Author's Note: Hi, lovely audience, I'm back! After a case of writer's block, followed swiftly by my hard drive going kablooey, the long-awaited chapter is finally here. I realize my writing style has changed since I started this fanfic, but that's the way it's going to be. Warnings for implied genocide (well really, this is still Invader Zim), nightmares, body horror. Here you go!
Monday started off with the promising pristine white brightness of a foot of snow... and reassurance from the radio announcer that yes, kids, there was still school that day. Gaz rolled her eyes and turned off the radio.
"Hey! I was listening to that!" Dib reached for the radio, but Gaz growled and snatched it away before he could reach it.
"Since when do we listen to Happy Sunshine Pop 105 anyway?"
"Since a very respected member of the local UFO hunting community has a-"
"I am not listening to stupid pop music just so you can hear another of your fellow crazies yak about stupid lights in the sky." Gaz finished her bowl of cereal and put it in the sink. She turned, paused, and gazed pensively into the distance. "Or, you know what, go ahead and listen. I'm going to school now. You can do the dishes."
"Oh, come on!"
"Bye, brother dear." Gaz grabbed her coat and gloves, picked up her backpack from its place by the door, and walked out.
It was deliciously cold outside, and snow crunched cheerfully under Gaz's boots with every step she took. There was just something about the snow that actually made going to school tolerable.
Snow, Tak decided, was the most hideous part of this planet. The disgusting poisonous slush was stuck to absolutely everything, covering the entire city in a white coat of death.
No, the worst part was the cold.
The cold made her face burn worse than the little flecks of ice drifting from the fluffy grey sky did. It made her antennae curl up more tightly, which would have ruined her hearing if not for those implants she'd gotten that one time she was assigned to an ice planet. But this cold was worse than that long-ago mission. Earthen cold was damp and chilly, and somehow creeped under her gloves and into her boots and trickled down her spine. A dull ache spread from the cold metal of her PAK into the depths of her belly. She gave herself a moment to cringe, and continued walking.
Tomorrow I am going to go to school in my nice, warm ship and if a single idiotic human says anything, I will burn them all.
There was just something about thinking of future conquests that made walking to school tolerable.
That morning, the Hi Skool students hunched in their desks, shivering, as the principal announced in his warm, soothing voice that the heaters had malfunctioned and would be turned on again promptly.
A few minutes, a loud horrible screech, and a nasty cloud of smoke and fluff later, the principal came back on the PA system, apologizing for the mess. The heaters would probably not be turned on anytime soon, he admitted.
Mr. Couch just gazed at the debris falling from the vent in his classroom, blinked a few times, and said, "Okay, class. Uhhhhhh...get into your groups, and keep the talking down. This project has to be done by, um, the time winter break starts."
Gaz laughed under her breath. "Yeah, like that's going to happen." Tak's mouth twitched into a nearly imperceptible smile.
To keep up appearances, they had started to build a popsicle stick model of a medieval European fortress, complete with tiny mechanical sea monsters in the surrounding moat. This probably had nothing to do with what the class was supposed to be covering, yet they had still made significantly more progress than the other students. Of course, that was probably because Tak enjoyed using the miniature catapult to chuck balls of flaming paper and wadded-up gum at the other projects. Gaz grinned slyly whenever she noticed Tak readjusting the model weapon atop its wooden tower, and in a customary show of teenagerly camaraderie, she provided the gum.
Tak glanced over at Gaz. "What again, exactly, were we supposed to be studying?"
Gaz shrugged and stretched her arms. "Something about Manifest Destiny and America's expansion into the West. Cowboys. Wagon trails. Slaughter of innocent natives."
Tak raised an eyebrow. "Ah. I'm familiar with that."
"And how's that working out for you?"
"Hm. Not well."
"Is it the guys with guns and stupid hats, our pitifully primitive transportation, or..."
"I don't really want to talk about it."
Gaz opened her mouth, closed it for a moment, and said in nearly a whisper, "...I'm not usually the girl who throws pity parties, but it must have been rough."
Tak made an effort to scoff and roll her eyes. "Our brains are wired differently than yours, to put it really, reeeally simply. And pity is stupid," she added quickly.
"And humans are stupid."
"And humans are stupid. You learn quickly!" She made her voice extra bright and sweet. Gaz made a face.
"Trust me, I've been learning it all my life..." Gaz trailed off, staring at the chaos in the room.
Tak watched her for a moment, then leaned her head on her arm and closed her eyes. She felt oddly tired for having completed a whole sleep cycle in the past week. Maybe it was just the cold and the exertion of running around and doing stupid things because of stupid ex-Invaders on this stupid planet of stupid...
On Ylpathdia, the sky is white
The air is bitter
The ground is endless rock-hard cold
She walks and walks and there's nobody in sight
The wind screams and screams
And the inferior life forms
cry
the sweeping
they cry
Tak jolted out of sleep. She thrashed for a moment, eye-muscles jerking in their sockets in the all-consuming darkness of her skull-
And her ocular implants came back online but then there was still the horrible tightness around her chest, her squeedlyspooch protesting as Gaz watched, more than just a little wide-eyed with worry and
Her PAK sent a jolt of power through her, energy burning from her core to the tips of her claws. A glob of something escaped her mouth and landed with a splat on the desk.
Air, sweet disgusting just-the-wrong-mix-of-gases air filled her up again. The useless incompetent hunk of metal attached to her spine quickly set to work fixing that other little glitch.
"Tak? Hey. Are you okay?"
No of course I'm not okay that was a really bad malfunction. But yes, I'm okay thanks to the dozen alterations I made to my own circuitry.
The only thing that escaped her mouth was a garbled noise. Gaz's expression changed from worry to an animal panic to a very human dread. Tak quickly nodded.
"What happened?"
A shrug.
"Are you sure you're fine?"
Tak grimaced and grabbed a stray crayon and scribbled on the closest piece of paper. She glanced at it again, rolled her eyes and turned the paper over, rewriting the message in stupid Earth-English characters.
I'M GOING TO BE FINE IT'S JUST TECHNICAL ISSUES. STOP WORRYING. IT MAKES YOUR FACE LOOK STUPID.
Gaz looked at the paper, looked back at Tak, and looked down again at her hurried message.
"Honestly, you're just so sweet I could kiss you."
Tak stuck out her tongue and wrote again.
I LIKE YOUR SARCASM BUT HUMAN BIOLOGY IS STUPID. LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT IT.
"So what can we talk about? Destroying Bobby's Conestoga wagon again?"
YES
