Curling in on himself and sniffling wetly, Dib let out a small whimper in his sleep.

        Zim felt a sharp stab through his chest like before. "I'm sorry, Dib...I did it all..."he said before curling up even more around Dib.

        Continuing to sleep on for several more hours, it wasn't until some time later that Dib finally began to come around again, blinking his eyes open and feeling a bit disoriented at first about where he was . "Hmmm?" he sounded out, looking about the room.

        Having migrated to one of the corners of the room, Zim laid curled up on the floor across from him.

        Blinking his eyes a few more times, Dib looked about the room some more before remembering where he was and sitting up quickly in the bed. "Z-Zim?" he looked over and noticed the Irken curled up in one corner of the room before throwing the covers off of himself and stumbling his way over to the Irken, falling flat on his face from not being used to walking on a ship in space yet. Sitting up slowly, he then held his head and let out a pained noise. "Ow..." he groaned before crawling the rest of the way over to Zim, the motion of the ship making him feel slightly sick to his stomach. "Z-Zim..."he said one last time, trying to get the Irken's attention.

        "...Yes?" Zim finally responded, remaining facing away from Dib, his sad stare fixed on the wall.

        Reaching out a hand to touch the others cheek, Dib stopped himself, pulling back his hand to his chest and looking away to the side. "Wh-What's going to happen to us now?" he asked, truly not wanting to think about it.

        "We will be given a ship and sent to a dwelling planet somewhere in the Irken Empire...We gave the Earth its new purpose too..."

        "A-And that was?" Dib asked, really not wanting to know but still needing to know what he had doomed his own home planet to.

        "Earth will be a zoo..."

        "Wh-What?! A zoo?!" Dib looked at Zim in disbelief. "A-And are humans the only species that are going to be treated like animals?" his voice then grew shaky.

        Zim waved a hand. "Relax, Dib...It's more like a reserve...I made sure they wouldn't let the humans know anything was going on. As long as they don't try to leave the planet's surface, they will be fine...But that was the best I could do...I know it's not good enough for YOU, but I tried." he sighed heavily, curling up more. "The Tallest was angry with me...I was demoted for this..." he said, the memory of how the meeting had gone over all too fresh in his mind still.

        "D-Demoted? Wh-What do you mean by d-demoted? Demoted to what?"

        "Service drone...This means I have to work in retirement...So are you happy yet?! I saved your stupid planet! I got demoted! My life is screwed now!" Zim sighed heavily and curled up again.

        Eyes wide with fear at the sudden outburst, Dib pulled away from the Irken. "I...I...I want to go home..." he sobbed, shrinking back away from the other.

        Gasping in surprise, Zim stared at Dib sadly before sniffling a bit. He knew Dib really wanted to leave.

        Clapping his hands from the doorway, Red slowly walked into the room they were in with the drone from before. "Good! Because seeing as how Zim's been demoted, even YOU outrank him now! You're going to have your memory wiped and be sent back to live the rest of your life on your own planet! Isn't that great?" he addressed Dib, an evil smirk on his face.

        Walking up to Zim, the drone from before kicked Zim hard in the side. "Move it, you!" he demanded, having been ordered to take Zim to a new holding cell.

        Flinching at the rough kick, Zim merely did as he was told, getting up and following the drone out of the room.

        Red sighed. "I should really thank you, human. Your lie finally gave me the chance to get rid of him. But...He seemed a bit off at the meeting. He must have hit his head sometime recently..."he snickered. "Let's hope so. Then maybe he'll finally die already." he said before grabbing Dib's arm to take him away.

        Dib instantly tried to pull away from Red. "No! Don't touch me!" he screamed, struggling against the taller Irken.

        Red slapped him across the face. "What are you struggling so much for? This is what you just said you wanted, isn't it? Or would you rather stay here and suffer the same fate as Zim?" he said, yanking Dib out of the room, wrenching his arm behind his back and walking him in the opposite direction from Zim, towards the teleporter.

