"One...two...three!" Eddy grunted as he raised a pick-axe and slammed it into the cocoon that enravelled his sock-headed friend.
No effect.
"Damn..." The diminutive Ed cursed. "That spider freak could sure spin a web..."
Ed chirped inquisitively before laying his hand in the middle of the cocoon, and with a grunt, pressed it down, causing it to slowly crack apart.
As soon as it did, Double D burst back into the world, with an air-hungry gasp. "Good lord! How long was I in there?"
"I dunno." Ed replied. "Pretty long."
"I...I should've died of oxygen starvation..." Double D continued, staring at his hands, aquiver from weakness. "I have to work quickly!" He immediately sprang up and sprinted back to his home. Ed and Eddy watched from the window, confused to say the least.
0
In a dark laboratory, a crazed-looking scientist walks by a large number of grotesque creatures in large floor-to-ceiling height tubes and pods.
"So...Spider Queen was eliminated, eh?" He said, pressing some blips on a holo-screen emitted from a high-tech wristwatch-like device. "That's okay...She escaped, so she was useless to me. Too strong willed, she was.
"But my spy drones in her forest domain managed to keep tabs on her, and got a clear image of her killer..." He continued as an image of a teenage boy with buzz-cut hair and yellow skin, a prominent unibrow slapped across his forehead, his face bearing a simple expression.
"Oh wow, this boy needs to see a doctor about that weird skin discoloration...might have jaundice or something...whatever."
He grinned madly, as three creatures behind him stretched to life inside their pods as they were being born.
"My children...your sister has left us...give pain to her murderer..."
0
Eddy and Ed followed behind Double D, who now sported a mechanical exoskeleton on his right arm divided into two segments, a blue lower layer, and a gold upper layer.
"What's with the killer glove?" Eddy asked.
"Call it a little assurance, Eddy." Edd replied. "If I'm ever in a pinch, say if another monster attacks, and Ed is nowhere to be found, this exo-appendage will augment my strength a good ten-times over and heaven willing, I can defeat that monster. I'll put the whole 'Android Assistant' idea on hold until we find peace for a good while."
"May have to change ten to a hundred there, Sockhead." Eddy snickered.
"At the moment, I need to test this new contraption." Edd added. "But what would serve as a suitable subject...hmm..."
"Ooh! Ooh!" Ed piped up. "Punch me! Punch me!"
"No, Ed. You tend to have a way of destroying things, and I don't want my new invention to wind up in the scrap heap."
"Aww..." His belly started rumbling. "I'm hungry..."
"You're always hungry, lump." Eddy grumbled.
0
Elsewhere in the city, the Cyborg known as Beam walked out of a cafe after refueling. She wasn't powered by direct electricity like robots. Her pseudo-digestive system was molded to be exactly like a normal human, being able to derive energy from food.
Trailing behind her was the lower class hero Darkcoat, keeping a watchful eye of her.
"What have I told you about following me around like I'm some lost kid?" She groaned, obviously peeved off at his insistence to following her to Peach Creek.
"Us heroes do have to stick together, don't we?" He chuckled nervously. "Besides, most of my work is documenting attacks from monsters and villainous personalities, tracking possible patterns, the nit-picky stuff."
"Hmph. Sounds like you'd be pretty useless in a fight." The cyborg girl said. "You A class heroes are the public eye of the Hero Association, so you should really stick to that, and stay out of S class' way."
Darkcoat frowned nervously. 'You didn't think so before...you looked up to your old man...' He thought.
Suddenly, a huge shadow cast over them.
"What the-?" Beam asked as they looked up to see a huge bat-like figure fly over head.
The bat-like figure flew down upon them, prompting Beam to activate the booster rockets in her modified feet to leap out of the way. Darkcoat merely gave a cowardly shout, jumping to the right, barely missing the creature's wing.
