A Simple Guide to Overthrowing an Empire

Let me explain...

The room was thick with smoke when Zim woke up. His entire body ached and he was once again tethered to a table. He could barely see a foot in front of him, but he could hear Dib rustling around to his left. "Dib?" Zim immediately regretted opening his mouth, hacking smoke out as quickly as it came in.

Dib came into view, waving smoke out of the way. He looked exhausted. His coat was covered in soot and grease. "Sorry..." The alien sounded genuinely apologetic.

"What the hell happened?" Zim managed to choke out. What had Dib done to create this much of a mess? He tentatively sat up, sending tools clanging to the floor. An unfamiliar weight on his back kept him attached to... something, if not the table. Not that he could see, that is.

"You almost exploded," Dib said, matter-of-factly.

"I almost what?!" Zim let out another round of hacking coughs. "Exploded?!"

"Yeah," Dib waved the smoke out of his face again. "It was my fault. I promise I'll explain everything."

"Why do I doubt that?" Zim wheezed, "Can we at least go back to my house?"

Dib hesitated for a long while. After nearly two minutes, he nodded, unlatching Zim from the table and grabbing his arm. Zim would tolerate it, if only because he could barely stand, let alone traverse the smokey halls. They eventually found themselves in an elevator, letting only a little bit of smog in with them.

The elevator let them out in Zim's living room. Why he had an elevator to a maze-like alien laboratory in his living room was beyond him, but hopefully that was something Dib would answer.

"Finally," Zim collapsed on the couch. Familiarity. "Explain, alien."

"A 'Thank you' for saving your life would be nice."

"I can't thank you if I don't know what you did. The last..." Zim glanced outside and decided it was mid-afternoon. "Few hours, have been sort of a blur."

"Okay. First of all, I need you to take some deep breaths. Focus on your breathing, not on my words." Dib was really playing doctor now. Zim shut his mouth and glared at the alien. "Unless you want to explode for real this time," Dib continued, perching himself on the coffee table. "Please?" he added, exasperatedly.

"Fine," Zim let out the breath he'd been holding, "But only because I couldn't hold my breath much longer."

~

"What do you mean, the entire time?!" Zim snapped. Dib paled, realising what he'd said. He should have just played the experiment angle. Zim was swaying again, but Dib was just out of reach to catch the smaller Irken.

"I should not have said that," Dib mumbled, head in his hands. He was not about to watch Zim fall to the ground. All of his work... "I should not have said that!" A thud resounded around the room as Zim's body crumpled back onto the table. The invader's eyes were glazed over and a small but noticeable tendril of smoke snaked out of the overloaded PAK.

"This is what you get for reducing the power levels of your PAK so drastically, Zim." Dib was frantically searching through drawers and cabinets for the tools he needed. Why was nothing labeled?! "What am I going to do?" He muttered to himself, laying out the tools he had found on the table where Zim's lifeless body was laying.

He had almost no experience working on PAKs. The closest he got was those prototype spider-legs he was using. The only conceivable way he could think to save Zim would be to restore full power, and therefore full functionality, to the PAK. A risky move, but better than just letting him explode. He set to work.