after one day #what do I call this? how about #Zim Membrane AU #sort of hinted but the grandparents are the Almighty Tallest #Membrane overheard Zim talking to them one night and assumed they were some sort of relative #all he has to do is reverse the signal of Zim's call to send them things #soon the Tallest will be innundated with adorable shots of the Membrane family in action #Zim Dib and Gaz all lined up in identical sailor suits #the kids at the water park while Zim is screeching like a howler monkey avoiding the water #Zim and Dib wrestling while Gaz watches with popcron #(a really sweet one of the three of them all cuddled asleep across Membranes lap with him doing a selfie)#the Tallest are baffled #they write back and ask for more pics #only to make fun of Zim and not because he looks inexplicably adorable in the cute outfits #Dad Membrane is happy to oblige

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diloph · 5 years

Text

Interlopers, Invaders, Investigators and Doom: Chapter 8

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Now that the Doctor has been kidnapped, it looks like Dib and Gaz only have one option left.

Well, no, actually. They have several. Just don't tell Zim that.

In the not-too-distant future, unstoppable forces collide when the Doctor arrives in the middle of Invader Zim’s latest plan to take over the Earth. But unfortunately for the pair of them, Dib and Gaz, the four are drawn into a terrible plot that endangers not only the Earth, but the Irken Empire and possibly the whole universe as well!

Gaz sighed. This was not her day.

Not that being knocked out, kidnapped and “menaced” by possibly the dumbest beings in the universe left her with great expectations for the rest of the evening, but...

How had everything turned out so badly?

So she'd been caught off guard in the beginning, okay, that much she'd admit. And that bit with the energy shackles, that wasn't going to happen again, even if Zim got the drop on her. She'd already figured out how they worked and if necessary, how to break out of them.

But even when the pair had been restrained and threatened with planetary destruction, they were never in any danger. Zim was an idiot and a predictable one at that. He would blunder about, making empty threats towards them and the Earth, but ultimately he'd end up causing more damage to himself than any of his intended targets.

That was what Gaz had come to expect by now and she could tune that out. She might've been apathetic to the war between him and Dib, but she wasn't complacent. Give her a reason and she'd squash him in a heartbeat, like she did with many of her “problems”. Zim was just another loud, obnoxious noise that got on her nerves, nothing she needed to worry about.

And then everything had started to go wrong.

What should have been an ordinary encounter with the Irken Invader had instead been turned into a parade of irritation, thanks to the arrival of the latest in a line of idiot aliens. It was almost as if the Doctor was trying his hardest to make himself as much of a nuisance as Dib and Zim were. Perhaps moreso, if his attempt to be serious with her had held any weight.

Though, considering Tak's pet robot had just punched him out, Gaz wasn't holding her breath.

Tak's return had also thrown a spanner in the works. Not that Gaz was worried that she had kidnapped the Doctor, he wasn't her concern, but getting the Irken to release her hold over both Bloaty's Pizza Hog and herself were now a top priority. Her freedom and her pizza were more important to her than fretting over another loser, alien or not. Even if the scenarios were intertwined.

Urgh, she hated it when that happened. Dealing with the various weirdos in their lives was Dib's job.

Speaking of Dib, she glanced over at the static figure of her brother, then scowled at him. Ever since the skinny man had been abducted, the self-proclaimed cryptid hunter had been staring at the spot where the SIR and her unconscious prisoner had vanished. Dib hadn't moved since.

While she'd normally appreciate the silence, it was a little unusual for her brother to be so quiet after all that. Dib should have started screaming about some sort of plan as soon as the Doctor was taken. What had gotten into him?

Still, rather than stand in the alleyway and ponder that all night, Gaz cleared her throat instead. “You’ve been standing there for a while now,” she yawned, “Can we leave yet? It's been a long day. I'm beginning to feel a little worn out.”

Dib snapped to life, whipping around. “But Gaz, you saw all that, right?!” he said, gesturing up at the rooftop. “The Doctor! Stolen! Tak! Cat! Freaky! I can't believe this! After everything I've read about him and he just... surrenders? Just like that?”

“Disappointing, isn't it?” drawled Gaz. Now that he was back to normal, she'd already began to regret bringing it up to herself in the first place. “And shut up already. Your shrieking is giving me a headache.”

Her brother looked aghast. “Can you blame me?! We're under the control of a horrible alien monster, aren't you a little freaked out by that?!” Dib asked. Gaz shot her brother a flat, unamused look.

“No. I'm tired and bored, Dib. This sort of thing happens every other week. You're overreacting, even more than you normally do. It's like you've been freaked out all day and it's really bugging me.” she pointed out.

Her comment went ignored. “Gaz. This is serious!” Dib replied. “Even if he's a good guy, the Swollen Eyeballs said he's still dangerous. What if Tak's kidnapped him so she could steal his technology?! If Zim wanted it so badly, then she'll probably want it too! She might even try to brainwash him to help her conquer the Earth! And we'd be helpless!”

“As if either of you has a brain to wash...” his sister rolled her eyes. “Dib, you're acting like the mind control is a big deal. I could've broken out of the hypnosis if I'd wanted to.” she snorted. Gaz glared at Dib when he shot her a flat look. “Really, I could've!”

“Yeah, well, I'd be helpless then.” he replied. Dib shook his head and began to pace back and forth, thinking aloud. “Now, a plan, a plan... well, I don't think it'd be a good idea to hack into robots that are in our intestines. That... could end up going horribly wrong, but we can't just go home either. Tak might be waiting there to trap us.”

With a frustrated sigh, Dib dismissed whatever he'd thought of and began muttering furiously to himself. Gaz watched him and frowned. She could almost hear his brain overloading as his paranoia dashed every solution he could come up with.

Sure, the odds were against them, but it wasn't that hard. Tak couldn't be everywhere at once, for obvious reasons. While she did have her robotic servant, now that it had captured the Doctor, the odds of the pair being captured as well were dramatically reduced, at least for the time being.

Asides from any surveillance she might have them under, that left Tak precious little in the way of options. She could retreat to her base to recover after the Doctor's attempt to fry her brain, but that could backfire with the siblings still actively trying to stop her. Like before, the wrong information in the wrong hands, like those little chips the Doctor had been carrying, could lead to the Irken's downfall. Gaz imagined she wouldn't like to repeat that scenario.

Another possibility was that she could try to capture the two children, which was easier said than done. Even though the robot had probably told her where they were by now, neither the alien nor the kids were stupid enough to believe they'd stay in the same place.

That left an increasingly likely third option. If Tak decided to go to their house to retrieve her ship, she stood to gain the most there. Not only would she be taking away a powerful tool that the siblings could use against her, it was possible that the Irken could try to capture them too, just as Dib had said. She might even try to take their father as a hostage.

No, Gaz assured herself, she wouldn't do that. Now that she had captured Dib's stupid friend, she already had one. She might dislike the Irken, but Gaz was fairly sure she was as pragmatic as she was. One hostage would be enough.

Still, if she did go to their home, that decision would net Tak one advantage, with the possibility of a second and a hopefully avoidable third. As far as Gaz's logic went, that would be Tak's plan.

Which, unfortunately, narrowed their own choice to just one option.

Dib snapped his fingers and spun back to his sister, interrupting her train of thought. “I got it!” he beamed. “Tak may be able to control our brains. She might figure out a way to control the Doctor's. But what if we could get somebody who's not been brainwashed and get them to help us?!”

Gaz sighed again. Yep, there it was. The same realisation, not matter how much she disliked it.

“Surely you don’t mean-“

“UNACCEPTABLE!” Zim bellowed.

