5 years after the Most Horrible Xmas Ever…
"Operation Impending Doom II is OVER, Zim!" Said Zim's leader, Tallest Red.
The Almighty Tallest Leaders of the Irken Empire, Red and Purple, have hated Zim ever since he single-handedly ruined the original Operation Impending Doom. But every attempt they made to kill him had backfired so far, so they let him rot on that nameless planet. Zim still thought he was an Invader, and the Tallest put up with his phone calls every once in a while just to keep him as far away from the Irken Empire as possible.
"…But…" protested Invader Zim with a pouty face, being projected on a huge hologram screen before the Almighty Tallest, in an intergalactic video call.
"OVER!" Red said, clenching his fist.
"Yea! It's been over for a whole Irken year now!" Said Tallest Purple, through a bunch of half-chewed doughnuts stuffed in his cheeks, crumbs spewing from his mouth, and pointing an accusatory finger at the screen.
"Can't I be part of Operation Impending Doom III?" Zim begged with his best puppy dog eyes.
"There is no Operation Impending Doom III! We already conquered all the galaxies we wanted to!" Said Red.
"But we haven't conquered Earth!"
"We don't care about Earth…" Purple mumbled.
"Goodbye Zim." Red said flatly, then looked over to his subordinate in charge of communications, and made a gesture with a finger moving across his throat.
Some Earth-hours later, somewhere in space, near Earth's moon.
"THE MOON IS MINE, DIB!" Zim shouted at his human nemesis, a now very teenage Dib. Who, incidentally, was now almost twice as tall as Zim.
"NEVER!" Dib retorted, his voice cracking halfway through the word.
Dib's spaceship (technically Tak's old spaceship) was taking tons of damage from Zim's Voot Cruiser's laser cannon. Sweat poured from Dib's head as he strained to maneuver his small craft around Zim's fire.
"You're doing it wrong," commented Dib's sister, Gaz, who was uncomfortably squished next to her annoying older brother in the single-seat craft. She hated being dragged along on his little 'save the world' missions.
Dib didn't answer, concentrating on flying.
"C'mon, let me fly, I wanna be home for dinner."
After a few seconds more of straining, and a warning message from the ship's computer…
"Shields at critical damage." (In Tak's voice.)
Dib finally exhaled deeply (almost screaming in defeat) and let go of the joystick.
Gaz nonchalantly took control of the vessel and flew directly up, doing a quick loop, and leveling off again directly behind the Voot Cruiser. A little bit of casual button-pressing, and probably a Game Slave cheat code or two later and Zim's craft was crippled.
Zim's angry face popped up on a little hologram screen in Dib's ship, he shouted incoherently at his enemies. Dib just stared dumbfounded at the wreck floating in space in front of him.
"How do you ALWAYS do that?!" Dib shouted at his sister.
"Pfft… noob."
Meanwhile, in the Voot Cruiser…
A bright flash of blue light appeared in front of Zim, while he was still ranting.
"Eh?" Zim said at the flash of light, with a stupid blank expression on his face, his skinny tongue hanging from his open mouth.
"Hey look! A wormhole!" Noted Zim's defective little robot minion, GIR.
The view of space became contorted and stretched as Zim's craft was sucked into the wormhole.
"Warning. Incoming wormhole," warned Zim's ship's computer.
"WHAT?! We're already IN the wormhole! Why didn't you warn me sooner?!"
"I was busy." The computer cleared his throat. "Assessing… damages…"
"I DON'T PAY YOU TO ASSESS DAMAGES WHEN I'M BEING SUCKED INTO A WORMHOLE!"
"You… don't pay me at all."
"COMPUTER! Find out where this wormhole comes out!"
"Maybe it's the one with the moose!" GIR excitedly chimed in, holding a muffin in his hand.
"Wormhole ends in same solar system, near Earth," Computer answered.
"Eh? That's it? What a stupid wormhole."
Back in Dib's ship…
"Hey look, Zim's being sucked into a wormhole," Gaz stated flatly, "Good, now that he's gone, I'll never have to miss dinner while we're out on one of your stupid play-dates with him."
"THIS IS NOT A PLAY DATE!" Dib defended, "THIS IS THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!"
