Author's Note: This is the second fanfic I ever finished! Yippie! It's a lot different from my first fic, which was largely a drama. This one's pretty much all comedy, so pull up a chair and laugh yourself stupid! Wee-hee-hoo!
Disclaimer: This part is boring so you don't have to read it. Simply put, I don't own any of the characters in the story, but since I'm not making any money off it who really gives a cheese? Zim and Dib and GIR and everyone else belong to Jhonen Vasquez (yeah, they belong to Nickelodeon, too, but I'd never give those jerks any credit cause they won't show any new episodes! )
Impractical Magic
Chapter 1
It was another disgustingly bright and cheery day. Zim sat on a bench, watching the smelly Earth children jump and scamper around the skool playground, frittering their hopeless youths away. "Pit-i-ful HYOO-mans!" he snarled superiorly. He was minding his own business, muttering anti-Earth slander to himself like he did every day at recess in order to puff up his already over-inflated little ego, when he sensed someone watching him. He spun around and his eyes met those of a boy in a long, black coat. The boy gazed intensely at Zim, and as their eyes met the boy drew his brows together behind his large, round glasses and smirked.
"Dib." Zim narrowed his eyes. Dib looked as though he was in deep concentration as he watched Zim from across the skool yard. "He's so pathetic," Zim thought. "He has nothing better to do with his life than spend it staring at-"
Suddenly a soccer ball came out of nowhere and nailed him on the side of the head, knocking him clear off the bench. He landed on the pavement with a hard thump, but he didn't have time to worry about the pain. He frantically felt the top of his head to make sure his black wig hadn't been knocked off. Finding it still in place, leaped to his feet and glared furiously at the kids who'd kicked the ball.
"Who is responsible for this!" he demanded.
A boy wearing a jersey stepped up. He seemed extremely puzzled. "Hey, sorry man. We didn't mean to hit you," he said, scratching his head, "but the ball just went out of control."
"Yeah," piped up a girl with glasses. "It was so strange. We kicked the ball over there," she said, pointing to the opposite side of where Zim had been sitting, "and it curved or something and flew over and hit you!"
"You expect me to believe that pathetic dribble?" Zim shouted.
"Hey, it's true!" shouted another boy with orange hair. "We don't know how it happened! We swear there was no way that ball could've hit you the way we kicked it!"
"Fine," Zim growled, narrowing his eyes into burning slits. "I'll go along with this ridiculousness, only because I can't prove you didn't do this on purpose." And with that, he plopped himself back on the bench, crossed his arms over his scrawny chest, and watched the kids walk away examining the soccer ball in confusion.
Once again, he felt eyes on his back. Zim turned and glanced out of the corner of his eye. Dib was still watching him, only now he had a huge grin plastered on his face.
Soon the bell rang and the children were herded into the cafeteria for lunch. Zim picked up his tray from the counter and started towards the table where he always sat and ate alone. He picked up his milk carton and was about to open it, when once again he had the sensation of being watched. His eyes skimmed the room and he spied Dib sitting at a lunch table with his sister. The boy was staring at him.
Of course, this 'Zim Watching' of Dib's wasn't exactly unusual. Dib spent most of the skool day observing Zim for any chance that he might accidentally expose himself as an alien, and he'd be ready to pounce. But something was different today about the way Dib looked at Zim. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was suspicious. Then, he realized that Dib wasn't just staring at him. Though it was barely noticeable, Zim could see that he seemed to be moving his lips slightly, muttering something under his breath.
Zim snorted in disgust, "Now that ridiculous human is talking to himself." He forced his attention away from Dib and back to his milk carton, deciding to just ignore him for the moment. Zim pulled back the spout of the carton, and as he did the entire carton seemed to literally explode in his hand, milk spurting out in his face. Nearly drowning, Zim threw the carton as hard as he could, then sat there totally stupefied as milk dripped from his hair and chin.
"What the spoot was that?!" Zim examined the milk carton. "Hmm… Someone must have shaken it up," he thought, not really understanding that Earth milk isn't carbonated. He picked up a fistful of napkins and began mopping it from his face when he heard a chuckle from behind. He whipped around only to see Dib snickering at him, his features twisted in a mask of smug superiority.
"Hey Zim, got milk?" Dib chuckled at his little joke, then walked out of the cafeteria, grinning devilishly as he went. Growling, Zim flung the wad of wet napkins straight at Dib. The ball of napkins sailed through the air and Zim smiled eagerly at what looked like a direct hit, but the next second his jaw dropped practically to the floor. The napkins had been only a foot away from the back of Dib's head when they suddenly halted in midair and dropped to the ground, landing with a loud splat at his heels. Zim just stared in utter astonishment as Dib spun his head around and shot the Irken a mocking grin. As he did, Zim spied a thick, black book tucked under the boy's arm. Then, without a word, he stepped out the door and was gone, leaving Zim to ponder what the hell had just happened.
After a trip to the bathroom to wash the milk out of his wig, Zim headed back to class. Dib was already in his seat and he smirked at the green one as he came in. Zim shot him a dirty look and sat down. He's up to something, Zim thought. I still don't know how he did that thing with the napkins. It must have been a cross breeze, or a sudden freak increase in the Earth's gravity. Yeah, that's it- he was just lucky! Still, I'm keeping my superior eyes on him.
