A/N: Hey everyone. Been a while since this collection was updated, I know. As always, all the usual reasons – other stories keeping my focus, lack of personal interest, real life issues, etc. But, back now with another entry.
Like most of the stories in this anthology, this is based on a prompt by The Cowardly Christian. Fun fact, this is actually one of the first that he ever gave me, so it's kinda sad that I'm just now getting around to it. But regardless, here it is, and I hope you all enjoy it.
To reiterate prior warnings, all characters in here are at least 18 years old. Bear that in mind for all the content about to unfold; if that's not enough to help, feel free not to read it.
All that said, read on!
Disclaimer: I do not, have never, and will never own Invader Zim.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
New Adventures: Mature Edition
Entry 7: Stranded
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
Usually, when Gaz Membrane was happy, it either meant that someone had just suffered an incredible amount of pain, or something had occurred to keep her so content that no one had to worry about that for the near future.
Fortunately for the world at large, the present circumstances were a case of the latter situation. She had managed to get ahold of a rare copy of a Japanese video game from the '90s, Supreme Ultimate Enemy Killer Die! Die! Die! (it was a loose translation), which had been banned from distribution in the US and most other countries due to its excessive violence. But a few copies had circulated online for years, and finally, Gaz had one. And she was going to enjoy playing it.
She had set up the full surround sound speaker system on the consoles in her room, had a brand-new comfy chair to sit in while playing, and had enough sodas and energy drinks on standby to drown someone in. All that was missing was the stack of pizzas that she could feast on for countless hours, which was why she was currently at the front door of the house, paying off the Bloaty's delivery guy.
"You know, not to question a paying customer, but it's really not that healthy for one person to have this much pizza," the deliver guy commented as he handed over the stack of boxes and took the exact payment in cash.
"Piss off," Gaz snapped, kicking the door shut in his face. Ignoring the resulting yelp of pain, she turned and started to walk back towards the stairs and up to her room, which she didn't plan to leave for the next several days as she played through every last level, minigame, and hidden Easter egg in the game.
Of course, first she had to get up there, she mentally noted with a grumble as she reached the stairs and started to struggle with keeping the weight of all the boxes balanced. Hmm, maybe she had ordered too much at once?
"Screw that," she muttered. She didn't make simple mistakes like that, and she wasn't going to admit to making one now.
So, she merely readjusted her grip, and satisfied that she now had a hold on things, she kept walking. And to her somewhat smug relief, she found it was fairly easy now after all, allowing her reach the top of the stairs in no time. She then began walking towards her room, eager to get started on the hedonistic joy awaiting her.
BANG
But before she could reach her door, Dib's burst open and he came running out, clutching a cellphone to his ear.
"Yes, I'm sure this is a legitimate threat!" he shouted frantically into the phone, "I just heard Zim's whole rant on my spy cameras. This anti-artificial material bomb that he's planning to drop on the town zoo will destroy all the walls and cages and let all the animals loose on the city! …Yes, I know that's not as big a deal as some of his usual plans, but it's still a serious problem! Look, you guys just meet me outside your place, I'll come by on the ship and pick you up!"
As Dib ranted to his friends, he didn't seem to register Gaz's presence, not even when his shoulder brushed against the stack of pizza boxes as he ran past her towards the stairs. Gaz, however, very much did notice, eyes widening in panic as the boxes shifted from the impact, just enough to throw off the weight balance and make them start shifting even more on their own.
"No, no, no, no, no!" she yelled, hopping around as she tried to restore the balance. But all this did was leave her backing up to the stairs without realizing it, and then with a panicked cry, she was falling down them, pizza boxes going flying all over the place.
Miraculously, Gaz didn't break her neck or any limbs on the way down. However, she might have preferred that to the sight that greeted her as she sat up with a groan – every single box spilled open, leaving the pizzas within to splatter all over the place, effectively spoiling them all, down to the last slice.
There was a stunned moment of silence, during which Gaz's eye developed a rather horrifying twitch. Then she snapped.
"DIIIIIBBBBBB!" she screamed in rage. Jumping to her feet, she ran after her brother, intending to beat him into a coma for ruining her perfectly-planned day, no matter how accidental it was.
Kicking the back door of the house clear off its hinges, Gaz stomped towards the garage. Seeing red and solely focused on her vengeance, she didn't register the garage door opening and the large object quickly moving within it.
WHAM
And thus, she was caught completely off guard as the Spittle Runner came backing out of the garage at high speed. The Irken ship slammed right into Gaz, which should have knocked her over or sent her flying. But as chance would have it, she was standing in just the right spot that the collision left her squeezed into the space between one of the ship's prongs and its main body.
