Talk To Spooky!
*
Chapter Three: Pissed Off Gaz - Why You Should Run, Not Walk
Johnny C. had seen many odd things in his life: people alive with their lungs outside of their bodies, slender women beating the crud out of him, and Satan with a briefcase and a tacky suit on. While the first wasn't too unusual or odd anymore, for him at least, and the second had only happened once, the third had, so far, been yet to gain a decent rival. As much as he would absolutely love to say what he was currently viewing was as weird as Satan dressed as a car salesman, it quite simply wasn't. To be perfectly honest, it ranked at a mere, ordinary 4.3 on his personal Disturbing-Shit-o-Meter. Still, it was the weirdest thing he'd seen all day, and it wasn't every morning he saw a green man without ears or a nose yell at a thin man wearing a Matrix-meets-Alien outfit. And he couldn't forget the yodeling dog. Not the yodeling dog.
Quietly, he did what he did best: slunk in and found a seat near the door without ever being seen. Okay, so technically it was what he was second best at, but the thought was what counted.
"You're stalking me!" the thin man with the scythe-like hairstyle snarled, his glasses slipping down on his nose minutely.
"No, I am no--" the green-skinned man started, in angry reply, then paused reflectively. "No, you're right, I am stalking you."
"Why?" Scythe-Man all but wailed. "For once in my life, I don't want to prove your alien heritage, I don't care anymore; I'm just trying to find my mother's family!"
"How difficult could that possibly be?" Green-Man mused. "With such an enormous head threatening to eclipse life on this planet, wouldn't it be just so easy to find others with mutated head sizes?"
A third player entered the scene and Johnny tilted his head to one side, dark blue hair shifting a little. Interesting.
The new figure was a spunky-looking black girl with spiky hair; she latched herself immediately onto Scythe-Man and hugged his arm. "Dib's head may be big," she declared stubbornly, "but it is such a cute big head! Isn't it cute?" Scythe-Man, or Dib, turned red as she grabbed his cheeks and pulled his face towards her. "He's such a cutie big head!"
"My head is the same size as Zim's!" he protested, pointing an accusing finger at Green-Man. "Well…sort of!" He seemed to struggle for a moment. "I don't have a large head!" he finally said, glaring.
There was a studied silence following this, broken only by the little dog's happy screeching before it leapt onto a table a young woman was sitting at. Johnny thought she looked a bit familiar, but he couldn't tell: she was obscured by shadows. After a shrug, he turned back to the silent three in front of him.
Dib smiled smugly at Zim, ignoring the fact that, for the second time in an hour, his arm was going numb from Tenna being attached to it.
Zim studied his foe for a moment. "Yes, it is," he said matter-of-factly.
Dib's eyes slitted half-shut, becoming small white crescents behind the large glasses, and he took a deep, calming breath. Then, with great maturity and thought, he smashed his fist into Zim's face, sending Tenna sprawling to the floor, where she squeaked and rubbed at her rear, wailing "My ass! It hurts!" Such an intelligent thing it was she wailed.
Through the mysterious science-y stuff concerning physics, centrifugal force, inertia, and a donkey (just for the hell of it), Zim was caught by the blow and somehow, due to the aforementioned mysterious science-y stuff, sent stumbling back onto the table Johnny was sitting at, resulting with the homicidal maniac instinctively drawing forth a very scary looking blade that was unnervingly shiny and sparkly. Tenna continued to rub her rear, sniffling dramatically as Spooky squeeked desperately from where it had fallen in its 'Doomed, Sparkly Noodles,' the 'Highly Flammable, Explody Teriyaki of Mutilation' currently a smoking hole in the table and an impressively large crater in the floor beneath it. Dib's 'Chicken Ramen Noodles of Fiery, Painful Doom' was beginning to show suspicious signs of internal combustion. Inevitably, its fate would be similar to that of Bruce Willis' character in 'Armageddon.' Moment of silence required in respect of Bruce Willis' character in 'Armageddon.'
Whether or not Zim had any organs other than the oft-spoken of, never seen squeedily spooch would have been discovered very quickly and very painfully if GIR had not performed the most idiotic, suicidal, singly destructive thing in its entire brainless existence: it fell in Gaz's noodles.
While Johnny was watching Dib and Zim's mature, intelligent conversation regarding stalking and Dib's supposedly abnormally humongous head, and Tenna was alternately glomping Dib and rubbing her landing pad, for lack of a not-so-crude word, amidst the unseen exploding of various noodle dishes, Gaz was ignoring them all, blissfully eating her own noodle dish. She was content with the greasy ramen-ness of it, happy with the sweet, unnatural chicken flavor. The world was right and good, a wonderful world of joy, explody noodle happiness, and continuously cheesy monster-catching parodies that are created to sell cheap toys but are nonetheless adored by unsuspecting little children and hated by their money-earning-and-producing parents. Whatever the case, she was feeling as if she, for some oddly uncharacteristic moment, could be friendly and kind.
