Smeets

The wind blew, sending the white petals around them in a swirling cloud, and Dib broke apart from them, finally ready to question their appearance. The first thing he noted was that they were both wearing black robes and armour.

"You're dressed for the occasion," he murmured, gesturing to their outfits, and Red sighed.

"Didn't have time to change," he said, a slight edge to his voice, and Dib looked up properly and gasped.

"What happened to you?" he asked, horrified.

"What? This?" Red replied breezily, gesturing to the many burns and slashes that were visible, and of course, the missing antenna. "Well, you know the nine circles of hell? Turns out there are ten. And Helio's in charge there."

"I… eh?" Dib was, unsurprisingly confused.

"I'll explain later," Red sighed, before adding brightly, "Any chance of something to eat?"

"S…Sure," Dib stuttered, "This way."

He led the two towards the palace, wondering what Zim would say when he saw them. And what they would say when they saw Zim. Purple gave an admiring whistle.

"I've never seen Zim's palace from the outside before," he said in wonder. Dib shrugged. He had become used to the enormous building before, though he had to admit that he had been impressed when he had first seen it. The palace was made entirely of (bullet-proof) glass, the windows clear and the walls tinted, so it sparkled like a diamond in the morning sun.

Dib took them round to the back entrance and walked in the direction of the dining room. He opened the door slowly and the Tallest sprinted over to the table that was loaded with junk food, not bothering with plates, simply stuffing fries and nachos and doughnuts into their mouths as though they thought they would disappear. Evidently wherever they had been, there hadn't been any snacks. Dib heard Zim's voice and turned to see him sitting miserably at a table, glaring at a salad and chasing the lettuce around with a fork.

"I never thought I'd starve to death in a dining hall," he grumbled to Flo, who sighed.

"Fine. Fine. I guess you can have some snacks, in memory of the Tallest, or something. But only one plate, d'you hear?"

Zim was up and over to the serving table before the second 'fine'. He was standing right next to the Tallest, so eager to eat the snacks he had craved for two days straight that he hadn't even noticed who they were. As he loaded up his plate, Dib tugged Red's arm and pointed at Zim. Red and Purple turned and looked at him. There was a second of silence, in which they glanced at each other. Then they burst out laughing, Purple spraying the drink that he had been gulping as he did so. Zim whipped around and dropped his plate.

"M… My… How…" he stuttered, and Flo looked up in shock. Red was bent double, and Purple was leaning against Dib's side for support as they laughed themselves silly, unable to control themselves. Flo leapt up and hurried over.

"My Tallest! You're alive? Dib, what's going on?"

Dib shrugged, laughing weakly himself at the mere sound of the Tallest's mirth. Zim was beginning to get a hold of himself.

"My Tallest! I thought you'd died! But… you're alive…"

"Look at him, Pur!!!" Red snorted, tears streaming down his face, shaking violently as he howled with laughter.

"I… Zim… You got fat!" Purple giggled, and as Zim's eyed flickered between them as he desperately tried to work out what had happened, how this was possible, Red looked up.

"Zim… Zim, say 'I'm an unstoppable eating machine'," he gasped, breathless from laughing, and Zim gulped.

"I'm… I'm an unstoppable eating machine," he said reluctantly, and Red shook his head impatiently; Zim had not produced the comedic effect he had been hoping for.

"No, Zim, say it like you said 'I'm an unstoppable death machine'. When you were in the bear suit," he snorted, and Zim winced, not wanting to go against the Tallest, but still wondering how they could be standing in front of him when they had died on the Massive.

"I'm an unstoppable eating machine," he repeated, and Purple threw himself down upon the floor and flailed his arms and legs as he whooped with laugher. Zim gave a nervous laugh, and Flo observed the scene in shell-shocked silence.

Zim's face flushed several shades darker as the Tallest continued to splutter uncontrollably, and eventually Dib stepped in.

"It's not that funny, you know," he said gently, touching Red's arm and gasping guiltily as Red recoiled with a wince of pain.

"Hey, hey, hey, that's tender," Red said angrily, and it was then that Flo noticed the obvious.

"Oh, my Tallest," she breathed, "What happened to your…"

But Red cut in, with a grin.

"Don't worry, Flo, I got it here," he said, pulling the antenna from his pocket. Flo gasped, and Zim's cheeks swelled with nausea as he looked at the severed appendage. Purple glanced up.

