One Night Stand

by OysterChateau

After a night of passion together (sort of), a space-stranded Zim and a wanted human outlaw form a reluctant alliance to achieve their respective goals. But as they work together for their own interests, the feelings from that first night start to resurface... (ZimxOC)

17. Common Enemies (Part 2)

Driver stared in a scared, astounded, and decisively un-ecstatic manner at the figure in front of her.

At the human in front of her.

Her mind went back to Zim's tellings of his mission Earth: if he really knew Zim from that time, like he claimed, there was only one person he could be...

"Oh my God..." she murmured, "Now I remember. You're that kid Zim is always telling me about... the one that constantly pestered him during his mission..."

The kid lowered the Voice Modifier he was using, and finally spoke in his real voice, lips curled in a maliciously excited grin:

"Aha..." he let out a soft chuckle, "so you've heard of me"

Driver's whole body shivered at the sound of his voice.

Under any other circumstances, judging by his appearance, she would have probably written the kid off as an edgy, geeky cosplayer of some kind: he had bizarrely spiky hair, a long, ripped black coat and a white mask which only covered his face's left side, leaving a black hole in place of his eye; on top of it he wore a pair of big, round glasses. Yet, though she could not pinpoint exactly why, something was telling her that he was much, much more dangerous than the full grown bounty hunter to his left, or than most of the opponents she'd ever had to face so far.

Then again, it was probably only the fact that she was handcuffed and under interrogation. And that she was possibly going to be tortured for information on the only two people she truly cared about in her life. And that a creepy, cadaver-pale, deranged kid was staring at her, sitting in some kind of throne with legs and armed with cannons.

God, what an astronomically crappy day that was.

And it was about to get even crappier if this kid was really as unhinged as Zim had described him...

"You're..."

"Say it" he urged her, a sinister, enthusiastic shimmer in his eye, "Say my name"

"... You're Keef!" Driver finally let out.

"YES!" the kid threw his arms up in a triumphant gesture, the legs of the throne raising him further up as to follow and accentuate that movement.

"I! AM! THE! E- wait, what?"

The kid suddenly stared back down at her, eye widened in shock, his arms frozen above his head.

Driver blinked in utter confusion.

"Keef? Did you just say Keef?!"

She gulped in fear. Had she gotten his wrong? She was absolutely certain that that was the exact name Zim had mentioned many, many times.

"Yeah...?" she whispered.

"Keef?!" the kid repeated, sounding even more indignant and shocked.

Intimidated by his insistent, wide-eyed stare, Driver looked left and right, as if to look for a clue, an advice on what to say; to the kid's left, in the background, the bounty hunters' leader coughed into his hand, a trembling smirk on his face, seemingly struggling to keep himself from laughing.

"... no?" Driver dared to ask, shrinking in her seat.

"NO!" the kid roared, "No, I'm not Keef! He isn't- He's- I am Zim's biggest enemy! His nemesis! Surely he must have told you of me!"

Driver tried to think back of all the classmates from Zim's time in an Earth school that he had told her about, but couldn't remember of one whose description fit this weird, scary kid that wasn't 'Keef'.

But because his expectant, creepy staring was so unnerving, she went for the next best strategy and tried guessing:

"... Brian?"

"No!" he punched the throne's panel in anger.

"Dirge?"

"No!"

"Melvin? Poonchy? Carl?" she desperately hurled every name she remembered at him, but without any luck, and the kid's expression slowly changed from furiously outraged to disappointingly sad.

"... Zeta?"

"Zeta is a girl's name! I'm Dib!" he finally shouted, voice cracking as he said his real name, "Dib Membrane! He seriously never told you about me?! Never?!"

"Uhhhhh..." she made one last attempt to remember Zim ever pronouncing the word 'Dib' in any context possible, but again couldn't.

In the end, she simply shook her head apologetically.

Dib's arms fell limp to his sides; his chest deflated and the throne lowered him down, in an expression of disappointment and hurt.

"I can't believe he'd mention Melvin of all people, but not me..." Dib dejectedly murmured to himself, his sad face pointed down.

"I can't believe it's true..." Driver breathed out in a strained scoff.

Dib looked up at her with a confused expression.

"All this time, I thought Zim had been joking about fighting with children, but it's true! You're a literal child! And- and- you're the boss here? You?! How?! Why?! Do your parents even know what you're doing?!"

Dib blinked at her, taken aback by her words.

"Uh-"

"And you, oh my GOD!" she turned to the bounty hunters' leader. "You've been taking orders from a toddler?! Are you insane?!"

The bounty hunter casually shrugged.

"He's a very persuasive guy" he smirked.

"Hey, I'm not a toddler!" Dib protested in his petulant, childish voice, "I'm almost twelve! I'm practically a teen!"

Driver frowned at him in disbelief.

"With that stature?" she couldn't help but asking. That kid was about the same height as Zim, and he barely stood above her hips!

"My height is pretty average!" Dib retorted.

"Really? Damn. They really doubled down on dumping hormones in the water since I left..." Driver reflected.

Dib was about to retort once more, but she interrupted him:

"But seriously, where are your parents?" she asked him, "A kid like you can't be all alone in space! Even worse, around people like him!" she gestured towards the bounty hunter.

All of a sudden, Dib's expression changed back to being dark and intimidating; only this time he didn't look at all mocking, but rather enraged and resentful.

"Funny that you'd ask about my family" he hissed. "You know, since Zim took them all away from me. Actually, I am pretty sure you did know that"

"... what? I-"

"If you know about Zim's mission, then you'll also know how it ended" he brashly interrupted her.

Oh. Right. How could she have forgotten about the Ea-

"The planet Earth!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up all theatrically again, his eye looking at a vague, indefinite point of the dark room, like an actor holding a monologue in front of an audience of listeners. "My home planet! Zim completely disintegrated it, right before my eyes!" his voice grew in an angry crescendo.

Then, he suddenly bent his back forward, fists clenching.

"I tried to stop him" he continued in a lower, yet more rage-filled voice. The legs of the mysterious contraption readjusted under him. His eye shimmered unsettling in the dim light.

"I came as soon as I learnt of his next, wicked plan to doom mankind. As I had done many times before. Who could have known, that this time he would have actually succeeded?"

His eye darted towards her again, in a suddenness that startled her, making her do a little jump on her chair.

"I flew up in his space station, to stop whatever it was that he was planning. I wiped out his defenses without breaking any sweat. Soon enough I broke into the main control room. I jumped on him! And we struggled! And I totally had the upper hand the whole time. I was in a pretty amazing form on that day. Like, even more than usual!" he nodded at her as if looking for her agreement.

Driver awkwardly nodded back at him. God, this kid was almost as full of himself as Zim was, if not more. If he hadn't described their relationship as mortal animosity, she would have taken them for best friends.

"Little did I know, that the planet-dooming machine was actually on the Earth's surface!" his tone turned to dramatic again. "Upon his order, the machine activated. The Earth span on itself, faster, and faster, until it vanished into thin air! Billions of people, gone, just like that! The Earth's collapsing gravity almost sucked us in too" he expressed that last sentence in a low, angry growl.

"That idiot had miscalculated the distance between the planet and the station. Maybe it would have been better that way: at least now he would be dead" his frown deepened as his angry stare grew more and more focused on her.

"We both ran to our ships as the station collapsed. But I wasn't quick enough" he continued, his voice getting quieter. In his eye, Driver caught a lingering glimpse of the fear that he must have felt at that panicked moment.

"My ship was caught in a sort of... dimensional distortion. Leaving me disfigured" he passed a hand over the white mask that covered half his face, his gaze seemingly lost into nothingness. "I remember seeing Zim flying away. He probably thought I was dead. Like my people, like my family. But I was in fact the only survivor of the human race"

His expression jarringly changed again, as his eye focused on her again and he smiled a devious grin.

"Hey. Wanna see what's under this mask?"

"Uh, it's- it's not necessary-" she stammered.

"I think you should see it" he abruptly interrupted her. "You might find it interesting..."

And with that ominous remark, he raised his hands up; one removed his glasses while the other slowly worked to remove his half-mask. Driver stared at his movements, as if hypnotized -How does he keep it on? Does he glue it to his face?, she distractedly wondered.

As he revealed his face to her, what she saw under his mask surprised her so much, her brain took a couple seconds to fully process it.

She had expected to see a scar, or a patch of exposed flesh, or a burn maybe, but not only did the left half of his face not match with the rest of- it didn't even look human.

The first thing that she noticed was an intense, dark black, like the one that covered the room. For a moment she thought he might have been wearing a second mask under the first white one, but then she noticed that it was alive, or at the very least moving, like it was pulsing. Or breathing.

All of a sudden, an eye peeked open from that blackness.

"Woah-" Driver reflexively moved her head back. That was no human eye: it was yellow, with a slit-shaped pupil, like a cat's.

Dib wore his glasses again, and his smirk widened in amusement to her reaction.

"Ironic, isn't it? The last human alive, and he's not even fully human anymore..."

Dib moved his head, and Driver that the black mass that his face's left side didn't look compact, nor concrete: rather, it moved in a weird, flowy way, like it was made of smoke, or fire.

"... at least so I thought, until I learnt of you" his voice suddenly got lower again.

Driver shivered under Dib's mismatched eyes. Something about him was so eerily familiar. Had she possibly met him before? Or someone like him?

"Tell me" he continued, "how does it make you feel, knowing that Zim did this to me? You know, besides the whole terror and fear. Uh? Pity? Compassion?"

"Ah, uh- uhm-" she stammered.

I've hit the jackpot of all the crappy situations, haven't I?

"Do-Don't be so negative, kid, haha!" she nervously chuckled, "It doesn't look so bad! Trust me, give it a couple years, and the artsy girls with black nail polish and piercings will be totally into that-"

"WHAT GIRLS?!" Dib roared in anger, throwing his fists up. The extremities of his 'smoke face' turned into what looked like writhing, black tentacles, and Driver could have sworn she heard them emit a hissing sound.

"ZIM LITERALLY KILLED ALL OF THEM!" he hit the throne's panel with his fists again.

His 'face tentacles' extended forward, as if to reach to her face.

She shrunk even more in her seat, and for a moment she was certain she was not going to get out of this alive.

Dib's thundering scream echoed through the dark factory, making the hair on her nape stick up.

"And you KNEW that didn't you?! You KNEW what Zim had done to the Earth, and still CHOSE to stay by his side!" he accused her.

