Senior gently laid his head upon May Nar's shoulder, he and his children lying in a pile all together on the softly swinging bench that laid outside of May's home upon Vort. The night sky twinkled like a gigantic, dark bluish/black quilt laden with stars, Senior listening to his children's soft breathing as a gentle and cool wind drifted through his antannae. "...I could stay lost in this moment...forever."
"Cuz every moment spent with me is a moment you'll treeaaasuuuure?" May softly sang back, she and Senior chuckling a little as their kids giggled, Senior softly stroking over his children's heads, one at a time with his left hand, the other wrapped around May's frame. He gave the Vortian a big kiss upon the cheek, grinning back at her. May always did know just what to say when it came to cheering him up.
"Introducing the galaxy to Earthen music is probably the greatest thing I've ever done." He insisted to them all. "Well, that and introducing Earth to the shrinking and growth technology. They'll use it well once they work out the kinks. It'll help a lot with solving the issue of famine, I'm sure. And, as I've proven with Zim, it'll make dealing with the prison population easier too."
"Indeed, I've found people are muuuuch more agreeable when they're literally in your hands." May giggled a bit. "Also much more pettable."
"Even Zim?" Little Nora asked as Bo and Ian chuckled a bit, Senior raising an invisible eyebrow at May as she thought about the question for a minute.
"Weeeeeell...yeah. Even him." She decided. "Skoodge contacted me. Said he's at Irk, and you're going to meet the delegation there along with the rest of your crew?"
"Except Peech. I insisted she keep an eye on Dib. She's been trailing him for a long, long time." Senior added. "...we're going to institute the final part of the plan. But...well, Tak doing what she's doing has sort of screwed a lot of it up, I...wanted to save more of us."
"It's good to want to try to save everyone. It's better to have the power to do that. But in the end...the best thing is to realize that people have to either want to be saved, or really need to. And not everyone wants to...and not everyone needs to." May sighed. "Because sometimes...SOMEtimes...you really have done all you can, and the rest has to be on them, and if they won't take your hand, well..."
"Yeah. It's just...a hard lesson to learn." Senior admitted as he stroked over his children's heads some more. "Promise me you'll look after each other, okay? And...and I made a bunch of videos for all of you. Recorded myself giving some advice. I want you to play them whenever your birthdays roll around, and other special times and...well, I made a few in case you're just wanting to hear my voice." He finally added. "I..." His voice began to crack. "...oh, Irk, I love you all so much."
His grip on May tightened a bit, and she felt him shivering, trying to resist the tears. She tightened her own grip, and his children did the same.
"...and...and remember to...be a good person. Don't ever take the easy way out, the fast way out, the...the lazy way out. Be better than that." He finished.
"...you wanna just look at the stars until the kids fall asleep?" May asked quietly. "I can tell you how they got those names."
"I'd like that. I'm glad I married someone as romantic as me." Senior whispered out, May rubbing her head against his shoulder as she gestured up, up at a faint constellation in the form of a giant pair of legs.
"Those are the legs of Ro. It's based off this oooold legend of how Vortians used to be slow and have such tiny, stubby little legs, we were always getting preyed on. But then a Vortian named Ro began practicing his jumping. And he'd jump here and there and everywhere! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" May bragged.
And she was relieved to hear him laugh at that.
"And one day...it finally happened. He leaped right over the moon, right before everyone's eyes, and everyone began to follow his lead. They learned to jump like him, and after that, nobody could EVER outrace a Vortian..."
...
...
...
..."Have you decided what you want?"
Dib looked up, deep into Maht's eyes, knowing the eyes of so many other human prisoners were on him. He could faintly hear the beat of awful synth and club music outside, and was trying to ignore the very faint human screams he could hear as well. No doubt some of those sick monsters were playing "Spin the Human" or "Pin the Tack of the Human" or other twisted party games. He'd endured a full day of waiting for Maht to return to bring him and the other prisoners within this part of the underground facility their food, all of them knowing that any day could be their last, the day that an Irken decided to not just play with their food, but properly finish it.
All of them feared the horrific, nigh-inevitable death one of their captors would bring. But Dib had a plan. He'd told the other kids all about it, and they'd all been nervous at first, fearful, anxious and terrified. What if, after all...it didn't work? But...what other chance did they have? What other CHOICE did Dib have?
