Chapter 4 - Three's company, four's an Ed.
Double-dee read the review:
"Everything in my life was spiraling downward. My girlfriend broke up with me, I flunked out of school, and a comet destroyed my hometown. I never felt so lost, dejected, and empty, and it didn't look like anything was going to get any better soon. But then, I found this WAD, and my life was changed forever. Playing this WAD not only brought happiness back to my world, it made me a millionaire, solved world hunger, cured cancer, made world peace, and silenced everyone that challenged my beliefs. Now I'm a supermodel and a movie star, and it's all thanks to playing this WAD. Do yourself a favor and download it NOW!
Five point one stars.
-Notasock2004"
"Sounds legit," said Eddy.
Ed opened his gaping maw and sounded words through his writhing gumline. "Download NOW!"
Double-Dee clicked the mirror and started downloading to his vintage granny-smith green-apple 2000 iMac.
He plugged ethernet cables into a cheap-looking Dell laptop Eddy brought over labeled "Eddy's dad: For Business. DO NOT TOUCH. That means YOU, Eddy" and a dinosauric beige Hewlett Packard tower attached to a grimy square-screen monitor Ed lugged over.
A sound came from behind Double-Dee: "Ah-hem."
Double-Dee looked at what Wardo had ceremoniously brought attention to and placed on his workbench, pushing aside the workshop tools, scientific equipment, and scrap appliances into the trash bin to make room for it.
Double-Dee gasped, "Oh, my."
It was an alienware gaming pc with dual core processors, a 300GB hard drive, and 256GB RAM running a single partition of Windows Vista. Internet explorer was open with several tabs of expensive cars being sold on Amazon and 2 tabs of a craigslist search for HeXen for PC. The mouse had a single button and the PC used built-in sound speakers. Double-Dee's eyes grew to a cartoonish girth and his mouth slouched open in horror at the price tag on it with a number that had more digits than the manufactured frankenstein box of rubbish— I mean, the elite gaming rig— was worth.
"What on earth is this monstrosity?" He asked the question in his old Ed-and-Eddy-scolding tone that he hadn't used since they stopped making scams that, from his perspective, those two always inevitably screwed up with their rash, petulant impulses.
Wardo raised his nose and lowered his eyebrows in an affected manner, which Double-Dee perceived as a gesture to deliberately condescend to him as if he was stupid and tasteless. Nobody ever looked at him like that before.
"This 'monstrosity' is the most expensive gaming pc you can buy, therefore, it is superior to all of yours."
The shock Double-dee felt at being slighted was replaced with confusion, then he had to hold back a chuckle when he realized Wardo didn't know he'd fallen victim to a common scam vendor that takes advantage of naive young adults who want to try PC gaming, but don't know anything about hardware.
"Oh, Wardo, I'm so sorry, but," he began.
"It is expensive." Wardo declared.
"Yes, but-"
"It is more expensive than all of your computers combined. You must all be in awe before the upper class standard."
Eddie looked over Wardo's clothes and stopped himself from looking too hard at the machine's price tag. "Put a sock in it, moneybags. Let's just get this started."
He said the word 'moneybags' with some grunt of frustration he could almost just place; something like a remnant of his past-self was scratching its way to the surface. A simmering sensation just above his gut reminded him of the time he found out Kevin's basement was full of jawbreakers.
"Right, Eddie," double-dee obliged. "Okay, Wardo, let me just-"
"I got it," Wardo said.
"Hold on, Wardo, we're going to-"
"Install HeXen - using the Windows CD you possess in addition to the Disk for the Macintosh - on my superior gaming machine and then host a 4-player Cooperative game on using the Appletalk on your inferior iMac while we connect by searching for a local game. I know."
"Why... yes," admitted Double-Dee, "it's like you read-"
Ed interjected "-the instruction booklet!"
He shoved the HeXen manual in Wardo's face. "If you need instructions on getting through the maps, check out the enclosed instruction book."
"Yes," said Wardo, "I read the instruction booklet."
"Good," said Eddy, "then we don't have to explain anything to Mr. Prissy-Pants. Now what about her?"
Eddy flung his arm toward Bella standing in the doorway.
"She'll watch." Said Wardo.
"Does she ever do anything?"
