Invader Zim – It's Escaped!
Mid-afternoon, Saturday. Underneath his apparently inconspicuous house, Zim marches through the lower levels of his base and makes his way into a room with a large water tank, containing a large sleeping alien. The creature was grey, with 10 legs, shaped like some kind of alien horse, with a nasty-looking alien head. It lay sleeping in the water tank, looking peaceful, yet menacing at the same time.
Zim closely examined a monitor displaying containment and pressure levels for the water tank. Zim smiles to himself. "Containment levels are normal. WE ARE SAFE! The Tallest will simply LOVE my new evil plan… providing this THING doesn't escape first."
Zim walks over to another monitor displaying his living room. Gir sits on the couch eating a packet of "Cheese Monkeys" furiously, repeatedly licking his fingers after every few mouthfuls.
Zim grabs the nearby microphone for intercom. "Gir! Get down here!"
Gir stands up and salutes, then very quickly starves down the rest of the Cheese Monkeys, and then sticks his head in the packet and uses his tongue to lick up the rest of the contents of the packets. Gir keeps hold of the packet and runs into the kitchen and jumps into the recycling bin, which leads to his slide down to the lower regions of the house.
Gir excitedly slides down the slide and pops out at the exit, which just happens to be right next to where Zim is standing.
"I'm gettin' me a laser!" Gir squeals, then shows the back of the Cheese Monkeys packet to Zim.
""Send off 100 coupons from your packets of Cheese Monkeys, to receive an exclusive, real life, laser gun!" – this offer's open to KIDS?" Zim shrugs and hands the packet back to Gir, who runs off into the next room.
Zim chases after Gir through the door. "Where are you going now! I said I needed your- whoa!" Zim gawps at the enormous pile of coupons which are stacked in the room. The coupons were all stacked on what appeared to be a large weighing scale, with a digital counter that read '99'.
Confused, Zim scratches his chin. "These… weren't here this morning…"
Gir's head opens and he removes a pair of scissors which he uses to quickly cut out the coupon from the packet. Gir eats the remainder of the packet and does a high jump into the air. After doing a flip, Gir slams the coupon down in the style of a basketball being slam-dunked. However, he lets go in the air, so the coupon gently drifts down onto the very top of the pile.
The counter goes up to 100. A victory fanfare plays and the scale launches a plethora of confetti out of its sides. Gir squeals excitedly and begins affectionately rolling around on the floor.
"Okay…" Zim continues. "As I was saying-"
Gir stops rolling and his head opens to reveal an envelope with an address scrolled on the front in pen. Gir opens the envelope and leaps in the air multiple times, repeatedly grabbing the coupons as he fell. Gir struggled to close all of the coupons into the envelope, which had now gotten rather large. Gir quickly ran outside, not caring to put on his disguise, and then, with great struggle, stuffed the enormous envelope into the nearby mailbox.
Zim watches on the monitor as Gir runs away and back to the house. A rather confused-looking mailman soon arrives at the mailbox and struggles to pull it out. Once he does manage, it falls on him. The mailman lies there, being crushed under the weight of the enormous envelope, but soon manages to get up and puts all of his strength into walking off with it.
Gir runs back down to the base to see Zim waiting, impatiently tapping his foot. "Are you QUITE finished?"
"Yes!" Gir replies, then ponders for a short moment, counting on his fingers. "Wait… yes!"
Zim directs Gir's attention to the large creature in the tank. "Behold, Gir – the dreaded Equilorch! You remember our trip to Sirus Minor where we ensnared this beast and brought back to the base?
Gir stares at Zim blankly.
"Really hot planet?" Zim tries to jog Gir's memory. "Barren, a lot of sand and rocks? Orbits a nasty hot sun?"
"Oooooooohhhhhhhh yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh…" Gir imitates punching the air. "We was all like POWPOWPOW!" Gir removes a butterfly net from his head and waves it in the air. "Then you was all like 'get here!'" Gir removes his head from his shoulders and plays kick-ups with it like a football. "And then it bit off my head, and I was like 'gimme my head' and then it let go." Gir kicks his head fast into the wall, like a football being kicked into a goal. "And then I was like BOOOOMMM and it wouldn't wake up."
Zim squints. "Um… yeah, something like that. Anyway, Gir, soon I'm going to let this beast loose on the humans! But I'm a busy Irken, I need you to constantly monitor this… monitor, and keep this thing safely contained."
