Hi, everyone! Sorry that's it's been so long. Over a month...sheesh.

I've been BUSY! Work, moving, graduation, Mother's Day, work...oh wait, I already said "work". My job sucks.

NOTE: There will probably be grammar mistakes which I will fix later.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Zim grumbled as the Voot Cruiser zoomed through another glaxay. GIR was humming happily next to Zim as he listened to an upbeat pop song on the radio while Skoodge sat behind him in the back of the ship, muching on some blackberries that Zim brought with him.

"Cheer up, Zim," Skoodge said merrily as he plopped another berry into his mouth and chewed. "You'll feel better about yourself after this is all over. Even if we get killed and fail to save Tenn, we'll still be heroes."

"If we do end up dead," Zim turned around and glared at the fatter Irken, "I'm going to kill you."

Skoodge blinked in confusion and stopped chewing. "Uh, what? That doesn't make sense."

"I don't care if it doesn't make sense!" Zim yelled angrily. "Just try not to get us killed and stick to the plan!"

"We're here!" GIR happily announced.

"Eh?" Zim turned his attention back to the window. They were approaching a very large planet that glowed a brilliant blue color, no doubt the homeworld of the Meekrob. "Oh, good. Our rescue mission begins now."

"Yay! We're gonna die!" GIR cheered.

Suddenly, the transmitter on the control panel began to beep. "Everyone, be quiet!" Zim shouted. "We're receiving a transmission from them!" He pushed the button to accept the call and cleared his throat. "'Ello!" he spoke with a fake heavy British accent. "This is Zyro from Sector D-4!"

Zyro? someone answered on the transmitter. The registered sex offender?

Zim's eyes bugged out and he began to sweat. He was not expecting this. "Uh..." his voice cracked for a second. "Y-Yes, the uh...what you said."

"What's a sex offender?" GIR innocently asked.

Skoodge quickly put his hand over the robot's mouth, but the person on the other line already heard him. Who is there with you?

"Oh, that is just my colleague, uh...Boot-toot," Zim said with nervous laugh.

"Boot-toot?" Never heard of-

"AND we have another Irken prisoner! The Irken Empire secretly sent him to rescue the other prisoner, Invader Tenn. But we caught him, and we are bringing him in now!"

Really? the voice sounded pleasantly surprised. Good work, Zyro! You've redeemed yourself today. We'll meet you and Boot-toot down at the station.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief once the transmission ended. "Whew!" Zim wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead. "That was a close one. Now quickly, GIR, get your disguise on."

"My name is...hee hee...Boot-toot!" GIR giggled.

...

A small crowd of Meekrob gathered around the spaceship dock as the Voot Cruiser landed. Air came hissing out as the window slid open, and the first one to step out was Skoodge, who was in cuffs. Zim and GIR followed, both of them draped in white sheets with eye holes cut into them. Thanks to Zim's glow sticks and GIR's lights, their sheets had a blue glow to them, giving them a somewhat Meekrob appearance.

Well, not really.

Zim did have a holographic projection device that could give them much better and more accurate disguises, but Skoodge accidentally sat on it one day. So all they had to work with were regular bed sheets.

But surprisingly (then again unsurprisingly), the Meekrob bought it and gave them a warm welcome.

One of them floated forward and circled around Skoodge. "So...you thought you could sneak past us and rescue your comrade?" he said in a cold chilling voice. "Ha! When will you Irkens ever learn?"

Skoodge put on a brave, angry face. "You think I'm afraid of you blobs?! When I get out of these cuffs, I'm gonna squeeze the jelly right out of your-"

Zim slapped him on the back of his head hard. "Silence, prisoner!" he shouted with a fake accent.

The fat Irken looked at him with eyes full of hurt. "Owww, Zim," he whined. "That really hurt."

But Zim slapped him again. "Shush!" he whispered harshly in his normal voice.

"Slap da monkey!" GIR squealed as he slapped Skoodge on the butt, causing him to cry out in pain.

