A/N: Basically this was written because I was sitting there one, day and it occurred to me just how much Zim looks like a giant bug of some kind. Ooo, you are intrigued now, yes? Nah, you're probably not, but read on anyways…
Disclaimer: Wash. Rinse. Repeat
Night of the Living Bugs
Chapter 1: Infiltration
It was a stunningly beautiful day, the type of day where people were glad to talk about the weather because it was so absolutely perfect outdoors that it would seem a crime not to mention it to a friend or neighbor in passing. The sun was high and proud in a crystal blue sky which had not a single puff of cloud in sight. The thermometer was stuck at a tranquil seventy degrees even, and a gentile breeze took the edge off the radiant sunbeams which glimmered like liquid gold through the sweet-smelling air. Yes, it was the most pristine, perfect, gorgeous day anyone in the history of pristine, perfect, gorgeous days could ever hope for.
Unfortunately it has absolutely ZILCH to do with this story.
I'm afraid things weren't nearly so pleasant where a certain Earth-bound alien named Zim and his robot servant GIR were making their way along a dreary sidewalk, the only indicator of "nice weather" being that it wasn't cold enough to turn the threatening rain into snow. The all-too cheerful weatherman on Channel 6 had slapped a big, smiley-face sun up on the map and predicted a bright, beautiful day, and Zim, still being somewhat naive to some of Earth's ways, had actually believed him, so therefore had not bothered to bathe in paste that morning. Now he wrapped GIR's leash around his hand tightly, every now and then giving it a satisfying snap, and thought about how he'd use it if 'Willard with this Morning's Wacky Weather' just happened to walk by.
The rain was near. Zim could sense it the same way some people can sense they're about to have a piano dropped on them, or be attacked by poodles, or be trampled by a rabid cow. Dark, ominous clouds hung low in the sky in a stereotypical fashion, and a chilly wind swept up a whirlwind of dry leaves, but the stout Irken soldier needed none of these to know that either they'd better hurry up, or he'd be putting his world domination plans on hold in favor of covering his burn wounds with medicated salve for the next few weeks.
"Did we really need to come this far to go 'walkies'?" Zim asked his tin can of a robot in irritation, shivering with a touch of that feeling you get when you feel like a spider just crawled up your back. "Why do you even need to go out anyway? You're a robot!" GIR responded to his Master's inquiries by continuing to skip about joyfully on his leash, his fabric scrap of a tongue wagging up and down with each bounce. Zim just sighed hopelessly, glancing up at the gloomy sky for the hundredth time that afternoon. "Hurry up and do your dogly business!" he ordered, trying to disguise the fear in his voice as anger. "We don't have all day to be-"
Without warning, a crackle of lightening snaked across the darkened heavens, whip lashing nearby and sending out an angry peal of thunder which rattled the very cement on which the pair stood.
"Oooo… Pretty!" GIR marveled at the impressive light show, then glanced down to see his leash ending under a nearby bush. "What'cha doin' in there, Master?" he asked, glancing at Zim, who was huddled up in a shaking ball between the branches.
"N-nothing! Nothing at all!" The invader bolted upright, quickly recovering from the shock. "I was merely um… er, I… uh, I mean I was… Oh why am I explaining this to you!"he snapped harshly and tugged on the leash. "Come on, GIR, we're going home!"
Zim started dragging the puppy-suited robot in the opposite direction when out of nowhere there came a loud, buzzing noise that whizzed past his hearing organs. Before he could even turn, it zipped by again, and again, and yet again. He screeched as something small and quick ricocheted off his face numerous times.
"YEEAAHHAARRGHHH!" A panicked Zim flailed his arms wildly as he came under attack by the invisible noisemaker, swatting and clutching desperately at the air. "YAHH! NO! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" he screamed like a little girl and threw his arms over his head. Then he noticed that the noise had moved away from his head and was now contenting itself near the ground. Zim glanced down at the sidewalk warily, only to discover his deadly assailant had been nothing more than a teensy, harmless black fly.
Swallowing his embarrassment and praying that no one else had witnessed his little display, he narrowed a pair of violet-tinted eyes at the tiny insect. As if aware of his presence, the fly almost seemed to stare back, it's beady cerulean eyes connected to Zim's gaze. Meanwhile, while Zim and the fly were having their stare-down, GIR had managed to find a good trashcan and was busily sniffing around the base.
"HEADS UP!"
