Hey gang! Some of you maybe remember me from my blink fanfic, and the piece of crap other zimfic I wrote, but this one should be a lot better. I'm finally writing out some ideas that I've had for almost a year now, so I hope that you will all enjoy this. It will definitely become ZAGR in later chapters, so bear with me. I wrote this chapter today during various periods at school, and just now, when I should be sleeping. You lucky kids, you. J

Disclaimer, etc: Zim, Gaz, and Dib belong to Johnen Vasquez and Nickelodian. I'm just here to ruin them.

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Her footsteps pounded across the pavement, the echo of her thick steel-toed boots harsh against the deserted buildings. Gaz allowed herself a glance behind her shoulder, but continued walking, quickening her pace a little. She knew she had to keep going, had to get away, had to get back to the base. Had to tell Dib. It wouldn't be long before they found them now. They had to get away. Had to get out.

It had been almost eight years. She thought while she walked, mind racing, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her jacket; the black leather worn even thinner than that on her boots. Eight years since Zim had come to Earth. The Armada had only been here two, yet the entire human population had nearly been devastated. Eight whole years. She wanted to kick herself for not believing Dib, kick herself for befriending Zim, kick herself for not having done something while there had still been a chance.

But now it was too late for that.

She kept walking. Running would be too loud; they would hear her for sure. But still, she picked up the pace. Couldn't let them get to the base. Couldn't let them be discovered. She kept walking, her ears attuned to her surroundings, listening for any sound that would betray an ambush.

These were the nights she hated the most, the warm summer air rising up from the cement. These nights, it almost seemed like the world was normal again, like freedom could be taken for granted again. These nights forced her to remember when she was happy.

She realized that her birthday must be coming soon. Would she be seventeen? No, wait, it was eighteen. She still wasn't sure, but after counting back in her head, settled on eighteen. She almost laughed aloud. Eighteen meant that back in the old days, she could have voted, she could have moved out. Funny that what she'd wanted two years ago was suddenly the thing she was most afraid of. She had always dreamed of moving away, leaving her father and brother behind. It seemed ironic that then, she would have given anything to be gone from them, but now, all she wanted was to hug her dad, to cry in his arms.

It's too late for that, she reminded herself mentally. Dad's gone.

A nagging voice in the back of her head broke in. Gone? Is he really gone? Or are you just sugarcoating it? It's not like you lost him in the park. He's not just gone, he's-

"Dead!! He's DEAD!" She stopped walking suddenly, realizing with horror that she'd screamed out loud.

She held her breath, not moving a muscle. One second, two seconds, three seconds. It had been almost a full minute by the time she decided she was safe. She started to relax from her rigid pose, but it was then that she heard the whirring sound behind her. Her stomach filled with ice cubes as she slowly turned, locking eyes with the Irken soldier. He was a higher rank than the three behind him, since he had a few inches of height over them, but none of them looked too friendly, their faces decorated by matching sneers of contempt.

"Well, human." Distaste oozed from the officer's voice, and she forced herself to stay still. "Normally, procedure would require us to force your surrender, then make you our slave, but I'm not in the best of moods, so I think I'll just kill you with my bare hands."

Gaz took a step back. "Come on, then," she growled. "Just try it." The Irken looked startled. He'd been expecting pleading, fear, sobbing; and her response had caught him off guard.

Gaz used the second that it took for him to register what she'd said to size him and his companions up for their inevitable fight. She was shorter than all of them, but not by much. At 5'3", she was small, but that was an advantage, she used it as a tool to make her enemies underestimate her, think they had the advantage.

They were wrong.

The Irken charged at her head-on, but was stopped short when the heel Gaz's boot impacted with his chin, sending him flying backwards into his companions with a sickening crack that sounded like death. She grinned, a feral grin, as the other three charged at her.

She'd gotten lucky. These were stupid soldiers, the ones who forgot about their weapons when up against a small human girl. She sent the first flying over her shoulder, the second was knocked into a wall by a spinning back roundhouse kick, and the third was unlucky enough to receive the full force of a steel toe to the knee and a neck-breaking uppercut. She stepped back, surveying her work. She then calmly picked up the leader's laser rifle, and with cool prescision, aimed it at the head of each soldier, and in turn, splattered their blue blood all over the pavement.

