I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.
Chapter Seven: Who Laughs Last...
"Who laughs last, laughs best!" Just about everybody
Gaz came stomping right up to them, GameSlave in one hand. By the look on her face, if the batteries weren't dead already, they were close to it.
"I might have known I'd find you here, Dib." Gaz gritted out, her eyes narrowing to malevolent slits as she cracked her knuckles. With yesterday's beating all too fresh both in his mind and on his body, Dib couldn't help flinching.
Gir's eyes glowed red as the robot began bristling with weapons. This person wasthreatening Gir's new friend Dibby! Gir darted towards Gaz with no thought of being intimidated, but Dib immediately reached out and stopped the robot.
Survivors of Gaz's wrath afterwards recalled having seen images such as skulls, unhappy faces, churning pools of molten lava flashing in her eyes; this time Dib saw the fires of hell itself. Dib shrank back, pulling Gir with him, before she could grab either of them to fling in the flames.
"Put away your weapons, Grr" said Dib tightly, still not taking his eyes off of Gaz. "It's okay. That's Gaz. She's my sister."
If Dib wouldn't let anything hurt Gaz because she was his sister, then surely that would also mean Dib had nothing to fear from Gaz either! Gir turned to Gaz with a bright smile... a smile which quickly faded.
Such thankless concern for the safety of the very person who so terrorized Dib himself just plain made no sense at all, not even to Gir. As the robot tried in vain to figure this out, its eyes returned to blue... then went red again, then blue, then red, and finally flickered back and forth between blue and red so rapidly that they looked purple. Gir's circuits were overloading to the point of beginning to overheat.
Next Gaz turned her ferocious glare on Gir, which panicked Dib still more. He had no idea what he would dare to do if the worst happened. When Gaz went to throw something out but found the trash can full, she was as likely to crush it flat (to punish it for daring not to have room for her contribution) as she was to empty it. As much as he dreaded what could result, Dib continued staring, too horribly fascinated to turn away.
But Dib would cherish for as long as he lived the memory of what happened next.
Far from being afraid, Gir merely mimicked her grimace, and as reflected by the robot, this terrifying expression suddenly looked merely petulant, as harmless and amusing as it would look on the face of anybody else's little sister. Dib clapped a hand over his mouth to hold back the eruption of startled laughter.
"What's this Gazzie?" Gir suddenly chirped, snatching the ever present GameSlave out of Gaz's hand.
Breathless now, Dib expected Gaz to burst straight into flames. Only her fingertips trembled; the rest of her remained as still as a statue. Gaz finally broke out of her spell about a half a second later and lunged at Gir. Fortunately Dib was not to be faced with any split second decisions or dilemmas. The little robot sprouted a blue flamed rocket and flew away... leaving Gaz to crash into the sidewalk. Aha, Grr could fly, so that explained a couple of more things...!
Shaking with rage, Gaz climbed to her feet, turned and stomped after the robot as Gir flew to one of the lower branches of the nearest tree. Without a care in the world, the little robot sat over the branch and pushed buttons until the game started up, then continued to push more buttons apparently at random until an explosion sounded.
"YAY I win!" the little robot rejoiced, jumping up and down until the leaves at the end of the branch rattled and began falling to the ground. "This is an easy game!"
Gaz clenched all over, going as rigid as if she had tetanus. Dib knew that she knew this game was anything but easy; Gaz had yet to beat it herself even after days of playing. From bitter experience he also knew that that particular sound didn't mean the game's villain had been hit, but that the player was down by another life. Even when she wasn't doing the actual losing herself, the mere idea was anathema to Gaz.
"Give me that game back... right now... and I won't rip off all your limbs." she fumed.
Gir only looked down and laughed. "I like games. I wanta keep this one!" and beeped some more buttons until another explosion signified another player death. "YAYY! I win again!"
Gaz was shaking even harder now; the robot was down to its final avatar and literally playing with its own life.
As Gir continued beeping the buttons, Gaz's head suddenly popped out from the mass of leaves directly above Gir. Dib gasped in helpless horror as Gaz drew back a fist, but Gir noticed the danger in time and simply flew to the next tree. Gaz's fist swung harmlessly though empty space so that she overbalanced and just barely caught herself from falling. For a moment Gaz glowered as furiously as if she was about to chase Gir to the new tree. Almost immediately, however, the fire in her eyes faded just slightly; she sank back on the branch as if she realized she would just get the same result next time, and she preferred not to look even more powerless than she was already.
Snarling, she withdrew back into the leafy canopy and a moment later stalked back out from behind the tree. For perhaps the very first time in her life, Gaz did not know what to do; none of her rage and none of her powers availed her a thing.
Sitting comfortably in this new perch, Gir continued to hit the beeping and booping buttons at random. Suddenly the beeps began to slow down, becoming fainter and fainter until the Gameslave was totally silent. Shaking the GameSlave, Gir now looked as heartbroken as a robot can look."AW, it's broken!"
