Squishy: Hugger of Worlds
The Tallests are in their usual room aboard the Massive, stuffing their faces with alien looking snacks. While this is happening, one of the giant screens is turned on and a creature with very long arms and a yellow smiley for a face appears, about to wrap his arms around a red tinted planet. "What is that thing?" Red asks after swallowing a bunch of snacks. "That is Squishy my Tallests, a being so happy he hugs entire planets to death to express his joy at…everything" Rarl Kove explains as the creatures arms make contact with the planet's surface.
Entire cities are crushed underneath the space creatures hug of joy, the roughly human shaped natives run around screaming in terror. Some try to take off in ships and crash, one couple manages to launch their infant son into deep space using some sort of pod, just as a mile-high tidal wave washes over their building. The pod flies off, passing the Massive as it goes, and inside Purple has stopped eating to watch the destruction. "How can it be so…happy! It's just plain creepy, I mean look at its horrible face!" Purple exclaims, on the screen, cracks have formed in the planet's surface and white-hot magma oozes out.
Somehow, despite the destruction it just caused the creatures smile has gotten much bigger. "Look at that thing! It's obscenely happy!" Red says as the cracks spread towards the planets poles. The Tallests continue watching as huge chunks of crust fly off and magma spews out into space. "Hey, I got an idea! Let's blow up the next planet he wants to hug!" Purple exclaims as the creatures arms begin to sink into the surface. "Oh yeah! That'll be awesome!" Red says before they return to eating snacks.
EARTH
Dib is standing at the front of Ms. Bitters classroom, next to him is something that looks like oversized radar. "Okay, this is my interplanetary motion detector, I built it using NASAPlace's asteroid finding software and some…other stuff" Dib pauses to shove what looks like a part of Tak's ship back into metal box surrounding it, Zim doesn't notice. "Ooooooooo, what's it dooo?" a particularly dumb looking kid asks sarcastically, Dib ignores the obvious sarcasm and explains. "um, well it just uses some eh…detect-y waves to search the solar system for large objects"
He turns it on and several dots appear on the screen, the class laughs maliciously. "heh heh! Looks like your thingies broken!" a kid in the back of the class laughs. "No, those are just the planets" Dib adjusts some knobs and all but two of the dots disappear. "…And then there's the sun, its big…" Dib does some more adjusting and the dot closest to the center disappears. "SEE! Look there's something big out there right now! It's probably an alien armada or rouge planet or something" Dib shouts at the class while pointing at the dot. "Looks like your big head is messing with your machine Dib-stink!" Zim's comment sends the class into uproarious laughter.
Deep in Zim's base a device that looks like an Irken version of Dib's Detector is going off, the siren is very irritating. Skoodge charges into the room, attempting to us GIR's dog suit to shield his antenna from the noise. He slaps a large button on the console just below the detector and the words 'THREAT ACKNOWLEDGED' appear on the screen for a moment. Skoodge emits a sigh of relief and attempts to remove the suit, only to find it glued to his head with maple syrup. "Ummm GIR? Why is there maple syrup inside your disguise?"
The robot charges into the room with a bottle of syrup and some waffles. "I was makin' wafflez for mastah!" Skoodge looks at the robot for a moment. "But how'd the syrup get in your suit-" Skoodge watches as the robot takes a chug from the syrup bottle and the sticky substance leaks out of his joints. "Okay then, CHIPZ!" Skoodge calls for his own SIR unit, who appears directly behind him. "What is it?" Skoodge has still not fixed the units obedience chip from when MiMi sabotaged it. "I need you to help me remove GIR's disguise" Skoodge points to the lump of fabric on his head, the robot rolls his eyes as much as a robot can and takes the costumes legs into a fist.
Zim has made it to the front door when a muffled yelp of pain comes from somewhere. Zim looks around at his house and the street finding nothing he shrugs and walks into his house. Back in the lab, Skoodge his rubbing his injured head whilst typing on a console. It lights up and his eyes widen in horror just as Zim walks into the lab. "Ha! You should of seen it Skoodge! I made the Dib-Hyuman look like a complete fool!" Zim gloats, Skoodge turns to him but points a shaking hand at the monitor as the detector continues to ding in the background. Zim looks at the screen, Squishy is on it but Zim does not appear to recognize it.
