Immigrant Zim Chapter 5: Ship, an invader zim fanfic

(Word Count: 2,128) [A/N: this takes place a few years later and where "Florpus" happens after the events in the comic (which i don't actually know, so please forgive any mistakes that i make), so that's why it's damaged. This one has Tak's ship still have Dib's downloaded personality on it. And i'll mention that there are probably things that occur between this one and the phone one, but i'll lyk when that's the case and try to reorganize the chapters properly.

It references "Dibship Rising" a lot, so here's the gist: Dib downloads his personality into Tak's ship (which already has her downloaded "personality interface"), but it believes that it is the real Dib and that the fleshy version is a robot or a clone. When it confronts Zim, he recognizes it as Irken equipment and takes control of it as such, and kidnaps Dib with it to try and throw him into the sewer… this fic also mentions a detail from Tak's ep when she's on Dirt (she's seen standing in front of something like one of the ships in the Armada), as well as Zim as a researcher on the planet of the people that built the Irken ships, from "The Trial," which in this case happens before he becomes an invader. Hopefully any other details are explained in the story. This one is a complete emotional mess.

I'm gonna use "it" pronouns and feminine pronouns for the ship itself. It makes it easier.

TW/CW: angst, anxiety/ attack, blatant emotional manipulation, teasing/taunting, anger and frustration, suggested mixed emotions, technology/mechanics, repairs to motorized vehicles, bickering/ arguing, consoling]

Zim finished tapping away at the screen inside the mangled starship and the tablet in his hand. "Alright, that should make things simpler to diagnose." He hopped out of the vehicle and turned to look at it.

Dib cocked his head and swapped his vision from the two. "What did you do???" He couldn't imagine that much happened from those short minutes.

"Just watch, Dib-thing." He gave a cocky smile at him before addressing the computer onboard. "Ship! Activate!"

The machine wirred and revved to life, albeit weakly and incompletely. The computer beeped a couple of times to acknowledge the command.

"Oh, you got the voice command working." It wasn't awfully impressive, but something was better than nothing in this state. "Uhm, how's that gonna help us?"

"Patience, patience. Having the voice module working will be VERY… helpful." Dib glared at him. "It'll be able to tell us what's wrong with the sensors and things that the tablet can't, and we'll be able to repair it from there. You're gonna like this part." Zim smirked. "Ship, voice command."

It staggered in an electric creek "Affirmative."

"What?!" Dib was astounded at his auditory doppelganger. "I thought it erased me from its memory!"

Zim pinched his face into a smug grin. "As if your filthy human brain could properly navigate Irken technology; a mere copy of your idiocy could never fully understand the mechanisms, even from the inside. Zim just unlocked it again."

Dib frowned. "Okay." He growled. "Then why don't you use Tak's interface? If Irkens are so much more connected to their junky machinery."

"Perspective, Dib-thing." He spoke more casually. "A simpler mind can identify the biggest problems in the body easiest. For example, we can't fix the wiring between the dashboard and the thrusters if we're not certain that the thrusters are able to work at all."

"Then why don't you just inspect the whole thing? That doesn't sound that hard."

Zim gently shook his head. "There's no need to waste time and energy on that when we have this. Just, calm down, Dib-guy. Things are going to get a lot more frustrating for you."

Dib studied Zim and tried to not let those words intimidate him. He already knew that the ship was complicated to get working when he first got her: he figured that trying to repair the ship when she was in this shape was going to be much much harder.

"Ship, damage report." Zim glanced his eyes between the ship and his tablet.

"Processing…" The engine and onboard computer made loud wirring noises as it tried to identify everything that was wrong with it. Lists of error codes and warnings about parts that were damaged or offline appeared on the tablet.

Zim glanced it over, scrolling through several screenfulls of messages. He tisked his teeth and shook his head as he read through them. "That is a lot of issues." He looked up at it. "You poor, poor thing."

