Gah! Why have I been such a horrible uploader lately? I'm sorry, truly sorry, everybody! Anyway, here's the penultimate chapter! The main fight ends here, and we've also got some stage-setting for the rest of the saga. I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, Jhonen Vasquez does. I only own Kloof and the contents of this story.

The Betrayal

Rewrite Ch. 5

To Err is Irken

The service drone nervously crawled out from his improvised hiding place (a picnic-style table here in the thirteenth sector snack bar), temporarily lifting the miniature table that his job forced him to carry on his head and scratching his scalp. He thought a large red cannonball had been fired into the hull of the Massive, but cannonballs didn't have arms… or legs… or horns. In fact, now that he got a good look at the cannonball, it looked more like an Irken of short-medium height wearing a green visor and red full-body armor of some type he'd never seen before. The Irken was still alive, certainly – he was twitching, and his teeth were gritted. His chest plate was burnt nearly black, and had cracked from the heat and force of whatever struck him, but he was definitely alive. "Sir?" the drone asked nervously, his pink eyes darting around as he looked for whatever could have blasted this Irken so hard. "Are you alright, sir?"

The Irken reached up with one large, three-fingered hand and grabbed the drone's shirt, smiling rather alarmingly. "Never better."

---

"Kill, kill, kill, kill the filthy traitor!" Zim sang as he hopped through roughly Kloof-shaped holes in the wall. He had just come up with the song. Catchy, yes? "Slice, slice, sli-oof!" Zim was temporarily halted as he jumped through the last whole, as an unconscious table-headed service drone collided with him table-first. Quickly pulling himself up to his feet, Zim heaved the swords forward, using their weight to throw himself through the last hole. Kloof had gotten to his feet, smiling. "What are you smiling about? You're not allowed to smile!" Zim yelled.

"I'm enjoying myself immensely," Kloof explained. "Pushing this new body to the limit, smashing anybody who gets in my way, it's euphoric! I feel INDESTRUCTIBLE!" He reared back his head and laughed the kind of laugh that makes you take two giant steps back from somebody.

After taking two giant steps back, Zim yelled in reply, "You look pretty destructible to me! Especially since I have your swords now!" Grunting, Zim lifted the crackling blades. "And they're obviously the source of your power!" He ran forward and attacked with a double downward slash that could have chopped Kloof's arms off. Kloof, however, just sidestepped, and Zim stumbled, totally off-balance. "Urgh, so heavy!"

"A weapon's only as good as the Irken holding it, Zim. Don't you know that?" Kloof proceeded to lift an entire picnic table. "Incidentally, those swords were built for somebody with tireless mechanical arms."

"Oh, that's bad," Zim said. He dropped the swords and tried to jump away, but his efforts were in vain.

"Batter UP!" Kloof struck Zim with a two-handed swing of the table, putting his whole body into it. Zim was knocked back through the wall he had entered through… two walls… three walls… before he knew it, he bounced off the far wall of the room the fight had begun in and fell to the floor with an unceremonious thud.

"Hiya, mastah!" Gir was sitting no more than ten feet from Zim's landing site, propped up against the wall with a sparking Minimoose next to him.

"Oh, hello, Gir," Zim replied dazedly. Suddenly, he was lifted off the floor and planted back into the wall by a large red blur carrying a shiny blur.

"You've really delayed me, Zim," the red blur chuckled as it coalesced into Kloof. "You know, I wonder… if I chop you up into little bitty pieces, if the Empire will be willing to spend money fixing what's left like they did for me?" He brought up the shiny blur, which Zim now realized was his sword.

"Gir! Eye lasers!"

"Yes sir!" Gir fired his lasers, temporarily entering Duty Mode, but it was in vain. Kloof ducked the beams and slashed with his sword, releasing another wave of force which struck Gir in the face and disabled the lasers.

"Goodbye, Zim. It's been fun playing." Zim squeezed his eyes tight as Kloof pulled his sword back. However, the sound of boots beating against the metal floor in unison was becoming increasingly loud, causing both Zim and Kloof to turn.

A large regiment of Irken guards with shock prods had shown up. Some had rifles as well. "Sir," the female guard in the lead said, "We're here to help you capture him." She was speaking to Kloof, referring to Zim.

Neither Kloof nor Zim realized this.

As Zim let out a sigh of relief, Kloof screamed in fury. "DAMN! I'm too late!" He turned and threw Zim much as he had thrown the service drone, beaning the guard in the head and knocking her and Zim to the ground. "So be it! Whether I die or not, none of you will leave this hallway alive!" Drawing his other sword, he rushed into the confused mass of guards, slashing away. Forgotten in the confusion, Zim was accidentally kicked in the head, and rolled back to a wall. Despite his efforts to stay alert, he quickly faded to unconsciousness.

---

Dib whistled as he walked back to the rendezvous point. A deactivated SIR unit, eyes dark and blank, was slung over his shoulders – he was surprised at how light it was. Of course, Gir had once clung to the back of his head without him noticing, so maybe he shouldn't be. He had gotten the SIR unit without incident, and pulled wires out at random from various loose panels (he had accidentally disabled that room's artificial gravity, which made him wonder how wise it was to just screw with various systems on a spaceship). He hadn't gone lost, and he was almost back to where Gaz was supposed to meet them – it was almost too easy!

He turned to look out the window, and noticed Gaz flying by in the Squidge Gunship. Then he saw the various Voot Cruisers, Spittle Runners, and other ships chasing after it. He sighed; it was definitely too easy.

---

Zim's eyes fluttered open, registering somebody vague peering down at him. Damn, he hadn't meant to pass out. How long had he been unconscious? His underdeveloped panic faded when his PAK assured him it had only been a few minutes. Then the panic started up again, in full swing, when he realized what he was seeing. "Tak?"

