Chapter V: Invasion

"Oh Irk..."

Gaz couldn't help but agree with her boyfriend as she stared up at the odd ships hovering over Membrane City. The vessels weren't the stereotypical disks that every alien flick made them out to be, however, they were not like the organic vessels that Gaz had come to know either.

These vessels were dark, and she wasn't only thinking of the color of the ship's metallic shells when she thought that. There seemed to be a dark aura emitting from the vessels, an evil presence perhaps.

"Are those...doors?" Zim wondered aloud as he peered up at the creepy star ships floating above his head.

He realized with a start that they were doors. Blast doors.

Oh crap...

As soon as the hanger bay doors had fully opened, an assortment of every class of ship Zim had ever seen came raining down upon the city. Drop ships, attack ships, bombers, support transports, communication drones, scouting probes. Anything and everything was pouring out of the vessels and flying towards Membrane City.

"Zim..." Gaz started to say, only for an explosion to interrupt her as the fighters and bombers began to unload their payloads across the city. Laser fire filled the sky as various buildings began to explode or catch fire while the bows of the larger vessels began to glow.

"Brace yourself love-pig!" Zim roared before the first star ship fired its main cannon. The laser blast roared down towards the center of the city and leveled an area several blocks in diameter. Immediately the earth shook around them and the massive wave of air from the explosion blasted the young couple clear out of their tree and onto the hard ground below.

While they were recovering their wits, the other ships began to fire salvos as well and more of Membrane City began to burn.

"We have to find my brother and Tak!" Gaz snapped and Zim nodded before they stood up from the ground.

"Agreed," Zim said before they began to move towards the general direction of the former Membrane household, or at least where the ruins of it was.

The two remained quiet as they retraced their steps to Dib and Tak. They backtracked through the lengthy, and admittedly random, course that Gaz had first taken when she had first been running off for a good ten minutes before Gaz finally spoke up.

"Zim, do you have any idea who those guys are?" Gaz asked as they picked up their pace—the after effects from the blast had worn off by now.

"No," Zim said, but Gaz could tell he was lying. He knew something then, but why lie to her?

Before Gaz could interrogate Zim on his dishonesty, a bright orange laser blast shot out from the foliage ahead of them and missed Zim's forehead by mere centimeters.

"Watch out!" Zim cried before he tackled Gaz to the ground as a burst of laser fire followed the initial single shot. While they were still on the ground, a trio of creatures wearing body armor burst out of the treeline and into the semi-spacious clearing that Zim and Gaz had been running through.

The creatures stood slightly taller than the average human, however, they were hunched over so Zim could only assume they were actually much taller. They were all encased in a dark, bulky set of armor that covered every inch of them, so he could not discern what the creatures' skin color was. The helmet was shaped almost like an egg of sorts, with a light gray visor protecting as well as obscuring their face from view or damage. The armor's shapeless design prevented Zim from discovering much at all about the creature's physical form other than the obvious humanoid makeup.

The creatures screamed something in an unknown language and fired off more laser bursts at the Irken and the Human. Zim, however, grabbed Gaz and yanked them off towards cover behind a nearby tree.

"If you happen to have a blaster..." Gaz growled as she glared up at Zim from her spot pressed against the tree. Normally, she didn't mind Zim pressing her against some random surface somewhere, but right now, there were aliens shooting at them. Privately, she was beginning to suspect the invasion had something to do with her father's death. That meant those alien freakbags were partially responsible for separating her from her father forever. That meant they had to pay. That meant she had to doom them.

"Would you really believe the great Zim would never have an assortment of useful milit-" Zim was cut off as a laser blast blew through the wood of the tree and, once again, missed his face by mere centimeters. "One moment," Zim said quickly before mentally ordering his Pak to quickly cycle through the available weapons contained within it.

Once the Pak had found a suitable weapon for Gaz, it ejected it from a side slot within the outer shell casing and the blaster landed perfectly in Gaz's waiting hand. A quick moment later and it ejected another weapon for Zim as well.

"Just like Vampire Piggy Combatants?" Gaz asked teasingly as they waited one more moment, allowing their doomed foes to creep just that much closer.

"No," Zim said with a smirk at his love-pig, "these creatures don't have a boss to defend them."

"Me likee," Gaz said before spinning around from the cover of the tree and firing off quick, precise shots from her blaster. The bright red bolts zoomed across what little open space remained between her and the alien creatures and each bolt hit home on the aliens body armor. Two of the creatures dropped immediately from head shots but one remained standing while clutching at a chest wound.

"Gaz!" Zim roared in fear as he too spun out from the cover of the tree. To his horror, he saw the sole remaining creature recover enough to raise its rifle at Gaz. Rather than charge forward and take the blast for Gaz like a moron, Zim quickly, but calmly, raised his own blaster and fired off a bolt of his own. The bolt hit the creature solidly in the chest and knocked it over onto its back. Zim had probably put too much energy into the shot, but for Gaz Zim was always willing to err on the side of overkill.

Once he had made sure that Gaz was safe, Zim advanced cautiously towards the downed alien and began to check for any signs of life. Once he was sure that the creature had passed on to the other side, and only then, did Zim return to Gaz.

"We really have to find my brother and Tak now," Gaz said softly as she eyed the smoking corpses with disgust. They hadn't even really put up a fight...

Zim opened his mouth to respond, however, he was once again interrupted as his cell phone went off. Pulling it out from his pocket, Zim saw that the caller was Dib. Above Dib's name was a single word: Urgent!

"Hello?"

"Zim, we're at your base," Dib said, his voice was equal amounts of terror and awe. "You had better get over here as fast as you can, the Computer found something you have to see."