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Author's Note:

Invader Zim is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

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Zim's Records

I could remember, once, hearing the term 'a charmed life.' Something coming out of some television program or another, probably… but words that stuck with me all the same. When I'd first heard the phrase, I thought nothing of it. It made no sense to me, but it lingered in the recesses of my brain. Charmed life. Someone fated to succeed, someone constantly graced with predestined good fortune.

Now, I had only known of charmed objects before that. The Talismans certainly were. Items imbued with inconceivable power, given to a select few in order to keep the Control Brains safe from attack. The Cabochon—a gem that could grant its wearer strength equal to that of the Brains; broken, the Brains could not grant extra abilities to living Irkens anymore, and one chamber could be breached.

Then there was the Elite Blade, Osdraken—the only weapon among them. It sought out death. It existed to conquer. Anyone wielding it would believe himself to be one within that charmed life category, to be sure. If it were to break, the Brains would be weakened, with a second breach. Broken, it proved that the Empire itself could collapse, unless it opened itself to change.

Finally, the Mirror. It reflected the true nature of anyone who was able to look into the glass, and it gathered truth and knowledge from all points of the universe to which it traveled. It was a portal through dimensions, and a record of events past. In a way, it was the greatest judge of a person's character the universe could offer. It did not decide anything on its own… it merely absorbed and reflected. Broken… broken, I had come to realize, it would give back what it had absorbed. Every truth it contained would be known; everyone who had been granted a reflection in that charmed glass would know why the Mirror had shown that one particular image. Broken, the Brains would truly begin to lose all influence they had.

If the Mirror broke, and the Brains lost influence, PAKs could very well override, and allow the flow of layered emotions.

Supposedly, there was a fourth Talisman. What it was, and where we could find it, remained a mystery, but its existence had to be plausible. One Talisman to protect each of the Control Brain centers… there had to be a fourth.

And whatever it was, I felt that I now had the means to connect it to the others. While being half-aware, soaking in my own scattered memories while the Commander roamed the physical world, I'd had the time to think. I wanted to move, to take action, but while that was impossible, I still put myself to use.

One thing seemed to tie all of the Talismans together. One basic feeling ruled over the Cabochon, the Mirror, and the Elite Blade, and would have some connection to the fourth. It was one of the only things, I was convinced, programmed into the Control Brains, and it remained their driving fuel, remained the one thing that every Irken—and every human, for that matter—had in common, no matter how it manifested.

Obsession.

It can be negative, or positive. It can lead to great things, but just as easily lead to a downfall. There was an obsession underlying the functionality of the Irken race, and that was the innate need to expand, to conquer… and over time, the reasons for that had been bred out of all Irkens' central consciousness, and lived on in the actions the Brains took; the actions they forced the Tallest to take, the actions they forced upon the Elite and the Invaders.

An obsession, I had learned, was a want for something. A fixation. Something a person could devote oneself to. It drove one to act and react in certain ways, depending on what that particular obsession was.

I was pretty sure it had nearly driven the Commander crazy. It had certainly driven him over the edge. He did not know what his true intentions were, or what the end result would be. He knew only what he wanted.

And I found it. Deep inside his mind, I found it.

He shared an obsession with the Brains: power—conquest. Being the absolute best. But only because of his real fixation. Miyuki. Every action of his could be traced back to her.

Including the reason why he had possession of a Talisman, and why he hung around hers with such a keen eye.

The blade had found its way to me, long ago, and I had used it to become the Elite Commander. I was, as an Original, not the Brains' first choice of someone to be trusted with a Talisman—this I had to believe—and so they monitored me. The Government-Issued Recon unit that had been assigned to me was not a gift. He was a spy camera. He kept tabs on me, recording my life, my exploits, my conquests. He kept me in check. But as Commander, I had seen him only as another weapon, because my scope was narrow. When I was not in contact with Osdraken, GIR, then, had also lost several of his functions; I had to hope that, once this was over, I could get that little robot back, the way he'd been. If there were no Brains for me to be a threat against, he could yet again be re-configured.

And as for the memories stored in my PAK…

Well, don't we all wish that we could undo certain points in our past?

