(A/N: Looky-loo! It's the next chapter! Try not to EXPLODE with excitement, kids! This should clear up any questions you had, and raise even more. Enjoy, and remember to leave a review on your way out.
Disclaimer: I'm... still not Jhonen Vasquez or Viacom. Don't worry about it, it's a common mistake. I think it's the hair.)
Chapter 2
"Hey crazy!" "Yeah, crazy!" "Having fun being crazy, crazy?" "You're crazy!" "Crazy crazy crazy!" Brow set firmly, Dib did his best to ignore the taunts directed at him as he walked the skool's halls. Well, for a little while, anyway.
"Crazy?" He spun around and faced them. "I stayed up all night fighting an evil space alien so Earth wouldn't be enslaved by evil space alien overlords! Why? For you people! For all of Earth! And you're calling me crazy?"
The other kids exchanged glances momentarily. "Dib's craaaaaaaazy," someone muttered. The others agreed sagely. Dib groaned and headed into class, taking his seat and stifling a yawn. Ms. Bitters hissed in his general direction, but was otherwise quiet as she hunched doomily over her desk and waited for the students to file in to the classroom.
Zim was last to arrive by a good five minutes. Ms. Bitters slammed a tardy beaver (that would be a beaver with the word "TARDY" painted in sloppy red letters across its back) on Zim's desk and growled. The beaver's eye twitched spastically. Getting back to some doomy lecture or another, Ms. Bitters returned to the head of the classroom while Zim lifted the tardy beaver by the tail, inspected it critically and quickly shoved it inside his desk. Moments later, he was assaulted by a wadded-up ball of paper. Shooting Dib a glare, Zim didn't have to open the wad to know it was yet another drawing of himself being opened on an operating table in graphic detail (the Earth-boy had some deep-seated emotional problems, Zim suspected). He brushed the wad off his desk and resumed pretending to listen to Ms. Bitters.
On the other side of the room, Dib didn't even pretend, but instead studied Zim intently. Reading his obsession's features as expertly as any other obsessive stalker, Dib knew that something was up with his alien adversary today. He wore that look of smug satisfaction, the one he only wore when he had recently completed some dastardly plot of alien doom. Dib determined to find out what it was.
---
As a welcome change, the cafeteria was actually serving something edible: fried chicken with a side of chocolate pudding. Eager to cherish the seldom event, students were quick to line up and quicker to cut ahead of someone else, starting a few fights. Finding all Earth food equally repugnant, Zim was in no such hurry, and somehow found himself toward the back of the line, despite having gotten to the cafeteria rather early. Only one pudding cup remained, which the reluctant alien reached a quivering hand out to.
"DIBS!" shrieked Mary, the child behind Zim, as she darted forth, snatched the pudding and bolted to her table. Forgetting he'd been stolen from, Zim looked around in surprise.
"Dib? Where is the dirty human?" Zim demanded, but recieved no reply. His eyes settled on the human's large head quickly, Dib himself seated at the same table as always, accompanied only by his sister. Smiling to himself, Zim hefted his still-empty lunch tray and marched between table rows, purposefully passing Dib's table by.
"Hey, ZIM! How's your ship doing? Still in little pieces?" Dib jeered triumphantly, instantly leaping out of his seat at the alien's presence.
"Oh, it's almost fixed," Zim responded coolly (and untruthfully). "Never underestimate the power of Irken technology, Earth-monkey."
"Really?" Dib smirked, reading Zim's features and easily spotting the lie. Before he could go on, however, he spotted something else tucked beneath the small alien's left arm. "Hey, what's that?"
"Hm? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT," Zim announced loudly while shifting his arm to allow Dib a clearer view of the object. It was a spotted, ovular Pak, just like the one Zim himself wore on his back. Noting Dib's automatic interest, Zim allowed it to fall. "OOPS! I have accidentally dropped my accidental normal boy thing, accidentally. It's sure not some sort of alien artifact! Nope," Zim stated obviously, sprinting to his table on the last word and standing on his seat to get a good look at what happened next. While casting a suspicious eye to Zim's forced behavior, Dib was nonetheless intrigued by the fallen Pak and stooped to retrieve it.
"HAH! Just as I suspected!" Dib held the Pak up high for all to see. "THERE'S NO DENYING YOU'RE AN ALIEN NOW, ZIM! ONCE THE SWOLLEN EYEBALL GETS A LOOK AT THIS, YOU CAN KISS YOUR ORGANS GOOD- " Several uncomfortably sharp metal instruments sprang out of the Pak. " - bye?" The metal instruments extended and plunged themselves over Dib's head and into his spine. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Some students looked up as Dib's pained scream rang out across the cafeteria. There was an excruciating crunching noise as the Pak secured its appendages in Dib's backbone, then reeled itself in and attached itself to Dib's back firmly. With a cry, the young paranormal investigator struggled to pull it off, but the Pak would not be moved. Then, the Pak sprouted a short appendage that ended in a wicked point, and stuck Dib with it.
"OW! Ooooohhh..." Dib's legs buckled beneath him, sending him sprawling out across the unsavory filth of the cafeteria's tiled floor. Whatever the Pak had injected him with, it was fast-acting. Dib groaned, eyes sliding closed as he lost his grip on consciousness. The last thing he was aware of Zim's hysterical, triumphant laughter.