"Mama!" GIR had yelled lovingly, executing a tremendous flying leap from one side of the round table, performing a perfect 10.0 dive into her noodles, which sprayed up in a heart-wrenching haze that engulfed the table and splattered across her face. "Mama gotta read me a BED-time story, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh!" Somewhere in the background, the hostess babbled inane things most people reserve for their dogs.
Gaz had let Zim slide with the "he's our son" line. She had let GIR be its usual gullible self and believe she was its mother. She had let it attach itself to her, for God's sake! And now...oh, now was where it all crossed the line.
In junior high, during the time period before she began hanging out with Zim more and more often, she had earned a nickname she was quite proud of: 'Queen of Horribly Horrible, Painfully Painful Revenge.' Sure it was repetitive. Sure it was unbelievably moronic and uncreative. Sure it ensured that she would never have a date for the homecoming dance. Sure it messed up her chances of ever having relations with her classmates for the rest of her junior high and high school careers. But it was the truth. Such horrible things she could do to the foolish robot; she could tie it up and poke it with a Teletubby until it screamed for mercy. She could force it to watch "Days of Our Lives" until what little brains it had imploded. Oh, such things she could do.
GIR was, in short, screwed.
And no, not the screw that represented one half of its brain. Intelligence core. Whatever. Nor the kind of screw perverted guys in Tech Lab chortle and laugh about in their sick, twisted, over-sexed hormone-ness. The kind that involves various implements with sharp, hooked ends and large, heavy objects such as binders, books, and widescreen TV's.
With her natural 'find-something-I-can-use-for-destruction-and-vengeance' radar, Gaz quickly spied the nasty, curved machete one homicidal maniac was preparing to use for sudden autopsy on one confused alien. She liked the machete very much. An unholy amount of very much.
"Give me your blade!" she demanded, stalking across the floor from her table, noodles and sauce dripping from her purple hair. Johnny paused momentarily in his thus-far thwarted attempts at stabbing Zim, glanced at Gaz, and did a passable impression of a drunken fish out of water with a cat tap-dancing on its gills. Needless to say, Zim took this opportunity to make his hasty escape, quickly scooping up a giddy, noodle-coated GIR along the way, for GIR had begun to dance across the floor, doing what could have been the Macarena if one ignored the multitude of 'Saturday Night Fever' moves.
Johnny's impression continued. She looked quite a bit like Devi, although he would personally have to say that Devi was lovelier, creamier, far more delightful than...he mentally smacked himself several times with a club.
"Give me your blade!" repeated Gaz, her brown eyes opened dangerously. When she received no answer, her left eye twitched twice. "Let me break this down for you," she said carefully, forcing her fingers to stop curving into claws. "I. Have. Pest," she continued slowly. "You. Have. Blade. I want blade so I can RAM it into pest's body, causing pest's head to explode!"
A moment of stunned silence followed.
GIR, with great excitement, broke the silence. "I wanna blow m' head up, tooooooo!" it cried, waving its tiny arms about. "CanIcanIcanI, Mama?!"
Gaz, noting that Johnny was still staring off into space, decided she didn't really need use of his machete. After all, God gave her hands, didn't he?
Happy little dancing Devi's paraded throughout Johnny's head and he absently started doodling Happy Noodle Boy on the varnished table with his blade.
Tenna was a little miffed that four new people had joined their cozy little group, but she figured it wasn't too bad, as they had just exited the 'Eat or Die' restaurant. She was more upset that her teriyaki had exploded before she had the chance to finish eating its heart-attack-inducing goodness. The thin, anorexic-looking young man with dark blue hair had called himself Johnny; she, being the omnipotent all-knowing she-god that she was, had immediately figured that he was Devi's One True Love. The matchmaking side of her brain was joyously going into overload.
She was beginning to grow quite fond of hanging off of Dib's arm. It didn't matter that she'd known him for all of three hours, or that he seemed nervous on how to act around her. After all, there was the little fact that he was the one person she had ever told what she was really like. Everyone else could just go and think she was mentally stunted as an infant, dropped on her head in a freak 'Dad-dropped-the-baby-panic-panic' accident. And, of course, he was cute. The shallow part of her was content with that alone. Spooky liked Dib, in a grudging father-y sort of way, and that was a definite plus. Joy and Yummy Chocolate! She beamed happily, black spiky hair a bit limper than it had been when she had interrupted his peaceful sleep earlier.
