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Goddess Risen	By : ladylaguna Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 2876 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Zim and all related characters - Viacom... All unrelated characters - Jenn L. I gain no profit from this writing.

Chapter List
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The front door to the Membrane household sat unlocked. Unsure of what he’d find on the other side, Dib opened it slowly. As he entered the house, all of the hair on his body stood on end. Suddenly he thought that perhaps this course of action had been unwise.

No point in stopping now. Creeping into the silent foyer, he looked around. It branched off into several rooms; the kitchen, living room, et cetera. Unsure if anyone dwelled within, he explored the rooms. Memories came flooding back. That old smell, even on this new planet… he smelled electronics, cleaning chemicals… His father. But his father was dead.

On the surface it seemed like a normal, happy home. All the furniture arranged nicely, immaculate counters in the kitchen, even photos on the wall of young Megami, Young Gaz… Dib, in his youth, tucked away in a dark corner. Eventually he came across Megami's room, looking virtually untouched since she'd left. It was filled with all kinds of trinkets and decorations, lovingly cared for. Indulging himself for a moment, he walked through the room, touching various things. So much that he'd missed...

Did Father Membrane actually care for Megami? As a granddaughter, as his own blood? Running a fledgling colony, perhaps the last of their entire species, was time-consuming work. Dib almost felt resentful of his own daughter. Did she get the attention and affection that Membrane had never given Dib, all those years?

No. They had lied to her. Lied to him. That wasn’t love. And even if his father could no longer be held accountable for what had been done, Valerie and Gaz remained.

He finally saw a light shining from beneath a closed door near the back corner of the house. Swallowing the feelings of foreboding that crept over him, Dib approached.

No point in knocking now; he hadn’t before. He opened the door to find Valerie sitting at a small desk in what seemed to be an office. She whirled in her chair, surprise clear on her features. And that surprise didn’t fade. She stared at him for what seemed like a full five minutes, jaw hanging slack.

“D… Dib? Is that… YOU?” Running fingers through her hair, she cried, “I’m losing it. I’ve finally lost it.”

“It’s me.” Another minute passed and he remembered to be angry. “I came here to get some answers out of you. About my daughter…”

Eyes widening, Valerie rubbed her hands against dingy khaki pants. “I don’t know where she is… She ran off with an Irken boy several months ago. I… I wanted to tell her the truth somehow! I didn’t think that she’d—“ Valerie covered her face with her hands.

Nodding, Dib leaned against the doorframe. “She found me. She told me everything. About how you lied to her all these years, told her she was a fucking orphan.”

“Gaz and the Professor insisted we tell her that… Since you were dead anyway, they decided that it would be easier on Megami if… she didn’t know. Her life would’ve been in danger if anyone discovered who she was… What she was…”

“But I wasn’t dead!” Dib cried. “You knew I wasn’t fucking dead.”

Gasping, Valerie shook her head vehemently. “No! That Irken woman… She told us you were dead, she sent us all the money from your bank account.”

Was Valerie telling the truth? She never knew that Dib had come back, and Gaz had sent him away? Why had she done that? Was Zim right (for once), and she really was gunning for a dictatorial position? Without Dib around, she was the heir to Professor Membrane’s legacy. Nirvana was really a colony of scientists, and in that circumstance, Membrane ruled as king.

Covering her face again, the woman began to sob. “I swear to God that I didn’t know! I didn’t know what Gaz had become… That she was feeding off of Megami for all of these years… And now I’m trapped here…”

“Feeding—“

Suddenly, he felt sharp fingers digging into his hair. Flashbacks of his time with Tzin immediately reared up and he howled, thrashing backward. Valerie screamed as Dib felt that horrible, dark power overcoming him. His legs grew weak, chest starting to hurt almost immediately… Not good. He already knew who’d grabbed him before he was able to get a grip on her wrists, throwing her over his head across the room before him.

