Just something I felt like writing… so far, it's about fifty pages long or something. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: zim and all that stuff belongs to jhonen. this also contains some redxpurple lurvness. so dont read if yer not into that stuff.

CHAPTER ONE: Starry Stage

Something magical happens when you step on a stage. It doesn't matter who you are. If you're shy, it can kill you. It you're outgoing, it can make you the most powerful person in the world. For two young Irken boys, it might not even take until they get on stage for one of them to die.

It all started hundreds of years ago. Tallest Miyuki was still in power. Her reign is a different story, though. The story really begins with her entourage, a juvenile Irken growing faster than anyone can keep track.

"When was the last time you were measured?" she asked leisurely. She was in her bed chambers, lying in bed. Everything was green. The bed sheets, the curtains, even the floors and walls. Another Irken, the only other one in the room, was inside with her, picking up her platter that had empty bowls where food once was. He clashed with the room violently, wearing only purple.

"This morning," he replied with equal laziness. It was just another day aboard The Colossal, the same ship passed down from Tallest to Tallest ever since they found the technology. He sighed to himself. He hated this ship. If he ever got the chance, he was going to make a new one. Something bigger. With more kitchens.

"And how tall were you?" she asked.

"Seven foot five," he answered, pretending to have a cool countenance like his leader, but couldn't help smirking.

"You are getting tall, aren't you Purple?" she asked, being a cool eight feet herself. "You might just pass me up, soon." Purple was just a pet name. It wasn't his given name. Actually, his real name was just a bunch of letters and numbers inputted into his PAK when he was born. Normally reciting it wasn't a hassle. Purple was smart and quick, able to think up things quickly, and if not quickly, any question could be easily answered given time. He was somewhat lucky to get a job working with Tallest Miyuki. It was brainless work. Bring her food. Take it away. Give her the bath robes at bath time. She was in her dying years, anyways. He knew it wouldn't be long until she died and he would more than likely take her place. He was the only one tall enough to take the place of a Tallest. The only problem was he didn't feel ready. He knew there was training, but on the inside, he just wished.

Wished that somewhere

Out there

There was someone

Taller

Than

Him.

"RED!" an Irken shouted on the opposite side of a sweaty, misty room. Pipes were running everywhere, spewing fog.

"What?" the requested voice shouted from across the room. Because of all the noise that comes regular in the underbelly of a sauna, everybody had to yell, even if you were standing next to the person.

"Miyuki just finished lunch! Her bath is coming up! Go heat it up!"

Red sighed and stood up from the crumbling wooden chair he dubbed his own. He really didn't understand why he had to follow from that horribly… short Irken's orders. He was ridiculously tall, about seven foot something the last time measured. He couldn't remember facts and numbers all that well. That's why he was happy getting a job in the boiler room. All he had to do was press a button that told the computer to heat up the coils under the tile of the tub. After that, he would go up to her bathroom and mix up the oils and gels that gave the bath a nice smell but also healing properties.

Red wasn't always a boiler room worker. Red wasn't even his real name, anyways. It was just a nickname. His real name was some jumbled mass of numbers and letters typed into his PAK like some sort of barcode. All he really was was a number. When he was younger, fresh out of training, they put him with the other taller Irkens to be a part of the Special Operations unit. Basically, this meant that whatever any other operation couldn't fulfill, he had to make sure that it's his job to complete it. All of that pretty much went down in the can when he accidentally blew up an ally ship in the middle of a small tiff with the Vortians. They just didn't want to give up that couch…

Anyway, he was stripped of his title as a Special Ops officer, and was exiled to the boiler room my Tallest Miyuki. The Tallest always liked Red, said there was something special in his eyes, or some crap like that. Normally, for on offense as huge as murdering a member of an ally force, it required something more along the lines of banishment to a desert planet or a cruel, painful death, not doing menial tasks right in the Tallest's living quarters. After pressing the button that started to heat up the bath tub, he grabbed the buckets of scented oils and started walking towards her bathroom.

He had grown used to the idea of setting up Tallest Miyuki's bath for the rest of his life, though. No matter how tall he was, there would always be someone Irken taller then him. Even though he liked the idea of working with his current Tallest, she was dying, so the thrown of the empire would be given to someone new.

