A/N: Hey there, everyone. First, Happy Holidays! Second, I know it's been a long time since this story updated, but in keeping with my deal with The Cowardly Christian, I could only update after he posted three updates to stories of my request in exchange for the previous chapter, and that took a long time. Not that I'm blaming TCC, of course — most of his stories are commissioned, while our arrangement is free. I'm not going to get mad about him prioritizing paid work over a favor.
Anyway, the bulk of this chapter is a flashback to a time before the events of "Gaz's Bad Day". So, don't expect much development of this story's main plot until the end. Just an FYI for anyone who cares.
Finally, TCC's plot outline involved cameos by characters from numerous other series besides IZ, several of whom I wasn't familiar with, so I just made educated guesses about after doing basic research. However, they're not that big a deal, so like when Nooth was introduced back in Chapter 2, either look them up or treat them like OCs, whatever's easiest for you.
All that said, read on!
Disclaimer: I still don't own Invader Zim, or any of the other series that cameo in this chapter either for that matter.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
Flashback Begins
One Year Ago
Many months before the incredible day that saw Dib's head shrink to normal size, his junk grow to a massive size, and his life become a heterosexual male's wet dream, he was still hounded by incredibly bad luck. And on one day in particular, that luck would be even worse than normal, but lead to a surprising connection to his present day circumstances…
Dib was depressed. Yet another one of his plans to expose Zim as the demon he was had not only failed, but in the course of their fighting, one of the village's main totem poles had been broken, and naturally enough Dib ended up being the only one blamed for it, leading to an angry mob chasing him out of the village. So here he was, killing time, staying away from the village for awhile, exploring the jungle, swinging from vine to vine.
Contrary to what an outside observer might think, vine-swinging was quite a practical way to travel. It started as a cost-effective way to allow people to travel across the jungle without risking the dangers on the ground, and had only grown from there. Each vine was grown and put in place by early pioneers to form a trail, being carefully cultivated to develop the way that best served the various villages' purposes. Dib's father, Witchdoctor Membrane, had further modified the system by crossbreeding a new type of vine that glowed in the dark, to allow better mobility at night, making the vines even more efficient.
Anyway, Dib was mostly just swinging around at random, allowing muscle memory to guide him while his mind wandered. And as he wasn't looking where he was going, he failed to notice a large bee perched on the vine that he was about to grab, specifically on the spot where his hand was about to land. And as this was back in the days when his luck was abysmal, well…
"OW!" Dib yelled, as the bee immediately stung his palm. Only years of high pain tolerance (read: Gaz's sadism) kept him from instinctively letting go in response to the sting and thus falling to his death on the jungle floor below. It did, however, mess up his swing, causing him to go in the wrong direction. And when he did eventually let go of the vine to jump towards the next one he saw, the surprisingly resilient bee slipped free of his hand and, showing an even more surprising vindictive streak, buzzed after him. It then proceeded to sting him right on the ass just as he was starting to swing again, causing him to yelp and leap away from the vine he'd just grabbed and go flying further away from his initial path, desperately grasping for the nearest vine he could reach-
RIP
-which tore almost immediately after he managed to grab it. To Dib's horror, he saw that he'd accidentally jumped onto one of the old vine trails, where the vines were of the older variant that needed at least occasional maintenance or they'd fall apart. And this trail had been abandoned years ago; it was literally falling apart in his hands! Not wanting to fall to his death, Dib had no choice but to jump to the next vine… which immediately began to rip as well. And so, Dib was forced to jump vine to vine to as each ripped in succession.
Finally, he found a waypoint, a makeshift ledge to allow weary travelers a brief respite from vine-swinging, that looked like it wasn't too rotted away, and therefore safe to use. The thing wobbled as he landed, but otherwise held together. Dib looked around, and realized how bad his situation was. He was in a part of the jungle he didn't recognize, and worse, he'd been too busy trying not to die to memorize the direction he took while swinging!
Dib tried not to panic. He calmly sat down on the waypoint, ignoring the painful prickle of the broken wood's splinters on his rear to think over his options.
"Okay, I can't have gotten too far away from the village. I just need to reorient myself," Dib rationalized as he thought out loud, "Yeah, if I climb up high enough, I'm sure to see a familiar landmark. I just need to-"
"HELP!"
Dib jumped in surprise as a pair of voices suddenly called out in unison, from somewhere close by. Peering down, he saw a pair of girls a little older than him standing in a nearby clearing, brandishing sticks at something he couldn't make out from the angle he was looking at them from. However, he was able to see the girls' faces, and recognized them from the village; their names were Hesta and Desta, and they were so pompous and nasty that even Zita's clique wanted nothing to do with them.
Honestly, Dib was tempted to just leave the two stuck-up blondes to their fate… but he just couldn't, no matter how much they might have deserved it.
"Sometimes I really hate being the good guy," Dib muttered, before shouting out, "I'll save you!"
Grabbing the nearby vine and jumping to his feet, Dib paused only momentarily as he heard a ripping sound, but shrugged it off. Figuring that it was the sound of the vine starting to fall apart like the others had, he quickly swung towards the clearing before it had a chance to tear loose and drop him.
Meanwhile, the girls were still waving their sticks around to try and scare off whatever it was that they felt threatened by. Though despite that, they were still managing to find the time to snipe at each other.
"I told you we were supposed to take a right at that giant boulder!" Hesta snapped.
"And I told you to bring a map exactly so we wouldn't have to guess where we were going!" Desta snapped back.
While the girls bickered, Dib swung in, dramatically dropping from the vine as it tore free, landing between them and the ferocious beast that they were facing… and his face dropped into a look of deadpan disbelief.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered, as he found himself staring down at a bush baby, of all things. Rolling his eyes, he picked up the cuddly, harmless creature and turned to face the girls while cradling it, "Yeah, I think you're safe now. This little guy isn't going to hurt you."
The girls, who hadn't noticed Dib's arrival, jumped slightly as he suddenly spoke. They turned to face him, staring in surprise… and then to Dib's confusion, they burst into laughter.
"What?" Dib asked, blinking in bewilderment at the girl's actions.
"'Little guy' indeed!" Hesta barked around her laughs.
"Fitting name!" Desta snorted through her giggles.
