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.