Doom Witch
Author's Note : Okay we're really getting into this story now (or I am!) . . . the next few chapters are going to be mainly set from both Zim and Jed's (so you can get to know her) point of view, but this chapter in particular has all of our main characters in it. You know, Zim, Dib, GIR, Gaz and the new addition, Jed. You notice I took the name of this chapter from one of my favourite lines in the "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" episode, from when Dib accuses Zim of being jealous and he says indignantly; "This has nothing to do with jelly!" I thought that would be a good way to describe Gaz's mounting jealousy of Jed, but as she is proud she is in denial. In this chapter, Dib and Zim find themselves walking together and arguing, which, shall we say, is a similar position Jed and Gaz find themselves in. SAY NO MORE! Read . . . *waves magical fingers to make you read*
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- Chapter Eighteen - Nothing To Do With Jelly -
" . . . and THEN she realised that if she destroyed Zim she wouldn't be able to use his base as her own because his commands are set on voice recognition! So she looked kinda confused for a while, then Zim and her set up a compromise that they won't kill each other until she can get herself settled, but I don't think either of them will hold to their word because they OBVIOUSLY hate each other and it'll be hard not killing each other when they're living in the same place and all . . . "
Gaz had become increasingly bored with Dib's gibberings he had been giving her all morning, and she was getting seriously depressed, but her ears pricked when her annoying brother mentioned Zim and this new Invader sharing a household. She dropped her spoon into the cereal bowl and watched Dib stop mid-sentence. Gaz NEVER paused while eating cereal. He swallowed his words on the event in fear.
"They're living together?" was all she said, and Dib couldn't help but give a sigh of relief and a small nod to confirm Gaz's question as affirmative. She paused for a moment and Dib could feel the fear for his younger sibling returning rapidly, but she simply narrowed her eyes back to squints and returned to her cereal. Once she had finished she walked right up to Dib who was now reading his "Cropcircles" magazine, which was affiliated with the Swollen Eyeball Group. (I don't actually know that, I just wanted to say "affiliated". Hee hee! Affiliated! Moo! Ahem . . . )
Pushing his glasses up his nose so much that it hurt, Dib closed his magazine with his thumb still embedded in the glossy pages (no Dib doesn't get turned on by cropcircles, you dirty people!). Gaz glowered at her brother.
"They're living together?" she repeated slowly, more calmly, and Dib rolled his eyes and made a move to open his magazine, but found it was no longer in his hand, but Gaz's.
"Wha - HEY! GAZ!" he exclaimed, and Gaz chuckled slightly. She liked seeing her simple brother in torment. It was fun. Or something.
"I want information, and I want it NOW, foul creature," she snarled, and Dib leaned back in his chair, then decided he wasn't going to give up without a very little, unimportant fight.
"What, still have a crush on Zim, do you?" he teased, and she ripped the magazine in two in front of his eyes. Dib cried out in protest and moved to grab the magazine but Gaz shot out an arm and he was jolted back in his chair. He cried out again and a macho cheesy voice was heard drifting up from a certain famous scientist's lab.
"You're not killing each other, are you now, kids?" he asked, and was quite happy with the disgruntled negative response Gaz gave in reply. They heard some cheery humming for a few seconds then an angry: "NO! No, you fool! Not the magnesium! THE COPPER! THE COPPER! AAARGHHH!"
There was a brief flash of white light and some more yelling, ending with a loud crash of pans and equipment. Gaz and Dib looked at each other, wondering whether they should go help, then decided to leave their dad to it. Dib sighed, no longer having a purpose to remain in the kitchen as his monthly magazine had been ruined, so returned to his circadian ritual of going to his room and brooding about how much Zim and his life sucked. As he trudged up the stairs, Gaz (on the very rare occasion) ran around and blocked her brother's path, much to the fifteen-year-old's annoyance.
"What is it, Gaz?" he sighed, and his younger sister frowned. He turned and walked into the living room, plopping himself on the sofa. Gaz joined him, and for once didn't reveal a GameSlave, a remote control or a piece of paper and a drawing utensil. It was weird for Dib to watch, she only ever came onto the sofa to draw, play obsessively on her games console or watch T.V. But for the first time Dib had known Gaz, which was all of her life, she looked about ready (if reluctant) to have a conversation with her brother, even if it developed into an argument like Dib predicted it would.
"Dib," she started, "What is this other alien doing here? Just answer, and this can be over and done with as quickly as possible."
Dib narrowed his eyes but yielded, "Her primary aim seems to annihilate Zim, and she seemed pretty intent on that until she realised she's be stranded if she didn't get her equipment."
"Why didn't she just steal Zim's?" Gaz asked.
"Because the Computer only agrees to Zim's commands, and even sometimes IT rebels which is just one crazy A.I. chip." Dib folded his arms, wondering where the Hell this was going.
"Okay . . . " Gaz attempted to understand, "So why does she want to kill Zim, if she's the same kind of alien as him? I know those leader guys wanted to kill him . . . but they've not tried for three years. They'd have given up, right?"
Dib shrugged, "I don't know. Three years isn't really much to these Irkens though, is it? Besides, she said something about . . . " he struggled to remember.
"I have been training on Devastis for the past three years, having drilled into my mind: To seek my revenge on you, Zim. Well, actually, my sister's revenge, I'm just performing her wrath via myself, who will then take up her plan to turn the Earth into a big box of snacks . . . "
Dib remembered the Irken's words and suddenly it twigged, yet he very much doubted Zim had gotten the same brainstorm. He let anger control his mind, and he was far too angry at being invaded when he himself was an Invader to be rational and see the logical side of things.
