A/Note: I am in mourning for my boots. *sigh* Okay, on with the story, but
first:
Yeppers, Ivory guessed right. Heh, Dib's calling himself 'Agent Mothman' sort of inspired me to try and depict him as a horrible dark scary monster to the irkens, in the style of his Swollen Eyeball moniker. Even if he's still got bits of processed cheese stuck in his hair! Poor Dib, lol. Don't feel too bad if you didn't get it last chapter, it was a little obscure. Thanks again to Kat23a, Kami and Daegon, Purple's Right Hand Girl, and Sanely Challenged for reading and reviewing. Sorry you think the story's dragging, Sanely.. You shoulda been there for the two month hiatus while I went to Washington on vacation last summer.. Now that was a dragging story line. My Zim fic disk has been in the White House!
If you're waiting for a big Zim fight scene… well … er…
Chapter Eight: Gaz
Red numbly glanced back and forth between the shattered remains of the Tallest's former escape vehicle and the huge metallic shape that was wedged in the wall through what had been their balcony. Finally deciding to try looking in another direction, he turned his pinkish gaze down to where Purple was sulking in the floor despondantly.
"Do you think we should do something?" Red asked hesitantly. Purple rubbed at his aching head gingerly. "Why are you asking me? I thought YOU were the one who had all the answers, and I was just the pretender who got in your way?" Red growled dangerously. "Oh, you've always thought that you were SO smart!" he fumed, leaning over his co-ruler. "Well someone in our position had to be!" Purple shot back, shoving Red away and rising to his feet again.
"Sarcastic twit!"
"Reckless idiot!"
"SIR polisher!"
"Oh, now you've gone too far!"
Gaz finally managed to force the jammed hatch to her hijacked mech unit open. "I think your landings may be improving, GIR." she commented dryly as she kicked the door the rest of the way ajar. GIR happily nodded, then went back to playing with the directional control wheel that he still held in his small metal hands. "Bbrrrrrroooo... vrrrrroooom... Beeeep! Low clearance! This is a blue light special, K-Mart shoppers!" he cried as he twisted the controls back and forth.
Smiling slightly to herself, Gaz turned her attention to the scene outside. She blinked. Two large irkens were rolling around on the floor, apparently engaged in a vicious fist fight. She crossed her arms and stared out at the display in confusion. The two of them hadn't even noticed that she and GIR were practically standing right in front of them. She shook her head wonderingly and leaned back against the surface of the mech. She was curious to see who would win this bout. It was the best entertainment she'd come across since letting GIR drive.
An hour later, Gaz yawned. The Tallest were still breathlessly screeching insults at each other and lobbing empty drink containers and couch cushions back and forth. She glanced down and noticed for the first time that GIR was no longer sitting beside her stacking bits of rock into miniature cities to rampage through. She looked up just in time to see the large double doors to the chamber being pried open by the little robot. Forgetting the arguing Irken leaders for the moment, Gaz carefully picked her way down to the ground in her awkward boots and jogged over towards him.
GIR's face swiveled towards her as she approached, and she was startled to see that his large eyes were glowing a determined, obedient red. "GIR? What're you doing? What's going on?" she asked, a bit taken aback by his unexpected behavior. "Master is coming." He answered bluntly, and returned his gaze to the hallway beyond the doorway.
Gaz frowned slightly. GIR's cold demeanor abruptly evaporated as he threw wide the doors with a delighted cheer of "Master's HERE!" just before Zim himself came hurtling through them. Zim skidded to a halt, scrambled backwards and shoved the doors shut, collapsing against them. As he stood gasping for breath, he didn't seem to register the presence of anyone else in the room. GIR leapt into the air and landed on his master's shoulders, happily exclaiming over their reunion.
Zim gave a blood-curdling scream and all eyes were on the disheveled former invader as he fell to the floor, completely exhausted physically and emotionally. GIR sat on Zim's frantically heaving chest and stared at him in puzzlement. He made a slight face and looked up at Gaz. "Master smeeeeeeeeeeells." he informed her. "I know." she replied, pinching her nose closed with two fingers.
