Chapter 2

A/N: So, last chapter Zim showed up at the Great Assigning. Let's see just what that sneaky little "defect" is thinking. Plus, this chapter right here is guaranteed to contain the much loved Gir. Sorry that this chapter is so late. It would have been up yesterday, but it ended up being super long because I really wanted GIR to show up here. There also a very brief Dib moment. I could have shown Gaz too, but the chapter was already getting a lot longer than the others by that point.

Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim and I don't see how I would be making money off of this. All dialogue in this chapter is from The Nightmare Begins of the Invader Zim TV series and therefore belongs to Jhonen Vasquez/ Nicktoons (maybe).

As Red and Purple attempted to hide their panic, they made sure to show their complete and utter disdain for the little creature before them. This little defect had ruined Operation Impending Doom I, destroyed a large chunk of Irk, and killed thousands of his own kind (well, he didn't really do that; he just took credit for it, but they don't need to know that).

"Sorry I'm late, my Tallest. I couldn't find my invitation. You're lucky I made it at all," Zim said, hoping to trick the idiots that were his leaders to send him to some ridiculously far off, remote and hard-find-place, preferably one that was not currently on any map.

"You weren't invited at all," Red replied, with a hint of badly-semi-suppressed annoyance coloring his tone. This was going to be even easier than he had anticipated.

"Weren't you banished to Foodcourtia? Shouldn't you be... frying something?" Purple felt the need to ask, as if he was unaware that he was banished (which would change the instant that they found out his true status). Oh right, he was playing stupid, so it was a fair assumption on Purple's part. He could work with this.

"Oh, I quit when I found out about this," Zim explained dismissively, as if it were possible to quit being banished. (He could, he would just have let his secret slip and he'd be back on Irk in an instant.)

"You quit being banished?" Purple sounded scandalized and confused.

"The Assigning is over, Zim!" Red tried to ward him off. Zim realized he had to keep talking until one of them thought to send him outside of the borders of the known (to Irkens) universe in hopes of ending his miserable existence.

"But you can't have an invasion without me! I was in operation "Impending Doom 1"! Don't you remember?" (He hadn't, really. You have no idea how hard it had been to convince that idiot that he wouldn't be blamed for whatever stupid and completely illegal thing he ended up doing if yelled out "I AM ZIM!" instead of screaming his own name to the heavens.)

"Oh, yes... We remember..." Purple retorted sarcastically. It was hard to forget what that utter moron had done, as he destroyed much of his own home planet. (Most likely the reason that the "Great Assigning" took place on Conventia this time around.) Zim smiled innocently. (Rather easy. He was innocent)

"I put the fires out."

"You made them worse!" Red said, glaring at Zim, clearly exasperated.

"Worse... or better?" Zim asked in order to stoke the flames. (That guy had sure made hiding in plain sight much easier for Zim. Introverts would never have done something so destructive.)

"Guh... Besides, no Invader has ever been so... very small. You're very small, Zim. You're a tiny... thing," claimed Purple, clearly forgetting that "Zim" had been this short and an Invader. Idiot.

"BUT... Invader's blood marches through my veins like giant RADIOACTIVE ROBO-PANTS! The pants command me!.. DO NOT IGNORE MY VEINS!" Zim was now being overdramatic to annoy them.

"As a show of... gratitude for your service in the past... eh... Here's a sandwich." Red awkwardly handed Zim a sandwich that he pulled out of his belt. (Why on Irk did he keep a sandwich there?)

"But-" Zim had to keep them talking.

"Thanks for coming, everybody!" Purple told the crowd.

"Hello!" Zim had to retrieve their attention.

"Goodnight!" Purple was clearly dead-set on ignoring Zim. He had to more irritating.

"Hello! Hello! WAIT!"

"What? You got your sandwich!" Purple was irate. He did not currently have any snack food, or, more specifically, any DONUTS!

"My Tallest, an opportunity to prove I truly can be an Invader is all that I ask! Gimme!" He held out his hands, as if convinced that a chance was something you could hold.

"Hold on, I've got a plan," Red muttered to Purple. "We see now that you are truly deserving."

"Yes. Yes, I am." Zim acted stupid, irritating and satisfied.

"You will be sent to a planet so mysterious, no one has even heard of it!" Red explained.

"Right! And those who have heard of it... dare not speak its name!" Purple contributed.

"What's its name?" Zim asked, to seem stupid and fully convinced that they were telling the truth.

"Oh, I dare not speak it!" Zim would admit that that was rather funny.

"Where is it?" Zim acted almost skeptical.

"Um... Uh... Uh... Um... Right there!" Red exclaimed after searching the map. He was pointing at a slip of paper taped to the holograph pole that shows the outline of a planet and a question mark in it with the word 'planet?' written underneath it.

"Ooh! Oooooooooh! A secret mission!" (It wasn't really a secret, with the crowd there and all.)

"Happy now?" Red asked.

"Yes." (He wasn't just happy, he was ecstatic. He was finally going somewhere no Irken had gone before, let alone an Introvert.)

"Invaders: Report to the equipment hall! Oh, and remember! Lasers." Red said as a laser hit Purple in the eye.

"Ahhhhhh!" Purple cried out in pain.

