This is a story request from Mace sheperd that really caught my attention. We spoke about the story and have been doing some planning for the story. He's given me some guidelines, but I'm the one who has overall control over the story's plot and series of events. It's a trilogy, you see, and I'm going to be updating this story on a bi-monthly basis. I'll take one month to work on this story and this story alone before updating it at the end of that month, then another month will be used to work on my other stories. I hope to make this story at least ten chapters long, since it's only the first book and meant to act as build-up for the other two books. But I think I've kept you here enough. On to the story, shall we?
*I don't own Ed, Edd n' Eddy, Marvel, or DC Comics! All references from each of the franchises belong to their respective owners. The only thing I own is the OCs I may come up with in the future.*
Dialogue Key
"Ed, you idiot!" = Regular Speech
'I am a zombie and I will malice you with a shoehorn!' = Someone's thoughts
"Malice me with a shoehorn!?" = Someone Yelling
The Fall of the Cul-De-Sac
Sitting in a cardboard ice cream truck, young Eddy grinned as it slowly moved along with the bell jingling every time the box jostled. Although, it wasn't the smoothest of movements as he and his two best friends, Ed and Eddward, A.K.A. Double Dee, forgot to put real wheels on this thing. As such, Ed and Double Dee were left to push the fake truck.
It stopped for a moment as Ed and Double Dee stopped to try and catch their breath.
"Come on, guys, it's gotta look real! Push it smooth!" Eddy said impatiently.
Ed and Double Dee tried to push more, but they just can't. They're both out of breath and totally exhausted.
"Can we please… take a break?" begged Double Dee, who was sweating profusely and breathing heavily.
Just like Ed. And Double Dee isn't exactly built for this kind of physical labor. Unfortunately for him, once Eddy has his mind set on a scam, he won't rest until it either falls apart, or they've made money to buy jawbreakers.
"Just a couple more feet. We'll be rich! Onward!" Eddy exclaimed with a grin.
Pushing their burning and aching muscles a little more, Ed and Double Dee pushed the fake ice cream truck until it was finally in the direct center of the Cul-de-sac.
"Perfect!"
Eddy rang the bell tied to the stick he was using as part of the fake truck in order to try and draw in the kids.
"Ice cream! Big scoops!" Eddy called before telling Ed and Double Dee to start making the ice cream. "Real cheap! Ice cream! Get'cher ice cream here!"
After catching their breath, Double Dee and Ed got to work on making the fake ice cream cones. Since their parents don't really give them an allowance, none of them had money to buy real ice cream for the scam. So they had to improvise. Good thing the two of them are shielded from prying eyes by a panel at the back of the fake truck.
Double Dee rolled up a sheet of paper that's the same color as a waffle cone and carefully filled in the cavity with a little bit of glue.
"One scoop, please." he said as he handed the cone to Ed.
"C'mon, c'mon!" Eddy mumbled to himself.
But his eyes narrowed and he frowned as he saw that no kids are running to their ice cream truck. Something that, besides jawbreakers, no kid can possibly resist. Especially not on a hot day like today. In fact, the more he looks around, the more Eddy seems to realize that the Cul-de-sac looks strangely barren. It's almost like one of those ghost towns from one of Ed's monster movies.
Speaking of whom, while Eddy tried once again to draw in some customers, Ed was doing his part in making the ice cream. He grabbed a large baseball and jammed it into the fake ice cream cone. The glue that Double Dee poured in acted as the perfect anchor for the spherical object. Once the baseball was secure, Ed started drinking it in pink paint to give it the appearance of a strawberry flavored ice cream cone.
"Drink Mister?" Ed said stupidly as the paint rapidly dried.
"One scoop, please." said Double Dee as he gave Ed another cone.
"...Ice cream! Big scoops! HELLO! ICE CREAM!" exclaimed Eddy as he rang the bell a little more. "Where is everyone?"
"Maybe they're on to us." Double Dee suggested as he and Ed stood up and stopped making fake ice cream.
"Nah. This one's foolproof!" Eddy said dismissively.
