The 401,278th Intergalactic Supremacy Pie Competition

Chapter 8: The Battle for Earth, Part 1

The door, sensitive to the pressure of Tak's boot upon an in-ground reactive plate, slid open, allowing the disguised empress access to the fortress' external hangar. The fortress itself rested upon a floating isle shaped like that of of a crescent moon. The hangar, therefore, was comprised of floating ships tethered to this isle. Valus' surface was long ago extinguished by heavy radioactivity in its low atmosphere. Only in the sky could the planet's greatness be preserved.

Fillion weighed down the corners of a long roll of parchment- a star chart- on the cobalt surface that stood in the middle of Dastakina's War Room. The primitive paper-and-pencil method of documentation was initially looked upon with skepticism by her lieutenants, as he recalled, until digital Irken war plans had been stolen by Valusian information smugglers.

"Kohm, help me weigh down the edges of this map," Fillion commanded a gruff looking Valusian general. Kohm looked irritated, but Fillion knew he knew better than to object to Dastakina's Most Trusted, if not Only Trusted, advisor. He'd seen his brothers beheaded for lesser crimes against the empire than that.

Fillion slipped the top-left corner into the corresponding slit, which was carved delicately out of the bottom of an stationary iron paperweight. Kohm followed suit, and the two were finished with the task upon Dastakina's arrival.

Her entrance, as it happened, saw the men around the table rise quickly to their feet in salute; on the left stood Commander Generals Hauberk, Filu, and Gentry, and on the right Kohm, Ilix, and Ubeder. Fillion himself was stationed in the seat next to Dastakina's at the end of the cobalt slab.

"Ease," the empress intoned. The most obedient did as she told before the word left her mouth. Her heels clicked obtrusively across the polished floor, accentuating the respectful silence. Her slim figure was in sharp contrast to that of Fillion's. She was slender, light cherry red in pigment, and her flesh smoother even than most females. Her beauty was both figuratively and literally illusive, although the coarse, dark, and rather chunky Valusian Advisor did not realize this. Of course, Fillion hungered not for her in the way the late Figgins had; most common Valusians desired little more than two wives in their lifetime, though Fillion was content with his one, Galie. He could not be so certain of some of the generals, however.

"What is this doing out?" Dastakina pointed to the star chart.

"You requested it, Madame Supreme Empress," Fillion mentally checked off each title Dastakina had requested he address her by.

"Relinquish it. I've a much more obscure target in mind."

That was another thing- Dastakina's brusqueness. And fickleness. And her altogether fearsome aspect. Fillion didn't dare a sexual thought towards her out of fear she could read minds.

"I want a fleet, led by Filu and Kohm and overseen by myself personally, of a good 40 warships, 30 Kenga Runners and 10 Command Hulls."

"Where do you wish to send these ships?" Filu spoke, formality masking his pride. He was young, but proven, having personally delivered the heads of several high-ranking members of the Angry People.

"Coordinates 410.F.66°V441," she recited in Designation Standard, the mapping system used throughout the galaxy.

Fillion raised his eyebrow. "But that's on the far reaches of the known universe! What is it that you wish to attack?"

"A most nefarious place, men. It is known simply... as Earth."

The very name sent chills throughout the War Room.


Tak gazed listlessly into the void from the large, spherical window that made up the wall of the Command Hull's bridge. Machines whirred and hummed below her perch as a host of Valusian navigators maintained the ship's destination. Two days now the ship had been on course for Earth. Two days for the two months she'd spent gaining the unquestioning loyalty of her people.

"Dastakina," he came to her as she knew he would. He, the only disbeliever. Still, she counted on weak, cunning little Fillion to remain unerringly subservient. He had a wife to think about.

"Yes, Fillion," she intoned, already expectant of his next words, and already bored with them.

"What is the real reason we are invading Earth? What is there that you hope to gain?"

"Fillion, you remember Zim, the Ir...nvisinoid?" she asked.

"It's impossible to forget, my lady," he replied, struggling to remember. Then it hit him. Ah yes. "You let me live-"

"Little over two months ago your blockade brought an end to him. But on Earth," she began, reciting another, easier lie, "The Invisinoids continue to thrive. Fillion, if one Invisinoid can topple the balance of power on the scale that this one did, think about what an entire planet of them is capable of!"

