A/N: The last chapter was rather short, but this one's basically normal length. Enjoy!
When Dib came close enough to the tree to hear the girls who encircled Rin backbiting him, he started to get a fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach; this wasn't going to turn out well. If Rin believed a word of what the girls were telling her, she'd surely start to hate him and turn out to be like everyone else in his class. He may have been trying to expose her for his own personal gain . . . but couldn't that be forgiven, or at least overlooked?
Dib's shoes made a barely audible crunch on the grass as he stepped into the shade, but the sound must've been loud enough to alert the girls of his presence. They realigned themselves to form a barrier around Rin, each of them peering at him with suspicion and contempt. He gave them an uneasy smile, hoping to lighten the mood a bit, but they continued to give him the death glare.
"What are you doing over here?" one of the girls asked, her hands on her hips. "You're not welcome."
"I just came to talk to Rin," he explained, trying to peer over their shoulders to see her. It didn't work.
"Well, maybe she doesn't want to talk to you," another girl commented.
"But, I just—"
"I can take it from here," a familiar voice interjected, trying to sound commanding but only coming out small and soft.
Dib watched as Rin stood up, becoming visible through the spaces in her human shield. She kindly asked the girls to leave, giving them a half-hearted smile as they hesitantly broke away and went back to being immersed in various activities across the playground. Once they were gone, Rin let out a sigh and leaned against the tree, crossing her arms as she waited for Dib to begin.
"Look, I didn't mean to make you cry," he finally let out after a few seconds had passed.
Rin didn't look the least bit convinced. "Then what were you trying to do? What have I done to you to make you want everyone to think I'm some sort of circus freak?"
"You haven't done anything. It's just . . . that sparkling is really strange, and I've been seeking recognition for my paranormal studies since . . . well, practically since I was born, and . . . ."
"I would be the perfect way for you to achieve that success," Rin finished his sentence, her voice low and almost inaudible. She looked away momentarily, trying to compose herself, but it didn't work very well. "Why me? Didn't you ever consider how that would affect me? Do you really think I want to be the government's little science experiment?"
Now he felt horrible. Of course he'd thought about how his life would change, how no one would ever dare call him crazy again, and how he would finally gain the respect and reverence he so rightfully deserved. But he never really sat down and thought about how Rin's life would be impacted; to tell the truth, he hadn't really cared.
"I can tell from your expression that you couldn't have cared less about what happened to me," Rin uttered with disdain. "And to think I almost started to like you."
Rin bent down to pick up her notebook and pencil, putting them back in her black bag before storming past Dib to the extreme opposite side of the playground. She was well aware of how her skin probably looked in direct sunlight, but she didn't care; no one noticed before, and they probably never would. The only thing that mattered was getting as far away from Dib as possible. She had to calm down, and being around him was only working to amplify her anger.
Dib simply stood there, feeling too low to move. It wasn't until Zim came by that Dib snapped back into reality.
"It seems you handled your situation with the stink-less sparkle girl brilliantly," Zim said with a smile, almost laughing at how miserably Dib had failed to make amends.
"Shut up," Dib retorted bitterly. The last person he wanted to talk to was Zim.
"She seems very angry with you. Perhaps I can get her to assist me in plotting your eventual demise," Zim schemed with a broad grin, his strange teeth displayed in all their glory.
"I doubt it, Zim. Just because she doesn't like me doesn't me she wants to see me dead." Dib grimaced. "Besides, she'd never help alien scum like you."
"Oh? How can you be so sure?"
"Because any human in their right mind would want to protect this planet from something like you!"
"So now you're positive she's human."
Dib stared at Zim blankly, suddenly lost in a sea of confusion. "What do you mean?"
"That girl sat next to me in the cafeteria yesterday, and I detected something very strange about her with my superior sense of smell." Zim paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. "She doesn't share the same odor that covers the filthy bodies of the rest of you stink beasts. Actually, she smells quite . . . pleasingly."
"So what? Just because she smells good, she's not human? That's stupid . . . even for you, Zim."
Zim gritted his teeth. "You obviously do not fathom the extent of your race's stench! Why, the very thought of it is nauseating. For that girl to have a pleasant scent is more than a little peculiar."
