Random Author note: Pyrokinesis rocks!! I WANT THAT POWER!!
REAL Author Note: This chapter has some very disturbing images so if for some reason you are too weak to even read then I suggest to skip the flashback scene.
Disclaimer: Invader Zim belongs to Jhonen Vasquez; I do however own Reb, Kijani and any other character I come up with.
Chapter uh nine?:
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Planet Irk (Six months ago):
An Irken wearing a black cloak shuffle the deck of cards, this Irken was a con artist and a very sneaky one as well, he held the cards out in front of him, their backs facing toward him. He then talked to the group of Irkens that had collected up in front of him.
"Pick a card, any card." Said the con artist to a short Irken with purple eyes, said alien picked out one card. "Good." The cloaked Irken said. "Show it to everyone."
The soldier did as he was told.
"Do you all know what the card is?" everyone nodded." Now put it back in the deck." The short extraterrestrial did as instructed. The red eyed Irken shuffled the cards once again and pulled out a dagger from his pocket. He threw the cards up in the air and stabbed the dagger through one of the cards. He then showed the card to everyone and grinned evilly at their stunned faces," Is THIS your card?" he asked smugly.
The purple eyed Irken muttered something that sounded like "lucky son of a bitch" and gave several monies to the smirking alien, who started to shuffle the cards again, this strange red eyed Irken is what some of his race would call a Raro, meaning he wasn't a defective or a sane Irken, he was something in between the two, and because he isn't TOTALLY insane he's allowed to have his PAK, but that didn't meant that his peculiar behavior was something to be proud of, in fact most of the Raros were ashamed of this little inconvenience and tried to have their PAKS "fixed" and sometimes those Irkens had their memory chips fried if the procedure was a complete failure.
"Well Der stealing isn't as satisfying as it was to lounge around and give orders but you're still making a living!" thought the Con artist bitterly to himself.
This Irken Con Artist was somewhat tall, the shadow of his cloak cowered the upper part of his face, his clothes covered most of his body, the only thing that wasn't covered were his hands and his PAK which of course made a few beeping sounds every now and then so that others knew of his place in society, that beeping to some meant a little piece of individuality which the Irken Empire mostly lacked while to others it meant that he wasn't a "perfect" Irken.
"I want to play again!" the short Irken yelled angrily, apparently he didn't liked that he had lost one too many times.
"Looks like SOMEONE has a gambling problem." Der said sardonically "But, suit yourself, so how much are you betting this time?"
The Irken in question pulled out a small bag filled with monies, Der raised his antennae in amusement, under his black cloak that is and counted how much was in it, after he finished he said wickedly "Are you ready to lose again shorty?"
"This time I won't" His 'costumer' said with confidence.
"And what makes you think that?"
The purple eyed alien didn't say anything, he just stared for a few seconds then with no apparent reason he smiled, the con artist raised a would be eyebrow at this but shrugged it off.
"This time I'll go easy on you. Said the tall alien while the short one scowled darkly at him "see these three cards?" He taunted, the purple eyes alien nodded mockingly.
The three cards that Der was showing his poor victim and the rest of the crowd of angry Irkens were two green monkeys and one purple monkey "All you have to do is chose the purple one and I'll give you back everything you lost, if not" He chucked "well you just made me one of the richest Irkens of this section of Irk."
"Just mix the cards" the Irken demanded.
"As you wish, but don't blame me when you lose".
The Tall Irken put the three cards on the hovering table and then put them face down and mixed them up as the short Irken followed the movement of the card he knew was the purple monkey, after several seconds, the Red eyed Irken stopped.
"Where's the purple monkey?" asked the cloaked alien.
The gloved hand of the short Irken soldier didn't moved for a few seconds while he hesitated to pick a card then finally he came to a conclusion and picked the one on the far left. He lifted it up to find a green monkey. The red eyed Irken laughed sinisterly and said," Sorry." As he took the large bag of monies.
"And just HOW were you suppose to NOT lose this time?" Der asked in amusement.
The angry Irken lifted up the other two cards to see that the two other cards were also green monkeys "By proving that you were in FACT cheating"
"Damn" cursed the con artist "Millions of soldiers on this side of the planet and I had to get a smart one".
The rest of the crowed of soldiers were now surrounding the Raro who managed to steal months of monies worth of fighting, luckily this wasn't the first time this had happened to the cloaked Irken and he did the only thing that managed to save his sorry green ass several times in the last few months since he became the most wanted Irken on the planet.
Correction, the universe.
"Hey LOOK" he said pointing at one direction "Tallest Kijani is over there eating donuts!"