The two heroes regrouped behind it as the creature reshaped itself, becoming slight smaller and more humanoid. It was a cross between a manta ray and a bat, with blue skin and grey fur on his back. His wings now draped like a cape. A long tail with a spiked tip trailed behind him.
"Aww...just barely missed ya." It croaked.
"What kind of monster are you supposed to be?" Darkcoat asked.
Beam noticed the claw mark on the side of her costume, discolored blood leaking out.
"A dead one." She answered.
"Oh-ho! Fiesty!" The bat-manta beast chuckled. "They call me Devil Skate! How's about you and me do the dance of death!?" The monster's arms extended, as huge claws sprouted from them.
"Fine. But you're the one dying here, creature!" Beam growled, boosting herself at him. Devil Skate swiped at her, but she did a midair flip, landing behind him. With a swift kick to his ankle, she caused the monster to screech and curse.
The mutant freak swiped his claws at her a few more times, but Beam was too quick.
"You can't hit me at all, can you?" She taunted, a bit of a sadist's grin on her lips.
"Little bitch!" Devil Skate growled, tossed into a rage, now stabbing madly at her with his spiked tail. The girl grabbed his tail and swung him around powerfully.
"'Round and 'round he goes, where he dies, nobody knows!" She sang, before throwing Devil Skate into the sky.
The creature screamed as it ascended in a perpetual spin, fearing his land. He morphed back into his giant flying form, slowing the rotation, but only slightly. He retained his loss of control.
Beam reactivated the boosters in her feet and flew at immeasureable speed, landing a horrendous uppercut to Devil Skate's chest.
"B-bla!" It spurted.
The cyborg then grabbed him by his left wing, painfully severing it, causing the monster to shriek hellishly.
With a mighty kick, Beam cast him back down to the earth. His fate? To become a massive stain on the sidewalk.
Or rather, to cave in the roof of a five-story building, the word's "UP! Industries" pasted on the front.
A manager immediately ran outside, looking to the sky, apparently terrified that more giant monsters would rain down from heaven.
Beam chuckled nervously.
"Oops...guess I put too much force into that one..."
0
One lengthy explanation and apology by the two heroes, and they were back on there way. Beam's eyes were lit up, scanning for any bolsterous life signs.
There were five kinds of life signs that she could detect. The first was plant life. Not menacing at all. The second was animal life. Then again, only large carnivores posed any real threat to people, and NO animal of any kind posed any threat to her. The third was ordinary human life, her duty of course to preserve these three.
Life signs with a four or five rating were tricky. They could pertain to humans with unusual powers, which could then be groomed into heroes, or should they be tempted, turned to villainy. Another such possibility was that they were monsters, like the one she'd just dispatched. Monsters hated humans with a passion for being the public dominant species of Earth.
Right now, her scanners were poised on three life signs. Two rate fours, and...one unusual. It showed no number rating at all.
"That's...odd..." Beam whispered.
"What's wrong?" Darkcoat asked.
"I've never discovered a life sign with no number rating. I need to check it out."
"That sounds like it could be dangerous..." The tuxedo wearing A-Class Hero said.
"Oh, what are you, my dad?" Beam asked, fists on her hips, eyebrow twitching, obviously annoyed. "If it's too much for a dust mite like you, go back to HQ, go home, or just go somewhere away from me. I don't have any time at all for cowards."
"I'm NOT a coward." Darkcoat asserted. "And what would you know. Do you even remember who your father was?"
"No, and if he's anything like you, I couldn't care any less." She kept walking as the layout of Peach Creek was holographed in front of her.
"The two rated numbers are approaching a lane in a suburban area of town. No-number is already there. If anything it seems like a monster meeting."
"Hmm...well I heard from everyone at HQ that the Hero Association Head Branch in Japan has recorded such things recently. Maybe the U.S. monsters are picking up on the trend." Darkcoat elaborated.
"Let's go then." Beam said.