"Pfft! I could create a more horrible monster in my sleep!" Zim begins to walk away, his roommates obliviousness snaps Skoodge out of his fear induce catatonia. "WAIT! You'vwe never heard of Squishy?" Zim turns back to Skoodge, he only blinks in unfamiliarity. "Hugger of Worlds?" Skoodges attempts at memory jogging are met with some more blinking. "Expresses his joy by hugging planets?" Zim still looks ignorant of this creature. Sighing Skoodge types some more onto the console and a video of Squishy hugging a world that looks like it's made of cheese appears.
Zim screams in horror as molten nacho cheese spews out from underneath the creatures hug of joy and doom. "And that's not the only thing!" Skoodge says as the scene is replaced with a picture of an anthropomorphic cow made of cheese, underneath it says 'Goudaians: R.I.P.' Skoodge redirects Zim's attention to another screen, this one shows Squishy is on a direct course with the Earth. "Do you know what this means ZIM?" Skoodge only gets another horrified scream as a response. "Zim?" another scream echoes through the base.
"Zim!?" this time Zim doesn't scream and looks at Skoodge. "Zim! You know this means all you have to do is let Squishy hug the Earth and you'll win!" Zim stares at his fellow Irken for moment a moment or two before slapping him. "Foolish Skoodge! I must be the one to destroy the Earth! Not this hideously happy beast from beyond the stars!" Zim marches away from the stunned Skoodge. "So you're going to save the Earth!?" Zim turns in the elevator and leers at the Conqueror of Blorch. "Only so that I may destroy it MYSELF!" Skoodge shrugs and takes the next platform up.
Outside the roof of Zim's house pops open and takes some of the roofing off of its neighbors. Zim's Voot cruiser rises out and takes off into the sky, moments later; another Voot emerges and takes off after the first. As the roof snaps shut Dib steps out from some busses across the street, taking not of where the two ships are off to and races home. Once there he turns on a video screen and the NASAPlace logo comes up, followed by the image of a guy who looks like he hasn't slept in a while. "This is NASAPlace say what you want, I'll probably ignore it" the guy says before twisting the cap off a 5 hour energy.
"I NEED CONTROL OF SOME REALLY POWERFUL TELESCOPE!" Dib shouts while shaking the screen. "hmmm…that's a pretty big request, what do you need it for?" the guy perks up after chugging his energy drink. "Ummm…I'm researching the planets…" Dib gives a nervous smile, hoping the story will pass. "Ahhh the planets…I really miss Pluto, sorry kid we just can't hand out telescopes" the guy says as he opens another 5 hour. "Well, the guy I'm researching for wants to prove Pluto's a planet"
The guy nearly chokes on his energy drink. "Really!? Well in that case here! Have the most powerful telescope we've got!" the guy says before he swallows several more shots whole, without opening them. "PLUTO ROCKS!" he screams as the shear amount of energy he just ingested causes him to spontaneously combust. The screen changes to schematics of a telescope, and another screen shifts to the view from the telescope. Dib grabs a joystick and wiggles it a bit, eventually the Irken space station from 'Bloaty's Pizza Hog' appears, Dib zooms in and finds the two Voot in the process of docking.
Dib shifts the view some more and finds the stations control room, zooming in a ridiculous amount, Dib feels like he is actually in the room. The control rooms doors open and GIR, Minimoose, and a robot Dib does not recognize walks in, the minions are soon followed by two Irkens. "DID HE GET REINFORCEMENTS!?" Dib shouts in surprise, somewhere else in the house, Gaz yells at him to shut up. Zim leaps into the control chair, yells at the stockier Irken and then sends the station hurtling in the general direction of Jupiter.
Dib follows what he assumes will be the path Zim will take and begins to zoom in. He finds himself looking at Squishy, who looks as obscenely happy as he ever was. "OH GEEZ WHAT'S THAT MONSTROSITY!" Dib shouts at the top of his lungs. Something just behind Squishy glints in the sunlight; Dib chooses to focus in on this and finds the Massive trailing behind the monster. Excited, Dib jumps out the window and slides down the drainage pipe on the side of his house moments before Gaz's robotic stuffed animal's trash his room.
Dib runs into the garage and leaps into Tak's ship, gagging slightly; he places a clothes pin over his nose as he still hasn't been able to get rid of the stench of the cities cesspool. A satellite dish emerges from the ship and points off towards the sky. Dib's grin grows more and more as his fingers fly across the keyboard and pictures of The Massive are displayed on a holoscreen.
