A/N: Sorry, I know, it's been a while since I've written anything. Oops. Oh well. Sorry! Enjoy!

Professor Membrane groaned as another idiot worker made a mistake, this time sending an Electromagnetic Pulse across the city. "I knew I should have used my clones for the lab!" He said in exasperation.

Across town, within the Membrane home, Gaz Membrane came charging into her brother's room. "DIB! My Game Slave stopped working! What did you do?! Fix it now or I'll send you to the underworld for all eternity," Gaz warned darkly. Dib was tapping on his laptop, which had a black screen.

"I didn't do it! My laptop and other equipment turned off too. My laptop has a battery, so the power can't just be out. Maybe it was an EMP!" Dib suddenly sounded excited. "ZIM! He'll be defenseless!"

Gaz scoffed. "I don't care about Zim. I want to know when my Game Slave will be on again!" Dib shrugged.

"I don't know. It shouldn't last more than…. maybe thirty minutes?" Gaz's eyes shot open, her left eye twitching dangerously.

"T-thirty m-minutes? B-b-but, I need my Game Slave! I can hear it…. begging…. I NEED it! FIX IT, DIB!" She grabbed the front of his tailcoat.

"Okay Gaz! Geez! Usually you can't fix stuff like this, and you just have to wait, but I think Dad's got a generator in the basement that's EMP-proof, in case of a robotic apocalypse or something. You can use that to re-start your Game Slave right now rather than later." Gaz instantly let her brother go and walked like she was hypnotized out of the room. Dib sighed, then jumped in excitement. "I've got to get to Zim's house!"

Dib grabbed his camera, re-booted it at the EMP-proof generator, and raced to Zim's house.

He stopped at the front lawn, eying the gnome guardians carefully. Surely Zim's alien technology would still be effected, right? Dib gulped and stepped into the yard. When there was no movement from the gnomes, he smiled widely and raced to the door.

As soon as he entered, he was shocked. He expected maybe Zim to attack him, or for Zim to be running around trying to find the source of the problem, but he hadn't expected this.

"GIR!" Zim called. "Computer! ANSWER ME! What's going on?!" Zim was crouched next to Gir's unmoving form, searching the room franticly. "Computer?!" Zim yelled again, looking for answers. He appeared to be seriously distraught.

Dib couldn't hold back a little laugh, mostly because he knew the EMP would be wearing off in another twenty five minutes or so. It'd only been five minutes since the pulse and already Zim was panicking!

Zim turned to look at Dib as he heard the laugh. Dib was surprised when it didn't seem that Zim could see him. "Who's there?!" Zim yelled. "Stay back!" Zim stood up and backed away from Dib, tripping over Gir's body and crashing to the floor. This caused him to slash out at thin air.

"Geez Zim. What's wrong with you?" Dib asked, bewildered by the alien's response to the EMP.

Zim's head snapped towards Dib. "YOU?! What did you do, Dib?!" Zim growled at him, standing up and walking towards Dib, only to trip on Gir once more, falling forward. Dib laughed.

"What? I didn't do it. It's just an EMP, Zim. Why can't you see anything?" Zim looked confused.

"An EMP? What is that?" Zim demanded.

"It just shuts off all technology," Dib responded. Zim looked horrified.

"All of my technology? Turned off?! I can't even see my Life Clock! FOR HOW LONG WILL IT BE OFF?!" Zim screeched. Dib covered his ears.

"Gosh, Zim. What the heck is your problem?! It only lasts like thirty minutes, so it'll only be like another twenty-four minutes or so. At least according to my camera's clock. And what's a Life Clock?" Dib didn't receive an answer at first as Zim's mouth hung open.

"Dib, please, you have to help me!" The alien sounded truly scared. Dib had to do a double take.

"W-what?!" Zim looked terrified now.

"You stupid boy! My PAK has been off for several minutes now! If it's left off for more than ten minutes, I die! My Life Clock warns me of how long I have left to live, but I can't even see that! Please, Dib!" Dib's mouth dropped open.

"WHAT?! Since when?! How long have you been like that?!" Zim stood up and raced to the door, slamming into the wall in his attempt to exit the house. "And why can't you see anything?" Dib repeated once more, demanding an explanation. Zim sighed in frustration, his limbs already feeling weak from the lack of any technology to keep his body functioning.

"I've always needed my PAK to live! I simply wouldn't expose such a thing to you under normal circumstances! I can't even see because the ocular implants in my eyeballs are the only thing that allow me vision on your overly bright planet!" Zim tried to stand up, finding himself lacking in the energy to do so.

"So you're dying?" Dib asked. "Sweet! Why would I want to help you, then?" Zim froze and looked up at what he presumed would be Dib's face. Zim couldn't see it, but Dib's smile disappeared when he saw the desperate look on Zim's face, and he knew for the first time how serious this was. Dib stayed quiet as Zim looked away.

Zim's features changed to one of anger and hurt. He placed his hands on the wall and used the rest of his strength to lift himself to a standing position, all of his weight shifted onto the house's frame.

