Author's Notes: OMG! It has been so long since I last updated this fic! I apologize for the long wait time. I've had a lot of stories to work on and more plot bunnies following me home every day, so this one got neglected. Sorry about that. Anyway, I would like to thank KateCake for her lovely review, as it gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get back to work on this fic. Anyway, thank you all for tuning in to this story, and I hope you like this chapter of "Who's Banished Now?" :)
Chapter 4
Red
The atmosphere in the control center of the Massive was stifling, as it had been for the past two months. The technicians did their work mostly in silence while servants attended to the every need of their Tallest. Tallest Red had been acting irrationally lately, though no Irken would tell him so and those that knew what happened couldn't blame him.
On the bright side for the Empire, Operation Impending Doom II was doing well. Tallest Red had decided that the Massive should take a more active approach to the invasions and therefore had ordered more organic sweeps. The planets that heard of this heartless new strategy were willing to give the Empire anything it wanted in exchange for not meeting the same fate. Most expected the Tallest to reject every offer as he usually did, but each new conquest was a surprise. Tallest Red never acted the same way twice anymore, not since Purple's betrayal.
"You, technician guy!" Tallest Red barked as he pointed to a green eyed engineer, "How long until we get to planet Boodie Nen?"
"Eight more hours, My Tallest," The technician replied respectfully.
"Good. I'll be in the armory. Don't disturb me," Red ordered curtly before floating away; not bothering to wait for a response.
When Tallest Red left the room the servants all breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't that there were more executions than normal. If anything Purple had been the trigger happy one. No, the problem was that Tallest Red's punishments now seemed to have no rhyme or reason. One time he allowed an inferior to insult him without so much as a backward glance, while another time he sent an advisor to the dungeon for agreeing with a plan Tallest Red himself had drafted! No one knew what the rules were anymore.
As the Tallest floated down the hall drones rushed around to get out of his way. He didn't even seem to notice them, but then again that much was behavior they were actually used to.
He took the elevator disc to one of the weapons storage rooms. No one was around to see where he was going, which was for the best since he was going to a room that had been constructed for what he had called a 'nursery'. No one knew what that meant, and no one wanted to ask him for fear of retaliation.
He used the retinal scanner to open the door, and inside was a simulation room. The hologram playing was that of a field with lots of colorful creature singing and dancing. Even the sun had a face and was singing along to the juvenile tune.
"GIR!" Red barked into the saccharine room, and the little defective SIR unit hopped out from behind a bunch of sunflowers and saluted the Tallest as his optics turned red.
"Yes sir?" Gir stood at attention with his red eyes looking to the Tallest for orders.
"At ease, Gir," Red ordered, and Gir's optics changed back to cyan blue.
"Hey Mastah, you wanna see my rides?" Gir asked hopefully, "I programmed a tilt 'o whirl that looks just like a monkey!"
"No Gir, I just wanted to see how you were faring," Red replied in an almost fond tone of voice, "I'm going to Boodie Nen. Would you like me to bring you back a souvenir?"
"Ooh!" Gir's eyes went wide in wonder, "I wanna explode!"
"I'm not going to do that," Red replied in a calm tone of voice, and then got down on his knees to be nearly eye level with the robotic simpleton, "However, if you would like some treats from the planet, or maybe a country of your own to torment for a few weeks..."
"I want a puppy!" Gir demanded with a dopey smile on his metallic face.
"I'll see what they have that is close to a puppy," Red smiled as he patted Gir's head, "Oh, I also brought you a new simulation program. This one is a battle simulation I made while we were on earth. It looks just like a field of cows."
"EEEEE!" Gir squealed in joy, "Cows! Cows! COWS!"
"That's a good Gir," Red's smile widened as he handed the thin plug-in strip to his robot companion and watched as the robot activated it gleefully.
Zim, for the PAK on this Tallest's body was indeed Zim, felt that he could enjoy Gir so much more now that the little robot could do whatever he wanted without ruining any of his master's plans. Zim didn't need to plan the domination of a single world anymore, for now he had the universe awaiting his fearsome weapons of doom.
The Tallests believed their banishing Zim would break him, and that telling him would crush his spirit, but it only strengthened his resolve to acquire more power. Zim had tasted victory and vengeance all in the same night. He had loved the Tallests and had believed in them, but they betrayed him. Zim was not the sentimental type however; he could adapt. He simply turned his feelings of admiration and respect into feelings of hatred and anger, and then he used those feelings to fuel his plan for revenge. It had been much simpler than it should have been.
All Zim had to do was fly to a moon that was in the same solar system as the Massive and teleport himself to the Tallests' quarters. They slept in separate rooms, so he didn't know which one he would get. Whichever one it was would be the one he would kill first.
He and Gir made it to Tallest Red's room, and the Tallest didn't even have time to react before Gir tasered him; allowing Zim time to remove the Tallest's PAK and then switch it with his own. His next step was to kill Red's PAK and his own inferior body, thus taking Red's body as his own. Zim's PAK leg extended, and he impaled Red's PAK with one cold easy strike. he felt the sparks of electricty jolt through his body, but he didn't care. He had done what no one thought possible, he had vanquished a Tallest.
The plan hit it's first hitch when Tallest Purple barged in during the procedure. Zim thought Tallest Purple would be too stupid to figure out what was going on, but when Purple saw the PAK on Red's body he recognized that it wasn't the PAK belonging to his best friend but rather that annoying pest Zim.
"What do you think you're doing?" Purple demanded irately.
"Gir, restrain him!" Red, no Zim, commanded the duty-locked robot.
Gir, who had been forced into duty mode after Zim improved the personality altering technology, rushed Tallest Purple with weapons drawn. Purple dodged the robot, but it was all in vain as Gir extended his arms like metallic rope and wrapped himself around the fleeing royal Irken. Purple struggled against the restraints, but it was no use, and soon a tall dark shadow fell over him; making the dimly lit room even darker for Purple.
