A/N: Hello, everyone, and welcome to what will probably be my last anti-Gaz story of the year. This is another request from The Cowardly Christian, based off an outline he sent me. Admittedly, the idea was originally proposed as another suggested chapter for The New Adventures, but was too mature for the T rating of that story. Besides which, it really only needed a couple of small tweaks to stand alone, so that's what I did. CC, I hope you don't mind and manage to enjoy it anyway.
But, enough rambling. Read and enjoy, please!
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, the owner of Invader Zim or any related characters.
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Beware Of What You Can't See
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Dib sat in his living room on the couch, crouched over the various books and papers stacked on the table. Some of them were related to schoolwork from his classes at Vasquez Community College (and boy had his father been upset when he didn't apply to Ivy League just so he could stay close and keep an eye on Zim), but most were related to his current personal project. Namely, the spell drive that was currently in front of him as he tried to figure out what it did.
He'd bought it in an online auction being held by the estate of its last owner, a private collector living somewhere in Eastern Europe. Who had, it seemed, not only translated the information on its contents into his native language, but also for some reason taken the extra paranoid step of putting them in some kind of code. Which altogether was making it a pain in the ass to figure out what it was he'd actually bought.
"Okay, so reverse the spelling here, check the English translation… yep, think I finally cracked this. Now, let's see what this thing's got," Dib muttered to himself, reading over his notes. If he was reading this right, it seemed that this spell drive contained mostly useless stuff, like conjuring handheld mirrors or giving yourself the ability to anticipate the weather. But then he got to the last spell listed, and his eyes lit up in interest.
"Invisibility? Sweet!" he said excitedly, after double- and triple-checking his notes to make sure he'd translated this right, "That'd be amazing. I could just walk right into Zim's base and take pictures of him without him realizing it. Or sneak up on him and knock him out. This could be the turning point in this whole secret war! Hmm, still, better test it out before I try anything."
Grabbing the spell drive and getting to his feet, Dib walked over to stand in front of a nearby mirror. He then scrolled down the spell-drive's screen to select the invisibility spell and hit the activation button. A glowing aura emerged from the spell drive and swept over him, pulsating for a moment before there was a flash of light.
Dib blinked his eyes to clear them, and then blinked again in confusion as he took in the sight greeting him from the mirror. He couldn't see his face, or any of his head, which was disorienting, but that at least meant that the spell was working. Yet at the same time, he could still quite clearly see his glasses, shirt, and trench coat, a view that was repeated as he looked down, seeing that his hands were also now gone from sight, but he could still see the clothes covering the lower half of his body.
Mulling this over, Dib quickly figured out what was happening. The spell apparently did indeed make the user invisible, but only their flesh, leaving anything they were wearing still quite visible. Which meant that if he wanted to sneak anywhere using this spell, he'd have to take his clothes off-
"Nope," he said quickly, cutting off that thought even as he hit the spell cancellation button and became visible again in another flash of light, "No way. I've seen enough comedies to know how that works. Especially since my luck sucks at the best of times. I'm definitely just filing this away and not using it."
Dib walked back to the couch and placed the spell drive back on the table. He then reached for his translations, intending to include a note about this flaw in the spell, when an alarm suddenly sounded. Dib jumped, and turned to his computer, which was flashing an alert. One in the form of an unflattering picture of Zim's face flanked by red exclamation points.
"Zim! What are you up to this time?" Dib said, hitting a button and bringing up the feed from the spy cameras he'd planted around the cul-de-sac surrounding his enemy's base to try and catch the Invader whenever he next got up to something evil. And right now, they were showing Zim exiting the base and walking down the street, GIR following behind him and dragging a large, bulging sack.
"Hmm, what's in that sack? Weapons? Rabid mutants? Prisoners?" Dib mused, "I have to follow them and find out!"
With that, Dib bolted out of the house. In his rush, he completely forgot about the spell drive, still lying on the table. And, more importantly, forgot to make that correction to his notes.
