Do you need a disclaimer for the 28th chapter in? The only other story I have this long or close to it is my "30 Days of DATR" OTP challenge fic. I encourage you readers if you want to flex your pairing muscles you try the 30 day OTP challenge. If you want more info, PM me and I will send you a link that explains it. But hey, you aren't here for that. Enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

Professor Membrane headed down to the labs. Finally, I can be of REAL USE to this resistance force. I am crap with a gun, I missed my targets with a shotgun. But this, this is my time to shine. If this works, and with access to the resources advanced life has, I could provide the breakthrough that chases Irk off once and for all. Professor Membrane thought as he headed to the laboratory.

"Oh hello there." A Vortian said as Professor Membrane came in. He was standing next to what looked like a creature that someone took pink crystals and put them in the form of a human as the door shut behind him. "Lord Nar said you would be coming. I'm Hornard and this is Kar Bin." the Vortian said as he pointed to the crystal person beside him.

"Pleased to meet you sir." Kar Bin said with a high pitched feminine voice. "Lord Nar spoke highly of your skills and abilities in scientific research. As a human you may not have ventured into the realms of discovery that we have. I mean you guys only got to your moon!"

"Well, there was a lot of funding issues and power plays going on..." Professor Membrane said, feeling like he had to defend his intelligence and what he had done in the name of science himself. He wasn't as the Irkens liked to refer to humanity, a "filthy ignorant stink-monkey".

"Ah, you humans and Irkens are so alike in that matter." Hornard said. "Big military industrial complexes that like to destroy others. Only you guys hadn't made it to the galactic stage until now. But the way we have seen some of your leaders before this, they are just the same." He looked over at Professor Membrane's look of indignation on his face. "I know how you would feel though. Before Irk conquered Vort, my home planet, we were allies. But Irk didn't want their top scientists having free will to make its own decisions so they Invaded. So that's why I joined Lord Nar and The Resisty. I work too hard to help Vort to have my skills forced to harm my own people."

"Same thing here." Professor Membrane said. "Maybe if I wasn't so close-minded to my son's research as a kid, then maybe I could have helped to stop this before it began."

"Yeah, maybe you could have." Kar Bin said. "But it is a little late to dwell on the past. But from what we hear, you have a plan we may be able to help you with."

"Well," Professor Membrane sighed, relieved to be with fellow beings who were as dedicated to science as he was. Yeah, all these beings were new to him and mastered technologies he hadn't even dreamed of yet but it was great to be with scientists again. No matter how far along in the study you were, or what species you were, the desire for knowledge is what drives you. "The Irkens are weak to water or dihydrogen monoxide to use the more scientific term."

"We know that already. Planets that have great supplies of it were sent less important Invaders. The Tallest were hoping they would fall in a puddle and die. They can be quite heartless with some of the lesser ones." Kar Bin said. "So, what are they doing to protect themselves. We have seen them walk around in rain storms where water falls from the sky."

"Well, Zim made that discovery." Professor Membrane said, all the knowledge that his son tried to impart on him and everything Tak told him about how Irkens functioned playing in his mind. "Paste. It's an adhesive compound that protects them. They just press a button on their PAKs and a suit of paste is applied to them. However, paste is dissolved with acetone, nail polish remover. It's chemical make up is C3H6O. Three elements of Carbon, six of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen."

"This is great." Hornard said, noting what Professor Membrane was telling him. "You see we never would have thought of things like that."

"Well on Earth, people use super glue, a really strong paste to repair broken objects. Sometimes it gets stuck on their fingers and often a trick us humans use to get the paste to come off is a little nail polish remover. Acetone." Professor Membrane said. "That's where the idea really came from."

"Huh." Kar Bin smiled. "A simple Earth remedy may be the key to our freedom." She smiled at him. "Our labs our your labs."

"Great. Now is my time to shine." Professor Membrane smiled as he cracked his knuckles in anticipation of the full range of work he could do now that was unavailable to him in a farmer's basement. "Have to say this is a massive upgrade from the last place I was using as a lab."

"Oh I am sure. Frank is pretty handy and innovative with what he has but what we need requires tools he didn't have." Hornard said.

"You can say that again." Professor Membrane smiled as he began to look at the chemical supply. "Nothing against the man. He did save me from the Irkens."

