Chapter 4: The Beginning of the End
Thanks Wolfy for positive reviews!
And thank you Jhonen for holding all rights to Invader Zim and all characters!
And thanks to everyone who has been following the story!
Oh and it seems I gave some people the wrong idea. For all who don't know, 387 is dead. It's kinda like Dexter. You know how he can see his dead father. Except, 387 is not really Zim's father. Just the original. Okay just to be clear. Enough with that. Here is chapter 4!
Zim POV
"Tak. I meant everything I said on meekrob." I said "Zim. I still need time to think about this." She responded "That's alright. I understand. After all that I've done to you. But I just want you to know, I'm sorry." After I said that I headed up to the ground level of my base.
"Hi! I made you some cookies!" Gir said as I walked out of the elevator "Well uh, thanks Gir." I responded. Just then Tenn walked over to me "Zim. I looked at the list of Invaders you were recruiting. I am pretty familiar with them, so I took the liberty of calling them here. I couldn't tell them anything over the com link, but I told them it's important."
"Thank you Tenn" I responded with that I departed from my base. I walked through the town in my disguise looking for any sign of the massive arriving here on earth. To my surprise, there was nothing. I did however see a building that gave me a terrified feeling.
I couldn't help it. I had to go inside. As I opened the door, I saw the building was completely empty. Suddenly, the air was cold, I was horrified. I turned to leave only to see that the door was gone. When I turned around, there he was.
387. "Zim. I'm here to train you." He said as he stared at me as if he was proud of me. "Well what do you have in mind?" I asked "Zim, we both know you half-assed your way to become an elite. Time to make things right." He said boldly
"Then teach me." I responded "Well, First I'm going to show you the elite's current form of fighting. You know, to see what chance you'd have. Of course, I'll be holding back. If I used my full skill you would die. But the goal here is to eventually teach you all of my skills." 387 said with a nod.
"But . . . that could take years!" I shouted "Zim, time does not exist here. We have eternity, if that's what it takes. Now, ATTACK ME!" he shouted. I charged toward him. He just stood there staring at me. As I threw my fist at him he grabbed my arm and threw me behind him. As I tried to get up he pounced on me.
He pressed his elbow against my neck and said: "You see! That's all it will take a normal elite to kill you." After that he helped me to my feet. "Alright. Zim you know how to use a knife? Here, take this one, I always carry a spare after that one time I needed to kill two people at once but couldn't because I only had one knife. Oh, and I must warn you, you might get cut." He said with a chuckle.
We spent so much time battling it out. Every once in awhile I would overpower him, but after each time, he just got meaner, tougher. Every so often we would pause and rest. Maybe even get sleep. He was tired, but he just kept at it. After about what I think was a week he started showing me techniques.
And he even brought out a white board, which I recognized from skool. On it, he drew an Irken. He drew a few circles around various spot's to stab at. He also told me how and where to attack barehanded. More time passed. I started to mimic his moves more often. And I remembered what he taught me.
The fights got more intense. We both were constantly injured. But the strange thing was that for both of us, healing took a matter of minutes. More and more time passed. Know I was almost as skilled as he was. every once in awhile he would use the white board to reveal more weak spots. And how to protect against attacks toward those weak spots.
It felt as if about two years went by. One day, 387 told me: "Zim. It's time." "Time for what?" I asked. "Time for you to kill me, time for our last fight. But this time, no holding back. That goes for you too. Suddenly, I was confused. "How can I kill you? Your already dead." I asked
"Killing me is your only way out. But we could always spend eternity and feel sorry for ourselves. And don't worry, you'll still see me. I am nothing more than energy. The reason you can see and interact with me is because of our DNA connection."
"Wait! Before we start, 387 can I ask you something?" I asked "Sure go ahead." He replied softly. "Did you ever uh mate?" I asked awkwardly. "Ah yes, mating. Every Irken that doesn't have that damned ES2 chip goes through it. I had a mate once. I met her when I was serving as an elite. Unit 386. From the moment we met, we knew it was meant to be. But one day, we were sent to Vort on a mission to stop rioting. But it went horribly wrong.
