Cognitive Dissonance
By Lejindarybunny
A romantic Invader Zim epic
A/N: Hey all. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things as
it comes to chapter-posty on timeness. After all, if I'm not doing my
homework I ought to be doing something, ne? I'm going through a
personal social crisis at the moment (involving best friends who now
seem to hate me) and I've decided the best way to solve it is to sink
deep into the abyss that is fandom. I haven't been reading or writing
much in favor of brooding but no more. HA! My reviewers on line are
much more dependable than some of my real life friends. For that
matter so are my characters.
But I'm ranting, sorry about that.
Anyway, story-wise things should be heating up. Dib's going to have to
go back to school soon and he and Zim will find themselves faced with
a new substitute teacher. What exactly do those Oranges have in mind?
It has something to do with Dib I'd say, but that's only an educated
guess. Meanwhile Kiir's going to have to deal with her heart-breakyness
hopefully in a way that doesn't involve the destruction of Dib's spinal
cord or any major landmarks. But will she be able to? If Dib's not
human, what is he? How much longer will I keep asking hypothetical
questions?
Disclaimer: If I owned the rights to Invader Zim everyone would hate me
because I'd be Nick.
Chapter XII... The origin of Dib; Kiir and Gir get Brainfreezies, the
return of Melanie, and the secrets of what created the Universe,
REVEALED! (HA! What other story can boast the answer to Life, the
Universe and Everything? Oh right. That one.)
"GAZ? What are you doing here?" Dib demanded, obviously shocked.
Not that Zim was any less surprised to see the normally
debilitatingly apathetic girl in his lab. After all, from what he could
gather she barely left the couch when the choice was up to her. What
could she want?
"Your skool called dad saying you weren't there today. He wanted me
to make sure you weren't dead. Tch. I told him you were here." The
girl's voice was a bland drawl like she wasn't fond of speaking.
"Yeah, well, I'm not. Dead I mean. I am here," Dib said.
"Obviously."
Zim watched the two of them as silence descended and he wondered,
if Dib wasn't human, what about his 'sister'?
"So you can go now," Dib told her.
Gaz continued to pause as though her brother hadn't broken the stiff
silence. Then she spoke. "So why ARE you here? You look like shit Dib."
Dib flushed. "I'm just, hanging out, okay? NOW can you go?"
"With Zim. You're 'hanging out' with Zim." She paused again,
evidently to consider the statement. "I thought he was an 'alien'."
"Yeah, so?" Dib responded sharply, "I never said there was anything
WRONG with him being an alien, did I?"
"Yes," Gaz responded truthfully. "You said he was alien scum come to
destroy the planet.
"Alien scum hmmm, Dib?" Zim squinted an eye, smirking. It was vaguely
amusing watching the two argue like this.
"That was years ago!" he protested, although still casting a slightly
guilty look toward the alien.
"That was day before yesterday," she deadpanned. "You didn't answer
my question Dib. What happened to you?"
The boy stayed silent.
Privately Zim weighed the pros and cons of actually telling the truth
to the maybe-human. He was certain she could handle it, if she
believed it. But did Zim want her to know?
"Or how about I ask you a different question Dib," Gaz said with more
than a hint of threat in her voice along with the ghost of a smirk
playing on her lips, "How about you tell me how your little
'sleep-under' went?"
Dib turned quite a lovely shade of pink and Zim could feel his own
cheeks heating with magenta. That clinched it.
"He was attacked," Zim said as all eyes turned to him. He shifted
a bit uneasily under the weight of Gaz's icy stare remembering that he
was completely undisguised. But it really didn't matter. "A creature
attacked him in the hallway of skool and attempted to drain him of his
life energy. I brought him to my lab for medical attention."
Gaz raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" she looked at Dib.
The boy was still rather pink around the ears. He nodded.
"Your brother's life was nearly extinguished," Zim continued. Which
brings us to an interesting point, he thought.
"And you saved him?" she asked a bit incredulously.
"Indeed," Zim replied, just daring her to accuse him of lying.
Dib's face certainly wasn't getting a chance to return to it's usual
pale shade.
Well now it was time for the 'kicker'. "I ran several tests on Dib,"
he began.
Dib looked at the alien questioningly.
Zim nodded and spelled it out as simply as possible. "Your brother
is not a human."
"Well duh," she snorted.
Not the reaction either of them had expected.
***
Kiir looked on more time in the mirror, thinking to herself that she
hadn't done a bad job. Not at all. She grinned. She had smeared strange
peach colored stuff all over her visible skin turning it to a normal
human tone. She had once again pulled back her antennae, which didn't
hurt as much this time, she was getting used to it. She'd even put on
some of the odd eye and lip paints that seemed unnecessary to her.
