The red eyes of Irken Invader Zim were wide with fear as he was sinking into an ocean of deep, oily tar. He tried to scream, but his mouth was being filled, filled with that horrible-smelling, foul-tasting black monstrous goop that was engulfing all of him and showed no signs of stopping. It popped and squirmed and glorped and hissed, the substance almost comfortably warm to the touch...if not for the fact it was going to drown him alive.
And a pair of piercing eyes gazing down from high above stared into his soul, a bright, intelligent, fierce aquamarine that made Zim shudder. He tried to speak. He tried to say something. ANYTHING.
What did it want from him?
"Your life." It whispered back, and with that...
Zim awoke, looking around an empty, dilapidated room in what HAD been his home.
Something, however, clearly wasn't right. He blinked in surprise, feeling over the contacts on his eyes, the fake black wig he had, and called out. "COMPUTER?...COMPUTER? GIR?"
Absolute silence greeted him as he shuddered a bit. He rose up, seeing the stripped-up floorboards around him, the peeling, fading wallpaper. The couch had holes in it the size of golf balls, and in the corner was a dead spider almost as large as a kitten. Zim hissed in disgust as he rose up, and made his way towards his "bathroom", intending on taking one of the secret entrances down to his laboratory...
Finding there was nothing there. Nothing. No sink. No bathtub. No cupboard. No toilet.
No secret entrance. No...nothing in the house. No attic filled with equipment.
Heart racing at a thousand miles an hour...
No robo-parents in the closet to make intruders go away.
Sweat dripping down heavy like rain...
No lawn gnomes in the yard...
Shudders digging their claws into his skin...
No GIR. No Minimoose. No Computer. No NOTHING.
Scream.
"GAAAHHH! This can't be happening!" Zim screeched out, gripping the side of his head and shaking it back and forth, his small body a-quiver with raw fear and paranoia. What on Irk was going on? What had-
DIB. His stupid rival. Dib was behind this somehow, he was sure of it, and he was going to get to the bottom of it right now. He glowed darkly, making his way out, blinking in surprise at the stack of newspapers that had flopped onto the front yard and out of the mailbox that was barely still standing. They'd been there, evidently, for an entire week. What had Dib done?
Glowering angrily, Zim suddenly had a deeper, more terrifying fear. His PAK. The thing that contained all his knowledge and tools and that made Zim ZIM. He felt behind him-
His mouth went dry. He couldn't...feel...his PAK. He couldn't feel the metal backpack-esque device that was supposed to be attached to him. He had, at most...ten minutes to live!
DIB. DIB had to fix this and he had to fix this now! Zim tore off down the street, panting and heaving, his heart thudding in his lack of ears. What was going on?! How had Dib even caught him off guard to do all this? How had he knocked him out for over a week?
After what seemed to be an eternity even though it was only two minutes, Zim had raced to the dark-grey-painted house of the Membrane household, and was banging hard on the front door. "KISGAREE! You FILTH!" He screamed out. "Vrik na tishanti! Open up!" He cursed, his high-pitched voice ringing through the air...
"That'll be $22.40." Dib said as he rested his cheek on his right hand and lazily outstretched the other. By all accounts, he should've been happy that he'd finally been able to get a decent job. After all, people seemed to REALLY like his book. Granted, he'd had to sell his diary entries as a work of fiction to sell it, but it was worth it just to get some money here in the "Burns and Mumble". But Dib wasn't happy. He hated earning this money as much as he liked it.
The black-haired young man sighed a bit as the chiseled face in front of him glowered a bit, looking down at the book in his hand. Dib wondered which was more annoying: dealing with Zim or dealing with customers who felt a little over twenty bucks was too much for a bestseller. Sometimes he wasn't sure. And more annoying still, Zim had been...too quiet lately. Dib wasn't sure what he was up to and it bothered him. The house had been empty, GIR had just shrugged...what was going on with him?
"$22.40?!" The person on the other side of the desk Dib sat at shook his fist. "Can't you trim off at least a few bucks? I'm already scraping by with my current job. It's my daughter's anniversary and I want to be able to give her something good!"
"I can't." Dib said, sighing. "Store policy."
