Zim had ignored Dib the whole walk to school. It had always been easier to ignore his problems than to face them, it was the only thing that kept him strong enough to be able to take care of himself all these years. Zim was a fighter! A soldier! He never gave up, ever.

So he'd push Dib back so far till all memories of his existence disappeared. He'd move on and start his new life and that was that. Maybe he might even find someone who actually cared about him one day, someone who'd never try to leave him.

Everyone did eventually though

At least his creations were loyal. Stupid? Yes. But at least they'd never leave him

Zim ignored all of Dib's attempts at conversation, taking his place at his desk and playing with a new creation he was working on. He always carried tools on him and instead of listening in class just started working on a tiny robot thing

At this point all of his classmates were all much taller than him, including Dib. His feet dangled off the chair at his desk, being far too small for it. His classmates of course caught on and used this as a topic to bully him about

He had actually been able to avoid bullying for a long time just by keeping to himself at school. Everyone eventually had just forgotten about him and left him alone

That is, till they saw his new outfit. Zim liked the new clothes he had picked out with Mai, today wearing a dark pink tee shirt that had glitter woven into the fabric making it shine as well as a light pink skirt, knee high black socks and pink shoes that lit up when he walked

He thought it was a nice outfit, had all his favorite colors and matched pretty well with his old clothes color scheme. He had hoped the similarities wouldn't draw much attention to the new outfit but of course it did

A kid slammed his hands on Zim's desk right in front of the little robot he was working on making Zim look up

"Whatcha making, princess?" The young boy laughed, and the rest of the class laughed with him at his comment "Who dressed you today, your mommy?" He teased

"Yes,'' Zim said simply. It was true! Everyone erupted into laughter at that. Zim didn't understand what was so funny but then again he never did. He just ignored him. That is till he took the little robot he had been working on

"What's this? Are you making yourself a friend?"

"Leave him alone, Smackey!" Dib yelled out, very much risking himself by standing up for Zim

"Shut it, Membrane! You'll get yours, don't worry" He sneered

"Give it back!" Zim jumped up on the desk, lunging for his project out of the greasy kids hands "Your feeble human mind couldnt be able to BEGIN to understand Zim's work!" He yelled, trying to grab it from the much bigger boys hands.

He held it just out of Zims reach, laughing at him. The teacher finally walked into class

"Everyone take your seats" She said sitting at her desk. The boy, Torque Smackey, went to his desk with a smile, still holding Zim's project

"Hey! Come back with!-" Zim started

"Zim! Sit down!" The teacher yelled at him. Zim grumbled and just sat down, glaring at the jock as he smirked at him from across the room

Zim sat there restlessly through the stupid class, jumping up as soon as the bell rang. Of course he wouldn't fight the kid in front of a teacher so he walked out of class, waiting right outside the door as all the kids walked past him.

Eventually Torque walked right past him into the hallway with his 2 friends laughing. Zim ran after them, grabbing onto the back of the boys shirt

"Give Zim back his project!" He demanded. The boy turned to him and smiled

"Oh ya, here ya go buddy" He said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what was just a handful of bolts, metal and electronic pieces that once made up the robot

Zim growled. Oh if only there weren't a bunch of people here he'd make this boy pay! Zim dropped the scrap metal. He'd just make another one, no big deal

The boys walked off laughing to each other

Zim just went through the rest of his day, trying to keep his head down as much as possible. Not much longer till he'd be off this disgusting planet

Lunch FINALLY came and Zim went to his usual spot, the bathrooms. He had found out a long while ago that if he wanted to be alone that was the best place to be. Yes it was disgusting, but at least he'd have some peace for half an hour. He'd just play on his tablet till the break was over, so that's what he was doing

Zim had gotten used to hearing other boys getting swirlies, beat up or whatever in the bathrooms, so when he heard the usual boys crowding in laughing while 1 would cry and scream Zim just ignored it. That is till a familiar voice cried out

"LEMME GO! I'M GONNA REPORT YOU, YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!" It was clearly the Dib. Zim put his tablet back in his PAK and listened, looking out the gap in the stall doors. What he saw was Dib cornered against the bathroom sinks as the 3 boys surrounded him, 2 boys holding one of his arms to his sides as he struggled

"You always say that and we never get in trouble" Torque said before giving Dib a hard punch in the stomach and laughing as he doubled over in pain. "You shouldn't of stood up for that freak, see where being a hero has got you" He teased

Zim glared out of his hiding place. Oh, these boys picked the wrong bathroom-

"LET HIM GO, WORMS!" Zim yelled, kicking the stall door open and revealing himself in all his pink, sparkly glory. The boys laughed

