"Use Twineedle!" Zim urged her.
"You got it" Driver obediently selected the attack.
Their Beedrill launched the attack on the enemy Druddigon, dealing three strikes; yet despite its health bar being already in the red, they weren't enough to exhaust it.
"If he kills us now it's over" Zim anxiously tugged at her arm.
"He won't! … I hope" Driver weakly reassured him.
The Druddigon launched its devastating counterattack, lowering their poor Beedrill's health down to a red dot.
Driver and Zim held their breath in anticipation, both bent down to stare at her DS console's screen: now came the moment of truth.
As the turn ended, the Druddigon lost what little remained of its health to the additional damage inflicted by its poison status, and finally fell with one last, pained gasp.
" YES!" they cheered in unison, both jumping on their seats with excitement.
"In your face, League!" Driver gloated.
"BOW BEFORE YOUR NEW CHAMPIONS, YOU PATHETIC WORMS!" Zim screeched as loudly as possible, sending tiny droplets of saliva on the screen, and honestly? She couldn't really blame him. They'd been trying to win against the damn League for two hours now, repeatedly forced to readjust their strategy each time their entire team was wiped out. And as it turns out, a Pokémon team can be wiped out lots of times in only two hours.
"Another crushing victory for this formidable duo" Driver lifted up a hand in front of Zim.
He hesitated for a moment; then, he gently hit her palm with his own, like he was afraid to hurt her: Zim always seemed unsure of the strength he was supposed to employ when touching her, but lately he'd resolved to learn at least some of her 'Human Touch Rituals', as he called them; and playing games together had been the perfect opportunity to teach him how to high five.
Driver smiled and slightly nodded at him, as if to say, 'Not bad!', and Zim kept on going with his gloating:
"We smote them like vermin! I should've know, the secret to winning the Championship always lay in the poisonous properties of the bees!"
"Bees are very powerful" Driver agreed, "I don't care what anyone says. Bug types are great. I wish my bees would attack my enemies on command..."
"Me too" Zim sighed in a regretful, melancholic tone, "Believed me, I've tried..."
Driver skipped the winning speech by pressing down the A button, and immediately saved the game: had they had to go through all that hell again, she would have probably just thrown the console into open space.
"Wanna keep playing? We can go on and complete the Pokédex now"
"Ehhh..." Zim made a bored noise. "I don't know. I think I've had my fill of Poké-monsters for today"
"Yeah... same" Driver nodded; she turned off the DS, closed it and placed it back in its drawer.
"What do we do now, human?" Zim asked.
"Well… we need to buy some supplies. There's a few inhabited planets ahead on the way where we can go. But otherwise, nothing much"
"I meant now now" Zim precised, "Do you have any other games?"
"Oh… uhhh… there's… Space Spider on the computer. We can take turns at it?"
"Never mind" he sighed as he sunk in his chair with a bored huff, crossing his arms in his lap.
It'd been three or four since the 'market day', and they were finally on the way to the laboratory Mister Krassmann had indicated to them; but despite their progress, their days had actually become pretty dull: aside from the Space Diner they occasionally ate lunch or breakfast at, they were always stuck inside her spaceship. To make the time pass, they'd started playing games, either the ones available on the ship's built-in computer, or the 'manual' ones, like rock-paper-scissors, or Pokémon, the only game she'd brought for her Nintendo DS. And on top of that, of course, they chatted and made out, same old same old. But now, even all that was getting dull. Everything seemed duller, when you were stuck in a small, enclosed space like that.
She lazily tapped her fingers on the seat's armrest and looked over at Zim, slouching on his seat to her left, looking all bored and absolutely adorable, with his antennae low and his eyes half open.
Now that she thought about it… there was one fun activity they could engage in.
She crossed her legs, trying to assume a relaxed and sensual at once pose, with her left side rested on the chair, and her right arm rested on her thigh's side.
Living in close contact with him for days like that, she was finding it increasingly difficult to… to be perfectly blunt, restrain herself from literally jumping on him.
Yet, she held back: the only time she and Zim had engaged in something that could kind of count as sex, was on that first night, when she'd groped him on her bed, both completely drunk out of their mind, and his reaction to that had been a very confused expression coupled with the question: 'What are you doing?'
Truth was, she still felt kind of like creepo for forcing herself on him like that.
After that, they had never talked about sex again, and Zim clearly had a very complicated relationship with anything intimate: when he kissed and touched her, he looked pretty aroused and up for it, yet every time she tried to go further than simple kissing he stopped her, looking all flustered and overwhelmed and confused.
The last thing she wanted was to make him uncomfortable again and risk turning their relationship sour again, just now that it was beginning to really take off.
You're making such a fuss over such a non-issue, a voice within her spoke up. You never signed a chastity contract. He can't literally not know what sex is. You're in a relationship now, and you're both adults, so stop being so awkward and just tell him, directly: 'I wanna have sex with you'.
Heart pounding, she gulped down her shyness. What did she have to lose anyway? This was gonna come up anyway sooner or later.
"You know… uhm" she cleared her throat, "there's a bed in the back of the ship" she tried, gesturing towards her room in the back of her ship: before she did ask directly, she wanted to at least set up the mood.
Zim didn't even bother looking at her. He kept staring in front of him, fiddling with his fingers.
"Yeah, I know that" he mumbled.
"I know that you know that" she smirked.
Zim slightly turned his head towards her.
"... okay?" he said in a confused voice.
"... sooo... wanna try it... together?" she asked in a sensual voice.
"You know I don't sleep, Driver"
… breathe in, Driver. Let's try this again, she told herself. Irkens didn't need to sleep. Ergo, they didn't need beds. So probably that was why 'bed' and 'sex' didn't correlate in his mind.
"Oh, I wouldn't let you sleep" she winked at him.
"… why not?" he asked, looking even more confused.
"Becaaaause" she lifted an arm and tickled his shoulder, "what I'm going to do is going to keep your attention aaall on me"
He perplexedly looked at her finger, then back at her face.
"Is that a threat? Are you gonna trick me into playing that dumb 'don't look at my fingers forming a circle' thing again?"
… Okay. Quick, now. Find a way to make this sexy!
"Oh" she smirked. She formed a circle with her index finger and thumb in front of him, "you mean like this?" she wiggled her eyebrows, as she lowered and raised her hand up and down in the air.
"... is the boredom melting your brain, woman?" he asked in a genuinely concerned voice, "Maybe you really should lie down and sleep for a while"
"… alright. Let's change approach" she mumbled under her breath, readjusting herself on her chair.
"Hey, Zim" she called him.
He lifted his head up, and she patted her hands on her thighs:
"Come here" she invited him.
He lifted a brow up.
"Come... there?"
"Yeah, sit here!" she nodded.
"... why?"
"I wanna cuddle with you" she smiled, speaking in a cute, sweet voice:
"... 'cuddle'?" he slowly repeated.
"Uh… you know what that is, right? It's-"
"Of course I do!" he interrupted her. "But that's hardly a fun activity, and more of a... ritualistic display of affection".
Where the HELL does he get those definitions from, oh my God...
"Awww, come on, Zim" she whined. She extended a hand and tickled the tip of his antenna, which twitched back instinctively. "Don't you wanna cuddle with me? With your partner?"
He flinched, blushing, already embarrassed by that simple gesture. He put a finger under his chin, like he was pondering on a serious, difficult question.
"Couples... cuddle, don't they?" he said in a thoughtful tone.
"Heh... yeah, uhm…" her voiced switched back to a normal one: already she was worried she was coercing him into something he didn't want.
"Look, it's okay. We don't have to do it if you're not-"
Zim's right arm shot up on her shoulder, in a gesture that meant: 'Stop that'.
