A/N: Hello folks, and welcome to another Anti-Gaz story adapted from one of The Cowardly Christian's outlines. Yeah, he's got a lot of these ideas, but he trusts my writing for this fandom more than his own, apparently. Not that I'm complaining — CC's ideas are great, and I have a lot of fun writing them. And this is one of my favorites of all the ones he's sent my way, incidentally. Hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did putting it together.

Read on!

Disclaimer: Maybe in some parallel universe, I own Invader Zim. But in this one, it is the property of Jhonen Vasquez, Nickelodeon, and Oni Press.

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Swimsuit Troubles

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It was a bright summer day, sun beating down on everything beneath it. Everything was simmering with the heat of this, including the freeway connecting the city with the nearby beach. A lone, rather battered, city bus was currently making its way down that freeway, making its way towards the beach. And it's here where our story begins.

The interior of the bus was just as rundown and battered as the exterior, and looked like it needed a good cleaning on top of that. Several windows were also open, allowing in faint breezes, to try and compensate for the fact that the bus' air conditioning was on the fritz. Altogether, this meant that the bus was virtually empty of anyone willing to ride it. However, there were two passengers of particular note, seated in the back.

Dib and Gaz Membrane were seated in the bus' rearmost seats, dressed for a day on the beach — Dib wearing a pair of blue swim trunks and Gaz in a dark purple bikini — and each with a bag of beach supplies at their side. Dib had a look of enthusiasm on his face as he looked out the window at the scenery passing by, while Gaz looked angrier and more annoyed than usual. Which was understandable, since she didn't want to be on this trip in the first place, but she didn't have a choice. Their father had sent them away in order to keep them out of the house for the day while he decontaminated it from the fallout of his latest experiment having gotten a little out of control.

Why he'd thought it was a good idea to work on a sentient mold in his home lab was beyond her, but that was besides the point.

Anyway, as stated, the house was being decontaminated from top to bottom in order to eliminate any possible trace of the mold, so no one could stay in the house until the process was completed. And for some reason, rather than just spring for a hotel, the Professor had decided to all but order his children to spend the day at the beach, in order to "take full advantage of the health-restoring effects of controlled UV exposure", or some technobabble bullshit like that. Thus, he'd forced them to change into swimsuits — apparently Professor Membrane found the concept of the beach's public changing rooms unsanitary — handed them packs of standard beach supplies, and then sent them on their way.

Which was all annoying enough on its own, seeing as Gaz hated the beach, having her routine being disrupted, and being told what to do. But on top of all that, her father had actually made her leave her Game Slave behind, in order to force her to actually do stuff on the beach, and she hadn't been able to convince him to change his mind about it. So now she was stuck being sent someplace she didn't want to go, without her primary form of entertainment on hand to alleviate the boredom.

And worst of all, Dib was trying to look on the bright side of things, which meant that he just wouldn't shut up!

"…And of course mermaids are a myth, but there are plenty of sea-dwelling creatures that have been mistaken for them," he was prattling on, "Selkies, for instance, which are people who are capable of changing into seals. Or maybe the other way around, no one's really entirely sure…"

Gaz groaned in annoyance and pinched the bridge of her nose. He'd been going on and on about all of the alleged creatures he was going to be looking for on the beach for the whole bus ride, and she just knew that he was going to keep doing it for the entire trip. And without her Game Slave, she had no way of tuning him out, which meant she was going to be stuck listening to his paranormal crap all day unless she did something about it.

As the bus turned off the freeway and down a side road which made its way down a hill towards the beach itself, Gaz felt her patience snap as Dib started going on about sirens, or something. Turning to yell at him, she paused as she saw the open window Dib was sitting next to, and an idea sparked in her mind.

"…They usually only inhabit isolated islands in the middle of the ocean, but sometimes they build lairs on mainland coasts," Dib was saying, as the bus came to a stop at a traffic light, "And don't even get me started on the sea serpents-"

"Hey, isn't that Zim?" Gaz interrupted, pointing out the window.

"What? Where?!" Dib exclaimed, looking out the window, "I don't see anything."

"I swear I just saw him jumping into that bush," Gaz said, pointing at a bush by the side of the road. Dib frowned and, bracing himself against the window's base, leaned out of it in order to try and get a better look.

