Arm: Chapter twelve has finally arrived! Woo! That means we're back from Ohio! And we have our computer back! ::hugs her computer::
Leg: Sometimes I worry about you, you know.
Arm: Aw, it's nice to know you care. I'm in a good mood, but I don't know about this fic… Sorry, lame joke. Go ahead and read it.
Betraying the Rivalry: Chapter Twelve: Tracking the Disk: Part One
Debbie smiled happily to herself. Zim was very easy to get pictures of. She was expecting him to put up much more of a fight as well. She laughed to herself as she walked inside her new home. Oh, was victory sweet. She had Zim in the palm of her hand. He couldn't do a thing to her if he didn't want his true identity revealed.
"Hello, Debbie. Were you able to fix whatever happened at your lab?" Membrane asked her as she kissed him on the forehead.
"Oh, of course, honey. Where's Dib?" Debbie asked as she placed the disk in her purse.
"Upstairs in his room, as usual," Membrane answered. "Why do you want to know?" he asked as he looked up at her from his work.
"I need to talk to him," Debbie said with a wry smile. She kissed Membrane again before heading for Dib's room. She knocked on the door and waited for Dib to answer it. Dib finally answered the door, and he narrowed his eyes at Debbie when he saw her.
"What do you want?" he asked as he walked out of his room and shut the door behind him.
"I just wanted to tell you that I was just at Zim's. I got pictures of him without wearing his disguise. I made a deal with him," Debbie stated.
"What kind of deal?" Dib asked, acting as if he didn't know what she was talking about.
"I can't tell you, it's strictly between Zim and I," Debbie told him. "And as long as Zim sticks to the deal, I won't show the pictures to the world," Debbie continued as she pulled out a disk much like the one Dib used to store his pictures of Zim. Dib just studied it and made sure he knew what if looked like when he went to go searching for it.
"Aren't you going to try and get it out of my hands?" Debbie asked him. She watched as Dib glanced up at her.
"No, because you have your height on your side. I'm no fool, Debbie," Dib stated.
"I guess you are smarter than I thought," Debbie said in disbelief. "But don't you want to protect your friend?" Debbie asked.
"Of course I do," Dib answered. "But I know that Zim can take care of himself," Dib said. It wasn't a lie, at least, but Dib wanted to get those pictures back for Zim.
"We'll continue this conversation later, I have to go make dinner," Debbie told him as she walked away, giggling madly to herself. She held the disk in her hand as she walked away. Dib decided to take a chance at getting it back, and grabbed at the disk. He was so close to it, but then Debbie moved her arm up and Dib fell flat on his face. "Don't try that again, Dib," Debbie ordered as she continued walking.
"Damnit," Dib whispered to himself. "I'll get those pictures, Debbie, if it's the last thing I do," Dib promised as he walked back into his room.
Dib just continued smiling. She knew what Dib said, but she knew that he would never get the pictures, not after she hid them in her lab, in her secret place.
Dib walked back into his room and dusted himself off. He should have been focused on following Debbie instead of getting the pictures back. He closed his door and continued soundproofing his room as he watched Debbie through his security cameras he had put up when he and Zim were still trying to kill each other. He watched her place the disk on the table and almost went downstairs to swipe them when she wasn't looking, but he knew it wasn't going to work.
Dib then got an idea. He should place a small transmitter on Debbie so that he could track her every move, even when she was out of the house and in her lab, wherever that was. Maybe if he found a way to place one on the disk instead, he could get it from her whenever she placed it and left it there.
"Yeah, that'll work…" Dib muttered to himself as he continued working.
At his house, Zim was already tracking the disk. He had placed a transmitter on Debbie's hand when they made their deal, and the transmitter rubbed off her hand and onto the disk, just like he had hoped it would. He wanted to call Dib and tell him this, but he wasn't sure if it was safe. He didn't want Debbie to know he was going against his word already.
Zim summoned for Gir. Gir was going to be his back-up plan, if the transmitter were to malfunction in anyway. "Gir, I want you to follow this filthy human around for a while, got it? Just make sure to tell me if she were to leave Dib's house, whenever she does," Zim ordered as he pointed to a picture of Debbie.
"Yes, my Master!" Gir said as he put on his doggy costume. He saluted Zim before leaving to go see if that human would leave her home.
Zim made a small plea to his god that Gir would do his job, for once. He went over to his computer and sent Dib an email. He noticed that Jazz had sent him an email, but he didn't pay any attention to it as he went over to his other screen on his computer.
