Chapter Text
"So, you're trying to do what with this spell?" Snapdragon watched Amaryllis read a book as Sage added ingredients to the cauldron.
"We have to find a way to fight the rot." Sage used her terrasphere to stir the potion in the cauldron.
"You guys said that healing water worked. So just gather a ton of that." Snapdragon manicured her nails as she spoke.
"It's drying up in that cave." Thyme crossed her arms.
"You know, you could actually help instead of doing your nails." Amaryllis looked at Snapdragon.
"We can also just whack it with my sword." Rosemary shrugged.
Amaryllis blinked. "That idea is stupid…and…peasant-like."
Sage stared at her in silence for an uncomfortable period of time.
Snapdragon let out a fake cough. "Well, that was uncomfortable. Who wants to forget about this and go binge eat a whole bunch of junk food?"
Sage went back to mixing the potion. "Did any of you actually bring a piece of the rot to test it on?"
"I got a leaf from the infected tree nearby." Snapdragon opened her small green purse that she bought during the break they had when the school was being repaired.
"Good, just set it on the floor, and I'll pour the potion on it." Sage grabbed a test tube and scooped some of the liquid into it.
Snapdragon stood up and placed the black spotted leaf onto the floor.
Caraway opened the door and walked into the room. "You know, all of you are late for class. This isn't everything hours."
"We're kind of in the middle of something." Snapdragon sat back down and grabbed out a bottle of nail polish from her purse.
Sage walked over to the leaf and poured the potion on it, but it had no effect.
"Boooooo!" Snapdragon put her thumbs down, carefully holding the nail polish bottle.
"Maybe if I blast it with my terrasphere, Sage's little old magic potion might do something." Amaryllis put down the book as her bracelet formed into a wand that wrapped around her wrist.
"It's my potion, I'll blast it with magic." Sage pointed her staff at the leaf as energy started to charge in the sphere.
Amaryllis also blasted the leaf with magic at the same time as Sage's energy blast hit the leaf.
"Wait, don't do that!" Caraway stepped toward them, but he was too late.
They all vanished from the room and reappeared on a sidewalk next to a sign that said, "Welcome to Doomsville."
"Okay, what is that smell all around us?" Snapdragon covered her nose.
"Well, that's a little disrespectful to people who probably live here. Oh, though, there is an odor." Caraway looked around and saw an old car drive past. "And whatever that thing is."
"It looks like a bus, but with nothing pulling it. Like, does it just run off new magic or something instead of an animal pulling it?" Sage looked at another vehicle that drove by, but this one was a convertible, with a green dog in the back seat surrounded by women wearing the trendiest of clothes.
"What's that thing?!" Rosemary excitedly pointed at a gray squirrel.
"I don't know, but we should probably stay back from it." Thyme removed her bow off her back and grabbed an arrow from her holster.
"You think that thing's got rabies?!" Rosemary's eyes sparkled with excitement.
"Do you want to get rabies?" Parsley used her mallet to poke a crack in the sidewalk before stepping on it.
"Honestly, you don't want rabies." Caraway looked at the squirrel, comparing it to things he already recognized.
"Well, I guess we should walk into this town and see, we can find help getting back to the academy." Parsley looked at Caraway. "What do you think, Professor Caraway?"
"Honestly, I'm still getting used to that smell, and I'm working on a plan in my head." Caraway continued to think.
"It will be autumn by the time you think of something." Snapdragon muttered.
Caraway heard her and looked at her. "Now that is not kind."
Snapdragon rolled her eyes. "It wasn't meant to be kind."
"Remember what I said, you don't have to be aggressive, you can just be yourself." Caraway started walking past the sign and into the town.
Snapdragon frowned. "If you bring up anything I said to you in front of anyone here, I will get expelled for punching a professor."
Caraway frowned. "Please don't threaten me either."
"Now I'm curious if I could actually take you down." Snapdragon looked Caraway up and down as she started walking in the same direction.
"No, I, as a trained guardian, will not be trying to fight one of my students." Caraway continued walking.