"So, why'd you come here to look for your mom?" she asked unexpectedly, Spooky squeeking quietly from where it was tucked in her waist-pouch. "I mean, this place doesn't really have anything special."
Dib shrugged; or, in the least, he attempted to, as Tenna's arm was anchoring his down. "To be perfectly honest, I was just really worn out. I've been hopping around for about two months now and I figured this was as good a place as any to just stop and rent an apartment, using it as a sort of central base to research any possible links. I'm still trying to prove Zim's an alien and all, but...well, you know." He glanced down at her, his face almost pleading. "There was this missing piece. Everywhere I'd turn, there'd be these kids with a mom and a dad, and they'd be so damn happy it nearly made me sick. Sure, I had Dad and all," he spat the word 'Dad' out, "but he wasn't really ever there. All he ever cared about was his work and protecting humanity, and he was so obsessed with me becoming a little junior Professor Membrane that he never bothered to actually listen to me." He glanced away from Tenna, didn't want to see any sympathy she might have. "I considered myself a paranormal investigator from the time I was three and first discovered what they were. Dad chalked it off as insanity." A laugh, strangled as it was, broke out from his lips and he blinked rapidly. Damn it, he was not going to cry! "Do you know how much that hurt? To know my mother was never there, and that my dad thought I was crazy?"
"Yes," Tenna said honestly, smiling strangely. "My parents sent me to a mental institution when I was fourteen, 'cause I still talked with Spooky. I tried to tell them what I told you earlier, but it only convinced them more that I was a," she paused, adopting a mysterious expression. "That I was...a craaaaazy lady!" She released his arm and made wide movements with her arms, crooking and unbending her fingers, making 'wooooo-wooooo' noises, dark eyes opened wide. Spooky squeeked resignedly.
Dib couldn't help it; he laughed.
"Since when did Dib act that way around she-monkeys?" Zim asked Gaz, his tone filled with suspicion and his eyes narrowed. "He is acting as if he has been bitten by this love insect you human apes obsess over!" He stared at Dib's back, a note of fear striking inside his chest. If Dib could fall to the love insect, then what could protect he, Zim, Ruler-to-Be of Earth? Sneaking a look at Gaz, he took a step away from her, keeping the pace, but widening the distance between the two.
"He's insane," Gaz said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Absently, she patted GIR's back and the tiny robot hanging over her shoulder, cradled in her arm, made a soft burping sound, then sighed contentedly, aquamarine eyes half-lidded happily.
"Mama luvs me," GIR sighed again, beaming at Johnny, who was trying to figure out why Gaz looked so much like Devi.
"I need a cherry freezy," he mumbled to himself. Yes, a nice, sweet, delicious BrainFreezy, cherry-flavored, and he'd freeze his brain real good, and then he could figure it out. BrainFreezies...mmmm...
So, whilst Johnny all but drooled thinking of a nummy cherry BrainFreezy, Zim avoided Gaz like the black plague, and Gaz held GIR with the unconscious movements of a mother (though if anyone had said that to her face, odds were that they wouldn't have a face themselves in about four seconds), Dib and Tenna talked. And Spooky squeeked.
"So your dad told you yo mama looked like your sister?" Tenna asked for clarification.
|squeeeek|
"Aw, Spooky, don't bug me about grammar! I'm talking to Dib!"
|squeeksqueek|
"Don't be so jealous!" She glared at Spooky for a moment, and then returned her attention to Dib, who was smirking at the skeleton. "Well?"
"Yeah, that's all Dad ever told me," he shrugged, hands in his pockets, walking a bit closer to Tenna than he probably should have been.
"So, who's your sister?" she pressed.
He jerked his thumb back, pointing at Gaz. "Her," he stated simply.
To anyone watching, they, if one separated the two from the rest of the odd group, made a contrasting duo. The tall, thin man was pale with sleek black hair and large glasses, dressed completely in black; he had a serious, almost no-nonsense air about him. The short, petite girl had slightly spiked black hair glinting from gel, her skin a dark brown that was complemented by her bright yellow outfit; her air was obviously excited and bubbly. The only thing they had visibly in common were the alien shirts they each wore. It fit the man perfectly, but nearly swallowed the girl despite her having tucked it in her yellow pants.
To anyone watching, the girl scared the figurative shit out of the man when she screeched, clamping her tiny hands around his arm and shaking it excitedly.
"My best friend!" she cried, causing the whole group to stop moving, everyone except for GIR staring blankly at her. "Your sister, the scary 'kill-the-damn-pest' lady! She looks like my best friend!" Dib continued to stare at her, uncomprehending. Tenna smacked his arm. "Gaz looks like Devi!" she howled.
"Devi?" Johnny asked hopefully, deep eyes lighting up.
"The hell?" Gaz demanded.
