The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Season 2

by Zim'sMostLoyalServant

Norlock might be gone, but the adventures continue. New action, new laughs, new allies and enemies, and more! Newest: Dib and his friends face a revenge plot by… wait, who is this guy?

4. Career Day 2 - The Interning

A/N: And here's the next chapter. Sorry for the extra long wait; writer's block seems to have become the norm these days.

Anyway, this is one I've been looking forward to for quite some time. It should be a fun little romp of pure IZ humor, rather than the mixed action/humor of the last few chapters. I really hope you all enjoy it.

Oh, as for everyone who's been making the "Mad Love" comparisons, I'll just say it — yes, I am using the Joker and Harley Quinn as a basis for Zim and Nyx's relationship, only platonic instead of romantic. For now, anyway; we'll see what happens in the future.

That's all to be said for now. Read on!

Last time, on The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Still carrying a grudge against Dib, Nyx used her connections to put a hit out on him, bringing bounty hunters from across the galaxy to Earth. One of these turned out to be the old skool guidance counselor Mr. Dwicky, who warned Dib of the bounty and helped fend off the other hunters until Zim — enraged at anyone else targeting his archenemy — forced Nyx to call off the hit. Despite this, one of the bounty hunters, an Irken cyborg named Havok, decided to go after Dib anyway for the thrill, leading to an intense fight that ended with Havok's apparent death in an explosion. Afterwards, Dwicky returned to space, while unbeknownst to Team Save Earth, a not quite dead Havok was recovered by Zim and put into stasis indefinitely.

But whatever role Havok will play is in the future. For now, everyone has their own challenges to face.

Disclaimer: I do not now, and will no doubt never, own Invader Zim or any related characters. Just the OCs.

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The New Adventures of Invader Zim

Season 2

Episode 4: Career Day 2 - The Interning

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It was yet another mind-numbing day at Doomsville Middle Skool. Or at least, it was supposed to be, but the students quickly realized that today was a special day.

In Miss Bitters' class, the words "Career Day" had been scrawled on the chalkboard, and the students were cheerfully animated at the sight of it. Well, most of them, anyway — Dib and Zim both cringed at the reminder of what had happened on the previous Career Day, the twins and Skoodge had both been informed of said events and were varying levels of apprehensive over it, and Tak was simply apathetic to the whole situation. Nonetheless, they all paid attention as Miss Bitters stood up in front of the class.

"Students, despite the fact that you're all doomed to be utter failures in life no matter what you do, the Skool Board is still wasting valuable time and money on giving you all a taste of what employment would hypothetically be like for you," the crone droned, "Therefore, you will all be assessed and assigned to intern at job sites matching the skill sets you're most qualified for. And despite the fact that most of you were assessed last time, the Board has mildly updated the assessment protocols since then, so you will all be assessed again."

As if on cue, the classroom door was smashed open, and in floated a blocky, cubical robotic drone with a screen displaying a digital display of a basic face design taking up most of its center mass, and small jets on its bottom keeping it in the air.

"Hello, children," the drone greeted in a screechy electronic voice, "I am the Job Evaluator 9000, and I am here to assess you all for your potential future careers, and assign you to the sites you will be interning at for the day. I will now perform a retinal scan on each of you, in order to determine what job you are most qualified for."

"Wait, what?" Dib asked, arching an eyebrow, "That makes no sense. I mean, I can almost understand how that ink blotch test from last time might help determine what a person's fit for psychologically, but what does a retinal scan have to do with that?"

"Silence, the machine has spoken!" Miss Bitters snarled, "Just for that, you go first."

At that apparent command, the Evaluator floated over to Dib and extended a robotic arm from its body that was topped with a penlight-like device, from which it briefly beamed a laser into Dib's eyes. As he blinked the spots from his vision, a spinning pinwheel icon appeared on the Evaluator's screen for a moment, before returning to the face with a pinging sound like a microwave timer going off.

"Student: Dib. You have been assessed as a Fringe Science Researcher. Please report to the following address," the Evaluator said, extending another robot arm, which ended in a claw holding a small business card. Dib blinked in surprise, before taking it and looking over the address printed on it.

"Well, that's different from last time," he muttered, "I guess that's an upgrade, maybe?"

As Dib studied the card, the Evaluator began moving around the room, scanning students in an apparently random manner. After a few minutes of zigzagging around the room, it came to where the twins were seated next to each other, and scanned Viera first.

"Student: Viera. You have been assessed as a Film Set Assistant," the drone said, presenting her with an address card.

"Huh, that's pretty cool, I guess," Viera said, as Steve was scanned next.

"Student: Steve. You have been assessed as an Office Gofer."

"A what now?" Steve asked, blinking in confusion as he was handed his card.

"I think that's the guy in a corporate office who gets everyone else their coffee and mail," Viera explained.

"Seriously? How do you get to go work on a movie set and I have to be a corporate lackey?" Steve asked, frowning.

"Luck, I guess," Viera said with a shrug. Meanwhile, the Evaluator moved on, and eventually made its way to Zim, who puffed up as it scanned him.

"Yes, go ahead and scan me, Employment Drone," he said, "Zim has grown and evolved much since last time this pitiful exercise was carried out. I know that this time my greatness shall be recognized, and you shall assign me to a position befitting my place as Supreme Ruler of-"

"Student: Zim. You have been assigned as a Fast Food Restaurant Manager."

"Eh?" Zim asked, blinking in utter disbelief as the Evaluator handed him a card. Then his face morphed into a scowl as he heard Tak break out laughing.

"Ha! Sounds like that thing scanned you perfectly," she sneered, "Nice little reminder of your proper place, isn't it?"

Growling, Zim grabbed the Evaluator and threw it in Tak's direction. She easily dodged it as it flew by her, before it stopped and righted itself in the air, then floated in front of Tak properly. Zim grinned, fully expecting it to assign her to janitorial duties, that he would then mock her about. To his surprise, however, as the retinal scan commenced, he saw a spark fly across Tak's eyes as her mind control implant activated. In response, the Evaluator let out a static screech that had everyone clutching their ears.

"S-student: Tak. You-you-you have been assessed as a D-Deelishus Weenie Corporate M-Manager," the Evaluator slurred, drunkenly handing Tak a card before floating off.

"Wait a minute, she can't just be assigned to someplace she already owns!" Dib protested.

"The Dib-Monkey is right for once in his worthless existence!" Zim agreed, "Besides, Tak clearly just hacked the system to give herself that job."

"Be quiet! All evaluations are final!" Miss Bitters snapped in response. Meanwhile, the Evaluator jerkingly moved across the room to hover in front of Skoodge, who yelped in pain and fell out of his chair as a more powerful than normal scan beam hit him in the eye.

"Student: Skoodge. You have been assessed as a Janitor," the Evaluator said, voice restoring to its normal candor. It then scanned the remaining students, before exiting back through the door.

"You have all received your assignments. Report to them for the remainder of the day, and return here afterwards to report in. Now get out of my sight!" Miss Bitters ordered. The children all obeyed, and filled out into the hallway, which was filling up with students from other classrooms who had likewise been given their assignments for the day. In particular, there was Mr. Elliot's class, including Tenn, who moved over to walk next to Tak.

"So, what assignment have you been given for this waste of a day?" Tak asked.

"Security guard at the Mall," Tenn replied, mouth twisting in mild disgust, "One of the most highly qualified Invaders in Irken history, and I'm being told to go be a rent-a-cop?"

"Pity it didn't occur to you to hack the system, like I did," Tak said with a smirk. Ignoring Tenn's glare, she instead turned her attention towards her enemies. Team Save Earth were already leaving the building, presumably heading towards their respective assignments; by contrast, Zim and Skoodge had hung back, Nyx soon joining them and seemingly ranting about something.

"What's her problem?" Tak asked. Following her partner's gaze, Tenn smirked and gave a short laugh before responding.

"The Defective refused to partake in the assigning process," she explained, "Something about not allowing her fate to be decided by 'the Man', whatever that means. In any case, she smashed the Evaluator before it could scan her, so she was given a random, low-wage type job assignment."

"Heh, serves her right for joining up with that idiot traitor. Well, in any case, let's get this over with. I'll see you afterwards," Tak said, she and Tenn walking towards the doors, leaving Zim's group behind.

"…A flirking paint factory!" Nyx was yelling, arms waving about dramatically, "What am I supposed to learn in a dump like that, anyway?"

"How to make and sell paint?" Skoodge suggested.

