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As the day ended without any further complications arising in the Membrane household, the next few hours leading into Saturday remained unfailingly tense. Morning arrived at what seemed to be a crawl, and the professor had been up for a few hours already when movement began to occur in the upper living quarters. He moved about the kitchen with preoccupied diligence, already making himself some toast to consume as part of his usual breakfast.

Meanwhile, in the upper level of their house, Dib was just now beginning to stir, having not slept well at all since the argument he'd had with his father. After following through with his usual morning routine, he then headed downstairs for breakfast, entering into the kitchen only to find his dad already making his own food. He didn't bother to say good morning as he silently crossed the threshold to make his meal in peace.

Noticing his son as he entered into the room, Membrane could instantly sense an air of awkwardness washing over the kitchen. He sat down at the kitchen table to eat his breakfast quietly, watching his son with unchanging awareness and waiting to see if he'd actually try to make any sort of conversation. It didn't take more than a few minutes for him to realize that wasn’t going to happen. He considered whether he should say something himself, only to have his alarm go off, signaling that it was time for him to head out to his lab downtown.

Getting up from the table and heading for the front door, Membrane stopped at the entrance to their house to cast the kitchen another constrained look. Perhaps he was taking too objective an approach to his son's current silence. He thought about going back in there to speak with Dib briefly, but before he could make the decision to do so, his alarm went off again, warning him that he had to get going now if he didn't want to show up late to work.

Dib sighed as he heard the front door closing behind his father before gathering his food together and heading back up to his room. It was for the best, he kept assuring himself, certain that if his father had actually spoken with him, it would have just been for the sake of admonishing his behavior last night. The argument itself had kept him wide awake most of the evening, and so he'd spent a good majority of that time focusing on his next plan. Since it wasn't a school day and his father would be working until late that evening, he figured he'd use the opportunity to do some snooping about in his dad's home laboratory, hoping he could find something there to be used in his next scheme to expose Zim.

Approaching the door to his bedroom, Dib stopped at the entrance and stared into the bleak abyss of what had once been a source of comfort for him in his early childhood years. Before his fascination with the paranormal had developed into an all-out obsession, his walls had be meticulously decorated with images of space and dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars arranged above his bed. Now however, his room was nothing more than a dismal place of study, the walls and floor littered with countless pages of torn out notebook entries and semi-clear photographs of the alien that had been haunting his existence since the time he'd entered into the fifth grade. He wondered whether his father would actually go through with having Simmons remove all his paranormal electronics. The thought made him furrow his brow in frustration. His father didn't have even the foggiest clue or insight about anything he'd done over the past five years to prevent Zim's multiple attempts at taking over the world.

Huffing out a bitter sigh, Dib continued into his room with purposeful inclination. If his father wasn't going to listen to him about his beliefs regarding Zim, then he'd just have to find a way to obtain some physical proof of his presumed-to-be "insanity." Pulling up a chair and dropping into it carelessly, he then reached to open a file on his computer screen, said document containing a compilation of what he felt to be the best images of Zim he'd captured thus far. Most of them were partially blurry still though, which made presenting them as conclusive evidence problematic. But perhaps he could find something in his father's home lab to help clear up any ambiguity in their appearance.

Hopping up from his computer chair, Dib hurried down into the living room outside his kitchen and stood for a moment at the threshold to his father's lab. Membrane had warned him on countless occasions already that he wasn't to use his technology for any paranormal research he was conducting. And with the weight of his father's stated punishment still hanging over him like a cloud, there could be no doubt in his mind that if he got caught down there, his days of being left to his own devices would be over.

Dib took a tentative step past the doorway's intimidating entrance, then another, and another until finally he'd descended to the final platform of the stairway leading into the basement level lab he'd always been told to stay out of. As usual, the inside was flawlessly immaculate, with each piece of technology looking nearly as pristine as the day it had been purchased. If nothing else, his father always kept a clean work environment, stating to his kids on more than one occasion how important it was to maintain the equipment they worked with for the sake of keeping it in proper functioning order.

He entered into the lab a little further, the memory of their previous argument still hammering away inside his head.

He hoped he could find something useful near the back of the lab as opposed to the front of it as he didn't want to risk having his father notice that anything was amiss. Approaching a corner he hadn't previously explored before, Dib stopped in his tracks when something out of the ordinary caught his attention. It was a single machine of some sort, heavily coated in dust particles. Well that was a first, he thought to himself as he reached to brush off some of the concealing granules. Glancing around at some of the other workstations in the area, he then noted that they were all clean and organized aside from this one invention. Drawing a hand across the apparatus' surface once more, he stopped once his fingers came into contact with what appeared to be a hidden panel on the device. Dib reached to pull the panel loose from its location, successfully jarring it free after a few attempts and reaching his hand in to search its inner workings.

To his surprise, no wires or electrical circuits greeted his hand at the intrusion. Instead, what felt like a collection of wafer-thin notebook pages were wedged into a compartment that appeared to serve no other purpose besides concealing their whereabouts. He pulled the delicate leaflets out with care, hardly having time to actually thumb his way through them before a sudden click from upstairs and the sound of a door opening towards the front of the house had Dib stuffing the papers into his pocket and bolting for the lab’s exit. He half-assumed it was his father, returning home to retrieve something he may have forgotten, but just as he reached the entrance to the living room quarters, he instead came face to face with Simmons, his father's personal assistant, most likely sent there to check in on him at the professor's orders.

"Oh hello, Dib." Simmons greeted him as he walked in through the door. "I'm...sorry about what happened." he said in a voice reflecting his empathy over the situation that had occurred.

Dib just shrugged and looked down to the ground with disguised nonchalance. "I guess you're here to take my computer and everything else away, huh?" he spoke in cool-tempered tones.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so..." Simmons shot him another look of conviction before clearing his throat to continue. "I'm really sorry, but it's what your dad wants me to do, so if you could just show me to your room so we can get this over with now rather than later, it'll be for the best." he said with an impartiality to his voice that he'd been forced to hone years prior when he'd first begun working with Membrane on a more professional level. He only hoped that the raven-haired teen wouldn't give him any trouble, knowing from past experience just how stubborn he could be at times.

"Right." Dib didn't bother with trying to argue, having already schooled his temper down to a less-bothered composure overnight. After all, the last thing he needed was to be getting into anymore trouble.

