Notes:
Guess I should explain. Poe, the origional author of this story has decided to
take down all fanfiction that's in her account. She felt, since I finished this
story for her – it makes me part owner. So that's why I'm uploading it. Sorry
for the confusion. And now, some art.
Poe:
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=99682
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=104516
Ellen Anderson:
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=131798
That Girl:
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=123360
Chika Jin:
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=101327
Cartman's Girl (me) :
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=147616
http://www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=147624
Part III
Zim gulped. He hadn't considered the fact that reporting to the Tallest and
asking for assistance would require a full explaination about what happened. It
hadn't been easy to admit his failure to maintain his equipment, or how the
cloning process got botched up by a simple human. He drummed his claws
together, looking down at them shamefully as the two tall Irkens on the monitor
glared at him disapprovingly.
"You should be ASHAMED of yourself, ZIM!" Purple chided, and Red
added, "You KNOW you have to be careful when dealing with cloning
technology! Didn't they TEACH you about that in Invader Academy, or are we
going to have to personally administer 'the TALK' to all new soliders?"
"We're very disappointed in you," Purple shook his head, then
muttered in disgust, "And with that large-headed human kid, of all
people!"
Zim shrank back from the monitor, his antennae drooping sadly. "But,
I.." He sighed, not attempting to defend himself. They were right; he'd
messed up. He flinched slightly as the monitor snapped off, the communication
channel closed.
He stared at the control panel for a while, looking miserable. He winced
further when the tubing feeding the monitor he'd been looking at cracked
suddenly, the display dropping off and smashing into the panel below.
"Stupid Dib. Why couldn't he just leave me alone? Stupid, big-headed human
stink-filth!" He kicked the control station he'd been seated at, biting
back a yelp of pain when his fragile, bony toes and the boot that contained
them connected with the hard metal.
He still needed an advantage; he was lagging horribly in the search for Zib.
Dib could've found him by now, for all he knew; who knows what the human would
do when he found the annoyingly adorable spawn? Zim wasn't about to allow Dib
any sort of victory.
That, and while he hated to admit it, a part of him was worried about the
little hybrid, the same part of him that allowed him to resist the constant
urges to launch Gir into the sun.
"Stupid mushy brain part!" He hissed, clawing at his head, "An
Invader must feel no mercy!" Digging his claws into his scalp did nothing
to halt the faint worry, though. Defeated, he sighed, sliding out of the chair
and walking toward his arsenal of.. stuff.
"All of this superior Irken technology at my claw-tips must give me some
sort of advantage! Hm.. AHA!" He selected a mask from one of the weapons
racks, holding it out. It wasn't dissimilar to the masks worn by the aliens in Predator.
"This ultra-vision mask will allow me to track life-forms by a multitude
of different spectrums! Infrared vision, night vision, smell-o-vision.. And I
can attune it to track certain DNA patterns, much like Gir's guidance chip!
I'll just use some of my own DNA, and it should lead me RIGHT to the only other
thing on this planet that shares it, Zib!"
He cackled, before stopping suddenly, furrowing his brow, "Wait a minute,
who am I talking to?" He looked around, shrugging to himself, before
slipping the mask onto his face.
One of his pod-arms unfolded, arching over his back as he un-gloved one of his
hands and held out a claw. Snip. He dropped the claw-clipping into a
compartment on the mask, and the nail-clippers re-folded into his pod.
"Scanning..." A computerized voice reported, before pinging,
"DNA memorized. Tracking..."
Zim stumbled, the mask building a virtual 3D map of the surrounding area in a
50-mile radius through echolocation technology, and took Zim on a virtual
fly-by of the area on the interior monitors. "Organism located."
On the monitors, Zim hovered above what looked like field, though everything
had been simplified into white outlines against a blue backdrop, so it was hard
to tell. Zib's form, however, stood out, coloured red.
"AHA!" Zim turned a knob on the side of the mask, reverting it to normal
view-mode, "I'll beat you yet, Dib!" He ran up the stairs, stuffing
the wig onto his head carelessly as he did so, forcing it in around the mask.
***
Zib wasn't quite sure where he was. A few cars had almost hit him, and more
than a few people had stopped and stared at him. He'd shied away from them, and
after a lot of wandering and running, had left the suburbs and entered the
country-side.
