"Victory for Zim!" Zim shouted, his fist up in the air triumphantly. He proudly held in his hand a small piece of paper.
"ZIM! Give me back that picture!" Dib commanded, running towards the alien. He tackled Zim to the ground and tried to grab the picture.
"NEVER! Zim shall NEVER show mercy to his enemies!" Zim hissed. He squirmed out from under Dib and sprinted towards his house, Dib close behind.
"Zim, this isn't funny! I need that picture! It's all I have left of my mom!" Dib cried out.
Zim nimbly climbed up into a tree using the spider legs from his Pak and nonchalantly relaxed on a branch just out of reach of Dib. He studied the photo closely.
"Who is this human female?" Zim asked, staring at the purple-haired grown woman on the paper. She held the hand of a smiling, toddler version of Dib.
"That's my mom! Now give it back!" Dib demanded. He tried to climb up the tree himself, but the tree was too hard to climb for him.
"What is a mom?" Zim asked.
"A mom is a woman who gives birth to a child. Then she becomes that kid's mother. Now I'm not fooling around, Zim! Give it back or else I'll find a squirt gun and shoot water at you!"
"How odd it is that human worm-babies cling to such trinkets to remind them of their birth parents. It is a weakness that no Irken has! Another point of superiority of the Irken army over the filthy hyuumans!"
"That's it! I'm getting the Super Soaker to torture you and a net to capture you!" Dib yelled, stomping to his house. He stopped when he heard a small ripping sound. Spinning around to the noise, he saw a small corner of the photo flutter to the ground.
"If you try to capture and torture the great Zim, Dib-stink, I shall rip this paper into tiny pieces, and the last reminder of your mother shall perish!" Zim taunted.
"YOU EVIL, HEARTLESS MONSTER!" Dib screeched, seeing only red. He ran at the tree and, using his anger as energy, he scrambled up to the branch Zim was on.
Zim shrieked in surprise and nimbly climbed higher up the tree. Dib followed close behind with an intense rage burning in his eyes. When Zim got to the top of the tree, the tiny branch broke and he fell to the ground. He lost his grip on the photo and it landed face-down in a mud puddle.
"NO! THE PICTURE! IT'S RUINED!" Dib cried out. He scrambled down the tree and ran to the edge of the mud puddle. He fell down on his knees and sobbed great big tears of sorrow and loss.
Zim was also stunned. He never was going to truly destroy the photo. He merely wanted to torture Dib mercilessly with it and then return it to him after forcing him to do something either humiliating or scarring.
Zim slowly stood up and backed away from the scene. Dib didn't even notice as he picked up the photo and vainly tried to wipe the staining mud from it. Zim marched into his house and removed his contacts and wig.
"YAY! You're home! Do ya want to watch da Scary Monkey Show with us?" Gir asked with a big smile.
"No, Gir. I am going down into my lab. No interruptions!" Zim commanded. He walked over to the toilet and flushed himself down into the lab. He immediately plugged a wire into his Pak.
"Zim, what are you doing?" the computer asked.
"SILENCE! Just bring up my recent memories on the main screen!" Zim demanded. The dark screen lit up with the morning from Zim's point of view.
"Fast forward to after Skool," Zim ordered. The scene skipped to the chase between him and Dib. It eventually got to the part where Zim looked down at the picture.
"Pause." The screen froze on the image.
"Zoom in and enhance." The photo's image filled the screen.
"Analyze the woman's facial features and search them on the Earth's pitiful Internet."
"Name: Mrs. Membrane. Disappearance date: Dib's 4th birthday. Cause of disappearance: Unknown. Reactions: The reaction of the husband was at first heartbreak, but he was the first to recover. The daughter did not know her mother well enough to remember her, so just confusion, then neutrality. The son had extreme grief and heartache. He has yet to recover from the loss, and clings to anything that reminds him of her."
"Are there any other traces of this female in the Membrane family besides for the photo?"
"Negative. Professor Membrane felt that his family would recover more quickly without any evidence of her existence. Dib only managed to hide the photo, and now cherishes it as the last reminder that he had a mother at all."
"Consequences if someone were to damage it?"
"Dib would hunt down and destroy the person without mercy. A child's attachment to his mother goes beyond rational thought, so any restrictions that a rational human mind would have in fighting (such as no killing, fighting fair, etc.) would be immediately obliterated if either their actual mother or a memento of their lost mother were harmed."
"This is not good! The Dib will interfere even more in my mission, and he will not simply try to capture me! He will be out to kill the brilliance that is ZIM!" Zim exclaimed fearfully, cringing in his chair.
"Correct. Only one solution remains."
"EXPLAIN to Zim!"
"I personally suggest using your memory of the photo and making a copy of it to give to Dib. There is a chance that he will lose his rage at seeing it unharmed."
"Hhmmm…It might work, especially if Zim adds something truly amazing on to it! Which of course, I will! But if it doesn't work, computer, I swear I will rip out your circuits with a rusty screwdriver!" Zim threatened.
"Oooo, I'm SO scared," the computer responded sarcastically. Zim ignored the sarcasm and got to work.
…
…
Dib lay curled up on the couch hours after trying to clean off the photo. He had eventually given up, but he took the photo with him. It was now clutched tightly in his hand as he started to drift off.
…
"Mommy! Mommy! Look at that! It's Bigfoot!" a younger Dib squealed, pointing at a very hairy man that crossed their path.
