Lost

The Capture

The reaction to the new arrivals was... mixed.

"Zim?" Larb rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

At that very moment, Red emerged from the ring cutter doing a similar gesture, in his case because he was still groggy. "Would you mind lowering your volume?! Some of us are trying to-!" He stopped abruptly when he saw who was hanging from Fury's maw.

Zim finally acknowledged the presence of the other Irkens, but he ignored the other invaders and instead focused on the two Tallest. "Never fear, My Tallest! The great Zim has come to save you!"

"I can see that," Red said bitterly. Considering Zim was in the Indokuro's hold, however, it seemed he was the one who needed saving.

"How on Irk did you find us, anyway?" Skoodge asked. He was devoid of any hostility unlike most of the others.

"I was working on one of my newest plans to destroy the hyoomans-!"

Red interrupted him. "Go straight to the point, Zim." He certainly was not in the mood to hear another stupid plan that was doomed to failure because Zim had been the one to think of it.

Of course, this worked wonders with Zim. "Okay, as I was saying, I was going to contaminate the hyoomans' supply of milk by infecting it with lots of GERMS when a probe crashed nearby! It had an emergency message from you, My Tallest, and the coordinates to this puny rock! So Zim came to rescue you from the Sobrekt-beasts!" Zim glared at the still-unconscious human. "Thanks to the Dib-beast, however, I crashed my beautiful Zhook cruiser!"

Silence. Red glanced at Purple. Purple stared at Zim blankly. Larb, Stink, and Tenn exchanged looks. Ilk and Lena stared worriedly at Red, afraid his reaction.

The emergency probe must have been deviated from its course, probably by a meteorite or any other factor, and instead of going to the Armada it ended up landing right on Earth...

Red took a deep breath. "Did you at least contact the Armada before coming here?"

"I had no time for that! I wasn't going to let the Sobrekt-beasts eat you!" Zim lifted a hand to the Sobrekt. "You hear me, Sobrekt-beasts?!"

Okay, if being stranded on a freezing-cold, uninhabited planet with no snacks, no technology(not even the PAK), no way to communicate with the Armada and having to cooperate with the Sobrekt of all alien species was stressing, this was the breaking point.

Lena, Larb, and Stink barely had time to hold Red back as he lunged and tried to attack Zim, cursing and yelling in Irken.

Ilk noticed the Sobrekt hadn't said anything about Zim yet. They were staring at him with wide eyes, however.

"You mean that's... Zim?" Captain asked slowly.

"The Zim? The Irken who single-handedly was this close to destroying the Irken civilization and ruined their first attempt at galactic conquest?" Masouri even made a little gesture with his claws to emphasize.

"That's right, you Sobrekt-beasts!" Zim growled. "I am Zim, and I will likewise destroy you if you do not release My Tallest-!" The Sobrekt yelled-or maybe 'roared' would be a better term- and ran towards him. Red and Purple hoped perhaps they'd kill him before he could destroy what little they had left.

But to their utter shock, they grabbed Zim and lifted him high in the air, laughing and yelling in excitement. Even Echo, Blue, and Fury-the latter dropped the big-headed human in the process- joined in. Zim himself seemed like he was in shock judging by how he was screaming, and not in glee like the Sobrekt.