.: Chapter 1 :.
It was a particularly hectic day of nervousness and panic aboard the Massive. Irkens were toiling away at their computer terminals as the Tallest dictated a an emergency announcement that was to be transmitted throughout the galaxy to every Invader. It was very important that they receive this transmission, or Operation Impending Doom 2 would hit quite a snag.
"...these fugitives have proven themselves to be very clever and can be very dangerous. The main goal of these..." Tallest Red leaned over to Purple, "psst...word."
"Ummm..." Purple flipped through a thesaurus, "...how about...miscreants?"
"Oooo, that's a good one...The main goal of these miscreants is to bring the Operation to a grinding halt by any means necessary. If you are to find anyone or anything suspicious that could cause even the tiniest disruption to your mission, you are to report to us immediately."
"Yes, and if you are to run into one these punks yourself, they are to be captured and brought before us, dead or alive! Preferably alive, but feel free to maim them if you wish."
"Oh, yeah, maim away. Just make sure you leave some for us. End transmission. Okay people, make sure that this message gets to every Invader."
Purple tossed the thesaurus to the side. "Did you know that there are over 10 different words in that thing for poo--Oh, what now..." The Tallest turned they're attention to a rather distressed communications officer running towards them. "My Tallest! My Tallest! We've got a problem with the transmission!" A look of worry came over Red's face.
"What kind of problem?"
The Irken bent over, trying to catch his breath and explain at the same time. "...pantpant...the transmission...unable to...reach...one....gasppant..Invader's communication...pant...uh, thingie....something could be wrong!....gasp...horribly wrong!"
Purple panicked, grabbed him by the collar, and shook him like a ragdoll. "Well what is it?! Who didn't get the transmission?!! Why aren't you fixing it?! Why aren't you doing something?! DOOO SOMETHING!!!" He continued shaking the poor green guy as the underling tried to answer.
"The...trans...mis...sion...might...not...have...reach...ed...In...vad...er...Zim...ugh!" Purple immediately stopped and glared at the communications officer as if he had the brain worms.
"What?"
"It might not have reached Zim, sir, " the soldier replied "What should we do?" Purple dropped him and turned to face Red. They just stood there, first looking at each other, then looked down at the distraught Irken, then looked at each other again.
"You're new here, aren't you?" Red asked. The Irken looked at his Tallest, feeling a little confused.
"Well...yeah, I just got promoted here from teh cafeteria..."
Red sighed, "Will somebody brief this guy?" Another Irken walked up and put his arm around the confused former accounting Irken's sholder, giving him a brief summary of what happened in Operation Impending Doom 1. Purple sighed with relief, then suddenly had his own look of worry come over him. He turned to Red with his nagging question, "How do you get promoted from the cafeteria to communications?" Red just shrugged.
"Hell if I know. Speaking of which, let's go eat."
Meanwhile, planets across the galaxy came under tight defense as Invaders received the emergency warning. Earth, however, was for the most part oblivious to any alien plots of any sort, as usual.
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Just outside of the Earth's atmosphere, everything was peaceful and serene. The moon orbited the planet in as calmly a way a moon could orbit, the sun flamed and flared in the distance with sunny content, and the Earth spun around like it had been doing for billions of years. However, this perfect picture was about to be horribly interrupted. An Irken Voot Cruiser with a custom paint job (purple with black flames) was zipping out of control through the solar system. It was battered and beaten, and the pilot was understandably frustrated and pretty much about to lose it completely. The pilot also happened to Razzmik, leader of the gang known as the Anti-Invaders.
The Anti-Invaders were a group of Irken punks who rebeled against the Irken Empire, chosing a care-free life of doing whatever the hell they wanted to becoming soldiers. In their early days, they were nothing but common criminals and troublemakers. The Anti-Invaders had only one goal: Screw with the system and undermine any and all authority. They're latest "mission": Find each planet marked for Irken conquest in Impending Doom 2, and annoy the hell out of that planet's assigned Invader. These troublemaking Irkens were the fugitives that the Empire was intent on capturing. They came rather close too, but the chase had scattered the anarchistic gang throughout space. Razzmik was chased out the farthest, and barely escaped her would-be captors, but not without having to fight.
