[I didn't mean for Violet to resemble anyone else's characters… but I guess she kind of does. My apologies!]
"Achoo, achoo, achoo," Tak sneezed, wiping her mouth with the back of her gloves.
Spork put an arm around her, patting her on the back. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Ith hathing an alerthic reaction to my matheup," she sniffled through the sneezes.
Spork wiped her face on the inside of his cape. "Guys, I don't think she can go into the club like this," Spork said, his worried eyes dancing with brilliant colors from the streetlights' reflections in them.
Tain frowned, murmuring slightly. "I suppose you're right. I hate to say this, because we need her help, but take her home and clean that junk of her, before she breaks out into hives. The rest of us can call a cab home."
"I think its too late for that," Tak sighed, sneezing once again as Skoodge dragged her back towards the ship they had arrived in.
Zim let out a whine of anger as a tall creature covered in fur bumped him on the head on his way past, sending Zim's face into the black carpet. "Could it be any colder out here?" Tain muttered, rubbing his frozen arms. They were being made wait until it could be decided whether they were cool enough for the insides of the club.
"I've felt worse," Red the priest shrugged. His twitching, shivering arms gave him away as a terrible liar. Zim, finally getting his face unstuck from the carpet, hacked unhappily.
A thick, muscular, brown creature wearing sunglasses and a black alien-skin ankle-length trench coat wandered down the rows of hopeful would-be gothlings. He paused in front of Tain, Red, and Zim. He smiled a bit, lifting up his sunglasses. Suddenly feeling rather naked, Zim crossed his arms over his chest. Of all the shirts they could have picked for him, why MESH?
"You get in, and he get in," the creature said, pointing to Red. He moved on without saying a thing in Tain's direction.
"How rude!" Tain cried angrily. "If we weren't on a mission, I'd put a curse on his head that would turn his fur snow white." He turned back to Zim and Red. "It's up to you two to find tallest Purple and convince him to help us."
"That's not going to be easy. I mean, he had money, fans, celebrity… what could we possibly offer him?"
"A greater future for IRK!" cried Tain. "Now get in there and find him!" He swung at Zim, causing the little Irken to squeak and dart backwards, sliding through the crowd and into the club.
"I think I'm going to go deaf!" Red protested unhappily.
"Whatever you said, I think we should just find Purple!" Zim shouted back, hands over his antennae.
"I think we should find Purple!" Red shouted back, completely unable to hear anything Zim had said. Zim nodded in response and the two split up, Red heading to the left of the club, Zim heading to the right.
Red squealed in unhappiness and jumped about five feet in the air when a six-armed orange dragon grabbed his butt with all six hands. Rubbing his sore body part he continued to push through the crowd, heading towards and vague form he could see through the smoke that was tall enough to stand above the crowd.
As he neared the stage, a loud voice boomed, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I GIVE YOU… IRKEN GOTHIC!"
Black smoke billowed up from the stage, casting a haze over red spotlights. Red narrowed his eyes in lack of amusement. Smoke machines… how boring, he thought inwardly. When the smoke cleared, the forms from the advertisement stood on the stage.
The ruby-eyed female raised her arm in the air, causing the crowd to grow instantly silent. Red wondered if they would drop on their knees and begin idol-worshipping the band. A microphone with fake bat wings glued on dropped from the ceiling into the Irken's hand.
"My fellow creatures of the night," she purred in a fake vampire accent. "Your steamy, blood-warm welcome reaches the bottoms of our darkest coffins, does it not, my sires?" she asked. The band nodded noncommittally.
Oh brother, thought Red as he yawned. This was too much… simply too much. He couldn't believe how the crowd was lapping it up, like cats before milk.
"As you know, my name is Tainted Tenn. As a special treat to our little batwings and nightlings, you all are going to get a preview of the rough cut of our new music video, shot on one of the dark moons of your blood-filled planet!"
The crowd went nuts as "Tainted Tenn" drew a finger across her neck to signal the beginning of the video. Of course, Red couldn't have known that the Tenn on the stage was Tak's missing friend. Had Zim not been busy in the bathroom trying to figure out exactly how to wear his trench coat so as not to expose so much of his chest, he might have.
Red didn't think the video would interest him until the first shot displayed. In brilliant black and white, Purple stood silently in an alley. Red's eyes widened. That… that could have been HIM on screen. The lack of color in the shot made that more obvious. Without the difference in their eye colors, they were perfectly identical.
"Perhaps there is some truth in that crazy sinners words," Red muttered. If there was, then… maybe he really was an almighty tallest. He hadn't believed it up until that moment but seeing Purple, his twin, standing there before him had opened the priests' aged eyes.
Purple ran across the screen, clamoring up a metal catwalk. He swung over the edge, only to have lasers pushed into his face. The next shot showed him being taken in chains to a plush vampire club, where Tenn lay dressed in all her gothic glory, surrounded by pale but nearly naked men in chains. Her mouth was moving in horrible sync to the music. Red wondered if that was because it was a rough-cut, or if all the bands' videos were really that horrible.
He watched Tenn and Purple pretend to cavort with one another in slow motion as she "drank" his blood from his neck. The two Siamese twin Irkens threw black and red paint all over the walls in the background. Red stared. All he could think of it was that he'd seen modern art that made more sense.
Realizing the crowd was caught up in the video, Red swallowed his fear down in his throat, and rushed forward. Caught off-guard he easily body-slammed two security guards to leap on stage. "What's going on here?" Tenn screamed, her vampire accent suddenly gone. "Somebody stop him!"
