The Garden








"GIR! Shovel!"
"Commmmming!"
Spazz flinched at the sound of the metal shovel colliding with GIR's metal head. The robot turned the corner of the house a little loopily.
"I... got... it!"
He dropped it at her feet and teetered off to jump in the sprinkler.
Spazz idly watched him go.
"Let's see..." she mumbled, fiddling with the garden catalogue. "Plant one to one and a half feet..." She squinted, picked up the shovel, and slammed it into the ground.
The spade spasmed, twitched, and dug a hole exactly one and one fourth feet deep.
Spazz grinned and dropped a seed into the hole. She moved to the left a half foot, waved to the camera Zim was using to spy on her, and repeated the procedure.

ONE HOUR EARLIER...

"Spazz!"
She blinked one eye at a time, so that she didn't miss anything on the TV.
"Yeah?" she replied slowly.
Zim stuck his head around the corner.
"What," he demanded, "is the temprement factor of the ionization field of the Earth?"
"Shh..." she blinked slowly. Never moving her eyes from the glowing screen, she asked in a monotonous voice, "in Standard, or Currently Standard?"
Zim took his turn to blink. He hadn't even thought of that. "Uh... Currently Standard, of course!"
"Shh..." she repeated. A work commercial flickered by. "1.7034, if you don't count the interferences from the... things..."
"1.7034," repeated Zim, so he'd remember it. He didn't bother to ask what the 'things' were, since he hadn't even figured them into his plan. He ducked out of sight.
"WAIT!"
Spazz snatched a magazine from the floor. She ran over to him.
Zim decided it wasn't worth the effort in figuring how she moved that fast.
Probably a side effect from the medication...
"I think I know another way to blend in!"
She held the glossy magazine up in his face. He pushed it away.
"What is that shiny tripe?" he sneered.
"A catalogue," she said, pointing to the cover, where it was clearly labeled. "These primates 'garden' all the time. I looked in the backyard, and you don't have a 'garden.'"
Zim tapped an impatient foot. His delicate machinery downstairs awaited him. What was this dribble?
"What is this, garden?" he asked, not hiding his obvious hatred of it, whatever it was.
"It is a... collection of plants," she said, a tad uncertainly.
"Plants?!"
"Yup," she pointed to the picture of a plant on the cover, also clearly labeled.
Zim squinted at the picture. The plants didn't come with radio controlled lasers, or treads, or anything vaguely interesting and destructive.
"What is the point?"
Spazz frowned. "Well..." she said. "they plant them because they smell good, and they look good, and they attract bees-"
Zim cut her off with a scream.
"What?"
"Uh..." he decided not to get into his problems with bees.
Specifically, problems with bees and voot cruisers.
"And birds..." she continued, ignoring his outburst, "and..."
Zim waved his hand in annoyance. "Fine, fine. Whatever you want. Just don't interfere with the gnomes."
Spazz's eyes brightened. "Yay!" she giggled.
Zim turned and got as far as the toilet, when he turned around.
"What was that number, again?"

Zim glanced at a screen idly. Spazz instructed the shovel to dig another hole. He wasn't sure if she knew he was watching her, but he didn't think she'd care.
"1.7034," he muttered, typing in the numbers. He shook his head.
Amazing, he thought. It was amazing in itself that he thought this particular thing was amazing, since nothing much amazed him anymore.
But this did; her uncanny ability to do... pretty much anything. The only thing that hindered her was her... insanity. She could go from a GIR-like, hardly sentient being to an intelligent, conversational (though the conversations got very strange very quickly) Irken.
"Pity," he said darkly, frowning at another screen. GIR bounced around the screen watching the backyard, sticking his tongue out at the camera, which Spazz had pointed out to him.
"Pity," he replied again, though more forcefully. The computer refused to accept the number. He slammed his fist down on it. "Stupid computer! You take this temprement factor!" he glared at it.
It didn't reply.
"She's not wrong, you are!" he screamed.
It didn't reply.
"You're even more worthless than that stupid-"
"Zim?"
He paranoidly looked around the room for the voice. Spazz waved a hand close to the camera, and as a result, Zim saw her hand looming in clearly on the screen.
"Yes?" he murmured cooly.
"Don't implode," she warned seriously. "What is the problem? We can hear you from out here."
Zim frowned. "This dumb thing won't take that number you gave me, and..." a thought struck him. "You were wrong!"
Spazz sighed. "No, I was not."
Zim frowned again. Drat, he thought.
"I gave you the Currently Standard, remember? All your outdated machinery is still in Standard."
"Oh."
He blinked.
Spazz giggled. "I have a shovel," she sang.
Zim sighed. "What is the number, in Standard?"
She squinted maniacally. "Standard!" she shrieked. In the background, Zim saw his neighbor peer over at her cautiously. "Standard! So old!"
"Old!" chimed GIR.
"GIR! Put your disguise on!"
The cheery robot threw dirt at the camera. It fuzzed out.