"H-he, he had never... told me that" she attempted to lie, voice trembling. "Zim and I just... work together!... temporarily. I don't actually know him that well-"

"You just called him a 'loved one'" Dib growled, disgust visible on his face. "In any case, it's too late to lie now. I've been tracking you ever since you met in that bar..."

Driver's heart skipped a beat, her blood freezing in her veins.

That can't be true, right? He's just saying it to make it look like he planned this all along-

"... and I have even found an eye witness who confirmed the nature of your relationship!" he pointed an accusatory finger at her, jabbing it forward with each of his statements: "Thanks to him, I met and joined these bounty hunters, and with their help I tracked down your every move, from the bar that you blew up, to Flord, to the market! I set this base here, and sent that probe on your ship so that you'd fall right into my grasp!"

Dib clenched his fists, the smoke tentacles writhing in the air, their movements seemingly fueled by his seething anger.

"That's right. He's fallen into my trap, and he doesn't even know it" he clenched his fists tight enough to make his arms shake, "I am the superior mind. I always was. I was supposed to win, on that day! He just got lucky"

Driver looked away from him for a moment, reflecting on what he' just said.

First thing, the 'probe'. Is that what that empty missile was? Or more likely, the probe had traveled on it. Well, that explained why her ship had suddenly started malfunctioning, and how they'd tracked him down to that planet.

But what about this eye witness? Who was he?! If he'd seen them at the bar since the very first moment, then-

Oh.

Oh. That horrible, opportunistic, treacherous blob barman...

She clenched her own handcuffed fists, and gritted her teeth in rage, adding him on top of her murder list, right next to the bounty-hunting dirtbag.

"I didn't really think Zim was even into that... sort of stuff" Dib continued, sounding calmer, yet more disgusted. "I guess, when he saw what he thought being the last member of the race he had destroyed, he thought well of keeping her as a souvenir. A rare trophy to flaunt around, that attested his successful carnage"

"Oh my God, kid, that's perverse!" Driver indignantly exclaimed, "Did Sleazebag over there teach you that?" she tilted her head towards the bounty hunter; he let out a low, amused chuckle at her words.

"'Perverse'? I bet you'd know 'perverse', uh?! Hooking up with the destroyer of our world!" Dib pointed his finger at her again. "At first I thought he'd probably brainwashed you, but after my hunters gathered information about you, I realized you were made from the same cloth as he was!"

"Look, Dib" she tried to keep her voice firm. At this point, she didn't know if it was anger or fear that was making her tremble. "Is that what are you getting at? You are here to 'punish' us? Is it revenge that you want? Without even letting us explain ourselves? Then at least drop that act of 'justice-fighter'. It doesn't impress me one bit"

Dib frowned at her, a side of his mouth trembling, irritated by her sudden snark, but not as taken aback as she'd hoped he'd be.

"Nothing you have to 'explain' will ever make what he did okay. My vengeance IS just. But..."

He leaned towards her, hands on the panel, his tentacles writhing down to reach to her.

"... if you think it will be limited to him alone, you're sorely mistaken. I won't let any other planet suffer what the Earth did. I might have failed to protect my own planet, but now, with these new powers and my growing army of justice bringers, I will save the whole universe from the Irken menace!" he triumphantly raised his fists in the air. "You get it? Zim is just the first of many. But, what better way to start than with the very destroyer of my own world, after all?"

Oh my God, Driver grimaced. This kid is insane.

No, even worse than that. This was a child with the body of a monster and a gang at his orders. Depending on how she handled the situation now, getting herself out of there would have either proved extremely easy or hellishly difficult...

"Kid... please" she spelled out very slowly and very calmly, "Listen to me for a moment. It was an accident. He didn't mean to destroy the E-"

"He spent years trying to destroy the Earth!" Dib shrilled in anger, "He is a monster! And you know what? He doesn't even really love you. He hates human, and he doesn't love anyone but himself! All Irkens are like that! All they know is killing and destroying! Look:" and he offered her a hand in a seemingly peaceful gesture. "If there was ever a chance to redeem yourself, this is it. Ally yourself with me. Tell me what his next plans are. Help me unravel the secrets of his race. We'll avenge our people. And I'll let you go scot-free in return".

Driver tentatively looked at his extended hand.

Maybe pretending to help him would have worked? But that kid looked way too dangerous: playing along the authorities' games turned out deadly more often than not.

And above all, she didn't know where Zim was, or what those other bounty hunters were doing to him. Had he been captured? Was he fighting them? Was he dead? And whatever that kid had in store for him, was a hundred times worse than whatever he'd in mind for her. Right now, the priority was breaking free and helping Zim.

She moved her tongue, trying to conjure new saliva in her dried mouth.

As of now, she only had one viable plan to escape her enemies' clutches. And while it might have worked well when she'd thought she only had one opponent guarding her, now that they were two the liabilities were one too many.

Then again... did she really have any other choice?

I need to get him calm, she reflected, and I need to get them close to one another.

She smacked her lips, and tried to speak in a sweet, calm voice:

"Dib. I know it may be hard to believe, but the Earth wasn't actually destroyed. It just disappeared in another dimension. If you just-"

"LIAR!" Dib barked, "Zim lied to you! He always lies! HOW can you be so apathetic to the billions of fellow humans that he killed?! You are a monster, just like he is!" his tentacles emitted that screeching sound again as he hit the panel with his clenched fists, "And after we're done with the Irken Empire, it's gonna be the turn of cruel, unfeeling criminals like you! The Mysterious Justice Bringers will bring about a new era of peace for the Universe! This is my chance to do something good for the Universe, like I always wanted! And no one is gonna be able to ignore me anymore!"

Driver waited for the echoes of his screams to die out. She waited for his panting breath to ease down.

Then, when she was sure she wouldn't be interrupted again, she stared right into his eyes and spoke:

"Look, child. I agree with you. In an ideal world, no one would need to break the law or hurt others to get by. But. The world isn't as simple as you think it is, and things don't always go the way they are supposed to. These people..." she gestured to the bounty hunter leader behind him,"...are not your friends. And I know I'm not the best person around, but let me tell you, I know space well enough to know that they aren't good people either. Your intentions are very noble, but they don't care for them. All they want is your powers, and your knowledge, and the monies they can earn with them"

"Hah! Please!" the bounty hunter scoffed dismissively. But on Dib's face, she could see a hint of pensive doubt.

Maybe she was actually gonna be able to convince him...

"I know how lonely it is for a human to be alone in space" she nodded in an understanding expression. "I miss my home too. That's why me and Zim have been trying to bring the Earth back from the dimension where it's stuck. Do you really think I could ever 'hook up' with the destroyer of my race? I don't think anyone could! Dib. Let's find Zim. Let's have a civil talk about it, away from these vultures, and I promise, we will send you back to your home and to your family".

Dib slowly lowered his finger, his frowning face softening. Clearly, he was seriously reflecting on her words. Maybe she really had gotten through him!

"A civil talk?! With you?! There's nothing 'civilized' about you!" the bounty hunter leader suddenly yelled.

He then marched with long, heavy steps back to the table, right next to her, and violently hit it with a fist; Driver's objects shook with the table, and she flinched away from him as much as she could on her chair, her fearful, yet angry eyes fixed on him.

"Who do you think you're fooling here, uh?! First, you treat him like a defenseless child. Then you try to pit us against each other and ask for his help" he bent over towards her, his lips parted to show his ugly, gritted teeth. "You're just a sneaky little liar. And a bad one at that. 'Dimensional travel'. That's fairy tale junk. How stupid do you think we are? Right, boss?"

The bounty hunter turned to Dib, whom he'd snapped out of his considerations on her offer.

"Uh- yeah! Right!" Dib shook his head; he cleared his throat and continued with a more secure voice: "As if I'd ever believe one of Zim's minions!"

Driver tried to retort, but the bounty hunter interrupted her again:

"Also, don't you try to compare yourself to the boss!" he pointed his index right under her nose, "So life is hard. Big deal! It is for everyone! And no one knows it better than our boss here. Only he didn't make a living out of robbing and scamming good, honest people like you did. Instead, he lifted himself right from the ground and devoted himself to justice, becoming a hero for the people! Isn't that right?"

"Why, heh. I mean, I guess I did" Dib nodded in fake modesty, a hand awkwardly scratching his nape.

Driver glared at the bounty hunter with the utmost hate rage. She has just about to bite his finger off, when he withdrew it to turn to Dib.

"I don't think this one is gonna talk easily. She is a seasoned criminal. It's gonna take a lot more than a nice talk to make her confess. If you... know what I mean", and he pronounced that last line in such a malicious, creepy way that it sent a shiver through Driver's spine.

Dib turned to glare at her. Driver widened her eyes in fear; it wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't have that creepy yellow eye to stare at her with.

"Yeah. I know just the thing to make you talk..." he growled at her.

The legs of his throne moved, carrying him closer to her and above the table.

"W-wait, Dib!" she yelled, "He's clearly lying! He's just trying to flatter you into trusting him! How can you believe him?!"

"Oh, and justfor the record" the bounty hunter raised an index finger, "'Mysterious Justice Bringers' is a much better name than the one we had before!"

"It's not, and everyone here knows it!" Driver tried to protest.

"Ha! I KNEW you were lying to me! You really ARE a terrible monster!" Dib angrily yelled.

"What does THIS have to do with- AAAH!"

Dib's face tentacles suddenly shot on her shoulders and held on her so strongly, she couldn't even budge one inch under his grip; despite looking so smoky and evanescent, they were very much physical and strong, even stronger than that bounty hunter's hands.

Driver froze in place, and looked up at Dib in terror, feeling the blood drain from her face.

"This is the last chance to tell me what Zim is planning on doing on your own volition" he said.

"N-no- D-Dib, please, listen to me, I-" she tried to plead with trembling lips.

"Fine" more smoky tentacles came out of his head, and started to slowly creep towards her. "Have it your way. I'm gonna give you a taste of what I'll do to Zim once they bring him to me"

"W-what- no-" Driver wailed, trying to squirm under his crushing strength, the tentacles reaching closer and closer to her.

"You see, I know enough about Irken technology" Dib explained in a casual tone, and knocked on the machine under him. "All that's missing is their biology. And, of course, their PAKs. You know, this might actually come in handy..."

"Oh my God, kid, you don't mean-" Driver's breathed out, her voice reduced to a whisper.

Then, the tips of the tentacles morphed, the black smoke twirling around to form what looked like... surgical instruments. Driver really wished she was just dreaming it, but that was what they unequivocally were: a couple turned into knives, one into a saw, another one into a weird claw.

