Okay, it's time we head for the next world. Take note that there are only 3 worlds left and they'll all be majorly important to the plot. So, here we go.
Chapter 22: Welcome to Nightmare Land
Nigel was in another nightmare. He was standing on a strange, gray platform in the center of a dark purple realm. "Ugh… where am I?" he said dizzily.
"Welcome, Nigel Uno."
"What? Who's there?"
"It is I: the Nightmare King."
"YOU! So, you're the one who's been sending me all these nightmares! Show yourself!"
"You are strong-willed, I'll give you that. But even the best operatives have their weakness. I will not show my face to you now, but if you wish to see me, then come to my homeland of Nightmare Land in the darkest corner of Galaxia, alone."
"And just why would I do that?"
"Because I have something I think you want. Something you need."
"What?"
"Does SHE seem familiar?"
Out of the darkness, an image can be seen of an orange-haired girl with a ponytail. "EVA!"
"Yes. I have Eva in my custody. If you want to save her, come to the Fear Factory in Nightmare Land. I've marked the location of Nightmare Land on your map. And remember: come alone, and don't tell Dimentia. Or else."
The nightmare ended and Numbuh 1 was back in his room just in time to hear his alarm clock. HAANH! HAANH! HAANH!
"Why does the Nightmare King want me to come to his lair all of a sudden?" he asked himself. "Oh well. If he's got Eva, then I have to go."
Nightmare Land
"I sent him the message." the Nightmare King said. "I'll leave you to the rest."
Eva smirked evilly. "Perfect. I can't wait to see Nigel again!" She walked off.
GKND H.Q.; Hangar
Nigel was getting in his Arwing, preparing to take off, with his friends watching him. "Are you SURE we can't come with you?" Dib asked.
"Yeah. How do you know he's really got your cousin? What if it's a trap?" Ava asked.
"Whether he's got her or not, I need to speak to this king. He's been sending me these nightmares for SOME reason."
"Hast thou gone MAD?" Luvbi exclaimed. "This be NOT like any other planet we hath been to! This is yonder Nightmare Land! The realm where all greatest fears are unleashed, and yonder Fear Factory is the worst of all!"
"Then it's a good thing you're not coming along. I can handle myself against a few minor fears. Even my own. You guys just make sure Dimentia doesn't find out. See you later." With that, he took off.
"I hope he knows what he's doing." Dib said.
"Yeah. Listen, you guys go see what Dimentia's doing, I need to go do something." Ava replied. With curious looks, the others nodded and ran off.
Nightmare Land
A few hours had passed and Nigel continued to follow the trail on his map. As it seemed he was getting close, he looked ahead to see what appeared to be a large, mechanical city in the middle of space. He gulped, thinking this must be the place.
As soon as he landed, he looked around to see the town was populated by freaky monsters. Some of them were your average monsters (i.e. werewolves, vampires, etc.), while others looked a bit more… psychotic. Although, despite it being in the middle of space, the air was as fresh there as in the Star Haven.
"For a Nightmare town, this place doesn't seem all that scary." he said to himself as he made his way to the center of town. There appeared to be an enormous statue of a cloaked demon with a big nose and horns. He was startled when the eyes on the statue lighted up and a speaker came out of its mouth.
"Welcome to Nightmare Land, the kingdom where all your greatest nightmares come true! Here in this terrifying land, you will be forced to face your greatest fears! The source of all these fears comes from the fearful fortress known as the Fear Factory. So, if you think you have the guts, then come see the Nightmare King at his factory, which lies in the northern part of the city. Enjoy!"
Once the speaker was silenced, Nigel looked ahead to see a large factory.
Insert action stage here. X( Sorry.
Finally, Nigel had reached the factory, which seemed heavily guarded from the outside. "How am I supposed to get in there?" he asked to no one. He noticed a row of air vents that led straight into the factory. "'Guess even Nightmares need air." he said as he snuck over and climbed into the vents. Before getting too far, he peeked his head out and looked around, noticing something was odd. "Where's the mariachi band? Probably too afraid to come along." With that, he crawled back through.
Coruscant; Corneria
Star Wolf was back at the station in Corneria, sitting in their ships. However, they weren't the ships they normally use. These ones were a yellowish brown, with six wings and two engines. Rattlesnake Jake's new armor was lined up with several more wings, more lasers, and six rockets.
