Adaptations

Chapter 2 – Losing Energy

Zim slept through the entire day and throughout the night. He never did this since he was normally awake planning or executing a plan of his. But Zim had less motivation to get out of bed that night to do any devising. He even had to admit that he wasn't acting like himself. Though, at that point, he didn't care. He was losing energy.

The next morning, Zim woke up and went through his normal routine. He checked on things around the house and made sure that everything was normal. He had to do this every day since he was always afraid that something of his would end up booby-trapped by someone like Dib. Since he slept longer, he was especially paranoid by this.

When all of the diagnostics were run and Gir was put in check so he wouldn't destroy anything, Zim left the house and headed for Skool. He wasn't particularly excited to go to the day's class, but he felt almost obligated to go. He was still on a mission, after all.

Zim walked into class with his arms behind his back. He didn't bother looking at the other kids, and he especially didn't look at Dib who was giving him a smug smile as he walked into the classroom.

Zim sat down and didn't even have to wait a few seconds before a piece of crumpled paper was thrown at him. He didn't look at Dib, who was clearly the thrower, and decided to just pick up the paper and unravel it to read the message: "You're acting really strange, Zim. Is something wrong?"

Zim was confused, since this was the last thing he thought he would hear from someone like Dib. He simply wrote back: "Zim is fine. The real question is, is Dib okay? He must be really sick for making a message like that." He threw it back at Dib. They then continued a conversation using the piece of paper before Ms. Bitters arrived.

"I'm fine," Dib wrote. "I'm just concerned for your well-being."

"Zim can take care of himself," Zim wrote back. "Dib should not be caring or any of that nonsense."

"Well, I'd like to care for my buddy when a bunch of mud is dropped down on him," Dib wrote.

Zim was confused. He wrote back, "What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Dib wrote. He threw it back and Zim read the message. He was still confused, and was a bit too tired and apathetic to create a response. So he then crumpled the paper and expertly threw it in the trash can next to the door.

Soon after he did that, Ms. Bitters walked in. She started the class and everything was relatively normal until Zim heard something unusual coming from the ceiling. It was a similar whirring sound that he had heard a week ago when he dropped mud on the students.

The reason he recognized it was because the same thing was about to be done to him. He looked up and gasped loudly when he noticed that his very own tubes on the ceiling were being turned against him and dropped mud all over him. Since the mud had a form of water content in it, it slowly burned him while also encasing him in the filth. He tried to keep his screams to himself.

"Oh, look," Dib said, trying to mimic Zim's innocent voice. "Zim's all filthy now. How does that feel?"

Zim glared at Dib and growled.

Ms. Bitters smashed her hand onto her desk. "Yes, Zim. You look absolutely terrible. DIB! Why don't you escort your fellow classmate to the restroom so that he can wash up?"

"Me?" Dib asked. "Why me?"

"Because I don't like having you in our class, and neither does anyone else," she said bitterly. "Maybe they'll get a decent grade in here if you were to leave for a couple minutes."

Dib frowned. "Y-yes, Ms. Bitters." He stood up and followed Zim out of the door. "Alright, Zim. Let's make this qui- hey where are you going? The bathroom's this way."

Zim was walking away towards the front of the school. Dib went running after him. "Where are you going?"

"Zim is going home," he said. "He is in no mood to deal with the stupid class and Dib's stupid pranks that harm Zim."

Dib laughed nervously. He knew that Zim was diabolical, but he had never seem him legitimately angry towards him and the school. "Oh, come on, Zim. It was just a harmless prank. Remember? You try to destroy the Earth, I stop it, and then we start over again. What happened to the good ol' days?"

Zim turned around, still fuming. He was still covered in mud and it was still causing him mild pain. He turned around to face Dib and glared at him. "Stupid hyuman!" Zim exclaimed. "Zim. Is. Going. Home. And unless Dib wants to be destroyed earlier than the rest of the human race, then Zim suggests he doesn't follow me."

Zim walked away, leaving Dib completely confused. This was perhaps the first time that Zim had yelled at him. Not because he was meddling with a plan, and not because he was trying to expose him as an alien. But because he had angered him. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he actually felt bad for dropping a bunch of mud on him.

Dib returned to class and tried his best to pay attention, but between the combination of Ms. Bitters apathy towards him and Zim's behavior, there was no way that he could keep himself from getting lost in his thoughts. It's not like he cared though. He never really enjoyed school much to begin with, not that he learned anything he didn't already know or cared about.

As soon as school let out, Dib was the first one to leave his seat. He wanted to be out of there as soon as possible to release some of his thoughts. He knew he couldn't do that being cramped in a room where most of the people didn't like him or thought he was just crazy.

Dib desperately wanted to go home, but he knew that there was a better place for him to go: Zim's house. He didn't know what he planned on doing when he got there, but he knew that he had to see him.

He got there as quickly as he could and found the best possible route around his security gnome system. Based on how Zim was acting, he figured that Zim would've modified it somehow to make it more difficult to get through. Though, he still managed to make it anyways.

