Hey guys.. I am a little tired, but i will do my best to keep the typos to a minimum in this chapter.. i am not in the middle of roleplaying and having to read it off of a sheet of paper this time... but I am going on one half hour of sleep in the last 36 or so hours..... I will attempt to make this chapter seem as well as I intend it to, i apologize if it isnt.
Disclaimer: I dont own Zim or Dib O-o
Gaz walked down the hallways of the large bio-chemical facility. She glared at passing by scientists, visions of the torturous things they do to people and animals alike running through her mind's eye. She kept her cool until she was inside of her father's office. Forgetting to knock, she waltzed right in.
Professor Membrane was writing out some documentations when she arrived... he was hunched over a short desk without a chair. His dark hair streaked with silver stayed stiffly in place. The wrinkles on the sides of his eyes from his obvious lack of sleep showed signs of his ageless face losing it's youthful glow. He looked up at his daughter with tired eyes hidden behind super-thick glasses that could also be used as goggles even though they were perscription. He set his pen down and stood straight, "Hello Gaz, did you visit your brother?" He asked, not the kind to beat around the bush.
"Yes I did, dad. And he expects us to be quick about this whole thing, though I don't blame him... if my own father was the leader of the department doing excruciating tests on me, I wouldn't be too patient either." Gaz looked down at her father's desk, her eyes skimming over the tops of various scientific magazines and books.
"Do you still think I wanted this to happen?" Doctor Membrane slumped his shoulders slightly and ran his hands down his lab-coat to smooth out the wrinkles, trying to avoid lookign his own daughter in the eyes. He had gotten used to the distant look in her eyes long before the whole mess started, but ever since it had things only became worse. He knew that his children were independant of him, and he knew that is was his fault... years of guilt and lost sleep were finally catching up with him.
"No. I know better than that, but your son doesn't know whether to trust you or not yet." Her fingers ran across the smoothly laminated covers... her father was the model on almost every one of them. It was her father almost a year ago, looking young and proud. He wasn't anything like the man she stood before now. She glanced up, glaring in his direction because of his cowardly hiding from his own daughter's gaze.
"Well... perhaps this will change his mind!" Professor Membrane reached into his deep lab-coat pocket and pulled out a small metalic device and held it in one hand, holding it out for Gaz.
"That's all good... but what is it?" Gaz's eyes fixed on the small object in her father's hand and she raised an eyebrow. She studied it with red contacted eyes. Over the years she had grown tired of the need to squint to see anything in it's true form, so she had taken the time to go to the eye doctor, they recogmended glasses... she wasn't the type to wear glasses, so instead she got herself an assortment of contact lenses. Today's pair were red, but tomorrow she could come by with skulls, crosses, black, green, or clear to show her lavender eyes.
"Well.. inside of it is a duplica of the tracking device that is hidden inside Dib, though I don't know where they put it yet.... they have one inside of his Mexican friend too. And not only that... it can be used as a stun-gun in emergencies..... but tell him only to use it in an emergency.. they will take it away if they know he has it... it is undetectable by the sensors they have up."
"Really?" Gaz reached over to take the small chip-like box from her father's gloved hand. She twirled the cool, metal box in her hand slowly, "I'll make sure he gets it.. when I visit him later."
"Good... now you must run along Gaz. I have some work to do, and a meeting to be at in ten minutes.." He father fidgetted slightly with obvious discomfort at being in the presence of his teenage daughter... Gaz understood though because they never spent much quality time together when she was younger. Sometimes it was hard for her to acknowledge that the man she was standing with was in actuality her father. She knew that Dib felt the same way. She could relate with hime because they grew up together... there was no doubt that he was the only family that she truly had after the incident with their mother and all...
"Whatever... see you tomorrow, dad." She shook the thoughts from her head and shoved the small chip into her pocket.
"Yes, see you then.." Professor Membrane resumed his status of shuffling through the papers and finding the correct ones to read and work on.... Gaz sighed to herself and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. She looked down the cold hallway and glared at its emptiness.. it reminded her of the emptiness that she saw in her brother. She closed her eyes and remembered the days that Dib was free... they weren't physically close but she could still see the life in his eyes, especially when he was around Zim. There was something about Zim that kept her brother going... she was jealous at first because Dib had something to go after, a dream in life to fulfill and it wasn't along side of her. She was so used to her brother being around her at every turn, and them depending on one another with no one else to intervene. She was jealous because Dib found someone else... and because someone else was taking her only brother away from her. "Stupid Dib," she grumbled to herself and started to walk on through the hall once more.