"Awe, so cute~" The kids tease "What are ya gonna do, throw glitter in our eyes? Tell your mom on us?" Zim stepped closer to them, waiting for the right moment to take his PAK legs out and rip these boys to shreds. He just needed to get Dib out from between them so he didn't cut his head off too

As he was coordinating his attack, getting closer to the group he was suddenly grabbed from both sides and pinned against a wall just like Dib had been

"ACK! L-LET ZIM-" He started to yell when the biggest boy stood in front of him

"Cute skirt, dork" He laughed before lifting the skirt up, revealing Zims underwear "Guys! Get a pic! He's wearing panties!" They all died of laughter

Zim kicked his legs out, making the boy in front of him grab him by the thighs and hold them up and open for the rest of the boys to get a good shot. Zim shut his eyes and turned his head away, completely humiliated

Dib had finally got his breath back and looked over at the scene in front of him. Zim was pinned against the wall, spread out as the boys took pics of his underwear. Zim looked like he was gonna cry

His thighs were painfully pushed up into his chest as one of the boys started rubbing him through his underwear, making Zim cry out

"NO! S-STOP!" He yelled. Suddenly he did stop touching him and Zim was dropped to the ground. He looked up to see Dib had jumped on the kids back and his friends were coming to help pry Dib off. Dib had saved him?

Eventually they did pull Dib off and started kicking him on the ground. Zim didn't even have time to process before he lunged at them, stabbing them with him PAK legs

They all screamed as they got cut and stabbed with the sharp legs coming out of his back. Zim mercilessly attacked them all at once, blood pouring to the floor

All of them fell to the floor, trying to stop the bleeding. Zim ran over to Dib who was covered in blood and coughing hysterically. Most of the blood wasn't his own but from the boys who just got slaughtered above him

"Dib thing? Are you ok?" Zim asked, worried by all the coughing. Dib nodded, trying to get his breath back after just being kicked in his stomach multiple times. He was pretty sure his ribs were broken

A teacher had swung the doors open, having run over from hearing all the screams before running off again to call 911. Zim knew he was in deep trouble, but he didnt care. They had violated him and hurt his Dib!

Zim scanned Dib's body with an extension of his PAK, he concluded he did have broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Zim reached into his PAK, grabbing what looked like a big bandaid. He lifted Dib's shirt up and stuck it on his chest

Dib wheezed, feeling like he was about to die. He didn't even notice Zim stuck that thing to his chest before he did, feeling the excruciating pain of being touched before he suddenly couldn't feel the pain anymore. He still was barely able to breathe, but all his pain was gone. He looked up at Zim, who held his face

"Numbing patches. Thanks for standing up for Zim-" He smiled, holding Dib's face in his hand stroking his cheek. soon after Dib passed out from lack of oxygen.

A second later the paramedics arrived taking all the boys to the hospital. Zim sat there in the puddle of blood as they were hauled off, just staring at the floor. He didn't know what else to do

"ZIM?!" Mai yelled, getting concerned as she saw the kids, including Dib getting wheeled off into an ambulance. There was a crowd around the bathroom so she tried there. She pushed everyone out of the way and ran into the bathroom, picking the little Irken up out of the pool of blood and holding him against her. She was in a state of panic

"Oh Zim what have you done?!" She cried out seeing all the blood splattered around the bathroom

Zim didn't answer, not even registering what was happening. He was gone, completely disassociating from the situation as it was all just too stressful to face. He did what he had to do, that much he knew

He stared out blankly, unmoving. Just numb to the world around him. It was as if he was encased in a thick pane of glass while everything went on around him, all noises muffled and unintelligible.

Police soon came in, telling Mai to come with them, leading her to the principal's office as she clung to Zim just stared blankly into space

They sat down and Zim was unresponsive to all of their questions. They eventually let them go home, not having answers and not having any witnesses who were conscious at least.

Mai took Zim home, not knowing what else to do. She hoped he would snap out of it eventually and get some answers as to what happened

Till then she took him home, got him cleaned up and put into something comfortable. She took him to the couch and put on a movie, sitting with him till he would hopefully talk. She eventually fell asleep as Zim sat there staring into space

In the middle of the night Zim suddenly blinked, looking around. He was home? It felt like he just teleported from…where was he before this? School, right? Maybe he hadn't even woken up and getting up for school was just a dream. But then why was he on the couch?

He looked over at Mai who was fast asleep.

Zim looked at the TV, which was still on and then looked at her and stared for a moment. He removed the blanket he was wrapped up in and threw it over her, tucking in the edges like she did for him

He just stared at her. She looked like she was tired and was maybe crying? He looked around the room, not really knowing what to do

Usually he was up all night working away in his lab but he didn't even know what to work on. Maybe remake that robot that…got…..destroyed…..