"Of course!" he cried, and Gaz rolled her eyes in apprehension of another rambling from her brother, "she said she was Tak's sister, here to avenge what Zim did to her, then take over her mission and steal Zim's planet. But . . . the Tallest have to be involved somehow, they organise who goes to which planet . . . "
Gaz sat impatiently, watching her brother's mind work. He twiddled his thumbs and scrambled about on the couch trying to find a comfortable thinking position. She watched his anxious movements, knowing Dib didn't care about Zim's well-being but he just wanted to understand. When he looked up at his sister, his eyes wide and knowing, she simply blinked, trying so hard not to look interested.
" . . . it makes sense. The leaders of the Irken Empire want Zim dead, even after all this time. They obviously hate him this much . . . " Dib mumbled, more to himself than to Gaz. He was surprised she hadn't got bored and wandered off to sulk, but still she remained seated, watching his eyes flick from one side of his glasses to the other, still thinking, "But they needed someone that hated him so much that they would strive to kill Zim as an instinct, so the plan existed just after the Moriara one failed, but to do it right they HAD to train this Jed character so she would want nothing better than Zim dead, and to get the revenge Tak never got. But it's gone wrong. Jed crashed and is now living with the guy she's supposed to destroy. This is WEIRD."
Gaz blinked and looked at her brother, who had relaxed, now having it sorted in his mind.
"It's weird," he continued, coming out of the creepy trance he had been in, "but it's Zim's problem, not ours." He saw the look on her face, and freaked slightly, "And it's not going to become our problem, Gaz. It's his fault."
"His fault that all three of us, me, you and Zim had a part in Tak's downfall?" Gaz challenged, "We could have just given Zim the memory disk that was inside her robot thing, we didn't have to come along. The revenge that Zim is getting is deserved by us too, Dib."
"But - but Tak came to Earth to get revenge on Zim in the first place!" Dib argued, not liking where Gaz was going with this at all.
Gaz shrugged, "Yeah, but then he saved my life, Dib. Don't we owe him something for that?"
Dib jumped to his feet in a fury, pointing an angry finger at his sister, who sat calmly on the couch, "I don't owe that alien ANYTHING! WE don't owe him ANYTHING, Gaz! What - this isn't like you! We took him back to his house three years ago . . . we put his Voot back in place, which was destroyed when she crashed, by the way."
"He saved my life Dib. If you don't help, then I'll do it myself." Gaz said simply, making a move to stand, but Dib held out a hand, and she desisted, sitting down again. Dib joined her on the sofa.
"Wha - why . . . Gaz, WHY? Why can't we just stay out of it? I'll stop the other Irken, she seems a lot less manic than Zim, but I'm not going to fight two Irkens that are at war with each other. She'll . . . one of the two will end up killing each other. Can't we just wage war on the one who wins?" Dib pleaded, not quite understanding what had gotten into his cruel- hearted sister. "Is there something between you and Zim?"
Gaz stood up and walked over to the coat hanger, taking her long raincoat off of it and whirling it around her shoulders, placing her arms in the sleeves. Dib collected his trench coat and schoolbag, slinging both over his right arm as he waited for an answer. Gaz narrowed her eyes at him.
"No," she snarled, "He saved my life, that's all."
She walked out of the door with a frown, and after Dib watched her hopelessly for a couple of seconds, he heard another yell from the lab: "NO! No, you fool! Not the potassium!! THE MAGNESIUM! THE MAGNESIUM! AAARGHHH!"
Dib witnessed another flash, much louder and more destructive than the last and hurried out after his sister towards the skool, thinking that his dad should reconsider taking on the apprentice that used the wrong chemicals.
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It was the first week back of skool that term, a Wednesday, and Dib remembered that today was the day they would learn who their teacher for the year at the Hi-Skool he and Gaz now went to. For the first week, Dib's class had been given substitute teachers, and at last they would have someone to fall back on. He hoped that it would be someone like he had had last year, Mr Physicsgeek, who was into science, and occasionally listened to Dib's views until Zim heckled him and complained he had . . . "TIN PAGE INDIGESTION".
The adolescent Zim seemed unable to understand that the word was "teenage" or "teenager". He insisted that they were all a bunch of "human tin pagers" which Dib found quite amusing. He wondered if Zim would be in hi-skool today, or if he was even alive. Gaz sure had been strange this morning, stranger than usual. He would speak to Zim after skool, if he was in, that was.
Dib's heart sank when he saw Zim sitting in the seat next to the one that was the only other available seat in the classroom (in other words Dib had to sit next to Zim). He wondered why his father never bothered to send them to a skool that had different teachers for each subject, he could certainly afford it as he was a rich famous scientist, but he didn't seem to care much. Dib looked on the bright side, at least they didn't have to move between classes. He looked at his rival on his left hand side. Zim and Dib were dismissed to the back of the classroom every year, since they were the outcasts, the freaks. Dib had to sit in the far corner, he was the biggest freak. But Zim sat next to him at the back, slightly cooler than the geeky spiky-haired kid.
"Not dead yet, Zim?" he asked, and Zim looked down at himself briefly, then shook his head.
"Doesn't look like it, DOES it, Dib-Stink?" Zim retorted, "Now stop with your foolish school-boy death talking and be happy."
Dib scoffed, and leaned closer to Zim, "Y'know, Zim, when someone says they've pledged to kill you I wouldn't be so dismissive."
"You think I'd let that . . . child annihilate me, ZIM? Ignorant fool of a boy! Ha! I laugh at your ignorance! WATCH ME LAUGH! HA HA!"
"Well what's the story? Have you managed to convince her not to kill you? Did you give her the commands to your base in return for your life, then flee and now you're sleeping under a bridge? Or are you just sleeping with her?"
Zim's face turned bright emerald, and Dib presumed this was Zim's species' way of blushing. Satisfied, the human sat back in his seat and Zim hissed: "I will call your accusations a silly thing, Dib-creature, then warn you not to cross me."
