The Occult Experience

Chapter Nine

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"Bum-bum-bum-bum-badda-bum-bum hm-hm-hm-hm-hnna-hm-hm." Al hummed and sang to himself as he moved through the kitchen, watched warily by Dib.

He was just so upbeat this morning, something not even Shauna could imitate so far as he'd seen. Then again, the newer demon seemed to be a strange mixture of extremes. He seemed to have access to powerful magic, and never used any of it. Seemed pretty smart, and still made a lot of small, stupid mistakes. Had the extremely serious job of cleaning up dead planets, but refused to do the job and laughed about it.

Were it not for the fact that Al seemed to be aware of what he was doing, Dib would assume him to be the demon equivalent of the normal people he was around.

"Isn't that the song in that one movie, Nightmare after Thanksgiving, or something?" It was right at the edge of Dib's memory, it was a good movie, but he hadn't seen it in years.

"Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Great place to visit about this time of year." Al flipped the toast in the skillet over, pushing the egg right into the heat.

"Yeah, that's I- Whad'ya mean "Visit"?" Dib poured himself a glass of orange juice at the table as he asked.

"Everything exists somewhere Dib. You know about the entanglement theory stuff?" Dib shook his head. "According to some physics, once upon a time, all was one, and one was all, and all things that exist affect, effect, whatever, um… Exert their influence upon, there we go, all things that exist exert their own influence upon all other things with which they were once connected, with some people being more able to do so and being called "Psychics" or having some kind of kinetic power, y'know, pyrokin-"

"I know all that stuff already, well, kinda, but how's this connect with you and Halloween town, which I was pretty sure didn't exist?" Al looked decidedly put-out after Dib's interruption as he scooped the egg and toast out of the skillet and on to a plate.

"You gonna want more of those?" Dib nodded. Al pulled out another slice of bread, buttered both sides, and put it in the searing-hot cookware. He pushed on the bread a little bit, before cracking an egg on the side of the skillet and dripping it into the dip in the bread.

"It all kind of connects with reality as a whole, and it's a really, really big whole. Just imagine a ball, made out of strings. It has one string, right in the center, and we call that the prime reality, which isn't where we're at. Well somewhere near the beginning of the string, another string kind of popped out, and runs nearly parallel to its originator. And another string, and another, and some of those other strings had little string come out of them that were a little less parallel and they had little strings, and it's a great big growing mess. The further the string is away from the prime, the less inhibited it is by what you'd call fundamental laws of reality, and physics, and especially common- Ooh, time to flip the toast." Dib poured himself another glass of orange juice during the short pause.

"Halloween town is a bit further out in the great vastness of the multiverse, but at one point in time it was a part of the original Prime reality, and someone out there was able to interact with the great macro-cosmos and view bits and pieces of that reality, enough to make a story out of. Because everybody, everywhere, is connected to it all, has the potential to view all possibility, but aren't able to hold on to that connection long enough to do much more than some wishful thinking. It's both amazing and depressing, isn't it?" Dib nodded as he chewed his egg-and-toast thing, which was something else he could swear he'd seen in a movie, but couldn't remember.

"The real skinny of it, Dib, is that all fiction exists somewhere in the span of the multiverse, and I've had the fortune and misfortune of going to some of those places to fulfill my job." Dib barely finished his egg and toast before Al had grabbed his plate to place his second helping.

Dib had already taken a bite of the egg and toast when Gaz walked into the kitchen. She was stomping, she was squinty eyed, she was making a gurgling sound in the back of her throat that almost sounded like a growl and she had deep bags under her eyes.

"Food. Me. NOW!" Dib tapped his chin with the handle of his fork as he watched his little sister pulling out the cereal from the cupboards. He was slightly worried, he hadn't heard her say anything that wasn't monosyllabic lately, and was afraid she may have given up on them as taking too much time away from her video-game piggies.

"Gaz, you don't look so good, should you be going to school?" He'd much rather avoid his sister, knowing that any olive branch extended to her would be quickly broken, but he had to at least make a token attempt.