He gave the cardboard truck a pat on the side… only for the whole thing to literally fall apart.
"I'll look around." Eddy said.
As the shortest of the Eds started looking for the rest of the Cul-de-sac kids, Ed got curious about the ice cream he'd made with Double Dee. He took an experimental lick of the fake frozen dairy treat and found he likes the taste. So the big lug opened his mouth wide and chomped down, taking a big bite out of the baseball that makes up the ice cream of this fake frozen treat.
"What are you doing, Ed?" Double Dee said as he tried to take the prop away from Ed.
"Get your own!" exclaimed Ed as he tried to fend off Double Dee.
The two wrestled for a little bit to try and either keep the fake treat or take it away. Not that Eddy really paid them any mind as he just shouted out the one question that's on his mind. One that he really needs answered.
"WHERE IS EVERYBODY!?"
His voice echoed throughout the Cul-de-sac, but unfortunately nobody answered. Just silence all around. Not even a bird was chirping, that's how silent it's become in the Cul-de-sac. Totally abnormal for such a normally chaotic neighborhood. And this made Eddy scratch his head in irritation.
"I don't get it!" exclaimed Eddy.
"It is simple, Eddy." said Ed as he paused before stupidly adding "The kids were sucked into a wormhole and spewn into an alternate universe!"
Eddy and Double Dee just looked at their dimwitted friend with blank faces.
"Simple." said Ed.
"YOU'RE simple." Eddy quipped as he took the cone away before Ed could bite it. "Let's check the houses."
While the two smarter Ed-boys walked towards Jimmy's house, Ed just stared at his hands where his 'ice cream' used to be. The brainless Ed-Boy scratched his head in confusion as he swore he had it just a moment ago. But when Eddy called his name, he forgot all about it and ran over to his friends.
Soon, all three were standing at the door to Jimmy's house.
"We'll get to the bottom of this." said Eddy.
He rang the doorbell and listened for anyone answering the door. When he didn't hear anyone he rang the bell again. Pressing his ear to the door, Eddy started grinning.
"Someone's comin'!"
The door slowly opened causing the Eds to make a collective sound of revulsion at what they saw. Standing at the door in a robe was Jimmy. But he's paler than normal, his eyes are red and puffy, rash cream was on random parts of his body, and he was covered from head to toe in tiny red spots.
"Hello, mister Postman. Are those eggs for me?" Jimmy asked weakly and clearly delusional.
The lad made noises of discomfort as he started scratching in multiple areas, and even using his leg to scratch himself like a dog.
"Look at his face!" exclaimed Eddy.
"It's so gross! Can I touch it?" Ed asked as he moved towards Jimmy.
But lucky for him, Double Dee was there to act as damage control. And a good thing too, considering what the pale boy has caught.
"Ed, no!" cried Double Dee as he blocked and held off his friend. "Jimmy's got chicken pox! Touch him, and you'll get it too!"
"Double Dee! Behind you!" exclaimed Eddy in panic.
And he was right to do so. Double Dee and Ed gasped as Jimmy started to slowly walk towards them like some diseased zombie. And not the kind that Ed likes. Thinking fast and not bothering to read it, Eddy yanked a sign up out of the ground and used it as a weapon to fend off Jimmy.
"Back, Chicken Boy, back!"
He quickly managed to back Jimmy up into his house and tossed the sign away before closing the door. The three-haired Ed-Boy sighed at the close call. Suddenly, Ed noticed something important.
"Hey look!" he said as he pointed to the sign.
His friends looked and instantly became aware of how serious the situation really is.
"Oh dear, a quarantine!" gasped Double Dee.
The sock hat wearing Ed-Boy picked the sign back up as he and his friends examined it. If he's correct, and he usually is, then this isn't an isolated incident. And it would explain why the Cul-de-sac seems deserted today.
"I've seen this before." said Ed.
That certainly caught the attention of his friends.
"Where?" asked Eddy.
"There."