"Oh."
Spazz glanced at the place where the camera had been. Now there was just a funny-looking stick attached to the house, with a dirty something attached to the end of it. She tapped it.
"Hello?"
GIR threw a rock at it, but in a friendly way.
The camera broke, and shattered pieces of exotic alien glass sprayed all over the yard.
"I don't think it liked that," said Spazz sternly.
GIR pouted. "I hope not," he said doubtfully. Then, confused on the litotes, or absence of, he exploded.

Zim grabbed the giant needle of medicine on his way out.
"Time to restock," he said sharply, motioning to Spazz.
She was torn between sitting still and taking it, which is what she knew she had to do, and running screaming from it in a chasing game, which is what she was feeling increasingly inclined to do.
"Hurry," she said between her teeth, shaking with the effort to keep still.
Zim ran over and plunged the needle into the glass tube in her shoulder. It quickly filled with the oozing, bubbly liquid. Her face went from strained to relaxed. She shrugged dreamily, a motion Zim had not seen done anywhere on anyone else in the universe, and mumbled her thanks.
"Like it?" she asked, motioning to the garden.
He glanced around. Pieces of glass were wiggling themselves into the ground. The side yard had two and a half rows of neatly dug holes, and one lopsidedly dug trench, which GIR repeatedly jumped in and out of.
"I made it!" he cried, stumbling back into the trench. "Yay!" he said as his head hit a sharp rock.
Spazz shrugged dreamily again, cocked her head, and said, "1.0374."
Zim blinked. "What?"
"That's the Standard number."
He blinked again.
"The temprement factor you needed," she explained, leaning on the shovel.
"Oh, yes, that."
Spazz eyed him. "What?" she asked.
He pointed behind her. She turned.
"Huh," she said, "the catalogue said this would take longer..."
Zim groaned and eyed the grapefruit. GIR punched his with a spoon. It squirted all over his face. He lapped it up.
It was the next morning. Spazz and Zim had spent all night battling with the giant plants in the backyard. There had been some mortifying moments, especially when the plants grew aware of the fact that Irkins are, indeed, ticklish. At least now there was a path cleared from the front door to the sidewalk, and the plants were contained in his own yard. He didn't think sentient, roaming flowers were normal on this planet.
Zim watched the grapefruit. It made no sudden moves. Picking up his fork, modified with a laser cannon or two, he cautiously poked a corner.
"AUGH! My eye!"
A tear of juice leaked out a corner of his eye.
"FIENDISH GRAPEFRUIT!"
GIR laughed and picked up his grapefruit half. He shoved it into his mouth, peel and all, and made assorted squishing noises while chewing.
"I will get you back!" swore Zim, throwing the offending earth fruit into a garbage can.
Spazz finished hammering a board over the window.
"That should keep them out," she muttered.
A green leaf tapped at the window. GIR ran over and tapped back. "Stupid grapefruit," spat Zim, still rubbing his eye. He glanced at the window. "Stupid giant plant."
Spazz laughed. "Here's your lenses, but I wouldn't put them in yet."
"Why does it BURN so?" cried Zim, rubbing his eye with his entire fist.
"Citric acid," said Spazz. "Silly." She yawned and stretched her spider legs. She glanced at him. He was still swearing and rubbing his eye.
"You're only going to make it worse," she warned.
He made some rather ungrateful noises at her.
"Hey!" she said, "that was uncalled for."
"Fiiiiiiix it," moaned Zim.
Spazz wandered over to a console and instructed the house to make base-based eye drops.
She handed them to him, and they sizzled as they reacted to the acid in his eye.
"I wonder if these HUMANS know the destructive power of their...grapefruit..." ranted Zim thoughtfully.
Spazz shrugged. "I should hope so. You said they were stupid." She stopped to think. She thought herself in circles. "If they're too dumb toknow, then most of them would be blind by now, but we haven't seen too many blind people."
"One of their dogs attacked me," began GIR, slapping a chair leg with a piece of bologna.
"But if they DO know about it, how come we haven't seen any warning labels on the grapefruits?"
Zim noted that thought. "Hmm..." He had noticed a long time ago that warning labels appeared in the most obvious places; "Please do not drink Hydrochloric Acid." "Please do not ingest Deadly Nightshade." "This is not a step." "To open package, tear at line labeled open."
He thought it was almost a shame they had those warning labels. One of his early plans had involved the Maker of the Warning Labels. But he hadn't been able to find who it was, or where he or she lived. This one fact alone,he reasoned, kept him from obliterating him or her. Along with the rest of the race. But that was coming soon... oh, so soon-
"And how come they eat them?" concluded Spazz.
Zim shrugged quickly and put the contacts in. His eye felt great. This was the closest he ever came to gratitude. Sometimes, he thought, it was worth it to have a genius (a relitive term, but in this case, relitive to HIM, and not the underevolved apes around him. They didn't even fit on the Zim-intelligence chart) around the house. Even an insane one.

