Invader Scorned: The Lonesome Plot of Dexter Spooky

Chapter 4: “The Lonesome Plot of Dexter Spooky”

“Oh! Long Wang!” gasped the sickeningly cute girl in pig-tails. “I was sooooo scared that you'd never make it back! Now that you have trained with the Great Priest Miso Horni, I'm sure you're High-Flying Foot of the Crippled Woodchuck is much stronger! But is it enough to defeat Evil Lord Kill-Dem-Ded and his Evil Slap of the Rabid Pants Badger-Twenty-Poke-Exploding-Nostril Death-blow?!”

The very average looking Wang smiled. “Don't worry, Noh Chi-chis! As long as I have the purity and passion of your immense LOVE, I know I can defeat Kill-Dem-Ded! For...”

Suddenly, the screen went black and then there was a loud buzzing.

“Awah man...” Skoodge frowned, hopping out of his seat as the lights came up in the strange, underground theatre. “And it was just getting to the good part, too!”

With a lazy yawn, he walked out into the lab proper and wondered if he should grab some more snacks before giving Zim the latest status report. Three years spent researching all those Earthenoid documentaries like “Poke of DOOM!” and “The Vile Curse of Mai Pei” sure had left Skoodge with a taste for soda, candies, and that salty poofed food called `pop-corn.' He'd also developed a strange fascination with the bizarrely violent fight simulators and other so-called “video-games” these human-beast indulged in with such a passion.

It was a bit strange, though, that his superior hadn`t called him yet. Maybe Zim was ready to engage in another round of Nubbin's of Death 5 instead of demanding more data on Earth combat. Skoodge smiled hopefully and walked around the lab.

Soon, it became apparent that there was no-one there.

Skoodge scratched his butt thoughtfully. “Computer?”

“Eh, yes?” came the oddly hesitant reply.

“Where's Zim? I can't seem to find him and I've got some fresh data for him.”

“Eh...well...” Some how, the computer managed an awkward little dither noise. “Zim's not available right now...”

“Then where's GIR and the Mini-moose? Surely they had to have...”

“Nope. They went out to scour the city for more `P-O-C-K-Y' snacks...” The computer paused then added, “And tacos. Lots, and lots of tacos...”

“Huh?” The chubby Irken gaped, half-way through chewing a Choco-Boogie-bar. “But who called me up here?”

“...I did...” The computer muttered, in so far as it was possible for a computer to mutter. “There's...there's something you need to see in the sickbay... Something awful.”

“The sickbay?! Why there? Is Zim hurt?!”

“Eh...well, you'll just have to go down and see... It's just awful, Skoodge. Just awful.”

A little frightened by the horrified tone in the computer's voice, Skoodge rushed quickly to an elevator and made his way to the sickbay. He hesitated a moment before stepping into the frigidly spartan room. Aside from a tattered uniform and some damaged body-armor, everything looked pretty normal.

Again, Skoodge turned to the computer console in pouty confusion. “Well?”

“Look in Rejuvenation Pod no. 42...”

Dutifully, the squat Invader went over to pod no.42 and, straining up on his go-go booted toes, peered into the viewing window.

Zim floated peacefully in the glowing orange gel, fully healed and oblivious to the outside world in his merry, pain-killer/tranquiller induced dreams.

“This?” asked Skoodge in disbelief. “This is what's so awful?”

The computer, in a surprisingly non-computery way, began giggling. “No-no... Not Zim, fat-sack! Look at the read-outs! The read-outs!”

Wondering if he should order the computer to perform a reboot, Skoodge glanced over at the winking screen of Irken characters. He blinked, rubbed his eyes stupidly, then looked harder at the screen.

“Computer...”

“Hehe...yes?”

“This...this is a fluke, right?” Skoodge's antenna twitched nervously while his voice raised in horror. “There must've been some kind of contaminate threw the scanner off, right?”

“Ooh, I'd say not...” giggled the now manically computer voice. “Even if there was foreign bio-matter in the pod or upon Zim's body, the gel would have dissolved it by now. This... (snick)...this looks more intentional...”