Dib made a face, unsure if he heard what he thought he did. He turned and sneered at the image of Zim.

"Why don't you tell Zim what hurts you the most, hmm??"

Dib turned his head to fully glare at him, perplexed completely as to why he was using such a different tone with this computer than he did with all of his own AIs. In fact, it sounded like a different tone than he had used on anything that Dib had known him to before, and it was very unsettling.

"Fuel tank repair required. Primary power distribution repair required. Engine repair required." Dib heard his own voice saying these things and knew that he could have told them that. He crossed his arms.

"I see, baby, i see." Dib's heart stopped. His hair felt prickly and it sounded like there was water in his ears. "Does anywhere else hurt you that badly, sweetie???" Dib turned to Zim completely as his body fully ignited from the phrasing.

"Major repairs required. I am unable to process the full extent of the damage to all systems. Repair to sensors would likely provide better detail." It sounded kind of sad.

"Oh, my poor widdle baby ship." Zim patted the front of it.

Dib seethed and shook. He barked at Zim. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHY are you talking to it like that?! Just talk to it like you would any other stupid piece of Irken garbage and get this over with!!!" He was trying hard to hold himself back from beating the snot out of Zim for taunting him.

Zim made a face that sat between a sneer and a dirty, laughing grin that bared his teeth. "I have no idea what you're talking about, dirt-beast. I'm just talking to the ship in a way that will comfort it from being so damaged so that i can get the most information out of it. Don't you want to get diagnostics on what to do before we start fixing just whatever?? I thought you were smarter than that, Earth Boy." He spoke cooly and smiled disgustingly smugly. This was so much fun for him.

"YOU WRETCHED INSECT!!! I'M GONNA MAKE YOU PAY FOR MAKING FUN OF ME LIKE THIS!!!"

Dib lunged forward with all of his might and rage, but was too far to reach Zim when he took a step backwards. In that time, he had the chance to say "restraints." A mechanical tentacle shot out from the ships cockpit and ensnared Dib a few feet into the air where he couldn't hurt anyone. Dib grunted and growled and yelled, flailing as hard as he could to try to escape.

"Oh, dear stink-brained Dib." He slowly shook his head. "You really must learn to control your temper if the two of us are to nurse this poor, darling ship back into working order." He used the same condescending tone as he had been. "Unless you think there's something wrong with how i'm approaching this." He grinned wide as he said it: "care to share your feelings, Dib-thing???"

Dib breathed in five gallons of air into a mouth full of teeth that he felt were sharp enough to cut through metal at this point. "YOU'RE A DISGUSTING SPACE MONSTER AND I HATE YOU!!!" He spat at Zim's face.

Dib was too high up to get a good shot in, so only a couple little droplets got on Zim's cheek. He wiped it off with an unphased hand. "I know you do." He stepped to be closer to him and finally took a serious tone. "But we have to do this. Don't let these things get to you so badly, Dib-beast. This ship isn't you. It's a basic copy of your mind from a few years ago, trapped inside of Irken equipment without having the chance or understanding to properly adapt to where it is now."

Dib continued to growl in his throat.

"Believe it or not, but the Irken-human connection needs to be approached very delicately. You saw yourself how hard a time the ship had when you downloaded yourself into it, including connecting to either of our species. It's a thin, brittle line, but walking on it is going to get us there much easier than either of us trying to go through Tak's interface."

It made enough sense, but Dib didn't want it to. He stayed angry, but calmed down enough to consider things. He thought about it. "I never had a problem getting through to Tak's interface."

Zim sighed. "Dib, now you really need to stop lying to yourself. Tak never liked either of us, and you always had a problem fixing her when you were doing it on your own. We're working on her together now, and i know that we're not going to get anywhere if we use that interface. It's not going to be that bad if we do it this way. You need to trust me that we can do this."