"Are you sure? I still don't-AH!" Dib yelled as Gaz suddenly shoved him from behind. Losing his balance, he fell forward and out the window. He paused in midair for a moment as he snagged on something, before it slipped and he fell the rest of the way, smacking into the road and bouncing a few feet before coming to a groaning stop. Gaz leaned out the window to enjoy the sight of his pain, only to freeze in surprise at what she saw, before a devilish smirk crossed her face.

"Gah, what happened?" Dib groaned, getting to his feet and rubbing his sore head. What had hit him? And why was it suddenly so drafty?

"Hey Dib, lose something?" Gaz's voice called out. Dib looked up at her, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the very familiar pair of blue swim trunks dangling from the edge of the window, caught on its latch. Looking down at himself to confirm his fears, Dib turned bright red and quickly clasped his hands over his now fully exposed dick.

"Gaz!" he yelped, voice jumping an octave in his embarrassment, "Quick! Toss those down here!"

"What, these?" Gaz asked sarcastically, grabbing the trunks and pulling them loose to hold them in the air. As the traffic light turned green and she felt the bus start to move again, Gaz leaned out the window and dangled the trunks just low enough that Dib might be able to grab them… and then quickly pulled them back out of range.

"Nah," she said, smirking at Dib's shock as he stood there, watching the bus start to pull away with his only clothing.

"Wh-wait! Come back!" he yelled, running after the bus as fast as he could while doubled over and still covering his crotch, "Gaz, come on! This isn't fun-oof!"

Dib's protests were cut off as he suddenly tripped over a rock. He bounced hard as he hit the ground, tumbling off the road and subsequently falling down the sandy hillside. Gaz watched him disappear from sight, before pulling back inside the bus, feeling satisfied for the first time all day. Glancing at the trunks still clutched in her hands, she snorted dismissively, before balling them up and tossing them down the aisle towards the small waste bin kept at the front of the bus. She then turned to her bag and started riffling through it in search of one of the sodas she'd brought with her, deciding to try and make the most of this forced holiday.

Too bad for her that the most unlikely sequence of events were about to play out and ensure that this would be as far from a relaxing day at the beach as possible.

It all started with the trunks she'd just tossed away. While initially they were on target for the waste bin, a freak gust of wind blew through one of the open windows. It caught the trunks at just the right moment and angle to carry them up into the air, causing them to find a landing spot right on the bus driver's face.

"Wha-AH! I can't see!" the driver exclaimed, as he quickly lost control of the bus. It swerved wildly across the street, narrowly avoiding hitting several cars, before slamming into and through the guardrail running along the side of the road. It then tumbled rapidly down the hill, until it hit the bottom and went flying through the air. It dramatically flipped over a full 360 degrees as it did so, before finally coming crashing down on the sand, actually only a few yards away from the water lapping at the shoreline. All four tires deflated almost simultaneously, and the front of the bus basically burst open, smoke belching forth from the busted engine.

For a few moments, nothing happened. Then the bus' front door was wrenched open, and the assorted passengers started stumbling out, bruised and in a daze. At the same time, the emergency back door was kicked open, and Gaz fell out onto the sand, sputtering and cursing a blue streak. Unlike the other passengers, she wasn't even lightly hurt, but she was covered head-to-toe in soda, her can having burst and spilled all over her at some point during the crash. So needless to say, she was incredibly pissed off.

"Where'd that idiot learn how to drive?" she growled, shaking her head to try and clear it. Getting to her feet, she looked herself over, her anger and annoyance growing as she saw that the soda was already starting to dry into sticky patches all over her, with her two-piece now practically brown from the staining. Looking around, she spotted a small bathroom shed not far away, and started walking towards it, intent on washing up as best she could.

As she passed the front of the bus and the assembled group of former passengers, most of whom seemed to have gotten out of their crash-induced shock, the driver stormed out of the bus, red-faced and holding up Dib's discarded trunks in one hand.

"Who threw this at me?!" he demanded, glaring at the confused and disoriented crowd, "You think this is funny, throwing dirty laundry at me and making me crash, almost killing everyone? I'm not paid enough for this shit! Now who did it?!"

When no one responded, the driver turned even redder in the face. Screaming in rage, he threw aside the trunks before pulling a tire iron out from nowhere and attacking the crowd. Gaz didn't notice any of this, being already halfway towards the bathroom. As such, she was caught totally off guard when the trunks landed on her head.

