Chapter 25: Of Bitter Reunions and Having your Cake and Eating it Too

Dib hardly had time to think before Zim gripped one claw around his bicep and hauled him out of the cell.

They walked down the hall, past the other cells, and towards the door at the far end. When they approached it, Zim nodded nonchalantly towards the other guards working the night shift and was thankfully met with nothing more than faint nods back as they continued to pour over their tablets.

As soon as Zim and Dib had made it out of the cell block and into the labyrinth of hallways, he let go of his arm. "Follow me."

Mechanically, Dib did as he was told, trailing close behind Zim. Keeping up with him was difficult. He continually took backways and disappeared into storage rooms, shooting glares at the boy as he plodded along ungracefully behind him with his heavy walking boot.

Dib could hardly see more than a few feet in front of him. Several times, guards and officers must have appeared, for Zim would sporadically quicken his pace or duck around hallways, yanking Dib along by the wrist.

As they went on, Zim began to breathe heavier. He caught himself a couple times, seeming to make an effort to quiet his wheezing with varying degrees of success.

At one point, he rushed around a corner, and held perfectly still. Out in the hall they had just been in, heavy footfalls arose. Dib held his breath and pressed himself as flat as possible against the wall.

He turned his neck to look at Zim, surprised to see that one of his antennae was bent out unnaturally. It hung limply down the back of his skull before pointing outwards at an almost 90-degree angle near the midway point.

More notably, though, was the fact that Zim's face had suddenly become flushed. He breathed in and out deliberately, eyes watering all the while.

At last, the footsteps faded down the hall and disappeared. They were off again. Zim finally turned a corner and pushed open a large door.

Moonlight spilled out over the two of them. They were outside, on the prison grounds.

Zim couldn't hold back his coughing fit any longer. As soon as the door closed behind, he released a torrent of spluttery hacks. He bent over, holding his knees and taking deep breaths until his face returned to its normal color.

Dib remained silent, unsure of what to say or do. They still weren't in the clear. Several vast guard towers were placed at each end of the prison, and from them, large searchlights drifted over nearly every inch of the complex. Though he couldn't see them, he was sure there was at least one Irken guard occupying each tower and keenly looking out for escapees.

Dib remained in the shadows, trailing the searchlights with his eyes.

Zim made a few vague gestures with his hands, still trying to catch his breath. Dib looked down at him in confusion.

The Irken inhaled deeply and straightened up somewhat. "Get that off, stupid Earth monkey. Do you want to be a walking target?" He pointed at his bright orange jumpsuit.

Dib quickly obeyed, removing the jumpsuit and revealing the dark grey sweatpants and t-shirt that were on underneath.

Zim nodded curtly and began slinking along the edge of the building. Dib followed suit, and they crept onward in the shadows, ducking away from searchlights that lazily cast over the prison grounds in a rhythmic motion.

Up ahead, Dib saw where he was being led to. It was a tiny hole in the wall near the corner, just small enough for someone Zim's size to squeeze through.

I'm never going to make it through that, he thought to himself.

Just when he was about to voice this, though, Zim stopped at the wall and deployed his PAK legs.

Dib looked confused.

"Come on, I'm not going wait all night," he snipped, vermillion eyes glinting angrily up at him.

It took Dib a moment to realize what he meant. He shot the Irken a dubious expression, only for Zim to glare even harder at him.

Taking a deep breath, Dib climbed onto Zim's back and was swiftly carried ten some-odd feet up. At the peak of the wall, a bright red laser field glowed fiercely, just feet away from his face.

Zim, however, pulled a small device from one oversized pocket of his stolen guard uniform, and with a few clicks, the laser field stuttered, then flickered out. "It's only going to last ten seconds. Climb over, quick."

Dib gripped the edge of the wall with both hands, pulling himself up. Zim retreated back to the ground on his PAK legs.

As soon as he caught a glimpse down the other side, he swallowed hard. A fall from that height was surely enough to seriously injure him.

Zim, meanwhile, had wriggled through the gap and was on the other side, silently jeering for Dib to come down. "Come on, stupid human!" he whisper-yelled from below.

The boy glanced over his shoulder, catching the searchlight as it swung his way. He took a deep breath and leapt off the side of the wall.