Dib stayed quiet. He was still upset, but calmed down about as far as he was going to be able to. He took a few deep breaths. "Okay…" He turned his vision down. "Okay, Zim. We'll… we'll do it your way."

Zim nodded. He patted the ship and told it "lower him down." The ship did as it was told and slowly lowered Dib to the ground. It released him when his feet were fully on the ground. Dib glared at him for a few seconds and ripped his body away. "This isn't you, Dib. The ship is not you. Even the memories that you share with her aren't you. She knows that she's a piece of technology now, of a species that's different than what she thought she was. Both of you have been through so much to further drive you apart. So don't take this as me talking to you."

Dib processed this. He huffed. "Then why are you talking to it like that?" He side-eyes Zim.

Zim rolled his eyes. "Because i wanted to mess with you." He smiled, and Dib bared his teeth at him again. "But we're past that now." He motioned with his hand. "I think we learned a little bit about ourselves, (for better or worse,) and now we're ready to actually start working on repairs."

Dib glared at him. "I hate you."

"Like i said, she wasn't able to adapt to being in alien equipment. Even as an Irken ship, she wasn't able to fully understand what her situation was." Zim looked up at the ship. "Tak made her out of parts of a prototype of one of the Armada's battleships. She has parts that my Voot Runner could never use, and parts that the current battleships didn't get. I'll admit, it was crafty of her."

Dib studied her and tried to compare it to Zim's ship and what he remembered about the other ships he had seen before. It looked all its own, and he had never considered that it was something that Zim hadn't been using this whole time. "How are we going to handle this?"

"I know about the prototype ships that she used. Vortians developed it while i was researching there, and i even helped with some of the designs. I wouldn't be able to recreate the entire blueprint, but i can probably manage around the things that it looks like she used."

Dib was surprised. "You helped design ships in the Armada?! Well that's excellent!!! Then this really won't be too hard to work on!"

Zim sighed. "Theoretically." They turned to each other. "Many of the technologies that they used for the Armada were made exclusively for those ships. They're not reproduced in mass quantities because they're specialized pieces of equipment, and because the prototype parts didn't get translated into the final designs. Even the raw materials are extremely difficult to obtain. I have some connections, but since the Irkens cut me off…" He turned his head away. "It's going to be tough getting things that will work."

Dib paused. "That's okay." Zim looked over to him. "Whatever we can't get, we can replace with parts similar to the ones that your Voot uses. They didn't cut you off from basic stuff like that, did they???" Zim glanced away shamefully again. Dib grew quiet. He felt sorry for him.

He spoke to try to add optimism. "Well… we still have Earth equipment. A-aaand we have stuff from all of the other planets in the universe! We can use that instead!" Zim glanced at him again. "Look, those losers obviously still haven't conquered all of it. There's still so much out there, and i know that you're more than capable of making something amazing out of any alien equipment that you get your hands on. You've hacked technologies from species that you haven't even heard of!!" Dib put a hand on Zim's shoulder. "Zim, i'm confident that you can do this. I know that you can."

Zim glanced away from him for a moment, digesting the things that Dib had said and his effort to try and cheer him up. He knew that he was just trying to be nice, but it did help dampen the sting of being an orphan. He turned back to him and gave him a nod.

Dib tinted his face with smug. "Besides. You have an excellent scientific mind at your side to help with anything that you can't do."

Zim huffed out a smile and rolled his eyes. "You're right, Dib." He glanced his eyes to the ship quickly. "The onboard computer is pretty smart." He smirked again, his eyes still showing how appreciative he was of the pep talk.

Dib glared, but his face still had a smirk on it.

[A/N: this takes place a few years later and where "Florpus" happens after the events in the comic (which i don't actually know, so please forgive any mistakes that i make), so that's why it's damaged. This one has Tak's ship still have Dib's downloaded personality on it. And i'll mention that there are probably things that occur between this one and the phone one, but i'll lyk when that's the case and try to reorganize the chapters properly.