Behind her, Red and Purple stared in shock. "Wha... who the...?" Purple gaped. "The... wha.. Huh?" Red responded intelligently. The two Irken leaders were completely perplexed as they looked on at the group of strangers.
Purple scratched his head in bafflement. There was something familiar here... Abruptly his eyes locked on the small robot that was hopping up and down on the unfamiliar irken on the floor in a remarkable display of stupidity. A fragment of memory drifted through his head.
"Is it supposed to be stupid?"
Purple grabbed his co-ruler's shoulder. "It's Zim's robot!" he whispered. Red shook his head. "That's not possible." Purple nodded emphatically. "Has your attention span dwindled to nil? The Great Assigning for OED 2! Zim! We… *built* that thing, and I'm telling you that IS Zim's robot!" Red scoffed at the statement. "But the only way that Zim's SIR unit could be here is if it came with... him...."
Two pairs of now huge (even by irken standards) eyes panned slowly back to the prostate former invader.
------------
Gaz glared openly as the two tall Irkens cautiously approached Zim and GIR. They slowly edged a step at a time to the fallen former Invader as if they feared he might explode. She frowned. These were the "Almighty Tallest" that Zim had ranted and raved about the whole way here?
They looked like morons.
Red picked up a mangled thin metal pole and prodded the figure with it hesitantly. "It can't be... it just *can't*!" he insisted. Purple shivered slightly. It was as if some sort of devious nightmare world of their own unconscious creation had stealthily crept up behind them and overwhelmed them before they were even aware of its existence. He fought the urge to break down in screaming hysteria as his mind insistently jabbered at him that it WAS Zim. He was back, he was strangely tall, and he smelled like he'd slogged through five miles of untreated sewage.
GIR's head snapped up as he took notice of the looming figure poking his master with a pole. His eyes narrowed as he examined the strangely familiar seeming irken. Just as he was about to go into "obedient" mode, however, he glanced to the side and saw the other, purple-clad individual.
"DADDY!" squealed the robot. "AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!" screamed Purple as the insane SIR unit leapt upward and fastened itself to his face. Red blinked in surprise for a moment, then turned around and began using his pole to try and pry the SIR loose from his companion's skull.
Above and behind the bedlam, Gaz's small hands closed into fists as she tried to shut out the noise. "This is just perfect..." she muttered to herself. "How much stupider can this trip get?"
Quev trailed along beside Dib as the tall, spooky teen continued to ramble, seemingly without ever intending to stop, about the huge, scary things that he insisted roamed his home world. The terrified enforcer whimpered softly as Dib's lecture veered off onto the more disgusting details of the vicious chupacabra's hunting habits. This was, without a doubt, the worst thing that could ever happen to him. 'At least', he thought to himself 'things can't get any worse.'
Dib stopped lecturing abruptly to ask "Did you hear something?" just before a horrific smelling dark shape loomed up behind them.
Snalz ran frantically past a few last stragglers of the evacuating guard as she headed for the upper levels of the building. She kicked aside a small barrier that wouldn't have stopped a creeper-bug (a million-limbed native insect) reduced to two working legs, and dodged under some tape that proclaimed the site restricted because of leech infestation and faulty plumbing. She just had to find Quev before he got himself eaten or something equally unpleasant. Like being assigned to the plumbing crew for the inevitable cleanup.
Finally spying the large elaborate doors leading to the Tallests' official chambers, she forced herself to stumble onward. Chances were, in her absence, Quev would go to the safest place he could think of. And the elevated office of the great leaders of Irk had to be the most secure place on the planet, indeed, in the entire Empire.
At least, so she thought until she managed to push one of the doors just a little bit open and squeeze herself through the gap. The Tallest were engaged in some sort of panicked attempt at suppressing the hyperactively malfunctioning SIR unit she recalled from the incident in the hangar; the impossibly tall and now incredibly foul-smelling Zim-creature was groggily leaning against one of the huge doors beside her, apparently trying to get his bearings in the ruckus. One of the strange creatures who had accompanied him suddenly became visible stalking towards the Tallest.
"EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!" Gaz screamed as she finally lost her temper. All activity in the room abruptly ceased. Zim squinted at her funny. The baffled Irkens could only stare as she strode up to the baffled Tallest and effortlessly plucked GIR off of Purple's scalp. She glared at each of them in turn, giving a slightly surprised frown at the unexpected sight of Enforcer Snalz.
"These are the 'Tallest'?" she growled in the general direction of the two color-coded irkens.
"Er, yes.. I mean uh... YES! They are the-" Zim began.
"Yeah, whatever. So what are you gonna do to them again?" Gaz interrupted. Zim paced back and forth a little.
"I have no idea." he finally confessed.
"Why are we here then?!" Gaz asked, sounding as if she was either going to tear out someone's throat or burst into frustrated tears.
"Well like what? Dib locked all my big dooming weapons in the car. I'm leaning toward finding a really big mallet right now, actually…"
"Ew, gross. Too messy."
"Torture them? Find Dib and he can sing that 'Okle-homey' song he did in the play last year."
"That's disturbing, Zim. Very cruel and unusual punishment."
"Well, what do you suggest!?"
"I'm thinking! I'm thinking! We could annoy them to no end, making their lives a living nightmare world."
"That's amateur hour, Gaz-human."
"Well you're the one who's all hot to get here and get your bloody vengeance or whatever and then CHOKES when he finally gets his chance!"
Red glared at Purple and Snalz. "Well, one of you wanna suggest a way of getting rid of them before they think of a way to get rid of us?"
"Drown them in nacho cheese?" Purple offered, massaging the bruised area on his head where GIR had previously been attached.
"Not bad, but I was thinking of something more excrutiating."
"How about boiling nacho cheese?"
So will Dib and Quev get digested? Will Zim recover sufficiently from nearly an hour straight of non-stop screaming and running to come up with a good plan to attack the Tallest? Will the Tallest get him first? And what about GIR? And will Gaz ever be reunited with her GameSlave? Will any of the readers still care enough to find out?
Next time: Dib busts into the scene, and beware of his… might? A fight commences, and GIR makes a startling discovery that could conceivably destroy the entire Irken Empire! It'll be the shock of Red and Purple's lives, that's for sure. *hesitantly looks to see if anyone's still reading*
Yeppers, Ivory guessed right. Heh, Dib's calling himself 'Agent Mothman' sort of inspired me to try and depict him as a horrible dark scary monster to the irkens, in the style of his Swollen Eyeball moniker. Even if he's still got bits of processed cheese stuck in his hair! Poor Dib, lol. Don't feel too bad if you didn't get it last chapter, it was a little obscure. Thanks again to Kat23a, Kami and Daegon, Purple's Right Hand Girl, and Sanely Challenged for reading and reviewing. Sorry you think the story's dragging, Sanely.. You shoulda been there for the two month hiatus while I went to Washington on vacation last summer.. Now that was a dragging story line. My Zim fic disk has been in the White House!
If you're waiting for a big Zim fight scene… well … er…
Chapter Eight: Gaz
Red numbly glanced back and forth between the shattered remains of the Tallest's former escape vehicle and the huge metallic shape that was wedged in the wall through what had been their balcony. Finally deciding to try looking in another direction, he turned his pinkish gaze down to where Purple was sulking in the floor despondantly.
"Do you think we should do something?" Red asked hesitantly. Purple rubbed at his aching head gingerly. "Why are you asking me? I thought YOU were the one who had all the answers, and I was just the pretender who got in your way?" Red growled dangerously. "Oh, you've always thought that you were SO smart!" he fumed, leaning over his co-ruler. "Well someone in our position had to be!" Purple shot back, shoving Red away and rising to his feet again.
"Sarcastic twit!"
"Reckless idiot!"
"SIR polisher!"
"Oh, now you've gone too far!"
Gaz finally managed to force the jammed hatch to her hijacked mech unit open. "I think your landings may be improving, GIR." she commented dryly as she kicked the door the rest of the way ajar. GIR happily nodded, then went back to playing with the directional control wheel that he still held in his small metal hands. "Bbrrrrrroooo... vrrrrroooom... Beeeep! Low clearance! This is a blue light special, K-Mart shoppers!" he cried as he twisted the controls back and forth.
