Saving Zim by Dib07

Summary:

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Cover art beautifully made by TheCau! All credit goes to her, please do not use without his permission, thank you :)

Warnings:

Character angst. Blood. Swearing.


Dib07: I apologize for taking awhile to upload this, I've been low on motivation, so these updates may be far and few between.

I remember the first Saving Zim fan art I received by Weevmo, with Zim sitting beside Dib at The Rooster (among others!) Another amazing fan art would be inspired by this chapter as the two characters sat opposite each other at the Treaty, beautifully imagined by Alicartin/Katrinci!

Thanks RandomDragon2.0 for the review!

I dedicate this chapter to Veeeester for the amazing Saving Zim fan art that I LOVE!

little side-note:

Please review, same as always, it might make new chapters appear faster!


Chapter 6: The Treaty

A set of claws were draped limply over a pink sleeved arm. Twice he raised his hand to the whiskey glass and twice he lifted it, twirling the amber liquid around in strange reverence that didn't suit the impetuous of his nature. Then he would put it back on its coaster as if it was better to simply admire it.

His lowered synthetic eyes were hollow and unreadable, and Dib could assume many reasons for the cause, one of them being the way he had intruded earlier, but it may simply be that Gir had given him the run-around. It was ironic that Zim happened to look like one of those tired parents sometimes.

He twirled a straw between his fingers, waiting for the Irken to bulldoze the atmosphere with his babble and ranting, but the silence painfully continued, the soldier's attention affixed on the measure of scotch as if there was something mildly intriguing floating inside the amber liquid.

"You're very quiet tonight, Fudgekin." He watched the Elite jerk out of his bubble, lilac eyes flickering up at him as if he had only just materialized. "Usually the customers are leaving in their droves to get away from your shouts and screams."

"Don't call me by that name." The invader snapped, one arthritic claw testily scratching beneath the hem of his wig.

"What? 'Fudgekin?' But it's a cute name."

"The term 'cute' is reserved for pathetic bunnies, drooling babies and ugly teddy bears. Zim will not be dubbed by the same idiotic label."

"Okay then space jerk." Dib drank down the last dredges of beer and wiped the froth from his lips. They weren't exactly eyelevel, with Zim being that much shorter. Dib had to bring a cushion to the bar whenever they wanted a drink, or Zim would not have been able to reach the table, let alone drink from it. "How's the injury?"

"Oh, it's all healed up now." He commented dryly without hesitating, but the flash in his eyes was clear, "Why, what's it to you?"

He felt the wedge between them, as unyielding and as strong as it had always been. "Is everything okay at home?"

Zim paused, the hostility in his eyes weakening as that bubble seemed to re-envelop him. He blinked, bottom jaw clenching, and the enmity was back. "Everything's fine!"

Dib sighed, trying to look into lilac eyes that kept darting and flickering away. "I'm sorry I shouted at you, but you can't just go out and do... things in full view of the public! Your memory is getting worse. How could you forget to wear your disguise? What were you even doing in Waterfall National Park?"

The Elite gave him that begrudging stare whenever the human said unsavoury and oftentimes stupid things that were barely worth answering, and the strength in that senescent gaze held for all of two seconds before he evasively glanced elsewhere. "I thought the sap from the trees might make for some good massage oil. Gir was helping."

Dib put his head in his hands, and groaned. "You've been watching those stupid commercials again, haven't you, or those tactless suggestions on the internet? My money's on Gir. Look, if you're really that stiff, I can get you something that will help. SuperMart sells joint ease cream. What is it? Your shoulders? Your hands?"

"I needed the oil... for, for Gir!" His crude smile, once genuine, was now as authentic and as cold as plastic.

"I hate you, you know." Dib said with a chuckle.

Zim lifted the glass, swirled it, and took a long swallow. He never had much of a taste for 'human' alcohol. It was weak at best, its impurities irritated his spooch from time to time if he tried a cheap brand and it didn't taste very good or was as strong as the beverages you could get on Irk, or the conquered planet Klai, but he tolerated them here, and if he drank sufficiently, he sometimes felt inebriated enough to find Dib partially amusing.

The Treaty was local, and provided an interlude of shelter from their demanding lives, but the Irken had begun to view these 'meetings' as pre-battle scenarios and that they were on opposing sides of a chessboard that had more of a psychological feel than their physical battles to suss what the other was thinking and planning.