Taking Simmons up to his room, they then went ahead and started boxing things up, though Simmons did allow Dib to keep at least his laptop, having him promise not to use it for anything paranormal-related and just for entertainment purposes only. It the least he felt he could do after hearing from Membrane about the argument that had ensued shortly following what had happened at the ceremony event. But Dib no longer had access to his desktop, cameras, or anything else he had used for research on the paranormal in the past. Thankfully for him however, and unbeknownst to Simmons, he used his laptop primarily as it was just easier for him to carry around with him.

After finishing up their packing and saying their goodbyes, Simmons then left the household, leaving Dib alone again to go about his own devices. Stepping into his now almost empty room, void of nearly all his technology save for his laptop, Dib surveyed the barren wasteland with a feeling of melancholy that warred with his desire to sit back down and pore over the crumpled note pages still hidden inside his pocket. He was at least grateful that Simmons had allowed him to keep hold of his laptop. But if he was caught using it to perform anything even remotely paranormal-related, he'd surely be in for it big time.

As Dib sat at his desk to finally begin looking through the notes he'd acquired, he couldn't help but take notice of the time currently displayed on his alarm clock. It was getting late in the afternoon already so he'd only have a handful of hours left to actually continue his snooping in the professor's lab. Turning on his lamp light and smoothing over the wrinkled notebook entries, Dib then began reading through them diligently. They seemed to speak of calculations for a time machine, each documented note written in the unmistakable script that served as his father's handwriting.

"Time machine? What would dad need something like that for?" Dib asked himself cryptically before then noticing a list of catalogued dates to the side, all dating back farther than the recorded year Membrane had supposedly begun work on said invention. If he was reading his father's old notes correctly, he had begun work on this contraption just years following his own birth. But the list of dates included in his father's schematics also dated as far back as ten years preceding that.

He considered the dates thoughtfully for a moment before then realizing that some of the dates noted were likely from right before his father had entered into college, and met his mother. "No way...Dad would never make an attempt to alter the timeline...would he? I mean, he even did an entire segment on his show a few years back about how dangerous something like that could be. Though, then again, I suppose he could have just been developing it for scientific purposes at the time. Maybe just to prove that something like it could be built." he reasoned to himself, continuing to flip through the notes for more information. That's when he came across the final page of Membrane's writing, filled with multiple sections that had been crossed out and rewritten before they then ended rather abruptly, as though the calculations had been abandoned at that point.

"Hmm? I wonder what made dad stop his research on this invention. It looks like all the calculations were lining up with each other, and if I'm reading these notes correctly, it only needed a little more work to be completed." he said before flipping the page over to look at its backside, only to find a few more marked dates scribbled onto it with relevant footnotes added in next to some of them, better explaining their reason for being there.

December 6, xxxx-First encounter with the rest of my life.

December 20, xxxx-The Christmas party.

January 10, xxxx-First official date.

Dib read down the list in idle concentration before then placing the paper down and glancing behind himself, as if considering something for a moment.

If the contraption he had been investigating earlier really was a time machine, and his father's notes on it all really were pointing towards its near completion, then what would be the harm in completing said invention? Obviously, there was the small contingency that no MAJOR changes be made to the timeline, but he wasn't stupid and considered whether such a mechanism could be used to his benefit in doing away with Zim once and for all. For years already, Zim had been struggling to make due with his limited Irken resources and the severely under-advanced technology Earth had to offer. So then how much harm could he do in the past if he were sent roughly 200 years back, to a time when human civilization had very little, if any, technology at all? He wouldn't have access to his base in the past, let alone a way to leave Earth OR contact his own species. So in other words, he would be stranded and no longer able to wreak havoc on him or the rest of humanity ever again.

An all too impulsive smile crept onto Dib's face at the thought and remained frozen on his features as he began digging through his father's notes for the more detailed schematics he'd come across inside them. It would work, he told himself, with more than abundant enthusiasm. And it wasn't like he hadn't inherited his father's knack for constructing complex machinery.

With hardly a second thought or hesitation, Dib bounced his way back down to his father's home lab, chattering away to himself as he often did when excited about something and beginning his work without delay.

QQQQQ

On the Sunday following Dib's unexpected discovery, Zim, meanwhile, sat hunched over a table within his lower labs, diligently working on his next evil scheme. For weeks now, he had been developing a brand new brainwashing device he intended to use as a means of bending the wills of humans. The device itself was virtually finished already, but he still needed a place to test the thing out at. Sitting back in his chair to marvel at his latest handiwork, Zim then stretched his arms out directly above his head, trying to decide on when and where to test his new device until the all too familiar voice of his insane little SIR unit came racing to his antennae.

"TTAAAAAAQQUUUUITOOOS!" Gir suddenly came screaming into the room, effectively disrupting Zim's current thought process. "WE-WE GOTTA GO GET SOME!!" he then continued in apprehensive desperation.

"No, Gir." Zim dismissed his minion's outburst, glaring down at the small robot, who in that moment was wearing nothing but Krazy Taco merchandise. "...Why are you wearing all that anyways?" he then asked, eyeing the android up and down for a moment with obvious distaste.

"The taquitos! The taquitos!!!" Gir insisted again before grabbing a remote for one of the nearby monitors and switching it over to a channel advertisement for the Krazy Taco corporation.

"Hey there, all you Krazy Taco fans, have we got an event for you! Join us here today for the grand unveiling of one of our NEWEST menu items: Spicy Salsa Taquitos! For a limited time only, we'll be offering free sides and a drink with every purchase made! So don't miss out on this Spicy Salsa Sunday event at a Krazy Taco establishment near you!" the commercial ended and Gir started weaving himself in and out of the between of Zim's legs.

"I need them! I NEED THEM!" Gir shouted at him with hardly flagging intensity, grabbing at the front of Zim's uniform and pulling at it dramatically.

Zim sighed out in obvious frustration and rolled his eyes at Gir's begging. "If I take you to this thing, will you leave me to my work for the rest of the day?" he asked, yanking his uniform away from the gushing green moron.

"YES! I NEED THOSE TAQUITOS!" Gir bellowed out again, starting to run around the entirety of the room now.

"GIR!" Zim yelled at the robot, making him stop in his tracks for just a mere moment. Grabbing the brainwashing device he'd been working on all afternoon, he then beckoned Gir over to him, the small android still vibrating with blissful anticipation. "Here, while we're there, we can test out my new device." he said, opening up Gir's head to put the gadget inside. But just as he opened it to insert his invention, a scrawny-looking cat then pounced out from within and attached itself to Zim's face, causing the invader to shout out in surprise and back up a few steps. "GIR!" he hissed a second time, this time throwing the cat off of himself and glaring at the SIR unit, who was now a giggling mess on the floor. "Haha, very funny, Gir." Zim spoke in sharp, stabbing tones, grabbing his minion by the head and shoving the device inside. "Now go get your disguise on and meet me at the front door, understand?" Zim held onto the robot's head, nodding it up and down in compliance.

