Author's Note: Now, these next three chapters (including this one) are special. Originally, I wasn't going to cover the "Next Stop, Armageddon" episode. I didn't have any ideas. But then, I was given a special B-plot idea by a big fan of my work, Redbat132. Give them a hand for this fun little idea.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter. Any and all comments are welcome.

And now… Fillmore

Today's Episode: Next Stop, Armageddon

Act 1: Bound for Glory

Ed hummed to himself as he headed to his locker. He made sure his tape security was still attached before putting in his combination. He then unlocked and opened it. He expected to just find his books and papers, but much to his surprise, there was something else in there. A green envelope was found hanging on the air slits on the backside of his locker door. He pulled it out and looked at its front, which had a white circle with a green symbol on it.

"Someone managed to slip something through my security." Ed said. "I don't like that."

Curious, Ed broke the envelope open and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Ed read what was written to himself.

"Dear Edward Nygma, I am a person who sees you as an interesting subject for a little project of mine. If you don't mind, I would like you to fill out this survey. I promise you that no one will be harmed, least of all you."

Ed read the questions below the message.

"Would you rather A) wear a suit and tie or B) a one-piece spandex?

Would you rather be A) with a mask or B) without a mask?

Would you rather have this A) in private or B) in public?"

More questions followed.

"How does this guy expect me to give him the answers if I don't even know him?" Ed asked. He continued reading until he found another message on the bottom.

"You're probably wondering how you can give me the answers if you don't know me? Well, just set it someplace for me to pick it up. I know how much you like riddles, so how about I give this to you in the form of two riddles? First, what has two backbones and thousands of ribs? Second, I am everywhere. Nothing can compare. Run and hide and I'll still be there. Because everything is mine to share. No need to seek me out, though you may just run out. What am I?"

Ed thought hard on the riddles he read. He walked down the hall reaching the front of the cafeteria. "Well, these are pretty decent riddles. Let's see… two backbones and thousands of ribs. What could it…"

Ed stopped when he noticed a flyer posted on the wall next to him. The poster had a model train picture along with the words "Model Train Lovers, Welcome! Train Convention Today!"

"Two backbones and thousands of ribs." Ed repeated. "Maybe a railroad. Sounds about right… but if I'm wrong, I could end up looking like a real nerd showing up there. …Oh, well. Caution to the wind."

Ten seconds after entering the convention hall, Ed was already regretting his decision to arrive. All around him, fellow students of X Middle School were showing off their displays of model trainsets. There was even a student who wore a cartoon train mask which made Ed rub his temple as if treating a headache.

There were different gimmicks for each model train set, including a spooky, dead forest look for a goth group, a circus set for a few kids in clown makeup, and even classic railroad looks.

"Already, I feel like an idiot." Ed groaned. "Well, at least no one I know is here?"

"Nygma?"

Ed froze in place hearing a familiar voice behind him. He spun around and saw Fillmore and Ingrid standing there surprised to see him.

"Fillmore? Third?" Ed asked. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Ingrid asked.

"I asked you first."

Fillmore sighed. "We're on convention duty."

"Seriously?" Ed asked slipping out a laugh. "What, did you lose a bet?"

"More like, we made Folsom more mad than ever before." Fillmore said. "And hey, you didn't answer our question. What are you doing here?"

"Well, if you must know, I'm here solving a mystery." Ed said pulling out the survey he found, which was already filled out. "Somebody slipped this weird survey into my locker and left me clues to leave this here for them to pick up. I don't suppose any of you left it for me."

"Not me." Ingrid said shaking her head.

"Don't look at me." Fillmore said. "Where are you supposed to leave it?"

"Well, the answer to that is in this riddle." Ed said before reading it aloud. "'I am everywhere. Nothing can compare. Run and hide and I'll still be there. Because everything is mine to share. No need to seek me out, though you may just run out. What am I?'"

"Well, that's certainly a vague riddle." Fillmore said.

"Yeah, but riddles are supposed to be vague." Ingrid said. She thought for a moment and looked around. She stopped when she noticed a bunch of kids in spacesuits surrounding their space-themed railroad looking similar to the red surface of Mars. "That's it. Space."

"That sounds about right." Ed said. He headed to the space railroad, but all the astronaut kids had already gone. He then placed the envelope in an open spot under the table before returning to Fillmore and Ingrid. "And now, we wait."

"You really want to know who left that there, huh?" Ingrid asked.

"Someone went through a lot of trouble just to get my attention. I might as well find out who and why." Ed said. "And with this, all I have to do is wait. It's like leaving a worm out for a fish to bite."

The sound of that made Fillmore widen his eyes before lowering his head. He sighed sadly with Ed confused.

