Crystal: I'M NOT DEAD! oO;; Just horribly slow at writing. Sorry about all the time this took. (hides) Don't hurt me! I'm a procrastinator...and I had writer's block, but I figured that it was a sorry excuse and decided to give you all the real, true reason for my random updates: I ISH A PROCRASTINATOR! (dances) And...yeah. Next one will prob'ly be up MUCH SOONER! Whew!
Oh, and by the way...(gives all the reviewers cupcakes and milk) THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I never dreamed I'd get such a positive responce! I really can't say anything other than...thank you! I feel very special now. Hehe. Unfortunately, I don't really have the space to thank you all personally, hehe.Knowing me, it'd take up about ten pages. So I send you all my mushy gratatude in the form of fictional cupcakes covered in chocolate sauce. Unless you don't like chocolate, then it's whatever you prefer.
Disclaimer: Invader Zim is not owned by meee...I wish it was...
Other disclaimer/warning: This chapter is pathetically short. I'm very sorry. :( But...you know... Anyone that's actually still reading this -- I figured that you had been kept waiting long enough. :) Lookit, the smiley's happy now.
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The dark hallway was almost totally silent, save for the occational feet-related shuffling sound. Everything was pitch-black, and that made it nearly impossible to see. Only the subtle blinking of the lights from Zim's PAK helped Dib to navigate his way around the spaceship-crowded docking bay. Of course, it didn't exactly help that Zim was even clumsier than he was.
"Ouch!"
"Hey, that's my foot, Dib-monkey!"
"Then stop ...stopping in front of me!"
"Then stop following me!"
Dib backed away a step, rubbing the sore spot on his nose. Zim's head was a lot harder than it appeared -- probably because he had such a thick skull, Dib decided flatly. He knew he couldn't say anything out loud, though. Silent insults kept to himself would probably be better than getting attacked by an angry, feral alien in the dark.
From up ahead of him, Zim made some form of gesturing motion, trying to get the human's attention, but all Dib could hear was the whooshing of the wind as Zim's hand passed dangerously close by his head, just missing his ear.
"Hey, watch it!" he protested. Zim, of course, ignored him.
"I think we're getting close to the exit," the alien creature remarked from somewhere in the shadows. Dib mentally cocked his head in confusion, as actually moving might have caused him to hit something else.
"How can you tell?" Zim was silent. The scythe-haired human gave a low hiss under his breath. Not that he had any reason to believe it in the first place (this was Zim, after all), but Dib was really beginning to doubt the "advanced night vision" the alien claimed that he sported. After all, he had already run into three spaceships and a wall.
The ruby lights on Zim's PAK swung back and forth in the dark, dancing and making spiraling motions though the blackness. Almost like fireflies, Dib decided as he studied the movement. Big, red, annoying fireflies. The human watched in confusion as Zim attempted vainly to discern the way though the blindness. "Hmm...mm-hmm...um...this way!" Zim proclaimed, pointing a finger somewhere out into the shadows.
"...what way? I can't see where you're pointing," Dib scoffed. Although blind as a bat, Dib could sense the biting glare Zim must have been sending him. The lights on the little alien's PAK dissolved from Dib's view as the creature swivled around to face his nemisis.
"Left, Dib-creature," the monster snarled between zipper teeth.
Trusting Dib spun on his heels and took a step to the left.
"(Clang!)"
The boy backed off, colourful splotches temporarily clouding his vision. Not that there was much to see, anyway. He winced and rubbed the forming bruise on his forehead. His face would probably be all covered in lumps and scratches by the time Zim was through with him. When Dib could finally see again, the dim, rubyish PAK lights swung around to face him, Zim once again leading the way. A dark snicker came from his direction.
"Oh, I'm sorry, stink-beast. Did I say left? I meant right."
"You did that on purpose!" the human protested, blinking his eyes as he attempted vainly to get his balence again.
"What do you mean?" Zim queried, the undertones in his voice leaning towards something akin to sarcasm. Remembering the benifits of keeping his mouth shut, Dib simply heaved a heavy sigh and turned away.
The blind fumbling resumed, leaving Dib silently vowing to get back at the alien somehow. Maybe he could trip him up and pretend that Zim had fallen of his own accord, over the leg of a spaceship or something. Then again, Zim seemed to be handling the tripping part quite nicely on his own, constantly stumbling over his own feet and often leaving Dib scrambling to avoid falling himself. That horrible alien...
Dib heaved a sigh, carefully scanning the floor with his foot to assure himself that the next step would be a safe one. He bit his bottom lip, trying hard not to blindly retaliate when Zim screamed that he had kicked him. After all, he needed Zim alive or he would never get out of the stupid Irken docking bay! ...why were all the lights off, anyway?
