Dlbn: Hey everyone! Sorry for the lateness, but life got in the way. (Shakes fist at life)
Nbld: Weirdo. Thank you to Princess-Of-Your-Doom95, SecretlyTTfanTT, yurithefurry, Servant of Time, kitty Tokyo uzumaki, Experiment G1T8L1, sailingspace14, The Almighty Authoress, poke2death, and (for a chapter one review) goofygirl. "Free Krill" T-shirts for all! Keef made them all by hisself. XD
Princfess-Of-Your-Doom95: I so want to say that to the next person to annoy me XD Zim's little 'sing and then realize who's there' bit is something I've done before…minus the singing. Like earlier today when I was talking to a friend in the hall and randomly stopped talking to go 'hi' enthusiastically and wave at my passing teacher XD Zim loves to fight the man. Er…woman, in the case of his mother. Caiuk always has some hare-brained scheme up his sleeve.
SecretlyTTfanTT: Finally! And Dib will definitely wake up soon. ^^
Yurithefurry: Thank you! Zim's got the potential to be really annoying when he wants to be. Something he learned from his immature brothers, I suppose XD Thanks. Hope you had a great one too ^^
Servant of Time: I gave Lard Nar a brain so he could help out if need be. It's going to work out in everyone's favor. But then again, he does still have lame ideas. Like 'the Resisty' for a name. Stupid Zim, forgetting the one thing that could have saved him from capture. Oh well.
Kitty Tokyo Uzumaki: Zim had a lot of Gir moments XD Without Gir being there, someone has to take his place ;)
Experiment G1L8L1: Candy for all! :D Zim needs to learn to watch himself a bit more often. Poor boy has a big mouth. Being sugar high is fun ^^
Sailingspace14: Caiuk needs some serious help. Sick little cretin. Hehe thanks! I'm sure in the show he would rip someone apart for singing it. But here, he's nicer, younger, and likes to annoy the hell out of people who call them short. Yay for the doom song! (Begins singing)
The Almighty Authoress: Of course Caiuk had something to do with it. He's a sick puppy ^^ Yay doom song! :D
Poke2death: Dun, dun, duuun! They might make a cameo towards the end…? But it won't have much to do with the story. She would freak if she learned all this stuff. But, of course, Spork will have to be the voice of reason that tells her not to ground Zim for eternity, because that's doing nothing to help him…or their relationship XD. Aw, thank you! (Throws a muffin at membrane's head and knocks him over) Oops. Guess I underestimated my own strength…
Disclaimer: I own Krill, the Slerks, SIR, Krill's computer, ShonNeil, Ann Lee, King Caiuk, King Ekoa, Caiuk's main guard, Ekoa's guards, Caiuk's guards, the Slerk home world, the Galactic Senate, and the Universal Council. Invader Zim and all related characters, species, themes, and the Doom Song belong to Jhonen C Vasquez. I make NO money off of this thing
Dlbn: Hey, everyone! Dlbn here with a quick blurb. There is definitely going to be a third story in this series. I already know the plot and everything, so it will come out shortly after this is finished. But we are nowhere near that point yet. :D
000
Keef passed back and forth in front of Krill's cell. Krill watched, unable to move to him.
"I hope they're alright." Keef muttered to himself as he paced. "Dib looked like he was hurt pretty bad."
"Poor kid." ShonNeil informed. "You guys can't be any older then 16."
"We're 16." Keef said. "Except Zim. He's 14…I think…Dib said he was younger then us."
"15 now, I think." Krill answered. "In our peoples' years, anyway."
"I'm not sure how to convert Irken years into human." Keef shook his head.
"Wait, Irken years? But that other one's a human too…isn't he?"
"Quite literally speaking, Zim's a genius." Krill answered. "Even if he hates when you hint at his intelligence quotient even a little bit."
"…Zim?" ShonNeil asked "Isn't that…I mean…isn't he…?"
"A Prince?"
"Yeah, that." ShonNeil nodded.
"Tell no one."
"I won't." ShonNeil shook his head, hair swaying with his movements. "Wow. Really? A Prince of the mighty Irken Empire going out with a human two years older then him? Oh, what scandal."
"I'm 15 years older then Keef." Krill offered with a shrug. "Age means nothing when you're in love."
"I suppose." ShonNeil sighed.
"Sounds like you have a history?" Keef giggled.
"I had a girl. She was eight years younger then me. I had to leave her home alone to go on my mission."
"Sorry to hear that." Keef offered.
ShonNeil shrugged. "She'll wait for me, she said."
