If you don't know by chapter 17 that I do not own Invader Zim, you must have the brainworms. I know I have been working on other projects more than this one, but I will update this. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!
Zim looked around the base with a disgruntled noise. So far Tak and Tenn had been able to leave the station to do what they called research, but so far, at least with what he could find with the basic permissions he had, he couldn't see that they had anything that they didn't already assume coming to this planet in the first place. He knew that humans were inferior in intelligence to them. There had been no real mention of them in the galaxy, other than what other species, usually the Greys, had observed and most of the Grey's observation was through rectal probing. Not much help. The Venutians used humans to help their declining fertility rates and all had told that they were stupid, violent and hadn't gotten much farther than their moon. Sure, they had sent probes into deep space, at least deep by their definition. These probes hardly left their solar system. Tak and Tenn were sure to have found what would be the key to their destruction a long time ago!
"Hey Zim!" Skoodge said as he headed out of his bunk into the cafeteria to get something to eat. "Whatcha doing?"
Zim quickly recalled Tak and Tenn's disguises for when they left the base and quickly made something for him and Skoodge to wear, which was just two pairs of contacts that made their red eyes look like a human's and black wigs. He had had enough of being trapped to the base. He only had gotten out to help construct the disguise, which he recalled Tak laughing about on time when she had returned from that human 'Hi-Skool'. He was just as good, if not better Invader than her! After all, he was actually a part of Operation Impending Doom 1. She didn't even get to take the test to even become an Invader in the first place. He destroyed a planet. Skoodge had conquered Blorch. Zim thought that if he had to have anyone with him when he went to conquer these idiots, it would be Skoodge. Not Tak, who never passed her test, and Tenn whose base was destroyed by SIR units. "We're heading out. If Tak and Tenn can, then we can too."
"But we're assigned to the base here. The Tallest told me to monitor Earth broadcasts for anything good. Same with their information sharing networks. I have found a very enjoyable game called 'Flappy Rooster' that the humans love to play." Skoodge noted.
"Zim needs no Flappy Roosters! We need to get there. Catch humans, enslave them and then they'll tell us everything they know!" Zim said as he put the feeble disguise on Skoodge. "Perfect. You're just as ugly as they are!"
"But going outside is Tak and Tenn's job. Not ours." Skoodge said.
"We're better than them and you know it." Zim said. "We both brought planetary destruction. Tenn wussed out and Tak isn't even really an Invader."
"But Tak was the best in the academy. And Tenn was on Meekrob, a very tough planet. Tak says she only didn't make the test because the door was stuck." Skoodge said. He knew Tak and Tenn wouldn't do anything they weren't ordered to and were very good at the skills needed on the mission. To him, if the Tallest had trusted them, then he would as well.
"Likely stories. She could have just blasted the door if she wanted to try hard enough. I destroyed a snack machine that was preventing me from getting a deeeeeelllishous snack." Zim said. "We both produced results."
"But you destroyed Irk and made the fires worse!" Skoodge said. He had to try and talk some sense into Zim.
"No, better." Zim grabbed Skoodge by the hand and took him outside. "I am going to try and use Tak and Tenn's TRAKs to find where they are and then do their jobs better so the Tallest will make me the head of this planet full of stink monkeys."
"Are we just searching for minerals that Irk is running out of and trying to take resources?" Skoodge sighed.
"Same difference. "Zim said as he followed along the path Tak and Tenn took into the city. "They have got to be around here somewhere."
Unfortunately for Tak and Tenn, Zim and Skoodge weren't the only ones getting upset with them. Red had much of the same greedy desire to take Earth sooner and was getting annoyed that Tak and Tenn had not provided the information that they needed yet as well. However, instead of just putting on feeble disguises that any human would notice was not right, Red turned to Purple to get his thoughts on the matter. "Pur, we should be further along than we are right now, shouldn't we?"
"We only landed here about a week ago." Purple said. He was rather enjoying his time away from the chaos of the Empire and the snacks that he had brought along just for him and Red. Frankly, he was content with staying on Earth for the rest of their lives, or at least as long as the snacks held out, whichever came first and with as many snacks as Purple insisted on bringing for him and Red, it was hard to tell which one would come first. "Tak and Tenn will let us know what they find when they find it. I am guessing they haven't found anything of any use yet."
"Pur, there is a reason that despite their disgraced statuses I brought them along." Red said rolling his eyes.
"So they'll die?" Purple asked as he opened a bag of chips.
"Partially. I intended that for Skoodge and defiantly for Zim." Red said.
"If you want Zim dead so bad, why don't you just kill him? You're the Tallest and your word is law. His deeds are known all over the Empire and he drove Sizz-lorr insane. No one will say a thing if you just fucking killed him." Purple explained. "I'll do it if you don't want to. But Zim is going to be a liability later on. And if he does die in this venture, it might not disgrace him but redeem him."
"I'll kill him myself if that does turn out to be the case. I'll find some way to make sure that it is a disgraceful death too." Red said.
"I swear you must have something you owe that idiot." Purple sighed.
"Moving on," Red began. "Tak and Tenn have been out of the base a lot. They have been to centers of human knowledge."
