DISCLAIMER: There's a BioShock reference or two in this chapter, if you can find them, you get a digital cookie made out of bragging rights.

Chapter 2: Universal

A day or two passed, Zim spent time in his new laboratory in the apartment building with limited materials. It was a small 8'x8' scale room with a window directly across from the doorway, a desk next to that window, and covered wooden boxes of Irken technology stacked in the corner. GIR walked in a lot less, due to the fact that there wasn't much in Zim's new laboratory that went 'BOOM'.

"What do we have, so far, Zim?" Kat asked as she walked into the room one afternoon.

"So far, all I've got is this," Zim held up something that looked like a tuba with a VCR attached to it, except the VCR had a big red button on the top.

"Wow! That's a nifty little craft project! So, do you have anything real?" said Kat.

"It's not a craft project, it's a D.E.P.R.O.S.A," said Zim, putting the instrument on the desk chair. "A Dark Energy Powered Random Object Spawning Apparatus."

"So, what, does it just throw stuff at people?" Kat asked.

"That is its main purpose," said Zim, twisting a knob on the top of the VCR device.

"Neat," said Kat.

"Very," four metal bands on the inside of the tuba popped out and met each other, creating a ball of unstable dark energy about the size of one's head at the meeting center.

"Do you have any control over what's supposed to pop out of that thing?" Kat asked.

"Absolutely not," Zim replied. "But I have perfect knowledge of what it will be." Zim tapped the VCR device, a banner of red text flickered on in the same sort of font as a digital alarm clock, it read, 'VIOLIN'.

"So, what triggers it?" Kat asked.

"Did you not see the shiny, pretty, candy-like red button?" said Zim, tapping the button.

Unfortunately, Zim tapped the button too quickly, and the energy ball wobbled out of the device, transforming almost immediately into a violin and hitting Kat in the squeedly-spooch.

"Faw!" Kat squeaked, keeling over.

"Sorry," said Zim, he looked over to the banner on the VCR, it now read 'TRUCK TIRE'. "That will be useful for some day."

"Indeed it will!" Kat shouted, and turned the D.E.P.R.O.S.A. toward Zim, then firing the truck tire into HIS squeedly-spooch, knocking him over.

"Ow," Zim grunted, rubbing his stomach in pain. "Where's that Hector human?"

"He's heating up some soup in the microwave," said Kat.

"Poor human, always having to rely on organic material to survive," said Zim pitifully.

"Oh, that's not anything to be ashamed of," said Kat, scratching her back. "Needing to wear these ridiculous back packs to stay alive is something to be ashamed of."

"Faw," said Zim.

In the kitchen, Hector hadn't even put the soup in the microwave. He was just poking it with his hands. After about a minute of doing this, the soup began to smoke, and Hector sucked it down in two gulps.

GIR's favorite program, the Scary Monkey Show, had been brought off the air after the crew decided that the monkey wasn't doing anything whenever they were filming; this was much to Zim's happiness, and GIR's disappointment.

Thus, GIR had to search through the channels to find something entertaining to watch.

The living room, across from the kitchen, had a carpet over a hard wood floor, and a couch up against a wall with a window, which faced the television.

GIR sadly scrolled through the channels, Mind-Crushing Anime, Penguins 24/7, TV City, Animated Television Show Programming Network, Back in the Kitchen, and the dreadful Nickelodeon. No channel had what he was looking for. GIR sighed, and went into the kitchen to make himself a taquito for dinner.

"Evening, GIR," said Hector as he put his bowl in the sink.

"Evenin'."

GIR opened the freezer next to the counter next to the sink and pulled out a microwaveable taquito. "Frosty one, you shall soon be edible!"

GIR opened up the microwave on the counter, and put the taquito in, he hadn't quite read the instructions on the box, so he just entered +One Minute on the microwave, the taquito heated for twelve seconds, until it began sizzling and eventually exploded right in GIR's face, sending him flying into the window.

"Wuzzat?" said Lee, springing from a peaceful sleep in one of the dining room chairs.

"WHEW! DO THAT AGAIN!" said GIR.

Hector picked up the microwave and looked inside, the taquito was nothing but black powder now, but something beneath the plate caught his eye. "Hey, Lee?"

"Yeah?" said Lee, getting up from his chair and having a look at the microwave.

