Bestest Friend II
(Chapter 2)
by Matt Garner

Friday night. The beginning of the weekend. And yet, Gaz's least favorite day of the week. Why, you ask? Because Friday was the day when "Mysterious Mysteries of Unexplained Mystery" aired.

The disturbingly pessimistic little girl sulked in the corner of the living room, playing her GameSlave2 as her older brother and his "best friend" sat entranced on the couch watching "Mysterious Mysteries." She grumbled to herself as Dib and Zim chattered endlessly about the television show and the possible ghosts, aliens, vampires, sasquatch, etc. that might be inhabiting Brooklyn even as we speak. They were both rather positive that Ms. Bitters was a poltergeist of sorts, and quite honestly, I might be inclined to agree with them.

"This is even worse than when they hated each other," Gaz groaned to herself. At least when Dib and Zim were at each other's throats constantly, Gaz only had to put up with one imbecilic "X-Phile." Now she had two wannabe supernatural investigators bothering her at odd hours of the day.

At last the show ended, hallelujah. Zim and Dib headed upstairs to Dib's room to read monster comic books, discuss more paranormal activity, and play some games on Dib's PC. Gaz grunted as Dib told her they'd be in his room, and kept her attention on the little purple video game system in her hands.

Finally, some peace. Gaz would have smiled as the two idiots headed upstairs, but she was currently involved in a rather taxing level in "MEAT! the Video Game" and her cute little face was fixed into a cold, calculated stare. Precisely 2 levels, one bonus round, and 3 sub-screens later, a tiny knock was heard at the door.

"Come in," the little girl called, still transfixed into her game.

A long silence.

Another knock at the door, this one louder.

Gaz looked up and raised one of her thin, dark purple eyebrows. "I said 'Come in!'"

A longer pause.

A deafening pounding on the front door.

"RRRRRGH!" Gaz hastily saved her video game, then stomped toward the door, her body language fully describing imminent death for the insufferable fool standing on the other side of the door. As if called upon by Gaz's foul mood, a rainstorm suddenly began with a crisp clap of thunder. Rain beat savagely against the windows as Gaz gritted her teeth and clenched one fist, ready to pummel the idiot who had bothered her. She then threw open the door and shrieked in horror at the image standing before her.

Lightning illuminated the night sky and was followed by a deafening burst of thunder. Gaz stumbled backward, dark brown eyes full of terror staring into the darkness before her, where all that could be seen were two triangular eyes, gleaming devil-red in the night...

Instantly the storm stopped and GIR leaped into the room, happy as ever. He hugged Gaz tightly and squealed "MENTOS FRESHNESS!"

"Get off me, GIR!" Gaz snapped, pushing the wet robot off of her and shaking some water off of her midnight-black dress. GIR stood vacantly for a few seconds, then shook about like a dog to remove all the water from himself. This, of course, succeeded in drenching poor Gaz further.

"What do you want?" Gaz snarled, pulling her now soaking-wet purple hair away from her eyes. Instantly, GIR burst into a long chain of unbroken speech. (You wanna' hear something strange? Listen to a creature that doesn't need to breathe speak for a really long time. No really! It's cool!)

"You have to help me, Miss Gaz! Master Zim isn't acting like himself anymore! I thought it was good that he and Mister Dib were being all nice to each other and stuff but now he doesn't ever make up any more fun 'world-domin...domin... um... take-over' games and he doesn't talk to the funny tall guys anymore and he doesn't even go into his lab to make little toy piggies for me anymore! All he does is spend time with Mr. Dib and I MISS HIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!" All that said, GIR clung miserably to Gaz and sobbed uncontrollably. He suddenly stopped for a second, barked out "OBEY DR. X!" then started crying again.

Gaz rolled her dark eyes and patted GIR's hollow tin-can of a head. "I know what you mean," she admitted, "I'm getting kind of sick of their buddy-buddy act too. I can only take so much of ONE stupid little freak bothering me all the time, let alone two... But what am I supposed to do anyway?"

GIR looked meaningfully into Gaz's eyes and simply stated "We gotta' make 'em mad at each other again!"

Meanwhile, upstairs, Zim and Dib were chatting away as had become their wont. Dib was grinning sneakily, trying to weasel some kind of information out of Zim, and the alien was shifting his eyes about, blushing a deep green.

"So who do you like, Zim? Huh?"

"I don't like anyone, Dib! Shut up!"

Dib cackled evilly. "I know you like someone! I read one of those little secret love notes of yours..."

Zim gasped and looked angrily at Dib. "HOW DARE YOU!" he demanded.

Dib shrugged. "It fell out of your notebook... so come on! Who is it?"

Zim gumbled a bit, then sighed defeatedly.

"Alright," he mumbled, "if you MUST know... I... kinda' like..." Zim bit his lip and Dib grinned eagerly... "... Gaz..."

Dib burst into insatiable laughter and fell off of his bed. "GAZ? HAHAHAHAHA! OH THAT'S RICH, ZIM! HAHAHAHA!"

"SHUT UP!" Zim yelled, blushing a deep, deep green. (Author's Note: I am not a Gaz/Zim romance fan, nor particularly a fan of any Invader Zim romance. I just thought this was funny.) "I'll bet you've got an embarrassing crush too!"

Dib smiled and shook his head confidently, saying that nope, he didn't have a crush, and secretly hoped that Zim hadn't noticed the excessive photos he had of Sailor Mercury all over his room.

