Classroom, 7:34 AM:
Although Miss Bitters had known Dib Maltenson's father was working in this hellhole of a city, she managed a single eyebrow raise when she was handed the info that his son would be entering her new class. This was too much of a coincidence, and he seemed to think the same- for all of five seconds.
That boy needed to work on his attention span.
He gaped, squeaking a little, at Zim. "What?" The little green child said, somewhat nonchalantly.
Dib didn't stop with the squeaking. It only god louder, for God's sake.
"DIB! Will you kindly stop this discrimination against horrible freaks," Bitters spat, "I can't stand it when students can't abide by humanity's crude ethical system."
The child of Membrane lowered his arm like a descending crane. He walked jerkily to an empty seat (there were no shortages of those- what was the deal with this vacant city?) and sat down. His jaw tensed as he studied Zim, whose face had crossed the threshold into "vaguely unsettled".
Bitters drummed her yellowing fingers on the fake wood of her desk. Utterly incorrigible were the antics of these teenage angst-magnets. She decreed a break in the monotony with, "Well, if I and Dib are no longer in a position of reunion, we may began today's demoralizing lecture. Today we will explore one of the greatest philosophical minds of our time, The Joker-"
"Is this some kind of bad prank?" Dib interrupted. Bitters' train of thought hit a penny on the rails. The teacher would melt that penny down with her own gaze if she had to.
"What are you explicitly referring to, Mr. Maltenson?" she began, with all the warmth of liquid nitrogen.
Dib 's eyes darted frantically between classmates, as if sure one of them would crack up. "That kid's- He's and Alien," he said. You could hear the capital A.
"I see…" Bitters growled. She had always deemed this boy as idiotic as the others, even if he was outcast, but now… well, he was smarter than he let on. Not that she could let her students know that. That would complicate things.
"For those of you that have been to thick to gather," she announced, shocking a few kids several inched off their seats, "Dib is a former student of mine, back in the United States. He is not to be trusted in any of his paranoid claims, as he is a highly delusional boy. Have I made myself clear?" Everyone but Dib and Zim nodded fearfully. The Irken merely bobbed his head as he studied Maltenson in a distracted fashion.
"What? No, I'm telling the truth. I fought a giant one last night, then chased this one all over the city!"
"Fought a giant- were you one of the pilots last night?" The infuriating Aida boy piped up. Suzahara rolled his eyes.
"Well, not to brag, but- yeah," Dib obviously bragged. Some students whispered among themselves, others stared, still others looked almost pleadingly at Bitters, as if unsure what to do.
"I- I can account for- well, what he fought- he definitely made a case for it being- you know… and alien," Ikari stuttered, surprisingly. He himself even looked astounded at his own nerve.
"Shinji, good friendhuman," Zim butted in, "The origin of- whatever was going yesterday may be debatable, but you are not implying that I am from a different planet with this, are you?" He gave a fake-sounding laugh, nervousness, honest to god fear on his face. This pathetic little Irken was doing a terrible job at whatever mission that had been jabbed his way. He was one of the shortest Bitters had seen, obviously some kind of defective that had been thrown this backwater planet as a pity-bone. Didn't seem like what a Tallest would do. She'd have to look into the matter.
"Well, no, of course not, Zim," Shinji stuttered snapping Bitters out of her musings as he tried to avoid his "friend's" gaze.
"Exactly. Zim is our class representative, Dib, and I will not have you spreading nasty rumors. I can assure you he his merely a genetic anomaly, and not of extraterrestrial origin," Bitters lied.
Maltenson looked ready to launch into a four-hour debate, but past experiences with his teacher convinced him otherwise. "Yes ma'am," he resigned.
"Good. Now, we will commence clips from the Dark Knight. I will assign a quiz based off the philosophical content. You will pay attention or fail miserably," Miss Bitters announced. Gullible fools. She wondered how long it would take for them to work up the boldness to say that she hadn't added any Japanese subtitles. New classes were always fun.
Schoolyard 12:27 AM:
"Ooohfff,"
Shinji was startled from his mediocre lunch be the sound of fourteen-year old body coming in contact with fourteen-year-old fist, then hitting the cold, cold ground. Toji Suzahara stamped past the Third Child, who was sitting with Zim at a picnic table. Shinji turned to face his acquaintance.
"What do you suppose went on there?" he asked.
Zim snorted. "Who cares? What savage squabbles these juvenile apes get into is none of my business. I am, of course, better than-" he paused. "What I mean to say is, Ikari-minion, WE are better." His mouth grinned. The rest of his face kept its' distance.