"What did you mean by 'alone'?" Krill asked.
"Her parents said it was either living with them or dating me, not both. I told her to choose her parents, but she refused to listen to my advice and chose me. They refuse to take her back, no matter what." ShonNeil sighed. "I should have ended it, but I couldn't. When she looked at me with those adorable green eyes, I…"
"Understandable. I get lost in green eyes quite a bit, too." Krill wiggled his antennae suggestively. Well, it would have been, if either of the other two were Irken. Zim would have caught it.
"Aw, Krill." Keef must have caught in his voice, because he blushed.
"Why…" ShonNeil looked at Keef's eyes. "Never mind that question…"
000
Both Zim and Ekoa were staring at Caiuk in disbelief. How could he say that? They were like family, right? That's what Zim thought, at least. Ekoa had to have seen it coming a mile away. Lard Nar even seemed shocked. Dib, however, was still unconscious.
"What…the…hell...is…wrong with you!" Ekoa questioned. "I have done nothing but try and help you all these years, ever since we were kids, and this is how you repay me?"
Caiuk rolled his eyes. "I needed your assistance to stop the Empire." Caiuk shrugged. "If our sides join forces, there's no stopping us! But you prefer to stay out of inter-planetary affairs. I had to do something!"
Ekoa's guards pointed their shock sticks at him, prompting his guard to aim at them,
"And you didn't think that talking to me would help?"
"Of course not! You shoot down my theories and try to stop me from doing what you deem as 'wrong'."
"You almost wiped out an entire city of humans, Caiuk. Not to mention children!"
"That's the price they pay for harboring a fugitive."
"To be honest," Zim spoke, "he wouldn't be a fugitive if not for what you did. And secondly, no one knows he's an Irken. The point of being an Invader is blending in with the native species."
Caiuk glared.
"Just offering an opinion." Zim said. "Sheesh, no need to get testy. You're just like my mother."
"Your mother?" Caiuk seemed annoyed at being compared to a mother. "Don't insult me, boy."
Zim rolled his eyes. He felt Dib begin to stir and smiled down at him. "Hey." He greeted. "You awake?"
Dib moaned and his eyes slid open, showing a slight bit of honey under his lids. "Hey." He spoke softly.
Lard Nar looked down at him. "Welcome to King Jackass's Palace. May I take your coat? Or those optical things…"
"My glasses?" Dib asked, voice soft. "I need them to see."
"Never mind then."
"Enough of this." Caiuk scowled.
He snapped his fingers and several more guards came out of what seemed like nowhere, shock sticks aimed at the group. Spleenk screamed like a young girl at the sight of the stick aimed at him. Zim pulled Dib closer to him, the older boy holding tightly to Zim's shirt. Lard Nar put his arms in the air, scowling. Ekoa wasn't amused.
"We're not playing this game, Caiuk." Ekoa said. "I'm not going to do anything to you for this horrible treachery, but I'm not going to just stand by and let your myriad of guards attack us."
"All I want is your assistance is stopping the Empire, and I know I'm not going to get it." Caiuk shook his head.
"There are easier ways to do have done it, you know." Zim said. "You pulled a dick move, sorry."
Caiuk glared. "Shut that one up, will one of you?"
The guards hesitated.
"He's Irken." Caiuk offered.
His guards scowled at Zim, but they didn't attack him.
"What are you waiting for?" Caiuk wondered. "They want to help the Irken Empire!"
"Two of them are just kids…" One guard offered. "And one is King Ekoa…"
"I'll put you all in cells without food or drink for three months if you don't do something about these intruders now!" Caiuk threatened.
"We're rounding them up." His main guard said, snarling pointedly at Zim and Dib. "I'll deal with those two."
Lard Nar stood, blocking the boys from the guard.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"One might be an Irken, but I'm not about to let you kill a couple of kids." He informed. "I hate Irkens as much as you, but Caiuk tried to kill Ekoa just so he could fake an attack by an Irken." He locked eyes with the guard. "Go after them, you go through me."
The guard turned on his shock stick. "Will do."
Zim inched Dib off of him a bit and reached into his pocket. He had one of his weapons inside. He pulled it out and aimed it at the guard, standing as Dib sat up on the ground next to him.
"Just you try me." Zim said. "I know what this thing can do when it malfunctions."
The Slerks all backed up. Lard Nar and Spleenk even moved away.
"Hey…where'd you get your hands on that?" Caiuk asked eyeing Zim's weapon. "I thought 752s were illegal."