"ZiM can do it!" he reassured, a look of determination on his face. "It's not too different from the making-out, no?"
Before she could retort, he used the armrest of his seat as leverage and jumped over, landing with his rear on her legs.
"It's not about what you can do, Zim. It's about what you want to do" she explained.
"If you think you could ever force ZiM to do anything he doesn't want, you're sorely mistaken, woman" he cut her off in an authoritative voice, back straightened and arms on his chest in a headstrong pose.
She stared at him from behind, amazed at his unusual... compliance. In the past few days he had indeed made significant efforts at being closer to her, but the difference with his past self was so stark, that that still took her aback quite a lot.
Then, Zim turned his face to look at her, looking way more unsure than just a moment before.
"Uhm... do I have to, uh-" his hands moved up and down in a series of uncertain, awkward gestures.
"Oh, no! No, no. Just relax" she reassured him.
Her hands raised to cup his cheeks, and she kissed the top of his head.
Zim shuddered, his antennae twitching.
"Leave this to me" she whispered; with one hand, she gently guided his chin to the right and kissed his cheek. Her other arm moved around his waist to close him in a hug.
Sitting on her like that, she could feel his body so clearly: it was light, and soft, and pleasantly warm against her skin. Not much different than having Cat on her lap, to be honest. Only he was much, much stiffer than her relaxed pet cat.
"You're always so tense" she commented. She crossed her arms around him, and affectionately stroked his own. "Do I make you uncomfortable, Zim?"
"N-no. No, of course not!" he remarked, trying to sound more secure than he actually was. "I'm just… unused to this" he explained.
"Hmmm" she hummed, planting another kiss on his head.
She uncrossed her arms and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Have you ever been massaged?" she asked him.
"Not… really"
"Can I try? I think you'd like it" she proposed, circling her palms against his shoulders.
"Okay..." Zim nodded, his body shivering at that new type of touch.
She moved her hands under his shoulder blades, pushing her palms and drawing circles on his back; Zim arched his back, following her movements, his body finally loosening under her touch.
"Do you like it?"
"Uhm" he hummed.
"No?"
"No, I do! I do... like this", and for once he really sounded relaxed despite their closeness.
It was so weird, seeing Zim being so calm, and… loving, in his own shy, awkward way. And above all honest, not trying to hide his true feelings towards her anymore.
Driver smiled at him from behind: finally, for the first time in her life, she felt like she was in an actual relationship. She'd sometimes fancied what it would be like to be in one, without ever fully believing someone like that could ever have a normal (as normal as Zim was) boyfriend, and truly… this was very, very nice. Much nicer than she'd ever imagined. Is that what other people- what other humans felt like, living their normal mundane lives with their partners, back on Earth? No lies, no monies, no heists involved? Just pure, genuine, honest affection for another person?
Her chest warmed up with a happy, loving feeling for the little alien in her lap, and her urge to be closer to him suddenly grew.
Holding him back by one shoulder, she pushed his lower back forward; she heard a crack coming from his spine, and he hummed again, a bit louder this time.
"Did that hurt?" she asked.
"No, it's... nice " he smiled "You're very good at this"
"You shouldn't sit on a chair all day, Zim. It's not good for your spine"
"What should I do?" he asked in a playfully sarcastic voice, "Take a walk out your ship?"
"Well" she chuckled, "You could come lie on my bed some time"
Again, she lifted his chin up to make him look at her. She stroked his cheek, and smiled.
"I think there would be room for the both of us" she whispered, mouth very close to his own.
Zim returned her smile, and he stretched his neck up, recognizing her cue to kiss her.
As their mouths met, her right hand trailed down his arm to hold his own; he returned the gesture, squeezing her back. Meanwhile, her left hand moved from his cheek to scratch that point in his nape that he liked so much; and sure enough, his body shuddered at that pleasant touch.
She shifted her legs to allow him a better angle; Zim also adjusted his own, balancing himself as they kissed and sucked and nibbled on each other's lips, the wet, sweet sounds resulting from their movements exciting her more and more.
Then, Driver did something they hadn't tried in days: she sneaked her tongue inside his mouth, and rubbed the tip on his palate. Another, stronger shiver ran through his body. His hand twitched in her own, and his legs pressed together. But he didn't fight against that gesture. Instead, she felt his tongue curl around hers; it was at least twice the length of hers, and much stronger: he pushed it up, his unnaturally long tongue swirling inside her on mouth- well, 'unnatural' for a human. But really, who even needed a human man anymore when she could have this?
At this point, the itch between her legs had gotten torturous. If there was ever a right moment to escalate with him, it was this.
Her left hand shifted it from his nape to his chest: as she stroked it, she felt his heart pounding hard inside his body.
She drew her tongue back; both their lips were pleasantly damp with saliva (who knows whose exactly?); his breath was heavy and ragged.
"You having fun yet?" she whispered, smirking against his mouth.
"Er, uh- uh-" he stammered, panting. "Y... yes?" he tried answering, his voice reduced to a quiet, shy squeal.
Her grin deepened.
"Me too"
Driver pushed their mouths back together, shoving her tongue back inside his mouth; the hand on his nape rose on the top of his head to gently bend it backwards and keep him in place as she kissed him.
Her right hand trailed down from his chest: she stroked his right thigh, and spread his legs apart.
"Nnngh" a silent moan escaped his throat and into her mouth.
With one last nibble on his lower lip, she left his mouth to kiss and gently suck on his chin, using the grip on his head to keep it tilted back.
Zim breathed in and panted, grasping for breath.
"D-Driver" he moaned her name, sending her arousal up to an all time high.
She trailed down to his neck, and kissed it.
Zim's whole body involuntarily contracted all at once, a silent gasp escaping his lips.
"Ho-hold up- uhn" his hand grabbed the wrist of the hand on his thigh, and she felt him closing his legs together.
Her hand promptly opposed that gesture, pushing his legs back open, and she gently bit down on his neck.
"Hyah!" Zim emitted a choked squeal, squirming and shivering at that new, intense sensation.
Then, all of a sudden, she heard a
Beep
sound coming from the radar on her ship. She knew it very well, and immediately recognized it as the signal that an object of considerable size (probably a ship) was within 100 meters.
Never mind it. Probably some tourists, she dismissed it.
She gently sucked on that bit of skin that she'd just bitten, and she resumed stroking his thigh.
Beep
The 50 meters signal.
It's probably nothing. This is a trafficked route, she reasoned.
Zim contorted, his breath becoming even more irregular; he was trying really hard to resist his body's contractions, she could tell.
"D-Driver, be gentler..." he managed to push out of his trembling lips.
Beep
30 meters.
She placed a gentle kiss on that place, as a way to apologize for her roughness. Then, her hand slowly trailed up his thigh, until it reached-
BOOM.
Something loudly hit the back of the ship, causing the whole thing to shake, making them both jump in their seat.
Driver's heart skipped a beat, startled at that loud sound, her head instinctively shooting up from Zim's neck. Zim too had the same reaction, and they both looked behind them at the source of the sound.
Then, a red light turned on on the panel control, accompanied by a beeping; on the windshield-screen, the stylized image of the ship appeared, with a red dot flashing in a point of its stern.
Her heart thudded in alarm: something had just breached the ship.
Zim straightened on her lap, looking between the back of the ship and the image on the windshield, grasping her shirt tight with both hands.
"WHAT?! What's going on?!" he exclaimed.
"Uh..."
"Driver!" he turned to her, "Someone shot the ship! It must be that ship on the radar!"
She looked down at the radar, a green dot indicating the presence of another vehicle behind theirs.
"... so it seems" she agreed.
They stared at each other for a moment.
"Well?!" he impatiently urged her, "Do something!"