He regretted the thought a minute later. A giant plant, a 'sunflower' as Spazz had called it, attacked them. He fended it off with the death ray he hid in his pen, and they quickly took off down the street.
Spazz hummed resignedly to his right. A car drove by them. Three seconds later, they heard the owner of the car scream, a crunch of metal, and the sound of something big eating something screaming and metal. They ignored it.
Spazz checked the glass tube on her shoulder.
"They made it leaky," she said, half bitterly, half cheerfully.
Zim shoved a reminder into the back of his brain; fix tube thingie.
"Did you do your homework?" she asked a moment later.
"Huh?" his thoughts of intergalactic conquest went poof! "Are you kidding me, fellow Irken? Their idea of 'homework' is a romp through the enlightened Invader's slime shell."
She squinted at him. "That means no, doesn't it?"
He nodded. "So? What do I care?"
"Well," said Spazz, "maybe it WOULD be a good idea to test what it's like to stay back a grade."
It took a minute for that to sink in.
"Aaaagh! This was to be collected and GRADED!"
Spazz nodded.
"Their stupid grading system! Skewed to the left-"
"You can copy mine," said Spazz quickly. It was easier than having to listen to his paranoid speech, which was really boring.

Dib peered around the stairs to the Skool. Those two aliens were coming up.
Ha! he noticed. The female one had totally different hair; SOMEone was bound to notice that!
Probably because the other wig was so itchy... came a voice from the back of his head. He shook the logical reasoning away.
Her sleek, shinning brown 'hair' glistened in the sunlight. "Wait a minute," he said out loud. He jumped out from behind the stairs and pointed at her. "I've seen that hair somewhere!"
Spazz froze and clutched Zim's arm. Zim froze and prepared a battle of nasty phrases in his mind.
"That Too-Pretty-Too-Nice shampoo ad!" Dib shrieked.
Instantly, every girl on the skool grounds screamed and huddled around her.
"Ooo!" they cried. "Your hair, SO beautiful!"
"Too pretty!"
"Too nice!"
Spazz stared at them, her mouth moving without sound. Several hands reached out like claws to touch the silky tresses.
Zim started to pull her away.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Spazz's high-pitched scream of fear cut through the girls' chatter. They stared at her coldly.
"We just LIKE it," spat one girl with a broken tooth.
"Yeah," said another testily, the girl with the iguana sticking out of her ear, "it's not like we were gonna, like, LOOK at it anymore."
Zim glared them all away. Spazz clenched her fists.
Dib frowned. A bunch of people had noticed. But had they REALLY noticed, huh? Huh?
"Of course not!" he screamed angrily. "OF COURSE NO ONE NOTICED!"
Several girls shot him a shut-up-you-moron look and continued on their way.
Zim marched up to Dib.
"Shut up, mangy sponge-like organism," he hissed. "Don't attract attention where it's not needed."
Spazz bared her teeth at Dib. He backed away a little. The last time he had seen her, she was in a homicidal-ish rampage.
"How, uh, are you feeling, uh, Spazz?" he asked as politely yet non-caringly as possible.
She tossed her glossy hair back. "Fine," she said softly. Then she leaned in with a maniacle look in her big eyes. "Juuuuuust... peachy..."
Dib backed away. He could see his reflection in her hair. What, had she stuck her head in one of those bowling ball polishing things? He was about to ask the question haughtily out loud when the bell rang. Spazz marched past him, smirking at her own joke. Zim made a big deal about going around him without touching him. As he passed, he whispered, "done your homework, Dib?"
"Why, yes, in fac-" he cut himself short. The image of his paper, his three-hours-of-working-with-Gaz-hanging-around-making-threatening-noises-in-the-background paper, lying on the kitchen table, came to mind. Zim laughed as he recognized the look.
"Noooo!"