"Bella..." Wardo began, "is glorious. Nobody else on the entire planet and beyond could ever come close to being worthy of being my wife, and I hardly even consider myself worthy of her attention. She is more brilliant than a billion suns at high noon on summer solstice on the equator in the west coast of Brazil and her beauty surpasses that of-"
"But does she DO anything?" Eddy interjected.
There was a long pause.
Eddie broke the silence "I mean, why is she here?"
Wardo said simply, "because she's with me."
A few minutes later.
"Hosting," said Double-Dee.
"No," said Wardo. "I'm hosting."
"Err," said Double-Dee, "are you sure..."
"I'm doing this," Wardo declared."
Wardo's hands flailed with lightning speed over his keyboard.
"What are you doing?" Double-Dee asked.
"I'm making some modifications to this paltry computer file," Wardo said.
Ed shouted, "Ooh! Let me see!" he pushed Eddy and Double Dee out of the way and attempted to shove Wardo to the side to make room for him in front of the screen, but Wardo batted Ed away with the flick of a wrist. The slight graze of his fingertips against Ed's rhinocerosian charge sent him flying to the side of the room like a torpedo and he crashed through the wall.
"Oh dear," said Double-Dee, "my parents' room."
Ed emerged from the crumbling hole moments later, and on his head were bright cyan panties spotted with a pink dahlia flower pattern on them.
"Ed," Double-Dee screamed, "take that off immediately!"
Eddy exploded with laughter. Ed tried to pull the panties off his head, but they just flung backward like a rubber band and twisted around his face until it turned purple and wrinkled like a raisin. His head twisted back the other way around like a tornado and the panties flew off. The leg holes went through Double-Dee's arms and it flung into his chest. He looked like he was wearing it like a bikini.
"It's too small for you Double-dee," Ed said, "plus that style is out-of season."
Just so you know, the Johnny Test whip sound effect played every time the panties snapped. Well, no, it was 3 different, better stock sounds that Ed Edd 'n Eddy employs, but I can't think of names for them. Use your imagination.
Double-Dee, red in the face, removed the panties. "Are we quite ready to move on here?"
"Yes," said Edward, "I'm dropping the WAD into your shared folder."
After a few moments, Double-Dee saw in the shared folder get replaced with a file of the same name, but several dozen megabites larger in size.
"Wardo," Double-Dee said, "what did you put in this WAD, and how did you do it so fast?"
"I'm hosting," said Wardo.
The three Eds ran a search for local games.
Waiting for players... 1/4
Waiting for players... 2/4
Waiting for players... 3/4
Waiting for players... 4/4
All players found! Starting game.
Double-Dee: Which player class did you choose, Wardo?
Bedward: I am the destroying angel.
Double-Dee: The Mushroom?
Ed: Cool! I wanna try!
Eddy: What? You gotta be a fighter, a cleric, or a mage. How did you mod in a new class so fast?
Ed: Mushroom now!
Bedward: Werewolves suck.
Double-Dee: Oh dear, your first weapon is too powerful.
Eddy: Geez! Leave some monsters for the rest of us.
Double-Dee: You're somehow moving faster than the 35 FPS limit of the game engine will allow. That's impossible. How did you code it like that?
Ed: Come on, I wanna play.
Eddy: Watch it, Ed, this ain't a deathmatch.
Ed: But I have to punch something.
Double-Dee: Oh, dear. Eddy, are those your baby pictures... as a wall texture?
Ed: HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHA!
Eddy: What the? Hey, don't look! Who made this, anyway?
Double-Dee: Hmm...
Double-Dee: Title: .
Double-Dee: Supports Single-player and Cooperative, 1-8 players...
Double-Dee: release date: a day before those cullens moved in.
Double-Dee: Author... Eddie's brother?!
Eddy: What! When did he learn how to mod!?
Eddy left the game.
Ed: Eddy, no! We still haven't finished the game!
"Tell me when it's over," Eddy said outside the game, "this game isn't big enough for the four of us."
"I quit, too," said Double-Dee, "Wardo's immortal vampire character is too overpowered. He's so out-of-place he clashes with everything in HeXen, and getting injected into the group ruins the perfect dynamic the main trio of characters had together without him. Trying to put those things together just isn't any fun to play, and for what?"
"His name," Wardo said.
Pause.
"His name is Count Hex IV."
"That's it," said Double-Dee, "just because of his name?"
"A guy with a name like that has to be put in a game called HeXen," said Wardo, "and be the leader of the other three."
