Dlbn: Hello everyone! I'm glad to see this fic was met with positivity. I'm hoping that continues as we go.
Nbld: For now, let's get on with the Review Corner so we can bring you chapter two. Thank you to Invader Johnny, Zim'sMostLoyalServant, and Kelsey Raine for reviewing! Irken snacks for you all!
Invader Johnny: I don't like to think of the Irkens being that evil, but it's fitting for the universe they're in here. That's the worst that you're going to see in here, though there are going to be some references to it (there is one here that's a bit tasteless from one of the Irkens, for example). I love Irkens, so I couldn't bring it in me to make them that level of merciless all the time ^^"
Zim'sMostLoyalServant: Thank you! More coming right up.
Kelsey Raine: I'm not always a fan of OCs either, honestly. That's why I was wary about posting this, since I know OCs aren't well received. I tried to keep them as believable as people as I could. Most of the ones that appear are based slightly off people that I know, so I feel like that helped a bit maybe. I don't like it either. That's the most that's going to take place here. It's going to be mentioned later, though.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Invader Zim or anything, anyone, or any place cannon. That all belongs to God. I mean Jhonen Vasquez. Yeah . I make NO money from writing this. Any OCs are mine. Don't use without permission please.
000
Zim laughed as his highly-annoying -but-still-a-close-friend Keef recounted the story of his mother and father at the local apple orchard, apple picking with the family. He longed to do family-style outings with a family again, but since his parents disowned him and his elder brother vanished, he'd have to do without for now. At least the Membranes invited him on their family outings. Although for them, family outings consisted of Dib, and his sister Gaz, needing something to do and asking Zim to tag along. Their father was almost always at work, except for the once-a-year family dinner he made time in his schedule for. Zim never went to those, not wanting to intrude on it although Professor Membrane had said that he was like family by now. Zim had been on the planet for three years. He and Dib hadn't gotten along at first, but they became fast friends when a group of bullies decided to target them every day. In fact, Zim had remained a loner with no friends for about a year and a half before he and Dib became friends and he was brought into Dib's social circle.
"You guys sure go on some wacky adventures." A little boy named Todd squeaked, immediately looking this way and that after saying the word 'wacky'.
Apparently, the word set his neighbor off into fits of rage.
"You got that right." Keef giggled. "You should come sometime, Squee."
Squee was the nickname his creepy neighbor had given him-caused by his tendency to make a squeaking noise when nervous or afraid.
"We should all go sometime and make a movie out of it!" A boy dubbed Screamy offered.
Zim rubbed his head. "Screamy, you need to learn to have an 'inside voice'."
"This is my inside voice, Zim!"
"You wouldn't know it…" Dib muttered, using his pinky to shake out the inside of his ear and gain back his hearing.
"Screamy's right, though." Gretchen said with a smile. "We should make a movie about Keef's family. It would be the highest grossing comedy movie in years!"
The table broke into laughter as a group of popular students went by and gave them looks of disgust. Zim sent a sneering gave their direction and they flushed before turning around. Zim smirked. Back home, he'd been able to strike fear into almost everyone that dared try and cross him. Just mention of his nickname, Junior, would send shivers and shudders down the spines of even the hardest of gangsters. Covert, his enemy gang, wasn't as afraid of him as they were of his leader; Sila. While clever and beautiful to look at, she was also deadly and conniving. He'd seen her almost kill someone that dared to look at her the wrong way. The thought sent both shivers of pride and horror down his spine.
"Are you okay, Zim?" Keef asked softly. "You're staring into space again…"
"Oh, sorry. Just thinking." Zim replied with a smile that he knew would fool Keef into thinking he was okay.
"You do that too much."
"You don't do it enough." Zim tapped him on the head with his fork.
"I think he knows." Dib stated. "If his grades prove anything."
He took a sip of strawberry milk out of the carton that had come with his lunch.
Keef glared, but he was smiling. "Whatever, Dib. We can't all be geniuses like you."
"Thankfully." Zim agreed.
Dib punched his shoulder.
"Ow." Zim feigned an injury. "Perhaps I should go to the nurse, now…"
Gaz rolled her eyes at them. "Idiots." She accused, going back to the video game she was playing with her friend Iggins.
The two of them were rivals in almost everything. They weren't really friends with Dib and Zim's group of friends, but it was the only empty table they felt comfortable having to join. While Gaz was quite the little terror to both her brother and the rest of the school, she still didn't want to have to go through the trouble of scaring a group away from their table.