"Wha-Oh God, gross!" she gagged, ripping the trunks off. Glaring at them, she spotted a trashcan nearby, next to the bathroom, and stomped over to it so she could get rid of the stupid piece of swimwear once and for all. But before she could reach it, a sound from behind her caught her attention.

Turning around, Gaz saw a dog sitting nearby. Specifically, a small brown chihuahua with a torn ear and, oddly, one eye whose iris was larger than in the other. Those mismatched eyes were locked on Gaz, the dog's head cocked to the side as it stared at her in curiously.

"What do you want?" she asked, in no mood to deal with dumb animals. In response, the chihuahua leaned slightly towards and sniffed at her, making a small noise that seemed to suggest interest. Gaz could only assume it was picking up the sweet scent from the soda covering her.

"Shoo, beat it. There's nothing here for you," she snapped at the dog, before turning back towards the bathroom. She only made it a few steps before a sharp pain suddenly hit her in the rear. Yelping, she looked down and was shocked to see that the dog had bitten down on the back of her bikini bottoms. Aside from nicking her butt cheeks in the process, he was also tugging on her like in that sunscreen logo, unintentionally wedging her in the process.

"Let go!" she yelled at the dog, trying to shake him loose. However, he just gripped tighter, the pressure on her lower half growing, until…

SNAP

…Gaz found herself stumbling forward. As she brought herself to a stop, she froze as she processed what had just happened, the sound she'd heard, and the fact that everything below the waist suddenly felt drafty. Eyes widening in anticipatory horror as she looked down, Gaz blushed brightly as she saw that her bottoms had been torn clean off, leaving her half naked.

Yelping again, this time in humiliation, Gaz instinctively clasped her hands over her crotch, inadvertently using the trunks still clutched in one hand to further shield herself. Turning around, she saw that the chihuahua was holding the bottoms in its mouth and was lightly chewing on them. Gaz desperately tried to snatch the bottoms back before the dog could do any more damage to them, but the sudden movement must have startled him, because he suddenly bolted, running away with the bottoms still clutched between his jaws.

"Come back here, you-!" Gaz started to yell and chase after the dog, only to freeze as he ran in the direction of where the bus driver was still chasing around the other bus passengers. And even though none of them had seen her yet, that didn't stop Gaz's brain from shifting towards a primal thought — she was partly naked, outside, and there were people right there who'd be able to see her!

Instinct once again taking over, Gaz bolted for the nearest cover. Which is this case was the bathroom she'd been heading towards beforehand. She burst through the door and slammed it shut behind her, panting for breath as she stood there braced against the door, waiting for the adrenaline rush from the sudden spike of panic to wear off. Looking around, she took in the sight of the rather rundown-looking bathroom space she was now in, composed of two graffiti-covered toilet stalls and a dirty sink underneath a surprisingly clean mirror. Her disgust at what she saw actually overrode Gaz's panic, and allowed her to start thinking clearly again.

"Stupid dog. I'm going to rip him into a hundred fucking pieces! What am I supposed to…?" Gaz's rant trailed off as it finally registered that she was still clutching Dib's trunks in one hand, and a thought occurred to her. She shuddered in revulsion at the mere idea of wearing something that not too long ago had been covering her brother's junk, but she also knew that she wasn't in a position to not do it.

"I am going to kill someone for this," she muttered, as she reluctantly slipped the trunks on, trying to focus more on the relief of once again having something covering her privates than where those trunks had been before.

Looking herself over in the mirror, Gaz couldn't help but think she looked ridiculous, standing there wearing boy's swim trunks which didn't even match the color of her bikini top. Speaking of which, she took note of the dried soda still staining the top, along with much of her body. Not wanting to risk some other animal coming after her top as well, or just plain attacking her, Gaz decided to take advantage of being in this filthy place and clean up a little.

Slipping her top off, Gaz placed it in the sink and switched the water on. She was moderately surprised that the water itself was clean, even more so that the liquid soap dispenser mounted on the wall actually worked. Clearly, the state of the bathroom was just do to laziness on the part of whomever was in charge of cleanup, rather than the general maintenance of the place. So, things were looking up a little bit at least.

