A/N: I'm sure many of the CWZ game concepts here and in upcoming chapters are from numerous actual computer games. Can't give proper credit because the concepts are fairly basic and found pretty much everywhere. As usual I own nothing, have no money, and am not responsible.
After skool Zim rode back to his base in Gaz's jeep. It was an old model, black with dark violet striping running down the middle and along the side. They didn't say much, and it was a short drive anyway. Some of that may have had to do with Zim tightly clutching his seatbelt.
"Relax Zim, I'm not a bad driver like you are," Gaz remarked noticing Zim's tension.
"Zim is not impressed with the durability of Earth vehicles. Not used to the open air construction either," he gritted through his teeth.
Gaz thought a bit about this for a moment. Then she realized that Zim's upbringing probably had a lot to do with his current unease. After all he was trained to pilot spacecraft engineered to survive fighting in vacuum, and on native worlds where nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons could have been deployed against an Irken Invader. Or more likely by one. The slightest crack in a vehicle under such conditions meant a very ugly death, and here she was giving Zim a ride back home in a jeep with only a roll cage for a roof.
Zim had been on his absolute best behavior toward her at every encounter the whole day, had in fact given her not one but two fantastic gifts and agreed to join her so she could compete in something she wanted to do. Gaz inwardly kicked herself at the realization. She was not used to people deserving positive consideration. "Sorry Zim. I didn't think. We're almost there."
The alien beside her dipped his head in acknowledgement. "It is alright. Zim has adjusted over time to the foolishness of human design limitations."
He had in fact calmed down the phobia over Earth germs and a few other things, but that didn't mean he was rejoicing at the open air rushing over them. Gaz let off the gas pedal a bit and the vehicle slowed down some.
They arrived at Zim's house uneventfully. As they walked up to the men's room door that served as the entrance, it opened and Gir in his dog disguise rushed out and attached himself to Gaz's leg. "SCARY LADY CAME! I'm soooo haaaaaapy!" He pulled an object out of his head. "I made youuu a cupcake."
Gaz noted Zim giving her a warning shake of the head. "Umm, thanks Gir. I'll have it later. Can you keep it for me?"
"SUURE." With that Gir proceeded to dig a large hole in the front yard with a shovel he pulled also out of his head.
Once in the house Zim walked over to a nearby end table that was near the front door. "So what's wrong with Gir's cupcake?" Gaz asked as his back was turned.
"I can't supervise Gir while I'm at skool, so it may not be digestible by human standards. He's had a thing about soap lately. Plus he discovered the free toys in cereal boxes and sometimes he gets these ideas..."
Zim opened a drawer, keeping himself between it and Gaz, and lifted out an object. Closing the drawer he turned to face the human girl, handing her the object in his possession. "Last month Zim has found it necessary to upgrade base security again. Unfortunately Zim was overzealous with the IFF recognition protocols."
Gaz took it in her hand and made a quick examination. It looked like either a collar or a thick necklace, made of finely woven black metal and forming a V in the front. A faint green gem-like circle a half-inch across was embedded in the tip of the V. Zim continued, "This will act as a transponder so the computer will recognize you as a guest rather than an intruder. In case you have to use the, um, facilities." There was only the living room and kitchen on the surface level of Zim's base. "Under no circumstances should you put it on. Once the clasps link they fuse and it will be impossible to remove it off of your person without removing your head."
"What is it, an Irken slave collar or something?" she asked with distaste, carefully putting the collar in the discreet front pocket of her dress underneath her precious skull necklace.
"Yeah, something," Zim muttered turning toward the couch and pulling out his GameSlave. It was the only furniture in the sparse living room that people could sit on.
"Whatever," Gaz replied as she took a position on the other end of the couch with her own GameSlave in hand.
They had already spent that lunch going over some of the game basics. Now she was showing him various infantry equipment rigs and keypad combinations. Gaz had to admit that Zim had a very sharp learning curve. Not that he had a knack for doing things right, but he learned quickly as they ran linked team sessions against non-playable-characters.
Two hours later they were still on the couch punching away at the buttons on their GameSlaves. Gir had come in and settled down on the floor to watch the Angry Monkey Show. Neither Zim or Gaz paid attention as the show was just an angry monkey staring at the camera for all eternity. It had huge ratings.