"After all, I have never actually vivisected something that big. I need practice" he hissed, eyes fixed into hers.

"OH MY GOD, YOU'RE INSANE! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Driver yelled, instinctively holding her belly in, legs kicking, terrified out of her mind.

"Hah. Never heard that one before" Dib scoffed in an annoyed voice.

"Don't disfigure her too much, boss" the bounty hunter advised him in a sadistically enthusiastic voice, that Driver swore sounded aroused, "If they can't identify her, they won't pay us the bounty"

"No way! No! STOP! You can't do this Dib I'm not lying I AM A HUMAN TOO!" Driver desperately pleaded.

Dib glared at her.

"This is what you get for sticking with the enemy of mankind", and with that, he activated that saw-tentacle, which despite looking like it was made of smoke produced a whirring, metallic sound, and neared it closer and closer to her body.

"O-okay! OKAY! I'll tell you!" Driver screamed, eyes squeezed shut, and she prayed that this single, last plan would work. "I'LL TELL YOU THE TRUTH! Zim is trying to build a... another world destroyer! We were heading to a secret laboratory to build it there! I have the coordinates right here with me!"

The whirring sound stopped.

Driver tentatively opened her eyes; looking down, she saw that black saw, turned off, a mere inch from her stomach.

"I KNEW IT!" Dib triumphantly yelled, and started shaking her by the shoulders, so violently that her head painfully jerked back and forth. "Where?! Where is the place?! Tell me! I have to make sure no one gets access to that weapon ever again!"

"Y-yes" she panted, relieved, yet still trembling by that near-torture experience, "Look in the left back pocket of my pants. I keep the coordinates there".

Dib's tentacles withdrew and disappeared into his head in the bat of an eye; he gestured to the bounty hunter with a nod of his head to search her.

The bounty hunter meekly sighed, disappointed that he didn't get to see her being tortured after all, and headed towards her.

"Stand up" he brashly ordered. Driver obeyed; he pushed her back forward with one hand, while with the other he searched in the back pocket (brushing a little too harshly against her bottom). Then, he drew out its content, and held it out for Dib to see.

"There's just a necklace in here" the bounty hunter shook Ojod's golden necklace, holding it by the chain; the heart locket twinkled in the dim light as it swung in the air.

"I've written the coordinates inside the locket" Driver nodded reassuringly, "It's-"

"Shut up" the bounty hunter pushed her back in her chair pressing down on her head.

Then, he went back to the other side of the table and handed the locket to Dib; he grabbed a scan from some place under his throne, one very similar to Zim's, and used it to scan the object for any possible trap; the scanner emitted a negative beep, and he smugly smirked.

"See? You should've collaborated from the start"

Dib rolled the locket in his hands, examining it, and Driver stared at him in what she hoped wasn't a suspicious way.

"Haha! It's even heart-shaped! Did he give it to you? Awww, you two sacks of garbage are just so cute!" he exclaimed.

"Y-yeah..." she quietly whispered, lowering her head, trying not to look at him too intently.

A horrible presentiment told her that he wouldn't have immediately opened the locket; or that he would have somehow figured out what it actually was before even opening it -maybe with that monstrous yellow eye of his.

Instead, much to her relief, her plan worked: Dib opened the heart-shaped locket, and the light of the Lighthouse enveloped his face in its warm halo.

Initially, Dib frowned, confused; the bounty hunter, curious, walked closer to look better inside. Then, both their expressions relaxed; their mouths opened so slightly, letting out two amazed sighs.

Driver slowly lifted her head up, to see that both their faces had become fixed in a surprised, yet content expression; their entranced eyes glimmered of the Light of Peace -even Dib's creepy monster eye, now widened in a perfectly round shape.

Just like a cat, uh?, Driver considered.

She quietly sighed in relief, amazed that that plan had actually worked: now was her chance to escape.

Keeping her eyes on her captors, she passed her tied hands under her bottom and her legs; then, afraid that any sudden movement could have snapped then out of their trance, she slowly reached for her objects on the table.

She hooked her fingers around her belt and quietly slid it closer on the table; then, she picked the laser pointer out of it and stuck it into her mouth.

She carefully pointed it down at her handcuffs and pressed the on button with her tongue: a red, burning line shot from it and hit the metal part of the handcuffs.

The smell of burning metal rose along with a line of dark smoke and Driver struggled to keep her eyes open: the last thing she needed now was to accidentally sever off her own hands.

The pink plasma handcuffs around her wrists flickered and Driver pressed down on the button again: the burnt metal center fell in her lap, broken, and she was finally free.

She took that damn laser out of her mouth and took in a big breath; she gave a quick, anxious look at her captors: still safely hypnotized by the light.

Finally she put the belt in her lap; stuffed her communicator back into her pocket; picked her gun and aimed it at Dib.

Her finger rested on the trigger, but she hesitated to press it.

On one hand, this was a literal monster who had attacked and damaged her ship, had captured her, almost cut her open, and still had every intention to cut her boyfriend open too.

On the other hand, this was also a clearly naive, misguided, traumatized human child. Did she really want to off him like that? All her life she had sworn off killing or harming children, under any circumstance. Then again, this kid appeared to be a legitimately dangerous threat that would not stop hunting her and Zim down so easily. Maybe if she just incapacitated him-

Suddenly, she noticed a movement in the right corner of her eye.

She turned her face to see the bounty hunter, dumbfounded, looking at her.

He blinked a couple times, still dazed from the hypnosis; then, their eyes met, and he broke from his trance.

He reached for the gun in his holster, but it was too late, as Driver switched her aim from Dib to him: she pulled the trigger, and a blue flash zapped into his chest, sending him flying backwards.

"WHA-?!" Dib jumped, startled, looking up from the locket's light and directly at her.

Alright. Time for the pressure kick. Oh, my poor wallet…

Driver bent her knees up to her chest, charging the boots to the max, positioning the soles of her feet opposite to Dib.

Then, she kicked, releasing the accumulated energy on right on the air in front of him: she and Dib, along with his throne, the table and her cape on it, were violently thrown opposite ways.

"Gyaaaah!" she heard the kid scream as they were both launched in the air.

Driver curled herself in a ball and used her arms to shield her head, bracing for the impact with the ground; when it happened, it wasn't too bad: just a series of hard thuds and bumps all over her body, that would for sure bruise the next day -as if she didn't need ANY more pain to endure on that day. What was next, a lost tooth? A black eye?

Finally, her somersaults slowed down, until she found herself lying still on the floor.

She struggled to lift herself up on her elbows, and glanced over at her enemies: much to her surprise, they were also both struggling to get up from the floor, the bounty hunter being still alive, with a large burning wound on his chest. Apparently, his damn fur was so thick not even her gun had done the trick...

"GET HER!" Dib shrilled, the legs of his throne sliding on the floor as they attempted to stand up again, "GO AND GET HER, HURRY!"

Alright, that was her cue to get the hell out of there.

I'm so sorry, cool rogue cape, she regretfully bid the piece of clothing goodbye as she got on her feet and turned around to bolt out of the building.

Driver ran out of the same, open door she had come through, her gun in one hand and her belt in the other; the sunlight burnt her eyes, which had gotten used the factory's darkness, but she pressed on at maximum speed anyway: if Dib got her now, he would have probably tortured her to death on sight.

She ran past a bunch of similarly abandoned, short, square buildings, dismayed that there was no place to climb on with her boots and hide -which, after that kick, probably had very little spare energy anyway.

As she ran, she suddenly came across a roadway: she had been so anxious and eager to get away from that terrifying place, she had barely noticed that she had gotten out of that abandoned industrial area and come to the deserted, open place which surrounded the metropolis.

She looked left and right for a possible way out, when she noticed a vehicle driving towards her and the city: a hovering, yellow car, that almost blended with the orange-tinted background, with the sign 'TAXI' on its top.

She stepped into the middle of the road and started jumping and waving her arms in the air to get the driver's attention.

"Taxi! Taxi, stop!"

The cab stopped a few feet from her, and she immediately went for the passenger's door; initially, the cab driver, a scrawny, friendly-looking guy with smooth, translucent yellow skin, politely tipped his working hat at her; but then, as she scrambled to get in the seat next to him, he paid her a puzzled look and advanced a courteous objection:

"Excuse me, lady, but you can't sit here, the passengers ought to be- OOOOH, I get it" he immediately lifted his hands up has she pointed her gun at his face, "It's a robbery, isn't it? I've only just started my shift so I've only got 50 monies, but please, take them"

"Uh-" Driver blinked at him, surprised by his calm demeanor, "No, man, I need you to drive me away from here as fast as possible"

"Aaahhh, so it's an escape situation. Got that" the cab driver hit the gas pedal and took off towards the city.

"Are you, like… used to this?" Driver asked, slowly lowering her gun.

"Believe it or not, this is the fifth time this month" the cab driver smiled, "I've been having one heck of a bad luck. It must be the third moon, it's in retrograde, I've heard"

"Ah. Uh... sorry"

"It's okay, they pay me extra whenever that happens. Who are we running away from, by the way?"

"Uh-"

Suddenly, the familiar, loud rumble an engine roared from behind them; Driver and the cabby both looked into the rear-view mirror: the bounty hunters' leader was chasing them on his hovering motorcycle, the clothes on his chest burnt and ruined, his teeth gritted in a furious expression.

"YOU! STOP RIGHT NOW!" he screamed at them.

"Woah. That guy is scary" the cabby commented.

"Yeah I know. So accelerate and make sure we don't get caught" Driver shook the gun near his face.

"Ooo-kay!" he happily agreed as he sped up the taxi.

Driver quickly picked her communicator up and called Zim: the line rang for what looked to her like an infinite time, but just as she thought he wouldn't answer for whatever horrible reason, she heard a click, as someone picked it up.

"Zim!" she yelled into the phone, "Zim, are you there?!"

"Irken Zim! Are you in there?", "Come out with your hands up!", two voices ordered from the ship's speakers.

Zim glared at the two bounty hunters, hovering on their motorcycles right outside of Driver's ship; a small, weird, female rat-looking alien and a big, dumb-looking white… thing.

He clenched his fists, looking between the two foes on the outside and the one on the inside, grinning down at him with a mocking smirk. So it was gonna be three on one, uh? Driver had been right, calling them the most ignoble creatures in the universe.

