The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Season 2

by Zim'sMostLoyalServant

Norlock might be gone, but the adventures continue. New action, new laughs, new allies and enemies, and more! Newest: The tournament gets underway, and things quickly get crazy.

11. Tournament of Doom, Part II

A/N: Hello, hello, hello. That's right, we're back everyone — sorry for the obscenely long wait, but between writer's block, other projects, and simply finding ways to distract myself, I didn't give myself time to work on this update. But it's here now, and I hope you all find it worth the wait, as we conclude this two-part entry in the series.

That said, read on!

Last time, on The New Adventures of Invader Zim: To combat Miz's growing influence within the Irken Empire, the Control Brains commanded the Tallest to host a tournament for all the Invaders as a show of force. Tak only got in thanks to the Tallest giving her permission, while Zim and Skoodge were able to force their way in via a legal loophole. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone, several New Irken Order cells have gathered in secret to strike at the tournament. And at the same time, Team Save Earth, having gotten the Spittle Runner fully operational again, took it for a joyride and bumped into the Resisty, who took them along to also attack the tournament. Unfortunately, they were attacked by Irken forces as they reached Conventia and the damage caused their ship to lose power and crash land.

Now, we see what happened, and what unfolds at the tournament.

Disclaimer: After all this time, I still don't own Invader Zim; the show and all related characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Certain OCs present in this chapter belong to nightmaster000 and SaintHeartwing (see past author's notes for details), but the rest are mine.

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The New Adventures of Invader Zim

Season 2

Episode 11: Tournament of Doom, Part 2

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The Resisty ship had crashed through several buildings as it hit the ground, leaving debris and rubble filling a long trench it had gouged out as it kept traveling several miles before finally coming to a halt. Now it was left with its front half partially imbedded into the ground, leaving the back half sticking up into the air at a roughly 45 degree angle, with smoke billowing up from several spots along its hull and its engines flickering as they cycled through what remaining power was left in them.

The interior wasn't much better. While the ship's main structure was still mostly intact, panels and conduits had burst on every level. The lights were off in most sections and flickering in the ones where they were still on, and literally everything not bolted down had been sent flying. This was especially evident on the bridge, where everyone had ended up lying in heaps all over the floor, against railings, on top of consoles, and on any other surface that would hold their weight. Fortunately, no one appeared to be seriously hurt, and were all slowly moaning their way back to consciousness.

Dib in particular found himself sprawled next to a console, but surprised to feel that he was lying atop something relatively soft. Confused, he blinked the spots from his vision and adjusted his askew glasses to see what it was… and found that he was lying on top of Viera, their faces only a few inches apart. The two stared at each other for a few moments, and then with a yelp Dib jumped up, practically bouncing off of the console as he bumped against it and then scrambled away to put a few feet between them.

"S-sorry!" he squeaked out, cheeks flaming red.

"No problem, accidents happen," she replied quickly, looking away to hide her own blush as she awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck.

Steve, who was lying against a nearby railing and rubbing his sore head, arched an eyebrow as he watched this exchange. Lips quirking in a smirk for a second, he shook it off and decided to focus on more important things, turning to take in the rest of the room.

"Is everyone okay?" he called out.

"My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Shloonktapooxis cried out with a sob, rolling on the floor a few yards away.

"You don't have legs, and you never did," Ixane snapped, as she helped a groggy Lard Nar to his feet.

"…Oh yeah," Shloonktapooxis said, immediately calming down as he hovered up into the air, "I'm good!"

As it turned out, no one had any serious injuries, and once they were all up and moving again, they were able to take stock of their situation. Which took a bit longer than they would have hoped, since all the computers were still offline.

"Come on, come on," Lard Nar muttered as he fiddled with a console, which finally lit up, along with others the room lights, "Yes, backup power restored! Now we can get a look at what we're dealing with."

"How bad's the damage?" Dib asked as he walked carefully towards the Vortian, stumbling slightly due to the angle the floor was currently at.

"Surprisingly not that bad, from the look of things," Lard Nar replied, "We've got a big hole in the aft starboard, but it didn't compromise any vital systems. The power loss was just because a few relays were blown and caused a cascade failure; we can reroute through other parts of the ship until we get the damaged sections patched up."

"Do we have time for that? Won't the Irkens have noticed us crashing?" Steve pointed out.

"If they were going to, they would have by now," Lard Nar said, "Since according to this, we've all been knocked out for over 12 hours."

"Wait, what? How could they not have noticed a big spaceship crashing into one of their planets and just leave it there for half a day?" Viera asked incredulously.

"Like I said, the Irkens cover entire planets into mega-cities and then only actively use a portion of the surface area," Ixane explained, "They probably just use this area for storage and barely ever bother to check on it."

"Which is our good luck," Lard Nar declared, looking around, "Okay, here's what's going to happen. Me, Ixane, Shloonktapooxis, Spleenk, and the humans will sneak into the arena to carry out the plan. The rest of you stay here and get this ship operational again so we can get out of here as quickly as possible once we're done."

"Really? You're bringing us along?" Dib asked, he and the twins perking up in response to the Vortian's comment.

"Sure. You managed to get a crashed Spittle Runner operational again and have held your own against multiple Invaders. I figure you know what you're doing," Lard Nar replied with a shrug.

"Which is more than can be said for most of the people on this ship," Ixane muttered, glancing at Shloonktapooxis and Spleenk, neither of whom seemed to be paying close attention to the conversation, instead just staring into the distance.

"This isn't filling me with confidence," Viera said to the boys, as the aliens scurried about, getting ready to carry out their captain's orders.

"Me neither, but we're already here, and it'd probably be harder to try and get out of here on our own," Steve pointed out, "So we might as well see this through, right?"

"Right," Dib said in agreement, "And with any luck, all the Irkens will be too distracted by this tournament to even be on the lookout for us."

Of course, they all thought without saying, their luck was never quite that good…

Main Convention Hall Building, Same Time

The central room of the convention hall had been easily convertible into an arena, as it was already the size of two football fields. The main oval space was ringed by a couple of stories worth of stands, every seat currently filled by an Irken, the crowds eagerly chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the show to start. And overlooking all of this was a large box cabin at the head of the arena; seated within on recliner thrones were the Tallest, while Wiyn and Darth sat just behind them in spots of honor, the Advisors sitting further back. And off to the side, Senior and several other Communications officers were seated at a console, checking things on their individual screens.

"Are we ready yet?" Purple asked the Comms officers, boredom evident.

"Broadcast standing by on every frequency, my Tallest," Senior replied.

"Excellent. Let's begin," Red said. He and Purple floated up and hovered to the front of the box, while Senior entered a command. In response, the screens scattered in the air over the arena flickered to life, immediately catching the attention of the crowds as they started displaying the tournament's announcer.

"Welcome, loyal Irken subjects, to the first ever Invaders Tournament!" the Announcer proclaimed, "Now, wiggle your antennae in salute, to your all-knowing, all-powerful leaders, the Almighty Tallest!"

As the arena was filled with the sound of thousands of antennae rubbing against each other, the one-way glass windows at the front of the Tallest's box slid open, allowing the Tallest to float into view, waving to the crowds as streams of sparklers went off to flank them.

"Thank you, thank you," Red said after a moment, voice being broadcast clearly across the arena, "Now behold all our proud contestants, the Empire's greatest soldiers, the Invaders!"

The crowd burst into cheers as a spotlight shined down on the portion of the arena nearest the Tallest's box, where the floor slid open and allowed a platform containing the Invaders to rise up into view.

"And also the traitors Zim and Skoodge, who managed to worm their way into this tournament on a technicality," Purple added bitterly.

Zim smirked smugly at that, Skoodge standing nervously next to him as the crowds changed from cheering to jeering.

"Boo!"

"Death to traitors!"

"Get out of here Defectives!"

"You're not real Invaders!"

"Go Zim!"

That last shouted statement understandably caught everyone's attention, and almost as one, every Irken in the arena stopped, blinked in surprise, and turned to face its source. Which, of course, was Nyx, who was sitting in a front row seat, waving around a purple foam finger with red lettering on it which read "Zim #1". Ying sat next to her, looking as stoic as ever, despite the fact that Nyx had pasted red pennants on the sides of his head that read the same in purple.

"Hey! Why are you cheering for that traitor?" an Irken sitting behind Nyx demanded, glaring at her.

"Buzz off, drone," Nyx said, not even looking at the guy.

"Why you!" the other Irken growled, reaching out to grab Nyx by the shoulder… at which point a pair of blasters popped out of Ying's head and fired point-blank at the offender, sending him flying through the air to land a dozen tiers of seats further up.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I advise you all to stay calm and simply watch the proceedings," Ying said, calmly glaring at the surrounding Irkens, who all paled and shrank back. Everyone else, meanwhile, watched all this with various amounts of shock and confusion, save for Zim, who was snickering at the exchange.

"Figures he'd bring that lunatic along to cheer him on," Tenn muttered angrily.

"You know that weirdo?" Invader Zee asked, arching an antenna.

"Yeah, she's a psycho fangirl of Zim's who works for him on Earth."

"…Huh. I already felt bad for you being stuck on that mud ball, but now I feel really bad for you."

Meanwhile, as the Invaders processed the idea of Zim actually having a fan, everyone up in the Tallest's box was likewise stunned by this development.

"Who in their right mind would support Zim?" Wiyn spat derisively.

"You're assuming she is," Darth commented, "In her right mind, I mean."

"Good point," Wiyn said, before glancing to her side and seeing Mook narrowing his eyes in Nyx's direction, "What's with you?"

"I'm pretty sure I know her from somewhere," Mook replied, "With your permission, Commander, I can go check into this."

Wiyn nodded, and Mook left the room with a quick salute. The Tallest, meanwhile, finally snapped out of their shock and shook it off.

"Okay, ignoring… that, let's move on," Red said.

"Right, let's get to our first event. The obstacle course race!" Purple proclaimed. In response, and as the audience cheered again, the platform containing the Invaders levitated several yards into the air, followed by a U-shaped section of the arena floor that ran along most of the length of the arena. As they rose, a series of energy beams shot across the space between the raised sections and the floor, creating a net. Meanwhile, portions of the U-shaped platform at random intervals rose up and started taking various forms — spikes, barriers, columns covered in buzzsaws — while holes opened in other random spots, either leaving empty space or periodically shooting out flames. And on the end of the U-section opposite the Invaders' platform, twin poles rose up, with a simple beam of light between them.

"The goal is simple, Invaders," the Announcer stated, "Make your way through the various obstacles and be the first to cross the finish line, and you win! But be careful not to fall off, though; anyone who hits the energy net will be teleported to the Holding Pen of Pain, on loan from Hobo 13, for the remainder of the tournament. Any questions before we begin?"

"To clarify," Zim spoke up from where he was eyeing the finish line, "All that matters is crossing the finish line first?"

"That's correct. That's the only rule, everything else is a free-for-all," the Announcer declared, "Now prepare yourselves!"

"Looks like a tricky course, but nothing the Conqueror of Blorch can't handle," Invader Grapa said smugly, earning scoffs and eye rolls from all the others.

"You didn't conquer Blorch, I did! You just got the credit for it after I was shot out a cannon!" Skoodge protested, scowling at Grapa.

"Yeah, but he still never shuts up about it," Larb commented, "He should leave the gloating to use real Invaders, am I right?"

"I don't like you either, you got the assignment that should have been mine," Skoodge replied, shifting his scowl to Larb.

"I'm just surprised you got your c'horta off that damn couch," Tenn added, "Finally realize you'd actually have to work to achieve anything here?"

"Don't be jealous just because I'm the best Invader here and you're a failure," Larb sneered. Tenn glared at him, but before she could respond, a voice called down from the Tallest's box.

"Enough talking, start racing!" Purple demanded. In response, red flares shot out from the screens, and the Invaders jumped from their platform onto the U-track and started rushing down it… except for Zim, who merely grabbed the Invader nearest to him.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Invader Stink demanded, as Zim held him over his head and calmly walked towards the side of the platform.

"I'd say sorry, Stink, but I never liked you," Zim replied. And then without further preamble, he tossed Stink into the air over the space between the platforms. Zim watched as his arc carried him up and then down, carefully waiting for his moment, and then when the time was right leapt into the air; landing on Stink just as the other Invader passed under him, Zim used him as a springboard to launch himself the rest of the way. While Stink hit the laser net and was teleported to the Holding Pen, Zim landed right in front of the finish line, which he crossed with one large step and a smug smirk.

