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The Happy Smiley Dib Show!	By : V021 Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 2643 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
You know, ZAGR doesn’t have to mean ‘Zim & Gaz’… [By the way, the song featured is Hoodoo by Muse.]

Chapter 16: Dealing with the Devil, Miss Gretchen?
* Three months earlier…
Zim was pacing again.
Gretchen watched him stagger back and forth for a while in an angry drunken march before he stomped off to the storeroom, then sighed and went back to her knitting. When Zim had brought her to his orbital space station, she was at first awe-struck both by the sheer otherworldliness of it all and that her captor had practically given her free reign to wander the weird winding hallways as she wished. She had spent days going from room to room, gawking at the wondrous technologies Zim had strewn about, studying anything and everything she could get her hands on with a voracious curiosity she never knew she had before. It was hard going at first, since she couldn’t read any of the manuals that came with the stuff but she eventually got Zim’s computer to teach her enough Irken to figure out how to use the alien devices and, thanks to hours of experimentation and research, she had become frighteningly proficient with most of the equipment on board. Gretchen had even taught herself how to pilot Zim’s ship and was pretty sure she could escape…if she wanted too.
Yet she stayed.
She stayed there, waiting for Dib to arrive. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re ever kidnapped by Evil Aliens: you’re supposed to wait for the Hero to come and rescue you. Then again, why should Dib save her? After all, Gretchen knew she wasn’t the standard for a “damsel in distress”. She wasn’t all that smart and definitely wasn’t pretty. She was just dumb old Gretchen, the girl who could pick up Brazilian radio stations with her retainer. Why she expect Dib to come to her rescue when he never even noticed her before?
But Zim noticed.
Maybe that’s why she stayed. And maybe that’s why she’d tried to save him from whatever revenge Dib had planned… even knowing what she did. Her conversations with Zim’s computer and the Minimoose had revealed that not only had Zim been one who destroyed Mary-Anne and unleashed a plague of zombies, but also that he’d almost killed Dib. Even if she had known the whole truth then, Gretchen realized couldn’t have stood by and let Zim suffer no matter how justified Dib was. After that moment at the prom when Gretchen realized Zim was the only person in the entire Universe who could understand the way she felt about Dib, her entire outlook on life had changed…
…which is why she followed Zim when the alien chased after him. She had seen and heard everything that passed between the human and the alien that night. Despite the fact that Dib admitted to killing her best friend in jealous rage, Gretchen had cried when he poured his heart out to Zim. And, as shocking as it was to discover just how far the depths of their hatred for each other had festered, Gretchen was startled to not only find herself becoming even more attracted to Dib, but to Zim as well.
“Don’t get involved,” the computer warned when she told it about her strange new feelings toward the alien. “You’ll end up getting yourself killed like Keef and that robot girl. Just run back home now, Gretchen. You’re too nice to die that way.”
But she stayed.
She stayed because she had to know why Zim chose her. And every day, Gretchen’s infatuation with the alien grew and grew and grew… If something didn’t happen soon, Gretchen feared she was going to loose it.
A loud crash from the storeroom sent Gretchen flying out her seat to make sure Zim was alright. She found him laying facedown on the floor surround by heaps of empty bottles.
“Oh god,” she gasped, running to his side. “Zim? Zim?! Are you alright?”
Flailing, the alien jerked upright and leveled a laser at her. “Nargh! Oh, it’s only you…” He put the laser away and glared. “Well, what the hell do you want?”
“Nothing. I…I was just worried about you.”
“Worried? About me?” slurred Zim in a slightly confused tone.
“Yeah, well your were passed out on the floor. I thought you might’ve been hurt…”
“Pathetic girl!” snapped Zim. “I’m your captor, remember? I’m holding you hostage and I’ll probably kill you anyway. So why do you care what happens to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Gretchen mumbled, feeling helpless. She stood there quietly for a moment, watching Zim dig through the bottles for one that was full before saying, “I guess it must be pretty awful for you. I mean, you’re here all by yourself, millions and millions of miles away from all your friends. You must be horribly lonely.”
“BLAGH! I’m not LONELY! I am an INVADER! I don’t NEED friendship.”
“But surely you have a family back on Irk or wherever you come from. Don’t you’re parents at least miss you?”
Zim stared blankly at her, then went back to searching. “I don’t have parents. Irkens are all born from the Great Smeeting Chambers, thousands of miles below the surface of Irk. We don’t have, need, or want, this ‘family’ thing you humans are so fucking obsessed with.”