"Mama, I luvs you forever and ever and ever," GIR cooed sweetly, hugging its thin metal arms around her neck.
"Are you serious?" Dib all but gasped, because that would have been really cheesy. If he had gasped, that is.
"Holy Irken God of Freaky Connections!" Zim pointed a gloved finger ahead, at a wispy, eerie figure of black. "Ms. Bitters!"
Gaz's eyes popped open and Dib sucked in a sharp, sudden breath, momentarily forgetting what Tenna had just awkwardly spilled. Johnny and Tenna were both clueless.
"I thought you humans were mortal!" Zim accused, eyes mere slits as he glared horrifically at his rival, feeling an uncomfortable ball of dread forming in his stomach. Or whatever Irkens had that passed for a stomach. Perhaps the mysterious, elusive squeedily spooch?
"We are, Zim," Dib spoke calmly, eyes fixed on the figure as it frightened a tiny child. "Ms. Bitters is not human."
"Ah," said Zim, intelligently.
|squeeek squeeksqueek squeeeeeksqueeksqueeeek squeekeek squeek squeeksqueek|
All stared at Spooky, still in Tenna's waist pouch. It stared back at them with its lifeless, dead doll's eyes...insert scary howling wind sound effects.
"Spooky says that she is not a human, but, rather, a physical personification of pure, unadulterated evil set here on this plane of existence in order to find any and all threats to her species' existence and disarm the threats by any nonphysical means necessary," Tenna chirped, smiling cutely.
More staring.
"What?" she defended, slapping a hand over Spooky. "Spooky said so!"
"Can we just leave?" Dib said, following a moment of continued silence and staring. "Ms. Bitters is just too damn scary, and I'd like to follow this lead you've presented us with."
Tenna nodded understandingly, saying, innocently, "What?"
[Well, this chapter was longer than the first, but shorter than the second. Yippee-skippee! I meant to have Nny in this more, but I couldn't figure out to work it without taking away from the Dib/Tenna build-up. But do not fear! Our favorite homicidal maniac will have a larger role in chapter four! There will also be more Dib/Tenna talk, and maybe a dash of WAFF. WAFF's my lifeblood, and I have got to put it in soon or I'll make Spooky and GIR take over the world with a sponge and a rubber chicken!
Again, I hope this chapter was pretty good, and I apologize for any OOC-ness. I'd also like to thank everyone IMMENSELY for their support about Tenna's speech in the last chapter. I really didn't know how it would come across. Were the monotonous speeches in this chappy okay? Is anybody reading these author's notes?
Since I'm on the subject of opinions and all...
How does everybody feel about Dib/Tenna? Does it bother anyone? (Personally, I like it, considering they are such opposites, but are slightly similar.) Should I make the fifth chapter long, considering I have yet to write a long chapter and the fourth is more than likely to stay about the same size as these three? Would anybody mind if I did a sequel of sorts, with a plot? After I finish this fic, of course! Please review!
This fic is so much fun to write! I get to put in serious speeches and mix it with demented humor, and, next chappy, I get to throw in WAFF and homicidal maniacs desperate for forgiveness! Yay! Aren't you happy for me?
22 reviews! Wow! I was hoping for ten reviews a chapter (but I'm not going to make that a requisite for a new chapter...that's not something I'd do), but this is so cool! Yes, I'm easily made happy. How'd you know?
Nny plushie says: 'Cherry BrainFreezies are good for the soul. So are reviews.']
|Thank-yous and Spooky dolls to:
Chien [well, now we know why he's in the city!], Dragon from the Black Lagoon [yes! Nny, and Gir, and Spooky! Spooky's role keeps expanding and expanding...], DeadLegato [awwww...it's just that I've never really been able to write long chapters...so, did you like it? And thanks for reviewing 'White Wedding'!], Kami and Daegon [yes! Stare at the INSANITY! *cackles*], MiriahoftheWind [GIR's my cartoon soulmate! Dontcha just wanna hug it?], R.LemurGirl [glad you like it! And I agree: amusement is the rule. And fluff...], Kat23a [you've just explained my entire social life! Holy monkeybait!], ArmandLeg [he is lucky indeed that Gaz did not kill him. Glad you liked chappy 2!], Dib Girl [here it is!], Pip-aka-Frodoluver [the chicken knows all! O, Wise Chicken, do you like this chapter? Is it pleasing to you? Please tell!], True Locket [hi, Black Kats! I'm Palla! So, you know, what to do like to do? I like reading and writing!], Gir's Cupcake [aw, that's where GIR's cupcake went! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I wanted to meet the squirrel/tadpole hybrids...], Poodge [enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!], Maniacal Dragon [YES!!! Somebody thinks the relationship is believable!], and Haria [continuing!].|
*
Chapter Three: Pissed Off Gaz - Why You Should Run, Not Walk
Johnny C. had seen many odd things in his life: people alive with their lungs outside of their bodies, slender women beating the crud out of him, and Satan with a briefcase and a tacky suit on. While the first wasn't too unusual or odd anymore, for him at least, and the second had only happened once, the third had, so far, been yet to gain a decent rival. As much as he would absolutely love to say what he was currently viewing was as weird as Satan dressed as a car salesman, it quite simply wasn't. To be perfectly honest, it ranked at a mere, ordinary 4.3 on his personal Disturbing-Shit-o-Meter. Still, it was the weirdest thing he'd seen all day, and it wasn't every morning he saw a green man without ears or a nose yell at a thin man wearing a Matrix-meets-Alien outfit. And he couldn't forget the yodeling dog. Not the yodeling dog.