After all, in some alien cultures walking around without the correct
face paints in place was the social equivalent to walking around naked.
Like in her mother's culture.
She regarded herself in the mirror, now looking like nothing more
than a flat nosed human with the wrong number of fingers. She was
actually quite pretty if she judged human standards correctly, if
still a bit androgynous.
'If Zim's so into humans he ought to like me quite a bit now,' she
thought resentfully as she peered at the glass.
There was a soft knocking from somewhere near the bottom of the
closed door. "Are yew ready yeeeeet?" a high pitched voice asked.
Kiir sighed and shook her head. She tuned, pulled the door open and
looked down at the little robot in the animal suit. "Well?" she asked.
Gir gasped looking up with big, blue-green eyes. "Youse all perdy
and HUUU-many lookin'!"
The rebel smiled and was privately pleased at the complement, although
well aware that he probably would have said much the same thing even
if she'd gone in and smeared herself with mud and cake sprinkles.
"You ready to go then?" she asked.
"YuP! YaY! We'se gonna get some BAINFREEZIES!" he screamed and
danced around her feet.
Kiir winced slightly as she headed towards the door with Gir behind.
"Um yeah. You're gonna have to tell me where to get those since I have
absolutely no clue."
"The 24/7!!" he screeched and raced out the door ahead of her while
she scurried to catch up.
***
At the moment Buntch's world consisted of the sealed tube of
bubbling liquid energy in which he was floating. It would heal him,
and restore his form. The steady pulse and tingle soothed him and
rocked him backwards into a haze of memories of the past.
The dimension from which they came was of pure energy, landscapes of
energy, creatures of energy. Pure energy. It had been in this place
that the first culture arose, the culture which he had been a part of
since the beginning In this their world, they were immortal. Nothing
disrupted the cycle of energy consumption, conversion, reconversion and
consumption.
It had been easy, taking power from that weak council which he had so
long been a part of. True, his position of consort held even less real
power than his previous one of governor. Of course there had been that
one pesky rebellion, but they'd fled the dimension and could no longer
be considered a threat. At least, that was what the her Overlordship
assured him.
For nearly seven millennia she ruled them with an iron fist as he
enjoyed a position of luxury at her side. Then the plague hit, a
mysterious virus, or so they thought, causing the entire population
to weaken and fade out. Even he and her majesty were affected. In
a world that had never known sickness or death it was terrifying.
The best minds sought the answer to the problem. And they found it.
The rebels all those years ago had somehow punched a whole in the
dimensional fabric and their world was dying, slowly but surely.
Bio-energy was being leeched out before it could be converted back
into pure energy. Their word was shrinking and they were dying. In
a few thousand years there would be nothing but a vast, empty void.
The scientists said there was no hope. If they could somehow patch
the hole AND find an infusion of pure energy the cycle should
regenerate itself. But there was less and less pure energy in their
world and there was no way to patch the rift.
The Overlord saw her people and her kingdom dying and she knew
that there was only one chance. She summoned Buntch and only
moments before the dimension died completely followed the rebels to the
other world without a thought for their doomed subjects.
What they found was strange. A dimension of solids that should have
been as barren as their own world had become, like dry, impenetrable
rock. But the energies introduced from their dimension had somehow
bonded with the materials in this world to change them, introducing
gases and liquids and strange, biologic forms of life. It was
disgusting. But as they walked across the surface of one of these
planets the energy that had once been a part of their universe flowed
back to the Overlord and her consort, renewing them. It killed the
bio-creatures of course, but by rights they shouldn't even exist.
For many millennia they simply traveled this universe, absorbing back
the energy that had been taken, reconverting it from the many
perversions it had taken on and integrating it into themselves. But this
was not the pure energy they had once fed off . It burned itself out
after a while and was gone and they had to consume more. Even so, after
having absorbed an energy they were able to configure their own bodies
to the shape they had taken and thus walk among the creatures if they
chose. They wiped out whole planets in this manner, even as they found
more and more responsive life forms, even somewhat intelligent ones.
But as they traveled they could feel it, deep within themselves, that
there was still pure energy somewhere in this forsaken dimension.
And Koil told him she knew, it must be the rebels and the core of their
ship. If they could find them they could take the core back to the Void
and start the cycle anew. When Buntch asked her how they would stop
the leak she gave a happy trill. The pure power of the Energy core
could be used to destroy this dimension utterly, and then their would
be no hole to patch.
