A/N: Sorry for the longer wait on this one, I had a bit of writer's block on it.

Now, that said, this is one I've really been looking forward to writing, taking one of my most common story elements and magnifying it. To which I mean, this won't just be Anti-Gaz, but in the true spirit of the Karma Circle, reflects on everyone. You'll see what I mean, if you just read on.

I'd also like to thank the criminally underrated The Cowardly Christian, whose writing style in many of his stories inspired this entry, and my friend Saintheartwing, from whom I'm borrowing an OC.

Disclaimer: All canon Invader Zim characters and concepts belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Purgatory belongs to Saintheartwing. Slenderman belongs to… uh, the Internet, I guess?

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Entry 7: Ultimate Karma Circle

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Somewhere, there was a place that was the size of a room, yet a universe unto itself. This room was pitch black, illuminated only by the light coming from a series of monitors. Facing all these screens was a floating throne-like chair, and seated within that chair was a medium height Irken with black eyes and spiky antennae, wearing a black uniform.

This was Purgatory, the Avatar of Karma, the master of delivering poetic justice on those who deserved it. And it was with him whom this story begins, as he observes his next target.

Purgatory steepled his fingers as his eyes roamed over the screens. All of them had the same subject, a certain purple-haired misanthropic Goth girl. Gazlene "Gaz" Membrane, daughter of super genius Professor Membrane, sister of paranormal enthusiast and self-proclaimed protector of Earth Dib Membrane, lover of pizza and video games, and utterly sociopathic bully.

This last point was being reiterated by all the screens. Some depicted Gaz simply sitting back and focusing on her games while the people around her were being tormented by the plans of a certain Irken Invader. Others showed her threatening off anyone who looked like they'd even remotely get in the way of her getting what she wanted. But by far the sight most commonly depicted was Gaz beating up her brother for him daring to annoy or bother her when she was in the middle of doing something. All in all, it was not a very flattering portrait that was being painted of her.

"Oh, yes, you definitely need to be taught a lesson, don't you?" Purgatory mused, "But let's see. How to teach it to you?"

"Yet another Anti-Gaz plot? Boring!" a distorted voice suddenly spoke up from behind Purgatory, causing the black-eyed Irken to fall out of his chair in surprise. Getting to his feet and spinning around to confront the intruder, Purgatory's eyes widened in shock as he saw him. Eight feet tall, wearing a black suit that blended into the darkness filling the room, tentacles emerging from his back, pale white skin contrasting sharply with it, and most disturbing of all, totally lacking facial features of any kind.

"How's it going?" Slenderman asked cheerfully.

"H-how did you get in here?" Purgatory demanded, trying to fight off the panic at being confronted by the memetic embodiment of chaos and evil, "This is my personal dimension! No one can get in here without my say so!"

"I'd say I came through the fourth wall, but that joke got done to death last entry," Slenderman replied.

"What?" Purgatory blinked in confusion.

"Never mind! Anyway, I was just passing by this corner of the multiverse, and I took the time to check out your work. And I have to say, I'm kinda disappointed. All you keep doing is just making bad stuff happen to different versions of Little Miss Goth over there."

"And you have a problem with that?" Purgatory asked, narrowing his eyes in annoyance at his work being questioned.

"In principle? No. She's a little bitch who deserves to be force fed rabid weasels. I'm just disappointed with how narrow your target range is. I mean, check this out."

Slenderman waved a hand, which was glowing with arcane light that hurt Purgatory's eyes to just look at, and the screens all suddenly switched to static momentarily, before flicking to new images.

"First, let's look at the little hero's other assholic family member," Slenderman narrated, gesturing towards a couple of screens in particular with a tentacle, which were depicting Professor Membrane. Specifically, the Professor was shown in one to be monologuing about his latest invention in front of a crowd of reporters and admirers, while totally ignoring Dib trying to get his attention from right next to him. Another showed him almost absentmindedly signing off on the paperwork to have Dib committed to the Crazy House for "observation", while a protesting Dib was dragged away.

"Smartest man on the planet, yet totally incapable of being a good father. Even worse when you consider the fact that he doesn't even seem to be trying. I mean, hell, half the time he can't seem to remember he even has kids!"

Slenderman's tentacle moved to some other screens, these showing Dib being belittled, mocked, and even beaten up by his fellow skoolchildren.

"Then there's these ungrateful bastards. Constantly being saved from enslavement or utter destruction, oftentimes right in front of them, and they just willfully ignore it all, just so they don't have a reason to stop treating Dib like their personal punching bag."