After a few minutes of washing, Gaz decided that the top was as clean as it was going to get and dumped it on top of the faucet to dry while she turned her attention towards cleaning herself. It was a little weird given the circumstances, but she just tried to ignore where she was and focus on washing the soda off.

Eventually feeling clean, or at least clean enough that she doubted any other animals would be tempted to come after her, Gaz dried off with a handful of paper towels. She then grabbed the top in order to put it back on… and to her surprise found that it had somehow gotten tangled up on the faucet.

"Seriously?" she growled, as she tried to untangle the top and pull it free. After a few moments, she finally managed to tug it loose…

TEAR

"Are you kidding me?!" Gaz yelled, as the faucet tore right through the back strap of the top, leaving the two pieces to dangle separately from each other. Gaz could only glare at the torn fabric, eye twitching and teeth grinding, as she forced herself to take calming breaths.

"Okay," she said after a moment, "I can fix this. I just need to tie it off in a knot. That should be enough to hold it on."

She proceeded to do so, grunting a bit in mild discomfort at how tight the resulting knot made the top feel, but shrugged it off as a necessary sacrifice. Deciding to just move on and try and ignore the awkwardness, Gaz decided to go and find something to eat in order to take her mind off of things, only to curse as she realized she'd left her bag back on the bus. Including the food money she'd brought along, which was in said bag.

"Dammit," she muttered, before taking a calming breath, "Okay, no big deal. Just go back to the bus and grab my bag and the rest of my stuff. Dib's stuff too, I guess — I can dump his paranormal crap in the trash, but he might have brought some cash of his own that I can grab."

Grumbling to herself, Gaz shuffled out of the bathroom and back out onto the beach. Ignoring how self-conscious she felt about her piecemeal outfit now that she was actually out in public, she started walking towards the bus… just as its smoking engine suddenly exploded with enough force that it destroyed the entire bus.

Gaz could only stare slack-jawed at the flaming wreck, eye twitching as she processed what she'd just seen.

"Wha-how-what the hell?!" she sputtered, " How did that happen?! Even if the gas tank combusted, why would the whole damn bus explode? It's not a fucking Pinto!"

She continued to rant like that for several minutes, venting her anger over the fact that everything she'd brought with her — most importantly, her money — had just been incinerated, before finally trailing off into panting as she tried to get her breath back. Seeing the driver had stopped chasing the other passengers around in order to gawk at the ruins of his bus, Gaz started stomping towards him, intent on taking her frustrations out on the person she viewed as being responsible for them, but stopped mid-step as she felt something shift in one of the pockets of the trunks. Frowning in confusion, she reached into the pocket and, feeling something within, grabbed ahold of it and pulled it out.

"Oooh, okay, that's not bad," she said, grinning as she looked at the waterproof plastic envelope she was holding, which had a roll of money contained within it. Apparently Dib had wanted to keep his cash on hand, rather than leaving it lying around in a bag.

"Hmm, looks like there's enough here to cover lunch and get me a bus ticket back home later," Gaz mused, briefly taking the money out to count the bills before stuffing them back into the envelope and sticking it back into her pocket, "Okay, so, look on the bright side. I'm stuck here for the rest of the day, but at least I have some cash to burn. And anyway, none of that crap that burned was really mine, just junk Dad made me bring along; it's not like my Game Slave burned."

Having cheered herself up with that thought process (at least as much as it was possible for her to be cheerful, anyway), Gaz started walking towards a nearby boardwalk running along the length of the beach. She figured a place like this had to have someplace to get decent food of some kind, and once she'd eaten, she might even be able to find something entertaining enough to actually pass the rest of the day with in a way that she could actually enjoy.

Satisfied with that plan in mind, Gaz walked down the boardwalk. However, her newfound good mood quickly proved itself to be short-lived, for several reasons. First of all, the boardwalk seemed entirely lacking of anything related to food other than coffee bars and hot dog stands (and after the Pig Girl incident, she'd never touch a hot dog again if she could remotely help it), so there was nothing for her to eat. Secondly, unless she was imagining it, everyone she passed was giving her odd looks, which was just reminding her of how ridiculous she must look wearing Dib's trunks. And thirdly, now that she was actually walking around she was really starting to notice how uncomfortably tightly her top was pressing against her chest thanks to her improvised knot. And she could swear it was getting tighter by the moment.

