*I still don't own Ed, Edd n' Eddy, Marvel, or DC!*
A Jaguar Cub vs Terrorizing Gangs Part 1
The next morning was bright and sunny over the rural landscape of the countryside. On Eddy's old Uncle Ben's farm, the boy awoke with a yawn as he got up from the ground next to the stump that he'd been playing guitar next to. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was at since he expected to be in the hospital still, but everything quickly came back to him as he started down the hill and to the old farmhouse that his Uncle Ben had left to him in his will.
Eddy wasn't really supposed to own the property or move into the house until he was eighteen or graduated high school, really, but technicalities.
His first order of business was to find something to at least make him look semi-normal so that he could go into town and buy some groceries. Since he's going to be staying at this old place for the foreseeable future he might as well make the most of it. Lucky for Eddy, his parents left him a substantial amount of cash in their own will and though he has a lot right now, most of that money is in bonds.
Upon reaching the old house Eddy found himself smiling at the fond memories he had of the times he'd visited as a young'un. It was the perfect place to be. He didn't have to worry about his brother abusing him, which he could now see that he clearly did so, and he was free to just enjoy his childhood instead of constantly being swayed to chase after the big riches like his brother caused him to do with his silver tongue. Eddy's brother always did used to have a sort of charisma that could easily help him sway others to his cause and help him worm his way into favorable positions.
Probably one of the main reasons Eddy's parents kicked him out of the house. And it's probably for the best that Eddy doesn't know where he is right now.
Meanwhile, in a whale shaped trailer, a man who looked a lot like an older version of Eddy sneezed and felt like his pipsqueak brother was talking about him.
As Eddy entered the old farm house he smiled at the familiar environment. The brick and mortar fireplace, the old timey cloth sofa and chair, even several old pictures from when he was a kid just a few years after he and Ed first met Double Dee rested on the wall. Eddy walked up to the wall and picked up one photo in particular. It was a picture of him and his Uncle Ben taking care of the man's prized horse.
His uncle was a tall man with a strong build that came with years of working on a farm. He had Eddy's skin tone, but his head was covered in a layer of short graying hair. He wore a red and white checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of denim overalls, and from what Eddy remembers he also wore a pair of boots when this picture was taken. His uncle was also rocking a handlebar mustache. Little Eddy had a big smile in the picture and was wearing his uncle's black cowboy hat which was a couple sizes too big on him. As proven by how it covered up his eyes by sliding down over them.
Eddy smiled a sad smile as he fondly remembered this day. It was mere weeks before his uncle was killed in that coyote attack. He was a good man, old Uncle Ben. A big man with a heart of gold. He had a scary looking glare, but he never took his anger out on anyone that hadn't earned his ire.
"I'll make you proud, Uncle Ben." Mumbled Eddy as he hugged the picture.
After putting the photograph back on the wall, he went to what was once his uncle's bedroom to get a change of clothes. Lucky for Eddy his uncle kept his childhood clothes so he'd have something for Eddy and his brother to wear whenever they went to visit. He changed into a simple plaid shirt, a pair of blue jeans with a brown belt to hold them up, and a pair of brown work boots. He also had a red bandana tied around his neck, and was lucky enough to find some makeup that he used to give himself as close to his original skin tone as he could get. The only thing he couldn't fix was his now green hair. Which was staring to more fully grow in now that he thought about it.
Oh well, he had an excuse. He'd just say that he chose to dye his hair.
After making sure he had his wallet and about two hundred dollars in cash on him, Eddy left to go into town for the groceries that he would need for his stay in his uncle's old farm house. It was going to be a long walk to the town from here, but he's in no real hurry. Besides, he couldn't do much running in his current condition anyway.
Oh, but if only he knew just what awaited him in that town.
***In The Town…***
"That everything?"
"Yeah, boss. Everything of any real value has been loaded up. Jewels, money, the works."
"Then let's pack it up and hightail it outta here."
The town was practically in ruins as a gang of men loaded up anything of value into an armored truck. Things like food, jewelry, money, and other things like that. However they didn't take any of the women of the town, which is a good thing for these people. But they know it's only a temporary reprieve from the terror of this mob.
Their leader is a muscular man with Scottish orange hair, a horseshoe mustache, and heterochromic eyes. The left eye is brown while the right is green. He has a scar running from his lower lip down his chin, and appears to be pale with a dusting of freckles on his face. He wears a white muscle shirt that's stained with blood and beer, a hunter's vest, a pair of blue skinny jeans with a black belt, and brown steel toed boots. He's also wearing a plaid trucker hat and a pair of aviator sunglasses. This man goes by the name of Don Jones, and he's the most wanted man in this county.
