A/N – I don't these guys. Jhonen Vasquez does. Not I. I own the side-character's personalities…maybe…and the few OC's there will be…I'll let ya know when they show up.
THANK YOU MadeUpFigment for my 1 and ONLY review. You made mu exam-induce morning HUZZAH! And it also made me realize I had posted the 2nd chapter on my deviantart account (accountname – goldbryn…check me out! I gots Sizz and Dwick pics GALORE) and not here. So…ENJOI!!!!
Chapter 2 - Shaken
Dwicky sat sullenly in the booth at the still bustling Shloogorgh's and tried to wrap his very addled mind around what had just happened. One minute he had been happily cavorting the universe with his newest friends, and now…now he was alone on a very new planet—well, to him anyway.
His earlier conversation with Mooshy and Spoopty still repeated itself over and over in his head. But even though they left him, he couldn't be mad at them. Not really.
x-x-x-x
The communicator on his belt buckle beeped angrily at him as he sat confused and lost in a random booth inside the restaurant. At first he was going to ignore it, but then he nearly slapped himself for being so stupid.
He could have and should have called their communicators.
Reaching down he gripped it tightly as he turned it on, the view screen flickering to life and showing his two friends. He sighed happily, smiling down at the picture of the two aliens.
"Where the hell did ya'll go?" he asked as though this was an everyday occurrence.
"Well," It was Mooshy. "Dwicky, man, I'm sorry." Dwicky's smile faltered.
"Whaddya mean?" he chuckled nervously.
"Look, you know what our real job is." Mooshy looked rather upset he was having to have this conversation, and Spoopty stood behind him, looking rather sullen himself.
"Yeah. I-I remember…but I don't see—"
"Boss called us and said we had to leave right away."
"But why…?"
"The wormhole that would get us to the client was gonna close within 2 mico-cycles." Mooshy narrowed his eyes at something off screen. Dwicky's stomach was still in knots.
"I understand that, but that still would have given you plenty of time to find me, I don't understand why—"
Spoopty leaned forward, tapping a button on the console and on Dwicky's view screen popped a small model of an alien he had never seen.
"This guy hired us to kill off the planet's leader." Mooshy stayed silent, letting his purple friend take over. His eyes were still uncharacteristically narrowed. "Boss had to pull us out of vacation cause he only trusts us. Not to mention…if he or the client had found out we were harboring an "outsider" you'd have been killed." Spoopty lowered his eyes, and with another click the alien model vanished. "No questions asked."
Dwicky hadn't heard them talk much about their real jobs. Only that they were For-Hire mercenaries and were currently on long-term vacation. It seems they had been wrong too. Dwicky swallowed thickly, feeling heat rise to his cheeks and his eyes. He blinked angrily.
"So-so I'm stuck here."
"We tried to find you to tell you, but Boss was insistent and had pretty much programmed our ship to pick us up anyway. This is a big deal for the guild." Spoopty sighed, looking back at his captain, who still looked sour. "We hadn't planned on this at all."
"I know." Said Dwicky softly. He didn't like the idea of being stuck out in space alone. "I just wish I knew what to do."
Mooshy sighed and pushed Spoopty away from the vid screen so he was looking dead at Dwicky. "Boss still owes us vacation after this and I'm almost certain we can wrap this job up in less than a good solar month." Mooshy forced a smile and gave Dwicky a thumbs up. "The only thing you can do is wait it out."
Dwicky scoffed absentmindedly and Mooshy's smile fell.
There was silence on both ends and the only noise that permeated was the hustle and bustle of hungry aliens. But even that was drowned out by the roaring in Dwicky's ears.
It was Spoopty that broke the silence again, pushing Mooshy with loud "oomph" completely out of the screen's view.
"Listen Dwicky," Dwicky blinked slightly taken aback. "Mooshy and I are as sorry as we can be. We know you're new out here and trust me when I say we tried EVERYTHING to get out of this." Dwicky sunk down in his seat, feeling more and more like a heel as Spoopty continued on. Every so often, Mooshy tried to get back in view, and Spoopty held him off effortlessly with one mechanical hand. "We HAD to take this or tell him the real reason we wanted to stay on vacation. Then it would have been all our necks on the line!"
Mooshy's voice came muffled from beyond the view screen. "but we don't have necks." And Dwicky chuckled for the first time since he had sat in that lonely booth.