"We'll talk later Zim," Dib said simply, not looking at his enemy, which annoyed him greatly, but Zim could say no more and shut his open mouth, silently loathing the fool-boy next to him.
The door creaked open and all the students except Zim leaned forward in their seats to see who it was. The result caused all the teenagers to scream in horror, including the proud Irken. The kids who knew this educator screamed in terror of knowing that this was the teacher they would have to rely on for their exams, and those that didn't know her face were terrified by that face.
"Ms Bitters?" cried Zita, being the most popular, she sat in the front seat with all her friends around her. Dib remembered the skool dance he had shared with her and cringed, but was more worried by the fact that the teacher he had managed to have not seen for three years had now appeared looking even more horrible than before. He prayed it was another substitute and the new teacher was coming on Monday.
"Yes, Zita." she responded, and everyone cried out again, "Class, I am Ms Bitters. I will be teaching you horrrrrible lot for the next horrrrrible hi- skool year. Those I have seen before, how horrrrrrible it is two see you again. Those I have not seen . . . you smell horrrrrribly."
Several children burst into tears and this seemed to empower Ms Bitters greatly, and if you had a zoom out camera then you'd do that and see all the screaming kids and the teacher laughing horrendously, except that she wasn't laughing, just looking horrible. Zim and Dib were staring at the front of the class in horror, quite glad that they weren't at the front and seeing her up close. They prepared themselves for another year based entirely on doom.
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At the end of the day, Zim took a piece of paper out of his I.D. Pak and strolled over to the teacher's desk, where Dib was already, fulfilling his punishment of sharpening pencils until his fingers turned black. He wasn't being punished for any particular reason; Ms Bitters just enjoyed watching him writhe. Zim came up a bit taller than he had before on Ms Bitters, but still had to clear his throat so she noticed he was there.
"Zim," she said, recognising him immediately, "How nasty to see you again."
"DITTO, Ms Bitters!" Zim yelled, "NOW! I must hand to you this parchment revealing news of utmost JOY!"
Ms Bitters looked at Zim in a very demeaning fashion, and took the piece of crumpled paper. It read, in very untidy writing:
Dear Sir, we know you are teaching our daughter Zim but now wish you to teach our other child who is not an assassin planning to take over the world and Zim's mission, who is also not trying to take over the world. She will arrive tomorrow lots of love the greatest parental units Zim has ever had.
Ms Bitters nodded and threw the piece of paper into the air, where it burst into flames, and a small amount of ashes fluttered down into her evil hand. Zim turned and walked out of the door. Dib stammered to Ms Bitters that his hands were raw and ran down the corridor to catch up with Zim.
"ZIM!" he panted, meeting up with him at the bottom of the steps, "I need to talk to you!"
"Must you?" Zim sighed in annoyance. Dib nodded, and Zim groaned.
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Meanwhile, Gaz was running as fast as she could towards Zim's house, hoping to get there before the Irken that had once saved her life did. It appeared she had managed to do that, but there was no sign of him. She began to wonder if her annoying brother had managed to take him on a detour, and she entered the house, ignoring the two robots that welcomed her as "their little magpie".
Gaz made her way into the living room and walked around, looking at the surroundings that hadn't changed for three years. The robot she sometimes saw as a green dog wandering around the streets with Zim appeared holding a taco in his hand, speaking to it happily. It wasn't in its lame disguise, but it had a friend, which looked slightly different with red eyes and a different design, but it looked like an updated version of GIR, but then anything was more updated than the psycho-bot, as Dib nicknamed him.
"WOOOO!" GIR shrieked, recognizing her, "HIIII Gazzy! Not seen you since you and Zimmy was frieeeends, ya know what I meeaan?"
Gaz ignored him and took another few steps forward.
"INTRUDER!" the red robot yelled, with a much more mechanical and professional tone, and the toilet could be heard flushing, and a curse, then angry stomping as someone came through from the kitchen. Gaz clapped her eyes on the undisguised Irken that looked so much like Tak, but she had red, red eyes like Zim, and was slightly smaller and less scary looking, until she frowned.
"Who are you?" the Irken demanded, "What are you doing here?"
Gaz growled. She immediately didn't like this character.
"That's none of your business!" Gaz snapped, and made to go through to the kitchen, and the small alien, about her size, pushed her back with quite a lot of force. Gaz took a couple of involuntary steps back and snarled angrily. "I should ask you! What do you want with Zim?"
The other looked slightly confused, then nodded, "You're one of those humans, aren't you? Like that big-headed one. I let him go. If you leave now and I never hear from you again, you can live your blissfully ignorant life until I take over your planet. What business I have with Zim is, as you say, none of YOUR business."
"Ooooooo," GIR cooed, "Girly fight!"
"Silence!" the Irken snapped at the robot, and took a step towards Gaz, "Now, human, you make your choice. Go home . . . NOW!"
Gaz felt mounting anger at this character, more than when she met anyone else. Before she realised what she was doing, she pushed the green person back, who didn't respond well, and brandished a nasty looking gun.
"Now," she snarled, "I don't need to worry about shooting you, because you don't matter."
"I'm Zim's . . . friend!" Gaz tried, almost worried for the first time in her life, "And you're invoking my wrath! Zim'll be back any second and when he sees you threatening me . . . "
"Be quiet. Spend your last seconds with a bit of dignity. Five . . . "
Gaz thought of Dib and her father, about how she would never be able to tell them she was glad they were there, even if she didn't like them at the best of times.
"Four . . . "
She thought of Zim, and the things he had said to her in the last few years, and how she could have, should have, would have responded to differently had she not been so proud.
"Three . . . "
'I wanted to ask you - if you - uh - wanted to go to the dance with me?'
'Yeah, ok, I guess,'
"Two . . . "
'Look at you in the cage, it's because of me, yes? Well, I don't want to be here, and I don't want to have to be saving YOU!'
But he did . . .
