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Against the Odds	By : SaveTheDonuts Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 1353 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: IZ universe and canon characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon. I make no money from this or I would have more than a penny in my pocket.

Chapter List
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- 2
Warning: This is a ZADR fanfic = Zim and Dib romance. If you don’t like, just don’t read. I mean it.
Everything related to Invader Zim does not belong to me, otherwise the story would be far too different.

Rated: G, by the moment xp

Genre: Alternative universe. And a little of everything. In this first part we are gonna miss some humor, even getting near to depressive stuff but things will improve, some way owo;

Summary: Zim promised he wouldn't run away anymore. He would fight for everything important to him and he would return, even if things could never be the same. But, at his return, he will know time had passed too fast, not even to say Good Bye. Now, he will have to survive in an unrecognizable world in an uncertain universe, until he meet a person who will help him to keep his word.

Especial thanks to AndaliteBandit – 6 (www.fanfiction.net/u/697436/andalitebandit-6). Without her, this English version would be uncompressible.

Thanks.

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Prologue

A bip sounded in the deepest part of Zim's pak, but, as in rare occasions, he was too deep in sleep to pay it any mind. He huddled against the warm body at his side, and his mind did not catch the brief sound. The same noise sounded insistently again, but the irken eyes stayed closed as he pressed his body closer the source of the warmth in an attempt to ignore the nuisance. But after the third alert, reluctantly his eyes opened slowly though his mind was still immerged in the thick fog of old memories. Confused with the temporary readjustment he rested on his elbows, growling, and he looked into the semidarkness at the person at his side. Dib was asleep, lain down on his back, arms widespread on the bed, mouth lightly open, lenses twisted on his face, black hair messed up and his peculiar zigzagged tuff of hair placed on the pillow in a strange fold.

They fell asleep the previous night just when they laid down on the bed. They didn’t even have sufficient energy to get under the covers, change their clothes or, in the irken's particular case, to take off the disguise he used in the outside world. His wig had fallen at the foot of the bed, though.

The previous day had been especially long and mentally grueling. The investigation started when Dib knew about some sightings of “shadow birds” in a rural village a few hours way from there. Much time was wasted looking in empty places and talking to the useless witnesses, testing the limits of the human’s patience, but especially the irken’s. Of the many aspects the irken hated about the humans, their stupidity topped his list. They seemed addicts to everything that could atrophy their minds and were glad to infect anyone they could with it. All the witnesses narrated incoherent facts and in many cases, completely out of context. At least Dib recognized, thanks to his wide experience of years as paranormal investigator that this incident was just a trap to defraud idle and ignorant tourists.

Dib now was twenty-six years old and at his young age he had earned a name and a reputation independent from his father’s. Everyone knew him as the greatest field investigator of the history and not as the crazy son of the world-famous Professor Membrane.

The alarm sounded yet again, reminding him why he had woken up. Not wanting to wake his companion, Zim got up and snuck silently out of the room, carefully closing the door behind him. From his pak emerged a transmitter that positioned itself at his face level and, rubbing his tired eyes, he grumbled irritably.

- What happened? - His eyes were itchy. He hated falling asleep with his contact lenses on.

- Master, I have intercepted a signal with irken signature at the edge of this solar system – The cold, metallic voice of the base's computer answered. Zim's antennas rose up in alert and he felt a cold and bitter twisting in the bottom of his squeedly spooch.

- Specify: What kind of signature was it? - The irken asked, traces of anxiety in his voice. Whatever, whoever it was entering that system, was not good news.

- It belonged to a Red Imperial Security Team - It answered apathetic to the effect that this news had on its owner.

A wave of worry froze him, mind and body refusing to respond just now. As the wave passed, he closed his fits tightly and leaned his pak against the wall, trying to control the commotion and, especially, the rage and impotence of not being able to do anything about it. The news had struck him hard, undoubtedly. It wasn’t easy to assimilate this information because, even with everything what had happened, everything that for years he had managed to obtain and the only reason that made him truly happy in all his life seemed to dissolve, maybe forever. And all that was summarized into the warm sleeping person behind the cold drywall on which he was leaning on, resting pleasantly, completely oblivious to what was happening.

Zim knew that this might happen one day, but if he had learned anything on Earth it was to have hope, that this planet was far away enough from the irken Empire, that they would leave him alone, to live HIS life.

Hope or not, he had prepared himself for the worst, he had made a decision and he should as soon as possible if he wanted to protect Dib so that at least one of them had some possibility to keep forward.

Gathering his strength together, he got up resolute and, after breathing deeply and shoving the distress to a corner in his mind until he had time to distil it, he returned to the human’s room.