Immediately the Irkens stopped trying to murder him and looked around with goo goo eyes and trying to stand as tall as they could in order to impress the current Tallest of the Irken Empire, the Raro took the money he collected from his "costumers" and ran like the wind.
All of his victims stared at the direction he pointed for several seconds until one person notice that their soon to become Gasquiggasplorch food was running away from them.
"HEY!" A squeaky voiced Irken screamed "HE'S GETTING AWAY!!"
At hearing this the other soldiers laugh first at the poor annoyed Irken's squeaky voice and then they ran to catch up with their prey and hurt him really really badly, one Irken managed to grab a trash can and throw it directly at the running red eyes alien, unfortunately for the mob, he saw it coming and stopped right in front of where the trash can was sure to land, then he continued to run from the mob's murderous wrath and ran down a street. He cut down the alleyways and luckily lost the soldiers for now.
"Tch, those idiots had guns with them and they instead tried to stop me with a trash can, this shows a great deal of intelligence of my race at times" Said Der in disgust.
He began to walk out of the dark alley and onto a different section of the capital city; just careful enough not to get caught by anyone who he had managed to tick off in the past and present.
This Irken most likely surpassed Zim on the hating department.
That was a new low for the con artist to say the least.
Several hours later Der was in front of an abandoned building or at least it SEEMED like it was abandoned, he walked up to the door and knocked three times, when there was no answer the Raro got impatient and gave a sigh of exasperation and used his spider legs in order to climb the building.
He searched for what he was looking for and finally said "a-ha". He opened what seemed to be a broken window and jumps in.
The con artist landed silently inside the building that was filled with machine parts. There was also a glass case that held swords, guns and other weapons that were so out of date, a small office, a few repair tables, and in the middle of the building was an old broken down Vortian ship.
"HEY, HEY, 777 ARE YOU HERE?!" the tall Irken asked too loud for anyone's liking and then he heard a crash and someone cursing in a familiar yet foreign language.
"For the love of Queen Razz" Said a pink Vortian rubbing the back if his head "DER! How many times do I have to tell you NOT to do that?!
"I dunno… four?"
The Vortian engineer just sighs in exasperation, not bothering to fight with the only friend and ally he has on the damn planet "I take it you almost got caught today?"
The Irken nodded and pulled down his cloak, revealing that the Irken Raro was none other than Ex-Tallest Red.
"Didn't know you cared" Red muttered.
"I don't, but since you're the only one on this planet who's actually stupid enough to help a wanted prisoner, I figured it would be best for you to be alive until WE can get out of Irk.
"I still can't believe that of all the planets in the universe you would chose my home world for your hiding place, you must really have a death wish."
"HEY! It's the rational thing to do, your people would never think of looking for a lower alien life form on their own planet". 777 said sardonically.
"Its just amazing you're managed to stay alive this long."
"Well some can sing some can dance, I apparently can cheat death in more than one way".
Red just gave him a weird look "You need a new hobby".
"And you need to shut up" 777 shot back "There's no way I'll have this vessel flying with you interrupting me".
The ex-tallest kicked him in the shin and the Vortian yelled in pain "Ohhh my heart!!"
Red snorted and decided to give his "friend's" hideout a more detailed look, he's been here numerous times but he never been in other rooms other than the crappy excuse of a lab and the next room which only had a very old couch, so when he noticed a "hidden" door and by hidden I mean just a card box right in front of it.
Red moved the box and he opened a rusty door than it has long since stopped working automatically.
"Not much to look at I'm afraid" The pink extraterrestrial bellowed in Red's direction "Just piles of junk".
And said alien was right, the only thing the taller being saw was scraps of metal, old furniture that it seems it has been here for years, Red was sure he even saw a rat-like thing eat away a smaller rat thing, this made Red want to puke.
Which he did.
"This place is disgusting".
"Well what do you expect?" The Vortian spat in annoyance "No one's been here since Zim left the place".
Red froze.
"Wha-what did you say?" He turned around, not sure he heard correctly.
"Didn't you know?" 777 asked while he keeps fixing the vessel with a screwdriver "This is or rather was Invader Zim's quarters".
Red gaped at him "Please tell me you're joking"
"Afraid not."
Time seemed to freeze right there.
And the ex-tallest entered hell.
"It's actually a good thing thought" The pink alien continued talking "The moron left behind a lot of things for us to use, the tools to get this baby working again."
777 patted the ship three times.
"Not to mention your disguise, the electric cards, and of course your new eyes were once his ocular implants.
