Well, everyone's freed now, except the main portion of the Irken Armada and Grorl has joined the good side at last... Okay, it was at gunpoint, but still... he never liked Chi anyway.
As far as her blackmail is concerned, Chi can kiss his little green ass.
Chi is copyright Megadoomingir
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As a group of ten now, with Grorl, they managed, somehow, to make it to Mona's house.
She turned her back on the door and let herself slide down to sit on the floor. Her stairs... her kitchen... her living room, her things, her house. The rush of familiarity cleared her head like nothing else had and all she wanted to do was sleep... maybe for days.
Maize appeared at her feet, one hand on each of her knees, looking at her face. Her eyes, young as they were, were worried.
She looked up at everyone then. The three elites, Grorl, Dib, Maize, the Almighty Tallest, Joanna, her friends, all aliens. But then, so was she, in a way.
She looked down at herself and her filthy uniform. She smelled, too, after the fighting and the adrenaline and the stress. She could really go for a shower.
She got to her feet and headed up the stairs, her boots falling on familiar, worn blue carpet.
"Where are you going?" asked Purple suspiciously.
"I'm changing out of these clothes and taking a shower. This has been one hell of a week for me," she replied. She reached the landing and turned to look at them all. Joanna made a shooing gesture with her hands.
"You guys can clean up in the bathroom up here if you want to. I'll be in the one in my bedroom. Ask Jo, she can tell you," she said.
As Jo led them all upstairs after her, she ducked into her bedroom while the rest lined up outside the one down the hall.
She realized she had a second shadow the moment she had stripped off her filthy clothes and boots. It felt good to be naked after those horrible boots and all the grime and cold.
"I'm part human."
She turned to see Maize, looking serious.
"Uh... yeah. But less than me. I was born human. You probably only have a little bit in you," she replied, for lack of anything better to say.
She detached her new PAK and left it on the bed so it didn't get water in it.
She stepped into her hot shower and shivered; with the cold of the snow and the air outside, the hot water was like a magic sponge on her body, freeing frozen muscles and drenching her antennae. She layed them flat against the top of her head to avoid getting the curls in the direct spray and began wiping the dirt from the heavy scars on her collar, ankle, belly and now the slightly thicker skin of her torso. The nanobots in her new PAK had eradicated the gaping holes Zim had punched in her, but not entirely prevented scarring; the only scar left behind was an extra layer of skin.
She washed her mis-shapen hair and resolved to have Joanna help her lop the rest of it off. It was shorter on one side, only reaching just below her ears.
Her ears.
They were getting smaller!
She disregarded it. In the long run, after growing antennae and green skin, the loss of physical ears seemed minor.
She climbed out and wrung the water out of her hair. A few droplets his Maize in the face and she shut her eyes and giggled. She soon stopped, however, as small tendrils of smoke began to rise. Maize's bright yellow laughter quickly turned to wails of pain.
Mona grabbed a dishtowel and gently wiped the little smeet's face off. She remembered the medics from before telling her water was acidic to Irken skin.
Maize's skin felt a lot like Red's, except softer, more squishy.
Since she herself was dripping water, she wrapped herself in a towel and shooed her "daughter" out of the bathroom. She set her on the bed and grabbed a brand new, freshly clean Irken uniform from her dresser and pulled it on over clean undergarnments.
Joanna appeared in the doorway moments later, Tallest Red close behind, looking curious.
"I just got water on her by accident. I'm more human than she is, so it doesn't hurt me," she explained.
"Yet," said Red sarcastically.
She pursed her lips and handed her best friend some scissors.
"Fix my hair. Please?? Just chop it?" she begged.
Joanna snipped the scissors, eliciting a sharp, slicing sound of metal on blades, an evil grin on her face.
"My pleasure," she purred demonically.
Mona turned and let Joanna wreak hell with the blades. Her hair fell in great clumps of soggy tendrils on her carpet, leaving her back to feel strangely cold.
"Doesn't that hurt??"
Everyone turned to see Purple enter the room, cleaned up. He was watching the hair fall to the floor.
"Nope. Human hair is already dead. It's just there to keep our heads warm," said Jo.
She stopped cutting and Mona turned to face her mirror. Mona had finished with a pair of scissors what a laser had started; her hair now reached the back of her neck and stuck out at wierd angles. It wasn't perfect, rather messy, but she didn't mind. She liked it messy.
Jo had borrowed one of Mona's t-shirts, with a picture of a grinning, blood-drenched skeleton on the front. It was an old Iron Maiden t shirt and it went surprisingly well with the knee-length frill goth skirt she had chosen. The wound on her neck looked fine- already scabbed over and begun healing. She wore arm warmers lined in silver metal loops to protect the raw skin on her arms.
"Better. More Irken, I guess," said Purple, cramming something cheese-covered into his mouth. She smiled, remembering GIR and his cheese episode.
Speaking of GIR..
"Hey, where's GIR in all this? And ZimTwo?" she asked.
As if to answer her, the TV in her room flickered on and the volume turned itself down all the way. Zim's voice rang out of the speakers. So now he could manipulate machines?
"Hello again, my superiors. How goes the mission so far? Is there anything I can do to help?" asked her TV.
Everyone was silent.
"Yeah, actually. If you can manipulate machines, could you infiltrate the new Zim's new PAK? Make him do stuff?" asked Mona, getting an idea.
The TV was silent for a moment.
"This is sad. GIR never fought back. Your TV does..." it muttered.