"What's with you two?" Dib asked, confused. The girls were laughing so hard that he could barely understand what they were saying.
"*snort* You're *giggle* natural!" Hesta laughed.
"I'm… natural?" Dib asked, eyebrow raised, "A natural what? A natural rescuer? How is that funny?"
"No, you're *snicker*-buck-*giggle*-ed!" Desta hooted.
"Bucket? The miller's son?" Dib asked, now totally baffled, "No, I'm Dib, you know, Witchdoctor Membrane's son."
By now, the girls were both rolling on the ground laughing. However, they finally managed to compose themselves and give Dib absolutely vicious grins.
"You lost your loincloth, you needle-dick moron!" Hesta barked with glee.
"Big head and a tiny wiener? You really are cursed!" Desta cackled.
Eyes snapping open, Dib looked down, and to his horror saw that he was indeed naked. The last rip he'd heard must have been his loincloth snagging on the splintery wood of the waypoint and tearing off! And sadly for him, this was still back in the days when the side effects of his his head tumor kept his willy practically microscopic, so there was nothing there to be proud of.
Mortified, Dib dropped the bush baby and covered himself with his hands, before turning and fleeing into the trees, the girls' laughter following him. He frantically ran through the jungle, and even more frantically looked around for something to restore his modesty. Even if he was willing to risk further ridicule by staying where the girls were, that had been the last vine in the area. There was no way to get back up to the waypoint, and that was assuming his poor loincloth hadn't been ripped to unusable shreds.
"Need to find cover, fast!" he muttered to himself as he ran. He knew that he was alone out here right now, but with his luck it was better not to take any chances. So, he finally managed to work past his panic and forced himself to stop running, and after confirming that there was no one else in sight, started looking around for something to conceal himself with.
Unfortunately, it soon became clear to him why this part of the jungle was abandoned and the vine trails became disused — just about all the plants here were either poisonous, or toxic, or the kind that ate human flesh. He nearly died a dozen times in the space of five minutes while carefully examining the foliage for something that he could create makeshift clothes out of without risking harming himself, before eventually finding enough usable leaves to fashion into a modesty skirt. Unfortunately, it turned out that fashioning even a small loincloth out of leaves was harder than the bards let on in their stories, so Dib was forced to resort to using sticky tree sap to get them to cling together and to his body.
"Okay, disgusting and not ideal… but it should last until I get home!" Dib said with some slight cheer as he quickly admired his handiwork.
Then his grin slid off his face as he looked around and was reminded that he was still lost. Grumbling angrily to himself, he started looking around for some kind of hint where to go, only to freeze as he suddenly heard a voice nearby.
"Dang it girl! You had to chase that bat, didn't you? I have no idea where we are now!"
Peeking his head through a nearby bush, Dib saw a tan girl with platinum blonde hair named Jackie that he recognized from the village. She was currently chastising the pet hyena she was holding the leash of, which was completely ignoring her, staring off into the distance dispassionately. Noticing this, Jackie groaned and rubbed her forehead, before pausing and looking around.
"Oh, wait. I recognize this place now," she mused, "This is where I saw that cute coconut bunch I could make into a bra. I totally know where to go from here to head home!"
Hearing this sparked hope in Dib. Reminding himself that while he looked ridiculous right now he wasn't naked, he took a calming breath and stepped out of the bush to ask for directions.
"Excuse me?" he called out, catching Jackie's attention, "Hey, sorry to bother you. If you could just tell me-AH!"
Dib was cut off with a yelp as the hyena suddenly jumped on him, tackling him to the ground and pinning him as it turned its attention to his lower body. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be interested in biting anything, but it was clawing him inadvertently as it aggressively sniffed and licked at the sap covering him, something about the substance being incredibly attractive to the animal.
Jackie, meanwhile, looked on in confusion. After a moment, she recognized Dib as the local weirdo who had destroyed the village's prized totem pole earlier that day. She momentarily considered letting her hyena maul him as punishment for that, but ultimately decided not to — mostly because of the fact that, with how much of a freak Dib was, he'd probably make her pet sick.
"Better not risk it. Heel!" she called out, the hyena immediately responding to the command and jumping off of Dib to run over to Jackie's side.
"Thank you," Dib groaned as he shakily stood up, aching from numerous painful but not serious claw scratches over his torso. Brushing off the discomfort, he turned to Jackie to try asking for directions again, only to be caught off guard as the girl started laughing, her hyena joining in.
"Oh man, that's just sad! Is that why you're constantly making such huge messes, to compensate?" Jackie asked through her giggles as she pointed at Dib. Paling at the implication, Dib looked down and saw to his renewed horror that the hyena's actions had torn all the leaves right off of him, once again leaving him completely bare.
Yelping, Dib clasped his hands over his crotch and quickly ran away from the laughing Jackie, feeling utter mortification… and then fear as the hyena jumped after his retreating form and snapped its jaws so close to his rear that he just barely avoided losing a chunk of his ass.
Now in a blind panic, Dib ran frantically through the jungle, not paying attention to his surroundings as he desperately tried to get away from the hyena in case it attacked him again. As he ran, he looked over his shoulder to make sure it wasn't chasing him-
"GAH!"
Which is when he burst through a bush and promptly fell off a cliff that had been completely blocked from his view. Dib fell through empty air, screaming-
CRACK
-and those screams trailed off into a whimper as he landed groin-first on a tree branch growing out of the cliffside. Paralyzed by pain, he was unable to stop himself from sliding to the side and falling off the side of the branch, once again heading towards the ground.
SMACK
And bounced face first off of a ledge.
CRACK
SMACK
CRACK
SMACK
CRACK
SMACK
And so it went, that Dib bounced off of various protrusions in the cliffside, which at the very least managed to slow down his descent, even as each blow increased his overall amount of pain. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Dib finally hit the ground, embedding himself in a large but soft dirt mound up to his waist, leaving his upper body slumped against the ground.
"That sucked," he muttered after a few minutes, as he slowly became coherent again. Glancing down at his current situation, he started looking around for something he could grab ahold of for leverage to pull himself loose. Unfortunately, all he could see surrounding him were rows of leafy bushes whose bodies were too thin for him to properly get ahold of.
