Zim began to come to only to find himself suspended as he had been in the dungeon, only now he wasn't in a dank prison. He was in a posh bedroom, complete with a soft-looking carpet and a blue-lined canopy bed.
The unconscious forms of Red and Purple hung from the walls. As far as Zim could tell, they were both still alive. "Red! Red! Purple! Purple!" Zim cried. Logically he should have been quieter, but since when was Zim logical or quiet? Neither tallest responded to his cries.
"Zim?" a soft voice asked. He looked over towards the source of the sound. He hadn't noticed her before, but Violet was there, her arms still in chains. She wiggled a bit, trying to get a better look at him. "I'm so glad to find out that you're not the traitor!"
"No," Zim said, angrily studying the carpeted ground. "Tain was. Why are we still alive?"
"Zim… there's something you have to know about me… I was once male. I was the last of the tall Irkens captured by Spork's forces. When he realized that he'd left himself with no suitable mate, he had me released and changed into… into this!" she cried, her eyes wet with tears.
"That's why I decided to fight against him. That's why I helped all those other Irkens escape. I couldn't bear the thought of them meeting my fate."
"You were… a man?" Zim asked, his eyes wide and blank. He'd been getting turned on by the long antennae of a former male?
Violet sighed. She tended to get that response when she told other males of her past history. She jerked her head towards the unconscious pair on the wall. "I wouldn't put it past Spork to have the same thing planned for those two… if not other horrible experiments. But… he'll do anything to breed tall children, and he's left himself with no suitable mates…"
Zim shuddered. Being turned into a FEMALE? That was… that was a fate worse than death! "Well then, we'll just have to use my amazing brain meats to escape!" Zim cried, thrashing against the chains.
"The worst part is," Spork laughed as he suddenly swept into the room. "Those chains don't even use locks! You simply can't move your body enough to get free of them… and I don't think these will be helping you," Spork smiled as he held up the remains of Zim's severed mechanical legs.
"Tain!" Zim cried angrily, staring down the other Irken.
"Tain?" Spork laughed. "Oh my precious, precious Zim. Your Tain didn't betray you… willingly. After we scooped the brain meats out of his corpse and prodded them with wires, however, we found out what your little group was up to. And fate of another universe or not, Zim, I don't think I WANT to be eaten by an energy creature."
"Liar!" Zim cried. "If that's not Tain, who is it?"
"Zim… meet… Zim," Spork said, bowing. The chest of the robot Tain opened with a hiss, revealing a short Irken in a blue uniform with burning red eyes. Eyes that Zim knew all too well from admiring himself in his full size mirror every morning… his own ruby eyes.
"I thought I didn't exist in this universe," Zim said, the only thing that came to his confused mind.
"That was a brilliant part of my amazing plan, wasn't it?" the other Zim asked, grinning broadly.
"I want to thank you for finding the only two Irkens in the Empire who could challenge my rule," Spork purred, running a finger under the unconscious Purple's chin. "They'll make wonderful… test subjects," he laughed, looking in Violet's direction. She looked away from him.
"Aw, so cold, my pretty, pretty Violet. Even if being tallest didn't make me rich, I'd still keep the job. Your tears are all the pay I'd ever need." Spork laughed, and the other Zim laughed as well.
"But I've always been a gambling man, Zim my boy," Spork said when he'd finished laughing. "So I propose a match! Zim against Zim! You win; I let your little almighty friends go. My Zim wins, which is going to happen… and I get to remove your organs one-at-a-time. Since you have no other choice, I'll consider it a deal. The match is being prepared for you now."
With that, Spork and Zim swept from the room, slamming the door behind them. Violet sighed. "He's going to skew the odds in the other Zim's favor. Your only chance of beating him is knowing yourself."
"Knowing myself?"
"You know all your own weaknesses. You just have to know them better than your other self does."
"FOOL!" Zim cried. "ZIM has no weaknesses!"