:Gaz? Can you hear me?:
Gaz looked around her to find the source of her brother's voice and grinned when she realised that it was from mind-speech...
:Yeah Dib, I can hear you...:
:Gaz? You're coming in a lot louder than I expected.. how close are you?:
:It's not a matter of being close.... Dib, I thin k I should tell you a little something...:
Dib raises his eyebrow from where he sat... one reason being that his sister seemed to have a secret she was actually willing to share.. the other reason because the scientists around him are acting a little stranger than normal... they are pointing at a computer screen infront of them and making little exasperated comments... comments that he couldn't quite hear from their hushed tones.
:You aren't the only one that can use your mind, Dib...:
:You can use your mind like me?! Since when?: His mind-voice seemed a bit excited and tinted with an emotion that she couldn't quite pinpoint... fear perhaps. But fear of what? Was he afraid that he wasn't the only one, or was he afraid that she would get into a situation as he is as well.
:It's a stupid story.... I'll tell you about it later...:Gaz leaned against the wall in the hallway, she crossed her arms over her chest, unwilling to admit that the way she found out she had powers was because of an accident that she had when she saw Dib being taken by the science-maniacs for testing and research.... She was unwilling to admit that she wanted to protect her brother as much as he used to protect her when they were young children...
:Okay... tell me later then.... I don't think I can talk for much longer, they are getting ready for the tests now.:
:At least tell me why you decided to bother me...:
:It's Zim. I can't tell if he's alright, can you check him out for me? You know where his tests are held, right?:
:Yeah, I know where they are held, dont worry. I'll check on your little boyfriend...:
:He's not my boyfriend Gaz, haven't we been over this? He's an alien...:
:That's exactly why he makes a perfect match with you...:
:Oh shut up, Gaz. Just check up on him...:
:Not if you're going to talk like that to me...:
:Look, sorry! I dont have much time, just check up on him... And I'll try to contact you later:
:No, I will come to your cell later... I'll talk to you then...: Gaz cut off the connection she had with her older brother and began her way down the hall once more...
In the testing room, Dib sighed to himself. So much for that... he'll still be worried until tonight. He watched the scientists with untrusting eyes as they walked closer to him... how did Gaz get powers like his anyway? Are they hereditary? Dib's mind wandered as he let trains of thought come onto rail and run through his mind with many strange answers that could be the reason for all of these terrible things for happening in his life. He jumped when he felt a prick on his finger... he looked down and saw a small dot of blood oozing from the puncture.
Dib closed his eyes, he found it much easier to ignore physical pain and discomfort when he was thinking of other things. Sometimes he would come up with ideas for poetry that he would write down in his cell later on, other times he would come up with answers to some of the questions that plagued his consciousness. Today's topic however was Zim. He figured that mental worry would work exceptionally well for him. He wondered what exactly the scientists did to Zim.. what they were doing to Zim now... he wondered so hard....
Dib's eyes shot opened when he felt a strong volt of electricity charge through his body. He looked up at scientists he didn't recognize. He bit down on his lip to keep from screaming... sharp teeth going straight through skin.
"Now that you are awake, tell us the information we require... things will go over much easier for you if you tell us. What is the name of your race?" A woman scientist glared down at him, her long hair cascading down her back in amber curls, held up by a single black bow.
'My race?' He thought to himself, "I'm human... didnt you know?" He heard a scream of agony as they voltage began to charge through him.. it sounded like Zim.. he looked around for the alien, trying to fight the pain... it took him a moment to realise that he was the one voicing the screams... but they didn't sound like him. He looked down at his hand... green? This was too weird... the pain was too great to be real... his body fell as the volts let out of him once more.... he must be dreaming.
"No more games, tell us alien..." The same woman stepped a little closer to him, she was still glaring, "If you won't tell us the information, we wil have to find out things ourselves." She held a glittering bit of silver in her right hand.
'Alien? Green skin? Zim? How did this happen...?' Dib stared up at the scientist, fear evident in his red pink-pupiled eyes. He felt the cold sting of metal press on his chest. He clenched his strapped-down fists and gritted his teeth, holding his breath against the smooth pain of his chest being sliced... he held himself back from screaming.... he knew that Zim wouldn't scream about something like this. He had to keep Zim's honor, even if Zim really did need to let go of his egotistic attitude.
