Winter didn't like liveliness. Across the whole domain, its body chained around everything trapped outdoors in rivets of frost. Asphalt shimmered unnaturally and Christmas lights suffocated to shine through the while casings. If unshielded, human skin turned strange and taut, going pale, and red, and blue and black and all manner of bizarre textures within minutes, forcing everyone to go covered, else the season would do it for them with deadly consequences. However, despite the glacial dictatorship and the weather, there was a sort of beauty in this seasonal struggle. Things that'd once gone unseen suddenly became more vivid. Drawings of breath suddenly had actual perceptibility, for example. Frozen water in this case, often had a tendency of forcing light to bounce through its body in iridescent patterns.
Like the purple metal of Zim's Voot, searing through the dismal overcast like a comet before crashing square into the roof of the City Center Mall.
It really was nothing short of a miracle it didn't explode.
"Rrrgh…"
Grunting, Zim crawled out from the popped windshield and tumbled onto the rooftop. A gash snaked his temple and a mild ache hugged his shoulder, though despite this, he operated fine and landed feet-first with a squish. Slushy suburban mire crawled over the roof surface and hugged the soles of Zim's boots – regardless of how he tried to scrape it off, the crap wouldn't stop sticking, but he'd manage. Each cuss panged around the lot in a furl of white steam, and faded quickly into the shadow of the big, storming black sky overhead.
Step one accomplished. Kinda.
Well, though the landing could've gone smoother, the Voot wasn't actually in awful condition. The propulsion jets were fine, and though dented, there wasn't much wrong with the body. Despite the fact that it was a practical ice cube, anyway. Zim ran his fingers over the new shell with a frown. Tangle patterns of translucent cold completely wreathed his ship like a big ol' ice-sweater, and the more he inspected, the more Zim came to realize that it was these layers of ice that had cushioned the craft's impact. Thankfully, the engines were functional, so the defrosting was gradually underway, but still, such a sudden bee-free crash proved strange to contemplate. Zim had taken high above the cloud line for stealth purposes, only for the climate to completely, for lack of a better term, lose its shit and bombard him with snow. This was rather uncharacteristic of the normally mild area, and he didn't know what to make of it.
On the way back, to avoid such a fate, he'd have to stay closer to the ground and take the risk of being seen.
Zim decided that he hated winter.
Scowling at the rush of icy wind, he tucked his face into his coat collar. A true menace was the scourge of Irk – poised and fully able to strike intimidation into any soul as only a pouty, 4'6'' child could. His terror only grew after analysis of his suspiciously Minimoose-shaped hat, as well as his pink scarf – not to mention the plump magenta jacket rounding around his waist like a marshmallow, which by itself could inflict enough horror to scare an entire generation of hardened Irken warriors into a full surrender.
Yes. Truly, the stuff of nightmares. Zim was an eldritch abomination beyond words.
But amidst the trouble that'd befallen him recently – between the turmoil in having a very-deceased rival, a new threat on the rise, a crashed ship, and absolutely nothing to watch on TV that didn't repeat the same seven Christmas carols over and over – something else was slowly pushing Zim to be on edge. Now, there'd been some police-humans lingering around the premises that'd Zim easily evaded detection from utilizing the prior-stated brilliant tactic of... Flying really high, and just happening to crash when nobody was looking. But the fact those bright little cars were spotting the area at all gave him cause for mild alarm.
As were the sounds of what could only be a raging human party occurring underfoot.
The City Central Mall loomed in a state of disrepair beyond that of what he recalled from last time. Random Christmas objects were haphazardly thrown over the blocky walls. This included dormant strands of decorations, ripped wreathes, crumbling reindeer statues, soggy Santa plushies, graphitized penises, food wrappers… They were all just littered over the pavement. Several windows were broken, too, with merchandise swiped and shelves clearly toppled over inside. The lights were turned up to eleven, and the interior had the silhouettes of at least three digits worth of people dancing from within its bowels while loud music played.
Curiously, the once bare roof of the mall now held a sunroof, which was broken, a big slab of metal covering the gaping hole that was once a domed window… Upon closer inspection, the metal held…
What were those, anyway?
The Invader cautiously knelt beside it and ran a hand over the inscriptions. They were what looked to be alchemic circles analogous to the ones scattered through the pages of Dib's useless "spell books", crafted hastily with… Were those claw marks?
