I'm going to have to say sorry in advance. While trying to write this, my mother decided to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was quite loud, and the TV is about 4' from the pc. This makes for a distraction. Also, mid fic, I decided to do some treatment to a fish I have that is plagued by a bacteria infection. I never realized being an aquarium hobbyist was such an expensive thing. Even though my aquarium is freshwater, I think I spent about $100 on it just yesterday. My advice to people thinking about starting an aquarium... get a good-paying job. This is off topic and has nothing to do with anything more than my life, which studies show is a boring thing. Well, I heard Dib-ship aired in Mexico, but I have yet to find it on the internet. I did, however, find Backseat Drivers. It is worth leaving your computer on all night to get. Do it... I demand... The TURKEY demands... Now, back to the actual TOPIC at HAND... yes... I write! You can't watch me write, but I assure you I am doing so. You should just take my word for it and leave it at that. The last chapter ended more abruptly than I liked. Hopefully, this one won't do the same. Read on young fanfic enthusiasts, for this is my rendition of works by Jhonen Vasquez, pirated by Nickelodeon and, like so many other good quality shows, put on a shelf to never be seen in the civilized world again... I bet 95% of you completely ignored this thingy. I'll reward you by not putting an endnote! Squee with joy...

Dib paused and looked at his nemesis for quite a while, maybe a minute. Zim returned the odd glare while waiting for a reply from the big-headed boy. He would surely praise Zim for his observations. Zim is amazing after all.

"I was just going to say she's the teacher that taught my dad, but now that you mention it, she does look pretty old for thirty years ago." Zim's jaw dropped.

'How can humans be that stupid?!' he thought to himself while those overworked synapses in Dib's head began to do that firing thing again.

"If what you're hinting at is true, then what should we do?"

"We?! We will not do anything!" Zim demanded in a demanding way that was demanding. "I have no urge to consort with such a primitive being as you, monkey-man! I will investigate this by myself; I need no help from primitive vertebrates such as yourself." Zim gave a dismissing wave as if to shoo Dib, the paranormally paranoid investigator of any and all discrepancies, no matter how trivial or irrelevant they may be.

"You can't be serious! This could be important! If Ms. Bitters isn't human then she could pose a threat to the class, the town, mankind..."

"Pshaw," Zim interrupted with a dismissing wave. "Whatever it is she might be up to, she's been up to it for quite some time now. It is very doubtful that the effects of this will show up any time soon as they have yet to do so. You should leave it to another generation of your dull-brained monkey brethren to uncover." Dib stared flabbergasted. How could Zim not want to help? Oh yeah, he's not human. He wouldn't care about the affairs of mankind, even if he was subjected to the same mental torture of the Bitters woman daily.

"Have you noticed how the other children's minds work? They won't be able to figure this out! This is a job for... us!" Dib had taken up a position atop the shelf and, if this were a cartoon, there would be action lines outlining him at this very moment. And, as this is a cartoon, you can be assured that they are there... yup... in Technicolor...

"What?! No! Not us, earth-boy! I have already expressed my thoughts on working with such a slow, dull-witted, annoying, pathetic, freaky, disturbing, infuriating..."

"Wait, wait, wait... enough description, okay. I get enough of that from the others not to hear it from you to."

"But... I... always talk about you like that," Zim stated in shock.

"Oh, okay then. But seriously Zim, Ms. Bitters must be stopped!" Zim pondered this for a moment.

"Hmm..."

Dib and Zim spent the rest of the library class squabbling over teaming up and not teaming up. Dib wanted to team up, but Zim demanded he remain on his own, which led to them forgetting that the annuals were out, and sneaking away before either of them had to put them up again. They both secretly hoped Mr. Nevers wouldn't find out it was they who left the annuals out and forced him to pay the library clerk more, thus endangering the green jello. Inevitably, the two decided no to decide on anything and left it at that, but eventually, the class ended and Dib had made plans of his own.

Today, he would not be home on time. No one would make an observation of this, especially not his gamer sister. He really looked down on her for her lack of commitment to the real world, but what he didn't know was that ten years from now, his sister would be competing against other gamers for money and would be making up to $10,000 a pop. He also didn't know that people in his world were already doing this and that if he had become more enthralled by games at an early age, that he too might have a bright future ahead of him. His choice to lead a paranormally paranoid life ensured his longsuffering.

Dib chose to observe Ms. Bitters. He knew that all teachers had the odd habit of staying far after the last student had vacated the classroom, but the reason why eluded him. Perhaps it was in the job description, but still the facts remained. No one really knew where Ms. Bitters had set up residence in this odd little town. Deftly, he snuck around the building and peered over the windowsill.

