Author's Notes: I don't get too many new fanfic ideas these days, and I didn't expect my next one to be Invader Zim related, but here we are. To make sure I don't end up in another situation where I can't finish a story, I made sure not to start writing this story until the outline had all of my plot points from beginning to end. The opening is pretty light, but the story will likely go into some dramatic territory. Of course I want to keep the Invader Zim vibe, so don't worry, I won't get go too out of character with our favorite insane space people :) Thank you for reading and/or reviewing this story :)
Chapter 1
Forbidden Knowledge
Skool was as horrible as ever. It was one of those too-hot days on earth where even the sky looked orange and the distant view quivered and squirmed like a Tarkalian jiggle worm. How the kids could laugh and play when everything seemed to want to cook them alive, Zim didn't understand.
The little green alien sat in the shade of a tree growing on the other side of the security fence, watching with contempt as the children played their miserable games. He wished he had more time for conquest, but merely trying to fit in and learn their ways was taking up way too much of his valuable time.
"Hey everybody, check out what I learned in summer camp!" Sarah shouted to the other kids.
She then took out a piece of flat candy and began to chew. Pfft, big deal, Zim thought. He'd seen children gobble down sweets many times before. If they had to learn how to do so, then they were even dumber than Zim thought.
After a minute of chewing the candy, Sarah blew out a huge pink bubble, almost as big as she was! The other kids ooh'ed and ahh'ed at her bubble blowing talent, right before the bubble burst around her and she lapped up the remains back into her mouth. Zim raised an eyebrow, intrigued by what he saw.
"That was amazing!" Keef cheered.
"How did you do that?" Gretchen asked.
"It's all in the technique," Sarah bragged, keeping her answer vague.
"Let me try!" Keef shouted.
Before long Keef, Gretchen, Torque, and others were trying to blow the biggest bubblegum bubble. The only ones not participating in the antics were Zim, who was watching them, as well as his arch-nemesis Dib, who was watching Zim.
"What sort of ritual is this?" Zim asked himself, "It appears that the larger the bubble, the more dominant the human. Well, if these little pink pig worms can blow ginormous bubbles, then so can Zim!"
Zim then walked over to the other kids, and most of them recoiled at the uncoolness that emanated from the little green weirdo.
"Hello fellow human children," Zim greeted them with fake politeness, "I see you are creating giant masses of processed sugar. I, the mighty Zim! Am an expert at blowing bubbles."
"Yeah, right," Sarah rolled her eyes, "Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"
Most of the other kids laughed, but Keef approached Zim with a smile and a silver-wrapped piece of gum.
"I wanna see!" Keef exclaimed, "You can have one of mine."
Zim smirked in triumph and roughly took the candy from Keef's hand. Zim then unwrapped it, looked down at the gum, and realized it wasn't even bubble shaped. It just looked like a flat rectangle! How was this thing supposed to produce bubbles? Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained, so Zim popped the gum in his mouth and began to chew.
Zim immediately realized he made a mistake when the gum began to stick to his teeth. Zim tried pushing the gum away with his tongue, but his tongue just got caught in the gum as well.
"AAAAHH! Ah Ah, AAAHHH!" Zim screamed as he panicked.
He ran around trying to figure out what he was going to do. His mouth was sealed shut by the strange sticky substance! He felt just like that dumb kid who ate paste in class. How was he going to save himself?
The other kids started laughing uncontrollably at Zim as he ran around, pulled at the gum, got it stuck to his gloved hands, fell down, and started tangling himself in the gum. Even Dib ran over to join in the mockery, but Zim couldn't register the humiliation due to simply trying to get out of his predicament.
Finally, after what felt like forever but was more like a minute, Zim managed to cough up the gum. It was still wrapped around his body like a web, but at least he didn't feel like he was gagged and choking anymore.
It was at this moment that he fully realized what was happening. The kids were laughing at him. These useless human fetuses were mocking him, a great Irken invader!
The only thing that saved Zim from enduring this torment longer than necessary was the ringing of the Skool bell, telling them all to come inside for class.