As purple flares fired off from the screens to mark the end of the event, there was a deafening silence as the audience and the Invaders, who had just reached the first set of obstacles and now stopped short, stared at where Zim was now standing proudly.

"You have got to be kidding," Tak growled.

"Can he do that?" Larb asked.

"Well, they did say that crossing the finish line first is all that matters, so…" Zee pointed out.

"Woo!" Nyx cheered, turning to look at her surrounding audience members, "The rest of you cheer too!"

"No way are we-"

ZAP

The protesting Irken was blasted by Ying, who then trained his blasters on the rest of the crowd.

"While I can understand your frustrations, the Madame has made a request. Now fulfill it," the SIR demanded calmly. Staring in worry, the rest of the crowd for several rows in every direction started half-heartedly cheering Zim's name.

Meanwhile, the occupants of the Tallest's box were once again staring in shock, before the Tallest both turned to glare at their Advisors.

"Who thought that designing the course like this was a good idea?!" Red demanded.

"My Tallest, it didn't occur to us that-" one Advisor started to say, only for Purple to cut him off.

"Throw him off the roof!" Purple ordered, pointing at the speaker. As several guards grabbed him and carried him away, he sighed and turned to Red with a morose look, "That just does not have the same ring to it as throwing him out the airlock."

Red sighed deeply and rubbed the space between his eyes for a moment before composing himself.

"Beginner's luck," he declared, before gesturing to Senior, who quickly sent a signal to the Announcer. Apparently being snapped out of his own state of shock, the Announcer shook his head and cleared his throat before speaking.

"Right, well, that was unexpected. But let's move on to the next event — the Maze of Doom!" he proclaimed. In response, the platforms carrying the Invaders lowered back into the floor, only for walls to spring up, quickly creating a labyrinth. With quick flashes of light, the Invaders were teleported from where they'd been grouped together to instead each end up in a different spot of the maze.

"Now then, this is a major elimination round. The Invaders will make their way through the maze while avoiding being picked off by drones," the Announcer explained, as several round drones descended from the ceiling of the arena to hover over the maze, "Each drone is armed with teleporter beams linked to the Holding Pen, and piloted by some of our finest Elite soldiers."

"If we're so great, why are we stuck doing something a simple targeting AI could handle?" Dite asked dryly from her spot in the drone control room elsewhere in the arena building.

"Apparently someone thought that it'd be more challenging for the Invaders if there's a chance for Irken error in the targeting," another soldier in the room commented.

"And hey, look at it this way," a third soldier stated, "If any of us eliminate Zim, we get the reward from the Tallest for it!"

"They're only offering that if Zim gets killed," Dite pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but they can always just leave him in the Holding Pen forever, right?"

As the soldiers debated the details of the Tallest's decree, the Announcer was continuing to explain the rules of this event.

"…in addition to dodging the drones, there's booby traps littered throughout the maze designed to incapacitate the Invaders for them, and they're also allowed to take each other out of commission in the same way," the Announcer said, "Once ten Invaders have been eliminated, this round will be over, and we'll move on to the next event. Now, begin!"

With that, the Invaders dashed from their starting points and down the maze's corridors, while the drones dropped into the maze and started maneuvering it as well. One passed by a five-way intersection, its pilot just barely missing catching sight of Invader Sneakyonfoota, who quickly pressed himself against the wall just as the drone passed the corner.

"Well, this is going to be tricky," he mused to himself, before glancing upwards, "Hmm, climbing the tops of the walls risks exposing me if any drones are keeping oversight. But, if I keep an eye out, I should be able to spot any before they can come after me. Plus, it'd allow me to get the drop on any of the others I come across."

Mind made up, Sneakyonfoota deployed his PAK legs and scurried up the wall, perching on top of it-

ZAP

-and was promptly electrocuted by a massive surge of electricity, which blew him clear off the wall to slam into the floor below. He sat there in a twitching, charred lump for a minute, until a drone flew by and zapped him to the Holding Pen.

"Oops, looks like someone found out the hard way that the walls are rigged to avoid climbing over them," the Announcer stated with a chuckle, much of the audience laughing along with him. Meanwhile, Zim had been spying on Sneakyonfoota from the other end of the hallway he was in, and scowled at what he saw.

"Drat, there goes that plan," he muttered, "Now I'll have to just wander around like all these other fools without any advantages other than my own incredible self."

Turning away from where Sneakyonfoota had fallen, Zim darted down several halls, pausing at each corner only long enough to peek around and see if the way was clear. He continued this for several minutes, having to duck for cover several times to avoid drones or other Invaders, before entering another intersection… at which point he literally bumped into Invader Chin, bouncing back from the impact while the taller Irken stared down at him in surprise, before smirking.

"Sweet, bonus prize here I come!" he said excitedly, deploying his PAK legs. He lunged at Zim, who dodged the strike, jumping forward to pass through Chin's legs, at which point he jumped up and kicked off of Chin's PAK, sending Chin tumbling to the floor while Zim flew back from the momentum, putting more distance between the two of them.

"Fool! You think you can defeat the mighty Zim? I shall- why are there a bunch of rocks in the corner?" Zim started to boast, before trailing off as he spotted a pile of rocks stacked on one side of the intersection. Chin, who had scrambled to his feet, likewise paused and stared at the out-of-place objects.

"Well, that's random," Chin muttered. He stepped forward to examine it more closely, and then leapt back with a surprised yelp as the pile suddenly burst apart to reveal Invader Flobee, who had several rocks strapped to his body and with a particularly large one clutched in his hands.

"Sneak attack!" Flobee shouted, tossing the rock he was holding at Chin. It hit him dead center in his face, and he fell to the floor in a slump, clearly unconscious.

"That's right! My camouflage skills are as epic as ever! That's how I conquered the Rock People, right there!" Flobee gloated, hopping excitedly in place.

"You threw rocks at them until they gave up?" Zim asked in genuine confusion, as he idly picked up the rock that had bounced off of Chin's head.

"What? No, I- never mind, you're next!" Flobee said, picking up another rock. He and Zim prepare to engage in a rock fight, only for both to freeze as a drone suddenly swept into the intersection. It scanned the area for a moment, before turning to aim at Zim.

"Alright, that million monies bonus is mine!" Dite cheered in the control room as she aimed the drone's teleporter cannons at Zim. As the energy discharged, Zim yelped and instinctively held up the rock he was holding as a shield… and to everyone's utter shock, the beams deflected off of it, reflecting back at the drone and bouncing off of it as well, now heading towards Flobee. The rock-covered Invader had no chance to react, and was hit dead center, vanishing as he was teleported away.

"…How the hell? That's not how physics work!" Dite protested in utter disbelief in the control room. And before she could recover her wits enough to try and target Zim again, he tossed the rock at the drone, which promptly exploded.

"Victory for Zim!" he crowed, before marching off down another hallway with a smirk.

Meanwhile, while everyone was trying to process how Zim had pulled off that win, Skoodge was on the other side of the maze, making his way down a different hallway. Hearing the explosion off in the distance, he could tell just by instinct that Zim was responsible, and he allowed himself a smile at his friend's success.

A smile that fell off his face as he turned a corner and found himself staring at Tak, who was standing over the unconscious bodies of Invaders Skutch, Alexovich, Groot, and Nen, while in the middle of choking out Invader Pesto from behind. As he passed out, she dropped him, and turned her gaze to Skoodge.

"Hmm, I was hoping to deal with Zim this round, but I guess eliminating his lackey will help out in the long run," she mused, cracking her knuckles as she approached Skoodge.

"Er, can we talk about this?" Skoodge asked nervously, backing away as fast as he could, "I mean, I'm not the one you've got a grudge against, right?"

"True, but honestly? I just don't like you," she said flatly, before lunging at him. Yelping, Skoodge leapt up and used his PAK legs to bounce off the wall, shooting over Tak's head to land behind her, then bolting away from her before she could turn around.

"Get back here, you fat coward!" she snarled, chasing after him.

"Nope! I pick my fights smarter than that!" he called over his shoulder as he darted around a corner. Unfortunately for him, he took the turn too hard and skidded slightly, which was just enough of an opening for Tak to close the distance between them and tackle him, sending them both crashing to the floor. Tak managed to scramble to her feet first, kicking Skoodge in the head to disorient him before he could do likewise. As he lay there momentarily out of it, Tak deployed her PAK legs and prepared to strike-

BZZZ

-only to be cut off by a sudden loud buzzer. Tak paused in her attack to clutch at her antennae, and by the time she had recovered the walls of the maze had retreated back into the floor, revealing all the rest of the Invaders scattered across the arena. In particular, Tak saw Tenn standing nearby, next to an unconscious Invader Gooch and shooting a rude gesture up at a drone that Tak could swear was glaring at her partner.

"Well, that was fast," the Announcer commented, "But with Invader Yuli having knocked out Invader Tim only to then be used as an Irken shield by Invader Tenn against a particularly persistent drone, we have our last eliminations for this round."

"Mmph, damn. Seems you got lucky," Tak spat down at Skoodge, who merely sighed in relief before getting up and running off to stand by Zim.

"Hey, how come that round was so fast?" Purple complained, glaring down at the arena.

"Considering Tak took out half of the eliminated by herself, I'm not surprised how quick it was," Senior commented in appreciation.

"A janitor with delusions of grandeur gets the better of almost a half-dozen Invaders? What is the world coming to?" Wiyn scoffed, crossing her arms and scowling.

"Regardless, it happened. Let's move on," Red said, gesturing to the communications officers, who signaled the Announcer.

"And we're off to our next round," the Announcer stated, as the Invaders were teleported to the edges of the arena floor, while the center of the floor sank down to create a deep depression, "Which is the SIR Unit battle!"

"The what?" Tenn asked flatly, as SIRs started flying into the arena to stand by their masters, MIMI in particular making a show of zooming around the others to reach Tak.

"Well, what'd you expect?" Larb sneered, "A SIR is a key component of an Invader's arsenal, of course there'd be a competition involving them. What's the problem, don't you have one?"

"No, mine got destroyed by all the malfunctioning ones I got by mistake," Tenn grumbled, eye twitching as that memory came back to her.

"Oh boo-hoo, who cares? How bad could a malfunctioning SIR be?" Larb scoffed.

As if on cue, GIR suddenly flew into the arena. But unlike the other robots, he didn't head directly towards his master; instead, he shot around the open space in a wild zigzag, before finally bellyflopping to the floor. He bounced off and then hit the floor again, this time head first, causing his head to punch clean through the metal, cutting a groove behind him as he kept going. This lasted for several feet before he came to a stop, then he flopped out of the groove and rolled over to Zim's feet.

"Hi, master!" he greeted cheerfully, smiling up at Zim, who sighed and facepalmed. Tenn, meanwhile, gave Larb a deadpan look while pointing at GIR over her shoulder.

"And that's just one," she stated flatly.

"…Touché," Larb admitted with a solemn nod.

"Hang on, I don't have a… uh," Skoodge started to protest, only to blink as he realized that Ying was suddenly standing next to him, "Where'd you come from?"

"Madame insisted that I step in so you wouldn't be disqualified," the SIR butler replied.

"You're welcome!" Nyx called out from the audience.

"Can they do that?" Red asked, looking around the box. Everyone else shrugged, while the Announcer was seen on screen looking at a datapad.

"Hmm, well, looking over the rules, it just says that the contestants need to have a SIR, not that it has to be their own, so I guess that's okay," he mused, before cocking his head to the side in thought, "Which is bad news for Invader Tenn, since she doesn't appear to have one at all."

Tenn stiffened at that, paling slightly while several of the surrounding Invaders smirked, even as they backed away to avoid being caught up in potential teleporter beams. Her panicked gaze shot over to Tak, who merely shrugged at her.

"Don't look at me, we can't exactly share MIMI," she replied with a smug smirk, "And even we could, I wouldn't — call it payback for not helping me out at the security check."

Tenn very much wanted to punch her partner in the face at that moment, but decided to save that for later. Right now, she needed to focus on figuring out a way to avoid getting disqualified, and fast, because there was a drone approaching her, and all the others were smirking at her predicament, especially that smug kisgaree Larb and that damn traitor Zim-

Jackpot.

"If I get disqualified now, it increases Zim's chance at winning!" she shouted as loud as she could. There was a moment of stunned silence in response to that, as everyone processed what she'd just said, before an angry shout came down from the Tallest's box.

"Someone get her a flirking SIR Unit right now!" Purple demanded, while next to him Red was more quietly issuing similar commands into a communicator. Minutes later, a SIR dropped from the air and landed in front of Tenn; it was an older model, rather crudely patched together at the joints, but nevertheless it straightened itself out and saluted Tenn, who sighed in relief.

