"Now, you see class, the human tongue is a very interesting organ in the body. Like fingerprints, if you were to make a printing of your tongue, it would be completely unique. No one has the same tongue print as you."

Dib sighed, slouching in his seat. When he would ever need to use his new knowledge on the Human tongue in his future, he didn't know. However, he took the notes anyways. He glanced across the way at Zim, who rested his feet on his table, staring at the clock. His face cast an expression of boredom.

Human biology was a particularly boring class in Dib's opinion, although Zim seemed to find it rather interesting. He often asked questions, whether they were on the current subject in the class's curriculum or not. However, despite his constant curiousness in Human biology, even Zim appeared to find learning about the human tongue extremely boring.

"Now, I'm going to hand out your review." the teacher explained, "It's homework if you don't finish in class. Test tomorrow!"

Dib groaned and looked over his worksheet when he got it. On it was fifty questions about the human tongue. He groaned again.

"What's the date today?" a girl sitting near Dib asked as she filled out her name.

"The twenty-third," another boy answered.

Zim sat up so straight in his seat that he almost fell over, catching the attention of the entire class. He stood up abruptly and crossed the room. He stood over the boy who'd announced the date, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him close.

"What did you say?!"

"It's-it's the twenty-third," the boy stuttered, sweating nervously. Zim's eyes widened to the size of bowls, and he dropped the boy to the ground. He raised his hand straight up and into the air with a surprising urgency. When the teacher failed to notice, he stretched his hand higher, waving his 3-fingered hand around with an urgent grunt. The teacher, who sat at her desk, finally glanced up through her glasses without moving her head. She looked annoyed.

"Yes, Zim?" she asked.

"I need your permission to be excused from this wretched room in order to relieve my sudden and most dire urge for the Human facilities," Zim replied, practically dancing in his place. His foot tapped anxiously, and he crossed his arms with his fingers drumming on his bicep. He impatiently shifted his weight back and forth as he awaited a response.

The teacher looked him up and down, an expression of annoyance on her face. Her lips puckered before she let out a sigh and said; "Fine, go quickly, and come straight back."

Zim gave the teacher a military salute before zipping out of the room. Dib followed the alien with his eyes as he exited the class, resting his chin in his palm. When Zim exited, he turned left which was not the way to the nearest bathroom.

Dib sat up. He looked out the classroom's window, waiting. Surely enough, after a moment, he spotted Zim running down the sidewalk in the direction of his base. This made Dib's mind run wild, his stomach tying in knots. What about that day's date would make Zim flee from the school with such urgency? Perhaps he had a new, deadly serum that needed weekly checking. Maybe his newest ray of death was set to go off in fifteen minutes. What if his newest Human experiment had been scheduled to show signs of having its first zombie-like characteristics today?

What is he up to? Dib wondered, his teeth clenching. This was his only thought now. It plagued his mind, and he knew it would if he stayed in school for the rest of the day. He couldn't stay there; He had the world to save!

Dib practically stood up he raised his hand with such a force, "Mrs. Trueheart? I'm not feeling so well. Could I go to the nurse's office?" he smiled innocently.

Mrs. Trueheart glanced up without moving her head again, distrust in her eyes. This was a common mannerism for her.

"Once Zim gets back," she replied, glancing back down.

Dib's stomach dropped. He needed to get out of school immediately! Zim wasn't coming back! There was no way he had simply gone to his base for a bathroom. Actually, Dib was fairly sure Zim didn't even need bathrooms in his life.

"But-I-I feel like I'm about to throw up!" Dib said. Mrs. Trueheart looked unconvinced. Dib looked around. He had the attention of the entire class.

Hesitating, he made his body lurch like he was about to be sick. Immediately, his classmates retreated to the side of the room opposite to Dib, as if a monster was about to come bursting out of Dib's mouth to kill them. Mrs. Trueheart was leaning back in her chair, looking appalled. Dib felt his face turn red.

"Fine, go to see the nurse." Mrs. Trueheart replied, "And bring your things with you…class is almost over."

Dib leapt up, swinging his backpack around his shoulder and holding his test review in his hand. He tried to exit the classroom in a manner that didn't say he was about to ditch school to prevent an alien from infiltrating the planet, but he could tell his fast pace was killing the vibe. Nervously, he slowed down and tried to walk casually until he exited the classroom.

Once Dib was out of the room, he darted down the hallway towards the nearest exit and out the school's metal doors. The crisp, cool air of late fall greeted him outside, kissing his cheeks. However, the sun made up for the cool day, creating a warm presence as fluffy clouds flew by overhead.

Dib bounded down the sidewalk, fall leaves crunching under his feet as he ran. He passed several people as he dashed down the sidewalk, and they watched him as he went by, confused expressions on their faces. He was going so fast that it seemed by the time they noticed he was there, he was already gone.

Dib ran until he wheezed, but he didn't stop there. He only stopped when Zim's base came into view, and he saw its purple roof splitting into two. Zim's voot ascended out from between the two parts of the split roof. As one might expect, Zim was inside, undisguised.

The voot turned around in place, and then quickly zoomed away into the sky. And then Zim was gone, disappeared into space to do who knows what.

Dib watched in awe for a moment, before running up to the abnormal, green house. The gnomes didn't try to stop him this time; thank goodness. He peeked through the window. GIR sat on the couch, intently watching a cartoon that was clearly aimed for the youngest of audiences.

