"Dib!" Zim shouted. His voice echoed through the dark woods. "You were late for Zim's amazing plan! You can't hide out here forever!"
No response. Zim scowled, tapped his foot against the ground, then kept heading forward.
The last view of Dib he had on his security cameras showed Dib heading into these woods, a camera of his own in hand...probably chasing one of his other beasts again. Zim wasn't jealous, of course not! That would be ridiculous. He was simply… reasonably upset that his nemesis had decided there was something better to do than foil Zim's plans.
After more searching, when it grew close to midnight, he was about to stop and see if Dib had gone to his home when, by chance, he saw something glint from the bottom of a gorge. Curious, he used his PAK legs to scale down the slippery rock face. At the bottom was a small creek…and Dib's glasses sat on a rock, the lenses glinting in the moonlight.
Zim picked them up, smirking. Dib couldn't see well without his glasses. Zim could hold them hostage until Dib sufficiently groveled. Oh, and he was probably nearby.
A bit more searching, and he found Dib lying a few feet away. It was almost easy to miss him, his dark clothes helping him blend in with the shadows of the night. And he wasn't moving.
"DIB!" Zim yelled. He kicked Dib in the side. "What are you doing, sleeping out here? Are you finally accepting your place as a worm by living in the mud?"
He threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing through the gorge. Dib didn't react, still lying there like a useless lump.
Zim scoffed, crossing his arms and scowling at him. "Really? Trying to play dead to get out of our fight? It's not going to work, Dib." He kicked him in the ribs, then his arm. The limb was stiff, but fell limply back to the ground after it was kicked.
Something felt wrong here. This wasn't like Dib. Zim frowned and paced in a circle around him, squinting. Something seemed…off about his big head.
Human necks…weren't supposed to be at an angle like that. Were they?
He swallowed his growing unease, bending to get a closer look at his enemy. Dib's eyes were glassy and unfocused, his expression unreadable. …he wasn't blinking. Definitely not right.
Zim vaguely remembered something from health class. He reached forward, pulling Dib's coat back and pressing his fingers against Dib's neck. You were supposed to feel a pulse there, but Zim felt nothing but cold skin.
That…wasn't right. Zim pressed his hands all over Dib's neck, and his wrists, but couldn't find that pulse. In a last-ditch effort, he rolled Dib onto his back and pressed his head against his chest.
No heartbeat.
Zim nearly felt his own spooch stop in shock. He quickly stood up and took several steps back, shaking his head.
"No...no, not like this," Zim whispered, staring down at Dib's prone form. "It, it wasn't supposed to end like this."
He was meant to defeat Dib. To strike him down in a great and glorious final battle, or to bring Dib to an end with a sneaky, cunning plan.
Dib, dying alone in the woods...it wasn't right.
Zim scoured the area, but he couldn't...figure much out. As far as he could tell, Dib had slid down a slippery cliff face and...landed wrong. But there was no telling if it was an accident, or if something had pushed him.
Eventually, he left, bringing Dib's body with him. It felt wrong, how much he was dead weight, and so limp.
After more examination, he could only conclude that there was nothing he could do. Dib was long gone, through no fault of Zim's, and there was no way to bring him back.
Zim dumped the useless shell of a body on the Membrane's doorstep and walked away. He listlessly watched and listened over the next few days...as announcements were made about his death, and a funeral arranged.
Though a large crowd came, few stayed for the burial, and fewer stayed by the grave to pay respects. Once everyone was gone, Zim stepped forward, staring at where his nemesis had been laid to rest...with only his name and the years of his life mentioned.
No mention of his accomplishments...it wasn't right. He turned and left.
Zim knew that Gaz believed he was at fault for...what happened to Dib. He didn't bother to correct her, even when she began to spread that information to other humans. Even if he insisted on what had really happened...well, what reason would she have to believe something so ridiculous? Besides, no one actually seemed to believe her...or at least, they weren't doing anything about it.
Earth's Protector, dead. And no one wanted to figure out just how he had died. No one cared. He...both of them deserved a better ending than this. It wasn't fair.
Zim kept looking into ways to...restart things, more or less, on top of his world domination plans. That research ended up overtaking his usual plans, actually...eventually, he just put GIR and Minimoose in charge of some weapons and told them to just do whatever.
Within a month, GIR was crowned king of the world, and he passed the crown on to Zim. It felt like a terribly hollow victory at best. In the end, he let his minions cause all the terror they wanted, while he kept searching for answers.
He knew what he needed to really seal his victory, but he could do nothing about it.
A bit later, he took all of Dib's things, thinking...hoping Dib might have left something odd or occult that could bring him back. But the only real thing of note was Dib's collection of personal journals.
He read through each, over and over, imagining Dib ranting all of this right to him in the middle of a glorious battle. Trying to prove how much more he knew than Zim. Zim treasured each little book, and made sure to always have at least one in his PAK to read whenever he had a free moment.
It was late one evening, when he had on some 'science fiction' show for meaningless background noise, that a new and utterly brilliant idea struck him. There were countless timelines out there, in theory. Timelines with more Zims...and more Dibs.
With enough energy, he could punch through the walls between timelines. He could bring a Dib to his timeline to fight! Sure, it wouldn't be his Dib exactly, but it was close enough, and he just needed one fight. One fight to win and claim his victory, for real.
Didn't he deserve another chance to be able to fight his greatest enemy? To finally claim a victory that he deserved?
In fact…what kept him from bringing in more than one Dib? Once he figured out how to break the barriers between timelines, he could do so over and over to lure over as many Dibs as he wanted! He'd lay challenges before them to find the best ones, and find the perfect one to claim as his new nemesis! Then, he'd fight him, them, whatever, and he'd finally claim his true victory over Urth!
For the first time in…was it months? He finally felt energized again. He worked on building a device that would punch holes through the walls of reality. And when he wasn't working on that, he read Dib's journals and memorized how he would speak…he'd need to trick the Dibs into thinking it was just another Dib guiding them here.
And at times, it felt like Dib himself was reading the words to him, whispering them. Some nights, it was a gentle, eager whisper, looking to help Zim. On others, it was a harsh hiss, Dib trying to pull him away from this plot.
Zim pressed on, and in what felt like a relatively short amount of time, it was ready.
Zim sat on his throne, staring up at the giant tower in the distance, a satellite dish on top of it. With one thrown lever, portals would open between this reality and thousands of others, not far from his palace. At the same moment, a signal would be sent out—one from 'Dib', asking others to come and help him defeat the evil tyrant Zim. It just took one lever…
He took a deep breath, adjusting Dib's coat around himself and clinging one of the journals tightly to his chest. With a wide grin, he grabbed the lever and slammed it down.
The tower lit up with blue light, and a beam shot from the top and into the sky, ripping holes in the fabric of reality. Zim's grin just widened.