"Do you know what that is?" Hector pointed to a black crystal-like formation beneath the plate with a dark purple glow around it.

"Not a clue," said Lee, he took the microwave from Hector's hands and put it on the dining table, then he lifted out the plate and the black ring beneath it and put it next to the microwave. "Probably something stupid."

"Huh?" said Hector. "Stupid? It blew up a taquito! That's- that's... that's very stupid."

"Quite," said Lee, he reached into the microwave and yanked the crystal-like object- which was stuck to it- out, and placed it on the top of the microwave. "Zim might want to see it, though."

"I'll bring it to him," said Hector. He picked up the crystal. "You can make GIR's taquito."

"Very well," said Lee. He went over to the freezer, opened it, and pulled out another frozen taquito.

Back in Zim's sad little laboratory, Zim was fixing up a sort of vitamin chamber that could be used to bring back the dead, when he heard someone walk into the room.

"Good day, Zim," said Hector, who was twirling a black crystal in his hands.

"Good day, earth child," said Zim, then he looked at the crystal. "What do you have there?"

"Something from the microwave," said Hector, he tossed the crystal to Zim. "Have a look at it."

Zim examined the crystal, it sounded faintly like it was singing some sort of lullaby. "Neat."

"Do you know what it is?" said Hector.

"It could be nothing more than a power source," said Zim. "However, I may have a look at it with the H.M.A.D."

"Suit yourself," said Hector, and he sat down in a chair. "I'm gonna take a nap."

Zim pulled a pair of cyberpunk-style goggles out of his PAK to study the crystal with.

After a minute or two of studying, Zim said, "Amazing... absolutely amazing-"

"What?" asked Hector, waking up from his attempt to nap.

"Well, Hector, it seems that this is much more than a mere power source, but a power source used for cross-dimensional travel!" said Zim, cue hopeful music stinger.

"But- how would a microwave hold such a thing?" said Hector, getting up from his chair.

"I have no idea- but it's remarkable that we ourselves would be trusted with the secret to multidimensional transportation!" Zim took a moment to breathe, despite the fact that he was an Irken, and did not need to breathe manually. "We could recruit an army of me! An army of GIR! We could bring weapons and treasures you couldn't even dream of back from different universes! WE COULD LEARN HOW TO POOP RAINBOWS!"

"Again with the rainbow-shitting," said Hector.

"Apologies," Zim muttered. "Either way, if this crystal is compatible with my vitamin chamber, I could fix it with the old hyperteleporter and send someone in to explore another universe, we just need either an idiot or someone who can't die."

"How about both?" asked Lee as he walked into the room.

"How about the next person who comes into my laboratory knocks next time?" Zim grumbled as he put down the crystal. "Yes, Lee, you will be the subject in this test of the cross-dimensional time portal."

"Magnificent," said Lee. "Is it up, yet?"

"No, I still need to apply parts of the hyperteleportation device to the vitamin chamber, because a crystal with this much power could crumple the hyperteleporter like tinfoil."

"Shall I place the crystal in the vitamin chamber, then?" Hector asked, taking the crystal off of Zim's desk.

"Of course," said Zim, he pointed to the battery compartment to the side of the vitamin chamber. "It doesn't need unscrewing or anything, it just pops right off."

Zim went to searching through the boxes for his hyperteleporter while Hector replaced the battery in the vitamin chamber.

Hector picked up the battery, which was a bar of uranium in a leak-proof stainless steel covering, and gently placed it on the windowsill, then he put the harmless crystal into the compartment.

Immediately, the vitamin chamber's harmless-looking shimmering water feel changed into a violent vortex of a portal.

"Uh, Zim?" Hector asked as he closed the compartment.

"Yes, Hector?" Zim asked, still looking for his hyperteleporter.

"What does this mean?" Hector pointed to the chamber.

Zim stared. "Apparently, the device is ready, the power source created a portal as well as powering cross-universal travel."

"But that's ridiculous! Wouldn't you need teleporter components for creating a portal?" said Lee.

"Unless you have the third most rare crystal in the multiverse, which we do, apparently."

"You don't sound as enthusiastic as one would expect," said Lee.

