This one got looooong. Fair warning, it's almost 2,400 words. I wanted to cover two topics this chapter. One suggested by Zela Night about a little more into Irken Education and my personal headcanon about Irken snacks and how they might taste. I have a list of topics now to write about, so here's to some fun with fic for a while! Enjoy!

Part 10: Education and Snacks

Dib entered the skool Monday after an entire weekend of games less than rested. He learned quickly Saturday that Irkens really didn't need sleep on a regular basis. He had honestly thought that had been an exaggeration. Then he'd woken up at nearly 2 pm Sunday after passing out at 4 am and seen Zim organizing his entire house. The Irken had, understandably, gotten bored.

He'd woken up to a slamming door—he'd later discover was Gaz leaving—and found his entire room organized to the perfection of a 5-star lab. He had then moved to the stairs to see Zim alphabetizing the movie collection. He made his way down, noting how much of the house he could see had already been organized.

"Zim?"

"Ah, Dib-stink is finally awake," Zim had said, not looking away. Dib had noted with amusement how the Irken so casually used his spider legs to reach the top of the shelves on the bookcase.

"Wait, what are you doing? Is my dad not home?" Dib asks.

"No, he left this morning just a few hours after you so rudely abandoned Zim," he explained. Dib ignored the jab, flopping onto the couch.

"He usually doesn't work Sundays."

"Yes, he mentioned that as he greeted me. I was rearranging the area he referred to as a 'pantry'. Your father is quite oblivious to his conversation partners," Zim noted. Dib hummed.

"Usually is. Why are you organizing the entire house?"

"Zim was bored and his thoughts distracting, so he kept himself busy," Zim explained simply.

Dib opened his locker, yawning. He hadn't stayed up that late over a weekend since his observatory days in middle skool. Still, he grabbed everything he'd need until lunch and headed for his first class. He was almost there when he noticed the atmosphere in the hall shift.

Dib looked around. Everyone was either facing their lockers or making their best attempt at an inconspicuous, but hasty, retreat to their class. Dib used his height to look over the sea of heads. Zim was down the hall. Students were parting from him like the Red Sea.

Dib was eventually shoved out of the hall intersection by students. He caught Zim's face as he went to his own classes. He had a smug smirk. Dib rolled his eyes, heading to his own class. Of course he was proud of this.

Dib found himself losing focus during class. He could hear his classmates talking about last week, about Zim. He didn't concern himself with it, however. Most of the conversation was about the incident being an addition to their list of how he was weird. Still, Dib was nervous to see him at lunch.

When he saw Zim sitting at his empty table Dib made his way to him quickly. "Zim."

"Dib-stink."

Dib sat down, dropping his books on the table with a smack. The action hardly drew any attention to their table. "Zim, you've heard what everyone is saying."

"Yes, of course. With my superior hearing. I am unconcerned," Zim said, resting his head in one hand. Dib grimaced at him. He noted the lack of a lunch tray.

"You're not going to try and buy a lunch anymore, are you?" he asked.

"No, Zim sees no need anymore. It is a small detail. Zim has noticed you look exhausted," he says. Dib scoffs.

"Humans require sleep," he says. Zim smirks.

"How unfortunate."

"Mhm. Actually, I had a question."

"Zim is impressed, as it has been a few days," Zim says. Dib spits his tongue out at him.

"Curiosity never dies. That's the driving force to science! Anyway, I was wondering what school on Irk was like? Since you don't have a way to choose your own career paths, do you have to learn everything?" Dib asks.

Zim's eye went up as if he was cocking an eyebrow, and Dib could imagine he was perking one of his antennae at him right now. "Zim does not know what you mean by 'everything'."

"Well, humans get a general education up through high school. Then after that we can choose a career path to follow and get a more specified education with that in mind for a degree. Or more. Since Irkens don't do that, what was school like for you?"

"Invaders hardly need schooling. Irkens are given access to the entirety of Irk History. A base knowledge is automatically downloaded to our consciousness and stored in our PAKs. That is our 'general' education, as you put it," Zim explains.