"Nyeh…"
Despite what anyone would've suspected, the Minimoose shaped hat was actually a cleverly-disguised Minimoose. While Zim couldn't see the plushie's small frown, he could feel its body faintly trembling on his head.
"I am unsure, Minimoose… But do not fear!" he reassured his minion, giving it a gentle pat, "Earth is full of disgusting animals, and Zim shall forge this path to smite them all. You just stay glued to his mighty skull and provide the radar, yes?"
It squeaked again, mildly comforted by this. "Nyeh."
As far as other lifeforms went, it was really hard to be cruel to that damn moose…
Puffing out his coat, Zim began to approach the elevator… Except the doors to it opened before he was even within ten feet. A big smile sat, bright and white in the dark.
Zim gagged. He knew that smile…
No.
"ZIM?! YOU'RE HERE TOO?! HEY! HEYA, BESTEST BUDDY! IT'S ME!" the boy squealed.
How was this possible?
The dirt child pranced out in his bloated rainbow-striped coat.
NO.
His awful touch-stumps gripped Zim's cheeks and yanked them into a smile.
"I'm SO HAAAAAPPPPY to SEE YOU!"
NO. NONONO TALLEST WHY
Zim smacked the hands away. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU REVOLTING-"
The hands folded at Zim's lower spine and crushed him into a sweaty embrace. Zim squeaked in response from the smothering pain.
"You're here for the party TOO?!" Keef chirped, "Man, this is an even better turn-out than the one I tried to make for you! Ohhh, this is perfect…!"
"What… Are you doing here?!" the Invader choked out, trying to push Keef from his frame, "How did you find Zim?!"
Over the year since arriving, Keef had remained a strange constant ever since the Irken's arrival. Even when the other children had initiated the beginnings of that stretching-up-pubescence process, his vocal chords still imitated a chew-toy and his taste in rainbows remained unchanged. His eyes still sparkled and his hair was as much a dumb, boingy spring as ever. In a way, it was almost a cause of relief.
In another, Keef's voice gave him the urge to eat glass, so this sentiment was rather pointless.
"Oh there was a loud noise right above us, buddy!" he gingerly explained, "The big kids said I should make myself useful and get eaten investigating! Hee-hee, but you wouldn't eat ME, Zim~!"
Another crushing hug... Was his squeedilyspooch bleeding...? Had his ribs cracked? Zim couldn't tell. This was torture.
"Hey, what made that sound anyway?" asked Keef, glancing to the downed spacecraft, "Hey, is that a space ship-"
Zim cut him off. "Haa do not be ridiculous, fair, pungent human!" he weakly grinned, "It is, eh, a balloon. I had two! But the other exploded. In a glorious balloon explosion. Icicles. Haaa. …THAT ONE IS MINE AND YOU CANNOT TOUCH IT TURN YOUR GAZE FROM IT NOW OR FACE MY WRATH."
Keef watched Zim with the expression of a hawk. For a moment, the alien thought he'd suddenly grown something resembling a cranial organ, but when the boy broke out in another smile that notion died rather quick.
"Was the other for me?!" he cried, "You really ARE the best friend ever! You're just like… Oh… One of those characters in those shows Mathers likes! Yeah! A 'Tsundere'! D'ohhh c'mere!"
Tsundere? What?
Another bout of squeezing Zim to death. Fun.
"What… Is… Going on…?" the alien wheezed, "Down… …beLOW us?"
Keef was uncomfortably close to Zim's face when he eased the pressure. "You don't know?! Well, when word went out that the scary security guy was gone, EVERYONE had to come to the mall! Free stuff! Now it's been weeks of partying and no one ever leaves!" the child started corralling the alien over to the elevator, "I just had to come try and make friends and have fun, too! It's been three days already, and now that you're here, and we can drink punch and listen to hobos tell stories and NOT hang out on the floors for rejects and throw things at the police when they try to make us leave-"
"Wait, what?!" Zim froze, "Keef-filth, please reiterate these things you have said."
"Huh?" the boy asked, "Yeah, isn't it crazy? There was this scary guy in charge named… I think Slobber Ankle? And he was so scary he never left the building! He's like Miss Bitters, now that I think of it! But big. And a man. And I guess somebody must've made him leave, because some kids caught on no one was home about a week ago and started stealing. Then people stayed behind and started to make this big old mall a happy home!" the boy's smile grew in size somehow, "Isn't it weird? It's like a storybook with a happy ending that we weren't a part of! Wonder what made the guy leave… Wait! Was it you, Zim?!" he squealed in joy, "Were you the hero?! Aw, you must've been the one to fight off the bad guy-"
Zim's teeth flashed in a snarl. "No! I came here in SEARCH of the man who's ankles are slobby!" he hissed, "I must find this man and learn his secrets or else!"