"UH-HUH!" Gir affirmed with whimsical excitement, whirling around in his spot and running off to do as he had been told.

Zim shook his head with reluctant capitulation before equipping his own disguise and going to take the elevator back up to his base's living quarters. Upon arriving in the topside of his base, he then headed over to the door, noticing that Gir was already there and waiting with as much patience as could be expected, which to say the very least, wasn't a lot at all.

"Come on, Gir. Let's just get going already. The sooner we get this over with, the better." Zim said as he attached a leash to Gir's collar and opened the door to leave. Before he could take even a single step outside the door however, he instantly regretted putting on Gir's leash as the dog-disguised android simply bolted out the door, using his rockets to propel them through the streets. "GIIIIRRR! STOOOOP!" Zim screeched out in vain but all to no avail as he could already see the street rushing by below them.

"WWHHHEEEEE! TAAAQUIITOSS!" Gir screamed as they soared towards the Krazy Taco at what was nearly super sonic speed.

"GIIIIRRR!" Zim shouted out again, holding onto the leash as tightly as he could. Letting go now would surely leave him with one nasty road burn that he definitely did NOT want to deal with. Thankfully for him though, they reached their destination in record time, coming to an unpleasant halt and causing Zim to go flying into the backside of his SIR unit’s head before stumbling away in pain and letting go of the leash to help center himself again. "Gir...Don't do that...again..." he spoke in broken syllables, all the muscles in his legs feeling as though they'd been liquified.

"OKIEE DOKIE!" Gir flashed Zim an aggravating smile, not seeming at all phased by the demand as he wandered into the fast food restaurant ahead of his master, the door opening with a soft click and jingling of a bell. Zim was quick to recover and follow him inside.

Meanwhile, back at the Membrane residence, Dib pulled back from his work with a long and exhausted stretch, his eyes aching from poring over complicated schematics and joints cramping from what felt like a virtually endless task now. He was almost done making adjustments to his father's time machine though and searched the lab for a clock he could check the time with. It was nearly 4:00 in the afternoon now and his father wouldn't be expected back until 11:00 at the earliest.

"Perfect." Dib cheered, rising to his feet and heading for the exit. He was right on schedule to finish by that evening, granted he didn't take too long relishing in what he felt to be a well-deserved break. He needed some time to clear his head of formulas and convoluted math equations though and so pocketed the keys to his household before heading out to pick himself up a Suck Munkey. With the exception of a six hour break he'd taken during night, Dib had been working nearly nonstop now to complete his final adjustments.

He breathed in a breath of fresh autumn air, the brisk, mid-afternoon atmosphere a welcome transition from the otherwise sterile environment he'd been hunched over in for the past eleven hours.

Approaching the local gas station located across from the Krazy Taco restaurant, he then stopped in his tracks when he noticed an all too familiar green android exiting the establishment. Much to Zim's dismay, the line inside the restaurant had turned out to be longer than he had expected. So rather than dealing with Gir's unbridled excitement as they waited in line to reach the front cashier, he'd instead opted for sending the poorly- disguised SIR unit to wait outside on the curb, knowing from experience already that if he left Gir alone to do his own ordering, he'd likely try to buy out the entire restaurant, something he didn't have the moneys to cover.

Dib could have cried at the all too opportune timing. As he'd been slaving away to complete his father's time machine, he'd been contemplating the entire time on how he might lure Zim to his house so he could use it to do away with him. After all, it wasn't like he could just INVITE the Irken over to his father's lab. Such an approach would be far too obvious a trap. But there was no denying Zim couldn't just abandon his moron sidekick. After all, the two had been stuck together since the start of Zim's mission, and even though the Irken wouldn't openly admit it, they seemed to share a peculiar sort of camaraderie with one another.

With an uncharacteristic lift in his current state of mind, Dib rushed inside the gas station to pick up an assortment of snack items, more than satisfied already with how this short-lived excursion was playing out for him thus far. Returning back to the parking lot outside the service station, he then crossed the street to approach the android in question.

"Psst! Hey! Zim's little green robot dog thing!" he gestured from a hiding spot off to the side of the restaurant, wanting to make sure Zim didn't spot him outside in the open.

Gir didn't respond to the call at first, his gaze remaining fixed on a spot in the distance, it seemed.

"Eh...err...What was it again? Gir, I think? Yeah! Hey, Gir!" he tried again in the same hushed tones he'd addressed the robot with the first time.

The SIR unit turned his head to look at Dib this time, his expression remaining unchanged though as he stared at the teenager with an eerie lack of his usual insanity.

Dib hesitated for a moment to continue before pulling out some of the snacks that he had purchased and waving them around in front of the android's face. "Want to come with me to my house? If you do, I'll feed you lots of snacks." he said in as tempting a voice as he could muster.

Gir stared at the boy seriously for a moment before then erupting into a fit of vehement hysteria. "TAQUITOS!!! MUST HAVE SPICY SALSA TAQUITOS!!!" he screamed, drawing in the attention of a few pedestrians passing by on the street.

Panicking at the unexpected and abrupt outburst, Dib attempted to change his strategy. "Eh...W-What about pizza from Bloaty's Pizza Hog! Or...umm...A bucket of Chicky Licky fried chicken!" he offered, though the robot only continued to wail about Spicy Salsa Sunday. "Burgers from MacMeaties?" Dib could quickly feel his opportunity to lure Zim into a trap dissipating into thin air with each refused food item. He then stopped to think for a moment about what else he could offer the howling SIR unit. "Ummm...H-How about SUCK MUNKEY SUNDAY!" he suggested in a last ditch effort to win the android over.

Gir cut short his frenzied sobbing at the proposed gas station treat and stared at the teen with riveted recognition. "OKIEE DOKIE, MARY!" he chirped with renewed contentment, holding his hand out to Dib so the other could lead him back to his house.

Dib couldn't help but blink in stunned astonishment that that had actually worked. He cast the surrounding area a shrewd once over with his eyes and then took the disguised android's paw into his own hand. He suddenly felt invulnerable as the pieces to his plan slowly started falling into place. Now all he needed to do was finish the adjustments to his father's time machine and the trap would be set.