The room was vaguely illuminated by the first sunbeams, announcing a new day of human activities and bustles, filtering across the window's thin white curtain. Turning the sight aside, he observed that Dib had not moved from his previous position.

Zim sat down at his side, and brought his hand over the other’s face to delicately caress it, examining every facial line, the texture, the ruggedness of an unshaven beard, the eerie lukewarmness of his skin and a warm, comforting sensation extended down the irken's entire body, as happened whenever he touched him. He had long ago stopped using the black, army regulation, irken gloves and his uniform was kept in the general storage at his base.

- Stop it- He reproached himself in an inaudible whisper. He couldn’t prolong that moment anymore. If he didn’t leave now, he just wouldn’t. Zim inclined and without hesitating stole a kiss from the human, who didn’t seem to notice.

Eight years ago, he wouldn’t have turned around; he wouldn’t doubt his own decisions and that separation wouldn’t hurt at all.

He went out of the room silently, then exited the house and went directly to his base, running without looking back.

…………………………………………………

On having entered, Zim leaned against the door after closing it. He was lucky to be received by silence just interrupted by the sings of the birds at the exterior and constant low buzz of the base equipment.

- Computer, what is the energy level of the voot cruiser? - He asked, thinking about other stuff he must have ready in the shortest time possible. Many of them were already prepared for this moment.

- It is loaded to 78 % of its capacity - Answered the same indifferent voice. 'Enough,' the irken thought. 'But … '

- Divert all the area disposable energy to reload it and place in it the provisions from level 8, section 3. - Ten minutes of recharge, he calculated, might be the difference between get stuck eternally in the void or the chance to get to a safe place where to he could recharge again at his leisure (or as safe as the circumstances allowed). - Change one of the security gnomes into a tree and disconnect it definitively from the base. - "Yes, master," the computer answered and outside could be heard a strange suction sound followed by another like a mass being pulled to the ground. At the end, there was a decompression sound. - Start folding every lower level. We are leaving.

- The energy required to realize the activities of recharging the cruiser and to fold the base will provoke a dramatic decrease in the current level in the area. – The base informed - This action may compromise the concealment of the base.

- Obey, you piece of transistor! Now send GIR and Mini-moose here. – He shouted, pointing angrily at the roof. Only a moment later, the buzz began to increase and a slight arhythmic tremble began to vibrate through the floor. Each of the underground levels: his private quarters, the laboratories, corridors, and stores were being folded towards the base's core.

Without wasting any more time, Zim extracted the transmitter from his pak which began to ring like an earthnoid telephone. At the other side, someone picked up, cleared their throat and a feminine voice answered sleepy:

- Hello?

- Calie-human, the moment has come. I’ll leave in eight minutes. You know what to do. – Without explanation Zim concluded the call, not letting the other person the most minimal opportunity to recover from the impression, much less to answer.

GIR and Minimoose were expelled from the elevator hidden under the living room couch. GIR let out a brief, sharp shriek as he fell noisily to the floor. He quickly picked himself up and ran in his master's direction, pulling out its favorite rubber pig from its head and waving it around. The second limited itself to float next to the SIR and emitted a brief squeak once arriving at the irken’s side.

- Minimoose, get into the voot cruiser and wait for me there. – Zim ordered and the small amorphous moose happily squeaked again, hovered at a pipeline entrance and got in. The tremble had gotten stronger and it was possible to listen and feel the metal plates colliding among them, under his feet. Outside, the alarms of several cars were activated as were the barks of the dogs.

- And me, master? – GIR asked, embracing affectionately its small pink toy and looking at Zim as if he were to suggest an extremely entertaining game.

- Put on your disguise – Zim ordered to which the robot obeyed after storing the rubber pig in its head. Then the disguised SIR saluted respectfully at its owner and ran happy around him, ignoring what was happening around it.

The television screen was stored into the wall, the wallpaper disappeared leaving naked gray walls and the lights began to blink. An instant later the computer announced the regression progress. The top level, where they were, was left.

- GIR! - And the SIR stopped and looked at him attentively – Let’s get out - Once having said this, a dog leash came out of his pak and fell onto his hand. With the skill he had obtained throughout the years, Zim managed to put the leash on the unstill SIR.

The moment they got out, the house walls began to disintegrate in an intricate net of green light lines and these too started to disappear. At last, it was only a few thin, gray metal columns suspended a few meters above a platform which abruptly descended, leaving before them Zim's ship. It was the same process he had seen, but inversely, years ago, though the situation then was much better than the current one.

Dragging GIR, Zim took him next to the false tree where he tied him firmly. - Now, when Calie comes you will obey her in everything, understood GIR? - The SIR did a sound of joy and started running about the tree, came to a point, and began to dig the ground eagerly, found a brunch of worms and start juggling with them. Zim never got to understand why this robot did the same thing every time it was left out. The garden seemed to have been bombed. What was the fun of it?