"Don't point out the obvious while I'm complaining about something!" Nyx said, glaring at him, "I mean, at least Gaz got assigned to Game Slave Inc.'s headquarters. That's interesting. If I'm being forced to go along with this corporate enslavement, why couldn't I get something like that? Or a dynamite factory or something?"

"Well, then you shouldn't have smashed the Evaluator before it could even try to scan you," Skoodge pointed out. Nyx's glare intensified, but before she could say anything, Zim suddenly cut it.

"Enough! Zim is not happy about his assignment either, but do you hear me complaining about it?"

"Well, you were being pretty loud about it until Nyx showed up," Skoodge put in, only for Zim to smack him upside the head.

"Silence!" Zim snapped, before composing himself, "Let us just get this pointless endeavor of a day out of the way. And who knows, maybe I can make an opportunity out of this. Hmm, yes, maybe I can take over these corporate Food Drones from within and use them to enslave the other humans. Hmm…"

Lost in that train of thought, Zim wandered off towards the exit. Nyx and Skoodge watched him go for a few moments, before Nyx huffed and walked off as well. Skoodge, meanwhile, pulled out his assignment card to actually look at it for the first time, and blinked as he read the address written on it.

"Wait, this says I'm supposed to be assigned here at the skool?" he asked. Then a chill ran down his spine as a shadow fell over him; looking up to its source, he was greeted by Nny's grinning face.

"Saddle up, chubby, we're in for a long day," the homicidal janitor said, Skoodge paling in horror in response.

Doomsville Advanced Scientific Research Center, A Short Time Later

Dib stood on a sidewalk in midtown Doomsville, just across from the City Park, looking carefully at the building he was standing in front of. It was rather standard-looking for the area, being about twenty stories tall, its brick and concrete facade given a very basic and bland paint job. Dib glanced at the address printed on the card in his hand, checked the one displayed over the building's front doors to confirm they matched, and then walked inside.

Entering a rather typical lobby, with a few large potted plants along the walls and a brightly-colored carpet running most of its center length, Dib followed that carpet up to a desk behind which sat an extremely bored-looking overweight security guard.

"Can I help you?" the guard droned.

"Uh, yeah, I've been assigned here for a Skool Career Day," Dib said, holding up the card for the guard to see. The guard glanced at it, checked something on his computer, and nodded lazily.

"Okay, I see it here. They're expecting you up on the top floor," the guard said, pointing towards a nearby elevator. Nodding his thanks, Dib walked over to the elevator and, after a moment's wait for it to respond to the call button, got in and pressed the top floor button.

For the next several minutes, the elevator slowly ascended, Dib rocking on his heels in boredom. Just as he was idly starting to wonder why all elevator music sounded the same, the elevator came to a stop, the doors sliding open — and then out of nowhere, a net shot into the elevator, ensnaring Dib before he could even realize what was happening.

"What the he-AH!" Dib's confused exclamation turned into a shout of panic as a cord attached to the net suddenly went taut and retracted, pulling him off his feet and dragging him away at a rapid pace. He got brief flashes of a hallway and people, but was moving too fast to really register anything, and then he was pulled into a room.

Disoriented from the sudden sequence of events and vision spinning, Dib was unable to react as someone grabbed him out of the net and dropped him into a chair, with what he belatedly recognized as rope being wrapped around him, securing him in place. Shortly after this finished, Dib's vision finally cleared enough to see where he was. He was in a moderately-sized room that was apparently used as an office, judging by the rows of filing cabinets lining the walls and the large desk he was seated in front of. More importantly was the individual sitting behind that desk, and as Dib registered that person, he suddenly found himself wishing his hands were free so that he could facepalm.

"Seriously? How did I get assigned to you again?!" he exclaimed.

"An excellent question," Bill said, leaning forward to brace his elbows against the surface of his desk and rest his chin against his clasped-together hands, "We do keep seeming to cross paths, don't we. Coincidence? I think not. So tell me who you're working for!"

"Who I'm… what?" Dib asked, blinking in confusion, "You think I'm spying on you or something?"

"Well, let's review the facts," Bill responded, ticking points off on his fingers, "First, you're assigned to shadow me on that last Career Day, and not only do you distract me from my investigation of whatever message the aliens were having that cow leave behind via those crop circles, but you allow that monster Cocofang to escape once I'd finally cornered him. Now, I could have written that off as you just being inexperienced with proper paranormal investigation techniques. But then after I manage to catch that alien bug creature, you and your girlfriend and that other accomplice of yours show up with a bunch of other aliens and destroy my entire base of operations. And now, once I've finally got my organization back on its feet, here you come again, apparently just 'randomly' selected to shadow me for Career Day again? I don't think so. You've clearly been sent to sabotage me, and I want to know precisely which of the 112 conspiracies I've confirmed the existence of it was!"

"…Okay, let me spell out all the things wrong with what you just said. First of all, last Career Day? That was just some random cow and a guy in a costume, and I had nothing to do with him getting away from you. Secondly, my team showing up at your base at the same time as Zim's group was a coincidence; we're archenemies, not allies. Thirdly, the way I remember it, you're the one who blew up your base. And fourthly, Viera is not my girlfriend!" Dib responded, voice flat and even until that last remark shifted to a more defensive tone, accompanied by flushed cheeks.

"A likely story," Bill scoffed, "But if you won't confess, and since even I'm not willing to torture a child to get information, I suppose I'll just have to deduce your true loyalties the old fashioned way."

With that dramatic declaration, Bill swept to his feet and moved to the wall behind him, which Dib belatedly noticed was marked with the logo for Bill's CREAM organization. He hit a small button on the side of the wall, causing it to flip open and revealing a conspiracy board. One that Dib, who had vast experience with such things, had to say was a total mess — there were dozens of photographs and news-clippings scattered around the board in no discernible pattern, all connected to each other by a dizzying web of strings in almost every color imaginable. Dib honestly had no idea what he was supposed to be looking at.

"Now then, let's sort through this vast haystack of lies to find that elusive needle that is the truth," Bill proclaimed.

"This is gonna suck," Dib mentally sighed, as Bill launched into a rambling lecture.

GenericCo. Doomsville Branch Office, Same Time

"…And over here's the water cooler, and over there in that corner is the other water cooler, and this here is the mail room, which has its own water cooler," the man showing Steve around the office space he'd been assigned to exposited in a bland tone.

"Why does this place need so many water coolers?" Steve asked, arching an eyebrow, as they passed by rows of cubicles occupied by men and women all hunched over computers.

"We're legally required to guarantee all employees stay hydrated even when working around the clock, so they don't end up like Old Smith here," the man replied, casually gesturing towards a particular cubicle, where a skeleton in rotted clothes sat slumped over in its chair, cobwebs coating everything. Steve stared in wide-eyed disbelief at this for several moments before he noticed his guide was still walking, and he moved to follow, deciding to ignore that unsettling sight for now.

"And here is one of the most important parts of the office — the break room!" the guide said, actual emotion entering his voice as he spread his arms to encompass the small room they had entered, which contained a kitchenette, a couple of vending machines, and a few small tables. Several employees sat around the room, a few eating at the tables, but most crowded around a coffee machine on the kitchen counter. As Steve watched, a woman who looked utterly rundown and sleep-deprived shuffled up to the machine, poured herself a cup, and took deep drink. And to Steve's shock, within seconds the woman was revitalized, practically glowing as she strut out of the room back towards her cubicle, whistling happily.

"Wow, that's powerful stuff," Steve commented, watching as this sequence of events repeated itself with several more of the employees.

"Yes, coffee is our most important asset here, the fuel that keeps our employees going through their grueling work," the guide said, "Of course, us management-level types can't be bothered to come down here and waste valuable time to get our own coffee, so that'll be your today. Got it?"

"Yeah, sure," Steve said with a sigh.

"Good. Then whip up six expressos and take them up to the main conference room. We've got a big meeting, and some of the people involved have been pulling all-nighters. Chop-chop," the guide said, before walking off. Steve watched him go, before giving another sigh and getting in line behind the employees.

He could already tell this was going to be a long day, and hoped that the others were having a better time than he was.

Planetary Movies Studio Lot, Same Time

Viera was honestly surprised that Doomsville had its own movie studio. Then again, considering that all the posters plastered on the walls of the buildings only seemed to feature B-grade (at best) movies that she'd mostly never heard of and which appeared to only star third-string actors, she had a feeling they weren't exactly a very famous or successful studio. She'd be surprised if any of these films made it into actual theaters, instead of straight to video or cable.

That said, it was still an actual set of a real movie. This should be exciting, right?

