by K.A. Rose

Invader Zim and all related characters and indica are copyright 2001 Viacom International. Created by Jhonen Vasquez. Used without permission. Please see the post-fanfic notes for more.

Any original characters that appear are property of K.A. Rose.

Please notice: this fanfic stands by the IFC (see post-fanfic notes) which asks that "any and all readers ... allow [the writer] to write and display uncanon material, provided the writer and readers understand the content is uncanon and do not attempt to claim it as canon" (paragraph eight).

Second notice (10/30/02): It has come to my attention that despite the "Semi AU" in the FFN fanfic summary and my reference to the IFC above, it has not occured to some people that THIS IS NOT WRITTEN IN ACCORDANCE WITH "THE TRIAL". The reason for this is simple-- this story is over a year in the making, its outline was finalized months and months before "The Trial" was ever posted. And anyway, "The Trial" was a scrapped episode. Therefore, IT IS NOT CANON. Thank you.

Dedicated to Apricot the Gerbil, whose reasons for quitting Zim fanfiction actually encouraged me to finish this story.

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  The sky above him was a deep violet shade, streaked with receding evening clouds and the first hint of the twin moons appearing on the far horizon. He ignored it. The only purpose he found it served for him was a reminder of what he had to return to. Though they never informed him of such, he knew they were watching him with a smothering eye, afraid that one false footfall would lead him to his death and their empire without one of their leaders.

  What irony, he thought. I'm supposed to be a ruler here. Golden moonlight falling upon his pale green skin, he stopped short and tilted his head towards the heavens and singled out the moving star that blinked red-- the Armada flagship. His large, sparkling purple eyes studied the object for but a moment, then he flipped it the Irken version of the bird.

  Grinning, he turned his back to the ship and continued to run.

  Cold, wet grass was underfoot. It had been so long since he'd been allowed to walk. Longer still since he had worn normal Irken attire. Like Red, he had had to order a custom-made invader suit, because no such garments came in their size. They'd received heavy disapproval from their board of advisors for the move, but in the end it was made clear that Red and he could always just see to their slow and painful deaths if they were denied it. So they got their invader suits, but in response to it the advisors took pains to ensure that they would never have the time to use them.

  Eventually, Red and he had to just put their collective foot down on the matter. They were the Almighty Tallest, after all; they were the leaders of the Irken Empire. No advisor was going to tell them what they could and couldn't do.

  He bounded over yet another hill and came to a stop, panting and wiping sweat from his brow. A normal guy could do this easily, he thought bitterly. Why do they do this to us? What happens if we have to fight something hand-to-hand one day and we're so out of shape we can't even defend ourselves?

  ...Well, what's the use? he reasoned. The empire's invincible anyway. Always will be. It was programmed reasoning. You developed that after being told so frequently.

  He was about to start running again when he heard a rustle in a cluster of small trees to his left. Freezing, he slowly creaked his slender head to the direction of the sound.

  When he was about to give up and dismiss the sound as the product of a native animal, there was another noise. Two, in fact. The first was a crack of a fallen branch underfoot; the second a shrilly spoken Irken swear word.

  He smiled maliciously, realizing he had found his target. Without a nanosecond's hesitation he gave chase, leaping over brush and dashing between trees in pursuit. Heavy panting some thirty or forty feet ahead told him that he was closing in.

  Soon, he thought, just before his bare foot became caught on an unearthed root. He lurched forward, crying out in startlement. His body hit the moist earth, skin and clothes becoming damp: he winced a little as small curls of smoke filtered up from the affected areas. The Irken actually found himself considering calling it quits! But no, a little wetness wasn't going to make him give up. How could he possibly be so weak-willed and pathetic to so much as think that?

  It's them, he thought. Those damn advisors. Keeping us out of trouble all the time, look what it's done to us...

    He dragged himself to his feet, brushing off the dirt to the discomfort of his two-fingered hands, and he continued onward. Red had gotten an extra thirty feet by now, in all likelihood. So he sped up in response, powering his legs that were thin and frail from disuse. Muscles screamed of fatigue; he ignored them, breaking free of the last line of trees and into another clearing. Grassy knolls spread out into the distance, dotted with clusters of tall vegetation. It was a drastic change of pace from the metal and wire scenery that their flagship consisted of. If Red and he kept their eyes off the sky, they could forget all about where and who they were meant to be.

