Please excuse any grammar mistakes and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim.

"Ugh!" Zim groaned in frustration, crumbling yet another blueprint into a useless ball and tossing it into the pile of rejected ideas behind him. He yanked his antennas angrily, as if they were the reason he could not concoct a decent plan to have Dib expelled.

Zim would have preferred to avoid eliminating the human. He was ashamed to admit it because a trained Irken soldier was built for annihilation, impairing all obstacles and showing no mercy, but while Zim was desperate to prove he had that same drive, he had never destroyed another life before.

If he could not exterminate Dib, the only other acceptable alternative was to capture him and lock him inside the base. He suspected the humans would report him missing, however. If he was discovered in Zim's base, his mission would be rendered a failure.

The safest method was to somehow frame Dib for an offense and have him expelled.

Zim's planning was interrupted by an annoyingly familiar, robotic voice.

"Not now, GIR!" he yelled.

"But I brought cookies!"

Growling, Zim turned in his chair to see GIR holding a tray containing edible circles. He begrudgingly accepted one, then one soon became five. He could not resist. Zim was hungry, and the snack was delicious.

"Where did you even acquire these?" he asked GIR, hoping the answer was not in the cans outside where humans threw their waste.

"I made them with the lady next door."

"What!?" he screamed in a panic, jumping from his seat. "Did she not question your appearance?" GIR did not have a proper disguise, and even if he did, the android was far too moronic to think of adorning it when he interacted with humans.

GIR tilted his silver head and took a moment to ponder this, as if recalling the events of the last few hours was such a laborious task. "She asked me why I was wearing a costume."

"And? What did you say?"

"I told her it wasn't a costume."

Zim slapped the narrow space between his eyes. "And? How did she respond?"

Again, the android went quiet, trying to remember the exchange. Zim nearly strangled him in the time GIR contemplated his answer, but then he reminded himself that GIR could not actually be killed by such means. Though androids did have an airway in their throats, they did not completely rely on it to breathe.

"She laughed."

Laughed?

Think, Zim! Think.

For what reason did humans laugh? Like Irkens, they laughed when they were happy or amused by something. Jokes, for example! Humans laughed at jokes! If Zim were lucky, which he definitely was not, the female who resided in the house beside Zim's assumed GIR had been making a joke.

"GIR, I ordered you to stay in the house!"

"I forgot."

Zim seized yet another circle from the tray and devoured it, "That is no excuse!" he admonished in between a mouthful of food.

GIR redirected his attention at the tall heap of crumbled paper balls. "Watcha doing?" the android asked him curiously.

"If you must know, I am trying to form a plan to get rid of Dib! He knows my secret and is a threat to my mission!"

"Oooooh!" A loud clang sounded as GIR dropped the metal tray he was carrying to applaud Zim. Most of the snacks broke on contact with floor, leaving a mess of crumbs for Zim to clean. "Yay! Your first enemy!" GIR cheered.

Zim blinked his red eyes over and over again until he was certain he had calmed. "GIR," he began, "Leave me alone."

He walked to his chair only to turn back around to point a finger of warning at GIR. "And do not, under any circumstances, leave this house again!"

As Zim made to sit, he tripped over the leg of his chair. Pain shot through his toe and engulfed his foot. He bit his lip to muffle an oncoming yowl and kicked the pile of balled-up papers, scattering them.

"Are you alright?" GIR asked.

"No! I am most certainly not alright!" fumed Zim. "I arrived on this planet thirty-six days and fifteen minutes ago, and already, I have been discovered! The Tallests were right! I am not qualified to invade a planet! I do not have the required intellectual means to conquer a species even as stupid as these humans!" Zim banged his head against his work surface, his fortitude run dry.

His shouting abated to a quiet mutter as he said, "I am useless. It is no wonder the Tallests exiled me."

"You aren't useless!" GIR argued, tugging the sleeve of Zim's shirt. "You're super smart!"

Zim gave a laugh that was severely lacking in enthusiasm. As if GIR, an android with a brain that could barely function, could even comprehend what it meant to have intelligence. "Oh. Am I? How would you know?"

"Well, you use a lot of words that I don't understand. So that's something!"