"Stupid staring humans," he muttered, "What's wrong with them,
anyway, haven't they ever seen an alien hybrid before?" At least it was
quieter, here, no cars threatening to grind his guts into the pavement, no
people staring at him slack-jawed. It was cold, though, and it was getting
dark.
He frowned, hugging his coat over his magenta shirt, looking at the darkening
sky with some fear as he wandered through the tall grass. "No!" He
hissed suddenly, setting his face into a look of resolve, "I can't show
fear! I'm a great.. spawn.. hybrid.. thingee." He slouched, "Who's
hopelessly lost."
Wind whipped through his hair, threatening to remove his glasses. He yelped,
clinging to them; he'd dropped them before, and had discovered that his eyes
were the least successful part of his creation. The compound,
ultraviolet-sensitive eyes of an Irken, combined with the optics of a human,
who had poor eyesight to begin with, just didn't mesh well.
The grass wasn't helping. It was full of sticky, thorny things that liked to
grab onto his coat. "I hate the country-side!" He proclaimed,
grumbling. He'd said the same thing about the city not too long ago. He
couldn't even see where he was going, as the tall grass towered over him. He
tried jumping up and down on his tip-toes.
"If only.. I could get.. higher up.. somehow! ACK!" Unbidden, his
small set of mechanical-spider legs sprouted from his pod, catching him
mid-leap. He yelped, flailing around as he hung from them, the legs starting to
skitter through the grass. He glided along, feet dragging in the top tips of
the grass, as the cybernetic implants he had yet to master raced through the
darkening field.
"Hey! STOP! STOOOOOP!" The hybrid wailed, and the legs did just that,
halting rather suddenly, front-legs stabbing into the ground. He swayed from
them helplessly, then blinked as he noticed a faint shape in the dying light. A
large, four-legged creature, rolling around on the ground and forming alien
symbols.
"It's that crop-circle cow!" Another arm from his pod unfolded, and
he blinked at it. At the end of the mechanical arm was a pair of night-vision
goggles. "Hey, cool!" He reached up, tugging the goggles down over
his glasses, playing around with the knobs to adjust the zoom on the goggles.
Zib twitched, narrowing his eyes behind the goggles, "That cow.. I wonder
if it IS being controlled by the aliens. I MUST STOP IT!" He suddenly
shouted, looking around at the field and the symbols that were, er, rolled into
it, "They're making it leave absolutely vile graffiti all over this field!
But how to stop a cow.." He wondered.
His claws twitched, and an odd, alien suggestion tugged at his subconscious.
"Inexplicable.. urge.. to MUTLIATE! Yes.. yes! In order to stop the
aliens, I'll mutliate it! YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED, SMELLY MILK-BEAST! PREPARE
FOR MESSY DESTRUCTION!" He cackled, pointing at the cow threateningly, and
prepared to race towards it..
..only to trip as his mechanical legs became entangled, sending him tumbling
through a small briar patch. Zib allowed himself a small whimper, sitting up
and picking the thorns off of him, looking down at the many tears in his coat
and pants-legs with a sigh. The wind blew by again, this time colder, the sun
almost completely set.
"Stupid cow," he muttered, withdrawing his legs and the goggles back
into his pod, and hugging himself against the cold night breeze. His lower lip
trembled as he glared ahead, and he slid a claw beneath his glasses to rub at
his eye.
He suddenly froze when he heard someone making their way through the grass. Had
the cow heard him, and come to seek vengance? He drew up his knees, hugging
them to his chest and peering at the grass fearfully as it parted..
"THERE you are, you little.. spawn.. thingee! I knew I'd find you before
Zim did!" Dib shouted victoriously, towering over the little hybrid.
"Now, to capture you and prove to the world that Zim really is an alien!"
Dib snickered, glasses glinting in the moonlight as he stalked toward Zib, arms
held out, preparing to grab the clone-spawn..
Then he noticed the pathetic state of the young gene-splicing experiment gone
awry. Pants leg and coat torn, stuck with thorns and nettles, the yellowy-green
flesh beneath marred with cuts, scrapes and bruises. His hair was a mess, and
his glasses already had a small crack in them. Zib looked up at him, curled up
into a foetal position, frowning, shivering slightly from the night air, eyes
shining with threatening tears.