"Meh. Let's go home." Gaz tilted the ship's joystick and the ship only rotated around 180 degrees, being sucked backward into the vortex. Gaz turned up the thrusters, and the ship began to pull away, but upon reaching their maximum force, the thrusters cut out, and in that one second that they were off, the spacecraft was swallowed by the wormhole.
Dib just sat there, contemplating what just happened.
Gaz scrunched up her face in anger and frustration, and clenched her fists. She grabbed Dib's throat with a single hand, and yelled at him as she choked him, "THIS IS YOUR FAULT! NOW WE'RE GOING TO MISS OUR ANNUAL FAMILY DINNER NIGHT WITH DAD!"
Gaz proceeded to beat the living crap out of her brother.
On the other end of the wormhole…
The Voot Cruiser popped out of a hole in space with a brilliant flash of blue light. Zim's crippled ship was limping towards the dark side of the planet he was entrusted to invade, with only one working thruster, that kept cutting out. As the ship entered the atmosphere, the computer spat out warnings about non-functioning systems, incoming planets, terminal velocity, and impending doom.
Zim was too busy screaming to listen.
So was GIR. But he was munching on a muffin as well.
The violently flaming ship neared the ground, and plowed through the trees of a thick forest, creating a path of devastation in its wake, eventually coming to a stop somewhere on the ground in the middle of the dark forest.
For a short moment, Zim and GIR had both stopped screaming. Zim wondered how he would get revenge against the filthy human and GIR took the opportunity to finish his muffin, licking his metal fingers with his fleshy pink tongue, and he pondered on when he might eat another of these delicious muffins. Their period of reflection was short lived, however, as it was interrupted by the ship's computer…
"Power core critical. Implosion imminent."
Judging by the computer's reaction time to certain important things lately, Zim was not overreacting when he opened the ship's battered windshield/door thing, jumped out, and ran for his life… screaming, of course. Zim ran almost blindly through the dense woods in the dead of night, but after sense caught up with him, his backpack opened and he used his big mechanical spider legs to run faster.
Then there was the sound of trees and leaves rustling in a powerful wind blowing directly against Zim's face, as the Voot Cruiser sucked air and even a few whole trees into its imploding power core. The wind stopped, but Zim kept running, because he knew that it would…
BOOM
…explode in a blazingly bright white flash, leaving an enormous mushroom cloud behind as the light died down. Zim was out of the blast radius but was still thrown face-first into a tree trunk. He separated his face from the filthy Earth tree and stood there dazed for a moment. He shook his head and noticed that GIR was nowhere to be seen. And he heard a high pitched noise rapidly approaching him from above.
It was GIR, screaming.
He fell through the trees and landed face-down on the dirt with a loud THUNK, silencing him.
The little robot stayed there for almost a whole minute before he jumped up and shouted, "THAT WAS FUN! I wanna do it again!"
"NO GIR, not again!"
"Aww…" He said, looking down at his feet in a devastating disappointment.
Dib was nowhere to be found. 'Finally, I can carry out my mission in peace,' thought Zim. After a moment of self-congratulation, Zim noticed that this forest wasn't like the woods near the city. And, therefore, this couldn't be the same planet, because, logically, all the forests on any given planet would be the same. "Wait a minute!" he said to no one in particular. That wormhole must have deposited him in some other galaxy or dimension. At least it wasn't the one with the walnut-eating moose. If this wasn't Earth, maybe it was some kind of tropical forest planet? Maybe the Tallest would want to conquer it for the trees… or something. He stood there in deep thought, his little gloved hand stroking his chin.
"Eh, oh well. At least the Dib human isn't here."
As if on cue, a ball of fire came whistling down from the night sky, and crashed through the trees, falling almost completely straight downward. So close to Zim, in fact, that the air being displaced from the crash threw him backwards into a tree.
The spacecraft opened up and two humans rolled out of it, the purple-haired scary female still punching and choking her brother, in an epic battle of vengeance for depriving her of her pizza.
"HEY!" Zim called out to the humans in mortal combat. "HEY!" He called again.
Neither responded. He looked to GIR, and opened his mouth to give him an order, only to find him contentedly watching the fight, and eating popcorn. Useless robot.
Zim walked (goose-stepping) over to the filthy humans' means of transportation, Tak's old ship. Irken technology. Slightly outdated, and heavily modified, but still very much Irken. Unfortunately the not-so-epic space battle and crash landing had not been kind to it. At least the power core didn't implode. But it looked like this ship was out of commission for now.
