"The Massive!"
The plaintive cry carried through the throngs of Irkens that crowded the street, staring mournfully at the place where the great ship had once stood. They turned to each other, desperate for reassurance, for some idea of what they were going to do now.
"Who could have done that to the ship?" Alternate-Zim cried. His eyes were glazed over, his antennae pressed flat against his skull. Alternate-Gaz stood beside him, looking tense and worried. Zim walked ahead of them, shoulders hunched, one hand in his uniform pocket and the other dragging GIR along, doing his best to ignore both Alternates. They were all covered in dirt from the wave of energy sent out by the collapsing Massive. Every Irken Zim came across hurried away and gave him a wide berth. Well, good. He didn't like any of them, either.
Alt.-Gaz crept up to Zim's side. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice hollow. "What did you mean when you said you have to get the cure at your base?"
"Irkens don't have bases," Alt.-Zim said, his voice equally as faint. "Look, maybe you should—"
Out of the corner of his eye Zim saw the Alternate reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder or something.
Zim lurched away, yelping, "DONOTTOUCHZIM."
"Okay, okay! Sorry." Alt.-Zim backed away.
Zim marched on, then stopped and jerked his head back and forth, unsure of where he was. He released GIR's arm and whirled around, jabbing his finger at Alt.-Gaz. "You! Which direction is the… shiny… portal-thing?"
"The what?" Alt.-Gaz asked.
"I know where it is!" GIR waved his hand in the air. "C'mon! This way! This way!" He spread his arms and ran off down the sidewalk, making airplane noises.
"GIR," Zim complained, his voice reaching a sharp pitch. He trudged after the little android, muttering under his breath.
"Zim!" Alt.-Gaz called. "Wait—we're coming with you. We want to help."
Zim didn't turn around. "Eh, don't need any help."
Despite this statement the footsteps behind him didn't cease. Those filthy Alternates were still following him. Irk.
"Oi!" someone shouted. Two extremely tall Irkens marched over to them. Upon seeing them, Alt.-Zim's face darkened. Zim turned at the familiar voice and stumbled backwards in shock.
"My Tallest!" he cried.
"You!" Alt.-Red spat at Alt.-Gaz. "I knew we'd find you here. You dare—"
"Wait, that's not her!" Alt.-Purple realized. "The one we want was wearing a black dress. Oh!" His eyes fell on Alt.-Zim and he smiled. "Didn't see you there. Is this human with you, Zim?"
"My Tallest!" Zim ran up to Alt.-Red and tugged on the sleeve of his tunic. "My Tallest, I was trapped here by humans! Horrible HUMANS!"
"…Who are you?" Alt.-Red said blankly, pulling his arm away.
"We should keep going," Alt.-Purple said. "That girl could not have gotten far. We'll see you later, Zim!" He flipped his hand in a wave. He and Alt.-Red headed away, stalking through the flood of clueless Irkens.
"Those two," Alt.-Zim said, his voice shaking, "are a scourge on Irken society."
"Come on, Gaz, hurry!" Dib stumbled down the street. "We have to get to the portal… before Zim gets there… he'll trap us…"
Gaz trudged after him, her lips pursed. "You're freaking out about the portal again…"
Dib slowed, his boots clopping over the ground. "Well, yeah, I—come on, Gaz! You know as well as I do that Zim wouldn't hesitate to—"
"Zim's sick. I think he's a little too preoccupied to worry about trapping us here."
Dib skidded to a stop and turned in surprise. "Sick?"
Gaz shrugged.
"Sick! Well, that's interesting. What's wrong with—ugh." Dib's legs suddenly gave out and he sank to his knees. A pounding sensation in his head caused him to cringe and massage his temples, though the throbbing didn't stop. "Wha…"
Gaz grunted. "Looks like Zim's not the only one that's sick."
"Gaz, I feel kind of…" Dib looked at her blearily. "What… was in that stuff you gave me?"
Gaz pulled the little vial of silvery liquid out of her pocket and turned it in her hand, looking at it. "It's supposed to be some sort of cure for anything. There's no more left."
Dib took it and held it up to eye level. "Well whatever you had to give this to me for… maybe there wasn't enough of it!" He struggled back to his feet and wobbled a bit. "Where did you get this?"
"I found it at the Skool," Gaz replied.
"The Skool in this dimension? Was there any more?"
"Not that I saw."
"…Oh." Dib's heart sank. "Maybe… maybe we should go look for some. I don't think this stuff even exists in our dimension. I've never heard of it, and Dad's never mentioned it."
"I thought you wanted to get back to the portal before Zim did," Gaz said.
Dib was silent for a moment. Then he half-turned away from her. "What if I don't make it back to the portal?" He fought to control his involuntary shaking and took a deep breath, making up his mind. "You go back to the portal, Gaz. See if you can keep it open for me. I'm going to the Skool to look for more of this cure. If I don't come back, well…"
"You don't even know where the Skool is, you moron."
Dib looked at her reproachfully. "Do you know the way there from here?"
"Yeah. Come on." Gaz changed direction, clearly expecting Dib to follow her and also clearly not open to debate about this.
"Gaz, you might get stuck here, too!" Dib said. Gaz didn't respond. Dib followed her, biting his lip. But… despite his worry, he could not contain the warm glow that spread through his body.
His sister had not abandoned him.
"TALLEEEST!" Zim started to run after the two figures but Alt.-Gaz caught his arm, pulling him back.
"They're not going to help you, they're mean!" she said. Zim flinched away from her.
"Hey, your SIR Unit's gone!" Alt.-Zim said. Zim glanced around for any sign of GIR. The robot had vanished. Zim groaned. Did this mean he had to go look for GIR again?
