Chapter 3 – The Full Situation

"Welcome back Zim. We… missed you." Red's smile was clearly faked, as one of his antenna twitched slightly with the effort of lying. The two of them exchanged an awkward hand shake (it was awkward because neither of them had thumbs). "We've got a lot to talk about, now that you're here. First thing to do is to fill you in on the situation and then we'll get a press conference scheduled, and.."

Purple floated up next to Red cutting him off, "That's great Red but first," he smiled excitedly at Zim, "Are those little hybrids with you?" Red rolled his eyes. Purple had been talking about playing with the smeets again for almost a month now. They would be about one and a half Irk years old, the age for their first space flight test, which is why Red assumed that Zim had brought them now instead of earlier. Either way he hoped that once Purple was sufficiently distracted, they could get down to business.

Zim jerked his head back at the cruiser. "They're grabbing their stuff. Those three refused to wear anything other than their earth clothing on this trip so there's a lot."

"Three?" Red and Purple looked towards the Vort cruiser, as two taller Irkens and one strange looking Vortian came down the ramp pushing hover cart. "Who are they?" Purple asked in his high pitched voice. "Is that a Vortian?" Red wondered.

The teens came up beside Zim, Larkz and Wes on his left and Jenni to his right. Jenni found herself fascinated by the six foot tall aliens in front of her. That really was what they looked like! Her Dad wasn't just some mutated freak! That's so cool!

"I guess they have grown a lot since you last saw them," Zim said shrugging. He put his hands on the heads of his two kids, "Larkz, Jenni, this is Red and Purple, the former Almighty Tallest." He said looking between the twins. "Red and Purple, these are those smeets from before, Larkz and Jenni, and that one there is a friend of theirs. The son of one of my human friends and a Vortian. His name's Wes."

"How…" Stunned, Red stared between the two of them. "It's only been a year and a half… how are they…"

"They're tall!" Purple blurted out. Larkz and Jenni exchanged a confused look.

"My Tal… I mean Red and Purple; it's only been a year on Irk but on Earth nearly 16 years has passed, which is a long time to Humans," Zim explained.

Red looked to still be in shock as a communicator folded out from his PAK. "Uhh yeah... send Blert up here." His crimson eyes looked back and forth between the two supposedly full grown, 1 year old, smeets, and 1 Vortian with hair and no horns. The cool wind blowing over the top of the building, pulling on his long red tunic woke him from the surprise. "Right well we should head in. We'll go to the conference room; Tallest Skoodge is hopefully waiting there" He grabbed Purple by the back of his shirt and dragged him to the building while the others followed.

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"DO YOU HAVE BRAIN WORMS OR SOMETHING!? WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL ME ABOUT THIS!?"

Co-Tallest Skoodge cowered under the gaze of his friend and taller Tallest. His large pink eyes growing moist with tears he didn't want to let fall. "I… I thought I could take care of it…" He said as Zim turned away to pace the room. "You said you wanted to live on earth and you were counting on me to not let everyone notice you're absence…so… I…" his voice failed him.

Zim looked about to yell again but stopped when he saw his friend start crying. He sighed heavily and clasped his hands behind his back; he continued floating back and forth around the conference room.

Jenni groaned and rested her head on her arms, leaning on the table, completely bored. Her brother and Wes sat on the other side of the table mirroring her perfectly. Red and Purple had just finished explaining everything that had occurred on Irk since their birth… and 16 years is a long story.

Fifty days after their family had returned home, a string of murders had occurred. The Irken police knew the culprit was a Dangerous Defective named Alexa, though many knew her as the Black Widow. Even though they knew it was her, they failed to catch her at every turn. Center City was put under lockdown for a week and every inch of the city was searched, but still no sign of her; Red and Purple believed that someone was hiding her, but since Skoodge was certain no one would help her, the Lockdown was removed.

The murders stopped for a while. Everyone was beginning to think she was dead, until a smeet was attacked in the Undergrounds. Red, Purple, and Skoodge didn't find out until much later that the attacked smeet was Zak, and by then it was too late. The city was locked down again, and this time the search included the Training School. Soldiers were recalled from other planets both to man the borders of the city and to help with the search. There was still no sign of her.

While the searches commenced, the smeets hatched just after Tak's "alterations" to the factory were being evaluated. The majority of them were unharmed. There were a few however, who had permanent damage to their bodies. The night before the first scheduled operation attempt to repair one of these smeets, the entire group disappeared. The guards by the smeet's doors were all found dead, their throats slit and PAKs stabbed through. It was around this time that Red first suggested they alert Zim, but Skoodge would not allow it. Five years had passed on Earth.

