Chapter Text
Two shadowy figures crouched in the bushes across from a small house with a red roof with a pair of misshapen binoculars. The moon was high and the street was silent as they whispered and peered into through the houses windows, lights still on.
“Which one is it again? All these humans look the same. I can’t tell.” The voice was hushed but barely human and resembled the tittering of a bird.
“The one with gravity defying hair. Positive.”
“Sir, I’m fairly certain they all have gravity defying hair.”
“The short, brown haired one in red.”
“Ah, the one with the horned hair. You could have just said that, sir.”
“Horns? I thought they looked more like ears… But yes that one. It will be a relief when we take care of this and get off this planet. All this water is frankly terrifying.”
“I agree sir. We’ll be gone tomorrow.”
Things were decidedly not going as smoothly as Tord hoped. He had planned to snag the robot and leave this hovel at least two days ago. But something always kept popping up: “Hey Tord wanna play this new game with me? Like old times.” “Hey, Tord I found a thing! Oh man, I’m sorry about your shirt. I can clean it!” “Hey asshole, keep your hentai on your side of the room.”
It didn’t help that the damned Jehova was keeping his eye… er holes on him at all times. When he first arrived it seemed as though Tom would willingly leave, and storm out. It would make Tord’s job easier at least but nope the damned bowling ball stayed. For Edd and Matt. Now, he was being sucked back into this cycle of whacky adventures and bullshit. Tord was past all that. He had an army. An entire operation to run! People feared him! He was THE Red Leader!
But it was difficult to feel like anything more than just a short grumpy kid as he tried to eat his delicious bowl of Eddsworld Cereal™. It would be good if it didn’t make the milk taste like Cola and puffs weren’t turning into mush.
“Morning Tord,” Edd said, shuffling in with a yawn. “Want any bacon?”
Tord couldn’t help perking up at that. “Yes,” he said eagerly, pushing the bowl away and nodding.
“Great! I’ll make some. But if you steal any of mine I will fight you for it,” Edd smiled as he pulled out the frying pan and dammit Tord couldn’t help but smile back.
This was part of the problem. He was getting sucked into all these old memories of living here, fighting zombies, shooting clones, going to hell etc. Tord couldn’t get caught up in it. Which is why he was getting the robot and leaving today. No matter what. He even had a bag packed already, hidden under his bed along with a number of guns. Just in case.
“Hey, Edd. Hey, Lolifucker.” Tom shambled in, looking dead to the world.
“Morning Tom!”
“Don’t call me that. Dick.” He didn’t even like loli so ha.
Tom gave some unintelligible groans back as he dragged himself to the coffee pot. His hair was more of a wreck than normal and his rumpled blue hoodie and jeans indicated he fell asleep in his clothes again. The smell of vodka and cheap tobacco clung to Tom like Axe body spray clung to a 13-year-old boy.
“Bacon?” Edd offered.
“Nah,” Tom replied, sipping at his black coffee and glaring at Tord over his mug. “I’m good.”
“What?” Tord challenged, reclining in his the chair, and smirking at Tom. It was far too easy now to get a raise out of him and two of them would often times start the morning with a shouting match over something simple like milk. “Something wrong my friend?”
“I’m not your friend,” Tom snapped, pulling out his flask from his hoodie and taking a swig. It was a wonder he was even coherent at all. “Where is Matt?” Evidently, he had chosen to ignore Tord now.
“It is only 9:00,” Edd said checking his watch. “He has another hour before he is done with his beauty sleep.”
Both Tord and Tom snorted derisively and then glared at each other. Edd gave a knowing smile as he turned over the bacon, watching it snap and sizzle.
It is all par for the course. This was his routine the last few mornings. Tom pours himself a cup of coffee and dumps four packets of sugar into it as Edd sneaks a strip of bacon. Tord just flips through his messages, keeping in touch with Patrick and Paul. He let them know last night that today was the day and their asses had better be ready to go just in case.
The doorbell rang out through the house, the tree of them glancing toward the door all at once.
“Tord’s got it,” Tom said flatly, not looking up from his newspaper. What a loser. Still reading newspapers.
Regardless he got up and looked through the peephole in the door. Oddly enough it was two men in hats and trench coats, their faces and hands obscured. They were tall, almost out of sight of the peephole. They screamed trouble in a get up like that so Tord was wary.
“We’re not buying anything!” Tord called through the door. “And if you’re Jehova’s Witness we’ve already got one thanks!”
He watched the two shadowed figures converse with each other quietly through his bubbled lens. One finally shrugged and pulled out a… oh shit.
Immediately, Tord scrambled away from the door, throwing himself onto the floor as the door was blasted off its hinges. As he shielded himself from falling door parts he could hear a “holy fuck” from the kitchen.
“Tord Larsson?” A weirdly robotic voice asked. Tord turned to see the two men in their large oversized hats and coats standing over him with the fucking laser gun pointed at his chest.
