A Simple Guide to Overthrowing an Empire

Let me explain...

Smoke began to fill the room from the malfunctioning PAK. He managed to pry it off and get it open with more than a little force. Ten minutes to restore full power. Simple, Dib lied to himself, Anyone could do it. All he had to do was comple—

~

"Why did you only have ten minutes?" Zim interrupted. He was lying on his stomach now, his right hand aimlessly running across the PAK. Dib couldn't fault him, it was sort of new to him after all.

"That's how long you can survive without your PAK."

"Survive?" Zim paled, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, the PAK is sort of like a... brain. Or something. We have brains too, and organs. But the PAK is what makes you, well, you."

"What does that matter to survival?" Zim had dug his hand under the PAK, lifting it ever so slightly off of his back. Dib fought the urge to get him to stop. What was the worst that could happen?

"I don't... exactly... know." Dib furrowed his brow. "I think it's got something to do with sustenance. Like if you went a few weeks without eating?" Dib shrugged, "Sort of like that, but ten minutes without your PAK and it's game over."

Zim paused. The PAK was about an inch off of his back now. He craned his head back to look at the metal lump and visibly shuddered, pulling his hand back and letting the device secure itself back onto him.

"So why do I have one? I'm not an alien. I might be a robot, though. The jury's still out on that one."

"Hold on, I'm getting to that part," Dib sighed, this was going to be rough.

~

All Dib had to do was locate and completely disassemble the entire power supply mechanism. And then he would have to reassemble it with the proper components in place to ensure full power usage. Child's play, really.

As he worked, his mind strayed. How had Zim gotten it to such a low power state in the first place? How was he surviving with just the bare minimum? He got the PAK open, finally. He rummaged through it, standard invader gear. There was a remote item replacement unit, he hadn't seen one of those in years. Zim also had a long-range communication transmitter like he suspected, which was significantly bigger than Dib's short-range one.

He dumped the contents of the PAK out and looked inside again for any sort of maintenance hatch. There had to be something right? He felt around and his finger finally caught on a latch. That had to be it. He flipped it open and carefully pulled out the components he found inside. How much time did he have?

~

"So there's stuff in this thing?!" Zim interrupted again.

"Can I tell my story or not?" Dib adjusted himself. This short table wasn't exactly the most comfortable seat in the house. "Besides, you saw mine. It had stuff inside."

"Yeah but, like—" Zim's hand returned to the PAK, searching now for the entrance to the storage compartment. "I'm not supposed to have one. Why would it have stuff?"

"Because you—" Dib groaned, stretching. His back popped as he did so. Zim finally figured out how to open the PAK, and a click echoed through the mostly silent room.

"This is awesome" Zim breathed, shoving his hand into the PAK's storage compartment.

"WAIT!" Dib all but screamed, launching himself off of the table and onto Zim, who squirmed under the unexpected weight.

"What!?" Zim squeaked out, wrestling his arm out from underneath Dib and glaring up at him.

"If you let me tell my story," Dib closed the PAK with a sigh, and weakly slid off of the couch and onto the floor. Saving Zim from himself was evidently a full-time job. "Then you would know why recklessly rummaging around in that thing is incredibly dangerous."