"Never!" he shouted, his chest proudly puffed out, "You'll never catch me alive! I'll never give up! And I won't go down without a fight! Now prepare! I'm going to- EEEP!"

Two lasers shot from the motorcycle's front lights, hitting Driver's ship.

"Hey, stop that!" Zim protested, "I was talking!"

The big guy turned to his companion with an unsure expression.

"He was talking, Sash..."

"Who cares! Shut up!" the small one shrieked, "Get out of there already, or we'll blow you up!"

"There's no place for you to run to" the Blob's cold voice mocked him from behind "You're surrounded. Your girlfriend has been captured. You should just surrender now, before you get really hurt. We might even go a little easier on you both. Don't you wanna see her again?"

Zim gritted his teeth, a low growl rising from his throat. If that Blob was telling the truth, and there was a high chance that he was, he needed to find Driver and save her as soon as possible. Who knows what they were doing to her at that point?

"I'm not running! Invaders don't run, fools!" Zim took out his guns out of his PAK and aimed them at the intruder, "Now tell me where Driver is, or you're dead!"

And with that, he fired three warning shots right at the Blob's face; but his cocky expression didn't even flinch: the laser bullets simply passed through his gelatinous body, without inflicting any real damage, and the little holes immediately filled with new blue jelly, like he'd never been shot to begin with.

"I wonder how you're gonna make it happen, without your girlfriend's weird gun" the Blob gloated.

"I-AAH!" Zim yelped as the enemies on the outside shot the ship again. "Stop hitting Driver's ship! It's unfair, you're three against one! At least take turns, you cowards!"

"It doesn't seem like he's gonna come out on his own" the small one growled.

"I think it's better if you do it, Blob" the big one advised.

"With pleasure" the Blob's creepy smirk widened, "I'm gonna have fun with this one"

The Blob let himself fall face first down on the floor; his body hit it with a disgusting 'SHAFF' sound, collecting into a pulsing puddle, and spraying drops of its blue jelly all over the place.

"Eeeeughughguuhhh! Stop it!" Zim shrieked "Stop it! Stop spreading your filthy body on Driver's ship! Do you have any idea how much difficult it's going to be to convince her to clean this place without my help?!"

"Oh, I'm afraid she's never going to step into this ship again" the Blob chuckled, his body gathering again to form his usual, taller form, "Before selling her to the police, I'm going to set this thing on fire right before her eyes..."

The Blob slowly crept towards Zim, and he recoiled back against the panel control.

"… and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it..."

Zim glared at him, trying to hide his fear before the approaching enemy.

He needed think of a way to get rid of that blob, and fast. What were blobs' weaknesses that he could reasonably exploit? Nuclear weapons? Heat? Electrocution? And, of course...

"Fire!" Zim exclaimed.

He turned to his left and opened a little door under the panel control: Driver's stash of alcohol, where she'd hidden the stolen bottles from the Flordian supermarket.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" he heard the Blob bark behind him, hastening his slippery strides towards him.

Zim sharply turned against his opponent, holding the makeshift weapon up in a triumphant pose; smirking at the now wide-eyed, terrified Blob, he used one of his legs' laser to light up the piece of paper shoved inside the bottle's neck.

"Let's see how well you fare against the power of a molotov!" he yelled.

"No!" the Blob put up two tentacles defensively.

Zim threw the bottle at him, and he narrowly evaded it: the glass bottle crashed on the floor between them, the burning alcohol spreading in a bright red flame.

"AAAH! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" the Blob shrieked in terror, retreating into the ship's back corridor.

"Just setting you on fire! Hahaha!" Zim laughed, "Ironic isn't it? A bar-drone, burned to death by alcohol! You should thank me! It's the death you deserve!"

"You set the ship on fire!" the Blob shouted at him behind that wall of fire.

"He set the ship on fire?!" the small alien yelled in a shrill voice.

"Yessss! The ship your slimy little friend is in! And you're next! Mwahahaha!" Zim gloated, laughing with his face up.

"But that's your ship!" the big one retorted, "And you're in it too!"

"VICTORY FOR ZIIIIM!" he thundered over their stupid voices.

Now that that had been taken care of, he could finally turn the ship around.

And fight the other two enemies with the ship.

And then rescue Driver with the ship.

All with Driver's ship.

The ship he was standing in right now.

The ship that was on fire.

… wait-

"THE SHIP IS ON FIIIIIREEE!" he screamed in absolute terror, "NO NO NOOOO!"

"What the heck, man!", "Why would you do that?!" the two bounty hunters asked, incredulous.

"AAAAH! You idiot! Heeelp!" the Blob flailed his gelatinous arms up in panic.

"No no no! Stop burning! Driver's gonna kill me!" Zim frantically stepped on the fire, in a similar display of panic; but there was nothing his little foot could do against such a widespread fire, which took up almost the entire middle section of the control room's floor.

"Just get out you two!" the small bounty hunter yelled.

"NO!" Zim glared back at the enemy, guessing their clever plan to smoke (fire?) him out of his own ship, "You'll never have me!"

He jumped on the pilot seat, turned the ship on, and took off in the air, soaring over the two bounty hunters.

"Why did you do that?!", "How's that of any help?!", "BRING US BACK DOWN, YOU MORON! WE'RE GOING TO BURN ALIVE!" the three enemies shouted at him all at once.

"SHUT UP! Leave me alone!" Zim silenced their nagging yaps, his panic rising and his heart pounding louder in his chest, as the room behind his got hotter and hotter; in front of him, the sight of the city and the sky moving down as the ship ascended made him almost nauseous, and he had to look away.

"Ah, uh- uhhh, y- you!" he pointed at the Blob, "Go get some water, and put the fire down!"

"WHAT?!" the Blob screamed, outraged. "I'm NOT taking orders from-"

"Get the water, Blob!", "We need to catch him alive, remember?!" the Blob's companions shouted through the speaker.

"O-okay, I-" the Blob looked left and right, looking for a possible water source.

"There's a bucket in the bathroom's cabinet!" Zim gestured to one of the doors to the Blob's right, "Fill it with the shower head! And don't touch the shower's floor, I don't want you to give Driver any warts!"

"I HATE YOU SO MUCH!" the Blob bolted inside the bathroom to follow his orders.

Then, all of a sudden, Zim's communicator rang; he took it out of his PAK, and saw 'DRIVER' written on the screen.

"Oh, no! It's her! She's calling me!" Zim held the communicator away from his mouth, as if she could hear him if it were any nearer, even without picking the call up.

"What do I do?! When she finds I let a blob set fire to her ship, she'll freak out! She might even blame ME!"

"You shouldn't lie to your girlfriend about your shortcomings. That's how unhealthy patterns take root in a relationship" the big one's voice advised him from the speaker.

"Yeah! Just be vague and stall for time, you'll think of an excuse after you've put out the fire!" the small one echoed.

"Okay, okay, right!" Zim nodded, reassured by their encouragements, "I'm gonna answer now!"

"Hey, wait a second, they're letting her call him?!" the small one asked.

"Maybe the boss felt… charitable? Somehow?" the big one dubiously suggested.

"Here I go!" Zim picked the 'pick up' option.

"Zim! Zim, are you there?!" Driver's panicked voice called for him from the communicator, and that alone was enough to warm his heart: thank Irk, she seemed to be okay!

But before he could answer, he was distracted by the sound of a door sliding open: he looked up to see the Blob, reemerging from the bathroom with a bucket full of spilling water in his tentacles. Then, his eyes fixed on something behind him, and his expression turned from annoyance to terror.

"BE CAREFUL! BUILDING! BUILDIIING!" he screamed, his trembling motions spilling the water everywhere.

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!", "MOVE! MOVE AWAY!", the two voices loudly screamed.

Zim turned back around, at the windshield, and for a moment his heart stopped in his chest, as he watched a fast-approaching building at nothing but a few feet from the ship.

"AAAAAHHHH!" the communicator fell from his hands, as he scrambled to reach for the steering wheel, "WHO PUT THAT THEEEE-"

"-EEEEERE?!"

"Hello? Hello? Zim?! Hello?!" Driver called, alarmed by his sudden shouting.

BOOM.

She and the cabby turned to their right to the loud sound of an explosion: in the distance, a smoky mass of rubble erupted from the side of a tall building. Then, an object broke through the wall on the other side. And it hit the building next to the first one. And emerged from the other side, causing its top to collapse. And so on and so forth, with another three buildings.

Driver's eyes couldn't make out the far object, but she instantly knew that those were the buildings mentioned in the call, and that it was her ship that was going through them. Her poor, poor ship.

"Follow those explosions!" she instructed the cabby, "That's where my ship is!"

"Alright, and-Ah!"

The taxi jerked, making them both shake in their seats, as something hit it from behind.

Driver looked back at their pursuer, completely astounded: even though they were now flying between the lines of vehicles suspended inside the city, with hundreds of civilians driving and living around them, that crazy bounty hunter was still shooting at them, in plain sight, chasing them at a crazy speed.

"Damn! That motorcycle can really pack some hits! Good thing that all the taxis in this city are converted mini-tanks from the War!" the cabby cheerfully explained to her, talking casually as if the taxi had simply run over a bump on the road.

"Uh. How convenient" Driver murmured, opening the window on her side.

"HEEEYYY!" she shouted at the bounty hunter, "I have a hostage here! His name is, uh-"

"Philip!" the cabby suggested her.

"Philip! And he has three children! So stop shooting us! Do you wanna kill him?!"

"I do!" Philip echoed from the other window, "Don't kill me! For my children!"

"… you do?" Driver asked him.

"No, but I wanna live!"

The bounty hunter drew his gun out of its holster and pointed it right at Driver's head.

She withdrew it just in time before the bullet hit the rear window.

"Stop that taxi, or I'll make it crash with you in it!" he angrily screamed at them.

"Goddamn motherf-" Driver took her own gun and leaned out of the window to shoot at him.

She shot three times in a rows, but the bounty hunter skillfully evaded each hit swaying his motorcycle left and right. All around her, vehicles darted past them in all directions, ringing their honks at them as they either flew dangerously close to them, or inadvertently shot them.

She was about to shoot the enemy in the head, and she was sure that she would have hit him too, when she saw a dark ship flying above her.

She initially mistook it for Zim's Voot Cruiser, but then, saw who was piloting it, her blood froze in her veins.

So that 'throne' was a ship. An Irken ship. How could I not notice-

Dib launched himself on the taxi's roof, producing a terrifying sound and shaking in the process, the legs of the ship clenching the vehicle on either side in their grasp; if that hadn't been a modified tank, they would have surely crumpled it up like a piece of paper.

