In Short Supply

by ckret2

When Purple discovers that the gap between the tall and short Irkens is widening, he fears the worst, the division of the Irken race. But as Red denies that anything's wrong, he resorts to filling that gap himself. With Zim's help. ZAPR, mpreg.

9. Fat Ass

A/N: After chapter 9, in my opinion, the next two chapters are a little slow. That's while I'll be doing an extra update! Next Friday, on the 28th, I'll be doing my regular update for chapter 10, and then on Sunday, March 30th, I'll post chapter 11. Gets both chapters out of the way quicker, and I can commemorate the day Zim was first aired. Score.

Anyway, enjoy chapter 9. Please remember to review and let me know what you think. Thank you!

VERY IMPORTANT EDIT: Um, yeah, it seems there are no dividers between the scenes. See, when I type out the chapters, I always, always put dashes between the scenes, so that, y'know, people can tell when there's a time skip of, say, five hours. Or a week. But I just looked at the fic, and I see nada. Usually, there are, at LEAST, dashes between the author's note and the words "In Short Supply," and then more dashes between the chapter name and the start of the fic. But now they aren't there. Do any of you still see dashes? Have they been doing that all along?! Because if they have, I am so so so sorry I didn't notice and that all of you have had no indication of where one scene ends and another begins. (And damn, that was probably confusing. I must look like an idiot.) Please, when you review, tell me, have the dashes been missing all along? Or did FFnet just suddenly deside to go through and strip them all? I hope it's the latter. Man, I feel stupid. Henceforth, all dashes are to be replaced with something that won't be stripped from the text. I guess I'll go with what I do in my Kingdom Hearts fics and divide scenes with X's, since FFnet won't strip those

Maaan, and now I gotta go all the way back to chapter 1 and fix all that...

xxxxx

In Short Supply

Fat Ass

xxx

A passage from the data downloaded into all Irken Paks at birth: Category: Irk and Irkens. Subcategory: Biology. Sub-subcategory: Smeet development.

As you are no doubt aware, for the next half-era, you will be referred to as a "smeet." With a Pak, the average Irken will live four to five eras, or forty to fifty Irken years. You will continue growing for a little past an era, at which point you'll reach your final height. However, before Irkens had Paks, you would not be considered a smeet after a half-era, but a middle-age adult; you would have stopped being a smeet within the first few days of life.

Before the ingenious smeet facilities were built, Irkens would mate and lay eggs on their own. (Note: Do not try this, as Irkens today are not equipped to make eggs and you'll probably hurt yourself.) The eggs would grow inside a layer for twenty-eight to thirty days before being laid, and then hatch within a day. At that point, a true smeet will emerge—a slug-like larva with soft, fleshy protection over its undeveloped internal exoskeleton, no legs, sightless eyes, and stubby arms. In fact, that's what you looked like a few days ago.

This "real" smeet will remain a larva for about five days before its fleshy protection hardens into a pod, and within a day from that it will emerge as a true Irken. A long time ago, at that point, the Irken was considered an adult. Today, though, that just means the Irken is ready to be released from its birthing tube, given a Pak, and trained. That's where you are now. And today, since all Irkens spend their actual smeet phase in a tube, they're now called smeets when they wake up for the first time.

You'll be a smeet for five years before being considered an adult. Think, hundreds of eras ago, at five years old, you'd probably be dead! Only the luckiest, wisest, smartest Irkens lived to be an era; that's why we originally began following our Tallest, since they obviously had lived long enough to reach their full height. Today, we do it just because we know they're better than us. You'll learn more about that in Subcategory: Politics.

xxx

As it so happened, Purple knew of a guy who knew another guy who was in touch with an alien who'd made acquaintance with a couple of Irkens who had once done business with an unnamed source who may have the contact information of someone who could have at some point picked up the knowledge of how to do an exoskeletal extension. This someone, who went by the name of "Nail" on the black market, said that they would be just thrilled to do a job for the Almighty Tallest Purple, so long as it didn't involve doing anything that would end up with Tallest Red no longer being tallest.

"What, are you crazy?" Purple said. "I can't overthrow my co-ruler! Who'd rule the empire when I'm on vacation?"

"I... hmm. I hadn't thought of it that way," Nail said. Whoever Nail was, they didn't reveal their identity lightly. Nail was in a dark room, only the slight glow of a computer illuminating their eyes. The image had been grayscaled, though, so Purple couldn't even identify Nail's eye color, and they had modified their voice so that it was ridiculously deep. "Then—if it's not impudent of me to ask, my Tallest—if the exoskeletal extension is not for yourself, then on whom shall I be operating?"

