Author's Note: Oh my, seems the two worlds are actually mixing and meshing successfully. I'm surprised, in a very good way. I thought I was insane for mixing up Tim Burton and Jhonen Vasquez works after others had done it already with results as mixed up as the previous stories. Now, I know I'm insane, but at least it's a good insane, right?
Dib wasn't the only one who had Jack on his mind at the moment. Professor Membrane was busy at work fixing the Dimensional Traveler with his team. At moments he grew so frustrated he smacked himself in the forehead. Inter-dimensional travel? What was he thinking! Was he thinking? Where was Simmons with his coffee?
"Simmons?" Professor Membrane asked as a goggled scientist holding a clipboard nearly walked past him.
"Yes, sir?" he asked, tapping a pencil to the papers on the clipboard.
"Did you get the coffee?"
"What coffee?" Simmons asked, nearly jumping back when Professor Membrane slammed his fist on a nearby table.
"How am I supposed to fix this thing without a decent amount of caffeine in my system?"
"But-"
"No buts, Simmons! Look at it, it looks perfectly fine but it's lying there, taunting me with a glitch so small not even my built in microscopes can spot them. I can't keep doing this without energy, none of us can," Professor Membrane ranted before someone tapped him on the shoulder. "What?"
"Medium regular, cream no sugar," said another lab assistant, calmly giving Professor Membrane his coffee before attending to another duty.
"I think you sent someone else to get it, sir," Simmons said with a sheepish grin.
"Sorry for jumping to conclusions, Simmons," Professor Membrane said as he swigged some coffee. "I only assumed, since you usually handle my affairs."
"You would have been right if it were any other day, sir," Simmons suggested. "By the way, I checked your messages at the main office. There has been no reported sightings of the inter-dimensional traveler."
"None yet," Professor Membrane said as both men heard something fall to the floor behind them.
"We found the problem, sir!" exclaimed a proud female scientist, wiping grease off of her gloves. "Something got stuck in the wiring during the inter-dimensional shifting."
"Can it be removed?" Professor Membrane asked as he and Simmons stepped closer to the open wiring panel.
"You tell us," she said as she moved aside from the panel, taking its covering off of the floor as she moved.
It seemed almost impossible, but there it was- a rubber piggy. At least, parts of a rubber piggy. It seemed to have fused with the wiring, causing all kinds of misreads and bad connections. As a natural deterrent to electricity, it made sense that the rubber in the piggy was hindering the effects of the wiring. It looked to be pretty stuck in there, so Professor Membrane had only one way to remedy the problem.
"We have to rewire the system. Take all of these wires out and dispose of them. Borrow some wiring from the Electronics Sector and let's get this done in exactly twenty-four hours," Professor Membrane said. "Well don't just stand there, move."
"But, professor, the original wiring took weeks."
"Simmons, we don't have weeks. Every moment we dawdle here, there's a dimension out there missing one of its elements. This could be more dangerous than the space-time continuum! We have to fix this mess before the wrong elements in the wrong places cause irreversible damage."
"How bad could something like that turn out?" Simmons asked.
"It could cause catastrophe, Simmons," Professor Membrane said before going to work on the piggy-infested wiring.
Meanwhile...
"Gimme the candy!" GIR ordered Oogie Boogie before whacking the boogie man with a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire.
"For the last time- I'm not a piñata!" Oogie Boogie yelled at GIR, taking away the bat as he did so. "ZIM!"
"Yes, Squish Bag?" Zim asked, much more relaxed now that he had removed his contact lenses and toupee.
"Did you tell your trash can I had candy inside of me?"
"How else was I to inspect this area without distraction?" Zim asked, magenta-shaded eyes squinting to convey his distrust in Oogie's question.
"I only allowed you to change, which shouldn't have taken long, now that I look at you."
"I WANT IT!" GIR yelled, pointing to the bat.
"Fetch," Oogie said as he threw the baseball bat across the room, GIR immediately running after it seconds later.
"I should do what I want. Not only am I your guest, I'm your master," Zim said to Oogie Boogie in a pompous tone.
"Boy, don't test my patience. In a few minutes, you'll find yourself back on my bad side and you don't want to be there," Oogie threatened, bending over to Zim's level, close enough to make the Irken squirm.
"Fine, next time I'll let GIR loose on the grounds," Zim said shakily as he marched past Oogie Boogie. "Besides, you should be in a better mood once you see what I did to the place downstairs."
"Excuse me?" Oogie Boogie said.
"Throw it again, please," GIR said to Oogie Boogie, returning with the bat.
"What did you do to my casino?"
"I made it better."
"Boy, you can't just waltz in here and mess with my casino!"
"For the last time, ZIM is no boy. I'm probably older than you."
