Chapter 10: Nineteen

He felt sick.

Sick, cold, and empty.

He couldn't think properly, his brain overloaded from shock - stuck on the thing that caused the overload. Nineteen. The nineteenth kill...the nineteenth life he'd taken... the one he actually remembered killing, mutilating with his own claws... and she hadn't even deserved it... he didn't think any of them deserved it. He couldn't remember any of the other eighteen, but he was sure they didn't deserve it.

But what if they had?

What if...

His mind filled with these thoughts, he stood trembling amongst others of his kind, wishing they would go away so he wouldn't end up killing them as well. They ignored him, a tallish male with eyes the color of grape juice, wearing a wine-colored trainee uniform, holding what appeared to be a stuffed Irken doll to his chest as though it was the only thing keeping him from fainting. They ignored him, brushing past so they could stand a little closer to the stage, intrigued by their new Tallest's second announcement.

He had followed them without listening, letting his feet move him off the transport from Darmok and into the crowd on Irk as he just trembled and hugged the doll to his chest, a doll that had blood droplets on its head and streaks on its sides, blood that was nearly dry because of how long it had taken the transport to get here, blood that had been on his hands, blood that had been inside his friend...

Squishy. Poor Squishy. Squishy had almost loved him, if that was possible for the Irken breed.

He already knew he was Defective because he thought of it that way, but he didn't care, nor did he care that these thoughts, this recurring spiral was causing the crowd around him to blur, tears stubbornly staying inside the orbs until someone carelessly bumped into him and nearly knocked the doll from his grasp, where the panic from almost losing it caused them to bubble out and down his cheeks, upon which he let his head drop so the others wouldn't see, as if they even cared in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Squishy..." He whimpered to the doll, earning a few concerned glances from the others Irkens around him, glances that he couldn't see nor feel. "It wasn't me... I swear it wasn't me..."

The doll's cold gaze appeared to forgive him... just in time for his antennae to catch something from the real world. He wouldn't have heard it, had it not been a poisonous voice, lancing through the airwaves.

"Citizens, soldiers, whatever you are," Said the voice. "The project is finished, and the initial test run has been a success."

He lifted his head in order to see the speaker, and saw without surprise it was Tallest Black, standing on stage with a mass of black-eyed Irkens behind her. The Irkens' eyes were... wrong, somehow. As though they were dead. This pushed the shock back just a little, enough for him to put the doll carefully into his PAK, standing a little straighter and wiping his eyes so he wouldn't stand out from the crowd.

"Now I will need a living test subject. It works on the dead, but if it doesn't work on one of you, the hard work will be for naught."

No one volunteered. No one asked what she wanted them for. No one asked what the project was. He wasn't about to make himself the only one and so he remained still and silent as they were.

On stage, a platform rose up, and on it was this enormous machine. It looked more like a monster than a machine, with its three half-black windows like disapproving eyes, 'mouth' grimacing at them, and the cables that extruded from it like long, wicked tentacles. Black had raised the thing up and was not at all intimidated by it, even though it easily dwarfed her. The dead-eyed Irkens behind it remained still.

"No volunteers?" She asked, sounding a little disappointed. "Guess I'll have to manually pick someone."

From where he was standing he couldn't really see where her eyes scanned - until they pinpointed him. He felt them, more than saw them.

"You."

"M-me...?" His voice tumbled out in a squeak and he stupidly pointed at himself as he spoke.

"Yes, you."

He almost ran the other way, but her eyes had hypnotized him. They beckoned him forward, and he obeyed, half-running up to the stage, trying not to hit anyone as he couldn't take their aggression right now - who knew what he might do. Luckily for him, her selection of him made them make wide berths for him, as though her look was a disease.

Closer to their Tallest, he noticed she looked a little like he did - blanched, weak, as though she had the life sucked out of her. But unlike him, she wasn't succumbing to this state of weakness, as her grip was like iron when she dragged him over to the little platform in front of the machine, brusquely turning him around so that his back faced it and he could easily see the others' stares.

"What's your name, dear?" She purred, voice like sugar-coated acid.

"G-Gris, my Tallest." Voice a choked whisper.

Black turned to the others as a drone started up the machine behind him. "Gris will be the first of many hybrid soldiers, infused with my glorious genes. If it doesn't work... well, I'll have to pick someone else."

If it doesn't work...

"Hybrid? But aren't you Irken too?"

"I'm a different kind. A special kind." She flashed the one questioner a grin that may have been able to scar a newborn smeet for life. Then she turned back to Gris and the machine, and her gaze was directed over his head, at a drone.

