Author's Note: I'm sorry I wasn't able to post this chapter last week or the week before, my internet was shut off. That, and I've been having a bit of "writer's block" But my internet is back up and I now give you the long awaited third chapter of Desolation Ed. After seeing Eddy venture off alone into the wasteland, I bet some of you are wondering if Ed and Edd are just going to be minor characters in the story. Fear not, both Ed and Edd will accompany Eddy on his adventure during the second half of the story. Now let us proceed with Chapter 3.

Chapter 3: Welcome to the Wasteland

The intense sunlight shined down upon Eddy and blinded him for a few moments, for he had spent a long time inside the vault and his eyes had to get used to natural sunlight. Eddy shut his eyes tight but even with his eyelids fully closed he could still feel the stinging sensation of the sunlight burning a path through his cornea.

"I got to get through this somehow," he thought to himself.

He then slowly opened his eyelids, allowing his eyes to gradually adjust to the sunlight. After they adjusted, Eddy finally was able to see what had become of the earth. The earth was indeed a desolate wasteland. The ground had become a coarse rough terrain. There were almost no signs of plant life except for the occasional dead tree and tumble weed. This arid wasteland seemed to stretch far beyond what the eye can see. Eddy walked up to one of the dead trees scattered about the wasteland and observed it. It has been stripped of all its leaves, its branches were bare, and its bark had a charred black surface. Eddy scraped some of the bark off the tree; all that came off was a powdery black ash.

Eddy then observed the horizon. He spotted a building which he thought looked like a factory. After walking for about half a mile he reached the perimeter of the building and recognized that it was the old junkyard factory. Eddy decided to check inside the factory to see if there was anything interesting within, that and because it was better than standing outside in the blazing heat.

When Eddy stepped inside the factory it was mostly dark, except for the occasional ray of sunshine seeping through the vents in the ceiling. It was humid on the inside but sure beat the heat. Eddy walked around the factory floor of the building; the space had already been devoid of machinery for quite some time. All that was left inside were a few crates, the occasional tin can, random piles of junk and scrap metal, and an extremely dirty floor.

"Dang, this place makes Ed's basement look like a sterile hospital room," thought Eddy to himself. He walked around the room a bit until he came across one of the piles of crates. "Maybe there's some good loot in here."

He grabbed a mid-sized metal footlocker sticking out from the pile of crates and pried the top open. The only contents inside were a half empty pack of cigarettes, an empty whiskey bottle, and a bobby pin.

"What? There's nothing but junk in here!" he shouted to himself. It took a few moments for the ramifications of his surroundings finally sunk in. "Hmph, figures."

Just then, Eddy heard a small screeching noise from behind him. He quickly jumped around to see what made the noise.

"Who's there?" he yelled.

Eddy couldn't see anything. Whoever or whatever made the noise had fled into the shadows away from the beams of light coming from the vents in the ceiling.

Eddy squinted into the darkness to try to spot the perpetrator of the noise.

"This place is starting to give me the creeps," thought Eddy to himself while having second thoughts about coming into the building.

But just then he heard another sound, this time like the scurrying or footsteps. And with that he caught a glimmer of movement in the corner of his eye through the darkness.

"Oh geez!" cried Eddy to himself. Pumped with fear, he pulled out the 10mm handgun the overseer gave him and aimed it into the direction he thought the creature had fled to.

"Alright, whoever you are you'd better show yourself! I don't want to accidentally fire my gun at you." Yelled Eddy into the darkness. He slowly stepped back into the beams of sunlight, hoping the creature would be hesitant to step into the light, thus giving him a chance to attack.

Eddy then saw more movement in the darkness a large round figure began to approach him. The creature then stepped foot into the light. The first thing Eddy was a large snout. It had many whickers at the tip of its disfigured nose. Its mouth constantly drooled with an excess of salivation. As more of it stepped into the sunlight Eddy began to realize what the heck this thing was. It had beady black eyes and huge claws that looked as if it could tear flesh open easily. It had a round, furry body though there were several mangy lesions on it where fur had fallen off. Lastly, it had a long, veiny, tail. Eddy finally realized what this thing was. It was a giant, mutated rat! Its body had grown several times larger than its original size due to the radiation effects of the bombs that had dropped. The rat began to snarl at Eddy. He was now officially scared to death, adrenaline was pumping through his body like water through a fire hose.

"Holy sh-!" yelled Eddy before firing his gun at the rat. He missed his first shot but the rat had been scared off. It darted past Eddy and scurried back into the shadows.