"No, honey. It's just a man that has hair issues," Mrs. Membrane explained, chuckling. The man grumbled angrily at them and stalked off.
"What about that vampire?" Dib asked, pointing at a different person.
"He just has really pale skin, really dark hair, and apparently likes to dress really scary." That man gave them the evil eye and crept away creepily.
"Oh, okay," Dib responded, grinning and accepting his mother's words as absolute truth. She always told him the truth, and she was the only one that did.
"Don't worry. Someday you'll catch a real paranormal being!"
"And save the world?"
"Why, of course!" she responded, sitting on a bench. Dib scrambled up the bench to sit next to her.
"Mommy, do you really think I'll find something cool that's all para…para… what's that word again?"
"Paranormal is the word. And yes, I think you will. You have your father's smarts, that's for sure. His knack for technology, too. But you have my determination and my belief in the paranormal."
"What are you gonna get me for my birdday?" Dib asked, leaning against him mom contentedly and obliviously changing the subject, as little kids often do.
"It's a surprise. But I know that you'll love it! I'll make sure you get it, even if I have to travel through time or enlist the help of something that is paranormal!"
"Good. Love you, mommy." Dib yawned, snuggling closer to his mother.
"Love you too, sweetie," Dib's mom responded with a smile.
…
"DIB!" Dib fell off the couch in surprise at his sister's yell.
"What is it, Gaz? I was sleeping here!" Dib shouted back.
"There's some kind of box on the doorway that has your name on it! I tripped on it and lost my concentration on my game. I lost a life because of you," Gaz explained with an evil glare.
"And let me guess. You'll have to destroy me now?"
"No, later. In your sleep. I'll sic my flesh-eating dolls on you."
"Can you do that after I get revenge on Zim?"
"No!"
"Yeah, I should have expected that," Dib grumbled.
"I would do worse, but since it's your birthday today, I'm not going to kill you," Gaz mumbled.
"Wait. It's my birthday?"
"Duh." Gaz shook her head, walking away. Dib did a face-palm at forgetting his own birthday. He was so absorbed in capturing Zim that he forgot all about it. And of course, his own father was too absorbed in his work to remind him.
Dib shoved his hands in his pockets, grumbling angrily to himself as he walked towards the open door. A purple metal box sat there, seeming to be made of one piece of metal.
"Um, how am I supposed to open this?" Dib asked himself. He noticed a tiny red button with a weird insignia on it and pressed it. The box opened and a perfect copy of the photo of his mom sat there, framed and in mint condition.
He picked it up and studied it suspiciously. Surely it was a trap of some sort, probably of Zim's making. The now-empty box compressed itself into a tiny hovering ball. It floated close to Dib's eyes, then a piercing light shot out of it straight into his retinas.
Dib flinched backwards, rubbing his eyes in pain.
"Memory scan complete. Sufficient data acquired. Programming hologram…hologram complete. Starting interactive program…" the sphere announced. It hovered up fairly high and beamed down a digital image. It was blurry at first, but then it cleared to show a woman with purple hair.
"Mom?" Dib asked incredulously.
"Hi, honey. It's nice to finally see you after all these years," Dib's holographic mom responded, smiling.
"How is this possible? You disappeared a long time ago!"
"Yes, I did, didn't I? I do apologize about that. Well, a friend of yours found a way for us to talk. He told me to tell you he's sorry. I don't know what it's about, but he seemed to mean it."
"Oh, um…okay. Mom, what happened to you?" Dib asked.
"I'm not even sure. It's all very fuzzy. I have a feeling that I'm either unconscious or dead. Or possibly in hiding. I am speaking through a hologram after all."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because if I was awake and alive, along with all of my free will intact, the real me would be next to you right now, hugging you gently. I would never choose to leave you of my own free will."
"I miss you mom. So much," Dib replied softly, tears forming in his eyes.
"And I miss you. I love you. Happy birthday, Dib." The hologram of Dib's mom smiled sadly one last time, then dissipated.
Dib stared at the spot she last stood, and was shocked to see a perfectly wrapped present. He advanced over to it and carefully unwrapped it. Inside, he found a photo album. Opening it up, he stared in wonder at all the family pictures leading up to Dib's 4th birthday. He thought that his dad had destroyed them all!
At his base, Zim watched the scene in confusion through a spy camera.
"Gir!" he barked.
"Yes, mastah?" Gir asked.
"I did not program the hologram to leave a present. Did you mess with it so that it would do that?"
"Kinda."
"What do you mean?"
"The nice tall lady with purple hair told me to!" Gir replied happily.
"You mean the hologram?" Zim asked, doubtful.
"Nuh-uh! Dis lady was real! She gave me a cookie so that I would put that present in da programming! Minimoose and the computer helped."
"Is this true, Computer?" Zim demanded.
"Yes. You ignored an intruder alert several hours ago, dismissing it as being a squirrel or something like that."
"Gir, you are not to converse with the human pig-smellies without my consent! You will blow our cover!" Zim yelled.
"I understand," Gir said very gravely. Then he did a happy squeal and ran around in a tight circle, singing the doom song. Zim growled and rubbed his temples in frustration.
Nearby, a woman watched from the darkness. She smirked at the scene, then gave a longing glance at the screen, which still showed Dib staring at the album in wonder.
She glided back into the shadows and vanished without a trace.