Invader Zim, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Nickelodeon/Viacom. X-COM: UFO Defense, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Atari, Inc. I, BioKraze, own nothing save the original plot of this fanfiction, Katrina Gallagher and the Nanex Imperiuum. Please ask me first if you wish to use either of these concepts in your stories.
Silence. Endless silence. Only the faint hum of machinery could be heard in the long, dark hallways. Slumped in a purple chair, Invader Zim stared hard at a transmission screen. The screen was pitch black, but in the Stygian depths the Irken could see the taunting face of the Almighty Tallest, telling him what he had denied for the longest of aeons.
He was a defective.
He was a failure.
He was the scum of the Empire.
Tallest Red's words had been harsh and hateful, destroying Zim's morale and what his whole life had been about for the past five years. Defect. Failure. Disaster. Those words and worse had ripped into Zim with the fury of a thousand hungry Vibroblades, ripped deep into his psyche and torn apart his sense of self. In a fit of rage and misery, he had retreated to the safety of his space fortress, the Irken Crescent. He had been slumped in his chair for almost three weeks now, and even GIR's best efforts to rouse his master had failed.
If Zim had been of a more rational mind, he would have noticed that Tallest Purple never said a single thing. He would have noticed that the amethyst eyed dictator had seemed...cowed, somehow. What could do that to an Almighty Tallest? Zim didn't know, and as far as he knew, he couldn't care less.
Zim truly believed, thanks to Red's terrible tirade, that he was an exile, a washed up never-was. He was no Invader, he was no Irken. He was simply Zim, the alien without a race or home to call his own. His life held no purpose, if it ever possessed such a thing. How could he have been so blind? Was it truly his Pak? Was it a genetic error in the smeeting tube? Was he destined for greater things, as he had believed his entire life? Or was he simply marked for the sooty chute of history's incinerator?
The Crescent had been silent now for almost a week. Whatever had happened to GIR, MiniMoose and even Skoodge, Zim didn't know and didn't care. The once short Irken, who had unexpectedly grown to the height of five feet and six inches, cared less about the world and his position in it as every minute passed. He began to think of self destruction. He began to think of all his failed plans, and most of all, he began to think of his mortal enemy, the sickle haired Dib.
What Zim didn't think about was what he could do for both mankind and Irkenkind. What he didn't think about, and what he never would have realised on his own, was that he was the key to the most terrible struggle the Irken Empire would face.
For once in the ex-Invader's life, Zim simply didn't care...
