(A/N: Wow, I can't believe I just wrote this all in one night! It's one of my longer chapters, to boot. Hope this quick update makes up for the long hiatus. Also, I tried not to make Membrane out of character, but since the only times you really see him on the show are for short, humorous gags it's difficult to write him in long, semi-serious moments.
Disclaimer: I own only my zits. I should name one "Pustulio".)
Chapter Seven
"Dib's parent?" Zim realized, eyeing the screen as it swiveled to get a better view of him. "What are - " He was cut off as a strong electric shock arced through the robotic arms and reached him. He felt blinding pain as the electricity coursed through his body, gritting his teeth and screaming as he convulsed. Then it all went black.
"REACTIVATE." Another, smaller shock, this one originating from his Pak, brought Zim to. Zim groaned and cracked his eyes open, then opened them wide and lifted his head, taking in his sterile surroundings. He was in some sort of Earthenoid laboratory, primitive by Irken standards, but advanced by its own. Painful metal restraints dug into his limbs and torso, holding him seven feet off the ground, and many strange, sharp instruments pointed at his head, hypodermic needles among them. After noting all this with great unease, Zim's eyes settled on Professor Membrane, standing in person just up ahead. Zim's antennae flattened against his head angrily.
"YOU! You have no business keeping me here!" Zim barked, wriggling to free himself, then thinking better of it as that put his head closer to the sharp instruments. "What's going on?"
"Well, let's see," Membrane said thoughtfully. "You kidnapped my son, endangered his life, and transformed him into an alien. Also, I suspect you're a malevolent extraterrestrial conspiring to take over my planet."
"Eh, NONSENSE! I'm a perfectly normal human - " Wait... he didn't feel his contacts or wig. Zim grinned sheepishly. "Eh heh... I... have a skin condition and pink-eye?"
"Hahaha..." Professor Membrane shook his head and brought a small remote control out of one of his lab coat pockets, then proceeded to press a red button in the center.
"What are you doing with AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGH!" Zim shrieked as another jolt of electricity ran through him, then slumped and groaned softly.
"Fascinating," Membrane remarked, observing Zim's smoking form. "A real alien lifeform. My insane son was right after all." When the pain was a little less overwhelmingly excruciating, Zim lifted his head and glared at the Professor.
"How did you see through my inGEEEENIOUS disguise?" he demanded, voice hoarse. "You were just as IGNORANT as the other stink-pigs before!"
Membrane shrugged. "I suspected something was amiss, but my son tends to... overreact. I had more important things to concentrate on than another of his paranoid delusions, which I just assumed his alien claims were. Like when he thought there was a Bigfoot in the garage, or a ghost in the toilet.
"And then he became an alien and the government kidnapped him. Even then, I didn't make the connection. My daughter is more sensible than her brother, and she insisted you were behind it. Children will be children, I told myself, and tried to put it out of mind... but in the end, I thought, what the heck? So, I installed some of my technology in your classroom and watched you through a hidden camera. To my surprise, you practically gave yourself away! It was amazing your true identity hadn't been revealed yet!" Membrane sighed and shook his head. "A shame I didn't believe my son until it was too late."
"You saw through my disguise. Good for you," Zim said sarcastically. "But seeing as how I know something about you too, Membrane-stink, why the sudden concern? You never cared about Dib before." This last sentence was punctuated by another scream as Membrane hit the shock button again.
"I am a very busy man," Membrane replied coldly. "Every day, the fate of the Earth rests on my shoulders. I don't have time to take care of my children when I'm working to make the world safe for them!" At this point, Zim could only groan in response, so Membrane went on, his voice darkening forebodingly. "But even if I'm not always there for them, even if sometimes I forget their names or who they are, I do care about them. So I suggest you tell me where my son is, Zim, or you'll be feeling a lot more pain where that came from." Zim was still incapable of responding; Membrane turned up the wattage.
Zim wasn't home yet. This was odd; as a former student, Dib knew for a fact that school had let out hours ago, and as a former stalker he knew Zim usually headed straight for the base.
"GIR, do you have any idea where your master is?" he asked finally. GIR pulled away from the Scary Monkey Show (they'd come to an agreement on who watched TV when) just long enough to give him a blank stare.
"I guess that's a no," Dib read. At that instant, the doorbell rang. "Finally!" Hopping off the couch, he stretched and headed for the door. He had a sinking feeling of impending doom the instant he turned the doorknob, which was reinforced by the hand that shot through the doorway and latched onto his shirt collar.
