The Tallest Tower, Irk's greatest monument to its leaders and the residence of the Tallest Irken. It was Zim's first time standing on the top floor of the building and now it was rightfully his, but it was also now just an abandoned building filled with dead guards and a crater in the center of the room, which was his fault.

Everyone was using it as a temporary base of operations. Zim ordered Tel and the Heboadians to work on repairing the Dibship and forced everyone else to evacuate. They all found different rooms to do their own things. Gaz had been forced to rest. Dib spent some time using the water they had to wash the blood off himself and his clothes. Kor and Daj simply readied their equipment for a fight. Gir worked on "nursing" Skoodge, who was trying to express how he didn't need the robot's help but his voice was muffled by bandages. They were with Zim, who was contemplating strategies to fight the Employer in the main room.

"What are you doing?"

Zim had been working without his other companions for about an hour and was startled by the sudden presence. He found Gaz leaning against a wall behind him, still with bandages around her head. "Gaz? Didn't your stupid brother tie you up and told you to rest?"

"Like Dib knows how to tie an effective knot," Gaz revealed a roll of rope in her hands. "Besides, I'm not that injured. My cut sealed up and all I have are bruises, Dib's just too overprotective."

"So you decided to visit me instead?"

"N-no, all the weapons are here. You just happened to to be here also and I was curious."

Zim just shrugged his shoulders. "I'm trying get these monitors back online. I can set them to view various points of this city, we'll see anyone approaching the tower."

Zim went back to fixing the wiring behind the six monitors. Gaz went to dig through the piles of weapons and equipment that Zim had cleared from the Dibship. "Do you really think you can beat him?"

"Of course! I am Zim! I will hold his feeble head in my fist! Who are we talking about?"

"The Employer. The guy who you want revenge against."

"Oh, right. Yes! I hate him! I will destroy him!"

"Zim, you're not-"

"Gaz!" Dib suddenly barged into the room, his hair still wet from washing himself but his clothes still had dried splotches of blood.

"What do you want, Dib?"

"What are you doing here? You're suppose to rest! And I thought I tied you up?"

"You suck at knots. How'd you even know I was here anyway?"

"Kor told me."

Dib opened the rest of the door to reveal Kor standing in the door frame.

"Hey," Kor innocently raised her hand to greet Gaz.

"Kor? How would you even know I was here?" Gaz asked.

"Intuition." Kor glanced over at Zim who was ignoring the trio.

"You're really making me regret ever talking to you. Anyway, I'm fine, Dib, I don't need you babysitting me."

"I can't help it, you're my little sister, I'm suppose to take care of you when you get hurt, and I've never even seen you bleed before!"

"I've bled before, I'm still human, Dib."

"Like when?"

"Like...that...one time...I think."

"You need to stop jumping into these dangerous situations!"

"I need to stop jumping into dangerous situations? What the hell are you even talking about?!"

"I don't know! I just feel the need to scream at you!"

"You're an idiot!"

"Woah, can we stop the sibling argument going on," Kor got between the two and pushed them away from each other, but only made it more intense.

"Shut up, Kor! I'm tired of you meddling with me!"

"That's because I'd rather not see you sit around twiddling your fingers about your 'feelings'."

"I'd rather twiddle!"

"What the hell are you two talking about?!" Dib yelled.

"Shut up, Dib!"

"Stop being oblivious, Dib!" The Fefian added.

"Then tell me things! I must know things!" Dib shouted.

"Stay out of it!" Gaz yelled back at her brother.

"Why won't you tell me anything?!"

"Just tell him already!" Kor insisted.

"Tell me!"

"Hey, drone, where's my gun? Oh, Dib, wanna train?" Daj walked casually into the room with Kry, not realizing what he just pulled himself into.

"Stop pressuring me!"

"Stop thinking about your gun all the time, Daj!" Kor yelled.

"You're all stupid!" Gaz yelled towards everyone. Not appreciating their insults, Daj joined in the argument. Insults and yells were thrown at one being to another, the subject of their words becoming more contrived as it intensified. It was annoying and it was irking one of the other beings in the room. Kor was beamed with a mummified Irken, it bounced off and ricochet onto Dib, both fell to the floor.

"My piggeh!" Gir screamed. Daj and Gaz turned towards the attacker but Daj was met with a robot to the face while Gaz had to catch a wrench in mid-air. "Yay, I got my piggy back!"

"SILENCE!" Zim couldn't stand being the observer in the annoying argument. "Why must you loudly emit your pointless, pathetic problems from your mouth holes?! If any of you continue to yell I will toss you filth off the top of this tower!"

Kor was the first to recover and remark, "I would survive-"

"Or atomize! Painfully!" Kor shut herself up. They looked at each other and realized that Zim was right, which made the situation feel even more messed up to them since Zim had to play mediator.

Kor spoke first, "Guys, we're all probably overly stressed. Most of the stuff we were saying was crap anyway. Daj, lay off the trigger more, Dib, get more aware, and Gaz, I'm sorry that I'm always butting in, I'll do it less."

"That's the longest string of sentences you pulled together without being sarcastic," Gaz said.

"We can continue arguing if you want."

"No, I'm...sorry...that I got as angry as I did." Gaz had a hard time making eye contact while saying that.

"Look, you grew internally."

"I thought you didn't want to argue."

"Gaz, I'm just worried about you," Dib said.

"You're still an idiot, but I know it's because you care, just care a little less."

"That's gonna be hard for me to do."