Taking off in the direction of his house, Dib picked up the promised Suck Munkey for Gir along the way while teasing him with the agreement to pick him up some Spicy Salsa Taquitos later on if he just waited for Zim at his house.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Zim finally exited the restaurant. It had taken him only 15 minutes to realize that his device was still in Gir's head and that getting out of line to retrieve it would mean having to wait an even longer time to reach the front counter. So instead of heading back out to retrieve Gir from the parking lot, he merely got the android's order to go before exiting the building to locate his waiting minion. As he departed from the fast food establishment however, the first thing he noticed upon stepping outside was the distinct absence of Gir anywhere to be seen within the surrounding area.

"GIR!" Zim shouted out automatically, dropping the to-go bag when he received no immediate answer. "No! No, no, no, no, NO!" he kicked at the ground in frustration. Pulling out a handheld tracking device that he had thankfully had the forethought to install on Gir after one two many disappearances in the past, he then activated its tracking feature, the display almost instantly picking up on Gir's signal, which was a fair distance away from where he was now. He needed to find the SIR unit and find him fast. Not only did the little robot have his newest brainwashing device still with him, but he couldn't deny the fact that he thought of the android as more than just a loyal companion, not that he'd ever admit that fact to anyone out loud.

Following the tracker with hardly any issue, besides a bit of boredom, it wasn't until Zim arrived at the indicated location that he finally looked up from the screen to see which house Gir had wandered into. He growled menacingly at the sight of the unmistakable Membrane residence.

"Dib," Zim seethed between tightly clenched fangs. He couldn't just go in there through the front. The human was likely expecting him to do that. Zim was no fool though, and there was probably something that the human was up to to go through the trouble of kidnapping his minion. What that something was however, he didn't know.

Going around to the back of the house, he then used his PAK legs to pry open the connecting garage door. He entered into the storage area, glancing over at Tak's ship which still resided there as he did so. Maybe he should just steal it one day, he contemplated to himself idly. It wasn't like he needed the Dib to have any sort of Irken technology in his possession, especially considering some of the trouble it had caused him in the past.

Entering into the household as quietly as he could, Zim then checked the tracker again. It seemed that Gir was somewhere in the lower level of the house. Stowing the tracker back inside his PAK, Zim looked around for a stairway that would lead him down to the basement. He found it with relative ease before cautiously taking a step downwards, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for both Gir and the miserable human.

Down in the household lab, meanwhile, Dib struggled to complete his father's work. He had been TRYING for the last 20 minutes to finish up the machine with haste, but had forgotten how much of a nuisance Gir could actually be. The food Dib had given him had already been devoured, and the little green dog was steadily growing more and more impatient the longer he had to wait for his promised taquitos. Dib was so close to finishing the machine though and couldn't figure out what wasn't working right.

"Ugh...There must be something that I'm missing." Dib sighed, turning back to his overloaded work station and reviewing his father's notes again.

"You just gotta pull at dis thingy here!" Gir declared in theorized stupidity, taking the opportunity to start pulling at exposed wires sticking out from the paneling.

"No, wait! You're going to break...it?" Dib stepped back as the machine suddenly whirred to life without delay. "Huh, well what do you know. Guess that actually worked." he said once his initial alarm had dwindled to fascination instead.

Getting back to the task at hand, Dib then excitedly started fiddling with some of the knobs, entering in information onto a keypad and smiling to himself with all too elated glee. He planned on sending Zim back roughly 200 years in the past, but right as he started keying in the desired numerical digits, he suddenly received a rather hard shove to his side, causing him to fall backwards before he could complete the task.

"What the- Zim!?" Dib exclaimed in exasperated disbelief, having not thought that the Irken would arrive at his house so soon after running off with Gir. He'd gotten so caught up in keeping Gir at bay though that time had just sort of flown by unnoticed.

"That's right, Dib-stink!" Zim glared at the human severely, already going to grab Gir and get out of there.

"Oh, no you don't!" Dib lunged at the Irken before he could take off from there, deliberately wrapping his arms around the alien's torso to prevent the other from getting away from him. This may be the only chance he'd get to send Zim into the past, and he couldn't let the opportunity slip out from between his fingers.

Struggling to disentangle himself from the human's constricting grip, Zim forced himself to the ground in desperation, rolling along the floor with Dib still attached to him and managing to get just a single arm free. He took a swipe at the raven-haired teenager's face.

Having no choice but to loosen his hold on the Irken, Dib narrowly missed the other's claws as they brushed past the surface of his cheek. He fought to regain his balance incorrigibly before using the wall as a buffer to thrust himself back at the Irken, this time managing to grab him by the shoulders and pin him down the floor beneath them.

Zim snarled out a grunt derived of natural born instinct, his PAK legs coming to life now and forcing the human off of him.

Hitting the ground hard again, Dib scrambled to regain his footing, refusing to give in despite his obvious disadvantage. He dived to avoid being skewered by one of Zim's PAK legs, the sleek and flexible appendage managing to catch on the tail end of his signature black trench coat and hinder his attempted escape tactic.

Zim lingered above his prey like a predator preparing to strike, training his eyes on Dib's throat and lifting a PAK leg to deliver the final blow. "Any last words, pathetic pig smelly!"

Dib's eyes widened behind his glasses as he searched around frantically for something...ANYTHING he could use to get himself out of this situation. Lifting his gaze to the work bench situated directly above him, he then spotted something he could use to save his apprehended hide. He reached for the item in question, just barely managing to grab hold of it with his fingertips before flinging a glass half-filled with water directly into the Irken's face.

Zim reared back with a high-pitched shriek, retracting his spider legs and giving Dib the opportunity to wriggle out from underneath him unharmed. Before Dib could return back to the controls of his time machine however, Zim pounced on him in a blind rage, using his antennae now to hone in on Dib's movements. He raised the elegant appendages up attentively on his head, tilting his disguise's wig forward as he held the teenager down with all the strength he could muster in that moment.

Trapped once more by the alien presently on top of him, Dib looked for another miracle before taking note of their current position in regards to the time machine. Perhaps he could---He didn't bother finishing that thought as he rolled back automatically and wedged the sole of his boot directly beneath Zim's midsection. Then, with all the might he could gather, he thrust the invader off of himself and into the operational time machine.

"HA!" Dib exclaimed triumphantly, flashing his nemesis one final disarming sneer before slamming a single hand down on the start button, effectively bringing the machine to life and initiating its transport into the past. "Victory for Earth!" he proclaimed, raising his arms up above his head in success.

Dib only had a moment to revel in his short-lived achievement though before he then heard a gasp followed by a shriek of excitement from somewhere within the room. "OOOOO! WHAT'S THAT?!" Gir shouted and rocketed over to see for himself, accidentally headbutting into Dib in the process and barreling them both into the time gate right as it was disappearing from sight.

