Before Ilk arrived, Red had no idea what quality time meant.
However, he soon realized that as a young smeet, she couldn't just be stuck around the Massive without doing anything. And now that he thought about it, when she turned ten she'd have to go to the Academy to be fit with a PAK and train to become a soldier, and hopefully eventually an Invader.
The point? Irk knows for how long he wouldn't see her when that happened, of if she'd even be assigned to work on the Massive at all.
Then he heard the two magical words: quality time.
Turns out parents and their kids in inferior species often spend time with each other to strengthen their emotional bonds, often in activities such as fishing, watching movies, going to the mall, etcetera, bla, bla, bla.
Well, what did he have to lose? Besides, it had been a while since he spent some good time with Ilk; she didn't bother him much ever since she learned how to feed herself and use the toilet without falling in it (don't ask for details on the latter, please don't).
So that day, Red simply went into Ilk's room and cried out. "Sweetie, pack up! We're going camping!"
He didn't seem to notice or mind she was asleep.
And so now they found themselves going to a planet with lots of forests and no signs of big, highly advanced metropolis. It was a good distance away from the Armada too, which meant they'd have no interruptions.
Ilk wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave Uncle Pur in charge by himself for a week; it wasn't that she didn't think him capable, but sometimes he could be so... immature. From what she heard when Zim hacked the Massive on one occasion, dad had to single-handedly fix the problem while Uncle Pur did nothing more than panic and eat doughnuts.
She had to admit, though, this planet wasn't so bad. They landed in a cleary part with no trees near a river.
Getting to the planet was the easy part.
The hard part was to actually camp.
"Think it's okay?" Red asked, taking a quick look at the picture in manual, then at the tent.
Well, it's supposed to be a tent, but instead it looked like a pile of sticks with a blanket on top of them.
"Wouldn't it be easier if we put it in automatic mode?" Ilk pointed out.
"Come on, where's the fun in that?" Red tried to lighten up the mood with a laugh, but he was actually freaking out. What would Ilk think of him if he couldn't even set up a damn tent?!
Looks like allowing himself to mellow out wasn't such a good action after all. The knowledge of how it was done was there (thank you to the PAK for that), but he just couldn't wrap his finger around it anymore.
After a while, he merely tossed the manual away. "Well, who needs a tent? We can sleep on the ship!"
Ilk crossed her arms, smirking a bit. "How curious, because you said we wouldn't use any technology for this trip."
"Did I? Well, the ship can be an exception."
"Think Uncle Pur is okay?"
Oh, right, he almost forgot. He had turned off the communicator to avoid any disturbance. "Relax, he's not my co-Tallest for nothing. I'm pretty certain he's got everything under control."
*IZ*
Purple was in the kitchen peeking out from behind one of the counters, with the rest of the cooks behind him while Bob was poking at one of the power plugs on the wall with a screwdriver, and holding an empty glass jar on the other.
"Couldn't we just leave it there, My Tallest?" Bob asked.
"So it reproduces? Do you know how long it takes them to make babies?!" Purple snapped. "Besides, it'll go after my doughnuts!"
"Then wouldn't it be easier to squash it?"
Purple grumbled. "Oh, right, and spread all of its insides on top of the snacks? Why don't you also poison my drink now what we're on it? Just get it over with!"
Bob sighed. There was no way out of this, so he better get done. As he removed the power plug, however, he jumped back in fright when instead of one, a dozen of tiny space-roaches crawled out, causing him to jump on top of a chair.
He wasn't the only one as soon Purple and the cooks shrieked like smeets and scrambled to climb unto the counters.
*IZ*
And so, with the topic of Purple aside, Red decided they could take a walk around. Actually, Ilk was on top of his head and he merely moved around on his PAK's spider legs to save battery on his hover-belt.
"Hey, daddy, when will I get my own spider leg on my back thingy?" Ilk asked after a while.
Red chuckled at her lack of vocabulary. Like father, like smeet, right? "You mean a PAK? When you go to the Academy you'll get one from the Control Brains."
"How's the Academy like? Everybody talks about it."