All through class, Zim kept glancing over at Dib suspiciously, waiting for him to try something, but Dib seemed to have lost interest in his alien foe and was concentrating on something on his desk- something he kept hidden with his coat sleeves. Zim really didn't care what Dib was so absorbed in, and, glad to have some momentary peace, he sighed and relaxed a bit. Then he felt someone tap him on the back.
"What?" he asked, turning to Zita, the girl in the chair behind him.
"What do you mean 'What?'" she replied.
"You tapped me on the back," Zim said.
"No I didn't."
Zim put a hand to his chin. Hmm, perhaps it was my imagination, he thought and returned facing the front of the room. A few seconds passed, and this time he felt a hard jab in his side.
"Knock it off!" he shouted, whirling around.
"I'm not doing anything!" Zita insisted.
"Oh yeah? Then who-" Zim began impatiently, but was cut off by something jabbing the top of his head. Suddenly, something wrapped itself around his wrist. Zim realized that it was one of his robotic extension tentacles (yeah, Zim's probably got a few of those in his PAK, too), and somehow it was going out of control. He grabbed at it with his free hand, but then another tentacle shot out of his PAK and wound itself around his body. Unable to keep his balance, he dropped to the floor, struggling there in a tangled heap until Miss Bitters slithered up and stood over him.
"Is there a problem?" she hissed.
"Uh, no, of course not. No problem here," Zim chuckled nervously. "But I think that I may need to go home."
"What for?" Miss Bitters demanded, her eyes blazing.
"I'm, uh… having trouble with my backpack," he answered.
"Fine, go home. It's not like you'll amount to anything anyway, so why bother wasting my time teaching you," Miss Bitters growled and turned back to the chalkboard where she continued drawing a diagram that illustrated how the universe would eventually collapse in on itself.
Zim mumbled a "Thanks" and slunk out of the room (as well as he could, for having metal tentacles wrapped around both his legs), but as he went, he instinctively glanced back. Just as he'd thought, Dib was watching him. The black book he'd seen him carrying earlier was sitting squarely open on his desk.
As Zim walked home, his mind tried to comprehend what had happened. "How could my robotic arms have gone out of control like that? They've never done that in my whole life, and I just checked them so they couldn't be malfunctioning." The Irken invader was still muttering to himself when he approached his house.
He slammed the door behind him as he stepped into the living room, his boot heels making loud clicks on the tile floor. He popped out his human-eye contact lenses and removed his wig. He was about to head down to his laboratory to examine his PAK and find out what had made it go haywire, when he sensed that he wasn't alone. "Who's there!" he barked, narrowing his large eyes down to red, burning slits. He scanned the room and noticed some movement from a corner draped in shadows. "Show yourself!" he ordered. A figure silently and obediently emerged out of the dark. The large glasses on its face glinted in the dim light.
"Hello, Zim…"
"You!" roared Zim as he found himself face to face with Dib. "How did you get in here!? And how come you're not at skool, still?"
Dib just grinned mysteriously in response.
"Never mind," Zim shouted furiously. "Grab the intruder!"
At Zim's command, half a dozen robotic, tube-like arms flew down from the ceiling and shot straight for Dib, metal claws outstretched. As they were about to strike, they suddenly veered sharply away from him. They seemed to freeze in place, and he pointed a finger at the immobile arms, muttering something that was inaudible to Zim. Suddenly, the robotic arms exploded in a burst of sparks and shrapnel. Zim jumped out of the way of the red-hot bits of metal and landed in a spiraling summersault on the floor. Breathing heavily from where he lay, Zim's mouth hung agape and his eyes had grown wide at what he'd just witnessed. He rolled over and leaned on his elbows, gawking up at his attacker.
"H-how?! How did you do that!?" he demanded, not sure whether to be impressed or enraged.
"Surprised?" Dib asked with a smirk, and Zim had to admit that he actually was. "I knew you would be. You see, after all this time I realized that I've been going about capturing you all wrong. Every time I'd try to subdue you, you'd just use some weird, alien device to escape, or zap me, or send me into another dimension or something. At every turn you've thwarted my plans with your technology, so I've finally found the one thing that your technology isn't prepared to defend against..." Dib paused for dramatic effect then whispered ominously: "Magic."
Laughing, he pulled the big, black book he'd been lugging around earlier out from under his coat.
"Magic?" Zim repeated. He'd never heard of this 'magic' before.
"Yes, Zim. You don't spend your whole life as an expert in the paranormal without picking up a dash of the occult as well. This book is full of magic spells that enable me to control the forces of nature as I see fit!" Dib cackled. "And whatever 'Zim' tricks you try to pull with all your little gadgets won't be able to combat against my supernatural powers!"
Zim glared at Dib, then snorted, "Phfft… give me a break, Dib. Do you honestly think that this magic thing is any match against my superior, Irken technology?"
"I don't need to think it, I've already proven it! Your robotic arms were useless on me just a minute ago, not to mention I had some fun with your tentacle-thingies back in class."
"That was you?" Zim screamed, outraged.
"Yes. And that thing with the milk was me too. And I'm the one who made that soccer ball hit you at recess. But all that was all just a warm up. Now I'll show you the true extent of my powers!" As Dib said this, he began to lift off the ground until he hovered far above Zim's head. He pointed down at Zim and shouted, "Prepare for your end, Zim!"
Oooo… exciting, huh! Wait till you see the chaos that is to come MWAHAHAHAHA! Say… where did Dib get a spell book anyway? Well, I really don't know so I'm not gonna bother coming up with an explanation since it's really not important.