Gaz wheezed at the impact, and at how she was now pinned in place. Barely able to breathe, much less call out, this left her unable to alert Dib to her presence. As such, she was stuck there, even as the ship lifted into the air and zoomed off through the air, quickly reaching the twins' house and landing again; unfortunately for Gaz, Steve and Viera both approached the ship from the front and therefore didn't see her as they ran to the ship and hopped in. And then the ship took off again before Gaz could try to get free, leaving her stuck there and dangling hundreds of feet in midair as they quickly gained altitude and flew off to confront Zim.
"Never mind a coma, I'm killing him for this. And his idiot friends too!" Gaz snapped in her head as she was dragged along on the ride.
Meanwhile, as Team Save Earth flew off to confront him, Zim was getting the Voot Cruiser into position over the Town Zoo, a large spherical device suspended from a tractor beam underneath the ship.
"Mwahahahahaha! Yes, soon Zim's most insidiously simple plan shall be fulfilled, and the humans will be crushed by their own beloved animals!" the insane Irken cackled, "GIR, prepare to drop the Artificial Matter Destroyer!"
There was no response.
"GIR?" Zim repeated with a blink, looking around in confusion. To his surprise, GIR was nowhere to be seen, and in his place was a rock with blue googly eyes and a stick antenna glued onto it, with a sticky note attached to its front.
"…Well, that explains why the ride over here was so quiet," Zim commented, before snatching up the note and reading it.
Deer Mastah, I went to da club with Moose and Pig, so Mr. Rock Me will help u instead.
Luv, GIR
Zim's eye twitched, at both the blatant disobedience and the horrible spelling.
"Tch, stupid robot, now I have to deploy the bomb myself," he grumbled, balling up the note and turning around to reach for the bomb controls-
WHAM
-and was promptly punched in the face, sending him sprawling back into his chair.
"Actually, I'll be taking things from here," Tak sneered, lowering her fist as she stood in the back of the Voot.
"You! Why are you here? And how did you get onboard Zim's ship?!" Zim demanded angrily as she scrambled back to his feet.
"I hopped onboard when you took off, I've just been waiting for the right moment to hijack your stupid little plan," she explained, "I was going to just toss you to your death on the pavement below, but then I thought it'd be more fun to throw you into that zoo and let all the filthy animals maul you instead."
"You really think Zim will just let you steal his plan to unleash all those beasts on the humans?" Zim demanded with a glare.
"You think that's what I'm going to do?" Tak sneered, "I'm just after that AMD you bult, I'm not going to use it as stupidly and wastefully as you were going to. Instead, I'm going to amplify it and use it to take out the humans' entire arsenal of nuclear warheads, therefore leaving them totally vulnerable to an invasion."
Zim grimaced as he realized that that was in fact a better plan than his, but he wasn't about to admit that to this hack who had snuck onto his ship and… wait a minute.
"Why didn't you just fly your own ship after me instead of sneaking onto mine?" he asked, legitimately confused. For her part, Tak's smug superiority vanished, leaving her looking awkward.
"MIMI went blue-eyed and took it for a joyride two days ago, and hasn't come back yet," she admitted with a grumble. When Zim burst out laughing at that, she glared at him, "Oh, shut up! This is all the fault of you and your moronic robot corrupting her!"
"Yes, yes, whatever. Now get off Zim's ship!" Zim commanded.
In response, Tak punched Zim in the face again, this time sending him back against the control console of the ship. She then advanced on him menacingly, PAK legs deployed, only for him to suddenly lash out and grab the rock that GIR had left in his place.
"Rock GIR, defend Zim!" he shouted, throwing the rock at Tak. She easily ducked and avoided it, with a look of bored contempt on her face as she watched it hit the back wall of the Voot. However, before she could turn back to face Zim and say something sarcastic, he took advantage of her momentary distraction to tackle her, soon leaving them both wrestling on the floor of the tight space, trying desperately to get an upper hand on each other.
While the Irkens were distracted with trying to kill each other, neither noticed Team Save Earth's own ship approaching, the three young humans onboard preparing for a fight.
"And we can't just shoot him down instead of doing the hard way, why exactly?" Steve asked as he and the others prepared to board the Voot by force.
"Because the weapons systems shorted out last week, and I haven't been able to get them working again yet," Dib muttered, annoyed at the timing of the situation, "So, our only real option is to ram the Voot, jump on board it, and take out Zim that way."
"Well, I can only see a few ways this can go horribly wrong, so let's do it," Viera said dryly. Neither of the boys were able to come up with a good counterargument for her sarcasm, so they decided to just ignore it and prepare themselves for the collision and the following fight.
Meanwhile, unaware of all of this, Gaz was struggling to wriggle free of her confinement in such a way that wouldn't leave her plummeting to her death, while simultaneously still planning her vengeance for all this nonsense. And to her good luck, the prong pinning her in place shifted as the Spittle Runner shifted to pick up speed, freeing her just enough to reach up and grab ahold of the prong, using that leverage to pull herself up and come to rest atop the metal.
