All of the characters mentioned here belong to the Almighty Jhonen Vasquez. Please pardon any character flaws or typos, etc.—this is my very first fanfic. It was designed to be a songfic using the song "Hero" by Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott. At this point I am not entirely sure if this will be a one-shot fic or not. I beg of you, leave me a detailed reply and tell me what I need to work on and what you liked. Happy reading! Peace out, this is Tsuki signing off.
Zim let out a long, maniacal cackle. This world that had so spited him since he was a young Irken invader-to-be was finally to be destroyed. His final doomsday machine was guaranteed to work—foolproof, idiotproof, and, of course, GIRproof.
Gir's head popped around the doorway. "You got TACOS down there!" he squeaked excitedly.
Zim sighed irritably. "No, GIR, there are no tacos. NOW LEAVE!"
Gir pranced away, singing the Doom song at the top of his mechanical lungs.
In all of Zim's seven years on this filthy planet, he had learned that when there was an important plan afoot, he could not tell Gir. That was the only way that any decent brainchild could be salvaged.
The time was now. "GIR! Prepare for takeoff!" Zim cried, uncharacteristically happy.
Gir's eyes turned bright red without warning. He saluted and marched off to carry out his orders. Oddly enough, he had been doing that more and more lately. His bouncy, insanely hyper attitude wasbeing infected with a militaristic obedience….and Zim was enjoying every minute of it. Until he was completely subdued, though, all the important information would have to be kept from him. As Zim fiddled with a few toggles, he began to wonder when Gir would have everything ready. The freshly repaired ship should have been set for takeoff by now.
Through the thin ceiling, Zim could hear the gentle hum and sizzle of taquitos in a microwave. Zim sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "GIR! GET THE DAMN SHIP PREPARED!"
The sound of a plate breaking on the floor ensued and Gir stomped across the floor upstairs, slamming the door to the backyard. The sound of a very large vehicle's engine gunning startled Zim out of a reverie, and he raced upstairs with the last of his earthly belongings. Tossing them into a luggage compartment on the small ship, he went back in and pressed a button upstairs. The doomsday machine had been built into an elevator, making it able to travel to any floor in the house. Once it had reached the main floor, Zim double-checked his wiring and handiwork before he finally decided it was to his satisfaction.
Dib let out an alarmed yelp as all of his sensors went off at once. A HUGE threat to humanity was afoot! "GAZ!" he cried.
"What do you want!" Gaz yelled back in her usual charitable mood.
"You have to help me! Earth is in danger! Mankind is under a severe threat! CALL MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES!" Dib screamed.
Gaz strolled into Dib's "control room". "Dib, you think the sky is falling every time a squirrel crawls over the backyard fence. Give it up."
"No! Look Gaz! It's real!" Dib cried, enlarging a blinking icon on the world map. "Gaz…this could be serious. It's coming from…Zim's house."
"Gir probably just burned his taquitos again. This kind of thing is what happens when you have wireless access to every fire alarm in a three million mile radius." Gaz replied, with a stonily serious face.
"No! Gaz! There's a huge doomsday device, as indicated by this icon, and the getaway ship is located here." Dib pointed onto two flashing shapes.
"Wait a minute….you have a special icon just for doomsday devices?" Gaz wrinkled her brow at himand went off to pick up her GameSlave 4000.
Dib gave her a strange look. "Well, yeah, Gaz, what good conspiracy theorist doesn't?"
Gaz squeezed her eyelids together and sighed. "Dib, you big-headed freak, I'm not going anywhere and neither are you."
Dib picked up a few things and slipped them into a black backpack. Flipping it overhis head and onto his shoulders, he made a run for it, past Gaz, and stole her GS4000 as he dashed by. That was sure to force her to follow.
Gaz tore after him furiously, swearing and muttering under her breath as she slammed her feet onto the ground. "Damn that Dib! He shall pay! I swear to God, if he ruins my GS4000 I will torture him for all eternity." Still cussing, she followed Dib's long strides evenly and chased him.