"How about all of us vs you?" Snapdragon glanced at Rosemary as she spotted another squirrel.
"Maybe that one knows the way back to High Guardian Academy!" Rosemary ran after the squirrel.
They all started running after her.
"Rosemary, please stay with the group. We have no idea where we are!" Caraway ran after her.
They reached a neighborhood and stood at the crosswalk.
Iggins stood at the crosswalk playing on Game Slave.
They stood in silence for a bit until Iggins noticed Amaryllis's purple hair. "You're not related to her, are you?" He started to shake.
"Related to who?" Amaryllis raised an eyebrow.
"The reason why I'm not the greatest gamer of all time. A girl with purple hair just like yours, except shorter and much scarier." Iggins was still shaking. He looked around. "I don't want to accidentally summon her."
As soon as the road was clear, they ran across the street. They eventually ran into a neighborhood with a very strange looking purple and greenish blue house.
Snapdragon didn't notice a boy with green skin standing in front of her.
"Youuuuu! How dare you crash into Zim!" Zim stood up adjusting his wig.
Snapdragon stared at him for a moment. "You're green, but you're too small to be a troll, so what are you?"
"Zim is no troll, human pig smelly!" Zim got in her face and pointed at her with his finger and foot.
Snapdragon blinked. "Did you just call me a pig?"
"Can you leave now? I am waiting for the Dib beast to arrive, as I'm going to be spreading mutated vermin around the city again to prepare Earth for the coming doom!" Zim stomped his foot.
"Well, you can't do that." Caraway crossed his arms.
"Says who, I'm a perfectly normal human worm baby. And there's absolutely nothing you can do..." Zim noticed Dib walking with his briefcase up to him, wearing his usual black trench coat. "Be gone with you, the Dib monkey has arrived!"
"Yes, Zim, and I'm here to stop whatever you're doing!" Dib opened his briefcase and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. "I got a new pair of alien handcuffs from Cropcircle Magazine!"
"Gir, come out here and protect your master!" Zim pointed at the house.
"Yes, my lord, I obey." Gir ran out of the house, his eyes turning red, but suddenly they turned back to blue. "Hi! Are you friends with my master and the big head boy!"
"My head is not big!" Dib charged at Zim.
"Gir, why aren't you in your doggy ruse!" Zim pointed at Gir.
Rosemary ran over to Gir. "Hi, you're so cute!"
"I've got a sandwich in my head!" Gir popped the top of his head open to show her.
"Rosemary, you shouldn't go near that thing!" Sage stepped closer to her.
"Come on, Sage, he's got a sandwich in his head!" Rosemary grinned.
Dib tackled Zim to the ground.
"So which one of them is the good guy?" Parsley watched Dib try to put the handcuffs on Zim.
Zim used his pak's spider legs to push Dib off him. His wig came off, revealing his black antennas.
"Do you think he's somehow a troll dwarf hybrid?" Snapdragon walked over to Caraway.
"I'm gonna rip out your organs on an autopsy table, Zim!" Dib lunged at him again.
"I think we should figure out who the good guy is and who the bad guy is here, because right now, they're looking pretty like both of them are." Caraway watched the two of them scuffle.
"I think that kid is deranged, and his head is big." Thyme made a face.
"Well, that isn't very nice, and the kid can't be any older than twelve." Caraway frowned at her.
"So what's your name?" Rosemary knelt down next to Gir.
"Get away from my S.I.R. Unit!" Zim knocked Dib's glasses off his face.
Dib knocked off Zim's lenses, revealing his maroon bug-like eyes.
"Okay, now I'm not sure what he is." Snapdragon looked over at Amaryllis.
"You're still on about what he is? How about what's wrong with this kid, and why doesn't everyone seem to not notice that they're brawling in the middle of the front yard of this very strange looking house!" Amaryllis gestured at the empty street around them.
"What's a S.I.R. Unit?" Rosemary tilted her head.
His eyes flashed red. "A S.I.R. Unit is a Standard Information Retrieval unit." His eyes flashed back to blue. "I'm Gir!"
