"This is seriously getting dangerous; we need to get the police involved!" Tom could hear Elliot exclaim as he began to regain his consciousness.
"A lot of bloody good that will do us! They're all on his side now!" Tom then heard Bing respond with irritation in his voice.
"This is seriously messed up..." Tom then heard Eddie comment as he internally began to wonder if he was even still alive since he was currently unable to move.
"Am I dead?" Tom groggily questioned as his eye-sockets began to flutter open, his vision temporarily blurry.
"Oh? You're awake..." Bing noted as he began to approach Tom with caution.
"How are you feeling, buddy?" Eddie then asked as he and Elliot remained just as weary of their friend.
"Lousy..." Tom groaned, blinking his eyes a few times in an attempt to clear his vision.
"Why am I all tied up?" He then inquired upon realizing that he had been duct-taped to a baby-blue, wooden chair.
"You went a little crazy on us for a moment there..." Eddie explained, followed by a nervous chuckle.
"I looked up your symptoms and it turns out Matt injected you with a mixture of L.S.D. and steroids..." Bing explained.
"Wait...Matt? That means...My Dad..." Tom's eye-sockets began to fill with tears that soon spilled upon realizing that his worst nightmare had become a reality. Eddie, Elliot and Bing all somberly lowered their heads in sympathy for Tom until everyone had been startled out of their short-lived moment of grief by Eddie's cellphone ringing.
"Hello?" Eddie quickly scrambled to answer his phone upon checking to see that his wife was calling.
"Eddie?! Oh, thank goodness...Where have you been?!" Eddie's wife, Alison practically shrieked at him from over the other line.
"Alison? We ran into a bit of trouble. Are you alright?" Eddie then asked her with concern after explaining their current situation in a nutshell to her. His concern only grew when he could hear his wife begin to sob into the phone.
"No...It's Rik...I tried to hold onto him but the currents were too strong..." As Alison began to recount the fate of their infant-son, Eddie felt his legs completely give out beneath him.
"Where were you?! You should have been here for us!" Alison's screams began to fade with distance, as Eddie fell to the floor, alongside his phone, his call ending once it had shattered upon impact. Eddie's head hurt from coming into contact with the hard, concrete of the shelter's flooring but it was nothing in comparison to the pain he felt from losing his only son. Eddie began to wail in agony as the grief of yet-another tragedy struck The City of London that day.
"RIK! RIK!" It did not take long for the other's to piece together just what exactly Eddie's phone-call had been about when he began to wail his son's name between pained-sobs. Elliot and Bing covered their mouths in shock as tears fell from their own eyes at the devastating news of the newborn's death.
"That is it! This time, Tord has gone too far! I knew that Commie was a snake from the first day I met him and I still let him bite me! The first time we met in person, the psycho ran into a bloody pole! He needs to be stopped and this time, it's personal!" Tom angrily began to proclaim through his own tears, feeling as though Tord had taken far-too much from him and his friends in just that one, single day.
"Count us in!" Rebby announced as she and Cheryl stepped out of the shadows with matching-smirks. In the year of 2006, at Edd, Matt and Tom's apartment: Edd and Tord sat comfortably upon Edd's bed as the two boys watched Insane Zombie Pirates from Hell Four on Edd's small, boxy Television. Edd had since turned off his bedroom-light since it was midnight by now, meaning Tom and Matt had long-since gone to bed. Edd especially did not want to run the risk of accidentally waking up Tom since the eyeless-man was still pouty from that morning's argument.
Tord obviously appeared to be physically drained of almost all of his energy as he sat beside Edd at the foot of the bed. Edd's cat, Ringo rested comfortably in The Norwegian's lap as Tord gently stroked the kitten's back, the gesture bringing comfort to the both of them and provoking Ringo to purr with content. Edd then jumped when Tord suddenly sneezed due to the cat-fur triggering his allergies.
"You know? I can put Ringo in another room, if you like..." Edd then offered with a small chuckle.
"Nah, he is not bothering me..." Tord reassured with a sniffle since in spite of his allergies, petting Ringo was actually helping him feel better after the night and morning he had recently endured. Edd nodded in understanding before returning his attention to the movie. During a slow, boring part of the movie, Tord decided to pull out his SmartPhone in order to check on the concept-art he had posted to SheezyArt since it had been a while since he had last done so. Tord instantly felt deflated upon seeing how much backlash the drawing he had worked so hard on had received over the course of nearly twenty-four hours. After being accused by nearly everyone of; "objectifying women," Tord felt as if he no-longer wanted to work on the animation-project that he had once been so eager to introduce to the public.
"Tord? What's wrong?" Edd questioned once Tord had unintentionally captured his attention with a sigh of disappointment.
"Nobody liked my concept-art...Guess I will have to scrap that idea..." Tord sadly chuckled with a forced smile that attempted to hide how crushed his soul really was. He did not want Edd to think he was too sensitive after all.
"The character you posted yesterday? She looked amazing! In fact, I want to include her in an Eddisode, if that's alright with you!" Edd then offered, in a small state of disbelief that his best-friend's amazing artwork had been panned on SheezyArt.