"You'll find that out when you get here." Purple wasn't going to risk saying over a transmission like this that he wanted the operation done on Zim; Nail might be recording it, or someone could listen in. "This whole thingy is top secret—even from Red. And that means you'll have to go a bit of a ways to get here."

"Anything for my Tallest."

"Good." And Purple had thought everyone involved in the black market was a dangerous rebel out to disrupt the Irken government, bring down the Tallest, and put in a new horrible political system. Like democracy. Who in Irk's name had thought up a crazy idea like democracy, anyway? "Hey, Nail—what do you think about democracy?"

"Er... I don't think I follow, my Tallest." Nail sounded confused. "I've... never really given it any thought..."

"See that you don't." Purple called up the coordinates for Zim's base and sent them to Nail. "This is where you'll come to do the operation. Got it?"

"Yes sir." Nail's eyes glanced sideways, probably at another screen to read the coordinates. "Unfortunately, my ship isn't the best, my Tallest. It will take me nine or ten days to reach Earth. And, if I may ask another question, why are you in Zim's base?"

Purple almost flinched. "Uh." He hadn't expected to deal with that question until Nail actually arrived. Now what? "That is... hey, how do you know where Zim's base is, anyway? In fact, how do you know where Earth is? No one below Rank Steel should have access to that information. Are you Rank Steel, Nail?" Doubtful; Rank Steel was for Military Low Commanders or Invaders on up to Taller Advisors and the Tallest. No one with such a high rank would risk their livelihood doing illegal surgeries. "How'd you learn that? Huh?"

"Ergh!" Nail's grayed-out eyes went wide. "I mean... I was... You see... eh... That is, I'll be on Ea—I-I mean, I'll be at these coordinates in no more than ten days. You have my word!" Nail quickly cut the connection.

Well, that had gone well. And now Purple had a small amount of blackmail on a black market operative who hadn't even thought of threatening to blackmail Purple in return.

Zim, who had been sitting out of sight with stern instructions to not under any circumstances say a single thing, smirked at Purple. "It would seem that I am not quite as hated as you would lead me to believe," he said smugly.

"Oh, really? And why's that?"

"Simple!" Zim pointed at the screen. "You said that only Rank Steel know where I am. Surely that's to prevent adoring fans from interfering with my work, right?"

"No, it's not," Purple said flatly. "It's because the entire empire hates you and would come here and kill you if they knew where you were."

"Ha! Then the fact that you hid this information means that you're protecting Zim from this fate!"

Actually, it was because the Tallest preferred leaving Zim stranded on a distant dirt-ball to having a few thousand Irkens rush out to a planet ignorant of the Irken Empire to do the job. But, for once, Purple didn't feel like trying to crack through Zim's thick ego. It was about the only thing the little defect had going for him anymore. In any case, they had more important matters to worry about now.

"My Tallest, Master?" the computer said. "You probably wanna get down to the standard lifeform protection chamber. You said you wanted to know when the egg hatches, right?"

Matters like that.

"Yes! Take Zim to his egg!" Zim leaped out of his seat and sprinted towards the lift, with Purple trailing behind him. "The first of many triumphs on my greatest mission ever!" He went off on that laugh of his as the lift started carrying them down.

"Zim, seriously. Stop laughing like that. It's creepy."

"But it's fun!"

Purple sighed. Really, he was getting to the point where weird things like Zim's laugh didn't bother him nearly as much as they used to. That was why he wanted him to stop. Slark forbid Purple should ever get used to Zim.

xxx

Zim realized that he hadn't been down to the SLP chamber in quite some time. Several of the tubes were broken, and he could have sworn that he heard something scurrying around far away; the chamber was truly vast, so he couldn't see anything way off in the dark. Ah, well. He'd hunt the thing making the noise eventually. It was probably the remains of the cow-human experiment.

He and Purple weren't the first ones down in the chamber. Gir was there as well, sitting next to one of the few lit tubes, wearing a paper something on his head that, if Zim was not mistaken, was supposed to be shaped like a crown. It said "KEENG" in red crayon. "The chicky's wakin' up," Gir said, pointing into the tube. "I'mma name it Bill."

"No, Gir, that's not your chicky. That's my egg, and it's not going to have a stupid name like Bill." Zim grinned proudly at his egg for a moment. Cracks were appearing along the side, and in a moment the smeet inside would be free. What would he name it, anyway? Usually Control Brains assigned names whenever a new Pak was activated, but there were no Brains here to decide the name...

