The Smeet

Okay, for some reason I came up with this while watching a few episodes of IZ, particularly Backseat Drives from Beyond the Stars, and I JUST had to get rid of this plot bunny. It was a bit hard getting used to the humanistic nonsense-driven style of IZ, though, since I tend to write a bit more seriously, but it was worth a shot.

Besides, turns out it's funny to torture the characters in that universe, maybe because they're already pretty tortured by their own creators XDXD.

Enjoy!

*IZ*

Though the rather old-fashioned practice of reproducing biologically and raising whatever smeets came out of the act by hand is often considered retrograde and unorthodox, a small percent of the Irken population still did it. They lived in a separate part of Irk, granted to them by one of the previous Tallest to keep a better population check without mixing up the genetically enhanced smeeterie-made smeets with ones that were birthed in natural form; in this case, the DNA was not as flawless and possessed the normal quantity of possible mutations or defects.

In other words, naturally born Irkens(also known as womb-birthed) were considered weaker.

There were many other unique aspects of birthed smeets. As mentioned before, due to lacking the genetic splicing which removed any 'unnecessary characteristics' these smeets took longer in developing. They could not walk or even talk without being taught, much like other less-developed species. They were completely dependent on their parental-figures for even the simplest needs.

Not all Irkens possessed the long-run patience to go through this.

At least Red thought he didn't.

And yet here he was with a few months-old smeet under his care, brought not long ago in a small, hand-held basket for Irken infants.

Of all the things that could possibly go wrong, this one took the cake. If he had to choose between Zim and the smeet.... No, wait, the smeet was a joycompared to Zim. Heck, even a psychopathic giant spacial squid would be a joy in comparison to him. But that didn't really make him feel better.

And Purple was not helping.

"Coochie-coochie-coo!" He held out a chocolate doughnut a few inches away from the smeet's face, waking it in a playful manner. "Here, have a treat!" Red raised an eyebrow. It was the first time he ever offered a doughnut to anyone. Most of the time Purple would swat Red's hand when he tried to grab one.

The smeet didn't have the expected reaction. Her big, blood-colored eyes just stared up at it from the basket she arrived in, but she made no attempt to grab it.

This let them both know this one was birthed-naturally. That, and the fact she couldn't use the toilet and instead required to have a diaper changed everytime nature's call came in. Besides, she was so tiny (she'd fit in Red's open palm) it would have taken her about a year to finish that single donut.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a daddy?" Purple asked, genuinely curious as to why his friend had hidden such a thing from him.

"I just found out! Come on, you know I was never the ladies man!" Red snapped. It was an understatement, of course, he sucked when it came to courting. 

"Then where did she come from?"

"How am I supposed to know? It's not like I could ask the guy who brought her!"

"Well, perhaps if you hadn't thrown him out of the airlock so soon..."

"That's not the point! The point is what I'm supposed to do with that!" he pointed at the smeet, who was currently entertaining herself by nibbling on her own foot. "And how can I really be certain she's actually mine?!"