Valerie jumped out of the way as Gaz crashed into the bookcase, spilling its contents all over the floor of the small room. Upside down, back against the ruined wood, she merely laughed. “It took me fifteen years… but I’m patient. I’ve always been patient.”

Panting as dull pain coursed through his limbs, Dib began to understand what Valerie meant. “That day outside the school, you tried to suck my power from me. And you’ve been siphoning it off of my daughter for twenty years!”

Getting to her feet, grin unwavering, Gaz hissed, “You never manage to figure anything out until the last minute.” Then she lunged at him again, catching the wrist of his gauntlet and hauling him forward, continuing to draw out all the Meekrob she could muster. He struggled until the metal appendage finally gave way and he fell backward. His vision blurred and panic rose up in his throat.

Without hesitation, he rolled onto his feet and took off at a sprint. He didn’t have the power to phase anymore, but thankfully, the barrier Gaz erected around the house no longer existed. Unfortunately, Zim hadn’t bothered to wait for him…

“Son of a bitch!”

Across town, Vermeil also decided that he needed to retreat. The walls continued to rock as Jai writhed, pulling himself from the room… wire by wire. He paid the boy no mind, nearly drowning him in the waterfall of electronics that began to cascade from the metal plating around them. Twisting his thin form away from the tangled mess, Vermeil finally stumbled from the room and clambered back down the hallway.

As the lights flickered above, the intercom continued to hiss and curse and drone on. Vermeil heard the rest of the network slithering beneath the walls, each plate groaning as the framework slowly gave way. Just as he reached the main door, he turned to see Jai emerging from the room as well.

Out! Out! Somehow Vermeil needed to deal with this. Jai still lived and breathed; and he didn’t want to die. So what place did Vermeil have, trying to end his life? But no exit from this situation existed… They couldn’t just come by and pick Jai up on the Shuvver, after all…

In the prison itself, havoc broke loose. Every cell slid open and the remaining guards struggled to keep the inmates contained. One group of them ran into Vermeil, screaming for him to halt and drop to the ground. Of course, he didn’t, slashing desperately at them with his dagger. Two of them went down but the remaining three managed to grab him, slamming him against the wall and keeping him from drawing his somewhat unwieldy pistols.

Then, with an explosive crack, the ceiling itself opened up above them. Sparks rained down as the circuitry and plumbing separated; Vermeil cried out in pain as thousands of water droplets sprayed across his face and arms. The guards looked up in surprise, barely able to mutter exclamations as tendrils of wiring grabbed at them. Without much pulling at all, they were rent limb from limb. The blood added to the already overpowering pain and Vermeil slid to the ground, trying to shield himself from all of it.

“Get up, kid. Get UP, kiddd…”

The moment that his cell sprang open, Zim elbowed the guards out of the way and sprinted for the prison doors. The humans gave chase, bellowing over their radios for backup. Zim managed to leave the main corridor but ran into two more men right inside the prison entrance. He turned back to see the other two blocking the way that he’d come.

“Let Zim through, or—“

With strangled cries, both men fell forward onto their faces, chests exploding outward. Vermeil came up from behind, both guns trained on the final two guards blocking their escape. His frantic face barely registered Zim as he took them out.

“The little Tallest--!!”

Zim’s words fell from him as the sky suddenly yawned up above them. And then he saw, looming behind, a terrifying mass of flesh and machine. As it grew in size, it pulled everything into it… The walls, the cell bars, the bodies of each human that already gave his life in Vermeil’s retreat.

“Vermeil—What’ve you… DONE?!”

“This is your doing—Betrayer!” And then the boy threw open the main doors, balking as he saw hundreds of armored men rushing for them. Jeeps and helicopters could be seen farther down the valley, closing in fast.

The city’s plate rose into the sky, bathing it in darkness. The soldiers struggled to find their searchlights then; but those closest to the two Irkens didn’t hesitate to attack. Vermeil’s shield went up just in time to deflect the rain of bullets… He turned to see that Zim’s had as well, though it looked much different. Blue… Yes, it was the Meekrob, he realized. He’d forgotten that the Betrayer knew of it too.