On most occasions, Dib liked to bitch about work and humanity in general, and this tickled something in the old soldier. Neither liked having the other on their home turf, so this old pub was a communal compromise to meet on neutral ground, though what Dib got out of this he was still trying to figure out. He had started to grow numb to Dib's banal and irritating gossip that used to intrigue him, and he was sometimes able to brush up on human terminology during the one-sided conversations, but after the first tentative meet-ups at the Treaty, it slowly became something of a stupid tradition that they had jointly kept going for five years since Dib had dragged him along to his paranormal escapades.

He remembered his human adjusting the rear-view mirror, and giving him a long, assessing look until he suddenly and bafflingly suggested that they start 'going out for drinks.'

His nemesis received a fresh beer and placed it on the scum-encrusted coaster. "They added a new member to the team today. It's a young girl."

Zim huffed, barely paying attention. He found it harder to hear when his antennae were trapped beneath his wig, and Dib had to remember to speak a little louder.

"She's kinda cute I guess. It was her first day out on the field and already she seems to believe in everything, even the obvious fakes." He was so busy looking down at his beer that he failed to see Zim roll his eyes skyward. "I showed her that YouTube video of 'the Grifter' and she swore it was genuine without any further proof! These days I'm proving the fakes from the genuine on stinkin' Youtube videos! Forget the real stuff! Everyone's obsessed with creepypastas, tiktock and wobbly, fuzzy videos! When a door opens and shuts on its own, it's usually because of a strong breeze blowing through! Not demons!"

"What about those slamming doors in that stupid Earlstone Mansion place? You seemed pretty convinced of something other than a 'strong breeze!'" He rested his bony elbows on the table, palms supporting his narrowed chin.

"I managed to clip one scene of that cat! That's it! If you had worn your disguise, I would have captured a lot more!"

He tasted a little more of the mediocre whiskey. "Pity you threw that footage of that Nessy monster into the lake."

"You made me!"

While Dib went on another tirade, classifying all the latest YouTube 'spooky' uploads, and instantaneously declassifying them as hoaxes, his voice was cast away, and when Zim looked into the nether, he saw the Tallest looking down at him, their faces stony and cold. "You're asking us to grant you access for PAK repair? It's been twenty two years, Zim. And you haven't conquered anything."

When time and battles hadn't stretched forlornly before him, when existence had yet to exhaust him, he had been pushed through simulations and skirmishes to see what he was made of, what he could endure. And at the end of it they had simply turned their backs on him.

"Hello? Earth to Zim?" The Elite's eyes widened and he blinked several times as the human waved a hand in his face.

"Y-Yes? What?"

"You were gone for a minute there. What's eating you?"

Zim checked himself for a moment, lines appearing under his lilac contacts. "Nothing's eating me." Even when Dib had painstakingly tried to teach him the lingo of the human language, he still took phrases literally.

"Can I check your wound?"

"Your concern worries me. I liked you better when you were chasing me around town."

Dib raised an eyebrow. "Then let me see it."

"No!" He hissed. "You just want these stupid humans to see that I bleed green and then they'll panic and send for their filthy men in their filthy white coats!"

He swore softly under his breath. "Zim."

"Like I care what you think." He downed the last drop of whiskey and sat back in his chair, arms folded.

Even though the bar was filled with the buzz of human conversation and the occasional clink of glass against glass among the shuffle of chair legs, he could still hear the Tallest laughing at him.

Dib took a swallow of his beer, watching the Irken sit there, staring into his empty glass like someone who had just lost something dear to them. He was a creature with too much bottled energy, and struggled to sit without fidgeting as if staying still for even a microsecond too long could cause him to explode, yet he was as inert as a window-shop mannequin. For the duration of their battles and confrontations he had not wished to see Zim as anything but a robot that moved without feeling or pain, but the truth had softened his perceptions over time, revealing less of an automation and more of an emotional and fractious creature. He kept things close to his chest, and was prone to sudden mood swings that spoke loudly of his inner frustrations that ever so slightly escaped the walls he held in check. Getting these cracks to appear, however fleetingly, was a gambit.

"When was the last time you saw your home planet, Zim?"

As usual, he took it the wrong way. "Why? What are you implying?"