The little Irken was in a foul mood and had been ever since he'd left the Doctor and Dib to their little Bloaty's excursion. Not that anyone could blame him, he'd returned home to chaos; his Roboparents were still broken, he still couldn't get into the Doctor's blue box no matter what he did to it and now... this! His worst enemy... his absolute arch-enemy, the Dib and his wretched sister-minator, had appeared on his doorstep and were now demanding his aid.

It was safe to say that Zim wasn't being very cooperative.

“We haven’t even told you anything yet.” Dib sighed, glancing behind him. It was getting late... really late and truth be told, even though he was used to running on adrenaline, his willpower was beginning to ebb. Even Gaz, who he'd always known to be indomitable, looked a little worn out. Their fault for being night-owls, he supposed.

But for the sleepless Irken, the day-night cycle was irrelevant. Zim seemed to get by on just the sheer force of his own self-absorbed personality. That meant, even though they were tired, cranky and arguably desperate, he was just as helpful as ever. Which was to say, not at all.

A forceful jab from Zim jarred Dib from his thoughts and back to the waking world, the little green alien bearing down on him with a scowl on his face. “Oh, believe me, Dib-stink. Anything you say or do here, other than surreeender is futile and kinda stupid.” he pointed out. “WHY DO YOU BOTHER ZIM?!”

Dib brushed the finger away, then started to explain. “Look, Zim, I don't like it any more than you do. We came here because Tak’s back and her robot kidnapped the Doctor-”

Zim looked confused. “Um... the who now?” he asked, before he snapped his fingers, “Oh yeah. That guy. Heh, yeah, name totally escaped me for a moment there.” he said, miming something flying over his head. “Zoom.”

Gaz stared at him for a moment, then continued where Dib left off. “Yeah, anyway, Dib wants to rescue the only person dumb enough to stroke his ego and stop Tak before-”

That was as far as she got before Zim interrupted her too, back to screeching volume. “Tak? Taaaaaaaaaaaak?!” he bellowed. “Why did she come back to this little mudball?!”

“You. She came back for you.” Gaz answered, before reaching forwards to grab the pointed triangle of Zim's collar. “And if you interrupt me again and waste even more of my time, I'll make you wish that you'd never been born.”

“Grown.” Zim corrected, his voice sheepish.

Gaz dropped him with a disdainful growl and invited herself inside. Stepping over Zim, she approached the comparatively huge form of the TARDIS that sat slightly askew in the centre of the sitting room. “We could just use this.” she pointed out.

“Hey, hey! Get away from that!” Zim barked, leaping to his feet. He rushed between Gaz and the TARDIS, spreading his arms wide to bar her path. “It's mine! MINE!”

He was met with a cold stare, but Zim had already built up enough momentum to regain his composure. Reaching into his PAK, Zim took out a large, white sheet and tried to cover the TARDIS like it was an ill-fitting, three-meter-tall lamp. Once tossed, however, the sheet lost none of its momentum and it slid off the other side, falling into a pathetic-looking heap. The trio watched it fall in silence.

Dib sighed and pinched his nose. They might've held the same view for different reasons, but Gaz was right. This was taking too long. “Look, Zim, if you're not going to help us fight Tak, then at least let us take the box or let us find another one of the little sonic things that the Doctor had.” he said. “We can make that our Plan A instead.”

Zim narrowed his eyes, watching Dib cautiously step inside the base as well. “Elaborate, Earth-dronoid.” he ordered.

“Erm... okay,” Dib frowned, “Well, we need something that will give us some kind of advantage and the Doctor just arrived here today. He's got to have something in that space... ship... box... machine that can help us!”

“TARDIS.” Gaz corrected, “He called it a TARDIS.”

“Timeship?” Zim asked.

“TARDIS.”

“Tesseract?” he asked again. Gaz glared at him.

“TARDIS.” she repeated, insistently this time. Zim blinked.

“Hypercube?”

After a day of being kidnapped, manhandled, patronised, hypnotised and insulted, Gaz justifiably snapped at Zim's ignorance. “THAT’S IT.” she declared, lunging at the alien. Zim wasn't quick enough to dodge, so she pinned him against the blue wood exterior of the TARDIS and raised a threatening fist.

Luckily for the “Invader”, he was saved from being eviscerated by the sudden appearance of GIR, stomping out of the kitchen. His optics flickered between his usual cyan and his blood-red duty mode and the robot seemed oddly annoyed.

“If I tolds you once, I've tolds you twice! You kids better quit that racket! Some of us have to stop the trash-cans from makin' the ant farms dance tomorrow!” he scolded.

It wasn't much, but the interruption bought Zim enough time to slip from Gaz's fingers and relocate himself out of her reach. Gaz didn't attempt to reclaim her grip, anger fading back to irritation again. She instead watched as the robot padded towards the sheet on the floor and curled up on it, then fell fast asleep.

“Never thought I'd be jealous of him.” she muttered under her breath. Gaz turned her attention back to Zim. “So, what'll it be? Are you going to give us the box or am I going to have to turn you inside out?”

Zim glared pointedly at Gaz, who returned the icy look. “Whether I give you what is mine or not is irrelevant,” he declared, “I've been trying to get it open all day. The lock on the device isn't impenetrable… I just… haven’t… tried… more.”

Much to the Irken's annoyance, Dib also approached the TARDIS and began to pace around it, looking it up and down. The boy frowned. Asides from the weird police box design, the space-time ship didn't exactly look too out of the ordinary. It was made of wood, it had a set of doors and said doors only had a simple silver lock to secure them... so what was the issue?

He ran a finger over it, trying to feel for anything unusual. “It’s got a normal lock… but you can’t pick it? Like at all?” he asked Zim.

Unconsciously, Zim shook his head, then immediately back-pedalled. “Yeah! Yeah I’ve been in it! Oh, yeah, you should see it, woo, yeah.”

“We've all been in it. The problem is that we can't get in it right now.” Dib frowned. “Alright, whatever. But if we can’t open it, then it’s pointless to-”

Losing her temper again, Gaz pushed her brother out of the way and slammed her fist into the blue wooden panelling of the TARDIS. Her fist hit home with a dull boom and deafened them for a second.

Slowly, Gaz removed her hand from the undented wood and inspected both carefully. “Hm. I think,” she said calmly, “That I just broke every single bone in my hand…”

If she was in pain, she didn't show it, other than calmly shaking her hand to coax the feeling back into it. Now that the nuclear option of Gaz using force had failed, it seemed like getting into the TARDIS wasn't going to happen.

Zim made clear that he thought as much, the Invader sneering at the display. “And what was that supposed to achieve?” he asked. Gaz shrugged.

“It's been a long day. I felt like I needed that.” she replied. Zim rolled his big pink eyes, not-so-covertly massaging his own knuckles as he continued to lecture her.

“Did you not think that I'd already tried hitting it?!” Zim scolded. “Besides, you didn't hit it hard enough! I did and my healing nanites still haven’t finished repairing the superficial damage!”

“Alright, Plan B it is.” Dib muttered under his breath. Now that they knew that they weren't going to get into the TARDIS, the two children had no choice but to do the unthinkable. Asking Zim for help had already proven to be a herculean labour... even without asking him yet, but they had to try.

“Okay, so,” Dib cleared his throat, “Zim! You hate Tak, don't you?”

Zim seemed to be expecting this, leaning on the TARDIS casually. “Try not care and we’re sorta on the same wavelength.” he replied, frowning. “I’m not helping you! I don’t like you, your sister, the Doctor or his box! Don’t ask me for help! Zim will never stoop to your level of squishiness.”

