Author's Notes: Yeah, this fic's been on hiatus for way too long, I sincerely apologize. I'll try to make updates more prompt from now on. ^^; Anyway, without further ado, on to the long-overdue chapter.

Chapter Twenty-Three
Broken Rules

"Morga—please!"

The female Vort paused on the threshold as the male approached her on his knees, hands clasped together. She threw back her head, not looking at him.

"I'm sorry, Gast Ban. But I can't forgive you for what you've done. Not this time."

Tears began to flow down Gast Ban's face. "But—please, Morga. I love you."

The female Vort spared a half glance back at him. "Well, I don't love you anymore," she said harshly, before sweeping out of the room.

Almighty Tallest Purple screamed, grabbing the screen in front of him and shaking it violently.

"NO! NONONONONONONO!"

"Ugh…"

Tallest Red facepalmed as Purple covered his face and sobbed, allowing the hovering screen to float away just as the commercials began to play.

"No...no, this can't be happening!"

"Purple, it's just a show. Calm down."

"But Ban! Morla! They're meant to be, Red!" He sniffled, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Who cares?"

"They have a clatch of eggs together! What's gonna happen when they hatch, huh? !"

"I don't even get how you can watch all those Vort soap operas. I mean...sexual reproduction? Eew."

"You just don't get it."

"They're stupid, what's there to get?"

"They're not stupid! They're—"

"Um…My Tallests?"

"What?" they both screamed, turning to the offending minion and causing him to jump.

"We, um—have an incoming transmission," he said nervously, looking from one annoyed Tallest to the other. "From…" He gulped. "Earth."

"Ugh…"

Both Tallests groaned and slumped in their chairs, though to the communication officer's relief, neither ordered his execution for delivering the bad news. "Well, let's see what stupid thing Zim is doing this time," Red muttered, waving his hand.

The blank field of stars in front of them vanished, replaced with the sight of Zim's unpleasantly familiar face and dark magenta laboratory. That the tiny little moron was grinning only worsened the Tallests' moods—as a rule Zim's happiness never meant good things for anyone, except possibly himself.

"Greetings, my Tallests!" Zim said, saluting quickly before rubbing his hands together like a smeet on a sugar rush. "I have terrific news!"

"Yes, what is it this week, Zim?" Tallest Red asked, slumping down on his seat with his head in his hand.

"Did you make another mutant wombat?" Purple asked, sitting up straighter.

"The last one nearly killed him, why would he make another one?"

"I dunno, I actually kinda liked that one."

"Well, I admit that battle was pretty entertaining..."

"Ha ha, no, my Tallests, Zim's news is even grander and more amazing than that," Zim said, spreading out his arms as his grin grew even wider. "For you see, I have finally succeeded in eliminating the hyuman child who has thwarted me in my attempts to conquer this miserable little rock for so long!"

"Huh, really?" Red said, his eyelids raising slightly as he sat up a bit straighter in his seat. Granted, killing one measly little smeet from an inferior species wasn't much of an accomplishment after months stationed on a planet, but given how much trouble this one had apparently given Zim...and that the fact that this was, you know, Zim after all...

"Yes, I am amazing, aren't I? For now, the Irken Empire may move unabated in its quest of dominance over the galaxy! For I, the amazing ZIIIM, have lain waste to the pathetic Dib-stink, and can now—"

"Who?"

"Hyuh?"

Zim stopped in mid-rant, turning around to look at the Tallests in surprise.

"Yeah, wasn't your human named, like...I dunno, 'Lucy' or something?" Purple wondered, rubbing his chin.

"I thought it was 'Loogie.'"

"Something with an 'l'..."

"No...no, my Tallests!" Zim said, frowning and dropping his pose. "I'm not talking about the Lou-hyuman. I mean the Dib!"

"What's a Dib?"

"The hyuman that's been bothering me all these months! The one I had before Louie..."

Suddenly Zim's eyes widened, and his face turned from confusion to worry. Purple turned to Red and raised an eyelid. Red simply shrugged, just as confused.

"You don't...remember the Dib-stink, do you?" Zim asked meekly.

"Euh...no."

