A/N: This is Lilo & Stitch the Series the way I think it should’ve been.

It should’ve had Zim in it, lol.

Flames will be ignored. Please don’t take me too seriously, this is heavily, heavily AU on both ends, okay?

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Aloha E Komo Mai

By Cassandra T.

A S S I G N I NG - 1

Not impressive.

That was ex-Captain Gantu’s assessment of the station he found himself on.

Dilapidated, broken down and dingy, if he wanted to go farther. At least it could accommodate someone Gantu’s size.

He double-checked the instructions printed on the piece of paper he held and turned the corner down another hallway. At the end of it was a gigantic room that only contained a chair and a vidscreen.

Gantu sat down. The vidscreen displayed a face, a furry one with bright red eyes and a slight muzzle. Not a very impressive face, but it was Gantu’s job to be impressive.

“Gantu Tambor,” the voice said without preamble. It spoke Tantalog with a strong accent. Gantu had a fairly good knowledge of all the planets known to the Federation, but he couldn‘t place this accent, or the creature‘s species, for that matter. Not that it was particularly important, or even unusual. The universe was big. “Disgraced ex-commander of the Galactic Federation’s armed forces.”

Gantu couldn’t quite quell the urge to bare his teeth, but he did manage to keep it down to just a quick flash. “Dr. Hamsterviel,” he said.

“You know the location of this item, then.”

Gantu nodded. His shoulder muscles tightened at the very thought of this… item. “I believe I do.”

“And you can recover it?”

“I will recover this item or die trying.”

“Good,” was the curt reply. “Then upon delivery, you shall receive your payment.”

Gantu fought back the urge to clench his fists. Gantu Tambor, decorated captain of the Galactic Armada, first in every class in academy, was no hired thug.

But until this mission was completed, he would need to act as one.

A S S I G N I N G - 2

Oh, Irk!

The thought was a splash of neon in a dark, shadowed mind. It was accompanied by a jolt of electricity throughout his entire body, by a fluttery rise in his belly, a thundering burst of speed in his heart and a surge of power in his arms and legs.

All this excitement had to find some outlet, and it found it, in the form of:

“MOVE IT! MOVE IT! OUT OF MY WAY! NO NO! YOU’RE IN MY WAY!”

-along with some shoving and kicking.

Stupid, thundering simpletons. Clogging up the hall, blocking the path of a true Irken soldier. He punched and elbowed his way past with a will, and would have liked to bite and scratch if he only dared.

A voice boomed over the crowd. “Thus concludes the Great Assigning!”

NO!!!

The body, already in frenzied high gear, found more adrenaline, more noise, more speed, more flailing.

“Help yourself to some nachos, and we’ll see you at the equipping station.”

NO! NO! NO!!!

He went into a slide, like a ball player coming into base. Two other beings fully three times his size were knocked aside by the sheer speed and unbridled, single-minded will of this tiny missile.

“MOVE IT!!!”

“Hey, tiny, what’s your PROBLEM?”

“Hold still, you little-”

“OUT OF MY WAY!!!”

The stage was closer now. So close he could taste it-

“Yes, gorge yourselves, you moochers!”

“NO, NO, NO!!!” At the stage. So close. One arm shot up, waving, a visual scream for attention to bolster his cry of: “WAIT!!!”

There was some response he didn’t bother to pay attention to, because his whole being was focused on getting up there and into the spotlight. He pulled himself up, and raised his head to meet the eyes of the ones on the stage.

They stared back at him, their skins blanching a pale yellow, and their bodies freezing. One of them said his name, low, like a death knell.

“Zim.”Zim got to his feet, panting, and came as near to the towering aliens on the stage as social niceties would allow.

He bowed his head. “Sorry I’m late, my Tallest. I couldn’t find my invitation.” He looked back up to make eye contact. “You’re lucky I made it at all,” he couldn’t help but add.

“You weren’t invited at all,” one of the Tallest said.

“Weren’t you banished to Foodcourtia?” the other Tallest said. “Shouldn’t you be frying something?”

“Oh, I quit when I found out about this,” Zim said, with faint relish. No sane Irken would stay in that pit of doom they’d sent him to. It’d been another test, of course, an endurance test. He’d passed. He was here.

“You quit being banished?” one of the leaders- one with purple eyes and robes, we will call him Purple- replied in an incredulous tone.

“The assigning is over, Zim,” the other leader- his eyes and robes were red- said. He sounded, frankly, fed up.

“But you can’t have an assigning without me!” Zim insisted, putting a hand on his chest as if the Tallest needed to be told what he meant by ‘me’. “I was in Impending Doom One! Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, yes. We remember,” Purple groaned.

His tone triggered a memory that Zim had already buried- yes, he had been in Impending Doom One, but…

Sirens, lights, smoke and fire, screaming and noise and the roar of engines, the hum of electricity and static buzzing in his antennae. The smell of burning. Someone yells something and he silences them with a cry, demanding that that someone return to their control station (though his phrasing is less intelligent).

He is piloting Frontline Battle Mech 4 into the heart of war. He is unstoppable. Glory to the Empire!