But nowhere they went did they find more than ancient traces of the
rebels' passing and the pure energy seemed completely out of reach. No
where in the Universe could they find a creature that had even so much
as a trace of Pure undiluted, unconverted energy in them. Until now.
Or so Koil said.
It wasn't that Buntch didn't trust her exactly, it was that over the
billions of years they had been searching she had changed. Sometimes
when they were on a planet she would become fascinated with it's
culture or even a single creature or aspect and she would refuse to
deplete the energy until she was sure she knew everything about it and
had committed it surely to memory. Then after they had destroyed it she
would be almost wistful, like she was sorry it was gone. It wasn't
healthy. These patterns were twistings of the only true beauty, thefts
and marrings as though someone had carved their initials into the bark
of the tree of life.
He had asked her why once and she had glared coldly at him.
'They were unique. I could not have created them. They deserve to be
remembered.'
Koil had perfected a way to absorb with their energy all they had
ever known or experienced. Her mind and the ships computers were by
now filled with memories of more than a million creatures and races. And
now she had a fascination with the Earth, or rather, it seemed from the
way she absorbed 'television' with the Earth's myths. And of course
with the human who might or might not have traces of Pure Energy in
him.
Buntch gave the twittering equivalent to a sigh and let the energy
bubble and restore him. It would pass. Everything passed.
***
The 24/7 was a minimart on the corner about ten or so minutes from
Zim's base. Regarding it, Kiir's first reaction was one of surprise and
the feeling that anything purchased from this little center of commerce
would make her physically and violently ill. But Gir, who had a firm
grip on her hand, pulled her forward and into the looming pillar of
consumables before she had the chance to protest.
Inside the store it was a pit of potential greed and gluttony.
Brightly colored signs, each trying to be more eye-catching than the
others, proclaimed things like 'Meetie Burger: our burgers are the
Meetiest!' and 'Obey the Snak Kakes!!'. Kiir thought that it looked
very much like a refueling station near Vergon 6 that she'd been
forced at lazer point to stop at.
Gir too stood for a moment in childlike wonder, the word 'ooooooh!'
practically painted on his face. Then he suddenly shot off toward one
end of the store, Kiir still attached to his hand.
He stopped in front of a blocky looking machine with a number of
levers and shades of paint in colors that practically burned the
retina. Gir stared at it reverently.
He looked slowly up at her. "Brainfreezies," he said in an awe filled
tone.
"Riiiiiiight," she raised an eyebrow. She read the labels above
each lever. "Frosty Peanut, Cherry Doom... what on Irk is Icy Ham?"
"I want a CHERRYDOOM!" the robot squealed.
She shrugged. "Keedoky." She pulled two of the near bathtub-sized
cups out of the stack. She held one under the Cherry Doom. "So I just
pull this thingy, right?" she asked, tentatively laying a hand on the
lever.
"Uuuuuuhuuuuuuh," Gir agreed.
Kiir hesitated a moment longer. Something told her this wasn't a very
good idea. She had no clue what the earth drink might do to her alien
physiology, especially considering her hybrid constitution. But what the
hell, the worst it could do was kill her, right?
She yanked the red lever down and a frothy, semi-coagulated liquid
issued from the spigot, pooling in the cup until it was full. She stuck
a straw in it, handed the first cup to Gir and commenced to fill the
second with the same syrupy concoction, staring hypnotized at the
flow until she released the tap.
She picked up the cup and looked down at the 'dog', who was avidly
sucking at the drink. "So where do we pay for these?"
"Over THERE!" Gir pointed.
Kiir sauntered over to the counter and smiled at the bored looking
shop-clerk. He was gaunt and covered in ugly pustules, and was reading
some magazine with unclothed human women on it.
"Ye-ah?" he asked, voice breaking.
She rolled her eyes. "Two of the brain freeze thingies."
"That'll be four eight-nine ma'am."
Kiir reached into Gaz's purse and handed him the plastic card which
she had been told was earth monies. The clerk ran it through a scanner
and handed it back to her.
"Thank you, have a nice day," he muttered distractedly, turning his
attention back to the magazine.
She put the card away and turned around to find Gir giggling at a
shelf of comic books. She looked down at the mushy pink liquid, peering
at it as though it would reveal some deep secret of the mystery of
time to her. It didn't...yet. Hesitantly she put her lips to the straw
and took a pull of the pink goo. Hideously sweet and bitingly fruity it
exploded on her tongue, tasting like the fires of great suns and
freezing as the void of space. It tasted like dreams and mania and
possibilities and instant, perfect bliss. A buzzing feeling raced
through her veins, spreading through her to the tips of her fingers and
feet, her eyes lip up and a grin split her expression. She took another,
longer drink.