"Okay Zim, let's move on to the vehicles." Gaz was starting to be impressed with Zim's learning curve. Oh, he was very prone to frustration but he kept telling himself that he was new to the control system and needed to train his muscle memory. And he still wasn't inclined to do things the right way, but Zim was trying to not intentionally annoy Gaz with his antics.
Wow. Would you look at his potential, she thought. In only two and a half hours of game time he was at a point that most human players took a week at least to reach. He still didn't have much in the way of play tactics and strategy, but that would come later.
"YES! AT LAST!" Zim cried out as he guided his character straight toward the "front lines" section of the map, and the biggest vehicle in the game. The towering Armored Assault Walker.
"Zim! Where do you think your going? That's the most difficult thing to control in the whole game! We need to start you off in the light Ground Effect Vehicles first." Gaz had moments of frustration too.
"But but," Zim sputtered.
"Turn around or I'll show you how friendly fire works. And I don't mean in the game."
Zim resentfully turned his character around and followed Gaz's to the GEV staging area on their side of the map.
It was nearly 8:00 that night and Gaz felt like she wanted to burst out in either hysterical laughter or a scream and it seemed Zim was inclined to do the same.
Zim was a disaster driving any GEV, and there were many of the hovering vehicles to choose from. They had started out on the scout cars. These were light and fast with a single automatic mini rail gun mounted on the roof. They were too fast for Zim to control, and with no contact with the ground there was no traction to help overcome inertia. He spent most of the time bouncing off of every tree, building and boulder in the environment.
Next they tried some of the other GEVs. The Armored Personnel Carrier carried a turreted medium Gauss autocannon with rear twin mortar tubes. In the game it was used primarily for escorting heavy armor against rocket infantry and aircraft threats. The Main Battle Tanks were slow beasts with a poor turn rate. But they carried a heavy phased plasma gun and twin light Gauss autocannons or unguided rockets depending on the type of unit. These heavy GEVs were more Zim's style, but he tended to run over his own team in the process and getting stuck between obstacles.
Then they tried the aircraft. These were not a significant portion of the game, and were used primarily for ground support. Sadly Zim's aircraft seemed to be equipped with ground-collision technology. Zim just was not a driver. He could handle the tactical system alright, but he needed Gaz to drive and that just would not work. They would be outnumbered in the competition by two and a half to one at a minimum. Running around in a single vehicle wasn't going to cut it, leaving them outnumbered by at least five to one.
It was getting on in the evening and Gaz had homework to do, plus she hadn't eaten dinner so she was hungry. "Okay Zim, let's call it a night." She was feeling a bit discouraged, not knowing how they would pull this off. It looked hopeless unless they could overcome the GEV problem. That was where the game's firepower was concentrated. Infantry did well against armor in jungle maps with lots of cover, but were too vulnerable and slow in open terrain like desert or grassland.
Zim wasn't about to give up so easily after being told how he was supposed to do things for two hours and being less than, well, impressive. "Not yet, Gaz-zilla. There is only one more vehicle to try."
Gaz groaned. He was already running his character over to the single Armored Assault Walker. The most complex and difficult vehicle in the game. It towered over everything else, riding on two hydraulic legs and heavily armored. The beast was even more heavily armed with rocket launchers carrying anti-aircraft, fire-and-forget anti-tank, in-direct fire fragmentation munitions, and even a couple of tactical nukes. Then there were the two heavy autocannons mounted on each wrist joint and a heavy plasma gun tucked inside both forearms. It was designed to dominate the combat zone, and as such usually turned into a fire magnet. But it was notoriously hard to control because it could do too many things at once.
The main body could rotate as the drive unit kept moving forward, and at the same time the arms could also rotate up and down. It sounded simple but was difficult tracking targets while navigating a massive object around numerous obstacles. Plus the missile system mounted on the back of the machine and over the shoulders required controlling a targeting system for areas behind blocking terrain while the projectile and energy weapons had direct line-of-sight. Those weren't even the advanced controls to deploy anti-missile decoys, electronic jamming and a host of other features. Most people who got in the thing used "stand-and-shoot" tactics, using the walker as a mobile fortress to control strategic choke-points on the map until the health points finally ran out and they bailed. It was one of those ideas that looked good on paper, but was a bit much for the limited control interface of the portable GameSlave. It was more suited for the desktop computer versions of the game and even then it was a challenge to use it to it's full potential.
"Okay Zim. Two minutes then I'm heading home," she said. Zim had made a good and honest effort tonight, and if he wanted to try something that couldn't possibly work, she would humor him. Gaz powered down her own device and scooted over to watch on Zim's display.
