Note: It was in my head. Just... festering there (after reading a book on string theory). So I spat something out. To make it go away. Updates will be sporadic.
Listen to the Mockingbird
00 - Backwater
Zim was the laughingstock of the entire Delta-Universe (it was number fifty-seven in the elventy-first Epislon-Multiverse); and to make matters worse, he was being sent to some backwater, primitive mud-ball of a planet to see if the inhabitants needed the extra push towards re-affirmation of progress for the sake of progress. Earth - he already hated the rock, and he was still several wormholes and inter-dimensional singularities away from the watery smudge. And, to make matters even more worse, he wasn't permitted to blow the thing straight to the forty-ninth dimension if the local species was deemed to stupid to be introduced to the present state of the Omniverse.
Earth, Earth, Earth. Zim would bet his lucky stars, all thirty-nine of them, that the locals' name for themselves would be just as awful as what they called their planet. But a part of his mission was blending in and understanding the Earthians' culture. If they were anything like the horrible rat-people, he would just self-destruct as soon as he got there. Going rogue meant the same fate, so why not decide when?
"And while I'm there," he moaned at his Voot's navigational system, "Every manifestation of energy, every tentacled squid-person, every gelatinous beast, will be laughing at Zim!"
It didn't reply - of course it didn't; Zim wasn't quite as stupid as Tak, whose ship constantly harassed her when it thought she said, did, or implied anything that it - or she - did not like. He would never get along with himself. That's why there was only one Zim in the entire Omniverse. Probably. Well, one Zim being sent to the horrid mud-ball that he could not destroy - Tallests' orders. And the Tallests' orders were the Brains' orders, and the Brains' orders were the absolutes of Irken society - and the things that negotiated most with other species' figures in order to create a more stable existence.
His PAK constantly informed him of this despite his complaints.
It also, kindly, told him that determining the fate of one of the few remaining un-omniversally aware planets was a great "honor". He got to decided if a whole planet would ever be allowed to discover the wonders of inter-dimensional, multidimensional, and inter-cranial travel! How fun! For a sub-standard, B-rank diplomat, maybe, not a highly trained and - alright, his one flaw, in the eyes of the Tallest, was his height. That was why, despite passing all the tests, all the trials, all the PAK-breaking labor, he wasn't allowed to be an Elite. Story of his life: not allowed this, not permitted that, why are you so tiny? Too much caffeine in the blood surrogate, eh, during development? All the prowess, all the free-thinking of an Elite, yet an experiment in height ruined his chances.
"'Oh, we just wanted to see what would happen to an Elite if they had the stature of a table-drone,'" Zim hissed to the vast recesses of space, "If I find the halfwit researcher who decided on Zim, I'll remove a few of his vertebrae and see how he likes it!" Except, the idiot who had suggested it had been demoted to Foodcourtia, and Zim didn't want to ever, ever go there.
Ever.
But... Earth. Yes, Earth.
The closer the Voot Cruiser got, the more information it could rip from the planet's unfiltered radio signals, frequencies, and communicative whatsits. And the more Zim learned about the planet he was heading for, the more he wanted to get in an argument with a Galactic Space Worm, Revised Edition. So much teeth, so much goo. It would be glorious! And televised. Yes! The whole Omniverse would watch Zim be eaten by the Worm!
But... Earth. Back to Earth.
Earth and it's... humans. Hyoo-mans? Ergh, Humans. Ape-descendants, which meant, according to the computer, they probably had a fascination with flinging excrement.
"Why," he expressed to his gloves, despair growing in what remained of his emotional centers, "Why my Tallests, why...? Why the poo? Why?"
Dib Membrane was the laughingstock of the entire Western Hemisphere - or so his unloving father would have him believe. Well, actually, it was true; every upper-class, still free-thinking, self-fulfilling human being was laughing his or her collective ass off whenever his back was turned. Oh, wait. Not even then. They laughed in his face - ghosts weren't real science. Phenomenons, like chills and the sensation of being watched, meant nothing. Aliens, the study of space, wasn't real science ("Space is empty, son. Empty. There's nothing there but rocks and balls of gas and the occasional singularity.")
Science was, apparently, defined as creating things that had no real application anywhere. And Dib meant anywhere. Like his father's "temporal euthanasia for giant squids". It was pointless for two reasons: a) it only worked in the future, and b) giant squids went extinct a century ago. Pointless, unless someone was planning on bringing giant squids back from extinction like they did with mammoths. Mammoth meat was a best-seller in the disgustingly unrecognizable meat business. Mammoth-dogs, mammoth-nuggets ('muggets' didn't catch), mammoth-steak, mammoth-ribs. Even the snout.
And the unmentionables.
Even those. On second thought, especially those.
Last year it was panda bears. And not the cute, incompetent, fluffy ones.
At any rate, Science was as much a joke as Dib was, especially when he had proof in the abnormal, paranormal, and the paralegal. His sister, his evil, evil sister, who was also a test-tube baby, was evidence number one. Gaz wasn't human - and Dib had triple-checked multiple DNA samples. It had earned him a slap and a mysterious welt on his rump that blistered and festered for a year, but it had been worth it.
His father, the impregnable and unfaltering Professer - yes, the Professor, leader in all things worthless - Membrane, had merely shrugged him away.
So, there Dib was, hiding out with radio equipment leftover from NASA (it had been disbanded fifty-three years ago), and searching the stars. Listening to them, at any rate. There was bound to be some sort of proof out there, some sort of life to prove to all the asshats that he was not crazy. At least, not that sort of crazy. Obsessed, maybe, but not crazy with a "k". The tech was rusty and sub-par in comparison to what his father had, but he wasn't allowed to touch any of it. Oh, no. Only real scientists got to play with real tech.
"Sometimes," he lamented up to the faint impression of constellations, "I wish I was insane like Gaz. Then people would just smile and nod."
But he had full reign of his mental facilities, and was appallingly human in comparison.
Little did Dib know that the world was about to be rocked.
As in, a seismic wave from the crash-landing of a very short, very angry alien would cause the entire Earth to experience doomsday-level earthquakes for the next hour-and-a-half.