"Okay then, now that that's settled, let's move on," the Announcer stated, "As I already said, this next round in a match between SIRs. It's a battle royal that'll end only once all but ten SIRs are out of commission; the Invaders whom those SIRs belong to will then advance to the final set of rounds while the rest are sent to the Holding Pen."

"Hmm, that will halve the number of remaining contestants," Darth mused, "This is moving along at a rather quick pace, isn't it?"

"Well, it's not like we wanted this to take all day," Red said, before frowning, "Of course, we also didn't anticipate Zim and what's-her-face cutting the first two rounds so short."

"Who cares, as long as this ends with Zim getting blown up," Purple commented, watching as the SIRs ambled down into the fighting pit (except for GIR, whom Zim had to shove in). Once they were all in position, the arena's lights dimmed and a spotlight shined down on the pit, while flares shot from the Announcer's screens.

"Let the match begin!" the Announcer declared. In response, the SIRs threw themselves at each other, fists and lasers flying. Explosions erupted across the pit, while metal bodies and limbs were scattered across the area. Almost immediately, MIMI and Ying established themselves as the clear frontrunners, the former using her enhanced speed to stay ahead of the others and her extendable arm to bash them aside, while the latter switched into his Battle Mode and started smashing anything that got close to him.

GIR, meanwhile, was doing nothing to contribute to the fight except provide an easy target for the others. Though to be fair, they didn't seem to be doing any damage to him, no matter how much he was tossed around.

"GIR! Stop playing around and fight them!" Zim snapped, incensed at the snickering of the Invaders around him.

"Imma volleyball!" GIR replied happily, as he was bounced back and forth between two particular SIRs, who kept hitting him towards each other. Zim grit his teeth, before an idea suddenly came to him.

"GIR, if you don't start fighting, then you get no more taquitos!" he said. While several of the other Invaders shot him confused looks at that comment, GIR froze up, before his eyes went red. As one of the SIRs made to hit him, his hand shot up to grab it by the throat, and then throw it at the other SIR that had been tag-teaming him, causing both to burst into pieces from the intensity of the impact.

"I want my taquitos!" GIR declared in a booming echo, as his head, chest, and shoulders popped open to reveal a massive array of weapons. And before anyone could react, they all discharged at once, missiles and lasers going everywhere. The fighting pit soon disappeared in a dust cloud lit up by explosions, while the occasional stray blast shot out of it and hit elsewhere in the arena.

BOOM

And in one case, a missile flew into the seating and blew up an entire section.

"Who did he just blow up?" Red asked wearily, rubbing the side of his head.

"Pretty sure that section was full of Service Drones," Wiyn replied, eye twitching at the sight of the damage the crazy robot was causing.

"So not anyone important? Whoo, that's a relief," Purple sighed, earning a few dirty looks from the lower-ranked Irkens in the box.

Meanwhile, the explosions had finally stopped, and after a few minutes the smoke cleared to reveal the damage done. GIR, back to blue-eyed mode, was sitting giggling in the one undamaged part of the fighting pit; everything else was a smoldering ruin, littered with the remains of most of the other SIRs. The only other ones not completely demolished were MIMI and Ying, both of whom were nonetheless singed from numerous near misses. Taking this all in, everyone except for a smug Zim, relieved Skoodge, and annoyed Tak shared confused and worried looks.

"Uh, there's less than 10 SIRs left standing. What happens now?" Larb asked, voicing the question on everyone's mind.

"Er, please standby everyone," the Announcer said, as he held up his datapad, checking the rules. Seeing this, Senior and the other communications officers quickly put the broadcast on standby, an image of a dancing Imperial logo popping up on every screen. While everyone waited for the decision to be made, Tenn idly prodded the remains of her temporary SIR with her foot.

"Figures. I finally get a replacement SIR and it doesn't last two minutes," she muttered, shooting a glare at Larb as he snickered at her reaction. Before she could snap at him, though, the screens suddenly switched back to the Announcer.

"Okay, in accordance with the contingency protocol put into place just in case too many SIRs were eliminated at once, it seems that the arena's monitoring systems were automatically keeping track of all the SIRs during the match," he explained, "As such, the system was able to determine when each SIR was eliminated, and can tell us which ones technically lasted into the final ten alongside the ones belonging to Invader Skoodge and Not-Invaders Zim and Tak."

The mentioned pair glared at the Announcer's casual dismissal of their status, but as he couldn't notice them, he looked to his datapad to check his list.

"Alright, so it looks like the other members of our Top 10 are Invaders Grapa, Krunk, Larb, Slacks, Spleen, Tenn and Zee. As for the rest of you, tough luck," the Announcer said, before teleporter beams suddenly shot out and removed every Invader except for the ones who had been named. This was followed by a buzzer sounding out, and the Announcer saying, "And now, at the advice of the algorithms, we will be taking a brief break, both to repair the arena and to allow the Invaders to prep themselves for the back half of the tournament. Stay tuned, everyone!"

With that, the broadcast switched over to an ad for Shloogorgh's Flavor Monster, the sight of which provoked a snarl from Zim, who glared at the screens for a moment before turning his attention to GIR as the robot ambled up to him.

"I do good, Master?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Zim replied halfheartedly, ignoring the happy squeak GIR gave in response, "Now go return to whatever you were doing before the match."

"Okie-dokie!" GIR said, before flying off to exit the arena, MIMI likewise zooming away while Ying flew back to his spot at Nyx's side in the audience. The Invaders, meanwhile, turned their attention from the departing robots and towards a snack bar that rolled up at the side of the arena, while a large number of technicians quickly ran into the arena to start patching it up.

"Well, I for one am taking the opportunity to go on break. Xeil, you're in charge of communications until I get back," Senior announced, standing up from his console.

"Yes sir," the yellow-eyed comms officer saluted.

"I'll join you. I need to stretch my legs," Darth stated, also standing up and turning towards his own lieutenant, "Feyr, take charge of matters until I return."

"Of course," the pink-eyed Consular said with a bow, as Darth and Senior exited the box.

"Are they allowed to just leave in the middle of proceedings?" Wiyn asked in annoyance, watching the other two depart.

"Hey, it's not like we actually need anyone else sharing the box with us. You're all just here to tell us what a good job we did organizing the tournament," Red said, shooting a pointed look at the Advisors, who started scrambling over each other to deliver compliments.

"Excellent work, my Tallest!"

"Best tournament I've ever seen!"

"All the problems are definitely Zim's fault!"

"That's more like it!" Purple said with a laugh, sucking up all the praise. However, he frowned as he reached for a donut and found himself grabbing air, the plate atop the head of the Table-Headed Service Drone next to his chair currently empty. Scowling, Purple shoved the drone — Bob, as it just so happened — away from his chair with a snapped order of "Go get more snacks!"

"Yes, my Tallest," Bob said quickly, bowing and shuffling towards the door.

"Need a hand?" Maht asked as Bob passed him.

"Nah, I got this. You keep them happy 'til I get back," Bob replied, gesturing to the still partially-filled tray atop Maht's head. Maht nodded in acceptance and walked closer to the Tallest, while Bob continued towards the door. As he passed by Feyr, the Consular turned to glance at him, and Bob immediately plastered a forced smile on his face.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts," he mentally repeated like a mantra, not allowing any other thoughts to enter his mind. He'd heard a rumor that doing this would block out a Consular's abilities so long as they weren't actively trying to read his thoughts, and judging by how Feyr snorted and rolled his eyes, it was not just working but also something that happened regularly. As such, Bob kept it up until he was not only out of the box but quite far down the hallway. It was only then that he allowed himself to relax and start actually thinking again, his first action being to confirm he was alone, followed by quickly pulling out a communicator and tapping out a brief message on it.

A few minutes later, after retrieving a food cart from the kitchen and then turning off into a corridor that didn't lead directly back to the Tallest's box, Bob slipped into a storage room. The space was mostly empty save for boxes covered in dust cloths, and in the center of it was a group of technicians standing before a pile of various machine parts. Bob pushed the cart towards them, then walked off to another group standing watch nearby, including Garuk and Eloch.

"I still say that the odds of this working are ridiculously low," Eloch sneered, watching as the technicians went to work, inserting the pieces of the disassembled device into a lower drawer on the cart and putting them together.

"I've been able to get in and out of the Tallest's box without the Consulars looking twice at me," Bob retorted with a glare, "As long as I keep blocking them out, this will be simple."

"Except you won't just be walking in and out, you'll be sneaking in a bomb!" Eloch said, gesturing to where the explosive in question had been put together and was now lit up as it became operational, "You really think you can keep yourself from thinking about it until you can slip out again before it goes off?"

"Are you actually underestimating me, or are you just still upset that everyone decided to go for my plan instead of yours?" Bob scoffed.

"It's a better plan!" Eloch snapped, "Yours has a slim chance of working, and even if it does, all we do is take out the Tallest, whom the Control Brains will quickly replace! But if we attack all out, we can seriously cut down on the Elite and cripple the hierarchy!"

"If it works," Bob said, "Which has an even slimmer chance than my plan — element of surprise or not, we're still vastly outnumbered right now. We'd barely make a dent before being overwhelmed, and we probably wouldn't take out anyone important. That kind of shock tactic is a backup, not a primary. Better to take a shot at cutting off the head of the Slor Beast than to focus on the tendrils."

Eloch grumbled, clearly still not convinced, but he stomped off instead of replying. Bob watched him go with a frown, before turning to an equally-frowning Garuk.

"Keep an eye on him, in case he tries to trigger the contingency early just to spite me," he said.

"Yes sir. Good luck," Garuk replied with a nod. Bob gave one in return, then turned and walked over to the cart, where the technicians had finished installing the bomb.

"Is everything set?" he asked.

"As well as can be, considering how many pieces this thing was broken down into in order to smuggle it into the building," one of the technicians responded.

"We've set the timer for two hours," another added, "That should provide enough time for you to leave again without it looking suspiciously too soon after this trip."

"Excellent work. Let's do this," Bob said. The technicians nodded, and one of them reached into the cart drawer to enter a command on the bomb's console, activating the timer. As it started counting down, they shut the drawer and stepped away from the cart, flashing Bob a thumbs up salute. He returned the gesture, before grabbing the cart and moving it back into the hallway.

Before long, Bob was facing the door to the Tallest's box. Pausing outside it, he took a moment to set a timer in his PAK to make sure he wouldn't lose track of time and get caught in the explosion, then took a deep breath to steady himself. Slipping back into the mental mantra to keep his thoughts clear, he walked the cart through the door, and once inside the box quickly piled snacks from the cart onto his tray and walked them over to the Tallest.

"What took so long?" Purple snapped, grabbing a handful of curly fries off the tray.

"Apologies, my Tallest," Bob said, as meekly as he could force himself to sound, "There was a-"

"No one cares," Red interrupted, as he grabbed several donuts. Bob felt a spike of anger at the casual dismissal, but quickly squashed it as he saw Feyr glance in his direction.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, just get through the next few hours, happy thoughts!" he thought frantically. This seemed to work, as the Consular looked away from him without comment, but Bob didn't allow himself to calm down, keeping up the mantra as he continued to work.

Just a while longer…

Meanwhile, Elsewhere

In another part of the building, quite a distance from the arena, the Resisty infiltration team and their human allies were crawling through a ventilation system. After dodging numerous security patrols to get across the city — which wasn't made any easier by Spleenk and Shloonktapooxis simply walking (or floating in the latter's case) down the streets instead of sticking to the shadows like the others, who had to keep dragging them away — the group had managed to reach the Main Convention Hall. Seeing that the security was focused on the front of the building, they'd checked the side and found an air vent, which they'd quickly pried open and used to get inside.

"You know, this looks a lot easier in the movies," Steve grumbled as the group struggled to squeeze their way through the shaft that was barely big enough for any of them to fit into.

"It's not that bad," Shloonktapooxis said cheerfully, as he floated through the shaft with plenty of room to spare.

"Of course you'd say that, you don't have any limbs to take up extra space," Lard Nar grumbled irritably, his horns scraping against the roof of the shaft, "Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't gotten stuck behind-"

"My head's not big!" Dib snapped from the front of the group, trying very hard to ignore how much the shaft was pressing against his head.

"I didn't say-"

"You were going to, I can tell!"

"Can we focus, please?" Viera said, "I just want us to get where we're going… wait, where are we going, exactly?"

The group froze as that comment hit them. After a moment, Ixane groaned and slammed her head against the floor of the shaft.

