Chapter Text
The Earth. Big, blue, and beautiful. And ripe for the conquering.
Dib and his assigned partner, Gaz, were here for a simple mission. Just a common information retrieval expedition. They were meant to blend in with the local species, get in, and get out. Most of these types of missions took about a year (local time) tops, and Dib had done many of them. He loved missions where he got to explore, learn about the local flora and fauna, and find out how societies worked on planets unlike his own. When they returned, the Massive and the rest of the Armada would do an Organic Sweep, and the planet would be no more, like his previous expeditions.
This time, however, he had a partner. Gaz was a new recruit, and the Almighty Tallest Membrane had chosen him to train her. She didn’t seem to need it though. Gaz was the most cold and independent Irken he had ever met, and she didn’t seem to like him. He didn’t feel too bad about it, because she didn’t like anyone.
Dib landed the ship quietly and smoothly, attempting to make no sound. He had picked a spot in a run down neighborhood, a place no one seemed to care about or notice. Perfect , he thought.
Gaz frowned. Dib couldn’t tell if it was because she disliked the spot he had chosen, disliked the planet, or if frowning was just her natural expression, but he chose to ignore it and work on plotting out the base design.
A bigger house, he decided. With lots of windows and an electric fence to keep unwanted residents of this planet out. The lab would be in a basement room. Gaz watched over his shoulder, making suggestions or nodding as he drew it out, until he had a finished design.
There were no people awake at this time of night, and the moon was hidden behind clouds, leaving only the street lights to illuminate what they were doing. The darker the better, in Dib’s opinion.
Both Irkens hopped out of the ship and Dib let Gaz place the device on the ground. It spun, and whirred, but Dib’s technology was high quality. The sound was kept at a minimum as the house built itself to fit their design. Gaz’s eyes widened, impressed by the Irken technology at work, and they soon had a functional house like all the others.
The ship, now inside the house in what could be called the attic, but was really just a docking area, was now hidden out of sight. The Irkens sped inside before any neighbors that happened to be night owls could find them, and they let out a collective sigh of relief once they were safely behind locked doors.
Dib’s PAK produced a tablet in front of him, and he quickly got to work. “Ok, Gaz. We need to get disguises first and foremost. I did research on the local species before we got here, and this seems to be one with a gender binary, although the locals have made work in destroying it. The holograms can choose a gender for us, so we should be fine.” Dib showed the tablet to Gaz. On it were some photos of different organisms on the planet, one circled in red. Dib pointed at it. “This planet has many different types of species, but this seems to be the dominant intelligent life form. They are called humans.”
Gaz frowned harder. “What is that?” She pointed to the round extrusions on the side of the head.
Dib grinned, excited to show off the research he had done before they’d arrived. “Those are called ears! They work like our antennae, but they only control sound. And the furry stuff is hair!”
“I didn’t ask about the hair, Dib.” She rolled her eyes, a result of the research she had done. She had learned the important stuff, like 100 different ways to show distaste using just body language.
Dib ignored her, setting up the hologram system. He tinkered with it a bit, before dramatically showing his human disguise to Gaz. “Whatcha think?”
She stared at the screen, before staring at Dib, and then producing her final response. “What’s with the coat? It looks weird.”
Dib scoffed. “It makes me look mysterious!” Taking her answer as approval to continue, he set up the disguise using a chip he had uploaded from the tablet, and placed it on his arm. The PAK activated the chip, and his hologram fizzled before settling perfectly.
Now fully equipped with ears, hair, and a mysterious jacket, Dib looked just like one of the native inhabitants of the planet Earth. Gaz was next, and she already had her tablet ready to go.
Gaz knew that on Earth, humans resided in families, and often those families bore resemblance to each other, so she kept some things similar to Dib, like skin tone and eye color. Her hair would be as purple as her eyes, however. Many humans used artificial pigment anyways, it wouldn’t be too odd. (She would never admit that she wanted to keep a part of her in the new disguise. Dib couldn’t say anything of it - he had kept his hair in a scythe, reminiscent of his one unharmed antennae.)