"Never mind! How foolish of me to ask you! Zim needs the help of no one, anyways! Especially not the help of a puny, pathetic creature like you!" Somehow Zim's words weren't offensive when the alien was panting and looking like death was at his doorstep.

"You said you knew the time by your camera's clock?" Zim asked as he panted in the doorway. "So you must have something at your house that can reverse these effects! I will retrieve this device, and you won't be able to stop me!" Zim said as he tried to take a shaky step away from his house. He managed to take a few steps, until he reached the stairs in front of his base. Without the mathematical functions of his PAK, ocular implants, or a working brain, he'd miscalculated the distance to the front porch steps. One miss-step into open air and he was sent crashing onto the hard pavement of his front walkway.

Dib couldn't help but feel pity as he watched the pale alien grow paler, his body flailing on the walkway as he tried to stand but found himself unable to. Zim tried to crawl, but his imminent death was beginning to linger on his mind, and his limbs were feeling oh so heavy now.

Zim looked absolutely pitiful, and Dib couldn't take it anymore. He glanced at his camera; there was only a minute and a half left until Zim died. Sighing deeply, Dib ran forward and scooped Zim up bridal-style.

"What are you doing, Earth-monkey? Release Zim at once!" Zim demanded, but his voice was already weak and faltering. Dib ignored him and ran.

"Why are you doing this?" Zim demanded as he felt himself being whisked down the street, Dib running as fast as he could without tripping or dropping his cargo. Luckily, Zim was incredibly light. Much lighter, in fact, than Dib could have ever thought possible.

"Well," Dib said in response to Zim's question, "I know your main weakness now. I don't see why I should let you die. I still need to study you, for science! And I need to prove to the world that I'm not crazy." Zim looked confused.

"But, why can't you do that with my dead body? Wouldn't that be easier?" Zim asked in a quiet, pained whisper. Dib knew, of course, that the alien was right, but Zim looked so damn helpless, something that Dib had never seen in Zim before, so he couldn't just leave him there to die. It was, after all, part of what made Dib human; his mercy.

"Listen Zim, do you want me to save you or not?" Zim closed his mouth. "That's what I thought!"

Dib paused momentarily at his front door. Unable to grab the handle, he decided to kick it open, which sent a painful vibration through Zim's weak body. Dib was instantly concerned when the pain of said vibration made Zim pass out and go limp in Dib's arms.

"I've only got a few seconds left," Dib said to himself aloud. "I've got to hurry!" He rushed through his house and down the wooden stairs to their cellar, ignoring Gaz as she momentarily came out of her room to see who'd kicked the door open. She quickly decided that she wanted nothing to do with Dib's craziness and returned to playing her games.

Dib raced into his father's underground lab, scanning the various items for the proper generator. His eyes locked onto the equipment and he raced over to it.

He grabbed a few wires and made sure the grounds were properly connected to the generator before finding metal grooves in Zim's PAK that the metal wire tips would stick to. Dib assumed it was like a car battery, and all he needed to do was connect the working generator to the conductive metal on Zim's PAK in order to re-start it.

Dib wasn't left disappointed when a 'zap' sound was produced as electricity jumped between the generator and Zim's PAK. Dib jumped back in shock as sparks flew and the generator suddenly died, all of its available power having been drained instantly from the advanced Irken technology. Dib shook his head.

"No, that can't be it! Was it enough power?" He shook Zim's shoulder lightly. "Zim? Wake up! Are you still there? Was I too late? Was it not enough?!" Dib looked onto Zim's pale, unmoving form with worry deep in his eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

'It shouldn't matter anyways,' Dib told himself. 'Why would it matter? It doesn't…. I did all I could….' Dib tried to focus on the good outcomes; he'd finally be able to prove that Zim was an alien! The Earth would be safe! But, somehow, Dib's mind kept gravitation back to one thought….

'I failed?'

Dib shook his head again, trying to clear himself of the thought. He sighed and began to stand up to leave when he heard a small beeping noise. Dib looked questioningly at Zim's still unmoving form and pulled at Zim's PAK. As Zim turned, Dib could now see that a small pink light was once again flashing on Zim's PAK, as Dib had seen it flash once before. The flashes steadily grew stronger, faster, and brighter until they were at a steady pulsing rhythm.

Dib sighed, supposing that that meant Zim would be okay. He picked the still unconscious alien up and carried him steadily back to his own base.

When Zim woke up a few hours later, he was laying on the couch in his own home. Gir was singing to himself and watching TV, and there was no Dib in sight. Zim sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to re-adjust to the ability of sight. He looked around, everything once again appearing normal. The only sign left that anything had happened was the still open front door. Zim stood up, looked around outside, and closed the door softly.

Dib stood behind some bushes, unable to stop a smile from crossing his face.

'Curse my humanity,' Dib thought. This was, after all, the second time that Dib's moral standings had forced him to save Zim. Whenever Dib found himself asking the question of "Should I save him?" He never seemed to be able to stop the answer from being a "Yes."

And we wouldn't want it any other way! ;)

- 3DPhantom, signing off.