The Irken Assassin - Ch. 5, Follow through.
In the lower sector of Zim's base, Zim snaps awake as the intruder alert siren begins to blare, then sighing irritably. There was all ways some smelly pig headed human wandering about or miraculously getting into his home, and he had learned not to panic much. However, more than likely it was Dib again. Zim stands up and stretches, blinking his eyes clear from the haze of sleep, and then heading to the main computer control room to find out whom exactly was intruding on his beautiful base. With a quick search threw his computer, he finds video footage of Dib and some unknown girl as his lawn gnomes are destroyed. "The Dib!" Zim protests, then runs out of the room, not caring who the other human must have been. For all he cared, it was Gaz with a new hair color on stilts.
Meanwhile, Zelda and Dib had made rapid progress breaking through Zim's base, finding fewer and fewer obstacles in their way. Zelda notices a number of objects left discarded after being damaged, as if they were not worthy of repair, or the owner didn't care enough to repair them. After a while, Zelda felt the need to point this out in a way. "Doesn't seem like he cares so much about taking over Earth anymore, does he?" she rhetorically asks. Dib blinks, looking at Zelda. "Of course he's still after Earth, or he wouldn't be here anymore!" he exclaims. Zelda shrugs lightly. "Perhaps his ship is ruined?" she suggests, walking to a table holding a number of chemicals in tubes, many unlabeled. Zelda takes the opportunity to cause some grief, by promptly mixing a number of chemicals together, carefully choosing what to mix to avoid any immediate explosions. Dib watches Zelda as she pulls this off, smiling slightly at the possibility of Zim blowing up his own lab thanks to Zelda, or something.
Zelda then headed toward the next door to head further into the lab, then stopping short, Dib beside her. Before them, the door slides open, the three and a half foot tall irken wearing a black uniform appearing on the other side, one laser gun in hand. Zim had grown in the last few years, true, but he had not grown by much at all. Without his disguise on, he really was mostly unchanged, unless you counted a change in outfit. "Dib-stink! Get out of my base!" Zim immediately shouted, then giving a rough glare in the direction of Zelda. "And take your stink-beast giraffe friend with you!" he snaps. Zelda looks dully at the shrimp of an invader, then smirking. "One would think you'd respect those more vertically advanced than yourself." she comments, Dib restraining a laugh. Zim frowns at this, and then nearly screams as he orders the two to get out. A number of mechanical arms once more extend from the ceiling, reaching down to grab the intruders and remove them from the base. "Dib, let's get back to your place for now. I'm satisfied all your information is accurate enough." she tells him, then grabbing Zim by the wrist, the two vanishing in a flare of purple light, having teleported in time to avoid actually being thrown out. Zim sighs in frustration. "Stupid pig monkey..." he growls, walking back out of the room.
The two reappear moments later in the front room of Dib's house. Luckily for them, Gaz wasn't in the room to see them appear. Zelda lets go of Dib's wrist, Dib looking around in surprise. "You really are psychic aren't you?" Dib exclaims, not asking, just bewildered. Zelda nods once. Dib crosses his arms, thoughtfully. "Why didn't we just teleport there then?" he asks. Zelda shrugs. "I have to have been somewhere before, if I want to teleport there. Doesn't work to just go anywhere on a whim." she explains. "I see..." Dib mumbles, then smiling. "So we'll just be able to return later, easy!" he exclaims. "That's the plan." Zelda concludes, then walking out of the room, into the kitchen.
Gaz looks up from a bowl of cereal, there not being anything else left in the house to eat, casting a momentary impassive glance at Zelda. Zelda had just opened the refrigerator, looking into it for any potential snacks. Not finding any, she just closes the door again, walking back to the front room. Dib sits down on the couch, smiling broadly. This may have been the best day he's had in years. He successfully broke into that base, escaped, annoyed his nemesis, gained an ally, and found a convenient way to return to the base later, all in one day. He notices the clock over the TV, and shrugs, realizing that it is well past midnight at this point. He curses to himself when he realizes he has 'skool' in the morning. "I'm going to crash..." He tells Zelda, then realizing he had no idea where she'd be staying in the house. "Ah, wait, I don't think we have a guest room... think you'll be ok with the couch?" Dib asks. Zelda shrugs. "I'm all right with it. See yua tomorrow." she tells Dib. Dib finds himself smiling at this. She wasn't likely to just vanish, that meant! Dib sprints up the stairs to his room, closing the door behind him.
Hours later Dib was comatose in sleep, Gaz allegedly being the same. The soft thump of feet on wood is heard as Zelda walks up the flight of stairs to Dib's room, soon opening the door and slipping silently in while the teenager sleeps. She soon notices Dib's mapping watch, soon picking it up and hooking it around her wrist, then slipping back out of the room, closing the door behind her. Sitting on the couch again, Zelda watches a digital clock, having found the watch itself didn't tell the time. The minute the clock proclaimed 4 in the morning, Zelda vanished into a snap of violet energy. Moments later the same light breaks the darkness of a previously abandoned section of Zim's lab. As the light fades, the silhouette of an irken appears, standing over six feet tall, spiked antennae's slanted behind her, dark golden eyes seeming to glow in the dark. Zerg steps out of the shadows, heading into another room, looking around for her target. "Hmm.. Irkens need no sleep, so he should be somewhere down here, active to some degree..." she muses. She looks at the watch, the hologram appearing before her, a red dot blinking to show where her target waits. With a fanged smirk, Zerg silently runs through the levels of the base, on the hunt.