Eddy and Double Dee looked where their friend was pointing and saw immediately realized just what it is that he saw. Quarantine signs lay strewn about all over the yards of the neighborhood kids! Everywhere you looked there was nothing but signs. Rolf, Sarah, Nazz, Johnny, Kevin, they all have signs that show that they're sick!
"It must be an epidemic!" exclaimed Double Dee.
"So I, uh, guess we're the only ones not sick." Eddy said with a nervous laugh.
"So it seems, Eddy."
The three boys with the same first name stood there in awkward silence as they pondered what to do with the rest of their day if they can't scam any of the neighborhood kids. That's pretty much all they do, aside from Ed and Double Dee. Ed has his comic books, monster movies, models, and his tub of gravy to fall back on while Double Dee has all of his chemistry equipment and books that he can use to occupy his time. But Eddy's never gone so much as one day this summer without trying to scam the neighborhood kids for jawbreaker money.
But he wasn't going to let that deter him!
"So what? We can still do somethin'." Eddy said with a grin. "C'mon, boys, LET'S DO SOMETHIN'!"
Eddy was about to run off to do something, but was stopped by one simple question.
"Like what?" Ed asked.
As the three boys sat around wondering just what to do on this scamless day, they failed to notice a certain Clown Prince of Crime watching from the shadows. Disguised as a mailman, the Joker watched with sadistic glee as his latest scheme came to fruition.
"Go ahead and enjoy your last day alive, kiddies." he mumbled to himself. "My modified Joker Venom, which I've disguised as a strand of the Chicken Pox virus, has already infected the vast majority of the Cul-de-sac. Soon, it will spread to the adults taking care of the little brats and do them in as well! Only reason it's not working on you three is because you've all likely already had the Chicken Pox. But that doesn't matter…"
Joker took out pictures of several parents of the neighborhood kids. Each one dressed in a military uniform of some kind.
"What does matter is weakening the only ones who could have possibly defended this little waste of space neighborhood. Shovelchin's father, the parents of Monobrow and his Loudmouth Brat sister, even Sockhead's parents all have military training, even though none of them made it past a Sergeant's rank, and aren't afraid to use it. With them out of the picture, nothing will stop me from putting a permanent smile on all those kids faces!"
Joker laughed silently to himself as he thought about how this plan of his couldn't possibly have any flaws in it. He quickly pulled himself together and placed a package at somebody's doorstep in order to not arouse suspicion. Bringing his wrist up to his face, Joker started speaking into his wristwatch communicator.
"Harley, phase one of my plan is complete. Begin phase two." he ordered.
"Roger that, Mista J." said a woman's voice over the comms.
Though she doesn't sound too happy about doing so. And why would she be? Not many know about this, but Harley used to be a babysitter for most of the kids of the Cul-de-sac. She has many happy memories of the time she spent with them, the Ed-Boys especially.
She remembers taking Ed to the park outside of the Cul-de-sac where he made some friends other than Eddy and Double Dee (They mostly talk over the phone since they live so far away. And Ed's parents allow him to use their computer to exchange skype messages with them.), giving Double Dee some dance lessons for when he finally meets that special someone (and believe it or not, Double Dee actually won a dance competition thanks to her lessons), and she even remembers when Eddy had been bullied by his brother before he finally went away. She took him and his two friends to the candy store for jawbreakers to help cheer him up since that punk had said and done some rather hurtful things.
That's why after initiating the second phase of the plan, Harley did something that nobody would think her capable of doing. She sent details of the plan and coordinates to the Justice League, took a rag to wipe all of the make-up off of her face revealing healthy tan skin, and left the Joker. For good!
'I just hope and pray that the league makes it to the Cul-de-sac in time.' she thought to herself.
*To Be Continued…*
Here we are, all finished and awaiting your reviews! To Mace sheperd, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'm sorry it's a little shorter than I had hoped it would be, but I wanted to add some build-up for when this story really gets going. I also wanted to give Joker a little more of a way to subtly weaken the Cul-de-sac itself and why he chose to do so. Anyway, thanks a bunch for reading everybody! If you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to like and follow the story if you so desire, and I'll see you all in my next update! Buh-Bye now!