"If S.I.R. stands for that, what does the G stand for?" Rosemary tilted her head.
"I don't know." Gir started to dance.
"It literally stands for garbage." Dib grabbed his glasses and put them back on.
"How dare you call my superior Irken technology garbage!" Zim grabbed his collar.
Caraway walked over to them. "Now you can stop this and explain what's even going on, who you two even are, and what world this even is, as I'm starting to feel like it's not ours."
"I was wondering why you're all dressed funny." One of the garden gnomes blasted Dib with a laser. "Ow! Not another pair of handcuffs destroyed."
"Okay, those creepy statues actually do something." Snapdragon backed away off the property.
"Ladies, I think we should run." Sage ran as she noticed one of the gnomes aiming the laser at her.
Zim pointed at them. "Fire, some sort of laser thingy at the human worm babies!"
They all ran except Caraway, who effortlessly dodged the lasers.
Snapdragon stopped and looked behind her. "Are you seriously not running because Sage said ladies, not even remembering you were there... I hope."
"Yeah, I will not be included with the ladies, thank you very much." Caraway dodged another laser, crossing his arms.
"You're kidding, right? Men and their egos." Sage rolled her eyes. "I know you probably feel emasculated, but honestly, who cares at this point, just run!"
"It's not that he feels emasculated, it's something completely different." Snapdragon snapped at Sage.
Gir waved at Rosemary. "Bye, new friend!"
"No, they are not your friends. They're just horrible, stinky humans! Even though one has pointed ears or something." Zim looked around but didn't see Dib. "I guess he ran off. Anyhow, let's go do some experiments on that kid with the happiness probe in his brain."
"He's a man. What else could it be, other than his ego being bruised because he got included with the ladies, which are clearly beneath him according to him." Sage crossed her arms and glared at Caraway.
"I don't think any of you are beneath me!" Caraway realized he had raised his voice and looked down at the ground.
"Leave him alone, you really don't know, and I cannot tell you why, you really don't know what's going on. It's not my story to tell." Snapdragon stepped between them.
"Of course, you'll defend him, considering your past." Sage crossed her arms.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Snapdragon glared at her.
"Well, we all know you're not, well, the same as us." Sage looked away.
"Oh, are you being fucking for real!" Snapdragon threw her hands up.
"Well, it's true. You're not like us, you just didn't experience girlhood the same, and pretending it is, is ridiculous." Sage argued.
"So you're questioning my womanhood now!" Snapdragon noticed Caraway run away. Without thinking, she started running after him.
Snapdragon looked around at all the tall buildings as she noticed how far they ran from the group.
Caraway found a bench and sat down, tucking his knees to his chest as he started to cry.
Snapdragon walked over and sat next to him. She frowned as Sage's words fully hit her.
Caraway didn't notice her.
"So I know why what she said hurt, and I don't think you're sexist at all. You're not a lady, you don't even look remotely like a lady, and you look very much like a man." Snapdragon sat down beside him.
Caraway jumped. "Ohh, you're there. Thank you for not saying anything."
"Of course, I won't out another trans person." Snapdragon looked at him. "Do you need a hug?"
Caraway nodded.
Snapdragon hugged him.
Caraway hugged her back.
"You know, we can be friends if you want." Snapdragon pulled back slightly.
"I can't become best friends with one of my students. I still have to have authority." Caraway wiped his face.
"Well, no one has to know if we hang out outside of school hours." Snapdragon shrugged.
"Okay, I guess so." Caraway nodded.
"We should probably find our way back to the group, though, and hopefully find a way home. This world is kind of terrible." Snapdragon stood up from the bench.
"I know I'm her teacher and all, but I really don't want to be around her right now." Caraway stayed seated, looking at the ground.
"Well, you don't have to, you know, you can just kick her out of your class." Snapdragon held out a hand to help him up.
"Yeah, I can just do that. I can also put you in my class if you want, so we could spend more time together." Caraway took her hand and stood.
"But I'm on the warrior track." Snapdragon let go once he was up.
"You could be on the magic track. I think you might have what it takes." Caraway brushed off his pants.