Dib blinked a bit, Maht gently sitting in the chair in front of Dib, calmly resting his hands in his lap. "I know Tak enjoys fiddling with you and sucking on you like a lollipop out there. It's humiliating, without a doubt. And if you want...I can end it."
"I want you to do something very specific in HOW you end it." Dib murmured. "Can you at least let me choose how you do it?"
Maht's eyes seemed to glitter. His tone became very cautious and guarded. "You know full well...your living body wouldn't make it out the door. The facility's scanners would ensure this. Those chips embedded within your leg would make such an escape impossible, and as I said, you can't just ask me to bite your leg off and let you go. I don't think you'd get very far on just one leg and...well, to be honest...even if you did ask, I..."
He now looked shamefacedly down and to the side. "I'm...I asked to give you all food and guard you like I do because I don't want to be out on the floors and...and I don't want to see the blood and the agony and hear the screaming. I could never be a medic like Jayd. I couldn't be on the front lines like Dite or Tak or Wiyn, I...I hate blood and guts and hearing such agony and pain. I want to help people without...seeing the hurt. Does that make sense?"
"I get it." Dib admitted quietly. "What I want you to do wouldn't make me bleed all over. I want you to electrocute me."
Maht's eyes momentarily widened. For a moment, a blazing, victorious look slid across his face. "Very well. You overcame that particular barrier." He intoned, as he rose up, the other prisoners in their little cells watching on as a single PAK leg extended, and Maht held out his gloved hand for Dib to climb onto. The single light fixture high above softly shone, and faintly flickered a bit as if the darkness of the rest of the room wanted to swell up and engulf everything so that nobody could see what was about to happen.
"Go ahead. About...500 volts...at...just above 10 milliamps?" Dib quietly inquired.
The sharp, faintly spider-esque leg of the PAK sizzled and hissed, blue lightning sparking over the tip as Maht lowered it down at Dib, and then gently lifted something slightly out of his pocket.
"For later." He intoned at Dib, showing off the small rifle within before the sparking PAK leg touched Dib, and the electricity flowed through, everything going dark.
...and then...
Dib was awake. He was out, out in fresh air, feeling a soft breeze on his face, realizing they weren't too far from the Massive and where it had parked in the docking area of the city. He also realized something else and reeled back in disgust. Maht's front shirt was loaded up with vomit, smelling foul, rancid and nasty, like soup that had spoiled, intermingled with FAR too many bad sugary snacks, a soaking that covered Dib's OWN jacket.
But Dib had NEVER been so grateful to feel the wind on his face. He would have kissed the Irken in front of him for realizing what he'd wanted...but the look on Maht's face, the pained, indigo eyes looked so...wrong. The service drone's body was quaking, he looked pale as he chuckled a bit. "Had to...g-get you out...quick." He remarked. "Here's...what you'll...do. It's believable enough for them. Use the...growth...ray."
He gestured at the growth ray lying to the side, not far from the pool of vomit Maht had just splattered out, Dib clambering over to it, turning the mode on the side to fire ahead for a brief moment, activating it's "timer" function. Within a few seconds, he'd returned to his proper, normal size...and he noticed Maht was handing him the rifle he'd had in his pocket, shakily stuffing it into Dib's hand.
"You've got to...make it look like...you faked your d-death..." He murmured. "And...and made me puke you out. And when I was weak, you...f-finished me." Maht said, panting heavily, his chest rising and falling. "This way Tak c-can't get any information out of m-me, and she s-said she'd f-follow me b-back to the Massive to report in with S-Senior, p-pretend everything's just f-fine. You-you've got to get to...get to him before she can, and...and let him know everything she's d-done." Maht heaved out, struggling to stay up on his legs, only to flop to his knees. "He can...start striking b-back. We can...nip it all in the b-bud, as you say on Earth."
"I...I can't." Dib whispered, the gun shaking in his grip. The soft faint beeping of cars in the distance, a few birds chirping, the blowing of the wind, the lingering hum of the Massive's massive engines that let all within 100 yards know it was there...he couldn't hear any of it. It was if he'd entered a pocket of silence save for him and Maht, and his heartbeat, Maht's pained breathing...this was all he heard. "You...you don't deserve..."