Keef raised a brow. "Huh? Why, Zim?"
Despite how tightly his fists had been clenched, the green menace was able to unfasten them enough to pinch the skin where his nose would've been. He sighed. "Okay, dirt-child. Listen to me very carefully. Remember that pathetic boy with a reputation even worse than yours with gravity-defying shlock of hair named… Dib?"
Keef beamed at the mention. "OH! Dib's here too?! Why didn't you say so?! We could've-"
"No, Keef-dung. He's… …Compromised," he surprised himself at how gingerly he worded the death, "And that 'scary guy' might have the cure to his condition. Also, the creature that… Compromised the human in first place is also here. Whom of which I intend to hurt. ...Intimately."
Keef's face dropped the smile and turned blank. Once the information seemed to click, however, it shifted into something resolute. Determined. "Well, Dib's MY best-buddy too!" he said, raising his fists to the air, "We should stick together to help him out!"
"He's NOT my buddy," Zim growled, but Keef had already snatched his wrist and was leading him into the elevator. As the doors approached, though, something struck Zim right in the bases of his 'spooch. Clinging and sickly and nauseous, it filled his whole build with disgust. It was there he realized that if he entered that mobile pod with the human, he'd be forced to spend the rest of the mission with him as a tag along.
Hours. With Keef.
Unacceptable.
"Ack, err, Keef?" Zim forced the sweetest tone he could manage without vomiting, "Y'know, Dib can actually wait! Maybe this Slobb-Ankle will return soon, so how about to pass time we play, uh, hidden seeks on the roof? To warm up in case we need to hide at any point of the mission? In everything EXCEPT the balloon?" he suggested, "Yeeess! Look, you can even be 'IT' first! Doesn't that sound… Err, 'fun'?"
The human resumed that bright smile again. "HIDE AND SEEK?! WITH YOU, ZIM?! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!" immediately, the red-head booked it for the elevator wall. "I'LL COUNT TO ONE MILLION! ONE, TWO, THREE-"
The elevator was already going down to the lobby.
Sighing in relief, Zim pressed deep into the glass wall of it, letting the cool seep into his skull. Already, a migraine was building and he hadn't even spent five minutes on the mission yet. At least the repulsive human was easy to ward off…
Minimoose rubbed gentle circles on his temples with its nubby limbs. "Nyeh," it offered, quietly.
"Of course he'll burn with his kin," he answered, hugging his knees. He was grateful for the comfort, "First thing's first, though, Minimoose… Which floor is the signature on?"
"Nyeh," it answered.
"The basement?" he repeated, getting up and stepping forward to the panel of buttons once the ministrations stopped. After pressing cancel between 12 and 13, he selected the basement as the destination.
The light flickered.
The elevator started going up.
Zim's eyes widened.
What?
The basement's button wasn't lit, but the 66th floor's was. He jabbed the desired button, but it did not respond. He jabbed it six times and got no result still.
Basement button was dormant.
37th floor had just passed.
"Minimoose, screwdriver!" the alien barked, "This transport tube is ill!"
With a squeak, the minion reached into Zim's PAK and handed him the tool while its master located the slip of metal over the wires. Taking out the screws and letting the metal fall with a small clang, he was greeted to a surprise.
Nothing was wrong.
Not one wire out of place.
"What th- WHAT IS THIS?!" he demanded.
"Nyeh?"
"No Minimoose, this ISN'T something I'd do for fun! What's going on here?!"
Desperately, he checked again to see if he'd missed anything, but alas the pod was perfectly put together. Why…?
He looked outside. Would he have to break the glass...?
The motion stopped and there was a ding.
66th floor.
Open went the doors, and despite everything he'd encountered on Earth so far, Zim felt his everything under his skin drop in significantly temperature.