"I Want to be a vampire!" Ed screamed.
"Shut up, Ed," said Eddy.
"The leader?" Double-Dee said.
"Yes," Wardo responded.
Bella didn't say anything. Did you forget she was here?
"He can use emotional abuse and a power imbalance to manipulate his inferiors and always get everything his way," said Wardo, "he is flawless, after all."
"But you introduced an element that's incongruous with what's been established before he was shoehorned in," said Double-Dee, "this was a bad idea right from its initial conception."
"I won!" Ed screamed.
On Ed's computer monitor, there was an out-of-sync error message on top of the screen and a room full of missing textures caused a hall of mirror effect, making a wallpaper of the fighter's fist all over the screen. Double-Dee's Mage character and Eddie's Cleric were standing around static because they stopped playing, but Ed made his fighter carry them around and stretch out their faces like Mario 64, so the mage's hood was contorted into the shape of a conch shell with green eyes peeking through an oblong, crooked hole. The glowing green stars that were his eyes were twisted into off-center, non-symmetrical, and off-model positions. Eddie's helmet was twisted into a long, spnindly shape that dangled above his shoulders. It now resembled something like a klansman's hood or a wizard's cap. The horns were turned upside down and stretched out. They nearly met each other in the shape of an ant's mandibles. All of this was pasted and repeated ten billion fold in the hall of mirrors room.
Elsewhere, Wardo killed all the monsters and clipped through everything to reach the exit portal, and the game's ending sequence began playing.
"Aw man," Ed said, "does it have to be over so soon?"
"Not soon enough," said Eddy. "I'm sick of computer games."
"Really?" Said Double-Dee. "We haven't even seen or mentioned video games in our past adventures, as if they didn't exist in our time. You're bored of them already?"
"Look!" Ed shouted.
Outside Double-Dee's window the clouds had parted and the sun shined brightly on the cul-de-sac.
"Let's go outside! Please, Double-Dee?"
"Splendid idea, Ed," said Double-Dee, "now that there's four of us, I can finally set up that badmiton set!"
"No," said Wardo.
"Excuse me?" said Double-Dee.
"I'll stay in here," he said.
"Well... okay," Double-Dee said. "How long do you want to stay?"
"Until nightfall."
"What? Why?"
"You wouldn't like me in the sunlight."
"Alright, sleepover!" Ed shouted.
"Now wait just a minute, Wardo," said Double-Dee. "My parents haven't even met you yet, and just look at the wall!"
"We can fix it," drolled Ed dully.
"We're not going to encounter any adults," Wardo said, "not overtly. Not in this cul-de-sac. Not in plain view for any audience to witness."
"How do you know?" Double-Dee challenged.
"I know." Wardo's statement had a solemn finality.
Double-Dee exploded. "Yes, you know! I know you know! You know this, you know that! How do you know everything?!"
"Jealous?" Wardo asked.
Double-Dee glowered at Wardo.
"Actually," Wardo said, "there's something I don't know that I can't find out on my own."
He looked at Ed, who was applying duct tape. to several small pages he threw over the hole in the wall.
"What is he thinking?"
Before anyone could answer, Ed struck a pose holding the roll of duct tape, "Fixed it, Double-Dee!"
He yanked the tape off the wall that he forgot to detach from the roll and the pages flew all over the room. A manual cover landed on Double-Dee's face. Double-Dee removed it and examined the page with a gasp.
"Is this my HeXen instruction booklet?!"
"It's okay, Double-Dee," said Ed, "nobody ever reads the manual."
Double-Dee's face turned purple "Gah! Ed, that was a vintage accessory!"
"Does that mean it goes in a record player?"
Wardo reared into Ed's face so far that Ed had to lean backwards under the tall, marble Adonis looming over him. Wardo stared into Ed's eyes at point-blank range with the intensity of a serial killer.
Ed was visibly sweating, and after a long and uncomfortable wait with Wardo not moving from his rigid stance staring into Ed like a vulture, Ed asked, "um, how do you do?"
In an instant, Wardo responded with a non-sequitor, inquiring, "What is your birthday?"
"A magic snowman."
"What's your favorite color?"
"Gravy."
"What's your favorite gemstone?"
"The one in my dad's kidney."
Ed pulled out an x-ray of his dad's kidney stone. "I named him Hubert."
"Think of a number between one and ten."
"Okay."
Pause.
