Chapter One: Is this just fantasy?
This is an out-of-nowhere kind of fic. Don't like it, say so. I'll be sure to dip you in acid and dump hot sauce on what's left. If you like it, let me know and I'll continue.
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"You'll never get away with this, Zim! I'm really going to reveal you to the Earth authorities this time! They'll put my name on every last jar that contains your organs!"
Having been shouting nonsense such as this for well near ten minutes, Dib resumed banging on Zim's front door. The sky was dark and the streetlights buzzed in the background, a firefly or two lazily ghosting past Dib's face. Inside on the couch, Zim sighed and shook his head. Would the pathetic wormbaby ever learn?
The two had been so-called 'mortal enemies' for nearly three years now, and had just started their junior year in high school. Strangely enough, though, neither had been killed yet, and Zim had yet to find himself strapped to an autopsy table as promised. Dib was still the geeky, scrawny boy he always had been. Though, he had grown a little taller, and had taken to keeping his 'outrageous nonsense' to himself while around the other children.
Zim had grown somewhat as well, though he had picked up a new nickname from his classmates. 'Stumpy', they so fondly called him. Shuddering at the thought, Zim hopped off the couch and peered out the window at the now cursing Dib.
Outside, it had begun to rain.
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"God dammit, will you two hurry up?!"
Snapping impatiently at the two dancing figures on the Para Para Paradise machines, the brunette girl sighed in sheer annoyance. These morons had been occupying the damned machines for well over fifteen minutes!
...Okay, so it was nearly the arcade's closing time, and they were three of the only six or seven remaining in the arcade. What did it matter?!
"...Stupid wormbabies.. " Mumbled the girl, quoting one of her favorite Zim characters. Tugging lightly at the sleeves of her trenchcoat, she finally decided that right then, she'd much rather be home watching Invader Zim. The show was, after all, her new obsession. She owned all kinds of useless yet still priceless merchandise, countless recorded episodes, and music from the show (courtesy of Kazaa).
Yet here she was on a Friday night, actually out of her house and attempting to have some physical fun, and these losers were killing it! Mumbling, she folded her arms.
One of the two on the machines, a lanky boy, turned to sneer at her, ignoring all the targets he was missing on the screen. Sticking one arm out and under one of the sensors through the cylinder-shaped console, he made a grand display of flipping her the bird before waving his arm around under the flashing sensors in an attempt to rebuild his score.
His partner, oblivious, was busy cursing the machine for no apparent reason. He, too, was waving his arms about uselessly, attempting to hit targets. His main problem was that his arms were too short, and he wasn't close enough to the machine. So now, his life meter was dangerously low, and he was annoying the hell out of the girl behind them.
Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance.
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Whipping out a glowing, blinking apparatus that looked somewhat similar to a television remote, Dib stuck his tongue out of one side of his mouth in concentration. Immediately he set to work jabbing buttons upon it in an attempt to unlock Zim's front door. After a few moments of fruitless efforts and some sizzling from the now wet controller, Dib lashed out with one foot and kicked the door with a curse.
He found himself blinking stupidly, face to face with Zim, when it swung open. Zim's mouth dropped open, and his eyes immediately landed upon the still blinking metal box, one antennae-like thing upon it pointed coincidentially right at his chest.
"AAH! You've come to murder me!" Zim screeched, and made a mad dive for Dib and the controller. Oomphing as he was knocked flat on his back into a still-growing puddle, Dib tried to shove Zim off while at the same time pry his hands from the glowing thing. The two cursed at each other, rolling around and trying their damndest to end up on top, therefore victorious.
Finally able to pin Zim to the ground, Dib panted hard. Now there was only the matter of getting the thing out of Zim's greedy little claws. Zim glared knives and daggers, trying to clutch it to his chest and bite at Dib's fingers when they came near. Grabbing onto the box and tugging, Dib resumed his cursefest.