The eggshell split open, and Zim immediately stopped smiling. "Ugh!" He reeled back, raising an arm as if to protect himself from what he saw. "What is that horrible blobby thing?! I didn't make that!" He looked at Purple. "What did you do to it?!"

"Shut up, I didn't do anything," Purple said. "That's what a smeet looks like, Zim. It'll be a normal Irken in a few days."

"That thing?" Zim eyed the "smeet"—a sluggy bag of fatty white flesh with thick green veins, disproportionately huge pinkish-red eyes with a thin film of skin over them, tiny stubby arms, and a vapid, toothless grin. "It's hideous!"

"That's why smeets grow in tubes until they're adult. Honestly, Zim, did they put anything in your Pak when they made you?"

"Yeah, but most of it was wrong. So I deleted it."

"You... deleted it." Purple slowly shook his head in disbelief. "How are you not dead yet?"

"I'm just amazing like that." Zim looked again at the... "smeet," if that's really what it was. "You're sure it will be normal in a few days?"

"Yes, Zim."

"I see." He grinned. "Then I'm going to name it. Computer!"

"Whaaat?"

"Is this smeet-blob male or female?"

"Gimme a sec..." A red light scanned the tube. "It's a boy. Congratulations." A small panel over the tube opened up and blue confetti rained out.

Zim waved away the confetti drifting near his face. "A fertilizer, then! Hmm..." He eyed the smeet. It was a rather fat smeet. And growing it had almost killed Zim so it, along with the other eggs, had obviously been far bigger than was reasonable for any egg.

"You're not going to give it a dumb name, are you?" Purple muttered. "Because if you are, I'm overruling anything you say."

"Not at all, my Tallest! It shall be a wholly appropriate name." Zim nodded decisively, and then grinned. He had the perfect name for the overweight smeet. "He shall be named... Fat Ass!"

Purple blinked. "What?"

"Fat Ass. You know... 'cause that's what he is." Zim chuckled. "It's brilliant."

Purple frowned. "Fataz? Is that even a name?"

"It's a human phrase. But it's fitting."

"Huh." Purple gave the smeet a critical look. "Fataz. Kinda has a nice ring to it. Sure, why not." He shrugged and then headed back to the lifts. "Glad that's over with. Hey, Zim, I'm gonna use your recharge chamber. Don't bother me."

"Yes, my Tallest," Zim said, still looking up at his smeet. Fataz was squirming about a bit in his tube, still blind and still grinning stupidly. Zim wondered if he even had the muscles to stop smiling yet.

"Aww," Gir cooed, both hands pressed against Fataz's tube. "It's so cute."

"No, Gir. Don't encourage him. He's ugly." Zim scowled at Fataz, and muttered, "The next time I see you, you'd better look more like me. Or else I'll... eh... not be very nice to you. And do mean things. Keep that in mind!"

Fataz was still smiling as Zim turned his back on him and left.

xxx

Purple hated standard recharge chambers. They were far too cramped. He and Red had ordered custom-fitted recharge chambers for their personal use, so luckily he didn't have to deal with them often. At least this chamber wasn't fitted for Zim, or else Purple probably wouldn't have been able to get inside.

Once he'd managed to plug his Pak in, he didn't bother to turn the computer screen on; he wanted to think.

This whole exoskeletal extension deal was going to be a huge annoyance. It meant he'd have to fly to the Massive, stay there just a few days, and then fly back to Earth in order to supervise the surgery, dance with Zim again, and then fly back to the Massive once more. That was a lot of traveling, and it'd be hard to explain to Red, too.

Or he could just wait here on Earth until the black market surgeon showed up. That meant he'd also be around when Fataz went through his metamorphosis, so he could make sure he'd get his Pak properly... Purple had figured that the best plan would be for the smeets he made to get their Paks on Earth, and then be taken to Irk for their training. That way, they wouldn't have to be snuck into the smeet facilities and risk being discovered. He'd gotten ten pre-programmed Paks a couple of weeks ago and stored them in his Spittle Runner for his next trip to Earth. Lucky he had.

All Purple had to do was program the name Fataz into one of the Paks, and attach it. Unfortunately, instead of having a personality assigned to him, having the blank Pak meant Fataz would get all the knowledge and history of Irk but have to develop his own personality. A minor issue, something like five percent of the Irken race had received personality-free Paks, anyway. It was the most common and least troublesome defect a Pak could have.

