"Klass, turn to page 826 of your textbooks and read the next ten pages. There will be a quiz on this tomorrow, and anyone who fails will be transferred to the underground klassroom. I would ask if you had any questions, but I don't really care."

Most of the resulting complaints were quickly silenced with a particularly evil glare from the teacher. Still, one particularly oblivious kid seemed not to have noticed the class had fallen silent. He continued whispering to his neighbour, and the rest of the children gawked in horror, knowing what was to come.

He realised his mistake a shadow fell over him, and he looked into the vicious face of his teacher. The stammered apology was in vain. His seat fell out from under him, and he vanished with a shriek of terror.

"The miserable pig smelly has met his doom, doom I say." Zim cackled, waving his arms about wildly, but evil grin faltered when he noticed the stares. "I mean, too bad. I feel empathy for the human, because I too am a pig smelly. I'm normal."

"Yes, you are Zim," Ms Bitters monotoned, "Now get off the desk before I have to send you to the underground klassroom as well. The principle is already on my case about how often we have to replace students."

Zim gently settled back into his seat with an innocent expression plastered on his face.

Dib massaged his temples. "You know, I swear every day my faith in humanity shrinks a little."

"Back to work." Ms Bitters said, and everyone hurried to obey. It was silent until the bell rang. The students exchanged hopeful looks.

"I expect you to read pages 850 to 900 in your textbooks and complete the accompanying worksheets for homework."

They sighed, their hopes shattered, but didn't dare complain. Only once before had somebody complained about a homework assignment, and it had scared the students enough that it would never happen again.

Poor Terry, he was so young.

"However, I do have some good" The teacher shuddered at the word. "news. Due to complaints we are 'crushing your spirits' and 'suppressing your creativity' we will be going on a field trip to the beach. You maggots will surely enjoy yourselves, which is precisely why I am against the whole idea. Still, the skool board is adamant, so bring your water bottles and lunch and the like tomorrow. We leave at 8 o'clock, sharp. Be here, or else."

The room erupted in cheers, and the air was filled with excited chatter as they flooded out the door. Zim hated happy children, but what really made his squeedlyspooch pinch was the malevolence on Dib's face upon hearing the news.

"Ms. Bitters, what field is this "beach" in, and" -his eyes narrowed- "is it dangerous?"

"I do not know, and I do not care, child. Now go do whatever it is you do when you are not here."

- Time Skip -

"And so GIR, I must go on this 'field' trip if I am to maintain my cover. Avoiding this," He paused, "pleasurable and apparently normal human activity may cause suspicion. However, I will not be caught unprepared."

GIR nodded his head vigorously in response to Zim's words. He wasn't actually listening, he just liked nodding his head.

Zim struggled under the weight of the colossal blaster he had just grabbed from one of his lair's many racks of weapons. He forced it into his PAK with a grunt. It should have been impossible for it to fit in there, and yet it did, thanks to the wonders of Irken technology.

"An Invader is never caught unprepared, and Zim is the greatest in invader the universe has ever known. Zim may not know what this beach is, but he will conquer it."

"Zim?" The computer piped, "You do know I could find out what a beach is on the human internet, right?"

"Nonsense, Zim needs no help from the human interweb. You speak ridiculousness, how dare you even suggest such a thing. I bet it wouldn't even work."

If the computer had shoulders, it would have shrugged them. It had long ago come to accept the craziness that was Zim's train of thought. And so, it allowed Zim to continue to pack. Each object he stuffed into the PAK seemed to get more random; a sock, a tuba, even a live rat.

GIR had long since wandered off, bored of his master's rambling. Zim hadn't even noticed he was gone. He hummed a little nonsensical tune to himself, scanning for something to amuse himself. Something big, red, and blinking caught his eye.

"Oooooooh."

It was a big, pulsing button. The robot took a moment to read the crooked sign sitting beside it.

Dangerous, do not touch. That means you, GIR.

"I'm gonna push it." He announced cheerfully.

"Eh, what?" Zim looked up for the first time in the last ten minutes. His eyes widened as he realised what was happening. "No GIR, don't touch-"

He was too late, the button had been pressed. "Full random shutdown of everything for the next hour has been commenced." The computer informed him, then silence. Every single piece of machinery in the base had whirred to a stop.

