Inside the shack it was quiet. The early evening sunset filtered through the curtains, lighting up the main room and casting blurry orange shadows on the wooden floor. Dust spun lazily in the streaks of light, completely undisturbed by the loud crashing outside.

"Get it get it get it!" a rough voice yelled.

"I'm trying! It's floating, Stanford!"

"Here, pass me the cage. I'll get it."

"No no, I've got this. I just need it to get a little bit closer… oof!"

There was a dull thud, followed by the painful sound of a body hitting the dirt.

"Wha? It rammed me!"

"Watch out Fids, It's coming for you again!" a third voice interjected.

There was a high pitched scream, rapid patting sounds, and then a long, loud angry hissing noise. A small flump was follow, like a pillow hitting the floor. It was silent for three seconds, then two of the three voices broke into uncontrollable laughter.

"You… you pepper sprayed it!" the rough voice spluttered between roars of laughter.

"Are you going to help me get it into the cage or not?" the screamer retorted, sounding fairly disgruntled.

The third voice tried to stifle his laughing, unsuccessfully. "Right right. I'll hold it steady and you roll it in."

A creak of metal on metal and a dragging sound. There was a quiet grunt.

The rough voice chuckled. "Having some trouble there Fids?"

"Anytime you want to help!" snapped a reply.

There was the click of a lock and a sigh of relief.

"Okay," the third voice said. "Let's get it in the shack."

The door of the shack slammed open, revealing three figures. Stanford Pines strode into the main room, followed closely by his brother Stanley. Almost identical except for the slicked back hair and a lack of glasses, Stanford chose not to wear what he thought were social death sentences. Stumbling behind them, carrying what could only be described as a massive eye, struggled Fiddleford McGucket.

All three men were beaten, battered and bruised, though the only member of the trio that seemed effected by it was Fiddleford. The two brothers bounded across the room, heading straight for the door to the basement, seemingly unaware of their minor injuries. It was clear the twins had been doing the whole monster hunting thing a lot longer than he had.

Fiddleford sighed. Looking at the glassy eye staring at him, it was hard to believe that the trio had been tracking it pretty much all day. They couldn't figure out how to get the floating eye down to their level. Every time they got close it would just float away. Fiddleford had been subjected to sitting on Stanford's shoulders while he and Stanley ran round like loons after the floating eye. Stanford had even tossed him at the sphere without warning, in desperate hope that he might tackle it. To his credit, it had almost worked but Fiddleford wasn't really in the mind to think so when he was still finding bits of grass in his hair and down his shirt an hour later.

The eye had clearly gotten sick of them pestering it all day too. If he hadn't pepper sprayed it they probably would have been chasing it well into the night.

"Fids!"

Fiddleford jumped, snapping away from the memories. Stanley was standing in the doorway leading to the basement, looking at him with a mix of concern and amusement painted on his face. When he saw that he had Fiddleford's attention he smiled.

"You zoned out a bit there buddy. It's not the eye is it? Cause if it's anything like that Germoblin we're letting it go."

Fiddleford almost shuddered. God forbid. "Oh no. it's nothing like that monstrosity. That's like comparing a grizzly to a kitten, Stanley. No, I'm just tired. We've been running after this little guy since 6 this morning remember," he was cut off by a yawn, placing one hand over his mouth and setting the cage on the floor with the other. "How're you two still raring to go?"

Stanley walked over and picked up the cage. The eye rolled a bit but otherwise remained as unmoving as ever. It seemed to be in shock.

"Well, Stanford's always got this much energy. Ever since we were kids. I swear, the guy runs on whatever he can get a hold of and runs with it. Me, adrenaline and a lot of coffee," he paused, then started chuckling. "You should see us when we crash. Last time I fell asleep in the lab and woke up with ink all over my face. Moral of the story; try not to fall asleep while writing notes. Doesn't end well."

Fiddleford managed a tired smile. "And what about Stanford? I presume he's not the type to fall asleep surrounded by notes."

"Oh, the best time Ford's crashed out was when he was eating breakfast and just passed out in his cereal. Y'know when a little kid decides they're done for the day? Bang! Gone. It's a good thing his head hit the table or he would have drowned. Did knock the bowl over though."

Both men laughed quietly, well aware that Stanford wouldn't be too happy about being the object of ridicule. This didn't stop him, however, from thumping up the stairs.

"What're you two nerds laughing about?"

They both tried to straighten their faces, Stanley doing a fantastic job – years of practise- and Fiddleford flashing a wobbly grimace.

"Nothing," he squawked, hiding his laughter with a series of coughs.

Stanford folded his arms, raising an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Well, I'm not usually the one who says this but shouldn't we be in the lab right now. If I'd been standing here talking for as long as you guys have you'd both be yelling at me by now. What happened to 'get old blinky down stairs, gotta poke it with a pencil'."

