(A/N: I have RETURNED! With another chapter. Thanks to everyone for their comments, and I hope you enjoy this.
Disclaimer: Watch the pretty coin swing to and fro, to and fro. When I snap my fingers, you believe I am not Jhonen Vasquez or Viacom. SNAP!
Chapter 3
A local news station appeared on the TV screen. "Innocent schoolchild!" the reporter demanded, thrusting the microphone in Zita's face. "When did you suspect your classmate was an alien being from ooooouuuterrr spaaaaaaaccce?"
"Weeeelll... Dib always was pretty craaazy," Zita said thoughtfully. The channel switched to another, this one showing Professor Membrane holding his head in shame, surrounded by hordes of cameras and reporters ravenous for information.
"Oh, my poor, insane alien son," he muttered softly. The next channel was showing Mysterious Mysteries' misleadingly sane-looking host staring out at the viewers somberly.
"With the verified discovery of an extraterrestrial, many people are beginning to question everything they thought they knew," the host said. "Many are asking themselves: Is there really something else out there? Are we alone? Is there more than what the human senses perceive? Are my shoes untied?" The channel after this one showed a nerdy woman with frizzy orange hair and glasses, wearing fake antennae tipped with large pom-poms.
"The aliens have come to show us the errors of our ways," she preached in a tone suggestive of someone on drugs. "If we are good, the mothership will come and take us to a place of eternal moose." The channel changed again, this time bringing on Ms. Bitters being interviewed on a talk show for nutty old crones.
"Doom... doom... doom... ALIENS!... doom... doom..." the teacher murmured with prophetic flicks of her scrawny old wrists, while the wizened talk show host seated across from her nodded sagely. The next channel shift brought on a scary monkey face, which growled at the viewers with a look of deranged anger.
"YAY!" GIR screeched from his place on the couch beside Zim, who wore a determined look as he changed the channel again, much to GIR's loudly voiced dismay.
"NO! NO! THE MONKEY! I NEED THE MONKEEEEEEEYYYY - " Fortunately, he was soon sidetracked by the discovery of a cockroach under the couch. "HI CRUNCHY PIGGY! I'MMA PLAY WITH YOUUUU!" GIR darted under the couch after the unlucky insect, leaving Zim to channel-surf in peace. Suddenly, Zim grew excited.
"A-HA! FINALLY!" Tossing the remote aside, Zim settled down on the couch and watched. This time, the TV showed a sea of people cheering and surrounding a stage raised high above the ground. Atop the grand stage were several scientists in long white lab coats, looking very sciencey. A humongous screen was mounted above the stage, projecting everything that happened onstage for those in the crowd that were farther back to see. The lead scientist, a man with goggles, short black hair and a deep voice, spoke into a soundpiece hidden in his collar. His voice was amplified many times for all to hear.
"Thank-you all for coming to the first ever alien autopsy," he announced; the crowd cheered louder than before. Once the cheer had died down reasonably, he went on, "As you all know, earlier today an alien was discovered in a skool district. This alien was parading as a student among children - average children! They could have been your children!" The scientist pointed out at the audience dramatically; some members of the audience fainted accordingly.
"We don't know how many more of these aliens there are out there," the scientist continued. "There could be hundreds, thousands, pretending to be normal human beings." The crowd gasped collectively. "They could be friendly - but why take that chance?" The crowd agreed. "We need to protect ourselves from the alien menace!" The crowd cheered. "Knowledge is power!" More cheering. "That is why President Man has given us permission to dissect the alien specimen and find out all we can! To know!" The crowd exploded in cheers as a trapdoor in the stage slid open, and an operating table rose out of the floor. Strapped to it was a struggling green space alien in a black trenchcoat.
"Wait! You've made a mistake! I'm not the alien, Zim is!" Dib yelled. The crowd oohed in awed horror, completely oblivious to his pleas.
"Look at it!" "It's hideous!" "Those eyes... red as cranberry sauce!" "It's got dem an-tenn-ay things!" "And that head!" "Sweet salami, it's HUGE!"
"I'm not an alien - AND MY HEAD ISN'T THAT BIG!" Dib screamed. He paused as the head scientist held high a scalpel.
"Let the alien autopsy - BEGIN!" The crowd cheered yet again until the scientist added, "After these messages!" Back in Zim's base, the TV cut to commercials. GIR tromped out of the kitchen with a container of Irken candy and hopped on the couch.
"I love this shoooow," GIR sighed happily, in retarded robot nirvana as he watched the ad for zit creme, and the cockroach from earlier crawled out of his head to watch it too. Zim chuckled sinisterly.
"This is PERFECT!" Zim grinned evilly. "Soon, the Dib-beast will be cut open in front of all of Earth, suffering the same fate he promised ME time and time again! The irony is delicious! Mwahahahha..." Zim helped himself to a handful of Irken candy, still wearing an evil smile as he chewed. Some more gloating and chewing went by as the ads showed, and finally the live program came back on. Zim relished the moment as Dib's terrified visage appeared onscreen, the scientist holding the scalpel dangerously close to his body (but taking his time, just to improve the dramatic tension).
