Author's Note: While this contains elements of crossover (such as alien races and occasional characters here and there) it takes place entirely in the Invader Zim universe. No knowledge of other franchises is required to enjoy the story! If you do see someone or something you recognize feel free to mention it!

"So, what does it do exactly?" Dib tilted his head to the side as he squinted through the lenses of oversized glasses at the tiny silver box in Zim's hand.

"It turns anything beginning with the letter 'T" into toast." Zim replied proudly. To demonstrate, he had GIR push a small potted tree into the center of the room. A button was pressed, lights flashed, and a piece of toast was now sitting upright in the dirt. Dib opened his mouth to respond, then simply closed it again as words could not accurately express his current thought process.

Not that it was easy to think, as GIR had taken the moment of "stunned" silence to pick up the toast and begin chomping on it as loudly as possible. For a being that did not possess teeth or a digestive system, GIR seemed to revolve a lot of his daily activity on food. (In all honesty this whole invention sounded like GIR's idea).

"Wh-" Dib began to pose the question but Zim cut him off.

"Because it makes GIR shut up for ten minutes that's why! What do you want from me!?" The response was greeted with silence from the human and an excited squeal from the robot. Zim's antenna twitched and he crossed his arms indignantly. "It's not world ending- but I'm not doing that whole "world domination" thing anymore so this is what you get! You get toast! Are you happy now you filthy worm baby? Your planet is safe. The Tallest aren't coming."

There it was. It had been a few months since Zim's last communication with the leaders of the Irken Empire and from what Dib was able to glean from Zim's angry outbursts and GIR's mostly incomprehensible rambling- something very severe had taken place during the exchange. Whatever it had been, it made ZIM more docile toward the humans- or at the very least, disinterested. This would have been the perfect time to take him in and prove his point once and for all- but Dib had grown quite a bit older himself and the idea seemed needlessly cruel. Zim had been a threat at one time, but over the years he had become more of a nuisance, then a mild inconvenience, and eventually just someone to spend Thursday nights chasing around. The older Dib got, the less interested Zim seemed to be as well. (It occurred to Dib now, that their fights were nothing more than an elaborate game to his Irken foe (or friend). It was just one Zim could take too far).

So here he was, sitting on the couch as Zim-outside of his disguise- showed off increasingly weird creations in order to kill time.

"I think it's fine. Reminds me of some of the stuff dad makes." Dib spoke at last. Zim's reflective, pink eyes narrowed as he remained unconvinced of Dib's compliment. "It's got a bit of an arbitrary rule but I mean-"

"ARBITRARY RULES ARE WHAT MAKES IT FUN TO USE! WITHOUT THEM THINGS ARE TOO EASY!" an accusatory claw was pointed in Dib's direction and he held up his hands passively.

"Right, right, sorry." Zim had definitely been more on edge since the incident in question. The inventions he had brought to show Dib had become steadily stranger. The whole thing had Dib worried, which was shocking given that until this point, he had never really cared about much outside of his current obsessions. (The current obsession of the week was a supposed blurry figure seen in the skyline. Dib had initially thought it was Mothman- but the silhouette was all wrong). "I guess I don't get it because I'm a human."

"EXACTLY!"

Dib tried (unsuccessfully) to hide an eye-roll and that simply earned him a (well deserved) glower from his alien host. "So, what else do you have?" He gestured to the vast expanse around him. While the weirdest thing in the current room was the creepy monkey painting Dib had always secretly hated- he knew that Zim's base housed many more exciting inventions than a T-to-Toast machine. It was just a matter of getting Zim on the right track. The Irken had always been easily distracted, and recently things had been worse. "Weren't you working on upgrading your security system or something?"

"Yes, I have already finished." Zim retorted, annoyed. "I took some old computers from Earth and combined them with superior Irken tech. I'll demonstrate." He jumped up on the couch cushion standing beside Dib who was sitting, only now able to look at him at eye level (puberty had been not-so-surprisingly kind to Dib, given he was his father's clone. He had gotten quite tall). "Hit me." He demanded, puffing his chest out.

Dib blinked, took a swig from the thermos he had filled with coffee that morning, and shrugged. "Okay." He reared back and slugged the alien full force in the face. Zim must have been expecting a different result because Dib laid him out flat with the hit. Zim's PAK legs extended and pulled him up off of the floor as he massaged his jaw. The circular, bulbous eyes had narrowed in an angry glower, his antennae were tilted far back.

"C.B!" Zim shouted letters angrily at his ceiling. Dib was beyond the point where he would find this weird, and simply went back to enjoying cold coffee. "Why did you not defend your master!? Why did you not defend ZIM!?"