"Right," Shinji sighed. "I'm going to see what happened anyway." He got up leaving Zim to glance around, cagily. In the week Shinji had known him, the green boy had not once brought any kind of food with him to school. Shinji wondered if it was some type of medical condition, in tandem with his skin-thing. Maybe he took in his nutrition in an embarrassing, private way?
Such thoughts were expelled by the sight of Dib, lying, bruised on one cheek, in a spread eagle position in the grass. There was no one else around- Toji had obviously cornered this poor boy
"W-what happened?" Shinji dared ask.
"I think I killed Suzahara's sister," Dib said, in monotone.
Shinji's gut turned over in fear, revulsion, sympathy for both parties, and deep, deep shame "Y-you mean…" he looked around, "In the Eva?"
"No need to whisper. You told everyone about me piloting, before I came into class, didn't you?" Crap, he had found out.
Ikari's eyes welled up. "I am so, so sorry. About telling… and about… well, I'm sure it must have been an accident… Look, do you want to sit with me and Zim?"
Dib turned his head. "The alien freak? No f**ing thanks."
Shinji walked back to his table. Zim was still there, and- a girl he didn't recognize.
"'Bout time, Ikari," Zim said, glaring upwards. "Tell this creepy no one to leave our table in peace!"
Shinji was too tired to put up with this. "Why are you here?" he asked.
"I have been assigned to monitor Zim," the girl said, not facing him. She had a crop of neck-length blue hair and a slight frame, with near-white arms.
"By whom?"
"Your father."
Ikari tensed. "You- you're the first child, right?"
"Affirmative."
Misato's Apartment, retracted into the Geofront, 11:43 AM:
Shinji tried to calm his melting pot of conflicting emotions with the soothing SDAT in his palm, on this calm Saturday that he had all to himself. Above, Shamshel did not get the chance to cause unmitigated havoc, as Gaz bitch-slapped him into submission and Misato and Co. watched on in astonishment from NERV HQ. Shinji could not know this, however.
Florescent lights hummed, piles of unsavory garbage were silent and still, Penpen waggled erratically outside his door. Shinji had turned on his music partly to muffle out the strange behavior of Misato's Penguin companion; He hoped the bird wasn't sick. He couldn't stand disappointing his legal guardian, not after so many missteps in recent days.
He didn't here Penpen softly enter, so it was unsurprising that he screamed bloody murder when the hot-water penguin yanked the headphones out of his ears.
Ikari was silenced, however, by Penpen exclamation of, "Suhrtrissed to shee neee, Shinji?"
Silence proceeded to ensue in an orderly manner.
Shinji broke it. By screaming. Much louder.
"KAI-HET, DOY. DU YOU YANT TEH YAKE DE HO NEDERHOOD?" The penguin shouted as loud as a flightless bird could.
"W-what are you," Ikari whimpered through a closing throat.
"I an- hankh on." Penpen jumped onto Shinji's lap, and the poor boy fainted straight away.
"Ah, good," Zim said aloud from an Irken craft deep in the confines of Penpens' brain, "This will make the transfer much easier. This creature's beak is terrible for Japanese."
Same location, 12:24 PM:
Shinji gulped down sweet, sweet water, coughing up a bit of phlegm into the sink immediately after. The boy had had the worst case of dehydration after he had woken up from that terrible dream- it was all he could do not to pass out again.
Gasping for air, Ikari poured himself another glass, and sat down onto the lounge couch, flipping on the TV. It was then he noticed something very like vomit staining the other sofa cushion. Huh- he hadn't dreamt Penpen's sickness after all. Maybe he'd caught some of whatever the penguin had. He still couldn't shake that surreal vision of that creature trying to-
"Hello, Shinji."
The boy jumped. The image on the screen had changed, through no accord of his own. Something very like Zim in dress, figure, and skin color looked back at him. Two black, thick antennae had replaced any hair, and the green little boy's eyes were solid magenta. He was sitting in a deep maroon cockpit of some kind, and grinning like he'd won the evil lottery.
"You're probably wondering how I know where you live," Zim said, after a minute of tense silence. There was no mistaking his distinctive voice- Shinji couldn't have mistaken him for anyone else.
"Um- no…you've been over here once, and-"
"SILENCE," Zim screamed. "I am currently in a microscopic vessel, shrunken with masterful technology, and flowing throughout your inefficient, hemoglobin based circulatory system."
"What?"
"Oh, you are horrid at playing dumb, boy," Zim growled, still smiling, "But I have saw through your treachery. Consorting with that Dib boy, who overtly saw through my disguise, having your cold, unfeeling robot arm sic that creepy girl after me. I put my trust in you, and-"
"Robot arm?"
"Parent, I meant parent. I get those two confused."
