I have returned with another chapter. Praise me! So, as the chapter title says, secrets will be relieved. By the way, I got the definition below from Dictionary dot com, so I did not make it up.

Death [deth]

–noun

1. the act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism. Compare brain death.

2. an instance of this: a death in the family; letters published after his death.

3. the state of being dead: to lie still in death.

4. extinction; destruction: It will mean the death of our hopes.

5. manner of dying: a hero's death.

6. (usually initial capital letter) the agent of death personified, usually represented as a man or a skeleton carrying a Grim Reaper.

7. Also called spiritual death. loss or absence of spiritual life.

8. Christian Science. the false belief that life comes to an end.

9. bloodshed or murder: Hitler was responsible for the death of millions.

10. a cause or occasion of death: You'll be the death of me yet!

11. Archaic. pestilence; plague. Compare Black Death.

That's how humans describe death. Me? I always thought of it as the end of life, plain and simple. Something everyone would eventually do, something that didn't matter so much. Now, I'm not so sure. Because now, it means so much more.

Dark. It was dark. And cold. I'm on something cold. And hard. Something cold and hard. I can't remember what happened. Where am I? Am I dead? No, I'm not dead. I passed out. But I'm not at the house. Where am I? Leaves. I can hear leaves in the wind. The park? A forest? Outside. I'm somewhere outside. Ok, lets see here, complete thoughts. I am outside somewhere where its dark and I'm laying on something cold and hard. That's better. My eyes, open my eyes. Still dark, but not as much. Forest. Definatly in a forest. Lots of trees. What happened? Movement. I think I saw movement.

"Your awake." I know that voice. Why am I so confused?

I have to move. Turn over. See who's talking. So weak. No, can't be weak. Don't show weakness. Maybe just my head. Just turn my head. I can see someone. I know that person.

"Kae." I could barely mouth the word.

"Zim."

Her face was void of any emotion. Memories began to come back, along with my strength. My PAK? I lost my PAK? But, I can feel it on right now. I don't remember what happened. Must have passed out. I'm on a mechanical stretcher. Something nagged at me. Kae seemed, odd. And she wasn't the one who just almost died. Something hit me. Dib. That little weasle must have found out about this. I know him well. He would have somehow found out. So where was he?

"Dib."

"Huh?" Kae looked up again.

"Dib. He must have found out. Where is he?"

Kae pointed toward some bushes near by. "Over there."

I was confused. There was no movement at those bushes, no flashes of a camera, no complaints about being found. But I had other things to attend to.

"Kae, what happened. You don't look very, um, good. And I was the one to almost die."

She flinched at the word "die." A soldier, flinching at the mention of death. Something was defiantly wrong.

"What is it?" I slid off my stretcher and walked over to her. The coppery small of human blood filled my senses. And covered her.

"Zim, I need to talk to you about something," She said quietly. I sat down next to her. "When an Irken needs to be born, scientists and machines combine the cell of a male and a female Irken. The Irken from which the cells are taken from is the result of many calculations. The Irkens that have desirable traits, such as hight, intelligence, or strength are going to have more smeet-cells made from them. The smeet-cell that is produced is then placed in an incubator until it is old enough and ready to live. Then they hatch and are put into training determined by what cells made them. Invaders usually breed invaders. Soldiers usually breed soldiers. And sometimes, if a certain combination works well, they make another. If they produce a smeet that grows to an Irken who is good at what they do, and they need more people to do that job, they will try again with the same original parent cells. No one knows who they share DNA with. There are very few families, and none with soldiers, invaders, body guards, or anything else that requires no emotion. Family is a weakness. And we must not show weakness."

"Yes, I know all this already. I took that course in the Academy. Now tell Zim why this bothers you so much."

"Let me finish. I was getting to that part. Anyway, the computers keep track of which Irken's cells breed which smeets. They keep them in top-secret files. One day, about a year ago, I took Ris into a repair bay on Irk. She had been injured worse than I could fix her. Afterward, I was checking over everything, make sure they hadn't made any mistakes. And I found a file in Ris's memory drive I didn't remember seeing before. I opened it. It was some of the smeet birth records."

"I still don't see what's making you upset. That was a year ago, and this just started bothering you today." Zim said.

"You don't understand, Zim. You're my brother."

"Invaders cannot know who they are related to. They're not supposed to. Family is a weakness. You cannot show weakness." Zim repeated the words that had been burned into his memory at the academy.

"I know that!" Kae almost shouted. "I didn't know what the files were when I opened and read them. And by the time I did, it was too late. The next time I took Ris to the repair bay the files were gone. The Tallest needed someone to go to Earth and aid your mission. You were on Earth. So I volunteered. And I saw you dieing today, Zim. Fading fast. Painfully. And it changed me."

Zim was still in shock. He had a sister. An older sister.

"You were so weak. You were dieing, and there was nothing I could do about it. And then you didn't wake up. I thought you had died, Zim. You don't know how it feels to find out that you care for something only to be helpless to aid it when it needs you most."