"How did we get this far without realizing that we had no idea where we were supposed to be going?" the hooded alien demanded.

"Spleenk, was this one of your ideas? Because I have the sudden urge to hit you," Lard Nar muttered.

"Uh, I dunno. Maybe?" the extremely cramped multi-limbed alien offered.

"Hang on, I can see a light up ahead. I think it's another vent," Dib said, "Let's get out wherever it leads, get our bearings, and figure out our next move."

The others all made sounds of assent, and squeezed their way towards the vent. After a few minutes of careful maneuvering, Dib managed to position himself to kick the vent's grate off and drop into the room it led to, the others quickly following after him.

"Alright," Dib said, brushing himself off and looking around, "Let's see where…"

Dib trailed off as he took in his surroundings. The group had ended up in what appeared to be a break room of some kind, with vending machines lining one wall and numerous tables filled the rest of the space — and seated at one of those tables was a moderately tall Irken with green eyes and a matching green uniform, a book in one hand and a soda in the other, which was paused midway towards his mouth as he stared at Dib with as much surprise as Dib was feeling.

There was a moment of silence as the group and the Irken stared at each other, and then suddenly the group all whipped out weapons. Which probably would have looked more dramatic if Lard Nar and Spleenk weren't waving their blasters around in a wild panic and Shloonktapooxis was just floating there with a blank look on his face.

"Don't move, Irken scum!" Lard Nar practically shrieked, eyes shut as he aimed his blaster everywhere except at its target, "Twitch an inch, and I swear I'll-"

"Lard Nar? That you?" the Irken asked, cocking his head and seemingly unfazed by the weapons that actually were pointed in his direction.

"Huh?" Lard Nar replied, stopping his frantic movements and opening his eyes, which widened as he actually registered who he was seeing, "Nick? What are you doing here?"

"You know him?" Dib asked, lowering his gauntleted fists slightly.

"His name is Nick?" Steve added incredulously.

"Yeah, but everyone calls me Senior, since that's my rank," the Irken replied, glancing at the human before returning to the Vortian, "Which I would think answers your question. I'm here because I work on the Massive, so like everyone else who does I'm required to be here."

"Okay, but that still doesn't explain how you two know each other," Ixane noted, being the only one still keeping her aim squarely on Senior.

"He was a communications officer back on Research Station 9, back in the good days," Lard Nar said with a fond smile, which then warped into an annoyed grimace, "Also kept trying to get me to fix him up with my sister, which was a pain in the neck."

"I'm still single if she is," Senior added happily.

"No," Lard Nar said flatly, "Before it was just because we were friends and that was weird, but now it's the principle of the thing. Namely the fact that you're part of the species that conquered mine!"

"Hey now, let's not be prejudicial here," Senior said with a bit of heat in his tone, "I have nothing to do with policy, least of all planning invasions. And considering that Irkens who talk out of line tend to get tossed out airlocks, I don't really have much of a choice to do anything but go along with things, even if I don't agree with the idea that Irkens are somehow superior to other species. If I did, you think I'd like alien pop culture so much?"

To emphasize his point, Senior held up the book he was reading. While the Resisty members stared in incomprehension, the humans raised their eyebrows in surprise.

"Where'd you get a copy of War and Peace?" Viera asked in disbelief.

"There's a rather large black market in the Empire for stuff from Earth," Senior replied with a shrug, "Books, comics, movies, games — it's all very popular."

"Yeah, yeah, that's great," Ixane cut in, "But enough with the small talk, can we please focus on why we're here?"

"And why exactly are you here?" a voice asked from behind the group, causing them all to jump. Spinning around, they were greeted by the sight of a white-eyed Irken in equally white robes.

"Greetings, I am Darth, Chief Consular of the Irken Empire," he said, in seemingly genuine affability, "May I be of assistance?"

While the humans were more confused than scared by Darth's arrival and strange appearance, the Resisty member all stiffened; even the most oblivious members of their crew knew of and feared the reputation of the Consulars. Hence why Spleenk suddenly shrieked in panic and started firing from the blasters held in each of his hands, the shots heading right towards Darth… or rather, vaguely in his general direction, as when he finally stopped after a minute, it was seen that he'd missed every shot, only succeeding in creating a loose outline of Darth out of smoking scorch marks on the far wall behind him.

"…Wow, your aim sucks," Steve commented as everyone stared in surprise, "Also, any particular reason you're all more scared of this guy?"

"He's a Consular, the Irkens' secret police force," Ixane explained, the humans' eyes widening in response as they turned worried gazes on Darth. However, after a few moments of his blank eyes staring back at them, Dib's brows furrowed in confusion as a thought came to him, and he slowly raised a hand into Darth's line of sight, waving it back and forth.

"Yes, I'm blind," Darth said flatly, "Please stop doing that."

"Oh yeah, then how do you know what I'm doing?" Dib asked smugly.

"You think very loudly," Darth replied, smirking slightly as the humans jerked in surprise, "Yes, I'm psychic, all Consulars are. And before you waste your time actually saying it, you're all about to ask me to prove it by guessing what number you're thinking of — the female is thinking 42, her birth-mate is thinking pi to the 12th digit, and the large-headed male is planning to just make up a number after I guess to try and trick me."

"Oh, come on! You can't even see my head!" Dib protested. Darth's smirk stayed in place, but before he could further troll the human by revealing he could see through other people's eyes, Lard Nar pointedly cleared his throat.

"Not to interrupt the amusing byplay, and not to say that I'm complaining about it, but why exactly are you just talking to us instead of trying to arrest us?" the Vortian asked.

"Don't give him ideas!" Ixane hissed, while Darth chuckled.

"True, I should be incapacitating or eliminating you, considering you're all thinking about how you came here to strike a blow against the Empire by blowing up all our Elites," he said, nodding towards the packs of explosives that they were all carrying, "On the other hand, most of you are considering just how unlikely this plan is to succeed and if you should cancel it, with the Vortian in particular considering just stealing that couch of Larb's instead."

As Lard Nar yelped in embarrassment and Ixane glared at him while the humans gave him flat looks, Senior merely arched an antenna at the statement.

"You mean the couch Larb left here for safekeeping while he's competing?" he asked, gesturing to a corner of the room. The humans and Resisty members turned to look at where he was pointing, and their jaws dropped as they saw the large couch taking up much of one wall, with a screen floating in front of it which read "Property of Invader Larb. Do not touch or else."

"How'd we miss that?" Viera demanded incredulously.

"Too busy having Irkens pop up left and right?" Steve offered with a shrug.

"Wait a minute. If this thing's such a big deal, why is it just tucked away in a break room?" Dib questioned.

"Larb takes it everywhere with him," Senior explained, "But it's not like he can compete while sitting on it, so he left it here. And it's not like it's unprotected."

"Looks unprotected to me," Shloonktapooxis commented, floating over to give the couch a closer look-

ZAP

-and getting hit with a flash of light as he passed the floating screen. Slightly charred and smoking, he flew back through the air and slammed into Spleenk, causing them both to bounce against a wall and crumble to the floor. Everyone else blinked in confusion and looked at the couch, where a dome of blueish light briefly shimmered before disappearing from sight.

"Like I said, not unprotected. It's not going anywhere," Senior said with a slight smirk.

"Which brings us back to what I was saying," Darth spoke up, regaining everyone's attention, "You're here on a mission that would be detrimental to the Empire if it were to succeed, but it seems unlikely to given your overall morale. And you have a secondary objective to steal an imperial trophy, which would be a propaganda loss for us, but you're clearly in no position to actually successfully retrieve it, so again, not much of an actual threat. And on top of all that, there is one more matter that makes me inclined to not neutralize you."

"And what would that be?" Ixane asked suspiciously. In response, Darth pointed at the humans.

"These three are enemies of Zim," he said, spitting out the other Irken's name, "And after everything that that Defective has done to the Empire, not to mention his efforts to embarrass us all here in the tournament, I am very tempted to let them loose to counteract him."

"Wait, Zim's here? I thought he was exiled!" Dib exclaimed, the others all echoing his surprise.

"He exploited a legal loophole," Senior explained, "Since he used to be an Invader, he technically qualified for the tournament. Oh, and he also insulted the Tallest's pride, so they let him in to try and make an example of him, which I think he was counting on."

"…Are you sure we're talking about the same Zim?" Lard Nar asked, "I know it's been a while, but I don't remember him being that smart."

"He's insane, not stupid," Darth commented, "Though I believe we've gotten off topic again. As it stands, a part of me very strongly wishes to let you try something and see how it disrupts Zim's own plans. But at the same time, I have an obligation and duty to stop you. How do you propose we resolve this dilemma?"

"Well, I can think of one way," Ixane said, quickly bringing up her blaster to aim at Darth. But before she could pull the trigger, the Consular darted forward, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to slam into Lard Nar, sending them both flying into where Spleen and Shloonktapooxis were starting to get back up and knocking them down again. Without even pausing from this, he then swept out with his PAK legs, knocking the humans' feet out from under them and sending them falling to the floor as well.

"Please don't be foolish enough to try that again," Darth said in mild annoyance as everyone lay groaning in heaps, "Bear in mind that while I am blind, I am also a psychic and have the same training level as an Invader. If need be, I can and will terminate you all. But I'd prefer not to, so what do you all say we have a congenial conversation instead?"

Watching as the humans and Resisty members slowly got back to their feet, most of them grumbling obscenities, Senior sighed. While he couldn't deny that this group would have legitimate grievances against the Empire's policies, he was still loyal to the Empire as a whole. He couldn't in good conscience just let them get away with planning an attack, but at the same time he didn't want to be responsible for their imprisonment or execution. Hmm, he should probably stop observing and actually get involved in the conversation; he might be able to convince Darth to take some kind of third option.

Bringing out his communicator, he sent a quick message to Xeil, telling her that he was extending his break to help Darth out "with something", without specifying what, and that she should continue the broadcast without him.

He had a feeling he'd be here for a while…

Arena, Some Time Later

Once the arena had been repaired, the tournament had resumed. And much to the disappointment of the Tallest and their boot-lickers, Zim had still not been disqualified, even after several more rounds. In fact, if anything he was doing so well that it was downright embarrassing for the Empire at this point.

The first round after the break had ended had been an eating contest, wherein the Invaders had to eat a variety of food from various worlds, with the loser being the one who got sick first. Not only was that not Zim — it was in fact Krunk, who passed out in his own vomit after a round of some bluish vegetable in a purple sauce from the Planet Jackers' homeworld — but by the end of the round he was the only one who didn't look even remotely ill. When someone in the audience had incredulously demanded to know how he'd managed to keep all the disgusting items down, he'd merely scoffed that "GIR's cooking is far worse than any of that!"

After that had been a game of extreme dodgeball. "Extreme" being the operative word, as in this case the "balls" were explosives launched at the Invaders by remote-controlled drones. Naturally, most of these were aimed at Zim, but much to the Tallest's frustrations, he managed to dodge all of them. And then he took things a step further, grabbing Spleen by his legs and hoisting him into the air before he could protest, then proceeding to swing him around like a bat, Spleen's huge head easily intercepting all the bombs before they could hit him. By the time the drones ran out of bombs, Spleen was scorched and unconscious, leaving him to be teleported out of a grinning Zim's hands.

Next had been a rhyming competition (they'd needed one more round, and Purple had insisted on just picking one out of a hat), with points assigned based on how many words the contestants could successfully rhyme. Zim hadn't been first place this time; surprisingly, that had been Tenn, who easily matched every single word she was given, unlike all the others, who had stumbled eventually. When questioned as to how she'd gained such an odd skill, she'd merely shrugged it off as having had a lot of free time on her hands while on Meekrob.

In any case, while Zim hadn't outright won this round, his score had still been higher than Zee's, so he had advanced while she was banished to the Holding Pen. Which brought things to the current round, an art contest wherein the Invaders had to use a variety of provided materials to create artwork that would then be judged. Most of the Invaders had quickly built, painted, or sculpted either miniature versions of themselves or imperial icons, but Zim had created quite the outlier from that norm — a clay scale model of his Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob looming over the cowering Tallest, which were painted with their respective colors (and with Red's effigy holding Purple's in front of itself protectively). As the audience stared at it in shock and disgust, Zim smirked up at the box, where the Tallest were glaring down at him, as were several of their loyalists.

"The nerve of that traitorous kisgaree, to mock you like this," Wiyn hissed.

"Yeah, and it's not even realistic!" Purple protested, "Red wouldn't use me as a shield like that!"