It wasn't until mid-fall that he began to regret his decision. His limbs flailed outwards, and he felt his heart surge with sudden fear. Right before he was about to splat, he felt the distinct sensation of metal PAK legs as they broke his fall, colliding with his chest and left leg. They bent inwardly around him and unceremoniously lowered his limp body to the ground.

"Oh shit," Dib whimpered, face pressed against the dirt.

"Sshhhhh," Zim snapped. He peered around himself, eyes narrowed. "Let's go."

He hesitantly rose to his feet, still shaking slightly.

The two of them sprinted through the night, both more or less stumbling along. It was hard for Dib to run very gracefully with his foot still encased in the walking boot and his eyes unable to see more than blurry dark shapes around him.

It was impossible for him to tell exactly what Vort looked like, as he'd only seen the prison grounds. The vague outlines of buildings in the distance and large silhouettes of tall, stalky alien plants streaked past him. He mostly kept his eyes on the heels of Zim's boots as he led the way.

The Irken was swifter, if a bit awkward. He ran as if he were carrying something heavy on his shoulders and was being weighted down. His legs shook a bit the longer he ran.

At last, they burst through a clearing, and Dib was suddenly face to face with something he never thought he'd see again. It was the Spittle Runner. His Spittle runner. Even without his glasses, it was impossible not to see the damage done to the exterior of the ship. Dark gashes swept along the side of it, it was pitted with dents of varying severity, and the windshield had smudges of… green stuff all over it. Blood? Irken blood?

The damned thing looked as though it had been through a hailstorm. Or a volcano eruption.

Zim opened the hatch, and artificial light poured out, along with a few empty snack-ration cans. He tossed them back in and turned to face Dib.

Now in the clear, and with proper lighting, Dib found himself staring at Zim for the first time in a long time.

On the whole, the Irken looked better than he did when he'd last seen him. His eyes were brighter, and his skin wasn't quite so pale. His face looked a bit fuller, too. Even so, the cough he'd had seemed to be lingering, as evidenced by the fit outside the prison building. The only thing completely out of the ordinary was the one crooked black stalk on Zim's head.

"What the fuck happened to my ship?" Dib asked, more shocked than anything. "What happened to you?" He gestured towards Zim's antenna.

The Irken's face hardened into a stern expression. "Not your problem." He carefully climbed back out of the Spittle and stood in front of the boy. "There. My debt is repaid. What do you have to say?"

Dib blinked, stunned silent. He simply stood there, staring at the Irken, unsure of how he was supposed to feel. Thankful? Relieved? Confused?

He had held nothing but resentment towards Zim over the last two weeks. Now, Zim had rescued him. What was the correct response to that?

Dib's mind couldn't compute in answering that question.

Subtly, though, a strange mixture of emotions was building inside of him. Days of apathy faded away, only to be replaced by newfound anger that began with a spark and quickly spread like fire in his chest. The ensuing smoke curled its way up, only to be trapped with nowhere to go. It was instantly stifling, clogging his lungs until… until…

A strangled, choking sob tore its way out of him. Tears threatened to fight their way from behind his eyes. Absolutely seething, he twisted up his face and forced them back down to where they'd come from.

"You… left me!" The words came out with so much force, he swore he could see Zim shrink back a bit.

"After everything I risked saving your worthless life, the one time I needed you to be there for me… you—you left me."

He swallowed hard, trying to clear his throat of the lump that simply wouldn't disappear. His body had begun to tremble. "It was just too damn hard for you, huh? To think about someone else for a change! All you ever think about is yourself!"

He couldn't hold himself back any longer; tears spilled down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. "Jesus Christ, I fucking hate you, Zim!" Then, in a quieter voice, "I really, really do."

It was silent for a long moment. Dib kept his eyes closed, shaking like a leaf. He was hugging his chest with one hand and covering his face with the other.

He didn't dare look at Zim until he heard the Irken speak. "Pull yourself together, you pathetic worm-baby."

Fresh rage shored inside him, and Dib tore his hand away from his eyes. It instantly closed itself into a fist and, before either he or Zim could comprehend what was happening, he pulled back and hit the Irken as hard as he could in the jaw.

Zim spun around. For a mere moment, it looked as though he would keep his footing, but his knees gave out at the last moment. He crumpled awkwardly to the ground.