"Besides," he said casually once he calmed down a bit, "her skin gets all sparkly-like when she walks under your sun. I haven't seen any humans do that yet, and judging by the way you treated her, neither have you."
Dib hated to admit it, but Zim had a point. What if Rin wasn't human? He'd told himself not to rule out that possibility when he first noticed something different about her, but he never really thought it would come down to her being an alien. Aliens were supposed to be oddly colored, with freakish eyes and antennae . . . kind of like Zim. Or at least they should exhibit some of those characteristics, not look like a perfectly normal human being.
Then again, Tak had looked like an ordinary human when she'd worn her disguise. He never would've suspected her to be a threat to humanity if Zim hadn't brought it to his attention. Maybe it was the same with Rin . . . but he still couldn't be sure. She seemed too sweet to want to conquer the planet, and he doubted an alien would come to Earth for any other reason. All of that "we come in peace" jazz was purely Hollywood . . . right?
"I'll look into it, but I doubt she's from another planet," Dib said with uncertainty in his voice. When no one answered, he looked around to see Zim had left, and everyone else had already headed into the cafeteria for lunch. He shrugged and walked slowly into the building, feeling hunger contort his stomach but not quite sure if he really had an appetite.
It happened around eight o' clock that night, when all was calm in the Membrane household—Gaz was busy trying to conquer each level of difficulty on her Game Slave 2, Professor Membrane was off working on something that would likely benefit the entire world, and Dib was in his room, monitoring Zim through the device he'd implanted within the Irken's base. Everything was as it should be . . . well, that is, until a loud crash from outside rattled the house, sending vibrations all the way down to its foundation. The lights flickered, a few pictures fell from the walls, and Dib's computer suddenly lost its connection. Needless to say, he was the first one outside.
He nearly fainted when he found the reason for the crash—a peculiar-looking form of aircraft, seated for one person, with many complex controls inscribed with a language he'd never seen before. The windshield was almost completely shattered, and fragments of broken glass littered the ground and the inside of the ship where something had been propelled through—most likely, the pilot. There were various dents in the ship's pale blue metal body, and the jets located near the back of the ship were spewing black, thick clouds of smoke—which was never a good sign. However, the headlights of the ship still managed to stay lit, so the bulk of the ship's computer was probably unharmed.
"Look at this, Gaz!" Dib called excitedly as he ran up to the ship, ready to inspect the entire length of the vessel. "It's an alien's ship!"
He stretched out a hand to run along the metal exterior when suddenly, the ship became engulfed in a bright blue barrier that sent surges of electricity into Dib's fingers. They coursed through his body in a matter of seconds, lighting him up from the inside and resulting in a rather painful experience.
"Cool," Gaz muttered as she walked through the front door, watching her brother being mildly electrocuted with a decent amount of pleasure. She couldn't help but frown when Dib managed to pull away, stumbling backward and resorting to crawling to a safer distance.
"What kind of ship zaps people when they get close to it?" Dib mumbled angrily, examining the fingertips on his right hand where the electric current had entered his body.
"A very intelligent ship," a familiar voice answered. "You're lucky I'm damaged; the—"
The barrier began to flicker, the headlights shut off, and the voice slowly distorted until it faded out. A hollow mechanical sound filled the air, and then, complete silence. The entire ship had gone dead.
Dib got to his feet and approached the ship again, slowly reaching out to touch the side. Nothing happened. He ran his fingers over the cool metal, dipping them into the dents, and then cautiously poked his head into the driver's seat. A loose wire was jutting out from beneath a dashboard-like structure, sparks flying from a rupture in the wire's protective coating, and there was a tear in the seat where the glass had punctured it. After carefully ducking his head out, he then decided to head around to the back of the vessel. A strange, intricate symbol was painted clearly between the jets, but Dib didn't recognize it. The owner of the ship probably wasn't Irken.
"This is weird," he thought to himself. "An alien on Earth, other than Zim? And this one isn't even of the same race as him . . . this is really weird."
