Chapter Text
Irkens, being the superior species, had excellent memories. It was easy to search through the memory logs of your PAK.
Well, it should have been. You wouldn’t ever admit it, but you… couldn’t always find everything couldn’t be bothered. Too many memories would bog you down, you reasoned. It made much more sense to only think about the relevant and recent.
Remembering the past was what lesser species did, after all — often talking dumbly about “the good days” when they weren’t “subjugated cruelly by the Irken menace”. They lived in ruts formed by memorization, leading to stagnation and rot. Disgusting, gooey rot.
That said, there were a handful of memories that stuck around — both in your meat brain and your PAK.
Like when you were named. That you remembered fondly proudly.
“ Irken smeet. Your designation is: Zim. ” The computer had pronounced.
Zim.
Zim.
What a name! It was a name that signaled greatness! Why, you’d known it from the second you heard it that you would do the Empire proud!
And indeed, you’ve already done a great number of things worthy of the name you were given, all within your still rather young lifetime! Numerous awe-worthy inventions! Countless enemies squished and squashed! Endless strategies laid out!
It was remarkable how despite all that, they still ignored you didn’t quite see your greatness in its fullest light.
“Why did you tamper with the ship’s reactors?!? We lost half a fleet!” — You told them you weren’t done with the upgrades yet!
“Oh my Irk, Zim, why did you just explode the entire platoon?!?!” — They were traitors, thank you very much! You heard them conspiring!
“Zim! Why did you give the troops the wrong instructions?! They all fell off a cliff! You weren’t even supposed to be handling the maps!” — Couldn’t they read shorthand?
You often wanted to (and in fact did) throw your hands up and declare your bafflement that they Just. Didn’t. See. You.
Oftentimes that would lead to another epiphany — you had to do better, BE better, BE TALLER AND GREATER THAN ANYONE ELSE! (except the Tallest of course, for no one could compare.) — and that meant:
- Bigger bombs (more explosions! More death!)
- More spikey mechs (even more death!)
- More experiments (unfortunately apparently not allowed on fellow Irkens, so Vortian would have to do) (death!)
- And most of all: Less listening to nay-sayers! They are working against the Irken Empire, seeking to sow discord like the filthy little farmers they are!
You devoted your every moment to the Empire, so they were in the wrong! they had to be Why else would they be so jealous? Because they obviously were quite jealous indeed.
(you ignored the memory that surfaced:
you had lost a sparring match, falling to the floor ungracefully. red and purple looked at you and burst out laughing. they were laughing so something must be funny, right? you giggled despite your aches and not knowing what was so funny. they laughed harder and something shone in their eyes that made you feel… cold. like they were laughing at you, but that was impossible, right? that wasn’t contempt in their eyes, it couldn’t be delight at your pain that showed through their smirks. they must just be laughing at the idea of how you were going to get back at your sparring partner, yes that was it, you thought with relief.)
ERROR
…What were you thinking about again?
Ah, yes, your name! ZIM ! A truly powerful name, one that you couldn’t help but roll around in your mouth. It was the perfect designation for an Invader of your caliber. You loved when people said it sometimes even when they were angry , and sometimes almost shivered with joy as your antenna picked up the sound of it.
It felt right , like nothing else did.
“ Zim… ” you muttered to yourself, smiling.
Only to jolt when even the soft sound was enough to wake up your new SIR unit, GIR.
“OooooOOOOOH?” The robot onlined quickly. “Huh? Whatza Zim again?” He sounded slightly dazed.
“ Me , GIR — your new Master , remember? ” You scowled.
“Oh yeah!” Blue optics stared blankly at you for a moment. “Hi Mastah!”
You glanced over at him, raising a brow.
“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!” GIR suddenly screamed, causing you to flinch and scream back react perfectly reasonably.
“WHAT?!?”
“I almost forgot about the DOOM SONG!” The little robot exclaimed.
Your eyes widened with horror. “NO GIR, NOT TH—“
“DOOOOOOOOOOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM DOOMY DOOMY DOOM —“ Your servant boomed, causing your antenna to pin back and your claws to imprint themselves in your Voot Cruiser’s steering wheel.
WHY DID HE SING THE DOOM SONG?!?! WHY?!?! OH IRK, WHY?!?! YOU THOUGHT HE’D STOPPED BUT NO
Your annoying SIR unit continued his maddening chant for a good while, despite your protests.
At some point, you realized you were reaching out to strangle him, but a beeping noise distracted you from destroying property of the Irken Empire.
“ Proximity warning: planet ahead. ” Your ship chirped.
You pulled your attention from GIR and looked out the window.
Indeed, before you was a planet — a modestly sized one made up of swirls and patches of blue, green, white, and brown.
“GIR! We’re here! We’re finally here!” You excitedly said.
You only barely registered the robot ending his obscenely long song, as an anxious happiness began to bubble up.
“Ooh! Whatzat?” GIR cooed as he paid close attention to the marbled planet.