Nine or ten days on Earth with Zim. It couldn't be too bad, could it? Surely so few days wouldn't be that terrible. Right?

Oh, who was Purple kidding? He'd probably have a better time visiting every Hell in the Firmament.

Sometimes he really hated being a Tallest. Probably his least favorite thing in the universe was having responsibility.

xxx

"After Napoleon's disastrous campaign in Russia," the TV documentary droned, "he was exiled in 1814 to the island of Elba..."

Zim chuckled. "Elba." What a stupid name.

Earth-time, it was a little past six in the morning on Tuesday; he'd have to head to the abhorred Joonier Hi Skool soon in a few degrees. He was considering various excuses for why he'd missed school both Friday and Monday. Faking an illness usually worked, if he could think of one he hadn't used recently. Perhaps he could say he'd had herpes over the weekend...

But he couldn't leave for school yet; Tallest Purple was still here, and Zim certainly couldn't leave when his Tallest might need him at any moment.

He wondered how long Purple planned on staying. Of course, Zim would be honored to entertain him as long as he wished. But it would still be nice to know, for example, whether or not Zim would be late to school today.

Zim felt a weight set down beside him on the sofa, and looked over in surprise. "My Tallest! I didn't hear you come up."

"Mm." Purple's eyes were glued to the documentary. "Hey, is there anything on this planet more interesting to do than watch this teevy thing?"

"No, humans do stupid things."

"Too bad." Purple stood up. "'Cause I'm gonna be here until Nail shows up, and you're going to keep me amused." He didn't state it like an order, but a fact. He was the Almighty Tallest of the Irken Empire, and Zim was a loyal Irken who was simply expected to do whatever he could to make sure his leader was pleased and to be happy with that role.

And he was happy. Immediately all concerns about school were wiped clean from Zim's mind, with a simple mental note to think up a better excuse than herpes when he finally got around to attending again. "Er, not everything on Earth is stupid, my Tallest. I mean, yeah, it is stupid, obviously. But it's funny anyway." Zim grinned eagerly. "I could show you around."

Purple gave Zim a considering look, then shrugged. "Fine."

"Excellent! You'll need a disguise first, my Tallest. Computer!"

"What now, Master?"

"Come up with a disguise fitting for an Almighty Tallest! We are going out to laugh evilly at the smelly load of horrible that is humanity!" Zim ran into the kitchen. Where was Gir?

"You realize that doesn't make any sense, right, Zim?" Purple said, looking over the panel that the computer had just pushed in front of him, presumably with a selection of human disguises to choose from. He frowned, pointed at something on the panel, and said to the computer, "This thing's ugly."

"Yeah, but it's waterproof," the computer said.

"Really?" Purple looked at the panel with less disgust. "Is that important on Earth?"

"You wouldn't believe how important!" Zim said. "On this planet, water falls from the sky like rocks during the great dust storms of Chunga!"

"You mean it rains here?" Purple grimaced. "I thought that only happened on wet planets like Vort."

"Earth is a wet planet." Zim shuddered. "Oh, how wet it is. Wait here, my Tallest. I must retrieve my robot." He jumped in the kitchen toilet. "Computer! Take me to Gir!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Zim couldn't believe the good fortune he had. An opportunity to be all alone with one of the Tallest for ten days! Surely, Tallest Purple would come to see what excellent company Zim made and hold him in higher regard.

After all, Zim deserved to be held in high regard. He had finally come to accept that the Tallest currently had the mistaken notion that he didn't deserve to be an Invader, which he knew very well to be wrong. The only thing for him to do now was try to persuade them otherwise. And Zim could be very persuasive.

He thought that Purple was already starting to see him differently, at least. After all, he'd come to Zim in particular for this mission, hadn't he? Well, sure, that was because of Zim's height, but certainly there had to be other reasons that Purple hadn't informed him of. If height was the only factor, surely there were other Irkens close enough to Zim that they would have sufficed?

Plus, there was the way he'd acted yesterday. When Zim had woken up, the very first thing Purple had done was hug him. A very... unusual action among Irkens. Such close physical contact was typically only found during dances, or between very, very close friends.

Not that Zim minded.

Then there was the fact that Purple had actually given Zim some of his own blood. That practically tied them together forever, didn't it? In Zim's mind, it was as if Purple had put Zim's life on an equal level with his own.

Clearly all this meant that Tallest Purple was already starting to understand how truly important Zim was. Now Zim had an opportunity to show him Earth and prove to him once and for all that this dirt-ball really deserved to be conquered and made a part of the Irken Empire. After that, it would only be a matter of time until he was reassigned as an Invader and asked to continue his conquest of Earth.