Skoodge backed away from the pod as if it was going to explode if he moved to fast. For several moments, all he could manage was an incoherent gibber of “Nagh-nah-nagh-nah!”

“See?” the computer tittered. “I told you it was awful.”

“Computer!” shrieked the pudgy Irken finally. “Get me...get me the closest Invader on the com-link! Now!”

“Oh-key-dokey!” Still chuckling in a crazed way, the computer sent out a call to the nearest Irken it could think of...

Elsewhere on Earth...

In a burned out crater on some god-forsaken island deep, deep in some uncharted region of the Pacific Ocean, an ungodly squeak of wrath and pain rented the morning air. At the very bottom of the crater, strapped firmly in place by various metal bands and tubes, lay the colossally adorable bulk of what had once been Ultra-Peepi! Now he writhed underneath the constant poking and prodding of gleaming robot arms as they attached even more bionic parts to the badly damage hamster monster.

“Yes...yes...” sneered a feminine and vaguely British voice from the shadowed catwalk. “That's it! Rage all you want, hamster-beast! Soon it shall give you the strength to rampage across this filthy planet! When I'm finished with you, you'll no longer be a mere monster! You shall become ULTRA-MEGA-PEEPI!! Gnawer of Worlds! And I shall be your MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Head tossed dramatically back in a laugh of villainy, Tak shook her mighty cyborg fist at the sky. Like her accursed rival, Zim, she too had gain some height since first landing upon Earth. But 4'9” was still too short in her eyes, so Tak had taken to wearing ridiculously high stiletto-heeled boots to boost herself to a height of 5'11”.

After being defeated by Zim and that...horrid human-monster, Tak spent a few years wondering space in order to gather up the necessary components to complete her plans to destroy not only Earth, but Zim as well. It had been sheer luck that, on her return to this dirtball planet, she had found the wounded hulk of Ultra-Peepi curled up asleep on this wretched island. When fortune smiled upon something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seemed proof like no other that, not only do the gods exist, but that Tak was doing their will.

In a physics-defying way, she had managed to keep from snagging them in the grating of the catwalk as she gazed down at her the key to her latest bid for Invader-hood. Pure malicious glee glinted in her one remaining eye.

Her evil musing was interrupted by a tinny rendition of “Tubular Bells” from her com-link.

“My Tallests?” she answered.

“Wrong Irkens, you hateful bitch.” snapped the computer in Zim's base.

“Zim...” Tak hissed the name. “What do you want?”

“Actually, it's me.” Skoodge meeped. He'd met Tak once before, briefly; on Dirt while trying to get directions to Lavatory-7 after drinking too many sodas on his trip to Blorch. Visions of what tortures could be inflicted on a living body using a bucket, a shaken soda, and some duct-tape still haunted his nightmares...

“Skoodge.” She sneered, sounding slight less disgusted. “What do you want? I'm rather busy here.”

“Uh...well, this is kind of important, Tak sir.” He paused, not sure of how to phrase his next sentence. “You see, according to Mini-moose's report, Zim was assaulted by the Dib-human about a month ago and...eh, has been in the rejuvenation pod since...”

“Awah, poor Zim. Boo-ho.” Tak laughed nastily, making a gesture like she was playing the Universe's Smallest Violin. “Why should I give a flying Blorch rat-person's ass about Zim getting beat-up on by that human stink?! It just saves me the trouble.”

“Oh, it's not that! It's...it's bad...” Cringing, Skoodge turned away from the screen. “Whatever else Dib did, it's awful Tak. Just awful...”

“Really?” Now Tak's interest was peeked. “And just what did the Dib do, exactly?”

The chubby Invader shuddered, holding back an urge to spew. “You...you'll just have to see it for yourself, Tak. It's that...that awful...”

Growling, she crossed her arms. “Fine! I'll be there in a moment.”

With that the com-link snapped off.

One massive jolt of hamster sedatives and a quick teleport later...

“Alright, lard-bucket.” Tak snarled, pulling off a very menacing stomp in heels that should have reasonably snapped by now. “Where's Zim?”