Dib stood towering over him, fuming. Tears stained his red face.

Finally, Zim lifted his head hesitantly. He blinked. Raised a hand to his jaw. A comparable fire began behind his own eyes as he glared at Dib and began to massage the area that had been hit.

Dib didn't flinch. "How could you just leave me after all I had done for you?"

"Why did you do anything for me in the first place? It doesn't make any sense!" Zim pushed one leg beneath him and stood up.

"I don't know! Because I'm human, I guess! I'm weak and pathetic and I don't like watching people die alone in their houses!" Dib said bitingly, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "That makes me pretty stupid, huh? But you know what? That's the only thing that saved your miserable life!"

Zim's one functional antenna raised over his head, the kink pointing directly towards Dib. Behind his own anger, though, was a sense of confliction, as if he were trying to piece together some underlying motive between the lines of his enemy's words. He glanced back in the ship, where GIR's smudged drawings still remained even after several attempts to wipe them off the wall.

"How was I supposed to know that if you wouldn't tell me?" Zim said finally. The words, despite holding a bitter undertone, still felt bizarre coming out of his mouth.

"I—" Dib paused for the briefest instant, glancing down at his feet, then back up. "Well, I should have told you earlier on in your recovery. But you didn't help! You totally freaked out. You wouldn't believe Skoodge, and then you refused to even talk to me! You're as much at fault here as I am!"

"What else was I supposed to think?" Zim countered.

"Why do you have to be so damn paranoid all the time?!"

The two of them were toe to toe, Dib towering over Zim and Zim standing on the balls of his feet with his chin raised.

"Do you have any idea what I've been through in the last two weeks?" Dib's face abruptly twisted at his last words. "Ugh! Why am I even wasting my time asking you? Like you give a shit!"

Dib was the first to break his posture. He slumped back and dropped his eyes to his shoes with a defeated sigh. "This wouldn't have happened if you had just believed what had been told to you the first time," he said. "Everything would have been fine if you had just been there for me, that one time."

"Well, I'm here now." The sentence was meant to pack a certain amount of ire behind it. Oddly enough, though, it came out with an uncharacteristically mellow inflection. A strange electricity passed over them, the mood switching from anger to confusion instantaneously.

Dib turned his eyes back up at Zim.

The Irken paused for a moment, then turned on his heel. He climbed back into the ship and disappeared into the storage hatch for a moment. He returned with a large bag. "Like I said before, my debt is repaid. This is where I leave you."

Dib snapped out of his trance at those words. He turned his gaze upwards, staring incredulously at Zim. "What do you mean 'this is where I leave you'? Where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going back to Irk," Zim replied simply. "I have new orders to receive. I would have had them already if I hadn't stopped for you. There's a war for me to fight in, and I have to go where my Tallest need me."

Dib blinked. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But what about Earth?"

"My base is still secure. For now, Earth is safe." He spoke the last three words mockingly.

"That's not what I meant, you jerk. And for your information, Earth is not safe! Your fucking Armada is going to blow it up because they think the humans are in cahoots with the Meekrob!"

Zim paused for a fraction of a second before looking up passively at Dib. "The Tallest would never allow that. Earth is mine to destroy, and mine only."

Dib felt words bubbling to this throat. Cruel words. Words that would annihilate Zim from the inside out. There was nothing stopping him from letting them pour out into the open.

"Don't you understand? The Tallest don't give a fuck! Your mission is complete bullshit!"

"Bull… shit?"

"It means your mission is fake, Zim. The longer I think about it, the more I can't believe I didn't figure it out on my own years before!" Dib couldn't stop himself. He was brimming with anger, and the words just kept pouring out. "Everything you've ever thought was real is just a lie that you keep perpetuating. Why do you think the Armada hasn't come for Earth yet? Why do you think you didn't wake up in an actual medical clinic back on Elixus?"

He breathed in. "Oh right, I know! It's because you're a defective! Your people never cared about you. So why the hell do you keep wasting your time?"

Zim's eyes had narrowed to slits. For a moment, Dib thought he was going to get out of the ship and kill him.

Instead, he reached down next to him and picked up the bag he'd gotten from the storage hatch. With as much strength as he could muster, he hurled it out of the ship and at Dib.

