Disclaimer: Most characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. I do not own any of the main characters.

Prologue: Hi-Skool

As if grade skool and junyor-hi were not bad enough, hi-skool was that much worse. A whole new school with all new classmates should have been the start to a new life. Too bad the kids he had gone to school with before had also joined him in the current one, so his old reputation about being crazy was not forgotten, just expanded on to yet more people. His first year, he tried to make at least one new friend, but once they were told of how bad his reputation was they never stayed around to talk to him much longer. A few tried, thinking that it might just be rumors, until He showed up at the school as well; then it was back to their constant fighting. The only difference was that the one had quit trying to expose the other to the rest of humanity. Why bother when everyone was too stupid to notice what was right in front of them this whole time?

Zim had been a couple weeks late starting school that year. His excuse, when one of their old classmates asked, was that he had been on holiday and had only just arrived back the day before. It explained why Dib had not seen him in the last month or signs that there was any activity at his base but when he asked Zim where he had gone the only answer he was given was that the shorter green "teen" had gone back home. This news worried Dib, yet the look on his enemies face had him wondering. 'Why would Zim be upset that he had a chance to go home?'

The first year started off as all the others years had, Dib and Zim constantly fighting when near each other; though, they came to a silent truce not to fight on school grounds anymore as both were tired of getting stuck in detention all the time. After the first few times, the principal decided that enough was enough and if they boys continued to fight then they would be both expelled. Neither wanted that outcome so, aside from being in some of the same classes or passing each other in the halls, they tried to avoid the others presence as best as possible. At least until classes were over.

As the year continued, Zim began to see less and less of Dib around the school. He noticed Dib began leaving before school was even done some days and others he would come to school with fresh wounds. This made Zim very curious as they had not gotten into many fights aside from verbal since the year before. Near the middle of the year, he noticed Dib talking to a few of the larger humans, sports-jocks-thingies, one day and saw that they were leading him to one of the quieter areas behind the school so he decided to follow. That is when he found that those larger ones were using the human as a punching bag. Zim was very confused as he watched though; Dib was a great fighter, Zim knew this first hand, yet not once did he try to fight back against what the others were doing to him. Finally, Zim could not take watching any longer; how DARE someone aside from himself harm his personal enemy!?

"What do you think you smelly meat-bags are doing?! That is MY hyuman you are laying your icky hands on. I never said that you could touch him."

Zim stood there, hands on hips and one eye squinted into a glare at the four people surrounding Dib. One held the boys arms behind his back and had used the angle to arch him back while another, their leader, was busy driving his fist into Dibs stomach. At Zim's words, they stopped to look at who was interrupting them. Upon seeing that it was Zim, one who had a reputation for being a vicious fighter, the others turned to their leader for a decision. None of them wanted to get into a fight they knew they could not win.

"Good thing your boyfriend came to save you this time," Lug whispered into Dib's ear, just loud enough for the others to snicker at his words but not loud enough for Zim to hear, "next time, you should remember to finish our homework as well so that this never happens again."

With those final words, he drove his fist into Dib's stomach once again before signaling to drop the boy and leave. As they passed Zim, Lug turned to the green boy, telling him, "he's all yours," before leading the others away around the corner. Once Zim could no longer hear them nearby, he turned and made his way towards Dib to see how much damage was done.

Coming up beside the prone boy, he crouched down to try and turn him over so that he could see the wounds. A hand shot out as he reached forward to smack his away as the one on the ground eased himself up onto his hands and knees. After a few moments, the scythe haired teen edged his body back a bit so that he could use the nearest wall to prop himself up and get his breathing back under control. Once he was able to take a proper breath, Dib cracked open an eye to glare up at the other who was still perched above him.

"Thanks Zim, but you can fuck off now. You probably just made it worse for me from now on." He closed his eye again to help ease his headache before getting up to head home and tend to his wounds. Not hearing the other leave, he opened his eyes once again and raised a brow in silent question to the other.

"Dib-beast, why do you allow them to do this to you? You are much stronger than they are. Zim knows. You fight Zim all the time for years now. Out of all these PATHETIC worm-babies, you are the only one that can keep up with the AMAZING ZIM!"

Dib sighed and slowly pushed himself up from the wall, forcing Zim to back up and get up as well so that Dib did not tower over him more than usual. He hated that Dib had grown over the years where he had barely changed from the time he landed on the planet when the human was 11. Yes, he was an adult within his race, but it still angered him that the Dib, who was still a child, was becoming taller than himself.

"Go back to class Zim, you would not understand if I tried to explain it to you anyway. How could the one saying they are the defender of Earth be the one hurting those they say that they are defending?"

Zim only huffed back at the boy and gave him a quizzical look as he watched the teen pick up his bag and slowly make his way off the school property and towards his home. After watching until he was out of sight, Zim turned and headed in to his next class, English, the only one that he was having trouble with. He would just copy his notes from Skoodge once they got home and have him explain the class to him again. Stupid English and their Stupid spelling of words.

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