The 401278th Intergalactic Supremacy Pie Competition of Doom

Chapter 2: Preparations, or Pie in the Sky

Part 1: GIR faces the Armada and a Great Sequence of Events is set in motion

"You see, my Tallests, I-"

"Shut up Zim! Your crappy little robot is destroying our fleet of ships!"

GIR zipped between his assailants. Maniacally pressing buttons had worked so far for it, and the shiny yellow one was especially fun because explosions happened when you pushed it.

GIR, of course, was completely removed from the equation of Serious Irken Politics, even more so than the blindsided invaders. He was, in a word, dysfunctional. Any evaluation by a Vortian technician would see him decommissioned and stripped for parts. In fact, the robot whose parts he'd been rebuilt from, LYLE (acronym unknown), whose remains had been assembled from a garbage can, as one might recall, had been a wonderful assistant to the great Invaders of Yore (the invaders who conquered the planet Yore in Tallest Screw's Great Widening operation). Then the Unfortunate Thing happened, where a group of crazed, CSAC (Chamber of Screaming Air Conditioners, before the Inifinite part) workers sought revenge on all machinery. In the process, LYLE was destroyed and dumped in a garbage can.

And now the once great SIR unit had a marble, 1/100th of an Irken money, a paper clip, and lint for a brain.

Regardless, GIR was surviving, much to the amusement and simultaneous horror of its creators.

"WHEEE! Giddyup piggy!" GIR gnashed its mouth together amusedly.

"What is he doing? He's going to destroy the entire armada!" Red moaned.

"Sir, this ship has lasers, we can-"

"Quiet Jeffrey! We're trying to think!" Purple waved off the intern.

"WAIT! Jeffrey, you little insect-dirt, fire those lasers!" Zim bellowed suddenly.

"I'm not really in any position to-"

"QUIET! Someone who can, destroy that Voot Cruiser!" Zim replied, forgetting (or perhaps, in his refusal to admit the Tallests tried to kill him, didn't recognize that) the Cruiser was his, and that his very own robot was piloting it. Zim would of course done it himself, but if their was one thing Zim liked more than wanton destruction, it was ordering people around. One laser later, the cruiser was destroyed. It would have made a big explodey noise if it hadn't happened in space.

"Wow, sir, you gave an executive order superior to that of your commanders. Maybe our leaders shouldn't be decided by-"

"Shut up, Jeffrey. Every word out of you is like a filthy Dirt-pie!" Red barked.

"Yeah, shut up Jeffrey!" Zim retorted, grinning afterwards at his Tallests to show off his loyalty. Zim was, after all, very stupid.

"Well, jeez, that little robot took out a third of the fleet!" Purple remarked after finishing his Irken-insignia branded Soda.

(Not so fun fact: The Irken insignia, which appears on soda, Irken spacecraft, etc., was in fact designed by the ten members of the Irken Insignia Committee (IIC). They were, in no order whatsoever, Del, Dit, Zop, Vit, Fir, Dak, Pittacus Abquesios, Pip, Giy, and Larf. After designing the insignia, Pittacus murdered his colleagues so as to take all the credit. God, what a tragedy. He lived on to become Tallest Screw, predecessor to Miyuki's successor, Tallest Hannibal, over 100 Irken years before the Massive was built and brandished with Pittacus' creation. Look for Pittacus' cameo appearance later in the story!)

"My Tallests!" an Irken marched up to his leaders and saluted. "Word from the Armada- Soldier Roca is reportedly responsible for mobilizing the Armada against the Great Threat."

"Well he didn't do a very good job! And he didn't shoot him down. Pasa did. BY MY BRILLIANT COMMAND!" Zim pointed to one of the Irken drones manning a weapons console. His name was not Pasa.

"Then we shall promote Roca!" Purple said, ignoring Zim's oddly correct statement. The Irken saluted and marched off. Though the Irken Empire had a height-based monarchy, its institutions' higher ranks were (rather oddly) determined by merit. Except the ICSAC. There are no winners in hell.

"So now can my brilliant self get my tank?" Zim yelped.

"Well, Zim, you see..." Red tried to come up with a way to get Zim out of his hair. (note: Irkens do not have hair. Their scalps are very dry.) It was at that second successful Invader Larb (fresh off his recapturing of the increasingly rebellious planet Vort) walked onto the bridge (the only bathroom on the ship is located here). It was then Red had a brilliant plan. "You must pass the Invader Test!"

"What?" Purple asked.

"WHAT?!" Zim yipped. "I am fully qualified! I have passed all 15 levels of formal training at the Academy! I ranked 1st in my class!"

"You killed the rest of your class!"

"They fully recovered from that! Do you not remember that I was the youngest Invader in Impending Doom One, a year before I graduated as a result?!"

"Which you also wrecked! Besides, Larb over there had to take the test." Larb had exited the bathroom, zipping up his stomach.

"No I di- urg! Uff!" he grunted as two drones silently beat him.

"Fine then, what's the test?" Zim asked, defeated and irate.

"Um. Well, its... here!" Red crossed the room to a stack of papers. "Ow!" he whined, sustaining a paper cut as he picked up a piece (Irken paper was incredibly painful, being made from Irk's only plant, the appropriately accosting cactus-trees). He brandished the paper in front of Zim. "Fold this in half 10 times."

