Chapter 1

Dib sat down at the table, setting his lunch down. He moved it to the right slightly, and put his head down on the table. The full effect of what he has done, or not done, coming to him. He was prone to times like that, and he knew it. He just couldn't stop it. For years, he has tried to stop Zim from invading. What did he have to show for it? A reputation beyond repair (even though it was crap before Zim came), a ship no one believed in, and Zim still being free.

"What the Hell, Dib? Why don't you ever leave me alone?" Gaz, his sister, said. Gaz was annoyed by everything that doesn't beep or die in 16-bit. Her annoyance that day, however, was greater; she looked up from her Game Slave 4 to glare at him. "Why do you always insist on sitting here?" It was a good question, the answer he didn't want to admit. That no one in the entire High Skool liked him. That his only friends were a bunch of adults who probably had low-paying jobs, where they could devote their time to investigating every drunken farmer who saw a plane.

"Yes, Dib-worm, why do you always sit next to your sister at lunch? Is it not customary to be near friends when eating… oh, wait! That's right! You have no friends!" Zim laughed.

"Z-Zim? What are you doing here? Isn't it just as sad you have to sit with your worst enemy?" Dib retorted. He thought he had the alien in his logic trap.

"No. I've only been here a few Earth years, remember? You've been here your whole life!" Zim sat down, shoving his tray away from him. Dib had no idea where Zim got the money to afford skool lunch every day, since he had no family at all, and no job. Many things about Zim's life fell apart if you looked somewhat closely, but no one did. Why? Dib was the one bringing them up. Zim managed to convince the entire skool that he had a skin condition to make up for his crappy disguise.

"What are you doing here?" Dib asked again.

"Eh? Oh, I need a place to sit to keep appearances up. Did you know it isn't normal to eat in the bathroom? Or that it isn't normal to have no friends?" Zim chuckled slightly. Zim was being especially harsh today, in what he said and his tone. But Dib wasn't one to simply sit there and cry to himself.

"You know, Tak's ship has a database of registered invaders," Dib said, pulling out his phone and looking through it. "Let's see here… Invader Alexovich, invader Chin, Invader Dooky, Invader El…" he carried on, reading off a long list of invaders. "… Invader Yoogli, invader Yuli, Invader Zee, but wait! No Invader 'Zim'! That's odd… now why wouldn't you appear in an Invader's database? Oh wait, here you are," Dib said, pointing to something on the screen. Zim feigned disinterest. "Fry cook Zim! Why, what does it say? Let's find out!" Dib pressed a button, causing the phone to say what was written on it, so Zim was sure to hear.

'Fry cook Zim, a.k.a. Defective Zim,-'

"SILENCE! The almighty ZIM does not need to hear such LIES! Zim is not broken! Zim is amazing! AMAZING I SAY! I will rule this world, oh, how I will rule it! I WILL RULE YOU ALL WITH AN IRON FIST!" Zim was shouting, standing on the table, his feet in his and Dib's lunches. The entire skool ignored him, having heard it all before, leaving Zim disappointed. He timidly sat back down, grabbing his bread. Bread, waffles, plain pasta, and toast were the only things Dib ever saw Zim eat without reacting. In fact, he seemed to like it. The only thing he liked more was junk food (not greasy) and some strange liquid he kept in his PAK.

"Dib, why do we still pretend?" Zim said in an unusually calm voice. "I've been here since 5th grade, and now we're what, sophomores? I'm not invading; I think that was established pretty soon after I arrived. In fact, you and your scary sister are my only, well, friends," he said, not spitting or being confused at the term.

"Zim, what are you saying? That we should stop fighting?" Dib asked. He was, to say the least, willing to accept the idea.

"What? Me? Stop trying to invade? NONSENSE!" Zim yelled, now back to original volume. "Where would you get a stupid idea like that?" Zim laughed maniacally, stole Dib's muffin, and left.

