I wanted to update before October but... Life, y'know? Also, the entire universe seemed to want me to not finish this chapter. Lol.
Replies:
Guest: Glad you like it :) Also that you couldn't predict what was going to happen! I try to keep a balance between foreshadowing and keeping the plot a mystery :D
Guest: Hehehheheehh... Sorry, this is neither a fast update nor a long chapter... Ples forgiv D: And ooops, that's a typo that I didn't notice while spellchecking, thanks for telling me though!
someone: Wellllll, not everyone is gonna die...
Anon: Thank you! That means a lot to me!
"That's it!" Lard Nar exclaimed, slamming his fists into the table," You eat so often that not only are we falling behind schedule, but the entire economy might crash because we have to buy all this food!"
"That second part isn't true", Sev En mumbled.
"It's not my fault that this stuuuupid PAK is being stupid and stealing the food from my stomach!" Zim stood up. In his raised hand was a vegetable of some sort.
"Well, I'm not complaining about these snack breaks every thirty minutes", Dib shrugged.
"They're a waste of time!" Lard Nar said. Zim hissed angrily, booping Lard Nar on the head with his vegetable. To explain some things: today had been a long day.
"We'll figure something out. Calm down both of you", Sev En said as he wrote something down a word in his Vortian crossword. It was similar to a human crossword, except it was in 3D and too complex for a human to manage.
"Why don't you just make a bigger battery-thingy?" Zim asked sourly. It was odd though, as soon as those words left his mouth, he got the inexplicable feeling of having accomplished something. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the feeling.
"... That might be a good idea!" Lard Nar raised an eyebrow and scratched his chin in thought," A bigger, more powerful battery than anything already on Vort! How long would making one take, Sev En?"
"Hmmm", Sev En put his crossword away and opened a calculator," not too long. A day, two at most, but we would definitely save time if it meant less snack breaks."
"Excellent! Let's start immediately", Lard Nar pushed the bowl of food off the table and pulled forth a bunch of blueprints, tools and machine-parts.
"Hold on, I'm totally lost!" Dib said from the floor. He had jumped off his chair to heroically save the food,"I don't know how to built an infinite battery." To be honest, the concept of just getting an idea for a complex battery-thing and getting to it this quickly was just too weird. Flipping Vortians and their smartness.
"Oh that's simple! The tricky part will be to change the components properly so it becomes even stronger", Lard Nar explained, already making changes to the blueprints. Dib looked them over, getting a basic understanding of how the battery would look and work, but still completely lost on what would happen with the changes Lard Nar currently made.
"What's that stand for?" Zim asked, pointing at one part of the blueprints.
Sev En went on explaining the battery to Zim while Dib watched Lard Nar take notes, mumble and rewrite the blueprints.
…
Sev En was content on his way home. He was happy that they (hopefully) wouldn't need to interrupt their important work anymore just to let Zim eat, and that they seemed to be progressing. Zim was very set to succeed, after all, thus working hard even though it might feel like a slow journey.
Tomorrow was gonna be productive, he could feel it! But for now, he was just gonna go home and spend time with his kids-
"Sev En, sir?" a voice said from behind. Sev En paused and looked around. A servant stood there smiling politely.
"Yes?" Sev En said, urging the servant to go on
"About the broken AI your team sent to be fixed a few days ago."
"Oh right. I wasn't there when they realized it was broken but I'm still curious to what was wrong with it", Sev En said.
"That's the thing, sir", the servant said," There was nothing wrong with it. Everything worked perfectly."
"Huh? But the information it gave us was wrong!"
The servant shrugged," Well, this report says nothing was wrong. Will you sign here that you got the information, or else I won't get paid, y'know."
With a crease between his eyes, Sev En signed the servant's little paper and left. There was definitively something going on.
…
"That's some horror movie shit right there!" Dib exclaimed. On the other end of the group call, Lard Nar nodded.