The customer raised his hand, his teeth bared and his fist knit shut in rage. Then the customer then lowered his hand and stopped snarling. He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out several rumpled dollar bills. With thick fingers he rolled through them all, thumbing over them before putting them down on the desk. "There." He said, Dib taking the two tens and the fiver he was given, opening up the little cash register he had as he sighed.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Dib said. "I hope you enjoy the book." He remarked nonchalantly as he adjusted his glasses, the customer walking off as Dib turned to the right, looking at one of the Burns and Mumble employees. "Hey, Brad. Can you mind the stand for a while? I gotta use the bathroom."
"Sure, but hurry up." Brad said, scratching his ass and sighing as Dib cringed, heading past rows of bookshelves, making for the back of the store as he pocketed his hands, putting them into the pockets of his dark jacket before suddenly bumping into someone else.
"OH!" he flopped onto the ground, a few feet from the entrance to the bathroom. "Sorry!"
"No, no, my apologies." A familiar voice remarked, as a hand lifted him up and he looked up into the blind eyes behind a pair of thick glasses, a white-haired middle-aged man with a soft little smile and a faintly etheral, dark voice greeting him. "How good to "see" you, Dib. I had been hoping to get a copy of your book. Have you a Braille copy?"
Could it be?...
It WAS!
Dib sighed as he opened up the door, looking over a fuming, furious Zim. So, in other words...Tuesday.
"Hello." He sighed. "What do you want, Zim?" He inquired as he shook his head back and forth. "Is this about Gaz? It'd never work out. I know you like to be near her all the time but-"
"What have you done?!" Zim bellowed in Dib's face, grabbing him by his black jacket and shaking back and forth. "What the flirkin' hell have you done!? Where's my PAK?! Where are all my robotic servants!? What did you do?!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Dib asked, his face looking annoyed as he gave Zim a dirty glower. "What's a PAK? What robotic servants? Zim, I thought you grew out of this."
"Wh-WHAT?!" Zim snarled, stuttering in surprise as he shook his head back and forth. "You speak nonsense, dirt-child! Explain yourself!"
"Zim, I thought you grew out of that dumb 'Alien Invader' nonsense years ago. I'm tired of playing that game. It was fun at first, but real life set in." Dib sighed, pinching the space between his eyes and shaking it back and forth. "I can't play with you anymore."
"LIES! FILTHY LIES!" Zim screeched, bounding up and down before pointing an accusatory digit at Dib. "You've done something to me! You will tell me now!"
"Zim, you don't have any "PAK" or robot servants and you're not an alien." Dib groaned, removing his hand from his face as he folded his arms over his chest. "If you were, then wouldn't you have antannae and weird alien stuff?"
"I do! I-" Zim said, reaching up to take off his contacts when he realized...he couldn't take them out. And when he tried to pull them off it felt like he was actually tugging at his eyes. He reached up and tried to take the wig off-
"OW!" He screamed, letting go and looking over his gloved hands. "What the...what..."
No. No it couldn't be. It COULDN'T.
"And your...PAK, right? You once did this thing where you pretended to stick it on me? And you were dying cuz you needed to have it on you in ten minutes?" Dib asked, his voice quiet and cutting deep into Zim, his eyes piercing and fierce, deep amber/gold gazing into maroon-ruby pupils. "...if you really did have a real "PAK"...well, Zim...you've been talking to me for over 7 minutes. How come you're not collapsing on my front door?"
Zim's mouth gaped open. He stammered and shook. "Th-this...c-can't...you...you did something, you...this can't..."
But Dib didn't say anything. He just stayed quiet and somber, his head hung low as he shook his head back and forth.
"This can't...be." Zim said, almost PLEADING with Dib as Dib slowly raised his head.
"You need to grow up, Zim." Dib murmured quietly, turning around and closing the door, leaving the confused Zim to stand there, the wind slowly picking up around his body as it slightly bit into his green skin. He stood there, mouth agape, staring at the door as the wind blew through his hair, eyes staring, yet not really seeing. Zim was absolutely lost in his own head, scarcely able to believe what had just happened to him.
Finally...a single word.
"...GAZ."
Surely she would know. He quickly raced around the house, heading for a nearby tree, climbing up it to reach Gaz's room. He shimmied alongside the thin, barely-standing branch as Gaz made her way into the room with a hamster in a cage.
"Guess what? It's feeding time!" She remarked aloud as the hamster began to squeak in delight as she made her way over to her desk, humming a familiar little anime theme. "When we work together, it's much better..." She mumbled...
