Defective

Prologue

Deep within the tangle of wires and cables of alien equipment, the sound of machinery and the occasional smash could be heard, followed by a frustrated growl.

Zim was working on his pak again, digging the tools in deep and probably being rougher than he should have been considering this small piece of technology was what kept him alive. But he couldn't help it, he was getting frustrated again. He didn't know why he bothered anymore. He'd been trying to find the fault for years.

Defective.

That one word haunted his very existence. It had been several years ago now, that fateful day when his own race had taken him into custody and tried to deactivate him for having a damaged pak – for being a defective. A useless, broken waste of Irken technology, not deemed worthy of life. He had been shaken by that turn of events, and even though he was so faulty he didn't truly comprehend that he was defective, a subconscious part of him had clung on to it and he had been tampering with his pak ever since trying to improve it.

The only problem being – he was a defective. So he wasn't very good at trying to repair his damaged pak. Over the years he'd got lucky though and had made some small improvements. One glorious day he had fixed whatever was impairing his growth rate, and much to his delight he had sprouted taller quite rapidly. This was very lucky considering he had had to start High School, and the Dib and all the other kids had begun to tower over him. He still hadn't quite caught up to Dibs height which irked him greatly, but at least now he didn't stick out like a sore thumb. Also (although he may not have realised it himself) he had become marginally less insane, though his plans to conquer the Earth had never gotten any better.

But he could still feel it. Something so hard to describe just eating away at him inside. Deep down part him knew something was wrong. Things never quite connected inside his head, and he knew he didn't make sense a lot of the time. It was blindingly obvious that his plans never worked. He was surrounded by all this incredible technology and yet he still hadn't made any progress on conquering the Earth. It drove him mad.

Sometimes he was glad he hadn't been able to get in touch with the Tallest for so long, though he knew they must be worried about him. GIR must have broken the communications or something but he just couldn't seem to fix that either. Even GIR had eventually stopped working, though that bothered him less unsurprisingly.

He slammed his fists down hard on the console, gritting his serrated teeth together with a hiss and scattering his tools. That was enough for one night, he would have to be leaving for the school soon. He tapped some keys on his console to instruct mechanical arms to fall from the walls and grab his pak, returning it to his back. The joints reached out to each other to fasten with a neat click, but as soon as he felt the connection Zim's eyes shot wide open.

He screamed out in pain.

A/N: I hope I have piqued your interest! This is my first time writing for a good few years so apologies if it shows. This story is inspired by the unaired episode 'The Trial'. In case anyone hasn't read the transcript or watched the reading online, it's well worth it! I so wish they had made that episode. I do have the storyline roughly worked out in it's entirety, so I will try to update when I can. I also apologise about not including GIR, I just don't feel he's important to my story and I'm no good at writing funny stuff! I do love him I just don't think I'd do well at writing him. I also haven't quite decided how far I'll take the ZADR, so I'll just go with the flow regarding the rating. The first chapter will be up shortly, I'm just proofing it :3 Thanks for reading!