Sublime Awakenings

Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 52


Leon sat on a swing with a wide rubber seat, the kind that always seemed to leave a black stain on the back of his jeans on hot days. He frowned as he kicked the wooden chips on the ground to push the swing slowly back and forth, enough to look like he was at least trying to have fun. When his mom had taken him to the park near their house, she had always made him wear black pants so it wouldn't matter. Now he was just going to ruin another pair and cost Brian more money probably, though he knew the money wasn't the only reason he was here. Brian had a lot more money to spare than his own family had ever had just for paying bills.

There were other kids on the small playground at the adoption center, screaming and chasing each other and kicking up dirt and chips, but he did his best to ignore them, just like he did the other kids at skool. He knew already that none of them would want to play with him today or any other … not unless it involved pain. It was almost like they could sense his weakness and it drew them in for the kill, like on those nature shows that Todd was always watching. He felt his eyes start to sting and he narrowed them to block out the sun, wishing that he could blame it for all of his problems.

Sadly, he had been here every Friday for the past three weeks, ever since Brian had told him that his mom and grandpa weren't coming back, to spend time with the couple that he was currently watching through the window of the bland, square brick building between the playground and the road. They were in there with Ms. Diablo and some other social worker people, taking tests and signing papers. They did that a lot, and he figured there must be an awful lot of papers. Brian said that they wanted to be his new parents, but he didn't want them.

He didn't want new parents period, but especially not them. After the first visit, Shmee had told him in his dreams about how Sarah and Thomas Mather were bad people that only wanted to hurt him once they got him alone. They would cut him into little pieces before they killed him, and that would hurt a lot. And the thin Knee man that came to see Todd sometimes, he was bad too, even though he made Happy Noodle Boy. If Shmee said it, Leon knew that it had to be true.

"Hey."

Shmee was an elf sent by his mom to keep him safe, and Santa's elves didn't lie; they didn't even need to be on the naughty or nice list because they were never ever bad. And even he could see that the Scary Neighbor Man was moody and really angry.

The Scary Neighbor Man: Leon didn't know why he thought of the Knee man that way sometimes. He was a little scary, but he didn't live near Lee or Brian either. He wasn't a neighbor, except maybe in the way that Brian's church said that all people were moral neighbors.

"Hey, you, weird kid."

He looked away from the building and back into the direction of the sun, where he could make out a blond girl with pigtails a couple of years older than himself. "Uh, hey."

"Are you retarded or something?"

"No …."

"Then why don't you ever play with us?" She paused to gesture behind her with a thumb. "See Derick over there? He's in fourth grade, and he says you must be retarded."

"Well, I'm not."

"Well, he says you are."

"I'm still not." He shrugged and glared at both her and the sun.

"Then prove it."

He sighed, halfway to giving up. "How?"

"You have to help us sing the retard song to Maxine." She pointed again, this time at a short girl in yellow overhauls, playing by herself with two twigs in the sandbox. "Look at her over there by herself … with those sticks. She's so stupid. Sticks don't cost anything! They can't be toys! So she's retarded for sure!"

"I'm not doing that. It's mean."

"So?" She asked, challenge embedded in her high pitched voice.

"So … it's wrong to be mean. You're gonna to be on the naughty list."

"You still believe in Santa? You are retarded."

"Shut-up! You don't know anything."

"Why don't you make me, huh, retard?" She turned her head to the boy she had pointed to before. "Hey, Derick, come're!"

Leon's hands tightened on the chains of the swing as Derick threw down Maxine's now broken sticks and ran over to stand behind the pig-tailed girl.

"He believes in Santa, and he's afraid he's gonna be on the naughty list!" She giggled cruelly.

"Ha! What a little baby! No wonder those people wanna adopt him. Couples like that only want babies."

"Yeah. Too bad they don't know he's retarded yet." The pigtailed girl looked back to Leon. "You'll be right back here as soon as they find out you're damaged goods. Then they'll hate you as much as your real parents do."

As she stepped forward and Derick walked around to the back of the swing, Leon could feel his breaths coming faster. Vultures, that's what they were. Except he wasn't dead yet and they still wanted to eat him alive. He looked back to the building hopefully, but no one was watching. Then he nearly fell off the swing when he was pushed roughly from behind and then from the front; higher and faster until the swing set was squeaking with every trip up and down and he was almost afraid that the whole thing would topple over.

