A.N. Once upon a time, there was a silly 16-year-old who loved Invader Zim so much, she wrote endless ZATR fanfiction and posted them online. Life eventually got in the way, and she stopped.

Then, over three years later, she decided she wanted to at least finish up her one unfinished fic in her series, so now she's going at it.

In other words, yes, an update. For all who reviewed these past few years, thanks a lot for your feedback. Hopefully some of you will return for this chapter.

There are some differences in the writing, as I am older and such, and also, I have opted to stop doing the flashback scenes that I put in previous chapters, simply because it distracted from the main story, and I was running out of ideas on that end.

Slaytians are a made-up race that were first shown in my first fic, "Emotion Sickness." I don't expect many people to remember that.

This chapter's incredibly uneventful, but it's setting up future happenings and all. Enjoy.


Chapter 6- Old Faces

Zim's butt hurts.

Well, actually, Zim's whole body hurts; after getting thrown into his cell carelessly (yet forcefully) by Pleecy, and slamming against the metal bars, every inch of him aches. And after enduring hours alone in Pleecy's police pod with nothing else to listen to but her incessant, cheerful chatter, his brain aches as well.

But right now, his butt hurts the most, as he's been sitting on it in his cramped cell for awhile now. He shifts his body uncomfortably, so he's facing the hundreds of neighboring cells in the prison.

When he had first arrived, being escorted by Pleecy and two Irken guards, all the prisoners had been observing him with great interest; with disgust even, as he couldn't help but notice the cells seemed to be occupied by every other race in the galaxy except his own. But now, not a single creature is looking at him.

In fact, no one seems to be moving or making a sound; it's only when the Irken prison guards exit the area, with a pair of large doors closing behind them, do the prisoners begin to make noise.

As the volume of the various chatter, complaints or snide remarks increases, Zim can barely make out the direction where an unfamiliar voice snaps, "You there! Irken!"

It's male, with a similar accent to Tak's; but as Zim glances around frantically, he can't make out its source. It could be anyone.

"Ewuh? Who? ME?" Zim asks in a grand voice, though he can't cover up how perplexed he is.

As he continues to determine who spoke to him, the voice continues, "Yes, you! Now, look over here! No, the other direction-no! To your left! Your other left! Why are you looking up, I told you-"

Finally, Zim's eyes rest on an irritated looking Vortian, stationed several cells away; once they make eye contact, the Vortian waves his arms, and shouts, "Yes! You've got it!"

"I've got what?"

"Oh, never mind! Just . . ." The Vortian trails off, his eyes darting back and forth suspiciously before proceeding in a stage whisper, "What do you say to aiding one another-"

"AIDS?" Zim shouts, his exclamation ringing out over the other prisoners' voices. A number of them glare at him, while others simply shake their heads in disapproval.

"No!" The Vortian snaps, still in a stage whisper, his patience clearly running out. "We can assist one another in order to break out of here!"

"Ha! As if I'd need your assistance, Vortian slime!" Zim proclaims smugly. "I've already devised an ingenious scheme to get out of here on my own!

He's lying.

The guards forgot to remove his handcuffs before, so he's spent the last hour and a half trying to do it himself. By gnawing on it. It didn't work.

So in the meantime, he's spent no time scheming anything.

The Vortian releases an exasperated sigh, but replies as pleasantly as possible, "Oh, I'm sure it's a grand scheme and all, but you might need back up-"

"NEVER!"

"Forget it, Lard Nar," another voice chimes in; this time, it's from one of the cells between Zim and the Vortian. Female. A Slaytian. "No use reasoning with him. He's still Irken."

"EXACTLY!" Zim and the Vortian shout in unison.

And before Zim has any time to go on with some nonsense about how Irkens are above working with inferior races, the Vortian (presumably Lard Nar) begins to explain in a lively voice, "Their PAKs can't be deactivated unless they're found guilty during their trial!"

"So . . .?" the Slaytian female remarks. Zim can't help but notice an enormous scar across her forehead.

If this is who he thinks it is, then he hopes she doesn't remember him. He nervously avoids making eye contact.

"So!" Lard Nar continues. "In the meantime, they still have their fancy . . . doo hickeys . . . inside their PAKs! The rest of us had all our personal items stripped away, but I'm sure if we're resourceful enough, he can USE one his doo hickeys to break us out!"

"Brilliant," the Slaytian mutters sarcastically, crossing her arms and leaning against her cell.

Zim turns his back on them, mostly because the Slaytian keeps glancing at him suspiciously.

"So what do you say, Irken?" Lard Nar calls out.

"My doo hickeys are mine alone!"

Zim attempts to raise a defiant fist in the air with the statement, but the handcuffs prevent him from doing so. He just hits himself in the head on accident.


Dib wakes up from his nap in a frenzy.

"Dammit! Kacer!" His voice echoes around the room, and at first, he doesn't hear a response.

Then, faintly, "Dib? Are you awake?" travels through to his ears.

Jolting up from the ground, Dib races along the curb of the metal balcony towards the direction of Kacer's voice, shouting along the way, "Kacer! Finals! I totally forgot we're going to miss them-"

He screeches to a halt as he approaches his girlfriend, who's kneeling beside the four smeets in a dimly-lit corner.

"Salutations!" Plix greets him pleasantly.

Dib pays no mind to the greeting, and JooJee pushes her twin to the ground as she runs to Dib, teeth bared. Dib, now used to JooJee harming him every time he enters a room, lifts his boot up so the tiny smeet slams into that. She falls backwards, shakes it off, and runs into his boot again. Over and over.