"I made it." Zim said. "Look, I don't want to have to use this, but you're not giving me much of a choice here. I just want to put this whole ugly mess behind us, get the innocent prisoners and free them, and return to Earth with Krill to rebuild our city. Is that too much to ask?"
Lard Nar cocked a horn. "I guess…not all Irkens are evil little things, hm?"
"We're really not evil at all…just misunderstood."
"But mostly evil?"
"Like 98 percent…" Zim muttered. "But who cares?" He looked at Caiuk. "I think you're going to have one hell of a problem on your hands when it's leaked to everyone what you did to Ekoa. There could be a revolt, a revolution."
"And boy do I know how to lead one." Lard Nar nodded.
"But not how to name one." Caiuk's main guard offered.
Lard Nar glared. "You die first."
Zim couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"I'm sure the Galactic Senate would like to hear about the tests you're doing on captive species…" Lard Nar offered. "I have connections there. One push of a button, and they'll know about what's going on." He looked to Ekoa. "You'll get off free, sir. It's only this jerk that's been doing this."
"Thank you." Ekoa nodded. His guards seemed pleased as well.
"This is ridiculous!" Caiuk complained. "No one will believe you! And besides, how do I know that the boy's weapon works at all? It could be a fake."
Zim pulled back the hammer on the weapon. "I can assure you, sir, that this is not a fake. This is a 'me exclusive', as my brothers call it." He chuckled. "Besides, would you really want to risk it?"
Dib looked up at Zim, confused. "What exactly does that do?"
"It's a very deadly gun with a wide range." Lard Nar answered for him. "When they malfunction, they have the ability to kill 50 men at once. If thrown right."
Zim nodded. "Now I know why some of this is illegal…maybe I shouldn't make some of these…I really need to look over my blueprints again…"
Dib stood, using Zim's right arm to pull himself up. Zim put an arm around his waist to support him, but leaned his head on his shoulder. Lard Nar's fingers slipped around Zim's and took the gun away from him. He pulled the humans closer to him. Ekoa cocked an eyebrow as Spleenk moved closer, and he and his two guards joined the Vortian. Lard Nar pressed a sequence of buttons on the side. With a few quick motions, he threw the gun to Caiuk's guards and then pulled another device out of his pocket. He pressed a button and threw it in the middle of his group. They were encased in a large bubble. The weapon exploded a few seconds later, shockwaves making the bubble lurch backwards, and the group with it. Feet planted firmly on the ground, they resisted the shock waves. When the smoke and the dust cleared, Caiuk and all his guards were on the floor. Lard Nar pressed a button on his bubble machine with his toe.
"What was that?" Ekoa wondered.
"It was a shield generator." Lard Nar said.
"Are they dead?" Dib asked, voice waving.
"No." Lard Nar shook his head.
"How did you know it would just knock them out?" Zim asked.
"Vortians made most of the weapons and technology Irkens use."
"Told you." Zim muttered to Dib, who smiled.
"How did you know it would?"
"I make them, I should know the problem with them." Zim laughed. "That was good acting, by the way."
"Me? You're the one who played all tough and whatnot with it. 'I don't want to have to use this, but you're making me'." Lard Nar laughed. "Classic."
"I hate to bother your touching little moment here, but how long until they awaken?"
"If everything goes okay, about an hour." Lard Nar said. "Feel free to beat the snot out of Caiuk. That's what I want to do…"
"So what in the world happened here?" Dib asked. "I thought we were just going to talk to him."
"Well, it turns out that King Caiuk here decided to fake the assassination on me." Ekoa informed. "He sent that main guard of his disguised as Krill to try and kill me. To trick me into thinking that the Irkens had attacked me, and then getting me to join in his big master plan to take down the Irken Armada."
"Serious?" Dib asked. "But…Krill confessed to doing it."
"That's the part I don't get." Lard Nar shook his head.
"I have an idea." Spleenk said.
"It better be a better idea then "the Resisty"." Lard Nar warned.
"Maybe he was brainwashed? Or maybe he thinks he blacked out when it happened? Was he fuzzy on the details?"
"Not really." Zim shook his head. "He pretty much came out and said that he tried to kill Ekoa because his cover was blown, when he went to deliver him a package. Something along those lines, at least. I thought it was a little weird. He seemed surprised that they found out where he was hiding…"
"So he remembered a few things, but not a lot?" Lard Nar wondered. "Well, Caiuk experiments on living beings a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if 'brainwashing' was within his scope of lunacy. I think he's insane, I really do. There are so many less complicated ways of doing things…"
"He conned you, Lard Nar." Spleenk said. "I'd be careful what you say."