Dib grunted as it hit his chest, and he very nearly lost his footing. He instinctively closed his arms around it.

Zim slammed the door to the Spittle closed and fired up the engine. Dib watched him leave, still shaking.

"You can't just stay in denial forever! There's gonna come a time when you finally run out of excuses!" he yelled up at the departing ship. He had no idea why. There was no way Zim could have heard him.

It took him a long moment before he finally looked down at what he had pressed against his chest. It was his backpack.

Like the Spittle, he never thought he'd see it again. Not that it held anything terribly important. It was so full, the zipper looked close to bursting, but it was simply full of dirty clothes, old food wrappers, and… and his laptop.

Dib felt his heart flutter in his chest.

He had the laptop. He could feel its outline pushing against the bag. And attached to the laptop was the flash drive. With the recording of the Tallest admitting to their conspiracy.

Paralyzed with shock, he simply stood in the center of the clearing, still hugging the backpack. His heart began to beat, faster and faster, until the sound filled his ears.

Finally, he drew in a gasp. His evidence was right there. Easy as that. If he could get it to the right people… he might just have a chance at fixing everything. The Tallest's scheme would be proven and Earth wouldn't be considered an enemy planet.

…But who could he tell?

Dib began to think. He could never return to the prison. Even armed with his evidence, it would be foolish to expect it to get passed to the proper authorities. Vak had been dead set on having his own theories confirmed, and Dib was nothing more than a puppet in his game.

Who was more powerful than the Irken police?

Dib suddenly thought back to one of his conversations with 777, back when he had asked about Control Brains.

They're the real leaders of Irk… all laws and regulations must be passed by them.

Any Irken on any planet wouldn't help. He needed to get to the source. He needed a Control Brain.

He didn't know where to find a Control Brain on Vort. It wasn't safe for him to stay on Vort, anyhow.

He probed further, trying to remember every shred of information 777 had told him about Control Brains. What had prompted the Control Brain discussion in the first place?

Dib sat down on the ground, holding his backpack in his lap.

They had been talking about the battle tanks, and how they were being transported to Irk's capital city… and 777 had mentioned the capital city was where the Tallest lived… in some sort of palace… and it also housed something called the "Head Control Brain".

If he could only get to Irk…

The sun was just barely beginning to rise overhead, and in the distance, Dib could see the roof of the prison peeking from beyond the thick forest of alien trees. He took a deep breath, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing.

Then, he slowly began to walk back towards the prison.

-x-

Just beyond the prison walls was a long stretch of tarmac, in which multiple freight ships rested. The starships were positively enormous—far more enormous than Dib had seen in his life, if he was discounting the couple of times he'd borne witness to the Massive.

Within each and every one of them, countless battle tanks and mechs stood idle, waiting to be transported from Vort to Irk.

Dib hid behind some machinery in the nearby facility, staring out at the closest ship to him, less than ten feet away.

Checking to make sure the coast was clear, he darted out of his hiding spot and climbed inside the ship.

Within the cavernous walls of the freight ship were rows of what he'd been building for nearly two weeks: what 777 had called plasma-armed battle tanks. If Dib knew where to look, he'd be able to identify the tiny Irken insignia and rows of Irken characters he'd branded onto each and every tank.

He didn't have time to look, though. As soon as he walked inside, he heard voices nearby.

Startled, he dove behind a tank near the edge of the freight ship. When he experimentally lifted a hatch near the tank, it quietly swung open. Dib crawled inside and closed it behind him.

Less than an hour later, Dib heard another sound, faintly from the other side of the metal tank. It was that of an engine roaring to life.

Still hugging his backpack to his chest, he allowed himself a relieved exhale. The first part of his plan had worked. He was on his way to Irk.

"GIR, come in."

The sound of Zim's own voice surprised even him, piercing through the air after hours upon hours of total silence.

He was sitting in the pilot's chair with his PAK's monitor out. Unlike his base, which was undoubtedly still offline, he should have clear connection to GIR.

He held his breath as the seconds ticked by and GIR didn't respond. He swallowed hard and started to repeat the call, when, at the last moment, the fuzz from the screen cleared.

"Hi there!" GIR's little voice greeted Zim happily, and the Irken exhaled.

