Gaz quickly rushed from Zim's house after their little… discussion. She had to try and find clues as fast as possible to where her brother could be, lest the time they take finding him ends up with them finding a body instead of her brother. God, she didn't know what she would do with herself if they found her brother seriously hurt or dead, he was all she had. She couldn't, wouldn't let that be the case. They'd find Dib and get him home, safe and sound, she swore to herself.

Once she got back home she didn't slow down, slamming the door open and rushing right up the stairs to her brother's room. Whoever took him had to have left some sort of clue, something that would point her towards her brother's current location. She quickly rushed to the window and started her search there, only to be a bit baffled to find no sign of forced entry. So did the kidnapper sneak in from somewhere else? Gaz took 10 minutes searching the rest of the room for something that pointed to what happened before she got to her brother's desk. Once there it took her less than a second to spot the note lying on it, simply addressed "To whom it may concern" in her brother's messy scrawl.

Gaz almost violently unfolded the letter and started reading. The first read-through buzzed through her head with a sense of dread, not fully registering the contents in the sudden reality shift from her perceived circumstance to the truth of the matter. It took a second read-through of the letter for it to fully hit, hands shaking and tears in her eyes. At the same time anger built in her gut, not at her brother, no, at herself, her father, and the rest of this damned world who beat her brother down so much and made him feel unwanted. "Fuck!" She screamed as she kicked the wall, just gently enough to not leave a hole. The words of the letter twisted around in her head, pointing out all the wrongs she had done to her own brother, as well as the wrongs she so ignorantly ignored caused by others.

To whom it may concern,

While I doubt anyone truly noticed my absence, it did not feel right to leave without leaving something to explain why. Maybe it's just my own selfish wish someone would notice and care about my absence, my own hope that perhaps I was important to someone as more than just a punching bag. But still, I decided to leave this note for whoever would find it.

I couldn't take this place anymore, living in this house, in this city. I'm tired of being ignored or abused. I'm tired of even my own family not caring for my existence. My sister hates me, I am sure of it. While she has changed from beating me anytime she could find an excuse, it was instead replaced with either silence and the cold shoulder, or angry words and yelling. My father sees me as nothing but a disappointment, his "poor insane son" who believes in the paranormal. He's rarely around, but when he is he makes sure to express said disappointment.

I even tried to make him proud, I focused more on what he calls "Real Science" as I grew. I even applied for an internship at his labs, even getting the highest grades, and yet I was dismissed outright. Not like I should have expected much else, and yet it still hurt. Thought I could replace that with physical pain like usual, but it only helps so much.

My peers are just as bad to worse, ranging from outright ignoring my existence, to using me as their own personal punching bag. I've lost track how many times I've been ganged up on by my peers and had to limp home to patch myself up. At least I can thank Zim for long ago making me have to learn first aid.

Speaking of Zim, for awhile it seemed like he was my only friend. After we put our differences and pasts behind us, it just seemed to click into place like that, to make sense. Two ostracized beings who were seen as freaks to their own species... But I guess he grew tired of me, and he soon started ignoring me too. The one good thing in this hell and he too tossed me aside and abandoned me. Probably should have realized it was too good to be true.

The only reason this isn't a suicide letter is I didn't want to burden my family more than I already do. Make them have to clean up my corpse and pay for a burial plot. I've been enough of a burden, so I decided packing up a few essentials and some money and disappearing was the best option. I'm not even sure where I'm going yet, just that it's far away.

Thanks for taking the time to read this I guess,

Dib Membrane

Breathing heavily Gaz refolded the letter a lot more carefully than she unfolded it, and tucked it into her pocket. She continued her mental tirade against everyone before her anger finally settled on one person. "Fucking… that stupid, neglectful, BASTARD!" While she knew pretty much everyone her brother knew contributed to this, she was going to focus on the one she could more easily blame and punish. Their father, the man who thought he was so smart and above it all that he didn't even need to pay attention to his own children. That he refused to even humor her brother, let alone see any of his proof. That he would only label her brother as insane and refuse to change it even as he grew. Her brother was not insane, he was never insane, and she would prove it to her asshole father.

She promptly stormed out of her brother's room, rage boiling through her. Once out she proceeded to turn and punch the wall, leaving a fist-sized hole in the plaster. Having taken some of her anger off on the wall, she finally had a clear enough head to actually proceed. She started heading downstairs and to the garage with a purpose. Once there she pulled the tarp off of Tak's old ship and started the process of booting it up. It wasn't too hard, she and her brother both had quite the grasp on Irken technology and the Irken language. Growing up around Zim and first trying to thwart his plans, then being friends with him, kind of necessitated the knowledge. The only downside was that they'd never been able to repair the ship to fly it. It technically could fly, but the cloaking device was broken, which kind of made the ship useless for flying unless they wanted to notify the government.