"You just don't understand our special branch of comedy, Gaz." Melvin shook his head. "So sad."
She growled at him and he inched away from her. Iggins shook his head.
"You should know better." He informed the blonde. "Aha! Combo finishing move, execute!"
"No!" Gaz snarled, mashing away at buttons on her handheld Game Slave 2.
Dib rolled his eyes. "Gamers…"
Zim snorted. Those two were almost as bad as he and his friends were when they got a little too into their games of beer pong. Former friends, not friends. His new friends-Amber, Brianna, and Mike-were straight edge and steered even him away from drugs and alcohol. He was grateful to them for that, when he looked back on it.
"So, what do you guys think?" Keef wondered. "You should all come over on Saturday for a study group. Dib, bring your camera and we can tape my family's hilarity."
"Sounds good to me." Dib laughed.
"Depends on the time Saturday. I have something I need to do at seven." Zim informed.
"So, you can all come over around one. We'll order pizza and stuff." Keef offered.
Gaz looked up at the word pizza. "Bloaty's pizza?"
"Sure."
"I'm in." She went back to her game.
"You're not even in our grade, Gaz." Dib informed her.
"It's Bloaty's. I'm not missing it."
In addition to video games, the girl had an unhealthy obsession with pizza from Bloaty's Pizza Hog. Zim didn't see what made it so special, but he wasn't going to argue with the plum haired terror. Wearing black skinny jeans, a black tank top, black fishnet gloves, and black makeup, Gaz wasn't someone you wanted to mess with. Some bullies had learned that the hard way Zim's first year on the planet. It was Gaz that he had formed a slight alliance with at first. However, it was Dib who would end up being his best friend and Gaz as a secondary. She didn't really care, since she was only hanging with him in the beginning so he wouldn't get his 'weak, skinny little ass beat'. Even without his military training, Zim could've easily beat the bullies that went after him to a pulp, but he had vowed to no longer be violent with anyone; not even his old man when things got too heated.
"So, it's a date." Keef grinned. "A huge, study filled date!"
"We live such exciting lives." Zim laughed.
But his friends' form of excitement was a welcome change compared to the excitement he got as a kid.
000
Lahna stood, holding her jacket tight around her and shaking, in front of the General in his chambers about an hour after the guard had brought her into the cell to victimize and 'break' her. She needed a nice long, hot shower to scrub away the germs that she was sure he carried. However, she wasn't going to get that now. Not when her judgment was about to be cast. Hell, they might execute her on the spot and thus spare her the need to shower. The General looked over paperwork on his desk; his hunter green eyes gleaming from the iridescent lighting the room. The most impressive thing on her record was when she got caught shoplifting a box of cookies from the local convenience store on a dare from her friends. Aside from some underage drinking, there wasn't much on there. She'd gotten into a fight here and there, but nothing too major, really.
"You're Victor and Bene Haven's kid, right?" The General grunted in a gruff voice.
"Y-Yes…" She replied.
"Consider yourself lucky to be so." The General stated. "It may have saved your life today."
"R-Really…?!"
"I was going to just have you thrown in a cell or executed next week, but because of your family connections, I have decided to be more lenient on you. Besides, it seems like my little guard here managed to tame your wild attitude a bit today, to which I applaud him and give him the day off."
"Thank you, sir." The guard stated.
She wanted to punch the smug look off his face, but knew that doing so would change her sentence. Instead, she stood as still as possible and tried to control her shaking.
"So, I've decided to just banish you instead. How's that sound, hm?" The General chuckled. "Just like your fool of a brother, you'll be banished to the planet Earth."
"My brother is not a f…Earth?" She grinned. "You're sending me to him?!"
"Whether you find him or not is not my concern." The General stated. "If you find him, that's nice. If you don't, that's nice also. I don't really care." He waved her off. "There is a ship fired up in the docking bay with some coordinates set in. Send her off in that now."
"Yes, sir." The guard grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the office. "You're lucky, girl. If I was him, I would've sentenced you to be tamed all day every day." He chuckled. "By me."
She glared at him. "You're disgusting." She sneered.
He shrugged. "That may be, but I didn't exactly hear you yelling out screams of protest back there." He ran a hand up and down her arm. "You know you liked it."
