A/N: Something I started working on last summer. This isn't going to be very long, just one or two more parts.
Rain pounded against the windows and wind howled, rattling the house. Dib's eyes flicked to the digital clock on his nightstand, which was slowly counting the minutes past midnight, then switched back to focus blearily on his computer screen once more. He let out a long breath.
Earlier that day he had gone through no end of trouble to sneak a video camera into Zim's house. It had been difficult, and now he'd never get a deposit back for that rented plant disguise… But, anyway. It was now the start of his fifth hour staring at the surveillance footage. And it showed nothing but Zim in disguise sitting at a table with his back to the camera, occasionally demanding various snack foods from his little robot minion.
Zim appeared to be writing something—he had been doing so for the last three hours—and Dib itched to find out what it was. It must have been important for Zim to summon enough patience to sit down and write for three hours. A new evil plan, perhaps? But so far nothing remotely interesting had happened and Dib was beginning to grow bored.
He glanced at the clock again, which had jumped to 12:30, then looked out the circular window above his bed. It was too dark to see anything outside. Dib turned back to the computer screen and saw that Zim hadn't ceased writing. Did Irkens never sleep?! Dib yawned widely and considered just going to bed, leaving his record drives to capture whatever was happening onscreen for the rest of the night.
The faint roar of a car sounded on the road outside. Dib glanced at his window again. How could anyone be so stupid as to try to drive in weather like this? he thought.
"I've got it!" a shout suddenly sounded from the computer, making Dib jump. Onscreen, Zim held up the paper he had been writing on and gazed at it. It looked like it was covered with words from a language other than English. Other than any language on this Earth.
"You got taquitos?" GIR, wearing his green dog costume, sidled into view and pulled himself onto the table.
Zim screamed, leaping to his feet and knocking his chair over. "GIR! What have I told you about climbing on the table?! Think of the GERMS, GIR! The GEEEEERRRRMS! Get down at once!"
"'kay!" GIR said, but didn't make a move to get down. Instead he grabbed the paper Zim was holding, crumpled it up, and popped it into his mouth.
"GIR! Stop that! Release the handiwork of ZIM!" Zim reached over and tried to wrench GIR's mouth open, but the little robot danced away and howled with laughter. He spat the paper into his hand and proceeded to smooth it out only to start tearing it.
Dib watched in amusement as Zim clambered onto the table and tried in vain to get the document back.
Another car went by Dib's window, though it was hard to hear in the downpour.
"NO! No, GIR! Bad Dog-Monster! BAD! You're HORRIBLE!" Zim finally snatched the paper away from GIR, holding it at an arm's distance with a look of disgust. It dripped with saliva. Dib stared and wondered how that was possible, since GIR was a robot. Then he decided he didn't want to know.
Zim sat back down and peered at the mangled remains of the document, trying to make sense of the words beneath the smudges and robot slobber. "Never. I never, ever want you to do that again, GIR. You nearly ruined my newest plan!"
Aha, so the paper was a plan! Dib sat up a bit straighter and turned his full attention to the screen.
"GIR, I need you to listen very carefully. And GET OFF THE TABLE!"
"You ever try to eat a book?" GIR asked unexpectedly, without moving.
Zim glared at him for a moment in silence. "No," he finally said. "But more importantly! GIR, I am ready to reveal my new plan. My new, ingenious, evil plan… for HUMAN DESTRUCTION!" He pounded the table two times to emphasize his words. "Now listen carefully while I discuss this plan in excruciating detail!"
"Can I get taquitos first?" GIR chirped.
"SILENCE, GIR! You can fill your disgusting belly once I've finished my amazing monologue!"
A third car was driving past on the road outside Dib's window.
"Listen carefully, GIR! This is my most DIABOLICAL plan ever! First, I'll—"
A sudden shrill squealing of wheels sounded outside. Someone screamed, and there was a loud crash. Dib leaped out of his chair as though electrified and dashed across his room, jumping onto his bed and throwing open the circular window above it. He stuck his head out into the pouring rain. Despite the gloom he could see that a car had slammed into a telephone pole some distance down the street. Someone staggered out of the vehicle and stumbled, then pulled himself to his feet again.
"I'm all right!" the guy shouted into the dark neighborhood. "I'll walk it off! I've got insurance! But if anyone wanted to, like, call 911 or somethin', that'd be cool too!"
There was no response. Dib ducked back into his room and closed the window once more. He ran to his closet and pulled out the seldom-used cell phone kept there. His neighbors probably didn't even realize what had happened, or couldn't be bothered to call for an ambulance! It could be completely up to him to make sure this car crash victim received proper medical care and—
Suddenly part of Zim's speech, forgotten for a moment but still issuing from the computer, caught his attention.
"…when the Dib-human is DESTROYED! Then I'll cause their ultimate doooooom by cutting them off from—"
Bip!
The screen abruptly went dark. The computer shut off. Not only that, but every light in the room blinked out at the same time, plunging Dib's surroundings into darkness. It was suddenly pitch-black and silent… except for the sounds from the storm outside.
