Skoodge had become disillusioned with Irk.

It was hard to say exactly when this had happened- even after being put on a planet doomed to be his unmaking he still held to his beliefs that he was bettering the Empire. It was in his programming after all- the PAK insisted that orders by the Tallest were orders for the benefit of Irken kind. Thus, the Invader did as he was trained to do: and infiltrated a world of devouring rat people.

Successfully.

It was then he found himself a sacrifice, strapped to a device meant to devastate the planet he had successfully conquered. But still he had gone along with what he was told. Irkens were nearly indestructible after all- the perfect predator. A mere planet-wide detonation of an armed warhead was nothing compared to Irken survivability. So he found his way back to his Tallest. Promises were made and Skoodge found himself cast out again. This time to Hobo Thirteen.

This time, with Irken defect Zim.

He knew Zim. He had known him for quite some time- even before the name had become synonymous in their language with: catastrophic failure. It was seeing Zim given the same story that he had heard from the Tallest that finally caused him to accept his standing in the ranks. He was a top Invader, he was a master at blending in, he was the textbook definition of what he needed to be in order to excel in the Irken army- to permeate the defenses on unsuspecting worlds and plant the seeds of destruction for the Irken Empire.

And yet he was short.

Thus despite all of his actual accomplishments, he would never be able to rise in rank. The whole situation may have been funny had it been happening to someone else.

So, it was with determination and bitterness that Skoodge took the final plunge. If he was going to be spending his time as bait- one step above the actual corpses on the battle field- then he might as well just vanish all together. It was not going to be easy, and to avoid being tracked, Skoodge would need to make some rather… risky adjustments to his PAK. (Not that he thought he would be worth tracking, but it was better to be safe than sorry).

All of this thinking is what had lead him here; to a little house with blowfish out front and an unconvincing flag boasting a love for Earth that contrasted against the grim, gritty landscape it claimed to adore. The uncanny and unblinking eyes of poorly designed gnomes followed him as he made his way to what could only be the door to a human bathroom.

Ah yes, Zim had never been the best at research. He was one to skim the outline and try to fill in the glaring holes with whatever he thought made sense. It was a poorly designed process for any Irken- but for Zim- it was worse. A defect had no distinct form of logic, it is what made them so glaringly dangerous to the structure of Irken society. Ah yes, even as a smeet Zim had done his irreversible damages to the planet. And still, Skoodge knew that the best way to vanish from an empire would be to hide in the one place no one wanted to be looking.

He raised a hand, disguise in place (it was a hologram of a human designed to flawlessly fool locals while still identifying him as Irken to his fellows) and knocked on the door. It had been quite some time since he had seen Zim, but maybe the distance had been good for the defect.

He waited, and waited, and gradually he knocked again.

The door finally opened and Zim's SIR was standing before him looking up with bright glowing, blue eyes. "OH BOY! IT'S THE PIZZA!"

"Skoodge?" Zim was on top of a weird, black and peach looking creature with primitive ocular accessories. It must have been one of the humans- a native species to Earth (Skoodge had done quite a bit of research to blend in; though it seemed this would be unnecessary as Zim was without his disguise rolling on the floor with this being. It must have been a game as Zim could easily have killed the human by this point, had that been the intent).

"Zim…" Skoodge stepped forward, stumbling a bit as he realized the SIR unit had started to clamber up his body searching for something he clearly did not have. Skoodge was thankful he had the forethought to close the door because the SIR had deactivated his holographic disguise with all its poking and prodding. Zim hopped off the human and pulled the SIR off with some difficulty as the human scrambled to its feet.

"Awww master, why'd he steal my pizza!?" The SIR let out a small whine.

"Not now, GIR, go in the other room and monitor our perimeter." He ushered the SIR away and it bounded off into a nearby wall, colliding with it and then just sitting on the floor in front of it as if no orders had been given. Skoodge had been there when the SIR was issued to Zim, he knew it was… "glitchy" but this was beyond comprehension. It was a wonder that Zim had not been killed by the locals due to his SIR's incompetence. "Skoodge, what are you doing here?"

"Hey! It's one of those aliens like you! He's Irken!" The human looked excited. "You know this guy?" He knelt down to be more level with the Irkens. Skoodge's antennae both stood up as he took a defensive pose, teeth bared. Zim shook his head.

"No it's fine. This is my human pet."

"I am not a pet!" The human remarked indignantly. "I'm Zim's friend, old arch rival."