The batteries must finally be dead, which was the point at which Gaz usually began acting like a runaway buzz saw. "That is MINE! Give it BACK or ELSE!" Gaz commanded, her voice both more shaky and more dangerous than Dib had ever heard it.
"I wanna keep it, Gazzie!" Gir called down. "Master can fix it. Master knows everything. He told me himself."
"If you do not return that game to me right now I will make your life a nightmare from which there will be no waking and I will... " Gaz went into one of those long swaggering tirades Dib had heard so often he now knew them by heart.
Gir pondered. What would be as much fun as playing the explosion game had been? "Dance for me Gazzie!"
"... and then after THAT I will ..."
"Dance for me Gazzie and then I give it back to you!" Gir began to hop and skip happily, demonstrating how to dance as if it was simply a matter of Gaz not understanding what Gir wanted.
Up until now, death threats had always delivered to Gaz exactly what she wanted, but now she found herself threatening something without any concept of its own death. Moreover, the minute you sink to arguing with a toddler you've already lost; even if you do win the argument, the toddler will never know it.
Gir's dancing slowed down. "You don't know how to dance, Gazzie?" the robot said pityingly, and for Gaz, this was too much.
She began to dance.
Anybody as inactive as Gaz would find dancing awkward to begin with, but what she found even more foreign was co-operating with somebody to get what she wanted instead of injuring them.
"Whee! This is fun!" chirruped Gir, dancing along with Gaz. "Isn't it, Gazzie?"
Gaz's only response was an unintelligible grunt.
By this time Dib was nearly unconscious from lack of oxygen. Frantically he pressed both hands over his mouth and nose to keep from exploding with laughter; even a chuckle at Gaz's expense would be suicidal.
He had watched Gir playing with Gaz's Gameslave with a horrified fascination, a fascination which quickly lost its horror once he realized Gir actually had a good chance of surviving. As Gaz continued dancing, however, he began to cautiously back away, not knowing how much longer he could possibly contain his reaction.
Slowly, Dib turned around, and then began to run and run and run as fast as he could. When he stopped to catch his breath, he looked around one more time, before running around a brick wall, ducking around a fence and diving into a bush before collapsing to the ground laughing as he had never before laughed in all his life.
Any lingering tension now flushed out of him on wave after wave of laughter; indeed he now laughed all the harder for it than had any of the spectators the day before.
Peal after peal of laughter from a boy who so very seldom had anything to laugh about rang out to fill the very sky. This time nobody shouted at him to shut up and Dib laughed as if something deep inside his core would continue to laugh for the rest of his life.
Every time Dib thought he had finally reached the end of his laughter and went to stand up again, the memory of Gaz's evil, terrifying face as reflected by that absurd little robot rose once more in his mind. Gir's tiny chin snapping out at a jaunty angle reduced that overbearing, tyrannical face to an absurd parody completely devoid of any threat, and Dib helplessly fell down shrieking once more with a newly freshened burst of laughter.
The very idea of Gaz... DANCING! Those feet, kicking... without actually... kicking ANYBODY! It was just too funny! Dib couldn't stand it! He rolled over and over, beating his fists on the ground as the water streamed from his eyes.
When he could finally sit up once more, Dib suddenly noticed a chill across the front of his pants. Good thing his pants were black already, because he sure didn't need to go to the bathroom any more. Not only did this not bother him in the least, it added to his feeling of relief.
Wiping his eyes, Dib struggled to his feet. "I'll get thrown out of any grocery store I try to go into looking like this. I'd better go home first."
He made quite a sight as he walked along. With a grin splitting his face, tears streaking his cheeks, and clothes besmeared with mud and grass stains, Dib now looked as if he had just won the fight of his life.
Upon arriving home, Dib cautiously sneaked in the back door. Only when he had determined that the kitchen was empty did he dare to peer into the living room.
Gaz was indeed curled up on the couch, hunched even more intently than usual over her game and pushing buttons with perhaps triple her usual intensity. Clearly she had obtained her own batteries from somewhere; this time she'd finally got tired of waiting and actually had to budge long enough to do something for herself. That insufferable, smug smirk that settled over her face whenever she had maimed somebody was nowhere in evidence, so Dib knew that Gir was all right. So far, Gaz had yet to notice Dib had returned, which suited him just fine.
It's like she's telling herself something's all over, Dib thought, and at the same time insisting it never even happened! While that was nothing at all compared to what she'd done to him, Dib was delighted that Gaz had for once met her own match. He made a mental note to never again be without chocolate bubble gum for more reasons than one.
A few remaining giggles which Dib was trying so desperately to stifle kept pushing their way out through his tightly pressed lips. Trying even harder to choke them down, Dib began to hiccup... which inevitably annoyed Gaz... just like every other single thing he ever did, strangely enough.
"Shut the HELL up, idiot!" Gaz hissed, more tension than usual in her voice. "You're bugging me again."
Dib's eyes narrowed. Do I ever NOT "bug" her? What the hell IS her problem?
