Sorry this took a while to update, I got really badly sunburned and when I'm in pain I generally don't focus very well, and a sudden heat wave meant my laptop was over heating and shutting down ten minutes or so after I'd turned it on. Hopefully my sunburn goes and this weather lets up and I'll get back to normal!

Loved the sudden increase of reviews guys (I feel motivated now -before and after sunburn)!

The tension in the reception must have increased one hundred fold as another elevator opened and Vincent stepped out with Zim and J.A.C.K. Dib's eyes went wide, looking through Ultimate and Tony, who proceeded to turn to see the three new additions to the room. As Vincent proceeded to do the usual routine - check in with the receptionist to say that they were here so the security system didn't blow them up - it seemed like all Hell was about it brake lose.

Dib's face painted a picture of fury. "Why are you here, why now, Zim? What took you so damned long, stopped at the fucking service station?" He marched up to Zim, straight pass Vincent who turned to try and stop him. The extraterrestrial simply stood, glaring up at the fully grown Dib. "You left me! Out of the blue with no idea as to where you'd gone or why. Do you know what that's like? Trying so hard to reveal a person for the monster they are, and they just go ahead and leave? For two years of my life I'd tried to protect the Earth from you and you, you…" Dib looked at Vincent, then to Tony and Ultimate. He let out an exasperated sigh and looked back down at Zim, his eyes filled with pity. "Why are you even here. You don't belong in this place."

"You don't get it, Dib-stink. I didn't chose to leave, I was taken, captured. I would have gladly stayed to annihilate you and to complete my mission," Zim hissed harshly. Then his tone changed and he relaxed, lowering his gaze. "But it doesn't matter now. I'm not the Irken I thought I was."

Dib took a step back and pointed at Zim. "Look! See, Tony! He's a monster, just like I told you. Goddamnit, Szark, he's not supposed to be here."

J.A.C.K finally spoke. "Dib, Sir, you have a problem with hearing only want you want to, not what you need to." The automaton's voice was distantly familiar. The boy so rarely spoke that his voice was generally hard to remember, and when he did speak, it was usually the truth - that and it turned the heads of all who are present.

"I don't care, J.A.C.K! Why are you even here? Zim's still evil, I know him better than any of you, so just shut up and listen to me," Dib's voice was raised, echoing around the empty space. Even the receptionist was fiddling with her pen awkwardly. Dib grabbed one of Zim's antenna, yanking him forward and then pushing, making Zim fall back.

The Irken's teeth ground tightly as Dib's firm hand closed around the sensitive organ, his eyes went wide and then closed firmly. He didn't even try to break his own fall.

Ultimate winced as if she was in pain - Vincent's hands twitched and he looked to one side. "Fuck…" Ultimate whispered, lifting one hand to touch her ear as she did so. The woman's hearing started to buzz in the aftermath of the high-pitched scream that had forced its way out between the ex-Invader's sharp teeth.

Tony took a single step forward and got a hold of Dib's arm, dragging him back as J.A.C.K lent a hand to Zim to help him to his feet again. "You know Rax could take that as pre judgement of a newcomer. You know fully well what the minimal term served for that offence is."

Dib looked aghast. "So you're defending him now? What's with you people, why are you defending him, he's a criminal!"

Vincent took his place by J.A.C.K's side, giving the receptionist a 'forget the formalities' look. For a moment, nothing was said, but Vincent had obviously used the silence as a time to think. When he spoke, the words hit home. "We don't defend newcomers as if they are white as doves - as a god I am a member of the Greys. All members of higher society must by grey, including you Dib. Until Rax decides otherwise, our job is to make sure no harm comes to new arrivals, delivering them safely to Court where they will be judged," Vincent's voice was strong. He smacked himself on the wrist, making Zim stifle a laugh. "Fuck… you know how the rules work, Dib. It was the same for you, Tony, West, and everybody else that made it through the Nexus and it will not be any different for Zim. Try to infringe upon that, the sentence is three years behind bars. This is not about liking Zim, or defending him. It's about the rules. You should know them by now." Vincent turned towards the elevator once again, beckoning Zim and to come with him.

J.A.C.K looked to his master and nodded, staying behind to await their return.

A few seconds later, Tony followed them. He met Vincent's eye. The god nodded and Tony did a little jive before entering the open elevator door in true style.