"Right, first thing's first. Knock those idiots out, fly the ship down to the ground safely, and then take my time force-feeding them each other's organs," she muttered to herself as she inched along the prong towards the cockpit, inside of which, Dib was fiddling with his plasma gauntlets.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked him, even while still warily eyeing the approaching Voot.
"Just trying out a new function I installed in these things," Dib explained, as the plasma-generating prongs popped further out, crackling with energy, "It's basically an oversized taser, which is pretty simplistic I guess, but it should allow me to take Zim out quickly without damaging the Voot enough to make us crash."
"We're about to find out. Brace yourselves!" Viera exclaimed as the Runner closed the final distance with the Voot. And just as Gaz got in position to punch through the Runner's canopy and attack the three, the two ships collided with a tremendous crash. Followed by a remarkably unlikely series of events-
SMASH
ZAP
"GAAAAHHHH!"
-Namely, the force of the impact caused Gaz to go flying forward, hard enough to smash clean through the canopy and into Dib. More specifically, into his outstretched gauntlet, still set to taser mode. She collided with the outstretched and charged prongs, the plasma surging through her strongly enough to send her flying back out of the cockpit before anyone could even register her presence. So, while Team Save Earth were left blinking in confusion as they tried to process what had just happened, and the Irkens were left equally confused as to what had just hit the Voot, Gaz was falling through the air, plasma energy still coursing through her.
The good news was that her impending doom was prevented as something broke her fall. The bad news was that what did so was the AMD bomb, which the plasma transferred into on contact, triggering it.
BOOM
As designed, the bomb detonated, exploding with a massive blast that sent out a shockwave of energy designed to destroy non-organic material. Thanks to how high up it was when the bomb went off, however, it failed to hit even the tops of the tallest buildings. And neither of the ships was affected either, as in a rare moment of foresight, Zim had actually designed the bomb to not do anything to Irken metals, just human-made ones.
Unfortunately for everyone onboard the ships, however, nothing could protect them from the sheer force of the blast, which was enough to send both ships flying away from the city at high speed. They flew uncontrollably through the air for miles, before finally crashing into the nearby ocean.
Also, almost unnoticeable compared to this, the smaller form of Gaz was sent slamming down into the roof of the zoo below, going clean through it with a smash.
So, a bad turn of events for everyone.
XXXXXXX
Not far from Doomsville's shore was a small tropical island formed around a volcano. Which was odd, because Doomsville was in a temperate zone, and nowhere near any volcanic hotspots. But, despite that, it was there, which was lucky for the Irkens and Team Save Earth, as it gave them a convenient piece of dry land to desperately swim towards after their ships hit the water near it and sank like stones.
Dib and Viera were the first ones to reach the beach, crawling out of the water and nearly collapsing from the exertion of their latest near-death experience. After a few moments to compose themselves, they turned to face each other, each intending to ask the other if they were okay… and froze as they got a much better look than either intended, faces turning bright red.
"GAH!" they both yelled, covering themselves as best they could with their hands, as it became evident that while the ships hadn't been affected by the bomb's energy, the clothes of the people onboard hadn't been so lucky.
"Not again…" Dib groaned at them having ended up naked around each other once more. He knew that he should be trying to look away, but frankly he was in too much mental shock to do so.
Though to be fair, Viera wasn't looking away either. And then, to try and break the incredibly awkward silence, she said the first thing that popped into her head.
"Wow, you were right, Dib. Your head's not the biggest part of you, just a close second," she teased. Then her blush deepened as she realized what she'd just said, mentally praying to whatever higher power existed to strike her dead on the spot and spare her further embarrassment.
Dib also blushed brighter as he heard that, and not sure how to respond, he also went with the first thing that came to him.
"Y-yeah? Well, neither's as big as your chest!" he stammered out.
Oh, sweet merciful Bigfoot, why did he say that? It didn't even sound good in his head, much less out loud!
The two teens were left standing there, stewing in awkward humiliation, until a sputtering sound drew their attention back to the water, where Steve was crawling onto the beach, just as naked as them (much to Viera's sibling disgust). Something he realized too as soon as he wiped the water from his eyes.
"GAH!" he yelled, shielding his eyes from the sight of his naked sister and friend (mostly the former) with one hand while covering himself with the other, "No one wants to see that!"
"I could say the same to you!" Viera snapped, looking away from him in a way that she hadn't from Dib, "I mean, not that there's much to look away from, but-"
"Excuse me?" Steve demanded, indignant anger overriding embarrassment as he glared at his sister for that comment.
"What I mean is, no offense bro, but did your junk get hit with some kind of de-aging ray up there? Cause you're built like we're still 2 years old," Viera replied flatly.