“Planet… Earth .” Your antenna twitched excitedly as you read the readings from your ship. “This must be the place!”
How thrilling! Your first planet was within reach! Your secret mission, given to you by The Tallest would soon be underway! You couldn’t wouldn’t let them down!
“Okay, first off — we need to set up a base of operations.” You announced as the Voot dove forward and into “Earth’s” atmosphere.
GIR giggled obnoxiously, causing your eye to twitch.
“FOCUS, GIR!” You yelled at him. “This is where your advanced information gathering skills come in handy!”
“YES, MY MASTER!” The robot became serious, eyes flashing red, then back to blue as he pressed his metal face against the glass.
“You have to observe what these…”
…What were the creatures living here called?
“ Earthanoids … consider to be normal . Then, based on your observations, we make our disguises. And our home.”
You then focused on steering the ship while looking for the perfect place for your new base.
You flew by dull-colored houses clustered together in an inefficient, ugly manner, taking notes of the technology you saw. It all appeared rather… primitive from what you could glimpse.
An alleyway — just a little nook between two large communal residences — caught your attention. It was sheltered, yet had a good view of the street.
“HERE! WE BUILD HERE!”
You parked your Voot Cruiser in the alley, then took a deep breath to steady your nerves to acclimate yourself to the atmosphere and stepped out of your ship.
You took a moment to glance around warily — always alert, as an Invader should be — as the dirty dirt cloud dissipated.
The night was still, no natives disturbed.
“Woooo… That was easy!” They hadn’t a clue that your ship had landed! This was going to be as easy as Vort pie! “GIR! Get out here!”
GIR stumbled out of the ship, causing a minor racket.
“Hurry, GIR! What did you learn?” You questioned him.
“I saw a squirrel!”
You blinked.
…What was a “squirrel?”
“It was doin’ like this!” The robot proceeded to chitter like a chatterbeast, arms curled and back hunched.
“Concentrate, GIR!” You growled. “It’s time for disguises.”
“I wanna be a mongoose!” He babbled in response.
You frowned. “Shh! Quiet!”
Thankfully, the SIR unit saluted silently, leaving you to activate your ship’s disguise kit.
As the ship’s hologram displayed said disguises, you grunted, displeased with the options available.
Thin Earthanoid with red, spiky hair and a dark look…
“Too ugly!”
Fat Earthanoid with a somewhat disheveled appearance and large chest growths…
“Too stinky!”
Finally, it showed an ingeniously simple disguise — a wig of medium-length black hair coupled with white and purple contact lenses.
Purple was your favorite color!
“That one looks good!”
Hearing your acceptance, the disguise kit activated, enclosing around you. You yelped as it roughly handled your antenna, stuffing them in the wig as the lenses were put in your stinging eyes.
Still, you stood proud as the device retracted, revealing your hidden form.
“Master! Where’d you go?” Your robot cried out. “Where are you?!”
“I’m right here GIR — it’s me!” You said smugly, content with your disguise. “And keep it down! You wanna wake up the whole planet?”
“I dooo.” He sing-songedly cooed, despite your question obviously being rhetorical.
You frowned, turning back to the disguise kit. “Okayyy, for you… I’m thinkin’ maybe a dog.”
GIR peered over your shoulder, saying something about mongooses again. You ignored him as you flipped through the options.
Ah! There. Perfect!
You turned back to your loyal minion. “Today… we become… the Enemy .”
Steering him to the kit, you watched as the device shook and he emerged with a brand new, non-conspicuous form — that of a green dog.
“INGENIOUS!” No way the Earth-smellies would see through these!
“Now,” you continued. “All we need is a home. Let’s see…”
You pulled out a Build-A-Bunker, quickly sketching out a house. You murmured to yourself as you added various appropriate decorations.
“There!”
With that, you activated the machine, setting the now drill-adorned-plug-shape down, whereupon it began burrowing into the filthy dirt.
You watched happily for a moment, content in how things were coming along.
…Until you realized you were standing right where the house was going to be constructed.
“GIR! HIDE!” You skittered behind a red metal protrusion. “AND BE QUIET! We can’t afford to make a sound…”
The ground rumbled as the Build-A-Bunker began noisily constructing. You winced as alarms started wailing around the neighborhood, windows lit up, and Earthanoids emerged from their dwellings.
That… was a bit loud, you realized.
awkwardly in a normal manner, you picked up GIR’s leash and marched to your new home.
“ Welcome home, daughter! ” Your absolutely normal Earthanoid familial units greeted you, as you passed them by and closed the front door. you ignored how the word “daughter” felt… weird. in a bad way.
You waited for a moment by the door, antennae twitching under the itchy wig.
Alarms quieted, lights slowly dimmed, and Earthanoids stopped their murmuring. No one came to the door.
It seemed that you hadn’t aroused suspicion after all!
“Woooo…” You sighed. “Step one went smoooothlyyy .”