Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Madness Explained

            Sar stepped into the schoolroom, glancing around her with passing interest.  She noted with some amusement that she was taller by far than any of the other student humans, and took their shortness as a sign of inferiority.  She sat lightly in an unoccupied seat behind Zim (she learned later that he had caused the child to have a nervous breakdown and transfer to a 'special school') and began watching the others, taking mental note of them all.  Sitting on the opposite side of the class from Zim, in the front row, was Dib, who glanced fearfully at Sar every few moments.  Every time he looked over towards her, she made a fist, and he trembled uncontrollably. 

            "You do that… well," Zim conceded, whispering back to her.

            Ms. Bitters heard the miniscule noise and zipped over to Zim's seat like a ghost, her foul, stale breath engulfing his head.  "No talking, Zim," she growled.  Zim shuddered and apologized, and Ms. Bitters floated away, her stench still wafting over Zim like a living entity.  Sar caught a whiff and wrinkled her false nose. 

            "We have another new student," Ms Bitters announced, glaring around the classroom at the students.  "Please stand and introduce yourself.  It will be the last chance you get to speak in this room," The demonic teacher said, fixing Sar with her evil gaze.

            Sar stood, brushed her pants off, and coughed, clearing her throat.  "Hello, fellow students.  I am Sar, and I'm pleased to be in your class."  She then sat down, smirking at Zim, knowing that his own attempt at human normalcy had been something along the lines of "I'm just a normal human worm-baby, just like you…"

            Ms. Bitters then began 'teaching', or whatever passed for education in that room, her gravely, low voice filling the room like a satanic mantra.  "Today we'll all talk about nuclear wars.  If someone launches a missile at us, we are all doomed.  The world is doomed.  There is no way to escape… the Doom.  Repeat with me, We Are Doomed…"

            Sar sighed and leaned on one elbow, allowing her mind to wander aimlessly over her own thoughts.  Most of them involved world domination and Purple and Red lying, dead and desiccated, at her feet, but she didn't dwell on such mutinous thoughts for long.  If she had, they might take her over, and she might actually attempt to kill the two Tallest.

            Instead, she thought of her plans gone wrong, and how she might fix them.  Zim… he was a problem.  He'd have to break one of the three rules in her Guide To Slaughter that would overwrite the cheese law, and his idiocy and terror of her made that option highly unlikely.  If only Gir hadn't liked cheese…

            Gir, there was a problem.  He obviously was devoted to Zim, even though the short little alien was cruel to his poor, stupid droid.  Sar was sure Tass would take care of Gir.  He took care of everything.  Hadn't he taken care of her?  Goody, she thought, irritably, here comes another flashback…

            She was only a year old when it happened.  She, Sar, was an organic child, not born from a tube like most of the Irken army.  No, her parents had bonded and bred in secret, and she was the genetically abnormal result.  The Irkens hatched their offspring in tubes for a reason.  Within the tubes, DNA could be carefully combine, producing offspring not powerful enough to overthrow their leaders. 

The Irkens, having no home planet of their own any longer, had to invade other planets in order to take nutrients and resources from them.  Because the army was so vast, it was easy to send single squads, or even single warriors, to take a planet and its resources.  The problem with this system, however, was the size of a warrior's ego.  If the squad or warrior decided they'd rather not share their conquest…

            The First Tallest, the ancestors of the current Red and Purple, named Black and White in the history books, came up with a solution to the problem.  Each Irken was instilled with a sense of awe for height, and only the tallest members of society were revered enough to lead armies.  In order to keep the tallest Irkens in check, they were specially 'bred' and trained.  The result was a long line of ruling pairs, all much taller than any of the other Irkens.  To keep genetic anomalies, such as tall Irken warriors, out of the population, children were conceived and born in 'test tubes'.  The very few female Irkens were used as 'breeding stock', something which Sar despised.  They were almost akin to the human whores, and their offspring were never their own.

            Sar's parents were part of the 2% of Irkens who dared defy this system and breed their own child.  Instead of donating his male reproductive cells to the reproduction tubes, her father had used them on her mother.  Sar received the tall genes from both her parents, and because of her abnormal height, she was sought out by the Tallest's personal guards to be removed from society.  She couldn't be let loose to stir a rebellion.  The Tallest didn't exactly condone this sort of thing, the abduction of tall infants, but it was the only way for them to guarantee their power.  It was a Machiavellian system.

            Sar, kept in seclusion for the first year of her life, never knew why she had been taken away from her parents.  She grew first depressed, then angry at the Tallest who did this to her, and her young mind filled with gory plans of revenge.  She had plenty of time to think.

            Meanwhile, Sar's parents were executed, and the rest of the Irken army remained ignorant of the anomaly in their midst.

            Even at a young age, Sar showed fighting abilities (most likely due to her ample time to brood and practice her killing skills), and this gave one intelligent commander an idea.  He broached it to the Tallest, who apprehensively agreed to it.  Sar was to be used as an assassin, and would be trained and molded to obedience to she could never attempt mutiny. 

            Thus began her training.  For a full five years she worked, always keeping her revenge in the back of her mind, but pantomiming the obedience she had been taught.  She gained skill in mechanics, and designed an intelligence chip far superior to those of the first batch of S.I.R. units.  In secret, she built her own droid, using bits of weaponry and stolen technology.  The T.A.S.S. S.I.R. as she called it, became her single friend.  His modified emotions chip, along with his abnormally powerful intelligence chip, allowed him the decision-making skills and feelings of a normal Irken.  In essence, Tass became the father, brother, and best friend Sar never had.

            He was the only thing that kept her from shooting herself in those long, grueling, psychologically torturing sessions of training she was made to endure, and when she was finally through at the age of 10, she and Tass were inseparable.  Her first assignment on Impending Doom 1 was fairly simple; gather intelligence on planets surrounding those being conquered for the second Impending Doom.  It was through her work that this second of the set of invasions was possible.  After this successful mission, the Tallest entrusted much greater responsibilities to the tall, female Invader.  She was given her own Vood Runner, which she immediately re-built to suit her purposes, and she became infamous throughout the Irken armies.  Because of her wrathful tendencies and a bloodlust that was unmatched by any other Irken's, she had to write herself a code of conduct, one dictating who she could and could not kill.  This kept her unauthorized assassinations to a minimum.

            Only the fact that the Tallest had given her permission to become what she was kept them alive.

            Sar was shaken from her reverie by Ms. Bitters' harsh voice rasping at her.  "No dreaming in class," she said.  Sar sat up straight and folded her hands obediently, wishing this 'School' would end so she could continue her conquests.  This was only taking up valuable time.  Each conquest brought her closer and closer to usurping the Tallest and taking the throne…

NOTE: Please excuse the more 'serious' talk in this chapter.  It's all explanations.  My little factoids on Irken reproduction and politics are my own ideas, not stolen, so don't accuse me of stealing.  These are not proven in the show, so don't use this chapter as any sort of guide.  Similarly, please don't flame me on the basis of my ideas in this chapter.