Title: The Only Way Is Up

Author: Mizander

Rating: PG-13/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 4

Dib sighed and leaned back against his cold bed, feeling doubly tense despite the improvement in living conditions that Red's visit had provided. His back muscles tensed and shifted uncomfortably against the cold metal operating table and he wondered idly at what might have happened to Zim. The Irken leader's proposal was still there, pricking at the edges of his mind, but Dib ignored it for now. That was a serious matter, best dealt with when he had achieved an understanding of what life would be like here, and was fully adjusted to the prospects.

Promptly, the door swished open, but instead of another scientist, the outside lights backlit a tall figure. Red apparently was back. As the Irken leader moved towards him, Dib noticed something amiss. The eyes on this one were purple, like Tak's had been. Abruptly, Red's words came back to him - this must be the other Irken that he had been warned about.

"Ooooh, Hey. Can it talk?" Purple jabbed a claw in Dib's direction, thankfully completely oblivious to the annoyance that Dib couldn't keep from his face.

The technicians looked around nervously at one another. Evidently they too were operating under a reminder of Red's prior words, and nobody wanted to be the first to disobey their Tallest's orders, whomever they were directed at.

"...Uh, a translator was installed, My Tallest."

"Well then, is it too stupid to speak, or what?"

Dib sputtered with barely suppressed rage, but kept his mouth shut against the angry words that threatened to bubble out of him. He had the feeling he might have been lucky with cursing out Red - for whatever reason, he had overlooked what should have by all rights been considered a serious act of insubordination. For all that he know, Purple was liable to fly off the handle at any moment, and Dib, for once in his life was determined to circumvent earning himself a bit more pain. Fortunately for him, Red had only asked that the details of their conversation be spared, and he was therefore able to speak to Purple about other things.

"I'm not an idiot My Tallest."

Purple laughed. "Of course you're not!" A claw poked at Dib's head and to his surprise, Dib did not feel quite as much compulsion to twitch away. There was something inherently different about this other Irken.

"So, what did you talk about with Red?" the question Dib had been dreading rolled out smooth as glass.

"Uhh, well, just...about...I don't know, Zim I guess..."

He'd evidently said the magic words. Purple made a face and waved his hand to cut the stuttering off, an order Dib was more than happy to comply with. "Ugh. Ugh, say no more. I don't want to hear about it."

The attention of this tallest fluttered around irregularly like a humming bird, and soon Dib could feel the sterile-smelling breath on the back of his neck as the Irken leaned forward to inspect him with interest. Having long been resigned to being poked and prodded like a piece of meat, Dib turned his attention to observing other things, the nervous clatter of shivering claws on metal and the irregular puffing of the breathing. Dib had been in Zim's care too long to suffer delusions that

Purple might have been scared of him, but it made him wonder what precisely was causing such a schisim in the expected high-and-mighty behavior.

For his own part, Purple had found that at least outwardly, Red had been right. There was nothing at all special about Zim's creature. It was a scrawny thing that looked as though it had never had any meat or muscle on it, ever. It wasn't really fit for slave work...maybe on an office work planet or mail-addressing planet. It might not even be clever enough for that - it had, after all, gotten itself captured by Zim. Maybe Red wanted to keep it as a pet of sorts...teach it to do certain chores around the Massive. He himself was getting rather bored with the Digestor - the last time he had been down there, it had almost taken his head off, as though someone had forgotten to feed it.

All in all, Purple liked this critter, Zim had abused it, but Red, and by association he himself, always looked down upon outright physical abuse of the slaves. Only if they got out of line, and that was that. Getting them to toe the line was almost always a exercise in mental coercion, at least with the more intelligent species. Their disgust at themselves for being caught and ordered around was the key. Always find a way to like them, even if they made it clear they didn't like you - that was important, according to Red. And Purple liked Dib.

"I suppose we can find you some kind of job around here. Make yourself useful and we won't stick pointy things in you."