"What?!" Fillion looked astounded. "Why didn't we attack sooner?!"

"Why didn't they?" she replied mysteriously. "Zim arrived at Medius alone. Perhaps they weren't willing to follow him. Or perhaps they have been preparing their vengeance. It is possible Zim was a fluke, and they mean no harm. But they must be stopped."

Fillion furrowed his brow. "How will we know if they're still there?"

"Easy. All Invisinoids are fleshy, squishy, stupid little creatures."

"Yes, Miss Dastakina," Fillion replied, confused by this description. Still, it had been two months since she'd last spoken of the species, so maybe he'd never heard it said that they weren't invisible after all.

As he left her to stand alone on the bridge, once more overlooking the colossal vacuum of the universe, a dark thought crossed her mind.

I didn't get to kill you, Zim. But I will take your victory from you.


The gold-and-black shield of the Resisty shone on the side of a traditionally boxy Alpha-Class Vort warship: the Fist of Rebelliousness, as it was grandiosely christened by its captain. Parts of the surrounding fleet had been greatly damaged, and the Fist itself had several clear marks left by laser burns and radiation deterioration. The fleet's ships now numbered in the hundred thousands, down from the millions it had had amassed only a few short hours ago. Lard Nar had risked millions of lives, all for one lousy, ungrateful scientist!

"But I don't wanna!" the ex-convict cried pitifully, his shoulders dropping in defeat at his sides. Lard Nar noticed as the scientist's now-infamous white lab coat, one of the few remaining from Pre-Irken-Occupied Vort and now too large for the thinner, starved ex-convict, slipped over his left shoulder and revealed a pulsating red scar bearing the number '777.'

Lard Nar seized the opportunity. "Would you rather go back to them? To prison? You see what they've done to you!" he pointed at the scar, "And more importantly, what we've done for you. Two months I've grown this army just to save you! Don't forget, I barely got out of there myself! I know Jeb isn't your best friend in the world-"

"I hate him," 777 replied uselessly.

"-But you've got to aid the Resisty! We have to fight back! Your first act of rebellion came when you turned the Massive against itself! Think of what you and Jeb, the two greatest minds we have on our side, can do!"

"Do you remember our time on Outpost W?"

"Yeah, when-"

"Yes, we both know what happened. You're my friend, Lardy. Please don't let this get out of hand."

The two Vortians stared at each other for a great deal of time. Following his rescue, 777, or Defa Ri, as was his birth name, had been briefed on what was expected of him by his "Lord and Savior", as payment for the Resisty's good deeds.

Even locked in the maximum security prison that Vort had largely become, an idiot could tell the universe was at war with itself. And Vort was crammed with genius engineers and couch technicians. Lessening guards, reduced food, the banter of inmates and patrolmen alike: these and dozens of other trends were quickly analyzed by Ri's high-functioning synapses.

"You have work to do. My men will escort you to the lab," Lard Nar finally replied, suppressing a sneer. As a purple-hooded figure of a species unknown to Defa and a green-and-black-striped Crele all but forcibly shoved him towards the labs, one bitter thought tugged at the Vortian's mind:

This place is just another prison.

As Defa Ri exited the bridge, Lard Nar turned towards a wiry, bespectacled female Screwhead; she was his autobiographer.

"New title idea: A Resistory: The Life and Times of Lard Nar."

"Resistory?"

"Yeah, like... you know, 'history' and 'Resisty', smooshed together in one word," he 'smooshed' his hands together for emphasis.

"Oh, a portmanteau," she replied dryly.

"You don't like it?"

"No, no, it's good. It's good."

"It's stupid," he replied shamefacedly.

"Whatever you say, sir," she replied, scratching it off a long list of failed titles.


"Tall-y, this is embarrassing," Red rubbed his temple, assessing exactly what went wrong, with him, his empire, and his war campaign, that made this meeting necessary.