"Huh, theed plants," he idly noticed, recognizing the highly addictive plants, "Never seen these many in one place… and actually, since when are plants this neatly organized naturally?"
"Man, am I glad we finally got here. I've been looking forward to this all day!" a familiar female voice said in the near-distance. Paling for a variety of reasons, Dib strained against the dirt to lift himself up as much as he could, just barely allowing him to peek over the bushes and catch sight of who was speaking — and to Dib's horror, his suspicions were confirmed as he saw a trio of girls, one with yellow hair, one with blue, and one with red. These were the Kanker sisters, and next to Gaz, they were the meanest and most violent girls in the whole village, who were known for breaking all kinds of laws but scaring everyone into letting them get away with it.
"Of course, of all the places I could have landed, it's in the private drug patch of a group of violent psychos," Dib cursed in his head, lowering himself to the ground and trying to not even breathe too loudly, for fear they'd notice him. With any luck, they'd soon be so high that he could sneak right by them without them noticing him.
But sadly for Dib, as this was before Anansi's meddling, he didn't have any luck. In fact, his situation was worse than he realized — the "dirt mound" that he'd crashed into was actually a fire ant colony, and while the ants had initially been scattered by his impact, they were rallying now, and they were angry.
By the time poor time Dib realized what was happening, the ants were already swarming over everything beneath his neck. He nearly bit his tongue off as he tried to stop himself from screaming, while frantically trying to bat the ants off of himself, all as quietly as possible to try and avoid catching the Kankers' attention. Unfortunately, the pain from the countless bites and stings he was receiving proved to be too much, and with that pain both driving rational thought from his head and imbuing him with greater strength than normal, Dib finally gave a primal yell and burst free of the mound with enough force to not only scatter the ants but send him flying through the air…
…And landing right in front of where the Kankers were reclining against a tree in front of a fire pit, each holding a slightly burning roll of theed leaves to their mouths. They stared at him in shock at his sudden arrival, and on instinct, the blue-haired Marie kicked him in the groin. As Dib collapsed and groaned in pain on the ground, the sisters finally registered who he was and what they were seeing, and they promptly burst into laughter.
"Hey loser, if you wanna flash people, it'd be more impressive if you actually had something to show off!" the red-haired Lee cackled.
"What happened, you get castrated and stick a worm on your crotch to try and make up for it?" the blonde May giggled, falling over in mirth.
"Nah, I saw it twitch, it's definitely real. It's just pathetic!" Marie laughed, leaning against a tree for support.
By now recovered from the crotch shot, and mortification now overpowering his lingering pain, Dib jumped up and ran away as fast as he could. Seeing this, the Kankers scowled and got back to their feet to chase after him.
"Hey, get back here so we can beat you up, you pervert!" May shouted, only to stumble and fall over, her sisters doing likewise, the lot of them all being too doped up to properly stand, let alone run.
"…Eh, we'll beat him up some other time," Lee muttered, her sisters grumbling in agreement before they all passed out into a drugged-fueled sleep.
XXXXXXX
Dib ran for a long time, even after he realized that the Kankers weren't chasing him. He wasn't going to risk that they were just tricking him, after all; he'd been beaten up by them once before when Gaz had tricked them into thinking he threw rocks at them, and he wasn't going through that again.
Eventually, Dib calmed down enough to slow down to a walk, and started taking in his surroundings again. True to what he was expecting, he still had no idea where he was, and a careful look around confirmed that there weren't really any plants suitable for another attempt at cover anywhere nearby either. What few there were, were incapable of naturally sticking to his body, and he definitely wasn't going to use sap again and give another animal an excuse to attack him.
Groaning at the situation, Dib slumped and started walking in a random direction, hoping that it was the right way. For awhile, this didn't seem to be working, as the jungle stretched on endlessly around him with no sign of anything that could guide him home. Eventually, however, he emerged into a clearing, and to his surprise saw someone familiar standing at the other end of the field under a banana tree, plucking fruit from it. It was Gaz!
…Well, it was just the back of her head, but he was sure of it. It had to be his sister, he'd know that hair anywhere.
Thanking the gods that he'd found one person whom his nudity wouldn't be quite as embarrassing around (it'd still be awkward as hell, but at least she was family), he quickly hid his lower body behind a bush and called out to her, "Hey, Gaz! Over here!"
To Dib's surprise, Gaz didn't react, not even looking over her shoulder or calling out to tell him to shut up. Frowning, Dib almost walked over to her, but paused and looked around again. The clearing definitely looked deserted. But knowing his luck, the moment he streaked in to talk to Gaz directly would be the same moment someone else wandered into the clearing and saw him.
No, he was going to have to risk Gaz's wrath to get her attention. Bracing himself for the worst, he threw a pebble at her. He flinched as it hit her head… and Gaz ignored it, continuing to just keep picking bananas?
"…Okay, that can't be Gaz. There is NO way she'd just shrug off something being thrown at her. Especially if it was me doing it," Dib said, scratching the side of his head in confusion. However, his eyes widened as a memory suddenly came to him, recalling that there was a hermit who lived a little way outside the village, a short, half-blind and half-deaf old lady named Granny Liz, who from a distance kind of looked like Gaz. He remembered this because the first time he could recall her visiting the village, he'd pointed out the similarity and Gaz had broken his nose.
"Wait, this could be good! Since she's almost blind, she won't realize I'm naked. If I play it cool, I can walk up to her and ask her for directions on how to get back to the village. And once I'm there, I can sneak home without anyone seeing me!" Dib said to himself, feeling hope for the first time since this whole mess had started. However, knowing that the nearly-deaf woman would only be able to hear him if he got up close to her and practically yelled in her ear, he had no choice but to do so.
After taking one last look around the clearing to make sure there was no one else around, Dib cautiously tiptoed away from the coverage of the bush and up to her and yelled, "Hey, Granny Liz!"
The woman flinched from his volume and turned around… and Dib's expression fell as he saw her face.
"What did you just call me?" Gaz snarled, her ears ringing in pain only worsening her already bad mood.