Now, Shinji may have been timid to a fault, and fairly skeptic, but he was not slow. "This- this is real. You're from… space? You're an- an alien?"
Zim's eyes narrowed. "I told you not to play dumb. Don't make me liquefy your lymph nodes. That's right, I've been studying human anatomy, and let me tell you, Homo sapiens are FREAKS on the inside."
"Do you have something to do with the angels?" Ikari asked. He felt stupid asking.
"That is none of your concern, filthbeast. Soon I will reach your belly, where I will stimulate your arm control nerve, leading to-"
"But- humans don't have arm control nerves in their stomachs," Shinji interjected, confusedly, "That's completely counter-intuitive."
"SILENCE! I CONTROL YOUR ARMS!" Zim shouted back from the screen.
"Oh, god, oh god, you're inside me?" Ikari said, the full realization inching in on him. His fragile mind couldn't let it come in one go, he would pass out again. Speaking of passing out. "Wait… that thing with Penpen. That wasn't a dream?"
The honest-to-god Alien smirked. "Yes, child. It took me a while to control that creature's nervous system as practice. Suffice to say, it worked, and I inserted myself in your throat through the beak. It was quite the endeavor, and I-"
Shinji didn't hear the rest. As his lunch joined Penpen's on the couch.
"Eww, careful with that, its' bumpy in here," Zim snarled, "And you're disgusting enough without all that gross rigmarole." He rubbed his temples, "But you will strangle yourself soon enough."
For one glorious moment, as he regained his breath and wiped his mouth, Shinji's rational mind coincided perfectly with his self-preservation instinct. "But if you- *cough*- kill me, wouldn't that leave a trail? I mean, wouldn't it be better just to, I don't know, go to my brain and delete my memories?"
Zim frowned.
"Can you do that?" Ikari half enquired, half pleaded.
"Alright, sludgebelly, I'll leave you alive. Alive as a MOLDERING VEGETABLE."
"Uh oh."
He reached the limit again. Wretching, Ikari found that the contents of his stomach stained red. He didn't hear Zim's screams, or the wash of static, as blackness was pulled over his head like a stuffy blanket.
Zim's Base, 6:34 PM:
"Unbelievable. How could I have known that he could eject me along with his blood like that? That mass-altering tech. from Dwak-9 was a one-time demo. What would have happened if I had tested it a few more times beforehand, huh?"
"I don't know, you would have been crushed underfoot? Lord-And-Father knows we all would have benefited," a cool voice spoke up.
Zim stopped agitatedly tapping the floor of his maroon lab and turned, glaring at a cylindrical tank of liquid, illuminated by fluorescent blue light. The sound came from a speaker at its' base (the origin of the voice), from which wires lead to a cracked, orange orb, easily the size of a small car, that floated in the liquid. Other wires embedded in the orb stretched to a camera, a microphone, and parts unseen.
"Quiet, Satchel, or I'll drain the whole damn tank," Zim said, blinking against the violently cyan light.
"You can't threaten a prisoner who knows very much that they are needed," the speaker, or shall we say, The Orb, said, "And my name is Edaail. Or close to it, given your…" he paused, patronizingly, "inefficient method of translation."
The Irken growled, his think lips pulling back, and showing a great multitude of comb like ridge-teeth. "The humans call you Satchel. As much as the apes annoy me, I would never call a Nehindei by what they call themselves. Computer! Initiate interrogation method, 34-f!"
"Yes, sir," a deeper voice piped up from the bowels of the lab. He addressed the prisoner; "We have your mother in the other room. We are looking to do unspeakable things to her." Whatever the computer was trying to sound like, it didn't come out as sincere.
"I don't have a mom," Edaail said flatly.
"You didn't think you had one," said the computer.
"SILENCE. ENOUGH FRIVOLITYYYYYY! I said 34-f, you cobbled-together excuse for an artificial intelligence!" The Invader roared.
The computer gave a sound very like a sigh. A second later Edaail's screams threatened to burst Zim's antennae, as the blue tank crackled with painful-looking light.
"When almost 3 minutes had passed, Zim said, dangerously quiet, "No one is coming to get you, Satchel. Your AT field is weak and easy to mask. You're not going anywhere, seeing as a mere Core lacks the vital methods for locomotion, and unlike the ambulatory life on this rock, I don't need to sleep. And neither does my computer."
Edaail said nothing.
"If you behave, I will allow conversations with him. I understand you are the social type."
"You know nothing of my kind," The Nehindei said, so very weakly.
The Irken raised an eyebrow. "34-f again, if you please, computer," he said, very soft.
He ignored the screams as he left the lab. He'd have to remember to soundproof that room.