"Henh?" Zim stared blankly at the paper even as he grasped it. "Ow!" he spat, similarly cut by the rough material. "Well, if this will get me my tank, I'll do it!" I believe it's been mentioned before that Zim was an incredibly tenacious, despite (or perhaps because of) his shortsightedness.

"Alright, get back to us on that," Red patted Zim patronizingly on the head as the "invader" struggled on the eighth fold, to the point of literally wrestling with the piece of paper. The two Tallests waited until they were in their quarters and the door had slid shut before bursting into a peal of laughter.

Part 2: Red prepares

One interesting and must-know detail about the Intergalactic Supremacy Pie Competition- it was kept secret from everyone but the rulers of each Empire. This rule was put in place so as to ensure no random, rebellious individual tried to undermine his or her respective Empire and form their own by submitting a winning pie. Pies were banned throughout the Important Galaxies and pie-making was taught secretly to leaders as a result (taste-testers, such as Dee and not-Dee, were shot for these reasons).

Because of this, Red was prepping his and Purple's special Pie-Competition traversal spacecraft, known unofficially as the Pie in the Sky (Purple called it that once). Like the kitchen, this ship was hidden in the bowels of the ship, in a hole, underneath a blue tarp. A sign nearby warded others off by issuing the statement "WARNING: BLUE TARP AHEAD."

Irkens are deathly afraid of blue tarp, mostly because they did not know what it was. Irkens are trained from a very young age to fear (and in the case of Invaders, to destroy) the unknown.

Every year the Tallests excused themselves off the ship for a "diplomatic assembly with the great empirical powers" to allay any suspicion. This fake council was known as the Big Important Meeting, a name that was something of an in-joke amongst the great empire leaders. If the lesser territories switched hands (for the Valusians and Irkens placed first and second each year, respectively) symbolic, already determined wars would be briefly fought between whichever empire had lost planets and whatever empire had gained them. Millions died in these unnecessary practices. If the designated loser empire tried to win the war, the other empires would enforce the Code of the Piemakers under one false, unrelated-to-pie pretense or another.

Red knew the judges were biased towards how polished one's ship was, so he polished the ship. He knew the judges were particular about one's poise, confidence, and manner of speaking as soon as they left their ship, so he chatted in conspiratorial whispers to himself (so as not to avoid the attention of possible passersby). This ritual preceded every competition, and grew more worrisome to Purple with each passing year, as Red's desire to win grew stronger. Two hours later he was satisfied, and cautiously slid the blue tarp over the hole. (Though familiar with the thing, Red was still wary of it).

The Pie Competition was still five days away. Red would be back.

Part 3: In which Figgins breaks the competition's vow of secrecy

Valus Prime Figgins was not so worried about the Pie Competition for two reasons. The first, which was the more obvious, was that he one every year and his pie was perfect. The second, less obvious reason, was that at the moment he was experiencing a great amount of pleasure from a source all-too-well-known to humans.

Figgins was tall, but not enough to justify his rather massive girth. He was burnt-red, almost brown, in color, and his course, scaly skin complete his dinosaur-like appearance. He had four pale yellow eyes and three horns running vertically down his face, a holdover from the larger spikes which randomly distributed themselves along his back. His panting let loose the foulness that was his breath

The female specimen who was rather conspicuously atop him was slender, of a lighter red complexion and had fairer skin. The only item of clothing between the two was a garish crystalline chain wrapped around her neck- a gift.

The Valusians, much like animals, choose their mate by screwing them. Figgins had chosen many mates, being the Prime.

It was in fact the Valusians, all those thousands of years ago, that had begun the Pie Competition after ending the Err-Tal Empire's winning streak at the Intergalactic Warmongering Competition which never seemed to end. Whichever Empire won always got to determine the next year's competition (and, given the Valusians were great pie-makers, the Pie Competition was born. The Prime was selected by the previous Prime based solely on his pie-making skills.

Figgins could bake a mean pie. So he was entitled to several wives, a group which the young woman on top of him would soon be joining.

It took another hour before the two finished (Valusians can go for quite a while) when Figgins revealed he was not so worried about the secrecy of the Pie Competition either. "I'm very lucky you know," he spoke softly to the girl. "In four days my pie will take top honors, and then we shall be married in the glorious continuation of the Valusian Empire."

"Pie?" the girl asked, curious.

"Oh, yes, the Pie Competition, between the various Empires. If you win, and Valusians have always won, you basically get an empire," loose women often loosened the Prime's tongue, but never to such a degree. Besides, she was a very stupid girl if she had slept with him.

"Oh, take me with you! I've never seen another race, let alone another planet!" she pleaded excitedly.

"I'm afraid I can't, my dear. It's a very secretive business, you know," he poked her nose affectionately/patronizingly, making a little 'boop' sound as he did so.

She got off of him, disappointed. It was at that moment that Figgins' advisor, Fillion, walked in on the two of them.

"Sir, you're ship for the Big Important Meeting is ready for inspection."

With a grunt, Figgins pulled himself out of his courtyard's extravagant golden fountain and let Fillion help him into his black ceremonial robes. Fillion then led Figgins to his secret pie competition ship (which was, in case you were wondering, a modified Kenga Flyer, the most common of the Valusian warships), which he secretly called the Pie in the Sky.

Four days,he thought, Until I crush you yet again, you Irken filth.