"I'm getting the heck out of here!" cried Eddy as he ran back to the doors of the factory.

He slammed opened the doors and ran far away from the factory, screaming like a 2-year old for about two minutes straight. After losing all of his energy from running and crying Eddy stopped and rested against an old rusty vehicle to take a breather. After resting for about another minute he looked around and observed the location he was at. It appeared that he had run into the old junkyard. He turned around and saw that the vehicle he was resting against was the old purple van that he and the other two Eds had played in before the war. The van wasn't so purple anymore. Rust had consumed and chipped away at its original purple color scheme and flame paintjob.

"Hey, I remember this van! I must be in the junkyard," said Eddy.

He opened up the back door to the van and looked inside. The seats had worn out and the water bed had deflated a long time ago. Despite the deplorable condition of the interior Eddy decided that it was still a good place to take a break and think out his plan to get to Vault 69.

"How the heck am I supposed to find Vault 69? Hey, wait a minute!" said Eddy in surprise as he remembered that he had left his vault with one of the most vital piece of technology locked to his arm, the Pip-Boy 2000 wrist mounted computer.

Eddy held up his left arm in front of him. His hand-me-down Pip-Boy 2000 was as in just as shoddy condition as it has always been. He pressed a button labeled "Data" to bring up the GPS system but the device's age and monochromatic display made for quite troublesome legibility. It took him several minutes and a slap or two to get the display functioning enough to be able to read. From there, a green and black topographical map of the local area popped up on his Pip-Boy screen. Eddy fiddled around with the knobs on the side of the screen, trying to figure out how to move the GPS pointer in the right direction. It was about as difficult as trying to draw a circle on an Etch-a-Sketch. He eventually got used to formidable process of having to move the pointer around and after searching around the map a few times he finally found the landmarked coordinates of Vault 69 Edd had added for him previously back in the library. He saw that the vault was several miles southeast of his location and that the route would take him a couple of days to travel to on foot, not including the rocky hills he would have to traverse across.

"Aha! Found it!" cheered Eddy. "Now all I got to do is walk a few miles towards the Vault, take the waterchip, then return back in one piece while the rest of the kids worship me as their hero for life. Victory, thy name is Eddy!" he boasted before jumping up and striking a heroic pose. Once he jumped out of the van the intense heat of the wasteland reached him. He suddenly felt a loss of energy as he stumbled out of his high and mighty pose and back into the van. "On second thought, what's the rush?" he said as he hesitated to start his trek towards Vault 69. "Hmm… I wonder what else this thing can do."

He looked once again at his Pip-Boy. He pressed the button labeled "Stats" and it took him to a tab marked "Status". The screen showed an outline of his body with a bunch of "health bars" pointed at each of his major limbs. His legs, arms, torso, and head all had a full health bar next to them.

"Whoa, this thing can tell me if my arms are working properly? Cool!" said Eddy in astonishment. "What else can it tell me?"

Using the pointer, Eddy clicked on a green tab at the bottom of the screen that read "Skills". The Pip-Boy then showed Eddy a list of "Skills" that Eddy had, along with a description of each and an accompanying image of a cartoon mascot illustrating the skill. The list included 15 different skills and a corresponding skill level out of 100:

Barter – 75

Energy Weapons – 10

Explosives – 10

Firearms – 20

Gambling – 50

Lockpick – 60

Medicine – 20

Melee Weapons – 30

Pilot – 10

Repair – 40

Science – 10

Sneak – 75

Speech – 70

Survival – 20

Unarmed – 20

"Holy crud, this thing can tell me how good I am? Who was the genius who invented this thing!" said Eddy as he developed a fondness for his Pip-Boy.

A great thumping sound broke the moment. Eddy started to look around the van in hopes of finding out where the sound came from.

"Oh geez, this better not be another mutated rat!"

Eddy pulled out his handgun in anticipation. This time he planned to not miss at the creature he was aiming for. Little did he know that this thing was a whole lot worse than any giant rat. Eddy was busy looking at the driver's seat of the van to notice the large predatory being lowered from the roof of the van. The object creped its way through the open back doors of the van. Another "thump" sound was made, Eddy immediately darted his head around and came face to face with what looked like a giant stinger; the kind you would find on some sort of… Arthropod.

"What now!" cried Eddy.

