"Uh…" Zim looked confused and he realized something; the red sky and land were familiar because this was Irken, the homeworld of the Irken Empire and here he was on the top of a hill. He touched his face feeling different.
"I'm tall! Wait, I'm now taller than the Tallest!" He was indeed tall, tall enough he had the entire Irken race in front of him kneeling, even Tallest Red and Purple. Zim felt such an epiphany he looked around and declared himself as the tallest in the universe.
In a moment of pure joy and bliss Zim roared and called to the Universe to see his greatness.
"LOOK AT ZIM'S GREATNESS UNIVERSE! TALLEST ZIM THE TALL IN THE TALLY! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Of course it was all a dream.
"Hehehe…" a bit of drool was coming from the unconscious Zim hanging by chains to the roof as he was chuckling while still asleep, Dipper a bit weirded using the stick of a broom to poke at him, a few pokes was enough to get Zim slowly awake.
"Ugh, light blinding, head woozy…" He looked around as his eyes tried to adjust to the light.
"Oh my iching antennas…Zim you fool, first step is…admit…you got a problem.." from what he could gather he was in some underground lab as he looked around "Oh thank the Tallest they aren't here to see it…but where the Cloud Pigs am I? Looks like a primitive lab…chains and hymuens!?" He saw the Dib Clone and his family units around him and then the old grease monkey one with goggles holding a syringe as he gave it a few ticks with a few clicks with his fingers and then Zim recoiled as the syringe was injected by the old human into him.
"Ugh! they touched me, I feel so dirty!...Okay okay, urge for violence, blasters now!" He tried activating his weapons on his Pak and yet the weapons as he tried to get looked struggling to get out until the tools began to retract back to the Pak, he tried and grunted with his teeths grinding and it was the same result like something was preventing him from blowing up the monkeys. To make this even more humiliating there was his mortal enemy with the Pines.
Dib was wearing an almost unhinged grin that put even Zim in unease sitting on a chair with one leg on the other, both hands sided together and his goggles reflecting the light.
"I trust you're comfortably tipsy, space boy?" he disingenuously asked, making Space Boy hiss like a trapped insect animal.
"What did you do to my PAK mud worms!?" from what he saw there was only the Pines and the Membrane kids including Gaz who was glaring holes at his skull.
Ford gave him his answer as he showed him the empty syringe. "I injected you with nanites to hack your Pak, you can't activate your weapons unless you are allowed."
"You…SULLIED MY IRKEN PERFECTION!?" the insectoid alien in outrage shouted.
"You're at our mercy buddy!" Stanley who was near his twin grinned mischievously until he turned into a frown as he locked his arms together "And you better have the moolah for the stolen car and the damages you caused all over or it's toilet cleaning for next century for ya!"
Zim recoiled at the prospect of being hacked and turned in servitude to the inferior race in the latrine job as he struggled futilely to get out of his chains.
"Where!? Where are my minions!? MINIMOOSE! GIR! SAVE YOUR MASTER FROM THE LATRINE SLAVERY!" he shouted out calling for his masters and none came to save him.
Dib couldn't help but dump salt on the wound as he sniggered.
"Minimoose and Gir are currently having a Tea Party with Mabel."
"TRAITOOOOOORS!" the bug alien cried out in dismay at his situation.
Zim's cry reached up to the Shack with his minions who were currently having a tea party with Mabel on a pink toy table with the other guests being toys, puppets of various animals and Mabel herself pretending like he was drinking real tea from a cup.
"Hehe. masta is enjoying the tea party too!" Gir giggled hearing the dismayed voice of his master.
"I hope he is." Wendy who was reading a magazine on the cashier place snarled as she hid her face using it, still embarrassed at the fact that she messed herself when she was infected by Sloth.
Zim lashed out and struggled to get out of his chain as he was floating and grunting "NO! MY PLAN WAS PERFECT! How could this happen!?!" He still couldn't believe this situation as he dramatically anguished being the drama queen that he was.
Stanford decided to elaborate for his alien prisoner as he put the empty syringe in a trash can.
"I also extracted the Pride curse while you were unconscious and destroyed it with other sins, apparently your pride was so big that it got attracted to you."
The purpled haired girl snorted "Just 'big'? Try: over bloated."
The big headed boy couldn't contain his excitement in seeing his arch enemy at their mercy "Oh Oh, I'm- " he immediately changed that when he recalled the Pines' help as well " We're gonna be so famous when we show you to the world!"
The Irken immediately shrieked in terror.
