Dib shifted a little, looking up at Nyx. "So... I really wanna know… what happened between you and dad?"

Nyx rolled her eyes, sighing. "I wish you wouldn't refer to him like that. He may technically have his DNA in you, but make no mistake, he is not your father, nor does he deserve to be."

Dib sighed and nodded. "I know... and I hate how much I look like him."

"You look a lot better than he does, to say the least." she smiled a bit. "But, it would have been nice to at least see what you would have looked like as an Irken."

Dib smiled, chuckling. "Well at least I got your eyes."

She smiled at this, bringing a hand to his cheek. "Exactly. I was worried about your eyes though. I begged your... father to let me give you the implants, but he insisted that you had 'his superior human eyes' and wouldn't let me."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course. God, he's such an asshole..." Dib smiled wider at the hand on his cheek. "I really missed you, Mom."

"Did you? I'm surprised you even remembered me." She smiled and sighed happily. "I doubt he ever brought me up."

"I did remember you, but just barely. But I had pictures, and the doll. No, he never brought you up, and every time I tried to, he'd yell at me."

"He would yell at you?" She scowled and shut her eyes. "Well, at least you have some time away from him." At this point, Zim had made his way back to see the both of them, but he didn't make himself present. He just kind of stood in the doorway, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Time away from him? Ever since I was 4 I was basically raising me and my sister by myself… I hardly ever saw him."

"Really? He doesn't take care of you?" She frowned and even growled softly. "My poor smeet..."

Dib narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. "He actually calls me crazy for believing in aliens!"

"He calls you crazy for such a thing? He knows that aliens exist, how could he say that to you?!"

"He's had me institutionalized 3 times for it... I think he was just trying to get me to drop the whole subject so I wouldn't end up finding out about myself."

"Why would he try so hard to do such a thing?" She sighed, shaking her head. "He is the only reason I've ever had any regrets about traveling to Earth."

"And... that reminds me, would you ever consider traveling back?"

She perked up a little and looked at Dib, shaking her head. "I... I don't know. Not if I'd end up seeing him again. Why?"

"You want revenge on your Tallest? I'd assume you'd want revenge on my father~" Dib smirked. She put her hand up, shaking her head. "Now wait a minute. I can't travel back to Earth just to get my 'revenge' on your father. He may be a horrible one, but at least he's somewhat taken care of you. And I can't stay on Earth forever, so you need someone to do that job." Zim, still in the doorway, scoffed at this, causing himself to become noticed now. Dib looked disappointed, "Oh..." He then turned around to see Zim. "Zim? What are you doing here?"

Nyx narrowed her eyes at Zim, not saying anything. Zim pretty much ignored Dib's question, flattening his antennae in annoyance. "Dib's father unit is in no way fit to continue 'taking care of him'. And it's not like Dib even needs to be taken care of, like a smeet, anymore. And if he does need someone, he has Zim."

Dib smiled a little at the statement. Nyx, however, just sighed, rolling her eyes. "How are you fit to take care of him? You can barely take care of yourself."

Dib piped up, shaking his head. "I don't need taken care of, I'm almost and adult and I've been taking care of myself since I was young anyway."

She frowned at this, mostly upset about the fact that she never got to be the one to take care of her smeet. And Zim, some other Irken offering to do the job, wasn't exactly helping. "Well... I guess you're right..."

"I'll still come and see you after the Tallest are gone... I may not need taking care of, but I still need a mom."

She smiled a little at this and nodded, standing up. "Well... good. And I guess I should thank Zim in advance, since I don't know how else you'd get here without him."

Dib chuckled and stood up as well, grabbing Zim and kissing his cheek. "And I should thank him too~"

Zim jumped a bit from the sudden action, smiling at Dib and nuzzling his cheek a little. "We should probably go," Nyx added. "It's almost time for lunch and I think Lard-Nar is going to try to talk to you to again once that's finished."