Smiling slightly to herself, Gaz turned her attention to the scene outside. She blinked. Two large irkens were rolling around on the floor, apparently engaged in a vicious fist fight. She crossed her arms and stared out at the display in confusion. The two of them hadn't even noticed that she and GIR were practically standing right in front of them. She shook her head wonderingly and leaned back against the surface of the mech. She was curious to see who would win this bout. It was the best entertainment she'd come across since letting GIR drive.
An hour later, Gaz yawned. The Tallest were still breathlessly screeching insults at each other and lobbing empty drink containers and couch cushions back and forth. She glanced down and noticed for the first time that GIR was no longer sitting beside her stacking bits of rock into miniature cities to rampage through. She looked up just in time to see the large double doors to the chamber being pried open by the little robot. Forgetting the arguing Irken leaders for the moment, Gaz carefully picked her way down to the ground in her awkward boots and jogged over towards him.
GIR's face swiveled towards her as she approached, and she was startled to see that his large eyes were glowing a determined, obedient red. "GIR? What're you doing? What's going on?" she asked, a bit taken aback by his unexpected behavior. "Master is coming." He answered bluntly, and returned his gaze to the hallway beyond the doorway.
Gaz frowned slightly. GIR's cold demeanor abruptly evaporated as he threw wide the doors with a delighted cheer of "Master's HERE!" just before Zim himself came hurtling through them. Zim skidded to a halt, scrambled backwards and shoved the doors shut, collapsing against them. As he stood gasping for breath, he didn't seem to register the presence of anyone else in the room. GIR leapt into the air and landed on his master's shoulders, happily exclaiming over their reunion.
Zim gave a blood-curdling scream and all eyes were on the disheveled former invader as he fell to the floor, completely exhausted physically and emotionally. GIR sat on Zim's frantically heaving chest and stared at him in puzzlement. He made a slight face and looked up at Gaz. "Master smeeeeeeeeeeells." he informed her. "I know." she replied, pinching her nose closed with two fingers.
Behind her, Red and Purple stared in shock. "Wha... who the...?" Purple gaped. "The... wha.. Huh?" Red responded intelligently. The two Irken leaders were completely perplexed as they looked on at the group of strangers.
Purple scratched his head in bafflement. There was something familiar here... Abruptly his eyes locked on the small robot that was hopping up and down on the unfamiliar irken on the floor in a remarkable display of stupidity. A fragment of memory drifted through his head.
"Is it supposed to be stupid?"
Purple grabbed his co-ruler's shoulder. "It's Zim's robot!" he whispered. Red shook his head. "That's not possible." Purple nodded emphatically. "Has your attention span dwindled to nil? The Great Assigning for OED 2! Zim! We… *built* that thing, and I'm telling you that IS Zim's robot!" Red scoffed at the statement. "But the only way that Zim's SIR unit could be here is if it came with... him...."
Two pairs of now huge (even by irken standards) eyes panned slowly back to the prostate former invader.
------------
Gaz glared openly as the two tall Irkens cautiously approached Zim and GIR. They slowly edged a step at a time to the fallen former Invader as if they feared he might explode. She frowned. These were the "Almighty Tallest" that Zim had ranted and raved about the whole way here?
They looked like morons.
Red picked up a mangled thin metal pole and prodded the figure with it hesitantly. "It can't be... it just *can't*!" he insisted. Purple shivered slightly. It was as if some sort of devious nightmare world of their own unconscious creation had stealthily crept up behind them and overwhelmed them before they were even aware of its existence. He fought the urge to break down in screaming hysteria as his mind insistently jabbered at him that it WAS Zim. He was back, he was strangely tall, and he smelled like he'd slogged through five miles of untreated sewage.
GIR's head snapped up as he took notice of the looming figure poking his master with a pole. His eyes narrowed as he examined the strangely familiar seeming irken. Just as he was about to go into "obedient" mode, however, he glanced to the side and saw the other, purple-clad individual.
"DADDY!" squealed the robot. "AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!" screamed Purple as the insane SIR unit leapt upward and fastened itself to his face. Red blinked in surprise for a moment, then turned around and began using his pole to try and pry the SIR loose from his companion's skull.
