A/N: At long last, here's the new chapter. Sorry for the extra long wait, but between other projects, worse than usual writer's block, and real life distractions (like my vacation to Italy back at the end of July/start of August, Enter the Florpus and NYCC), I haven't had much time or energy to work on this. Hoping this ends up being worth it.
Anyway, let's move on, shall we? Oh, and here's something positive to note — Amethyst-Ocean has created pictures of Phil, Nyx, and Ying. They're not available on their DA page, but can be seen on the character tab for this series' TV Tropes page.
All that out of the way, read on!
Last time, on The New Adventures of Invader Zim: It was Career Day at Doomsville Middle Skool, and hijinks ensued as the characters had to intern at various locations around the city. Ultimately, all but Tenn ended up in detention for the antics they'd gotten involved in.
But fun time's over, because a new foe for Dib and his friends is stirring, from a direction they won't see coming.
Disclaimer: I own most of the OCs, except for Nyx and Ying, who belong to nightmaster000. Other than that and the basic plot, I own nothing, everything else belonging to the glory that is Jhonen Vasquez.
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The New Adventures of Invader Zim
Season 2
Episode 5: Rise of the Unknown Rival
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Once again, Team Save Earth were gathered in Dib's room before a bank of monitors displaying the various members of the Swollen Eyeball Network. Behind them was a cork board containing a series of photographs and camera footage stills, providing visual aids for their summary of their latest mission.
"…And with Tak and Tenn's control mechanism destroyed, the chupacabras they'd brainwashed went berserk, before fleeing back into their underground tunnels," Dib was saying, gesturing towards one of the photos, which showed the blurry image of several man-sized figures running into a large hole in the side of a building.
"Huh, who'd have thought chupacabras would live underneath old tire factories?" Agent Tunaghost commented.
"Yeah, that's what I said," Steve said, shuddering slightly at the memory.
"Are you sure those are chupacabras?" Agent Nessie asked, "They kinda look like mutant horses."
"Really? I thought they looked like dwarf bears," Agent Disembodied Head said, "Then again, those photos are all so blurry it's hard to make out anything at all."
"Evidence provided by Mothman is lackluster? I'm shocked," Agent Spider Monkey said dryly.
"Ugh, this guy again?" Viera muttered, she and the others rolling their eyes at the belligerent agent's presence.
"Remind me again what evidence you've ever provided of anything?" Dib asked, glaring lightly at Spider Monkey's screen and getting a much stronger glare in response.
"I'll have you know that I discovered a tribe of Tikoloshe trying to sneak into the country onboard a freighter!" Spider Monkey snapped.
"Hang on, didn't those turn out to just be some rare breed of monkey some rich jackass was smuggling?" Tunaghost asked, arching an eyebrow.
"None of that was ever confirmed!" Spider Monkey said, sounding flustered.
"Enough," Agent Darkbootie cut in, "We're not here to discuss Agent Spider Monkey's prior record, we're here for Agent Mothman's team's presentation. Back to the subject of which, while the images of the chupacabras are mildly impressive, you're once again lacking any evidence of these aliens you claim are always involved."
"As usual, utterly failing to impress," Spider Monkey sneered, having apparently regained his bravado.
"Seriously, what is your problem?" Steve asked, giving Spider Monkey a glare of his own.
"My problem is rank amateurs like you wasting our time with this kind of faked garbage!" Spider Monkey practically snarled.
"Faked?!" Dib exclaimed, "Where do you get off-?"
"I said enough!" Darkbootie yelled, "We are all professionals, so start acting like it!"
"Fine, whatever," Spider Monkey grumbled, he and Team Save Earth looking equally disgruntled.
"Am I the only one who wants to kick this guy in the head?" Viera whispered to Dib, who snickered in response but quickly composed himself when Darkbootie shot him a look.
"As I was saying," Darkbootie continued with a weary sigh, "While I am pleased with your dedication and what results you have managed to show, the fact remains that you haven't given us anything really concrete about these aliens. So, I'd say that it's basically business as usual for your team."
Spider Monkey's silhouette shifted, clearly about to say something snide again, only for Darkbootie to shoot him a look even more pointed than the one he'd given Dib.
"As such, I'll simply say that you three should carry on as per normal, and hopefully you'll get us something solid eventually," Darkbootie continued, "And on that note, I think this is a good point to end this meeting. Any objections?"
There were none, and one-by-one the other agents' screens switched off. The last one to do so was Spider Monkey, who shot Dib a final glare before his screen went dark as well.
"Well, that was pleasant," Steve said dryly, "You blow up that guy's dog or something?"
"I still have literally no idea who he is or why he apparently hates me," Dib replied with a shrug, "I mean, I'm used to people not liking me, but there's usually a reason for it. I'm trying to figure out what I could have done to get this guy so mad, but I keep drawing a blank."
"Maybe he's just a petty jerk? There's plenty of people out there who just get off on being jackasses to everyone," Viera suggested, before coughing and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like Gaz's name.
"Well, whatever it is, it doesn't matter," Dib decided, "Let him be a jerk for whatever reason. We have more important things to worry about."
The twins nodded in agreement, and with that the three of them moved on, putting the whole situation behind them. Unfortunately for them, not everyone felt the same way…
Elsewhere, Same Time
In a darkened room, Agent Spider Monkey sat before a bank of computer monitors. Outside of his SEN privacy silhouette, he wasn't really that intimidating to look at, just a boy roughly Dib's age, wearing jeans and a grey sweatshirt, with messy orange hair and stern brown eyes. But the look currently in those eyes, as he directed an intense glare at his computers, would have made anyone wary.