"Yes. We should call the reparation guys and tell them to stop joking around," he said.
"You and I both know the reparation guys don't joke around unless they have had three beers. They would just get angry at us for doubting their abilities", Sev En said. A silence enveloped the three, making Zim look up from his position on the floor, papers and crayons scattered around him and GIR.
"Dib", he whisper-shouted," show them this!" He waved around one paper in particular.
"Zim, we're a bit too busy to admire your drawings right now," Dib said irritably. But Zim ran up to the screen anyways, showing them his drawing.
"It is a feedening machine, but PAK-sized! And the food will go into me through the PAK!"
"... That's actually an interesting idea, but we'll discuss it tomorrow", Sev En said. A high-pitched baby cry was suddenly heard from the speakers, and Sev En cringed," actually, can we talk about everything tomorrow? I have three kids to take care of."
"Sure", Dib shrugged. It was high time to make dinner.
….
Zim stopped at the entrance to the lab, staring suspiciously at the people in the room. Two of them weren't supposed to be there. They looked familiar somehow, and he quickly realized why.
It was the Queen-Vortian and her guardian person. But what were they doing here? Didn't they constantly have all these royal duty-thingies to attend to?
"Hey! You've gotten lost, this is not the conference room!" He said, receiving a (gentle) slap on the head from Dib.
"Respect, Zim!" He wheezed while bowing,"Your highness! What an honor."
Zim huffed, but bowed as well.
"We wanted to have a look at your progress. It heard that you were getting behind, which is unfortunate", the Queen said, looking genuinely sad.
"Oh, we're getting the behind-falling fixed today, right, science-Vortians", Zim waved her off and looked at Sev En and Lard Nar.
"Yes, we believe we have found a solution to our problem", Sev En said," we'll be back on schedule before the weekend!"
The Queen smiled, clapping her royal hands together.
"That's great! Actually", suddenly, she looked a little bit bashful, looking down to the side and pressing her lips together slightly,"I was thinking that we could move on the next phase soon, if it is possible."
"Next phase?" Zim said.
"What? But the next phase isn't scheduled until next month", Lard Nar's eyes drew together.
"It will not interfere with your current work, right? I thought it would be convenient, even", the Queen said.
"What next phase?" Zim said.
"Well", Sev En put leaned his face in one palm," I guess we could plan and work on upgrades while Zim is away participating in the next phase", he said. Also Zim's an amazingly fast learner, but he's still slowing us down, he didn't say. But he thought it.
"What is the next phase?" Zim asked again.
"Don't you remember, Zim?" Dib said scoldingly. Zim huffed and stuck his tongue out at the human. Off course he didn't remember, because nobody had told him in the first place!
… actually maybe they had. There were many times that he kept hearing a lot of words but didn't bother to listen.
The guard suddenly snorted in what might have been a laugh. Zim turned his attention to her gleaming eyes.
"Next phase", she said," is combat training."
…
"Get up!" the body guard, Fasdi Mi barked. Zim groaned, forcing himself to his hands and knees.
He had always thought of himself as a good fighter. How else was he still alive, after all? You had to be good if you were small and lived alone in the wild where most things wanted to kill you.
But this was different. Fasdi Mi didn't fight like Zim was used to. He had always relied on his claws and teeth, mixing it with the element of surprise and a certain amount of screeching, but that didn't work here.
The Vortian used strategy, she knew where to punch and how to throw Zim off-balance. Maybe Zim was faster and stronger than the average Vortian, but that only helped him the first few times. Fasdi Mi had more tricks up her sleeve.
He wiped the blood off his lip and stood, facing his new teacher.
"Mimic my pose. You gotta bend you knees more, or else I'll just throw you to the ground again", she said. Zim gasped.
"No! Then I will not be tall and my enemies will get arrogant!" Zim protested.
"Trust me, you're not tall no matter how hard you try", Fasdi Mi mumbled, then raised her voice again," If you bend your knees, regaining you balance will be easier. You'll also have an easier time moving and dodging my attacks."
