It all happened so fast.

Zim fell to his knees as Dib swiftly kicked him in the stomach, causing him to release the small machine that was in his hands and throw it up into the air. The human then stomped on it once it hit the ground, shattering it into hundreds of tiny pieces. He raised a fist in the air with a smug expression.

"Yes! Once again, humans are victorious!"

Zim scowled, growling lowly at the human's display of pride.

"You didn't win, stupid! That was... merely a distraction! My real plan is far more dangerous!"

"Oh, sure! What is it, another terrifying robot?" He laughed at his own joke, before mocking him more. "Or wait! Don't tell me! Are you going to bring back the Zimvoid?! I'm shaking in my boots!"

Zim absolutely hated every minute that Dib would make fun of him. Especially in that condescending voice! And, unfortunately, that's how he had started acting after he finished hiskool. It was like all of a sudden he started thinking that he was superior or something! It was horrible!

The Irken wanted to cut off his vocal cords so that he could never laugh again, then he wouldn't be such a jerk. But then again, he would find some way to mock him, even while being mute.

"Man," Dib started after calming down. "You're real funny, Zim. It makes me wonder what your leaders ever saw in you. They might be just as stupid as you, or maybe more!"

Suddenly, he felt a stinging sensation on his cheek. When he grazed a hand over it it, he could make out three consecutive scratch marks that started bleeding immediately. It was very clear who made them.

"Don't you ever talk about the Tallest like that!" Zim yelled at him, retracting his hand from his face. "You're in no place to say anything about them! Nothing at all!"

"Oh please, I can say whatever I want to!"

Dib crossed his arms, shooting the Irken a mean look.

"The Tallest are tall, stupid jerks that only rule over your moronic empire because of their height! I bet their brains are so small that you'd need a microscope to see them!"

"Shut up! At least they aren't stupid clones of their parental units like SOMEONE I know!"

Dib stayed silent at his response, letting him have the upper hand.

In an instant, Zim launched himself at the human, trying his best to beat him up. However, it wasn't as easy as it used to be, considering how much Dib had grown in seven years. He was only able to give him a few good scratches and bruises before he was thrown to the ground, landing on his stomach.

He tried getting up, but Dib stepped on his back lightly, keeping him on the floor.

"Honestly, Zim, did you think that you'd win that? How delusional are you?"

The Irken didn't respond, and instead squirmed around enough to where he was now lying on his back. Then, he bit Dib on the leg, causing the human to yell and flail it around, trying to get him off.

Eventually Zim did release his mouth from his leg, but the flailing led to him getting shoved against a wall not too far away, thanks to the sheer amount of force Dib used.

He groaned, trying to get off of the wall, but he couldn't. Confused, he tried again, but the results were the same. He looked behind him, and noticed that a sharp, broken pipe was pressed against his pak. It looked to be lodged in pretty deep, which made his heart stop.

If he pulled too hard... well, horrible, unspeakable things could happen to him.

He took a deep breath and slowly moved forward, trying his best to avoid as much pain as possible. It felt like his pak was being ripped in half, but he persisted, reminding himself that the pain would soon go away. And eventually, his pak was one-fourth of the way out. But then, he caught sight of Dib.

The look on his face made him question if he was really human. There wasn't a hint of mercy in his expression, just pure malice, as if the alien had crossed the line. But how? Was it the comment about him being a clone? It didn't matter, because every passing second he got closer and closer, reminding Zim of his inevitable doom.

"No, no, no! Stay back! Stay back!" He yelled hysterically. "You're going to make everything worse, you buffoon!"

He was so focused on stopping the human from reaching him, that he leaned forward swiftly, ripping his pak from the pipe in a second's time, leaving a large, gaping hole in its wake.

But that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst came around afterwards, when his pak sent a shock wave to his body, electrifying him right then and there.

He let out a blood-curdling scream as he felt like he was being stabbed with hundreds upon thousands of pointy pins and needles all over his body. It was the most painful thing he had ever experienced in his lifetime, and it went by so slow. Every second of being electrocuted felt like hours, before eventually, it stopped.

Although it only happened for fifteen seconds, Zim swore it had been going on for minutes.

Once he felt the sensation leave his body, he hugged himself and panted heavily, trying to breathe normally again. Tears stung in the corners of his eyes, daring to fall, but he blinked them back, not wanting to look vulnerable in front of his worst enemy. It was over, the pain was gone. So why was he still so scared?

Dib ran up to him with a hint of concern on his face, but he masked it as confusion as soon as they were in close proximity of each other.

"Hey, what was that?" He asked the alien as he rubbed the back of his neck. It was obvious that something had happened, he just wasn't close enough to know the details.