Quietly, he did what he did best: slunk in and found a seat near the door without ever being seen. Okay, so technically it was what he was second best at, but the thought was what counted.
"You're stalking me!" the thin man with the scythe-like hairstyle snarled, his glasses slipping down on his nose minutely.
"No, I am no--" the green-skinned man started, in angry reply, then paused reflectively. "No, you're right, I am stalking you."
"Why?" Scythe-Man all but wailed. "For once in my life, I don't want to prove your alien heritage, I don't care anymore; I'm just trying to find my mother's family!"
"How difficult could that possibly be?" Green-Man mused. "With such an enormous head threatening to eclipse life on this planet, wouldn't it be just so easy to find others with mutated head sizes?"
A third player entered the scene and Johnny tilted his head to one side, dark blue hair shifting a little. Interesting.
The new figure was a spunky-looking black girl with spiky hair; she latched herself immediately onto Scythe-Man and hugged his arm. "Dib's head may be big," she declared stubbornly, "but it is such a cute big head! Isn't it cute?" Scythe-Man, or Dib, turned red as she grabbed his cheeks and pulled his face towards her. "He's such a cutie big head!"
"My head is the same size as Zim's!" he protested, pointing an accusing finger at Green-Man. "Well…sort of!" He seemed to struggle for a moment. "I don't have a large head!" he finally said, glaring.
There was a studied silence following this, broken only by the little dog's happy screeching before it leapt onto a table a young woman was sitting at. Johnny thought she looked a bit familiar, but he couldn't tell: she was obscured by shadows. After a shrug, he turned back to the silent three in front of him.
Dib smiled smugly at Zim, ignoring the fact that, for the second time in an hour, his arm was going numb from Tenna being attached to it.
Zim studied his foe for a moment. "Yes, it is," he said matter-of-factly.
Dib's eyes slitted half-shut, becoming small white crescents behind the large glasses, and he took a deep, calming breath. Then, with great maturity and thought, he smashed his fist into Zim's face, sending Tenna sprawling to the floor, where she squeaked and rubbed at her rear, wailing "My ass! It hurts!" Such an intelligent thing it was she wailed.
Through the mysterious science-y stuff concerning physics, centrifugal force, inertia, and a donkey (just for the hell of it), Zim was caught by the blow and somehow, due to the aforementioned mysterious science-y stuff, sent stumbling back onto the table Johnny was sitting at, resulting with the homicidal maniac instinctively drawing forth a very scary looking blade that was unnervingly shiny and sparkly. Tenna continued to rub her rear, sniffling dramatically as Spooky squeeked desperately from where it had fallen in its 'Doomed, Sparkly Noodles,' the 'Highly Flammable, Explody Teriyaki of Mutilation' currently a smoking hole in the table and an impressively large crater in the floor beneath it. Dib's 'Chicken Ramen Noodles of Fiery, Painful Doom' was beginning to show suspicious signs of internal combustion. Inevitably, its fate would be similar to that of Bruce Willis' character in 'Armageddon.' Moment of silence required in respect of Bruce Willis' character in 'Armageddon.'
Whether or not Zim had any organs other than the oft-spoken of, never seen squeedily spooch would have been discovered very quickly and very painfully if GIR had not performed the most idiotic, suicidal, singly destructive thing in its entire brainless existence: it fell in Gaz's noodles.
While Johnny was watching Dib and Zim's mature, intelligent conversation regarding stalking and Dib's supposedly abnormally humongous head, and Tenna was alternately glomping Dib and rubbing her landing pad, for lack of a not-so-crude word, amidst the unseen exploding of various noodle dishes, Gaz was ignoring them all, blissfully eating her own noodle dish. She was content with the greasy ramen-ness of it, happy with the sweet, unnatural chicken flavor. The world was right and good, a wonderful world of joy, explody noodle happiness, and continuously cheesy monster-catching parodies that are created to sell cheap toys but are nonetheless adored by unsuspecting little children and hated by their money-earning-and-producing parents. Whatever the case, she was feeling as if she, for some oddly uncharacteristic moment, could be friendly and kind.
