The Return of the Hideous New Girl
Chapter Four: Tak VS Rogue
As the sun finally started to set, the early evening stars were like a signal to have the humans begin their gathering to the park. The carnival as begun.
In the middle of the crowd of screaming kids and headache induced parents, Zim and Rogue blended in rather nicely. The noise of the smaller, lesser earthlings was starting to get to them. They walked pass the crowd and stopped to behold a whole view of the park transformed into this human assembling. There were rides, game booths, snack places, and some odd looking humans to go with them. Mostly people with markings all over their fat, bare armed bodies and saying strange things to the other people walking by, commanding them to throw a little white ball at a stack of bottles or use a rather pathetic looking firearm to shot at balloons. The snacks were much like the foods common on the Irken's home planet, candy, popcorn, soda, chips, etc. And finally, the rides were forcing the kids on them to scream even louder and more unbearable.
Zim and Rogue look at each other and waited for one to say something to the other.
"...It's a human training camp!" Zim said. Rogue didn't change expression. She wasn't getting that kind of vibe from this place.
"What makes you think that?" She asked.
"It's obvious! Look!" Zim pointed towards the games with the weak guns shooting balloons. "That must be how humans train their revolting offspring to handle this planet's weapons and firearms! In case a suddenly INVASION was to happen! And THAT...!" Points to the rides..., "...Those machines are to test their restrain to suddenly pressure changes, and to see if they vomit because of it!"
Rogue's face finally changed to Zim's odd observation on this. "...Then what about the snacks?"
"SNACKS!!"
Out of nowhere, Gir flies through the crowd and past the two aliens, crashing into a nearby cotton candy booth. The vendor ran away screaming while the green dog began shoveling mounds of sugared goodness into his mouth.
"What the-! GIR!!" Zim ran over to the trashed stand just as Gir finished the pink cotton candy and was moving to the blue stuff. His face was covered in it, making him look like a demented Santa Claus.
"Gir! I told you to stay at the base! What are you doing here!? ANSWER ME!" Zim shouted.
"Uh, Zim?" Rogue tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to see Gir's entrance was causing a crowd to form around them.
Zim looked at all the eyeing humans and then back down at Gir. "...Uh...heh." He bends down and picks up Gir. "That's a GOOOD dog mutt monster! Yeees, you are!" Zim said before running off with Gir and Rogue following close behind.
They got behind of the game booths and Zim plopped his SIR down on the ground. "Explain yourself, Gir?!" Zim shouted.
"DA SNACKS!!" The robot answered. That was really all to it.
"It doesn't take much..." Rogue said shaking her head. "I think we better spit up. I'll watch Gir and make sure he doesn't mess up, and you can look around solo and gather more information. How's that?"
"Excellent plan, Rogue! More ground covered in less time." Zim answered. "We'll meet back at this spot in an hour and see what we find out."
They dispatched, Rogue and Gir heading to the next food stand, by Gir's wishes, and Zim went towards one of the rides.
However...
At the entrance of the park, Tak and Mimi could see the Irkens part ways. The revengeful alien was waiting for such a perfect moment. "...Let's go, Mimi." They rushed into the park to get ready and surprise their victim.
On the other side of the carnival, Gir was now at a booth selling popcorn. Before that, it was candy apples, then soft drinks, and more cotton candy. Rogue was watching him the whole time, but just couldn't comprehend how a SIR could eat in the first place.
Gir came walking back with a jumbo size bag of popcorn and smiled at Rogue. "Want some?" Rogue shook her head, of course. "OK!" Gir set the bag down and jumped into it, swimming on the buttered goodness, and eating at the same time. Rogue wasn't surprised. She's never surprised with Gir anymore. When he was done, he popped his head up and saw something else.
"OOooo...PRETZELS!!" Gir suddenly squealed. He ran, tearing through the bag and up to a pretzel booth. Rogue quietly walked over with him.
"One with LOTS of CHEEESE." Gir told the seller. The man behind the stand gave what Gir wanted, Gir gave him a dollar, and he chopped down on the cheesed covered snack. Rogue wasn't so fond of cheese and gave a slight sick look.
"What 'bout you? Wanna pretzel, kid?"
Rogue looked up at the taller, rather freaky looking carnie-human. "Me? Uh, no-I was just..."
"Ah, come on. It's only a buck..." The man said with a creepy grin. Rogue got a weird vibe from this human. So just for the sake of it, she answered, "...Sure, I'll take one...?"
The man let out a small laugh and handed Rogue a plain pretzel, since she didn't say anything about cheese, which was ok by her. She paid for it and they walked away from the pretzel man.
Gir had already finished his; the poof was all over his face. But he noticed that Rogue didn't even touch hers. "You gonna eat that?"
"Uh? Oh...no, you can have it." Rogue said, handing it to Gir. But he didn't take it. "...Oh... I get it. No cheese." She sighed and they continued walking. But then something caught her eye about her pretzel. She looked down and saw little crystal-like things covering the twisted bread snack. Suddenly curious, she picked one of them off and looked at it even closer. "...What is this stuff?"
She sniffed it, but it didn't have an aroma or odor. It wasn't a rock. She went one step further and gave the little thing a small lick. It tasted funny, but not disgusting. It wasn't so bad.
Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation all over her body. It surprised her a bit as she dropped the pretzel when it happened. Gir looked up at her and cocked his head to one side. Rogue glanced down at him. "...What? Is something wrong?"
Gir just responded by raising his arm up over his head, like he was measuring something. Rogue didn't get what the robot was trying to say. "Do I...look different?" She said, not understanding anything right then.
"You grew!" Gir finally said.
However. Right when he mentioned that, Rogue again felt odd, a "sinking" feeling in the pit of her gut. Gir stared up at her and said, "No grow."
Standing there, shocked, confused, and a little baffled all at the same time, Rogue couldn't believe what just happened...she obtained a second of induced growth! "But how!?" She then glimpsed down at the pretzel, and the tiny crystal which covered it. She picked it up and ran over to an empty area with no body around. Gir followed her, and when the coast was clear, she licked the snack, getting the same peculiar taste.
"...I can feel it..." She looked downward and saw that the ground looked slightly higher then before. But again, she felt it suddenly go away and she was back to normal once more.
"This is it! This shiny crystal...stuff! I've got to get more of it! Come on, Gir!" They both ran back to the pretzel booth...
~Meanwhile, Zim was currently watching the effects caused by the rides on the other humans. The kids that got off the rides right afterwards either looked like they were gonna puke, or did so anyway. Zim was both sicken and rather amused, watching them creature deliberately make themselves sick.
"What a bunch of unpleasant, repulsing organisms..." He said under his breath. When he couldn't take anymore of it, he turned the other way and began to head for another section of the humanoid gathering.
However, behind a tent just a mere few feet away from Zim, Tak watched the undercover Irken making his way through the human mass. She hasn't seen Rogue with him for quite some time now...
"...I've got you now..." A spiteful smile painted on Tak's face before she lurked into the crowd.
There were many humans were Zim was, he could not see or hear his unexpected stalker mover ever closer from behind. He looked upward towards all the different humans; they looked like skyscrapers to him and his small size. And the slight yet nauseous stench of their race was already getting to him in such close encounters. He turned right around, and stopped in his tracks.
Through the forest of humans walking every which way, he could see someone close to his own height, but he wasn't sure who is was. He first thought Rogue, but their meeting place and time wasn't in this crowd. He couldn't see all the features; the legs of the taller Earthlings blocked more of his sight.
'...Maybe it is Rogue...' Zim thought. Right now, he just wanted to get out of this human mass. He started walking towards the figure, and immediately, he got the weirdest feeling about this. He's been with Rogue for a long time now, and he can pick her out of a crowd, even if she was in her human disguise. But this...there was something not right with whoever he was looking at.
Suddenly, the figure was gone out of Zim's view. His eyes widened and he looked all around him. He got a bad feeling in the deepest pit of his guts; he now knew for sure that wasn't Rogue, but someone else.
With the mix of the situation and the reek of human, he started to run straight through the accumulation of humans, knocking a few of them down. He was confused and now a bit freaked. He continued to run, until he saw a clear opening. Zim lunged through it, and he was out of the human forest. He breathed in fresh air and already forgot about the other factor of his experience.
The last thing he remembered was a solid blow to the back of his head, and falling face first to the ground...
~ Rogue walked away from the pretzel booth with a huge grin on her face and a few heavy bags of the "growth crystals", as she personal dubbed them. Walking next to her, Gir too had a big smile, holding a truck load of cheese pretzels in his little hands. Behind them, the pretzel human laid motionless over the stand's counter. Rogue couldn't get the crystals from him nicely, so...
"That human had more then enough of this stuff to give out. I wonder why he was so picky about it." Rogue said to herself. "Ah well, it was his fault that he didn't behave on my terms...heh."
Gir just bit down on his cheesy goodness with bliss.
Rogue suddenly stopped and remembered something. "Oh, we were supposed to meet with Zim! It should be an hour now, right?" Gir wasn't listening. Rogue just sighed and said, "We better get back to the meeting place."
They got to the place where Zim said they were meeting, but Zim wasn't there yet. Rogue assumed that he just might have got caught up with something. They waited for another ten minutes before Rogue started getting anxious.
"...What's taking him? I've got to show him what I've found! This is important!" She looked at the bags she had gain from the snack human.
Meanwhile, Gir was now down to his last pretzel and he was looking at it longingly. This moment didn't last long through as he opened his mouth and prepared to stuff his face. But he missed his mouth and the cheese treat felled to the ground next to the tent behind them. The SIR quickly picked his precious snack up, but suddenly heard some movement inside the tent. After stuffing the dirt covered pretzel into his mouth, he peeked under the tent covers.
It was dark inside, but even in his dog suit, Gir's illuminating eyes brighten it up enough. The tent looked vacant, but there was somebody there, two figures. One was lying on the ground, and the other was looking down at them. The silhouette of the standing one had some recognizable features to Gir. And that wasn't all; there was one other figure there, a black cat with blood red eyes.
"MiiiiiiMiiiiii...I SEEEE yoooou..." Gir said out loud.
Tak and Mimi spun around and spotted Gir's head poking out from the tent cover. Tak scowled and shouted, "MIMI! GET'EM!"