Above them, an ear-splitting crack resounded, and a moment after, they were both illuminated by a flash of lightning. Only, this particular lightning bolt found it's way to the wet metal box; and in this, the two drenched boys.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by a strange blue light as the pain of the jolt tore through them. Dib managing to keep his eyes open, he screamed as he watched the world around them fade to something different...
*************************************************************************************************
Able to hear the deafening thunder over the roar of the still-running arcade games, the brunette tapped her foot impatiently. The two had by now stopped playing and were just standing there atop the platform, grinning at her as if daring her to try and say something. But she didn't, just gave them hateful blue-eyed glares.
Suddenly, from the nearby window, she found herself temporarily blinded by a supernova-worthy lightning flash. The lights flickered for a moment, and as perhaps half the power went out with an unnerving mechanical sound, she realized the place must have been struck by lightning. Glancing back to the Para machines, her jaw dropped.
All around the outside barriers of the twin consoles were visible lines of blue electricity, dancing about and trapping the two wide-eyed gamers. For some reason, they seemed.. transparent. After a brief moment, the girl realized that they were vanishing, slowly but surely, right before her very eyes. Unable to decide whether to help them or not, she simply stood, watching as the two forms were replaced with two new ones.
Standing on the left console, Zim shook himself off and looked around. His eyes growing wide, he stumbled backwards and into the main part of the console, breathing hard and fast.
"What is this dimension of blinky lights that has swallowed ZIM?! Where is the pathetic Dib-human?! ...Who are you?!" All of this declared in one breath, Zim stared hard at the still open-mouthed girl. The girl looked as though she'd just seen one of those dead-humans... What did they call them... Oh, yes. Ghosts. She looked like she'd seen one, and raised a hand to point shakily at him, then to his left.
Dib was also staring open-mouthed, but not staring at one thing in particular. The whole place seemed so much more.. proportionate.. and.. in-depth! Already calculating what could have happened, Dib swallowed hard and turned to look at Zim. Zim, who was already staring at Dib, thought for a moment before declaring, "YOU! This is YOUR FAULT! If you hadn't brought that.. thingymajig... to try and destroy me, we wouldn't be... wherever we are!"
The girl's head hurt badly by now, from hearing the actual Zim's high-pitched yell. Studying them for a moment, her first thought was, 'Wow.. They're taller than they look..!', before this was replaced with enormous wonder and curiosity. Unable to help herself, she stepped forward and towards Dib, hand still out so she could make sure..
She poked him. Once. Twice. Three times, before realization dawned.
"Oh.. my... God... You two are actually standing here... I'm not dreaming..!" Slowly, an almost insane-looking grin spread across her features. Her eyes had lit up, and both Zim and Dib found themselves taking a step or two away.
"Eh... Humanoid scum! You will tell the mighty-"
"You're Zim! And.. and... you're Dib! There's a real Irken soldier standing right there! Ohmygod!" The girl exclaimed, cutting him off before he could even say his name. Clasping her hands together in either joy, thankfulness, or devious plotting, she blinked at them both.
"Yes, yes, I am Zim, the mighty Irken... wait... How do you know our names?!" Zim demanded, pointing a finger accusingly at the girl, whose jaw dropped again.
"I know everything about you both... You're.. well.. cartoon characters! And.. how are you both standing there..?!" She counter-demanded, returning the fingerpoint at them both.
Dib opened his mouth to say something, but Zim interjected, "The great and powerful Zim, a mere... cartoon?! What mockery is this?!"
Dib finally found something to say.
"Zim, cut with the high and mighty act. We're not in our own dimension anymore." Sighing and rubbing his temples, Dib slowly stepped down off the platform, testing the tile floor as though it might fall through. Zim repeated the act, looking around warily.
Dib swallowed hard and spoke again.
"Let me get this straight.. Zim and I are... cartoon characters. "
"Uh-huh."
"And that means we don't actually exist."
"Well, obviously you do.." She reached out and poked him again, just for good measure, giving Zim a sidelong glance. Zim looked as though he wanted to add in something more about his own 'mightiness', but refrained, staring hard at the two.