Dib slumped, suddenly feeling like a very large jerk. "Aw, jeeze.."
He sighed, sitting on the ground beside Zib and putting his arm around the
shoulders of the miserable little hybrid, "What happened?"
Zib took a deep, shakey breath, leaning against his 'dad', and prepared to
retell all the events that'd happened since he left Zim's house... but all that
came out was a strangled sob, and he clung to Dib, burying his face into Dib's
coat collar and started crying like a little kid, probably because he was one.
Dib frowned. At least he had some big-brother experience from way back when,
before Gaz became a doomful gamer. He pat Zib's metallic pod in a feeble
attempt at comforting the choked-up kid.
"AHA! I've found you! Hey, what are you doing here, human scum?!"
Zim's voice, slightly muffled, sounded from a few metres away.
Dib turned to glare at the Irken, making a 'shush' gesture and pointing at the
crying hybrid.
"What?! You horrible human! You made him cry!" Zim accused, and
yanked off the mask as he made his way over to Zib's other side.
"Oh, I did not! I found him like this," Dib glared at Zim, watching
the alien sit down on the opposite side of Zib. Zim started to retort, before
frowning when he looked down at the youth clinging to Dib's shoulder.
"What happened to him?" Zim asked in an unusually quiet, rational
tone, noticing the torn state of Zib's clothes.
"He probably ran into some thorns," Dib replied, looking down at Zib,
who was starting to calm down, his sobs dying down into sniffles.
"Poor little.. spawn," Zim murmured, and Dib looked up at him,
raising an eyebrow. "What was that? Did I detect you caring about some
living creature besides yourself?"
"What?! No! That was just.. some swamp gas reflecting off of Venus."
Zim quickly responded, looking indignant, pointedly looking away from the two
others.
"Whatever, Zim. Ugh," Dib muttered, looking down at the tear-stain on
his coat, "I hope this stuff doesn't eat into my flesh. Here, you take
him," The boy gently removed a sleepy Zib from his shoulder, pushing him
toward his 'mother'.
"Eh? But-" Zim started to protest, but the hybrid yawned, flopping
across Zim's lap before the Irken could do anything, and curling up. Zim put on
an unconvincing scowl as Dib tried to wring out his coat collar.
They sat in relative silence, the only sound the occasional mooing in the
distance and Zib's soft snoring. "So what do we do with the spawn?"
Zim demanded, turning his scowling glare on Dib.
"I don't know. We can't take him back to my house, Dad might want to
experiment on him or something." Dib smoothed out his coat. Suddenly, a
sound broke the semi-silence.
"MOOOOO-GRK!" A distant, distressed moo sounded, cut-off sharply.
"...what was that?" Dib asked quietly, freezing.
"I believe that was the cow-beast meeting its doom." Zim replied
casually, until his eyes widened, realizing the reprocussions. His face
suddenly twisted into a look of confoundment and disgust, "That
smell.."
Dib blinked and sniffed the air. He didn't smell anything. Zim reached up,
pulling off his wig, allowing his antennae to better analyze the scent.
An odd look crossed Zim's face, before his eyes rolled into his head, and he
fell back onto the ground, metallic pod hitting the ground with a clink.
"Zim?!" Dib yelped, reaching over to shake his enemy's shoulder. The
Irken was motionless, segmented tongue lolled out, a puddle of drool forming
near his mouth.
The human started to panic, mind racing, when a large spotlight snapped on
directly above him, shining from the sky, or at least a few dozen metres off
the ground. Dib shielded his eyes from the blinding white-blue light with his
free arm, squinting up at it through his fingers.
It looked like a UFO.
He didn't even notice the dark figures approaching, wearing what looked like
haz-mat suits, until one spoke. "Agent Mothman?" A muffled human voice asked in shock,
"You, of all people, a traitor?"
"Huh?!" Dib swung his head around, partly blinded by the bright
light.
"He's obviously one of them, now," The other figure spoke,
"Give me the concentrated knockout gas."
Dib didn't get a chance to protest before he was sprayed with a misty white
fog. He coughed, swaying, fighting to stay conscious.
The last thing he saw before he blacked out were the two figures shaking their
heads in disappointment.