A/N: Oh, dear Lord. Could it be?...Yes! It is! The epic return of "In the Dark" to FF once again! Only REVISED. How many of my watchers do I have that remember THIS old role play? Anyone? Anyone? For the record, it was a very popular story back when I first posted it here. You know, right up until FF decided to delete it like the sick bastards they are. God, I hated them for that. ITD used to be my most popular RP on here. But oh well.

For a long time, I was heart broken about it being removed. But now I'm ready to give posting it here a second chance. Of course, I've made some changes to it since its initial debut in 2008. Like the chapter length. Chapters used to be a whole lot longer when I first began posting this. Now I've cut them down to about half the length they were back then. But that's to ensure quick updatage, as I've said many times before on several other RPs. Point is, it's STILL the same fic, just with some revisions to help it run smoother. So yeah. I'll update the first three chapters tonight. Then from then on, I'll try to update regularly as this should be a fairly easy revision process.

As I say on all my other fics, feedback would be very much appreciated. And I honestly have no doubt in my mind that you guys will enjoy this story VERY much, given how well received it was back 3 or 4 years ago. So yeah. We hope you enjoy. And we look forward to hearing back from people again. =3 Especially if any of you actually remember the first posting of this old fic. ^^ It'd be awesome to hear back from some of our original readers on here. =3

Disclaimer- We do not own the cartoon that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. We do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Rating: M for later chapters

Zim: ZimPLUSDib

Dib: Me

Chapter 1: Encounter

The air was crisp, enveloping the city in that icy grip it always seemed to have during this time of the year. Everything was white save for the red and green decorations clinging to nearly every house and building in the city. The month was December which meant Christmas was approaching fast. It was a time of cheer and good will towards all mankind...Well...Most of mankind, at least. For a certain 17-year-old high-skool student, it was a time of gloom and bad memories. While the rest of the world celebrated this joyous time of the year, he spent most of his time indoors, locked in his room, just praying that the holidays would pass quickly so he could get on with his life. He hated this time of the year, especially when he had to leave his house for reasons beyond his control. Today was no exception.

Skool still hadn't let out for winter break, which meant two more weeks of abuse, mental and physical, from the other students. Dib Membrane was the most tormented soul attending that poor excuse for a skool establishment. Even his worst enemy had things better than he, himself, had it, and Zim hated everything about that place. He hated the teachers, he hated the students, but most of all, he hated Dib. And yet, here stood Dib, still the most miserable student in the city.

Zim hadn't changed much over the years. After 6 years on Earth, he was still the same self-centered and bloodthirsty maniac he had been when he first landed on Earth. Still out to destroy the planet, Dib rarely got any breaks from the green menace. If he wasn't plotting some scheme to take over the world, he was busy doing everything in his power to humiliate Dib. Much to Dib's disappointment, the Irken had managed to grow a few feet taller, which just served to boost his determination even more. However, he was nowhere near Dib's height. That was one victory Dib would hold over the Irken as long as he lived, and he loved reminding Zim that he was still taller than him. Anything he could use to piss off the Irken, he considered a victory for Earth. But at this time of the year, he could care less about the Earth.

Trudging through the snow at a slow pace, he shivered as the snowflakes continued to float down from the sky, covering everything in a soft, powdery blanket of white. Everybody he passed seemed happy and carefree. He couldn't stand it. Sighing to himself, his breath came out as a plume of white mist, clouding up his glasses once more. He was cold despite the layers and layers of clothes he was wearing underneath his trademark trench coat. Fixing his scarf to better fit around his neck and pulling his trench coat tighter around him, he huddled in on himself more to keep warm. He had to walk a little faster or else he'd be late for skool AGAIN. No doubt his sister, Gaz, would beat the shit out him if he made her late again too.

Meanwhile, back at Zim's lair, Gir was sitting on the couch in his disguise and watching some horrible Earth commercial. It was morning and Zim was down in his lab working on his latest invention, something he liked to call the "Doom Cannons." Thinking it was still night, he worked until he looked up at the clock and realized it was late in the morning.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! GIR!" Zim yelled, quickly throwing all his work away and rushing to the elevator to press the "elevator call" button.

Pushing the button several times in his panic, Zim nervously paced the floor back and forth in front of the door until the elevator began its decent into his lower lab. Unfortunately, almost immediately, it stopped about midway down, powering down completely and leaving Zim trapped in the lab.

"WHAT THE IRK? COMPUTER! FIX THE ELEVATOR!" Zim demanded from his spot in front of the door.