Though there was some strained light from somewhere down the hall, no lights were on. The doorman waiting for him couldn't have been older than six, and it seemed like he'd been waiting for some time. Uncomfortably, the alien found a pair big, round eyes brimming with the child-like wonder of a morgue, burning through his skin and bones to someplace deeper into his core. The expression had the sort of aesthetic of being drawn on, and surrounding those eyes was a sea of plastic-like skin. It was oddly smooth and contrasting with the attire that reminded the alien of that Nutcracker from the movie GIR'd been watching earlier. Over all, a sharp contrast to the various cheers, hollers and arguments faintly going on above and below.
There were at least fifty other children just like him.
Standing there. Staring.
"Who're you?!" asked Zim. When he didn't receive an answer, he waved a palm over the boy's unmoving face.
When that did nothing, he jabbed his cheek with his fingers.
"Nyeh?" Minimoose offered after much hesitation, resuming its trembling.
"This… Is strange…" agreed Zim in a hush.
"Welcome," a taller girl near the back said, as if reading off some invisible cue-cards, "It is hoped that you enjoy the festivities. Please come in."
"Ah… Ah-heh," Zim strained a smile, backing away slowly, "Actually my fellow worm-babies, I am afraid this is the wrong floor! I'm just gonna…" he pressed the button to close the door and got no response, "…Go now…"
The following moments were a rush. Zim could feel something formless and cold behind him that shoved his entity out from the elevator and to the tiles of Floor 66 before he could even catch a glimpse. He scattered immediately off the surface and rushed over, but just like that it was gone.
Just a brick wall with nothing on it, and a barricade of kids in the way.
It was like elevator had never existed.
"Please watch your step," said a darker-skinned lad, "And enjoy the festivities."
"WHAT THE-?!"
The children rung around him lifelessly, boring into him with their dead, dead eyes. Zim refused to show his fear, but in spite of this his breathing stayed irregular.
"I-I want answers now! Who are you and what's going on?!"
No answers.
Zim punched the nearest kid in the face. He fell and lay there, unblinking.
Nothing from the crowd.
"You... You guys are WEIRDOS!" he shakily declared, "I'm getting outta here!"
Zim turned, and placed a boot forward in hopes of entering the rest of the new room.
The children didn't move.
He placed another.
The children were mobile as furniture.
Wincing, Zim kept close to himself while maneuvering the gathered kids.
There'd was a slasher piece he'd once seen on the television – at one point the lead character had been locked with a murderer inside a fridge. The fictional-fridge had been expansive, and every direction the character ran, pig corpses had dangled around him, staring lifelessly as danger remained obscured by their forms. If he recalled correctly, the character had gotten their arm removed in there.
For some reason, Zim's head started to feel dizzy. It was like static was coming in. Like some memory he'd forgotten was rising up, similar to bile…
Eyes…
Why...? This didn't make sense for him. His filters kept the trauma-gunk from coming up. Always...! His cardio sped, but he kept steady. What was this memory…? Why did this whole room seem to pulse with some field that made him so sick and fearful...?
Eyes… On him… Couldn't have been a year old…
Defects needed fixing…
His pace sped up.
Let them fix you…
Eyes. [INFORMATION REDACTED] eyes, the [INFORMATION REDACTED] wing of the hatchery for the [INFORMATION REDACTED] smeets
Everything was hammering in him, claustrophobia slamming down his consciousness and the eyes and he felt so small
tools stripping through his [INFORMATION REDACTED] softly mouthing [INFORMATION REDACTED]. It was HIS PAK, they didn't
glitch in the PAK
He was running now.
There had to be a way out!
There were no windows or displays on the whole floor – it was just one big room, with a checker-patterned ground and sloping, rotting walls. No one had entered in ages. Except these kids.
Who stood everywhere.
Staring.
"Y-YOUR FESTIVITIES ARE STUPID!" snapped Zim, rotating as he spoke to try to find at least one that wasn't like the others, "I don't like it here! Or any of you, for that matter! So... L-Let me out! I'll destroy you all! Don't think I won't! Zim's dangerous, do you hear me?!"
A child from the far right glanced his way… Zim didn't recognize Poonchy, but to be fair the absolute lack of anything in his eyes was enough to weird anyone out.
"Why? Is something amiss here?" he asked in monotone.
"Someone here doesn't belong…" droned a girl from the left side of the roof.
A boy next to him opened his mouth. "Doesn't fit anywhere. A defect, a defect…"
A girl near the center of the room piped up. She stood beside what appeared to be another sunroof with a claw-marked slab over it, below another sunroof with a slab over it. Seemed that pattern went on for a while. Zim remained tense and freaked out, glancing between them all. Something was making him shake. "He doesn't have a proper home…"
"He's far from home…"
"Not normal…"
One kid – clearly wasn't Dib, but still possessed glasses round enough to remind Zim him – spoke right in front of the alien. "What's he like inside…?"
