The Violet Demon is an Invader Zim fanfic by Zim'sMostLoyalServant. It can be read here
or here.
Years after the events of Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, with Zim now aware of his banishment to Earth and helping Dib uplift humanity as a means of revenge against the Tallest, Gaz is one day unfortunate enough to cross paths with alien slavers. Captured and sold into captivity, she ends up fighting in Gladiator Games on another planet, trying to earn her freedom through combat. Meanwhile, Zim and Dib have their own misadventures as they try to track her down and save her.
Tropes
- Action Girl: Gaz has grown up into this from her Little Miss Badass days, which is what impresses Hrol enough to buy her as a gladiator.
- Alien Abduction: A more mundane than usual example, as the Fornaxians have to physically assault and overpower Gaz in order to carry her into their ship.
- Alien Blood: Fornaxian blood is pale pink.
- Alien Sky:
- Areax IV has an orange sky and rings which create a constant aurora effect when the system's binary stars are both out. The story in fact starts with a description of this effect as a way to set the stage.
- Fornax orbits a red supergiant that's described as looking like a bloodshot eye looming down on the planet.
- An Arm and a Leg: Gaz wins the first match we see her in by cutting off Gornakk the Crusher's arm and forcing him to yield.
- And I Must Scream: When a slave's control collar is active, they lose all control of their body except for their eyes, leaving them as People Puppets unable to do anything but follow orders, all while still being self-aware but unable to resist in any form.
- Asteroid Miners: Tak mentions how she spent years after first being Made a Slave toiling in an asteroid mine, before her repeated escape attempts made her untenable enough she was sold off to Hrol's Gladiator Games on Areax instead.
- Barefoot Captives: In addition to the metal bikinis, Fornaxians also make female slaves go barefoot. Gaz finds this aggravating and impractical, and wonders if the whole species has a foot fetish.
- Big Brother Instinct: Lampshaded. When Zim dramatically announces that they must head to Gaz's rescue once they realize that she hasn't returned home, Dib protests that, as her brother, he's the one "who's supposed to jump to overprotective conclusions". And when they learn about her being enslaved and sold by the Fornaxians, he demonstrates uncharacteristic anger when dealing with everyone involved.
- City Planet: Fornax is covered by immense mega-cities of needle-shaped towers and blocky buildings, ruled by a plutocratic oligarchy that focuses its attention on the upper levels while the shadowy, canyon-like lower depths are left to lawless near-anarchy.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- The regional leagues of Areax's Gladiator Games are named for colors.
- Gaz's armor is colored purple to match her hair and title.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Zim's punishment for Velinda letting the Fornaxians abduct Gaz (when they were after her to begin with) is to lock her in a chamber and listen to a recording of GIR singing the Doom Song.
- Defiant Captive: Gaz doesn't take being enslaved by the Fornaxians lying down, fighting back the second that her control collar is momentarily deactivated as she's put up for auction. This is what impresses Hrol enough that he buys her as a gladiator.
- Dual Wielding: Gaz uses twin plasma-coated short swords in the first match we see her in.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Gaz normally has a Lack of Empathy and wouldn't care about Velinda being chased by the Fornaxians, but the idea of sexual slavery disgusts her enough to actually try to help.
- Zim takes a Totalitarian Utilitarian view towards slavery as a matter of Might Makes Right, but looks down on sex slavery as a step too far.
- Evil Is Petty: When Zim and Dib fight their way into the slavers' headquarters to try and find Gaz, the slavers spitefully wipe their sales records, leaving the pair to have to make their way through an extensive list of past clients to locate Gaz the hard way.
- The Exile: Zim was technically already this, but the Tallest make it undeniable for even his ego and cut him off from the Empire, leaving him on Earth to rot.
- Eye Scream: During their fight, Gaz gouges out Wrennock's eye with her thumb in order to get him off of her.
- Gladiator Games: The main plot is Gaz ending up fighting in these on the planet Areax IV after being abducted.
- Go-Go Enslavement: The Fornaxians specialize in selling pleasure slaves, both for visual and... more direct purposes, whom they force to wear outfits described as skimpier versions of Star Wars slave bikinis.
- Groin Attack: Gaz has a tendency to kick male opponents in the crotch, to varying levels of effectiveness. For instance, it does very little when fighting the Fornaxian slavers, because they're reptiles without external genitals."Ha! Stupid monkey, I'm reptilian, my reproductive parts are internal!"
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Zim isn't helping out Earth and working towards uplifting humanity because of a Heel Realization or other change of heart, he's just trying to spite the Tallest by creating a Galactic Superpower to rival the Irkens.