Suddenly the memories just flooded back in, his whole body began shaking, he fell to his knees holding his head in his hands

He KILLED them-

There's no way those boys would live after that.

He didn't even recognize the person who took over him in that moment, when he saw Dib being hurt he just saw red

Had he hurt Dib himself? Of course, but never to that extent. It hurt him seeing Dib suffer like that. Even if he threatened it he could never do that. Was he violent? Yeah. A sadist? Definitely. But was he a savage bloodthirsty killer? He liked to act like he was, and sure he was destructive but never first handedly killed or beaten someone like he had or like those boys did

Dib was someone he had taken a liking to, even if he didn't admit it. He got a thrill from their rivalry, it made him feel important. It was exciting. Most of all though it was a distraction. How could he want to kill the one who was his biggest outlet for his delusions?

He suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe, hearing the screams ringing in his antenna. He grabbed on them and pulled, just wanting the screams to stop. It was like he was stuck in that bathroom covered in blood again, the bodies laying around him

A shrill beeping interrupted the TV show playing in the background, alerting that his PAK was overheating from the stress

He pulled harder on his antenna, hoping the pain might snap him back to reality. It helped him not get totally lost in these flashbacks but wasn't helping pull him entirely out of them. It didn't help damped the screams either

He started sobbing, he just wanted this to stop!

The beeping grew faster by the second

Mai instantly shot up on the couch, that same beeping burned in her mind, plaguing her dreams. She thought it was just another nightmare, that she was hearing things. That beeping haunted her

She was about to lay back down, to try and drown it out like she usually did when she heard it. That is until, in the darkness of the room and under the dim light of the TV she noticed a tiny smeet curled up on the floor

"Zim? Sweetie?" She called out softly. She sat up on the couch, the blanket Zim had put on her falling off as she tried to make out what was on the floor. Was it one of Zim's new plushies?

She got up and moved closer and knelt down, realizing that it was Zim, and could hear that he was definitely crying and that beeping was definitely coming from his PAK

"OH DEAR TALLESTS!" She immediately scooped him up and ran to the kitchen, grabbing one of the first things she could out of the freezer and pressing it against his PAK. Immediately steam rose up, a low hissing sound from the frozen food being pressed against the boiling PAK

Slowly the beeping calmed down and she gave a sigh of relief, looking down and realizing he was yanking on his antenna now. He was still crying uncontrollably and trembling all over

"Zim, don't do that…why are you doing that?" She said softly, sitting him on the kitchen counter using one hand to hold the frozen food to his PAK and used the other hand to try and pry his hands from his antenna

He had a death grip on them, not letting go just trying to get the screams in his head to stop

For the first time in a while Mai didn't know what to do. She knew at least that cooling that PAK down was her main priority right now. When the food melted she quickly grabbed something else from the freezer and used that

She touched the PAK. Good, it was still warm to the touch but wasn't burning anymore and the beeping has since stopped. Now that that was settled she picked him up and rocked him in her arms, singing the same song that seemed to calm him down last time

Meanwhile she tried to gently pull his fingers away from their vice grip on his antenna

It took her about 10 minutes of this before his grip finally loosened and his breathing seemed to slow. She went to the couch with him and held him, bounced him, rocked him, sang to him, pet and kissed his head and just tried to soothe him as best she could. Eventually he let go of his antenna and instead clung to her

"Zim, are you feeling better?" She kissed his antenna, trying to assess the damage without scaring him. They were bent but not too bad, she started prepping to straighten them by rubbing them at the base, massaging there to relax him a bit

"Mnm…I..I hurt them….Zim d-didn't mean to-...they were hurting Dib, I-.." He whined, starting to get upset again

"Shhhh, yeah. I figured that's what happened but let's not worry about that right now" She tried to calm him again, rubbing the base of his antenna, slowly moving up to to straighten all the bends he made

"Is Dib ok?" He whimpered, clinging tighter to her shirt

"Yes baby, shh" She hushed him trying to work her way up his antenna. He didn't seem to be in any pain so she kept going, working out the biggest kink in his antenna

"Nngh-!" He started trembling again. Mai immediately pulled her hands away

"Oh! I'm sorry, did that hurt?" She asked worriedly. Zim looked up at her startled before looking nervous

"N-No…Keep going" He said before pushing his face in her chest. Mai blushed, realizing what was going on. Well…it's better than him being in pain at least, but that didn't make it less weird. She'd have to have a serious conversation with him later but she'd let him enjoy it for now

She kept rubbing out the bends and twists in his antenna until they both were straight and instead rubbed his back, kissing the top of his head