"Yyyyyyes, Zim?" Her teeth were grinding; she sounded like she was under a lot of stress.

"Why are you pointing that knife at me?"

"I'm trying to decide whether I should kill you or not."

"I vote not."

"Shut up, Zim." The knife was shaking in her hand; in fact, her whole body was shaking. "I… hate you… so… much... I haven't relaxed in fifty years, Zim. You ruined my life! You turned Kloof from a prime Irken soldier into… that ABOMINATION!" She frantically pointed the knife off to the side, where Zim realized the fight was still going on. It was horrifying; none of the guards' weapons were working, Kloof was just tearing through them like wet construction paper. A bit of dark green Irken blood flew from one of his swords nearly thirty feet, spattering just short of where Zim lay at Tak's mercy. "Your bumbling idiocy has hit our people like a holocaust!"

"You're just jealous," Zim retorted, still bleary-eyed. Was he concussed?

"YARGH!" Tak brought the knife down… into the floor. "I can't do it. DAMN IT ALL, I can't kill you! Not here… not like this." Tak picked up Mimi. "Good-bye, Zim. I hope you don't escape before Kloof decides to kill you too. And if you do, you can count on me to come back and finish the job someday soon." And then she was gone, disappearing down a side corridor.

"That was frightening," Zim admitted as he pulled himself to his feet. He frowned deeply; no spider legs, and Gir and Minimoose were badly damaged. He had to get out of here with both of them, and fast. "Minimoose, can you fly?"

Minimoose squeaked pitifully.

"That's not good. Gir, can you walk?"

"Well, I can't move my legs. BAD LEGS!" Gir grabbed his severed left leg and began banging it against the ground.

Zim growled. "Mad dookie! I can't carry you both!"

"Oh… well I can just do this!" Gir flipped himself over and hand-walked along the ground, his antenna dragging and creating a few sparks. "I learned to do this from tha TV!"

"That's great, Gir, let's just… let's just get out of here." Zim grabbed Minimoose and, carrying him by the antlers, stumbled off in the general direction of his Voot, Gir hand sprinting behind him.

---

"You!" Kloof slammed the last guard, the female he had initially hit with Zim, into the wall with his elbow in her gut (she was taller than him, so he couldn't press his forearm to her throat like he would have preferred to). "Who told you that I intended to assassinate the Tallest?"

"I… what?" the guard managed to wheeze.

"WHO?!" The point of Kloof's sword came very close to where her nose would be.

"Nobody told us… we were here to help you arrest Zim."

Kloof let her drop. "…Really?"

She began to laugh quietly. "But the Tallest… they've been watching this on the security cameras… which have sound. They just HEARD you were going to assassinate them! You just confessed, TRAITOR!" She was in full-blown cackling mode now.

"DAMMIT!" Kloof ran her through with his sword, cutting off her cackle with a sort of choking gurgle. "There are going to be hundreds more guards after me, and the Tallest will have AMPLE time to escape, even if I do fight through them all! Should I try anyway? No... no, I need to get to the extraction point. I can't just put Dib and Gaz's lives on the line with mine for a fool's errand like this, and I'm more useful to the Resisty ALIVE."

Kloof began to sprint for the point they had agreed on, bowling over any Irken he happened to pass and even reaching his arms out to clothesline the ones that made way. This all happened because I let my bloodlust get the better of me... I failed my most important mission! I will NEVER let my desire for battle control me again! I swear it!

---

"Heyyyy..." Purple said. "That guy's trying to kill us! That's not good... yes, I'm almost sure it's not good! Should we be panicking?!"

"No, sir, you should be alright. We have many, many guards after the traitor, and he will be made to pay for his crimes."

"I thought it was impossible for Irkens to betray the Empire," Red said loudly, scratching his head.

"Yeah, I remember somebody telling us that..." Purple added. He scanned his advisors, then picked one entirely at random. "YOU! You said that!"

"My Tallest, I assure you I said nothing of the sort."

"Lies!" Purple threw a donut at his head. "You were wrong! Red, let's punish him!"

"Alright. Should we have him thrown out the airlock?" Red asked casually, munching on his own donut.

"Nah, there are too many Irkens on the ship dying already. Let's just demote him to janitor drone."

Red pointed at Purple, then at his forehead. "Good thinking, man. There's a lot of blood to wipe up down on the first sublevel right now."

The poor advisor just hung his head and groaned.

---

"Kloof?" Dib looked surprised for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. Kloof had gone to assassinate what amounted to two kings in their throne room. Succeed or fail, he'd make his exit sprinting.

"Mission failed, but at least we're ALIVE!" Kloof grabbed Dib by the arm as he ran by, almost dragging Dib along. "How about you?"

"I got you a SIR!" Dib gasped.

"Excellent! I knew I could count on you, Dib! This is the right hangar, yeah?"

"Yeah, I think so." Kloof didn't even bother to wait the half-second for the door to slide open - his body made for an effective battering ram. Dib followed him through the broken doorway. "Kloof, Gaz is being pursued!"

"Shit, really?" Gaz chose that moment to come crashing in through closed hangar doors. The gunship was battered and scratched as the door popped open.

"Get. The hell. In," Gaz hissed, and Dib and Kloof didn't waste any time complying.

"At least we have weapons," Kloof sighed as he plopped down in the copilot's chair and Dib threw the deactivated SIR in the back. "The Massive is one thing, but this baby can bust through a hastily formed blockade of small Irken craft in the right hands. And I'm pretty sure Gaz and I are the right hands."

"About that..." Gaz said as she flew out the same hole she had just created. "Tak shut down our weapons systems when she attacked."

End Of Chapter

Oh noes! How will Dib, Gaz and Kloof get out of this one? Or will they not get out at all?! Find out next week in the thrilling conclusion!