"Elevator repairing...Estimated repair time: Three hours." the computer announced, causing Zim to just about fall over.

"THREE HOURS?" Zim exclaimed before quickly looking around for another way out.

Noticing the chute he often times used to get rid of some of the garbage he found in Gir's head, Zim rushed to it quickly and used that as his lift back up to the base.

"GIR! I TOLD YOU TO KEEP AN EYE ON THE CLOCK SO I WOULDN'T BE LATE FOR SKOOL! THE CHILDREN! WHAT IF THEY SUSPECT SOMETHING?" Zim yelled once he had exited through the trash bin.

"Ooooooooooooooooh yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh...I forgot. A muffin man scared me!" Gir said as Zim hurriedly began putting on his human disguise.

Stopping at the android's words, Zim sent Gir a confused look before just running out of the base.

"Watch the base,Gir! Don't disappoint me!" Zim yelled back.

Gir merely waved after him.

Running as quickly as he could down the walkway to his house, Zim, before he could even look back in front of himself to see where he was going, collided full force into the Dib, causing the human to lose his footing and fall back against the cement.

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING,STOOPID HUMAN!" Zim yelled, not realizing it was his own fault.

Dib sat up with a groan, his cheek stinging from how hard he had hit the icy pavement. He just knew it was going to be a bad day and this was proof. Of all the people he could have run into, it just had to be HIM. Running a hand up and down his sore and swelling cheek, he snapped back at the other when he heard those words leaving his mouth. "Why don't YOU watch where YOU'RE going, you jerk? You ran into me!" he said as he got back up off the ground onto his feet once more to brush some of the snow off of his trench coat.

Standing in silence, save for a cricket chirping in the background, Zim stared at Dib with a curious look on his face for a few moments before pointing at the boy dramatically and screaming, "YOU'RE LYING!"

Rolling his eyes at the other's words, Dib then turned to leave. He didn't have time for Zim's stoopidness. He was sure they would be late for school now thanks to Zim. "Whatever." he threw back at the disguised alien as he started picking up his walking pace a bit more to try and catch up with his sister, who had just continued on her way, determined not to let Dib make her late for skool again this week.

Feeling a little insulted at how Dib DARED to just walk away from him, Zim then cocked his head to one side confused. Wasn't the human going say anything about him being an alien or wanting to dissect him?

"Why aren't you saying anything today? Are SCARED in your PANTS, making your big head look...erm...bigger?" Zim said with a cackle and evil smirk.

Dib stopped in his tracks, shooting a glare back over his shoulder at the disguised Irken. "My head's not big! And I'm not scared of YOU! I'm just tired of having to fight with you every single day! I've got enough crap to deal with in my life without you, so why don't you just leave me alone for once?" he retorted, his bad mood growing to a point where he could hardly stand it anymore. The day had barely started and already he wanted it to be over. It was normal for him to get this way around the holidays, but very few people knew the cause of his anger around this time of the year. Only his father and sister knew the reason for his sudden bursts of anger and frustration, though they never mentioned it, either to him or anyone else.

Before Zim could respond again with some smart-ass comment, Dib then turned back around to storm away once more to skool, leaving one very confused and speechless Zim staring after him. Reaching skool as late as he figured he'd be, Dib then proceeded to make his way to his first period class. After being yelled at by his Biology teacher for being late, he decided to take a seat as far in the back of the room as he possibly could. He already had some of the best grades in the class, so the teacher wouldn't care where he sat. Taking a seat near one of the windows, he then pulled out a beat up old notebook with various notes and doodles in it. Finding a page that was still fairly blank, he began to draw more pictures of things like aliens, werewolves, and vampires on it, letting his mind wander every couple of minutes as he stared out the window at the falling snow. After about ten minutes of waiting, he looked up at the clock, wondering whether Zim was actually coming to class or not. It seemed as though he had been ready to head to skool when he had ran into Dib.

A/N: And there you have it for Chapter 1. 8D Umm...I don't think I'll be answering reviews for this story unless I'm being asked a direct question by anyone just because answering them tends to slow me down. And given I want to get this story up quickly so I can catch it up to where it originally was before getting deleted, I think it'd be best I keep things short and sweet. So just know that ZPD and I really do appreciate all of you who take the time to read and review. Seriously, it's what kept this story alive and is bringing it out of its hiatus. So yeah. Love you all. Hope you enjoy tonight's updates~