Finally another chapter! I know I've kept you guys waiting a while for this, but as you all can tell, x-mas is approaching and my life has gone into STRESS OUT mode.
Tis okay though, I'm coping.

Anyway, I've finally began hammering out... SOME kind of plot for this. It's not going to be super long, but I have decided to make a bunch of these 'What If' style stories for the future. They're pretty fun.

Well onto this chapter, ENJOY.

Dib was slowly starting to feel what he now dubbed as 'the daily grind'. Work was horrifically boring, not to misunderstand him of course, he loved helping the kids who came to him, but once you've talked to one bullied kid you quickly find you've talked to them all. It was a horrible thing to say, but really, all they ever needed was a strong boost of confidence.

All the bullies often had parent issues and so far his main bread and butter cases were young girls who had zero self esteem. In some ways he was honestly worried at how many girls, not just shy ones but popular ones too, had such little belief in themselves.

Still, he had been prepared for it, this is after all what he'd been taught to do. But even so, out of all the cases he looked at, Zim was always the most intriguing. Something about the kid just fascinated him, perhaps because he could see a lot of himself in him.

Zim's imagination was truly boundless, always telling tales of vast spaceships, tall alien leaders and crazy adventures. Again, it was all the kind of thing he had loved as a kid, but there was one major difference. Dib's fantasy had always been to save Earth, Zim wished to destroy it.

The young boy had extreme anger issues, he was narcissistic, megalomaniacal and violent, yet, at the same time is lack of foresight and massive hubris rendered him harmless. No wonder Dib considered Thursday lunchtimes his favourite part of the working week. Even now he prepared himself for Zim's spot-on twelve-thirty arrival.

The door swung open and in marched the young green boy, frowning deeply. Inwardly Dib quickly knew it was going to be one of his 'listening' sessions.

"Hello Zim," he announced from behind his desk, "How are we today?"

"Shut your noise tube human," Zim barked as he took his chair, "Zim is fine."

"You're always fine," Dib replied with a smile, "But your frown says otherwise." His smile faded slightly, "Come on Zim, we talked about this, you can say anything here and it'll never leave this room."

"... I don't want to talk about it," the little boy hissed, crossing his arms, "It does not concern you, human."

Dib sighed, he hated it when Zim did this. He had an annoying habit of closing up around things that Dib knew were hard hitting. If only he could get the young boy to open up... "Well, why don't you just tell me how, whatever it was, makes you feel?" Dib asked innocently, knowing it was a textbook way to trap Zim into giving an answer.

Zim seemed to give Dib a highly suspicious glare before he looked ot one side, "The... thing makes me feel angry."

"Why angry?" Dib pressed softly, "Did this thing hurt you?"

"No," Zim's eyes flicked away, almost shamefully, "It just... It makes Zim feel angry because it means Zim isn't being the best."

"The best at what?" The older man asked, leaning forward.

"My mission," The green boy replied almost casually before his eyes widened and he looked back to the older man, "I MEAN! Skool work! Not best in skool work!"

Yeah, Dib had learned Zim tended to do this. He was full of slips, but yet, he never let on what those slips were about. It was strange, he suspected it had something to do with never being listened too, maybe his subconscious let these little hints out to try and draw people in. Of course, the moment he did draw someone's interest he immediately closed up about everything.

Again, Zim was a troubled boy, his mind seemed to be a train-wreck of pressures, repressed feelings, anger and depression.

"Zim," the counsellor addressed suddenly, standing up walking around the desk, pulling his chair along with him so he could sit closer to the boy, "Tell me what's bothering you. Please."

"No," the green boy replied shaking his head, "You cannot know. If you know, I'd have to destroy you."

"Why?" Dib asked, sitting down before him, "What's so terrible about this mission?" A sudden terrible thought hit him that maybe Zim might be being abused by his parents and this 'mission' was to keep it quiet.