Next were some screens showing Zim carrying out various plans. And also just being a plain old dick to everyone around him.

"And of course, the guy who wants to take over and/or destroy the whole planet just for attention. Okay, I admit, a lot of his plans blow up in his face, so things balance out a little, but still, not nearly to the point where he's as punished as he should be."

The tentacle now moved to the last few screens. These weren't even based on Earth, as they instead showed the Tallest, acting every bit the man-child emperors everyone knew them to be, stuffing their faces with every snack food imaginable even while ordering the destruction of planets or having subordinates thrown out of airlocks for no apparent reason.

"Finally, let's not forget these two jerks. The epitome of everything wrong with this universe, and aside from the occasional spillover from one of Zim's plans going wrong, nothing ever happens to them. Where's your karma for them, huh?"

Purgatory huffed and crossed his arms, not wanting to admit that the horrible abomination had a point.

"Alright, fine, I'll admit there's been some oversights on my part. I'll get around to dealing with the others as soon as-"

"Why wait?" Slenderman cut him off, "I can think of a few ways to him them all practically at once!"

"Are you crazy?!" Purgatory exclaimed, "Something that large-scale, targeting that many people in close proximity… it could completely upset the entire natural balance of the universe!"

"So?" Slenderman asked, totally deadpan, "Have you seen this universe? There is no way I could make anything worse."

"You can't begin to understand the delicate nuances of the forces I have at my disposal here," Purgatory protested, "You can't just take a sledgehammer approach to dealing with them, and I won't allow it!"

"Yeah, I wasn't really asking your permission," Slenderman said, waving a hand. And the next thing Purgatory knew, he was back in his chair, only now, ropes of energy were strapped around him, holding him in place, while another was wrapped around his mouth, gagging him. He struggled against them, tried to call on his powers to break free, but Slenderman's eldritch power was far beyond his own abilities.

"Now then," Slenderman said, somehow smirking despite his lack of a mouth, "Let's begin…"

XXXXXXX

The skool had called an assembly, and all the students were now gathered in the auditorium. Several floating vid-screens were hovering above the main stage, but were currently on standby mode, so no one knew yet just what the assembly was for. As such, everyone was ambling about and talking amongst themselves, waiting for something to happen.

"So, what do you think this is all about?" Dib asked Gaz, who was standing nearby playing her Game Slave.

"Probably something stupid," she replied halfheartedly, not really paying attention to her brother, as usual.

"Should you be playing that right now?" Dib asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"You think any of the teachers have the guts to tell me to stop?" Gaz countered, cracking open an eye to glare at him. Dib winced at the intensity of the glare and quickly let the subject drop.

Suddenly, there was an air horn sound, which took everyone by surprise and drew their attention fully back to the vid-screens, which flashed out of standby mode to a live view. To Dib's surprise, it was of his father, who was standing at a podium in front of his main lab building.

"Good morning, members of the press and unwashed masses watching from home, as well as from their place of employment and/or learning," the Professor began his speech, "I am here today to address one of the most glaring holdbacks on modern science. Now, as you all must remember, some time ago I prepared to grant the world the gift of perpetual energy, only for my presentation of the generator to be ruined by some prankster throwing a robot eye at me. So, I decided not to share my creation."

"Wasn't that a petty overreaction?" someone in the crowd of reporters asked.

"Of course not! True scientists never overreact!" Membrane proclaimed dramatically, before calming down after a moment, "Anyway, after much consideration, I have decided that this has been a long enough time to punish you all for the actions of this one delinquent by withholding the technology. That is why I am proud to announce that tomorrow, I am reactivating the Perpetual Energy Generator, and bringing it fully online for all the peoples of the world to use."

This got excited cheers and exclamations from the crowd, but Membrane merely held up his hands in a calming gesture.

"I'm afraid I don't have any time for questions," he said, "This announcement was merely a formality. I must now go attend to preparing the PEG for activation. Good day."

With that, Membrane left the podium, ignoring the shouted questions from the reporters, and the vid-screens switched off. As they did, the crowd of students almost immediately began dispersing, most of them too apathetic to care about the importance of the announcement they'd just heard.

"Wow, this is really something, huh Gaz?" Dib asked, as the two of them started walking towards the auditorium exit.

"Meh," she replied, "Feels like a pointless repeat of something that's already been done, which isn't as good as the original."

Dib arched an eyebrow at that comment, but then his attention was drawn by a splotch of green in the corner of his vision. Turning his head quickly, Dib caught sight of Zim marching towards a different door, arms crossed and a thoughtful look on his face. This caused Dib to gain one of his own.