0
Ed and Eddy watched in the lane as Double D tested his new exo-appendage. He flexed the arm his new armor-for lack of a better word-was attached to regularly so it wouldn't become stiff. It had to be kept lose, or else moving that arm in a pinch would be impossible, and may cause injury.
The sock-headed teen threw a pebble a good distance, no longer in sight.
"That's good and all, Double D, but maybe next time throw an actual rock?" Eddy asked, moreover to taunt him.
"You have to start small, Eddy." His more intelligent friend said. "After all, this is just the prototype."
"Prototype? Aww shit, is it going to turn out like that dumb rocket from the time we were playing in the junkyard last summer?"
Double D sweatdropped. He hoped to forget that moment, as well as many other of their misadventures over the previous year, but this one was one of the more preposterous ones.
Ed had filled their minds with imagery from one of his B-movies titled Robot Rebel Ranch. Vivid imagery that led them astray into the junkyard, and soon enough they were hiding from imaginary robot mercenaries that in the end turned out to be Ed's bratty younger sister Sarah, and Jimmy.
During this little lapse in reality, Double D built a one-manned prototype rocket in the hopes of propelling them to safety. Suffice to say, it did little more than anger Eddy, who served as a flight test dummy.
"Well, I'd say that was enough of a test for today. I'm headed home." Double D declared, removing the exo-appendage with a simple press of a button, causing it to fold into a blue and gold hexagon.
"Whatever. I haven't made any cash in a month, so I'm gonna try and get a scam together." Eddy muttered.
"I wanna beat up more bad guys!" Ed said, bumping his fists together, causing a shockwave. "But right now, I need to make a costume. Tomorrow, buckos!" He said, cheerfully walking off in a goofy, soldier-like trot, kicking his legs up high.
As soon as the three dispersed, a tremor caught them by surprise as a figure erupted from below. The Eds all backed to either of the lane's fences as the being came into view. It was a cyborg entity with a drill comprising it's lower half, it's upper half a large rodent.
"What the heck is that?!" Double D asked.
"Howdy there, boy-os!" The cyborg rodent said in a strange warbling voice. "They call me Gyro-gopher." He looked to Ed. "I'll leave you to the boss. These two are mine!"
Gyro-gopher span around becoming a miniature tornado, much to Double D and Eddy's shock.
"Boss?" Ed asked before a huge shadow fell from overhead and slammed his face into the dirt.
The unseen assailant picked him up by his square-shaped noggin and turned him around to face him at eye level. It was a large, brutish gorilla with crimson fur.
"This is the one that killed Spider Queen? Ha!" It laughed, a strange croak-like sound in it's throat.
Ed grinned. "Hi, gorilla guy! My name is Ed!"
"And now Ed is dead!" The red king-kong wannabe threw him to the ground and spat a river of fire on him.
As soon as the flames hit, Ed slammed his fists into the ground, causing a wall of rock to seperate him from the death flame.
"Wh-what!?" Fire Kong blanched.
Ed leapt to the top of the of his rock wall. "Whew! Toasty!"
"Cheeky little bastard!" The talking ape-beast shouted. With a swing of his fist, Ed was sent flying.
The boy quickly steadied himself, flouncing around on one foot for a bit.
Fire Kong growled before charging at Ed. His fists lit ablaze. "Burning Bludgeon Barrage!" The ape threw these blazing fists at Ed, determined to pound him into dust and ash. Each punch landed, but each one merely earned a goofy giggle from the budding superhero.
"Ah-hahahaha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"Stop laughing!" Fire Kong demanded, throwing one more fiery punch. "Comet Crash!" The flames intensified as he swung his arm.
"Boost!" Ed shouted, leaping out of the way and into the sky.
Fire Kong watched in shock as he disappeared from sight. "What the-? Where did he-? How in-bluah!" He was cut of guard by something hard and painful slamming into his back, causing him to tumble over.
"I'm back!~" Ed cheered, clapping.
"D...did he just circle the entire planet?" Fire Kong gasped.
