Story 2: Indoctrination
Chapter 8: Wakeup Call
Double d awoke in darkness with a sharp tension headache. He tried to open his mouth to breathe but all that entered was unpalatable granules which made him panic. Like a wild animal he flailed his arms wildly to try and get rid of the material causing the material to fly out above his chest. He forced his head out of the material in a gasp and was immediately enveloped in a very unpleasant smelling bear hug.
"Ni D!" The individual giving the hug exclaimed "私は私はあなたを失っ考え sand golems of the Rorschach test from the movie Hedker of the Moon People!"
"Ed?" Double d asked weakly. His eyes started to adjust to the familiar colors of his best friend's shirt. Double d then realized he wasn't speaking in his normal tongue either.
"I know I didn't think it was him either," Another boy with Eddy's voice spoke. The colors gave way to a blurry figure with short blue hair grabbing Double d's by the shoulder, "What with the new chin and all."
"Cool! Double d looks like us too!" Ed yelled happily.
"Ed looking like aliens is not cool!" Eddy replied pushing Ed's face into a dune.
"But Eddy we look like the people in the comics from your brother's library place!" Ed remarked holding up a one of them he took out of his jacket.
"Pardon me to interject but you two do realize we're not speaking English right?" Double d added rubbing his eyes. "And where are we? This heat is unnatural given the average temperatures of Peach Creek during the Autumn months."
"Yeah don't remind me," Eddy grumbled. "And look around Sockhead does this look like Peach Creek during the Autumn months?" Even through his now strangely blurry vision Edd could plainly see that Eddy was right. A clear cerulean sky overlooking a variable ocean of black sand punctuated by crooked obelisk-shaped columns of white stone met their gaze. The sea of sand stretched far into the horizon with the consistence of a shrine sand garden rather than a Saharan wasteland with the only dunes being the small hills at the base of each stone. The stones were in unfathomable numbers and each had different heights and widths with none of them reaching more than 12 feet high. They seem to have been placed but with no rhyme or pattern and had no connection with other stones making the assortment resemble an endless city of free-standing towers.
"H-H-How did?" Double d stammered trying to process the scenery.
"This is just great!" Eddy yelled ignoring the question. "Every time I try to scam with new places and make myself better everything goes weird! Make the greatest scam ever? Get chased out of the cul-de-sac. Try to get even with my jerk brother? Find out my big bro is a big phony and end up falling asleep in sludge and woke up as an Asian in a desert! LUMPY STOP TRYING TO GRAB MY TEMPLE MARK!"
"But it looks so cool Eddy," Ed whined. Edd could finally focus completely at the new appearance of his best friends. Eddy's hair grew out about an inch except for his signature three hairs which transformed into 3 thick spikes of hair that sprouted along the back of his head ending underneath his shoulder blades. He had a more slender form but still maintained his height. Ed's hair grew out about 2 inches and had a more feral-like consistency than any sort of hair style. Ed's body pretty much stayed the same. Edd looked down at himself and found he too was leaner and upon further inspection his golden hair had grown out from the sides and the back of his hat. Ed was trying to grab 4 tiny red arrows that pulsed near the side of Eddy's head but every time he tried his hand just went through it like air. Eddy grew more ticked at Ed's antics.
"Come here sneaky dickens," Ed cooed his open hand passing through the mysterious symbol.
Before Eddy could pummel the nuisance Double d spoke up. "Ed? May I see that graphic novel please?"
"Here you go," Ed said tossing the book. After fumbling the novel Double d leafed through its contents and found the same characteristics that he and his friends had mysteriously adopted in the characters: Bigger more defined eyes, smaller nose and mouth, more realistic definition to the arms, legs, feet, and hands, little to unnoticeable outlines, and the same exaggerated mark in close proximity to the temple when the character was angry.
Eddy poked Edd out of his reverie. "Hey Sockhead, how much you willing to bet we now can do Kung-fu?"
"Kung-Fu!" Ed yelled happily before starting a shadowboxing match with an invisible advisory.
"Eddy, Asian stereotypes are beneath you," Double d scolded.
"Hear me out, what always happens in situations like this in movies?" Eddy reasoned. "The hero 'us' end up waking up in a place he's never been. Struggling to find his way back home he's told he is the chosen one and then finds out about this 'super secret' ability that only he knows. And since we already are in new bodies and learned to speak and read a new language literally overnight. Would I be wrong to suggest that we may now know Kung-fu?"
"Pushing yours and Ed's intensive understanding of the plots of under-budgeted B-rated action movies aside for a moment, I may have to humbly disagree with your notion," Edd argued. "First of all although I cannot fathom the reason behind our sudden and frankly improbable transformation given the natural inflexibility of the human genome, I can probably hypothesize that the probability of one of us let alone all of us learning martial arts is negligible at best. Ignoring the probability our education in Japanese language and writing styles in the time lapse of a night of course."
"Don't you ever turn off that head of yours?" Eddy replied flatly.
"Like I said before, it's a curse I'm afraid," Double d said looking up at the sky.
"ARRRROOOGGG!" A guttural moan echoed across the desert.
"What was that?!" Edd and Eddy yelled startled.
"EDDY! DOUBLE D!" Ed yelled running at them from around a section of the column forest.
"Ed Are you ok? AH!" Double d gasped as Ed picked him and Eddy up and burnt rubber deeper into the desert.
"Whoa where's the fire Rembrandt?" Eddy asked engulfed in Ed's pits.
"Trouble!" Ed yelled in a panic. "Cat!"
"Cat?" Double d and Eddy wondered. As if on cue a nearby column buckled and with a loud bang exploded catching the escaping party in the blast. The three boys flew a couple feet and landed in a heap. In a cloud of dust Eddy wiggled out from under Ed and looked at the direction of the collapsed column. He immediately wished he didn't because staring back at him was a hulking shadow with emotionless golden eyes and two ivory rows of sharp jagged teeth.