He tried to scream for help, but Pig-tail and Derick were laughing and chanting something stupid and repetitive and somehow angrily upbeat that was louder than he was. From the building it probably looked like they were playing, which meant he was on his own with them. Derick pushed him again, and the swing went higher than the top bar of the set. There was too much slack in the chains and he came down hard, too hard. His stomach felt too light like there was suddenly no gravity and then he fell back and out of the swing, landing roughly on his back on the wood chips that knocked the air out of his lungs.

As he huffed and struggled for breath, the sky above grew white, really white. He could hear the others laughing and saying things that he couldn't make out and he felt warm, unwanted tears leaking from his eyes. Somehow crying always seemed to make the pain worse instead of better, but once he had started it was hard to stop. His skin was hot and he could taste metal … or was he hearing it? And screaming. There was screaming now.

Forcing in and out a few deep breaths, he prompted himself up on his sore elbows and blinked until he could see through the white. The first thing he could make out was the seat of the swing he had been in at his feet, ripped free from its chains. The next was Derick on his left with one of the chains wrapped around his neck. His feet were inches off the ground and he was tugging fiercely at the the metal as his face turned darker. On his other side, Pig-tail was tied, upside down, to one of the poles of the set with the other chain. She was trying to scream out, but that seemed to be becoming increasingly hard as the end of the chain worked its way further into her mouth.

Leon scrambled back away from the swing set and the children, then pushed himself up and turned to run, but as soon as he did, he hit something. He looked up to see Letta staring down at him with wide eyes.

She grabbed him roughly by the arm to move him to the side, but didn't let go as she gaped at the scene before her. Both of the other kids were on the ground now, like Leon had been before, both in tears. The chains of the swing were slack, hanging from each side, though she could have sworn she had seen something else moments before. And there was a deep red bruise forming around the boy's neck.

"Children! Children." Rosemary stopped just short of the swing set to pull her shirt back down from where it had rod up as she ran over and to catch her breath. "What … what's going on here, exactly?" Maxine, who was now standing several yards back, had run into the office to tell her that Derick and Lizzy were picking on Leon, but now they both looked more beat-up than he did! When the two kids on the ground didn't answer her, Rosemary looked back to Letta, but she only shrugged helplessly. "Maxine, go get the nurse, honey."

---------------Scene Shift---------------

"So, Todd, how's your mom doing now?" Zita asked as they walked through the courtyard from their last class of the day toward the front of the skool building. After Ms. Bitters had been fired, the skool had split up all of her classes and divided them between the remaining English teachers, and she and Todd had both ended up in Ms. Graham's last period. She was without a doubt a better teacher, and three of her friends, Pepito, Bryan and the Letter M, all had her for that class as well. Still, Zita, for some reason, had been one of Ms. Bitters favorite students, and that had almost guaranteed her an 'A' in her classes, so it was a bit of a mixed bag for her.

He grimaced. "Oh, she's … she's spending the weekend in the mental institution."

"Oh." She slowed down a pace to send Pepito an awkward, 'oops' look.

Todd smiled at her reaction and plowed on, deciding he didn't care if the blunt, though partial, answers were too honest. "No, she's good, though. She's over the worst of the delusions now and the drugs are out of her system." And Zim. Zim was out of her system, finally. She had come to a few weeks ago after they had returned from Zim's moon base. As it turned out, he had experienced most of the withdrawal symptoms for her while in her body. She had awoken to clear reality, and she hadn't taken it particularly well. Luckily, Gaz had stayed late with him after the others left, and she was very good at enforcing calm. Gaz also, dispute her twisted affinity for dooming, apparently had a strange respect for her own brand of family values, because his mother had gotten a good, long lecture about them and how they should come before her 'lame-ass, whiner fears and addictions'.

"Yeah," M said when the conversation lagged, "I heard Bitters pumped her full of some strong shit. It was bad, huh?"

"Sure," he laughed. "Bitters. Bitters must have been pushing pills on the corner after class for years."

"Todd." Pepito gripped his arm lightly as they made it into the main Junior hall where their lockers were, choosing to follow him to his as his voice dropped lower and the others fell back. "What are you doing?"

"Talking, Pep. I thought you wanted me to." Todd shook off his hand, sending him a sarcastic smile as he opened his locker to exchange a few things from his backpack.

"I do, but you're being really rude."

"I'm just giving them what they want. Juicy inside details. Well, superficial ones anyway."

He rolled his eyes. "That's not what they want."

"Oh, come on. It's what everyone here wants. It's the only reason they even talk to me."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe, but it's still true."