XXXXXXX
An hour later, the front door was kicked open as Gaz stomped into the house, face contorted in rage. And while this wasn't a totally unusual look for the purple-haired teenager, this particular scowl seemed even more aggressive than usual. And that was because, after what had just happened to her, she was beyond pissed off.
Months ago, Bloaty's had announced that they'd developed a new kind pizza. It was, essentially, gold and rubies that had been chemically altered to be edible. Understandably, this meant that the whole process was not cost effective, and thus it wasn't an item that would be publicly available. To try and make up the money spent on the project, Bloaty's had quickly sold off the majority of the pizza at auction to the highest bidders — so quickly, in fact, that Gaz hadn't even learned of it until all the available pizzas had been sold.
That alone had angered Gaz greatly, but she had calmed down somewhat when she had learned that Bloaty's hadn't sold off all the pizzas. Having apparently more than made up their deficit with the auction, they'd decided to get some publicity off of the remainder. So, they'd hosted a series of contests across the country, with the prize being invitations to a private party where the winners would feast on the last of the Golden Pizza. Naturally, Gaz had entered the local contest for her (in her mind) right place as one of the lucky few. And she'd been even more certain of her inevitable victory when she'd learned that the contest was a trivia competition with the subject theme of video games. Surely, she had this in the bag.
Except she didn't.
"Stupid foreign games with weird-sounding names," she growled, kicking over a random chair. It had all come down to the final round, and she'd been just one question away from winning her invite. But then she'd mispronounced the name of the game she gave as an answer — it had been the right game, but pronouncing it wrong still counted as being wrong. So, she'd been disqualified, and had found herself being dragged away and tossed out of the building by security.
Admittedly, that had been because she'd tried to strangle the contest host, but that was besides the point.
This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and she was going to miss out on just because of a simple slip of the tongue. And the worst part, the part that made this all so unbearable, wasn't just that she had lost. It was that she had lost to Iggins! That obnoxious freak had somehow ended up as her greatest gaming rival throughout Hi Skool, and now he had bragging rights over her. And not only that, she'd just found out that he'd actually recorded his whole experience in the contest and posted the whole thing online, including her loss. Which meant she was now the laughingstock of the gamer forums, and would be for weeks. Weeks!
"Goddam asshole!" Gaz snarled, punching a hole in the wall, "I am going to doom him so badly, his fucking grandchildren are going to be having nightmares about it!"
But the question was, how was she going to get her revenge? More importantly, how was she going to get the pizza that was rightfully hers? Because she'd checked out the building that the contest winners' feast was going to be held in, and it looked more heavily guarded than Fort Knox. And since Bloaty's — like most other major corporations — was basically a nation unto itself, she couldn't even use her father's connections to force them to let her in. So how in the hell was she supposed to get in?!
Mulling this over, Gaz's gaze fell on the living room table, and the spell drive and notes still stacked on it. Deciding that breaking some of Dib's paranormal crap might make her feel a little better, she stomped over to the table and grabbed the spell drive. Noting the notes written down on the paper next to it, she glanced at them quickly to see just what it was that was about to ruin for her brother (not that it would in any way be equal to what she was missing out on, obviously). She snorted dismissively at some of the things written down, but when she reached the bottom of the list, an eye cracked open in surprise and interest.
"Invisibility? Huh, that's kind of cool… wait a minute," she said, eyes widening as the implications occurring to her, "That's it! I can use this to sneak right in and grab a few slices of the pizza without them ever realizing that I'm breaking their stupid rules. And I can pound Iggins' stupid head in while I'm there. Two birds, one stone."
Smirking nastily at the thought of everything that was now in her reach, Gaz clutched the spell drive to her chest and ran out of the house.