"I knew you were here!" Gaz growled. "C'mon Dib, we're going home!"
"Uh?" Dib recovered his wits and freed himself from the grim child's grasp. "Gaz? What are you doing here?"
"I SAID we're going HOME, Dib!" she repeated, ignoring his question and jerking his wrist this time.
"Well, not that I don't appreciate you coming to get me and all, but the government wants my GUTS, so I'm a little uncomfortable with going out in broad daylight." Granted, it was getting close to evening. Though Dib made a valid point, Gaz just didn't care, and proceeded to drag him out onto the sidewalk. "GAZ! Didn't you hear me?"
"We're going home now," she said once again. "Dad can change you back, or if he can't, he can get Zim too. Then he'll clear everything up with the government, and you can go back to school again and keep being my stupid brother and everything will go back to normal." To her surprise, Dib yanked his wrist free.
"I'm not going back, Gaz." Dib's tone was grave. "I'm never going back again."
"WHAT?" Gaz hissed through clenched teeth.
"You heard me!" Dib snapped. "I'm sick of humanity! They can protect themselves - or not, for all I care! I hate the life I had! Even being trapped here with ZIM isn't that bad! So you can go home, and tell Dad I - " He was cut off as Gaz delivered a punch to the side of his face. Dib grimaced and rubbed the sore spot. "Okay... can't say that was totally unexpected."
"You can come home by choice, Dib, or you can come by force," Gaz snarled. "But you're coming home." At that moment, Dib did the unthinkable:
"No." He defied Gaz's wrath.
There was a long, deadly silence.
"What did you say, Dib?"
"I said no, Gaz."
"That's what I thought you said." Witnesses in the area that day say the sky grew noticeably darker. You could almost hear the demonic music playing as Gaz's vengeful form lurched toward Dib, who was looking increasingly regretful of having stood up to his younger sister.
"G-Gaz... don't look at me like that... GAZ!" Gaz leapt forward, and Dib knew he was doomed. Next thing he knew, he had jumped several feet in the air and was clinging to a wall of the alleyway Zim's house was situated in. "Huh? How did - " It was then he noticed the four long, metal spider legs coming out of his Pak and buried in the brick wall. "WHOA! Cool." What wasn't cool was Gaz headed straight for him, fury doubled by her victim's attempt at escape. Dib let out a small shriek and launched off, backflipping over Gaz's head and landing five feet away among the security gnome field.
"Wow... these are so cool! It's like they're part of me!" Dib awed, skittering on the spider legs testingly. He didn't have long to admire his mechanical appendages, as just then Gaz kicked them out from under him with one sweep of her foot. The legs retracted and Dib fell on his stomach with an "oof", looking up in time to see Gaz about to bring a foot down full-force on his Pak. Unwilling to discover what the consequences of this would be, he rolled out of the way and extended the legs again, deftly dancing out of harm's way as Gaz pursued him.
"Don't try to escape me, Dib," Gaz threatened. "It's pointless. You can't escape my wrath... no one EVER escapes my wrath!" Spying a loose brick in the alley wall, Gaz pried it from the mortar and chucked it at Dib's Pak, causing a brief surge of electricity and a malfunction that made the spider legs slam Dib headlong into the brick wall. Dib groaned, legs folding limply as he slumped against the wall, seeing stars. Gaz strode up to him and punched him in the face, harder this time.
"Zim didn't escape my wrath," she continued. "Dad's probably experimenting on him right now."
"Uggh... WHAT?" Dib cried, snapping out of his head trauma-induced stupor at that. He lunged forward and grabbed Gaz by the collar of her dress. "What is Dad doing to Zim, Gaz? TELL ME!" Infuriated that he dare lay a finger on her, Gaz kneed Dib forcefully in the squeedly-spooch, causing him to double over and let go as he dropped to the ground. Gaz stood over him.
"Dib..." she began, Dib trying to crawl backward away from her. His metal legs splayed out behind him, dragging him along; his antennae twitched as one of the legs clinked against something.
"Prepare..." Dib twisted his head backward to see what his spider leg had hit. Just one of Zim's stupid green gnomes, he thought to himself with disappointment.
"To meet..." ...Wait a minute!
"Your doo - " Gaz was cut off as Dib's sharp leg severed the gnome at its base and smacked it at Gaz, hitting her in the head full-force. Gaz groaned, and keeled over. Fearing the worst, Dib withdrew his spider legs and ran over to see if she was okay.