The Massive
The Tallests are sitting in a massive pile of donuts on the bridge while the ships pilots figure out Squishy's trajectory. "Sirs! We've determined the beasts next target…" the main view screen pulls up a picture of the Earth. "Heyyyy that's the planet Zim is on…READY THE REALLY BIG LASER!" Purple shouts to the people in the control room. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" the crew gasps as the Tallests turn to the advisor that spoke. "I mean…his fake mission's the only thing keeping him away from Operation Impending Doom II, and he did survive the explosion that destroyed the Beautiful Fields Vacation Planet…"
The Tallest think about this for a moment, well, actually they mostly think about how Zim managed to destroy an entire planet by just scratching his butt. Red is about to say something about this when The Massive suddenly pulls a hairpin turn and starts careening out of control towards Jupiter. "What's happening!?" Purple shouts as he tries to keep the donuts in one place. "The Massive's under someone else's control! I though we fixed that!" Red shouts as he holds on desperately onto a control panel. "For Zim! Yes we did fix it! This is someone else entirely!" a mechanic shouts moments before they are all wrenched from their seats as the Massive plows through one of Jupiter's smaller asteroid-like moons.
ZIM'S SPACE STATION
"Okay! So what's the plan Zim?" Skoodge asks as the steadily get closer to Squishy. "hmmm…We shall convince the monster to hug another planet!" Zim exclaims as he starts pushing a variety of flashing buttons. "Cool! How are you going to get it to listen?" Skoodge asks when Zim reaches a slow point in his button pushing. "Foolish Skoodge! We are Invaders! Trained to be as convincing as the filthy Earth's sun is bright and painful!" and with one final button push a giant megaphone unfolds from the greyish semi-circular part of the station.
"HERE ME SQUISHYY!" Zim shouts, the cacophonous noise echoes throughout the station, Squishy doesn't notice. "HUGGING THE EARTH WILL ONLY BRING THE WRATH OF THE IRKEN EMPIRE UPON YOUR HIDEOUS, SMILLING HEAD!" Zim threatens and Squishy…keeps on going, as if nothing was happening. "…WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO HUG THE FILTHY EARTH WHEN THE MARTIANS TURNED THEIR PLANET INTO A NEAT WORLDSHIP!" Frustrated at being ignored, Zim smashes the microphone into the desk and pouts a little.
"Zim, we're in the vacuum of space…sound doesn't travel at all…"Skoodge shuffles backward as Zim growls at him. "…and eh…who are the Marians?" Skoodge attempts, and succeeds in deflecting Zim's anger. "Oh…Just holographic instruction manuals that lived on and converted the planet just outside Earth's orbit into a giant spaceship…See?" Zim presses a button and a screen displays empty space. "HEY! Where'd Mars go!?" Zim shout's in confusion. "It flew off into deep space after you tried to use it to squish the hyumans" the stations computer chimes in.
"Heh heh, Yeah…forgot about that…" by this time Skoodge has taken Zim's seat and has started to type his own stuff in. "OH! And I suppose you've got your own brilliant scheme!?" Zim mocks Skoodge as the giant megaphone retracts into the station and is replaced with a massive video screen. "Yep! With this we can visually communicate to Squishy what we want him to do!" Skoodge is excited an begins to type his message in Irken, in English it says this:
Dear Squishy,
I realize you're happy and want to hug the bluish-green planet you are currently heading towards. However, you should really look at it; it's quite dull when you do. Personally I think you should hug the bright shiny object that the bluish-green one orbits. Look at it! Doesn't its shiny-ness make you all warm inside?
Sincerely,
Invader Skoodge
"Now all we have to do is wait for Squishy to change his course and then we can go back to the base and you can plot how to destroy humanity" Skoodge says as he sets his feet on top of the control pad and leans back in the seat. Skoodge and Zim stare at the screen showing Squishy's trajectory, CHIPZ is sitting in a seat on a lower level of the control room, glancing between the trajectory and the Irkens as GIR carves a decoy CHIPZ out of beef. Several more minutes pass and nothing happens, Zim is starting to tap his foot impatiently and Skoodge is wondering what else he could type.
"What makes you think a giant space monster can read?" CHIPZ shouts up to his master as GIR completes beef CHIPZ. Skoodge realizes his mistake and facepalms as CHIPZ says quietly says "Loser" frustrated to his breaking point Zim pushes Skoodge out of the seat and begins typing furiously. "The great Conqueror of Blorch doesn't even realize giant space monsters can't read! Now for my brilliant plan!" Skoodge feels like pointing out Zim forgot sound can't travel in space, but decides against it.