We can't.

Oddly enough, hearing Tak voice her recognition of that fact had helped my own mind re-awaken, within the thick, murky, dark denial that was the Commander's consciousness. Tak had stolen two of Miyuki's prototype machines, one of them with the ability to warp time. Her problem, though, was her desire to both fast forward and undo. She could not have both. In truth, she could not have either. Time moves as it must. Fast or slow, we are still driven by our own actions, and no amount of tampering with space and time can change that. No time-altering machine can change who we are, or what decisions we make.

Because, in the end, we all have to move on. We change ourselves.

Bad judgments will happen. Foibles and follies will occur; we will love, and we will lose, and we will break and we will rebuild.

That's what makes us—

"You have some nerve, human," the Commander snarled at me, the moment I had drawn him back into the Mirror.

I had been waiting in there too long already. It was a horrible feeling. I had both a separate consciousness, alive as if with a body inside the dimension that existed within the Mirror's glass, and also found myself attached to the physical body that the Commander had taken control over. He had passed through the Mirror a few times merely to taunt me, to make sure that I was watching, when he wanted me to. To exploit its power and his own physical free will, to prove that he could have anything he wanted.

All he was proving to me, though, was his juvenile approach to the world around him. His selfishness. His burning urge to be the best.

It was almost sad, and yet at the same time nowhere near that.

"Interesting thing to say to your own reflection," I shot back at him.

"Mind your words," the Commander snapped. "Let's settle this, human." Grinning, he added, "Did you enjoy the show? That girl was terrified, you know. Of a piece of you. What do you say to that?"

"I'd say she had every right," I said, steadying myself. "Gaz is a strong person, and I love her for that. But there are things we've done, Commander, that are bound to frighten her. Here's a secret about her, though: she's going to get over it."

An opening.
"She's even stronger than you that way."

The Commander's eyes flared wide open, and he rushed at me, grabbing me around the neck. He shoved his thumbs in toward my veins as if to pop them, but I jabbed upward with my knee right into his stomach, and he eased his grip enough for me to gather up my strength and flip him off of me.

He stayed on his feet and spun to face me again, only to throw a right hook that caught me off my guard. I ducked underneath his next attack, and managed to scoot out of the way just as he was striking out at me with that dagger charm of his.

"Stand still!" he laughed. "How's this for a bargain this time? I won't kill her with my own two hands. I'll watch her die of grief when you don't return."

I rushed at him, and threw a punch of my own. He grabbed my fist and tried to snap it backwards, but I bit his forearm and wrestled myself out of his grip. He backhanded me and cut across my lower left arm with his dagger; the wound opened up under my uniform jacket, and appeared prominently on his own forearm.

"What's the point?!" I hollered at him. "There is no point! What you are doing is senseless, you know that?! Why resort to taunting me with threats?!"

"It is all to conquer. All to attain."

"That's not all there is to life and you know it!" I argued.

"Show me your fear, human!" the Commander bellowed. "It's better if you do! Stop subjecting yourself to such weakness. It's unbecoming. You have nothing, you understand? You have no influence. No authority. I have it all. I am all that you fear. I am the Empire."

"Shut up," I snapped. "That's not enough to convince me anymore."I stared the Commander down. Fear can make us lose sight of simple, moral things. Fear can make us forget. And Fear had blinded me. Challenged me and temporarily won. But in every human life, there is margin for error.

When I was the Elite Commander, I had made a mistake. I thought that the universe was mine.

When I was an Invader, I had made the same mistake again. And over, and over.

One does not need everything. One cannot have everything. Fear makes us believe that there is so much to be attained beyond what is within our very immediate grasp.

All I really wanted and needed was someone to understand. Someone to make me understand. To hold me away from the lust for power that had made me weak and stupid, and allow me to know that there was much more I was capable of.

I'm an Original.

You know what? Everyone is.

The Commander had been playing into the fear instilled in all Irkens by the Control Brains, all along. The 'game' that both he and Tak spoke of, the thing that absolutely had to be won, was nothing. It was a quest for a goal that could not be reached. A goal that killed Originality along the way.