The target of that glare was the various screenshots and video clips of the just-concluded SEN meeting, more specifically of Team Save Earth. Narrowing his eyes into an even more intense glare as he looked at Dib's image, he snorted in disgust.
"Arrogant, big-headed jackass. You think you're so special, don't you?" Spider Monkey sneered, "Just because you happen to stumble across genuine paranormal events without even trying while the rest of us have nothing to show for all our hard work, you think you're better than me?"
Snarling, Spider Monkey tossed a folder at one of the screens depicting Dib's face, spilling its contents. Continuing to grumble for a few more minutes, Spider Monkey finally trailed off with a huff. Reaching into a drawer of the desk holding the computers, he pulled out a digital recorder and switched it on.
"Personal journal of Arnold Quis, codename Agent Spider Monkey, entry #3463," the newly-identified Quis spoke into the recorder, "Dib's team presented another case at today's meeting. As usual, the lucky bastard showed that he had actually had a genuine cryptid encounter on top of one of his fights with those aliens. Fortunately, the evidence was of poor enough quality that no one else seemed to believe it. Unfortunately, my attempts to use this in conjunction with bringing up his poor track record and use it against him were overridden. Sufficient to say, the role of skeptic I'm playing isn't really working to sabotage Dib's standing with the Network."
Getting to his feet, Quis began to pace as he gestured angrily with his free hand, vocal pitch growing more intense as he went on.
"How can that big-headed freak be so lucky, anyway?" Quis snapped, "He screws up all his attempts to display evidence, constantly annoys everyone in the Network, hell he's even broken the rules at least once, but he's barely ever been reprimanded, let alone punished! And on top of all this, he repeatedly encounters cryptids and has regular interactions with aliens! I've spent years investigating the paranormal, and I have nothing to show for it, and he just has it all handed to him!"
Now fully ranting and turning red in the face, Quis paced even faster, his hand gestures growing even wilder.
"No to mention all the other crap he's got going for him. I mean, I'm way richer than he is, sure. Socialite parents make more than celebrity scientist ones, I guess. But at least his father still shows up to spend time with him on a semi-regular basis — I can't even remember the last time I've been in the same building as my parents for more than a few minutes at a time! Plus, shouldn't being rich make me popular? But no, everyone avoids me because I happen to like the paranormal, whereas Dib… okay, yeah, he's an outcast in general, too, but he's actually made friends in the Network. When I try that, everyone just tells me I'm 'too abrasive'. What does that even mean?! I'm not 'abrasive' just because I always point out when people are wrong!"
Finally stopping to breathe, Quis dropped back into his chair, huffing and glaring at his screens. Focusing that glare at one screen in particular, he tapped a command onto his keyboard to run that footage again, watching as Viera leaned over to whisper something to Dib, who laughed quietly in response.
"And the worst part is, he's even gotten a girlfriend!" Quis exclaimed, "Yeah, they say they're just friends, but I don't buy that! They've got so much chemistry, they'd both have to be in total denial to not actually be together! So why does that jerk get a girl while I don't?!"
Practically snarling at this point, Quis got ahold of himself and paused, taking a deep breath to calm down. After a few moments, he continued, "To be perfectly honest, I think I'm hitting my boiling point. Through sheer luck and happenstance, Dib is getting everything out of life that I deserve. And what can I do about it? Do a 180 and try and befriend him? Hell no, I won't lower myself to being his sidekick. And I can't even use my own evidence to expose Zim or those other aliens myself, because I just know that regardless of me doing the work, Dib would end up getting the credit just because he'd been investigating longer. So no, that won't do at all."
Pausing again to go into deep thought, Quis was silent for several more moments. Then, a spark appeared in his eye, and a rather manic smirk split his face.
"Well, then I suppose I'll have to take drastic actions," he said, "If playing skeptic to try and undermine Dib's reputation isn't working, I'll just take a more direct approach. I'll sabotage that big-headed freak, until the senior agents have no choice but to kick him out of the Network, then I'll finally be able to shine. As for his friends… well, too bad, but they picked the wrong guy to buddy up to. Now, what do I need to do…?"
Now fully gripped in delusional pettiness, Quis set aside his recorder and settled in at his console, beginning to scheme his pointless revenge.
Membrane Household, A Few Days Later
Team Save Earth were once more in Dib's garage, gathered around the Spittle Runner. As usual in such a situation, the more technically-inclined Dib and Steve were doing the actual work on the ship, while Viera stood by and provided what help she could, usually handing them tools or checking readouts on a laptop connected to the ship's main console.
"How's that?" Dib called out from where he and Steve were under the engines, working on them.
"It still says 'beneath optimal operational levels'," Viera replied, reading off the computer screen.
"Damn it," Dib muttered, lightly smacking one of the engines with a wrench before getting up and rubbing his eyes, "Why can't we get this thing up and running again?"
"Maybe you should try punching the console again," Steve suggested as he also stood up. At the incredulous looks he got in return, he shrugged and said, "What? It worked last time."
"And I still say that was a fluke, with whatever enabled it being ruined when Norlock tore up the controls," Dib replied, setting the wrench aside, "I just hope that we can get this thing working again eventually. That whole fight happening in Siberia just proves that we never know where we're going to have to go in order to stop Zim or Tak. We need to be able to keep up with them, no matter-"
Ding!
Dib's mounting speech was cut off by a message alert coming from his laptop. Blinking in surprise at that, he walked over to it and tapped a command, bringing up the message. It was marked as being from an anonymous sender, and contained nothing but the words "view this" and a link. Confused, but figuring his computer's protective software would handle anything if this was malware, Dib clicked on the link.