"Okay, team, I just got a call from Red." Wolf said. "We're heading for Nightmare Land!"
"Wait until that brat gets a load of our new ships!" Leon snickered.
"It will most definitely put him to the test." Panther replied.
"I can't wait to-" Jake began, but stopped when something flew over his head. "D-Did you see that?"
"See what?" Wolf asked.
"I-I thought I saw a bird."
Wolf sighed. "Jake, you and this thing with birds."
"B-B-Birds eat snakes, Wolf! Birds eat snakes!" he replied shakily.
"Whatever. Let's just take off."
Fear Factory
Nigel continued to crawl through the dark vents of the Fear Factory. In the distance, he could hear strange voices. "It was MY turn, you insolent bad of bugs!"
"You had your turn, Doll Face! Now, it's Oogie's turn to boogie now!"
Nigel crawled over an opening to see he was above a prison room, and two monsters were playing a game of Uno in the cell. One of them seemed to be a large spider made of stitches and parts for dolls, with button eyes, while the other one seemed to be a big bag with eyes and a mouth.
"You couldn't defeat that skeleton wimp! I should go next!" the spider argued.
"Please. You're a failure as a Nightmare if you can't catch a snot-nosed little kid!" the bag retorted.
"At least I try to look scary! You couldn't scare a cat!"
"Oh, YEAH? Well, you-" They stopped when they heard Nigel fall through the vent and land in front of their cell.
He recovered and looked up at the monsters. "Uh… hello." he said nervously.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? A little bald man, huh, ooooo, I'm really scared!"
"Who are you two?"
"You're looking at the one and only Oogie Boogie Man! And this oversized ragdoll here is Beldam."
"We've been trapped in this cell for ages!" Beldam yelled. "Could you do us the favor of letting us out?"
"Wait a minute, why would I do that? You must be in here for a reason."
"The Nightmare King put us in here, so we must be good! After all, he's evil! Let us out and we'll help you destroy him!"
"Sorry, but I'm not taking my chances. Anyhoo, you two wouldn't happen to have seen a girl around here, have you? A human like me?"
"Well, listen to that, Oogie. He's come to rescue the human in the other cell!"
"Other cell?" Nigel walked over to the next cell to see, lying on the bench, was none other than, "EVA!"
The redhead woke up and looked at him with a happy expression. "NIGEL!" She ran up to him.
"Eva, how did you get here?"
"The Nightmare King kidnapped me one night and locked me in this cell. I've been here ever since, listening to these two freaks!"
"HEY! We can hear you, too!" Oogie yelled.
"Hold on, Eva. Let me get you out of here!" Nigel drew his S.H.O.O.T.E.R. and shot the cell open as Eva walked out.
"I always knew you'd rescue me!" she exclaimed happily.
"Uhhh, yeah." he replied, a little creeped out by her cheerful attitude. "Anyway, Eva, you're probably wondering where I've been these past few months."
"Oh, don't worry, silly! I know you've been serving in the Galactic Kids Next Door!"
"You…You do?"
"Uh-huh! Numbuh 11.0 told me everything! I guess he was overcome by my charming good looks."
Nigel was silent. "Eva, are you okay? There's something different about you. And your voice has changed a little."
"Really? I hadn't noticed. I guess I must be happy to see you after so long!"
"…I guess so. Anyway, I need to see the Nightmare King. You wouldn't happen to know where his chamber is, do you?"
"Sure I do! Just follow me!" she said as she ran ahead. Nigel, still confused by her suddenly cheerful attitude, followed behind.
"Eva, how do you even know your way around here so well?" Nigel asked, still following his cousin through some halls.
"Uhhh, girl's intuition!"
"…Well, it's not like I understand girls very well anyway."
"And here we are! The Nightmare King is just through this door!" she said as they stopped in front of a door, which read Target Practice. "I'll just wait out here. Good luck!" she giggled.
Still confused, Nigel opened the door and walked into a dark room. As he walked a few feet in, the door immediately shut behind him. He was ambushed by a pogo stick with a face, a walking bow and arrow with a face, and a stick-like figure made of spears.
"NYAR! The human has finally arrived, nyar! Shoot arrows at him will I, nyar!" said the bow.
"Enough of your singing, Bowyer! Let's just do it quick!" replied the spear monster.
"Who the heck are you guys?" Nigel asked.