Outside, Rogue finally realized that Gir wasn't next to her anymore. Her turned around and saw him with his head in the tent. "Gir, what are you doing?" She walked over and was suddenly surprised when Mimi appeared from under the cover and knocked both Gir and Rogue to the ground. The black cat paused and looked right at Rogue with her crimson colored eyes.
"What the-!" Rogue ducked just in time for Mimi to miss her but knock Gir back down. Already annoyed, Rogue grabbed the black cat and pulled it off Gir. Mimi hissed and ran back under the tent. "GET BACK HERE!" Rogue shouted. She crawled into the tent, and saw Tak.
Gir followed Rogue and took the top part of his disguise off so that the whole inside was lit up from his metal eyes. Rogue's sight was immediately drawn to the Irken that was on the ground next to Tak, it was Zim.
"ZIM! What did you do to him?!" She shouted to Tak.
Tak just looked at Rogue with narrowed eyes. "I've been curious to meet you, human...what's your name again...Rogue, right?"
Rogue was taken back by how Tak worded that. The stranger looked just as human as the next Earthling...
Tak continued by saying, "Don't worry about Zim here, I just knocked him out, so I can get what I came for."
"You know Zim?" Rogue said. "How would you know about him? Who are you?"
"That doesn't matter to you, human...I'm disgusted to know that one of our kind has fallen for a creature of a different race..." Tak said. "I'm sure my leaders will take that into account when I bring him back, and get my vengeance!"
"Leaders? ...You mean the Tallest, right" Rogue said calmly.
Tak's eyes enlarged. "How much has this traitor told you!? I should destroy you right now for knowing that much!"
Rogue looked straight at Tak with a focus stare. "...I am not what you think...I hate this planet too..." Rogue raised her arm and deactivated her disguise for Tak. This threw Tak for a loop. Rogue then said, "And if you do anything to Zim in anyway, I will make sure you leave this miserable planet in pieces!"
After being quite shocked, Tak too turned off his human look for Rogue. "Looks like we have nothing to hide after all..."
"What's your name...?" Rogue asked; her blood beginning to boil.
"...Tak."
"I should have known..." Rogue said. "I remember Zim talking about you a few times in the past. You tried to take this planet to prove your worth to the Tallest..."
"...And get my sweet revenge towards Zim for ruining my life!" Tak said.
Rogue gave Tak her best death glare. "I'm not gonna let you take Zim to the Tallest! You'll have to get through me first!" She raised her arms and her gem began to glow.
"If you're helping him, then you're a traitor to the Irken Empire as well!" Tak released her metal legs. "I will gladly punish you for that!"
"Let's see you try!" Rogue unleashed an assault of lasers towards Tak. She dodged them all and they just burned holes through the tent's covering. Turning her disguise back on, Tak ran out of the tent. Rogue did the same and ran right after her.
Gir watched as the two female aliens took chase, standing next to his K.O. master. He looked down at Zim and started to quietly poke him in the face. "Wakie wakie, master!" He said. After a few sharp pokes, Zim opened his eyes and looked around his current surroundings.
"What happened...? Uh, Gir?" He saw his SIR grinning widely at him. Placing his hand on the back of his head, he could feel a large bump from where Tak knocked him out, but he still didn't know that was her in the crowd earlier. "Gir! Where's Rogue? Why isn't she with you?"
Gir answered saying, "Chasing Tak."
"TAK!?"
~Outside in the open, Rogue and Tak were causing quite a commotion. Although both were wearing their human looks, the way they ripped through the tents and booths and group of various humans, it was a miracle that nobody gave it a second thought that they may be not human. Of course, they're not that smart to begin with...
After trashing numerous stands and setups, Tak and Rogue finally stopped in the middle of a empty area of the carnival. They were both gasping and sweating hard, but the look on their faces said that they were done yet. They stared at each other, eye to eye, plotting their next moves for the next bout.
'...She's fast! ...The same speed as me!' Rogue thought. 'She must have had some kind of body enhancement to get like that...'
'This Irken is different then other fighters or soldiers!' Tak thought. '...And since when did the Empire let full limb cybrog implants be permissible?' Tak glared at Rogue robotic arms. '...She must have got that done outside Irken Laws...'
Rogue raised her arms, her gems flashed, the light expanding upwards. With a grin on her face, Rogue proudly displayed another one of her gem's specialties. By forcing the energy in the gems out and keeping its form solid, she can shape the energy into two long scythes-like blades, perfect for close combat.
Tak stepped back a few feet, surprised by Rogue's new trick, but wasn't fearful by it. On the other hand, she too shot a smile. "You know, I have a few tricks of my own..."
"Then why don't you show them?" Rogue responded. Before another word could be spoken, she lunged toward Tak, her arms crossed, ready to attack on contact. A swift dodge to the left saved Tak, but Rogue was rapidly on her feet again and turned toward her.
Tak flashed her PAK legs and jumped high in the air from her pursuer. Before Rogue knew it, she was behind her and got her into a head lock. She could hear Tak's snicker under her breath for a hasty move, but it wasn't that amazing. Rogue threw her hands behind Tak's head and hurled her up and over. Tak hit the ground hard.
"That kind of a "trick" was that?" Rogue asked mockingly.
"Your right...that wasn't it." Tak said. A sudden flash of light appeared over Tak's narrow eyes, and Rogue immediately felt unusual. Her body stopped right where it was, she couldn't move. Still staring at her, Tak slowly walked up to her frozen adversary.