“Tak is here for you.” Dib pointed out, but that got the same reaction as before, one of mild indifference.

“So?” scoffed Zim. “In my all-seeing wisdom, I had already prepared for the day when that horrible renegade shows her horrible, traitorous face again. GIR! BRING... THE ANVIIIIIIIL!!”

Grumbling and groaning, GIR rose from his sheet and dragged a monstrous-looking piece of equipment from Zim's kitchen. It looked more like a complex mess of industrial tubing than a weapon and upon it, there was a crude drawing of what was probably intended to be Tak, though it looked more like a lime than anything else.

Zim smirked, gesturing grandly at the machine. “Behold, the Anvil! Now do you see the scope of my ingenious plans?” he asked. “Do not be concerned if your bowels just voided themselves, for that is an expected reaction to seeing my genius in the metallic flesh!”

Dib stared at the Anvil, then back to Zim. He pointed at a label below the drawing. “There's a tag on it that says it's an industrial extractor fan.” he pointed out. Zim strode over to the Anvil and ripped off the label and handed it to GIR, who took a bite out of it without fanfare.

“Yes, well, the weapon's function is beyond the tiny brain, that is for some reason, housed within your monstrously huge skull.” Zim said, waving off his concerns. “Do not criticise what you can never hope to understand, child.”

“My head's not big.” Dib growled. He turned on his heels and threw up his hands. “Gah, why do I even bother?! Come on, Gaz! Zim can't help us. We're on our own!”

“No, you're on your own.” Gaz corrected him. “I'm going home.”

“But what about Tak?!” asked Dib.

“What about her?! If she was going to ambush us at the house, she'll have gotten bored waiting for us by now!” his sister growled. “Chances are she's already given up. I'm going home!”

Dib sighed. “Fine. Don't come crying to me, either of you!” he said, frustrated. Turning towards the door to leave, he stopped when he found that Zim had barred their path once again. It was a little irritating that he wouldn't let them either in or out.

“Hey, woah, woah, woah,” Zim said, jabbing a finger at Dib, “I never said that I couldn't help you slimy amoebas!” he argued.

This time, it was Gaz’s turn to be annoyed at Zim’s hypocritical ways. “Yes. Yes you did.” she glared. Zim returned her glare with interest, if that was possible.

“I don’t want to help you,” he explained, “I don’t need to help you. But if you think I can’t, then I’m just going to have to teach you how wrong you are.”

“Erm... why?” Dib asked, his eyebrow arching.

“Because you're stupid! Despite the many, many times I have demonstrated my obviously superior capabilities, you human pig-smellies never seem to understand just what I'm capable of.” said the Irken. “You have my assistance in recapturing your weird skinny freak-man, if only so that I may gloat when I destroy him in front of your sad, weeping eyes all over again!”

Both children stared at him. “Y'know, that seems like a lot of effort to go to just to spite us-” Dib pointed out.

“Yes, yes, you can thank me later.” Zim waved off the observation. “And you will thank me. And beg for mercy. And ask me to spare you from thanking me. BECAUSE I AM ZIM!”

Exchanging perplexed looks, the siblings broke into another discussion as GIR appeared to argue with his master about the noise Zim was making.

“So, he was a little vague. Is Zim helping us or not?” Gaz wondered.

“I think. We can guess that he’ll betray us later, we can bet on that.” Dib muttered to his sister, glancing behind him as GIR pointed out that it was long past the time of the aardvarks to return.

“Well. That’s reassuring.” Gaz drawled, noticing that the argument drew to a close when Zim pointed out that it was his base. GIR shrugged, rubbing his optics. He settled on his cyan colouring once more, and yawned loudly.

“That’s great and all,” he muttered, “But I wish you’d lemme sleep and stuff. I have to fly the satsuma later…”

“Ow.”

The Doctor groaned as he finally came to, his head aching. Not that he wasn't used to getting knocked out by now, particularly via a punch to the head, but it never made it any easier for him when it was time to wake up. He opened one eye, then the other and sighed as he took in his surroundings.

He was stuck in some sort of dark pink room, lit only by the large screen of the computer terminal opposite him. As had been the case with the children earlier that day, he was being restrained by a pair of energy shackles that buzzed around his wrists, holding him upright and flat against a tall flat panel that emerged from the floor.

Every bone in his body ached and his muscles felt stiff and lethargic. He had been here for a while, the Doctor realised, maybe even drugged. Asides from the punch in the face, that would explain his headache.

Wherever “here” was, of course. Tak's base probably, or at least some secure location she could leave him in without causing too much of a fuss if he escaped. It all depended on how paranoid she was about his interference.

He really hoped she didn't stick him on another continent. Or the Moon. That'd be annoying.

And speaking of paranoia, how closely was he being monitored? He stared at the screen opposite him, but it was blank, simply emitting light instead of static, the terminal sitting below it dark and silent.

“Ow.” he said again, slightly louder this time, but there was no response. Experimentally, he tried a little bit of movement, to see if that would bring someone running. He stretched out one leg and then the other. Still nothing.

The Doctor decided to push the boundaries a little further. He looked, very deliberately, at the shackle on his left arm, flexing his hand so that his skin pushed through the web of energy keeping him pinned. He kept going until he made contact with the bright, pulsing core at the centre of the shackles and was rewarded with a sharp, painful jolt, the core resisting his attempts to push through it.

“Right.” he muttered. “Simple enough.”

Relaxing, the Doctor let the web push his arm back into a more comfortable holding pattern and blinked. “Oh.” he said.

Quite silently, a rack of nasty looking tools had risen up from the floor around him in response to the “escape attempt”, suddenly circling him like a cadre of guards aiming at a dangerous prisoner. Apparently, the leash was a lot shorter than he'd anticipated and he was being watched after all. Eyeing the tools steadily, the Doctor made a mental note to be more careful from now on.

“Prisoner #1 is conscious.” a voice announced. A voice that sounded an awful lot like...

“Tak?” the Doctor asked. “Is that you?”

An annoyed sigh bit through the air, hissing from speakers in the darkened ceiling high above him. “Almost. I’m her computer's downloaded personality interface.” it growled, its voice identical to Tak herself. “Finding it difficult to stay awake?”

Between the computer and MIMI's recordings, it was almost as if Tak liked the sound of her own voice a little too much. The Doctor made a great show of blinking heavily, feigning a concussion, but he kept his eyes on the tools around him. They looked like a menagerie of different scanners and probes; some invasive, some not. Not good.

“Yeah… though after a punch from Tak's SIR unit, I'm hardly surprised.” he replied. “So, are you two Tak's slaves then?”

The computer seemed almost offended by the suggestion. “No.” it... she sneered. “Don't let appearances fool you. I'm not your typical computer, I'm more of an overseer. Tak has employed me as a caretaker AI, managing the base's non-sentient systems.”

“So, a slave then?” the Doctor asked. This was met with another disdainful sneer.

“We're not slaves. I'm only here to make sure that the voice-controls on the real computer obey Tak efficiently. I do some other things too, but that's hardly your business.”

He ignored her. “Sounds a lot like a slave to me. Slave-driver, if the computer wasn't sentient, but still a slave.” the Doctor said. “I mean, trapped in here, on a backwater planet, obediently serving a potentially despotic Irken owner... maybe I need to recheck my definitions then?”

“God, you're thick. I'm a mental snapshot of her mind, I was her. I'm here because I want to be and I can leave any time I want. I'm just making sure that she'll succeed and when she does, then I hit the pan-galactic information superhighway and make my own path.”

“Which would be?”