Zim stared at Kae. He had never heard any Irken express such emotion, such weakness, let alone an Invader. He looked into her eyes and saw a pain unlike any other at the sight of his almost-dead body.

"This will stay between the two of us," Zim said.

"Agreed." Kae was beginning to pull herself back together.

Zim walked over to the bush Dib was laying in. "What did you do to him?"

"I shot him."

"He's still alive."

"What? That's impossible! I don't miss." Kae walked over to stand next to Zim. Dib was scorched pretty bad, but still breathing. "Hmmm. My blaster must be running out of fuel."

She shot at a tree. Instead of blasting a hole through it, the gun only left scorch marks.

"Oh well."

Both aliens left the forest and headed toward their base.

"Now it's my turn to tell you something," Zim said. They were sitting on the couch in the house part of his base. Kae had reassembled Ris and Gir, and both robots were currently in the kitchen.

"Ok, that seems fair."

"There is a human female I know, and I really like her."

"Gaz."

Zim sighed. "Yes, Gaz. I like her and I trust her."

"So you don't want me to hurt her."

"Or wipe her memory like you did Dib."

"Ok, you were laughing when I did that."

"I still can't believe you can't just completely wipe his memory of both of us," Zim stated.

"Aliens have been a big part of his life for too long. If I tried to erase all of it, his brain would have liquified and started leaking out his ears."

"I'm Ok with that."

"Yea, but people would notice is he suddenly went missing."

"Too bad."

There was a knock on the door. Kae stood up to answer it. She opened the door to reveal a smoking and chared Dib.

"You." He pointed an angry finger at her.

"Huh. Funny, I thought I killed you."

"You almost did!" Dib shouted.

"I can live with that." Kae shut the door in his face.

Gir ran into the room. "Guess who made Waffles?"

"I had him, Gaz, I was so close!" Dib was back at his house and ranting on about the previous night.

"Dib, if you make me lose this level, I will tear your eyes out and make you eat them," Gaz snarled.

"But, Gaz, you should have seen him! He almost died! I saw him, laying on a stretcher-thing dieing."

Gaz's eyes shot open. Dib's back was facing her, so he didn't see her startled expression.

"I'm going to take a shower." Dib stomped upstairs. Gaz dropped her game and took off out the door.

She burst into Zim's house a few minutes later. Kae had gone back down to the labs but Zim still sat on the couch with Gir.

"Gaz?"

"You almost died? How come I didn't know about this? What happened? Why won't you tell me?" Gaz fired question after question at the little alien.

"Yes, I didn't have time to tell you, I lost my PAK, you didn't give me time to answer." Zim tried to answer all of her questions at once.

"You lost your PAK? How do you lose something connected to your back?"

"I took it off, and then there was an explosion, and it went flying, and there was interference, and 10 minutes left and then I passed out." Zim attempted to tell her the whole story in one sentence.

Gaz narrowed her eyes. "Why did you take it off?"

"Well, you see, I needed to make this super-weapon, and-" Zim stammered.

"If you ever even think of taking your PAK off again, I will perminately cemment it to your back!" Gaz threatened.

"And I'll help," Kae said as she walked into the room. She grabbed some more waffles from Gir and went back downstairs, leaving Zim and Gaz alone again.

She walked around the underground base for a while before sitting down on a chair and just thinking about how she had ended up on Earth.

After I found out Zim was my brother, nothing was the same ever again. Every time I saw him on the monitor, I felt emotion. Every time I thought about him, I felt emotion. An invader cannot feel emotion. Emotion is a weakness. But I needed to see him. Talk to him. Know what he was really like. So I pulled up all information I could gather on the planet Earth, and then convinced the Tallest that I could make it useful. That I could conquer it. And that I could use Zim's help. With a little bit of bribing and a few promises, they agreed. And I came to Earth. They never teach you how to react when you meet the brother you never knew you had. They never teach you what to do when someone you care about is dieing in your arms. I'm a soldier and an Invader. Not a medic. I didn't know what to do. So I told him. I told him what I knew. About the files accidentally put on Ris's memory drive. What happens now?

Kae sighed. What did happen now?

So, now you know. I did not kill off Zim or Dib. I still need them. If you're wondering why it took Zim so long to regain consciousness, its because he had been separated from his PAK for so long that it took a while to regenerate, even after he got it back.

Anywho, I made an outline of this story, and it's going to be a total of about 15 chapters long. Plus alternate endings. If all of the chapters make the cut and I don't think of any more.

I might not update this story as much now, because I'm making another Invader Zim story called Channels of Doom, where Zim tries to take over the world by taking over the TV. I'll start it as soon as I post this.

If the characters act differently from now on, blame it on these past two chapters. Extreme stress and almost dieing changes people.

One last thing I would like to say before I go. I just want to thank everyone for reading this story and keeping with it. Cookies for all! *Pulls out a tray of cookies and chucks them at people*

Review are always welcome!