"…Right," Red said with an awkward cough after a moment, avoiding eye contact with his co-leader, "Er, anyway, at least now we can finally eliminate him and-"

"And with this round concluded, Invader Slacks is eliminated!" the Announcer stated, earning cries of outrage from all over the arena.

"Wait, what?" Red demanded, "How could Slacks possibly have done worse than that slander to earn getting eliminated instead of Zim?!"

In response, the vid-screens switched over to a view of Slacks' contribution… which was a sloppy mishmash of clay and paint with bits of cardboard and glitter glued to it. There was absolutely no way of telling what it was, and left everyone who looked at it scratching their heads in confusion.

"What is that even supposed to be?" Xeil asked from the comms console. Everyone else in the box shrugged.

"It's, uh, a post-modern, uhm, representation of, er," Slacks stammered, trying to quickly think up a half-decent explanation for his obvious failure. He never got a chance to finish, as a teleportation beam hit him, sending him off to the Holding Pen.

"Shoulda known he'd screw this up. He couldn't even do a decent puppet show," Purple muttered, earning an eye roll from Red.

"And with that, loyal subjects, we have now reached the final round," the Announcer stated. In response to that comment, several blocks of the floor rose up into the air in a loose formation, each of the Invaders being carried to a different spot on the outer edge, while a grid of transporter beams shot into existence underneath the blocks. Meanwhile, several blocks came together in the center of the arena to form a tower, with multiple spotlights aligning on its top; as they did, a hole opened in the ceiling above the tower's top and started projecting a stasis beam, down through which floated a hourglass-shaped device of purple metal with several lights atop it.

"This will be a final race to the top," the Announcer explained, "The device currently floating atop the central spire is the main command core for the Dreadnut, without which the ship doesn't function. It is currently primed to encode itself with the biometrics and PAK signature of whomever manages to take ahold of it for more than 20 seconds. Once one of the Invaders claims it, they will be declared the tournament victor, as the new flagship will therefore only work with them in position on the bridge to install the core."

"Er, not to question your decisions, my Tallest, but that sounds like a serious design flaw," Wiyn commented.

"We made sure that no one physically handled the core before now, so it wasn't at risk of ending up in the hands of anyone but one of the Invaders," Red replied, before frowning and adding, "Of course that was before Zim showed up. I swear to Irk, if he ends up winning control of that ship…"

"Relax, he won't," Purple said placatingly, "Larb's still in competition, and he's our best Invader. He'll definitely win — and if not, we can just execute Zim before he goes anywhere, then hack control of the ship and give it to someone else."

Red nodded in affirmation, while the Announcer continued to speak, "As said, only one Invader can claim this ultimate prize. Therefore, this is a race to the top where anything goes, no holds barred. Begin!"

Without further preamble, flares fired from the screens, and the Invaders burst into motion, leaping from block to block and making their way towards the central spire. Zim was the first one to reach it, cackling excitedly as he latched onto its side with his PAK legs — only for Tak to suddenly swoop in from the side and land a kick square against his head, knocking him loose and sending him tumbling downwards. She smirked and turned to start ascending, only to yelp as Zim shot a cord up at her, which wrapped around Tak's ankle and brought her up short while the momentum slingshotted Zim back upwards to end up a full yard above her. Growling, Tak scampered after him as he started climbing again.

Meanwhile, Tenn had reached another side of the spire and was also ascending, only to find herself suddenly under attack from Larb, who was several yards above and was firing at her with the two PAK legs that weren't supporting him.

"You should just stay down there Tenn," he sneered, "You're used to losing, after all. I bet you wouldn't know what to do with a win!"

"Sweet Irk, you love the sound of your voice," Tenn muttered. Then, to Larb and the audience's surprise, she suddenly jumped away from the spire and let herself fall. As Larb stopped firing in shock, Tenn suddenly thrust all four PAK legs in his direction and fired a single huge blast. Larb screamed and jumped out of the way, causing him to fall, while Tenn cut off the attack and once again latched onto the spire with her PAK legs and resumed climbing, Larb only managing to do the same after she'd gained a significant lead.

Grapa watched all this from around a corner, antenna arched at the display.

"Are they seriously more concerned with their rivalries and grudges than winning this thing?" he snorted, "Well, their loss. I don't have to worry about that sort of thing slowing me down, so-"

"Hoo-Ah!" Skoodge yelled as he suddenly came out of nowhere to bodyslam Grapa, sending them both tumbling before they managed to grab ahold of the spire wall.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Grapa demanded.

"I don't like you for getting the credit for my mission, remember?" Skoodge stated, "Plus, if I win, Zim will kill me. So I'm just gonna focus on kicking your c'horta instead."

"Oh yeah? Bring it, fatso!" Grapa growled, he and Skoodge launching at each other.

The audience cheered as the three pairs settled into their fights, shouting out praise for whomever was their favorite, which for the most part was whomever was doing the best. Though Nyx, naturally, was consistently cheering on Zim, who was locked in a back-and-forth with Tak; every time one of them managed to land a blow and send the other falling, their opponent would somehow catch up and return the favor, with neither managing to get a permanent lead.

While that was happening, and while Tenn and Larb were stuck in a similar exchange of blows that kept them either of them from really advancing, Skoodge was quickly losing momentum to Grapa, who managed to get the high ground and start forcing Skoodge downward, inch by inch.

"Just give up, already!" Grapa snarled, landing a kick on Skoodge's face that sent him falling several feet before he managed to brace himself against the spire again, "You're just a Defective's lackey! You got lucky on Blorch, you don't deserve a chance to win this!"

"I got lucky? You literally had credit for my work handed to you!" Skoodge snapped, "Seriously, did you even have an assignment, or are you one of those guys the Tallest let hang around so they have people to suck up to them?"

Grapa growled at the insult and launched himself down at Skoodge again. Unfortunately for him, this time Skoodge was anticipating the attack; bracing himself with his PAK legs, he threw out his arms and managed to catch the kick aimed at his face. Grapa's eyes widened in surprise, and before he could react, Skoodge swung him around and slammed him into the spire, before flinging him away. Disoriented by the blow, Grapa was unable to do anything to stop himself from falling right into the teleportation beams, banishing him to the Holding Pen.

"Whoo, that felt good!" Skoodge exclaimed, throwing his fists up in victory, much of the audience getting into the moment and cheering for him.

"Good for you, Skoodge!" Nyx called out, barely glancing away from Zim's match against Tak, "Now hush so I can keep watching the good stuff!"

"Actually, Madame, I think we may have more pressing concerns," Ying spoke up, the smallest tinge of concern in his stoic voice.

"Huh?" Nyx blinked, turning to face him, only to suddenly realize that the audience near her had all disappeared, and she was now surrounded by a group of guards, weapons all aimed at her. Mook stood nearby, giving her a stern look and holding a datapad.

"Defective Technician Drone Nyx," he said, reading off the pad, "Wanted for treason against the Empire, slander towards the Control Brains, dereliction of duty, destruction of imperial property, theft of imperial property, illegally reprogramming a SIR Unit, arson, and resisting arrest."

"You can't prove I did any of that," Nyx sniffed defiantly.

"We have extensive video evidence of your actions going back years. Including an hour before the tournament started, when you blew up a snack cart for, according to several witnesses, refusing to hand over your order when you didn't have exact change to pay with," Mook replied flatly, turning his pad around to show a video of Nyx tossing a bomb into a cart and then laughing maniacally next to its flaming ruins until Ying dragged her away.

"…That doesn't look anything like me!" Nyx said after a moment. Mook rolled his eyes in response and made a gesture to his guards, who started to advance, with the clear intention of arresting her… only to freeze as Ying shifted into his Battle Mode and loomed over them.

"Hmm, seems like another charge of resisting arrest is in order," Mook mused, barely showing any reaction, "But we are taking you in."

"Let's see you try it," Nyx said, cracking her knuckles and smirking in anticipation.

Watching all this on a datapad of her own in the Tallests' box, Wiyn arched an antenna.

"Huh, this should be interesting," she mused, "Eliminating Zim's little cheerleader should demoralize him."

"Who cares about that? I just wanna watch him get blasted!" Purple complained, Red quickly hushing him so he could focus on the arena, where Zim and Tak were throttling each other with their bare hands while clinging to the spire by their PAK legs. At the same time, Larb and Tenn were still stuck exchanging blows, by now seemingly more concerned with that than trying to advance up the spire. They were evenly matched, each managing to block every attack the other sent their way, leaving them clearly deadlocked. Naturally, this was all quite exciting for the crowd, who were cheering wildly.

However, while everyone else in the Tallest's box were focused on the arena or the fight that was about to break out in the stands, Feyr was focused more on Bob. Over the past couple of hours, the Service Drone had grown increasingly agitated; not externally, aside from some slight fidgeting and sweating, but mentally. His "happy thoughts" mantra was rapidly increasing its pace, aside from the odd checking on the time. It seemed rather obvious to the Consular that Bob was counting down towards something, and that whatever it was, he was nervous about it. Naturally, Feyr was growing concerned about this; if this was some kind of threat, he needed to intercept it now before anything could happen.

But just before he could, fresh cries from the audience brought his attention back to the arena. There had finally been a breakthrough in Tenn and Larb's fight, where he had somehow gotten past her guard and grabbed her in a chokehold. The Tallest in particular were overjoyed at this, cheering for their favorite as Tenn struggled in his grasp.

"Just give up and save yourself the embarrassment of passing out," Larb sneered at Tenn, keeping her pressed close enough to his body that she couldn't properly maneuver her PAK legs against him. She hissed at him, unable to breathe enough to curse him out, as she clawed at his arms in an attempt to pry them off her neck. But it wasn't working, and her vision was starting to go black at the edges-

WHAM

-when something suddenly slammed into Larb from behind, knocking him free of Tenn and sending them both falling down the spire before they could brace themselves again. As Tenn gasped for breath and reoriented herself, she looked up to see what had happened, and was shocked to find Skoodge standing defensively between her and Larb, who was glaring at the fat Invader and sporting a nasty bruise on one side of his face.

"You're helping me?" Tenn asked in disbelief as she regained her voice.

"Well, I'm only here to help Zim win, not win myself," Skoodge replied, shooting a glare of his back at Larb, "And like I said at the start, I've got a grudge of my own against this jerk for getting the mission that should have been mine. So, truce until he's out of the way?"

"Fine by me," Tenn said, before throwing herself at Larb, PAK legs first. He dodged her attack, only to end up stepping right into the path of Skoodge's fist, which slammed into his abdomen. As Larb doubled over with a pained gasp, Tenn jumped back and kicked him in the back of the head, causing him to flip over and start rolling down the spire. Once again he managed to catch himself, and as soon as he was upright again started firing plasma beams at his opponents. Tenn and Skoodge managed to dodge the attacks by ducking low and releasing their grip on the spire, allowing gravity to do its work and carry them downwards faster than Larb could react. They bowled through his legs, organic and PAK alike, knocking him off the spire, and as he started falling they shot out their own PAK legs to stop their own descent. And before Larb could do the same, they grabbed him as he fell past them, Tenn holding his arms and Skoodge seizing his legs.

"Let go, you has-beens!" Larb growled, struggling in their grips and trying to lash out with his PAK legs.

"Well, if you insist," Tenn replied, sharing a smirk with Skoodge. Noticing this, Larb blinked in confusion, only for his eyes to widen as he realized what was about to happen.

"No, no, no, don't you da-AH!" Larb screamed as Tenn and Skoodge flung out and away from the spire. With nothing to grab ahold of, Larb wasn't able to do anything but fall into the teleportation beams, vanishing from the arena.

As a stunned silence fell over the audience, the victorious duo took a moment to bask in what they'd just done… and then Tenn took a swipe at Skoodge, who yelped and jumped away.

"Seriously, you couldn't even wait two minutes?!" he exclaimed, taking a defensive position.

"Not really, no," Tenn replied non-apologetically, before lunging at him.

Meanwhile, in the Tallest's box, everyone was leaning away from the fuming pair. While Feyr was the only one present who could actually do so, everyone was certain they could feel their palpable rage. That said, Feyr was very much picking up the waves of anger radiating off his leaders, enough that it was able to tear his attention away from Bob. Seeing the Consular was no longer looking at him, and certain he was too close to his deadline for comfort, the rebellious Drone took the opportunity provided to him and started edging towards the door, everyone around him either not noticing or just figuring that he was trying to get out of the impending danger zone.

As for the Tallest themselves, they were scowling and trembling with rage as they watched their favorite Invader be eliminated from a tournament that was supposed to make them look good. Worse, that now reduced the potential ultimate victors down to a failure, a wannabe, and two traitors, none of whom they could stand. Needless to say, they were beyond furious at this point.

