A/N: Got the "Don't leave me" quote/dream reference from another IZ fanfic, but can't find it or remember the author's name. You know who you are, so let me know, and thanks for the inspiration. I plan on coming back to it in later chapters.
Zim sat in his living room in front of the large TV screen, watching the video feed from the spybot he had planted on Dib's jacket collar during lunch. They we're seniors in hi-skool now, and Gaz was a year behind as a junior. The two siblings had grown as human teenagers will do so, but most everything else had stayed the same. Gaz's hair was still styled as a set of mandibles, but she had grown it out so that the lower jaw looked detachable like a snake's, swallowing its prey. Zim had grown as well, but still an inch or two shorter than the Membrane children. Something to do with the growth hormones in the cafeteria mystery meat that Gaz plastered Zim with on occasion as punishment for dragging her into one of his disputes with Dib during school hours, and thus interrupting valuable game time.
Ironically this was Zim's one real success in the eyes of his Tallest, Red and Purple. They demanded that Zim secure a suitable supply of the chemicals and have it delivered to them. After attempting to hijack a delivery truck, then stealing from the factory only to be thwarted by Dib (and of course Gir's helpfulness) Zim finally just bought the stuff on e-bay and shipped it via courier drone. Delighted, the now eight foot tall Irken leaders rewarded Zim with a stripped-down armored combat chassis from the Irken junk yard and orders to never deliberately use the growth chemicals on himself or to militarize such a commodity "vital to the government personnel of Irk."
"This is SO boring," Zim remarked.
It was now late Sunday night, and on his own screen Dib and Gaz were sitting on their couch at the Membrane home watching a rerun of the canceled TV show Mysterious Mysteries. Well Dib was. Gaz was playing her ever present GameSlave 3.
Oh the Tallest! He, the mighty Zim, was literally looking at a TV watching them watch TV! He couldn't think nor admit the feeling even to himself, but Zim felt so tired by his mission sometimes. It was all he really had. Seemed his whole life was defined by it. Alone on a planet full of stink-humans he couldn't stand. Only one person in the whole universe had earned a smallest shred of respect from him, and that person wasn't even a member of his own species!
Gaz was blazing away on her GameSlave. She had long ago graduated from Vampire Piggy Slayer to Combat WarZone, a first-person shooter. Dib was watching his rerun on the TV and running a commentary as if he hadn't seen it like a hundred times before. It was really annoying so she tuned it out as usual, plus she leaned back on the arm of the couch and put her feet up so she could accidentally kick her bothersome brother seated next to her. And just as usual, it was only the two of them since their father Professor Membrane was always working on the next miracle/disaster at the Membrane Labs. They had no mother, and now their father was almost just as non-existent.
Gaz yawned. It was getting late and they had school tomorrow, but she was determined to complete the level's mission objectives before turning in. Gaz couldn't think the thoughts, but it wasn't much of a life, her games. But they wouldn't leave her, nor abandon her unlike her own family. Mom was gone a long time ago, Dad was going, even Dib would do so temporarily since he had inherited that same obsessive trait and pursued his stupid paranormal investigations and in trying to stop Zim's mission. Gaz actively kept everyone out since Mom left. So what if she didn't have friends? That just meant she wouldn't be hurt when those theoretical friends left her. But she couldn't admit these things even to herself.
Her games were all she really had. Alone on a planet full of moronic humans she couldn't stand. Only one person had earned a smallest shred of respect from her, and that person wasn't event a member of her own species!
The episode of Mysterious Mysteries about zombie lunchmeat ended and Dib stopped his commentary about how ridiculous that it was still unproven when they had to hunt it down for lunch in the hi-skool cafeteria every Tuesday. He looked over and found his sister asleep next to him on the couch, GameSlave still active. Dib sighed as he reached over, took the machine from her limp hand and powered it down. Gaz may not like him touching the device, but she'd rather have that than dead batteries in the morning.
Dib took off his jacket and draped it over his sleeping sister. She appeared to be in deep sleep, so he didn't want to wake her. I do my best to take care of her, Dib sighed, but I'm just her geeky brother and still growing up myself. She's always needed more than I can handle, even if she viciously tries every moment to prove otherwise. And then there's constantly having to stop Zim from setting us up for an alien invasion. And with that he quietly went off to bed.
It was obvious that there were no security threats from Dib tonight so Zim had gone down into the labs beneath his base. His robot Gir was sitting on the floor spitting soap bubbles while Zim sat at his computer console in front of several monitors to double check this conclusion before moving on to other things. The screen from the latest spybot within the Membrane house was dark, so Zim ordered it to switch to night vision mode. What he saw made him nervous.
The spybot had been planted on Dib's collar next to the shoulder, so the video was now showing a sleeping Gaz's face at a range of almost two inches. It was not the face of a peaceful sleep and the view was mostly of her nostrils. An unpleasant picture to say the least, but that wasn't what made Zim nervous. There were certain unspoken rules that had been established over the years in the feud between Zim and Dib regarding his mission. Violations got Gaz involved. She really hated to be involved and would make Zim hate it too.
Zim personally was not permitted to physically destroy the Earth. Not only was she present, but Gaz's games were made there. Conquer the planet? Yes. Ruin its civilization? It's asking for it. Destroy the planet? No.
Zim was not permitted to personally kill Dib. Place in extreme hazard? That came with the job. Replace his brain with an obedience squid? Why not? She might even help with that one. Doom when he deserved it or breathed wrong? By all means. But he was her brother, the only family she really had left and she would not lose it in a stupid feud.