XXXXXXX
A short time later, as the sun started to set, Gaz was standing in a small park. Across the street from her was a ten-story building, the front of which was sporting a neon Bloaty and a sign which read "Bloaty's Corporate Headquarters & Entertainment Center". Large armed guards with taser rifles were flanking the front door, while laser bars were in place over every visible window, and missile-armed security drones were circling the perimeter from the air.
As she watched, a limo with Bloaty on it drove up to the curb, and one of the guards stepped forward to open the passenger door, while several of the drones swooped down to monitor closely. The person who stepped out of the limo, some gangly, acme-ridden teen, handed the guard an invitation; after scanning it and apparently confirming it, the guard stepped aside and let the nerd enter the building, the other guard opening the door for him.
"Right, so I just turn invisible, head over there, and slip in through the door next time they let someone in. Easy," Gaz said after thinking it over for a minute. Holding up the spell drive, she scrolled down to the last spell and hit the activation button. A glowing aura emerged from the spell drive and swept over her, pulsating for a moment before there was a flash of light.
Blinking the resulting spots from her vision, Gaz looked at where she was holding the Game Slave, and smirked as she saw her hands were missing from sight… then frowned as she realized she could still see the sleeves of the jacket she had been wearing. Looking down, the frown deepened as she saw the rest of her clothes were still all quite visible. And the frown then turned into an outright scowl as the full implications of what this meant hit her.
"Are you fucking kidding me? To use this spell to sneak anywhere, I have to be naked?!" she exclaimed, invisible cheeks flushing red at the thought, "Why didn't Dib include that in his stupid notes? I'm going to kill that dumbass for this…"
Gaz shifted awkwardly as she began mentally debating going forward with her plan in light of this development. Yes, she wanted that pizza and her payback on Iggins, more than anything. But the thought of public nudity to achieve those goals made even someone as stoic and unshakeable as her hesitate. True, the whole point of this spell meant that no one would be able to see her, but it was still deeply uncomfortable to consider.
Hell, she didn't even like undressing in the locker room and shower at the skool gym! Unlike the other teen girls around her — all of them airhead bimbos in her view — she wasn't obsessed with her looks. But she was still completely conscious of the accepted standards of beauty, and how far she fell from them. Despite being well past the point of puberty, all she had to show for it was increased height and her unwelcome "monthly visitor"; her breasts were barely an A-cup, and she had no other curves to speak of. So, while she highly doubted anyone would actually be stupid to make fun of her lack of looks, she still took steps to conceal them, scaring everyone else at skool out of using the locker room or shower when she was in there, and wearing baggy clothes at all other times to hide her figure.
Now, facing the thought of being totally exposed in public, even if magically hidden… was any amount of pizza or revenge really worth it?
As Gaz pondered this question, she was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of another limo pulling up. And she snarled as she watched Iggins emerge from that car, a smug smile on his face. The bug-eyed fat bastard swaggered up to the guards and presented his invitation, before entering the building. That sight sparked a fury unlike any other within Gaz, which quickly burned away any doubts or hesitation she had.
"Fuck modesty," she growled. Tucking the spell drive into a coat pocket, she then took the coat off, kicked off her boots, and quickly stripped. She then carried her clothes over to a nearby bench and hid them underneath it, stacking them in a pile and placing the boots on top of them to keep everything pinned down.
Standing back up, Gaz shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. This was partially due to the instinct to cover her private bits, but mostly for some extra warmth — nightfall had brought with it a drop in temperature, and the air was damp with the promise of rain. It would have been easy to ignore dressed as she had been, but her newfound nudity made it much more pronounced.
"Focus," she snapped at herself, "I'll get all the warmth I need out of the pizza. And dooming Iggins should give a warm tingling feeling all over too, come to think of it."
Giving a shake of her head to clear it of any remaining doubt, Gaz ran out of the park and towards the Bloaty's building, making sure the street was clear before crossing it (she'd seen enough movies and TV to know the risks of being run over while invisible). Reaching the entrance, she felt the blood rush to her cheeks as she approached the guards, despite the fact that she knew they couldn't see her.
