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            ❝ – you! Hideous girl child. ❞

            Never mind the fact that Zim undoubtedly knew what her name was by now; but in all likelihood, she’s probably accustomed to being referred to with such unpleasantness. It wasn’t personal, of course -- only a side effect of her human, and therefore inherently inferior origin. It was simply one of the menagerie of rude or annoying things that one needed to familiarize themselves with if they desired to keep the alien’s company. He drops down onto the park bench beside her and extends a flat screen that suspiciously resembled the latest release model of a popular Earth gaming device out toward his knees, far enough for her to observe the simulation herself. There was no doubt in his mind that she would recognize the game ( she knew every game on this filthy planet ), so he didn’t bother attempting to remember what it was called.

            ❝ -- how do you deploy explosives in this infernal simulation? ❞

Send me a word and I’ll write a drabble. 

            It had become somewhat of a pattern, an unspoken agreement between the two hereditary enemies ; Zim would launch a spectacularly evil and overly complicated plot to overthrow the human race, Dib would rise up to combat his merciless alien will and attempt to save his miserable, doomed planet, Zim’s plan would ultimately fail ( though it was usually through some form of incompetence or unwitting self-sabotage, rather than due to any effort on Dib’s part, however well-meaning said efforts had been ), and the cycle would continue. But this particular phase was relatively new – every so often, after another catastrophic clash of opposing wills, when the dust had settled, the pair would relent to one another in a sort of unspoken truce ; it wasn’t as if Zim was going to launch another nefarious plan in the same day, after all, and often it seemed that Dib was too exhausted from his efforts to oppose the invader to bother stopping him even if he did so. No, instead they would both wordlessly acknowledge the fact that the game was over for today, and resolve to be civil with one another until the next morning, when the alien would undoubtedly resume his malicious intentions with renewed vigor.

            Sometimes they simply bid the other goodbye ; well then, curse you and all that, death to the humans, see you at school tomorrow. But other times, they would …talk – discuss the unfolding of the day’s events, take some superficial pleasure in ridiculing the other’s foolish shortcomings, or complimenting one another on the rare occasion that they noted something worthy of acknowledgement in their respective rival. But on even rarer occasions, they would talk about nothing pertaining to their perpetual struggle for control of the planet at all – the Dib human’s somewhat lackluster home life, scientific theories that humans had yet to stumble upon, and sometimes …when the alien was feeling distracted enough to reveal such things …he would satisfy the human’s curiosity about Irken customs. That was how they had stumbled upon the conversation in question, a topic which seemed oddly foreign to the Earth boy ; being defective.

            ❝ – Eh? Your puny human mind misunderstands. There’s no fixing it. ❞

            Defective was a four letter word – well, not literally. Not in English. It was nine letters in that language ; and actually, it was even more characters when spelled out in Irken – but that wasn’t the point. It didn’t mean the same thing that it did here on this filthy planet – or, perhaps it did in essence, but the repercussions for the condition were vastly different. It wasn’t as simple as rewiring a hard drive, or rebooting a computer. No …on Irk, being defective was a good as a death sentence. In fact, those who were deemed so were resigned to a fate even worse than death.

            ❝ – defectives are mistakes; nothing but a hindrance to the objective. So accordingly, they are erased – their consciousness is deleted, their PAK destroyed, and their existence is erased from Irk’s recorded history. – they thought ZIM was defective once, you know. ❞

            He admitted with a nonchalance that didn’t suit at all with the description of the title he had just provided. In fact, he seemed rather smug about the matter, the soles of his standard issue boots scraping against the roof tiles of the human’s squalid little home as he pointed his chin up toward the stars with pride.