"Mack." replied the pogo stick.
"Bowyer, nyar!" replied the bow.
"Yaridovich." replied the spears. "We are the Nightmare King's most loyal henchmen."
"And you are trespassing in his factory, nya! So destroy you, we wiiill!" Bowyer took out some arrows and began firing at the bald Brit, but he quickly evaded. He took out his blaster and started shooting Yaridovich, but he blocked with some spears.
He looked to see Mack was trying to bounce on him. Seeing an opportunity, he grabbed onto the pogo monster and used him to bounce around. He made his way over to Yaridovich and was able to separate his parts by landing on him. Bowyer fired another arrow, but Nigel quickly jumped off and let the arrow hit Mack, freezing him stiff. "So, now it's just me, nyar. Stop you, I will." Bowyer fired more arrows at Nigel.
The Brit ran and avoided every shot. He leaped into the air and landed behind Bowyer, where he shot his string and broke it. "Nooo! My string, nyar!" Bowyer was silenced when Nigel jumped and kicked him in the face, knocking him out.
Nigel was then about to head back out, but stopped when he saw a picture on a nearby desk. Out of curiosity, he walked over to see it was a picture of, "Virginia Sims?" Indeed, it was a picture of the young goth girl from Sector K. "That's strange. Why would the Nightmare King have a picture of Virginia?" After seconds, he put the picture back down and shrugged. "No matter. I have to get out of here."
He walked out of the room and found Eva standing a few feet away. "EVA! That wasn't it at all! That was a trap!"
"It was? Oopsie! Silly me! I must have miscalculated!"
Nigel walked over and looked at her suspiciously. "Eva, there is something DEFINITELY wrong with you!"
"What? I'm just acting like I always do! Always so cheerful!"
Nigel looked closer and saw something even more strange. "Eva… since when do you have blue eyes?"
"Uhhh, since I got new contacts?"
"…You're not Eva!"
At this, 'not' Eva smirked. "So, you finally figured it out! I must say, it was a bit shorter than last time!"
"Last time? What are you talking about?"
"Oh, you don't remember me? I'm someone you know very well, actually! We had such great times together in our short time of hanging out!"
"Wha… Who are you?"
"Are you suuure you don't remember? Take a long time thinking about it. I'm sure you'll figure out eventually!"
He thought for a moment. "Fanny?"
"Wha- NO! NO! Ugh, you're hopeless! Fine. Maybe THIS will help." With that, she was engulfed by a puff of dark smoke, and she revealed herself to be none other than…
"KATIE?" Nigel exclaimed.
Indeed, it was the very same Katie from Nigel's utopia dream, same clothes and brown hair. "Oh, you DO remember me! How sweet!"
"What are you doing here? I thought you were just a dream created by Chester's Happy Headband."
"You mean the NIGHTMARE KING'S Happy Headband! He's the one that created it! Not that idiot, Chester! Do you really think he would have the brains to create a device that brings kids into their own dream world?"
"Good point."
"The Nightmare King created the headband and lent it to Chester, who failed to pay up his 5 million dollars, so he took it back. Once he had it back, he examined the dream data it picked up from your dream and found me in there! So, he downloaded me from the headband and VOILA! Katie lives!"
"Impressive."
"Isn't it? Anyhoo, back to the main subject: I'm still mad at you for what you did back in your dream, and now it's time I get my revenge!" Katie paced around him.
"Pfft! I can take you!"
"Oh, really? The Nightmare King's lent me some of his power, so that I could see your greatest fears! I know what you're afraid of, Nigel, and I can use those fears against you." She walked up to and looked him in the eye.
Nigel gave a fearful expression. "R-Really?"
Katie smirked. "REALLY!" And with that, she leaped backward and giant fly wings sprouted from her back. She rose up into the air as her face became that of a fly's. Nigel backed up in fear of this. "Aw, what's wrong? Afraid of a little horsefly?"
"You are NOT a little horsefly!"
"Yeah, I guess so. Otherwise, I wouldn't have THIS!" She drew out two big needles. Nigel was shaking at the sight of Katie becoming the two things he fears most. "Don't worry, Nigel. This won't hurt a BIT!" In an instant, she zoomed down at him, attempting to stab him with the needles, but he avoided.