She looked with immense, pained hesitation at her hand still resting on his thigh.
"... right now?"
"Of course right now, are you MAD?!" Zim scrambled out of her lap to press a button on the panel control, activate one of the rear cameras of the ship.
In the bottom corner of the windshield appeared an image of the space behind them; there it was: a golden-colored ship was hovering just behind hem.
"Who are they?! Why did they hit us?!" he asked.
Driver stared at the ship, full of rage against the unknown disturbers.
She didn't exactly know who they were, but already had an idea of who they might be.
But why right now of all times? Of all the moments it could have happened! Couldn't it have waited for another… three, four hours?
She rolled her eyes, huffing with annoyance, grabbed Zim by the edge of his collar and deposited back him on his seat.
"Ship!" she loudly commanded, "Activate defense shield!"
A blue light turned on on the panel control to signal that the invisible defensive force field had activated around the ship; then, she deactivated the autopilot option and pushed the accelerator lever all the way down.
The engines produced a loud rumble, and the ship abruptly changed pace, launching itself forward and away from the attackers, so quickly that Driver's and Zim's back were pressed back against their seats. The whole structure around them, too, trembled at that sudden acceleration.
The enemy ship, too, hastened its pace, a blue flame coming out its propellers, but this time maintaining a considerable distance between them.
"Now they're following us?!" Zim exclaimed, bewildered.
"Ship, what's the damage on the stern?" Driver asked the ship.
"Analyzing. Stern section. Level 1 breach located. Damage report: minimal" the AI answered in a mechanical, female voice.
"Ha!" Zim scoffed, "Is that the most damage their little ship can do?! Pathetic!"
"That was probably just a warning shot" Driver noted. "That ship looks dangerous, and much stronger than mine. They could have done some serious damage if they wanted to. I think they're trying to catch me alive. Or to show off. Or both. It's weird, though, that they're not trying to fire at all anym-"
Just as she was saying that, the golden ship in the monitor fired two red lasers at them from the firers on its top; fortunately, they dissipated as soon as they touched the force field.
"Woah, okay. Never mind. Hold on tight" Driver sharply steered the ship to the left, avoiding another couple of shots.
"'Catch you'?" Zim confusedly repeated, hands on the armrests to balance himself. "Driver, what's going on?! Who ARE those people?! Do you know them?!"
"They must be bounty hunters, coming after me" she explained.
"Bounty hunters?! After you?! Why?!"
"Why?" she scoffed, "Oh, geez, Zim. Where do I even begin? You want the list by year or by galaxy?"
She accelerated again, and the enemy ship followed suit, firing those red lasers again.
"Ahhh, the hell" she grumbled, "How the hell did they trace me back?!"
The golden ship steered even more to the left and shot again, forcing her to change route. The force field was holding up good against those lasers, but it wasn't going to last forever: that was probably their end goal, trying to wear their defenses down until they'd be forced to surrender against their better-equipped ship.
"Driver, do something! Shoot them back!"
"At this angle?"
"What else do you wanna do?!"
"Aye aye, captain" she rolled her eyes. "Ship, lock on the missile launchers on the enemy ship and shoot them".
The ship's AI obeyed, the missile launchers positioning themselves; two missiles shot at their opponents, hitting their own defense field: the missiles exploded a few feet away from the ship's surface, without producing any significant damage.
"There, I wasted two missiles. Happy now?"
"Don't you have anything stronger to hit them with?!" Zim anxiously asked.
"We have no chance of winning against that ship" she bluntly stated.
"Ship, check for nearby planets. Ones with lots of people on 'em, possibly" she then turned to her ship.
The enemy ship shot at them again, firing a stronger laser: as its energy bar on the monitor indicated, the defense field was now at half its capacity.
"That's it, I'm taking the Voot Cruiser! We'll take them, two on one! Let's see how they fare against Irken technology, instead of… this… whatever technology!" Zim tried to jump out his seat, but she held him back by the shoulder.
"NO" she admonished him, "Stop being so anxious. I have everything under control".
"Oh, do you?! Doesn't look like it to me!" Zim pouted.
Suddenly, the list of the nearby, highly-populated planets appeared on the screen in front of them: there were three in total.
"Display course for the closest one" she ordered, without even checking for its name.
The ship obeyed, displaying a rudimentary map with the course traced in red on it. How lucky for them: the planet was just at a fifteen-minute flight from there, to the starboard side.
Drive hastily steered the ship in that direction, managing to evade another attack from the enemy.
"We're not going to engage in combat. This is a criminal's ship. It's made to run from the law, not fight it" she explained to Zim.
The enemy ship pursued them, but stopped with its attacks. Soon, she understood why: the ships built-in communicator started ringing.
"Are they calling us now? After they shot us?!" Zim exclaimed.
"Yeah. Rude..." Driver nodded in agreement.
She hesitated for a moment. Then, she pressed down a button, accepting the call.
On the screen appeared the text: INCOMING CALL by [Mysterious Justice Bringers].
"Pfff, hahaha!" she couldn't help but burst out in laughter, "Who came up with that name? A child?!"
"We should blow them up for that name alone" Zim agreed, voice full of scorn.
The communicator finally stopped ringing as the lines connected.
Then, a deep, grave, robotic voice rumbled from the speakers:
"Cease and surrender. I know who you are and who you're traveling with, Earth woman. You can't outrun me".
Driver's mocking smile fell, a look of shock and confusion replacing it. Had he just called her 'Earth woman'? He knew what Earth was? And he knew Zim was with her?
What the HELL was going on?!
Overcoming the initial surprise, she frowned in anger at that arrogant voice: she wasn't going to cave in the threats of a coward that had had to sneak up on her to even challenge her.
She picked the communicator embedded in the panel control up, pressed the button on it and spoke her answer:
"Blow me" she simply growled, and with that she slammed the communicator back into its place.
"Don't encourage them!" Zim reprimanded her.
Driver went directly against their orders and pushed the ship forward even faster.
The enemy ship pursued them, this time coming much closer to them: evidently, her defiant reply had worn out their patience.
They resumed with their shooting; she avoided one shot, but the other managed to hit their shield: two or three more blows and it would have been out.
"Well, what do we do now?!" Zim asked, even more panicked than before.
"What we were doing before: we're going to lose 'em. Put on your seat belt, will you? It's gonna get a bit intense"
Driver quickly strapped herself, and Zim followed her. Another laser fired at them, further weakening the defense shield.
"Are you sure you don't want me to take the Voot Cruiser?!" Zim tugged at her sleeve.
Driver didn't pay him attention, though: the enemy ship was gaining ground (space?) behind them; the long, metal rostrum on protruding from its prow started flashing of a white light: they were probably going to try and breach their stern, hooking their ship to theirs.
That's actually a cool trick, she pondered. If I ever become a pirate, I'll definitely use it.
"Hey, Zim. Wanna see something cool?" she smirked at him.
Zim's antennae perked up in curiosity as she pressed a series of keys on the panel control.
"It's a one-time trick, so let's hope it works"
"A 'trick'? What- ah!" he gasped in fear as he noticed the enemy being a mere 1000 feet from them again.
To be honest, that sight was making her anxious too; it was unavoidable, though: she needed to lure them in enough for them to turn off their defensive shield, or this would have never worked.
"Waaaait for it..." Driver positioned her hands in the right places for the Escape Maneuver.
The enemy fired another laser at them, and it completely shattered the force field. Their flashing rostrum threateningly approached their ship, about to pierce it.
Now.
Her left hand pushed a button: a plate on her ship's stern opened up, releasing a big mass of black goo into space that hit and stuck to the entirety of the enemy ship's rostrum and its windshield.
With her other hand, Driver pulled a small lever on the panel control, activating the Radar Disruptor.
