By animeninjaNIPPON

It had to happen sooner or later. Years of cat-and-mouse games had gotten them nowhere, but now Zim had gone too far – he had actually (most likely by accident) created a nuclear doomsday device, and he planned to destroy Earth with it. Dib couldn't take the chance of waiting for Zim to screw up, but he could take his father's atomic laser gun… and that's what he did.

"Stop, Zim!" Dib cried out with his hands (and weapon) concealed behind his back.

"Foolish HUMAN! Do you THINK you can stop ZIM?" was his rival's overconfident response.

Dib revealed his gun, aiming it directly at Zim's green head. This caught Zim off-guard.

"This is your last warning," Dib threatened.

"Oh, how LONG has THIS gone on for?" Zim replied evasively as he backed up into a table. "You can't kill me! Only I know how to turn off the DOOMSDAY device, and I'll never tell YOU how!"

"Fine," Dib yelled, slowly squeezing the trigger, "I'll figure it out myself! See you on the other side, Zim!" As he pulled the trigger, he unexpectedly felt the wind being knocked out of him. Sub-zero adrenaline shot its way through his body as he began to choke on a warm, liquid substance. He grabbed his chest as he gasped for air, and his hand came away bloody. He looked up at Zim, who stood two feet to the side of a smoking hole in the wall holding a gun of his own. Dib had been shot.

"Y-You… Zim…" Dib tried desperately to speak but no words could come out coherently. He reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out an envelope, trudging his way over to his foe. Zim eyed him with curiosity and a hint of fear as he held out the envelope. "Take it," he coughed.

Zim yanked the envelope out of Dib's outstretched hand. Between the bloodstains and crimson fingerprints he could make out his name in black ink. Without a second thought, he opened the envelope and read the letter inside:

Zim —

If you are reading this, it is because you have somehow managed to kill me. You're probably wondering why I was bent on stopping you all these years. Well, at first I thought it would be cool to see a real live alien, but when you stepped into that classroom and everyone thought you were normal, I resented you – how could people think you were a regular human when everyone thought I was a freak? Then I found out that you really did want to destroy my planet, which made me think I could be a hero if I could expose you. It's a shame, really – in another life, another place, another time, we could have been friends. Maybe more, if nature would allow.

— Dib

"W-WHAT?" Zim stammered, looking away from the letter. By this time, though, Dib was already on the ground in perpetual silence.

Zim crumpled the letter with one hand and turned away toward his computer. "My mission isn't over yet."

He contacted the Tallest and told them about what he did, as well as his plans for the doomsday device.

"We are so TIRED of listening to your asinine ramblings," Red snapped.

Zim was taken aback. "I beg your pardon, my Tallest?"

"If you haven't realized by now that we couldn't care less about you or your phony mission, you're an idiot," Purple added. "It was funny for a while, but now it's just old."

"It's over, Zim." Red cut the connection.

All of a sudden, as Zim stared in shock at the blank computer screen, he was overcome with emotion. "No, it's not!"

With that, he ran over to his nuclear doomsday device and began smashing it with a crowbar, ripping out wires whenever they were exposed. As soon as the device was totaled, he raced over to where Dib's body was lying.

"It seems like we were both working for a planet that didn't care about us," Zim said, kneeling down in the pool of blood to pick up Dib's laser gun. As he bent over to study his late nemesis, he noticed something bizarre – Dib was smiling!

"Dib-human! Wake up!" Zim cried, shaking Dib violently in false hopes that he was still alive. Then Zim recalled a line from the letter…

… In another life, another place, another time, we could have been friends…

He placed his hand on the bloody hand of the dead boy. "Maybe in the next life, we'll be more than friends." With his other hand, he brought the laser gun close to his head and tightly shut his red eyes.

Within moments, the two enemies became much closer in death than they ever were in life.

The End