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Sublime Awakenings	By : Kailean Category: Comics > Squee! Views: 1478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Squee!, JTHM, or Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from these works. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 40

Todd's body felt all tingly and his mind felt disoriented, that small flash of light and energy and Zim's maniacal laughter replaying over and over. Or was Zim actually still laughing? He shook his head, which had the opposite affect of what he had hoped, before turning around, away from Shmee and his new, pink form. Zim was, indeed, still laughing, but everything behind the alien had changed. They were no longer enclosed in the tiny metal room.

Instead, they were surrounded by various connected, curved bars, which, if the blue energy spikes were any indication, still seemed to be cooling down from their last operation. Beyond that, there was a large lab with many computer terminals, operating tables, suspended animation chambers, some of which contained human specimens, and, most revealing, an array of clear cages with orange, glowing energy beings inside.

“YES! I have done it! ZIIIM has DONE it! Victory for ZIM! And soon an even greater victory!” The Invader broke off his mini celebration to face the Squeak with a smirk when the Earth-monkey turned a furious glare on him.

The smirk grew as a marvelously evil piece of code crept from his pak, up his spinal cord and into his superior brain, and a gloved hand rose to remove his contacts and wig, revealing his ruby red eyes and bald, green head, two black lekku raised above it. “Are we surprised, human? Normally, Zim would sympathize, what with you're having been a victim of my AMAZING chameleon-like ability to blend in with the hideousness native inhabitants of such pathetic planets as yours. However, the Dib-thing has been trying to warn you and the rest of this sink town for YEARS! And NOW that you see, too late, that he was right, how do you feel, miserable, squealy fool?

Still staring the alien down, Todd could feel his hands fisting, shaking, nails digging into his palms. He couldn't remember ever having been this angry. He couldn't even force himself to grit out any words. And then Zim turned his back on him, casually even, as he made his way out of the contraption that they were in, and all he could think was “kill him”. But he didn't. The commitment to not turn out like Nny was still too strong.

Zim passed a couple of containment units, still seeing no sign of Bitters, before turning back around to address the wormbaby again. “What, no words? Still in shock, eh? Well, allow me to inform you that you are now a captive of the Iorkian that you know as Ms. Bitters. I know nothing of her plans for you, so don't bother asking.” Tilting his head to the side, he seemed to reconsider that last statement as his pak fed him the terms of his agreement with Bitters. “She'll probably take you into space with another one percent of your species soon...if you survive whatever tests she wanted you for in the first place. It's something to do with that energy blob that you call 'Shmee' going insane.” He shrugged offhandedly. What happened to this stink-creature was no longer his concern.

Finally calming down enough to allow himself to move, Todd slowly closed the distance between himself and the Irken Invader. “Why?” Of all of the things that he wanted to ask, wanted to scream at the bug-eyed little creep, that was the best he could do?

“Why what, human?”

“Why are you doing this, Zim! What are you getting out of it!” The teen spared a short look at the nearest containment chambers, seeing two familiar figures floating in a clear, blue liquid with some sort of black nozzle attached to their mouths, possibly for breathing. “And why are my parents here?”

“Ohhhh, that. It's all very simple, actually, even for someone possessing such a merger processing unit as your hymun brain. The Iorkian race currently holds the claim to planet Earth, but after they get what they want, which happens to be living snack food for the Veelobs here,” he gestured to the orange, glowing beings in their own containment fields on the opposite side of the lab, “they will leave me, ZIM, in complete control. As for your parental units, they are merely insurance. If, for some inconceivable reason, Zim failed to deliver you, then perhaps these smelly morons would suffice.”

With a large smile, the Irken leaned against the containment tube behind him, resting his elbow against a circular, black button. “So, any more questions before I leave you to your doomy fate?”

“Todd? Todd! I knew it would be you!”

They both turned as a gargly voice emanated from a speaker at the top of the tube that held a struggling Mark Castil, the same one that Zim was leaning against.

“I KNEW it! As soon as you moved back in, the weirdness started up again! And NOW! Now I'm looking at you talking to another goddamn alien! Your crazy is infectious, and you are going back to the insane asylum as soon as I get out of this...this...tube thingie! And if there are any chickens involved in this delusion, then so help me, I will find the most horrible, piece of shit, institution that will take your sick ass!”

The boy cringed as dreamlike memories of killing the couple before him flooded his brain, reminding him that this man was all too similar to the one that so had so often incited his own murder. Similar, yes, but not the same. Not so much cruel, but weak. These people were weak: too weak to handle the truth, too weak to face up to the responsibility of raising a child that their actions had brought into the world. “Uh,...chickens? If this isn't real, then why are you even talking to me?”

