Disclaimer: Yep, I guess I'll need one of these, even though it's obvious none of this belongs to me. All Invader Zim stuffs belong to Jhonen Vasquez! Duh. And this disclaimer thing applies to all future chapters!
Chapter One: Violent Return
It was a cold night on Earth, in mid-November. The light-polluted sky had already darkened, the only light coming from streetlights, the headlights of cars, and other bright lights of the city. Very few people were outside their homes at this time of night, and so they did not notice the gleam of the falling Irken escape pod as it streaked toward the ground from Earth's atmosphere, flames surrounding the hot metal with its descent. Minutes later, the pod finally landed amidst a small cluster of trees near the city park.
A small Irken staggered out of the burnt pod soon after its landing, smoke flowing from the opening of the pod behind her. She swayed dizzily and grabbed onto a nearby tree for support, and then looked around her with an impatient frown. "MIMI!" At her call, a SIR unit darted to the Irken's side, tilting up her head to watch her mistress attentively with red eyes that glowed brightly in the darkness. "Run a search for my spittle runner, and show me its location." MIMI nodded obediently. Seconds later, a screen popped out of her head displaying a glowing map of the city, crisscrossed with streets and complete with multitudes of buildings. The image on the screen zoomed in to a blinking red dot over one of the smaller buildings in a nearby neighborhood. Tak's eyes narrowed as she realized who lived in that building. "So, Dib took it. I should have known." Her holographic human disguise flickered around her, and she seemed to be a normal human girl, no different in appearance than the other children of the planet. In a flash of blue light, MIMI activated her disguise as well, becoming a small, black cat.
Tak looked down at her disguised SIR unit. "We'll recover the ship later, MIMI. Now, we're going straight to Zim's excuse for a base. I want to make him suffer for what he has done to me…" Scowling, Tak motioned for MIMI to follow her, and then stalked silently out of the trees.
GIR burst through the door of Zim's house, happily humming an annoying tune he had heard on the television. He was holding a tottering stack of recipe books, most likely taken from someone without their knowledge. "I'm makin' us some snacks, master!" he squealed with delight. GIR ran to the kitchen, where he shoved the books roughly onto the edge of the counter before jumping out of his dog disguise.
Deep in his underground labs, Zim was finishing a small device on which he was working. He faintly heard GIR's shouts in the house level above him, but chose to ignore the robot. Flinging aside the tool he had been using, which was still emitting blue sparks, Zim lifted the completed device over his head triumphantly. "There! It's fixed! If I use this against the Dib-stink, he will be in my way no longer! Minimoose, feast your eyes on the amazing work of ZIM!"
Minimoose squeaked his approval, floating in the air next to Zim and nodding appreciatively at the thin, metal device in Zim's hands.
Zim suddenly sighed irritably, setting it back down in front of him. "I'd better go see what GIR is doing. I think I heard him entering the base just now." Zim stepped into one of his elevators, ascending to the house level through the floor of his kitchen and leaving Minimoose to watch over his repaired weapon.
"HI!" GIR beamed up at Zim as the Irken appeared in the kitchen. The SIR unit was surrounded with pages ripped from the recipe books, all of which were scattered around him in a disorganized mess.
Zim opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a loud banging outside the front door. He glared in the direction of the door, and then looked down at GIR again with an annoyed expression, crossing his arms over his chest.
"I thought I told you to cancel that pizza party you were having! I am not going to allow the whole neighborhood in my base!"
"But I did!"
"Answer the door, GIR. And if it's one of the filthy neighbors, send them away."
"Okey dokey! I gonna let 'em all stay on the couch! COUCH!" GIR pulled on his dog disguise and ran to the door. He had barely opened it a crack before he was thrown into the adjacent wall, smashing against it and slowly falling to the floor.
"GIR? What's going on?" Zim hastily popped in his lenses and pulled his wig over his antennae, and then entered the room to see Tak and MIMI standing in the doorway of his base. MIMI was glaring threateningly at GIR, her claw still outstretched in front of her, ready to lunge at the other SIR unit if Tak asked.
Zim took a step back, his eyes wide with astonishment. "Wha…? Tak…!" He stared dumbly at the female Irken, seeming to be unable to comprehend that she was in his base.
"Did you really think you got rid of me for good?" Tak asked, smirking at Zim as her disguise disappeared, revealing her Irken appearance. "I told you I'd come back, didn't I?"
Zim blinked slowly at Tak, bewildered. "But… you're…"
Tak narrowed her eyes impatiently. "What, Zim?"
"I… I threw you into space!" Zim shouted. He moved closer to Tak and pointed at her dramatically.
"Yes. And I landed back here again. Just my luck that it happened to be the same planet I was thrown away from in the first place! Do you know how long it took me to fix MIMI after what you and your deranged robot did? It was all your fault, Zim!" Tak clenched her fists, growing increasingly impatient as Zim only stared blankly at her. "I don't have time for this!" she shouted, hastily withdrawing her spider legs from her pak. "Are you just going to stand there gawking at me all night, Zim? I'm going to make sure your pain is unbearable!"
As she said this, Tak lunged at Zim, her spider legs lashing violently around her. Zim yelled, managing to jump out of the way of two of Tak's spider legs at the last second, and then darted to the toilet entrance to his underground base and flushed himself down, jumping into the elevator. Tak followed right behind him without hesitation, leaving MIMI standing menacingly over GIR. From the elevator, the two SIR units could hear loud noises as the two Irkens fought and cries of pain, mostly from Zim.
GIR waved goofily at MIMI, sticking his tongue out of his mouth to one side. "Hi, MIMI! I missed youuuu!"
