A/N: So, this is chapter five, it certainly is.
Well, I really don't have much to say about this chapter…Possibly.
First of all, I'd like to say that Bill almost drove me insane trying to write for him. I didn't even write that much for him! It was so frustrating!
Bah, anyway, about the "rock theory" it's really a theory…that my friend believes in. Yeah, that's about it.
Besides the fact that I don't own ZIM…because I don't.
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"Dib," a harsh voice said, nudging the sleeping boy roughly. "DIB!" it cried, "It's time for school."
"Wha?" the boy said, opening his eyes suddenly.
"It's time for school," Gaz repeated, raising an eyebrow at the book on aliens.
"Oh," Dib said, lifting the book off of his lap and placing it back on the coffee table. He had spent the whole night reading the book, and had found nothing helpful out. There was nothing in that book about how to figure out if someone was an alien or not! All it talked about was flying saucers and alien sightings, and terrible interviews with so-called "credible" witnesses.
"Thanks, Gaz," he said, getting up off of the couch and stretching.
"Yeah," muttered Gaz.
---
The trip to school once again passed in silence, Dib wrapped up in his own thoughts. Gaz made no attempt to talk to Dib, either – she rarely did. Most of the time, she seemed content to just walk quietly alongside her brother. Today was no different.
Soon they were at school once again, and Dib departed from his sister with only a rushed "Bye."
Suddenly, the bell rang as Dib rushed down the hall. I'm late? He thought, almost running past his classroom.
"Sorry I'm late Ms. Bitters I-" Dib began, entering the classroom, but suddenly stopped. What would he say? He certainly wouldn't say that he had been up all night reading a book about aliens. "Uh, I-"
"Silence!" his teacher hissed, "Take your seat."
Dib hastily did so, looking at her nervously.
Ms. Bitters growled at him before turning to the rest of the class, "Due to government regulations, I have to ask you what your horrible dream careers are before your hopes are dashed."
"I'm gonna be a doctor!" Brian immediately piped up.
"I'll be a veterinarian!" Sara said happily.
"I wanna be a fireman!" Spoo said, looking excited at the very idea.
"And I will be…" ZIM started, causing Dib to look at him curiously, "LORD OF ALL HU-MANS!"
"Lord of all humans?" Dib repeated softly, glaring at ZIM.
"What about you, Dib?" Ms. Bitters asked.
"I'm going to be a scientist!" Dib proclaimed proudly, "Well, actually I am a scientist but that's not the point."
"I wanted to be a scientist when I was your age, Dib," Ms. Bitters said bleakly, "But then my perpetual motion device imploded in on itself, ending all life as we know it."
"What-but," Dib protested.
"The lesson here is that dreams inevitably lead to hideous implosions. That's why the skool has instituted this test," she said, picking up a stack of papers off of her desk. "From these questions, we will determine your future careers. Then you will be partnered with an adult who works in your field. You will spend the rest of the day observing them and getting used to your wretched fates. Write what you think each blotch looks like on the line next to it."
Slowly Ms. Bitters began walking around the classroom, giving each student a piece of paper in turn. "Answer each one carefully. Your future depends on it."
Finally, she placed one on Dib's desk – he looked at it curiously.
What does identifying blotches have to do with determining our future careers?
Shrugging, he thought about what the first blotch looked like to him. It was rather round, and had a few blobby things hanging off of it. Ball lighting, he wrote.
The next one looked like a giant misshapen block. Ice falls.
The final one was the shape of what could be described as a thick cigar, which tapered down at the sides. Anomalous clouds.
"Time's up!" Ms. Bitters shrieked, "Pass your papers forward!"
The entire class did so, some of them looking more apprehensive about their answers than others. Dib honestly wasn't feeling too good about his answers, either, and he almost wanted to stop Ms. Bitters from taking the papers away to the giant machine that had just fallen out of the ceiling.
"Brian!" she said, after shoving some papers into the machine, "You're going to be a fireman!"
"But I wanted to be a doctor!" Brian said.
"QUIET! The machine has spoken!" she screeched, "Sara! You are going to be an astronaut!"
Dib looked over to Sara, who was now crying, and felt his stomach drop. Maybe he should have faked his answers to get the career he wanted?
