Sorry for the delay. I'm just getting over an awful virus of my own, and have the snot-nuggats to prove it! :P
Anyways, thanks for the reviews!!! Of course I'll keep updating...With two of my favorite authors telling me they like it, how could I not? I'll never stop now! Hahahah!
::extremely happy::
Chapter 2
Dib raised the small tinsel-colored box to his ear, eyes squeezed shut, the fore finger of his other hand pressing painfully inside the opposite ear.
Had he heard correctly?
The normally scathing voice of his nemesis trailed off thoughtfully, murmur-mumbles slipping into an incoherent jabber as he fiddled with a keyboard of somesort. The soft clicks of rush-pressed keys echoed from within the devise attatched to the small Irken's back. He was probably tampering with some seemingly-vulnerable element of human existence. Concocting another miserable excuse of a plan which would land Earth in his slimy hands...
Or not.
Perhaps this time it was something entirely different. Something that had to do with the arrival of another Irken?
The dark-clothed boy hopped off the gray sviwel-chair and padded over to the window. Beyond the undisturbed grime on the glass the sun's beams bounded across the street and sidewalks, bouncing blindingly off of rainbow-tar puddles in driveways. The cloudless sky was its usual smog-soaked orange-rinded blue. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet...
Scowling, Dib made his way downstairs and to the garage, where Tak's unhelpful ship still lay. It was a slim ticket, but maybe it would pick up the sigal of another of it's own race's vessels. Climbing into the center of the ship's console, the bespeckled boy started powering up the alien engines (which surprisingly still worked) and typing in the code for the guidance system to activate. He'd had plenty of time to decipher the symbols melded upon each button and keys' surface. The humbled craft groaned to life, an artificial sigh penetrating the ears of its current owner.
"Yes?" The metallic voice chirped.
Dib ignored the boredom of its greeting and continued searching for the key which activated the communication port. Having grown tired long ago with Tak's pushy personality and his own drawl, aggravating (and incredibly depressing) one, the young paranormal investigator had erased all emotion from the craft, leaving it to say what it liked in a completely sexless, non-insulting way.
Ah. There it is...
The green-square button popped up again once pressed, as if in a meek display of retaliation. The mini-monitor built into the key-panel fizzled to life, however, no longer unrecognizable symbols flashing across the bottom. The ship itself seemed to be watching in curiosity at the diagrams being pulled up on the screen. A quiet bleep sounded as the display showed a trembling blue model of the earth. A speck of red was plummeting towards the Earth's surface, although in the diagram it looked like it was crawling.
Strange....Why wasn't there a sound? A channel of communication should have been formed. Why was he only seeing this vessel, but not hearing it's pilot? Surely whoever was aboard that ship could detect that another Irken craft was attempting contact...
"Hmph." Dib rocked back on his heels to sit comfortably on his bottom. It looked like he'd just have to sit and watch where this new Irken landed. He was pretty sure it'd be around Zim's house. But he didn't feel like chancing being seen as it landed.
And it wasn't like he couldn't hear everything that went on, from the comfort of his own bedroom...
With a wide grin, the sole defender of Earth tucked his arms behind his head and leaned back, eyes pleasantly watching the red-speck vessel drop to Earth.
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Sen rolled his eyes as his main monitor blinked the flashing pink scrawl-message at him again.
"Incoming communication. Do you accept?"
He pressed the key with the Irken symbol for 'decline' upon it once more, refusing, for the second time, to respond to whatever Zim might be saying. Or trying to see...
Like he'd talk to that pompous and somehow-moronic quack more than he had to. He was already worried about reaching the surface and making it within a decent proximity of Zim's base without getting shot down by the natives. Luckily his ship was one of the top-notch newest models capable of visual invisibility. Nothing, however, could cloak the ship's movements from a respectable radar.
Intertwining thin, gloved fingertips, Sen pondered the intelligence of this panet's species. They couldn't be that intelligent if they had still failed to see through Zim's pitiful disguise.
Then again...they were still, somehow, alive. That must signify at least a considerable amount of brainpower right? To have remained intact for over a year in the presence of the universe's most powerful disaster magnet...
The console hummed a different question and Sen looked down to see what it was this time. Reading the new inquiry he sighed deeply and narrowed his eyes. A three-dimensional diagram of the Earth poured out in a stream of artificial light, spinning until the side of the planet which the craft was approaching was facing the Irken pilot. Tapping the hologram with his fingertip, Sen identified the exact spot where he had decided to land. It was a rather run-down dirt-griping park not far from Zim's mint-chip base. With luck, he'd be able to make it as far as Zim's without detection. If worse came to worse, he'd just say he was in his 'haloween costume' and doubted that too horrific of an outcome would take place. He'd seen some of Zim's disguises when transferring his messages to the tallest. None of them were even remotely believable.
"Prepare for landing."
Leaning back, Sen let the straps snap across his lap and shoulders as the craft began to shudder and decrease its speed, picking through structures both natural and otherwise. Pine-needle stained eyes watched the passage of the crystal-clear blue sky and shuddering branch-arms drenched in healthy leaves. Tall, rectangular dwellings glittered with windows and grafiti. The sea of grass below bent to the movement of the passing vessel until it was no more.
Gutter-muck lounged about the decay-greasy asphalt, yards away from overturned trash cans. The warm-sparkle rays of the sun were now hidden from view behind stingy buildings riddled with dirty insignias. The corn-colored grass was long since dead.