Zim struggled to stand up amid the gum clinging to him like a sticky net. When he stood up he saw one kid was still standing in front of him: Dib.
"You couldn't even get this part of being human right, Space Boy," Dib taunted, "I don't know how the others don't see it. You're so obviously an alien it hurts. Oh well, keep screwing up like this and the world will figure you out in no time. Hahahaha!"
With that Dib walked back to class, cackling all the way. Zim growled and balled his fists in frustration. Who did that worm baby think he was!? Zim was the mighty conqueror, his future slave master, the pride and hope of the Irken military academy! He would not stand for this humiliation any longer!
He knew what he needed to do. He knew what would show them all who the real higher intellect was. He would figure out how to blow the biggest bubblegum bubble those pathetic humans had ever seen!
That day, after Zim returned home from Skool, he and his robot assistant GIR found themselves in his underground laboratory typing away on Zim's computer. GIR was typing on one that was unplugged, but that didn't matter. At least it kept the insane robot out of Zim's antennae for a few minutes while he did the real work.
Zim searched the intergalactic super web for any other species besides humans that utilized bubblegum bubbles as a means of asserting dominance. He wanted to learn not only how to survive the wretched candy, but also how to become its master. In order to do that, he would need to learn the secret techniques of the greatest bubblegum makers in the universe.
Finding a species that used bubblegum as a symbol of hierarchy, surprisingly, turned up no results. Deciding to broaden his search, Zim looked for species that made bubblegum in the first place. One planet's name popped up a few times, but it wasn't exactly the most useful search result.
Vort was a planet that specialized in scientific pursuits, comforts the rest of the universe envied, and a level of love and compassion that made most Irkens sick. It was this species that made bubblegum very similar to earth's, but that wouldn't help Zim.
First of all, Vort was converted into a military research prison by the Irken Empire during Operation Impending Doom II. Secondly, and even more relevant, bubblegum hadn't been produced on Vort in over 300 Irken years. Vortians didn't live very long, and unlike Irkens didn't have their collective memories stored for implantation. When Vortian knowledge was lost, it was lost forever.
"Stupid goat bugs," Zim muttered as he splayed his hands on the keyboard, "How do inferior life forms live like this? To have no control brains to keep your species perfect and battle-ready? To be born with no collective mind? Smeets with no knowledge, forced to live squishy and helpless for years! To die knowing that no one will inherit your knowledge and life experiences. It's disgusting!"
Zim, like most Irkens, was very proud of the control brains, the master computer network of Irk. Every Irken was born with a PAK inserted into their back, and that PAK contained all Irken knowledge up to that point. Millions of lives, trillions of life hacks, all available from the moment a smeet was born. Not to mention all the neat tools inside the PAK to make life easier. How could a species live without one?
Wait! The Vortians and Irkens were in their early stages of contact 300 Irken years ago. The peaceful interactions meant that knowledge was shared between the two species. So…why didn't Zim know how to blow bubblegum? If an Irken was ever shown these techniques then it would've been stored in the control brains. So where was the knowledge?
Zim growled in frustration. A lousy dead end! The Vortian's computers were likely wiped during the invasion, and for some reason no Irken knowledge of the gum bubble process was saved. How could that be? Irkens learned everything they could from their inferiors in order to take advantage of them.
Zim pondered the situation while GIR slathered mayonnaise on himself with a butter knife and screamed. There had to be something he was missing! How could they hide this information from Irk? Vortians might've had scientific knowledge, but even a defective Irken had more street smarts than a lousy Vort-
Wait…defective. That was it! The knowledge was likely cataloged by a defective Irken! Defective PAKs weren't saved in the collective consciousness, but rather discarded into the great and mighty trash folder ! It was purged periodically, but there might still be a defective file with the knowledge Zim sought!
"GIR! Get my survival kit! We're going home!" Zim declared.
"I'll pack some nachos!" GIR squealed.
"Not that!" Zim barked.
With that Zim began running to the Voot cruiser, supercharged battery pack in hand to avoid spending 6 months in space like last time. GIR, meanwhile, was indeed packing nachos, as well as pajamas and a teddy bear. Yeah…none of that was in the survival kit.