"It is not true." He frowned when Todd gave him a heated look as he slammed his locker shut. "Well, okay, it's not true for my friends. They want to know you because you're my friend too."

"You mean because you told them to be nice to me? So you can try to salvage my reputation now before the trauma popularity wears off and I sink back down to Dib levels?"

"What's wrong with that? Besides, you were never at Dib levels." Pepito sighed. "Look, we'll talk about it later, alright?"

"Fine. I'm going outside." He turned to walk toward the exit, though he could hear Pepito scrabble to drop things off at his own locker in time to follow him. When he reached the front of the building, he took a deep breath of the fresh Fall air as he sat on the long, backless bench, leaning against the brick of the building behind him with his backpack in his lap. He kept his sight loosely focused on the half-circle pick-up lane ahead of him as Pepito came out to plop down next to him. He laughed. "Is it later already?"

"No, but I couldn't resist. Why are you being such a jackass today?"

Todd frowned, then scooted so that he was at an angle toward Pepito, who was sitting with his legs spread wide to take up more space than necessary. He was hunched over slightly, resting his head on a hand that was propped up by an elbow on his right knee. "I'm sorry. I tried to tell you nicely, but you just keep pushing with the popular thing."

"Would you rather be unpopular?"

"Maybe. It might be less pressure."

"It's not. You know it's not. Not unless you find the exact medium where no one cares enough to pay attention to you either way, and that's a lot harder than it sounds, not to mention hugely ungratifying. And it's not like my friends are the most popular jerks here. I do have standards. So do they; they're not so bad."

"They're bad enough that I have to impress them within my allotted spotlight time, though, right? And that I couldn't be seen with Dib anymore at skool?"

"I don't know why you want to hang out with him so badly anyway. He's always with Zim, and Zim is just ..."

"The most annoying person at skool? Maybe." He sighed. "You know I don't like Zim, not after what he did. I just wish you wouldn't push me, and that it didn't have to be one way or the other. They've gotten a lot better lately."

"It's true." Zita smirked when they both looked up in surprise as she pushed herself up a few inches to sit on the railing opposite the bench to face them both. She braced herself with her right arm around a metal pole that held the porch up. "Freakishly true, actually. As far as I can tell, Zim and Dib haven't argued over the Earth since Zim came back to skool. Now most of the rumors about them are just about their relationship-status." She smiled. "But I wasn't going to ask you about that, Squee."

He forced a small smile, not sure if he really believed her. That wasn't really the most bothersome part anyway. "Thanks, Zita."

She smiled too. "I don't personally care who you hang with. As long as you make Pepi happy, you're cool with me. Although, if you want some advice: you don't have to cut all ties with Dib at skool; you just have be careful about the length and placement of time you spend with him. Like, eating with him at lunch is generally bad because a good portion of the skool sees that right away, but being his lab partner or something would be okay. You know?"

"...yeah." He looked down at the cracked concrete that his sneakers were resting on as they were joined once again by Bryan and M, along with the addition of Missy and Crissy. He really wasn't sure what his problem was with befriending these people. Sure, the thought of purposefully monitoring when he could and couldn't spend time with Dib and a few of the other unpopular people he'd taken a liking to recently felt sort of wrong, but it wasn't a novel concept. Maybe that was just it; he'd been thinking something similar for a while, not for the popularity, but just to be able to have a normal conversation that didn't center around the drama between Dib and Zim more often than not. There was also the fact that Dib probably wouldn't notice since he was always so obsessed with Zim and other paranormal things. Real, interpersonal, non-obsessive relationships.

It was tempting until Crissy lit up a cigarette that she took from her purse. At least Dib didn't smoke, or really drink, or go to sex parties on the weekends. He hoped he wasn't blushing as images of a few pictures that Pepito had sent him on his new cellphone from his time at Missy and Crissy's flashed through his mind.

"So," Zita spoke up when no one else seemed to be doing so, "Pepito, are you still coming to my house after debate?"

"Is your mom still working late?"

She nodded. "And Dad's outta town."

"Cool." He fought off a smile when M took a step toward them, and Bryan held him back by the arm.

"Dude, we've gotta go to basket ball practice or coach will make us run extra laps again."

"Yeah." M still continued to stand there, staring speechlessly at his ex-girlfriend as she carelessly combed her long, green hair out of her face. She could have just moved to the bench where the wind wasn't blowing from behind her and she wasn't in perpetual danger of falling. She also could have waited until he was out of ear-shot before making plans to fuck a mutual friend.