            ❝ – They held a trial for me and everything. Of course, the Control Brains determined that it was all a misunderstanding ; after all, how could ZIM be defective? As it turns out, I’m just so amazing that it was beyond their comprehension. They ended up giving me a promotion, and let me pilot the Massive, too. It was the least they could do, after all. But I didn’t blame them, of course – very few minds can grasp just how exceptionally advanced my genius is. Take GIR, for example. ❞

            He gestures vaguely with a wave of his gloved claw down into the human’s yard, where the little green-suited robot was currently occupying itself by lying on the side of its over-sized head and running in a circle on the lawn. The grass beneath it had started to flatten and die in response to the abuse, adopting an appearance that was suspiciously similar to that of a traditional crop circle.

            ❝ – The Tallest gave him specifically to me for my extremely important mission here. He’s an incredibly advanced model, light-years beyond the capability of standard-issue SIR units. To your untrained, human eye holes, he likely appears to be quite stupid – BUT YOU’RE WRONG !! WRONG !!! – Your tiny human brain meats simply cannot grasp the complexity of his advanced engineering. Zim is the same, naturally – I’m so amazing that most life forms are simply too stupid to understand it. ❞

            He’d liked him as a chair, he decided -- but at the same time, now that he was moving onto his next diabolical scheme ( not that he’s entirely certain what it is yet, but he’s mulling over the notion of radioactive muskrats ), there’s some small sense of satisfaction to be found in the knowledge that the filthy human will be back on his feet and prepared to stand against him properly once again. After all, what use was there in winning if you didn’t get to beat anyone in the process? It would be much more rewarding this way. 

            The sounds of his lawn gnome’s laser defense system being discharged down below stirs the alien from his reverie, and his expression scrunches up in confusion as he scoots down the tiled roof of his base, upon which he’d been sitting and relishing the afterglow of his complete and total victory. Booted heels braced against the gutter, he leers over the edge of the roof to catch the familiar sight of a thick, dark scythe of hair dancing to and fro across his lawn in an effort to avoid the successive blasts from his gnomes. The Invader’s false lavender lenses narrow further in scrutiny.

            ❝ – ehhh? Dib smell? What are you doing here? Come to listen to me gloat about my mighty victory? -- or have you come ...for THIS??!! ❞ 

            He exclaims, thrusting the little clown puppy doll out over the gutter with a dramatic flair before withdrawing it back into his lap, patting its head pointedly with one gloved claw. 

            ❝ – well you can’t have it. It’s mine now. Spoils of war -- so, y’know ...scram. ❞   

With a sudden push Gaz’s day turned upside-down completely. Nobody had the right to disrespect her like this. Zim especially. To run past with no sense of control and leaving a trail of idiot sentences behind. This is menace and she made sure he’d get the point across with one nasty glare. “You just made a horrible mistake Zim. Your plan is never going to work!”

            It would have likely proven fruitful for the minuscule Invader had he paid more mind to the only human on this filthy planet who had proven capable of out-piloting him, both in simulation and actual practice ( also, notably, a human who had foiled several of his plans single-handedly -- not that he remembered any of that, of course. he had a tendency to delete memories from his PAK that seemed wrong or didn’t make sense ; namely, those of his defeats ). But Zim was well known for paying little to no respect to any entity other than himself -- and so, he foolishly brushes her threats off as empty ramblings from a worthless meat puppet and continues on his merry, evil way.

            ❝ – Ehhhh? Why would ZIM waste his precious time with a worthless human flesh sack like you? I’m very busy plotting the complete and total destruction of your pitiful planet, you know!

            ❝ – YEARRRGH -- !! ...ughhh ...oh ..what ... ❞ 

            Consciousness returns slowly, like a hazy fog, and he moves to draw himself up into a sit to better survey his surroundings. He fails ( not that Zim ever truly fails, of course ) to take note of the human occupying the dusty alcove behind him, instead appearing to pose the query to himself -- or, perhaps, that peculiar thing on his back that had seemed to revive him of its own will.

            ❝ – uch. I feel like a Slor Beast just trampled me. What happened ...Eh?? Where am I? WHERE?? ...Computer! Assessment of Zim’s activities over the last hour! ❞