Brother and sister both screeched to a halt when they reached Zim's house. The four walls had collapsed to the ground, leaving only the plumbing, electrical wiring, and the Doomsday Machine. Zim looked up with a crazed expression and spotted the purple-haired girl and the darkly dressed shadow of a boy standing in the street.
"How do you like THIS, earth worm-babies!" Zim cried excitedly. "Soon, I shall leave your planet and make it explodie! ALL IN THE NAME OF PLANET IRK!"
Dib burst into action. Finding a rock on the sidewalk, he hurled it at Zim's machine. It clinked against it harmlessly and bounced away.
"It is of no use, Dib-human! I have learned the ways of your earthwormish trickery! I have protected my doomsday machine from the things you call 'rocks'!" Then, under his breath, he added, "This time, at least."
Dib looked hopelessly at the huge machine. According to some blueprints that had blown from the exposed living room and landed at his feet, the machine was foolproof. There was no way that this machine could be stopped once the Doomsday progress had started. Whipping out a cell phone, he dialed the police, fire station, the local college laboratory, and, of course, Mysterious Mysteries. The police responded to the word "emergency" but scoffed when they recognized Dib's voice. The fire station manager caused the phone to short out when he pretended to listen and accidentally drooled into the Mic. The college laboratory secretary hung up the second she realized who it was that she was talking to. The Mysterious Mysteries people saw Dib's name on the Caller I.D. and didn't even bother to pick up.
I am so high, I can hear heaven.
I am so high, I can hear heaven.
Oh but heaven, no heaven don't hear me.
Zim took his doomsday machine's remote control and jumped into the final getaway vehicle. Gaz was still somewhat dazed as she took her GS4000 from Dib's limp hand and watched Zim's ship raise into the air smoothly. Once the incredible vehicle rose up to 4,000 feet above sea level, Zim switched the gears to Hover. As Gir took his place next to Zim, he played wit ha taco shell that he had found on the floor.
"What's goin' onnnnnnnnnnn?" Gir squealed happily, not realizing the dire situation. "Are we going to get some more TAQUITOS!"
"Sure thing, Gir. It'll just be a little while, that's all." Zim paused, staring at the speck that had been his house. Through a special screen on the ship he could see Dib, frantically dialing numbers. Gaz, he noted with regret, was spending her last few minutes on earth to play her GS4000.
Dib cried out in frustration. Even Professor Membrane didn't respond at the Lab. He took the GS4000 from Gaz's grip, slammed it to the ground, and stomped on it until nothing remained but some plastic shards and disconnected wires. Gaz glared at him.
"GAZ!" he screamed at her. "DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT THE SECOND ZIM PRESSES THAT BUTTON, THE DOOMSDAY COUNTDOWN WILL INITIALIZE! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
Gaz looked at him dully, brain processing the fact that for once, Dib's crazy theories were going to come true. As the fact finally registered, she realized that she was floating among some clouds and her brother was in a panic, yelling her name.
"D... ib?" she whispered. "...Why are you so far away?"
Inside the ship, Zim had just realized that he could take almost anything. He didn't give a rat's ass whether or not Dib was destroyed in the Doomsday. But he could not tolerate leaving Gaz behind. There was just something about her that the Irken could tolerate...something almost akin to himself. She was the only human wormbaby that was worth saving. When a dazed and sedated Gaz floated into the ship via a portal in the floor of the main deck, she ran to a nearby window. The Earth glistened and Dib's speck of a body was running back and forth frantically.
And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.
Back on Earth, Dib realized he had nothing left, not even his irritable sister...unless he managed to get her back. And the only way she would have an Earth to return to was if he saved it. Just call him the protective brother...He made one last phone call to the last person on earth he would ever contact...a number that he had never even dreamed of dialing, not even for an emergency.
The pleasant recording to Dookie Deluxe Nursing Homes asked him to enter an extension. He winced, pressing four numbers, and responded to the person on the other end.
"Hello? Yes, this is Dib Membrane." He paused. The following words tasted wrong on his tongue. "Greetings, Ms. Bitters..."
