Invader ZIM/JtHM crossover. Not appropriate for children due to violence (duh!) and language.

As always, the characters in this work of fanfiction were appropriated with neither the consent nor approval of their original creator, Jhonen Vasquez, or copyright holders Slave Labor or Nickelodeon.

IMMUNITY: Chapter Two
by rueyeet

When Dib came to, the first thing he was conscious of was the restraints, and the awkward position they bound him in. The second thing he was aware of was the smell--old blood, and the subdued but pervasive scent of things rotting, like a morgue without the antiseptics. He looked groggily around, trying to figure out where he was, and saw the device to which he was strapped. It was like something out of a nightmare, a machine medievally brutal in its intention, but lovingly complicated in its design. Its many razor sharp points were aimed menacingly towards him, widening gradually from tip to base with gleaming precision. Terror sent adrenaline surging through him, and he struggled instinctively against the straps.

"Ah. I see you're awake," said a cheerful voice. "Careful...if you move around too much, you might set that thing off."

Dib froze mid-struggle, and looked up at his captor in the dim light. The professional part of him ticked off the details--mid-20's, possibly of Hispanic descent, blue-black hair, dark eyes, medium height, painfully thin, no obvious distinguishing marks--while the more atavistic part of his brain took in the unblinking stare and too-wide grin, making Dib want most urgently to back away. He edged away as best he could, but the cold metal of the device provided no reassurance. "Wh...what do you want?" His voice sounded high and shrill in his own ears, and he tried to get himself under some kind of control.

"Want?" repeated the man, cocking his head quizzically to the side. "What a peculiar question. Weren't you the one following me? What do you want?"

Dib stared at him, trying to formulate a non-confrontational answer. What had he been thinking, to try pursuing this suspect on his own? He was a lab worker, not a homicide detective or a patrol officer; he wasn't trained to handle this kind of thing! He felt like a complete idiot. "Um. Now that you mention it...I'm not really sure."

The murderer laughed at that. "No? Well, that's okay. Actually, I don't care." He got up from the crate on which he sat and began to pace the floor. "What I really want to know is how you were able to do it."

"How?" Dib echoed stupidly.

"Yes, how." Abruptly the killer ceased his pacing, turning around to face Dib. "It shouldn't be possible. I can't be caught, you see. I could take you out right now, into a crowded street in broad daylight, and dismember you at my leisure, and absolutely nothing would come of it." As he spoke, he came closer, scrutinizing Dib intently, his voice becoming more and more impassioned. "Oh, sure, people would run or scream or vomit or whatever. The police might even show up, eventually. But I'd still get away with it. Because I can't be stopped! I am invincible."

Dib shuddered at the absolute conviction in the man's words. So it was insanity, not stupidity or hidden remorse, that made him so careless. Dib felt hopelessness well within him. There was no reasoning with the insane.

"So," his captor went on, halting in front of him and fixing him with that intense stare, "what I want to know is how you, out of everyone else in this world, could have found me. I want to know it all." He paused thoughtfully. "Usually I don't require people to talk to me--quite the opposite, actually--but I think we'll manage, don't you?" His skeletal hands reached for something out of Dib's line of vision. "I was just kidding, before. You can't set this off, exactly; it's more of a gradual thing. See, it works something...like...this."

The device shuddered into motion, the sharp edges jerking closer to Dib with each of the killer's words, until the barest tips dug into his body, all of them at the same time, like the pricking of dozens of needles. They hadn't gone deep enough to do serious damage, not yet, but Dib couldn't hold back a strangled noise of terror and pain. He tried not to think of what those blades would do to him as they sunk deeper, slicing him open further as they went. All the coroner's reports he had recently read came back to him, and it was all he could do not to hear his own, running through his head in a grisly litany of lacerated organs and severed arteries.

In a moment of sudden and terrible clarity, he remembered something Gaz had said, years and years ago, when he'd questioned her casual attitude towards Zim's attempt to deliver the Earth to the Irken Empire: "But he's so bad at it."

This slight young man before him, this incarnation of violence itself, was very, very good indeed at what he did. Dib saw now that in all of the small battles with his alien nemesis, he had never truly been in mortal danger, however outrageous things had seemed at the time. He thought of all of his meticulously organized incident files, catalogued with times and dates and causes of death, and saw the other side of those clinical descriptions of agony and mutilation; saw, with dismaying certainty, that he was about to become one of them.

And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He was completely helpless.

"Okay! ...okay." Dib drew a ragged breath, trying not to breathe too deeply against the painful pressure of the device. Maybe he could play for time, at least. "How did I find you? I...I just correlated all the available information, that's all."

The killer made an exasperated noise, keeping his hands on whatever controlled the device. "Details, please."

"I...no one had done anything, so I took the files, I took all the reports and the evidence and samples and everything." Dib knew he was speaking too fast, and not entirely coherently, but he couldn't seem to help it. "You know, prints and DNA and all that stuff. And then I put it all together, ran the DNA, put all the...incidents...on a map, and figured out where the patterns were, and, well...there you were."