Before tossing the hamster into the cage that held the giant spider she had inside as it let out a terrified squeak. Gaz closed up the cage with a THWOMP, stepping back as the spider got to work and she sighed. "Man, you need to cut back on the meals. I'm running out of hamsters." She muttered to it before she heard a THWOCK at the window, turning to see Zim was tossing acorns at it from the nearby oak tree outside. "Ugh. You."
"Gaz-Beast! You know I am Zim! Tell me I am Zim!" Zim insisted, gripping the branch and shaking it madly, eyes wide and accusing as Gaz sighed, going over to the window and opening it up.
"Yes, an idiot who's obsessed with me. I'm done with you, Zim. I'm not playing this dumb game. I found a much better one." She told him, giving him a little wave. "Now get going. I don't have time to fiddle with foreign exchange students."
Zim barely felt it as he fell out of the tree. He flopped to his side, staring almost sightlessly at the little patch of grass before him that had a spider web upon it, a little spider wrapping a cocoon around a fly. Oh, how Zim envied that fly. At least it was going to die soon.
So he stayed there...watching it be drained of life. And didn't see the piercingly intelligent aqua eyes that gazed out from the shadows across the way.
Dib beamed in delight. The school's guidance counselor, Mr. Thildari! He eagerly shook the man's soft hands, beaming in delight. "Really? You wanna buy a copy? I can't thank you enough! Today's been a pretty rough day. Rough week, really."
"I'm always happy to help a friend." Mr. Thildari said as Dib blushed a bit. "Do you, ah, need to use the bathroom?"
"Be right back." Dib said, popping in as Mr. Thildari waited right outside, Dib's voice drifting through the door. "I haven't seen you at school lately. It's like you and Zim have the same schedule."
"Well, I've actually been trying to do some work WITH Zim to work through his issues." The school's guidance counselor sighed. "He's...problematic. But you needn't worry, he's at my home. If you were wondering where he was, that is."
"Oh. Phew." Dib remarked, finishing up his business before he exited the bathroom, and led Mr. Thildari off towards his desk as he sat back down and looked through his collection, picking out a braille copy of his book, "The Green Man". "I'm just annoyed I have to sell this as fiction. It's SELLING great, reviewed great AS a fictional piece but...I wish people would have believed me if I'd sold it as a nonfiction biography."
"I know how you feel." Mr. Thildari sighed. "My own reason for blindness is something most people wouldn't want to hear about either, so I just let the masses believe what they want, and keep the truth a secret to only those I trust most. The good news is that few are insensitive enough to ask HOW I became blind."
"Weren't you born that way?" Dib asked, a bit confused as the blind guidance counselor smiled in a Mona Lisa way.
"...somewhat. I'm a "test tube baby". A mistake at that. Not exactly "born" that way." He remarked. "But it's good to speak with you. I hope to...see you...at school soon. In a few weeks, you'll be officially moving into high school, right?" He inquired with a grin. "I've no doubt you'll be top of your class."
Dib smiled warmly and said "Thanks." He told Mr. Thildari. "It's nice to...have someone appreciate me." He remarked, Mr. Thildari nodding and turning around, Dib blinking in surprise.
Something wasn't right. He saw something he'd never seen before. The back of Mr. Thildari's belt had a...familiar, tiny little insignia that Dib could finally make out. All those times he'd spent in the guidance counselor's office, he'd not seen the back of the man. But now he saw a familiar symbol. A symbol so familiar and yet...ALIEN...
Zim slumped in his chair at school, listening to the teacher go on and on. Ms. Bitters hadn't called on him once. Dib wasn't even looking at him. Keef had just said Zim was the "best foreign exchange student we'd ever had". Of course, he was the ONLY foreign exchange student they had, evidently.
It appeared nobody could remember who he really was. Nobody bought the idea that he was an alien.
Mostly because when he'd tried to insist so, he got sent to Principal Prickley's office.
Over and over.
"You know, Irken babies play with greater toys than this." Zim had said in a science lesson, preparing to light up a bunsen burner as Dib groaned and rolled his eyes.
"Suuure they do." He muttered.
"YOU DOUBT THE WORD OF ZIM?!" Zim proclaimed, pointing upward dramatically. "Irken babies are SO much more intelligent than your own! And we actually DO come from space! I don't know why I thought your babies came from space."