"So what.. what do we do? I don't know how we're supposed to get back.." Dib's solemnly spoken words were followed by an ominous flash of lightning, illuminating the mostly dark room.
Zim's eyes got horrendously wide at this.
"If we're here.. Gir's still running my base.."
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Squealing in excitement, Gir plopped down in front of a large, inviting-looking console, staring longingly at all the pretty buttons. Having shed his doggie-suit for the evening, he clicked his robot fingers together, tongue halfway out. He knew Master had said not to touch.. but... he wanted to make techno music!
Reaching out, he jammed five or six of the buttons down, screaming with delight at the harmonious beeping that ensued.
Beginning to press buttons all over the place, Gir was oblivious to the large screen in front of him that began to flash, "ERROR - SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED. COUNTDOWN: 1:00:00", and slowly counted its way down from the hour..
"I'M MAKIN' TECHNO!"
....
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Zim dropped to his knees on the cold tile, only able to imagine what kind of chaos would ensue now that Gir was alone in his base. Gnawing on his lower lip, he vaguely realized that he wasn't even wearing his earthenoid disguise.
Dib watched Zim curiously for a moment before looking helplessly back at the girl. Thinking frantically for a brief minute, the girl let her shoulders slump, diving after the only thing she could think of.
"My name is Jin, and I'll be your hostess for the evening.." She mumbled, sighing deeply and pointing out the window to a beat-up Geo Prizm.
"Let's get the hell out of here..."
*************************************************************************************************
Standing outside Zim's base, two teenage boys were busy examining themselves through frightened eyes. Both had been silent except for a few random squeaky noises for several minutes now, and finally, one of them found the brains to speak.
"Dude... we're cartoon characters!"
Around them, it continued to pour.
**************************************************************************************************
Yay! First chapter done... If you don't know what Para Para Paradise is, look it up. It's like DDR, but with your hands. You move your hands under the sensors instead of hitting them. Whee!
This is an out-of-nowhere kind of fic. Don't like it, say so. I'll be sure to dip you in acid and dump hot sauce on what's left. If you like it, let me know and I'll continue.
*************************************************************************************************
"You'll never get away with this, Zim! I'm really going to reveal you to the Earth authorities this time! They'll put my name on every last jar that contains your organs!"
Having been shouting nonsense such as this for well near ten minutes, Dib resumed banging on Zim's front door. The sky was dark and the streetlights buzzed in the background, a firefly or two lazily ghosting past Dib's face. Inside on the couch, Zim sighed and shook his head. Would the pathetic wormbaby ever learn?
The two had been so-called 'mortal enemies' for nearly three years now, and had just started their junior year in high school. Strangely enough, though, neither had been killed yet, and Zim had yet to find himself strapped to an autopsy table as promised. Dib was still the geeky, scrawny boy he always had been. Though, he had grown a little taller, and had taken to keeping his 'outrageous nonsense' to himself while around the other children.
Zim had grown somewhat as well, though he had picked up a new nickname from his classmates. 'Stumpy', they so fondly called him. Shuddering at the thought, Zim hopped off the couch and peered out the window at the now cursing Dib.
Outside, it had begun to rain.
*************************************************************************************************
"God dammit, will you two hurry up?!"
Snapping impatiently at the two dancing figures on the Para Para Paradise machines, the brunette girl sighed in sheer annoyance. These morons had been occupying the damned machines for well over fifteen minutes!
...Okay, so it was nearly the arcade's closing time, and they were three of the only six or seven remaining in the arcade. What did it matter?!
"...Stupid wormbabies.. " Mumbled the girl, quoting one of her favorite Zim characters. Tugging lightly at the sleeves of her trenchcoat, she finally decided that right then, she'd much rather be home watching Invader Zim. The show was, after all, her new obsession. She owned all kinds of useless yet still priceless merchandise, countless recorded episodes, and music from the show (courtesy of Kazaa).