"NO! NOT THOSE MONKEY PAWS GOVERNMENT THUGS! THEY CAN'T HAVE ME AFTER MY GENIUS PLAN OF RUNNING THE RUN OUT FROM THEM AND RELOCATION!"
The Membrane boy, surprised by this reaction, inquired.
"Wait what? Explain!"
"I don't owe you big headed worm any explanation!"
"MY HEAD IS NOT- !"
Gaz interjected so that there won't be another pointless argument about her brother's 'Head Size' by saying "Like it or not bug face, you're at our mercy so either explain why you disappeared and showed up here or we let old man here to have you as his slave."
Dipper smirked and pointed at Stan with a thump.
"And trust us, my great uncle would love having free work force and someone to use as a dummy attraction."
Stanley's eyes were glinting with greed as he was rubbing his hands together "Ohhoh, free labor with no pay! I won't have to even worry about being alleged to child labour when there are no laws about using ETs as laborers like last summer!" He then was now acting like a super villain with both hands in an act of washing each other as he talked to himself.
"And the best part: suckers would pay big bucks to see the newest attraction, oh I can see it! The Mantis Man HAHAHAHA!- " he opened both hands clawed up and crackle greedily before he stopped himself due to the staring he was getting by everyone which included the unimpressed look of Dipper, Gaz and Stanford, Zim backs his head up seething in disgust at the idea of being used as a slave labor and a glorified tourist attraction and Dib giving an eyebrow.
He feigned a cough with hand and changed the subject "So, gonna reconsider bug guy?"
"…Fine! Zim will tell!" Zim spat venom and cursed a few in his Irken language "the REASON why the Amazing Zim disappeared from his current location is because after the Florpuse Hole thing- "
"All of which is your fault by the way!" Dib interrupted, making Zim suppress the urge to curse him as he glared at him.
"-As Zim was saying before his monologue is interrupted by a certain monkey with a HUMONGOUS HEAD- !" Dib gave a raspberry at that "- accursed Earth authorities went after me and somehow saw through my genius disguise! So I had decided to relocate and what better place than some backwater nowhere filthy country town that is not even on map with too many freaks living there to see who is the alien one."
"Maybe laughing maniacally without a disguise while riding on a very tall walking throne that shoots burning peanuts can get too much attention." Dib, unimpressed, informed him.
"SILENCE! Must you interrupt Almighty Zim's perfect speech by constantly criticizing me!?!
"Where's the fun in that if it means tormenting you further?" The big headed boy oozed with smugness as he said that.
The Alien this time had no reply seeing his own words which he said to Dib on why they had been on a goosechase came back to haunt him while Stanley snickered at that as he continuously opened and closed his mouth until he remarked.
"…I hate you."
"Love you too buddy." that immediately caused Zim to cringe in repulsion.
The conman Pines laughed so as Dipper and Dib, even Stanford gave a small chuckle while Gaz gave a smirk with Zim giving death glares at everyone.
"Not very bright for an extraterrestrial, are you?" Ley asked in feign innocence, making Zim hiss at him.
Dipper wasn't convinced entirely, he suspected there was more.
"But why didn't you call the Tallests? Couldn't you get help from them?"
"Yeah, my partner raises a good point." Dib concur with Dipper.
Zim did not answer, he gave a poker face as in as he awkwardly tried to give an explanation that was clearly fake "Well…eh…I…they're Tallest of course! They have much more important things to worry about than a meager invader like me- "
"You lost contact with them haven't you?" the purple haired girl concluded in her stoic tone and derailed him. There was a pause for a moment which then was interrupted by giggles of Dib.
"Hehehe…hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!" His giggle turned into maddening laughter as he continued to wheeze like a lunatic.
"Uh, Dib?" Dipper felt a bit worried as others, even Gaz felt a bit uneased by her brother's sardonic laughter.
The big headed boy clapped his hands hard enough that it ringed round the basement "OH FANTASTIC! ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!" he came closer to Zim as he continued to rant.
"The so-called 'greatest invader evah!' sent his own leaders to a grizzly demise, how does that feel!?"
Zim reeled back with a hiss like an injured cornered animal.
"Stay Back!"
Membrane boy unfettered sneered as he was close to him face to face "Or what!? What are you gonna do? Steal my organs!?" he then circled around him like a shark as he unleashed years of frustration in capturing Zim.
"If you can't invade, what are you good for Irken, what are you good for??"
The green alien wasn't going to sit idly being mocked "I'm still an Invader of The Irken Empire!"
"That be?" the big headed boy in feign ignorance asked.