Zim twitched like an undermedicated, overstimulated humanling in class. The teacher was especially apoplectic today, and while that was usually refreshing in that it was particularly insightful, it now was just annoying.
"The great blasts of fire will rain down," she droned, "from the sewers! Yes, none of you were paying attention. The sewers! The sewers!"
The two most interesting things that happened, the whole day, if you could even call them remotely that, were these;
1) Ms Bitters had remarked on Spazz's new hair in such a way that it was implied that it would be especially flammable on Doom's day. Convincing Spazz NOT to tear the wig off and run screaming in the middle of class had been especially trying.
2) Gaz had been temporarilly blinded by the reflection of the lights in the cafeteria off Spazz's hair. She had personally stalked over to voice her displeasure. Zim found himself directly in the middle of the ensuing fist fight, and cradled a bruised squiddlyspooch for the rest of the day.

"I think I'd like her if she was dumber," remarked Spazz randomly on their walk home.
Zim groaned and clutched his thorax. "Ow..."
"She's too smart. She knows, Zim. She knows..." Spazz's eyes were wide and full of warning.
"What," gasped Zim, "are you rambling about?"
"That... Gaz human. I want to play that game thing. She knows..."
Zim attempted to snort scornfully, but that hurt too much. He made an annoyed unbelieving sound instead, hoping to cover up the first noise.
She gave him a funny look.
"What, your organs?"
He nodded.
"Oh..." She looked doubtfully at him. Zim, on account of the pain, didn't notice the familiar glimmer settling itself in her eyes. "Maybe you need a BIG HUG!"
Before he could scream and run away, or kick her, Zim found himself on the recieving end of a very strong and very very very painful hug. He made a pitiful, breathless noise, then sank to the concrete in a heap.
Spazz didn't notice. She leapt into the air with a new-found insane little glee, and ended it with a spectacular twist. "Ta daa!"
Zim glanced up. The empty glass tube winked at him. "Huh?" he asked dazedly as the world slowly faded to blackness.
"I love this show!"

Zim decided not to wake up. He decided this because, he was certain, doing so would only make him want to slap himself in the face for something either GIR or Spazz did. Hopefully something Spazz did, because she could eventually come around and fix whatever mess she was about to make.
No... hopefully GIR. He wasn't quite smart enough to build neoquantum-based weapons and detonate them in the house. Then again... what if the two teamed up, and-
"He said I had the stench of a thousand blooming roses!"
Because this sentence was not at all what he had expected, his firm resolve not to wake up soon unresolved itself. His eyes shot open.
A giant, sobbing sunflower was resting his? her? its? face in Spazz's shoulder, if Zim considered the giantly giant flower to be the face.
Huge tears of pollen streamed down its face of patterned seeds and stained Spazz's Invader dress.
Spazz patted its thick stem. "That's okay," she said soothingly, "I'm sure it's some sort of earthly compliment."
The sunflower made a snorting, sobbing sound. "Only if you're a rose! I think he's sneaking around with that little bud next door..."
Zim rolled over and got up slowly. He called a lawn gnome over, and it assisted him in walking to Spazz. She nodded at him, but motioned for him to be quiet. He didn't mind; he felt he might do something unpleasant if he tried to talk.
Spazz made some squeaky reassuring noises to the humongous plant, then ordered it to get some vitamin D. It nodded its huge flower-head, then stretched up, up, up to the sky.
When it was out of earshot, Spazz turned to Zim.
"Relationship problems."
Zim nodded dumbly.
"Not feeling good, still?"
He nodded again.
"Hmm... I bet I can fix that!" Spazz fumbled with the glass tube in her shoulder. "Stupid thing..."
Then, suddenly, she swept Zim up in a bride's carry and slogged into the house.