Description
As the day ended without any further complications arising in the Membrane household, the next few hours leading into Saturday remained unfailingly tense. Morning arrived at what seemed to be a crawl, and the professor had been up for a few hours already when movement began to occur in the upper living quarters. He moved about the kitchen with preoccupied diligence, already making himself some toast to consume as part of his usual breakfast.

Meanwhile, in the upper level of their house, Dib was just now beginning to stir, having not slept well at all since the argument he'd had with his father. After following through with his usual morning routine, he then headed downstairs for breakfast, entering into the kitchen only to find his dad already making his own food. He didn't bother to say good morning as he silently crossed the threshold to make his meal in peace.

Noticing his son as he entered into the room, Membrane could instantly sense an air of awkwardness washing over the kitchen. He sat down at the kitchen table to eat his breakfast quietly, watching his son with unchanging awareness and waiting to see if he'd actually try to make any sort of conversation. It didn't take more than a few minutes for him to realize that wasn’t going to happen. He considered whether he should say something himself, only to have his alarm go off, signaling that it was time for him to head out to his lab downtown.

Getting up from the table and heading for the front door, Membrane stopped at the entrance to their house to cast the kitchen another constrained look. Perhaps he was taking too objective an approach to his son's current silence. He thought about going back in there to speak with Dib briefly, but before he could make the decision to do so, his alarm went off again, warning him that he had to get going now if he didn't want to show up late to work.

Dib sighed as he heard the front door closing behind his father before gathering his food together and heading back up to his room. It was for the best, he kept assuring himself, certain that if his father had actually spoken with him, it would have just been for the sake of admonishing his behavior last night. The argument itself had kept him wide awake most of the evening, and so he'd spent a good majority of that time focusing on his next plan. Since it wasn't a school day and his father would be working until late that evening, he figured he'd use the opportunity to do some snooping about in his dad's home laboratory, hoping he could find something there to be used in his next scheme to expose Zim.

Approaching the door to his bedroom, Dib stopped at the entrance and stared into the bleak abyss of what had once been a source of comfort for him in his early childhood years. Before his fascination with the paranormal had developed into an all-out obsession, his walls had be meticulously decorated with images of space and dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars arranged above his bed. Now however, his room was nothing more than a dismal place of study, the walls and floor littered with countless pages of torn out notebook entries and semi-clear photographs of the alien that had been haunting his existence since the time he'd entered into the fifth grade. He wondered whether his father would actually go through with having Simmons remove all his paranormal electronics. The thought made him furrow his brow in frustration. His father didn't have even the foggiest clue or insight about anything he'd done over the past five years to prevent Zim's multiple attempts at taking over the world.

Huffing out a bitter sigh, Dib continued into his room with purposeful inclination. If his father wasn't going to listen to him about his beliefs regarding Zim, then he'd just have to find a way to obtain some physical proof of his presumed-to-be "insanity." Pulling up a chair and dropping into it carelessly, he then reached to open a file on his computer screen, said document containing a compilation of what he felt to be the best images of Zim he'd captured thus far. Most of them were partially blurry still though, which made presenting them as conclusive evidence problematic. But perhaps he could find something in his father's home lab to help clear up any ambiguity in their appearance.

Hopping up from his computer chair, Dib hurried down into the living room outside his kitchen and stood for a moment at the threshold to his father's lab. Membrane had warned him on countless occasions already that he wasn't to use his technology for any paranormal research he was conducting. And with the weight of his father's stated punishment still hanging over him like a cloud, there could be no doubt in his mind that if he got caught down there, his days of being left to his own devices would be over.

Dib took a tentative step past the doorway's intimidating entrance, then another, and another until finally he'd descended to the final platform of the stairway leading into the basement level lab he'd always been told to stay out of. As usual, the inside was flawlessly immaculate, with each piece of technology looking nearly as pristine as the day it had been purchased. If nothing else, his father always kept a clean work environment, stating to his kids on more than one occasion how important it was to maintain the equipment they worked with for the sake of keeping it in proper functioning order.

He entered into the lab a little further, the memory of their previous argument still hammering away inside his head.

He hoped he could find something useful near the back of the lab as opposed to the front of it as he didn't want to risk having his father notice that anything was amiss. Approaching a corner he hadn't previously explored before, Dib stopped in his tracks when something out of the ordinary caught his attention. It was a single machine of some sort, heavily coated in dust particles. Well that was a first, he thought to himself as he reached to brush off some of the concealing granules. Glancing around at some of the other workstations in the area, he then noted that they were all clean and organized aside from this one invention. Drawing a hand across the apparatus' surface once more, he stopped once his fingers came into contact with what appeared to be a hidden panel on the device. Dib reached to pull the panel loose from its location, successfully jarring it free after a few attempts and reaching his hand in to search its inner workings.

To his surprise, no wires or electrical circuits greeted his hand at the intrusion. Instead, what felt like a collection of wafer-thin notebook pages were wedged into a compartment that appeared to serve no other purpose besides concealing their whereabouts. He pulled the delicate leaflets out with care, hardly having time to actually thumb his way through them before a sudden click from upstairs and the sound of a door opening towards the front of the house had Dib stuffing the papers into his pocket and bolting for the lab’s exit. He half-assumed it was his father, returning home to retrieve something he may have forgotten, but just as he reached the entrance to the living room quarters, he instead came face to face with Simmons, his father's personal assistant, most likely sent there to check in on him at the professor's orders.

"Oh hello, Dib." Simmons greeted him as he walked in through the door. "I'm...sorry about what happened." he said in a voice reflecting his empathy over the situation that had occurred.

Dib just shrugged and looked down to the ground with disguised nonchalance. "I guess you're here to take my computer and everything else away, huh?" he spoke in cool-tempered tones.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so..." Simmons shot him another look of conviction before clearing his throat to continue. "I'm really sorry, but it's what your dad wants me to do, so if you could just show me to your room so we can get this over with now rather than later, it'll be for the best." he said with an impartiality to his voice that he'd been forced to hone years prior when he'd first begun working with Membrane on a more professional level. He only hoped that the raven-haired teen wouldn't give him any trouble, knowing from past experience just how stubborn he could be at times.

"Right." Dib didn't bother with trying to argue, having already schooled his temper down to a less-bothered composure overnight. After all, the last thing he needed was to be getting into anymore trouble.