An article popped up on the screen, apparently taken from some paranormal magazine that Dib vaguely recalled perusing on occasion. Specifically, an article about an old house that people were claiming was extremely haunted. And oddly enough, the address that was listed wasn't that far away.
"Is that legit?" Viera asked, she and Steve reading the article over Dib's shoulders.
"I honestly don't know," Dib replied, arching an eyebrow in confusion, "I mean, it sounds like the typical story as far as haunting sightings by bystanders go, so it could be real, but I would have thought I'd have heard about a haunted house only a few blocks away from my house. How could I have not noticed something like that?"
"Well, according to this, it looks like the activity was only recently noticed," Steve commented, reading the article, "Maybe with everything else we've wrapped up in lately, something this small just got overlooked."
"I guess that makes sense," Dib muttered, thinking it over for a few moments before shrugging, "Well, we weren't getting much done here anyway, and it doesn't look like Zim or Tak are up to anything today. Want to go check this place out?"
The twins glanced at each other and likewise shrugged. The three of them then spent the next few minutes gathering equipment for a haunting investigation, before setting out. As they did so, however, they failed to notice the small camera planted on the fence of a house across the street, which was aimed right at them.
XXXXXXX
On the other side of the camera's transmission, Quis grinned as he watched things play out. As Dib and the twins left the house and made their way down the street, he chuckled nastily, before grabbing his recorder and flipping it on in order to properly gloat about his actions (it wasn't monologuing if you recorded it for a future audience; he was pretty sure that was the rule).
"And now it begins, the flies entering my web. Well, two flies and one moth, in any case," Quis sneered, before his face twisted up in thought, "Ugh, that was a terrible joke. I need to remember to delete this part later… anyway! The point is, Dib has taken my bait of a 'haunted' house. The idiot probably didn't even bother to check to see if the article I sent him was legitimately taken from a real magazine, or question where it came from. Just shows that he's not deserving of all his success if he's just going to bumble after any lead tossed at him without a second thought. And now he's walking right into my trap!"
Turning to another screen, Quis grinned widely as he brought up a series of schematics. Taking a moment to admire them, he spoke into the recorder again.
"I've created the perfect facsimile of a haunted house," he crowed, "Convincing enough to completely fool that rube and his friends into thinking that they've got a real haunting case on their hands. And then, when they report it in, I'll sweep in and expose it as fake. At the very least I'll utterly humiliate them, but if I'm really lucky, I can make it look like they set up the whole thing. Trying to pass off a fraudulent paranormal case as legitimate is a total violation of SEN protocols. They'll get kicked right out of the Network, and stop hogging all the glory that should be mine! It's foolproof!"
Completely caught up in his fantasies, Quis started laughing, setting aside the recorder and sitting back to watch the show.
XXXXXXX
After a brief trek, Team Save Earth found themselves outside the supposedly haunted house. And quite frankly, even if they hadn't known ahead of time that it was said to be haunted, it wouldn't have been hard to figure out. It was a two-story Victorian building, with a rather creepy overall design that made it look like it was staring at passerby. Something not at all helped by the fact that the front door and every window was boarded up, eerie lights were seeping out in-between those boards, and the building's front yard was utterly overrun. Also, there was a thundercloud hovering right over the house, lightning cracking just as the trio arrived.
Which was odd, as it was an otherwise perfectly sunny day.
"…Where's that storm cloud coming from?" Steve asked, arching an eyebrow at the rather unlikely image before him.
"Better question — why is there even a Victorian style house in this neighborhood to being with? It doesn't fit in at all," Viera commented, looking around at the otherwise modernly-designed neighborhood they were standing in.
"Maybe whoever built it liked the style," Dib suggested, though it didn't sound like he fully believed that himself, "Anyway, we're here, so we might as well go through with this."
With that, the three of them walked up to the house, crossing the creaking porch to approach the boarded-up front door. Reaching it, Dib pulled a crowbar out of his supply bag and jimmied it into a crack between two of the boards… and to his surprise, the door immediately popped open, without him having to even put any effort into it. He and the twins all blinked in confusion at that, but shrugged it off and entered the house.
The entrance foyer was a wide open space, with a staircase off to one side leading up to another floor, and doors on all the other walls leading to other hallways. Or doorways, at least, as the two doors off to the sides were off their hinges, and the one opposite the entrance was outright missing. Also, the wallpaper was peeling off in droves, and there was dust and cobwebs everywhere.
"Charming decor," Viera commented dryly, nose wrinkling in disgust. As if in response, a strong wind suddenly blew out of the other doors, blowing dust into the air as the front door slammed shut.
"Get Out!" a screechy, static-filled voice suddenly boomed out, coming from seemingly nowhere. Dib and the twins looked around for the source, turning to each other when one didn't materialize.
"Is it just me, or does all this just seem really cliched?" Steve asked, "Like, really over the top beyond belief?"
"Yeah, it does seem a bit much," Dib agreed, "But it has to be real, right? I mean, what kind of idiot would waste their time and energy on such an elaborate fake haunted house, only to intentionally leave it looking this cheap?"
XXXXXXX
"Idiot? Cheap?!" Quis snapped, glaring at Dib's image on his screen, "How dare you, you big-headed jackass! This is a perfectly designed haunted house, and it sure as hell wasn't cheap to make! Do you know how much it costs to buy an empty plot of land and build an whole house on it this quickly? And don't even get me started on the machinery needed to make that storm cloud for atmospheric effect!"
