chapter ten
bring the pain
Red screamed trying to shake Zim off his ankle. Zim jerked his head back, yanking Red's foot out from under him. Needless to say Red Toppled over indignantly on his bum. Zim let go and ripped the power drain cables painfully out of his pak. "You made a mistake my tallest." Red and Purple's eyes shot wide. Nobody could rip those cables from their pak and survive. And yet Zim was still standing. While both tallest were recovering their wits Zim threw an uppercut Red's way which connected with his jaw creating an audible crack as his lower jaw was smashed into it's counterpart. Red's head rocked back from the impact and his vision danced with pinpoints of light.
Purple screamed and several irken elite swarmed into the room. Chai couldn't take it anymore. "Zim cover your ears or whatever you have!" With that she whistled as loud as she could right against Purple's antennae who instantly fell over writhing in complete agony. She then proceeded to bite the hand that clamped over her mouth and wriggled out of the guard's now loosened grasp.
Once Chai was clear of the guard Zim impaled the soldier's neck on one of his spider legs.
Dib meanwhile was enjoying yanking on Purple and Red's antennae until they snapped off in his hands. Chaos soon ensued. Skoodge was torn between who to help. His tallest or his best friend. Finally he snapped and leaped on Red's back who was about to impale Dib. The spider leg missed Dib's head by a centimeter. "Run!" Dib and Chai snatched Zim and did just that.
Soon Skoodge was thrown against a wall where tallest Red pinned him up by shoulders and hips. "You know the penalty for treason Skoodge..." Both tallest looked at the squat ex-invader with controlled rage in their eyes. "Yes." Skoodge squirmed but to no avail, he was trapped hopelessly. Tears welled up in his eyes. "Forgive me Zim..." With those words Skoodge's spider legs sprung out to impale both tallest in the abdomen just as tallest Purple impaled Skoodge between the eyes.
"Damn Red. We've been getting sloppy lately." Purple said as he pulled the now limp spike out of his stomach area. Red groaned doing the same. "Yes my tallest. You've gotten far too sloppy." The instant the words were spoken Zim's spider legs shot forth at both tallest who dodged to either side of them, grabbed the appendages and yanked him forward onto their own. Zim screamed but both tallest had made one mistake. They'd forgotten about the two humans and stepped directly into their line of fire when they'd sidestepped Zim's attack. "This one's for Skoodge." the humans said it together and fired together leaving nothing but asmoking hole between each tallest's eyes.
Finally Dib turned to Zim and picked the irken up gently. "Zim.." Again that meek, pleading voice. Zim couldn't stand it when Dib pleaded like that. When he opened his bleary ruby eyes Dib was looking at him with all the tenderness of a lover about to lose everything. It was then that Zim realized that he meant so much to Dib. Zim reached up petting the boy's cheek.
"I'll always be there for you.." Zim hissed in pain, taking deep erratic breaths. "I..promise.." Dib kissed the irken's cheek. "Zim, please don't die. Please.." The last plea was almost lost to Zim who felt his grip on consciousness slipping further every second. Before anything else could happen Zim pulled Dib into a deep kiss. "Dib, I love you more than you know." And with that Zim slipped into that cold comforting darkness where pain was only a filmy haze.