A long time was taken by simply explaining the moves of each piece, and how the board was to be used. "Does The Dib uderstand?" Dib nodded, trying to mask his uncertainty. "Aright, then Dib goes first." Dib hesitantly moved a pipe up to the purple, and stopped in front of a spinning top on Zim's side. Apparently, either opponent can move any piece on any side of the board, and long as it does not put a 'Tallest' (a.k.a. Scarecrow thing) into checkmate if the opponent's piece is moved. If your own piece is moved, you can do normal moves and such. To Dib, moving the opponent's pieces seemed kind of pointless, due to all the regulations on it. Like, it can only move like an Earth Pawn, even if though none of the pieces in this game work like that normally.
Zim placed a serpent three spaces from Dib's gear, and smiled slightly. The game continued, and Dib appeared to be winning, but he didn't get any hopes up, since this was not his game to play. "Well, Dib-let, it would appear you are close to victory." Dib snorted. "Yeah, right. Your chess game, from your planet, that you grew up playing, and I win? Not a chance." Zim nodded, mentally applauding Dib's intelligence and lack of arogance. "Good that you realize it," Zim moved what looked like a fountain spewing fire, in front on one of Dib's serpents, and smiled with satisfaction, "because Mraaked-Baah." Dib looked up over the rim of his glasses at Zim, who sighed. "Check-mate." "Ah," Dib congratulated Zim on his unavoidable victory.
"So, that's all you Irkens do for fun? Play complicated chess on holograms?" Zim nodded, and he turned off the game and gave it back to Gir. "Wait, can Gir play?" Zim laughed, which could only be replicated by a human with a voice-deepening program and a synthesizer. "Of course! Gir, play a round of chess with Zim." The robot tossed the box on the ground, and the board lit up again. This game took much longer to finish, since Gir actually knew what he was doing. Dib saw that Zim was about to be beat by a half-wit robot dog, and the alien's brow crinkled in thought. After a very long moment passed, Zim made a final moved he seemed to almost miss, and announced his victory again. Gir pouted slightly, as best as a robot could pout, and put the game away.
"Huh. So, he can't speak your language, or do his job, but he can nearly kick your ass at chess? A bit odd, honestly." Zim shrugged, looked down at Gir, then around Dib's house. "Such an odd house. Zim did not get a good look when I was injured." He tiptoed around carefully, not touchig anything for more than a few moments. Dib watched him dance around the furniture and random lab equipment lying about, and gingerly feel everything in the room. "My house doesn't have alarms, Zim, you're allowed to touch stuff." Zim ignored him, and continued down the hallway into each room, except Gaz' room. "Where does this lead?" Dib walked up behind him. "My dad's old lab. Gaz doen't use it, out of respect. It's pretty crazy down ther-" Before finishing, Dib was dragged into the dark basement by Zim, who clearly did not think it through enough, because he almost immediately stopped in the darkness, after the door swung shut.