“That’s really sad, Zim,” sighed Gretchen. “It must be hell for you, not having someone who loves you…”
“Love? LOVE?!” Growling, the alien rounded on her. “You and you’re filthy LOVE! Zim needs no LOVE! I NEVER LOVED DIB! I HATE HIM!”
“But, we weren’t talking about Dib…”
“SILENCE, INSOLENT DIRT-GIRL!” raged Zim. “I have HAD IT with being IGNORED! With being FORGOTTEN! THEY HAVE SCORNED ZIM FOR THE LAST TIME! NOW THEY SHALL ALL PAY!” He stressed the last part with a bottle shattered against the wall.
Zim stormed out of the storeroom and Gretchen ran after him, afraid of what he was planning to do now. She hurried over to him as he began booting up various devices. “WAIT! Zim, please calm down. You…you don’t have blow up the Earth! We can talk this out…just you and me. I won’t ignore you, Zim. Honest!”
The alien paused his preparations long enough to give her a funny look. “What are you babbling about? I’m not going to blow up the Earth. Well, not yet anyway.”
“Then what are you doing?” she asked, sitting down next to him.
“Oh, silly, silly little Gretchen. You’re feeble little girly mind just can’t contemplate the intricacies of my BRILLANT plans for vengeance.”
“Maybe I could, Zim!” huffed the girl, feeling oddly hurt by his callousness. “Besides, all the other evil villains tell their prisoners their evil plans…”
Laughing at her, Zim shook his head. “Very well. I shall tell you my plan only because I amuses me to do so. You see, Gretchen, first I will set up a web of super-powerful laser satellites around the planet, programmed to destroy any spacecraft that attempts to approach within about a 240,000 mile radius of Earth, using your own Moon as the base for the main-phase laser cannon in the array. Then I will invite the Almighty Tallest to come and witness the destruction of your planet, leading them into my cleverly designed deathtrap. Once they are dead, I will return to Irk and begin my reign as EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE!”
“And what about Dib?”
Zim grinned evilly. “Oh, you think he’s going to stop me?”
“No.”
“No? What the hell do you mean ‘no’?!” snarled Zim. “Don’t you think that you’re beloved Dib is going to at least put up some feeble resistance to my schemes for conquest?”
“Actually,” Gretchen muttered bleakly. “I’m sure he doesn’t really care anymore…”
He stared hard at her. “Do you realize what you’re saying, Gretchen?”
“Yes, I do. I’m saying that Dib’s become a heartless, nihilistic asshole who’s just going to sit by and let the entire universe get wiped out just because he can’t admit that he’s in love, Zim! Obsessive and insanely violent, but whatever it is between you two must be in some way a twisted kind of love… ”
“What? HAVE YOUR BRAINMEATS BEEN DAMAGED?! Dib HATES me! And I HATE him!” The alien went back to his work, then after a stretch of awkward silence, turned back to Gretchen. “Of course, if Dib were to fall DESPERATELY in love with anyone, I’d suppose it would be a deliciously cruel twist of fate if the object of his affections became his future overlord and slave-master. It would be…eh…”
“Tragically epic?”
“Thank you!” Grinning, Zim purred happily. “Yes, tragic and epic descried it perfectly. After all, what kind of lovesick lunatic lets the likes of me roam free?”
“I dunno. The same kind of lovesick lunatic who’d vivisect somebody’s robot girlfriend and then puts him into a coma?”
Zim glared angrily. “What part of ‘I HATE DIB’ didn’t you understand?”
“If you hate him so much, Zim,” countered Gretchen. “Then why are you so obsessed with getting his attention?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
She sighed in frustration. “Oh, right. Yep. You hate Dib so much that you let him tie you up and...and do all those other things to you…and tape it, too.”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!” screamed Zim.
“I didn’t mean to watch it, honest!” Gretchen gasped, cringing back in fear and shame. “It was an ACCIDENT, Zim. I found the disc and thought it was some kind of alien documentary. I…I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn’t stop watching. It’s seeing Dib and you like that was…well, exciting.”
He gaped at the girl, stunned to silence.
“I know! I know it’s wrong to feel that way, especially when I know both of you are murderously insane…” sighed Gretchen, looking down red-faced in embarrassment. “But I just can’t help it, Zim! For an inhuman monster from beyond the stars, you are pretty good-looking…”
Zim fidgeted uncomfortably. “Okay… I really wasn’t prepared for this kind of thing, Gretchen.”
“And you think I planned to fall in love with you?!” she snapped. “I mean, you’re the VILLIAN! And I’m not supposed to get off on the idea of two guys having kinky sex, either! Nothing about this makes any sense!”