"No, that's just my imagination," she told herself, "I'm feeling it as worse than it is because of how annoyed I am. That's all. Just like it only feels like everyone's giving me stink eyes over how I'm dressed because of how self-conscious I am about it. I just have to ignore it, and focus on finding something to eat."

With those thoughts firmly in mind, Gaz continued walking, fully satisfied in her justifications to herself. And truthfully, she was half right — while she was getting the occasional inquiring look from passerbys curious about her odd choice of mismatched swimwear, there weren't nearly as many as she was imagining there were. In that much, she was right about the situation being not nearly as bad as she thought it was.

But as for the increasing tightness of her top… well, the simple fact of the matter was that she hadn't let the top dry off before tying it back in. But it was drying out rapidly now, thanks to the intense heat of the summer sun. As a consequence, the material was contracting as the moisture evaporated out of it, which would have been barely noticeable under normal circumstances. But with how tightly it had already been tied beforehand, it was now really pressing into Gaz's body, stressing the fabric well past the limits it was designed for.

Unaware of how poor a condition her top was in, Gaz continued stomping down the boardwalk, glower increasing by the moment along with her discomfort and annoyance. And as those feelings grew, Gaz started walking even faster, determined to find anything that would alleviate her boredom. She was so focused on this, in fact, that while she was still paying attention to her surroundings at eye level, she wasn't watching where her feet were going. As such, she didn't see the damaged plank in the boardwalk, which was sticking up slightly into the air, until one of her feet bumped right into it. She stumbled for a moment and managed to catch herself before she fell, but could do nothing to stop the sudden shock that ran through her body-

SNAP

-and caused the over-strained top to tear apart into several pieces which all but flew off of her body, fluttering through the air for a moment before slipping through the small hole in the boardwalk where the damaged plank was, disappearing from view.

Gaz froze as she registered what had just happened. Face paling, she slowly looked down at her now totally bare chest, then to the hole where her top had just vanished, and then back to her chest. She then gave a high-pitched squeak, color flooding back to her face in a massive blush as she quickly wrapped her arms around her torso. She knew that she should be running off to find someplace to hide, but she couldn't override the instinctive panic she was feeling at the fact that she was once again half naked in public, and this time there were people around, everyone clearly able to see her… and ignoring her?

"What?" the stunned Goth thought, watching as people walked by her in both directions, hardly anyone even sparing her so much as a glance as they passed by, "Why are they all ignoring me? I mean, I'm not complaining, but there's a girl standing topless here! How is that not noticeable? What the hell is going on?!"

The answer to that question was actually quite simple, which was one reason why it wasn't occurring to Gaz. The other reason was that the answer was simply just too embarrassing for her to consciously consider — truth was, Gaz was flat-chested and entirely lacking in curves of any kind, giving her a distinctly less than feminine figure. In fact, combined with her wearing what were clearly a boy's swim trunks, she quite frankly looked like a boy to anyone looking, and there was nothing wrong with a boy being topless at a beach, hence why no one was paying her any real attention as they walked by.

But of course, Gaz's ego was too strong to admit to her less than flattering figure, so none of that logic was occurring to her. Hence why she was stuck standing there, too shocked and confused to move, barely able to think as she tried to comprehend what was happening… right up until a frisbee flew in from the direction of the beach proper and smacked her in the head.

"Ow! What the hell?!" Gaz exclaimed, hand instinctively shooting up to the throbbing spot on her head that the frisbee had hit, momentarily forgetting that she thought she needed to be covering her chest. Blinking past the pain that had forced the shock and confusion from her head, she looked down at the frisbee lying by her feet, and then up as she heard quickly approaching footsteps, seeing a boy about her age wearing yellow trunks walking up to her.

"Hey man, you alright?" the boy asked, Gaz blinking in further surprise at his phrasing.

"What?" she asked stupidly, unable to come up with a more coherent response as she tried to process the fact that she had just been referred to as "man".

"Sorry about that," the boy said as he knelt down to pick up the frisbee, "Me and my friends were playing, and I guess someone threw it with a little more force than they meant to."

As he said this, he gestured towards the beach, where a group of some other young boys were standing around, looking in their direction. One of them waved, gaining the first boy's attention.