I wouldn't describe the window as hideous; it was more closely described as dilapidated beyond any hope of repair. A long spindly crack, emanating from the upper left of the pane had worked its way down toward the glass' center, dirt marks left the indentation where a four square ball had once hit it with full force, chunks of organic matter were clinging to it effortlessly, and, in all, it was quite hard to see through, yet Dib found himself straining to look inside.

This particular side of the building was host to a not-so-trim row of hedges which ended rather abruptly at the start of the windows. Often, tiny little squirrels and like wildlife would use the bushes as shelter and an over all happy stomping ground, but today, the bush wasn't just inhabited by fuzzy woodland creatures. The first thing that clued Dib in to this fact was that the bush was shaking.

"Ah, a shaking bush..." Dib thought aloud. "Wait, bushes don't shake." Dib looked over at the bush just in time to see a not so secretive Zim come tumbling out. Disregarding the fact that he had just unceremoniously plopped out of a bush, making quite a lot of noise and drawing a few odd glares from dull-witted children, Zim leapt to his feet and gazed up over the windowsill and into the classroom just as Dib had done moments before. As for Dib, the alien hadn't seemed to notice the boy standing mere feet from him.

"Hey Zim" Dib stated, confused by that very fact. The alien, caught off guard, squealed out in the sudden shock of it all and quickly averted his attention.

"What are you doing here?" Zim demanded.

"Spying on Ms. Bitters" Dib stated plainly in such a plain way that it has been decided by plain people of the plain planes of Berugia III that it was so plainly plain, and in a plain way, that it would be nominated to become the slogan of the Plainly Plain Group of Plain People's Plain Organization of Plainness, also known as the PPGPPPOP, or One PG Two POP.

"No," Zim demanded. "I called it first!" With such emotion he did say this.

"Okay..." Dib gave up on trying to win this one and turned to look back through the grimy window, hoping to catch a glimpse of that creepy non- human woman he called his teacher.

"Hey!" Zim yelled in such a way that Dib was frightened the teacher-thing on the other side of the glass would hear him. "Scram earth-boy! This is my thing I do!" Zim showed slight emotional frustration in stumbling over his words which only made him glare at the boy with more spite and hatred than before. "Now go!" In a wild act of gesticulation, Zim thrust a finger in the general direction of the sidewalk. As sidewalks are things made of poured concrete and not capable of any deductive reasoning, it didn't mind that it was being pointed at.

"Look Zim, I'm here for one thing, to see if what you pointed out about Ms. Bitters is true, and I'm not leaving until I uncover the truth." Dib said in his self-righteous way. Come to think of it, there are a lot of self- righteous people in this world, as in people who think highly of themselves or at least when claiming they are going to destroy the world or when professing that their teacher is something other than human.

"Fine, monkey thing, but this was my idea, and I'm not about to abandon it because of you."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The two had reached a standoff and spent the rest of this observation time ignoring one another by actually observing that which they had decided to observe. Through that grimy glass, was their teacher, Ms. Bitters. She sat, unmoving, at her desk for much longer than a few minutes. As time lapsed into whatever it is that time lapses into, both Zim and Dib were slowly drained of any enthusiasm they might have had at the beginning of the activity. Minutes turned into hours and still the teacher sat, vacantly staring forward into the unoccupied desks. Eventually, darkness covered the land. Dib became excided over this as he thought it might mean it was nighttime, but when he turned to look skyward, his view was obstructed by a rather large and sweaty man riding a lawnmower across the sod.

A little while later, an actual nighttime came as the sun slipped slowly into madness... I mean, over the distant hills and into madness... I mean oblivion... Yeah, that's it... yeah. Either way, the sun dipped and darkness flood the land. This is when their teacher made her move with a sickening creak and popping of joints which was, oddly enough, easily heard through the concrete wall. At first, the ancient woman bent her head to the side. Then, with much effort, she shoved herself into a standing position.

The complex events that came next were so horrifically complex, that they completely hid the fact that they weren't really complex at all. With a flick of the wrist, accompanied by a blood curdling snap, the woman thrust her index finger down onto a button which had magically appeared not so far away but not quite exactly on the corner of her desk. Both Zim and Dib stared in awe at the much more complex series of events that followed. It will be noted that this series of events was, indeed, quite complex and therefore much different from the other complex series of events from before that really weren't all that complex to begin with...

And here I end... add= "insert_subliminal_review_command_here"8}/end