Just then Red sank to his knees and yelled dramatically "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
At that moment he even tried to scratch his eyes out which of course 777 tried to prevent.
"Ironic" Red thought darkly "The maggot I exiled is saving my life even when he's NOT really here".
"Red please, stop weeping… your starting to cause me some unpleasant mental scars". 777 quipped awkwardly.
"WUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Needless to say that watching the former leader of the most powerful empire in existence slowly losing his mind was actually the best show 777 received in years, despite the fact he told said Irken to quit his crying, inside he was enjoying his misery and pain.
One moment Red was weeping like a little smeet and the next he's laughing uncontrollably.
"I got his eyes!" He said between laughs "I got his old eyes!"
"Yes you do" 777 said slowly "I should probably tell him they will explode if…."
"BOOM!!"
"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!"
"If he continues to poke them". 777 finished the thought in dismay.
"I'M BLIND!!" Red screamed like a madman "I'M BLIND!! HELP ME!! MY EYESOCKETS ARE ON FIRE!!"
"CALM DOWN!!" 777 ordered sharply "rolling your eyes on the floor is not gonna help at all!"
Red continued to roll his flaming eye sockets on the cold hard floor anyway.
It took sixteen minutes to get the eyes to stop their pain burning.
After that, Red had to go through a painful eye surgery.
Painful because no anesthetics were available.
The green alien was blind for two weeks.
And during that time he almost got caught.
Had he not escaped in time.
Too bad 777 was still stuck on Irk, because he was not so lucky.
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End Flashback.
Red was looking out the window at the weirdness of the planet Earth, not really paying attention to anything he saw, his mind was lost in the time he was a fugitive on his home planet, it was a big annoyance and discomfort knowing that no matter what, Zim always managed to cause some stress one way or another even when he technically wasn't there.
Not just physically but in his pride and dignity, the little pest he exiled years ago became the last hope he had for getting his high position as the ruler of the universe back, he felt sick to his very core that he had to use things Zim used in his youth.
He felt vile.
He felt like a victim of a cruel joke.
"Squeak".
Red woke up from his daydreaming and turned his head eyeing the floating moose hastily. "Ex-excuse me?".
"He said that Karma's a bitch" Zim said vehemently.
The ex-tallest now faced Zim confused "Karma?" He asked "What's Karma?"
"It's a human thing" The other Irken responded emotionless "It's basically an old saying that what comes around goes around, meaning that no bad deed gets unpunished".
"Oh you're fucking kidding me!" Red bellowed "You done worse things than me and nothing bad has happened to you so tell me, where IS your so called Karma?!"
"Is in this car with me" Zim replied coldly.
"Oh that's gotta sting!" Reb chortled happily.
"Squeak!"
"What the hell did he just call me?! Red screamed.
"MiniMoose didn't call you anything, he says that this situation is a good example of karma" Zim translated, and then he gave the slightly taller alien a malevolent smirk "So tell me how ARE my old eyes suiting you?"
Red gaped at the ex-invader "WH-what?"
"I'm curious… I mean surely they are great… after all I made them but it always had the malfunction of exploding when I scratched them too much".
That was enough to tell Red that Zim knew of his past suffering, whether it was a form of revenge or not, the older Irken couldn't tell "How-how did you know?"
Zim just gave another evil smirk "That's for me to know and you to find out".
"MiniMoose can read minds" Reb said offhandedly.
"REB!!"
"What?" She asked innocently "He wanted to know".
Things were not looking good right about now.
"WHAT?!" Red exploded.
The "what" could be heard from Earth right over to Blorch where some Slaughtering Rat people where slaving away at the valet parking section of their home world.
The giant rats got shocked by the electric collars they wore because they looked at their night sky.
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Back on Earth:
"Oh goody, here we go again" Zim said in fake excitement.
"YOU PROBE MY MIND?!"
"No I didn't" Zim said casually then pointed at the floating moose "He did."
"Squeak"
"WHY?!"
"Why, I'll" tell you why, because I don't trust you!"
If Red wasn't shocked by Zim's change in attitude and appearance then he sure as hell was now, it was just an overwhelming occurrence in the eyes of the Ex-Tallest, an Irken whether an invader, a fry cook or even a table headed service drone always had complete fait in their leaders, they even gave them their trust without even so much of as a second thought and here he was Zim, a member of his own race and a defective one no less showing absolutely no respect, no adoration, not even the slightest hint of trust, just indifference, hatred and prejudge.
And this was just wrong, no lower Irken was suppose to hate him, Red was suppose to do the hating!
Just as Red was about to mouth slash him for his disrespect the car stop and the taller of the two aliens hits his face against the windshield.