"Okay, stay calm," she told herself mentally, taking care to not speak out loud, "Just treat it like a stealth level. Move quietly, don't catch their attention, and just wait for them to open the door for the next guest."
She didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, another limo pulled up, this time letting out a frumpy middle-aged woman. After she got her invitation scanned, she walked over to the doorway that was already being opened for her, Gaz following close behind quickly, though being sure to step lightly so that no one would hear her feet slapping against the sidewalk. She paused as the woman passed through the door, waiting just long enough for the guard to let go of the door and let it start to close on its own, then dashed forward, slipping inside just before the door could shut…
And was immediately hit by a blast of bitingly frigid air.
"What the FUCK?!" Gaz screamed mentally; the only reason it stayed in her head was because the sudden cold caused most of her muscles to clamp up, including those in her jaw. Arms once more wrapping tightly around herself, Gaz looked around in shock — the large room, which seemed to take up the entire ground-level floor, was lined with large air vents, which were humming away, each with a monitor attached to it clearly stating that they were set to 30 degrees Fahrenheit, keeping the room at just below the freezing mark.
And was that an ice rink taking up most of the middle of the room?
"Goodness, it's chilly in here," a voice pulled Gaz's attention to the side, where the woman she'd followed in was being handed a large, heavily padded and hooded coat by a Bloaty's staffer wearing one of his own, "Is this really necessary?"
"Sorry, ma'am," the staffer replied, "But the chemical composition of the Golden Pizza means that it can only be heated up immediately before consumption, otherwise it breaks down and becomes inedible. The only way to keep it properly preserved is to keep it in a cold environment. Which is why this event is being hosted here — the Entertainment Center already had this ice rink set up, so it seemed like the most efficient way to handle the situation."
"Well, I'm just glad you thought to provide these coats," the woman said as she slipped hers on, "It would be pretty uncomfortable without them."
"Fuck you, bitch! At least you have clothes!" Gaz mentally shouted, it taking all of her willpower not to scream that out loud. Instead, she ground her chattering teeth and rubbed her body all over to try and keep as warm as possible. Looking around at all the people milling about in their coats, she couldn't help but moan in discomfort and envy. She briefly considered grabbing one from the pile next to the staffer, but forced herself not to — most people were morons, but they would notice a coat floating around with no one in it.
Deciding to walk around in the hope of the movement helping warm her up a little, Gaz started walking, silently grateful that the floor was carpeted, so she at least didn't have worry about her feet freezing to it. Taking another look around, Gaz noted a refreshment table along one wall — there was no sign of the Golden Pizza, which was probably being saved for just the right moment to present it, but there was plenty of normal pizza on display beneath heating lamps, there to whet the appetite. She lit up as she saw this, both for the food and for the source of heat. True, it wouldn't be able to warm up her whole body, but it was definitely an improvement over her current situation.
With that hopeful note in mind, Gaz started walking towards the table. Midway there, one of the guests suddenly walked into her path and shoulder-checked her. The other person didn't seem to notice they'd bumped into something, probably because of the thickness of their coat, nor did they appear to have heard her grunt of annoyance at the contact. Clenching her fists and making a mental note to track this person down later and break their limbs for daring to make physical contact with her, Gaz refocused on the task at hand and continued making her way towards the refreshments table.
This proved to be more difficult than she anticipated, however. Everyone else was congregating around the table, and the invisible streaker soon found herself having to zig and zag around them, her movements moving her more along a parallel to the table than towards it. Realizing this, she growled and tried to dash through an opening between two small groups, only for a member of one of them to turn at the last second and end up accidentally elbowing Gaz in the stomach.
"Oof!" Gaz grunted instinctively as the air was forced from her lungs by the blow, doubling her over. But on the bright side, the person who'd just hit her neither felt nor heard her, just like the last one.