"Hey, Larry! Ask him if he wants to join!" he shouted.

"Yeah, okay!" the first boy, apparently named Larry, called back, before turning back to Gaz with a smile, "So, wanna join us?"

Gaz didn't respond, too caught up in the words echoing through her head: "Hey man, you alright?" "Ask him if he wants to join!" Those words pounded through her brain over and over again, the male pronouns reverberating like gunshots as she finally connected the dots and made the shocking realization that they thought she was a boy.

"Why the hell would they think that?! I don't look like a boy at all!" she roared in denial in her head, too furious to even say it out loud. A small part of her was urging caution, suggesting that she play along so that no one would realize the situation she was in. But that part was buried by the anger and humiliation she felt at being mistaken for the wrong gender, which added onto her normal short fuse was a very bad combination.

Unaware of what was going through her head, Larry could only watch with a raised eyebrow as Gaz quietly stood there, hands clenching and teeth grinding.

"Um, you okay, dude?" he asked.

"I'm not a dude!" Gaz snarled, before lunging at Larry, knocking him to the ground, and starting to rain blows down on him while his friends looked on in shock. Now, it should be noted that social norms in this world had taken a certain twist at some point in its history — namely, the common knowledge was that fighting a girl, even if it was being done in self-defense after the girl in question instigated it, was fundamentally and morally wrong. This was why Dib never defended himself whenever Gaz lashed out at him, and why, under normal circumstances, Larry's friends would have stood by and done nothing to help him against the girl attacking him, since doing so would have automatically made them the bad guys.

But, as was already made clear, they thought Gaz was a fellow boy. As such, she didn't get that morally-obligated protection, which meant there was nothing holding them back.

Gaz had only managed to land a few blows on Larry when one of his friends suddenly ran up and punched her in the face, with enough force to knock her off of Larry and send her stumbling backwards to land on her back a few feet away. She tried to push herself back up, but was quickly surrounded by the rest of Larry's friends, who started lashing out with punches and kicks which pummeled her face and torso. And unaccustomed as she was to being the one receiving pain instead of inflicting it, Gaz had no idea how to react, which just left her open to more blows.

Finally, after a few painful moments that felt like hours, Gaz's fight or flight instincts finally kicked in, and acknowledging that she was badly outmatched at the moment, she chose the latter. Managing to force herself to her feet and shoving aside several of the boys surrounding her, she took off running down the boardwalk as fast as she could.

"That's right, you better run, jackass!" one of the boys yelled after her retreating form, before turning to Larry, "You okay, man?"

"Yeah, I guess," Larry said, wincing at the bruises starting to form where Gaz had hit him, "But jeez, what was that guy's problem?"

"Eh, he was probably just some freak," one of the others said, "Did you see the size of his head?"

The group all had a good laugh at that, then wandered off to continue their game.

Meanwhile, Gaz was still running, practically blinded by both her panic, her pain, and the fact that her eyes were starting to swell shut from the surrounding bruising. As such, she wasn't watching where she was going, she just wanted to get as far away from the site of the humiliating beating she had just taken. So, she just kept running, knocking people aside and ignoring their shouts about the "rude boy" running around, until she finally came across a door. She didn't know where it led, and she didn't care, so long as it gave her a safe place to hide. That was all that she was thinking of as she rammed her way through the door and then shut it behind her.

Panting heavily, Gaz leaned against the door, trying to will her heartbeat to slow down and her adrenaline-induced panic to die down, so that she could think clearly. Once she could, she knew it'd be a simple matter of figuring out how to both find some proper clothes, and a way to get revenge on the people who had dared to fight back against her and humiliate her like that. Then, she would-

"AH! A boy!" a voice suddenly cried out in panic. Head shooting up in surprise, Gaz realized that she had run into a changing room. A girl's one, specifically, as demonstrated by the number of girls in various stages undress standing around, looking at her in surprise, panic, and no little amount of anger. And it only took a moment for her to understand what had them so upset, realizing that that shouted warning had been about her.

"Wait a minute! I'm not a-" she started to protest, trying to explain her gender, only for one of the closer girls to run up, holding a spray can in one hand.

