(Skateboards in twelve years late with Starbucks) Hey.

Happy 20th anniversary of Invader Zim! In honor of the holiday I thought I'd share a surprise with all of y'all who didn't learn this by rereading the fic sometime after I added an author's note: for the past couple of years I've been writing the rest of ISS! It's not totally finished yet, but I'm on the next to last (and most exciting!) chapter of the rough draft. Considering the state of the rough draft (CHAOS), it's still gonna be months before it's publishable—but considering the wait til now, we're EXTREMELY close!

So here's how it's gonna go. I'm mainly posting this chapter right now so that all y'all get an email alert and go "oh this is active again? What the fuuuu—" as a little zimiversary treat, and then I'm going to vanish into the void again (but much more briefly this time!) to finish writing. Before I start posting for real, I'm also going to edit the first 30 chapters to meet the super advanced adult writing standards of the rest of the fic. (And, while I'm at it, I'll be crossposting to AO3!) And then, once everything's all edited and tidy, we're back on our vintage once-a-week Friday night update schedule!

Anyway, great to see y'all again, hope you guys with email alerts are still using the same accounts you had in 2009, come say hi to me on AO3/tumblr/twitter where I'm also ckret2, and happy birthday 2 zim.

xxxxx

In Short Supply

Water Millions

xxx

From a form filled out based on Vortian Scola Institute paperwork, which Zim is still using nine years later to help him organize his projects: Military Inventor Layman's Facts Form (MILF form):

Name: INVADER ZIM Species: SUPERIOR IRKEN

Name of invention: HYPNOMELON PROJECT

Purpose of invention: utilizing the dna of watermelons, a mind control sequence found in bloaty's pizza hog commercials, and the natural mutation-inducing power of natural radio waves, i will synthesize a signal which mutates the dna of all lifeforms on earth to unquestioningly obey ZIM's orders. the signal will irradiate the surface of the earth via orbital satellite which will be powered by the swampy gut juice of the very watermelons whose dna i shall use to create the signal.

How has this invention been tested?: before construction of the satellite, i am going to wire the mutation signal into my base's defenses. if anyone dares to trespass on the mighty zim's property, THEY WILL TASTE THE WRATH OF MY MIND CONTROL! i'm hoping the dib will be my first test subject.

How did it perform in tests?: IT WILL PERFORM FLAWLESSLY.

Is there any practical application of your invention?: THE EFFORTLESS CONQUEST OF PLANET EARTH.

Final evaluation by heads of institution: I AM A GENIUS! purple will be absolutely astounded by my brilliant plan.

xxx

Somehow, Zim had talked Purple into carrying most of the supplies he'd gone out for.

Well. There wasn't very much "somehow" about it, honestly. At their first stop—one of those human stores that sold chips and a bunch of other far less useful things—Zim had asked Purple to carry the supplies. Purple had refused, on the grounds that he was the Tallest and it wasn't even his project, so why should he? Zim had griped and then assented, and carried the supplies he'd picked up himself.

The supplies he'd picked up were large, round, green things called... water millions, or whatever. Purple didn't care what they were called. What he cared was that he'd seen Zim carrying eight of them—the same number of eggs he'd laid two nights ago—cradling them in front of his body, threatening to drop one or be knocked over with their weight—and Purple had snatched them up. He'd grumbled something about how Zim's arms were too short to hold them.

(And then he'd ended up carrying a radio, a long coil of vacuum hose, and parts forages from a satellite dish that Zim had scaled the side of an apartment building to retrieve.)

Purple didn't want to think about Zim laying eggs.

There was a reason that Purple didn't want to think about Zim laying eggs.

Besides the fact that it was horrible and disgusting and just about the worst thing he'd ever seen.

It was because of this second, more important reason: it was horrible and disgusting and just about the worst thing he'd ever seen.

... And yet, Zim was doing it.