"One . . . "
'It is BAD for my reputation and BAD for yours, and all it can ever be is BAD and I have enough BAD what with your brother and a BAD robot and a damaged ship and I think you're a BAD jinx. I hope . . . I hope you understand, and if you don't then you can eat some WEBBED FISH TOES, because all we can ever have together is BAD!"
Gaz closed her eyes, her last thought to be of Zim.
"All we can ever have together is bad . . . " Gaz murmured to herself, then the door flung open and she heard GIR's voice say "Oooooo!" and her brother's voice yell, "GAZ!" and there was nothing from Zim, who eventually strolled across the room and put a hand on the female alien's arm, gave her a knowing look, and she lowered the gun.
"Dib-Stink, you have met her before." Zim looked to Gaz, "Gaz, this is Invader Jed. But that's besides the point. Dib human, take your interfering sibling home and out of my business. " It was the first time he had spoken directly to her for three years. Gaz tried to ignore the heart-wrenching feeling inside her that she hated, but it wouldn't go away.
Gaz didn't do or say anything, but Dib did.
"You can't just tell me to go after she-" Dib pointed at Jed, "tried to kill my sister! You have to keep her under control Zim; she can't go round killing everyone. Especially not Gaz. Just . . . keep her away from Gaz."
'Don't stick up for her, Zim,' Gaz prayed silently, 'Please. I don't want to feel this way, it's bad enough . . . but to feel this way alone . . . '
"Just go, Dib. This argument is FUUUUTILE! Now go and eat some Earth groceries. This meeting is finished. Jed will do as she pleases as long as she is not killing ME! Whether she gets her hands on your smelliness or any of your disGUSTing family's is none of my concern, and I don't want it to be." Zim told him, and Gaz felt her heart sink, and walked out of the door into the newly started rain, Dib reluctantly following after.
Zim swallowed as GIR slammed the door loudly, sucking on a squishee that appeared out of nowhere. MAX followed him through the door, and Zim turned to face Jed.
"Why did you attack her?" he asked, "And what in the name of Irk was she doing here?"
"You tell me," Jed snarled, "she said you were her friend."
Zim hesitated, his breath dissolving in his throat, then inhaled and tried again. He laughed and shook his head, giving her an answer. He decided to change the subject. "I told my DISTURBING human teacher you would come to skool tomorrow. We need to find you and your SIR a disguise. I suggest you don't use one that was similar to Tak's as there are some who KNEW THAT SLIMEBALL under that disguise."
"Don't talk about my sister like that." Jed snapped. Zim didn't say anything and led her down to the base, looking at the capsule that made disguises. He had asked the Computer to make some repairs as it had gotten a little damaged after the baby invasion and had never bothered to fix it. The Voots were both being repaired on the same bay, and Zim led his guest past them both to the pod-like structure. MAX and GIR, who were already down in the repair bay, both headed towards it, but Zim held GIR back, who screamed in protest. The other robot walked into the pod and Jed leaned over the panel attached, knowing that her sister had chosen a "cat".
She decided she would use the same animal, and chose a black and grey shorthair disguise. There was a momentary flash, then the pod opened and MAX walked out, looking very much like MiMi but with different colourings, obviously. Jed nodded, satisfied, and set the panel for human female, with a somewhat more cunning disguise than Zim's. Zim was too busy watching GIR prod MAX with his tin finger. The SIR Unit looked unresponsive most of the time but let out an occasional giggle, and Zim had realised that this robot only misbehaved for brief and occasional intervals.
After the flash from the disguise pod, Zim looked up and it opened, revealing Invader Jed. Who emerged was not Tak's sister, it was a cunningly disguised human wearing the same clothing as she had been, but her eyes were covered with contact lenses that had stunningly blue irises with a black dot in the middle. She had long raven-like hair, cascading elegantly over curved shoulders. Zim stood stunned for a moment, then remembered who he was and who she was.
Jed looked down at herself and turned her upper lip up.
"Oh My Tallest . . . "she moaned, "I look terrible."
"No, no you don't," Zim murmured, looking at her. He realised she had gone with the gothic option, she had pale skin and dark make-up lining her stunning eyes. The best parts of her disguise were those eyes.
"Why don't you make your disguise a little less obvious, Zim?" she asked him, and he felt the fake hair on his head, which he now spiked up a little (but not like Dib's) as the fashionable Computer said that these humans could change hairstyles. Zim had become too fond of being different.
"I . . . I told them I had a skin condition of . . . doom!" Zim told her, "The humans now know me as a warped-skin um . . . what do they say . . . dude."
Jed nodded, and went back upstairs, leaving Zim to get on with repairing the ships. She didn't want to have too much conversation, she feared she might grow close to him and be unable to kill him, which could only be bad.
"Better sooner than later," she mumbled to MAX, who had followed her, "before I begin to know him. Because that's not allowed. We have to avenge Tak, don't we, MAX?"
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A/N : Heeeeee. Meep! Are you enjoying it people? I hope so . . . Gooooose.
Next chapter : Gaz is now even more jealous of Jed as she sees Zim giving her lots of attention at skool the next day. Dib also notices Zim is developing a soft spot for Jed and realises he can use it to his advantage . . . Meanwhile Zim and Jed try not to become close but obviously them living together happens to complicate things a bit. She reminds him that she still has to kill him at some point, but Zim has other views on that.
Anyway, will update as soon as possible folksies. This is a very long chapter. Moo. Probably the longest so far!!! WOOOO Gaz still likes Zim but will he fall for her again or Jed or . . . or Ms Bitters? Okay not Ms Bitters. Another thing in this chapter, Dib will experience the first girl that properly flirts with him and he's quite scared. Awww.
"Cracked eggs, dead birds scream as they fight for life. I can feel death, can see it's beady eyes." - Street Spirit (Fade Out.), Radiohead.
