Ehhhh.. this chapter is kind of short.. sorry about that. It took me forever to write this thing! My computer keeps freezing on me, so I can't get anything done! Also, thank you all again for your wonderful reviews, and I would just like to say that this fic isn't actually going to be a ZADR, even though it has a lot of potential.. however, it may end up as a friendship fic by the end of it. I'm not sure, yet.. I'm trying to make up my mind.
Chapter 7 - Zim cares and Purple leaves a message while Red eats his important and holy nachos...
thunk... thunk... thunk...
ow.. ow.. owww!
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"ZIM! Would you cut it out?! OW!"
"Both of you shut up!!!"
Poor Dib.. the insane little Invader was dragging him down the stairs, and his large head was cracking against each step. He felt like he was going to be knocked out of conciousness. Gaz was annoyed.. very annoyed. Normally, she would have been thrilled to see her brother be put through such pain and torment, but Zim and Dib's rivalry was really getting on her nerves.
With a snarl she shut off her Gameslave 2, then picked up Zim and hurled him out onto the lawn. Zim was surprised at the little purple-haired girl's strength, but didn't have long to marvel at this, seeing as she was soon dumping the tangled mass of blankets that held the Dib right on top of him. The wind was knocked out of him, and before he could push Dib off he found that he was clutching his head, rather than at his organs once more. Gaz had just picked up GIR and chucked him high into the air, and when he came back down he hit Zim right in the middle of his forehead.
"Ohhh.. my amazing cranium!" He hissed in pain.
"Whooo! I want to do that again!" GIR giggled, then danced around on Zim's face. Dib just groaned loudly and tried to free himself once more.
"Don't come back here ever again!" Gaz glared at the three of them and slammed the door.
"GIR! Get off of my face, now!" Zim shouted. GIR saluted and jumped off of his master's face, then continued with his dancing. Zim pushed the Dib-human off of him with a shudder, then stood up quickly, brushing himself off. He looked down at the struggling Dib, then grabbed the blanket that he had converted into a net/bag and started dragging the boy down the driveway.
"Zim! Wait! Stop!" Dib protested, still trying to get free. Being dragged across concrete (even with a blanket wrapped around you) hurts like hell. Zim turned around and looked down at the annoying boy, untangling him and narrowing his eyes.
"What is it now, Dib?"
"You can't just drag me back to your base!"
"And why not? It seems to be going well so far."
"Because I don't want to go, and it's not going well for me!" Dib glared up at the alien from his spot on the ground.
"Sooo.. let me get this straight," Zim said, crossing his arms in front of him as he stared down at Dib, a look of amusement evident on his green face. "You would rather stay here and die in the middle of your driveway all alone than come back to the base so I can attempt to cure you and change your hideous fate?"
"Yes," Dib said, looking confused for a moment.
"Very well," Zim waved at the human and started marching off. It was almost a form of reverse psychology. Dib stared after him, thinking.
"Hey! Zim! Wait a minute! Did you say you were actually trying to save me?" Dib had pushed himself up into a sitting position as his bespecticalled eyes followed his nemesis. Zim grinned before turning around to face him.
"Well duh, Dib-human! I thought you would have been smart enough to figure that out by now.. not to mention I told you that when I was in your filthy living-place.. room..thing." Zim was smirking from the end of the driveway, but he walked back over to the human. "Why, Dib-stink? Have you changed your mind?" Dib gave him a skeptical look, tilting his head to the side.
"How do I know that I can trust you to save my life, Zim?" The question sounded silly, coming out of his mouth. Zim stared at him for a moment, then almost fell over laughing, both an evil laugh and an 'I can't believe you just said that' laugh.
"That's the beauty of it, Dib-monkey! You can't! You see, I will never trust you, and you will never trust me.." Zim stated when his laughter had subsided and he could talk coherently again. "But like it or not, you don't have very much of an alternative choice in the given situation. You see, Dib, much like you declare yourself the last hope of your own puny, pathetic planet.. I am your last hope." He smirked, staring down at the human-boy. Dib hated to admit it, but Zim was right.
"Fine," he grumbled and struggled to stand before the Irken. "Fine," he repeated, straightening his glasses and glaring at him. "I'll go back with you, but don't strap me to that table again!"
"Oh, what's the matter, Dib, did it make you feel weak? Vulnerable?" Zim chuckled darkly as he taunted him, and then started to make his way down the sidewalk, occasionally looking back over his shoulder at the human to make sure he was still following. He was starting to enjoy the walk home in the afternoon sun, especially since Dib was silent for most of the way. In fact, he had almost forgotten that the human was there until he heard Dib calling after him. He looked back and saw Dib trying to get up again, and having much more difficulty. He snorted in disgust and marched back to the boy.
"Earth-monkey, I would like to get back home sometime today!" He ranted. "What is wrong with you now?" He was frustrated with Dib's immense slowness.
"Well, obviously I can't get up," Dib glared up at the Invader once more. "If I could, then I wouldn't have called you back here." Zim heaved a heavy sigh of annoyance and reluctantly reached down, grabbing his enemy's hand and pulling him back to his feet. Zim looked around for his robot-slave, but GIR was nowhere to be found.
"GIR!" Not even a rustle in the bushes... "GIR?" Nothing at all... Zim growled and tried calling him on the microphone, but still got nothing. "Fine," he muttered, then looked back at Dib and shuddered at what he would have to do to get the human back to his base. His eyes narrowed once more as he brushed the dust and dirt off of the boy's clothes. He took Dib's arm and placed it around his neck and shoulders, then wrapped one of his arms around the boy's waist, supporting him so that he could walk. Another shudder went through him, all the way down his alien spine.. the human was much too close... it was disgusting. Why did he agree with his good side to save this foul creature? He could have kicked himself.
