A/N: ITS OVERR! Yes, this is the last chapter. Check it out.

There's some... minor Zim angst in this one, something I'd been hoping to avoid because he doesn't really do angst well, so tell me if I did anything stupid, mmmkay?

Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missin'
Nowhere man
The world is at your command
~The Beatles, 'Nowhere Man'

I'll face any foe, undertake any quest
Any challenge, any task
I'll prove I'm the best
~The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, 'I Will Show The World'

11/6/02

11:02 PM

Zim padded down the sidewalk, his head hanging and his hands jammed into his pockets.

He was capable of ignoring a lot of really major things and right now he was steadfastly making himself forget where he'd been and why, and who'd brought him there. It was hard. He was still feeling weak and tired and he smelled like lab. Dib's stupid father's stupid lab chemicals had gotten into his stupid clothes.

He kicked a nearby rock. Luckily he already didn't remember a lot of it anyway- through no effort of his own, but simply because he'd been delirious for a few days. He sighed a little bit and his hand went to his chest, like it had quite often over the past few days, and he fingered the Invader medallion still hanging from his neck. He didn't know why the humans had let him still wear it, but oh well. That made things easier. If he lost his medallion, he'd have to get it back, regardless of personal danger- he'd just have to get it back.

He was fully absorbed in the feel of the glass and thoughts of what the medallion stood for when he smelled Dib very close, and heard footsteps beside him.

"What?" he snapped, not looking at him.

"I see you're cured," Dib said.

"Shut up." He tightened his grip on the medallion.

"So am I," Dib chirped. "I took some of my father's notes on you and-"

"That's terrific," Zim said. "What do you want, Dib?"

"Who's Zerinim?"

Zerinim?

He stopped dead in his tracks, staring, and rounded on Dib, grabbing his sleeve. He had to look up to meet Dib's eyes and that made him tremble with anger. "Where did you hear that name?"

The last time anyone had spoken that name to him... the lab... far, far back before the beginning of this century...

Dib's gaze faltered. "You said it, when... you s-said it once."

Zim let go of his sleeve, stepping back. His heart was pounding. "I never said that," he hissed. "NEVER!!"

The lab. He smelled like the lab. Membrane. Chemicals, his clothes... Zerinim... no, no, he was ZIM now, not...

He turned away.

"Okay," Dib said. "Well, alright then." He swallowed. "Okay. Well... I brought your homework to your base while you were gone. I didn't want the other kids to be killed by your vile death gnomes. VILE, Zim. DEATH."

"Mmm-hmm," he said, continuing on his way. Dib kept pace beside him.

"You'll be in skool Monday, right?"

Zim's hand went to his throat. 'Eureka, I've discovered a new disease!' he heard Membrane saying. 'This child must be kept here until he is cured of these scales! Call Mayo Clinic and tell them-'

Zim liked his scales. "Sure," he said now in a lackluster tone.

Dib nodded. "Uh... okay then," he said awkwardly. "Well, bye." He quickened his pace, going ahead of Zim.

Zim paused, watching his retreating back. Suddenly his pulse sped up and he ran after Dib. "Zerinim is me!" he found himself crying.

Dib stopped, turning around and blinking at him.

Zim came up beside him, panting slightly. "Zim is my short-name. I was born Zerinim."

"Oh. Okay."

"Irken... Invader... Zerinim." His hand went back to his medallion. "Now go home, Dib."

"That's what I was doing," Dib said mildly, and Zim turned the corner, putting his head down and scowling. Jerk.

"Wait!"

He stopped, throwing a glare heavenwards. "For the love of code! What now?"

"Dilbert." He looked behind him to see Dib standing there with a hand held out, his face expressionless. "Dilbert Putchel. Nice to meet you, Irken Invader Zerinim." He rolled his eyes briefly. "Well, it would be nice if you weren't evil and planning to enslave mankind, anyway."

Zim looked down at the outstretched palm, his eyebrows knitting. "Is this some kind of... joke?"

"Nope." Zim searched his face. No expression.

He stepped back, hissing. Dib shrugged, stuffing his hand into his pocket. "You don't have to. Zerinim. Is your... you called it a short-name? Is that the last syllable of your name combined with the first letter?"