You see, that's where she died . . ." suddenly I felt overcome with grief. I wanted to burst out and cry. But I only let my eyes water up, nothing more. "The crowd of Vortians was shouting threats at the poor messenger who was told to inform the Vortians of new laws. Me and 386 were assigned to protect him.
Suddenly the crowd started to jump up onto the stage. We both just threw them down one by one. But there was just no end to them. They pulled the messenger into their crowd and tore him limb from limb. We tried to help him but they were close to killing both of us so we had to protect ourselves.
I glanced over and saw that they were pulling her into their crowd. I rushed to her side throwing back every Vortian that stood in my way. I grabbed her hand but . . . there was to many. They pulled her away from me. As I watched her slide into the crowd, I pulled the assault rifle cartridge out of my PAK and pressed a button that extended it to full size.
I fired recklessly at them and they started to run. After they all vanished into the dessert, I looked over and saw 386 lying on the ground. Her head was bleeding. Her eyes were closed. I rushed over to her. I checked her vital signs and . . . she was dead.
I took one last look at her and decided to move on. She would have wanted me too. I marched through the barren dessert holding onto my rifle the whole time. Finally I reached a communication outpost. I signaled for help and got the hell off that planet.
Alright enough dwelling on the past. Let's end this." "387 I'm . . . so sorry." I responded. "Don't be. That was my loss, not yours. Now, time to end this!" This time he rushed towards me. He looked so menacing, all I could do was leap out of the way. Back and forth he swung his knife, just inches from my throat.
After about 20 minutes of dodging him, I caught his knife. He struggled to pull it away from me, but it was no use. I grabbed the knife right out of his hand. As I ripped it from his hands, I could see the number carved into the grip. It said: 387.
After hours of him dodging and counterattacking me, he finally started to slow down. I got him good a couple of times with that knife, but he just wouldn't quit. Then, I prepared for one last attack. I ran towards him and lifted the knife over my head and swung it down towards him.
He grabbed it but, he fell to his knees. I pushed harder and harder. Finally, he let go. Time slowed down as my knife went into his throat. As he fell to the floor, I entered some sort of flashback. I strolled down a long hallway. At one point I reached a door. I opened it up and to my surprise, I was being welcomed to a stage.
"Zim. We welcome you here today to give you one of the greatest honors of our military. Congratulations, you are now an Irken Elite!" said tallest Spork welcoming me to the stage. "You will now be: Irken Elite Unit 387.
Then everything returned to normal. 387 lay dead on the floor. Just then his body turned into some kind of dust and floated to the wall. The sparkles stuck tightly to the wall and began to form a shape. It was a door. I could see light coming into the building. I walked towards it and opened it up. Everything was the same. A few cars were gone and the people seemed panicked. Some time had passed but, how much?
I hurried back to my base. I walked inside and saw: everyone that was on my list, sitting in my false kitchen. They, glared at me. Just then Tenn and Tak walked up to me. "Zim! Where were you?" asked Tak.
"You've been gone a whole day!" Tenn scolded "It doesn't matter, we have bigger problems." Said Tenn. "Well then tell me." I responded. "One: the team doesn't trust you as a leader. They don't want to end up like your team on hobo 13.
And two: the massive is in orbit!" she sounded panicked. "What! We need to leave!" I yelled. Just then the door was torn down by a squad of elites. Everyone froze. There was an elite that pinned down everyone, except me. An elite tried to pin me down but as he did, I remembered that I still had 387's knife.
I pulled it from its sheath with one hand, and I used the other to grab the elites arm. I took my knife and stabbed it into his chest, then into his skull. He dropped dead right there. Then I looked and saw everyone else, about to be killed by the elites. First, I saved Tak. I sliced the neck of the elite on top of her.
I helped her to her feet and then killed every other elite in my base. As everyone was getting up, I just stood there. Bodies surrounded me. I was panting as blood dripped from my knife. After that we all hurried into our stolen armada ship: The Red Avenger (Named after tallest Red).
Somehow, we got away. Just then, everyone on my team walked up in front of me and smiled. Then Tak walked up next to me and hugged me. Just as she hugged me, she whispered to me "They trust you, and so do I. After she said that, she pulled me into a passionate kiss. Maybe, just maybe. We'll win.
A.N.
Okay, I am not getting much time to work on this. But anyway, thank you all! ENJOY! :)