He cleared his throat and straightened up. "GIR, I have some orders for you while I'm gone. First—"

Zim stopped talking abruptly as GIR stared offscreen at something in the kitchen.

"Oh, hang on!" the robot said lightly. "I'm making smoothies!"

The sound of the blender starting up made Zim's uninjured antenna raise in interest. "GIR? Did you get the power back up and running?"

GIR looked back at the screen, now holding a questionable-looking smoothie with gray lumps floating in it. "Uh huh. The TV wasn't working."

Zim's lips pulled upwards on one side. "Excellent, GIR. Then you've already completed half of what I need you to do. Now listen very, very carefully: I need you to go downstairs into the lab—"

He was cut off again by the loud sound of GIR sucking on the smoothie straw. His antenna joined the injured one down near his shoulders as he waited for him to pay attention.

"I need you to restore the security system. In case that insane Larb decides to come back."

GIR nodded. "When you gonna come back? I have a blueberry-dirt smoothie for ya."

Zim grimaced a bit at the odd-colored concoction in GIR's hands. Then, he cleared his throat. "I'm going to be gone for a while, GIR. While I'm away, it is your duty to maintain the base and keep it hidden from the humans." Zim paused, then spoke the next words slowly. "Do you understand?"

"Mmmmhhhhmmm."

"Are you sure?" he prompted.

"Yup!"

"Good, GIR." Zim started to end the call, then stopped at the last second. He raised his arm in a salute, which was returned after a few more sucks at the smoothie straw. Only then did he let the screen fade to black and disappear back into his PAK.

He dropped the arm back down to his side. Though mostly healed, his other arm was still too tender to do much of anything with.

The cuts and bruises on his face had long since faded away. The only thing that lingered was his antenna injury. It took an aggravatingly long time for Irken antennae to heal fully, meaning that he would be deaf on one side for at least a month, if not longer.

He tried not to think about it for too long. He tried not to think about anything for too long. He had to focus on the task ahead of him.

The radar screen on the dash estimated less than an hour before he would be arriving on Irk. Vort was directly beside it, making the journey between the two planets less than a day long.

Funny. It had been years since he had last been on his home planet. He had been born there, and his early smeethood was spent on Irk exclusively until he reached adolescence. Afterwards, it had merely been one of the many planets he'd been bounced to during his military training.

Now, rather than feeling like a proper home, it felt more nostalgic than anything.

Zim had his Elite uniform hung up behind the pilot's seat, looking as crisp as it possibly could after spending as much time as it had in his PAK.

He'd also brought it with him to the Progress Convention, though he hadn't so much as taken it out of its garment bag. None of the Irkens had ended up wearing theirs.

Zim thought back to how long ago that had been. He remembered very little about the convention itself. He recalled yelling at GIR for some reason. Sleeping in his Voot. Waking up and coughing in the middle of the night. A masked figure standing on the other side of his windshield, pointing a gun at him.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, that masked figure had been Larb. But that didn't make sense. The latter memories blurred together to the point where he couldn't even remember the context. Had he and Larb gotten into some sort of altercation beforehand?

And what was the cause of that terrible coughing fit? That had been when all his problems had arisen. It wasn't unusual to pick up illnesses during travel, but it didn't take a genius to determine that he'd picked up something far worse than the sniffles. It had come on suddenly and strongly. All of his memories in the thereafter had a distinct feeling of malady attached with them; a sense of weariness that still lingered stubbornly whenever he stood up too quickly or dared overexert himself in any way.

Skoodge had never elaborated on what Zim had been afflicted with. Whatever he'd had, it had been severe enough to require a PAK replacement, which had evidently been granted in a matter of days. Only the best of the best became candidates in such a short period of time. No surprise, seeing as he was Zim.

Even so…

No!

Zim shook his head sharply back and forth.

He couldn't let his mind wander! He had to focus!

He stood up from his seat and turned towards his Elite uniform.

Carefully, he removed the armor and set it on the pilot's chair. He slowly changed from his regular uniform top to the silky plum-colored tunic. It was an expensive garment with a high purple collar, purple shoulder pads, and a drop tail that ended at the back of his knees.

He did the same with the bottoms, replacing the thin black fabric of his usual leggings with the thicker, more expensive material that made up the pants of the uniform.

