A/N: Hey, you guys. I'm so sorry about the lateness of this chapter. But I've been having all sorts of computer trouble lately. First, the power cord for my laptop died and then I just plain couldn't get a connection anywhere. But I'm not about to let that stop me from updating. So for those of you who have been waiting so patiently, here's Chapter 5 of ZADR Orange. =3 Thanks to those of you who faved or added the story to your story alert list and remember, feedback is much appreciated.=3
Warnings: Extreme OOCness
Rating: M for later chapters
Disclaimer: We do not own Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from it. We do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Zim/Gir/Drones: Notgonnadie
Dib: Me
Tallest Red: Both of us
Beta: Notgonnadie
It was all over now. There was nothing he could do. After years of trying to protect the Earth, he had been the one to have ultimately handed it over to the Irken Empire. Letting out a small whimper in his sleep, Dib curled in on himself, sniffling wetly still.
Feeling a sharp stab through his chest like he had felt before, Zim apologized again, in a soft voice to the other. "I'm sorry, Dib...I did it all..."he said before curling up even more around Dib.
Sleeping on for several more hours, Dib let out a small moan as he began to come back around again, blinking his eyes open, a bit disoriented at first about where he was. "Hmmm?" he sounded out, looking about the room.
Having migrated to one of the corners of the room, Zim laid curled up on the floor across from him.
Dib blinked his eyes a few more times, looking around the room some more until he remembered where he was and why. Sitting up quickly in the bed, it took him a moment to notice Zim over in the corner. "Z-Zim?" he said the others name before throwing the covers off of himself and stumbling his way over to the Irken, falling flat on his face from not being used to walking on a ship in space yet. Sitting up slowly, he held his head and let out a pained noise. "Ow..." he groaned before crawling the rest of the way over to Zim, the motion of the ship making him feel slightly sick to his stomach. "Z-Zim..."he said one last time, trying to get the Irken's attention.
"...Yes?" he finally responded, remaining facing away from Dib, his sad stare fixed on the wall.
Reaching out a hand to touch the others cheek, Dib stopped himself, pulling back his hand to his chest and looking away to the side. "Wh-What's going to happen to us now?" he asked, truly not wanting to think about it.
"We will be given a ship and sent to a dwelling planet somewhere in the Irken Empire...We gave the Earth its new purpose too..." he responded monotonously.
"A-And that was?" he asked, really not wanting to know but still needing to know what he had doomed his own home planet to.
"Earth will be a zoo..." Zim just came out and said it, little emotion to his voice.
"Wh-What? A zoo?" he exploded, looking up at Zim in disbelief. "A-And are humans the only species that are going to be treated like animals?" his voice then grew shaky.
Waving a hand at Dib, Zim attempted to calm him back down. "Relax, Dib...It's more like a reserve...I made sure they wouldn't let the humans know anything was going on. As long as they don't try to leave the planet's surface, they will be fine...But that was the best I could do...I know it's not good enough for YOU, but I tried." he spat out before sighing heavily and curling up even more. "The Tallest was angry with me...I was demoted for this..."
"D-Demoted? Wh-What do you mean by d-demoted? Demoted to what?" he obviously didn't understand the situation.
"Service drone...This means I have to work in retirement...So are you happy yet? I saved your stupid planet! I got demoted! My life is screwed now!" he snapped before sighing heavily again and curling in on himself.
Pulling away from the Irken, Dib could only stare at Zim with wide, fearful eyes for the sudden outburst. "I...I...I want to go home..." he sobbed, shrinking back away from the other.
Those words had Zim gasping in surprise before staring at Dib sadly and sniffling. He knew Dib really wanted to leave.
Clapping his hands from the doorway, Red slowly walked into the room they were in with the drone from before. "Good! Because seeing as how Zim's been demoted, even YOU outrank him now! You're going to have your memory wiped and be sent back to live the rest of your life on your own planet! Isn't that great?" he addressed Dib, an evil smirk on his face.
Walking up to Zim, the drone from before kicked Zim hard in the side. "Move it, you!" he demanded, having been ordered to take Zim to a new holding cell.
Flinching at the rough kick, Zim merely did as he was told, getting up and following the drone out of the room.
Sighing out happily as he watched the drone take Zim away, Red turned to smirk down at Dib cruelly. "I should really thank you, human. Your lie finally gave me the chance to get rid of him. But...He seemed a bit off at the meeting. He must have hit his head sometime recently..."he snickered knowingly. "Let's hope so. Then maybe he'll finally die already." he said before grabbing Dib's arm to take him away.
But Dib resisted, instantly trying to pull away from Red. "No! Don't touch me!" he screamed, struggling against the taller Irken.
Slapping him across the face, Red glowered down at him. "What are you struggling so much for? This is what you just said you wanted, isn't it? Or would you rather stay here and suffer the same fate as Zim?" he said, yanking Dib out of the room, wrenching his arm behind his back and walking him in the opposite direction from Zim, towards the teleporter.
Letting out a sharp cry at having his arm wrenched behind his back, Dib continued to struggle nonetheless. "No! Let me go! Zim! ZIM!" he called out, looking back behind himself at the Irken, who was getting farther and farther away from him. "No! Zim!" he screamed out desperately one last time before suddenly feeling a hard blow to the back of the head, delivered by another one of the drones on board the Massive, and seeing everything around him going dark.
Holding him up by his arms, the drone that had knocked him out and another drone that had come to offer his assistance began dragging him in the direction of the teleporter.
"Jeez, he's annoying. No wonder Zim took a liking to him. They're too much alike!" Red commented before turning to follow the two drones.
