Gaz Membrane was angry. No... Gaz Membrane was furious.

"And then he laughed at me! He threw a banana at my head, and laughed! Can you believe it!"

Gaz growled. Yes, she could believe it. What she couldn't believe was the fact that her dolt of a brother was still ranting to her despite her threat not three minutes prior about feeding him to their father's experimental laser sharks. The two siblings had been trekking home from hi skool for a few minutes now, and Gaz felt a spark of relief at seeing the house in the distance. Just ignore him a little longer, just ignore him a little longer, just ignore him a-

"I KNOW he did something weird to that banana! It was green, and it smelled funny!"

That was it.

"AAAHHHHH!"

The scream split the quiet of the suburban neighborhood as Gaz smiled darkly, pleased with herself, while walking away from Dib; who's head had mysteriously become lodged in a planter, mumbles emitting from the ceramic pot as tiny white petunias danced wildly in time with his flailing. Nuisance taken care of for the time being, Gaz tromped up the stairs to her house and up into her room. Opening the door, she pressed a hidden button on her wall and the quiet electrical hum from within the room ceased as her defenses shut off to allow her safe entry. She tossed her bookbag in the corner, disregarding the papers and other various items that spilled out- she'd clean it later. And by "later", she meant "the last possible second tomorrow morning."

Skool today had been hideous, as usual. Packed in a small place with thousands of stupid, sweaty teenagers did the usual thing it did to her already perpetually foul mood; it had worsened it.

Flopping on her bed, she pulled out her Gameslave 5 and flicked on Vampire Piggy Massacre 8. The series had really come a long way over the years; new weapons, upgrades, piggies, slaughter and blood graphics... it all culminated quite nicely into the game she mashed buttons on now. Idly slicing a Vampire Pig-u-lord with a flaming katana, Gaz reflected on the scene in the lunchroom.

In actuality, it had been quite hilarious. She had noticed Zim fumbling around with something from where he sat alone a few tables away towards the end of the period, and had proceeded to watch him in mild interest. Finally, the alien had looked up from whatever he was doing to grin evilly at Dib. Gaz had gotten a front row seat as Zim slung his arm back and launched a banana across the cafeteria, effectively smacking Dib point blank in the face with it and cackling in triumph as his nemesis spluttered in outrage and picked up the offending berry.

Gaz had cracked a secret smile at the interaction. Dib had been endlessly annoying her the entire day, and having the imbecile get hit in the face with an unripe banana had brightened her mood considerably despite it being a skool day. Zim might have been incredibly stupid himself, but at least he was good entertainment when tormenting her older brother.

A hesitant knock at her door caused Gaz to glance up from her game with an expression of burning hatred. The only person it could possibly be was Dib, and he knew the consequences of disturbing her in her sacred domicile. It had better be important.

Hopping off the bed and pausing her Gameslave, Gaz wrenched the door open. Dib stood there at the threshold to her room, flower pot still lodged on his enormous head.

"Gaz? A little help?" His voice echoed oddly from within the pot now that the dirt had fallen out.

"Why, Dib?" she asked in a flat voice, crossing her arms.

"Because I'm hungry, and I can't get it off; its stuck." The teen admitted helplessly, tugging on the pot as a demonstration.

"Hm, alright. One second." Gaz said, and disappeared back into the depths of her room. Searching around, she found what she was looking for under a pile of stuffed bunnies; a sledgehammer.

"Hold still." she directed and Dib nodded, blissfully unaware.

Pulling her arm back, she clubbed the pot with an unnecessary amount of strength. It shattered with a rattle, but she was pretty sure she heard Dib's brain clocking around inside his skull as well until she remembered something incredibly pertinent; Dib had no brain.

"Owwww..." he whined, bending over a little and clutching his head. "Gaz, that freaking hurt." He complained, tottering with his skewed sense of balance.

"I got the pot off didn't I?" She pointed out, and Dib glared sullenly at her.

