Author's Notes: Oh good gravy! I was searching through my documents, and I couldn't find this chapter anywhere. I finally did of course; it had moved itself to the very bottom of my folder for some reason, like something caused it to sink? That's weird because this one doesn't even have any water in it. Not that it makes sense that way…
To Fluffiet who gave me a rather lovely paragraph (like I do to the people I review because paragraphs are awesome) I just want to assure you that Dwicky has received at least a diploma (maybe) and that his freshman notes aren't full of doodles, grocery lists, and notes to the guy beside him. Nope. Not at all.
Thanks for the reviews. I'll update eventually. The every week thing I had going didn't last very long. -sigh- It never does.
!
Purple was standing on the stage not looking very happy. His arms were folded across his chest as he waited for Miyuki to be done whatever it was she was doing. The other contestants just looked dazed.
"And that's the last of the memory juice," Miyuki announced, flinging the empty bowl into the audience. It smacked Invader Spleen in the face.
"I didn't get any," a very confused Letter A told the host.
Miyuki gave him a blank stare, and then shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever. I'm not going through all the hassle of collecting the ingredients again."
"All five hundred seventy three of them," Duxi remarked happily. He pointed a finger up at the ceiling. "And most of them weren't on any of the known planets in the Universe."
"Yes…" Miyuki's eye twitched and her antennae flattened in irritation. "Thanks for that little reminder."
Duxi beamed at her. "No problem!" He poofed into a blob-alien and jumped into the audience.
Red rubbed one of his eyes. "Well… getting cured was pretty disappointing."
"Yeah, no kidding," Purple agreed. "I was finally not paranoid of dying."
Miyuki ran a hand down her face. "Look… I know some of the stuff that's happened here has been a bit stressful..."
"You can say that again," Tak, who'd regained consciousness and was once again sitting with the other judges, commented. She folded her arms over her chest and glared daggers at the host.
"But wouldn't you rather remember who you are?" Miyuki asked. "I mean Red, Purple, you guys renamed yourselves Felix and Gordon."
Zim covered his mouth to hide some very obvious laughter "Pft... No offense my Tallest, but human names are pretty terrible."
Both of the Tallest shrugged. Yup, all respect was surely gone if Zim (of all Irkens) was laughing at them…
"It was still better than remembering all the times I've died in the last week or whatever," Red told her.
Miyuki turned to the other contestants with a frown. "Do you all feel this way?" she demanded. "Even after I spent who knows how long collecting the ingredients for the cure?"
Gir hugged himself. "I LIKE MEH BECAUSE I'M FLUFFY!"
"A life without science isn't worth living!" Professor Membrane insisted. He slapped himself in the forehead. "I can't believe I forgot the most important thing in my life!"
He paused for a moment before glancing down at Dib who was staring at him.
"I mean, ONE of the most important things in my life," he corrected himself, and he started to laugh. "Of course you and your sister are both very important to me!"
"Yeah… sure…" Dib agreed, rolling his eyes. He turned to Miyuki. "Look… we've already done a lot of contests… can't we just you know, end this?"
"Do you really not care who wins?" Miyuki asked in disbelief. "I mean, what if the winner is Zim, or worse, Gir?"
"I think it would be worse if Zim won," Red whispered to Purple who nodded.
"Yeah, I agree."
"Me too!" Gir cheered as he cartwheeled off the stage.
"Do I have to remind you of the Impending Doom all of you are facing?" Miyuki asked. She pointed at Lard Nar. "If he wins, you might as well forget about your invasions," she told the Tallest. "And your position as Tallest."
"I'm just tired…" Lard Nar admitted. "If I won, I'd just want to go home and sleep..."
"No you wouldn't," Miyuki remarked, sounding very serious. "You would kill the Tallest, free your planet, and destroy Irk."
Lard Nar raised an invisible brow at her. "I'm beginning to get the impression that you don't have a really high opinion of me." He held her gaze. "I'm not some sadistic immoral crazy guy. I'm just a guy who wants to free his planet and take a very long nap. That doesn't have to involve murder or anything like that. Besides, YOU have already killed the Tallest and destroyed Irk."
"Well... I fixed them..." Miyuki muttered to herself. "Do your friends see things that way?" She asked, looking at Shloonktapooxis who was hovering next to Dib with a smile on his face.
