Several crashes resounded in the Membrane household and a loud alien curse knifed the air, while Dib looked on.

"If this paste of yours wears off, human, I will annihilate your very soul!"

Such a threat only prompted said human to stay right where he'd parked himself at the table, lips twitching up very slightly as he cracked a can of Poop and settled in to watch the show.

"Zim, you just reapplied it not five minutes ago." He frowned a little. "Are you sponging our grater or grating the sponge?" Noting the yellow shrapnel that had just fallen onto the floor, the latter was obviously more accurate.

The little green creature spat disgustedly into the swirling, frothy liquid-of-death, while simultaneously trying to avoid the splashes, which was a rather intriguing process to watch.
"I cannot believe you have ZIM do this lowly chore! This is the job of a computer, or a SLAVE!"

Dib raised an eyebrow at the miniature ocean collecting at the alien's feet. Quite impressive really. Brackish brown, but dotted with perfect, snow-white icebergs. The Irken could be an artist.

The boy rather wished they did have a computer to do the job, though, since Zim was making more mess than he was actually cleaning. So much for the alien being a neat freak.

Still, this mighty conqueror had to get used to the term 'chore' if he was going to be staying at his former enemy's base for the time.

"Zim, you know you have to earn your keep while you're staying here, right? That was the deal.  I did this 'lowly chore' last night." The teen thoughtfully ignored the muttered disclaimer of how 'Zim remembers no such pact being made', and took a long pull at the soda instead.

The nefarious little conqueror ground his teeth as he reached for the remainder of his assigned cleaning apparatus, which had clearly come out worse in the tussle with the cheesegrater. "Zim is elbow deep in FILTH, Dib-stink! FILTH and GERMS!" The very thought made him gag.

Unknown to him, Dib saw the window of opportunity open up and made a dive for it. It was just his luck that this partcular house-guest was a germaphobe. "Exactly, Zim. Germs! The enemy!" He put a tone of false terror into his voice. "Do you want the enemy to breach our defences? No, I thought not! So drive them back, hurry! Advance!"

There was a long, long pause after this, followed by a few grumbled '….stupid human, trying to blackmail his future overlord…''s. Dib thought he just heard the soft rasp of metal being scoured. And if he listened very closely, he could swear he heard the dying shrieks of entire civilisations of microbes as they were scrubbed into oblivion.

Invaders were definitely a force to be reckoned with, he mused. Especially where cleaning was involved.