"Shouldn't we wipe his memory first?" one of the drones then asked.
"Nah...Why bother? What could he ever do to us?" he sneered down at the unconscious human.
"Of course, my Tallest. How foolish of me." the drone bowed to him.
"Well, we can just hope that Zim will die now, but you know, the planet will make a great attraction." Red smiled all too wide.
"As a zoo?" the other drone questioned.
"No. As an asteroid field." he laughed evilly.
Smiling also, the drones then shoved Dib into the teleporter and typed in some coordinates before returning Dib back to Earth.
It wouldn't be until several hours later that Dib awoke to find himself in Zim's lab.
Head throbbing, Dib groaned out in some pain. "Wh-What happened?" he asked himself, trying to move from his spot but just wincing and curling in on himself, clutching at his head. "Ah! Wh-Why does my head hurt so much?" he tried to force his eyes open to look around. "Z-Zim's lab? B-But what am I doing here?" he asked, sitting up slowly.
That's when Gir came bursting into the lab in hysterics. "MARY!" he tackled Dib back down to the ground. "MARY! MARY! WHERE'S MASTER? YOU AND MASTER WENT FLASHY FLASHY! NOW MASTER GOOONE!" he screamed, pointing at the teleporter all the while.
Looking down at Gir once he had sat up again, Dib could only send the babbling android a completely blank expression before looking up at the teleporter. "I-I don't know. I-" he cut himself off to grab his head again. "Ouch! I don't remember anything!" he said, pulling one of his hands away just to find blood on it, his eyes growing wide in fear. "S-Something bad happened...B-But...I can't remember what!" he said, pushing himself up onto his feet to search the room for anything that might jog his memory.
"There's a big mountain next to the couch!" he grinned, all problems suddenly forgotten. "Can you climb it with meee?" he asked excitedly.
Looking back over at Gir, Dib merely sent the insane robot a confused look. "Umm...Maybe later, Gir. In the meantime, I have to figure out what happened to your master." he said, returning to his search for anything that might help him remember.
"But the mountain!" Gir exclaimed, trying to tug Dib upstairs. "It's gots squishy squishy powers on master!" he said, trying to make Dib follow him.
Sending Gir another confused look, Dib finally gave in and let the insane robot drag him back upstairs to the living room where the pile of debris and wires still was. Eyes growing wide at seeing it, Dib couldn't help but approach it slowly. "Wh-What happened?" he exclaimed, staring at it a few moments longer before the memory of what had happened earlier hit him and his eyes grew even wider.
"H-He was buried under all of this...and...and I carried him down to his lab to dress his wounds..." he began piecing things back together in his head, quickly making his way back down to the lab, looking around, the memories all coming back to him now. "He kissed me and then...and then one of his leaders called and..." he felt his legs shaking. "Th-They took him! They took him and sent me back here!" he said, his legs finally giving in, causing him to collapse onto the floor to his knees as the memory of the last thing Red had said ran through his mind. "A-And they plan on killing him..."he felt the tears welling up in his eyes again before slipping down his cheeks.
Oblivious to Dib once again, Gir merely cheered happily. "YAY!" he exclaimed before happily running back upstairs to dive into the pile of rubble in the living room.
Meanwhile, back on the Massive, Zim sat within a locked cell with one of the drones guarding the door to prevent him from escaping.
Rolling over in his cubby hole of a cell, Zim merely stared at the wall sadly. "I'll miss you, Dib..." his voice was low and strained.
The drone could only snicker at this remark. "Well, there won't be much to miss here soon."
That had Zim's eyes growing wide. "Wh-What do you mean?" he asked, rolling over to glare at the drone.
A/N: Well, there you have it. Your weekly update for those of you reading. And, yes. I know I am evil for leaving you all off there. XD But hopefully the next chapter won't take me as long to get to you all. Now, I'd like to take this time to thank those of you who reviewed.
To MadameJelly: Lol. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Dib doesn't exactly get very much time on the Massive to explore it, as you'll see in this chapter. But he does return to it in a few chapters on a search and rescue mission. XD Hope that doesn't spoil the story for you though. There are plenty of other crazy plot bunnies you'll have the opportunity to follow after later in the story. =3
To kaoru1174: Oh, yes. Poor Dibbles has absolutely the worst of luck in this story. We torment him and Zim so much. But fear not. Zim and Dib aren't about to just give up the Earth without a fight, as you'll see in later chapters. =3 Thanks a ton for the comment, and we'll certainly try our best to keep the story as interesting as possible for you people. =3
To Illisandria Carthain: Yayz! Another review from you! *Dances* Sorry for the wait on some of these chapters. Computers really don't like me very much though. I'm happy to see you're still reading however despite the slowness of my updates. Yes. It really is tragic what one little lie can bring about. The universe just really enjoys screwing Dib over though. XD And if I said this story were a happy one, I'd be lying. It's more like a very sad story with a hopefully happy ending. XD My partner and I are still writing it. But fear not. We're not totally evil and this story is full of cuteness, if you don't mind the OOCness of it. XD Anyways, your 'ness'es were indeed inspiring. For it is comments like that that keep us going. =3
To MotokoIsMe112: Hmmm...I take your random spasming as a good sign that you're at least enjoying the story. XD As for the fate of Earth, however, I cannot tell you that just yet. You'll have to keep on reading to find out. XD And I DO hope you'll continue reading. =3
To DessArtem: Thank you for the comment. Hopefully this wasn't too horrible a wait for you. And we hope you enjoy future installments of this story. =3