The floating cone alien blinked. "Um… uh… if I won I wouldn't kill anybody either."
Miyuki ran a hand down her face and sighed. "Well that's boring. At least I know if Red and Purple won there'd be huge consequences for all of you." She turned to Zim. "Especially you."
"Yes, such consequences I would have because I am amazing," Zim agreed with a nod.
"Yeah sure…" Red responded rolling his eyes.
"Like we don't remember you crushing us with that boulder," Purple commented.
Zim tilted his head and frowned in confusion. "I don't remember this!"
"Of course you don't," Red spoke.
"Well regardless of whether or not you're participating willingly, you're still participating," Miyuki insisted. She summoned her microphone in one hand, and the hat in the other. "Let's get this thing started."
All of the contestants except for Gir groaned.
"YAYY!" the robot cheered from where he landed up on the floor.
"For starters, I would like to announce a new guest judge," Miyuki said, gesturing to the person walking out from behind the stage.
"Umm… uh… hi…" Spleenk said, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. He stopped in the middle of the stage and took a look around at the audience. He was obviously confused about what was going on.
"Spleenk…?" Lard Nar spoke in disbelief, and the navigator turned to him.
"Oh, hi boss," Spleenk greeted his captain happily. "So this is where you went. Everyone was wondering what happened. We kind of made a few bets after you disappeared."
Lard Nar's shoulders slumped. "What kind of bets…?"
"Hi Spleenk!" Shloonktapooxis greeted his comrade.
"You're here too?" Spleenk questioned in surprise. "Wow… we kind of thought you imploded." He took another look around. "What is this place?"
"This is an alternate dimension," Miyuki replied in a dramatic fashion.
"Aw… I guess I owe Ixane monies," Spleenk admitted. "She was the only one who guessed that."
"What have you guys been doing since I've been gone?" Lard Nar questioned.
"Er… um… nothing?" Spleenk replied with a forced smile.
"Really?" Lard Nar pressed. "You've all been doing nothing the entire time?"
"Not that kind of nothing," Spleenk responded, raising two of his hands in mock defense. "The um… kind of nothing when you're doing something but not the kind of something you probably wanted to hear about, so I just said nothing kind of nothing."
"As much as I want to stand around and wait for you both to catch up with each other… I don't," Miyuki informed Spleenk and Lard Nar. "You," she pointed at the navigator. "Go join the other guest judges," he gestured to the judge's table where Dwicky, Tak, and Prisoner 777 were sitting.
Dwicky raised a hand and waved a tentative hello. Spleenk returned his attention to his boss, looking for guidance.
"Just… do what she says…" Lard Nar spoke, hanging his head. Hopefully Spleenk wouldn't be trapped here long enough to go crazy…
"Yes! That's what I like to hear!" Miyuki stated, and she held out her hand for the hat which fell down from the ceiling. "Now to pick a contest!" She insisted, holding it out to Zim who squinted up at her.
The would-be invader reached into the hat and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it to her without bothering to look at it. What was the point? All of them were terrible.
"It says… "!" Miyuki said and she smacked herself in the forehead as the paper fizzled out of existence.
"How did you even say that?" Dib questioned.
"That's not important," Miyuki insisted, waving away his words. "The important thing is to find out its meaning."
"Does it even have a meaning?" Professor Membrane questioned.
"I think it means pudding!" Gir offered. "Lots and lots of pudding!"
"Do you think your energy friend can translate it?" Shloonktapooxis asked the host.
"No, but I guess it couldn't hurt to ask," she looked all over the audience trying to find him, but he wasn't anywhere.
Miyuki's eye twitched. She tore a hole in the fabric of space and reached inside. She pulled Duxi out who was trying to swim away from her grasp. "You!" she held him up and gave him a bit of a shake. "What does "!" mean?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Duxi whined. "That's not even a word."
Miyuki started shaking him harder. "I don't know. You're my helper aren't you? Can't you just know these things?"
"Maybe it doesn't mean anything," Prisoner 777 suggested from his seat.
"Yeah, maybe it was a dud," Dwicky added.
"There are no "dud" contests," Miyuki responded, and her antennae flattened in annoyance. "Besides, the hat already disappeared, so I can't have Zim redraw even if I wanted to."
