A/N I'm working on 3 different stories right now. I know I need to budget my time better, but I'm going to try to keep up updates as best I can. Just a side note-the first part is pretty much in Mira's point of narration, so some things that are foreign to her are common things to Dib or Zim, like Irken writing or things that that they use or do in skool. Just clearing that up. And Gir will be in kick*ss Duty mode all chapter, but you'll see the importance of this fact later. (I like writing for duty mode Gir better-seems easier to me, for some reason. I can't quite nail down his total randomness when he's his normal malfunctioning self.) And I will be using a bit more blood in the story-I just got back into reading JTHM. (Nothing nearly that graphic, however, don't worry. I'm not that crazy, and I know some of the readers of this story are a bit younger.) This is one of my favorite chapters so far... I go back to the first few chapters and wince. Anyways, forgive my babbling and enjoy!
Mira wandered randomly around the lab, trying to take in everything. She used her eyes as much as possible, still trying to get the best from them. She'd been given 20/20 vision, but would take a while before she could unconsciously use it consistently. After about 10 minutes, she had discovered three things… Most of the stuff was either glowing or vibrating, there were buttons and levers everywhere, and a lot of the stuff had lavender child-proof locks.
"Hmm, what's this?" She spotted something not glowing-it was an oak door. When she got closer, the swirling patterns became more obvious-they were some sort of foreign language. When her fingers slid down to the knob, the girl was surprised to feel the cool metal instantly click open when she gently twisted her wrist.
"Anyone in here?" She inquired quietly-who knew what kind of other robots Zim had. When only empty silence answered her, she felt around for light switch. Upon finding it, she flicked it up, flooding the room with pale off white color as she took a slow step forward. When nothing jumped out, her confidence mounted and she walked faster through the dusty piles of junk. After about a minute and a half of paranoia-she whirled around twice, muttering 'ghosts'-she saw a small emerald folder, fairly thick, with the same squiggles that were on the door gracing the front of it. Curious, she poked a finger on the top-no booby traps, at least.
"Hmmm… looks normal enough…" She picked it up, and was shocked at the contents once she opened it.
It was all about Dib. Or their rivalry, at least. The first picture was a class picture. Dib was sitting next to the girl with braces and purple hair holding the 'Miss Bitters 5th grade class' sign. Dib was holding up a fist and his lips were slipped up in a smirk, and Zim was mirroring him. But, it looked like Zim was growling rather than bearing a sly smile.
The rest weren't much better, just notes of what irritated him the worst and what time he got to skool, stuff like that.
"What's this?" It was another picture, but this one looked like it had been printed off of a computer-lots of pixels. Looking closer, she made out Zim and Dib-hugging?
"What the… oh." She noticed the grimaces on their faces-it was obvious they hadn't been in that position by choice. Setting the folder down, she wandered around some more before stumbling over some old Pak blueprints-literally stumbling.
"Wooooah!" Her silver buckled boots flew into the air when she tripped over-what looked kind of like a bowl with polka dots. Grumbling as she pushed herself up, she pulled the crumpled papers out of her face and held them at arm's length.
"Pack Schematics? What is-why is Dib's name on the top?" Inspecting the papers closer, her friend's name was indeed the title, and she noticed there were a lot of red lines leading to the complex electrical circuits and crossing a lot of stuff out and replacing it with other names-about half were in English, but they were too technical to figure out.
"Maybe I'll need these later." Tucking the papers into her jean pocket, she weeded her way back through the junk to make her way through the door when she heard a faint call.
"What's going on here?" She smiled weakly, glad Dib was up.
"I'll be there in a-oh, hi Dib." He was sitting up and rubbing his head, and had a confused look on his face.
"What happened? I remember a bright light…" Mira sighed, her brown hair rustling gently when she shrugged.
"Well, your friend got his backpack pulled off, and you passed out." Dib shot off of the table, and flew over to Mira, picking her up by the chest of her shirt and yanking the girl off of the ground.
"When did that happen?" She had to think for a second, then checked her watch.
"About seven and a half minutes ago. But he's fine. The dog-robot, whatever-put him in some kind of suspended animation." Suddenly, she remembered the blueprints. "Hey, can you use these?" Snatching them with his left hand, the other still holding Mira, Dib looked them over.
"Ahem… can you drop me?" Dib's head jolted as he looked at her.
"Oh… right…" He lowered them both, turning his attention back to the papers.
"These may have just saved Zim's life. Bring me to him-you said Gir put him in a time stasis field-oh. Wait. I know where it is." Dib took the lead, easily maneuvering above the piles of junked mechanical projects and burned rubber toys to make it to the field. Zim looked exactly the same as always, except his eyes were closed. And, of course, the fact that he was floating.
"Well, I have no idea how this thing survived that explosion…"
"What?" The boy turned to his friend, his face expressionless.
"I was trapped in this thing once for about 3 days. Long story. Where's the remote control?" She pointed at the switch, and they both leaned closer. There were four labels- two that looked like the squiggles she'd seen on the folder and two in English. Mira was surprised when Dib traced his finger over the squiggles. He murmured something that sounded foreign, his eyes closed.
"What was that?" Dib looked up, his eyes fierce.
"Heipiquis. Hope." He sighed deeply, trench coated shoulders drooping, then looked at Mira, really drilling his gaze into hers. "Where is the Pak?" She had to think for a second, and her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to recall.
"Umm…. It's still in the kitchen." Dib ran over for the elevator, dragging Mira behind him.
Man, he got strong… Her feet were barely touching the floor as Dib raced across the tiles, reaching the elevator in mere seconds. He pulled her up, then pushed a golden button to close the door.
"Why can't we just use this elevator instead of the toilet?"
"This one's the trash, actually."