Next came the armor. A belt wrapped around Zim's waist, complete with holsters on either side. Large, bulky boots ensured proper traction and protection.

And last but not least, his chest armor. It looked like nothing more than a small metal rectangle with a dull, unlit button on one side. Zim held it over his breastbone and carefully pressed it to his chest. At once, two tubes snaked from each side of it and latched into his PAK's lower back ports. They tightened around his chest firmly and seconds later, the button in the center of the metal rectangle lit up.

It was more of a precautionary measure than actual armor. It ensured all Irkens kept their PAKs firmly in place during battle, and that they didn't become dislodged.

Zim shifted uncomfortably in his armor, feeling bulky and weighed down. It was absolutely unheard of to enter the Tallests' palace in anything but one's finest attire, though. While his usual pink uniform was far more practical, it was entirely inappropriate.

To finish off the outfit, Zim pulled out a tiny stamp pad. Holding the handle in one claw, he used the ship's reflection to angle the stamp directly over his eyes. He pressed down, then made a slight rolling motion with his wrist to ensure the pressure was evenly distributed. When he removed it, a crisp, fuchsia Elite insignia was emblazoned in the center of his forehead.

"Perfect," he spoke to himself, admiring his appearance. It enough to hide his bent posture and distract from the one badly kinked antenna. Nothing could make him forget the lingering pain deep his shoulder, though, nor the fatigue that still plagued him daily.

His new PAK would have likely restored him to near-perfect health by now, had it not been constantly mending injuries. The result was a perpetual feeling of malaise. It made him tired, and often hungry. It was the PAK's way of demanding more energy. Zim was fortunate to have access to cans upon cans of food rations in the back of the ship, making it so that he didn't have to go an extended period of time without nutrients. It boded well for his PAK's efficiency, and in turn, his biological shell's wellbeing.

Suddenly, the radar screen began to beep, and Zim peered down coyly. He was coming up upon the docking ring on Irk. He cruised the beat-up Spittle into a spot, shored himself up, and searched the rows for the nearest teleporter.

Dib stirred in the underbelly of the ship. Inside his metal cocoon, he could hardly hear the engine, nor feel the turbulence of the starship carrying him and the handful of tanks straight to Irk.

He quietly stuck his hand into his backpack and fished around for whatever he could. He came back with half a bottle of water and a pre-packaged snack cake Skoodge had given him back on Elixus. He unwrapped the snack and took a bite. Like everything he had tried belonging to the Irkens, it was tooth-achingly sweet. He chased it down with a gulp of water and leaned back with a sigh.

He felt tired. More than physically tired—that was a given. He felt emotionally drained. He would devote his energy to getting himself and his flash drive to the Control Brains. As for Zim, he didn't know.

Arguing with him had felt so… empty. He hadn't been expecting that. Five years ago, Dib would have been chomping at the bit, overjoyed to laugh into Zim's face and tell him he was worthless.

He had been so angry, bursting out with the worst vitriol he could muster towards Zim. With each word, though, it didn't make him feel any better.

In fact, he didn't really know how it made him feel. There wasn't a single thing he had told Zim that made him feel fulfilled or at ease.

Dib continued to stare into the darkness, waiting for the ship to land. It was hard for him to discern what all was going on. From within the battle tank he'd hidden in, he couldn't hear the turbulence once the ship prepared to land on Irk, nor the voices of the Irkens unloading the machinery once it arrived at the base.

One moment, he was sitting in the corner of the tank, backpack hooked around his shoulders as he rested up against it. The next moment, bright light was rushing into the ship from the storage hatch, framing the shapes of two Irkens. Their antennae jumped forward atop their head in shock.

"A stowaway!" one of them shouted accusingly. The other Irken immediately pulled a communication device from his PAK and began to speak urgently into it.

Dib was paralyzed with shock. Within a minute, he was promptly yanked out of the tank and restrained by two of the most enormous Irken guards he'd ever seen.

"Where do we take him?" one of the guards said. "Have we ever dealt with a runaway from Vort before?"

The other guard thought for a moment. "Take him to the underground of the palace. He will be sent back to the prison tomorrow when the transport ship flies back."

Dib's brain was lagging behind him, leaving him hardly able to comprehend what had happened. Was it really over this soon? This anticlimactically?