"Alright, whatever, we're all happy comrades again, yay," Daj said dryly, "Dib, do you want to train or not?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Good, we'll be sparring. I prefer to vent physically anyway."

"Um, can I withdraw from training?"

"No."

Daj then turned towards Zim. "Are the repairs done on my G.F.B. yet?"

"In the pile with the rest of your smelly belongings!" Zim pointed to the stack of blasters and rifles to the side of the room. Daj ignored the insult, not wanting to get into another argument.

The four arguers apologized to the best to their abilities and were about to set off on their tasks, but Gaz had something she had to do first, "Hey, Zim."

"What huma-AHH!" Zim quickly ducked, avoiding the wrench that flew over his head. "Are you crazy, Gaz?!"

"I'm just returning your wrench."

"Damn you, human! Why must violence always be you first-..." Zim stopped mid sentence. Something else caught his attention.

"Zim?" Gaz knew Zim going speechless always signaled something bad. The Irken was looking at the monitors and began working on its control console. The others also knew silence meant bad and moved towards the monitors. Zim was flipping through different views, despite them all being of different locations and cities they all showed similar things; corpses, wreckage, fires. As more images went by they began noticing something. First they were only glimpses, then there were clearer shots, finally it was a series of images revealing the oncoming doom: a moose army.

"Zim, wasn't the rest of the moose army in the other cities? And didn't we learn that the other cities were blown up?!" Dib went into a panic again.

"These must be survivors, meaning the Tallests weren't thorough," Zim began shifting through more images and zoomed in on some. "They aren't completely healed either, you can see major injuries on most of them."

"So we can take them," Daj said.

"I estimate about a hundred, maybe fifty more at most."

"So we can take them." Everyone ignored Daj's delusion.

"How long until they reach us?" Gaz asked.

"These images are from several different outposts that lead to this city, the first wave will probably be here in four hours," Zim deduced.

"So we have four hours to beat the Employer and get off this planet." Dib said.

"The Dibship won't be repaired by then."

"Well that sucks!"

"I'm not abandoning Irk anyway! I am the Tallest! This is Zim's planet to rule!"

"But everyone's dead," Kor said.

"Not everyone! I still have Skoodge! He'll be my first adviser!" Skoodge let out a muffle of appreciation.

"Zim just give us the plan already!" Gaz said, "We can't avoid the moose army, and you want to destroy the Employer."

"And the holofile with the PAK data and the dimensional portal technology!"

"Right, so how are we going to do this?"

"Easy, we attack the Employer at his ship!"

"You make it sound so simple."

"I have a couple of tricks up my nostrils."

"Sleeves."

"Gezundenite"

"...What?"

"Alright Zim, you have a vague plan, we're used to it by now," Kor said, "Just tell us when we're going to attack."

"We shall strike in three hours!"

Dib was shocked, "What?! That only gives us an hour to beat Tak and the Employer before fighting off the moose!"

"Hahaha, stupid, stupid, very stupid, scummy Dib-monkey. That hour will be used to prepare for the moose fight, then we will fight both at the same time!"

"WHAT?!" Dib, Gaz, and Kor said collectively.

"As the ruler of Irk, I'm going to have to get rid of the pests eventually. If I fight both I would save time. Besides, I need the hours to prepare."

"...The levels of your arrogance and stupidity amaze me," Kor expressed.

"How can the eight of us fight off a hundred moose when we barely handled five on Vort!?" Dib yelled towards Zim.

"Dib-worm, once again you reveal your brain deficiency. Only three of us will be on the front lines fighting the moose."

"..."

"The moose will probably use the hole the Dibship made to enter the city. The Employer's ship is on the opposite end. It'll be the two lizards under the command of Skoodge who'll hold them off." Skoodge was so appreciative of his assignment as field commander that his arm broke through his bandages to salute Zim.

"Hold on, I barely tolerate being ordered around by you, and now you want me to be a lackey to the midget drone?!" Daj protested.

"You get to maim and kill as much as you want without repercussions, I thought the assignment would suit you."

"...fine." The temptation of having several targets to shoot at overpowered the Darvon's pride.

"The rest of us will infiltrate the ship again to confront the Employer and Tak."

"Zim, you know and I know that Daj, Kry, and Skoodge can't possibly fight them off for an hour, and you're smart enough to know that if they fail then we'll be swarmed."

Zim thought about Dib's words and took a moment to contemplate, "...I have a plan. A plan I am very reluctant to use and even disgusts me to my core. However, despite my heavy desire to send this plan into a blazing inferno, I will implement it!"

"...You still haven't told us anything!"

"Dib, stop," Kor said, "That's probably the best we'll get out of him. It's not like his vague plans has gotten us killed."

"That was sarcasm, right?"

"You know so well."

"Uh, so yes?"

"Enough with the talking now!" Zim shouted, "Spend the remainder of the time preparing and arming yourselves with the weapons in that pile over there! Except you Dib-worm, no guns or blasters for you!"

"Hey, I-...actually, that's probably for the best."

"I'm getting first dibs on the weapons," Gaz said.

"Fine," Daj was slightly annoyed, "I got time to kill with Dib anyway."

"Kor, I need a favor from you."

"Does it involve pain?" The Fefian asked.

"A little." Kor let out a sigh and followed Gaz out the room. Daj dragged a hesitant Dib away while Kry following behind. Skoodge was slowly breaking free of his bonds while Gir was still playing with him. Zim plugged his datapad into the command console of the monitors and began working again. He pulled out the Dimension Box Crax gave him. The Box was the key to his fight against the Employer.