Author's Note : Okay we're really getting into this story now (or I am!) . . . the next few chapters are going to be mainly set from both Zim and Jed's (so you can get to know her) point of view, but this chapter in particular has all of our main characters in it. You know, Zim, Dib, GIR, Gaz and the new addition, Jed. You notice I took the name of this chapter from one of my favourite lines in the "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" episode, from when Dib accuses Zim of being jealous and he says indignantly; "This has nothing to do with jelly!" I thought that would be a good way to describe Gaz's mounting jealousy of Jed, but as she is proud she is in denial. In this chapter, Dib and Zim find themselves walking together and arguing, which, shall we say, is a similar position Jed and Gaz find themselves in. SAY NO MORE! Read . . . *waves magical fingers to make you read*
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- Chapter Eighteen - Nothing To Do With Jelly -
" . . . and THEN she realised that if she destroyed Zim she wouldn't be able to use his base as her own because his commands are set on voice recognition! So she looked kinda confused for a while, then Zim and her set up a compromise that they won't kill each other until she can get herself settled, but I don't think either of them will hold to their word because they OBVIOUSLY hate each other and it'll be hard not killing each other when they're living in the same place and all . . . "
Gaz had become increasingly bored with Dib's gibberings he had been giving her all morning, and she was getting seriously depressed, but her ears pricked when her annoying brother mentioned Zim and this new Invader sharing a household. She dropped her spoon into the cereal bowl and watched Dib stop mid-sentence. Gaz NEVER paused while eating cereal. He swallowed his words on the event in fear.
"They're living together?" was all she said, and Dib couldn't help but give a sigh of relief and a small nod to confirm Gaz's question as affirmative. She paused for a moment and Dib could feel the fear for his younger sibling returning rapidly, but she simply narrowed her eyes back to squints and returned to her cereal. Once she had finished she walked right up to Dib who was now reading his "Cropcircles" magazine, which was affiliated with the Swollen Eyeball Group. (I don't actually know that, I just wanted to say "affiliated". Hee hee! Affiliated! Moo! Ahem . . . )
Pushing his glasses up his nose so much that it hurt, Dib closed his magazine with his thumb still embedded in the glossy pages (no Dib doesn't get turned on by cropcircles, you dirty people!). Gaz glowered at her brother.
"They're living together?" she repeated slowly, more calmly, and Dib rolled his eyes and made a move to open his magazine, but found it was no longer in his hand, but Gaz's.
"Wha - HEY! GAZ!" he exclaimed, and Gaz chuckled slightly. She liked seeing her simple brother in torment. It was fun. Or something.
"I want information, and I want it NOW, foul creature," she snarled, and Dib leaned back in his chair, then decided he wasn't going to give up without a very little, unimportant fight.
"What, still have a crush on Zim, do you?" he teased, and she ripped the magazine in two in front of his eyes. Dib cried out in protest and moved to grab the magazine but Gaz shot out an arm and he was jolted back in his chair. He cried out again and a macho cheesy voice was heard drifting up from a certain famous scientist's lab.
"You're not killing each other, are you now, kids?" he asked, and was quite happy with the disgruntled negative response Gaz gave in reply. They heard some cheery humming for a few seconds then an angry: "NO! No, you fool! Not the magnesium! THE COPPER! THE COPPER! AAARGHHH!"
There was a brief flash of white light and some more yelling, ending with a loud crash of pans and equipment. Gaz and Dib looked at each other, wondering whether they should go help, then decided to leave their dad to it. Dib sighed, no longer having a purpose to remain in the kitchen as his monthly magazine had been ruined, so returned to his circadian ritual of going to his room and brooding about how much Zim and his life sucked. As he trudged up the stairs, Gaz (on the very rare occasion) ran around and blocked her brother's path, much to the fifteen-year-old's annoyance.
"What is it, Gaz?" he sighed, and his younger sister frowned. He turned and walked into the living room, plopping himself on the sofa. Gaz joined him, and for once didn't reveal a GameSlave, a remote control or a piece of paper and a drawing utensil. It was weird for Dib to watch, she only ever came onto the sofa to draw, play obsessively on her games console or watch T.V. But for the first time Dib had known Gaz, which was all of her life, she looked about ready (if reluctant) to have a conversation with her brother, even if it developed into an argument like Dib predicted it would.
"Dib," she started, "What is this other alien doing here? Just answer, and this can be over and done with as quickly as possible."
Dib narrowed his eyes but yielded, "Her primary aim seems to annihilate Zim, and she seemed pretty intent on that until she realised she's be stranded if she didn't get her equipment."
"Why didn't she just steal Zim's?" Gaz asked.
"Because the Computer only agrees to Zim's commands, and even sometimes IT rebels which is just one crazy A.I. chip." Dib folded his arms, wondering where the Hell this was going.
"Okay . . . " Gaz attempted to understand, "So why does she want to kill Zim, if she's the same kind of alien as him? I know those leader guys wanted to kill him . . . but they've not tried for three years. They'd have given up, right?"
Dib shrugged, "I don't know. Three years isn't really much to these Irkens though, is it? Besides, she said something about . . . " he struggled to remember.
"I have been training on Devastis for the past three years, having drilled into my mind: To seek my revenge on you, Zim. Well, actually, my sister's revenge, I'm just performing her wrath via myself, who will then take up her plan to turn the Earth into a big box of snacks . . . "
Dib remembered the Irken's words and suddenly it twigged, yet he very much doubted Zim had gotten the same brainstorm. He let anger control his mind, and he was far too angry at being invaded when he himself was an Invader to be rational and see the logical side of things.
