Chapter 23: Recovery

---

It was a week later.

The Massive was fully repaired and back in space, Red had re-obtained his robes and rightful place as Tallest, soldiers were being sent across the Universe to reclaim Black's conquered planets for the Irken Empire, and any remaining zombies on those planets were being rounded up.

Black was contained in a well-illuminated holding cell, once again in Irken form, as the Massive was personally escorting her to Judgmentia; her "son" had been sent off in a military ship to the nearest asylum, also in a well-illuminated holding cell, though with more shackles and restraints than you could shake a stick at. Both were being closely monitored and reported on every time they twitched. The zombies were contained in one of the empty snack pods until further notice - all except Stupid, who somehow had been allowed to wander around, mostly harmless.

Things finally seemed to be going back to normal.

Except for those that had been wounded severely enough to be placed in the healing pods. As she seemed to have the least amount of damage, Gaz had gotten out first, and now lurked by Dib's pod almost constantly. She never looked at him, just stayed close by and played her game, with which she threatened any unlucky Irken that tried to move her for whatever reason. They'd eventually given up on trying, figuring she'd move when Dib got out.. whenever that would be.

Next to Dib's pod was Crim's, then Purple's, at which Red constantly lurked, watching over him, and hardly giving anyone who came to report more than a brief glance and a grunt in their direction, the only way the smaller Irkens knew he wasn't dead or sleeping on his feet. He would likely stay there forever if it took that long, and likely in that exact same position, too.

When the technicians left, to return to their normal duties or finishing any repairs they might have missed, both Tallest and human stayed at their respective pods in dead silence.

"You know, that thing would probably work better if the batteries weren't dead."

Red's voice broke through that silence, tone casual. His eyes never left his co-Tallest's broken form.

Gaz shrugged and continued to aimlessly mash buttons and stare into the darkness of the screen, like she had been for the last few hours. "Probably."

The next few hours after that passed slowly and quickly at the same time, with both alien and human staying right where they were. It was just like the waiting room of a hospital, cold and silent, but with nothing to entertain oneself besides the pods. The girl seemed to give up trying to pretend to play her game and started pod-watching like the man beside her, finding it somewhat interesting that what looked to be a bunch of glowing goop was slowly sealing up her brother's wounds and repairing everything inside of him.

She couldn't see it, but she had a feeling Red had started to watch her as well as the pod in front of him, back and forth, and she started to do the same thing. This time it was her that broke the silence, purely out of boredom and some strange obligation to strike up conversation.

"So, uh. You think he's gonna make it?"

A long pause as the other deliberated on which "he" she meant; a glance in her direction told him that strangely enough she meant the taller of the two broken things.

"Hopefully."

"What are you guys going to do if he doesn't?"

Another pause.

Red stiffened slightly, his eyes remaining on Purple this time, and Gaz got the feeling that was probably territory she shouldn't be straying into. However, she wasn't sure if he would take an apology any better than the question itself - it seemed out of place to say to an alien, after all - so she kept her mouth shut, for the most part.

"We'll give him the traditional funeral for a fallen leader, cremate him or put his body alongside other Tallests of the past for future generations to see, and then life will carry on with myself as the sole leader of the Irken Empire." His antennae flattened just a bit, his expression otherwise unchanged. "One of the Control Brains' greatest mistakes would be finally cleared up. Besides Zim, of course."

"Mistake?"

"There has never been two Irkens that have reached Tallest height at the same time until the both of us. It has always been just one, and as each one dies, another grows, sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly, so that the Empire never goes without a leader for any longer than it needs to. We were a fluke. A genetic mistake. If it had just been one or the other, this never would have happened. If he'd just stopped growing when we were younger.. he would be my high advisor, and Black wouldn't have attacked him directly.. or even better, he wouldn't have been on the Massive at all.."

Gaz frowned. "Then you'd be the one in the goop, only no one would be watching over you, and he'd probably be lying dead somewhere thanks to her invasion.. thing."

Red fell silent, already feeling stupid for having said any of it.

"Now stop moping, I think they're almost done."

"I'm not moping," He replied sullenly, then decided to change the subject. ".. what about yours?"

Gaz grunted. "If he dies, I'm gonna kill him."

The Tallest blinked and stared at her for a moment or two. Upon seeing that she looked totally serious.. he laughed. It was weak and somewhat pathetic, but still genuine laughter, and after a moment it seemed to infect her, at least in the way of a few snorts and a snerk. It felt horribly inappropriate, but at least it eased the tension.

--

"My Tallest, wake up."

Laughing like a loon was the last thing he remembered - after that it was blackness. And now someone was shaking him and telling him to wake up.. he must have fallen asleep standing up. Or fainted. Either one led to feeling the cold glass of the pod against his face and the sound of each pod being turned off..

A sharp bolt of panic sent him reeling away from his impromptu napping place. They couldn't turn them off yet! Purple was still in there!

Of course it took him long enough to slam a gauntlet into the face of the nearest technician attempting to turn the pod off to realize that the pods were empty.

He calmed down and sighed, then frowned as he wondered just when Purple left the pod and how he did that without disturbing him. Maybe he'd fallen to the floor, and his rejuvenated co-leader had picked him up and leaned him on the thing so he'd think he'd slipped through both glass and flesh like a ghost, or something. His eyes roamed around the room, and found that the only other people in here were technicians - no sign of the little human girl or Purple.

"Hrm.. status report," Red muttered at the nearest smaller, rubbing wearily at his eyes.