Dib nodded, taking Zim's hand and walking with them to the cafeteria. Zim smiled and even purred softly at the idea of being able to eat, eagerly following them to the cafeteria. Once inside, Nyx led them to a small table, sitting down with them. "Since the food supply is limited, it's handed out. There are some choices, but... not really." Zim frowned, flopping onto the table. "We have to wait? But Zim is hungry now!"

"You can wait a little longer, Zim... at least the food is free." Dib shrugged and sat down next to him. Zim groaned and folded his arms impatiently. Obviously going without food made him pretty unpleasant to deal with. Nyx just rolled her eyes at his impatient attitude.

"Well when we finally go home, I'll take you out to dinner and you can eat as much as you want, okay? I wish they accepted Earth money in space, I have like $70 on me. We could just go out and get our own food."

Zim sighed and nodded. "Fine..." Finally, they're food arrived. It wasn't much, just a fairly large plate filled with various alien foods from different planets. It looked like random scraps, if anything else, but it was enough. Zim immediately lunged forward, grabbing a handful of food off of the plate, earning a look of disgust from Nyx.

"Zim!" Dib jabbed him with his elbow. "W-We'll just share what he grabbed."

"You don't have to do that, just take whatever you want from the plate." Nyx added as she picked from it herself. Zim just stayed silent, practically inhaling his food. Dib sighed and took a small plate, glaring at Zim. "You can be a real jerk sometimes."

"What did I do?" Zim asked, his mouth full of food.

"You're only supposed to take a little bit!" Dib argued.

Zim just hissed at him, stuffing another bunch of food in his mouth. "I was hungry!"

"So is everyone else! It's not like you paid for this food."

Zim sighed and stayed silent, now that he wasn't as hungry anymore. "Fine. Zim will definitely keep that in mind." he said as he rolled his eyes. Dib scoffed and picked at his plate, not eating much. Zim noticed this, eyeing Dib. "What? Aren't you hungry?"

Dib shook his head. "Not really, no."

Zim frowned, poking Dib's shoulder. "You haven't eaten since- wait when's the last time you ate?"

Dib shrugged. "I'm not sure. I didn't get to eat lunch in school the other day, since that whole fight went down. But it doesn't really matter."

Nyx perked up at this, practically glaring at Dib. "EAT."

"Okay! Okay…" Dib took a bite of his food. Zim frowned, papping Dib's cheek. "Why haven't you eaten in so long?"

"I don't know, I just forget... it's not a big deal."

"You forget to eat? That is kind of a big deal. How do you do that?"

"I don't know! Okay? Can you quit interrogating me?"

Nyx poked Dib's hand, narrowing her eyes. "Membrane has food for you, right?"

Dib didn't answer that question, poking at the food on his plate with a fork.

"Dib. Answer me." she demanded, folding her arms. Zim had stopped eating right now, paying attention to both of them.

"... He gave us money for food, but Gaz usually spent it on herself. And it's not like I could go to the store, I couldn't see at the time."

"Well how come you aren't eating right now?" Nyx asked. "

"Well I feel bad for eating other people's food knowing that they don't have much of it. "

Zim frowned, folding his arms. "You could have eaten Gaz's food at the time! She didn't deserve all of it."

"She just bought enough food for herself and used the rest on video games. And she usually hid it. The only time I really got to eat was at school."

Nyx sighed, shutting her eyes. "Then try to eat as much as you can here, hmm?"

"But I feel bad eating this food... don't worry, I'll just eat more when we go home."

"You need to eat now. You need the energy. And don't feel bad, you're Irken after all. It's in your nature to eat a lot." Nyx nodded, finishing the rest of her own food. Dib sighed and took another bite of his food, not really in the mood for arguing. Zim smiled, patting Dib's shoulder with one hand and licking at his fingers on the other hand. Dib couldn't help but chuckle at Zim, soon finishing his plate. Zim smiled and nuzzled Dib. Nyx stood up and pointed to the exit of the cafeteria. "You should go see Lard-Nar in the control room now."

"Right, come on Zim." Dib grabbed Zim's arm and stood up, walking in the direction of the control room. Zim followed Dib in silence, looking around. "Where is it, exactly?"

"I remember, I'm pretty sure it's down this hallway."

