In a strange sense of déjà vu, we found ourselves being awoken by the bellowing, if slightly pitchy, tune of a trumpet. I groaned and buried my head under the pillow, my cheek brushed against something smooth. My eyes squinted open and I couldn't help but smirk at the fact that Dib had shared my idea and was also trying to drown out the noise with the pillow. Not that it helped, the music still sliced through the air and material, and was soon joined by less than happy exclaims from downstairs and across the hall.

"Zim demands that infernal noise to stop at once!"

"I've got security on stand-by… Do not make me use it."

Dib gritted his teeth, with irritation and pushed himself out of bed, fumbling for his glasses. I too figured out that it would be better to get up instead of wishing the noise away. Besides, we had work to do.

I'd lain awake most of the night, my brain ticking over the multiple, if impossible ways to get GIR and the smurflings back from Gargamel. In honesty, a few of them seemed mildly possible… But they were all halted by the same problem. And that problem was that none of us had any idea where Gargamel was or how to find him. We could hardly strike a plan or deal if he was nowhere to be found. I wasn't sure if it reassured me or worried me more not knowing where he was. Not knowing meant that it was easier to trick myself into thinking that we were safe, but also opened the possibility that he could be watching and we had no idea… My skin crawled at the thought.

I dressed in the bathroom while Dib stayed in the privacy of his room. By the time we were downstairs, Chef was preparing breakfast once again while most of the others were down in the basement lab helping Zim with the machine. I had to admit that Zim had done a really good job during the night. The frame of the portal was practically finished; all that had to be done now was the computer and technical work. Well, I say that's 'all' that gad to be done like it's easy. It was by no means easy at all… I covered my mouth with my hand to stop myself laughing at the sight of Zim, totally tangled within a spaghetti style rainbow of wires. He glared at me.

"Zim would like to see you do better, human!"

"No, clearly no one can do better than you Zimmers." I smirked.

"Is this another example of you're genius, Zim?" Dib sneered.

"Do not question me!"

Gaz stormed in, an irritable scowl fixed into place. She paused next to Zim and traced her eyes over him, squinted in concentration. She reached down and grabbed a single blue wire and gave it a sharp tug to the side before stepping out of the way. Instantly, Zim started spinning in a hurricane of colour, the wire unravelling at a rapid pace to the ground. Zim was free, but he was still spinning, his maroon eyes swivelling inside his head. He stumbled left and right before Gaz roughly gripped his shoulder. He leant on her for support and covered his mouth with his hand with an expression that looked like he was about to vomit. He composed himself and pushed himself away from Gaz, looking annoyed.

"Zim could have handled himself!"

"Whatever…" she smirked, arching an eyebrow.

Zim hesitated before returning the smirk, his antenna twitching slightly. A small sense of satisfaction rose in my chest as I watched the pair of them. They had seemingly gotten a lot closer as of late. Well, closer as in they were capable of holding very short and brief conversations, usually ending in an insult or sly comment, but I was willing to trick myself into believing that it was banter.

"So how long until this thing's up and running?" Dib asked, snapping us all back into the room.

"No longer than another twenty-four hours, providing the wires connect as they're supposed to." Brainy answered, suddenly appearing on Dib's shoulder, "But according to my calculations, we can cut that short if we provide attention to the conductors and -"

"I'm aware of that, blue-and-smaller-version-but-equally-as-annoying-version-of-the-Dib." Zim snapped.

Both Dib and Brainy adjusted their glasses and glanced at one another, confused as to take it was an insult or a statement. I chuckled, but my thoughts were soon taken over by the very thing I'd been worrying about all night.

"It doesn't matter if it's fixed today or next year if we can't get GIR and the smurflings back."

"You're right about that, Miss Amy." Sighed Papa from the worktable.

I crouched down so that I was eye level with him, "Is there anyway of finding out where Gargamel is, or at least is there a way to get contact with him?"

"You smurf an idea?" he asked.

I presumed he meant 'have' so I shrugged, "Maybe… but for anything to happen, we need Gargamel."

He tilted his head and started pacing from one end of the table to the other, "It is possible to smurf up a tracking spell… but we'd need the right supplies. And with the work on the machine, I'm not sure if we can smurf the time."

"A spell?" Dib exclaimed, his paranormal senses tingling, "You guys can do that?"

"What would you need?" I asked.