"Is he good?"
"So small…"
"Defect."
"Helpless…"
"No home here…"
"Not human."
"Defect."
"Murderer…"
"Killed his own…"
"Failure."
"Defect."
"Hated."
"Paranoid."
"Defect."
"Perceptive."
"Defect."
"Emotional."
"Def-"
That was it. Minimoose was urgently trying to chirp something soothing, but Zim couldn't listen. Instead he screeched, and upon removing his hands from his temples (when had he...?) they seized the child resembling Dib's throat. He began squeezing, crying out some noises as if to compensate for the absolute lack of reaction from his victim.
It felt like plastic.
It squished like plastic.
The girl melted like plastic.
The remains melted like plastic.
It turned to dust, unlike plastic.
He breathed heavily and gauged the rest of the crowd, reaching into his coat for all the weapons he packed beneath to see how violent he'd need to get after killing one of their kin.
No response.
Nothing.
"That was excessive," said one child.
Zim blinked, breathing still frantic. "STOP STARING AT ME! REACT! REACT FILTH! What… WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU CREATURES?! S-STOP IT!" he demanded.
"Defect's scared," lifelessly quoted another.
Zim trembled. "NO! I AM NOT 'DEFECTIVE'! YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS!" he drew out two plasma pistols, "NOW STOP THIS GAME AND SHOW ZIM THE EXIT ALREADY! YOU'RE ALL GOING TO EXPLODE HORRIBLY! I MEAN IT! THAT ONE KID HAD AN EASY DEATH COMPARED TO WHAT I HAVE IN STORE FOR EVERY, LAST, LOATHSOME ONE YOU! LET ME OUT!"
There was a moment of silence.
Then every single child positioned their arm to the direction of a particular floor tile by the far wall.
Shaking, Zim cautiously followed the direction, guns frantically pointing to every head in the room.
When he reached the tile, he tapped it with his foot. A mechanical noise pierced through, and it fell, revealing a long stairwell under it with the sign "ZOMBIE LAB" flashing in neon along a wall.
Zim hissed and looked over his shoulder at all the children, ready to attack.
The whole room was empty. Piles of dust littered the ground.
It was just him and the long-forgotten memory his PAK was already deleting.
(-)
Minimoose felt Zim beneath its body. It felt each robotic step. It felt him shiver. If it strained its auditory processors, it could hear his vexed mumbles, too.
"…not… …'m not… how'd they… how'd Zim..."
Though its master wasn't unknown for succumbing to fear or other such emotions, what happened back there was unusual for the Irken, and it was clear he knew it as well. Zim had heard the phrase 'defective' before, plenty of times, but it wasn't enough to trigger that sort of outburst by itself. Whatever had gone on back there'd certainly done a number, and the little robot wasn't really sure what to do. It was in its code to keep the master in working condition, but did that extend to things as odd as emotions? Who could tell? So it just sat indecisively.
Regardless, recovery was exponential. Over the course of ten minutes, the Invader had gradually gone from (well-contained, all things considered) hyper-ventilating to quiet inhales. Even now, the mumbling wasn't so much distressful as it held bits of familiar, vindictive anger under its soft sound.
"Nyeh…?" the robot offered, careful with its wording.
The Irken stopped on the metal stair. He raised his chin and looked up, to where the toy ridged along his wig.
"…No," he said at last, glowering to his boots, "It's... It's personal... Zim will not speak of it."
"Nyeh?"
"…Well… …The story of Zim is great," he explained after much thought, "But there are parts that do not do Zim justice. What is disturbing is how those Earth… Children… …Knew what to say… What HAPPENED back there, anyway?! Where did the elevator go?! What was wrong with it? Who were they?! Why was I so EMOTIONAL?! There are filters in place to handle that garbage, Minimoose! Zim is no easily disturbed screech-beast!"
He hugged his arms, still shaking. Already, the filters were trying to calm him down, but still. Somehow, some fear remained.
"Nyeh."
Zim shook his head. "I do not know how. Not even Dib knows the significance of that horrible phrase... Dib! And he's manually teaching himself Irken! How did some feeble mannequin kid-humans learn the greatest insult of our race, Minimoose?! How were they used against Zim?! I have so many questions and I HATE THEM!"
