A/N- Destruction is nice! Seriously, it is nice. I, uh…don't have a lot to say here other than the fact that this might considered disturbing by some humans. I'll explain a lot of things in the next chapter so, ya know…

Also I'm not used to fight scenes and I didn't want it to be drawn out so that's why it is the way it is. Uh…Little longer chapter this time. Not sure why, but there it is.

*******************************************

Eleven-Intensive Care

"Liar." The word had a soft trail of manic laughter following it. Zim picked his head up, watching Red. He wasn't going to bother with saying anything about the fact that the phrase was technically backwards. He knew he'd just done it to get to him.

Surprisingly, one of Zim's many personality ticks was his being very particular about the grammar in languages he knew well. As much as he'd tried to forget the Russian he was forcibly taught, he still knew a great deal of the language.

Up above on the sheltered walkway, Dib threw his gaze from one to the other, unable to hear any of the conversation and sure he'd be unable to follow it if he was. Something was wrong. He recognised the fear in Zim's eyes instantly and it sickened him. Fear like that only came from one thing.

He sat down on the metal floor, wincing faintly. The pain from the bite wound in his shoulder was slowly coming back. He tried not to think about all the diseases he could've gotten from whatever he was supposed to call that thing. He shuddered at the thought of those dripping teeth and forced his attention back to the two on the floor below him.

Red stepped forward, laughing when Zim instinctively fell back a step to maintain the distance between them. When Red stepped to his left, so did Zim, placing them slowly circling each other.

"You don't trust me?" Red asked innocently.

Zim scoffed as he stepped carefully around the mutilated ventilation shaft which was still on the floor. "Why would I? After everything you've done? Anyone who would slaughter their partner for being an inconvenience should be locked up."

Red stopped. "Smart guy." He said softly. "You've grown up, haven't you? You even kept your figure." He made a show of raking his eyes over the younger Irken. He smirked when Zim shuddered and ground his teeth. "Impending Doom 1." Red told him slowly. "Now that was a fiasco, wasn't it?"

"Bastard."

"Really? You're the one who almost destroyed our civilisation. And all for little ol' me." He smiled, showing impossibly white teeth.

Traitor. It was one of the first Irken words Dib had learned and a very serious insult if used correctly. He knew it well enough to read Zim's lips just before Red jumped at him, closing the distance between them in less than a second. He wasn't sure if Zim was even still alive until he found him on the other side of the room, using the spider legs to set himself on his feet again.

They were back to where they started from, Zim by the door and Red by the wall. Zim was out of breath from fear and the sudden surge of adrenaline that always came with the beginning of a fight. The pain that spiked through him didn't help him much. His left hand was pressed firmly over his eye and blood ran slowly over his damaged glove.

Red shifted his gaze to the walkway, looking Dib in the eyes for a moment. The human froze. He understood a little better now why Zim seemed so frazzled. The look in those eyes was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Wrath, malice, lust, insanity, it was all there.

Thankfully, the contact lasted only a few seconds before the alien returned his attention to Zim.

"Yours?" Red asked playfully, cocking his head toward the walkway. Zim snarled at what that implied. Red always acted classy but deep down he was nothing more than a brute.

The Tallest were always so perfect. Nothing ever rattled them. Nothing could hurt them. Zim almost laughed. It was all a lie.

A soft sound pulled his focus back to the room. Red was laughing again. It was different this time. Louder. More broken. He threw his head back at an unnatural angle, the skin at the corners of his mouth tearing back to his antenna. His lower jaw seemed to rot and long jagged fangs extended from the blackened, bleeding flesh of his gums.

Up above, Dib clapped his hands over his mouth. He felt nauseous. It didn't help that Zim had twisted away and thrown up, probably as soon as he'd heard the sound of ripping flesh. The look of the taller Irken's mutilated and blood-drenched skin made it feel like he was in a horror movie. The way Zim was crouched against the wall, trembling and looking up at Red… It was horrible.

Red jumped forward, hitting the ground on all fours. The joints in his limbs didn't line up anymore, making the jumping stride uneven, jerky, like watching a tape that kept skipping. Zim tried to stand. He wasn't quick enough. Red cracked him hard across the face with one hand, throwing him across the floor.

Dib stood and leaned against the glass. "Zim!" he barked, not sure if he could hear him. "Zim, get up!" He tried to sound angry and keep the fear out of his voice. He knew he probably failed but it was worth a try.

Red crawled up to the smaller Irken, leaning over him and lowering his head. He caught the collar of the younger's dress uniform with one of the twisted, broken teeth and then snapped his head back, ripping the cloth diagonally across his chest. Zim didn't react to it. He was either unconscious or dead.

Dib cursed under his breath and started for the door that led down to the room. Zim had left the door from the hall unlocked and Dib took the stairs two at a time, having to catch himself against the far wall of the landing. He wondered if he was too late. Then he heard the gunshot.

He jumped back from the door and stood there for a moment, frozen, listening. After several seconds, a soft growling reached him followed quickly by a second gunshot.

It was quiet then. Dib stayed by the door for what seemed like hours, his ragged breathing far too loud in the small space. Finally, he shook himself and reached for the door again. Locked. Not surprising but it was irritating. He stepped back and threw his uninjured shoulder against the door. A loud snap accompanied the breaking of one of the locks. It didn't take much after that to force the door open.

