Going in for the Kill, Doing it for a Thrill

Chapter 1: And So It Begins

January 15th

9:58pm

Smoke fills Dib's lungs as he takes a drag of his cigarette. He blows the smoke out and watches as it disappears into the night air. He checks his watch and lets out an irritated huff.

It's cold as balls out here, he thinks distractedly as he hunches his shoulders and digs his free hand deeper into his jean pocket, Where the hell is that motherfucker?

His fingers are numb where they grip his cigarette and he takes another hit to feel the rush. Cigarettes aren't manufactured anymore but, god, does Dib love them. Inhale, exhale, nicotine rush, and repeat. It's a simple pleasure but one of the few Dib has left since he's been trapped in this cage.

Thank fuck for the scavenger teams that were always bringing back heaps of cigarettes, otherwise Dib would have gone insane ages ago. He started smoking when he was fourteen so he was already pretty addicted before this whole fiasco started. The end of the world would really have been an unbearable bitch if he had, had to experience it cold turkey.

He takes another drag and holds it in as he tilts his head back to rest on the worn green wall of the house he is currently leaning against. He absentmindedly observes it as he slowly releases the smoke from his lungs; the once pink-red paint of its window frames and door are now chipped and faded; the windows are shattered, their gothic red shards decorating the dead lawn.

This house had been so important to him when he was a kid—a huge cornerstone in his life. Whether he had been attempting to break in or eventually just invited over; this house held a lot of memories. It was strange, almost painful, to stand outside of something he had hidden from for years.

He checks his watch, 10:20pm.

He hisses through his teeth a quiet, "Fuck it" and pushes himself off the wall. He throws his cigarette to the polluted ground and crushes the still burning ember with the heel of his black boot.

He knows there is no way in through the door, the old wood is swollen and it's stuck in its frame, so he approaches the first floor window he watched Gir disappear into almost three hours ago. He stands on his tiptoes and peers through the broken glass into the dark house but he doesn't see Gir. He covers his hands with the sleeves of his trench coat and clears off what shards he can before gripping the frame and pulling himself up. He squirms uncoordinatedly, glass digging painfully into his torso, as his arms attempt to lift and support all 6'2" of him. He eventually gets a leg up and propels himself into the house barely managing to stay on his feet.

He straightens and shakes bits of glass off his jacket, That went surprisingly well, he thinks gratefully, fingering a new tear in his jacket from a particularly jagged shard. He takes out his flashlight and shines it around the room.

"Gir?" He whispers, "Gir, where are you?"

He gets no response so he moves into the kitchen. He shines the light around, absently taking note of the graffiti littering the walls. His light falls on the bathroom where the toilet is open and the tunnel to the sublevels is exposed. Dib had always hated sliding through it to get down to Zim's lab. The bright red lights of the 'slide' still gave him nightmares.

Now that it wasn't lit up it seemed even more terrifying than he remembered. He pushes his glasses up and rubs his eyes. "I'm getting too old for this shit." He tightens his grasp on the flashlight, and before he can talk himself out of it, jumps into the darkness.

His flashlight turns out to be zero help at all as he flies past sublevel after sublevel, twisting and turning, and falling faster and faster until gravity suddenly shifts and he is parallel with the ground, sliding horizontally through the tube before being flung into a large corridor. He rolls with his momentum and crashes, hard, into a pile of discarded tubing from who the hell knows what.

"Motherfucker" He curses, disentangling himself from the clear, almost rubber-like material. "When I fucking see Zim, I swear to god, I am going to punch him straight in his fucking face." He raves under his breath, messaging his sore shoulder and head.

"You rolled around just like a greasy, muddin' piggy."

Dib jumps a mile in the air, pain forgotten. "Damn it Gir! Don't do that!" Dib shouts but Gir just laughs maniacally. Dib's anger vanishes, however, as he shines his light on Gir and realizes that it's actually Gir, not the dog but little robot Gir, standing in front of him. He looks the same as Dib remembers. The small, nostalgic smile that was slowly forming on Dib's face instantly withers and dies when he also notices Gir is holding two live wires in each of his metal hands.

"GIR DON—!"

He's too late though as Gir brings the two wires together. The point where they meet cracks with energy and sparks fly in every direction. Dib simultaneously covers his face while backing up against the wall, his last thought being; This little bastard is going to kill me.

To Dib's amazement he does not get fried to a crisp but instead he hears the hum of electricity through circuits and the lights over head blink to life. Dib uncovers his face and blinks stupidly up at them and then at Gir. He stands there gaping foolishly until he notices that Gir is watching him expectantly, "Good job, Gir", he finally decides on.

With a happy cheer the little robot turns around and skips down the hall, his metal legs tapping against the black floor with every skip. Dib reluctantly follows for one very mature reason: He does not want to be alone in this creepy fucking place.

Zim had never let him explore down here. He was restricted to the upstairs unless Zim was with him and even when they had been in the sublevels they had always been in the lab and Zim had never let Dib out of his red-eyed sight. This place was huge and empty of large objects, but Dib had expected Zim to take everything of any kind of value with him when he left. Just some paper, tubing, old wires, and some misshapen chunks of metal were all that was left to prove that an alien species had once been here.

Dib estimates that you could fit five or six big trucks side-by-side down here if you really wanted to and the corridor seemed to go on forever.

The hell kind of stuff did you have in here Zim?

