I had huuuge troubles uploading this chapter. It said it was an error, but I couldn't imagine what it was. Eventually, I uploaded another document and copied and pasted. I feel that the conclusion is a little... anticlimactic, but this was the plan from the first time I came up with a plot. I'd like to dedicate this story to ml90 who has suported me and approved the chapters. I'd also like to thank those of you who bothered to read the entire thing. Thank you. And a special thanks to those who reviewed. There will probably be a oneshot sequel. I just have to figure out what it's supposed to be about.
The Zim and Dib romance
Chapter VI
And Cerebral is! …
It was horrible in every way. They hadn't come up with a single thing to prove that professor Cerebral was a… something and they hadn't found out what something he was. No matter how many weird things that happened, Dib's father was either out of sight or he just didn't notice because he was too busy with something else… like making toast. The wedding was the next day! Dib was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and just thought about things. His thoughts weren't coherent at all though. It was switching from how he was supposed to handle the upcoming wedding, getting a new younger sibling, how to expose Cerebral and how to act around Zim who had grown a huge interest for sex. He turned to lie on his stomach. It was just too much for him, and Zim wasn't aware at all that he made it worse. Someone quietly knocked on his door.
"Come in," he said and turned to the person entering.
"Hello son. May I talk to you?" professor Membrane asked. Dib nodded weakly and the professor walked over and sat down on the bed next to him. "I'm just a little worried about tomorrow. Cold feet I guess."
"You should have cold feet. After all he's an alien… thing."
"Again with that son. I have come to accept that you are insane and love you anyway, but I don't want you accusing Cerebral of such things."
"Dad, you said yourself that he has changed, right?"
"But he's not an alien or robot."
"I doubt he's a robot too. Zim ran a lot of tests…"
"Son!"
"Sorry."
"Anyway, I know that it's short notice, but would you like to be my best man?"
Dib sat up straight. "Your best man? What happened to professor Urunum?"
"Nothing much. He ate at some bad taco place and now he think he's a car."
"… Okay."
"What do you say, Dib?"
"It would be an honour… I guess. But I kind of don't want you to marry him."
"Don't worry. Nothing will change. There will just be two more people living here," Membrane smiled.
"That's quite a big change dad. Anyway, what do you need me to do tomorrow?"
"Here is a list," Membrane said and handed him a sheet of paper. Dib looked through it briefly.
"Well, this doesn't look too bad."
"What? Oh, that's Gaz's list." Membrane took it back and tucked it inside his coat. "Here is yours." Dib was handed a scroll that turned out to be ridiculously long as one end rolled across Dib's room and didn't end before it reached the hallway.
"You got to be kidding me."
"No. See you tomorrow son. Good night." Membrane patted his son's head and left the room quickly.
"Guess I won't be getting any sleep tonight," Dib mumbled as he began reading the endless list of doom.
Zim was busy typing on his computed as Gir entered Zim's lab. Zim turned to the robot that was carrying a large box.
"What is that Gir?" Zim asked and jumped off his chair. Gir walked over to him and put the box down.
"A guy came over with it. He said it was from Dib."
"Oh right. Dib said he was sending me some clothes to wear at the wedding. Apparently I didn't have the right attire. Gir, open the box!"
"Yes sir!" Gir ripped open the box and let his master take the content out. "A penguin costume?" Gir asked as he looked at the suit.
"No Gir. It's a… what did Dib call it again… An ux."
"Ux? Did he mean axe?" Gir asked confused.
"I don't know. It doesn't look like an axe. It's some kind of earthian ceremonial clothes. It's worn on special occasions such as weddings and funerals. This is one of Dib's old ones."
"From when he was 10," Gir said.
"Excuse me?"
"It's a picture in the box. It says Dib 10 years on it." Gir handed the picture over to Zim who snatched it from him. As Gir said, it was a picture of Dib when he was 10 and he was wearing the ux Zim was holding.
"Why do you mock ME! The mighty ZIM!"
"Who's mocking you…"
"I will have none of this! By tomorrow I will invent a great… invention that will make me as big as Dib!"
"Who are you talking to master…?"
"Then I shall no longer be seen as short! NO LONGER! I'll be just as tall as Dib... NO! TALLER! I will be the tallests in the Irken empire!"
"But then the ux won't fit anymore."
"… true…" Zim thought it over for a few seconds. "I guess I'll just wear lifts or something."
"I like plateau shoes!"
"I won't wear that Gir."
"Can I?"
"Sure Gir, a lot of dogs wear plateau shoes."
"Okay dokay!" Gir squealed and suddenly fell over and started sleeping on the floor.
"Computer! Get a mirror ready." The wall opened and a large mirror came out from it. Zim took off his regular clothes and put on the ux. He didn't look bad. Not bad at all actually. And with some lifts he would be taller and then Dib wouldn't have to bend over so much when kissing him. "Computer!"