"...Yes." he conceded after a moment, and turned around and thumped down the stairs and into the kitchen. Dib had been eating like a black hole ever since he finally hit his growth spurt freshman year and gained an impressive few feet in height, and today was no exception. She could hear him noisily thrashing around in the kitchen, and multiple appliances running at once. The toaster binged, the microwave beeped, the fridge "chuf" 'd open, and the pantry door slammed. How Dib managed to create such a tornado of food making and consumption in under twenty seconds Gaz would never comprehend.

Gaz returned to her room once she grew sick of listening to her brother stuff his face and declare around the food "I'm going to go break into Zim's base! He'll never see me coming if I use the trash chute!"

The front door swung shut with a loud click, signaling Dib's dramatic exit. Gaz relaxed a little at the resulting silence; finally, peace and quiet. Sitting down at her desk, she dragged her bookbag over with a foot. Snagging it up off the ground, Gaz turned it upside down and dumped the contents out on the table. Picking a frog up out of the pile of clutter, Gaz placed it atop her shelf where it sat contently, croaking occasionally. She really had no idea when or how that frog had gotten in there, but she liked it immediately; it was mostly quiet, didn't talk about Zim, didn't eat everything in sight, and didn't make her want to fly into a fury of rage.

Nodding in approval at the amphibian, Gaz sorted through the pile of junk in search of her textbook. No, no, no... no, that was her pocketknife, and ooh, there was her keychain- dammit, it was broken! She'd glue it later- no... aha! Wait, no, that's just a worksheet from three years ago...

Picking through the mound, Gaz actually considered cleaning it out for a moment. But the moment passed as she finally saw the corner of her textbook sticking out from under her stuffed bionic whale, and she hauled it free. Sweeping all of her things aside, Gaz plunked the book down on the table and turned it to page 301. Ew, factoring. She hated factoring.

But then again, she hated pretty much everything. People, most foods, most animals, skool, Earth, people, the majority of television shows, freaking people... Shaking her purple locks, she set her mind to her work. Battling through the math somewhat successfully, she stopped at the final problem. What the hell was that? four god damn letters! Her teacher had said they wouldn't start variable equations that difficult until next week!

Angrily, Gaz gripped her pencil and attempted the problem anyway. Getting an incredibly wrong answer, as expected, she gave up. At least she tried. Shutting the textbook and dooming it to the seventh circle of Hell, Gaz placed it in her now pitifully empty looking bag. Eying the heap of things crammed into the corner of her desk, she relented and began pulling out things she actually needed and putting them in her bag, and putting everything else back where it belonged. She wasn't sloppy like her brother, after all; Gaz had enough dignity to not live in a pig sty.

Task accomplished, she decided she'd wrap up her evening by playing video games on the tv downstairs so Dib would deliberately miss his show. Mysterious Mysteries had gotten hokey-er and hokey-er over the years, but Dib still religiously watched every episode. And when that pattern was disrupted, the small aneurysms that he underwent were most amusing. Picking the frog up off her shelf where it had remained placidly for the better part of an hour, Gaz went downstairs and opened the back door to let it hop away into the fading afternoon light. Seriously though, how had that gotten mixed in with her things...?

Having slaughtered her enemies faithfully for over three hours now, the door swinging abruptly open startled her.

There on the front porch in the darkness of the evening stood Zim in his human disguise, holding a singed looking and smoking Dib by the scruff of his coat. Despite being almost a head or so shorter, Zim's uncanny strength enabled him to manhandle the human rather easily. The Irken managed to seem annoyed and satisfied all at once as he shook Dib a little, causing the crispy human to frown even more bitterly as his legs dangled a bit off the ground.

"I believe this is yours." He sneered, depositing Dib on the welcome mat and marching away with his typical lock-kneed gait.

Gaz glanced uncaringly over at her brother's form that still lay in a sprawled mess on the ground.

"Gnomes?"

"No."

"Laser weasels?"

"Nu uh."

"Ray gun?"

"No, that was last time."

"I give up."

"Gir."

"Gir?" Gaz repeated, scrunching her face up as she tried to recall why the name was familiar to her.

"That annoying little blue robot." Dib supplied, scooting around on the floor a little as though he didn't want to pick himself up just yet. He still smoldered a little, and Gaz waved away the smell of burnt-ness that wafted off of him.

