"That's Agent Quizzical. Oh, and that's Agent Catkeeper. Over there is Agent Scoreboard and his girlfriend Agent Nightblade!" As they walked up to the city's convention center, Sam excitedly pointed out all the Agents in her branch. It was amazing that she could know so many people, let alone remember their names.
They entered the building and were met with the warm smell of food. Swollen Eyeball members of all ages flooded the place, talking and walking. Some ate in the area with the tables, others hurried up the wide staircase to the conference room, and a few looked completely lost.
"Are you hungry?" Sam asked, pointing to the tables filled with all kinds of food.
"No." Zim backed away. "Let's just get the meeting."
"It doesn't start for another half hour."
"I SAID GET TO THE MEETING!" Zim shouted.
"Pushy," Dreamcatcher scoffed. "You can. I'm going to talk to people, something you probably should do, too, if you want people to like you enough to vote you in as a leader."
Zim scowled and reluctantly followed Dreamcatcher. For the next half hour, he met with Swollen Eyeball members and made small talk. Everyone was a lot nicer than he had expected and they quickly took a liking to the green-skinned boy and his over-the-top antics. All the while, Zim was thinking about nothing but tearing their heads off and destroying each and every one of them in a horrible fire. Finally, the time came for the meeting to begin.
"I told them about you in advance," Sam said, bringing the alien to the stage rather than to the audience. "If you make a good first impression, they might let you skip initiation." Sam shuddered at the memory of her own initiation. So many spiders...
There was a row of seven chairs at the back end of the stage where three other people were seated. They were all dressed in black and dark purple, making Zim and Sam stand out with Zim's red clothes and Sam's blue.
"Those are the leaders of our branch," Sam whispered to Zim.
Once everyone was seated, the woman sitting closest to Sam stood up and walked to the podium. Her dark purple dress had a black spider-web pattern at the bottom that stretched up to her right side. She addressed the crowd in a loud, beautiful voice.
"Welcome, my fellow Swollen Eyeball brothers and sisters." The crowd clapped respectfully. "Tonight, we have a special guest who has the potential to be accepted into our organization.
Agent Dreamcatcher, will you introduce your friend to us?"
Zim and Sam stood up and the audience clapped once more. Sam strode to the podium in a confident stride. Her head was held high and she leaned over to the microphone.
Then, she was gripped with a sudden rush of stage fright.
She squeaked and the crowd laughed. "I want to introduce Zim. My friend. My friend, Zim." she tripped over her words. Sam stepped back and pushed Zim forward. Her face was red and he could tell she thought she made a complete fool of herself. The audience didn't seem to mind and Zim thought she did an alright job, but Sam was humiliated.
"Hello humans, which I am also one of," he began. The crowd laughed again. "I would like to gain entrance to your organization and win you over with my superior charm and intellect. To show my sincerity and loyalty to this organization, I present to you now, a peace offering." Zim stepped out from behind the podium and dropped his backpack to the floor. "Everyone,"
Zim began unzipping the bag, "Bigfoot!"
Gir leapt out of the bag, screaming his happy, high-pitch squeal. He back-flipped to the front of the stage and stood with his arms stretched over his head. The audience went crazy. They clapped, they laughed, they cheered and it all spooked Gir. The little robot sprinted to the meeting room's door, almost getting captured by a few quick-thinking Swollen Eyeball members, and disappeared. By the time the laughter stopped, Gir was a few blocks away, changing into his dog disguise.
"Oh well, he escaped. Do you puny humans love me yet?" Zim shouted. The crowd went wild again and Zim soaked in their admiration like a sponge.
Once it was quiet again, the branch's leaders gave a quick speech, talked about some new findings, made announcements about upcoming events, presented evidence of a dragon living in the mountains, handed awards out to a few over-achieving members, and sent everyone away. Most people stayed in the convention center to catch up with old friends, eat, and meet the newest member who gave them a glimpse at the 'mythical creature'.
"There's nothing much to tell. I just saw him frolicking through some fog in the forest at night. Perfect Bigfoot conditions," Zim said to the group surrounding him. What's so funny? He thought when they laughed.