"That easy, huh?" The thin man sat back and shook his head, looking at him as if in wonder. "I take it that when you mention evidence, you mean you work for the police. Who are you, exactly?"

Dib hesitated, but seeing those hands reach for the device again, he unwillingly answered. "City forensics department. Dib Membrane."

"That rings a bell. Wait...Professor Membrane? I think I've seen reruns of that show."

"Yeah, I'm his son." Dib said, not bothering to keep the bitterness from his voice.

"Hmm." The other man seemed intrigued by this information. For a long moment he considered, staring off into the distance as if his attention were elsewhere. Suddenly he smiled again, seeming to come to a decision. He reversed the device's progress with one deft twist. Dib gasped as the blades swiftly withdrew themselves from his body, leaving behind small bleeding holes in their wake. "Well, Mr.-not-Professor Membrane, I am Johnny C. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he added in oddly formal tone touched with irony.

Dib wasn't sure how to interpret that, and made what he hoped was a non-committal noise in reply.

"Well. You're a scientist, so I'm sure you won't mind helping me in a little experiment. Allow me to explain." Johnny took up his seat on the crate once more, resting his chin on his clasped hands, regarding him with that same intent look. "I'm going to let you go. And I want you to go back to the police, and tell them all about me. Who I am, where I live, all your evidence and DNA and 'stuff'...the whole thing."

"You're kidding." Dib stared at him in disbelief.

"Not at all, " said Johnny, springing up from his crate and going to a nearby table that had a number of knives stuck into it. "That's exactly what I want you to do. Thing is, if I let you go, can I trust you to do that for me?" He looked back at Dib, doubt shadowing his glance, hand on one of the knives. Its tip was sunk at least an inch into the tabletop. Dib saw that the pommel was incongruously painted with a smiley face.

"I...yeah! Sure," Dib said shakily. "I was just about to turn in my report tomorrow, actually...You're really going to just let me go?"

Johnny laughed again; Dib had not succeeded in hiding either his incredulity or his hope. "Yes, I am. I'll even take you back to your car, if you want. Though I do warn you; if you do anything I don't like on the way, I can always change my mind." He twisted the knife out of the tabletop with frightening ease, leaving a gouge in the wood, and carelessly spun it in his hand as he approached the device. "I don't think I need to tell you to hold still," he said lightly, pointing the knife momentarily in Dib's direction before undoing the straps one by one. Dib fell to the floor as the last one came away, gasping at the tingling pain of blood returning to his starved limbs. When he was able to stand, he saw that Johnny had wrenched a second knife from the table, and was pointing with it to the door.

"How will I contact you?" Dib asked, hoping to glean some additional information.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll find you. Out you go," he said, still in that same merry humor. Dib said nothing in reply, and simply went where he was directed. He couldn't believe it! This psychopath was letting him go, was allowing him to see that he was brought to justice! Maybe he did want to be caught, after all. Obediently, he followed Johnny up through room after room, stair after stair. In his relief at escaping, he didn't think to wonder at how many of them there were. True to his word, Johnny drove him back to the 24-7, and let him out of the car, waving cheerfully as Dib ran to his own car and drove away as if all the demons of hell were pursuing him.

Dib surprised himself by falling into a heavy sleep once he was home safe in his own bed, but was just as relieved to be spared any additional nightmares. True to his word, he got in to work much earlier than usual to make sure that his report was finished in time to be at the top of the pile on his supervisor's desk that day. Sure enough, sometime after lunch Dib was summoned to her office. She told him to close the door, and did not invite him to sit down. Dib was too excited to care.

"Dib. About this report..."

Caught up in the urgency of relating his discoveries, Dib missed the long-suffering look, the weary sigh. "Yes, I know. It's incredible, isn't it? All this time, it's just been one person! Well, two, technically, but mostly just the one. And now we have everything we need--"

"Dib." His supervisor cut him off, more firmly this time. "Look. You do good work, so I've been willing to overlook the late hours, and the use of department facilities for your...own particular interests. But it's out of control. You're obsessed, Dib! Do you really believe that one person could commit that many murders, and get away with it? What do you think he's doing with all the bodies we don't recover, burying them in his lawn? You don't think the neighbors would notice that kind of thing?"

"But I was about to tell you! It's true, I saw him! I have a name, a location, everything."

She fixed him with a skeptical gaze, eyebrow raised. "You're telling me you went out in the field, all by yourself, to go after this suspect of yours?"

"Well..." Dib faltered. "Sort of, yes. But--"

"Sort of? Are you completely ignorant of department policy? Do you think you're better qualified than our people who are out there every day? Than the officers who are trained specifically for this?"

"N-no, ma'am." he got out. This wasn't going at all the way he had imagined.

"Look, Dib. You've obviously done a lot with this, and maybe you could write a book or something--but what you do NOT have is a case. The last thing I need is another call from the FBI complaining that we're tying up their servers again for your own personal amusement, or a failure to convict because you've screwed up an investigation." She went on before Dib could object. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you've been working too hard. I think you need some time off. As of today, you are taking a week of administrative leave. Paid leave, out of consideration for you not filing for overtime for all those late hours."

