A/N: Yay! Yay for me getting off my lazy butt and writing something other than an oneshot! You are surely amazed?
Ah, so, anyway, this was all inspired by Weird Al's song "Genius in France". Yes, I get inspired a lot by Weird Al. He's very…inspirational. So, if you know the song, you should pretty much know what this fic entails.
I'm always surprised at how little I have to say about my own stuff, seriously. Anyway, according to my plans, this fic should be about 13 chapters, which is a bit longer than Crazy Talk, since I know some of you found that too short. Didn't cha? Though, there may be a chapter more, or less, depending on how stuff goes.
Oh, and, yeah, Dib's older here. In "hi-skool". I guess that's about it…mm…yep…
Disclaimer: I don't own Invader ZIM or any of the corresponding characters! I know, I know, it's a shock to me, too.
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The sound of lasers filled the ears of a young man, as he ran - ran insanely away from a creepy green house. Whether he was actually being chased by lasers or not was another question, entirely. He had grown so accustomed to sneaking in there, being kicked out, then being attacked by lasers that he just naturally assumed he was being fired at.
Just an average day for Dib.
Today, however, was different, as the young man reflected on, happily. Today, ZIM hadn't been in his terribly disguised base. For what was doubtlessly a stupid reason, he had left his mentally unstable robot, GIR, in charge of protecting the house for the day.
Needless to say, the little robot had failed miserably.
In his mind's eye, Dib recalled sneaking into ZIM's house this particular day…
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He had dodged around the gnomes, as usual. They didn't seem to notice him. Dib had an idea that their circuitry had somehow malfunctioned after that lighting storm last year. It certainly didn't bother him, however. He had snuck into ZIM's more often this year than any other time before. He knew it was only a matter of time before he got some irrefutable evidence of ZIM's alienness.
What Dib didn't know, however, as he flipped skillfully through the perpetually open window of ZIM's house, was that the evidence he had been seeking would come into his possession that very day.
Contradicting the fact that Dib had done this many times before, the young man landed painfully on his face. He recovered quickly, however, jumping up and looking around the oddly proportioned living room. GIR had been there, playing with some strange looking brown package.
He seemed oblivious to Dib's presence.
Long ago, Dib had learned he had nothing to fear from ZIM's crazy mongoose-dog thing. In fact, GIR seemed to help him out more than he hindered him. Several times he had let him in the house. Today didn't seem that different.
"Hey, GIR!" Dib said, waving to the little robot.
GIR immediately went into duty mode, dropping the box and pointing to Dib, "Intruder!" he yelled. Dib stared at the robot for a moment, and GIR stared right back at the young man. They kept this position for a moment, before GIR suddenly relaxed back into his cyan mode and cried, ecstatically, waving one of his little hands back and forth, "HI!"
Now that the formalities had been taken care of, if they could really be called that, Dib was all business. Furrowing his brows, he looked around for anything that he could steal from ZIM's abode, and use it to expose him for the evil alien that he was. Because…you know…he was.
After a moment's searching, Dib's eyes fell upon the brown box that GIR had resumed playing with, batting it around the room with cat-like movements. "Woo," Dib muttered, looking at the box as though it were something extraordinary, "What's that?" He asked, pointing to the package.
"I DUNNOOO!" GIR squealed, holding it over his head and bouncing up and down.
Dib stared at the package for a moment. A white tag on it read, "To: ZIM, From:," but the sender's name was obscured by GIR's pinscher-like hands.
"Uh," Dib said, looking around, trying to find the correct words for what he was about to say, before turning back to GIR, "Can I have it?"
"OKEE DOKEE!" the insane robot cried, before chucking the object at Dib's head, hitting him square in the forehead.
"Ow…" Dib said, managing to catch the object as it bounced off of his head.
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Yes, he had had quite a time getting this, uh, this…thing.
Dib slowed down to a walk, What is this thing, anyway? He couldn't help but wonder, as he looked down at the package for the first time since he had fled ZIM's house.
Nothing seemed extraordinary or unusual about it. Just what Dib needed, to steal something like a cheese-log that ZIM had ordered from the Cheesecake Factory or something.
This thought was quickly dispelled, however, as Dib took a closer look at where the package had came from: "The Tallest".
"Hey!" Dib said aloud, "Those are the two really tall guys that run ZIM's planet!" He paused, he still thought that choosing someone by height was a stupid way to pick a leader.
If Earth chose its leaders by height, then basketball players would rule, lording over them with their, well, tallness.