"Begin the infusion."

There was a brief moment where he could have cried out, could have told them to stop. But he didn't. Or wouldn't. Something rammed into his back, attaching itself to his PAK, and the pain after that was unimaginable.

The other Irkens watched as he writhed on the cable like a worm on a hook, actually screaming in pain. When his eyes were open they could see them slowly turning from grape-juice to black, just like hers, and his face turned a similar sick gray-green as Black's as well. His PAK remained unchanged, as it had no spots to turn black. But other than that, they couldn't see why it was hurting him. They couldn't see what was happening inside... changing inside.

It was almost too much to watch, because he sounded like someone was stabbing him... and then he went silent. Went limp. Black frowned and turned to the drone, commanding him to stop the infusion. The cable popped off his PAK and he fell to the floor, landing facedown with a loud splat.

He looked quite dead.

"Hmm... that probably shouldn't have happened..." She remarked, hovering closer to the limp male.

As she was about to turn back to the others, probably to pick a new one or tell them they'd have to wait a bit for some adjustments to be made to the infusion device, Gris' left antenna twitched. Then his right. Then his arms slowly moved into a position where he could peel himself off the floor, staggering to his feet. The look on his face was quite unlike the meek little Irken who had come up here practically against his will. A grin that seemed to almost split his head was plastered there, black eyes glinting with madness.

Black's initial thought of this as a failure quickly changed. To her, this creature was a beautiful success... but he needed a new name. He was no longer the Irken Gris, as one could plainly see.

"What would you like to be called?" She asked, seeing as she was really bad at naming things.

The hybrid appeared to put deep thought into it, grin faltering for only a moment. Then he suddenly launched into a fit of crazed laughter, which he eventually calmed himself down from. The reason for the mirth was unknown, of course, to anyone but him. His eyes now had not only the light of madness, but that of a human child at Christmas.

"Xix! X-I-X! Nineteen!" He yelled. And then laughed again.

"Okay, Xix it is." She said, not at all phased by this behavior. "Show them what you are now capable of."

"Yes, Mother," He purred, to which Black flinched, but he didn't seem to notice.

His body went all black, eyes a pair of soulless white globs, and then he dropped into the floor, re-emerging from his Tallest's shadow, becoming material again. Then he changed his features so that he looked like one of the random Irkens in the crowd - right down to the uniform. When he returned to his prior form, she made a 'ta-da' type gesture at him.

"A new generation." She said proudly.

"Whatever you say, Mother," Xix agreed, and laughed.

Red had always prided himself on having a high liquor tolerance.

However, despite this tolerance, he'd only had two mugs of the fuel-looking stuff, and he was already quite sauced.

And rambling.

"I had an Empire once, y'know," He drawled, pushing the mug back to the bartender to get even MORE stuff. "But then... shumbitch shtole it... an' I died..."

"Why don't you get it back?" The barkeep said, meaning it as just a casual statement.

The other froze, eyes lighting up behind his Shloogorgh's goggles. "That's a great idea!" He yelled, jumping off the bar stool, only to stumble and fall flat on his ass. But he soon recovered, jumping up again. "That's exactly what I'll do! Show her!" And he fled, but first draining the newly refilled mug.

The bartender sighed and shrugged. Why did he always get the weird ones?

Red ran through the streets of Foodcourtia a lot like he would in a vehicle - swerving about and nearly hitting things. He knew exactly where he was going, despite his intoxication. He had heard of the way Zim had escaped this place the second time, and he supposed what worked for that stupid little Defect would work for someone as awesome as himself.

The Snacky Cab building soon appeared before him, and he stumbled inside, looking around for a cab that didn't have anyone in it. Once he found it he pounced on it, taking a moment to realize he was trying to get in it wrong and correcting himself, starting it up and flying it out. It looked like a little drunken bee, the way he flew it, but at least he hadn't hit anything yet.

Best of all, because the Foodening wasn't until two weeks from now, his cab wouldn't explode for no apparent reason.

Inside the thing he finally tossed off his Shloogorgh's uniform, which he then dropped out of the ship like a bomb. The garments fluttered back to their rightful home, right on top of Mr. Dwicky's head. Red laughed drunkenly at him as he passed and eventually maneuvered the cab out of the atmosphere, then he shed the ratty old thing covering his undersuit, which was actually rather sufficient if somewhat "sexy", shifting into a leather-like material and all..