Miyuki let go of Duxi who vanished into another tear.
"I should hire a new helper…" she grumbled. "Someone who isn't an energy being," she scanned the audience briefly. "Nope, you're all horrible. I can already tell."
"Psst…" the wall whispered. "I know the answer."
"Then tell me already!" Miyuki replied.
"It's monster taming."
"How do you know?" Miyuki asked.
"Because… "!" are what people do when they're frozen in fear, especially when facing down a giant monstrosity."
Everyone deadpanned.
Miyuki coughed and cleared her throat. "Ok… I guess I can go with that…"
Dib sighed. "I know I ask a lot of questions… but why can't we ever have an easy contest..?"
"Because that would be boring you pitiful worm-monkey," Zim responded, folding his arms over his chest. "Fighting monsters is much more exciting."
"Not fighting Zim," Miyuki corrected. "Taming."
"Ha! Call it whatever you want," Zim remarked.
Miyuki frowned at him. "I will… in any case, Spork!"
"Yeah yeah…" the other former Tallest said.
The floor shifted, and the stage became much bigger. Then a hole appeared and several large monsters with sharp teeth, long claws, and beady eyes crawled out of it. Miyuki casually flipped herself upside down and landed on the ceiling. Then she summoned her microphone.
"Ok, so this is how it's going to work. The contests each have a monster they have to tame. Once they choose a monster they can't un-choose it. Everyone will be given two hours to try and train these things. At the end of the two hours, the judges will decide on which creature is the best behaved. The tamer with the best-behaved monster wins," she looked down at the Tallest, Dib, Lard Nar, and Shloonktapooxis who were all slowly backing away from the creatures. "If you get eaten, you're automatically disqualified," she informed them. "Also, I'm not liable for any bodily harm that might result to the audience members sitting close to the stage."
Some of the audience members sitting in the first and second rows tensed up. A few started looking around to see if there were any other places to sit. Gaz just shrugged her shoulders as she continued playing her game.
"I wanna play with this one!" Gir announced as he leaped to his feet and launched himself through the air. He smacked into the face of the largest monster which was a lion-maned lizard creature. The robot latched onto its snout, and the beast roared and started waving its head around in a frantic attempt to dislodge the S.I.R.
"Wheeee!" Gir cheered as he was whisked away behind the stage.
"..." all of the contestants just stared.
Then Zim stepped up to face down one of the animal-things. "You!" he pointed at a medium-sized three eyed fish with legs. "You will obey me or suffer my wrath!" The creature growled and bared it's fangs at the small Irken, but Zim was undeterred. He marched right up to the monster. "You dare defy Zim!?"
The creature launched its self at Zim who ended up struggling not to get eaten. Then he was dragged into the back.
"Well, I suppose I could give this a try!" Professor Membrane remarked as he stepped forward. He approached a pink looking cat thing with antennae and whiskers. It was sitting a little ways away from the other creatures with a blank look on its face.
"Hey there little fella," Professor Membrane spoke as he knelt down and started petting it on the head. "You know, you kind of look like one of my robot inventions, perhaps my subconscious…" then the little kitty's back opened up revealing rows of pointy teeth. The mouth opened to an impossible size and snapped up the professor whole.
All that was left where Professor Membrane had been kneeling was an ominous blood smear.
"Any chance we can forfeit?" Purple asked Miyuki hopefully.
The host was sitting on the ceiling lazily fiddling with her microphone. "Nope," she replied. "And if the rest of you don't try, something horrible will happen to you."
"Is it worse than getting torn apart by weird-looking monster things?" Red questioned.
"Yes."
The crimson-eyed Tallest sighed as he slowly walked towards a large fat glob thing with one eye and no visible mouth. It had a sharp tail full of spikes though that Red was keeping an eye on. "Ok… I'm not really sure what I should be doing…" he admitted. He got as close as he dared at just stared at the monster. "So… are you going to listen to me, or are you going to try ripping me to pieces?"
Seven mouths suddenly appeared all over the creature's body, and it grinned as it moved closer.
Red's antennae fell and his mouth fell open. "Oh… crap."
The monster barreled forward with all seven mouths open wide, and Red decided his best option at this point would probably be to run for his life, so he did.
"Watching other people do this isn't making me want to do it any more…" Purple said, and his antennae drooped.
