A/N: You know what? I like cliffhangers. But I like posting the chapters that come after cliffhangers, too, which is good news for everyone involved. So here it is.

Do let me know what you think! Reviews, comments, questions all appreciated! Thank you very much, and enjoy the chapter.

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In Short Supply

Emergency Lights

xxx

A story from the Tracts of Slark, the holy text of an ancient Irken religion: First came the world, and then came the people; this happened before the world was known as Irk and the people were known as Irken. In this time, we were alone.

Next came the water, the great cold lakes; this happened before the water burned. In this time, we were no longer alone, and we were all Tallest.

Last came the god of the waters, Slark, who once ruled over us; this happened before we rose up as a unified civilization. In this time, we were no longer all Tallest, and we were virtuous.

In this time when we were virtuous, Slark filled us with pain, for the virtuous always suffer; in this time we were tied to Slark, and thus to the waters, for that was where He dwelt. When we were filled with pain, only Slark could deliver us from our suffering, so we would seek Him in the waters, and our pain would burn away, and we would die.

However, the Youngest Tallest found a way to sever our ties to the waters and to end our suffering; but our other Tallest, who were few, for we were no longer all Tallest, warned us that this way to sever the ties would turn us evil. We could either choose to be evil, or to be virtuous.

We chose to be evil; thus with the Youngest Tallest as our guide, we severed our ties to the water and to Slark, and ended our suffering. In this time, we were no longer virtuous, and we were alone.

This was when our world was named Irk, which means to annoy, to anger, and to do evil; this was when our people were named Irken, the agents of Irk, and thus the agents of evil. By shunning our god Slark, we have never had to burn in the waters to remove our pain again, for the evil, unlike the virtuous, do not feel pain.

This is why we are proud to be evil.

xxx

Purple had never before seen anything like the inside of the wormhole.

It was like a tunnel made of hazy cloudy smoke, grey and blue and throwing off sparks of energy. Purple clung to the seat of his chair with both hands and let the autopilot handle everything. He hoped his Spittle Runner knew what it was doing because he had no idea where this wormhole ended, much less how to escape it.

Zim had invented the drive that took Purple through this tunnel. So, he had seen this as well, hadn't he? The Tallest had certainly never known that Zim was up to such things; they'd never heard about any wormhole drive. How much else had Zim done that they didn't know about since he'd been exiled to Earth?

If Purple didn't reach Zim soon, he might never find out.

A light emerged from the haze of the tunnel; as the Runner flew through the smoke, the light formed into a neon blue-green spiral. The Runner shuddered as it approached the spiral, passed through with an ominous hum, and was free of the wormhole. A star loomed large in the view screen, and far off a couple of planets were silhouetted against the light. Still on autopilot, the Spittle Runner turned towards one of these distant points; that had to be Earth, Purple assumed.

Zim had made his last transmission nine degrees ago. Purple hoped he wasn't too late.

xxx

"Requesting permission to land."

"Huh?"

"Land, computer. This is Tallest Purple. Can I land in Zim's base or not?"

"Oh." A very, very long silence. "Yeah."

Purple didn't find the pause promising—and he wasn't particularly comforted by the scene he saw half a degree later, when he'd landed in Zim's hangar. Only a few emergency lights were on, and the background thrum of power surging through the base was completely absent. There was no enthusiastic little Zim to greet him; not even Gir was around.

"Computer!" Purple shouted. "Where's Zim?"

There was no reply. "Computer?"

The base was eerily silent. Quickly, Purple removed his gauntlets, his hover-belt, his torso- and skirt-armor, and sprinted to the lift in his shirt and underskirt. The lift didn't react when he pushed the button and his verbal commands were worthless, so Purple pried open the doors with his Pak-legs and used them to climb down the shaft. He didn't know what it meant that none of the power was on, but it couldn't be good.

Every level of Zim's base was the same: soundless and lightless. Purple pulled open the lift door to each level, looked into the hallways as far as the emergency lights allowed, and then moved on. Where was Zim? Was it possible he'd contacted Purple from somewhere other than his base?

Or perhaps the power was all off because it wasn't necessary any more?

Purple was deep underground before he found any sign that he wasn't alone in the base; something softly glowing blue around a corner. He stepped out of the lift shaft and retracted his Pak-legs. "Zim?"

The light came around the corner. "Hiii!" It was that defective SIR Unit. Purple had seen its glowing optics and panels.