He was doing it, and he wasn't complaining about it. Much, anyway. As much as he probably should be. He'd just obeyed his orders. Even though those orders meant being filled with multiple round things and then—then letting them—squeeze out of his—ewww ew ew ew yuck yuck yuck nope, NOPE, Purple is NOT thinking about it. Think about something else.

Like how Zim had screamed and cried as his blood spattered across the walls the first time he'd tried to carry eggs.

... No. Not that, either. Think about-something else. Anything. The weather?

It had been cold when they'd left Zim's base. Not winter cold, definitely not Irken winter cold, but cold enough that Purple was grateful for the extra jacket layer that came with his human disguise. It was still cold now, but not as much—by now, it was nearing the middle of the day, and the Earth's horrible sun was high overhead. (Probably. Zim had warned Purple once to never, ever, EVER, ever stare directly at it—ever—and so he was not taking any chances. It was overhead-ish.) Humans were coming out of their houses to do things in their lawns. Why? So they could spy on each other? Were the insides of their homes too boring to entertain them? Were the humans hanging out on their grass too poor to go to all the stores and restaurants downtown? What a shame—for them.

Purple wondered, idly, about human hierarchy. They didn't have as wide a variety of height as Irkens—how did they determine their relative rank to each other? By the height of their homes? The homes among which Zim had cleverly hidden his base were very short compared to the towering buildings downtown, where lived the humans who apparently had the spare cash to shop, unlike these grass-standers. Perhaps the humans who lived in those towers were the important ones? But what decided who got to make their homes in those towers?

As they headed home, Purple slowed down, squinting down the street at the windows of Zim's base. "Hey." He shifted the watermelons in his arms, leaning back so he could partially balance them on his chest, so that he could get one hand free enough to point at the left window. "Isn't that Bob?"

"What?!" Zim squinted. Indeed, there was the top half of Bob's little head, peeking out of the window, with his gloved hands on the windowsill. When he saw them seeing him, he waved. "Hey!" A couple of humans, sitting outside in the grass on chairs—for some reason Purple could not fathom—turned to look at Zim shouting. "Hey, what are you doing?! The neighbors can see you!" They turned to see where Zim was yelling. One human, using a primitive but extremely barbaric torture instrument to wildly spray hydroxylic acid over a bunch of innocent flowers, let the hose droop down as it craned its neck to see in the window. "You're going to blow my cover! You're so obvious!" Bob, who clearly couldn't hear Zim's complaints, waved harder.

"Idiot!" Zim snarled in frustration, then gave Purple a resentful look. "Why'd you have to send me such a stupid Drone?"

"Aren't all Drones stupid?"

"Oh. Oh yeah. Heh." Zim took a deep breath and bellowed down the street, "COMPUUUTEEEER!"

Faintly, from down the street, Zim's base bellowed back, "YEEEAH?"

"GET MY SLAVE DRONE OUT OF THE WINDOW!"

"WHAAAT?"

"THE WINDOOOW! DOWWWN! BOB!"

"OH! OKAY!"

There was a flash of light and a dull boom from inside Zim's base. Cars stopped in the street and window curtains in the neighboring houses were drawn back so humans could stare at the source of the noise. When the smoke cleared from the window, Bob was gone.

Zim smiled proudly at Purple. "Problem solved."

Purple wasn't looking at him. He was looking down at the green and pink gore spattered on the asphalt beside his feet. "You made me drop one of my water millions."

"You should have held it better."

Purple shifted his grip on the remaining watermelons, and continued walking with Zim. "Why are they so pink on the inside?"

"I'unno."

"And oozy. They're very oozy."

"Yeah, that's the water part."

"Gross."

When Zim opened the door to the base, Bob was laying facedown on the ground, with a trail of soot behind him that indicated he'd dragged himself from the window over to the door. "Zi—"

"You!" Zim said, disapprovingly. "You were in the window! Don't you know that people could see you from there?"

"I—" He coughed pitifully, and rasped, "I know. I was trying to get your atten—"

"You're in my way." Zim nudged Bob's face aside with his foot, and continued around him.