Opening up his communicator, Vermeil hissed, “Captain Aton! Retreat.”

“But Vermeil—“

“That’s an ORDER!”

And surprisingly enough, there was no argument on the other end. Though he wasn’t so sure he’d make it out of this, Vermeil was confident in the fact that, at least, his men would. And then he advanced, firing his own pistols into the crowd, though so many of the men were already crouched behind their cars, firing from shelter like cowards. He’d just take out their primitive vehicles instead…

Realizing that his shields deflected their shots, the soldiers moved in for hand-to-hand combat. Snarling, Vermeil slashed and shot at them. The soldiers’ armor was heartier than that of the prison guards, and he had a harder time taking them down. Soon he found himself overwhelmed, until the crowd descending on him began to thin out.

Blue sparks erupted, illuminating the area as Zim broke into the crowd. His fighting skills were somewhat rusty, but the soldiers crumpled under his wild slashes and kicks. Soon the two of them had pushed the men back and made it several feet from the prison doors.

“You’re—helping me?!”

“Of course! ZIM is no fool. You’re my only ally in this.”

The Betrayer did have a good point. And so the two of them cut their way into the crowd, working slowly toward one of the armored cars. Of course, the soldiers didn’t want to give up their vehicle and put up a vicious fight… Unfortunately, fate was not on their side today.

Jai finally emerged from the ruins of Gaftar, now towering over the crowd by over a hundred feet. The soldiers’ attention immediately turned to him.

“Fire at will! Fire at will!”

Despite the fact that their shots easily hit their target, nothing vital fell away and Jai continued charging forward. What remained of his body was now obscured behind thick cable and various pieces of equipment… And soon those cables shot out, grabbing men up without any effort at all. Their screams chilled Vermeil to the bone, but Zim barely flinched. He grabbed the distracted driver out of the vehicle they were aiming for; his passenger escaped immediately afterward when Vermeil wiggled into the seat and pointed a gun at his temple.

“Alright, now… to the airport!” Vermeil cried, pointing. Zim ignored him completely, trying to figure out how to make the vehicle move. The navigation systems were completely scrambled, except for the occasional flashing “NO HOPE LEFT” in Irken. Definitely Jai’s doing.

Zim finally figured out how to throw the truck into gear and it lurched forward. “Stupid… human… JUNK HEAPS--!” he cursed, legs flailing until he stomped readily enough on the accelerator. As Vermeil was thrown back against the seat, he howled and grabbed onto the seatbelt.

“It’s GRINDING, do you hear it?! Push more buttons.”

“Zim is pushing EVERY BUTTON!” Throwing around the shift frantically caused the truck to die. Vermeil considered abandoning the jeep, but men and metallic tentacles were flying everywhere outside… Thankfully, it seemed that Jai was winning this sortie. Instead, he reached over Zim’s lap, threw open the door and grabbed one of the men passing by.

Pointing his gun at the man’s head, he dragged him into the vehicle. “Drive this for us,” Vermeil demanded.

“YES! Zim demands that you drive this vehicle—TO THAT HILL!”

“What?! No! To the airport!”

The frightened soldier immediately took off toward the hill—Membrane Hill—much to Vermeil’s chagrin.

Dib cursed as the plate passed overhead and that hill was covered in darkness. Without his powers to assist, he was blind in the dark… And he could hear Gaz’s laughter behind him. She was toying with him, letting him run himself to death like a fucking gazelle or something. Panting, he stumbled along the grassy path until he tripped over a rock and fell against the fence, onto his face.

Gaz came atop him instantly, stomping hard on his back a single time. That very area had been where he was run through… And he howled in pain, feeling his shirt immediately soak with blood. Desperate, he rolled, grabbing for something… anything. Feeling a fencepost, he heaved hard with his only hand and prayed that it would come free. His tumble against it had clearly loosened it, and it flew from the ground, covering both he and Gaz in dirt.

