So, in order to try and break my writer's block, I've decided to start up a collection of story ideas I've had that aren't thought out enough to be posted on their own as full stories (or even as oneshots). I figure if I write a couple of these, it'll get my creative juices flowing enough that I can finally finish the next chapter of GA (plus, I've always wanted to do a collection).
Anyway, this first idea is based on a couple of pics I found on DA last year; only one of them got an accompanying story, and I felt it could have been written better. This isn't my attempt at a replacement story; the basic idea is just based on the same basic idea of those pics.
Read on!
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Scrap #1: A Change Of Loyalties
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Zim tapped the fingers on one hand against his armrest angrily, while the other held a compress against the rather large bruise forming under one eye. One nearly broken antenna twitched, partially in pain, and partially in anger as he remembered what happened.
He had decided to get back at Dib for all the times the large-headed dirt monkey had broken into his base and spied on him, by giving him a taste of his own medicine. During a time when Zim knew Dib would be out of the house at a meeting of the "Swollen Eyelids" or whatever they were called, Zim and his robots had stealthily broken down the front door of the Membrane house and entered, in order to plant spying devices of their own. Unfortunately, Zim had made one of his very rare mistakes: he had forgotten about Dib's sister.
Gaz had been in the house when Zim had broken in, and he had apparently made enough noise to distract her from her game… or maybe it was the door being thrown across the room and knocking the Game Slave out of her hands that had done it. Zim wasn't sure. What he was sure of, however, was that Gaz had been very angry with him.
Zim had honestly put up a good fight, but Gaz had a distinct height advantage (she'd grown enough over the past three-and-a-half years to stand almost a full head taller than Zim), and she was remarkably fast and strong for a human in her age group – especially one who didn't work out or even exercise, so far as he knew. Zim didn't even remember most of the short fight, and the next thing he knew he had regained consciousness on the sidewalk outside with Minimoose stuffed in his mouth and GIR in pieces around him (not that GIR seemed to mind).
After picking up the pieces, Zim had decided to temporarily abandon his spying plans and had limped home. Now, he was wallowing in anger while he waited for his wounds to heal.
"Stupid dirt monkey witch," he muttered, "When I'm done with the Dib-Stink, I will make her pay."
"Yeah, good luck with that," the computer commented.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Zim hissed.
"Even if you do somehow beat Dib – and that's a pretty big if – then if you try and go after Gaz she'll probably just beat you senseless again."
"You dare mock Zim's combat abilities? !" Zim screeched, "That pig-smelly may have gotten lucky this one time, but-"
"One time?" the computer asked, sounding incredulous, "Master, I think you're forgetting the time you captured Dib and were going to turn him inside out, only for Gaz to show up, break him out, and then kick your c'horta all over the place."
"…Oh, yeah, forgot about that," Zim muttered, cheeks flushing in embarrassment as he remembered that particular incident.
"Squeak!" Minimoose added from his spot on the other side of the room, where he was helping put GIR back together.
"How would you know? ! I hadn't even built you yet!" Zim snapped at the floating WMD.
"And then there was that time she trashed that robot duplicate of Dib you built," the computer continued, "Or that other time-"
"SILENCE!" Zim shouted, a nearby screen cracking from the volume.
A few moments of quiet followed, before the computer dared to speak up again.
"I'm just saying, why do you make such a big deal about Dib when his sister is obviously such a bigger threat?" it asked.
"First of all, no female is superior to Zim!" the irate Irken snapped.
"I didn't use the word 'superior'," the computer said.
"And secondly," Zim continued, ignoring the computer, "Dib is the bigger threat! The Gaz-Witch is too apathetic to be a threat. She never uses her abilities except when it involves her."
"Squeak!"
"Oh, and when the Dib-Worm annoys her. Good point, Minimoose."
"Hmm, maybe you can get her to get rid of Dib for you?" the computer asked with a laugh, "You know, save you all that hard work?"
Zim opened his mouth, probably to shout again, but then his mouth shut and a faraway look came over his face. A few moments later, a smirk crossed his lips and he began laughing.
"Why Master laughing so much?" GIR asked, speaking up for the first time during the conversation (mostly because Minimoose had just managed to fix his voice box).
"That's brilliant computer!" Zim shouted, "It's about time being programmed by the genius brain-meats of Zim kicked in and allowed you to come up with a good idea."
"…What?" the computer asked, completely confused.
"What you just said," Zim said with a wave of his hand, "I'll get the Gaz-Human and her skills working for me – her strength combined with the Zim genius of Zim shall make me unstoppable!"
"I was being sarcastic," the computer began to say, only to get interrupted by Zim's maniacal laughter at his "genius" plan.
"This isn't going to end well, is it?" the computer asked Minimoose.
"Squeak!"
"Yeah, that's what I thought," the computer said with a sigh.
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Four days later, Gaz was playing her Game Slave while sitting on the couch in her empty house; the house of course being empty due to the fact that Gaz had still been angry when Dib had returned from that Swollen Eyeball meeting yammering on about some recently captured Australian Chupacabra or something. Needless to say, he was now in the hospital with a broken leg and several fractured ribs.