"This is the main set we're working out of right now, so this is where you'll be helping out today," the middle-aged lady escorting Viera said. Viera nodded and made a noise of acknowledgement, while taking in the layout of the soundstage. It appeared they were filming some kind of fantasy film, judging by the grove of plastic trees surrounding the "stone" (actually styrofoam, from the looks of it) ruins of some kind of temple. Aside from that, there were just a bunch of green screens surrounding the set.

"Wouldn't it look better if it was actually filmed outside?" she asked her guide, who shrugged in response.

"Probably, but it's cheaper to rent studio space than it is to go through the whole process of securing an offsite filming location. And we can use the resulting extra money in the budget for better catering," the woman said, gesturing towards a long buffet table off to one side of the room.

"Isn't that kinda, you know, a total waste?" Viera asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Not when it's being used to appease your one star," the guide replied. Viera blinked in confusion at that, but before she could say anything else, a door at the other end of the soundstage was kicked open, revealing a late middle-aged woman in a bathrobe and too much makeup, with a very angry look on her face.

"Where is my mineral water?!" she screeched, "I asked for it three minutes ago, and still all I have in my dressing room is regular water! And why hasn't anyone gotten me a gluten-free chicken salad yet?!"

The woman continued to rant in that vein for several more minutes, seemingly without breath, before stomping off back through the door, which Viera could now see was marked "Dressing Rooms". Though she didn't quite register that, as she was left a little stunned by the virtual verbal hurricane of snooty demands that the woman had just unleashed.

"And that's our star," the guide explained, "Claudia von Wunderbar. Forty years ago she was a pretty successful child star, but she never quite made the transition to adult fame, so she's only able to get by on cheap productions like ours. Not that you'd know it from her I'm-better-than-all-of-you attitude… ah, well. Good luck!"

"Wait, what? I have to work with her?" Viera asked, incredulous, "I was told I was assigned here as an assistant!"

"You are. And you'll be assisting Claudia personally," the guide replied, smirking slightly, "What, did you think some random intern like you would get picked to work with the director or something?"

"Er…" Viera mumbled, blushing slightly; she had been kind of hoping she'd get a better assignment out of such a rare opportunity.

"Well, you better get a move on and get Claudia that water and salad and anything else she wants," the guide said, "I suggest you be prepared for her to ask you for basically anything. Also, refer to her as 'Miss', not 'Ma'am'; it makes her feel old. Oh, and don't try to correct her when she gets your name wrong, it won't make a difference except angering her. And don't make eye contact, she'll take it as a challenge. Have fun!"

With that, the woman walk off with a wave and a smile, leaving Viera standing there, dumbfounded. Then she jumped as another screech emanated from the dressing rooms, and she reluctantly ran off towards the buffet table, already deciding that she was probably going to leave this part out when she swapped stories of the day's events with her brother and Dib.

MacMeaties, Downtown Doomsville, Same Time

Zim huffed in annoyance as he walked through the restaurant, following the manager who had greeted him when he'd arrived and presented his assignment card. The older man was saying something, but the ex-Invader was ignoring it all, too busy as he was trying to not become violently ill at his surroundings. Leaving aside all the flashbacks he was having to Foodcourtia, this place was disgusting — everywhere he looked, there were humans shoving barely processed and cooked meat into their slobbering mouths, bits of food dripping off of them to scatter over already filthy floors.

And that was before they even got into the kitchen which was, if possible, even more revolting. The fryers and grills were covered with dried grease and meat juice, stains of unidentifiable origins covered the floor, and of course there was the matter of the meat processors, where pimply-faced employees were shoveling in meat paste, napkins, some sort of pink sludge, and occasional pieces of actual meat that Zim was fairly certain wasn't beef or pork.

"Uggghhh," Zim groaned, feeling light-headed as he watched some of the "meat" produced by the processors was mashed into patties and passed along. The thought of someone actually eating that made him feel ill by proxy.

"Yeah, seeing such a well-oiled machine in action can be pretty overwhelming, huh?" the manager asked, oblivious to what Zim was really thinking, "But you won't be working out here today. You've been selected for something a lot more important than that."

"Yes, because Zim is superior to such Worker Drones!" Zim said, the offhanded compliment immediately firing up his ego enough to overcome his disgust at his surroundings, "Now take me to the managerial domain so that I may begin my iron-fisted reign over these fools!"

"Well, you've certainly got the right attitude. Let's get you settled," the manager commented, as they exited through the rear of the kitchen and walked down a short hallway towards a door. Which he flung open dramatically, revealing… a cramped space a few feet square, with a stool and a small desk visibly straining under the weight of several stacks of paper as tall as Zim crammed into it.

"…Er, this is the manager's office?" Zim asked, squinting an eye in confusion.

"No, of course not, that's over there," the manager said, gesturing further down the hall towards another door, open to reveal a much more spacious room, "Since you're just a one-day intern, there'd be no point letting you use my office, so we just repurposed this closet space for you. Anyway, you'd better get started on that paperwork."

"Paperwork?!" Zim exclaimed, "Zim came here to rule over these worthless fast food peons and bend them to my will to aid in conquering this planet, not fill out forms!"

"Sorry, but this is part of being a manager, and that's what you're here to learn today," the manager said, apparently not registering the part about conquering Earth, "So unless you want to be failed for your assignment, and get a negative mark on your permanent employment record, you better get to work."

With that, the manager not-too-softly shoved Zim into the repurposed closet and closed the door behind him. Zim snarled incoherently in response, kicking the shoddy desk and half expecting it to collapse from the blow. When it didn't, his angry grumbles trailed off into mere frustration and annoyance.

"How dare they force Zim to do such a menial task?" he muttered, before shaking it off, "No matter. I shall quickly overcome this paper waste trap, thereby proving my superiority to the Managerial Meat Drones and be given access to more important aspects of their operation. And then, once I have gained all their secrets, I'll, uh… use the meat to enslave all the humans, I guess? Meh, I'll come up with something when I get to that part."

That plan firmly set in mind, Zim sat down at the desk, grabbed a pen, and started going through the paperwork.

Smiling Funtime Paints Company Factory, Same Time

Nyx lethargically followed after the guide who had greeted her at the factory's entrance, pouting and arms crossed. Whatever the man was saying about her assignment was probably important, but she couldn't be bothered to pay attention to it. She was still too annoyed at the entire situation to actually care about the details of it — she was supposed to be helping Zim stage a revolution, not sitting here learning how to do whatever pointless corporate slave work she'd been assigned to do.

Caught up in her angry musing as she was, Nyx found herself walking right into her guide's back as he came to a stop. Blinking, Nyx looked around, and saw that at some point they had entered a large white room, empty except for a chair next to what appeared to be a giant paintball gun mounted on some kind of mechanized platform.

"Well, here you go. Just get settled in, and it will automatically start up," the guide said, handing a confused Nyx a clipboard and a stopwatch.

"Um, okay?" Nyx said, trying not to let on that she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. Instead she just watched the guide leave, before sitting down in the chair and waiting for something to happen.

"User presence registered. Engaging sample 1," a robotic voice intoned from the apparatus Nyx was sitting next to. Before she could process that, the gun hummed and fired, launching several large pellets at the opposite wall, splattering green paint over a roughly three-foot space.

"Begin monitoring of time elapsing until sample has dried, now," the robot voice ordered. And as what that meant registered with her, Nyx's jaw dropped.

"My assignment is to watch paint dry?!" she exclaimed, "They actually have people who do this? Why not just have a computer do it? This is so stupid!"

Growling in disgust for a few moments, the Defective anarchist trailed off into wordless grumbling, slumping down into her chair. After a moment, she looked at the stopwatch, rolled her eyes, and clicked it on. She then set the watch and clipboard aside, and pulled an entertainment magazine out of her PAK.

"At least this is likely to go by quickly enough," she muttered as she flipped through articles on mindless celebrity gossip, "Still, wish I could have at least got something a little more exciting. Even that menial labor Skoodge was assigned is probably better than this. He's probably having at least some fun."

Doomsville Middle Skool, Same Time

"…So the key to a proper disembowelment is to go in from beneath, removing the intestines first," Nny explained as he casually hacked away at the half-dead drug dealer strapped to the table in the middle of his spacious janitor's closet, "Once that's out of the way, you have more room to work with in regards to the other organs. You writing all this down?"

Skoodge, sitting on a stool in the corner, merely whimpered in response, somehow managing to both pale in shock and turn a darker shade of green in nausea at the same time.