This was a troubling development, the minion supposed. "Nyeh-eh?"
"Heh? You think it could be another Irken? Like Tak?"
"Nyeh."
"…It is an interesting theory, I'll give you that," he muttered, heading down again, "Heeey, what if it IS Tak? Those children… We don't know what happened to her, Minimoose! Maybe she controlled the elevator through a bug, and for those kids, she's tampering with some sorta modified Vortian liquid suits...? Maybe that goat was a clone derived of a super warrior goat-like race she found out in space that she's cloning here! She must've compromised Dib with one just to mess with me!" a familiar sneer came to Zim's face once the stairs finished, "And maybe she hid something in their EYEBALLS to MAKE ME FEARFUL! Oh, how low she's sunk! Resorting to petty insults, hoping to bring ZIM to his knees?! Psychological warfare of all things! To think it almost worked! What a harpy, Minimoose! Oh, but I-"
Satisfied that the familiar prattle was churning, Minimoose lifted itself from Zim's head and floated in front of him. Hovering, it watched its master for about five seconds.
"E-Eh, what're you doing?" the Irken asked, head cocked in confusion, "Your master is explaining a theory, Minimoose! You are to remain on Zim's head! It is disrespectful to-"
In an adorable answer, the plushie plowed right into the Irken's chest and chirped, hugging him.
Zim stared in shock for a moment.
The next he started another tangent about how this was shameful, un-Invader like behaviour and chastised the moose for even attempting such squishy means of consolation.
After that, Zim feigned a drawn-out resignation... And wrapped his arms around the soft minion, embracing tightly as well.
He didn't let go for at least a minute, shaking softly into the small thing. As robot, Minimoose couldn't truly feel anything for him back, but as long as it could keep him focused and let the filters do their job, it didn't mind. Unconventional means of support were likely to be expected for this mission, and as it knew, Zim was simply defective in nearly every sense of the word.
A/N: This has been edited again.
Well, this chapter went through a fuckton of rewrites. It was gonna be longer, but I decided to save the lab and what's in it for the next update. Originally, Keef wasn't here at all and Zim would've talked to an OC who replaced Slab as head security instead for the exposition purposes Keef wound up filling. She was a super annoying, nameless, narcotic teen who was useless at her job and basically LET everyone in out of apathy. She also used "like" at least twice a sentence, absently ate a fly after it'd had wandered a minute on her eyeball, and was honestly a lot of fun to write... But Zim just walking through the front door being answered by a mannequin kid felt too uncool, and a trope I hate in horror stories is that whenever there's a red-flag a character goes along anyway without trying other options. Like dude, there's a freaky child-thing there WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING INTO THAT ROOM WHEN IT'S CLEARLY A TRAP USE THE BACK ENTRANCE AT LEAST MY GOD ZIM WHY DO I SUCK AT WRITING YOU
So yeah. We got a nightmare elevator and floor 66 instead. Creepy? Forced? Meh? Awesome? I might use that OC later... We'll see? Meh. I like Keef and recently read a fic where he was actually a badass alien in disguise out to destroy the Irken Empire, so here he is because he's been on my mind lately. Will that piece of fanon be canon here?! Who knooooooows?! (while I was proof-reading this, I saw that as opposed to screaming "HIDE AND SEEK?!" Keef had screamed "HIDE AND SEX?!" instead. My highly-developed taste in humour left me very tempted to leave that in, but sadly it lost.)
That whole thing with the mannequin children was improvised right there. I mean, in the plot outline, they were sprinkled throughout the mall and they rubbed Zim the wrong way from the beginning, but all that was a spur-of-the-pen. I guess what inspired it was this one bit in Lisa the Painful when you first really encounter Joy cult in that shack, but that's another story. We'll get more into the nitty-gritty of why that freaked Zim out some point down the line, but I'm always open to suggestions for writing ol' space bug more in-character. Actual dramatic emotional destruction isn't something I have much reference for from this show, oddly enough, so if it felt forced gimme a ring and I may spruce it appropriately.
Minimoose's consolation has gradually been edited from being just plain-old-fluff, to yet another sign of Zim's empty existence, as it becomes more and more established that it doesn't actually care about Zim's emotional state and just wants him to carry on with what he should be doing, and Zim's too fractured to really care/notice. Aren't I nice to the cast? Haa.