"This is my trick..." She said proudly. She then deactivated her human camouflage, and poked to the metal implant on the left side of her head. "This gives me the power to control another creature's mind, and by the look of things, your mind doesn't seem that resistant..."
It took some time, but Rogue was able to answer back that comment, "...My...mind...isn't..."
"What's that? You have something to say?" Tak said cynically.
"...it...isn't all organic."
Immediately, Rogue broke away from Tak's mind grip, a back flash of energy threw Tak a few feet backwards. Free to move, Rogue jolted right after Tak and pinned her to the ground.
"...H-How!? What is with your mind!?" Tak said; her voice full of shock.
Rogue looked at Tak and answered, "...I was made in a different way then you...then all other Irkens. My brain is 50% high powered machine, cybrogic to be precise. And the other half is indeed organic, but even that has its important features. I have a higher sense of awareness then other Irkens."
Tak suddenly grinned. "With all that hardware, you're more close to a robot then anything!"
Rogue scowled and picked Tak up by her uniform. Those words...she has heard them before from another source.
"...You're no better then the Tallest!" Rogue threw Tak so hard, that the tree trunk she hit cracked a bit.
Just then, Rogue could hear Zim calling her name.
"Rogue! Rogue, where are you!?"
"Zim?" The female alien turned around and there Zim and Gir. "Zim! You're alright!"
"Where's Tak?!" Zim said with a sense of worry in his voice.
Turning back around where Tak hit the tree, she wasn't there anymore. Both Irkens gazed all around, but it was like she just disappeared into thin air.
"...GOT YA!"
Rogue swung around and caught Tak holding Zim in the same head lock as before. But Zim wasn't as strong as Rogue, he could move. He tried his metal legs, but Tak quickly used her own legs to block his opportunity to break free.
"I haven't forgotten what you did to me, Zim!" Tak shouted. "And this time, your dumb luck isn't going to stop me!"
"That wasn't dumb luck last time!" Zim shouted back. "It was because of my GREATNESS!"
"Dib and Gaz helped too!" Gir suddenly blurred out.
"BE QUIET, GIR!" Zim yelled back.
"Let him go, Tak!" Rogue said.
The old rival just laughed. "Why would I do that? We've already had our little bout, now it's time to go. I'll be taking Zim back to the Tallest now, if you don't mind..."
"...Let him go." Rogue repeated, only this time with more rage in her voice.
Zim tried to wiggle free again, but it was out use.
"...You have two choices, Rogue..." Tak said. "...You let me take Zim-"
But before that sentence was finished, it happened really fast; in less then a blink of an eye, Rogue bolted towards Tak, she didn't even see her coming, and with the same speed, Rogue summoned up her laser scythes again, and cut Tak's metal implant on her head.
All at once, Tak felt a jolt of pain though her skull. She let go of Zim immediately to grab her throbbing head. She screamed a few times before regaining herself. She looked up and saw Rogue looking down at her with her laser scythes still glowing with their crimson light.
"...Leave." Rogue whispered with the utmost wrath growing in her speech.
With the look of total alarm in her eyes, Tak slowly backed away from the two, looking at Zim, and then back at Rogue again. Her rage showed on her face once more before running into the darkness of the night. Her cat/SIR Mimi, who was watching the whole thing, followed her and the two figures disappeared...
~Later that night, back that Zim's lab...~
Rogue displayed what she and Gir found while at the carnival to Zim.
"...What IS this??" Zim asked. He opened one of the bags and looked at the strange little crystals.
"This is what we'll use to increase our height!" Rogue answered.
Zim's expression shot from puzzled to surprise. "...THIS is what we've been looking for?" He snatched up a hand full of the stuff and took an even closer look. "Computer! Analyze this crystal!"
Out from the ceiling, a mechanical arm came down and scanned the crystals in Zim's hand. Back on the computer's monitor, only two basic Earth elements came up; Sodium and Chloride. And right underneath it was the real name them the substance: SALT.
"...Salt? Isn't that a human seasoning?" Rogue said.
"This whole time, it was a simple chemical compound!" Zim said. "We should have seen this before! It's so simple!"
"Calm down, Zim. At least we've finally found it!" Rogue said with a smile. "Now we can start on the mixture using this..."salt", and grow taller!"
After he stopped beating himself over it, Zim turned to Rogue and nodded. "We can start right now!"
"Hey...just one thing, Zim?" Rogue said. "...About that other Irken, Tak ...what DID you do to make her so ticked off at you? I don't think you've ever told me that..."
Zim thought for a moment before answering. "...Something about me ruining her hopes, dreams, and life...I think..."
Rogue looked at him in a blank stare. "...Oh, ok. Let's get to work on that salt then!"
~High up in the gloom of space, just a few hundred miles away from the Earth, Tak hovered in her new Voot she had recently completed, glaring down at the planet she had been forcefully kicked off from. At first, it was just one Irken she wanted to deal with, but now...
"...Rogue. Don't think THIS is the end. One of these days, I will get what I deserve! And when that day comes, it will be both you and ZIM that I see go down!"
The Voot hummed a deafening roar, and in a flash, was gone through the sea of stars.
