A/N: Hello again! I don't have a lot to say this time around, other than that this chapter is going to be significantly shorter than the first. Hopefully this'll serve as a more realistic length for the future.

Yes, I am aware that it isn't Sunday.

Chapter 2

As the Voot gracefully hovered into the roof of Zim's base and made a soft landing in the attic, Zim couldn't help but wonder why his clone contained some of Tak's DNA. He pulled the smeet out of the cockpit, being extra careful not to wake her up.

"Computer!" he called.

"WHAAAAT," the computer droned, sarcastic as ever.

"What does the Voot Cruiser run on?"

There was a sort of beeping noise, and an image of the cruiser popped up on the gigantic monitor attached to the wall. It zoomed into the fuel tank, revealing some labels in Irken writing.

"The fuel of the average Voot Cruiser runs by combining with its environment," Zim read aloud. "There have been instances of fuel mixing with foreign planets and hyper-evolving them."

He rolled his eyes (which was pretty hard, considering his lack of pupils) and huffed.

"I knew that already! You are insulting the amazing mind of ZIM! Computer!"

"UGH. WHAT NOW?"

"Scan this."

He held up the still sleeping smeet, his antennae twitching in aggravation.

A few more beeps sounded, and the image of the Voot was replaced by a 3D model and analysis of the baby Irken. Zim placed her on the floor and read the info out loud to himself.

"No identification, similar to two other DNA signatures..."

Underneath that line, Zim and Tak's names were listed one on top of the other.

So it was true.

The sleeping smeet on the floor of his lab was he and Tak's child.

Zim shook his head to clear that thought from his mind, causing his antennae to wave around. No, that was a bit of a stretch. A more likely scenario would be that the fuel, to create a clone, required a male and female parent, and Tak had interacted with that specific spot earlier.

Flashback

A purple-eyed Irken ran on her PAK legs through an entirely lifeless planet, sweating profusely and screaming at the top of her lungs. A small, modified SIR unit followed close behind, slamming it's gigantic fist into the ground at random intervals. Every once in a while it would turn around to fire at their pursuer, but for the most part ran along with its master.

"MIMI!" the Irken screeched, her soft British accent vanishing in the midst of her raised voice. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

She turned for a minute to fire in a backwards direction, then returned to running for her life.

"WHY ON IRK WOULD YOU TRY AND STEAL FOOD FROM A BURROWING SHLORK MONSTER?!"

Mimi shrugged and tripped over her own foot, recovering clumsily.

Tak made a sort of "UUGH!" noise, shaking her head. Ever since that idiot Zim's stupid robot had taken over her own, Mimi had begun making constant mistakes, such as knocking their temporary base over and being the one to get them stranded on this horrible planet in the first place, thanks to her disproportionate fist.

Two of Tak's PAK legs crossed, tripping her up and forcing her into the ground. She yipped in alarm, instinctively throwing her hands up in front of her face to protect it. While she did avoid getting a concussion, her headphone instead detached and flew off, burying itself in a pile of dirt a few feet over.

As the creature slithered closer and closer, towering over Tak, she uselessly scrambled to get up. With a growl of aggravation, the worm-like beast stood at its full height over her, some 20 or 25 feet, salivating angrily.

Guess it didn't like being Tak's personal test subject.

It leaned in closer to her, to where the snarling and hissing worked it's way into her very soul, forcing her heart to beat along. Tak just backed up as much as she could, which was hard thanks to her dizziness and wounded PAK legs.

Just as the Shlork monster reared back to strike, Mimi came flying in out of nowhere and punched it in one of its hundreds of randomly placed eyes, causing it to howl in pain and experience a moment of distraction. This allowed Mimi to heave her master up onto her PAK legs and give her an encouraging push.

"WHAT... TOOK YOU SO LONG?!" Tak screamed between desperate gasps of air. Mimi shrugged again.

The Shlork monster had already recovered and begun chasing them again, showing absolutely no sign of exhaustion. Tak silently wished she could say the same for herself. Her metal spider legs had been faltering a bit, and she was sweating buckets. It was only really a matter of time before her body gave out entirely and fed her to that horrible beast thing.

Just as that finally happened, her PAK legs freezing and her antennae shooting straight up in alarm, Mimi turned suddenly and transformed her hand into a ginormous sword, using said sword to impale the Shlork monster right through the chest. It froze, quivered for a moment, then fell over in a heap with a final groan. Tak swallowed and turned to her robot servant.

"Why didn't you do that earlier?!"

End Flashback

Yeah, that made sense. When Zim spat into the pond, it must have interacted with Tak's DNA and produced the smeet.

...The smeet.