He knocked on the door and Gir was the one to answer it. Dib didn't have the time nor the patience to listen to Gir ramble on about useless nonsense, so he just gave him another piggy and a slice of pizza he had stashed in his lunch box, and Gir simply let him in.

Dib came in on Zim with his shirt off. He was looking at it since it had shrunk a bit and didn't quite fit him.

"Uh… Zim. What's going on?"

Zim looked up at Dib, glaring at him. "Because of your stupid prank at school, Zim had to go back home and wash his clothes. Gir had already destroyed the Irken washing machine that I had, and I had to improvise and use your stupid human washing machine. It was slow and it made Zim's shirt SHRINK!"

"Oh…" Dib said, already feeling sorry for Zim.

Zim put on his shirt, and it wasn't very apparent that it no longer fit correctly. He growled and crossed his arms before facing Dib. "Now, why don't you tell me why you have invaded on my home again?!" He growled. "Zim remembers that he told Dib to stay away from him."

Dib took a few steps back and innocently held up his hands. "Zim, I'm just here to… say I'm sorry."

Zim straightened himself, getting rid of his angry look. "You're sorry?"

"Yes, I'm sorry," Dib said. "You haven't been yourself lately, so I thought… why don't I remind Zim what he's doing here in the first place? To invade the Earth."

"Why would you do that?" Zim asked.

Dib thought for a moment. "I… don't know," Dib said. "Quite honestly, I thought of it on a whim and now it kind of sounds stupid."

"That's because it is stupid," Zim said, playing with his fingers. "You're a stupid human boy."

Dib rolled his eyes. "Well, hey. I'm not the only one being stupid. You've been so… down lately and you did an entire week of really terrible plans to destroy the Earth. Honestly, it's actually kind of disappointing to see you fail."

Zim ran up to Dib and stuck his face in front of Dib's. "Zim is NOT a failure and Zim is NOT a disappointment. He is trying his best and the Earth will be invaded and destroyed."

Dib took another couple of steps back. "Zim… that wasn't meant to be mean to you or anything like that. I'm not here as your enemy right now. I guess you can imagine that I am a really curious human and I'm just trying to get to the bottom of why you're not acting like yourself. Like… I'm pretty sure you slept all-day yesterday… not that I was spying on your or anything."

Zim rolled his eyes, but he knew that Dib had a point. And he had a straight answer for him, but he really didn't want to admit it. He turned around and said, "Things have just been a little… different since I first came here, Dib."

"What the heck does that mean?" Dib asked.

"It means… Zim's mission is a little more different than what Zim initially thought it was," Zim said.

Dib cocked his head to the side, getting really curious as to what Zim had to say. "G-go on."

"Do you remember Tak?"

Dib nodded. "The other Irken girl that tried to steal your planet? Yeah, what about her?"

"She told me that the Tallest only sent me here to get rid of me. That this planet was never really my mission to begin with. That… I wasn't a real invader."

Dib chuckled. "Yeah, but she probably said all of those things because she wanted to take the Earth from you. You've been here nearly a year. How could it not be your mission?"

Zim turned back to Dib. If he could tear up, he'd be doing it. "That's the thing… I've been here a year, Dib-boy. Zim's been here one full year while all but 1 other invader have completed their mission. And on top of that… I haven't heard from the Tallest in a month. They won't take my transmissions anymore."

"Oh…" Dib only managed to say.

Zim got close to Dib's face again. "So if you are wondering why Zim has been down, or why Zim's plans won't work, or why Zim is talking to his mortal enemy as if he were Zim's friend… that's because Zim isn't an invader."

"You don't honestly think that, do you?" Dib asked.

"Zim is starting to," he said sullenly. He went over to the door and opened it for Dib. "Now I recommend that you get out of Zim's house before Zim sics his defective SIR unit on you. He will CUDDLE you to pieces."

Dib had to admit that that statement was one of the saddest things he had ever heard from Zim. He was giving up and, despite the fact that this meant Dib and the human race had essentially won, he wasn't prepared to give up on Zim. He went to the door.

Before he exited, though, he had one last thing to say to him. "You're stupid. And your precious Almighty Tallest. They're stupid, too. If you really think that you're going to just give up on the Earth that easily, then why don't you just go now?"

"B-bu…" Zim started.

Dib cut him off. "But you have to remember what you've made of this place. Whether it be bad or good, in the year that you've been here, you've made some differences. So you can determine if you're stupid or not. Because a stupid person would just do all of that work and leave. So yeah… how stupid are you, Zim!"

"Zim isn't stupid!" Zim exclaimed.

"Good!" Dib yelled back. He left the house, avoiding Zim's gnome security system.

Zim closed the door and looked back at the house. Although everything was exactly the same since he moved in a year ago, he had a bit of a different perspective of it now. Gir was happily watching some stupid TV show. There were some fresh new dishes in the kitchen after Gir cooked something for Zim a couple of nights earlier. There was trash all over the floor from when Zim chased Gir around the house in order to "punish" for his incompetence.

He put a bit of life in the house. And according to Dib, he had put a bit of life in other people's houses, too.

"Zim has made a difference," he said to himself.