Purple simply stepped over him. "Hey, where do you want all these water-millions?" He turned his hologram off as soon as the door was shut.

"Water-MELONS."

"Yeah, whatever. Where do you want them?"

Zim plopped down on the couch, and started unloading his own supply of parts from his Pak. (Funny, he hadn't been carrying so much that he needed to balance it in his arms.) "Just put them in the kitchen."

Bob dragged himself slowly over to the couch, where he tugged on Zim's boot. "Zim... I... I was trying to tell you... you had a call."

"Eh? From who?"

Purple was very carefully trying to balance the watermelons on the kitchen table. They kept trying to roll. Like round things. Maybe if he pushed the chairs up next to the table, the chair backs would hold the watermelons in place. He tried to keep the watermelons corralled with his arms, but couldn't get his Pak legs out to scoot the chairs in while his disguise jacket was on. Maybe if he used the vacuum hose as a barrier instead.

"From Tallest Red on the Massive!"

Purple dropped three watermelons on the floor. "WHAT?!"

"He called a few degrees ago—"

Two more watermelons slowly rolled off the table as Purple flew across the room to pick up Bob. "He's not supposed to be back until tomorrow! What did h—" Bob's head flopped back, too exhausted for his neck to carry the weight of his head. Ew, ew, Purple didn't want to touch Bob's naked head. He very carefully pressed Bob against the wall so his head was propped up against it. "What did he want?"

xxx

There's something that lives in every Irken that's dark and cold and wet and always ready to suck them down into hell. They all knew it was there—they all silently and collectively agreed not to acknowledge that it was there—they all did their very best to keep it at bay. Red had always thought that his portion of whatever-that-was was greater than the average Irken's. Perhaps it only felt like that because nobody talked about theirs, but that was certainly how he felt. Maybe because whenever talk about it was silenced, it was framed as not reminding Irkens about that darkness; while, in contrast, Red was always aware of his, like water lapping at his ankles, and always conscious of the little things he had to do to stop it from climbing higher.

Right now, it wasn't just lapping at his ankles. And it wasn't cold.

It was boiling. Scalding him from the inside. Burning steam filled him, threatening to hiss through the seams in his Pak and roll out of his mouth like smoke when he spoke.

There was very good reason for Irkens to fear the dark things inside them. But right now—as Red surveyed the Comm and Nav Techs staring up at him, their knees and antennae trembling in the face of his barely-controlled wrath—he certainly didn't fear the dark thing inside him.

But everyone else in the room did.

"You," he said lowly, "should all be ashamed of yourselves."

He wasn't mad at them, truly. He was mad at Purple. But Purple wasn't here, and so Red was going to vent his rage on whom he could.

There was a soft rustling that circled the room as the Techs shifted uncomfortably, tugging at their high collars and slouching in their seats.

"No, more than that—you should be terrified of yourselves. You left the Massive without its Tallest for nearly five days—without one of the Tallest even knowing that it was unguarded! You took an order from one of them to not tell the other a secret! That's—that's the EXACT thing you SHOULD be reporting to me! If we'd been under attack—if there'd been ANY emergency—YOU would have been putting the empire in danger by not informing me of the situation! Are you all IDIOTS? Are you INSANE?"

Red spun around, staring the Techs down. None had the guts to look up at him.

It was hardly a whisper: "B... but..."

Red whirled to face the offender, his teeth bared in a carnivore snarl. "But? But? But what?" The Tech quailed under his gaze. "Go on! FINISH it! But WHAT?"

"But... you..." He shrank down, so that only half of his eyes showed over his console. "You told us... not to tell Purple we knew he was lying..."

Red picked up the slushie that had been left on his platform in anticipation of his return home and chunked it at the Tech's head. He ducked, and the huge cup sailed between his shaking antennae.

"That's different. Everyone in this room knows it's different! I trusted all of you with a secret because I had confidence that you were smart enough to understand that preserving it was for the good of the Irken Empire. I didn't think that it was because none of you had the guts to mention to one Tallest when the other Tallest is stepping out of line!"