"You see, usually cloned smeets spend their first ten years in Irk's underground getting the basic information in their PAKs before going to the Academy to formally finish their training. In your case, however, you'll have to learn most from scratch."
"Sounds boring."
"It's not that bad. If you're really good at it, you'll become an Elite in no time. Who knows? Maybe you'll even get to become an Invader! Invader Ilk has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
Ilk was pretty sure her squeedly-spooch squirmed. "Yeah. Too bad Operation Impending Doom II will be over by then."
Red chuckled. "Who knows? We haven't fully explored the whole galaxy, maybe in the future there will be enough newly discovered systems to consider an Operation Impending Doom III."
Hopefully not, Ilk thought secretly to herself.
The landscape was not that bad. Most of the terrain reminded her in part of ancient plants she had once read about in the Irkenet, mostly from the planet Zim had been sent to. The main difference was that the sky in this planet was of greenish hues swirling around in the heights, and up to now they hadn't yet seen any wildlife.
She was momentarily distracted when she noticed they had passed by a very familiar tree with white bark and black stripes. "Uh, daddy..."
Red didn't hear her. "Or perhaps we could assign you to Earth. I mean, from what I've noticed, humans don't look that brilliant, it would be a piece of cake for you!"
"Daddy..."
"Purple says it should be a bakery/zoo thing, but I think it should only be a bakery. I mean, those animals must carry a lot of bacteria."
"Dad!"
Red looked up at her. "What is it?"
"I think we're lost."
"Oh, come on, Ilk," Red chuckled. "What makes you think that?"
"We've passed by that tree four times already," Ilk pointed at said tree literally, and then at the ground. "Plus, those are your spider legs' prints."
Red glanced at the tree, then at his footprints. Then he looked at his surroundings and realized everything looked alike,
Uh-oh.
"Okay, don't panic, Ilk, I'll find the way back." he tried to sound sure of himself, but it had been a long time ever since he was in the wilderness like this. To make matters worse, his stomach growled. "Good time to leave the snacks back at the ship."
Ilk looked around and saw some bushes with tiny reddish fruits with spherical shape. She slid down her father's body and walked over to it.
"Ilk, what are you doing?" Red inquired curiously.
"These berries are edible, they're red and round."
"How do you know that?"
"Since there isn't much to do at back the Massive, I started reading about the flora on other worlds. Most planets within the habitable zones of their respective systems share this type of plants, all of them with sweet and juicy fruit."
He had to say he was impressed, especially when he tentatively tasted one of the tiny berries, and ended up plucking a whole branch of the bush to eat it on the way back.
And speaking of which, she surprised him even more when she successfully went back on the track he had left by checking small clues such as a broken stick, or tell the cardinal directions by checking where the moss grew on the trees.
The good news: they found their way back to camp by the time the sun was about to set.
The bad news: they finally saw one of the animals from the planet.
It was big, furry and with a big pair of ivory horns. Apparently it had been attracted by all the food Red had brought, and was devouring it.
If there was something Red might hate even more than Zim (as unbelievable as it might sound), it was anyone taking his snacks.
He started firing his PAK's plasma guns at the creature. "Hey, go find your own food, you walking carpet!"
The animal fled into the woods with a cry of pain when one of the plasma shots struck its ear.
"I don't think that was a good idea, dad." Ilk commented, staring at the place the creature had fled to.
"Chill out, sweetie, it's just an animal. What's the worst it could do?"
His answer came in the form of a loud and fierce roar coming from behind the trees. Seconds later, an even larger version of the beast walked out. This one had longer horns and a pair of tusks protruding from its mouth.
Red stared at it, agape; definitely the plasma guns wouldn't hurt this one.
Ilk smacked her forehead and twitched her antennae. "Call his mom. That's the worst it can do."
Before she could even ask what was going on, Red had quickly taken her in his arms and spread out his PAK's spider legs to make a run for the ship. The monster ran after them, but thankfully he managed to jump into the cockpit and close the glass just in time before its jaws closed.
He continued to hold Ilk close as the beast-and by addition its baby in an act of revenge-started tackling the spittle runner; when they realized it was no threat, though, both lost interest in the spaceship and went back to the snacks.