The scent of blood hit him full force and he stepped backward, bringing his own bloodstained sleeve across his nose. His own blood was harsher but the scent was less alien, almost comforting.

He looked out into the room. It felt like all the air had been pulled from his lungs. Red lay in a small pool of blood, his eyes staring blankly at the ruined ceiling. His body was twisted at an impossible angle that would've easily broken his spine had he been human. His hands were clawed up and every muscle was locked. There was a single bullet hole right between his eyes. The first gunshot had apparently hit him in the stomach, causing the growl Dib had heard from the stairwell.

But where was Zim?

Dib turned, scanning the room. His eyes fell to the younger Irken sitting against the glass wall. Zim still held the gun in his hand. He was staring at Red, expression blank and lost.

"Zim?" Dib carefully took a step toward him.

"Told you to stay put." The alien's voice was soft, distant. Almost like he wasn't really there. Blood dripped slowly from his left eye but he didn't seem to notice it. The left side of his uniform was gone from the collar to his hip, the sleeve ripped down to the top of his glove, revealing pale scars covering nearly every inch of his skin. He was a wreck.

"I wasn't just going to sit there and watch him kill you." Dib struggled to keep his voice even. What the hell did Zim expect him to do? Walk away? How? They were God knew how many miles from Earth and Dib was completely on his own except for Zim. That was really the way it'd always been.

"You see what he did to me." The words were soft and surprisingly gentle. "Imagine what would've happened to you if you'd stepped in." Zim picked his head up just enough to show that his left eye was completely gone. Several long gashes ran along his cheek, the last one dragging across the eyelid. The Irken laughed. It was a hollow sound produced as a reflex. "It would've been worse for me if you'd gotten hurt."

Dib started at the phrase. He shook his head, embarrassed. "Don't do that." He sighed. Inside, though, he felt like laughing. There it was again. That strange happiness that had no real reason to exist. Sure the words and the fact that Zim seemed to mean them made him a bit, well, giddy. But this was different. He felt warm inside. It was almost the same feeling that he'd had on Earth before this whole thing started.

A sharp flash of movement off to his left made him jump. Red spasmed and twitched, blood bubbling from his exposed throat. Thankfully it was only the Irken's body shutting down. He collapsed back onto the floor and didn't move again.

Dib took a breath. "Come on." he said, walking up to Zim and holding his hand out. "Let's get out of here."

The Irken didn't respond. He kept his head down, staring at the floor again.

"Zim." Dib knew he sounded like a teacher when one of his students wasn't listening. Still nothing. "Hey!" He crouched down in front of the alien, catching him by what was left of his uniform collar. Zim let his head hit the glass. He was like a rag doll. The black recess where his left eye used to be was slowly filling with blood again. Some of the pale pink fluid ran over, making it look as though he were crying.

He wasn't looking at anything. His one remaining eye was slightly glassy. The only things that assured Dib that he was still alive were the soft, shallow breaths he heard and the fact that Zim would occasionally blink.

A harsh rush of anger filled him. Dib gritted his teeth and let go of Zim's collar. He stood and walked across the room, wrenching his tattered trench coat off and revealing the maze of scars on his arms.

"Hey!" he barked, standing by the twisted metal of the ventilation shaft. "Get up!" he waited. "Seriously, Zim, get up!" Nothing. The Irken showed no sign of even hearing him.

Dib sighed and rested a hand on the cold metal. "Zim, look at me." No reaction. But then again, he hadn't been expecting one. Fine. If he wasn't going to listen…

Dib curled his hand around a loose piece of the metal. Zim had saved him once. Maybe he'd do it again.

He hardly felt it at first. The metal bit into his skin with surprising ease. Blood dripped slowly from his fingers, pooling on the floor around his boots. He felt warm, but in a different way. It hurt now. Everything hurt. Dib's vision blurred even with his glasses. He hadn't hit anything major but he was bleeding a lot. More than he should be, he realised.

Distantly, he heard a soft sound. Low and quiet. Zim was laughing.

As the sound grew louder, Dib noticed how broken it seemed. It changed pitch often and it felt almost like Zim wasn't breathing properly. He took only gasping breaths in between waves of hysterical laughter. Then it suddenly changed to something else, a sound Dib thought only existed in horror movies.

It was so loud. He switched hands with the metal shard, slicing into his right arm over and over. Anything to keep him from focusing on it. The shrieks, the high, wild laughter that filled the room was completely inhuman. Any trace of the twisted, distorted form of sanity Zim once possessed was gone.

Dib looked up at him from where he stood, albeit a bit unsteadily, by the mass of metal that he was soon forced to lean against to keep from falling. He couldn't breathe. Tears stung his eyes, causing his vision to blur even more. He tightened his grip on the metal, feeling it slice into his hand. His vision started to fade and flicker. He felt the solid metal floor under his legs and then everything went dark.

********************************************

A/N- For anyone not paying attention here's a recap: Something just happened. Really quickly, Red killed Purple because he annoyed him, Zim destroyed Impending Doom 1 to spite Red, and the fight was too much for Zim to handle so he's a bit insane at the moment. Think Light Yagami at the end of Death Note kind of laugh.