As Dib was subsequently pounded on by his enraged sister, a quick explanation for this situation: earlier that morning, Gaz had walked in on one of her father's alchemical experiments just as it had gone wrong and exploded. While not physically harmed, the sound of the explosion had left her ears ringing and sense of hearing hampered, while fumes from the potions had given her a splitting headache. Her father had then sent her off with directions to a special banana tree whose fruit were even more potent than usual in the vitamins that would speed along her healing from the damage from the explosion.
So, thanks to the ringing still in her ears, she didn't hear Dib when he first called out to her, and although she felt the rock hit her head, she simply assumed it was her headache getting worse and had ignored it. Her headache had finally started getting better, and then Dib yelled in her ears, making them and her head hurt again. And called her an old lady, on top of that.
So yeah, not a good combo for Dib.
After quite some time holding him by the neck while punching him in the face, Gaz finally noticed that he was naked. Grimacing in disgust, she dropped him to the ground, and gave him a kick in the ass to send him scuttling away from her.
"I don't know why you're naked, and I don't care. Just get out of here so I can stop having to look at your practically nonexistent balls," she growled. Dib, in immense pain and no small amount of terror, still managed to look back at Gaz pleadingly.
"I don't suppose you can tell me which way the village is?" he asked hesitantly. Gaz glared in response, but after a moment pointed towards the jungle.
"Now get going before I decide to rip your dong off and see if anyone's stupid enough to try and use it for a toothpick," she said with a scowl. Dib didn't need to be told twice, quickly scrambling back to his feet and bolting in the direction Gaz had pointed, grateful that she had decided to help him for once.
If he'd bothered to look back, he would have noticed her scowl changing into a smirk.
As it was, Dib ran through the jungle, happy that he was finally almost out of this nightmare… right up until he burst out of a bush and slammed into a statue. Bouncing off of it to the ground, Dib had just enough time to wonder why the statue felt so soft, before it fell over and shattered into a hundred pieces.
"What the… why is this thing made out of clay?" he wondered, examining several of the pieces. Looking around, he froze as he saw a sign hanging on a nearby tree which read "Nuns and Female Orphans Arts and Crafts Jamboree".
"Oh crap, Gaz lied to me! …Yeah, should have seen that coming," Dib groaned, only to freeze as he heard several female voices approaching from nearby. Panicking, he jumped into a nearby bush, squirming his way as far into its interior as he could go as the people he'd heard got near.
"Hey! Who destroyed Cindy's statue? Lousy animals," an older woman, presumably one of the nuns, grumbled before speaking up, "Okay, the girl that finds the critter that did this gets extra food rations!"
The girls cheered as they started tearing apart the bushes surrounding the smashed statue. Dib whimpered in panic as he curled up to try and get further away from their inquisitive hands, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before they found him. Eyes darting around, he spotted a nearby gopher hole; utterly desperate, he quickly tunneled into it with his hands and tried to escape underground, disappearing completely into the hole just before the last of the bush was removed by the girls.
Unfortunately for Dib, he soon found himself tangled up in a root system. As he struggled to break free in the limited space, a new voice spoke up aboveground, "Okay, that's enough. Whatever broke the statue was probably scared away. Now then, it's time for your flower arrangement studies!"
Vaguely hearing this through the dirt, Dib wondered how long it would take for them to eventually leave the area so that it'd be safe to emerge again… when the roots suddenly pulled upwards, taking Dib with them, leaving him dangling in midair from a huge mound of dirt topped by flowers, which was being held aloft by a burly nun standing in front of a crowd of nuns and young girls.
Turns out it had been a flower bed's root system. Go figure.
"AH! It's a perverted eunuch!" one of the girls shouted in disgust.
"Get him!" one of the nuns commanded, as Dib was dropped to the ground, where he was pelted with rocks until he finally managed to get to his feet and flee into the jungle.
XXXXXXX
After losing the angry nun-led mob, Dib proceeded to wander through the jungle for the next several hours. This turned into a parade of torment for him, as he seemed to just go from one painful experience to another. He somehow stumbled into a desert bordering the jungle and nearly fried to death before finding an oasis, which he was promptly chased away from right after quenching his thirst by a group of women bathing in the oasis' water (after they were done laughing at him). From there, he improbably ended up atop a snowy mountain, where he nearly froze solid before finding relief in a hot spring cave, only to be chased away by another group of female bathers (after they too laughed at him first). After that, he fell off the mountain into a fast-moving river, being bashed against the rapids before coming to a stop in a spot where yet more women were bathing…
Well, you get the point.
Anyway, as the sun began to set, a bruised and battered Dib stumbled through the foliage, barely paying attention to where he was going at this point, so worn down as he was by now. As such, he barely noticed as he wandered into a fog-bank that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. He did however notice when a moment later he emerged into a small clearing that was eerily devoid of but surrounded entirely by the fog, and which contained the remains of an abandoned campsite. There was a tattered tent, rusty exploration tools, rotten food, and most importantly of all-
"Clothes! Wonderful clothes!" Dib exclaimed joyfully.
True, they were strange and unlike anything he'd ever seen before (namely pants and a shirt), but that didn't matter, nor did the fact that they were slightly ratty from age. They were intact enough to wear without falling apart, and frankly the fact that they covered so much of the body was just a bonus at this point. So, after figuring out how to do so, he happily slipped the clothes on and practically skipped from the campsite, soon emerging from the fog for real this time. However, he ground to a halt as he heard something nearby.
"-so I kicked the guy until he cried!" a rough female voice said before laughing, being joined by a couple of other voices. Finding them somewhat familiar, Dib cautiously peered around a tree, and saw a trio of girls (a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette) gathered around a fire-pit underneath a treehouse. Dib groaned as he recognized them — their names were Berserk, Brat, and Brute, respectfully, and the only reason they weren't rivaling Gaz or the Kankers for most violent girls in the village was that they had long since been kicked out of the village. Even though he wasn't streaking anymore, if they saw him they'd likely beat him up simply for the fun of it.
Still, on the bright side, it was well known that the three hadn't gone too far from the village when they'd been banished, so he was close to home! He just had to find a familiar landmark, and he'd finally be able to put this terrible day behind him.