The lift stopped, and Zim stepped out, surprised to find himself in the SLP chamber again. "Gir! Where are you?"

"I don't know!" Gir wailed from somewhere in the dark. "I'm lost!" He let out a keen shriek that made Zim's antennae shudder.

"Gir, stop messing around and get over here!"

"Mmkay." Gir wandered into the light, still wearing his paper hat. "The mini-tires lurve me, Master," he informed Zim.

"You can play with your... 'mini-tires' later, Gir. We're going out." Zim snatched off Gir's hat. "Put on your costume and come with me upstairs. Today we show the empire just what we're made of!"

Gir squealed. "We're gonna get naked?!"

"Eh? No." Zim grabbed Gir by the antenna and carried him onto the lift, to make sure he didn't wander off again. "I want you to be on your best behavior today, Gir. We're escorting the Tallest around Earth." He pointed his free hand into the air as the lift began to carry them up. "Prepare yourself! The day of reckoning is NIGH!"

"Oh, I see," Gir said, still dangling by his antenna. "I thought it was Tuesday."

xxx

When the computer had first suggested this disguise to Purple, he'd been hesitant; it didn't look at all like the disguise he usually saw Zim in, with a weird black thing on his head and two contacts. But now that they were actually outside and he could see the other humans, he figured he had the better disguise after all.

Sure, every time Purple saw his reflection, he was momentarily alarmed at what he saw; nearly white skin, with two flabby things sticking out of the sides of his head and a small pointy one in the middle—ears and a nose. At least they were only a hologram, along with the white eyes with the small brown rectangles. Species that didn't have solid eye colors always creeped Purple out. They looked like they had some sort of nasty disease in the middle of their eyeballs or something.

"My Tallest? Is something wrong?"

Purple looked away from his reflection in a window and back at Zim. "No, nothing. It just... takes a while to get used to looking so weird." The clothes didn't help, a huge khaki jacket the computer had called a "trench coat," and a red "cowboy hat."

Zim nodded. "I understand, my Tallest. It's often a shock, seeing yourself so horribly disfigured for the first time. The shock wears off, though." He turned to face the street. "So, this is an Earth city. Revolting, isn't it?" He gestured out at the humans passing by; the rectangular, rigid buildings; the strange two-toned sky, dark blue above and orange-red below.

"Why does the sky have two colors?" Purple asked.

"Eh?" Zim looked at the horizon, "Oh, that's how sunrise looks here. Sunset too."

"Huh." Purple had never seen the sky do that before.

"Yeah, it'll be a solid color soon," Zim said. "Probably gray or brown."

Purple looked around the street. The Earthen vehicles were certainly strange shapes, but looked like ancient technology. None of the buildings seemed to hold anything interesting; of course, he couldn't read any of the building's signs, but still.

"Do humans have any gladiatorial matches or anything?" Purple would have to find a way to entertain himself for the next few days, after all, and what better way than as a spectator to senseless violence?

"Yeah, they do," Zim said. "But today's a Tuesday. There's no football on Tuesdays."

"Hm." Purple walked past Zim and went down the sidewalk in slow strides to look at the windows and see what was inside each building, searching for something interesting to do. Zim had to jog to keep up, jerking his stupid robot in its green costume along by a leash. Gir seemed to have turned itself off; it was curled up and softly snoring.

Purple hesitated, just a moment, in front of a window lit up with dozens of tiny multicolored light bulbs. There was a funny-shaped plant inside covered in shiny orbs that caught the light. Obviously a decorative tradition on Earth, though Purple couldn't see the point to it. Pretty orbs, though.

Zim looked inside as well, and grinned. "Ooh! That's what we could do!" He sprinted passed Purple. "This way, my Tallest! I have to show you the Evil Santa Memorial."

"The what?" Purple followed Zim, throwing one more glance at the pretty orbs and lights before turning away from them.

"Evil Santa Memorial! The humans put it up to recognize all the other humans that the Evil Santa crushed, two years ago. Humans like to think about each other dying, for some reason. It's a wonder they haven't all killed themse... eh..." Zim glanced up at Purple, looking embarrassed, before clearing his throat and quickly changing topics. "Anyway, they put up the memorial because the Evil Santa killed almost three thousand humans. But last year it came back, and killed over fifty thousand." Zim chuckled to himself. "They're expanding the memorial now, I think. And Santa will probably come back this year to kill even more humans, maybe one zillion..."

