(The usual I don't own Zim stuff and original characters are mine yada yada. On with the fic. I had to upgrade the story from T to M because of this chapter)
Unfortunately two things were wrong with their little teleportation trip, it wasn't set up for humans yet and it wasn't a straight jump they had to go through several stations before they reached Earth, they were on jump number three when the station went down.
"How long before the teleporters are back up?" Zim growled at a station attendant, the incoming signals still worked for a while before they too went down and now the station was quite crowded, which was partly why Zim was in such a bad mood "We don't even know why they went down in the first place and we have also lost all incoming and outgoing transmissions were floating blind and there is no way of contacting other stations", Kim's head shot up at the news "sounds like a trap!" she reacted immediately to the sound of a explosion and was the fist to be taken down by some weird clear goo which hardened on contact, her upper half of her body was completely covered aside from her head which left her free to curse in every language she knew which included some Dib hadn't even heard before. Whoever was attacking was smart they were taking all the Irkens down first, the clear goo immobilizing them and their formable paks, it wasn't long before the entire station was captured. Dib tried to struggle out of the goo confining him, he then tried to shift to human to break it but he found he couldn't even try; something was blocking that ability, which is probably why Kim was swearing a blue streak.
With everyone secured the attackers made themselves known.
"WE have claimed this station in the name of the Resity, You are now hostages, in a short while we will be making our demands to the Irken leaders, if they cooperate and free the planets on our list, you will be freed" all the Irkens on the station started laughing one called out "Fools there is no such thing as a Irken hostage, it doesn't mater if we live or die as long as we serve the empire"
"Sir I've found some Irkens dressed in Earth blue uniforms, No humans among them though" "That's who were looking for, bring them here. Only be careful with them they are far more dangerous than they look." they all struggled as they were picked up, Kim still cursing switched to a particular language which Dib suspected was the aliens who were carrying them native tongue, as she had gotten a cuff across the head after a short run of what sounded to be particularly nasty insults, she smiled and laughed said one short sentence which had the aliens blanch, Dib had no idea what she said but he guessed it had something to do with what she'd do to them if she got free. They were deposited in front of a group of aliens, each one of a different species, a little purple one with horns was in front "Ah Zim unpleasant to meet you again, which one is Dib? And who are the two others" "Not nice to see you Lord Nar, If you want to find out who's who ask them yourself"
"I'll do it Lord Nar" a huge reptilian creature with a impressive set of scars across his chest stepped forward, Dib didn't want to meet the creature that did that to him it looked like the claws had torn the muscle right down to the bone, the reptilian scooped up Kim "No matter what form you wear I always find my bounty, You may have got away from me 200 years ago, but now look who's the helpless one" "Crafraux I'm surprised you survived, you know you're the only bounty hunter who tried to claim on me who lived to tell the tail" "Because of you I lost my reputation! I always get my bounty always!" "Not this time I'm afraid my bounty is null an void, you see I turned myself in and my trial has already been held, which means no more bounty for you to collect" "I heard they rewarded you, gave you your true love back," Crafraux was really sneering now he continued "And they made you a full citizen, you don't deserve anything they have given you, if I can't collect my bounty I will extract my vengeance on your hide" he reached up and grabbed one of Kim's long delicate lekku, bending it elicited a shriek from her, Ber shrieked as well and lunged forward "there is the boyfriend so the other must be Dib, you take him and I'll have my fun here" he continued to bend and twist her lekku, Lord Nar spoke up
"This wasn't part of the deal we need her as well to negotiate with Earth and I wouldn't recommend doing that any further, deliberately harming an Irkens lekku is punishable by death, don't you see the affect her screams are having on the other Irkens"
"I'm a Crafrucian prince they cant harm me it will mean war" the big bounty hunter continued to twist her lekku oblivious to the low growl being emitted by every Irken in the station all eyes were focused on him, Dib was growling himself he remembered how much it hurt just to nick a lekku with a razor blade, for anyone to deliberately cause pain was unthinkable, he knew that he was being controlled partially by Irken instincts at this point but he didn't care his friend was being ruthlessly hurt and it had to stop. He would have started stocking forward like many of the Irkens if he hadn't been already grabbed by Lord Nar's strongmen. Then came a sickening crack, lekku were very flexible and strong however everything has a breaking point. Kim had abruptly stopped screaming and went limp her eyes blank, Dib would have thought her dead if she wasn't visibly shivering.