Trailing off into angry grumbling, Quis decided to move things along, and tapped a command into his console, activating another mechanism elsewhere in the house.
XXXXXXX
Team Save Earth were starting to examine the foyer, when they suddenly heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Looking up to its source, they saw several of the visible boards in the half-rotted ceiling shake as something seemed to move across the floor above. After watching this for a moment, they glanced at each other.
"So that's obviously meant to be baiting us," Viera commented dryly.
"Yeah, but we don't have much else to work with, so we might as well check it out," Dib said. With that, the three headed towards the stairs, and made their way up to the next floor.
Reaching the next level, they were greeted by a hallway that ran the length of the hall. There were doors running down the hall, two on both sides, all of them shut. The floor was coated with dust, with no sign that it had been recently disturbed by someone walking over it.
"I'm guessing we're supposed to assume that what we heard was a ghost passing through here?" Steve asked for clarification.
"Seems like it. Let's each take a door to check out, then meet back up at the last one," Dib said. The twins nodded in agreement, and each walked towards one of the doors on the left hand side of the hallway, while Dib turned towards the nearer one on the right. Reaching it, he hesitated only a moment before opening it enough to carefully peer inside.
It appeared to be a study of some kind, with bookcases full of dusty and partly decayed books lining the walls, several half-rotted chairs and desks scattered around the room, and a fireplace built into one wall. Not seeing anything that immediately seemed dangerous, Dib entered the room. Pulling out an EMF detector and a camera, he then began scanning for anything unusual, and after a few minutes came up empty.
"Well, this is a wash," he said, putting his equipment away, "I should go see if the others have had any better-"
FWOOSH!
Dib gave a startled yelp as the fireplace suddenly burst to life, flames shooting out in a column taller than he was, which was vaguely shaped like a screaming skull. This dispersed after a moment, only to be followed immediately by all the books in the room suddenly moving on their own, slamming in and out of their spots on the shelves, which carried on for a solid minutes before stopping as suddenly as it had started and leaving Dib standing there in a stunned silence.
"Okay," he said after a moment as he reoriented himself, "That was weird. Especially since I didn't pick anything up right before it happened, and the energy of a ghost or poltergeist would have registered even before it made its presence known. Hmm, maybe I should scan again?"
While Dib started examining the room again, Viera was checking out her own door. To her mild disappointment, it was just a mid-sized bathroom, with a large bathtub on one end and a toilet and sink on the other. Deciding this would at least be a quick search, she walked over to the sink and reached up to the medicine cabinet above it, swinging it open. Finding nothing, as expected, she shut it closed again… and found a demonic-looking figure standing behind her in the mirror.
"Gah!" she shouted, spinning around and instinctively launching a fireball from her amulet in the demon's direction. However, there was nothing there, and the fireball passed through empty air to hit the wall. As the cracked wallpaper smoldered, Viera blinked, staring in confusion as she waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. Glancing back at the mirror showed nothing but her own reflection.
"What the hell was that? Was that real, or was I just seeing things?" she muttered, running a hand through her hair to calm herself. As if in response, there was a sudden rattling nose, and small fountains of dirty water exploded out of the sink and bathtub drains.
Gagging at the smell from the water she was just barely avoiding being drenched in, and now feeling more disgust than fear, Viera decided that whatever was going on, she was already regretting coming to this place.
Meanwhile, Steve had opened his own selected door to find a darkened room, with several large shapes that he couldn't quite make out. Pulling out a flashlight revealed these to be objects covered in tarps; cautiously pulling one off revealed the object beneath it to be a full-size mannequin. Arching an eyebrow at this, Steve pulled off a few more tarps, revealing more such mannequins.
"Okay?" he muttered, confused and weirded out, "What is the deal with these? You'd almost think whoever lived here was trying to be deliberately creepy or something."
A few more minutes were checking searching the room, and all Steve found were more mannequins. But then, just as he was about to quit, there was a sudden shuffling noise, as if someone or something nearby had just moved. Steve quickly spun around, flashlight moving about quickly to find the source of the sound. He didn't see anything, but just as he was starting to relax, he did notice something — all the mannequins' heads were now positioned so that they were looking in his direction, even though that wasn't how they were a moment ago. Almost as if they'd moved on their own…
"Nope," Steve said flatly, as he began quickly walking towards the door, "I've seen enough horror movies to know how this goes, and I am not dealing with that on my own."
With that, Steve exited the room and shut the door behind him before the mannequins could all come to life and attack him or something. Emerging back into the hall, he looked around and saw Viera quickly walking out of her door, with Dib coming out of his a few moments afterwards.
"You guys find anything?" Steve asked, "Cause all I found were some creepy mannequins."
"I saw something, I'm just not entirely sure what it was," Viera replied, still caught between worry and disgust.
"I saw something too, but I'm not sure how legitimate it was," Dib said, frowning as he examined the equipment in his hands, "I mean, I definitely saw something, but I didn't pick up anything that could point towards a paranormal cause."
"So, keep checking things out?" Steve suggested. Dib nodded in response, and the three of them moved towards the fourth door together. Pulling it open revealed a fairly large bedroom, with a four-poster bed and a large desk along one wall, and a large dresser cabinet along the opposite one. Like every other part of the house they'd seen so far, the room was coated in dust and cobwebs, and showed no sign that anyone had visited it recently.