"Mr. Zim, you need to stop listening to Alex Jones and get to Principal Prickley's office NOW!" The white-haired, glasses-wearing crone that was Ms. Bitters hissed, pointing accusingly at Zim, then at the door.
"You can eat meat, Zim, you're not allergic." Dib had grumbled as they sat across from each other in the cafeteria, Dib holding up a bit of pork and beans special as it drizzled onto the plate below.
"Now whether this school's food COUNTS as meat is another story." Gaz remarked wryly before Zim pointed accusingly at the two of them.
"YOU LIE! Irkens are allergic to Earth meat!" He snarled, slamming his fists into his tray as pork and beans flew through the air like dancing snowflakes...and flopped onto Ms. Bitter's head like a water balloon filled with mud, making her glower furiously as she raced up to Zim and hissed in his face.
"Zim! Principal Prickley's office! NOW!"
But then came the biggest incident. After class was dismissed, Torque Smacky had laid in wait for Zim to walk by, carefully waiting for the rapidly-glancing-about foreign kid to come closer. Zim had turned around and was walking backwards, panting a bit, rubbing over his hands over and over as if feeling dirty. "I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy..." He'd kept saying over and over.
And then Torque had put his finger over the water fountain's opening and sprayed the water right at Zim. SPLSSSHHHH!
"AAAA! I HAVEN'T BATHED IN PASTE! YOU FOOL! I'm melting!" Zim cried out, flopping onto the ground, bouncing up and down, hissing and screeching. "Irkens can't handle water! What is wrong with you, you filthy Earth child?!"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with YOU?!" Torque had grunted, Ms. Bitters immediately manifesting from the nearby shadows and glowering down at Zim before yanking him up.
"PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE. NOW." She growled, Zim being dragged down the hallway, howling and clawing at the halls, his eyes closed tightly shut.
"Nonononononoooo!" He cried out before his eyes opened and he saw...a slightly smirking pair of aquamarine eyes belonging to a smirking face of what appeared to be a slightly older Jewish child who was hiding off in the shadows of the hall.
...
...
...
...Dib's eyes narrowed as he watched Mr. Thildari leave, heading out the door before he decided to close up, emptying his cash register and going to the manager to pay them their share for helping him set up shop. He adjusted his glasses, racing out the door, just managing to see Mr. Thildari making his way down, down the street and towards a warehouse, entering inside. He made his way down the street,
Night was shortly making its way across the town, cold moonlight bathing over the streets as he inched towards the doorway of the warehouse, slowly opening up the door...or trying to. It was locked. He cringed, and looked about, seeing a window that was boarded up...but one of the boards was VERY loose.
He began to pry the boards off, one after another, panting and heaving a bit, cringing as a bad feeling began to sink into his soul. Random strands of silver threads were draped along the edge of the window, with cobwebs powerful and thick, almost unbreakable as Dib inched towards a door off in the distance, across a pale, cold floor in the warehouse. He opened it up, a stairway leading down into even darkest depths as Dib took in a breath, and inched sloooowly down the stairs, bit by bit.
Cobwebs were seeping from the walls like drool, the air infested his nostrils, stinking a bit like copper and iron. Dib almost wanted to call out but...he felt a sense of deep fear diving into him as he inched down further and further into the black. Finally, he ended down in a basement, a soft pink light off in the distance, behind a singular doorway as cobwebs were draped all about. Dib crinkled his nose, stench rushed out the door and into Dib's nostrils.
He crinkled his nose again, covering up his nose and mouth with a sleeve, and made his way across the cold floor. And with each step, Dibbun Membrane started to hear not voices, but sounds. And these sounds - murmuring, wet, rolling - were not ones that Dib liked. They were sounds that friends made at dinner table eating a hearty meal together, drowned in the ensuing conversations. Someone, or something, was eating inside this warehouse basement. And whatever that thing was, it had to be huge for Dib to hear it from here.
Dib reached out and his fist slammed against the door. "Mr. Thildari?!" He cried out, his concern for one of the few adults who seemed to respect him making him break his silence. "If you can hear me, run!" Dib urged his body to move towards the source of the disturbing noises. His body didn't listen. Every muscle in his body scrambled his steps into jagged swerves that occasionally looped back. He was torn between wanting to run himself, and wanting to move forward.
