By animeninjaNIPPON
Present Dib would have read more of the obsessive diary, but his bladder was about to explode. So he put the notebook in his trench coat pocket and ran as fast as he could to the boys' restroom.
Meanwhile, Future Dib chased Zim into the bushes, where the latter ran smack into the hidden spaceship and was knocked to the ground. Nor willing to give in, he unleashed his spider legs and propped himself up just as his foe appeared. "YOU will PAY, you foolish STINKBEAST!" he sneered in Dib's face. "You will SUFFER my HORRIBLE WRATH! The HORRIBLE WRATH of ZIIIIM!" He held up a gloved fist to prove his point.
"I think not," Dib replied coolly.
Zim eyed the black-haired being as though he were a puppy that just wouldn't go home. "Why do you not FEAR ME?"
"I already know all your tactics, alien. I can handle anything you throw at me." Dib crossed his arms over his chest and smirked.
"LIAR!" Zim directed a finger at his archenemy and touched the tip of Dib's own finger, outstretched in a similar fashion.
"See?" said Dib, not moving an inch.
Zim growled angrily and glared at Dib, standing just as still. Dib glared back. "I'm warning you," he threatened.
"What do you intend to PROVE?"
Dib contemplated that idea for a moment. He hadn't really thought about what he was going to do with Zim once he went back in time to stop him. As much as he wanted to harm the Invader for ruining his already miserable life, he didn't want to destroy what he considered to be an important scientific specimen. Unfortunately, that moment of consideration was all the green boy needed to tackle Dib to the ground and wrap his gloved hands around Dib's neck.
"You… JERK!" Dib choked out, reaching up to strangle Zim and succeeding on his second try.
"WAAA-HOOO!" shrieked an all-too-familiar voice.
"Gir!" Zim turned his head. "What are you DOING! You're supposed to be guarding the base!"
"I'm here to help you, just like you wanted!" Gir hovered above the duo, holding a large ray gun.
"You don't know – " Zim was cut off by Dib's foot in his belly. He keeled over in pain, but that gave Gir a clear view to a shot. His innocuous expression changed to one of ill-intent; his baby-blue eyes glowed red-orange with fury.
"Give me back my rubber piggy," he fumed, hoisting the ray gun up against his silver cheek like a bazooka.
"What're you talking about?" Dib asked. "You don't even know me! Well, not yet anyway…"
Gir focused in on his target carefully. Dib stood on the grass, yelling and trying to reason with the robot. A scraggly brown squirrel ran behind him. All of a sudden, Gir dropped his angry demeanor – and his gun – and regressed back to his normal self. "Come back, squirrel! We was FRIENDS!"
"Thank goodness this will all be over soon," Dib mumbled, looking to the side only to realize that Zim was nowhere to be seen. "Oh no! I let him get away!" He jumped into Tak's spaceship while Gir was distracted and took off in the general direction of Zim's base.
Sure enough, Zim was there, rising out of his roof in a similar-looking ship. "I didn't know he had that when he first came here," Dib mused as he followed the identical craft up into the outer limits of the atmosphere. "Oh well – it's not important now."
It wasn't long before they were both in space. Dib didn't have any space gear except for the ship itself, and he knew the slightest damage to that would be enough to kill him. He just hoped Zim didn't know that. "Let's see…which button releases the missiles?"
Zim, on the other hand, had no trouble touching missiles out of his ship. The red-and-white striped projectiles were headed straight for the human, threatening to blast him out of existence.
"GAH!" Dib slammed his fist down against a random set of buttons, managing to make the ship roll out of the line of fire just in time. However, once he started spinning he couldn't stop. His stomach churned, ready to projectile vomit at any given moment. He thrashed about violently in hopes that would anything would send the ship flying straight again. In his moment of unrest, he hit a silver button that launched a medium-sized green rocket right into Zim. The rocket burst into an explosion of snack foods, shooting the alien and his spacecraft out into the unknown.
"CURSE YOU, EARTH-MONKEY! CURSE YOU!" he wailed as his ship spiraled backwards a few light-years.
Dib finally pulled himself out of the deadly pirouette just in time to see his long-time nemesis disappear into the blackness of space, leaving a trail of snacks behind him.
"I…did it! I finally defeated Zim!" He clenched his fist in excitement. "Yes! Now, to get back to my own time…" He turned the blue hand forward one year and set the future lock. He turned the green hand forward three days and set the future lock. As soon as he moved his hand off the future lock a second time, the ship jolted. "Uh-oh!" he squeaked, realizing that he'd been struck by one of Zim's stray missiles. Another blast caused Dib to hit his head on the side of the ship, and he blacked out.
-----
"Hey you…" called a familiar female voice.
Dib slowly opened his eyes. "Huh?" He stepped out of Tak's spaceship. "Where am I?"
"Quit playing around with your paranormal toys. It's time for dinner," Gaz grumbled. "And Dad's not going to be happy about what you did to the garage…"
Dib reached into his trench coat pocket out of habit, pulling out nothing. "Where exactly did I get that spaceship, anyway?"
"One of your stupid sci-fi conventions; how should I know?"
He just shrugged as he followed his sister into the house.
"Why don't you just give up on those aliens?" Gaz continued. "You know they don't exist."
"You're wrong, Gaz," Dib protested, "and one day, I'll find an alien and prove it!"
End of part four
That was the longest chapter of any of my fanfics ever written! WAA-HOO! Don't get too happy, though, most of the others are still short. In case you were wondering, my chappies are short because I write them out on notebook paper first, and I usually only use one sheet (front and back) per chapter. But this one didn't work well as two separate chapters, so I made one long chapter. It was murder to type, though. : (
animeninjaNIPPON