"Spoo, you will be a veterinarian."
"But I'm allergic to animals!"
"Dib, you will be a…" Bitters began, looking over to Dib, "Paranormal Investigator."
"What?" Dib said, in utter shock, "B-but that can't be ri-"
"ZIM, the machine says the only career you are suitable for is-" Ms. Bitters continued on, leaving Dib looking abashed.
"YES, YES. Lord of HUMANS!" ZIM said, jumping on his desk, looking triumphant, "I will rule you all with an iron FIST!"
"No, ZIM. The machine has assigned you a career with fast-food preparation," Ms. Bitters said, seemingly amused at how ZIM's career was no where even close to what he had hoped for.
"I will prepare food with my iron fist!" ZIM said, undeterred, "Then I will work my way up to ruling you all with my iron fist!"
Suddenly, ZIM jumped up and over to Melvin, "YOU! Obey the fist!"
Ms. Bitters growled at the moronic green child, and hovered over to the door, dropping her feet down one at a time. Dib raised an eyebrow at the strange scene, before the teacher opened the door.
"Now! Children! Find your partner!" she said, waiting for the class to leave.
Several kids began leaving the classroom, though Dib hung behind. He certainly didn't want to have to hang out with a paranormal investigator for the rest of the day, and the only reason he left the classroom at all was because of various threatening glares from Ms. Bitters.
Frustrated, Dib walked through the crowd of children and adults, secretly hoping his "partner" didn't show up.
"Your name….Dib?" a voice said from behind him.
"Uh, yeah," he said, turning around to face the person in question, "Who're you?"
"Call me…Bill," the man said.
"Kay," Dib said dully.
"Today you're going to see things that are going to change the way you look at the world," Bill said, walking out of the skool, "Keep your eyes, and mind open."
"Yeah-huh," Dib said, following Bill with disinterest.
Almost immediately after they exited the skool, a black car pulled up in front. The doors opened up on both sides, and Bill ran over to the drivers side and got in.
Dismally, Dib jumped into the passenger's side, taking a look around the car. He noticed an alien bobble head on the dashboard.
"Bet you've never seen a car like this, eh, little man?" Bill said, seeing Dib looking around.
"Actually, my dad has one just like it," Dib replied.
"Who's your dad, kid?" Bill asked.
"Ivan Loch," Dib mumbled.
"Loch," Bill hissed, looking extremely bitter, "He's one of those critics." He clutched the steering wheel roughly, causing his knuckles to become white, "He actually said that my rock theory was ridiculous and inane!"
"Rock theory?" Dib repeated.
"Oh yeah, little man," Bill said, "They're government spying devices. People don't think so, but I know better! There have been studies!"
Dib raised an eyebrow at Bill, at least his dad's ideas kind of made sense. "Like what?"
"Orange dots, little man. Place an orange dot on a rock, come back and hour later, and it'll be several feet from where it started!" Bill continued, looking absolutely serious.
"Haven't you ever thought that's because something came along and moved it? Like, a car or a kid or an animal or something?" Dib questioned.
"That's what your father said!" Bill spat, "Your whole family is just a bunch of skeptics, aren't they?"
Dib blinked, his father had said that?
"We're here," Bill said, glaring at Dib.
"Where?" Dib asked, stepping out of the car.
He paused, looking out at the field where they had parked with a blank look. "A crop circle?"
"Isn't it beautiful? A message from creatures far more intelligent than us!" Bill said, seeming as though he had completely forgotten about the conversation with Dib.
"How do we know they're intelligent?" Dib asked, staring at the crop circle, "I mean, for all we know they could be stupid, moronic, green aliens who are self obsessed and bent on taking over the Earth!"
Bill only gave Dib a vacant look, before taking out some sort of tracking device. "And, besides," Dib continued, "I think this one's a fake."
"YOU! One day you'll see that-"
Swiftly, Dib pointed to a mooing cow, rolling around in the field.
"The aliens must be controlling the cow," Bill said, as though he had just had an epiphany.
"Oh come on!," Dib yelled, "This is stupid! You believe in impossible things! I mean," he paused, looking around for something that he could fabricate into some moronic theory, "You probably believe in Count Cocofang!"
"What do you know about Count Cocofang!?" Bill said, suddenly urgent, spinning around to face Dib.