"And here's a fun fact," Nny continued, grabbing a handful of entrails, "Get a good enough grip on them, and you can use them to pull the stomach right out-"

"BLEEEAAAGGGGHHHH!" Skoodge squealed, finally hitting his breaking point and vomiting, before passing out face first in the resulting puddle.

"Huh, I thought he'd last longer than that. Ah well, guess not everyone's got the constitution for this job," Nny commented to the drug dealer, who was going into shock. Shrugging, he went back to his macabre work, while making a mental note to have Skoodge clean up his mess once he regained consciousness.

Game Slave Incorporated HQ, Same Time

Standing in the lobby of the Game Slave building, Gaz took a moment to take a deep breath, basking in the moment. This was practically holy ground to her, right up there with Bloaty's, and she was going to enjoy every last second of it. The fact that it got her out of skool for the day was just a bonus, really.

Gaz was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of someone approaching. Looking up, she saw a short, overweight woman with gray hair and a facial expression just a few degrees warmer than Miss Bitters' default look was walking towards her. Assuming this was her guide, Gaz wordlessly held out her assignment card, which the woman glanced at briefly before nodding in acknowledgement.

"Well then, right this way," the woman said gruffly, "We're trying to run a business here. We don't have time to just stand around."

"Doesn't seem to be bothering that guy much," Gaz commented, gesturing towards a janitor standing off to one side of the lobby, leaning on a mop with a bored expression and staring into space.

"Richards!" the woman snapped, the janitor jumping in surprise at her outburst, "What have I told you about slacking? I know for a fact that you don't have a break for another three hours!"

"But Mrs. Albertson, ma'am, there's nothing for me to do," Richards protested.

"Isn't it your job to find stuff to do?" Gaz asked, Mrs. Albertson grunting and pointing at her.

"See? This kid's been here two minutes and she's already more on the ball than you are," she said, before shouting, "Security! Discipline!"

"Not again," Richards moaned, just before a pair of very muscular men in black uniforms suddenly appeared and hit him with shock batons. Watching the unfortunate janitor collapse in a twitching mass to the floor, Gaz snickered in mild amusement, arching an eyebrow at Mrs. Albertson.

"That standard?" she asked.

"We're a multibillion dollar global company," the older woman sniffed, "We don't have time for niceties. Everyone needs to pull their weight, or we take losses. An occasional beating reminds people of the cost of that. Besides, it's not like they can sue — this is all laid out in their contracts, so it's their own fault for not bothering to read the fine print before signing. Anyway, let's go."

Not even giving Gaz a chance to respond, Mrs. Albertson turned and walked towards a nearby elevator. Not taking offense at the woman's demeanor, since it was a definite improvement over people making pointless small talk, Gaz followed after her. For several minutes, they rode up the building in silence, before finally emerging on one of the top floors. Stepping out, Gaz was greeted by the view of an open loft-style office, people of various ages sitting at desks in front of computers, standing by walls covered in charts, or in some cases were even hooked up to what looked like advanced VR gear.

"Nice," Gaz commented, glancing at a few of the computers and seeing game graphics being mapped out.

"Yes it is," Mrs. Albertson said, nodding in approval, "Now then, as an executive-in-training, you will spend your day here learning the basic ropes of how to run such a high-end company. And most important of all is utter dedication to the work, with no room or time for things like rest or relaxation."

"Again, what you're saying is kinda being contradicted by what I see," Gaz pointed out, gesturing towards one corner of the room, where a few employees were in various stages of relaxation, their focus on magazines or phones while they chatted amiably or ate snacks. Seeing this, Mrs. Albertson scowled.

"Why aren't you all working?" she demanded loudly, the group all cringing as they realized that she was talking to them.

"Er, ma'am, we're all just taking one of our 15 minute breaks-" one of the group started to say, before he was interrupted.

"Didn't you idiots get the latest memo? Breaks can now be no longer than 7-and-a-half minutes! That's the bare minimum that our research says is needed to keep you all from dropping dead from exertion, so that's all you're allowed now, you slackers," Mrs. Albertson snapped, "Discipline!"

Gaz chuckled as a pair of security guards who looked indistinguishable from the previous pair suddenly appeared and started tasering the group. A thought suddenly occurring to her as she watched this, she looked around and soon spotted another employee, one who was slightly slumped over in her chair, looking dead tired. As she yawned, Gaz smirked and pointed at her.

"That one looks like she's about to take a nap on the job," she commented to Mrs. Albertson, who whirled around to look where she was pointing.

"No slacking! Discipline!" This time, Gaz outright laughed out loud as the security guards went to work.

Yes, she was definitely going to enjoy her day here.

City Center Mall, Same Time

Tenn sat on a chair in the Mall's security office, head resting in her palm and staring into the middle distance, as she tried to tune out the mindless blather of Slab Rankle, who was standing in front of her and gesturing dramatically at the banks of monitors. The overly-obsessive security guard had greeted her upon her arrival at the Mall, dragged her into his office, and had been ranting ever since. At this point, she was fairly certain he didn't even remember she was here.

"…Carry on, brave Crafts Barrel, know that I am on watch to make sure that the few customers who still come to acquire your wares in person rather than online shall do so by properly buying them, rather than stealing them," he was saying, "Same to you, humble Denim Dump, proud Game Pit, and of course, noble Video Outhouse, still holding on for the sake of all the hipsters who still prefer watching movies on actual tapes instead of just streaming them."

"Is every business in this mall failing because of the internet?" Tenn couldn't help but ask. In response, Rankle blinked and stared at her for a moment, before he apparently remembered who she was and decided to actually respond to her question.

"Well, I wouldn't say failing per se," he said, "But yes, sadly, the age when mighty institutions like the Mall stood first and foremost in the world of retail have passed. But a juggernaut like this cannot simple cease to be. No, it will fight tooth and nail to survive until the last cent of revenue has been bled away. And as the ones who have been the solemn duty to defend this sacred place, we are honor bound to ensure that its rules are enforced until our last, grasping breaths!"

"You do know I'm only here for the day, right?" Tenn asked, arching a holographic eyebrow.

"Regardless! You're here now, and that's all that matters!" Rankle declared. He seemed about ready to say something else, but then something on his wrist monitor started beeping. Glancing at it with a gleam of excitement in his eye, he then turned to check something on one of the monitors, seeming to grow even more excited. Curious, Tenn tried to look at it too, only for Rankle to spin around, grab her by the arm, and start dragging her out of the room.

"I can walk on my own," Tenn snapped, yanking her arm free. Rankle didn't respond and kept walking; rolling her eyes in annoyance, Tenn didn't say anything but kept pace with him. Exiting the office, the pair walked down several hallways until, to Tenn's surprise, they reached a door marked "garage". Opening it and walking through into the parking structure beyond, Rankle quickly took cover behind a concrete pillar and gestured for Tenn to join him; now even more curious, she complied, and glanced around the pillar to see what he was looking at, and her eyes widened in surprise.

There were a group of people gathered on the floor near one of the cars on the other side of the garage level… though calling them "people" in the human sense might be pushing the definition a bit. They were scuttling around on all fours, their skin was sickly and pale, their teeth and fingernails looked more like fangs and claws, and their eyes were large and red.

"Rat people," Rankle explained, noticing the confused look on Tenn's face, "People who have gotten lost down in the depths of the garage and been mutated into horrible mutants, doomed to a pitiful existence here in the darkness."

"So, what? You're going to 'heroically' rescue them?" Tenn asked, bored already.

"Of course not!" Rankle snapped, "These freaks are a blemish on the perfection of my glorious Mall! Whenever they come this far up, I have to drive them back before anyone sees them and gets too disgusted to ever shop here again. Now, follow my lead."

With that, Rankle calmly stepped out from behind the pillar, standing proud and firm… and then he suddenly gave a berserk battle cry and charged towards the nearest rat person, who barely had time to look up before Rankle's fist slammed into his face, laying him out flat on the floor.

"Okay, now this is definitely more interesting," Tenn said, smirking as she watched Rankle pull out a baton and a stun gun and begin whaling on any rat person unlucky enough to get within his range. Sadly, her entertainment only lasted a few minutes, before every rat person was either unconscious or fleeing deeper into the garage.

"Ah, the sweet smell of victory," Rankle said, breathing deeply and with his fists planted on his hips. Tenn was pretty sure what they were smelling was the smoke from any rat people whose hair had been set on fire by the stun gun, but she didn't feel like commenting on it.

"So, what are you going to do with these?" she asked instead, walking up to one of the downed rat people and nudging them in the side with her foot.