Violet looked over at the tallests hung from the wall. "I hope you two like dresses…" she muttered.
~
The battle arena was laid out. Zim looked down in confusion at the yellow sand. "Somebody's seen too many gladiator movies," Zim muttered as he shook the fine powder off his boot.
"The battle is hand to hand combat," the announcer Irken cried loudly, his voice echoing off the metal walls. The crowd cheered happily in response, waving their fists in the air. "Our contestants are Spork's champion, Murderer Zim, versus the alternate universe's challenger…" he paused to snicker, "invader Zim."
The audience burst into hysterical laughter. "Murderer Zim rocks!" a fat Irken shouted, waving his flag.
"Our first battle is acid-spewing gun shooting. Should both contestants make it to the buzzer, our second battle will be pursuit and shoot. The third planned event is slaughtering rat creature riding, while attacking one another with sharpened blades! Yeah! And should both contestants make it to the final round, they will face our obstacle course of doom! And to sweeten the course, Spork has thrown in an additional perk."
Red and Purple were dropped from the ceiling, their arms bound above their heads. By that time, Red and Purple were awake and horribly confused. They were confused enough to make them temporarily ignore the pain in their arms from being hung like that. "The contestant that gets to the door out of the obstacle course first must shoot one of those two to open the door!"
Eager for blood, the crowd cheered again. Zim wondered if that was the only form of torture Spork knew, or if he was simply very fond of it. Zim looked down at the acid spewing gun. It was essentially a water gun. Surprised, Zim lifted it in his fingers. His eyes widened. "Contestants may use any form of anti-acid protection they wish," the announcer had said. Zim's pack popped open and he removed a bottle of paste.
The other Zim laughed when Zim emerged. "No armor?" he asked. "I suppose that's kind of smart. You want to die fast, huh? I can't blame you!" Zim cried, leaping at Zim.
Zim dived sideways, being more agile due to the fact that the other Zim was wearing heavy armor. A slash of water slid across his arm in a line, but failed to penetrate the paste. The other Zim stared in horror. "You… you're immune to the acid?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"Of course I am. After all, I am ZIM!" Zim replied, giving the other Zim a face full of water. The other Zim screamed and dropped to the ground, thrashing about.
"It's dripping down the inside of my armor!" he cried, thrashing around. "It burns! It burns!"
Zim had just readied a second shot when the buzzer went off. "What?" Zim cried. "That wasn't even thirty seconds!"
"Next event!" the announcer shouted loudly over the booing of the audience. Violet had been right; Spork intended to do whatever necessary to ensure that his own Zim won.
"Our next event is pursuit and shoot. Both contestants will be armed with lasers. By random coin flip, one will be the hunted and one will be the pursuer. At the sound of a bell, the roles will switch. Only the purser may shoot."
Zim, of course, "happened" to end up the hunter first. He dived sideways as another laser blast clipped his ankles. It felt like it had been ten minutes already. "They'll never ring the bell for me," he muttered angrily. The bell hung bright and temptingly, like an orange, at the top of the arena.
Then, just as he'd given up hope, the bell rang. Surprised, the other Zim stared for a moment before squealing and taking off running, Zim hot on his heels. Above, the announcer could be heard swearing.
Spork grabbed the microphone. "Why the HELL did you ring the bell? Our side was winning!"
"I didn't!" cried the announcer, his hands flying in confusion over the controls.
Up above, in the rafters, Tak gave Skoodge a high five. The monitor of the laptop they'd used to hack the system glowed brightly between them as they shared a quick kiss. "For some reason, I feel like I never thought I'd be saying this, but… go Zim!" Tak cheered in a whisper.
The second match ended up coming to an end as quickly as the first one the non-favored Zim gained the upper hand. "Our third and final match before the obstacle course… weapon throwing and slaughtering rat creature riding!" his voice was nervous. Zim could almost feel the sweat dripping down the announcer's face. Since the bell had apparently rung at the wrong time, his life was on the line.