Gaz smirked a little at that, but it morphed into a frown as someone knocked on the recently repaired front door. There was no way the pizza she'd just ordered was here already (as scared of her as the delivery service was, even they couldn't get to her house in less than four minutes), and it wasn't like she or Dib had any friends, so who was that?
Pausing her game and muttering threats to whoever was interrupting her, Gaz got to her feet and marched over to the door. Tacking a moment to crack her knuckles in anticipation of the pain she was about to inflict on whoever was on the other side of the door, the teenaged Goth then grabbed the doorknob and opened the door so fast it nearly popped off its poorly repaired hinges.
"Hi!"
"Squeak!"
Gaz paused and raised an eyebrow at GIR, standing on the doorstep in his stupid dog costume, and Minimoose, who was floating in front of her in his even stupider airplane costume. She groaned and crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance.
"Great, it's two-thirds of the alien moron squad," she grunted, "I thought I wouldn't have to deal with you idiots again so soon. What do you want?"
GIR opened his mouth, but nothing came out. A few seconds later, he shut his mouth and looked up at Minimoose with a confused expression.
"I forgot. What're we supposed to do again?" he asked, earning another groan from Gaz.
"Squeak!"
"Oh yeah. Now I remember!" GIR said happily. He then turned back to Gaz and opened his mouth again – and a cloud of aerosol-form chloroform was shot straight into her face.
Gagging in surprise, Gaz stumbled back, attempting to wave the gas out of her face. Unfortunately for her, the chloroform was already kicking in; her vision began darkening as she started swaying on her feet, and before she could even form a coherent threat, her legs gave out and she collapsed, blacking out as she hit the floor.
GIR gave a cheer as Minimoose launched a net from his antlers, which quickly wrapped around Gaz's prone body. The two robots then began making their way back towards Zim's base, dragging the unconscious teenager with them… naturally, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary.
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Gaz groaned as consciousness slowly returned to her. Blinking to clear her blurry vision, she attempted to raise a hand to rub her throbbing forehead, only to find that she couldn't lift her arm. Confusion, frustration, and the subsequent anger brought her fully back to awareness, and she lifted her head to see what was going on.
She was lying on a metal table, cuffs locked around her wrists and ankles, pinning her in place. Judging by the machinery she could see around her, and the sudden memory of Zim's robots attacking her, she figured she must be in his lab.
"Zim!" she shouted, "Get your ass down here!"
A few minutes later, Zim's trademark evil laugh reached Gaz's ears as the Invader stepped out of the shadows and into her sight.
"Ah, hello Gaz-Slave," he greeted with a sneer, "Glad to see you're awake."
"I'm not you're fucking slave," Gaz snarled, "Now let me go or I'll-"
"Yes, yes, you'll 'send me into a nightmare world', blah, blah, blah," Zim interrupted dismissively, "You're hardly in a position to be threatening anyone, human."
"When I get out of here…" Gaz hissed, only to be cut off again.
"By the time you get out of here, Gaz-Human, your only thought will be to serve the glory of Zim and the Irken Empire."
That gave Gaz pause, and she raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asked.
Grinning nastily, Zim reached for something behind Gaz that she couldn't see, and when he came back into her sight he was holding a large helmet with a visor over where the eyes would be and a series of wires trailing out of the back and out of view.
"What's that supposed to be? Creative headwear?"
"Funny," Zim said dryly, "Zim is going to miss your sarcasm human… actually, no I'm not.
"As for your question, it's simple really. This helmet is connected to a machine that is going to reprogram you. Your ruthlessness and hatred for your fellow worm-babies is now going to work for me."
"You're going to brainwash me?" Gaz asked, too stunned to be properly angry for a moment, before her rage kicked in and she began struggling anew against the cuffs.
"Keep your stupid machine away from me you space freak! I'm nobody's slave! And when I get out of here, I'm going to tear you apart limb by freaking limb!"
Zim ignored her, holding onto the helmet with one hand as the other reached into a compartment of his PAK and pulled out a rag. He shoved it onto the struggling Gaz's mouth and nose, and the smell of chloroform overwhelmed her again as she once again blacked out.
Smirking at the sight before him, Zim tossed the rag aside and lowered the helmet onto Gaz's head, positioning it so that the visor and audio receptors were securely over her eyes and ears. He then flicked a switch just above the visor, causing several small robot arms on the interior of the helmet to activate. They quickly grabbed hold of her eyelids, prying them open and leaving her eyes vulnerable to the subliminal messaging she would receive while asleep.
"Computer, begin," he ordered.
In response, the reconditioning machine activated with a hum, and Gaz's body started thrashing as her subconscious attempted to fight off the alien brainwashing. Unfortunately, while Gaz's mind was as tough as she was physically, it was still no match for Zim's machine. Within minutes, every memory Gaz had, her entire personality, everything that made her who she was, was completely erased.