Tak looked around at the cage. There was always a fatal flaw in something that could be exploited. Gaz built it so that Tak's spider legs in her PAK couldn't simply just blast the the bars away and break free. But this cage was her own design for bringing in prisoners. She knew that some of the humans on the run may have captured Irken technology to fire at them when they were taking them in to her, but many of them did not do much more than pull on the bars. She had made it so that the bars could not be pulled apart. They were built of some of the strongest steel in the universe. They were reflective on PAK lasers, which had functioned differently than Irken Death Rays. The PAK legs could be used like a cutting tool, while the Death Ray would just overwhelm the nervous system of the target and cause them to fall over dead, sometimes making a mark on the victim's body. The main difference was that the Death Ray was designed for organic matter, the PAK lasers we designed to be used on inorganic materials. Tak mimicked the common stance she had seen many of her prisoners come in, and that was by shaking on the bars back and forth. The structural integrity had seemed the same. Just the extra coating against PAK lasers. "So Gaz anticipated me using my PAK to try and escape, something no human ever could have used, so I have to think of other ways to exploit this." Tak said as she looked around at the lock. It was a simple key lock. "Found the flaw." Tak yelled. She thought that having the captured target be locked up with a tumbler lock and key. She knew that hopeless situations caused more panic. Relax, you can figure a way out of this, it isn't like before the Tallest picked you up. Tak thought to herself as she stared at the lock. Did Gaz treat the lock of the cage as well? She thought as she pointed one of her PAK's spider legs at the lock and fired the laser. It started bouncing around and she pressed herself close against the wall as it lost its energy. "Okay, all metal surfaces here are treated against me just firing my lasers and getting out of here. But there is something I can do. Something Gaz probably didn't think of." Tak said as she stuck one of her spider legs out to see if there was anything that would stop her. Amazingly, it wasn't bothered. "Figures. Gaz and Zim would love to see the flailing and struggling to get out, not just keep the captive in the center of the cage motionless." Tak said as she put her back up against the lock and stuck her spider leg through, and began to pick at the lock. "I doubt they thought I would have read Frank's old locksmithing how-to books at all." She smirked as she stuck another leg through and worked on the tumblers of the lock until it came free and she fell back out the cage door and into her old office. "HA!" Tak said as she stood up and smiled. "You didn't think hard enough Gaz. Now to go find Dib."

Tak headed over to her liquor cabinet and took a deep drink before she looked around. Heading just right out into the hall would be suicide. Even Zim would have a guard keep an eye on the hallway. It was just too obvious to head out that way. Then Tak remembered that she had to adjust the temperature in the building when she first got the office. She stood on top of her old desk and saw the vent. She fired her spider leg lasers at the vent and used them to climb up into the vents. Each room in the building had a vent in each room in the ceiling. It overlooked everything and would be the perfect place for her to see where they were keeping Dib.

Meanwhile, Dib was just staring at the screen where the torture documentary was playing. "Seriously Zim, Gaz?" Dib said as he rolled his eyes, arms getting stiff. "Didn't have your Clockwork Orange tape ready?" He sighed. Torture in the medieval period was something that they were actually taught in Skool by the teachers as a way to try and scare the kids. I remember when Miss Bitters had to teach this and she actually seemed to like talking about it. Who knows, she may have done some of it when she was younger. Dib thought as he moved his feet back and forth, looking at the waving motion.

"Are you sure this is torture?" Zim asked as he looked at the communicator at the footage of where they were keeping Dib chained up. "The Dib human doesn't look tortured, just bored."

"It's to let his guard down." Gaz said. "If he thinks we're all talk, then he will really be tortured when we unleash it on him." Or maybe, just maybe your brother isn't the pansy you thought he was. He did survive and outsmart many of the Irken soldiers hunting fact it wouldn't have been Irk that took him out if he was found dead. No, he had a nasty case of pneumonia that he was suffering from before he was picked up at the Rendell farm. You don't give him enough credit Gaz. You know he's just as smart as you, if not smarter. He had been studying the Irkens for years before you came to their aid. Do you think he would not have figured out their psychology over the years? He knows them better than you do. He even slept with one. Don't think you are not the only one to go that far. A voice in Gaz's head said that sounded a lot like Tak's. "SHUT UP TAK!" She screamed.