Quickly and methodically, she picked out all of their weapons and any tools that might be useful to the rebels, and clipped them onto her belt, alongside her own blaster.

Dib had designed weapons that were suited individually to each rebel, from throwing daggers that made no sound, to pistols with bullets that exploded with the Irken poison, water, to Gaz's own blaster rifle. Each weapon was effective in it's own way, but given the chance, any of the rebels would destroy the soldiers with their own weapons, out of pure contempt. Too many families had been destroyed, too many loved ones had been lost. It was down to the bare minimum.

Through underground networks that Dib had been part of in the old days, their small group of rebels had discerned that out of the entire planet, only a few hundred humans remained free still. The largest numbers were in the South American countries, where rain was frequent, and on islands where the natives could use water as a weapon. There had been obstacles to overcome, such as the language barriers, and pride, but they had managed to stay in contact for almost one and a half years. For the last six months however, transmissions had been sparse, and they feared the worst.

Their group was the largest together left, almost fifty people all together. Some had been brought in from close cities, when Dib had realized the invasion was really coming. But not many people had believed him, and now they were dead.

It almost made her laugh. Honestly, even she had thought Dib was a little crazy, but it was amazing how long ago that seemed. Oh sure, she'd known that Zim was an alien, it would be a little hard to not know, what with the green skin and missing nose and ears. Not to mention that he'd let her see him without his disguise once they'd become friends. But she'd never really listened to his rantings about taking over the world. She'd assumed it was just Irken pride, never really thought of it as a true threat.

Stop it, she reprimanded herself. You're only going to get upset, and how will that look to the others?

She glanced at her watch, and realizing that she was off schedule by almost five minutes, broke into a run. There would be no other patrols in the area tonight, she'd finished off the only squad until tomorrow morning. After a few minutes, the Skool came into view. She stopped, and after being completely sure that she hadn't been seen, snuck inside the empty hallways. She found the secret staircase in the pitch black, knowing where it was by heart, and followed it down three levels. When she reached the door, she pounded the secret knock, and though she couldn't hear it, knew by instinct that the slat was sliding open. She knew that Fiona could see her in the forbidding dark, her night goggles piercing the blackness. The door swung open, and Gaz slunk into the chamber. She heard Fiona close the door and slide the viewing slot closed, then the door to the hideout opened. She blinked in the sudden light, but nodded to Fiona, and stepped inside. Her eyes adjusted to the dim candlelight in a matter of seconds. Most of the group was asleep, but Dib, Shea, and Jon were still awake, huddled around the small table in the center of the bomb shelter they called home.

"Hey fellas," she whispered. "Look what I found." She unclipped her belt and tossed it at Shea, taking a seat on one of the weathered chairs. She put her feet up onto the table, and gratefully accepted the flask of brandy that Fiona offered.

Dib marvelled at the hardware, turning it over in his hands, showing some of it to the two men beside him. "Gaz, where did you get all this?" He looked up at her incredulously, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

She shrugged. "Ran into a patrol group. I took care of them though." She nodded toward the blaster that Shea was turning over in his hands, then took a swig of the brandy.

"This… This is amazing. Thank you." Dib gave her a grateful look, then stood up. "I'll look over this right now, some of it seems like it's slightly different than the weapons we've recovered." Seeing Gaz's wide yawn, he smiled, and hugged her around the shoulders. "Thanks, little sis."

She growled at him, shrugging his arm off. "I'm going to bed," she muttered, leaving the brandy bottle on the table, and stalking off to her sleeping bag. She heard Dib sigh behind her, but chose to ignore it as she climbed into her bunk, the top on a stack of four. Sleeping quarters were tight, and she wished for a moment that she could have a nice long bath, or maybe just take her boots off, but she knew the rules. Go to bed unprepared, wake up in the middle of the night during a raid unprepared with a laser rifle pointed at your temple. They'd learned the hard way that falling asleep off guard was the best way to wake up dead, and several lives had paid for their mistake.

She unclipped her belt and hung it on the wall beside her, blaster sheath unbuttoned. With that, she fell into a restless sleep, a sleep without dreams.