I am Zim, I used to proclaim to everyone who came across me. I am Zim, Zim is me, Zim shall rule, I am amazing, all bow down to Zim. Dammit. No.

I didn't want the whole fucking universe. That was unobtainable. That was ridiculous.

I just wanted to be heard.

It was kind of sad, really… but for fuck's sake, I had to be my own second chance.

I'll make more mistakes. I know I will. But this time I'll accept the fact that I can lose. I'll learn from my failures. I'll laugh at them. Mourn them. Wish they'd never been. But there was still one thing that tied me to my past; one thing that always will:

My stubborn want to do better.

That's what makes us Irken. That's what makes us human.

That's what makes us alive.

And not machines.

"Finally going to hear me out?" the Commander grinned, when I had gone silent.

Solid in my resolve, I answered, "No. I need you to listen to me."

"I'm through listening to you. You've nothing interesting to say."

That was not about to sway me. This was my fight now. "Repeat after me, Commander," I said firmly. "I am not the Empire."

"Fuck off."

"I am not the Empire."

"I am."

"I am not the Empire."

"SHUT YOUR FUCKING HUMAN MOUTH."

"Repeat after me, Commander."

"SHUT UP!"

"I am not the Empire." I grinned, and held my arms out. "I am Zim."

"You're a human," the Commander growled.

"Yes." My heart skipped a beat; my chest surged.

"You're a failure."

"Yes, I'm that, too."

"You disgust me."

"Likewise! Now," I laughed, "if we're done talking about stupid things…"

"You dare call me STUPID?"

I couldn't help it. I just kept on laughing.

This, as I should have expected, set the Commander over the edge. He let out an agitated roar, pulled his sword off of his back, and swung it out at me. I hit the ground—my only defense at the moment—then rocked back onto my heels only to push forward again, tackling him around the legs. As soon as we both fell, he kicked me off and shoved Osdraken forward, aiming to cut off my left arm.

I rolled to the side, just in time to grab out my own weapons, from where I had them sheathed on my belt, and managed to spin and go for a cut. My aim was slightly off, and I hit only his shoulder armor. He was quick to punch me in the gut with his left hand, then use the full force of that arm for an uppercut.

My jaw smacked together and I thought my teeth would grind themselves down, the force was so strong. Colors flashed in front of my eyes as my head spun from the hit, but I managed to shake my head and get my wits about me in time to see the Commander raising his sword over his head to come down at me again.

I punched him in the trachea, and he coughed, sputtered, and stumbled back, nearly losing his grip on his sword. While he was recovering, I took a moment to breathe as well, and studied the scar across his chest.

It burned red. His skin was far from flawless… he showed every sign of decay that I felt, and while I could not sense it spreading on my own body, his began to seemingly speed up. Burned, roughened scabs and scars appeared across his arms, near the veins of his neck, along his shoulders, and creeping around his torso—

But the scar was singled out. As if it was waiting for a heartbeat to sound from that chest again.

He winced only once, then shook himself of his momentary weakness, and lunged at me once more.

Strike after strike, I forced myself to counter. He forced me back several steps, but there was nowhere he could lead me that would give him an advantage. We were in the space between every dimension the Mirror could touch—and that covered every piece of the universe that had a truth to be told about it. The Mirror saw everything, and we were in the middle of it all. Where there was no high or low ground. There were no drops, no cliffs, no liquids, no solids.

Here there was no ice, no fire, no weather and no wind. With no distractions, this was a place for discovery, and not even the Commander could run from that.

Here in the Mirror, we would learn who we were; accept what we were.

And move on.

"You wretched human!" the Commander hollered as he struck out. As I dodged. As I countered. As I finally gained my advantage over him. "Die! You'll be the first, before I annihilate that race."

"No can do," I said, keeping my tone simple. "The Invasion is over. Your time is over. You can't destroy what you yourself are so connected to."

"I DESPISE THE HUMANS," the Commander snarled. He struck out again, only to wince back, and clutch at the wound on his upper right arm.

I felt a pang there, as well, felt it open up, damaged from his own form of decay, reminding me that I had not won yet.