        Letting out a sharp cry at having his arm wrenched behind his back, Dib continued to struggle nonetheless. "No! Let me go! Zim! ZIM!" he called out, looking back behind himself at the Irken, who was getting farther and farther away from him. "No! Zim!" he screamed out desperately one last time before suddenly feeling a hard blow to the back of the head, delivered by another one of the drones on board the Massive, causing everything around him to go dark.

        Holding him up by his arms, the drone that had knocked him out and another drone that had come to offer his assistance began dragging him in the direction of the teleporter.

        "Jeez, he's annoying. No wonder Zim took a liking to him. They're too much alike!"  

        "Shouldn't we wipe his memory first?"

        "Nah...Why bother? What could he ever do to us?"

        "Of course, my Tallest. How foolish of me."

        "Well, we can just hope that Zim will die now, but you know, the planet will make a great attraction."

        "As a zoo?"

        "No. As an asteroid field." Red laughed evilly.

        Shoving Dib into the teleporter, one of the drones typed in some coordinates before returning Dib back to Earth.

        It wouldn't be until several hours later that Dib awoke to find himself in Zim's lab, his head throbbing. "Wh-What happened?" he tried to move from his spot but just ended up wincing and curling in on himself, clutching at his head. "Ah! Wh-Why does my head hurt so much?!" he tried to force his eyes open to look around. "Z-Zim's lab? B-But what am I doing here?" he asked, sitting up slowly.

        That's when Gir came bursting into the lab in hysterics. "MARY!!!!" he tackled Dib. "MARY! MARY! WHERE'S MASTER?! YOU AND MASTER WENT FLASHY FLASHY! NOW MASTER GOOONE!" he screamed, pointing at the teleporter all the while.

        A blank expression on his face, Dib looked down at Gir once he had sat up again then looked up at the teleporter Gir was pointing to. "I-I don't know. I-" he grabbed at his head again. "Ouch! I don't remember anything!" he said, pulling one of his hands away just to find blood on it. His eyes grew wide in fear. "S-Something bad happened...B-But...I can't remember what!" he said, pushing himself up onto his feet to search the room for anything that might jog his memory.

        "There's a big mountain next to the couch!" Gir grinned, all problems suddenly forgotten. "Can you climb it with meee?" he asked excitedly.

        Dib sent Gir a confused look. "Umm...Maybe later, Gir. In the meantime, I have to figure out what happened to your master." he said, returning to his search for anything that might help him remember.

        "But the mountain!" Gir exclaimed, trying to tug Dib back upstairs. "It's gots squishy squishy powers on master!" he said, trying to make Dib follow him.

        Sending Gir another confused look, Dib finally gave in and let the insane robot drag him back upstairs to the living room where the pile of debris and wires still was. His eyes grew wide at seeing it. "Wh-What happened?!" he looked at it a few seconds longer before the memory of what had happened earlier hit him, causing his eyes to grow even wider."H-He was buried under all of this...and...and I carried him down to his lab to dress his wounds..." he quickly made his way back down to the lab, looking around as the memories were all coming back to him now. "He kissed me and then...and then one of his leaders called and..." he felt his legs shaking. "Th-They took him! They took him and sent me back here!" he said, his legs finally giving in, causing him to collapse onto the floor to his knees as the memory of the last thing Red had said ran through his mind. "A-And they plan on killing him..."he felt the tears welling up in his eyes again before slipping down his cheeks.

        Oblivious to Dib once again, Gir merely cheered happily. "YAY!" he exclaimed before happily running back upstairs to dive into the pile of rubble in the living room.

        Meanwhile, back on the Massive, Zim sat within a locked cell with one of the drones guarding the door to prevent him from escaping. Rolling over in his cubby hole of a cell, Zim merely stared at the wall sadly. "I'll miss you, Dib..." his voice was low and strained.

        The drone snickered. "Well, there won't be much to miss here soon." he said in response to Zim's sentimental words.

        That had Zim's eyes growing wide. "Wh-What do you mean?" he asked, rolling over to glare at the drone.