"What?" She suddenly looked his way, blinking long black eyelashes against her tan skin.

"Nothing. Come on, Bry, we're gonna be late." He turned to go with a grunt of annoyance, giving the heavy doors an extra hard push in hopes that they would slam shut behind him.

Zita smiled once he was out of sight. "You think it worked?"

"Oh, yeah." Pepito laughed a little. "He's jealous. I'd say you could have him back by the end of the week, unless he needs some time to cool off. If you want him back, that is."

"I'm not sure yet, but after what he did, he can sweat it out for a while anyway."

"Awesome. You do want me to come over, though, right?"

"Sure. My dad's not really out of town, so we'll only have a few hours."

He nodded as Crissy passed him her half-finished cigarette, but stopped with it a few inches from his lips to look sheepishly at Todd, who was holding his backpack much too tightly. "No thanks, Criss, I'm trying to quit … again."

"Thank God!" Zita clapped her hands together, which made her nearly fall off the railing. She quickly latched back onto the pole, speaking in a calmer voice as if it would help her stay balanced. "Those things are disgusting."

"Oh, burned!" Missy laughed from where she was sitting on Todd's left. "I wish she would quit." She looked over at her sister. "Soon you'll be the only one."

"Whatever. I've still got Bryan."

"Yeah, but he's falling behind on the team. He told me that if he doesn't do better, the coach is going to call his parents about finding a pack in his gym locker."

"How … did the coach find them in his locker?" Zita asked.

"... I didn't think to ask. He said it was even rolled up in his socks or something, so, he had to be looking pretty hard for something."

"Or be pretty hard for something." Crissy nudged Pepito in the ribs as she giggled. " Am I right?"

"Eww. I hope not." Missy looked down at the backpack in Todd's lap. "Hey, Todd, you're bag's vibrating."

"Oh." He dug his new cell phone out stiffly and hit the talk button after recognizing Letta's number. "Hello?"

"Hey, Squee. We've got a small problem here at the center, so I'm gonna be a little late … like thirty minutes late, picking you up."

"What happened?"

"I … I have no idea. I think … Lee got into a fight with some other kids, or maybe somebody beat them all up, or … it's crazy. But don't worry; everyone's fairly okay."

"O-kay."

"I'll tell you about it later."

"Are we still going to the grocery store?"

"Probably."

"Alright. If I'm not up front when you get here, just give me a call."

"Sounds good. See ya."

"Yeah." He pressed the end button, then quickly stuffed it back into one of the front pouches of his pack, paranoid that somehow the few pictures of the twins that he hadn't deleted yet would pop up onto the small screen.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing really. Something happened with Leon." He shrugged when Pepito raised a brow at him. "He got into a fight or something, so Letta's picking me up late."

"Do you need a ride home-er, back to Brian's?" He exchanged a glance with Zita, then looked a his watch. "We have debate practice in about ten minutes, but I could take you after that. You can even watch if you want."

"Nah. She shouldn't be too late. Thanks, though."

"Oh, we could take him!" Missy gripped his upper arm, then leaned back and forth in her seat to make them both wobble. "We're about to leave anyway, right Criss?"

"Yeah. We've got a family thing at four. We could drop you."

Todd forced yet another smile. "No, I think I better wait. I kind of have a thing too, and I have to run some errands with Letta."

"Aww. That's too bad."

"I really appreciate the offer."

"Oh well." Crissy put her cigarette out on the wall, then dropped it to the concrete behind the bench before standing. "Well, have a good weekend, I guess."

"Yeah. You too." He breathed a sigh of relief when the two walked out to the parking lot to the car they shared.

"Finally." Zita hopped down from the railing. "Those two are such fangirls!"

"Now, Zita, be nice," Pepito said.

"Hey, I am nice. Are we ready for debate?"

"Yeah. You go ahead, and I'll be there shortly."

"Kay."

When she shrugged and walked back into the main building, Pepito stood, pausing for a moment to look down at Todd. "Are you sure you don't need a ride?"

"Yeah. Letta will be here before your practice is over anyway."

"Alright. Have fun with the groceries."

Todd caught his hand as he turned away. "Pep?" He stood too, and Pepito turned back around to face him.

"Yeah?"

"We're not fighting or anything, are we?" Todd asked, a little abashed.

"I'm not." He smiled. "I'll back off about the friends, okay?"