He sighed. Better than nothing. "Gir, where's Zim?"

"Hmm?" Gir glanced around a bit, as if searching for Zim. It even looked at the ceiling before looking back at Purple and smiling. "You wants somma my beef?"

Purple stared at the robot. "Gir, your master. Where is he?"

"You can't have my beef!" Gir said stubbornly. "I am the chief of the mini-tires! All the beef comes to me for their lovin'!" It made a strange sign with its arms. "Respec' da cowz!"

"Gir, cut that out!"

Gir suddenly turned its head, as if it heard something. "My peoples is callin'," it said solemnly. With a wild giggle, it activated its rocket mode, flew narrowly around Purple, and jetted up the lift shaft.

"Hey!" Purple shouted angrily. "Get back here, you stupid... um..."

Purple completely forgot what he was about to say, because he'd just glanced down and noticed the trail Gir had dripped behind itself. Blood. Purple gulped. Well, now he knew how to find Zim...

He started following the trail.

It was a long time before Purple finally saw something different—around a corner, just beneath one of the emergency lights, a small, huddled mass on the floor, surrounded by a puddle of blood. "Zim?!" It looked too small to be Zim. But, not too small to be part of Zim's remains. Braced for the worst, Purple ran up beside the form and crouched down.

No, it wasn't Zim. It was a single egg, perfectly spherical and meticulously cleaned of blood, cradled on a small pile of eggshells, gleaming innocently in the sickly yellow-green emergency light. Now Purple could see that to the very edge of the emergency light's range, the floor was scattered with small stacks of shattered eggs. This was the only whole one.

Anger surged up through his chest. After all this, there was only one egg? Couldn't Zim do anything right?! Furiously, Purple snatched up the egg and stood, not even noticing the green blood staining his skirt. If Zim wasn't dead yet, Purple was going to kill him.

Purple heard Zim before he saw him—or, rather, heard what was being done to him. He heard the clicks and snaps of moving metal, and then saw the light around a bend in the hall. He jogged up to the light, and saw that this hall still had full electricity; power hummed healthily in the walls, like electrical blood, and every light was blazing in stark white. When he saw what was in the hall, he gasped and clutched the egg against him so tightly that his fingers started trembling.

Like the victim of a mad experiment, spread out on the floor with his skin and exoskeleton peeled back to reveal his innards, was Zim. He wasn't conscious—might not have even been alive—his eyes were shut tight. But, still, the metal arms moved back and forth inside him. They wouldn't still be working if Zim was already dead, would they?

The sight had completely sucked the anger out of Purple. He walked unsteadily up to Zim, avoiding the surgical arms—why wasn't Zim in the med bay? Had there not been time to get him there?—and sank down in the nearest chair. (It was so short that he was sitting with his knees bent up to shoulder-height, but he barely even noticed.)

"Zim?" he said quietly, and then, looking up at the metal arms, "Computer?" Neither acknowledged him.

Careful to stay out of the arms' way, Purple leaned forward and pulled up one of Zim's eyelids. He sighed with relief. There was still a faint shine behind them, not just a murky darkness. The waters hadn't claimed Zim yet, he first thought—but that was an old-fashioned, ancient idea; in modern times it was the Void, Zim hadn't gone to the Void yet. Then he wondered why he cared what it was called. Death is death is death. And Zim wasn't dead yet.

Looking closer at the metal arms, Purple realized that they were no longer scalpels and blades. Most had needles, tiny spools of surgical thread, staplers. They weren't taking Zim apart anymore; they were fixing him, putting him back together.

Taking that as a good sign, Purple said, "Computer? What's Zim's condition?"

It didn't respond for a moment, and then snapped, "Delicate. Very delicate. No distractions right now."

"All right, sor-ry!" Purple said. He leaned back from Zim, muttering, "It looked like you were almost done to me..."

The arms continued working in the silence. "I am almost done, Tallest Purple," the computer finally said. "But Master lost a lot of blood and I can't really fix that, y'know. We don't have any spare blood or anything."

"Oh." Purple looked at the floor, all the shining green liquid on the metal panels, and suppressed a shudder. "Yeah."

"So there's not much more I can do," the computer said. "Unless..." The metal arms stopped for a moment. "Hey, you're really tall."

"Uh, yeah? I'm the Tallest?" Purple said. "Hey, why did you stop working?"

