Author's Note: Whew, 'bout time I updated this odd little story. Come to think of it, it's not so little anymore. Well, I guess when one is working with creations by Tim Burton and Jhonen Vasquez, things can get a little out of hand. Ok, very out of hand. How much so? You'll just have to read on to find out.
If Zim could see what was happening to one of his machines at the moment, his squeedily spooch would explode in outrage. Lucky for Zim, he and GIR were currently sneaking around the streets of Halloween Town, blissfully unaware of the madness in their world. Right now, they had a certain doctor to take care of. As they waited outside the lab, the pair could see a light flickering through the windows.
"I wanna say hi to the baldy duck man!" GIR said to Zim, impatience clearly getting the better of him.
"In a minute, GIR. And be quiet! I am not going to be taken by Halloweenies because of your desire to associate with them," Zim said.
"Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase?" GIR asked, head nearly spinning in the whine.
"GIR, stealth mode!" Zim exclaimed, proudly watching the robot salute and jump into a shadowy corner. "Finally," the Irken said to himself as he resumed spying.
No more than ten minutes later, Zim saw movement. The door to the lab opened, and out walked a hunchback on a leash. Behind him was a woman who appeared to be stitched together. She was the one holding the other end of the leash. Zim cringed in disgust. Apparently, some of the humans here were no better than animals. Then again, Zim was disgusted by anything remotely human to begin with. Still, the soldier brought his mind back to focus. The doctor wasn't with them. Good.
"GIR, follow me. GIR?" Zim asked, turning around to find that GIR was gone. "That robot! Fine, I'll kidnap him myself," the Irken huffed as he marched to the laboratory, loudly closing the door when he got inside.
"Sally? Back so soon?" the doctor's voice asked, causing Zim to panic.
"Where are they? Where?" he asked as he began digging in his PAK before finding just what he needed.
"Sally? Send Igor up here, I still need to make some minor-" Doctor Finkelstein said before finally rolling into Zim's line of vision. "What the- you!"
"Tremble in fear, elderly stinkbeast! Tremble!" Zim said as he cackled and threw metallic cords around the doctor, connecting them to his PAK.
"What is the meaning of this?" Doctor Finkelstein asked, struggling against the cords. "Unhand me!"
"SILENCE! You are in Zim's control now."
"No I'm not. I can think quite clearly. For example, I see you are an ill mannered brat who needs to be sent back home."
"You'll regret saying that," Zim said as he allowed his mechanical rods to lift him off of the ground and propel him out of the skylight of the lab, carrying Doctor Finkelstein along with him.
Meanwhile...
"Alright, Igor. You can frolic in the pumpkin patch, but not for too long," Sally said as she untied the leash from Igor's collar and watched the lab assistant jump right into a collection of jack o'lanterns. Well, he thought they were jack o'lanterns.
"Sally, that hurt," Igor said as he pointed to a metallic creature, definitely not a jack o'lantern.
"I'm gonna jump on you!" it exclaimed, causing Igor to crouch behind Sally in fear.
"It's not going to hurt you, Igor," she said. "I don't think so anyway."
"HI!" GIR chirped, waving as he did so.
"Hello there," Sally said, feeling a little uneasy about the way this creature she was talking to stared at her, almost drooling. Then it pounced, hugging her legs so tightly she felt they were going to come undone. "AH!"
"You're crunchy."
"Please let go," Sally said as she toppled over to the ground.
"I love you, crunchy lady," GIR said.
"That's sweet, really, but I need my legs."
"Awwwwwww," GIR said, sadly letting Sally go and then taking interest in Igor, who had started sniffing at his head.
"You're one of the people who came, aren't you?" Sally asked GIR.
"I dunno," GIR said, opening the top of his head and taking out a popsicle to snack on.
"You have to be. I've never seen you around here before."
"Maaaaybeeee."
"Listen, did you see a very tall skeleton go your way when you came here, or three little children?"
"OOOOH! Did they have big heads?"
"Big heads? No... why would they have big heads?" Sally asked, glancing over to Igor, who gave her the same bewildered look.
"Dib has a big head. It smells like a puppy too," GIR explained before giggling to himself and powering up his jets. "BYE!"
"Wait, don't go!" Sally yelled.
It was too late, GIR had already flown off into the distance, into Oogie Boogie's territory. Sally definitely didn't want to go there. She wished the poor thing well before taking Igor back to the lab. There, the pair made quite an upsetting discovery. Doctor Finkelstein was gone. His chair was beneath the skylight but neither his body or his brains were in the laboratory. That meant one thing- he was kidnapped.
"Igor, this is bad. Doctor Finkelstein is the only one who could have brought Jack and Boogie's Boys back. Oogie probably has him, and if I go there alone I don't know what he'll do to me," Sally said, shivering at the thought. "Oh, what to do?"
"Plans," Igor said, lightening up.
"What do you mean, Igor?" Sally asked.
"Master used plans to make something new."
"Show it to me."
"Follow me."
Igor led Sally to the Continuum Portal. In front was a metallic table on which an arm piece was lying. When worn, it would take up the entire forearm. Sally inspected it closely. Its wiring was exposed on the left side, the doctor was probably planning to fix that before he was taken. Still, when she pressed a large orange button in the right side, a small screen next to it lit up.
"What goes there?" Sally asked.
"Coordinates," Igor said before smiling at a box of dog treats left underneath the table.
"What coordinates? Where are they?" Sally asked Igor, who threw no less than four dog biscuits into his mouth.
"Look there," he mumbled, pointing to the portal.
