DISCLAIMER: I don't own Invader Zim, ok? OK? OK???? Good. Glad to know that we have that ordeal sorted out.
Dib Snaps
Chapter 6: Aftermath
At first his eyes only fluttered, but soon Dib's eyes opened fully and yet he couldn't see much, aside from plenty of blinding white. Covering his eyes with his left arm, reached his right hand out and met with something that felt like a wooden table. He felt around it a bit and eventually found the familiar feeling of his glasses between his fingers. Sitting up slightly, he grabbed a hold of them and brought them to his face as he couldn't help but wonder aloud.
"Am I dead?" no sooner had he put on his glasses, he was soon victim to a swift punch to the side of his head. He cringed in pain as he fell back down, head hitting a fluffy white pillow. "Ow…" he moaned as a familiar female voice hissed at him.
"Don't you dare say something like that, Dib." He began to sit up again, but this time his stomach was met by a sharp pain. Before he could fall back down to the bed, a pillow was propped in between the bed and his back to keep him sitting up. He looked to his left with amazement and joy to see a familiar face; he could barely contain himself.
"GAZ!" he shouted overjoyed as his little sister helped him into a more comfortable position. She looked up at him with the look of fury; yet her eyes were red… had she been crying? Dib preferred not to question his little sister. That punch hurt. Suddenly, a sting of reality wrapped around his brain. He looked at his hands, and wiggled them. Yes, they were working… he had control of himself again! He laughed in wonder – somehow he had control of himself again!!! Score one for Dib, score NOTHING for… the Evil Dib… guy. He looked back at Gaz, satisfied and happy; her expression had gone back to being the way it always had been; same old Gaz…
"Dad examined your mind when you were out of it. It turns out you have a multiple personality disorder."
"Yeah… I know that much. I'm sor-"
"Save it, Dib. You don't have to apologize for that sick freak. The next time I see him, though, he's in for a serious world of hurt."
"Oh… speaking of which, how's your shoulder?"
"It's fine. I lost blood, but that's about it."
"That's good to hear…" Dib looked blankly at the wall in front of him; his eyes were soon drawn by what looked like… were those get well cards? There were some flowers in a vase from his Dad and Gaz, but it also looked like the students in his class had made him some cards. He laughed slightly; Ms. Bitters probably forced them to do it. He could only barely read them from where they were, but he could make out a few sentences on some of the cards. He wasn't sure if they were really genuine or not, but quite frankly, he didn't care. After all, it was the possibility of the thought that counted…
"Miss you…"
"Not the same without you, Dib."
"Well, now we know you're really crazy…" The last one he made out came from familiar hand writing.
"The sooner you get better, the sooner I can conquer the world in front of you, Dib-human!" He sighed happily. Things were right. Wait…
"How long have I been out of it Gaz?"
"A couple of weeks."
"Weeks?!" he looked at her in shock. She nodded.
"I'd say about three or four."
"I don't even remember what happened."
"Well, psycho you was going to kill me. He somehow ended up skewering himself instead of me. Anyway, some of the kids who'd been in the cafeteria at the time told some teachers, and they called the paramedics. I stayed in here for a few days, but you…" she turned around, obviously not wanting to show what emotion she was feeling to her older brother, even though it came out in her voice – plain sorrow – she continued, "they kept saying you weren't going to make it. Dad personally made sure that they were wrong. But, man, Dib," she turned back around; it appeared that she had successfully fought off her emotions, "evil you almost managed to screw you up pretty badly. That stab almost severed your spinal nerves or whatever they're called. He also sliced open some things when he pulled the blade out. What a klutz. " Dib automatically forced his right hand between the pillow and his back, and searched his spine. Sure enough, there was one part that felt like it had a thin hole in it, but the hole had been filled in with some metal substance. "Anyway, Dad hooked you up to a mind scanning device and found out that it was an evil you doing all that stuff, so you weren't put in jail. They don't have rules to punish someone who's not in control of what they did the way you were." She shrugged, "Or something stupid like that. I don't think the nuthouse wants you either, but I guess that's good for you."
"At least they didn't blame me…"
"Was that all you were worried about?"
"Well… kinda…" Gaz grumbled, as she turned to leave. Dib smiled lightly. He had noticed her acting kind of weird, but he preferred Gaz the gamer. Before she left, she turned around and looked at him with a serious face.
"Do you think you can manage sleep on your own, or do you need me to make you wander off into dreamland?" Dib laughed slightly as he gestured to the pillow that was propping up. With a grumble and rolling eyes, Gaz stormed over to Dib, yanked the pillow out from underneath his back (not nearly as gently as she had stuffed it under him), and Dib hit the hospital bed in pain.
"Ow…." Gaz paid no attention to him, and stormed out of the room. Staring up at the ceiling, Dib couldn't help but smile. He had experienced some pretty tough stuff – including almost being the cause of the death of his own sister – but things had turned out for the best. Or at least the better. He found himself placing his hand on top of his shirt (oddly enough, there was no hole there; he guessed that someone had switched the shirt he had been stabbed in) and felt stitches over his stomach. He cringed… how could his evil self had done that? A metal blade… a sharp object that passed through him… he shivered at the concept of his own frail mortality. He yawned as he adjusted his position in bed as painlessly as he possibly could, and allowed himself to drift off into sleep.