“Now what do you hope to accomplish with that—Hnngh!” Dib swung toward the sound of her voice and managed to clock her upside the head. She fell backward, but he knew that wouldn’t stop her. Unfazed by this knowledge, he curled to his feet anyway, swinging blindly. Every time his makeshift bat hit soft flesh, he grunted in triumph. Even if she was going to end up killing him, he’d leave her with something to remember.

Eventually she tired of toying with him, howling in anger as she unleashed a wave of the Meekrob and that other horrible power. The wooden plank was blown from his hand and he struggled to stay on his feet.

Suddenly, they were both distracted by several flashes of light and the sounds of explosions in the distance. Dib turned, eyes straining in the dark, to see some sort of creature looming over the center of the city. “What the hell…?” Why did he have a feeling Zim was involved in this somehow?

Gaz herself was even dumbstruck, and so Dib took his opportunity to break into a run again. Whatever the hell that thing was, he thought that perhaps he’d rather face it than his sister. Thankfully, he ended up running into something else instead. Headlights ahead, illuminating the landscape.

“The Dib-worrrmmm stop this vehicle! Stop it!” Zim grabbed the soldier’s face and shook it until he screeched to a stop on the grassy terrain, nearly overturning the truck onto Dib. He scrambled over Vermeil’s lap and threw open the door. “Dib! You won’t believe what these humans have done to me—“

He stopped short when Dib fell into the doorway, gasping in pain and relief. He splayed across Vermeil’s lap, covering the boy in sweat and more blood and making him hiss in discomfort.

“Dib! What’s happened to you?” Zim grabbed Dib’s face, bruised and covered in dirt, looking him over.

“Gaz. Pull me in! We have to get the fuck out of here and fast.”

Zim had trouble pulling Dib’s bulk forward, and Vermeil refused to help. The soldier cried, “Professor Membrane!” as his headlights caught her traipsing over the crest of the hill. “She’s my commanding officer. Shoot me if you have to, I’m not going any further. I’ll be killed for treason either way.”

A wave of Gaz’s mixed power emanated over the hill and Vermeil’s eyes went wide. He finally grabbed the back of Dib’s shirt and hauled him inside the truck, closing the door soundly behind him. Curling awkwardly across everyone’s laps, Dib grinned up at him. “Fancy meeting you here, Prince V.” Then, with his good arm, he grabbed the soldier’s head and cracked it hard against the driver’s window. “Drive, you stupid little shit. I outrank Gaz and that was an order!”

“The airport!” Vermeil barked, glaring at the other three.

Nodding, Dib replied, “Yes. We’re gonna need the big guns. My ship.” The soldier finally obeyed, somewhat terrified by the way Gaz’s eyes were glowing. Confident that they were going to get away, Dib let his head fall into Zim’s lap, letting out a rattling sigh.

“Gaz did this to you?” Zim asked incredulously. “Has she lost her mind? The Destroyer, I sensed her…”

“I don’t think there is any Gaz left. Only the Destroyer. She’s tasted my power, the Meekrob… and she’s drunk on it… fffuck.” The pain in his chest wasn’t subsiding. Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and rolled toward Zim’s stomach. Strange for him to seek comfort. It’d been so long since he’d had any. But Zim responded. Though Zim mostly sought to comfort himself; arms wrapping around Dib’s upper body and pulling him close, guarding him jealously.

Vermeil tried not to be bothered by Dib’s legs in his lap as they rode. He didn’t look well. He looked, in fact, as unwell as he did when Tzin kept him captive all those years ago. Perhaps he might die. Vermeil didn’t really care, of course, but he knew that Megami would not be pleased by this development.

