Author's Note: Heh heh, oh my. I don't know how I'm going to top that last chapter. Well, might as well try. Besides, I'm just paying homage to two very good works- The Nightmare Before Christmas and Invader ZIM. Once again, if you are not familiar with one of these works, do yourself a favor and watch it. You'll be glad you did.
The mall was crammed with video game addicts looking to pre-order Bleeding Swine Slayer. The amount of people was almost disgusting. Still, a deal was a deal. Dib and Jack stood on the line behind a rather twitchy and pudgy boy and waited for it to move forward. Dib sighed and hoped that maybe with this task, Gaz would lighten up on him and Jack. Maybe.
"I can't believe this," Dib said.
"Me either. This place is huge," Jack replied, looking all over the mall. "Look at all the stores. Halloween Town could fit in here easily."
"At least you're having fun," Dib said.
"Sure am. I've been waiting for the American version for six months!" exclaimed the twitchy boy in front of them.
"Sorry. I wasn't talking to you," Dib said.
"My name's Iggins," the boy said, ignoring Dib's comment. "I've had the Japanese import for ages, but only the American version has the level with the Zombie Swine from Outer Space. I can't wait to get my hands on them!"
"Zombie swine from outer space?" Jack asked, eye sockets widening in awe. "Wow. They must be terrifying."
"They don't exist, it's only a game," Dib said to Jack. "Well, at least, I haven't come across any real ones yet."
"What kind of a gamer are you?" Iggins asked Dib with a condescending tone. "A newbie? I bet you haven't even played Vampire Piggy Hunter through its secret endings."
Dib sighed in exasperation. Between Jack's ignorance and Iggins' ultra-geekdom, he was getting a killer headache. All he wanted was to place the pre-order and go home without getting caught by his father. At the moment, Dib also wanted for that Iggins boy to leave him alone. Well, one of his wishes came true when a large, four-legged machine crashed through the glass ceiling of the mall and landed in the fountain. Everyone began to panic and evacuate the mall, Iggins included. It looked like neither he nor Gaz would be getting their pre-order today.
"What's that thing?" Jack asked Dib as they made their way through hordes of fleeing people.
"I don't know, but it looks Irken," Dib said.
"Irken?"
"It looks like it belongs to Zim."
"But Zim's not here," Jack said, making Dib stop in his tracks.
"You're right," Dib said. "That must mean someone else is in there."
"Perhaps three others," Jack said, getting a dark look on his face before running from Dib.
"Wait for me," Dib said.
"No. I have to make sure of something. Stay here until it's safe," Jack replied before finally pausing in front of the machine, which shook itself like a wet dog.
Meanwhile…"No way!" Lock, Shock, and Barrel exclaimed simultaneously as they ducked for a moment.
"It's Jack," Barrel whispered in a nervous tone. "We're busted."
"No we're not," Lock said. "He doesn't know we're in here yet."
"He will eventually," Shock pointed out.
"Maybe not. Say we 'accidentally' blow him to bits. Then we don't have to worry about going home and we can take over the planet like those two tall guys told us to do."
"Ooh, that's bad, Lock. I like it."
"I thought you would, Barrel."
"Which button will do that?" Shock asked, peeking over to the panel.
"We'll just have to find that out, now won't we?" Lock asked.
"Yes, we will," Shock and Barrel replied, cackling as they got up once more.
"Show yourself!" Jack called out from beneath them.
"Quick, pull the lever that shot the cannons before, Lock. I'll aim," Shock said.
"Got it," Lock said as he ran over to the lever and pulled.
Lucky for Jack, he was already dead. He was even better off turning intangible. If he were a mortal, the cannon blast that came from the machine would have most certainly killed him. Now this was serious. No one tried to harm the Pumpkin King and got away with it. It just wasn't done. Jack was going to teach whoever was in that machine a lesson, and Dib had a front seat to the ensuing show.
Jack saw a mall banner twirling around a column all the way to the rafters. He quickly dodged more blasts and grabbed onto it, climbing faster and faster to the top. When he reached the rafters, he jumped to the very top of the machine. The cockpit was too cloudy for him to make out who was inside it. He would have to break it. Just as he began to claw and punch at the glass, a hidden cannon was activated, and aimed straight at the Pumpkin King. It fired too quickly for him to turn intangible and it sent him flying into a wall. Well, most of him.