"Coordinates, coordinates..." Sally said to herself as she looked at the portal's control panel. "Here's ours and this should be the last world we made contact with. Let's see," Sally said before punching in the numbers in the arm piece. "Zero, Three, Three, One, Two, Zero, Zero, One. There," she finished, putting the arm piece on her right forearm only to watch it slide a bit. "Oh, it's too big."
"Here," Igor said, tearing off some material from the bottom of his lab coat, dirtying it a bit with dog biscuit crumbs.
"That'll have to do," Sally replied, tying the piece tighter on her forearm and then turning on the portal. "Igor, make sure this doesn't turn off until we all come back."
"Come back soon," Igor said, waving as Sally hesitated and then stepped into the portal.
Meanwhile...
"BALDY DUCK MAN!" GIR exclaimed upon entering Oogie Boogie's lair and seeing Zim proudly standing next to his hostage.
"GIR, there you are. About time you got here," Zim said.
"Untie me!" Doctor Finkelstein yelled as a shadow loomed over him.
"Sorry, doc, you're on my turf now. Gotta play by my rules," Oogie Boogie said.
"You idiots! What do you think you're achieving by kidnapping me?"
"Hey, Zim is no idiot. Zim is magnificent," Zim said, getting a short round of applause from GIR.
"Keeping you from bringing Jack back, that's what," Oogie said.
"When Jack returns, which he will, he is going to tear you apart."
"I doubt it, geezer. Zim's got whatever you were working on, so Jack's stuck for good."
"Huh?" Zim asked.
"Something wrong, Zim?" Oogie asked.
"I only brought the decrepit excuse for a human. I didn't see anything he was working on."
"Decrepit! You have some nerve; untie me and let's see how clever you really are," Doctor Finkelstein said.
"Another word out of you and I'll empty your head and make it a swimming pool for the trash can," Oogie said to the doctor.
"YAY! I'll get my rubber piggy!" GIR exclaimed.
"You wouldn't dare," Doctor Finkelstein said.
"Those were three words, doc," Oogie Boogie said with a twisted smile on his face.
Normal people would have found what happened next quite disturbing. Oogie Boogie flipped open Doctor Finkelstein's head and swiftly removed his brain. He passed the brain to Zim, who nearly dropped it in shock. Zim had to keep himself from retching as Oogie filled Doctor Finkelstein's head with water, courtesy of a nearby bucket. The doctor put up no fight, for he was brainless. Instead, he stared into space and drooled. By the time Oogie was done, GIR had dug out a spare rubber piggy from his head and hopped right into the hostage's head.
"SPLISHY SPLASH!" GIR exclaimed in pure glee.
"Take this and give me the bucket," Zim said to Oogie, throwing the boogie man the brain and then retching in the bucket.
"How could you leave without the thing he was making? Moron," Oogie said.
"Well, we have his brain. We can copy his thoughts from it, can't we?" Zim asked once he was finished "using" the bucket.
"You know, that's actually a good idea. Scary."
"How is it scary? That was... that was my plan all along! Yep. I'm that brilliant," Zim said, tipping the bucket and spilling vomit all over himself. "My uniform!"
"Ha! Do us both a favor and clean yourself up before figuring out what to do with this geezer brain," Oogie Boogie said.
"GIR, enough recreation in the hostage's cranium. Fetch me some cleansing chalk and a rag."
"SHHH. Pig and me are playing Pirates. ARGH! Walk the plank, matey!" GIR said, throwing the rubber piggy at Zim and hitting him between the eyes.
"I'll get it myself, GIR," Zim said, clearly irritated as he walked to a secluded area of the lair to freshen up.
Meanwhile...
"Alright, Simmons, run that segment for me again," Professor Membrane said to his assistant as both men stood in front of many television screens broadcasting surveillance tapes of the conference.
"Notice this area of the machine after Crosser One makes his appearance," Simmons said as he paused the video, displaying what appeared to be a very confused skeleton man sitting on the floor in front of the Dimensional Traveler.
"I don't see anything," Professor Membrane said.
"Hold on, I'll close in on it," Simmons said as he isolated that one dark spot. "Now what do you see?"
"A shadow. No, wait... three shadows," Professor Membrane said.
"Three? Are you sure, sir?"
"Positive. Look at the areas of light where they separate. They appear to be shadows of three small children. He definitely wasn't alone."
"What are we going to do, sir?"
"Track them down as well. Perhaps it is better to keep the Dimensional Traveler under lock and key until this mess is fixed. Simmons, schedule the test-" Professor Membrane started before the door to the surveillance room slammed wide open.
"Professor! You're needed immediately," said the lab assistant who had opened the door.
"Is it the machine?"
"No, sir. It's who just came out of it that's the problem."
"That's impossible, it was turned off!"
"Tell her that," the assistant said as he motioned behind him.
Professor Membrane and Simmons peeked out into the hallway and gasped at what they saw. Two guards held a woman in between them. She looked both frightened and frightening. She seemed to be made of dead body parts sewn together, a Frankenstein creature in female form. Whatever world these people were coming from was definitely not good, and this was the fifth person to arrive. Not only that, but she arrived without their machine being turned on! Professor Membrane did what any dignified yet overworked scientist would have done in this situation- he fainted.
"You got him at a bad time," Simmons said to the assistant.
"What do we do with her?" he asked Simmons.
"Make sure she doesn't escape," Simmons ordered the three.
"Yes, sir," the three replied as they took the newest traveler to a, hopefully, secure area.
"Well, better get the smelling salts," Simmons said to himself as he dragged Professor Membrane into the room and then left to find them.
To Be Continued...