"You've probably got plenty of blood to spare, right?" the computer went on. "And Master's really tiny. You won't miss that little blood."

"What?! You can't give my blood to Zim!" Purple said, shocked. "Won't that make him turn into me?"

"Actually, that's a common misconception. It doesn't really work like that," the computer said. "They've been doing blood transfers like this on Firstaidia for thousands of eras."

Purple hadn't known that. He'd heard since he was a smeet that putting your blood in someone else made them your clone, just like attaching your Pak to someone else; it's putting your DNA in their system, so wouldn't their body start using that DNA to remake their cells? Apparently not. You learn something new every day...

"C'mon, please?" the computer whined. "Master's gonna die if you don't, and then he'll be mad at me."

"Okay, okay, fine! Then do it! Just get it over with fast."

"Yay!"

The metal arms started up again and doubled their pace, sewing and stapling Zim shut. One arm separated from the rest, holding two needles, with a narrow tube and a pump connecting them together. Purple held as still as possible as the computer stuck one needle between his left shoulder and his neck. It stuck the other needle in the same place on Zim. A tingling spread along Purple's left arm, and the skin around the needle started turning numb. Probably a good thing. "How long is this going to take?"

"About a half hour. Don't talk, it'll jiggle the needle out."

Well, great. Purple wished he remembered what an hour was, but at least he only had to sit here for half of one. He shifted his grip on the egg and then tried not to move again.

Reminded of the egg, several thoughts occurred to Purple at once; the first was that Zim had done something useful. Assuming that this egg wasn't going to hatch into a smeet just as defective as Zim, he'd just made an honest, valuable contribution to the betterment of the Irken Empire. Even if there was only one, he'd done something to help keep the empire from splitting apart, created an Irken to help fill the gap between the tall and the short.

He'd done something right, and he might die because of it.

The second thought Purple had was that this egg wasn't just Zim's, but his as well. Purple was a... a... a what was the word? Oh, well—a parental unit to this egg. He didn't quite know how to see the egg as his offspring; it was, quite literally, an alien concept to Irkens. He knew the word, but the closest comparison he could make was that the egg held his clone; a half-clone of him and half-clone of Zim, with their blood and genes inside it. It was a strange feeling, knowing that in a way, he was holding the egg of himself.

The final thought he had was that he really, really didn't want to see Zim die. No—more than simply not wanting to watch him die, Purple honestly wanted Zim to live. To just live. When had that changed?

Purple didn't remember. Maybe when he'd heard Zim's screams, accusing him of murder one second and begging him for help the next. Maybe when he'd realized that he and Zim had actually produced an egg, a half-clone, together.

Or maybe it was simply because Zim really was dying. In Purple's mind, any Irken who was willing to die for their empire, deserved to live for their empire.

As Purple gave his blood to Zim, he did the only other thing he could think of to help.

Not making an audible sound, barely moving his lips, Purple murmured, "Almighty Slark, god of water and death—I, Almighty Tallest Purple, pray to You. Er, to Thee. Whatever." He paused to think out his next words, now that he'd hopefully caught the attention of an omnipotent omniscient immortal force. "Okay, I don't really believe all that supernatural trash in Your myths, but I am a Tallest, and the Tallest were supposed to be religious gurus or something like that twenty thousand eras ago, so I thought this'd work. That doesn't mean I believe in You." Not many Irkens knew that about the origin of their leaders; Red and Purple had gotten a quick history course on the title of Tallest on their first day. They'd both found it pretty boring.

"Okay, so I want You to... to save Zim. All right? I mean, not save him, since You usually save Irkens by dunking them in hydroxylic acid. I think.. Just don't come get him. Don't make him die. Got it? That's it. Just one little Irken." Purple doubted that Slark (if He existed) would do a favor like that for nothing. "Uh... if You do, I'll stop doing evil stuff for ten days. No killing, conquering, snacking, or dancing. Deal?"

There was no holy light signaling that Purple's prayer had been answered. That was fine, since he still didn't think that Slark existed. "Okay, deal."

Of course, Purple didn't plan on keeping the promise at all. As soon as he was sure that Zim either was going to make it or was dead, he'd be upstairs and into Zim's snacks.