"Was it something I said?"

"It's Fillmore's goldfish, Thelonius." Ingrid said sympathetically. "He died earlier today. Fillmore's taking it pretty hard."

"Oh." Ed said. "Sorry, Fillmore."

"I'll get through it." Fillmore said. "Right now, let's get back to our job. Nygma, we'll leave you to your own thing."

At that moment, an applause broke out as the railroad fans welcomed a kid in with a sly smile and a cool posture. He was followed by a group of cheerleaders.

"Who's that?" Ingrid asked.

"'Who's that?'" repeated another kid like the answer was obvious. He was an orange-haired kid with glasses and a flannel jacket. "That's Oscar. He's the best of the best. A fifth-generation track-layer."

"He can't help but be good. It's in his blood." another student said with a pair of blue suspenders and a red bandana over her hair.

"Oh, Oscar," cried out a cheerleader near the celebrity, "Tell us again about the time you built a quarter-inch scale working model of the Chunnel."

"Later, girls. Later." Oscar said.

Ed stared in confusion. "The cheerleaders are into model train experts? What, have I fallen into an alternate universe?"

"Model train fans, young and old!" Oscar announced as he stood beside a covered-up trainset. "I give you 'trainamorphosus'! From our humble past to our signing future, where model trains blow remote control cars off the map! Lights, please!"

At his command, the lights were dimmed and the sound of a drumroll filled the convention.

"This is pretty elaborate." Ingrid commented.

"You ain't seen nothing yet." The red bandana girl said.

Oscar pulled the tarp off his trainset, which was decorated to be half urban city and half forest. Everyone cheered at the sight of it.

"Oscar used to sweep the train convention competition every year." the boy with the glasses said. "Two years ago, he gracefully took himself out of the running to give others a chance to win. But he still managed to rub his talent in everyone's faces with production numbers like this."

"Oh, so he's one of those." Ed said rolling his eyes.

Back at the trainset, Oscar continued his presentation. "Now, some say we model trainers need to change with the times, that the future belongs to 'high-tech, remote-control vehicles'. But I say 'stoke the furnace. Full steam ahead.'" Everyone cheered in agreement as his train knocked over an RC car when it drove into it.

"What's up with the 'anti-remote-control car' stuff?" Ingrid asked another model trainer.

"Any model trainer worth his gain hates the RCers. They think they're all cool because their cars run without a track. So what? I walk without a track. Do they have a club for me?"

"So welcome to the Interschool All-County Model Train Show!" Oscar declared. "Brought to you by Guererro's Train-a-Topia Model Train Shop!"

"Let me guess. Oscar Guererro?" Fillmore asked making an educated guess at the celebrity's surname.

"As much as I wish this could all last forever," Oscar continued, "This will indeed be my final convention." His fans protested against that. "We're moving to the Pacific Northwest for the constant rain makes model training much more popular. So next time you're in the greater Dakota area, look me up. Now, who wants to see these babies run?"

At the sound of a train whistle, all the model trainers began to show off their train sets.

"Well, that was about as fun as a teeth cleaning appointment." Ed said bored. "I'll just leave as soon as I know who left that letter in my locker."

"Here we go." the girl with the red bandana said as she and her team started their train set, which was built to look like an old-fashioned railroad station at the base of a mountain range. "A year of work. Plank cityscapes. Lime tracks. Putting foliage on trees with tiny tweezers. All leading up to this moment. It's all about now."

Her train rode along the tracks she built. She and her friends were all excited when it reached up the hill. However, much to their surprise, the rain went off-course. It flew off the tracks and crashed right through the mountain, which broke part and crushed their other train.

What came next was a catastrophic chain reaction. Part of the crushed train flew over the convention and onto the space railroad set. The impact made a rocket fly over and hit the amusement park set. After that, another set was destroyed. One after another until literally every model train set was knocked over and demolished. It all happened so fast, no one could stop it, not even Ed Nygma and his safety patrol friends, who watched in shock.

Shortly after the disaster struck, the model trainers were gathered up by the Safety Patrol and sat at the wall with comfort blankets to calm them. All the while, a boy in a gray trench coat examined the ruined convention with his remote-control helicopter.

"This is Way Wade Washington from Radio XMS reporting live from X Middle School, site of the largest disaster in train convention history. I'm hovering over a wreck that spans over a four-hundred square foot area. Oh, the miniature humanity."

At that moment, students cleared the way for Principal Folsom, who rode into the convention room on her vehicle. She had her driver stop in front of Fillmore, Ingrid, and Ed.