Then, finally, she pushed the lever to the right of her seat, thus throwing the ship in a hyperspace jump.
The stars around them became horizontal flashes of lights, as they sped through space towards the planet the ship had suggested.
"Goo? GOO? THAT'S your trick?!" Zim exclaimed, astounded.
"Works every time" she nodded proudly, "I suggested installing it. I call it… the 'Squid Escape Maneuver'"
"That's so stupid! … and genius!" Zim held his temples as though his mind had just been blown, "Why doesn't anyone else use it?!"
"For the same reason it works: it's unexpected. And aliens usually lack imagination" she smugly smirked.
"Plus, with the Radar Disruptor I activated, I doubt they're gonna be able to figure out where we went- oh" she tried going on with her explanation, but something unexpected happened: the ship started stumbling and losing velocity, until the hyperspace jump interrupted much earlier than its usual duration.
Now that was… weird.
Still, not a big problem, she guessed. The planet they were set on reaching was right in front of them anyway: it was of a bright orange color, and it had three moons.
"Ship, try locking in with the local satellites" Driver ordered.
But, no response came from the ship.
"Ship?" she called. "Hey? Ship?!" she impatiently hit the panel with a fist.
Still nothing.
"Crap. Is the mic broken? What happened to the hyperspace? " she asked, turning to Zim.
"What? Are you asking me?" he retorted.
"You're the engineer here!"
"Ehhh… That first hit must've damaged the AI? Somehow?" he shrugged, seemingly unable to think of a better explanation.
"Well… at any rate, we should probably land. We need to buy supplies and fuel. And goo. And she clearly needs some maintenance..." she affectionately patted the ship's panel control.
"'She'? The ship? Why are you calling it a she?"
"All ships are girls, Zim"
"... what?!" he asked bewildered.
"You heard me. Trust me, I know. Now let's land and check for damage."
The ship stumbled down till it breached the planet's atmosphere: the city they'd stumbled upon was very crowded, all the buildings in its center as high as skyscrapers; around it was an orange-tinted landscape with smaller, square buildings; it was all in all very similar to an Earthen metropolis, except for the hundreds of flying vehicles hovering around.
Driving flew down among the inhabitants, trying to blend in with the crowd, all the while checking if the enemy was still behind them.
Dishearteningly enough, the ship started malfunctioning more and more as they flew around: first, the cameras shut off. Then, the radar and the GPS. When she tried summoning the weapons, the ship was unresponsive. The AI itself was silent: they were now completely defenseless.
Driver looked around for good place to hide the ship, outside of the city center: she flew them in an a relatively isolated area in the suburb, between a construction site and what seemed to be a scrap yard.
Now even the steering wheel seemed to be having problems, the ship becoming more and more resistant to her commands.
When she finally managed to land, she took the chance to turn the ship off; she tried restarting the program, and when it seemed to be loading normally, she almost believed the problem would be fixed just like that.
But then, the lights on the ship flickered; the windshield's screen turned to black, the default 'error loading' warning on it; the panel control's lights, too, got set in standby mode, and from then on, no matter how many times she tried to restart the system, the ship became irreversibly and completely inoperable.
"Perfect!" she threw her hands u in frustration, "Just perfect! Now what?"
Zim had observed the whole thing very attentively and quietly.
"Let's check the damage to the stern first" he finally spoke in a serious, pensive voice.
They climbed on the roof of the ship to check the damage that first enemy shot had provoked, but, much to their surprise, it hadn't been a laser, or a missile that they'd fired at them: there was something metal there, stuck between the broken panels of the ship.
Zim cautiously picked it up with his PAK legs, lifting it up for both of them to examine.
"What is it? An unexploded missile?" she tried guessing.
"It has a rocket motor… but it's hollow inside" Zim shook his head as he examined it. He raised it up to her face, so that she could see the frontal part, the one that had pierced her ship: it now had a hole in it, through which she could confirm that yes, the inside was completely empty.
"It's like they emptied a missile… maybe this was a manufacturing error?" with one hand, Zim drew a scanner out of its PAK, pointing it at the empty missile: 'origin unknown', was the result of the scan.
"Garbage" he muttered, throwing the thing to the side and down on the ground next to her ship.
"Well, I guess we were pretty lucky that that first shot was a defective one. This hole here, too, will be easy enough to cover. We have some spare panels in the storage, yes? Yet… what does this have to do with the ship's system malfunctioning?" Zim reflected. "Is the AI interface somehow connected to the exterior?" he asked her.
It probably wasn't appropriate for the time being, but Zim just looked so cool when he acted so pragmatically, with that serious, confident voice, the trained, knowledgeable soldier part of him coming to light.
Driver blushed, flustered, yet tried her best to keep her cool as she answered his question:
"Not that I know. I've been through damage worse than that and the computer always worked fine. The AI interface should be under the panel control, anyway"
"Very well. We'll just have to check in there, then" he nodded, turning back towards the hatch and into the ship.
"Ugh, I can't believe someone dared attacking us! Together!" Zim kept complaining as he climbed down the ladder. "What cowards, attacking us from behind! Hadn't they taken us by surprise, by now they'd be mincemeat, floating in space inside the crumpled carcass of their horrible ship! Mincemeaaat!" he hissed.
"You can say that" Driver echoed, following him. "What can you expect from bounty hunters? They're the most ignoble creatures in the universe! And, uhm…" she then switched to a gentler, apologetic tone: "I'm sorry, though. You have nothing to do with them, yet because you're with me they might have you as a target too..."
"Nonsense!" Zim stomped his foot down, putting his hands on his sides. "You're my human now: if someone has an issue with you, they have an issue with me"
"Awww, Zim! That's so sweet of you!" she chirped.
But his reassurance didn't do much to actually quell her sense of guilt: she'd gotten way too comfortable lately, soaring through space like she was another regular citizen.
Now that she thought about it... it was so weird of them, to give up on the hunt that easily: if they were after her specifically, then they knew how many monies were on her.
Besides, the whole incident had raised a bunch of unanswered questions: how had they traced her? How did they even know of the Earth, or that Zim was with there? And most importantly, if they somehow managed to follow them on that planet, could they take on them?
She hadn't much experience teaming up with Zim in combat, but from what she'd gathered, Zim was more of a spy, a surprise attacker, rather than directly confrontational. And as for her, well, her strategy was avoiding any physical confrontation in the first place: they simply lacked the raw power necessary to take someone down in a fight. Especially without her ship. If at least Mister Krassmann was there...
She looked down at Zim, working at her panel control, and smiled. He could potentially go through a lot because of her (well, he had already, thinking back to the lighthouse incident and the market day), and he hadn't complained even one bit: his first instinct had been instead to simply come and help her.
She wasn't going to drag him into her own problems any further, she resolved.
"Well, I'm useless here" she declared, "So while you repair the ship I'm gonna go into town and buy supplies and fuel".
"Uh?" Zim turned to ask her, but she'd already gone into her room to gear herself up.
She pulled a suitcase from under her bed, containing her belt with her tools, her cape, and her gravitational boots.
"Wouldn't that be dangerous?" Zim asked her from the other room, "What if those bounty hunters come looking for you? You don't even know this planet, do you?"
That's the whole point, she mentally replied.
"Don't worry. My orientation sense is impeccable and so is my fashion style. Check this out!" she came out of her room, arms spread out to give Zim a good look on her new outfit.
As he saw her, Zim's eyes widened, and his cheeks blushed up.
"Oh. You look very cool, human. But- oooh, wait! Are those gravity boots?!" he suddenly took a leap forward when he noticed what she was wearing.
"Sure are!" she nodded, amused at Zim's nerdy reaction, knelt down at her feet as he checked her footwear.