The sounds stopped. Then, he heard a voice say. "I will. Just let me finish this first." Mr. Thildari's voice intoned.
Dib smiled, then frowned with his mouth agape. There was something wrong with Solomon's voice. It wasn't supposed to have that faint...edge. "Elaborate, please?"
The voice sighed. "I hoped I wouldn't have to."
The door opened up, Dib cringing as the pink light of the room bathed over him. He reeled back a bit, the light almost blinding as the sound of giant needles clattered in a slow, rhythmic skitter. But those weren't needles. Dib's body knew that those were the sounds of spider legs across the stone floor. Dib wanted to deny his body's knowledge, but it was correct. A great shadow loomed over the human, growing larger and larger with each pointed step the other being took.
Zim had to find that child.
He had been stuck with detention and was panting heavily, heart thumping in his chest, gloved hands gripping the desk as he waited and waited, waiting for the clock to finally reach that one, special point. Waiting for 5 O'Clock when he could be released. Time seemed to be endlessly slow and his leg jittered as he stared intensely at the clock.
"Zimri, what on Earth is the matter?" Mr. Elliot inquired, the sandy-haired human sitting in the Detention Desk across from him, Zim being the only child assigned detention today.
"ZIM! My name is ZIM!" Zim insisted fervently. "I don't have that as my name!"
"Zimri is a perfectly fine Hebrew name. You know, we have another nice Jewish student you might want to be friends with, he's been rather lonely being one of the few Jewish students we have, and could perhaps use someone who might share his experiences-" Mr. Elliot began to offer as Zim's eyes narrowed.
"What is his name?" He hissed out, gritting his teeth. "Where does he live?"
"You've seen him before, haven't you? He's Daniel. He lives down the road from the school on Main Street, at that nice blue house close to the warehouse. Our guidance counselor took him in as a favor to his parents who are, ah...indisposed." Mr. Elliot sighed. "He's a very studious, lovely child, you could learn a lot from him."
BRIIIING! The bell rang and Zim bolted out of his desk. He barreled down the hall, heading off. He tore down the street, panting and heaving, seeing the faint blue house off in the distance. It wasn't too far off from a large bookstore, Zim seeing a familiar-looking human child entering the house...leaving the door open.
Zim's eyes narrowed as he raced to the front door, pushing it open and glancing around. It was utterly quiet, the walls a deep, calming blue before he slowly closed the door behind him, inching towards an odd sound off in the distance that sounded faintly wet...and slippery...
Before he noticed that he had stepped into what appeared to be ugly black tar, and his eyes widened before he looked up, and a form descended down from above, his scream being silenced as he was slammed into the ground, and black tar began oozing over him.
"Hush." The voice intoned, a horned, slightly reddish head gazing down upon him, aquamarine eyes staring deep into his. "...you shouldn't have found me, Zim."
"What did you do to me?!" Zim screamed out through the being's other, normal hand as the monstrous being shook its head slowly.
"You did it to yourself. You did it every day. You're just reaping the consequences now." He told Zim as Zim struggled to break free, but found himself sinking deeper and deeper into the inky depths. "...take deep breaths. You'll suffer less."
Zim tried to scream.
...all he did was swallow black.
...
...
...
...And then, Dib was finally able to see as he turned his head, the blinding pink light being dimmed somewhat was the being lowered itself down on its spider-esque metal legs, and Dib was now face to face with a white-eyed Irken in brilliant white robes that were almost as blinding. The insectoid alien's antannae were, unlike Zim's, balled. He wore a necklace with a green, circular gem at the forefront, and had a soft, sad look in his blind, sightless eyes as the voice of Mr. Thildari echoed out from the Irken's mouth, along with a sad sigh. "Oh, Dib. Dearest Dibbun. I'd hoped to never show you this side of me."
Dib gaped as the Irken turned a bit so Dib could see, and he almost screamed. Zim was there, his form slumped over a chair, tied down in powerful spider-like webbing and bloody drool drizzling down from his mouth...
His head open and exposed, missing huge chunks of his brain as the Irken wiped some blood off his lip with a wormlike tongue, Zim slowly murmuring and muttering, somehow...SOMEHOW still alive. If barely.