"Oh, him." Gaz realized, a memory of her angrily dancing with the little android in Zim's labs dredging itself up from years past. "He did that to you? I thought all he did was ignore Zim and bake cakes and stuff." She queried uninterestedly, turning back to her game. Dib wasn't bleeding or dying, so any concern on her part was entirely unneeded.

"I guess this one time he had a lucid moment of obedience. Because all the other times Zim's told him to dispose of me, he's hugged me or screamed or blasted out of the room or whatever." Dib agreed, scraping himself off the floor with a grunt.

"Hm. It's too bad he only managed to shoot you a little bit." Gaz remarked coldly, blowing up an enemy. Dib left the room, used to the callousness. Increased time with the swine children in skool had only made her worse with age, and she bitterly rejected any form of interaction with people she deemed "irreversibly irritating."

...Which, was pretty much everyone.

Rolling her eyes at her brother's stupidity, she sliced one enemy in half with a rusty chainsaw. Dib and Zim had lost a lot of their animosity over the years, and Gaz swore they actually talked civilly on occasion when they thought nobody was looking. They just had too much in common to remain the same bitter enemies they initially were, and that was fine for Gaz; if it meant a few less screaming matches and less puddle-splash collateral damage, she could tolerate their odd hate/friend relationship.

Playing late into the night, Gaz set a new highscore before turning in. As usual.

"Gaz! Hey, Gaz. Watch this." Dib poked at her and said craftily, and Gaz debated on ripping his arms off and making him eat them. Sparing a cross glance up from her game, she saw Dib tossing an apple from palm to palm and staring in Zim's direction with a look of revenge evident on his face.

Personally, Gaz had a feeling the fruit throwing trend would continue on into the skool year endlessly if Dib tossed the apple now, but she shrugged and decided to watch. As long as none of the fruit ever hit her, why not let the two morons pummel each other with plant babies?

Dib pulled his arm back like Zim had the day before, and chucked it at the Irken's head with surprisingly good aim. A clawed hand shot up and smacked the red hurtling projectile away an instant before it thocked him in the skull, and Zim slowly dragged his eyes up from his tray. Dib and him locked glares, and Gaz could practically feel the stupid childish rivalry between the two of them crackling in the air.

The bell rang, and Zim stood up instantly and tossed his untouched tray in a nearby trashcan before stomping over to Dib. "You filthy human! How dare you throw that... that tree growth at ZIM'S mighty head!" The alien screamed angrily, and before Dib could launch into a tirade about how Zim had started it first, Gaz tugged his trench coat sleeve angrily causing him to bend down to her level and stumble a bit.

"Dib, I couldn't get this problem last night and I know you took this class last year. Do this problem for me or I'll make you pay dearly." Gaz threatened, thrusting her textbook in Dib's face.

The teenager floundered a bit, awkwardly accepting the book and squinting at the problem as students milled past them. "Hm...factoring, huh? Well...I remember some of it, but this has a bunch of variables, and uh... it-it's been a while, you know? So... uh..." Dib's attempt at saying he didn't know the answer was almost as pitiful as the fact that he didn't know it. (he had likely skipped that particular day to chase Zim around or something else dumb.)

Zim had been silently watching the exchange, and upon Dib's reluctant stammering, pushed the human aside and snatched the textbook out of his hands. "Hmph. Dib stink, you are normally not completely hopeless at math. I find your lack of ability to do this problem absolutely PATHETIC! Pathetic Earth filth!" Zim jeered at Dib, before also looking at the problem.

"Zim is in Calculus III Honors currently. There is NOTHING my MIGHTY BRAIN cannot compute!" The Irken stated superiorly, shaking a fist at Dib mockingly.

"So what is it? We're all going to be late if you don't just shut the hell up and tell me the answer so we can go." Gaz grouched, and Zim glared at her lightly for a moment before snapping the book shut.

The two beings glared at each other, as though testing the waters. Amber eyes hidden partially by purple bangs bored into fake lavendar irises narrowed in either contemplation or contempt; she couldn't tell which.

"3x(x squared + 2x – 5)." Zim answered in a clipped voice after the battle of wills ended with him looking away for a fraction of a second.

