Chapter 5: Touchdown!

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"Stakeout mission, day two."

Something shifted.

"It's cold, dark, uncomfortable, there's no sign of the Cupid thing, I'm in extremely volatile company, that squirrel just stole my Pez, my organs are currently exploding because Tak won't let go of me, and I think GIR is eating my foot again."

A sigh.

"All in all, I think this is going pretty good. Except the Pez thing. Stupid squirrel."

"Zim." Dib moved the recorder away from the Irken's face, clearly displeased. "Cut that out."

"You have one too." He replied sulkily, not attempting to get it back.

"Yes, but you don't see me talking into it nonstop. You'll get this back when we catch Cupid."

"Aww..."

It hadn't really been two days. No more than a few hours, at least. But Zim was bored, and, as Gaz was purposely stationed somewhere else, thinking somewhat rationally, if you could call it that. Rationale gets bored sometimes too. Everything except the passage of time was completely truthful... well, maybe not GIR. Maybe it was that same squirrel on his foot. Curse these gluttonous woodland creatures.

Squirrel aside, it was doing good, actually. Gaz would call in via Dib's watch-communicator thing system once in a while to tell them where Cupid was now (as she was the only one still with a brain inside her skull) and they would move accordingly. They were camped at the last place she'd seen Cupid, and they hadn't gotten a call for almost an hour.

Maybe Gaz had forgotten about them.

Maybe Cupid had escaped even her watchful eye.

Maybe she caught him all her own and hadn't told them.

Maybe they were just being stupid and antsy.

Whatever it was, it caused a silence. And Zim had taken upon himself to fill that silence with his "lovely" voice. It was mainly nonsense, things that came out of his head as he thought of them, and also the conditions of their current campground, which was almost the same every time: a bush. The inside of a bush, to be exact. He'd also thought to bring out some snacks, but that squirrel...

They hadn't actually thought beyond the whole "catch Cupid" thing. In fact, no one had realized that maybe they didn't even need Cupid, but to find Membrane and get the cure out of him. That is, if he had it at all. That man had a problem with finishing things he was working on.

Tak was too busy nuzzling and purring to really be any help on this mission, or the defense of the snacks against the rodent infidel.

Zim moved to speak again, when a rustling noise caught his attention. It was coming from the tree above them.

"Psst," He hissed.

Dib was ogling Tak, sighing dreamily.

"I said, psst."

"Huh-what?"

The Invader clapped a hand over Dib's mouth and pointed up with the other hand. Rather than protest, the boy looked. Even Tak stopped what she was doing to look. She didn't stop for long, but that's not the point.

There was Cupid, in a rather lowish-lying branch above them, cleaning himself like a cat.

This was were the planned part of the mission stopped.

"HEY! LOOK! WAFFLES!"

Cupid jolted at Zim's scream, and started looking frantically around for either said waffles or the source of the noise. In the time it took to do that, Dib had climbed up the tree like a squirrel. The moment the fluffball realized he was there, it was too late, as he had already pounced on him, and due to the fact that the branch could only support Cupid's weight, they were both tumbling back down to earth, Cupid's weaponry following soon after.

Tak caught Cupid by the tail as he fell past, letting Dib slam facedown into the ground, the quiver and bow smacking hard onto his back and bouncing off a few feet. He let out a painful gurgle, leg twitching like a dying animal's.

Zim took that moment to cackle madly at his pain.

"Shut up," The boy muttered as he got to his feet, coughing a bit. "And thank you, Tak, for being so helpful."

"I got the stupid thing, what else do you want?"

A look flittered across Dib's face.

"Except that."

"Aw, man..."

"I think you're underdeveloped anyway."

"... Dad says puberty should hit any time now..."

Zim stared at them for a moment, then calmly picked up the bow and quiver, holding the latter out at arm's-length as though it were diseased. It was, you know - infected with the disease called love. If he knew what Membrane had said at the beginning of this, about two shots getting rid of hate, that disgust would be well-founded.

"Too much infor--" She twitched, visibly restraining herself from glomping a certain male as he came back into view. "mation. Argh."

