Trying to do this as logically as I can. It's been almost two years! But if you have any questions pertaining to this story or the original Eclipse, please feel free to ask.

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ZiM had quickly led the group onto the command deck where he knew the Tallests would most likely be. He was actually glad to see them both there. Despite the problems they'd been having with their leadership as of late, they still held most of the power in the Empire.

ZiM peeked over one of their chairs as the two lounged and snacked on donuts, coughing to gain their attention, "Uh, hello?"

Purple coughed on a donut in surprise while Red addressed him, "Ah, ZiM, there you are…" he dug back into his bag of donuts, "So… why are you up here? I thought you were busy exploding things or planning or brooding again."

Purple pouted, "And the brooding! So much brooding lately!"

Red nodded sadly, "I know, it's almost as depressing as an old batch of fries."

"CURLY fries," Purple corrected.

ZiM pointed behind him, "These two arrived. We have information collected and that needs to a part of sharing with the Tallests. Ready?"

Purple stopped him, "Wait, wait now…" he took a long sip from his soda, then sighed, "Mhm, mhm… mhm… O.K." he stood, hovering, "I'm ready."

Saint stepped forward, staring down at an electronic note pad, "Well, it seems Reep had started acting unusual a couple months into his sentence, loud shouting in the middle of the night, chants in different languages, one time a guard went to make an inspection and found him sleeping on the ceiling of the cell. They still don't know how he got up there."

Purple cringed, Red making a disgusted face, "Well… were his PAK legs…?"

N shook his head, "They disable that function to prevent escapes. He'd have to have repaired them somehow, but a small EMP field renders those upgrades useless to prisoners, just to ensure they can't be used."

Red shuddered, "O.K… what else?"

N took in a deep breath, "… He's been possessed…"

Dib's eyes boggled, "A GHOST? Really?! I'm an expert at this, quick! We need to get to the nearest mall so I can stock up on supplies!"

"It's more than a ghost," N growled, "This thing is eating him from the inside out."

ZiM angrily crossed his arms, "And he's near ZiM's smeet. ZiM hopes this isn't contagious…"

Purple saw the look of pain on N's face and waved him along, "Here, let's find somewhere else to talk. Red?"

Red stood, clutching the sodas and donut bags, "Yep, let's go."

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The Tallests floated down the halls and into a cafeteria, directing everyone to a large table. As the leaders got comfortable with their snacks, N sighed heavily.

"This is so much more than what I was ready for…" he trembled.

Saint patted his shoulder, "It's going to be O.K., not for a bit, but it will be."

ZiM stood on his seat, as did Dib, so they could be seen better, "ZiM can assure you that a blockade has been made to guard that stinking little planet. If this possessor-thing wishes to overtake Reep and harm the smeet, it will have to try something else."

"Good!" Red said through his soda straw, "So what else?"

N shook his head, "I had to talk to Chi. It was unpleasant, but I was able to learn that this thing, she called it the Void, that it wants the Heart of the universe not for power, but to just have it close," he smiled sadly, "You'd think that wouldn't be a problem, but this happened before, when the gods were still around. And the last time this happened the Void almost killed the Heart when it tried to leave."

Dib paled visibly, "Possessive… it wanted the Heart so close, it was going to crush it."

The Irkens stared at the human.

"It-it loves the light so much, but it loves too tightly!" he remembered, "It's like if you have a pet and you want it to stay on your lap, but it tries to get down. You hold it there to keep it from getting away… The Void doesn't know how to be gentle."

N blinked, "How…?"

ZiM pointed at Dib, "Dib's crazy brain-meats were struck with a horrible vision of horrible things. He got it on tape and it blew up into flames, which was recorded on a camera that burst into flames, and onto a computer console that exploded into flames," ZiM produced the picture he had saved, "THIS IS OUR CULPRIT!"

The hologram set it on the table for all of them to see.

N began to shake and quickly got up, walking away from the table so he could calm down. Saint scowled at the picture and both Tallests stopped eating to stare at it.

Dib shuddered and nodded, "That thing… it's INSIDE Reep? Does he know?"

N shook his head from where he stood, "If he does, I don't think there's a way to remove it. And killing him doesn't appear to be an option, either."

Saint motioned for his friend to sit back down, "Maybe, but there are always options that can keep it away from Eleven."

ZiM's antennae twitched as he sat down on his chair to think, "True. We just need to know which are available to us."

Dib frowned, "Available?"

ZiM smacked a hand on the table, "ZiM WILL EXPLAIN LATER. But first we need to figure out where they are. Have we heard anything from the Resisty?"

Saint coughed to hide a laugh, but N did respond, "They're HELPING?!"

Red nodded, "Well, let's define 'helping'…"

N shuddered and sat back down, "Just don't bring them anywhere near me. I have a problem with Vortians…"

ZiM hmmed, "Well, they won't be coming here. ZiM believes you to be safe," he patted at N's arm, "Have you spoken to your siblings?"

N's eyes widened and he shook his head, "Are you kidding, NO. Gik would throw a fit so big, nothing would be able to contain it."

Saint shrugged, "That and we didn't want to worry them with what little information we had. If we bring the rest of the clones into this, we want to be sure about it."

Felm tiredly made his way to the table, sitting on the end, "All of you… move too… quickly."

Saint nodded, "Nice to see you too. We just got through talking about this Void thing that destroyed your camera."

The medic whined, "I REALLY liked that camera… Anything else?"

Dib pointed excitedly at the picture, "The thing's inside Reep! Like a ghost or tape worm!"