Cowed by her rage, Skoodge meekly pointed toward Pod no. 42. “He's in that one, but that isn't what you need to see...” He paused, unsure now whether it was a good idea to have called Tak. The Invader swallowed dryly and continued anyway. “Look at the read-outs on his condition...”

Shooting him her best `This better be serious or I'll rip out your organs' glare, Tak marched over to the read-out panel and read the blipping Irken script. She blinked, rubbed her eye stupidly, then looked harder at the screen.

“Computer...”

“Look, you scrawny ho, it's not a fluke!” huffed the computer. “And I'm perfectly functional, thank-you-very-fudging-much!”

Tak ground her teeth a the insult. “We'll just see about that...”

With a professional distain, she reached into her pak and withdrew a heavily modified Irken lap-top she'd made during her stint in the janitorial squad. Hooking it up, Tak rapidly hacked into the diagnostic unit of Pod no. 42 and soon had a second, surely more accurate opinion. Smugly, she read the read-out.

“What the...”

If it could, the computer would've stuck out it's tongue at her. “See? Told you so!”

“SKOODGE!” She snapped, turning to her fat companion. “Do you realize how awful this is?!”

He nodded, then, because he felt it be better for him to say something, croaked, “Simply awful.”

“This is more than awful, you fat-headed fool!” Tak screamed. “This is an offense against the very essence of our race! Surely even that...that filthy monster could understand the sheer FOULNESS inherent in this! Yet he still dared to fling the Poop of BLASPHEMY into the face of all that is pure and Irken! I will not...No, I cannot just stand by and allow the human to wallow in the EFFLUENCE of his crimes! To let him exist and not suffer for his crimes would be an affront to every Irken ever smeeted and those yet smeeted!”

“But what are you gonna do, sir?” Skoodge asked, awed and frightened by Tak's sudden outrage.

“What am I going to do?” She chuckled suddenly. “Ooh-ho, my tubby `friend'! It's what we are going to do...”

As her looming shadow fell across him, Skoodge cowered back into the corner.

“The Dib must suffer to his last breath.”

At Mysterious Mysteries studio, later that day...

Seated on the stage, the Mysterious Mysteries anchor and Dib watch a monitor of various clips sent in to the show. But what's really interesting about them all is the fact that each clip and image is of Zim, carefully collaged together and ending in the more recent recording of the incident at Hi-Skool taken from surveillance cameras.

Dib's eyebrow twitched slightly and his lips had a funny wobbly look to them as he watched the ass-kicking of Zim be replayed on the screen.

“So, Dib,” The anchor asked when the scene ended in a still shot. “Would you care to explain who, or should I say, what is this Zim?”

The anchor smiled evilly. He'd spent hours combing through the massive backlog of the Dib Archives to find enough evidence to fling up in the over-confident boy's face. Finally, after all these years, the anchor could smell the sweet smell of vengeance as he gleefully trapped Dib with his own over-zealous research on the “alien” called Zim!

“There's quite a simple explanation for Zim's behavior, [BLEEP!].” answered Dib coolly. He had smelt a trap the minute they'd call him in to do a “special feature” on the “Hi-Skool Incident” and had already formulated an answer that would surely save is large-skulled bacon. “You see, this unfortunate young man is suffering from an ultra-rare disorder which not only causes the loss of ears and nose, green-skin, and red buy-eyes, but also retards the victims ability to control his behavior.”

“But he has antenna, Dib. Antenna. Like a bug.”

“Cancerous tumors.”

The anchor glared at him. “Tumors don't wiggle...”

Dib met his glare. “Obviously, to the untrained eye, they appear to `wiggle', but that's merely a distortion of light caused by the unique skin pigmentation of Zim's body. Or, in layman's terms, it's an optical illusion.”

The anchor cursed under his breath, realizing that once again he'd been denied sweet, sweet revenge. “Well then, I suppose you have proof of this `skin condition' that Zim has, eh Dib?”