The Commander swung his sword down at me again, but I managed to cross my blades over my head and stop the strike. "DIE!" he shouted at me again. "You disgust me! You allied yourself with that race that stole Miyuki. That stole our chances of gaining everything for the Empire. Why give up your potential to have everything in the Empire's reaches for a life so short and insignificant?! WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN UP?"

With a heavy breath, I shoved him away, and took a few steps back. "I didn't give up," I corrected him. "I woke up. I grew up. I'm done with you."

"You're an idiot."

I simply shook my head. "You must just be really, really lonely," I said. "All you have are words."

"I have an army." The Elite he didn't even trust? Interesting.

"You had a gathering," I corrected. "A gathering of those you collected yourself. Originals, even. Because it was a challenge to sway them. But you have nothing. Nothing. Threats, that's it. Your 'army' would easily rise up against you if they knew more about you."

"They fear me."

"Exactly. But that's empty."

"I am empty."

"You weren't always. You had someone. And you lost her."

When he struck at me again, his attempt was only half-hearted. I could see him slipping. The pits under his eyes looked awful. He needed to rest. Once and for all.

"Loss is weakness," the Commander muttered, as if trying to convince himself that such a simple method of thought was still his best defense. "You feel too greatly. You let yourself love, and you think that's the answer to everything? It isn't!"

"Neither are your ways," I spat back.

"You are weakened by sympathy!" the Commander shouted. "You will lose your potential if you become human, but you, oh, you are fighter! You know that's true. Sympathy will end you. I have no need of compassion, and neither should you!"

"Pardon me for enjoying having a conscience!" I fought him, still at the ready in case he decided to strike again. "For enjoying knowing right from wrong, for learning from my mistakes, for wanting to make things better. I benefit from those things, but you run from them. All you have, Commander, are stories you've told yourself to make yourself great. You know what you really are? You're a coward."

"Never! I—"

"You're a coward," I repeated, striking out at him. When my blade slit its way across his shoulder, this time I felt no repercussion. "You gave up a long time ago. You erased your memories so your grudge could live, and that, Commander, is weakness. You know what that is? That's fear. Maybe you pride yourself with instilling fear in others because you just happen to have that thirst for blood—"

"There's nothing else," he growled.

"Yes. There is."

I stormed up to him, grabbed him by the neck, and thrust my right blade through his chest after spinning it out to its full length.

"We're human," I proclaimed. "We always have been. Everyone fears what they don't understand. Human or not, I'm pretty sure that's universal."

Staring forward at nothing, the Commander answered, "Everyone fears death."

"I know."

I pulled out my blade and let it, and my other weapon, fall aside. As I heard Osdraken fall to the ground as well, blood seeped from the Commander's open wound, where I had ripped into the scar already crossing his chest. The scars on his back, too, opened, and out of that spot shot the wires of his PAK. All the while, I felt my own body recover the strength I had previously lost. My back felt healed. My skin felt less fractured.

But he was still alive.

"Why?" the Commander asked me, his eyes meeting mine.

"Why try to destroy you?" I guessed.

His voice came out much more raw, but he still forced it through, as he kept himself standing. "Why do you want to be human? For her? How petty."

I punched him across the face, and my knuckles stung from the contact. "I want to be human because I'm finally ready to stop lying to myself," I said, feeling my eyes mist up as I spoke. I punched the Commander again, with my other hand. "I want to be human so that the ability I was lucky enough to be granted at birth will have some use in the world. So I can be open to new things. And yes," I breathed out, choking somewhat. "I want to be with her. Her name, by the way, is Gaz—use it, because I love her, right down to her name. Because she has helped me learn so much about things I never knew could be so beautiful. And because I want to protect all that she is, and hope that I can have some influence on whatever gives her life meaning, just as she's done for me."

"Foolish thoughts of a disgusting, emotion-filled mind," the Commander coughed out. "You've gone soft."

"Well, all right, fine! Why did you become Commander?" I shouted. Turnabout was fair play, after all. And as long as he was still standing, I knew that there was still more that I had to do to talk him down. "Why did you go on all those slaughtering rampages? Why?"

"To conquer. That is my purpose."

"For whom?"

His silence was answer enough.

