Hi there all :3 This is to be my first Invader Zim story/fanfic and this is probably my second stab at overall fanfic writing! I adore stories, I have done since I was very young, and I've always been a creative dreamer, full of ideas and tales to tell. So I'd like to dabble a little, and show some of my work. I'm rather newish to the Invader Zim fandom, after having fallen in love with the characters since early July. Has it only been that long already? :3

I am really nervous about submitting this, but I have had Dib07 beta check my work, and this idea/concept has been heavily burrowed from her work. If you see anything familiar at all, that's because I've been influenced by her. This story is a combination of both our ideas but I really wanted to have a stab at it myself! I feel deeply privileged to write this on Dib07's behalf. I just hope it's good enough! I loved the oneshot 'If Only I Could' and wanted to continue on from that. With my own ideas. So please be kind to me! ;)

So, any feedback would just steal me away, and make my day! ;3 I am sorry if I am shy! I still do not know if my work is ready, or if I am! This here little fic in all its wholesome goodness is quite short. I think. Let's see what you make of it!

I don't do pairings. Sorry!

Disclaimer: And I don't not own Invader Zim.

An Invader Zim story

Deluded Soldier

Chapter One: Dismantled

He had walked away from it. He really had.

But his mind had never walked away from it.

Occasionally he'd be back in that room, like his traitorous brain was fond of taking him down his own sick and twisted Memory Lane, and it wouldn't matter if he was sitting watching TV, reading a UFO magazine in a recliner or chatting away to his sister. He was there, back in that white-walled room, standing over Zim with a scalpel clenched in surgical gloved fingers.

Dib would draw himself out again just as quickly, and look about himself for a moment as the continued pace of present day life went on. Gaz might give him one of her odd, shifty little looks, wondering if he was all there, and Dib would have to re-read the passage of whatever article he happened to be reading, and he would escape, for a time. Then, whether he'd be brushing his teeth or eating dinner, his mind would take him there again, as if he could instantly teleport back into the past: a past he'd sooner bury than revisit.

He wondered if Zim thought much on what happened, since he was the one strapped to the table. He had been the one who's flesh had been opened.

Yes.

Yes he does know. He hasn't forgotten. I see it in his eyes every time we meet. I see the damage I've done to him. Yes, it's there. It's as real as the guilt in my heart.

He wondered too if the long, vertical slash of a scar remained on the Irken's thorax where he had sliced through his pectoral muscles. Zim was always thickly clad in his uniform, so Dib did not know. He didn't think he wanted to know, for it would only feed the guilt that was slowly killing his already cracked glasshouse of sanity.

And what about HIS glasshouse? His may have already shattered all around him. He just doesn't know it yet.

Zim had been different. Very different since the botched autopsy all those weeks ago. Was it five weeks? Or was it four?

Dib fell into the couch before a thick wooden table. On the table's surface next to a mug of cold coffee was his laptop. Using it, he quickly checked his digital calendar.

It had been five weeks and two days ago.

Long enough for Dib to change all his locks, buy big fat Krieger locks on every door (not just for the front but the back doors as well), reinforce the windows and add armoured tile plating to the roof of his house in such a likely event that Zim may land a nuke on him, or a Voot or whatever mad gadget Zim had created from his madness. He fully reckoned that Zim would get him, really get him for what he had gone, even though Dib had comforted him in that lab, pleaded with him, and tried to make it right. In the end he had showered Zim with Ultimate Mercy by letting him go, hoping that, by releasing him, Zim may reconsider his plotting and his hate. But, just in case Zim minded very much what the human could have done to him, Dib had to prepare. And he armoured his house as if the world was entering nuclear fallout. During the first week of Zim's release, Dib had spent all his time making equipment, buying defensive perimeters and stockpiling food. He deserved alien rebuttal: this he understood wholeheartedly. He just hoped he would weather the incoming storm of Zim's frenzy.

But the storm didn't come on the first week. Dib could not even smell it in the air. But he couldn't stop preparing, thinking that Zim's mad plan must be so BIG and malicious that it was simply taking time, and that Zim was holding himself back, ready to unleash whatever it was that needed unleashing.

Then the second week arrived, and the third, and the fourth.

His pantry was now full of tinned foods, cereals, ration boxes, long-life margarine, powered milk, and all the kinds of foods that would last him years. Yes, it had been expensive, but guilt was expensive too. He'd pay both debts eventually and equally.