"Wha-?" Zim was knocked to the pavement as a Frisbee came out of nowhere and slammed into the side of his head. "Unhhh…" he moaned as he instinctively reached up to adjust his wig. "Huh? OH NO! MY WIG IS MISSING! Where is it!?" Zim skimmed the scene frantically and spotted a shiny black clump of hair resting on an overhead tree branch. Making sure no one was watching, he hastily shot his retractable, metal spider-like legs out of his PAK and lifted himself up to reclaim his human toupee. As he lowered himself to the ground, he heard something go crunch under the heel of his boot. "NOOO!" Zim wailed as he realized his lavender contact lenses had fallen out, and one of them had just been stepped on.
He picked up the non-crushed lens, blew on it, and popped it back in his eye just as two kids came rushing past. "NUH!" the alien yelped and covered his exposed eye quickly, but he needn't have worried. They didn't give him a second glance, or even a first one- just scooped up their Frisbee and sped away before he could respond with the shouting and obscenities. But, Zim being Zim, he made it a point to holler after them anyway. "Miserable little vermin!" he shouted waving a fist in the air. "That's right, you'd better flee in terror! You're just lucky I don't feel up to dooming your filthy little hides today!" He growled, his cheeks burning a darker shade of green, and turned pointedly. "Come GIR, we're going home NOW!" he snapped and pulled him away from the garbage can.
"Aww, I wasn't done yet," GIR sighed sadly as he was dragged away, Zim holding a hand over his eye and stomping off in anger towards their home base on Earth.
"What's wrong with your eye, Zim?" someone suddenly said behind him in a scornful tone. Zim didn't even need to look back to know who it was.
"None of your business, Dib-thing!" he snarled and walked a little faster, holding his head high to show he wasn't the least bit intimidated by the human. Unfortunately he didn't watch where he was going and promptly tripped over a wastebasket.
"Ha ha!" Dib sneered. "That was almost as good as the show you put on a minute ago. How did you ever manage to fend off that bloodthirsty fly of death anyway?"
Zim blushed even harder than before and climbed angrily to his feet. Normally he'd have responded to his enemy's words with some sharp, witty banter and then start dishing out the empty threats, but he was too worried about the rain to stand outside in the open much longer.
"You're just lucky I didn't have my camera with me to catch that pathetic little scene back there," Dib went on, and even without looking back Zim knew he was smirking. Probably had his arms crossed all smug-like too, the rotten human stink! Dib called again, "But next time… next time, Zim… you won't be so lucky!" The young paranormalist's self-righteous laughter faded as Zim walked away out of earshot.
"Grrr! Just when I think the day can't get any worse HE shows up! The human louse must've followed me." Zim quivered with rage. It was true though- no matter what the situation was, it always seemed Dib was there to make it more miserable for him. Always thwarting his plans and interfering with his mission with that smug, superior look on his face, making his life a never-ending episode of the X-files. "Someday, Dib… someday… I will take great pleasure in wiping that mocking grin off your face," Zim swore as he trudged away, the storm clouds continuing to thicken above.
As Zim stalked home dragging GIR behind him, neither one of them noticed- nor would they really have cared if they had noticed- that the fly that had "attacked" Zim a few moments ago was still sitting there, and had watched the whole scene unfold. Its tiny eyes glittered at what it had just witnessed. Buzzing its wings furiously, it took off after them.
Zim let out a pent up sigh of relief as he stepped through the front door of his fortress. "Whew, just in time," he thought out loud as the first, fat raindrops began splattering against the windows, causing him to shudder. Just looking at them making his skin burn. "That horrible, misleading Weather-drone…" he muttered, silently vowing revenge.
"GIR," Zim said commandingly. "I'll be down in the lab for the rest of the night working on the zombie chicken clones. You know the drill; guard the house and don't make too much noise, got it?"
GIR was busy studying a rock he'd found shaped like a bunny rabbit. He bit off the bunny's head, chewed for a few seconds, then looked up at Zim. "Huh?"
"Mmphh, good…" Zim mumbled in response as he slunk out of the room, too aggravated to care whether or not GIR was listening.
As Zim climbed into his elevator and disappeared into the bowels of the house, GIR sat on the floor of the living room and continued to chew his nummy num-num treat, making loud grinding noises with each bite. Through this however, Zim's tiny robot minion picked up another noise. He stopped chewing, little bits of granite falling out the side of his mouth as he sat motionless… listening. The other noise seemed to be coming from the window.
Stuffing the rest of the bunny-rock in his mouth, GIR leaped up and toddled over to the window, making cute squeaky noises with each step. The sound was clearer now; it was a low buzzing noise.
GIR's face lit up. "Ice Cream Man!"