Dib stared for a second at the frantic-paced claws that scrabbled uselessly against the metal surgical table Purple had propped himself against. His face remained for the most part impassive as he nodded slowly. Purple wasn't being kind, but his tone suggested that maybe this was the best that Dib could do for the rest of his life. He felt a little more comfortable as he nodded agreement.

Red turned off the camera and scowled at the blank screen a bit. Maybe he'd misjudged Purple somewhat. He didn't think that he would have had the intuition to figure out Dib. Hovering from the surveillance room and chewing on that idea for a bit, Red wondered if perhaps his plan was not as concrete as he thought.

On the other hand, Dib was easy. The human didn't want to be liked, he wanted to be useful.

So what if Purple had managed to figure out that Dib would "like" him if he felt needed. Maybe he could also figure out that

Red would like his co-ruler too if he would just drop dead.

The out-of-the-way planet of Sludge was currently being paved over, and what remained of it's race of people were in the process of supervising a construction of large flashy malls and shopping complexes. It was long, tedious work, as the aliens in question were small, reptilian creatures with multiple eyes. They were barely tall or strong enough to carry the lightest of supplies, and their movement was limited to a six-legged insectile scuttle.

The Irken answer to this was to send some "supervisors" from the lower rungs of society - the food-service drones, the janitorial staff. Most of these individuals were only too happy to leave their drudge work in the hands of new slaves in order to go yell at some stupid, inferior race.

This particular batch however, were missing their former lives terribly not five minutes after they boarded the aircraft that would bear them out to Sludge. Naturally, as they were sharing living space with Zim, it had taken him only that long to come under the assumption that he was in charge of this group of Irkens - and was fully planning to spend the rest of the journey imparting his vast, superior Invader knowledge to them.

Tales from a successful Invader such as himself would surely impress the lowly food service drones, and of course would help to pass the time, but even Zim was unprepared for how quickly the "tale" turned into a fully-fledged rant. Without the Dib, the victory of Earth didn't seen quite so sweet.

"And the Tallest sent ME! A successful INVADER! Out on this mission! After my AMAZING conquest of that USELESS lump of filth, I should be HONOURED!"

One of the Irkens propped himself up on his elbow, blinking his green eyes dazedly at Zim. It was supposed to take at least 2 revolutions of Irk to get to their new job, and Zim had been speaking at the top of his lungs without rest for...well, he wasn't sure how long it had been now. Not to mention the fact that his SIR unit would just not shut UP. He caught the gaze of the food service deportee on his left, and the co-worker on his right in a silent mutual agreement. They bolted for their quarters, slamming and locking the doors behind them.

Not to be outdone, Zim shouted his story louder still.

Of course, the stunning conquest of Earth had not been as well planned out as Zim said it was, but that was to be expected.

The true story of so-called "amazing conquest" had in fact been a giant mistake that had just barely worked itself out in Zim's favor. During one of his chats with Vortian Prisoner 777, Zim had been delighted to discover that the slowly deteriorating brain of the scientist had also created the battle tanks he so desperately craved.

Zim could follow directions when he so chose, and he had followed the directions exactly - the weapons were set to cause mass destruction. The problem however - was that in building his fleet, he had forgotten that a fleet of weapons needed a fleet of able-bodied Irkens to control them. Zim could control one tank on his own, and GIR might be up to the task of controlling another, but it would leave unused tanks...and the Earth army, feeble as it was could probably stop one or two marauders.

Zim's ingenious brain had set to work solving this dilemma, and he had come up with a remote control system to control all of the tanks at once. Without precise directions to follow however, Zim's handiwork had a habit of going horribly wrong.

Somewhere in the process of trying to voice control the entire fleet of enormous battle tanks, he had managed to take out a very significant hunk of the Earth's defenses. From there, it was just downhill.

