A/N: This chappeh is a short one. It's probably gonna wrap up in like, two or three more chapters. Don't cry though, I've got plans for a really confusing other fic and a really dark ZaGR in the works. And maybe a Hunger Games fic. Maybe.
Keep your hopes up!
xxxxx
Tak's second move after being untied was to scream something in an alien language, something possibly violent and extremely profane.
Her first move was to kick Zim in the face.
Unfortunately for everyone, the Emotional Inhibitor had rebuilt itself on the drive over, and Zim didn't start crying (again). But that would have been funny.
"Hey, don't do that," Dib said, only very slightly annoyed. "I need him for later."
Tak stopped yelling for a moment to stare at Dib. Because, come on, that sounded highly inappropriate.
"I mean, he took my house key to make sure I didn't strand him here."
"Why can't you just leave him here and break a window to get in, idiot?"
"Because that would unleash the radioactive baboons."
They didn't even entertain the possibility that Gaz would let him in. She so wouldn't.
Tak stood up. She only came up to Dib's elbow, and kept throwing enraged looks at all five-feet-and-three-inches of Zim. "Oh, quit bleeding. I didn't kick you that hard."
Zim spat out a broken pink tooth and a mouthful of bluish blood. "How dare you injure the mouth of THE AMAZING ZIIIIIM!" The last three words echoed dramatically around the cell. Zim ripped Dib's backpack off his shoulders and dug around for a bandage. Then he stopped, glared into the bag, and dumped the contents onto the floor.
The bag contained bandages, protein bars, extra clothes, a toothbrush, a spray bottle full of water, and Frawg.
She groaned, stretched her cramped legs, and said: "I don't even know how that worked."
"Can somebody please explain everything that just happened?" Oh, right. Chloe.
"Why." Dib had been asking a lot of flat questions lately.
Frawg looked up from cracking her knuckles. "Some weird girl told me to."
"That was Clever. She keeps showing up and telling us to do things for her amusement."
"I don't think I like her."
"Nobody does?"
"WHAT IS THIS?"
"Chloe, it's better if you don't know." Dib turned to Tak. "You know, this is the part where you thank us for rescuing you."
"If you hadn't ruined my plans for Earth's conquest and flung me into the vacuum of space, I wouldn't need to be rescued," Tak hissed. "And I had everything under control."
"Yeah," Chloe said, leaning over to use Tak's head as an armrest. "We were gonna escape together."
Tak twisted her neck, biting angrily at Chloe's arm.
Dib walked back into Chloe's cell and looked through the open doorway. There were about eight other cells, not counting Tak's. "Hey, are there people in all those rooms?"
"There are only five others. The other three cells are empty," Tak said, appearing in the doorway.
"DIIIIIIIIIING!" A loud girly voice giggled over an intercom. Nobody had noticed that intercom before. "Could all Sues please report to the convention room for a special announcement? Like, there'll be cupcakes and stuff? Bye?" The disembodied voice cut off.
Chloe wandered into the doorway. "What's that all about?"
"You ask a lot of questions, kid," Frawg grumbled, standing between Dib and Tak.
"That's Siram's ceremony. Whenever a Sue conquers a planet, they have a big, stupid ceremony with big, stupid cupcakes." Zim had appeared between Chloe and Frawg. All five of them were wedged in the tiny doorway, staring down the hall at the occupied cells. Dib pushed Frawg out of his way and stepped into the hall.
"So here's what we're gonna do."
xxx
The Queen was taking even longer than usual today.
She prided herself on her appearance even more than her incredible takeover of a magic-using world. That takeover was still talked about today, in the Sue legends.
But that hardly compared to being pretty.
She fluffed her fingers through her black hair, trying to place it so the red-and-purple streaks stood out more than usual. She thickly painted on black eyeliner with one hand and smoothed out her leather mini with the other. She painted her nails black with red French-tips.
Hardly anyone remembered her real name. Everyone just called her 'my Queen'. She didn't even remember her names, to tell the truth.
'Queen' just sounded so much better.
She was dressed in one of her favourite outfits: black leather miniskirt, black lace tights, red combat boots, and a lacy sweater with the mysterious letters MCR printed across the front. Nobody but the Queen remembered what the letters stood for, and if they asked her, she just grinned and hummed to herself.
"We are ready, my Queen," came the voice from the door.
The Queen turned to look at the girl. She was skinny and pale, gorgeous and radiant, perfect Queen material. "Sit with me a while," the high-ranked girl said, gesturing to some pillows on the floor.
The girl sat down as the Queen asked her name.
"Emylee, Your Highness."
"Emylee. Hmmm. " She looked out a nearby window into the heart of the ship, as all the Sues milled around in the room. There were eighteen down there, nineteen in total, as they didn't count the Queen as an ordinary Sue.
No one could bend the laws of a universe like she could.
"Emylee, do you ever wish it was different?
"I don't understand."
"Like, do you wish that we didn't have to rule a world by sneaking around and pretending to be perfect."
"But we are perfect, my Queen."
The Queen sighed. "I suppose we are," she whispered, staring out the window. "And that's the problem."
xxx
Siram was really frexing excited.
She had just conquered a notoriously difficult planet. She had taken down two of the most resilient threats in one week.
And her hair looked frexing awesome.
To be fair, she hadn't really destroyed Zim as much as she had wanted to. But he would probably be crying to hard to do anything about it when they sent the troops down.
And Dib was still fairly threatening. But he was stupid now. Really stupid. Once, she saw him accidentally fling a spoonful of applesauce across the room, and then sit there clapping like a seal.
She had a nagging suspicion he had only done that because she was watching him, but she couldn't be sure. And Caity kept telling her it was alright.
She only really trusted Caity.
"Quit fidgeting," her friend said, squeezing her hands to stop her fingers tapping. "You're making me nervous."
Siram turned to the Irken Sue, hair-streak a questioning blue. "You're really not nervous at all?"
"I don't get nervous. I'm too awesome," Caity laughed, flexing her biceps.
Siram shoved her, making them both almost fall off their seats.
They were sitting in back of a stage on two extremely comfortable chairs. Like, super comfortable. It was like sitting on a pile of fat unicorns.
… or something.
They were waiting for the ceremony to start. Sues kept brushing past each other, carrying trays of multi-coloured baked goods. Huge towers of cupcakes and tiny little pies all stacked in delicious spiraling piles.
Ceremonies were always fun.
Sues are good dancers, good singers, and can eat as many of those little baby lemon cakes as they want without gaining a milligram. For all their horrible, evil, appearance-obsessed ways, they throw wicked awesome parties.
And this one was about to get crashed, hard.
xxxxx
A/N: OOH, I WONDER WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN oh wait I wrote this. I know what's gonna happen. You don't. This writing thing makes me feel like I know everything, because you don't. Heh.