"He had me conned." Ekoa shook his head. "I swear, when we were born, he got into the 'insanity' vat on accident."
"When 'we' were born?" Zim asked. "You're twins?"
"The Kings of this planet are born at the exact same time on the exact same date." One of Ekoa's guards informed him. "Our people believe that it's a sign, that our two sides are meant to be united."
"Obviously not true." The second guard pointed out. "Not with Caiuk's scatter-brained schemes."
"Alright, enough theorizing." Ekoa said, waving his hand to shut them up. "We need to plan our next move."
"I say we free the underground prisoners." Lard Nar offered. "I promised Ann Lee I would get her the hell out of there. And there are others suffering more then she is. And that's saying something. She's not doing too hot…"
"And we have to release Krill and ShonNeil." Zim offered.
"And get Keef." Dib added. "Can't forget him."
"We won't. We'll have to use a crowbar to get him off of Krill."
Dib chuckled and kissed his boyfriend's forehead. "Very true." He complimented.
"There's another one of you here that wasn't found?" Lard Nar asked.
"Keef must have been hiding pretty well." Zim shrugged. "I got found first, and then Dib got hurt trying to help me."
Dib flushed. "You're my boyfriend." He said. "I couldn't imagine anything happening to you. Especially when I was there and had the opportunity to help."
"You're so sweet." Zim swooned, wrapping his arms around Dib's waist. "I can't wait to get you home…" he wiggled his eyebrows.
Lard Nar looked ready to throw up. "So sweet, it's sickening." He commented.
"So how do we free everyone?" Ekoa wondered.
"There has to be a key." Zim answered him. "A Master Key, maybe? Mom has one for prisoners."
"You need to stop dropping hints as to who you are." Dib whispered.
"Your mom?"
"She works at an Irken prison." Zim covered himself.
"Ah." Lard Nar nodded. "Either the head guard or Caiuk has it."
Zim and Dib went to Caiuk and checked him for a key, while Lard Nar checked over the main guard.
"I got nothing." Lard Nar said with a shrug.
"Me neither." Zim and Dib spoke at once, causing them both to blush.
"Wait." Dib got over his embarrassment and went behind Caiuk's throne. He ran his hand over the back of it, and under the arm rests, until he found a crease. "A hidden compartment." He said, smiling, once he reached under the left arm. He popped the compartment open and pulled out several keys on two intersected key rings.
"Nice work." Lard Nar nodded.
"I hope that's all the keys." Zim said. "I'm not coming back in here."
"Do you know how many cells are in here?" Dib asked. "The largest number on this key is 100."
"That sounds right." Lard Nar nodded. "Spleenk?"
Spleenk nodded as well. "That's right." He said. "Not all of them are filled, though."
"Ann lee is in cell 56." Lard Nar said. "I want to be the one to get her out. Spleenk, come with me."
Spleenk nodded. "You got it!"
"Dib and I will go through the first 50. You guys take the second 50." Zim offered.
Dib pulled the two key rings apart and handed one to Lard Nar.
"I'll go and see if can get ShonNeil and Krill out." Ekoa informed. "I want to talk to him about everything, anyway."
"And let Keef know we're alright." Zim ordered. "He's probably worried sick."
"Will do."
Lard Nar popped off two keys. "Krill's in cell one and ShonNeil is in cell two."
Ekoa took the keys. "Let's get to work. Before these traitors wake up." He said. "I hope you really do have Galactic Senate connections, Lard Nar."
"I do." He nodded. "We'll worry about that once we get everyone free and to the Resisty's ship…how did you boys get here anyway?"
"I meshed my ship with Krill's and brought me, Dib, Keef, my robot, and Krill's robot up here. We're hidden in the forest." Zim answered.
"Nice work, boy." A guard offered.
"Thanks." Zim beamed.
"Let's go. We'll meet back with everyone in the entrance hall."
"Right." The others all spoke at once.
"I know a shortcut to the cells." Lard Nar offered. "King Ekoa? You go the way we came. I'll take the boys."
Ekoa nodded. "I'm counting on you to bring them back to me safely."
"I will." Lard Nar said. "Let's go." He walked to a wall and pressed on it. A door opened; a segment of the all raising into the ceiling to reveal the door.
"I hope we can really trust him." Dib whispered.
"Me too." Zim whispered back.
Without any other choice, they followed him into the dimly lit corridor.