"Thank you." Gaz drew out the words in fake graciousness, taking the book from Zim's gloved hand. Now that she had the answer, she could most likely work the problem out on her own.

"It is nothing before me, puny child of meat and hair. For I am ZIM! Ruler of all equations!" The Irken brushed the thanks off, not noticing Dib's shocked look at Gaz bothering to "thank" someone- anyone- in the first place.

"In hi skool, that's called a "nerd." Dib informed Zim flatly, and the two of them bickered behind Gaz the entire way to class. Growling, she sped up through the crowd to escape the brain cell-destroying dispute. People took easy notice of her as she stalked by, and as soon as it clicked in their dull little brains who she was, they hastily shuffled aside to let her through. Pleased at the fear she so easily instilled in the dimwits, Gaz ducked into her classroom, leaving the squabbling teenagers behind in the hall. The sound of their argument passed by the closed door and faded, and the girl rolled her eyes; typical Zim and Dib.

Seating herself in her usual place at the back of the classroom, Gaz pulled out her notebook and began to doodle aimlessly as the teacher started up the class. She honestly couldn't give two shits about math, because a lot of what was taught in the classroom she picked up on quickly enough to warrant sitting around for the rest of the class pointless. She kept it under wraps as best she could, so as not to be found quite as weird as her brother, but calculations and science came easily to her.

"I guess it runs in the family." She mused. Smirking to herself, Gaz doodled Dib being eaten by an alligator. shading in the scales and putting a little blood for added effect, she didn't notice the teacher staring expectantly at her.

"Gaz? Are you drawing someone being eaten by a badger again?" The obnoxious voice of her teacher grated against her ears from the front of the classroom.

"No. Its an alligator today." Gaz remarked rudely, going back to drawing.

Her teacher huffed angrily, and crossed his arms. "Detention. Again." he said in a monotone voice, and Gaz waved a hand dismissively without looking up. They went through this routine at least three times a week, and usually as long as Gaz attended at least half of one of the given detentions, her teacher would simply let it slide. She was given leniency likely due to her grades, she assumed. Otherwise she'd have been issued countless referrals by now.

Passing the class half listening and half drawing, Gaz packed up her things before the bell sounded and tapped her fingernails impatiently on the desk. At last it rang, and she left the math classroom filled with smelly people and entered the detention hall a few doors down as per usual. What was not usual, however, was the green skinned alien walking stiffly into the room a few minutes after her. Noticing the only human in perhaps the entire skool that he knew other than Dib, Zim took a seat at the desk beside her.

"What are you doing here, human?" He asked curiously, pulling out a sheet of paper and a pencil from his strange backpack thing and placing them on the desk while waiting for her answer.

"My name is Gaz, you moronic space fungus." The girl hissed venomously, shooting Zim a pissed off look. He had better not annoy her the entire half hour she was supposed to stay here.

Zim seemed a little taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered with an incredibly mature tongue sticking out at her. Ignoring the childish display, Gaz answered his question. "I'm here at least once a week every week. It's stupid Mr. Dulberry's fault every time- I was only drawing this time around."

Zim blinked a moment, opening his mouth to ask what she meant by "this time", but seemed to think better of it and shut it again.

"Why are you here? I've never seen you in detention before." Gaz asked, pulling out her own writing supplies. She could ignore the alien after her curiosity was sated.

Zim blew out a puff of air angily, and ran a had through his wig a little. "Apparently," he began sarcastically "punching a worm baby so hard they vomit is frowned upon."

Gaz hid her grin behind a piece of hair. "And you only got a detention for that?" She asked in disbelief. That should have deserved suspension, or worse.

"It was a punch of justice!" Zim protested, making a fist. "He called me a...a... it sounded like "doosbag" in the middle of the lesson!"

Gaz had to swallow a rare laugh that almost escaped. Zim had punched someone for calling him something he didn't even understand? Now that was pretty funny. Pathetic, but funny.

Looking away from the alien's indignant profile, Gaz began working on a new masterpiece; Dib being eaten by a giant Africanized Killer Bee. She had gone through the typical menagerie of dangerous animals killing Dib- bears, sharks, wolves, giant squids, bigfoots (just to spite him), piranhas... and she was beginning to run out of creatures. So, choosing more unconventional animal murderers became a necessity.

