Featured Song: The Bumble Bee Tuna Song by... whoever it's by.

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Chapter Five: A Call

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Back on Earth, Dib had finally extracted himself from the inebriated Tallests.

And he was pretty sure he was inebriated himself.

All he'd had was that one beer Purple had thrown at him, but apparently, that was enough. It was alien beer, after all, and he was only eleven - ten years short of being able to take booze like a man. Or alien.

This liquor intolerance may explain why the wires and technological equipment looked like multicolored elephants, why he was stumbling around like an idiot, and why half his brain was dedicated to studying things while the other half was dedicated to making him hum "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as stupidly as he could. Then again, that was a rather stupid song.

So he wandered about in that sad, probably drunken state for at least two hours, finally thinking to videotape some of what he saw, that tape sadly catching some of his "talent", until he decided to plop his drunken self down by a tube containing something that looked a cross between a chicken and a two-headed beaver. The chickabeaver clucked angrily at him.

"Shut up, I'm drunk," He told it sourly.

It clucked again, regardless.

He glared at it, then suddenly smushed his face against the glass and made all kinds of childish and somewhat grotesque faces at it. It squawked, then glared silently at him as he pulled away, chuckling drunkenly.

"Stupid chicken-beaver..." He said, shaking his head, then he looked back toward the expanse of base he'd covered. "Stupid Zim, making such a huge-ass base.. probably made it this big so all the hot air coming out of his stupid ego wouldn't explode it.. geh..."

A pause, in which his stomach decided to add in its two cents.

"And now I'm hungry."

Then something fell out of the ceiling, whacking him upside the head with enough force to make him fall flat on his back, two feet short of hitting the chickabeaver's tube. Said creature screeched crazedly and started pecking the glass as Dib sat up, rubbing his head. The thing was a vid-screen, for the moment dark. He glared at it.

"Now my head hurts." He told it. "Thanks a lot."

Completely ignoring this statement, the thing jolted to life. The main focus was obviously Irken, someone who looked almost identical to the pair above... only there was something different about him. Something about his eyes. And the fact that he was grinning evilly at him. But from the smattering of experience he'd had with Irkens, they all do that.

Then he spoke, and most of Dib's inebriated state fell off like a fat, happy tick.

"Greetings, Dib-worm. I knew I'd find you sniffing around in my base."

Dib's jaw dropped. "...Zim? Is that you? You're so..."

"Tall? Yes. I am tall. In fact, I'm now the Tallest. That pitiful state you last saw me in was only part of a long-needed growth spurt..."

"Heh.. humans don't squiggle around in pain when they grow." He thought a moment. "Well... maybe during puberty--"

"BE QUIET!"

Following this familiar outburst, another Irken appeared, much shorter and somewhat exasperated. He glanced at Dib, then at Zim, narrowing his crimson eyes and crossing his arms. Dib also noticed that GIR was situated happily on top of his head. The little robot was waving wildly at the boy as the Irken he was sitting on spoke.

"Tell me again, my Tallest - why exactly are you talking to this primitive life form?"

"To gloat! Zim always gloats! Now leave me to my gloating!" A pause. "And get me food!"

"We have service drones for that."

"GO!"

The other didn't even jump. He just grumbled a "yes, my Tallest" and turned away, GIR still shrieking happily and waving like a loon. Dib almost felt sorry for the guy - he had to put up with Zim and GIR.

Zim, satisfied, turned back to Dib.

"As I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted--" A meaningful glare in the retreating Irken's direction. "I am the Tallest, and therefore am in control of the Armada. Know what this means, putrid Earth-monkey?"

"What?"

"I finally have the firepower to complete my mission! But I'm not going to take over Earth, I'm going to blast the filthy planet into smithereens! And there's nothing you can do to stop me!" He started laughing his patented evil laugh. "I WIN!"

The boy was not at all surprised by this - he'd blow up Earth too if he got ahold of some heavy-duty firepower, to be honest. But at the moment, he had to side with the humans. Zim winning was like Gaz dressing up in pink frilly dresses: it's just not natural.

"You do realize that now I'm going to have to stop you, right?"

Zim stopped laughing. "Oh, come on. You know Earth just needs blowing up."

"Yeah, well, I still have to stop you. No one else will."

"We could roast marshmallows over the burning remains..."

"No, thank you."

"Why not?"

Dib deadpanned. "I don't like marshmallows."

"Weenies then."

"Nu-uh."

"Fiiiine... I'll just blow you up with everyone else. Have fun with the rest of your short, short life, Dib."

Shortly after this statement, in which there was lots of disheartened sneering, Zim went to cut off the transmission. But something stopped him. He was staring at Dib strangely. Like the boy had a mutant beaver attached to his face.

"Are you drunk?" He prompted.

"What?" Dib said, then promptly hiccuped. "Of course not!"

The Tallest scowled. "You're drunk. In my base. I hope you know this means war."

"But you already said you were going to--"

Click.

"That... probably could have gone better."

Probable outcome aside, there was still that whole end-of-the-world thing. An alien fleet armed with super-powerful alien firepower, headed by Zim, was coming to Earth to destroy it. No, no, massacre it. And Earth still had no real defenses against an alien onslaught. Damn the government and their obsession with their newfound beaver industry. It was, once again, up to Dib. And, perhaps, a certain pair of vacationing aliens...

The chickabeaver screeched at him, bringing him back to reality. He glared, wrathfully thumped the glass, then went to the elevator, and after bartering with for ten minutes, he was back in the house part of the base. The aforementioned aliens were much like he'd left them, except Purple was now smearing Ben and Jerry's all over Red's head and exposed chest. Red had either not noticed or stopped caring, because he was still watching TV.

"Hey, guys," Dib said casually.

The two looked boredly over in his direction.

"Did either of you happen to bring any super cool high-tech alien equipment with you?"

"Come to think of it, yeah," Purple blinked, pausing mid-smear. "Why?"

"Oh, just wondering."

He moved away to go looking for it.

"S'over there." Red pointed at the window.

What was out there was better than what Dib had had in mind - it was a ship. Looked kind of like the ship equivalent of a luxury cruiser, only much smaller and able to sit prettily between Zim's house and the neighbor's without drawing too much attention. The boy grinned.

"Thanks." He went to the door, fully prepared to hotwire the thing.

Purple frowned, seeming to regain some of his brain cells. "Wait... why do you want our ship?"

"Don't stop, idiot," Red said darkly.

"Oh, right." Back to smearing. "Give us a straight answer this time."

Well, he did need some help in defeating Zim.

"Zim's the Tallest, and he's coming to blow up Earth." He said, sounding like he was commenting about the weather.

"WHAT?!?!" The pair chorused, clearly shocked. Purple dropped the carton of Ben and Jerry's into Red's lap. It didn't stay there long, as the ice cream-smeared Irken leapt to his feet, his co-leader still hanging on the couch arm, obviously not taking this as violently as Red.

"That's impossible! That little -- a Tallest -- why I--" Red would have continued in this incomprehensible string had Purple not started to tentatively lick an ice cream'd arm. "Cut that out! This is serious!"

"Sorry," Purple muttered through a mouthful of ice cream.

"Let's go, kid," Red said, ignoring him. "I've got a scrawny neck to wring."

As they started to board the Tallests' ship, Dib couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for Zim.

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So short, it's sad. But at least it's posted, nyu. 17 on Avarice is being rewritten.

Purple such a whore. A useless, useless whore. But we love him anyway.

R & R, y0.

P.S.: What is the IQ of a potato?