"It's just a question. So...?"

"So?" He eyed him as if he was already braced for the inevitable battle that lay ahead. The investigator noticed the bones of his claws protrude against the strained fabric of his glove.

"Don't you miss it? It's your home planet! Even though Earth gets more polluted by the day and it's slowly filling up with morons, I'd miss it if I had to leave and travel to another world in the universe. Don't you know what home sickness is?"

Zim reached forwards, causing Dib to warily push away against the backrest of his chair, but the alien simply grabbed Dib's beer, took a brief sip and coughed. "I'm not nostalgic, Dib stink. Irk doesn't come with the same comforts of your dirty 'Earth.' It's a militarized planet full of enslavers and hard principles. They find out quick if you don't have what it takes to be part of the Empire. If you don't get assigned to anything useful, your life is forfeit. So there isn't much to miss."

Dib was visibly taken aback by his response. Did Irkens really live and die in such a cutthroat society? He had struggled to ask about the Irken's past and his military exploits, because the right moment never seemed to come, and Zim never seemed to be in the right mood. Sometimes he might get away with a question or two, if the soldier was mildly intoxicated enough by alcohol. Compliments never went amiss either. "Doesn't Irk have any memorable landscapes? Communities?" Family?

"Ha! No, no Dib. You seem to keep forgetting that Irkens are not interested in beauty or anything other than the next mission or the next promotion."

"But..."

"You are too soft in the head to understand."

"You have a heart in there somewhere, space demon." He said with a soft chuckle.

"Oh, you mean that irksome thing that keeps beating in my chest? Oh yeah. I believe so."

"So, what's your next evil plan?"

Zim smiled at that. "I can't wait! I can't tell you! It's a secret! But it's going to be something!"

Dib smiled in return and drank his beer. He knew that Zim had no plan, and hadn't planned the plan in years.

After wiping the froth from his lips, he turned on his bar stool to lay his sights on the room. It was quietly filling up with people. The tables were mostly unoccupied, but not long after he had turned to have a fresh look at the bar the door opened from outside and a young girl was pushed in by gusty winter winds. Zim instantly noticed whenever Dib's attention was divided, and glanced over his shoulder to see what had caught his eye.

Dib was watching her with hungry intent, like a tiger watching a tender young fawn that was struggling to walk. His attention on females had infuriated Zim for awhile in their former years, used as he was to getting all the attention, but Dib's interest in girls never amounted to much, and, feeling less threatened, he let the man's curiosity run its course.

Zim was only a little familiar with human courtship. He had seen plenty of it in movies, TV shows and briefly in computer games, as it was usually an unavoidable plot point in most of it. He could never understand the human brain, and the hormones at play. His sexual reproductive organs had either been subdued or removed; he wasn't quite sure which, only knowing that he still mitigated himself through the necessary holes. He did not have the fundamentals to procreate, as his body could not even develop the essential pheromones that otherwise would have induced the feeling of 'affection' that came so naturally to a human being, leaving him unable to have the necessary paternity to protect his own Irken young. He was aware that he had been manufactured rather than 'born,' so 'love,' though he understood the bare bones of its concept, meant about as much to him as a violin meant to a chimpanzee.

When he could take Dib's hungry stares no longer, he asked: "Why don't you just begin a ritual courtship with her? You've been ogling her since she sat down."

His words seemed to break the strange spell the girl seemed to have over him and he finally dropped his gaze. "That's not how it works, Zim. Besides, she's way out of my league. She probably has a queue of boyfriends, they usually do."

"You have a dick, don't you? And she has a hole. How hard can it be?"

Dib gave him a blank stare, amazed and oftentimes shocked with the things Zim came out with. "You Irkens can't be that much different when it comes to sex. I've seen your slit!"

The shot glass struck the side of his head and then bounced along the floorboards and rolled under a nearby table. "How could you!"

He slapped a hand on the place where the glass had struck him. "What do you mean, how could I! You were naked! And it was right there!"

The Irken slammed both claws on the table, causing Dib's beer glass to rattle, the frothy liquid leaping from the rim. "You humans and your barbaric sexual exploits! We have been freed from the shackles of such bothersome rituals by leaving it to machines and computers to take care of it for us!"

Dib noticed a family of patrons leaving, throwing them dirty looks as they left. Finally things were back to normal. "What a cold way to live, Zim."

