Chapter 12

"My nobe! My nobe!" The prep cried, grabbing her nose as she went doooown. Doown...I could see blood through her fingers, and felt pretty damn proud of myself. I felt a tug on my arm, looked, and saw Gak. She was pulling on me, so we could leave the crime scene. Haha, crime scene...Wait. Shit. Mall security.

I saw a picture of me being arrested and my eyes widened. I grabbed Zim; he seemed too interested in the scene before us to start moving. When the leader went down, the...followers had to make sure their friend was okay. So now about eight girls surrounded the girl on the floor. They were all asking if she was "okay". Damn, I was pretty lucky mall security hadn't rushed over yet...

Anyways...next thing I knew we were getting our asses out of there, running as fast as we could. People looked at us weird, yes. Zim kept peeking over his shoulder.

We got to the doors and we shuffled inside, pushing it, even though it was mechanical. The force of two people pushing it (Zim didn't want to touch the thing) was enough to make it go faster and we were out of there, into the parking lot and beyond...Wait, beyond? Eh, man my mind was fuzzy...and thinking weird thoughts. Seriously...

I immediately saw Gak's car and we hopped in like some action movie. I decided to sit in the back with Zim, seeing as with the top down, the wind really rushed towards you, and with me being sick, cold air rushing at me is probably the thing that made me sick in the first place. I decided to hide behind the chair in front of me, head down.

Gak quickly started the engine and we started moving.

"That...was the most AMAZING thing Zim has EVER seen, besides...HIMSELF! of course," Zim stated, with a lot of gesturing...Was he talking to me?

"Huh—what?" I asked. I sniffed.

"Blood! Oh yes, the blood. When I am SUPREME RULER OF YOU ALL I shall have more of that." He nodded. "Oh yes, there will be blood." He tapped a finger on his chin.

"Do you have tissues?" I asked Gak. She was trying to merge onto the traffic at this time; we were almost out of the parking lot...Almost.

She threw something at me. It landed on the seat and I picked it up and saw it was tissues.

Relief! I thought. Oh, the relief. I blew my nose. Zim's eyes widened and he backed away from me.

"Germs! Nooo!"

"I'm not going to throw them at you," I said, and heard I sounded weird. That weird voice changing that happens when you're sick. "Wait, that might be amusing...Maybe I will throw them at you."

With these words he scrambled towards the front seats, which actually was amusing...He knocked over things including the drinks in the drink holders and locked the door accidentally.

I saw a water bottle roll. Right towards the pedals.

"No!" I exclaimed, trying to stand up and get it. The seat belt held me back, but the used tissues in my lap...well, came out of my lap into Zim's seat. I struggled with the seat belt while Zim screamed like a girl and started trying to claw himself out of a moving vehicle. This would be really sad if the demise of Zim was because of tissues...

He was like a wild animal, well...trapped in a car. Clawing at the windshields, and even the air freshener. The mirror bent down from him pulling on it. He was screaming about germs, tissues, and maybe something in Irken I don't think I'll ever know.

Gak swore, screaming "STOP IT! STOP WRECKING MY CAR!" We did a fishtail and I finally I got my seatbelt unbuckled and I dived for the water bottle. I grabbed it, throwing it over my shoulder making sure it wouldn't roll back down. Zim was trying to open the door and we were still moving. Though his earlier freaking out had saved him and it was locked.

"THE GERMS! AAAAAAAGH! GET THEM AWAY FROM ME! GET THEM AWAY FROM ZIIIIM!" His voice actually still went down an octave when he said his name. He was trying to crawl on top of the dashboard, as if he was small enough to actually fit in there. I grabbed the used tissues and sat back down, glad the whole ordeal was over...or so I thought.

"BE GONE WITH YOU, GERMS!" Zim shouted and I saw something fly over my head.

"Zim..." I stated calmly. "Was that my tissue box?"


We sat a block from my house, all still in shock.

Gak had finally managed to rip me off of Zim. Okay, okay...maybe I wasn't being too reasonable...Though I did tend to act rash when angry...And I needed those goddamn tissues!

"You people," Gak spat, "Are not allowed in my car, ever, ever again."

The dashboard had a bunch of Zim's claw marks on it, the mirror had bent down and the pine-tree air freshener was nowhere to be found. Water and some other liquid were on the bottom of the car, as Zim had knocked all the drinks down. Gak's shoes made squishing noises on the carpet of the car. I knew I had missed some tissues, so there was some on the floor and Zim had completely ripped through some of the upholstery in two spots. The water bottle I had thrown had a lid that wasn't screwed on tightly enough, and I'd noticed this when my butt had started to get very cold and very wet.

"Fine with me," Zim snarled. "I will be glad to be out of this filthy piece of metal and paint."

And with that, he somehow managed to unlock the door and open it, swinging it open and trying to get out. However, when he tried to get out, the seatbelt held him back so he fell and was half in the car, half out.

"Nooooo! This filthy machine DEFIES ZIM!" He writhed for a while, and then stopped in defeat. "The germs..."

I was still staring straight ahead as a poor kid on a bicycle looked at us.

"I needed those tissues..." I mumbled.

"Yes, Avi, I think we all know that now," Gak replied.

I shrugged and grinned, before sneezing again.


"Stupid robot," Tak mumbled, glaring at GIR below her. GIR just cocked his head cutely, with a rubber piggy in his left hand.

"Okay," Tak said, exasperated. "For the third time, where is Zim?"

GIR just watched as Tak's two cohorts came into the house. They started looking around the room, pulling off cushions off the couch and checking out the trash can.

"Oooh. He went to see the pretty girl!" GIR said.

Tak raised an invisible eyebrow at this, but then asked, "And where is that?"

GIR shrugged. "But he went in a...spirally...circley...thing."

Tak blinked.

"Show me."


Gak, Zim, and I were all sitting on my couch watching Invader Zim. Okay, so I was doing homework instead, but I was still sorta listening to it. High school was killing me. About a week had gone past since the mall incident, and I was still waiting for a phone call home stating to my parents I had beaten up the head prep. But none had come yet, and I was just wondering what was going to happen. I had seen Alyssa at school lately, with a big bandage on her nose, and Zim had started laughing when he saw it. I had to shuffle him away before more people started to stare at us, and it wasn't a fun experience.

"The Tallest just said they hated me," Zim said, his eyes getting big. I had heard Zim shouting comments about his show a few minutes before, but I hadn't paid any attention. But I knew he liked the whole "alien thing" about him staring at you through the TV...Really liked it, actually.

"What?" I said, looking up from the paper on my lap. Gak glanced at me and gave me a look. Something like a crap-Zim-has-to-find-out-he's-an-outcast-and-his-mission-is-a lie sorta look.

Do I have to do this now? I thought. Why didn't Zim ever find out his mission was a lie on the show?!

I opened my mouth, and uttered a "Uh," before Zim got up and started screaming.

"MADNESS! LIES! MADNESS! OH, THE MADNESS! WHY MUST IT BE?!"

Gak and I gave another side glance to each other, and just stared as Zim rushed out the front door.

"Ummm," I said.

Gak just shook her head, and continued watching.