Mona gave a nervous laugh.
"I can certainly try, my Commander. Anything you'd like me to make him do?"
"Yeah, there is, Zim. Make him STOP whatever insane plan he and Chi have," said Red irritably.
"I'm on it!! Ex-Invader Zim, reporting for duty!"
Her TV shut itself off.
"That answers that, Zim2 was following us the whole time. What about GIR?" asked Mona.
"Well, I er... I put him in sleep mode on the Massive for now. So he doesn't cause trouble," replied Red.
Mona nodded. It made sense.
They all crowded into her bedroom eventually. It was getting cramped with ten people. Dib hopped up onto her bed and Mona reached forward and grabbed him under the arms, dragging him off.
"Nyeaaa hey!!"
"No one sits on my bed, got it?" she demanded.
Dib looked pouty.
"Oooh kaaay."
"WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! COME OUT UNARMED AND MAYBE WE WON'T HURT YOU!"
The sudden booming voice made them all jump and Mona forbade Dib and Maize from going to the window and looking out.
"Hey!! They're using the Massive's comm system for that! How dare she go on OUR ship and use OUR stuff!" huffed Purple.
" 'Maybe' they won't hurt us?" Huh. Not much of a guarantee, is it?" muttered Grorl.
Mona gave a nervous laugh. She hadn't yet passed a judgement on the eccentric medic, but she guessed he would rather be on her side than Chi's.
"YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS AND I SEND TROOPS IN."
"What the frig?! Five seconds?! What does she thing we ARE, roadrunners??" demanded Joanna incredulously.
"For that long, we may as well just stay here," muttered Mona. She looked up and realized Grorl had said exactly the same thing at the same time. She raised an eyebrow at him and he raised one back.
"Maybe he's not so bad after all..." she said under her breath so no one would hear.
There was a loud crunch from downstairs and Mona strained her neck looking towards the stairway.
"NOT MY FRONT DOOR?! THAT'S WHAT THE EFFING DOORKNOB IS FOR!" she yelled.
There was laughter from downstairs and stomping on the stairs as whoever it was marched upstairs for them.
"It was REALLY too much to hope no one would notice all of us broken out of jail, wasn't it?" asked Dib.
"WE were never IN jail!" said Gij hotly.
"Now we WILL be," added Benn forlornly.
Chi's troops appeared in her doorway. They were cornered.
"Don't fight. It'll just end up like last time. Take these," muttered Grorl. He underhanded a small device to each of them so Chi's troops wouldn't notice.
From behind her, one of the elites made a surprised hissing noise.
"These are illegal!"
"Shut up!!" Mona hissed back.
She stiffened at the touch of Chi's foremost guard, the one with the same scar running down his face. He gave her what he clearly thought was a flirty smile and licked his lips.
"What do we have here..." he muttered.
She heard Red growling irritably.
Mona spat on the guard.
His face transformed into something even uglier and he wasn't so sweet anymore. He grabbed her by the upper arm and threw her at the other soldiers. She tripped and fell facefirst onto the carpet.
"Hey!!"
She didn't know who had said it, but she thought it sounded like both Red and Joanna.
Before she could help herself to her feet, a piece of heavy cloth was pulled over her eyes and boots were roughly shoved onto her feet.
"No!! Mona!!"
She knew that had been Jo.
There were cries and noises as more of their group were forced to the carpet. She guessed blindfolds were being put on everybody. Through it all, she kept Grorl's device hidden safely in her hand.
She was jerked to her feet again and she felt her arm creak with the force of it.
She was then roughly marched out of the room and she felt her feet hit stairs.
"Nooooooooooooo!! Mommy!! Daddy!"
That voice... was that Maize??
She called her...
"MOOOOMAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!"
Even her antennae cringed at that one. Her voice was thin and high pitched but painfully loud.
She heard everyone either grunting and groaning from being jerked around or her friends crying out to each other. Grorl shouted a warning to each of them, as cryptic to her as it was probably supposed to be for Chi's soldiers.
"DON'T LET THEM GET THEM!"
Mona's hand clenched tighter around the small device.
"Time to split up the dream team, I think. This time... I won't be so leanient."
She had no trouble recognizing that deadly, sugar-coated purr. It was Chi.
"I really hope your finger hurts, Chi. Cause if I get the chance, I'm gonna bite the other one off, and this time, I'll make it stick!" she threatened.
Chi laughed and right then Mona wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug smile off her stupid ugly face.
"Don't hurt Maize! She's just a smeet, Chi!" Red growled from somewhere behind Mona. She reached back and felt around with her hands but her arm was slapped away.
"Ow!"
"Mona?"
It was Maize.
"Don't worry, I'll be okay..." she whimpered.
There was a sharp sound, like flesh on metal, and Maize let out a pain-filled wail.
"Shut it, you," growled one of Chi's goons.
"You like to hit children, huh? I'm not surprised," growled Mona. She followed where the sounds had come from and prepared to stomp on the guy's foot
An arm looped itself around her neck out of nowhere and her vision really did go black.
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There were voices... and flashes of light that stabbed through her eyelids and hurt her eyes...
She tried to remember... Maize... and Joanna, her friends... Chi...
Chi.
She snapped her eyes open and sat up, only to find that her arms were bound behind her back so tight it hurt.
She was in a large room with no doors or windows, and again, cubicled walls made it seem like a maze.
She also noticed that this time, she was not alone.
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Uh oh... now what?
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