It wasn't long before the citizens grew anxious to hear from their Tallest what was being done about the situation. Skoodge had done his best to calm their fears but riots began to flare up over the city. While the soldiers struggled to contain the damage, a terror threat was delivered from a group that calls themselves The Broken Ones. They claimed responsibility for stirring the riots and for hiding the Dangerous Defective Alexa.

A council was called. All high ranking Tallers, military personal, and everyone involved with Zim's takeover a (Irken) year ago were present at the time. The discussion was going smoothly. Ideas for dealing with The Broken Ones were being presented, discussed, and analyzed. Everything was normal until one Taller questioned if the title of "Broken" meant that these were ones labeled as Defective.

Red plugged his PAK into a screen to show them what happened that day.

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"You're joking right?" Seeing through the eyes of the former Tallest, the recording focused on an Irken of average height with bright yellow eyes. "Defectives are… dumb. They wouldn't be able to organize something like this."

The Irken shook his head, "I'm sorry sir but that's where you're wrong. Defective is a label for any Irken that cannot work to the fullest extent due to either a mistake in their programing, or physical damage acquired to their bodies."

"He's right. Take me for example." The recording turned to look at a tall male soldier, with dark skin and ice blue eyes. "I sustained damage to my nerve receptors during the Vort Complications. I can't feel pain but other than that I'm completely capable."

A part of the screen flickered when Red's eye twitched. "Alright fine. So let's pretend they are a group of Defectives. What would you suggest we do?"

An Irken in the back shouted out, waiving his hand over the crowd. "They should all be rounded up for questioning. Especially after that group of defective smeets escaped."

"Defective smeets?" that question came from Skoodge, but Red didn't look over at him, instead eyeing the Medic that spoke.

"That's right my Tallest. A group of them were set for attempted repairs but they somehow managed to flee the smeet undergrounds before the repairs began. I told everyone we should have just deactivated them but no one listened. And now this is the mess we have."

Red nodded hearing this, "Smeets can't escape on their own. Our Tallest here is proof of that." In the corner of the screen Skoodge could be seen slouching in his chair. "Check all records for every Defective and find their location, whether this or Any planet."

"YOU CAN'T!"

The screen turned to look at a young Irken child. His eyes were a dark purple with grey specks in them, and he wore a matching dark colored shirt. From how the child was standing on the floor Red could easily see the PAK on the child's back; the three spots were a bright orange.

"And why not Zak?" Red asked.

"You can't just single out Defectives like that. You already alienate them just by listing them under that title. Just think about how they'd feel if you started corralling them like animals." The smeet's voice was hard and determined.

The Yellow-eyed Irken smiled knowingly, "Zak I know you want to protect them, but it's the only lead we've got. If you want, we can arrange for you to be scanned first before things potentially get messy."

"That's not what I meant! Don't you even care that they're Irkens to?"

"Why would we?" Purple piped up. The screen turned to look at him. He was slouching with his chin resting on the table. "We're tall and they're useless defectives. We've already got the most annoying one ever made to deal with for the rest of our lives, why would we want to worry about more than that?"

"Well I'll agree on that," Red said, "what about you Tallest Skoodge?"

"I suppose so."

"NO!" a loud click sounded from the speakers. The screen froze as Red remained completely still. From the gun on the back of his head.

"ZAK! What are you doing!?" Skoodge yelled

"I thought I could change your minds. But none of you will ever understand. Until the day you see us as equals to yourselves, we will never stop hunting you."

Red's eyes glanced around the room. All Tallers that were not soldiers had ducked down in fear, while many soldiers rested their hands on the hilt of their weapons. Purple could be seen, in the corner of his eye, with his clenched fists and muscles tensed to spring from his chair at a moment's notice.

Red's voice was filled with a forced calm, "You said 'we' Zak. Are you saying you're part of the Broken Ones?"

It was terrifying to hear such a condescending laugh come from the small child, "Even better. I'm their leader."

"What is it you're after!?" Purple was barely visible on screen, gripping his chair tightly.

"You idiots really have no idea. I gave you one chance to say something to show that you understand, but even now you don't get it."

"Then explain it to us…"Red stood slowly from his chair to face Zak.

"DON'T MOVE!" Red froze. He could just barely see the smeet. The child's PAK legs were fully extended, lifting him off the floor. "You fools mess up and cause damage to us. Then you deactivate us like we never existed!"