Above and behind the bedlam, Gaz's small hands closed into fists as she tried to shut out the noise. "This is just perfect..." she muttered to herself. "How much stupider can this trip get?"
Quev trailed along beside Dib as the tall, spooky teen continued to ramble, seemingly without ever intending to stop, about the huge, scary things that he insisted roamed his home world. The terrified enforcer whimpered softly as Dib's lecture veered off onto the more disgusting details of the vicious chupacabra's hunting habits. This was, without a doubt, the worst thing that could ever happen to him. 'At least', he thought to himself 'things can't get any worse.'
Dib stopped lecturing abruptly to ask "Did you hear something?" just before a horrific smelling dark shape loomed up behind them.
Snalz ran frantically past a few last stragglers of the evacuating guard as she headed for the upper levels of the building. She kicked aside a small barrier that wouldn't have stopped a creeper-bug (a million-limbed native insect) reduced to two working legs, and dodged under some tape that proclaimed the site restricted because of leech infestation and faulty plumbing. She just had to find Quev before he got himself eaten or something equally unpleasant. Like being assigned to the plumbing crew for the inevitable cleanup.
Finally spying the large elaborate doors leading to the Tallests' official chambers, she forced herself to stumble onward. Chances were, in her absence, Quev would go to the safest place he could think of. And the elevated office of the great leaders of Irk had to be the most secure place on the planet, indeed, in the entire Empire.
At least, so she thought until she managed to push one of the doors just a little bit open and squeeze herself through the gap. The Tallest were engaged in some sort of panicked attempt at suppressing the hyperactively malfunctioning SIR unit she recalled from the incident in the hangar; the impossibly tall and now incredibly foul-smelling Zim-creature was groggily leaning against one of the huge doors beside her, apparently trying to get his bearings in the ruckus. One of the strange creatures who had accompanied him suddenly became visible stalking towards the Tallest.
"EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!" Gaz screamed as she finally lost her temper. All activity in the room abruptly ceased. Zim squinted at her funny. The baffled Irkens could only stare as she strode up to the baffled Tallest and effortlessly plucked GIR off of Purple's scalp. She glared at each of them in turn, giving a slightly surprised frown at the unexpected sight of Enforcer Snalz.
"These are the 'Tallest'?" she growled in the general direction of the two color-coded irkens.
"Er, yes.. I mean uh... YES! They are the-" Zim began.
"Yeah, whatever. So what are you gonna do to them again?" Gaz interrupted. Zim paced back and forth a little.
"I have no idea." he finally confessed.
"Why are we here then?!" Gaz asked, sounding as if she was either going to tear out someone's throat or burst into frustrated tears.
"Well like what? Dib locked all my big dooming weapons in the car. I'm leaning toward finding a really big mallet right now, actually…"
"Ew, gross. Too messy."
"Torture them? Find Dib and he can sing that 'Okle-homey' song he did in the play last year."
"That's disturbing, Zim. Very cruel and unusual punishment."
"Well, what do you suggest!?"
"I'm thinking! I'm thinking! We could annoy them to no end, making their lives a living nightmare world."
"That's amateur hour, Gaz-human."
"Well you're the one who's all hot to get here and get your bloody vengeance or whatever and then CHOKES when he finally gets his chance!"
Red glared at Purple and Snalz. "Well, one of you wanna suggest a way of getting rid of them before they think of a way to get rid of us?"
"Drown them in nacho cheese?" Purple offered, massaging the bruised area on his head where GIR had previously been attached.
"Not bad, but I was thinking of something more excrutiating."
"How about boiling nacho cheese?"
So will Dib and Quev get digested? Will Zim recover sufficiently from nearly an hour straight of non-stop screaming and running to come up with a good plan to attack the Tallest? Will the Tallest get him first? And what about GIR? And will Gaz ever be reunited with her GameSlave? Will any of the readers still care enough to find out?
Next time: Dib busts into the scene, and beware of his… might? A fight commences, and GIR makes a startling discovery that could conceivably destroy the entire Irken Empire! It'll be the shock of Red and Purple's lives, that's for sure. *hesitantly looks to see if anyone's still reading*