"Damn it!" She slammed her fist on the pretty-much-useless controls of her Voot. "Those cops nearly totaled my Razzmobile! There is got to be a way for me to get this under control....I just need to calm down....I can do this...just. Remain. Calm..." The female Irken took a deep breath and exhaled. Then the back of the ship erupted into flames. "AAAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEE! Q! Man the controls!!" A little robot that had been sitting near the pilot looked up at her.
"But...I thought I was a girl?"
"sigh, You're neither, you're a robot–look just shut up and try to get control of the ship!" The robot plopped itself into the pilot's seat as Razzmik leaped into the small area in the rear. She grabbed a fire extinguisher that was conviently sitting against the back of the seat and began extinguishing with exreme prejudice, stopping only when the extiguisher was empty. The fire was out, and she sighed with relief. As soon as she turned around, the flames lept back to life. "Grrrrr...this could NOT get any worse!!"
"Someting is about to run into us..." Q called out.
Razzmik banged her head against the empty extinguisher. "What exactly is it, Q?"
"I dunno, but it's big, and pretty, and blueish and about the size of--
"A PLANET!!! Looks like we're making an emergancy landing. Brace for impact!!"
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The calm scene of serenity was disrupted by the flaming wreck headed straight for the Earth's surface. The peaceful silence was broken by an alien obscenity ringing through space.
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Zim burst through the door to his home, knocking both of the robot parents out of the way before they could give him their programmed welcome.
"GIR!!" GIR turned around quickly, hiding two small objects behind his back. "HIIII!" he wailed, but not with out hesitating. Zim glared at the 'advanced' SIR unit.
"Just why didn't you meet me after skool today like I ordered you too?! We were supposed to unleash the rabid papaya! I waited for nearly 4 hours!"
GIR smiled, trying in vain to look as innocent as possible, which might have worked if it weren't for what he said next: "BUUUUUURP!" Zim's jaw dropped.
"You ATE the rabid papaya project?! After I had spent so much time on it??!" The angered Irken squinted at GIR, who was back to smiling like an idiot. "GIR, what is that behind your back?" GIR looked around the room desperatley, as if something there would get him out of the situation. He then tried to shove the two objects in to his little metal mouth as fast as possible, but Zim grabbed GIR's hands before he could destroy the evidence. He looked at what GIR had been hiding. Action figures. Jesus Christ and Edgar Allen Poe, to be specific. Tension rose. Zim's face became discolored with rage.
"I spend countless hours making the perfect plan to destroy the human race, have those plans fail and come home to find out that it is because you needed a snack while you PLAY with the enemy's liknesses?! Get these blasphamous things out of my sight!!"
"But...but Jesus loves you!" Gir whimpered, hugging his toys close.
"I don't care!!" Zim yelled, "Go to your room! Your grounded!" He pointed in a random direction with out facing the little robot. GIR sulked away into the kitchen, climbed into the oven, and slammed the oven door shut.
"It's not fair," he said patheticly from inside. Zim just rolled his eyes. He was suprised GIR actually obeyed him. GIR didn't even have a room, and this whole "grounded" concept was something he picked up of off a random TV show while flipping through the channels. He needed to remember that one. Zim shrugged and headed down to the lab. It had been awhile since he had reported to the Tallest; the last time he tried, the communiction satillite went a little...screwy. Zim figured that it had been from all the work he had been doing on his computer. "The high level of fantasticness of my plans must have been too much strain on it's circuits," he thought, "It just probably needed some down time." He walked through the lab door and marched importantly to the computer. After a quick check in the reflection of the screen to see that he was looking his most amazing, he gave the computer his orders.
"Computer! Open the communiction line with the Massive!"
"ERROR. UNABLE TO PROCESS."
"Eh? An error? How can that be? Computer, explain yourself to ZIM!"