But Zim didn't seem like the abused type, again, he just seemed to be completely ignored by the world.

"It is not terrible," The little green boy snapped back, his eyes locking with Dib's, "It is glorious and you can't know about it."

"Well, why don't you just tell me what you feel about this mission," The counsellor said simply, deciding that even if he wouldn't reveal what it was, he could still talk about his feelings.

"I told you, human, I feel that I am not being the best," There was a deep anger under his voice, "but that only means that I have been slacking. I can do better, push myself harder."

Dib... wasn't too sure how to take this. On one hand, yes, it was good that he was pushing himself to do better, but on the other, it was for all the wrong reasons. He should be pushing himself for his own gratification, not for these Tallest he kept talking about.

"Zim, tell me," The man asked slowly, "What is it about this mission that is so important."

"What?" The green boy replied quickly, his grey-purple eyes growing wide, "That's a stupid question! It's important because... it's important!"

"But what do you get out of it?" The counsellor pushed. "What kind of reward do you see yourself as getting?"

The boy thought about this for a moment before jumping up onto his chair, "I will be hailed as the greatest! I will be glorified forever and all will look up to me!"

"I see, is that what you want out of life?" Dib asked slowly, carefully, not wanting to let Zim onto the fact that he was essentially unravelling his problems. Zim was one of those kinds of kids were you had to divert them with one hand whilst getting what you want with the other.

"Yes!" The young boy continued to exclaim loudly, "I want all to see my genius and warrior might, then everyone who ever-" He stopped suddenly, his mouth hanging open and his expression moving from pride to... worry. Dib had never seen him do this before, but he knew just for a moment there, he'd almost hit something. Something very important.

"I'm leaving," Zim suddenly announced, dropping from his chair and striding to the door. Dib however reached it before him, putting a hand across it and standing there, looking down on him. The green boy glared up at him, his voice taking on a surprisingly menacing tone, "Move out of my way, Membrane-monster."

"No," Dib replied sternly, "Zim you have to stay here until the bell rings."

"I don't care!" The boy screeched back at him, and yet, despite his anger Dib could hear something else in there, hidden under his rage. Zim was scared of something. "You said you were here to listen to me! Well listen to me now and GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

"I'm here to help you," The counsellor replied, "And I can't do that if you keep walking away every time you're about to open up!"

"I know your game," The child threatened suddenly, pointing an oddly sharp looking finger at him, "You're trying to get me to expose my weaknesses! To better defeat me in battle! Well it won't work! I'm a highly trained warrior and your mind-tricks will NOT work on me!"

"Zim please-" The counsellor went to continue, but Zim screamed, cutting him off.

"LET ME GO HUMAN OR I WILL HURT YOU IN WAYS YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN HURT!" The little boy's scream was so loud, so terrible that Dib was honestly shocked. His hand let go of the door knob and instantly the green boy took advantage, pushing the taller man to one side and throwing it open, storming out.

Dib stood for a moment, wondering just what the hell had happened. Zim didn't seem to act like any other kid in the school, hell, the reaction he just had been one of an angry adult. This was... weird. He slowly made his way back over to his desk, sitting down and frowning. That hadn't gone like he wanted it to go, hell, he would probably have to drag Zim back into their next session together.

He walked over and sat back down on his chair, feeling... horrible. He was failing this child, he knew it. Perhaps he was being too eager to break him down and sort him out. Dib had develloped a tendency to see each child as a puzzle, once you understood how the puzzle worked, you could simply break it down and resort it.

Zim was... proving hard to sort.

After a few moments of feeling bad for himself, he decided to go to the teachers lounge and get some coffee, he might as well get ready for whatever it was he was doing next. To supplement his counselling hours, the school also put him in charge of helping kids with grade issues, career options, that kind of thing as well as make him a sort of personal general grades tutor. He guessed they did that because of his genius level IQ.

Right now he was helping some kid who really, really sucked at maths try to get a B. It was difficult but by explaining everything in Transformers form he was starting to make a break through.