"Ooh, that looks fun!" the Meekrob said. "Let me have a go at it!" He formed an ectoplasmic hand and slapped Skoodge across the cheek. "Ha ha! Splendid!"

Skoodge's eye twitched and his cheek burned as it became red.

"Okay, that's enough slapping for the day," Zim grabbed Skoodge by the arm and started to drag him away. "I'll just take the Irken scum to the correctional facility."

"Now wait just a moment!"

They all stopped dead in their tracks as the Meekrob floated after them. Zim gulped nervously as he turned around along with the rest. "Um, yes?"

"You're going the wrong way," the Meekrob pointed in the opposite direction with his tentacle. "It's over there, next to the coffee shop and art studio."

A dark and gloomy eight-story building towered over two smaller ones, the more cheerful coffee shop which had a smiley face as its logo, and the fancy art studio.

"Oh, yes, of course," Zim chuckled nervously as they walked past the Meekrob. "Thank you."

"Wait!"

The Meekrob stopped them once again, and Zim rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath. What now?

"Just once more," the Meekrob said right before he slapped Skoodge on the cheek once again. He laughed and waved them off as he left to rejoin his group. "Okay, you may go."

Skoodge began to tear up, his cheek now burning. "Man, Meekrob are mean," he said with a sniffle.

Getting into the the prison was easy enough. Thanks to their not-so-clever disguises, the guards allowed them to walk right in. Once they were away from the prying eyes of the Meekrob, Zim and GIR discarded their bed sheets. Staring at them from behind the glass doors of their cells were hundreds of aliens, a variety of species, from Vortians to Rat people. But Invader Tenn had been deemed a public enemy and was therefore placed in a maximum security cell, which was on the very top floor.

"Awwww...he looks so lonely in there," GIR walked over to one of the doors and tapped on the glass. The one-eyed, red-skinned, pointy-eared alien stared at the robot for a moment, before he let out a blood-chilling scream that nearly made Skoodge and Zim jump out of their skins.

"GIR!" Zim ran over to him and pulled him away from the door. "Are you trying to make a scene?!"

GIR paused before nodding his head. "Yep!"

"Heyyyyyyy!"

Everyone turned to see a blue Vortian pressing his face against the glass of his door. He stared at them with his tiny green dots of eyes. "What are you guys doing here?!" he screeched. Zim's antennas twitched in pain. Was this Vortian deaf or something?

"Shhhh! Please!" Skoodge pleaded. "We're on a rescue mission!"

"Are you here to rescue that Irken chick?!" the Vortian screamed even louder.

"Silence, Vortian!" Zim marched right up to the cell and held up a threatening fist. "Or face my iron fist of fury and pain!"

"Your what?!" the Vortian tilted his head. "Hey, could you guys bust me outta here, too?!"

"Yeah!" GIR said, eagerly tugging at Zim's arm. "Let him join the party!"

Zim merely scoffed. "Why should we rescue you? What could you possibly contribute to our team?"

"I'm a Vortian scientist, you know! I can build you stuff and uh...build you even more stuff! Pleeease! Pleeeeeeeee-!"

"Okay, okay, fine! Just stop your infernal shouting!" Zim rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. "As soon as we rescue the Irken, we'll come back for you."

The Vortian looked at him with a worried expression. "You promise?!"

"Yes, yes! Now let's get going! We're wasting time!" Zim dragged GIR and Skoodge with him to the elevator. They all stepped inside and Zim pressed the button to take them to the top floor.

"Hey, Zim? Could you get these cuffs off?" Skoodge held his bound wrists out. "They're starting to give me a rash." Once Zim removed them, Skoodge sighed in relief and rubbed his itching wrists. "Hey, are we really gonna bust that Vortian out of jail?"

"No," Zim answered, impatiently tapping his foot.

"But you promised-"

"We're here to rescue Tenn and that's it. Got it?"

"...Got it."

Dirty, explicit rap music played through the speakers as they slowly went up. Zim covered GIR's antenna (which was his "ear"), while Skoodge nodded his head to the rhyme. "I like this elevator music," he said with a smile.

