Title: The Only Way Is Up
Author: Mizander
Rating: R
Summary: Imagine, for just a second, that you had it all. Now sit back and eat a few snacks while you watch the Irken Empire find out the hard way that having the Universe enslaved isn't quite as much fun as the conquest.
Warnings: Sit down for a second. Yeah, Right now. This story contains SLASH. Slash entails Homosexuality. IF you do not like the idea of a HOMOSEXUAL relationship between two males, do yourself a favor and click the back button right now and go find something more suited to your tastes. Or, if you REALLY feel the intense burning need to waste your time flaming me, go right ahead. I could do with a laugh, but remember, instead of entertaining me - you could be playing outside in the sunshine. It's alll up to you...
Chapter One:
There was something different about the Universe tonight. A trans-finite span; star systems, galaxies and voids, from the sentient beings that inhabited some of them and the deafening silence that drifted through others. All of these things felt the change to their core. For the past seven years (if one went by Earth standards), the Universe had been slowly burning with fever, trapped in a nightmare from which it could not wake. Tonight, the dream had finally ended, and the realization of calm was dawning so bright it caused even the most burned out star to twinkle with renewed salience.
Operation Impending Doom II had come to an end, at last drawing the final curtain on seven years of brutal bloodshed and genocide. It was in this spirit that cheers of sheer joy drifted up from the surface of planet Conventia, where thousands of partygoers had gathered in celebration of the hard-won victory. Truly, it was a great day to be Irken.
It was an even better day to be an Invader, as the thirty-two elite soldiers were privy to a kind of incredible, unheard of popularity usually only enjoyed by the Tallest. All had arrived home safe and sound in the end, and even Skoodge could be seen preening under admiring glances as a rather diminished-looking rat creature in a muzzle drudged past, laboring under the weight of an enormous basket of nachos and cheese. A messenger weaving his way quickly through the crowd even waved respectfully as he worked his way towards the podium at the front.
"Um...My Tallest! The large-nostril slaves have made everything ready for your big speech!" the messenger bowed respectfully and immediately scurried away. Once a mere drink-server, he was anxious to return to his new, cushy job of ordering around an inferior species.
"Eh...? Oh...Oh that's...that's really nice there..." Eyes half-lidded, Tallest Red waved a hand in a random direction, wavered with the effort and knocked back another sip of his drink to top it all off.
Purple giggled just as unsteadily and grabbed his own drink from it's resting place, slopping half of it onto the floor in the process. "Hey! You! Ugly...Vort-thing. More drink!"
The beverage in question - discovered by the incredibly lazy but gloriously celebrated Irken leader Almighty Tallest Lush, produced a curious effect in the Irken brain which essentially caused the Pak signals and commands to be completely shorted out and ignored. With no demanding electronic brain to guide it, the meat-brain became increasingly relaxed and intoxicated the more of the beverage was consumed. In otherwords, the Tallest were celebrating being supreme rulers of the entire Universe by getting themselves completely plastered.
"My fellow Irkens!" Purple threw his hands up in a melodramatic address much to the consternation of the drink-serving Vortian, as the action ultimately caused the newly filled drink to end up on the ground once again. Red found something about this incredibly amusing, and proceeded to come down with a nasty fit of the giggles, bracing himself against his co-ruler and sending both of them careening to the ground. The expression on Red's face was mildly confused and irritated as he picked himself up. The moment passed however, and soon both leaders were all smiles again, though it seemed to be a mutual decision not to proceed with any more attempts at speech making.
Shaking his head to clear some of the dizziness, Purple gestured to the screen behind them, which was now lit with a soft blue glow. "We promised some entertainment for the party tonight..." here he had to pause for the crowd to finish roaring it's approval of such an idea. "...and here it is."
"I think you'll all remember what happened at the Great Assigning..." Red narrated, rubbing his two-fingered claws together in anticipation. "We sent Invader Zim to Planet Earth, but eventually managed to block him from making any return calls to Irk! Now is the time when we will find out whether he is dead, or whether he still thinks the Invasion is going on! Remember! There's a prize of a thousand monies to the winner who came closest to predicting his actual fate, and a prize of a hundred to whoever came up with the most creative and messy death!"
"Now's the time to put in for last-minute votes!" Purple yelled, tossing a handful of voting slips into the crowd. There was a mad scramble among the masses, but eventually everyone was settled, watching with anticipation as the formerly blue screen blinked to life.
They were met, as expected - with a string of insanity. What was not expected was that this insanity did not pour forth from the mouth of that deranged robot, nor did it issue from the lackluster sense of logic the diminutive Zim possessed. Suspended inside of a test tube, a creature - embarrassingly naked and wild-eyed with true insanity screamed derelict nonsense at the many pairs of eyes that gawped at him from on the newly lit screen.
"Is...that...a human?" An Irken in the crowd cringed in terror, losing her head completely. "It's so UGLY!"
"Do they all have such big heads?" another asked of his companion.
The assembly glared down the raving creature another few seconds, before one of the less intoxicated individuals finally put forth a more intelligent question. "...did...ZIM catch that specimen? I thought he was supposed to be incapable of catching a cold."
At this, Red seemed to recover himself slightly. "Track for Irken Zim." he instructed the communications officers. In a moment, the picture on the screen changed from the interior of Zim's lab to a landscape pan, but instead of putting minds at relative ease, more concern was raised.
"There's so much FIRE." Purple noted, not bothering to keep his voice to a whisper.