"Why do I even have that button?" Zim fumed.

"I'm bored," GIR decided.

- Time Skip -

When Zim left his normal Earth human house the next morning, he was sure he was as prepared as he could possibly be. He had packed almost everything in his base into his PAC, even the kitchen sink. He couldn't shake the feeling something was going to go wrong though, so he shuffled through the contents of his PAC, double-checking everything was there.

Screwdriver? Check.

Monkey Painting? Check.

Spare batteries? Check.

Floopisngit Litnor? Check.

Check, check, check. All seemed to be in place.

He flashed his arch-nemesis a mocking grin as he walked into the classroom. The Dib-Human just smirked at him, which was slightly un-nerving. Stupid smug human.

Ms Bitters took her place at the front of the klass.

"All right, get out of here. You will be looked after by parent volunteers today, which means I expect to not have to see any of your hideous faces for at least 24 hours. Now, shoo."

When the time came, Zim and Dib sat on opposite sides of the bus. The other students crammed themselves into the very back, as far away from the boys as they could. It was uncomfortable, but sitting next to one of the class crazy people was a one-way ticket to loser town.

"Wow, I sure am excited to see this field. Being human sure is great."

Dib snorted.

The ride was long and awkward, it was a relief to everyone when the bus rolled to a stop.

The students jumped to their feet, abandoning the school bus. Zim looked out of the window, and his jaw went slack.

So… Much… WATER.

"What's wrong, Space boy? Didn't you know Earth has oceans? Surely you must have seen them when you landed that spaceship of yours."

"Of course, I knew. What else would the blue be?"

He had not actually known. He had seen the blue, but he hadn't even considered oceans. More importantly, despite all of his brilliant planning, he had forgotten one thing.

Paste.

Dib flashed a shark-like grin before exiting, leaving Zim to gawk at the vast body of water which stretched as far as he could see. The bus driver spoke, "Hey kid, are you getting off? Some of us don't have all day, you know."

As Zim stepped out of the bus, he was assaulted by a horrendous odour, one he could only describe as the smell of the dumpster planet Floog if it was covered in salt. However, the humans seemed unbothered by it, so Zim did his best to wipe the disgust off his face.

His klassmates were now all wearing some sort of new garment, made of sleek plastic-like fabric. To his dismay, they were splashing in the horrible and massive pool of liquid, just like how they splashed in the rain. Human fun customs were bizarre.

He was approached by a concerned looking woman, no doubt one of those parent volunteers the teacher had mentioned. "Honey, where's your swimsuit?"

"I forgot it." Zim lied. He actually had no idea what a swimsuit was, he hoped it was not too terribly 'inhuman' to not have one.

"It's too late to get one now. I am afraid you will just have to stay out of the water. Don't worry, you can still play in the sand, and there is an ice-cream stand nearby if you brought money."

"Very well." Zim said with exaggerated disappointment, secretly ecstatic. Now he had an excuse to avoid the water.

Dib, who had been watching him with the same smug look he'd harboured since yesterday, looked slightly put out until something seemingly dawned on him, and he headed towards the ocean.

Zim would have been concerned if he had noticed, but at the moment, he was paying no attention to the boy. He was focussed entirely on trying to blend in. He observed some of the stink-beasts shaping the sand into towers, which seemed harmless enough. He formed a pile of his own.

He poked it. Why wasn't anything happening?

"Stupid earth sand, how dare you not bend to the will of the mighty Zim? I will make you regret this." He shouted, and the pile crumpled under his forceful kick.

While he received some curious looks from people passing by and the parent volunteers, the rest of his klass just ignored him, used to his antics.

"Well, well, well." Dib taunted Zim, having approached while his back was turned. "It's almost like you have never seen sand before, how sad. You do know you need to add water to it for it to hold its form, right? But you won't do that. In fact, I bet you won't even go near the water."

"Of course, I know this, Dib-Stink" Zim retaliated. "Your big head was just blocking out the sun so much I couldn't see if there was water in this earth sand."

"This again? My head is a perfectly normal size."