Spoopty smiled off screen wryly and continued on. "We've made arrangements so you're not helpless. Mooshy was supposed to tell you this right off the bat, but he's so busy wallowing in self pity right now," There was an indignant yelp and a flailing of mechanical arms before Spoopty spoke again. "that it must have slipped his mind! Your ID we got you when you first started traveling with us—it's key here. We've wired an account to it and we've put some monies in there to keep you straight until we get done with the job." Spoopty, finally tired of holding back Mooshy, finally let the alien go and stepped back to watch him fly forward, laying himself out underneath the console. "If it takes longer than planned, we're prepared to put more in. Not to mention, once this job is done, there's a HUGE payoff." He grinned down at the struggling Mooshy.
Dwicky chewed on his lower lip for the longest moment before speaking up. "How will I get in touch with you guys? I mean can I use the communicator or are you going out of signal range?"
Mooshy had, while Dwicky was talking, pulled himself from off the floor and was leaning against the console, Spoopty chuckling beside him. At the mention of Dwicky's question, both shot him a worried glance.
"No!" they nearly shouted in unison. This made Dwicky blink in confusion.
"oh well I thought—"
"No, I mean we'll contact you." Mooshy said, scrambling to his mechanical feet. "Boss likes to keep an eye on the transmissions, and if we get too many from a strange signal he'll get suspicious."
"Sounds like a real father figure." Dwicky scoffed. The two aliens smiled and nodded.
"Yeah, no."
Dwicky out right laughed.
"But seriously. Only in dire emergencies contact us. We'll check in periodically, we promise." Another thumbs up, this time from Spoopty.
"There's plenty of hotels around Foodcourtia for those consistent snackers." Mooshy started typing something as he talked, but nothing came up on his screen so Dwicky didn't really bother with it. "Just hole up in one of those and see the planet. It's a great place." He sighed and stopped typing before looking back at Dwicky.
"We…ah…we gotta go." He narrowed his eyes off screen again and there was a small beep this time. "Boss is calling us in. The wormhole's only a short ways away." Mooshy sighed. "We'll keep in touch Dwick, don't worry."
"Yeah. We like ya too much to just abandon ya! I mean, frell, it we got rid of you I think we'd kill each other."
"That's a lie and you know it." Dwicky said, hunched over the communicator in slightly better spirits, though still slightly off. "If I'm there you try and kill me too."
"All too true." Spoopty said with a wishful smile.
"Well we gotta go, Boss is getting irritated." Another, louder beep was heard.
"Yeah. Well, do me a favor and be careful." Dwicky looked expectantly at them.
They only smiled, gave him identical thumbs ups, and a resounding "Like we're ever not," and the screen faded to black.
Dwicky sat, still on edge and only slightly reassured.
Now he was more worried for his friends then about his own situation.
x-x-x-x
So here he was, sitting in a small booth, staring blankly off into space. He sighed loudly and gripped the communicator absentmindedly. It beeped at him in annoyance and he reluctantly loosened his hold, and dragging it back with a nearly boneless arm, somehow managed to clip it to his belt once again.
While it was back there, Dwicky had his lazy arm fish out his wallet and return it to the table.
Another sigh escaped his lips as he opened it to reveal a few loose monies and, more importantly, his galactic ID.
He examined it for a minute before deciding it was time to test the waters and see if Mooshy and Spoopty had in fact hooked an account to his ID and number. Pushing past a few rather disgusting looking giant grub aliens, he was able to reach the counter easily. Save for a few aliens sitting around and slowly finishing their food or talking, and the one family of grubs (who creepily enough had a grubling that had one milky eye hungrily on Dwicky), the place wasn't as busy as it had been early.
He figured it was their slow hours.
Staring at the menu for a nice minute, he decided on a simple Shloo-burger and a Vort-Shake. Fiddling with his ID in his pocket he strode to the edge of the counter, leaning against it slightly as he looked down at the cashier.
Dwicky stared unabashedly for a long moment. The small Irken in front of him looked remarkably like that strange child Dib had been so keen on chasing. His staring seemed to have made the Irken uncomfortable and as he reached up to run thin fingers over his face, checking to see if he had something on it, he realized he'd forgotten to put his Shloogorgh's hat and goggles on. Cursing silently he could only stare back at the odd alien in from of him.
Dwicky had no idea why he'd remember Zim now of all times. He'd seen plenty of Irkens…plenty…but this one…Dwicky chalked it up to the size of the small Irken and shook his head almost violently to stop himself from gawking.
