Brood Mother

Chapter 1

"Alright, I've had enough of this." Tallest Red sighed in irritation at the tiny Irken on the screen.

"Enough of what, my Tallest? I'm sure whatever it is you can get a drone to get rid of it for you." Zim said confidently through the screen, not knowing what was to come.

"Enough of you, Zim!" Purple said in exasperation from where he stood next to Red in the Armada. "We've had enough of you and your calls and your fake mission."

"I mean it was funny at first, having you think you're actually on a mission. Watching you fail over and over again was hilarious to watch. But come on Zim. You can't seriously still think that you have a mission. That we're ever going to that stupid planet you're one." Red chuckled darkly, his eyes narrowing as he smiled a toothy grin.

"But my Tallest. I-I don't understand? What do you mean you're not coming? You sent me here to conquer this planet for you." Zim asked the leaders he looked up to for so long, chest hurting at what they were saying to him.

"We sent you there to get rid of you, Zim." Purple clarified as he too started to chuckle darkly. "We were hoping you would die out in space and we wouldn't have to deal with you anymore. But you survived on that stupid dirt ball."

"So now we're banishing you." Red jumped in. "For all your crimes against Irk and the previous Tallest, you are hereby banished forever. Goodbye, Zim." Red said smugly as the two of them chuckled darkly. The screen cut off only a second after, their laughter still echoing in Zims mind. He stared at that screen for two days, unable to comprehend what he had heard.

It had been several years since Zim had been banished to Earth. In that time he had done several things. At first he still tried to conquer the planet in hopes of regaining his Tallest favor and becoming unbanished. After a year, however, his drive had diminished from both lack of success and him being unable to contact the Tallest at all. Eventually his plans of world conquest were more of a habit than an actual attempt. Even Dib had noticed that they lacked their usual aggressiveness.

Dib had confronted Zim about it to which the tiny Irken had denied anything at first. Not satisfied, Dib pressed further for several months until Zim broke and told him what happened. It was the first time Dib had seen the little alien cry and to say it didn't pull on his heart strings would have been a lie. He made a decision then that would change their fate and dynamic for the rest of their lives. He reached out and comforted his nemesis that night as he cried his eyes out. After that the half baked plans of conquering Earth stopped.

With nothing better to do Zim continued to attend Skool with Dib. At first things were rocky between them. They had, after all, spent several years fighting each other. Yet they still spent most of their time together. None of their other classmates ever care about them. To them Dib was crazy and Zim was too weird. So they continued to spend time together, though in a less destructive way.

They developed a rather unusual friendship. They would either be on Dib's couch watching movies or in Zim's lab running experiments. It took Dib a couple of weeks for him to convince Zim to stop performing experiments on living animals and Humans. Zim had reluctantly agreed after being bribed with donuts and a soda. He still kept a record of thoughts and theories.

During summer breaks Zim would take Dib, Gaz, and Gir on trips to nearby solar systems in the Voot Cruiser. While Gaz wasn't particularly impressed Dib loved going to the different parts of the galaxy and even a few space stations that were out of Irken control. While on Earth they would go paranormal investigating with Dib. Mostly just to get out of the city since they never actually find anything.

Over the last few years all three had done some growing. Dib the most as he almost reaches his fathers height and stands at six foot one. Gaz second as she now stands at five foot seven. Zim the least as Irken don't generally get tall, but he still stands at a whopping four foot nine. Though not very tall by human standards it is abnormally tall for an Irken.