"The water was cold!" Steve protested.
"I dunno dude, I was in the same water, and…" Dib said vaguely, gesturing to his own large package, only to trail off as his friend turned his glare on him.
Fortunately for Steve's dignity, the conversation was quickly derailed as Zim came flopping out of the water to join them on the beach. Luckily for him, the ocean water didn't contain as much concentrated pollutants as what he'd encounter on land, so he wasn't immediately burned to a crisp by it. Unluckily for the humans, he was as naked as they were, with only his PAK still intact.
"Ugh, that was unpleasant," he muttered, brushing sand off of himself as he stood up, only to pause as he realized the state he was in. Surprisingly, he didn't freak out, instead just literally shrugging it off and turning to the team with a smug look.
"Gaze upon the horrific wonder of a naked Zim, lowly humans!" he declared haughtily.
"'Horrific' is definitely the word for it," Dib said, turning as green as his nemesis.
"I take back what I said, next to him you look huge," Viera said, staring at Zim with the morbid intensity of watching a trainwreck.
"Yeah, now I feel better about myself," Steve admitted, grimacing in mixed emotions at the situation.
"And now you know why he feel the need to overcompensate in every possible way," Tak said flatly as she wandered out of some bushes, having washed ashore further away and followed everyone's voices. Like Zim and the humans, she was naked, though in her case she mostly just seemed resigned to it.
That being said, she still glowered when she noticed Steve and Dib gawking at her.
"What are you two looking at?" she snapped, "And why are your reproductive organs getting longer? Even if in the scrawny one's case it's helping it look less like just a small growth, it's still odd to look at."
Both boys went red in renewed embarrassment as they realized they were in fact showing visible "reactions" to seeing Tak on display like this. Viera, meanwhile, stared at them both (but especially Dib) in disgusted disbelief.
"Are you kidding me?! What's wrong with you?!" she demanded incredulously.
"I don't know!" Dib replied in a mix of exasperation and mortification.
Steve, hoping to change the humiliating subject before things somehow got worse, quickly spoke up, "So, how are we getting back to the mainland so that we can all pretend this never happened?"
He was met with utter silence.
"…Anyone?" he asked desperately, really not liking the idea of potentially being stuck naked on a deserted island.
"Obviously, Zim has a plan, Not-Dib, but he doesn't feel like any of you are worthy of hearing it," Zim scoffed.
"In other words, your ideas are as lacking as your genitals," Tak said dryly.
"Silence!"
Oh, they were going to be here for a long time…
Meanwhile
Gaz groaned as she slowly regained consciousness.
"Ugh, what hit me?" she thought, head pounding and the entire rest of her body aching. Opening her eyes slowly and blinking the spots out of her vision, she found herself looking up at a ceiling with a large hole in it directly above her.
"Holy crap, did I actually survive falling through a roof from a thousand feet up? Thank pork for whatever Dad did when he made me and Dib," she thought in awe, only to scowl as she thought of her brother and his asshole friends, "When I get my hands on those three… gah, first let me see where I am."
With another groan, Gaz pushed herself up into a sitting position, only to freeze as she caught sight of herself in a conveniently-located mirror placed on a nearby wall, eyes widening in shock.
The most obvious thing was the fact that she was stark naked, her rather unflattering body on full display. Secondly, she was also completely bald, the scorch marks adorning her head indicating that the gauntlet's taser had burned her hair off. And finally, almost inconsequently next to the first two facts, was the massive bruise covering half her face, centered around her jaw, indicating no doubt which part of her had been the first to hit the broken concrete above.
"Wh-MMMMPPPMMMHHH!" Gaz tried to exclaim in shock, only to scream in pain as the attempt to speak sent waves of agony through her, emanating out from her jaw; if she had to guess, it was broken.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Gaz screamed in her head, clutching her face, "I'm going to kill Dib for this! But first, I need to find a first aid kit, then clothes, and then go to a hospital for anything the first aid can't handle. And maybe stop at a wig store along the way…"
As Gaz pondered her next step, she finished getting to her feet, wincing at how each movement seemed to aggravate her wounds. Once she was standing shakily, she looked around her surroundings, trying to find something that could help her.
She appeared to be in a loading dock of some kind, metal shudder door lowered nearby and large boxes and crates stacked against the walls. Looking closely, she saw that they were all marked "Property of Doomsville City Zoo".
"I ended up falling into the zoo? Okay, they must have first aid stations lying around in case of animal attacks or something," Gaz thought, "Ugh, but I don't want anyone seeing me like this. Maybe they have an employee locker room I can raid or something…"
As Gaz was contemplating her next step, a creaking sound caught her attention. Turning to face it, she found herself looking at a particularly large crate, covered with what appeared to be air holes, and marked "Caution: Live Animal Inside". A big piece of concrete from the hole that Gaz had made in the ceiling had landed on the crate, busting partially through its roof and causing enough damage that one side had popped loose and fallen off. This revealed a cage contained within the crate, the door to which happened to be behind the damaged crate wall, and was now swinging open from the conveniently-caused damage from the concrete. And before Gaz could peer inside to see what was in it-
"EEEKKKK!"