"AAAAH! What's happening?!" Philip shrieked, sounding genuinely scared for the first time.

"Come out of there!" Dib intimated above them.

Just as Driver looked up, his black tentacles pierced the roof of the taxi, their pointed tips as sharp as knives.

Then, they bent, returning to their flexible, serpentine forms, and wiggled around inside the vehicle, as if they were trying to find her by touch, all the while producing a chilling rattling sound.

"A monster! It's a MONSTER!" Philip screamed, terrified out of his mind, the taxi adopting a zigzag stride as he lost control of the vehicle.

Driver shivered as a tentacle brushed against her arm, shrinking as much as she could in the corner of her seat.

"You'll regret making a fool out of me!" Dib screamed, and it sounded like something between a human's voice and an animal's growl.

"Stop it, kid!" Driver warned him, pointing her laser pointer at his tentacles, "Stop it, before you get hur-"

The cab jerked again as the bounty hunter shot it with his motorcycle; the tentacles tickled Philip's nape, who at this point was practically sobbing from the terror, and barely looking at the road, the taxi swaying so much to the left that it almost colluded with a car passing in the opposite direction.

This is hell. I'm in hell and this kid is my personal torturing devil.

Driver turned the laser pointer on and shot it up, at the bases of the tentacles; they emitted little shrieks of pain, but it evidently wasn't enough to seriously injure them: instead, they bolted towards her, passing around her neck, her head, her face, and then pulling up.

"AAAAAH!" she screamed, her head painfully bumping on the taxi's roof.

"LET GO! LET ME GO, YOUAAAGHRGH!" she furiously thrashed under the tentacles' strong, painful grip: one was under her chin, one on her nose, one on her forehead and around her hair; in multiple points on her face, she felt burning stings, as though her skin was being pierced.

Yet, in that chaotic inferno, she felt the taxi decelerating; she shot a glance at Philip, and saw that the tentacles were attacking him too, though not with the same fury as with her.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please don't kill me! I have three- six! Six childreeen!" he begged Dib for mercy as he slowed down the taxi's speed.

If he stops, they'll probably spare him. You and Zim, on the other hand-

"ENOOOOUGH!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Putting all of her strength into it, she managed to move her head up enough to have a tentacle in front of her mouth; and then, she bit on it as hard as she could.

"HYAAA!" Dib shrieked in pain, and the grip on her weakened all at once.

Blood. She didn't think those tentacles were made of meat -almost surely they weren't- but what she was tasting was definitely blood. Good.

Driver moved her head left and right, clenching her jaw and gnawing with her teeth through the 'flesh' of the tentacle.

"YOU'RE BITING ME! YOU'RE BITING ME! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Dib screamed, and she bit on him even harder, shaking her head like a mauling dog.

Finally, Dib got the message and the tentacles left her head.

Driver spat that last, wounded appendage away, and glared at Philip to her left. He shrunk under her stare, like there was a rabid animal sitting beside him, and you know what? To be fair, that wasn't all untrue: she really felt like her head could explode from all the anger she felt at the moment.

"I"

Driver slapped a hand on the wheel.

"JUST"

She scooped to the left, a thigh on Philip's leg, feeling the pedals under her foot.

"WANTED TO GIVE MY BOYFRIEND A HANDJOB!".

She took a sharp turn to the left, cutting through a lane of cars; then, she pressed all down on the gas pedal, pointing the car towards a narrow alley between two buildings.

"NO! DON'T!" Dib's tentacles scrambled around the taxi to try and stop her, slapping against her body.

Another tentacle passed near her mouth, and she attempted to bite it, feeling it under her teeth for a second.

Dib's feeble attempts didn't deter her though, and she confidently plunged the taxi inside the alley.

"NYAAAAAOOOOOOO!" as per her calculations, that narrow space wasn't enough to accommodate Dib and his ship: its sides crashed against the two buildings' corners, and Dib was thrown behind and off the taxi, ripping its roof off with his tentacles as he fell backwards.

Even his screams sound petulant, Driver commented.

Something that she hadn't calculated, though, is that the taxi was barely fit for the alley too: its sides screeched and grated against the buildings, leaving a trail of sparkles behind them.

"Woooh! I can't l- I can't believe that, hahaha!" Philip let out a laughter between the hysterical and the exhilarated, "We're alive! You saved me! I can't believe this is happening! Where did you learn how to drive like that?!"

Driver set herself back in her seat. She sputtered in her hand, trying to rid herself of the taste of blood; she looked down, and noticed that that blood was black.

Disgusted, she discretely wiped her palm under her seat.

"Anytime, Phil. First rule of driving: never give up during a chase where a monster is on your roof"

The rumble of a familiar engine distracted her from that pleasant exchange: as she'd imagined, the bounty hunter was persisting in his chase inside that long alleyway, right behind the pretty sparkle's of their trail.

Driver got up on her knees on the seat and emerged from the now roof-less taxi, the wind blowing on the back of her head, the sparkles spraying from both sides, her gun out and aimed at her foe.

"Bring it on, you dirtbag! This time I'll make sure the bullet comes through the other side!"

The bounty hunter gritted his teeth at her in a furious expression, his gun raised up back at her while he directed the motorcycle with the other.

Suddenly, the communicator that she'd left between her knees started ringing.

"Take the call, Phil!" she ordered, careful to keep her eyes on he enemy's gun.

Phil leaned to pick her communicator, and she heard him answer the call with an enthusiastic:

"WOOOH! THIS IS THE MOST ALIVE I'VE FELT IN AGES!"

"Uhhuhh..." Zim groaned, hanging by his hands from the steering wheel; thankfully, there didn't seem to be any more buildings in the ship's path.

He slowly got up on shaky legs, adrenaline still pumping through his veins; really, it was a miracle that he'd managed to hold onto the wheel through all those impacts and shakes.

But before he could look out the windshield and assess the situation, something clutched his waist.

"WHA-", that something pulled him back and onto the floor; the back of his head flared with pain at the impact, and he involuntarily exhaled all the air in his spooch.

He looked up, eyes full of tears, and saw the Blob, towering above him, his left tentacle pinning him down, while the other worked at the ship's controls.

"N-nooo..." Zim weakly squirmed under his grasp, trying to push away the tentacle around his waist, "Stop, don't touch-"

The tentacle pulled him back up, only to violently slamm him back to the ground.

"You IDIOT!" the Blob barked at him, "We almost died because of you! This ends now!"

Zim felt the ship stop in the air; he wiped his eyes from the tears, and looked up, behind him: the Blob had managed to partially put out the fire, and the hatch in the floor that lead to his Cruiser was now accessible again. At this point, he seriously needed to consider escaping Driver's ship. Provided that he freed himself from the Blob's grasp, that is…

"Good job, Blob! Glad you're still alive!", "Now open the hatch and let us in!" the other two bounty hunters cheered on their companion.

The Blob glared down at him, his furious expression now devoid of any derision.

"I know I promised to bring you back alive, but... I don't think I can pass the opportunity to digest you alive..."

"No, Blob!" the small bounty hunter intimated, "I know he's very killable, but restrain yourself!"

"Yeah!" the big one echoed, "Digesting people is barbaric! Let's just bring him back to the base, where he'll be fairly dissected!"

"But, like, a broken bone or two shouldn't be a problem, haha!"

"Nnnnghh!" Zim flailed his legs and arms around. Why was it always vivisection with his enemies?!

"Wait. I have an idea" the Blob leaned to the right to pick something up; when he stood up, Zim could see him holding his communicator.

"Why don't we give your girlfriend a call?" he grinned, "Whether she's still imprisoned or she's set herself free, I'm sure she'll be happy to have an update on you"

"No! No!" Zim whined, "I can't have her know you crashed her ship into buildings!"

The Blob didn't listen to his pleads; he dialed on his communicator, and put it on speakerphone; it rang three or four times, before someone picked the call up.

"WOOOH! THIS IS THE MOST ALIVE I'VE FELT IN AGES!" a distinctly male voice shouted from it.

Zim and the Blob shared a perplexed look.

"Who are you?!" they asked in unison.

"I am Philip!" the voice replied.

"Why are you answering Driver's phone?!" Zim asked.

"Yes, I am a taxi driver!"

"Where did you get this phone?!" the Blob pressed him.

"Oh, it belongs to this lady I'm driving!"

"Driver?! Driver is there?!" Zim asked, elated to hear that she'd actually managed to escape.

"Yeah, I'm the driver!"

"No you MORON, the girl! The ape girl!" the Blob impatiently shouted into the communicator.

"Pass me Driver, taxi-drone!" Zim yelled, "Tell her ZiM is calling!"

"Ohhh, so her name is 'Driver'! And you are the handjob guy!"

"I'm the what guy now-"

"Aaahh, that's disgusting, yuck!" the Blob winced away from the phone, gagging.

"I don't think she can talk now. She's real focused on having a shooting duel with this crazy guy on a motorcycle-"

"Well, tell her we have her boyfriend and that unless she surrenders we're going to break every bone in his body!" the Blob threatened.

"Wait wait wait wait wait" Zim waved his hands up, "Did you save her?! That's unfair! I've been working so hard to come and save her, and a random taxi-drone named Phellip comes in and does it before I do!"

"Well, actually-" Phellip tried to muster up an excuse, but he was interrupted:

"Is anyone gonna tell us what's going on inside that ship?!", the small bounty hunter called from the speaker.

"I think they just caught that human cheating on the Irken with a taxi driver" the big one insinuated.

"NO!" Zim shouted, terrified and enraged at once at that prospect, "I WON'T BE CHEATED ON! DON'T YOU DARE DRIVE MY SQUINTZ-PARTNER!"

"Squintz- is that a word for 'fuc-"

Zim left the Blob no time to continue: he drew out his PAK's legs, and in one fell, unexpected swoop, he knocked his eyes out, sending them to bounce away on the panel control and on the floor, in opposite directions.

"AAAAH! MY EYES! YOU KNOCKED OFF MY EYES, YOU LITTLE-" the Blob immediately went into panic, his eyeless face darting left and right, seemingly undecided on which eye to go after first.

Zim used his lasers to burn and melt the gelatinous tentacle around his waist, thus setting himself free, and he immediately went for the hatch in the floor; after closing the door behind him, he bolted down the dark, underground corridor, to the cabin where his Voot Cruiser was. Above him, he heard the bumps from the Blob, furiously tumbling around to retrieve his eyes.