"Oh no, I'm appalled, I just don't want to release it and faint when I need to be watching it," said Zim, he walked up to the teleportation chamber and pressed a button on the side, pulling the door back and revealing the intangible energy-proof shield. He looked over to Lee. "Well, Lee, go right on in. You may want to take this."

Zim handed Lee a back pack-sized walky-talky with a single strap on the back, like a mail bag. "This is a Cross-Dimensional Communication Device, or the CD2, you will need it to come back home from wherever it is the portal will send you, just push the button on the side," Zim pointed to a gargantuan red button in between the speaker and the microphone that said 'GO HOME'.

Lee put the walky-talky on his back. "So... that's it? We're just gonna walk right into some random universe?"

Zim scoffed. "No, YOU'RE going to walk right into some random universe, I'm not going anywhere NEAR that thing!" with that, he hid behind a box of spare SIR Unit parts.

"Hector?" Lee asked.

"You're on your own, pal, 30 Rock is on and I'm not gonna miss it," said Hector, and he casually walked out of the room.

"Oh, you guys SUCK!" said Lee, and he stepped into the vortex portal, the door closed over the energy-proof shield and the vortex began taking molecules off of Lee's undead body and reconstructing them in another universe, as the last few molecules fell into the portal (the ones on his hand), the floating hand waved and disappeared into the void.

Inside the cross-dimensional hyperteleportation tunnel, Lee shot like a bullet through universe after universe, he heard voices in these universes and they faded as quickly as they came.

"...To city seventeen...-HUMAN MOON-...LASER ARROW...FUS RO DAH...this is only a bad dream...look Mr. Bubbles, it's an angel!"

Eventually, when Lee decided he had to do it himself, he hopped right out of the tunnel and flew into a tree. "Ow."

He had crushed the bark right from the tree, and landed on a limb of the tree, which broke, then landed on another, which broke, basically, he fell out of the tree and hit every branch on the way down.

When he had landed on the grass, he had twigs wedged in his face and quite a few leaves in his faded gray hair, when he thought he could speak again, he grunted, "Well, that sucked."

Lee got up and brushed himself off, he looked around, and understood that he was in a dense forest. He looked up and saw that in his teleportation, he had left a giant purple flare shooting into the sky. "The natives are going to go crazy on that one."

Lee adjusted his walky-talky and made sure it wasn't cracked. It turned out that it was made out of the same sort of material that the little black box was made out of on an airplane, thus explaining why it was so heavy.

Lee decided that he would take a walk and have a look at the life in this parallel universe, he saw a rabbit or two, a snake minding its business, and a chipmunk, then he realized, "Well, isn't this a load of bullshit, I'm still on earth Prime."

A distant alarm bell began ringing. Lee looked to where it might be, and saw the rooftops of a town in the distance.

"Oh, shoot," said Lee. "They saw the flare."

Lee punched the button on his walky-talky, and a voice command activated. "RETURN REQUESTED, PLEASE WAIT TEN MINUTES AS WE TRIANGULATE YOUR POSITION."

Lee sat down behind a tree. He passed the time by chipping away at a fallen limb with a Swiss army knife, and tossing the chips at another tree. This went on for three minutes, before he heard the sound of a horse approaching his tree. Odd, he expected a simple search party, if anything, to come his way.

Lee got up and got a better look at what was coming towards him. Six small horses and what seemed like a small child were coming his way. So, it was possible that he was in another universe, one of prodigies that can train horses to follow them, by the looks of it.

"Hello?" said a voice, a feminine one, coming from the search party, which was strange, as the small child seemed male. "Is anyone there?"

"I must apologize if I've disturbed anything," said Lee.

"Nothing's wrong, don't worry," said another voice. That must have meant he was in a drastically different universe, as it appeared horses could talk. "What- er, who are you?"

"My name is Lee Jefferson," said Lee.

"Lee?" said one of the voices as the horses got closer. "Weird name."

"Be polite, Rainbow Dash, he's probably from another culture," said another voice, which appeared to be coming from near the small child. "Are you a pony?"

"Err, no," said Lee. This land must have been run by ponies. "I don't exactly think you'd be happy to see me! I'm not a sight for sore eyes!"

