My first thought when I saw Kate Beckinsale in an Underworld poster was: 'hey, that looks like an adult Gaz'. Hence this fic.

Note: This story was drafted during quarantine for my Chemistry practical GCE, so any scientific mentions are inevitable. Also, the events in the story take place after the Bolognius Maximus episode.

Disclaimer: All related characters and elements are (c) Jhonen Vasquez. PSX and other PlayStation models are (c) Sony.

Underworld II: PSX


It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly . . .

WHAM.

"Damn." Her character was finished off once she paused at the sudden flinging open of the door. "Do you have to make such a grand entry, Your Highness the Big-Headed?" she hissed.

Thunder rolled outside the window.

Gaz's head turned a slight ten degrees towards the open door (noting that, for once, the intruder didn't snap back: "My head is NOT big!"). And standing there, completely drenched, was her brother, his silhouette glowing as lightning flashed ominously. She seriously wished it had struck him right on the spot.

"I don't believe it."

Her eyes squeezed shut.

"I don't believe it! He ate the modified bologna! And nothing happened! What, after I'd taken the trouble to make sure this time he turns into a meaty sausage for good, and . . . and to avoid those . . . those garden gnome thingies on the lawn just to put the parcel at the door! And I thought he'd morph right away! He can't have developed antibodies all of a sudden just like that! It's . . . it's inhuman!"

At Dib's last word her human game character died again. She snapped open her eyes, cursed the accursed GS2 and threw it aside.

"Why can't you just shut the hell up and leave me and my game in peace?"

"Because I don't believe it!"

A vein throbbed at Gaz's temple. "Fine. I'm sorry for your stupidity. . . and your inexistent sense of humanity," she muttered. "Why in the name of stupidity do you always find such pleasure in torturing Zim?"

Dib narrowed his eyes. "I know what he's after, Gaz. Our planet. He's some midget alien trying to take over Earth! And we have to stop him!"

Gaz was almost seething. That Dib. Why would he never leave her alone? What did she have to do before that ever happens?

"Leave me out of this, Dib," she snapped. "But this time — and only this time — I shall be kind enough —" she forced the word out — "to help you, provided you never, ever disturb me, my game, my pizza and my soda again."

Dib stared, bewildered, at his sister through his wet glasses. She believes me? He thought, blinking really hard. She actually agrees with me that Zim is an alien!

He took off his glasses, wiped them dry as best as he could, then put them on again. In his growing uncertainty he thought Gaz looked slightly different. Could it be . . .

His face paled even further.

She's been possessed, she's been possessed, she's been possessed —

"Now give me whatever sample of Zim's body cells you've been nicking and scraping off his desk in skool." Gaz stood up. The light overhead flickered and went out, and her body almost glowed purple in the half-darkness. Then she announced:

"Mission PSX begins."

– – –

". . . Negative."

"I knew it!" Dib was almost yelling. "How can an alien be possibly afraid of boiled cabbage when us humans are already —"

"Shut up, Dib." Impatiently she washed the vegetable and Zim's cells off the glass slide and transferred a fresh sample onto it, making a face as she did so. "Is he made of chlorine or something just as yucky?"

"Maybe . . . anyway that explains his hideous green head." Dib paused. "And the stink."

Gaz said nothing.

"Well? What about soda? Does it work?"

"No."

The paranormal investigator-wannabe was already in the I-don't-believe-it mode again. "Then what? We've already tried so many substances! There must be something that Zim's afraid of!"

"Will you stop thrashing about? You're flicking rainwater onto —"

Fzzt.

"Wait—!"

"What? What?" Dib cried.

From the microscopic lens Gaz saw the new molecules attacking the acid green ones, which suddenly developed crying faces and fizzled with smoke.

"What? What?" Dib was practically hyperventilating.

She gave a slight grin. "Afirmative," she declared.

– – –

Somewhere in the distance a (were)wolf howled into the night. Under the full blue moon a small figure appeared — one in a black stealth jacket zipped up to the neck and a pair of chromium-buckled boots.

In one hand was a pistol.

Gaz twirled the weapon swiftly around her finger like any cowboy in the movies would do with his six-shooter, and — quite unglamorously — it dropped onto the ground. "Uhh, whatever," she muttered, picking it up and discarding the need for a perfect, mysterious introduction. She stomped off towards the narrow little house squeezed between the other two.

