#From the deepest darkest barrels of my insane pitiful writing

[darkgunslinger]

Adamantine Shield short (from Saving Zim)

Just a little taste @luckyrabbit1927 of what I promised - taken from a section of deleted chapter way waaaay back - of more Zim/Prof.M scenes. Why am I always so shy to post these? XD

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He held his hands out. He wasn’t sure what else to do.

This wasn’t exactly in his repertoire of experiences.

Membrane had only turned away to grab some printed schematics and brood over them a moment, and there hadn’t been a single sound to draw his attention.

Perhaps Zim had seen an opportunity, or imagined one, and before he’d realized how erroneous it was, he’d crashed to the floor – his departure from the bed a regretful fall – and the thin line of IV tubing had crisscrossed over one arm and around his foot. The telemetry leads, having been stretched unceremoniously, pinged off one by one, causing the ECG to protest with alarms.

Zim struggled, tightening the tubing, and furthering his panic. Membrane, seeing the situation develop, paused for just a millisecond before approaching, and when he did, the creature’s panic intensified. In just one moment Zim had become a wild, terrified animal.

“Everything’s all right. You’ve got yourself tangled up.” But that one extra step seemed to trigger an even stronger reaction.  

Zim rolled onto his side, unable to steer himself vertically, the twisted tubes snagging against his arm and ankle. “Stay! Stay a-away!”

The professor watched the Irken’s tiring struggles. He acted as though he was in a snare.

What signals remained from the Irken’s vitals escalated into the dangerous zone. Warnings on the professor’s wristplate flared in response.

He didn’t understand why Zim was so terrified.

“I need to free you little one, if you just let me approach.” He took another step and stopped. Zim’s claws blindly jerked around to slash at the tubing. Goaded by the fear the tubes inspired, his aim was appalling. Long scratches of deeper green began to appear from slit skin. Unable to breathe above the barbs of panic, Zim tried to prop his right arm beneath him, but his hand slid, shiny with blood, and he went back down again.

The professor could not endure it. He closed the gap between them and was not dissuaded when Zim spent all of his breath to release a bone-chilling scream.

“There there now, I’m freeing you. It’s all right, hush, hush.” Quickly he loosened the tubing around his shivery leg and arm in the hopes that this would dissolve the Irken’s undue terror. His vitals were in the red, his blood pressure falling fast despite the aggressive speed of his heart rate.

He held his littleness to his chest, feeling every shake and shudder bully the frailness that remained. “Let’s do our breathing exercises, hmm? I think now is a good time as any. You remember what to do? Breathe in, deeply now, and feel how my chest moves. Hold it in a moment, and then let it out.”

He exaggerated his chest movements so that Zim would feel them in turn. His tiny body was ice cold, skin clammy with sick-sweat. Though his eyelids were open partway, the pink pupils were extremely dilated. Barely visible nostrils flared somewhat, but it seemed unlikely he’d even ‘switch on’ enough to remember to breathe.

“Everything’s okay.” The professor said, keeping the cadence of his voice soft and steady.

Zim’s claws clutched insensibly on his arm as if it were a ledge he meant to cling to. His eyes slowly began to focus, the deep magenta almost warming up. As much as the professor saw him coming back to himself, he did not rush or hurry him.

When he seemed better able to comprehend the situation, he looked about him, blinking. He watched the little creature’s antenna unfurl until it gradually straightened. For much of his panic, the one antenna had dangled from his head like a velvet shoelace.

Those large eyes, shimmery with undisclosed emotions, blinked again, and his pink pupils coasted around as if he was looking for a target: something that had triggered the antagonism. The only ghoul was the fear, shelved deeply inside. It was the same adulterated fear most animals showed when faced with something beyond their control and comparative safety.

The professor had once tried to treat a deer he’d encountered on the road late one June summer’s day when Dib had been attending school. It had clearly been hit by a car or truck, and had been left for dead. Its hind quarters had taken the main brunt of the collision, and its back legs were broken. Prof. Membrane coaxed it into the backseat of his car where it bleated and struggled. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to take responsibility for it. He supposed it was simply because he couldn’t just drive off and leave it there. He’d always taken the mantle of the world’s problems as his own, knowing he’d been gifted with foresight and intellect. What was the point of the gift if he didn’t apply it?

But alas, the deer did not survive. Like Zim’s wild nature, fear itself seemed to devour its mind along with its vestiges of life, and before he’d even managed to haul it onto a table with the help of his two co-workers, it had died, not of its injuries, but of terror.

It was why he had curtly let Zim go without argument after the ‘baloney’ incident. Quite recovered and eager to move on, Zim had hurried away without much afterthought or conversation, as if lingering any longer might trigger some trap or plot beset by the wiles of man. He had wanted Zim to choose his next step, but sadly, he had intervened when that next step was never chosen.

At least, unlike the deer, Zim could understand human language. He would watch the professor’s expressions, as if trying to guess the deeper intentions beneath the words.

One day he hoped Zim would come to trust him.

“It’s okay now. Nothing’s here to harm you.”

Claws ran frantically along the brittle bones of his legs and arms, as if he half believed the tubing to still be there. A caged beast, used to being bound, may have had similar reactions.