You could have heard a pin drop from across the station, every Irken were silently staring, then all the eyes turned cold and angry, a shout started near the front and was soon picked up by every Irken there "Broken"
Crafraux dropped Kim and faced the Irkens who were already attacking, Lord Nar's strong men grabbed Kim and hauled her and Dib away, Lord Nar was visibly upset "Retreat everyone we will have to make do with two hostages, we don't want to stay on a station with maddened Irkens" "Lord Nar what about the bounty hunter prince?" "He sealed his fate by breaking a Irkens lekku, even with their packs disabled and their hands bound they wont stop attacking till he's nothing more than a bloodstain" "Why are they doing this? I thought they hated the great devourer" "Instinct pure instinct, look at Dib he's half human and still if we were to let him go right now he would join the carnage. The situations bad but I think with these two as hostages we still can get what we want, hopefully the Crafrucians won't blame us for his death and take out the loss of a prince out on the Irkens"
Dib slowly came out of the rage, to find that he was senselessly battering himself against a steel door, stepping back he huffed and tried to bring himself back into focus, he was still very angry and still helplessly bound in the hard goo casing, he looked around to see where he was, boxes strapped against walls and a pile of blankets and pillows thrown in one corner, he guessed it was a cargo hold of a ship, he had no idea how long he had been throwing himself against the door it was covered in green blood he guessed his, but most of the wounds had already healed over thanks to the werewolf genome that he had used to make the wereirken formula, what it didn't fix was lost energy, even with a pak boosting his energy he had tired himself out. He stumbled over to the blankets and sat down as best he could without being able to use his arms; he was started when a pile of the blankets moved away "don't touch. Don't touch Kim, everything hurts"
"Kim? It's ok its Dib remember, I won't hurt you" "Everything hurts Kim, stay away" Dib realized she was only speaking in Irken and with the weird phraseology and third person referencing Zim used; he had no idea what to make of it.
"She's been broken; Irkens rarely recover fully from having their lekku broken, it's almost as bad as being defective but they are not looked down upon for it" Lord Nar had entered the room when he had seen that Dib had calmed down enough to be rational "hopefully because she is who she is, and the fact she's life paired she might recover" "You took her away from Ber! how can she recover without him you bastard!" Dib was still quite angry he lunged at Nar only to have his feet incased in goo he fell to the floor.
"I'm sorry Dib we need her and yourself to free several planets under Irken rule"
"I'll roast all of the Resistys guts for dinner for this"
"Dib! Stop thinking like an Irken and use your human brain! People are suffering needlessly" "Go to Hell" "I see there is no rationalizing with you when you are in this state I'll check on you in a few hours"
The station was a mess with several Irkens roaming about looking for anything that moved that wasn't Irken, Ber covered from head to foot in Crafrucian blood was kneeling down clutching something thin and black to his chest stroking it gently, the blood had acted like a solvent to the goo and everyone was free, the Irkens who had recovered first from the rage were getting the station back up and running, but they weren't allowing any travel in or out till the rest of the Irkens calmed down, so far they were reporting to the Tallest what had occurred "Sirs we looked everywhere it looks like they took Dib and Kim with them" "where's Zim?" "Confined, he'll attack anything that moves and it doesn't look like he'll calm down soon" "I expect not, he had the tip of his Lekku broken when he was a small smeet, it was accidental and it grew back. But it affected him mentally, poor Zim, he's almost defective from it" the Tallest Red feeling sorry for Zim? Stranger things have happened when someone's lekku broke. Purple asked the next question "what about Ber? I can't expect he's taking this well" "No sirs he's not, he keeps muttering about how it's all his fault all the pain she's ever been through" "send both of them to the Massive when Zim calms down enough to shove in a transporter, we have rebels to hunt"
(Irkens lekku have thousands of nerve endings collecting all sorts of information, hurting one is far more painful than cutting your tongue or jabbing yourself in the eye with a straw, they do have some protection against accidental hurts and will tolerate a lot of abuse before it breaks, once broken its like having a raw nerve that's constantly being stimulated, I can relate somewhat, I was kicked directly in the eye when I was a kid, I lost all motor control and was insensible for hours, when I finally was capable of rational thought the pain was all I could think about, I haven't yet come across a pain to compare to nerve damage. Eyes thankfully heal quick lekku don't, even with werewolf healing to back it up she'll be in a lot of pain for a long time)