Gyro-gopher span his drill around, aiming to mow Double D and Eddy down. The two of them had to keep jumping to the side to keep him from cutting them up with the side of the drill.
"Hee-hee-hee! You can't escape me!" He started spinning more erratically, but was cut off as something grabbed him. The cyborg rodent blinked nervously as nothing should've been able to stop his rotation. "Huh?"
He looked down to see a pretty blond girl about nineteen or twenty holding his drill-foot in place. "I...Impossible!" He shouted. "Where did you come from."
"You don't need to know. A goofy rat like you came up as a rate 4 reading?" Beam asked.
Gyro-gopher growled, before reaching into one of the pockets inside his mechanized half, and pulled out a sophisticated rifle. "Have some of this!" It shot twin rays of energy at Beam, causing her to let go, and plowing her backward. Luckily, she had covered her face and torso with her crossed arms.
"Dirty rat!" Beam shouted, as her right arm folded inward, and transformed into a cannon.
Gyro-gopher gasped in fear as the cyborg girl smirked.
"Mine's bigger." She chuckled, before unleashing a massive blast of energy at him, causing an explosion.
Meanwhile, Ed was still dodging Fire Kong's flame attacks, swerving and ducking, almost as if he was a cartoon character.
"Huff...huff...huff..." The overgrown ape gasped. "Are you...even tired?"
"Nope!" Ed chimed. "My turn! Let's do something about that fire punch, Infernape!" He grabbed the beast's arm, and much to it's shock, pain and disgust, twisted it around, splintering the bones apart.
"Gyaaaaaaaaah!" Fire Kong screamed horrendously.
Beam watched. "That boy...What is he?" Her eye scanners pinged and beeped, as a question mark appeared. "It's him...HE'S the unknown rated life sign!"
"Now it's time to show you a really cool move!" Ed shouted in glee as he windmilled his arm. He swung it so quickly, with such ferocity that it gathered static electricity from the surrounding area. "Super Duper Whammy Shammy Mega Killing Punch!" He threw his fist forward, sending an electrified wall of force at Fire Kong.
The ape breathed it's hottest flames yet, but began to feel the drawbacks of such. His insides were overheating. On top of this, his fire breath was doing absolutely nothing to stop Ed's attack.
"No...no...NO-aaack!" The static blast hit him, vaporizing his body.
Ed raised his fist triumphantly. "Who-hoo! I win again!"
The smoke from Beam's arm cannon finally cleared, revealing a highly injured Gyro-gopher. His mechanical lower half in disrepair. His left eye also seemed to be put out, and his paws could barely move.
"C-crap! I...I should've just dug a den and said screw this mission." He coughed.
"What mission?" Beam demanded, bearing down on the rodent, holding two fingers to his chest. The little beast could feel an intense heat from her, meaning if she wanted, she could probably roast him here and there.
"I...it don't make no difference!" The talking gopher said. "'Sides, Fire Kong'll come to my rescue! I think he's already dealt with the big dumb guy that killed-eh...huh?"
As they had their confrontation, Ed walked up and started eating a chicken salad sandwich he seemed to produce from nowhere.
"Is that another monster? Can I beat it up!?" He asked, giddily.
"Ah...shit!" Gyro-gopher cursed, before Beam jabbed him in the stomach. "Kuah!"
"Start talking!" She demanded, ripping him from his drill half, revealing him to be nothing but an abnormally large gopher. "Before I see how far I can throw you!"
"Okay, okay!" He shouted. "Just don't kill me! Our creator, Dr. Mamura is a geneticist that was kicked out of society because of his controversial experiments like me and the Spider Queen! He got wind of her death from his spy drones, and sent us to kill the kid with the unibrow for doing her in!"
"A mad scientist created you, and sent you after us?" Double D asked. "Dear me, what we've gotten into now..."