Zim flung himself out of his elevator as he came to the part of his base that he had just left earlier. More out of defense than anything else, he had withdrawn his own spider legs from his pak. Zim raced away from Tak as she jumped out of the elevator, landing gracefully on her feet. He panicked, hearing that she was still not far behind him. Zim found himself by the table where he had been minutes before the arrival of Tak, and snatched up the metal box that he had been fixing. Minimoose squeaked at him questioningly, still hovering in the air next to him.
"Don't make me use this, Tak!" Zim yelled as he spun to face her, brandishing it over his head. Zim flinched as Tak knocked the thin box out of his hand with the end of a spider leg. Minimoose zoomed away from the two Irkens in terror.
"Hey!" he yelled indignantly. "I was going to use that on the Dib!" He recoiled, seeing Tak charging toward him, her spider legs stretching menacingly from her pak. In her hand, she held a dark purple laser gun, which had been stored in her pak. Thinking quickly, Zim pulled his own laser gun from his pak, pointing it at her.
"Tak! Wait a minute! Can't we talk about this?" he asked anxiously.
Tak ignored Zim's question. "Do you know how long I was in that pod because of you, Zim?" she shrieked, her accent thick with her rage. "I'm not going to forgive you for that!"
Two of her spider legs shot out at Zim at once, nearly impaling him. Zim used his own pak's mechanical legs to propel himself into the air out of her reach. With an angry cry, Tak shot wildly at him with her gun, agilely throwing herself to the side as he flipped high over her head. Zim returned the fire and kicked off from a wall of the lab, gritting his teeth as he tried to keep the distance between them wide. The two Irkens continued to dodge each other's attacks, severely wrecking Zim's base as they went.
Dib strolled down the sidewalk, passing Zim's house. He did a double take, seeing that Zim's door was wide open. Overcome by curiosity, Dib walked the short distance to the door, eyeing the lawn gnomes warily before stepping into the strange, conspicuous house.
"…and we's gonna make chocolate-covered popcorn!" GIR declared from the kitchen. "I like it!" With this exclamation, GIR giggled insanely.
Dib cautiously peered around the corner to see GIR perched on a stool, ecstatically stirring a bowl full of popcorn covered in a dark brown goop, which was overflowing at the sides of the large bowl. MIMI stood next to him grumpily, wearing an overly large apron with the words "Kiss the cook!" printed in neon pink across the front, complete with red ribbons and heart designs. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else, other than there. Catching sight of Dib, GIR grinned up at him with excitement.
"Hello, master's big-headed friend! Did you's want some chocolatey popcorn, too?" He held the bowl up to Dib's face, waving it in the air in front of him. "It's gooood…" the SIR unit added with a somewhat creepy grin.
"Uh… No thanks…" Dib pushed the bowl away and smiled nervously at the robot. He glanced over at MIMI and frowned. "Is… Tak here again…?" he asked, thinking immediately of Tak's modified spittle runner in his garage. If she had come back to Earth somehow, she would undoubtedly want it. "But… I worked so hard on fixing it…!" Dib thought to himself with a worried frown.
GIR tilted his head and watched Dib with wide eyes, as though he was unable to comprehend Dib's question.
"Is Tak around here, somewhere with Zim?" Dib tried again.
"They is playin' right now! Down there!" GIR answered cheerfully, pointing down at the floor to indicate where the two Irkens were.
Dib frowned. Having witnessed Zim and Tak's hatred for each other only a few months earlier, he was sure that they were more likely to be pummeling each other rather than 'playing.' "Well… I might as well look around Zim's base now that I know he's busy!" Dib exclaimed, beginning to look around the room with great interest. "I wish I hadn't left my camera at home." As Dib said this, there was an explosion from deep inside the base beneath their feet, causing the furniture and appliances around them to rattle loudly. Dib bit his lip nervously. The noises of the fight sounded much closer than they really were. "Uh… On second thought, maybe not." Dib glanced around warily before turning and fleeing from the house, not wanting to be in the middle of a battle between two angry aliens.
"GOODBYE!" GIR screamed after him from the doorway, holding MIMI's hand tightly in his own. Surprisingly, she didn't move away from the defective SIR unit or make any move to rip his head from his body.
Upon reaching the sidewalk, Dib looked back at Zim's base over his shoulder, wondering just how intense the enmity between Zim and Tak had become. He knew Tak would have been extremely angry after what Zim had done to her, but if things inside Zim's base were exploding, she must be even more livid than the last time.
As Dib was contemplating this, Zim was just recovering from the same explosion that had startled Dib. "Look what you did!" Zim shouted at Tak through the cloud of dust floating in the air, resulting from the explosion of some of his Irken equipment. With several missed shots, Tak had managed to blow up everything in an entire half of the room. Tak moved silently through the settling dust with her spider legs, her eyes narrowed murderously at Zim. "Zim…"
Zim squeaked with surprise as he was slammed into the wall by two of Tak's spider legs. Tak pinned Zim against the wall and advanced closer to him, and Zim suddenly found himself staring directly into her angry amethyst eyes.
"I hate you, Zim! You've ruined my life, and I'm going to make you pay for it! I hate you!"
Zim watched Tak, his own magenta eyes round, as she turned away and fiercely tugged her spider legs out of the wall from either side of him. She swiftly strode to the nearest exit of the lab, not looking back at him. "I'm not finished with you, Zim. Don't think I'm giving up yet," she said darkly before she stepped into the elevator, promptly ascending back up to the house level.
Zim remained leaning against the wall, not moving from where Tak had left him. Puzzled, he stared in the direction of where she had gone. He knew Tak hated him, but it had never bothered him before now. Zim continued to stare after her for a long time, a confused expression on his face.