Dib is torn from his musings as Gir loudly proclaims, "Annnnnnnd we're here", as he sits down. Dib stares at him in confusion, What?

"What?" He repeats out loud but Gir doesn't respond. "Gir, where's Zim?"

Instead of answering Gir begins to enthusiastically draw invisible pictures on the ground with his finger while muttering, "fushhhhh, boom! SSSSSSSSS! Take that officer!" Dib sighs and ignores the ramblings of the psychotic robot. He squints down the passageway and can barely make out a wall at the far end. He begins to walk toward it but is abruptly stopped by one little hand holding onto the cloth of his pants.

"You can't go any farther than right heeeeere." Gir chirps joyfully.

"I just want to check out that wall down th—"

Gir's eyes flash red and the hand that isn't already holding onto his pants clamps around his wrist, "200 metas from the entry point, no closer than 200 metas that is an order" He said in his serious, not-shitting-around voice. (a/n: metas = alien unit of length)

"Uh, okay Gir, okay," Dib says in what he hopes is a soothing voice, "I won't go any farther, pinky promise." The vice on his wrist relaxes and Dib steps back until he is even with Gir again. When Gir's eyes safely return to their happy greeny-blue, Dib asks "Wait, so you said something about an entry point?"

The question is barely out of his mouth before the passageway begins to shake and Dib hears an ominous rumble.

Startled and worried for their safety Dib exclaims; "It's an earthquake! Gir we need to leave, now!"

But Gir doesn't seem phased at all by this assessment and shushes him while tightening his grip on Dib's pants. Dib is about to start yelling when the far wall begins to fracture and crumble and a giant silver snake slithers through a hole it made in the wall.

The thing is huge, it could eat several large trucks and still have room for more. It slides through the hole and Dib realizes belatedly that it is now coming in their direction, gliding down the hall with the movements of some monstrous reptile.

"Gir…" Dib trails off fearfully. He is frozen in place, afraid that running will draw the beast's attention.

"Don't be afraid big head." Gir says affectionately and Dib tears his gaze from the snake to observe the calm little robot still holding onto his pants. He swivels his head back to the snake, it's closer now—about twenty feet away, but he suddenly realizes that it has no eyes, no mouth, and up close the only things that appear snake-like are its shape and motions.

"It's…it's a ship" Dib announces out loud. It comes to a halt about ten paces away from where Gir and Dib are standing and lowers its 'head'. The ship seems to be made of a soft, flexible metal that shines like scales. It's a subterranean vessel, He concludes, amazed. Dib itches to run his hands along its surface and excitedly bounces on the balls of his feet in anticipation. A door at the top of the ship opens and a narrow ramp descends to the ground. A lone figure in a black spacesuit climbs out and walks down the ramp and then towards Dib.

Dib's face splits into a grin and he rushes over the ten paces separating them to greet his friend. "Well, well, well, you sure took your sweet-ass time." He said with no real malice. Dib looks down at the helmeted figure and feels a rush of adrenaline at he height difference between them. "Wow you haven't grown at all in seven years, aye Zim?" Dib teases smugly.

The figure in front of him removes their helmet and Dib takes an immediate step back. "I am sorry but I am not Zim," Says the most beautiful creature Dib has ever seen. "But I would be happy to take you to him."

The humanoid figure has the huge blue eyes and long, silky gold hair. The most peculiar thing, however, are the twin fluffy, golden ears perched at the top of his head.

"Uhhh…" Dib says intelligently.

The creature smiles kindly and beckons to him and then behind him to Gir. "This way please." He says politely and turns back toward the ship.

He has a tail! Dib notices excitedly.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeee" Gir exclaims and takes off running up the ramp, Dib following at a more subdued pace. He climbs through the hatch at the top of the ship and down a ladder behind the golden-haired alien god. They climb down onto a moving walkway that brings them to a door that slides open with a quiet 'shict' as they approach. The large room seems to be a cockpit area of some sort, and he is so distracted by all the different flashing buttons and gears that he fails to initially notice the four figures already occupying the room. Dib tears his eyes from the alien tech and feels his heart lodge itself in his throat as one of the figures approaches him while undoing their helmet.

And then suddenly, finally, he's face-to-face with Zim. The smirking green face of his ex-rival sends a not unpleasant chill down Dib's spine and he has to force himself not to shiver. His face splits into a grin, "Hey space trash." Dib welcomes.

"Dib-stink." The alien returns good-naturedly.

They silently size each other up and Dib is disappointed to see that they are roughly the same height, Zim's larger skull and antennae giving him a slight advantage. Zim is dressed like the other aliens in a black form-fitting spacesuit with black helmet and gravity boots. His body is different then Dib remembers, longer and thicker. Zim's muscles look like braded cords of rope through the latex-like material of his suit. Definitely not human but not displeasing either.

"See something you like?"

Dib blushes and snaps his eyes back to Zim's satisfied face and finally comprehends what is so very different about this Zim compared to the one he knew as a child.

This Zim is dangerous. The confidence and intelligence he had been lacking in his earthen youth must have developed and flourished into a concoction that Dib can only describe as dangerous. The razor sharp, zipper-teethed grin of his friend reminds him of hungry wolf that has cornered a deer.

But instead of fear, Dib feels a thrill like he hasn't felt in years.

Hey everyone! So there's the first chapter! Review please if you have questions or just any general feedback about the story :) The next chapter will be very Zim-oriented and you'll get to see what he's been up to and meet the rest of his team.