A/N: OMG! I'm sooooo soooorrry, for not updating and stuff! Yikes, don't kill me! *shakes and holds out cookies to all of you* You should know I really love your reviews and I love them and treat them like babies, I change their diapers and-

On a side note, I have a week holiday and can write and stuff. *clears throat* YAHOO, FREEDOM! *kicks papers from teacher's desk*

I hope you can enjoy this chapter despite the disenchantment you've got on me ;D

Enjoy!


Zim could only watch as the little bubbly game model strolled before him, a little bit jumpy to say the least. The whole way, he had been observing the smaller life form to a high rate, and even though she claimed not to be human, it was hard for him to believe so. She looked just like one. The only difference, which had made him blink, was that he could now and then see her...pixelate? And her voice go static for a brief moment. Zim wasn't one hundred if it was just his imagination, as it could very well be after the panic setting in on him.

"We're almost there!" Vanellope sang. Heh. Vanellope. Zim had known an Irken back in his military class named Penelope. It was like a mix of vanilla and Penelope. He couldn't lie to himself; the name was quite exquisite? No, that's a too girly word. Then again, Vanellope was a girl. Not technically, but she was labeled as one.

Then Zim's eyes widened twice their size. She disappeared. Literally! DISAPPEARED! Vanish! Like she just stood there and just transformed into air right before his very superior eyes! There must be an explanation; because nothing could escape the gaze of ZIM just like that!

"WHERE DID YOU GO?" He yelled out, desperately. He didn't belong in this place and he had no natural feels for directions whatsoever. Yes, he was that panicked! He even admitted he lacked some sort of ability! The alien frantically looked about, whipping his head side to side to hopefully find her just standing there taunting him.

He got his wish complied.

"PEEK-A-BOO!" Suddenly the Irken saw a cute girl face right in front of his, and quickly collected from the shock, he felt her feet on his shoulders and she was heaving above his head, looking down at him upside-down.

"AARGH! Why did you do that?!" He berated, taking hold of her arms and slammed her down on the caramel ground. The girl just giggled and dusted herself off.

"Why did you do that?!" He repeated.

"It was fun to see your reaction, mean, you're so grumpy, loosen up!"

"Why did you do that?!"

"It was fun to-" She got cut off.

"Why did you do that?!"

"I said-"

"Why did you do that?!"

"Hey, shut up will ya?" Vanellope yelled back, twirling a bang around her finger. The slowness always got the best to Zim, and his subconscious was always getting him back on that. So he asked the next conceivable issue.

"How did you do that?!" He said, flailing his arms about, demanding an answer. That was not humanly possible, and he should know, Gir had run a scan on these creatures, and they definitely not had the ability to just teleport around.

"I said- oh, ok." She stopped her comeback. "It's a special ability I've got. It only works if I'm in this game though." She explained, switching her weight from her toes to her heels all the while. There she goes again about this game thing. When will she ever begin to make sense...wait...

He quickly turned his back on her, said girl turning into a question mark. The alien grinned viciously to himself.

Maybe I could use this girl for world domination! And she likes me, so she won't suspect a thing! Haha, and if she does resist, then I could use the behaviour modulator that was originally intended for SIR units! I can even make her bow, just for the heck of it! Oh yes, yes! This is my most brilliant plan yet, and I just landed crash- LANDED here! I guess I'm smart when I'm crazy...and panicked! I must crash land on more planets on my future missions!"

Zim lost the insane look crossing his face, and turned back to Vanellope with a well-acted kind smile.

"I see. Well, off we go aren't we?" He lured away. He was too experienced to risk interrogate a new ally; sure, she liked him, but it didn't really equal friends since smeethood. Zim knew the difference all too well...

On this matter, he would do further research, but couldn't use his computer equipment on account of his broken ship. So all he could do at the moment was to observe the girl; every step, every sway of the arm, every blink, EVERYTHING! Back in the Irken Empire, it had been their highest priority in training; keeping a peeled eye to any danger or victim looming.

"YOU GONNA MAKE PANCAKES?" They both winced at the sound, and before Zim could tell the owner of the voice off, he was attacked from the behind of his head rather brutally. Normally he could with process the pain quite well, but today Gir was a bit more irksome than normal. It has to do with the lack of activities as they had been walking for the latest hour...

He landed with a bearish thump on the ground, and as it was made out of caramel, he was quite lucky. The hit had been quite large, but it still didn't change his opinion of the pain and the feeling of a bump taking space on his forehead.

