Chapter Four

They were just in time for the judging of a costume contest.

"Late entries," the doorkeeper scolded them. "You shouldn't have bought so much stuff at the vendors's tables, guys. Just five minutes later and you would of been too late!" He pushed one numbered card at Zim and another at Dib. He then pointed Zim to the center of the room, where the assembly seemed to have been waiting for him and only him. Row after row of costumed convention goers were staring at Zim expectantly, and applause which seemed to have been dying down, burst out again.

As always, Zim was only too happy to take his place at the center stage. He marched to the center of the room and proceeded to give a long, fiery speech about how they were all his slaves and how they had really come here to worship him, how the Irken armada was on its way even then but begging for mercy wouldn't save them, etc. Finally Dib couldn't stand to listen to this rant any longer, and rushed at Zim.

The finishing touch to Zim's "cosplay" was the spiderleg demonstration he put on next. As he jabbed Dib with the spiderlegs as he polevaulted and pivoted with them, easily keeping just out of his reach the whole time, everybody oohed and aahed. It wowed the crowd even more than the Naruto sword fight and the Keororo frogs dance.

After all that, the judges and the crowd couldn't choose anyone except Zim for the first prize. Everyone applauded like crazy as the MC handed Zim the First Prize, an envelope full of earth monies, and of course Zim crowed, "Victory for ZZZIIIMMM! Kneel before your Irken superior, you filthy inferior earth monkey worm babies!" The crowd did better than kneel, it applauded even more wildly, whistled and stomped.

As the applause raised the roof, Dib fell back against the wall and slowly sank to the floor. It just wasn't fair. Even when Zim came right out and told everybody exactly who he was and why he was here, not only did they not catch on, they loved Zim all the more for it. Meanwhile he, Dib, who was trying to protect them all, got pushed aside and laughed at. Dib turned around so he was facing the wall. With his back to the crowd, he covered his face and for the first time ever, thought about giving up.

A hand tapped his shoulder and he sighed, expecting to be thrown out, if not arrested or worse. He started to climb tiredly to his feet. However, the MC was offering him a MacMeaty's gift certificate. "No one believes you're actually Dib," the man was saying, "But since you've been trying so hard to convince everybody, here's a consolation prize for you."

The MacMeaty's double cheese hamburger with fries, shake and sundae that Dib enjoyed on his way home that evening was the best he had ever tasted. It was his first compensation ever from the people of the earth to the savior of humanity. Give up? Never!

THE END.

I just noticed the strangest thing happened. I started this fic from Zim's point of view, but somewhere along the way, I ended up more writing it as Dib's! Did that ever happen to any of your stories?

Is this thing on? Testing, testing... is anyone reading these?