“Oh, as if I really wanted Dib tape that!” Zim snarled back. “It’s absolutely humiliating!”
“Like you wouldn’t do the same to him if you had the chance!” Gretchen snarled, then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth when she realized what she said.
Zim opened his mouth to bark something nasty back, but then thought about what she said. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He sat down facing Gretchen. “So, now what can I do with you? You know too much. But I really can’t bring myself to kill you, Gretchen, because you’re…well, you. But I can’t let you go since you know my secret now, and I doubt Dib’s coming to your rescue. So, where does this leave us?”
She simply shrugged. “I…don’t know.”
“You could recruit her,” muttered the computer, who’d been eavesdropping.
“Are you joking?!” barked Zim. “Recruit a human? It goes against everything the Irken Empire stands for! Besides, the girl knows nothing about interstellar warfare.”
“Actually, I do. A little…” Gretchen replied shyly. “Do you realize that setting up main-phase cannon alone is going to take at least a month’s work to get it operational? Plus you’ve got to work out the arrangements for all the second-phase satellite lasers to make sure they don’t blow each other up in the inevitable crossfire situations that occur during 3-D combat. Oh, and I just noticed that if you don’t reroute the power-grids on Level 4, you’re going to frag the automated deployment system, as well as destroy a good portion of the targeting controls.”
The alien looked at her like she was stupid. “HA! I’ll have you know, monkey girl, that I’ve been setting up laser satellites since before you’re grandparents were born! Just watch and be AMAZED!”
Arrogantly, Zim switched the ON button and was rewarded with a cacophony of Klaxon sirens.
“ALERT! ALERT! MASSIVE FAILURES IN PRIMARY DEPLOYMENT SYSTEM AND TARGETING CONTROL!” wailed the computer, then it turned off the alerts long enough to sneered, “See? She told you so…”
“I’ll deal with you later…” Zim growled, then he turned to Gretchen. “Well, Lil’Miss Smartass, how are we going to fix this mess?”
“We?” she asked, looking at Zim in bewilderment. “You… you want me to help you?”
“Have you the brainworms, girl?! Of course I need you to help! It’s going to take both of us working together just to repair the targeting system by tomorrow. Now, hop to it! We’ve got work to do!”
Gretchen smiled stupidly as she followed Zim to Level 4 to assess the damage. She looked over at Zim. “Um…I don’t we can fix this by tomorrow, Zim.”
“Oh really?” sneered the alien. “And in your expert opinion, just how long is it going to take?”
“Where to start…” Taking a deep breath, Gretchen began listing off the damages. “First off, we’re going to need a new photon processor to replace the one that was burned out in the power surge, then there needs to be extensive repairs to the power grid itself, and you might as well forget about this neutrino focusing arrangement . And that’s just covering what it’ll take to get the operating system back online. All in all, I’d say it’s going to take about…eh, a week at least if we’ve got the proper parts.”
“A week with the proper parts?” rasped Zim. “Dammit, woman! I haven’t GOT replacement a photon processor, or any of that other crap!”
“Well, can’t you contact a supply sergeant and order them?”
Zim snorted a laugh. “Right… I’ll just call up the nearest supply outpost and request parts to fix an orbital laser web so I can overthrow the Irken Empire. Yeah, that’s going to work out REALLY well…”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic, Zim.”
“Why not!” he growled, throwing up his hands. “It’s not like there’s any other way to get to parts!”
“Wait,” Gretchen muttered. “Hey, computer! Could you please bring up a list of all the military bases and laboratories on Earth that have the components to build or repair an orbital laser array?”
The alien rolled his eyes. “Oh, like that’s going to—”
“DONE!” barked the computer as a screen flipped down with an extensive list.
Gretchen looked mildly at Zim.
“All right! All right!” he barked, realizing he’d been beaten. “I’ll start getting the parts. Salvage what you can.”
“Yes, sir!” She saluted, then as Zim was leaving added, “Wait! There’s just one more little thing...”
He let out a noise somewhere between a hiss and a sigh. “Yes? What is it now?”
“Make me an Irken.”
“What?!” Zim stood there, stunned and confused by her request.
“Make me an Irken.” Gretchen repeated quietly.
“Why?” gasped the alien after several moments of incoherent grunting.
“It’s hard to explain…” she muttered, coming up beside him. “You see, after what happened at the prom, I had an epiphany…”
Zim grimaced in disgust. “Is that one of those female problems, because if it is…”
“No, Zim! An epiphany is when you suddenly realize something extremely important about EVERYTHING. It’s like the day you find out there’s no Easter Bunny! Or that Bloaty the Pizza Hog is really just a morbidly obese man in a suit!”