"I can probably climb a tree and spot something from up there. Though I should do that somewhere else so these three don't see me," Dib thought, as he slowly crept away-
SNAP
Only to suddenly be dragged up into the air as he triggered a snare, which banged him against the side of a tree before leaving him dangling from one leg. Cursing, he tried to free his ankle, only to freeze as the girls ran over, presumably alerted by the sound of the snare activating. They glared up at him… then blinked in surprise, before bursting out laughing.
"What happened loser, you just take an ice bath? Or is it always that small?" Berserk cackled, she and her sisters pointed above where Dib's head was hanging. Confused at what they could be laughing about when he knew for a fact he was finally fully clothed, he looked upward, and his eyes widened in shock — the clothes he was wearing had become transparent, with a slight blue glow, leaving him just as exposed as if he were still naked!
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Are these ghost clothes?" Dib moaned. He'd heard of this phenomena, of clothes belonging to ghosts which were tangible enough of being worn by living beings, but became as translucent as the rest of a ghost when removed from where they were found. He'd thought that was a joke made up by drunks, but true to his luck not only were they real but he had ended up wearing some just when he thought he'd found relief from his torture.
"Ahem! I believe, young man, that you have something of mine?" a voice suddenly spoke off to the side. Blinking, Dib looked over to see the ghost of a well-dressed gentleman floating in midair, clearly the owner of the clothes. Before Dib could say anything, the ghost angrily grabbed the clothes off of him, the force of doing so causing the snare to spring about, smacking a once more completely naked Dib around, before the snare snapped and sent him flying through the air and far away, while the girls just kept laughing, seemingly unperturbed by the appearance of the ghost.
"Honestly, the rudeness of people in this dimension. Why couldn't I have died someplace more polite?" the ghost mused to himself as he floated away with his spare clothes in his arms, back to the camp he'd set up after being stranded in this universe…
But that's a story for another time.
XXXXXXX
Once more, Dib found himself landing in a distant part of the jungle, crashing through the foliage before slamming into the ground. Groaning, he picked himself up, stumbling over to a tree and resting against it until his head stopped spinning.
"Ugh, can't this day just be over already?" he moaned, only to pause as he suddenly heard the sound of chanting from nearby. Knowing that nothing good had come from running into other people so far today, but resigned to the possibility of more pain for the chance of maybe getting actual help, he crept towards the source of the voices. Reaching a small rise, Dib dropped low and crept to the edge in order to look past it without being seen, and the sight made his face pale.
It was a relatively small encampment of wooden huts clustered around a large totem pole. At the far end of the camp was an altar in the form of a large carved claw, the tip of which curved downwards to about midway towards the ground. And gathered in front of the altar was a crowd of large humanoid creatures who appeared to be made out of wood, who were chanting and doing some kind of war dance.
"Woodies," Dib gasped. He'd heard of this violent war-like tribe, which conducted acts of cannibalism on its foes… though there was much debate as to whether they really counted as "cannibals", since they ate the flesh of people other than their own kind. Regardless, this was a very dangerous place for Dib to be; if any of the Woodies looked away from their war dance and saw him, they'd hunt him down and eat him.
Dib started to scoot away towards the tree-line so he could run away without risking being spotted, only to freeze as he finally noticed something that he'd overlooked in his initial view due to the shock of seeing the Woodies. Namely, the fact that there, dangling from the "claw" of the altar over a pile of wood obviously intended to be used as a pyre by ropes tied around her wrists, was an attractive girl Dib's age, with red hair and green eyes and just as naked as he was. Clearly, the Woodies were planning to burn and eat her.
After staring at this in shock for a moment, Dib groaned as his conscience kicked in. He couldn't just leave anyone, even a stranger, to such a horrible fate!
"Why couldn't I be selfish? You don't see Gaz suffering for this sort of thing…" Dib grumbled, as he snuck off to try and find a way to save the girl.
XXXXXXX
Tenn didn't like to admit it, but she was scared. She'd come here to seduce some of these morons for kicks, and maybe convert their cannibalistic cult to a demon-worshipping one. It was supposed to be an easy job, practically a milk run… unfortunately, turned out that the Woodies liked to season their meat with a flower that was poisonous to bugs (and to a lesser extent, the opposite sex; they were misogynistic on top of everything else). One whiff of their breath killed or scattered all her bees! Not only did this leave her naked, but most of her magic was tied to her hive. The death of so many at one time, combined with the rest abandoning her, made her lose so much magic that she briefly lost her disguise and revealed herself to be a demon. While she'd quickly managed to restore her human appearance, it was too late to make the Woodies think they'd imagined things, and they'd turned on her.
Between their superior numbers, her magic being too disrupted to do anything, and being half-dizzy herself from the halitosis, she'd been quickly overpowered, captured, and bound. The Woodies were now planning to sacrifice and feast on her, in the belief that they'd gain great power from her demonic flesh… once they were done ogling her, apparently, just to add further humiliation to the situation.
"Beaten by a level-0, almost-demonic tribe… easiest job in the world, and I completely flopped it. Even if I survive, the other demons will never let me live this down," she groaned to herself as she hung suspended from the altar, the Woodies continuing to dance and chant around her even as their eyes roamed lustfully over her bare form. Tenn was just starting to wish they'd just get it over with and put her out of her misery, when there was a sudden yell.
"AhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAh!" Dib bellowed as he swung by on a vine, grabbing ahold of Tenn around the waist as he passed by, the sudden force and momentum as she was dragged along snapping the ropes around her wrists and allowing Dib to carry her away.
"Don't worry, you're safe now!" Dib proclaimed heroically, though the attitude was undercut by the massive blush on his face as he tried to ignore the fact that, circumstances notwithstanding, he was clutching a naked attractive girl to his own naked body. For her part, Tenn was also somewhat embarrassed, since this was the first time she was in such an intimate position without being in control of it, but was more caught off guard by the unexpected rescue.
Still, despite the mutual awkwardness, the pair were just happy to get away from the now angrily shouting mob of cannibal monsters-
WHAM
-right until they slammed into the large totem pole that the Woodies' camp was built around. Worse than the impact, though, was that it somehow caused Dib's vine to snap and shoot forward, rapidly wrapping around the totem, and quickly leaving the par tied tightly to the pole.
"Or not," Dib added lamely, coughing awkwardly.
