Disclaimer: Surely this far down the road you know I don't own the rights to any songs or bands mentioned, or any of the characters from Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, right? And hopefully you know that the only things I own are my characters Christian and the guys in Iron Fist correct? Yeah. Ok, glad that's over…

Ok, yet another semi-long chapter for you this time. You know how I said that this chapter would be more meaningful in my note from last time? Well, it's more meaningful compared to the blatant filler comedy I threw in for Chapter 9. Lots of crazy stuff happens this time, enjoy!

PS: If there happen to be any random solid lines, ignore them, they mean nothing. My computer's a piece of crap with a monitor, so when it acts up, it ain't pretty… So because of this, I'll have things like this ( > ) represent time passing.

Chapter 10: Front Page News

"Thank you! You guys are fuckin' awesome, man! G'night!" Christian rasped into the mic.

One final note was struck before the lights cut completely then came back on, giving Edtallica their chance to exit "backstage" after yet another successful Saturday night gig.

"Woo-hoo! We rocked out there, guys!" Eddy whooped, "Did you hear that crowd?"

"Hell yeah I heard the crowd!" Christian exclaimed, "You can tell that wasn't just the bar regulars with a few extra bucks, eh?"

The band collapsed into some steel folding chairs that were set up for them behind the stage to relax while they waited for Pierre to come with that night's headcount and their cuts of the earnings. After eagerly popping open their drinks, Christian proposed a toast.

Christian raised his Labat Blue towards his band mates and grinned.

"To Edtallica!" the Canuck croaked, "May we proceed to rock now, rock tomorrow, and every day until our unfortunate demise!"

After a brief chorus of "I'll drink to that"s and "Woo-hoo"s the band clinked their beverage bottles together and downed their drinks, then continued to ramble on about that night's show.

"You guys were great tonight!" Pierre yelled excitably.

"Thanks, Pierre," Eddy replied, "Now what was the headcount tonight?"

Pierre grinned so wide that it looked uncomfortable. "Four hundred people were out there tonight, guys! Four hundred!"

"Are you serious?" Edd asked, cleaning out his ears, "Did I hear you correctly?"

"Yep, that's right, Double D, four hundred, " Ed replied, "ISN'T THAT AWESOME?"

"Yeah, not bad for only the sixth gig, eh?" Christian added, "If we managed to pack four hundred people that actually like our music in this little hockey bar, just imagine what we can do within the three weeks before Mosh!"

"So how much money did we make tonight?" Eddy casually asked Pierre.

"Well let's see…" Pierre mumbled, "Four hundred people times six dollars each… give or take a few dollars for Jimmy's discount…"

"Didn't Jimmy pay the full admittance this time anyway?" Christian asked Eddy.

"Yeah I think he-"

"Twenty-four hundred dollars all together!" Pierre exclaimed. "Half goes into the register…"

"That seems fair." Eddy noted.

"And half goes to you guys!" The slaphappy French-Canadian proclaimed.

The boys in the band divvied up their cuts of that night's earnings, finished their drinks, loaded Eddy's drums into his new truck (courtesy of his brother), and drove off towards their homes.

> > > > > > > > > >

Edd parked his mom's Volkswagen and slowly trudged his way towards the front porch. Half asleep, he rooted through his pockets for his house keys. In his zombie-like state, he missed the keyhole a few times before finally unlocking his door and stumbling in. The bushed guitarist placed his telecaster in its stand and flopped onto his bed.

As he reached up to turn off his table lamp, he noticed that the "new message light" was blinking on his answering machine. He blindly flailed around for the play button and pressed it.

"Saturday, July 15th, 4:30 PM." The machine droned.

Edd snapped out of his weary trance for a few seconds when he heard his mother's voice on the machine.

"Eddward? Hi sweetie, it's mom. Your father and I had to rush to another brief trip in Vancouver for a few days, we'll be back soon, ok?"

"End of message." The machine droned.

The guitarist shrugged and rolled over to drift off to sleep.