"Should we take anything else from here, boss? This town does have some rather fetchin' young ladies, if I do say so myself." one thug asked with a lecherous look in his eye.
"No, we have everything we need for now. Maybe next time we come to raid the town again." Don said as he got in the truck. "For now, let's get outta here."
As the last of the thugs piled into the armored truck, they drove off towards their hideout with their stolen loot. The smoke quickly cleared as Eddy walked into town and abruptly stopped.
"Huh? Shoot, it looks like a tornado hit this place!" gasped Eddy. "Where is everybody?"
"We're right here." said a man's voice with a thick country accent. "Had to hide from them marauders."
Eddy looked in the direction of the voice to find several people walking out of what appeared to be an old bar. It was mostly men who exited, but he caught a brief glimpse of women, children and elderly people inside all huddled together and obviously afraid.
"We don't get much along the lines of company around these parts. You new around here, son?" the tallest man asked.
"Um, yeah, I guess you could say that. Who are you guys? And why is everyone hiding?" Eddy replied.
"The name's Joseph, kid. And these are some good friends of mine." Joseph said as he gestured to each man. "This is Timothy, but just call him Timmy. Everyone does. And these are Roger, Matt, and Howard."
As stated before, Joseph is the tallest member of the group of men, and likely the oldest if his graying hair is anything to go by. He has a lean yet strong build from doing lots of physical labor, tan skin, and blue eyes. He wears a pair of baggy jeans with the pant legs tucked into a pair of black boots, a red muscle shirt that shows off the bull skull tattoo on his left bicep, and he has a bright orange cloth tied around his right bicep.
Timmy is a man of average height and build and looks rather timid. He has red hair, white skin, and green eyes, and wears a simple T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers.
Roger is a little taller than Timmy and has dirty blonde hair. His eyes are naturally red due to a rare genetic mutation, but it doesn't impair his vision in any way. He wears pretty much the same outfit as Timmy, but switched out the cargo shorts for cargo pants and added a plaid vest.
Matt is a shorter than average man with some slight stubble on his chin, caucasian, and with thinning brown hair. He has a heavier body type and is wearing a simple white shirt, overalls, and sandals.
Finally there was Howard who was definitely the shortest man in the group, standing at only about four feet nine inches tall. Likely a result of either Dwarfism or some other type of growing disability that Eddy doesn't know about. He looked like he was Hispanic in terms of his heritage and had black hair and brown eyes. He wore a simple pair of denim jeans, a white shirt, and a pair of boots.
"Nice to meet you all. But tell me, what happened here?" Eddy asked.
"It was Don and his gang of gangsters. They came half a year ago in the dead of night. No one knows where they came from or why they chose our town, but they've been raiding us and stealing just about everything we have." Joseph explained.
"Yeah, they've taken all sorts of stuff that they can find any sort of monetary value in." Matt added as he sat on a wooden barrel. "They stole my motorcycle when they first arrived, and Don tricked out and customized it into his own crime hog."
"Why don't you guys defend what's yours?" Eddy asked with narrowed eyes.
He already doesn't like the sound of this Don guy, or his gang. The fact that they preyed upon these people and the police and the likes of the League don't seem to be doing anything about it only makes him angrier. He may have been a con-artist in the making before the Joker attacked the cul-de-sac, but at least he would never stoop to this Don guy's level! Joseph just shook his head and sat down on the hood of a now ruined car.
"It ain't that simple, kid. Don and his gang? They're some of the most wanted men in the county. Each of them has a reward on their head and is wanted dead or alive for crimes the likes of which you'd only expect someone like Penguin or Scarecrow to commit. They've got military grade weapons and vehicles that make it impossible for us to get at them." he explained with a tired look on his face. "All we can do is pick up the pieces and, like the seeds of an old flower, replant somewhere else."
Eddy's gaze softened as he got a good look at these people. All of them, those with children especially, looked so tired and hopeless. Even Joseph and his friends looked like they've given up hope a long time ago. He just didn't understand how anyone could let such atrocities as these go unpunished for so long. Have people like the Justice League been so focused on the crimes committed by big time supervillains like Joker, Penguin, Scarecrow, Bane, Killer Croc and the like that they've forgotten about the villains who make up the bulk of the thugs that those guys have on their payroll? It seems like they've forgotten all about the kind of people that run the drug cartels and mafias out there in the world in favor of the more famous bad guys.