Wardo's brow furrowed. He ground his teeth, his forehead turned red and smoke seeped out of his ears, and after his face became pale again, he asked, "Ready?"
"For what?"
"The number."
"Oh yeah, that! I thought of it."
"Is it... nine?"
"No."
"Seven?"
"Nope."
"Two?"
"Nuh-uh."
"What is it?"
"I forgot."
"Wardo," said Eddy, "why are you obsessed with Ed?"
Bella was also staring at Ed, but not with the same curious frustration as Wardo; it was a glare of subdued malice.
"Will you at least get your girlfriend out of here? We're not having a sleepover if you two are making dirty all night."
"She's my wife," Wardo boomed.
"What, did you knock her up?"
As if on command, Ed began knocking on bella's head. "Knock knock!" A hollow, wooden tapping emitted at Ed's rapping. "Is anybody home?"
Pause.
"Nobody's there."
Something small, brown and shiny fell out of Bella's eyes a few moments after Ed's last tap.
"What's that?" Said Double-Dee.
"It's a brainsucking alien parasite as can be seen on Invaders from the Gaslight Planet!" said Ed.
Bella finally talked. "My contacts."
"It can talk?" Asked Eddy.
She crouched down to pick up the brown contact lenses. She popped them in, and her golden, melted butterscotch topaz eyes turned red from melding into the brown, translucent hue of the contacts.
"So that's what's with the red eyes," said Eddy.
"They're not red," she said, "they're chocolate brown!"
Everyone stared. (You, the reader, might be thinking "that's your answer to the red eyes established in chapter 1? An asspull that wasted my time and requires Bella to be too stupid to know that contact colors are not opaque?" and to that, I flip you off with my middle toe. But, I betcha that you didn't get its a nod to that red-eyed volturi vampire in New Moon that wears blue contacts to make her eyes look Violet. I know that because research. Now back to the story.)
"But yeah," said Eddy, "she doesn't look pregnant. She's too skinny."
"I have strong, Edwardian values," said Wardo.
"Oh, how virtuous!" Double-Dee gushed.
He quickly hardened again, "but Eddy's right, we can't have her staying here."
"Yeah," said Eddy. "It's gonna be guy's night!"
"Ahem, attention everyone!" Ed was standing behind the hole, wearing Double-Dee's dad's tuxedo, and he walked in carrying two shotguns.
"Ed," Double-Dee cried, "you put those back! That's dangerous!"
"I can't swear, but this gets past the censors?" Asked Eddie. "What the hel-I mean, heck!"
"With the power vested in me," said Ed, and he stood the two shotguns upright, pushing the muzzles into each other, "I do thee wed."
Eddy exploded with laughter.
"It's so beautiful," Ed sniffed, wiping away a stray tear, "isn't it, Wardo?"
Bella and Wardo's eyes were shooting daggers at Ed, but Bella just huffed and said "Oh, well, boys will be boys."
Wardo relaxed, but muttered under his breath, "you're lucky my girl's here."
Ed's thumb accidentally clicked the trigger. "Whoops!"
But it wasn't loaded.
Double-Dee wiped his forehead and exhaled a "phew."
"I'll take that," came a mysterious voice as a hand yanked a shotgun away.
"Kankers," hissed Eddy under his breath.
As Marie took the other shotgun, Lee pointed hers at Ed and said, "you may now kiss the bride."
Bree shuffled up next to Ed, wearing a veil of kleenex tissues. She displayed the ring-pop candy she wore on her finger and stuck one on Ed's.
"Go home, Kankers," said Eddy, "they're not loaded."
Marie held out a box of shells. They both slid them into the barrels and cocked their guns.
"They are now," said Lee as they aimed them back at Ed.
Bree giggled, removed her veil of kleenex tissues and puckered up.
Ed screamed, "I'm too young to get married!"
"You two cuties are next," said Marie as she and Lee winked at Double-Dee and Eddy. Their response to the flirtatious winks were nervous gulps.
"This is so wonderful," Bella cooed, "now everyone's paired up!"
The kankers looked back at Bella.
"Who the heck are you?" Asked Lee.
"Ladies," drawled Wardo in a velvety voice.
Shifting their gaze to Wardo, the kankers mouths hung open, dropping their shotguns.
"I do believe you're trespassing," he finished.
"Um," said Ed, "is this the part where we say: I do?"