And presumably neither did the person who then walked by at just the right distance for their hip to bump into her rear, which was leaning out due to her being bent over. And while it was a light blow, Gaz's balance was already thrown off by the angle she was leaning at, so it was enough to send her tumbling to forward to land on the floor in a heap.
"I am going to burn this place down with all these assholes in it," she told herself, as she pulled herself up onto all fours, "I mean, all the individual Bloaty's don't need this place intact to function, ri-GAH!"
It took biting down on her lips to prevent a scream of pain as someone walking by stepped right on one of her hands. The man in question paused mid-step, foot still mostly on Gaz's hand as he looked down at her. Or rather, at the floor.
"Something wrong?" someone next to him asked.
"Could have sworn I just stepped on something," he replied, lifting his foot to examine it, Gaz taking the opportunity to snatch her hand back.
"Eh, probably just a lump in the rug," the other person commented. The first man shrugged in agreement and walked away, unknowingly leaving Gaz lying on the floor cradling her aching hand.
"Screw this," Gaz thought, stumbling to her feet and quickly making her way away from the table and the surrounding crowd, huddling up near a wall, "I'll just wait until the crowd breaks up. And maybe I don't even have that long to wait for the pizza anyway. Then again, with the luck I've been having so far, it might be another six hours for all I know."
Gaz stood there, freezing and miserable, for several minutes, before she suddenly heard something all-too familiar.
"…So of course I won, because I am the ultimate gamer," Iggins' obnoxious voice drifted down from above. Gaz's head snapped up, and saw him standing on one of the balconies ringing the space where the second floor should have been. He was holding a plate of pizza and was chewing noisily on it as he momentarily paused in talking to a pair of disinterested and disgusted-looking teen girls.
"But you should have seen the look on her face when she realized she'd lost," Iggins went on, crumbs and bits of sauce spraying from his mouth as he talked, "I tell you, there was nothing I've ever seen more satisfying than watching that stuck-up Goth bitch finally realize that I'm better than her."
Gaz's eye twitched as she realized that he was talking about beating her at the contest. Suddenly not noticing the cold as rage boiled within her, she started stomping towards the nearest staircase and began ascending it. Within moments, she was on the second floor and soon found the balcony Iggins was on. His not-so-captive audience had wandered off at some point, but he didn't seem to care, instead focusing on his pizza.
Cracking her knuckles, Gaz began stalking towards Iggins, savoring the pain she was about to inflict on him and the terror he would feel at not knowing where the blows were coming from. Nearing him, she pulled a fist back and let it fly at him… just as he bent over to nab a piece of pepperoni that had fallen off his plate, seeking to beat the five-second rule. As such, Gaz's swing went wide, shooting through the empty air. With her momentum thus uninterrupted, Gaz stumbled forward past Iggins, slamming into the railing and, to her shock and horror, tipping over it, falling to the floor below with a cry of panic.
"Huh?" Iggins said, looking around in confusion, "Weird, thought I heard something… eh, it was probably just air running through the vents."
Shrugging it off, Iggins turned his attention back to his pizza and wandered off. Meanwhile, back on the ground floor, everyone else was likewise shrugging off the sound of something slamming into the ice rink, no one seeming to notice the large cracks spreading out from the crater of an apparent impact site. And of course, there were completely unaware of the fact that Gaz was now lying facedown atop the ice in the middle of that crater.
All rational thought was driven from Gaz's mind as she was overwhelmed with agony. The cold from the ice felt like it was cutting her to the bone, and waves of pain were radiating out of one of her legs. Was it broken? She didn't know, and at the moment she couldn't care less, she just wanted away from the cold.
So, she forced herself to her numb feet, ignoring the sharp spikes of fresh pain both from her leg and from her skin peeling away from the ice it had started to freeze to. She then stumble-ran in disorientation towards the railing surrounding the rink, practically throwing herself over it to land in a heap on the floor beyond. Looking up from that undignified position, she vaguely registered the sight of the nearby refreshment table, the crowd around it having partially dispersed. She didn't even get to her feet, instead crawling across the floor, barely avoiding bumping into anyone, not stopping until she was under the table, the heat from above partly radiating down.