On the monitor displaying Zim's front lawn, a large "Mail Guy" van is seen pulling up outside Zim's house. A delivery man in a uniform walks up to Zim's front door and rings the doorbell. Gir wastes no time in rushing to the front door and answering it.
"That was quick." Zim says.
"Uh… here's your package!" The large delivery man yelled, handing Gir a large white parcel, then a clipboard and pen.
"Sign here, and here" The delivery man instructs, prompting Gir to sign on the clipboard.
In a nearby bush, Dib sits inconspicuously next to a pair of binoculars and a spy camera, as well as a notepad to take notes of anything that fits his odd definition of strange.
"What's Zim ordering?" Dib asks himself, writing in his notepad. "He's pretty well supplied as it is, anything he's ordering must be pretty high-profile." Dib stands up. "I gotta see what's in that package!" Dib steps one foot out of the bush. A soft squishing sound is heard. Dib pulls a face and sighs. "Right after I clean dog waste off my shoe."
"BYYEEEEEEE!" Gir squeals to the deliveryman as he returns to his van and drives off. Gir runs with the package back down to Zim's position and begins to open it. After taking the lid off, Gir dives inside the box and begins to rummage around.
Zim hesitates, then curiously pops his head over the edge of the box. Just as he does, Gir springs out of the box and lands next to Zim, holding a small white and red laser gun about the size of his own head.
"Oooooohhhhhhh!" Gir squeals in amazement as he examines his new weapon.
Zim digs through the confines of the box and finds a leaflet, titled as "HOW TO USE". ""WARNING – laser beam battery lasts for total of 5 shots. Laser beam battery is not replaceable. Do not point at eyes, face, any other body part, or other living creatures. Yes, that includes hobos. Refund not available." 5 shots, is that it? You've been ripped off, Gir, I could have given you a much better laser for half the effort you put into getting that thing."
Gir was too busy admiring his new laser to care, he aims it around the base and playfully pretends to shoot things while making exploding noises. However, Gir accidentally pulls the trigger while aiming at the controls for the water containment tank. The console powers down, and so does the water tank.
The Equilorch wakes up. It roars loudly and repeatedly smashes its legs against the glass, eventually breaking it. The Equilorch squeezes out of the tank and roars again, before using its legs to smash Zim and Gir against the wall, which it then follows by smashing its way out of the base and runs off towards the city.
Zim regains his breath and glares angrily at Gir, who pops his head back onto his shoulders. "Gir! This is all your fault! See you what you've done NOW!"
Gir's eyes well up, followed by breaking into a full crying state. "I's sorry! I did cause I loooooovvvvvveeeeeee you master!" Gir removes a rubber piggy from his head and holds it out. "The pig in my head told me to do it! It says things!"
Zim sighs. "Ugh, anyway we need to get after that thing… WHO KNOWS the devastation that thing will cause!"
Gir walks closer to Zim. "Wasn't unleashing it on the humans what you wanted to do anyway?"
An awkward silence follows. "Um…" Zim tries to come up with an answer, but then turns his attention to his half-destroyed base. "It, um, caused so much damage to my baaaaaase! We must… capture it back… and punish it!"
Zim and Gir make their way to the top floor of the house. Zim looks up into the air and sees the bright sun outside. "It's too bright outside to go after that thing in the Voot. We'll have to go after it on foot."
Zim gets an idea and runs back downstairs. Gir patiently puts on his dog disguise and then picks his new laser gun back up and hugs it affectionately. Zim soon emerges back upstairs, dressed in a white rabbit suit that only left a hole for his face.
"You're in a rabbit suit!" Gir squeals happily.
Zim nods. "The Equilorch prey on small creatures such as bunnies so it seemed like a good idea if we're gonna lure it back to us." Zim holds out a grey bazooka with '' written on the side in big red letters. "Once we find the beast, I may need your help to trap it so I can shoot it with this net cannon. But try not to hurt it TOO much, we need it to attack the humans."
"Can I eat one of its legs?" Gir says, tossing his laser gun in the air and getting ready to catch it.
"No!" Zim snaps, starting to walk out into the street.
Gir cries, and the distraction made him miss catching the laser gun, which falls on the floor. The impact on the laser gun makes it fire straight ahead and it hits a stop sign, dissolving the pole and sending the actual red, round part of the stop sign flying high into the air like a Frisbee.
Gir picks up the laser gun and quickly checks it to see if it's okay. Zim eyes it curiously. "Is there a safety on that thing?" Gir shrugs.
