"Say Zim, do you happen to know of any other Irkens in this part of the galaxy? A few minutes before your ship landed another Irken ship landed, but stayed for less than a minute," Dal said. The puzzle had been pulling at her mind for over an hour.
"Zim knows not of any Irkens here," Zim replied. "My base is on Earth, foolish Dal-"
"Don't add adjectives to my name you little weasel. Ever."
"How dare you tell the almighty Zim what to do?" cried Zim, jumping up on the small table beside the couch he had been sitting on as he declared his superiority. He immediately lost his balance, however, and he and the table toppled to the floor. As he rubbed his face from the impact, he said "How dare you injure the amazing Zim, floor? Well answer me!"
"Shut up," Gaz said, speaking for the first time since Dal had copied her a PG and several games. Her new V.U. sat on the table beside the chair on which she sat (obviously not the one Zim jumped up on, otherwise our short insane Irken friend would have been dead on the spot). "Zim, you're stupid, your voice is annoying me, and you're full of yourself. If you talk again I will doom your soul to a nightmare world from which there is no escape."
An audible gulp was heard, followed by silence.
"That Dal-worm is getting on the great Zim's nerves," Zim thought to himself as he walked out the door of the other Irken's base. He had left Dal and the Dib-sibling in the base while they talked about their electronic entertainment systems the Gaz especially found so precious. It was one aspect of humans and other Irkens that he would never understand, the love of pressing buttons to control beings on a small screen.
Zim walked around for about half an hour. During that time he came to understand Gaz's frustration with him at forgetting the DNA tracker; it would have been much easier to find Dib if he had it with him. Regardless, Zim continued to search the streets of Tikop, figuring that the sooner Dib was found, the sooner he could return to Earth, destroy Dib's giant head, and get on with his conquest of Earth.
This thought reminded him of the deal he made with Gaz: they would destroy Dib together. Or would they? Zim wasn't sure. He wanted his victory over Dib to be completely his, but when he thought about what Gaz would do if he didn't let her help, he realized Dib wouldn't be the only one that would die painfully in said scenario.
Zim reviewed in his mind what he knew about Gaz - it wasn't much. She was younger than Dib, a grade below Zim believed. She spent almost every waking minute playing her GameSlave, and loved pizza with a passion. She didn't have any friends, at least back on Earth he thought with a growl at being reminded of Dal. She knew he was an Irken and she hated her brother, but that last one was a given.
Zim was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the people approaching until they all yelled together "HALT!" which would have made for ringing ears had Zim any. He looked up, quickly wondering if he had his disguise on; a quick wiggle of one of his antennae confirmed they were safely concealed under his wig. He couldn't remember taking his contacts out.
"How dare you filthy humans tell the almighty Zim what to do?!" Zim yelled at a volume that rivalled that of the group of half a dozen.
The humans ignored his comment completely. One stepped away from the group and approached Zim. "What are you doing out after curfew, sir? You look sick."
"Zim knows nothing of the curfew of which you speak, human filth! And Zim is not sick, no! He is the model of healthy humans! I am!"
Another human spoke up. "But your skin is green. Like really green."
"And he doesn't have ears or a nose," another said.
"It is a skin condition, nothing more you foolish worm babies! I am Zim!"
"I've never heard of a skin condition that leaves someone without ears or a nose," the first person said. "But since we have to take you in for questioning anyways because you're outside outside of curfew, we'll have it looked into. Please put your hands straight out in front of you and come with us peacefully."
By that point Zim had finally realized what was happening: he was being arrested. He extracted his pak legs and used them to sprint down the street away from the humans. He hadn't gone more than three pak leg steps before he felt a short burst of heat to the left of his face. Turning his head, he saw that the humans now all had guns in their hands and were trying to shoot him. Smirking confidently to himself, Zim's pak legs didn't miss a step.
Zim's cockiness was short lived, however. A few pak steps later, one of the bullets hit one of Zim's pak legs square at a joint, paralysing the leg and making it useless. Luckily for Zim, the other legs compensated for the loss, and he barely slowed down. The damaged leg retreated back into his pak to avoid getting in the way of the others. "Haha! You cannot slow the almighty Zim that easily, human-dirt!"
But apparently they could. Though they were slower than Zim's pak legs, the humans ran after him with impressive speed and continued to shoot at him. When they were halfway down the street and Zim was approaching the end, a bullet hit the mark, right in the middle of his pak. It went through the outer casing of the pak, and Zim took one more pak step before his pak legs collapsed and he fell to the ground and lay there motionlessly.