That heat, vague as it was, was still a vast improvement over the cold Gaz had been bombarded with so far, and it provided a sense of relief. As that registered with her, Gaz collapsed, curling up into the fetal position, making sure to be careful with her injured leg. Now that the fog of cold and pain was clearing from her head, she could tell that the leg wasn't actually broken, but it was definitely banged up. Plus, she was sure that she'd lost at least a few patches of skin to the ice, and given the shudders running through her body, she wouldn't be surprised if she was starting to develop hypothermia.
This was so not worth it. Maybe she should make a break for the doors and leave, just give up on the pizza…
"No!" she shouted to herself, "I am not a quitter! And if I just leave now, all this was for nothing. No, I'm just going to sit here, where it's warm, and wait for the pizza. I'll grab some, it'll warm me up, and then I'll bolt. As for Iggins… he's not worth all this effort. I'll just doom him some other time, that's all."
With this shaky plan decided upon, Gaz pulled herself into a tighter ball, determined to conserve as much heat as she could. And as she laid there, she told herself to focus on what she was going to get out of this in the end, and reassured herself that at the very least, things couldn't possibly get any worse than they already had.
At some point in the future, she was going to curse herself for tempting fate like that.
XXXXXXX
Outside the building, storm clouds had gathered, and a strong wind was blowing through. And shambling through the park across the street was a hobo, drinking from a beer bottle in a paper bag. Finishing the bottle up, he tossed it towards a nearby recycling bin, only for it to miss and hit the ground. Frowning, he walked over to pick it up, and as he was bent over, he happened to glance over to the side, and saw something underneath a nearby bench.
"Huh? What's this?" he asked. Absentmindedly dumping the bottle in the bin, he walked over to the bench, and knelt down to get a better look at what he'd spotted. Seeing the pile of clothes stacked under a pair of boots, he arched an eyebrow, "Now who'd just leave all this stuff lying here? Hmm, I should probably leave it alone… but finders keepers, and I know the shelters pay for this kind of stuff. Heh, this is my lucky day."
Looking around quickly to make sure no one was watching, the hobo grabbed the clothes, even the boots, stuck them under an arm, and started running off. As he crossed the street, his rapid movements jiggled the coat, and the spell drive slipped out. It clattered to the asphalt below, but the hobo didn't even notice, continuing to run off.
And so, the spell drive was left lying there in the middle of the street.
XXXXXXX
Back inside the building, Gaz was still curled up underneath the table, feeling somewhat better. She was still cold, but she no longer felt like she was going to shake apart, and while her leg still hurt, she was now sure it wasn't broken, the knee was just twisted. And if anything, she was fairly certain that the cold was actually helping numb that particular pain, so that was actually an upside.
She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, but she perked up as she suddenly heard loudspeakers crackle to life and a voice ring out.
"Attention all guests," it said, "The Golden Pizza will be presented in five minutes. Please prepare yourselves."
And just like that, all of the weariness and pain drained away. Gaz scrambled out from under the table and got her feet. Ignoring the return of the cold air and making sure not to put too much weight on her damaged leg, she looked around to see what exactly was going on. Security guards were pushing everyone back in order to clear the space around the table, which was clearly where the pizza was going to be presented. And in this case, that meant that the invisibility was paying off again, as the guards couldn't see Gaz and push her away, leaving her in prime position for the coming feast.
"Finally, some good news," Gaz thought, "I'm getting the first dibs on this pizza that I deserve, and these idiots don't even realize they're giving it to me. Now I can just grab all I want… wait, how am I supposed to get it without them seeing it suddenly floating in the air?"