"Mama!" GIR had yelled lovingly, executing a tremendous flying leap from one side of the round table, performing a perfect 10.0 dive into her noodles, which sprayed up in a heart-wrenching haze that engulfed the table and splattered across her face. "Mama gotta read me a BED-time story, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh!" Somewhere in the background, the hostess babbled inane things most people reserve for their dogs.
Gaz had let Zim slide with the "he's our son" line. She had let GIR be its usual gullible self and believe she was its mother. She had let it attach itself to her, for God's sake! And now...oh, now was where it all crossed the line.
In junior high, during the time period before she began hanging out with Zim more and more often, she had earned a nickname she was quite proud of: 'Queen of Horribly Horrible, Painfully Painful Revenge.' Sure it was repetitive. Sure it was unbelievably moronic and uncreative. Sure it ensured that she would never have a date for the homecoming dance. Sure it messed up her chances of ever having relations with her classmates for the rest of her junior high and high school careers. But it was the truth. Such horrible things she could do to the foolish robot; she could tie it up and poke it with a Teletubby until it screamed for mercy. She could force it to watch "Days of Our Lives" until what little brains it had imploded. Oh, such things she could do.
GIR was, in short, screwed.
And no, not the screw that represented one half of its brain. Intelligence core. Whatever. Nor the kind of screw perverted guys in Tech Lab chortle and laugh about in their sick, twisted, over-sexed hormone-ness. The kind that involves various implements with sharp, hooked ends and large, heavy objects such as binders, books, and widescreen TV's.
With her natural 'find-something-I-can-use-for-destruction-and-vengeance' radar, Gaz quickly spied the nasty, curved machete one homicidal maniac was preparing to use for sudden autopsy on one confused alien. She liked the machete very much. An unholy amount of very much.
"Give me your blade!" she demanded, stalking across the floor from her table, noodles and sauce dripping from her purple hair. Johnny paused momentarily in his thus-far thwarted attempts at stabbing Zim, glanced at Gaz, and did a passable impression of a drunken fish out of water with a cat tap-dancing on its gills. Needless to say, Zim took this opportunity to make his hasty escape, quickly scooping up a giddy, noodle-coated GIR along the way, for GIR had begun to dance across the floor, doing what could have been the Macarena if one ignored the multitude of 'Saturday Night Fever' moves.
Johnny's impression continued. She looked quite a bit like Devi, although he would personally have to say that Devi was lovelier, creamier, far more delightful than...he mentally smacked himself several times with a club.
"Give me your blade!" repeated Gaz, her brown eyes opened dangerously. When she received no answer, her left eye twitched twice. "Let me break this down for you," she said carefully, forcing her fingers to stop curving into claws. "I. Have. Pest," she continued slowly. "You. Have. Blade. I want blade so I can RAM it into pest's body, causing pest's head to explode!"
A moment of stunned silence followed.
GIR, with great excitement, broke the silence. "I wanna blow m' head up, tooooooo!" it cried, waving its tiny arms about. "CanIcanIcanI, Mama?!"
Gaz, noting that Johnny was still staring off into space, decided she didn't really need use of his machete. After all, God gave her hands, didn't he?
Happy little dancing Devi's paraded throughout Johnny's head and he absently started doodling Happy Noodle Boy on the varnished table with his blade.
Tenna was a little miffed that four new people had joined their cozy little group, but she figured it wasn't too bad, as they had just exited the 'Eat or Die' restaurant. She was more upset that her teriyaki had exploded before she had the chance to finish eating its heart-attack-inducing goodness. The thin, anorexic-looking young man with dark blue hair had called himself Johnny; she, being the omnipotent all-knowing she-god that she was, had immediately figured that he was Devi's One True Love. The matchmaking side of her brain was joyously going into overload.
She was beginning to grow quite fond of hanging off of Dib's arm. It didn't matter that she'd known him for all of three hours, or that he seemed nervous on how to act around her. After all, there was the little fact that he was the one person she had ever told what she was really like. Everyone else could just go and think she was mentally stunted as an infant, dropped on her head in a freak 'Dad-dropped-the-baby-panic-panic' accident. And, of course, he was cute. The shallow part of her was content with that alone. Spooky liked Dib, in a grudging father-y sort of way, and that was a definite plus. Joy and Yummy Chocolate! She beamed happily, black spiky hair a bit limper than it had been when she had interrupted his peaceful sleep earlier.