Zim set himself inside the Cruiser, readying it for take off. Right now the plan was to find Driver and help her against that 'crazy motorcycle guy': he was not gonna be bested by a lousy taxi-drone! And whatever happened to her ship, he would simply blame it on the bounty hunters.

As soon as the cell's outer door opened, Zim jumped at full speed out of Driver's ship; something that immediately regretted, because in his path was the small, rat-looking bounty hunter on her motorcycle.

She turned to him and shouted a chocked "WHAT-", but it was already too late for either of them to avoid the impact: Zim crashed right into her motorcycle, sending her flying against a nearby building; as the motorcycle bounced off it, the small alien got unseated from her vehicle, and they both plummeted down to the ground.

"SASHAAAAA!" the big one let out a desperate scream.

"Aaaaarhgghrgrhghrgh!" were the supposed last words of the small one as she fell down to her doom- probably, at least. Zim was too busy twirling with the Cruiser in the air, and didn't bother checking.

"Aaaah! Aaah, uhhh, errr… take… take that, you! I wanted to do exactly that, HA! I WIN!" he gloated as he slowly gained back control of the Cruiser.

"I'M COMING FOR YOU, SASH!" the big guy ignored him, and plummeted down to follow his fallen companion.

Zim stared down for a while, sure that at any second he would fly up again to continue their fight. But he never did. Neither of them did.

"Uhm..." Zim awkwardly looked around, "I really won? Just like that? Oh, well. I AM AMAZING! I suppose. Now to find Driver and that wretched taxi-drone..."

Having announced his victory, Zim steered the Voot Cruiser away from Driver's ship, and began his search for her.

A laser bullet landed on the taxi's structure, right next to Driver, and she took cover crouching down on her seat. Drat. That motorcycle allowed the bounty hunter to easily evade her shots. How was she going to hit him?

"Phil, who was it on the phone?!" she asked Philip, who had just put her communicator down.

"It was that Zim!" he answered. "Your, uh... 'squintz'... something? There was another guy with him! He said they're gonna hurt him unless you surrender!"

Driver turned to him with widened eyes.

"'Hurt him'?! Hurt him how?!"

"Uhhhh-" he hesitated to answer, but continued as he saw the expression in her eyes: "So... something about breaking his bones? But I wouldn't worry if I were you, I'm sure he's fine!"

Driver looked to her right and at the sky: they were finally under the ruined buildings, with swerves of people running in and out of them; but, at least from there, she couldn't see her ship or the bounty hunters anywhere.

The thought of Zim possibly being tortured at the time being filled her with the utmost fury and dread.

"Philip. I'll be driving now. Switch places with me" she ordered.

Philip awkwardly slipped behind her and onto her seat as she sat in his place. Once she got all set, she steered the taxi down, until she reached the city's ground; the pedestrians stared and yelled at them as they sped past them well over the speed limits.

Driver put her head out of the window and yelled back at her pursuer:

"Tell your lackeys to let Zim go! He has no bounty on him! Leave him alone!"

The bounty hunter shot the taxi again.

"You get off that cab now, or I swear I'll have them cut all his limbs off!" he yelled, and his voice sounded more enthusiastic than angry.

"Woah. These guys are perverse, aren't they?" Phil commented.

"Stole the words out of my mouth, Phil..."

Driver took a smoke bomb from her belt and passed it to Philip.

"When I say 'now', take the fuse off and throw it at him"

"Well, geez, alright, but-" he rolled the bomb in his hands, uncertain, "won't this kill him? I don't wanna-"

"Oh, no. It's just a smoke bomb" she reassured him, "I'll be taking care of killing him..."

The bounty hunter shot the cab again, and this time, after having sustained so many shots, the back window finally cracked. Driver slowed down the taxi, allowing the bounty hunter to get closer. Phil anxiously looked at her, his body turned back to their pursuer.

"Uh- Driver, I don't think we-"

"Get ready, Phil. Throw it right in front of him, don't let him evade it!" she ordered.

Another shot aimed at the back window, which managed to shatter it onto the back seats; Phil let out a frightened yelp, hiding from the glass shards behind the seat.

Closer, closer, closer. The bounty hunter shot his gun, and the laser bullet flew through the hole in the back, hitting the windshield.

Alright. If this doesn't work, I'm dead.

"NOW!" she yelled.

From his scared behavior, Driver had seriously worried that he wouldn't be able to follow her instructions; however, Phil obediently executed all of them: he took the fuse out of the bomb, lifted himself up over the roof and threw it behind the taxi.

Driver abruptly hit the brake, slowing the taxi down dramatically in a matter of seconds; behind them, the bomb exploded in a cloud of dark smoke, a few feet in front of the bounty hunter, who drove right into it, letting out a surprised shout.

With the taxi almost completely still, Driver quickly jumped with her feet on her seat; she hugged Philip by the waist, and jumped up with her gravity boots, spending nearly all their leftover charge.

Driver and Philip lightly flew up in the air, in the opposite way from their original direction, and under them, the motorcycle briefly came out from the smoke only to violently collide with the taxi and explode.

BOOM. The taxi, the motorcycle and its driver disappeared in a mass of bright, yellow fire.

Goodbye, Sleazebag. Hope you enjoy your stay in Hell, Driver smirked as she watched the fire.

"Woooahhh" Phil gasped, "You're the most fun passenger who's ever abducted me! They're going to raise my pay so much!"

"I'm glad to hear that, Philip" Driver breathed out. She had been about half convinced that she'd fluke that move and end up killed. So, good: one thing that hadn't gone horribly wrong that day.

Driver and Philip gracefully floated back to the road, where they collected themselves and turned to watch the two vehicles burning.

"Sorry about the taxi, man. You really saved me there" she apologized.

"Don't mention it. You know, when I saw that gun I thought you were just a run of the mill criminal, but you're actually a good person! Anyone else would have left me to die with that mustache man!"

"Heh... if only more people thought that of me" she chuckled, "Everyone today just assumed I was a monster, especially that kid-"

Suddenly, something big and fast landed right behind her, the air all around her shifting, her hair flying in her face from the back. Philip recoiled with a terrified "Aaaah!", while a whiny, childish voice mixed with a terrifying, primal growl spoke to her:

"I have you now"

Oh, crap. How did I forget about him?"

Driver turned to point her gun at Dib, but his tentacles easily slapped it away from her hand before she could shoot. She jumped back, trying to get away from him: whe looked bruised and hurt, both him and his ship (from the fall she had caused, for sure), not to mention absolutely furious, his savage, mismatched eyes attentively following her.

"Wait, no-" a tentacle slipped between her legs and tripped her, making her fall backwards on the pavement.

"What's that, uh?!" he taunted her, "Finally out of tricks?!"

"Wait!" she pleaded, arms up to protect herself, "Please, let me explain-"

The ship's pointed legs fell heavy right in front of her, breaking the cement under them in a display of strength, and carrying Dib closer to her.

"I'm done with Zim and his minions getting in my way!" he spat, and out of the ship's sides came four cannons aimed straight at her, "I gave you so many chances to redeem yourself, and you blew them all up! Uh- funny, what's that that you'd told me? 'Blow me'? Well, guess what?! I guess I will be blowing you out! Out of my sight!"

"Aaaahhh, kid" she cringed, "Please, don't tell around that I taught you that word. It also doesn't mean what you think it m-"

"SHUT UP!" he roared, "SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH!" he roared, his tentacles hissing and contorting around his head.

Driver looked around her for a possible way out, when a movement to her left, accompanied by a series of crumbling and metallic sound, caught her attention: she looked up, to see the top of of the buildings that her ship had hit.

Collapsing.

About to fall down on Dib's head.

"Dib" she quietly said, pointing at the sky above him, "I think a building is about to fall on your head"

"Ha!" he scoffed, "As if I'd ever fall for the old dumb trick of a building falling on my head! A liar through and through! Zim would be so proud if he-"

Driver watched with awe as the building fell on Dib's head.

The huge wall of cement and metal and glass fell on the road right in front of her with a terrifying thunder; respite being a mere foot apart, the building perfectly squashed him and him alone, leaving her completely unscathed. Driver closed her eyes and held her breath as dust and debris flew in the air around the impact.

Then, when the stream of air lost in strength, she slowly opened her eyes, to see that the ground under the fallen building, too, was collapsing under all that weight; she clumsily got up to her feet, as the earth shook and crumbled, the building slowly but steadily sinking underground inside a huge chasm.

She was just about to turn around and run, when a leg of Dib's ship broke out from the debris, hooking itself on the edge of the hole.

Driver gasped and watched as the ship slowly climbed through the ruins, shooting and kicking and digging its way through. When Dib finally reemerged from the earth, she could see that he was injured: he was coughing, eyes squinted shut behind his cracked glasses, a line of blood (red blood, this time) streaming down his face.

"Uhhh..." she heard him moan in pain.

In a surge of compassion for the injured kid, Driver stepped forth to grab him by his arms and pull him out of the ship's cabin, mere moments before the ground finally gave in and swallowed what was left of the building, along with his ship.

Driver dragged him back at a safe distance; then she flipped him over on the floor and anxiously checked on him: Dib let out a pained groan and slowly fluttered his eyes back open.

"Oh, thank God you're okay, kid!" she sighed in relief, "Don't worry, I'm here to help you! Now I- AH!"

His foot shot up and kicked her in the face, right into her left cheek and eye, pushing her backwards.

"Aaaah! Owww, ow!" Driver curled on the ground, hand pressed against her face, her eye and cheek pulsing with white hot pain.

How absurd, that after all the ridiculously dangerous experiences she'd gone through that day, a single, simple kick had been the one thing to send her writhing in pain on the ground?

She spied between her fingers, and saw Dib struggling to get up.

And as she looked at him, the confusion and surprise turned to rage.

"Aaahhh… yyyouuu…" she growled rolling back on her feet.

Dib noticed her expression, and for the first time since she'd first met him she saw fear on his face. He recoiled on the ground, using his elbows.

"This is all your fault..." she hissed, walking towards him, fists threateningly clenched at her sides and back bent forward.

"W-wait, lady, I-" he stammered, a trembling hand rising to protect himself.

"C-calm down, you- heh" he nervously chuckled, "you wouldn't hit a kid with glasses, would you?"

Driver widened her eyes at him, a corner of her mouth trembling; that fake innocence, coupled with the pulsing soreness in her face, and her mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion, sent her in a blind fit of rage:

"YOU LITTLE BASTARD!" she screamed as she threw herself onto him and punched him in the face.