Zim knew he couldn't just call her "the smeet" or "the clone" forever, he had to come up with a name and contact the Tallest so they could register her with the control brains and get her a PAK. Without it, she wouldn't live all that long and would be significantly weaker in terms of fighting ability.

At first he experimented with combining he and Tak's names, which failed. "Tim" was a HYOOMAN name, and "Zak" sounded too much like the title of an Irken male.

Next, he tried the names of previous Irkens, which was generally how it was done.

Rane... Spark... Min...

...no...

He actually ended up narrowing it down to either "Levi" or "Nny", but decided to drop both names. They just weren't right.

He twitched his antennae and stretched, smacking his lips tiredly. He was going to have to come up with an original name, a strategy that was seldom used on Irk.

The few Irkens who ever did produce a smeet naturally would generally name it after an object. The most famous of these smeets was Invader Quark, known for being the only invader to conquer a planet during Operation Impending Doom I. He was also the only naturally-born Irken to ever become an invader. "Celebrity" was an understatement.

Zim twiddled his six fingers in thought. Petra? Nova?

He looked around the room aimlessly, until his eyes eventually settled on two wires standing upright on his desktop with an energy beam running up between them, measuring the smeet's heartbeat. He recalled a time when Dib, who he rarely listened to, had rattled on and on about some dead human named Nikola Tesla.

Tesla...

He looked over at he and Tak's child. Yes, "Tesla" would do nicely. Zim even believed the 'T' would be a suitable tribute to her deceased mother. Not that he cared, or anything.

He pulled out her headphone - which he had discreetly tucked away in his PAK - and turned it over in his gloved hands a few times. After a quick decision, he stuck it on the newly-named Tesla. She opened her ruby eyes and stared up at him in irritation, clearly confused about why on Irk her father was putting a needle into her head. She didn't complain though, instead toddling over to him and plopping down at his boots with a squeak-purr noise.

Zim typed away at his keyboard, ignoring the attention-seeking Tesla at his feet. Eventually Tallest Red and Purple's faces appeared on the monitor, staring expectantly down at him.

"What is is NOW, Zim?" Tallest Red yawned, popping a chocolate mini-donut into his mouth.

Zim wiggled his antennae in salute.

"My Tallest, I have contacted you to-"

"Lemme guess, tell us one of your 'ingenious' plans," Tallest Purple deadpanned, then took a large gulp of what looked to be an Irken version of soda.

"Actually, no sirs. I have contacted you to file a biologically produced smeet identification."

Purple promptly spit his soda all over Red, who was too busy choking on his donut to notice.

"WHAT?!" they exclaimed in unison.

At that exact moment, Tesla decided it was a good time to figure out how to climb onto the console, wriggling her little legs like an Earth puppy trying to get up the stairs. She giggled at the sight of the shocked Tallest staring at her with their mouths hanging open.

Purple pulled Red frantically out of the view of the camera, sweating profusely.

"Biological reproduction?! Do people even do that anymore?" he hissed.

Red swallowed a lump in his throat and poked his head back into the shot.

"Uh, Zim?" he asked nervously.

"Yes, my Tallest?"

Red looked to Purple for help, but he was busy slurping most of his drink into his mouth in order to avoid having to talk.

"Who...who's the mother?"

Zim fidgeted, trying to keep his antennae from shaking.

"Tak, sirs."

Purple did another spit take, getting a response from Zim in the form of waving his arms around frantically.

"No, sirs! Not like that! It appears my ship's fuel has combined our DNA and created... Tesla here," he explained hurriedly, gesturing to the smeet on the desktop, who giggled happily at the sound of her name.

Red sighed in relief.

"Can we talk to Tak?"

Zim rubbed the back of his neck guiltily.

"She's... dead, my Tallest."

Red leaned in close to the camera, his antennae pulled backward.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" he demanded.

Purple looked down.

"I liked Tak. She sent us snacks," he murmured quietly.

Zim, his antennae flattened in guilt, studied his boots.

"I... blew up a planet," he admitted. "Tak was on it."

Purple smiled nervously.

"Well, that doesn't mean she's dead, right? Maybe she survived!"

Red sent him a glare that could burn a hole through solid rock.

Tesla, oblivious to the current situation, looked up at her Tallest. Since she didn't have a PAK, she was not yet programmed to respect Red and Purple, or even know who they were. She had, though, heard her father say the word "Tallest" constantly. She suddenly got a determined look on her face and began babbling.

Zim and the Tallest stopped their argument to turn to Tesla for a moment with confused looks on their faces.

"Tah-buh-bu-tuh..."

"Aww..." Purple gushed, locking his hands together and holding them to his heart. "It's kinda cute."

"Tah-Tah-luh..."

