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So, this chapter actually focuses on Zim~

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The truth hurt.

It hurt worse than any injury he'd ever sustained in battle, any horror he'd been faced with, any embarrassing defeat he'd had to suffer.

The truth stung with a sharp coldness, an uncaring cruelty, that Zim could barely bring himself to believe in, even now.

He knew he was dense sometimes, knew that he had a tendency to only hear what he wanted to hear and throw the rest into some other part of his mind where he didn't have to listen to it. He hadn't always known that, the action having been unconscious, but his time on Earth gave him the teensiest bit of self-awareness. Not much, but enough to know that denial was his shield against the destruction of his self-image.

Zim knew he ruined Impending Doom I and caused a lot of damage to their own planet, to Irk. That was clear as day to him, even then. He still wasn't sure exactly why he'd messed up so badly, though. It hadn't been on purpose. He loved his planet, loved the empire he served, and he was so excited to be participating in such an important mission. But something happened during that excitement, and he was destroying things- the wrong things- and soon enough, everything was ruined, and by his own hand.

And then he was on trial for his crimes, and he'd tried to explain what happened- tried to explain that he didn't know why he did it, that he hadn't meant to do it. But how could he have explained what happened when he didn't even really understand it himself?

Then there was the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of two of the previous Tallests- first Miyuki, and then Spork. He had been a scientist back then, a low-level one, not anyone who should have had any access to the kind of materials and technology to make the blob that killed them. Someone should have stopped him, even if they hadn't known what would happen, even if he hadn't meant to do that either.

Somehow, it seemed that no one ever found out about what he'd done.

Everyone always referred to their deaths as an accident, never even suggesting that Zim was involved- even though there would have been more than enough evidence of it. Proving what he did wouldn't have even been hard- in fact, it should have been revealed just from the routine checks of the camera footage, showing him creating the blob with unauthorized materials.

And yet, no one knew and no one questioned it. No one was blamed for the creation of the blob, and no one ever seemed to ask.

No one asked when Zim was reassigned, either. Reassignment wasn't exactly the rarest thing, but it wasn't super common, either. Usually, once you got your first assignment, you remained there for a good century at least unless you had a sudden height change. Most reassignments were for things like banishment (something he would eventually become quite familiar with).

But no one said anything when he was reassigned to the military, as an invader in a leadership position. Of course, he never questioned it himself. He thought it was a position that suited an outstanding Irken such as himself. Back then, it never even crossed his mind that it was strange for an Irken of his stature to be put in that position, strange that he was commanding Irkens taller than himself, strange that even with a height barely putting him above a service drone that he ever got any higher level positions. Even stranger, no one disobeyed his orders. They pointed out that they were still on Irk, tried to tell him he was messing up, but when he hadn't listened, they just did as they were told. Obedient to someone they should have considered inferior, no matter how superior he thought of himself as.

Of course, no one questioned it when he was banished the first time, except for himself. Again, that was more denial than anything else. He couldn't believe he had been banished, couldn't accept it.

And so, he quit and made his way back to the Irken fleet, to the Massive. He forced himself into the Great Assigning, never once thinking that he was somewhere he wasn't meant to be. He was an elite Irken invader- of course he was meant to be there.

So, when he was given the new mission he was entitled to- why would he have questioned that either?

Looking back, he now wondered how he was never able to figure it out until that fateful day. It was just so… obvious in hindsight. Sure, the Tallest sometimes used fake, honeyed words to stroke his ego and give them a good laugh, but there were times when they outright told him that they hated him. At his trial, he'd been told he was banished, he'd been reprogrammed- and yet, he just couldn't comprehend it somehow. Even once the Tallest told him about their entire charade, told him the truth about how he was doomed to spend the rest of his life alone on a miserable alien planet he hated, he still hadn't believed it.

Until suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, he did.

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Zim spent days destroying his base, tearing it apart wire by wire, in a blind, painful rage he couldn't break himself from.

Nothing could lessen the fire in his chest- not the destruction, not denial, not even the image of Gir cowering in the corner in terror.