Zim growled in defeat, for his plan to steal the ship and leave the humans to rot on this tropical rainforest planet (that still seemed a lot like Earth) was foiled.
"WILL YOU TWO QUIT IT!? WE'RE STRANDED ON AN ALIEN PLANET!"
Gaz's punches to Dib's severely swollen face slowed to a halt. She was still holding Dib's limp body by his neck with one hand. She didn't stop for Zim, she heard the rustling of leaves and stopped to listen.
She watched, unimpressed, as a giant beast leapt from the darkness and took a swipe at Zim, who rolled over to avoid it, and got back on his feet and began running and screaming and flailing his arms in the air. GIR was still sitting and watching, munching on popcorn, kicking his legs, and giggling in amusement.
Gaz dropped her brother on the ground. He groaned and tried to get back on his feet. At least she was nice enough to punch around his glasses. Or maybe she just didn't want her knuckles full of broken glass. Hmm. He stood up, wobbling around with a lack of balance, and tried to figure out what was happening.
Zim was being chased in a big circle through the trees, by a beast shaped roughly like a giant lion, but much bigger, with bat wings and a scorpion tail.
His screams were abruptly ended with a loud THUD and an "OOF!" when he bumped into something.
Dib and Gaz were too far away to see what he bumped into, but they saw a small sparkly flash of light in his direction. The beast roared and ran off.
Gaz casually walked over there, and Dib stumbled his way over.
Zim shook his head to clear his sight, then looked at what he bumped into. It was a strange black and white striped horse, roughly standing at his height, wearing several gold rings.
"Eh?" Zim said.
Gaz, Dib, and GIR arrived in the zebra's vision, and she asked, "What manner of creatures are you four? Creatures like these, I have never seen before."
An electric sparking noise came from GIR. His face went blank, with his eyes going dark grey, and he fell to a sitting position. Zim quickly equipped his wig and contact lenses. "I'm a human! Yep! Human, human, human!" He said, even though his cover was already blown.
"You're not a human! We're humans!" Dib said through his swollen mouth, with a lisp, gesturing to his sister and himself. "You're an ALIEN!" He pointed an accusing finger to the green human imposter. His rivalry with Zim made him completely oblivious to the small talking zebra.
"There are no humans here, that much is clear, so that makes you the aliens my dear!"
"Are you a… z-zebra?" Dib asked, finally noticing what was talking to him.
"Why yes I am…"
"A TALKING ZEBRA?!" Dib cut her off, "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!!!" He fell to his knees and begged the answer from the starry night sky, as if the very universe was playing jokes on him.
In a way, it was. What with that wormhole and all.
"Yes I can speak, but so can you! It is not that hard a thing to do."
Despite his momentary lapse into insanity, Dib got back on his feet and shrugged off the weirdness of his current situation, as he had long since learned to do when dealing with Zim and his shenanigans.
Zim, however, had no such issues with the talking zebra. His race had conquered many different planets and peoples, so he was no stranger to another variety of sapient creatures. Even if this one looked like a FILTHLY Earth horse.
"Do you always talk in rhyme?" Dib asked bluntly.
"It is an old tradition of my people to speak in verse, the ponies here used to think I was uttering a curse."
"Ponies?" Zim and Dib asked in unison (Zim emphasized the end of the word). Dib heard a strange high pitched squeal come from his right, but when he looked there, he only saw his sister with her usual uncaring expression.
"Now if you would all follow me, the night is not safe in the Everfree. In my home we can talk, it is only a short walk."
With nothing better to do, and Zim's poorly-hidden fear of that beast chasing after him again, they followed the rhyming zebra. Gaz reluctantly grabbed GIR's limp form by the arm and dragged him along with her, his face plowing up the dirt along the way.
After a short walk they arrived at a large tree-hut, glowing yellow with lamp light in the darkness of the forest. The zebra opened the wooden door to the hut and walked in.
"Fluttershy, my dear, what are you doing here?" She said to a shivering butter yellow ball in the middle of the floor.
"Oh, thank goodness it's you Zecora." Her shaking slowed and she sat up. "I… I heard an explosion in the forest and I came to see if you were alright – even though I was scared – b-but you weren't here… so I waited and, and… oh my, what kind of animals are those?" She asked about the strange creatures shadowing Zecora on her way into her home.