Once they got to the top, the doors slid open...to reveal thousands of SIR units crawling all over the room like insects. They all babbled incoherently and giggled like hyperactive children. Many of them were latched onto a cage that hovered in the air, banging their heads against the bars and dancing around on the top.

Curled up in a ball and trembling in fear, Invader Tenn lifted her head from under her arms and her ruby eyes widened in surprise when she saw her rescuers.

"Invader Tenn!" Skoodge shouted. He was about to run out of the elevator but Zim quickly grabbed him by the coller of his tunic.

All of the SIRs turned their heads toward the trio, staring blankly at them with their glowing red eyes. "PLAY!" they suddenly shouted in unison, crawling and swarming towards them.

Zim and Skoodge screamed in terror and frantically pushed the button to close the doors. Luckily they shut right before the crazy, malfunctioning robots could get in. The impact of their bodies hitting the metal doors left large dents.

"Hoo boy," Skoodge sighed as he leaned against the wall. "We did not prepare for this. What are we gonna do now, Zim?"

Said Irken sat down on the floor and rubbed his chin as he tried to think of a solution to this predicament. Indeed they were not prepared for this. He could see now why an experienced and gifted Invader such as Tenn couldn't escape from the facility. Nothing is more dangerous than malfunctioning SIR units. They were unpredictable, unstable, un-

Zim's antenna went straight up as he came up an idea. He turned to GIR and smiled, who smiled back even though he didn't know why.

...

As the elevator doors slid open once again, GIR hopped out and waved at all the other robots with his tiny arms. "HIIIIIIIII, FRIENDS!" he yelled. The elevators quickly closed but not all the way, leaving a crack for Zim and Skoodge to peek through.

"HIIIIIII!" the SIRs yelled back, waving at him.

"LET'S PLAY A GAME!"

"YAAAAAAAY!" They all gathered around him in a large circle, giggling and chatting excitedly. The cage was now abandoned and Tenn sighed in relief. After nearly a year of being surrounded by crazed, deadly robots, she was finally left alone.

"Let's play 'Simon Says'!" GIR announced, earning him a loud cheer.

Zim and Skoodge watched through the crack and waited for the right moment to come out, holding their breaths.

"Simon sayyyyyyys...touch your eyeball!" GIR touched his left eye, and all of the SIRs did the same. "Okay, stop! Now Simon sayyyyys...spin your heads!" His head twirled round and round at top speed, and so did theirs. "Okay, stop! Simon sayyyys...hop on one leg!" They all bounced up and down on their right legs.

Inside the elevator, Zim grumbled as he was growing impatient. "Come on, GIR, say it already...!"

As though he had heard his master, GIR stopped hopping. "Okay! Simon sayyyyys...EXPLODE!" he shouted with a big smile.

The SIR's stared at him for a moment before they all shouted in glee, "FINALLY!"

BOOM!

All at once, the robots disappeared in puffs of smoke, completely disintegrating. Only GIR was left standing, and Zim and Skoodge immediately ran out of the elevator.

"Good work, GIR!" Zim patted him on the top of his metal head. "I knew I could count on you!" GIR giggled and beamed at the praise he was receiving. "Now free Invader Tenn!"

GIR saluted his master and said in a serious voice, "Yes, sir!" before he lauched toward the cage using the jets in his feet. He crashed right through the bars and Tenn immediately backed away in fear.

"S-Stay back!" she yelled, hiding her face behind her arms and shaking like a leaf.

GIR tilted his head in confusion before he smiled at her. "Hiya! I'm...hee hee...Boot-toot!"

"GIR, we're done with that!" Zim called up to him from below.

"I like that name!" GIR whined. "I wanna be Boot-toot!"

"GIR-"

"BOOT-TOOT!"

"OKAY, FINE! WHATEVER! JUST GRAB HER ALREADY!"

"Yes, sir!" GIR ran over to Tenn and picked the Irken up, holding her over his head. Despite being small, GIR was incredibly strong and could pick up things five hundred times his own weight...at least.