"That he's going to be signing autographs at Bun's Market," Dib said, pointing to a billboard behind them with Count Cocofang's face branded on it.
"Let's roll!" Bill said, jumping into the car, as Dib walked slowly to the passenger side.
"Maybe I can walk home from Bun's Market," he muttered, looking out the window.
"I've been following the Cocofang case for years. Everybody thinks his made up – but he's not. Once I catch him, the world will know what I've known all along! Count Cocofang is an actual vampire! Just as Frankenchokey is an actual Franken…thing!" Bill blathered.
Dib sighed as he looked through the car once more. He noticed something he hadn't previously. They looked like a small stack of folders with pictures on them. "Hey, what are these?" he asked, picking them up.
"Oh, case files! I brought them along to show you the difference between the serious paranormal, and the frauds. The top bundle are the real ones, the bottom ones are complete bunk," Bill said, off-handedly. Clearly his thoughts were still on Cocofang.
Silently, Dib looked through the case files. The first one said "C.H.U.M.S". Rolling his eyes, he flipped that one to the back of the stack. The next one said "Psychic lawn gnomes". Again, Dib flipped that one to the back of the stack, "Vampire lemurs". Flip, "Frankenchokey".
With another flip, Dib saw the next one was "Big foot" only it had a giant red X through it. This guy believes in vampire lemurs but doesn't believe in big foot? Dib thought, placing that one at the back of the pile.
"Ghosts," was the next one. Dib groaned in frustration. Ghosts were certainly far more believable that "C.H.U.M.S" whatever that was.
"Dinosaurs". That was it, Dib couldn't take it anymore.
"Dinosaurs aren't even paranormal! It's an established fact that they existed!" he yelled, smacking the folder with the back of his hand.
"Ah, little man, that's what they want you to believe!" Bill said.
"Who wants me to believe?" Dib said, flipping the dinosaur folder to the back of the pile. The final one showed the planets aligned and said "Galactic equinox, alien molt phenomenon."
"What's this?" he asked Bill.
"Heh," Bill scoffed, "The galactic equinox theory. At 5 o'clock tonight, the galaxies are going to be perfectly lined up. My colleagues, your father included, believe that this will cause all the aliens that are living off their own planet to go through a hideous molt for a few seconds. Don't read that garbage."
"Hmm, that explains why he's been gone for so long," Dib said, putting the files back where they were, and resumed looking out of the window.
"There he is!" Bill suddenly cried, pulling the car up to Bun's Market.
Sure enough, there was Cocofang, signing autographs and looking downright pathetic. "He's really not a vampire, you know," Dib said, before Bill dragged him out of the car towards Cocofang. He pushed his way through the crowd and even pushed a kid into the mud.
"We finally meet, Count Cocofang!" Bill said, looking determined.
Somehow, Dib had managed to pull away from Bill. Silently, he slunk away to McMeaties, hoping Bill wouldn't notice. Luckily, he didn't, and Dib could see that, on the other side of the street, Bill had taken out a stake and was chasing Cocofang.
"I'LL GET YOU, FANG!" Bill yelled.
Feeing relieved, Dib was about to start walking, when, suddenly, he heard the glass behind him cracking. Quickly he spun around to face McMeaties and saw, much to his dismay, that the entire interior of the restaurant was filled with a green blob.
Dib jumped back away from the blob filled building, almost falling into the street. He looked utterly horrified. The hideous goop had started leaking from any place that wasn't completely sealed.
For a tense moment, Dib could only stare as the appalling blob throbbed. Then, just as abruptly as it had formed, it was sucked back up – into ZIM's face.
Dib felt like he had just had a heart attack. "W-whu," he stuttered, "Bu-what-that's."
Galactic equinox, alien molt phenomena. The words flashed across Dib's mind, and he lost all color.
"Little man!" Bill called, running up to Dib, panting, "He got away."
Turning very slowly, Dib looked up at Bill with terror etched on his feature. "I-I've," his words stumbled awkwardly out of his mouth, "Home."
"I know – I feel your pain. But one day, we'll catch him. One day, we'll catch…the fang…" Bill said, valiantly as Dib walked off, looking as though he had just seen a ghost, or, rather, and alien.