THE END
Chapter Four: Tak VS Rogue
As the sun finally started to set, the early evening stars were like a signal to have the humans begin their gathering to the park. The carnival as begun.
In the middle of the crowd of screaming kids and headache induced parents, Zim and Rogue blended in rather nicely. The noise of the smaller, lesser earthlings was starting to get to them. They walked pass the crowd and stopped to behold a whole view of the park transformed into this human assembling. There were rides, game booths, snack places, and some odd looking humans to go with them. Mostly people with markings all over their fat, bare armed bodies and saying strange things to the other people walking by, commanding them to throw a little white ball at a stack of bottles or use a rather pathetic looking firearm to shot at balloons. The snacks were much like the foods common on the Irken's home planet, candy, popcorn, soda, chips, etc. And finally, the rides were forcing the kids on them to scream even louder and more unbearable.
Zim and Rogue look at each other and waited for one to say something to the other.
"...It's a human training camp!" Zim said. Rogue didn't change expression. She wasn't getting that kind of vibe from this place.
"What makes you think that?" She asked.
"It's obvious! Look!" Zim pointed towards the games with the weak guns shooting balloons. "That must be how humans train their revolting offspring to handle this planet's weapons and firearms! In case a suddenly INVASION was to happen! And THAT...!" Points to the rides..., "...Those machines are to test their restrain to suddenly pressure changes, and to see if they vomit because of it!"
Rogue's face finally changed to Zim's odd observation on this. "...Then what about the snacks?"
"SNACKS!!"
Out of nowhere, Gir flies through the crowd and past the two aliens, crashing into a nearby cotton candy booth. The vendor ran away screaming while the green dog began shoveling mounds of sugared goodness into his mouth.
"What the-! GIR!!" Zim ran over to the trashed stand just as Gir finished the pink cotton candy and was moving to the blue stuff. His face was covered in it, making him look like a demented Santa Claus.
"Gir! I told you to stay at the base! What are you doing here!? ANSWER ME!" Zim shouted.
"Uh, Zim?" Rogue tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to see Gir's entrance was causing a crowd to form around them.
Zim looked at all the eyeing humans and then back down at Gir. "...Uh...heh." He bends down and picks up Gir. "That's a GOOOD dog mutt monster! Yeees, you are!" Zim said before running off with Gir and Rogue following close behind.
They got behind of the game booths and Zim plopped his SIR down on the ground. "Explain yourself, Gir?!" Zim shouted.
"DA SNACKS!!" The robot answered. That was really all to it.
"It doesn't take much..." Rogue said shaking her head. "I think we better spit up. I'll watch Gir and make sure he doesn't mess up, and you can look around solo and gather more information. How's that?"
"Excellent plan, Rogue! More ground covered in less time." Zim answered. "We'll meet back at this spot in an hour and see what we find out."
They dispatched, Rogue and Gir heading to the next food stand, by Gir's wishes, and Zim went towards one of the rides.
However...
At the entrance of the park, Tak and Mimi could see the Irkens part ways. The revengeful alien was waiting for such a perfect moment. "...Let's go, Mimi." They rushed into the park to get ready and surprise their victim.
On the other side of the carnival, Gir was now at a booth selling popcorn. Before that, it was candy apples, then soft drinks, and more cotton candy. Rogue was watching him the whole time, but just couldn't comprehend how a SIR could eat in the first place.
Gir came walking back with a jumbo size bag of popcorn and smiled at Rogue. "Want some?" Rogue shook her head, of course. "OK!" Gir set the bag down and jumped into it, swimming on the buttered goodness, and eating at the same time. Rogue wasn't surprised. She's never surprised with Gir anymore. When he was done, he popped his head up and saw something else.
"OOooo...PRETZELS!!" Gir suddenly squealed. He ran, tearing through the bag and up to a pretzel booth. Rogue quietly walked over with him.
"One with LOTS of CHEEESE." Gir told the seller. The man behind the stand gave what Gir wanted, Gir gave him a dollar, and he chopped down on the cheesed covered snack. Rogue wasn't so fond of cheese and gave a slight sick look.
"What 'bout you? Wanna pretzel, kid?"
Rogue looked up at the taller, rather freaky looking carnie-human. "Me? Uh, no-I was just..."
"Ah, come on. It's only a buck..." The man said with a creepy grin. Rogue got a weird vibe from this human. So just for the sake of it, she answered, "...Sure, I'll take one...?"
The man let out a small laugh and handed Rogue a plain pretzel, since she didn't say anything about cheese, which was ok by her. She paid for it and they walked away from the pretzel man.
Gir had already finished his; the poof was all over his face. But he noticed that Rogue didn't even touch hers. "You gonna eat that?"
"Uh? Oh...no, you can have it." Rogue said, handing it to Gir. But he didn't take it. "...Oh... I get it. No cheese." She sighed and they continued walking. But then something caught her eye about her pretzel. She looked down and saw little crystal-like things covering the twisted bread snack. Suddenly curious, she picked one of them off and looked at it even closer. "...What is this stuff?"
She sniffed it, but it didn't have an aroma or odor. It wasn't a rock. She went one step further and gave the little thing a small lick. It tasted funny, but not disgusting. It wasn't so bad.
Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation all over her body. It surprised her a bit as she dropped the pretzel when it happened. Gir looked up at her and cocked his head to one side. Rogue glanced down at him. "...What? Is something wrong?"
Gir just responded by raising his arm up over his head, like he was measuring something. Rogue didn't get what the robot was trying to say. "Do I...look different?" She said, not understanding anything right then.
"You grew!" Gir finally said.
However. Right when he mentioned that, Rogue again felt odd, a "sinking" feeling in the pit of her gut. Gir stared up at her and said, "No grow."
Standing there, shocked, confused, and a little baffled all at the same time, Rogue couldn't believe what just happened...she obtained a second of induced growth! "But how!?" She then glimpsed down at the pretzel, and the tiny crystal which covered it. She picked it up and ran over to an empty area with no body around. Gir followed her, and when the coast was clear, she licked the snack, getting the same peculiar taste.
"...I can feel it..." She looked downward and saw that the ground looked slightly higher then before. But again, she felt it suddenly go away and she was back to normal once more.
"This is it! This shiny crystal...stuff! I've got to get more of it! Come on, Gir!" They both ran back to the pretzel booth...
~Meanwhile, Zim was currently watching the effects caused by the rides on the other humans. The kids that got off the rides right afterwards either looked like they were gonna puke, or did so anyway. Zim was both sicken and rather amused, watching them creature deliberately make themselves sick.
"What a bunch of unpleasant, repulsing organisms..." He said under his breath. When he couldn't take anymore of it, he turned the other way and began to head for another section of the humanoid gathering.
However, behind a tent just a mere few feet away from Zim, Tak watched the undercover Irken making his way through the human mass. She hasn't seen Rogue with him for quite some time now...
"...I've got you now..." A spiteful smile painted on Tak's face before she lurked into the crowd.
There were many humans were Zim was, he could not see or hear his unexpected stalker mover ever closer from behind. He looked upward towards all the different humans; they looked like skyscrapers to him and his small size. And the slight yet nauseous stench of their race was already getting to him in such close encounters. He turned right around, and stopped in his tracks.
Through the forest of humans walking every which way, he could see someone close to his own height, but he wasn't sure who is was. He first thought Rogue, but their meeting place and time wasn't in this crowd. He couldn't see all the features; the legs of the taller Earthlings blocked more of his sight.
'...Maybe it is Rogue...' Zim thought. Right now, he just wanted to get out of this human mass. He started walking towards the figure, and immediately, he got the weirdest feeling about this. He's been with Rogue for a long time now, and he can pick her out of a crowd, even if she was in her human disguise. But this...there was something not right with whoever he was looking at.
Suddenly, the figure was gone out of Zim's view. His eyes widened and he looked all around him. He got a bad feeling in the deepest pit of his guts; he now knew for sure that wasn't Rogue, but someone else.
With the mix of the situation and the reek of human, he started to run straight through the accumulation of humans, knocking a few of them down. He was confused and now a bit freaked. He continued to run, until he saw a clear opening. Zim lunged through it, and he was out of the human forest. He breathed in fresh air and already forgot about the other factor of his experience.
The last thing he remembered was a solid blow to the back of his head, and falling face first to the ground...
~ Rogue walked away from the pretzel booth with a huge grin on her face and a few heavy bags of the "growth crystals", as she personal dubbed them. Walking next to her, Gir too had a big smile, holding a truck load of cheese pretzels in his little hands. Behind them, the pretzel human laid motionless over the stand's counter. Rogue couldn't get the crystals from him nicely, so...
"That human had more then enough of this stuff to give out. I wonder why he was so picky about it." Rogue said to herself. "Ah well, it was his fault that he didn't behave on my terms...heh."
Gir just bit down on his cheesy goodness with bliss.
Rogue suddenly stopped and remembered something. "Oh, we were supposed to meet with Zim! It should be an hour now, right?" Gir wasn't listening. Rogue just sighed and said, "We better get back to the meeting place."
They got to the place where Zim said they were meeting, but Zim wasn't there yet. Rogue assumed that he just might have got caught up with something. They waited for another ten minutes before Rogue started getting anxious.
"...What's taking him? I've got to show him what I've found! This is important!" She looked at the bags she had gain from the snack human.
Meanwhile, Gir was now down to his last pretzel and he was looking at it longingly. This moment didn't last long through as he opened his mouth and prepared to stuff his face. But he missed his mouth and the cheese treat felled to the ground next to the tent behind them. The SIR quickly picked his precious snack up, but suddenly heard some movement inside the tent. After stuffing the dirt covered pretzel into his mouth, he peeked under the tent covers.
It was dark inside, but even in his dog suit, Gir's illuminating eyes brighten it up enough. The tent looked vacant, but there was somebody there, two figures. One was lying on the ground, and the other was looking down at them. The silhouette of the standing one had some recognizable features to Gir. And that wasn't all; there was one other figure there, a black cat with blood red eyes.
"MiiiiiiMiiiiii...I SEEEE yoooou..." Gir said out loud.
Tak and Mimi spun around and spotted Gir's head poking out from the tent cover. Tak scowled and shouted, "MIMI! GET'EM!"
