Dib had barely finished disconnecting the coaxial cables from the back of his trusty laptop computer when the familiar purple-and-pink shape of Zim's Voot Cruiser rose up out of nowhere alongside him. Brilliant headlights snapped on with an audible flash and flared, nearly blinding the startled human boy. Dib jerked to his feet, throwing an arm up against the glare.
Zim howled over the roar of the engine, his voice an earshattering explosion of rage echoing below the darkened sky. "Filthy HUMAN, you want LASERS? ZIM isn't FUN any more?! Oh, we'll have fun NOW. SUCH fun we will have!!"
Dib struggled to keep his feet as the alien's ship blasted him with powerful waves of super-hot exhaust, clinging to the laptop he clutched under one arm. The ends of his black coat flapped wildly as he shrank back, gasping, against the force buffeting his thin frame.
Zim angrily jerked his hands over his controls, hellish pink glow forming at the Cruiser's weapons ports. Huge twin balls of iridescent flame RACED toward Dib; the human had no choice but to fling himself off the roof of his house to avoid being hit!
He could only hear his own scream as he fell; then he only heard the mad, magnified cackling of his mortal enemy as he slammed down hard, face-first into the soft grass of his own front lawn. His folded up laptop and miniature radio dish came bouncing down to either side of him, missing his head by fractions of inches. His heart blasted holes in his chest with each beat; terror strobed through all his senses.
He struggled to his feet and stared up gaping as Zim's hovering ship neatly swiveled on thin air and aimed its weapons at him once again. The Irken's bone saw laugh ricocheted over the house. "Better RUN, Dib.!"
Purple lasers shot out of the Cruiser and annihilated Dib's transmitter dish, passing so close to the stunned boy's head he could smell the plastic melting and the grass bursting into flame. The human grunted, spun away from the beam, grabbing the laptop and running desperately for the garage. for the downed Spittle Runner.
Irken lasers chewing at his heels, he managed to fling himself into the garage and scrambled into the cockpit of his own stolen Irken ship. Desperately keying the activation command sequence one-handed, he watched the garage-door begin to bubble, glowing a dull cherry red. Zim was burning through the DOOR.! Gasping, Dib stared at his controls in horror as the ship came up, cockpit and alien dashboard glowing.
"YOU again?" screeched the disembodied voice of Tak through the cockpit speakers. Dib heard the sounds of the engine slowing down, the AI taking things off line again on its own.
"No! PLEASE! TAK! You have to help me, Zim is gonna KILL me.!" He slammed his fists on the controls, panicking and wild-eyed.
The garage door began to screech and scream, red metal starting to shimmer white.
"PLEASE!" Dib wailed.
". All right, but ONLY because I hate ZIM more than I hate YOU!" The false-Tak bellowed- and the Spittle Runner ROARED into life, readjusting it's engines and BLASTING forward through the molten door. The sudden acceleration threw Dib HARD back against the back of the pilot seat, and he grimaced as the ship took its own course, spiraling up and up, away from the house.
"Are we having FUN yet, DIB?!" Zim's voice sneered in a small pop-up window that flicked open to the left side of the Runner's cockpit. The taunting galvanized Dib; his eyes narrowing hard, he pushed himself forward and began rapidly keying in commands, his bared teeth grinding together.
He set the Runner twisting around, hovering, turning to face the rising Cruiser. "Why are you CHASING me like this, Zim? I didn't even DO anything today!"
In the communication window, Zim all but spat at the screen. "That's EXACTLY WHY! Now SHUT your stinking HOLE AND FIGHT with everything you've GOT!"
The two ships lunged and lurched madly through the ever-darkening sky, cutting gleaming arcs of jewel-colored fire.
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