"That's right, fight it," Dib urged. Then smiled, eyes getting all lovey again. "I'm more worth your while anyway."

She sighed. "And me without my doom cannon."

"Umm... Well, anyway, we have to get him to Dad's lab. If Dad doesn't have an anti-serum, we make one ourselves, using those." A point toward Zim's outstretched luggage.

"Can't we just take the arrows and kill the thing?"

"Dad would hate me."

"... so?"

"Come on."

---

Long story short, Membrane hadn't made an anti-serum. Short story long, anything by Dickens.

So for the next few hours, our afflicted crew tried to make one themselves while dealing with constant love urges, having to catch Cupid again after he slipped out of Zim's shoddy rope-tying job, and the SIR units "helping" but really getting in the way. And what about Professor Membrane, probably the only person that could really make ANY sense out of all this?

Still sitting on the couch in a dumb stupor, mindlessly watching what was obviously not the recorded tape, but rather a certain movie Dib had been wanting to see. The boy had told him to record it just before they'd gone down to the lab. The lack of the little red light on the VCR said Membrane hadn't been listening to him then, either.

"I think we've done it!" Zim crowed, holding up a test tube full of... stuff, invoking some déjà vu from a certain boy. Said boy snatched it away from him and put it on the analyzer before anything bad could happen to it. On the screen there was a buttload of science jargon, numbers and whatnot, and being that he was the only one paying attention to it, Dib was the only one who made sense out of it.

"Maybe you're right." He took it off. "But who do we test it on?"

Wordlessly both Tak and Zim held out their hands, one palm up, one fist.

Dib sighed and put the tube down.

The game ended up with Zim as scissors and the other two as rock, and so he picked it up, mumbling something about cheating.

"This better not kill me," He told Dib darkly.

"Well, think of it this way - if you die, you'll be cured."

"Lovely."

Rather than to discuss it any further, he took a swig. Nearly choked on it. Handed the tube back.

"Did it work?" Dib asked.

"I don't know."

"Lemme try something." Tak suddenly stuck her hands into Dib's jacket, fishing around for something while Dib tried not to take it as molestation (which would have made him very happy). She eventually found what she wanted, pulling it out and her other arm, just quick enough that he couldn't cling to it.

"Is there a reason you just did that?" Zim inquired, sounding somewhat amused.

Rather than answer, Tak stuck her prize in Zim's face.

It was a picture of Gaz. A picture of Gaz, sleeping. One of the only times one can get a picture of her.

The Irken male stared at it for a minute or two, then looked back to Tak, completely unphased.

"It worked!" Dib said happily, as Tak snatched the anti-serum away from Zim. He noticed that warily. "Ummm... I think I should take it next."

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't want to try and hug you while you're horribly mutilating Zim."

"Good point." She handed it over.

After he was cured, and Zim was hiding underneath some sturdy lab equipment, she got it back. Unlike the other two, she'd probably have to take more to get back to that fifty-years-and-ten-months rage. But did she really want to go back to that? Driven only by hate, not really actually having a purpose after she finally got her revenge (inheriting Earth doesn't count)...

But on the other hand, how could she suddenly give up something that's kept her going for those long fifty years, and slightly less long ten months?

"Damned indecision," She growled.

Unfortunately, the other two couldn't interfere, because she might end up choosing the other option just to spite whoever made the suggestion.

She looked at Dib. She looked at the vial. She looked at the big red eye that was all one could see of Zim. She looked at the SIR units. Back to the vial. Back to Zim. Back to the stuff.

She sighed. Better now than never, as that indecision felt like it could go on forever.

The eye moved so that only the top part could be seen. Dib couldn't move at all. They watched.

She put the tube to her lips. Tipped it. Then drained the remaining anti-serum in one large gulp.

The other two remained completely still, waiting to see what the outcome would be. One meant a "meh" relationship - but that one was also the equivalent of how much it would take to get her back to normal. Or, at least, it looked that way. Hard to tell.

Finally Zim crawled out from his hiding place.

"Soo... how do you feel?"

She growled.

"I'll take that as a back to normal." He moved to jump back into the hiding place.