"Catch me!" Jack's head yelled as it fell right into Dib's hands. "Whew, thank you. What?" Jack's head asked, noticing the slightly nauseous look Dib was giving him. "I told you it could come off."
"Where's the rest of you?" Dib asked.
"Good question. I suggest moving if you want to hear the answer, though."
"Right."
Dib took Jack's head to the safety of the Krazy Taco in the food court. They waited a while, until the sounds of laser blasts slowed, and then halted. The machine seemed to have run out of ammo. This was the perfect chance to strike back, or at the very least, find Jack's body. Stowing Jack's head underneath his jacket, Dib set out to survey the damage. The machine was gone; whoever was running it seemed to have grown bored without any ammunition. As for the body, well, it seemed Iggins hadn't left the mall before.
"Get it off!" the boy yelled under the weight of a headless, black-suited body. "I only wanted to pre-order!" he cried out. "PRE-ORDER!"
"It's tangible!" Dib exclaimed to the head, letting it peek out from his jacket.
"Sorry. I can't control what my body does when we're separated. My fault," Jack's head apologized. "But he's completely terrified. See, it's not so bad."
"I'll distract him, you fix yourself," Dib said to the head before running over to Iggins and pushing the body over.
"Ow! Hey, easy with that," Jack's head said as Dib put it on the floor.
"Is the video game store still open?" Iggins asked Dib.
"You could have been killed by an extraterrestrial mech," Dib said to Iggins.
"But I wasn't, so I want to make that pre-order now. Don't you?"
"Not really. It's for my sister."
"Figured. You don't look like much of a gamer anyway."
Dib would have said something else to his defense, if Iggins hadn't picked himself up and waddled away. Honestly, Dib wondered why he even bothered trying to save this planet sometimes. From the looks of things, Dib would make the pre-order after all. In mere seconds, Iggins entered the store and practically danced out on the way to the closest exit. By the time Dib was ready to follow suit, Jack had put himself back together.
"I almost had it back there. If only I could get this tangible/intangible thing better," Jack sighed when Dib made walked out of the store. "Hey, don't we have to pay for that?"
"No. I just have to hold on to this slip and give it to Gaz," Dib replied, showing Jack a white piece of paper. "Then, if she doesn't make us do anything else, we're going to Zim's Base."
"Why there?"
"That machine was definitely Irken. Unless Tak's returned, it came from Zim's place."
"Tak?"
"Long story. She's an Irken, like Zim, only much more capable of taking over the planet."
"Then she's someone you'd definitely worry about."
"I would, if she were here. Zim and I drove her away though. Not that we're friends or anything, we just had to keep the Earth from falling into her hands."
"Your world is very complicated, Dib," Jack said as the pair walked out of the mall. "No wonder your head's so big! You need a large brain to comprehend everything. Makes perfect sense now."
"It's not that big," Dib said before feeling the back of his head with his left hand. "Is it?"
"At least it's permanently attached," Jack said in a comforting tone.
"Of course it is, I'm-" Dib said before noticing Jack had paused in front of an electronics store where columns of televisions were broadcasting something.
"Dib, what's Mysterious Mysteries and why do they have my face next to their name?" Jack asked, causing the boy to make a complete turnaround and join him in front of the store.
"Inter-dimensional terror or hideously mutated reporter? No one knows for sure, not even the scientists who captured and lost him," said the anchor, reporting from an artist's rendering of a very spooky Jack. "We asked a victim who was up close and personal with the skeleton man just how bad he really was."
"He was horrible!" exclaimed the Bloaty's employer from earlier that morning. "He and that huge-headed accomplice of his stole a pizza. He would've killed me if there weren't any witnesses."
"That's a lie! I'm not a killer, I just scare the living daylights out of people," Jack said, completely missing the point.
"No! Mysterious Mysteries is on to us? This is bad! Jack, we have to get home fast and try to convince Gaz to let us off the hook," Dib said as the anchor reappeared.
"We'll continue this special edition of Mysterious Mysteries after a word from our sponsors. Stay tuned to see the newest terror from beyond the scientific gate, the one the labs are trying to hide from the public," the anchor said as another artist's rendering appeared for a split-second and then gave way to an Acne Blast commercial.
"We have to go to the labs," Jack said to Dib.
"No, we can't. You have to stay home and invisible," Dib said.
"They have Sally."
"What?"
"That rendering they just showed, it was of Sally."