He tried firing his blaster at Katie, but she was as agile as a regular-sized fly. She shot blasts of green liquid from the needle, making Nigel jump and leap off the walls. He Wall Jumped all the way up to Katie and hopped onto her. Once on, he ripped her wings off, making her drop. She recovered shortly after and started to swing the needles at Nigel like swords.
He swiftly dodged every shot and fought back with his blaster. He successfully shot her in the eye, making her cover it. With her guard down, he kicked the needles out of her hands and kicked her to the wall. In an instant, her fly face reverted back to her real face. "Well, look at that, Katie! Looks like I faced my fears!" Nigel exclaimed.
"SCARFIES!" Katie called, and in an instant, a swarm of floating, orange balls with wings and happy faces appeared.
"Oh, please! Like those things could scare me!"
At this, the Scarfies turned red, and grew sharp teeth and had one eye. "Well, now they kind of do, but I can still take them!" Nigel began shooting the Scarfies with his blaster, but it seemed that with every Scarfy he shot, another one appeared. "There's too many!" he said, nearly out of breath. He soon felt that there was no way out of this, but that feeling vanished when he saw one of the Scarfies was dark-purple. "Yes! One with a Wisp!"
"NO! Don't shoot-" Katie was too late as Nigel shot the purple Scarfy, making all the others cower and retreat, giving Nigel a confused expression. He looked to where he shot the purple Scarfy and saw a Wisp spawning back together. He instantly recognized it as one of those Wisps from Dimentia's dungeon.
The Wisp looked at him and began snarling, making Nigel worried. The bald Brit screamed as the Wisp roared and shot to him with its mouth wide open. But when he opened his eyes, he saw that he wasn't eaten and that the Wisp must've flown into his body. Nigel was then left wondering what would happen now, while Katie looked worried.
Soon, Nigel felt some kind of pain in his body and looked to his right hand to see some dark purple substance was crawling up his skin. He tried to pull the substance off, but failed. As the substance engulfed his skin, he saw a vision of him, Lizzie, and Eva at Sector J.
"And what is wrong with dating Nigel Uno?"
"Nothing, if you like bald workaholics who wear Rainbow Monkey underwear! It's, like, always sticking out of his shorts and stuff!"
Seeing this made Nigel a little angry, and the substance began covering him faster as he saw another vision of when his friends made fun of his butt.
"Come on, guys. I just wanna put this whole thing behind me."
"Well, you got enough room for it back there!"
"Urgh! What… kind of… Wisp… is this?" he grunted, still trying to force it off.
"You and your team are ordered to stay away from this cake mission! Is that clear?"
"But-"
"Is that clear?"
"Yes."
Nigel screamed as the dark substance covered his entire body and the Color Power was activated. Nigel was transformed into a monster with dark purple armor and skin, and vicious, glowing eyes. Katie immediately got up and ran down the hall, just in time for Sir Kibbles to appear and surround Nigel.
The bald Brit, in his monstrous form, opened his large mouth to reveal sharp teeth. He ran around and started to grab the soldiers in his mouth, shaking them around before throwing them against the wall. He also launched dark lasers at the soldiers, making them explode into dust.
Once they were all gone, the dark operative huffed in anger. The purple substance dissolved and the Wisp flew out of his body. Nigel was breathing heavily. "Man… I'm glad that's over." He took more breaths. "What was that?" He thought for a minute. "Oh well. No use thinking about it now. I need to find the Nightmare King." (Play "Music Madness" from Donkey Kong Returns.)
As he continued to venture the halls, he peeked into a nearby room to see walking hammers with eyes hitting small weapons on treadmills. He looked to the center of the large room to see a chicken in a giant robot stomping on strange colorful rocks in a bucket, turning them to dust. The dust spilled out of a faucet and onto the small weapons, giving them color and life. "This must be how he makes Nightmares." Nigel said to himself.
Nigel shut the door and walked forward to another hall. This hall had several doors lined up along it with peoples' names labeled on. He looked to see one of the doors was labeled Hoagie P. Gilligan Jr. and went inside. He ended up in what looked like the Amish Sector and saw Hoagie lying on the ground.
Hoagie woke up and looked around. "What? Where am I?" he said. "Oh no! Sector A! No technology! NOOOOO!" Nigel quickly ran out.