Tenn immediately began to scream and squirm. "NO! NO! PUT ME DOWN!"

But GIR ignored her and jumped down from the cage with her in his arms. He landed on the ground with ease and put Tenn down. She ran away from the robot and hid behind Skoodge, wrapping her arms around his large frame and hiding her face in the back of his fat neck.

Feeling her arms around him and her hot breath on his skin...Skoodge couldn't understand why, but he wanted her to hold him like this forever. He didn't want to lose this strange new warmth that was in his chest. Without thinking, he slowly reached to touch the hand that was on his left rib...

"This is no time for hugs!" Zim abruptly interrupted the moment and ran to the elevator with GIR. "We need to leave now!"

Skoodge slowly and gently got out of her grip, turning to face her. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he was at a loss for words as he looked into her eyes. How could Irken eyes be any redder?

"HELLO?!" Zim's angry voice snapped him back to reality.

"Um, heh, ladies first," Skoodge smiled shyly at her and gestured to the elevator. Tenn paused before she stepped inside, staying as far away from GIR as possible. The robot, completely oblivious to her fear of him, only gave her a big friendly smile with his tongue sticking out.

Back at the station, Zim, GIR, and Tenn all sat in the Voot Cruiser, still waiting for Skoodge to arrive as they had been for the past fifteen minutes. The fat Irken claimed that he still had "something to do" back at the prison, although he didn't specify what.

"Something's wrong," Tenn softly said from the back of the ship. "Maybe we should go back?"

Zim sighed exasperatedly, impatiently tapping the control panel. "We'll give him three more minutes."

"O-Okay. Hey, Zim?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you rescue me? I-I mean, the Tallest, themselves, wouldn't come for me."

"Well, to tell you the truth," Zim leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. "I could care less about what happens to you. Skoodge pretty much forced me to save you."

Tenn blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. I think he wants to mate with you or something."

"...Come again?"

BOOM!

A very loud explosion in the distance behind them shook the ground along with the ship. "What in...?!" Zim opened the window and peeked over the ship to see what the commotion was all about. His ruby eyes bugged out and his antenna flattened. "Oh, no."

The prison was now engulfed in flames and Skoodge was running toward the ship...with that loud Vortian following close behind.

"Nonononononono! NO! Absolutely not!" Zim shook his head and wagged his finger at them. "We are NOT bringing him with us!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure!" Skoodge dismissed him and hopped into the ship with the Vortian. "Step on it! They'll be coming after us!"

"Of all the-!" Zim growled and pulled at his antenna in frustration. "Fine! Let's just go already!" He started the ship and they took off at full speed. As they were leaving the planet's atmosphere, the radar began to beep at an alarming rate. Seven to eight green dots, which indicated enemy ships, were headed straight toward them. "They're right on our tail!" Zim turned around to glare at Skoodge, who smiled sheepishly. "You just had to rescue him too, didn't you?" he hissed as he pointed to the Vortian.

"Well...you did promise," Skoodge pointed out meekly.

"Yeah, you did!" the Vortian yelled, slapping Skoodge on back in a friendly matter. "Your friend's a good person, ya know that?!"

"He's a moron!" Zim growled before turning to his robot servant. "GIR, quickly! We-"

GIR pouted and glanced away as he crossed his arms.

Zim sighed heavily and shook his head. "Boot-toot."

The robot immediately stood at attention and salutated him as his eyes glowed red. "Yes, sir?"

"Bring out the cloak!"

"Yes, my master!"

"Don't you mean, 'cloaking device'?" Tenn asked nervously. "You do have a cloaking device, right?"

"Nope," Zim replied.

GIR pulled a nearly folded sheet with crater prints from out of a drawer. "Time to play hide-and-seek!"

...

The Meekrob ships followed the signal to an asteroid belt, but they couldn't find the Voot Cruiser anywhere.

"Do you see them, Dek?" a Meekrob pilot spoke to another ship through a transmitter.