“Because, this is all your fault! If you had never been born, my life would be perfect! I could have done so much! I could have-”

“Shut up!” Todd was only slightly surprised when Zim's voice rang out with his own. Apparently there was only so much self-pitying denial that anyone could take. Even someone as naturally annoying as Zim.

Zim gave the button another push, turning off the speaker before the monkey-man could continue his useless drivel. If they were in his own glorious base, he would send GIR for some chickens right about now. His smile returned at the thought. “Where were we? Oh, yes. So, you got anymore questions?”

“Umm. Just one. Do you really think that Bitters is going to follow through on her promises? What if she's just using you the way you were using us? From what you just told me, it seems like she's the one with all of the power.”

The Invader's eyes bulged a little as he was taken aback by Todd's suggestion, but within seconds the possibility took a back seat to his ego, which, quite rightly, might have rivaled even the Dib's big head in size. “Fool! No one is more powerful that the Almighty ZIM! Bitters will deliver; oh she will deliver or ZIM will-”

“Or you'll do what, Zim?”

“Eh?” Turning on the heels of his boots, Zim came face to face with the very subject of his declaration! Of course, she had to lean down to pull the position off, but unlike when the Dib did it, the Irken did not feel his spooch twist in a sickly heat. Instead, he felt his skin crawl like it had been invaded by deadly space parasites, and he instantly stepped back. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”

“Wrong answer, Zim, as usual.” Bitters narrowed her eyes behind already narrow glasses as the wrinkles on her forehead creased in the frustration that this defective being always seemed to create. “The correct answer is that you'll do exactly what I tell you to do, or I will obliterate your base and leave you stranded here on this miserable chunk of dirt.”

“Yes, Ms. Bitters!” The response was automatic, as was the salute that accompanied it. Anything to get her off his case and out of his personal Zim-space.

“Good. Now subdue the child so that I may run some tests on both him and Shmee. It is vital that I know why this horrible situation came about.” The old teacher finally leaned back, away from the Irken, but continued to glare at both him and Todd. They were two of her least favorite students, but for almost opposite reasons.

“Very well.” Zim breathed out a relieved sigh before turning back to the Squeak, dispensing another mini robot bee from his pak. “Prepare yourself, wormbaby, for emanate NAPPING! Napping of DOOM!” He looked briefly back to Bitters. “He will wake up, right?” Other wise it wouldn't really be a nap.

“Zim! Stop!” Todd raised both hands a defensive posture, backing up slowly. “Think about the kind of position that you're putting yourself in here!”

“SILENCE, Squeaky-worm! You can not change the mind of ZIM! My mind is unchangeable!”

“Is that supposed to be a good thing?” When Zim started another retort, the boy took off toward the machine that had transported them there in forced hopes of somehow escaping before anything else happened to his brain. Sadly, this plan died only seconds after it hatched from an egg whose shell had always been too thin when Zim leaped forward, grabbing him roughly by the arm.

“No! No you don't!” After having to chase GIR around for over five years, dealing with a frightened Earth-smeet was no trouble for Zim at all. “And on my home planet, Irk, yes, it is a good thing!”

Todd felt the anger bubble back to the surface, face flushing red as he turned around to face Zim again. “Let me go, Zim.”

“Not on your sad little life, human!” Zim twisted the arm that he was already holding when the other fist flew straight for his face, grabbing it as well before flipping the boy over his head. When he landed on his back, on the floor, his frail human neck was met with a mighty Irken boot. “Robot Bee! STING him!”

Flailing beneath the pressure of Zim's boot, Todd realized that he had seriously underestimated the tiny alien's strength. Maybe all of this was his fault for underestimating Zim in other ways as well, for not joining Dib in his mission to expose him, for stopping Pepito from taking his soul, for trusting him at all. There was a painful stinging on his neck before he became even more dizzy. He felt rubbery, three-fingered hands lift him under his armpits as he fell unconscious once again.

------------------------------------------POV Shift-----------------------------------------

The deep blue land rover screeched to a halt in front of 616 Elm Street, and Dib watched Pepito clamor out of the passenger side door before following swiftly himself. They had dropped Letta off at the corner police station on the way, along with Gaz to make sure that their will was carried out, to report the kidnapping, so now it was just the two of them. GIR was with the girls because they couldn't persuade him to remain at Zim's base and he couldn't be trusted to come along on their mission. Plus, he might lend some credulity to the whole “abducted by aliens living among us” claim.

“Pepito, wait!” The scythe-haired teen scurried up the sidewalk to catch up before the other did anything hasty. “The whole house was hooked up to some kind of crazy, electroshock system when Zim and I broke in last time, so we-”

“So nothing.” Pepito's hands clenched at his sides as his body was charged with energy. He had no time for such trivial, mundane concerns at the moment. He stopped just in front of the large, oak door before giving it a powerful kick, which ended in a small, fiery explosion as the door fell flat onto the floor inside the house.