Dib and the twins entered the room, prepared to start searching it for any paranormal evidence, only to freeze at a sudden thumping sound. Turning to face it, they saw it was coming from the cabinet, which shook slightly as something banged against it from the inside. Sharing looks, Dib started carefully walking towards the cabinet, with Steve and Viera close behind and covering him with their weapons. He reached out and slowly pulled one of the cabinet doors open…
"RRRRAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" a clown in a garishly bright costume, with wild red eyes and unnaturally sharp teeth, screamed as it burst out of the cabinet. Frothing at the mouth and arms flailing wildly, it leapt at Team Save Earth, who could only yell in surprise and jump backwards, Steve's blaster and Viera's amulet discharging by instinct but missing the clown entirely.
"Why the hell is that here?!" Viera exclaimed, in disbelief and panic as the shrieking clown continued to advance on them.
"I don't know!" Dib replied just as frantically, as he struggled to pull his gauntlets out of his bag, "But let's blast him before he gets any close-"
CRACK!
Whatever else Dib was going to say was cut off as the floor suddenly caved in beneath his feet. With surprised screams, he and the twins fell through the resulting hole, disappearing from sight.
"Gwuh?" the clown mumbled as he stared at the hole in confusion. And he wasn't the only one, as Quis was likewise staring at his screen in equal confusion. Not so much at the fact that the floor had collapsed — considering the steps he'd taken to make this house look as convincingly dilapidated as possible, not to mention how hollowed out the structure was with his special effects machinery, it did make some sense that parts of it would be too weak to hold up.
No, what confused Quis was something much more blatant and out of place.
"Where'd that clown come from?"
Zim's Base, Same Time
"Mwahahahahaha!" Zim cackled as he and his minions stood before one of the consoles in his lab, "Behold! See how the Dib-Stink and the Not-Dibs flee before the vile majesty of my Cyborg Death Clown!"
"I love this show," GIR commented obliviously, watching as the consoles showed the video feed from the Death Clown's eyes.
"Remind me again why you had to make this thing a clown?" Skoodge asked.
"Because they're freaky?" Nyx suggested.
"Exactly!" Zim said, "Humans are terrified of these gaudily-dressed, big-nosed albinos. And that instinctive fear will leave them too scared to fight back as it destroys them. I don't know why Dib and his little pets decided to come to this ugly house, but it's the perfect place to unleash this weapon!"
"Forgive me for saying so, sir," Ying spoke up, sounding like he hated giving Zim the honorific, "But won't the humans be suspicious of why a clown is randomly in this house?"
"Of course not," Zim said, with a dismissive hand wave, "Everyone knows that abandoned houses are where clowns build their nests before they hibernate for the winter."
"…That doesn't sound right," Skoodge said.
"Do not question Zim's research!" Zim snapped, "Now behold as my creation hunts the humans down and destroys them!"
XXXXXXX
Steve groaned as he regained consciousness, having momentarily blacked out. Rubbing his sore head, he looked around, and saw that he and the others had landed in what appeared to be a living room; he in particular had crashed on an old couch, which had apparently collapsed under the impact.
"You guys alright?" he called out as he pulled himself off the remains of the couch.
"I think so," Viera replied from where she'd landed on the floor a few feet away, "Something must have broken my fall."
"Yeah, me," Dib mumbled, lying face first against the floor, with Viera lying sprawled atop of him. Noticing this, she blushed and jumped off of him.
"Uh, heh, sorry about that," she said awkwardly, helping pull him to his feet.
"It's fine," he replied, shaking his head to clear it, before glancing up at the hole in the ceiling they'd just fallen through, "We should be more focused on dealing with that creepy clown monster thing. Because whatever it is, I kinda doubt it's going to just stay up in that room. We're not that lucky."
"So we have to fight a crazed clown in a haunted house?" Steve asked, "I think I've seen that in a movie. And it didn't go too well for the characters."
"Oh would you relax?" Viera said, "We've fought way worse. This should be a cakewalk."
XXXXXXX
"I don't think so, sweetheart," Quis sneered at his screen, "I don't know what the deal is with that clown, but I'm not letting it upstage me. You, your brother, and that big-headed jackass boyfriend of yours are going down because of my plans, not that thing."
Fueled by the (in his mind, at least) righteous anger having his precious revenge intruded upon, Quis quickly tapped a series of commands into his console, bringing all his equipment in the haunted house up to its maximum settings. He'd just been toying with Dib and his friends so far, but he wasn't going to do that anymore if he suddenly had competition from that clown.
Time for the gloves to come off.
XXXXXXX
Weapons drawn and ready for use, Dib and the twins crept carefully down a hallway, eyes peeled for the clown. So far they hadn't seen anything, but the occasional thumping noise indicated that he was moving around somewhere nearby. Probably looking for them in return, they figured.
"See anything?" Dib asked, as they reached a corner and peered down the connecting hall.
"Nothing," Steve replied, looking down the opposite end of the hall.
"And nothing behind us," Viera added, looking back the way they'd come, "Any chance the clown just decided to leave?"
"Raarrrrggghhh!" the clown howled from somewhere further down the side hall.
"Never mind," Viera said, as she and the boys spun to face the direction the sound came from.
"Okay, get ready to blast him as soon as he shows up," Dib said, raising his gauntlets, "And then we can-ah!"
Dib cried out in surprise as a decaying arm suddenly burst out of the wall and grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip. He slammed his free fist into it, breaking it at the elbow and forcing it to let him go… at which point dozens of more arms burst out of the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling, all writhing and grabbing in the trio's direction.
"Sure, why not?" Steve said, deadpan, before shooting the nearest arms. Viera followed suit, incinerating those nearest her, while Dib grabbed those closest to him and tore them apart, while also throwing plasma waves at those further away. Within a few minutes, they had cleared all the arms, leaving a bunch of broken and smoking stumps lining the hall. And before they could even catch their breath from that, a powerful wind suddenly came bursting down the hallway.