Outside, Rogue finally realized that Gir wasn't next to her anymore. Her turned around and saw him with his head in the tent. "Gir, what are you doing?" She walked over and was suddenly surprised when Mimi appeared from under the cover and knocked both Gir and Rogue to the ground. The black cat paused and looked right at Rogue with her crimson colored eyes.
"What the-!" Rogue ducked just in time for Mimi to miss her but knock Gir back down. Already annoyed, Rogue grabbed the black cat and pulled it off Gir. Mimi hissed and ran back under the tent. "GET BACK HERE!" Rogue shouted. She crawled into the tent, and saw Tak.
Gir followed Rogue and took the top part of his disguise off so that the whole inside was lit up from his metal eyes. Rogue's sight was immediately drawn to the Irken that was on the ground next to Tak, it was Zim.
"ZIM! What did you do to him?!" She shouted to Tak.
Tak just looked at Rogue with narrowed eyes. "I've been curious to meet you, human...what's your name again...Rogue, right?"
Rogue was taken back by how Tak worded that. The stranger looked just as human as the next Earthling...
Tak continued by saying, "Don't worry about Zim here, I just knocked him out, so I can get what I came for."
"You know Zim?" Rogue said. "How would you know about him? Who are you?"
"That doesn't matter to you, human...I'm disgusted to know that one of our kind has fallen for a creature of a different race..." Tak said. "I'm sure my leaders will take that into account when I bring him back, and get my vengeance!"
"Leaders? ...You mean the Tallest, right" Rogue said calmly.
Tak's eyes enlarged. "How much has this traitor told you!? I should destroy you right now for knowing that much!"
Rogue looked straight at Tak with a focus stare. "...I am not what you think...I hate this planet too..." Rogue raised her arm and deactivated her disguise for Tak. This threw Tak for a loop. Rogue then said, "And if you do anything to Zim in anyway, I will make sure you leave this miserable planet in pieces!"
After being quite shocked, Tak too turned off his human look for Rogue. "Looks like we have nothing to hide after all..."
"What's your name...?" Rogue asked; her blood beginning to boil.
"...Tak."
"I should have known..." Rogue said. "I remember Zim talking about you a few times in the past. You tried to take this planet to prove your worth to the Tallest..."
"...And get my sweet revenge towards Zim for ruining my life!" Tak said.
Rogue gave Tak her best death glare. "I'm not gonna let you take Zim to the Tallest! You'll have to get through me first!" She raised her arms and her gem began to glow.
"If you're helping him, then you're a traitor to the Irken Empire as well!" Tak released her metal legs. "I will gladly punish you for that!"
"Let's see you try!" Rogue unleashed an assault of lasers towards Tak. She dodged them all and they just burned holes through the tent's covering. Turning her disguise back on, Tak ran out of the tent. Rogue did the same and ran right after her.
Gir watched as the two female aliens took chase, standing next to his K.O. master. He looked down at Zim and started to quietly poke him in the face. "Wakie wakie, master!" He said. After a few sharp pokes, Zim opened his eyes and looked around his current surroundings.
"What happened...? Uh, Gir?" He saw his SIR grinning widely at him. Placing his hand on the back of his head, he could feel a large bump from where Tak knocked him out, but he still didn't know that was her in the crowd earlier. "Gir! Where's Rogue? Why isn't she with you?"
Gir answered saying, "Chasing Tak."
"TAK!?"
~Outside in the open, Rogue and Tak were causing quite a commotion. Although both were wearing their human looks, the way they ripped through the tents and booths and group of various humans, it was a miracle that nobody gave it a second thought that they may be not human. Of course, they're not that smart to begin with...
After trashing numerous stands and setups, Tak and Rogue finally stopped in the middle of a empty area of the carnival. They were both gasping and sweating hard, but the look on their faces said that they were done yet. They stared at each other, eye to eye, plotting their next moves for the next bout.
'...She's fast! ...The same speed as me!' Rogue thought. 'She must have had some kind of body enhancement to get like that...'
'This Irken is different then other fighters or soldiers!' Tak thought. '...And since when did the Empire let full limb cybrog implants be permissible?' Tak glared at Rogue robotic arms. '...She must have got that done outside Irken Laws...'
Rogue raised her arms, her gems flashed, the light expanding upwards. With a grin on her face, Rogue proudly displayed another one of her gem's specialties. By forcing the energy in the gems out and keeping its form solid, she can shape the energy into two long scythes-like blades, perfect for close combat.
Tak stepped back a few feet, surprised by Rogue's new trick, but wasn't fearful by it. On the other hand, she too shot a smile. "You know, I have a few tricks of my own..."
"Then why don't you show them?" Rogue responded. Before another word could be spoken, she lunged toward Tak, her arms crossed, ready to attack on contact. A swift dodge to the left saved Tak, but Rogue was rapidly on her feet again and turned toward her.
Tak flashed her PAK legs and jumped high in the air from her pursuer. Before Rogue knew it, she was behind her and got her into a head lock. She could hear Tak's snicker under her breath for a hasty move, but it wasn't that amazing. Rogue threw her hands behind Tak's head and hurled her up and over. Tak hit the ground hard.
"That kind of a "trick" was that?" Rogue asked mockingly.
"Your right...that wasn't it." Tak said. A sudden flash of light appeared over Tak's narrow eyes, and Rogue immediately felt unusual. Her body stopped right where it was, she couldn't move. Still staring at her, Tak slowly walked up to her frozen adversary.
