Altered Dib

An Invader Zim fan fiction

By monkey byte

Whooo! Third chapter! So that GS2aholic does not suffer any unnecessary head trauma here's an update. I'm hoping this will just be a four chapter thing. I might write more IZ stories if I find time (I'm in between jobs and goin' back to school) but don't count on it anytime soon. I've never really done anything like this before and my ghad does it suck up the time. I've now found a whole new level of respect and appreciation for people who post stories (proofread or spell checked ) and I've acquired outright reverence for those who post full blown novels up here. How do you guys do it? Here goes….

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Part Three: Intervention

Zim was already battered , soiled and agitated so he certainly wasn't ready to feel a hand from seemingly out of nowhere tap the back of his shoulder. "Grahhhhhhh!!" he spun around with the "fight or flight" reflex pounding every nerve in his body. Much to his relief the intruder of his personal space was a pale, purple-maned human girl squinting a leer in the dim light. "Gaz!" he gasped. " I didn't expect you here this soon." As easily frightened as he was, admitting to a lowly Earthenoid that he could so easily get such a start was against his Invader principles.

"I would have gotten here sooner", Gaz explained nonchalantly, "but Little Lost Boy here says your elevator is shot."

"Tell me a story, Wendy!" Gir waddled out from behind Gaz, pulling at her dress and wearing his doggie suit with the mouth pulled back, exposing his SIR face (and completing the image).

"Go away", Gaz gently nudged Gir back with her shin. Zim watched with some subdued amusement until he noticed what she had in her arms.

"What is this?" he frowned, pointing at the folded lawn chair and grocery bag (yes, he's really that dense).

"This is for Di-auughhhh!!" The smell of Dib's projectile finally hit her olfactory. "Shit, Zim!" Her face was already compressed from all that squinting so right now it was about ready to implode.

"Did you swim in a septic tank before you blew up downtown?! Damn!"

"Don't remind me!" he snarled. "Your filthy sibling attacked me and I can't clean this off yet because he sabotaged my base!"

"Oh?" she leaned into the lawn chair and held the grocery bag to her chest. "And whose fault is this?"

"His!" he snapped. "He had no business here in the first place!"

"And I suppose he turned into a "monkey " all by himself." Oh, what fun Gaz was having.

"That's beside the point!" Zim had no clue she was having a gay old time pulling his strings. "That Earthworm broke in here, crippled my computer, mauled me, nearly obliterated my arsenal room, and flung his own shi-'' he was interrupted by a sound that was uncomfortably close to them. It was somewhere between grunting and barking and they both found it unsettling. Gaz glanced over her shoulder nervously, Zim was freaking terrified and Gir was ecstatic .

"Monkey come back to plaayyy!" the little SIR danced between them.

"Gir, be quiet!" Zim hissed in a whisper. His heart and squeedilyspooch were about to pop out of his chest. Gaz turned in the direction of the sound and slowly walked forward. The holes that Zim had blown into the walls earlier were not yet repaired as the computer was still shut down. Gaz stopped to notice the damage with the dusty debris and nasty, burned smell before resuming. The corridor gave way to another room with more bad lighting. Gaz's eyed had already adjusted to it and she started giving the place a look over as she entered. The room was the typical landscape for Zim's base: hoses trailing from the ceiling, machines and "furniture" staring back with red, blue and green glares of luminescence in the violet haze. It as easy to get caught up in the eerie serenity of it all, as Gaz was, her eyes rotating about the walls dreamily- until she found a pair of amber eyes staring back at her.

She let out a startled gasp and slinked back slightly. Then as the initial shock passed her curiosity returned she stepped forward again. She put down the lawn chair she was still holding and pulled a flashlight from the grocery bag (wow, what foresight!). The figure winced slightly in the spotlight, its face completely devoid of the aggression if was full of earlier. The expression was not of mutual curiosity but rather of…well, recognition. "D-dib?" Gaz finally stuttered out. Her brother could only yowl in return and he seemed aware of this as recognition apparently gave way to embarrassment and he timidly ducked behind a large machine.