It took Red a while to recover from the fright. "Well... How about we postpone the camping until we find somewhere safer?"
Ilk nodded. "I couldn't agree more."
As he looked for the starting key to turn the spittle runner on, however, he found his pockets were empty.
"Um, dad..."
"Do you have the key, sweetie?"
Ilk merely pointed outside. The calf had found it, and swallowed it along some doughnuts.
Red and Ilk exchanged a look.
For the first time in a while, Red envied Purple. At least he was back at the Massive, lounging and eating doughnuts without a worry in the universe.
*IZ*
"What on Irk, Skoodge?!"
The short Invader had placed bottles and bags filled with water throughout the Massive, particularly the cafeteria.
"Water bottles and bags? This is your brilliant idea?" Purple asked with crossed arms.
"Well, yeah. Zim said water burns on the skin, so maybe it'll scare away the space-roaches." Skoodge explained proudly.
Purple rubbed his temples. "In case you haven't been paying attention, Zim's plans always end up destroying everything BUT the intended target!"
"Besides, water bags don't work against space roaches!" Larb stated matter-of-factly. "They only work on flies and canids!"
The rest of the Irkens turned to him, dumbfounded. Larb gulped.
"I mean, that's what I heard from Bob. It's not like I waste my time reading earth stuff, right?"
*IZ*
Given it would take a while for the calf to... evacuate, they had no choice but to wait until it happened. However, as the sun disappeared and the planet's two moons rose, it was evident it wouldn't happen very soon.
Meanwhile, they were trapped inside the spittle runner until either the calf heeded nature's call and they could retrieve the key, or the mother left and he could go kill the bucking calf to speed it up. Whatever happened first.
"Are they gone yet?" Ilk asked.
Red peeked through the glass and spotted mother and calf still eating his snacks. He sighed. "Nop. They're still there." His antennae twitched when he heard a tiny growl. "Ilk, was that the calf or your stomach?"
Ilk rubbed her empty stomach. She hadn't eaten much throughout the day other than a few berries. "I'm starving."
Almost on cue, a can of soup landed right a few inches away from the window. Well, at least something did go well in this whole ordeal.
Red chuckled. "Alright, soup coming up."
He tentatively opened the cockpit window ever so slightly, just enough to slid his arm through it as silently as he could. The beast and her calf were too busy eating to notice him grab the can and slid it inside the cockpit before closing the window again.
Heating it up wasn't that hard; this model of the spittle runner had a sort of electric lighter for cigarettes, all he had to do was put the hot part directly beneath the can and wait. Ah, how he'd enjoy rubbing it into Purple's face; he was always complaining about how useless these lighters were.
As they waited for the soup to heat up, Red took a closer look at the label. Oh, Irk. It couldn't be.
Ilk glanced at her father when he chuckled. "What?"
"It's the same type of soup your uncle and I would eat back at the Academy during training."
"You ate canned soup?"
"It wasn't our favorite meal, but it did its job of keeping us in shape. Some liked it a little too much, however, and their weight paid the price."
"You mean Skoodge?"
"In part yest. I mean, that guy must be so fat and short for something."
"How did you an Uncle Pur meet?"
Red chuckled. "It's a long story. Want the short version?"
Ilk nodded.
"We literally met when we were a few minutes old. Somehow he had gotten a very big doughnut, I asked him if he could share a bit, and you can imagine how he got. We start fighting until we noticed we were of the same height; afterwards we stuck together from that moment.
When we were sent to the Academy, we soon discovered we complemented each other. I was very skilled in combat, weaponry and engineering, but I was lacking it came to knowledge and my way with vocabulary words was very... lacking." It still is, actually. "Purple, on the other hand, completely sucked at military operations or anything that involved fighting. But he was a walking encyclopedia, and was even better when it came to machinery."
Ilk couldn't help but giggle. "Uncle Pur was smart?"
"Oh, come on, don't be so hard on him. He still is... when he wants to be."
Purple might have mellowed out a bit too much, that's true, but that big brain of his was still in there. The proof? He single handedly fixed the oven that time it broke in less than five minutes-when usually it took an average technician about half an hour-just to have his doughnut production back on track again as soon as possible.