  Climbing up a particularly steep hill, he caught sight of Red, the one that people called his twin. Same height, same features, except the eyes. Red turned his head around, antennae bobbing up and down, and then ran faster when he saw his pursuer catching up. It was seen clearly even at a distance that Red was just as out of shape as he was. The difference at the moment, however, was that his violet brethren was at a certain advantage.

  The purple-eyed Tallest decided against running down the side of the hill and instead jumped from it, coming down hard at the base and going into a tight roll to prevent as much pressure to his legs as he could. He could practically hear his advisors muttering worriedly about his stunt.

  Getting up, he began to climb the next hill. To this end did his supernatural height come to another advantage, as he was able to gain greater distance than any normal Irken would.

  A taunting voice came from above him at the hill's peak. "You're never gonna catch me at this rate." It was a smart, playful tone. Perfectly suited to the situation, Purple reflected, but so strange to hear. He looked up and met reddish-pink eyes and a gleeful grin. They were ten feet or so apart now, but both were entirely too exhausted to recommence for the moment. Purple found a small dip into the side of the slope and lodged his knee there to rest.

  Seeing the frustrated expression on his fellow's face, Red stated, "It's your own fault. You're the one who insisted I get a head start."

  "So I made a stupid mistake. What's it to you?" Purple grunted, mentally cursing the damp grass beneath him. When recovered from his shortness of breath, he asked Red, "You ready now?"

  "Of course."

  Without another exchange of words, they were back in action. Precarious footfalls almost led Purple sliding back down the hillside, but he climbed too quickly for the moving earth to take him with it. Red did not run down the slope and instead went along it, dashing into another cluster of trees on a plateau of sorts off to the left. Instead of rushing in after him again, Purple stopped and studied the miniature forest, and saw that the best means of escape would be on the level hill to its south side. Battle strategy was a required information feed for baby Tallests-to-be while they slept away in incubation tubes, though no Irken emperor had had actual need for the knowledge in centuries.

  Purple made haste to the south of the small wood, arriving at the platform just as his prey emerged from through the trees, stuck with leaves and a few small blisters on his exposed skin from where he touched moisture. Red appeared baffled.

  "How'd you get here so fast?" he demanded, brushing triangular leaves from his shirt.

  The purple-eyed one grinned. "You being stupid, that's how I got here."

  Red seemed outraged, antennae twitching with fury. "That's not fair, using tactics. That wasn't the point of this." The tone of his voice bordered on a whine as the red-eyed Irken was visibly crestfallen, as if disappointed at Purple's resortment to strategy.

  But his pursuer recovered from the emotional blow, crouching low to the ground, muscles coiling up in preparation. "Oh no," said Red firmly, putting up his two-fingered hands in a guesture to stop, "no, you are so not. The game's over, you already chea-- gack!"

  His sentence was cut short as Purple pounced, tackling his red-eyed brethren like a cat attacking an unsuspecting mouse, complete with primal battle cry. Both Tallest hit the soft ground with a dull "whump!" and began to wrestle each other, quite pitifully because neither possessed much upper body strength. Finding himself almost completely pinned, Red did what he could and shifted his weight to the lower side of the ground in an effort to push Purple off him. To some extent it worked: Purple's right arm lost its grip on Red's left as he was hurled over onto the slope, but his remaining arm managed to pull Red with him as he began to fall.

  The two began to tumble down the grassy slope, bruising arms and legs on rocks and indigenous small rodents that happened to be passing by. In rolling, the two Irken leaders again joined each other, one atop the other, and engaged in a boyish arm struggle-- the best one they could put up while in motion, anyway. Purple's right side met a particularly large rock and felt his weak upper arm snap against it, and he cried out in pain. But they continued to roll downward, sometimes hurled into the air from a slight upward curve in the hillside. Twice more Purple came away from interceptions with hard objects with bruises, cuts, perhaps even more broken bones. Red seemed to be faring much worse: he'd even taken a blow to the head by a wandering lizard that couldn't move out of the way fast enough.

  I bet the advisors are gonna kill us, Purple thought to himself, grinning as he used his unbroken arm to tug at his opponent's nearest antenna. The move was returned with Red socking him in the face under his eye. It was largely ineffective, because two fingers don't make a very good fist. Beneath them, the grass abruptly stopped, and rough, stone-scattered dirt cut at their skin and clothes. Before Red could move his hand back from his attack, Purple bit down on the fingers with his serrated teeth. Well, if we don't kill each other first...

  But as sharply as the hillside roll had begun, it ended. Now on level ground, the battle-locked Tallest ran out of speed to roll and eventually came to a halt on dirt ground. Rolls slowed and then stopped, with an exhausted Purple resting with his back on to the ground, most uncomfortably because of his utility pack, with Red over him. Realizing that victory was his, Red sat up, legs straddling his purple-eyed opponent, and raised his bruised and battered arms to the sky.