"Just know that when the Armada comes to enslave mankind, remember that we did it while your species was too busy fucking!"

Dib watched him squirm on the seat-cushion, claws clenching the alcohol-soaked wood. "Do you even know how it works Zim? Sex?" His smile was soft and playful.

"I've watched the movies, Dib worm."

Just for good measure he decided to trade a nickname for a nickname. "Just movies, Fudgekin?"

Zim couldn't understand what he was getting at. "Y-Yes?"

"Oh Fudge. You're missing out." He drank down the dredges of beer while Zim watched, frowning. He placed it back on the coaster. What was left was just froth and bubbles. "You wanna head outside? It's getting a bit stuffy in here."

-x-

Zim threw on his winter wrapping (a courtesy-gift from the human) and followed the investigator outside into the rampant and screaming winds. It was refreshing to steal into the biting cold where there was nothing but the breath of winter. Behind them the noise of the patrons continued in the warm and brightly lit bar.

He looked up and brought out a mittened claw to catch the first few snowflakes. Snow never harmed him as much as the rain could, as rain was a better incubator for pollution whereas snow carried diluted toxic impurities, and he was well covered, the warm pink fluffy coat, pink scarf, bulky grey mittens and snugly bobble hat guarding him from the tingles and stings when he came into contact with water whether it was in crystallized form or not.

Dib lit a cigarette and inhaled the noxious fumes. Zim stood against the curb railing, watching the snowflakes silently decorate the pavement. Weather like this paradoxically fascinated and repulsed him. Irkens were not a fan of cold weather, or wet weather. Wet weather bred germs and mud and Irkens were not a fan of either. Like their ancestral bugs, they got slow and stiff in the cold. He loved the summer, and the endless hot days where everything was colourful, dry and clean again.

When snow first touched down, it was clean and pure, covering everything in this soft powder, and there was something about the way it fell that hypnotised him.

As falling flakes sheeted his face, Dib would fleetingly glance at the Irken and notice the wrinkles under his eyes. They seemed especially prominent as if he hadn't slept in awhile. Then the Irken brought a hand to his mouth and coughed, and coughed again. The winter weather affected the bug in many different ways, usually making him even crankier, and he would constantly shiver even though he could hardly move for all the bundled layers he wore. He was less able to manage the icy sidewalks; his steps were increasingly wooden and stiff as if his knees hurt, and his weaker left-sided balance often resulted in him slipping and tripping over.

He offered his cigarette to the alien, who immediately snarled at its stench. "Wanna try it? Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"Curious to know exactly how that poison feels when it enters my body? I'd sooner drink oil."

"Suit yourself."

"They are filthy sticks of great filth, Dib worm. Why do you snort them up every evening?"

"Because they make me feel better, I guess. They kind of... relax me."

"You don't look stressed to me."

Dib only smiled. "Sometimes you can't see stress, Zim."

The Irken rolled his shoulders in a shrug, finding that he didn't like standing here in the cold while the human sullied his lungs. "I'm going home, stink beast. I do not have the forbearance of tolerating you for another minute."

"I'll drop you home. I may as well. The sidewalks are pretty slippery."

"I can handle a little ice, human." He started off without waiting or even waving a goodbye, never looking back. Dib watched him leave, his strained smile fading when he saw how stiffly Zim walked.

-x-

The trip home wasn't particularly taxing, and he was lulled by the click-clack of his boot heels on the icy pavement as he walked. His padded, soft clothing kept him pretty snug despite blasts of cold wind that tried to propel him onto his PAK. Dib had bought the scarf, coat, mittens and bobble hat for Christmas one year, gifts which he instantly mistrusted. The tradition of Christmas was a ridiculous ritual that the humans routinely worshipped, and Dib's sudden generosity just didn't fit. For the first few years, Zim refused to reciprocate the gesture while his arch nemesis continued the madness, and bought him a heater blanket the following year. Every damn winter that boy would buy him something else and each new gift would be tentatively opened from a distance using a bomb defuser, or having the computer use its gizmos to do it for him. Zim finally returned the favour just to see the look on Dib's face. The gift was nothing special, as the holiday period could be pretty frightening, and he avoided the shops during it. The 'Christmas' season drove humans wild with their insatiable spending and eating, often stampeding over each other during Black Friday events. He had given Dib a tiny model of Tak's ship that could fly, but he had given the job to his computer to wrap the damn thing.