"Ouch" The alien moaned in pain.
Zim and the others got their seatbelts off and got out of the Ferrari but right before Red could get out, the former invader gave him a cocky grin and said "See?, this why you gotta wear your seatbelt"
He shut the door just as his former ruler began to scream things in their native tongue, and you can all bet they are things not meant to be heard by sensitive ears.
Reb who was once again in her holographic disguised just stared in annoyance at the building her soon to be master had brought them to.
"The Post Office?" She asked incredulously "What the hell are we doing here?"
"Doing my job"
MiniMoose just gave a mysterious smile "Squeak"
"Just make sure neither Reb nor the madman in my car destroy anything" Zim muttered ironically.
"Hey!" Reb protested "I resent that!"
Zim smirked.
"What exactly are we here anyway?"
"Stay here, I'll be back" The defective commanded.
Reb was irritated that she was not given any answers and even more so than her mistress was in space in a ship going to who knows where and to top it off, this fool had to stop at a place where nothing useful could be done.
So the robot jumped with the every intention of hurting her future master to a pulp, not caring if he ended up in a bad shape, all she cared about was her mistress, nothing else mattered.
The defective didn't see the upcoming attack and MiniMosse didn't bother to warn him, Zim simply knocked on a big light-bulb three times and suddenly a secret door opened right bellow his feet and the Irken disappeared.
Zim saved himself just in time, because if he hadn't disappeared then Reb would have cracked his green head in two.
"Where he go?" Reb asked in confusion.
"Squeak"
"What do you mean you don't know?!" She raged.
The purple moose just did a barrel roll with a smile on his face.
Reb screamed in sync with the remaining alien of the group.
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Meanwhile:
Zim was currently going down a tube that was going at an incredible speed, he was in fact going so fast that he had to shut his eyes and his wig was slipping off so he had to put a gloved hand over it to make sure that crucial part of his disguise wouldn't get lost in the tube and head to a different part of the organization.
It was from a very bad past experience that Zim should have a spare wig should he lose the original one, during his time as a spy, weather inside the organization or out in the field, his true identity was almost revealed on several occasions, one of the most unpleasant ones was when he was being experimented on by an enemy organization and he actually started to grow hair.
Needless to say that even thought the original purpose was to kill him, it ended up saving him because one of the scientists screwed up the formula of the "poison" and instead they ended up making him into a freak of nature.
When Zim escaped humans ended up confusing him with a Sasquatch and he was so humilliated because he got shot with a tranquilizer gun in the ass.
The Irken shuddered at the memory and suddenly came back to reality since he was in the organization for a reason.
To do his job.
But for the first time ever, Zim had no desire to go to another country and kill anyone or resvue anyone or whatever, right now his main prority was to leave the planet, after all a woman who he has not seen in years need him (or so he told himself, since deep down he knew Gaz could take care of herself).
But today's ealier performance seems to indicate otherwise.
Zim got out of the tube and was now in front of an automatic door, he puts his hand on an I.D scan thingy and the door splits in two, the Irken goes trough it and heads down the stairs.
Once he is in the last step of the stairs yet another door is seen, it opens automatically and he walks into a corridor, as Zim walks many camaras lock onto him, watching him with cold eyes, the Irken was used to this sort of thing so he ignored the fact that his boos was watching him.
Another door is seen and it opens from the bottom, on the other side of the metalic door a straight yellow line is seen on the floor, automatically the alien follows it, it directs him to a set of bars, said bars split in two, the half dissapearing into the right side and the other to the left side.
At last a phone booth is seen, to anomal person one would think "what the hell?" but to Zim it said "we been expecting you".
He got inside the telephone booth grabs the phone, dialed the number 24 and hangs up, another tunnel opens right bellow his feet and Zim dissapears yet again.
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The Boss's office:
The mysterious man who was in charge of the spy organization of the United States was currently sitting in his big confy chair waiting for one of his most destructive but surprisingly smart agent.
A part of the celling opened and Zim oh so unceremonously made his appearance.
He crashed on the chair that was in front of the man's very expensive looking desk.
"Ouch" Zim groaned in pain.
"Agent 24" The Boss spoke "What took you so long?"
"Nice to see you too chief" Zim said dryly.
"Ho many times have I asked you not to call me that?"
"I don't know, how many times have you promised me a month's vacation and I never get to finish it?"
The Boss grinned "Touché"
Zim got up from the floor and rubbed his abused back "So, what's the emergency Boss?"
The man's grin was replaced by a frown "You haven't heard the news have you?"
