Witness
Summary: Someone had to witness the end. As the last, finishing touches are placed on the destruction of a planet, the alien watches this foreign planet he hates with victory in his face, having one final conversation with his arch-enemy. Bit of a twist. Sorta AU.
-Theme Song: Zack Hemsey, "The Way"
Of course someone had to see it all unfold.
His enemy wasn't nearly kind enough to spare him the sight after all the fights and insults they'd aimed at each other incessantly for so long, and the loser could only stare uncomprehendingly out the window of the little space ship as the world he knew fell to pieces. He'd been so confident all this time...and for everything to end so simply was completely unreal.
Citizens, workers and soldiers alike falling dead in the streets, cut off from the resources and technology they had taken for granted for so long. He had known of course, that horrible enemy of his, and taken advantage of the opportunity to turn the tables in a way that could not be undone.
Hands were pressed hard against the glass, despite his screaming instincts to close his eyes to the sight, almost trying to get through the barrier and stop this from coming to fruition. Slowly as the casualties counted still unaccountably higher, fingers left the window and clenched at his trembling chest. They then rose higher to his mouth, attempting to stifle down the urge to vomit.
Unsuccessfully, as the metallic floor was stained with liquid that made his insides burn in pain as the witness crouched down to avoid the view outside, twisting his head from side to side in denial as footsteps sounded from the darkness behind him.
Getting over his fear and the blatant denial of said emotion, the witness clambered back to his feet to face his rival, carefully avoiding the scene of death so near. Anger compelled him to lunge forward and strangle the destroyer, but there was no point in doing so, as the conniving creature already held the weapon that would send him to his doom. "Why haven't you killed me like the others?" It was an honest question, there was no denying the fact that he could easily become one of the lifeless bodies outside within minutes if his enemy desired it.
Instead of an immediate answer, a devious grin slid across that face.
How he hated that grin.
"Why should I? After all, you caused me so much pain, why should I spare you the same? They died, almost painlessly. The least I can do is make you see...before experiencing the same fate." The alien mumbled to himself quietly for a moment, bouncing a black remote control from hand to hand as if the loser's life was nothing but a game to him. Strange, otherworldly eyes stared at him maliciously; so different from his own. How the intruder had managed to conceal them so well behind those contact lenses...it jarred on the nerves. It was a big flaw in the hologram he'd created, but the lenses worked well enough anyway, and he hated how his entire race was fooled so easily into believing this outsider was one of them before their slaughter. "I'd actually considered bringing you with me you know, just to see how long you'd survive out in the open before my people picked you apart... But there's no need to go that far anyway. Not while you still live anyway..."
He felt strangely intimidated, though there was nothing frightening about the appearance of his enemy.
In fact, it was just the opposite. He looked so small that they were practically the same height. But the thought that something so small could bring about such destruction...
"Why? Why did you do this?!"
"Because you would do the same for me and my entire race as well," The vicious grin fell away and pure hate took its place swiftly. "Your people destroy everything they touch with reckless abandon, even when it means them no harm. A plague upon your own planet. It's disgusting..."
A long silence stretched between the two of them and broken defender knew that those words are correct, no matter how much he desired otherwise. Still, he couldn't just roll over and die.
Not yet.
"Take it off..."
"What?"
"The hologram...power it down," Slowly he brought his eyes up to face the alien before him. "I will not die before a faker like you!"
There was a slight sound of understanding, and the enemy obliged quickly, bringing out a little device on his arm and pressing a single button. A shocked and sickened gasp was restrained as the disguise faded away. No matter how many times he saw the invader's true form, it never failed to shock him with its unnatural appearance and out of place features that he shouldn't have been able to hide so well.
A hand reached up and removed the contact lenses and threw them aside, revealing multi-colored alien eyes of white, brown and black.
The strange eyes of an unknown race called humanity.
Glass frames replaced the contacts and were straightened by a pale hand, while those eyes stared accusingly as though it were his planet that was being destroyed instead. Dib's gaze was always accusing, and always watching. Always probing for information and weaknesses to store within the fleshy confines of his brain. A brain that should have been inferior to the mechanized implants of the grand soldiers of the Irken Empire, yet still managed to bring him so much farther than anyone had ever expected. He always seemed to be searching for things others would miss and vital inconsistencies, finding them and disrupting them with a skill that was twisted.
It didn't even seem to matter that he possessed such youth.
The remote in his hands manipulated the Control Brains via a network of viruses planted within the system. With a single press of a switch, millions of Paks simply shut down, dragging the Irken bodies they nurtured into the oblivion. First he'd targeted the Tallest, and then the chaos spread in quick succession.
It made the watching Zim gag, seeing such a mighty, superior race fall so quickly to a single human.
"You, or some other Irken, would have come to my home sooner or later..." The human let his finger brush carefully over the switch on the remote that would end his rival's life. "You would have done the same thing there as on hundreds of other planets. Killed or enslaved everyone, without even the slightest trace of mercy. Go ahead and call it monstrous all you like... I'm just taking preemptive measures to stop the worst case scenario."
Zim didn't have a good enough answer for him this time.
...
Was this what the Blorchians felt? Or the Vortians? Or...
No! The Irken race is superior to all of them...right?
But now Irk is...not so mighty anymore.
...
A sobering thought and a moment of pained silence passed between them.
"Don't feel too bad, Zim. After all, our positions could have easily been reversed," Dib smiled, but this time it was a calmer look that almost appeared sad, without the devious sneer or the bubbling hatred. "If you hideous creatures even have some kind of an afterlife...try to have a good one, okay?"
With that, his thumb pressed the switch, and then there was darkness.
(A/N): I already wrote a Zim victory. It's fair this way. Why did I leave so many details unexplained? That's for you to figure out. Something to tide people over while I finish ER's rewritten chapter five.