"What do you care, Skipper?" Ooh, a response that took more effort that a grunt, and a nickname that wasn't 'Whiner'. "I just didn't get any sleep, but that's what class is for."

"So why didn't you get any sleep?"

"Dreams."

"About?"

"A one-eyed, one-armed weirdo cooking me and singing. Happy now? Eating." Dib saw the tips of Al's ears turn red, but he couldn't tell if he was smiling or blushing because his back was turned and he was cleaning the dishes he'd used.

"Lord Ha-*CLANG!*" Dib's eyes went wide in shock as Shauna took a soapy skillet to the face. Gaz seemingly ignored the flying kitchenware both as it collided with Shauna's skull, and then the floor.

"You okay Shauna? I didn't see you there." Dib could kind of understand that. Al had not, in fact, turned around.

"I'm fine, Al." Oh yeah, if Dib could hear the sarcasm, she wasn't happy. "I was just coming in, planned on having a few words with Dib about some things that need taking care of, and see you in a frilly pink apron! Frilly and Pink! So I think, 'does he do this often' and I go to say you're name, and you throw a wet pan at me! If I had nerve endings you wouldn't do any of this to me, you unfeeling jerk!"

She grabbed the soapy pan and threw it back at Al, who simply caught the pan and returned to scrubbing it. Shauna let loose an inarticulate scream of rage, picked up the front of her cloak, and stomped out of the kitchen.

"Soo… You think that was my fault?" The only answer Al received was the muffled crunching of Gaz and her cereal.

/?\

"Welcome back, Invader Meyn, from your successful subjugation of the planet of broken glass." One of the two tallest, Red, said to the smaller, red eyed irken.

"In recognition of your sterling efforts, we've decided to reward you with a special, new mission." Purple joined in. The two tallest were talking to the smaller irken over a holo-communication, which made it so much easier to hide the fact that they were snacking. Invader Meyn was still docked against The Massive, but had been refused entry so far.

"Yeah, you see, that planet we sent Zim to, for his 'secret' mission?" Red made quotation marks around the word secret as he spoke. "Has proven to have some invaluable resources. Like natural sugar, and we'd like you to get some of this 'Chok Lit' stuff for our scientists to make an Irk Safe replication."

"So your new mission is to survey this E-Arth planet for viable resources and determine if it's worth actually invading, or if we should just steal some good stuff and leave it alone."

The red eyed irken, taller than Zim, but shorter than some, wiggled it's antennae in salute to the tallest. It looked over the mission specs sent to the onboard Voot Shooter computer and gave the tallest a hand salute as they shut off the communications link.

/?\

"Y'know, on second thought, I don't think an oil based chemical would be a good idea. If it gets too hot, like getting too close to a star, or atmospheric re-entry, couldn't it just burn off, or get too thin and run out of the holes or somethin'?" It was a few hours shy of lunch-time, and Dib was attempting to do some more work on his ship.

Shauna, behind him, was apparently still fuming about the pan from earlier as she attempted to walk a trench into the garage floor. After the first hour or so the clak-clak-clak noises stopped being irritating, and more… less irritating.

"I know not, Dib. The workings of your machines and your alchemy make no sense to me. I know that fat-oils grow thinner as they are used for heat, and grow hard again when cold, but I also know that you are not speaking about those. To make your craft space-worthy, or whatever word you use, I know of some methods, but-but you have to ask that… that… AL!"

Oh yeah, she was definitely not happy.

"That bastard is an artificer of much renown, known for his creations, his power, and his utterly CHILDLIKE TEMPERMENT!" Dib would normally consider it a problem when he could hear teeth grinding, but he was pretty sure there was little the Lich could do to muffle the noise.

Except, y'know, not do it, but Dib was smart enough not to make such a comment to an enraged woman.

He was also smart enough to shut the hatch of the ship while he worked so he couldn't hear her.

Now… Why does this symbol look like a smiley face whenever he touches the screen once, and moves to a sleepy face, then a bored face the next?

AN/ I don't intend Meyn to be an OC. The character can be found in the first IZ episode, third from the left in the scene wherein we can see the Tallest and Skoodge is off to the side.