"It can't be helped, kid. All we can do is pack up what he have left, leave town, and find ourselves a new home." Joseph said.
Finally, Eddy had heard enough. He swiftly turned on his heel and started out of town following the skid marks from when Don and his crew made their speedy getaway earlier.
"Kid? Hey, where you goin', man?" asked Howard.
"Where do you think I'm going? I'm going after Don and I'm gonna run him outta town!" Eddy said. "I'm not gonna just sit around and wait for them to finish off this town like they own the country! I'll show them what happens when you decide to prey on the innocent!"
Eddy's face settled into a snarl that stopped Joseph and his fellow townsfolk from saying or doing anything to stop him. It didn't help that all of the sweating that he's been doing caused some of his coverup to smear, which revealed a small patch of bleached white skin. A trademark symptom of the Joker Venom.
"And I will remind those so-called heroes that they have a responsibility to apprehend even the lowest ranking criminals! I don't care if I'm labeled a vigilante for my actions, I'm going to stop these bastards!" Eddy snarled.
Having said his piece, Eddy continued on his way to follow the tire tracks leaving the people of the town to ponder his words and actions. Whatever was gonna go down, it was going to down down with a real bang.
***Later That Night…***
Eddy followed the tracks to an abandoned warehouse that was, at one time, used for the storage of mattresses for various mattress companies. Now, they didn't all use it at once, but that's beside the point. Now that it's been vacant for who knows how long, Don and his gang have turned it into their personal hangout and base of operations where they keep their stolen goods. Eddy walked up to the warehouse and heard the mob boss laughing about how it was 'too easy to push around these little rats!' as he called the townsfolk.
It made the Ed-Boy sick!
Without wasting another minute, he kicked the door down with relative ease and flattened one of the drunk goons underneath it. As he stepped in he saw Don sitting in a plush armchair with a cold beer in hand. He looked at Eddy with a condescending grin as he set down his drink and stood up.
"Well, well, well, what have we here, boys?" Don rhetorically asked. "Looks to me like we got ourselves a squirt who got lost on his way home. Come to try your luck, shrimpy?"
While Don and his gang laughed, Eddy surprisingly kept his cool and didn't let himself be goaded. Normally he'd be red in the face with anger at being mocked right now, just as what happened so many times in the past due to Kevin and his constant taunting of Eddy and his two friends who share his name. But he seems to have learned how to reign in his anger somewhat. So he just laughed off the insult as he continued to slowly walk towards Don while the mob boss scowled at the boy's apparent lack of fear.
"Yeah, okay amigo. Here's the deal. First I'm gonna take those jewels you took from those poor people that you've been extorting. Whether that includes doing so by taking your lives is inconsequential. And then! I'm gonna gather up everything else you've stolen, and then I'm gonna leave and return it to the people you all stole it from." Eddy said.
"And how are you gonna do that, brat?" Don asked arrogantly.
Only to make a gulping noise as Eddy suddenly grabbed him by the throat with a surprising amount of strength compared to what he used to have before. Eddy shoved him back into his chair, which he crashed into and fell over backwards as Eddy caught the necklace before quickly pocketing it to keep it relatively safe. Needless to say, the gang boss was pissed off. As proven by the glare and scowl on his face as he stood back up and growled out orders to his goons.
"Kill that kid!"
As the fight began, Eddy heard the music and lyrics of a familiar song as if it was being played by his uncle Ben, though only he could hear it as it was playing in his mind rather than in the physical world. But that didn't make this butt whooping any less epic!
Well I know what's right,
I got just one life…
One thug rushed at Eddy with a knife in hand, but the lad quickly slipped on the brass knuckles he'd been given by that shopkeeper's grandfather and punched him in the face. The impact knocked out several of the thug's teeth and knocked him out cold. He repeated the process with two more thugs before the gangsters changed tactics.
In a world that keeps on pushin' me around,
But I'll stand my ground...
And I won't back down…
One thug tried to tackle Eddy like a linebacker at a football game, but Eddy used his diminutive height to his advantage to get under the thug and throw him over onto his back. Then Eddy grabbed him by the ankle and using every ounce of strength he could muster he spun around on his heel and used the now unconscious thug as a bludgeon to bat away three more gang members before throwing him into a small crowd of four and knocking them down. Eddy was breathing hard. Not only was he still recovering from his earlier injuries caused by the Joker, but he's never had to fight for real before.
