New chapter up! Please excuse any grammar mistakes.

I was going to make the chapters longer but that of course takes more time. So I'll try to make the chapters decently long but short enough so that I can post more often.

Thank you. Please enjoy!

God bless.

Reviews are welcome. Good and bad.

The spaceship had an extremely rough landing when entering into Earth's orbit. It had zoomed directly into the ground at a tremendous speed of 30,000 irkmiles per irkinute, creating a vast crater and turning itself into a destroyed mass of metal. It was convenient that all Irken spaceships were built with a nekmit exterior. Otherwise, Zim would not have survived.

Nekmit was a common material on planet Irk. It was known for being nearly indestructible, so Irkens never failed to forge it into the walls of their spaceships. However, it was forbidden for Irkens to use nekmit in the construction of their houses. In the event an Irken broke a law, their homes might be torn down as punishment. Zim had to rebuild his house several times.

Zim cautiously peaked his head out of the spaceship's top. He was surrounded by strange, tall entities with brown bodies, a multitude of arms, and green hairs. Were they alive?

As an unfamiliar gust of something cold gently hit his face, Zim saw the arms of the tall creatures move. He ducked back into the spaceship.

So they were alive!? Were these earthlings? He had no idea. He had no prior knowledge of Earth.

He needed to prepare himself for a fight in case they did not take kindly to newcomers. He looked at the handcuffs still locked onto his wrists. Irkens usually removed them from outlaws before exiling them, but they apparently had made an exception for Zim.

How nice of them, Zim thought sarcastically.

"GIR!" he whispered urgently to his robot assistant. "Hand me my laser pointer. It's in the bag."

GIR tilted his head. "Bag?" he echoed in a high-pitched, robotic voice. "Which one?"

Zim pointed to the only bag in the ship. "That one," he answered, confused by the stupidity of GIR's question.

GIR slowly walked to Zim's bag. Once he reached it, he lifted it off the ground and threw it against the wall.

"What are you doing, you half-wit?!" Zim yelled. "My inventions are in there! Are you trying to break them?!"

"I am cracking the bag open."

Zim shook his head in exasperation before opening the bag himself. He grabbed the laser pointer and took a brief moment to ponder whether it was safe for GIR to melt the cuffs for him.

Horrible idea, he quickly decided.

It was difficult with his arms restricted, but he managed to laser his handcuffs off with no help from the robot.

After freeing himself, Zim seized his acid blaster. It was an older invention of his, but it worked well. "Stay here!" he ordered GIR firmly.

GIR saluted Zim with a cheerful laugh.

He quickly blinked to ease his fear, then jumped out of the ship.

"Do not move!" he shouted, aiming his blaster. "I have no wish to cause you harm, but I will if you force me to. Therefore, it would be in your best interest to remain still!"

Despite his warnings, the creatures rustled their arms.

"I told you not to move!"

They did not still.

"Are you perhaps quivering in terror?" he smirked at the thought of that.

They did not reply.

"Answer me!"

They did not answer.

Zim slowly crept towards one of the creatures and poked it. "Hello?"

When the creatures said nothing in return, Zim considered what this meant. Either:

They were not alive after all

They were incognizant

They were sleeping

Hmmm. . .he would think more on it at a later date, when these things were no longer encircling him like prey.

Worried his third theory was correct, Zim quietly tip-toed back into the spaceship to collect his belongings. GIR was no help in preventing the creatures from awakening. He refused to cease his laughing and sang idiotic songs with uninterpretable words.

"GIR, what will it take for you to be quiet?"

"Toy!"

Zim squinted his red eyes in confusion. "You want. . .a toy?"

"I'm bored."

Zim retrieved the broken handcuffs and handed them to GIR. "There."

"Yippeeeeee!" he cheered.

"Now be silent!"

Once they were both outside, Zim used a shrinkifyer to shrink the spaceship and placed it in his bag. He could spare some parts to build more gadgets for invading Earth. It was not as though the spaceship was of any use to him as it was. Spaceships that boarded exiles were created with the purpose of one flight, which was why they did not include the control panels necessary for landing smoothly. Irkens built exile spaceships with the intent of having them crash.

Zim decided the best plan of action was to first familiarize himself with Earth's customs, languages, and way of life. He could not dominate the planet in one day. It would take time. Therefore, he would need to blend in with their society until he could conquer their race.

Where could Zim find information about the humans?

"Come on, GIR," Zim said, holding his blaster in case one of the creatures suddenly attacked.

After a while of walking— GIR constantly humming songs and asking "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" over and over and OVER again— they reached what resembled a city.

Tall buildings were lined up side by side. There were beings with two legs, two arms, and a skin color very different to his. Were those humans?

Zim spotted a few metal boxes with wheels traveling across a black strip of the ground. He noticed humans casually sitting inside them and wondered if these boxes were a form of transportation.

Zim thought for a moment about what to do since he had found the humans. He concluded that if was going to temporarily conform to this society, he should begin with introductions.

