Chapter Three:

Zim Wakes Up

To say Sasha was surprised was an understatement. Still, he was a talented and well trained agent and was only caught off guard for a second…and Zim…well…he wasn't that talented or well trained and so couldn't do much in defense when Sasha turned his surprise attack against him and he wound up pinned against the ground.

"Argh! Get off of me you horrible human!" Zim shouted. He tried to push the tall human off of him with his metal spider legs, only to find they weren't coming out. For a moment he panicked.

"Calm down, Razputin. I think you may be suffering some side effects from the mental world."

"Ahhh! No! Gir! Our base has been infiltrated! Quickly, computer fry the intruder! Someone help!!" Sasha cast a bewildered look to Agent Castor, who shrugged, looking a bit appalled at Raz's suddenly frantic behavior. Finally, when it was clear the young agent was not calming down, he doused him with a confusion grenade.

"Let's get back to Headquarters." He said, while carefully grabbing the now drunken boy, securing his arms so that he couldn't lash out when he sobered up again. "I'm going to teleport back with Raz so I can get him back as quickly as possible. I can't teleport all of you so you'll have to follow in the jet." Before anyone else could say anything, Sasha and Raz (Zim) vanished.

XXX

When Zim woke up again he started screaming. He had come to twenty minutes before, only to be strapped down in a strange room, now, his only conclusion was that his base had some how been discovered and he was at the hands of some secret government organization. (Which was…not entirely off track…) He tried to move his arms and legs and found he could not.

The tall human in the sunglasses once again was standing over him saying stuff. He ignored him.

"You wont get away with this! I'll suck your brains out! As soon as my spider legs work again I'll escape! And then you'll be sorry!!" Sasha sighed and nodded to a woman who was holding a needle.

Zim saw it out of the corner of his eye and tried, in vain to shrink away from it.

"No! Ack! Get that thing away from me! I'm normal! I'm normal!" Zim faltered into silence as Sasha held up his hand for the woman to halt for a moment.

"Razputin, if you cannot calm down, we're going to have to give you a sedative."

"Er…you don't have to do that…I'm a perfectly normal human earth child, really." Sasha cleared his throat.

"Alright…" Sasha said carefully. "I think we need to get you a cat scan as soon as possible. Until then, perhaps you should go back to your room and rest."

Zim didn't say anything, but rather, watched the tall human skeptically. Sasha watched him for a moment, and then started to release the straps holding him to the table.

"Now, if you continue to act in this insane manner I'm going to have to strap you down again. Do you understand, Razputin?"

"Huh, oh yeah sure whatever." Sasha removed the last strap and stepped back defensively.

im sat up. He tried once more to communicate with his pak so he could bring his metal spider legs out so he could squash the wretched human, and then slid off the table when it did not work.

My amazing disguise must be fooling them, otherwise they would not be letting me go. Ha! I'm amazing.

Smiling, far too wide to be considered normal and walking nonchalantly in a highly suspicious manner, he walked, very slowly, towards the door.

"Raz." Sasha said. Zim didn't answer, but froze anyway, then, without thinking he broke into a run and was out the door and sprinting down a hallway.

Sasha stood in silence for a moment. He sighed.

"That's not even the right way." He turned back to the nurse.

"Could you get a hold of Agent Vodello for me please. I have to go after Raz. Tell her it's serious and to meet me in my office as soon as she can." He headed out the door in the direction that Zim had sprinted.

XXX

Zim ducked behind a corner and stopped. Inside him, it felt like something like a fist was knocking lightly against his chest. He was vaguely concerned about this, but for now, he was more concerned with getting a hold of Gir. He pulled his sleeve up and looked, for a moment at a bare wrist.

"Ahh! Where's my communication device!? And…why is my skin this color?" Zim examined his hand, which was still gloved (Although not with the traditional invader gloves) He appeared to have way too many fingers under the brownish glove made out of some horrible…earth animal.

"Raz!" Zim heard Sasha's voice from down the hall. He froze and then quietly ducked into the nearest room, which appeared to be a restroom.

The minute he turned away from the door he caught sight of a human. He shouted and backed against the door. So did the human…and the human appeared to be shouting too…it was a mirror. Zim raised his brow and approached the large mirror cautiously. He extended his new horrible hand and touched the surface. In the mirror, the boy with the auburn hair and green eyes did that same.

"What have they done to me? Agh! I'm hideous!" He backed away once more, and frantically felt his back where his pak had been. There was nothing. He bit down on his gloved hand and turned away.

"Where am I? What happened? Who has done this to ZIM!?" The door opened and Sasha entered, looking vaguely annoyed.

"Ah…here you are…I could hear you screaming from down the hall."

"Stay back, human…or I'll…" Zim backed up away from Sasha. "I'll…do something…horrible…to…your head!"

"I'm just trying to help you Raz." Sasha said as he neared the now frightened alien.

What Is a Raz? A human insult?

"How dare you insult Zim!?" Zim ran into the sinks, as he was unable to back up any further. He was also beginning to feel a sort of panic not unlike the sort he had felt when he had found out about germs. This man looked a lot like the men in all of those corny sci fi movies Gir was always watching. The FBI and such. He wore dark clothing and dark plastic over his eyes like they did.

"I think you may be getting worse, Razputin. We need to analyze your mind to find the problem."