Bree punched Ed through the hole in the wall without taking her eyes off of Wardo, drool pouring from her bucktoothed maw.
"Who is that?" asked Marie.
"I don't know," said Lee, throwing the gun over her shoulder with a crash and a stock cat-screeching sound effect, "but I'm callin' dibs on this hunk 'o man."
"Hey," Marie trilled, "I saw him first."
Bree hollered and lunged her way past her sisters, and the others followed to tackle and smother Wardo.
Bree landed on him first, but her face smacked against his beige shirt and flew onto her back under the light of the open window with a thud, her incisors wobbling loosely as she fell.
"Why is he so hard?" She asked.
Marie was shivering with him clutched in her arms. "Why is he so cold?"
Lee lifted her bangs over her three eyes and looked at him with fierce intensity. "Why is he so obviously not a member of the human species that could never easily blend into human society on a daily basis without getting caught and making it worldwide common knowledge that freakish monsters walk among us?"
"Hey," Shouted Ed from the hole, "that's my line. Uh," he looked at Wardo surrounded by the girls, "what about us?"
"Shut up, Ed," said Eddy.
Ed accidentally stepped on one of the guns aimed at Wardo and it fired, the bullets ricocheting off Wardo's diamond hard chest and blasting Bree square in the teeth.
Bree's front tooth fell from her mouth and landed on the floor under the window, reflecting the light onto Wardo. Bright, pulsating light glittering off Wardo's skin strobed the whole room in a seizure-inducing light show.
"My eyes!" Eddy screamed.
Double Dee's eyes dilated, he frothed at the mouth, and doubled over, twitching and jerking about in writhing spasms. "I thought this was a banned episode."
"Wrong show, Double-Dee," said Eddy between convulsions.
Everyone had seizures, except Ed, who put on sunglasses and started eating popcorn. "Are the previews over yet?"
The effect wore off on Lee when her hair went back over her eyes. She kicked the tooth away and the disco frenzy was over.
Everyone stopped flailing and stared at Wardo. He chuckled. His lips curved into a crooked smile of doom and he asked, "Do I... dazzle you?"
Everyone started laughing hysterically. Everyone but Wardo, who slouched with an expression as frumpy as the glowering sky above the beach in La Push.
When the laughs died down, Lee curtly responded, "As if, glitterboy."
"We're out of here," said Marie, "Mr. Sparkles here killed the mood."
"But what about the wedding!" Bree screeched.
"We'll come back when midnight fever is over," said Marie.
"Yeah," said Lee, "your wedding day is too important to waste. You deserve a more romantic atmosphere."
Wardo laughed. "You harlots don't know the first thing about romantic atmosphere. Your mother kept company with several unsavory men while you were left to formulate your view of romance in a backwater trailer park."
The Kankers' jaws dropped.
"You don't know anything about our mom!" said Marie.
"And our trailer's none of your business," said Bree.
"We'll let you off now," said Lee, "but if we ever catch you prowling in our trailer park, the restraining orders are on." She said this with no hint of self-aware irony of breaking and entering Double-dee's house, because they're female, so there's nothing wrong with that; and with that, the Kankers left the premises.
"Hooray Wardo!" said the Eds.
Eddy chimed in, "You got the Kanker sisters off our backs!"
"and I am still a bachelor," said Ed.
"I believe," said Double-dee, "that this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship."
"Time to send the shotguns on their honeymoon," Ed put the shotguns in a box, wrote Hawaii on the send label, and shoved it in Double-Dee's mailbox.
"Edward," said Double-Dee, "you must tell us: what are you?"
"I do not know what you mean," said Wardo.
"Come on, Wardo," said Eddy, "anybody can tell you and Bella aren't human. It's too obvious."
"Yes we are," he declared.
"Even I am not that stupid, Wardo," said Ed.
"If you know we're not human," said Wardo, "I suppose this means I am now free to slaughter the small, defenseless children in the cul-de-sac, if I were so inclined. Eddie's brother and the adults are long gone."
"Then we're not going to tell you what Ed's thinking," said Double-Dee.
Pause.
"If you tell us what you are and promise not to kill us or any of our friends," said Double-Dee, "Ed well tell you all of his private thoughts."
"I will?" said Ed.
Edward and Bella stood static and speechless like cold, marble statues and stared at each other without blinking for a full minute, while the Eds fidgeted and darted their heads around confusedly like humans normally do in a situation like this.