As that massive flaw in her plan occurred to her, Gaz froze in place, though she didn't have a chance to dwell on it. There was a suddenly rumbling noise, and spotlights flicked on, aimed at the ceiling as it spilt open. As everyone watched, a giant metal effigy of Bloaty's head was lowered to hover over the table. Its tongue swept out to brush aside everything still on the table, before it was settled on top. There was a hiss of compressed air being released, and the top half of the head was retracted back into the ceiling, leaving behind the lower half as a giant tray. And stacked on that tray…
"It's so beautiful," Gaz thought in awe, looking at the Golden Pizza. Dozens of pies, shining brightly, studded with gems that glinted in the light. The sight alone made her stomach growl, and the smell made her weak in the knees (well, in the knee that wasn't already messed up, anyway). She started limping towards it, deciding that she didn't care if people panicked at the sight of pizza slices being consumed by empty air; they'd probably just think it was a ghost or something.
But before she could close the short distance to the pizza, there was suddenly a loud pounding noise from behind her. Looking over her shoulder, Gaz had just enough time for her eyes to widen in panic before she found herself being run over by the crowd, which had stampeded past the guards. She was knocked to the floor, and found herself being trampled. She couldn't help but cry out in pain at each step taken on her, especially whenever her bum leg was hit, but no one seemed to notice those sounds anymore than they noticed the "odd lumps in the carpet" they had to run over to reach the pizza.
After a few moments that felt like an eternity, the trampling ended as the last of the guests passed by, leaving Gaz groaning on the floor. It took several minutes, but she was slowly able to get back to her feet, swaying unsteadily, before her eye twitched in rage and shock. The crowd, each and every single member of it, had surrounded the table, descending on the Golden Pizza like wolves. Soon, they parted, revealing a table that had apparently been picked clean.
"No… no, no no!" Gaz thought in panic, eyes sweeping over the table, "It can't all be gone, not after all this, it can't — Aha!"
Gaz's eyes lit up with hope as she saw a single slice of the Golden Pizza sitting off to the side of the table. Without hesitation, she began running towards it, ignoring the pain in her leg at the sudden movement, desperate as she was to reach her prize. Finally, after what seemed far too long, she reached the table… and then her leg spasmed as the muscles seized up in protest, and she tripped over her own feet, sending her tumbling forward. She collapsed onto the table, and the sudden weight caused its own legs to give out on that side. The opposite end of the table shot up like a catapult, sending the last slice of the Golden Pizza shooting through the air. Gaz spun around to watch it go, and could only look on in horror as it landed on Iggins' plate.
He blinked in surprise, but shrugged, and happily began devouring the slice, while Gaz could only stare, totally frozen, suddenly very much aware once more of the cold and pain permeating her body. Which had all been inflicted on her for a prize that she had just let slip totally between her fingers.
"This… all of it… all for nothing," she thought numbly, before rage consumed her, hands clenching and lips pulling back from her teeth in a snarl, "No! This can't just happen! Not to me! This is the kind of crap that happens to idiots like Dib, not me! …Dib, this is all his fault! If he hadn't left his stupid spell out, I never would have used, I wouldn't have gone through all of this for no reason! I am going to kill him for this! And then Iggins for getting what should have been mine! And, and Bloaty's for having this stupid contest and not just giving me what I deserve! I'll fucking kill them all!"
As Gaz mentally ranted, she started standing back up from where she was still collapsed against the table, already planning to deliver her misplaced retribution on everyone in her path.
But that was when Murphy's Law chose to intervene.
XXXXXXX
Back outside, the spell drive was still lying on the street. Normally, someone would see such a moderately-sized object lying in the middle of the road and removed it, but it was dark out, and it had started to rain, further limiting visibility. As such, the driver of the car barreling down the street never saw the spell drive, not even as his car ran it right over, smashing it to pieces.
As for the flash of light that followed this, the driver just assumed it was lightning and drove on, never realizing the consequences of what he'd just done.
XXXXXXX
Back inside the building, Gaz had just gotten to her feet, when there was a flash of light. As she tried to blink the resulting spots from her vision, she heard a series of surprised gasps. Vision clearing, she looked around, and was suddenly gripped with a sharp dread as she realized that had everyone had surprised looks on their faces… and were all looking right at her.