Everything in the robot’s path is crushed into dust or nuked into powder. This is power. This is control. This is a feeling an unnaturally tiny alien born into a height hiearchy only encounters once in a lifetime, and it is wholly intoxicating. All conscious thought is sublimated into this feeling, the sheer thrill of destruction, and under it all, the knowledge that when this is over he will be given the honor and praise he so deserves because this is war, and the Irken Empire thrives on war, and loves those who are good at it. In this blaze of excitement and ecstasy, all he can do is screech his triumph in wordless cries, in grating, raucous, maniacal laughter. This is a moment he will proudly relive for the rest of his life.

Unless, of course, he later found out that Frontline Battle Mech 4 had mistakenly never been shipped.

That Zim’s path of destruction had, in fact, been on Planet Irk itself.

Right outside the Tallests’ palace, in fact.

And they, had, in fact, been inside that palace, watching the whole thing.

That situation would be hard to live down.

Hypothetically.

Or maybe not so hypothetically.

In that moment on the stage, where the whole of his species could see him- either in that huge surrounding crowd or remotely, on TV, where the whole of his species was probably recognizing him and what he’d done, and where the Almighty Tallest- the leaders of it all, the ones who decided whether he lived or died- stared down at him, their faces cold and unfriendly, ex-Invader Zim looked back into their faces… showed his teeth in something that was half smile and half grimace, and said:

“I put the fires out.”

Tallest Red’s response was slow and distinct. “You made them worse.”

Zim’s response was also slow and distinct. “Worse… or better?” And he tilted his head to one side, giving both Tallest a smile that was probably intended to be ingratiating, but came off as somewhat… coy.

“Guh…” Tallest Purple said. “Besides… no Invader has ever been so… very small. You’re very small, Zim. You’re a tiny… thing.”

He was, in fact, the shortest adult Irken on record at that time in history.

“But-” he protested. “Invader’s blood marches through my veins, like-”

Though the dialog has been translated into English for your convenience, Zim and the Tallest were originally speaking Irken- and here Zim used an Irken metaphor that was rather obscure and odd even in its original language and can’t quite be translated. The closest English can come to it is: “-giant- radioactive rubber pants! The pants command me!” He was becoming rather worked up at this point; he was seeing his chances at being assigned a mission beginning to slip away, and he didn’t like it. (It didn’t occur to him that for what he’d done, he could legally be executed- and even if he couldn’t be legally executed, the Tallest could have made a new law to make it so that he could be, just because he annoyed them.) “Do not ignore my veins!”

The two Tallest exchanged glances, and then Red pulled a sandwich out of a pocket in his uniform. “As a show of... gratitude for your service in the past, eh, here's a sandwich.”

He handed the sandwich to Zim, who took it and stared at it in disbelief. He didn’t want a freakin’ sandwich. “But-”

“Thanks for comin’, everybody!” Tallest Purple yelled. They were wrapping up. Without giving Zim a mission.

“No!”

“Goodnight!”

“NO!! WAIT!” He jumped up, holding up the sandwich in a frantic attempt to catch their eyes.

“What?” Purple said. “You got your sandwich!”

“My Tallest,” Zim insisted, “an opportunity to prove I truly can be an Invader is all that I ask!” Oh, to be an Invader again- at just the thought of it, his arms slipped unconsciously around the sandwich he was still holding and he hugged it, and it barfed some kind of purple condiment onto his uniform. He didn’t even notice. “Gimme.”

Red muttered something to Purple and then said the words that Zim would later replay over and over in his mind until the memory took on an odd, polished quality, like it was an actual recording. “We see now that you are truly deserving.”

At that moment, however, the words didn‘t seem all that surprising. He nodded, smirking (and still holding that stupid sandwich). “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“You will be sent to a planet so mysterious, no one has ever heard of it!”

“Right! And those who have heard of it dare not speak its name!”

More words that didn’t even surprise him much at the moment, but would later become a much-repeated refrain in his thoughts.

“What’s its name?” he asked.

“Oh, I dare not speak it!”

“Where is it?”

“Um…”

There was a panoramic map of the universe erected near the back of the stage. Red went over to it- over to the very edge of it, and pointed to the place on the map farthest from Irk. In fact, it was stuck onto the edge of the map, not even a part of it, and the planet had a question mark on it. “Here.”

Even Zim had not quite dared to hope for this. A conquest so strange, risky and mysterious must be important, important and special.

“A secret mission?” The words were hushed, and laced with the thrill fluttering around in his belly.

“Happy now?” Red said.

“Yes.”

The word exposed rows of sharp, jagged teeth.

E Q U I P P I N G - 1

Gantu strode into the cargo bay of the station. The station itself might be a little rundown, but the equipment Dr. Hamsterviel had provided was state-of-the-art and very expensive.

The ‘good doctor’ had provided several varieties of rifle- lethal plasma cannons, electric stun globe launchers, and entrapping sticky-foam shooters. There were all shapes and sizes of capture container as well, and an equally varied assortment of handcuffs. And, of course, a lethal-looking transport ship to house it all.