"What are you talking about?" said one of the voices in a Southern accent. "I'm sure you're about as scary a creature as any of-"

The ponies stopped three feet away from Lee, and got a good look at the biped. He was twice the height of them, and he stood upright without arching his knees, there were thin appendages protruding from where his hooves should be that looked like claws, he didn't look like he had any ears (which he didn't, in fact, they were just holes in his head), his eyes had circuits protruding from the pupil and cracking his irises, bits of his face were missing and exposed his bone.

"Oh my..."

"I warned you," Lee replied.

"Sorry if this sounds rude," said a white pony with a curly purple mane. "But WHAT are you?"

"A reanimated corpse from another universe," said Lee. "Commonly, one would call me a zombie of sorts-"

"ZOMBIE you say?" said what Lee had thought was a small child, and turned out to be a baby dragon. "You're not going to eat us, are you?"

Lee lost his temper, "Oh, ALWAYS with the 'are you going to eat us' attitude, Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later give us such a bad name! We are a PEACEFUL people, who long only for COMPANIONSHIP, not BRAINS!"

Of course, Lee looked horrifying when he said this, he waved his arms like a maniac and a few of his fingers fell off, all of this while he was screaming.

"DON'T HURT ME!" said the dragon, and it hid behind its companion.

Lee cleared his throat. "Lost my cool, sorry, I just don't like stereotypes."

Lee picked up the fingers that fell off.

"Why do you need those?" said a winged blue pony with a rainbow-colored mane and tail.

"Need what?" Lee asked.

"Those!" the pony pointed to Lee's fingers. "What do you need them for?"

"How do you expect me to hold something without fingers?" Lee asked.

"Well, you do seem to be doing fine without them," said a purple pony with a dark blue mane.

"Yes- but it's very uncomfortable!" Lee pouted.

An antenna rose out of Lee's back pack. "RETURNING TO LAST VISITED LOCATION IN TWO MINUTES."

"What-" the white one began.

"I knew he was more than a zombie! HE'S AN ALIEN!" screamed the dragon. "GET HIM!"

"What?" Lee asked, hiding his back pack. "That's ridiculous! I mean, I work for the Irken empire, yes, but I'm not an-"

"He really is an alien!" said the purple one, noticing the Irken Empire band on Lee's arm.

"Oh, SHIT!" Lee said, and he began running.

"He's getting away!" said the dragon, ever-so-a-captain-obvious.

With that, the four ponies we mentioned, along with the pink one and the yellow one that were part of the group, ran right after Lee, with the dragon running at half the speed.

"Shitshitshitshit," said Lee.

"EXITING UNIVERSE IN SIXTY SECONDS, PLEASE BE SURE THAT YOU ARE AT LEAST SIXTY FEET AWAY FROM ANY OTHER ORGANISMS THAT ARE NOT INTENDED BE BROUGHT WITH YOU."

"TRIPLESHITS!" Lee screamed, and he picked up his pace to sprinting, so that his limbs made violent creaking noises as they moved.

"He's going back to the mother-ship!" said the blue one.

Lee came to a dead stop at a great chasm. "That's a cliff!"

"We have him cornered, break his back pack!" said the white one.

Lee looked behind him to see the angry group of misunderstanding ponies coming toward him, then he looked into the chasm. His bag began beeping. He pulled out an umbrella from a compartment in the bag and pointed it at the ponies. "I'm not afraid to use this!"

"What?" said the purple one.

"You're bluffing!" said the pink one.

"I am not!" said Lee, and he flicked the umbrella open. "Don't come any closer! You do NOT want to go where I'm going!"

"HYPERTELEPORTATION IN FIFTEEN..."

"This is gonna suck," said Lee, and jumped into the chasm with his umbrella, and it immediately fell out of his hand. "THIS IS REALLY GONNA SUCK!"

The dragon eventually ran up to the group of ponies, and bumped into one of them. "Oops."

The cliff that they were standing on was precarious, and not quite the most reinforced, therefore, when the dragon bumped into the ponies, the section of the cliff they were standing on cracked and broke off, and left the poor guilty dragon right at the edge of the cliff. "I AM SO SORRY!"

Before the yellow pony or the blue pony could remember to fly out of the chasm, Lee's back pack exploded, creating an enormous portal with a sixty foot radius, and vaporizing everyone in the chasm.

"Oh... my... goodness," said the dragon.

Back in Zim's laboratory, the portal chamber cracked and exploded, sending shards of glass and metal everywhere.

"Is it over?" said Zim, peeking over the box of SIR parts.