A girl's voice sounded from somewhere behind Dib. "You're crazy."

"I am not crazy," Dib clenched his teeth. "and I'm going to prove it."

"And how are you planning on doing that?"

"Like this." Dib whipped out a giant water gun. Zim hadn't even realised his hands had been behind his back this whole time, and he backed away in fear.

"Now, Dib-stink don't-"

Dib laughed maniacally as he emptied the contents of the gun onto Zim's face, who let out a high pitched shriek. The saltwater burnt even more than regular water did. He pawed at his face, trying to stop the onslaught of pain but instead dislodging the lens in his left eye.

Gaz rolled her eyes at his antics as she walked past, playing her Game-slave 2. "Whiner."

"You see, he's an alien." Dib bellowed, pointing at the exposed eye.

People did look, noticing the distinctly alien eye. Somebody screamed, and Zim jumped to his feet. "Fools, can't you see the horrible salty poison water has irritated my perfectly normal human stink-thing eye?"

The beachgoers seemed to buy it and went back to ignoring him. Dib frantically waved his arms, attempting to regain their attention.

"That doesn't even make sense, and who would call their own species stink things? It's obvious-"

"You're crazy." Somebody shouted, and the rest of the beach nodded in agreement. One mother grabbed her young child who was playing near Dib and dragged him in the other direction because "The craziness might be contagious."

"Nice try Dib-Stink, but they will never believe you." Zim carefully slipped his contact back in, skin still smoking from contact with the water. "My disguise is too perfect."

"We'll see about that."

- Time Skip -

"Hey, Idiot Invader." Dib dumped a bucket of sand on his head.

Zim fumed as the sand seeped into his clothes. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, and would be challenging to get off with cleansing chalk.

He was sick of this. He'd been called countless names, ambushed three additional times with the water gun, and even had a sandwich thrown at him. He could not stand for this, he was a mighty invader, not a helpless smeet.

Zim absentmindedly watched people going about their business on the beach; people walking dogs, a woman swimming, a little girl digging in the sand with a plastic shovel, seagulls snatching French fries, GIR dancing the hula.

He let out an evil cackle as a plan began to form in his brilliant mind.

Thanks to his paranoid planning, Zim had all of the items he needed to exact his revenge. The Dib-human was sitting under an umbrella, looking pleased with himself, he figured he had at least ten minutes before he came back to torment him.

He got to work quickly, pulling a large metal device resembling a grappling hook from his PAK. He controlled it from a touchpad on his wrist, using it to snatch one of the humans from the ocean. Nobody noticed a thing.

"Hey dude," said the person Zim had grabbed. "What are you doing?"

He didn't bother to answer, picking up the gigantic bag of cat hair he had previously fished out of his PAK and throwing it all over the pitiful human. He still had a plentiful supply from when GIR had adopted that mangy stray, Tuna.

The wetness of the human's sunburnt skin caused the cat hair to stick it. The resemblance was remarkable, and as an added bonus, Zim knew his enemy didn't tend to deal well with cat hair.

Leaping into the cover of the bushes, Zim held the button on the side of the voice changer he had attached to his throat.

"Hey, look, it's a Big-Feet." Zim shouted, his voice coming out as if he had inhaled helium.

"Where?" As expected, Dib jumped to his feet, then spotted Zim's faux monster. "Oh my gosh, it's a real BigFeet."

The unfortunate man took off in a sprint when he saw the overexcited child rush straight at him. "Wait, BigFeet, come back,"

The other beachgoers looked on in mild interest. "Has anyone seen the crazy bucket?"

"Nah, I didn't bring mine. Didn't realise Dib was going to be here."

"I brought mine, but Dib is gone now. Oh well."

Zim let out an evil cackle when he saw his plan had worked.

"Mwoooo hahaha. Mwoo- Oh come on, that totally just ruined the moment." Having forgotten to turn off the voice changer, he'd sounded like an evil chipmunk.

Ripping off the voice changer in disgust, Zim riffled through his PAK once again. He then pulled out a book on earth animals. Zim had purchased the book –more like just taken it, but who cares- from a store after the whole "Zim Zoo" incident. He had decided he was never going to repeat that incident again.