"But I thought you said Irken Invaders had training," Dib points out. Zim hummed.

"Yes, I recall mentioning that. We do need training for certain positions. Invader is one of them. That is done at proper, specialty facilities and bases. Any other positions are taught to us via our PAKs or superiors when we arrive to perform the duty. We have no 'schools'."

"That's… a weird thing to not have. Well," Dib pauses. "I guess not so weird since you're all connected to a central compute hub. You're essentially cyborgs in that respect."

"A what?"

"Cyborgs are half human half machine. Well. They're bio-organic? It gets blurred when you go from cyborg to android sometimes. I'm going with cyborg," Dib says. "It sounds cooler."

"Ah. Zim believes he has made several of those."

"Yeah, I remember seeing a few," Dib groans. Zim smirks again and Dib lightly smacks his arm. "If you have no semblance of a school, then how do you learn to socialize? Or is that downloadable content, too?"

"It can be," Zim says. "Irkens must know about the nuances of our society before we are released upon the Empire. That is included in our base training after we emerge. The downloads come in spurts and take time."

"Like usual computers," Dib mutters. "Is it weird being a cyborg?"

"How would Zim know, he has not been anything else," Zim says exasperatingly. Dib laughed.

"Fine. What's having your PAK feel like. It's attached to your spine. Doesn't that ever… feel weird?" Dib asks. He eyed the instrument wearily. Zim blinked slowly at him.

"I do not know what you imply. Do you inquire if Zim can feel the attachments?"

"Yes."

"Zim can… occasionally feel them, yes. When my PAK is being suspended by my extra limbs, or pressed against a surface, they become more… prominent to Zim's senses. It rarely ever hurts. PAKs are designed to be as unnoticeable as possible so as to blend into our bodies and functions as an organic portion," Zim explains. "Like how he imagines your robotic prosthetics must be designed. As inferior as those are."

"They're better than what we had," Dib says with a chuckle. "But, yeah, they don't sport wi-fi… yet."

"Heh. Zim admires human determination. It is almost as commendable as an Irken's."

"Gee, thanks. Zim do you do your homework?"

"…That is an odd question to suddenly ask, Dib-stink."

"As odd as asking if you can just say 'Dib'?" Dib asked. The sarcasm was dripping from his tone, but the verbal message flew straight over the alien's head.

"No, that question is a reasonable one and a sound inquiry," Zim reasoned. "The answer is no, Zim does not do his homework. There is hardly a point."

"How did you graduate middle school?" Dib asked. He recalled never seeing the Irken at graduation. At that time, however, Dib had already been confident enough in Zim's waning plans and schemes to enjoy the day to himself. Now the absence seemed more out of place.

"Zim took every test and quiz, he simply did not do the work assigned for his time at home. A mighty Invader such as myself would not waste their time with such a trivial chore," Zim explained.

"But that's not how… you had to have done some of it to pass."

"Ah. That. Zim handed it to his base computer to look up answers and fill them in," Zim said, waving his free hand. Dib stared at him, mouth open.

"You dirty cheater!"

"Does it really matter if Zim is not a 'real' student?" Zim asks. Dib shook his head.

"It's the principle of the matter-"

"HA! Zim does not care for that, obviously. I had better things to do with my time."

"Oh, clearly. You cheat. I'm curious why you never cheated when we fought," Dib says absently.

"Because Zim wanted the only challenge on this dirt ball to keep living. As I am sure you know, I could have easily disposed of you early on," Zim says, clacking his gloved claws on the table. Dib glowered at him, crossing his arms and leaning back. Dib eyed them a moment before laughing.

"That wasn't threatening at all," he jokes.

"Zim is glad he can still instill fear into the Dib-stink, even if it is unnecessary now."

"WOW, thanks," Dib said. Zim gave him a crooked grin and roamed his eyes around the room.

Dib let him soak in the addition to his ego for a while. He looked at the time and swore internally. He'd completely missed lunch. They had two minutes left. Dib groaned. Right on cue his stomach growled. Zim perked up at the sound.

