Zim looked around nervously, scanning for a place to hide before the Planet Express morons saw him, but all he could see were heads upon heads in countless jars, and Gir running around like the proverbial headless chicken. Zim snarled as he saw Dib smiling derisively at him from above, and then a particularly wicked thought crossed the Irken's superior mind.

Spider-legs extended from his PAK and lifted Zim from the floor, and before Dib knew what was happening, his old adversary had scaled the shelves and was upon him, snatching up the jar that had been Dib's home for the last century or so.

"You're coming with us, head boy!" crowed Zim, his confidence re-energizing as he took charge of the situation. "Let's go, Gir!" yelled Zim over his shoulder, realizing the time for subterfuge was – well, there hadn't been any time for subterfuge.

"Let's make biscuits!" howled the tiny automaton as he ceased running, and then with a mighty leap he landed deftly on Zim's PAK just as Leela and company rounded the corner.

"Hold it, Zim!" shouted Leela as she looked up and stopped in her tracks. "You're coming with us!"

Hermes and the Professor stood to one side of her, and Fry, Bender, and Amy to the other. Scruffy the Janitor never really left the Planet Express headquarters if he could help it, and this was one of those times.

"I am Zim!" cried the diminutive green alien, toting Dib's head in one hand while balling up the other into a fist and shaking it at the assembled 30th century throng. "I go where I please, monocular cow!"

He sprang forward on his legs and landed just in front of his futuristic foes, Gir laughing wildly and holding on behind, Dib yelling and sloshing around in his jar.

"Help me!" pleaded Dib, who had suddenly discovered you really were at someone's mercy when all that remained of you was a head. Then he realized that Zim had never really shown any mercy …

"Put that head down!" yelled Fry, still angry at Zim for the way he had treated Leela the previous day aboard the Planet Express ship.

"Make me, filth!" challenged Zim, again shaking his fist.

Fry growled himself and looked around, and then he saw an antique bronze spear adorning the wall just outside of the hall as he was only standing partway in the entrance. He tried to wrench the spear off its moorings, but they held fast. He strained and grunted and pulled and even braced his feet against the wall while holding onto the spear with both hands, but no success. He remained suspended in that position, three feet above the floor, until Bender lithely reached over and pulled the spear free with just one small tug of his powerful servomotors, sending Fry crashing down.

"Ow!" yelped Fry, rubbing his hip after landing on it.

"Happy to help, buddy," replied Bender. "Hee hee hee hee!"

Fry regained his feet and took up the spear in an aggressive stance, and then he lunged at Zim, who deftly moved to the side.

"Hey, watch it!" spouted Zim. "You almost hit me!"

"That's the idea!" retorted Fry, who lunged and missed again, and again, as Gir held onto Zim's antennae and squealed with delight while Dib's head looked like it was about ready to vomit from motion sickness. Then Fry swung his spear like a baseball bat, hoping to slice Zim sideways, but the 21st century invader was quick to parry with one of his front spider legs.

It was reminiscent of the arena scene out of "Star Wars: Episode Two" where Obi-Wan Kenobi, armed only with a spear on the planet Geonosis, fought against the fearsome mantis-like Ackley. Only Fry was no Jedi Master, and Zim finally slammed the spear away from Fry with a backhanded thrust of his front right spider-leg, and then swept Fry aside with his front left leg and knocked him to the floor.

"Fry!" cried Leela, as she rushed to him and bent down alongside him. Zim laughed, a hollow, mocking, maniacal sound,

"I'm OK," replied Fry as she sat up, smiling at her. She smiled back as she rested a hand on his shoulder, and then they looked over to see Zim scrunching downwards with his entire assembly of extra limbs, almost to the floor, before catapulting himself up and over the rest of the Planet Express crew and back into the main museum corridor, where the trio of Zim, Gir and Dib bounded away towards the Hall of Dinosaurs and Other Really, Really Big Reptiles.