Zim didn't respond to him. He just stood up shakily and limped away, a mix of anger and fear painting his features as he made the journey home.

Dib was about to chase him down, but he decided against it. What was the point if the Irken wasn't going to talk to him? He knew that when Zim didn't want to do something it was impossible to get him to do it, so he deemed the entire idea futile and walked the opposite way from him.

Maybe he wouldn't tell him then, but he had to at some point, right?

《~》

After a few minutes of limping, Zim finally made it to his base.

The place looked exactly how he had left it. The gnomes were deactivated, the grass was unruly, and there were weird stains on the door, most likely from Gir.

But that was his home, as imperfect as it was.

He wobbled to the door before knocking on it, tapping his foot rapidly on the floor. There was no doubt that something serious had happened to his pak, and every minute wasted was leading him closer and closer to the horrible fate that awaited him.

"Master, youz back!" Gir greeted him as the door swung open. "Did you bring tacos?! Oooo, please tell me you brought tacos!"

Zim ignored his question and pushed past him, but the little robot didn't take it as anything personal. His master was always like that.

"Gir! Fetch me my mirror!" The alien commanded as he pointed towards him, and he obeyed, running to and from the kitchen. Then, he appeared next to him with a mirror that was taller than Zim himself. "Perfect!"

He quickly turned his body at an angle to where he could see the damage that was done to his pak, and then he took a few steps back.

There was a large gash that started from the top left corner of the pak to the bottom right corner of it, exposing most of the machinery at work. Some of the wires were sliced, sparking every once in a while, while other parts were completely demolished. It was a miracle that he was even alive, since destruction like that should've stopped all of its functions.

But he was insanely lucky, because the pipe missed the most important part of his pak, the Isyke.

The Isyke was the main power source for the pak, like a generator. Without it, nothing would be able to function, and there wouldn't be a conscious host controlling anything. In human terms, it was like a secondary brain, since Irkens already had brains in their physical bodies.

If that pipe had been an centimeter closer...

Zim shivered. He really didn't want to finish that thought. It wasn't like he could do anything about it anyways. Really, his only option was to leave the wound alone and hope that nothing would touch it, because unfortunately, paks couldn't heal themselves.

Not even Irk's finest mechanics could fix a pak either, they were just too complex. So, he was forced to keep it as a reminder that his enemy had beaten him once again.

Without thinking, Zim punched the mirror, breaking it into a million pieces.

"I've had it with that stupid human!" He yelled out loud. "Seven years... seven years! And I still haven't beaten him! How?! I am Zim, Irk's finest invader!"

In an instant, he jumped on the couch, standing on it with his hands on his hips as if he was posing for a picture.

"Zim was the one who participated in Operation Impending Doom and performed greatly! Then, I was the one who put out the fires out that I started! Not just that, but I made them better! And now, my Tallest are entrusting me to invade this disgusting planet! Zim must not disappoint them!"

The Irken jumped off of the couch and took the elevator down to his lab, seating himself on a hovering chair.

"Computer!" He shouted.

"What?"

"Today's the last day that Zim will be defeated! From now on, I'm going to be working as hard as I can to ensure that this planet belongs to the Irken Armada! So, if you will, research all of the earth's 'countries'! Zim needs to study!"

The computer groaned before a large screen popped up in the center of the lab, showing a map of the earth's continents as it became more and more detailed with information. Zim's eyes lit up with pure fascination as his expression changed from innocent to dastardly.

"Yes! The Dib will rue the day that he messed with Invader Zim!"

《~》

Hours and hours of heavy research and inventing had passed, but eventually, Zim's plan was complete.

"Finally! The machine is finished!" He announced to his robotic companion. "Now all I have to do is press all of these buttons, and earth will be mine!"

"Ooooo! That sounds fun!! Will there be lots of pizza!?"

"Of course not! Well, not during that phase at least. But Zim promises that after the planet is taken over, you can have as much pizza as your cold, artificial heart desires!"

"Yay!" Gir danced a little before running away, but Zim brushed it off as another weird thing that he did.

He moved his chair closer to the large screen in the lab and grinned, shaking the machine in his hands excitedly as if he was a child on Christmas day, waiting to open his present. Then, he connected a wire from the screen to the machine which changed the image to show less details.

"This is it, Gir!" He yelled.

But nobody responded.

The only thing he could hear was his voice echoing over and over again...

And again...

And again...

"Gir? Are you- oh whatever! He's probably outside picking daisies or something! Zim's got important stuff to do!"

He held the blue, box-like machine in his hands before opening one of the small compartments like a cabinet drawer. In it was about a hundred small buttons, each painted a different color labeled as a different country.

He hovered his finger over a few different buttons, contemplating on which one to choose before he pressed an orange one labeled 'Australia'.