The room was silent, shaking under his glare. Awaiting their punishment.

Red couldn't punish them though, could he? Yes, the situation was different. But he had set the precedent: if one Tallest orders you to keep secrets from the others, you do it. They'd only followed the example he set. Whose fault was that? Could he punish them for following his rules? He hadn't exactly set out a list of guidelines for when they should and shouldn't obey a Tallest's order to keep a secret from the other Tallest. He'd just demanded their obedience. They'd obeyed.

He circled the edge of his platform, fingers locked behind his back, glaring down at them, and let the chill linger for just a moment longer. And then he turned toward the view screen.

"Purple's not gonna be on Foodcourtia." (There was no excited stirring and/or murmuring in response to this revelation.) "But I've got a good guess where he is."

Shortly before arriving on the Massive, he'd received a transmission from Vermin—intriguing guy, Vermin—on Judgmentia. The special assignment the Control Brain Triumvirate had given him was, he revealed, to find out about a hacker that had broken into Irk Control Brain 2. After reporting to the Triumvirate, he'd decided that this was information that Red needed to know as well: the hacker was Zim, and he was looking up data on Irkens under an era old. Not only that, but—among other things—his hangar had held an untraceable ship, his base had trace data from Paks of Irkens that didn't exist, and the computer's programming could make unrecordable transmissions.

It sure was a hell of a coincidence that Purple's had an untraceable Spittle Runner, had visited the smeet academies shortly before they received several undocumented smeets, and had been making the unrecorded transmissions from his room.

And considering that several weeks ago they'd received a desperate cry for help from Zim, and Purple had immediately dropped everything and vanished...

Red planted his hands on his hips, fingers curled tight around his hover belt, like he was ready to rip it off and beat somebody to death with it. "Call Zim."

There was the briefest pause; and then a flurry of typing as everyone rushed to either obey his order or get back to their regular duties.

"Somebody—somebody take notes. Type out a transcript. Y—you three." He pointed. The three Irkens under his gaze started; their neighbors leaned away, pretending even harder to be busy. "All three of you. Zim's base has got a new feature—we can't record calls with him. I want a written record of exactly how this goes down."

Nods and salutes. "Sir!" "Yes, sir!"

Red waited, scowling, for Zim to pick up. Oh, he'd better not dream of ignoring the call—Red would take that as just as good confirmation of his suspicions as Purple himself answering. But whichever of them answered—he had the facts, he had the Control Brains' testimony, and he was ready to grill the hell out of them until he found what, exactly, Purple was doing making trips to Earth. He worked out the words in his head—he wanted to chill them through to their squeedilyspooches—if Zim answered, he was going to say, "Put Purple on the line," and if Purple answered, all he was going to say was, "Surprise." And then he'd wait for them to finish spluttering in shock. And then he'd start the interrogation.

Right. He collected himself, straightening his back against the weight of his Pak and armor, and prepared to terrify the hell out of either Zim or Purple, whichever of them answered the—

The line was answered by a literal, actual child with stunted antennae, trying unsuccessfully to control a vacuum cleaner in Zim's living room. Red stared at him in shock. The smeet stared at Red in shock.

Red opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. "Who—?"

"You!" The smeet pointed at Red. "You owe me six million monies!"

Red's antennae shot straight up. "Bob?!"

xxx

"He wanted to know where Zim is." Bob paused, looked at Purple, and added, "And you."

Purple squeezed Bob tighter in fear. "What?!"

"H-hey!" Bob kicked Purple's wrist. He dropped him. "Ow. Yeah—yeah, he asked where you are. Like he thought I should know."

Terror tied knots in Purple's squeedilyspooch. "What did you tell him?"

"I told him that you weren't here," Bob said. "Very persuasively."

xxx

Red's frown deepened as he read the transcript of his discussion with Bob.

Tallest: He is TOO!

Drone?: He is NOT!

Tallest: Yeah!

Drone?: No!

Tallest: Yeah he is!