---
"Hey, crazy kid, you okay?" "Are you alive, crazy kid?" "Hey, crazy!" A small crowd of kids had gathered around their fallen peer, out of curiosity rather than concern. Dib felt his ribcage being toed sharply and groaned again. Creaking his eyes open, he was allotted a dim view of the numerous crumbs and stains on the floor around him. He also saw his hand. Noticing something strange, he wriggled his fingers slowly.
"Hey... does the weird kid look weirder than usual to you?" one of the students asked suddenly as Dib wriggled his fingers a second time and began to count them. One, two, three... one, two, three... His eyes switched to the other hand, which wriggled its fingers in turn. Again, he counted; one, two, three.
"Yeah, now that you mention it. Hey Dib, you look kinda... green."
"Green?" Dib repeated. Shoving his hands under him, he forced himself to his feet. He wavered slightly, but quickly regained his balance and was otherwise fine. The kids around him, on the other hand, didn't look so good. In fact, if he hadn't known better, Dib would have said they looked downright terrified.
Situated at his table, Zim whistled, yawned and drummed his fingers on the tabletop innocently, all in quick succession. Suddenly, he leapt up, pointed at Dib and shouted as loudly as he could (blowing out a few eardrums): "HEY, EVERYBODY! DIB'S AN ALIEN!" Before Dib could get out a boggled "What?", the cafeteria was plunged into chaos.
"ALIEN!" "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" "THE WORLD IS UNDER ATTACK!" "SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "I knew he was weird..." "DA ALIEN CHEESE IS HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!" "MONKEYS!" "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Children raced to evacuate, smacking into each other and getting knocked over in their panic. Dib watched them all with confusion and a degree of fear himself, but shook off the latter as he forced himself to think reasonably.
"Alien? What are they talking about - " He stopped, glimpsing something odd in a make-up mirror a very pretty boy named Steve had dropped in the frenzy. Picking it off the floor, Dib gazed in the slightly fractured looking glass - and screamed as a red-eyed, green-skinned space alien gazed back at him. The mirror flew from his hand as Dib tripped and scrambled backward. Trembling violently, he hesitantly held his hands up and realized what was so strange about them. Only three fingers came out of each hand, elongate, bony and definitely not human. He brushed a hand over his head, no scythe-like lock to greet it; only slick alien skin and two antennae, stood straight up in fright. Letting his arms go slack, he was too stunned to investigate further.
"I... am an alien," he choked out. Rage quickly overcame him. "ZIM! What did you - " He was cut off as mesh netting obstructed his vision. It took him a second to realize a net had been thrown over. "Huh? What the - " He stood up, only to be yanked off his feet as the net was held in the air by an unreasonably muscular man in a secret agent/ninja/futuristic soldier kind of suit.
"The alien has been incapacitated," the man reported into a mouthpiece. "Bring in the detainment vehicle."
"How did you get here so fast?" Dib wondered perplexedly for a moment, before struggling to free himself. "WAIT! You've made a terrible mistake! I'M NOT AN ALIEN! Zim's the alien! Over there!" He pointed at the alien in question.
"NONSENSE!" Zim retorted. "I'm a frightened worm-baby like all the others! Look at me be frightened!" Zim put on a look of obviously fake terror, though it was swiftly replaced by one of sadistic amusement at Dib's plight.
"Well, that's good enough for me," the ninja agent soldier guy decided, walking toward a large, armored van that had driven in reverse through the cafeteria wall just two seconds prior.
"NO! LET ME GO! YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG! ARRRRGH!" Dib tried to work his way free, but the net was unyielding, and he was carelessly tossed into the vehicle's hatchback. Groaning as his head panged with pain on impact, Dib got up and managed to get out of the net, but was too late as the van's doors slammed shut. A barred window was mounted high on the doors; jumping up, Dib latched onto the bars and pulled himself up to look through the window. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME! PLEASE!" Realizing the Pak was the cause of this, Dib let go with one hand and tried to pull it off. He stopped as he noticed Zim approaching. Clutching the bars with both newly alien hands, Dib gritted a zipperlike row of teeth and glared at Zim as hard as he could. "ZIM! You've gone too far this time, alien scum!" Zim chuckled and grinned maliciously.
"Don't you like your new body, Dib?" Zim taunted. "It's not every horrible stink-beast that gets to become an Irken. You should be honored, while you're still alive to be honored by stuff."
"I hate you," Dib hissed.
"Of course you do." Zim lowered his voice. "By the way, I wouldn't remove your Pak if I were you, Dib."
"Why not?" Dib asked, clearly about to do just that.
"First, the Irken DNA is already in your system, so taking your Pak off won't change you back. Second, in addition to many other things, the Pak is an Irken's life support system. If you're separated from it for more than ten minutes, you'll die." Dib froze.
"You're lying," he said nervously. Zim shrugged.
"Go ahead. Take it off," he replied flippantly, then shot Dib another evil grin. "Good-bye, Dib... and say good-bye to your guts, while you're at it."
"What are you talking - " Dib's new organs sank as he realized what Zim meant by that. If the government took him for an alien... they'd autopsy. The van started and began to pull away. "NO! LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Dib banged against the doors in vain. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Zim watched the truck drive off, immensely pleased with himself. "VICTORY FOR ZIM! WWWWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA - " A piece of wall dropped off from the enormous hole left by the van and clocked Zim on the head. "OW!"