Lee had returned, and the giant walky-talky was missing from his back.

"I suppose you brought back something of value, Lee?" said Zim.

"Nothing," said Lee. "Everything was exactly the same- oh, wait, I remember, that universe was run by-"

The vortex portal reformed, and spat out the six ponies from the other universe, one at a time.

The portal moved violently as it spawned the interdimensional beings, one spawned on the desk, one spawned in a crate, one spawned falling from the ceiling, and the others spawned fairly normally.

"Aw, crap," said Lee.

Kat had been in the room as well, and saw the ponies spawn. "Aw, they're adorable!" she reached to pet the blue one, but it slapped her hand away. "Well, excuse me for adoring you."

"I'm just going to forget the fact that we just chased you through the Everfree forest and ask where in Equestria we are," said the blue one.

"Ah, Equestrians, just as I expected," said Zim, and he waved the yellow pony off of his desk to put down his indestructible computer, which was knocked into the wall.

"What do you mean, 'expected'?" said the white pony.

"We were merely testing multidimensional travel, ma'am," said Zim as his computer booted up. "Nothing quite so demonic as you would expect us to do."

The blue one perked up angrily. "Hey, You didn't answer my question! Where are we?"

"Earth," said Zim. "Planet earth, in the milky way galaxy, which orbits a yellow sun that has a couple billion years left in its lifespan."

"I know that, wise guy, where is everyone?"

"All around you, dear, earth is run by humans like myself!" said Lee. "Just, not quite as dead, and a lot dumber."

"That's horrible!" said the pony.

"Manners, Dash," said the purple one.

"So," said Zim, clapping his hands together in a polite manner after shutting his computer. "I believe introductions are in order, I am ZIM! Future slave driver of humanity and remover of Mars from this pathetic solar system, thank you very much."

"I am Lee Jefferson, his assistant in destruction of this solar system and eventual owner of Pluto's moon," said Lee.

"I am Kat, I have no idea who I am!" said Kat happily.

"Uh-huh," said the blue pony.

"Rainbow Dash, introduce yourself," said the purple pony.

The blue pony, apparently named Rainbow Dash, scoffed.

"Well, I guess you know who she is, now, I'm Twilight Sparkle, the one in the hat's Applejack, the pink one is Pinkie Pie, the white one is Rarity, and the yellow one with the wings is Fluttershy, how do you do?" the purple pony, named Twilight, extended her hoof to Zim to shake hands.

Zim hesitantly shook Twilight's hand. "I do well, thank you."

Now that that's over with, let's check on Dib, shall we?

Dib whistled happily as he sat on a log and roasted marshmallows over a roaring fire. "It's a good thing I've got that pocket campsite that I made a couple weeks ago!"

Then the thought bubble popped, and as Dib walked through a dense forest, he face-palmed. "Why did I forget to bring that?"

Well, that's depressing, so we're going to have to cut back to the main characters.

Lee picked up an empty soup can as he walked into the kitchen, he saw several bowls of soup that had been cooked to perfection and placed evenly along the dining table, making them was none other than Hector, who hadn't even put the microwave back.

"Evening, Hector," said Lee.

Hector, whose hand was hovering above the bowl of soup, creaked his head up to Lee. "Eh? Oh, evening, I was just making some soup for myself."

"Without a microwave?" said Lee.

"Haven't you ever heard of an oven?" Hector snapped.

"But Hector," Lee opened the oven to see that it was nothing more than a container, it didn't have a light bulb or any racks or heaters whatsoever. "We haven't fixed the oven yet."

"I ordered takeout," said Hector.

"But that's not-"

"SHUT UP!" Hector shouted madly.

"Okay."

"Well, I'm famished," said Kat as she walked into the room. "Ooh, soup!"

"Wait, Kat, that's not Irken brand-!" Hector said, but Kat was already eating the soup.

"Too hot," said Kat, her tongue was black like charcoal. "What did you cook this in, Hector? A volcano?"

"My bare hands," Hector muttered.

"Wuzzat?" Kat asked.

"Nothing."

-END CHAPTER-

A little slower, it is, but still too fast for my liking, at this rate, the fourth chapter could be the last one, so I'm going to go experimentally slower and slower until we have a decent nine chapters to finish the book with. Good evening.