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Red and Purple snickered to themselves, trying vainly to muffle their ruptous laughter from the rest of the crew -- and, more importantly, from Zim if he happened to be anywhere nearby. They paused, grinning evilly at each other before resuming their stifled giggles. Just because they were forced to tolerate Zim for the time being didn't mean that they couldn't torture him a little before he arrived, right?
One of the green-eyed Irkens working the control panel turned slightly, blinking in confusion. "My Sirs?" she wondered, antennae perked. "Why did you cut the power to the docking bay?"
Red swallowed his giggles, clearing his throat and wincing at the pain it caused. Franticly, he wracked his brain to find a quick but believable answer -- one that would make sense to gullible Zim if he happened to be already listening. "Um...to save power?"
"But...aren't Zim and that Earthanoid creature coming in that way?"
"Oh, yes...right..."
Red muffled another snicker. Purple, however, generally being the one more apt to lose his self-control, was all but in stitches. Red bit his bottom lip, keeping his face straight just long enough to elbow his co-Tallest in the shoulder with a disapproving glare.
"Will they be able to get out?" the girl wondered.
The ruby-eyed leader grinned viciously. The other Irken was young and new on the job, and her inexperience in dealing with Zim was to be expected. Her antennae perked up in confusion as she caught the look that seemed to answer her question with a, "no, and that's the point." She turned back to her work at the control panel.
Purple gave a choked-out laugh that ended up as a rough cough. He blinked in confusion, flinching. "My throat hurts," he pined, suddenly in no mood to continue laughing at Zim's expence. Red just shook his head.
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"Dib-creature! I have found it! I have found it!" Zim screeched loudly. Dib, already having given up all will to live, slumped to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"I'm...right...beside you, Zim...you...don't need to...scream..." he whined pitifully. ...he would probably need a hearing aid after this.
"Hmph."
Zim extended his spiderlegs, carefully guiding the pointed tip against the doorframe, searching for the button that opened the door. A few minutes of focused scraping (the likes of which made Dib cringe and cover his ears, much to the alien's amusement) finally proved fruitful -- a section of the frame went in as an indentation, indicating the button's presence.
Without a second's more hesitiation, Zim pounded against the button on the metal doorframe with a leather-clad fist. The hollow sound reverberated throughout the room. Nothing happened. The alien took a step backwards, cocked his head with a matching confused frown, then lept forward to unleash all his "amazing doom!" upon the thick metal, fists and spiderlegs pounding in unision against it. A pause, and then, "Huh."
The scythe-haired boy beside him straightened up, pushing against the wall and staggering to his feet. "'Huh'? What do you mean, 'huh'?"
Zim retracted his spiderlegs with a metallic clinking sound. Narrowing one eye and curling his arms around his chest, he surveyed the door. Or...at least, attempted to through the darkness. "The door is locked, human."
Dib froze. Had he heard what he thought he just heard? "...what?"
"The door is locked. I suspect it is because the power is off. I hoped it would have been one of the older models from the Vortisians, the kind that you could open manually with the button rather than the automatic sliding door, but this one seems to be one of the newer models--"
Zim hit the cold metal of the floor, wide-eyed. A frantic Dib clutched at his shirtfront, and although Zim was essentially blind he could sense the harried look plastered on his enemy's face. "What...do...you...mean? We can't get out? We're trapped in here?"
The alien snarled, shoving the human off of him. "Get away from me, stink-beast! You smell of cheese!"
"Zim! We've been lost in here for hours! And...now...you're telling me...we're locked in here because the power is off?"
Zim clamboured to his feet clumsily, dusting his arms off. Dib scambled up and began pacing nervously in a circle, eagerly awaiting the extraterrestrial's explanation while trying to come up with an alternate escape route. Zim, knowing quite a bit more about human emotions than the spiky-haired boy gave him credit for, simply smiled evilly and relished in Dib's overwhelming tention.
"Dib-creature..." he drawled, "stop making that...horrible prancing movement. We will get out of here very shortly, so be pacient!"
Dib ceased his frightened pacing and raised an eyebrow. "Wait -- how do you know it will be "shortly"?"
"Like I said before, had you been listening with those hideous appendages you call ears, human, this is one of the newer door models. The button I pressed sends an emergency notice straight to the Tallest. We'll be rescued in no time."
"You know, logically, "in no time" isn't actually possible..."
"Stop-with-your-filthy-lies!"
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Purple hovered over to the metal door that led to the docking bay, staring at it intently. Tallest Red stood...or, rather, hovered behind him, a confused contorting the features of his face. "You know," Purple began, breaking the steady silence, "it has been three hours since they sent us that emergency notice...maybe we should let them out now."
"You want to let Zim out?"