“Oh right! An EPIPHANY!” chuckled Zim. “I…I knew that!”
She rolled her eyes. “Right…Anyhow, that night I realized that Dib isn’t capable of loving another human being. It’s not that he can’t love; he can love, it’s just that he’ll never feel that way toward a normal human. Everyone he’s ever had a meaningful relationship with has had some strange quality or unusual background that attracted Dib to them in the first place. Take for example his relationship with Zita. He’d hardly give her the time of day until he found out she was part of this super-secret all-female paramilitary group, L.E.S.B.O. After that, you couldn’t get Dib away from her! Oh, and don’t get me started on the time he dated these super-hot Japanese schoolgirl twins! I thought it was just Dib living out some stupid male fantasy…until it came out Fuk Mi and Fuk Yu both were genetically uplifted cats!”
For a moment, Zim only stared. “Cat girls? And the Zita-human, too?”
“Yeah,” Gretchen grumbled. “And about twenty or so others, guys and girls, over the past five-six years. And those are the ones I can name. You see, Dib’s bisexual and, eh—how can I put this nicely— a little promiscuous…”
“Promo-whatis?”
The computer snapped angrily, “What’s she trying to say is that Dib’s had more ass than a public toilet seat.”
Zim still looked on with a dim, blank faced look.
“God…”groaned the computer. “Dib’s been fucking around, okay? You know, having sex with a lot of people other than you! To be blunt, he’s a fucking whore! A filthy slut! A dirty ho! A gigolo! !El es una punta!”
Gretchen gasped in outrage. “I wouldn’t call him anything like that!”
“Well, do you have a better way to put it?”
“No,” she admitted quietly. “But you aren’t seeing the whole picture. The hypersexuality could be a symptom of manic-depression, which may also explain other parts of Dib’s behavior, including the way his mood oscillates between extremes of frenetic action and intense apathy. Of course, the pills he keeps popping seem only to aggravate his condition…”
This sparked a long debate between Gretchen and the computer over whether mental instability should be accepted as a way to justify deviant and often times criminal behavior. But Zim, however, was paying no attention to them.
((come into my life…)) ((regress into a dream…))
There were others? There were so many others before him?
Zim felt a strange pain in his chest.
This didn’t make sense! Why did he care? It wasn’t like what Dib had done to him was anything more than another loss for Zim in their ongoing power-struggle. So what if Dib was fucking other people? Zim knew that at least that awful Maryanne had been before him. And it wasn’t like Dib had been his first either…
And yet it hurt. It hurt because Zim’d never expected Dib to be capable of such outrageously flagrant infidelities. The very idea that Dib could have been so unfaithful to him made the pain all the worse. It burned and tore into Zim’s pride like a horrific parasite of betrayal. And it hurt like hell.
((we will hide…)) ((and build a new reality…))
Zim couldn’t stand for it. He wouldn’t stand for it.
Out of everything that Dib had ever done to him, this was unforgivable. It wasn’t enough that Dib ignored him, the mighty and glorious ZIM! The human had to rub it in his face by doing…doing things with hordes of those dirty, lesser creatures. Those very same piggish, stupid monsters that had ridiculed and abused Dib for his genius. True, the human was hopelessly insane, but Zim could still appreciate the filthy little monkey’s flawed brilliance. And, much to his amazement and utter surprise, he’d found another who might just be able to understand the way Dib made him feel.
Out of the blue, a horrible and amazingly evil idea came to Zim as he watched Gretchen argue with his computer.
“Make me Irken…” he mused, a smile creeping slowly across his face.
((draw another picture…)) ((of the life you could’ve had…))
“Gretchen?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin at Zim’s voice, and then turned to the alien. “Yes, Zim?”
The way he was smiling disturbed her far worse than the quiet spookiness of his voice as he spoke.
“I’ve been thinking,” Zim began. “About what you asked me to do. About making you an Irken. And I’ve made a decision.”
Hope blazed inside her chest, making Gretchen feel lightheaded as she eagerly waited for his answer. Here it was the chance she’d been wishing for ever since she’d first seen Dib in pre-school. The chance to finally be something worth Dib’s notice, someone special… To shed this ugly, plain faced girl she’d always been and become someone magnificent!
((follow your instinct…)) ((and choose the other path…))
“I’ve realized that I cannot do it. I can’t make you like me…”
Gretchen felt her world shatter. Tears started to run down her face as she sank to the floor in despair. With just those words, Zim had done something worse than kill her. He’d taken away everything she’d ever wanted in life. The way he was still smiling down on her made Gretchen want to kill him, to tear every last part of him to ribbons and beat him until nothing was left but bitter dust.
