(Horribly long Author's Note:) Hello again! Sorry for not updating sooner.. my mom banned us all from her computer.. I need my own.. I need it! gah! Anyways, I am back online now (because I fixed it for her.. damn viruses and downloaded bullshit), so here is my update.. and as soon as I get this done and a few other things that I have to do done, I will be starting on the next chapter.

It took me longer than usual to actually write this chapter.. I had to actually explain how the antidote works.. (which means, yes, I had to think!) finally, the thing's evil intesti-- I mean, the secret is revealed! Don't ask me where I got the name.. it just popped into my head. Curse me. I think it sounds a little farfetched, but I'm sure you'll all let me know in your wonderous reviews if you think so too.

Also, I bought one of those freaky cow-can things.. like the nurse has in Dark Harvest.. yes, I do like playing with it. Moooo! My tea also tastes like pond-water, so I am switching to soda, and cheetos are really yummy! Now, let me rain some doom upon you with my chapter that does not make sense!!!! (insert dramatic, Professor Membrane-like echo here) Oh, it also sucks by the way, but I hope that you find it satisfactory.

Chapter 10 - The Secrets of Varda

GIR continued to stare down at Zim, as if waiting for an answer. Dib was feeling a slight panic building in his insides. Zim had been his last hope.. sure, he could have gone to his father for help, but would his father have been able to create an antidote? (Duh, he is Professor Membrane! The WORLD needs his help! But how are you going to get out of here without the use of your legs?)

"Zim! Come on, Zim! Get up!"

The Irken just lay there, looking as if the life was draining out of him. Dib had to do something, his own life (and Zim's too) depended on it. Saving your worst enemy in order to save yourself is.. ug, if I could describe it in one word.

"GIR, what are you doing?! Save him or something!"

"Why? He's just sleeping.. he's having happy dreams."

"No he's not! He's choking to death!"

"Who is?"

"Zim!"

"What?"

Dib sighed loudly out of irritating frustration and glared at GIR. "Damn, you're stupid."

"But...But I'm advanced!" GIR protested, looking sort of sad.

"Anyway.. could you hand me that remote control?" Dib asked, trying to be patient with GIR.

"The one for the TV?!" GIR asked Dib excitedly.

"No.. the one for the hover disk-thing."

"Say you're sorry first."

"Sorry?" Dib blinked at the robot. "Sorry for what?"

"For calling me stoopid, smelly human boy!" GIR giggled and shook his fist at Dib, doing a sort of hyperactive impression of his master.

"Um.. sorry?"

"Okay! Here you go!" GIR grabbed the remote control and pressed the button that was used to propel the hover disk forward and it slammed into the side of the table, tipping it dangerously. He then threw the remote at poor Dib's large, headachey head, causing the boy to go crashing down onto the horrible metal floor.

"Gah!" Dib said (it was more of a surprised yelp, really), managing to break his fall with his hands. "GIR! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Helping you off of the table, like you wanted."

"But I didn't want-" Wait.. he did want to get off of the table. He didn't want to fall, but he did want to see if he could revive Zim somehow. Looking over at the Irken for a moment, he crawled over to him.. he wasn't that far away, after all.

GIR giggled insanely again, smiling at Dib.

"Crawl, worm-boy!" He shouted, pointing at the human. Dib raised an eyebrow at him, giving him a 'You hang around Zim too much' sort of look, then stared down at Zim, who was definitely dead looking by now.

"Come on, Zim.. cough it up or something," he said, shaking him. The Irken didn't move, really.. but Dib thought he saw one of Zim's antennae twitch. With his rapidly blurring and darkening vision it was becoming hard to tell. "Zim? Can you hear me?" Everything was darkness and sound once more.

"Zim!" He elbowed the alien harshly, aiming for his stomach region in an attempt to dislodge the paper wrapper from his horrible green throat, but missing and hitting him... somewhere else. Instantly he heard a sort of squeak of pain and a mighty Irken fist connected with his face, he couldn't see to dodge it or even try to get out of the way.

Zim was coughing and ranting now, fuming at the boy. Eventually the muffin wrapper dislodged itself from his throat and went flying across the room and landing neatly in a garbage can.