At the lawn entrance she stopped. The lawn gnomes, puffer fish and flamingo remained motionless; they didn't start popping lasers out of their pupils like they did to Dib usually. But as she walked up the path and past the 'I love Earth' sign their eyes did follow her silently.

She pressed the bell. A shrill 'ding-dong' resonated from within the house.

The small SIR unit opened the door in his green dog suit, unzipped at the head and holding a half-eaten parcel of modified bologna. His cyan blue eyes widened (as much as they could), and his grin extended to the size of Dib's head.

She glared at the half-disguised robot. "Cut the crap. Don't ask me to dance. And get this clear: I don't fancy you."

GIR's head drooped for a second, then jerked up hopefully again with that stupid grin plastered on. "But you like me!" he exclaimed, rather insanely. "You so like meeeeee!"

Gaz rolled her eyes. "Where's Zim?"

It seemed like GIR was trying to please her, because in an instant Zim was whisked up from his underground base, utterly confused. The stars stopped circling around his head, and his crimson eyes narrowed as he recognised the visitor. "What do you want, Dib's sister?" he sneered.

Gaz aimed the pistol at Zim in a flash.

The Irken blinked dumbly. "What's that?" he asked.

Beside him, GIR went expressionless. The cover on the top of his head opened, and from inside a small screen popped up. Scenes from The Matrix, The Pianist and other movies and TV shows flashed on it. Every scene depicted the firing of guns and pistols, and every other one of them showed the victim dying a gruesome death.

Zim gagged. "You . . . you want to murder me? Kill me? Assassinate me? The almighty Zim? The future Irken ruler of this filthy planet Earth and you Earthenoids?"

"And the biggest moron I've ever seen," she muttered. The semi-automatic weapon clicked in her hand. "Prepare to meet your doom, Zim."

She pulled the trigger.

The alien desperately tried to block his face. "Noooooooooo—"

There was a little squirt.

Then a splat.

Zim sizzled.

"Carbonic acid," she said casually. "Diluted."

Zim sizzled some more.

"Oh, and some silver nitrate, too. For fun."

GIR went hyper and squealing. The disfigured Irken gave another zit-popping scream and ran in circles around the living room, while Gaz continued squirting rainwater at him.

"Too easy," she sighed. "It's a shame that Dib's so senile."

GIR threw the remnants of the bologna away and ran out into the night with a long, loud cheer.

". . . and stupid," she added.

– – –

"First you — like Zim — say I'm big headed, and now you say I'm senile? What kind of a sister are you?"

"A smarter one than you are. You owe me one."

Dib glared across the skool cafeteria table at Gaz, who was calmly engrossed in her GS2. Beyond her, in the centre of the room, was Zim with his metal spider legs glued together at their tips, with his mouth taped, and with a sign 'I Am A Pathetic Alien Who Failed To Take Over Earth' hanging around his neck. GIR had slipped into the skool grounds somehow, and was oscillating between climbing up and down one of the metallic legs, and sitting beside Gaz with his mouth wide open dazedly. (By then she was quite convinced the robot was a little pervert in disguise.)

One second later, the SIR unit became a miniscule balogna.

Apparently the silver, reduced from its ions in the silver nitrate solution from Gaz's pistol, was too content to remain on Zim's green skin as permanent silver zits. Plus, it proved that he wasn't made of chlorine after all: there was no white silver chloride precipitate formed.

For Zim, it was Total Humiliation. On a little blue planet called Earth.

"All right," Dib sighed, putting down his fork. "What do I owe you?"

The purple-haired girl slammed the weathered GS2 down the table. Her pupils were wider than ever, gleaming with avarice. "PSX," she stated. "PlayStation X. Hard drive, DVD recording, gaming, gaming, and even more high-resolution gaming. All in one box.

"And don't say you won't benefit from it: you can record your stupid Mysterious Mysteries episodes all you want. I don't care how much it costs, since you're paying. Go buy it in Japan."

Dib ogled at his sister in horror. "You. . . you've got to be kidding —"

"Plus my personal space. And pizza. And soda. Christmas is only two months away. You'd better know what to do." Her eyes glinted. "Or prepare to be subjugated. By me."

Then she picked up the GS2 again coolly and resumed her game, leaving Dib spluttering and tugging at his hair and moaning at his senility in that same I-don't-believe-it manner.

Too easy. She smiled to herself.

Score one for Gaz, score nil for Dib.

-fin-