Dib, struggling to keep balance on one foot, looks back to Kacer purposefully.

"What were you saying?" Kacer asks, her eyes fixed more on JooJee than her boyfriend.

Dib inhales sharply, before explaining, "It'll take a week for the car to get fixed-"

"We went over this-"

"Let me finish! It'll take a week, but finals start this week. We need to leave on bus or train or something to get back-"

"Dib!" Kacer glances at all the smeets, then says in a dramatic whisper, "We can't leave the children!"

"Well-fine, we can bring them-"

"Tak said to stay here."

"Who knows when she'll be back!"

"It can't be that long, she left hours ago."

"Kacer, she's traveling into space. Space is BIG. It may take longer than a few hours."

"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid! I hate it when you do that!"

"Then don't say stupid things!"

JooJee slams into Dib's boot a final time, and he loses balance. Falling back against the ground, Dib's eye catches something strange. Ignoring JooJee and Clox's laughter, he stands up and leans over the balcony's railing. Below him, it's pitch black, aside from a faint, faint glow along the side.

"What's a'matter, Dib?" Pin asks, abandoning a scowling Kacer to stand beside him.

More to himself than the smeet, Dib answers, "What is that?"

"Perhaps we should inspect it at a closer range to determine the nature of the glow?" Plix suggests with a smile as he joins them.

"Dib," Kacer protests, "don't go down there, it could be dangerous, you know?"

But Dib just grins at Plix and Pin, and without even acknowledging Kacer, climbs over the balcony.

A part of it's his curious nature, and another part is the duty he feels as a paranormal investigator to . . . well, investigate. But a small part of it's also that he wants to piss off Kacer, as much as he can.

It works.


Tak hasn't even arrived at her destination and her plan's already ruined. Not that she had much of a plan anyway.

But Gir, who should've been left on Earth, jumped into the voot cruiser last minute, and after a sequence of Tak screaming at him, and Gir simply dancing destructively in response, Mimi is somehow in pieces, Gir is asleep, and the voot cruiser is just barely running.

Then again, the voot cruiser had barely been running before Gir's dancing (thank you, speedy repair job done by children).

As the small ship jerks along unreliably, Tak turns on her wrist communicator, and contacts Joon. For the fifth time in the past hour.

"I told you, Tak," Joon snaps, his voice muffled and tinny through the speakers, "if you keep calling me, I'll have no choice but to inform the Tallest of your actions."

"But I haven't done anything yet!"

"But if you're planning on it, and I do nothing to stop you, that's . . . that's just as bad as being your accomplice! We'll both be in deep shit!"

Tak's arms fly in the air as she grunts in frustration.

"Gah, Joon, just . . . I'm sorry for dragging you into this, okay?"

"Thank you. Now can I-"

"But I'm going to do this anyway."

"Dammit, Tak! . . . Fine, do it! But stop telling me!"

"But I need your help!"

"I-CAN'T-HELP-YOU."

The voot cruiser jerks suddenly and Tak moves with it, slamming headfirst into the control panel. Wincing in pain, she rubs her head, and attempts to reason with Joon in a much softer tone.

"Joon . . . you know-" Tak pauses to release a heavy sigh, "You know Steg?"

"Um, yeah kid, he was my brother."

"Well . . . you know how I, uh . . . loved him?"

Joon sighs as well and replies, "Yeah . . ."

"Well, Zim . . . he's stupider than Steg. And shorter. And-and . . .just a total idiot, but . . . I mean, I still wish Steg were alive, but . . . Zim . . .he's as important as Steg was. More important. So . . . I just . . . I need your help. Please."

Silence follows.

Tak blinks some tears away (thankful that the fuzzy picture on the wrist communicators prevent Joon from seeing her cry), then glances to Gir, who's begun to snore obnoxiously. She didn't know robots could even snore in the first place.

Finally, Joon sighs again and says, "Fine. What do you need me for?"

Instantly brightening up, Tak begins listing things off quickly, "I need information of the prison's security system, and to download some holographic disguises, preferably of a police officer or a prison guard, in which case I'll need an existing ID number to get in, and some references for the holograms. Also, if you could find the schedules they keep the prisoners on, and-Oh! Even better, if you could find out which area of the prison Zim's cell is located, I'll waste less time trying to find it . . . and then maybe get the time for Zim's trial."

"Why can't you just see how he does in the trial?"

"You know he'll be found guilty."

"Right. Whatever."

"So can you do all that."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll try."

"You're the best, Joon."

As Tak's about to turn off the communicator, her friend adds, "Oh , uh . . .if you ever see Pleecy, just don't . . .tell her I helped you, okay?"

"Why would she care?"

"She's kind of . . . um. Just don't. Okay?"

And with that, the transmission's cut.

End of Chapter 6 . . .


Dib freaking out about finals wouldn't have happened if I had written this part in high school. Because finals were not important to me back then. Haha.

And I'm excited to explore the Lard Nar/Zim interaction. It's fun. Lard Nar's excuse for needing Zim's help was kind of lame, but eh, I needed something. I wanted them to talk.

Anyway, there's a vague idea bouncing around in my brain as to where this story is heading, but it's just vague, so . . . yeah.

I'm not guaranteeing the next chapter will be written anytime soon, as school is starting up again, but hey. There's still some summer left, and then a very long winter break. So, who knows?

See you in three years! (Just kidding) . . . (I hope.)

You can review, but you don't have to.