-an animal came rushing out of the cage with a shriek, causing Gaz to stumble back and fall back to the floor in surprise. Looking up, she was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be a large monkey, albeit one that was as completely hairless as Gaz herself currently was.
Despite looming over her, the monkey ignored Gaz, instead looking around wildly. When it spotted the hole in the ceiling, it gave another shriek, before jumping on top of the crate it had just escaped and then jumping from there to the hole, scrambling through it and disappearing out of the building.
"…Well, that just happened," Gaz thought after a moment of staring at the hole that the monkey had just fled through. However, she quickly decided that it wasn't her problem, so she opted to ignore it and resume looking for solutions to her current problems.
But before she could, a nearby door suddenly opened, allowing two large burly men wearing zoo security uniforms walked in. Gaz froze at the sight of them, blushing brightly at being caught in this state, the humiliation causing any conscious thought to shut down as they stared at her in shock.
"Ah, crap! The hairless monkey we imported got loose!"
"Calm down, don't make any sudden moves or you might startle it!"
"What?" Gaz thought, blinking dumbly as her confusion at hearing those words snapped her out of her embarrassed shock. Why were they talking about a dumb hairless monkey which wasn't even here anymore when there was a girl standing right in front of them completely naked… and bald…
"For fuck's sake, do these morons actually think I'm a fucking monkey?!" she screamed in her head. She tried to verbally express her anger and disgust, only to end up crying out incoherently as her damaged jaw kept her from properly vocalizing. And this only seemed to agitate the guards further, as they only heard a wordless shriek.
"Dammit, it looks injured, probably from whatever made the ceiling collapse on its crate and free it," the second guard muttered, eyeing Gaz worriedly, "It's probably lashing out from the pain!"
"Grab the tranquilizers, I'll try to corral it!" the first guard said, grabbing from seemingly nowhere one of those metal poles with collapsable wire loops used by dog catchers. Seeing this made Gaz's eye twitch.
"You stupid motherfuckers, I'm not an animal!" she yelled in her head, while externally all she could do with her damaged mouth was wordlessly growl and snarl… which did not do her any favors.
"Now just hold still, little fella, we don't want to hurt you," the guard said as he carefully approached. Hearing and seeing this was enough for Gaz to finally snap, and shrieking very much like the animal she was being mistaken for, she lunged at the guard. He swung the pole at her, trying to catch the loop around her neck, only to her to dodge it and grab the pole. She gave it a hard yank, pulling it straight out of the guard's hands even as the momentum sent him tumbling to the floor. She then raised the pole up and brought it down hard, smacking him hard on the head.
"GAH!" the guard screamed in pain. Gaz smirked at that as best she could with the pain in her face, then brought the pole up again-
FWIP
And then she was yelping in pain as something jabbed her in the ass. Looking down, she saw a dart sticking out of her rear.
"Oh, shit…" Gaz thought, vision already swimming from the sedatives now in her bloodstream. And before she knew it, she was blacking out and collapsing to the floor.
"You okay, man?" the other guard asked, standing nearby with a tranquilizer gun in hand.
"Ugh, yeah," the first guard said as he stumbled back to his feet, rubbing his head, "Damn glad the ugly thing doesn't have more upper body strength, or it would have cracked my skull."
"Don't worry, we'll get you looked at after we get this thing patched up. You know, since they care more about the animals than staff," the second guard grumbled, before leaning down to grab ahold of Gaz, "Now, help me get him over to the medics."
"Him? You sure it's not a girl?" the first guard asked in confusion, even as he helped pick her up.
"That's what the paperwork said," the second guard replied with a shrug, "Besides, you ever see a female anything that looked this ugly?"
"That seems sexist."
"Ah, shut up and let's go," the second guard snapped. And with that, they carried the unconscious Gaz off to elsewhere in the zoo.
XXXXXXX
It had been a week since the combined group had ended up stuck on the island, the humans and Irkens reluctantly agreeing to a truce until such time as they could get back to the mainland. They'd then quickly worked together to set up makeshift shelters from trees that the Irkens cut down with their PAK legs, while the humans put their (admittedly limited) wilderness survival training to use in maintaining a steady food supply for everyone; both Zim and Tak haughtily claimed that they could do that, but quickly proved that they knew very little about surviving in Earth's wilderness, so begrudgingly left things to the humans to handle.