"Excuse me!" Zim called to a human. It had yellow hair atop its head and above its eyes. It wore flowy clothes and had five fingers rather than three.

The human froze at the sight of Zim. When Zim began to approach it, the human started screaming.

Interesting greeting.

Zim screamed in return to offer the human its version of a hello, but it ran away. Had he offended it? Wait! Perhaps those screams were not salutations. Had the human screamed out of fear?

Zim smiled in satisfaction.

The humans were already afraid of him? His appearance was threatening?

Zim snuck up to another human from behind. Alongside his fearsome looks, he hoped to further scare the human with the element of surprise. He tapped its shoulder. When it turned around, Zim roared.

Unlike the last human, this one was slow to react. It frowned. "Isn't it a little late for Halloween kid? Go find your parents."

Zim did not understand its language. Every word was gibberish. But after it finished speaking, the human walked away.

What had happened? One human screamed in horror while the other was unaffected. Zim would have to return to his original plan of blending in until he gained enough knowledge about humans to learn how to control them.

Blend in. Just blend in.

How could he blend in when he looked so different, though? He needed a disguise.

Zim watched as GIR stared at another human. The human stared back, an expression of puzzlement on its face.

Right. GIR was in need of a disguise, too.

But how was Zim supposed to acquire any?

As he asked himself this, GIR tugged at his shirt. "Can we go in there?" He pointed to a blue building with transparent walls.

"No, GIR. I am thinking."

"But it looks fun."

"I said no, GIR. I am in the middle of trying to decipher how we are to find disguises that will make us appear human. I have no time for your—" Zim looked up at the building and realized the inside was furnished with outfits similar to the ones the humans were adorning. "GIR, you are a genius."

"Thank you."

Zim walked towards the building, expecting for an entrance to open in the same way one would on Irk. Instead, he ran into the wall.

Zim rubbed at the pain on his face. I am no longer on Irk. This is Earth, he reminded himself.

Then how was he meant to enter?

Zim heard a ringing noise as a human exited the building. He observed how a section of the wall opened when the human pushed against it. He pushed on the same area of the building, but it did not move.

He mulled over this conundrum. If that human had pushed against the inside, it could be that he was supposed to pull on the outside. He saw a handle and pulled it. The wall opened up.

He punched his fist in the air. "Success! GIR, follow," he commanded.

GIR laughingly obeyed.

A variety of clothes were available. What would be the most appropriate for him to purchase? Surely, like the Irkens, humans consisted of both males and females. If so, what did males wear? Zim would have to figure that out later.

He chose a purple shirt with a line of circles vertically sewn on to the front, blue bottoms—they had an abundant supply of them, therefore, they must have been a common article of clothing—a hat of black hair, glasses with dark lenses to hide his red eyes, and five-fingered gloves to conceal the two fingers he did not possess.

For GIR, Zim grabbed a longer shirt with a cinched in waist and a hat of blond hair that fell to the robots metal shoulders. Zim nodded his approval at GIR's appearance. "That looks about right. We now leave."

"Excuse me!" a human yelled. "Your parents need to pay for those, kids."

Once again, Zim did not understand human language. Although, he did recognize that condescending tone. It was not unlike the one his superiors directed at him daily. Zim turned away only for the human to grab his arm. He quickly readied his Short-Term Retrograde Shooter. In seconds the human was gripping its head in disorientation, having lost its memory of the last seventy-five irkinutes.

"Let this be a lesson, GIR," Zim said, him and his robot assistant leaving the building. "Humans are unpredictable."

Now that Zim had attained their disguises, he needed a base for working and planning. Fortunately, that would not pose much of an issue.

Zim pulled out the homedex he had built before his exile. A homedex was a box as small as the average Irken's hand, but with the push of a button, it transformed into a base large enough to house a maximum of five Irkens. The technology department on Irk produced plenty of homedexes. Irkens frequently used them when invading planets. Zim had included new features in his homedex, however. He added in a touchable screen that allowed him to draw the design of the house he required and programmed it with the ability to resize the dimensions if necessary. He attempted to present it to the Irken workers in technology, but was fined for "undermining his superiors."

Since the human homes were in line, Zim's should be no different. He found a wide enough space in the row of houses to squeeze in his base. Next, he drew what he assumed to be the standard blueprint of human houses, a rectangular lower half with a triangular roof. He decreased the width of his base to fit in between the two human houses and also inputed the addition of an underground basement. He would do most of his scheming there.

He pushed the button, and his base was formed.

On to his next dilemma. . .If Zim was to pretend to be human, he needed to learn more about this planet. How, though? He did not even know their language.

"GIR, as my robotic assistant, can you find me a place where I can learn about humans?"

"No."

Zim glared at the useless piece of machinery. "What are you here for?"

"I don't know."

"Clearly."

Zim sighed, realizing he was alone in this mission.

Hope you enjoyed.