The Occult Experience
Chapter Thirteen (Dundundun!)
"Hello?" A fleshless hand waved in front of Shauna's face, getting in the way of the television. "Shauna, hello?"
The lich did nothing, staring blankly at the television, red orbs unmoving. Nonplussed, Al knocked on her skull a few times. That it was hollow really need not be said.
"Shauna, where's Dib? Can you hear me? Blink once for ye- right, no eyelids." Grabbing her underneath her shoulders, Al lifted her into the air. The couch cushion came with her.
"I've been waiting." Shauna's skull was hanging back and limp, had she skin, Al would say she were acting boneless. Since that analogy was simply no good, Al would think more of a marionette with no strings instead.
"That's good Shauna. What were you waiting on? Are you waiting on Dib, I can't find him in the house?" And he'd checked everywhere, too. Even the freezer. Especially the freezer.
He really hoped they didn't have plans for that turkey.
"He's been really quiet." Her skull turned around on the axis so that she was again facing the television.
"Alright, when's the last time you saw him?" He walked around, turning her body underneath her skull until he was blocking the idiot box.
"That one episode." Al dropped her, the clatter of bones silent because of the cushion still attached to her tailbone. He still hadn't figured that one out, she didn't emit any excretions with which to attach herself with.
"Alright, this isn't working." Al buried his fingers into her eye-sockets and dragged her to the door.
"Put me back! My show's on!" For a lich who measured her age in centuries, she sounded like a petulant child.
"It's a commercial." About toothpaste, but nobody really cares about that.
Opening the door, he flung her out on to the lawn. It was a little after noon, and the sunlight was strong.
The reaction was almost immediate, she tried to cover her eyes and started screaming. Not long after, she began to clutch her skull and roll around in the grass. At least, at the beginning of the display the couch cushion was dislodged from her ass. After several pitiful minutes of this equally pitiful display, Shauna finally rolled to a halt.
"Are you about done?" It may have been needlessly cruel, and he needlessly callous, but at least things were accomplished this way.
"...Yes?" Sitting up, Shauna's eyes were dim, but at least now they were focused.
"Would you care to explain the nature of this... episode, Shauna?" For some reason, Al felt a lot of his good humour fading away. He was often belligerent about his work, but at least he couldn't be accused of negligence. At least not where people were involved. Paperwork didn't count, did it?
"Which episode, the one with Joey?" Shauna was unable to even comprehend when Al had moved. One instant he was in the doorway, staring at her, and the next he was standing in front of her, fingers in her eye sockets and nose hole. With a twist and a jerk he separated skull from spine and raised her up to his face.
"Dib summoned you. You are supposed to help Dib. Being able to help the boy would imply that you have a general awareness of his wherabouts. Dib is missing. Explain this in such a way that I don't decide to scatter you in two-hundred and fifteen places and call up Shin to replace you."
"I was possessed by the T.V?" Dropping the hand holding Shauna to his side, Al rubbed his temple with his other hand.
"Why did I ever agree to help found this program?" Shauna's mouth opened. "One comment from you, and I'll leave you in a urinal, I swear it." Her mouth closed with a click.
"Because you're an idiot. Oh hell." Standing up, Al started walking down the sidewalk, Shauna's skull in hand. "Where are you taking me?"
"First I'm taking you to a truck stop, and then I'm going to conscript some help to find your charge."
"Shouldn't you find Dib first, before punishing me?"
"Probably. But I'm not."
"Why?" He raised her skull again to face him.
"Because it amuses me." Shauna quickly shut up. If he wasn't going to change his mind by listening to her logic, then she wasn't going to change it at all. She just didn't speak crazy well enough to get through his extraordinarily thick skull.
-Scene Break-
"Full on friendship!" Dib was getting tired of hearing that. Extremely tired of hearing that. The bespectacled boy had to say it roughly once an hour. Every hour. He almost thought the other boy woke up in the middle of the night to say it.
Dib knew that wasn't true, however. The other boy didn't sleep.
"Junior, must you say that at the dinner table?" The boys father, a black creature in a suit asked. Dib wasn't sure if he was a god, or a demon, and that's certainly not something you ask at the dinner table.
"But father-" The boy had a nassaly voice. In that regard, he seemed to take after his mother.
"Listen to your daddy, dear." The woman was dishing out... something from a casserole dish. Completely unidentifiable, but it smelled good.
"Yes, mother." Slowly, his maw stretched to the point where he could fit the plate into his mouth.
"Son." The black creature's voice held a stern, warning tone. "We have a guest. Use your manners."
"He's not a guest, father. He's my pet." And that was really the crux of the matter, wasn't it? He'd been a 'guest' for the better part of a month to a pair of beings, one a Babylonian god, or else he was a Judaic demon, either or, it was a coin toss at this point. The other was his son, a lovecraftian horror.
There was a third part to the family dynamic, the mother, but she was a normal human. He thought. Again, there were just some things you don't bring up at dinner.
"We don't keep wild animals as pets, son. We've talked about this, he'll have to go home eventually." And just like the conversations on why Junior shouldn't watch the mind-rotting television shows and quote them, he didn't retain a single word he didn't want to.
Unfortunately for Dib, while he'd managed to slightly expand his pool of magical energies over the past month by repeatedly casting the fire spell, he still had to use the incantation, and he was only up to casting it twice before he was running on empty. If he wanted to do anything to Junior, he'd need the magical equivalent of a nuke, not a lighter. Then he'd need something stronger for his father, because he doubted a magical nuke would be quite enough to take down the Babylonian god of the noontime sun.
So here was he stuck. It wasn't necessarily disagreeable, just very, very irritating. Something akin to the neighborhood dog that won't shut up, or that bird that wakes you up every morning. All the time.
"So, when can I go home?" He'd been asking this since the novelty of being kidnapped had worn off. Right around day three.
"To be honest, Dab -It's Dib- considering the descriptions you gave us, I'm surprised someone hasn't come for you sooner. Lord... Al is capable enough of getting here, then again, he can disappear for upwards of a century if he gets bored." Nergal responded blithely.
"So, why can't you just take me home?" Everyone went silent at that, chewing slowly on their food.
"Do I look like the city bus driver to you, boy?" Dib sighed internally. It seemed that, even realities apart didn't change the unhelpful attitude of the average adult.
-Another scene break-
Irkens are, by their nature, effectually immortal. Beyond maturation, their bodies aging was halted by biochemical and mechanical means. Nanites were constantly repairing and replacing damaged tissues throughout the body. Waste materials were recycled into the squeedly-splooch super-organ the same way food was, and then reused.
It is not, however, a perfectly efficient process, and so new materials have to be added occasionally.
Imagine Meyn's surprise at finding another Irken on the way to E-Arth. An irken that was in extremely poor condition, free floating in a half-shattered escape pod.
An Irken that was eating all of her supplies.
She said she was Sixth Generation Irken Number 124101113, or Tak, whichever was shorter. An Irken who had made an attempt on the Irken Zim's life was almost always considered to be an Irk in good standing, and this Tak had information on E-Arth that could simplify her mission, but still...
All of her food... All of her super hot snoodle blasters. Gone.
AN/ I've had all of this planned out for a while, and this still doesn't quite feel perfect. Of course, I'm a gamer with slight OCD, nothing ever feels perfect.