"Oh, no," was the only thought that came to her, as the whole crowd burst into uproarious laughter.
"Holy crap!" someone exclaimed, "Where'd the naked chick come from?"
"Look how flat she is!" someone else sneered, "Are we sure that's not a dude?"
"Nah, that's definitely a girl, she's just really ugly," someone else commented nastily.
As those painful comments and more flew at her, Gaz could only pathetically wrap her arms around herself in a too-late attempt at concealment, while her face burned bright red. And that blush of humiliation only grew as she saw Iggins had whipped out his phone, and was pointing its camera at her.
"Ha! I don't know how you got in here or why you decided to streak, but thanks for the ammo!" he laughed, "Once this gets on the forums, no one's ever gonna let you live it down! You'll never be taken seriously as a gamer or anything else ever again!"
Really, Gaz thought, it was almost a mercy when, not long after this, the security guards tackled her. She was in too much shock from what had happened to fight back, and she soon found herself being carried out the front doors of the building and being thrown straight across the street back into the park.
"And stay out, you pervert!" she heard someone yell, "In fact, stay out of all our restaurants! Bloaty's isn't for your kind! You're banned for life!"
She heard the doors slam shut after that, but it didn't really register. Gaz just lay there in the dirt, rain falling around her, as her mind skipped like a broken record, trying to process all that had just happened to her.
Banned. She'd just been banned from her favorite restaurant. After being seen naked and mocked by dozens of strangers. And her nemesis had recorded the whole thing, meaning that her reputation would soon be totally destroyed. She'd never be feared or respected ever again.
As the rain died down almost as quickly as it had started, Gaz got to her feet and, almost on autopilot, stumbled to her feet and limped over to the bench she'd left her clothes under, only to stop short as she saw they were all gone.
"Oh, that figures," she said numbly. Then, she started limping away in the direction of her home, not even bothering to cover herself. What was the point, she thought, when people had already seen her and the whole Internet would as well soon enough? And look, there were more people on the sidewalk whom she was passing by, staring, laughing, pulling out their phones. But really, who cared? After all she'd been through, and she didn't even get her pizza, all because of Dib's stupid spell.
That thought, that vengeful goal she was giving herself, it was the sole thing her shocked mind could focus on — until the sudden sound of sirens filled the air, and a police cruiser roared to a stop next to her, an officer jumping out and aiming a taser at her.
"Freeze, perv!" the officer shouted.
"Wha…?" was all Gaz could muster, before the taser fired, and she fell to a twitching mess on the sidewalk.
"You're under arrest for indecent exposure," the cop snarled, as his partner stepped out of the car, holding a blanket. Soon, a weakly protesting Gaz was wrapped in it, her hands were cuffed behind her back, and she was tossed in the back of the cruiser. The cops then got back in and sped off.
Just as the cop car zoomed off, Dib rounded the corner. He was slightly singed, for some reason had feathers stuck in his hair, and was holding his trench coat tightly closed for protection from the clearing storm. He blinked as he watched the police cruiser disappear down the street.
"Um, excuse me?" he asked someone walking by, "What just happened?"
"Eh, some ugly guy was streaking, so the cops arrested him," the man responded, snorting in disgust, "I swear, this city…"
Dib grimaced at the mental images that answer conjured, but shrugged it off and kept walking home. As he did, he wondered if Gaz had ever gotten back, completely unaware of what had happened to her that night, or that she'd soon be facing trial for indecent exposure, breaking into private property, and "being too ugly in public".
But that's a story for another time.
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The End
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A/N: And done. CC, hope you enjoyed it, and that everyone else did as well.
I also apologize to anyone who might take offense as what may have seemed like bashing of nontraditional standards of beauty, but the outline called for an excuse to mock Gaz other than just nudity.
Please review!