Now, what Earth creature would be inconspicuous enough that nobody would notice anything amiss?

Interesting, according to this book some Earth animals lived in the water. They had a tail and 'fins' which distinguished them from land animals. Zim flipped through the book until he found the perfect earth ocean beast.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I've got you Big-Feet. There's nowhere to run."

"Seriously dude, I'm not a Big-Feet. Leave me alone."

"That sounds like something a Big-Feet would say."

Dib had it cornered. He pulled out his anti-BigFeet handcuffs -which he never went anywhere without, you never knew when you would run into a BigFeet- and tackled the monster, pinning it against the wall and handcuffing him to a flagpole.

His triumphant laugh was cut off by a fit of vicious sneezing. The 'BigFeet' looked at him with concern.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes, I just-"Another fit of sneezing. He caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby window. His face was covered with hives, it was not a pretty sight.

"What? But I'm not allergic to Big-Feet, I'm just allergic to-"

The sprinklers in the yard turned on, soaking them both. The water washed the cat hair off of the man, revealing he was indeed just a normal human.

"You're not a Big-Feet? Why were you covered in hair?"

"I tried to tell you, some green kid just tossed a bag of hair all over me. Actually, it was kind of weird; he was just carrying a bag of hair around."

Green Kid?

"Anyways if you could just unhandcuff me- wait. Kid, don't just leave me here."

- Time Skip -

Dib couldn't believe he had fallen for that, who knew what Zim had done while he was gone.

He forced himself to steady his breathing. He had only been gone for 15 minutes, at most. Zim couldn't have done too much in just 15 minutes, even if he was Zim. Still, his eyes darted wildly around the beach, scouting for trouble. The beach was exactly as he left it.

It seemed he'd gotten lucky. Zim had probably expected him to be gone longer and hadn't had the chance to do anything yet.

And then, the ground shook.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

Precariously stacked drinks fell, children cried over toppled sandcastles, and sunbathers complained as they rolled face-first into the sand.

A large shape was emerging from the water, first ears, then a body, then a tail. Standing there in the shallows of the ocean was a gigantic, mechanical mouse. Dib had to blink once to reassure himself this was really happening, the sight was surreal.

The mouse was really there, and more importantly, he could see Zim peering through the eyes, which were actually windows.

"Dib, surrender now." Zim's voice, projected by the speakers in the mouse's large ears, echoed across the beach.

Noticing some of the odd looks the machine was getting, Zim spoke more cheerfully this time. "Hello, humans. I am a perfectly normal Earth water beast. See my fins and tail?"

Despite the sheer ridiculousness of the statement, people still seemed to believe it.

"Seems normal to me."

"Yup."

"Nothing unusual here."

Dib scowled. "Come on, mice aren't even sea creatures, and they are certainly not that big."

"Do you not see the fins and tail?" Zim scoffed.

"Those are its ears."

"Oh," Zim paused, "No matter. I shall still destroy you with it."

Dib looked around the beach once again. "Seriously, nobody sees anything wrong with this?"

"You're crazy."

"I am not-" Dib got a faceful of water. The mouse's nose had parted to reveal a water blaster.

"Victory," Zim cackled, readying another blast. Dib dodged, and the water instead soaked one of the parent volunteers.

"Seriously, how did you build this in 15 minutes?"

"Do not question Zim."

Dib dodged, and the hot dog stand got soaked.

"Hold still."

"Never!"

Another blast towards Dib. It seemed like it was going to soak him, but he managed to dodge last second. He would later wish he had just let it hit him because it ended up striking another target altogether.

"I'm out, see you later Dib-Stink." The mechanical mouse was vanished into the woods, moving surprisingly fast for something so big.

"I'll get you for this, Zim!"

Storm clouds swirled, replacing what had only moments ago been a sunny blue sky. Thunder rumbled ominously as she approached, clutching a short-circuited Game-Slave in one of her shaking fists.

"Do you know what you just did? I was ten seconds away from beating the evil clown hog."

"Gaz, it wasn't my fault, I swear." He whimpered.

"Prepare to enter a world of pain, Dib."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

*Spellchecked and generally improved February 18th, 2020