"Of course!" he cried, and Gaz rolled her eyes in apprehension of another rambling from her brother, "she said she was Tak's sister, here to avenge what Zim did to her, then take over her mission and steal Zim's planet. But . . . the Tallest have to be involved somehow, they organise who goes to which planet . . . "
Gaz sat impatiently, watching her brother's mind work. He twiddled his thumbs and scrambled about on the couch trying to find a comfortable thinking position. She watched his anxious movements, knowing Dib didn't care about Zim's well-being but he just wanted to understand. When he looked up at his sister, his eyes wide and knowing, she simply blinked, trying so hard not to look interested.
" . . . it makes sense. The leaders of the Irken Empire want Zim dead, even after all this time. They obviously hate him this much . . . " Dib mumbled, more to himself than to Gaz. He was surprised she hadn't got bored and wandered off to sulk, but still she remained seated, watching his eyes flick from one side of his glasses to the other, still thinking, "But they needed someone that hated him so much that they would strive to kill Zim as an instinct, so the plan existed just after the Moriara one failed, but to do it right they HAD to train this Jed character so she would want nothing better than Zim dead, and to get the revenge Tak never got. But it's gone wrong. Jed crashed and is now living with the guy she's supposed to destroy. This is WEIRD."
Gaz blinked and looked at her brother, who had relaxed, now having it sorted in his mind.
"It's weird," he continued, coming out of the creepy trance he had been in, "but it's Zim's problem, not ours." He saw the look on her face, and freaked slightly, "And it's not going to become our problem, Gaz. It's his fault."
"His fault that all three of us, me, you and Zim had a part in Tak's downfall?" Gaz challenged, "We could have just given Zim the memory disk that was inside her robot thing, we didn't have to come along. The revenge that Zim is getting is deserved by us too, Dib."
"But - but Tak came to Earth to get revenge on Zim in the first place!" Dib argued, not liking where Gaz was going with this at all.
Gaz shrugged, "Yeah, but then he saved my life, Dib. Don't we owe him something for that?"
Dib jumped to his feet in a fury, pointing an angry finger at his sister, who sat calmly on the couch, "I don't owe that alien ANYTHING! WE don't owe him ANYTHING, Gaz! What - this isn't like you! We took him back to his house three years ago . . . we put his Voot back in place, which was destroyed when she crashed, by the way."
"He saved my life Dib. If you don't help, then I'll do it myself." Gaz said simply, making a move to stand, but Dib held out a hand, and she desisted, sitting down again. Dib joined her on the sofa.
"Wha - why . . . Gaz, WHY? Why can't we just stay out of it? I'll stop the other Irken, she seems a lot less manic than Zim, but I'm not going to fight two Irkens that are at war with each other. She'll . . . one of the two will end up killing each other. Can't we just wage war on the one who wins?" Dib pleaded, not quite understanding what had gotten into his cruel- hearted sister. "Is there something between you and Zim?"
Gaz stood up and walked over to the coat hanger, taking her long raincoat off of it and whirling it around her shoulders, placing her arms in the sleeves. Dib collected his trench coat and schoolbag, slinging both over his right arm as he waited for an answer. Gaz narrowed her eyes at him.
"No," she snarled, "He saved my life, that's all."
She walked out of the door with a frown, and after Dib watched her hopelessly for a couple of seconds, he heard another yell from the lab: "NO! No, you fool! Not the potassium!! THE MAGNESIUM! THE MAGNESIUM! AAARGHHH!"
Dib witnessed another flash, much louder and more destructive than the last and hurried out after his sister towards the skool, thinking that his dad should reconsider taking on the apprentice that used the wrong chemicals.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It was the first week back of skool that term, a Wednesday, and Dib remembered that today was the day they would learn who their teacher for the year at the Hi-Skool he and Gaz now went to. For the first week, Dib's class had been given substitute teachers, and at last they would have someone to fall back on. He hoped that it would be someone like he had had last year, Mr Physicsgeek, who was into science, and occasionally listened to Dib's views until Zim heckled him and complained he had . . . "TIN PAGE INDIGESTION".
The adolescent Zim seemed unable to understand that the word was "teenage" or "teenager". He insisted that they were all a bunch of "human tin pagers" which Dib found quite amusing. He wondered if Zim would be in hi-skool today, or if he was even alive. Gaz sure had been strange this morning, stranger than usual. He would speak to Zim after skool, if he was in, that was.
Dib's heart sank when he saw Zim sitting in the seat next to the one that was the only other available seat in the classroom (in other words Dib had to sit next to Zim). He wondered why his father never bothered to send them to a skool that had different teachers for each subject, he could certainly afford it as he was a rich famous scientist, but he didn't seem to care much. Dib looked on the bright side, at least they didn't have to move between classes. He looked at his rival on his left hand side. Zim and Dib were dismissed to the back of the classroom every year, since they were the outcasts, the freaks. Dib had to sit in the far corner, he was the biggest freak. But Zim sat next to him at the back, slightly cooler than the geeky spiky-haired kid.
"Not dead yet, Zim?" he asked, and Zim looked down at himself briefly, then shook his head.
"Doesn't look like it, DOES it, Dib-Stink?" Zim retorted, "Now stop with your foolish school-boy death talking and be happy."
Dib scoffed, and leaned closer to Zim, "Y'know, Zim, when someone says they've pledged to kill you I wouldn't be so dismissive."
"You think I'd let that . . . child annihilate me, ZIM? Ignorant fool of a boy! Ha! I laugh at your ignorance! WATCH ME LAUGH! HA HA!"
"Well what's the story? Have you managed to convince her not to kill you? Did you give her the commands to your base in return for your life, then flee and now you're sleeping under a bridge? Or are you just sleeping with her?"
Zim's face turned bright emerald, and Dib presumed this was Zim's species' way of blushing. Satisfied, the human sat back in his seat and Zim hissed: "I will call your accusations a silly thing, Dib-creature, then warn you not to cross me."