"Why the only humane thing, of course — sell them to a big corporation that's looking for slave labor that's cheaper in the long run than paying actual employees to do grunt work," Rankle said, as he began using zip-ties to secure the unconscious rat people, "It's a good little slush fund to help make up for all the budget cuts we've had lately."

"…Is that legal?" Tenn asked.

"In some states. Depends on how you define 'legal'," Rankle explained, narrowing his eyes at her slightly, "This going to be a problem for you?"

"No, I don't care about the so-called ethics, I just wanted to be sure I'm not going to jail for this," Tenn replied, as she started helping in the restraining.

"Good. Then you can keep an eye on this lot while I go get some containment cells and call the buyers for pickup," Rankle said, before running off. Tenn watched him go, and then, after taking a moment to kick a semi-conscious rat person in the head to make sure they were fully knocked out, she leaned against a car to wait for Rankle to come back.

This was turning out to be more fun than she had thought. She couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Deelishus Weenie Building, Same Time

Tak stood on a balcony over looking one of the outer sections of the Deelishus Weenie building, an area separate from her actual base, designed to help provide more of a basis for her cover story. That mostly just meant processing weenies and shipping them to the corporation's brand name food stands, like the one at the base of the tower, which was fine by her as it was an excuse to mostly mechanize the facility and therefore have as few humans this close to her base as possible.

Speaking of which, the few employees present were milling about on the floor below her, pressing buttons and pulling levers to make sure the otherwise automated machinery kept running. One of them, a particularly dumb-looking guy with a goatee, finally seemed to notice her and stopped to stare up at her.

"Uhh, are you supposed to be here?" he asked.

"I own… er, I mean, my father owns the company," Tak replied, making a mental note to check up on the Weenie CEO's containment tube and make sure he was still alive, just in case she ever needed him, "So that means that I can be here whenever I want. Also, it's Career Day, and I've been assigned here for it. So in other words, shut up and get back to work!"

That seemed to mollify the worker, who shrugged and walked off towards another work station. Tak watched him go, before deciding him to be too unimportant to care about and letting her attention drift away. Briefly, she found herself wondering how everyone else was doing with their assignments, before deciding she didn't care. Let them deal with this pointless day or not, she'd make the most of it. She'd head back into her base proper and use this free time to begin work on a new plan for conquering Earth. She and Tenn had a few vague plots in the works, so she could take a look at those and see if there was anything she could start on-

"Hey, uh, Boss Lady Ma'am Miss?" the same worker from before suddenly spoke up, having walked back over when she wasn't looking. Blinking in surprise as she was pulled out her thoughts, Tak glared down at the man.

"What?" she asked flatly.

"Uhm, so, we found something weird on one of the computers, and we're not sure what we're supposed to do with it," he said. Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Tak walked towards the nearby stairs and quickly reached the floor, keeping her glare on the worker as she approached him.

"So, what is it?" she asked dryly.

"This file popped up on one of the processing machines, and no one knows what it is," the worker explained, handing the tablet he was holding out for Tak to take. She did so, and as she looked at what it was displaying, her holographic eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Huh, I completely forgot about this thing," she muttered, looking at the genetic graph for the Ham Demon she'd unleashed during her initial plan on Earth, to further distract Zim from her activities after crippling his base. She hadn't even thought about it since, though, and even if she had, its file should have been stored on her base's computers, not here in the factory.

"Ugh, MIMI must have been messing around with the computers during one of her 'random' phases and sent it down here by mistake," she mentally grumbled.

"Is that like a promotional product or something?" the worker asked.

"Sure, let's go with that," Tak replied, handing the tablet back and turning to walk away, making a mental note to scrub that file from these computers later.

"Okay then. Fire it up!" the worker said, shouting the last part towards several other workers standing by a larger cylindrical device, causing Tak to stop in her tracks.

"Wait, what?" she asked. Turning to see what they were doing, her eyes widened as she saw the machine whirling to life, lighting up and exterior components moving rapidly.

"No! Stop, you idiots!" she screamed, running towards the surprised workers. However, before she could reach them, the machine came to a stop, only to suddenly explode, revealing the Ham Demon standing there. With a roar, the reborn beast threw itself at the nearest human and started mauling them. Tak, meanwhile, grabbed the worker she'd been talking to by the collar and dragged him down to her eye level.

"Why would you remake that thing?!" Tak screamed in his face, while the Ham Demon used one of his coworkers as a club against the others.

"Uh… because it's our job to make what shows up on the processor computers?" the worker replied hesitantly.

"Gah — you're fired!" Tak yelled, shoving him away while her mind-control implant flashed, "And go play in traffic!"

While the newly-unemployed worker ran off with a glazed look in his eyes, Tak turned back to the rampaging Ham Demon. Watching it finishing its assault on the humans, she considered her options — the idiotic humans having created the monster without mentally programming it first meant that it wouldn't be compelled to obey her. But, if she could just keep it calm, perhaps she could use her implant, get it under her control…

"RAAAGGGGHHH!" the Ham Demon screamed, as it charged towards her.

"Ah, flirk it," Tak spat, jumping out of the way. Rolling as she landed a few feet away, she brought out her PAK legs and fired at the demon. The plasma blasts hit dead on, but aside from the smell of burnt meat seemed to have no effect other than making the Ham Demon angry. Roaring even louder than before, it ripped a meat processor out of where it was bolted to the floor and charged at Tak, swinging the machinery at her.

Jumping aside again, Tak fired another plasma blast, this time destroying the processor. Then, while the Ham Demon was disoriented by the loss of its weapon, jumped forward and slashed its face with her PAK legs, gouging out one of its eyes and barely missing the other. Now blinded and in pain, the Ham Demon gave a bellow of agony and ran in a random direction, Tak smirking as she watched it head straight towards a wall-

SMASH!

-and then her jaw dropped as it smashed straight through that wall, emerging on the other side. Staring through the new hole in her building in disbelief, Tak watched as the Ham Demon went on a rampage on the street outside, attacking anything it could get its meaty paws on.

"…Huh, should I just let it keep doing this? I mean, it's already been made, it'd be a shame to waste it," Tak mused, before shaking it off, "No, I can't risk someone tracking it back to me — even if this whole species is too stupid to realize the actual implications, the last thing I need is being tied down in a lawsuit for property damage or something."

So, hesitantly, Tak braced herself and took off running after the Ham Demon.

Doomsville Advanced Scientific Research Center, Some Time Later

"…And thus the war between the Girly Scouts and the secret societies of Poop Cola-powered wizards for control of the national zeitgeist continues to this day, unaware that they're being manipulated by a cabal of the Illuminati, Freemasons, Templars, and of course, Cocofang and his vile cohorts," Bill finished with a flourish, finally turning from his board back to Dib. Anything else he was going to say stalled as he saw that Dib's head was lolling to one side, eyes lidded and snoring lightly. Frowning at this, Bill reached over and slapped him upside the head.

"Bigfoot's tonsillitis!" Dib blurted out, blinking blearily, before he registered Bill in front of him, "Oh right, you. You done?"

"When did I lose you?" Bill asked irritably.

"Uh, I think you were talking about those plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces," Dib said, face scrunched up as he reluctantly tried to remember what Bill had been talking about.

"They're called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister," Bill said, before grumbling, "Great, now I have to go over it all again."

"Oh come on, can't you just torture me instead?" Dib groaned, sinking into his seat as much as his binds would allow.

Bill opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off as the intercom on his desk buzzed. Frowning again at the interruption, he turned from Dib to hit the respond button.

"What is it?" he snapped.

"Sorry, sir, but there's a situation in the control room that requires your attention," a voice responded. Huffing in annoyance, Bill turned and walked towards the door, grabbing the back of Dib's chair and dragging him along after himself.

"Er, I don't suppose you could just leave me here?" Dib asked, "Or, you know, actually let me go?"

"No, I'm keeping an eye on you," Bill replied, not looking back at Dib as he spoke.

Rolling his eyes, Dib chose not to argue for the moment, instead taking in his surroundings. Before, he'd been pulled down the hallway too fast to actually see what it looked like, but now that he did, he was surprised at how mundane it all was. It looked like any run-of-the-mill corporate office hallway, with blandly-colored walls covered with equally-bland motivational posters, as well as several points where the dust outlines on the walls suggested that other posters and signs had once been placed. In fact, they passed several people in the uniforms of CREAM agents who were in the process of taking posters and signs down and putting up new ones with their organization's logo.

"Did you just buy this place?" Dib asked, looking over his shoulders to arch an eyebrow at his captor.