Thirty seconds later Gaz's wide eyes were staring at the screen. Five minutes later her jaw was hanging open. When his character finally died he shut the gaming device down and got up off the couch to face his partner. "Eh," he muttered, unimpressed. "Zim is very rusty, and these buttons are still unfamiliar. Zim promises improvement, but it was only a first attempt."
Gaz just looked at him unable to find words. Zim had just pulverized what she could have done in her best in-the-zone effort with the Assault Walker and he thought it sucked! And on a portable GameSlave at that! She got up on her feet searching for words. "That...That was unbelievable Zim! I can't...can't." Gaz's brain finally caught up with her and remembered the first vehicle Zim ran for at the very beginning. "Wait a minute. You knew!? This whole time and you knew you could run that thing?"
"Of course," Zim replied coolly. "But you wouldn't hear Zim out. Gaz-zilla needed to be taught to trust Zim when her partner knows what he is about."
Gaz was now realizing that she had been stepping on Zim's skills for over two hours and, without lifting a finger or implying any kind of threat, had just gotten even. On her. No one else had ever done so. Or been fearless enough to even try. She had not even seen it coming or had any defense against it. Zim had her hook, line and sinker and she didn't even have his usual Zim antics to deflect anything back toward the alien. Gaz was flabbergasted. "But you hadn't even heard of CWZ until today!"
"The game? Zim had the real thing on Irk!" the alien invader boasted.
"Real thing, as in actual experience? I thought Earth was your first assignment as an Invader and you've never had one of those operational here!" Gaz was searching through her memory trying to piece the puzzle together. The Zim she knew was an idiot and everything he had tried to do to conquer or destroy Earth had been thwarted by Dib (occasionally with her help) or self-destructed spectacularly. And some of those plans he came up with were pretty lame by themselves. Like the time he just walked around town tossing mutant rats through people's windows, which then ate the residents toilet paper supply.
"Yes, yes. Operation Impending Doom One was cancelled before the Armada could be deployed."
"Cancelled? Why?"
"Oh." Zim muttered as he turned to walk away. "Zim got...carried away. Zim started the invasion before we left our homeworld."
"You mean you cut loose on your own planet in one of those things?" Gaz asked pointing at Zim's GameSlave.
"Ha! That was a little brother compared to my Frontline BattleMech. At least six times as big," he replied proudly. Zim's face then turned a tad sheepish. "Devastated half of Irk before it was over." He walked over to a camouflaged elevator to go down into his lab.
Gaz was shocked. She just couldn't imagine the same Zim that had constantly failed in his mission on a hopelessly pathetic Earth could accidentally pull off something of that magnitude. "You mean with a full invasion marshaled for deployment, it took that long for your military to stop you?"
"No, no, no." Zim shook his head chuckling and began to descend down the shaft. "I blew up all the other invaders. It took that long for my unit's power cell to run out." And with that he disappeared into the base's depths.
Gaz didn't know how to process all of this. It just didn't fit with the image of Zim she had pictured for all these years, the bumbling buffoon. The girl turned to leave, fumbling to pull the transponder collar out of her dress' pocket so she could return it. Zim hadn't asked for it back, but he often forgot or overlooked important details. Like departing from your own homeworld before you cut loose, she thought trying to digest that. Gaz went over to the end table and pulled open the drawer to return the collar to its place. Looking inside she let out an involuntary gasp.
Inside she saw a matching collar, but only one. With the size of the ego Zim carried around she would have expected dozens of the slave collars. But that wasn't what caused her to gasp. It was the other things located within. A few dozen pictures, notes, and pieces of debris. Each had her handwriting on them. Every single thing Gaz had slipped into Zim's locker over the years. It was a keepsake drawer.
Exactly like the one she had.
Gaz closed the drawer quickly, her mind telling her that this wasn't something Zim wanted anyone to see. The whole thing was screaming private. She placed the transponder collar she was holding on top of the end table and left the house.
As Gaz returned home and attended her homework, her mind buzzed with new thoughts, trying to reassemble her now fragmented picture of Zim. It didn't make sense. She pushed the sight of Zim's keepsake drawer into the back corner of her mind as she had too much to process at the moment. And truth to tell, some things she didn't want to process at all right now.
Like how that drawer in Zim's house said another word other than private. Just like her own keepsake drawer it had another word to say that she didn't want to think about.
Treasured.