"I do not know, Fluttershy, but I believe they fell from the sky."
"We're humans," Dib said with a lisp, "He's an Irken."
"I'm a human too!" Zim corrected with a positive smile in the direction of the yellow thing.
"Oh my… you can talk…" Fluttershy said.
"Yea, and so can you. Big deal." Dib pointed out. Zecora gave him a dirty look.
"I've never heard of a 'humin' before, what are your names?" Fluttershy asked very quietly. "You know, if, um… you don't mind me asking…"
Dib was about to answer but Gaz shoved him out of the way and answered for him, "I'm Gaz, this is my idiot brother Dib, and his pathetic alien friend Zim," she said in her usual flat, uncaring tone.
"HEY!" Zim responded with an angry scowl and outstretched arms, getting no response back from the girl.
"Oh my… well um… I'm Fluttershy."
"Zecora is how you can call me. And Dib has broken a tooth, I see." She said, stepping closer to Dib. "I have just the thing to fix that crack, give me a moment, I will be right back." With that, she walked through a bead curtain to another room.
Dib ran his tongue over his front teeth and felt a jagged break in one of them. He gave his sister a dirty look and a little grumble, to which she gave him a devilish smirk in return.
"So um… where did you come from…?" Fluttershy asked.
Zim pretended to be uninterested with Fluttershy's question. But even Dib could see that this whole thing had Zim scared. And Dib was too, but maybe to a lesser extent, or at least, it hadn't completely hit him yet. 'Things will make sense eventually,' Dib told himself. The unknowns were what got both of them. They didn't know if that wormhole had deposited them in another dimension or on the other side of the universe.
Neither possibility sounded too good. And both of them wanted to get back to their precious Earth. (Even if it was precious to them for different reasons.)
Lost in thought, Dib was interrupted before he could answer.
"Here, take this potion and drink, your tooth will heal quicker than you can think!"
Dib grabbed a small bowl from the zebra's mouth – wait, how was she talking and holding the bowl? – and he glanced around the room at everyone else. No one was displaying any reason not to drink the mysterious potentially poisonous liquid given to him by a possibly alien tiny talking zebra.
Dib shrugged and gave a "Meh," and gulped it down. A moment later, he felt his teeth shift around, and finally settle back in their original places. He ran his tongue over his teeth, "Hey! It worked! Thanks!" His lisp was now gone!
"You are quite welcome, my dear. Now the answer to Fluttershy's question, I would like to hear."
"Well, um," Dib looked up and tapped his chin with a finger.
Fluttershy interrupted, "What's that?" pointing a hoof at a still-limp GIR.
"Oh, er, him? He's um… my dog! Yes! My perfectly normal human Earth-dog." Zim stated with a content grin, even though GIR was completely undisguised.
"He looks more like a… robot."
"He is…" Dib added.
"No he's not!" Zim retorted.
"Is he supposed to be… um… broken…?" Fluttershy asked.
"SILENCE! Your FILTHY horse brain couldn't even BEGIN to comprehend the complex workings of Irken technologeeeEEEE!" Zim yelled.
"Oh… um… I'm sorry," Fluttershy said under her breath, avoiding eye contact by hiding behind her flowing pink hair.
Zim was about to continue but couldn't because he was socked in the jaw by Gaz's fist, and knocked clean off his feet. Zim jumped up, "GRRRRRR!... WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
He was met by a slightly angrier-than-usual Gaz's signature squinty-eyed blank expression, as Gaz grabbed Zim's collar and pointed a finger in his face. "I don't like you." She said flatly.
Zecora walked closer to them and said, "Some serious anger issues you all do hide, if you are going to fight, please take it outside." She pointed a hoof to the door.
The door responded by knocking loudly three times.
Zecora walked over and opened it.
Outside, and beginning to walk in, at Zecora's welcoming gesture, were five small colorful equines. The first one, who must have knocked, was a lavender colored one with purple hair. She appeared to have a unicorn's horn.
"I'm sorry to bother you so late, Zecora, but we came to check out that explosion... we… heard…" The purple one trailed off after catching sight of the humans plus Irken human impersonator.
Sparks could be heard coming from the little robot, and suddenly his eyes lit up green again.
"I… I… I…" GIR repeated mechanically for a moment before Zim smacked the side of his head, making a hollow metal thunk. GIR paused for a moment, then continued…
"I love this show…"