"Yes. I...I do." Maht insisted quietly. "We have all done...AWFUL things, Dib. Please let me...do this for you. Let me help you, and help Senior one last time." He murmured, giving Dib a smile. "...come on. You'll n-need the practice, T-Tak and the others won't g-go down without a fight."
Dib's arms were shaking. He felt a ringing in his ears. He was slowly raising the rifle, aiming it squarely at Maht's head.
"That's it. Right in the head." Maht murmured. "Aim for the PAK or the head. Our legs won't mean anything if we've still got our PAK."
Dib closed his eyes, the tears forced out of his sockets. Now HE felt like the one who was going to throw up.
"You're a good kid." Maht said. "And you're still a good person."
Dib pulled the trigger.
...
...
...
...Peech gently wrapped Dib in a blanket, easing him onto the bed. Senior had been told everything, and he was mobilizing all he could to deal with the threat Tak now posed. He'd had to put off meeting with the rest of the intergalactic ruling body, which had been a let down for Senior. The green-eyed communications officer had confessed to Dib that he'd been wanting to sign over the last of the bases on Vort and other planets over to their proper owners, and to begin giving proper "restitution" to those the Irken race had ravaged.
Instead, he had stormed over to the underground facility as fast as he could with Dite and Xeil, hoping not too many in the military had gone over to Tak. Using Dib's information and following Maht's trail of dropped M&M and candy bar crumbs and puke droplets from his meal, they'd managed to break in and had caught the tail end of the party as it wound down...
And unfortunately, Tak wasn't there, neither was Wiyn...and with even DARTH nowhere to be found, Senior seemed to be very worried that deep, deep damage had been done. There'd been far, FAR too many people hanging around the facility. Not even rescuing the humans within had cheered him up.
It had made Dib feel a BIT better, knowing that what Maht had done hadn't been in vain.
...but not by much.
And so, Gaz sat next to Dib, giving him a somewhat sympathetic look, and she gently raised a hand, hesitated...then put it on his shoulder.
"You're gonna be okay. You're real strong." She said, letting go a few seconds later as Peech gave Dib some hot chocolate, Dib muttering out a "thanks" to both of them, his eyes looking sunken and hollow as Peech sat on the other end of Dib. As she sat down, Dib and Gaz noticed something very odd about the backpack/jetpack she wore, the big, slightly clumsy, dark orange thing was jingling, evidently full to the brim of...SOMETHING.
"What's...what's in there?" Dib found himself asking, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Peech now blushed at this and reached back, into a small compartment, and took out some small jewelry, little wristbands made of strange gemstones, a necklace here and there, a few rings..."I'm a kleptomaniac." She admitted. "And being on Earth means a whole lot of real nice, shiny things for me to snatch." She sighed a bit, slightly scratching at her knees after putting them away in her PAK again. "Irk doesn't have art. You remember that, right?"
Dib and Gaz nodded as Peech sighed again. "All of us on the Massive were...well, at least, us on the bridge, we were SO psyched with Senior let us come to Earth. Maht loved the food, Xeil and Dite loved all your movies and your books, Jayd couldn't get enough of your species's superheroes, Feyr and Darth were fascinated by your philosophies and religions, and I...I loved all the beautiful art you made. All the glittering, shiny art." She then reached into a shirt pocket, the orange-eyed guard taking out something different.
...a small little diamond-studded cross.
"Senior got this for me. Before, on Irk? The only way I got anything nice and shiny was if I won a medal in field exercises in training or out on the battlefield or by stealing something nice from an alien. But...look at me." Peech gestured at herself, at her rather lanky, slender frame as she wryly chuckled. "Do I look good enough to be on the front lines? I was a crappy shot. Worst aim ever. I was fast, sure. Slick. But I couldn't shoot right. Couldn't fight well. So I got diddly-squat. Then one day our communications officer, our boss right below our bosses, our "safety net" as he liked to call himself, starts going on and on about how he's been looking into Earth, and all the nice things IT has and how Irk had stuff like it so long ago but didn't anymore. And of course, well..."