"Shut up human filth, the Irkens are talking!" Zim, clenched his fists, aggressively invading the human's space. The human made a face and simply shoved Zim to the side to get a better look at Skoodge. If Zim had truly not wanted to be moved, he would not have been tossed away so easily. Thus, Skoodge was able to determine that this human was no real threat. It might have been some sort of… weird friendship. It would take a lot to befriend a destructive force such as Zim. But if you could get through the mayhem and chaos- he was an absolutely brilliant mind. And right now, he was about the only Irken who might be willing to help Skoodge.

"So you're another Invader? I mean… you and Zim kind of have the same uniform going on- is that like an indicator of your rank?"

"I was an Invader… of sorts." Skoodge waved the question away "Zim, I wanted to talk to you…" He looked at the human who was inching closer to him, visibly fighting the urge to touch him. He batted a curious hand away. "Alone."

"Ah- yes.." Zim frowned. "Dib you are dismissed."

"Dismissed? Are you fucking serious right now?"

"GET OUT YOU MONKEY SLIME!" Zim pointed dramatically toward the door. Skoodge watched as the human seemed to weigh all his options before reluctantly grabbing a bag off the floor.

"I'm just going to find everything out from GIR later." He shrugged. "See you tomorrow Zim."

"Yes yes, I will see you tomorrow you piece of Earth trash now get out of my lair." The human exited with only a little nudging from Zim and the Irken defect closed the door behind it. "Skoodge, what on Irk has brought you here!?"

"I wanted to see you Zim." It was clear from the expression on the fellow Invader's face, that the comment had caught him quite off his guard. "I needed to talk to you. Things aren't going great for me on Irk right now." He paused, antenna sticking up straight. "The human is listening in- outside.." he glanced toward the window.

"He'll do that- it's fine. He won't tell anyone and even if he does no one will believe him." Zim waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing has ever been great for Skoodge on Irk. You are short and fat. What changed to make it so now you care?"

"Wow." Skoodge had been told about his appearance many times, and honestly it was easy to wave off the insults. It was just Zim's matter-of-fact tone that had surprised him. "Look I know I'm not a tallest or anything but I'm still good at my job."

"Ah yes, Zim heard about your successes on Blorch." It was a little odd to hear Zim speaking in the formal, Irken third-person when talking to Skoodge of all people; but it made the squat invader realize that, despite his insults, Zim did at least respect his accomplishments.

"That's impressive since I wasn't actually credited for them."

"Zim noticed that too…" He didn't seem to have much to say on that matter. "Is that why you came here? Because the Tallest won't acknowledge your accomplishments?" Now that the matter of his success was out of the picture, Skoodge noticed Zim's polite speech was wavering back into colloquial Irken.

"No. Well… yes… but not just that." Skoodge took a deep breath. "Look, Zim, I know you're at odds with the Empire right now too and-" Skoodge did not get a chance to finish his thought as, just at that moment, volts of electricity went surging up through the floor directly into his PAK. For a moment, Skoodge saw an array of colors, then, nothing at all.

Zim just blinked as his fellow Irken began seizing out and sparking mid sentence. For a moment he just wondered if this was part of some sort of game of charades- but since charades was an entirely Earthly concept and thus an Irken like Skoodge should have no knowledge of it, the odds of that seemed incredibly unlikely.

"C.B!"

"The Irken threat has been temporarily neutralized."

"Irken threat!? C.B., he has been here for FIVE MINUTES! WHY ARE YOU ONLY JUST NOW DEFENDING YOUR MASTER!?"

"Oh. I wasn't paying attention."

"Why is every robot I work with just awful?"

C.B. seemed content to ignore the comment. A mechanical arm reached from the ceiling, lifting Skoodge by his PAK. "Shall I exterminate the Irken intruder?"

"No. Just, take him to the lab. I will wake him up. You try to-" Zim was cut off as the PAK on Skoodge's back popped off far too easily in the mechanical claw's grip.

"Oops."

"MOTHRA DAMN IT C.B! JUST GET HIM TO MY LAB!" Now things had moved from a mild annoyance to an actual emergency for Skoodge. "You can let Dib back in but for Mothra's sake TRY not to accidentally kill him!"

"May I kill him on purpose?"

"What!? NO! Just focus on helping your Master in the lab." Zim grabbed Skoodge's body, hoisting it onto his back and rushing to his lab elevator.

"But his freakishly large head makes me uncomfortable."

"It makes everyone uncomfortable C.B., it is just something you will learn to accept." The elevator dropped more quickly than normal (which Zim appreciated, at least C.B. respected the urgency of the situation) toward the lab. Zim disembarked quickly and found his supplies already laid out and waiting (Maybe C.B. wasn't such a terrible A.I.) as Zim plopped Skoodge up on the table.

As Zim turned over his fellow Irken, and started to get to work, he had a moment of silence to reflect on just how strange this day had become. Whatever it was Skoodge had wanted to discuss with him, it had better be important.