Felm sat up quickly, "What, he gets to live while my camera explodes?! That device-hating demon!"

Red hmmed as he nibbled on a donut, "Well, maybe that's not a bad thing. If Eleven's close by and Reep burst into flames, that wouldn't exactly be good…"

Purple nodded, "Yeah, but then he'd be able to get away."

"Not if the Void is freed," N grumbled, "Then E wouldn't be able to protect himself. As much as I hate to say this, until Reep is fully consumed, he has a chance to keep Eleven safe. I'm hoping he noticed what was happening to him."

"Things?" Purple's antennae perked, "What other things besides being found sleeping on the ceiling?"

N picked at the picture of the Void, "Both Ray and Chi said Reep's eyes were black and he was speaking ancient languages. Not just old, but ancient-ancient. Older than Chi ancient. So not only is he running around with the power of fire, and probably other elements, this thing seems to overtake him whenever it feels like it."

Saint patted his shoulder again, "And every minute we're still here, you know he's O.K."

N let his forehead hit the table, "It doesn't help much…"

ZiM rubbed his chin in thought and grumbled something before shouting into the open, "GIR!"

A shriek of horror came from a few tables down when a COMM's pie suddenly exploded open and GIR shot out covered in pie filling, "I'MMA PIE-BURSTER!" he then latched onto Dib's face, hissing happily, "NOW WE MAKE A PIE BABY!"

ZiM snarled and ripped the robot from Dib's face as the human sputtered and coughed; the hologram glared at him, "NO! Bad, GIR! We have work to do!"

The robot gasped and saluted, eyes red, "Yes, my master."

ZiM set GIR down and shooed him off, "Go do that dance you do, but do it in a closet or Felm's room or something. ZiM will find you later."

GIR squealed and ran off, "YYYYYYAAAAAY, I GOTTA GO STEAL SOME PANTS!"

The hologram shuddered, whispering to the table, "Keep a tight hold of your pants…"

Red watched the SIR unit run off, "How is your robot's dance and stealing pants going to fix all this?"

"Fix?" ZiM perked, "No, it will not fix, but it will assist. Trust ZiM. ZiM's human neighbors have lost many a pair of pants for this."

Dib got back to his feet shakily, wiping crust and filling from his face, "Aw, I thought that was a neighborhood ghost or a pantless bigfoot in the area."

ZiM hopped down from his chair, "NOPE, just GIR's idiotness. Now, I suggest we check in with the Resisty, my Tallest. GIR will come to find ZiM later."

A loud rumbling came to the table as Sizz-Lorr suddenly ran up to them, brandishing his spatula at the ready, "Robot in the pie! Where'd he go?!"

Felm slowly pointed down the hall and the fry cook ran off, Jeb coming in to run after him, "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT WAS IN MY PIES!"

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The tension on the command deck was thick with worry. If the Resisty were proving to be unfaithful, bad things would quickly ensue.

Tallest Purple was pacing at the front of the room while Red was looking over a COMM tech's every move.

"I-I'm sorry, sirs," the COMM reported, "but the Resisty still refuses our call."

ZiM growled angrily, "Well, CALL them again!"

The COMM nodded and did so.

N paced nervously with Purple, "They wouldn't just ignore this, would they?"

Red shook his head, coming over to sit down in his chair, "We had negotiations earlier, for them to do this would have drastic consequences for them. They care just as much for the existence of this universe as we do."

Saint watched from the side, leaning on a wall, "You've hailed them seven times now, if they're not picking up then maybe something is wrong."

The COMM trying to call the Resisty suddenly stopped, "Ahh, sirs? We're being hailed on our private line by an unknown caller."

Purple's antennae flattened, "From where?"

"The computer says Rebelios, the Rebellion Planet."

Red rolled his eyes, "Of COURSE, why didn't we think to bomb that place yet?"

Purple hmmed, "Patch them through…"

The COMM lit up the main screen and Lard-Nar's panicked and angry face popped up, the Vortian yelling at the top of his lungs something of sorts and pointing at Spleenk as the alien coward away and looked to be apologizing; the audio was grainy and spotting out.

"Sirs," another COMM sputtered, "we have a sudden energy spike in room LZ2-G6, specifically, its closet."

Felm was in the corner, looking over documents, when he squealed, "MY ROOM!"

The first COMM typed feverishly to reestablish the audio feed when Lard-Nar's voice suddenly boomed throughout the command deck, "-TRYING TO CALL YOU, AND REEP STOLE OUR SHIP!"

Everyone on the deck hushed and fell silent. N nearly collapsed at the horrible news but Purple caught him and eased him down. ZiM cursed loudly, kicking a COMM right out of his chair. Dib looked sadly to the floor.

Red stared in disbelief at the Vortian before yelling at him for his incompetence, shouting every horrid thing he could think of.

While the Tallests began arguing with Lard-Nar, GIR skipped into the room and quietly tugged on ZiM's arm, "Master, I did th' dance!"

ZiM nodded slowly, sighing, "And…?"

GIR pointed behind him and ZiM's eyes widened, a smile of victory on his face, "My Tallests…" they ignored him, still shouting at the Resisty leader, "MY TALLESTS!"

Red and Purple stopped, looking back at ZiM.

ZiM sneered darkly, "It seems we now have our advantage…" he pointed to the open door way as three sets of foot steps drew ever closer.

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Yep, I'm leaving you with that. Why? Because it would be wrong of me to spoil such a treat. And we miss little E, don't we? He'll be in the next chapter… R&R, if you wouldn't mind.