"No-" He grabbed her hand and put it back on his head with a huff

"Zim…" She started, before stopping herself. She'd have that talk with him later, he's been through so much today. She kept rubbing his antenna, eventually bringing a soft purr from him. He fell asleep clinging onto her and she finally noticed something

He was clinging to her

Smeet naturally clings to their caretakers even in sleep, she had never seen a smeet his age do this though. The instincts usually are gone by the time the smeet are potty trained so this was very odd

She tried to stand up and sure enough he was glued to her no problem. She wouldn't really mind this so much if he had the claws of a younger smeet. At this age his claws were twice the size and they were starting to hurt. Thankfully he didn't weigh very much

She walked with him to their room, Zim still clinging onto her fully asleep. She carefully pried his claws from her skin, placing him onto his new green dog plushie. He could dig his claws into that as much as he wanted for all she cared

She decided then it would be best to let him take a long break from school. She needed to do a lot more work with him, especially now that he had an episode so bad his PAK overheated.

The tallest were right to have her stay here for a while, he wasn't ready to be around other smeet just yet. He was dangerous to other but also to himself

She felt like he trusted her though and had already made a lot of progress, she could tell he really did have a good heart and had potential to be integrated back into Irken society

So she'd have to stay here, work with him until he wasn't a danger to anyone or himself so they could go home. She sat on the edge of the bed watching him sleep

Then suddenly her phone rang, loudly

"AH!" She jumped, fumbling with it trying to turn the ringer off. She got up and hurried to the door, leaving the room to answer without waking Zim "Y-Yes?!" She answered all flustered

"Hey Mai, it's me" The professor said tiredly from the other side "I heard from the police what happened…" He said, sounding disappointed. If Zim had attacked his son then he couldn't let him near his son, which means he couldn't be around Mai

"Oh, yes…Zim told me the other 2 boys were attacking Dib and Zim had stepped in. Is Dib alright?" She said, detecting the suspicion in his voice. Hopefully Dib could clear stuff up soon

"He's still knocked out" He said, sitting on Dibs hospital bed and petting Dibs hair back, trying to avoid all the cuts and bruises on his face "He should be awake by tomorrow, they said…I just, I was worried since Zim was angry with him when they went to school and well, this isn't the first time Dib's been hurt by him…"

"I know how Zim can be, but he would NEVER seriously hurt Dib on purpose" She assured him, feeling protective of Zim at the accusation

She heard the professor give a slight chuckle through the phone, at least that's what she thought it was. Wait, was he crying?

"Yes, yes of course…Sorry for thinking like that, I just…Dib told me he was getting bullied and I just…I thought…I didn't do anything.." He choked up. He never cried, why did he trust her enough to cry to her then? Maybe he had just been lonely for too long. There was a long pause of him just crying into the phone before she spoke up

"Are you okay?" She asked softly, feeling worried for him

"Y-Yes…" He tried to calm himself down "I just don't know what to do…Maybe I should just pull him out of school, have him work in the labs? That might even help him focus on real science instead of chasing aliens" He thought out loud

"I think that's a great idea, Dib is way too smart for that school anyways. So is Zim, I was actually thinking the same with him. I'm gonna be keeping him home from now on. You should see the things he makes, he's an amazing engineer" She beamed, feeling very proud of her new smeet

"Really? I might just have to recruit him too" Now he really gave a chuckle. He felt better already, talking to her

"That sounds great. A way for both of them to use their gifts to the full of their potential. I wouldn't mind watching them both"

"Sounds like a plan then, after they both feel better of course" He smiled "And it looks like we're gonna have to reschedule that date" Mai blushed. She had totally forgotten their date tonight

"Oh, yes! Definitely!" She smiled now too, a hot blush on her face. She put a hand on her face trying to cool down

"Great, well have a goodnight"

"You too!" Mai said flustered before hanging up and clutching her phone to her chest

Oh, she was getting way too close to this human. What was she gonna do when she had to leave?

Well. she could always keep him. She could have him labeled as her pet. She thought to herself. What about Dib? She couldnt let Zim keep him, Zim was too young to have a pet. She could always make Dib her pet as well

She was getting too far ahead of herself, she'd just have to talk to them before she left and if they wanted to, then she would. If not, they would need to part ways. There's no real harm revealing herself to them if her and Zim were gonna leave anyways

She got up from the couch to go back to the room, getting changed into pajamas before laying down next to Zim, who was laying stomach down on his dog plushie

She saw some movement though and focused on him to see what he was doing. His hands were clinging to the plush but he seemed to be moving his hands in a kneading motion

Interesting, another instinctual behavior that he was too old to have. Maybe they were just being awakened now that he was being given the right treatment and would go away soon? She'd have to look into that more, later. For now she was gonna go to sleep. It had been a long day

So she laid down, watching Zim knead and purr until she drifted off