"Oh…" The silence was awkward, but thankfully short. When Mira's hand pushed the lid open, Dib crossed the kitchen in slow motion, as if the moment was a romantic scene where the lovers were reunited after years of grief. Dib felt much the same as the time before that climax moment. The boy knew there was hope, but still felt the crushing pressure of possible failure. He grabbed the Pak, careful not to let it touch his chest, so as not to further move the damaged wires.
"Okay, you can go down, so I can't accidentally shock you." Mira nodded, actually saluting the new, take-charge Dib in front of her before disappearing back into the ground. The boy chuckled softly- imagine, someone seeing him as an authority figure and not calling him crazy while doing it! - while he moved over to the toilet before flushing himself down. The first thing he heard was a quick whirring sound, kind of like computer booting up. His heart sped up as he heard Mira weakly protest against something.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Dib's eyes took a single precious moment to readjust to the light before he could see the cause of his oldest friend's distress.
"Gir? Let her go!" The robot didn't even turn, and Dib, horrified, noticed that all of his lights were blood red. That couldn't be good…*
"It brought in Master injured. Thus, it must have something to do with it and must be punished." The robot tightened his death grip around the girl's throat, and her face was starting to turn blue.
"Let. Her. Go." Dib said in the most menacing voice he could muster, which actually sounded pretty creepy. Gir just dropped Mira and shot over to Dib, pulling him up instead.
"You have been deemed a more immediate threat, Big-head Boy."
"Geez…" Dib gasped, trying to breathe. "Your circuits must have gotten messed up…I'm trying to help Zim, remember?" Gir's eyes narrowed, gripping Dib tighter. It seemed his memories had been wiped when he'd been locked in Duty mode. Suddenly, Dib jerked out of his grip, flipping upside down, the momentum pushing him in a full circle. He floated to a 'standing' position, one foot up slightly. Gir's jaw dropped open, as he accessed all he knew about humans-but, being Gir, there wasn't much useful. Even duty mode couldn't change that.
"Impossible! Humans cannot fly! They are a weak, ground based species…" Dib smiled, feeling truly at ease with his power for the first time. He saw it as not as a toy, but a way of pushing himself closer to his goal. What was that old saying? 'With great power comes great responsibility.'
"Then maybe I'm not human." He shot forward, knocking the robot off balance for a moment and putting a good dent in his over proportioned head. However, the robot simply spun around, then reached inside his head, pushing the metal back into place.
"You will pay." The three words, although spoken with nearly the same mechanical edge that Dib had gotten used to, were much deeper-Gir scared him more now more than Zim had almost ever did.
"Bring it." Dib said, attempting to act like he wasn't scared. Gir narrowed his eyes, the red colored lights flashing around the orbs like a puddle of fresh blood on the surface of a frozen pond. Gir shot forward again, this time with his arm raised, the wrist glowing.
"What a-AHHHH!" A laser shot out of Gir's glowing wrist, getting Dib right in the stomach. Luckily, it was a relatively weak laser-it didn't cut all the way through his spine. Unluckily, it did cut through his clothes and into his flesh. Dib gripped his now bleeding torso, looking up at the robot with a mixture of fear and anger.
"Now you're just asking for it!" He flew towards Gir as fast as he could, but the robot just jumped up higher into the air.
"Use this!" Mira tossed something toward Dib, but it fell short of the mark, causing the hammer to slow its ascent and start sinking towards the floor- and the girl- again. Hearing her cry, Dib turned away from Gir, swooping down and grabbing the tool an instant before in hit her head- and sparing Zim a huge bloody mess, if and when he ever woke up. Twirling the cool wood in his fingers, Dib waited until Gir slowly floated closer before grabbing the robot and prying the top of his white head open with the back of the hammer.
"No! Can't….be…" Gir mumbled, arms and legs flailing weakly while Dib rooted around in the robot's cranium.
"Where is it… where is-ah!" He reached in deeper, up to his elbow, pulling out a small snowy white chip with silver swirly lines chasing each other around the front and back of the AI chip. As soon as Dib pulled the microchip out, Gir went limp. Dib slowly lowered to the ground, his stomach suddenly feeling like rubber. He dropped Gir before falling to his knees, clutching the wound in his abdomen.
"Dib, are you sure you're okay?" Dib tried to look up encouragingly, but everything seemed kind of fuzzy… He could feel how much blood he was losing, and knew it was too much to stay completely conscious.
"Pull… rip off a sleeve. Tie it around my…" He simply pointed to his bleeding torso. Mira's eyes widened in worry as she yanked off a sleeve of Di's trench coat, then tied it around his waist. The boy tried not to flinch, but the stinging sensation was too much, and he winced heavily.
"We… we still need to fix Z-" He coughed, and was horrified to feel his hand suddenly feel warmer when he covered his mouth. Slowly moving his fist away, the crimson blood dripped slowly from his fist.
"No way. You're in no shape to-" Dib pushed a hand against Mira's mouth, cutting the girl off mid-word. He let the arm slowly drop to the floor before planting both of his palms against the cool tile, gingerly pushing himself up. When he faced Mira, she knew he was beyond logical reasoning.
"We're going to fix Zim. Bring me to him now."
A/N It's 11/11/11... I'm living history! WOO! Okay, this story has definitely taken a darker turn. This will be one of the worst chapters, I promise. I think this chapter was written better then some of the previous chapters... perhaps I really am getting a bit better. Oh yes, the results of the voting. The winner is…*Drumroll* A tie! It's between Dib and Gir. Gaz got one vote too, through. Personally, I'd go for Dib, but that's me.
*To my knowledge, Dib has never seen Gir in Duty mode, or at least he wasn't in it for a more than a few seconds when he was there. Just a side note.