Disclaimers: I do not own any of these awesome characters, or this imaginitive universe! They are all thanks to Jhonen who unknowingly is loaning them to me to play with.
This is just the prologue to a long story. Please review!
Dib has a lot of time to think, having no friends and a family who ignores him. Thinking leads to self-realization which isn't such a good thing when you're Dib. It is hard to believe that so many horrible things can happen to one person. Every day ends in disappointment for the unfortunate paranormal enthusiast. If there has ever been an exception to this rule, Dib cannot recall. Sure, the hope still builds; promising prospects emerge in the cesspool that is life, but everything ends up the same way: horrible, horrible, horrible. No, thinking about himself is not very productive, so Dib turns his thoughts to Zim.
It has been roughly 7 years since Zim came to earth. Zim: the most wonderful and awful part of Dib's existence. Dib remembers a time in his life when he thought that he was the luckiest boy on Earth; all he had ever wanted was a real paranormal subject to study, something tangible to investigate, and a real living alien from outer-freaking-space landed less than a mile away from his house and posed as a student at Dib's very own skool. All he had ever wanted, and now it was his. Lucky, ha. How bitter it is to receive one's wish.
Dib no longer considers Zim a threat to the planet. If 7 years isn't enough to take over Earth, 17 years probably wouldn't yield much better results. But what else is Dib going to do with his pathetic life? Zim is his only motivation to wake up in the morning, to keep on living. Spying on Zim, foiling his lame attempts of destruction, trying to expose the alien to the world: this is all Dib knows how to do. In a way, Zim is his best friend, though it would disgust both the human and the alien to think such things.
Zim is running out of ideas. He is finally beginning to realize that his mission is a joke. After 7 years, even the most stubbornly blind Irken has to see the truth. The Tallest are losing interest in their cruel ruse to keep the walking-disaster as far away from Irk as possible and Zim has slowly stopped trying to contact them. Who needs them anyway? Zim needs no one! Besides, he is beginning to feel like Earth is more of a home to him than his own home planet. And if he leaves, Zim isn't sure where else he could go. The Irkens would probably kill him, and who knows how many other bridges he's burned over the years. And he would no longer have the Dib-human around to destroy.
Dib. Zim's archenemy. And the only interesting thing left in Zim's life. Dib is the only being that takes Zim seriously. Most of his threats are met with laughter by the humans. The tallest don't even pretend to care anymore. Zim cannot yet admit it to himself, but he no longer cares about destroying the humans; he just wants Dib to keep trying to stop him. The competition between the two has raged on for so long now, it has become an addiction for them both. The hate has melted away into a deeper understanding, but the battle has never ceased.
Neither Zim nor Dib is blind to the amazing similiarities they share. Both are completely ignored by their own people. Both are a complete joke to society. Both refuse to give up. They define each other; they are lost without each other.
Zim knows, at least sub-consciously, that all of this competition has become no more than a charade. Still, he sits in the deepest chamber of his base and contemplates his next plan.