> > > > > > > > > > >

The high-pitched ring-tone of the Motley Crue tune "Doctor Feelgood" rang from Eddy's cell phone, yanking him unmercifully from his slumber.

"What the…?" Eddy muttered as he fumbled for his phone.

"H'lo?"

"Don't tell me you're still asleep!" a familiar voice responded from the other end.

"What do you want, Christian?" Eddy grumbled sleepily, "It's like, nine o' clock…"

"Yeah, I know it's a little early for you; but dude, I swear this is important!"

Eddy sighed. "I'm listening…"

"I just got off the phone with a reporter from the Toronto local paper," The Canadian stated, "They want us at the 5-Hole at 2:00 for an interview, Eddy! An interview! Apparently we set a new attendance record at the 5-Hole or something."

Eddy's eyes shot open. "You serious? "

"You always ask me that, and I always tell you, why would I be joking about something like this? Just rally up the boys and get your asses to the hockey bar, I'll see you guys there!" Christian concluded.

"Ok, see ya." Eddy replied, hanging up his phone.

Eddy then leaped from his bed, changed into some fresh clothes, sprayed his hair, and bolted out the door to wake up his fellow Eds. He first sprinted up to Ed's house, ringing the doorbell every few seconds and pounding aggressively on the door.

"Hiya, Eddy!" Ed greeted.

"C'mon Mullet, we've got to get to Canada for an interview, pronto!" Eddy yelled, "Now hurry, we've got to get Double D!"

They sprinted to their friend's house and got his attention in a similar matter. Then the Eds climbed into their various vehicles and sped off to the great white north.

Christian nervously drummed his fingers on a table. He glanced up at the big, glaring neon clock that always read, "It's hockey time" in flashing letters. It read 1:45. Fifteen minutes until the interview was supposed to start, and there was no sight of his band mates, or even the newspaper reporter. He knew that this interview was going to be a huge step for the band. After all, how many other bands entering "Mosh Rock" would be able to say that their local paper interviewed them?

He couldn't wait for the interview to begin. At last he would be able to wave something into his former band's face that actually had some value. Sure up to this point he had always chucked The Daily Leaf into the recycling bin without even unrolling it, but now he'd have a reason to read the pointless and often boring paper.

The Canadian was shaken from his thoughts by the sound of the doors being shoved open.

"Hey Christian, we're here!" Eddy greeted, "Is the newspaper guy here yet?"

"Nope, not yet," Christian replied, "but hey, it's only 1:55, they still have five minutes at their disposal."

The Eds sat down at the table, when suddenly the door opened again. This time, a middle-aged man in a blue blazer stepped in.

"That's the reporter?" Christian whispered to his friends, "He looks like somebody who I'd steal lunch money from in junior high or something!"

The oblivious reporter squinted and gazed around the bar until he saw the band. He then wended his way over to the band with a grin that would envy Pierre's.

"Hello there. Edtallica, right?"

"That'd be us." Christian replied.

The nerdy questioner stuck out his hand "Boys, I'm Chuck McGee from The Daily Leaf, nice to meet you. Now let's get down to business, shall we?"

The reporter whipped out a notepad and a pen along with a sheet of paper. After organizing his papers and slipping on some ungodly dorky reading glasses, he began his questioning.

"Ok, now keep in mind, I'm writing down exactly what you say," Chuck warned, so try to keep the language clean, please."

"So uh, does that mean you're gonna fuck with whatever we say and make it wholesome or something?" Christian asked.

"I guess that's how you four would say it, yes." he replied, "Now, question one: So, you've broken the old attendance record for the 5-Hole Tavern by a good 150 people, how's it feel?"

The band sat a few seconds, staring blankly at the reporter.

"Uh… is this question free game, or do you want only one of us to answer it?" Edd asked, raising an eyebrow.

The scribe snapped to attention. "Oh! Yes, I apologize, boys. Yes, this is 'free game'."

"How do you think we feel?" Eddy answered, "It feels great, duh!"