"No. I … they're okay. Just, leave the Dib thing alone?"

"I would if you would." Pepito snorted. "You know, Dib-thing, because-" He stopped when Todd didn't seemed to see the humor, "Okay, I will."

"Thank you."

"Sure." He looked down at his watch again. "Uh, I really do have to go. Are you sure-"

"I'm sure."

"Alright. Bye."

"Bye."

Todd released his hand, but he still lingered. "Hey. Do you wanna see a movie on Saturday?"

"I don't think I can. Letta's grandparents are flying in from Florida, and Brian wants me to do things with the family."

"Oh. Well, that's good, right?"

"I guess." He looked down for a moment, not wanting to admit how much little things like that meant to him because it would just set him up for more pain when he eventually had to move back in with his mother. Sixteen was probably a bit too old to expect to be adopted. Leon was a lot closer, and Brian was currently trying to find him new parents.

"Well, call me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I really have to go."

"Then go already." Todd laughed.

"Right." Giving him one last smile, Pepito turned to jog back to the building.

He shook his head as he sat back down, then unzipped his backpack to look for the book he was currently reading. After he'd opened it to his bookmarked page, his eyes ran over the words, but he was annoyed to find that he wasn't absorbing it properly. "Damn."

"What's your problem?"

He looked up to see Gaz standing in front of him, her arms crossed over an orange, low-cut shirt that showed off a matching plastic, half-moon-shaped pendant that lay against her small cleavage. The sight still nearly made him do a double take. "Nothing."

"Good." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You'd tell me if your mom gave you anymore shit, right?"

"Sure." He frowned when her gaze didn't let up, and Dib made a vigorous nodding motion from where he and Zim stood behind her. "Yes."

After a few more seconds, she nodded and took a seat beside him to play her Game Slave.

Dib sat on his other side with a friendly smile. "Guess what?"

"What?" He closed the book and put it away, sure that whatever new obsession it was would take up all the time that he had to wait anyway. Still, it would be a nice distraction from the mess with Pepito, and he wasn't focusing on reading anyway.

"I was talking to Rob about the Halloween decorations for his store last night, and he really wants something big this year, so I told him about you."

"What? What about me?"

"About the aliens and the nightmare visions."

"Dib!"

"Well, he'd kind of already read that article from the Paranormal Digest, so I figured he might as well know how things really went down. Plus, he's not a hard sale. He already belongs to the Children of the Bright and Shinnying Saucer."

"Morons!" Zim added. "Saucer Morons!"

Dib rolled his eyes. "Yeah, they're more religious than scientific, and that can be dangerous. I mean, they practically worshiped Zim this one time, but he was too st-never mind. Anyway, Rob's got a lot of post traumatic stress from being an abductee a long time ago. The aliens were really stupid and tried to make him mate with a chicken, and now he's got a bit of a chicken phobia."

Zim laughed. "Feeble human-chicken breeders! They thought that the Mighty Zim was human! Which ...uh, which I am, of course!"

"Did they try to 'fuse' things to you with duct tape?"

"Yep. They were pretty stupid, even compared to your primitive species. The Tallest, they couldn't … couldn't believe. Hnm. Zim is going to go wait in the car."

"Alright, Zim, but no driving or I'll call the FBI, understand?"

"Yes, yes. The comprehension of Zim is vast and unrivaled," he said flatly as he caught the keys to the dirt-runner when Dib tossed them his way, then turned to walk slowly toward the skool parking lot, which was now mostly deserted.

"He seems kind of different." Todd said in a low voice.

"Yeah, he's just in a funk. Something to do with the new body chemistry, I think."

"Psh." Gaz contributed a short, sarcastic laugh, but didn't look away from her game. "I hope you're not in as much denial as he is."

"I'm not in any kind of denial, Gaz. Alright?"

"Do you like Zim?"

"Not like that."

"But as a friend?"

"... maybe."

"Hum. That's an improvement, I guess."

"Look, I just understand a lot of what he's going through. He needs some time to work it out on his own. Then he'll either leave, or …."

"Or what?"

"I don't know. But I was trying to tell Squee about the job I got him."

"Continue." She shrugged.

"Thank you."

"Job?" Todd frowned. He already had a job, and though he'd started working a couple nights a week again, he still wasn't sure he wanted it. And he didn't need it anymore.

"Yeah. So, I told Rob that you have the creepiest brain around, and he wants you to decorate his shop."