"Now what?!" Viera yelled, barely audible over the gale buffeting them.
In response, a mist glowing with an eerie white light came down the hall, carried by the wind. As the three of them watched, that mist swirled about in the air, soon taking on the appearance of several ghastly figures wielding axes and knives, who snarled and made threatening gestures as they floated towards the humans.
"Well, so this place is definitely haunted then," Dib said, "Good to know. Anyone got any ideas? Because I wasn't counting on any ghosts here being openly hostile like this, and I don't have anything to fight them with."
"You know, seeing as they're ghosts, they shouldn't be able to hurt us either," Viera said.
Naturally, she was immediately proven wrong. Screeching, the ghosts demonstrated their weapons' effectiveness on their surroundings, the axes smashing a nearby small table, and the knives slashing deep grooves into the walls.
"Oh, come on!" Viera exclaimed in annoyance, launching a fireball at a ghost, only for the attack to pass harmlessly through it, "That's just not fair!"
"Move!" Dib shouted, taking off down the hall, the twins right behind and the ghosts chasing after them. After a few minutes of this, the humans rounded a corner, and Dib spotted a door.
"Quick, in here!" he said, yanking the door open; after his friends rushed through it, he followed after, shutting the door behind him. Seconds later, the ghosts swooped around the corner and, seeing that the humans were nowhere in sight, came to a halt. As they did, they flickered briefly, before disappearing altogether as the hologram projectors creating them shut off, revealing the apparatus hidden beneath them — pairs of robotic arms holding the weapons, attached to harnesses that were hooked into a hidden track in the ceiling.
The harnesses started to retract towards the ceiling, only for the Cyborg Death Clown to suddenly round a corner. He stared blankly at the display for a moment, before shrugging and walking up to the nearest harness, ripping the ax out of its grip. The clown tested the weapon's weight, and satisfied by what he felt, continued walking in search of Dib and the twins.
The Death Clown's brain was little more than a flash-grown flesh lump that only existed as something for Zim's control mechanisms to plug into. As such, he couldn't really think beyond the commands that were transmitted to him, which right now were to find the three young humans and inflict harm on them. Therefore, all he could do was wander the halls, ax in hand, until something caught his limited attention and made it stop.
Yes, he was pretty sure he heard sounds coming from behind a nearby door. With a gleeful snarl, the clown charged towards the door and slammed the ax into it repeatedly, smashing open a large hole, which he then pressed his face against in a show of intimidation.
"Here's Johnny!" the Death Clown snarled in a barely coherent voice.
"Nope, I'm over here," Nny commented casually as he walked down the sidewalk next to the house, completely unperturbed by the crazed clown staring at him from its broken front door. The fact that he was currently dragging a half-dead body behind himself via a meat hook stabbed in-between its shoulders might have had something to do with that.
The Death Clown blinked in confusion, before snarling again as he processed that his targets weren't present. Turning away from the door, he stomped back into the depths of the house, ax still in hand as he searched for its prey.
Meanwhile, while all this was happening, Team Save Earth were standing in total darkness at the bottom of the staircase they'd run down after ducking into that door. Pulling out their flashlights, they lit up their surroundings, revealing that they were now in the house's basement, a fairly extensive space that was nevertheless cramped due to the large piles of boxes and assorted junk filling it, all covered with cobwebs and dust. There was also a rather oversized furnace taking up one end of the room, the rusted metal device looking somewhat like a gaping maw.
"And now we're in the creepy haunted house's creepy basement," Steve commented dryly, "Well, that's just great. Am I the only one here who's seen a horror movie?"
"Compared to everything else up there, this doesn't look so bad, actually," Viera said, looking around, "Gross, yeah, but at least nothing's attacking us."
There was a moment of silence, the three of them looking around in anticipation, but nothing happened.
"…Huh, after today's track record, I was kinda expecting something to happen," Dib said, arching an eyebrow.
And that was when the concrete floor split open in several spots, and zombies came bursting out of the resulting holes.
"Yeah, that figures," Dib sighed, before punching the nearest zombie in the face hard enough to knock it completely back into its hole. The twins, meanwhile, blasted at the other zombies, quickly eliminating all of them. But the team didn't have more than a moment to savor this, before the furnace suddenly burst to life, spewing out a column of flames that quickly coalesced into the same screaming skull shape that Dib had seen earlier in the study. It flared, like it was rearing back, and then surged towards Dib, only for Viera to jump in front of him, amulet held out in front of herself.
The flames swirled and billowed around the amulet's magical aura, Viera gritting her teeth as she felt the energy pulse against her, before she managed to push it back. The flames snapped back like a fiery rubber band and slammed into the furnace, which blew apart into slag. As the ruined furnace melted, Viera swayed slightly, though Dib grabbed her shoulder before she could fall over.
"You alright?" Steve asked, as he ran up to his sister's side.
"I'm fine, that just took a lot out of me," she replied, shaking her head to clear it, "But I am getting really sick of this place."
"I think we can all agree on that," Dib said, starting to walk back towards the stairs, "Come on, let's see if the coast is clear. Then maybe we can see about getting out of here, and calling in backup to properly deal with everything here."
The twins happily nodded their agreement and followed Dib as he quickly made his way back towards the stairs. However, just before they could step onto the lowest stair, the entire stairwell suddenly collapsed on itself.
"What the-?" Dib said, blinking at the sudden turn of events, only to yelp in surprise as the wall next to him burst open, spewing out a stream of some kind of green slime. He and the twins jumped back, being driven further into the basement as more streams of slime started shooting out of other spots along the wall, the substance rapidly filling up the room.