"No! Don't steal my brain! Stay away from my skin!!" He ran forward, trying to avoid Sasha, who turned quickly and held up a hand. Zim was lifted off of the floor.

Sasha approached him, stopping a foot or so away from the boy as he held him telekinetically.

"I apologize, Raz. But we need to find out what's wrong with you." With that he exited the bathroom with Zim preceding him in the air.

XXX

Raz had tried to go to sleep the night before, hoping that either, he would wake up to find everything was just a dream, or, he'd at least have a clearer idea of what to do.

Instead he woke up with Gir on his face. After pushing the robot off he sat up on the large couch with the creepy picture of a monkey hanging over it and yawned.

He wondered vaguely what to do next, when he remembered the call from the day before.

I guess I'll go to school?

"Er…hey, Gir. Where's the school?"

"I've got a squirrel in my head." Raz sighed.

"I guess I'll find out for myself…I don't…like…leave the house like this do I?" Gir shrieked and did a somersault off the couch. He ran out of the room. Raz raised his eyebrow and headed towards the kitchen.

For a moment he debated whether or not he dared to open the fridge. Finally, he did and took a cautionary step back. Something was oozing in the corner…but…that wasn't unlike any other fridge he had seen. Everything else looked fairly normal. He pulled out an unfamiliar canister and examined it thoughtfully.

"Master!" Gir ran in and dropped something at Raz's feet. There were a couple of items. He picked them up. A wig and two…contact lenses…plastic eyes?

"You've got to be kidding me." He said as he picked at the awful hair imitation. "And people fall for this?" Gir shrugged and grabbed the food out of Raz's hand. Raz sighed and put the wig on, adjusting it carefully. He looked at the eyes for a moment before approaching the mirror. After a few tries he got them in. His eyes were watering afterwards (He had poked them a couple of times with the large plastic eyes.) and the lenses itched terribly…but…at least they were in.

"I don't have ears…" Raz said slowly. "How can I explain not having any ears."

"The squirrel's eaten my brain." Gir said as he ate…whatever was in the food container.

"Your not going to be any help at all, are you?"

"Nope."

"You can't even tell me where the school is?"

"It's over there." Gir pointed in some random direction and headed back towards the living room.

"Yeah, great, thanks." Raz said dishearteningly. He headed towards the front door.

XXX

Raz had honestly never been to school. He grew up in the circus, and therefore, was tutored whenever tutoring was available, but he had not actually ever been admitted to an educational institution. Still, even Raz knew that School, was spelled wrong on the building. This seemed fundamentally wrong somehow.

Raz headed towards the building, his dream theory once again fresh in his mind.

Or maybe I'm in the mind of some uneducated psycho.

He headed though the front doors. The people around him didn't seem to notice him. When he got inside he stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to figure out where to go next.

Someone ran into him from behind and he was pushed violently into the wall beside him.

"Outta my way freak." A large boy with red hair and freckles stomped past him as Raz straightened his wig.

"This place seems welcoming." Raz said quietly to himself as he headed down the hall in search of some kind of office or something where he could find out where he had to go.

He finally found it at the end of a hall and entered quietly. The woman at the desk appeared to be flossing.

"Um…excuse me." The woman looked down at him, mouth still open.

"I don't really know where I need to go…" She removed the floss and set it aside. "What's your name?" She asked as she turned towards her computer.

"R…uh…oh." Damn! He didn't know what his name was!

"Zim." The voice came from behind him and was vocalized as if the speaker were cursing, rather then saying someone's name. Raz turned. Behind him in the doorway stood a boy with a long black coat and large glasses framing an equally large head. Raz looked over his shoulder, then, paused and pointed to himself quizzically.

"Zim…"The woman at the desk repeated as she typed his name into the computer. "You in Ms. Bitter's class, room 5." She then returned to her flossing. Raz had turned back to her when she had spoken. He now turned back to the boy, who was watching him carefully.

"Hey, thanks buddy." Raz said, as clapped a startled Dib on the shoulder and exited the room. Dib stood for a moment, bewildered.

"Hey wait!" He said as he regained his composure and hurried after the retreating figure. "You can't just run away, Zim! I know you're up to something!" He said as he caught up with the alien. "You've been gone for two days! Don't think I don't know what that means!" He said. Raz stopped as the boy stepped in front of him and cut him off.

"What does it mean?" Raz asked, raising his brow slightly.

"That you're planning some horrible scheme to take over the world!" Most of the children in the hallway turned towards the sound of Dibs raised voice. The majority then turned away again, by now used to the boys outbursts.

"It can't just mean that I was sick?" Raz asked, a little nervously. He had known the disguise was bad. He could have really used a couple of his powers at this point. Invisibility would be the preferred ability, although, in the situation, it might've just made things worse.

"I'll find out what it is Zim! And when I find out, I'll stop you! I'll always stop you. FOR EARTH!" Raz recoiled a bit, when the boy shouted, in case he turned rabid or something.

"Are you in therapy?" Raz asked.

"Therapy? What? No. What does that have to do with anything?" Dib said, caught off guard for a moment.

"Maybe you should be." Raz said as he stepped around the boy and headed, once more to his class.

"Hey! You can't call me crazy…" Dib frowned and crossed his arms. "I'm not crazy."

Dib frowned as two kids passed him, laughing quietly.

"I'm not!" He shouted at them as they hurried around the corner. The bell rang.

"Great, now I'm going to be late." Dib said, as he set off to class in a foul mood.