Zim rolled his eyes.

"And you learned how to talk to humans all by yourself!"

"So? That proves nothing! I would have been a disgrace to Irken society if I had not been able to master a language as simple as English."

GIR stared at him with a blank expression, and for a moment, Zim wondered if his programming had involuntarily sent him into a sleep mode. Then, he spoke up. "I do not think you are a disgrace."

"Well, thinking is not your strongest attribute, is it GIR?"

"No," he admitted with not a hint of shame in his voice. "But I can still kind of think. And I think you are smart."

Zim looked at GIR. It was occurring to him that no Irken had ever used that adjective to describe him. They had called him "foolish" and "moronic" and "idiotic" and "ignorant." Words such as "smart" and "intelligent" were not among that list.

Suddenly, he felt compelled to thank GIR. Irkens did not often show gratitude. If something was given to them, whether it be a gift or a compliment, it was because it was either owed or deserved. GIR did not owe him his admiration, though; and Zim was not deserving of anything. On Irk, Service Drones were told that they did not even deserve to walk on the same ground as their superiors. "You should consider it a privilege that you are allowed to stand where they did," they had said.

"GIR," Zim began suddenly. Feeling too embarrassed to maintain eye contact with the android, Zim stared at the papers loitering his desk. "Um. . ." He cleared his throat and forced out, "Thank you."

The words formed bile at the back of his throat. He nearly spilled the edible circles he had eaten moments prior.

"Awwww," said GIR with a smile so irritatingly bright it cued a cringe from Zim. "Your welcome."

Zim sat at his desk to resume his work. There would be no more of these pointless sentiments.

"Zim," said GIR.

"What?" he grumbled.

"You're super nice."

Zim stopped drawing the blueprints for his next idea to cast a bewildered look at GIR, the pencil still clutched in his three fingers. "Nice?"

"Yeah!"

"GIR, I insult you practically every day," he reminded him.

"But you're a lot nicer than the others."

"Others?"

"Yeah. You didn't throw me in the garbage like they did."

Zim was disconcerted. How was he meant to respond? Wait! GIR was a mere assistant bot. Zim was not required to carry on a conversation with him. For some odd reason, he wanted to, though. He was curious.

"What was it like in there?" Zim asked, guising his tone with impartiality and boredom.

The blue color of GIR's eyes seemed to darken as it adopted a reddish tint. Zim straightened from his comfortable slouch, suddenly nervous.

"Quiet. . ." muttered GIR.

His voice had undertaken a deep pitch, so it was unfamiliar and eerie.

"Dark. . .Scary. . .Lonely. . ." GIR paused in between each of the words he used to describe that place, giving them three slow, meaningful seconds of silence to stand alone. His speech had the same ominous quality as a dark, empty room. It was too soft to cause an echo, yet it still seemed to resound through Zim's base.

"Wait. How do you even remember? Did they not turn you off?" asked Zim.

GIR shook his head. "They forgot."

Zim's uneasiness swelled like a broken finger as he became more aware that GIR could melt his face from his skull if he wanted.

Then, suddenly, the subtle red in GIR's eyes was gone, exchanged for his persistent smile. His voice sounded normal—which, for GIR, normal equaled annoying— as he said, "But I'm not there anymore! I'm with you! I got lucky!"

"Lucky is not the word I would use," Zim commented grimly.

"It's okay. I'll use it for you."

It was strange, but Zim was coming to the conclusion that GIR was much more likable than most Irkens. In fact, GIR was approximately twenty-eight times more likable than the Tallests.

"Oooh! What's this?" he asked, standing by the panel of buttons that controlled the base. He was fiddling with the glass casing that shielded one button in particular, a shiny red button that if pressed would trigger this base's destruction. The case itself had bright yellow tape running across its front, and on the tape, was the Irken word for "warning" in huge letters. Of course, GIR did not heed it at all.

Surely, the case was locked, though.

GIR proceeded to prove his inference wrong as he effortlessly lifted the glass cover.

Bellowing a cry of panic, Zim tackled GIR as his finger neared the button.

Correction: GIR was twenty-five times more likable and two times as dangerous.

This was kind of a short chapter, but I hope you enjoyed.