His troubled eyes tirelessly checking and rechecking everything, Zim assertively pushed himself from the man’s gentle hold and stood precariously on stick-like legs, his left leg failing to bend as if the joints had locked up.

“You need a break from this room, don’t you?” He knelt close and took his hand before the Irken had a chance to get dizzy and topple over. Without any telemetry leads, his vitals were now closed to him. He had to now rely on Zim’s body language alone. “You are not trapped here, little one.” He wanted to affirm, in case that was what was on the Irken’s mind, and why wouldn’t it be? He was largely under their control; it had to be this way in order to keep him on the road to recovery. Even so, being mostly confined to one room allowed one’s imagination to fill in the blanks.

Membrane wondered if all members of Zim’s race were this highly strung, and prone to stress.

The Irken’s worried eyes swept upwards to look at him, again trying to determine the lies or the truths.

He had not given the former soldier his prognosis yet. He’d been holding back on it, fearful that Zim may take it very hard, or shelve it, like he did with things he’d rather ignore. Dib himself was still trying come to terms with it. Once he was onboard, the professor would inform the patient as gently as he possibly could. But not telling him was making Zim wary. He knew his continual existence here, in one corner of the lab, weak and disseminated, spread wide his suspicions. It was very likely that Zim already knew. But admitting it was something else entirely and therein lay the problem.

The Irken’s continued quiet was abnormal in every sense. When he’d sat on a chair years before, recovering from his sausage deformation, he had posed every question, yelled every suspicion, and demanded and shook until he was able to work his brain and limbs enough to flee. Even then, he’d been much more vivid and brighter a character. This creature before him was full of fear, lungs lugging heavily through his chest wall, greyer skin slathered in sweat, eyes rimmed and wide, limbs and hands shaking constantly.

“Recuperation is vital. But! I can take you wherever you’d like to go. I’m here to look after you. It’s my sworn oath.” He looked for signs of recognition, of understanding.

The Irken took a loud swallow, his eyes dull with drugs and exhaustion. He stood there, head bowed, looking brittle and ancient. Every night spent here seemed to enlarge those wrinkles under his eyes. His skin wasn’t as grey as it had been since his circulation had improved, but the professor couldn’t seem able to get the skin as green as it used to be. What vital ingredient was missing? What did the poorly thing lack?

Maybe it wasn’t medicine at all.

Maybe it was just care and warmth that the little bug needed.

“Let me show you my favourite room.” He said, squeezing gently on Zim’s arm. “No tubes. No wires. How about it?” The Elite’s eyes, hazy and unfocused, as if he was unfastening himself from the world a little at a time, started to shimmer, and the tension inside softened beneath his touch. “Let’s lift you up.” 

He felt those bird bones as he picked him up, and then he sat him on the crook of his arm.

The invention room was tidy and spacious, with tables assembled down one side. A great ponderous machine stood at the back on a round podium beside several test dummies. The machine was oval in shape, with gadgets bristling down its sides like hedgehog spines. “I call it the Adamantine Shield.” He said proudly when he watched Zim turn his head towards it. He was clued up on technology and the intelligence behind it. He would have made a very good co-worker. “It’s just the prototype at the moment. It’s designed to withstand blasts from an outside energy source, be they physical projectiles or energy pulses. Let me demonstrate!”

Like a kid in a toyshop, he put Zim down on one of the chairs and approached the monolithic object. He tapped on a button, and it deposited a capsule. The capsule opened, revealing a pulsing blue strap. He extended it in his hands, revealing a thin metallic strip. This strip he placed along a wooden dummy’s shoulder. “It adheres to anything. Fabric. Skin. Armour. It automatically configures the body of whoever is wearing it, and once activated, it envelops them in a nigh-indestructible shield.”

Zim cocked his head, one eye slowly narrowing.

“I do apologize! I get my best ideas from you!” The professor was saying, instantly seeing the recognition form in the Irken’s dark reflective eyes and from the slant of his antenna. “Your PAK produces absorbent shielding upon activation! Taking from your life energy in order to maintain it! I have created one that feeds on the energy it absorbs! Making it infinitely better! Here, let me show you just how it works!”

He took a device from a drawer, one of those surgical lasers that only worked for short distances. He walked close to the dummy wearing the metallic strip, and hit the button on the surgical laser. At once a shield of rushing azure appeared, and the weak laser beam fizzled as if the bubble shield’s surface was corrosive. The dummy remained protected.

“Hey. Th-that’s pretty cool.” Zim croaked, antenna docking forwards. “Have you tried sh-shooting some m-missiles at it?”

“Everything! Nothing gets through. But it’s top secret. I do not want the government using this technology. They’d exploit it for nefarious purposes.”

“What do you need it f-for?” Zim’s voice was a thin weedy rasp.

“I want it for my son in case he takes space exploration seriously. It’s completely harmless, only serving to protect the user. I do not endorse weapons, or anything that will encourage violence. My gift is to help others: the world, if necessary, even when humanity is set to destroy it.”

“W-Why?” He rasped.

“Because Earth is my home, as it is yours, little one. You may try to disagree with me, but you know it to be true. I hope that you’ll see the good here, and in every living thing. For a heart is a heavy burden.”

#sorry for the delay I feel like this is just more useless scrap #Saving Zim extras again lol #From the deepest darkest barrels of my insane pitiful writing