Zim's rat creature bucked beneath his legs. "I'm sure they gave me the more violent one. Zim likes them that way!" Zim cried, raising his weapon high in the air.
The gates swung open and the two rat creatures charged one another. Both giving out Irken war cries, Zim and Zim clasped onto their respective creatures and extended their blades towards one another as they charged.
Zim narrowly avoided getting his antennae sliced off by the other Zim. While neither of them had any sort of control over their rat creatures, the other Zim's creature seemed to be a bit less willing to eat its rider.
Zim clutched the rat tighter. How could he possibly get the other Zim when he couldn't even stay on the pig? Pig… wait, he wasn't on a pig, he was on a… well, it was kind of like riding the pig… Zim sat up straighter, releasing his hold on the creature's collar and grasping its ears instead. Yes, this was exactly like riding the pig.
"Look at that," the announcer whispered without realizing the microphone was on. The challenger can really ride that rat!"
The other Zim fell into the dust, his shoulder bleeding from a light scratch inflicted by Zim. "Murderer Zim has toppled from his rat! That means he loses the round!" the announcer cried, weeping in the process. At that point, the crowd was simply going nuts. The hundreds who had bet on Murderer Zim were livid. The few who had bet on Invader Zim… were crying with happiness. Among them was a small service drone named Bob.
"And now it's time for the final round, the obstacle course. All bets are off, folks. No one knows whose going to win this one!" Up the backward escalator the two Irkens ran. Across the log roll the two Irkens raced. Up the net the two climbed, neck in neck. They were both Zim, so there was absolutely no difference in their style, so they were performing so identically the same it looked to the crowd like they were moving in sync.
I have to do something, Zim realized in his mind. A tie is never good enough for ZIM! Victory will be mine… but how? The fact that he knew the other Zim was probably thinking the exact same thoughts at the exact same moment didn't help as they used ropes to swing across a gap.
Up in the stands, Spork frowned. He'd been gripping his drink so tightly that the glass bottle had shattered. Blood from the cuts dripped down his hand and onto his blue robe. "You might actually lose," Violet said softly. "And you always keep your bets, right, my tallest?"
Spork's hands clenched and unclenched. He had only one sliver of morality in his entire body… and that was that he never coped out of a bet. "So? One of the miracle twins will still die… wait, what am I saying? My Zim will WIN! There can be no other ending to this!"
"You're pretty good," Murderer Zim complimented as they raced one another on bicycles.
"You too. I find myself a more worthy enemy than most."
"How did you ever get such skill? I had Murderer training. You… you only had Invader training."
"True, but you never had to battle… a DIB!" Zim cried, swinging the front wheel of his bike in front of the other Zim's bike. The other Zim cried out in surprise, toppling over and crashing loudly. Zim looked over his shoulder to watch the other Zim roll down the track.
"Ha! Victory for Zim!" Zim cried. However, he was so busy shouting that he didn't watch where he was going. He collided with a large pole and fell from his own bicycle.
The other Zim limped past, his bike too badly damaged to use. Zim rose to his feet, limping after the other Zim. His bike was broken beyond use as well. The two Zims limp-raced. The doorway and the hanging tallests were just ahead. The other Zim tripped right as they neared the line, giving Zim just the tiniest burst of speed needed to get to the lasers first.
Zim reached out and grasped his laser. Time to make a choice… a choice… he shut his eyes and fired randomly. When he opened them again, the laser hadn't gone off. It was a dud.
"You cheater!" Violet cried in the audience.
"I don't smudge on bets, but I may cheat on bets," Spork laughed.
"Game's over, Invader," the Murderer laughed. "I never liked the color Purple!" he cried, shooting.
Red threw himself sideways, bashing into Purple. Purple cried out in pain as he swung sideways. However, the throwing motion sent Purple's silver bat-pendant into motion.