"Where did you get these? They're a fancy, advanced kind, too! With automatic mind-reading of the wearer!"
"They were a present of that client for which we stole a bunch of antiques from a museum, if I recall correctly. I don't 'use em much, though. You got any idea how much it costs to steal their fuel? In any case, with these on and my robbing tools on my belt, I'm gonna be completely safe! Trust me!" she reassured him.
She was about to depart for good, when she suddenly remember one last thing to take, just in case: she looked inside her personal safe, placed in a corner of the cabin, took the object and safely placed it in the back pocket of her pants.
"Are you sure it's safe?" Zim tentatively asked her as he got back on his feet.
"What are you, worried?" she sarcastically asked. "We do need food and fuel, no?"
"Well, uh... I mean..." he looked down at his feet, arms behind his back, embarrassed. "Maybe... a little?"
God, he's too cute for my poor heart.
"Don't worry. I'll be back soon. I'm used to being on the run. A couple of bounty hunters aren't gonna scare me. And, uh" she squatted down, face to his level, "if anything happens here, leave the ship and run away".
"Nonsense! ZiM doesn't run!" he protested.
She leaned in, getting real close to his mouth.
"Is it so hard to just listen to your captain for once?" she whispered.
Zim flinched back, blushing at her gesture.
"Well, well...! It… IS when she's asking me not to rain doom upon my enemies!"
"Think I can't do that, too, on my own?" she asked him, frowning. She pretended to lean in and kiss him, but just as he tried to reach her lips with his own, she sharply stood up, his puckered lips kissing the air instead.
"There. I owe you a kiss now" she smirked down at him, "Now I have to come back, don't I?"
Zim looked up at her, looking disgruntled and worried still.
"You do" he mumbled.
She gave him one last smile; then she turned around and exited the ship, venturing on that unknown alien planet.
Driver had walked all the way from the suburbs to the crowded city center; the natives of that planet were humanoid, bald, with red, orange and yellow skins, much like the landscape that surrounded them. Much to her luck, there were many people from other planets, too, making it easier for her not to arouse suspicion.
So she walked among the crowd, on a street full of stores on every side, in that city that reminded her so much of her own home planet, and it would have been a rather relaxing stroll too, if not for the fact that she was being stalked.
From the moment she'd left her ship, she'd been constantly checking her back for any possible pursuers -in case they tried sneaking up on her from behind like they'd done with her ship- and when she'd reached the city center she'd immediately spotted two suspect figures.
'Suspect' was a very generous compliment, actually; they didn't even look like they were trying to hide the fact that they were following her: each time she hastened or slowed down her pace, they changed their walking to match hers, and every time she turned around to look at them, they goofily scrambled to hide behind whatever was available on the spot, a person, a car, a tree, the corner of a building.
Even their appearances were ridiculously suspicious: they both wore identical outfits, with sunglasses, long gray coats and matching hats, which screamed: 'I don't want to draw information on myself but I could only refer to D tier spy movies to learn how'.
It would have been hilarious, really, if it wasn't so pathetic. And if being followed around was by default extremely annoying, even if done so poorly.
Her patience fully ran out when she turned around and saw them on a bench, reading newspapers. With holes for their eyes in them.
Okay. Am I being followed by a 90s cartoon?
She sighed in exasperation, and finally went up to confront them.
"Are you following me?" she bluntly asked them, standing in front of the bench. The passing people, too, occasionally stared at the odd pair, as weirded out by their ridiculous appearance as she was.
The two supposed bounty hunters didn't respond. They simply kept on pretending to read their newspapers… with holes in them.
"... Hey. I'm talking to you" she impatiently spoke up, "You two in front of me, with the newspapers"
"Hmm?" the smaller, female one to her left sneakily looked at her from behind her newspaper, blatantly trying to make her naturally squeaky voice sound deeper and more masculine, "Are you talking to us, miss?" she asked her.
"Yes, you. You're following me, aren't you?"
The two both sunk deeper into their newspapers.
"... noooooo" they denied in unison.
Driver narrowed her eyes in anger.
"Yes you are" she insisted. "You're the bounty hunters from earlier, aren't you?"
"Bounty hunters? Earlier? You must be mistaken" the bigger, male one to her right shook his head. "Please, by all means. Do go on walking about..."
"You're the ones who attacked my ship!" she spoke up again, irritated.
The big guy whispered to his companion, in a way that Driver could perfectly hear them:
"Sasha, I think she's onto us-"
"Shhh!" 'Sasha' urged him to shut it behind her newspaper.
"Ahem" she cleared her throat. "We don't know about no ship, kind, filthy criminal. Please, go away. We're trying to read the newspaper"
Driver crossed her arms under her cape.
"You're holding it upside-down, idiot" she spat.
'Sasha' seemed to take a moment to check it. Then, she hastily turned it the correct way up.
"Miss" the big one intervened, "I'm sensing a wave of hostility coming from you-"
"Because I'm shoving it right in your faces, you big moron" Driver condescendingly interrupted him.
"Watch how you talk to us, you filthy criminal!" Sasha crumpled up her newspaper in her lap, baring her sharp teeth at her, using her natural, annoying, high-pitched voice. "A good-for-nothing delinquent like you has no right to talk to us like that!"
Driver looked her up and down: she was about as tall as Zim, and possibly as rude and angry as he was, but with all his lovableness and cuteness striped down, with her pointed ears, rat-like face, and insufferably-high voiced.
Great. I have to deal with an actual, talking chihuahua here.
"Whatever" Driver rolled her eyes. "Look, it's not that important, but please answer me this and spare me the trouble of finding out myself: who are you? Who sent you? Are there others with you?"
The bigger one lowered down his newspaper too, exposing his appearance more clearly to her: he had snow white skin, small ears on either side of his head and a big, muscly, bulky built; his voice was low, gentle, and calm, the exact opposite of his companion.
"Well actually, there's-" he started.
"SHUT UP, DON'T ANSWER!" 'Sasha' reprimanded him. "We are the Implacables, criminal! The most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy! And if you don't want us to take you away by force, you better follow us without question!"
"The Im-what now?" Driver cocked an eyebrow up, "The name on the screen was different" she noted, and for a moment, she feared that she might have been pursued by two different groups of bounty hunters at the same time.
"Actually, uhm" the big one raised his index finger, "we've changed our name now. It's 'Mysterious Justice Bringers' now" he clarified.
"Hahahaha! Oh my GOD! So it's true! Hahaha!" Driver couldn't contain her laughter, hearing that name being spoken in such a dead-serious tone.
"A-anyway, hah. I doubt you'd try anything here" she scoffed when she finally caught her breath. "Look around: would you risk hurting all these civilians?"
"Fool! My aim with a gun is superb!" Sasha threw her fists up at her, "I'd hit you, no collateral victims!"
"Mmmm. What if the police sees us and catches me first?" Driver mused, hand under her chin.
"Good then! Justice will be served!"
"But you won't get the reward, dumb-dumb"
"Youuuuarrrghghgrhgr!" Sasha's voice turned into an angry, frustrated, foamy growl.
"I think we are getting off track here" the big one intervened with his kind, mellow voice. "Look, lady, just give up and it'll be easier for everybody. You're outnumbered. You're surrounded. You just can't win".
Driver eyed him.
"I never got your name, big boy"
"My name is Thommesedius Halflaprarkt the Thirty-third"
"Of course it is. Well, Sasha and Tom, I welcome your challenge!" she announced in a theatrical voice, "See if you can catch me! Oh, and heads up. I'm throwing a smoke bomb at you now"
"You're throwing a what-"
Driver picked one of the smoke bombs she was hiding under her cape, pressed a button on it, and threw it on the bench, right between them.