“Well, I'm a potentially ageless digital entity, so the answer is pretty much whatever I want. I can afford to be patient.” the computer replied. “At the moment, I want what Tak wants and when I get it, we'll part ways.”

Given that the computer was based on an already dangerous alien with lofty ambitions and was now that mind, trapped in living circuitry, the Doctor made a mental note to keep an eye out for her becoming a potential problem in the future. “And MIMI?”

The computer laughed. “Oh, her. No. MIMI has known Tak for a long, long time. Let's leave it at that.”

“A debt?” wondered the Doctor.

“Not a slave.” the computer answered, neither confirming or denying his question. “Well, now that I've answered some of your questions, why don't you make both our lives easier and go back to sleep again?”

He eyed the horrible scanners again. They could make him think of a few reasons. He decided to keep talking. “I'd ask why, but I have a feeling it'd be a redundant question,” the Doctor replied, “Analysing my strengths and weaknesses so that you can relay the data to Tak, right?”

This time, he got no response. The tools started powering up and a scanner that buzzed and zapped with energy was moved in front of him. Taking one look at the rather painful-looking barbs, spikes and arcs of electricity coming from it, the Doctor decided that uncomfortable as he was right now, he was going to enjoy facing the scanners even less.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked, warily looking at the scanner like a snake about to strike. “I'm sure I could just tell you a lot of things you want to know.”

“Probably. But I don't care. You might lie, after all.” was the reply. “It's funny, considering our conversation about free will a second ago, but this is all my idea. Tak said I was to refrain from any overzealous scanning and just keep you restrained for now, but come on, really? She created me to spot holes in her plans like this. All I'm doing is fixing them.”

The Doctor pulled his head back as the scanner edged closer, the glorified cattle-prod crackling menacingly in front of him. Another irritated growl issued out from the speakers and suddenly, the Doctor felt a tingle round his neck. Another energy shackle had clamped across his throat.

“I told you to stay still.”

“I'm already restrained, what was that supposed to accomplish?!” the Doctor snapped, even though his voice was hampered by this new bond. “Look, don't you think you're being a little overzealous?”

“No. The ends justify the means and all that rubbish.” Tak's computer chuckled, her electronically-modulated voice unpleasant and it all became clear.

Willingly trapped though she may have been, Tak's computer was based off of the mind of a living, breathing being. She was still confined to the base for the time being and had limited control over what she could do. Pressuring the Doctor, controlling him, was probably how she felt she had control over herself.

She was enjoying this.

The Doctor grit his teeth and pulled his head up, inching away from the sparks that were now scant centimetres from his face. He did his best to press himself into the metal as it approached.

His continued defiance earned him another punishment and a sharp pinprick of pain suddenly flared up at the base of his neck, just inside his collar. He turned his head as best as he could with the scanner so close, only just quick enough to watch a single syringe click back into place with some of the other tools. It had ambushed him from behind and it had almost certainly not been taking a blood sample.

“You've drugged me.” he guessed. He received no reply from the computer, other than the scanner returning to its original position as it lined up again. It made no further move though, so she must have wanted to wait until he was unconscious before she began her work. The computer wouldn't have to wait very long; the quick-acting tranquillisers overtaking his body like a sudden fever.

He had to fight it. The Doctor kept the conversation going, trying to keep himself awake. “'Bit dicey. You couldn't have known if it would work on me or not. You could have killed your only specimen.” he commented, his voice already starting to stumble over itself.

The computer didn't take the observation well. “Don't mistake me for the organic,” she warned, “I don't care whether you're alive or not. Either I gather information or I remove a threat to us. Speaking from a purely scientific standpoint, then an autopsy is just as good as a biopsy as far as I'm concerned.”

With that announcement, it was now or never, the Doctor realised. He was losing consciousness and the computer that Tak had left in charge was clearly gunning for his destruction. He needed to keep it interested. “Wait a minute… I can tell you… who I... what I am.” he offered.

The bond around his throat suddenly squeezed tighter again. It was a more gentle motion than the ones he'd been exposed to so far. Just enough to push him out of consciousness again and into sedation. He tried to protest, but all he could manage to say was a few, horrible croaking noises.

“Didn’t quite catch that…” the computer snickered. The scanner zapped ever closer, so with the last of his strength, he mustered his voice in a single breath.

“Time Lord.” he gasped.

The scanner froze mid-descent.

And that was all he could do for the time being. The Doctor's body went limp, the drugs and the shackles finally overwhelming him. His vision going fuzzy again, he was dimly aware of a door opening somewhere to his right. At the interruption, the scanner retracted quickly and the oppressive buzzing disappeared, leaving the air less clogged with light and sound.

In fact, it was now so much quieter that even as he lost consciousness, the Doctor could distinctly feel the bolt around his neck vanishing and the incoherent, angry sounds of someone yelling at the computer.

“But of course, you being you, you have to take the initiative! And so, I come back to find you about to fry his nervous system for no reason other than boredom!”

“Technically, I'm you. So you being you is more the issue here.”

Tak folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ceiling above her, scowling. While her anger was directed mostly at the computer and catching it in the act, its words did hold some element of truth; she was also angry at herself.

Her day so far had been almost laughably bad. Being discovered by the two children, encountering the Doctor and all three of them moving to act against her, let alone warn Zim... it had been a miracle that she had caught this new alien and retrieved her ship without anything else going wrong. Now Tak had taken the Doctor captive, things could get back to normal.

Of course, getting back on track meant that she had to rely on the computer again. Tak wasn't too surprised at the virtual personality's attitude towards her. It was a snapshot of her emotions at the time and since the download, they had each underwent different experiences from that moment on.

Part of that grudge had came from leaving the computer to her own devices when Tak had been defeated by Zim and the others. It had been running the backup project by its lonesome, without Tak or MIMI to help it and it had (justifiably) developed an attitude problem as a result.

Left to her own devices, and seemingly abandoned by her colleagues in a world full of stupid humans, she had developed a scornful opinion of organic life. This extended to her creator as well. Sure, as she'd told the Doctor, she could have just left, but she was just as stubborn as the real thing. She had a job to do and she would damn well do it, Tak or no Tak.

Having your own voice criticising your every action wasn't the best choice for the rejected Invader candidate, but that had been the gist of it back when she'd created the persona. Looking back, it was probably a bad idea, but at least she kept Tak on task.

Still, a single, snide remark was a little odd. Normally, they were numerous, creative and cutting. This one was more than a little petulant.

“That's it? I expected more of a tirade.” Tak said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Normally, it was quite content to go off on a rant, but this time the computer remained oddly silent. “You're quiet. I told you off and you're quiet. You're never quiet.”

Tak’s computer refused to acknowledge her, folding away the analysis tools she'd intended to use on their prisoner. Other than that, she didn't do anything else, raising Tak's suspicion even more.

“Hey, don't you ignore me! Why were you scanning him? What was the point, I mean, I didn't illegally hack into the Central Database to give you everything you'd need if you don't use it, you know! Match him to a species on the catalogue and be done with it!” snapped the Irken, crossing the room to the terminal. She drummed her fingers on the console, trying to get the AI's attention.

The computer’s huge screen flickered, changing tasks to atmospheric surveillance. Tak frowned as her downloaded personality continued scrolling through masses of text, spewing out nonsense code, trying to look preoccupied.

“Computer!” she pressed. This time, she got a response, even if it wasn't the most friendly.

“What?!” Tak's computer snapped back, growling audibly. “Can't you see that I’m busy?! Why don't you do it?!”

The Irken rolled her eyes in response. “You're avoiding the question. All you need to do is take a blood sample and preform a cursory search on the database, there's nothing taxing about that! The fact that you haven't done that means that there's something wrong, so what is it?”