Irkens were self-professed evil incarnate and proud of it. But that didn't mean they couldn't make appeals every once in a while to mythical gods. There's no harm in doing a necessary good to promote the greater evil.

xxx

Zim's mind snapped back on long before he felt like he was in any condition to move. Or even open his eyes. He hoped his Pak was filtering air for him (he couldn't tell yet) because he wasn't about to do so himself.

Status check: Zim was alive. That was quite important. Was he paralyzed? He twitched his feet, his fingertips. If his outer extremities could move, so could everything else. What about antennae? He wiggled his left antenna and felt it brush the ground. Good. He wiggled his right and didn't feel anything. Eh... good enough. That was normal for his right antenna... But, never mind for now.

Everything was still attached and relatively functional; now for specifics. His abdomen burned like someone had ripped him open, dumped in a tub of water, and sewn him back up. On the plus side, he didn't feel the jagged pressure of something inside him that shouldn't be there, that enormous mass crushing him from the inside out...

He couldn't remember exactly what had happened. Just that something inside him had cracked, and shattered. The eggs, he figured, were just as squished by him as he was by them. Something had broken and stabbed him from the inside, knives digging deep in his heart and his squeedilyspooch, and that was the last thing he really remembered.

He knew, vaguely, that he'd commanded the computer to do something, but he couldn't remember what it had done. He knew, vaguely, that he had managed to implement his revenge and call the Tallest, but he couldn't remember what he had said.

Something brilliant, undoubtedly. For every word out of Zim's mouth was sheer genius.

He had to move eventually. Zim cracked his eyes open—to his relief, he could breathe easily for the first time in weeks—and carefully pushed himself up on his elbows.

His eyes shot wide open in shock. Sitting above him, staring boredly into space, was Tallest Purple. The killer himself. For a moment, words failed Zim. No Irken phrase could possibly express the emotions that shot through him. So he resorted to the best human equivalent he could think of, and croaked, "You fucking bastard of... of shit!"

Truly a scathing insult.

Purple's head snapped around to stare at Zim, and then he broke into a wide grin. "You're not dead!" To Zim's shock, Purple scooped him up in a tight hug. "You're delirious, but that's okay! You're not dead!"

"Ow ow ow! Leggo!" Zim shouted, squirming. "Body sensitive! Pain!"

"Sorry!" Purple said, quickly crouching on the floor to set Zim down. It was the first time a Tallest had ever made a sincere apology in Zim's hearing. Zim didn't even notice.

He used his Pak-legs to ease himself into a sitting position, clutching his aching abdomen—he was half-naked and covered in stitches, he noticed—and glared up at Purple. "What are you doing in my base? Making sure your treacherous scheme worked? Huh?"

"'Treacherous scheme'?" Purple gave Zim a puzzled look. "You mean the eggs? That's not really treacherous, Zim..."

"Lies!" Zim winced. Shouting hurt his chest, but at least he was able to shout again. "Don't play naive! I know exactly what you were really up to."

Purple looked annoyed. "Really. Do enlighten me."

"Ha! You can't fool me into thinking that this 'secret mission' of yours wasn't really a plan to kill Zim. I knew it all along!"

"Oh, really?" Purple gave Zim a disgusted look. "If you 'knew' this, then why did you fall for it?"

"I was playing along!"

"For the love of Irk," Purple snapped. "Could you try not to be this stupid? Why in the Firmament would I want to kill you when I need you to make eggs?! Which, by the way, you only managed to make ONE of." Purple held up a pinkish sphere.

"Whuh?" Zim stared at the egg. He had really made one? An actual egg? A living being? Zim had created a life. He, all by himself (completely forgetting Purple's contribution), had caused something living to come into existence. How could anyone say that Zim was worthless now, when he had accomplished no less an astounding feat as taking nothingness and using it to form the egg that would become an Irken?

A slow, greedy smile crossed Zim's face. "My egg! Gimme!" He got unsteadily to his feet and stretched out his hands towards the egg, which Purple jerked out of his reach.

"No way! What do you want with it?" Purple said. "Besides, it's my egg."

"Don't be a fool! It's my egg, I made it." Zim got on his Pak-legs to try to reach the egg.

"Hey, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been able to make it," Purple said, holding Zim back with one hand and the egg away from him with the other. "It's as much my egg as it is yours."

"As if I'd let you claim it," Zim snarled, trying to push past Purple's hand. "Never! Not after you tried to murder me!"