Dib was not allowed to capture and/or dissect Zim. He may be an alien on a mission to conquer the Earth for an empire possessing a grand total of five functioning brain cells, but doing that to someone you went to skool with was just creepy in Gaz's book. Besides, Zim's plans usually self-destructed anyway.
There were a few others Dib had to follow which were irrelevant to Zim. But the most important of all was never spy on Gazlene Membrane. Her person, room, locker, possessions, ect. were all off limits. She knew about the intelligence gathering drones, spybots and what not. But those were either for general use around the city and skool, or specifically targeted on Dib. And to be honest she liked the snapshots of her best doomings (not that Zim knew this) and of course the ones showing Dib floundering in one of his schemes. But the specific targeting of Gaz with recon units would be considered stalking and that would lead to an unimaginable process of dying in unspeakable torment. Actual dying would not be allowed.
So understandably Zim was apprehensive about this circumstance. He began typing at his controls, carefully guiding the small recon unit off her person and to the nearest disposal unit before she woke up. The spybot sprouted small spider-like legs and moved off the couch and across the room.
"Don't go."
Zim/spybot froze in momentary horror, imagining the unimaginable. Then reason returned, and Zim spun the bot around to face Gaz. On the screen before him, she was lightly squirming and tossing her arms as she slept. Dreaming Zim told himself.
"Mastaaa? What's wrong with Scary Lady?" Gir asked. "Is she scaring herself?"
"Don't leave me," Gaz mumbled from the monitor.
"I think in her dream she believes she's vulnerable." Zim had never seen this before. Not from the powerful Gaz-zilla. It was unnerving in its own way. He was definitely not supposed to be seeing this. Thoughts crept back to unimaginable things he'd have to endure for all eternity if she ever found out he saw any weak side of her.
"You should do something about it," Gir stated. "Will tuna fix her?"
"No Gir, Gaz-zilla is asleep, and at her own house."
"How about dolphin?"
Zim just really didn't want to know.
"I'll get more soap. WEEEEEEE!" The insane robot's legs unfolded to expose the jet turbines and he shot out of the room and up the elevator shaft. A crash sounded a moment later as Gir impacted the floor of the room overhead. "Maybe I'll go for Taco's instead," Zim heard in the distance, and he shook his head.
The alien Invader had learned much in the years spent on this miserable planet, too much he sometimes thought and little of it he really understood.
"Crazy minion," he muttered. "But you're right." Zim turned back to the controls.
In the Membrane's living room, the spybot became active once more. It was only an inch across, and spider like. It's legs telescoped until it now stood a foot high, and a dish spun outward from the main body and unfolded into a small platform. The covert bot's secondary function was used to bring back interesting samples for study such as alien technology, enemy supplies, or tranquilized lifeforms.
It approached the sleeping form quietly. Gaz was not a tall person, and petite in build. Her purple hair was now tangled in her right fingers and eyelids mashed together. Metallic arms raised and each activated a tiny tractor/repulser field. Another was formed underneath the bot to stabilize the weight. Gaz's fitful form slid off the couch and over the small machine, her center of gravity coming to a slight rest on the platform. Her body relaxed as the pressure generated by the repulsers hugged around her. Then the bot slid up the stairs and into her room, carefully placing Gaz onto her bed.
Backing away a voice quietly issued forth. "Security: cuddle mode."
The security bots Gaz had made out of stuffed animals and other toys after her mother was gone slithered off of their shelves and curled around the now peacefully sleeping human, Dib's jacket still covering her. That Gaz had designed the bots to be flesh eating was irrelevant at the moment. Zim hoped that it would remain that way if Gaz-zilla ever found out about this. Cuddle mode was also the only command that didn't require her voice-print ID. The alien had heard it only once in all the years he had been trying to get intel on Dib's efforts to counter Zim's mission.
The Irken spybot floated to a waste basket near the desk and paused. A drawer was partially open. Ordinarily Zim wouldn't risk having his fingers torn off and shoved down his throat so he could tickle his own belly from the inside (or so Gaz had warned Dib which had earned a laugh from Zim over a previous infiltration sortie). But something on the video monitor seemed familiar yet out of place in his own mind. An arm lifted, poked at the opening for a split second, then the bot floated into the nearby waste basket and quietly self-destructed with the smallest poof.
Back at the base Zim was now confused by what was displayed on his screen. The video was a still picture from inside the drawer and he now saw why it was familiar. Inside was keep-sakes and mementos. And up front was every snapshot and note he had ever slid into her locker at skool. Each related to some doom she had brought to those who earned her wrath. Each photo showing her strongest, most powerful side.
Zim had learned much from his stay among the stink-humans. Little of it he understood himself. But he understood one thing about Gaz this night. Those who have impervious defenses on the outside have a fragile center that must be protected no matter what the cost. He himself was a strong being, a mighty Invader, assigned by the tallest themselves. No other invader in the Irken military could have kept going with their mission after so many years of devoted service with so few results. But if what he saw tonight in Gaz said something about her, what did it say about him? Zim didn't know.
He left the computer to attend other projects. That armored combat chassis he was restoring was sitting in the fabrication bay and would be finished soon, the experimental hypnotic chickens needed tending (for some reason he couldn't stop feeding them), and then there was that other thing he was creating for Gaz-zilla tomorrow. He knew she would like it. What he didn't know was that way deep down he hoped it would help ease whatever tormented that center of her soul.