"Yeah, it used to belong to some private astronomical research group," Bill replied, "Apparently they bankrupted themselves by dedicating all their resources to finding out where Mars disappeared to, even though their backers cared more about getting stars named after themselves or something. All a waste of time, of course, since everyone knows Mars was pulled into another dimension by an eldritch octopus god."

Dib felt tempted to tell Bill what really happened to Mars, but since that felt like it'd be more of a headache than it was worth, he decided to keep his mouth shut and let Bill keep ranting.

"Anyway, this provided us with a perfect place to permanently relocate our base of operations. Before that, we'd been stuck renting space wherever we could find it. Ah, here we are," Bill continued, until they apparently reached their destination. Plopping the chair down and turning it around so that Dib could see that they had entered what appeared to be an office area full of agents typing away at computers, he walked over towards the nearest one.

"Alright, so what's so important?" Bill asked the agent.

"Sir, there appears to be some kind of disturbance further downtown," the agent replied. Entering a command into his keyboard, he caused what was on his computer to appear on the bank of monitors covering the wall on the opposite side of the room. To everyone's surprise, it was now showing footage of a giant monster made of ham rampaging up and down a street. Dib in particular was surprised when he noticed it was holding a struggling Tak in one hand and was smacking her against every blunt object it passed; hadn't Zim said something about a Ham Demon the first time Tak had shown up?

"It's just as I feared!" Bill suddenly shouted, instantly getting everyone's attention, "We're being invaded by an alternate universe where man evolved from ham instead of monkeys!"

"Seriously? Where do you people come up with this stuff?" Dib asked, rolling his eyes as all the agents gasped dramatically at Bill's proclamation.

"Everyone move out!" Bill ordered, ignoring Dib's commentary. In response, the agents all jumped to their feet and scrambled towards a row of lockers in the corner of the room. Opening the lockers, they pulled out high tech-looking guns and ran out of the room, all the while chanting "hup-hup-hup" for some reason.

"Hey, wait, what about me?" Dib asked as Bill also made his way towards the exit.

"Oh, you'd like to come along and sabotage my efforts again, wouldn't you?" Bill sneered.

"Actually, I was just hoping you'd let me go," Dib said, shrugging.

"Well that's not happening either, you'd just come after me and then sabotage me," Bill said, "Well, you can just stay until I get back, and then I'll break out the mind probe I bought at that CIA yard sale and use it to find out who you're working for."

With that statement, and a final dramatic gesture, Bill swept out of the room. Watching him disappear down the hall, Dib waited until he heard the telltale sounds of Bill leaving on the elevator, and then went to work on trying to free himself from the chair.

"Come on, it's just rope," Dib muttered, as the rope refused to budge or tear from his efforts to wiggle free. After a few minutes of this he gave up, and looked around for some else he could use. Spotting a letter opener conveniently left lying on the edge of a desk, he began shuffling the chair across the floor towards it. Reaching it, he maneuvered the chair as carefully as he could to position it so that his rope-bound arm was right next to the letter opener. He then leaned into it and started moving his arm back and forth, allowing the blade to saw through the rope.

It took a few minutes, but finally the rope gave and Dib was able to free his arm. Not pausing, he used that newfound freedom to grab the letter opener and use it to start cutting away at his other bindings. After several more minutes, he was fully free, and he jumped out of the chair.

"Okay so now what?" he muttered, tossing the letter opener back onto the desk and glancing at the monitors, "Should I go after them after all? I mean, I don't want to feed into Bill's paranoia, but I kinda doubt they'll be able to deal with that thing on their own, and…"

Dib trailed off as, on the screen, Tak burst free of the Ham Demon's grip and fired a pointblank plasma blast in its face, sending it flying, before chasing after it.

"…Or I could just let Tak handle this. She'll probably be done before those idiots even get down there," Dib decided, before awkwardly looking around for a moment. Then, deciding that he'd probably been through enough today to qualify for having fulfilled his assignment, he started walking towards the exit.

Planetary Movies Studio Lot, Same Time

Viera stood off to one side of the soundstage, bored out of her mind as she watched the crew attempting to film a scene. On the actual set, Claudia — who was wearing the gaudiest medieval princess outfit Viera had ever seen, complete with a viking helmet for some reason — was dangling in midair from a rather conspicuous harness, waving around a cheap plastic "crystal" wand while a group of other actors wearing various mismatched medieval-style costumes were standing on the floor looking up at her. Viera honestly thought it looked more like a poor man's Lord of the Rings than any kind of serious production.

The fact that this was the thirtieth attempted take on this scene wasn't helping her opinion of matters, either.

"Behold, for I now wield the Wand of Glorshpor!" Claudia proclaimed melodramatically, "Now I shall reign supreme over all of Gloryland, and- AH!"

Claudia was cut off as the harness, which had been slowly swaying her side-to-side, suddenly jerked to one side, smacking her into one of the styrofoam "stone" walls, knocking it over. Arching an eyebrow at that, Viera glanced over at where the harness operators were standing and fumbling with the various wires and cables they had to pull to make it move.

"Sorry!" one of them shouted, "Something got tangled, and then it slipped, and-"

"Someone fire that idiot, or I quit!" a slightly dazed-looking Claudia shouted, still dangling in midair. As security guards dragged the operator away and other crew members reset the stage, Claudia shook her head either to clear it or just in annoyance, and then she snapped, "Vivian! Get over here and fix my hair and makeup!"

"Yes, Miss von Wunderbar," Viera replied with a sigh; as she had been warned, the woman seemed utterly incapable of getting her name right. Hell, she hadn't even used the same wrong name twice in a row so far.

Shaking that off, Viera grabbed a nearby device she'd quickly learned to keep on hand just in case. It looked vaguely like a giant, old-fashioned blow-dryer with a large box attached to its base that had a small computer screen and keypad on its side. This was a Stylist 9000, apparently the cutting-edge in Hollywood fashion equipment.

"And somehow they can pay for this yet are stuck with props I'd expect for a Hi Skool play," Viera thought as she walked over to Claudia, who had been lowered to the floor, had removed her helmet, and was glaring at her expectantly. In response, Viera tapped a command into the keypad, pointed the Stylist at Claudia, and switched it on. As the blower spun to life, the box opened up and numerous robotic arms emerged, holding various hair care and makeup products, which went to work on Claudia immediately. Within minutes, the aging actress' look had been restored to its pre-crash state.

"Hmph, I suppose that'll do," Claudia said, glancing in a small mirror also popping out of the Stylist, "Still, don't quit your day job, Valerie."

Rolling her eyes, Viera deactivated the Stylist and walked away, allowing Claudia to get back to work. She was hoisted back up into the air, everyone else got back into position, and the cameras started rolling again.

"Behold, for I now wield the Wand of Glorshpor! Now I shall reign supreme over all of Gloryland, and all show bow before my supreme wonder. I-GAH, KOFF, GACK!" This time, Claudia was interrupted with a coughing fit, the cast and crew all groaning as the director called cut again.

"Why am I not properly hydrated?!" Claudia screeched, "Victoria! Where's my mineral water?!"

"Coming, Miss von Wunderbar," Viera said, keeping her voice to a monotone so that she didn't audibly groan. Couldn't this day just be over already?

Trying to focus on simply get through the assignment, Viera grabbed a water bottle and walked it over to Claudia, who snatched it out of her hand. The actress gulped it down, then tossed the bottle aside and snapped, "Now go get me an espresso! If I'd known these idiots were going to slow down production so much, I'd have stocked up on my caffeine beforehand!"

Choosing not to comment on the fact that almost all the delays experienced today had been Claudia's own fault, Viera turned back towards the buffet, making her way towards the extremely advanced-looking coffee machine on one end of the table. Again pondering why a studio with such a limited budget was wasting funds on stuff like this, she punched in an order into its keypad and stood back to wait as it was made.

Then, to her surprise, the machine sparked, let out a whining screech, and then went silent.

"The hell?" Viera muttered, tapping the side of the machine and getting nothing but a few more sparks in response.

"Veronica! Where's my espresso?!" Claudia screeched, Viera wincing at both the sound and anticipation of how the older woman was probably going to react.

"Uh, sorry Miss von Wunderbar, the coffee machine broke," she called back. For a moment, there was a total silence, and then Claudia gave a piercing shriek.

"WHAT?!" she screamed, tearing out of the harness and stomping over to loom over the startled Viera, "You broke my coffee machine?! How am I supposed to make this idiotic movie without caffeine?!"

"I can just go buy some, there must be a hundred places around here that sell coffee!" Viera said quickly, unnerved by the intense look on Claudia's face.