Amber eyes widened at the destructive show. The system must have shorted out! “Zim's nanos must have caused some major damage to the whole security system if Bitters hasn't been able fix it completely.”

A few isolated flames had a cackle at Dib's expense as they feed on the remains of the door that Pepito stepped onto. “Yes. I'm sure that's it. Now, where is her base?”

“This way.” The paranormalist stepped around the smoldering door and to the right, through the foyer and into the living room. It was dark and dusty with old furniture that had probably been there when the house was purchased: unused, just like last time. When he reached the closet against the back wall, he leaned beside it with his hand on the door knob at the ready. “This is it. Follow my lead.”

“But the kitchen is just on the other side of the wall!” Pepito whispered as loud as a whisper was allowed to go.

“I know! I know. It's weird, but just trust me.” After waiting for Pepito to comply, Dib took a deep breath and threw the door open. He was met with the same broom closet that had been there last time, but he wasn't fooled! “It's the same hologram, come on!”

Pepito rushed into what appeared to be a broom closet directly after Dib, only to have the door to what was actually a broom closet slam closed behind him. His eyes narrowed as he heard several automatic locks slide into place. “Dib.”

“NO! No! This wasn't a closet! I was an alien base! It was!” He gave the wall in front of him a few hard punches, just to make sure. Metal. It was a metal box, and they were locked in. He tried to call Gaz with his communicator, but the signal didn't make it past the walls of the closet.

“Are you certain?” It didn't take long for Pepito's eyes to adjust to the merger glow coming from one side of the closet enough to identify the source as an alien looking equivalent to the cheep push lights that his mother liked to buy at the local Stall Mart, but he had to pause for a full minute of deep breathing exercises to make sure he wouldn't punch the thing with enough force to shatter it when he finally turned it on.

“Yes.” When a dull blue light filled the small, dusty space a few moments later, Dib cringed at the obvious anger on the other's face, looking instead to source of light. To tell the truth, he wasn't really sure how afraid he should be of Pepito. True, he had never seen him bully anyone else or even get into so much as a fist fight at skool, but there was still the fact that people who really got on his bad side had a tendency to disappear. Maybe there was some kind of secret, hi skool mafia? Nah. Now he was just being paranoid. There was no need to resort to such silly theories when he knew good and well that there was a perfectly paranormal explanation for everything...if he looked for it hard enough.

The Antichrist released a huff before leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Now all they had to do was wait for the girls to arrive with the police and let them out. “Goddammit! This time delay is unacceptable! And who knows if they're even on this wretched property anymore!” He glared angrily at the closet around him, eyes passing over an unused broom before retracing their path. “And what the Hell is this!” His hand darted out to rip a folded piece of paper from the handle to which it had been taped. “Oh, look, it's for you. How very surprising.”

When Pepito held it out to him, Dib gripped the notebook paper with trembling hands. This was it: proof that Zim had set the whole thing up, that betrayal had been his plan all along. Why was that even surprising? This was Zim he was talking about!

To the Dib-beast,

As you have surely discovered by now, this was a trap. I, ZIM, have bested you once again! And now you just get to sit there and contemplate how utterly, magnificently SUPERIOR I truly am! See yet? Do you SEE?

Anyway, yes, this is a diversion. Bitters has moved her base elsewhere, and I have made a deal with her, whereby I shall receive the Earth in exchange for that crazed energy being and the Squeaky-child. Bitters is going to be taking one percent of the human population with her when she leaves, BUT NOT TO WORRY, DIB-WORM! I have made it astoundingly clear that you are my property and are to remain with ZIM, at my mercy! Amazing, no?

So, just rest your enormous, excruciatingly heavy head on the cushions that may be found in the corner of the closet, and I will be with you after the transactions are completed.

LUV,

ZIM: Conqueror of Earth!

Dib could feel his eyes growing larger as he reread the last of the letter. He spared a fleeting look to the corner of the closet, where there were indeed a couple of pillows...except that one of them was actually an extra large oval dog bed big enough for a German Shepperd lay on! Unlike everything else in Bitters' house, they were clean, meaning that Zim had supplied them himself. Weird. And that signature...also weird. “Love. It says love. Why does it say love?” His voice shook. Surely that was a joke, right? Zim hadn't suffered head trauma recently, had he? Or maybe pak trauma would do it.

“Oh, I don't know, because he's your freakish, alien boyfriend and he fucking loves you?” Pepito rolled his eyes before plopping down on one of the pillows with his knees drawn up to his chest.

“He is NOT my boyfriend! And he does NOT love me! He HATES me! We hate each other!”

“Oh, please, not denial in a closet.” The half-demons fingers found their way to his temples. “Please, it's too cliché.” Although, when he chose to store all of his Satanic paraphernalia in his walk-in, he had fancied it ironic.

