Am I in still time for Halloween? I made it didn't I?

Oh yeah, I'don't own Invader Zim.

He had bugged them for the last time. With Zim's help, Gaz would put a stop to it once and for all. Dib was not just going to drag into the house any old thing he fancied.

Neither Zim nor Gaz had much enjoyed listening to any of the senseless, idiotic noises he used to make, but this time, it was different.

First he had shrieked, then screamed, and finally, whimpered. It sure didn't take much to make the screaming start up all over again... staplers, staple removers, pliers, tweezers...

They had thought the gag would have kept down the noise; however, they might have known that even at the best of times nothing could have ever kept this mouth shut, let alone hour after hour of unstopping torture. Their victims screams of agony and outrage would have still done justice to a wild animal. When they had carefully fine tuned them to be high-pitched enough to break windows once again, Zim and Gaz sat back to watch the results of their latest efforts.

Though he must know by now how firmly he had been staked to the ground, he still continuted to struggle franticaly, staring into their faces as if asking why they were doing this to him.

Between them, their victim lay helplessly staked to the ground; on either side, a row of sharp, bloody instruments lay waiting to be used again. As the knives had roamed over his body he had frantically shaken almost hard enough to pull the stakes loose, but they had been driven in deep at the start. Zim and Gaz always played their games for keeps.

Gaz rolled her eyes at how slow a learner he really was. If he had not been able to pull himself free at the start of the game, he'd never be able to do so now, with so much of his blood soaking his black coat and the ground beneath all three of them.

Finally the long drawnout screams were sinking once more to those low moans and whimpers, and the struggles were growing noticably weaker now.

Grimacing with distaste, Gaz pulled some black hairs from a dripping blade.

"That last one of yours was a great idea," she admitted to Zim.

"Of course it was a great idea! All of Zim's ideas are GENIUS!"

"It was almost as good the one about pinching and pulling with the staple removers."

"That one of your primitive earth torture instruments? The great Zim's idea impressed you, I could see it in your eyes, my dear!"

Waiting for him to finally run out of breath, which she knew could take quite a while, Gaz ran down the list of what they had done. Clamped pliers on ears and pulled them off, clipped nails so close they had bled, and that had only been the beginning. Zim and Gaz had thought their list of torture ideas would have lasted longer. But in fact, they ran through them all in barely an hour. However, even in the absence of imaginations as evil as theirs, building on each other's ideas as each tried to impress the other with how much they hated Dib had still allowed them to prolong the tortures for quite a few hours more.

Gaz's ideas had produced the louder, more agonized screams, but that was hardly surprising. She was much more familiar with the victim, knew exactly what he most hated and feared.

The trust and intimacy this pastime required from both Zim and Gaz went far beyond any mere bondage, domination, and S and M they could have practised on each other. They were co-conspirators, they were united to defeat a common foe, and they were also the keepers of each other's dark secret.

Not least of all, they both knew many people would despise them for what they had been doing, and because of this, the activity brought them even closer.

Gaz reached in once more with a darning needle, and to the cry that resulted, crooked an eyebrow as a smirk curved her mouth. "What better way to hurt Dib... I mean, really hurt him?"

"Zim will think of something."

"If I don't think of it first." Despite this reply, whether their next idea would come from herself or from Zim didn't matter. This activity had really brought them together in a way that surprised even Gaz.

"Even I didn't expect him to scream this much."

"Zim did! Of course that was the doing of Zim's genius," Zim bragged. "The tortures of Zim can make any creature in the universe scream!"

"You think he was loud here," Gaz smirked. "I used to LIVE with him, remember."

"Your endurance is almost as tough as ZIM's."

"Shouldn't that be the other way around? You didn't have to live with this pest."

As she waited for the fresh inspiration, Gaz checked the restraints, but this wasn't necessary. At the start of the game, they had made the knots as tight as they could make them. Even the victim's most frantic struggles had all been in vain.

By now the black coat was almost entirely soaked in blood; the amber eyes were barely open.

Gaz stabbed the victim with the awl, but nothing happened. She tried several times more, but he didn't seem to have anything left. After a particularly energetic stab with the awl produced no response, Gaz pulled open an eyelid to see if the eye beneath it was still seeing anything. Seeing this, Zim frowned, then leaned over and poked the eye firmly with his claw several times, but there was no reaction, none. None whatsoever.

"Dead," said Zim.

Gaz looked up at him in disbelief, as if a game she particularly enjoyed had suddenly broken.

Zim put his verdict into words he knew Gaz would understand. "Game over."

"Finally. He was too noisy anyway. All those shrieks and screams and screeches were beginning to really bug me."

"Victory for ZIM!"

With the third party in their game no longer useful, Gaz put down the needle, rubbed her hands on the grass, and demanded, "Now what?"

"The best part is still to come!"

Gaz crooked an eyebrow. "Whaddya mean."

"Zim can imagine what the Dib monkey will have to say about this!"

"'Say'? What do you mean, 'say'? He can't very well say a whole lot." Gaz narrowed her eyes.

"Then I'll just savor the look on his face! Irk knows the Dib worm doesn't notice much, but even he's got to notice this!"

Gaz clenched her fist. "I told you, he won't say anything."

Zim looked doubtful but after the look Gaz fixed him with, said no more.

Gaz now looked down at the remains of the victim, gloating cruelly. "And he'll never get those stupid hairs on my pizza again."

They crouched side by side, looking at their bloody handiwork. Exciting though it had been at first, they soon found themselves just going on just for the sake of going on. Now they were missing it, although neither wanted to be the first to admit it to the other.

Gaz spoke first. "Want to go get another one?"

Zim leaped up and punched the air. "Another victory for ZIM!"

Gaz stood up. "So let's go," she said tonelessly.

"The superior senses of ZIM sometimes detect what you humans call a 'stray' down by Bloaty's."

"We'll go see if it's there now," Gaz continued as if Bloaty's had been her idea, "and while we're there buy a pizza. You can't eat meat so save the pepperoni on your slice for it. It's probably hungry. So that'll make it even easier to catch."

"Once again, little Gaz, you manage to astonish even ZIM!"

Holding hands, they walked away, leaving the corpse of Dib's long-haired, fluffy black kitten still tied down and bleeding from the mouth, ears and countless gaping wounds.

The End. Told you you weren't going to like it, didn't I?