Taking Simmons up to his room, they then went ahead and started boxing things up, though Simmons did allow Dib to keep at least his laptop, having him promise not to use it for anything paranormal-related and just for entertainment purposes only. It the least he felt he could do after hearing from Membrane about the argument that had ensued shortly following what had happened at the ceremony event. But Dib no longer had access to his desktop, cameras, or anything else he had used for research on the paranormal in the past. Thankfully for him however, and unbeknownst to Simmons, he used his laptop primarily as it was just easier for him to carry around with him.

After finishing up their packing and saying their goodbyes, Simmons then left the household, leaving Dib alone again to go about his own devices. Stepping into his now almost empty room, void of nearly all his technology save for his laptop, Dib surveyed the barren wasteland with a feeling of melancholy that warred with his desire to sit back down and pore over the crumpled note pages still hidden inside his pocket. He was at least grateful that Simmons had allowed him to keep hold of his laptop. But if he was caught using it to perform anything even remotely paranormal-related, he'd surely be in for it big time.

As Dib sat at his desk to finally begin looking through the notes he'd acquired, he couldn't help but take notice of the time currently displayed on his alarm clock. It was getting late in the afternoon already so he'd only have a handful of hours left to actually continue his snooping in the professor's lab. Turning on his lamp light and smoothing over the wrinkled notebook entries, Dib then began reading through them diligently. They seemed to speak of calculations for a time machine, each documented note written in the unmistakable script that served as his father's handwriting.

"Time machine? What would dad need something like that for?" Dib asked himself cryptically before then noticing a list of catalogued dates to the side, all dating back farther than the recorded year Membrane had supposedly begun work on said invention. If he was reading his father's old notes correctly, he had begun work on this contraption just years following his own birth. But the list of dates included in his father's schematics also dated as far back as ten years preceding that.

He considered the dates thoughtfully for a moment before then realizing that some of the dates noted were likely from right before his father had entered into college, and met his mother. "No way...Dad would never make an attempt to alter the timeline...would he? I mean, he even did an entire segment on his show a few years back about how dangerous something like that could be. Though, then again, I suppose he could have just been developing it for scientific purposes at the time. Maybe just to prove that something like it could be built." he reasoned to himself, continuing to flip through the notes for more information. That's when he came across the final page of Membrane's writing, filled with multiple sections that had been crossed out and rewritten before they then ended rather abruptly, as though the calculations had been abandoned at that point.

"Hmm? I wonder what made dad stop his research on this invention. It looks like all the calculations were lining up with each other, and if I'm reading these notes correctly, it only needed a little more work to be completed." he said before flipping the page over to look at its backside, only to find a few more marked dates scribbled onto it with relevant footnotes added in next to some of them, better explaining their reason for being there.

December 6, xxxx-First encounter with the rest of my life.

December 20, xxxx-The Christmas party.

January 10, xxxx-First official date.

Dib read down the list in idle concentration before then placing the paper down and glancing behind himself, as if considering something for a moment.

If the contraption he had been investigating earlier really was a time machine, and his father's notes on it all really were pointing towards its near completion, then what would be the harm in completing said invention? Obviously, there was the small contingency that no MAJOR changes be made to the timeline, but he wasn't stupid and considered whether such a mechanism could be used to his benefit in doing away with Zim once and for all. For years already, Zim had been struggling to make due with his limited Irken resources and the severely under-advanced technology Earth had to offer. So then how much harm could he do in the past if he were sent roughly 200 years back, to a time when human civilization had very little, if any, technology at all? He wouldn't have access to his base in the past, let alone a way to leave Earth OR contact his own species. So in other words, he would be stranded and no longer able to wreak havoc on him or the rest of humanity ever again.

An all too impulsive smile crept onto Dib's face at the thought and remained frozen on his features as he began digging through his father's notes for the more detailed schematics he'd come across inside them. It would work, he told himself, with more than abundant enthusiasm. And it wasn't like he hadn't inherited his father's knack for constructing complex machinery.

With hardly a second thought or hesitation, Dib bounced his way back down to his father's home lab, chattering away to himself as he often did when excited about something and beginning his work without delay.

QQQQQ

On the Sunday following Dib's unexpected discovery, Zim, meanwhile, sat hunched over a table within his lower labs, diligently working on his next evil scheme. For weeks now, he had been developing a brand new brainwashing device he intended to use as a means of bending the wills of humans. The device itself was virtually finished already, but he still needed a place to test the thing out at. Sitting back in his chair to marvel at his latest handiwork, Zim then stretched his arms out directly above his head, trying to decide on when and where to test his new device until the all too familiar voice of his insane little SIR unit came racing to his antennae.

"TTAAAAAAQQUUUUITOOOS!" Gir suddenly came screaming into the room, effectively disrupting Zim's current thought process. "WE-WE GOTTA GO GET SOME!!" he then continued in apprehensive desperation.

"No, Gir." Zim dismissed his minion's outburst, glaring down at the small robot, who in that moment was wearing nothing but Krazy Taco merchandise. "...Why are you wearing all that anyways?" he then asked, eyeing the android up and down for a moment with obvious distaste.

"The taquitos! The taquitos!!!" Gir insisted again before grabbing a remote for one of the nearby monitors and switching it over to a channel advertisement for the Krazy Taco corporation.

"Hey there, all you Krazy Taco fans, have we got an event for you! Join us here today for the grand unveiling of one of our NEWEST menu items: Spicy Salsa Taquitos! For a limited time only, we'll be offering free sides and a drink with every purchase made! So don't miss out on this Spicy Salsa Sunday event at a Krazy Taco establishment near you!" the commercial ended and Gir started weaving himself in and out of the between of Zim's legs.

"I need them! I NEED THEM!" Gir shouted at him with hardly flagging intensity, grabbing at the front of Zim's uniform and pulling at it dramatically.

Zim sighed out in obvious frustration and rolled his eyes at Gir's begging. "If I take you to this thing, will you leave me to my work for the rest of the day?" he asked, yanking his uniform away from the gushing green moron.

"YES! I NEED THOSE TAQUITOS!" Gir bellowed out again, starting to run around the entirety of the room now.

"GIR!" Zim yelled at the robot, making him stop in his tracks for just a mere moment. Grabbing the brainwashing device he'd been working on all afternoon, he then beckoned Gir over to him, the small android still vibrating with blissful anticipation. "Here, while we're there, we can test out my new device." he said, opening up Gir's head to put the gadget inside. But just as he opened it to insert his invention, a scrawny-looking cat then pounced out from within and attached itself to Zim's face, causing the invader to shout out in surprise and back up a few steps. "GIR!" he hissed a second time, this time throwing the cat off of himself and glaring at the SIR unit, who was now a giggling mess on the floor. "Haha, very funny, Gir." Zim spoke in sharp, stabbing tones, grabbing his minion by the head and shoving the device inside. "Now go get your disguise on and meet me at the front door, understand?" Zim held onto the robot's head, nodding it up and down in compliance.