"Fine," said Edward.
"Edward, no!" Bella screamed.
"Jeez," said Eddy, "I forgot she was here."
"Now, now, Bella," Wardo patronized, "I believe we can let them in on our world, and the Volturi will never know."
"The Volturi?" asked Eddy and Double-Dee in unison.
"Don't worry, guys," said Ed, "volturi only eat dead things."
And so, the screen faded to black and told the Eds everything that you already know about Twilight, and a lot of things that you didn't know if you haven't read Das_Mervin's sporkings (hint hint).
"Cool!" Ed shouted, "I want to be a vampire!"
"Shush, Ed," said Double-Dee.
"We gotta keep this a secret, monobrow," said Eddie.
"Oh, come on, Wardo, please?"
"No, Ed," said Double-Dee.
"Can he at least show us some cool vampire stuff?" Ed said.
Eddie and Double-Dee were about to protest, but, after a moment's hesitation, "hey, that might be-" started Eddie, "-intriguing!" Double-Dee finished.
"And after we're done with that," said Eddy, "we can show you some fun human stuff!"
"Why?" Asked Wardo.
"Because we are friends," said Ed, "and friendship is more fun than a mashed mr. potato head."
"Friend... ship?" said Wardo.
"You know," said Double-Dee, "platonic, non-romantic best friends having fun together, for no other reason than to enjoy each other's company."
"Wait, Ed," said Eddy, "you mashed a Mr. Potato head?"
"Pla...ton...nick..." Wardo had difficulty pronouncing each syllable, as if he was trying to speak another language, "...friends?"
"You got it, Wardo!" The eds said together.
"We could go right after dark, when you're not sparkling," said Double-Dee, "if only I could explain the wall to my parents."
"That will not be a problem," said Wardo.
At impossible vampiric speed, Wardo gathered up the fragmented plaster and mortar and stuck it all back into the wall by licking it with his adhesive vampire venom. Bella did nothing.
"Cool!" Said Ed.
"Isn't he a beautiful sparkling marble adonis?" said Bella.
"Oh... yeah, her," said Eddy, "I don't think she'll make a good addition to the group, so she should go home while we hang out."
"What?" Asked Bella.
"What Eddy, the uncouth Ninny, meant," said Double-Dee, "is that we're too... casual for her refined taste."
"You have a good point," Wardo smiled. "Darling, will you stay home and turn off your mind shield so I can still be with you by being privy to your private thoughts at all times?"
"Of course," said Bella, "this way, we're never really apart. It's so romantic, but I shall hold my breath and bestill my unbeating heart until your return to my frozen embrace; not that we immortals need to draw air into our crystallized lungs at all, and we have no need for our hearts to pump blood through our cold, venom-filled veins."
"Wait," said Double-Dee, "how does venom course through the veins in your body with no heartbeat?"
"Because science, Double-Dee!" Ed shouted.
"But..." Double-Dee began.
"Don't think about it," said Ed, and that was that.
And so, night fell, Bella went back to Johnny's old house, and lots of fun was had for the Eds. This is where the montage of friendship would be written, so use your imagination, because I don't want to write it.
At the end of the montage, we zoom in on the four Eds sitting around the campfire, three marshmallows skewered with sticks, and an exsanguinated cougar corpse tucked behind a bush.
"So, Wardo," began Double-Dee, "you re-inherit your family's fortune every 50 years?"
Wardo nodded.
"Does that mean you could call it," Double-Dee paused for effect, "an Inheritance Cycle?"
Long pause.
"Sorry," apologized Double-Dee, "that was a bad joke."
"Man, these deer are annoying," Eddie said, as one began chewing his grass-shaped hair.
"They are just hungry," Ed said, giving one a stick to chew on,"
"Why don't they go eat grass somewhere?" Said Eddy, as three rabbits hopped onto his lap.
"Too many rabbits," said Ed. The field and the forest were coated in the long-eared fuzzballs nibbling at anything green.
"The herbivore population is reaching its threshold," said Double-Dee, holding his hat down to keep the deer from biting it off, "if there aren't any more predators or hunting in the area, the ecosystem will go out of balance."
"Hey!" said Eddy, as a chipmunk ran off with his marshmallow, a long line of its rodent cohorts chasing behind it.