Now, he was relieved that Gir had employed common sense for once and stayed out of his way, because if he hadn't… But still, Gir eventually left him, leaving to travel the world alone. Gir said it was a vacation, but Zim still couldn't shake the thought that it was to get away from him. Maybe Gir had just spent a few years terrified but staying with him anyway, to make sure that Zim would be fine without him, keeping an eye on him instead of running away because his programming forced him to serve his master. Maybe Gir was just waiting for the opportunity to leave.

Gir sent them postcards from time to time, never from anywhere that made sense and never following any real pattern. He'd send a postcard purchased at the Eiffel Tower from somewhere in Ireland. Zim didn't know if that was just Gir's typical randomness at play, or if Gir didn't want Zim to try to find him.

Gir… still cared. He was pretty sure of that. But you could care about someone and still have to get away from them. You can care about someone who scares you, care about someone you don't feel safe around.

He wasn't so sure Gir was safe with him, then.

Regardless of why Gir left, though, Zim was sure that it started with the blind destruction of their home. Zim had only stopped at all because Gir eventually calmed down from his terror enough to get Dib. At the time, Dib was a teenager and had already grown much taller than himself, so despite Zim's mechanical legs and strength, he'd been able to grab Zim and hold him back from destroying anything else. And Zim struggled and scratched and screamed every terrible thing he could think of, but Dib still held on.

He didn't like to think about the wetness that burned his cheeks that night.

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Adjusting to life on Earth was hard, less because it was an alien planet (after all, he'd been there for years already) and more because he had to adjust to not trying to conquer it. Of course, he could still try, but there wasn't much of a point anymore if the Armada was never going to come claim it for the Irken Empire, and he had years' worth of proof that his world domination plans never worked.

No. He couldn't take over the Earth, and he hated being forced to finally admit to himself that a large piece of that was due to his own ineptitude.

So, he had to adjust. He had to learn how to live and work and do all the things humans had to do. He started selling machines he made to the humans- more primitive than what he could make, but still advanced. Part of that was just because he didn't want to put Irken tech in the hands of the enemy- because even as he was trying to adjust to living a human life amongst the humans, he couldn't help the ingrained idea that every other species was lesser than them (though, it did amuse him- and Dib- that many of Zim's inventions were better than Professor Membrane's).

In the end, he'd eventually somehow ended up moving in with Dib as roommates. With the both of them paying the bills, it was just easier, more convenient, and it gave them more disposable income for things like sugary snacks and expensive lab equipment.

The funny thing was that they had already been living with each other for a few months before Zim even admitted to himself, let alone Dib, that he didn't hate the human anymore (and maybe hadn't in a while)

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Sometimes, late at night, once Dib had long-since gone to bed, Zim would sit on the couch. He would stare at the screen adorning the adjacent wall.

It was the same screen he had in his living room that he had once used to communicate with the Tallest. He'd fixed it, telling Dib at the time that it was a higher quality television than they would have been able to buy at the store, even if it needed repairs. He didn't say that part of him hoped that, once it was fixed, he'd find a message waiting for him from the Tallest, that maybe they'd try to contact him.

Of course, they hadn't, and with every day they didn't, Zim let that hope die a little more.

The problem was that there was still just the teensiest bit of that hope left, and so, he would just stare at the screen sometimes, pretending that they were there. It was stupid, because not only did he know they wouldn't call, but he didn't even know if he had repaired the machinery that would allow that sufficiently. He'd broken the screen pretty badly, after all.

And wouldn't that be funny? If it turned out that the Tallest had tried to call him but their messages never got through because he destroyed their communication device? Or maybe even that they had tried to call, but it was before he fixed it, so they gave up.

It was thoughts like that that kept the stupid hope alive, just enough that it kept him up to sit here.

It was thoughts like that that made his chest feel hollow, made his face sting with regret.

It was thoughts like that that made him wonder if the three of them had ever been friends, or if that was just another thing his mind made up so he could live in denial.

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So, lots of Zim backstory here. I tried to incorporate stuff from the series and also some details from The Trial, but I wasn't being too focused on making everything completely accurate 'Cuz I've never read through the script for The Trial or anything.

Any ideas on what happened with Zim's past?

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