"Yes?" the computer answered.
"I have decided to tell Dib about the big secret. The one I have not dared to tell anyone about. Not even you, computer. The big…"
"You mean the secret that your mission on earth is in fact not real and that the tallests' just sent you here because you were really annoying?"
"Yes, computer. That secret. Oh and how I found out... It makes my skin crawl.
/Yet another flashback…/
"… and that's about it, my tallests," Zim said as he finished his talk with the tallests.
"Oh, already?" Purple asked surprised. "Well, okay then. Bye!" Purple waved goodbye and pushed a button. "Man, we have snacks for another two hours. He doesn't usually stop talking about… whatever he talks about, for five."
"Just be glad he got it over with quickly today," Red sighted.
"Yeah. He's so short! Can you believe he still doesn't get that we sent him to Earth just to get rid of him?" Purple laughed.
"Yeah, he's pretty stupid… and annoying." Red looked a bit around. "Hey, we're all alone here."
"EW! You wanna do it everywhere! Is a little decency too much to ask for?" Purple whined.
"Don't be such a prude. Now, lubricate your antennas!"
"But I don't wanna do it now!"
"My tallests?" Both aliens turned to the screen. "You pushed the wrong button," Zim said.
"Oh… you didn't see this!" Red shouted and ended the transmission.
/This flashback has ended/
"That really hurt me," Zim sniffed. "But that's in the past! I am an earthling now, computer, and I am ready to accept that and tell Dib, and together, we shall protect this ball of mud and liquid of pain and agony!"
"You mean water…"
"LIQUID OF PAIN AND oh just forget it… I bought some wedding videos. I'm going upstairs to see how weddings work. Farewell, computer!"
"I'm in the entire house…"
"YOU'RE LYING! Gir!"
"Yes sir!" the robot said as it jumped up.
"Come with me and we shall analyze the wedding videos together!"
"Yes Sir!" Gir followed Zim into the elevator and they went upstairs.
"NO! You can't put the flowers there! It got to be over by the fountain!" Dib shouted at a poor decorator. "Move!" As Gaz came over, the poor decorator was running away from the boy. The wedding was being held in the local park and since it wasn't much of a sight to begin with, they had to put flowers everywhere to cover all the graffiti. The ceremony itself would be held under the open sky in the middle of the park, while the dinner would be in a large, white tent they had put up right by. Their father was walking about not too far away from them, admiring the work.
"Wow Dib. You're actually doing a good job. Who would have though," Gaz smirked.
"SHUT UP GAZ! I haven't slept all night and I'm high on red bull and energy bars. Do NOT piss me off. YOU HEAR ME!?"
Gaz stared at her brother for a long time. "Dad! Dib is acting weird!" she finally shouted and ran towards her father.
"Are there dead people walking around again?" Membrane asked her.
"No dead people. Just many annoying living ones," Gaz explained.
"Oh, okay then. Go greet people with your charming smile now," he said and gave her a light push to where she was supposed to stand.
Dib was looking through the to-do-list for the tenth time, making sure he hadn't missed anything. "Okay, I think I got everything now. Unless there's something written on the back…" Dib giggled at first, but quickly got nervous and flipped the page. Ten things. "You got to be kidding… well, these are all things that can be taken care of quickly… oh crap…"
Zim and Gir walked towards the wedding area. It was certainly more beautiful than the park used to be. Gir sniffed everyone and everything in sight, acting unusually much like a genuine dog. The disguise would be perfect if it weren't for those plateau shoes. Zim was wearing the ux he had gotten from Dib and was 3 inches taller. He couldn't wait for Dib to see him. He looked gorgeous.
"Zim! Thank God you're here!" Dib exclaimed as the boy suddenly appeared next to him and unexpectedly, Zim found himself being dragged away from the crowd. "Zim, I need you to do something for me," Dib explained. "The rings are in Dad's office. I was supposed to get them, but I didn't notice it because it was the absolutely last thing he had written on his endless list! One would think that would be the first. Anyway, I don't have time, so you have to do it. It should only take 10 minutes. Now go!"
"Alright, but don't you notice something different today?" Zim smiled.
"Not really. Now go! Nooo! I said by the fountain! The fountain!" Dib stormed off, leaving a bewildered Zim alone.
"That was really rude. He didn't even say anything about my handsomeness. It's not like he even wants them to get married. Gir!"
"Yes?" Gir asked and somersaulted over to him.
"We have to get some rings for the Dib. Let's go." Zim put the leash on Gir's collar and dragged him along as they left the park. It didn't take long before they reached the office building they had been at quite often those last weeks, spying on Cerebral. He had never actually entered however. "Curse you Dib, for making me do all these… things for you! I'll have my revenge! I'll do something… revengy! … What are you doing Gir?"