"So, I'm defective, am I?" Red's voice asked Purple, and Purple shook in terror at hearing Zim's words coming out of his best friend's mouth, "You say Zim is not mighty enough to conquer a planet, huh? Well, HUH?"
Purple couldn't speak. He was too busy staring at a glint of silver he noticed on the floor. It was Red's PAK, now with a gaping hole and smoking wires protruding from its mortal wound. There was no coming back from that. All of their power, and all of their strategy, yet Red was killed by nothing more than one of Zim's PAK legs. Zim's body also lay dead, having been deprived of its PAK for too long. That was how Purple knew. Zim had no intention of backing down. There would be no second chances, no mercy. Zim was Red now, and Purple knew too much.
"Answer me, you overgrown smeet!" Zim yelled with fury, his borrowed fists clenching in preparation for an attack.
"I...I-I'm sorry, Zim!" Purple shouted in a reluctant moment of humility, "You're not defective! Please let me go! YOU'RE NOT DEFECTIVE!"
Purple almost sobbed. He had never been so terrified, so close to death. He should have made this his grand last stand. He should have defended the honor and memory of Red. Yet he didn't. Zim knew he wouldn't. He finally saw the beings he had admired and pledge himself to for the cowards and lazy blowhards that they were. They were nothing. Purple was nothing. Zim would relish his final moments as he tore out his PAK and made him watch as it was crushed into scrap metal.
"You...you don't have to rule Irk by yourself, Zim," Purple tried to reason with the drone to save himself, "I could help you. Show you how ruling Irk works. I won't tell anyone who you really are. We can still be friends, Zim."
"We're not friends!" Zim snapped in a manner more coherent than Purple was used to seeing from the little defect, "You could never see my greatness, my genius. I destroyed more than anyone else during Operation Impending Doom 1, and how did you repay me!?"
"You nearly blew up our home planet!" Purple defended.
"You banished me to be a food service drone!" Zim shouted, ignoring Purple's logical argument, "Being banished to Foodcourtia, the worst job in the universe! Then you try to banish me to space, only for me to end up trying to conquer the worst planet in the universe! Death is kind compared to water, skool children, Dib, earth food, dogs, and-"
Zim's tirade suddenly stopped as he forced himself away from the PTSD-inducing memories of that most hated planet. He stared down at Purple's cowering form, and then a malicious smile slowly crept along what used to be Red's face. Purple's eyes swelled in terror, knowing that look all too well from the torturers that the Tallests themselves employed aboard the Massive.
"My Tallest...How badly do you want to live?" Zim asked sadistically, using the honorific term almost ironically.
Purple gulped and shivered under that scrutiny. A more introspective being might have considered this retribution for all of the countless species Purple and Red had harmed and murdered, but of course Purple was not so philosophical. Finally Purple gathered enough of his voice to whisper, "I'll do anything you say...My Tallest."
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, Zim noticed movement. It was Tallest Red's PAK, barely functioning and trying to use one of its PAK legs to get to Zim's inert body. It was a feeble and pathetic display, and Purple looked up desperately at Zim as soon as Zim saw it.
"Please Zim!" Purple cried out for all he was worth, "Don't kill him! You can have your own army, a fleet of SIR units, anything! I'm sorry, Zim! I'm sorry! Please don't kill Red, I beg you!"
"SIR units, you say?" Zim said as if he were pondering the option, "Why would I ever want to replace Gir? He was a gift from you after all, My Tallest."
The venom in those words was not lost on Purple, and Zim wasn't done with him yet.
"You gave me a defective toy to wallow away into the void with me, yet you did not count on the loyalty and companionship your cruel gift would give me. You didn't care if I lived or died! No one cared about me, no one except GIR!" Zim's unchecked rage made Red's veins throb in his head and neck, and Zim backhanded Purple's face before he continued, "He might not be all that useful as a SIR unit, in fact he's terrible at his job, but he kept me alive and kept me sane. He's the closest thing I have to a friend. Of course, you have a friend too, My Tallest. Barely clinging to life, but there he is...and now, my best friend will kill your best friend..."
Oh how Zim cherished that memory. The memory of Gir's guns flaring to life, of having killed one of the monarchs that humiliated and tormented him, and then forcing the other one into the worst punishment he could think of.
Troops had entered Tallest Red's bed chamber when they heard the commotion, and Zim had told them that Tallest Purple had conspired to kill him and take the throne. He spun a story about how Tallest Purple had wanted to rule alone, so he hired Zim to assassinate him with his mighty fists of doom.
"But My Tallest, why would Tallest Purple hire an idiot to kill you?" One of the guards asked, "Wouldn't it make more sense to-"
"Silence!" 'Red' barked angrily, "Don't dare to tell me what I already know, worm monkey! Purple is guilty of treason, and I want him to suffer!"
"Shouldn't he be tried on Judgmentia just in case-"
"Quiet!"
Zim's idea of a punishment for Purple had been perfect. Banish the Tallest the way the Tallest had banished him, all the while ruling Irk from his new body. His original plan had been to have Gir as a bodyguard, but the control chip had burned out a few days after the murder and Gir had to be swiftly transported to the 'nursery'.
Zim smirked in satisfaction as he recalled Purple being handed the custom made invader uniform and disguise and sent away to live on earth. Purple had to check in every three months for his 'progress report' or else Zim would activate Purple's self destruct button. Of course the progress reports were nothing more than an excuse for Zim to humiliate the former Tallest for his own amusement, just as the Tallests had done to him so many times before without his knowledge.
Yes, Zim enjoyed this form of revenge. Best of all though, Zim had finally conquered a planet...Irk.