"Yeah..." Eddy added. "Usually it's just us getting beat up for scamming chump change off'a chumps!" This earned him an elbow to the stomach from Edd. "Y'ow!"
"Tell me something else and we'll let you go..." Darkcoat said, walking up from behind the others. He spoke gently to the talking gopher. "Where is this Mamura? Where is his laboratory?"
"Buried under the trailer park on the other side of the junkyard in that 'peach' town." Gyro-gopher asked. "But you better bring some crazy strong guys to go in there. Immediately arter Mamura released us, he started work on his 'perfect experiment!'"
"And what is that?"
"I dunno...you think the doctor lets me in on the big schemes?! I was literally born today!"
Beam opened her hand, releasing him to fall to the ground. Ed picked him up.
"Are you okay?"
Gyro-gopher looked at him like he was insane. "I just tried to bump off your pals, and you ask if I'm okay?"
Ed nodded.
"I think I need to see a doctor...or a vet or whatever..."
"Aww...I know!" Ed shouted. "I'll take you with me, and I'll go stop the mad scientist!"
"Excuse me!?" Edd interjected. "Sorry, Ed, but I'm vetoing this. END of insanity. This is too dangerous for us. Let the government handle it."
Beam sighed. "I'll handle it." She said. "My...associate and I are part of an organization called the Hero Association. My name is Beam, and I'm a powerful cyborg. Class S Hero."
"I'm Darkcoat." Her partner added. "Class A."
"Are you a cyborg too?" Eddy asked.
"Nope. I'm essentially just an ordinary person with lots of hand-to-hand fighting experience, technical expertise, and a penchant for gizmos and the like."
"BO-ring." The three haired kid yawned.
Darkcoat sighed. "If you're looking for really special people, you want Class S and the higher ranking members of Class A. Class S is full of heroes with special powers. I'm lower Class A."
"You boys should just stick to your comics, school and stuff." Beam added.
"School? It's summer." Eddy asserted.
"Whatever." Beam said offhandedly before beckoning Darkcoat. "C'mon, loser. We have a crazed scientist playing God that we need to stop."
"Wait!" said Ed, waving his hands. "Take me too! I wanna be a superhero!"
The two heroes looked back to him with an inquisitive glance.
"You? A hero?" Beam asked. "Don't waste our-"
"I don't see why not." Darkcoat mused, scratching his chin. "We could probably push the Association to implement a Junior Division."
"Yahoo!" Ed cheered, dancing a silly jig as Beam shot Darkcoat a dirty look.
Ed and Double D groaned. "Here we go again..."
0
In the dark laboratory of Dr. Mamura, a girl wakes up. She has blue hair, and is bound by her ankles and wrists, locked inside cylindrical bonds.
"Wh...what the-!?" She looks to either side of each other, seeing two other girls her age, one with poofy, eye-obscuring red hair, and the other with long blond hair. They are all wearing medical gowns.
"Lee! May! Wake the hell up!"
The other two groan and wake up, each groggy from rising so quickly.
"Wh...where are we!? Have we been abducted!?" May screamed.
"Who's the dead man!?" The eldest, Lee, growled.
The crazed scientist who unleashed his creations on Ed, and the heroes staggered over to them. "Lee...Marie...and May Kanker...Triplet sisters...that makes for a perfect group of test subjects!"
Marie scowled at him.
"Who are you!?"
"My name is Mamura...and you three are going to help me exact my revenge."
The room came to life with wicked green light.
The three Kanker Sister's screams filled the entire laboratory.
"Whether you like it or not!" He shouted.
0
God, this chapter was annoying to write. I just wanted to parody the House of Evolution bit to keep up with parodying OPM. Also I don't know if "Dr. Mamura" is a taken name, so if anyone would like to tell me, please do so. Anyways, it seems the Kanker Sisters are in a bit of a tough spot. Will Ed come to the rescue? Will he want to? Stay posted for the next exciting(or not. Decided by you) chapter of One-Punch Ed!