No, sir, I do not. You think perhaps the asteroids destroyed their ship?

"Hmmm...perhaps, because there's simply no cloaking device that could ever hide them from us. Maybe if we're lucky, we'll find their limbs and have a little bonfire. That would be fun. Let's head on back home, then."

The ships turned around and roared as they sped away, and once they were out of sight, one of the asteroids suddenly began to wobble. Actually, it was the large cloak that covered the entire Cruiser.

GIR stood on top of the ship with the cloak flowing in his hand. "Bye bye, jellyfish guys!" he waved in the direction the Meekrob went.

Inside the ship, Skoodge sighed in relief. "Wow. That was a close one. So where will we be going now, Zim? Back to Earth?"

Zim didn't answer and only drove the ship out of the asteroid belt.

...

"Planet Dirt?" Tenn looked around at said planet's monstrous landfills with disgust as they landed. "What are we doing here?"

The front window slid open and Zim stood up in his seat, facing the others. "Well, Invader Tenn, we have freed you from planet Meekrob and our business with you is therefore finished. Have a nice life on this planet." He waved his hands to shoo her away. "Go on now. Get out of my ship." He turned to the Vortian. "You, too, uh...whatever your name is."

"Boot-toot!" the Vortian shouted.

"...Eh?"

"That's my name! Boot-toot! That robot and I have the same name, which is really cool!"

GIR gasped out loud and squealed in delight, giving the Vortian a big hug. "We brothers!"

"His name is not really..." Zim did a facepalm and shook his head. "Just-eh-whatever! Get out of my ship, both of you!"

"What'd I do?" GIR whined, giving Zim the sad puppy dog eyes.

"Not you, GIR. Tenn and that Boot-toot guy."

Tenn looked up at Zim horrified. "Now wait, can't we talk about this first? What am I supposed to do on a planet made of nothing but garbage?"

Zim shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. I'm sure you could build a house out of used paper cups or something. GIR here is actually made of garbage and he turned out okay...sorta."

"Zim, wait," Skoodge stood up. "Are we really gonna through with this? We went through so much to get Tenn out of there. We can't just toss her into the garbage, literally."

"Skoodge, we are done here," Zim said through gritted teeth.

Skoodge narrowed his eyes in anger and shook his head. "No, Zim, we're not done. We could bring Tenn and Boot-toot with us to Earth. They could help us keep the planet clean and regrow plants and trees at a much faster rate. After all, four heads are better than two."

"Hey!" GIR gave him a pouty look.

"Oh, sorry, I mean, five heads are better than three." Skoodge gave Zim a small smile and touched his shoulder. "Come on, Zim. Just give Tenn a chance. If you can teach me how to appreciate nature, then you can teach her. So...what do you say?"

Zim just stared at him for a moment, his expression hard to interpret.

...

"I can't believe he dumped me here on this filthy planet," Skoodge grumbled, kicking an empty soda can away. "Jerk."

Tenn sat on a cardboard box with her chin resting in her hands while Boot-toot searched through a crashed, bent up Voot Cruiser, looking for spare parts and wires.

"I think I have enough parts to make a toaster!" the Vortian announced happily as he poked his head through the broken window. "And we can have molded French toast for breakfast!"

Tenn groaned as she buried her face in her hands. "I should've stayed on Meekrob."

...

"I miss Skoodge," GIR sniffled as he looked out the window. He felt his master's hand rub his head.

"We'll come back for him, GIR," Zim softly assured him. "In a couple of years. Now cheer up. At least you still have Dib to play with back on Earth."

GIR instantly perked up. "Yeah! I really missed Mary!"

Zim chuckled and fondly patted his robot. "Yes, well, I'm sure he's missed us as well. I wondering how he's doing at this moment?"

Oh, Zim. If you only knew... :(

Before you freak out about Skoodge being abandoned on Planet Dirt, don't worry. There's a reason why he's there, along with Tenn and Boot-toot.

That's such a fun name. Boot-toot. Hee hee! X)