Someone told me that love would all save us.
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us.
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling, that
world never came.
Zim watched Gaz as she placed her hands against a windowpane, looking out over the surface of the Earth. He thought of the possibility that there may be even more wormbabies similar to Gaz or himself. For a warm moment he seriously considered destroying the doomsday device and going back to live peaceably on Earth. When the computer switched to a satellite view of two people in New York holding hands and clearly in love, he almost prepared to land the ship again. However, after the computer switched to another New York scene of two haggard teenagers pulling switchblades and guns, he dismissed all of his silly notions of keeping Irken forces from taking over and rebuilding the planet.
"Here, Gaz." he called quietly. "I have another GS4000 for you."
Gaz may have been a human, but she didn't deserve to see her brother die with the rest of her species. She took the GS4000 from Zim and sat in the middle of the floor, pressing buttons madly and drowning out all of her frantic thoughts.
Zim mused to himself. "Hmmm...it would seem as if those sedatives I put into the tractor beam worked quite well, actually. Normally Gaz would be trying to kick my ass..."
He calmly reached for the small square Doomsday Control and pressed the button with the Irken logo, not giving a second thought to the process. He watched below, waiting for Project Doomsday to initialize and begin the countdown. This new ship that he was in would be fueled all the way back to Irk with the unique energy of Project Doomsday.
And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.
Within thirty seconds, Dib had received all the basic information on explosives that he would ever need to know. He also alerted Tak to the goings-on, and immediately she was furious at Zim. She had only visited Earth a few times since her initial introduction to everyone there, but overall she didn't think that Dib was such a terrible human. After all, he would do anything to put Zim out of commission, and who could disagree with that? Tak was much too far away to be of any assistance, however. He had no one but himself.
He grimaced, took all the tools he would need from his backpack, and approached the large, boxy machine. Before he reached it, a purple display counted down the time till the Doomsday Machine did... well, whatever it was programmed to do in order to destroy the surface of Earth and everything on it. Taking out a screwdriver, he began to wrestle with the design of the strange screws securing a large panel onto the back of the main system configuration.
On the main deck of Zim's ship, Gaz's sedatives were quickly wearing off. For the first time since she had followed Dib from their house, she understood exactly what was going on. She screamed acuss and jumped to her feet, shoving the GS4000 in her hip holster.
"ZIM!" She yelled. "Just what the helldoyou think you're doing! Let me out of here, you miserable green idiot!"
"You don't want that, Gaz. You don't want that at all. Then you would haveto die with the rest of them…"
Gaz curled her hands into fists and yelled at Zim as loudly as she could. "HUMANS MAKE GAMESLAVES! AND GAMESLAVES ARE LIFE!"
Zim turned to look at her, a squinty look in his eyes. "You see those bloody dead bodies on that street? That's a street in the human city of New York. Mankind and Earth are both going to hell in a handbasket, and I'm not going to stand here and let it happen. Not when I have a mission to fulfill and the Irken construction team could have this fixed up easily."
"Then let me down." Gaz said coolly. "I'm no better than the rest of the wormbabies, so just put me back on the surface. I'll die down there with the rest of them…as a human."
"No, Gaz. We're too alike, you and I. It would be like letting myself go explodie. I won't do it. Just sit down and enjoy the flight…who knows, you've grown a lot since I first landed on this planet. Maybe one of The Tallest will spare you."
And now the world isn't ending,
It's love that I'm sending to you.
It isn't the love of a hero,
And that's why I fear it won't do.
Dib looked nervously at the craft hovering above. The counter showed that he had forty seconds left before the world ended, and he would be the first to go. Plugging his laptop into an internal modem in the device, he downloaded some crucial information and peered at the blueprints to the machine. A few key wires were labeled.
"So, cut the purple wire and…" He used his wirecutters to snip a fuschia band. From the sounds of it, the mainframe was still set to destroy the Earth, but the purple counter disappeared from the screen. Dib was left with no counter to track his progress, but…. wait! The laptop had a large screen with the ticking numbers on it.