“Of course I do...” Reaching into his coat, Dib withdrew a small remote control and, aiming it at the monitor, click the single red button. With a zapping sound, the still image of Zim laying battered and undisguised in the water vanished to be replaced by an incredibly complex series of charts and diagrams. “After many, many hours spent pouring over countless medical cases, I have discovered that Zim must be suffering from...”

His speech was interrupted by a sudden, tinny ringtone of the X-files theme

“Would you excuse me? This might be important.” he muttered, bolting out to the hallway.

“Grrr....” The anchor glowered after Dib. “I'll get that son-of-a-bitch one of these days!”

“Eh, sir... We're still on the air...”

“Oh...shit.”

Meanwhile, Dib flicked open his super hi-tech cell phone/pager/palm-pilot/laser pistol/wristwatch. “Hello?”

“Hello, Dib...” hissed the red-eyed silhouette.

“Zim?!” He smiled dumbly. “Oh man, I never thought I'd be glad to hear from you! How you...”

“Silence monkey!” Zim snarled, glaring even more evilly than usual. “I care not for your mocking! Now listen carefully, you rotten meat-bastard. You have humiliated me for the last time! I challenge you to single combat, unarmed and to the very death. Just you and me, Dib. You and me. And to make sure that we are complete undisturbed, I want you to met me at Really Deep Gulch in Conveniently-Remote Desert State-park in one hour.”

“And if I don't show, what are you going to do?”

Zim chuckled. “Oh, you'll show up. You've never back down from one of my challenges before. Not ever.” With that, the image winked back to the stylized Swollen-eyeball emblem.

One hour later...

In the cold light of a bloated moon, shadows twisted and writhed as weak silvered glow oozed it's way through the depths of Really Deep Gulch. Dib crept carefully down the gulch walls, effortlessly keeping out of sight with ninja stealth. He knew that Zim must've set a trap or be laying in wait for him at the bottom, but there was something else that bothered the young paranormalist even more than Irken wrath. It was the nagging sense that Zim wasn't acting like...well, Zim-like .

Sure, wanting to carve payback out of Dib's hide was something Zim would want to do. But why the phone call first? Why not just burst into the studio and attack? And why did the alien wait a month before deciding to come after Dib? Surely it hadn't taken that long for him to heal, had it?

`Of course not! It wasn't like you beat the holy crappola out of him...' jeered a voice in his head. `Oh, wait. You did.'

A nasty knot was forming in Dib's stomach. He'd never meant to do that to Zim, really. It was just that...well, the jerk brought it all on himself! Zim had no right say that his mother. The little freak also had no right to keep pestering him all the time, stalking him around the halls during skool, hovering over his shoulder during lunch...following him as he walked home with Gaz... sitting on the branch right outside his window at night... invading his thoughts at the oddest of times...making him feel absolute rotten for ignoring Zim all these years... causing all those messed-up dreams that left Dib shaken and sticky when he`d awaken... driving him mad...

“Focus, Dib! Focus!” he grumbled, shaking his head to clear away those thoughts. “Zim's out there somewhere waiting to kill you. And you're bitching about him being in your stupid wet-dreams?! Get your priorities straight, Dib! I've gotta keep alert, on my toes, or else he's going to get the drop on me! And, while I'm at it, I've gotta quit talking out loud to myself...”

Shutting up, he glanced warily around the edge of the rocks. To his amazement, Zim was standing barely 20 yards away with his back to Dib. For a moment, he was afraid his little crazy rant had been heard, but the alien remained motionless. It was perfect.

Too perfect.

Dib could still recall the last time he and Zim faced off, as `children' using water-balloons. That time, Zim had done something uncharacteristically clever and used a hologram to distract Dib as he readied his own weapon from space. Dib had never quite got over that mortifying experience...

But Zim wasn't stupid enough to think the same trick would work twice? Right?

Slowly, Dib reached down and picked up a small stone. Taking care not to reveal his position, he tossed the stone to the right of Zim.

The alien jerked his head toward the source of the noise, and that was all the proof Dib needed.

With uncanny speed, he bum-rushed Zim, only to discover that, not only was it a hologram, but a localized electro-shock field as well.