As she turned around to run away, she heard the bomb go off, its dark, purple smoke undoubtedly engulfing the two poor idiots.
The crowd around them screamed and scattered about, facilitating her escape.
"Cough! Akh! She's getting away!" she heard Sasha screech between her coughing fits.
When she got to a decent distance, she turned to look at the scene: there were people both fleeing and approaching the big smoke cloud.
Eventually, the two bounty hunters emerged from the purple cloud: they'd discarded their 'disguises', looking around for her with their guns drawn out.
"Move it! Move away, you!" Sasha elbowed away the people that tried to help her, while Tom followed her looking confused and mortified.
Finally, Sasha spotted her, looking at them from an alleyway between two buildings on the street's side, and pointed her to Tom.
Driver smiled and waved and them, disappearing behind the corner.
The two ran and followed her, holding their guns up; they emitted two frustrated gasps as they noticed that the alleyway was a dead end, and that she wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"Where's she gone to?!" Sasha growled.
"Ooohhhh no… we lost her…" Tom lamented, "The boss is not going to like this..."
"Stop whining and help me find her!" she cut him off, "Maybe humans can teleport… they look like they can, no?"
"Or maybe!... she was never there in the first place" he pondered all philosophically.
"SHUT UP! This is all your fault! AGAIN!"
"Please, don't project your anger onto me. You'll shorten your lifespan. And you'll already live only two hundred years"
"AAAAARGHGHGGHRHG!" Sasha eloquently retorted.
Meanwhile, Driver watched everything from one of the side buildings, the gravity boots allowing her to attach herself to stand on the wall like it was a floor. She chuckled, listening to their silly bickering. Not even trying to look up? Rookie mistake. They were almost too adorable to take out. How did could she ever think they'd be a threat, again?
Driver held out her foot, changing the gravity center from the wall to the planet again; then, she adjusted the gravity acceleration to 'low': that allowed to comfortably float down behind their backs, still bickering with each other.
As her feet gracefully touched the ground, she set the gravity back to normal, and called to them:
"Hey"
They were just turning to look at the source of that noise, when she drew her own gun out and shot their weapons out of their hands, sending gears, metal chunks, wires and plasma everywhere on the alleyway's pavement.
The two looked at her, astounded and frightened at once, and raised their hands up as she pointed her gun towards them.
"Is my aim anywhere near as superb as yours, Sash?" she grinned.
"Ooohh" Tom sighed, looking at her feet. "Gravity boots. Now that explains it..."
"What do you think you're doing?! Put that gun down!" Sasha shouted. "Wait till the boss gets here, then-"
"If your boss is as competent as you are, then I'll be extremely relieved" she interrupted her.
"Wait!" Tom pleaded. "Think about this. Prisons aren't so bad: their goal is correction-"
"And flagellation!" Sasha added.
"-not punishment. You'll simply be corrected. And I think you have a great potential to be redeemed: just now, you could have easily shot us. Instead, you chose to disarm us. I think that speaks volumes about your-"
"This?" Driver scoffed. "Oh, no. I was just giving you something cool to witness before I send you to the eternal fiery pit of Hell. Heh, get it? Now hold still" she cocked her gun up and pointed it directly at Tom' s face- " I w ouldn't wanna miss a vital part and hurt you".
The two gasped, widening their eyes in terror and instinctively shrinking back.
Then suddenly, just when she was about to pull the trigger, something closed around her wrist, squeezing it so tightly it forced her fingers to lighten the pressure around her gun; her arm was then pulled down and forced behind her back, making her hand drop her gun.
Another one of that something grabbed her other hand and pulled it behind her back.
"Ah!" a surprised gasp escaped her lips.
It'd happened so quickly, she'd barely had the time to even register what was happening to her, but when she felt a pressure on her wrists, she understood: she'd just been handcuffed. And somebody behind her was restraining her.
Something grasped her shoulder; she tried to escape it, but it held her back with even more strength and pressure. She confusedly looked down, and saw a big hand in a brown glove, holding her by the shoulder.
Then, the person spoke in a calm, sweet voice:
"Looks like I got here just in time, guys"
Driver froze, pure panic rising in her chest. Someone had ambushed her. Someone had… captured her.
She thrashed around with every part of her body, trying to run away from him, but the hands on her wrists and her shoulder alone managed to keep her still in her place: he was much taller and stronger than her, she could tell. Even his voice, despite sounding sweetly melodic, had a dangerous note to it.
"Boss! Ohhh, that was scary!" Tom sighed, relieved.
"She was about to null us!" Sasha protested.
"I was just waiting for the right line to walk in and interrupt her. You did a very good job" their boss chuckled.
"Hey you're a feisty one, aren't you?" he turned to her, as if her helpless thrashing could actually do anything under his grip."Now..."
And then, she felt his hand leave her shoulder… only to then sneak with a decisive, harsh movement between her buttocks.
She froze again, paralyzed by stupor, revulsion and terror at once.
"Be still, or I'll have to grab you from the front"
"AAARRGH!" enraged, Driver let out a loud growl as she threw herself backwards, contorting her neck back in an attempt to gnaw at her attacker's face.
"Woah, hahaha! Careful with those!" he jumped back, narrowly avoiding her teeth.
She scowled at him, her teeth bared, finally able to take a good look at his face: cowboy hat on top of his head; thick glasses; bushy, huge mustaches, that took up all the place on his face. Tall, muscly body, covered all the way up in a crimson uniform and cape.
He grinned down at her, with his crooked, ugly teeth.
Already, she absolutely hated that ugly face.
She struggled again, and he put an arm around her neck.
While they were struggling like that, her communicator started ringing.
"Take that from her, will you?" the boss gestured to one of his goons with a tilt of his head.
Sasha walked up to her; she lifted her foot up to kick her away, but the boss grabbed her chin and shook it.
"Hey, now. Stop attacking, seriously. Or I'll gouge an eye out" he threatened her.
Driver had no choice but giving in; she stayed as relaxed as possible, lest he carried out his threat, while Sasha picked the communicator out of her pocket and checked it.
"Uh. The 'Zim' Irken is calling her, boss"
"Leave him alone!" Driver pleaded, "He has nothing to do with mE!" she yelped as the boss shook her chin again.
"Shut up. Hand it over, Sash" he extended a hand to his minion.
Sasha obediently placed the still-ringing device into his hand, hand he deposited it in a pocket in his own pants.
"Go take care of him. I'll bring this one to the boss" he commanded.
'Boss'? Had she heard him right?!
"See? There's nothing to worry about" he reassured her with a mockingly sweet voice, "Soon, you'll be together again".
"But we don't have guns anymore!" Tom noted.
"Then take the motorcycles, and force him out of the ship. And be careful not to kill him. We need him alive"
What?! Why?! Why would they need Zim?!, Driver thought of one good reason why one of her enemies would want Zim too. Was this… about their adventure on Flord?! Or maybe...
The two minions dashed past them, running back into the main street.
"Alright, love. Steady, now. You're coming with me" he smirked.
From behind, he pushed her towards the main street, too, hand on her handcuffs.
She lowered her head in desolation. She was no match for him. For now, she would have no other choice but to comply with him.
"And make it quick, please" he added, kicking her bottom with a knee.
Drived growled at him, hastening her pace.
I'll murder him. I swear I'll murder him, if it's the last thing I do.
Zim removed the panel under the ship's control keyboard and knelt to look inside: in front of him was a jungle of wires and cables underneath.
He had already repaired the damage on the roof: covering the hole with one of the back-up plated had been pretty easy. It was just temporary, but it would allow the ship to fly into space again for a while. Yet, the question remained: how could this have caused the problem with the ship's AI? He had analyzed the hole that that hollowed-out missile had dug, and it was all superficial damage, in no way connected to the AI.