"Hmm, speaking of repeating things, I better make sure Zim doesn't try blowing the PEG up like last time. Or make another robot copy of me," Dib mused.

"Whatever," Gaz said, barely paying attention as she walked away. Dib, meanwhile, quickly made his way over to Zim. The Irken evidently saw him coming, as he turned to glare at him.

"What do you want, Dib-Monkey?" he sneered.

"I just want to let you know that you shouldn't even think about taking advantage of my dad's PEG like last time, Space Boy," Dib said, pointing a warning finger.

"Eh?" Zim asked, blinking in confusion, "I wasn't going to… Uh, I mean — do not tell Zim what to do, pig-smelly! If I wish to blow up your father's device and destroy the entire planet, that's exactly what I'm going to do!"

Several other students walking by stopped to stare at Zim for a moment as he said that, before shrugging and going on their way.

"Oh, come on!" Dib exclaimed, throwing up his arms in disgust, "He literally just said he wants to blow up the planet, and you're all just walking away?"

"Pst," Torque snorted as he walked by, "He's obviously just joking."

"Yeah, why would he want to blow up the planet? That's stupid," Zita added her two cents.

"Because he's an alien! How many times do I have say that?" Dib snapped. He then yelped in pain as Chunk walked by and elbowed him in the gut, causing him to collapse.

"Freak," Chunk said, as he and several of the others walked away, laughing. Meanwhile, Zim took a moment to enjoy the sight of his nemesis squirming in pain on the floor. Quickly, though, he decided to move on, and ran off towards the exit to make his way towards his base. A few minutes later, Dib stumbled back to his feet and stormed off with a look of annoyance, already planning how to best handle whatever Zim was going to do.

And all the while, on another plane, Slenderman laughed as he kept moving the pieces into place.

XXXXXXX

A large crowd had assembled in front of the massive building containing the PEG. There were many reporters and science enthusiasts, though most were just random bystanders who had shown up for the sake of saying they'd shown up.

They were all assembled before a stage that had been set up in front of the building, Membrane and many of his associates (read: underlings) seated upon it, waiting for him to take the podium and begin the ceremony. The only thing missing were the Professor's children, who were being escorted through the crowd by a security guard, whose look of boredom was matched only by Gaz's, whose face portrayed how much she just wanted to get this all over with.

Dib, on the other hand, was highly agitated. His eyes were darting around the area, looking for any sign of Zim and/or his robots. So far, there was nothing, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Irken made his move, and he didn't know if he was ready for it. Oh, sure, he'd packed some sleep cuffs and a water pistol, but he had a feeling that wouldn't be enough, depending on what Zim actually did.

"Would you stop spazzing out?" Gaz growled, "It's bad enough we have to waste time with one of Dad's publicity stunts, you don't have to be a freak during it."

"Gaz, I know that Zim's going to try something. I can't let my guard down!" Dib proclaimed. Gaz merely rolled her eyes at him.

"Whatever. Just try not to mess things up this time. It'll just make this whole stupid thing go on longer. And I have better things to do."

"Like laze around playing more games," Dib thought crossly. However, before he could openly give a more polite (and thus safer) comment, the crowd parted slightly, giving him a perfect view of the side of the PEG building — and of Zim, wearing a janitor's outfit and fake beard, sneaking into a side door marked "No Unauthorized Personnel Allowed".

Eyes widening, Dib didn't even think twice before darting in Zim's direction, not even hearing Gaz call after him as he did. He quickly ran over to the door himself and pried it open, a task made quite easy by the fact that its lock seemed to be broken, which was probably how Zim had gotten inside in the first place.

"Of all the stupid luck," Dib muttered as he ran down the hall behind the door, "That's just how it is, isn't it? If the world gets blown up today, it'll be because of shoddy maintenance on a door that some jerk forgot to fix."

Shrugging that thought off, Dib kept running, until he heard voices coming from another open door ahead of him, and he changed pace, slowly creeping up to the door and peering inside.

"-don't care how much fun it is, GIR, get down and focus!" Zim was shouting. He was standing next to a maintenance tool cart, which GIR was sitting atop of, rocking it back and forth.

"Imma riding the choo-choo!" GIR exclaimed happily.

"It is not a train! Now get down!" Zim commanded, grabbing GIR by the scruff of his dog costume and lifting him into the air. Then he walked over towards where a glowing metal orb had been attached to the wall.

"There is no time for your foolishness GIR! We must make sure the Kweg bomb is precisely timed to explode when the energy generator directly above us is turned on. Otherwise, instead of causing the generator to meltdown and destroy the whole planet, it'll only blow up the generator itself! Which is, eh, okay I guess, but not what we came here to do!"