Something collided with his legs, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing to the ground, and for a second he thought that GIR had barreled him over again. But, this wasn't GIR. A lithe shape crawled onto his stomach and peered at him with glowing red eyes, its pointed ears pricked.
"Hey! Geddoff!" Zim shoved the thing off him and scrambled back up.
"It's a cat!" Alt.-Gaz said in delight. She reached out her hand toward it but it whisked away, curling around Alt.-Zim's legs.
"Aw, hey," he said, and stroked it between the ears.
"KITTY!"
A silver blur rocketed out of nowhere, swooped by Alt.-Zim, and scooped the cat into his arms. Zim glared. There was GIR.
GIR's jets sputtered out and he shuddered to a landing on the sidewalk. The cat floundered out of his grasp, whipped around the group, and sped off—seemingly without touching the ground.
"Wait! Kitty!" GIR ran off after it.
"GIR!" Irk, not again! Zim took a few running steps after GIR, then his PAK legs slid out and he levered himself up on them.
They felt… different. Different than they usually did. It was as if he was in a fog, they didn't respond to his commands instantly or as readily as they had in the past… perhaps it was because of the poison. That horrible poison. And because of GIR, he was now wasting valuable time. Time that he should be spending in his lab, figuring out what to do!
There was nothing that could be done about the PAK legs. He could only concentrate hard and make sure not to slip. He skittered over the ground after GIR. A similar sound echoed behind him and he turned to look. Alt.-Zim had picked up Alt.-Gaz and was following on his own PAK legs.
"Never be rid of them," Zim said aloud. He willed his PAK legs to move faster. One of the legs landed wrong and bent sharply, and he stumbled, but he quickly righted himself and kept moving.
At last Zim caught sight of GIR. His PAK legs lowered him down. He reached out, grabbed GIR by the little antenna on top of his head, and swung him upward.
Unfortunately his PAK legs didn't register his command to stop. They kept running, even when they brought Zim right up against a building. The first two spider legs climbed upward and Zim crashed into the wall face-first. He slid down into a heap on the ground, the PAK legs sprawled around him.
"WHOO! Let's do that again!" GIR said, still in Zim's grasp.
Zim moaned. The biomechanical legs retracted back into his PAK and he stood, bracing himself against the wall.
That irritating cat GIR had been chasing was sitting in front of him. Staring at him. Stupid cat.
"What?" Zim snapped at it. The cat stood on its pointy little feet, tail lashing, and strutted through the door to the building… which was cracked open. GIR jumped up and followed, slipping into the building as well.
Alternates Zim and Gaz arrived just in time to see Zim get up and stomp after GIR, flinging the door open wider with a crack and disappearing inside.
Ugh. Zim remembered this place. It was like the Skool, back home. Well, not home, exactly, home was planet Irk. But this was like the Skool he was forced to attend in that horrible Earth town. He shuddered—terrible place. His footsteps echoed in the hallway and shivers ran down his spine at the sight of the dark, empty rooms.
GIR darted around a corner up ahead. Zim followed.
A shout came from somewhere up ahead, "Hey! What the—"
Zim broke into a run, swinging around the corner and coming to a halt in a large room, where he found himself eye-to-eye with a surprised-looking Dib.
Dib staggered backwards. Gaz was there too, frowning. And GIR was next to them, trying to reach out and pet the red-eyed cat.
Alt.-Zim and Alt.-Gaz ran into the room, panting. Alt.-Zim jumped when he saw Gaz. "Who are you?"
"Where did all of you come from?" Dib demanded.
"That does not concern you!" Zim growled. "We were brought here from the Massive by that cat. What are you doing here, filth?"
"You were brought here by what?" Dib looked around, saw the cat, and stared at it in shock. "Wait, that's MiMi! Tak's SIR Unit! Right?"
"That's a stupid name for a robot," Gaz muttered.
"I think I had some sort of dream where I followed MiMi!" Dib said, backing away from the cat. "It led to a trap…"
"Hello," a voice said.
The group whirled around. A female Irken stood in the doorway, as if she had appeared out of nowhere. The cat sped to her and twirled around her ankles, then sat by her side.
Dib sucked in a breath. "Tak."
Dib had never seen Tak out of disguise before. Well, in person, at least. Her dark purple eyes glinted. Her antennae twitched. She was wearing a white tunic like all the other Irkens here. The sight of her stirred something in Dib's mind.
He could remember now. It had been a couple of nights ago… last night? He wasn't even sure. He had been working on a research paper, he'd heard some sort of sound out in the garage, he'd gone out to see what was going on… and he'd gotten a glimpse of… something. Everything had gone black for a moment. And then he was standing on the sidewalk in this alternate dimension, completely lost.
But it had been Tak that he had seen. She had been in Dib's garage next to her ship; she had looked up. She must have shot him with something. Dib recoiled away from her, his heart pounding.
Tak shuffled into the room. She glanced around until her gaze fell on Zim, and she gave the tiniest of nods. MiMi flashed forward and twined around Zim; her holographic disguise fizzed away and she caught Zim by the scruff of his neck with one robotic claw.
"GAH! Unhand me!" Zim reached behind his head and scrabbled at the hand, but MiMi ignored him. She yanked him forward until he stumbled next to Tak and Zim's eyes widened. "Hey! It's you! I HATE YOU!"
"Tak, what are you doing? What's this all about?" Dib said uneasily. "Where did you even come from?"
Tak's eyes narrowed at him and her words came out in a hiss. "Vengeance." She turned to Zim and scowled, though her words were still directed at him. "Vengeance, Dib. This time, it is about revenge."
And then she, MiMi, and the captive Zim disappeared back through the door, and the door locked.