Indeed, the landscape was excruciatingly grim. Piles of charred rubble littered the ground, which was a mere blackened mess of burned wildlife and scorched concrete against the horizon of an unnaturally smoky grey sky. Many of the offending piles still blazed bright like little funeral pyres, the unholy glow illuminating the only living creature to be seen for miles, as it stood atop a particularly formless mess, arms raised to the sky in triumph, Irken banner at it's side and laughing and laughing as though it could never stop.
"Eh...we DIDN'T send anyone else to that part of the galaxy did we?" Red asked Purple, attempting to keep his voice level and devoid of anything like awe, even though the only awe he felt for Zim was merely related to the fact he'd managed to do anything competent.
"No..."
But Purple's reply was drowned by the exuberant cheering of the rest of the Irken civilization. The two leaders exchanged a significant glance. In the spirit of the occasion, the Irken public seemed to have forgotten that Zim was a hated figure in their existence, and were more interested in the fact that that 'Earth' planet, no matter how dirty and useless it was - was now property of Irk.
"INVADER ZIM ROCKS!" yelled someone in the crowd, and there was a roar of agreement, setting the seal on the two leader's course of action.
"YES!" yelled Red, stepping to the front of the podium. He leaned over to mutter to Purple. "I can't believe I'm doing this...", then coughed and addressed the crowd once more. "As soon as Zim returns to his base, we can REWARD HIM PROPERLY!"
Purple moaned. "But I really hate Zim."
"So do I, but I have an idea." Sometimes, Red wished his co-ruler could at least put something forward for the effort. It just wasn't fair that he had to come out with all the good plans.
It had been his dream since receiving his consciousness at birth to be standing right here, amidst the ruins of a world, and declaring his victory in the name of the Irken Army. The Tallest would contact him once they knew....and they would know. He'd caught them secretly monitoring his progress before. The signal had been snapped away and blocked every time he'd acknowledged it, but...today seemed different. The signal had never lasted so long. Could this finally be it? The wondrous moment of retribution for all his hard work in conquering the Earth-monkies?
"MY TALLEST!" bounding down from the remains of the Skool, he made off in the direction of his base. It was a full hour shorter than he usually finished cackling, and it would probably also cut into the time he would later have to further torment the Dib, but what did that matter when he would finally once more be able to see Irk?
Nearly throwing himself down into the bowels of the base and repressing GIR's daily complaint of why there was never anything more on the TV by starting up the DVD player, Zim burst into his private control chamber and came to a sudden halt. For as long as he'd wished for this day to come, he now felt entirely overwhelmed by the group staring back at him from the view screen. His Tallest, his fellow invaders...his fellow Irkens.
The moment didn't last long. "My...Tallest!" he gasped. "I'm so glad you've finally decided to contact me! I know you are just waiting to congratulate my superior conquest of the FILTHY HUMANS! Thankyou, Thankyou, Yes, yes, I am BRILLIANT!" he added to the roaring crowd.
"Um...yes. Of course Zim. Wonderful Job." stated Purple, trying to keep the harassment out of his voice. Given the choice between openly mocking Zim as he longed to do, and keeping his high level of popularity with the Irken masses, both leaders knew which won out.
"We are pleased that you have so evidently eliminated the need to send out the Armada." Red added slyly. "And we…"
"Of course, of course, Zim is an excellent Invader." the diminutive Irken cut his leader off with a wave of his hand, causing Red to forcibly cut off the angry growl that threatened to explode from him. "Now, about my reward!"
This time, Red actually did growl, but as Zim went on - the volume of his voice projected through the convention hall mercifully exempted that from anyone's notice. "I SHALL RETURN TO IRK! AND, I SHALL BRING THE DIB..." here Zim gestured over his shoulder at the still raving specimen in the tube. "...WITH ME, AS PROOF OF MY GLORIOUS VICTORY!"
"...That's it?" Red asked, some of his anger beginning to ebb. "You don't want anything else?"
"Maybe an army of Robot pig-slaves?"
"None of the other Invaders got robot Pig-slaves, Zim." Purple said with exasperation.
"OH. Well then...uh...then I'll just be HOME SOON! INVADER..." there was the briefest of pauses, as Zim savoured that word. "…ZIM, SIGNING OFF!"
Cheers erupted once more around the base, and both Tallest mutually grabbed for another drink. Things looked a lot prettier through an intoxicated haze. It was really a pity that if one consumed too much of this chemical, the Paks built up an immunity as they were designed to do. Red for one, was willing to risk it, if it helped him deal with Zim's return.
"Uh, Party's over!" called Purple, waving his arms to attract the attention of the crowd once again. The gauntlet on his right wrist came into contact with something as he waved, and he turned around seconds later to face an exceptionally pissed off Red. Hovering back a bit, he put up his hands in a placating gesture and frowned. "Hey...Red, I didn't mean it."
The Irken co-leader growled, inexplicably angry. Drunk as he was, Purple couldn't help but notice that there had been something bizarre about Red's behavior all night long really. Although Purple tended to be more relaxed about most things, Red usually was quite even-tempered. Ever since Operation Impending Doom II had ended however, the other Tallest's anger management skills had gone down the proverbial tube. In a way, Purple really couldn't blame Red. It had been a long time – approximately four years by the revolution of Irk, they'd both been caught up in a bloody war. Red had always been rather excited over the prospect of bloodshed, and it was more than possible that he was experiencing 'withdrawal'. Whatever the reason, it was probably best that the party was ending now.
As he hovered shakily away with the final glass of intoxicating chemical taking hold, he barely noticed the equally unsteady laser blast that left a smoking hole in the hovercraft mere centimeters from where he had previously stood.
Red on the other hand had noticed, and his temper rose still more as a result.. In light of the party however, there really were very few guests who noticed that the Almighty Tallests Red and Purple, normally inseparable, left the affair in separate envoys.