Papa scratched his beard in thought, "It's a little smurfy to get hold of some of the supplies, but here they are…"

I jotted down a list of everything Papa said. We needed blue candles to invoke the necessary smoke for communications. White candles to strengthen the spell along with give an air of peace in the hopes of avoiding danger. Bluebells to be crushed, apparently this flower brought luck and truth, so that way we would find Gargamel sooner. Next was a strange flower I'd never heard of called Eyebright which was supposedly good to improve mental abilities, which would in turn help Papa with his visions and concentration. Dib and I listened inventively, it was fascinating learning how the colour of certain candles or gems and flowers can bring forth different abilities. I'd always been a believer in that sort of stuff, but had rarely taken the time to read more into it. Now here was someone who was clearly greatly experienced in the practice of… Yeah, I guess you could call it magic. Magic, wow… But the wonder of it all was soon cut short as Papa revealed the thing we needed the most…

"We need something of Gargamel's so that the mixture will know who to trace." Papa finished.

Dib tilted his head, "But, if we find something of his, then we've found him, so we won't need anything from him…" he paused, "But then by not needing something from him, we can't use the spell to find him, so we do need something of his, but to do that we need to find him but then -"

"Please stop before you hurt yourself." I begged, his voice making my brain hurt, "Do we have anything of his?"

Papa shook his head, "I'm afraid not, but Gutsy has something of Azrael's! And if we smurf Azreal, we smurf Gargamel!"

Gutsy pulled out a few long strands of very fine hair from the pocket of his kilt, "Tore the whiskers out myself!" he announced, "I like to smurf a few keepsakes from my battles!"

I grinned, "Well, great, I can head out and find the rest of the -"

"NO!" Zim cried, looking panicked, "For the love of Irk do not let this human out alone again!"

I blinked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

He pointed at me, "The moment you step out alone, trouble soon follows and it is usually Zim who as to suffer for it!" he turned to the rest of the group, "So Zim commands that the she-human is confined to the house!"

Dib rolled his eyes, "Well we need to get the supplies somehow, I'll go."

"Pfft, you are just as bad, Dib-worm!"

"I don't see you volunteering!" he retorted.

"You're vile Earth sky is leaking!"

"I'll go." Gaz groaned, "Anything to get out of hearing you're voices over and over."

I couldn't resist, "Should Zim go along too, to help out?"

Dib stared at me like I'd lost my mind, Zim eyed me suspiciously and Gaz just… blinked. She narrowed her eyes into her signature threatening squint and smirked.

"You know, I could use some help." She gripped my elbow like a bird of prey and started leading me backwards, "Thanks for volunteering."

"Ow, that hurt!" I said as soon as we were outside, rubbing the red hand-print on my arm, "What was that for?"

She lifted her umbrella casually, "To stop you making more of an embarrassment of yourself than normal."

"I wasn't, was I?" I paused to pull my hood over my head and then grinned, "Or was it you I was embarrassing?"

She stopped to eye me warningly, "I live with Dib, I don't get embarrassed."

As we made our way to the store I couldn't help but smirk, "So if you don't get embarrassed, then you won't mind telling me what Zim whispered to you last night after he apologised to me."

She didn't answer right away. Instead her pupils slowly turned to stare at me from the corner of her eyes. Was she glaring at me or contemplating me? I wasn't sure. I'd never really understood mine and Gaz's relationship. She scared me, she was a little too blunt and insulting at times and she rarely wanted to hang around with anyone. Yet, she still helped me out a lot and occasionally came up with a hilarious one-liner, not to mention she always had our backs… I thought of her as a friend, but she seemed like the kind of person who didn't want friends and just put up with people out of boredom. Hmmm, that reminded me of the way Zim and I were towards each other, a strange little friendship. Either way, she shrugged at my playful taunt and looked ahead.

"He didn't say anything important."

"That's not a real answer."

"You didn't ask a real question." She retorted.

"Okay, I'll rephrase it. What did Zim say to you?"

She clenched her fists, "Are you asking me to fuel this little mission of yours?"

I smiled innocently, "No mission involved… Just, you know, curious."

She rolled her eyes, "Curiosity doesn't just kill cats you know."

"I must love the risk. So, shall I ask again?"

She shuddered in distain, but answered nevertheless, "He said, offer accepted."

I narrowed my eyes in confusion, "And what offer was he accepting?"

"I figured I don't want an alien and a bunch of blue pests running around and invading my personal gaming time. So the sooner the machine was fixed, the sooner I get my peace and quiet."

"So you offered to help him fix the portal last night." I smirked and winked at her, "No wonder Zim was so tangled in those wires…"

She stopped and slammed me against the wall, glaring at me with wide amber eyes and her teeth clenched, "Dare try and twist it and you'll plummet into a world of eternal suffering." She stepped back and brushed some dust from my shoulder, relaxing a little, "Besides, Zim doesn't need my help to look like a moron, he is one."

"Your moron though." I muttered under my breath.