"Skoodge is monitoring the human's broadcasts and their thing called the 'internet' which is a huge data exchange platform." Purple added.
"Yeah and he's been playing a game most of the time. I don't think there is anything valuable in that game, so he's wasting time. But if Tak and Tenn have something they haven't wanted to show us, then it must be in their cabin." Red said as he snapped his claws. "Come with me Purple, we are going to do a bunk inspection on those two."
"Do we have to?" Purple moaned.
"Yes." Red said.
Meanwhile, at the Mall, Dib was walking around with Tak, holding her hand, nodding politely as Tenn wove a tale of being a socially awkward teenager where they used to live. How bullies held her back and in the chaos of moving, she decided to put off going to college until they got settled in at their new home. She then noticed a clothing store that she figured teenagers would shop at and ran inside. "Come on you two! We'll find the perfect homecoming outfit here."
"Gadzooks?" Tak asked.
"It's a store that specializes in women's clothing. Usually younger women, but I have seen women over the age of 30 come in here and teenagers and their mothers both buy things. I don't know. I do remember one time while I was here, a woman who was 30 came out and got behind me at the Cousin Carla's pretzel place go on a kind of rant to herself under her breath." Dib paused. "Well she thought it was under her breath."
"Really now?" Tak asked.
"Well this woman looked to be somewhat professional, like an accountant, tax professional, something boring like that. I wouldn't have known her age if she didn't say it." Dib began.
"She said it?" Tak asked, noting that she could get more on how the human mind worked by the rants of this younger woman who had a hard time dealing with her own aging."
"Yeah it was something along the lines of, 'I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I am with isn't it and what's it seems weird and scary to me. I'm only 30 years old. I am not that old. I haven't changed since high school and suddenly I'm uncool. I am looking for something that shows I am young but know my stuff and I didn't raid my grandma's closet. That's all that there is for women my age. Look too old in stuff that is meant for people half my age but makes them look like skanks or clothes that detract from anything decent we still have. Just because I hit the 3-decade mark does not make me an old hag!'" Dib quoted.
"Did she say that to herself?" Tak said. "Sounds insecure and slightly unstable."
"I think she was on the phone with someone or using an audio note program on the phone." Dib said. "I had gotten my pretzel and left soon after that. I thought she was only 24 or 25, maybe 27 the most with how her glasses and long brown hair made her look."
"Did you tell that to her?" Tenn asked as she popped up behind Dib with a deep purple dress with clear rhinestones on the front accentuating the bust line. "Here Tak, try this on."
"Fine." Tak sulked as she headed into the dressing room with the dress. "I suggest you answer Tenn's question." She said pointing to Dib.
"Huh?" Dib said as he turned to Tenn.
"From your story, that woman was struggling with her personal aging. Why, couldn't tell you. But we ladies like little compliments from men that make us feel better. Society makes a lot of money off us when we feel insecure. They find something and then make us feel like shit if we are not some impossible standard of whatever that women are made to be. To hear a real person say we are fine makes us feel better." Tenn explained.
"No, I did not. I guess I should have. I didn't think much of it at the time." Dib sighed.
"Just some fyi for later Romeo." Tenn smiled.
Meanwhile, Red and Purple searched Tak and Tenn's cabin to see what they had. Red had suspected something was hidden there that they didn't want the Tallest to know about. Red knew their performance records and knew what they could do. What they were doing was not meeting those expectations. If he did find something, he'd talk about it with them later, but as for the moment right now, he was concerned with what was in the room. Purple had looked at Tenn's bunk while Red had looked over Tak's. So far, he had only found old homework assignments and Hi-Skool textbooks that showed themselves to be over 30 Earth years old. There has to be something here. Red thought as he moved the papers around on the bunk. "Find anything Pur?"
"This book is really interesting." Purple said, reading one of Tenn's choice romance novels from the library.
"Which one?" Red said turning to him, hoping his co-Tallest could be of some use.
"This one, 'Alfred and Ivan: Cold War Intrigue.'" Purple skimmed along to what Tenn had told Tak was the good part. "God, is this how humans have spy duels? Sounds more like mating between two males."
"I don't think that is how it actually is and not helpful. I mean we found that drawing faces on Pictonians got them to get away from the Irken Empire." Red sighed as he found the laptop that Tenn had stolen. "This might be." He said as he opened it up and found it still on the Membrane Labs employee log in page with Professor Membrane's credentials still in the log in. Red then clicked on the 'log in' tab and smiled. "I think that Tak and Tenn deserve some honors. It appears this is the log in information for one of the human's top research labs from what I can tell is here. I'm going to take this back to our computers to see if we can't get in deeper."
"I'm taking this with me." Purple said as he grabbed the romance novel and put it in a pocket on his Tallest robes.
"Seriously?" Red said rolling his eyes. "Whatever. I can handle this information digging on my own."
So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? Let me know in a review. I kind of put myself in that with the 30-year-old who cannot deal with age. I have started cross posting this and some of my other fics on AO3 as well, under the same penname if you wish to keep an eye over there. And if you are on AO3 reading this, look for me on as well. Shameless self-promotion aside, remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,
Otherrealmwriter
Aka
Realm.