"So, why'd you come here to look for your mom?" she asked unexpectedly, Spooky squeeking quietly from where it was tucked in her waist-pouch. "I mean, this place doesn't really have anything special."
Dib shrugged; or, in the least, he attempted to, as Tenna's arm was anchoring his down. "To be perfectly honest, I was just really worn out. I've been hopping around for about two months now and I figured this was as good a place as any to just stop and rent an apartment, using it as a sort of central base to research any possible links. I'm still trying to prove Zim's an alien and all, but...well, you know." He glanced down at her, his face almost pleading. "There was this missing piece. Everywhere I'd turn, there'd be these kids with a mom and a dad, and they'd be so damn happy it nearly made me sick. Sure, I had Dad and all," he spat the word 'Dad' out, "but he wasn't really ever there. All he ever cared about was his work and protecting humanity, and he was so obsessed with me becoming a little junior Professor Membrane that he never bothered to actually listen to me." He glanced away from Tenna, didn't want to see any sympathy she might have. "I considered myself a paranormal investigator from the time I was three and first discovered what they were. Dad chalked it off as insanity." A laugh, strangled as it was, broke out from his lips and he blinked rapidly. Damn it, he was not going to cry! "Do you know how much that hurt? To know my mother was never there, and that my dad thought I was crazy?"
"Yes," Tenna said honestly, smiling strangely. "My parents sent me to a mental institution when I was fourteen, 'cause I still talked with Spooky. I tried to tell them what I told you earlier, but it only convinced them more that I was a," she paused, adopting a mysterious expression. "That I was...a craaaaazy lady!" She released his arm and made wide movements with her arms, crooking and unbending her fingers, making 'wooooo-wooooo' noises, dark eyes opened wide. Spooky squeeked resignedly.
Dib couldn't help it; he laughed.
"Since when did Dib act that way around she-monkeys?" Zim asked Gaz, his tone filled with suspicion and his eyes narrowed. "He is acting as if he has been bitten by this love insect you human apes obsess over!" He stared at Dib's back, a note of fear striking inside his chest. If Dib could fall to the love insect, then what could protect he, Zim, Ruler-to-Be of Earth? Sneaking a look at Gaz, he took a step away from her, keeping the pace, but widening the distance between the two.
"He's insane," Gaz said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Absently, she patted GIR's back and the tiny robot hanging over her shoulder, cradled in her arm, made a soft burping sound, then sighed contentedly, aquamarine eyes half-lidded happily.
"Mama luvs me," GIR sighed again, beaming at Johnny, who was trying to figure out why Gaz looked so much like Devi.
"I need a cherry freezy," he mumbled to himself. Yes, a nice, sweet, delicious BrainFreezy, cherry-flavored, and he'd freeze his brain real good, and then he could figure it out. BrainFreezies...mmmm...
So, whilst Johnny all but drooled thinking of a nummy cherry BrainFreezy, Zim avoided Gaz like the black plague, and Gaz held GIR with the unconscious movements of a mother (though if anyone had said that to her face, odds were that they wouldn't have a face themselves in about four seconds), Dib and Tenna talked. And Spooky squeeked.
"So your dad told you yo mama looked like your sister?" Tenna asked for clarification.
|squeeeek|
"Aw, Spooky, don't bug me about grammar! I'm talking to Dib!"
|squeeksqueek|
"Don't be so jealous!" She glared at Spooky for a moment, and then returned her attention to Dib, who was smirking at the skeleton. "Well?"
"Yeah, that's all Dad ever told me," he shrugged, hands in his pockets, walking a bit closer to Tenna than he probably should have been.
"So, who's your sister?" she pressed.
He jerked his thumb back, pointing at Gaz. "Her," he stated simply.
To anyone watching, they, if one separated the two from the rest of the odd group, made a contrasting duo. The tall, thin man was pale with sleek black hair and large glasses, dressed completely in black; he had a serious, almost no-nonsense air about him. The short, petite girl had slightly spiked black hair glinting from gel, her skin a dark brown that was complemented by her bright yellow outfit; her air was obviously excited and bubbly. The only thing they had visibly in common were the alien shirts they each wore. It fit the man perfectly, but nearly swallowed the girl despite her having tucked it in her yellow pants.
To anyone watching, the girl scared the figurative shit out of the man when she screeched, clamping her tiny hands around his arm and shaking it excitedly.
"My best friend!" she cried, causing the whole group to stop moving, everyone except for GIR staring blankly at her. "Your sister, the scary 'kill-the-damn-pest' lady! She looks like my best friend!" Dib continued to stare at her, uncomprehending. Tenna smacked his arm. "Gaz looks like Devi!" she howled.
"Devi?" Johnny asked hopefully, deep eyes lighting up.
"The hell?" Gaz demanded.