Gir had dragging Zim towards some trashcans without the alien noticing, and was studying something he had found on the ground. "I found some glasses!" Gir smiled.
"So?" Zim asked and snatched them away from Gir. "Wait… these glasses looks familiar. Where have I seen them before?"
"Aren't they melting guy's glasses?" Gir asked.
"That right! They are Cerebral's glasses. And when I think about it, the guy we saw on our way over here, you know, the one that kept walking into that tree, looked a lot like Cerebral without his glasses."
"His eyes were boiling. That was fun to watch."
"This is weird. Why didn't he pick them up? If I understand correctly, some humans, like Dib, needs glasses because they can't see properly without them. Leaving them here would be illogical. It would be…"
"HI Cerebral!" Gir shouted, interrupting Zim.
"Hello kids," Cerebral greeted as he passed them. He was wearing his glasses and looked fine, but the place he came from was not the office. He disappeared into the park and Zim turned to look at the door he came from. It belonged to the building next to the Membrane office. The building was ugly and for some reason the door was on the side, next to the trash instead of the front. They walked over and slowly opened the door. As Zim looked inside, he saw a large, yet rather empty lab. The room was dark and the only source of light came from a big glass container in the middle of the room.
"What's this?" Zim wondered and entered the area. As he got in further he noticed another person there who was locked in a cage. "Professor Cerebral?" he asked as he walked closer.
"Yes, but… who are you?" Cerebral asked. The cage was small and chained to the wall. He barely had any room to move in there.
"I'm Zim, don't you remember. I'm the green kid that hangs out with professor Membrane's son all the time."
"Membrane… how I miss him. You have to help me, little green kid. I will explain on the way, just help me out so that I can stop him from marrying one of those!"
"One of those?"
"Like I said, I'll explain on the way. Hurry!"
Dib was impatiently pacing back and forth. The ceremony was about to start and Zim hadn't arrived yet. His father and Cerebral would start walking up that isle any minute now and he didn't have the rings! And why did he suddenly want them to marry so much? Wouldn't ruining the wedding be a good thing?
"What are being all nervous about?" Gaz asked him.
"I don't have the rings!" he whispered.
"Seriously? Dad's gonna kill you. I've been waiting for this day…"
"Oh, shut up."
"Start the music!" Gaz suddenly shouted and the pianist they had hired began playing. She stopped Dib from saying anything to interfere by choking him. The ceremony began. Membrane and Cerebral took each others hands and began walking to the altar.
"But I don't have the rings, Gaz!" Dib cried to his sister as she let go.
"I don't care."
Dib had to think of something to stall the wedding with, but what. Membrane and Cerebral reached the altar and the priest got ready to talk.
"Do you, Professor…"
"STOP THE WEDDING!" Zim shouted. They all turned to the alien. "That isn't the real Cerebral. This is! …I think at least." Professor Cerebral walked closer so that everyone could see him.
"Cerebral!" Membrane said excitedly and pushed the impostor away. It landed in a puddle in front of Gaz and Dib and melted. "I knew something mysterious had happened," Membrane continued.
"No, you didn't," Dib pointed out, but Cerebral and Membrane was already too captured in each other's gazes to notice anything else. "But Wait! Why is there a bunch of Cerebral's walking around?" Dib asked and ran closer to them.
Cerebral turned to Dib and started to explain. "Well, the thing is…"
"It was I!" someone shouted from the crowd. A short, fat and old man with a gray moustache bigger than Dib's head. There was a huge bald spot on his head and surrounding it was a nest of messy hair.
"Professor Gustatory!?" Membrane exclaimed. "But why? And how?"
"I'll answer how first. I stole the cloning thingamajig you made and had hidden in your attic, and attempted to improve it. Once I had done that, I captured professor Cerebral, and when I had created a perfect clone I was going to kill him! Sadly, the clones kept melting whenever they came in contact with water and they lost limbs when they ate so I had to keep him alive to make new ones."
"Why didn't you just kill him and just use a hand or something for DNA?" Dib asked.
"Well I… you see… it was… oh, Just shut up you… big nosed boy!"
"Great. I finally grow into my head and now my nose is big…"
"And now I'll answer why. Because I want the Membrane empire!"
"We have an empire?" Gaz asked her father while getting her GS5 out of her bag.
"Well, yes. I am the richest and most powerfullest person on earth!"
"What? Since when?" Dib asked, sounding quite shocked. "And that sentence was a little redundant."
"Since I invented the SuperDuperToast!"
"That's what made you rich?"
"And if we're rich, why are we still living in that crappy house?" Gaz added.
"Well, it would be such a hassle to move all my lab stuff. If you want, I could buy a Jacuzzi."
"All right!" Dib and Gaz cheered.
"What's a Jacuzzi?" Zim asked Dib.
