Chapter Text
Prologue
Premeditated murder is one of the most frowned upon crimes throughout the universe. The Irken Empire is no different in this respect. Even the Almighty Tallests cannot escape the severe punishment for the intentional, deliberate annihilation of one of their own. They had tried everything that they could legally do at this point: banishment, an existence evaluation, required training on Hobo 13, sending malfunctioning equipment that should have killed the tiny arrogant war criminal. They had all managed to backfire. Somehow, even now, 10 years after his SECOND banishment, Zim’s existence still plagued them from hundreds of light-years away.
It was Purple's idea, though he’d actually suggested it more as a joke. Red, however, took the joke and rolled with it. A secret assassination. How many Irkens and other (inferior) life forms across the galaxy could claim that Zim had ruined their life? Or at least created annoying and unnecessary obstacles. They called upon anyone that they could think of, inferior Irkens who were unable to pass the test to be soldiers because of the many planetary blackouts Zim had caused, those who had lost friends to Zim’s continuous rampage, Sizz-Lor, anyone who would stand to gain from Zim’s death. They made agreements with them in secret: Go to Urth. Kill Zim and bring back his defective PAK. Don’t get caught. They were each promised something different. Status elevation, revenge, monies, the chance to retake the invader test, exclusive catering rights for the Massive. Some of the promises the Tallests had no intention of keeping, but all that really mattered to them was that SOMEONE brought them confirmation of Zim’s annihilation, that they could finally have the satisfaction of smashing his PAK into dust with hammers, and that it could never be traced back to them.
Chapter 1
Everybody Hide
Zim was in the Voot cruiser repair bay working on repairing his ship. It had been damaged in his last fight with Dib. The human having access to Irken weaponry through Tak’s ship was really getting on Zim’s nerves. He would need to blow that piece of trash up soon. He knew Tak’s ship was badly damaged in their fight as well (because Zim is brilliant) but he had a feeling Dib could still repair it.
He was using Minimoose as a platform to hold himself up as he worked on repairs to the Voot, grumbling to Gir about Dib. His stupid big head. Stupid pointy hair. Stupid human genetics making stupid Dib more than two feet taller than Zim. Stupid tall Dib with his stupid college and stupid “job.” In the years since they had been at the Skool together, Zim had taken a cue from Dib’s progression through his education. Partly so he could keep an eye on his enemy and also because, while stupid Dib was still stupid, he was smarter than most of his species. Zim needed to follow the normal path for a human child to blend in. So, for the most part, Zim and Dib had attended the same schools and classes. Until college. Zim had tried to take the same classes as Dib but it was harder to figure out. And Dib chose stupid classes, getting his degree in science and something stupid about ghosts or something. Zim had tried to attend these same classes, and they had been in the same gen eds, but he’d gotten too annoyed and bored. So, instead, Zim had ended up in the engineering department. This had started just because the classes were around the same times and days as Dib’s classes, but Zim had found that he enjoyed it. Most of the material was information was stuff that Zim already knew, (under other names) as really, math and chemical reactions transcend planetary differences. That meant that Zim was able to speed through most of the annoying “homework” and would usually take control of all the group projects because he had no faith in the other students getting it anywhere close to what he wanted to do. The only time he got any bad grades was when he would completely ignore the instructions for what they were supposed to be making and would instead create some sort of plan for a doom canon. The only reason Zim hadn’t finished the degree was that the university finally caught on that Zim wasn’t actually paying for tuition. Actually, he wasn’t even really a student. He was on their rosters but they had no information or records of him applying. He’d simply hacked into the school's system and created a student ID for himself. In the end, though, it was all the same to Zim as it was starting to take up to much time. Directing too much of his attention from the mission.
Dib was nearly finished with college now. Zim was looking forward to his plan to humiliate Dib at the commencement celebration. He hadn’t entirely worked out what he was going to do, but he was pretty sure it would involve showing embarrassing footage of Dib from middle school and the genetically altered weasels he’d been working on, assuming that Gir didn’t eat them before the day of commencement.
“Warning! Perimeter breach!”
Zim looked up at his computer when his train of thought was interrupted. “What? Who?” He heard the doorbell ring and raised an eyebrow. That ruled out Dib. He brought up the camera feed to the front door. “What! Computer, bring the intruder down to the repair bay, now!”
He watched the intruder be sucked down from the door on the camera and was carried over by Minimoose as the small creature landed with a thump on his floor. “Skoodge! What are you doing here?! You can’t just come to my planet, out of disguise and-”
“Zim! I’m so glad I got here in time!” Skoodge jumped up, looking at Zim with panic in his eyes. “I came to warn you! The Tallests are sending any one of your enemies that they could find to come here and destroy you!”
Zim’s antennae went back before shooting up again. “The Tallests? Destroy me? LIES! Why would they try to destroy me? Their greatest Invader?”