His house was now an ugly monolithic beast in its entire guarded vista. The eaves had spikes on them. The front garden was laced with tripwires, net traps and holes loosely covered by leaves. He had trapped more dogs and cats than Irkens, and he spent every morning releasing them again, some only to then get re-captured the next day.

When the fourth week came and went, and no bomb had been dropped, no war machine knocking on his door, paranoia began to grease the wheels of his thoughts.

He's waiting for me to relax.

Waiting for me to drop my guard.

Waiting for me to... to do something.

And so, he had stopped leaving his house, putting a pause on all his outgoings and other work activities.

He'd peek out the iron-barred window, lifting an edge of curtain every evening, and watch humans saunter by on the sidewalk. But there'd be no craftily disguised Irken in amongst them.

For every day that crept on by, and still, no resulting catastrophe, Dib grew tenser. He lay awake at night in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the BOOM as Zim breached his outer defences, or the hiss of a rocket before all would fade to black. He hardly ever slept, believing that this night, would be the night that Zim would unfold his black revenge. And he'd sleep in his day clothes, thinking that if he needed to escape the house, it was better to not wear pjs at the time. That it was also better to know where his boots were in the dark so that he could slip them on at a moment's notice.

Maybe I should move house. Live somewhere else.

Maybe I should run.

America's a big place.

He might never find me.

Then a loud voice, bristling with purpose, cut in: No! No I will not run! I will not hide! I'll face what I've done! I'll stand up to him! This is MY home! I will not abandon it!

Then:

Maybe... maybe I should have cut him up. I shouldn't have backed out like a little wuss. But... but I couldn't... and I won't... even if I had a second chance. This world's already got one monster in it. I do not want to make another.

During the fifth week, Dib actually started getting impatient. He was tired of waiting, tired of being tense, tired of anticipating the fight.

Come on, Zim! Hurry it up, will you? I'm ready. You've given me time. Is that your way of being merciful, I wonder? Giving your enemy time to defend himself? Well, here I am and I'm not going anywhere.

What are you waiting for Zim?

Come and get me!

Exhausted from all those restless nights, those troubled dreams he snatched in-between the horrors of waking and sleeping, he finally drifted off and when he woke the next day with a crick in his neck, the house was still standing. The windows were intact, the outer perimeters untouched, except for another dog he had to retrieve out from one of the net traps, and the roof unmolested. It was then, during the fifth week and second morning since the botched autopsy that Dib realized Zim may not be coming at all. Which boggled Dib completely.

Why on Earth WOULDN'T he come? After the things Dib had done to him?

There was no excuse for it.

No reason not to come.

And it was the one thing Zim hadn't done, that made no sense to Dib. He liked to think he knew Zim backwards, and understood his apocalyptic rages and his cunning, eldritch madness. After all, that botched autopsy moment had allowed him to peer ever deeper into Zim's soul, for he knew he had one now, and he had seen an even deeper part of himself too. He saw real terror blare in Zim's eyes like headlights, as real as the tools Dib had bought along for a bloody good show, and that terror was the Irken's drive to win: to annihilate Dib. It wasn't a game anymore. It wasn't fun anymore. And it certainly wasn't the old them anymore. Zim knew what Dib had meant to do, and that was enough incentive for a runt of an Irken to do something about it.

I could go to his house.

Present myself to him.

Knock on the door and go: 'Hey. What's up?'

Yeah, real smooth, Dib. Just leave your protected house behind, with just your lonesome, and risk it all to ring his doorbell.

I don't think so.

I bet that's what he's waiting for really. Well, I won't do it! I won't let him trick me!

Dib sighed, his tried eyes casting down to look at the screen of his laptop. His face was cast in its blue glow.

What if he's gone and killed himself? Or something's blown up in his face? I should really find out. I can't sit, holed in my house for another month, waiting for him to make the first move.

He looked to the phone. Then looked away again.

No. I can't. I just can't.

Somewhere, in a deep part of his mind, the guilt hounded after him, and he was back in that room, in that stuffy little cell he had chosen for his glory: his downfall. He watched his fingers press that once-clean scalpel into lime-coloured flesh, and felt the hot excess of emerald fluid gush around his fingertips from the outlet he was making. The screams came, hot and laced with evil pain: Zim trying to thrash beneath him, fighting to retain the life he had.

He had not known at the time what else Zim was protecting.

What had made him so different.

Now he knew. And it made him feel strange.

