Eternal Rivals Chp. One

Eternal Rivals

Summary: Even with civilization falling to pieces around them, Zim was determined that they continue their deadly game, that Dib never diverted his attentions, and that his young rival remained the same enemy he met so long ago.

------------"The wall's cold and pale, the cage made of steel. Screams fill the room. Alone I drop and kneel. Silence now the sound, my breath the only motion around. Demons cluttering around, my face showing no emotion. Shackled by my sentence, expecting no return. Here there is no penance, my skin begins to burn." –Creed, My Own Prison

The air was as silent as the watchful moon sliding through the sky, if it were not for the rumbling hum of alien engines betrayed what might have been a peaceful darkness.

Sleep consumed the lower world, but the wandering dreadnaught was ceaseless in its search for resistance, scouring trees and rolling hills with blinding red spotlights that carved a swath in the darkness. The thrumming was loud enough to drive away the stillness that had once blanketed Earth's surface, scaring off hoards of wildlife critters by the thousands, prey that the owner of the giant vessel had no interest in. The driver muttered impatiently, eager to at last drive out the group of resistance fighters that had pushed back his schedule so dreadfully far from conquest, one taloned finger tapping on a console as scarlet eyes watched the ground with bated breath. He was certain, but still anxious, as nothing could possibly best his ship.

The behemoth was vaguely cylindrical in its shape, with huge bulbous protrusions that spread off from each side like a pair of swollen wings. Mottled in colors of a brilliant crimson red and a deep mysterious purple, with the occasional spot of black that pointed to a porthole for a gun turret or an engine, the alien ship stood as a testament to the incredible technology such a race possessed.

When nothing emerged within the next ten minutes, he didn't allowed himself to be disappointed in the outcome, certain in his own victory and eventual control over this dirt-ball called Earth.

After all, this little uprising was still not strong enough to rival his power, not like those battles of so many years past. And the thought caused another vicious grin to force its way back onto the small alien's features, twisting them into a horrifying grin.

In the end, Zim had already won, or so he believed.

How could the opposite possibly be true, when the greatest epitome of rebellion was already securely locked away?

{--+--}

However, not everything was as peaceful and perfect as Zim believed.

Soft hands padded forward smoothly, soundless and unheard in the winding and empty ventilation tunnels of the floating dreadnaught, as a single figure felt their way through narrow and tight-fitting shafts that curved in a complicated network throughout the ship. Memorizing each twist and turn, a single young woman moved forward with a determination that barely showed on a face creased in anger and ferocity. She would have loved to simply fight her way through but even she knew when one was outgunned and had reluctantly succumbed to using the stealth tactics that someone else had been so familiar with.  Given the choice, the girl would have preferred to not go at all and let some other agent take care of this mission; sneaking was never her thing and the young human was set that she was far more valuable in combat.

While all of her reasons for not being eager to go may have been true, the rebellion was desperate for help and no one had the proper headstrong attitude to have an appropriate alternative, so Gaz had grudgingly volunteered.

Quite a long time had passed since she was able to set a single foot on the solid ground of Earth, trapped high in the sky in this menacing hunk of metal. An aerial assault was impossible, so she had snuck on board by hiding in the cargo plunders that Zim had stolen from his conquests, waiting until the right time to enter the ventilation tunnels undetected when the guard shifts changed to a time better suiting her needs. All in all, the young woman had lost a good two days of sleep during the entry, not daring to catch a wink of slumber in that tightly packed corridor where she could be caught unawares. As a result, the usual dark shadows under her eyes were ever more pronounced in size, looking even more desperately in need of some rest than she felt.

She was dressed entirely in an ensemble of grey leggings and a black dress of a material that confused the ship's scanners and allowed her slip inside undetected, one invention of many produced by the missing champion of mankind, smooth and soft like a form of faux silk. Dark blue-tinted goggles were situated over deep brown eyes; pinpointing the location she was looking for, the simple DNA signature proof of what the resistance had long held to be true.

Even with slowly growing collective of recruits and stolen materials and supplies, the uprising was struggling, a mixture of ignorance about the enemy they fought along with lack of unity and effective intelligence hindering progress. Gaz knew about the enemy, but she had neither the knowledge nor willingness to lead, which left only one real option: find her older brother, Dib.

Even with whispers of his supposed death, everyone fighting the invasion knew better.

Announcements via the speakerphone on Zim's vessel openly proclaimed his capture in an effort to crush the spirits of the humans who still sought to fight against him, hoping to end their fighting faster. Some claimed that he was lying, that the talk of capture was only a ploy to cause the uprising to submit and accept defeat. It made sense; if Zim told everyone that Dib was dead, it would only produce a martyr and inflame tensions beyond even their fever pitch, though if the alien had the intelligence to reason out such a thing that was another matter entirely.

