Wow look at that speedy update time huh?

Yep. So speedy.

Okay yeah I admit I let a lot of people down, but I've had... kind of a crazy life for the last whathaveyou years since I was writing this. Like seriously you guys wouldn't know the half of it.

Still I've made a resolve to myself that 2016 will be the year I get back to not only writing but FINISHING these things. Like no more new fics until I've wrapped up at least the ones I still can on this website. I can't promise regular updates again but I will promise UPDATES at least.

Anyway I finally sat my butt down and hit this one out. Hope you guys enjoy! Those of you still reading that is. HA. Seriously though enjoy.

Gaz wasn't happy to be called up. If anything, she was furious. Turned out she had a huge gaming night planned, something to do with a new Vampire MMORPG that she was working on.

However, when Dib had managed to mention Zim's name, she had gone oddly quiet. Then after a pause, announced she would be there in twenty minutes. Dib had to grin evilly at that, he loved being able to catch his sister out, no matter how rare those moments might have been.

She had been spying on his personal project, probably checking to see if the boy was even real or not. Well now he got to point at her and laugh, metaphorically of course, and prove to her he wasn't crazy.

Wow, it'd been a long time since he had thought about doing that for anyone.

Zim however seemed to be far less happy about this meeting. He had put his ridiculous disguise back on and had gone to investigate all kinds of things in Dib's home with Dib keeping a close eye on him of course. He wasn't about to let the invader go rifling about through his personal files.

He kept popping up behind desks, chairs, disappearing behind doors. Zim was a weirdly curious being for someone who claimed to hate all of humanity. Dib had to keep following him and cleaning up after him, as he kept examining things then leaving them there, which wrecked havoc on his bathroom.

"What is this?" Zim suddenly announced, holding up a Gamesbox controller.

"It's something we humans use to play video games with." Dib replied, taking the controller from him. "Do irkens have video games?"

"Yes." The answer actually shocked Dib. Who'd have known, right? "I am bored. I demand to play your puny human video games."

The counselor blinked before nodding, anything to keep Zim from messing up more of his home. "Sure, sure, waddya wanna play?"

Zim paused before grinning viciously. "Something that involves killing lots of people."

"... kay." Dib wasn't sure he could provide that particular experience. He mostly played good games, RPG's and the like. He'd been kind of addicted to Nukeland 4 lately, as pretty much everyone he knew had been. Even Gaz hadn't found a bad word to say about it and she worked for a rival firm.

He finally picked out an old game called 'Destroy All Humans' and put it on for him. Needless to say, the mindless destruction of people in towns and blowing people apart just for fun was just the kind of thing that appealed to the tiny alien.

Dib had to wonder if this was a good thing or not, sure he could sit there and watch Zim blast people back to the stone age, but was this actually helping Zim restrain his destructive tendencies or encourage them? Video games were a weird psychological area after all, especially since most games were designed to make you play over and over again and the vast majority of them were aimed at shooting things.

Still, he supposed it was good for Zim to kill virtual people instead of real ones. Had Zim ever killed anyone? No, he was sure of that. He might have done some pretty horrible things to some people, but murder?

No, he knew that no matter how terrible Zim made himself out to be, he wasn't capable of that.

Dib liked to think that he was making some headway with the young alien. Perhaps it was better that he was now more willing to talk to other humans, even if he did react rather... badly at first. It wasn't fun being threatened with a gun but Dib was willing to let it slide because he knew Zim needed it to slide.

Zim was going to make mistakes but that was okay because Dib was going to allow him to make mistakes. Just hopefully not ones that would destroy the earth and everything in it.

There was a knocking at the door which snapped Dib out of his thoughts. Zim was far too busy playing the game to hear the knocking so Dib quietly got up and walked over to the door, checking through the little peep hole for the moment to make sure it was his perpetually grumpy sister before opening the door.

She stood there, arms crossed and a deep frown across her face. "So where is he?"

"How did you find him?" Dib replied while stepping aside. The Membranes were not particularly known for their polite greetings. In fact Dib was pretty sure that they'd essentially stopped bothering with normal greetings when Gaz had first learned to speak.

Gaz didn't reply, she marched in quickly and for only a moment her eyes went wide upon seeing the strange, green boy sitting on the couch playing video games.

"So you're Zim?" She looked to the tiny alien with the kind of cold, analytical gaze she got from her father and Dib's pride stung when she mumbled, "Well at least he's real."

The little irken leapt up, the controller set scattering onto the floor. In a second his gun was in his hand and pointing right at Gaz. Dib had realized the gun was kept right in the strange space in his PAK. It seemed he kept an infinite number of items in there but again he chalked it up to Zim's strange irken technology.

"You! You stalked my home like some kind of... stalker!" Zim waved the gun at her, his eyes moving up and down her tall form. "Identify yourself!"

Dib stood in front of Zim suddenly, his hands up in a small defense. "Zim. This is Gaz, remember? My sister? My... brood-sibling? We can trust her."