"Hello master! I made a cake for you, to get better!"
A green, crusty piece of crumbly something waved around Zim's face.
"Guess what I put in it?" cried GIR.
Zim groaned.
"Nope! Pickles!"
GIR tried to shove the cake into Zim's mouth. Zim pushed his hand away.
"There's lots of stuff in here that you like!" said GIR. "Sausage, strawberries, salt... um... this wood cleaning stuff I found under the sink..."
"Um, GIR?"
His blue eyes turned to the side.
"Yesssghmmmghff?" he asked as he shoved the piece of cake in his mouth.
"I, uh... don't think that's good for him right now. Or you."
The little robot made retorting noises, then skipped off to see which species of slime mold in the bathroom required his immediate conversational attention.
Zim took a big gulp of whatever it was that Spazz gave him, and immediately began to feel better.
"Explain to me the wisdom in picking fights with the humans," he sneered.
Spazz sighed. "That's it," she said darkly, "blame me for everything!
Just because YOU don't see a particular need to-"
"If you are implying that I-"
"Oh shut up," spat Spazz. She shuddered. "If I were you," she hissed threateningly, "I'd get off my ignorant butt and get me some meds."
Zim glared and got the giant needle.
"Who," he said, carefully balancing the needle's weight on his shoulder, "administered the first dose?"
"GIR."
Zim fell silent. GIR seemed to like Spazz. Maybe he even listened to her sometimes. Yes, that's how he concentrated long enough to get-
"I think it's about time you fixed this stupid thing," said Spazz quietly.
Zim blinked. She had a habit of inturrupting his thoughts.
"Why can't you do it?" he muttered.
She lazily picked a lens out of one eye.
"I don't want to."
Zim found the sight of her regular eye and the human lens together unnerving.
"Take the other one off," he said quickly.
She grinned and did so.

While melding the delicate edge of the glass tube, Zim attempted at intelligent conversation.
"What's with the giant sunflowers?" She hadn't had time to explain their actual existance yet.
Spazz giggled.
"A complex reaction to the growth hormones in the plants' existing cells with the ExtremeStay glass in the camera," she said. "Want the details?"
"No."
Spazz seemed a little put out by that.
"Uh... why was that one sunflower... leaking?"
Spazz brushed the remaining pollen off her dress.
"She was concerned about a comment made by her husband."
Zim decided, and not for the first time that day, not to worry about everything she said, or made him think about. Such as; why would a sunflower have a husband? Why would it grow so big, and why did it have to happen in HIS garden?
"It's MY garden," said Spazz forcefully.
Zim glanced at her, almost dropping the melding tool.
"Did you just-"
"Read your mind? No," she smirked. "You have a tendency to talk to yourself. Do you get lonely?"
Zim was about to say, of course not, when she kept talking like she had never asked.
"Maybe that's why the sunflowers get married. They get lonely."
"This is a stupid conversation," spat Zim, shoving the glass tube roughly into place. "Sunflowers. Feelings. How inessential."
Spazz glared up at him.
"Sometimes it's NOT the whole world, Zim," she said quietly.
"Sometimes, YOU'RE the jerk." She sat up. "I'm making a Game Slave. Goodbye."
Zim was left to wonder why any Irkin, even one out of her right mind, would consider him a jerk.