"Oh. That … sounds like a lot of work."

"Yeah, but you'll have a team to help, myself included. And I haven't gotten to the good part yet! He's gonna pay us twice as much as our regular hours, the shop will be closed for almost a week before Halloween so we can set up a real display and we're both off on the thirty-first! So is Vay because she's on the team, and the full-timers are gonna be the ones dealing with all the little kids that come for tricker-treating."

"Wow. That does sound pretty good." He smiled a real smile. "Thanks, man."

"You're welcome, Squee. That's what friends are for, you know?"

"Favors and shortcuts?" Todd laughed.

Dib nodded, running one hand nervously through his hair. "Partly. And, you know, paying those favors back."

"Oh, no."

Gaz spared him as fleeting look of sympathy. "Oh, yeah."

"What is it?"

"Well, I got you off on Halloween, right?"

"... yeah."

"So you're not busy then because you thought you had to work."

"Yeah. Somehow, I don't think you're going to ask me to go tricker-treating."

"Do you want to?" Gaz asked. "I'm going."

"Gaz, don't you think you're a little old for that?" Dib shook his head sadly at his sister's trivial pursuits. "That's such a waste of the thinning of the veil. Besides, I was about to ask him something else."

"You're never too old for free candy," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.

"Anyway, Squee, I'm putting together a ghost-hunting team for the big night, and I need at least three people. So far it's just me and Vay."

"Yeah, and he had to put it to her the same way. It's so sad." Gaz shook her own head.

"Whatever, she wanted to come. She's a Junior Eyeball too, ya know."

"Aren't you not supposed to talk about that?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah."

"Oh, look, Squee's ride's here." She gestured to the gold car pulling into the turn.

"So, Squee, you in? It shouldn't take all night, and if you stay at my house you can probably catch Gaz and the others when they come back for a gaming party, right Gaz?"

"Yeah. But the games are all gonna be horror themed, so you better get over being a squeamish loser."

"Right. Well, I guess that doesn't sound too bad. I'll have to ask Brian ..."

"Great! Oh, but you should probably leave out the ghost hunting."

"Yeah, great. I'll call you when I find out." He dashed over when Letta pulled up to the curve, opened the passenger side door and let himself fall in like the car was a pool on a hot Summer day, even though he knew he would only get a break for a few hours before Letta's grandparents and her new girlfriend were at Brian's house for dinner. Social obligations; why did they have to be so stressful? Isolation, he guessed, was the answer. He had gotten used to spending most of his time alone or with only a few people, and now bigger groups seemed to make him a little irrationally nervous. That, and he as just a freak.
END CHAPTER!
Notes:

-Derick's name is spelled Der-ick on purpose. :)

-Leon is a Santaist, but there was no good way to fit that info in with his point of view, though it may come up later from someone else's. Info from SubAwake trivia journal:

Santaism (Leon, Membrane):

Based on Invader Zim episode, The Most Horrible X-mas Ever, in which the myth of Santa has taken on a even stronger hold on the popular imagination, and split away from Christianity even more while at the same time retaining its own religious fever. Even though the most popular western tale is associated with Saint Nicholas, there are other “Santa” myths around the world, some older and not associated with Christianity to begin with, making Santaism a diverse, world wide religion with various interpretations of Santa and his (or her in some cases) origins. Some believers still practice Santaism as an extension of another religions, though most have simply embraced Santa without any baggage. In some sects, Santa had taken on characteristics of major deities from previous religions (such as the belief that he will return to the world to bring peace and take his rightful place as ruler of the world).
Membrane is more of an AntiSantaist (ever since Santa brought him socks as a child), maintaining that Santa is an evil being and thus having built the AntiSanta Arsenal for the purposes of eliminating him for the good of all mankind.

-Pepito's skool friends in this story are almost all minor Invader Zim characters from Dib and Zim's class: Zita, Bryan (his name is Brian in the show, but I spelled it with a y so it wouldn't be the same as Todd's counselor's), The Letter M, Torque Smacky, Alex and Poonchy. Only Crissy and Missy are mine. And yeah, Zita's hair was purple back in 5th grade (the show), but so many of the others have it too, and a lot of people that dye their hair tend to change colors over the years.

-Rob Hummel being mated with chickens by the stupid aliens (that also abducted Zim and then Dib in the IZ episode "Saucer Morons") is from JTHM, the Director's Cut. It is inferred in Squee that the same thing happened to Squee's dad when his parents were abducted.