Chuck nodded and scribbled Eddy's response quickly on his notepad.

"Ok… this one's for Christian. You used to be in Iron Fist, as many of your fans know. Do you think that Edtallica will be able to compare with your brother's band?"

"Oh, hell yeah!" Christian answered happily, "We pack more and more metal heads in this bar every Friday, and as you can see, they like us if we can cram four-hundred people in here."

"You guys play mostly covers, right?"

"Yeah, a majority of our play list is covers." Eddy responded.

"We've written a few songs, too!" Ed added.

"Great there, boys. Now this one's for you three," McGee said, pointing to the Eds, "How did you come about getting Christian St. Denis to join?"

"Don't ask us, he just showed up one day, we liked how he sounded and poof! He's in." Eddy answered.

Christian chuckled, "Oh yeah, they had these pretty signs that drew me in, y'know?"

"How do you all determine which songs to play? Do you have to take it up with the manager, or do you simply play whatever you want?"

"Well… it's like this," Christian said, "There are some covers that're crowd pleasers, so we've always got to play 'Helpless' or we've got to play 'Godzilla' into 'The Red and The Black', but we try to play something different every show. Like just last night we covered 'Doctor Feel Good' by Motley Crue, which let me tell ya was not a skate at the rink for me to sing!"

"Yeah, and we always play the songs… well, song we've written." Edd added.

Eddy glanced up at the clock. Only twenty minutes had passed and he was already bored out of his wits.

'This is going to be a looooooooong interview…' he thought.

> > > > > > > > > >

Jimmy sat outside on his deck in a padded patio chair enjoying the bright, hot July day. He was also contently sketching various things for the band: symbols, the band name drawn certain ways, things of that nature with AC/DC's Highway to Hell blaring in his headphones. He had changed a lot in the past month and a half, and he liked it. Like Eddy, he sold all of his old spacey sitar CDs and used the cash to buy himself some good music, meaning in Jimmy's case, primarily AC/DC and Black Sabbath.

He also decided that he would grow his hair like the Eds and Christian had done when they were around his age. He wanted to grow his hair like Angus Young's, long, but not too long. Right now his hair covered about ¾ of his ears and neck, so it still had some growing to do.

Jimmy chuckled to himself. He wasn't artsy, suspectedly fruity Jimmy anymore, now he had undergone a heavy-metal transformation! No way would he be picked on by the jocks by the time school rolled around. He nodded reassuringly and returned to his drawings.

The metal-headed Monet was interrupted from his random illustrating by a tap on the shoulder.

"Huh?" Jimmy said, taking off his headphones.

"Hey Jimmy!" Sarah greeted, "Whatcha drawing?"

"Oh, hey Sarah," Jimmy responded, "I'm drawing uh…stuff. So, what's up?"

Sarah began to speak, but before she could tell him what was "up", he quickly placed his headphones back over his ears. Right on time for "Beating Around the Bush". Yes! He loved that song, it was fast, loud, pointless and not to mention perfect for head banging!

"Jimmy? Jimmy!" Sarah yelled, pulling the headphones off the ears of her friend.

"Oh, sorry 'bout that, Sarah, "Jimmy apologized, "I really like that song. What were you saying?"

"I just said nothing was up. What was the deal with the head thing? That's what Ed does when he listens to music…" Sarah said with a confused and disgusted look on her face.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and let out a quiet sigh. He decided to continue down the path of an intelligent conversation instead of explaining what head banging was to his longtime friend.

"Anyway, I was talking to Nazz, and she says that the Drama Club over at the high school's really good. You're still joining drama with me, right?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, sure." Jimmy answered, "Yeah, drama's sure gonna be awesome!"

Sarah began to yammer about Peach Creek High's show schedule for that year, and something else about what her chances of getting a part on the cast for one of the productions would be, but Jimmy tuned her out to continue drawing. Sure, he still loved Drama, there wasn't anything "un-metal" as the Eds would say about it, but school wasn't for another month and a half. He was focusing on that moment, where he was drawing stuff before his bubbly yet rude friend interrupted him. He desperately wanted out of the conversation, but he couldn't just get up and leave…

"What page did Chuck say our interview would be on again?" Ed's voice asked from the background.