"Pft, in your dreams, or nightmares. Whichever come first."
"I didn't sleep in my world, I'm definitely not sleeping here. That's why I made the modifications to your cas-i-no. If you're not going to help me take over the Earth, I might as well make progress here while the Dib can't stop me. That way, when I do get back to my dimension, I'll be ready."
"I wanna play fetch again!" GIR yelled before smacking his head with the baseball bat. He enjoyed the sensation so much he did it again, and again, and again. "Wheee hoo!"
"You know, since I'm keeping you safe here, I think I deserve a cut of that Earth you keep talking about," Oogie Boogie said.
"Forget it!"
"Ok, I'll just report you to the Mayor."
"Wait! Alright, but on one condition, Squish Bag," Zim said.
"Call me that again and I'll drag you to the Mayor before it leaves your lips."
"Fine. Oogie Boogie, I will give you a small province on Earth, but only if you can keep me safe from the Halloweenies for the rest of my days."
"Not a problem. You already got rid of the worst one anyway."
"I did?" Zim asked before holding his head up proudly. "Yes, of course. How could I not? I'm Zim."
"Good for you," Oogie Boogie said as he started to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Zim asked Oogie.
"To make sure you didn't complete ruin my casino. Hey, what's your tra- I mean, robot's name?"
"GIR," Zim said before tilting his head in suspicion. "Why?"
"Hey, GIR, Zim has candy in his head if you can crack it open with that bat," Oogie Boogie said before disappearing into the shadows.
"CURSE YOU, OOGIE!" Zim yelled as GIR advanced on him with the barbed-wire baseball bat, "CURSE YOOOOOOU!"
Meanwhile...
"This is the best place I've ever been in my afterlife," Barrel said to Shock and Lock as they walked around the many corridors of Zim's underground lab.
"Shooting those chickens into space was fun," Lock said to Barrel.
"Yeah, too bad we ran out."
"Think we'll find any more of those radioactive weasels?"
"I hope so."
"I can't wait until we find the Weapon Room," Shock said to the boys, who nodded furiously.
"Yeah. Didn't one of the screens say it was around here?" Barrel asked Shock.
"Probably. There are a bunch of screens floating around. We could be lost here forever," Shock said.
"Sounds good to me," Lock said as a screen hovered towards them.
"Incoming Transmission from the Tallest," the screen said.
"Who are they?" Shock asked.
"The leaders of the Irken Empire. It's pretty important."
"What's an Irken?" Lock asked.
"Who cares, just answer it," Barrel said to Shock.
"Ok, we'll talk to them," she told the screen.
The screen's image changed from a smiling Irken head to that of two Irkens who seemed to tower above all of the other Irkens manning controls behind them. They would have passed as identical in shape, but that was about it. One wore a metallic red and black robe to match his red eyes while the other wore a metallic robe in purple shades, the darker of which matched his eyes. The purple-eyed one seemed to have dropped a doughnut in horror when his eyes met those of Lock, Shock, and Barrel. That horror was confirmed when he screamed.
"AH! Red, what are those ugly things?" he squealed, shielding his eyes with his two-fingered hands.
"Calm down, Purple. We probably got the wrong planet," said the red-eyed one. "Sorry to bother you, obey the Empire and the Almighty Tallest."
"No, you got the right place," Lock said.
"Really?" asked Red, a glimmer of hope shining in his eyes. "Well, if this is Earth, connect us with Zim."
"Who?" Barrel asked.
"Zim. The guy who owns the house you're in?" asked the one known as Purple.
"He's not here," Shock said.
"Where is he? Not that we particularly care, but we just want to know if he's in pain," Red said.
"He's probably in pain," Barrel said. "Especially if he met Oogie Boogie. He's the meanest guy around."
"Can you send us footage of this pain?" Purple asked, stuffing a doughnut into his mouth as he did so.
"Nope. We just got here," Lock said.
"Do you know how long Zim will be gone and in pain?" Red asked.
"If we have it our way, forever," Shock said.
"WHOO!" the Tallest exclaimed before they hi-fived.
"What do you want us to do with all his stuff?" Barrel asked.
"Well, Zim was supposed to take over the planet, not that he was ever going to succeed," Red said to Purple.
"Yeah, might as well let those three take it," Purple said to Red, who nodded and then faced the trick-or-treaters.
"Alright, soldiers. You may not be Irken, but you have full permission to use any and all weapons at your expense to take over the planet you're on. Welcome to serving the Irken Empire," Red said before saluting to the three and having his image fade on their screen.
"Better find those weapons," Lock said to Shock and Barrel, who nodded excitedly and led the way along another corridor to begin their new mission.
To Be Continued...