“I’m not lying Zim!” Skoodge looked at Zim imploringly, “You have to get off this planet! I couldn’t have beat the rest of the assassins by much time! Everyone in the empire that you have ever annoyed is coming here to take your PAK back to the tallests for their reward!”
“The Tallests love Zim,” Zim waved the crazy idea off with a gesture from his hand. “Stop speaking your crazy lies, Skoodge. You can’t even stay dead properly! Why would you come and tell Zim this anyway?”
Skoodge sighed and put his hand over his face. “I don’t know anymore.”
Zim jumped off of Minimoose. “Your crazy talk is starting to annoy me, Skoodge. Tell me why you’re here?”
“Zim, I told you! You’re-”
“Security breach! Master, we are under attack!”
“Huh?!” Zim looked at the computer monitor again, seeing a large Irken ship coming down from the sky, the base shook as the ship fired and knocked out Zim’s cameras. “Computer! Defensive mode! How bad is the damage? What is the likelihood of winning this from the base?”
“Preeeetty baaaaad, sir.”
“The damage or chances?”
“....Both?”
Skoodge followed Zim as he ran to the elevator to get to his controls room. “See! I told you! They aren’t the only ones out for you, Zim! You have to get out of here!”
Zim scowled at Skoodge. “Hey, you mind moving over there a bit?”
Skoodge curiously walked over to where Zim was pointing and was instantly sucked into the ammunition bay at the push of a button from Zim. Another button and Skoodge was launched for the second time at the enemy ship.
“Direct hit! Enemy vessel structural integrity is now at 70%”
“There, Skoodge, at least you're good for something,” Zim grumbled. “Minimoose! Go! Defend the base!”
“Nyah!” The weird little purple moose squeaked as it flew out of the base, firing everything it had at the enemy ship.
“That should hold them off for a little while.” Zim got busy putting up his shields, preparing his weapons, and ordering Gir to pack up everything important in the base to the voot so they could make a quick escape. Then double-checking to make sure that Gir was grabbing more than just his rubber piggies.
He was momentarily surprised when the computer reported that the enemy’s ship had been destroyed.
“Destroyed?”
“Nyah!”
Well of course Minimoose had destroyed the ship. He was created by Zim, after all, to be the ultimate sidekick. “Good work Minimoose!” Zim said as he went up to the house to check to see the ship’s damage and interrogate any survivors. The moment Zim stepped outside with his purple moosey companion, however, a laser blast shot right at him. The tiny moose floated in front of him to divert the blast and immediately exploded.
“NO! MINIMOOSE! MINIMOOOOOSE!!!!” Zim cried out but his grieving for the little creature-thing was pushed to the back of his mind as he remembered that he was still being fired at. He ducked for cover and looked around to find the source of the attack. At least a dozen smaller Irken ships were coming down from the sky. So Skoodge had been right. Maybe if Zim wasn’t in the middle of fighting for his life he would have felt sorry for launching him as doom cannon ammunition.
“Gir! Bring the Voot up here immediately! We need to get out of here! And now!”
“Okie Dokie!” Came Gir’s cheerful reply and a moment later Gir had burst through the floor of the house in the voot. Zim quickly got in and took off.
After a series of maneuvers and daringly clever piloting tricks, he was able to shake the attackers off his trail. That was when things started to sink in for Zim.
His base was destroyed. He’d managed to save basically everything that he’d come to the planet with but everything else was gone. More importantly, more pressingly , he had nowhere to go.
“Those ships are going to find us again soon, Gir,” Zim said to the robot who was remaining uncharacteristically quiet. “The voot still isn’t completely fixed and it definitely took some damage in that fight. We need to find a place to hide. Somewhere they wouldn’t think to look. And somewhere that I can finish making my repairs.”
Gir still said nothing, staring straight out the window. “Gir?”
“Where’s Minimoose?” Gir suddenly asked.
Zim tensed. “He exploded.” He said dismissively.
“Oh…” Gir paused for a moment. “I want to explode.”
Zim sighed. “No, Gir. No more exploding.”
“Oh.”
Zim looked at the little robot, holding his rubber pig on his lap and staring out the window with a blank look. Zim almost wished that the robot would do something crazy and annoying like he usually did. Seeing Gir almost shut down like this as he tried to process the information he’d just been given made it hard for Zim to avoid thinking about what was happening.
The base was gone.
Minimoose was gone.
There was a fleet of assassins that could track his signature at any moment.
He was flying above the planet's visible atmosphere in a ship that was nowhere near ready for proper space travel and he desperately needed to find somewhere to land where he could hide and make repairs.
And The Tallests…
He needed to find somewhere to land. But where on Earth, literally, could he go? Somewhere he could park his alien ship without detection. Somewhere he could have access to SOMETHING like the technology that he would need to repair the voot. Maybe somewhere he could get help from someone with some experience with Irken technology?
Fuck.
Zim sighed and turned the ship around, heading to Membrane's house.