Gaz inserted the chip on her arm, and took on the appearance of a human girl, just a bit younger looking than Dib. She nodded, and Dib looked approvingly at her disguise.
“That should do it, Gaz! Now, where should we go for the best source of information?”
Gaz shrugged, another human gesture she’d learned. “Do humans have a training program like we did on Irk?” While she wasn’t thrilled to go back to training somewhere else after just completing Irk’s training course, it was where she had gotten most of her information from at home.
“Oh, yeah! There is a training facility in the vicinity of our base! The ‘Skool’.” Dib would easily be able to enroll them in the skool system by hacking it before the night was over. They could begin right away.
“That should be good.” Gaz smirked. “Phase 1, complete.”
The class was full of young, impressionable students, and Zim hated all of them. They didn’t know anything about the world, and couldn’t do anything for themselves, always relying on others.
Zim had never needed anyone. He’d lived in the local orphanage all his life, and had bounced around families all over the state, and he would always end up back where he’d started. It was an unending cycle, a cycle many of the other kids also went through, except for the one key detail that set Zim so far apart from everyone else: Zim didn’t care.
Most of the other kids were caught up in trying to learn about their birth families, or were devastated because none of the adults ever stuck around. Zim didn’t know about his family, and didn’t care. He was perfectly content with going from one family to the next, because they didn’t really matter to him.
Zim thought things like that were such small details. He wanted the big picture. The universe was out there, and it was his to know, his to learn. And he would do whatever it took to keep it that way.
Zim was not only a pretty unpopular person because of his lack of interest, however. Zim was a huge magnet for all things supernatural, paranormal, and weird. He knew of the existence of aliens because of the abduction that occured when he was nine, and had done lots of research since then. The time spent alone in his room at his computer added to the paleness of his skin and the dark under his eyes, and the number of unexplainable sightings only grew. For a while, he wondered if the aliens had put some magical curse on him or something, or if their encounter with him led to the attraction of other things. Zim had seen so many weird beings, that they were almost commonplace by now, and did not seem important to him any longer.
So, it wasn’t often something outside of Zim’s personal bubble caught his interest. Especially when it came to his fellow classmates. This is why it came as such a sudden surprise when Dib Membrane entered his classroom.
Dib had a separate class from Gaz, because he assumed it would be better to retrieve information at different levels in order to optimize their learning of the planet. Gaz was in the younger grades, and Dib in the older. They weren’t far apart, only one grade off, but it still worked.
Dib was intrigued by the amount of socialization between the humans and their peers. Irkens often worked alone unless they were assigned a group mission, or a partner mission like his. It wasn’t common for anything more than an alliance to form between two Irkens.
The class on his roster was an 11th grade classroom. His height was the average for students about this age, while Gaz was in the 10th grade classes.
When he walked into the classroom, the students all looked his way. He knew it was most likely uncommon for a student to show up in the middle of the school year, and that it was this that caught their attention rather than any certain personal oddities from himself. At least he hoped this was the case.
Dib greeted the teacher, Ms. Smith, and she smiled and implored him to introduce himself. Gaz had decided to use their Tallest’s name for an Earthen surname, and he was grateful that she had thought of it.
“Hi, my name is Dib Membrane. I am happy to be here, and excited to learn about the ways of this planet. You may now go about your day.” Nodding at his perfect opening speech, Dib sat in the chair that Ms. Smith directed him to.
Everything had gone to plan. Everything was going smoothly, and this seemed to be a mission that would go by easily.
Dib’s satisfied feeling did not last long, because he suddenly felt the uncanny feeling that someone was staring at him. Silently looking around, Dib quickly spotted the perpetrator.
A short (very short) boy, pale with obvious bags under his unnaturally purple eyes, was staring straight at him. Dib studied his black hair, pink clothing, and stern face for a moment before quickly turning his head. He knew that the boy hadn’t stopped staring however, and started to feel deeply uncomfortable.