"Zak I know it's not right its…"

"SHUT UP! YOU'RE NO BETTER! Just because you're tall, they never labeled you! No more… You Taller's don't get to act all high and mighty anymore."

Before Zak could pull the trigger, Purple dove from his chair and slammed into the smeet's PAK legs, Red yelled for the guards and everything in the video was thrown into chaos.
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"Even with the building surrounded, he somehow managed to escape." Red's antennae were dipped low, feeling that natural Irken instinct of not wanting to fail the Tallest, for the first time concerning Zim.

Around this point Blert, the same ice-blue-eyed soldier from the video, came in with a shorter female soldier. The two stood just behind the former Tallests, adding information when asked, but otherwise remaining silent. Blert looked completely used to this but the short girl seemed completely out of her comfort zone.

"What are you looking at?" Jenni whispered to Larkz. He kept glancing over his shoulder nervously.

His eyes flicked back to his sister before staring off at their Dad and the others, "nothing," he said innocently. Jenni might have pointed out that she knew it wasn't nothing, but Red had started talking again and she was curious what happened next.

"From there," Former Tallest Red said with a sigh, "things just went downhill. We were forced to recall all off planet soldiers to keep control on the city and keep the citizens safe."

"Right," Purple chimed in, "we thought things were calming down, but technicians were having trouble repairing everything that was broken in the riots so we called all of them back also."

"You just abandoned all of the rebuilding projects?" Zim had his hands on his face looking appalled. "Why?"

Red and Purple exchanged a look. "Look Zim." Red sighed, "I know you wanted to help those evolutionary failures," he ignored the glare Zim shot at him, "but the fact remains, that our planet and our species come first." Red leaned back in his hair, his fingers flexing in the air, "we didn't really have much choice."

"And how many Irkens are on planet now?"

"Uhh… Well… it's hard to say."

"Red…"

"Alright fine… 24 billion."

"WHAT!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME! THAT HAS TO BE EVERY IRKEN IN EXISTANCE!"

"Well we did say we called back everybody," Purple pointed out; he was half distracted by a snack tray that one of the service drones was holding for him.

"Yeah but I didn't know you literally meant EVERY BODY!"

Skoodge stood suddenly, slamming his hands on the table. "Well if you've got so many better ideas why not say them!"

Jenni and Larkz snickered as their Dad's expression froze. Tallers Red and Purple ordered some drinks from a nearby service drone, as if they realized how long he might be frozen like that, which made the twins laugh even harder.

Wes groaned. The three leaned in and spoke in harsh whispers, "I'm bored."

"Me to." Larkz agreed.

Jenni smiled, "Me three. Go ask dad if we can leave."

"What? Why me?"

"Your idea."

"Was not! Wes said it."

"Don't look at me. He's not My Dad."

Larkz groaned and stood from his seat. All eyes went to him, other than his Dad's, as he was still frozen. "Hey Dad? Mind if we go have a look around?" … "Dad?" … "Do you copy Invader Zim!"

Zim's back snapped straight and his arm rose automatically into a salute. "Invader Zim repor… Damit Larkz why do you do that to me?"

"You spaced out."

"Doesn't mean you should pick up your mother's habit, now what do you want?"

"Can we look around the city?"

"We're kind of in the middle of a planetary lockdown…"

"Actually sir," the female soldier piped up, "what we had originally come to tell you was that we had enough soldiers to station in and around the city so that we could remove the lockdown, for the city anyway." Blert smashed his palm to his face then elbowed the girl. She squeaked, realizing her mistake and bowed quickly, "That's our report, My Tallest." Purple snickered into his hand, and Zim eyed the girl.

Turning to his son he said, "Fine, she'll show you around." The soldier squeaked again in surprise.

"Cool." Jenni stood from her chair and walked over to the girl. "I'm Jenni, nice to meet you."

At 4'1", the girl Irken was over a foot shorter than Jenni. Her purple eyes were a few shades darker than Taller Purple's, and only appeared brighter with the yellow stripes on her purple uniform. Her skin was a very bright green, compared with Larkz's. She stood nervously staring at the offered hand before taking it. "I am Soldier Miff, Taller Jenni."

"Just Jenni is fine."

Miff hesitated, glancing black at Blert, who was conveniently looking in the opposite direction. "Umm, alright, Jenni."

"And I'm Larkz!"

Jenni jumped as she hadn't even noticed her brother coming up behind her so quickly. His arm stuck out around her taking Miff's and shaking it. Miff smiled and greeted him. Wes joined them a moment later. The three of them had so many questions about the planet, but Zim shooed them out of the room.

"So," Miff asked, "What would you like to see first?"