"Damn it!" Red shouted, slamming his fists into his armrests, hard enough to dent them.

"Er, would you like something to calm your nerves, my Tallest?" Maht asked nervously, wadding over to present the box of donuts atop his tray.

"Shut up, no one's hungry!" Purple snapped, backhanding Maht and sending him flying backwards into the food cart, knocking it over — and in the process, causing the drawer containing the bomb to pop open and spill it onto the floor. Everyone froze as they saw it, staring at it in silent shock as the lights atop it started flashing faster, a high-pitched beeping likewise emanating from it and increasing in pace.

"Bomb!" Peech shouted, bolting from her position standing guard at the door, joined by the other guard flanking her, while Bob took the opportunity to run past them and out into the hallway. No one paid him any attention, though, being too focused on the bomb. Peech and the other guard grabbed it and hefted it up, while Wiyn jumped up and deployed her PAK legs, firing a blast at the box's windows, blowing them open. The guards then dashed forward and threw the bomb out through the new hole, letting it fall into open air.

BOOM

Just in time, as it turned out, as it exploded a minute later, the shockwave from the resulting blast knocking everyone in the box off their feet. Meanwhile, the fighting in the arena screeched to a halt, the remaining contestants and the audience staring at the sudden explosion in surprise and shock.

"What the flirk was that?!" Mook exclaimed from where he and his soldiers were still surrounding Nyx.

"Meh, 3 outta 10 at best," an unfazed Nyx replied with a shrug.

"Not what I meant, you lunatic!"

Back in the box, everyone was getting back up, and staring warily at where the bomb had been cast away.

"Is everyone alright?" Xeil asked, as she crawled out from where she'd taken cover under the communications console.

"How the hell did someone get a bomb in here?!" Wiyn snapped, "My security teams scanned everyone who entered the building!"

"Perhaps we should ask the Service Drone," Feyr said with scowl, though when everyone looked to a suddenly panicked Maht, he clarified, "Not him, the other one, who bolted out when the bomb was revealed."

"Wait, Bob? No way!" Maht exclaimed.

"Is that his name? I've been calling him Pootchy," Purple commented. Red slapped him upside the head, before turning to Feyr and asking, "What makes you think the drone's involved?"

"While him running away is a reasonable reaction to seeing a bomb, he was incredibly nervous beforehand, kept checking the time, and was doing his best to block me out from hearing his thoughts," Feyr counted off on his fingers, "Altogether, that is highly suspect."

"Okay, fine, go find him, and tear some answers out of him," Red ordered, turning back to the arena, where the audience had descended into confused and panicked mutterings, "We need to get this thing back on track, before-"

"Long live the New Order!" multiple voices suddenly shouted in unison. And before anyone could process that, pandemonium broke out in the stands as dozens if not hundreds of Irkens dressed in NIO robes and masks poured out of the arena exits and opened fire on the audience with plasma rifles. And while the non-military castes found themselves scrambling for cover or escape, the Elites were quick to start fighting back, which only added to the chaos.

As battle broke out around them, Mook's group made the mistake of instinctively looking around to see what was happening. This provided an opening for Ying to sweep out with his arms, knocking them all over; as they fell, Nyx jumped up to ride on Ying's shoulders, while bringing out her minigun.

"Later, suckers!" she crowed, "Onwards, Ying!"

"May I ask what we're doing, Madame?" Ying asked, even as he started running off into the stands.

"What do you think?" Nyx scoffed, "I know this wasn't planned, unless Zim's been holding out on me, but I'm not passing up on a chance to help the movement stick it to the Empire. Now charge!"

Ying didn't verbally reply, instead opting to merely keep running, knocking aside any Irken not wearing a mask, while Nyx fired her weapon indiscriminately. Mook, having recovered from being knocked over, glared after them as they went, but had to duck as several plasma shots rained down in his direction. Cursing, he pulled out a blaster and popped up to start returning fire, prioritizing the immediate threat over the escaping criminal.

Meanwhile, in the arena itself, the Invaders had all paused their fighting to stare at the chaos around them in disbelief; Zim in particular was slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he took in the sight of his own movement unknowingly screwing up his plans. Seeing this, Tenn couldn't help but give Tak a deadpan look.

"Still think he's the mastermind of all this?" she asked flatly. Tak shot her a glare in response but didn't dignify her comment with a response. Instead she launched a kick at the back of Zim's head, sending him tumbling down the spire while she turned and scurried towards the top.

"Screw whatever's happening out there! This contest isn't done yet!" she yelled, as Zim recovered and chased after her. Tenn and Skoodge watched them go momentarily, before returning to their own fight.

In their box, the Tallest could only watch all this, not fully comprehending what was happening. They were only snapped out of it when shouts and the noise of discharging plasma suddenly sounded from the hallway outside the box. They turned to face the noise, only to be tackled to the ground by Wiyn as several NIO figures burst into the room and opened fire indiscriminately. Peech managed to attack one from the side and disarm him with a blow from her shock spear to the arms, before knocking his feet out from under him with a sweeping kick, and jamming the spear into his PAK. Meanwhile, her fellow guard was felled by several plasma blasts to the chest and PAK, but not before taking out two of the assailants in return. The last one standing took aim at where Wiyn was protectively covering the Tallest, only for Feyr to dart towards him; as the robed Irken turned to fire at him, Feyr dodged the attack, getting close enough to smack the Miz mask aside and, as the rebel's face was exposed, jabbed his fingers into his opponent's forehead, eyes glowing as his psychic powers activated. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the robed Irken screamed, dropping his weapon and collapsing into a heap on the floor.

"Get them off me! Get them off me!" the Irken screamed, clawing at his chest and face hard enough to draw blood.

"The hell did you do to him?" Peech asked, deeply disturbed by what she was seeing.

"I made him think that he's covered with Lebvordian flesh beetles," the Consular replied, casually kicking the downed Irken in the head to knock him out, "He'll be back to normal by the time he wakes up in interrogation."

"That's great. Now what about them?!" Purple exclaimed, gesturing towards the battle still occurring in the stands. Looking over the fighting with a critical eye, Wiyn snorted dismissively.

"It's chaotic, my Tallest, but if you look carefully, you'll see we have the clear advantage," she said, "Judging by how sloppily they're fighting, it seems to me that most of these traitors aren't trained soldiers. They might do well against the Drone castes, but the only reason they're having luck against the Elites is because of the shock of the attack. We just need to rally our forces to push them back, and with your permission, I'll go do that right now."

"Do it," Red snapped the order, before turning to Feyr, "And where the hell are your damn Consulars? Where's Darth?!"

As if on cue, more shouts emerged from the stands as the white-robed forms of over a dozen Consulars jumped in from nowhere. The psychics swept through the ranks of the attackers, the robed Irkens either being cut down by swift PAK leg strikes or being rendered insensate by mental assaults. Viewing all this, Feyr allowed himself a smug glance at the Tallest.

"…That still doesn't explain where Darth is," Red commented petulantly.

"We all made mental contact as soon as this attack began, sirs," Feyr replied, "I assure you, Chief Darth is handling the matter, albeit from another angle."

"Fine, whatever, just go clean up this mess!"

Feyr bowed and turned towards the door, where Wiyn was conversing with a group of guards who had just arrived on the scene, the lot of them grimacing as they looked over the bodies of several guards who were laying on the floor, clearly having been shot down by the attackers. Wiyn scowled as she looked over her dead soldiers, before issuing a quick series of orders. Obeying them, half the guards fanned out to cover the door and secure the downed NIO agent, while the rest left with Wiyn, Feyr following after them as they ran off to join the fighting.

"This is a disaster," Red muttered, turning his attention back to the chaos in the arena.

"Yeah, but, it's not like the Control Brains can blame us for this, right?" Purple half-pleaded.

No one knew if there was a right answer for that.

Break Room, Several Minutes Earlier

Tensions had lightened slightly as time had gone on, but the Resisty and humans were still on edge. As it was now, the whole group was sitting on one side of a table, while Darth and Senior sat on the other, some snacks provided by the Comms Officer sitting mostly untouched in-between them. They'd been talking for a while, but it didn't appear that they were making any real headway.

"…And while it was admittedly dishonorable to backstab an ally, at the time we all believed that it was the Vortians' fault that Tallest Miyuki died, so we can't be fully blamed for our actions," Darth was saying, which only earned him dirty looks.

"That is self-serving nonsense," Lard Nar growled, "Not least of all because there were plenty of witnesses — including me — who made it clear that Miyuki's death was Zim's doing! But no, perish the thought that an Irken could be responsible for the Empire suffering something so tragic, even one who's clearly a damn lunatic!"

"I freely admit that was a failure of logic on our part, but logic often gives way in the face of grief," Darth replied with a shrug.

"Oh, so you were upset? Sure, that perfectly justifies enslaving my whole species!" Lard Nar snapped.

"And even if it did, what about our worlds, and all the others?" Ixane asked, gesturing to herself and her fellow rebels, "What did we ever do to deserve being conquered?"

"It's not a matter of blame, it's simply us taking our natural place as the superior and dominant race in the universe," Darth said. Next to him, Senior facepalmed in response, while the glares across the table intensified.

"Wow, even when you're trying to be polite, you're completely racist," Dib muttered with a grimace.

"In his defense, we're taught literally from the moment we're born to believe that we're just better than everyone else," Senior commented, "I'm in the vast minority to not accept that kind of cultural posturing as correct."

"Sure, that makes it so much better," Viera said dryly.

"I don't hate other species, I simply… hmm?" Darth trailed off, glancing off to the side with a frown. Before anyone could ask what he was doing, there was a distant booming sound that shook the room, followed immediately by alarms sounding in the room and out in the hallway.

"What the- what's going on?" Steve asked, as everyone jumped to their feet.

"According to my subordinates, someone just tried to blow up the Tallest," Darth said with forced calm, "And judging by the shocked reactions you're all having, I'm guessing this wasn't part of your plan?"

"Of course not, we've been here the whole time, and the rest of our people are back at our ship!" Lard Nar protested, "Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with us!"

"I can confirm that," Senior said, finger pressed against his communication implant, "Security alert just got broadcast on all channels — looks like those lunatic Miz followers decided to make themselves more than a nuisance."

As if on cue, the door to the room was kicked open, and a group of Irkens in black robes and red masks ran in, blasters in hands.

"See, I told you a Consular came in here!" one of them declared.

"But what's with all the aliens?" another asked in confusion.

"Who cares? Blast them!" the first one ordered. The command was quickly obeyed, the group opening fire. As Senior, the humans and the Resisty all ducked for cover, Darth sprang into the air above the bolts of plasma and landed behind the attackers. Before they could react, his hands shot out to grab the backs of the heads of the two closest to him. Flaring his powers, he immediately rendered them unconscious before throwing them at their compatriots, knocking several of them over.

The remainder of the attackers started to turn back around, only for Ixane to suddenly jump out from under the table she'd been hiding under, a glowing dagger in each hand. Running through the narrow gap between two of the masked Irkens, she slashed them both in the side, causing them to collapse to the floor. Almost immediately afterwards, the humans and Resisty members popped up from cover as well, plasma and mystical fire launching at their attackers. Most of the Irkens went down, the rest scattering.

One in particular, PAK legs deployed, landed on the group's table and leered over them, only for Senior to pop up and quick-fire his revolvers, shooting the NIO member's blaster out of his hands and crippling his PAK legs by blowing off its main joints. As the masked Irken reared back in surprise, Dib jumped up and grabbed him, plasma surging from his gauntlets into the Irken before the latter was tossed through the air, slamming right into the screen floating in front of the couch. With an ear-splitting zap, the plasma already coursing through the Irken reacted with the forcefield around the couch, the screen exploding and and the field flickering out of existence as the now unconscious Irken fell to the floor in a smoking heap.

"Where'd you get actual guns?" Steve asked Senior, arching an eyebrow even as he traded plasma blasts with another NIO member who had ducked behind another table.

"Like I said, I like certain parts of human culture," Senior replied, casually reloading the revolvers and rejoining the firefight, which wrapped up soon after as Darth rendered the remaining NIO Irkens unconscious with a series of strikes to the head.

"Impressive blade work," the Consular complimented Ixane, as she stood nearby over several opponents she'd downed, "It's been some time since I've seen a Shadran Shadow Warrior in active combat. You don't disappoint your people's reputation."

"I don't need your approval," Ixane snapped, glaring at Darth, who merely shrugged and turned his attention to the rest of the group.

"Is everyone alright?" he asked.