"Wh...what in..." Dib whispered, hands flying to his mouth as the Irken made his way over to Zim, and rubbed over the back of his little neck with his clawed hands.
"Zim has been very...VERY bad." Mr. Thildari's voice intoned. "...he's kept hurting people. I couldn't let him keep doing that. So I'm punishing him. I'm taking away his mind. Leaving him JUUUST enough for him to remember what he was." The Irken added as he began to calmly rub his hands together and then his eyes glowed with light, and the opened-up head began to sew itself up before Dib's visage as Dib struggled not to vomit.
"Y-You're...you're..."
The blind Irken sighed as the awful, wet, squelching sounds filled the air and he turned back to Dib after it was done, Dib trying to steady himself on the wall.
"Dib, it's me. It's Mr. Thildari. I'm an Irken, I admit. My true name is Darithil...but I am better known by my name Darth. I am a Consular, a psychic interrogator for the Empire, made to get everything the empire would need from a pesky prisoner, but I decided enough was enough." He shook his head. "I was tired of them treating me as lesser merely for being blind when I could do things with my mind that would put any of their skills to shame. Tired of being insulted for being created as a failed woman. Tired of their lack of pity for others. I FELT it, Dib. I always felt it."
"Felt it?" Dib managed to murmur out as Darth sighed, holding his head in one hand and shaking it back and forth.
"Every time I entered a prisoner's mind, I connected with their feelings, and their lives. I could see through their eyes, and experience what they'd been through. Every new prisoner made me...hate what I was. Hate what I did. Hate what my kind were. All our lives we'd been taught from our inception that our race was superior to all. What an amazing, incredible LIE that was!" The blind Irken laughed wryly. "And we swallowed it down and asked "thank you sir, may I have another" because we wanted it to be true! We WANTED to be special. To be better. But it was all falsehood."
He turned back to Dib. "So I came here to escape. I hid away. I wanted to start anew. To have a...better life. I'm sorry you had to learn of this. Because now I have to erase your memories of it."
Dib quivered in fear as Darth sighed, hanging his head as he approached. "W-Wait, D-Darth, please-"
"Please, don't make this difficult. I could force you over to me in an instant. It will hurt less if you don't try to run." The blind Irken mournfully intoned as Dib flopped onto his back, arms down before scrambling backwards on his hands and feet. "Dib, please, I'm not cruel. Not all us Irkens are without pity." he said, clawed hand rising as Dib felt himself being lifted up. "I even stripped Zim of his pain centers as I got to work. I promise this won't hurt. It'll feel like slipping into dreams." He said, Dib being hovered through the air as he squirmed and whimpered in fear, Darth holding his cheeks.
Dib could feel the antannae bending down, down towards his forehead, Darth's face sad and mournful. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have shown you the truth under better circumstances. You're one of the only friends I have..." He admitted.
Suddenly he stiffened. He could hear the psychic cry of someone in absolute terror, and see through her eyes. She was close. Just outside. And a man had a gun aimed right at her.
"...Damnation." Darth murmured. He had no time. "Dib. I am TRUSTING you...to not run away." He said quietly, and with that, he let go of Dib, racing for the steps, clumsily barreling up them as Dib panted and heaved, chest rising and falling as he heard a woman's scream being silenced just outside the warehouse above him.
"Oh no." He murmured.
Darth had seen through the eyes of the terrified woman in the alley. Seen her being pinned to the wall by...another woman.
A lover spat that was turning deadly.
"Julia, you bitch! YOU!? Were gonna leave ME?! Like it's even your goddamn decision to make in the first place!" Madeline snarled, the redheaded woman glaring darkly as she pinned the blonde-haired woman with black highlights to the wall, the Native American cringing as the French-American woman glared darkly at her.
"Mad-Maddy, I-I can't breathe!" Julia cringed, barely able to squeak out an objection, her chest rising and falling beneath a sparkling blue dress. But Darth wasn't focusing on that. He glared in the direction of the woman in front of him, and barreled right into her. Julia panted slightly, clinging to the wall in shock as Darth pinned the woman down to the ground.
"Don't! You EVER! Go near her again!" He roared out, as his PAK legs sprung out, gigantic, metallic spider legs leering up, and jabbing into the walls around him. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!" He roared out, balled antannae bouncing up and down as Madeline gulped in fear, eyes bugging out as she nervously nodded her head up and down, and Darth rose up, almost hovering in the air as she took off running.