“Psst.” A girl with dark pigtails dyed pink at the ends poked him in the arm to get his attention, then pointed at the boy. “Don’t mind him. That’s just Zim. He’s weird, always has been.”
“Oh! I hear he’s lived in all 50 states!” exclaimed a kid a few rows behind the girl.
Another student murmured, “I heard he killed a guy once.”
The girl giggled. “I bet he’s killed a bunch of guys, honestly. Wouldn’t be surprised.”
Dib was surprised. The kid looked like the wind could blow him over, he didn’t seem the type to be a murderer. Dib would know, being Irken and all.
A pudgy kid in the front turned around and glared at them. “Don’t say those things about Zim! Those are just rumors. You can’t judge people just by-”
“Oh, shut it, Skoodge!” The girl threw her pencil at him, and Skoodge yelped before turning around, muttering under his breath about how Zim was alright if you got to know him.
Dib looked back to the subject of their conversation. Zim had turned away from them a while ago, most likely because he heard the not very subtle whispers from the other students. He was scribbling something that seemed to be very important in his notebook. For some reason, Dib doubted it had to do with the lesson.
For some reason, these stories had caught Dib’s interest. He wanted to know more about the planet as a whole, but he decided it would also be his mission to find out more about Zim.
Zim stared at the inedible goo that one of the lunch staff placed on his tray. Lunch at skool was horrible already with all of the kids joining together to be social with each other, but the food made it ten times worse.
He sat at his usual table, the one in the back that was close enough to the reject kids that no one else was around, but far enough that he couldn’t hear their conversations.
Zim pulled out a tablet from his backpack and started reading through some of his research. Used to tuning out the other students, he was so caught up in this that he forgot about everything around him, so he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching until they dropped their tray in front of him.
Zim quickly closed out the tab and looked up at the intruder to his quiet lunch time peace, or as quiet as it got in the cafeteria.
“Hi.” Oh. It was the new kid, Dib Membrane. He sat down in front of Zim, even though he hadn’t asked, and poked his fork at his own goo. “What is your name?” An attempt at small talk, because Dib had been talking about him earlier already.
Zim sighed, and put his tablet away. “My name is Zimothy, but you will call me Zim. Although you know this. You were talking about me with the other stink-children in the class today.”
Dib’s face reddened in embarrassment. “Oh, was I? If I remember correctly, the others were doing most of the talking. I did all the listening.” Dib paused, as if thinking of something to say next. “What were you writing in your notebook in class earlier? I know it wasn’t notes from class.”
“I was writing important Zim things, Dib-beast. It isn’t your problem anyways. Do you need something, or are you here just to interrogate me?” Zim wasn’t willing to share when it came to his personal studies.
“I did need something, actually. I was wondering if you wanted to make an alliance? I’m new, and I need someone to help me out. You seemed neat.” Dib grinned. Zim grimaced.
“An alliance ? Are you asking to be my friend? If so, then no. I am not in need of one of those at the moment, thank you. It was wise of you to be interested in befriending the ALMIGHTY ZIM, but I am good.” Zim nodded. “You may take your leave. I do not require your services.”
Dib scowled, not willing to give up just yet. “But-”
Suddenly, Zim’s whole demeanor changed. His face seemed to grow darker, and the air had an ominous presence to it. “I said. Take. Your. Leave.”
Shivering, Dib stood up. A cold sweat had run over him, and he was content to do as Zim said it seemed. But just when Zim thought he’d never have to speak to him again, Dib spoke.
“Know that this isn’t over Zim! I will find out what you are hiding. So, be ready!” With that, Dib scuttled off.
Zim watched him go, then shrugged. Lunch was almost over.
But something felt odd to him about Dib. It was almost like something was different about him, something that had to do with the … odd things he often ran into.
Well, if Dib was going to be stubborn, Zim would be too. Dib was sure to have his own secrets, and Zim would learn them all. He would make sure of it.