By animeninjaNIPPON
"Step one," Dib read aloud. "Turn the blue hand to the number of years you desire to travel back (up to twelve years). If you wish to travel forward, pull down the 'future lock' on the lower right, after setting the time."
"How many Earth years?" Zim asked.
"Just one," Dib replied. "Step two: Turn the green hand to the number of days you wish to travel back (up to 60 days). And don't touch the 'future lock.'"
"I KNOW!" Zim tinkered with the time warp. "What ELSE?"
"Step three: Turn the red hand back to the number of hours…"
"How many days and hours?"
"Umm…" He had no idea. "I'll say, six days. And forward three hours."
Zim set the days, then set the number of hours to go forward by pushing the future lock on the last entry. "Now what?"
"Shift into reverse to go back in time and regular to go forward."
"And AWAY we GO!" Zim reached for the controls, but Dib stopped him.
"Wait." Dib looked forlornly at Zim. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Are you CRAZY, Dib-human?" Zim narrowed one eye in suspicion.
"In the new future, we won't be friends anymore. I don't really have any other friends, and I like you…do you want to lose all that?"
Zim was compelled to knock some sense into the human's oversized head. "In the FUTURE, things will be BETTER for BOTH of us! And who SAYS we won't be friends LATER? After all, our meeting was FATE or DESTINY or whatever you said."
Dib smiled. "You're right, Zim."
Gir giggled. "BACK to the BEGINNING!"
Zim shifted into a dizzying reverse that caused the universe around them to morph into a lysergic sea of color and fiber-optic style effects. Needless to say, everyone screamed.
The backwards shift ended with a crash. Dib reopened his eyes and looked around. "My house…this is my house."
"So, we MADE IT?" Zim asked excitedly. "YES! We SAVED THE UNIVERSE!"
Gir did his little happy dance.
"Wait," Dib said. "We haven't done anything yet. And it's the middle of the night – we're early. Or too late…"
Just then, he heard a familiar voice screech, "I'm telling you, I saw Bigfoot out there!"
"OK, that answers that," Dib concluded. "We're early. If we were late, I'd be talking about you."
"I KNEW you were obsessed with me!" Zim mumbled inaudibly.
"What'd you say?"
"I said, 'You Earth-monkeys will cower in FEAR and STUPIDITY at the mention of the NAME OF ZIM!"
"Oh." Dib looked out the window, relieved to see trees, houses, and roadkill outside. "I'm not obsessed."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not!"
"You ARE!"
Gir opened up the mini-fridge to prepare for the long night ahead.
End of part twenty