"Would you rather take the mystery punishment…?" Lard Nar asked, watching as one of the monsters got bored and started eating people in the audience. It swallowed up two Meekrob and bit into a screw-headed alien, but it spat him out.
"I'm thinking about it…" Purple admitted.
The judges were being eyed by the creepy cat thing that swallowed up Professor Membrane. Prisoner 777 gulped and started shaking. Dwicky decided to hide behind the judge's table, and Tak brought out her pak-legs. Spleenk was watching in shock as the audience members were eaten.
"Couldn't you have put these things in some kind of arena?" Tak questioned the host irritably.
Miyuki blinked and she brought a finger to her chin. "You know… that would have been a good idea…" she scowled. "Next time tell me that before I unleash monsters on the stage."
"That's the kind of thing you should be thinking about before you do something," Dib told her.
"Yes, and you're up next," Miyuki retorted.
Dib took an uneasy step back as he stared at the remaining creatures.
"It's ok, I can go," Shloonktapooxis offered. He drifted up to a cat-sized stick-bug looking thing. "Um… so… how's it going?" he tried, only to have the think attach its self to his face. "Ahhh!" he yelled, floating in frantic circles before flying off the stage and crashing into some audience members.
"Oh jeez…" Purple breathed as he ran a hand through his antennae. "We're going to die… we're so going to die." The monsters still on the stage and the one in the audience all turned to stare at him.
"Animals can smell fear," Lard Nar told him as he tried to keep his head up and look confident. "They'll attack us faster if they smell fear on us."
"Well it's not like I can exactly stop being scared," Purple informed the Vortian. "Even the people that didn't look scared ended up getting eaten or mauled, so I don't think it matters too…" before he could finish his sentence, the pink cat charged him, and the strange looking giant purple thing with horns that had been eating audience members rushed the Tallest as well.
"Ahhh!" Purple screamed as he was viciously attacked by both monsters. Lard Nar and Dib both stared in wide-eyed horror at the scene, frozen in place. When the creatures finally let up, Tallest Purple was nothing more than a pile of bones.
"I'm scared for my life…" Dwicky admitted as he peeked his head up over the table only to see the pink cat coming towards them. He ducked back down and covered his head. "Make them go away…"
Prisoner 777 was also taking shelter behind the judges' table. He was too scared to check on things like Dwicky did, but even hearing Tallest Purple getting mauled made him shudder. Spleenk decided to join them while Tak stood on top of the table, preparing to face-down the feline that had turned its attention to her.
Dib let out a sigh. "It might be better just to get this over with…" he said.
"Yeah… the pain can only last so long…" Lard Nar spoke.
Both of them approached the two monsters left on the stage. One looked like a misshapen yellow bird creature with four eyes and dagger like teeth. The other was a gross looking slimy naked rat looking thing.
Dib carefully approached the bird monster. He reached out a hand and touched some of its feathers. The creature tilted its head and blinked.
"Hey… this isn't so bad," he said, turning to Lard Nar. Dib balked. All that was left of the Vortian was one of his belts. "Oh..." he swallowed as his eyes met the beady black eyes of the slimy rat monster. It hissed and took a step closer.
"Squak!" the bird creature fluffed up its feathers and raised its head high to make itself look bigger, and the other monster quickly backed down.
Two hours later… Tak had been eaten by the pink cat thing. Prisoner 777, with Spleenk's help, managed to make a quick make-shift bunker out of the judges' table and the chairs when Dwicky ran off in fear and accidentally became living bait. The entire first row and some in the second row in the audience had been devoured. For some reason the monsters seemed to be wary of Gaz, and they left her alone.
"Ok judges, come out so you can judge who won this thing," Miyuki told them. She was lying on the ceiling flipping through a magazine.
"I uh… I kind of think it might be better if we stay in here…" Prisoner 777 spoke from inside the bunker.
"Do you guys do this every day?" Spleenk asked his bunker-buddy.
"Um… yeah… pretty much…" Prisoner 777 replied.
"You two," Miyuki ground her teeth as she made her magazine vanish. "I'm not joking. Get out here right now or I'll let Duxi break apart your bunker."
"Yay!" her young energy helper cheered as he appeared over the judge's table with a mallet. "I like destruction!"