"Are you actually suggesting that I drink pedestrian coffee? That sludge is for normal people, not stars like me!" Claudia screamed in her face, "Do you understand me, Rebecca?!"

"Oh come on, that one doesn't even start with a 'v'!" Viera snapped. It was only as a look of shock appeared on Claudia's face that she realized that might not have been a smart idea.

"How dare you talk back to me?! Do you know who I am?! What kind of pressure I'm under?! How daRE YOU?!" Claudia screamed, voice distorting mid-screech, face twisting into the visage of an old hag, eyes blazing bright red.

"What the…?" Viera asked, eyebrows arching in stunned surprise.

"YOU LITTLE BRAT! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT IS BEING A STAR! ALL I ASK FOR IN RETURN IS A FEW NICETIES, AND THIS IS WHAT I GET?!" Claudia shrieked, body contorting and starting to hover in midair.

"Uh, Miss von Wunderbar, can you please calm down? This is going to disrupt the shooting schedule," the director said, leaving Viera further surprised at how calm he was. Were they all already aware that Claudia was some kind of banshee?

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! I HAVE A CAFFEINE-WITHDRAWAL HEADACHE, AND THIS BRAT DESTROYED MY COFFEE MACHINE!" Claudia snarled, glaring at the director, "YOU WANT ME TO KEEP WORKING? THEN BRING ME HER FLESH, SO I CAN FEAST ON THE SWEET TASTE OF HER FAILED HOPES AND DREAMS OF STARDOM!"

"Wait, what?!" Viera exclaimed, eyes bulging out as the cast and crew's only response to that insane demand was to exchange looks and shrugs, "Come on, you're not actually going to do that, are you? It doesn't make any sense!"

"Yeah, well, if the star wants something, she gets it. Sorry," the director replied.

"Man, we lose more interns this way," a crew member muttered halfheartedly, as everyone walked menacingly towards Viera. Panic setting in, her gaze quickly darted around the room in search of some kind of defense, before settling on the stupid broken coffee machine. Desperate idea sparking, she suddenly grabbed it and threw it through the air to hit Claudia in the face. With a startled "oof!" of surprise, the banshee/demon/whatever she was fell from the air to hit the ground with a smack.

As the cast and crew all gasped and ran over to surround their star, Viera took the opening and bolted towards the exit, being followed moments later by a recovered Claudia and a now angry mob of crew members.

GenericCo. Doomsville Branch Office, Same Time

Steve stifled a yawn as he made yet another trip towards the conference room. Which was all he had been doing all day, walking back and forth between there and the break room, retrieving coffee and snacks for the executives. Seriously, how much coffee could a person have in the same day?

Then again, they might have needed it to just to stay awake, judging by how boring the meeting was. Every time he walked into the room, someone was standing in front of graphs and charts, droning on in such a dull monotone that it sounded like a literal drone. True, maybe Steve was a little biased, not being used to this sort of work setting, but then he actually managed to decipher what they were so eagerly working on, and he felt like banging his head against a wall.

A paper clip. That was their big product development they were so excited about. A new kind of high tensile, nano-carbon fiber-based paper clip. The realization that that's what they had spent hours happily going into extensive detail about was utterly mind-boggling to Steve.

"…And in conclusion, the Super Paper Clip's ability to hold ten times as much paper as a normal paper clip will revolutionize the market, which we will dominate," the meeting's leader was concluding as Steve entered the room, handing out coffee orders as everyone clapped. Seeing how excited they all were, Steve couldn't help but sigh and roll his eyes.

"Why don't they use this kind of tech for something bigger than a damn paper clip?" he muttered.

"I heard that, intern!" the meeting leader snapped, "And what do you know, huh? Professor Membrane makes billions off of a specialized toast, does this look stupid compared to that? Huh? Huh?"

Steve wisely chose not to reply, not wanting to get dragged into a pointless argument. And in any case, at that moment one of the other executives got an alert on his phone.

"Hey, intern, I've got a package down at the front desk. Go get it for me," he ordered. Nodding in acknowledgement, Steve turned and left the room, heading towards the elevator and making his way towards the ground level, all the while mentally grumbling at how low his tolerance for all this was getting.

Emerging into the lobby and making his way towards the front desk, he was considering just ditching out on the remainder of the assignment, when the front doors suddenly burst open. Startled, Steve looked up and was surprised to see his sister running into the building, quickly shutting the doors behind herself and shoving a nearby large decorative plant pot in front of it as a makeshift barricade.

"Viera? What are-?" Steve started to ask, only to jump in further surprise when a large crowd appeared on the other side of the doors and started banging on the glass, "What's going on?"

"Oh, you know, the main actress on the movie set I was assigned to is some kind of banshee or demon or something, and I pissed her off so now she ordered the cast and crew to feed me to her, that's all," Viera said, slightly manic from the adrenaline rush.

"…Our lives should not be so messed up that that sounds normal," Steve said after a moment of stunned thought. Then, as the glass doors started to crack apart from the movie crew's assault, Steve grabbed his sister and started running; there was no time to wait for the elevator, so they ran up the stairs as the doors gave and the crew poured into the building and chased after them. A few minutes later, the twins emerged back onto the corporate floor, and almost literally bumped into the executive who had sent him downstairs.

"Wha, intern? What are you doing? And where's my package?" he demanded.

Steve tried to quickly scramble together an explanation, but hearing the movie crew probably no more than a minute behind them, his mind latched onto the only thing he could think of.

"There are people coming to steal the coffee!" he blurted out. Viera stared at him incredulously, but the executive paled, eyes widening in shock. He then ran over to a glass case on the wall that Steve hadn't noticed, marked "Break In Case Of Coffee Emergency", and broke the glass with his elbow, before slapping his hand onto the big red button inside the case. In response, alarms started blaring, and all the employees in the office jumped to attention.

"Battle stations! They're coming for our coffee! This isn't a drill!" the executive yelled, pulling a club out of nowhere and charging towards the stairway. He was soon followed by all the other office workers, who were wielding guns, clubs, knives, pitchforks, torches, and other assorted weapons; one guy was even carrying Old Smith's skeleton.

The twins stared in disbelief as the office workers reached the stairway door just as the movie crew emerged, the two groups slamming into each other and quickly dissolving into an all out brawl.

"What just happened?" Viera asked, watching as the guy carrying Old Smith smacked the skeleton into Claudia and sending the witch flying.

"They take their coffee really seriously," Steve replied, before pointing down the hall, "There's an emergency exit down that way. I say we get out of here and let this mess handle itself."

"Fine by me," Viera agreed, the pair slipping out the back of the building as the battle quickly spread throughout it.

Smiling Funtime Paints Company Factory, Same Time

Nyx sat slumped in her chair, eyes glazed, tongue hanging out her mouth, and magazine dangling loosely in her hand. It slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a slapping sound that caused her to jerk in surprise, losing her balance and falling off the chair.

"Oof! Who-wha-huh? …Oh, right," Nyx exclaimed in disorientation, before remembering where she was. Frowning, she got to her feet and walked over to the spot on the wall that had been splattered with the paint. Touching it with a finger, she found that it had dried.

"Finally. And that only took… three hours?" she commented, checking the time on the stopwatch before grunting in annoyance and grabbing the clipboard and marking it, "Ugh, that's time I not getting back. Well, at least it's finally done. So, now I-"

"Sample 1 complete. Engaging sample 2," the robotic voice of the paint gun apparatus suddenly intoned, before it shifted position and fired several more pellets at a different section of wall, splattering purple paint over it, "Begin monitoring of time elapsing until sample has dried, now."

"…Flirk this," Nyx said after a few moments of staring at the setup in disbelief, tossing the stopwatch and clipboard away and stomping over to the door. Once in the hallway, she looked around, trying to remember which way led to the exit; drawing a blank, she picked a direction at random.

After walking for a few minutes, Nyx came across another door. Ignoring the signs marking it as being a restricted access area, she kicked it open and marched in, only to come up short, staring in confusion. She was standing on a platform overlooking a floor covered with an assembly line. Everywhere she looked, machines were rattling away, making paint, placing it in cans, and placing the cans in boxes to prepare for shipping.

That wasn't what was so shocking, however. No, the shock came from the sight of the rat-like humans who were working that assembly like, chained to each other and their posts, while guards armed with shock batons patrolled around them. It all reminded Nyx of any number of Irken-controlled planets, if less well organized.

"Hey, kid! What are you doing here?" a guard demanded, walking up to her.

"Wrong door," Nyx replied halfheartedly, "What is all this?"