In an instant, a tiny red dot appeared on the map above Australia. Then, it flickered for a few seconds before it was replaced by a large X.

A smaller screen lowered from the roof next to the larger one showcasing the news, which made Zim's heart beat wildly. This was it, this was the moment he had been waiting for.

"-My conclusion? Never trust a monkey." The female news reporter laughed before a more serious expression replaced her old one. "We've just got word that something terrible has happened in Australia!" She listened to someone speak to her on a walkie-talkie before nodding and looking back at the camera.

"Apparently, there was a sudden explosion that took place, killing all forms of authority! Now, everyone's panicking because there's no one in charge! Isn't that heart breaking?"

Zim stared at the screen in shock.

"My plan...worked?"

He let out a small chuckle before it formed into a cackle, and soon enough, he was laughing maniacally, just like old times.

"It worked! It actually worked! My Tallest are gonna-! I'm gonna-!" There was so much going through his head, but one thought in particular meant the most to him.

"I'm finally gonna defeat Dib!"

Zim pressed more and more buttons with each one adding more X's to the map until eventually, everything was crossed out.

Meanwhile, the poor reporters were having so much trouble keeping up as more and more important people died, moving back and forth from different scenes trying to inform everyone. It got so bad that they had to just end it there, because there was just too much information going around about the sudden deaths.

Then, he pressed a large red button that was located on the very bottom of the box and stared at the map intently.

All of the continents started moving towards each other slowly at first, before they picked up speed and joined together as one large supercontinent.

Tears filled his eyes as he stared at his beautiful creation. All of his emotions were so hard to manage the entire time, and at the moment he wanted to burst out crying in happiness. But he couldn't, not now at least. There was still one last thing to do.

He reached into a pile of junk on the floor and fished out an Irken communication device. Then, he messed with a few of the dials on the side before he set it on the ground, standing in front of it proudly.

Suddenly, all screens in the world showed the same live video of Zim, out of disguise. Billions of people shared the same shocked expressions, with one of them being Dib.

The alien cleared his throat before speaking.

"Filthy, pathetic people of earth! I am Zim, the universe's greatest invader! Consider yourselves lucky, because you're able to see my greatness right now on your screens!"

"For far too many years I have lurked on this planet, trying to live among you fools to gather information! And, oh, how horrible it was! You're all so barbaric and disgusting! I'm surprised that I'm still alive with how much stupidity I'm surrounded by!"

He cleared his throat again, getting himself together.

"Nonetheless, I've managed to craft the perfect machine for your doom! I blew up your moronic leaders because I'm going to replace them! In a few moments, my Tallest will hear about my victory, and they'll come to earth to take over! This horrible planet will belong to the Irken armada, and I'll be promoted! They'll finally see how amazing I am!"

"No longer will you wretched creatures be living on your own free will! You'll have to listen to me! ME!" He walked closer to the communicator with a wicked expression on his face.

"When I'm through with all of you, you won't even know the definition of the word 'freedom'! This isn't just some puny takeover!"

"This is the era of ZIM!"

And with that, the video ended, leaving him to do the real last step, which was calling his Tallest.

"Computer! Contact the Tallest!"

There was complete silence for a few seconds, before Zim looked around the room in annoyance.

"Computer!"

"What?"

"Why didn't you hear my command?!"

"You didn't say anything."

The Irken looked up, as if he was looking his computer in the face and yelled more.

"What do you mean? I've been yelling this entire- oh, whatever! Just contact the Tallest already."

"....Okay."

Zim entered the elevator and waited for a little before he was upstairs. Then, he stood in front of the television with a large grin on his face, waiting to share the exciting news with them.

"Zim? Seriously?! We thought you were dead! How are you still alive?!"

Purple and Red groaned in sync, but Zim ignored it and saluted them.

"My Tallest! I've completed my mission!"

Red raised a non-existent eyebrow.

"What?" He asked lazily.

"I said I've completed my mission! Zim's prepared the earth for the Irken Armada!"

The Tallest exchanged looks before turning to the small alien, confusion littering their expressions.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Really sure!"

"Yes!"

"Really, really sure!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Zim jumped up and down, emphasizing his point. "I've gotten rid of all forms of authority everywhere! All Zim needs now is you guys!"

"Are these creatures... useful?" Red asked, speaking before Purple could.

"Yup! They may be extremely ugly, but they can make really good snacks! Especially donuts!"

Purple's antennae launched up in the air out of excitement.

"I'm sold! Why didn't you tell us sooner?!" He looked at Red nodding his head up and down rapidly, causing the other to let out a sigh.

"You better be right about those snacks..." he muttered before straightening himself out. "Zim, we'll be there in about half an hour. Make sure that nothing bad happens to that planet, or you're dead to us. Got it?"