Murderer Zim's eyes opened wide in shock as he realized what was going to happen. The laser hit the pendant, reflecting off it as Purple swung back into space, smacking into Red and sending Red flying. You can guess what happened when Red came back on the downswing. This continued for rather a long time, leaving both tallests rather bruised on their sides.
What is of more importance than two comical tallests was where the laser blast from Murderer Zim's shot had gone. Spork could say nothing, merely whimper as his hands went to his forehead. A neat hole had been cleanly burned from front to back, removing a good portion of his brain. A small trickle of blood escaped from the hole.
"Violet…" he whispered, then fell to the ground. His guards rushed to his side.
"You won't be able to save him," Violet said, looking out at the crowd. They sat in stunned silence.
"He… he… he killed tallest Spork!" the announcer cried, causing a wail of unified mourning to go up from the audience. Murderer Zim, down below, dropped his gun with a cry of anguish and rushed from the arena into the darkness beyond.
Tak stared at the commotion in Spork's booth. "How about that… Zim did kill the almighty tallest…" she looked over at Skoodge. "We simply had the wrong Zim."
~
Zim stood before the vortex that would return him home. Violet smiled weakly at him. "Are you sure we can't convince you to stay?"
"Yes, we'd make you a general, head of many Irken armies!" Red cried.
"Your offers are nothing less than what ZIM deserves," Zim said, waving them off with one hand. "But I must return to my duties of conquering Earth. My tallests will be expecting me, and I still have a few… scores… to settle," he said, looking away from Tak. How do you explain to someone that you have a 50 year long grudge with them when they think they've never met you before a few days prior?
"Your tallests are so lucky to have you! They must be thrilled," Purple sighed, holding the pendant in one hand. Despite having changed into their new tallest robes, Purple had sworn that he'd never remove the life-saving pendant.
"They are, they are."
"I hope they appreciate what they've got," Violet threw in.
"Oh, they love me! They think I'm the greatest Irken ever! That's why they gave me such a special mission."
"I'd imagine," Red smiled. "Well, you'd better hurry. That vortex isn't going to last forever."
Zim had one foot in when a loud, angry voice shouted, "This isn't over, Zim!" he barely had time to turn around before a heavy force collided with him, knocking him into the whirling beam of light.
~
Slowly, Zim opened his eyes. GIR, in two pieces, lay to the left. Dib was shaking the smoke out of his hair. "What?" Zim asked, looking around the ruins of his lab. It had all been a dream brought on by an explosion caused by… Dib?
"You stinking human!" Zim cried, leaping at Dib. Dib managed to dive sideways, grabbing onto the end of his retractable grappling rope.
"See you on the autopsy table, Zim!" Dib laughed as he retracted the rope to ground floor and dashed for it out the front door, deftly avoiding the gnome field.
Zim stared at the wreckage. He was back in his red uniform. It had to have been all a terrible nightmare.
He found himself amazingly not upset about Dib once again foiling his plans. After all, he'd gotten an odd dream out of the mess. Slowly crawling to his wounded knees, he began to repair GIR.
~
Tak had seen an odd energy wave signal on her monitor and had gone to investigate it. In a field of corn she found Zim lying on his side, apparently unconscious. She raised her laser to his head, then lowered it. What good would her revenge be if she killed Zim while he was helpless and unconscious?
She turned to leave. Within moments, Zim was on his feet, his legs wrapped around her body and lifting her off the ground. She tried to scream but he clamped a hand over her mouth. With one quick movement, he knocked her unconscious. She fell to the damp, smelly Earth with a moan.
Murderer Zim looked up at Tak's parked ship. "Spork," he whispered, staring at the star-studded night sky with tears in his oversized ruby eyes. "I'll get your revenge. I'll get your revenge if I have to tear this universe apart piece by piece!"
To Be Continued…
Come on; admit it, you all thought it was over.