"How can you be sure?"
"I just am. I can go there alone if you need to get back to your sister soon, but you can at least point me in the direction of the labs," Jack said to Dib.
Dib hesitated and then pointed towards a large collection of buildings a good distance away. He then reminded Jack of where his house was before running off. Gaz must have surely grown tired of waiting for her pre-order slip and Dib knew better than to tempt her wrath for any longer. As for Jack, he had a friend to rescue.
Meanwhile…How did she keep getting into these messes? Sally shook her head and sighed. Nothing was ever simple when it came to Jack. Trouble just seemed to follow him wherever he went. Whether it was routine scaring or something completely off-the-wall, Sally would find that she was willing and able to bail Jack out. And did he notice? Of course not. He never noticed, and probably never would. So why did Sally hang around and keep helping him? Because she couldn't bear not being able see that grin of his or hear his voice at least one more time. Poor, smitten rag doll.
"How am I going to get out of here?" Sally asked, looking out the small pane of glass on the door to her white cell. No chance of opening it without any of the guards noticing. And she was scared to turn intangible, escape, and then get lost in this strange new world. "If only I knew this place better, then I could at least figure out which places are safe or not."
"I can show you," said a voice from behind her.
"It couldn't be," Sally said as she turned around. "Ja-!" she started before he clasped his right hand over her mouth.
"Shhh," Jack whispered. "Wouldn't want them outside to hear, would you?"
"No," Sally replied quietly, lowering Jack's hand and holding on to it for a moment.
"How did you get here?" Jack asked.
"With this," Sally said, raising her right forearm, displaying the arm piece. "The doctor made it in case the portal in this world was still closed. It was, so I used it to come over."
"Amazing."
"Jack, where are the trick-or-treaters?"
"Good question. I haven't seen them since we fell through."
"Jack, we have to find them. Oogie Boogie's up to something," Sally said, crossing her arms.
"Sally, he's always up to something. Has he been hitting on you again? Just say the word and I'll-" Jack began before Sally interrupted him.
"Oh, he got the picture after last time, Jack, believe me. No, it's worse than that. The doctor's been kidnapped and those two people that came from this world seem to be hanging around with Oogie."
"That's not good. Listen, after I break you out of here and get you to safety, we can talk this over with Dib."
"Who's Dib?"
"You'll see. Now hold on, and stay intangible and invisible. We've got a long walk," Jack said to Sally while grabbing both of her hands and walking with her through the cell wall and out into the streets.
"She's right here, Mr. Simmons. No chance of escaping whatso-" a guard started as he opened the cell door only to find it was empty. "Dammit! Not again!"
"What?" Simmons asked as he looked into the room. "She's gone?"
"I don't know how this keeps happening!"
"Well, you're lucky the professor's still unconscious. Even smelling salts can't awaken him."
"What are we going to do?"
"Isn't it obvious. Find her, and the other four while you're at it."
"I'll go talk to security about that," the guard said as he ran down the corridor.
"Watchmen," Simmons sighed before going back to look over Professor Membrane, who was still knocked out in the surveillance room.
Meanwhile…"That was close," Lock said to Shock as all three trick-or-treaters stumbled out of the Weapon Room after returning the machine.
"Too close," Shock replied before turning to Barrel. "Good thing you fell on that red button or we would've been double dead."
"Yeah. Too bad we ran out of ammo," Barrel said.
"There's always next time," Lock said. "Let's take a break, maybe throw around that purple moose thing for a while."
"Or raid the fridge for candy. I'm hungry," Barrel said.
"Me too. Besides, I don't like that moose," Shock added.
"Alright. We'll get some food. Then we can destroy the little moose if we want," Lock said.
"Now that's a good idea," Barrel said to Lock as the three of them broke into a cackle and walked into another sector of the Base, unaware of a shocked, small purple moose hiding behind them.
"You're in for it now, Minimoose" a screen said as it hovered next to the figure.
The moose looked right at the screen and squeaked rather angrily for about a minute.
"You can't go to Dib's house, he's the enemy."
Minimoose squinted as it squeaked about five more times.
"Ok, maybe you are safer there, but Zim won't like it."
Minimoose shook its whole body as it squeaked this time.
"Ok, ok, I'll won't tell. Sheesh, don't get your nubs in a twist."
With a final, happy squeak, Minimoose glided upwards and, hopefully, out of the Base.
To Be Continued...