"What the hell is this stuff?!" Dib yelled, as the slime quickly reached his ankles and started rising up his legs.
"Who cares?" Viera shouted back, as she jumped atop a box to momentarily get away from the rising tide, "We should be more concerned with how we get out of here before we drown in it!"
"There's a dumbwaiter over there!" Steve said, pointing towards the far wall, "Wherever it goes, it's gotta be better than this!"
The three of them slogged their way through the ever increasing amount of slime, reaching the dumbwaiter just as it the slime reached their necks. Climbing into the small space, they squeezed as much as they could to fit all at once. And as the slime started to lap at the dumbwaiter's entrance, Dib reached out and kicked the controls, triggering them and causing the dumbwaiter's doors to shut and the mechanism itself to start ascending.
A few minutes later, the dumbwaiter reached its destination and opened, the trio spilling out of it to land in a heap on the floor. Untangling themselves and looking around, they saw that they were now in a small room, which like the basement was taken up by boxes and assorted other items, coated with dust and cobwebs, with the only entrance being a set of stairs. Albeit ones that headed down, rather than up.
"Great, we've gone from creepy basement to creepy attic," Steve said, before giving his sister a look, "Anything you wanna say?"
"Nah, I'm done tempting fate for today," she replied, eyes darting around in anticipation of whatever was coming next.
"And I'm just plain done, period," Dib grumbled, rubbing his head as his frustration and anger at the situation bubbled to the forefront, "I am sick and tired of this place. I swear, if I see one more paranormal cliche in here…"
XXXXXXX
Unbeknownst to Dib, as he said those words Quis was watching with sadistic glee at seeing his self-claimed rival starting to fray from the stress. A part of the little sociopath knew he probably should have just let Team Save Earth leave already, in order to further his actual plan. But honestly, he was having too much fun tormenting them.
Still, he supposed he'd wrap it up now. With one final attack to hopefully psychologically scar them, and at the very least send them running to the Network leadership as per the plan.
Smirking, Quis entered a series of commands on his keyboard and sat back to watch the show.
XXXXXXX
As had apparently become the standard since they'd arrived in this house, Team Save Earth only had a brief respite before something new happened. By this point, they were basically expecting it.
What they weren't expecting was the sudden barrage that hit them all at once — first, a portrait of a rather disfigured-looking woman fell off the wall as the woman in question crawled partway out of the frame and started scuttling towards them like a monstrous crab. The a pile of boxes fell aside to reveal a group of mannequins like the ones Steve had earlier, which now definitely started moving on their own as they advanced on the humans. Then, with flashes of red and white light, the demonic figure Viera had seen in the bathroom and the ghosts that the team had encountered earlier appeared, also walking threateningly towards them.
Dib and the twins huddled together, preparing for the attack…
SMASH!
…when the attic door was suddenly kicked off its hinges, and the Cyborg Death Clown marched up the steps, ax still in hand. Spotting the humans, the clown gave a psychotic giggle and advanced towards them, only for one of the mannequins to turn and grab him by the arm. Snarling, the clown swung his ax, cutting off the mannequin's head, which fell away in a shower of sparks.
As the humans blinked in confusion at this development, the clown went on a rampage. First, it finished dismembering the rest of the mannequins, before cutting the portrait creature clean in half. As it collapsed in a heap of wires and gears, the clown then swung the axe through the ghosts and the demon; the former vanished as their harnesses and hologram projectors fell apart, and the latter also vanished, leaving behind only the shattered pieces of a floating hologram projector.
"What the hell? They're all animatronics!" Viera exclaimed, staring in shock at the remains of the monsters.
"Think he is to?" Dib asked, gesturing to the Death Clown as he turned his attention back on them.
"Who cares? He's still trying to kill us!" Steve shouted, firing a shot from his blaster as the clown proved his point by charging them. The clown deflected the shot with his ax, only to be forced backwards as Viera launched some flames at him. As the flames died down, and before the clown could advance again, Dib charged, punching the clown in the stomach hard enough to send it flying. After skidding across the floor, the clown scrambled to his feet and grabbed for the dropped ax, but had to jump away from it as plasma bolts and fireballs rained down on the floor around it.
As the twins kept the clown at bay, Dib charged his gauntlets and waited for his moment to strike. When the clown reared back and covered his face to protect himself from a wall of flames, Dib took his opportunity. Charging, Dib leapt through the air and punched the clown again, this time in the chest, and with the plasma providing enough of an extra power to the hit that the clown flew through the air, eventually slamming into the dumbwaiter. He lay there in a crumbled heap, only half-conscious, and before he could recover, the damaged dumbwaiter gave way, falling down its chute and taking the clown with it.
With the clown out of sight, Team Save Earth took a moment to finally stop and regain their breath. Then, they turned to face the ruined animatronic monsters that they'd been dealing with all day.
"So, these things were fake the whole time?" Steve asked, prodding the remains of one of the mannequins, "Wow. Who'd go to this much trouble for such an elaborate fake?"
"And what was the deal with the clown?" Viera added, "Was that another robot that went berserk and turned on the others, or just some nutjob who randomly showed up here?"
"I don't know, and right now I don't care," Dib sighed, sounding utterly exhausted, "Let's just get out of here and report this place as a fraud to the Network. They can clean it up and investigate it instead of us."
The twins were all too happy to agree with this, and with that, the three quickly made their way downstairs and to the front door, leaving the house behind them as fast as they could. All the while completely oblivious to how they'd just foiled someone's plan without even realizing it.