"Oh. Well, okay, you see—"

The monarchs looked at each other again and rolled their eyes as Zim started, "You see, there was—there was this other hyuman—he was—even more horrible—and he was before the Lou, you see, the Lou wasn't there yet! And um...he did all these...these things, oh, you wouldn't even believe! He foiled my laser weasel experiment—"

"I thought it was the Louie-kid who did that."

"What—n—no, it was the Dib! But this was before!" Seeing his Tallests still baffled—which really meant, exasperated enough that each was contemplating his execution—Zim took a deep breath and tried to reorganize his thoughts. "You see—this was in a different timeline, my Tallests! The laser weasel thing, and the plan with Ultra-Peepi, all that—in this world it was the Lou who foiled all that, but before it was the Dib-stink, he was the annoying little worm who tried to stand in the way of Zim! But I got rid of him this time—all I needed to do was use a time machine, and I—"

"A time machine? !" Red yelled, sitting up quickly as Purple let out a sputtering choke. "You used a time machine? !"

"Yes! Now you understand!" Zim said proudly, drawing himself up to his full and pathetic height.

"What kind of time machine? ! A contained spatio-temporal modulator or an actual traveling-through-time, let's-go-meet-Tallest-Prime temporal-displacement time machine? !"

The Tallest's tone must have actually penetrated through Zim's ridiculously thick skull, because his antennae suddenly dropped, a slight frown crossing his formerly smiling face. "Um...why does it matter?"

"Because you know temporal placement devices are outlawed according to every Irken-alien peace treaty, right?"

"Oh, that? No big deal, we're evil!" Zim said brightly, his smile reappearing.

"No, you tiny moron!" Purple snapped, recovering from his choking fit and pulling himself upright. "It's illegal in the Empire, too! It's illegal everywhere!"

"Er...why?"

"Because it's ridiculously dangerous, you idiot!" Red said, closing his eyes and girning at the weight of Zim's overwhelming stupidity. "Do you have any idea how fragile the timeline can be? Changing the past is like—taking the Massive's power core and trying to wedge it into a Voot Cruiser!"

"...And why would that be a problem?"

"Because it would blow up and kill everything! Boom! Pow! Death! The Great Kablooie 2: Electric Boogaloo!" Purple screamed, waving his arms.

Zim stared at them blankly for a moment. The Tallests glared back. Several members of the Massive's crew glanced at each other nervously.

Suddenly, Zim's insane SIR unit jumped up out of nowhere, latching himself onto Zim's screen and grinning insanely. "I BLEW UP FOR THE OCTOPUS!"

"GIR—!"

Zim grabbed the stupid robot and threw it off-screen, then turned back to the Tallests, a very large, very forced smile on his face.

"So, um, anyway—it was nice of you to call, but I, uh, gotta go. I left the, uh—toilet on! Call you next week!"

And without even waiting for a response his face vanished from the screen, bringing the starfield back into view.

The Tallests looked at each other, pure terror on their faces.

"You don't think he would really—"

"It's Zim."

"But even he—"

Purple stopped in mid-sentence, and Red began to massage his suddenly-throbbing head. He was annoyingly aware of both his partner and various minions around the bridge looking at him; thinking about that—and the possible repercussions of what he had just heard—certainly wasn't going to help his headache.

"Well, I hope he wasn't that stupid. 'Cause we're gonna be in big trouble if he was."

Invader Larb grinned as he looked out at the window of his new, improved Maimbot, observing the Vort military squadron assembled below.

His own army was far larger, made up of the best of Irken weaponry mixed with most advanced Vort technology that he had managed to either con himself into getting or outright steal. The Vorts had been taken completely by surprise by his attack; the morons had honestly not expected their so-called "allies" to turn on them, and despite their brilliance with making weapons their own military was small and relatively weak, since they had long expected the Irkens to help them in the case of an outside attack. They had little idea what to do when the Irkens themselves prepared an inside attack.

Larb pressed a command code into the computer, and his massive army of robots began to charge their weapons.

Nothing could stand in their way now, he thought giddily.

And then a rift in space-time opened right above them, and both armies were quickly sent straight into utter chaos.

(LOUIE)

"I hope you know I blame you for this."

"What? !"

"Quiet!" Coach Walrus shouted, making me jump in my seat. "You little miscreants are to sit there and do homework, not talk, ya got it?"