Gaz solemnly stared at the floor in realization of it all. Dib was a monkey. A shaggy, smelly, damn dirty ape . If his speech was disabled his cognition was probably affected, too, just…not completely. What if Zim couldn't change him back (notice she's not concerned about if he would)?

No more could he walk to school with her, babble about his paranoid , pseudo science obsessions, or drink the last soda. She'd only be able to hide this from their father for so long and then what? What would he think of his fancied successor becoming a simple animal? While Dib showed some interest in Dad's career she did little more than occasionally look up from her Game Slave. On some subliminal level her indifference stemmed from resentment as "real science" put a damper on their "quality time". Now it was time to pay the piper, she had no clue how to deal with a sudden and total genetic mutation. The outcome couldn't be good. She sighed sadly and decided to make the most of this situation even if it was a bit dire.

Several minutes had gone by without any sound that would indicate a violent outburst. Zim was wondering if the Dib-monkey had accessed the ventilation system , because if he was in the next room Gaz would have found him by now. It was too quiet. What was that girl doing? "This is taking too long, I don't like it", he whispered to Gir who was pulling on his shirt and calling him Peter. "Come, Gir!" Zim knew Gaz had passed through the hall without incident so he was able to pass through there quickly with Gir trailing behind him and holding his shirt tail until he reached the room. That horrible bark resounded and Zim cringed and whimpered at the at the entrance. His oblivious Sir ran in with its trademark idiotic grin. The Irken followed in on a skittish and reluctant tip toe with a barely audible whine stuck in his throat. His antennae registered the source of the unnerving noise at the center of the room where Gir was gawking oafishly at two figures, one reclined in a lawn chair and one standing and flailing manically atop some machine.

"Dance for me, monkey!" Gaz held a soda can in a mock toast. Dib was compliant as long as the pretzels kept coming which he snapped out of the air with his teeth. Gaz smiled thinking that maybe organ grinders could make good money if they had the right primate for show. It would certainly rack up some fast game cash (Note: Gaz does not do guilt). Maybe Dad wouldn't notice too much or she could explain that Dib was screwing around in his lab again, it wouldn't be the first time.

"What manner of-!" The party was over, Zim had stormed the scene . Dib spat out the last pretzel that was a chewed up pulp that hit Zim's face with the gentle velocity of a paintball. "Ahgh!!!" the alien screamed as the former human made himself scarce. Gaz groaned and resignedly handed her soda and pretzels over to Gir who began consuming in earnest. Gaz slowly got up from her chair and without skipping a beat walked over to Zim and buried her foot into his midsection.

The little green man fell to the floor embracing himself and trying to stay conscious.

"You scared him off, retard. I'm going home."

"No! "Zim protested between gasps. "I can't do anything until I get him out of here. Everything I need to reverse the reaction is in the lab and I can't get to it because the computer is down!" The "reverse" word had Gaz listening. "He still recognizes us, if you can lead him out of here-"

"And when that's done, what's to keep you from backing out of your end of the deal?" Zim was back on his feet, thanks to Gaz's death grip on his collar. She backed him into a wall, pressing his Pak into a handicapped position (Hey, c'mon, it's her brother here).

"You have my word-"

"I need more collateral than that," his feet had just begun to dangle off the floor, despite the fact that Gaz was shorter.

"Alright, fine!" He wheezed, feeling the Pak dig into his spine. "We contain the Dib until I get my home up and running then we work on changing him back-ack! Ease up! I can't breathe!"

Gaz didn't really like the idea of Zim getting his base up first but his argument seemed self sustained so she figured she didn't have much choice. She let him go very suddenly, the blood and oxygen flooding back into his face like a broken dam sent him crashing back to the floor.

"Fine, Zim," Gaz murmured frigidly. "Just remember, you try anything cute and I'll pull your entrails out of your mouth and feed them to your stupid robot."

"Agreed", the Irken's voice shook as he staggered back on his feet.

"Yay, entrails!!!" Gir chirped from behind a machine while looking for Dib.