Chapter 2
Zim wasted no time and quickly whipped out a laser gun. He began firing at Dib, but the lasers just seemed to bounce off of some invisible shield. Dib laughed and thrust his palms in Zim's direction and a bright flash of blue lightning flew from his hands, hitting Zim and knocking him clear across the room. Shaking his head, Zim tried to get up, but was immediately hit with another blast of energy that sent him slamming into the wall. The tiny Irken invader cried out in pain. Dib thought it was music to his ears. "Ha ha! Now I'll-" Dib began, but he was interrupted by an enormous explosion from the kitchen. A puff of smoke billowed from the door and GIR emerged from it, covered with ash. The little robot coughed a few times, then clanged to the floor in a charred heap.
"What did you do to GIR!?" Zim gasped in horror, pointing an accusing finger at Dib.
"Nothing," he replied, dryly.
"Oh…" Zim rolled his eyes.
"I made a cake!" GIR chirped, sitting up. He glanced up at Dib exclaimed, "Oooo, floaty!"
"Now is NOT the time to be impressed, GIR!" Zim growled.
"Enough of this!" Dib yelled, growing annoyed. He released another blast of white-hot energy, but Zim wasn't about to fall for the same trick twice. He leaped speedily out of its path. Dib was not deterred and fired again, but the nimble alien easily out maneuvered his attacks every time.
Dodging another blast, Zim ducked behind the coffee table long enough to hiss at his incompetent, metal companion. "GIR! Are you just going to sit there!? HELP ME!" he ordered.
GIR continued to sit in the middle of the floor, a big stupid grin plastered on his face, legs kicking up and down happily. Then, sensing that someone was saying something to him, he looked up and drawled innocently, "What?"
Zim smacked his forehead. He'd have to win this battle by himself.
All of the sudden the table he was hiding behind was vaporized into dust. Zim dove quickly away in a panic as Dib sent more power blasts his way. Breathing heavily, Zim ran around the room in random patterns, trying to avert his nemesis's evil power, and it seemed to work; for the life of him, Dib just couldn't seem to get off a shot at the swift, agile invader. His lightning power didn't seem to be having much effect, so he tried hurling other things: fire balls, daggers, ninja death stars, spouts of water. Growing desperate, he even tried nailing Zim with slices of projectile bologna, but always in vain. Dib gritted his teeth and frowned a frown to end all frowns, his fists shaking with rage. Zim ceased his getaway and acknowledged his enemy's fury with an arrogant sneer.
"Your powers are impressive, Dib, I will admit that, but still no match for the superior speed and skill of an invader. Even without my technology I'm still more than a match for you."
Dib scowled, his trench coat billowing out behind him like an angry cobra's hood. "It's not over yet, Zim! I've got more than one trick up my sleeve." With that, he snapped his fingers while simultaneously reading aloud a passage from the black book.
Out of nowhere, a loud buzzing filled Zim's nonexistent ears. His smile fell flat as he suddenly felt stabbing pricks of pain all over his body.
"AHHGH! BEEEEES!" he screamed. Thousands of them were swarming around him, and at least half of those were stinging him. Zim started to run around in a panic, swatting and cursing at the bees, while Dib, still suspended in the air high above him, laughed maniacally. He snapped his fingers once more and Zim's black and yellow attackers vanished in an instant. Zim, who was now ripe and puffy with bee stings, collapsed to the ground. He lay there moaning in agony, but Dib's fun wasn't over yet.
"Aww, poor Zim," he cooed mockingly, gently floating back down to the floor. "Here, let me help you reduce that swelling." Dib flipped through a few more pages then uttered an ancient, odd sounding, barely pronounceable phrase. No sooner had the words passed his lips than Zim's skin began to tingle, starting in his arms and legs and spreading quickly throughout his body. He could feel the pain subsiding and, managing to open a half-swelled eye, saw that his puffiness really was going down… but something was wrong. The swelling was gone, leaving his green skin smooth once again, but the tingly feeling still crawled all over him, and too late he realized that not only was the swelling being reduced, but so was he! Zim filled with dread as the room expanded around him, the walls and furniture growing monstrously large as he shrank smaller and smaller. Finally the spell had had its full effect and Zim stood up, finding that he was now only about the size of a Coke can.
"Oops, guess I overdid it!" Dib's voice seemed to thunder, startling Zim as the boy stared down smugly at his handiwork.
Zim took a step back and tightened his shaking hands into hard fists. Seeing his worst enemy looming over him like something out of a nightmare terrified him, but he'd never give Dib the pleasure of knowing that. Swallowing hard and trying to keep a steady voice, he called up to his relatively gigantic nemesis. "Oh get a life, Dib. I've been small before!"
"Maybe so, but this time you don't have your little nano-ship to zip around in." Dib grinned self-contentedly and flipped over another page in the spell book. "I'm calling the shots now."
His brown eyes skimmed the page, then dropped down and burned into Zim's angry, red jewel-like ones. "And now," he thrust a hand into the air dramatically, "we end this!"
Dib read some more strange words from the book and Zim felt his insides tying into knots as his foe began to transform. His outline seemed to melt into a black shadow, which twisted and constantly reformed itself into a number of hideous shapes before settling on its final, terrible form. Where Dib had stood, there was now a large, grayish-black cat wearing his glasses. Dib's new cat ears twitched and he smiled, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. He ran his tongue over them hungrily. Leaning back on his haunches, the cat suddenly sprang at the tiny alien.
Though overwhelmed by all this, Zim's instincts were as sharp as ever, and he dodged out of the way just as Dib's claws sank into the spot where he'd been only a microsecond before. Breathing heavily, Zim scuttled across the room as fast as he could, heading for any sort of protective covering, but Dib was already at the back of his heels and gaining. With a lightning quick motion, Dib reared his claws and struck Zim hard on the side. He flew to the ground with a sharp squeak of pain. He tried to quickly get up and make another break for it, but Dib was wise to Zim's plan and pounced in front of his path before the little Irken could go any further. Hissing violently, the Dib-cat swung its paw down and pinned him to the floor. Dib's lips curled up and he leaned close to his captor, his hot tuna-breath burning Zim's face.
"Well, Zim, I hope you enjoyed our brief game of 'cat and mouse,' but it has to end now- and I'm afraid you lose." Dib's teeth glistened as he raised his other paw and curled his deadly, sharp claws to strike.
"It's not over yet, Dib-cat!" Zim screamed as one of his extension legs shot out of his PAK and headed straight for Dib's eye.
Even though his eyes were protected by his glasses, Zim's sudden attack still made him flinch enough so that the shrunken alien could wriggle out from under his paw and escape. Dib growled in frustration and was instantly in pursuit.
All the while this was going on, GIR had been sitting on the couch oblivious to the whole thing, lost in his own little world and making up a song about a pig and a duck. But now he was getting bored, and something large and black on the floor caught his attention.
Uh-oh, you just KNOW it's gonna get insane now! ^_^ But I won't give anything away; you'll just have to read the next chapter.