I felt my hands clench into fists, and I tried to avert my eyes from the heavy bloodflow that he was trying to stop up with his own two hands. "Why did you do those things?" I demanded. "What was your driving purpose?"

"To win. To control."

Bullshit. Angered beyond the point of reasoning for a moment, I shoved him back. The bastard managed to stay on his feet, and he stared me down, inviting me to go on with my next move. I glared at the gaping wound I'd carved into his chest. At the blood that soaked the laceration only on his body, not mine. At the wires on his back that threatened his life. "Something was still beating, you know," I realized. "You didn't have to prove yourself. You didn't have to take that path. But you did." Drawing in a deep breath, I finished, "Because you were scared."

The Commander spat blood onto the ground. "Amusing," he muttered. "Scared of what?"

"…Me."

He wasn't letting me reach that memory. There were several things he still tried to suppress. But they were there. Memories of the day Miyuki had shown me the Mirror, prior to her becoming the Tallest… back when we were partners in the weapons trade, when I was simply glad to have someone around who understood what it was like to be Original, to have thoughts and emotions outside of the regulation of the Control Brains. She had shown me the Mirror, and I had run upon seeing the reflection, not wanting to speak to her about it.

And we did not meet again until I had killed my way to the position of Commander, to be with her again. For all the wrong reasons.

I'd never stopped running.

Fearing myself.

…Not anymore.

"You saw me," I repeated for the Commander to hear. "You didn't understand, and you didn't want to. I get that. But you knew I'd be the result if—"

"It's insulting!" the Commander cried, grabbing more tightly at his fresh wound, forcing himself to stay alive and standing. "A race like ours, tied to one so flawed as the humans? It makes me sick."

"Because you don't understand!" I insisted, wanting only to reason with him. "But you fell in love anyway. Right? You fell in love with her. You loved her, but she had hurt you, and you didn't want to cope with that. Right after you saw your reflection, she became the Tallest, and—

"And how else was I supposed to approach her after that?!" the Commander roared. He instantly bit back his words, and moved to attack. He raised his right hand to use the dagger charm around that wrist, then stumbled, and clutched his chest again. "I had to find her. Hers was the only logic I knew. I'd follow her anywhere, so I did.

"We were told that our goal was the universe. The more vast the Empire, the greater our status. The greater our reach of control. So I conquered. One puny planet, one resourceless race at a time. It was what she needed. It gave me a purpose."

I… honestly, more or less knew what he was getting at. He thought that not fulfilling that purpose meant that he wouldn't be good enough. For her.

Noble in intention, morally wrong in execution.

I wasn't going to live my life like that. Because being human means striving for tomorrow while still being open to whatever that might bring. It was terrifying, and exciting, and healing and painful all at once.

"And that," the Commander finished, painfully moving his left hand, now, to grab at my neck, "is what I still intend to do. She deserves my service. I deserve what I have conquered."

"But you lost her," I said to the Commander, "even before the day you showed me, on Station Nine. Station Nine was just the end of it. I know, you couldn't live with yourself, thinking you'd killed her, but you were already so fixated on what you wanted that you never once in your service as Commander made the attempt to really talk to her again. Did you? You couldn't stand to think that she'd moved on, so you didn't even once boil your issues down to a simple question.

"Love isn't the same as a conquest, Commander," I went on, my tone softening as I spoke. "She rejected you, and because you didn't understand, you couldn't let it go."

"Miyuki—"

"You lost her. All right? You lost her." My eyes began to sting, and I pushed the Commander back, so that I held him up by the shoulders. For the first time, I saw his eyes begin to wander aimlessly. "It's okay to lose. It's okay to fail. If we didn't, there'd be nothing else to live for."

He did not argue with me. He did not say anything.

"You lost Miyuki, and she found someone else." I shook my head, and let go, allowing him to fall. "But you ran away," I went on, my stomach churning as I watched the wires snake about before, one by one, they lost drive and fell. "You ran away, and I'm not going to make that mistake again. Fear can make us take backward steps, Commander, fear can turn us into monsters. But I'm not afraid of you anymore, and I'm not going to let you stop me from finally being happy."

From where it lay, Osdraken shattered.