Yet here she was on a Friday night, actually out of her house and attempting to have some physical fun, and these losers were killing it! Mumbling, she folded her arms.
One of the two on the machines, a lanky boy, turned to sneer at her, ignoring all the targets he was missing on the screen. Sticking one arm out and under one of the sensors through the cylinder-shaped console, he made a grand display of flipping her the bird before waving his arm around under the flashing sensors in an attempt to rebuild his score.
His partner, oblivious, was busy cursing the machine for no apparent reason. He, too, was waving his arms about uselessly, attempting to hit targets. His main problem was that his arms were too short, and he wasn't close enough to the machine. So now, his life meter was dangerously low, and he was annoying the hell out of the girl behind them.
Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance.
*************************************************************************************************
Whipping out a glowing, blinking apparatus that looked somewhat similar to a television remote, Dib stuck his tongue out of one side of his mouth in concentration. Immediately he set to work jabbing buttons upon it in an attempt to unlock Zim's front door. After a few moments of fruitless efforts and some sizzling from the now wet controller, Dib lashed out with one foot and kicked the door with a curse.
He found himself blinking stupidly, face to face with Zim, when it swung open. Zim's mouth dropped open, and his eyes immediately landed upon the still blinking metal box, one antennae-like thing upon it pointed coincidentially right at his chest.
"AAH! You've come to murder me!" Zim screeched, and made a mad dive for Dib and the controller. Oomphing as he was knocked flat on his back into a still-growing puddle, Dib tried to shove Zim off while at the same time pry his hands from the glowing thing. The two cursed at each other, rolling around and trying their damndest to end up on top, therefore victorious.
Finally able to pin Zim to the ground, Dib panted hard. Now there was only the matter of getting the thing out of Zim's greedy little claws. Zim glared knives and daggers, trying to clutch it to his chest and bite at Dib's fingers when they came near. Grabbing onto the box and tugging, Dib resumed his cursefest.
Above them, an ear-splitting crack resounded, and a moment after, they were both illuminated by a flash of lightning. Only, this particular lightning bolt found it's way to the wet metal box; and in this, the two drenched boys.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by a strange blue light as the pain of the jolt tore through them. Dib managing to keep his eyes open, he screamed as he watched the world around them fade to something different...
*************************************************************************************************
Able to hear the deafening thunder over the roar of the still-running arcade games, the brunette tapped her foot impatiently. The two had by now stopped playing and were just standing there atop the platform, grinning at her as if daring her to try and say something. But she didn't, just gave them hateful blue-eyed glares.
Suddenly, from the nearby window, she found herself temporarily blinded by a supernova-worthy lightning flash. The lights flickered for a moment, and as perhaps half the power went out with an unnerving mechanical sound, she realized the place must have been struck by lightning. Glancing back to the Para machines, her jaw dropped.
All around the outside barriers of the twin consoles were visible lines of blue electricity, dancing about and trapping the two wide-eyed gamers. For some reason, they seemed.. transparent. After a brief moment, the girl realized that they were vanishing, slowly but surely, right before her very eyes. Unable to decide whether to help them or not, she simply stood, watching as the two forms were replaced with two new ones.
Standing on the left console, Zim shook himself off and looked around. His eyes growing wide, he stumbled backwards and into the main part of the console, breathing hard and fast.
"What is this dimension of blinky lights that has swallowed ZIM?! Where is the pathetic Dib-human?! ...Who are you?!" All of this declared in one breath, Zim stared hard at the still open-mouthed girl. The girl looked as though she'd just seen one of those dead-humans... What did they call them... Oh, yes. Ghosts. She looked like she'd seen one, and raised a hand to point shakily at him, then to his left.
Dib was also staring open-mouthed, but not staring at one thing in particular. The whole place seemed so much more.. proportionate.. and.. in-depth! Already calculating what could have happened, Dib swallowed hard and turned to look at Zim. Zim, who was already staring at Dib, thought for a moment before declaring, "YOU! This is YOUR FAULT! If you hadn't brought that.. thingymajig... to try and destroy me, we wouldn't be... wherever we are!"