In Dib's hidey-hole of a bush, Dib was angrily rubbing the underside of his shoe on a nearby rock in an attempt to remove the dog waste off the shoe. Hearing a falling sound, Dib looks into the air. You can only imagine his surprise to see a spinning, falling stop sign heading towards him like a speeding Frisbee. Before he could do anything about it, it hits Dib's large head and knocks his face to the ground.
Dib stands up and rubs his forehead where the stop sign had struck him, then curiously picks up the stop sign. "Who throws stop signs at kids!"
Zim and Gir walking past the bush and towards the city immediately grabbed Dib's attention.
"Zim has a gun!" Dib screeches. "And he's heading towards town! DRESSED AS A RABBIT!" Dib hops out of the bush. "I have to follow him and see what he's up to!" Dib then realises he'd forgotten to put his soiled shoe back on, so he grabs it from the bush and quickly puts it back on before running after Zim.
Zim and Gir walk through the city, looking for any trace of their target. Strangely enough, there was no sign it had been here.
Zim groans. "We've been searching for nearly an hour and there's no sign that that THING has been anywhere near here."
Gir playfully waves his laser gun around, making exploding noises with his mouth.
Zim scratches his chin. "Could it be that it's on the rooftops? You may not think by looking at it but the Equilorch have a surprisingly good ability to scale walls."
Gir waves the laser gun around again, this time nearly hitting Zim in the face with it. Zim holds it away from his face. "Be careful with that thing, Gir! It may only have five shots… well, THREE now, but it's still a dangerous earth weapon!"
As Zim pushes it away from himself, it tightens Gir's grip on the trigger and once again forcing it to fire. This time the beam hits a nearby block of flats, destroying a small segment of the wall. Unfortunately, the wall covered one of the flat's bathroom, revealing a middle-aged overweight man naked in a bubble bath. The man screams repeatedly, from both the shock of his wall being destroyed and the fact that he had just been exposed while in the bath. Part of the floor supporting the bath had also been destroyed, and so the bath starts to slowly slide downwards. Luckily, part of the rubble was enough the stop the bath falling towards the ground, however this meant that the man and the water slid straight out of the bath. The man screamed as he fell and hit the ground landing on his backside. He stared emotionlessly at Zim and Gir.
A silence follows, before Zim breaks it. "Um… it was like that when we got here… right Gir?"
"He's naked!" Gir squeals.
Zim starts to slowly walk away. "Uh, yeah Gir, let's leave the… creepy, naked man alone."
Dib was hiding in a nearby phone booth and had witnessed the whole thing. "Zim's gonna destroy the whole city with that thing! If I don't stop him, he's gonna shoot EVERYONE'S bathrooms walls!"
A man in a suit walked past and heard Dib's rant. "Shut up ya crazy kid!"
Zim and Gir walk down another road looking for signs of the Equilorch. Gir continues to play with his laser gun.
"Gir, you only have two shots left." Zim warns. "You really should be more- SWEET JUMPING CHEESE SPREAD!" Zim stares up at a building covered in dents and damages that were an obvious sign that something LARGE had climbed up it.
"It's been here!" Zim gawps up at the building. "I told you it could climb!" Zim walks up to a dent in the building and puts his hand against it. "They're not warm. These damages must be at least an hour old. It mustn't be around here any more.
Zim turns to face Gir. "This thing could have gone anywhere from here. Let's think, if I were a large slab of space meat, where would I go…?" Two small white drips fall from the sky and land next to Zim, just barely missing him. "Curse these earth pigeons!"
Gir looks up in the air. "Master…?"
Zim stares angrily at the drops. "These rats with wings just fly all over the place and bury us all in their filth without a care in the world!"
Gir continues to stare up. "Uh… master?"
"I swear I HATE the obnoxious things!" Zim continues, not noticing a large shadow starting to loom over him. "As soon as I conquer this pathetic planet, my first order of business WILL be to vaporise all these horrible little pie-stuffing's!"
Gir points upwards. Zim looks up to see the Equilorch directly above him, perched on the building using its legs to cling onto the side of it. Zim screams and runs, just BARELY dodging the Equilorch as it tries to snap at him. Zim and Gir run screaming. The Equilorch runs after them, jumping from building to building as it chases them.
"The laser, Gir! Give it to me!" Gir hesitates, but hands the laser to Zim, who tries to aim while running. Zim fires a shot at the Equilorch, hitting it's head and distracting it for a brief moment. Zim and Gir quickly hide in a nearby bush. The Equilorch comes to its senses and realise its prey had escaped. It roars, then scales a nearby building and makes its way back to the rooftops.