Despite the panic that those words caused, Dib watched carefully as Zim tapped away at controls in the side of the orb, fine-tuning the device. If he paid close enough attention, he was certain he could figure out how the thing worked, so he could then disarm it. As such, he leaned further in to get a better look.

At which point the door he was leaning against gave way, sending him crashing to the floor.

Zim spun around, eyes widening as he saw Dib jumping back up to his feet.

"Dib! How did you know I was going to be here?!"

"You literally told me," Dib said, arching an eyebrow.

"You lie!" Zim yelled, "GIR! Eliminate the human!"

GIR saluted, costume head unzipping to reveal his red-eyed face, head popping open… and a cupcake shooting up out of it. Eyes flashing back to blue, GIR caught the cupcake and started happily munching on it, while Zim facepalmed. For his part, Dib tried to take advantage of the situation, whipping out his water pistol and quickly taking aim, pulling the trigger.

To his surprise, however, only a few drops trickled out of the water gun's barrel. Dib stared at the gun, before his eyes fell on the gauge on its side, which read as empty.

"What the-? I know I just filled this thing up!" Dib exclaimed, unaware that on another plane, Slenderman was whistling mock innocently. Instead, he just gave a frustrated cry and tossed the water gun aside, before dashing forward and tackling Zim. The Irken was still too distracted by GIR's stupidity to react, and he was knocked to the ground.

"Get off me, human filth-stink!" Zim shrieked, as he grappled with Dib, who was trying to keep him pinned to the floor. This was made more difficult by the fact that he was also trying to pull out and apply the sleep cuffs, which meant that he wasn't able to focus fully on keeping Zim pinned. Fortunately, the position Zim was in kept him from being able to use his PAK weapons, and GIR was simply sitting there watching the fight rather than trying to help. As such, Zim had to put all his energy just into trying to force Dib off of him.

So focused were they on their fight, in fact, that neither noticed the door opening, until a familiar voice called out.

"Dib! Quit messing around and get out here!"

The struggling enemies looked up towards the doorway to see Gaz standing there, looking more angry than usually.

"Gaz, quick! Come help hold Zim down, I've finally got him!" Dib exclaimed.

"You wish, Dib-Monkey! Zim has you right where he wants you!" Zim spat.

"What are you talking about? I have you pinned!"

"That's what I want you to think!"

"That doesn't make any-"

"Shut up, both of you!" Gaz snarled, "I don't care about your stupid fight with Zim, Dib! Dad can't get this presentation started unless we're both there for the publicity, so get your big head up there now, before I drag you up there and then throw you into a nightmare world!"

"But he's about to blow this whole place up!" Dib said, gesturing with his head at the bomb, "And even if it doesn't work right and destroy the planet, it'll still kill everyone here! Including, you know, you, if that makes it more important to you."

"So? It probably won't work anyway, like the rest of his crap," Gaz snorted.

"Hey!" Zim snapped, annoyed.

"And even if it did work, who cares? Everyone deserves to get blown up anyway," Gaz continued, ignoring Zim. She crossed her arms and gave Dib one of her most bone-chilling glares to punctuate her next statement, "Now, last chance. Are you coming, or do I make you?"

Maybe it was the stress of the situation. Maybe it was the shock at Gaz's casual disregard for the potential destruction of the Earth. Or maybe it was Slenderman giving the slightest of prods to Dib's long-suppressed rage. Whatever it was, something in that moment made him snap.

"No!" he shouted, "I'm not just walking away and letting Zim win when I can finally beat him, just because you're a selfish bitch!"

"What?!" Gaz exclaimed, eyes popping open in shock at Dib actually talking back to her. Even Zim looked impressed from where he was still pinned to the floor.

"You heard me! You're just a misanthropic little brat who only cares about herself and likes hurting other people when they don't do what she says. And I'm sick of it! I'm going to do what I need to do, and if you don't like it, just buzz off and stuff yourself with more pizza, you lazy pig!"

As Dib panted for breath from his outburst, Gaz's eyes twitched, both in shock from Dib standing up to her, and rage at him daring to. After a few moments, the latter won out, and her face twisted into a demonic snarl.

"You little-" she began to yell as she started running towards him… only to suddenly step on the water pistol that Dib had tossed aside. As it quickly slipped away from beneath her, Gaz's momentum caused her to go flying through the air, to slam on top of the tool cart. This sent the cart, still carrying the disoriented Goth, to start moving at high speed, until it slammed right into Zim's bomb.