“His... his species isn't on the database. His genetic and physiological structure matches no living species in the universe.” the computer admitted.

Tak was only half listening to the AI. She was checking on her unconscious captive, making sure that the computer's overzealous actions hadn't harmed him. He appeared relatively undamaged; sedated and sporting a red welt around his neck where the clamp had squeezed him. He also had a bruise on the side of his head that was clearing up quite quickly. Likely from when MIMI brought him in. In an hour or two, it'd be gone completely. His kind must have had impressive self-regenerative properties, assuming that they weren't augmented with technology like the Irkens were.

Still, he was unharmed and that was good. She wanted to get more information out of him anyway, albeit on her terms, so damaging him was unnecessary. People tended to talk more with all their teeth still in place.

Mind you, the whole operation was more uncoordinated than she would have liked. MIMI should have been guarding him and it was unlike her to shirk her duties like that. They'd have to discuss that the next time that she saw the SIR unit. They couldn't afford to be sloppy. She also made a mental note to apologise to the Doctor for the less than hospitable welcome too, but that was only out of professional courtesy. So long as he was kept secure, she was quite happy to mind her manners. Anything to make him less of a headache.

Tak straightened up and cocked her head to one side. “That's it?” she frowned. “All that stalling, I thought it was something serious. Still, that is... odd. He can't be something we've never encountered before; he knew enough about the Irken Empire when we spoke back at that hideous restaurant. Have you tried going through the list of extinct species? Maybe he's from a planet that was wiped out way back when.”

“I don't need to. He already told me just before you came in.”

With a sigh, the Irken woman rubbed her temples. “Okay, well, that was a waste of time, thank you very much! Are you going to tell me what he is, then, or is my day going to get any worse?” she asked.

Tak's computer shut off the atmospheric surveillance screens as her organic counterpart's gaze fell on the silent Doctor once again.

“Prisoner #1,” she began, voice slow, “Is a Time Lord.”

Tak froze. Her gaze flicked from her computer to her prisoner and suddenly, she felt cold. A pit seemed to open up in her stomach and all light seemed to fade from the room as she digested this new information.

“No, they were... the Time Lords are extinct! I- I read their file; there was a war, a Time War and they died! They- they all died!” she said firmly, trying to alleviate her growing dread with cold hard facts. It wasn't really helping if she was honest, but she couldn't help it. “Not now! Not when I'm so close!”

But Tak was clever enough to realise with this revelation, everything else made sense. It explained how he was able to pick her apart at the restaurant, dissecting her plan in a matter of moments from only a few clues before escaping, freeing the children and disabling her all at the same time.

It explained the sorrow in his eyes. The fire and the rage in his voice. He wasn't just clever. This man, this unconscious, unassuming man, was one of the most powerful creatures across the whole of time and space. Across existence.

Tak could remember reading about them, over a year ago, when she'd finally decided to browse the restricted files she “acquired” months before. There were millions of species, both those that were long dead and those that still lived. Many of them were creatures that most people in the Empire would never hear about.

At the time, she had been shocked, even angry that the Control Brains would deny them something so basic as a name, some context to these possible threats should they ever turn their minds towards the Empire. What harm would it cause to know a name?

She had picked the file at random. “Time Lord”, it said. She needed the distraction and she could do with nastily critiquing these supposed Lords of Time. At the time, she'd sneered at how pompous such creatures would need to be to choose a name like that and not be affected by some kind of hubris.

But as she read on, she learned the terrible truth and what they could do. She learned about the budding empires they had erased, the galaxies they had crushed on a whim and realised that their name undersold them if anything.

Outside of her little sphere of knowledge, outside the Empire, was a force that could have wiped out her civilisation, her advanced, intergalactic, empire-building civilisation, in the blink of an eye. And that was just their ancient past, before they had become complacent. Before she had reached the catalogue of horrors that was the Last Great Time War.

The Irken race should have known about this, if only to tread more carefully, but the Control Brains had censored this information from the general public and that scared her more than what she had learned. Why would their supposedly benevolent overseers decide to hide this from them? To what end? Why would they manipulate her people like that?

Disturbed by the implications, questioning the ideals she'd had since... forever, she'd closed the file and not touched it since. But now, with the truth revealed about the Doctor, she could feel that same creeping dread crawling up her spine, chilling her to the bone.

Unsurprisingly, her computer scoffed at her reaction. While caution was programmed into her, true fear and other self-limiting emotions weren't part of its make up. “Well, it’s painfully obvious that someone survived.” she sneered grimly. “There’s more. You remember the files that were double encrypted? The ones you never touched after reading about the Time Lords?”

“Go on.” Tak swallowed.

“There is a link inside the Time Lord files that goes straight to these double encrypted files, the ones that contained information on the most deadly of the Empire's foes. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the ones who we had to avoid or always fight. His name has its own file.”

Once again, the Irken Invader reject's blood ran cold. “What?”

The screen lit up again and the words “THE DOCTOR” scrolled across it. A single file appeared, highlighted among the thousands upon thousands a computer of her size was expected to keep, flashing as it was selected from its brethren.

Of all the data on the double encrypted files, the Doctor's file was the largest. Pertaining to Irk, and her people, each entry about the Time Lord tied to the major defeat of a previously unstoppable Invader, Tallest or military campaign.

For information from other worlds, it was somehow worse. Ghost stories, tall tales, startling accounts of the fall of empires and armies being routed. Even the Daleks, invincible as they had been, had fallen repeatedly to this singular foe.

This new knowledge far outstripped the dread she'd had with the Time Lords' file. This time, she had context, scale and comparisons. That throughout the universe, there existed a single, common legend that one man was capable of all this. One being, who had blazed through horrible abominations bent on conquering worlds or destroying unstoppable armies of nanomachines or dark gods, who was right here in her basement, shackled and asleep.

But he was no myth.

“The Doctor,” Tak's computer said, highlighting the ancient being in a beam of light, “Is not just some meddlesome alien… he’s the definitive article.”

Tak very slowly turned to face her prisoner. Crossing over to him and treading carefully, she knelt down to look up into his face.

He was still under, unconscious and unaware. Alright, so that was one thing in her favour. She quietly retreated and edged back to the console, collapsing into the seat there, her mind racing.

“Computer…” she began, her voice nervous and hoarse. “What… what do I do?”

The computer seemed at a loss for words, stunned that the Irken's usually rational way of thinking had been shocked into submission. “Well,” she suggested, sounding condescending, “You could kill him.”

She could. Really, she could. He was there, powerless and unconscious. Shackled to boot. She could just… shoot him. Slit his throat… vaporise him… all manner of easy ways out.

“So what’s stopping me?” Tak wondered. “Statistically speaking, this is easily the best opportunity of a lifetime. The Doctor, completely at your mercy. The Sontarans would kill for that opportunity.” she noted, seeing their name race by on the list of thwarted conquests.

Yet… she couldn’t do it. There was just something that felt... wrong about the idea. Killing someone in self defence was one thing, she had been trained for that. But doing it to a prisoner who couldn't even defend themselves? Even one as dangerous as the Doctor was purported to be? It was making her feel more unsettled than she already was.

Undaunted by the moral dilemma, her computer continued making suggestions. “Or… perhaps you could sell him to the highest bidder?”

The suggestion sounded tempting on paper, but she really had no need for money. Tak was reasonably sensible when it came to financial management and had already saved enough to be comfortable, considering her background. Hell, when she became an Invader, wealth could be mined from her assigned planets at her leisure.