Also, they'd all made a point of creating coverings for themselves, though with little to work with, this just amounted to grass skirts for everyone and coconut bras for the girls. Still, this was generally accepted as being better than nothing, so they just went with it.
Aside from that, however, no progress had been made in getting out of this situation. They'd set signal fires and built SOS signs out of rocks, but that had yet to catch attention from anyone who could help. And while Zim continued to claim that he had a "supremely brilliant plan" to escape, his constant refusal to share any details had everyone convinced that he was just bluffing, so they all ignored him.
Thus it was that as a new day dawned, the group went on with what had become a distressingly regular routine – wake up, eat some of the food they'd managed to scramble together, set a new signal fire, and then split up to take on the various tasks that needed doing. Well, the humans and Tak did, anyway, Zim instead running off for his "planning" that everyone assumed was just him sulking somewhere.
Today, the particular division of labor was that Steve went to a cove to collect any fish caught in the nets that the group had put together, Tak went into the jungle to gather more firewood, and Dib and Viera went off to collect any edible fruits and vegetables that could be found. Normally, the latter two would split up to cover more ground while doing this, but Dib insisted on sticking with Viera – she'd been giving him the cold shoulder practically since the moment they got here, and after dealing with that all week, he wanted to know why.
Of course, that would require them actually talking to each other, which Viera seemed determined not to do, focusing on filling a woven-grass bag with berries from a bush while ignoring Dib's presence. He stared at her doing this for several moments of awkward silence, before finally deciding to just bite the bullet.
"Are you mad at me about something?" he asked, causing Viera to pause and glance over her shoulder at him, before huffing and returning to her task.
"I'm fine," she grumbled.
"Really? Because you've been avoiding talking to me since we got stuck on this island, and there's not exactly a lot of excuses for that unless you're deliberately trying to ignore me. And considering the circumstances, I'd like to know what it is," Dib said with a bit of exasperation at the situation, because he was trying to be nice, but all things considered he was pretty much at his limit.
"Ugh, fine, you wanna know what my problem is?" Viera asked, dropping her bag to turn and glare at him, "How could you possibly be more attracted to the evil alien space bug than to me?!"
"What?" Dib sputtered, blushing brightly at the accusation.
"You heard me! The first thing that happened when we ended up on this godforsaken island was us seeing each other naked, and other than a blush, you didn't react! Then Tak walks over and suddenly you're at full mast!" Viera ranted, before looking away with a blush of her own, "I mean, it's not like I care or anything, but it just feels a little insulting!"
Dib had no idea how to respond to that. After all, he knew that Viera was a very attractive girl, and that he liked her, so it was definitely weird that he'd have more of a reaction to an alien than her, and he could see why she'd take offense at it. But that didn't mean he knew what to say to make up for it, so he went with the first thing that popped into his head.
"Um, the water was cold, so that probably interfered while I was seeing you, and I must have warmed up by the time Tak showed up?" he offered with a nervous smile, which faltered as Viera gave him a flat look.
"Really? That's the best excuse you've got?" she scoffed.
"…Yes?" he replied weakly. Viera stared at him silently for a moment, then sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
"Whatever, it doesn't matter. Who cares if you have some weird fetish for alien girls?" she muttered disgruntledly, "And why does a bug have breasts anyway, let alone ones that big…?"
"I know, I've been wondering that every time-" Dib started to say, only to slap a hand over his face as he realized what exactly he was saying. Unfortunately for him, it was too late, and Viera's angry gaze snapped back to him as she processed what she just heard.
"'Every time'? When else have you seen her naked?!" she demanded furiously.
"Um, a couple of awkward situations I'd rather not talk about?" he said, trying to defuse the situation, only for it to clearly fail, as Viera continued to glare at him.
"So what?! That's happened to us too, but you're still more turned on by her than me, is that it?!" she yelled, a mixture of envy and wounded pride leaving her frantically angry and not thinking rationally.
"No I'm not! You're way hotter than she is!" Dib yelled back, too disoriented by what was happening with this conversation to think about or be embarrassed by what he was saying.
"Oh, yeah? Prove it!" Viera snapped. Similarly not thinking about what she was saying or doing, she then grabbed her grass skirt and coconut bra and tore them off, leaving her totally exposed to Dib, who could only gawk at her, blushing brightly enough to possibly be mistaken for a stop sign.
POP
And then his grass skirt was forced off by the rest of his "reaction" to what he was seeing, leaving him equally naked.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Viera giggled maniacally, now eyeing Dib just as much as he was eyeing her.
…
…
…
"…What happens on the island, stays on the island?" she offered, suddenly awkward but with a hungry edge to her voice.
"Uh-huh," Dib replied, brain so flooded with hormones that he couldn't give any more coherent thought or consideration to the offer.