"Like I told Avery a few hours ago I was in the middle of something VERY important so, nope, I have not seen the news."
"You really do need a vacation" The human remark.
Zim nodded "Sadly, that doesn't look like it's gonna happen anytime soon, so what's up?"
"The president was kidnapped"
The disguised alien gaped "You're fucking kidding me", then he realized what just happened and couldn't help but smirk, he just said what Gaz had told him last night on their first meeting in years.
Normally showing disrespect to their superior was a direct violation but the Boss figured that Zim's surprise gave him enough of a reason to swear.
"I'm afraid I'm not kidding you Agent 24." Just as the man said this he pressed a red button on the bottom of his desk and a large screen appeared behind him, both he and Zim looked at it and footage of Skoodge's speech was rolling, just then Zim felt his heart stop at the sight of an enemy he hoped wouldn't cause him any more problems.
"Sizz-Lorr"
The Irken felt his fingers go right through his gloves, the anger was like something he never felt, first he kidnaps the woman he had feelings for and now the massive alien just had to up the ante by kidnapping one of the few friends he had on the planet.
It was amazing just hot Gir's "death" had changed him, maybe if things hadn't been so screwed up Zim would still be the same oblivious and arrogant little alien bent on slaving all mankind but things had changed but for the better, he felt happy, because for the first time in his life he felt he had a purpose, he felt he wasn't a failure, he felt at home.
And now his past just HAD to catch up with him in the worst way imaginable.
"So what's my mission?" Zim asked darkly "To find the president and kill the bastard?"
The Boss raised an eyebrow skeptically thought you can't really tell because his face couldn't be seen "Not kill him but bring him here, the people want to know who the captor is"
"The people?"
"Yes our people" The Boss clarified "Every agent on the field is searching the globe for the president, wanting to cause some real pain to his captors, some believe terrorists from Afghanistan or France are behind this"
Zim snorted "If they only knew the truth."
"So while… Skoodge is not… available" The alien tried to use the right words for his question "Who is gonna rule the Earth?"
His Boss looked incredulously at him "Are you brain damage?"
"No, but I could have a cat-scan to verify that"
The man puts his hands in front of his face in annoyance .
"Zim, while the president is not in Washington, the vice-president will take his post." He answered "I believe you meet him, his name is Richard Horvitz"
"Ah yes I remember him, he's pretty cool."
"Enough small talk, you'll be paired with Agent 36 and start working right away."
"What a minute, PAIRED UP?!" Zim shrieked "Sir with all due respect I work alone"
"Yes I know Zim" The Boss told him in exasperation "But even if you are one of the best secret agents I got even you can't do this search alone so that's that!"
Zim said something about "Damn humans and their rules" but is superior being used to the strange behavior of the Irken simply ignored him and went right to business.
The Boss pressed another button and the intercom came to life "Avery?"
"Yes Sir?"
"Sent Agent 36 in"
"Right away Sir"
And the communication died.
A few seconds later a bookcase started to move and a metallic wall appeared, then the wall moved and agent 36 entered the room"
"Agent 36 reporting for duty!"
The room froze right then because the next thing that happened cetanly shocked both agents.
"Zim?"
"Jess?"
"WHAT THE HLL ARE YOU DOING HERE!" They both asked
"I WORK HERE!" Once again they replied in perfect sync.
"WHAT?!"…. YOU DO?!"
"So you two know each other"
Both Agents wre dumbfounded to say the least.
Things just got interesting.
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Well my friends that was chapter nine sorry that there was no Gaz in this chapter but right now I felt like writing about Zim and his oh so wonderful life on Earth.
I was laughing all the time I was picturing how Zim and Jess would find out the other is a secret agent for the same organization, the idea amused me greatly, It's too bad I couldn't find a more humorous way for their encounter.
Just so you know Zim's entrance to the building as well as his relationships with his Boss and Agent 36 are completely a parody of the 1960's series "Get Smart".
Except for the fact that Zim and Jess have no romantic feelings like Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 do for each other and unlike The Chief of CONTROL The Boss has no trouble sending those bellow him to their deaths.
Did anyone catched the inside joke about why Zim said Richard Horvitz is "pretty cool"?
Next time I update thing will be mainly on Gaz and Tak's POV AND if I fell like it, I'll do Dib's POV as well.
Well that it, hope ya enjoyed this long overdue chapter and tell me watcha thought about it.
Till next time my fellow writers.
Oh and before I fotget today is Jhonen Vasquez's BIRTHDAY! LET'S SING HIM A HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHALL WE?!
WHOO!
Invader Johnny Signing Off.