Many times, Dib made himself turn away from the Irken standing beneath the weight of the moon. Made himself go back the other way. Time and time again, he pictured it, he dreamed it, and he imagined it.

But he knew that never really happened. That, for all his imaginations, he could not change what he had done, could not fix what he had done.

With clammy fingers and insensitive legs that did not feel like his own, he lifted himself from the couch and approached the phone. He stood there, looking at it for a long, silent moment as if he was staring hard at a spider that had entered his home and must somehow be dealt with.

Just do it. Don't think about it. Take the situation into your own hands if you have to. Demand that he unload his missiles, just to get it over with. I'll embrace his fury if I must. If it brings us both a semblance of peace.

He picked up the phone, feeling its slick, cool plastic in overly hot hands.

I only did it to save Earth, you know. I only did it for mankind. It's nothing personal.

I think I might have gone mad if I'd pulled that other life out of you; if I discovered it only when I held its limp body in my hands.

He had wanted to cut up Zim to attain celebrity success. To achieve dominance. To say; 'Yes! I can!' To get even. To OWN Zim. To dismantle the monster that had frightened him for so long.

If it was not for that one blood sample, that telltale shred of evidence pointing to what Zim had. What he carried.

Just one quick phone call. To establish our positions on the battlefield. That's all it is.

He pressed the phone flat against his ear after dialling the numbers: numbers which were heavy to press. He heard the dial tone, and hoped, despite his efforts to get this far, that Zim wouldn't answer. That he wouldn't pick up. Would ignore the ringtones and get on with his evil work.

But someone did answer.

There was a click on the other end, of someone picking it up and resting it against their ear or antenna or whatever the fuck it was.

And there was a still, full silence. No 'hellos' no, 'who is this?' No dramatic screams or demands.

Just silence.

Dib swallowed, and realized that he had to come out with it first. It had to be Zim who had picked up. Had to be him who was standing there, listening.

"Zim?" He spoke. He realized that after he had said the first word, speaking suddenly wasn't as hard as he imagined it. "Is that you, Zim?"

He expected the threats and the yells and the insults at any moment. They'd spill out of Zim like a disease: for surely he had kept them bottled up inside? Everything he had ever wanted to curse him with he must surely be listed in his head, waiting for this chance to tell the human?

Dib only got the same strange quiet.

"Zim. What are you waiting for? I'm here. Ready. You want to fight it out, is that it?"

Maybe he's building up to something? Maybe he's making good his comeback?

Even so, it felt like he was having a one-sided conversation with himself.

"Hello? Zim? Are you even there?"

Then: "Yes. I'm here." His voice sounded rough. And ancient. It sounded like Zim, and yet, it didn't.

"Oh." Now that he really was presented with this fact, the words dried up inside. The guilt was there again, as full and as undeniable as the moon Zim stood beneath: his eyes had been enriched with silver as he looked up at it.

Yet again, in his mind, Dib made himself turn away, even when he had not. He had proceeded to throw the acid. Dooming their relationship.

"Well?" Dib asked, forcing out the words before he completely bailed. "What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to come and get me?" He was baiting him. Baiting the monster. He didn't want to do it, really. Like every man on Earth he valued his life, and was devoted to self-preservation. But he couldn't stand the Waiting Game any longer. He wanted Zim to strike while he was prepared. While he was ready.

He could just about hear his breathing on the other end of the line.

Come on, Zim! Say it! Say how much you want to bash out my brains! Let loose how you really feel! How you wanna turn my house into a crater the size of Nebraska! Say it!

He was on the verge of hearing it.

He supposed Dib really wanted atonement, something to help dilute the guilt even a little.

Instead, Zim said in a rough, husk of a whisper: "I have to go."

And he hung up. The end of the call was so abrupt that it took a full moment for Dib's mind to register it.

"Zim? Zim! Hello?" The phone line was dead.

He shook the phone angrily in his fist as if it was Zim's throat, and slammed the phone down on the receiver with a BANG.

For all his taunting, his baiting, he got nothing in return. If anything, he had ranted and raved, not Zim! And it was the first time he had heard that alien speak in those five weeks. And it didn't sound much like Zim.

"Now what?" He asked himself.

"This is stupid! So, so stupidity stupid!"

Dib ranted on like this for quite awhile, with every other step in fact.

He was probably doing everything Zim had tricked him into doing, and it was working.