"Really?" Tord asked, perking up with excitement at Edd's offer.
"Yeah! In fact, let's do a collab'! We can take turns animating different scenes!" Edd then suggested with an equal amount of excitement.
"Okay!" Tord then eagerly agreed before the two would spend hours discussing plot-ideas for their newest, collaboration project. By the time their movie had come to an end, midnight had long-since fallen. Tord and Edd both lied down, beside each-other on the bed as both boys were on the verge of dozing off to sleep, Ringo comfortably snuggled in between the two, softly purring all the while.
"Edward?" Tord quietly spoke up, breaking the silence.
"Hm?" Edd groggily responded as he struggled to keep his eyes open for just a little while longer.
"When Tom was picking on me earlier, at The Diner; you stood up for me...Why?" Tord then questioned as he turned his head to look over at his friend with tired curiosity.
"He was obviously making you uncomfortable; I wasn't going to allow that..." Edd softly responded as he turned his head to flash Tord a sleepy but reassuring smile.
"Thank you, Edward...You truly do not know how much that means to me..." Tord then returned the smile.
"Anytime, buddy...I'll always be there for you..." Edd further reassured as he reached over to give Tord's hand a gentle squeeze. As Edd finally drifted off to sleep, Tord returned his tired gaze to the ceiling, staring up at the plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars that decorated it with care. Stars, the last thing Tord saw before he blacked out as searing-pain traveled up his arm, boiling his blood until his veins exploded but the physical-pain was still nothing in comparison to the sorrow he was drowning in that pushed him into committing this act. The crippling-sorrow flooded his lungs just like the filthy waters that now flooded London.
In the present: Tord suddenly sat up from his bed with a gasp, feeling mildly concerned by his nightmares of the past that still haunted him in his slumber.
"Tord? are you alright?" The Edd-Clone inquired as his red-eyes softly glowed within the darkness of the room. Naturally, the robot had been guarding Tord as he slept, just as he had been programmed to do. Tord felt comforted by his creation's familiar presence as he began to relax a bit. However, his expression then hardened to hide what little vulnerability he still had left in him as he got out of bed.
After getting dressed, Tord made his way to his new base's server-room with The Edd-Clone following closely behind him. At the server-room's main-computer, sat Gary and Leila. Leila had since tied her long, golden hair back into a low-braid since the hairstyle would be more practical for the war she was about to participate in as she worked to keep the new SheezyArt bug and bully free. Gary now sported a buzzcut for the same reasons that Leila braided her hair as he monitored the security-feed with a smoking-cigar hanging from his mouth.
"Status-update..." Tord suddenly ordered from behind them, startling his two, older Siblings into nearly jumping out of their chairs at the sound of his voice. Gary even nearly dropped his cigar in the process.
"Norway, London, Germany, Sweden and Poland have all been conquered...Kim, Katya and The Country Bears are all down...Tom captured and neutralized by Bingham..." Gary informed Tord of their overall successes and failures.
"And my armies?" Tord further inquired with slight irritation at the destruction of some of his weapons and defenses.
"Your armies far-exceed The King's Guard by a vast multitude..." Leila was quick to inform Tord when Gary hesitated on whether this news was best to deliver to their mentally-unstable, younger Sibling.
"Get into position; we take The Throne by nightfall..." Tord coldly instructed as Gary and Leila quickly got back to work.
"Tord, don't you think you're taking this a bit, too far?" The Edd-Clone sheepishly spoke up.
"The World needs a strong ruler, a Monarchy...Democracy has failed us all..." Tord replied with a strong lack of emotion, provoking The Edd-Clone to sigh since he knew, deep-down that Tord was right.
"I just feel like this is a mistake..." The Edd-Clone then began with caution which made Gary and Leila begin to become even more nervous than they already were.
"Edward..." Tord warned, towering over The Edd-Clone since he quickly became irritated that his creation seemed to be questioning his sense of morality once again.
"This is getting really dangerous! I worry about you..." The Edd-Clone then confessed to his Master.
"Edward...Those terrible people can never hurt me again; they have failed to kill me back-then and they will not be able to kill me now...I must use my second-chance at life to make sure they can never harm anyone else in the same way they have once harmed me, understand?" Tord then explained, his glare softening as he placed a hand on his creation's shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. The Edd-Clone nodded in response as he caressed his Master's arm in a needy-fashion.
"Good...Now, come with me..." Tord instructed as he lead The Edd-Clone outside of the building, where The Oslo-Tank currently resided. The two climbed inside, The Edd-Clone still feeling uneasy for reasons he was unable to pinpoint at the moment as Tord slowly began to drive the Tank toward their next destination.
"What's the matter?" The Edd-Clone then questioned upon hearing Tord swear softly beneath his breath before bringing his Tank to a sudden-stop.
"I almost took the trash with us..." Tord grumbled in response as he opened the Tank's latch before grabbing a small garbage-bag from behind his seat and climbing out of the Tank. The Edd-Clone watched in bewilderment as his distracted-Master tossed the garbage-bag into the nearby dumpster, mentally deciding that he would need to protect Tord at all costs.