His own train of thought was derailed as they dipped down toward the city. Jai’s path of destruction had cut across the downtown area, toppling buildings as he pulled more wiring through their infrastructures. The mass of flesh and metal had grown several stories high now, with no indication of where the Irken lay within. The human ground troops had given up at this point, interested only in retreat. Jai plucked helicopters easily from the sky, hurling them like grenades as his maniacal laughter echoed over the ruined buildings.

“We’re not going to be able to get past Jai,” Vermeil whispered, voice aching. “…not in this vehicle. We’ll have to get to the airport on foot.”

“She’s—pursuing!” the soldier cried, glancing in the rearview mirror as he punched the accelerator down. The light Gaz gave off reflected against the glass, so powerful that it illuminated the interior of the jeep’s cab. By this point she had begun flying, steadily gaining on the jeep no matter how fast it moved.

Groaning in anguish, Dib pushed himself up. “I can’t get anywhere… on foot. We’re boned. She wants me… I’ll give her what she wants, and you can escape.” He grabbed the front of Zim’s shirt. “Zim… I want you to take care of Megami… You’ll be the only family she has left…” In his pained state, he hadn’t even thought about the fact that Vermeil—“Megami!” He turned to Vermeil. “Where is she?! Is she safe?”

“She’s on Irkland,” Vermeil replied in short. No time to explain the whole thing, anyway.

“Good…” He didn’t have time to think it through. To his addled mind, “not here” had to equate to “safe.” “…tell her that I love her…” Grabbing Zim by the back of the head, he forced the stricken Irken into a kiss. “…I love you, too. I’m so glad… I got to have these last weeks with you.”

All of this had finally sunk in with Zim, and he grabbed Dib’s shirt. “What are you intending to do!? Don’t be foolish, Dib-human—DIB! DIBBB!”

Vermeil was smart enough to know that this was their best option, and so he opened the door readily. The gravitational force at full speed was enough to suck the human right out. He tumbled into the grass behind them and Gaz jumped on him immediately.

The boy’s attempts to close the door again were thwarted by Zim’s screaming, slashing and kicking. “NO! I CAN’T LOSE HIM AGAIN—I CAN’T—“

“You idiot! Don’t make the Fuck Pig’s sacrifice a vain effort! It’ll take the both of us to get to the airport—“

Of course, Zim was not listening, and he refused to let Vermeil close the door. Meanwhile, the soldier tried to drive to the best of his ability with feet and claws continuously hammering him. They hit a patch of gravel and he lost control, swerving and then over-correcting. The three of them screamed as the jeep rolled numerous times; glass, metal and rock flying everywhere. They were all thrown from the vehicle before it finally came to a stop on its side some thirty feet from them.

“Ugghh…” Vermeil had landed on his face, and it took a few moments to wipe the muck from his eyes. Pushing up on his arms, he assessed the damage. The soldier lay on the other side of the jeep, legs still twitching. His head, unfortunately, had been crushed. “Dammit… our navigator!”

Zim was already on his feet, running back to Dib. Gaz had his head firmly in hand, slamming his face into the ground over and over as she sucked him dry. His body lay limp beneath her… If he wasn’t dead yet, he would be soon.

“NO!” Passion overtook Zim, and absolutely no thought came after that. Pace quickening exponentially, he was on top of her in an instant. He grabbed her wrist with one hand, pushing against her torso with the other. His power flared, counteracting the force of Gaz’s… And her arm merely gave away, disintegrating as she flew backward.

She landed on her back in the dirt, grunting in pain. For a moment, the light around her flickered… Zim pounced, howling in an almost animalistic fashion as he punched, kicked and slashed at her. Her flesh tore, blood pouring from her multiplying wounds. But only anger showed on her face. “IRKEN!” she screamed. “IRKEN! IRKENSSS!” She kicked and thrashed, trying to get the slightly smaller creature off of her.