Grinning wildly, Viera all but lunged at Dib, pulling him into an intense kiss while he instinctively put his arms around her and pulled her close. The make-out session rapidly intensified, and the pair soon fell to the ground and rolled into nearby bushes, conveniently hiding what was about to happen from view by anyone… including Tak, who had wandered upon them midway through the argument and been too confused by the teen drama to even think about anything to say. Now though, as the human couple vanished from sight, she blinked as she processed what she'd just seen and heard.
"What the flirk just happened?!" she exclaimed, shifting the pile of wood in her arms, "Is that normal human mating behavior, or is something in this environment affecting their personalities?"
Then she scowled as a particular detail of the whole exchange caught up with her, and the various sticks and branches she was holding threatened to snap as her grip tightened in anger.
"And do either of those petulant fools really think that a barely-grown human smeet is more physically attractive and desirable than an Irken? How dare they!" she snarled, "Hmph, I should go over there and show them who the real beauty is here! …For Irken pride, of course."
With that self-reassurance in mind, Tak tossed the wood aside, tore off her own makeshift clothing, and marched off into the bushes to join the humans. Whether they wanted it or not.
XXXXXXX
While the very bizarre situation between his sister, their best friend and one of their worst enemies was playing out, Steve was in a cove, checking the traps that had been put together in the water to catch fish. Unfortunately, it didn't look like there had been any success today.
"Dammit," he grumbled, "This whole thing isn't sustainable in the long run. We need to find a way to get off this island soon, or we're doomed."
Groaning, Steve leaned his head against the tree branch acting as a pole holding up one of the traps and rested there for a few minutes, but looked up when a familiar sound reached his ears.
"Mwahahahahaha!" Zim's laughter filled the air. Looking around to see where it was coming from, Steve determined it was echoing from behind the large stone ride marking the edge of the cove. Deciding that he didn't have anything better to do, he walked over to see what the lunatic alien was up to, arching an eyebrow as he passed the ridge and saw what was on the other side.
Zim was standing in the middle of a beach in another cove. More specifically, he was standing in front of a large mishmash of sticks, coconuts and, most importantly, what looked to be several pieces of equipment from the two crashed ships.
"What the hell is this?" Steve asked, causing Zim to jump in surprise.
"Not-Dib! How dare you sneak up on Zim? Were you spying on me?!" he yelled, glaring at Steve.
"I was minding my own business in the next cove over when I heard you laughing," Steve explained with a shrug, before giving whatever it was that Zim had built a closer look, "Are those pieces of the ships? How'd you get those?"
"Eh, some of them washed ashore, others I had to go diving for," Zim replied with smug superiority, "It wasn't easy, but Zim did so, and now I shall prove all you doubting fools wrong by using this new creation to escape this tropical dookie-hole and return to this planet's pitiful civilization! Then return with a proper recovery craft for the rest of my Voot, but that's none of your business!"
"You're planning to fly out of here on a ship made mostly out of wood and coconuts?" Steve asked incredulously, "Who are you, Gilligan?"
"No, I'm Zim, you know that. Who is this Gilligan?" Zim asked in confusion, completely missing the reference.
"…Never mind, please just explain how you expect this to work," Steve sighed. How had Dib handled dealing with this moron on his own for so long?
"Bah, isn't it obvious, Not-Dib?" Zim sneered, "Now that Zim has built the infrastructure of the ship, I nearly need to power it, which I shall do with this basic generator I built!"
At that last statement, he gestured to a large wooden wheel positioned a few from the "ship", connected to it by the few cables that Zim had evidently recovered from the actual ships. And for some reason, the rock that GIR had replaced himself with was stuck on one of the spokes of the wheel.
"You do realize there's about a hundred things wrong with this set up, right?" Steve deadpanned.
"Says you, Not-Dib! Zim's calculations are impeccable!" Zim snapped, now pointing towards a nearby boulder where his apparent "calculations" had been scrawled:
Ship frame + power-generating wheel thing = flight!
As Steve stared blankly at that mockery of science, Zim marched over to the wheel and patted the top of GIR's rock.
"Now then, Rock GIR, fulfill your duty and bring Zim triumph!" he declared, before using the rock's position to move the spoke it was on like a lever and then flinging it. This caused the wheel to start speeding at high speed, while Zim laughed about his impending victory.
Steve was about to ask a snarky question about whether Zim had hit his head in the ship crash, when to his shock, electricity started crackling around the wheel. It grew in intensity as the wheel moved faster and faster, and was soon moving through the cables into the "ship"; before long, the engines from the Voot attached to the wooden frame flared to life, causing the frame to hover a few inches into the air.
"That… that isn't how science works," Steve stammered in disbelief.
"Maybe not your inferior human science, but Zim's Irken science is superior in all ways!" Zim scoffed. Steve shot him a glare, but brushed off his annoyance to grin widely as the situation fully dawned on him.