"Sweet mother of monkey milk, are you okay?" Vanellope ran up to her new friend, lightly shaking his shoulder to attract his attention. He managed to look up at her face, maintaining the distance between them and his stillness.

Zim's antennae had twitched at the soft, concerned voice. Back on Irk, the leaders and generals would have called him a 'slowpoke', 'laggard' or somthing similar if he had stumbled during their running session, so he was not used to seeing a hand held out to him like that. For the love of Irk, he felt his squeedlyspootch churn as he regarded the outstreched hand; astonished.

Eventually he took it, with no thanks as he got himself up on his feet, trying to be rid of the tingle inside. "Dang it, I am an Irken soldier! Should I really be giving up decades of training and learning about how weak these emotions are, for a weak little girl such as herself?" He thought and zoned off with his gaze in her beaming direction.

"I don't need your inferior help!" He weakly tried, digging his nails into his palms as he clenched his fists the hardest he could. Actually, now that he realized, he was trying hard with every fiber of his alien body to stand up for himself and drive her away from him.

"Oh, bull! I see your bump quite well there!" Her finger was pointing at his injury, and he was rubbing it with a hiss as if on cue. "Man, that does not look good! Come," She said and grabbed his hand, the owner revulsive of the gesture, "I know Felix can fix you up!" Zim faltering, not expecting the drastic pace.

The few times they had been talking, Vanellope had mentioned a handyman going by the name "Fix-It Felix" and Zim was not overall really interested in interfering with more "humans" than necessary. But as her talking had went on about how much he could fix, from a whole destroyed building to a little injury, it had tickled his antennae to put it mildly. Maybe he could use this guy when he took over the planet...

That is, if he was easy to fool. Not having met him yet, it was hard to judge. Everyone knew that, and first impressions could depend. Not to risk it, he would choose to get to know him better.

At least, enough to lure him in the end.

They made their way through the Sugar Rush area and finally reached their final. What made Zim's non-existant eyebrow raise, however, was that it looked like a vortex of some sort. In his light years of life he had only encountered worm holes and other space phenomena, but not an actual portal. It sounded too fictional to him.

Yet it was fascinating, and oddly put intriguing to just stick his arm through it...

He would INVADE the portal then. Get it...? Oh, he should be a comedian all the same.

"Here's the entrance!" His new ally explained, "This will lead to the main central and where game characters are free to walk around on their free time, that is, the time the arcade is closed! There's nothing special, just plug-ins to other games, like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Street Fighters and so on."

The Irken had no clue which names she was bringing up, but was too engrossed in the waves of different colours of the portal to mind.

"Let's get crackin'! Come!" She squealed and grabbed Gir, who had weirdly enough grown attached to her during their journey as he had his traditional Gir laughter as he responded to her gesture, grabbing her arm tightly. Taking a hold of Zim's claw, she darted to the portal.

"W-wait!" The words came out before he could stop them. There was really no reason for that outburst, but he felt he needed to express something.

As they jumped through the non-touchable wall, things got a little blurry from there. Zim only remembered a lot of different colours of indigo to dark blue, and regained sense-thinking as he landed awkwardly on solid floor this time. Vanellope landed well, her knee to the ground, Gir laying on the floor face down and himself, on his back, groaning from the hard hit and the dim gently massaging his eye muscles and slowly opened upon realizing where they could be, according to Vanellope's remarks. He bolted up in sitting position, looking to the right and went from there to the left, seeing life forms of different shapes and sizes walking by, different doors assigned each character and a blue hedgehog on the screens reapeating something along the lines of "Game over".

"Hey, Tammy! Look who I got with me!" Vanellope greeted, running up to the woman in question and hugged her leg. Calhoun had just been walking by on her way to Wreck-It Ralph to see her spouse working in his little uniform.

Zim stared up at the taller female with his curious magenta eyes, his expression mirrored with the same surprise. His hands were against the floor palm down, as he made no attempt to stand up, nor any attempt to converse.

Then his stomach burned a little again as she gave him a tough, yet warm in weird way, smile. Zim stared at the gloved hand that was reached out to him.

"I don't know who you are, but if you're a friend of Vanellope's you're friend of mine. The name's Tamora Jean Calhoun. Nice to meet you."

It took a little while until he felt himself answering her smile with his own, taking her hand to support himself up.


Hope you likey-wikey! Heehee :D Don't forget to review! The reviews are like writing fuel to me.