"Right," Tenn sighed in deadpan annoyance, as she looked down to see that the Woodies had caught up and were starting to climb up the totem towards them, "I know I'm new to this whole 'rescue' thing… but to me, this seems like a step backwards."
"No, no! This is fine, we can figure this out!" Dib said, desperately trying to reassure both her and himself, "If we can just slip free, we can-"
CRACK
Dib, Tenn, and the Woodies all froze as that loud sound hit their ears. As they all looked down, they were greeted by the sight of a large crack appearing at the base of the totem and rapidly spreading. As it turned out, Dib and Tenn had slammed into just the right spot on the totem to weaken the overall structure, and the weight of all the Woodies clamoring on it had done nothing to help that situation.
"…I hate you," Tenn said in a resigned tone.
"Fair enough," Dib sighed.
With a mighty snap, and an odd flash of dark light from the cracked base, the totem broke free and slammed into the ground. Luckily for Dib and Tenn, it landed on a side neither of them was attached to, so unlike the unfortunate Woodies, they weren't crushed. Though that didn't stop them from being ground against the dirt as the totem started rolling downhill and taking them with it, so they wouldn't exactly say they were pleased with the situation.
And they were even less pleased when the totem's path saw it rolling right into a fast-moving river. Though fortunately for them, after being bounced around by the rapids for several minutes, it was finally left floating upright in the water like a top, leaving the bound pair above the waterline and at least able to breathe, even if they still couldn't move.
"Well, at least that's over with," Tenn said, spitting out some water and glancing back the way they'd come, confirming that no surviving Woodies were chasing them. Dib, who was facing the direction they were floating, was about to respond when he saw something that made his eyes widen.
"Oh no…" he groaned. Hearing this, Tenn was about to ask what he was talking about, only to pause as she noticed the current picking up speed again, and heard the distinct sound of falling water rapidly approaching.
"Don't tell me. We're about to go over a waterfall, aren't we?" she asked in a surprisingly calm and resigned voice.
"Yep," Dib replied in a matching tone.
"Sharp rocks at the bottom?"
"Most likely."
"Fine, bring it on," Tenn sighed, right before the totem went over the falls, her and Dib letting out matching screams as they fell the large distance towards the bottom.
XXXXXXX
Having survived the fall and subsequent rapids, after some more time and much effort, Tenn managed to break free of her makeshift bindings and get away from the sinking totem, eventually making her way back to shore as night fell, even being able to grab ahold of Dib and drag him out of the water with her. He had been knocked out at some point during the experience, but Tenn had instinctively used some of her currently limited magic to suspend his vitals, so he wasn't at risk of drowning at the moment, but he was still unconscious and effectively comatose until she undid the spell.
Now safely seated on the riverbank and away from any signs of danger, Tenn took the opportunity to get a proper look-over at her would-be heroic savior. She got a good laugh as she saw his tiny dick, but aside from that, he had a pretty handsome, athletic build. Even with his small endowment, he'd probably be a pretty good lay, at least enough to restore the energy she'd lost since her bees were scattered.
"Then again, he did save me, however incompetently he went about it," she mused to herself, "Can I really feed on him in good conscious after that?"
She was still pondering whether it was worth the effort to mate with him or to just leave him there to his own fate when one of her bees suddenly buzzed up to her, specifically one of the scouts she regularly sent out to monitor things in the jungle. Even more specifically, it was the same bee which had stung Dib earlier that day, sending this entire sequence of events into motion, and which had been discretely following him ever since in the vindictive hopes of having a chance to sting him again. As such, it had witnessed everything that had happened to Dib since he'd fallen off those vines.
As the bee relayed Dib's misadventures, Tenn couldn't help but laugh at the hilarious absurdity of the human's misfortune. It was almost enough to make her feel rare pity for him, though since it had all led to him being in the right place and time to inadvertently save her from those morons, she wasn't too sorry he'd gone through it all.
More importantly, the return of one of her bees allowed Tenn to tap into the mystic link connecting the entire hive and summon them all back to her. Within moments, every one of her still-living bees was teleported back to her, and to her relief that was the majority of them, more than enough to fully clothe herself with them and restore her magic to its full strength… actually, strangely enough, she actually felt stronger than usual, even with the number of her bees that had died.
"Huh, that's weird," she muttered, before shrugging it off as not important at the moment. After casting a few quick spells just to make sure everything was working properly, she prepared to leave, only to pause and look at Dib again, mouth twisting in thought as she once again considered what to do with him.
"Ah, what the hell, he helped me out, and gave me a good laugh," she eventually decided with a shrug. With a snap of her fingers, she released him from his stasis, and before his body could even process the fact that there was water in his lungs, she started giving him mouth-to-mouth, quickly clearing his airways… and then making out with him for a few minutes, just as a little snack for the road.
"Hmm, not bad," Tenn said, licking her lips as she came up for air, "Lot of potential here. I should check up on him in a year or so and see if that man-meat has grown any. Well, in any case, better send him on his way."
With a snap of her fingers, Tenn placed a spell on one of her bees and sent it buzzing towards Dib to transfer the magic to him… and with an impish smile, directed it towards his dick, which it promptly stung. As Dib bolted awake with a loud shout of pain, the teleportation spell Tenn had woven transferred into him and activated, carrying him away with a flash of light and leaving Tenn alone by the river, loud laughter echoing through the jungle.
As for Dib, the spell had latched onto his subconscious knowledge of where his home was and taken him there, doing so in such an immediate manner that by the time he regained coherence from his painful and sudden awakening, he was already lying on the ground in the middle of the village. Not that he noticed this right away, being distracted by the pain from the bee sting on his manhood and the disorientation from having nearly drowned.
"Gah, that's just what I need on top of everything else that's happened today," Dib moaned, before blinking in confusion as he looked around and saw where he was, "Wait, what? How'd I get back to the village? The last thing I remember is going over those falls. And what happened to that girl?"
Dib was concerned and confused about what had happened, but ultimately decided to ignore it for now. In the meantime, he was properly registering the fact that he was back in his own village, which was currently empty due to the time of night, so there was no one else to see his naked state, and he was actually not that far from his home. Finally, this nightmare was over!
