A shot rang out and Dib whipped his head back around to see it. A gun aimed at Zim's head. And a finger pulling the trigger. And a hand winching the gun upwards. And with his breath caught in his throat, Dib saw the shot strike the ceiling above Zim, and not his head. Looking back from the impact site, he saw Zim and the soldier locked in a struggle for survival. Zim was trying to wrench the gun out of the other's hand. The soldier was desperate to kill Zim. GIR waddled past, towards Dib.
The two tumbled onto the ground. Physically wrestling, the two upended each other and rolled around in a fruitless effort to get leverage with which to snatch the gun. Grunting and straining, Zim called out, "Dib! Dib! Shoot him!"
Dib felt as if he had suddenly been pushed into the confrontation. He suddenly realized he could affect the outcome of this fight, even though he was only a few feet away. He reached down and picked up the gun he had been using. Aiming at the soldier's head, he positioned his finger on the trigger. Then, suddenly, the two writhed and Zim's head was suddenly in the way of the gun. Dib pulled the gun back with a jerk. "What are you doing? Hnng, shoot him!" Zim pleaded, continuing to fight.
Dib took aim again, pointing at the assailant's chest. He pulled the trigger, and only a sudden turn as he did resulted in the shot hitting the floor instead of either of the two. "Come one! Just, hmpf, get closer. Pull him off of me! Something!" Zim beseeched. It was desperate.
But Dib couldn't. He couldn't shoot lest he killed Zim instead. He took a step closer only for their fight on the ground to roll violently and go for his legs, nearly knocking him over and into the fray. Dib, in his panic, didn't know what to do; he wasn't good at these split-second decisions. Zim was in danger, but he couldn't figure out how to help Zim in mere moments.
Zim's damaged hand was twisted in a way that nearly hurt just seeing. He let out a scream and suddenly, the soldier's gun was ripped out of Zim's other hand and held up with an outstretched arm. The soldier was on his knees, Zim below him, between his legs. Zim's head poked out in front of the soldier. The soldier laughed, with the gun pointed down at Zim's head. "Think of what the Tallest will say about this, Zim!"
Zim was going to die. His efforts to stop the Tallest were a failure, and a quick shot to the face was going to put an end to his journey into the Massive. Dib might kill the soldier afterward, but he would almost certainly die in facing the entire Irken Empire, alone. GIR would be seized and dismantled. And who knew what the Tallest would do with Minimoose? But regardless, as the soldier's speech seemed to slow down as Zim's thoughts raced through his head in his final moments, he begrudgingly relented to fate. Indeed, he was surprised he had lasted this long, even.
And then— his head practically exploded into a mess of viscera and pink mist. Not Zim's; the soldier's. Dib took the shot when the turning and the wrestling had ended. Zim yelped at the sudden death in front of, or on top of, him, and the body collapsed forward onto him.
When Zim pulled himself out from underneath the body, he saw Dib drop the gun from his hand. With his fist in front of his mouth and his eyes wide, he muttered under his breath. Zim stood up and looked down at the rapidly growing puddle of Irken blood. He turned to Dib, Zim's panic instantly transformed into a frightful and serene silence, having just had his life nearly end, only to be saved at the last second. He wasn't feeling great. Clearly, neither was Dib, who made a strange, nearly squealing sound and retched when Zim pulled a piece of Irken brain off of his shoulder and adjusted his hurt hand in a way that let out an audible crack.