"UH-HUH!" Gir affirmed with whimsical excitement, whirling around in his spot and running off to do as he had been told.

Zim shook his head with reluctant capitulation before equipping his own disguise and going to take the elevator back up to his base's living quarters. Upon arriving in the topside of his base, he then headed over to the door, noticing that Gir was already there and waiting with as much patience as could be expected, which to say the very least, wasn't a lot at all.

"Come on, Gir. Let's just get going already. The sooner we get this over with, the better." Zim said as he attached a leash to Gir's collar and opened the door to leave. Before he could take even a single step outside the door however, he instantly regretted putting on Gir's leash as the dog-disguised android simply bolted out the door, using his rockets to propel them through the streets. "GIIIIRRR! STOOOOP!" Zim screeched out in vain but all to no avail as he could already see the street rushing by below them.

"WWHHHEEEEE! TAAAQUIITOSS!" Gir screamed as they soared towards the Krazy Taco at what was nearly super sonic speed.

"GIIIIRRR!" Zim shouted out again, holding onto the leash as tightly as he could. Letting go now would surely leave him with one nasty road burn that he definitely did NOT want to deal with. Thankfully for him though, they reached their destination in record time, coming to an unpleasant halt and causing Zim to go flying into the backside of his SIR unit’s head before stumbling away in pain and letting go of the leash to help center himself again. "Gir...Don't do that...again..." he spoke in broken syllables, all the muscles in his legs feeling as though they'd been liquified.

"OKIEE DOKIE!" Gir flashed Zim an aggravating smile, not seeming at all phased by the demand as he wandered into the fast food restaurant ahead of his master, the door opening with a soft click and jingling of a bell. Zim was quick to recover and follow him inside.

Meanwhile, back at the Membrane residence, Dib pulled back from his work with a long and exhausted stretch, his eyes aching from poring over complicated schematics and joints cramping from what felt like a virtually endless task now. He was almost done making adjustments to his father's time machine though and searched the lab for a clock he could check the time with. It was nearly 4:00 in the afternoon now and his father wouldn't be expected back until 11:00 at the earliest.

"Perfect." Dib cheered, rising to his feet and heading for the exit. He was right on schedule to finish by that evening, granted he didn't take too long relishing in what he felt to be a well-deserved break. He needed some time to clear his head of formulas and convoluted math equations though and so pocketed the keys to his household before heading out to pick himself up a Suck Munkey. With the exception of a six hour break he'd taken during night, Dib had been working nearly nonstop now to complete his final adjustments.

He breathed in a breath of fresh autumn air, the brisk, mid-afternoon atmosphere a welcome transition from the otherwise sterile environment he'd been hunched over in for the past eleven hours.

Approaching the local gas station located across from the Krazy Taco restaurant, he then stopped in his tracks when he noticed an all too familiar green android exiting the establishment. Much to Zim's dismay, the line inside the restaurant had turned out to be longer than he had expected. So rather than dealing with Gir's unbridled excitement as they waited in line to reach the front cashier, he'd instead opted for sending the poorly- disguised SIR unit to wait outside on the curb, knowing from experience already that if he left Gir alone to do his own ordering, he'd likely try to buy out the entire restaurant, something he didn't have the moneys to cover.

Dib could have cried at the all too opportune timing. As he'd been slaving away to complete his father's time machine, he'd been contemplating the entire time on how he might lure Zim to his house so he could use it to do away with him. After all, it wasn't like he could just INVITE the Irken over to his father's lab. Such an approach would be far too obvious a trap. But there was no denying Zim couldn't just abandon his moron sidekick. After all, the two had been stuck together since the start of Zim's mission, and even though the Irken wouldn't openly admit it, they seemed to share a peculiar sort of camaraderie with one another.

With an uncharacteristic lift in his current state of mind, Dib rushed inside the gas station to pick up an assortment of snack items, more than satisfied already with how this short-lived excursion was playing out for him thus far. Returning back to the parking lot outside the service station, he then crossed the street to approach the android in question.

"Psst! Hey! Zim's little green robot dog thing!" he gestured from a hiding spot off to the side of the restaurant, wanting to make sure Zim didn't spot him outside in the open.

Gir didn't respond to the call at first, his gaze remaining fixed on a spot in the distance, it seemed.

"Eh...err...What was it again? Gir, I think? Yeah! Hey, Gir!" he tried again in the same hushed tones he'd addressed the robot with the first time.

The SIR unit turned his head to look at Dib this time, his expression remaining unchanged though as he stared at the teenager with an eerie lack of his usual insanity.

Dib hesitated for a moment to continue before pulling out some of the snacks that he had purchased and waving them around in front of the android's face. "Want to come with me to my house? If you do, I'll feed you lots of snacks." he said in as tempting a voice as he could muster.

Gir stared at the boy seriously for a moment before then erupting into a fit of vehement hysteria. "TAQUITOS!!! MUST HAVE SPICY SALSA TAQUITOS!!!" he screamed, drawing in the attention of a few pedestrians passing by on the street.

Panicking at the unexpected and abrupt outburst, Dib attempted to change his strategy. "Eh...W-What about pizza from Bloaty's Pizza Hog! Or...umm...A bucket of Chicky Licky fried chicken!" he offered, though the robot only continued to wail about Spicy Salsa Sunday. "Burgers from MacMeaties?" Dib could quickly feel his opportunity to lure Zim into a trap dissipating into thin air with each refused food item. He then stopped to think for a moment about what else he could offer the howling SIR unit. "Ummm...H-How about SUCK MUNKEY SUNDAY!" he suggested in a last ditch effort to win the android over.

Gir cut short his frenzied sobbing at the proposed gas station treat and stared at the teen with riveted recognition. "OKIEE DOKIE, MARY!" he chirped with renewed contentment, holding his hand out to Dib so the other could lead him back to his house.

Dib couldn't help but blink in stunned astonishment that that had actually worked. He cast the surrounding area a shrewd once over with his eyes and then took the disguised android's paw into his own hand. He suddenly felt invulnerable as the pieces to his plan slowly started falling into place. Now all he needed to do was finish the adjustments to his father's time machine and the trap would be set.