Movement from Tak stopped him.

"Not quite." She said. "Now I just plain hate you." Here she grinned. It wasn't a very nice grin. But at least she wasn't trying to rip his throat out.

"Now that that's settled," Dib interrupted. "What are we going to do with Cupid?"

"Something like that, with that... capability, shouldn't be allowed to live." A bit of the old Tak re-entered her voice.

"Dad would kill me if I killed him though."

A thought occurred to Zim. "I KNOW!"

---

"So nice of you to let me say goodbye to Cupid," Membrane said, now in a clean labcoat.

"Well, you are his creator and everything." Dib replied.

Cupid was strapped to a rather large, obviously not human-made rocket, set up in the Membranes' back yard. He wasn't struggling for the simple fact that Zim had promised him a "super happy fun space ride - with waffles" shortly before attaching him to it. His weaponry was strapped next to him.

Gathered near the rocket were, of course, the formerly afflicted crew, the SIR units, Gaz (back from God knows where with an ice cream cone), and some random people off the street that wanted to see the rocket explode before it hit the atmosphere. It was almost like a party.

"Bye Daddy!" Cupid called happily, wagging his little tail and looking all cute.

"Goodbye, Cupid. Have fun in space!"

Zim pressed a button on the remote control in his hand, and the Irken rocket shot up into the air, Cupid's furry little cheeks being pulled back from his skull by the G force.

Everyone waved, yelling their random goodbyes and good lucks, until the the tail light of the rocket disappeared from sight.

"He's dead," Was Tak's verdict, two minutes later.

"Mmyep." Said Dib.

"Oh, son," Membrane's brain processes functioning now. "I forgot to record your movie. It was neat. Too bad you couldn't see it."

"...CHEESEWEASELS!"

---

Meanwhile, somewhere in space...

"I'm bored." Purple whined.

"So?"

"Entertain me."

"Entertain yourself."

"I can't. I'm boring."

"That sounds like a personal problem."

"Reeeeed..."

It was a normal day on the Massive. Nothing to do but sit around with a magazine and munch snacks all day. Except Purple had already done that, while Red was still doing it, and now, as he had already proclaimed, he was bored. He was so bored, even poking the advisors in the back of the head wasn't all that fun anymore. He neglected to realize that maybe they were used to it.

"Go... eat rabid shlorgaweasils or something."

"I already did that." He pouted, wiping a little of the rabies foam off his mouth. "They were spicy. But they weren't entertaining. ENTERTAIN ME!"

Red didn't even dignify this with a response.

"Red! I said--" He stopped, noticing something someone had beamed aboard the ship. "What the hell is that?"

"I... don't actually know, sir." The drone next to it said, scratching an antenna under his UPS cap.

"You don't know what it is, and yet you let it on our ship."

The drone stared at Purple, resembling a zombie. "It...commanded...meeee..." His eyes got bigger on commanded.

"Oookayyy... note to self: treat all personnel for susceptability to hypnotism."

He turned his attention back to the thing. It was small and pink and fuzzy, with little cutesy pink-tinted wings, huge red eyes like cute little jelly donuts, with a long, long tail with a little red puff on the end. It resembled what Zim had once told them was a cat... and a rabbit. A cabbit? And what was that on its back? A quiver and...

Halfway through the observation, the whatever-it was giggled and flew into the air. Purple turned to either get Red to look at it or to issue an order to kill it (probably the former, being as he was still brain-fried from them 'weasils). This motion was met with a sharp pain in his backside.

"Reeeeed..."

The crimson-eyed Tallest recognized that tone, somehow. And he didn't like it.

"What the hell do you want now?"

"I... want..." A set of claws pulled down Red's magazine, revealing the seriously crazed face of his co-ruler. "YOU!"

"What the-- No! Stay back! Get away from me! PUR! GET AWAYYYY!!"

"Aww, you're so KYOOT when you're scared pantsless!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

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And so ends Lovestruck.

I rushed it into five, mmkay. And I didn't make my deadline. -sad-

Review, y0. And if you tell me to "update soon" I'll eat your filthy little face off.

Dem shlorgaweasils be MINES.