a/n: drive by update……………….. zoooommm!

Break

He groaned before he opened his eyes. This pattern was getting annoying, always waking up in pain with a mild concussion and having to search his memory for what had happened before he'd passed out. Dib swallowed thickly, attempting to reach down to his side. Something had his wrist. He tried the other one, but that one was caught too. He looked up, slid his eyes carefully open to see what it was he was caught in. He sucked in a breath, jerked back a little as he realized what this all was.

It didn't feel like it, but he was hanging from his wrists. A glance down showed him some weird kind of suspension field, shining out of a blue ring and taking most of his weight with its invisible waves. He swallowed thickly, blood or something at the back of his throat, and flexed his fingers tentatively, stopping for a moment to think.

Dib craned his neck up again, squinted at his wrists through uncomfortably dry contacts before pulling against the cuffs, trying to see if there was any way for him to get away. It felt like freefall almost, except for the pulling at his feet, probably another pair of cuffs around his ankles. He stared at the metal binding his wrists, trying to think of some way he could get out of this.

"Dammit, Zim," he muttered under his breath, pulling down smoothly, trying to slip his hand out of the glowing blue restraints. An agonizing shock zipped down his arm, and he gasped in both surprise and pain.

"Don't do that. The only to get out of there is if you pull your hands and feet off."

He searched the shadows around him for the source of the Irken's voice. Finally his eyes adjusted and he picked out his dim shape, sitting hunched over something and staring out what looked like the inside of a giant windshield. Familiar shape, the connection snapped in his mind and he realized he was probably inside the mech. It looked a lot bigger inside than he'd thought. But, then again, he wasn't really scared of Zim when he was inside as well. There wasn't that impersonability factor.

Now what?

"What do you want, Zim?" His throat was dry and his voice came out sounding a lot weaker than he'd meant it to. Still didn't seem to change anything in what he could see of the alien.

Those sharp fingers scattered over the board in front of him, pushing out the directions for the huge robot. No lights, just countless points of greens and reds, showing the functionality of whatever they corresponded to. A lot of reds, actually. Dimly, out the dark, dark glass of the viewing port, he could see the surroundings slowly peeling away to reveal others. No jolts from inside to tell of those massive footfalls, though. A few minutes until Zim spoke, just a flick of his antennae to signal that his attention was anywhere different.

"You know what I want. I told you when I got here."

A short, hoarse laugh. He just eyed the Irken, looking out as if he was peering over the tops of his absent glasses. "You're still on that? I thought you'd given it up a long time ago."

Something in the alien tensed up, hands gripping the side panels of the controls but he didn't turn around.

"Come on, Zim. It's been a game forever, even if it's been getting more and more dangerous as time goes on." But it was eating at him, the destruction, the city. "You're breaking the rules now."

The rule that it was always for them, and them only.

Zim flew out of his seat, spider legs whipping out in one motion until the Irken's claws were clenched in the collar of his torn trench coat, eyes blazing fire again and serrated teeth set in a snarl. Something in Dib flinched, but he kept it under the surface.

"There are no rules anymore!"

"And what changed that?" he spat, venom laced in the words. "Did your stupid Tallest finally call and tell you that your mission was a fake from the start?"

"Fuck you!" the alien hissed, his voice way below his normal octave range, threatening and unnerving. "You don't know anything. What if it was a fake? What if it was all some kind of sick joke? It doesn't change that I'm going to conquer this disgusting ball of shit, and that you're going to have to watch and be the last one to die." Claws had clenched through cloth, and Dib sucked in a breath as they sliced through his skin again. God, that hurt. But the look in Zim's eyes, that distant look that had never been there before when they were fighting. His thoughts were elsewhere. He didn't care about the game. And the human's eyes went wide as it hit home; there really weren't any rules anymore.

An alarm went off, simple klaxon with no computer warning. The Irken spun, hand ripping more flesh but at least not with all the fury he'd been using a moment before. He hung there, body taut over the seat he'd been sitting in a few moments earlier, hands touching controls and eyes glancing as five lights changed from green to red simultaneously. He swore in Irken, those few strange alien words that were so familiar by now. A kick to the console, and two flickered back to green as he settled back into the saddle seat.

Dib watched him, something like panic in how he held himself, and then he tapped something and jerked holocontrols hard-left. A shudder screamed through the mech, klaxons going off all over. Looking up, squinting through matted bangs again, the human pulled at the cuffs around his wrists. Maybe he could get out before the thing collapsed or blew up with him inside. Then, just as he felt the thing get ready to shock him again, the blue light of the suspension field cut out and he fell, trapped by the one still holding his ankles but at least free enough to be ready to move if and when the bottom one cut out too.