Gir looked up at her and asked brightly. "Kii-iir?" He cocked his
head sweetly.
Kiir giggle, her eyes twinkling and grinning manically. "I wanna go
SHOPPING!" she squealed.
***
"You KNOW?! How can KNOW? WHAT do you know?!"
Zim watched as Dib leapt up and toward his sister, frantic questions
racing behind his amber eyes. Zim knew that look, it meant Din wasn't
in a stable state of mind. Zim stood quickly and put a hand on the
boy's shoulder.
"Sit down, you are still not completely healed," he said calmly.
Dib opened his mouth to protest.
"Sit," Zim repeated. "You will not loose consciousness in my lab
again."
The boy frowned and sat down arms crossed. "Fine," he said, rather
sullenly. "But she has to tell me what she knows."
The Irken to his eyes him for a moment to regard the Gaz-creature.
"Yes, I think that is something we would both like to know."
Gaz's lips crinkled just slightly, perhaps the specter of a smirk.
"You don't mean to tell me Dib, you never looked through Dad's files.
Tch."
"What, so you went through Dad's diary? What did it say? Did he find
me under a cabbage leaf, or, or did the stork bring me?" he demanded
sarcastically, glaring at his sister, eyes smoldering.
Zim however, watched the girl coolly for any sign of deception.
She rolled her eyes. "Hardly." She paused and assumed a slightly
stronger posture, though her voice held no more emotion than the moment
before. "Seventeen years ago, January fifteenth, Dad was doing
experiments on some rock from meteor that had crashed in Mexico. He
discovered that they it a strange, powerful energy, and glowed red
under white light. Further testing proved that they had another strange
property, carbon atoms that touched it fused and began to show
properties like single celled organisms. Before this he had been doing
other experiments. Our mother, it turned out, couldn't have kids, ever,
and so dear old dad was trying to find a way to fix that. He couldn't.
Then, examining the rocks he thought that maybe he didn't have to fix
our mom, he thought maybe using this he could make life from scratch.
He sealed the rock in a jar with all the right stuff, and only a single
strand of his DNA. And he waited."
Zim listened with rapt attention. A meteor, a strange energy? Perhaps
things were coming together.
"And the rock started to change," Gaz continued in her eerie
monotone, "It became living tissue and flesh and blood. In just two
months it was something that looked exactly like a human baby. It lived,
it breathed. It was the child they had always wanted. It was you, Dib."
"But what about-" Dib began.
"I'm not finished yet!" Gaz hissed. "A little over a year later mom
contacted a weird illness. He tried but not even dad could cure her.
She died in just a couple of months. Dad was mad with grief, but he
remembered that he still had the tiny piece of the rock, the one that
he had used for tests. The original rock was the size of two fists,
this one was barely the size of a fingernail. But he did it again,
this time using some of mom's DNA, before it had to decay. He wasn't
sure it would work with such a small piece. It took longer, seven whole
moths until he had me, but by then he'd changed. He spared just enough
time to raise us until we were old enough for daycare and then he threw
himself completely into his work, which really didn't make any sense
any more. I don't think anything really made sense to him after mom
died. But now you know the whole story, how we were born, and why
you're so completely nuts. Or maybe that's just dad's DNA showing up."
She flashed another almost-smirk and seemed to have finished talking.
Dib stared. "That's it? I'm a comet? A rock" he stared at his hands.
"Did he ever... figure out where it came from?"
Zim was about to speak when the computer cut in.
"The visuals you requested have been retrieved," it droned.
The visuals from the moon where the energy samples had been found.
Zim gave a wry smile and drummed his fingers on the control panel.
"I believe I could make an educated guess as to the rocks origin. Bring the
moon on screen computer."
To be continued...
Dundundun. And that is where I leave you for now. Damn I'm nasty. Sorry
the chappy took so long, halfway through I had to go on a cross country
road trip with my family. Three days in the car one way, three days at
my Gramma's in Washington state and three days back. We slept in the
car. It sucked. But I got to see my cousin Avery in Washington, he's
cool. He loves Zim and JTHM. He kept quoting Zim, and talking like him.
Bwa. And I picked up a Zim shirt while I was there. The long sleeved
one with Zim and Gir on the ship and Gir's singing the doom song. And
I got a pair of 'Alaskan black diamond' earrings in the Badlands of
South Dakota in a tourist trap called Wall Drug. They're black and heart
shaped. Black hearts from the badlands. Oh, and I got bored in the car
and fell in love with Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bulliwinkle. I'll
have a fanquarter elfwood pic of him up soon, anime style. Yay strange
obsessions!
I'm watching Helen of Troy now.