Once the ship was fully booted up and she had navigated to the right screen that would allow her to call Zim. She'd need to update him that this wasn't a kidnapping, and convince him of her newest plan. Quickly hitting call she waited for Zim to answer, and had to give him props for picking up so quickly. "Dib-sister, did you find information on where the Dib-human is? The great Zim is still going over all the camera footage!"

Gaz sighed before pulling out the letter to show Zim for a second. "I found a clue, Zim, but it seems we were going in the wrong direction. Dib left on his own, and it's all our faults. But especially that fucking bastard that Dib and I call father." Gaz suddenly felt tears in her eyes, and suddenly felt the urge to scream. Now was not the time to give in to any other emotions past rage. "Dib implied he's been… that he's been fucking hurting himself and contemplated suicide. He wanted to end his own life Zim! And it's all because we've all been ignoring him. You stupid fucking alien I thought you were supposed to be his friend, why were you ignoring him too! How come I didn't notice? Why didn't I fucking notice that he couldn't take anymore? That he was breaking?" She slammed her fists on the dashboard of the ship, trying to take out some of the emotions, tears actually slipping out of her golden eyes that were for once open wide.

Zim was wide-eyed and in shock himself, he'd known that the other miserable High Skool children had still been bullying the Dib and that he had a few injuries… but that his Dib-thing was hurting himself? That he wanted to die? Zim couldn't grasp it. Dib always seemed so strong, the only human-earth-monkey to stand up to the great ZIM and even successfully fight Zim off. "I… Zim didn't know either. Zim didn't notice that the Dib-monkey was doing so poorly either. Zim didn't mean to ignore him, but the Dib-thing was making Zim have weird feelings in his squiddly-spooch so Zim was just trying to figure out if the Dib poisoned Zim or what it was… Zim was going to talk to the Dib soon as Zim found the answer and had a plan, a GLORIOUS plan."

Gaz grit her teeth and tried to pull herself back together, closing her eyes again for composure. "I don't care about that right now Zim. I'll deal with you later, and I can't even try to focus on how much I fucked up. But right now I have a primary focus to my ire and we're both going to drag him into this and MAKE him help us find Dib. I'll make him regret ignoring us both. So listen up Zim, here's the plan…"

It wasn't too much longer from that conversation that Zim and Gaz landed on the roof of Membrane Labs, the Voot Cruiser turned invisible. They both got out, Zim in his disguise, and Gaz looking as composed as she can when she wanted to commit murder. "Stay behind me Zim, I know the layout and will get us to my father." Zim simply nodded, having decided talking while the Dib-sister was in such a mood would not be the smart idea.

With those instructions Gaz quickly stomped off, anger and doom exuding off of her in a palpable aura. She promptly busted the roof's door off its hinges and marched on inside, Zim only a foot or two behind her. They quickly made their way down a few floors to the main lab, any lab tech's or assistants to Professor Membrane quickly jumping out of the way of their boss's daughter, or suddenly found themselves kicked into a wall. It was only a few minutes before Gaz busted into the main lab where, as Gaz guessed, her father resided. The Professor barely glanced up at the commotion before muttering "I am in the middle of SCIENCE. Please wait till my next open appointment in 5 months."

Gaz growled before glaring at anyone else in the room with her father till they inched their way around and out of the room for fear of death. Gaz then marched in all the way, Zim staying in the entrance for now, and quickly grabbed the back of her dad's lab coat and pulled him away from his current experiment, much to her father's indignation. "Father, we need to talk, now, and you will LISTEN for once in your GODDAMN LIFE!"

"Now, now, Gazlene, now is really not the-"

"SHUT UP! Dib is MISSING you fucking asshole and it's YOUR FAULT!" So that might be a slight lie, but it was still also true so she didn't care. "Why did you fucking reject his application, Father? He showed an interest in "real science" as you always yell about, and yet you fucking rejected him?"

"Of course I did Gazlene, I couldn't have his insanity infecting my la-"

"He's not insane! How have you not fucking noticed he's changed? And even BEFORE that, he wasn't insane!"

"Now Gazlene, his obsession with "bigfoot" and "aliens", and believing they are real, shows-"

"They are real, though! And he's found proof before!"