"You can come too, you know." Vincent waved his hand at Ultimate and Dib. "But you need to leave your petty childhood rivalry at the door to do so."

Ultimate turned away and walked towards a different elevator and hailed it up. She turned to face them, her face still as professional and chiselled as ever. "He's all yours, Stark. I'm not going to waste my time on the words of a boy." She stepped into her elevator and proceeded towards ground level.

Dib watched her go, deflecting her words. She was as sharp as a snake, that woman, and he'd grown used to it and respected it. He made the decision to go with Vincent, making sure to sit as far away from Zim as possible, and not to make eye contact.

He realized that this would be his first time since he'd arrived that he'd be up in the tower's higher storeys - to the Palace levels, then the Sphere, followed by a short, tense trip all the way to the Golden Court of The Gods.

Zim and Dib stayed quiet all the way up. For one and a quarter hours, they did little other than have a drink of soda from one of the vending machines. Vincent and Tony, however, were getting on like a house on fire. It took them very little time to forgive each other after Vincent had made it apparent that he liked Ultimate just as much as he liked Tony - although Vincent made it clear that it was only when she was out of her business mode that she had any charm.

They talked about serious commerce. Ultimate, Tony and the Iron Sights Corp were the main weapons and defensive dealers around that could be trusted.

"You know I'd rather buy tech from you than the others, but they get the job done faster, Tony. Iron Sights built the Razorback gyro-gun, Ultimate's already drawn up workable blueprints for a deflector and you? You're still tinkering with the suit." Vincent sighed, leaning against the wall of the elevator, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. "As much as I like you as a friend, you've been lacking for three months straight. Soon Tenji won't even look at Stark Industries for defensive solutions."

Tony had gotten the suit off - dressed semi-respectably underneath in a black dress shirt and jeans and casual shoes. He grinned awkwardly. "Genius can't be focused in me, Vinny. Just hold out a little longer, I've got something in the oven that'll probably give volcano-head Ultimate something to get anxious about."

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. They stepped out into a wide, lush space that was clean, modern and obtusely modest. It was a complicated floor with ample, doorless frames the led into other spaces. The company were currently in the observatory; one wall was completely glass, triple glazed and missile proof, overlooking a vivid neon city. Beyond it was the low, comfortable suburbs and further still were dramatic rolling hills of a lush countryside, dotted with warming hamlets and villages to escape the neo-futuristic Vita. Gigantic mountains -still lower than some of the taller buildings- rose up in the very distance.

A woman walked in from a doorway beside the elevator, bare-footed, wearing frayed denim shorts and a white shoulder-hanging shirt the exposed a flat, pierced belly. She walked with pride and casual dignity, and she gave off a similar aura, despite her dress sense.

She smiled warmly at Vincent, embracing him in a loving hug.

Zim made the connection. "So you're this… wife my escort mentioned earlier?" If there was one thing Zim had never 'researched' during his time on Earth it was the mating traditions of humans. But then, he realized, these two weren't human.

The woman leaned back slightly, her hands slipping to Vincent's forearms. She rolled his eyes at him. "Do you never stop stalking about me," she teased tapping him on the nose. Then she pulled away gently letting her hands slip out of his.

"Only once, he mentioned a 'wife'. He seemed to imply that he's emotions towards you were… deeper than most relationships go. I made an educated guess, is all." Zim said rather insipidly. He proceeded to follow Tony through the rooms of the living palace's first level - there were still five more above them - flanked closely by Dib.

The living space was tidy, with a running theme of white and a singular colour that varied from room to room. They had passed a dinner/kitchen with a theme of white and bronze, a living room that was white and blue, a long hall of white and purple and from a quick glance, an extended extra dining room with a theme of black and white. Only when they arrived at a heavily locked and defended door did anyone begin to speak again.

Vincent hung at the back of the group, his arm locked with the blonde's. "Hey, Zim, come here a sec," he said in his trustworthy, middle-toned voice.

Zim turned and went over to the two without a fuss. "Yes?"

Dib pretended not to be suspicious about the unusually simple way in which Zim had begun to act; there was no shouting, no erratic and abnormal tones to his voice when he spoke. Everything about him had become less enthusiastic. Less… Zim.

"I just thought I should properly acquaint you with my partner." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not sure why I didn't do it back in the observatory actually…"

"Vinny, you're nattering again," the blonde prompted light-heartedly. She knelt down and extended a hand in greeting. "I'm Claire Szark; Matriarch of the family and Minister of Defence."