"Yay! Two Points!" GIR cheered.

"HUMAN!!!" He managed to snarl between couging fits.

Ahhh.. the Earth was doomed once more.

Dib moved his hands from gingerly rubbing the side of his face to covering his ears. "Are you trying to kill me or something?!" Zim ranted on and on. "To think I, Zim, almost brought down by a filthy dirt-child hurling muffin remnants and your horrible abuse of organs that should never be abused!!! You disgusting, putrid stink be-" Dib clapped a hand over Zim's large mouth, his blind eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

"I also saved your life, you know. You were turning blue!"

"Fwa!" Zim said as he slapped Dib's filthy, human-dirt hand away. "I needed no help from you!!! In mere seconds the life support devices in my PAK would have activated, and I would have been fine!"

"Please," Dib said irritably, crossing his arms in front of him and making a sort of grumbling noise.

"Cease your inane growling, stink-boy," Zim growled. "I wouldn't have almost coughed up my organs if 'someone', that means you by the way, hadn't have interrupted my moment of glory by rudely throwing garbage!"

"I warned you not to eat the wrappers," GIR smiled at his master, earning a glare from the Invader.

"I wouldn't have had to throw garbage if you hadn't been taunting me with your 'superior being' crap."

"Crap? It is not crap! It is the truth! Do not question Zim! I am more incredibly superior than any human could ever hope to be!"

"Whatever," Dib said coldly and turned away from the alien. No matter what, Zim would never admit that Dib had just saved his life.. sure, he had almost killed him, but that had actually been an accident. Any other day it would have been intentional. Zim stared at the human, his red eyes seeming to burn holes into his enemy's back.

"Can you write with both hands, Dib-human?" Zim asked, in another silly attempt to try to prove his superiority. Dib completely ignored him.

"Fine," he muttered and went back to the table in silence. He enjoyed his fights with Dib, believe it or not, but now Dib just wasn't much fun at all. GIR picked up the uneaten candybar from the floor and munched it happily.
A few hours passed in silence.. Dib eventually got back onto the table (without Zim or GIR's help, GIR offered, but.. heh heh.. no) and sat on the edge, staring off into space. GIR had brought him more food, but this time it was from a convenience store down the street, so he was actually able to keep it in his stomach...barely. He was feeling a little dizzy, but it wasn't too bad yet, but he was also starting to feel tired again. He shook his head slowly, finding it horrible that he had to place his trust in someone who hated his wretched human guts, all because of one stupid mistake.

Zim was now staring at the bottles before him. Dib had been listening to his tinkering with things over at the table for a long time. The alien looked almost nervous, but he struggled to regain his composure. In fact, when GIR came too close he banished him to the next room to watch more television, to which GIR happily obliged. It was around sunset, now, Dib could tell as he counted the beeping of his watch as it announced the hours as they went by.

Zim was being careful.. oh so careful with those bottles.. as if they contained explosives. What Zim had to be the most careful with was a substance which the Irkens called 'Varda'. Purple had sent him such warnings with those instructions. It was dangerous in large amounts, but the single reason that the mixture of blood would work. It was in a small, dark bottle and emitted a faint purple glow from a single spot in the middle. The spot was like a nucleus, because Varda was actually a living substance. It was now mostly used in very small amounts in the life support systems of Irken PAKs, rather than much else.

There was a rumor or a legend that Varda was actually a cell from a monster of the same name that had defeated the Irkens in a war for their own planet, then mysteriously died, leaving nothing but a large puddle of black goo containing its genetic information behind. No Irken alive knew if this was the truth or just a story that old ones that had survived many wars told the smeets, but it made a good story at least. Those in power denied it, because nothing could defeat the mighty Irken army, nothing I tell you! In fact, Zim denied it himself, even though he did believe it to be true, deep down. He had been an impressionable smeet once, too.