"Would you stop saying that? I don't even know how you got half-killed," Purple said angrily. "Why would I try to kill you and then come all the way to this dirt-ball to give you enough blood to keep you alive?"

Zim actually stopped struggling for a moment. "You did not."

Purple pulled back the hand he'd been holding Zim with, and tugged the collar of his shirt to the side to reveal a small circle of skin slightly darker green than the surrounding area, a puncture wound. "I did," he said. "And no, that doesn't mean you're going to turn into a clone of me. I already checked."

Zim had stopped listening. He reached up to touch his own shoulder; there, just next to his neck, a sensitive spot. There had been a needle. He retracted his Pak-legs and simply stood with his hand over the place where he'd received Purple's blood, numb with shock.

Purple sighed irritably. "Now do believe—hey!"

Zim had latched himself around Purple's lower legs. "Thank you thank you thank you my Tallest you have no idea how much this means to me I'll never ever ever forget what you did this is the best thing that's ever happened to me—"

Purple wobbled. "Zim, the egg!"

Too late; the egg slipped out of Purple's two-fingered grip and fell towards the hard metal floor.

Luckily, one of the computer's metal arms grabbed it before it hit. "If you don't mind, Almighty Tallest," the computer said, "I'll be taking this now. Before someone breaks it."

"Hey!" Zim said, not letting go of Purple's legs. "You can't take my egg!"

"Yeah I can. Tallest Purple ordered me to take any eggs that you have and put them in the SLP chamber."

Oh. Well, that made sense. The egg could hatch safely in a tube in the standard lifeform protection chamber. "Good work. Put my egg in the best tube!"

"All the tubes are the same, Master." The computer retracted its arm into the wall.

Purple pried Zim off him. "That egg had better not have inherited your... moron-ness," he muttered. "Really, Zim, I just gave you enough blood so you wouldn't die. It's not a big deal."

He didn't understand, Zim thought. He couldn't. After all, it was his blood, he'd had it his entire life. But to Zim, it was something completely different.

He had achieved something that only one in a hundred billion Irkens could ever hope to achieve: Zim now had Tallest's blood marching through his veins.

xxx

It was a really good thing Purple didn't believe in Slark, or else he might feel guilty or something about snacking so soon after his promise not to for ten days. As it was, he didn't regret it at all.

And Zim had some good snacks, too. Purple had no idea how he got them, but they were great. He and Zim had gone up to the kitchen of Zim's base and worked their way through half a bag of pretzels (with extra salt and cheese flavoring) from Tower of Shlump. There was no way Zim should have been able to afford snacks from Shlump; it was one of the most expensive, upscale restaurants on Foodcourtia. Purple decided not to question Zim's methods; he'd hate to be reminded that these snacks were being financed by illegal methods.

As they ate, Zim explained (with a great deal of unasked-for help from his computer, since he couldn't tell a story in any sort of logical manner by himself) how exactly he'd ended up almost dead. Purple listened quietly until the computer gave him the exact number of eggs Zim had made.

He almost choked on a mouthful of pretzels. "Twenty-six?!" He swallowed hard, then said, "That's crazy! No wonder you almost died. Layers can only do seven or eight at once."

Zim couldn't care less about what Purple was actually saying. "I made twenty-six smeets?! I'm amazing!"

"You only really made one, Zim. The others died."

"Lies! Twenty-six!"

"Master probably wouldn't have been able to handle eight, either," the computer pointed out. "He's not big enough."

Zim scowled but didn't comment. Purple figured there wasn't much Zim could say to counter that, anyway.

"So, if Zim ever tries to have eggs again, it'll end up another fiasco like this?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"So. That's the end of that." Purple sighed. Well, wasn't that wonderful. So much for his grand scheme to single-handedly (with Zim's assistance) save the Irken Empire from falling apart.

What had ever made Purple think that he could pull off such a crazy scheme, anyway? He wasn't quick enough to react to a big problem like this—a threat of the division of the empire. He wasn't smart enough to do it. Hells, he wasn't even a real Tallest! Not like Red was. Maybe he should have just kept trying to get Red to help after all...

"My Tallest."

Purple looked up; Zim was looking at him seriously, eyes narrowed. "I would never quit my mission," he said, as if he were issuing a challenge, daring Purple to be the one to give up.

"Yeah, and you'll never be able to complete it either," Purple said. "Did you think of that? You're not gonna be lucky enough to survive another bunch of eggs. Especially if you end up with twenty-six again."