"Looks like it," Dib commented as everyone looked themselves over, "So since we have a moment, maybe someone wants to explain what just happened?"

"Like I said before they burst in, Miz's movement has gone from protests to outright attacks," Senior explained, "They're up in the arena right now fighting… well, everyone, from the looks of it. This bunch must have been checking the perimeter for stragglers."

"And on that note, Senior and I need to go and regroup with the Tallest to handle this situation," Darth said, giving the non-Irkens a serious look, "My advice, leave now while you can slip out without being seen amidst the chaos. If anyone sees you, I will be obligated to detain or eliminate you."

The Resisty and their human allies barely had a chance to process that statement before Darth swept out of the room. Senior bid a quick farewell before likewise exiting after the Consular, leaving the non-Irkens alone with the downed NIO members.

"…Well, this didn't go how I thought it would," Steve said after a moment, breaking the awkward silence.

"Ya think?" Viera asked dryly, "I thought we were going to sneak in, attack, and then get out, not get stuck in the middle of a civil war!"

"Alright, nobody panic!" Lard Nar declared, though he was the only one actually panicking, "I just need a minute to think of a plan, and-"

"Hey boss, can I suggest something?" Spleenk spoke up, catching the Vortian's attention.

"I'm probably going to regret this, but sure, go ahead," Lard Nar sighed.

"Well, it looks like the forcefield over the couch got knocked out," Spleenk said, underscoring his point by waving one of his upper arms over the couch and not getting zapped, "So, since the new plan isn't working out, should we just go back to the original one?"

There was a moment of silence as everyone processed what Spleenk was saying, and then Ixane and the humans scowled in annoyance.

"Seriously? You're really going back to that stupid idea?" Dib asked flatly.

"Sir, please tell me we didn't come all this way just to resort back to stealing a damn couch?" Ixane pleaded.

"Well, do you think we can still pull off a stealth bombing when we're in the middle of a war zone?" Lard Nar snapped, "This place is probably crawling with these rebel Irkens, and the loyalists will be cracking down hard on them. If we don't get out now, either side will catch us. We need to take what wins we can get, even if it's just something as small as this!"

Ixane blinked in surprise at the forceful comment, not used to hearing her leader sound like that. After a moment, she sighed and shook her head.

"Fine, let's do this before anything else happens," she muttered. As the Resisty members quickly scurried to grab ahold of either end of the couch, Dib and his friends looked at each other, and after a moment of silent contemplation they resigned themselves to the fact that this was all they were going to accomplish today, and ran over to help the aliens lift the couch and carry it out of the room.

Elsewhere, Same Time

Bob ducked into a room, cursing to himself as the sound of combat echoed throughout the halls. More specifically, as the sound of several pursuing guards passed by the door he'd just shut behind him.

"Where'd he go?" one of the guards demanded.

"How's someone that small move so fast, especially with a table strapped to his head?" another asked.

"Who cares? We need to find him, or the Tallest will blame us for him getting away. Now come on, let's check down here!" another voice said firmly, being followed by the sound of swiftly receding footsteps. Hearing this, Bob allowed himself a sigh of relief, but his calm quickly dissolved into anger.

"Dammit, how did this all go so wrong so fast?!" he growled, tearing his table off and tossing it aside, "If the Tallest hadn't thrown a tantrum like that, the bomb would have taken them out, and then we could have taken advantage of the shock to attack everyone else. This is a total loss!"

Bob's rant probably would have continued, if the door hadn't suddenly burst open. He jumped up in panic, but calmed down as he saw that it was an NIO group, including Garuk and Eloch, the latter of whom looked particularly frazzled.

"This isn't supposed to be happening, why are we losing?!" Eloch exclaimed.

"I warned you," Bob said, the others jumping in surprise, having not noticed him, "I told you that we weren't ready to attack all out like this. This is exactly why this plan was a backup!"

"Well, we wouldn't have needed to go with my plan if yours hadn't failed, like I knew it would!" Eloch snapped.

"Considering how quickly you launched the attack after my plan did fail, I'm wondering if you were even bothering to wait on that excuse," Bob noted, "You know, it seems to me that you're not really much of a team player if you're going to act against the movement's collective decisions like that."

"Don't even try and pin this on me!" Eloch snarled, "I'm the only one around here bold enough to take a proper stand!"

"And how many of our comrades did this 'proper stand' manage to get captured or killed?" Bob asked with a sneer, the others in the room grumbling and nodding in agreement. Noticing this, Eloch paled as he realized Bob was turning the crowd against him.

"D-don't listen to this, this, wannabe bureaucrat!" he protested, "He just wants to sit around and complain without acting on it! I'm willing to give everything for the cause-!"

"In that case, thanks for volunteering," Bob said. And before Eloch could do more than blink in confusion, Bob suddenly smacked him over the head with the table he had discarded. While Eloch stumbled in disorientation, Bob made a quick hand gesture to Garuk, who grabbed Eloch by the scruff and lifted him up. As everyone else stared in shock, Bob strapped the table atop Eloch's head while Garuk primed a plasma grenade and stuffed it into his PAK before tossing him out into the hallway.

"Hey, he's over here!" Bob shouted down the hall, before ducking back into the room and shutting the door. Just as Eloch managed to compose himself and realize what had happened, the guards who had been chasing Bob reemerged at the other end of the hall.

"There he is!" the head guard shouted, pointing his blaster at Eloch, "Table-Headed Service Drone Bob, you're under arrest!"

"Wait, what?!" Eloch exclaimed, "I'm not-!"

BOOM

And that was when the grenade detonated, vaporizing Eloch and a chunk of the hallway, though the guards were far enough away that they were only knocked down by the concussive force. After a moment, they scrambled back to their feet, and were greeted by the ruined wreck of the hall, and the scorch mark where Eloch had just been standing.

"Pft. Stupid little traitor couldn't even do a proper suicide attack," the lead guard spat, "Ah well, at least we'll have some good news for the Tallest. Let's go."

With that, the guards left the hallway, unaware that in a nearby room, Bob was smugly smirking as he heard the guards' departure, while everyone else except for Garuk stared at him in shock.

"…How long did you have that planned?" someone finally dared to asked.

"Between him looking so much like me, and the fact that he was clearly going to be a problem personality-wise, I figured it'd be a great worst-case scenario preparation," Bob replied, "And now that the Tallest think I'm dead, I can sneak back aboard the Massive and dedicate myself full-time to manning the communications hub and trying to coordinate a recovery from this fiasco."

"So, what should we do now?" one of the others asked.

"Ditch your Miz outfits and weapons and scatter," Bob said, "With any luck, most of us will be able to disperse with the fleeing crowds; the Consulars won't be able to interrogate all the civilians, so while we'll lose some cells because of our comrades captured in battle, the rest will be able to escape. Good luck."

With that, the group fled the room, all of them going their separate ways, save for Garuk loyally following after Bob. The two of them made their way to an exit, emerging out of the building and into the crowds of Irken civilians fleeing the chaos inside. Covered by the anonymity this provided, they started making their way towards the Massive, Bob already planning how to rebuild from this disaster.

This was just a setback, nothing more. And when it was all over, Miz would praise Bob for his role in it all!

Arena, Same Time

"I am going to kill whoever's responsible for this!" Zim mentally growled, glancing at the slowly winding down fighting in the stands. Here he was, about to strike a major blow against the Tallest by proving a so-called Defective like himself was superior to all their precious "real" Invaders — and getting a cool battleship in the process — and no one was even paying attention, because his own flirking followers were launching an attack he'd had no idea about!

If he were less egotistical, it might have occurred to Zim that this was pretty much how the Tallest felt every time he'd screwed things up for them.

As it was, he could only grit his teeth and turn his attention back to his fight with Tak, barely dodging a fist and sweeping out with a kick that she leapt over, landing a few feet away. She tried to use the breathing room this provided to scramble up the spire and close the remaining distance to the command core, only to have to duck in order to dodge the points of Zim's PAK legs as he leapt at her. He landed just above her and kept going, Tak growling as she realized she'd fallen for such a cheap diversion, and chased after him.

By now, the two of them were very close to the top of the spire, mere yards separating them from their prize. That proximity just made their desperation to reach it first that much more intense, a fact that became clear when Tak tackled Zim's legs, collapsing him on top of her and leaving the two in a sprawl, clawing at each other, only a few feet from the top.

"Get off and stop denying Zim his rightful victory!" Zim growled, trying to elbow Tak in the face.

"Better idea — give up and accept that you're a failure!" Tak snapped, grabbing Zim by the top of his head and shoving down, using the momentum to try and push herself forward. Instead, Zim twisted his head to position his jaws so that he could bite her, jaws clamping down on her wrist. She screamed in pain, but more importantly lost her focus just long enough for Zim to break free from her grip. He lashed out with both legs, the double kick connecting with her chest to send her tumbling down the spire while the momentum sent him flying upwards, straight towards the floating core.

As Tak scrambled to stop her fall, Zim stretched his hands out, ready to grab the core…

ZAP

And that was when a stray plasma blast from one of the remaining pockets of fighting in the stands flew into the arena and hit the top of the spire. The force of the resulting explosion both sent Zim back down the spire to slam into Tak and, more importantly, sent the core flying out of the stasis beam and through the air. It tumbled over and over as it headed towards the stands, and nearly slammed into a small group, before a hand snapped up and grabbed it.

Wiyn blinked as she processed just what the item was that she'd seen out of the corner of her eye and instinctively grabbed. However, in the time it took for her to do that, the core scanned her, and the lights atop it flashed before changing color.

"Biometrics scanned and locked, owner ID confirmed," an automated voice announced, broadcast across the arena. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and stared at where Wiyn was standing, paling as she realized what had just happened.

"Uh… oops?" she offered.

In their box, the Tallest stared slack-jawed at the sight of their security chief inadvertently claiming the prize meant for one of the Invaders, effectively rendering the whole tournament moot in one fell swoop.

"So, um, what do we do now?" Purple asked after a moment, scratching the side of his head. Red responded by grinding his teeth in silent rage, before a manic spark appeared in his eyes.

"What now? I'll tell you what now — if the tournament's officially over, that means that at least we're not obligated to let that pest stay here safely anymore!" he said with a growl, activating the box's speakers and declaring, "As he's no longer a contestant, Zim is also no longer protected from the consequences of his actions! Someone bring me that mekrelmar's head!"

The shouted command echoed through the arena for a moment, and then every imperial loyalist not otherwise occupied turned their attention to where Zim was atop the spire, still staring in disbelief at where the core had ended up. The sound of them all charging their blasters as they turned to aim at him snapped him out of it, and he glared at everyone in sight.

"Zim dares someone to try it," he growled. The sheer rage in his eyes actually made the entire crowd of soldiers hesitate to attack. Tak, on the other hand, had no problem popping her PAK legs and opening fire up at him. To her surprise, he didn't try to dodge, instead projecting a spherical shield and letting the attack hit; the force of the blast sent him flying into the arena, landing on his own PAK legs as he dispersed the shield.

"An utter waste of my brilliant planning," he grumbled angrily, before raising his voice and shouting, "GIR, Skoodge, Nyx! We're leaving!"

"Aw, already?" Nyx pouted, pausing in the process of repeatedly hitting a guard in the head with the butt of her gun.

"Now!" Zim snapped, offhandedly punching aside a guard who attempted to charge him, before turning and running towards the nearest exit. GIR zoomed in from somewhere to fly after him, while Ying placed Nyx back on his shoulders and ran after them. In the arena, Skoodge watched all this and then turned a wary eye on Tenn.

"…Go ahead," she sighed, "I'm too exhausted to keep fighting for no reason. See you back on Earth."

Skoodge sighed in relief, gave a nod of thanks, and then flung himself into the stands and running for the exit, a group of guards quickly chasing after him. Tenn watched him go, before turning her attention to Tak as she approached.

"Having to practically beg my way in, doing all these stupid challenges, dealing with Zim without being allowed to hurt him for most of it… and all for nothing!" Tak growled, PAK legs stabbing into the spire's side to punctuate her point.

"Look on the bright side — at least Zim didn't win," Tenn pointed out with a shrug. Tak grumbled, but didn't argue the point, instead deciding to make her way through the dwindling chaos towards an exit. Figuring that she had the right idea in avoiding whatever tantrum the Tallest would throw once things were settled, Tenn followed her.

As for the Tallest, seeing Zim get away so quickly somehow managed to sour their moods even further than they already were. As such, their only reaction to Darth and Senior entering the room dragging several restrained and bound together NIO members behind them was to glare at them.

"And where have you two been?" Purple snapped.