"But I told you! I saw him, he caught me, look at what he did to me!" Dib yanked his sleeves back to reveal the evenly spaced series of puncture wounds left from his encounter with Johnny. "He had some kind of torture device down there, right in his house, and--"

She sucked in a breath, expression changing from annoyance and pity to alarm. Severely, she said, "That's just going too far, Dib. I can appreciate that you feel undervalued, but there are far more constructive ways to get attention. I'm going to have to put you in for some counseling. We don't want to lose you, Dib, but I think you have some serious issues."

Dib could only stare at her, stunned.

"Go on home, okay? Get the world's problems off your mind for a while. I'll set everything up, and send you the papers at home. Take some time to sort things out. And when you come back, I want to see you focused on department priorities. Are we clear?"

Numbly, Dib nodded, and left. Collecting his briefcase and avoiding the speculative stares of his co-workers, he retreated back to his apartment.

They hadn't believed him.

"So. How did it go?"

Dib started as Johnny seemed to materialize within the shadows of a nearby alley, beckoning to him. He had been walking aimlessly through the streets of the city, trying to dispel his crushing disappointment, and failing. Reluctantly, he complied with the invitation; he doubted that refusal was an option anyway. "They...they..." He found he couldn't say it.

"Yes? They what?" Johnny's fingers tapped on his folded arms with impatience.

"They didn't believe me." The words came out in a rush, and Dib found himself giving vent to the tension that had gathered within him all day. "It was all right there in the report, and they read it and everything! But they didn't believe it. They said that I was jumping to conclusions. That I just wanted some attention. They put me on leave! I showed my supervisor what you did to me, and she's sending me to counseling! Counseling, for fuck's sake!"

"They didn't believe you," said Johnny wonderingly. It wasn't a question.

"No," said Dib bitterly. "No one ever does. I don't even know why I'm even surprised anymore. I thought that surely this time...it was so obvious! But no. I just never get a break!"

"You say no one ever believes you?" Johnny inquired. Dib was too involved in his own self-pity to notice the curious insistence in his voice, and launched into a recital of all the contemptuous dismissals, all the disbelieving slights, all the insults, and all the humiliations that he had suffered ever since he could remember. The frustration of a lifetime escaped him in a flood, and he paced back and forth and gestured wildly as he ranted. After the first minute or two, Johnny took a precarious seat on a broken chair, listening very closely, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and fascination. Dib didn't care. He just wanted to tell someone who would listen, for once. If it had to be a deranged murderer, so be it.

"...and now this." Dib ended on a plaintive note, his hands held up in bewilderment. "They just never listen to me, no matter what I do."

"No, I guess they don't." Johnny grinned, and pointed a single finger at him. "And that's it!"

Nonplussed, Dib shook his head. "That's what?"

Johnny leapt up from the chair and held his hands wide. "That's why you were able to find me. See? I was right! I can't be caught! It's true...I am invincible!" He hugged his arms to himself with a beatific and exultant smile.

Still confused, Dib said shakily, "I don't get it. What does that have to do with anything?"

The psychopath looked at him then, and his expression took on a slight sadness. "Because no one would believe you," he said simply. "I can't be caught. You...well, you can't be believed."

Dib stared at him, feeling a scream welling up from somewhere deep within him. Johnny's words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The long years of striving and frustration, everything he had just recounted to this lunatic, all of it--it all suddenly broke inside Dib, and sent him at Johnny with balled fists and a scream of rage. Johnny scrambled out of the way of Dib's clumsy swing, and his eyes turned cold with frightening speed. Before Dib could try again, Johnny had him around the throat in a vise-like grip and slammed him up against the wall of the alley, a bottle appearing in his thin hand as if summoned. His face distorted in fury, Johnny rapped the bottle sharply against the wall. The glass shattered, and he raised the broken end menacingly.

Dib was going to die this time; he was sure of it. And he couldn't find it in himself to care. The frustration within him tangled itself with despair until he didn't know one from the other, and he stared back at his captor, unable to do anything but wait for the lethal blow that would end his misery.

Abruptly, Johnny let him go. Dib staggered forward and managed to regain his balance. The killer watched impassively from a short distance away, arms crossed.

"Why...?" Dib gasped out, his throat tingling painfully as blood flowed back to the bruised skin.

Johnny laughed, a short, bitter sound. "I don't do mercy." His smile twisted, and he turned and walked away.

Dib sank slowly down to sit against the wall behind him, absently massaging his throat, and stared unseeing at the pavement. A single thought reverberated through his mind, over and over.

They'll never believe me.

END

"America hates Dib."--frequently repeated throughout the Invader Zim DVD commentary. :)

An illustration of that last scene by the fabulous Crow-Sensei can be found at www(dot)deviantart(dot)com(slash)deviation(slash)18816820(slash)