Zim's lips pressed together. "What is this?"

Dib shrugged again. "I guess I didn't really expect you to answer." He turned away. "Goodbye, Zim."

Zim watched him go, clutching his Invader medallion. He'd have to keep a close watch on that child.

He stood there for a moment, rerunning the conversation through his mainframe. Nothing struck him as overtly dangerous, just... odd. Dib hadn't actually touched him, or anything. Still.

He cocked his head sideways. "Dert Pul. Dirt Pull. Pfft." He chuckled, then cleared his throat.

No one at Membrane Laboratories knew he was out yet, but he needed to get off the street before he was seen. He turned and set off down the sidewalk at a rapid pace.

Inside the base, he proceeded immediately into the kitchen, pulling at the fingers of his gloves.

Going to Dib had obviously been a mistake. Membrane and his cronies had been excited over Zim and his 'strange new disease' and had wanted to call in specialists to look at him. He'd almost ruined the whole mission.

Now, he took off his gloves and set them on the counter, then looked back at his hands, which he hadn't seen without the gloves in several years.

The palms of his hands were soft and yellow and scale-less, which was normal, and so were his wrists, which was not normal. His wrists were covered in masses of small scars and lumpy tissue, and he gave them a terse nod before pulling out a drawer in the counter and rummaging around inside it, pulling out a device like a metal flyswatter with a reinforced handle. "MALIK!"

"Sir?" The small robot ran into the room. "You're back! Sir-"

"Here," he said, giving her the swatter and holding his hands out. "Smack me across the wrists."

She raised her eyebrows. "Sir?"

"I've failed Irk and I need a reprimand. Go on. Good and hard. I'd do it myself, but-"

She looked down at the flyswatter, blinking. "Sir, I am your inferior and should not be issuing a reprimand."

Zim rolled his eyes. "Well, I can't hit both wrists at once, now come on! Good and hard. No pansy hits."

"Sir, how have you failed?"

His tone was sharp and biting. "Weren't you paying attention? I exposed weakness to that stink boy. My enemy. He could have exploited me and my base and gotten to the Tallest... somehow. I dunno. He could've taken my Voot or my weapons or... you... just hit me! Go on."

"But-"

"It's PROTOCOL, okay? Hit me. Good and hard. Try to make a mark, like these." He pointed to the scars.

"Sir, you were ill and you had no other options, I thought-"

Zim scowled at her. "Why are you arguing with me?"

She bit her lip. "Sir, I thought-"

"Oh, for crying out loud," he fumed, taking the swatter from her and smacking himself with it, three times on each wrist. "There." He put it away. "Next time, do what I ask you to!"

"I apologize," she said, subdued. He turned and started to stalk out of the kitchen. On the way, he caught sight of his reflection in the shiny surface of the refrigerator and turned to blink at it.

The bright green flush of anger brought on by MALIK's refusal to follow orders faded to an ashen gray as he looked at his reflection. A funny sense of disconnectedness came over him and for a moment instead of seeing Zim, the Irken that had caused both Horrible Painful Overload Days and ruined Operation Impending Doom 2, an Irken that had invented more in-his-opinion-AMAZING devices than anyone he knew, an Irken everyone knew the name of, he just saw someone average- someone with an average face, nondescript features, common eye color, identical clothing to everyone else, completely average build apart from being a little too slender and way too short. Someone he wouldn't notice in a crowd, unless it was to ridicule for his height.

The height was something, at least. He swallowed and rubbed one finger across the scent glands under his chin, then held it to his antennae, sampling his own scent. Middle-aged male Irken, with the smell of illness still clinging to him. His scent was neither particularly strong nor particularly weak. It was unique, definitely his own smell, but it wasn't exactly striking. (Well, except when he smelled like paste, which he would have if he hadn't just been imprisoned away from regular paste baths for a week.)

He started blankly back at his reflection, and suddenly caught sight of the Invader medallion still hanging around his neck. Of course. There was something. There were a lot of middle-aged male Irkens with average faces and slim builds, but not a lot of them were Invaders.

He clutched the medallion to his chest, feeling his heart flutter wildly behind his ribs. MALIK appeared behind him in the mirror.