Peech got a distant, far off look in her eye, and her tone lost some of the sandiness it had. "We wanted to know about it. "C'mon." I said. "It can't be that good. Not if ZIM'S on it. If it was that good, we woulda tried to send people to take it over ages ago!" And then he says he got everyone some gifts. And he gives me this." She held the cross up. "...and all I could think was...nobody had ever gotten me anything. Nobody ever gave me ANYTHING AT ALL. I never so much as earned a "thank you". I was a stupid door guard. Nobody thanks you for doing your job. And here this big, green-eyed goof was, giving me something he said was worth fifteen times my paycheck for the month. Just because he knew I liked shiny, sparky stuff. And he said if I felt bad, I should rub it a bit, and think of the things I love, and it'd help."
Peech smiled wistfully, and stroked over it with one hand, sighing. "And it worked. If I got really depressed or tired just standing around and guarding the door to the bridge, I'd just stroke over it in my pocket, and I felt better, because...because it meant someone cared enough about me to get me this. And he didn't..." She stammered. "What meant...what meant a lot was...he didn't HAVE to. I mean...I was a stupid DOOR GUARD. We're almost just taking up space. Nobody ever really busts their way up to the bridge. We've never drawn our guns once. We didn't deserve nice stuff from people. But HE did. Red and Purple didn't, but he did. Because Senior's cool like that. And I'm...gonna miss that." She muttered. "...I'm gonna miss...him. Just standing there, that smile on his face faintly peeking out from under the mask, knowing he snuck something nice from Earth onto the Massive. Cuz we're not gonna be on Earth ever again. Not now. Not with what Tak's doing."
Dib slowly looked into her eyes as Peech looked back at him. "We CAN'T have her being around Earth. We just can't. Senior's insisted we not endanger any more humans. We're calling her out to Irk. Making a stand there. And she's too proud not to accept."
"Tak knows its probably a trap." Dib mumbled out. "...you really think she'll fall into it?"
"Senior's promised there'd be no traps. He doesn't intend to trick her and she knows he's...too nice and righteous to lie about that. It's just gonna be two forces clashing for control of our race, right at the palace of the Tallest on Irk." Peech admitted. "But you two should stay here, with your father. Feyr's bringing him over from the lab?"
"Feyr? That psychic? Why not Trik? It's his lab. Is he too busy?" Gaz asked. "Is he working on some kind of new supertoast with Dad?" She wisecracked.
"You didn't hear?" Peech asked, looking a bit surprised. "Trik's dead. He fell out a window."
Gaz stopped smiling. Dib looked a bit shocked, gazing from Peech to Gaz, mouth agape. How could an IRKEN die from that? "But...his PAK, surely he'd just use his spider-leg-thingies and...and..." Dib stammered, trying to comprehend this.
"He did it on purpose. He left his laboratory and all his work to Faith and then stepped off the balcony." Peech told them. "He wanted to make sure Faith had everything she'd need to succeed. But I'll leave you two alone, your dad should be by shortly, talkin' together ought to help."
With that, Peech left the two alone, waving goodbye as Dib stared down at the floor. His mind was beginning to swell and pulsate, as thoughts began to properly form in his head. Maht had deliberately helped him escape, and then had Dib kill him, all to help bring Tak down and to save Dib's life, and to help the humans inside. Maht had been HOPING Dib would choose a way of "dying" that wouldn't stick. And Trik had died immediately after giving Faith everything he'd possessed. Dib couldn't help but feel all this was connected, as if...they'd been just waiting for a chance to die. Even Tenn had said how happy she was just to die helping an Empire that actually cared about her. And Senior...
Dib remembered what Lard Nar had said about Senior. "He's different, sure, but even he's talked about how he thought the old empire deserved to die."
What was Dib missing? He thought, briefly, he could see it, but then...in an instant, it was gone, and just numbness and grief remained, briefly alleviated as his father entered the room at last, and gently put a hand on his son's shoulder.
"Do you want me to take you to our house?"
"...I'd like that."
"I can...um...r-read a story?" Professor Membrane offered. "Or are you too old for that, you-you may be too old for that." He admitted shamefully. "I could put on the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS, I kept this old box set!" He suggested instead. "A New Hope" has Darth Vader's head, "Empire Strikes Back" has a Stormtrooper's and "Return of the Jedi" has Yoda's. Have you ever seen the VHS versions?"
"No." Dib admitted, surprising himself with the smile that softly poked onto his face. "But I'd like to."