"Urth will be conquered for the glory of the Irken Empire, even if(which is a BIG if) the unthinkable happens the Control Brains would simply choose a new Tallest."
"Face it bugs for the brain, they are never gonna come! Your Tallest is dead! An ENTIRE FLEET of Irken Armada sucked into the Florpus Hole forever lost, all thanks to its 'Greatest Invader'!"
Zim in furry roared "YOU LIE! What would a failure who can't even convince his own bigger failure of a species to recognize your 'greatness'?"
In a moment of great epiphany a grand revelation came to Dib as he stood still lost in his smile. Zim thought he was victorious and he was gonna boast until he said something that caught him utterly off guard.
"...So are you." Dib's voice was half whispered.
Zim snapped his head with antennas at Dib's direction moving to what he just heard "What did you say to me?"
"You and I are the same…" Dib once again began giggling like a man who just found out that the Universe is made of cheese with a hand dragged on his face in a mixture of disbelief and psychotic laughter of a nihilist.
"Guess we are both failures to our respective species, HAHAHAHAHAHA!" He gave another crazed laughter, normally Zim would screech out but he was too creeped out by Dib's unstable reaction to say anything already feeling even less safe by now, though he wasn't the only one as Dipper felt immediately concerned even more for the mental anguish of his friend, Gaz grimaced and also oddly cringed a bit, like she remembered a memory of something that his current self would cringe at. That and the Stans shared a twin look at each other with Stanford feeling like he should research on Dib's history because he clearly been through a lot and what he would find in future would cause both Stans in the future to absolutely despise Professor Membrane, with Stanley even readying a list of swears to say to the man in person as the Professor will soon find out to his scientific horror for how scientifically impossible is for a person to suffering all the said curses which also involved goats and a spoon.
Ford faked a cough feeling like he needed to intervene before things got out of hand.
"Well, good news for you is that: we don't plan to reveal you to the public."
"Eh?" Zim gave an eyebrow.
"We don't??" Dib also was taken back by this look at Ford in surprise as he stopped his laughing.
"I had suspect government activities since Zero Days suggesting there is something related to Extraterrestrials and until verified, we can't let Zim be captured. Aside from the fact that they could care less about ethics and would vivisect and experiment on him like how they did to Roswelvet aliens defying sentient rights." Dib awkwardly scratched the back of his head considering he nearly to vivisect a gnome just today if not for Dipper stopping him
Zim was baffled by this and asked.
"Why would you want to help your planet's rightful conqueror?"
"Don't get me wrong, I do rather have Earth not being invaded by an expansionist colonial hostile empire, but I also don't trust any of our planets' governments to responsibly use alien technology." he swung his right hand a bit to gesture at the point.
"Beside, ignoring morality there is no way the authorities would let the existence of aliens go public and likely would end in any person associated to be disappeared from the face of the Earth to keep it hush hush."
Dib's stomach turned and nearly facepalmed himself so hard that his glass would have broken. Of course the officials would deny the existence of aliens despite knowing, that's conspiracy theory 101! And even if he managed to convince them that the crazy kid with a giant head really face off against an alien invader they would rain down on him and his family and threaten to be hush or else… he couldn't believe he was grateful that any authorities he called in the past saw him as just some crazy ufology kid who spent too much time on conspiracy board.
"So here's the deal…we keep your secret and not leave you at their mercy and you will stop any plan in conquering Earth."
Zim snarled at such terms "You think I would agree with such terms!? This is extortion!"
Ford nonchalantly nodded "Yes it is, don't forget I have my nanobots in your body so if you try to threaten my family or Dipper's friends, I can put you on life support with a command." He snapped his finger making his point very clear to the reeling alien while Stanley was grinning feeling proud of his twin.
"Oh extortion! I Knew you had it in you poindexter!" He slapped his brother from the back of his shoulder making him stiff and then also added to Zim's ever growing frustration.
"And you'll pay for the damages!"
"...Fine!" The insectoid alien spat like venom knowing he was at their mercy, oh when he gets out of his predicament he is so, gonna feed the Pines enough kats to develop asthmatic crisis.
He sighed as he recalled something else. "I suppose I should tell you about the three children I have for extortion because they would go rabies if they get bored and trash my beautiful base."
Everyone stood there frozen by this unexpected information for 11 seconds "...YOU HAVE WHAT!?!?" Ford, Ley, Dipper and Dib shouted at the same time so loud that Zim was stiff while Gaz looked with a blank stare.
Interesting times indeed.