I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma.
Chapter Two: Main Course
Okay, here comes your main course... the very thing most places don't bother serving at all, strangely enough! Enjoy!
No sooner had the words left his lips than Dib heard the front door open. Two pairs of feet stepped into the living room. Who was his father bringing home now? A matched set of international scientists to whom he could introduce Dib as "my poor, insane son," no doubt.
Dib didn't know if Gaz was still in the living room or if she had stomped off to her own bedroom. Either way she would be sure to get angry all over again if she had to set her precious game aside long enough to answer the door.
He was expecting highly educated scientists, but the approaching voices didn't sound too well educated; indeed, they sounded like nothing human he'd ever heard. The closest thing to human he could compare it to was Gaz when she was working herself up into one of her more unbridled rages.
"... got no choice 'bout it now; 'e CALLED us... "
"... Are ya happy now? Are ya? I toldja this kid was smart enough ta figger it out!"
"Dunno 'bout you, but I couldn' take one more minute wit' 'er'. I jus' 'ope this fam'ly's put SOME manners into - "
"I SAID any 'ome but this one. I SAID keep lookin.' I SAID 'e'll know somethin's up... "
"Oh, an' 'xactly how much more was YOU pr'pared to go on lookin' for a BEDDER 'ome? Mebbe you LIKED it when she - "
"Shut up, Grunt! "Ere 'e comes."
"When we get 'ome you will PAY!"
As Dib came down the stairs, the two arguing voices rose louder and louder until they silenced abruptly when Dib finally stood face to face with the intruders. The boy stopped in his tracks, staring in shock at two creatures the like of which he had never seen before.
They were horrible monsters! The one which he supposed was the female had long purple hair standing up in three brief little shocks over a bulging forehead and squinty little bloodshot eyes. The other, presumably the male, had shaped his equally purple hair into huge ram-like horns curling up from either side of his head. Their clothes resembled burlap bags and they had threaded unnervingly authentic-looking human skulls on the chains dangling from their necks. Somewhere beneath all that body hair, their flesh might have been human-colored, and against their large, chunky bodies, their wiry limbs looked very out of place. Their facial expressions suggested that they hadn't seen a single thing that met with their approval for several decades and that they were irritated enough at the entire universe to disembowel something.
In a voice that seemed to be coming through a gravel pit, what looked to be the female snapped, "Well? Where is she?"
Second thoughts about the whole thing now seized Dib. It was Dib who had been expecting to move, collected his belongings, and called these beings with the aim of going somewhere; he wasn't too sure about allowing something to happen that he hadn't planned for. Dib stepped forward and cleared his throat.
"Thank you... folks... for coming all this way, but..." Dib held out both hands parallel with the ground and abruptly made an outward sweeping motion with them. "... No deal. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you." He indicated the door behind them, still open. "Good bye."
What looked to be the male stepped forward and pushed Dib against the wall. The hand pressed just firmly enough against the boy's clavicle to let him know that the troll could effortlessly inflict paralyzing pain if so it chose. While this was far from the first time Dib was on the receiving end of such immense power, what was new was the impression that this power was held firmly under control. Here was a being that mellowed its physical strength with an equal amount of mental strength, a being which knew exactly when it was appropriate to use such power and when it was appropriate to restrain it.
The troll's face kept creasing and darkening to a truly unbelievable degree until it went from looking like a gargoyle with indigestion to a very old rubbery black mushroom rotting in a grimy corner for several weeks, and finally to an erupting volcano, a thundercloud and a mushroom cloud. If this is how these beings looked when they were angry, Dib decided that their earlier expressions HAD been the friendly ones.
"This's NOT...'bout what YOU want... no more," the troll growled, sounding as though he was still speaking from deep in a cave somewhere. Oh good God... what had Dib done? What had he called forth?
"Roar!" called the female, in a voice that no living creature could dare disobey. "C'mere."
Just as Dib was just about to protest that calling Gaz had never worked in all the years he had known her, the subject herself appeared in the doorway, swaggering toward Dib with an expression suggested that she was about to tear into Dib all over again for daring to call her from her game. The expression which immediately replaced it, however, was one which Dib would see on Gaz's face only this one time; it was part recognition and part startle.
"Yes, thas 'er! Thas our baby!"
"Go an' pack your bags, Snarl," said Gaz's real mother. Her real name was unpronounceable by human lips. "Yer comin' 'ome."
"Home," breathed Gaz, or Snarl as she had originally been named, as if a small and deeply buried part of her had known it all along. Not even Gaz could very well tell these beings she didn't feel like going anywhere, or to shove it, or to sit down and wait until she was good and ready or she would give them the dooming of a lifetime, or any of her other usual retorts. She left the room with a dutiful, compliant air that Dib never would have believed had he not seen.
While waiting for their "baby," the trolls began berating Dib for the threat that had escaped him earlier.
"You MONSTER... MONSTER!"
"How dare you use such words talkin' 'bout our BABY!"
"Th' idear... th' IDEAR! I sh'ld cut YOUR throat when YOU fall 'sleep!"
After some of the things Gaz used to say to him this was merely a tut-tutting, so Dib was able to wait it out patiently enough until she returned. Now she wore her coat with her ever-present GameSlave sticking out of her pocket, carrying a suitcase in one hand and in the other a box of equal size with the word "Games" on one side. Dib wondered how much video game playing Gaz's new parents would allow her at one sitting.
He much preferred that his last image of Gaz be a civil one, to prevent him from being haunted by memories of the innumerable horrors she had inflicted on him. "Well... good-bye, Gaz," he said, holding out his hand to shake hers, automatically adding, "Do you want me to help you carry anything?"
Happy though she was at being back with her own family, Gaz bitterly resented that it should be the result of somebody else's initiative. Before brushing past Dib, she paused just long enough to drag down over him her most withering glare ever, and who knows what more she would have done had her real parents not been standing right nearby. As it was, Gaz settled for narrowing her eyes to slits to channel undiluted hatred at him while she selected a few words hateful enough grit out at him through clenched teeth. "Die, IDIOT. Slowly and painfully. SOON."
Inside Dib smiled with relief. Not a single doubt now remained that he was indeed doing the right thing.
As she turned her back and walked away from him for the last time, Dib thought that she looked like a bored and very spoiled child heading back to skool after missing far too many days in a row because of a major blizzard. Already she was complaining; "Now get me out of this dump and - "
"You won' take that tone wit' ME young lady!" The female's husky bark silenced her immediately.
The male was still ranting at Dib. "... how DAREYAA!"
"I had no idear this was such a unfit 'ome f'r our poor li'l infan'!" wailed the mother. "We're lucky she's still 'LIVE! You will pay when we get 'ome, Growl... YOU... WILL... PAY!"
The father troll flicked one last rebuke at Dib. "We never, no, not never talked like that 'bout YOUR sister!"
As the newly reunited family turned and headed for the door, they left room for someone to step forward... someone who'd been standing behind the huge creatures so that Dib couldn't see her until now. It was a girl.
A human girl.
End of Second Course
(A/N) See? That's what I was talking about! A good even-handed balance! And now to end it on an even sweeter note...