"Wait wait, we're coming out," Prisoner 777 said, and he opened a pretty nifty looking door and climbed out of the metal and wooden bunker. Spleenk followed right behind him. Once they were out, Duxi smashed the crap out of the bunker anyway and saluted Miyuki. "Now they have nowhere to hide sir!"
Next Miyuki had the secret service and Duxi round up the remaining monsters and the living contestants.
Red managed to wound the monster he'd been fighting with, but he'd also been badly hurt. Once he'd been able to escape from the creature's clutches, he dragged himself into one of the change rooms where he ended up falling into the abyss and seeing Ms. Bitters who growled at him before vanishing into the gloom.
He'd been in the process of bleeding out when Duxi found him and poofed him back onto the stage with his weird looking injured monster that was also still alive.
The insect creature that latched to Shloonktapooxis' face ended up taking control of his brain. The cone shaped alien hovered around looking for audience members to maul. It took three of the Irken secret service people to haul him onto the stage.
Gir had worn out his lion-maned lizard. The S.I.R. unit had dressed it up with the curtains and had started serving it tea, much to the exhausted creature's displeasure. It took several secret service people to drag the lizard thing onto the stage while Gir skipped along happily behind them, singing about tuna.
The bird animal that protected Dib seemed to think the human was its own offspring. It kept the boy close and fussed over him like a mother.
Zim had managed to gain the upper hand and had attached a device to the creature that would make it completely obedient to him. He was having it rampage through the audience when Miyuki told the secret service to start rounding everyone up. Several of these Irkens perished trying to get both the monster and Zim on the stage.
Professor Membrane, Lard Nar, and Purple had all met with unfortunate ends and thus lost any chance at winning this contest.
"So judges," Miyuki spoke from the safety of the ceiling. "The winner should be the one who demonstrates they have the most control over their creature."
Red was sitting on the stage, glaring at his monster who was eying him hungrily. When it inched closer, he pushed it away with his foot.
Dib tried to step away from the bird animal that was preening him.
Gir was hugging his creature that looked like it wanted to escape.
Shloonktapooxis stared off at nothing with the insect thing still attached firmly to his face.
"Destroy! Smash everything!" Zim shouted at his fish creature who was wrestling to break free from a number of secret service Irkens. "Destruction is nice!" Unfortunately the constant commands mixed with its struggle to break free caused the device to fry and the monster to go ballistic. It threw off the Irkens that were trying to detain it before turning on Zim to crush him.
"Not me you smelly fool!"
"Well… I was going to say Zim…" Prisoner 777 admitted. "But now… I'm not so sure."
"All of you try and get your monsters to do something," Miyuki instructed the contestants.
"Stop trying to crush me! I am Zim! You must obey me!" Zim shouted, but his creature wouldn't listen.
"Dance with me!" Gir squealed as he continued to hug his poor giant maned lizard.
"Go die," Red hissed at his blob monster that swiped at him with its tail.
Dib carefully pushed the bird thing's head away. "I'm not sure what I should ask it to do."
"Anything," Miyuki responded. "It doesn't matter as long as you can show you have some say in what it does."
"Oh.. ok..." Dib looked into the bird thing's eyes. It titled its head. "Follow me?" He walked in a large circle on the stage, and his creature followed him closely. "Now stay," he held up his hand. The creature stopped and watched Dib walk backwards for a little bit. "Ok…" Dib ran a hand through his hair. "Um… I guess that's good. I don't know what else I should tell it to do."
"I vote for Dib," Prisoner 777 said.
"Yeah, me too," Spleenk agreed.
"Ok, Dib wins," Miyuki concluded. "Now… let's see about getting these monsters out of here shall we? Also, one of the energies can bring Spleenk back to wherever you found him."
"Oh, me me!" One of the walls said.
"No not you," Miyuki insisted, but it was too late. The energy creature quite being the wall, and the building collapsed.
More notes: Monsters or strange animals from another planet maybe? I had the score written up here but I erased it! Ha ha. Oh well. For those of you who are curious, no one in the story knows who's winning. They've suffered too much mental trauma to remember who won what. Also, the majority of the judges kind of aren't very good, and the only effective one has been kept pretty busy.
Miyuki can't seem to remember how many contests they were supposed to do. Maybe there was never a number to begin with, so for now it's still anyone's game.