"NO!" Dib cried, running to his computer. Once he located the keyboard he pressed every button he could find, but it was no use. "NO! NO! How was he going to destroy me? What was he going to cut us off from? WHAT WAS THE REST OF HIS PLAN?"
Nothing happened. The house was still dark and the details of Zim's plan were lost. Dib knew that even when the power came on again—and who knew when that would be, since Professor Membrane was out of town on some bizarre scientists' retreat and wasn't available to turn it back on again—the recording of Zim and GIR would be impossible to recover.
Dib bashed his still-dripping head into the keyboard. "EVERY TIME!"
Dib's eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness and he made his way over to his bed, scrabbling under it in the hopes of finding something he could use to help him. Triumphantly he pulled out an old and previously-forgotten flashlight. He clicked it on. It wasn't as bright as he would have liked, but it would have to do. Also under his bed he discovered a large white poncho, which was a nice surprise. Strange. He hadn't remembered that he owned a poncho.
He still needed to call 911. Unfortunately, his cell phone no longer had any service. Of course it didn't.
Following the dim glow of the flashlight, he went out into the hall and down the stairs only to notice that something was already giving off a glow in the living room.
Gaz was sitting on the couch, the bright screen of her Game Slave illuminating her face as well as the mug of hot cocoa that sat steaming on the table in front of her.
"Gaz?" Dib came to a halt. "What are you still doing up?"
"I never go to bed on Friday nights," Gaz replied without taking her eyes from the game.
"Um… okay." Dib had absolutely no idea how to respond to this. "Well, anyhow, I'm off to Zim's house. The power failure interrupted the surveillance footage I was watching and I have to find out what Zim's plan is before it's too late! He's probably done explaining it by now—well, maybe not, since he does tend to ramble."
"Great, Dib. But have you seen the weather outside? If you're leaving, do me a favor and get struck by lightning."
"Whatever." Dib sighed in frustration and dropped his cell phone next to her. "Look, do what you can to get this back online and then call 911, okay? The blackout was caused by someone who crashed into a telephone pole and he might need an ambulance. I don't have time to try to fix the phone right now."
Gaz made no indication that she heard him but Dib left the room, pulling on the poncho and yanking the thin, plastic hood over his head. It took him an irritating few seconds to get his hair to lie flat enough so that the hood wouldn't rip. He picked up his new, waterproof camera from the hall table but decided he would leave his laptop home this time. He didn't want it to get wet in the downpour.
With the dull flashlight in one hand and his camera in the other, he opened the front door and slipped out into the night.
"Eh? What? GIR! What have you done to the lights this time?" Zim demanded. His entire house had suddenly gone dark, rudely disrupting his speech for world domination.
"Noooooothing," GIR replied. He pulled off his hood so that Zim could see his glowing turquoise eyes.
"Well, you must have done something!" Zim stood, struggling to make out any shreds of light besides GIR's eyes. "Computer, turn the lights back on!"
There was no answer.
"COMPUTER! Answer your master! Is this some sort of trick?"
Silence rang through the house.
"We playin' hide 'n seek!" GIR said. His glowing eyes moved in and out of view, indicating that he was looking around. "Where you go, Master?"
"GIR, you have infrared vision!" Zim snapped. "I know you can see me. I, for one, can see perfectly fine." If it weren't for GIR's glowing eyes, Zim wouldn't have been able to tell if he was actually speaking in the right direction.
"I'm gonna go play in the dark!" GIR chirped. "WHERE YOU AT, PIG?!" He hopped off the table at last and scurried away, vanishing in the gloom.
"GIR! Wait!" Zim cried, but GIR didn't return. His only source of illumination gone, Zim sat in the dark and wondered what could have happened. The computer was most likely trying to play a prank on him. Well, it wasn't funny. "It's not working!" Zim shouted at the empty room. "You'll have to do better than this to fool an Irken Invader!" He attempted to walk to the living room but tripped over his chair and sprawled on the floor. Turning on it furiously, he snarled, "And that goes for you, too!" He picked himself back up but didn't bother righting the chair.
A flickering orange light bobbed toward him. GIR materialized out of the darkness. He was out of disguise and held a candle in his metal hand. "I made fire!" he said. He held one of his claws in front of the flame and beamed at the shadow it cast on the wall. "Look! It's a birdie!"
"Quit messing around, GIR!" Zim snatched away, then dropped it with a yelp. "AUGH! It's hot!"
The flames licked at the tiled floor before Zim's hand stopped hurting and he picked the candle up again. He expected the heat this time and managed to ignore it, and held up the candle triumphantly. "You won't beat me, Computer!"
"I think the power's out!" GIR squeaked.
"Nonsense, the base couldn't have been affected by something as pathetic as a human power failure. The Computer is simply playing a prank… for which it will SUFFER HORRIBLY!"
This shout didn't invoke the desired response from the Computer. Zim glared around the room. "GIR, contact the Tallest! I must tell them of my Computer's rebellious behavior. We'll show that filthy piece of machinery who the superior one is!"