Read it? Review it?
By Lejindarybunny
A romantic Invader Zim epic
A/N: Hey all. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things as
it comes to chapter-posty on timeness. After all, if I'm not doing my
homework I ought to be doing something, ne? I'm going through a
personal social crisis at the moment (involving best friends who now
seem to hate me) and I've decided the best way to solve it is to sink
deep into the abyss that is fandom. I haven't been reading or writing
much in favor of brooding but no more. HA! My reviewers on line are
much more dependable than some of my real life friends. For that
matter so are my characters.
But I'm ranting, sorry about that.
Anyway, story-wise things should be heating up. Dib's going to have to
go back to school soon and he and Zim will find themselves faced with
a new substitute teacher. What exactly do those Oranges have in mind?
It has something to do with Dib I'd say, but that's only an educated
guess. Meanwhile Kiir's going to have to deal with her heart-breakyness
hopefully in a way that doesn't involve the destruction of Dib's spinal
cord or any major landmarks. But will she be able to? If Dib's not
human, what is he? How much longer will I keep asking hypothetical
questions?
Disclaimer: If I owned the rights to Invader Zim everyone would hate me
because I'd be Nick.
Chapter XII... The origin of Dib; Kiir and Gir get Brainfreezies, the
return of Melanie, and the secrets of what created the Universe,
REVEALED! (HA! What other story can boast the answer to Life, the
Universe and Everything? Oh right. That one.)
"GAZ? What are you doing here?" Dib demanded, obviously shocked.
Not that Zim was any less surprised to see the normally
debilitatingly apathetic girl in his lab. After all, from what he could
gather she barely left the couch when the choice was up to her. What
could she want?
"Your skool called dad saying you weren't there today. He wanted me
to make sure you weren't dead. Tch. I told him you were here." The
girl's voice was a bland drawl like she wasn't fond of speaking.
"Yeah, well, I'm not. Dead I mean. I am here," Dib said.
"Obviously."
Zim watched the two of them as silence descended and he wondered,
if Dib wasn't human, what about his 'sister'?
"So you can go now," Dib told her.
Gaz continued to pause as though her brother hadn't broken the stiff
silence. Then she spoke. "So why ARE you here? You look like shit Dib."
Dib flushed. "I'm just, hanging out, okay? NOW can you go?"
"With Zim. You're 'hanging out' with Zim." She paused again,
evidently to consider the statement. "I thought he was an 'alien'."
"Yeah, so?" Dib responded sharply, "I never said there was anything
WRONG with him being an alien, did I?"
"Yes," Gaz responded truthfully. "You said he was alien scum come to
destroy the planet.
"Alien scum hmmm, Dib?" Zim squinted an eye, smirking. It was vaguely
amusing watching the two argue like this.
"That was years ago!" he protested, although still casting a slightly
guilty look toward the alien.
"That was day before yesterday," she deadpanned. "You didn't answer
my question Dib. What happened to you?"
The boy stayed silent.
Privately Zim weighed the pros and cons of actually telling the truth
to the maybe-human. He was certain she could handle it, if she
believed it. But did Zim want her to know?
"Or how about I ask you a different question Dib," Gaz said with more
than a hint of threat in her voice along with the ghost of a smirk
playing on her lips, "How about you tell me how your little
'sleep-under' went?"
Dib turned quite a lovely shade of pink and Zim could feel his own
cheeks heating with magenta. That clinched it.
"He was attacked," Zim said as all eyes turned to him. He shifted
a bit uneasily under the weight of Gaz's icy stare remembering that he
was completely undisguised. But it really didn't matter. "A creature
attacked him in the hallway of skool and attempted to drain him of his
life energy. I brought him to my lab for medical attention."
Gaz raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" she looked at Dib.
The boy was still rather pink around the ears. He nodded.
"Your brother's life was nearly extinguished," Zim continued. Which
brings us to an interesting point, he thought.
"And you saved him?" she asked a bit incredulously.
"Indeed," Zim replied, just daring her to accuse him of lying.
Dib's face certainly wasn't getting a chance to return to it's usual
pale shade.
Well now it was time for the 'kicker'. "I ran several tests on Dib,"
he began.
Dib looked at the alien questioningly.
Zim nodded and spelled it out as simply as possible. "Your brother
is not a human."
"Well duh," she snorted.
Not the reaction either of them had expected.
***
Kiir looked on more time in the mirror, thinking to herself that she
hadn't done a bad job. Not at all. She grinned. She had smeared strange
peach colored stuff all over her visible skin turning it to a normal
human tone. She had once again pulled back her antennae, which didn't
hurt as much this time, she was getting used to it. She'd even put on
some of the odd eye and lip paints that seemed unnecessary to her.