The "twins" rushed Red. His military training was rusty, but not gone. He easily managed to use the fact that their clothes were joined together to dodge them, knocking their unbalanced form to the ground with a single agile twist and kick of his slender body.
He landed right before Purple, who had most of his hand shoved into his mouth. The poor, terrified Irken's eyes were wide. Who could blame him? He was a fugitive from Spork living in the spotlight.
"I've come to take you away from this, Purple. To your future with me."
Red expected a fight from the slender, shaking Irken. He got a shock instead. Purple looked up into his eyes. "I'll do whatever you want, just get me away from those nutty fans…. I'm so sick of all this makeup, and I'd love to be called by my real name, not… Darkness…"
"You poor thing…" Red reached out and grasped Purple's hand, intending to make a run with him.
A spark ran between the two of them, causing both to gasp in unison. "Did you see…?" Purple asked, his voice trembling.
"A vision from God. It was us… as almighty tallest… tallests…."
"Spork would kill us before that could ever happen," Purple said, looking away.
Red grasped his face and turned it back. "Look at me. We could be twins. Are you just going to ignore your destiny?"
Purple hesitated, unable to answer. "Look out!" he cried, pulling Red to the ground as bullets shot over their heads.
"Aren't they supposed to be protecting you, not trying to kill you?" Red screamed over the shouts of the terrified patrons abandoning ship.
Purple lifted his head, his eyes wide. "Those aren't my guards." In fact, Purple's bodyguards were running for their own lives as blue-glad enforcers flooded into the club, flame-throwers in hand.
Zim finally emerged from the bathroom to find the club in flames, the patrons screaming and diving out of black-curtained windows. The Irken paused in shock before doing the first thing that came into his mind. "I didn't start the fire! I swear!" Zim shouted to no one in particular.
Meanwhile, Red and Purple were trapped on stage, pressed pack to pack, surrounded by laser armed guards. "I guess this is it," Purple said sadly.
"Yeah, and I didn't even get to show you my laser collection," Red sniffed. Purple responded by rolling his bright eyes, but Red couldn't see that.
"So… double team?"
Red paused. "If you insist."
The guards let out a cry of surprise when the stage suddenly filled up with black smoke, temporarily blinding them. When the smoke let up, all four of Red's legs were extended, a laser gripped by each one. There were two large lasers in either of his real hands as well.
Now, one would not expect a single laser armed Irken to be able to take out sixteen laser armed Irkens, but this is Red we're talking about. Somehow, he managed to do it.
The other guards looked frantically around for Purple, who had jumped over their heads in the commotion. By the time they turned around, Purple had a chair in hands. With a quick, fluid motion of his long arms he slammed their chair across two guard's faces and into a third one's gut, sending them sprawling to the ground.
Meanwhile, Zim was wandering around, completely unbothered by the smoke. He was short enough that he didn't have to crawl to get to the cool air underneath the hot clouds of black. That wasn't to say it was clean air, however, as it was the air of a gothic nightclub.
"Red! Red!" he called, coughing a bit from the harsh smell of burning leather. "Red, where are you?"
"Zim? Zim?"
"Tain? Tain, I lost track of Red and Purple!"
"Hurry up and get outside, the ceiling is about to collapse!"
"But the tallests…"
"There's nothing we can do for them now, Zim! Just get outside before you end up an Irken potato chip!" He grasped Zim by the wrist and dragged him out of a hole in the side of the club just in time. The ceiling collapsed inward, reducing the club to a rectangle of burning rubble.
Zim stared at the flames. Now he'd never get back. He'd never get a chance to take over the Earth. He'd never be revered as the greatest Invader ever. He'd… he'd have to wear that horrible blue uniform! At the very thought, Zim collapsed to his knees.
Tain patted his back. "I know, I know… it's like watching the fate of the Empire go up in those flames…"
"ZIM! ZIM!" Red's voice called. He was rushing towards them. His antennae were smoldering, his clothes were a ragged mess, and his face was covered in soot, but he was alive. Purple was running after him, limping slightly on a twisted ankle.
"Red! Purple!" Zim cried, rushing towards them. It was so good to see them both alive that had he been a less hardened Irken, he might have burst into happy sobs. He threw his arms around their legs, since that was all he could reach. "You're alive!"
"Just barely!" Red cried. "I had to save Purple's butt."
"My butt?" Purple cried. "Who saved you from those bullets?"
"Who pulled you away from the falling piece of burning ceiling?"
"Who confused the guards so we could get away?"
"Whose fancy laser action stopped the guards from shooting us in the back as we fled?"
Zim sighed. "Sounds like my tallests, all right."
Tain raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry to hear that, Zim," he said softly, then rammed a stun gun into the back of Zim's neck. With a shriek he fell forward, landing in the dust. Red and Purple cried out in surprise and leaped backwards.
"Care for a Tarot reading, my tallest?" Tain asked, throwing a card at him. The card struck Red in the chest, sending a jolt of electricity through his body. Red shrieked and twisted in agony, falling to his hands and knees. Purple dived down to assist his almost twin. Tain kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him sideways into the dirt.
"Round them up, boys," Tain laughed, hands on his hips. Zim, so weakened by the stun blast he could hardly move, twisted his head up to stare at Tain.
"Why?" he asked.
"You'll find that out… on the Massive."
That was the last thing Zim heard before he fell unconscious.