Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon do. I only own Kloof and the contents of this story.

The Betrayal

Prologue

Agents of Vengeance

Tak sighed as she set the escape pod down inside the bubble that kept in the artificial atmosphere. Weeks of drifting, only to come across some seedy bar on the outskirts of Irken airspace. Thank Ham she had at least been able to steer her drifting towards Irken territory. And thank Ham she at least had enough Moneys to her name to drown her sorrow in soda. In the morning she would feel better, and then she would start to turn her life around. Get Mimi fixed, work off a loan on a new ship, and go after Zim again. No mistakes this time.

The rusted steel door slid open for her, revealing a bar decorated sparely in the usual dark magentas of an official Irken establishment. The bartender was a shortish Irken with mismatched red and purple eyes. The plasma burn scar around the red one made it obvious which one was a cheap transplant when the original had been destroyed. There weren't many patrons; a few Irkens and Vortians, one of those taller, thin four-armed aliens, and a Cthuluesque tentacled horror that was crying into his green tea.

"I'll have a cherry cola," she muttered, taking the only seat with empty spots on both sides of her.

"Out of cherry cola," the mismatched-eyes bartender croaked hoarsely.

"Do you have anything in the lemon-limey family of sodas, then?"

He nodded and drew her up a glass of something that may as well have been Sprite. She downed the first half in one go, then began taking more dainty, gradual sips. She felt better already.

An Irken in red full-body armor strode through the door, clanked somewhat noisily across the room, and sat down next to Tak. "Give me something fizzy in a color not found in any nature," he said. The bartender chuckled and poured him a soda in a very unsettling shade of cough-syrup red, which the armored Irken took and immediately began taking gulps of. He turned to Tak. "Haven't seen you here before," he said.

Is he… HITTING on me? Tak barely gave the notion any credibility. That's absurd. Soldiers of the Irken empire don't engage in trivialities like romance. And he was clearly a soldier, now that Tak got a good look at him (the Irken symbol on his left shoulder was a pretty good indicator). A little taller than her, but a lot wider, shiny red armor encased his whole body except for the lower half of his face, which was crisscrossed with small scars. A green visor covered his eyes, making them unreadable, but his mouth was pulled back in a kind of frown. The suit encased his antennae in a pair of immobile curving horns that looked more Vortian than Irken, and he seemed not to have a PAK; instead, a pair of largish swords were crossed over his back. His gauntleted hands were unusually large for an Irken's, in addition to having an extra finger apiece; Tak guessed that it was probably some new kind of power armor.

Tak sighed; she didn't want to interact with anybody right now, but she did need a proper ride. He was interested in her; he probably just wanted to entertain himself by hearing her story, but that was still an advantage for her. "I'm just drifting through," she said numbly. Damn. Need to be more social than that. "Hey, listen, I came here in an escape pod. Do you think I could bum a ride off you?" Maybe I should just mind-control him.

"Well, that depends. I wanna hear how you wound up in an escape pod. I don't even know your name yet. I'm Kloof, by the way." He offered an oversized hand, which Tak shook. It was cold enough to feel it through her gloves, although she could feel the buzz of machinery in it.

"Tak," she replied curtly. You know what? Let's just go with mind control and roll with that. "A ride would be really helpful," she said insistently, a blue spark dancing across her eyes.

"That's a nice trick, Tak," Kloof said with a chuckle. "I've gotta hand it to you: most people who even know about those mind control implants are too afraid to get them, what with the high mortality rate of the surgery." Tak coughed on her drink; so much for that theory. "I'm a little insulted that you think I look dumb enough for it to work on me, though."

"Force of habit," she lied, smiling guiltily. Not real guilt, but it looked real enough. "Well, the escape pod is a long story actually."

"I've got all night," Kloof said with a shrug, "and I'm under the impression you aren't going anywhere soon."

---

Tak had told him just about everything. A lifetime of being the secret-keeping type had been demolished. Once she had started, it just felt so good to get things off her PAK that she couldn't stop. Kloof had been a fairly good listener; it was hard to tell if he was looking away, but he nodded and said affirmative things like "You're kidding," at the proper times, and he had ordered her a refill twenty minutes into the story, beginning with Zim wrecking her career just before it began and ending with spending weeks adrift with only a broken SIR Unit to keep her company.

"So…" Kloof said thoughtfully. "Revenge is still what you're after?"

"Absolutely," Tak agreed. "But first, a ride to somewhere where I can take out a loan for a new ship, or find the parts to build one myself." She noticed Kloof was doubled over, shaking, with his hand over his mouth. "What's wrong with you?" Nothing, but she recognized the motion. "Are you… laughing? At ME?!"

It took Kloof a second to gain control of himself. "NO… it's… heh hehhh… it's just funny. Hang on…" his laughter suddenly contained itself, and he was as serious as an accountant whose child had just died. It was a little disconcerting, except to Tak, who was used to snapping from laughter to scowling. "I want to come with you and help you get revenge," he said soberly.

Tak was instantly suspicious. "Why?"

"Because…" Kloof traced a finger down the center of his chest, and a hidden seam in his armor revealed itself. "As badly as Zim ruined your life…" he pulled on either side of his chest plate, and they swung open. Inside was a hollow cavity containing a few spare Irken organs in a plastic case, hooked up to what was clearly an advanced life support device. In front of that was a small, glowing generator hooked to the circuitry that ran across the inside of his armor. Tak stared in awe at the humming machinery. "I'm sure he's done a little worse to me."

"Zim… did that?" she asked. "How did that idiot manage that?"

"I didn't actually know whose fault it was until you just told me," Kloof admitted. "I was on Devastis at the same time you were - couldn't have been more than a few hours ahead of your class. I had just finished my final exam, with flying colors… I was going to be assigned to be an Invader, or something high-level." He clenched his fists. "The power went out while I was in the teleporter off-planet. Only fifteen percent of my body was ever recovered."

It took a moment for Tak to observe all of this. "I wondered why they stopped using teleporters."

"There have been a few more incidents like mine, but I'm the only one who survived the experience. Most of my head and the organs in my chest survived, although I lost my eyes, antennae, part of my brain, and most of my squeedlyspooch. It took you fifty years to find… ZIM, right?" She nodded. "After the teleporter accident, they grabbed what they could of me and put me on cold-storage. Effectively, I was wait-listed for one of the Empire's ongoing cyborg programs to resurrect exceptional soldiers that happen to get mauled. It took forty years for them to get a team of Vortian and Irken scientists to build me a new body." He swallowed involuntarily. "If I hadn't scored so high on my exams, hadn't made myself look valuable to the Irken Empire, I wouldn't have come back at all."

That answers why they'd bother to do this in such a large empire, Tak thought. "So, what are you going to do about your position in the Empire?" She asked. "I'm a janitorial drone, so nobody misses me, but… actually, what do you do?"

"I was recruited for Irken Black Ops, since I can't easily conceal myself as an Invader and don't have a proper PAK anymore. You'd think it would be exciting, but the Empire is dominating right now, so we don't have anything to do but sniff around for the Resisty. Basically, I'm doing my job, since I'll be looking around some crapsack sector in the middle of nowhere."

"Alright then. When should we leave?" Tak asked.

"Well, I want to do some recon first, and we do need to come up with a plan, so I'd say… IMMEDIATELY."

"Can I finish my drink first?"

"Okay."

End of Chapter