"Say, where's Zim?" Gaz said, breaking a silence that had risen she and Dal became immersed in their respective videogames.
Dal looked around and immediately panicked. "Tallest, where did he go? If he's in my lab I'm doomed. Did you see where he went? Vicky!"
"Yes master?" Vicky said, stepping out of her closet room.
"Go check on the lab and make sure Zim isn't down there."
"Alright master," Vicky replied, and scurried out of the room. After a full minute of Dal muttering angrily to herself and doing some calculations on her fingers, Vicky returned and said "Zim was not down in the lab, master. And everything is intact," the SIR added, seeing Dal's unease.
Upon hearing this, Dal relaxed. "Thank the Tallest. But as much as it makes me cringe, we still have to find him."
"Why? He's annoying, and I can probably fly his ship back to Earth myself," Gaz said, still playing on her PG.
"Well, though him destroying the planet would help my mission," this got an opened eye from Gaz. "If the humans capture him, he might tell them about me, and I can't let that happen if I can help it. And with his horrible disguise, they might just take him because he looks sick." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "And it's not curfew yet. Let's go Vicky, we have to find him. You coming?" she asked Gaz.
"Ehh," said Gaz, shrugging and standing up.
"And as we approach curfew, we have some breaking news from Tikop. According to our sources, members of Tikop's Guard apprehended and captured an alien being several hours ago," the news announcer said, seemingly interested in what he was saying for once. "Information is being kept very much under wraps at the moment, but be sure we here at Seeltra News Net will be on top of any developments made public."
At this Nij shut off the television. "Dal," he muttered. "She must have been too distracted by her videogames to see the Guard coming." He smirked, but eventually his conscious got the better of him. "Who knows what they'll do to her. I may not like her, but we are both Irken..." he frowned as he thought things over. He sat for several minutes, until he was interrupted by Tak and Dib's return from wherever they had gone off to to fix Tak's SIR.
"Good evening Nij," Tak said happily as she walked into the room. "Thank you again for the parts - I got Mimi all fixed." At this Nij noticed the small robot that stood between Tak and Dib, expression blank due to its lack of a mouth.
"That's great," Nij said. "Did you want mouth and vocal parts? I'm sure I have some."
"No no, it's fine. I prefer her without the power of speech," Tak replied, looking down at her SIR, then looking back up at her old friend. "However, I was wondering if you could tell me more about this war between Seeltra and Tikop."
"Well, I'm not really sure what started the whole thing, since I was on Irk when it all took place, and no one's talking about it because everyone seems to know. Not even Daff has been able to find out, but I don't think it really matters."
"Now that it has started, how is it being fought?"
"Well, it's pretty messed up if you ask me. They have real live armies of soldiers, but their movements and other actions are controlled by the planet's respective leaders (Author Note: as in one leader per planet) through form of electronic controllers."
"So wait, are you saying it's like a giant videogame but with real people instead of computer...people?" Dib asked, getting a harsh look from Tak.
Nij thought for a moment. "When you think about it that way, it's an incredibly accurate description. Frig, now I really wished I hadn't pissed off Dal, she would have been very useful. Wait, maybe she got captured on purpose to get closer to the controllers...Just great..." Nij rambled on, to the confusion of Dib and Tak.
"Nij?" Tak said hesitantly, not sure if she should break his train of thought. It was a habit he developed when they were smeets, talking out loud while trying to reason with himself. Kind of reminded her of Dib.
"Yeah? Oh, sorry about that," he said smiling guiltily. "Just got a lot of things on my mind in regards to my mission, that's all."
"What is you mission, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I'm part of what's called Operation Secret Power. We're each sent to a Meekrob study planet to take over and or destroy it. Pretty much just annoy the Meekrob."
"Operation Secret Power," Tak repeated. "I've never heard of it."
"It was kept top secret at the time. Only the best invaders were selected to be a part of it, so I guess it was also kind of a jealousy thing. The Dal I mentioned is also a part of it, and she's stationed on Tikop. But only the very best invader, Invader Tenn I think it was, was sent to Meek itself."
Tak's face seemed to go dark at the last sentence. She nodded curtly and said "Alright, thanks. Come on Dib," she said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back out the door. Mimi followed close behind.
Oh no, Zim's been captured =O It appears the humans on Tikop are a great deal more intelligent than those of Earth. How strange. And a tad bit of foreshadowing there near the end, but you won't get it for at least three more chapters ;) Enjoy, and please R&R! Grav logging off.