"Well, OBVIOUSLY I don't know," the computer replied, his voice chips dripping with sarcasm and annoyance, "if I did, I would have attempted to fix it, and we might not be having this convorsation right now. Your not the only 'amazing' thing around here you know. I have my own spectacular skills too...." Zim rolled his eyes and grabbed the controls to the house's intercom as his irrate computer rambled on about how it wasn't appreciated. GIR appeared on a small screen nearby. He was still in the oven, curled up in a pan.
"Have you been eating messy snacks at the computer again?"
"I can't talk now!! I'm being a pot roast!!" GIR giggled gleefully. Zim, sick of having to yell at GIR so much within the span of 20 minutes, was about to give him a severe threat. However, a large disturbing rumbling that shook the lab interupted him. Leaving the "pot roast" to his own devices, Zim dashed back up to the ground level of the house and threw on his disguise, anxious to see what was happening. When he peeked around his base's door, he gasped in shock at what he saw.
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"uugghh.....what the....ow...." Razzmik began to regain consciousness. She had a few minor bumps and scratches, her head was throbbing, and there was a piece of metal jabbing into her leg, but other than that, she was okay. Her Voot cruiser on the other hand...
Razzmik squeezed out of the wreckage, almost tearing her navy blue trench coat in the process. "You in one piece, Q?" she asked as she dug around in the totalled ship. Feeling a huge round hollow something, she pulled Q out.
"LET'S DO THAT AG--"
"Don't say another word," she hissed, her eyes narrowing. She dropped the little bot on the ground and surveyed the damage, then took in her surroundings. After standing in silence for a while with a serious look of contemplation on her face, she screamed the most foul Irken words that she could think of at the top of her lungs. However, her rant was quickly cut short when she found herself tackled face down to the ground by some flying...tiny thing. This didn't really do much for Razzmik's mood, or her dignity for that matter.
"Hey! What on Irk do you thi--"
"Silence, you fool! Your crash has probably caused enough suspicion as it is! You cannot stay exposed out here a second longer!"
"Suspicion? What are you talking about?" Razzmik managed to turn her self on her back and face the one who tackled her. Her eyes went wide with surprise. Standing over her with a very pissed off expression on his face was the tiniest Irken she had ever seen. He seemed to be wearing adisguise of some sort; his head was covered by a black wig thing and he was wearing strange-looking contacts. "Who are you?"
The vertically challenged Irken yanked Razzmik to her feet and began shoving her in the direction of a blueish-green dwelling that stood out among the others
surrounding it. "Save your questions! Just hurry up and get in the house! Now!" This guy's attitude was really starting to get on her nerves, but she did as she was told, with Q following close behind. Just as she was about to open the door, she turned around to see the strange Irken yelling something into a communicator he had pulled out of his pak. Shaking her head in confusion, she reached for the door, only to see it burst open and a little green dog fly out hualing a giant pig. She watched as her ship was scooped up inside the pig and taken inside; the small Irken then looked around for anyone who might be watching. Surprisingly, no one was. He dashed for the house, yanking Razzmik inside and slamming the door.
The Irken threw his disguise off, and he and Razzmik just stood there, staring contemptuosly at each other. The silence was deafining. The green dog shed it's disguise, revealing it's self to be a robot. A huge grin spread across its face as it faced Q. Q smiled back. The blue robot waved. Q waved back. The silence was now both deafining and stupifying. Razzmik did a double take as the two bots continued this exchange of greetings. Q was something that Razzmik ahd made out of sheer boredom while she hung out with her fellow Anti-Invaders in an abandoned lot. They had found a dumpster full of old SIR unit parts and various other scraps of junk, and had used those to build the little robot. They had gotten a kick out of watching Q's idiotic antics; they all agreed that it was by far the most moronic thing in creation. When they got tired of it and left, Q had followed Razzmik. This was pretty irritating at first, and Razzmik spent a good deal of time trying to ditch the thing. Over time, she cared less and less until she flat-out gave up; Q had proven to be useful on occasion anyway, from causing distractions to being used as a blunt weapon.