But she knew he was alive and probably held in the ship held by the egomaniac invader himself, or why would he place so much security to guard the lower containment levels, or keep his own destructive vessel back from the frontlines where it could take damage?
Not to mention, it was also part of Zim's personality to keep his worst enemy and prisoner close at hand so that he could gloat freely over victory.

In another slightly curiosity driven way, Gaz was also fascinated to see what her brother even looked like after so many years away, sure that he'd probably grown like a stupid beanstalk as soon as he became a teenager. He'd be eighteen by now, always one year older than his annoyed younger sister, an unimportant little fact of seniority that the girl usually had no trouble ignoring. Black hair likely grown out jagged like their father...

Yes, it would quite interesting indeed to see the changes...then they would escape.

She kept her mind on each step in from of her, glancing down every so often through the thin grating to see the guards wandering the halls on some disjointed mockery of a patrol route, mostly made up of robots with artificial brains barely fit for the duty of eliminating intruders.

Somehow Zim managed to keep them in line and made them retain obedience on some basic level that it was understood that letting unauthorized people wander in was incredibly against the rules. At least they were smarter—most of the time—than ever-excitable GIR. He didn't have many living creatures that actively served as guards on the Dreadnaught aside from the occasional weak-willed human who'd given up his freedom, and the ones that did exist were quite easily labeled insane. The easiest way to get the experimental monster guards to do their job was to simply seal off the area the intruder was present in, and just sic the beast on them in that enclosed space.

It was...brutal and not the most brilliant plan in the world, but decidedly effective as victims of this plan clearly showed.

Gaz, however, had no desire to become part of the food chain of one of Zim's slobbering lackeys.

Thankfully for the resistance, her natural silence was effective for keeping robots and horrific experimental monster out of her hair.

Soon enough the final vent rose in her vision, the safest and most subtle entrance to the prison in the lowest level, and Gaz placed a hand on the grating and peered through to make certain that the coast was clear before abruptly punching the thin piece of metal off its hinges with a strength that defied her small frame. With a small clatter, the grating toppled to the ground and managed to completely stifle the much quieter sound of her heels landing on the surface immediately after.

Only then did the young woman raise her head to take one long look around at the area intently, dark eyes widening infinitesimally and nearly unnoticeably behind the large goggles she wore and pushed the headgear down to rest limply around her neck.

The cell was approximately forty by thirty feet length by width and most of the space was taken up by a cylindrical chamber of a clear red, glass-like material several inches thick that housed the prison's only occupant. Of course the transparent cell wasn't furnished at all but did have something vaguely resembling a toilet; though Gaz couldn't even tell how the alien thing was supposed to work right and didn't make the effort of trying to figure it out. There were old food stains of varying color on the interior walls, as though at some point the captive had hurled his meals at the cell in a fit of rage and the mess was never completely cleaned.

The figure in the back of the glass room was crouched in the farthest corner where shadows managed to partially obscure him and prevent Gaz from getting a close look at him.

He couldn't possibly be that small... She thought to herself silently, considering the way that he was hunched up so tightly and how that must be what was deceiving her eyes at the moment.

Never mind the fact that simple logic dictated that his position alone couldn't have accounted for that difference in size...

But then the black-haired prisoner jerked at the light noise of her heels—how he had attuned to small noises like that was grudgingly impressive—and his head flew up, looking Gaz right in the face and for once, real shock and surprise was visible on that cold face.

Honey brown eyes were squinted and unfocused from a distinct lack of his usual round glasses, probably taken from him out of amusement of seeing the boy half blind and practically helpless, and those eyes fluttered in an expression of acute confusion as he tried to recognize her form from memory. Black hair was limp in front of his face and much shorter than she'd expected, no different from the same style Gaz remembered from her earlier childhood. He was garbed in a set of dull gray clothes vaguely resembling the uniform Zim himself often wore minus the standard-issue gloves and boots, and had a generally tattered appearance that couldn't have been very useful for keeping warm. It was an outfit that appeared nothing better than odd on him, exposing the handful of scars gathered around his wrists and ankles. Scratches and old scars crisscrossed down his arms, some of which that Gaz actually recognized.

The worst injuries that Gaz could see on the surface that weren't obscured by his clothing were a few blotchy bruises and scars situated around the neck and she guessed it was probably some evidence of Zim strangling him at some point, provoked or not.

But the rather large detail that caused Gaz to take pause most of all was how...familiar he looked. There was absolutely no explanation for his appearance—far too familiar and far too small. Nothing like the much older teen Dib was supposed to be.

No if anything, excluding the marks and clothing, Dib looked no different than the eleven and a half year old boy who'd gone missing so many years ago.

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