All across the planet's surface, large sheets of wire frame stretched into the sky. Granite and processed cement mixture clung to the half finished skeleton- construction had halted way back when the Petty Wars began, which was almost four Irken weeks, or two Standard Universe Time (SUT) months ago. Luckily the frozen development and subsequent skeleton-like nature of the planet's surface was not symbolic; the resources- and more importantly, the inhabitants- had not not been picked entirely clean.

"How could we- I mean, we did a cannon sweep and everything-" Red muttered to himself. He and Purple were slowly descending a long, elevator-like tube that extended from their dropship. Turning his head downwards, Red watched a large throng of creatures coalesce, pulling themselves from the cleverly hidden burrows that pockmarked the surface.

"We really should have counted on them hiding from their imminent destruction. Perhaps if we used a toxic smoke machine-" Purple began.

"No, damn it! Lasers have always worked! Everybody loves lasers! Let's just be glad we didn't kill all of the creatures we enslaved, and that they were too stupid to know about the Resisty," Red shuddered as he once more spoke more to himself than his present company. He'd spotted what he was looking for, what he'd come for, and could no longer concentrate on Purple's nonsensical and ill-informed opinions.

For you see, amidst the deep purple hues of Blorch's indigenous Slaughtering Rat People, a small green head, appropriately lifted above two particularly large creatures, had materialized.

The elevator-tube receded as the Tallests were plopped out a few dozen feet from the surface. Red dusted himself off, noted the need for recalibration or else complete scrapping of the primitive machine, and looked up. Purple threw a silent tantrum. The elevator machine was embarrassing him!

"Hello there, Skoodge," Red cast a look of askance upon the tiny Irken, resplendent in an amethyst-upon-gold crown. He must not let the silly looking thing know he held all the cards in this metaphorical game of Parcheesi (an Irken card game wholly dissimilar to the game played on Earth, which rather oddly resembled the exact situation about to unfold, if you view the toilet plungers in the game as a metaphor for nostrils).

"Hi!" Skoodge chirped, sliding off his perch. He was so hilariously tiny. The Tallests pushed his head down a couple of times, laughing as the Irken beamed.

"You have been granted the honor of using your SRPs in glorious conquest for the good of your empire!" Red began. "After an unfortunately suicidal and completely unavoidable mission we sent a gracious chunk of our soldiers on, we have been looking to expand our army."

Ratmaster Skoodge turned towards the hulking, terrifying beasts, and in a tone of command spoke: "Dgfdhg sadfdfbh ksss sdgcd."

"Sfdsdfscvdf sfdsgc fggtjk?" one of the rats who had carried him on his shoulder asked.

"Dsfsfas fdsgfdsfxz," Skoodge replied. A long conference between the horde was now underway.

Skoodge's story of conquest was a funny one, even if he had, in fact, never conquered the Rat People, so to speak. The Rats, upon Skoodge's arrival, being incredibly smart for a barbaric and primitive race, instantly saw through his rather terrible disguise (Skoodge had dressed in a massive purple tube sock) and understood the implications of a warmongering, high-ranking Irken lieutenant. Of course, trying to use the thing's fake conquest as a political and diplomatic tool, instead of using his death to engineer a war they knew they would lose, turned out to be a mistake, as the Cannon Sweep demonstrated.

Now that the Tallests needed them, however, it was all the more important to keep up the facade. The Irkens could protect what was left of the race.

Skoodge, oblivious to all this, liked the Rat People, as they were the only people who hadn't tried to kill him or send him into untold and terrible danger within the first few minutes of knowing him: Zim, the Tallests, Tenn, Tak, even the robotic arm what birthed him were all guilty of this infraction. When the Tallests sent him back to Blorch after his conquest, who was he to say no?

The Tallests stood awkwardly as the First Non-Cannibalism Congregation of Blorch continued (Most of Blorchian politics revolved around somebody eating somebody, after all).

Finally, "What task do you have for us?" Skoodge asked.

The two Tallests looked up, relief and bewilderment shining obviously in their eyes. Skoodge, ever the loyal soldier, nodded curtly to the two, answering their unspoken questions.

"Skoodge, are you familiar with the Galvonian Second Wave Project?"


"And this thing... is operational?" he tried to keep the excitement from his voice. This project had already failed twice before.