If he wasn't in front of his leaders at the moment, Zim would've cried tears of pure joy. Everything he had ever wanted in life was happening to him. Every single thing! He never thought that he would ever get that far, but here he was!

"Y-Yes, my Tallest!" He said, blinking back tears. "Zim won't disappoint you!"

And then, they ended the call leaving him all by himself.

All around the house there was silence. Zim hadn't moved or even spoken after the call ended, he just stood there with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Uh... master?" The computer called to him, ending the silence. "Are you okay?"

"...I did it."

"Yeah, you did."

Zim looked at his claws, studying them like they were the most interesting thing in the entire room.

"I did it."

Silence insued for a good few minutes, before the alien finally spoke again.

"Computer, I've completed my mission, right?" He inquired, yet there wasn't even a hint of confusion in his voice. It was already clear, he was victorious. He had won... right?

"Affirmative, all you have to do is wait." There was silence again, before he continued. "...Aren't you happy?"

"I guess."

His expression changed to a pained one as he felt a horrible burning sensation in his pak, causing his breathing to hitch as he fell onto his knees.

"Master?!"

Zim panted, trying his best to ignore the pure agony he was feeling, but to no avail. Every second, it would get worse, and all he could do was sit there in misery, waiting for it to end. He wanted to seem strong, but it was really hard to in that situation.

Luckily, it stopped just as suddenly as it started, and the pain faded away.

"...Computer?" He asked, panting with each breath. "What was that?"

"I can't tell, your pak isn't giving my system any signals like it's supposed to. And I can't connect any wires either, since it'll most likely damage it thanks to that gash. Where did you get it anyways?"

"A stupid pipe tore through it all because of the Dib! If he hadn't of insulted my Tallest, none of this would've happened!" He pouted, crossing his arms. "It's always his fault."

"Don't you think you should inform your Tallest about that injury?"

"Of course not! They don't need to know. Plus, I can handle it! I'm Zim afterall!"

The computer sighed before dropping the subject. And right on time too, because all of a sudden, the loud mechanical whirr of a ship was heard outside.

"They're here!" He yelled excitedly.

Zim ran outside to see his Tallest exit the ship, looking at their surroundings in both disgust and awe.

In the short amount of time that the Irken had taken over, people had started freaking out since all authority was gone. So much, that there were random fires that had started, painting the sky into blood red, opposed to blue. Buildings were also in shambles, and people were running around screaming like it was the end of the world. Which, it kind of was.

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said they were stupid," Purple commented as he watched the chaos taking place before him.

Red looked at Zim quizzically before looking back at the destruction he had caused.

"I'm surprised that you managed to do this."

"I know right? Isn't Zim great?"

When nobody responded, he continued to speak, as if that was what he was going to do all along.

"So, since I've taken over this planet, does that mean that I can return to Irk?"

The Tallest looked eachother in unison, thinking the exact same thing.

No way.

They whispered a few things amongst themselves and then looked at the smaller alien, knowing exactly what they had to do.

"Well, Zim, we really... appreciate your hard work. So, we've decided to put you in charge of the planet instead. That way, there'll be someone here to make sure these humans actually make our snacks, and we won't have to do any hard work!"

"Really?!" He couldn't believe his antennae. The Tallest never gave invaders their own planets, and here they were, doing exactly that! "I know Zim is great, but-"

"Don't worry about it!" Red interrupted him with an anxious grin. "Consider this a promotion! No longer will you be known as Invader Zim! Now, people will have to refer to you as Tallest Zim! Of course, we're still more tall and powerful than you."

"Duh! But yeah, this is totally not just an excuse to get rid of you so that you can't destroy Irk again! Not at all!" Purple gave Red a sneaky smile, and the gesture was returned.

"My Tallest, I can't thank you enough!"

"There's no need to! We already know that we're amazing."

Red waved to an Irken on the ship, causing them to run next to Zim holding a crown and a red-ish magenta cape that stuck out around the shoulders.

"You can wear these with your uniform to show your status." He explained.

"We found them near a dumpster on Irk!"

Red elbowed the other Tallest before chuckling nervously.

"He's, uh, kidding. Anyways, we're going to leave you with a few thousand of our finest soldiers, medics, and whatever. They'll get the humans in order and also work on your new base."

Much to Zim's amazement, both Purple and Red saluted at him.

"We're expecting lots of snacks from you, Tallest Zim. Lots of them."

Finally, he was getting all of the recognition that he had wanted all of his life, all the recognition that he had deserved. He couldn't screw up, not if he wanted to keep his dignity. Zim saluted back, a proud expression forming on his face.

"I won't let you down, my Tallest!"