"Ah, Dib, destroyed by his own kind," Zim mused, then chuckled again. "I can't wait to see the look on his face when his own squeedly-spooch falls out of him! HAHAAHAHAAHAAA - "
"AAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Dib's scream interrupted Zim's laughter. The scientist had made the first incision, leaving a long gash through the shirt and into the skin. Though not fatal, the cut was evidently painful.
"Hmmm... the blade's too blunt," the scientist noted, running a gloved finger over the scalpel's blade gingerly, then shrugged. "Oh well." Totally unconcerned, the scientist made another incision; Dib screamed again.
"Ha... hehehe..." Zim didn't seem so thrilled now. A third scream followed shortly, the scientist adding casually, "Ho-hum, this sure is a dull blade, isn't it? Kinda rusty, too." All traces of sadistic glee were now gone from Zim's face.
"He's bleedin'!" GIR stated non-comprehensively.
"Yes... yes, he is," Zim said uneasily.
---
"Please... please, STOP!" Dib begged. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! AAAAARRRGH!"
"About twelve or fifteen more incisions and we should start seeing organs, or something," the scientist informed those around him jovially. Dib paled.
"Why are you doing this? Why won't you listen to me?" Dib asked quietly, giving up. The cheers of the crowd echoed in his ears... or whatever Irkens heard with. So this was how it was going to end - slowly, painfully, his demise cheered for by all humanity? His own species, that he'd determined to protect. So this was how it would end. Dib closed his eyes in defeat.
Then opened them as the cheers turned to panicked shrieks. People dived to get out of the way of an oncoming spacecraft, round, fuchsia and flying way too low to the ground. Rising up enough to scale the stage, the ship barreled forward without any regard for the scientists, who had to scramble out of the way to avoid being smashed like bugs against the windshield. Headed straight for Dib, it stopped just inches away from the operating table. Dib watched as the domed windshield slid open, revealing Zim and his robotic minion in the cockpit.
"Zim?" Dib cried, disbelieving. "What are you - "
"GIR, free the Dib while I drive off the stink-beasts!" Zim barked. GIR's cyan parts burned red obediently as he hopped out of the cockpit and landed on Dib, turned cyan again and smiling inanely in Dib's face.
"Hi big-head boy!" GIR beamed.
"Wha - huh?" Dib uttered. Humans screeched and ran for their lives as Zim shot lasers at them, setting pants afire and laughing all the while. Meanwhile, GIR ripped the binding straps off Dib and held him up with uncanny strength for such a small thing, waiting until Zim drove the ship back again and tossing Dib into the cockpit headfirst, then jumped in after. The windshield closed back up, and after shooting at a few more humans, Zim piloted the ship skyward at a sharp 90-degree angle and at a ridiculously high speed. In a matter of seconds, the ship was floating just above Earth's gravitational pull.
"PITIFUL, INFERIOR HUUUUMANS! WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!" Zim laughed hysterically, Dib seated upside-down just beside him while GIR floated through the air carelessly. "No one can stand before the might of ZIM! Nooooo ooooone." Still extremely confused, Dib managed to turn himself rightside-up in his seat, wincing momentarily at the reawakened pain in his middle; Irken physiology had fortunately stopped the bleeding, but the hurt remained.
"Why did you do that?" Dib cried. Zim looked at him with smug self-satisfaction.
"I, the almighty ZIM, have saved you from the FILTHY humans and a HORRIBLE fate, but NO NEED TO THANK ME!" Zim boasted modestly. (Fear the oxymoron!)
"THANK YOU? YOU'RE THE REASON THEY THOUGHT I WAS AN ALIEN!" Forgetting his wound, Dib fixed Zim with a look of such withering anger that even Zim was compelled to shrink in his seat. "Thanks to YOU, ZIM, I almost DIED! Thanks to YOU, all of humanity thought I was the alien bent on destroying humanity! Thanks to YOU, I AM an alien! Thanks to you, my life is ruined. Thanks to you, I lost... I lost..." Trailing off, Dib looked away from Zim, staring instead at the Earth in front of them.
"Aw, who am I kidding," Dib sighed at last, sinking down in his seat and ignoring the pain in his abdomen, still looking at the Earth. "I didn't have much of a life, anyway. Gaz hates me, Dad couldn't care less that I even exist, the Swollen Eyeball thinks I'm a lunatic, the kids at skool say I'm crazy, and nobody EVER appreciates what I do to keep the Earth safe." Dib sighed again; his shiny red eyes, very unlike human eyes, glistened with tears. "It's a beautiful planet. Too bad humanity's just a bunch of jerks." A heavy silence permeated the air for a short while after that, broken only by GIR's giddy, nonsensical voice in the background. Zim, who had been watching Dib in quiet pondering, turned toward the control panel now.
"Wow, that was dramatic. Time to return to the base." So saying, Zim pressed a button and the ship shot back down to Earth.