And though he's got impressive pain tolerance for someone his age, he's not too big on stamina when it comes to actually fighting. Especially since the closest he's ever really been to fighting was when his little wrestling scheme backfired when the Kanker Sisters got involved. He still sometimes feels the phantom pains from that purple nurple he got from Marie.
Don smirked a cruel smirk as his gang members began to outflank Eddy, thinking that this little scuffle was as good as won. Eddy himself shook his head and caught his breath, backing up a few steps as he tried to figure a way to win this fight. Though it was starting to look more and more like it would soon be a massacre rather than a fight.
Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out.
Hey I, will stand my ground…
And I won't back down…
No, I won't back down...
Eddy grunted as one thug charged him and struck him across the face, but he quickly retaliated with a kick to his unprotected groin stunning him long enough for Eddy to slug him in the face and break his nose, but as the thugs kept swarming it looked like he was going to be overwhelmed. Something that Don was counting on.
Pretty soon, Eddy was indeed overwhelmed by the sheer numbers that the thugs had on their side. All he could do was curl himself into a tight little ball to minimize the damage which was hard to do since these guys were armed with things like pocket knives, glass bottles, and blunt pipes. Eddy was in intense pain due to his still healing body being assaulted and receiving new injuries, but he refused to cry out. He wouldn't give these guys the satisfaction. After about five, maybe ten minutes of beating, Don finally broke things up.
"That should do. That should do." he said.
Slowly the rest of his gang backed up as Eddy uncurled his body and groaned as he lay there bleeding and bruised. He could feel a couple of new fractures in his limbs, but he ignored them in favor of trying to stay awake. Even as the mob boss laughed and kneeled down grinning at him with his messed up yellow teeth.
"Well, well, look at the hero. You thought you could waltz into my turf and drive me off?" he mocked. "Now, why don't you just lay there while we go and conduct our business with the rest of the townsfolk."
Laughing at the boy's pain as he stood up to walk away, he stopped in his tracks as he heard the sound of the boy's groans. He looked back and saw Eddy struggling to get back up and already on one knee as he was breathing heavily.
"What's this?" Don asked feigning concern.
"A strong man… stands up for himself. A stronger man… stands up for others." gasped Eddy as he quoted something his uncle told him when he was little.
Don merely laughed at the boy's words and grabbed a rather large machete from a nearby wooden crate. The boy was crazy thinking he could keep fighting them the way he is.
"This should be fun!" Don said.
But that's when he noticed something. He scowled as he heard a door being knocked down and saw that five more intruders had entered his headquarters. And he could tell that they were with the kid. Eddy smiled as he saw Joseph, Roger, Matt, Timmy and Howard walk in with a few weapons of their own. Mainly crowbars and pitchforks. But Don merely smirked as he wasn't in the least bit intimidated by these new arrivals.
"I smell fear." he said as he looked in the group's direction.
"Shit! I told you they can smell it!" exclaimed Timmy.
"They can smell it?" Roger asked incredulously before sniffing himself. "Oh yeah, I have it! I have a lot of it!"
"Just stick near me, guys, and you'll be alright." Joseph said, keeping his cool even in this situation.
"Yeah! I'll watch your back!" Roger said to Timmy with restored confidence.
The moment was short lived as Howard felt something wet drip onto his foot. Of all the days he chose to wear open toed shoes it had to be when something like this was gonna happen.
"Hey!" he groaned as he looked at Howard.
The vertically challenged man held his sweaty hands up in a kind of placating gesture as he defended himself.
"Sorry man, it's just sweat! I'm nervous!" he said.
Don started laughing at what he thought of as a humorous situation. He honestly couldn't believe that this bunch of yellow bellies had chosen to stand up to him and his gang of hardened criminals.
"THAT'S your army?" Don asked with a laugh.
But all semblance of mirth left him as a new noise made itself known. It sounded almost like the sound of a car engine. But it couldn't be the cops. They'd have their sirens blaring as they attempted to storm the warehouse and the last time they tried they were taken down by a few of their solen military grade rocket launchers. But it also didn't sound like this particular car was going to be stopping anytime soon as the sound grew louder and louder.
Eddy gave a coy grin and said "Something tells me you may wanna take a couple of steps back."
And as the sound grew closer and closer, Don knew one thing for sure as he nervously took a step back. Round 2 has just begun. And with it came some new challengers.
***To Be Continued…***
Poll Question: Which of these stories do you want me to continue to focus on right now?
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There's still time to vote on the poll here. So if you haven't cast your vote yet, please do so as every vote counts towards which story I'll be shifting my focus to. Thank you all so much for reading and I'll see you all next update.