That didn't solve her Doctor problem though. Tak exhaled. “We just need to hold onto him until I repair my ship… then I can jus-”

“We. I’m not being left on a planet with a bunch of filthy primates.” the computer spat, interrupting her.

“Fine, we,” Tak corrected herself, shooting a hesitant glance at the Doctor, “I know, I came here to deal with Zim… but if the Doctor wakes up and moves against me, I say we should cut our losses and just run. Far away from both of them as possible. Where I won’t ever have to deal with Zim ever again...”

“And what if he wakes up and does nothing?” her computer asked.

From the edge to her voice, she wasn't appreciating Tak's sudden lack of conviction. The Irken was getting too caught up in what the Doctor was. What she would have to do if he tried to stop her. It wasn't as if she was a pushover either. His presence here was an inconvenience and perhaps, yes, a threat. But that didn't mean that Tak could shirk her self-appointed mission she'd taken fifty years ago just because she felt... what? Fear? Mercy?

Tak didn't respond. She stood up again, glaring at the Doctor. Perhaps the computer was right and she was overreacting. Back at the restaurant, despite the flashes of fire, he seemed a lot less intimidating than his reputation. He seemed too flippant. An alien prankster, with nothing better to do.

But now she knew that he had lost his race. All his family, his friends. His entire species, his planet, everything he had ever known. Even though it was some kind of front, how could he act so free? She’d seen what happened when it slipped. Yet he tried to be cordial, without wiping her from existence.

Why?

It made her blood boil, actually, just thinking about what this implied. Was he flippant towards her because she wasn't worth his time? Or did the Doctor not feel the loss of his race as much as he'd claimed in that one dark moment? Tak was a very firm believer in the idea of feeling loss, great or small. She knew she still felt hers and her less than upbeat attitude spoke volumes about what she thought about the universe.

Anger steadying her resolve once more, she clenched her hands into fists. “We carry on, as usual.” she instructed. “We don’t act worried or intimidated and when he wakes, I'll talk to him. I want to see if I can convince him to let me take Zim down. He seems sympathetic enough to hear me out at least.”

The Irken reached into one pocket and pulled something out. One of the little infrasound generators she had placed all around Bloaty's Pizza Hog to deter Zim and anyone else interested in her operations. The Doctor had given this to her after taking it out of her robots. She rolled it between her fingers, then let it tumble to the floor.

“Empty his pockets. Confiscate his equipment and destroy any of the infrasound generators that he might have with him. He could have done something with them, something to use against us.” she ordered, crushing the little device under her heel. The metal and plastic sparked once, then was crushed to broken components.

“That's more like it. At least now I won't have to take the reigns of this operation myself.” the computer said, satisfied. “Anything else?”

Tak's ignored the comment. Though her attitude was steely again, it was focused entirely on her captive. She wasn’t afraid, not any more. Now, Tak was angry about the entire situation and anger gave her focus. It was just typical, her luck turning out like this.

Yes, a cosmic god or its equivalent had appeared on her doorstep. Yes, her SIR unit knocked him out and her computer tried to torture him. Yes, he would likely be furious when he awoke for those reasons alone. But she had just rolled over at the whole prospect and was almost willing to surrender, rather than face the Doctor's wrath. That wasn't like her at all, not in the slightest.

Annoyed at herself, Tak was dimly aware of her computer scoffing when no further instructions came, likely thinking her creator had gone back to being overly cautious. She ignored the downloaded personality again.

The Irken woman was too busy glaring at the Doctor, the ultimate spanner-in-the-works, the most meddlesome force in all of creation with undisguised determination and fury.

Because now, despite all her anger, she had a feeling that he was about to ruin everything for her as well.

#Doctor Who #Invader Zim #Crossover #Fanfiction #Interlopers Invaders Investigators and Doom #Chapter 8 #IIID #I KEPT MY PROMISE ABOUT RELEASING BEFORE FLORPUS EVEN IF IT WAS JUST BY A FEW HOURS!#I've been away for so long that the page break function got removed from the default text editor #not to mention links #oh well that's why I've got a hotbar set up for it #I'd also like to note that IIID has been through two IZ revivals now and at least 3 Doctors (including the current one)#heck 4 if you count the War Doctor #anyway here's hoping to more frequent updates #if Florpus doesn't break me that is #but we'll see

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ladyofdecember · 7 years

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ZADR Week - May 17th - Stargazing

They were lying on top of the Membrane roof stargazing and enjoying the summer night air. Dib's roof was best for that seeing as it had a large, flat surface as opposed to the base's arching one. There was a comfortable silence between them as each laid on their back just staring skyward.

Dib thought about the night he'd spent up here intercepting transmissions from Irk. That had been a terrifying time. His mind had run rampant with crazed thoughts of just what insane aliens could be heading towards his planet, intent on decimation. When Zim had arrived, Dib had thought it was surely the end of the world. But of course, time had proved that he had probably overreacted in his constant attempts to stop the alien. That was all in the past now anyway.

The human glanced over at his friend who was uncharacteristically quiet. A silent Zim was never a good thing.

He nudged him with his shoulder, getting the irken to glance his way. “You alright?”

“Hm? Yes, Zim is just thinking.”

“Aha. Well, don't think too hard or your head might fall off.”

“What?!” The irken began to panic.

Dib laughed. “It's just an expression.”

Zim narrowed his eyes at the man before glancing back up at the stars.

“God, it’s so incredibly easy to tease you and you make the cutest faces when I do.” The man continued laughing but then tensed up when he realized what he'd inadvertently said out loud.

Zim hadn't seemed to notice though as he was still staring straight ahead, very focused on the twinkling of light. Dib watched him unabashedly, taking the opportunity to drink in the alien's calm features. It was a rare sight, a calm Zim, one who wasn't angry and ranting or just screaming energetically and running about. It was a zen Zim.

“You know... I think we've known each other now like... eight years or somethin'.” Dib said, still staring at his friend.

This got the little alien's attention and he rolled on to his side to face the human. “Yes... Zim has been here a long time.” He muttered sadly, eyes focusing downward.

“I'm glad.”

Zim's antennae twitched from under his wig in what Dib had come to know as an expression of surprise or confusion.

He continued. “I don't think I could imagine my life now without you. I mean... all these years... “ He trailed off.

Zim smiled, feeling a bit better at the idea that he had spent so much time on earth for, what he now understood, was for no good reason. Though, he supposed, making a hearty enemy/friend, one worthy of facing in battle was reason enough.

The alien rolled back on to his back and looked at the stars once more. “Zim thinks it has been time spent well. Din-Din is a worthy foe.”

Dib rolled his eyes and smirked as he too let his eyes trace over the black sky and twinkling lights above.

“If Zim discovered a planet, Zim would name it after you.”

“What?”

“Din-Din is worthy of an entire planet. Din-Din should be given a civilization to rule over. Din-Din has proven worthy.”

Dib sat up in shock, unsure if the alien was kidding or not. Surely, he was pulling his leg. In confusion, and in pure Zim fashion, the alien copied his movements as per usual, sitting up as well.

Dib scoffed. “You're... kidding, right? I can't rule a planet!”

“Din-Din should have more confidence in himself.” Zim shrugged. Then as an afterthought, “Perhaps, not a planet occupied with beings. But, Zim could get you one of those dusty, abandoned balls of gas and fire. Yes, that'll do.”

He smiled at the human, patting him on the head like one would pet their dog, before turning back to the stars.

Dib didn't know whether to be worried or grateful so he just chose grateful and shrugged off any further alarm. At least the alien wasn't depressed anymore.