Last Christmas they had exchanged gifts again as if it was some sort of running joke between them.

When he had received the electric heater blanket, Zim sealed it away, believing the blanket would melt his skin off or something. During the early weeks of January when it got so cold even the deepest layers of his hive had him shivering, he plugged it in using a tech adapter and huddled into it, whimpering from comfort when it effortlessly warmed his old bones. He had kept the electric blanket on his incubator within the resting chamber, happily cuddling into it whenever he felt winter's touch.

The eddying wind whirled around him, sending sprees of snow into the air. As he walked, the snow falling on his bobble hat and coat, he wondered why the Tallest had been so quick to dismiss him. His tiny shadow, cut across the pavement, was a perpetual reminder of his size and fragility. Other invaders he had trained alongside in the Academy had already had their PAKs refurbished, and those same Irkens had also grown considerably in height and rank.

He measured his height every week without fail (on Mondays to be precise) and was continually disappointed with the results.

If Dib was aware of his stunted height, he never let it show. Upon leaving primary school, high school had been even less manageable. All the other human children grew taller while he remained perpetually lost under their shadows. Unable to compete, Zim left school in his freshman year, and not just from the bullying.

His breath hung in the air like a speech bubble. He kept his hands in his pockets and at times walked with his head bent low whenever the wind and snow pushed against him.

If he suddenly reduced all of Earth to a melting puddle, the Tallest may still refuse to grant him a promotion, leaving him with nothing but a burning planet as his station and trophy.

Zim reached his culdersack and turned towards home. Before he even had a chance to knock on the front door Gir flung it open for him. "Moon!" He yelled jubilantly, pointing behind Zim at a sky filled with twirling snowflakes.

"Yes. It's a rather ugly moon, that moon." He shoved past Gir, closed the door and hung up his snow-sprinkled coat, hat, scarf and mittens. Once they were out of the way, he peeled off his disguise and stuffed the contact lenses and wig in the drawer. It was a relief to finally let his antennae hang out, particularly his crooked one. It hurt if it was trapped under the wig for too long.

The two simple rooms were like warm cocoons compared to the screaming cold outside. He awkwardly deposited himself onto the couch and let out a tired, squeaky sigh.

The wind moaned and wailed outside and tatty drifts of snow sailed past the window. He did not wish to go out there again until the spring thaw.

He closed his eyes, but still saw the way Dib was looking at him as he had that day in the car on the way home after leaving Earlstone's creepy Mansion.

"Gir," he said, opening his eyes, "I'm pooped. Make me a sandwich, would you? With some of that ginnis if we have any left?"

Gir saluted with the hand that was missing its thumb and strutted into the kitchen.

Zim pushed out another sigh and kneaded his forehead. "Why am I fraternizing with that Dib beast anyway? That stupid truce wasn't supposed to involve goings-out, day trips to run-down spooky buildings, and... and..." He let his hand drop as he confronted a dark TV screen.

He was aware that he was doing much the same thing, day after day, week after week. He had become an insect trapped in a glass bottle.

The ticking of the mantle clock went on ticking. He slowly looked to his reflection pinned in the abyss of the TV screen. He poked the wrinkles beneath his eyes, wishing he could pluck them out somehow.

"Gir?" He called hoarsely, raising his good antenna. "Is it done yet?" When there was still no sign or noise from the robot, he picked up the remote, turned on the TV and flicked through the channels, only to be condemned to watch the human equivalent of 'entertainment,' which was about as sophisticated as drivel. "Gir!"

Gir came into the threshold holding a plate, and on the plate was a sandwich topped with red and green ginnis. As Zim watched, the robot started shaking his head erratically and took jerking steps back, the plate and sandwich falling to the floor.

"Gir? What's wrong?"

Cyan optics flashed from warm cyan to bright crimson and his lopsided smile became a thin, twitching line. He turned to him, metal body rigid with robotic formality. "You are malfunctioning!" And a circular saw erupted from Gir's chest plate and flew forwards. Zim leapt from the couch as the serrated and spinning blade sunk into the cushioned seat. The blade sped sideways, its base attached to a long strip of wire that connected to Gir's integral core within the metallic carapace. As he turned to track his master, Zim ran towards the kitchen when the greasing buzzsaw cut into his path.