Drone?: Nuh uh!

Tallest: Yuh huh!

Drone?: Nuh uh!

Tallest: Yuh huh!

Drone?: Nuh uh!

Tallest: Yuh huh!

One of the Comm Techs coughed quietly, drawing Red's attention from the transcript. "Did... did we spell 'yuh-huh' correctly, sir? We weren't sure of the..."

Red gave him a withering glare.

And then muttered, "I would've spelled it with an A, personally."

xxx

"I didn't tell him how I got here from the Conveyor Belt Planet, either," Bob assured Purple.

"He asked?! He recognized you?"

Bob was silent, for a long moment. "I—might've reminded him of his debt."

"WHAT?! You stupid—" Purple kicked the wall next to Bob. Bob curled up in a terrified ball, attempting to cover his head with his arms. "Red could've believed Zim picked up a Drone ANYWHERE! But I told him I was visiting Conveyor Belt Planet! If he remembers that and remembers we put YOU there—"

Bob glowered up at Purple, angry tears welling up between his arms. "Well I wouldn't have HAD to remind him of his debt if YOU'D paid me!"

This time, Purple's kick connected. Bob squeaked and rolled onto his side, pulling his knees up and his legs around his assaulted torso.

Purple started pacing across Zim's room. "Oh, this is bad. This is bad. How did he even connect me to Earth? Did he put a tracking device on my Runner?"

He stopped suddenly, turning to face Zim. "Did YOU call him?"

"What?!" To Purple's surprise, Zim wasn't messing with his supplies. He was crouched on his knees, leaning over the side of the couch where Purple had been interrogating Bob, and looking attentively at Purple. "No! You made extremely clear that I am only to report to you for the duration of my eggy mission, my Tallest."

That'd be the first thing anyone had ever made extremely clear to Zim. "You're sure? You never even called him by accident and then hung up really fast?"

"N—" Zim stopped, thinking hard. "Nooo... except for the time you were there that you already know about." He paused; and then asked, looking almost concerned, "... Do you think he figured it out from that?"

"...No." Purple didn't remember Red expressing any suspicion then. But, that DID happen. And there was the time Zim had called while dying and Purple had promptly disappeared for several days. "...Maybe. Maybe."

He paced faster. Where was his hover belt? Pacing was hard work. "What else? Did Red say anything else?"

"Nnnn..." Bob wiped his eyes, trying painfully to uncurl from his ball. "H-he... he said..."

xxx

Red turned away from the little Drone on the screen in disgust. "Fine. Whatever. If Purple wants to play like that, I don't care." He commanded his platform to lower, and turned to one of the Nav Techs. "How far are we from Foodcourtia? Timewise."

"Uh..." She quickly called up the information. "Thirty degrees away if we change the Massive's course."

Red barked a humorless laugh.

"Ninety by Runner if you slingshot around the Massive."

"How far's Foodcourtia from Earth by Runner?"

Another pause. "... Four days."

"Great." He turned to the Comm Techs. "Contact Foodcourtia, they're on lockdown. No ships are coming in or out. I'm going to Foodcourtia."

"Sir?"

"Hey," Bob said, "What's goin—"

Oh, right, the Drone. Red gestured vaguely at the screen, saying to the Comm Techs, "Shut that down." Earth was too far away, he'd never get there in time to prove Purple was there. He could get to Foodcourtia in time to prove he wasn't there. To the Nav Techs, he said, "Get a—somebody, get a Runner prepared. How soon can a Runner be prepared?"

The screen went dark, the Drone's face disappearing to show the black starry expanse; and was almost immediately replaced by several smaller windows as the Comm Techs started issuing Red's orders. "Within five degrees."

"Good. Tell Mok and Gummy to be ready to go, and to bring—" he paused, before finally deciding, "two of Purple's guards."