After GIR's disturbing dinner of very rare pork chops a la mode with chocolate sauce, Zim found Spazz cluttering up his lab.
"What is THIS?" he asked, pointing to a hand-sized shiny metal thing.
"A Game Slave," said Spazz coldly.
"How do you know how to build one?" taunted Zim.
She turned to him, eyeing him icily. "I SAW one today, didn't I? It's not very hard to build, especially for someone with an immensly detailed background in everything."
Zim saw the truth in that and sat down next to her.
"What are you planning to do with it?" he asked, a little less insultingly than before.
"Befriend the Gaz," she said with a grin. She grabbed a funnel and started dripping tomato sauce into the Slave.
Zim squinted.
"This is what I am doing," said Zim proudly. Spazz glanced over his plans, written out on a piece of simple paper.
"A grapefruit gun?"
Zim grinned evilly. "If they have not yet exploited its citrusy power, then it is my rightful duty to use it!"
Spazz laughed. "If you want some grapefruits," she said, returning to her work, "go ask the garden for some."
For the sake of not getting up, Zim sent GIR out to get some grapefruits.
When Zim asked him why it had taken an hour to do so, he only replied, "they were very talkative and they like to sing. I like to sing! Lalalalalalalala..."
Zim snatched the offending fruits and put them out of GIR's reach.
"Maybe we should damage the ozone layer further," murmured Spazz, "and then hold the planet hostage. It's melanoma, or us."
Zim ignored her suggestion and fiddled with the grapefruit gun.
Unwillingly, he asked for her help. He could, of course, have done it himself, but if he got her to do most of it, it took a lot less time to build.
Spazz started asking a lot of weird questions just then, such as, "are you only using me for my brain?" and "don't you think this shade of blood clashes with the shade of purple for the intestines?"
To shut her up, Zim asked her his own question.
"Did we have any more of that, graded," he spat the word out, "homework to do?"
Spazz looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "Uh, YEAH, we did. A short presentation on an invention tomorrow morning."
Zim's eyes moved along the sleek body of the grapefruit gun. "Perfect," he said.
"An EARTH invention," she continued, rolling her eyes again.
Zim cursed.
"Aaagh! Why would they CARE about their own puny inventions? Can't they see MINE are so much more advanced and interesting?"
Spazz didn't give him the obvious answer to his question.
Zim wracked his brain for an idea. "Uh... what are YOU doing?" he asked in what he thought was an innocent voice.
She glared at him. "GIR."
He squinted. "You can't do GIR," he started, raising his voice.
"Oh shut up, I'm NOT doing GIR. I'm not telling you, because you'll steal it."
Zim made a humph sound.
"I'm not stupid," said Spazz.
"I know," sighed Zim.

"...and as you can see, I've got a two dimensional and three dimensional model right here. And as YOU CAN'T see, there's a fourth dimensional model over here, but you can't see it. Ha ha. Well, it's there,and I gotta tell you, it's spinning like crazy right now."
Ms Bitters sighed deeply. "All right, you overacheiving sack of green writhing mess," she said, "sit down. Next... ZIM!"
He looked up in surprise. Spazz's fourth dimensional model of a gyroscope had distracted him throughout her entire presentation. A gyroscopein four dimensions is actually very interesting. It's got this spinning thing with glowing spokes around an axle that appears to be made of Swiss cheese-
"What do you have?" hissed the teacher.
"I, uh, I have..." Zim scrounged around the inside of his desk, desperately grabbing for anything in it that was Earth-made, "I have a...uh... an...a... piece of paper!" He held it up victoriously. "A dynamic, dramatic, and puny piece of lined paper!"
He ran up to the front of the room.
"As you can see," he said, flipping it up and down in front of the class, "it has a front side, and a back side, and these little holes down the side side for no apparent reason. It also has..." he squinted at it, "opaque properties! Admire how the light goes through it, and strikes objects on the other side!"
He held the paper up in front of his fist. "You can fold it, and rip it, and... make scratchings on it from graphite. Yes indeed,"
He held it mournfully in front of where a human would have a heart, "a stunning and uncelebrated part of our community. Thank you."
Zim's shadow flexed and bent, and Ms Bitters appeared closer to his face than he ever could have nightmared it.
"See me after class, Zim..."