"Sir?"

"SILENCE!" he said, heading into the living room. He crawled onto the couch and curled up in a ball with his back facing outward and his forehead pressed against the back of the couch. He was still clutching the medallion to his chest.

After a while, he heard MALIK walking away. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his own breathing.

11:23 AM

MALIK headed down the street at a fast march.

She'd spent the week of Zim's absence studying Irkens with the base computer. She'd liked what she'd seen. And Zim was her key to learning more. She needed to keep on his good side... and apparently, he had a mercurial temperament. She needed to make a good impression, and fast.

Her pace quickened. She was approaching the house now and she darted behind it. Here, a window. She pulled herself onto the sill, looking inside. That Dib was sitting at a table inside, reading a newspaper. She dropped back down and paced back and forth by the wall.

Oh, here was something, a low window by the ground.

She dropped down next to it, blinking. The planets in the Galactic Alliance don't have many basements except in really old buildings, and she couldn't fathom why there was a window so low to the ground. She looked inside.

She froze. She could see a glimpse of something metal. A robot.

Her hands shook. This was not picking up a crackhead on Tradeworld. She carefully slid the window open and looked inside.

The little robot was lying on the ground, coloring in a book and humming. She frowned. She could already tell he was one of those. "Are you GIR?"

He looked up at her. A second later she was sprawled on her back with his face inches from hers.

"You're PRETTY!" the robot yelled. She screamed.

"Hey!" she heard the child screaming and she grabbed GIR's arm and ran. She'd never run this fast in her life. She'd never felt this much fear in her life. She wasn't supposed to feel this much, she was a machine. This place made her feel.

"Hey!" the kid screamed and she heard the door open.

"Sweet mother of Venus," she gasped. WHY HADN'T SHE BEEN BUILT TO RUN FASTER?

The base! She could see it across the street now and she put on a burst of speed, rushing towards the door and bursting inside. She fell to a sitting position, putting her hands down and hanging her head. Her engine revved in her chest.

"MALIK!" she heard Zim cry. "What the- GIR!"

"MASTERR!" she heard in a high-pitched scream.

"GIR! What the- whoa! No GIR! Nooo!"

MALIK stared at the floor. She suddenly felt she'd done something wrong.

"Whee!" she heard, and clattering metal footsteps. Then she heard Zim coming closer.

"You actually brought GIR back?" she heard him say, incredulous.

She had never let herself be intimidated in her life and she did not intend to start now. She met his eyes. "You gave me an order, sir," she said, her voice completely even.

"So I did," he said, frowning. "Took you long enough."

Ungrateful wretch.

Not that it was her place to say so. "My apologies, sir."

"But you managed it," he mused. "Even though you're not Irken technology. Hm. And I didn't even have to watch over you like a nursery drone!" He looked over his shoulder. "GIR! Why can't you learn by example like MALIK here? She's not even Irken, GIR! Come on!"

She blinked again.

"I can see you will be quite useful to me. Get up off that floor, it's dirty."

"Oh, it is," she said with some alarm, standing up. Unable to think of anything else to say, she saluted. The impression had worked. He looked rather pleased. Good.

He nodded at her. "Yes, yes. Well." He gave a guilty glance down at the medallion he was wearing, and took it off. "I have work to do. A mere poisoning won't stop my mission. You, uh... stay here. Dib might come back for GIR."

She nodded.

He nodded back at her, then headed for the- toilet. In the kitchen.

She blinked as he disappeared into it. What on?...

Oh well. It was of no importance to her mission.

She sat down on the couch, waiting for further instruction.

-end

-tooo be continued?!-

A/N: I had an epilogue but it needed to be cut when I made some lightning-fast changes to the series timeline. Now the ending is abrupt and crappy but I have no clue how to fix it. If one of you can help that'd be swell.

So yeah. This installment is at an end, but I'll have story extras (deleted scenes and stuff) up in my profile by the end of the day- if you're interested, you can check back this evening or tomorrow for them. Also, there's some artwork linked to on my profile right now, pictures of thisuniverse!Irkens and MALIK.

So, until the sequel, cheeri-o. (Said sequel will begin as soon as I can get it beta-read.)