((you should never be afraid…)) ((you’re protected from trouble and pain…))
Zim only laughed softly, amused by her anger.
The alien bent down on one knee and gently cupped her face in his hand, wiping away the tears with that horrible smile on his face. His tenderness was unbearable. But it was what Zim had to say next almost made her faint.
“I’ll do even BETTER than that!” rasped Zim as he helped Gretchen to her feet. “What would you say if I told you I could not only make you an alien but also the most beautiful woman in the UNIVERSE?”
Her eyes went wide in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Very.” Before she could reply, the smile vanished and Zim’s voice became menacing in its caution. “But there is a price to be paid. Nothing is free, girl, and you must be ready to risk all. Think it over, Gretchen. Think it over carefully. Once we begin, there can be no turning back. I’ll never be able to reverse the procedure. You’ll never be the same girl again, Gretchen. You’ll never be fully human again! And you may not like what you become…” He squeezed her trembling hands. “But I promise you, I’ll make you everything you’ve ask and more! So are you willing to give up everything for what I have to offer?”
((why…)) ((why… is this a crisis in your eyes…)) ((again?))
Gretchen turned away slightly, no sure what she should do. Here it was, the chance she’d dreamt of. Zim was offering her everything she’d ever wanted and more! All it would cost her is her very humanity…
“Is Dib really worth it?” Zim hissed, more to himself than to her. He was suddenly having second thoughts...
“Yes!” Gretchen gasped in a sharp, breathless voice. “Yes, he’s worth anything!”
((come to be…)) ((how did it come to be?))
For a moment, Zim could only gape in horror at the fiery madness in her eyes. Then, seized by a lust for revenge, he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room.
They came to a chamber Gretchen hadn’t visited before, a room filled with nightmare machinery. Zim flung her toward the tubular tank dominating the center of the room. She turned to him, praying that he would take her away from this ghastly place.
“Go ahead!” the alien snarled with rage. “Step inside! Isn’t this all that you wanted?!”
When she didn’t move, Zim dragged her off the floor and threw her into the tank.
((no love to set us free…))
Crying wildly in panic, Gretchen clawed and slammed her fists against the clear pink material.
“PLEASE, ZIM! I’VE CHANGED MY MIND! PLEASE! DON’T DO THIS!”
((watch as our souls fade away…))
Zim watched, face cold and impassive as he activated the nanites.
((and our bodies crumbling…))
Her cries turned to screams of unimaginable pain as the mist of microscope bio-machines engulfed her. The mist wasn’t enough to hide the sight of first her clothes then the flesh underneath dissolving as the nanites began the grueling process of rearranged Gretchen’s body on a cellular level.
“Don’t be afraid…” Zim whispered to the hideously writhing thing. Slowly, the screaming died down into a dull moan.
The thing in the mist had stopped convulsing. It began to reform, with skin turning a curiously pale shade of green that was a sharp contrast to the purple hair and a body which was rapidly becoming waspishly thin. Soon, the transformation was complete and what had once been Gretchen slumped to the bottom of the tank with lifelessly staring eyes.
((I will take the blow for you.))
Punching in a quick command, Zim turned in time to watch a set of grommet arms stab into her back with a sickening crunch. As they pulled away, another arm was lowered from the ceiling. In one swift blow, it attached the Pak Zim had ‘commandeered’ from Tak’s base. Then came to jolt of electricity to restart her heart and breathing.
The tank hissed open as Gretchen staggered to her feet, naked and shaking.
((I have recurring nightmares…))
Zim stood still as she stumbled toward him, still in a daze from the ordeal. He saw her mouth open like she was about to speak, her newly formed antennae twitching anxiously. She made a noise that was half-way between a sob and a whimper, then collapsed into the alien’s arms.
((that I was loved for who I am…))
He held her for a long time, completely at a loss as to what he should do next. The knowledge he’d done something absolutely monstrous hit Zim with the force a small nuclear explosion. Despite all the other ghastly things he had done, Zim knew this was the absolute worst act he’d ever committed in his entire life. Gretchen may have asked him to do it, but she didn’t understand what she was asking from him. And he had done it anyway, knowing just how hideous it was…
For once in his life, Zim felt utterly disgusted with himself.
((and missed the opportunity…)) ((to be a better man…))
“Gretchen…” Zim buried his face in her hair, unable to hold back his own sobs. His voice was hoarse. “Gretchen, I’m sorry…”
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