"Yeah, Helio sliced it off," he said, still giggling weakly, and Flo sank into a chair in revolted horror. By the time the Tallest had recounted their tale, however, even Purple had stopped laughing. Flo had her eyes squeezed shut and her antennas flat against her head, and Zim's face was deathly pale and waxy. Dib was speechless, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

"That…filthy, slimy little water-sucker," Zim gasped, and Red nodded in agreement. Flo groaned, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She bent double, and Dib looked at her, puzzled. Nobody else noticed. She straightened up again and cleared her throat.

"C…Can I show you to a room, my Tallest?" she asked in a shaky voice, and Purple nodded. She stood up and her legs crumpled beneath her; she sank to the floor and moaned softly. "Oh crap," she breathed, and Zim raised an eyebrow.

"Flo?"

She whimpered, a strange, high-pitched sound, and opened her mouth, heaving a flood of pink liquid onto the floor. Zim and the Tallest took a step back in disgust, but Dib wasn't fast enough, finding himself standing in a puddle of the thick, sticky goo.

"What is that?" he asked, revolted as Flo cringed on the floor, disorientated. When nobody answered, the computer obliged.

"Amniotic serum. When a female is about to give birth, she must flush all the serum from her body, for once the smeet sac is broken, the fluid is toxic to her squeedly-spootch. So, one of you should probably, you know, help her out."

Nobody moved. Dib looked from Flo to Zim to the Tallest expectantly.

"So… erm, who's going to… do it?" he asked, and they turned to face him simultaneously, an identical look of horror on their faces.

"What? I can't!" Purple gasped, and Red shook his head fervently.

"I don't know the first thing about females!"

"Well, I don't know much about Irken anatomy," Dib said urgently, "Well… except for what you've shown me," he muttered to himself.

"Dib, there's only been one natural birth in our lifetime, and I sure as hell wasn't the midwife," Red snapped, "We don't know how to do this! And if anyone, Zim should be helping; he's the father!"

Zim, who had been backing away with a look of revulsion on his face, stopped still.

"WHAT?" he exclaimed, horrified, "Why should I have to…"

Flo gave a grunt of pain and dragged herself to her feet, using the table for support. She advanced towards Zim, a menacing look in her eyes, and grabbed his antenna, pulling him to the floor as she collapsed.

"Now," she spat, seething, "You are going to listen very, very carefully, Zim. I have made sacrifices for you, I have put up with you and your incessant... living, and I didn't kick up that much of a fuss when you got me pregnant. I kept these smeets inside me, and I can assure you that a female with more sense would have left you at the first opportunity. So now it's your turn, Zim, it's your turn to do something for me, and if you so much as consider backing out I assure you now you'll be bloody glad you got your heir, capisce?"

Zim nodded nervously, and Flo loosened her iron grip on his antenna. He stood up quickly, glancing sheepishly at the Tallest to see what they thought of this lapse of control. They were smirking slightly at his humiliation, but they had their eyes fixed on Flo in fascinated disgust, as though watching a car-crash. She was still coughing up the pink serum, spluttering at the presumably revolting taste, and the swelling on her abdomen that sometimes jolted when the smeets moved was squirming; the feet and claws of the smeets could be seen clearly beneath the skin as they pushed against the walls of their prison. She groaned sickly, a trail of the serum oozing from the corner of her mouth, and she pressed her hands to her stomach as it writhed. Zim cleared his throat.

"Computer? What… do we do?" he asked, and a screen came down with a 3D diagram of Flo's body on it.

"The smeets usually exit through the PAK holes here," the computer explained, and the diagram rotated, a red marker appearing on her back, "But there are triplets, which means that the birth will most likely take more than ten minutes. The Empress won't survive. If you don't remove Flo's PAK, you'll need to make another incision for the smeets to exit through, like…"

Flo extracted a spider leg from her PAK and ripped it across her stomach, laying open a huge, clean cut.

"Something like that?" she asked quietly as Dib retched and Red's face turned pale.

"Yeah… something like that," the computer agreed. "Now, Zim, you need to get in there and remove the smeets."

Zim blanched, but steeled himself at the thought of what Flo would say if he abandoned her now. She was just like Tak when it came to holding grudges and a lot more creative when it came to getting her revenge. He took a tentative step towards her and bit his lip, drawing blood. Then he slipped his hands into the incision, groaning at the feel of the pulsing organs.