There was a thin sliver of Red that was still desperately hoping that everything the Control Brains had shown him and Vermin had told him were just a vast coincidence. A tiny part of him that hoped he'd show up on Foodcourtia and discover Purple had been there since Red had gone on vacation. That would just make Purple an idiot, instead of... of... of whatever he was now, hiding things from the Control Brains and sneaking around in untraceable ships and hanging out with Zim.

"Shall I call for a Pilot, sir?"

"No. I'm flying."

Nobody argued.

Red hovered at the edge of his platform, ready to take off the second he received notice that his Runner was ready.

xxx

"I'm doomed," Purple moaned, at the exact same time that Zim exclaimed, "We're saved!"

Purple stared at him. "Are you out of your MIND? How?"

"Bob gave up nothing!" Zim leaned over the couch, and hauled Bob up by one leg. Bob yelped. "He has resisted the vicious interrogation of a Tallest!"

"T-two Tallest," Bob said.

"He has proven himself to have fortitude and stamina worthy of a true Invader—"

Bob gasped, eyes welling up again, "O-oh, Zim—"

"—and more importantly, worthy of any Drone that I would call my personal slave." Zim dropped Bob back on the floor, head first. "Tallest Red has no evidence that you're on Earth!"

"We hope," Purple said.

Zim waved off the pessimism. "So, all we have to prove to him that he's completely wrong is to get you to Foodcourtia first!"

Purple laughed incredulously. "You can't pos—" And paused. "...CAN you?"

"Sure! I personally know of a wormhole that can get us to Foodcourtia in fifteen degrees. I used it to get home when my old boss kidnapped me." Zim paused. "Eh... boss? Jailer...?"

"Who?"

"The Frycook what's-his-name."

"Oh. Jailer."

"Yeah! Him." Zim had assembled a rudimentary wormhole drive out of junk in his commandeered taxi's glove compartment and backseat rubbish in order to get himself back to Earth. Which had worked out great. Until the taxi exploded. "Anyway—I know we can get to Foodcourtia before Tallest Red. Then we've got to get inside the planet—"

"Which is on lockdown."

"Lockdown," Zim sneered. "I escaped the Foodening. What's a pathetic lockdown compared to that?"

"... You didn't. Did you?"

"My Tallest. Pur." Zim got up on the couch and looked up into Purple's eyes. "Do you doubt Zim's capabilities?"

The answer had been a resounding yes so recently that it nearly slipped out before Purple had time to think about it. But he had to stop. And think about watching Zim shove a bunch of eggs out of his own body, a mere two days ago. And about how Zim had walked into the depths of hell to obtain a menial fast food job. And about the Santa beast and the thrall of terror under which it held the Earthen people.

Purple doubted a lot of things about Zim. His stability? Yes. His success rate? Sure. His ability to get things done without causing more collateral damage than whatever he'd been trying to originally accomplish? Absolutely.

But his capabilities?

No—and never again.

"... I'll get dressed." He marched into the kitchen, whipping off the vacuum hose he was wearing like a boa. "I'll put my other supplies with the waterm— GIR!"

Gir looked up, face covered in pink gore and shiny black flecks of what Purple could only assume were watermelon bones. Gir had devoured one of the remaining melons and was now nestled inside the hollowed-out corpse of the other. "Yeees?"

"Oh—forget it." Purple tossed the hose down on the table, and dumped the radio and satellite dish parts on the kitchen table beside him.

Gir whispered, "Can I take the others to the mini-tires?"

"Yeah whatever." He tossed his jacket and hat in the fridge. "Computer, boot up my Runner."

"Yes sir, Almighty Tallest sir!"

Zim was watching, miffed, from the living room. "You didn't answer my question," he muttered. Then sighed, jumping off the couch. "I'm piloting the Spittle Runner!"

"Oh no you aren't."

"I have more experience with wormholes! And combat flying!"

"COMBAT flying?!"

"How do you think we're getting past the lockdown? I'm piloting!"

"There is NO way, in ALL the stars, voids, heavens, and hells, that I am EVER going to let YOU pilot MY—"

xxx

Zim piloted Purple's Spittle Runner.

xxxxx