The System Marshall pinched his brow as the first idiot proceeded to give detailed exposition about their preparations for the trip. It was when Zim started talking about contemplating which of his many identical uniforms he should take on the trip that the lawman finally had enough.
"SHUT UP! Just skip to the part where you ARRIVE on Casinulon!" Snuurk shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
"Okay, fine! It seems as though the concepts of style and fashion are lost upon your primitive brainmeats!" The Irken scoffed before continuing.
Wormholes, folds in the dimensions of time and space that allow matter which passes through them to travel great distances across the universe. Although the technology to create these anomalies at will was not widely available to the spacefaring community, stable, natural wormholes were widely utilized for commercial use and had helped shape many a civilization.
Plus, they just looked plain neat. Of course, after traveling through enough of them, the experience loses it's novelty and becomes quite mundane. This is what the occupants of the Voot Cruiser had quickly discovered after taking their sixth wormhole trip on their way to the Renolian System. The worn-down, old spaceship had begun it's trip to Casinulon early Friday evening and it was Saturday morning when they finally exited the last wormhole and arrived at the glitzy planet.
"YES, GIR! WE'RE HERE! OKAY?! STOP ASKING!" Was the first thing to leave Zim's mouth as they exited the anomaly. "After asking COUNTLESS TIMES, yes... we are here! ALRIGHT?!"
The annoying automaton stared at his Irken master for a long moment. "... Are we there, yet?"
The Invader just sighed as they approached the planet, passing by an enormous, flashing sign that read: Welcome to Fabulous Casinulon Renolian. And just under that was the planet's motto: What you gamble on Casinulon, STAYS on Casinulon!
As they entered the atmosphere, the glitz, glamour and blinding light displays of the gambling world hit the crew of the Voot Cruiser like they had just opened a fridge full of rotten eggs. It was absolutely overwhelming. Skoodge and GIR pressed their noseless facial-areas against the glass as they looked on in awe at the surface of the gaudy city-planet.
"Skoodge... SKOODGE!" The Invader shouted as he threw the Almighty Tallest Bobblehead, that he had had resting ontop of the ship's control console, at the chubby, awestruck Irken.
"Huh? What? Oh, right!" The portly, retired Invader held up the navigation tablet. "Alright, here are the coordinators for our hotel."
The ship came about, landing in front of Caligularn the Degenerate's Palace, one of the biggest hotel-and-casinos on the planet. No sooner had the Voot Cruiser touched down when several bellhops swarmed the vessel. As the hotel slaves unloaded the ship's cargo, a large-headed, homo sapien sprung forth from the hold, falling to his knees and gasping for air.
"Oxygen! Sweet, sweet OXYGEN!" Dib exclaimed in rapture as he sucked up all the O2 his lungs could possibly hold and then some. "... This is oxygen, right?"
One of the bellhops just shrugged at the large-craniumed stowaway and continued to unload the ship's luggage. A second human slid casually out of the hold, landing on her feet and looking a lot less concerned over her near-suffocation. Dib beheld the new, alien scenery in awe and bewilderment whilst his curmudgeonly sister looked on in disinterest and mild disgust.
Gaz scoffed, "THIS is what we spent a day locked in a trunk for?"
"I know, isn't it just AMAZING, Gaz?! We're probably the first human beings ever to set foot on this planet!"
"Yeah, about that..." The Doom-Child began as she looked at a Performing Nightly poster of an aged human with a pompadour and cybernetic life support implants. Baby, Please... let me die! appeared to be the headlining song.
"HEY! Careful with that luggage! That luggage belongs to ZIM! I AM ZIM! That one is Skoodge's, you can drop that one." The Irken Invader shouted at the bellhops.
The big-headed boy was suddenly shocked back to reality as he realized that if his sworn nemesis found out that the humans had stowed away on his spaceship, he might just be a little miffed. Dib darted behind a nearby wall in a flash, his sibling just rolled her eyes and strode over to the wall at a leasurely pace. As Gaz turned the corner, she found her brother hunched over a dufflebag, putting on a disguise.
The plum-haired pain princess gave a sigh, regretting the words she uttered as soon as she spoke them. "What are you doing, now?"
"Zim's bound to recognize me if a step out into the open as my usual, human self! But, with the right disguise, I can blend into the crowd and watch his every move! He came to this planet for a reason, Gaz..." The colossal-craniumed savior of Earth said as he finished putting on his disguise, he turned around and struck a heroic pose. "... and I intend to find out why!"
Dib was a sight to behold, indeed. He had ditched his usual attire for a silver bodysuit, a skin-tight cowl with two antennas covered his abnormally large head and he had smeared green paint inconsistently upon his face, giving his skin a splotchy look. He looked like he just walked off the set of a fifties science-fiction movie. The big-headed boy looked at his sister with a big grin on his face. "How do I look, Gaz?!"
The daughter of Membrane stared at her sibling for a moment, wondering how it was possible such an idiot could be related to her. "Yeah, you're definitely an alien."
There was two ways one could take that comment, Dib chose to take it in the way that made him feel less like a dork. "Thanks, Gaz! Now, it's not a perfect disguise-"
"Y'think?"
"-but, if I stick to the crowds and keep a fair distance away from Zim, I should be able to keep an eye on him without him noticing me!" He slipped on a pair of goggles to hide his human eyes before taking off towards the nearby staff entrance. "Wish me luck!"
Gaz was about to wish her sibling a painful demise in a burning building when a chip worth one-hundred credits fell from the pocket of a passing alien and landed at her feet. Raising an eyebrow, the girl swiped the chip, deciding she may as well entertain herself whilst she was stuck on this gaudy planet, she headed towards the casino.
As Dib slipped through the staff entrance door he found himself face to handle with several cleaning utensils leaned up next to the door. Sufficed to say they all fell to the ground with a clatter in an instant, alerting the shift manager that was currently ordering around the staff. The orange-ish yellow-skinned reptilian alien whipped around at the sound of the clattering brooms and mops and affixed the big-headed boy with a glare. Dib froze, hoping that the creature's sight worked on movement. It did not.
"Ugh, clumsy, little... you must be the new guy, then! Well, get your uniform on!" The Renolian commanded, pointing one of it's razor-sharp claws towards a rack of bellhop uniforms. The son of Membrane decided that the best course of action would be to obey the large, terrifying lizardman and quickly grabbed one of the uniforms. As soon as he slipped it on over his silver bodysuit, the shift manager already had a job waiting for him. "Couple of guests ordered the deluxe package! Means you'll be tending to their needs all day! Now get outta my sight!"
With a rather tactless kick, the work-stressed Renolian sent the new bellhop sailing out the door into the lobby. Dib skidded and tumbled across the floor before his enormous skull collided with the front desk.
"-And here's your personal bellhop, as requested, sir!" Said the perky, young, Vort girl serving at the Check-In as she gestured towards the big-headed boy as he groggily pushed himself up, coming face to face with the people he would be tending to for the rest of the day.
"EXCELLENT! Zim has always wanted his own hotelslave!"
O, what a cruel, cruel hand fate had dealt Dib this day.