"I ca - HIC! I ca - HIC! I can't hel - HIC! can't help it, Gaz," protested Dib, pouring a glass of water. He held his nose as he gulped it all down, nearly blacking out as he finally gulped the last mouthful. It wasn't working, however. "HIC!"
"I said... Shut! UP!" Gaz ground out. She had put her game on Pause and was now slowly lowering it to her lap, never a good sign.
"I'm tr - HIC! I'm trying but I ca - HIC! I can't just stop do - HIC! doing this because I wa- HIC! because I want to." Dib couldn't recall the complicated scientific explanation for another hiccup remedy his father had taught him a long time ago, though luckily he did remember the formula. Dib found the sugar bag and scooped out a small handful which he moistened with vinegar before gulping down the bizarre result, but that didn't work either. "HIC!"
"Well, if you don't shut up, I'll MAKE you shut up!"
"Gaz... as long as you keep me talking - HIC! - I'm going to keep hiccup - HIC! - hiccuping! It might work if I - HIC! - if I stop bre - HIC! - stop breathing." Dib inhaled as deeply as he could, held his nose, and closed his eyes, concentrating.
"That's an excellent suggestion." With a grim flick of her wrist, Gaz set her game aside. She stalked into the kitchen and slowly pulled open the cutlery drawer before removing the longest and widest meat cleaver it contained.
Dib heard the unmistakable clank of metal, spun around, and the breath froze in his throat.
The old wives' tale that a sudden scare can stop hiccups has a remarkable basis in fact.
Just beyond where she could have reached him with the blade, Gaz waited a few seconds to see if he was going to dare hiccup again. "See. I knew you were doing that on purpose just to bug me. Weren't you. I SAID, WEREN'T YOU."
Dib knew enough to nod yes. Satisfied, Gaz returned to the drawer and dropped the cleaver back into it before slamming it shut with a clattering thud, then threw herself back into her game with renewed vigor, determined to obliterate the memory of not being able to destroy someone.
Slowly, Dib let his breath out with relief. He had heard this was one way to cure hiccups but he'd never before witnessed so dramatic a demonstration!
Dib turned and headed up the stairs to clean up. Quite a few things had happened that day. Dib had made friends with someone who could actually keep a few steps ahead of Gaz. And while she hadn't done it quite the way he would have wanted, Gaz had actually done two things for him in as many days.
Dib turned his face away from her as he felt a little smile stealing back to his lips, a smile which he this time pushed to the side of his mouth facing away from her. Dib resolved to remember this delicious incident. In the weeks and months to come, recalling it would provide a much needed morale boost when he sorely needed it.
(A/N) My most profound thanks to all my reviewers! Incidents like those in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 also tend to show up a lot in fics classified as "Humor" so I was more than a little concerned about what reactions I would get. Encouraging sympathy for Dib was exactly what I was seeking to do, and I must have done something right because I was very pleasantly surprised. Thank you.
Some of you may be wondering why I of all people would write a fic this way.
I know canon Gaz is nowhere near this bad. In the show she utters mostly empty threats, and only very seldom goes out of her way to be cruel. When she goes on one of her berserk revenge rampages, she always has something that at least tries to resemble an actual reason. However even in the show she has an inhuman coldness that leaves me scratching my head over how anybody can find anything appealing about her.
But in fanfic she's a thousand times worse, and this is what I am reacting to. I write Gaz exactly as she looks to me on this site, minus, of course, any suggestion that such demonic behavior is in any way amusing or admirable.
I got the idea for what would become Chapter 2 after reading a fic where Gaz thinks a really intelligent counterpoint to one of Dib's arguments would be jumping off the sidewalk to walk to skool in the middle of the road. Dib notices a car coming and leaps to save her only to get killed himself, so the world loses a caring, heroic person and keeps a selfish, manipulative one. Sorry, Dib, I know you believe that's the right thing to do and all, but I just do not see how humanity is any better off this way.
I'm sure Chapter 3 had a lot of people wondering how I could write such a thing. Frankly, as much as I enjoy reading about Dib and as much as I love to laugh, I have all but stopped even attempting to read any IZ fics listed as "Humor." The one thing I have come to expect in such a fic is Dib being horribly injured in one of Gaz's overzealous rages, as if that alone in and of itself is enough to make a piece of writing funny. And apparently enough DO consider such a thing the very height of comicality that if they were all placed together they would form quite a sizeable, um, crowd... indeed.
Chapter 4 explains why it drove me up the wall when a fic ended with Gaz suddenly acting half civilized for the final few lines after being a mad dog the whole way through. Such a fic always left me wondering what she did after the story ended. Taken as a whole, such stories strongly suggest that she went right back to being the nightmare from hell... after some convenient timing had given her full credit for reforming.
For a while I thought I had several separate stories, but once I realized that the common theme running through all of them is that a civilized society runs on contracts, I realized they would be much stronger together.
Once again, thanks for reading and reviewing!