"Eat pepper spray, pervert!" she yelled, spraying the can's contents into Gaz's face. As her already damaged eyes started burning from the chemicals, Gaz screamed in pain and began running around blindly, before finally slamming into and tripping over a bench, collapsing into a squirming heap on the floor. And of course, that was when the other girls ran over and started beating her up, hurling insults along with the kicks and punches.

This lasted for a couple of minutes, before finally dying down. Pain running through every inch of her body and practically blind, Gaz didn't know how or why her new tormentors had stopped their assault, and she didn't care, she just wanted to get away. So she started crawling in a random direction, in the vague hope of finding an escape. But she only made it a few feet, before there was a sudden tugging sensation and, with a yelp of surprise, she found herself dangling in the air.

The reason the attacking mob had backed up was because of the approach of a particularly large girl, who looked like a female Austrian bodybuilder, almost six feet tall and every inch of that pure muscle. She loomed over Gaz, scowling down at the person she believed to be a peeping Tom, and reached down to grab Gaz by the back of her swim trunks, lifting her into the air and leaving her hanging from a painful wedgie.

"Show's over, perv," the Amazon-like girl said, as she started carrying Gaz over to one side of the room.

"I'm not a-GAH!" Gaz weakly tried to protest, only to be cut off the other girl twisted her hold on the trunks, tightening the wedgie and increasing the discomfort and pain already racking Gaz's body.

"Shut up," the girl said, as she came to a stop not in front of the door, but underneath a window placed near the top of the wall, which was partway open in order to allow for some fresh air. Gaz's damaged eyes widened in shock as she realized what was about to happen, and she tried once again to shout out a protest. But before she could, the larger girl swung her back and then threw her forward, sending her flying through the air and right through the window. She slowed down for a moment as she slid through the narrow space between the window and its sill, and then she was tumbling out the other side, hitting the ground hard and finding herself rolling uncontrollably down the hill the changing room had been built atop of.

The rest of the girls stood atop a bench in order to peer out the window and watch Gaz disappear down the hill, sniggering to themselves at the sight.

"Nice one, Gertrude," one of the girls complimented the tall one, "That'll teach that pervert a lesson."

"Yeah, and speaking of which, looks like he lost something in the process," Gertrude said with a smirk, gesturing to the windowsill, where a familiar pair of blue swim trunks were dangling from the window latch they'd caught on as Gaz had passed through.

"Ew," one of the other girls said, even as she and the others all giggled, "So, should we toss those after him?"

The girls all looked at each for a moment, and then unanimously said "Nah" with matching smirks and more giggles. Gertrude then stepped forward, grabbed the trunks, and then tugged back on them like a slingshot, before launching them off into the distance, in a different direction from where Gaz had fallen.

Speaking of whom, she was still rolling down the surprisingly steep hill, currently unaware of her now total nudity. She was more focused in trying to stop her roll, which was of course doing nothing to help her already excruciating pain. Feeling the hill start to level out and herself start to slow down slightly, she tried to grab ahold of something, figuring anything would help slow her even further, maybe even stop her roll altogether. The sand she was rolling through gave no purchase, but she did manage momentary holds on a few rocks, which halted her for a couple of seconds each before her momentum carried her on. But those momentary pauses did manage to slowly burn through that momentum, and she started to slow down enough that her vision at least started to resolve from a blur back into proper sight… just in time to get a view of a canvas wall right before she slammed into and through it.

Now rolling across a wooden surface, Gaz bounced and skid a few more feet, before coming to a stop in an undignified slump. She lay there for a few moments, groaning in pain, before shakily getting to her feet and looking around to see where she'd ended up. And as she did, her still stinging eyes widened in shock as she saw she was standing on a stage built on the beach, in front of a large audience seated on folding chairs, who were all staring up at her in surprise… and then, after a moment's pause, they all burst into uproarious laughter.

"Well folks, seems we've got a last minute entree into this year's World's Ugliest Child contest!" a man seated at a foldout table said cheerfully into his microphone, "I'm pretty sure it's a girl, though it's honestly hard to tell. But in any case, gotta give them credit for being willing to 'bare all' in order to win. Ha!"

That comment snapped Gaz out of her shock, and she looked down in horror to see that her trunks were gone, leaving her whole body — discolored and swollen from the beatings she'd received — fully exposed for the entire crowd in front of her to see. What unbruised skin was left on her face turned red as she quickly wrapped her arms around herself, but she was too exhausted and in too much pain to make herself do anything else, leaving her standing there as everyone laughed at her.