"We'll talk later Zim," Dib said simply, not looking at his enemy, which annoyed him greatly, but Zim could say no more and shut his open mouth, silently loathing the fool-boy next to him.
The door creaked open and all the students except Zim leaned forward in their seats to see who it was. The result caused all the teenagers to scream in horror, including the proud Irken. The kids who knew this educator screamed in terror of knowing that this was the teacher they would have to rely on for their exams, and those that didn't know her face were terrified by that face.
"Ms Bitters?" cried Zita, being the most popular, she sat in the front seat with all her friends around her. Dib remembered the skool dance he had shared with her and cringed, but was more worried by the fact that the teacher he had managed to have not seen for three years had now appeared looking even more horrible than before. He prayed it was another substitute and the new teacher was coming on Monday.
"Yes, Zita." she responded, and everyone cried out again, "Class, I am Ms Bitters. I will be teaching you horrrrrible lot for the next horrrrrible hi- skool year. Those I have seen before, how horrrrrrible it is two see you again. Those I have not seen . . . you smell horrrrrribly."
Several children burst into tears and this seemed to empower Ms Bitters greatly, and if you had a zoom out camera then you'd do that and see all the screaming kids and the teacher laughing horrendously, except that she wasn't laughing, just looking horrible. Zim and Dib were staring at the front of the class in horror, quite glad that they weren't at the front and seeing her up close. They prepared themselves for another year based entirely on doom.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
At the end of the day, Zim took a piece of paper out of his I.D. Pak and strolled over to the teacher's desk, where Dib was already, fulfilling his punishment of sharpening pencils until his fingers turned black. He wasn't being punished for any particular reason; Ms Bitters just enjoyed watching him writhe. Zim came up a bit taller than he had before on Ms Bitters, but still had to clear his throat so she noticed he was there.
"Zim," she said, recognising him immediately, "How nasty to see you again."
"DITTO, Ms Bitters!" Zim yelled, "NOW! I must hand to you this parchment revealing news of utmost JOY!"
Ms Bitters looked at Zim in a very demeaning fashion, and took the piece of crumpled paper. It read, in very untidy writing:
Dear Sir, we know you are teaching our daughter Zim but now wish you to teach our other child who is not an assassin planning to take over the world and Zim's mission, who is also not trying to take over the world. She will arrive tomorrow lots of love the greatest parental units Zim has ever had.
Ms Bitters nodded and threw the piece of paper into the air, where it burst into flames, and a small amount of ashes fluttered down into her evil hand. Zim turned and walked out of the door. Dib stammered to Ms Bitters that his hands were raw and ran down the corridor to catch up with Zim.
"ZIM!" he panted, meeting up with him at the bottom of the steps, "I need to talk to you!"
"Must you?" Zim sighed in annoyance. Dib nodded, and Zim groaned.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, Gaz was running as fast as she could towards Zim's house, hoping to get there before the Irken that had once saved her life did. It appeared she had managed to do that, but there was no sign of him. She began to wonder if her annoying brother had managed to take him on a detour, and she entered the house, ignoring the two robots that welcomed her as "their little magpie".
Gaz made her way into the living room and walked around, looking at the surroundings that hadn't changed for three years. The robot she sometimes saw as a green dog wandering around the streets with Zim appeared holding a taco in his hand, speaking to it happily. It wasn't in its lame disguise, but it had a friend, which looked slightly different with red eyes and a different design, but it looked like an updated version of GIR, but then anything was more updated than the psycho-bot, as Dib nicknamed him.
"WOOOO!" GIR shrieked, recognizing her, "HIIII Gazzy! Not seen you since you and Zimmy was frieeeends, ya know what I meeaan?"
Gaz ignored him and took another few steps forward.
"INTRUDER!" the red robot yelled, with a much more mechanical and professional tone, and the toilet could be heard flushing, and a curse, then angry stomping as someone came through from the kitchen. Gaz clapped her eyes on the undisguised Irken that looked so much like Tak, but she had red, red eyes like Zim, and was slightly smaller and less scary looking, until she frowned.
"Who are you?" the Irken demanded, "What are you doing here?"
Gaz growled. She immediately didn't like this character.
"That's none of your business!" Gaz snapped, and made to go through to the kitchen, and the small alien, about her size, pushed her back with quite a lot of force. Gaz took a couple of involuntary steps back and snarled angrily. "I should ask you! What do you want with Zim?"
The other looked slightly confused, then nodded, "You're one of those humans, aren't you? Like that big-headed one. I let him go. If you leave now and I never hear from you again, you can live your blissfully ignorant life until I take over your planet. What business I have with Zim is, as you say, none of YOUR business."
"Ooooooo," GIR cooed, "Girly fight!"
"Silence!" the Irken snapped at the robot, and took a step towards Gaz, "Now, human, you make your choice. Go home . . . NOW!"
Gaz felt mounting anger at this character, more than when she met anyone else. Before she realised what she was doing, she pushed the green person back, who didn't respond well, and brandished a nasty looking gun.
"Now," she snarled, "I don't need to worry about shooting you, because you don't matter."
"I'm Zim's . . . friend!" Gaz tried, almost worried for the first time in her life, "And you're invoking my wrath! Zim'll be back any second and when he sees you threatening me . . . "
"Be quiet. Spend your last seconds with a bit of dignity. Five . . . "
Gaz thought of Dib and her father, about how she would never be able to tell them she was glad they were there, even if she didn't like them at the best of times.
"Four . . . "
She thought of Zim, and the things he had said to her in the last few years, and how she could have, should have, would have responded to differently had she not been so proud.
"Three . . . "
'I wanted to ask you - if you - uh - wanted to go to the dance with me?'
'Yeah, ok, I guess,'
"Two . . . "
'Look at you in the cage, it's because of me, yes? Well, I don't want to be here, and I don't want to have to be saving YOU!'
But he did . . .
