A/N: Hello all! Sorry this took so long, but yet again, I'm sick. I worked really hard to bring this too you. I had to walk uphill in the snow, but here it is. I hope you like it.

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Chapter 16

WHERE'S DIB?

During the course of Dib's escape and the resulting "excitement" upstairs, Byron had finally woken up, in the infirmary, after his few days of deep, healing sleep. He'd been burned pretty badly by the shower and was, accordingly, covered in from toe to head in bandages and medical strips to expedite his recovery. He sat up in his little bed and hung his legs over the edge. He looked like an extraterrestrial mummy of doom.

He opened his eyes for the first time in a while that he could remember and quickly shut them again. His vision had changed drastically. The world around him had obtained a somewhat rose tint hue and was brighter and more detailed; his eyes could see in a better resolution and he could even read the fine print on the little bottles that sat on the counter on the other side of the room.

"SO, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?" Vincent asked.

"I'm feelin' good, Vincent. Just needed a nap," he responded.

"A NAP? YOU'VE BEEN ASLEEP FOR THREE DAYS! DON'T YOU REMEMBER?"

It was then, that Byron remembered what he'd done. His face lit up with excitement and he began to rip at his bandages. "Oh, it worked, didn't it?" he laughed. "Didn't it?" He continued to unwrap himself like a child would viciously rip into a new present on Christmas morning. After a good seven minutes of work, Byron had successfully removed his bandages and now sat naked on the edge of the bed. Byron marveled at himself. He was an amazing specimen of… and then he looked at his groin.

"Where'd it go! Where is it!" He screamed in horror and his Squeedly spooch took a nosedive that it might not have ever recovered from, if it hadn't been for Vincent.

"CALM DOWN! I GUESS THE WHOLE 'WHOLE OF IRKEN KNOWLEDGE' THING DOESN'T INCLUDE SEX ED," Vincent sighed.

"Where is it! TELL ME!" Byron screamed and waved his arms around an extremely humorous, and naked, spectacle.

"YOU'RE PERFECTLY NORMAL! WELL, AS FAR 'NORMAL' AS A HUMAN THAT DID WHAT YOU DID CAN BE!" Vincent could tell that this wasn't comforting Byron in the least, so he reiterated, with a long and DETAILED lesson in Irken genders that would not only be redundant to the reader, but also so traumatic and scarring mentally, that I dare not divulge it to you. But, I will tell you that one of the many things Vincent told him involved the phrase, "IT'LL POP OUT WHEN YOU NEED IT."

So, after "the talk", relief shone in Byron's glossy eyes and he exclaimed, "Thank God!" With this worry out of his large, green head, Byron walked into the bathroom to look in the mirror.

Slowly, at first, a large smile crept across his face as he gazed at his reflection. Still very tall, the Irken stood there and reached up, with a giddy claw, and touched an antenna. The sensations sent a shiver down his spine and he quickly snatched his hand away as the long, black limb curled away from his touch. He started dancing in place with excitement, "Success! I am successful! At last, I am an IRKEN!" He then paused and said, rather off the topic I might add, "Hey, I don't have any nipples!"

Vincent mentally slapped himself across the face, so to say, and said, "THAT'S FASCINATING! HOW ABOUT SOME CLOTHES?"

Byron pondered this for a moment and decided that clothing would probably be the best thing for him. And so, Byron was given a standard issue invader's uniform, boots, and, of course, gloves. Seeing no sense in going into a private are to dress, since any dignity he had betwixt him and Vincent was present as his masculinity, he dressed where he stood. It was a tight fit, being as tall as he was, but Byron was pleased with the uniform. He, again, looked in the mirror and straightened out the wrinkles and pulled on his gloves.

"OOH!" He shouted, "I wonder what Dib's doing!" Without further conversation, Byron ran to the holding level to see what had become of Zim's and his mutual nemesis. When he got there, he unlocked the cell door, picked up the beating stick that was propped up next to the door, incase Dib became combative, and peaked inside. His jaw hit the floor, well actually his chest, but anyway, at what he saw. Instead of a miserable Irken with a gargantuan head sitting and moping on his bed, there was a gaping hole in the wall and the noticeable and complete lack of Dib. "VINCENT! Dib has escaped! He's gone!" He yelled in a panic.

"WHAT?" Vincent asked.

"He's not here! He's fled the scene! Are bereft of the bigheaded experiment! Understand?"

"YOU HAD ME AT 'HE'S NOT HERE'! WHERE'D HE GO?"

"How should I know! He dug a tunnel and a vamoosed!" Byron yelled and slammed his fist against the wall.

"AMAZING! HOW DID HE GET HIS HEAD TO FIT THROUGH THERE!"

Byron was also wondering how that feat was accomplished, but now was not the time! "I must tell Zim! Please take me to the surface level, Vincent." Even though he was located, of course, many floors below the surface, Byron sank through a hole in the floor, as he always seems to do, and headed for the living room. 'I can't believe this happened! I can't be bothered with these trivial tasks! I have more important things to attend to! YOU'LL PAY, Dib! Oh, how you shall pay!'

He screamed as he ran for the nearest elevator, "Vincent, take me to the armory at once! Oh, uh, please."

"AS YOU WISH!" Byron rocketed his way toward his destination.

"This is the last time you attempt to stop me, Dib! Ooh, what plans I have for you! But if you try to lecture me again, I'll just kill you!" He yelled to himself as if Dib were in the elevator with him.

Meanwhile, upstairs on the living room couch, Gaz and Zim had finally found a way to pass the rainy day. Had they been able to hear the narration, the might have paused from their activities to not that the narrator's previous statement had rhymed.

"Oh, Zim!"

"Oh, Gaz!"

"Oh, Zim!"

"Oh, Gaz!"

"Oh, Zim!"

"Oh, Gaz!"

"OH, GOD!" Byron screamed as he walked through the doorway of the kitchen. He stood there, dripping with pasted and covered in weapons, staring at Zim and Gaz fooling around on the couch.

"Ah, Byron!" Zim yelled trying to save his dignity. "What do you need that is so important that you must interrupt the MIGHTY ZIM while he's 'busy'!"

"Dib's escaped! Now go get some paste on and help me find him before we're revealed!"

"Byron, I'm not pleased at all by this," Gaz hissed.

"I'm terribly and unimaginably sorry, Gaz, but you understand the magnitude of the situation. Do you want me and, more importantly, Zim strapped to an autopsy table?" Byron said in an attempt to make his point.

"Fine, just hurry. I'm bored," she said and pulled her Game Slave out from under the couch and began to furiously pound on it.

A few minutes later, Byron and Zim where both standing in the front doorway, both covered in weaponry and dripping with paste. "We'll be back soon, Gaz," Zim said and the two ran off into the rain.

"Dib shall pay!" Gaz mumble and then lost herself in her game.

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A/N: Uh-oh. What's going to happen? I smell another dramatic chase. And, in the next chapter, I'll be introducing a new character. Hooray! PLease leave a review if you like my story, or me for that matter! I'll buy you stuff! PLEASE REVIEW!