There was a sudden sound, like a small bell being rung, and then a hatch opened in the floor near where she was standing. A small platform rose up out of it, with a large golden trophy on it.

"And it seems the automated judges have decided!" the announcer proclaimed, "We have this year's winner! Give it up for the ugliest of our young freaks, everyone!"

"Noooo!" a boy with a misshapen head shouted over the crowd's mocking applause from where he was standing off to the side of the stage with a group of similarly ugly kids, "Why Shunk Wugga never win anything?!"

"Yeah, it's fair that they let professionals enter," another kid muttered, glaring at Gaz before wandering off the stage with the others.

"Seriously? I look worse than those guys?" Gaz thought numbly, by this point so battered and humiliated that she'd mostly moved past embarrassment into acceptance of the situation. She was starting to consider using the trophy as some kind of cover and just walking home, at this point resigned to further mockery, when a siren suddenly wailed through the air, the crowd rapidly parting as a police car drove up and came to a stop in front of the stage.

"Is there a problem, officers?" the announcer asked as a pair of cops exited the car.

"You bet there is!" one of the officers responded, "This whole ugly weirdo contest is already pushing legal limits, but we draw the line at indecent exposure!"

"And in this freak's case, it's really indecent," his partner muttered, gesturing at Gaz, "You're under arrest, punk!"

And before Gaz could even try to protest, she found herself being dragged off the stage, wrapped in a blanket, handcuffed, and tossed into the backseat of the cop car. As it started to drive off, Gaz opened her mouth to either beg or threaten, but found herself too physically and emotionally drained to do either. Instead, she slumped against a door, silently stewing over the fact that this horrible day had happened to her just because of what she viewed as a harmless prank on her brother.

"Well, there's a silver lining, at least," she thought dully, "At least Dib has probably been having as shitty a day as I've been."

With that, Gaz finally let her physical and mental weariness win, and she passed out with the knowledge that when she woke up again, she'd be facing jail time on top of everything else, but taking what little comfort she could in the assumption that Dib would also be suffering as badly as she had.

Except, he wasn't.

While Gaz had been rolling down that hill to land on that stage, the swim trunks which Gertrude had tossed aside had actually reached the shoreline, where the tide grabbed them and carried them out into the water. From there, the currents carried them away from the main beach, quite a distance down the coast, until they reached a secluded cove, and were washed up against its own portion of beach. They floated there for a while, before a figure finally approached and picked them up.

"Man, what are the odds of these showing up? Now that's a lucky break!" a now quite tan Dib said happily as he held up his trunks. His grin widened as he searched the pockets and found his money still secured in its envelope, meaning he was now guaranteed both cover and a means of buying a trip home. Then that grin turned into a smirk as he put the money away and folded up the trunks.

"Of course, I won't actually be needing them for a while," he said, securing the trunks under a nearby rock. He then turned around and walked away whistling happily, walking under a raised banner which read "Annual Paranormal Enthusiast Convention and Nudist Resort".

Dib had been incredibly surprised when he had stumbled across this place (not to mention confused as to why such an odd combination existed) but he wasn't going to question such a lucky break. After all, this meant that his sudden lack of clothing wouldn't be something that would make him a source of mockery when everyone else was in the same boat. Hell, he didn't even have to worry about the usual mocking of his beliefs, since everyone else here shared most of them.

And it definitely didn't hurt any that quite a few of the people attending this place were attractive girls who weren't hesitant to state their admiration for what he was packing below the waist. Yeah, that was a little awkward, but he wasn't exactly complaining about getting positive attention for once, especially not that kind.

"I'll have to remember to thank Gaz for what she did," he mused to himself, "I mean, I know it was a prank and she was trying to humiliate me, but man, did this work out nicely for me! Heh, I bet telling her that will ruin whatever great day she's been having."

With that in mind, Dib continued back towards where the main group of the convention was mingling, ready to have the time of his life.

But, that is a story for another time.

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The End

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A/N: Meh, as usual, the ending feels lackluster. I hope you all enjoyed it, and the rest of the story, anyway. Especially you, CC — like I said up top, this is one of my favorites of the story outlines you've sent me, so I hope I did it justice.

Please, review!