Here he was, in the dark cold, walking up the street, hands in his coat pockets as he made his way to Zim's house. He was without a bodysuit of armour, without even a tazer or stunrod or a can of pepper spray. The armoured house was two miles back the other way, where he should have holed up, waiting for the bombs to strike. Now he felt like a target, walking around with a bullseye painted on the back of his head.

"This is so stupid, Dib! Stupid!"

He fetched on a quicker step, hating every yard that brought him closer to his final destination. And he thought a phone call was hard! He was about to see the little creature face to face! He hadn't seen him since... since he tried to collect his organs.

Five weeks didn't seem like much, but to Dib it felt like a lifetime ago.

But when he got to the Irken's front door, his building anger and self-torment hitched. And he thought that perhaps an apology was in order. Yes, he had apologized before, and tried to make things right between them, which wasn't easy, especially when Zim was ducking and weaving away from him in the lab like a blind animal, trailing heavy splatters of blood from his opened chest. He had knocked over chairs, tables and glass beakers, slipping on his own blood and excrement.

I'd take it all back if I could, Zim. You know I would.

He stared at the door, and he felt like he was staring at the autopsy table yet again. He had stared at it for a long time, even after Zim had fled.

Okay. Just do it. Knock once, then turn around and leave. It least you tried.

Wincing, as if he had already suffered a monumental blow, Dib rose a fist and knocked once on the door. He took a step back, just in case said door flew open to reveal black, venomous evil. Instead, he heard something else: it was the sound of a loud engine exploding into life.

He ducked, flinging himself to the dirt, believing that the missiles had been launched, and were coming for him!

He cowed there, with his hands over his head, arse in the air. The noise of jets shooting out energy got no louder, and there were no explosions. Dib timidly lowered his hands and looked upwards. Zim's roof had opened, its outer shell cracking wide like an eggshell. And out zapped the Voot, sailing off into the dingy darkness of night. A greasy trail of plasma smoke followed it, until that too disappeared.

Where's he going?

His thoughts fled to the idea that Zim was heading over to his house, and meant to destroy it, down to its last brick. But Zim had headed straight up, into the stars. He could just about see his purple ship, bright as it was with exterior lighting, climbing its way into the silver clouds. Straight up: heading into space. And then, that speck of purple was gone.

Why'd he go into space for?

To... I don't know... bring in the Armada?

But that didn't gel with him. Zim was a proud creature who never relied upon anyone but himself. Taking down one human would be a cakewalk. So it couldn't be that. No, no, it had to be something else.

Maybe he's gone to get his alien groceries? I don't know!

Dib stood staring at the night sky until his neck got sore.

Now that he had abruptly gone, Dib felt sudden expanding sorrow. Out of all the scenarios he had envisioned, and readied himself for, this was not one of them.

Now his obsession was gone. And he felt disquietly empty inside.

What if Dib had scared the little Irken so deeply, so intensely, that Zim had decided to just pack up and leave?

No! No he wouldn't! No!

But then... if he has, Earth is safe! I have won! And I didn't even need to cut him up and plop his organs into jars to do it!

So why then, doesn't it feel like a victory?

Because he was curious, he knocked on the door anyway, knowing full well that the wolf was out hunting, leaving the den unprotected.

Gir opened the door for him, and smiled brightly, his cyan eyes like two little spotlights. They actually seemed to brighten when he saw Dib standing there.

"Hiya Dib! Won't you come in and play with me?"

Dib looked around for traps, his head peering through the doorway. Though the wolf was out, and he had seen him tear across the night sky to some far-flung destination, Dib was still apprehensive, believing there to be some trick involved. Zim was like that. He was good at feeding Dib's insecurities, good at weaving false flags and false tracks. Well, in the days before Dib went and strapped him to a metal table.

"You can come in. Master's gone far, far away!" Gir deducted hopefully, seeing Dib still hesitate in the doorway.

Dib took a step inside. But he did not close the door. He wanted a swift, clean exit behind him at all times.

The living room was like it had always been. Clean, spacious, warm. The couch was facing the giant screen TV, and the shelves along the back wall were filled with alien ornaments and snack packets. The old picture of a weird monkey-thing above the couch was there, and the kitchen through the adjacent doorway looked neat and tidy as well.

All seemed to little too calm and serene.

"Gir. Where is it that Zim has actually gone?" He expected to hear his Voot's engines at any moment as he made a quick return. Just to fool the human.

"He's gone on da mission!" The clueless robot giggled. "Way, way up! Far and far off! I'm going to be the midwife when he comes back!" And he jumped onto the sofa to watch cartoons.