"NYAH!" Dib's head hit the floor, his glasses flying off his face.

Barely aware of her actions, Driver repeatedly punched him, alternating between her fists, all the while yelling out her frustrations:

"After I spared you! After I saved you! What did I even do to you?! Hack my ship kidnap me grope me and thechasingandtaxiandkickingthehandjobandtheaaaaaAAAAARRRGH!" her screaming gradually devolved into blabber as she punched him harder and harder.

"Driver, STOP!" Phil's voice called to her, "What are you doing?!"

Driver immediately stopped her hurling fists, as if she'd just been pulled back into reality. She noticed, then, that she was panting, and that she'd been sweating profusely.

"Uhhh… urhhhhh… Ziiim..." an incoherent voice moaned under her.

She looked down, to see Dib, now effectively unconscious, breathing heavily, his face a bloody, bruised mess. And her numb knuckles, dirty with his blood.

"You just punched a kid into unconsciousness!" Phil exclaimed in horror.

She looked at him, and he returned her gaze with a look full of fear and disappointment.

"I… did? I- uhm. Oh. Oh, man" she got up, and scratched her head in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Philip" she apologized. "In my defense… he had it coming. A lot"

Philip shook his head in disapproval.

"I don't think I can ever justify child abuse. Even if you're kinda cool"

"Well, uh… you know, that's fair" she nodded. "I too thought I was above it, but… I guess you never fully know yourself"

"'It' being 'beating children'?"

"... yeah..." she murmured.

She looked down at Dib, writhing in pain on the pavement, and found herself unable to feel sorry for him, after all that he'd put her through. If anything, she felt relief: at least for now, the fight was finally over.

Her left eye, she noted, was slowly becoming harder and harder to keep fully open, and she felt the skin around it swelling: she was probably going to get a black eye. Great.

"Well, Philip" she straightened her back, "You're been a fine, loyal hostage. I really hope we can meet under better circumstances in the future"

Philip slowly shook his head, a sad look on his face.

"I think it's better if we never meet again. But it was fun while it lasted"

Driver stared at him for a moment. Was this… all part of her imagination, somehow? This was too surreal and wacky to be real, right? Had she finally gone mad after living among monstrous aliens for so long?

"Maybe you're right. Uh. Bye, Philip"

And with that, she turned away and ran; she used her boots to jump on the roof of a nearby building and disappeared from the scene.

She didn't notice it, but behind her, Philip raised a hand and waved her goodbye, with tears glimmering in his eyes.

Zim flew in circles over the city, growing more and more anxious: no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find Driver. That was such a huge city; and there were police cars and ambulances everywhere, which he was trying to avoid them: as his Invader training wisely instructed, alien authorities were to be avoided as much as possible.

And besides that, he had no clue where she was, or where to look for her. Maybe it was time he accepted that he wouldn't ever find her again. That she'd ran off with that taxi-drone and left him there.

Zim nervously bit his lip.

Well... was it really such a big deal? He had spent centuries without a 'partner', doing just fine. And she was just a human. Maybe next time, he'd find a better partner that didn't run off with the first taxi-drone who saved them-

Then suddenly, he saw her: on a building under him, toddling on her awesome boots from roof from roof, looking around her, presumably for him.

His heart immediately filled with the biggest, purest relief and joy. Truly, he didn't recall having ever felt so happy to see someone: it almost brought tears to his eyes.

He rolled down the Voot Cruiser's windshield and called to her:

"DRIVEEEER! HEEEEY! I'M HERE! ZIM! I'M HERE! LOOK UP, DRIIIVEEEER!"

Driver looked up in his direction, and a big smile brightened her face, a sentiment very similar to his own filling her chest.

"ZIIIM!" she waved her arms at him. "Come to me, baby!"

He launched the Voot Cruiser down in a crazy descent and almost crashed it as he landed on the building's roof.

Driver ran to the landing point and as soon as the Cruiser was stable on the floor, Driver knelt in front of him and opened her arms. Zim jumped down out of his ship and she closed him in a tight, warm hug.

"Oh, Zim! You're okay! I thought you had been captured! You aren't hurt, are you?!" she briefly held him back by the shoulders, looking for any possible injury -specifically, any broken bones.

"I'm alright, Dri-"

Driver squeezed him again, pulling his head over her shoulder.

"I was so, so worried" she let out in a trembling, choked out voice. Her arms held him tight against her body, and he could feel her heart pounding hard in her chest. Her arms started to lightly move, gently lulling him in her embrace. "I thought I'd never see you again..."

Zim listened to her heavy, shaky breath. For a moment, he wasn't able to come up with a response: Driver was always so open, so physical with her shows of affection, and so, so intense, it often left him at a loss of words, and actions.

He took a deep breath, allowing himself to relish in that moment, trying to banish, as much as he could, his intrusive, conscious thoughts.

He tentatively returned her hug, feeling the arc of her back under his palms. He found that he, too, felt something that was probably very similar to her relief: feeling the warmth, and shape, and weight of her body, concrete, safe, and sound in front of him, cured him of all the anxiety and worry he'd felt up until that moment. It filled him with so much... good... sweet... giddy... juices.

He tightened his embrace, his hands touching behind her back, and finally spoke:

"I was worried too, Driver. Are you ok?"

"I'm fine" she nodded against his head, "now that you're here"

"Heh" he chuckled, his cheeks blushing. He pulled back from her shoulder, with the intention of kissing her.

"I'm happy too that- WAAH! What happened to your FACE?!" he suddenly yelled as he took a good look at it.

"M-my face?" she stammered, "What's wrong with it?!"

"Your eye is BLACK! And it's HUGE! It looks like a rotting tomato!"

She flinched back in embarrassment; she self-consciously reached to touch her eye, but her hand jerked back at a sting of pain. Zim was probably right: at this point, she practically couldn't open it anymore, and the whole area around it and her cheekbone felt numb and swollen. She must have looked pretty terrible.

"Does it look that bad?" she whispered.

"It does!" Zim nodded, "Who did that to you?! Tell me! They deserve to have their eyes plucked out!"

"OH! Zim! You won't believe it!" she exclaimed, "The person behind this whole mess was DIB!"

Zim stared at her for a moment, with widened eyes and agape mouth.

"... DIB?! Are you JOKING?! Are you SURE it was him?!" he finally erupted.

"Yeah!" she nodded, "He had spiky, ridiculous black hair! Wore glasses! He rode on an Irken ship! And he was obsessed with vivisecting people!"

"AAAAH!" he threw his hands on his head, screaming in terror, "It all makes sense now!"

"Yeah! And he had tentacles of smoke coming out of his head-"

"Wait, what? Tentacles?" Zim blinked, suddenly all calm. "The Dib I know doesn't have those. Must be a different Dib"

Driver blinked back at him, incredulous.

"... but, Zim… what are the chances that a kid named Dib would-"

"Was his head big?" he interrupted her.

"... I mean… I wouldn't call the head big, it's his body that-"

"Oh, so it definitely isn't him!" he exhaled in relief, "Well, good! I was afraid I'd have to kill him again! Did you get proper vengeance upon this... Dib 2?"

"... I punched him until he passed out"

"That's my human for you! Killing children with her bare fists!" he complimented her, patting a hand on her shoulder.

Oh, well. Whatever. I don't have the energies to argue.

"Thanks, Zim, I- wait a second. Where's my ship gone to?"

"Uh-" Zim jumped, completely taken aback, "Well, you see, uhhhhh- OH! There it is!"

Zim pointed at something up in the air, to her left.

Driver followed his finger, to find that yes, that was her ship, hovering up in the sky.

Suddenly, it descended towards their same roof, landing a few feet in front of them.

"I can't believe it... it's really him" Driver murmured as she saw the bar-tending Blob through the windshield, grinning evilly down at them.

Once the ship settled, he worked with his tentacles on the control panel, and the missiles on the ship's sides aimed at them.

"Well, well, well" he spoke, amplifying his voice through the ship's outer loudspeaker. "If it isn't my favorite ape. Such a nostalgic scene, isn't it? Only this time I get to erase you both once and for all"

"Blob?! You're still alive?! I thought I had taken care of you!" Zim yelled.

"'Taken care of me'?!" the Blob shouted back, outraged, "All you did was setting your ship on fire and escape!"

Driver turned and glared at Zim, who recoiled from her with a guilty expression.

"L-Liar! These are all lies!" Zim accused him.

"Well, enough with that. Let's get to business" the Blob turned to her, an amused, evil expression on his face.

"You know, I'd thought I'd burn your ship in front of you. Instead, I'm going to blast you off from reality with it. It's much more poetic that way, don't you think? You have any last words before I do?"

Driver glared back at the Blob. She got up from her knees, and crossed her arms on her chest. Zim observed her with curiosity.

She bit her lower lip, then huffed. That was it. She was officially, one hundred percent done with people trying to kill her for that day.

"You know what, Blob?" she spoke up, "I'll let you go, in the name of the good times we spent together. If you step out of my ship, go away and never come back. I'll give you three seconds. Three..."

"Ha ha ha!" the Blob let out a rough laugh, "You'll let me go?! You are such a bluffer, miss!"

"Two..."

"How fitting, for your last words to be lies..." his tentacles moved on the missile-shooting controls on the steering wheel.

"One"

"I'm going to buy an even bigger bar with your bounty..."

Driver raised up her left hand; pressed a button on her watch, and spoke into the ship's remote control.

"Ship. Release the anti-biological acid"

Zim's antennae perked up in surprise and curiosity.

"Heh, the- wait, the what?" the Blob asked, his expression becoming shocked and disconcerted.

"Yeah, the what?!" Zim turned to her.

Then, the inside of the ship filled with a green smoke, vented from the internal emitters.

"WHAT- What- AAAAAHHHH nooooo!" the Blob screamed with horror as the gas started melting him: his tentacles fell to the floor, and his body and face lost their shape, like jelly left out in the sun.

"NOOO! LET ME OUT OF HERE! LeT mE oUuuUUUttt..." his voice devolved into a gargle, his body melting more and more, until he wasn't visible from the outside anymore, surely reduced to a puddle on the ship's floor.

"Haha" Driver let out a cold laughter, eyes pointed to her dying enemy. "That'll teach you playing hero, you moron"

Zim got up on her face level using his PAK's legs. He grabbed her face, turned it to him, and pressed his lips against hers in a passionate kiss.