"What was that strange noise? Are you ill?"

"No, I'm hungry. I totally forgot to get a lunch today," Dib grumbled.

Zim huffed and reached back to his PAK. Dib made a face at the angle Zim bend his arm to do so. Zim pulled his hand back and threw something at him. Dib caught it—barely—and examined the object. It was a block wrapped in similar wrapping that he'd find a candy bar in.

"And this is…."

"A 'snack'," Zim answers. "You didn't eat so Zim is offering you something you can eat."

"But… wait a second. Zim, is this Irken food?" Dib asks incredulously. "Can I eat this?"

"Yes, it is. How is that an issue? Zim was able to eat your 'chocolate' just fine."

"That doesn't mean I'll be able to eat this, Zim. I'll admit I didn't think it completely through that your species would be able to ingest every ingredient in chocolate-"

"Zim's PAK would have taken care of any toxins, regardless," Zim mused.

"That's an advantage you have," Dib points out, examining the bar. "What if something you commonly eat is toxic to me?"

Zim hummed. He swiped the bar back. "That is a valid point, Dib-stink. Zim will test his rations for future occasions you forget to eat."

Dib snatched it back with a laugh. "I didn't say I wasn't going to! A chance to eat alien food? How can I pass that up?! I'll have to try it my next period, though."

Zim glanced up to see the lunch room had mostly emptied now. He stood up, issuing Dib a goodbye and leaving him to gather his things. Dib had to run to his next class, taking an empty seat in the back. The teacher only gave him a brief glance before starting their lesson.

Half way through Dib dug out the bar. He was grateful that the wrapping was silent—as silent as candy wrapping could be even if it were extraterrestrial—and wouldn't get him easily caught. He was hesitant to take a bite. He had just pointed out this could potentially kill him.

Dib decided screw it, he was eating alien food. He was mentally checking it off his bucket list when he took the first bite. Looking back, Dib really should have thought through the fact Irkens ate snacks for millennia. He should have prepared better for the assault on his taste buds from the sweetness of the snack. It took everything he had not to choke in the middle of class on the taste.

He was tearing up when he was finally able to swallow the bite. Taking a quick glance around he noticed that no one had seen his episode he regarded the snack. It was delicious, but it was too delicious. He tested the taste more. This was definitely going to give him some form of alien diabetes.

He took another bite.

Zim was waiting at Dib's locker at the end of the day. Dib ran up when he caught sight of the Irken, huffing when he hit the locker. "Zim! That snack-"

"Too sweet for your Human tongue?" Zim teased.

Dib dropped his books into his locker, taking his backpack out to pack. "Yes, it was. It was diabetes-inducing. But it was good."

"Zim is unsure what 'diabetes-inducing' means, but he will assume it is a strange compliment?" Zim pressed. Dib laughed.

"Yes, it is. If I had to describe it I'd say… it was like a very rich truffle combined with… brigadiero."

Zim blinked at him. "Dib-stink realizes that Zim does not know either those terms."

"Right. Um, well a truffle is something like a filling covered in dough and dipping in something. It's sometimes icing, sometimes sprinkles, sometimes something else. They're delicious, I'll take you to a shop and you can try some. Brigadiero isn't from here, it's from Brazil, I think? Gaz made it once for her elective cooking class. She decided if Dad was going to make robots fix our meals for us for the next ten years she was fixing her own. I don't blame her. And she taught me some of what I know," Dib explained. Zim waited patiently for his ramblings to cease before intervening.

"Oddly kind of her," he says. Dib shrugs, slamming his locker door shut.

"If I starved or died from food poisoning she'd be alone in that house," Dib says. "Even she couldn't stand constant silence."

"Hm, yes, Zim agrees. It can be very… suffocating after a long period," Zim states matter-of-factly.

"Well, now you have me to bother you," Dib beams, flinging an arm around Zim's shoulders. Zim rolled his eyes, not seeming bothered at all by Dib's full weight being flung against him.

"So, my house for games or yours?"