Gaz sat alone in history class the next day, even though it was a group project. No one dared work with her; no one made them. Absolutely no one, ever. No one ever wanted to disturb 'Dib's Scary Sister' in fear she would kill them. Which she probably would. She was smart enough to do all her work alone, which was just how everyone left her. Almost everyone. To be fair, he wasn't like everyone else.

"So, Gaz, I'm thinking Saxon. Any thoughts?" he asked. He was one of the few people who would work with Gaz aside from her brother. But he didn't know better.

"Fine," she said, being able to hear him perfectly despite her large, black headphones. She didn't like the earbuds; they were easy to miss if you weren't paying attention and decided to talk to her. Headphones had a clear meaning; Shut the Hell up.

"Very well. Now, you have to help me here, I don't have my book, where did they live? What did they eat…?" he trailed off, Gaz obviously not paying attention to him. She was instead paying attention to all the others around her. She didn't have to hear them to know what they were talking about. They were talking about her. They always were. Guys admitting guilty pleasures about thinking she's hot. Girls jealous of her confidence, her ability to wear anything and draw their boyfriend's eye. So, she had an idea. An idea to keep them guessing about her, so they would never know. Never know her true thoughts, her true dreams. Her nightmares. An idea to keep them talking about how little they actually know about her, so little they ever will.

"So, what do you think?" he said.

"Hmm? Sorry, drifted off," Gaz responded. There were a few shocked expressions; Gaz never apologized. Most were trained to apologize for everything. Gaz never did. She could kill and feel no guilt. Or so they thought.

"Please tell me you're not going to make me repeat everything all over again," he said jokingly. He honestly didn't know better. What a fool. She leaned forward, looking at the paper he wrote on. Not so much wrote as 'put what looked like a hundred years of effort into meaningless notes'. He wrote better and neater than a machine, and faster than anyone could type. He filled the page, front and back, in a small print. It still looked beautiful.

Then she reconsidered her plan; she couldn't do that to him. She mentally gasped. She had a conscience after all. The 'Mystical Lost Conscience of Gaz Membrane' actually existed. She still planned to go through with her ploy. Just not with him.

"Fine," she said, back to her usual composure. "Let's get started; the faster we start, the faster we can get done," she grabbed a pencil and went to work. Alone.

Zim walked into his base, leaving skool early. He didn't actually see much point in going anymore except for appearances.

"Good morning, son!" his robot parents said, facing the door even though Zim already walked past them. For some reason, they refused to listen to whatever new programming he put in them, insisting to put on a horrible performance. Although, considering the last attempt Zim made trying to make them acceptable, he thought it was for the better. He was able to make them look normal, though.

"HIIII!" GIR yelled. He bounced up from the couch and slipped out of his disguise. His cyan eyes looked up to Zim as he gave him a big hug, which was shrugged off like every day.

"Computer! Scan me," Zim commanded. A small device that looked like a portable scanner in a grocery store came down, attached to a long, thin arm from the tangle of wires that was the ceiling. It gave him an once-over, running a red light over his body. I am getting bigger, Zim thought as the computer processed the results.

"Sir, anomaly detected. Unknown origin, unknown effects, height aside," the computer reported. "Results; inconclusive… hey! Is that Monty Boa? I love that! Record…" it trailed off. After another incident with GIR and the house, it acted more like GIR. The crazy robot, however, was completely unaffected.

"Anomaly? In MY BODY? Impossible!" Zim dismissed, but he knew something was wrong. When he was talking to the smelly Earth-monkey, he changed drastically, if only for a minute. "Computer, every day when I return, you are to scan me. Track this anomaly and figure out what it's doing! At the end of every week, you are to give me a full progress report. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" the computer said, before switching its attention back to the Flying Carnival. Zim walked over to the elevator to his base, taking it down.

"So much to do… SO MUCH!" Zim said to himself. "Even though there is no invasion to be had, there is no mission. For me, there is nothing,"