It took a few minutes to calm down. Zim made sure to bash in the door's controls so they wouldn't be interrupted. Dib sat down against the wall, several meters away from the corpse he'd created. Obviously, the two had already killed many while aboard the Massive. But what Dib had just had to do? That was brutal. Necessary. And obscene. Zim needed a couple of minutes, too. He was literally one or two seconds away from having his head look like… that. Zim was no stranger to these sorts of things. But there had been few times his life was on the line like that. So close to ending. None so visceral. None so personal and intimate. And yet, so impersonal at the same time. That soldier was smiling in the face of Zim's soon-to-be death, and was doing it just to serve his Tallest. That was something Zim was familiar with, certainly. And Zim's life was spared. With a human like Dib to thank. Huh, maybe Zim should thank Dib while they sat here, especially given—
Suddenly, there was pounding at the door. The two both flinched, with Dib nearly banging his head against the wall behind him. Obviously, just banging on the reinforced blast doors wasn't going to do much of anything, but it did signify that it was probably time for them to leave; something that Zim communicated by pausing, quietly sighing, and then standing up. Dib, jolted back into reality, watched as Zim approached the controls that the other Irkens had been tending to before the two chased them out.
"Are we going, then?" Dib asked, standing up, the pounding still interjecting.
"We ought to leave," Zim stated.
"Where to?" GIR congregated with the other two by some of the controls.
"The bridge of course. We're gonna end this."
"You're ready then?" He gestured with the gun. "To kill the Tallest?"
Well, was he? Zim chortled slightly and ducked his head down. This was the whole point of this, wasn't it? It wasn't to come all of this way, risk dying, kill his people, just to… give the Tallest a stern warning. There was going to have to be death. A murder— no, an assassination. No. Two of them. The ramifications were unknowable, but definitely intense, and pervasive. What would happen to the Empire? To his fellow Irkens? To the Armada? To Zim? Was it better for Zim to die, or for the Tallest? Cause, huh, one of them had to go. They couldn't both exist. Not anymore. Not after Miyuki. Not after Spork. Not after Impending Doom I. Not after Impending Doom II. And certainly not after the Florpus. Peaceful coexistence was nothing but a naïve hope at this point. And, again, perhaps Zim was, indeed, a plague upon the Empire. A defective. The Tallest were his leaders! He had sworn to die for them, not the other way around! An invader that accidentally killed two Tallest would be a disgrace; perhaps completely irredeemable! But one that also purposefully assassinated two more? That was a traitor— a dishonorable enemy of the state. One that might never look at himself the same.
He'd clashed against the same dilemma multiple times now. It continued to rattle through his head, a paradox of instinct, a deep struggle of cognitive dissonance. And it seemed like one that he couldn't solve. He'd just have to pick a side and go ahead with it, because there—
"Zim? You okay?" Dib asked. The sound of banging on the door. He lifted his head up.
"Oh. Yes, let's go ahead," Zim mumbled.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course." Zim began to type into the interface in front of him. It was unfamiliar, but he could figure it out quickly.
"We're gonna kill the Tallest then? You didn't answer."
Zim shouldn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. "Yeah."
"Alright then, cause I don't wanna die cause you decide you don't want to at the last second, okay?"
"Won't happen." Zim thought he might have the controls of this thing down. The system was simple enough. For a powerful teleportation system, at least.
"...Speaking of dying— this thing isn't gonna kill us, is it?" Dib looked over at the platform behind him. The banging on the door stopped.
"What? No. Why would it?"
"I mean, d… nevermind." He looked at the controls. "This all looks amazing, though. I can't wait to see it work!" It was all so complicated. Yet, if it worked, it would really be a feat of engineering and technology.
"Just wait for another moment, stink boy." Dib rolled his eyes at the name. The pounding against the door resumed. Dib flinched slightly. Just when he was about to open his mouth again, Zim stood up and spoke. "We're ready to go."
"It's gonna send us to the bridge? Not, kill us or send us to the wrong place?"
"Of course not. I set it up, didn't I?" Dib sighed. He concluded that Zim had terrible mood swings, apparently.
The group made their way into the platform, marked off with clearly visible lines on the ground. GIR was at Zim's right side, Dib at his left, and Minimoose just about perched on his left side. GIR clung to his leg as he turned to hit the button behind him. With a sigh, one of his PAK's mechanical legs came out and reached back, pressing the button for him. And then they were gone.
It would all be over soon.