The stinger lunged at Eddy but he managed to duck in time. He Eddy crawled along the floor of the van as the stinger continued to jab at him. He tried shooting his gun a few times at the stinger but he missed all shots, the bullets only ricocheted off the walls of the van while sending sparks in the air. The gun had run out of ammo and Eddy had no time to reload so he instead focused on escaping the van. Eddy managed to crawl to the driver's seat and climb out the passenger door before dropping down to the floor and scrambling to his feet in panic.

Eddy tried to run away to a safe enough distance to reload but he tripped on a pile of junk and fell once more to the ground. He then rolled over on his back and looked towards the van where he caught a site of a much more horrendous and intimidating opponent than a rat. On top of the van was a giant mutated scorpion. Like the rat, the scorpion was affected by the effects of the nuclear radiation during the war. It had grown much larger than its original size. The beast was an automobile-sized emperor scorpion with a menacing, obsidian-colored armored carapace and multiple glowing eyes in the region where you'd expect its face to be. Each of the eyes were as shiny and pitch black as oil and looked as if they could peer into your very soul. The rigid pinchers looked as if they could pinch through steel itself! And in the rear was the tail that came close to killing Eddy. Unlike the rest of the scorpion's dark colored body, the poison sac at the tip of the tail was a milky white color oozing with visible venom.

The scorpion crawled down from the van, using its powerful eight legs. Eddy had managed to reload his handgun and scrambled back up to his feet. He ran towards another old dilapidated car and jumped on top of the hood, hoping the high ground would somehow give him a better chance of hitting the radscorpion. As the scorpion crawled closer Eddy aimed the gun at its face and, as he gripped the gun with all his might, fired.

Direct hit! The bullet had hit the scorpion and had taken out one of its many dark eyes. However, the scorpion was still alive and was even more ticked off than before. It charged at Eddy in a furious rage, knocking him off the car. Eddy aimed the handgun at the radscorpion again and fired. The bullets hit the scorpion's pinchers but it didn't seem to do any damage. The scorpion lunged its stinger once more at Eddy, this time striking him in his right hand. Eddy yelped in pain, the gun flew out of his hands and was out of reach. His hand started to bleed; he clenched it tight with his other hand in an attempt to coagulate the blood. Eddy stood up and ran for his life. The scorpion chased all throughout the junkyard. The scorpion eventually cornered him between a barbwire fence and a stack of beat up cars. The scorpion closed in for the final strike but all of a sudden a loud voice called out to Eddy.

"Get down, kid!"

Eddy couldn't see where the voice came from but he quickly obeyed it. Eddy threw himself to the ground and shut his eyes tight. The next thing he heard was the sound of a gunshot. Then another. And another… Finally, he heard the sound of the beast shrieking in pain, then silence.

Eddy opened his eyes and saw the scorpion in front of him – dead. He observed the motionless body of the once threatening otherworldly creature. Eddy turned around to see a man walking towards him with a hunting rifle in his hands.

"Just what the Heck do you think you're doing all alone out here, kid?" yelled the stranger.

The stranger had the appearance of a homeless person. His grimy mulleted hair and patchy graying beard and mustache were unkempt and untidy. There was a painful looking scar running down his left face cheek, and he looked like rough, tough survivor of the wasteland though he appeared to be only in his early forties. His clothes consisted of a dirty tan colored t-shirt, a filthy scarf wrapped around his already filthy neck to protect against sunburn, brown pants torn by excessive wear, and his boots that had definitely seen better days.

Eddy was trying to think of a response to the stranger's question. Was he to tell him that he was on a quest for the water chip? What if this guy was a crazy person? Would he force Eddy to reveal the location of the vault so he can go take it over? Eddy saw that the man was growing impatient and wanted an answer. Eddy took a chance with mentioning his vault and replied.

"Uh, I was sent from my vault to see if the surface was, uh, safe to explore," said Eddy hoping then man would believe his story.

"Well you better tell your little vault friends that it's to best stay where they are. That there vault is probably a thousand times safer than this damn wasteland." said the stranger with a southern accent in his voice. He then noticed that Eddy was clenching a bloody hand. "You'd best stay with us for a while, them radscorpions come in packs, and their venom can be deadly if untreated. We'd better get you patched up." Said the stranger as he turned around and waved his hands at two other men who were standing atop a large wall made of junk cars.

The men lowered down a large metal plate which was covering the back end of a semi truck trailer. The trailer was a passage to the settlement where the men dwelled.

"Welcome to the wasteland, kid," said the stranger as he and Eddy walked through the trailer into the settlement. The Men on the car wall then raised back up the door to the passage, shielding it from the hazards of the wastes.