However, as he walked down the corridor, passing a bunch of giggling little girls, he paused. There, on his right, was a door marked 'Personal Files'.

A sudden age old temptation sparked into life again, one which he hadn't felt since he was a small child running around chasing shadows of ghosts and thinking that big-foot was using his belt sander.

It was the urge to investigate a mystery.

He shook his head suddenly, no, no! He couldn't just go rooting around in Zim's personal files just because he wanted to crack an annoying hard puzzle. It was cheating! But than again, wasn't he just doing his job as a counsellor? Didn't he have full access, as a member of the education system in the school, to look at any child's personal file at any given time?

Dib was honestly torn, he couldn't just go back to snooping about again, he wasn't a child, he was an adult with a serious job and a major lack of a lovelife.

... but Zim did threaten to hurt him. Okay, cheating this once wouldn't hurt.

He unlocked the room with his staff key, shutting it quickly behind him like he suspected someone to be after him at any moment. He could feel the little kid in his heart, the one he'd locked away years ago, jumping about free again. Hell, in that moment, he almost felt a little cold without his old trench coat.

Dib wished he'd never threw it away, he had so many memories attached to that coat.

Still, he was on a mission now. He moved quickly, quietly through the room, looking through the many files for the one which Zim would be in. He knew already that Zim only had the one name, Zim, which was... weird, but at least it made him easy to find.

The room itself was shockingly cold, the school probably couldn't afford to keep it heated, and he shivered as he moved through the large, almost looming file cases. His footsteps seemed to echo on the panel floor, and he felt a strange sense of dread move into him, as if he'd stepped into some forgotten and old place which disliked it's silence being interrupted.

The counsellor focused on his mission, to find that file and see what information the school had on the strange green child. He finally found it, the Z-file, right on the bottom of the last cold metal cabinet.

As he knelt down, he felt even more like the room was looming over him, towers of metal monoliths glaring down, surrounding him. He gulped his nervousness away as he pulled the drawer open, it seemed to groan and hiss with rust, making Dib wince visibly. Again he felt like the room hated him and wished this unwelcome intruder gone from it's presence.

He began quickly flicking through the files, rushing past names of kids he'd never know until he found it and as he did so, he felt his inner child grow more bold, demanding that he open it and read the precious information.

Dib felt his fingers shake just slightly as he opened the file, sitting on the freezing cold and dirty floor as his eyes locked onto the file. It had a picture, taken on picture day apparently, where Zim looked like he was extremely pissed that a camera was pointed at his face.

He almost chuckled at it, than his eyes moved to the information.

Name, Zim. Age, 12. Bloodtype, unknown. Birthday, unknown. Father's name, unknown, Mother's name, unknown.

For a moment, the counsellors mouth dropped open as he read the whole file. There was nothing, literally, nothing on this file. Almost ever other piece of information was listed as 'unknown'. It was... incredible, and yet, this told him so much about the boy. It told him that whatever his home life was, it was closed off to the public. It told him that his parents most likely were crazy. It told him that there was a very high risk of some kind of abuse going on.

Perhaps most sadly, it told him just how utterly isolated from the world Zim might really be.

However, one small thing caught his attention, something he quickly noted down on his Iphone before leaving, scurrying out of the dark, grim place before whatever was lurking between the cabinets could strike at him and steal him from the world forever.

The address of Zim's home.

Well as always I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, and it ended on a pretty nice cliffhanger I thought. I didn't like the... I dunno, the way I played about with this chapter? The structure is a little haphazad and maybe the dialogue with Zim leaving was too quick.

But I did like that I finally got out of Dib's office and that we saw for the first time that Zim DOES have something locked in that crazy green mind of his that Dib's hammering is getting too.

As always I encourage feedback! What you liked, didn't like, what you might wanna see in the future, don't be afraid to tell me!

Read, review and I'll see you all next update!