He was still laughing when he hit another ship, and another, the little drunken bee smacking around anything that was metal and moved. And some that weren't metal but still moved. And some that were neither.

"So long, suckers!" He cried, holding up a small half-full bottle of a more tame drink - whiskey. "I've got a kill to ass and nobody's gonna stop me!"

In some other part of this wild and wacky void named space, our "heroes" have encountered the local po-po.

That is to say, intergalactic law inforcement.

"Boys, you know how much one of these babies cost to repair?"

By 'encountered' we mean 'crashed into the ship of', and by 'the local po-po', we mean 'a bad-ass looking alien'.

Said bad-ass looking alien was floating outside their ship, his breed or something or other making him immune to the effects of space on heads and breathing apparatuses. He looked as though he were writing them a ticket. And with every exchange, he would scribble something on it.

Dib, meanwhile, was banging his head on the controls, probably for being stupid. Or to knock himself out.

"Umm.. a lot?" Purple offered.

The alien gave a cold grin and nodded, speaking in a tone that one usually gives to retards and children. "Yes, a lot."

Zim grabbed Dib by the hair in order to stop him from beating his head further, seeing as he was pretty much the only one to fly them out of this - Gaz was too busy playing her game even now. She probably wouldn't take the wheel. And because Irkens can't fly it... they would be in deeper shit.

The cop noticed this and really looked over the practical murderers of his ship.

"What exactly are you, anyway?"

"We're Irkens." Purple said, before Zim could launch into a self-glorifying rant.

"Okay... and what about those two?" Pointing to Dib and Gaz.

"Humans."

"Hew-mans? Never heard of those..." He scratched his head with the pencil-hand. "Are they some kind of pet?"

Zim grinned. "Why yes. Yes they are."

The other fixed him with a dark, disapproving glare. "And you're letting your pet--" Jabbing a finger at Dib, "fly the ship? No wonder it had such a lousy flight. I'm amazed you got anywhere at all."

Dib glared at first the cop, and then Zim, as the cop wrote down something else. Purple smacked the smaller Irken in the back of the head, seeing as his decision to label Dib a pet cost them even more monies.

"And this thing - it's practically a lethal weapon!" Pointing to GIR.

"Let's go again!" Cried the robot.

"Oh, that's just GIR. She tied him to the roof to make room."

"That's still child endangerment."

Wordlessly, Purple reached over the duo's heads and held out his Tallest card. The cop took it, frowning slightly.

"Charges the current Tallest. See, it's still paying the ticket, without actually paying it..." Zim trailed off and ducked before he got smacked again, only to be smacked by Dib. Clearly, it was 'target Zim's head day' today. "It also pays for the damages to your ship."

The cop's frown deepened, and there was a frightening moment where they thought he wouldn't take the bait, leaving them with a debt that would probably haunt them for the rest of their lives. But then he sighed in defeat, handing it back to Purple after sliding it on the keypad next to his ticket pad. "Sneaky, but nothing says it won't work. Go on then, boys. And girl. And lethal weapon." With that he hovered over to where the Dibship had practically gutted the cop's ship (which did look rather expensive, and pretty), separating the two with a wrench and a kick. No, not the metal kind of wrench.

Emphatic, our quintet went.

When the wreckage of the cop's ship was behind them, Gaz was the one to break the silence.

"You do realize, if you keep using that thing, this Black character will trace it back to you," A slight smirk faintly registered on her lips. "And probably kill you. That should be enjoyable."

Purple blinked. He hadn't thought of that.

"Well, she hasn't yet!" Zim pointed out optimistically, and when Purple went to smack him, he suddenly whipped out the water gun still residing in his pocket. The Tallest reconsidered.

"Doesn't mean she won't, sooner or later."

Bereft of an argument, and their spirits seriously dampened by this statement (Purple really liked using his Tallest card for everything), the ship's interior became silent once again, save Gaz's game. There wasn't nearly enough time after that for them to get bored again, thank Irk, as Dib spotted something up ahead.

Something small and Twinkie-colored.

Swerving about like a drunken bee...

DUN DUN DUN.

Yes, I know, it's mean to release one chapter almost immediately after another, but my style is not "pick a day and post on every one of that day", it's "post the chapter when it's done".

I know what you're thinking.

"Who's that random Irken? Does he really matter? At all?"

He's significant. I SWEAR EET. He also means Black can make hybrids as well as zombies. And I've been wanting to write that part since I thought of the character Xix, so don't you dare bitch at me about it.

Red... lay off the booze.

Review it.