Once again, Zim refused a handshake. Dib was sure it was to do with the time they both turned into boloney, via a pin Zim had used to infect Dib. Then he'd gone and infected Zim via the common manner of greeting or congratulating. It wasn't everyday one developed an irrational fear of handshakes.

Claire smiled and stood, reaching for a cupboard of yew wood on the wall. She pulled out a pair of two inch heels and slipped them on as Tony opened the door before them.

Vincent laughed. "Always heels?"

"Always."

The door lead onto what looked like a cable car, dangling within a metal and glass arch, slowly rising over a thousand miles above the ground, up towards the Sphere - a giant, slowly rotating orb coloured bronze, held in place only by the two cable car arch's that lead towards it.

Tony and Dib stepped into the car first, taking their seats on one of the two benches placed either side. Dib sat closest to the other door, making sure that he didn't have to sit next to Zim. Tony sat beside him. Vincent paused to let Claire through. She took a place opposite Dib.

"Now, I want you to know that the people your about to meet aren't going to be as kind as me," Vincent said gently, touching a finger to Zim's shoulder as he passed into the car. "They are powerful, many are egotistical and proud. None of them are human, and I want you to know that."

Zim frowned, refusing to look up at Vincent. "What purpose did telling me that serve?"

"It served as a warning. You obvioulys have an inability to sense difference. You've been in the company of two gods for five minutes and you never knew."

"I knew you were. A 'god'." Zim walked away from the Sovereign, jumping up to sit next to Claire. "Irkens do not concern themselves with religion. We find such illusions pitiable."

Vincent sat next to Zim, looking over to Claire and tensing. The door to the cable car shut and a low humming began as the car moved forward steadily. Vincent sighed and caught eye contact with Zim. "There are no religions here."

The small extraterrestrial laughed, crossing his arms. "There are the other 'gods'. Deities always spring up from primitive beliefs. What are they? Stone caricatures of the elements? Your title's probably just a privilege."

Vincent felt a pulsing on the back of his neck. "I hope you won't get scared once we step out the cable car," he said threateningly.

Claire crossed her legs and sat back. She laughed a good while before stopping and catching her breath. "Oh yes, yes, this place was built by humans. Yep, because humans are totally born with the All Seeing Eye on the back of their necks. Look at you, Zim. In this place, boundaries marking the impossible will only leave you stranded. The impossible happens every day."

Zim decided not to humour her with an answer, instead he smirked, and wondered what hoaxes awaited him in the Sphere. He looked up an noticed Tony and Dib, sitting on their bench with furious smiles painted across their faces.

It took fifteen minutes to get to the Sphere. And when the doors opened, Zim was more than a little disappointed. The interior of the Sphere was indeed vast; at first it had filled him with a sense of overwhelming futility. But it was inanimate, so there was no need to feel so useless. The wall was at least twenty metres thick, made out of some tough, dull metal he had never seen before.

Vincent and Claire led the ground across a narrow white walkway, roughly six foot wide, with a stomach-curling drop beneath it. At the centre was a circular platform, to which this walkway - and another similar on the other side - connected to. It was as plain and flat as the surface they walked on, however, at the middle was a domed rise of about a foot, with a flat top. The flat was a few feet across, with a ring of gold light around the edge, and a similar coloured light shone from the centre, all the way up to the pinnacle of the Sphere in a shaft no wider than a streetlight pole.

Vincent smiled at the sight of it. "Isn't it just beautiful?" He halted the troupe at the point the walkway widened to become part of the circle.

Zim squeezed between Tony and Claire, watching intently as Vincent walked towards the light. He stood before it, not touching or reaching for it. The air seemed alive, buzzing lightly, almost as if it were sentient.

"Ultimate's first beamer. Arguable her most efficient and most powerful," Vincent informed, looking back at the group. His gaze was rapt. After a few seconds that seemed to take forever, Vincent summoned them forward. Zim was the first to his side.

He reached out, curious but sceptic. Vincent slapped his hand, glaring at him with irritation in his eyes.

"Me and Claire will go up first, then you and Dib. Tony will make sure you don't do anything stupid, like fight or try and enter at the same time." He stepped forward into the light quicker than Zim could keep track of; he seemed to blur as he made contact, his physical form breaking up as the beam carried him towards their destination. Vincent's sentence seemed half complete, and Claire made it whole.