Anyway, the strangest thing about the Varda was the way it reacted with blood of any kind. It forced an adaptation. In the case of poison, it would make whoever it was administered to to become immune. It never did this with blood that has been stagnant.. blood which hasn't pumped through veins in a long time, like Zim's plasma in the glowing room. To Varda, it was like dead blood.. and a waste of its sweet time. If the blood was more than 2 days from a beating heart, you could forget it, but the Irken blood that now pulsed through Dib's body was no longer stagnant, which is why it had to be blood from this infected creature. It could have been blood from any infected human, really.. but Dib was the only one handy.. well, the only one, period.

Zim caught himself staring in awe at the glow which seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until he forced himself to look away. It was too.. horridly beautiful. He knew that the Dib would have probably killed to see it, what with his love (and in Zim's case, hate) of the paranormal, and a small part of him wished that the boy could. Maybe someday he would show him... things..

He sunk an empty syringe into the end of the bottle and drew out only a very small amount. The nucleus pulsed and moved as far from the needle as it could, as if it were trying to preserve its life. As he pulled it out, it seemed to relax and anything that was taken from the bottle was immediately regenerated. He set it down carefully, chancing a glance over at the Dib. Dib wasn't paying attention to him, not really, anyway. He was lost in his thoughts, mostly thinking about how frustrating it was to be blind, but also thinking about how much he didn't want to be here for what may be his very last days on Earth. Sure, Zim had a plan, but in his mind, Zim's plans seemed to have a very low success rate. I beg to differ, but these are Dib's thoughts, not mine.

"This sucks.."

Zim heard him sigh, and thought about saying something to him but decided against it. Why should he have to attempt to comfort the human anyway? He was Zim, and Zim strikes fear into the hearts of all.. he does not give comfort to anyone. He also thought about how the stupid Dib-human could cause him to lose his concentration if he started another argument again.. stupid Dib.. he held in a snarl and resisted the urge to throw a spare bottle at the boy's head. A few moments before he had seemed ready to forgive the Dib for nearly killing him and causing him so much grief, but now he was back to hating everything about him.

'Must...focus!' He thought as he looked down at the table again. "Okay," he said aloud. Picking up the syringes of his own blood, he emptied them into a long, narrow, cylindrical shaped container. Dib's face turned towards him, but if the boy could see, Zim couldn't tell and didn't care. He was focusing on the task at hand. Dib could see variations of light, and some slight colors, and he squinted at the faint purple glow in the room. It was frustrating, being able to see one minute, and then.. not.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhh.." Zim hissed. He was adding droplets of the amazing black goo to his blood in the container, and as soon as he was done he sealed it quickly, as if the substance was threatening to escape. He held it at eye-level, staring at it intently. His blood fizzed and mixed with the Varda, turning his blood from greenish-blue to black, which was a good thing. The reaction meant that the Varda was working it's horrible magic, making itself immune to the toxins carried in Irken blood.

"Adaptation," Zim said with a sigh as he put the container down. This process would take hours. He would have to watch it closely, as soon as the fizzing stopped and his blood turned back to it's normal color he would have to add Dib's blood. The Varda would successfully combine the two, so that instead of the human blood being poisoned by the Irken, they would simply mix and all of the toxins would be neutralized as the human adapted. The final stage would involve injecting this into the Dib, where it would spread and.. detoxify his veins. Ultimately, Dib would just become immune to the poison, and nothing like this would ever happen again. Too bad there wasn't an antidote for rain.

Unfortunately, Zim would never be able to use this weakness of Dib's in the future, but he could always find some other way to kill the one person that was almost like his frie- enemy! The one person that was his enemy! Well.. all of the filthy humans were his enemies, really. His head hurt.

"What about it?" Dib asked, interrupting Zim's train of thought.

"Huh?" Zim stared at him, blinking stupidly.

"You just said something about adaptation."

"Oh.. I was just thinking out loud, Dib-monkey, that's all," he said, sounding sort of weary, almost tired. It had been a long, horrible day. He looked over at Dib, then back at the container.

"Tell me."

"Tell you what? What madness do you want to know about now? Wasn't my Great Uncle Milford explanation good enough for you?"

"I want to know what you're doing," Dib squinted his eyes as if that would help him see better. Zim growled, one of his eyes twitching. The Dib-human was too persistant sometimes.. it was frustrating.

"You still don't trust me, do you?" He laced his fingers together behind his back, glaring at the boy.

"Nope."