- Heroic BSoD: Zim having the truth of his "mission" spelled out for him by the Tallest left him in such a state of shock that he went virtually catatonic for days, until the Computer replaying the Tallest's message for Dib caused him to snap out of it and vent his anger, before deciding on a new course in life.
- How We Got Here: The story opens with Gaz fighting as a gladiator on another planet, before flashing back several months to show how this happened.
- Incapable of Disobeying: Fornaxian control collars completely override the nervous systems of the people that they are placed on, rendering them completely unable to control their bodies, except for they eyes, and forcing them to comply with every order that they are given.
- Info Dump: The first chapter contains a long summary of the backstory, explaining how things got to the way they are at the story's beginning.
- Irony: Tak finally gets the title of Invader... because it's the Red Baron she's given as a gladiator. Gaz finds this hilarious, to Tak's annoyance.
- Lizard Folk: The Fornaxians are humanoid reptiles.
- Made a Slave:
- The main premise of this story is Gaz being abducted by alien slavers and sold into captivity. Originally she's intended to be a Sex Slave, but after fighting back at auction, she manages to impress an alien named Hrol, who purchases her as a gladiator instead.
- It's revealed in Chapter 3 that Tak was captured by Space Pirates after her defeat and sold into slavery. Originally it was as an asteroid miner, but later she was sold to Hrol as a gladiator.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The one time Gaz ignores her Lack of Empathy and tries to protect Velinda from the Fornaxians, it leads to her being captured and enslaved in Velinda's place.
- No-Sell: Gaz tries to kick Captain Wrennock in the crotch during their fight, only for it to fail because he's a reptile, and thus his genitals are internal.
- One-Product Planet: Fornax's economy and culture revolve almost completely around capturing, training, and selling slaves to the rest of the galaxy. The narration notes that they still have other services, as they still need a domestic economy to provide things like food, clothing, welfare, and maintenance, but even these are run primarily around the availability of enslaved labor.
- Pardon My Klingon: As in the author's other works, the alien characters use swear words from their native languages as the only exemption from the story's use of Aliens Speaking English.
- People Puppets: When a slave's control collar is active, they can't move any part of their bodies except their eyes, unless ordered to. And even then, they have no autonomy, as their bodies mechanically follow those orders without conscious input from the afflicted slave.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Fornaxians are called out by Velinda as being misogynists — the narration later notes them as being proud and blatant ones — as shown by their speciality in slaving being selling females as sex slaves who are forced to wear highly revealing outfits.
- Proud Merchant Race: A dark take on this. The Fornaxians live in a plutocratic society oriented wholly around commerce... and so happen to specialize in the capturing, training, and selling of slaves in particular.
- Red Baron: Participants in Aerax's Gladiator Games are given catchy epithets as advertising, such as Gornakk "The Crusher" or Gaz's own "The Violet Demon"; she finds the concept stupid, saying it makes her sound like a teenage edgelord.
- Relationship Upgrade: Zim and Gaz got together at some point over the Time Skip, bonding over a shared misanthropy.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Zim and Dib's side of the story is about them trying to track down the abducted Gaz, fighting their way through anyone who gets in their way.
- Single-Biome Planet: Areax IV is a desert planet covered by sandy wastes broken only by the occasional oasis or city.
- Slave Collar: The Fornaxians make use of devices called control collars, which can override a slave's nervous system and turn them into People Puppets.
- Slave Market: Fornax basically has this as its hat, with all the biggest businesses being auction houses where captives from across the galaxy are sold off.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Played with through Zim's bizarre logic. Zim doesn't really have a problem with the concept of slavery per se — after, the enslavement and subjugation of a conquered species is simply the natural order of things, as is the humiliation of a captive enemy — but making a business out of buying and selling slaves captured through trickery rather than force disgusts him. He's also particularly repelled by the idea of sexual slavery, as opposed to just making someone toil for you.
- Spy Catsuit: The standard uniform for gladiators on Areax includes a black bodysuit infused with nanites which causes it to reshape itself and conform to the body of its wearer, to the point of being skintight and being described of leaving nothing to the imagination. Gaz hates it, describing it as looking like a gimp suit, and is glad that it comes with armor that goes over it and is more covering.
- Time Skip: The story begins fifteen years after Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.
- Title Drop: "The Violet Demon" is Gaz's gladiator title.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The story is evenly divided between Gaz's struggles after being sold into slavery, and Zim and Dib's efforts to find and rescue her.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The entire plot is kicked off by the escape pod Velinda uses to flee the Fornaxians happening to crash on Earth right in front of Gaz, inadvertently leading to the Fornaxians capturing her to replace Velinda in their quota.
- Win Your Freedom: Whoever wins the grand championship of Areax's Gladiator Games is granted their freedom.