Dib smirked on the way out and demonstrated once again, in case Zim had forgotten, how the electric cattle prod worked. Spazz silently folded her models into fifth dimensional space and crammed them into her desk. Not knowing exactly what to do, she waited for Zim.
Ms Bitters did not like this. She does not like very many things, you know.
"Spazz," she spat, "get out of my sight."
"I have to wait for Zim."
Zim half frowned, but half wished she would stay and soften the disciplining blow he was most likely about to receive.
"Get out of here. Dib!"
Dib, being the last person out so that he could smirk at Zim, was the only other student within Ms Bitters' sight.
"Escort Spazz to the caffeteria."
Dib grinned madly at Spazz while reaching for the collapsable, electrical handcuffs hidden in his coat.
"My pleasure," he said slimily. Spazz uncertainly walked over. Dib pulled her out into the hallway and slapped the handcuffs on her.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" he pushed some buttons to lock them three times.
"You're never escaping now, alien! I'm going to dissect you myself, to see how many... uh... weird things you have inside of you!"
Spazz looked calmly down at the handcuffs.
"What are these?" she asked quietly.
Dib laughed mockingly. "What, you mean you don't have restraining devices where you come from? Ha!"
She looked thoughtful.
"Oh, so that's what this is. It is so primitive, I didn't recognize it."
Within a blink of an eye, she had undone the cuffs, shaken the funny feeling out of her wrists, and slapped them on Dib's. He gaped down at his bound hands.
"Hey! Whu- wh- how-"
"Did I mention," Spazz said tauntingly, whipping her brown hair at him, "that I'm brilliant? Come on! How do you expect your infantile antics to hold ME, who deals with things your brain can't even define, let alone understand, and thus are invisible to you?"
All Dib was left with was the reassuring fact that whatever species Spazz and Zim were, they had a nasty egotistical streak.
In the caffeteria, Spazz sidled up to Gaz so quickly, she almost didn't notice. She made an annoyed noise, and turned away.
"Want to play?" asked Spazz, shoving a spiffy-looking Game Slave in Gaz's face.
"Are you insane?" spat Gaz quietly, determined not to loose a point on this irksome little green girl.
"Yes."
The answer was not what she had expected. Gaz paused for a second. She looked up.
"It's got 40% more gore, 56% more explosions, and the cheat code for the Ultra Carnage Ray," said Spazz smoothly. She waved a thin chord around in the air and indicated the jack on Gaz's Slave where it could be inserted.
Gaz's mind reeled. A thing it did not do often.
Social contact... Ultra Carnage... social contact... Ultra Carnage... social-
"What's that smell?" Gaz recognized it before she even asked.
Spazz shrugged nonchalantly. "Mine makes pizza. Every five minutes or so. Can't turn the darn thing off..."
Gaz's eyes glazed over.
"Oh, it's also got this Enhanced BloodSplatter thing and a Complete God Mode," said Spazz, waving a hand through the air.
"Give me pizza, and give me death," demanded Gaz, snatching the chord and plunging it into her Game Slave.

Zim peered around the hallway and cursed. He rubbed his lenses where the teacher's spit had struck and stuck, but the ancient saliva just smeared.
"Uuugh," he shuddered and ran to the bathroom to replace them.
On his way out, he laughed at Dib, whose hands were bound in electric handcuffs.
"Shut up, Zim!" screamed Dib, as his alien prey continued running toward the caffeteria. "I'll make your little girlfriend pay!"
Zim took the time to turn around, run back, punch Dib in the face, and scream, "She's NOT my girlfriend!"

"GAMES?! You're playing GAMES with the," Zim lowered his voice, "enemy?"
"Shh..." said Spazz, squinting at her Game Slave screen.
"Go away, Zim," warned Gaz. Without loosing her concentration, she reached for a slice of pizza on the table next to her.
"Why do you think..." started Spazz slowly, sticking her tongue out at the screen, "I made... one?"
"I don't KNOW! Half the things you do don't make any sane-"
"Shut UP, Zim!" screamed Gaz. "Yes!" she found the Ultra Carnage Ray in the game.
Zim watched them play for another minute. They appeared to be fighting against a common enemy, which he found interesting. Mildly interesting.
"Even GIR wouldn't sit around playing that thing," Zim hissed at Spazz.
Her eye twitched. She paused the game. Gaz looked up at Zim angrily.
"I know someone," Spazz said in a dead voice, "who's gonna have a swollen squeedily spooch in a second." She stared at him.
Gaz took a bite of pizza.
They stared at him.
"Stop that," he said, holding his hands in front of his face, "stop staring at me!"
Spazz unpaused the game, and the sounds of guts exploding echoed through the caffeteria once more.
Zim stomped away, muttering.