"Those large felines, bears, and wolves-" he intensely stressed the last word "-in the protected endangered species zone had it coming to them," said Wardo, "just like all the men with evil thoughts I tortured and slaughtered back in my solo days. We save more lives than we kill by hunting the predators, and I have the right to take that choice into my own hands, because that mountain lion was imagining attacking the lowly humans it was terrified of."
"Do you think he'd do it, Wardo?" Said Ed.
"Thanks to me," said Wardo, "we'll never have to find out, and I left its mate with a broken limb and the kittens to die the slow, painful death they deserve."
"Say, Wardo," said Eddie without preamble to segue to the subject that kicks off the next plot point, "that Dazzling power of yours is pretty nifty."
"You're thinking about Naz," said Wardo.
Ed and Double-Dee snickered at the accusation, which could only be correct coming from a mind reader (unless he's lying).
"Yeah, so?" Eddy said.
"So," said Wardo, "I know what you're thinking, and I can help set you up with her."
"No foolin'?"
"There is no tomfoolery, but there is a bargain."
"Yeah, what is it?"
"I demand a weekly report on what Ed is thinking at all times. If you agree to this, Naz will be yours."
"Oh, that's easy," said Ed, "I score Fantastic on reports all the time!"
"Ed," said Double-Dee, "that's not what-"
"-It's a deal!" Eddie said before Double-Dee could finish.
"Can I be a vampire?" Said Ed. "Please, please, please, with gravy on top and buttered toast sprinkles."
"Not without my father's approval. A human will have to be near-death before it is morally righteous to turn them."
"AWWWWW, COME ON WARDO!" Ed threw his stick into the fire, and a heap of embers splattered onto Wardo. His flammable venom-coated body burst into flame on every part of his icy body and all the wildlife ran into the forest.
All the Eds screamed and flailed about in squiggle-vision.
"Don't panic, don't panic!" Double-Dee panicked. "I know what to do."
Double-Dee cleared his throat.
"Sum-" Double Dee paused between syllables, waiting, but nothing happened, so he continued "-mer" Double Dee winced, but nothing happened "rain-" nothing happend.
"you-" nothing happened,
"-can-" nothing happened.
"nev-" nothing, "er-" nothing.
"pre-" nothing "-dict-" nothing, "-them."
Long pause.
Nothing happened. Nothing, except for Wardo's piercing screams as he melted in trickling bursts of all-consuming fire. His eyes popped out and fell on the ground because the walls of his eye sockets were coated with venom to slide around like googly eyes with no eye-muscles to keep them fastened and control their movement.
"Ed to the rescue!" Ed ran onto the scene with a fire hose and doused Wardo with a thick, brown liquid that did quite the opposite of dousing and an explosion of violet, billowing clouds streamed from Wardo's wilting crystalline mass, enveloping the area in an almost-honey-lilac-and-sun-flavored scent.
"Oh, my!" Said Double-Dee.
"Do we even have to ask?" Said Eddie, and before anyone could ask, Ed proclaimed "Gravy!"
"So," said Eddy in Wardo's direction, "shall we start tomorrow night?"
All that was left of Wardo was a smoking heap of ash, which Ed buttered, but since this is a cartoon, this "death" isn't permanent and he'll be right back in the next chapter with no explanation.
Then It started to hail - I bet you didn't predict that - and somewhere unseen, something was stalking them. Something with pumpkin and wolf-shaped shadows.
Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait again! This was a tough one to write, and I read Das Mervin's The Wedding Crashers and Mrs. Hyde's The Darkest Hour during the downtime, and I highly recommend them! One is an epic lulzy deconstruction, and the other is a "what if it was good" fix-it-fic by a competent writer. Reading the darkest hour last poisoned my mind with its good worldbuilding and characterization… I had to actively erase that good Edward from my memory and replace it with the canon one to be able to write this!
SLIGHT SPOLERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T READ WEDDING CRASHERS: Thank goodness, nothing in this contradicts with anything established in the Wedding Crashers, so this can be set in the same continuity if I want it to be. *SPOILERS* I was afraid everyone was gonna die by the end! But thankfully, there was mercy for Bella and Edward, so they're still around for this.*/SPOILERS*
Don't stay tuned, because I'll probably take another eternity to write the next chapter. I think you can see where it's going from where this one ended. It's gonna be good. *CROOKED EVIL MANIACAL LAUGHING GRIN OF DOOM*