Chapter 2 - The Ed-truder
Eddie was awake and shivering in his bed when he heard a rapping at his window.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Double-dee, is that you?"
The rapping became louder.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
"Ed?"
The rapping continued.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
"Sockhead, if that's you, use the secret knock."
The window fell silent.
Eddie rose from his bed, teeth chattering. He clutched his blanket and dragged it with him as he approached his window step-by-step, creeping quietly as he could until he could see the silhouetted figure waiting on the other side of the glass. Next to the figure was a note taped to the window:
Please unlock
Eddie's hands trembled as he undid the lock.
"This better be good, guys. I'm acting like one of those idiots in bad horror movies just letting the bad guy in if it's not you."
The window flew open and a blast of cold wind roared inside, buffeting Eddie's face and throwing things around the already-messy room with the force of a tornado while dramatically-timed lightning flashed outside, somehow not illuminating the features of the silhouette as if knowing not to spoil the buildup, but the boom of thunder was realistically delayed for a few seconds because of the difference in the speed of sound and light.
The figure climbed in. From what Eddie could tell, it could have been a boy his age, but there was an odd sensation that he was older than he appeared. He was lithe and chiseled, his curves and angles were too perfect; almost as if Eddie was looking at a Greek statue. Eddie projected his brother's sneering face on the dark statue's head as it loomed over him in his own room, and in an instant, Eddie choked down his sense of self-preservation and locked eyes with the intruder.
"Who the heck do you think you are? Talk, or get out of my room, or I'll..." (Standards still won't let Eddie swear.)
The intruder lit a magical torch he pulled from a satchel. He was wearing a cape. No— it was a flowing cowl.
"My name is Edgar," he said.
Eddie stared at the armored, pointy-eared man in a ridiculous cowl silently.
"I am a Sidhe Elf. I have come here from the world of Parthoris."
Eddie stared.
"What?"
"Well, who were you expecting?"
Silence.
Two more figures climbed through the window. It was Ed and Double-dee.
"Hey, Eddy, did you meet Edgar?" Double-dee surveyed the area. "Tsk, tsk. When was the last time you cleaned up?"
Ed shouted, "Ah ha!" Ed paused for a moment, "This looks like room 517 in Spooky's House of JumpScares after that giant worm ate all the scientists and hid in the ventilation shafts, and then Specimen 8 started spreading its larvae to mutate all life forms into grotesque hosts for the alien parasite."
"Hey, sockhead, did you tell this guy our secret knock?"
"No way, Eddie," said Ed, "double-dee wouldn't tell anyone you're supposed to not knock when you say to use the secret knock."
Eddie growled at Ed.
"Ooh, nice blankey, Eddie. It has little duckies on it."
Eddie dropped the blanket. "Ed!"
"Sorry, Eddie," said Double-Dee, "our new friend Edgar will only be here for a minute. He has something very important to share with us."
The cowled man named Edgar spoke. "Thank you, err... Eddward, was it?"
"We call him Double-dee," said Eddy, "now spill it, before I kick you all out of my room."
"Right," said Edgar, "I've been sent here as a mouthpiece to deliver a message from the author."
"Why you?" Eddie's tone was more of a demand than a question.
"I'm his Heretic Mary-sue OC. No fanfic is complete without a Mary-sue to steal the spotlight and shove the canon characters to the sidelines. Since my name is Edgar, he thought it would be fitting to send me to make his announcement for this fic. By the way, if you're a HeXen and Heretic fan, you should go read his fanfic, starring me, whenever he gets around to writing it. There's going to be lots of flamboyant homoerotic pining for Corvus to look forward to, and since the author likes that, he just knows it won't ruin Heretic for anyone who reads it."
Eddie's eyes narrowed. "Geez, we're never that on-the-nose with breaking the fourth wall."
"The author of this fanfic is not as restrained as the writers of Ed, Edd 'n Eddy."
"Hey," said Eddie, "you just deleted the word 'talented' and replaced it with 'skilled,' then you replaced 'skilled' with 'restrained.'"
"The author didn't like insulting himself," said Edgar, "he was looking for the right word to put in my mouth to leave his ego undamaged."
"Eddie," Double-dee chimed in, "the readers aren't watching this being written in real-time, so that observation makes no sense."
"Save your criticisms for later," Edgar said, "I have an announcement to make!" (P.S.: NO CRITICISM IN THE REVIEWS! ONLY PRAISE ALLOWED! RAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!)
"What the heck was that parenthetical statement?" (Again; standards.)
"Stop ruining everything and let me do what I came here for: tell the readers that the author never gave up on A New Ed in Town, it was just put on hiatus."
"What are you talking about," said Eddy, "chapter one just happened tonight! (and will the author decide on a spelling between 'Eddy' and 'Eddie,' please?)"
"No," said Edgar, "that was over five years ago."
Eddie raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"
Double-Dee's jaw dropped. "Oh my."
"The author didn't write any more chapters because he didn't know anything about Twilight. He's spent the past several years researching Twilight to make up for it by reading the sporkings by Das_Mervin. He's read up to The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, and the only book left is the sporking of Breaking Dawn; and when he saw the table of contents, well, it was like witnessing an elven marvel. Just go over there and look at how big that book is! I'll provide you the link."