Zim pants. "We need to rethink our strategy, Gir. We have to take it by surprise."
"YAAAAAYYYYY SURPRISE!" Gir pulls two party hats out of his head and places one on his head and one on Zim's.
"Stop right there, Zim!" Dib stood outside the bush, looking down on them both. "I don't know your plan or why it involves exposing people during their bath times, but I'm going to stop you!"
"You deluded child, is your gargantuan head crushing your already tiny brain under its own weight!" Zim snaps back. "Believe it or not I'm actually trying to SAVE this pitiful city!"
"I'm not listening to excuses!" Dib dismisses, drawing a rather large potato sack from his jacket. "Now get in here!" Dib jumps down on Zim and tries to bag him with the sack. Zim jumps out of the way and smacks Dib on the head with the laser gun, briefly stunning him. Zim and Gir take this opportunity to leg it.
Zim and Gir soon arrive at a building that the Equilorch had obviously climbed. Zim puts his hand to the marks left on the building, and then clenches his fist. "These are still warm! It can't be far!" Zim runs into the building and runs to the man at the reception desk, showing him a photo of the Equilorch. "You! Human desk drone! Have you seen this horrible creature!"
The secretary studies the photo for a moment, then smiles and nods. "Yeah!" He points upwards. "It went THAT way! Funnily enough, it got that way from outside instead of using the elevators. Not many people or monsters do that."
Zim grabs the secretary by his tie. "How long agoooooooooooooooooooooooo…!"
"A couple of minutes ago." The secretary replies calmly, seemingly not bothered about the fact Zim had aggressively grabbed his tie.
Zim lets go and runs toward the elevator. "Thank you!" Gir runs after Zim.
The secretary smiles to himself and resumes his work. "What a nice rabbit…"
Zim and Gir take the elevator to the rooftop. To their delight, the Equilorch stood on top of the building, facing a small Chihuahua with a half-chewed ear and a lobotomy scar on its forehead. The Equilorch had cornered the poor thing and was now preparing to eat it.
"WE FOUND IT!" Gir squeals excitedly. Zim quickly tires to shut Gir up. "Will you be quiet!" Zim whispers. "We don't it to know we're here! Thankfully it seems to be distracted by the Chihuahua… wait, why is there a Chihuahua on a rooftop?"
Zim gets out his net cannon and slowly and carefully aims at the Equilorch. Unbeknownst to any of them, Dib jumps down from the building's radar with his potato sack. "I have you NOW, Zim!" Dib's unfortunate timing not only put Zim off his aim, but alerted the Equilorch to their presence. Dib, having only just noticed the Equilorch's existence, is put off from trying to bag Zim and just ends up falling towards the roof.
Dib falls towards Zim, who simply swats Dib away with his net cannon. Dib nearly falls off the building, but luckily manages to hold on. However, this leaves him hanging from the rooftop with nothing but his hands to support him. The potato sack, however, falls to the ground and lands on the head of a random man who was passing by. The man screams and runs around trying to get it off, but he runs into the road and is nearly hit by a car.
The Equilorch slowly moves towards Zim and Gir. "Gir, shoot it!" Zim orders. Gir aims carefully, and then wipes a tear from his eye as he uses his last laser shot to hit the Equilorch on its head, stunning the beast. Zim takes the opportunity to fire his net cannon, releasing a large fish net that completely and safely ties up and restrains the Equilorch.
"Well done Gir!" Zim cheers. Gir tries to fire the laser gun again, but it just clicks and nothing happens. Gir shrugs and just tosses it away behind him, and it lands on Dib's head and bounces off before falling towards the ground. "Owww!" Dib screams, then panics as he tries to keep his grip that he nearly just lost.
Zim looks up at the sky and notices it was nearly dark, and then looks at the large Equilorch-filled net. "We can probably fly this thing back to the base without any hassle." Zim whistles loudly, and the Voot Cruiser suddenly flies over to their location. Zim ties the net containing the Equilorch to the bottom of the Voot, and Zim and Gir hop inside and Zim flies the Voot away from the building.
"Where are you going!" Dib yells. "You can't just leave me here!" Dib groans as he tires to keep his grip on the edge. "Somebody! !"
The Chihuahua walks over and looks at Dib curiously. Dib stares at the Chihuahua nervously. "Good dog, good dog! Don't bite me!"
The Chihuahua turns around and points its backside towards Dib, then lifts up its left leg and backs up towards Dib.
Dib shakes his head in a panic and tries to keep his grip as he prepares for what the dog is about to do. "!"
THE END