"If you do, you'll most likely end up swapping body parts, but internal and external. That happened once, nasty business," she said casually. She laughed nervously at the memory, before it faded comically and she turned, falling into it backwards.

Dib gave Zim a sideways glare, before grinning deliberately as he met Zim's eye. "Your turn, Zim."

Zim folded his arms. "After you, earth-monkey."

"Oh no, ladies first, I insist."

Tony laughed. "Okay girls, settle down. Dib, you go first, the first letter of your name in earlier on in the alphabet."

"What's that got to do with anything," Dib asked after a short pause. He had raised an eyebrow at his much loved friend.

Tony shrugged lazily. "Oh, nothing. Just gives it a bit of order to the…uh…order. Off you go." A light in Tony's eyes were playful, joking. Dib so no reason not to go.

After he'd beamed, Tony looked down at Zim with a reassuring smile. The tall superhero touched his fingertip to Zim's shoulder like Vincent had done. "It really only hurts as much as a poke in the eye." He winked at him and stood back a step. "As soon as you're ready, please jump into the fray."

Zim smiled weakly, finding no reason to not just… step into the light.

It didn't hurt like a poke in the eye. It hurt like being punched in the face by an animated teddy bear. The journey was short, strange. For a moment he felt as if he were an omniscient being, with no physical limit, a feeling of both terror and energy. His shape ever changing, the atoms that made him up were split and travelling along this subspace pathway. What he saw in that beam was hard to describe - it was like golden electricity, laced with the colours of fire and licks of ice blue, a tiny spec of light in the distance, that grew closer and closer until in engulfed him.

The feeling of being wrenched down from a great height came over him, making his head spin. The feeling of physicality came back slowly as the atoms put themselves back together. It was a horrid, enclosed feeling - a feeling of being trapped, anchored to a place and a time.

He watched himself come back together, pieced into place like a jigsaw puzzle. The sound of a buzz began, slowly escalating in volume, rising, becoming fierce until it was an overwhelming roar.

Then it silenced, and Zim felt himself step out, Tony following him close behind.

His mind was reeling and his hands were shaking, but not with the adrenaline from the journey. He was frozen, immobile, at the palatial room before him, filled with the voices of hundreds of people - singing and talking, humming and laughing.

The ceiling of the room was arched like the inside of a church, climbing above them to a dizzying height. The very apex of the roof, however, was flat.

Vincent and Claire stood among the crowd as giants, both of them surpassing six feet tall, mingling among the towers of people - scores of them, hundreds upon hundreds of figures dressed in white and gold suits and dresses, with hints of silver and amethyst at the throats, ankles and wrists of all the females. The men had intricate patterns stitched into the backs and shoulders of their blazers in the same colours, the silver distinguished from the white only by the way it shone in the light, the purple made into tight petal shapes, of different consistency and shape from man to man.

Every one of them wore a band of silver on the middle fingers of both hands, with a line of gold through the middle.

The crowd were gathered around a long, sleek glass table that cut through the length of the room. The seats had high backs, made out of a white material Zim was unfamiliar with. At one end, Claire and Vincent took their place behind their seats as Sovereign and Matriarch. The others stood in their places, and at the other end of the table, a podium rose. Atop it was a high-backed throne, reaching up to the ceiling, engraved with winged figures and enticing patterns in silver. In that chair sat a man of average height, with choppy white hair, and eyes as red as fresh blood.

To either side were two seats of equal height; high backs, only half that of the throne on which the man sat. The one on the left was empty, but the one of the right was not.

Dib let his jaw drop, his eyes wide in shock. He pointed, incomprehensible noises of half-finished words rolled off of his tongue, when finally, something legible ended his hysterical rambling.

"Gaz?"

Hooray, chapter four is here finally! There's a lot of description here, I know, I know. Still liking the pace.

Okay, question time, it's the obvious one really, but why do you think Gaz is in the right throne, and how'd she get there, and just who will be in the left throne (And where the hell will Dib and Tony sit?)? (Staff entrance, duh.) Once again, Gaz continues to amaze Dib with her efficiency of getting around.

Reviews are treasured, guys! Don't care how long, negative, positive, just be constructive if you can. I'll make sure to repay the favour.