All other thoughts leaving his head, Dib jumped to his feet and bolted down the road towards his family's treehouse. Quickly reaching it, he scrambled up the tree and passed through the door, planning to get to his room and grab a spare loincloth… and froze as he entered the house's main room, which was not only fully lit by numerous lanterns, but also filled with what appeared to be every girl in the village, who were all looking at the doorway with smirks of anticipation that immediately shifted to amusement as they took in his bare form and below-the-waist "shortcomings".
As the girls all burst into laughter and jeers aimed at the mortified Dib, Gaz stood off to the side, grinning nastily. After her run-in with Dib earlier in the day, she'd had a distinct feeling that with his luck, he'd fail to get any kind of cover before managing to get home. And as she never passed up the opportunity to either make him suffer or use him to her advantage, she'd quickly spread word among the village's younger female population of his predicament and charged them for the opportunity to catch him literally with his loincloth down, the girls all agreeing for the sake of some laughs.
"Would have been better if the moron hadn't taken all day to get back here," Gaz mentally snorted, "But definitely worth it for the amount of food and jewels these airheads were willing to pay up. Should keep me going comfortably for a while."
With that thought in mind, Gaz leaned back to bask in her brother's humiliation. Said humiliation would stick with him for the next several months, until that day Anansi swapped their fortunes around and left Gaz to be the new village laughingstock while Dib found himself with a harem composed mostly of the very girls who had mocked and teased him. Though karma would hit them too, as Tak would act to cement her place as Head Wife by inflicting all the others with a variety of illnesses that would keep them all bed-bound and unable to consummate with Dib for weeks.
Meanwhile, Tenn was surprised to find herself being heralded as a hero when she returned to the infernal realm. As it turned out, the totem that Dib wrecked while rescuing her was a long forgotten container of very powerful demonic magic. By releasing it, all demonic magic in the world had gotten a huge boost, while all non-demonic magic had greatly weakened. Everyone thought she'd done it intentionally… and Tenn wasn't about to correct them!
Demon Queen Miyuki was so happy with Tenn's success and "initiative" that she'd promoted her and sent her on the career fast-track that would eventually see her stationed in New Age-opolis, where she now found herself hiding from a chaotic invasion by her own kind…
Flashback Ends
In all the hustle and accolades that had come with her promotion, Tenn had of course completely forgot about the boy who she admittedly owed a lot to. Under different circumstances, she would've been delighted to see him again. Aside from owing him one, you can't go wrong with another body to warm yourself up with, after all. But now wasn't exactly an ideal time, what with the full-scale invasion happening right now… also, not only had his man-meat not gotten any bigger, it may have actually shrunk.
"What a waste," she muttered at the lost opportunity, deciding that she'd just have to leave him here when she made a break for a more secure location. Which she'd be doing as soon as the bees she'd sent out to scout the area returned and let her know the safest route away from the invading army's path.
However, before that could happen, Tenn finally smelled something mixed in with Dib's normal odor. A familiar scent that she immediately recognized, and which made her blood boil.
"Tak!" She hissed to herself. She and Tak had been rivals for a long time, constantly competing for who could spread more demonic influence; she'd recognize her scent anywhere! It was only the rancid stink of this dumpster they were in which had kept her from immediately recognizing it. Which, actually, was Dib's improved luck kicking in once more. For had Tenn smelled it immediately before recognizing him, she probably would have just killed him then and there just for being associated with her rival.
Speaking of Dib's luck…
Tenn sighed again. How she'd love to stick it to Tak by claiming one of her mates as her own… but there was no time for that! She needed to find better shelter than this dumpster, fast, before the chaos of the invasion hit this street. She would just have to leave him here and hope-
BOOM
Tenn was knocked over into the surrounding garbage as a rocket very nearly hit the dumpster, impacting the street only a few yards away. While this was far enough away that the dumpster and its contents weren't actually damaged, the blast was strong enough to make it jump in the air. And unfortunately for its occupants, it flew just far enough to land on the street on the opposite end of the alleyway… which was built on a hill. As such, almost immediately upon hitting the ground again, the dumpster started rolling downhill, taking Tenn and Dib with it.
On the bright side, this was taking them away from where the bulk of the demons' army currently was, soon putting them out of range of their artillery and any immediate danger. Unfortunately, this was not a pleasant ride, as they were both knocked around repeatedly against the dumpster's walls; if Dib wasn't already unconscious, he probably would have been rendered such, and Tenn was barely avoiding the same.
After a few extremely long minutes, the dumpster reached the bottom of the hill… at which point it slammed into a cart that someone had abandoned in the middle of the cross-street when the invasion had begun. The resulting impact flipped the dumpster up at a 90 degree angle, causing its lid to burst open and sending Tenn and Dib flying through the air, smacking into the side of a building and sliding to the ground.
"Ugh, that sucked," Tenn groaned as she lifted her aching body up. As she did so, however, she saw a swirling symbol surrounded by starbursts painted on the wall in front of her. Most people would probably think it was just random graffiti, but it was in fact a demonic rune which marked the location of a safe house that was set up for the infiltrators in case of emergencies.
Not believing her luck, Tenn quickly cast the necessary spells to first confirm this was real and not a trap, and then to prove that she was actually a demon. In response, the rune burst to life in a swirl of green and black energy, opening a portal into the secured room hidden inside the building. Sighing in relief, Tenn started to enter the portal, only to pause and look at where Dib was still lying unconscious on the ground next to her.
"Well, seems I'll have time to get to know you better after all," she purred in anticipation, grabbing Dib by the arm and dragging him through the portal, which closed behind them, safely hiding them away as the city burned around them.
XXXXXXX
Meanwhile, at the head of the demon forces swarming over the city, Red and Purple were sitting atop their steed, the Massive. It was an apt name, being a giant, monstrous creature with the body of a gorilla (albeit one the size of a small building), with the head of a crocodile but with a rhino's horn sticking out. It was an utterly unique creature that had been created by demon kind's greatest alchemists, for the sole purpose of carrying the Demon Lords into battle as the spearpoint of any invasion. And right now, the twin demons were greatly enjoying doing just that.
"Whoo!" Purple exclaimed as a building collapsed under a blow from one of the Massive's fists, "That's what I'm talking about!"