XXXXXXX
"Damnit!" Quis snarled, punching his desk, "This isn't how it was supposed to go! They're supposed to think it's legitimate, not know that it's a fake! How am I supposed to frame them for fraud now?!"
Slamming both fists onto the desk this time, Quis breathed heavily, ramping up for another rant. However, he stopped short as a sudden thought occurred to him, and a manic smirk appeared on his face.
"Wait, that's it!" he exclaimed, "I'll just go down there and remove all the evidence before the Network can investigate. Then it'll look like Dib and his friends made the whole thing up! It may not get them kicked out, but they'll at least take another hit to their credibility."
With that, Quis bolted out of his room. Before long, he arrived at his fake haunted house, with a cart full of tools being dragged behind him. Kicking open the front door and entering, he looked around, mildly frantic.
"Okay, do I start at the attic and work my way down to the basement? Or the other way around?" he muttered, "Crap, and I don't even know how long I have until the investigators get here. I need to… huh?"
Quis trailed off as the basement door opened, and the badly battered form of the Cyborg Death Clown crawled out. Spotting Quis, the clown growled slightly, before collapsing on his face, seemingly passing out.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about this guy," Quis muttered darkly, "Stupid technicolor freak. I don't know you came from, but it's your fault my whole plan got ruined!"
Feeling a need to vent, Quis grabbed a large wrench out of his cart and tossed it at the clown, chuckling as it hit him in the head… and then to his surprise, a surge of electricity ran through the clown, who started floating in the air.
"What?"
"CDC-Unit-001 compromised," the clown said in a robotic voice, "Initiating self-destruct to remove all evidence. Goodbye."
"Oh, cr-" was all Quis got out, before the clown suddenly exploded in a flash of light.
Some time later, Quis regained consciousness with a groan. Forcing his eyes open, he looked down at himself and saw that he was remarkably unharmed, aside from being a little roughed up and covered in soot. Turning his gaze to his surroundings, he then saw that the house was a smoldering ruin, pieces of his equipment and animatronics scattered about… and several people in black suits surrounding him, with hover-screens displaying the senior SEN members floating about them.
"Oh good, you're awake, Agent Spider Monkey," Agent Darkbootie said, eyes narrowing at him, "Then you can explain yourself."
"Er…" Quis stammered, trying to grasp for something they'd believe and coming up blank, "It's not what it looks like!"
"Really?" Agent Tunaghost asked, sarcasm dripping off her voice, "Because we just found you in the ruins of a fake haunted house Mothman's team was investigating — after getting an anonymous tip containing an article that's clearly forged since we can't find it on the site it's supposedly from — and not only that, you're surrounded by the tools needed to perpetrate such a fraud."
"It's pretty clear that you're responsible for this fraud," Agent Nessie commented, "What, were you going to set Dib and his friends up to investigate this Scooby-Doo nonsense, and then make them look responsible for it? And try to destroy all evidence of it having happened when that failed? That's just low."
"I didn't- that's not- that big-headed freak doesn't even deserve to be in the Network!" Quis snapped, pent-up anger bursting free at the confrontation, not even bothering to try and defend himself.
"Hey, say what you will about how annoying Dib is, at least he's never faked anything," Agent Disembodied Head said.
"Succulently put," Darkbootie said, glaring at Quis, "This is a blatant violation of the Swollen Eyeball Network's code of conduct. Therefore, I move that Agent Spider Monkey be banned from the Network effective immediately."
"Seconded," Tunaghost piped in, as Quis' eyes bugged out in shock.
"I think we're all agreed here," Nessie said, Disembodied Head nodding his affirmation.
"WHAT?!" Quis screamed, "You can't do this!"
"It's done," Darkbootie said, "Arnold Quis, codename Agent Spider Monkey, you are hereby banned from the Swollen Eyeball Network. Your membership will be immediately revoked, you will be blocked from our message boards, and you will be barred from all our facilities."
"Be seeing you never!" Nessie quipped.
Quis could only sit there, stunned silent, watching as the holo-screens floated away and the agents physically present walked after them. It was only after they were all gone did he finally come out of it, eye twitching before he gave a primal scream.
"No! No, no, no! That did not just fucking happen! This was supposed to happen to Dib, not me!" he snarled, face twisting in rage as that thought processed, "Dib. This is all his fault! If he weren't around, I wouldn't have had to do any of this!"
For just a second, the concept that Dib couldn't be blamed as he'd had no way of knowing of Quis' involvement crossed his mind, but Quis' anger quickly overwhelmed that. He needed someone to hold responsible, and between his instability and narcissism, the guilty party was never going to be himself.
"No matter what it takes, Dib, you will pay for this!" Quis screamed to the sky, as he psychotically forged a vendetta against someone who barely knew he existed, "I swear it! Some day, I'll take everything from you. I swear, you. Will. PAY!"
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
End Episode 5
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: And there it is, finally done. Hope this was halfway decent enough to make up for the hiatus. But hey, at least something about it worked out — we get a (sorta) horror-themed story in October. That only occurred to me as I was in the home stretch on this.
Also, sorry about the exposition-heavy intro to Quis, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it. And before anyone complains that he's a flat and obnoxious character… well, that's the point. Dude's basically an internet troll, the type of guy who insults other people's work without contributing anything worthwhile of his own. I just dialed it up a bit.
Don't expect Quis to be popping up again too soon, but be aware he'll be sticking around this season.
Anyway, here's hoping next chapter doesn't take nearly as long.
Next time: We shift focus off Earth for a bit, to see in detail how Miz's message is affecting the Irken Empire.
Until then, please review!