"These must be the different peoples' nightmares." Nigel figured. He then walked into a room labeled Kuki Sanban and saw his Japanese friend crying in the middle of a gloomy town where Rainbow Monkeys were being burned in a fire.
"Poor Rainbow Monkeys! Why does this have to happen?"
Not wanting to see her cry more, Nigel left. He went into the room labeled Wallabee Beatles to find the blonde Aussie playing tea party with Rainbow Monkeys.
"Would you like some more tea?"
Wally drank some imaginary tea and said, "Eh, this isn't TOO bad!"
Soon after, Kuki came in, holding Ace's hand. "Hey, Wally! Guess what? Me and Ace are going out!"
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
Nigel left and looked to see one with Abby's name. Curious to what she might be afraid of, he went inside to find his friend standing in front of a pile of candy with her mouth agape. "MAN, THAT'S A LOT OF CANDY!" she exclaimed. The choco-skinned girl dove into the candy and started eating. Her excitement was cut short as she fully tasted it. "Oh no… it's… SUGAR-FREE! AHHHHHH!"
Nigel instantly left and moved on to the next one, which was Fanny's. He looked inside to see Fanny was in a field, surrounded by boys. "Come on, Fanny! Come roll in the mud with us!" one said.
"Yeah, and eat bugs!"
In a flash of light, Fanny found herself forcibly doing that. "AHHHHHHH!"
Nigel looked to see Rachel's name labeled on one and looked inside. He was in a helicopter and saw Rachel about to skydive, with Patton standing by her. "Patton, I'm not so sure about this…"
"Nonsense, Rach! You can do it! Good luck!" Patton pushed her off the edge, and Rachel began screaming as she was falling from the sky. She tried to activate the parachute, but an anvil came out instead. Rachel's screaming silenced when she hit the ground.
"RACHEL!" Nigel shouted. "No, no! Calm down, Uno! It's not real, it's just a nightmare!" Nigel left and moved on to the next door. He ignored Sonya's door, already knowing what to expect, and instead went into Harvey's door.
Once in, he saw the germ freak standing in the middle of the living room of his treehouse, only they were about the size of ants. "W-Where am I?" Harvey asked himself. "How did I get so tiny?" Just then, they could hear stomping. They looked to see Sonya, Paddy, and Lee walking toward Harvey.
"I wonder where Harvey is?" Sonya asked, her voice echoing.
"HEY, GUYS! DOWN HERE!" At this, the three looked down to see their friend shrunken.
"Harvey? How did you get so small?" Sonya asked.
"I don't know! I went to sleep and woke up like this! You guys gotta take me to my sister!"
The three exchanged glances and looked back down at him. "We've got a better idea." Sonya replied.
"W-What are you-" Harvey stopped when he saw Sonya raise her foot, and screamed as her foot came down and crushed him.
"Whoa, talk about feeling betrayed." Nigel said, walking out of the room. He then walked into the next room, which belonged to Eva, and found his cousin waking up from her bed, only her face was hideously misshapen and ugly.
Eva looked into her dresser mirror and gasped. "AHHHHHHHHH!"
Grossed out himself, Nigel walked out. The next room read Kade Jackson, who Nigel remembered as Numbuh 11.0. There, he found 11.0 watching Eva make out with Numbuh 30c. "Oh, Kenny. You're SO handsome and you're SO much sweeter than Kade!"
"Oh, stop! Your embarrassing him!" With that, they made out some more, with Kade looking like he was going into mental breakdown. "NOOOOOOOO!"
Nigel walked out of the room and finally decided, "That's it, no more nightmares." However, he couldn't resist when he saw the next door: "'Rattlesnake Jake'? This should be good!"
He walked into Jake's nightmare and found the snake curled up in the middle of a bird's nest. "Ugh… where am I?" he asked, looking around. He then looked in fear to see the eggs in the nest beginning to hatch and big baby birds came out. "No! Get away from me! NOOOOO!"
Nigel instantly walked out and burst into laughter. "Oh, MAN! Who would've expected THAT?" he exclaimed, laughing some more. "Okay, let's move on!" With that, he continued down the long hallway.
Finally, he made it to the end and found double-doors. Above, he saw the label Nightmare King's Throne. "Well, here we are." He said, slowly approaching. "It's time to get some answers." He went in.
The Nightmares come from the Kirby series, as well as Mario RPG. Oogie Boogie comes from The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Beldam comes from Coraline.