He then turned to the woman, who was quivering in fear, whimpering as he reached out, and took her cheeks in his clawed hands. "Don't be afraid." He insisted. "I shan't harm you." He intoned, as he gave her a kiss on the forehead, and she felt his mind washing over hers. A deep, intense, loving warmth began to seep into her mind as he caressed her cheek, and his white eyes smiled. There wasn't an ounce of cruelty in his voice as he began to softly sing, and she drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep as Darth's eyes glowed with a faint light.
After about five full minutes, the work was done, and he gently lowered her down to the ground, rummaging through her pockets and finding her cell phone as he called "9-1-1", to alert the police. "Hello. I'm calling on this woman's phone, I found her passed out in an alleyway, she looks like the victim of an attempted mugging. Please come help. She is at fifth and main, not far from the book store." He intoned, putting the phone back before he turned, and his antannae twitched.
He turned his head.
"You didn't run away." He said to Dib, Dib shaking his head as he rubbed his arm slightly and looked to the side, biting his lip.
"You saved her life." He admitted. "Maybe you're not all bad after all."
"And it would appear I chose wisely." Darth intoned as a smile spread across his face. "I know what you're going to ask, Dib. I don't even need to read your mind to be able to tell that. You want me to return Zim to normal? Even after all you told me about what he did in our many sessions together?"
"I never wanted him actually...REALLY badly hurt now that I've seen it. I mean...what you did was torture." Dib said, his tone becoming softer, sadder. "I just...that just ain't right! I just want Zim to understand what it feels like to be ME, that's all. Not to go that far."
Darth's white eyes glittered. "That idea...I can manage." He murmured as a dark smile spread over his lips.
...
...
...
...Zim laid in his bed, Daan Yel the Vortian calmly putting his arm back over to his shoulder, the faintly goopy, inky blackness reforming into a more normal appendage as the aquamarine-eyed alien sighed. "You won't remember any of this, Zim." He spoke quietly. "Just like you didn't remember the last five times this year." He quietly remarked as his adoptive "father" and mentor made his way into the room. Zim's PAK quietly glistened...now made of a deep, oily black substance as Darth quietly sighed.
"He's remembering less and less, though." He admitted. "He used to remember the process every couple of weeks. Now he barely remembers every month. In time he won't remember it at all. As he shouldn't. I have to say though, I'm highly impressed with your work, my ward."
Daan flexed his special limb, claws flexing a bit, black tar forming into a miniature "PAK". "It just required focus, but it's a near-perfect replica of his PAK. Nothing but the life support. Nothing to give away what he truly is, not with your psychic stitching still digging into his head. Do you think Gaz will ever get tired of this new game?"
"No. Nor Dib...nor I." Darth confessed calmly. "A week of preparation, but now Zim is truly alone. Now he'll know how Dib feels...every...single...day. Such is the downside to everyone thinking you're just a normal Earth boy." He added with a little chuckle. "How ironic that the one thing that he tried to keep hidden from others would have been the one thing that could have allowed him to break free of the web of illusion he's trapped in. But the only ones who know...aren't ever going to say a thing."
"I almost feel bad for GIR, though." Daan admitted with a sigh as he looked down at Zim's slumbering form, the Irken quietly whimpering pitifully in his sleep. "And his other servants. He looked so sad when we dragged Zim away. What did you do with them?"
Darth grinned.
...
...
...
... "My Tallest, you have a package!" A green-eyed communications officer said, putting down a large package down in front of the Tallest's room before he immediately backed off. "And my crew is going to take their vacation this week so bye!" He added, immediately bolting for the nearest escape pod, his fellow bridge crew members holding up suitcases and backpacks. No way were they going to stay around. Especially when they saw the faintly red light emanating from the cracks between the package.
As Tallest Red and Purple opened up their gift, they were greeted with a dark, glowering face, Minimoose hovering above the SIR unit's face as it glowered at them. "Your progress has been stupid. Your METHODS have been STUPID."
"Wh-what do you want?" Purple asked, eyes wide with fear as GIR stepped out of the box, Red's lip quivering as Minimoose opened up, letting out a sadistic, giggling laugh.
"...YOUR LIFE." GIR whispered.
Red and Purple tried to scream.
All they did was swallow blood.