The surge of power-packed pain sent Dib flying backwards and he landed with a sickening `thud!' on the dusty ground. While he sputtered and coughed, a tall and ominous figure stepped out from the shadows. A pair of gravity-defying stiletto-heeled boots ground his shattered glasses into the dirt.

“Well, well... that settled you down some, didn't it?” scoffed Tak as she leaned over him. “No one could be a heroic badass after getting hit by 5,000 volts of electricity. Not having ever been shocked by that much electricity, I cannot begin to imagine just how much that must sting...and I truly don't want too, either.”

Dib angrily hocked a gob of spit in her face.

Wincing back from the painful burning, Tak whip the spittle away with a hanky then snort and hocked an even larger blob of Irken slime in Dib's face. “I win.”

Tossing the hanky away, she straightened up and kicked Dib over. Still paralyzed from the shock field, he couldn't move away as Tak took hold of his cyber-arm and, with a fierce yank, tore it out of the shoulder mount.

“You won't be needing this anymore...” She sneered, hefting the arm like a club. “Night-night, Dib!” With that, she brought the arm down over his head and sent the human off into the black arms of unconsciousness.

Painfully, Dib came back around. The back of his skull throbbed horribly and he could feel the pulsating agony where his left arm used to be attached to his body. He also was aware that, not only had someone put him in a strait-jacket but they'd tossed him into the back of a trunk and where now speeding down a very bumpy road.

Abruptly, the car skipped to a jarring halt and Dib could hear a door slam as the driver got out. Grassy gravel crunched under the driver's feet as she walked around to the trunk and pulled it open. A cruelly beautiful, violent-haired woman with an eye patch and wearing a sexed up suit stared down at him.

“Wakey-wakey. Eggs and baccy!” Tak cooed, grinning madly at the human before she roughly pulled him out of the trunk and onto the unyielding ground.

Dib nearly retched from the absolutely vile smell of rotten meat, dirt, and flowers that filled the gloomy air.

“Okay, I'm done!” squealed a little voice as something large and heavy thumped roughly in front of Dib's feet. “Now get me out of this hole! Please!”

“You can use your spider-legs, fat ass!” snapped Tak, still standing over Dib.

There was a brief metal clink, then another Irken, shorter, fatter, and much, much dirtier than Tak popped into Dib's view. He was badly disguised as a Mexican, complete with massive sombrero and grubby magenta poncho.

“Oh man! Look in his eyes! ” Skoodge whispered, staring down at Dib. “This monkey's pissed.”

“Good.” Tak leaned down a bit, still smiling like a crazy woman. “Tell me, Dib: Do you recall what you did to that little waste of flesh Zim about...oh, a month ago?” She paused so he could answer, but all Dib did was glare.

“Well,” she continued causally. “I'm sure you do. But I just wanted to let you know that, as much as despise the little shit, Zim's still an Irken, as am I. And what you've done to him is an sin against the entirety of our species... The act you committed is so vile that executing you would be too mild a punishment... So that leaves me in a dilemma: Just how am I to mete out the righteous justice that you so foolishly brought down upon your oversized head? And then Skoodge here told me about this unique little ritual he saw in one of your Westerns. Oh, it's simply fascinating to hear the cruelties your kind inflicts upon each other...

“Now, pay attention, because this part concerns you... Have you ever heard of a Texas Funereal? Well, to simplify it, a Texas Funereal starts when you dig up an old grave in some forsaken graveyard out in the middle of nowhere, remove the old dead guy, and bring along a nice, new empty coffin...and your victim, of course. Once you've got all that ready, you stick your victim in the new coffin, nail the lid down, drop them into the hole, put the dead guy on top of them, and fill the grave back up.” She chuckled and leered dementedly at Dib. “To put it even more simply, we're going to bury you alive!” Tak stood back up and turned to her companion. “Skoodge, grab the feet. I'll take the head.”

With that, they hoisted the struggling boy up and dumped him rudely into an bare pine-box style coffin. As Tak lowered the lid, she glared hatefully at Dib.

“This is for ruining Zim's honor.”