"Computer, I want you to search for transmitter 004 and its location," Zim ordered.
"Processing…PROCESSING!" the computer shouted before spitting out a paper.
Zim thanked the computer and looked over the paper. "So, she's still at Dib's house. She shouldn't be there much longer, she has to go to her lab sooner or later," Zim thought out loud to himself.
He considered using his Micro-Ship again, but he remembered it was still being repaired from the last time he had used it. He could have gotten the information as to where Debbie was going to hide the disk that way, but he figured this way would have to do for now.
Dib paused. He thought he had heard his computer blip. He got up from soundproofing his room and headed over to his computer. The email he had received was from Zim.
"What does he have to say now?" Dib asked himself as he opened the email. He read it and took in everything Zim had to say.
"So, Zim already put a transmitter on the disk. No problem. He even gave me the frequency it gave off. Man, he really thought ahead," Dib whispered to himself.
"Dib, you moron, dinner's ready!" Gaz shouted at him as she opened his door to yell at him.
"I'll be down in a minute," Dib snapped at her as she shut his door. Dib got up out of his seat after he deleted the email. He locked his door from the outside so that Debbie couldn't go sneaking in it while he ate.
Dib sat down in his usual spot at the table. He avoided conversation at all costs; he didn't feel like talking to Debbie. He eyed the disk that she was still carrying around, as if she had just won it as a prize, and couldn't see the transmitter, so he figured that Zim had used a microscopic one. He ate quietly, hoping that Debbie wouldn't speak to him.
"So, Dib, how's that project you were working on with Zim?" Membrane asked.
"It's going pretty well. We plan to finish it tomorrow," Dib replied quickly.
"Oh, but Dib, I wanted to have a family outing tomorrow," Debbie said in her best fake voice.
"'Family outing'? Nobody warned me about a family outing," Dib said. He knew he had to keep his act up.
Debbie walked behind him and whispered: "You can't go to Zim's anyway, if you don't want his true identity known to the world."
Dib tried not to glare at her as he finished his dinner. He wanted to get away from Debbie, and fast. He didn't want to hear all this from her, he already knew about it.
Excusing himself from the table, Dib went back upstairs to his room the second he finished eating and continued soundproofing his room. He walked up the stairs slowly, so that it would seem that he was in a rush to get away from them. He installed the frequency into his computer and worked on his room. Now he could track the disk with Zim, and not feel as if he wasn't doing anything to help.
It was later that same day. Gir was sleeping soundly in the bushes next to Dib's house, Zim was nodding off at his computer, but Dib remained strong and was wide-awake. Dib had been watching the frequency on his computer screen for hours, after he had finished with soundproofing his room. It was only one in the morning, but Debbie just never stopped moving the disk.
Dib was getting tired of Debbie moving the damned disk all over her lab. Why couldn't she just place the disk somewhere? He knew that she thought that he was only after the disk because of the part of the deal she had made with Zim. He was just about to call it a night when the transmitter stopped moving.
Dib held his breath. He was afraid that Debbie was going to move the disk again, like she had done the last five hundred times. He watched the computer screen apprehensively for the next fifteen minutes and the disk did not move. He jotted down the coordinates of the disk, just in case she moved the disk again while he was sleeping.
Dib picked up his communicator and turned it on, hoping that Zim still had his on. He smiled when he heard Zim's voice come in through the earpiece.
"Yes, Dib?" Zim asked, holding in a yawn.
"Zim, are you paying attention to the transmitter? It finally stopped moving," Dib told him.
"It has?" Zim asked as he flipped through the stations on his computer to find it. "So it has," he replied to himself as he smiled. "Dib, we're going to get that disk back tomorrow," Zim ordered, now wide-awake.
"I can't, Zim. Debbie planned the family outing behind my back," Dib stated with an air of sadness.
"Damn, I really wanted to see you tomorrow," Zim muttered.
Dib smiled at that. "Yeah, I know. I wanted to see you too…. Look, Zim, we should both get some sleep. G'night, Zim," Dib said as he yawned.
"Night, Dib, have sweet dreams," Zim said as he turned off his communicator. These next few days were going to be a living nightmare, so they really deserved those dreams.
Arm: I have no comments to say at the end of this. How…strange.
Leg: Me neither. Oh well. Please read and review, it would make us so happy!