Zim was distracted, back to piloting the mech, evading something that Dib couldn't see through the thick black of the windshield. At the back of his mind, he berated himself. That was supposed to be his job, stopping the alien. But then the blue below him died and he ripped the two cuffs on his wrists apart so they were two rings instead of a figure-eight. It only took another second till his ankles were free too, and he was up, grabbing hold of anything to keep him upright in the pitching of the cabin. At least three paces and he was at the back wall, hands clamped over the lock of the hatch and yanking on it to get it open.

Fresher air rushed inside as he cracked the seal, sucking the door out of his hands so that it banged against the hull on heavy hinges. It looked like a war zone out there, Apache helicopters beating the air and following them. A rocket whizzed by, narrowly missing the rear of the mech, and Dib jumped back a little from the doorway, hands clenched white on the frame to keep himself steady. The shock absorbers had obviously gone off-line, and the whole world seemed to be pounding with massive footfalls and the sound of gunfire.

Zim's voice brought him back to where he was, and he glanced over his shoulder at the alien, still frantically trying to keep his machine running. "What!" He yelled over the pounding helicopter rotors and the rain.

Zim looked back, their eyes locked again for a second. He looked scared, but it didn't reflect in his voice. "I won't stop. I will take over this world."

"Yeah, whatever, Zim." But Dib swallowed, hesitating in the doorway. Dammit, it wasn't supposed to end this way.

He jumped, grabbing a handful of cables in the left leg of the machine to make his way to the ground. He clung there, his shoulder aching, to the backwards knee of the mech, just staring at the ground as the thing moved to set its foot on the cracked asphalt again. Another handhold just under the joint, he slid down to the ankle and jumped away from it as the foot lifted again; another footstep Zim had managed to coax out of the failing machine.

He watched it move off down the block for a while, sitting slumped down against the side of a shattered building and breathing hard. Need to get home, need to figure out what the fuck I'm going to do. His head was swimming again, and his shoulder hurt almost as much as it had the night before. He'd probably ripped the stitches out.

The mech staggered out of sight, firing lasers at passing aircraft and writhing coils at whatever they threw its way. Maybe he could get out of the city, but Zim was in trouble. He'd have to ditch that failing thing soon, and then he'd be on foot. In the rain. Dib swallowed, heart pounding. Shit, it wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be him chasing, and now he was just sitting here doing nothing. The human pressed a palm to the wall and pulled himself up, exhausted. His sleeve was wet, and from more than just the rainfall. He needed blood and he needed a car to get out of the city and find Zim. They needed to end this right.

-------------------

Gaz looked up from a bowl of cereal and a gaming magazine as her brother pushed in the front door. He was drenched, water dripping on the carpet as he shut the door and staggered through the living room to the basement.

"So it didn't work, huh?" she muttered, just loud enough so he'd hear her. He almost jumped, and she bit back a smirk as he looked at her.

"Gaz..." Dib just stared for a second; he almost looked shell shocked. "I thought you'd gotten out or something," he finally managed.

"Pfft. Roads were jammed, and I wasn't in the mood to be flipped off by soccer moms in minivans." She pulled herself out of the chair, dumping soggy half-eaten Frankenchokies in the sink. "Anyway, you were off saving the world, so what did I have to worry about?"

The dripping sarcasm got a reaction out of him, and he slammed a bloody hand on the countertop, teeth set. "I know you don't care, but would you at least stop fucking throwing it in my face just for laughs. This is serious this time. I have no idea what he's doing, and if I don't get out there, he'll probably be dead."

Gaz leaned back against the counter, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "Isn't that what you want? Jeez, Dib, you've been playing around too long. Do you care or not?"

He swore, fingers pressed into his temples. The rain was still pounding down outside. It never rained this hard.

"It's been so long," he said flatly. "It can't end this way."

She scoffed, kicking at her chair so it slid back under the table. "Whatever, loser. You're bleeding all over the floor. Better do something about that if you're gonna run back out into the rain and save him." Grabbing her magazine again, she slipped by him and went up to her room.

Behind her, Dib slowly slid to the floor and just sat there staring for a moment before struggling up and making his way to the basement again to patch up.

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end

a/n: Had trouble with this chapter, like whoa. What can I say, I hate writing exposition.

I like the word 'klaxon.'

Please review. Concrit is very welcome! Thanks for reading, and your patience. :)