Something grabbed onto his hand and he gasped, withdrawing at once with the smeet clinging onto his arm, sliming him with pink serum and green blood. He placed it on the table and turned back to Flo. A tiny hand burst through the incision, searching blindly in the air. The tiny claws fastened onto his hand, and he removed the tiny Irken, placing her gently next to her sister. When he turned back, the third was crawling from the slash on his mother's stomach, falling with a wet smack onto the floor. Zim lifted him up and placed him on the table, watching them wriggling slimily with an odd expression of distaste and pride. He turned to see the computer blasting the slash on Flo's stomach with a jet of the same ointment Gem had used on Red. The skin sealed up and she stood to her feet shakily.

Flo rolled the smeets over and clapped her hands. The computer scorched the holes in their backs and inserted the PAKs, and blasted them with cleaning solution to wash them off. The smeets stood together in a line and Zim gave a huge grin.

"I just delivered them! ME! Zim!" he said proudly, but nobody was listening. The smeets didn't move.

Eventually, Flo went over to the females, who stood side by side, their heavily lidded eyes shining limpid and clear. One had red eyes and one had purple. Other than that, the females were identical. The male was a duplicate of Zim, exactly as he had looked when he had been decanted from the hatchery on Irk. Zim strutted in front of them as well, and cleared his throat.

"You three have been birthed on a very special day. The return of the Almighty Tallest."

Flo smiled.

"You ought to have names accordingly," she said softly, her eyes full of adoration. She looked at the twin females and smiled. "My daughters. Scarlet and Violet, for Tallest Red and Tallest Purple." The computer programmed their names into their PAKs, and Red and Purple grinned. Zim stood, watching the male intently. The females started a minor play fight, poking and slapping, and Violet tripped, falling into the male and knocking him over. He opened his mouth and screamed, making a piercing noise that made all but Zim stand back in shock. In fact, the grin on his face simply widened.

"A terrifying roar," he muttered under his breath, before saying aloud, over the din, "ROR! The son of the almighty Zim shall be named Ror, for his fierce cry."

Again the name was programmed into the PAK, and Zim tucked his claw under his son's chin, lifting it so that he closed his mouth and raised his head and stood up straight.

Flo beamed, kissing Ror's head.

"I'll call you Rory," she whispered to him, and Zim groaned.

"There's nothing threatening about Rory," he sneered, before standing up straight and clearing his throat importantly. The smeets stood to attention.

"Now, my smeets, you must listen. As your father, and Emperor of this filthy rock-ball, you shall treat me with the respect I deserve. Listen to me, obey me, worship me, and…"

"Zim!" Flo gasped, as the Tallest sniggered behind them.

"Oh, very well. This is Flo, your mother. Listen to her, and listen well, for it was she who incubated your developing forms. Obey her, respect her and love her." Red cleared his throat loudly, and Zim's antennas shot up. "Of course!!! The Almighty Tallest, leaders of the all-powerful Irken Empire and, for you two, your name sakes."

Red grinned as the three saluted, and Flo tapped Zim on the shoulder, pointing an antenna at Dib. Zim raised an eyebrow, and she sighed.

"Aren't you going to introduce Dib?" she asked impatiently, and he rolled his eyes.

"Fine, fine, kids, that's the Dib-St…" Zim stopped at Flo's glare and started again. "That's Dib. Your godfather."

The smeets saluted again, and Flo wrapped her arms around them and picked them up, hugging them tightly and smiling as they snuggled into her chest. Zim plucked Ror from her grip and, when Ror attempted to hug him, placed him quickly on the floor in front of him, looking down upon the tiny, naked smeet and revelling in being able to look down on another Irken. He smirked and rubbed his hands together, chuckling then bursting out into his evil laugh. Ror mimicked him exactly. Dib turned to look at Red, who was holding Scarlet with a slightly apprehensive expression and admiring her glossy crimson eyes, the long lashes, the tiny claws.

"They're pretty, eh, Pur?" he said, but there was no reply. He nudged his partner with his elbow. "Hey, Pur. PUR!"

"Huh?" Purple didn't break his gaze upon Violet, who sat on his hand and clung like a limpet to his wrist cuff, her eyes squeezed shut and an adorable beam on her face. Her long lashed fluttered, and Dib looked into Purple's face worriedly. His eyes were glossed over, and his mouth was perked into a far-off smile. Red groaned.

"Oh no. No, no, no."

Purple looked up defensively.

"What?" he asked, his voice slightly higher than normal.