"Actually, I think that was a one-time problem," the computer said. "You danced with Master when his body was still adjusting to the layer hormones he was starting to produce, Almighty Tallest, so he released too many eggs for fertilization. Shouldn't happen again. Probably. Maybe."

"See?" Zim said. "I can do this mission! That proves it!"

"No, it doesn't," Purple said testily. "And in any case you can't do it unless I dance with you, which I'm not doing without proof that it won't kill you."

Zim frowned. "Clearly, even now you do not yet comprehend the absolutely astounding astoundingness of my skills." He sighed wearily at what he clearly thought to be a great injustice. "So, a new plan is in order, is it?"

"New plan?" Purple said skeptically.

"Of course! If a plan is unsuccessful the first time, then a new plan is needed." Zim put on a thoughtful face. "Hmm..."

Purple wondered what sort of plan Zim could come up with. Nothing good, undoubtedly.

"The problem here is an issue of... height, yes?" Zim said. He slowly grinned. "However, you don't have that problem."

"Where are you going with this?"

Zim chuckled. "Perhaps this time around, I should be the fertilizer and you should be the layer, my Tallest. Don't you think?"

"No way, Zim. Not gonna happen. Do I have to go through the list again?" He started ticking off reasons on the fingers of one hand. "One, everyone would notice if I had eggs, and this is a secret mission. Two, I have a reputation to keep up, and you don't. Thr... oh." Purple had run out of fingers. "Um. In any case, we already got surgery once. We can't just switch around our genitalia every thirty days for the rest of this mission. That'd hurt."

"Oh. Huh. Yeah." Zim grabbed another handful of pretzels and shoved them in his mouth while he thought. "Den, de ony ofson..." He swallowed and tried again. "The only option would be for me to... not be having the height problem. But there's no way to change that. Is there?" He kept his head down as he asked the question, but he looked up at Purple, half hopefully.

"No, of course there isn't..." Purple glanced at Zim's pretzels and trailed off, thinking. "Actually..."

Zim jumped up to stand on his chair and lean over the table. "Actually? Actually WHAT?!"

Looking at Zim's pretzels had reminded Purple that he got his snack money from "exports" of hydroxylic acid. The black market.

"There's no legal way to change someone's height," Purple said. "But there are black market surgeons who can do exoskeletal extensions. They're really, really, really against the law, though. Probably like forty laws."

Zim stared at him. "So there is a way?"

"Yeah, a bad way," Purple said.

Zim leaped on the table and raised his fists in triumph. "There is a way! All hope is not lost!" He cackled victoriously.

"I said it's illegal!" Purple sighed and waited for Zim to stop laughing. When he did, he went on. "Look, Zim. You're negative twelve units tall and that's not really going to change even if you do get exoskeletal extensions, because that's just in your genes. You'll look taller, but you won't actually be any taller. And nobody's gonna treat you any taller because everyone knows who you really are."

"Because it's not in my blood?" Zim asked.

"Yeah, it's not in your blood."

"But, if I had tallness in my blood AND in my body, then I really would be tall?"

"Er..." He had no idea why Zim was asking. "Yeah, I guess."

Zim chuckled again. "I see..."

Purple thought for a moment about what he was suggesting. True, the process was illegal, and Purple would hate to see Zim gain any undeserved height. But it wasn't as if Zim could use the height for any real purpose, since he was still exiled.

And in the end, the most important thing was saving the empire, wasn't it? Which wouldn't happen if Zim couldn't grow eggs.

"I guess an extension thingy wouldn't really be illegal if a Tallest authorized it," Purple said grudgingly. "And you wouldn't get really tall, Zim, just enough not to die. Maybe, fifty or sixty units, tops. Hey! Are you listening to me?"

Zim was gaping at Purple, jaw dropped and eyes wide. Okay, with his eyes like that, he had to be hyperventilating. "Zim? Calm d—"

Purple was cut off as he found himself once again trapped in an enthusiastic hug. "Thank you my Tallest I can barely believe you'd do that for me first the blood and now this you've gotta be the best Tallest in the history of the universe this is the best day of my life I don't even know what to... to..."

Purple gingerly tried to pry Zim from off his neck. "Um, Zim? Are you okay?" He'd fallen completely silent.

But Zim was just fine. He was simply, for the first real time in his life, at an utter and complete loss for words.

xxxxx