"Uhhhh...My Little Gaz, Tak isn't anywhere around here," Zim said, looking at Gaz's sudden outburst with nervous concern.

"Uhhhh, it's just the baby. I haven't been sleeping well. I have been having to go to the bathroom a lot at night." Gaz smiled. I am not going insane and I am not going to let Tak inside my mind. She thought as the doctor opened up the door.

"Lady Gaz, Governor Zim, you may come on in. Please leave your communicators outside. We will be using some equipment that will disrupt their functions. You have no worries honestly. Do you really think the prisoners will escape?" The doctor laughed.

"That's a good one." Gaz said as she walked into the doctor's office with Zim following behind her.

"What you don't know is that an escape is going to happen right now." Tak smiled as she saw Zim and Gaz head into the doctor's office and shut the door. She crawled through the vents to where Dib was being held and saw the look of boredom on his face. Tak then shot through the vents and fell down on top of Dib's chest.

"OOOOOOF! Tak!" Dib yelled with a smile. "Am I glad to see you!"

"Looks like Zim and Gaz are losing their touch." Tak said as she bent down and kissed Dib deeply on the lips. "Hold on, there's a plug under here that I can pull that will free you. Although I have to say, I would love to see how this would feel in bed..."

"Later..." Dib said rolling his eyes. "Do you really think this is the time for that? Frank walking by the room when we did it last time was enough risk of getting caught for me."

"Fair point. We have about 30 minutes to get out of here. Lucky for you, if we follow the path I took, we can just jump through the window of my old office here and we will be free." Tak smirked as she jumped to the floor and unplugged the table. Once she did, Dib sat up and moved his arms around in a circle to restore the blood flow to them. He stood up on the table and looked at the destroyed vent.

"So, I just follow you back through the vent?" Dib asked.

Tak sprouted her spider legs and climbed back in. "I'll pull you up." She said as she wrapped them around his waist and pulled him up into the vent. "Now let's go. Quickly."

"No problem." Dib smiled as he followed Tak out the vent and to where she entered in her old office. She jumped down onto the desk she used and then threw a paperweight at the window, causing a hole that was big enough for them to jump out through. Dib landed on the desk and looked at how easily a hole formed. "That is some weak glass." He noted.

"Yeah, well Irkens overlook a lot of things." Tak said. "Now come on, we have to get out of here."

"Where will we go?" Dib asked.

"Let's just get out of here. We'll figure that out when we can. The Resisty are probably already looking for us anyway. Besides, Lord Nar gave Kat a little notebook to send messages to them." She said as she turned on her Kat disguise and pulled out the notebook.

"Nice one." Dib said as he pulled Tak close and kissed her. "And if we ever get some time alone, we can try that idea you had earlier."

"Deal, but let's get the fuck out of here." Tak said as she pulled him out of Zim's base and began to run to the west.

"Alright, Lady Gaz, the smeet is looking to be healthy." The doctor said. "I expect delivery within a month or so. Just come back in two weeks for another checkup."

"Are you trying to get more Monies out of me?" Zim asked.

"Who cares?" Gaz said rolling her eyes. "If he causes harm to our little princess, then we can blast him to the sun."

"True my Queen." Zim said. "Now back to our prisoners."

"Good." Gaz said as she headed out the door and to where she was keeping Tak. She opened the door, expecting to see Tak ready to throw the most vile and degrading of insults at her, but only finding the cage empty and the vent blasted away and the window busted out. "ZIM, CHECK ON DIB, WE HAVE A HUGE ISSUE HERE! TAK ESCAPED!" She yelled, voice echoing throughout the halls.

So how was that? Good? Bad? Cliffhanger? Professor Membrane is developing acetone rain to defeat the paste suits and Dib and Tak have escaped Zim and Gaz's clutches. Now, who will get to them first? The Resisty or Zim and Gaz? You think I am going to tell you that here? I am starting work and schooling here soon, so I don't know how fast I can update again, but I will try to again as soon as I can. So until then, remember to read, (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,

otherrealmwriter

aka

Realm

PS: Please check my profile for a note on a family need I have. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. ~Realm.