"Okay, so never mind how you pulled this violation of the laws of physics off. We have a way off the island!" he shouted excitedly.
"'We'? There is no 'we' here, Not-Dib," Zim sneered, "Zim built this ship so that Zim can escape. You, your female copy, Tak, and especially the Dib-Stink, shall all be left here to rot!"
Steve's eyes widened in shock at that, then narrowed in rage.
"You dick! If you think I'm just gonna let you ditch us here, then you-!" he started to say, stepping towards Zim with clenched fists, only to freeze mid-step as Zim deployed his PAK legs and aimed them at him.
"You think you can stop me, pitiful human?" Zim laughed mockingly, "You couldn't even under normal circumstances, much less amongst all of this nonsense! But since this idiotic defiance amuses Zim, I shall do you the favor of dying now so that you don't suffer a worse long-term fate in this place. Farewell, Not-Dib, and as you die, know that-"
CRACK
And then, before Zim could finish his melodramatic threat, the wheel suddenly snapped apart from the stress of its motion on it poorly-constructed form. This caused the spoke that Rock GIR was attached to go flying and slam into Zim, catching him off guard and rocketing him away.
"AHHHHHH!" Zim screamed as he flew through the air, soon reaching and falling into the volcano at the center of the island.
BOOM
Which promptly erupted, sending a now flame-engulfed Zim flying even further away, vanishing over the horizon.
Steve blinked as he took this all in, opened his mouth to say something, then clicked it shut again.
"…I'm not going to question it at this point," he finally said. Glancing at the impossible ship and seeing it still hovering there, a grin crossed his face.
"It makes no sense, but if it works and gets us outta here, I'm not going to complain. I have to go tell the others!" he declared, turning and running off into the jungle.
A few minutes later, he came charging back out, green with nausea, and proceeded to vomit into the surf.
"HOLY SHIT!" he screamed once he was done puking, "I'm glad that they finally hooked up, but I did NOT need to actually see it! And why the fuck was Tak there too?!"
Steve continued to retch and dry heave for several minutes, before he finally managed to compose himself. Once he did, he looked back and forth between the ship and the jungle, before coming to a decision.
"Uh, maybe I'll just go and leave them alone for a while to sort… whatever that all was… out for themselves," he muttered, figuring that the others would appreciate the privacy.
Also, he was still bitter about the jokes regarding his "shortcomings", so felt that leaving them here for a few days before eventually coming back for them was fair payback. Was it immature and petty? Yes, but it had been a long week.
Climbing into the wooden ship, Steve quickly familiarized himself with the simplistic controls. Once he'd done that, he took off, soon flying away from the island; he'd come back in a few days like he said, but for now he was just glad that everything seemed to be well on its way back to normal.
Meanwhile
"…And here we have the monkey pit," the zoo tour guide was announcing to the group of tourists she was leading around, standing at the guardrail surrounding a large pit filled with rock piles and short trees, monkeys running around all over the place.
"What's with the ugly one?" one tourist asked, pointing at where Gaz was seated on a rock, still naked but now covered with bruises as well. She glared up at the tourists, but couldn't do anything else – not only could she not climb up the sheer walls of the pit, but her jaw had been wired shut to help it heal, so she couldn't even yell or scream at them.
"Oh, the poor thing was injured during transit, but we're doing our best to care for it," the tour guide explained, causing Gaz to roll her eyes.
On the plus side, everyone continuing to think that she was a monkey was keeping her from being completely humiliated by being publicly displayed like this, since no one thought her being naked was unusual. On the other hand, it also meant that she was stuck here and dealing with everything that came with it.
SMACK
For example, the actual monkeys not liking her being here and constantly expressing it, such as the rock that had just been thrown at her head. And whenever she tried to fight back, they just ganged up on her and beat the crap out of her, so it really wasn't worth it.
Anyway, the vets they had on staff here, despite being stupid enough to confuse a human with a monkey, were still apt enough at their jobs to keep her pretty well patched up, and they seemed confident that she was well on the road to recovery. Just a few more weeks of having to put up with this crap, then she'd be able to talk again, at which point she'd let all these morons know the mistake they'd made, get out of here, and burn this fucking place down on the way out!
Just a couple more weeks, she just had to be patient.
SMACK
Though as another rock bounced off her head, Gaz could only sigh, as she realized that this was going to be a long couple of weeks…
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
The End
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: Okay, so I know that that was all a bit random, but the outline for this one was fairly short, so that gave me a lot of room to build around the few small bits that Cowardly definitively wrote out and wanted to see. And working with those, I decided that I might as well just embrace the negative continuity of this anthology and go with some IZ style nonsensical wackiness, albeit with a higher maturity rating than canon in certain places.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed, and if you didn't, I can only apologize.
That's all for now. Stay safe out there, and until next time, please review!