Zim fell back until his PAK hit the wall, hands spread out in a bid to calm him down. "Gir! This is your Master! Stand down at once!"

"The mission has been compromised!" Gir intoned, his bleeding eyes locked onto the Irken, the buzzsaw shooting towards him.

Zim deployed his spider appendages and vaulted out of the way, the buzzsaw thwacking into plaster to reveal drywall. There wasn't much room in the lounge for great manoeuvrability. When he landed in the opposite corner next to the bookcase, he desperately tried again. "Gir! Gir, stop this! What are you doing?"

He kept coming. He raised a metallic hand, the fingers turning in on themselves to fold away and reveal a miniature-sized mortar.

Zim propelled himself to the tubing above, his elongated prosthetics just managing to curl upwards to avoid the lightning bolt of blue. The lounge took the beating for him as brick dust, fabric and tubes lathered the floor. Gir blocked the entrance to his base below, standing between the lounge and the kitchen. He could still make a break for the front door, and run out into the road, screaming, but the thought of going out there; being seen and henceforth captured kept him trapped.

Gir turned towards him with the mortar-arm, the burning smell of plasma filling the room as its acidic purities ate through the wall and tubing. Zim leapt towards the couch, hoping to lure the robot away from the doorway when one of his struts did not take his weight, and he fell, the other three limbs failing in sync. He twisted his ankle as he landed, a bolt of plasma shot over his head, nearly burning off his antennae, and he bent to the floor, holding his head in his hands as PAK legs folded in without his command. Military training had taught him what to do to avoid freezing up in battle and how to utilize any battlefield or environment no matter the opponent, and for the life of him he could not remember any of it.

Moments passed, and Zim believed that he must be dead, and that the attack had been so sudden he hadn't even felt it.

He blinked and slowly looked up. Gir was watching him from the threshold. He hadn't moved, but the blade and mortar-arm had gone, weapons retracting away inside the robot's various compartments.

He stiffly sat up, checking himself over for injury. He felt along his abdomen, chest and face. He had all of his claws, and his legs hadn't been severed.

The robot's circular eyes of inquisitiveness had returned to a gentle, comely cyan. "Watcha doin'?" He asked, a dainty smile spreading across his face. The smile unsettled the invader. The robot then toddled over, stepping over the mess as if he had no part in it. Zim sat frozen, and could only watch, shivering, when the robot stopped beside him. A little metal hand reached out and came to rest on his cheek. "Does it hurt?"

He was suddenly breathless, and his head felt light and unsteady on his shoulders. "But... but you... you were..."

Gir cocked his head at him.

Zim brushed his little hand off him and managed to stand. His ankle was holding up, but it hurt when he experimentally put weight on it.

From flinching, wide, glassy eyes, he took in a room that was broken, with heaps of plaster and unearthed tubing everywhere, and decorated with hanging bits of wallpaper. The couch had been ripped up, its springs and stuffing jutting through slashed seams. Wherever he looked, his eyes always swung back to the robot.

"Gir..." He began gently, like one would speak to a child who had just done something terrible without truly understanding the nature of it, "what is the last thing you remember?"

"Urm, bacon and cheese? No, wait. That was yesterday. Urm, you came home. Yous wanted onions with your ginnis?" Zim looked at him with that same suspicious ache. "Can I go outside now? I wanna play with the snow."

"Do y-you feel odd at all?" The Irken continued in a shaky voice.

"No." He said matter-of-factly. "What's 'odd?' Eggs are pretty odd. Does that make me an egg?"

Gir only did what his programming dictated of him, nothing more, and nothing less. It was possible that his database or even his foundational drives had got corrupted somehow. Was the switch totally random, or was there a pattern that triggered it? He had to get Gir down below so that he could diagnose the problem.

He was not used to feeling threatened in his own home, and not used to looking at his robot any differently. Suddenly it was that much harder to stay strong. "Gir, I need you to listen to me very carefully. We're going down below for some maintenance."

"Ooh! I like maintance!" Then he seemed to change his mind, and his body posture drooped some. "But maintance sounds boring."

"Then how about we play a game?" Zim suggested, catering to his childish desires.

Gir perked up instantly. "I LOVE games!"

"Good, Gir. Good."