"I actually always wanted to learn magic. I saw Amaryllis practice magic and it looked fun." Snapdragon smiled at the thought.
They started walking back in the direction they'd come from.
They found their way back to the group, but they were in front of a different house now with a weird high tech electric fence.
"Apparently that kid with the big head has these spell drives that we can actually power up and possibly get home with, because there's a portal spell in these." Parsley clicked a few buttons on the spell drive to look through the spells.
"But we shouldn't use one spell. Apparently it makes everything taste like a pig, except hot dogs, and it turned one guy into a hobo." Amaryllis added as she held up one of the spell drives. "Yeah, it doesn't give you cool powers, and you have to go to the shadow hog realm, and I had to clean a disgusting toilet with a toilet brush crown strapped to my head to get him to remove the curse from my sister."
"Ew, what's wrong with this world?" Thyme made a face.
"That's not the worst thing that's happened to me. I got turned into bologna because Zim fused my DNA with the DNA of bologna, because supposedly deep down I'm bologna. My sister somehow found us after we had already been turned into sentient bologna and brought us to my dad. I tried to tell him that Zim did it, but he didn't believe me." Dib crossed his arms.
"What are these things, and where did you guys even get this many of them?" Caraway did not look at Sage.
"They all just fell off the back of a truck." Dib shrugged.
"Okay, well, it looks like it operates like a terrasphere, but it has limited power, as not a whole bunch of power drawn from the Earth." Sage looked at Snapdragon, avoiding Caraway.
"Oh, so essentially she just said terraspheres but limited power, basically a very early form of new magic, probably." Parsley nodded along.
"Oh, by the way, what you said was terrible, and I'm not listening to you. And you're out of my class." Caraway didn't look at Sage.
"What! You can't do that. I need your class to graduate from the academy." Sage stepped toward him.
"Well, Snapdragon, can you? I don't wanna talk to her anymore." Caraway looked down at the ground.
"Okay, basically what you said was so abhorrent and disgusting that he's kicking you out and doesn't want to see your face again, and I could agree. My crush, I used to have a crush on you, key word, used to." Snapdragon crossed her arms.
"What? But why, I don't know if I feel the same about you, but what did I exactly say that was so bad? I only pointed out that he was being sexist, and if that's why, then you're sexist, for kicking him out of your class." Sage frowned.
"No, what you said was transphobic towards me, and including him with the ladies was really disgusting. The answer is no. So get your eyes checked." Snapdragon glared at her.
"Okay, let's just get you back to your world. One of those, what were they called again? Sphere thingys, to power it, so you can use the power points to create a portal to send you back home." Dib adjusted his glasses.
"Ooh, ooh, tell them the name of the network, your secret network that you used to get this information." Rosemary got up and started jumping up and down.
"I asked the Swollen Eyeball Network, as my secret identity, Agent Mothman. I got the information from Agent Dark Booty, we've met before." Dib explained.
"Okay... you look a bit too young to be a guardian, but I'm guessing that's this world's equivalent of a guardian." Caraway tilted his head.
"I don't know what that is, but probably not." Dib shrugged.
"But who names themselves Dark Booty?" Thyme made a face.
"Hi there!" Gir ran over to Rosemary.
"Don't you dare steal my evil minion!" Zim ran after Gir.
"You want to go get tacos! I ate a baby there once!" Gir grinned.
Rosemary laughed.
Caraway stared at him. "Uh, Rosemary, can you please get away from that thing?"
"Yeah, he did." Zim nodded.
"Okay, well, when opening the portal, you have to be careful not to open a florpus hole." Dib picked up one of the spell drives.
"What's a florpus hole?" Caraway stared at him.
"It's just a hole in space time that rips apart reality. Now give me back my minion!" Zim pointed at Rosemary and Gir.
"I kind of want tacos now." Snapdragon looked at Caraway. "You want tacos?"
"Sure, but not from anywhere here. Who knows what it's made of."
"Yeah, Crazy Taco is disgusting. Anywho, I'm gonna go back to coming up with a world conquering plan. Gir, take me back to the base!" Zim marched over to then.