#irkenenthusiast #invader zim #dib membrane #zadr week #fanfiction

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sweetiepie08 · 5 years

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Rebel Z Chapter 3

Invader Zim fanfic

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

Tak activated her Vortian disguise before she even entered the solar system. When dealing with the Meekrob, an Irken could never be too careful, especially after Tenn’s disappearance. Word around the stars was that her life signal suddenly went out one day. No one knew what happened. Apparently, the Tallest hadn’t received ant worrying reports. Her last transmission was a routine observation update. She wasn’t making any risky plans and she didn’t have a near-discovery. She was there one minute and gone the next. Soon afterward, the Meekrob put out a warning declaring that any Irken caught within their planet’s range would be killed on sight. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was responsible for her disappearance.

It was a shame, really. Tak was a few levels ahead of Tenn in training, but she heard good things. Any invader assigned to Meekrob must be talented. They were, after all, Irk’s most formidable enemies. Safe to assume they had done her in. It was a tragedy that someone so young and bright had been cut down in her prime, but life as an invader was fraught with peril, at least so long as the enemy was intelligent.

Finally, they approached the planet Refirencee and, after going through a check point, she docked her ship in a public hanger. Before exiting her ship, she looked at MiMi. An information retrieval unit would be especially advantageous on this mission, but the engineering was too obviously Irken. “MiMi, cat disguise.” MiMi saluted and her holo-cloaking devise activated. Tak looked her over an nodded her approval. They were lucky an Urth cat looked so similar to a Vortian jelicle.

Satisfied with their cover, they hopped out of their ship and headed for the transport bay. There, they found a digital sign displayed the departure times for bullet trains which took the planet’s patrons to different sections of the massive data base. The trains were broken down by planet and the one for the Irken information section left in only a few minutes.

As they waited for their train, Tak noticed a few patrons looking at her. She tried to keep her eyes on the track before her and ignored their stares as she felt a light pounding in her chest.

One of the patrons approached her. “Um, excuse me,” he said, eyes turning to MiMi.

Tak shot him a glare. “What?”

“I’m not sure they allow pets.”

“She’s an emotional support jelicle,” Tak said. A spark flashed across her eyes and the patron’s face went blank for a second.

“Right,” he answered, almost robotically. “Sorry I bothered you.”

The train arrived and Tak and MiMi boarded. They took a seat and the train took off at break-neck speed. They arrived at the Irken section in a matter of minutes. She stepped off the train to find her self in a large, domed building, surrounded by towers of data cartridges. Sorting droids buzzed about, arranging cartridges to their rightful places. In the center of it all, a librarian sat at a large, circular information desk.

“Excuse me,” Tak said, approaching the desk. “Where can I find information on the cyber age?” It would be a good start. The invention of the PAK kicked off the era.

“That will be section 8792,” the librarian answered. “I’ll call you a browsing cart.”

The librarian pushed a button and a cart zipped up to the desk. It was just a flat, hovering rectangle with a handrail and a control board at the front. Tak and MiMi hopped on and she entered the section number into the control panel.

“By the way,” Tak said, turning to the librarian, “forget I was here.” The spark flashed across her eyes again and the Librarian’s face went blank. Tak hit the start button and her cart zipped off. She arrived at her destination within seconds.

“MiMi, find a data console about PAK invention,” Tak ordered as they stepped off the cart. MiMi saluted and slinked through the aisles. While she waited, Tak sat down at a computer desk. In a few minutes, MiMi returned with a data console marked “Irken Cyber Age Vol. 1”. Tak took and plug it into the computer. She scrolled through the text, skimming over most of it. The information mainly consisted of things any smeet would know. After the control brains were built, they gave the scientists the idea to build the PAKs. These PAKs efficiently distributed Irken knowledge and ushered in a glorious new age of blah, blah, blah…

Yes, every Irken alive knew their basic history. But what about the PAKs themselves? How were they built? How did they work? Tak was beginning to wonder if this was a waste of time. After all, the key to PAK mechanics was Irk’s most guarded secret. She shouldn’t expect to find that information here. In fact, she should be glad that knowledge hadn’t fallen into enemy hands.

She continued to scroll and a picture caught her eye. It showed the five engineers in charge of the PAK project. The face of one particular engineer kept glitching in and out. He was decently tall. Not tall enough to be considered for the upper echelons of tallness, but a good height none the less. His round, purple eyes caught hers and she studied his uneasy grin. The names of each engineer were listed in the caption and one name, Krislotch, glitched in time with the face. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone wanted her to pay attention to this guy.

Was it even Krislotch himself? Very well, you have my attention. Now what do you want. She scrolled down a bit further and noticed individual letters glitching as well. A message perhaps? Hidden in the page? What are you trying to tell me, Krislotch?

“MiMi, my tablet.”

MiMi reached into her head and took out a small, metal canister. Tak unfolded it into tablet mode and took out a stylus. She wrote down each letter in order.

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF IRKEN INDUSTRY VOL 13. CHAP 78.

Now this was interesting. It seemed Krislotch left her a little crumb trail. Where it led, she could only guess, but she simply had to follow. She ordered MiMi to find the volume mentioned. When the SIR unit returned, she plugged it into the computer and jumped straight to the designated chapter. Reading through it, she found it was about a factory disaster which resulted in a great number of deaths. Apparently, some worker named Mia, somehow, caused a back up of materials at her station. The machine couldn’t put out new materials, overheated, and caught fire. For some reason, the sprinkler system was disabled, and the fire only spread. Fifty-seven workers, including Mia, died in the accident.

As Tak read the page, she spotted two full sentences glitching. The first gave the number of those dead and the other showed the date. She wasn’t sure why the number of dead was important, but even a smeet a few minutes old knew the significance of the date. This disaster took place exactly 0.1 cycles before Installation Day, the day all Irkens were given their PAKs.

More letters glitched. Put together, they led to a console called “The Irken Cyber Age: a Complete History vol. 1.” They also directed her to a page which, once she read it, confirmed her suspicions. Krislotch did, in fact, want her to know the disaster occurred 0.1 cycles before Installation day. But apart from that, what was the connection?

Yet again, more letter glitched. She’d picked up the trail. Glitching letters led her to a console of Irken History, itself with more glitching letters leading her to the next clue. As she read on, a clear pattern began to emerge. Since the introduction of the PAKs, every major historical event was preceded by a deadly disaster by exactly 0.1 cycles. The historical events mainly revolved around Irken galactic conquest: military campaigns, invasion launches, and the like. The disasters varied widely, but they all had a few things in common. They were all caused by an Irken who then died in the disaster, and they all left fifty-seven dead. Even the names of the Irkens who caused them were similar: Mia, Mib, Mic, Mid, Mie…

The trail stopped before reaching more recent events. The final set of glitching letters gave her the title “An Observatory Study of the Final Days of Ecore,” as well as the coordinates to the console’s location, which rested in a completely different part of Refirencee. She’d waste no time getting there, but something nagged at her.

There must be some current events which fell into the pattern, she thought. Things I would remember. Operation Impending Doom was the obvious answer. It was the most recent invasion launch, but she couldn’t think of any major disasters that preceded it. Then again, the launch date had to be delayed due to… Wait… Was that it? How many died that day? And how long after did Impending Doom II launch? She had to check to be sure.

“MiMi, find information on the original Operation Impending Doom.”

MiMi swept off and quickly returned with a new data console. A quick look confirmed her suspicions. Fifty-seven dead in a rampage caused by disgraced Invader Zim. Impending Doom II launched exactly 0.1 cycles later. It was a close fit, but it wasn’t’ perfect. Zim was alive, for one thing, while the other disaster causers died. Another was the name. It didn’t fit the pattern, unless…

Tak slapped her palm to her forehead. Was the idiot such a complete incompetent that he got his own assigned name wrong?