Zim smirked as Gaz slumped into a prone state, the limbs that had been straining against the cuffs going limp. That was the sign he'd been waiting for; the device had finished stage one of the process, and wiped all of Gaz's memories. She was now a blank slate. All he had to do now was transplant into her mind all the knowledge that would be needed to establish her new identity.
With a flick of one of his fingers on the control panel, the machine entered stage two. The visor over Gaz's blank eyes began flickering as information flashed across it – had Gaz been self-aware at the moment, she wouldn't have been able to identify what she was seeing due to the speed at which it was moving. However, in actuality this part of the system was similar to the flash-training programs Irkens received in their youths; the information could not be discerned now, but in the future Gaz would be able to recall it perfectly and at will. This particular information being the most advanced combat skills known to the Irken Empire; combined with Gaz's natural fighting instincts (which Zim had programmed the machine to spare), she'd be unstoppable.
As the information played across the screen, a message began playing through the speakers built into the helmet. Normally, Gaz would be strong-willed enough to withstand this stage of the process, but with her mind wiped, she was defenseless as the Irken technology began warping her mind and building her new personality.
"You are not an individual," the computerized voice spoke into her ears, "You are a servant of the Irken Empire; you exist only to serve your superiors. You have no ambitions of your own, you have no desires of your own, you want nothing other than to carry out your orders. It is the only thing that brings you joy; when you have no orders to carry out, you will do nothing but await further orders.
"You are not a human being, and you have never been a human being. You are an Irken Biological Infiltration Unit. You were designed to match the appearance and biology of a human so as to hide amongst them, but you are a living Irken weapon. You exist only to help in the conquest of the planet designated: Earth. You are assigned to Irken Invader Zim, he is your superior and you will follow his orders without question.
"Invader Zim has had your appearance modeled after the human designated: Gaz Membrane, sibling unit to Primary Mission Threat: Dib Membrane, for use of psychological warfare against him. You are not Gaz Membrane, and have never been. If anyone addresses you as such, it will have no affect on you, and you shall ignore them.
"When Earth has been conquered, Invader Zim will decide your future assignment, and if he deems you no longer necessary for the service of the Empire, he shall terminate you. You shall accept such a fate without resistance, as you will no longer have a purpose.
"You shall obey. You shall obey. You shall obey…"
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Zim chuckled to himself as he sat in his command chair, looking at his new servant, who was standing almost lifelessly in the middle of the room.
Gaz now wore an impenetrable skintight bodysuit, over which was a set of battle armor. The main piece covered everything from her lower thighs to her shoulders, with the Invader symbol painted on the front. Pads covered her knees, with additional armor in the front spreading up and down, forming a shield for the sections of her legs that were unarmored for mobility. She had combat boots on her feet, heavy-duty ones with steel-tipped toes and short-range jets attached to the heels.
Her arms had a similar setup; shield armor spread out from her shoulders and from the elbow guards, protecting her upper arms while her gauntlets stretched to just short of her elbows. These gauntlets allowed for increased strength, and also had weapons hidden in the wrists… thought her main weapon was now the blaster rifle the size of her arm currently strapped to her back.
She was also wearing a helmet of the same design as the one that had been used by the reconditioning machine. The reason for this was, on the extremely off chance that something caused a relapse to her original personality, the visor or the audio speakers would automatically readjust her. Those features would also allow the helmet to serve as a control mechanism, and even now were keeping Gaz in the trance state she'd been in since she'd had her memories wiped; Zim had had the computer dress her in the suit before he woke her up, so as to further reinforce the illusion that she was in fact an Irken soldier/weapon.
Deciding that he'd been building up to it enough, Zim pressed a button on his armrest console. Something flickered across the helmet's visor, and Gaz blinked once as the blank look faded away from her face – however, instead of the detached, almost apathetic look she usually had, it was instead replaced by a look of cold, logical determination. Noticing Zim seated in front of her, she instantly snapped to attention and brought her right hand up in a salute.
"Irken Biological Infiltration Unit G-Alpha-Zero-1, reporting for duty, sir!" she said in a slight monotone.
Zim smirked at that; it was so satisfying to see the once dominating girl reduced to a drone just waiting to be ordered.
"State your mission," he ordered briskly.
"To aid you in your conquest of the planet designated Earth by using my physical similarities to the dominant species to gather information. And in times when it is necessary, I shall use all skills available to me to combat any and all threats, even if it means sacrificing my own life to protect yours," Gaz… or rather, the being who had once been Gaz, rattled off in that same monotone, making Zim's smirk widen even more.
Yes, this was going to work out just fine…
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A/N: Well, this turned out longer than I thought it would, but it's still not enough for a full story – this is as far as I've thought out this plot. I haven't been able to decide what direction to take it past this point: does Gaz somehow break free and hoist Zim by his own petard, or does she stay brainwashed and help him take over? If I ever decide, I might post this separately and continue it.
In the meantime, I might get another scrap/oneshot out before the next GA chapter, but in any case, please read and review!