He was still trying to grasp it as he was hauled to another building, eyes darting this way and that, trying to find any way to get free. He stumbled along between the guards, stopping as they brought him to a single jail cell. This one was far more primitive than the others he had seen, with plain steel bars instead of a laser field.

As they shoved him inside, all he could think was that he was being confronted with the most tedious sense of déjà vu possible.

Meanwhile, Zim was walking down the streets of Irk's capital, muttering to himself.

"I just have to walk in there, salute and wiggle my… one antenna." He frowned before carrying on. "And then say 'Greetings, Almighty Tallest Purple and Almighty Tallest—'" His face went blank. "What's the other one's name?"

He continued to mumble quietly as he walked through the city. Despite appearing rather showy in the comfort of his own ship, in the capital city, Zim's Elite uniform wasn't enough to stand out from the crowd. Quite a few Irkens were dressed in their finest uniforms, flaunting them as they walked up and down the streets. The only thing that differentiated Zim from them was his height; Zim was easily a foot shorter than even the shortest Irken who resided here.

He continued to walk until he arrived at the guarded gates of the Tallest's posh, masterfully designed palace.

It was placed directly next to the largest and most distinguished military base known to all of the Irken race. Only the best of the best were able to rise to the surface of Irk and attend the training academy in the capital city. Zim, being a member of the Irken Elite, had spent much of his time on the base, often with a plain view of the palace as he stood at parade rest or completed sparring exercises with his fellow soldiers.

For much of his youth, Tallest Miyuki had occupied it. Then, for a brief time, Spork. And now, the current Tallest resided there.

Taking a deep breath, Zim swaggered to the entrance, closely following a gaggle of Irken smeets in basic training who were entering in through the gates. Without a second glance, he was let in, too.

He trailed the group up the pathway, then continued on straight after they broke away to the training grounds next door.

Zim found himself lumped in with two more Irkens; service drones from the looks of them. They didn't say anything to Zim, averting eye contact and scuttling along across the enormous, shined floors that made up the palace's interior.

Within a few hundred feet, they disappeared into a room, and Zim was left alone.

"Hey!" a voice echoed from down the hall, and Zim whipped around. "How did you get in here?"

"Ah!" Zim said, promptly ignoring the question. He straightened up the best he could in all his armor and marched down the hallway. "Guard! Please escort me to the Tallest's chambers. I'm sure they've been anticipating me for quite some time."

"State your name and business," the guard barked back without missing a beat.

"I am Zim. Irken Invader Zim, top of Elite squadron 908. I am one of the most highly respected Invaders," Zim said, his mouth a thin line. He waved his hand dismissively. "Just bring me back. The Tallest will know exactly who I am."

The guard's PAK opened up and displayed a monitor. He searched through a seemingly never-ending list of names. "We have no Invader Zim recorded in our database," he murmured finally.

He gestured with one arm, and a large cable lowered from the ceiling and inserted itself into the top port of Zim's PAK.

The little Irken shuffled his feet impatiently as the guard examined the monitor nearby, displaying his identity and ranking. Whatever was on the screen must not have been satisfactory, for he eventually glanced down at Zim as if he were eyeing a particularly ugly insect. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Zim's one antenna shot up. "Leave? You can't make me leave!" He crossed his arms defiantly and stood as tall as he could make himself. Even so, he wasn't nearly as tall as the guard. Not even by half.

The guard took one step forward, and Zim scuttled back. He glanced up at the guard nervously. Then, whipping around, he dashed the other way.

"Get back here!" the guard shouted after him, taking off around the corner where Zim had gone. The sound of their footsteps disappeared down the hall.

Dib perked his head up as a commotion began down the hall from him in the dark, echoey cell.

At first, it was just the sound of kicking and struggling, with mutters from irritable guards interspersed here and there. Then, to his dawning surprise, a familiar voice rang through the air, traveling down the halls. "Stop! I need to speak with the Tallest! Come on, it will only take five minutes!"

As soon as the owner of the voice turned the corner, thrashing against the iron grip of two guards, he immediately ceased his struggle and contorted his face in disgust. The guards slowly lowered him to the ground and pushed him through the cell door.

"Oh, great…" Dib muttered. "The last person I wanted to see."

"My sentiments exactly," Zim returned.