  "Yeah!" Red elated himself with an impossibly wide grin. "Who's on top now, huh?"

  Purple scowled at him.

  "Whoo!" the red-eyed Irken went on, arms still above his head. "Face it, Teir, you're just a prince. I'm the king!" When such a proclamation didn't trigger a response from the bitterly defeated Purple, Red looked down at his pinned brethren. He was met with a set of shocked, astounded violet eyes. "What's up with you?" Red asked.

  "Nothing," Purple muttered, shaking his scratched and bleeding head, blinking a few times to get the look out of his eyes. "It's just... I mean, I haven't heard that name in, what, a decade? Two?"

  "So... what? You're commenting on my good memory?"

  "You don't have good memory. And put your arms down already," said the pinned Tallest, noting that Red still had them up in the air. With some reluctance, Red obeyed, letting his arms fall to his sides. "Hey, if it's not too much to ask, could you get off me?" Purple requested, starting to become annoyed.

  "Why?" Red argued with a grin, shifting his weight a bit to become better situated. Purple didn't seem very amused, reaching up with his good arm and grabbing the red-eyed Tallest around the neck.

  Red could have sworn Purple was as exhausted as he was. But nevertheless the violet-eyed Tallest surged with sudden adrenaline as he pulled Red up and completely flung him through the air. Red landed hard flat on his back, head an inch or two from Purple's, the wind knocked out of him.

  Purple got up and bent over his felled companion, a wide, pleasant smirk across his face.

  "Damn you," Red grunted, coughing.

  "Any time, 'king'."

  They might possibly have continued their battle despite their injuries, but a mechanical whir buzzed through the hills, bringing both Red and Purple back to reality. They sighed in defeat as a one-person skiff rounded a bend with Dirn riding upon it, frontal search lights glaring into the natural darkness.

  "My Tallest!" she called, the honorary title sounding hollow at her lips. Dirn was a chief advisor, one of the three that worked closest to the ruler (or rulers) of Irk and typically the one that gave Red and Purple the most trouble. "It's time to return to the ship!" She was stating the obvious just for kicks, it seemed, as if she reveled in rubbing it in for the two. Her skiff's search lights fell upon the two tall Irkens that bled from scuffs and scrapes, tears in their specially ordered military attire.

  Purple sighed as Dirn's look changed from the usual fretful to pure horrified as she saw that Red was lying on the ground, and in worse condition than Purple was. Dirn landed her skiff with haste, leaving the lights glaring into the violet and rust eyes of her planet's leaders, and rushed over to them.

  For an Irken of "normal" birth, she was very tall, which explained her position as a personal advisor to the empire's head of command. Standing up next to Red or Purple, she might come to about their waists, if only just. Dirn wore standard issue military garments, though she had at one point, during Red and Purple's predecessor's years, been allowed to wear whatever she wanted to work. The firmer dress code was not high on her list to detest the current Tallest, though it probably was a contributing factor of considerable girth.

  "Oh, quasars, look at you two!" she exclaimed, looking over their battered forms with a weary shake of her head. "Do you have any idea how much you have worried us, what with that... that rolling and all?! Look at this!" Dirn cried, touching Purple's right upper arm gingerly. Purple flinched a bit as she prodded at the bloodied area, but suffered her quietly. After Dirn decided she had fussed over the purple-eyed Tallest long enough, she went over to Red and scorned him for trying to get to his feet on his own. "Who knows what you might've broken this time. Just stay put. I'll call down a carrier."

  Purple protested, "Really, Dirn, he's fine." It was too late, however, as Dirn was already establishing a communications link with the Armada flagship dock. Purple sighed again and gave up his argument. He knelt down beside the head of his brethren, who lay patiently on the ground.

  "She just loves to do that, doesn't she? Coming around just as we're starting to have fun," Red said in a low voice for only Purple to hear, casting a hateful glare to Dirn, who now stood speaking by communicator with the port captain aboard the flagship. Turning his eyes to the stars above, he instead met the gaze of his so-called twin, partner in office. Red cracked another grin. "That's gonna change someday, eh, Teir?"

  A low, incessant hum, of the same pitch and frequency as a halogen light about to burn out but didn't, filled the air, and both Tallest looked up at the midnight sky, seeing not the twin moons but the approaching transport ship, with the blinking red light of the Armada flagship outshining every single star.