"The attack was staged. Threat level was nonexistent." A synthetic voice responded, resonating from all around. Zim's house had always been able to talk- a sentient, central computer was nothing new- but this one was distinctly different. The voice, while still electronically tinny, was more human sounding, or at least more alive. The lighting in the house dimmed and a central blue light illuminated a hologram of a humanoid figure wearing some sort of helmet with a single, large ocular lens in the lower center and four smaller lenses forming a symmetrical V on the face of the mask. The only feature visible was the mouth which was rather inexpressive. While it had human like features (from what Dib could tell) such as ears and hair, the color scheme was clearly inhuman: all blues and whites for the skin tone.

GIR let out an excited squeal at the hologram's appearance, and began running back and forth, through its legs, making the image glitch with every pass.

"Zim was doing a demonstration!"

"How was I supposed to know that?" The head of the hologram tilted to one side quizzically.

"It should have been obvious!"

"You asked a human to punch you. They are weak and slow compared to you, sir. Had the attack been real, it still would not have been very threatening." It seemed as if, despite the humanoid features the computer still had a very Irken view of the human race.

"You have failed me C.B."

"But you were not-"

"FAILED!" Zim pointed angrily at the hologram. Dib watched in momentary silence trying to figure out just how something with only its mouth showing, could still look so exasperated. It was honestly impressive.

"Sir, I did not fail there was no-"

"SILENCE! You failed Zim! Go to your room!" C.B. looked completely at a loss for a second; Dib could see that it was contemplating a further argument, but instead, just shimmered out of view.

"Awwwww, Imma miss that guy." GIR whined, flopping onto the floor where the hologram had been projected, and making a crying sound. The mourning lasted only a few seconds before the mad robot let out a laugh and began spinning on its head in place.

"Impressive." Dib gave a little nod of approval. "I like how it let me punch you."

"That was not supposed to happen." Zim jumped over the spinning GIR and sat back on the couch. He sighed, the antennae drooping. "C.B. still needs work."

"So, what does it stand for?"

"Eh?"

"C.B. what does it stand for?"

"Computer Base." Zim replied flatly. Dib felt a little disappointed by how much sense that made. "He still needs work, though."

"I like the hologram thing."

"Really?" a single antenna lifted. "I hate it. But C.B. made it himself and I can't convince him to make it more Irken- I must have used too much from your Earth computers." Zim went quiet for a moment seemingly lost in thought. "Haven't things changed with you?" He looked back to Dib quite suddenly. "You got kicked out?"

Now it was Dib's turn to glare. "I wasn't kicked out. I moved into the dorms. I'm graduating college this year and that means I'm an adult. I don't need dad, or Gaz, or robots to do things for me. I'm living life on my own- my own boss." He pushed his glasses up his nose, smirking with a new found confidence. His phone buzzed and flashed and a barrage of text messages caused Dib to flop back on Zim's couch with an exasperated groan.

"You're buzzing." Zim pointed out helpfully.

"Hang on it's my roommate." Dib pulled the phone out. "It was supposed to be a single room but apparently you have to wake up at like the ass-crack of dawn to register for a single and that's basically when I go to bed so how was I supposed to know I needed to be on the registration page!? How was anyone!?" He let out a frustrated huff as he scrolled through the messages.

ROOMMATE (5:45 PM): Hey made extra food- left you a plate wrapped up in the fridge if you want it since all you seem to buy is Poop Cola.

ROOMMATE: (5:50 PM): Also when was the last time you actually did your laundry? I just threw yours in with mine.

ROOMMATE: (6:02 PM): Also noticed you forgot to take the trash out when you left?

ROOMMATE: (6:02 PM): Were you going to do it when you came back?

ME: (6:05 PM): Yeah, sorry

ROOMMATE: (6:05 PM):Thanks! Don't wake me up if you are coming back at a weird time like you have the last three nights!

"It seems you are not quite as independant as you are leading me to believe." Zim smirked.

"Stop reading my texts!" Dib held his phone up over his head as Zim reached for it. Dib put his other hand on Zim's forehead and held him off with ease. Dib heard a metallic whirring sound and let out a cry, rolling off the couch as a spiked PAK legs buried themselves in the cushions on which Dib had just been laying. "No no no! No PAK that's cheating!"

"Well then don't use your freakishly long arms to hide things from Zim!"

"You tried to stab my head!"

"That is your head's fault for being so large!"

"Master, someone is at the door." C.B.'s warning was drowned out as Zim lifted himself with the legs of his PAK making a grab for the phone.

"Give it to meeee! Zim wishes to see your humiliating messages!"

"Master?"

"No way! It's my phone!"

"I am not paid enough to deal with this." C.B's grumble faded into nothing.

"OOOOOO Someone wants to VISIT!" In the chaos, GIR got to his feet, waddling over to the door. He looked up at the ceiling but C.B made no motion to stop him as he reached toward the door.

Zim had finally managed to knock over Dib and had almost managed to wrangle the phone free when a voice caused him to stop dead in his tracks. It was only then that he realized the door was open, his disguise was off, and he was staring at someone he had no seen in quite some time.

"Skoodge?"