He tried studying the design, with its grand arches and sweeping slopes, and realized it somewhat resembled an extremely stylized starburst. There was also a smaller, more definite shape near the center of the design, and upon closer inspection, it looked very similar to . . . an Irken symbol? Now Dib was thoroughly confused.
"Hey, Dib." It was Gaz. "There's a girl over here. I think she's dead."
He walked around to the other side of the ship to find Gaz poking at a person, whose face was currently buried in the dirt, with a stick. The translucent golden wings that jutted out from the person's back immediately told Dib he was probably looking at an alien, and, more than likely, the pilot of the ship. Judging by the tight white dress that hugged at the person's body, he was fairly certain the suspect was a girl, and upon flipping her over to get a better view of her face, recognized the person only too much.
There, out cold on his front lawn, was Rin. Her cerise bangs were brushed roughly across her brow, and she wore an odd pair of blue-lens glasses that resembled safety goggles. Her sleeveless white dress reached mid-thigh and had a light blue zipper that ran from the tip of her turtleneck to the end of the skirt. Beneath the dress was some sort of fully-body under armor the shade of navy blue. Her hands were covered with elbow-length black gloves and feet hidden in black boots. All in all, she looked dressed to either be in a lab somewhere, performing painstakingly precise experiments, or . . . possibly piloting an alien ship.
"Hey, isn't this that new girl from your class?" Gaz asked as she continued to poke Rin's upper arm with the twig.
"Yeah . . . ." Dib responded in a distant tone. He bent down to touch the area near Rin's ear, right below her jaw—he knew a pulse could be felt there . . . well, at least with humans. Once he felt that slight but steady throbbing against his fingertips, he exhaled. "She's alive."
"Oh. Too bad." Gaz muttered as she stood and dropped the stick. She slowly trotted back into the house, her hopes of finding a dead body in her yard crushed yet again.
Dib sat there for a few more minutes, simply staring at Rin while she lay unconscious before him. He hadn't really gotten a chance to look at her up close since he'd first met her, and he hadn't noticed until now that she was actually quite pretty. It wasn't an overly striking beauty, but a soft and innocent kind that slowly draws in curious onlookers, like winter's first snow. She also looked very frail and sad, as if a single touch would cause her entire body to shatter into a million tiny pieces.
"Are you coming in or sleeping out there tonight?" Gaz called from within their house. "Make up your mind now because I'm shutting the door, and then I'm locking it."
"I'll be right there," he replied as he walked up to Rin.
When he'd come close enough, he spread his legs and took a deep breath. He slowly bent down and slid his arms under Rin's knees and the middle of her back, a bit below her wings. Bracing himself—and taking one last long, deep breath—he quickly raised Rin from the ground, hopefully before the extent of her body weight had time to settle in.
He stood breathing heavily for a few seconds, thinking about the agonizing strain Rin's body was putting on his poor arm muscles . . . before he realized Rin was almost as light as a feather. Come to think of it, she was rather easy to pull from beneath the tree on the playground, earlier, too; the only thing that complicated dragging her out into the sunlight was her resistance. Now, when she was completely knocked out, he might as well be carrying a box of tissues.
A rather fragrant box of tissues. With Rin so close to him, it was almost impossible to avoid the aroma that seemed to encompass her entire body. It was a light and airy scent, very sweet and alluring . . . .
"Are you coming in or what?" Gaz broke into his thoughts, sounding more aggravated than she had when she first asked him. He quickly ran into the house, Gaz slamming the door behind him.
"Shh! She'll wake up if you're that loud," he whispered, staring at Rin's face as if he wanted to reach out and caress it.
He was really starting to creep Gaz out. "You're going to do something weird to her, aren't you?"
"Not really. I'll just run a few tests, maybe turn her in to the government for experimentation," Dib answered casually as he walked into his eerily dark room and gingerly placed Rin on his bed. He sat down at his desk and pushed the power button on both his tower and monitor, anxious to get started.
"I'm sorry about earlier, Rin, but this is a chance at fame that I simply can't pass up," he whispered with a smile.
"Who are you talking to?" Gaz yelled, already annoyed with his voice.
"No one!" He quickly glanced back at Rin, hoping she was a deep sleeper. So far, so good.
He let out a sigh. This was going to be a long night.