"Thirty-five seconds left to live." He whispered. "Now the blue wire…"
When the blue wire was severed, the backup generator and extra information icons disappeared from his computer screen, but the internal countdown was still ticking.
Twenty-five seconds left.
"Okay, so the red wire will be the wireless connections to Zim's computer." Dib noted as he fished around for the wire and snipped it."
Zim snickered as the icons and progress tracking were removed from his screen. "The Dib-human must be tinkering with it. He'll never finish in time…he only has eighteen seconds left.
Gaz cried out as the ship lurched.
"Wha—Oh. We don't have to worry unless he actually does cut the orange wire. Only then will we fall backto Earth."
"LISTEN, Zim. Dib may not be much but he's the only family I have."
"What about your father-worm?"
"What, you mean the man that I consider a landlord?"
Dib looked at the blueprints one last time, noting that he only had eighteen seconds. "Orange wire…Orange wire." He mumbled, frantically fingering wire after wire insearch for an orange one. He saw a small protective metal tube going through the center, and used the wirecutters to gnaw through part of it. Inside, an orange wire had been obscured from view. Dib triumphantly clipped the wire, with seven seconds to spare before time ran out. The last of the information disappeared from his computer screen, and thesound of a large machine shutting down rang in Dib's ears.
And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.
Zim let out an enraged scream as the ship shuddered and began to spiral downward. Grabbing Gaz around her waist and Gir by the leg, he jumped from the crashing ship and prepared to pullthe cord for a parachute. He would have used his spiderlike legs, but they would have crumpled from the sudden force of gravity.
Dib watched in awe as the ship, with his sister inside, fell toward the ground. Almost instantaneously, a blinding light exploded from the Doomsday machine and sent Dib sailing backward. Hislast thought racedthrough his mind as his back was scraping acrossthe street tar: Earth could have had another seven seconds, and at least Gaz could have escaped.
The parachute gently whisked out from the pack strapped over Zim's shoulders. Gir was bouncing around happily, and Gaz watched in horror as a small explosion erupted where Zim's house had been. From the bright light, a small black figure burst, sliding across the tar and rolling to a stop when it reached the other side of the street.
"DIB!" she cried, knowing that at this distance she couldn't do anything but wait for the landing, and already trying to think where Dib's cell phone could have landed.
Finally, the three set foot on the ground. Gaz dashed over the scorched, blackened soil and to her brother. When she got there, she checked his dull pulse and fished his cell phone fromhis backpack. The shattered laptop was all over the street, black plastic keys crunching underfoot. Gaz frantically dialed 911, hoping against hope that they would appear soon.
Within moments, an ambulance pulled up, and several men rushed out to carry Dib away. Gaz clamored into the back of the emergency vehicle just before they slammed the doors. Blood was already soaking the stretcher where he lay, shallowly breathing, back ripped open and raw.
Several days later, Dib woke in a bright white area, seeing Gaz curled over a brand-new looking GS4000. He poked her gently. "Gaz, why didn't anyone listen to me when I said Zim was an alien? Now we're in heaven and Earth is gone forever…." He turned away slowly and blinked away a frustrated tear.
"Heavenwould not have you in a body cast with half a dozen needles sticking out of your arm. Now shut upand let me play, dammit!" Gaz glanced at him while she was talking, then quickly put her game in front of her face.
Dib shoved the game down. "But…wait…so I'm alive? Is-is the Doomsday Machine still there?"
Gaz gave hima mildly annoyed look.
"Call Mysterious Mysteries!"
Gaz sighed. "Dib…Zim cleaned up the wreckage days ago. And before you can ask, no, I didn't take any to your lab."
Dib shed a tear. His lip trembled. Finally, he let out a screaming howl that could be heard all around the hospital and echoed through the universe all the way to a tiny planet named Irk.
"WHY, GAZ, WHY!"
Yo, Tsuki here again. I really hope you liked my fic. Give me suggestions and comments and all that good stuff. Bows Thank you and goodnight!