Zim nodded and followed Dib into the control room, plopping himself down on the couch that was in there. He sighed and put a hand on his stomach. "I'm still pretty hungry..."

"Dude! You had more food than anyone else in there!" Dib rolled his eyes, sitting down next to Zim.

Zim just pouted and folded his arms, sticking out his tongue. This was when Lard-Nar walked in, practically glaring at the two of them. "Before I start, you two aren't going to fight again, are you?"

"No, and I deeply apologize for our actions earlier and I promise it won't happen again." Dib answered, frowning.

"Hmm." he nodded and folded his arms, huffing. "Well, we plan to start our attack on the Massive tomorrow. Nyx insisted that Dib use his knowledge of computers to hack into their system and render their own computers useless, so he won't have to actually fight in this. Zim however..." Zim widened his eyes at this, standing up. "Hey! I was the one who had their entire power core in my control, years ago! Why can't I be with Dib?"

Dib widened his eyes and frowned, shaking his head at the idea of Zim actually fighting in combat. "Just... keep him by me, I promise he won't mess anything up!"

Lard-Nar sighed, shaking his head. "Mhm, I wish I could believe that." Zim folded his arms, glaring at Lard-Nar. "Zim doesn't just destroy everything! I can handle a stupid computer job!"

"Hey... if you think he's only good for destroying, maybe he can get in one of those large robot-suit things like you had that one time, remember? The one that turned invisible? Then he could do some destroying."

"A Megadoomer?" Lard-Nar shook his head, sighing. "That's Irken technology, otherwise we would most definitely be using those. But maybe Zim could have a small ship of his own."

"Well, he is Irken, and he has experience in one, he can sneak on the massive before the invasion and take one!"

"Eeeaauuhhhh, eheheh, I should probably bring this up before we get any further into this," Zim added, smiling a bit. "The Megadoomer I received was more of a prototype than anything. And uh, after my use of it, the Irken military wasn't exactly eager to send more out. For all Zim knows, they don't even have them available. And if they do, they're obviously scarce and protected by security."

Dib sighed. "Good point, sorry."

Zim looked back down at Dib before sitting down. "I can use a ship," he shrugged. "That would probably be easier for Zim anyway."

"I have to admit though, you are pretty good at destroying." Dib piped up. Zim frowned, shaking his head. "But... That isn't all I'm good at!"

"I know~" Dib sent him a small smirk, hoping Lard-Nar wouldn't catch that. Zim blinked in confusion, obviously clueless as to what Dib was hinting at. Lard-Nar, however, rolled his eyes, sticking out his tongue. "Well fine then, I guess Zim will be part of the aerial attacking. Whatever works."

"Hey... he won't be in much danger, will he?"

"Well, there's always a chance of danger when attacking like this. I don't think he'll be in a lot of danger, but..."

Dib nodded. "It still might be a good idea to let him stay here with me."

Lard-Nar sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe... I don't know for sure right now though."

"Alright, so for now what do you want us to do?"

"Well, I was going to have you start up on the computer, so you get a feel for it before we render the Massive useless tomorrow. I guess Zim will have to come with you for now."

Dib nodded and stood up, stretching a little. Zim hopped up from the couch and followed Lard-Nar as he started to head out of the room. Dib followed close behind them, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around as they walked. Lard-Nar led them into a small room, filled with a few rows of computers in-use that greatly resembled the ones in Zim's lab. Lard-Nar turned to both of them, pointing to a free computer, specifically for Dib. "I figure for now, Zim can help you control these. Unless you already know how to do that as well."

"I've only ever used Earth computers, so I'll need the help." Dib went over and sat in the computer chair, cracking his fingers. Zim smiled a little at this, following Dib to his chair as Lard-Nar left them alone. "So let's see... what is this again? Just practice and getting used to the computer? Boooorrriiinnngggg~" he whined, sighing.

"Come on, if I'm going to hack into the massive I'm going to need to know how to do this."

"Yeah, yeah..." Zim rolled his eyes, turning the computer on first. "Now... I bet the Tallest changed the code for the control of their power core, there's no doubt about that..."