Taking off in the direction of his house, Dib picked up the promised Suck Munkey for Gir along the way while teasing him with the agreement to pick him up some Spicy Salsa Taquitos later on if he just waited for Zim at his house.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Zim finally exited the restaurant. It had taken him only 15 minutes to realize that his device was still in Gir's head and that getting out of line to retrieve it would mean having to wait an even longer time to reach the front counter. So instead of heading back out to retrieve Gir from the parking lot, he merely got the android's order to go before exiting the building to locate his waiting minion. As he departed from the fast food establishment however, the first thing he noticed upon stepping outside was the distinct absence of Gir anywhere to be seen within the surrounding area.

"GIR!" Zim shouted out automatically, dropping the to-go bag when he received no immediate answer. "No! No, no, no, no, NO!" he kicked at the ground in frustration. Pulling out a handheld tracking device that he had thankfully had the forethought to install on Gir after one two many disappearances in the past, he then activated its tracking feature, the display almost instantly picking up on Gir's signal, which was a fair distance away from where he was now. He needed to find the SIR unit and find him fast. Not only did the little robot have his newest brainwashing device still with him, but he couldn't deny the fact that he thought of the android as more than just a loyal companion, not that he'd ever admit that fact to anyone out loud.

Following the tracker with hardly any issue, besides a bit of boredom, it wasn't until Zim arrived at the indicated location that he finally looked up from the screen to see which house Gir had wandered into. He growled menacingly at the sight of the unmistakable Membrane residence.

"Dib," Zim seethed between tightly clenched fangs. He couldn't just go in there through the front. The human was likely expecting him to do that. Zim was no fool though, and there was probably something that the human was up to to go through the trouble of kidnapping his minion. What that something was however, he didn't know.

Going around to the back of the house, he then used his PAK legs to pry open the connecting garage door. He entered into the storage area, glancing over at Tak's ship which still resided there as he did so. Maybe he should just steal it one day, he contemplated to himself idly. It wasn't like he needed the Dib to have any sort of Irken technology in his possession, especially considering some of the trouble it had caused him in the past.

Entering into the household as quietly as he could, Zim then checked the tracker again. It seemed that Gir was somewhere in the lower level of the house. Stowing the tracker back inside his PAK, Zim looked around for a stairway that would lead him down to the basement. He found it with relative ease before cautiously taking a step downwards, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for both Gir and the miserable human.

Down in the household lab, meanwhile, Dib struggled to complete his father's work. He had been TRYING for the last 20 minutes to finish up the machine with haste, but had forgotten how much of a nuisance Gir could actually be. The food Dib had given him had already been devoured, and the little green dog was steadily growing more and more impatient the longer he had to wait for his promised taquitos. Dib was so close to finishing the machine though and couldn't figure out what wasn't working right.

"Ugh...There must be something that I'm missing." Dib sighed, turning back to his overloaded work station and reviewing his father's notes again.

"You just gotta pull at dis thingy here!" Gir declared in theorized stupidity, taking the opportunity to start pulling at exposed wires sticking out from the paneling.

"No, wait! You're going to break...it?" Dib stepped back as the machine suddenly whirred to life without delay. "Huh, well what do you know. Guess that actually worked." he said once his initial alarm had dwindled to fascination instead.

Getting back to the task at hand, Dib then excitedly started fiddling with some of the knobs, entering in information onto a keypad and smiling to himself with all too elated glee. He planned on sending Zim back roughly 200 years in the past, but right as he started keying in the desired numerical digits, he suddenly received a rather hard shove to his side, causing him to fall backwards before he could complete the task.

"What the- Zim!?" Dib exclaimed in exasperated disbelief, having not thought that the Irken would arrive at his house so soon after running off with Gir. He'd gotten so caught up in keeping Gir at bay though that time had just sort of flown by unnoticed.

"That's right, Dib-stink!" Zim glared at the human severely, already going to grab Gir and get out of there.

"Oh, no you don't!" Dib lunged at the Irken before he could take off from there, deliberately wrapping his arms around the alien's torso to prevent the other from getting away from him. This may be the only chance he'd get to send Zim into the past, and he couldn't let the opportunity slip out from between his fingers.

Struggling to disentangle himself from the human's constricting grip, Zim forced himself to the ground in desperation, rolling along the floor with Dib still attached to him and managing to get just a single arm free. He took a swipe at the raven-haired teenager's face.

Having no choice but to loosen his hold on the Irken, Dib narrowly missed the other's claws as they brushed past the surface of his cheek. He fought to regain his balance incorrigibly before using the wall as a buffer to thrust himself back at the Irken, this time managing to grab him by the shoulders and pin him down the floor beneath them.

Zim snarled out a grunt derived of natural born instinct, his PAK legs coming to life now and forcing the human off of him.

Hitting the ground hard again, Dib scrambled to regain his footing, refusing to give in despite his obvious disadvantage. He dived to avoid being skewered by one of Zim's PAK legs, the sleek and flexible appendage managing to catch on the tail end of his signature black trench coat and hinder his attempted escape tactic.

Zim lingered above his prey like a predator preparing to strike, training his eyes on Dib's throat and lifting a PAK leg to deliver the final blow. "Any last words, pathetic pig smelly!"

Dib's eyes widened behind his glasses as he searched around frantically for something...ANYTHING he could use to get himself out of this situation. Lifting his gaze to the work bench situated directly above him, he then spotted something he could use to save his apprehended hide. He reached for the item in question, just barely managing to grab hold of it with his fingertips before flinging a glass half-filled with water directly into the Irken's face.

Zim reared back with a high-pitched shriek, retracting his spider legs and giving Dib the opportunity to wriggle out from underneath him unharmed. Before Dib could return back to the controls of his time machine however, Zim pounced on him in a blind rage, using his antennae now to hone in on Dib's movements. He raised the elegant appendages up attentively on his head, tilting his disguise's wig forward as he held the teenager down with all the strength he could muster in that moment.

Trapped once more by the alien presently on top of him, Dib looked for another miracle before taking note of their current position in regards to the time machine. Perhaps he could---He didn't bother finishing that thought as he rolled back automatically and wedged the sole of his boot directly beneath Zim's midsection. Then, with all the might he could gather, he thrust the invader off of himself and into the operational time machine.

"HA!" Dib exclaimed triumphantly, flashing his nemesis one final disarming sneer before slamming a single hand down on the start button, effectively bringing the machine to life and initiating its transport into the past. "Victory for Earth!" he proclaimed, raising his arms up above his head in success.

Dib only had a moment to revel in his short-lived achievement though before he then heard a gasp followed by a shriek of excitement from somewhere within the room. "OOOOO! WHAT'S THAT?!" Gir shouted and rocketed over to see for himself, accidentally headbutting into Dib in the process and barreling them both into the time gate right as it was disappearing from sight.