"We got attacked in the break room," Senior replied, wisely leaving out what they'd been doing in there beforehand, "We tried to get back here sooner, but we kept getting jumped on the way."

"If it's any apology for our tardiness, my Tallest, my scans of these captives' minds show them all to be high-ranking members of this insurrection," Darth said, gesturing to his prisoners.

"Who cares? This entire glorified PR stunt was a total disaster!" Red snarled, "All the real Invaders lost to a bunch of washouts and Zim, we were caught entirely off guard by a bunch of crazy traitors, and the flagship we were supposed to gift to an Invader ended up going to our security chief instead!"

"Wait, what?" Senior asked, blinking and looking to the other comms officers in confusion, "What'd we miss?"

"Short version? The Dreadnut command core got blasted into Wiyn's hands and encoded on her by mistake," Xeil explained with a shrug, "So, I guess this means she's getting a promotion?"

"Well, the Control Brains won't exactly be pleased at this turn of events," Darth muttered, rubbing his head. Red opened his mouth to snap something at the Consular, only for the building to suddenly shake as the noise of an explosion sounded somewhere in the distance.

"Now what?" Purple groaned, as Peech checked a screen popping out of her PAK. The orange-eyed guard blinked in confusion at what it said, before answering Purple's question.

"According to the reports I'm getting, apparently a squad of guards bumped into a group of aliens sneaking around the lower levels," she said, everyone looking at her in surprise, except for Senior and Darth, who shared a look that wasn't noticed by the rest, "The guards tried to apprehend them, but they used explosives to blow open a wall and fled outside. The guards are in pursuit, but they appear to have a considerable head start… er, and apparently they stole the Universe's Most Comfortable Couch?"

Senior facepalmed, Darth barely avoiding doing the same as everyone else stared at Peech in confusion as that statement sank in. Then Red's eye twitched before he gave a wordless yell and slammed a fist onto a nearby chair, leaving a massive dent in the metal.

"You know what? That's it, I've had enough! Tell everyone to wrap up here and go home, or don't, I don't care! I'm out of here!" he ranted, before floating out of the room at a rapid pace.

"Er, what he said," Purple said awkwardly, before following after Red. After they left, there was a moment of silence, and then Darth broke it with a long-suffering sigh.

"And of course, I'm the one left to clean up this mess," he muttered, before composing himself and issuing orders, "Someone snap the Commander out of her surprise and have her coordinate with my Consulars to mop up the remaining rebels. Never mind the aliens, their little stunt is hardly consequential compared to the rest of what has happened."

The others quickly obeyed and relayed his commands, Senior rejoining the other comms officers to speed the process along. Taking this in and expanding his senses to feel how things were going in the arena, Darth gave another sigh. This was an unmitigated disaster, and he had the distinct feeling that the Tallest wouldn't be doing much to pick up the pieces.

He just really hoped that the Resisty and the humans got away, if only so he didn't have to explain his part in them pulling off such a ridiculously petty victory. They better be appreciating it…

Resisty Ship, Some Time Later

"This was so totally worth it," Steve sighed as he, Spleenk, and Shloonktapooxis sat on the Couch, sinking into the incredible softness of its cushions.

"Seriously?" Viera deadpanned as she Dib stood by Lard Nar and Ixane, watching as the ship flew through space.

Her annoyance was understandable, considering how they had had to fight their way all the way from the arena back to the ship, which had barely been repaired enough to take flight again. Fortunately, it had successfully managed to get off the planet and, cloak reengaged, made its way into deep space, evading the Armada's attempts to find them. Now, they were far away from any star system with no sign of Irkens anywhere, giving them all a chance to rest from all that had happened.

"Ah, come on. We went through that whole mess for practically no gain, we might as well enjoy what we did get out of it," Steve defended with a shrug.

"Don't remind me," Ixane groaned, "This is almost as bad as when we attacked the Massive."

"I wouldn't say that. At least we still have a ship this time," Lard Nar pointed out, ignoring the annoyed look Ixane shot him in response.

"Speaking from my own experience of total losses, I'd say take whatever wins you can get," Dib muttered, rubbing the side of his head.

"See, he gets it!" Shloonktapooxis chirped happily, earning eye rolls all around.

"Anyway, now that this mission is behind us, time to move on," Lard Nar announced, "We'll find a safe harbor to patch up the ship, then decide on our next course of action."

"You know, if you need a place to stay, you can come to Earth with us," Dib said after a moment's thought, a gleam entering his eye, "The Irkens don't care about it, so you can hide there for a long time… and maybe prove to the whole world that aliens exist while you're at it. And then-"

"We'll pass," Lard Nar said dryly, cutting Dib off, "No offense to you personally, but I've read too many accounts of first contact situations that end with the peaceful visitors getting shot by panicky locals to take that risk."

"Dammit," Dib grumbled in disgruntlement.

"Worth a shot," Viera said, patting his shoulder reassuringly.

"That being said, I think it'd be a good idea to keep a line of communication open between our groups," Ixane commented, tossing a communicator to Dib, who caught it in surprise.

"Really?" he asked with a smile.

"It could be beneficial to be able to contact each other if the need arises," Ixane explained, before narrowing her eyes in warning and adding, "That being said, this is for emergencies, not just for a chat."

"Got it," Dib said with a nod, carefully pocketing the communicator.

A few minutes later, a beeping sound drew everyone's attention to the console where the ship's pilot, the large being without a head to contain his floating brain whose name was apparently Cranax, was seated.

"Captain, we've reached the spot where we picked up the humans," he announced.

"Excellent," Lard Nar replied, before turning to Dib and the twins, "Unless I'm mistaking your navigational skills, you should be able to find your way home from here. Good luck with Zim, and I hope we'll meet again some day."

More such well wishes and goodbyes were exchanged, and soon Team Save Earth were back in their Spittle Runner. Powering it up, they flew out of the Resisty's ship and zoomed off, heading back towards Earth.

This had definitely been more complicated than the day trip they'd been planning, but they couldn't say it hadn't been worth it. Sure, the whole thing they'd been caught up in hadn't really accomplished much when it came to fighting the Irkens, but they had managed to make some allies, who were sure to be important at some point in the future.

But for now, they could focus on more immediate concerns closer to home, and leave the wider galaxy to its own devices.

The Massive, Same Time

To say the mood on the Massive's bridge was tense was a huge understatement. As after-action reports had come in, it had become clear that while the Miz followers had failed to kill anyone important, many of the Elite were nonetheless seriously inured, and there was significant property damage, all of which further fed the Tallest's anger. Not to mention that Zim's group had managed to escape in the chaos and flee the planet.

And that was without addressing the ship-sized elephant in the room.

"And you're sure you can't get the ship's computers to release you as its commander?" Red asked with a groan, looking to the screen showing Wiyn onboard the bridge of the Dreadnut.

"I'm afraid not, my Tallest," Wiyn replied with a wince, as her newfound crew milled about behind her, "The core is completely hardwired to not accept a new commander now that it's bonded to me. The technicians say we'd have an easier time rebuilding the ship from scratch than finding a way to override it."

"Whose bright idea was this stupid setup?!" Purple demanded of the assembled Advisors, who were standing nearby.

"My Tallest, you ordered-" one of them stammered, which only earned him Purple's immediate ire.

"Throw him off the roof!" Purple commanded.

"My Tallest, we're back onboard a ship," Peech pointed out with a weary sigh from her spot by the bridge entrance.

"…Oh yeah. Throw him out the airlock!" Purple cheered. As the Advisor was dragged away, he turned to Red with a grin and added, "Man, I missed saying that!"

Red smacked him upside the head, then turned his attention back to the screen.

"Fine then, we'll have to make the most of this," he grumbled, "Commander Wiyn, I am hereby officially reassigning you to command of the Dreadnut. Your first orders are to track down those alien rebels who stole the couch that we never should have let Larb keep for himself!"

"Er, what?" Wiyn blinked, "My Tallest, wouldn't it be wiser to focus on Miz's followers, now that they've proven themselves a genuine threat?"

"Psh, please, those lunatics clearly don't know what they're doing. They're not a threat," Red scoffed, "But these lower lifeforms who dared strike against their betters? That is something we cannot allow to go unpunished. In fact, if anything, they're probably the ones who convinced those masked idiots to attack us!"

"…I'm not following that logic," Senior commented from his station, frowning in confusion.

"Well, no Irken would act that like that on their own, even if they were Defective," Purple spoke up, "So obviously, those dumb rebels used Miz's speeches to trick them all into doing it so they could steal the couch!"

Everyone else stared at the Tallest as they tried to process how much they were stretching things to try and justify this decision. Naturally, neither of them noticed this reaction and pressed on.

"Clearly, everything that's happened today is all their fault," Red stated firmly, "So, we need to track them down and punish them, and that will allow everything to go back to normal."

"Right, so Wiyn will hunt them while the Invaders go back to their assignments, and… hey, did we ever let them out of the Holding Pen?" Purple said, before trailing off as that point occurred to him.

Everyone blinked as they processed what he'd said, then Red facepalmed.

"Oh, for Irk's sake," he muttered, "Someone send the order to release them all, and get the Armada ready to move out again. Commander, you have your orders, see to them. Understood?"

"Yes, my Tallest. I will hunt these filthy beings to the ends of the galaxy and exterminate them for daring to strike against their natural superiors!" Wiyn proclaimed with a salute.

"Yeah, that's great. Now someone get us out of this dump already!" Red snapped, turning back towards the bridge crew. Taking that as his cue, Senior cut the transmission to the Dreadnut, and then went about relaying Red's orders to the rest of the Armada.

And as the ships started mobilizing, he couldn't help but wonder which act was going to backfire more — downplaying the threat of the NIO, or suddenly treating the otherwise ignorable Resisty as a serious problem.

XXXXXXX

Onboard the Dreadnut, Wiyn kept up her calm facade right until the connection to the Massive was ended, at which point she scowled and slammed her fist into a nearby console.

"Problem, Commander?" Mook asked from where he was standing nearby.

"Yes, there's a damn problem!" she snapped, "I was security chief on the Massive, one of the most prestigious positions in the whole damn Empire, and now I'm stuck on a wild Gorchnar chase after a bunch of insignificant wannabe rebels!"

"For what it's worth, ma'am, being the first commanding officer of this ship should still carry with it a certain amount of prestige, despite the circumstances," Mook pointed out.

"Fair point," Wiyn muttered, before giving him a curious look, "By the way, why did you volunteer to transfer over here with me? I would have suggested you for a promotion to fill my post."

"I'm not ambitious, Commander," he explained, "I'm a follower, not a leader, and therefore much more comfortable as an adjunct than being in charge."

"Hmph, I suppose someone knowing their place like that is ideal," Wiyn mused. After a moment, she straightened herself out and said, "Well then, we have orders to fulfill. Tell the navigators to set course for Shipyardia; we'll recruit a few squads from one of the reserve fleets as support, and then we'll begin a sector-by-sector search for those worms. There's only so many places they can hide."

"Yes, Commander," Mook replied with a salute. As he walked off to pass on her orders, Wiyn turned to look out the viewscreen, watching as the Armada departed without her. A part of her felt a stab of anger at the sight, aimed at the Tallest for giving her such a ridiculous assignment just because of a flawed design that they made, but she quickly quashed that thought. She was an Irken soldier, and she would do her duty, no matter how small. And like it or not, her job was now to find this band of rebellious idiots and eliminate them. Then, she could return to her place by the Tallest's side, and help put down Miz's traitorous followers and any other actual threats that might emerge against the Empire's glorious regime.

With that thought in mind, Wiyn smirked, standing before the viewscreen with her hands clasped behind her back as the Dreadnut began moving, leaving Conventia behind.

The hunt was on.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

End Episode 11

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

A/N: Whoo! Finally done! I really hope this super-long chapter satisfies everyone after so long a wait.

If anyone's wondering, all the Invader names are canon, taken from the official list on the IZ wiki.

The name I gave to Ixane's species, Shadran, is taken from the epic space opera The Rise of Tallest Tenn by Galactic Rainbow over on AO3. I highly recommend it.

Regarding Wiyn's mission to hunt down the Resisty: I consider this whole two-part episode as a sort of backdoor pilot for a spin-off I have planned which would be based on the Resisty fighting the Irkens, and which would therefore follow up on this plot. I can't make any promises about when that would be coming out, but keep an eye out for it.

Anyway, I think that's about everything I have to say, except to again apologize for the wait, and to hope that everyone's staying safe out there.

Next time: An experiment of Zim's gone wrong traps everyone in TV land.

Until then, please review!