"It's a… oh… Hey, dad. You don't think you could invent some kind of water that won't burn Zim, right?"
"I'll see what I can do son."
"HEY!" Professor Gustatory shouted.
"Oh right. I forgot about you," Dib said.
"Please continue," Membrane smiled.
"Thank you. BY MARRYING the Cerebral clone with Membrane, the clone would inherit everything when I killed Membrane and his kids."
"That's evil!" Membrane said loudly.
"And smart. Why didn't I think of that when I was still trying to take over the world?" Zim wondered.
"Then after the clone had inherited everything, I would make the clone give everything to me, and I would be the richest, smartest and most powerfullest man alive!"
"That's nonsense!" Membrane laughed. "Someone who can't even make a simple cloning thingamajig would bring the Membrane Empire to its fall."
"What? You couldn't make one either!"
"Of course I can make one. The one you stole sounds like the one my son made for a science project when he was six."
"That's right. I wondered what happened to that…" Dib said. "And the only reason it didn't work properly was because dad wouldn't let me use the radioactive materials."
"Yeah, cloning is pretty basic stuff," Zim added. "It's one of the first things we learn on Irk… I mean… the Irk… boarding… skool."
"I should make a clone…" Gaz mumbled by herself. "Wouldn't need to go to these stupid things anymore."
"Well, just because I can't make a cloning machine doesn't mean I'm stupid!" Professor Gustatory complained.
"Actually, the only reason I kept you around was so that I could have someone to fire whenever Dib decided to start studying real science and not all the paranormal stuff," Membrane explained.
"And revealing yourself like you did was also pretty dumb," Zim said.
"What do you mean? Wasn't Cerebral just about to expose me?" Gustatory asked.
"No, I had no idea," Cerebral chuckled. "If you hadn't said anything, you would've walked free."
"And now instead, you will be arrested and we will continue the wedding as planned," Membrane laughed. "Somebody should call the police by the way." The crowd started to laugh loudly and soon after, professor Gustatory was arrested and Cerebral was getting ready for the wedding.
Zim and Dib were standing by themselves a little away from the rest, just enjoying some peace, although that peace was suddenly broken by Zim's phone. He flipped it opened and looked at it. "The real Cerebral is human," he informed and put the phone back in his pocket.
"How do you know?"
"I teleported one of Cerebral's hairs to my computer and it just sent me a text message that it was human."
"Your computer sent you a text message? That's so cool! I wish mine could do that. I tried it once, but it just kept sending me confused smilies."
"Mine sent angry ones."
"You look really handsome in a tux by the way."
"Thank you," Zim smiled. He was quite pleased now.
"And are you taller?"
"Yes. Yes I am. I invented a…"
"You're using lifts."
"You're ly… oh… who cares. You know, I'm kind of getting sick of saying that."
"You're weird sometimes… but I love you."
"I luuuurve you too."
"What?"
"What?"
"Anyway, I've kind of gotten used to the thought of dad getting married, and now that I know Cerebral's human, I'm happy for them."
"Yeah… now that you've opened up and everything, I would like to confess something to you as well. You see, I'm not really on a mission. The tallest…"
"Sent you away because you were annoying and the mission isn't real."
"What? How did you know?"
"Gir told me."
"How did Gir know?"
"The computer told him."
"How did the computer know?"
"You're kidding, right?"
"Huh?"
"Son! Green boy!" Membrane called out. "The wedding is starting soon. Get ready!"
"Okay dad. We'll be right there," Dib shouted back. "You got the rings right?" he asked Zim.
"Um… does bringing the groom count?"
"Zim!"
"I'll get them, you stall!" Zim said, slightly annoyed and ran for it.
"Hurry!"
"YOU SHUT YOUR SPONGE CONTAINMENT ROOM!"
Dib just stood there quietly as Zim ran. "What?"
4 months later...
Zim ran up the hospital stairs with Gir right behind him. Dib and Gaz were sitting on a couch in the long, white hallway. Dib was nervously twirling his thumbs while Gaz was just sitting calmly with her GS5. "How is your parental unit?" Zim asked as he reached them. Gir waved happily at them and jumped up on the couch where he fell asleep.
"He's fine. He and Cerebral are right in there," Dib said and pointed at a door not too far away. He got up from the couch and stretched a little.
"We can hear him scream now and then," Gaz chuckled.
"Scream? Does giving birth hurt?"
"I guess, but I've been thinking that it must be worth it. I mean, think about how wonderful it must feel to hold your child in your arms for the first time. It gives you a whole different perspective of things…"
"OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! HIS HEAD FEELS AS BIG AS DIB'S!" they suddenly heard Membrane scream.
"We're never having sex again, Dib," Zim said bluntly. Just two painful hours later, Professor Membrane gave birth to a healthy, big headed boy who didn't seem to like Zim very much…
The end
And I'm evil, aren't I?