"Okay, even the food here is inedible." Snapdragon shook her head.
"Yeah, MacMeaties makes their space burger meat out of used napkins because they don't have access to space meat technology." Zim looked at the spell drives. "I kinda actually wanna see if your world's worth conquering for my Almighty Tallest."
"What? Wait, did you say your leaders are just taller than you?" Snapdragon raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, they're the tallest, they're taller than every other Irken. Isn't it obvious, height makes right, even on this mud ball." Zim crossed his arms.
"And maybe we could go over, and we could stay, and you and the big head boy could be best friends, swimming cheese, because you loves him so much!" Gir beamed.
"No, the big headed boy is our enemy, Gir!" Zim snapped.
"You will not conquer our world." Caraway stepped forward.
"What are you gonna do to fight against the almighty Zim? Your species is so dumb, they can't even see an alien right in front of them."
A man across the street spit out a can of beer. "Martha, the neighbor kid's an alien!"
Martha screamed and pressed her body against the window.
Zim grabbed his disguise off the ground and put it on.
"Never mind, just a normal kid with a skin condition!" The guy went back to what he was doing.
"It's only this place that's stupid." Caraway crossed his arms.
"You dare correct Zim!" Zim got in his face and pointed his finger and foot at him.
"Get out of my face, and what in the world is an alien?" Caraway stepped back from him.
"It's what he is! An alien, he's been an alien all along, but nobody sees it!" Dib pointed at Zim.
"Okay, kid, please calm down." Caraway's tone shifted to a more gentle tone.
"First of all, don't use that teacher's voice on me, and second of all, he is, he's green. No human with a skin condition is green! He can't touch water or meat!"
"That's because they're contaminated beyond belief, probably, in this world." Caraway looked around in disgust.
"Let's just get you guys back home." Dib picked up a spell drive, walked over and handed it to Caraway.
"I object to being called a guy." Snapdragon crossed her arms.
"It's just a colloquial term for people." Dib raised an eyebrow. "What's your problem with it, and why are you two so sensitive?"
"We're not sensitive." Snapdragon crossed her arms. "It's just that when we're surrounded by... what's a good word for it?"
"Idiots." Caraway offered.
"Yeah, idiots." Snapdragon nodded.
"So I'm an idiot now!" Sage glared at both of them. "You know, it's really unprofessional to call your students that."
"You're not my student anymore." Caraway crossed his arms.
"I'm still a student!" Sage shot back.
Rosemary remembered something. "He used to be a girl."
Caraway looked down at the ground. "You're not supposed to just say that to people, and you're saying it really rudely and wrong."
"Yeah, you don't just out someone." Snapdragon glared at both of them.
"Oh, I'm so sorry for including him with the ladies, then." Sage looked down, her voice softer than before.
Caraway looked at the spell drive. "Let's just get home already."
"Well, if I had known you were the same as Snapdragon, not liking being called you guys in a group setting, I wouldn't have been so careless." Sage crossed her arms.
Caraway took out his terrasphere and blasted the spell drive with it. He let go of it, and it started to levitate and create a portal. "Snapdragon, meet me in my office. I just need to talk to someone, and obviously you would be the one I talked to."
Snapdragon nodded and walked toward the portal.
Caraway and the rest followed her.
"We need to feed the growing Resistance." Lard Nar sat on a throne-like chair on a ship.
"Yeah, feed the Resisty!" The crowd cheered.
"Okay, what have we walked in on this time!" Snapdragon looked around at the ship.
Caraway looked down at the floor, still holding back tears.
Snapdragon noticed and put her arm around him, pulling him closer.
"Really, we're still not home." Thyme crossed her arms.
"Yeah, what went wrong!" Sage threw up her hands.
"Calm down, everyone. I'm sure Professor Caraway can just try again." Parsley gave him a small smile.
"No, I think I should give it a shot." Amaryllis stepped forward.
"But I didn't do anything wrong." Caraway muttered.
"No, you didn't." Snapdragon tightened her arm around him.