Although... the shape of that hole was pretty weird: it didn't look like the metal had been melted by the heat, or even budged under the impact. Instead, on a closer look, it looked like it'd been ripped open, with scratches all around it, like an animal had clawed its way in. Just the thought made him shudder in disgust...
The source of the problem was clearly not there. So, he'd come back down again to fix the panel control directly.
Using his PAK's flashlight, he made his way among the dusty cables, looking for something, whatever it was, out of place.
He frowned, thinking of those horrible bounty hunters. How dare they point their filthy weapons on him and Driver? How dare they interrupt them, just when… things were getting so... good!… touches…!
He shook his head. Now was not the time to get distracted, remembering the human's delightfully pleasant touch. If he didn't repress that memory right away, he would have never been able to properly concentrate on the repairs.
As he moved the three big cables out of his way, he felt something under his hands:
A panel, which read 'Power Core' on it.
Maybe the problem was lied there? It would have made sense, since power cores coordinated all the basic functions on a ship, and Driver's had lost all of them, one by one.
He opened the panel, completely unprepared for what he saw underneath.
For a moment, he thought it might have been part of the ship's design. But no, of course it wasn't. It was completely different from anything else on the ship.
That thing was alien. And it was attached to the power core.
But the strangest part was possibly its form: it was insect-like, like an unholy crossbreed between an ant and caterpillar. And it had his little, disgusting legs sunk inside the power core's glowing, round mass.
"What... IS that?!" he whispered, incredulous.
He drew his legs out of his PAK and slooowly inched them forward to grab it. The creature didn't respond to his movements until he grabbed it, pulling it away from the power core: only at that point it started thrashing around with his body, and legs, and jaws in an attempt to escape from him.
Zim shuddered with disgust. Insects were so creepy.
Slowly, steadily holding onto that disgusting thing, he backed on all fours out back in the control room.
Now that he could better, more closely look at that horrible creatures, he realized that it wasn't actually organic like he though: that was a robot. Realistically designed and extremely life-like in its movements, but still a robot. All metal. No gooey parts! And thank the Universe for that, otherwise he would have probably barfed from the repulsion.
"Hah! You thought you could hiiiide from the great, ingenious, observant ZiM?! Rattle out your last writhing, pathetic metal creature!" he gloated, as he mercilessly cut the bug's metal belly open with his third leg's laser, revealing its internal circuits.
The bug contorted in one last painful movement, before turning completely still, for good.
Hopefully.
Zim took it apart, growing more and more anxious and incredulous as he examined it.
Two things were now apparent to him: one, that thing was a probe. It had landed on their ship with that first blow, inside the hollowed missile, and had chewed its way into the ship until it had reached its power core, forcing them to land on that planet.
And probably transmitting their coordinates to the ship that had launched it in the first place.
And two, even more alarming... that was Irken in origin. Well, only in part, but that was undoubtedly Irken technology in front of him: he could tell both by its design and its material, mixed up with foreign parts, like some kind of… zombie… stitched up… Franken-monster abomination.
"Eeeeughhh!" Zim gasped, "That's even worse than an ant-caterpillar crossbreed! Curse you, Universe! CURSE YOUUU!"
"But what?! How, why, who?!" he then tried to make sense of it, "What does this mean for- Driver"
It suddenly came to mind: if the enemy really had been spying on them the whole time, then they'd probably followed her into the city, too.
Immediately, he tossed aside the bug's broken carcass, he drew his communicator out of his PAK and called her, hoping it wouldn't be too late to warn her.
While the communicator rang in his ear, he restarted the ship's system: now free from the bugs disruptive meddling, it turned on like normal.
"Ship!" he called to the AI, "Run an organic scan of the ship! Find if there's someone else aboard other than me!" he ordered: he couldn't take any chances, after all. It wasn't much of a stretch to think that somebody might have crawled on the ship with their disgusting body while its defenses were down.
On the windshield-screen, appeared a downloading bar, the word 'SCANNING' on top of it.
The communicator worriedly continued ringing with no answer, until eventually, the call ended automatically.
"Oh, no! Driver?!" he called, as if she could possibly hear him by him just screaming into the communicator.
"It's not like her not to answer a call! What if they've already gotten to her? What if-"
"Unknown organic being identified" the ship's robotic voice announced, and those words made the blood in his veins chill. "In. The central sector. of. The ventilation system".
Zim shot his terrified eyes up at the ventilation shaft that stuck out of the control room's ceiling, right above him.
"WHO is there?!" he shouted.
How could a person fit in there? Maybe he didn't have to worry much. After all, they had to be comically small to be able to-
But then, the metal walls of the ventilation started shaking with a series of metallic sounds: something was crawling towards him.
"Eeek!" Zim yelped, drawing his guns out, ready to defend himself.
Suddenly, the person (?) inside the ventilation shaft hit the panel away, sending it on the floor in front of his feet.
Zim shuddered again in fear, and looked at that gaping dark hole in the ceiling: a pair of eyes evil, hateful eyes was watching him from up there.
The enemy slowly crept out, a devious smirk on its face.
"Hello, cockroach".
Driver had very dearly hoped that he'd take her to the police: breaking out of jail wouldn't have been a problem. She herself had broken people out of prison before. Honestly, it was weird for someone in her field not to have ever been imprisoned.
Instead, she'd been dragged to an abandoned factory in the suburb of the city -not the one where she'd parked her ship, unfortunately, but the one on the exact opposite side. To be questioned, presumably.
And tortured, probably.
The slimy piece of garbage had pushed her out of the alleyway; curious bystanders had looked at them, and he'd given them a revoltingly polite smile, saying:
"Nothing to worry about, folks. This is a criminal under arrest"
"No, I'm not! Help!" she'd tried thrashing and protesting, numerous times.
But no one had lifted a finger to rescue her.
He'd escorted her to his motorcycle and had told her:
"Alright, love, I'm gonna have to ask you to shut up while you're in my bike. So make yourself comfortable, be still and don't make a sound, or I'll cut your tongue"
She had obeyed and stayed still and mute behind him, on the passengers seat, her hands still dangerously tied behind her back- though he probably wouldn't have cared much if she'd slipped out of her seat and fallen on the ground: she was wanted alive or dead in most galaxies.
So he'd rode them to that factory; right in front of its entrance, their big, golden ship was parked, its front still smeared with her black goo.
I wish that'd been explosive goo, she'd thought.
As they entered it, she couldn't see much of the place, as its interior was almost pitch black, the little windows on top of the walls not nearly enough to illuminate it; she could tell, however, that it was big, and empty, and dusty.
Well, pitch black except for one small patch: she'd looked up, to see four projectors hung on the walls, all pointing at a table in the middle of that huge, square room, giving the impression that that table, the two chairs under it, and the floor they were standing on were the only existing things in there, floating in a black void.
Very theatrical, she'd mentally commented.
The piece of garbage had made her sit on the chair closest to the door, while he'd sat in front of her. He'd placed her personal objects- her cape, her belt with her tools, her communicator and her gun- on the table, as to mockingly say: Come on, try and grab them.
Once he was done with that ceremony, he started questioning her.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Monika"
"Really?" he retrieved something from a drawer under the table: a folder. "Isn't it Berta? Or Fifì? Or Ivy? Or any of those listed in here?" he asked, going through the sheets of paper.
"My name is Monika" she repeated.