"Yes, ma—si—um, yes."

(S)he grunted and went back to reading his/her magazine. Meanwhile I put my book up on the desk and lowered my head, blocking my face from sight as I leaned over to Gaz and hissed, "Why is this my fault?"

"Because, if you hadn't told me to go beat up Zim—"

"I never told you—"

"I SAID BE QUIET!"

I jumped again, then lowered my head sullenly, girning. Gaz merely kept her eyes on her Game Slave, her lip curled into a sneer. Why Coach Walrus let her play that instead of doing homework was a mystery to me; either (s)he wasn't paying much attention or just didn't want to get on Gaz's bad side, it was hard to tell which in this skool. Really only a couple of teachers had the rare mixture of responsibility and bravery to keep Gaz from getting her way; heck, this was the first time I could think of her ever getting detention, despite having practically put Keef in a coma about twenty times before.

I stared at the pages of my book for a moment, then glanced over at Gaz again, still frowning. She was wearing her pig-skull necklace again—I had given it back to her at the beginning of detention, and she had simply snatched it out of my hand without a word of—appreciation? It struck me as ridiculous that I had even expected that from her. She wasn't exactly the grateful type.

Gaz must have noticed me looking at her, because her eyes suddenly snapped open and slowly slid over in my direction.

"...What?"

"I didn't tell you to beat up Zim, you know."

"Be quiet," she growled, both eyes returning to her game again.

"You can't just go blaming me for what you do, Gaz. You decided to attack Zim in front of everyone, even if I—"

POW!

I let out a short gasp as her fist collided with my shoulder, not as hard as I knew she could hit but harder than any little girl should have been able to. "Shut up!" she snapped, leaning even closer to her game.

I glared at her, then turned away, popping my shoulder back into place.

Hmph. Well there went three years of "family" bonding down the drain, I guess.

I couldn't get Gaz sometimes. Or any of the time, really, though I liked to imagine I did. She was never nice, and as far as I could tell she never had been—people had feared her long before I came into her life, before Dib had died, even Keef had dropped hints that she had been nasty for years before I had known her. She acted nicer to me than anybody else, but she was still rude, still blamed me for all her problems...

And still was willing to punch me, apparently.

It was stupid, but for three years I had prided myself on being the one person immune from her little temper-tantrum fits of violence. That ache in my shoulder hurt more than I wanted to admit.

Forty-five minutes later the bell finally rang, and Gaz was instantly on her feet, marching out of the room before I even had time to pack up my books. I heard a familiar voice as she opened the door. "Oh, hi, Ga—"

I looked up just in time to hear a loud metal BANG! as Gaz marched out of sight. I growled slightly, rolling my eyes as I ran past Coach Walrus (who had apparently fallen asleep over his/her magazine) and out of the room to find Keef in a crumpled mess against the lockers, blinking blurrily.

"Ugh—sorry, man, Gaz is in a bad mood today," I muttered, helping him to his feet. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "You didn't have to wait for me to get out of detention."

"Yes I did," Keef said dizzily, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. "Don't you remember? We're having a sleepover tonight!"

"What? Oh—" I slapped my head. "Dang, I totally forgot about that! With Zim and everything...I should probably be trying to figure out...b-but I can still do it," I said quickly, dispelling the sad-puppy look that fell over Keef's face. "Actually, this is probably better...I really don't want to be home alone with Gaz right now," I grumbled, glaring down the hallway in the direction she'd disappeared.

"Oh, great!" Keef said, grabbing my hand and suddenly dragging me after him. "Come on, let's hurry! My mom will be expecting us home soon! She's making fried chicken for dinner tonight! I love fried chicken, and then we can watch movies and play Tangler and sing karaoke and—"

"Dude? Calm down, okay? We do this like every week."

"I know, but I'm just so excited!"

I rolled my eyes but let him drag me down the hall and out of the skool.

A/N: This chapter is shorter than some of the more recent ones, and ending may be a bit rushed, but I wanted to hurry up and get this out already (especially for you, Invaderzimfannumber1 ;-) . Anyway, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon...I'm also thinking and going back and editing this story, probably not any major plot points but just to clean up some of the more egregious errors. I'm not sure, though. Either way, until next time I hope you enjoyed this, and please review. :-)