After all, in some alien cultures walking around without the correct
face paints in place was the social equivalent to walking around naked.
Like in her mother's culture.
She regarded herself in the mirror, now looking like nothing more
than a flat nosed human with the wrong number of fingers. She was
actually quite pretty if she judged human standards correctly, if
still a bit androgynous.
'If Zim's so into humans he ought to like me quite a bit now,' she
thought resentfully as she peered at the glass.
There was a soft knocking from somewhere near the bottom of the
closed door. "Are yew ready yeeeeet?" a high pitched voice asked.
Kiir sighed and shook her head. She tuned, pulled the door open and
looked down at the little robot in the animal suit. "Well?" she asked.
Gir gasped looking up with big, blue-green eyes. "Youse all perdy
and HUUU-many lookin'!"
The rebel smiled and was privately pleased at the complement, although
well aware that he probably would have said much the same thing even
if she'd gone in and smeared herself with mud and cake sprinkles.
"You ready to go then?" she asked.
"YuP! YaY! We'se gonna get some BAINFREEZIES!" he screamed and
danced around her feet.
Kiir winced slightly as she headed towards the door with Gir behind.
"Um yeah. You're gonna have to tell me where to get those since I have
absolutely no clue."
"The 24/7!!" he screeched and raced out the door ahead of her while
she scurried to catch up.
***
At the moment Buntch's world consisted of the sealed tube of
bubbling liquid energy in which he was floating. It would heal him,
and restore his form. The steady pulse and tingle soothed him and
rocked him backwards into a haze of memories of the past.
The dimension from which they came was of pure energy, landscapes of
energy, creatures of energy. Pure energy. It had been in this place
that the first culture arose, the culture which he had been a part of
since the beginning In this their world, they were immortal. Nothing
disrupted the cycle of energy consumption, conversion, reconversion and
consumption.
It had been easy, taking power from that weak council which he had so
long been a part of. True, his position of consort held even less real
power than his previous one of governor. Of course there had been that
one pesky rebellion, but they'd fled the dimension and could no longer
be considered a threat. At least, that was what the her Overlordship
assured him.
For nearly seven millennia she ruled them with an iron fist as he
enjoyed a position of luxury at her side. Then the plague hit, a
mysterious virus, or so they thought, causing the entire population
to weaken and fade out. Even he and her majesty were affected. In
a world that had never known sickness or death it was terrifying.
The best minds sought the answer to the problem. And they found it.
The rebels all those years ago had somehow punched a whole in the
dimensional fabric and their world was dying, slowly but surely.
Bio-energy was being leeched out before it could be converted back
into pure energy. Their word was shrinking and they were dying. In
a few thousand years there would be nothing but a vast, empty void.
The scientists said there was no hope. If they could somehow patch
the hole AND find an infusion of pure energy the cycle should
regenerate itself. But there was less and less pure energy in their
world and there was no way to patch the rift.
The Overlord saw her people and her kingdom dying and she knew
that there was only one chance. She summoned Buntch and only
moments before the dimension died completely followed the rebels to the
other world without a thought for their doomed subjects.
What they found was strange. A dimension of solids that should have
been as barren as their own world had become, like dry, impenetrable
rock. But the energies introduced from their dimension had somehow
bonded with the materials in this world to change them, introducing
gases and liquids and strange, biologic forms of life. It was
disgusting. But as they walked across the surface of one of these
planets the energy that had once been a part of their universe flowed
back to the Overlord and her consort, renewing them. It killed the
bio-creatures of course, but by rights they shouldn't even exist.
For many millennia they simply traveled this universe, absorbing back
the energy that had been taken, reconverting it from the many
perversions it had taken on and integrating it into themselves. But this
was not the pure energy they had once fed off . It burned itself out
after a while and was gone and they had to consume more. Even so, after
having absorbed an energy they were able to configure their own bodies
to the shape they had taken and thus walk among the creatures if they
chose. They wiped out whole planets in this manner, even as they found
more and more responsive life forms, even somewhat intelligent ones.
But as they traveled they could feel it, deep within themselves, that
there was still pure energy somewhere in this forsaken dimension.
And Koil told him she knew, it must be the rebels and the core of their
ship. If they could find them they could take the core back to the Void
and start the cycle anew. When Buntch asked her how they would stop
the leak she gave a happy trill. The pure power of the Energy core
could be used to destroy this dimension utterly, and then their would
be no hole to patch.
But nowhere they went did they find more than ancient traces of the
rebels' passing and the pure energy seemed completely out of reach. No
where in the Universe could they find a creature that had even so much
as a trace of Pure undiluted, unconverted energy in them. Until now.