"Welcome to Shloogorgh's," there was apprehension in the small statement, but he continued. "I'm Gashloog, how can I serve you today?"
There was a loud bang back in the kitchen and a string of alien swearing that had them both looking towards the door.
Dwicky smiled at the cashier, and chuckled. "Sorry bout that."
The Irken looked back, but only narrowed his eyes.
"For staring…ya know…" Dwicky laughed nervously. "Yeah sorry."
"It's okay I guess." Gashloog glanced over his shoulder as another bang echoed through the now sparsely populated restaurant. "I'd have thought you'd have seen an Irken before though. We're kinda everywhere."
"Oh no, it's not that!" Dwicky laughed, flushing slightly. "It's just that you reminded me of someone back home." What an odd statement…back home…was earth his home still? Dwicky pushed that thought out of his head and told himself he'd ponder it later.
"You have Irkens on your planet? I've seen a lot of aliens come through, but never one that looked like you." His eyebrow raised in hidden disgust.
"No, not many. Just one to my knowledge."
The door to the back kitchen swung violently open, and out walked the largest, most frazzled, and most burnt Irken Dwicky had ever laid eyes on. Dwicky tried to ignore his presence, but the large, muscular green alien was built like a tank! Dwicky watched as the still smoking Irken trudged by, his apron and shirt a myriad of tears and burns, and wondered if an Irken of this build was a simple frycook, then what were their leaders like.
Trying to not stare, Dwicky continued on in conversation after a quick glance behind him to make sure he wasn't holding up the line.
"Yeah. He was apparently sent to take over our planet. Last I saw, he was failing miserably." He hoped that was still true. Time could change so much.
"Ah, an Invader." Gashloog looked sullen. "I wanted to be an invader, but I couldn't pass the exams."
Dwicky clicked his tongue. "Sorry to hear that. You seem a bit more stable than Zim anyway. Maybe he should have been in fastfood." Dwicky laughed and Gashloog joined in for the briefest of moments before his eyes went wide and he went silent.
Dwicky, noticing no one was laughing with him, clamped his mouth shut and stared across the counter at a surprised Irken. Gashloog turned slowly to look at the muscular frycook that had been rummaging for a new apron. Said Irken was so tense Dwicky could see the thick muscles of his back ripple with every movement.
"Sizz-Lorr…did you hear—"
"Of course I heard him Gashloog!" snapped the alien as he whirled around, apron forgotten as he nearly took off one of the far registers when he jumped over the counter to stand in front of and almost looming over Dwicky.
Dwicky swallowed thickly, trying his best not to stare at the alien glaring down at him.
"What was that name again?" His voice rumbled dangerously and Dwicky knew he'd be dead of he let his nervous tongue botch up the name.
"Z-Zim. His name was Zim." Dwicky tried to hide his slight tremble, but failed. This Sizz-Lorr was rather frightening, and his sudden appearance next to him and his looming was not helping at all.
Dwicky felt light headed.
The Irken frycook sneered, his lips stretching over ridged teeth to form a rather maniacal grin, and he reached forward and gripped the front of Dwicky's shirt.
"Coordinates?"
Dwicky raised an eyebrow. "I-I don't—" Sizz-Lorr gave him a good shake that sent Dwicky's head spinning.
"Give me the coordinates to your planet."
"I-I…" Dwicky couldn't focus, the grip had tightened to the point it was getting hard for him to breathe and his vision was getting fuzzy at the edges.
Gashloog, seeing what his rather excited boss could not, tried reaching over the counter to get Sizz-Lorr's attention before the poor alien passed out. "Sizz-Lorr…sir…I don't think you should—"
"Gashloog!" Sizz-Lorr growled, and gave Dwicky one more good shake as though if he did it hard enough, the coordinates would tumble from the human's shaken lips.
Dwicky was on the verge of panic. He knew the coordinates, but his mouth wouldn't work. No air was able to get in and all there was, was a muffled squeak. Another shake and another ignored warning from Gashloog later, Dwicky realized that the fuzziness was expanding. He didn't hear what Gashloog said next, but it caused Sizz-Lorr's eyes to widen suddenly and his grip lessened.
But it was too late to save his consciousness.
As Dwicky was released, he crumpled to the floor at the frycook's feet. He wasn't even aware he had hit the floor because as he saw the retreating hands of Sizz-Lorr leave his shirt collar, the blood rushed back into his head and his vision went almost instantly black.
It was okay though…
He needed a good nap anyway.