Red stood in the Tallest's hallway. The large door at the end led to a lobby, which led to her private sleeping chambers. He had only seen glimpses of the inside of her room, and from what he saw, everything was green. If he ever had a bedroom that extravagant, it would be the color red. However, he wasn't too sure he'd even want a room in a ship as rackety as the Colossal. He would make something more compact, smoother… with lasers.

He noticed that the two guards on both sides of her bedroom door were eyeing him subjectively. Red sighed and took his buckets to the bathroom. He pressed the touchpad that made the door slide open and close right after him. After tapping the tub with his exposed claw to test the temperature, he slid his uniform black glove back on and turned the faucet, which dispelled ordinary, unscented cleansing fluids. As the tub filled with it, he tossed the scented oils in. Instantly the room was filled scents of foreign fruits and plants. Red had to admit, even though the scents gave him a pounding headache if he were around them for too long, it was pleasant at first.

He picked up his buckets and was about the press the touchpad to open the door, when it swung open before he made contact. In front of him stood Tallest Miyuki.

"My Tallest!" he said, shocked. "I'm sorry. Did I prepare you bath later that usual today?" He got down on his knee and kneeled before her.

"Perhaps," she said wryly. Red looked up, nervously. If word got out that he was late on the job again, he'd get in trouble with the shorter Irkens. They might take away his job and boiler room and really banish him to some desert planet. This wasn't the first time this has happened. However, when he saw her face, she had a playful grin and winked quickly. "Or maybe I'm just a little early today," she finished. "Come, now, Red. Off your feet, and thank you for heating my bath." She walked passed him regally, and it was them when Red realized there was someone else trailing behind her. "And you remember Purple, of course."

Red and Purple's eyes locked. Red remembered Purple distinctly. He and everybody else in the boiler room make fun of him on a daily basis. He was dubbed the original mama's boy, always following in the shadow of the Tallest. One thing that bugged him was that he was at eye level with him. Red almost never ran into anybody as tall as him, so not having to look down on other Irkens made him a little uneasy. Purple stared at him with the same dislike. It didn't take long for Red to notice that Purple wasn't even looking at his eyes anymore, but instead at the dirt on his face and on his clothes. It wasn't uncommon for rust on the pipes to wipe off on him, but he hated it when people looked at him with so much detest.

"Of course, my Tallest," Red answered, after a moment. "I'll leave you to your bath, then." He got a better hold on his buckets and walked out of the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, Purple turned to his master.

"Is there anything else you need, my Tallest?" he asked, holding her bath robes in his arms.

"No, and thank you," Miyuki sighed. Purple turned to the stool next to the bathtub, but found that it was already inhabited by one of Red's buckets. Purple took the filthy thing into his hand between fingers and placed her robes on it. He bowed quickly and left the room, leaving her to her privacy.

As Purple exited the bathroom, he caught of glimpse of Red's outrageously crimson robes as it turned to corner to the hover elevator that would lead him to the boiler room. Not wanting to find him in the depths of the Colossus, he decided to run with Red's bucket in tote to catch up with him before he got on the elevator.

"Red!" Purple shouted as he turned the corner. Red was about to get on the hovering platform, but stopped when he heard his name. Purple saw the obvious disappointment in his eyes when he noticed who it was.

"What do you want, Purple?" he said irritably. "Unlike you, some of us have more to do than kissing Almighty Tallest ass."

Purple's eyes narrowed at the insult, and he flung the bucket at Red, knocking him in the shoulder. "Take your bucket and leave. I'm reporting your foul mouth to Tallest Miyuki, and I would recommend sending somebody else to heat up her baths from now on."

Red rubbed his shoulder, acknowledging the bruise that would most likely form by the end of the evening.

"You've got to be kidding me," he replied. They both eyed each other from the opposite side of the hallway.

"Try me," Purpled answered. Red backed up, never having so much hate for one person that he did now. Maybe if he killed him now, word of his language would never get to his Tallest and then he'd be able to keep his job. He backed up slightly to prepare to lunge, but he never got the chance. A hover elevator landed fiercely in a different tube, occupied by several dozen medics. All of them filed out and ran down hallway, ignoring Purple and Red's presence. Purple panicked at all of the medics that just passed them and had turned the hallway.

"What's going on?" Red asked, taking the words right out of Purple's mouth. One of the last medics turned, with a pained look on her face.

"It's Tallest Miyuki," she said. "Her heart beat and brain functions monitored in her PAK have ceased. She's dead."

To be continued…

yer lurvin' betaL