The alien ship collided softly with the grimy ground, a soft hiss of pure air kissing its surroundings before it too became stagnant.
Sen took a deep breath, checking his wrist locator for the proper direction in which to sprint, and began racing in the direction of his last hope.
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Zim listened to the computer's warning of an outsider within the premises and stood up resolutely, turning in the direction of the hover platform that would transport him to the kitchen. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye at the screen confirmed the identity of the intruder.
He would get to the bottom of this...
GIR rolled off the couch at the sound of the doorbell, grinning. It wasn't very often that someone came over to play, and the little SIR wasn't about to waste the opportunity sprawled in front of the t.v. Racing to the door and yanking on the hood of his dog-costume, the little robot flung open the door so hard it cracked into the wall beside the doorway. A figure stood there for a moment, gazing down at the gaudy dog before it in amazement.
"HIIIIIIII!"
Sen just stared at the trash-clump SIR spiralling its nubby arms frantically in his direction and shrieking a greeting.
Zim let the thing open the door?
He had only a few moments to contemplate what sort of reaction an earthling might have to the little robot before he was sent sprawling onto the porch, the back of his head connecting painfully with the make-shift psuedo-cement. Something was smothering his face. He tried to pry it off, but it only strengthened its grasp, screeching with delight.
"You're GREEN!"
Well, duh....
"GIR!"
Sen felt the pressure on his face subside and gasp-hacked as much air into his mouth as possible.
"Yeeees master?" GIR released his grip on the visitor's head to look up at Zim.
"Get off him, GIR!"
"Phhht. OKAY!" The lime-green costume squeaked as GIR pranced back inside the house, newcomer already forgotten.
Sen groaned as he was yanked from the pavement and dragged inside the freaky-odd house, to be deposited on the imitation-living-room floor. He heard the door slam shut behind him. The hand on his arm relinquished its sharp-sting hold.
"Are you insane?! Its the middle of the horrible day and you're just walking around without a disguise?!"
Rubbing the back of his head, the emeral-eyed Irken looked up at the vocal one coldly.
"Zim."
"Who else would I be?" He waved an arm in annoyance. "What are you doing here? This is MY planet!" He balled his hand into a fist and shook it in the other Irken's face. If he was here to overtake his mission like that miserable Tak...
"Believe me, Zim. This is the last place I'd like to be, and you're deffintiely the last person I'd want to be with."
"Eh?"
"There's a lot that I have to explain to you, and very little time in which to do so."
"Eh?"
"Something's happened aboard the massive. Something horrible. We..."
"Eh?"
"Just listen to me!"
Zim glared at the taller Irken, but clamped his jaw shut. GIR looked up from the kitchen table. Sen eyed the SIR warily, but continued to speak.
"There's a wretched virus spreading through the Empire. Everyone it comes in contact with becomes deathly ill. Everyone except those with my eye-color, that is." He caught the glint of curiosity in the false-invader's eyes and shook his head.
"I know it doesn't make sense. Genetically, we could nearly be considered twins..."he paused to shudder. Zim just raised a non-existent eyebrow. "We all come from the same lab, same tubes. Yet, somehow, there is still the differentiation of eye colors. Red being the most common, purple the second, and green the very scant minority."
Zim nodded, causing Sen to scowl.
Probably running the aspect that we are considered almost-embarassments through his demented head.......Although it was hard to explain how a green-eyed Irken had never, in the entire duration of their proud history, reached the state of being a tallest. This led some to believe that they were the 'lessers' of their race, deemed unfit to rule by genetics. Ha, look at them all now. Their "mighty" bodies racked with infection and dependent upon those whom they scorned...
Shaking his head, Sen went on. No, they still didn't deserve this...
"Those with your eye color are the most dangerously affected. The virus quickly overwhelms them, its symptoms rapidly passing through their systems. Death occurs within a few weeks. We have lost about a tenth of the population already."
Zim's eyes were now wide open, red surfaces glistening with realization.
His uninvited guest nodded sadly.
"Luckily, those with purple eyes are able to sustain themselves against the virus longer. How much I cannot say. I left before I recieved news of one of their deaths."
Zim was shaking now. How could this be? The Irkens! Subject to fatality at the hands of a mere disease...
He looked at the first member of his species he'd ever layed eyes upon.
"What do you want me to do?" he croaked.
Sen walked over to him and placed a thin hand on his shoulder, dislike momentarily disgarded. "WE have to find our kind a cure before its too late."
Zim nodded blankly at first, then more vigorous with each movement. He snapped his head up and stared determinedly straight ahead.
"Then let us find this 'cure'! Follow me to my underground lab, its this way!" He began stomping over to the couch and barking at the computer to open the entrance.
His unlikely companion stepped after him, watching as the couch lifted from the floor, an opening forming beneath. Subconciously he reached up to his face to make sure the mask was still properly in place.
"NO!"
The short Irken turned at Sen's scream, confused. "What's wrong with you now? Its just the entrance to my lab..."
"I...it...the mask! Where is it?!" The taller of the two was moving about wildly, eyes darting around the room.
"You mean that thing that fell of on the porch?"
"WHAT?"
"Yeah. Something came off your face when GIR let you go. Why are you acting so...crazy-thing...like?"
Sen just stared his red-eyed host with glazed green-hued ones.
He had failed.
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