"This is stupid!" Zim said while bending his knees slightly. He raised his hands just like his teacher, trying to imitate her pose even though they had some anatomical differences. Hopefully she didn't expect him to bend his knees like THAT. Fasdi Mi ignored his words and raised one glove-covered hand to punch. Instinctively, Zim raised his arms to cover his face, and was hit. In the stomach. By a hoof.
A 'shmack' echoed through the empty arena slash classroom. Zim feebly gasped for air as tears stung his eyeballs. His knees gave up by the time the hoof had left him.
Fasdi Mi was explaining his mistake, but he was too busy regaining his breath to take it in. How long would it take before he got hit one too many times? How many times had she beaten him already?
"Get up", Fasdi Mi barked. Zim groaned, forcing himself to his hands and knees.
"This time it's your turn to try to hit me. Try punching me in the face and pay attention to my head movements as I dodge", she said as he got up. His hands were already wet under the gloves he was forced to wear.
Once again, Zim mimicked her pose, hands up, chin down and legs relaxed and far apart. But this time, he attacked with a similar punch as she had. But he missed. Fasdi Mi evaded him as if it wasn't even hard! He punched again and she bent her upper body to the side just enough for hist fist to miss its target. None of the fifteen coming punches hit her either, and Zim had to stop to take a breath.
The worst thing was, he was hungry. Fasdi Mi wasn't as willing to take food breaks as the scientists and Zim couldn't argue against her without being beaten into the ground. He growled. It seemed the only way to get food was to win over her.
None of the raining punches hit her. Fasdi Mi was simply to good to get hit, no matter how fast or constant Zim's attacks were. Suddenly he found that Fasdi Mi had grabbed both of his arms.
Next, Zim flew over his opponent's head and hit the ground a good three leaps away. The PAK dug into his shoulders at the impact, but the metal itself was too durable to get dented. It didn't stop the paralyzing bolts of pain running through his body, though.
"Avoiding punches like that becomes instinct after a while, but you need a lot of practice before you get there", she said. Zim couldn't answer, only lay there, trying to breathe normally and feel his legs again.
"Get up", she barked. Zim groaned, forcing himself to his hands and knees.
But he couldn't get any further. His empty stomach and injured body protested too much for him to stand. So he stayed, head low and breath escaping in irregular pants. He closed his eyes, trying to stop them from making the world spin like that.
Steps. Fasdi Mi knelt in front of him and grabbed his cheeks forcefully, looking at his bleeding face and limp body. Then she sighed.
"That's enough for today", she helped him up and they sat down on a cold metal bench. Zim leaned back with a sigh.
"Do you drink juice?" Fasdi Mi asked. Zim looked up and saw a plastic bottle being offered to him. He took it and gulped down its entire content within a minute. He ditched the bottle and leaned back again. It felt like he could fall asleep right then and there...
"We're done. You can go home if you want to", Fasdi Mi said, sipping on her own juice.
"But I did not beat you", Zim said, sitting up again.
"You're not supposed to!" Fasdi Mi actually looked surprised," this was your first try. You'll have to practice for YEARS before you'll win over me!"
Zim frowned. He didn't want to practice for years. That would hurt!
"Off course," Fasdi Mi sighed," your PAK might speed up the process. I've heard great things about it."
"Hmmmm", Zim thought about the upgrades they would add to his PAK soon and felt some weight lift off him," yeah, you're right! Soon you will be the one … ehhh … not winning."
"Hah!" Fasdi Mi huffed," that a challenge, Irken? Because you're on!" She grinned, and Zim grinned back with some difficulty.
He looked forward to winning.
TBC
Yet another OC I put in as a filler character get more attentnion than I originally planned. Sigh.
Also, will you kill me if I put this story on a li'l hiatus so I can write some halloween fanfics? Because I kinda wanna do that :P
/sagapaga