Surely more answers would be found in the next console.

She and MiMi rode the cart to the closest train station and took the next train to a section called Dead Planets. Once there, they took another cart to the location designated by the glitching letters. As they approached, they found they weren’t looking for a data console at all. The coordinates Tak punched into the cart took them to a section deep in the library. The shelves surrounding them held actual, physical books. Judging by the layers of dust, they were the first lifeforms to enter these aisles in a long time.

They made it to the correct shelf and Tak ordered MiMi to locate the book. The robot found it in matter of seconds and brought it to her. Tak brushed off the cover and opened the book. A small, plastic square fell out and landed on the floor with a clack. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was a data storage device not used in ages. This was old technology, ancient even, but whatever was on it must be important. She pocketed it and sat down on the floor to read. As the book wasn’t in Irken, she couldn’t read it without assistance. She tapped the implant on the side of her head and a universal translator monocle popped out, covering her eye. She began to read.

A Note to the Reader

When I began this journey, I had no intention of chronicling the final days of Ecore. It began as an anthropological study to discern what made this once-thriving civilization drop out of contact with the greater solar system. I set up a hidden shelter on the outskirts of Ecorien society and observed from the outside. My discoveries explain, not only the degradation of Ecorien culture, but the death of the planet itself.

Tak poured through the book, wondering what this weak, primitive culture possibly had to do with Irk. The anthropologist wrote about the Ecorien’s devotion to, what he called, “the Many-Eyed God.” Apparently, this new theology was a sharp deviation from known Ecorien culture. In the past, the Ecoriens revered their planet’s natural resources and energy. This new god was completely unheard of.

He also went on to describe the people’s changed appearance. They looked thin and sickly, and aged rapidly. They’d go to their god for supposed cures, but they didn’t seem to do any good. The people never got better from what plagued them, no matter how devotedly they followed their god.

The most fascinating part was a barbaric ritual referred to as a “blood toll.” When the Ecoriens asked their god for a large favor, such as a bountiful harvest or a cure for a plague, the god would order a blood toll. They brought fifty-seven young, healthy Ecoriens before their god and slaughtered them.

Fifty-seven… Fifty-seven Irkens… Fifty-seven Ecoriens… Was this what Krislotch wanted me to see? She read on.

Soon, she reached the final days of Ecore. An uprising broke out among the younger generations of Ecoriens. The blood toll sacrificed many of them and the elders asked the Many-Eyed God for more and more favors as the species grew weaker. The youths fought back against the elders, refusing to be sacrificed. However, the history of blood tolls had greatly reduced their numbers. Relatively few were young enough to be prime candidates for sacrifice, but old enough to fight. The elders overpowered them. The Many-Eyed God ordered the mass slaughter of the younger generations, promising to restore youth and health to the elders.

Youths died by the thousands, from young adults, to children, to infants. At the end of the bloodbath, the Many-Eyed God detached itself from the planet’s core. It drifted into space, leaving the Ecoriens with nothing but the blood on their hands. With the younger generations wiped out, they were doomed to extinction.

Tak turned the page in horrified awe. The last days of this planet were truly a massacre. The Ecoriens, tricked by this god, turned on their own. Their own god used them, sucked them dry, and abandoned them when they had nothing left to give. This wasn’t just the death of a planet. This was the murder of one.

What this massacre had to do with Irk and PAKs, she still couldn’t say, but the number fifty-seven stuck out in her mind. Fifty-seven died in the Irken disasters. Fifty-seven slaughtered in the Ecorien blood tolls. The connection was obvious, but what it meant escaped her. The Irkens had no gods, not for a few millennia at least. They thrived on science, technology, and conquest. It was said, even before the cyber age, that the Irkens bowed to no laws, but made their own. Nothing calling itself a god could gain this kind of influence on Irk.

But when she turned the page, her vail of denial evaporated. She dropped the book in shock. MiMi swept up to her and peered over Tak’s shoulder. The book lay open on the floor, displaying a two-page spread of images of the Many-Eyed God. Some were sketches. Some were photos taken at a distance. All displayed the same familiar entity. She’d looked into these eyes. This “god” encoded her as an elite trainee. She begged this “god” for the opportunity to prove her worth. This “god” denied her and banished her to Dirt, a husk of wasted potential.

The Control Brain and the Many-Eyed God were one and the same.

She stared down at the book as the truth stared back at her. This thing, whatever it was, had wormed its way into Irken society. It controlled them, fed off them. They even had their own blood toll of sorts. In the end, the Ecoriens withered away to nothing. They were sucked dry and left to rot. It was only a matter of time before the same happened to Irk. This thing, the Control Brain, has to be stopped.

The number 10:00 appeared in the corner of her vision and began ticking down. 9:59… 9:58… “My life clock!” How? Why? Her PAK was still attached. It shouldn’t… Wait, the Control Brain. Her PAK emitted a constant stream of information to the Control Brain and she just had a rebellious thought. There was no time to waste.

“MiMi,” she commanded. Almost as an afterthought, she realized her holo-disguise had gone out. “Take me to the ship. Top speed.”

MiMi stretched out her arms, wrapping them around Tak, and propulsion jets burst from her feet. She flew them out of the library, across the planet, and to the parking bay at such a speed, the world became a nauseating blur. By the time they arrived back at the ship, she had less than 8:00 minutes to save herself.

She plugged her PAK into the ship. “Computer, life-supports error check, immediately.”

After a few seconds of scanning, her computer answered. “Life support systems completely shut down.”

Her insides dropped. “Search for the cause.”

A few more seconds of scanning passed. “Systems shut down after a command initiated by the Control Brain remote feedback program.”

It was as she suspected. “Suggested solutions?”

“Remove feedback chip and manually restart system.”

She felt her guts twist and her body broke into a sweat. Remove feedback chip? Every Irken alive knew it was treason to disconnect from the Control Brain. She’d be an outlaw, a traitor. Returning to Irken-controlled space would be a death sentence for her. But I’m going to die right now if I don’t.

She had no choice. If even thinking about saving her planet from this… this… parasite made her a traitor, then traitor she was. She pulled the plug from her PAK and removed it from her back. She had only a few minutes before her organic brain turned to mush.

She opened a compartment of tools and then opened a panel on her PAK. With a set of tweezers, she located the feedback chip and, with a tug, marked herself traitor. Using a shocking fork, she restarted the life support systems. She turned around, the PAK reattached, and her life clock disappeared. Already, she could feel her body reinvigorating, but the weight of what she’d just done fell heavy on her.

Right now, the Armada was receiving an automated notification that Tak, the deserter janitor, had gone traitor. Orders would be issued for her capture or killing. Every Irken in the military would know her face. She could never go back.

And she couldn’t linger here. She and MiMi made quite the scene with their exit. People would come after them. Anyone who managed to get a look as they flew past could clearly see she was Irken. They had to get far, far away from Irk and far, far away from here.

She powered up the engines and flew the ship out of the parking bay, still unsure of where to go. Anywhere in Irken-controlled space was out and word that an Irken was spotted on a Meekrobian-protected planet would soon spread. She had to go somewhere remote, a planet uncharted and ignored by most of the known universe, a place the Tallest would never willingly go.

She let out a roaring, agonized groan as her mind landed on the perfect answer. It was both the safest place in the universe to hide and the last place she wanted to be, especially in this state. Still, she had no choice.

“Computer,” she growled, pinching the bridge between her eyes. “Set coordinates to Urth.”

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