“I'm not in denial, Pepito! And I am not in love with an alien Invader! That's just disgusting and wrong! We're not the same species! Or even from the same biogenesis! And Zim is completely evil!”

Pepito's eyes narrowed once again, and this time he hoped that they weren't actually glowing. If Dib was any more in denial, the moron would be fighting off fucking hippos! And though there was nothing he could say about it, those last comments he found highly offensive, largely because he was a product of such a union...or at least something very similar to it. “Well, if you hate him so much and he is 'oh so very evil', then why is it that you've yet to turn him in or kill him?”

“Because no one will believe me, and the people that do don't care! Just yesterday, you told me that 'Zimmy' wasn't a threat! None of my plans to prove that he's an alien ever work out because other people don't want them to. And I can't just kill him. I need him as proof. The world has to wake up and smell the freakishly stupid aliens that are always trying to invade the Earth. It's not like Zim has been the only one! Or even the most dangerous one.” Something twisted in the pit of Dib's stomach as he went on, knowing that he was exaggerating some points to further himself from the possibility of actually having some kind of fondness for the betraying alien, at the same time reminding himself that he had liked an Irken before. But that had been different. He had believed that she was human at the time.

“Zim isn't really much of a threat...on his own.” The half-demon looked away for a moment, conceding, if only to himself, that the pointy-haired boy had a point. “But don't worry, I'll help you catch him when we get out of here, though I can't guarantee that I'll hand him over alive.”

“But I just said-”

“I don't care.” No one fucked with the people he cared about and lived. Not unless he could make their life worse than he could make their death anyway, which usually wasn't the case in his particular situation. But Zim was probably an exception.

“Look, why don't you just let me handle-”

“No. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind about this.”

“Ahg! You can't just decide after all this time that-”

Pepito hid his face in his hands, appearing to desire to avoid the conversation, which was true enough, but also wanting to make sure that he didn't accidentally let the paranormalist in on his biggest secret. When it came to keeping his infernal nature out of the path of perceiving third eyes, anger was not his friend. “Shut up, Dib. This isn't up for debate.”

“Fine! Jerk!” This was ridiculous! Zim was his enemy! If anyone was going to take him out, it was going to be Dib! Even if it meant saving him from Pepito and then killing him!

“That was original.” Pepito signed heavily into his hands. He would have thought that having his best friend released from that horrible institution would make him happy, but this was shaping up to possibly be the worst week of his life. Luckily, Dib remained silent after that. He used the silence to enter into an altered state and thereby contact his father with their new predicament. He also tried to reach Todd, but there was nothing. That was a very bad sign and, though the boy was wearing a key that he really wasn't allowed to loan out, he still felt his eyes beginning to water.

About fifteen minutes later, he was startled out of his near despair by a loud banging. When the banging turned into sawing, he and Dib both moved to the very back of the closet, shielding themselves as best they could with the pillows. Eventually, the grinding sounds ceased, and two firefighters helped them out of the closet.

A red-headed police sergeant stepped forward to peer into the closet after the boys were hustled out of the way. “Eh! There's no secret holding cell in there! It's just a closet, like I said it would be!” He turned back to the two teenage girls with the strange, green dog expectantly.

“Well, it was holding them, wasn't it?” At least she hadn't told them that the kidnappers where actually aliens. Still, Gaz's hands fisted as she rounded on her newly freed bother. “Dib! You will pay later for making me look as stupid as you! Where is Squee?”

Shaking his head roughly to indicate the lack of knowledge that he couldn't bring himself to communicate, Dib pressed Zim's note into his sister's hand as he brushed by her own the way out of the house.

Her eyes narrowed at the note dangerously, as if she could set it on fire by sheer will.

Pepito was tempted to do it for her, but it was proof that Zim was a kidnapper and possibly a terrorist, if nothing else. “They moved the base. We need to comb the city. Check all the abandoned houses, warehouses, anywhere that wouldn't be noticed.”

Sending Pepito a warning look that went largely unnoticed, the sergeant turned back to his officers. What was with these kids thinking they were in charge! The purple-haired one gave him that look again. “You heard him, people! We will break down into teams, each team taking a section of the city! We will check all abandoned housing!” The man strode from the Victorian house, still yelling commands.

Notes:

-- “If Dib was any more in denial, the moron would be fighting off fucking hippos!” is a spin on the old “if you were any more in denial, you'd be in Egypt” saying...you know, because the da Nile is in Egypt, and in da Nile there are lots of Hippos that will attack people in boats. Tacky, I know, but I see Pepito as being a little corny sometimes.

--I think Pepito used “ironic” incorrectly, but I couldn't think of a better word for something that is both literally and figuratively true in a humorous way. Sorry.
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Sublime Awakenings