The alien wasn't looking at Dib however, his gaze was still locked onto Gaz. Gaz however did not seem to be backing down. If anything she slowly raised an eyebrow at the tiny creature, as if completely disbelieving that this little thing could possibly be taking up so much of Dib's time.

Slowly his arm fell and he straightened up. He put his gun back into is PAK and huffed. "I can see the resemblance. You're both disgusting. She has more spine than you though."

Gaz seemed surprised at this with the tiny ghost of a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes moved to her brother and she asked. "Is he always this charming?"

"Always." Dib answered but quickly continued before Zim could realize what he'd said. "So Zim. As you can see my sister is harmless, right Gaz?"

"Harmless?"

"You know what I mean."

"Harmless."

"Gaz, please." Dib turned to frowned her but quickly regretted it. Gaz may not punch him any more but she was still scary when she wanted to be. "Humor me?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes, as if it was an effort to make peace. "Alright. I won't show up at your house any more."

"See that you don't," Zim grumbled out. "For the fortress of ZIM is an impenetrable... fortress! Of ZIM! And- Wait these guys are shooting at my ship- AGH STOP THAT!"

As the tiny irken screamed at the TV and hammed the buttons on the controller Gaz glanced over her shoulder at Dib from the kitchen. Dib leaned back on the counter and folded his arms. "So there you have it. That's the kid who's been keeping me so busy."

"Isn't it kind of weird that he's in your house playing your video games?" Gaz spoke in a low tone. "People might talk."

"Okay first of all, ew, what the hell, Gaz? Secondly he came here on his own. I told you, he's a genius.. but he doesn't have a lot of common sense."

"What about his parents? Where are they?"

"He... doesn't really have any."

Gaz turned to Dib and narrowed her eyes at him. Dib had the feeling as though she was trying to see between his words, pick out the lies. It was true that Zim didn't have parents, not as far as Dib could gather, however that space was still filled by two apparently very tall leaders.

Dib decided to continue quickly before Gaz's gaze bore through his skull. "Look, he lives completely alone, no parents, nothing. He doesn't have anyone. He does has a dog though."

"I met his dog." Gaz cut in suddenly. "He walks on two legs and talks. Robot?"

"Robot."

Gaz nodded and looked back over to Zim, who was now pointing and yelling at the TV, swearing some kind of blood vengeance upon the video game. "He seems pretty angry. At everything."

"You're one to talk."

This was only replied with a very evil look from his sister.

"Look, he... he has special needs. Not only that but, Gaz, he's a genius, and I don't mean like you and I genius. I mean like dad genius"

This made her eyes widen, then quickly narrow again. "You can't be serious."

"I'm deadly serious." Dib continued in a low tone. "Now take a second and think about that. Massive anger issues combined with that kind of IQ." Rather than continue he simply put his palms out. "Do you see why I missed Dad's birthday? Heck at one point he actually tried to replace my brain with a squid. I am not joking."

"Why did you stop him? That would have been a vast improvement."

Dib frowned at her. "Oh ha-ha."

Gaz didn't make any more moves as her small smirk faded away. Instead her eyes fixed on Zim, as if she was studying him under a microscope. It took a moment for her to finally add. "What else."

Dib felt a cold sweat down his back. "Waddya mean what else?"

"There's something else, isn't there?" Her gaze turned onto him and she had that look that felt like she was looking right into his soul. "What are you not telling me?"

He knew what he was about to do was a death sentence. He knew in reality he was just buying himself some time until she would finally find the truth and come for him. However, he couldn't betray Zim's trust, not after all the work he had spent building it up. "There's nothing else, Gaz. Yeah he's... unusual, but he's just like any other kid. And he needs real help. The kind of help I could have used at his age, remember?"

Again Gaz didn't reply but he could see the memories flashing behind her eyes. Finally she spoke, her voice low and dark. "Alright. But I know you're lying, Dib. I know you're hiding something. I will find out because I will not let you slip again, do you understand?" She pointed a finger at him. "I know you're trying to help someone without a family but don't forget about your own."

Dib only gulped, knowing that for now at least he was going to be just as under the microscope as Zim was. Still, any time he could buy was good time and perhaps with enough of it he could build up Zim's trust enough to get him to reveal his secret to Gaz. Interacting with people other than himself and the rest of the kids at school would be good for him.. though Gaz was hardly his first choice. Regardless he knew that she would find out one way or another now that Zim was on her radar.

With a grim nod he simply answered. "Understood."

I didn't like the ending but it's a start, or re-start or... whatever. I still have my plan in mind for finishing this one, so it is going somewhere.

Anyway there were some references thrown in there.

Destroy All Human's is an awesome vidya gaem starring Zim's voice actor basically doing Zim. Cos yeah, it's fun as heckers.

I'm sure there are others in there but ya'll can point em out. NEXT UPDATE HOPEFULLY SOMETIME SOON! TILL THEN MY HOPEFULLY STILL ALIVE DEAR READERS.