Skoodge watches through a window as his giant screen retracts into the ship and a large circular object emerges. While trying to figure out what Zim's planning he notices that they are getting dangerously close to Earth. "Umm Zim we're really close to Earth…" Zim waves off Skoodges comment as he toggles some joysticks, the circular object mimics the movements. Zim has created a giant mirror and is aligning it with the sun. "OH! I get it! You're going to blind him so he can't see where he's going! Brilliant!" Zun soaks up the praise like some sort of demented sponge, CHIPZ scoffs.
"You think that's brilliant!? I'm outta here!" CHIPZ gets up and walks into the teleporter room and leaves for the surface. After watching his disobedient SIR unit go Skoodge turns back to find that Zim has found the correct alignment and is laughing manically. "VICTORY! VICTORY FOR ZIIIIIM!" he shouts as Squishy struggles to regain his sight. After a few moments, it becomes apparent that his orbit isn't changing. "Well…what now?" Skoodge asks, and immediately regrets it once he sees the look on Zim's face.
He barely has time to react before Zim throttles the engines up to full power and the station lurches into motion. The station is practically shaking itself apart from the stress, Skoodge has to grip the back of the seat to prevent himself from flying into the back wall, Minimoose is gripping the Invaders leg. The station impacts the side of Squishy's face, the semi-circular backbone snapping in half and flipping through space a few times before the whole thing explodes. Back in the base, CHIPZ watches as Squishy's orbit changes. "Hey! Looks like his plan worked after all!" CHIPZ shrugs in apathy before he heads off to illegally download a bunch of music from the internet.
THE MASSIVE
Donuts, both crushed and intact litter the bridge, some Irkens begin to recover from the disaster. "Congratulations to whoever stopped undid the high jacking! You get some donuts or something…" Red says as he reactivates whatever causes him to hover. "Actually we didn't do anything, the signal just stopped sending commands on its own…" a random pilot says as he begins to bring The Massive out of Jupiter's atmosphere. "Oh good! I didn't want to give you any donuts anyway-HEY! WHAT'S HAPPENING!"
Purple drops his armful of donuts as he points to the main view screen, which shows a half-blind Squishy about to wrap his arms around Venus. As the creatures arms descend through the choking air the acidic clouds burn its skin. It's formerly happy disposition turns to sadness and pain as it pulls its arms away from the deceivingly beautiful planet. It turns around and begins to fly out of the solar system as fast as it possibly can. Inside The Massive, the Tallests have mixed feelings about this latest development.
"WOOO! Take that! You creepily happy blob creature!" Purple shouts at the screen. Purple continues to cheer at the scene playing out in deep space as the main control room is returned to its former condition. "Awww man!" Purple exclaims as Squishy hugs Pluto, the force of the hug liquefying ice and apparently making the acid burns feel better. "Well, I guess we'd better start following him again" Red says before turning to the pilots. "You! Follow that happy blob creature!" next he turns to some other Irkens. "You! Track that signal! And when you find whoever sent it…send someone to beat him up!"
DIB'S GARAGE
Minutes before Zim sends his station crashing into Squishy Dib is sitting in the cockpit of Tak's ship. He's grinning like a maniac as he sends The Massive crashing through a couple more asteroid-like moons, he can practically taste victory. "UGH! WHAT'S THAT SMELL!?" Dib looks up from the holographic display to find Tak in her human disguise. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SHIP!?" Tak screams at the surprised Dib. "ummm…I fixed it" Dib gives a nervous little smile, Tak does not seem very amused.
Dib stumbles back into his destroyed room. His hair is messed up and the scythe is slightly burned, he also has a black eye and is missing quite a few teeth. "UH!? Huh!?" Dib looks around at his decimated room with dazed eyes, wondering who did this. Then he just sort of shrugs and stumbles over to his bed where he collapses, moments later, three Irkens in battle armor burst through his window. They look ready for action until they notice the destruction around them, after looking around for a bit the shrug to each other and use jetpacks to rocket up through the ceiling.
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Halfway through the night, Dib's motion detector starts beeping again. The still injured paranormal investigator is woken by its insistent nagging and, thinking it's just a normal space object, adjusts some of the knobs. After a few minutes of adjusting, the object is still there and Dib realizes that, somewhere, out there, is something…else.