"This is my trick..." She said proudly. She then deactivated her human camouflage, and poked to the metal implant on the left side of her head. "This gives me the power to control another creature's mind, and by the look of things, your mind doesn't seem that resistant..."
It took some time, but Rogue was able to answer back that comment, "...My...mind...isn't..."
"What's that? You have something to say?" Tak said cynically.
"...it...isn't all organic."
Immediately, Rogue broke away from Tak's mind grip, a back flash of energy threw Tak a few feet backwards. Free to move, Rogue jolted right after Tak and pinned her to the ground.
"...H-How!? What is with your mind!?" Tak said; her voice full of shock.
Rogue looked at Tak and answered, "...I was made in a different way then you...then all other Irkens. My brain is 50% high powered machine, cybrogic to be precise. And the other half is indeed organic, but even that has its important features. I have a higher sense of awareness then other Irkens."
Tak suddenly grinned. "With all that hardware, you're more close to a robot then anything!"
Rogue scowled and picked Tak up by her uniform. Those words...she has heard them before from another source.
"...You're no better then the Tallest!" Rogue threw Tak so hard, that the tree trunk she hit cracked a bit.
Just then, Rogue could hear Zim calling her name.
"Rogue! Rogue, where are you!?"
"Zim?" The female alien turned around and there Zim and Gir. "Zim! You're alright!"
"Where's Tak?!" Zim said with a sense of worry in his voice.
Turning back around where Tak hit the tree, she wasn't there anymore. Both Irkens gazed all around, but it was like she just disappeared into thin air.
"...GOT YA!"
Rogue swung around and caught Tak holding Zim in the same head lock as before. But Zim wasn't as strong as Rogue, he could move. He tried his metal legs, but Tak quickly used her own legs to block his opportunity to break free.
"I haven't forgotten what you did to me, Zim!" Tak shouted. "And this time, your dumb luck isn't going to stop me!"
"That wasn't dumb luck last time!" Zim shouted back. "It was because of my GREATNESS!"
"Dib and Gaz helped too!" Gir suddenly blurred out.
"BE QUIET, GIR!" Zim yelled back.
"Let him go, Tak!" Rogue said.
The old rival just laughed. "Why would I do that? We've already had our little bout, now it's time to go. I'll be taking Zim back to the Tallest now, if you don't mind..."
"...Let him go." Rogue repeated, only this time with more rage in her voice.
Zim tried to wiggle free again, but it was out use.
"...You have two choices, Rogue..." Tak said. "...You let me take Zim-"
But before that sentence was finished, it happened really fast; in less then a blink of an eye, Rogue bolted towards Tak, she didn't even see her coming, and with the same speed, Rogue summoned up her laser scythes again, and cut Tak's metal implant on her head.
All at once, Tak felt a jolt of pain though her skull. She let go of Zim immediately to grab her throbbing head. She screamed a few times before regaining herself. She looked up and saw Rogue looking down at her with her laser scythes still glowing with their crimson light.
"...Leave." Rogue whispered with the utmost wrath growing in her speech.
With the look of total alarm in her eyes, Tak slowly backed away from the two, looking at Zim, and then back at Rogue again. Her rage showed on her face once more before running into the darkness of the night. Her cat/SIR Mimi, who was watching the whole thing, followed her and the two figures disappeared...
~Later that night, back that Zim's lab...~
Rogue displayed what she and Gir found while at the carnival to Zim.
"...What IS this??" Zim asked. He opened one of the bags and looked at the strange little crystals.
"This is what we'll use to increase our height!" Rogue answered.
Zim's expression shot from puzzled to surprise. "...THIS is what we've been looking for?" He snatched up a hand full of the stuff and took an even closer look. "Computer! Analyze this crystal!"
Out from the ceiling, a mechanical arm came down and scanned the crystals in Zim's hand. Back on the computer's monitor, only two basic Earth elements came up; Sodium and Chloride. And right underneath it was the real name them the substance: SALT.
"...Salt? Isn't that a human seasoning?" Rogue said.
"This whole time, it was a simple chemical compound!" Zim said. "We should have seen this before! It's so simple!"
"Calm down, Zim. At least we've finally found it!" Rogue said with a smile. "Now we can start on the mixture using this..."salt", and grow taller!"
After he stopped beating himself over it, Zim turned to Rogue and nodded. "We can start right now!"
"Hey...just one thing, Zim?" Rogue said. "...About that other Irken, Tak ...what DID you do to make her so ticked off at you? I don't think you've ever told me that..."
Zim thought for a moment before answering. "...Something about me ruining her hopes, dreams, and life...I think..."
Rogue looked at him in a blank stare. "...Oh, ok. Let's get to work on that salt then!"
~High up in the gloom of space, just a few hundred miles away from the Earth, Tak hovered in her new Voot she had recently completed, glaring down at the planet she had been forcefully kicked off from. At first, it was just one Irken she wanted to deal with, but now...
"...Rogue. Don't think THIS is the end. One of these days, I will get what I deserve! And when that day comes, it will be both you and ZIM that I see go down!"
The Voot hummed a deafening roar, and in a flash, was gone through the sea of stars.
THE END