Then again, Dib considered, clearly amused by the thought, If leaders were chosen by height, then maybe I'd be a leader. I am pretty tall…
And, indeed, Dib was. He had grown quite a bit over the past few years; he had even grown into his abnormally sized head. That didn't stop people from commenting about it, however, especially ZIM. It seemed the little alien couldn't come up with any new insults, and he felt morally insulted that Dib had grown so tall, while he had remained so short. He needed something, and the "big-headed" comments were the only thing he had to lean back on.
But, Dib supposed, that was beside the point. The thing in this box was obviously some horrible alien device! Used to…do something! Something horrible! And, with it, he would finally have the evidence he needed to prove that aliens existed!
…And that he wasn't crazy!
Looking fondly down at the box, Dib said affectionately, "You, my little alien device, are going to take me off of the Crazy House for Boy's ten most wanted list."
Shifting his eyes around wearily, Dib rushed inside of his house, which he had arrived at without even being aware of it.
He wasted no time sticking around out in the living room, with Gaz. Instead, he rushed up the stairs to his room, shutting his door roughly behind him, throwing the equipment he had brought with him to ZIM's on his bed.
Quickly, he cleaned off any unneeded materials from his desktop, and carefully placed the box down, as though it were to be some sort of display piece, instead of something to be opened. Dib stared at it with a fierce intensity for several moments but, unfortunately, since he lacked x-ray vision, this accomplished nothing.
Finally, he gave up staring at it for a much more direct approach: actually opening it.
Taking a deep, almost shuttery breath, Dib slowly began to rip open the box, careful not to damage the contents within. Not that he thought he would, Irken technology generally seemed pretty hardy, but one could never tell.
Then, it was open on the side, and, looking like a child on Christmas day, Dib poured the contents of the package out onto his hand. The first thing Dib noticed was the object's surprising weight. The second was how there seemed to be absolutely nothing fantastic about the object. At all.
It appeared to be a thick, coiled, ring, made out of an extremely dull-looking metal. The ring was about as wide as someone's wrist, and wasn't completely closed all the way around. There was a small opening between the sides of the ring, that could doubtlessly be widened.
Dib could only stare blankly at the object's blandness for a moment, before wondering what the heck something such as this did, anyway. It certainly didn't look like it was the height of advanced technology.
It just looked like an oversized ring.
A ring that just sat limply in the palm of Dib's hand, as his face slowly contorted into a scowl. This thing had to do something. It just had to. And he would figure it out, too!
With new determination, Dib began to examine the ring more closely, looking into the inner edges, and the gap between the two sides of the ring. There, Dib saw the first traces of technology.
Small circles could be seen between the large gap of the ring. What they did, Dib could only guess, as he leaned back in his flexible computer chair, holding the ring right above his face, trying to make out more details.
There didn't seem to be anything more about it, though. He was just about to give it up, and try again later, perhaps with a microscope, when, suddenly, an angry cry came from downstairs.
"DIB!" his scary sister's voice reverberated though his room, causing Dib to release the ring from his grasp out of sheer shock.
"DIB," it repeated, much closer this time, much to Dib's horror. "WHERE IS MY GAMESLAVE?!" Gaz demanded, bursting into her brother's room, uninvited.
Dib raised his eyebrow, looking slightly confused, "Uh, Gaz, you left it on the washer yesterday when you were in the laundry room," he said, adding, "When you were, er, doing whatever you do down there."
Gaz blinked, fury instantly gone. "Oh, well it better be down there, Dib," she hissed dangerously, as she moved towards the door. She was halfway through before she turned around and said, off-handedly, "And you should take that thing off your neck. It's way too cool for you."
Then, she was gone, leaving Dib considerably more confused than when she had entered. "Leaving her stuff somewhere and blaming me," he muttered to himself, bending down to look for where he had dropped the ring, "Honestly she-"
"Wait," he said, shooting up, wide-eyed, "What thing on my neck?"
Automatically, his hands reached for his neck, feeling for the offending object. Sure enough, there was, in fact, something around his neck. Oddly, though, it felt like it was only on the right side, not the left, and, even more disturbingly, it felt like it actually went into his neck.
Worried that it was some sort of new defense mechanism ZIM had set up, to make up for his increasingly pathetic gnomes, Dib rushed out of his room, and into the bathroom, forgetting all about searching for the ring.
Breathing heavily from panic, Dib held his head over the sink, not quite ready to look at the thing, whatever it was, around his neck yet. Taking one long, deep breath, he looked up at the bathroom mirror, staring it shock.
There, around the right side of his neck, was the dull, metal ring. "How did?" he murmured, pulling on it before immediately stopping. To his dismay, he saw that he hadn't been incorrect; the ring did go into his neck. Trying to get it out would be too dangerous.
He would just have to find out what the ring did from experience.
"Great…" Dib groaned, touching the ring lightly. This wasn't what he had been expecting at all.