"Yes! Yes... it must," a gloved hand rapped on the hull affectionately. "Sturdy as a-"

Just then the whole thing fell apart.

"DAMN! I knew that fig leaves weren't proper adhesive!" the same gloved hand now pounded a nearby card table for dramatic effect. "But no! The board!" he scowled, turning to the chalkboard that resided next to the table, covered on both sides in complex calculations. "When it speaks to me, oh yes, we have some crazy times, but it always leads me astray-"

"Professor? How long have you been awake?"

"Hmm? 57 hours, sir! Nothing must stand in the way of science!" the gloved hand began to shake.

"Jesus! When was the last time you saw your children?"

"Children? What are children? WAIT!" the gloved hand now clutched a piece of chalk. A second gloved hand now rubbed off a drawing of a fig leaf from the board. A third, experimental (for the time being) arm scratched the scalp nestled underneath a flamboyant lightning bolt of hair. "Of course! Gorilla!"

"-Gorilla glue, Professor?"

"Nay! Fetch me twenty gorillas, and I shall give you," he breathed, "the first proper, transdimensional-travel-capable Earth spacecraft!"

"Maybe the shape of the thing is causing some of these problems," a stupider underling of the professor's remarked, obviously having not heard his superior mention the use of gorillas to glue together a spaceship.

"Preposterous! It must be shaped this way!"

"Because of the name?"

"Yes, blast it! The Pie in the Sky will fly! And it will be shaped like a pie and it will be in the sky and it will fly and it will be clever!" Professor Membrane slumped into a chair.

The government man, obviously believing that the whole project had been given to madmen, walked over to Membrane. "You've had a long couple of days. Rest. Take some time off. Spend it with your kids."

"My kids are dummies," Membrane replied sleepily.

"Well, I'm paying your salary, and I'm giving you a week off."

"Mmmyessir," Membrane shut his eyes. In a matter of seconds he was asleep.


"'What do you know?! Where are you hiding your clan?' I said to him, then I nicked him with my penknife. Then I took my gloved hand, which was covered in salt-"

Professor Membrane absentmindedly stirred his soup, not listening to his crazy son's musings.

"Dad! I need more batteries for my Game Slave," Gaz whined, looking up from the device for the first time during that meal.

Membrane casually generated two batteries out of thin air, a very advanced scientific thing he programmed his glove to do, specifically for this reason.

"Gaz, why don't you go outside?" The professor asked. Gaz hissed. "Very well," the professor stood up, defeated. "I suppose I'll idle and develop a few new scientific breakthroughs."

Professor Membrane was certainly an enigma on Earth. He was human, yet had an intellect and know-how on par with any Vortian. Of course, like any human, he had his flaws. He was inherently stubborn, and didn't like to listen to anybody but himself (hence his insistence on using gorillas in the construction of the Pie in the Sky); this was met equally with his occasional obvious oversight of basic concepts (such as using nails and not glue, gorilla or fig leaf based or otherwise, in constructing a spaceship).

"I think I'm going to take Tak's ship out for a cruise around Venus," Dib hopped up, addressing his sister. The Professor was also incredibly unobservant. He had never in the three years since Tak's ship's repair so much as glanced at the thing, which was taking up the majority of his garage. In his defense, it was regularly covered in a blue tarp.

"You go and do that, son," Professor Membrane replied. Three years now his son had slipped further down the crazy slope of crazy, as the Psychology P. (who were constantly calling Membrane's work 'traumatizing' and 'nightmarish') had called it. For three years now, without that little foreigner to chase after, Dib's crazy had become unfocused and dangerous, as the Professor would have known if he listened to the boy speak.

"You wanna come with?" Dib asked. "You have nothing better to do, after all."

"No, son, because your spaceship is a figment of your delusional insanity."

"You don't want to make me sic my bigfeets on you?" Dib intoned innocently, not knowing that the creature he'd long been interrogating (read: abnormally hairy teenager he'd been torturing) would probably kill him, afforded the chance to escape his restraints.

"Um. Lead the way," Membrane hung his head slightly. This would at least be good for a laugh. Very little made him laugh these days.