Gantu began to load the ship. He selected a smallish capture container (small compared to the others, at least- the biggest container could have fit Gantu himself inside it) and pair of handcuffs, then threw in a couple bigger-sized ones, to be safe.

He took one of every variety of gun. No sense being unprepared as long as he had room to transport the equipment. Hamsterviel had provided some body armor, as well. Excellent.

E Q U I P P I NG - 2

Now they were at the equipping station. A place only for the Invaders. From back in the crowd Tallest Red and Purple towered over the crowd, pillars of leadership.

One of them was holding up something to the light. “This is your standard issue information retrieval unit, also known as a SIR. It will assist you in gathering valuable knowledge during your mission.”

“It’s also a thermos!”

“Who wants this one?”

Someone in the crowd volunteered. The Tallest promptly tossed the SIR unit at him.

“Everyone else, line up and take a robot!”

The crowd immediately converted itself from a mob into an orderly line. Even Zim waited in place… for a while.

A pretty long time.

Okay, he’d only waited for one other Invader to get a robot before he ran out of the line and up to the Tallest. “Finally! A robot slave of my own!”

Well, he had the super secret special mission, right? That and a touch of ADD.

He stood there and stuck out his arms, making little grabby motions.

One of the Tallest said: “Um… we have a top-secret model for you, Zim.”

What? Really?! Wow! Top-secret! And to think half an hour ago he’d thought he might not even get a mission!

A container rose out of the floor- must be some kinda awesome-robot containment unit- and the Tallest bent over it, working on something.

Funny, the ‘containment unit’ looked like a trash can- well, that was probably to throw off thieves.

After a moment, the Tallest turned around and threw a small, deactivated robot down in front of Zim.

He blinked at it. The droid looked like a SIR unit, with the same vaguely anthropomorphic shape and general design… but there were some odd differences, mostly to do with the facial features.

Hmm. Why would they give him something like this? It sure didn’t look any better than the other units, and that had looked a lot like a trash can…

A vague alarm sounded deep in his mind. Something seemed off, just for a moment.

“It looks kinda… not good,” he said.

“Yes,” one Tallest said. “Well, that’s what the enemy will think! Get it?”

Oh, of course! Of course! How could he doubt his Tallest? The alarm was silenced, and everything was right.

“I see! Very good!” he said. “It even fooled me!” His barely-realized relief caused his voice to take odd, histronic swings, and his gestures became frantic. “I am honored to be trusted with such advanced technology!”

Suddenly, the robot activated itself, snapping to attention with glowing red eyes. Ah, good. It worked.

“GIR, reporting for duty,” it said.

“GIR?” Zim asked. “What does the ‘g’ stand for?”

The robot’s eyes turned blue. “I don’t know!”

Zim blinked.

The robot began to… punch itself in the head. “Weeeeehooohooohooo! Weeeeeehooohooohooooo!”

“Um…” That little alarm was sounding again. “Is it supposed to be stupid?”

“It’s not stupid!” was the Tallest’s reply. “It’s advanced!”

The robot began to bounce up and down on its head. Zim watched in silence.

D E P A R T U R E - 1

This ship flew like a dream. Oh, what money could buy. Not even the Grand Council itself had been able to supply such technology. Maybe Gantu would have to rein in his moral objection to working as a hit man…

No. Morals could never be compromised. He couldn’t think that, even in jest. He was only taking this job because it was a job that needed to be done, and the Federation had proven it couldn’t handle situations like this.

He took a deep, calming breath and watched the stars go by for a moment. Then he turned his attention to the control panel, setting in some co-ordinates he thought he’d never travel to again.

The screen displayed this message: Planet Earth selected.

D E P A R T U R E - 2

Ahh, flight. The familiar smells and sounds of his Voot cruiser… and the knowledge he was off to make history.

He turned to his robot, floating beside him in the small bubble-shaped cockpit. (Irken Voot cruisers did not have gravity generators.) Zim would be spending (in his very optimistic opinion) the next few weeks or so with this robot. Zim had never spent more than three days alone with someone before. (And those three days might have ended quite badly if that security guard hadn’t found them… that other alien had been starting to smell horribly edible…)

Well, this was just a robot… still… was he supposed to talk to it or something?

Probably. It might help with its voice recognition software. This model could be able to learn to respond to individual voices. He’d heard SIR units could do that- and this was supposedly an advanced model…

“Okay, GIR,” he said. “Our mission begins now! Let us reign some doom down upon the filthy heads of our doomed enemies!”

“I’m gonna sing the doom song now!”

Zim blinked. Er, singing? Truth be told, he hadn’t been sure whether to expect a response at all.

“Doom doom doom doo doom doom-” the robot sang. Um… okay. Well… the enemy sure wasn’t gonna steal it.

They flew off together in the direction the Tallest had indicated. They hadn’t been able to provide specific co-ordinates, but the Voot’s guidance system should be able to find the planet and target on it once a general area was selected.

The control panel beeped twice. Ah. It’d found something. With GIR still singing right next to his antennae, Zim looked down at the dash to see that the screen displayed this message: Planet Earth selected.

E N D - T R A N S M I S S I O N - 1