Zim tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and the main screen faded to black. Oddly enough, he was glad Dib was ok. As soon as Dib got back to skool, he could go back to being a pest. Zim had found it hard to admit, but he appreciated the motivation Dib's presence gave him. After the fight between Zim and the Evil Dib beast, Zim had been working on some plans. Somehow, he couldn't seem to create a plan that didn't involve Dib interfering somehow. Much to his dismay, he couldn't work around this roadblock – so he simply waited it out, and it had paid off in full! Finally, after waiting three weeks, the human was awake yet again. He grinned in victory as he turned away from the black screen. He would complete his mission, and he would need no help from this Evil Dib. However, if the crazed creature wished to go on a rampage again, he would have to face none other then Zim… and he wouldn't catch this Irken Invader off guard twice in a row! He proudly walked to the elevator, which took him up to the house floor. After all that planning and spying using a camera he had planted in the flowers in Dib's hospital room, he decided he needed a much deserved break… as long as he didn't tell the Tallest. No, he'd conveniently forget this ordeal when the time came for him to report in tonight; he had put it off for far too long…
Dib found himself walking through the black swirling world of chaos which he had been prisoner in for a good deal of this whole event. In the 'center' of this place sat a figure, not much different from Dib, wearing manacles and chains – just like Dib had, but there was one minor difference: this figure had manacles attaching chains to not only his wrists and ankles, but also his neck, shoulders, and waist. He didn't appear to care though, as he held a book with his left hand and wrote in it with his right. He was wearing his trench coat, but not his shirt (which didn't really matter, considering the trench coat covered most of him like a shirt) and around his stomach was some wrapped white bandages. It appeared from the red that was coming through the wrappings that he had obviously taken the worse side of the blow.
"What'cha writing?" Dib asked curiously as he looked over his insane other half's shoulder. He slammed the book closed and looked up at Dib with narrow eyes.
"None of your business." Dib shrugged it off as he walked over and sat beside him. His other half growled and rolled his eyes, but did little else. He opened his book again, dipped his pen in some ink (yes, it was a dip pen) and continued writing. They sat there for a moment before Dib broke the silence.
"So why did you stab yourself that day?" his evil half, not looking up from his work, responded immediately.
"That wasn't me," Dib looked at him in sheer surprise. The evil half took a moment of his time to look up from his book, and pointed his dip pen at Dib's wrists, which were still wearing the manacles from before, but the chains had broken off, "that was you."
"Y-you mean…" Dib sputtered as the dip pen began scratching against the book's pages once again.
"I do indeed. You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save your sister. How… noble… of you." He spat out the word 'noble' as if it had a disgusting taste in his mouth.
"That was…" Dib sat in the near silence, allowing the thought to sink in. He had done that, hadn't he? He felt his hands shaking as he tried to remember the moment, but to no avail. He sighed, and looked back over to his other self.
"So, you have a name?" He looked at Dib as if there was something else wrong with him. Sarcasm strong in his voice, he replied.
"A name? Oh yes," he looked back down at his book, "an entity created solely from anger and fury is bound to have a name as well! Gee, doesn't that make sense?"
"Well, I can only think of so many ways to address you, considering you're… well…you. So I think I aught to give you one."
"Bid." he responded simply.
"What?"
"Bid will do nicely." He looked at Dib again as the boy thought it over.
"Hey… you just took my name and spelt it backwards!"
"Do you have a better idea?" Bid's stare was also partly him leering, "I think it works nicely. What better way to represent a reflection of self." Dib sighed.
"Yeah… Bid… I guess that's fine…" as much as Dib wasn't a fan of his evil self having any part of his own name in his other half's, and he really didn't care for what the 'reflection of self' part was supposed to mean, he couldn't have really cared less. He had a long past few weeks – even though he was out for most of them. Dib stood up and stretched.
"I guess you're not trying to be super evil me anymore, huh Bid?"
"Don't get me wrong. Just because I'm in shackles doesn't change a thing about me." Dib looked at him simply.
"Still a crazed psycho lunatic?"
"I suppose that's one way of putting it. I'm still here; not just about to go anywhere. Except for maybe the outside world and do some cleaning up of worthless wastes of matter."
"Heh… I guess so…"
"Mhm…"
The End…?
Ahh… a classic Kirby ending! What with the ellipsis and the question mark… man, that takes me back. Anyway, that's the jist of this fic. I drew a fan art pic of Bid and you can see in the artwork section of my website. (Sorry I can't link you, this thing's being evil... -.-) I can't draw like Jhonen can, so I just drew it the way I do. Badly, I know. But still. Anyways, that's pretty much it. Any questions and/or comments would be much appreciated, as well as reviews. I like thems. Constructive criticism = good, but no pointless flames. Good? Good. I already know I've won the 'worst ditch effort to try to make Gaz in character but failed miserably' award for this chapter. () Heh heh heh…
A few other things to take notice of – I've been putting in tributes to other thing by using lines from other games and TV shows and such into the fic (an example would be the kriby-esque ending). Just for fun, see if you can find them all. I don't think there's too many, but I could be wrong.
Well, see yah around!