"FBI? MI6? UN? CIA?" Tord ran through a number of options in his head because clearly someone had found him out and was here to take down Red Leader. He had done a number of illegal things that could have put him on everyone’s list frankly so yeah he was boned.
“No?” he tried and for a moment the men were a little taken aback as if they bought it. Edd and Tom ran into the living room, mouths open in shock. Tord tried to crawl away as the men were momentarily distracted.
“Tord?!”
The men whirled back at Tord who was halfway to the stairs. Wonderful. Thanks, Edd.
“Tord Larsson. You are under arrest for illegal genetic experimentation and unauthorized DNA collection from dangerous species.”
The men took off their hats and oh… these definitely were not men. Three large spherical eyes, stacked like a pyramid blinked down at Tord like massive red marbles. Their skin was white like a clean sheet of paper with dark veins marbling their skin like blue cheese. They completely lacked mouths and ears. How could a trilby and a trench coat hide all that?!
“Aliens again?!” Edd cried out, picking up a chair from the kitchen.
“Again?!” Tord echoed, throwing a dented doorknob at one of them, before trying to make it for the stairs. One got his spindly long fingers in his hood until Edd knocked it in the head with the chair. It rounded on Edd, clearly ready to thrash the pun-loving guy, until Tom straight up punched it in the jaw.
“Genetic experiments?!” Tom shouted, kicking the same one in the stomach.
“I’ve been busy!” Tord bolted up the stairs, frantically hunting for his backpack. If he had aliens coming for him for his crimes then it was time to get back to his proper base. Aliens were something he absolutely did not account for. He grabbed the backpack from under the bed, stuffed a gun down the back of his pants and fled out the door.
As he ran down the hall, pack slung over his shoulder, Matt peeked out the door, grumpy and sleep in his eyes. “What is going on?” he asked.
“Aliens are here to arrest me,” Tord replied, heading for the window at the end of the hall and hopping out of it.
“Oh cool… cool… wait what?” Matt’s door flung all the way open as Tord shimmied down the roof. There was fighting going on downstairs so he hoped Tom and Edd would be a good enough distraction for him to disappear. He wasn’t going to lose his robot to aliens so he would have to come back for that. The only issue is that the second his feet touch the grass in the backyard, Tom goes hurtling through a window and onto the lawn.
“Lame,” Tom groaned, facedown in the grass. He lifted his head, nose bleeding over his lips and dripping thickly onto the grass. A dented golf club is off to the side, having been thrown out with him.
“Tom! Tord!” Edd called from the living room somehow stuck the wall. Tord can see him struggle and try to peel himself off the plaster but whatever they’ve done he is stuck good.
The weird alien things are encroaching on Tord and Tom now, one looking thoroughly smacked around by a 9 iron judging by the stark bruises and clutching of his ribs.
“You will be further charged with resisting arrest by an officer,” one snapped while the other tittered angrily; whatever it was that allowed it to speak English was clearly broken.
Realizing that running and hiding was out, Tord reached for his gun, bringing it level with the alien’s third eye when the other reacted faster than he could blink. The gun went flying from his hands and his fingers jammed in the trigger painfully. He gave a furious cry when the back of a large white hand came across his face with a crack and his vision went dark.
Whatever it was that held Edd to the wall faded as his friends were being dragged away. Matt came thundering down the stair in a purple bathrobe, giving a shrill scream at the mess. Edd gave a tremendous push against the wall and fell at Matt’s bunny slippers with a thud.
“Edd what is going on!?” Matt squealed looking out the broken window. The two watched as a spaceship smaller than the one that the vain aliens had flown up, rustling trees and sending grass clippings into the living room. Edd and Matt ran out into the backyard as the engines revved and the small ship blasted off, zooming up and out of sight into the blue sky.
“Edd?!” Matt cried, frantic looking back at his friend. “Did aliens just take Tord?!”
“Not just Tord!” Edd answered, glaring at the sky. Matt gasped, hands flying to face in horror.
Slowly, Tord became aware of a strange humming sound and was roused into consciousness. Tord regretted opening his eyes and slammed them shut against the bright lights above him. His brain pounded against the inside of his skull and he grits his teeth against the pain. He could taste blood on his lips, probably from when the alien backhanded him across the face. “Went down like a bitch,” he thought bitterly, as he checked for missing teeth with his tongue. His hands were securely cuffed behind his back.
He coaxed his eyes open, fighting the sharp pain off, and tried to get his bearings. His mouth fell open as his eyes adjusted. He was in space. The giant glass window in front of him gave a perfect view of a distant Earth surrounded by the vastness of space that was getting smaller and smaller every second. He felt like he was going to puke.
“Oh shit,” he breathed. Hazel eyes looked around frantically trying to find his gun, his backpack, or anything when it fell on a bulky blue hoodie on his left. His eyes flicked up and it took him a moment longer than it should have to realize there was someone in that hoodie slumped on the floor. "Double shit."