Gaz turned to glare at me warningly, but chose to carry on walking and stopping outside the store, "Just buy the candles, and get me a soda while you're at it."

I took that as a victory on my part as I entered the store. Sure she had threatened me and scared me half to death, but she still didn't deny it. Don't get me wrong, I knew that Gaz did just help with the machine, after all, as much as Zim was smart underneath it all, he still wouldn't have been able to do all that alone. Still, it was progress that they were spending time together, maybe they were a little closer than I first thought? I wasn't naïve enough to think that things were just going to fall into place, they were both too stubborn for that. As curious and eager as I was, I also knew when to leave things alone… most of the time. Okay I knew I was going on about them two a lot, but they were both such characters and they play off one another brilliantly.

I chose to hurry up before I ended up doing a Dib and going on a tangent that we all know that no one really listens to. The candles were easy enough to find, and the luckily came in mini birthday candle sizes, and there was a flower stall near the back that had the flowers and herbs we needed, the soda for Gaz topped it off before I paid and then left to rejoin her. The walk back to the house was pretty quiet. I'd chosen to keep my mouth shut as not to annoy her anymore, after all I'd had my fun and pushed my luck for one day. And I think she knew how much I was pushing my luck and didn't want to give me any reason to make me dig my own grave. Maybe it was her version of mercy…

"Take that!" I cried triumphantly as we walked into the basement, "A whole trip out of the house and there were no problems."

"For the most part." Gaz muttered, tossing the soda can over her shoulder, landing it in the trash can.

I pointed at Zim, "I repeat, take that!"

Zim slowly applauded me with the greatest of sarcasm, "Do you intend for Zim to give you a medal?"

"If you're offering." I smirked before turning to Dib, "And do I get a reward from you?"

His cheeks turned a rosy colour but before he could answer, Papa spoke up, "Was it that easy to smurf the supplies?"

Gaz rolled her eyes, "They're just things you get at a store."

He ignored this comment by giving a grateful smile and clasped his hands together, "Then lets get smurfing, we haven't a moment to lose."

We all watched in awe as Papa lit the candles and placed them under a stand, on top of which was a small metal bowl of sorts. He gently plucked the petals from the flowers and shredded them in his fingers before sprinkling them into the bowl. They started to frazzle and burn from the heat of the flames underneath. He started mumbling to himself, words that we couldn't quite make out. Next, still muttering, he lifted the candles and let the wax drip over the ashes. Lifting one of the leftover screwdrivers, he stirred the mixture and muttered a little louder, replacing the candles for heat. The smoke turned a powder blue and smelled strongly of fruit. It was actually making me feel a little drowsy, Dib was swaying a little and we had to lean against each other for support. Zim's antenna had gone completely slack at either side of his head and his eyelids were drooping. Gaz didn't seem to affected by it, but her eyes seemed a little more squinted than usual. The rest of the smurfs also seemed drowsy, except for Brainy who was watching carefully, like he was studying. Finally, Papa took the cat whiskers and threw them into the mix, throwing his hands in the air and turning the smoke silver. He studied it as shapes started to form, but I couldn't make anything specific out. He nodded and then smacked his hands together, clearing the smoke and snapping us all back to reality.

"Huh? What?" Zim cried, head darting around for the cause of the noise, "What trickery was that?"

"Ah, you see, smurf magic has an affect of non-smurfs that gives off a weakening quality." Brainy explained, "Of course, it has that effect for smurfs too, but not quiet for experienced practisers such as myself, but Papa is the best."

"Yeah," added Clumsy, tripping as he clambered up the worktable, "He can smurf up anything with his potions and spells!"

Dib adjusted his glasses, "Man, that was cool! So what'd you see?"

Papa smiled at his enthusiasm, "They're close, and I didn't see the smurflings, so we can only presume that they haven't smurfed them yet. It also appears that your little hyperactive friend is smurfing a good time."

Zim face-palmed while I grinned, "That's our GIR…"

"So we have enemy location." Zim announced, "What now?"

"Miss Amy, didn't you say you smurfed an idea?" Clumsy muttered, smiling shyly.

"Oh she's always got something up her sleeve." Dib smirked, winking at me.

"Trickster human…" Zim mumbled.

I rolled my eyes and looked sheepishly at the smurfs, "Well, I kind of had an idea…" I swallowed thickly, knowing they weren't going to like it, "… but it's a long shot."

A/N:

Oh god help them all… XD Sorry for the late update, there's been so much going on you wouldn't believe it, haha! So sorry for grammer mistakes too but I wanted to get this up asap to keep you all interested.

So what's Amy got planned this time? Wait till next chapter to find out XD