"Phew... she's just unconscious," he told himself, relieved, then looked trouble as he realized, "For how long?" It didn't matter; he couldn't stay here anyway. If Gaz was right, then Zim...
"I'm coming, ZIM!" he cried out as he had many times before - but never before with concern. With a bounty on his head and the public looking out for him, he obviously couldn't just walk over to his house. So, he let out his spider legs again and scampered up the alley wall, stopping atop the neighbor's roof to survey the height he'd scaled in a matter of seconds.
"Wow!" he exclaimed with an exhilarated grin, then put on a serious face as he remembered his mission. Legs ready, he started forth again. Taking long, fast strides and leaping over buildings in a single bound like some overdone superhero, he made it to the Membrane household in minutes. Jumping out on the flat blue stargazing roof, Dib remembered sitting here and listening for alien transmissions six months before Zim had arrived on Earth. He took the route into the kitchen he had taken then, sliding along a pipe to the kitchen window, his spider legs ensuring his safety and speeding the trip. He hopped through the window and into the sink. Fortunately, it wasn't filled with dishwater this time, or he would have been in trouble. Dib hopped to the floor, breathing deeply as he took in his familiar surroundings. It was hard to believe so much had changed since he'd fixed himself toast here a couple days ago. His nostalgic reminiscence was broken by the sound of Zim screaming weakly in agony.
"Zim!" Dib darted to the door of Membrane's lab and bolted through. "DAD!" he shouted dramatically. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
"Over here, son." Professor Membrane waved from a few tables over.
"Oh... okay then." He did a double take at the sight of Zim hanging limply from a nasty-looking contraption attached to the ceiling. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving. "ZIM! Dad, what did you do to him?" Dib cried in horror, using his spider legs to clamber over tables of failed gadgets, hazardous chemicals and mutated rodents to get to Zim.
"A better question is, what did he do to you?" Membrane replied, stepping in front of Dib's path and examining him with disappointment. "An alien... and just think of all the bad press this has generated!"
"I thought you didn't believe in aliens," Dib answered snidely, maneuvering around Membrane on his spider legs. Membrane sighed.
"Son, the change has affected your brains. I have your original DNA saved, if you just calm down and let me secure you to an operating table I can - "
"You can experiment on me until you get it right?" Dib muttered bitterly, drawing back from his father's outstretched hand. "That's all Gaz and I ever were to you, when we were anything, Dad. You never got me right, anyway... what does it matter if I'm Irken or human?" Before his father could reply, Dib stretched up as far as spider legs would go and pulled open each of the restraints that kept Zim in place until he fell free. Dib caught Zim's unconscious form before he could hit the floor, noting that Irkens were either very strong, or Zim was surprisingly light. Lowering a little closer to the floor and turning around, Dib glared at Professor Membrane one last time.
"We're leaving now, Dad. Don't come looking for me, or Zim, ever again."
And he left.
Gaz arrived shortly afterward. She was in a foul mood, and at the moment seemed interested only in playing her Gameslave 2 until the world was dead to her.
"Daughter," Membrane said wearily, "I've been hallucinating, haven't I? My son isn't really an alien and neither is his little foreign friend?"
"Yeah, sure, hallucinating Dad," Gaz replied carelessly. "Dib and his stupid friend are just morons... also, you'll probably have a seizure right about now."
"Ah. Of course. HHBHBBLBBLBLBSSSSKKKKK!" Membrane gurgled, falling to the floor and thrashing about wildly. Gaz just growled and kept playing.
(Thanks for all the great, fast reviews, you guys! Please review this one and let me know what you think of it. Also, I shall now answer your questions as best I can:
Whipped Cream and Sanoon: Hey! Zim's not... 'kay, I'll admit that a little 'tarded of him. Yeah, you're right, but that's why we love him, eh? As for ripping off his disguise, that's for another fic!
Atiken: I tried to have Membrane himself answer your questions in-story. Hope that was sufficient.
NathalieInvaderZee: Thanks! But you see, chestnut brown is not an Irken eye color. The Irken eye colors are red, purple and green. The most common human eye color is brown; the most common Irken eye color is red. Thus, Irken Dib has red eyes. Besides, brown's kinda plain, red is coool.
shears and andalitebandit-6: The new chapter should've answered your questions.
I hope everyone enjoyed this, so until next time!)