Red cocked an antennae in confusion.

"TALLEST!" she finally finished.

All the anger drained from Red's body. Something about this tiny little Irken's first word being "Tallest" just melted his heart.

"Tallest!" Tesla repeated, infinitely proud of herself.

"Tallest! Tallest!"

Red shook his head and cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.

"Er- you... said her name was Tesla, right? I need her eye color so I can get her a uniform and PAK."

Zim blinked in surprise. "Ruby."

Purple was practically a puddle on the floor, so it was Red who was doing all the talking.

"Expect the shipment in... thirty-six hours-"

That's when GIR decided it was a good time to come flying in out of nowhere and punch the "terminate call" button into oblivion. Zim looked over at Tesla and sighed. He picked her up and held her sort of awkwardly, just as awkwardly as you'd imagine a person who has never come in contact with a child would hold them.

She responded to this by snuggling into his chest and making a sort of content gurgling noise. That's odd, she seemed heavier than before...

Zim looked back up at the monitor, which was now back to displaying Tesla's body scan. Underneath her foot was a simple message:

GROWTH RATE : RAPID

It made sense. Those blob thingies were hyper-evolving, maybe the same thing was happening to Tesla. Usually naturally-born Irkens wouldn't even come close to walking and talking so quickly.

Once, he had found some random magazine shoved into a booth seat at Schloogorgh's on Foodcourtia. Having nothing better to do, he had locked himself in the bathroom and flipped through it. The title read Smeets for Beginners. He never imagined he would require such ridiculous information, but it appeared he had been mistaken.

Zim being mistaken, imagine that.

He concentrated hard, trying to remember the articles listed in the handbook. Once or twice it had mentioned that, even though fully grown Irkens didn't require sleep, naturally-born Irkens needed to rest and regain their energy to make up for the missing PAK.

Supposedly, simply holding them and rocking back and forth was enough to do the job. Unfortunately, Zim was about as coordinated as a scary chihuahua on roller skates when it came to taking care of a child, especially a tired one that won't stop repeating the word "Tallest".

"Tallest!" Tesla clapped, bouncing up and down. "Tallest! Tallest!"

Zim sighed, frustrated, and once more shifted his clone into a lying position, causing her to whine and try to push his hands away. She wasn't tired, but Zim sure was.

After half and hour of trying to get Tesla to sleep, he eventually gave up and placed her on one of the medical tables, tucking her into a blanket of cotton that GIR had found in... well, you don't wanna know where.

Of course she STILL didn't sleep, crying every 30 seconds for attention from her father. He didn't necessarily need to rest, but with the constant running around and attending to his clone's needs, he was more exhausted than he had ever been in his entire lifetime. All night she would cry, causing him to sprint across the house in order to shut her up.

GIR wasn't helping at all, as usual. Instead, he was watching The Scary Monkey Show and laughing obnoxiously every two seconds. Zim felt like he was going insane.

Eventually, he just ended up standing tiredly next to Tesla's bed, yawning and waiting for her to wake once more and begin crying. When she did, he would pick her up and hold her until she fell asleep for the time being.

An alarm beeped from above, getting an exhausted reaction of tilting his head up slowly.

"TOMORROW IS MONDAY, SIR," the computer reminded him.

Zim cautiously stepped away from the sleeping smeet, waiting to see her reaction, then walked up to his monitor. She needed a disguise so he could bring her to Skool, not to mention a cover story.

For her disguise, Zim eventually settled on a wig with tiny blonde pigtails and a pink one-piece with the words "Daddy's girl" written in embroidered letters on the front. He also grabbed one of his extra pairs of purple contacts for her.

Once her disguise was prepared, he finally got a chance to fall into a few light slumbers, waking every so often to take care of his demanding daughter.

A/N: Phew. I finished this one pretty quickly and I hope that didn't affect the quality too much. I've been working on a separate story (possibly with the same continuity) that my little sister came up with, demanding that we work on it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Hopefully I'll be able to manage more than one fic, but I might just end up postponing one so I can finish the other. Hopefully not, though.

Okay, now that the boring part is out of the way, it's time for the even MORE boring part! This is probably going to be one of the only chapters with a lot of continuity, I'm intending this to be sort of like Steven Universe where it starts out lighthearted and forms into a story arc. I don't know for sure, though. Maybe if I get enough reviews, follows, and favorites I'll post a poll or something...

Hint, hint.

Also, I think I'm going to start thanking each of my reviewers, favoriters, and followers on the actual FIC as well as privately. If you don't want this, tell me.

Thanks to Zim'sMostLoyalServant, mimacaron2002, J-wolf7, SolemnGlory, and Invader Johnny!