"Okey-dokey!" GIR crawled onto the couch, picked up the TV remote and pressed the power button, flicking through the channels. "Oh, I love this show!" he said, beaming at the television screen that was as dark and silent as the rest of the house.
"GIR. I said call the Tallest." Zim took the remote and held it up to the garish green monkey portrait on the wall. He hit a few of the buttons but absolutely nothing happened. "Irk, what is wrong with everything today?"
"It's all dark and stuff," GIR said. "Can we play cards?"
Zim sagged a little. "No, GIR."
"BUT—"
"No."
"Pleeeeeaaaassseee?" GIR begged in the squeakiest tones imaginable, and then started screaming.
It took major restraint for Zim to keep himself from slapping himself in the face. "All right. Whatever 'cards' is. We might as well show the Computer that his joke isn't affecting us at all."
"YAY!" GIR jumped off the couch and bounded off somewhere. Zim levered himself onto the couch with his PAK legs and massaged his temples with his candle-free hand.
Neither GIR nor Zim noticed the face at the window.
Dib clicked off his flashlight in order to remain unseen and peered into his archenemy's house. Zim was sitting on the couch, but Dib could only tell because the alien was gingerly holding a lit candle.
Dib stared. He hadn't expected the power to be out over here, too. Surely Zim didn't use human electricity to power his base! That would be beyond stupid. And yet, that's exactly what it looked like! Dib had a strange desire to laugh. The city must have had a really awful electrical grid or something, too, if hitting one telephone pole had put the power out everywhere. Huh.
Well, anyway, if the power was out, that meant Zim's defenses and weapons should be down. Dib might never get another chance like this! He crept around the house, hoping that despite his glaringly obvious white poncho he would be hard to see in the rain. He knew that he couldn't just walk in the front door of the house. Not with Zim sitting right in the living room. The alien had to have another entrance to his base.
There!
Dib had come to the back of the house and seen a badly-concealed metal panel on the ground. Crouching, he wedged his fingers under the metal grate and heaved upward. It was heavier than he had expected and it took him several tries before he managed to pry it up and push it to the side. It left a gaping hole from which a narrow ladder descended into darkness. The rain now spilled into the hole and cold air wafted up.
Dib's curiosity intensified. He wasn't concerned as much with the broken surveillance tape anymore. On the way over here he had begun to wonder why on Earth he was trudging through pouring rain in the middle of the night to spy on an alien and steal the document for a plan that probably wouldn't work anyway. Now that he had found this secret access panel, he could do an on-the-spot reconnaissance mission and gather information about the inside of Zim's house! Taking care not to slip, he lowered himself onto the ladder and clambered down.
Only the rain made the ladder slicker than Dib could have prepared for. Despite his precautions, he slipped on a wet rung about halfway down and struggled in vain to regain his grip. The flashlight fell out of his hand and hit the concrete floor below with a crack, shutting off immediately. Dib lost his grip on the ladder entirely and fell after it.
CRASH! He landed on a pile of what felt like boxes, tissue paper and foam packing peanuts. Dib shook his head, in a daze. Why would Zim would even have these? Had he been expressly ordering things from a space catalogue or something?
"What was that?" a muffled voice shouted from somewhere nearby. "It came from the basement!"
AAHH! He'd been caught! Dib scrambled around, trying to find some sort of weapon that he could use when someone came in and found out exactly who had broken into the basement. His fumbling fingers bumped something that felt like a metallic cylinder. The flashlight! It wasn't much, but he clutched it and prepared to fight.
There was the sound of a door opening but no light spilled into the room. "I know you're here!" a voice shouted. "You cannot hope to remain undetected by an IRKEN INVADER!"
It was Zim. Dib froze and crouched in silence, hoping that Irkens couldn't see in the dark.
"GIR!" Zim raised his voice. "Bring me that candle! Let us see if we can scare this intruder by showing them what they're dealing with—because I can see them quite clearly!" he added hastily.
Apparently Zim couldn't see in the dark. Dib immediately got to his feet as quietly as he could and made for the ladder. Maybe he could escape before GIR brought the candle and Zim saw him—if it came to a fight, he wasn't confident about the odds of his flashlight against whatever alien tech Zim might have on hand.
A dim orange light loomed into view as GIR arrived with the candle. Zim took it and lifted it high so that the light bathed the room. His eyes found Dib, who clutched the ladder looking guilty as heck.
Horror crossed Zim's face.
"YAH!" Dib shouted before Zim could move, waving the metal baton around in some sort of attempt at martial arts. To his immense surprise the cylinder, which was apparently not his flashlight, grew hot and fired red lasers from both ends. One laser blasted another pile of boxes behind Dib while the other came within inches of hitting Zim, searing the wall behind him and scorching his toupee.
Zim shrieked. And ran back the way he had come, dropping the candle—it went out the moment it hit the floor.
The room was once again plunged into darkness as the door slammed closed.