He plastered his face up against the glass. Through a flash of lightening he saw not his beloved Ice Cream Man, but he did see what was making that droning buzz. A big smile spread across GIR's face. "Hi!" he chirped, then, in his own impulsive, irresponsible, GIR-like way, flung open the window.
It was about an hour later before Zim emerged from his lab, wearing his pompadour and a fresh pair of contacts; normally he'd have just strolled around the house without his human disguise on, but after the scare he'd received earlier that day he was feeling especially paranoid (and with Zim that's REALLY saying something).
"GIR!" he called. "I'm in need of your assistance! One of the chickens got loose and… GIR? GIR!" Zim suddenly realized that something was different, and it slowly dawned on him what it was. The house was quiet. The house was never quiet while GIR was around, so that either meant that GIR had left or was probably doing something he shouldn't be.
"GIR!" Zim yelled again, his voice echoing eerily in the stillness. He started to call again, but paused as his sensitive sound receptors picked up something.
He'd been mistaken before about it being totally silent. Now he could hear a dull, buzzing hum coming from somewhere close by. He stood perfectly still, his antennae perked underneath his dark hairpiece, trying to decipher where it was coming from. Cautiously, he followed the sound to the living room.
"GIR?" he uttered, sticking his head inside. The rain was still coming down in buckets, and as Zim entered the room a streak of lightning illuminated his couch, TV, and other furniture with a spooky, unnatural glow. A chilly breeze gusted past him and Zim's eyes darted over to the window. "GIR, you left the window open again!" he growled. Vigilantly, he walked over to shut it, avoiding the intruding raindrops blowing in as if they were acid- and to Zim they pretty much were. Before Zim could start ranting in fury about the dangers of open windows to their mission and GIR's responsibilities as his evil minion, another flicker of lightning lit up the room. In that split second of clarity, Zim happened to glance up at the walls. His large eyes practically bugged out of their sockets, and the next thing the invader's screams of terror reverberated throughout the dark citadel.
Every single inch of his walls was carpeted with hundreds of thousands of crawling, squirming insects.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Zim screamed again, his eyes growing even wider with shock and revulsion. They were everywhere, skittering in all directions over the walls and the ceiling, forming nightmarish dot-to-dot patters as they buzzed and squeezed their way past one another. Along with the buzzing, a sickening squishing sound could be heard from every direction, like a toothless old man eating raw meat. Zim felt the bile rising up from his squeedilly-spooch.
"Hiya Master!" GIR's voice bubbled just then. Zim followed the tinny sound, and found the robot sitting up on one of the hanging wires on the ceiling, covered head to toe with a teaming blanket of vermin. Some of them were even crawling around inside his green doggy costume it looked like, and Zim put a hand over his mouth as a wave of nausea swept over him. GIR just waved at him innocently. "You've got company," he smiled.
All the sudden, as if cued by Zim's presence, a hush fell over the room. Every single insect ceased its crawling and buzzing, and millions of tiny, segmented eyes turned towards the place where he stood.
"IT'S HIM!" an extremely small voice cried out, and the next thing Zim knew he was surrounded by a sea of bugs which was closing in around him rapidly. He backed up against the wall, cornered. There was no way to escape.
"NO! NO! STAY BACK!" he demanded, squeezing his eyes shut in horror.
"Behold! We've found him at last!" that same diminutive voice Zim had heard a moment ago rang out again. Zim cracked one eye open slightly.
"GIR, did you say something?" he asked in perplexity.
"Nope, I didn't say anything… oh wait… I just did. Oops, I just did again! Rrrrgghh!" GIR's face twisted in concentration as his little coin and paper clip brain tried to comprehend his Master's question.
Before Zim could become annoyed, he noticed that the crowd of creepy-crawlies hadn't moved any closer. In fact, all of them seemed to be waiting anxiously for him to say something else. It was a ridiculous thought, but there was no other way he could think to describe the way they were all staring up at him. Then an even more ridiculous thought struck him, and Zim was almost embarrassed to go along with it, but he had to know for sure. Sucking up his pride, he skimmed the carpet of bugs and squeaked out, "Um… did one of you say something?"
One lone fly stepped forward from the massive swarm, and Zim stood there beyond stupefied as it bowed to him. His stupification only intensified when all the other hundred-thousand bugs in the room followed its example.
"It was I who spoke, Oh Great One," the fly said. It stood back up, it's minuscule, pinpoint blue eyes shining with reverence as it gazed at Zim. "My name is Pez, and I and my fellow insects are at your eternal service my leader!"