"There," I said as I caught my breath. "Was that vital enough for you?"

The Commander did not answer. He had lost his ability to speak, for what's past, as even Tak herself recognized, has passed. His time was long since over, and I had overcome my fear of losing myself to his one-track obsessions. I feared stagnancy, monotony, lacking a conscience.

These fears were irrational, so long as I knew how to overcome them.

I feared change. But everyone does.

I feared death. But not the life I wanted to live before that final moment came.

I accepted my past for what it was. I had been the product of an emotionless Empire, burdened with the ability to feel, and the want to prove myself greater than the others while still staying within the confines of that rigid society. I had glossed over my failures.

I had not allowed myself to be a person.

Now, however, there was no need for the machine.

That was all the Commander truly was—memories caught inside my PAK, memories that could not die, a grudge that could never be satisfied. And so the PAK began to eat his body away, since none was truly needed. The wires woke up again, long enough to snake around the body my past reflection had managed to assume, until every inch of flesh had been engulfed. Twisting and sparking, the wires from the PAK began to coil around themselves at a terrifying speed, and I cringed back when I heard them snapping, crunching, re-forming… only for them to form the outer PAK shell, which then dimmed, and began to shut down.

Nothing but the PAK remained. The PAK, and pieces and pieces of shattered, precious Tavis, which once had formed a blade so powerful it could destroy from the inside out. I felt weak on my knees, drained of a fair amount of energy from both my own battles and his, and as I continued to breathe, I slowly removed my uniform jacket, and laid it over the dimmed, dead PAK.

Carefully, I scooped it up into the jacket, old life cradled in new—I had to keep it with me, and wait until I had crossed the Mirror's threshold before I destroyed it completely. After all, there was still one component left to my soul, and I was not about to give myself only ten minutes to prove it. Because love takes time.

Life takes time.

And it all moves forward.

Because of that, as I held gingerly to the bundle containing the final reminder of my vast, sad, malicious, loveless Irken past, I bowed my head, and said the words the Commander had been too afraid to say; too stubborn, too conceited to say.

"I'm sorry, Miyuki. I could have done better. Not for me, but for you. I should have supported you, rather than made so many assumptions. I'm sorry. But I'm glad you moved on, and I plan to do the same thing."

Fear had held me down too long.

I had one goal to accomplish, and from there, I'd simply see where life led me. I'd do what needed to be done. I'd ask questions, I'd listen, and more than anything, I'd just try. Not force anymore, but try.

I stood, and began to walk back toward the Mirror's glass, leaving the shattered weapon behind me.

Before it opened as a portal, the Mirror granted me a look at my reflection. I smiled when all I saw was me.

I do not have a 'charmed life.' I never did. All I had was a truth that the Mirror once reflected, and now was becoming more and more real, as I began to piece together the life that I wanted to lead. The Mirror had told me where I was going. It had been my job to not get lost on my way there.

Eventually, I had found it. And I was so close to gathering up the final piece.

I am not the Empire. I am not the Commander. I am Zim.

And I am nearly human.

Keeping a firm hold on the jacket containing my now-dislodged PAK, I took in a breath, relying on nothing but my own lungs, felt my pulse rush with nothing but a beat of my own heart, and touched my right hand to the Mirror's surface, so that it could lead me back to Devastis for the last time.

I stepped through, proud to have my feet on solid ground again, proud to have my wits about me, memories and all. When I had adjusted to the pale light of a reddish-grey corridor, I let my feet carry me forward.

I still had a promise to keep. And I let myself grin, since I knew, now, that keeping it was possible.

Now that I had conquered my greatest Fear.

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Author's Note:

Eep, slightly late again, sorry about that! (I totally should have just posted this yesterday, oops…!) But, we're at the end of an arc, here~ :3 Next, on to more with Tak, the others, and, of course, the battles against the Brains… ^^

Another note: due to my maddening work schedule, I'm going to be taking a break next week. Thank you all so, so much for reading! I'm getting excited to bring on the rest of this story (about another two-thirds of this part to go~) ^^

Chapter 11 will be posted on Friday, September 17th! See you then~~! :3

~Jizena

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