"One . . . "
'It is BAD for my reputation and BAD for yours, and all it can ever be is BAD and I have enough BAD what with your brother and a BAD robot and a damaged ship and I think you're a BAD jinx. I hope . . . I hope you understand, and if you don't then you can eat some WEBBED FISH TOES, because all we can ever have together is BAD!"
Gaz closed her eyes, her last thought to be of Zim.
"All we can ever have together is bad . . . " Gaz murmured to herself, then the door flung open and she heard GIR's voice say "Oooooo!" and her brother's voice yell, "GAZ!" and there was nothing from Zim, who eventually strolled across the room and put a hand on the female alien's arm, gave her a knowing look, and she lowered the gun.
"Dib-Stink, you have met her before." Zim looked to Gaz, "Gaz, this is Invader Jed. But that's besides the point. Dib human, take your interfering sibling home and out of my business. " It was the first time he had spoken directly to her for three years. Gaz tried to ignore the heart-wrenching feeling inside her that she hated, but it wouldn't go away.
Gaz didn't do or say anything, but Dib did.
"You can't just tell me to go after she-" Dib pointed at Jed, "tried to kill my sister! You have to keep her under control Zim; she can't go round killing everyone. Especially not Gaz. Just . . . keep her away from Gaz."
'Don't stick up for her, Zim,' Gaz prayed silently, 'Please. I don't want to feel this way, it's bad enough . . . but to feel this way alone . . . '
"Just go, Dib. This argument is FUUUUTILE! Now go and eat some Earth groceries. This meeting is finished. Jed will do as she pleases as long as she is not killing ME! Whether she gets her hands on your smelliness or any of your disGUSTing family's is none of my concern, and I don't want it to be." Zim told him, and Gaz felt her heart sink, and walked out of the door into the newly started rain, Dib reluctantly following after.
Zim swallowed as GIR slammed the door loudly, sucking on a squishee that appeared out of nowhere. MAX followed him through the door, and Zim turned to face Jed.
"Why did you attack her?" he asked, "And what in the name of Irk was she doing here?"
"You tell me," Jed snarled, "she said you were her friend."
Zim hesitated, his breath dissolving in his throat, then inhaled and tried again. He laughed and shook his head, giving her an answer. He decided to change the subject. "I told my DISTURBING human teacher you would come to skool tomorrow. We need to find you and your SIR a disguise. I suggest you don't use one that was similar to Tak's as there are some who KNEW THAT SLIMEBALL under that disguise."
"Don't talk about my sister like that." Jed snapped. Zim didn't say anything and led her down to the base, looking at the capsule that made disguises. He had asked the Computer to make some repairs as it had gotten a little damaged after the baby invasion and had never bothered to fix it. The Voots were both being repaired on the same bay, and Zim led his guest past them both to the pod-like structure. MAX and GIR, who were already down in the repair bay, both headed towards it, but Zim held GIR back, who screamed in protest. The other robot walked into the pod and Jed leaned over the panel attached, knowing that her sister had chosen a "cat".
She decided she would use the same animal, and chose a black and grey shorthair disguise. There was a momentary flash, then the pod opened and MAX walked out, looking very much like MiMi but with different colourings, obviously. Jed nodded, satisfied, and set the panel for human female, with a somewhat more cunning disguise than Zim's. Zim was too busy watching GIR prod MAX with his tin finger. The SIR Unit looked unresponsive most of the time but let out an occasional giggle, and Zim had realised that this robot only misbehaved for brief and occasional intervals.
After the flash from the disguise pod, Zim looked up and it opened, revealing Invader Jed. Who emerged was not Tak's sister, it was a cunningly disguised human wearing the same clothing as she had been, but her eyes were covered with contact lenses that had stunningly blue irises with a black dot in the middle. She had long raven-like hair, cascading elegantly over curved shoulders. Zim stood stunned for a moment, then remembered who he was and who she was.
Jed looked down at herself and turned her upper lip up.
"Oh My Tallest . . . "she moaned, "I look terrible."
"No, no you don't," Zim murmured, looking at her. He realised she had gone with the gothic option, she had pale skin and dark make-up lining her stunning eyes. The best parts of her disguise were those eyes.
"Why don't you make your disguise a little less obvious, Zim?" she asked him, and he felt the fake hair on his head, which he now spiked up a little (but not like Dib's) as the fashionable Computer said that these humans could change hairstyles. Zim had become too fond of being different.
"I . . . I told them I had a skin condition of . . . doom!" Zim told her, "The humans now know me as a warped-skin um . . . what do they say . . . dude."
Jed nodded, and went back upstairs, leaving Zim to get on with repairing the ships. She didn't want to have too much conversation, she feared she might grow close to him and be unable to kill him, which could only be bad.
"Better sooner than later," she mumbled to MAX, who had followed her, "before I begin to know him. Because that's not allowed. We have to avenge Tak, don't we, MAX?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A/N : Heeeeee. Meep! Are you enjoying it people? I hope so . . . Gooooose.
Next chapter : Gaz is now even more jealous of Jed as she sees Zim giving her lots of attention at skool the next day. Dib also notices Zim is developing a soft spot for Jed and realises he can use it to his advantage . . . Meanwhile Zim and Jed try not to become close but obviously them living together happens to complicate things a bit. She reminds him that she still has to kill him at some point, but Zim has other views on that.
Anyway, will update as soon as possible folksies. This is a very long chapter. Moo. Probably the longest so far!!! WOOOO Gaz still likes Zim but will he fall for her again or Jed or . . . or Ms Bitters? Okay not Ms Bitters. Another thing in this chapter, Dib will experience the first girl that properly flirts with him and he's quite scared. Awww.
"Cracked eggs, dead birds scream as they fight for life. I can feel death, can see it's beady eyes." - Street Spirit (Fade Out.), Radiohead.