"Ha! This is almost too easy!" Red crowed, leaning back in the huge saddle atop the back of the Massive's neck that he and Purple were riding on, "That moron Nooth is probably too stupid to even use the defenses Miyuki built for this place. Without those, we'll flatten the whole city in no time!"
"Yeah, that- hey, what are you doing?" Purple asked, noticing Red tugging on the reins to turn the Massive's head to the right.
"What's it look like?" Red replied with a frown, "I'm moving us towards the center of the city. That's where most of the infrastructure is maintained from; we destroy that, we cripple the city."
"Okay, sure, that's great, but you can't turn!" Purple protested.
"Why not?"
"Because turning is for losers! Going straight no matter what is the newest thing!"
"What? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Red said, scowling at his twin, "Leaving aside the specifics of the current situation, we'd still need to turn at some point. You can't just walk solely in a straight line your whole life!"
"Says who? Now gimme those!" Purple shouted, grabbing the reins out of Red's hands and harshly tugging the Massive's head back in the direction it had been facing previously.
"Hey! Give those back!" Red snapped, grabbing the reins back and sending the Massive's head snapping to the side again.
"No way, we're going straight!" Purple said, keeping his grip on the reins and tugging them forward again.
"No we're not!"
"Yes we are!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
While the two Demon Lords argued, the poor Massive's head kept snapping back and forth between facing straight ahead and to the side. Naturally, this disoriented and upset the simple-minded beast. By the time that Red and Purple let go of the reins to start throttling each other, it had devolved into a blind rage; freed of their control, the Massive roared and started charging in a random direction, smashing through every building in its way without slowing down.
And heading right in the direction of Nooth's palace…
XXXXXXX
While New Age-opolis was invaded by the demons, on the divine plane Anansi was in a panic. Not because of what was happening to the city (though what had happened to Mulungu was concerning), but of events further afield.
The Yurugu-possessed Gaz had quickly spread out from that first village she had found herself in, several more just as swiftly falling under her dominance as soon as she entered them. And with each village, her band of worshippers grew, every person who laid eyes on her falling under her sway, their devotion in turn feeding Yurugu and increasing his power even further. And as for those who didn't see her directly when her growing horde reached their village, they were quickly cut down by her devout followers, the resulting blood sacrifice only adding yet more energy to Yurugu.
Any small part of Gaz's conscience that still existed and might have protested this bloodshed was utterly drowned out, as Yurugu's natural malevolence inflamed her own natural spite, apathy, and greed. The latter aspect, incidentally, being fueled by the fact that in addition to the pledges of loyalty, her horde of brainwashed followers were handing over everything of value that their villages had to offer — gold, silver, jewels, furs, anything and everything that might catch her eye was quickly snatched up and presented to her.
As it was, she was currently seated atop a pile of pillows on a palanquin that was being carried by several worshippers, still wearing the gold bikini that Yurugu had provided her but now also sporting a cheetah fur cloak and a crown that she'd had some blacksmiths melt down from some of her gold a few villages back. A pair of followers flanked her, fanning her with palm fronds, while more followers walked close to the palanquin, holding up several large barrels stuffed to the brim with her newfound treasures, the better for her to admire it all.
"Yeah, this is the life," Gaz sighed happily, oblivious to the fact that her eyes were now constantly and brightly glowing green, or that her voice was echoing as Yurugu's was overlaid on it.
"Yes, this is what you deserve," Yurugu whispered in her mind, "But not on such a small scale as this. The whole world should be groveling at your feet!"
"Yes, the whole world. Every single person should accept that they only exist to serve me," Gaz said, still not consciously noticing that the voice in her head wasn't her own, "The entire world will bow to me, or I'll burn it down!"
"Praise the Glorious One!" one of Gaz's attendants proclaimed in response to hearing her speak.
"Praise her!" the entire horde echoed. Gaz laughed at that, the glow and echo increasing as she fell further under Yurugu's influence.
"This is not good," Anansi mused fearfully as he looked down on the situation. At the rate he was gaining followers, and thus strength from their worship, it wouldn't be long before Yurugu consumed Gaz's soul and burst from her body. And while such an excruciating death was bad luck of the worst kind for her, it'd be even worse for the rest of the world, as a corporeal Yurugu would be virtually unstoppable and would soon conquer the entirely of humanity and demon kind alike.
Anansi had to stop that from happening, but the rules of divine intervention on the mortal world limited his actions, and most of his options weren't viable now that Gaz was surrounded by an army. But he had one last gambit to play which just might work, and so he quickly manipulated the threads of fate just so, to get the timing just right, and…
CRACK
THUD
Gaz and her followers jumped in surprise at a sudden loud noise off to the side of the road that the horde was currently traveling down. Many weapons were raised defensively as everyone turned to face the source of the sound, only to relax as they saw that it was just a tree that had apparently rotted through at the base and fallen over. Gaz snorted dismissively at the occurrence and started to turn to ignore it, only to pause as she caught sight of something in the distance, well past the fallen tree and all the trees beyond it. There, on the horizon, were several large pillars of smoke, and if Gaz listened very carefully, she could just hear the faintest echoes of the sounds of battle emanating from the same area as the smoke.
"Hmm, wonder what that is," she muttered, natural curiosity mixing with Yurugu's interest in joining a possible battle zone and influencing her decision on how to react to this sight.
"Alright, listen up!" she snapped, raising her voice so that the bulk of her servants could hear her, "We're heading in that direction to see what all the fuss is about, and then we're going to make everyone there join us or die, and take all their stuff. Got it?"
"By your decree, oh Glorious One!" one of the worshippers replied cheerfully, "Praise your divine name!"
"Praise her!" the horde echoed, as they turned and started walking towards the smoke, unknowingly heading towards New Age-opolis and the battle currently consuming it. Watching this, Anansi crossed his mandibles/fingers/abstract limb concepts in the hopes that this would work out the way he planned and end this threat before it could go any further.
He just had to prayer to a power higher than himself that being in close proximity to Dib and his good luck would be enough to offset the bad luck that had led to all this…
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: And that's a wrap for this chapter. I apologize if it got a little repetitive with what was happening with Dib, but again, I had an outline to follow.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it. One again, Happy Holidays, and everyone stay safe and healthy out there.
Please review!