"The universe will be ours for the taking! It's only a matter of time before all the races of the Universe serve... the IRKEN EMPIRE!" Red exclaimed.

"I'll have them serve me the curly fries," Purple said stupidly.

-MEANWHILE…-

Dib Membrane gasped as he heard an alien race planning to invade and conquer the entire universe.

"They're coming!" he exclaimed in a whisper. His father and sister, Gaz, wouldn't believe him, but he knew the truth. He would show them all.

-BACK TO CONVENTIA (EQUIPING ROOM)-

"This is your Standard Issue Information Retrieval Unit, also known as a SIR. It will assist you in gathering valuable knowledge during your mission," Purple explained, gesturing to the SIR standing next to him.

"It's also a thermos!" Red put in. (That's stupid, why would you make the thing a thermos. That makes no sense whatsoever.) Purple picked the thing up and it went into storage mode.

"Who wants this one?" Purple yelled.

"I do!" called out a random Invader. Purple threw the SIR in his general direction and it hit him.

"Ow! Thank you," the Invader said, sounding a little woozy. (Poor guy probably has a concussion now. The again, he probably doesn't even know what a concussion is.)

"Everyone else, line up and take a robot!" Red said. As the invaders line up, a long mechanical tentacle that serves as a conveyor belt emerges from the wall. Several compact SIR units slid down, ready to serve the Invader that they were assigned to. Invader Larb stepped up as a SIR detached from the wire and unfolded, on its feet and ready for action.

"SIR! Go warm up my ship's engines," ordered Larb (Zim always found it funny for the Invaders to be calling their minions SIR. Isn't that supposed to mean deference?)

"Yes master, I obey!" the little robot said, saluting. Zim stepped up as they walked off.

"Finally! A robot slave of my own!" Zim exclaimed and reaches out, trying to look as if he expected them to give him a proper SIR. (He hoped they didn't, a proper SIR would know what he was, rat him out, and suggest that they send to the Introvert Sector and assign him a GIR, Guardian Information Retrieval unit (made so Introverts needn't leave the Sector for anything) to ensure that he didn't wander off again.)

"Um, eh, we have a "top-secret" model for you, Zim," explained Red, sounding rather contemptuous. He summoned a trashcan and searched through the junk and SIR parts as Purple pulled out a screw, 2 pennies, a paper clip, and a rubber ball from his pocket band. Red attached some eyes to a head as Purple dumped the junk in as a brain for the new robot. Purple made a howling kind of whistle noise, sounding stupid, and tossed the hunk of junk in front of Zim. It laid there, inactive.

"It looks kind of... not good," Zim said, seeming skeptic. (Inside he was panicking. That was the body of a GIR unit! Did they know what he was?!)

"Yes! Well, that's what the enemy will think! Get it?" Purple "explained" as Red nodded in agreement.

"I see! Very good! It even fooled meee! I am honored to be trusted with such advanced technology." Zim released an internal sigh of relief. They don't recognize so hopefully they built it from scratch with a faulty SIR chip. The Almighty Tallests giggled to themselves. Suddenly, the robot activated with red glowing eyes and ran up to Zim.

"GIR, reporting for duty!" the robot exclaimed, saluting. It seems the thing did, in fact, have a faulty chip, but it was a GIR chip. Hopefully it was faulty enough not recognize him, at least not in front of all these people.

"GIR? What does the 'G' stand for?" inquired Zim, trying not to look as nervous as he felt. He almost sighed in relief when the things eyes turned blue. GIR units were also for entertainment value and inspiration, only going into duty mode for short periods of time when it receives orders or there is a threat to itself or its assigned Introvert. They also had very short attention spans.

"I don't know!" the admittedly adorable robot proclaimed, bringing in its natural comedic factor by standing there stupidly. It then proceeds to itself in the head repeatedly. (No, he hit himself. Calling him an "it" would be rude.)

"Wheeeeee hoo hoo hoo! Wheeeeeeee hoo hoo hoo!" He seemed to be having the time of his brand-new, short life.

"Um, is it supposed to be stupid?" Zim asked, still pretending that he didn't know anything about this type of "SIR unit".

"It's not stupid. It's advanced!" Purple said. (Their leaders are unbelievably stupid. That's why Zim's job of fooling them into thinking he's not an Introvert is so easy.) GIR proceeded to bounce on his head repeatedly, as the Tallest continued to snicker.

-TIMESKIP-

All the Irken ships started to leave Conventia. Zim's Voot Cruiser separated from the rest and headed for Earth, not that anyone knew that.

"Okay, GIR! Our mission begins now! Let us reign some doom down upon the filthy heads of our doomed enemies! Or, you know, at least pretend to. Either way, I'll likely get better material than most Introverts do nowadays," Zim says, deciding that the GIR would catch on to him eventually and their relationship would be easier to build if he knew the truth from the beginning.

"I'm gonna sing the doom song now!" GIR decides. "Doom doom doom doo doom doom (and so on)…"

GIR continued to sing the doom song as the Voot Cruiser zooms off. It was then that Zim remembered that GIR units weren't meant to be kept in enclosed spaces for too long. They were designed that way to Introverts from becoming hermetic. Zim realized right then and there that this was going to be a long trip