"Fillmore, Ingrid, what happened?" Folsom asked. They were about to answer, but she cut them off too soon. "I don't wanna know. What I do wanna know is what my two best safety patrol officers were doing when the largest model train accident in human history happened in my school."

"Hey, you can't blame them." Ed said. "It all happened so fast. It couldn't have been prevented."

"Stay out of this, Nygma." Folsom warned. "You have no stake in this. Actually, I do wanna know what you were doing here."

"I was here on a personal…" Ed started to say before gasping. "Oh, no! The survey!" He ran from the conversation and headed toward what was left of the space track. He started digging through the rubble to look for the envelope.

"I'll never understand that boy." Folsom said before turning to Fillmore and Ingrid. "And as for you two…"

"Principal Folsom, we're gonna catch whoever did this." Fillmore said.

"Fillmore, what are you talking about?" Chief Vallejo asked. "This was an accident."

"Was it?" Fillmore asked. "One train car caused an entire convention center to be destroyed in a matter of seconds. Something's not right. We'll find out what went down. I promise."

"I don't want your promises." Folsom said. "I want answers. And clean this mess up ASAP! We've got the Bavarian Club Pretzel Twist-Off Convention coming in two hours." With that, she had her driver take her out of the convention center.

Over at the space track, Ed searched under every piece of rubble looking for the letter he sought, but stopped when he reached the solid floor.

"What? Where'd it go?" Ed asked. "Did someone take it already before the incident? Who?"

Danny O'Farrell had arrived on the scene ready to take some pictures. But before he could get close, Fillmore stopped him.

"Uh, O'Farrell, what are you doing?"

"My designated job on the Safety Patrol." O'Farrell said. "I'm gonna take some pics of the crime scene. Okay?"

"Danny, it's rough in there." Fillmore warned. "You might want to skip this one."

"Fillmore, thanks for having my back, but I'm a seventh-grader. I can handle." O'Farrell continued to approach the wreck, and he immediately regretted doing so. His confidence dropped as his face fell into disgust and horror. "Oh, merciful pancakes. Did I just say 'pancakes'? Oh, why did I say pancakes?" He looked like he was about to throw up.

"Hey, hey, take it easy, buddy." said a new voice approaching.

A black-haired boy showed himself. He wore a white shirt with black sleeves and a black stripe going up and down the left side of his shirt. In his hand, he was holding onto a sketchbook.

"You okay?"

"I… I think I need to go somewhere... that's not here." O'Farrell said beginning to leave.

"Poor guy." the black-haired boy said watching O'Farrell leave.

"Hey, who are you?" Chief Vallejo asked approaching the new guy. "You're not an officer. And you don't look like a model trainer."

"Sorry, sir. I'm Kyle Rayner, from the newspaper."

"Oh, I think I remember you from when I put up my daily riddles." Ed said. "You work around the comics department, right?"

"That's right." Kyle said. "And may I say, you do good work with those riddles. You're a real riddler, aren't you?"

"Don't go kissing up to my officers." Vallejo said. "Wait, Nygma doesn't work for me. In any case, we have a couple of questions. For example, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I like to practice my drawing skills based on real-life inspiration." Kyle said holding out his sketchbook. "The model train convention was pretty lively, so I thought I'd get some real practice. The last thing I expected though was everything breaking apart."

"May we see the sketchpad?" Fillmore asked.

"Sure, I suppose." Kyle said passing his drawings. "Not sure if they'll be any help though."

Fillmore opened up the book and looked through its pages. He saw model train sets and train cars as they passed and landscapes.

"Not much here." Fillmore said. "Just train sets."

"Yeah, I'm much better with objects instead of people." Kyle said. "I can only do stick figures.

"Did you see anything suspicious though?" Ingrid asked.

"Not really. Honestly, the crash caught me by surprise as much as the rest of you."

"All right, pally." Vallejo said. "You can go."

"Thanks." Kyle said as he left the convention room.

"So now that the civilians are out of the way, let's get to the investigation." Ed said approaching the site of the destroyed mountain base train set. "This is where it all began, it seems."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Tehama asked.

"Something we wouldn't expect." Fillmore said. "Something that doesn't belong."

"Something like this?" Ingrid asked as she pulled something out of the wreckage. It was a yellow, handheld controller.

"So we found a controller." Fillmore said. "The question is, what exactly does it control?"

"I have a theory." Ed said taking the controller. "Riddle me this… I stretch far without moving, yet I act as a guide. What am I?"

Fillmore looked over at the broken trainset and realized the answer. "Tracks."

"Bingo." Ed said. He flipped one of the controller switches, which caused the train tracks on the set to adjust its course.

"Disco." Fillmore said. "Looks like someone wanted this train to make an unscheduled stop."