"Well, here are your wanted posters, Monika" he drew a stack of pinned-together sheets out of the folder; he held them up for them, alternatively moving the one on top to the bottom, in order to show them all to her. "Twenty-three names, one description. Twenty-four names, actually, if we count 'Monika'. But guess what? The description is still a single, univocal one. Wanted in multiple galaxies, including"
And then, he listed all of them off. Driver didn't bother listening to him: she didn't really remember all of the galaxies she was wanted in, and she wasn't about to start any time soon. Instead, imagining all the ways she would have tortured him in once she got free was a much better use of her time: they were all pretty distinct from one another, but they all ended with her setting his genitals on fire in some way.
"... for a total bounty of 2.150.485 monies. And do you know why?" he finally concluded his tedious list.
"It must be a mistake. I've never done anything illegal" she monotonously chanted.
"You haven't? Are you sure?" he asked, feigning uncertainty, his smug, slimy, crooked smile still on his face, "Don't you possibly recall any forgery, robbing, bribing, stealing, falsifying, loitering, tax evading, smuggling, murdering, revolution-inciting ever happening in your life?"
"It must be a mistake. I've never done any of that" she repeated in that same, bored, one-note tone.
"No? So this isn't you in these photos?"
He put the wanted posters down, and showed her a series of photos like he'd done with those documents: they were few, and low-quality, as she'd always been careful not to show her face during her crimes, but... yes, that was unmistakably her in the photos. There depicted stealing, or robbing, or smuggling, or something else illegal.
"What were you doing here, uh?" he urged her for an answer.
"I don't know"
"You don't know if this is you or you don't know what you were doing in the photos?"
"I don't know".
He scoffed, probably surprised that she still hadn't cracked after the way he'd terrorized so far.
"I'll tell you what you were doing: you were disrupting the peace among some honest, good people, for your own selfish whims. That's what you were doing. Dozens of people have come out to testify against you, honest citizens that weren't at all deserving of ever coming in contact with scum like you in their lives.
Driver looked up at his crooked teeth. She really wished she had her persuader with her, to knock them all out of his stupid, hypocritical mouth.
"But now, what presses me more is this" he reached his arm out, shaking the photos directly under her nose. "Who are these people? What is your organization called? And where can we find them?"
Driver couldn't help but smirk: those weren't 'people', in the photos with her. That was one person. Mister Krassmann, disguised as a different species in each image.
"Are you part of the police?" she asked him. "If so, I don't have to tell you anything. In fact, keeping me here against my will is a crime"
"Nice try, but when I'm out hunting for you lot, I qualify as tutor of the law. Interrogating you is well within my right, especially if it can help capturing other vermin like you"
"A 'tutor of the law'" she mockingly repeated. "Now that's funny. I would have never guessed, looking at your ugly face. Say, is sexual harassment also within your right?" she leaned in towards him, growling in a deeper voice.
"Ohohoh, please!" he chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't play the victim. You're barely even a person, much less a woman"
Driver turned her tongue in her mouth, to keep herself from spitting in his face.
"Look. Here's the deal..." he continued, joining his hands on the table.
"See, my friends are gonna be back with your little boyfriend very soon. And I wouldn't want to have to use him to get information out of you"
Driver's scowl deepened even more.
"There's a special place in hell for those who threaten people with their loved ones' lives" she hissed.
"I have no idea what a 'hell' is. And I don't really care" he dismissively shook his head. "So now, be a good girl and answer my-"
"Hey, wait a second!" she suddenly interrupted him, "I know what you are! I knew I had seen your kind somewhere before!"
The bounty hunter confusedly stared at her, his confidence faltering for the first time.
"You're a Tufudully! Those aren't muscles, are they? It's all fur! When you're naked, you look like giant sheaves of hair, don't you?! Oh my GOD, how did you fit inside those small clothes?! Hahaha, no wonder you dress up like that! No one would take you seriously if you went around looking like a giant furby!" she mocked him."
He stared at her for a moment, his expression hidden behind the glasses and his thick fur. He was probably surprised, or embarrassed, or furious. Or all three at once.
Finally, he clicked his tongue, and resumed speaking:
"Okay. I gotta admit it. You've got guts. But I'm a very patient man. Trust me when I say I'd be down to questioning you for days if necessary, and getting a confession out of you isn't going to be limited to simple questions-"
"Hah! You act so high and mighty, when you had to sneak up on me and handcuff me so you could be even able to ask me a 'simple' question! You bloated coward! How about you untie me, so I can show you how un-person-like I can be?!" she threateningly growled, showing her bare teeth to him.
The bounty hunter was about to reply, when a deep, robotic voice spoke from the darkness behind him:
"Step back. I'll take it from here".
Driver stared up at the pitch black darkness in front of her. She recognized it: it was the voice that had spoken to her on the ship. So it was an artificially modified voice?
The bounty hunter slid out of his seat, walking back from the table and placing himself to its right. In the darkness next to him, something big and heavy moved towards her.
How very theatrical of him, indeed: he'd hidden his presence during their whole conversation, hiding in the darkness, away from the light of the strategically-positioned projectors.
A sting of fear pierced Driver's heart: it was just a presentiment, but something within her was telling that whoever was in the darkness was much, much worse than any of the other bounty hunters.
"You know Zim, don't you?" the voice asked.
"W... what do you know of him?" she whimpered.
"Hahaha. More than you, that's for sure..."
The figure came forward; the light illuminated him enough to tell her that he was well bigger and taller than the bounty hunter's leader.
"But if he's really been hiding with you all his time, he must have certainly told you about me..."
As the stranger came forth, his face finally basked, in the light, revealing itself to her.
Driver widened her eyes in upmost stupor: he was standing inside some kind of metal structure, that moved on two legs. But his actual body was much, much smaller than that. Clothed in black. With pale, bare skin, and dark, black, spiky hair on top of his head. For the first time in almost a decade, there stood a member of her own species before her. And he was...
"THE BLOB!" Zim screamed, pointing an accusatory finger at the intruder, "You're that horrible, shady blob from that horrible, shady bar!"
"The displeasure is all mine" the Blob glared at him, its gelatinous, blue body elongating from inside the ventilation shaft.
"B-but- How?! How did you- AH! You were traveling inside that missile! Along with that disgusting probe! Did you make it?! How did you track us?! Why are you stalking us?!"
"Hah, well. That's pretty obvious, isn't it?" he chuckled, "After you and that tramp of your girlfriend destroyed my business, I had to change job: I allied myself with the same people I'd called to help me against you. And they were kind enough to take me in"
"Hey, she's not a tramp! You're a tramp! Whatever that might mean! But STILL! You didn't tell me your motives! Why are you still bothering us?! Don't you have anything better to do?!"
The Blob narrowed his angry eyes at him.
"You set my bar on fire!" he yelled.
"... my question still stands"
"That bar was my life!" he yelled even louder.
"Ah. Wow. So that's why you always looked sad"
The Blob gritted his toothless gums in rage.
"Oh, I'm going to have fun with this..." he growled. His body started dividing into tentacles, as he started climbing out of the shaft.
"Stay back! Get your disgusting body out of Driver's ship! Or ELSE!" Zim pointed his laser guns directly at his face.
"What? You care about her now? How cute" he smirked, "The you'll be delighted to know, that your girlfriend is already safe and sound in our hands. I got the message just a moment ago"
"Y- you're bluffing! That's not true!" Zim accused him, though... that would have explained why she wasn't answering at her communicator.
"Oh, and look. Here come my friends, with perfect timing" the Blob pointed at a place behind him with one of his tentacles.
Zim turned around, to see two approaching vehicles in the distance.
"Don't get so cocky, blob! " he shook his fist back at him. "This is the indeed the perfect timing. For me, ZIM!, to prove my destructive greatness to my partner-ally! Just you wait!"
He smirked at his enemy and widened his feet, setting himself in a battle stance.
"I'll take all of you heads out of your disgusting necks and offer them to her! She'll be ecstatic!"