Stanley scoffed. "Give us some credit! It's a bit more complicated than that. We wanna find out how these guys work, why they hang around in groups, what 'old blinky' was doing on his own, during the day. I mean, I can't be the only one who sees them floating outside my bedroom window at like three in the morning. But this is the first one I've ever seen out in broad daylight."

The three men had begun to migrate down into the lab almost subconsciously, already halfway down the stairs. While the staircase itself was dully lit it was easy to see the stairwell due to the bright, almost clinical lights at the bottom.

Once in the lab Stanley placed the cage on the closes empty table top –which in itself was challenging, as if something wasn't buried in his notes, it had one of Fiddleford's inventions on it- pulled up a rickety looking stool and yanked the table drawer open. Nestled inside were his three journals. He grabbed the third one and flipped it open, got to a fresh page and scrawled 'Floating Eyeballs' at the top.

As he started to scribble down what little he knew about the creature sitting in front of him he half listen to the two other men get settled, Fiddleford removing his jacket and falling into a chair next to what looked like an old freezer at the other end of the room, Stanford leaning back on the only wheelie chair they had and sticking his feet on a desk with a thud. Once everyone was comfortable Stanford lasted all of 4 minutes before he was up again, walking around the lab. A new record.

"So Fiddlesticks, what ya working on?"

Fiddleford already had his head and shoulders deep inside the freezer. His voice was a little bit muffled when he answered.

"First, stop calling me that. I'm trying to get the motor out of the back of this thing. We can't keep using liquid nitrogen to freeze the samples we get and I sure as hell am not putting anymore in my fridge, not after what happened last time."

Stanford laughed loudly. "Oh yeah! That lepracorn spit burnt straight through it. Way ta find out the hard way."

Fiddleford grumbled something quietly then continued so Stanford could hear him. "Exactly. We need somewhere safe to store things and I was thinking I could put together a way of flash freezing them, in a way that doesn't harm them, but we'll at least have some breathing room," he paused, jerking his arm, "Ah… a couple of these screws are rusted solid. Where did you find this Stanley? The dump?"

"You bet!" Stanley responded brightly.

Stanford, content to leave Fiddleford to fight with the freezer, drifted over to stand behind his brother, who had finished his brief write up on the eye and was now sketching it.

"Lee, bro, that looks like a load of grapes. What are those vine things?"

"Retina cords."

"It doesn't have those."

"Artist liberty." Stanley muttered around the pen sticking out of his mouth. He grabbed the pen and printed out 'no retina cords' underneath the sketch.

"So when are we going to let it out?" Stanford asked, tilting his head towards the eye. It looked like it had partially recovered from getting hit with pepper spray and had spent the last five minutes looking from one man to the other. Despite not even having eyelids it managed to glare at them quite effectively. Especially Fiddleford, who still had the upper half of his body in the freezer and was completely unaware.

Stanley sighed. "I'm not sure if we should," he replied "We have no idea what this thing will do if we did. I think we should just observe it for a few days, then let it go."

"I agree," came a muffled voice. The twins turned to see Fiddleford pulling his head out of the freezer. "I don't think that allowing it to fly around the lab is a very good idea. We have enough to worry about with Stanford knocking things over without having to keep watch on a floating eye as well."

Stanford grunted. "Fair enough." He started for the door leading upstairs. "Well, I'm gonna get something to eat. You two nerds staying down here?"

"I'll be going in a little while anyway," Fiddleford answered, slipping his jacket back on. "I promised I'd be back before Ranger went to bed. What time is it?"

Stanley looked at his wrist. "8:30."

Fiddleford's eyes widened. "Oh, oh would one of you be willing to drop me off?"

Stanley stretched his arms over his head and stood up, making the stool creak. "I'll do it. I'm done for the day. C'mon." He flipped the journal closed and slipped it into the desk drawer.

The trio wandered up the staircase, chatting tiredly. Once they made it to the top Stanley shut the basement door and locked it, slipping the key into his pants pocket. Nothing would be getting in or out, not tonight.

The shack was quiet at night. The eye had been sitting in the cage for hours. Now fully recovered from the pepper blasting it had received earlier that day it was ready to leave. If anyone had been in the lab when it had decided it had had enough they would have watched, unable to stop it, as it slowly began to glow. It went from the typical white that was associated with eyes to a burnt orange, getting brighter and brighter until it lit up the whole room. Then, without warning, it passed through the bars of the cage, leaving no sign that it had been there at all.

It floated around the lab a few times, floating through tables and bits of equipment and then slipped through the ceiling and out the nearest wall, back into the forest.

First time ever writing these guys. I hope I did them justice. I really love the Mystery Trio and if it's actually canon I will probably die of happiness. But until the theory is either confirmed or tossed aside and beaten with a stick, I'm going to indulge myself. If you made it this far then thanks for reading!