Tak looked nervously back up at the screen. A new image was forming. Maybe this time, it would be something shown in her favor. After all, she had never done anything as bad as biting that doctor's antennae…right?
On-screen:
"What's that thing sticking out of your head?" A little female with dark pink eyes scoffed, looking at a Tak, now in a regular Irken outfit.
"It's a special implant that makes me better than you." Tak answered, annoyed. She hated it when people mentioned it. The trainers all knew what it was, and they way they looked at her with a mixture of pity and shame was bad enough.
But the other students, who did not know what it was, often imagined something much worse.
"If you need one, then you must be really weak! I betcha they won't even let you take the test for the Irken Elite!" The green-eyed girl taunted. Tak's eye began to twitch, and if it had been Zim he would've shut up. Unfortunately, this female wasn't as informed on Tak. "You'll probably end up a food-service drone!"
Her struggle for control was promptly lost, and she threw herself at the female, using the same technique as she had on the doctor several years ago. Only this time, she was slightly bigger than her victim, so instead of holding, the antennae was torn in two.
"AIEEEEEEE!" The female screeched, clamping her hand over the shredded end of her antennae. She started to sob, and collapsed onto her knees. Tak spat out the part she had torn off, and gave the cowering girl a cold glare.
"Let this be a lesson to you."
The pictures on the screen began to flash quicker. A video of Tak punching the lights out of a boy with red eyes who had made fun of her implant, of her biting the leg of a female with elegant, curving antennas who had tripped her, of her tackling a boy who had pushed her lunch out of her hands…It went on for several minutes, before stopping and showing a video of Tak, being taken from a Control Brain room. Her sentence was clear- she was to work on Planet Dirt on a janitorial squad until the next test for the Irken Elite, in seventy years.
On the Planet Dirt, it showed Tak building her own ship, using the old frame of a Spittle Runner. She was doing the opposite of what most Irkens believed- if it was broken, throw it away. She was making something new from old and worn down materials.
And it had worked.
Off-screen:
Zim was tracking GIR down, and with a mixture of dread and reluctance, he landed on the planet Judgmentia. He could not fool himself now that Tak wasn't on Trial. GIR didn't know how to get here, and even if he did, why would he? And so suddenly?
Now he had to decide what he was going to do. To go into the Spike of Judgement to get Tak out would be to turn his back on everything he used to follow so devotedly. And another thing- why the heck did he care so much? Irkens were above such feelings of caring, especially him. Zim needed no one…didn't he?
Besides, if it was true that Tak was Defective, then to help her escape her sentence would be a crime. True, he had no idea what the punishment was for such a thing, for it had never even been attempted since the Almighty Tallest Red and Purple started ruling.
But his devotion to his Empire was unmatched. For his to commit such a transgression…
NO! He was going to get Tak out. He'd worry about the consequences later, when they mattered, and for now, for reasons he could never explain, what mattered was to help Tak. He would not let her be deactivated, or erased.
And he would never let her be forgotten.
A/N: I love doing this plot arch. Making up Tak's life from what we don't know is very much fun. And for some reason, I really want to elaborate on the girl she tore the antennae off of. Maybe I'll use her again in a different story…
Also, if you don't get the last two paragraphs, they were based off of something Red said in 'The Trial's script.
Longer chapter tomorrow, I promise!