"Good for Santa," Purple said flatly. "Why should I care?"

Zim gave Purple a stunned look. "Why? Why?! Because the Evil Santa is the creation of none other than the great Zim!" Purple figured he had to look surprised, because Zim gave him a sly smirk. "As you can clearly see, my Tallest, despite the fact that I have been conducting my mission alone, I have made great progress towards destroying the humans. Have I not?"

"Er... maybe," Purple said, baffled. Surely Zim wasn't competent enough to actually build something to kill that many beings at once. Okay, yeah, he'd done it a few times by accident, but intentionally? Never. Zim was more inclined to rain doom upon his fellow Irkens than upon an actual enemy.

But, what if he really had built something that had killed so many Earthens at once? Fifty thousand was no great number as far as the empire was concerned, but if the Santa continued to kill more each time it attacked, as Zim said it would... The Irken Empire could very well make use of these "Evil Santas" in their own armada, assuming Zim could reproduce them.

Then again, considering how Tallest Miyuki and Tallest Slark had ended up the last time Zim had been given Inventor duties, Purple doubted it was worth the risk.

"Come!" Zim said, gesturing for Purple to hurry up. "I have much to show you, my Tallest! I trust you will find I had made more progress than you ever expected when you called off my mission."

Seeing as Purple had expected Zim to have made no progress at all, just about anything exceeded expectations. "Why didn't you report any of this stuff to us?"

"I did," Zim said. "The Massive must have had a bad connection if you weren't able to hear my amazing report. You should get it fixed."

Or they'd completely ignored him. "I don't think so, Zim. You probably forgot to mention it."

"Forgot to mention such a triumph as the Evil Santa?" Zim made a twitchy gesture with his free hand, as if swatting back the suggestion. "Never! Though it may have been one of my minor triumphs on this dirt-ball, it is still an invaluable one."

"Minor?" Purple laughed in what he hoped was a condescending way. (He was actually better at that laugh than Red, which he was quite proud of. He celebrated by laughing condescendingly at Red for his inferior laugh, which usually earned him a face-full of empty wrappers.) "If that's minor, then what's major, huh? Discovering a new protection against hydroxylic acid reactions?"

"Paste."

Purple blinked. "Huh?"

"Paste." Zim reached into his Pak as he walked and pulled out a small bottle, labeled in Irken letters, EARTH GLUE. "It completely stops all external allergic reactions to water," he said, as casually as if he were discussing the weather on Irk. (Cold, and dry.) "It won't counter-act hydroxylic acid poisoning, though."

Purple snatched up the bottle, inspecting it. "Yeah, well... huh." Did this thing really work? He stuffed the bottle in his Pak; he'd get it checked out when he was back at the Massive. "And I suppose next you're going to tell me that you killed a squad of Planet Jackers?" he said, trying to sneer. He wasn't about to let Zim think he was impressed.

"Er... they're not dead," Zim said carefully. "But I did have to beat them up pretty good to get Earth back from them."

Purple stared at Zim. "Please tell me you didn't actually break the Irken/Planet Jacker Treaty."

"Uh..." Zim glanced up and pointed. "There it is! Hey, Gir, wake up." He kicked his robot, which squealed and twitched but didn't get up. "That's the memorial, my Tallest. With a life-size replica of my Evil Santa." He smiled proudly. "Well, actually, the Santa is about twice as big now as it was when they made the replica..."

Purple looked up. And up. His jaw dropped.

Surrounded by circular streets and guarded by the towering, blocky gray Earth buildings was an immense silver brick, covered in words Purple couldn't read; atop that brick was a huge statue in white and red, a blobby monstrosity. It was easily taller than the biggest MegaDoomers, perhaps even approaching the size of a Frontline Battle Mech. It was enormous and insane-looking. It was the absolute image of a weapons-mech of mass destruction. "You made that?!"

"Impressive, is it not?" Zim's voice took on that forcibly casual tone, the one he used when he was saying something he thought very important but wanted everyone else to think was an idle comment. "Not that I'd ever assume that I know how to run the empire as well as you, my Tallest, but I'd think you'd be starting to wonder why you ever fired me as an Invader to begin with..."

"Don't be ridiculous," Purple snapped, turning away from the Evil Santa statue and refusing to look at it again. "Now, why exactly did you decide to go endanger our treaty with the Planet Jackers?"

Zim looked at his feet. "They started it."

Purple groaned. He wasn't going to like this. "That is why we fired you."

xxxxx