"What's it look like? We use these freaks for free labor in order to keep up production around the clock," the guard explained, not caring he was admitting to a crime, "It's cheaper than having actual employees or fully mechanizing the assembly line."

"What?! That's terrible!" Nyx shouted, outraged, "I mean, sure, enslaving lesser races makes sense, but only if it's for some grander purpose. Doing it to save some monies just because you're cheap isn't grand, it's just stupid!"

"Well who asked you?" the guard asked crossly, before grabbing Nyx's arm and starting to drag her away, "Now c'mon, I don't know why you're here, but we're going to have a nice long chat in the security office-"

CRACK

"Huh?" the guard asked, blinking in confusion. But before he could try to find out where it came from, Nyx twisted in a way that only a dislocated shoulder could let her, performing a spinning kick that hit the guard in the back and sent him stumbling forward, letting go of Nyx in his surprise. Taking advantage of this, Nyx deployed her PAK legs and blasted the guard, sending him flying into several shipping boxes and bursting the paint cans.

Ignoring the paint splattering her, Nyx turned back to the assembly floor and fired several precise blasts, targeting the rat people's chains and the guards' shock batons. There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone, human and mutant, process what had just happened, and then as one they all looked up to where Nyx was looking down at them, blue paint covering half her face.

"Freedom!" she shouted, throwing her arms in the air. There was another moment of silence, and then the rat people went berserk, attacking their now unarmed oppressors, who could only scream in horror.

A few minutes later, a cheerfully whistling Nyx emerged from the burning paint factory. Happily waving at the rat people as they ran off, smashing anything and anyone in their path, she walked off, considering this a good day's work.

Game Slave Incorporated HQ, Same Time

Gaz sat on the edge of the elevated part of the loading dock, surrounded by boxes of games soon to be shipped out to stores, savoring a soda as she reflected on the day so far. She'd learned plenty about the ins-and-outs of how the video game industry worked, gotten a first look at new games that were in development… and gotten plenty of fun out of provoking Mrs. Albertson into punishing her employees for petty reasons. That had been worth this whole assignment on its own.

"Speaking of which," she thought with a smirk, noting Richards the janitor off to one side of the room, mopping the floor. Finishing the last of her soda, she tossed the can across the room, Richards looking up as it clattered on the concrete.

"Better hurry and grab that trash before you disciplined for being slow on the job," she said with a smirk. The janitor glared at her, but huffed and walked over to pick up the can. Watching him, Gaz was considering how best to make him look bad for Mrs. Albertson when a sudden commotion sounded from outside the loading dock's external doors, seconds before they suddenly burst open.

"What the-?" Gaz asked, staring in disbelief as a horde of rat people swarmed into the loading dock, smashing boxes and spilling their contents without even seeming to notice them, before coming to a stop.

"This isn't the Mall either!" one of them screeched.

"Then we'll just keep going building-to-building until we find it!" another one shouted. With that, the rat people swarmed back out of the loading dock, absently stomping the spilled Game Slaves and game cartridges underfoot as they did so. As fast as they'd appeared they were gone, leaving a stunned and confused Gaz and Richards standing amidst the wreckage.

"…What the hell just happened?" Gaz asked aloud after a moment.

"That's what I'd like to know," Mrs. Albertson said as she walked into the room, flanked by a pair of her burly security guards and looking over all the smashed gaming equipment, "Someone start talking, now!"

Gaz turned to say something to the woman, only for Richards to beat her to the punch.

"It was her!" he shouted, pointing at Gaz.

"What?!" Gaz shouted, jumping to her feet and glaring at the janitor, who faced her back with a vindictive gleam in his eyes.

"Yeah, she smashed everything up for fun and said she was going to frame someone else for it, ma'am," Richards said quickly, "She said you'd be too stupid to realize it was her."

"Oh, is that right?" Mrs. Albertson said, glowering down at Gaz, who was gaping in disbelief and rage.

"I'm not- he's- I didn't-" she sputtered in outrage, and stumbling over a counterargument as she realized that there was no way the woman would believe that mutant rat people were responsible.

"Discipline!" Mrs. Albertson shouted, and faster than the off guard Gaz could react the guards descended on her, tasering her and sending her to the ground in a twitching mass.

Watching the little brat getting a taste of the medicine she'd been ensuring other people got all day, Richards allowed himself a smirk, and then quickly left the room.

MacMeaties, Downtown Doomsville, Same Time

Hands cramping and boredom-induced exhaustion kicking in, Zim suppressed a yawn as he crossed the last "T" and dotted the last "I" on the final piece of paperwork and moved it into the completed stacks. Only then did he allow himself to faceplant on the desk, a series of small shocks from his PAK the only thing keeping him awake.

Why did being a restaurant manager involve addressing such menial details as exactly how many fries were sold or how much ice was made every day? Was this just human stupidity, or was it a universal fact? If it was the latter, then a small part of Zim felt a little sorry for Sizz-Lorr… a small part that the rest of him then clubbed, stabbed, shot, set on fire and threw out an airlock. He was not going to feel sympathy for his former taskmaster.

"At least this is all over," he moaned into the desk, wondering if he could leave yet.

As if on cue, the manager walked into the "office".

"Hey, seems you managed to finish all this. That's great! Now we can move you on up to the other paperwork!" he commented cheerfully, while Zim's head snapped up, eyes wide in horror.

"Other paperwork?!" he exclaimed, "What other paperwork? Zim has completed all the paperwork!"

"No, no, you just completed the beginner's paperwork, which proves you're ready to handle the heavy duty stuff," the manager explained with a chuckle, flipping a switch on the wall that Zim hadn't noticed. In response, the ceiling opened and a stack of papers ten times bigger than the original fell on Zim, crushing the desk and flattening him.

"Grrk," Zim groaned from where he was pinned to the floor.

"Better get started," the manager said. Anything else he was going to say was preempted as Zim, eye twitching, gave a wordless scream of rage, PAK legs deploying to cut him free of his paper prison and lift him into the air.

"No more Irk-damned paperwork!" he screamed, incinerating the papers with plasma blasts, blasting the manager across the hall, and then rampaging down it into the restaurant. Blinded with rage and annoyance, Zim didn't come back to his senses until he found himself on the sidewalk outside MacMeaties, the restaurant itself trashed and burning behind him.

"…Oops. Well, guess I'll have to come up with some kind of cover for- eh?" Zim's musings were cut off as he looked around and saw that everything for blocks around was seemingly consumed in a riot. An apparent free-for-all of one at that, composed of humans in black suits and sunglasses, office workers, people wielding film equipment being led by a screaming banshee, rat people, and (to Zim's further surprise) the Ham Demon, all fighting each other and wrecking anything that got in their way.

Looking between this confusing mess and the destroyed restaurant behind him, Zim decided to let one be blamed for the other and quickly slipped away.

Doomsville Middle Skool, Some Time Later

Tenn walked through the halls of the skool, heading to turn in her assignment card. A part of her was almost sorry the day was over, as she'd kinda enjoyed watching Rankle work, especially watching him convert the prisoners in his private jail into zombies. With a little tweaking, she was even sure she'd be able to make that work for her…

Passing by an ajar door marked "Detention", Tenn paused as she saw something out of the corner of her eye, and turned to confirm what she was seeing.

Inside the room, which had very dim lighting and was ringed by threatening-looking robots, were several students, including some she was surprised to see both the presence and state of. Dib's team and Zim looked mentally and physically exhausted, Tak and Gaz were heavily bruised (with the latter also slightly smoldering), Nyx was covered in paint but otherwise looked fine, and Skoodge looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

As she stood there trying to figure out what was happening, she sensed the presence of someone behind her. Turning, she was greeted by the ever-ominous Miss Bitters and a neutral-looking Nny.

"Did you horribly fail your assignment as well?" Miss Bitters, glaring down at her.

"No ma'am, I didn't," Tenn said quickly, presenting her assignment card, which Rankle had marked with positively glowing comments. Sneering, Miss Bitters took it and gestured down the hall.

"In that case, congratulate yourself on being the least pathetic member of this failed student body, and go home," she snapped, before sweeping into the room, Nny casually following after her, his presence apparently eliciting a mixed scream-groan from Skoodge.

Deciding she didn't want to stick around to see what happened next, Tenn turned around and fled for the exit, deciding to call it a day.

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End Episode 4

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A/N: And there, it's finally done. Hope the length and content made up for the wait.

Speaking of length, fun fact — every chapter of Season 2 so far has been longer than its corresponding one in Season 1.

Next time: Team Save Earth faces a new enemy, emerging from an unexpected place.

Until then, please review!