What caused Razzmik to be so shocked was that Q and this other robot almost looked like mirror images of each other. Where Q was pink, this one was cyan blue, and instead of legs, Q had a wheel...but they still had the same stupid face. (And the apparently the same microscopic IQ level.)
She turned her gaze to the other Irken, noticing that he had a similar look of disblief. The silence was then immediately broken as Razzmik found herself looking into the other's fierce gaze; he now stood menacingly over her on his pak's spider legs.
"How did you get your unworthy hands on such advanced technology?! Top Secret SIR unit technology given specifcally to the mighty Zim alone by the Tallests themselves? Just who are you?!?! I demand answers!"
"Zim, eh? Well at least I know your name...it's about the only thing I can understand spewing out of that oversized wormhole you call a mouth."
"How dare you speak that way to me...answer the question or face my wrath!" Razzmik growled in annoynce and got right in Zim's face.
"Listen, you little rabid egotistical banshee, I'm the one who had the ride from hell down here, I'm the one stranded on a planet in the middle of nowhere, so I think I am the one who needs answers first!" Zim backed down as Razzmik emphasized each point by jabbing him in between his eyes with her finger. She squinted at Zim, who was now wide-eyed and had his back parallel to the floor. "Now...where the hell am I?" Zim gulped, then quickly got his composure, straightening himself upright on his spider legs.
"This filthy out-of-the-way planet that you have been so unfortunate to crash into is called Earth. It is inhabited by a race of ridiculously under evolved stink-creatures called 'humans'. It is my duty as the most INCREDIBLE Invader in the history of the universe to take over this planet in the name of the Irken Empire!" Zim stood tall on his pak's legs, his chest puffed out proudly. Razzmik just blinked.
"Bor-ring!" she said rather loudly, bringing Zim's attention out of his patriotic state.
"What? What do you mean boring?! You have just stumbled upon history in the making!"
"No, I crash-landed in front of an Irken freak's pretend fort, and now I want to get out of here."
Zim chuckled to himslef as she said this. "Okay," he said laughing, "the magnitude of my spectacular mission obviously hasn't quite hit you yet. Besides, I don't even see you lifting an inch off the ground in that thing." he pointed towards the giant pig/Voot carrier. It opened up to reveal the charred remains that was her precious Razzmobile. Razzmik shuddered.
"Okay then, surely you have some sort of communication system around here. Just call up an intergalactic tow ship and I can be on my way."
"Heh heh...yeeeah, I would...but my computer is experiencing a few minor glitches so I am afraid that is going to be a problem..." Zim siad nervously. Razzmik groaned. "You got a Voot?" she asked.
"Yes."
"You got spare parts?"
"Well, yes as a matter of fact..."
"Well then you better get to work," Razzmik kicked back on Zim's couch. "Congratulations, grease monkey." She gave him a nasty smile. Zim gaped at her.
"Are you nuts?! I can't work on that worthless pile of junk! That could take weeks! I have a mission to attend to!"
"I don't want to be here anymore than you probably want me here. Besides, if you are as 'incredible' as you say you are, then you should be able to handle both."
Zim muttered angrily under his breath for a minute. "Fine. I'll fix your ship. Where were you going anyway? And you never did tell me your name."
Razzmik's antenna perked up at Zim's question; she almost hesitated, but decided to throw caution into the wind. "My name is Razzmik....and where I'm going is none of your damn business," she shot him a glare that dared him to probe further. Zim just shrugged. She pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "You got munchies in there?"
"Yeah, yeah...help yourself." Zim odered the computer to take the battered Voot cruiser to the repair room and took the passage under the end table to his underground labs while Razzmik rummaged around the kitchen.
Meanwhile, GIR and Q were still staring at each other, ocasionally waving. GIR popped his Jesus and Poe action figures out of his head, along with an extra figure. He offered it to Q.
"Wanna play? You can be Ben Franklin!"
"Okay!" Q squealed in response.
Outside Zim's base, by some bizarre quirk of fate (better known as the will of a lazy fic writer) no one had seen or heard anything unsual, and everyone went about their evening routine, including a certain large-headed paranormal investegator.