"Perhaps you didn't understand what I was doing," said Spazz, fumbling for some papers in her back pack. Zim crossed his arms.
"Threatening an Irken soldier is an offensive crime!"
"In playing this destructive game with a human," continued Spazz, finding the papers she wanted and pulling them out, "I can evaluate how the humans will react to a bloody invasion."
Zim scowled. "They'd just run screaming, and some would probably turn the TV on."
"Considering the fact that they lack an Ultra Carnage Ray, they wouldn't stand a chance." Spazz handed him two papers. "Your homework," she said.
He glared at the papers. "What is with you and all this unnecessary HOMEwork?" he spat.
"It's really easy," she said, raising one eye considerably higher than the other, "why don't you just DO it?"
"And bow to their demands?!" he cried, throwing his arms into the air.
Spazz sighed. "You have been less than subtle in this mission," she said.
"So?"
"One of them knows-"
"Just ONE. And no one believes him."
Spazz got impatient. She flinched. "Ow," she said.
"What now?"
She grinned maniacly and ran down the street.

GIR had watched the garden plants dance for approximately one second before he decided he needed to go outside and join them.
The unhealthy combination of stress, paranoia, overmedication, and annoyance resulted in Spazz's frenzied race through the garden with a weedwhacker.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" she screamed, slashing through a tangled forest of sunflowers, grapefruits, and cucumbers. The plants screamed in pain and started pelting her and GIR with sharp seeds.
"Weeee!" screamed GIR, dodging lethal seeds.
Spazz squinched her eyes shut so they wouldn't be hit, and ran for the house. She felt someone grab her arm and yank her inside. She jumped, the person pulling her screamed, and they landed with a sickening thud.
GIR tapped madly at a window, screaming to be let in. Sunflowers glared and pushed him up against the glass. He giggled.
Zim glared.
"Why do you have to make everything so COMPLICATED?" he screamed.
Spazz's eyes fluttered.
"Huh?"
"Argh!" Zim snatched his arm out from under her and fell down. "GIR, get in here," he ordered. The little robot screamed and dug a hole in the garden.
Spazz jumped up, or rather, down. She had been clawing the ceiling the whole time. Zim glared at her some more, then ordered the gnomes to fire freely at the behemoth plants.
"I can't believe this wasn't any bigger of a deal than it is," he muttered.
Spazz danced around him, poking him and pulling his hair.
"Ow! Cut it out!"
She giggled and pulled one of his lenses out. He screamed. The scream startled her, and so she curled up in a little ball on the floor.
Zim clenched his hands. He grabbed the back of her collar and pulled her to the kitchen.
GIR tunneled up through the floor. "Hello?" he called out. "Master?"
He jumped and landed next to the hole. He pulled a severed sunflower head through the hole and sat munching seeds.
"We need to work TOGETHER against the ENEMY!" shouted Zim, pacing back and forth in front of Spazz. "Not you playing with the enemy, then making a HUGE MESS at our base!"
Spazz nodded overenthusiastically. She giggled.
Zim glared.
"You do not SEEM to be understanding the seriousness of this mission!" he screamed.
Spazz nodded again. And again. And then nodded off to sleep.
A sunflower fell from the ceiling and landed on his head. He screamed. "They've infilitrated the base!" he screamed, waving his arms around and trying to get the filthy flower off.
"No, master," said GIR as he glided down the wall. "It's just a flower."
Zim shrieked and threw it as far from him as he could.
"I told them they might be wanted somewhere else," said GIR sadly.
Zim squinted an eye. "Where did you send them?"
"Um... um... ummmmmmmmm..." GIR swung his arms around in thought.
"Dib's house?"
Zim laughed. "Sometimes, GIR, even YOU have a good idea once in a while."
GIR smiled and nodded, then frowned, then smiled, but stopped nodding.
"I didn't," he chimed, bouncing off toward the flower. "She did..."