He looked at the street and it was as deserted as when he had get there that daybreak, but he wasn’t surprised. Despite of the discoveries that Dib and Calie had done, the humans were still blind to too many things. It was hard for him to accept that he had to leave Dib HERE; if he could, he would take him with him.

Without hesitating, he turned around and got into the cruiser where Mini-moose was waiting for him, floating in circles above the control pilot's seat.

A few seconds later the ship rose towards the purplish sky and was lost from sight.

This time, he had something very important lose, something that was his alone. No more Mr. Nice Irken. This time, he would take care of them once and for all!

“I’m getting back. I’m getting back.” These were the last words he whispered before leaving the Earth atmosphere.

…………………………………………………

Dib was huddled on his bed with a thin thread of saliva running out of his mouth, staining the pillow, when a troublesome sunbeam fell down right on his lenses, shooting a sparkle against his eyelids. Lazily, he managed to wake up and found himself alone. Generally, he was the last to wake up every morning, and Zim had a five year old kid's patience, especially when it came to waiting for him to get up. 'He might be in the room watching TV' He thought, rubbing his eyes. He yawned and got up, fixing his lenses on the bridge of his nose. Once having gone out of his room, he found an unusual silence in his home.

- Zim? - He called. No answer. Intrigued, he went down to the ground floor and call again but all was quiet. Maybe he had gone away with Calie; he was a little ashamed to admit that he was the sleepy-head of the team and Zim and Calie never got tired of nagging him about it.

He went to the kitchen and, unexpectedly, there was Calie sitting silently with a cup of coffee between her hands, looking into the dark liquid and a few tuffs of chestnut hair falling down on her face. Her mind seemed to be a million miles away. When Dib entered, she tilted lightly her head at him but neither raised her gaze nor greeted him.

- Tired, I guess. Me too - Dib commented yawning and walking to a coffee pot behind the young woman. He served coffee for himself into a cup and blew on the foggy surface. Turning round, Calie was just in the same position in which he had found her.

Inside Dib, a little voice told him something was not right. He knew her perfectly, she was a very anxious person too, not even extreme exhaustion could keep her quiet a lot of time. Maybe his perception was wrong, but he preferred to ask.

- Is something wrong, Calie? – He asked at her side, looking at her worriedly, inclining lightly to have a better view. She held the mug with a bit more of force, biting her lower lip - Calie? What’s going on? - Without knowing why, Dib had a strange foreboding that assaulted him suddenly - Calie, where's Zim? – He asked and she let out a sob but tried to grasp the little remained self-control she still had. Tightening her hold on the cup, she breathed in deeply and parted her lips, a couple of tears rolling down her cheeks.

- He’s gone.

Dib couldn’t understand these two simple words, mainly because his brain didn’t want to accept them. Not as that answer.

- H… How? - He managed to say. And his brain produced a bit more of synapse – Where did he go?

- I don’t know, Dib. He called me a couple of hours ago saying he was leaving for good. He didn’t give me explanations, he only … left. - Two hours?!

- Why you didn’t tell me? - The boy asked. Sadness, annoyance, fear, stupefaction were the feelings that started to agglomerate in his chest, painfully suffocating him in his place.

- I wanted… - And she sobbed again, scarcely controlling herself – I wanted to give you two more hours of … - And another more heart-breaking sob silenced her - Two more hours. – She could just say before start cry.

Dib couldn’t believe this, why was it happening? Why? Why now? What was going on?! Without thinking twice, he ran out of the place. Everything had to be a mistake, a joke. Calie must have fallen down in a coarse joke of the irken. He would find Zim in the low levels of his base wasting some of his time, waiting for him to arrive or trying to arrange anything that GIR could have broken, anything, but he had to be there!

In the kitchen, Calie couldn’t hold her sadness any longer and she didn’t know exactly why: For seeing Dib trying to hold on a false hope to find Zim at his base and to know that the young man’s world was about to crumble? For Zim and his uncertain battle he would face from now on? Or for hiding from Dib what had happened two years ago? But no one was there to hear her or give her a shoulder where to refuge from the world and console her.

After a few minutes, Calie gathered herself and stopped crying. There was something important to do, something she had promised to do long time ago. She cleaned her face with a napkin, got up and went out of the house. She couldn’t let Dib cry alone in front of a wasteland with nobody at his side, or worse, that he could unload his furry on the innocent defective robot. 'Zim, you better get this right. You own this to him.' She thought bitterly before going out and walking into the cold dawn.
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Against the Odds