Purple turned, narrowing a violet eye. "No...but eventually, we're going to have to, anyway. Besides, it's not like it's really funny or anything. I mean, maybe if we had installed the video cameras in the hallways and the docking bay like I wanted to--"
Red sighed knowingly. "Again with the cameras. What is it with you and cameras and smoke machines?"
"I happen to like smoke machines! They're alot better than your stupid lasers!"
Red sent him a biting glare, really not in the mood to go over the whole stupid argument again. Hadn't he already proved the laser's superiority over the stupid smoke machines his co-Tallest loved so much? "Okay, fine, have it your way." He turned back towards the control panel and their workers. "Commander Mik?"
The green-eyed Irken swiveled around in her seat to face her leader. "Sir?"
"Restore the power to the docking bay."
Now utterly confused, the newest crew member nodded and performed the task her Tallest had assigned. The heavy metal door swung open, followed by a tiny, green-skinned Irken. Apperently, the Irken had taken a very unwise course of action, and had been leaning up against the door...
"Oww!" Zim hit the floor with a "smack!", wincing visibly. From inside their rubber suits, the two Tallest tried vainly to supprest their snickers.
Not more than a half-second after, a dark, spiky-haired creature of unidentifiable origin tumbled out after the Irken, screaming as though caught-off guard. The two Tallest watched with an interested but confused look on their faces as the other creature landed face-first on the floor, immedietly beginning to scream something about his "glasses". He lifted his gigantic head, shifting around some kind of alien technology that was sitting on the bridge of...whatever that thing was that jetted out from the middle of his face as he climbed to his feet. Of course, the Tallest were really no different than anyone else seeing Dib for the first time, and perhaps somewhat unfortunatly, being the leaders of an entire race, they had a tendancy to blurt out the first thing that came to mind.
"Wow...that's a big head..." Red drawled.
Now, you would think that the fact that Irkens write in a different language than English would mean automaticly that they speak in a different language as well. Fortunately, however, their spoken language seemed to be remarkably simalar to the English that Dib spoke. Unfortunatly, for that particular human anyway, the words the ruby-eyed Tallest had just muttered had been so repetively spoken to him that they weren't too hard to figure out in any language.
"My head's not big!" Dib protested, attempting to get his balence on his feet with his still-crooked glasses. Anyone that has ever worn glasses can surely relate -- it's not easy. And, as a mixed result of slight hunger, crooked vision and perhaps just being locked in a room with Zim for several hours, Dib misjudged the distance to the floor, tripped, and tumbled back to the hard metal floor, setting off a rather...odd...chain of events.
The Tallest backed away as fast as they could, each intently watching with a shocked expression. The human tripped over his feet, and landed on top of Zim. Zim, however, had just begun to get up, but the human's flailing had knocked him back down. The large-headed boy fell, hands first directly onto Zim's PAK -- setting off an unknown (to Dib, anyway) mechanism. Zim's robotic "spider-legs", as the human had dubbed them, spiraled out quickly from the back of his PAK, along with several other devices the alien was known to use. One of the robot arms whacked Dib in the chin.
"Ahh! Get off of me, stink-beast!" Zim protested, shoving the still-dazed Dib off of him. The dark-haired human fell to the floor, obviously not for the first time that day. Zim, flustered and seemingly embarassed for such a clumsy entrance in front of his Tallest, immediately began retracting the robotic limbs. Dib, however, was noticably faster than Zim, and lept to his feet (this time making sure he knew where they were going), grabbing ahold of one of the unknown metallic limbs.
"Hey! What's this one?"
"Let go of me, human!" Zim snarled. "That's a portable light!"
The Tallest looked at each other, each sensing the brewing tention. Dib promptly dropped the advanced flashlight, left eye twitching.
"You...mean...to...tell me...that you...had...a...flashlight?"
Zim snorted. "Hmph. Of course. All Irkens are equipped with them. Not like you pathetic humans, heh heh. It's for emergency use only, of course. Hey, come to think of it, we probably could have used it back in there, couldn't we? That couldv'e -- eh?"
Dib gasped for breath, and begin screaming insanely, gripping his head. Zim, startled, stumbled backwards, frowning. The pair quickly broke out into a loud arguement. The two Tallest, however, saw fit to get as far away from the human and Irken as they could, hovering over by the control panel.
"This..." Purple sighed amidst the background noise, "could take a while."
"Yeah," Red agreed. "Hey! You wanna go get a snack?" Purple grinned, and the two took off for the so-accurately-dubbed "snack room", a kitchen filled entirely with the treats, leaving Zim and Dib behind, the pair's arguing voices finally fading from the range of Red and Purple's hearing.
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Crystal: Dedicated to my mother, who gave me most of the ideas that came up in this chapter... like the flashlight, the door and lots of Zimmeh dialogue. Thanks, Mommy!