~Meanwhile~
Zim opened his eyes and reached a hand up to rub one of them... he was surprised that his hand actually obeyed him and wasnt restrained from use like it usually was. He was also surprised when his hand came in contact with cool metal over his eyes. He stared a bit at the pale-peach flesh of his hand... "What happened..." he mumbled to himself and gawked at how much he sounded like the Dib-human.
"What happened, Dib? you were about to discharge your powers and all of a sudden you went back to zero. What happened?! If I was you, I would get that power back up to a usable level before we get angry..."
Zim glared at the human speaking to Dib.. speaking to him. He crossed his arms over his chest... 'Dib? How did this happen? This must be a strange dream or something, I can't be Dib...' Zim looked around the room once more. Computers decorated the entire room, connected to himself were strange wires stuck with some sort of adhesive substance.
Zim could feel something in his mind probing about, almost like a parasite. He closed his eyes against the sensation.... it was growing though.... feeding off of his discomfort. He kept his eyes closed in attempts to ignore it. The more that Zim tried, the more this feeling seemed to increase. As if it was growing because of his restraints... he couldnt control it, because he'd never felt a feeling like this before. By the ache in his mind, he knew he was about to let it go... whatever tjis sensation was. He was utterly unprepared, and opened his eyes suddenly when it was finally over. The main power-lines to the computers blew into miniscule explosion, leaving every computer monitor shadowed with blackness.
He winced when it was over, pain flowing through his mind... he felt a hand hit against the back od his head, but he hardly noticed the pain because inside was much greater.
Something had happened.. something wasn't right... he was inside of Dib's body and not his own. This musht be what Dib felt like last night and whenever he had his mind move things... this must be why he always collapsed.
~
After the excruciating tests, Dib was taken back to the cell in a rather rough manner, he was thrown down onto the floor of the cell and left to get up on his own. He felt the blood on his chest. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his knees, embracing them in need of comfort. He felt his body rock to and fro and he looked at his hand covered in purple blood that was so dark it could easily be mistaken for black. He was cold... and he longed for some source of heat... anything to be warm.
After about an hour of being in the cold cell all alone, he felt something on the top of his head move as he heard the door open. He reached up and felt the smooth skin of antennae between his fingers and stared as he saw himself taken into the cell.
As soon as the scientists left, Dib watched himself sit and put his hands over his eyes. Then something in his mind clicked... he let out a small, squeaky.. "Zim..?"
Zim looked over and glared towards Dib... he knew that it was him, who else could it be? "Whatever you did... change it back." He fixed his trench-coat to stay on him comfortably and then rubbed the side of his head in attempts to ease the ache.
"I don't know what I did... and I can't use telepathy anymore... I've tried it. I think you have my abilities now.. you're going to have to find a way to get us back to normal..." Dib let his hand go back down and away from the appendages on top of his head, feeling them droop down with instinct.
Zim's eyes wudened and stared back at Dib in disbelief... he was going to have to change them bac? How was he going to go about doing that when he didnt even know how it happened int he first place... or how to use his mind like Dib did. He stared down at the slate floor.
"Zim... why is it so cold...? Are you always this cold...?"
"Yes... except when I am outside. Irkens need heat to survive.. well not too much, but enough. So I know how you're feeling. There is a way to produce enough heat for yourself.... but I guess you don't really know how to do that..." he continued when Dib shook his head, "I can't let my body die before I can get back in it to kick your ass for getting us into this situation.... so come over here."
Dib crawled over towards Zim obediently, feeling rather dizzy as he did so... anything to get warm. He jumped when he felt Zim's arms slide around him, starting to hold him there against his body.... he didn't say anything, because he felt life slowly come back to his numb body... he leaned into the embrace, mindlessly greedy for more of this feeling of life. He closed his eyes and rested.
"I don't suppose you know how to get rid of the headache..." when Dib gave him a grunted reply instead of'yes' or 'no' he snickered. He looked down at the green body in his arms. If felt strange.. without seeing his face, it was like holding another Irken... not himself. He had to respect Dib now... he was in the body of the superior.... and Zim was just another human worm-baby.
Zim held Dib close for himself.. not for Dib. He wanted to preserve his body's health... it wasn't because Dib felt uncomfortable.. at least that is what he tried to assure himself. He rested his head down over Dib's and closed his eyes. It sure felt nice to have physical contact with someone... he had wondered what it was like ever since he was little.. and it was nice. Even nicer than he had expected.
I hope you enjoyed it!!! It took me three days to finish it because I wasnt at home most of the time.... well hardly any of the time... well have fun, the next chapter will be up sometime int he near future... prolly after I update some other things though 9.9 but it WILL be up.