Or so Koil said.
It wasn't that Buntch didn't trust her exactly, it was that over the
billions of years they had been searching she had changed. Sometimes
when they were on a planet she would become fascinated with it's
culture or even a single creature or aspect and she would refuse to
deplete the energy until she was sure she knew everything about it and
had committed it surely to memory. Then after they had destroyed it she
would be almost wistful, like she was sorry it was gone. It wasn't
healthy. These patterns were twistings of the only true beauty, thefts
and marrings as though someone had carved their initials into the bark
of the tree of life.
He had asked her why once and she had glared coldly at him.
'They were unique. I could not have created them. They deserve to be
remembered.'
Koil had perfected a way to absorb with their energy all they had
ever known or experienced. Her mind and the ships computers were by
now filled with memories of more than a million creatures and races. And
now she had a fascination with the Earth, or rather, it seemed from the
way she absorbed 'television' with the Earth's myths. And of course
with the human who might or might not have traces of Pure Energy in
him.
Buntch gave the twittering equivalent to a sigh and let the energy
bubble and restore him. It would pass. Everything passed.
***
The 24/7 was a minimart on the corner about ten or so minutes from
Zim's base. Regarding it, Kiir's first reaction was one of surprise and
the feeling that anything purchased from this little center of commerce
would make her physically and violently ill. But Gir, who had a firm
grip on her hand, pulled her forward and into the looming pillar of
consumables before she had the chance to protest.
Inside the store it was a pit of potential greed and gluttony.
Brightly colored signs, each trying to be more eye-catching than the
others, proclaimed things like 'Meetie Burger: our burgers are the
Meetiest!' and 'Obey the Snak Kakes!!'. Kiir thought that it looked
very much like a refueling station near Vergon 6 that she'd been
forced at lazer point to stop at.
Gir too stood for a moment in childlike wonder, the word 'ooooooh!'
practically painted on his face. Then he suddenly shot off toward one
end of the store, Kiir still attached to his hand.
He stopped in front of a blocky looking machine with a number of
levers and shades of paint in colors that practically burned the
retina. Gir stared at it reverently.
He looked slowly up at her. "Brainfreezies," he said in an awe filled
tone.
"Riiiiiiight," she raised an eyebrow. She read the labels above
each lever. "Frosty Peanut, Cherry Doom... what on Irk is Icy Ham?"
"I want a CHERRYDOOM!" the robot squealed.
She shrugged. "Keedoky." She pulled two of the near bathtub-sized
cups out of the stack. She held one under the Cherry Doom. "So I just
pull this thingy, right?" she asked, tentatively laying a hand on the
lever.
"Uuuuuuhuuuuuuh," Gir agreed.
Kiir hesitated a moment longer. Something told her this wasn't a very
good idea. She had no clue what the earth drink might do to her alien
physiology, especially considering her hybrid constitution. But what the
hell, the worst it could do was kill her, right?
She yanked the red lever down and a frothy, semi-coagulated liquid
issued from the spigot, pooling in the cup until it was full. She stuck
a straw in it, handed the first cup to Gir and commenced to fill the
second with the same syrupy concoction, staring hypnotized at the
flow until she released the tap.
She picked up the cup and looked down at the 'dog', who was avidly
sucking at the drink. "So where do we pay for these?"
"Over THERE!" Gir pointed.
Kiir sauntered over to the counter and smiled at the bored looking
shop-clerk. He was gaunt and covered in ugly pustules, and was reading
some magazine with unclothed human women on it.
"Ye-ah?" he asked, voice breaking.
She rolled her eyes. "Two of the brain freeze thingies."
"That'll be four eight-nine ma'am."
Kiir reached into Gaz's purse and handed him the plastic card which
she had been told was earth monies. The clerk ran it through a scanner
and handed it back to her.
"Thank you, have a nice day," he muttered distractedly, turning his
attention back to the magazine.
She put the card away and turned around to find Gir giggling at a
shelf of comic books. She looked down at the mushy pink liquid, peering
at it as though it would reveal some deep secret of the mystery of
time to her. It didn't...yet. Hesitantly she put her lips to the straw
and took a pull of the pink goo. Hideously sweet and bitingly fruity it
exploded on her tongue, tasting like the fires of great suns and
freezing as the void of space. It tasted like dreams and mania and
possibilities and instant, perfect bliss. A buzzing feeling raced
through her veins, spreading through her to the tips of her fingers and
feet, her eyes lip up and a grin split her expression. She took another,
longer drink.