They hurtled past the giant female security guard and into the hall, with the Planet Express crew following at varying rates of speed, from Leela's all-out run to the Professor's shuffling along. Leela, Fry and Bender got to the hall first, where Zim looked over and snarled at them. He quickly darted away on metallic arachnid legs, running up the spine of a Tyrannosaurus skeleton that had been positioned in an archaic posture with its tail dragging on the ground and the creature standing upright in Godzilla-like fashion. Dib bounced up and down as they passed each bone, fluid splashing from his jar as he grew even more nauseous.

Zim danced along the spinal column as he raced away from his pursuers, still holding on to Dib and with Gir holding on to Zim. Their combined weight, though, began bending the thin steel rebar used to hold the dinosaur skeleton together beneath them, and as such the long-gone animal structure dropped forward into a more correct scientific posture, leaning forward with its tail off the ground. Zim leaped off just before reaching the massive, tooth-studded Tyrannosaur skull, and then looked back upon landing to view his handiwork.

"Hmmm," he remarked. "How about that?"

Then he saw Leela, Fry and Bender heading towards him and began to flee again.

"Huff," wheezed the out-of-shape Fry. "Huff … This was … easier … huff … when we had … huff … superpowers."

The trio had formed the New Justice Team when Leela and Fry temporarily developed extraordinary, meta-human abilities from a tube of analgesic ointment, but Fry's enhanced speed as Captain Yesterday and Leela's superhuman strength as Cloberella ultimately disappeared when the contents of the tube had been exhausted.

"Hey, wait!" said Bender. "I still have my superpowers!"

Being a robot, he had already been stronger and faster than ordinary humans, and had taken the heroic name Super King, only to retire from costumed crime-fighting when Leela and Fry did. He reached out and unspooled his mechanical arms faster than the human eye or Leela's could follow, Bender's manipulators finally latching onto Zim's PAK and stopping the Irken's headlong flight.

"Gahhh!" cried Zim at the sudden stop, Gir nearly pulling his master's antennae out as he was flung up and over Zim. Dib went flying, too, straight up into the air as he tried hard not to throw up. He went up and over, nearly spilling all the fluid from his jar, but landed right back in Zim's tiny black arms. Dib looked like he would vomit at any second, and Zim decided he didn't want to be there when that happened, especially since he knew he would undoubtedly see Dib again. Extending small fingers from the end of one spider-leg, Zim snatched Dib up with that limb and prepared his old foe for launch.

"See you in the 21st Century, earth monkey!" chortled Zim with his trademark laugh, and then he tossed Dib's head back like a blernsball towards Leela, Fry and Bender, who was still holding onto Zim's PAK. Dib was headed straight for Bender, and Planet Express' resident robot was forced to retract his arms to make the catch before Dib's head collided with his own.

"Ahhhh!" cried Dib as he came in for landing, but Bender caught him expertly and set him down on the floor, whereby Dib could hold himself back no longer and prepared to throw up – until nothing came up, and he realized he had no stomach or anything below the neck any longer, and just had a headache.

"You OK there, Heady?" inquired Bender, lighting up a cigar in front of yet another '"No Smoking" sign.

"Yeah," coughed Dib, thankful he had finally come to a stop. "I think so."

Then Dib sneezed as Bender tapped his cigar and dumped some ashes onto him. He looked up at Bender and glared at the automaton.

"What?" replied Bender. "There's still some water in that jar - no way you'll catch fire!"

Freed from Bender's grasp, Zim and Gir made good their escape as Zim retracted his spider-legs and Gir, now holding onto Zim's PAK again, ignited his foot jets and rocketed them out of an open second-story window, the twosome only touching down when they were well away from the museum.

"Good job, Gir," offered Zim as they made a solid landing. He looked around to see that no one from Planet Express was still in pursuit, and he decided that enough was enough.

It was time to get the Voot Runner ready. It was time to go home.

TBC