The technician glanced up to answer, then realized his Tallest had already started to hover away, and so had to follow him to the bridge at a half-jog. "Tallest Purple has gathered all soldiers involved in the struggle against Black on the bridge to award them for their bravery, I believe."

"And the humans? Are they amongst them?"

"Yes, sir.. but there's something else you need to know--"

He wasn't allowed to finish, as they'd already made it to the bridge. True to his word, there stood the remaining soldiers, Zim, Skoodge, Argo - he was pretty sure this one was just there to make him feel like he accomplished something - and the humans; Crim was standing loyally at Purple's side, possibly to help award them. At the end of the line was Stupid, which soon meandered away when his co-Tallest realized it was there and shooed it. There was no sign of Lard Nar - he'd probably taken off during the week to mourn, regroup and plot to destroy the Empire himself.

Purple was in the midst of awarding the last soldier before Zim, but stopped to smirk at Red. "You know I could hear your snoring through the healing gel, right?"

"I don't snore," Red huffed, hovering over the rest of the way, followed closely by the technician who looked reaaaally antsy about something if anyone cared to look at him.

Noticing it was his turn and both leaders seemed to be distracted, Zim started bouncing up and down like a psychotic little dog, waving his arms around almost frantically enough to smack his human companions in the face. "My Tallests! Hey! Award Zim! AWARD ZIM!"

"Hold your taters," Purple snorted, then glanced nervously at Red before clearing his throat and attempting to regain the "official" tone in his voice. He was trying his hardest to keep a straight face. "Zim, for your bravery and loyalty through the Empire's darkest days, you--"

"You're going to make me a proper Invader now, right? With lots of weapons and things for annihilating the humans, yes?!"

A mischievous smirk spread on his lips. "No, Zim. Your prize is even better."

The little Invader's eyes grew wide, and he got even more excited. "What? What is it? Give me my better prize! Give to Zim!"

In retrospect, he shouldn't have been so eager to tell the Tallest to "give it to him".

Because his prize, what he was getting in return for all his hard work throughout this conflict and helping Tallest Purple while he was on Earth..

.. was a nice, cold, spray of water to the face.

"Payback."

The whole crew sat and watched him run around and shriek like a dying monkey for the next few minutes with the same sick satisfaction as their Tallest, though of course his was much stronger. Then they went back to awarding: Skoodge declined the offer to become a soldier or Invader again - he liked being a janitor too much; Gaz became an Elite soldier and commander of her own fleet, much to the other Irkens' surprise (Red was the one to award this honor, and though she accepted it in her usual noncommittal way, he could see she was only too pleased); Dib was given his glasses back - cleaned and repaired - and a thickly rolled up piece of paper he was told to never let Zim see under pain of death; and Argo, smiling like a three year old.. got a pat on the head and a strawberry lollipop for his troubles. It seemed to be enough for him, anyway.

All this time, the antsy technician was getting antsier by the second, and just as he moved to finally spill the beans, an alarm started shrieking just as loudly as Zim had been, stopping everyone in their tracks. The technician groaned and covered his face in his hands as everyone else just wondered what the hell it was shrieking for.

Red whirled around and pulled his stalker up by the collar. "What exactly did you need to tell me?" He growled.

"Th-the prisoners... they... she... she's not there anymore, sir.. neither is her army..."

"What?!" The technician fell from his grip with a hard thud, and scrambled away before he could catch him again. "Check the holding cell, on the double!"

Whoever he was screaming at didn't need to move, for a group of guards rushed onto the bridge, presumably from doing just that. The smallest of them was pushed forward to be the next bearer of bad news, though Red was pretty sure the boy's tune would be the same.

"The holding cell is slap empty, sir, but her restraints haven't been picked open or anything. She's just not.. there anymore, sir."

"Something WAS left in her chair, though," Another guard piped up. "A message. In blood."

Red's antennae twitched back, and without a word he moved to go see said message. He was stopped, however, by a light blinking in another technician's station - the incoming call button. A low growl from one Tallest and an encouraging whine from the other motivated the owner of the station to press it. The massive vid screen lowered and flickered to life. On it, there was a very panicked looking Irken, and behind him, all sorts of chaos. Blood was splattered all over the floors and walls and leading out of the room in a clear trail, and all of it purely Irken.

He realized with horror that this was one of the men assigned to attempt to treat Black's homicidal creation, and before the poor man even said it, he knew exactly why there was blood all over the place and he looked so very terrified.

"I.. I'm sorry to say this, sirs, but.. he's escaped. We don't exactly know when, but when my colleagues and I arrived this morning, th-there was blood all over the asylum.. we don't know how many bodies there are yet.. right now it looks like he took out the rest of the inmates on his way out.."

"Damn it!"

Red turned away from the screen to hover towards the hallway, going to see if Black's lovely little message in blood would leave them any clue to where they'd all gone. As he left he heard another voice speaking to the frazzled psychologist, a sickened female one: "Sir, you should see the children's wing.."

The holding cell was indeed empty, as well as the snack pods that had formerly held her soldiers. Both places were still brightly lit, oddly enough - apparently the artificial light wasn't as weakening as sunlight, or they were in a lot of pain when they managed to get out. And, as the boy had said, Black's restraints had not been disturbed beyond losing the creature they had been keeping bound. He hovered closer to it, and found that there was indeed blood.

Black, not red.

She'd written it in her own fluids.

It's not over yet.