"It seems your brother has corrupted your more logical-"

"Just. Shut. Up. Dib has done nothing to corrupt me, I've seen the proof. And on that point, I've BROUGHT proof. You're going to face how much you've failed my brother before we drag your ass to help FIND him! Zim! Your turn!" And with that Gaz quickly let go of her father and backed up. The Professor quickly glanced towards the entrance when his attention was finally brought to the fact that his daughter wasn't his only visitor.

"Ah, Dib's little foreign friend! Did my progeny convince you to play along just because of your skin condition? Really now, you shouldn't be humoring them so much!"

Zim sighed before running a hand down his face. "I can't believe the mighty ZIM has to do this. But if the creepy Dib-sister says I must…" Zim lifted his hand back up and to his wig, pulling it off as his pak legs slid out of their containment, lifting him even higher into the air, now easily trumping even the Professor's height. "Now listen up, you filthy Dirt-monkey. The great ZIM is no foreign human with a skin condition…" His antenna now in full view quickly plastered to Zim's head in agitation as he now removed his contacts, revealing his magenta insectoid eyes. "The mighty Zim is an advanced Irken warrior… or was at least. A species much superior to you human dirt-babies." Zim quickly advanced, using his Pak legs to sweep the Professor off his feet and onto the floor, before pinning him there as Zim loomed over him, a sneer on his face. "And that you, the so-called 'Greatest Mind on Earth' could not see through my MARVELOUS disguise, while the Dib-human you call 'insane' did so upon first seeing Zim just shows how far above you he is. Now my Dib-human is missing, and you are at least partially to blame so…" Zim now raised a Pak leg up, pointed right at the Professor's head "unless you want to see your precious brains seeping through a hole in your PITIFUL skull, you will help the Dib-sister and ZIM to find the Dib and bring him home." And just to add to the intimidation factor Zim then quickly brought the Pak leg down just to the side of the Professor's head, ramming a hole right into the linoleum flooring with ease.

At this point Professor Membrane was staring wide-eyed behind his goggles in dazed horror, his brilliant mind trying to process this information in a way that made logical sense to him. But nothing was adding up, he suffered no head injury to cause a hallucination before the supposed alien started revealing himself, he had checked all his food as usual for unknown drugs or poison so there was no way he was drugged, and there was no logical explanation for the creature in front of him with the technology he had only dreamed of being thrown around like nothing . His brain was currently undergoing its own version of a blue screen of death, with no sound or words currently forthcoming to his mouth. Or movements registering to his limbs.

Zim finally stepped back with a sneer of disgust at the frozen man, Pak legs quickly sliding back into place as Zim once again stood on his own two feet. He quickly replaced his disguise as he scoffed "It seems the wonderful ZIM'S glorious true form and technology has broken your pathetic human dirt-monkey father. Zim is going to go upload a virus to erase all video evidence of us into the computer's here, it seems you'll have to drag the meat-sack up to the Voot." Zim then quickly marched out of the lab with a scowl to head for the nearest control room.

Gaz groaned before going over and kicking her father in the side "Come on old man, you're being pathetic. I can't continue to yell at you if you're fucking catatonic." Getting no real reaction yet, Gaz became resigned to her fate. With a growl, she quickly grabbed her father by the foot and proceeded to drag him out and back down the hall the way she and Zim came. Any injuries or filth that got on him was his own fault for being pathetic. He should have processed better and walked of his own volition, or at least been able to stand up so she could drag him by an arm and him stumble after her.

Once at the Voot it didn't take but half a minute more for Zim to come scurrying through the door to the Voot. "Let us go, Scary-sister! The other dirt-monkey's should soon be panicking and we do not have the time to enjoy their screams!" Zim quickly got his Voot opened, and together they threw Gaz's father into the back, giving no care for how comfortable he ended up. They then both climbed in themselves and took off back towards Zim's base. His Computer should have, hopefully, analyzed all the surveillance footage within a 5-mile radius of the Membrane household for any sign of Dib.

A/N: Well, this took 5 years but here's an update finally! Depression sucks as does distraction. Anyways, on another note, this fanfiction is now also on AO3 and... well has been for awhile. And since A03 is easier to edit and everything, if you want to read a more... refreshed and edited version of this fanfic, please find me on AO3! My username is Akiraa96 there. I also have another fanfic posted THERE that isn't here as it, at least, started out as a co-written fic. SO if you like Gravity Falls and BillDip as well as Pokemon you can find it there. Thanks for reading!