"It was like, page four of the 'On The Town' section or something." Christian answered, "If you guys want copies I can pick some up, the paper's free in those little stands around town."

"Yeah sure, I'll take one." Eddy replied, "I wanna have something tangible to shove in my dad's face!"

Jimmy sat up and waved his new friends over. Surely they'd be able to save him from this awkward conversation.

"Hiya Jimmy!" Ed greeted, paying no attention to the evil eye his sister was giving him.

"Hey Ed," Jimmy responded, "How did the interview go?"

"It went ok, I guess…" Eddy answered, "Hopefully they won't altar our language or answers or anything, we kinda said a couple hundred swears at the end."

"C'mon Eddy, it's not like it matters." Edd replied, "I don't think anybody's going to read it, anyway."

"Yeah but still, we don't want people thinking we're a bunch of pusses that use proper English or something, do we?" Christian joked.

"What's that you're drawin'?" Eddy asked, pointing to Jimmy's sketchpad.

"Oh this? Just some random stuff I've been drawing in case you guys were thinking about making t-shirts to sell at your gigs or something." The artist replied, handing Eddy the pad.

Eddy flipped through the pad smiling and nodding every now and again, throwing in a few looks of disapproval. He then passed it around to the rest of the band, who gave pretty much the same nods that Eddy had.

"So… what'd you guys think?" Jimmy asked.

"I liked the way you wrote 'Edtallica' on the third page, dude," Eddy responded, "I also thought that the mascot dude you drew was cool."

"Yeah I liked that, too!" Ed agreed, "We should totally use that as our mascot!"

"It'd be like Edtallica's version of 'Eddie', I suppose." Edd added.

"Oh, I've got the perfect name for him!" Christian cut in, "Let's call him Winslow!"

"Winslow?" Eddy asked, scratching his head.

"Yeah, Winslow was the name of the frat boy that taught me how to play bass." Christian answered.

After a few minutes of deliberation, the band and Jimmy agreed that "Winslow" would be a good enough name for the cartoon metal head with a beer bottle in hand.

"Oh! Almost forgot," Christian said, pulling a black plastic bag out from under his chair, "Me and the boys got something for ya, Jimmy."

The Canadian reached into the black bag and unfolded a black t-shirt with AC/DC printed across the top.

"We took the liberty of buying you your first band tee, " Christian said, punching Jimmy on the arm, "Go ahead, try it on."

The teen anxiously pulled the glorious garment over his head and found that it fit almost perfectly. He glanced around at the Eds and Christian, who flashed him the heavy metal salute in approval.

"Yep, ol' Jimbo's gonna have to beat the chicks away with a stick when he slaps on that bad boy, right baby sister?" Ed asked.

Jimmy turned his head and was surprised to see that Sarah was in fact still standing in the same spot that she was in when Edtallica showed up nearly twenty minutes ago.

"Yeah, Jimmy, the shirt looks great…" Sarah snorted, stomping off.

The confused scribbler raised an eyebrow. "What was that about? Did I say something wrong?"

"Nope, but hey, that's women for ya, Jim." Christian stated.

"We should get to work on that new song you were talking about, Christian!" Ed exclaimed happily.

Christian nodded and turned to Jimmy, "Care to tag along there, little dude?"

"Sure," Jimmy answered, "I'd like that."

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

A/N: Voila, chapter 10… Ok, ok, I swear the next chapter will be meaningful, but this still had some important stuff. Like uh… the Eds getting a taste of what comes with fame, an update on Double D's parents, and Jimmy slowly drifting away from Sarah. Sorry that it took for freaking ever to get this up, but I battled a 102 degree fever and literally coughed up buckets of phlegm for a week (nice little visual for you, there.), got better, then had school to contend with. Well, I'ma go work on Chapter 11 now, so go ahead and read and review this.