"Mama, I luvs you forever and ever and ever," GIR cooed sweetly, hugging its thin metal arms around her neck.
"Are you serious?" Dib all but gasped, because that would have been really cheesy. If he had gasped, that is.
"Holy Irken God of Freaky Connections!" Zim pointed a gloved finger ahead, at a wispy, eerie figure of black. "Ms. Bitters!"
Gaz's eyes popped open and Dib sucked in a sharp, sudden breath, momentarily forgetting what Tenna had just awkwardly spilled. Johnny and Tenna were both clueless.
"I thought you humans were mortal!" Zim accused, eyes mere slits as he glared horrifically at his rival, feeling an uncomfortable ball of dread forming in his stomach. Or whatever Irkens had that passed for a stomach. Perhaps the mysterious, elusive squeedily spooch?
"We are, Zim," Dib spoke calmly, eyes fixed on the figure as it frightened a tiny child. "Ms. Bitters is not human."
"Ah," said Zim, intelligently.
|squeeek squeeksqueek squeeeeeksqueeksqueeeek squeekeek squeek squeeksqueek|
All stared at Spooky, still in Tenna's waist pouch. It stared back at them with its lifeless, dead doll's eyes...insert scary howling wind sound effects.
"Spooky says that she is not a human, but, rather, a physical personification of pure, unadulterated evil set here on this plane of existence in order to find any and all threats to her species' existence and disarm the threats by any nonphysical means necessary," Tenna chirped, smiling cutely.
More staring.
"What?" she defended, slapping a hand over Spooky. "Spooky said so!"
"Can we just leave?" Dib said, following a moment of continued silence and staring. "Ms. Bitters is just too damn scary, and I'd like to follow this lead you've presented us with."
Tenna nodded understandingly, saying, innocently, "What?"
[Well, this chapter was longer than the first, but shorter than the second. Yippee-skippee! I meant to have Nny in this more, but I couldn't figure out to work it without taking away from the Dib/Tenna build-up. But do not fear! Our favorite homicidal maniac will have a larger role in chapter four! There will also be more Dib/Tenna talk, and maybe a dash of WAFF. WAFF's my lifeblood, and I have got to put it in soon or I'll make Spooky and GIR take over the world with a sponge and a rubber chicken!
Again, I hope this chapter was pretty good, and I apologize for any OOC-ness. I'd also like to thank everyone IMMENSELY for their support about Tenna's speech in the last chapter. I really didn't know how it would come across. Were the monotonous speeches in this chappy okay? Is anybody reading these author's notes?
Since I'm on the subject of opinions and all...
How does everybody feel about Dib/Tenna? Does it bother anyone? (Personally, I like it, considering they are such opposites, but are slightly similar.) Should I make the fifth chapter long, considering I have yet to write a long chapter and the fourth is more than likely to stay about the same size as these three? Would anybody mind if I did a sequel of sorts, with a plot? After I finish this fic, of course! Please review!
This fic is so much fun to write! I get to put in serious speeches and mix it with demented humor, and, next chappy, I get to throw in WAFF and homicidal maniacs desperate for forgiveness! Yay! Aren't you happy for me?
22 reviews! Wow! I was hoping for ten reviews a chapter (but I'm not going to make that a requisite for a new chapter...that's not something I'd do), but this is so cool! Yes, I'm easily made happy. How'd you know?
Nny plushie says: 'Cherry BrainFreezies are good for the soul. So are reviews.']
|Thank-yous and Spooky dolls to:
Chien [well, now we know why he's in the city!], Dragon from the Black Lagoon [yes! Nny, and Gir, and Spooky! Spooky's role keeps expanding and expanding...], DeadLegato [awwww...it's just that I've never really been able to write long chapters...so, did you like it? And thanks for reviewing 'White Wedding'!], Kami and Daegon [yes! Stare at the INSANITY! *cackles*], MiriahoftheWind [GIR's my cartoon soulmate! Dontcha just wanna hug it?], R.LemurGirl [glad you like it! And I agree: amusement is the rule. And fluff...], Kat23a [you've just explained my entire social life! Holy monkeybait!], ArmandLeg [he is lucky indeed that Gaz did not kill him. Glad you liked chappy 2!], Dib Girl [here it is!], Pip-aka-Frodoluver [the chicken knows all! O, Wise Chicken, do you like this chapter? Is it pleasing to you? Please tell!], True Locket [hi, Black Kats! I'm Palla! So, you know, what to do like to do? I like reading and writing!], Gir's Cupcake [aw, that's where GIR's cupcake went! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I wanted to meet the squirrel/tadpole hybrids...], Poodge [enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!], Maniacal Dragon [YES!!! Somebody thinks the relationship is believable!], and Haria [continuing!].|