Gir looked up at her and asked brightly. "Kii-iir?" He cocked his
head sweetly.
Kiir giggle, her eyes twinkling and grinning manically. "I wanna go
SHOPPING!" she squealed.
***
"You KNOW?! How can KNOW? WHAT do you know?!"
Zim watched as Dib leapt up and toward his sister, frantic questions
racing behind his amber eyes. Zim knew that look, it meant Din wasn't
in a stable state of mind. Zim stood quickly and put a hand on the
boy's shoulder.
"Sit down, you are still not completely healed," he said calmly.
Dib opened his mouth to protest.
"Sit," Zim repeated. "You will not loose consciousness in my lab
again."
The boy frowned and sat down arms crossed. "Fine," he said, rather
sullenly. "But she has to tell me what she knows."
The Irken to his eyes him for a moment to regard the Gaz-creature.
"Yes, I think that is something we would both like to know."
Gaz's lips crinkled just slightly, perhaps the specter of a smirk.
"You don't mean to tell me Dib, you never looked through Dad's files.
Tch."
"What, so you went through Dad's diary? What did it say? Did he find
me under a cabbage leaf, or, or did the stork bring me?" he demanded
sarcastically, glaring at his sister, eyes smoldering.
Zim however, watched the girl coolly for any sign of deception.
She rolled her eyes. "Hardly." She paused and assumed a slightly
stronger posture, though her voice held no more emotion than the moment
before. "Seventeen years ago, January fifteenth, Dad was doing
experiments on some rock from meteor that had crashed in Mexico. He
discovered that they it a strange, powerful energy, and glowed red
under white light. Further testing proved that they had another strange
property, carbon atoms that touched it fused and began to show
properties like single celled organisms. Before this he had been doing
other experiments. Our mother, it turned out, couldn't have kids, ever,
and so dear old dad was trying to find a way to fix that. He couldn't.
Then, examining the rocks he thought that maybe he didn't have to fix
our mom, he thought maybe using this he could make life from scratch.
He sealed the rock in a jar with all the right stuff, and only a single
strand of his DNA. And he waited."
Zim listened with rapt attention. A meteor, a strange energy? Perhaps
things were coming together.
"And the rock started to change," Gaz continued in her eerie
monotone, "It became living tissue and flesh and blood. In just two
months it was something that looked exactly like a human baby. It lived,
it breathed. It was the child they had always wanted. It was you, Dib."
"But what about-" Dib began.
"I'm not finished yet!" Gaz hissed. "A little over a year later mom
contacted a weird illness. He tried but not even dad could cure her.
She died in just a couple of months. Dad was mad with grief, but he
remembered that he still had the tiny piece of the rock, the one that
he had used for tests. The original rock was the size of two fists,
this one was barely the size of a fingernail. But he did it again,
this time using some of mom's DNA, before it had to decay. He wasn't
sure it would work with such a small piece. It took longer, seven whole
moths until he had me, but by then he'd changed. He spared just enough
time to raise us until we were old enough for daycare and then he threw
himself completely into his work, which really didn't make any sense
any more. I don't think anything really made sense to him after mom
died. But now you know the whole story, how we were born, and why
you're so completely nuts. Or maybe that's just dad's DNA showing up."
She flashed another almost-smirk and seemed to have finished talking.
Dib stared. "That's it? I'm a comet? A rock" he stared at his hands.
"Did he ever... figure out where it came from?"
Zim was about to speak when the computer cut in.
"The visuals you requested have been retrieved," it droned.
The visuals from the moon where the energy samples had been found.
Zim gave a wry smile and drummed his fingers on the control panel.
"I believe I could make an educated guess as to the rocks origin. Bring the
moon on screen computer."
To be continued...
Dundundun. And that is where I leave you for now. Damn I'm nasty. Sorry
the chappy took so long, halfway through I had to go on a cross country
road trip with my family. Three days in the car one way, three days at
my Gramma's in Washington state and three days back. We slept in the
car. It sucked. But I got to see my cousin Avery in Washington, he's
cool. He loves Zim and JTHM. He kept quoting Zim, and talking like him.
Bwa. And I picked up a Zim shirt while I was there. The long sleeved
one with Zim and Gir on the ship and Gir's singing the doom song. And
I got a pair of 'Alaskan black diamond' earrings in the Badlands of
South Dakota in a tourist trap called Wall Drug. They're black and heart
shaped. Black hearts from the badlands. Oh, and I got bored in the car
and fell in love with Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bulliwinkle. I'll
have a fanquarter elfwood pic of him up soon, anime style. Yay strange
obsessions!
I'm watching Helen of Troy now.
Read it? Review it?