Zim wouldn't leave his robot behind if the Earth were about to blow up. Why, Dib didn't know. It seemed as if Zim would get along just as fine, or perhaps even better, without his robot henchmen. But why Zim kept his broken-minded robot didn't matter, not at the moment. Dib knew he wasn't going to the alien grocery store to get eggs for his alien cake (quite frankly, Dib didn't even think that Zim ate cake). Zim was going somewhere, somewhere important! Somewhere evil! Dib had to find out where he was going and why he was going there. The fate of the Earth may have depended on it!

Dib turned from the peculiar alien base and began jogging again, this time in the direction of his own house.

When he reached his own home, Dib burst through the front door and straight into the kitchen. He tossed his backpack into the nearest corner and located the magnetic notepad on the fridge. Picking up a miscellaneous pen on the counter, he began to write;

Hi, Gaz. Zim is up to something. In space this time! It's up to me to stop whatever he's up to! There's leftover pizza in the fridge. – Dib

Dib could hear her groan of annoyance already. He pinned it to the refrigerator, and stood back, staring at his note for a moment. He briefly thought that maybe it wasn't a good idea, but quickly decided he'd be fine. Gaz would be glad to have him out of her hair. Then, he exited the kitchen into the garage.

Tak's ship; it was sassy, and it hated having him as a pilot, judging from previous trips into space. Despite this, it still flew pretty well. He would just turn off its personality interface this time in hopes that it made the trip go easier.

Dib crawled into the cockpit, and swiped his hand along multiple screens, turning on the ship. Before he could get to turning off the personality interface systems, they booted up, and the grumpy ship greeted him.

"Oh, it's you," Tak's voice said in an annoyed tone.

"Yeah, hi." Dib rolled his eyes, "Zim mysteriously left the planet, probably to do evil stuff. Do you think you could follow him?"

"I can," the ship said.

Dib rolled his eyes again, "Will you?"

"Ugh, I suppose," the ship sighed. There was a moment of silence, "I've located his ship. Preparing to leave the planet in five…four…thr-"

"Wait!" Dib halted the countdown, "'I'm not ready!"

With that, he slid out of the ship, and made his way back into the kitchen. Picking up his backpack from the corner, he made his way up the stairs, skipping steps on his way. At the top, he ventured down the hall and into his room.

Dib emptied out the contents of his backpack onto his bed. He pondered what he might want to bring into space with them. After a moment of thinking, he pulled out a shoe box from under his bed and uncovered the lid. There was a water gun inside. He looked it over. It was small, but it held enough water to fend off an irken if need be. It was currently filled with water from the bird bath in the backyard (Dib had noticed over time that water straight from a natural source seemed to affect Zim better than water from the tap). He shoved the water gun in his bag.

Dib was in the process of leaving his room when he turned back. He reluctantly grabbed his laptop and his tongue review from earlier, shoving them into his bag, telling himself that they were for in case the trip was long.

He traversed back down to the kitchen and opened the pantry door. He scanned its inner contents for a moment before taking a family size bag of potato chips and a box of granola bars. He crossed the room to the fridge and slid the last five sodas into his bag, reminding himself that Gaz would kill him for it when he got home.

Slipping his bag around his shoulder, Dib ran back out to the garage, and climbed into the ship's cockpit, "Okay, I'm ready."

The ship let out a groan of annoyance, and started its liftoff, rising a few feet off the ground. It eased slowly out of the garage, seeming to be aware of all its surroundings. Once the boy and ship were out of the structure, the ship took a sharp turn and shot up towards the sky at an incredibly sharp angle. Dib was forced against the driver's seat, not even being able to let out a scream due to the suddenness of the situation.

Up and up the ship went. The force was almost too much to handle at first, but just as Dib felt as if he would pass out, the ship eased a bit. It slowed in speed and eased its angle, cruising.

The next thing Dib knew, there were stars everywhere. They speckled the space around him, bringing light to the inky blackness. Gaseous nebulas painted the void. Earth loomed behind him, spinning slowly. Its blue, green, and white colors swirled together. It was something Dib had seen before, but it still took his breath away every time.

As much as he wanted to, there was no time to sit and gawk at the beauty of space. Dib observed all the controls that the ship currently had running. He was particularly attracted to a small tab labeled "guide-ship info."

He didn't ask Tak's ship about this. Instead, he pressed on the tab with his finger. A list of information about Zim's voot cruiser came up. Dib read the information to himself;

Zim's ship type was a voot cruiser. His ship's number was FN2187. He was located in galaxy 99-B. He was currently cruising faster than light. He had autopilot turned on. And he had autopilot set to take him to….Dib gasped.

Irk.

((A/N: Well, that marks the end of the first chapter. I'm not extremely excited about how I started things, but it has to start somewhere, y'know?

I have lots of plans for this fanfic. Whether I go through with them or not, I guess we'll see. I've never written a chapter fic before, so I'm very nervous about how things will turn out, but I'm gonna stay determined.

ALSO, if you found the Star Wars reference then you get a gold star. Also, I named their teacher after Eric Trueheart, one of the writers on the show. I needed a name, and when I looked up a list of last names, Trueheart came up. I decided the list was telling me to make references.

Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed this first chapter here. Thank you for reading, and have a fabulous day!))