The girl's head hurt badly by now, from hearing the actual Zim's high-pitched yell. Studying them for a moment, her first thought was, 'Wow.. They're taller than they look..!', before this was replaced with enormous wonder and curiosity. Unable to help herself, she stepped forward and towards Dib, hand still out so she could make sure..
She poked him. Once. Twice. Three times, before realization dawned.
"Oh.. my... God... You two are actually standing here... I'm not dreaming..!" Slowly, an almost insane-looking grin spread across her features. Her eyes had lit up, and both Zim and Dib found themselves taking a step or two away.
"Eh... Humanoid scum! You will tell the mighty-"
"You're Zim! And.. and... you're Dib! There's a real Irken soldier standing right there! Ohmygod!" The girl exclaimed, cutting him off before he could even say his name. Clasping her hands together in either joy, thankfulness, or devious plotting, she blinked at them both.
"Yes, yes, I am Zim, the mighty Irken... wait... How do you know our names?!" Zim demanded, pointing a finger accusingly at the girl, whose jaw dropped again.
"I know everything about you both... You're.. well.. cartoon characters! And.. how are you both standing there..?!" She counter-demanded, returning the fingerpoint at them both.
Dib opened his mouth to say something, but Zim interjected, "The great and powerful Zim, a mere... cartoon?! What mockery is this?!"
Dib finally found something to say.
"Zim, cut with the high and mighty act. We're not in our own dimension anymore." Sighing and rubbing his temples, Dib slowly stepped down off the platform, testing the tile floor as though it might fall through. Zim repeated the act, looking around warily.
Dib swallowed hard and spoke again.
"Let me get this straight.. Zim and I are... cartoon characters. "
"Uh-huh."
"And that means we don't actually exist."
"Well, obviously you do.." She reached out and poked him again, just for good measure, giving Zim a sidelong glance. Zim looked as though he wanted to add in something more about his own 'mightiness', but refrained, staring hard at the two.
"So what.. what do we do? I don't know how we're supposed to get back.." Dib's solemnly spoken words were followed by an ominous flash of lightning, illuminating the mostly dark room.
Zim's eyes got horrendously wide at this.
"If we're here.. Gir's still running my base.."
*************************************************************************************************
Squealing in excitement, Gir plopped down in front of a large, inviting-looking console, staring longingly at all the pretty buttons. Having shed his doggie-suit for the evening, he clicked his robot fingers together, tongue halfway out. He knew Master had said not to touch.. but... he wanted to make techno music!
Reaching out, he jammed five or six of the buttons down, screaming with delight at the harmonious beeping that ensued.
Beginning to press buttons all over the place, Gir was oblivious to the large screen in front of him that began to flash, "ERROR - SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED. COUNTDOWN: 1:00:00", and slowly counted its way down from the hour..
"I'M MAKIN' TECHNO!"
....
*************************************************************************************************
Zim dropped to his knees on the cold tile, only able to imagine what kind of chaos would ensue now that Gir was alone in his base. Gnawing on his lower lip, he vaguely realized that he wasn't even wearing his earthenoid disguise.
Dib watched Zim curiously for a moment before looking helplessly back at the girl. Thinking frantically for a brief minute, the girl let her shoulders slump, diving after the only thing she could think of.
"My name is Jin, and I'll be your hostess for the evening.." She mumbled, sighing deeply and pointing out the window to a beat-up Geo Prizm.
"Let's get the hell out of here..."
*************************************************************************************************
Standing outside Zim's base, two teenage boys were busy examining themselves through frightened eyes. Both had been silent except for a few random squeaky noises for several minutes now, and finally, one of them found the brains to speak.
"Dude... we're cartoon characters!"
Around them, it continued to pour.
**************************************************************************************************
Yay! First chapter done... If you don't know what Para Para Paradise is, look it up. It's like DDR, but with your hands. You move your hands under the sensors instead of hitting them. Whee!