"Zim," Sam tapped the alien on the shoulder, "we have to go now. My mom's here to pick us up."
Zim looked back to the group. "Goodbye, my filthy adoring fans, but I'm afraid I must be off."
The people groaned and complained and someone said, "You'll be at the Swollen Eyeballs potluck next week, right? Every branch in the state it invited and we'd love for everyone to meet you."
"Of course I will. Until then, I want you all to spread the word of my awesome awesomeness to all the other branches!" The group laughed and agreed. They thought he was joking, but it didn't matter because this time tomorrow, word of Zim will be all over the Swollen Eyeball network. What could he say? He was charismatic when he needed to be.
For the next week, Zim was a social butterfly. He talked to Swollen Eyeball members from all branches, except Dib's, arranged meetings, went to parties, and skyrocketed his popularity. He "befriended" some of the leaders and used them for information. Zim was in luck. Agent Bespectacled, one of the leaders of the leaders, would be announcing his leave from the Swollen Eyeballs at the potluck. He was in charge of 1/3 of the entire organization and a new leader would have to be voted in the following week.
Zim was elated when he called the Tallests. He poured out the story and ended by saying, "I will have millions under my control!"
"But you'll only be in charge of 1/3," Purple said, skeptical about Zim's future influence, "and they might not even listen to you."
"Of course they will! They'll have no choice! They will be my slaves and I will use them to destroy the world!" Zim laughed loudly and Gir joined in.
Gir stopped laughing. "I don't get it."
"I don't understand," Red spoke up. "How'd you get them to even like you?"
"They said I was funny." Zim shrugged.
"You certainly make us laugh." Purple and Red started chuckling to each other.
"Thank you, my Tallests. Your praise is deserved and appreciated."
Zim shut off the transmission as the Tallests laughed even harder.
Gaz sat in the dark hallway, knees pressed against her chest, leaning against the bathroom door. She was silent, going so far as to make her breathing as quiet as possible. She could hear very small brushing sounds and mutterings coming from the bathroom. The only light in the entire hallway came from the crack underneath the closed door. Dib had come home around midnight, covered in still-bleeding wounds, after being mauled by what he thought was a chupacabra. It was only a very large raccoon.
Dib had been in the bathroom for the last hour, cleaning and treating his wounds. Though she'd never admit it, Gaz was terrified.
The nurse's words still buzzed in her head and since the day they were spoken, Gaz had been hypersensitive about all of Dib's injuries. Has he always been getting hurt this often?
The door opened suddenly and Gaz fell backwards. She looked up to him and her brother looked down to her.
"Gaz? What are you doing?"
"You spend so long in the bathroom!" Gaz snapped. "Other people need to use it, you know! Why do you have to be such a bathroom hog?"
Gaz got up, shoved him out of the way, and slammed the door in his face. She waited until the footsteps disappeared into Dib's room before coming out again, biting her nails.
A/N Ok, someone pointed something out and I thought maybe I was too subtle with it when I wrote it. The complaint: Dib's been telling everyone about Zim, so why are they letting Zim in? The answer: Dib's been telling the people in his own branch of the organization about Zim (Darkbootie, Tunaghost, etc.) Dib, being just a regular member, doesn't usually talk to the other branches except for the events, get-togethers, and maybe the occasional long-distance friend. That's why Tunaghost and Darkbootie chose Dreamcatcher, someone from a different branch, to help Dib, because Dib wouldn't recognize her. Dib wouldn't tell all the other branches about Zim unless he had absolute solid proof and got it cleared with his branch's leaders. That's also why Zim is taking special care to stay away from Dib's branch when in his "social butterfly" mode. (Of course, people are talking about Zim all over the branches and it's only natural Dib's branch will hear of it. So, either we could say Zim is a common name and Dib's branch wouldn't assume that an alien would head straight to the belly of the beast so they think he's a different Zim, or I can admit we have a plot hole. Either way, stuffs going to hit the fan because of this later.)