Pulling himself to his feet, Vermeil held onto the jeep for support. Both combatants were radiating waves of power that made him sick to his stomach. Those old feelings kept coming back… He remembered cowering under his desk as the Fuck Pig tore through his family… Legs shaking, he turned back to look at the devastation Jai continued to cause. He didn’t want to die this way… Maybe he should just put his gun in his mouth and…

…no, he couldn’t. He had Megami’s spirit inside him! He had to live, he had to figure out how to fix the mistakes he’d made. He’d come here for a reason. Jai had the answers he sought…

So he ran down the hill, waving his arms frantically and screaming Jai’s name. Wherever his companion was in that mess, he was hooked up to every security camera and computer monitor on this planet, that was clear. Slowly, the wires and cranes pulled inward, and the mass began to turn in Vermeil’s direction. His attention had been captured.

But he looked past Vermeil, at the woman that had just managed to push Zim away and roll onto her knees.

“…you…”

The word reverberated through countless sources as thousands of cables shot out, zooming over Vermeil’s head and narrowly avoiding Zim. In an instant, many of them impaled Gaz, the rest enclosing her in a writhing, electrified tomb. Zim crawled to Dib’s side, gathering him up in his arms. Absolutely no response.

“Dib…” Burying his face in Dib’s blood-stained chest, he uttered anguished words. It wasn’t fair… After all they’d been through together… To lose him like this! Zim had finally learned how to be strong again, how to believe in himself again. And now the one person he had learned to live for was gone. Again…

There was nothing left for Zim to live for. And if Gaz could kill Dib, she could surely take care of Zim…

Dib’s last wishes came back to the Irken. He wanted Zim to take care of Megami… he was all she had left. The smeet he’d created for them, she needed his guidance. And he couldn’t dishonor Dib, everything Dib had done for him, and allow himself to fall into weakness and self-pity again.

Holding Dib close, he whispered, “I’ll live… for you…”

All was quiet then.

Vermeil thought that perhaps it was over. Jai actually won. If that soldier had been right, and she was the Commander-in-Chief… Then that meant the colony would belong to the Irkens now. Right?

But a hissing sound rose from within that mess of wiring. Vermeil ducked just in time to miss the explosion; Zim covered Dib as well as he could as shards of metal flew and Jai reared back. When the dust settled, Gaz floated above the ground, higher and higher, buoyed by her renewed power. Her skin and arm were intact as if they’d never been touched.

“You managed to surpass all of my expectations for you… I never imagined you’d be able to tap into the network. And I especially did not expect your body to handle something of this magnitude. Irkens are much more resilient than I ever gave them credit for.” Her eyes glowed as she came ever closer to him, a few hundred feet in the air. Raising an arm, she clenched her fist. The wiring spread easily and suddenly Jai came forth, extracted from it all, the metal plate his only connection to the rest of the electrical mass he’d concocted. No emotion showed on his face as she ran fingers over his dewy skin. “Unfortunately, I’ve learned all that I can from you.”

Vermeil cried out, climbing onto the jeep to try and get a good view of the two of them. He drew his pistols, taking aim at Gaz. But Jai pushed him back.

“You haven’t learned anything from me. I, however, have learned everything about you. The Irken race will never be snuffed out, despite your best efforts. They will rise against you, just as they did before…” Then he grinned. “Even your own race is rebelling against you as we speak… Your lover has abandoned you.”

Gaz merely scoffed in reply. “I’ll show you what I’ve learned!” Vermeil and Zim both crumpled as paralyzing pain began to pass over them. Gaz’s laughter rang out and the wiring around them all began to spasm. “Irkens. Filth! I’ll crush you all under a single boot…”

Blood began to pour from Jai’s eyes. A last bit of static crackled through the jeep’s radio.

“Remember, Vermeil. Nine parts intelligence, one part instinct.”

The words rang inside Vermeil’s head as he experience what he was sure to be his own death throes. Jai’s body finally gave out and the city crumbled beneath him… Except for one of the tallest buildings, a couple of miles away from Membrane hill. A rumble shook the very ground and Vermeil managed to roll over onto his back, watching as a beam of light the size of a Voot came shooting out of that building.