"We are not, I repeat, not getting one! No way, nuh-uh, not in a million years, never. Understand?"

Purple's lip quivered slightly.

"But look at her, Red! She's so tiny…"

Red shook his head.

"We are not getting a smeet and that is that. Sure, they look sweet now, but give it, oh, about three days and you'll see why I don't want one, Pur."

Three Days Later

Purple sat quivering on the chair. Three days. Of hell. Who knew that three smeets and a dysfunctional SIR unit could burn down so much in so little time? All three smeets had inherited their mother's sense of fun and their father's love of destruction. Thankfully for the siblings, Zim encouraged their behaviour all he could, laughing it off whenever Flo came to him with news of damage, chaos and injury. He was especially proud of Ror, who had blown up more of the statues in the gardens than his sisters combined. Red smirked at him.

"Hate to say 'I told you so'. Oh, who am I kidding, I love to say it. So I will. I. Told. You. So."

Purple glanced up, trembling.

"Why?" he wailed, "Remind me again why you told me we should allow him to be a father, Red." Red shrugged and Purple narrowed his eyes. "Fine. Allow me," he cleared his throat and said, in a mocking, overly deep voice, "I think it was 'Oh, the smeets might not turn out like him, he's Earth's problem now'. Well, they did. And we're on Earth too!!!"

Red simply shrugged again, and his antenna perked up.

"Hear that?" he asked, and when Purple shook his head, he grinned. "Silence."

They stood up and walked out of their room, looking curiously down the corridor, empty apart from the odd servant. They ventured down, suddenly nervous. Silence had been unknown these past few days, and its sudden return could only mean that the trio were planning something. As they approached the throne room, the sound of laughter could be heard, and some catchy, bouncy music. They pushed open the door, and the first thing that they noticed was Zim and Flo, sitting on their thrones. Flo was curled gracefully on hers, staring ahead with a smile on her face. Zim slouched miserably in his own throne, propping his head up in his hand with his elbow on the armrest. Dib sat on a chair next to Flo. He was also staring ahead. The Tallest turned to look at the wall-sized communications screen, in front of which sat the triplets, gazing upon it, apparently captivated. The screen showed a small, red creature with spindly legs, singing to a creature that appeared to be a human, but had a long, green tail instead. They appeared to be underwater.

"…Under the sea, under the sea, darling it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me!"

"What the hell?" Red muttered, and they walked in, shooting a questioning look to Dib.

"It's a cartoon film. It was my idea, to calm them down," he explained proudly. Zim groaned.

"When will it end?" he whined. Red sighed and went to sit cross-legged on the floor next to Scarlet. Ror sat in between her and Violet, and Purple sat the other side.

"What's going on?" he whispered, and the smeets were all too happy to explain.

"That girl, Ariel, she's a mermaid, but she wants to be a human 'cause she's in love with a human. But her Dad, the sea-king, won't let her, and that crab, he's called Sebastian, he's trying to get her to see how good life is under the sea!"

"Oh," Red said simply, looking at the screen, unimpressed. Scarlet was dancing to the music, skipping in front of his vision. "Smeets," he sighed to Purple, turning to face him and smacking his forehead. Purple and Violet were also dancing, a little on-the-spot jig, and only he and Ror remained seated. Ror yawned.

"I wanna see the witch again, sir," he whined to Zim, who grinned. The smeets referred to him as 'sir' and Flo as 'mom'. Ror wasn't bothered about the rest of the film, or indeed any of the other 'Disneys' they had watched, simply wanting to see the bad guys over and over again.

"Yes, the evil ones are the best part. But your sisters are dancing," Zim said reasonably, and in the end, Ror joined in, deciding to make the best of it. Scarlet grabbed Red's arm.

"Will you dance with me, Uncle Red?" she asked, her crimson eyes twinkling, and he sighed, picking her up and swooshing her through the air like a rocket ship, spinning around the room. Purple was humming the tune and holding Violet's hands as they did their shake-shake-jiggle-stomp dance. Ror seemed left out, so Dib stood up to dance with him, earning a kick on the shin for his troubles.

Zim and Flo kissed. He'd got his heir, she'd got his family. The Tallest were alive and well. Neither of them cared about anything else at that moment.

AN

As usual, please review. An update will be on the way asap.

Invader Zim belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.

The Little Mermaid belongs to Disney.

Flo, Ror, Violet and Scarlet are mine!