Driver hung limp from his hands, despite her bruised face's protests under their pressure, until they pulled her away from him with a loud, wet 'smack' sound.

Driver stared at Zim; he was panting, with his face flushed and his excited eyes fixed in hers.

"... really, Zim? Tongue first, just like that?"

"I-I'm sorry. I blacked out for a moment. That was... so attractive"

"Oh, well, haha..." she chuckled, "I guess I owed you one, anyway"

"But why did you never mention the bio-erasing acid?" Zim then threw his arms up. "I could have used it when I first noticed him on the ship!"

"So that you could melt yourself with him?" she pointed out.

"...oh" Zim realized the flaw in his logic.

"See? That's why I don't trust you with a bio-erasing acid" she shook her head.

"But Driiiiver-" he whined.

"That's final, Zim" she cut him off, "Your suicidal impulses are dangerous enough as they are"

She raised her left wrist, and spoke into the watch again:

"Now, ship, use the ventilation system to get that acid all out. We gotta get off this planet before they arrest us for destroying the city- Oh. That's called terrorism, isn't it? That's gonna get my bounty sooo high..."

Escaping from that planet turned out to be much easier than they both expected: no authority stopped them on their way out of its atmosphere, and the fact itself that the ship could even take off was a miracle, as its state was less than ideal. To be completely honest, it was a mess: the bow, outside, was all dented and ruined. The control room's floor had been blackened and partially melted from the fire. At the very least, the acid had erased the blob's body down to the last particle, so they didn't have to scrub off any jelly, and the air clean-up had left the ship's interior fresh and pure to the breathing.

After they'd taken off and flown away, setting course again for their original destination, Driver had walked into the bathroom to wash and understood why Zim had had that reaction: the face she saw in the mirror was cut, and bruised, and swollen; her eye had turned to a near-black purple. That goddamn kid...

Driver had felt so completely drained from all energies that, she'd simply washed her face, gone to her bedroom and let herself fall on her cot; she would have probably dozed to sleep, too, if it wasn't for Zim appearing at her door.

He observed her from the open door, lying on her cot with all the lights of the cabin out. Did she really wanna go to bed looking like that?

She weakly turned her face to him, who crossed his arms on his chest in disapproval.

"What?" she asked.

"You're just gonna go to bed looking like that? You're all dirty, and your face is a disaster" he frowned.

"Wow. Careful with that tact, Zim" she turned away from him on her bed, turning to the wall behind. "I'm too sore to do anything. Just close the door and pretend I'm not here"

Zim blinked, looking at her turned back. Driver was always so careful with her appearance and personal hygiene; she had to have been pushed to her limits if she really didn't care. She must have been in a lot of... pain.

He turned and stepped into the bathroom, and returned to her with the first aid kit. When he turned on the lamp on her nightstand, she turned again and squinted at him.

"What are you doing?"

Zim put the suitcase next to her on the bed and opened it.

"Let me at least help you with your wounds. The sooner you treat them, the better and faster you'll heal"

"... oh" she slowly sat upright.

Zim sat on her bed, and started preparing the cotton and the disinfectant.

"You... you don't have to do it, you know?"

Zim looked up, with a somewhat... worried, yet determined expression on him.

"I know I don't. But I want to" he replied.

"Ah..." she sighed.

Normally she would have loved to see Zim being so caring, but at that moment, she was honestly embarrassed to show herself to him in that state. She felt dirty. And she felt ugly.

Zim didn't seem to mind, though. He dampened the cotton with disinfectant, and started wiping a cut above her right eyebrow.

"Ouch" she shivered as the cut stung.

"I know this was a bad idea" Zim murmured, "To let you out of the ship alone, I mean"

"Aaahhh... yeahhh" she groaned guiltily, "I'm sorry. That was very careless in hindsight, I know"

Zim prepared another piece of cotton and wiped another cut, on her right cheek.

"I'm... I'm sorry I couldn't help you... sooner" he continued, "I-"

"Mmm-mm" she lightly shook her head, "We are a soldier and a criminal. They're very dangerous jobs. We can't blame ourselves if the other gets hurt. That's solely on our enemies"

"But a taxi-drone saved you before I could!"

"Haha!" she chuckled, "Philip didn't save me! I ran into him after I escaped, on my own!"

"But... he cheated me with you, right?" he looked up at her with big sad eyes.

"Whu- 'cheated'?!" she scoffed, "You mean I ch- wait. Do you know what 'cheating' means?"

"Uh..." he hesitated, "It's when... you wanna do something for your partner but someone does it before you, right?"

"Hahaha, no!" she giggled, "No, Zim. Cheating means hooking up with someone who's not your partner.

"Oh. You mean, like, making out? And you-"

"And I would never do that. Especially when my partner is you" she reassured him caressing his shoulder. "Plus, you were already busy saving yourself. And I made it out alive after all, right? You have nothing to worry about"

"Fine" he sighed in relief, "Though I would have liked to at least punish the filthy child who kicked you"

Maybe you'll have your chance, she thought. Dib had looked so obsessed in getting his revenge on him. He would surely come back to bother them, eventually, provided that he could find them...

Her train of thought was cut off when Zim leaned in, balancing himself on her shoulders, and placed a gentle kiss on her swollen eye.

"What was that?" she asked confused.

"Humans heal better if you kiss their wounds, yes?" he explained.

"Awwww, Zim!" she cooed, "That's so cu-"

Zim slapped an ice pack on her eye.

"Keep it there until the swelling has gone down" he instructed her.

"Geesh" she held the ice pack up with her own hand, "Wait to ruin the mood"

Zim prepared the plasters to put on her cut. Driver chuckled. It was so charming, the way he took certain tasks so seriously and diligently.

"What about you, uh?" she asked, "I'd told you to run away if someone attacked the ship. Sasha, Tom and the Blob all ganged on you, right?"

"Uh? You mean the rat-thing and the polar-bear-thing?" Zim asked back as he covered the first cut with a plaster.

"Yeah" she nodded. "It must have been dangerous. You could have died. What would I do without you, uh?"

"Heh. Yeah" Zim chuckled, covering the other cut. "If you went to the Krass-man without the only one who can build the machine, he-"

"No, dummy" she rolled her eyes up. Why did he have to be always so- so materialistic? "It's because I love you"

Zim tilted his head up, staring at her.

Driver stared back at him with her eye, and only then realized what words had just escaped her mouth.

Ooops.

"Uh, a-, anyway," she started reordering the first aid kit with her free hand, as an excuse not to look at his eyes. "You were great, handling three of them at once. I wish I could have seen it, haha"

"... yeah... I was... great" Zim slowly nodded, still hung up at her words.

He looked down too at the medical kit, to help her.

"But, eh... human children are pretty terrible, too. I would take on three dumb aliens over a single human child any day"

"It wasn't just him" she replied, "There was also the leader of the three dumb aliens"

"Wasn't the kid the leader?"

"I mean, the previous leader. The leader from before the kid took over. He was a Tufudully"

"What really?" Zim scoffed, closing the medical kit and looking up at her again, "Those ridiculous hairy things?"

"Yeah, but he dressed so tightly he almost looked human!" she nodded, "He had arranged his fur so that it'd look like a big mustache!"

"Hahaha!" Zim laughed, "He must have been hilarious! I didn't thing those things could fight!"

"Yeah, and he was the absolute worst of them all! I'm sure I could have never guessed if I'd seen his real appearance, right? I'm so glad I got to blow him up! Hahaha!" she laughed, remembering how she'd made him crash and explode.

"He believed himself to some kind of... paladin of justice, but he also admitted to be a molester! If that doesn't sum up the current justice system, I don't know what does..."

Zim cocked an eyebrow up, confused.

"A molester? Like, a 'nuisance'?"

"Uh… I mean, you know, it's- Oh, come on, you know what I mean!" she chuckled.

Zim gave her a confused, deadpan stare.

"Like, you know, someone who forces themselves onto others" she explained.

Zim frowned, doubly confused.

"'Forces'… into what?"

Driver sighed. Well, at least she could be sure he wasn't into her just physically...

"Like, sexually"

He widened his eyes.

"He TRIED to forcibly MATE WITH YOU?!"

"What! No, no! Nothing that serious, no!"

"Nothing that serious? Then what did he do to you?!" he panicked.

"He-he did. Nothing. He didn't do anything"

"Then why mention him as a molester?"

"Like, to other people! In general! Not to me!"

Zim squared her up.

"He did do something to you, didn't he?" "I knew it. You weren't as upbeat as you normally would be after killing your enemies"

"Uh- Look, it isn't a big deal. Nothing serious happened. It's kinda normal for the women in my field. It had to happen sooner or-"

"What happened, then?"

"I-" "I don't wanna talk about it-"

"But I need to know!"

"No, you don't! It's better if you don't! Look, I'm trying to forget about it, but I can't if you keep bringing it up like this! What happened happened. There's nothing you can do. He's dead now, so it's all settled down anyway. I'm just a little shook. It'll pass"

A bit of silence.

Zim looked at her. She looked hurt and scared. She didn't know he had noticed but she was on the verge of tears. She felt ashamed, he recognized it. He knew very well. He could very well empathize with that. Being ashamed of weakness. It must have been a disgustingly horrifying experience. He hugged her from behind.

"I know I'm not as good as you at… consoling"

"Uh-"

"You don't have to tell me what happened but. I'd like you to trust me. I'm trying to understand how humans work. I really am. I wanna… support you"

"I- I do trust you. I'm just… not used to… this"

"To what?"

"This… consoling stuff. Applied to me, I guess"

"That's weird. You're so good at it"

"I'm not an expert I know. Just. Let me do it. I can console you and protect you too. I know you feel the need to do it. But I've learned a lot. Now Zim can help you too"

He nudged down to lie down on her bed, with her head on his thighs.

He petted her arm.

"I know we're not supposed to be sorry, but. From now on, I won't let anyone come that near you. Next time, we'll be together when they attack, and we'll take them down together"

It was so awkward. So weird, to be cuddled by someone else. It was something she hadn't felt in years, from the times of her parents, or her grandparents.

"I-" a tear formed at her eye and she wiped it away, "It's a reflex, I'm sorry"

"I know it's a reflex" he petted her. "I won't let anyone lay a hand on you anymore. I don't care how 'normal' it is"

Her stomach gargled.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I ruined it"

"I'll prepare dinner. You don't have to lift a finger tonight!"

"I didn't buy supplies though"

"Well… what about sandwiches? Oh, and I'll make tea. Microwaved tea. Let me spoil my human for once."