Zim had not been prepared for the sight of the carnage and destruction that had greeted him when he emerged, even his own home had been significantly demolished. It had been sheer luck that he'd located Dib's boot out the side of the rubble. The earth-beast might have been on his way to try and stop Zim when the collapse of the house had knocked him out cold. He had laid in state for many days - Zim had placed him in a tube during that time. Upon coming to, Dib had shouted himself hoarse, until a lack of food and crippling despair had forced him to be silent, though shocks of sight and sound prompted delirious babbling.

Falling silent as he thought of the human, it occurred to Zim that the most lively display he'd seen out of the human had been in his new home when he'd removed the Dib from the tube. The small invader scowled, then frowned. It was silly to worry about the Dib - he had probably long been reduced to jars of organs. Perhaps the Tallest would at least let him keep the spleen as a trophy.

Heh. Spleen.

The maniacal cackling that followed this thought effectively ensured that Zim would be spending the remainder of the journey with simply GIR for company. If the idea of Dib displayed in jars had not kept his brain sufficiently occupied, Zim would have been surprised to discover that this thought did not bother him in the least.

Despite Purple's apparent interest in keeping Dib as what he evidently assumed to be a rather stupid pet of sorts, it was Red who arrived with a crew of guards to take him back to Spartan, but comfortably humanesque quarters. Thank goodness that Irkens were built at least relatively like humans. It might have been worse - he could have been stuck with tentacles.

In the dull ruby glow of the room (Irkens apparently did not require a lot of lighting), Dib found he could not sleep, and squinted around around until he found a place to sit. Red and Purple - they were both in charge of this planet but for whatever reason, they were divided.

On the one hand, there was Red. Red was, at least for now - the more difficult one to figure out. All that Dib was really certain of was that he definitely was not to be trusted. Clearly, Red was the one in charge - of the ship, of the Empire and most especially - of Dib's fate. The mere fact that he was still alive was proof enough of that. The red-eyed leader had needed him for something - to control or mollify Zim had been the first guess, however now that he had time to think about it, if that was his purpose, he would have been left in Zim's hands, rather than taken here.

Which begged another question - where exactly was this division between the rulers going? Was Dib to be stuck in the middle of a civil war?

If that was the case...Dib hoped fervently that the ensuing destruction would be enough to wipe the Irken race out entirely.

Wouldn't it be great if both sides finished themselves off?

Clinging to that thought as his only source of warmth in the room that he now found slightly too cold for his liking, Dib dropped into a heavy, and totally necessary sleep.

A soft swoosh noise behind Red caused him to jump. Quick as a flash, the security camera changed scenes from Dib in his room to it's usual sweep of the hallways that wound through the Massive.

"Everything under control?" Purple's voice was light, tentative.

To his relief, Red merely nodded, adding a soft mutter in the affirmative.

"And we're going to keep that Dib?" Maybe this was treading dangerous ground - but this had been the only opportunity to catch Red in a good mood for ages.

Another nod. "Oh - I think he'll be quite useful."

Purple simply shook his head. If Red wasn't exactly going to tell him outright what possible use he could find for such a useless looking creature, then the only thing he could do was wait and see. Sensing, and rightly so - that no more information could be gathered at this point, he made a quiet exit.

The second Purple had left the room, the screen abruptly returned to the sleeping human. Red frowned at the image, scrutinizing. What exactly was it that had caused Zim to put up such a fight when this creature had been taken from him? There had to be more to this story than just what he had seen. Zim had gone far beyond wearing his squeedily spooch on his sleeve - it was up on a blinking neon Foodcourtia sign. Even he however, was not entirely an open book… mostly because he was too clueless to know exactly what was going on.

There was something special about this human - something perhaps that Zim himself did not even know. What it was, Red needed to figure out - and soon. He really couldn't stand Purple for much longer.

Author's Notes;

I needed a break from the Intarweb...but I did work on and off on this chapter, as well as chapter 9 of Frequency during that time. Hopefully it was worth the wait.