Dib was feeling irritated and disgusted as well, though not to the same extent as Zim. He had never been this close to Zim, and Zim had never willingly touched him unless it was an attempt on his life or something. He could see Zim blanch each time he came in contact with his human skin, as if he was the most disgusting thing in the entire universe.. like a cockroach or something.. but if he knew anything about Zim, that was probably exactly how he felt about him anyway. Dib sighed and started walking again, disliking very much the fact that he needed Zim's help to do it. For the lack of being able to do much else, he decided to attempt a relatively normal conversation with the alien.
"Um.. Zim?" He asked after a few minutes of aided walking. Zim didn't reply right away, he just looked over at the Dib to acknowledge him. He was still a paler shade of green, not yet adjusted to the human's close proximity, it made him feel sick.
"W-what is it, Dib...human?" One of his contact-covered eyes was twitching.
"I was just wondering.. how are you planning to help me?" Dib was staring at him intently, watching the Irken's every move. The alien was snapped back into reality, not that he wasn't there already.. he just wasn't thinking about Dib's possible fate. Zim didn't know how he should tell him.. he couldn't tell him about the Tallests, or the antidote.. a voice inside of him was telling him not to get the boy's hopes up, then another was telling him not to give his enemy enough information to use against him. He stared at the Dib-human, hoping for once that he could read him like a book.
"I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, Dib." Dib raised an eyebrow at him, but Zim wasn't lying. If the Tallests couldn't help, he wasn't sure what he would do.
"You mean you don't have some incredible plan?"
"FOOL! Of course I have an incredible plan! An amazing plan! I am Zim! I'm just not sure if it's going to work yet."
Dib couldn't help but laugh at his nemesis. He was offended so easily by the very notion that he wouldn't be able to think of anything. The green of his skin had brightened again, and he ranted on and on about how incredibly stupid the Dib-pig was. Dib noticed a change in Zim's body temperature, also... when he had been much colder than the human before, as his anger rose his temperature did with it.
"How dare you even suggest that I wouldn't be able to think your way out of this? Pitiful human! Your pathetic life is on the line here due to your own stupidity and you insult me by insinuating that I can't think of an ingenious plan to save you because deep down I really do care?!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Zim wished he had kept it shut. Zim's skin visibly paled again and there was now an awkward silence between them. Angel-Zim's filthy niceness-work was done.
Neither of them said anything until they got back to Zim's house and the alien had taken him back down below again. Zim sealed off all of the levels but one, so that both he and Dib were stuck down there unless he opened everything again. This was relatively easy, but he wanted to make sure that even if Dib could move around he couldn't get too much information about the way that Zim lived, or get ahold of any weapons that he could use against him later.
Without a word, Zim handed him what looked like a remote control. It was fairly normal looking, except for that the buttons were labelled in Irken. Dib figured out what it was for before the alien had even started explaining it to him. He touched a button and a hovering disk appeared from the end of the hallway, zooming up to the two of them. Zim was impressed by how quickly the human caught on.
"This transport will take you anywhere on this floor, Dib-human. I've sealed off the others, but you can roam freely here.. mostly because there is nothing to endanger myself or harm you, but also because there are no computers here that you will be able to gain acess to. Now," he blinked at Dib, who was now sitting cross-legged on the hover disk. "I have to check up on something, so.. um.. whatever." The Irken waved his hand dismissively, and marched off to find the closest computer console.
Dib followed him from a distance, moving the transport slowly forward. Zim stopped near a blank wall, then pressed a single button in the center of it. The button initiated a change in the wall, which was in fact a type of hologram, and a console appeared. The monitor flashed as Zim pressed a few more buttons and a message appeared on screen. "New messages," the computer stated blankly. Zim smiled and Dib stared in awe up at the screen as he stopped the hover disk behind the Invader. Zim knew that he was there, but he wasn't too concerned about the human because he was sure that he couldn't read Irken at all. A list of message titles appeared on the screen.. there was one from GIR, which was just a long trail of nonsense about tap-dancing penguins that were swimming in butter and large centipedes feeding on the intestines of blue cows. Zim shook his head silently. Of course that one was actually in English.
Looking down the list he found what he was looking for. "AHA!" He shouted suddenly, making Dib jump a little.
"What?" The human asked uncertainly. Zim touched the message, which expanded on the screen, showing a video feed of Tallest Purple.
"Zim, We found what you were looking for.. or rather, I did. Red was too busy with the very important eating of nachos, and I'm sure that you would agree with how important that is." Zim nodded silently. Purple went on after a brief pause. "The file is attached, make sure you follow everything exactly," he warned. "Or it will not work. Happy now?" Purple said, as if he could hear Zim's answer of yes. "Good. Now, leave me alone so I can go back to... umm.. yeah." With that, the message ended. Zim pressed another button and the directions for how the original serum was made were downloaded into the computer. He pulled out a small, electronic screen from his PAK and connected it to the computer with a wire so that he could take the information with him. He was very glad that Purple had been brief.
Dib looked puzzled as the computer resumed the look of a wall again. That was.. weird.
"Zim, who was that?" He blinked and looked over at the Invader, but his vision started clouding a little, as if he wasn't wearing his glasses.
"That.. that was my great uncle Milford!" Zim exclaimed as he looked down at the little touch screen in his hands. Dib shook his head silently... damn Zim was weird.