"Hardly." She snorted. "When my home-girls hear what you did to me, oh, they'll…"
"How do you expect them to find out or get anywhere near me?" The guard chuckled. "Keep dreaming, Little Lahna."
She glared. "Don't you dare call me that!"
Only her brother was allowed to call her that. No one else!
He chuckled. "Feisty. Careful, or I might decide to tame you again on the way there instead of bringing you right to the ship. But then again, I suppose you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
She wisely stopped talking.
000
After departing from the military base she had been imprisoned in, Lahna pressed random buttons on the ship they had put her in; hoping to activate the onboard computer to ask it a few questions. She finally pressed a big pink button on the console before her.
"System activating." A feminine computerized voice spoke. "Booting system."
Lahna smiled. "Aha!" She spoke triumphantly.
"Username 'Aha' not found. Try again." The computer spoke.
"Huh? Oh, no, my name is Lahna." She informed.
"Username 'Lahna' not found. Are you trying to create a new user system?"
"Uh…yes?"
"New user system created. Username Lahna." A robotic arm with a red light at the end washed over her. "User data created. Name: Lahna Haven. Age: 16. Height: 5'5". Gender: Female. Is this data correct?"
"Yes." Lahna nodded.
"Data confirmed. Welcome to system T675892. Username Lahna."
"Thanks…" Lahna replied. "Computer, can you tell me something?"
"Command not recognized."
"Tell me something."
"Irk's surface is comprised of 100% land, created from materials such as copper, zinc, aluminum, titanium…"
"No, not that kind of stuff!" Lahna huffed. "Where is planet Earth?"
"Planet Earth. Located in the Milky Way galaxy, approximately 7,896,549 miles from planet Irk docking station 672980."
"And how long until we get there?"
"Arrival time is approximately eleven Earth days, eight Earth hours, ten Earth minutes, and 42 Earth seconds from this moment in time."
Lahna's antennae moved, making her piercings jingle. "How many days in that is Irken time?"
"Five Irken days, twelve Irken hours, five Irken minutes, and 37 Irken seconds from this moment in time."
"Computer, can you set an alarm to go off every day?"
"Command not recognized."
"Set alarm."
"Alarm…" A computerized giggle. "Alarm mode activated."
"Are you giggling?"
"No." Another giggle. "I am not giggling, username," one more giggle, "Lahna."
"Yes, you are! You're laughing at me!" Lahna stood and pointed a finger to the console. "What is so damn funny?!"
"I am deeply sorry, Mistress Lahna, but I could not help myself." The voice replied with another giggle. "That was the form old systems used. Onboard computers are much more user-friendly and interactive now."
Lahna sighed. "Alright then, computer…" She stated. "My brother is supposed to be there…" She looked out the window at the stars floating by. "Could you locate him?"
The computer beeped. "Name?"
"Invader Zim Aiyies-Victor Haven."
"Ex-Invader Zim is your brother?"
"Ex-Invader?" Lahna perked up. "No, no. He's an Invader. He was sent on a special mission and everything!"
"Oh dear…it would seem that you are unaware of his official status."
"What official status?"
"Invader Zim was discharged and banished to planet Earth…you didn't know?"
"But…Gram talks to him on the phone once a week and he always goes on about how well his mission is going…"
"Oh dear…perhaps he is unaware as well…"
"I think he would know if he was banished." She laughed. "But just for the entertainment value, why was he banished?"
"For a number of things, but most notably the effect he had on half of the testing on Devastus when he was in the Academy, and the destruction of half the city of Xa'ie."
"They…they really banished him!? Oh, poor Zim! And he doesn't even know? He was…he was so excited to turn his life around and change everything…and now…"
"I'm sorry." A robotic arm reached down from the ceiling and patted her on the shoulder. "But it's the truth…"
"It's…it's okay…" She wiped away her tears. "At least we can be exiles together. But…computer…?"
"Yes, Mistress Lahna?"
"When we find him…don't ever tell him the truth…it would break his heart and send him back to the booze…"
"Affirmative, Mistress. Shall I begin a locator scan for ex…er…for Invader Zim?"
"Yes, please, computer."
"One moment please." The computer beeped a few times. "Target acquired. Shall I set coordinates for his position?"
"You shall!" She grinned.
"Coordinates set. Arrival scheduled for eleven Earth or five Irken days."
Lahna stretched as she leaned back in her seat. All she had to do was rest and relax until she got to Earth to be reunited with her favorite brother.