"Think it's done yet?" Ilk asked after her stomach growled again.
"It should be." Red grabbed the can and cut the lid open with a portable can-opener from his PAK.
Ilk blinked in surprise. "How many things do you have in there?"
Red chuckled again as he poured the soup in a small paper vase (also obtained from his PAK) and then handed it to her. "You'd be surprised."
"I can't wait to get one."
He wondered if he should tell her the downsides of the PAK, but finally chose against it. Surely it would be different with her, since it wasn't put on her spine when she was born, and she had her own brain, personality and memories without it too.
After taking a small sip from the can, he shivered in disgust. He just couldn't wait to get back to the Massive and get a good mouthful of popcorn and chiscake.
*IZ*
"I don't think this is going to work."
"Any better ideas? No? Then stop complaining and go! I'm hungry!"
With that, Bob was pushed into the kitchen. He was wearing a rather pathetic space-roach disguise with a pink bow on the antennas. Okay, it couldn't be that bad, all he had to do was distract those bugs and lead them to a escape pod to be sent into space. It couldn't be that bad, right?
Five minutes later he came out screaming, the legs of his disguise torn and with a few roaches crawling on top of him, trying to 'mate'.
*IZ*
Eventually the baby evacuated and they managed to retrieve (and thoroughly wash and disinfect) the key to the spittle runner.
The first thing Red noticed was that he had over one thousand voicemails from Purple. He only needed to open the first ever sent to see what the whole mess was about.
Red, this is very bad! There's a space roach in the kitchen and we can't find it! Call me!
Red smacked his forehead. "Oh, for the love of Irk. They can't even get rid of a puny space roach?"
As they finally made it back at the Massive they found it unusually empty. Soon they realized why; everyone was cooped up inside the control room, trembling, whimpering and a few were in something called a fetal position.
"RED, YOU'RE BACK!" In less than three seconds Purple had already thrown himself at his co-tallest, hugging his waist as he bawled. "IT WAS HORRIBLE! THOSE BUGS ARE EVERYWHERE AND ATE ALL THE DOUGHNUTS!"
Red looked unamused, however. "Seriously, I leave you alone for a moment and everything falls apart."
"What's the big deal about a space roach, anyway?" Ilk asked curiously.
"It's not only one!" Stink cried. "It's HUNDREDS of them!"
"And they are in the kitchen!" Tenn added, looking as if she had seen that movie with the woman crawling out of a tv again.
Ilk thought for a moment. "Do any of you have sugar of any kind?"
"I have a piece of chocolate!" one of the navigators cried, lifting said candy in his hand.
"What are you going to do, Ilk?" Red asked curiously as he watched his daughter take the chocolate from the navigator and then run out of the bridge.
"Put the security camera on full-screen!" Purple cried out.
The image of the camera feed on the cafeteria appeared on the screen. Red could see the were not exaggerating when they said it was thousands of space roaches, all crawling on the floor and over the place.
Ilk walked in. However, she did not seem frightened in the least. She merely looked around, bend down on her knees slightly and started making clicking sounds.
To the astonishment of all the Irkens, the roaches reacted and gathered around her, making similar sounds. Ilk twitched her antennae twice, movement which the roaches repeated. She started leading the bugs down the hall and into one of the escape pods; with one last clicking sound she threw the chocolate bar inside one.
Every single roach rushed into the escape pod in a frenzy to get the candy. Ilk pressed the button to close it and send it out into space.
Tenn cried. "SHE DID IT!"
The whole crew cheered in delight, even Purple went as far as to release confetti from the ceiling. "PARTY!"
Red merely smiled proudly at the monitor. This, plus the survival skills Ilk showed back on the planet, confirmed what he thought; she would make an excellent Invader.
Seconds later he walking out of the bridge.
He needed to have a word with the Control Brains.
*IZ*
This chap was partly inspired on A Goofy Movie, particularly when Max and Goofy get stuck in their car while Big Foot looks through their stuff and they have a sort of bonding moment.
And the space-roaches are the Irken version of Earth's cockroaches, and reference to my own aversion of those bugs. PUAJ!