Which started flashing with bright light.

"…That's not good," Zim said meekly, too in shock to react otherwise. Dib, meanwhile, reacted on pure instinct and bolted for the door. He just barely made it through, before there was a sudden explosion behind him, the shockwave throwing him across the hall, knocking him out in the process.

Meanwhile, outside the PEG building, the crowd was growing restless, waiting for Membrane to activate it. Checking his watch and looking around impatiently, the Professor turned to a nearby security guard to order him to search for his children (or some suitable stand-ins)-

BOOM

When suddenly, a massive beam of angry red light came shooting up out of the central mass of the PEG, shattering most of the massive machine like an egg, as the beam zoomed up into the upper atmosphere. While it quickly disappeared from sight, the debris from the PEG flew through the air for miles, with one particular piece landing amongst the crowd. It avoided hitting anyone, and quickly fell apart, revealing to the shock of all the singed and knocked out but otherwise intact Zim, and an equally scorched but giggling GIR.

"Lookit me, I'm toast!" the robot said, happily. The crowd all stared in shock for several moments, before gasps and cries of "alien!" filled the air, quickly joined by the sirens of rapidly approaching security, police, and military personnel, all converging on the unconscious alien.

XXXXXXX

"Well, that about settles all that. Wouldn't you agree?" Slenderman said, watching everything unfold on the screens, "But just to be sure, let's fast-forward a bit."

Slenderman waved a hand, and all the screens fizzled for a few seconds as time accelerated, before they all settled on a week later. On the main screen, Dib was standing on the steps of City Hall, bandages around his head. But other than that, he looked ecstatic, as he stood next to President Man, who was being coached through a speech praising Dib for exposing the "alien menace".

"Dib finally getting the recognition he deserves? Check."

Another screen showed Zim trapped within a tube, surrounded by scientists who observed as he ineffectively pounded on the glass. Off to the side, GIR was hooked into a computer that was scanning him; unlike Zim, he seemed fine with this.

"Zim's locked up where he can't hurt anyone, and GIR can't help him but isn't being hurt. Which is good, cause even my powers can't hold off all the rabid fangirls who'd come after me otherwise."

On another screen, Gaz was shown, completely wrapped in a full body cast, and being loaded into a skool bus with a sign on the side that read "Tough-As-Nails Reform Skool".

"Ah, look at that — apparently Gaz was found in the heart of the destroyed PEG and was blamed for the damage, just like all those times Dib was falsely blamed for things that weren't his fault. And now she's being shipped off to a place where she'll no longer be the biggest fish in the small pond. That won't end well for her."

Chuckling, Slenderman turned his eyeless gaze to another screen, where reporters were screaming questions at a nervous-looking Membrane.

"Oh my. It appears no one's happy that Membrane let his children run around unsupervised inside a highly dangerous machine. Especially since it's exposed just how poor of a track record he's had as a parent. His reputation won't be recovering from this any time soon."

One last screen displayed the skool, half of which was a smoking crater from where a piece of PEG debris had slammed into it, before shifting to show several of Dib's classmates walking around in casts and bandages.

"And finally, there's this lot. Not too seriously hurt, but having to eat some serious crow over finding out Dib was right about Zim. Doubly so after he came so close to killing them all."

With a final chuckle, Slenderman turned back to the still captive Purgatory and mentally destroyed his bindings, releasing the Karmic Avatar.

"What do you say to that?" Slenderman asked smugly, as Purgatory jumped out of his chair and rubbed his sore wrists, glaring at the abomination.

"You mentioned the Tallest earlier. I didn't see anything happen to them," he said, trying to get at least some kind of edge over this interloper.

"Wait for it…" Slenderman said, pointing to another screen. This one showed the Irken Armada hovering over a planet, all the ships preparing to rain death down on it… only for the beam of energy that had burst out of the PEG to come flying out of nowhere. It swept through the Armada, obliterating most of the smaller ships and cutting the Massive in half. The two pieces fell to the planet below, where the wreckage was quickly overrun by an angry mob of natives, who were soon carrying off the screaming Tallest to face justice.

"You were saying?" Slenderman asked with a laugh, while Purgatory stared with a slack jaw, "Well, this has been fun. I've gotta go, but don't worry — I'm sure we'll see each other again real soon."

With that, Slenderman disappeared into thin air, while Purgatory heaved a heavy sigh and wandered off to get a drink.

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The End

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A/N: Sorry for the rushed ending, but I wanted to finally get this thing done. Hope everyone liked it anyway.