It caught Gaz offguard, hitting her squarely in the back and throwing her to parts unknown.

The pain faded and Zim groaned, rubbing his head as he looked up into the sky. He couldn’t feel the Destroyer’s power anymore… but Dib still wasn’t moving either…

Wiping tears from his face, Vermeil rose to his feet. “The airport,” he repeated, voice strained. “We’ll take the Fuck Pig’s ship.”

“WHY do you keep calling him that?!” Zim demanded, gathering the human up in his arms.

Kneeling before them, Vermeil said, “You don’t know…?” Shaking his head, he grabbed up Dib’s legs. “You missed out on many years of his life, I suppose…”

The walk was slow and pensive, carting this heavy corpse between them. But Vermeil felt he owed it to Megami not to just leave Dib lying there to decompose. Besides, he was unsure if the ship could be unlocked without Zim’s help or Dib’s body. He remembered enough about the ship to know it had a large number of security features…

With Jai gone, the humans had moved on to rescuing the survivors and the injured. Most of them paid little mind to the Irkens, especially because they were carrying a human. Looking back on the event, it would warm the hearts of some to realize that even the Buggers were assisting in the rescue effort. Their opinions of Irkens began to change.

Slowly, two headlights crept up behind Zim and Vermeil. Another jeep pulled up beside them. The passenger-side door swung open, revealing Valerie behind the wheel. “Get in,” she requested, face staid. When she saw Dib’s body, tears sprang to her eyes.

Vermeil didn’t exactly trust this woman, but Zim’s antennae flickered in recognition. “Valerie,” he said, climbing into the jeep and pulling Dib with him.

Figuring he was better off with them than walking alone in hostile territory, Vermeil got in as well. “We’re trying to get to the airport,” he said tiredly. He was sick of saying the word by this point.

“Good idea,” Valerie said, throwing the vehicle into gear. “The Commisserator Canon is very powerful, but I’m not sure even that can stop Gaz… She will probably be back soon enough, and very angry…”

Glancing over at the rather meek-looking blonde, Vermeil asked, “So that was you?”

“Yes,” Valerie replied. “I… I wanted to save Dib’s life, just as he saved mine all those years ago…” She sobbed softly, wiping the tears from her face. “All these years I sat by and said nothing. The way they lied to Megami… The experiments I knew they were doing on Irkens at Gaftar… I don’t want to sit idle, afraid, anymore!”

“But… Dib is dead. You failed…” Zim had to have someone, other than himself, to blame.

Looking down at him, Valerie ran fingers over his cold skin. “He’s died twice before. Maybe the Meekrob can save him a third time… Bring him back from the brink again…”

Of course! It wasn’t over. Zim had seen his lover like this once before… And he even knew who had accomplished the feat of resurrection. She was back on Kharna.

They finally reached the airport. Dib’s ship sat, looming over the other human vessels, completely untouched by the devastation. Jai’s electronic meddling had ruined nearly all the rest. The Irkens left the vehicle with Dib in their arms. Zim turned to look at Valerie, who was still behind the wheel of the jeep. “Are you coming with us? Gaz will kill you for your treachery. I would…”

“Perhaps. But I can’t abandon the colony. We need to rebuild. I’ll do what I can for the human race while I’m still alive.” Biting her lip, she looked them both over. “Please, if you see Megami, tell her that I love her… and I’m so deeply sorry for everything.”

Zim nodded. “Okay.” His brow furrowed. He supposed he should say… “Goodbye, human.”

They boarded Dib’s ship, placing the human’s body gingerly atop his bed. Zim then commanded GIR to take off. They hit space without incident… Though the ship was quiet as a tomb, the tension heavy.

*************************************

Many thanks to Calantha as usual for beta-ing. This was a tough one to get out. I kept wanting to rush it.

And thanks for your comment, DivineDepravity! :D I hope to keep doing good work!
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Goddess Risen