Zim seemed to have taken her attention to her art as an end to the conversation, so he began writing things upon his own paper as the detention hall teacher stomped into the room. The gigantic whale of a lady with a decidedly awful perm heaved her bulk over to the teacher's desk at the front corner of the room and collapsed into it, breath wheezing in and out from the mere exertion of moving.

"Now you horrible little deviants...wheeze... I mean, children, you are here because...huff... you are unable to behave according to this institution's requirements...gasp... as such, there will be no talking, no sleeping, no eating...wheeze...no laughing, and no other sounds. Am I clear?" Here the woman broke off to heave a couple more disgusting sounding breaths of air, before looking over the students collected in the class.

A couple yes's eked out, and from Zim a "Yes sir." made her narrow her eyes to the point where they almost disappeared into her pudgy face rolls. Gaz was aware the lady knew her well enough to not expect any form of acknowledgement from the dark teen, and Gaz didn't even bat an eyelash at the commands. In a few minutes, all those rules would be broken anyway.

"Good. Now I'm going to go drown my sorrows in a bowl of Coco Splodeys. BEHAVE!" The whale woman yelled, and reached into the minifridge under the desk and pulled out her favorite cereal.

That proved to be the cue to let all hell break loose, as the idiotic teenagers instantly began talking and moving around. Gaz colored in the stinger of the bee which was lodged in Dib's comically enormous head as she tuned out as much of the inconsequential gossip around her as she could.

"Did you talk to Richie yet? Like, omg, you totally have to! He's had his eye on you for almost a whole day now, gurl! It must be love!"

"Hey, why weren't you online last night playing Call of Booty, man? You promised you'd be on!"

"Look at that girl over there...she's here like every week, but she never says or really does anything. She's, like, creepy."

That last whisper managed to catch her attention despite herself, and Gaz tried unsuccessfully to tune the bimbo's odious voice out.

"And it looks like that Zip kid knows her too. Figures; freaks gotta stick together. I wouldn't want to get on her bad side though- she looks like she'd, like, kill me or something."

Gaz had to embrace the bloom of satisfaction created by that statement. So, her reputation from even elementary and middle skool had yet to fade. She was still the doom queen, and would always be. And right now, a certain girl was simply begging to be doomed.

Turning only her head around from her seat, Gaz pinned the blonde ditz with a soul destroying glare. She swore she saw the girl shrink up a little in terror, and after keeping her gaze fixed for just a few more uncomfortable moments, she returned to her drawing. Finishing it up within a few minutes, Gaz looked it over and nodded. It was definitely good enough to add to her "Unfortunate Events Happening to Dib" notebook.

Pulling said notebook out, as Gaz went to add her newest addition in, she didn't notice the stare she was getting from the desk beside her. Tucking the bee picture in between the shark and the tiger, she was about to slip it back into her bag when a hand shot out and snatched it away with lightning speed.

Staring at the place where her notebook had been in her hands a second prior, Gaz slowly looked up and over to see Zim leafing through it with a barely contained expression of glee.

How dare he. Nobody even so much as attempted to touch her things, ever. Nobody.

Had they not been in detention hall, Zim would have been vaporized into a little pile of soot from the sheer strength of her hate right then. As it was, all she could do was quiver in silent rage and doom the alien in the confines of her mind. As soon as they were released from here, he would be in a world of nightmarish pain.

He seemed oblivious to the lurking threat however, as he thumbed through the pages. Each picture seemed to amuse him even more than the last, and he was making a visible attempt to hold in his telltale maniacal laughter. Seeming disappointed when he reached the end of the book (Dib being gored by an elephant), he finally looked up to pass the journal back to Gaz.

And promptly felt his squeedly spooch wither in terror.

Ok, so this is one of my new stories gais. :D An eventual Zagr, bear with me for this first chapter; I gotta set the scene and all, you know? And seriously, review and tell me what you think of Gaz! She's actually harder to write than I anticipated, and I want to keep her (mostly) in character.