Just at that moment, the door was thrown open and the scene was destroyed as Gaz and GIR stepped in, spite emanating from their diabolical stares. Zim and Dib shrieked in fear and hugged each other tightly, hollering "NO GIRLS ALLOWED!" Gaz stepped forward wordlessly and smacked Zim away from Dib. "It's time to put a stop to all of this, Dib!" she demanded as Zim hit the ground and cringed in fear.

"Put a stop to WHAT? I don't know what you're talking about," Dib lied, folding his arms.

"The heck you don't!" hissed Gaz, "GIR! Tell Zim the truth!"

Red-eyed, GIR saluted, then turned to Zim (now green-eyed again) and said calmly. "Master Zim, this is going to be hard for you to take, but..." The robot took a deep breath solely for dramatic effect, as I've told you before, he didn't really need to breathe, "...Scott from the Kids in the Hall... is gay..."

The horrified cry of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" echoed throughout all of Brooklyn, disturbing the birds from their nests and the bums from their dumpsters.

slap!

"NO YOU IDIOT! THE OTHER TRUTH!"

GIR whimpered and rubbed his cheek where Gaz had slapped him. "Don't do thaaaaaaaaaat..." he whined, batting his hand at her, "Ya crazy!" Gaz snarled in frustration and turned to Zim, deciding it would work best if she just said it herself.

"Zim, you're not a normal human kid! You're really an alien from the planet Irk!"

Zim blinked for a few seconds, then nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose that WOULD explain why I've got green skin and antennae," he mused. "Cool! Take THAT, Dib! I'm an alien and you're just a normal Earth kid!" A childish laugh escaped Zim's throat and Dib smiled nervously.

"Heheh... darn it," laughed Dib, "Howcome I don't get to be anything cool, huh?"

"But Master!" whined GIR, "You don't understand! You're an Invader! The Really Tall Guys sent you here to Earth so we could take over and they'd rule the Universe!"

Zim blinked at GIR and tilted his head. "Why would they do that?" Zim queried, "That doesn't sound very nice at all!"

Gaz smacked her forehead. "Irkens AREN'T nice, Zim!" she explained rather angrily, "They're evil, heartless creatures that want to rule everything!"

"Well, geeze, they sound like jerks," mumbled Zim, "I'm glad I live here on Earth instead of Irk..."

Now, this had been a pretty lousy day for Gaz. She had lost her homework earlier, had her lunch money stolen, played all of her games horribly, and of course, she had to put up with Zim spending the night again. All of this finally reached boiling point when mixed with Zim's aggravating naïveté and, without another word, she hauled back and slugged the Irken right in the face, knocking him out cold.

"GAZ!" Dib gasped, "What did you do that for?"

"He was bugging me," she explained with a minor shrug.

Dib and GIR quickly helped Zim up, slapping him a little to bring him back to the world of the living. In a few moments, the alien opened his eyes weakly and mumbled painfully. "Owwwww... GIR... what happened?"

GIR smiled apologetically to his master, began to explain, then suddenly had another short in his wiring and bellowed "Put a wig on me an' call me SALLY!" Dib groaned, shook his oversized head and said "Gaz was going on another rampage and knocked you out, Zim."

"Oh..." Zim murmured, then his eyes suddenly shot open and glared evilly at Dib. "DIB! What are you doing here, you miserable little Earth grub?"

"'Earth grub'?" Dib asked in shock while Gaz slowly smiled, "Zim, what are you talking about? I'm your best friend!"

The ID pak on Zim's back sprang to life as long, mechanical spider legs shot out and carried Zim back, away from the humans. "Speak none of your lies to me, child!" Zim screamed. "Invaders need NO ONE! NO ONE!"

"Looks like the old Zim's back," Gaz droned in a voice slightly more pleasant than normal... which had to suffice for a happy one.

"YAY!" cheered GIR.

The joy of the moment was lost rather quickly, though, on account of the fact that Zim and Dib were suddenly back at it, trying to kill each other. Zim had reclaimed his laser and was firing wildly in all directions, gradually destroying the house. Within a matter of minutes, a blinding flash of light reduced the entire house to rubble with the four current inhabitants buried somewhere beneath the destruction.

Keef, who had been walking to the grocery store to buy some milk for his parents, stopped and gasped at the sight of the destroyed house, recognizing it as the one in which Dib and Gaz lived. "Oh no!" he cried, digging through the rubble, "Dib! Gaz! Are you in there? Please be okay!" The kind-hearted little boy's heart leapt for joy as Zim, Dib, Gaz, and GIR all rose from the ashes, looking a tad beaten-up but still alright for the most part. "OH I'M SO HAPPY!" he squeaked, hopping up and down, "I was SO worried that you guys were dead or something!"

The four victims of Zim's insanity looked blankly at each other, then at Keef, and asked in unison...

"Who are you?"

Keef blinked curiously at them all, then flicked his eyes over to the camera that had previously been unnoticed to all and grinned deviously.

Suddenly, another montage began, playing happy circus music as Keef and his four new friends enjoyed a trip to the movies, rides at the carnival, and so on... The final scene displayed Dib, Gaz, Zim, and GIR all dancing strangely like marionettes while everything slowly turned reddish and the music became increasingly demonic. As the camera moved up, it revealed Keef looming over them all, wiggling his fingers as if puppeteering his "friends." He then threw his hands into the air and laughed diabolically as two simple words appeared on screen:

AN END