Edgar handed Eddy a parchment with a link written on it:
das-sporking(d0t)livejournal(d0t)com/312339(d0t)html
(NOTE: replace every (d0t) with . to fix the link)
Double-Dee snatched it out of Eddies' hand. "I'll take that. Let's go over to my place to analyze this."
"Why?" Eddie asked.
"As you know, Bob," Double-dee started, but Eddy cut in,
"The name's Eddy."
"As you know, Eddy, we'd have to sneak past your sleeping parents to use their computer, but I have a computer in my room, and it's not so messy."
"Yeah, yeah, we already know that, sockhead."
"Even I knew that, Double-Dee," said Ed.
"I was not aware of the circumstances," said Edgar, "my apologies for the inconvenience. Shall we trek over to Eddward's abode?"
"Right," said Eddy, "let's go."
"Wow," said Ed.
"Scintillating," said Double-Dee.
The four Eds were staring at a desktop monitor in Double-Dee's room.
"Can I play computer games, please double-dee?" Ed put on his best whimpering puppy-dog eyes and lips.
"No, Ed, we need this for research now," Double-Dee scolded, "but I promise we'll play HeXen later." (Author's note: they probably won't use it for research, but I guarantee I'm dedicating a chapter to HeXen.)
Eddy finally asked, "so what's the big deal?"
"The deal is," said Edgar, pointing at Das_Mervin's Breaking Dawn sporking table of contents on the web browser, "that this is a really long series of sporkings, and the last book is the biggest one of all. This is why the fanfiction has been put on hold for years."
"Look at these chapter titles," said Double-Dee, and began listing some off.
"Chapter 10 – Why Didn't I Just Walk Away? Oh Right, Because I'm an Idiot. (Part I)
Chapter 13 – Good Thing I've Got a Strong Stomach (Part II)
Chapter 16 – Too-Much-Information Alert (Part III)
Chapter 18 – There Are No Words For This. (Part III)"
Double-Dee chuckled. "Amusing; the sporker came up with some clever names."
"Das_Mervin did not make those chapter titles," Edgar said, "Stephenie Meyer did."
"Oh dear," said Double-Dee.
"Buttered toast on gravy," said Ed.
"Who the heck is Stephenie Meyer?" said Eddy. (Stephenie won't use the H-word, either, and probably hasn't heard that it stopped being a swear-word back in 1998.)
"Oh, you poor thing," sighed Edgar, "you have no idea what you're in for."
"What am I in for? What in the gosh-darn heck is going on?" (the standards are really annoying Eddy tonight).
"The most horrid crossover of your fictional existence. Those people you saw just a few hours ago this night are her characters."
"So, what," said Eddy, "we're breaking the 12-character-limit rule for this? Those flashing red eyes were barely on the screen in the last chapter."
"Those were the eyes of a vampire," Edgar said, "and the red color was a mistake on the part of the author. It was before he started reading the sporkings and he didn't know that vegetarian vampires have yellow eyes. He's going to have to make some excuse or retcon it."
Double-Dee asked, "Did you say vegetarian vampires?"
"Yes."
"That's the lamest thing I ever heard," Eddie said.
Ed screamed, "I want to be a vampire! I'm going to suck your blood through my nose!"
Ed made slurping sounds, loudly snorted, and his nostrils created a vacuum wave that stretched Eddy's head and sucked him up his nose like a vacuum cleaner and stuck to him like a suction cup in a slapstick cartoonish fashion that is unfitting in a purely written medium.
Eddy's voice was muffled, "lay off, monobrow!"
Ed blew him back out just as quickly as he had sucked him in. It was fast because Eddie's so short.
"Enough," said Edgar, "I delivered my message, and I'll have to leave now; just know that the author is in the middle of reading the Breaking Dawn sporkings as of writing this, and he may not upload another chapter until he's finished his research. Oh, by the way, I'm going to have to erase your memory of this chapter before I leave."
"Say what?" No sooner had Eddie finished that Edgar pointed his elvenwand to them and spoke an Eldritch incantation.
"Dental plan; Lisa needs braces. Dental plan; Lisa needs braces. Dental plan; Lisa needs braces!"
The Eds all flinched in anticipation, but Edgar lowered his wand.
"Before I go," Edgar tugged at the hood of his cowl, "I must compliment your great fashion sense."
"Why, thank you," Double-Dee beamed.
"Would you consider getting one in laurel green?"
"Well, actually, I—"
Edgar raised his wand and a brilliant flash filled the room. When the flash was gone, the Eds had white bubbles popping around their heads to show that they were dazed. Edgar held a cross-shaped artifact at Eddy, "Banishment device!"
Glowing red rings of light flew out from the banishment device at Eddie and engulfed him in their chaotic vortex. A swirl of red rings dissipated where Eddie had once stood; he vanished from Double-Dee's room without a trace.
Eddy was teleported back to his room, robbed of the memory of this half-baked filler author's note of a chapter. Edgar then teleported Ed to his own room with the banishment device as well. Edgar erased the recent history in Double-Dee's browser, turned off the power, held a circular object above his head, and yelled, "Chaos Device!"
Edgar teleported back to his own world where he belonged.
Double-Dee stammered. "What? Am I sleepwalking?" He tried to check the time on his computer, only to realize that he must have shut it off, even though he thought he just left it in sleep mode for the night.
"Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy," Double-Dee chanted. Double-Dee crawled into bed with all his clothes on, including his sneakers, and only remembered to take off his hat after the chapter's closing line, so there cannot be a description of what's hidden under it.