Chapter Three:

Metal Slugs and Spirals, Oh My!

A small rock lay forgotten and alone on a playground.

The summer sun scorched every orifice on its surface, leaving only the bottom as a cool sanctuary for the smaller critters that dared not penetrate the surface, les they risk being baked to a fine crisp.

Besides that, the rock did not do much but sit and wait for its destiny to come. What stories did it have to tell? Where did it come from? Had it been there since the dinosaurs roamed? More importantly, what had it been through?

These questions and more were certainly not on Kevin's mind as he kicked the unfortunate rock into the nearby sandbox, leaving the underground critters to scatter for a moister and cool spot.

"Stupid rock."

The young boy made his way over to the nearest bench and parked himself on it, in a mood that was certainly nowhere near good. Questions were on every part of his mind, 'Why do I have to be here' being the most prevalent of them all. His parents had insisted that he spend some time out of the house, seeing as how they had spent the past two days unpacking and getting comfortable in their new home. So, while his father went to his new job and his mother made dinner, Kevin found himself inconceivably bored and decided to act on his parents constant pestering. Unfortunately, this place was not like the city at all. There was no big park where all the other kids went to play, only some very small and mediocre playground with barely anything to do.

The most interesting thing was that, on the way over here, Kevin could have sworn he saw some bald kid talking to a piece of wood. When said boy caught him staring, he simply waved at Kevin, with nary a care in the world as he marched down the lane of the cul-de-sac. He still felt the anxiety creeping over him as he began to realize that this place was indeed his new home. No tall buildings, no hustle and bustle of the traffic. It felt like a part of him had been left behind.

So, there he sat, with elbows resting on his knees and his head buried in-between the upturned palms of his hands, thinking about how boring this place already was. The worst part was that there was not even anyone on the playground. At least that meant no one could see him mope around like a loser.

"Hey there, dude!"

"Nazz?"

Kevin's eyes fluttered open and, with blurry vision, he could barely make out a few windows that rested on the far side of the room, showing him the blackness of the night sky. Huh, he must have woken up in the middle of the night again. That was a rare occurrence indeed. Then, a realization; why did his bed feel so cold and why was he sitting up? This question was soon answered by a familiar gesture that had an unfamiliar feeling accompanying it. As he went to scratch his head, Kevin felt something cold and hard touch his temple. He slowly looked down and groaned at what he saw.

It was the arm cannon he had picked up aboard the very real spaceship.

"So, I guess that wasn't a dream then." Kevin banged the back of his head against the wall, feeling the coldness of the metal rub against his shaved head. "Man, this bites." With his eyelids heavy and a general feeling of laziness overcoming him, the red head's eyes began to shut again. Wait a minute…

"Hat? Hat!" Before his panicked shouts could devolve into an Eddy like tantrum, Kevin felt something pressing against his back and looked to see that his frequent accessory was sandwiched between his body and the wall. With a sigh of relief, Kevin put his trusty hat back on, feeling an immense wave of relaxation take hold of him. He then checked his weapon, seeing that it now had some new graffiti on it. Well, if teeth marks count as graffiti. The jock smirked at the memory of felling the beast who dared to impede his progress; there was nothing on this ship that he could not handle. Unless they have a T-Rex on board somewhere, then he would just ball up and cry.

His short, nostalgic dream came rushing back to him, making him sigh heavily as he got to his feet and wiped off some dust that had used him as a resting place. He then stretched his aching muscles and groaned as he looked over the room.

Out of all the rooms he had visited so far, this one would get a five star review out of the height alone. The lack of enemies was also comforting but the fact that his next exit was about ten stories above him, which would require him to climb up a series of nine orange, fan blade looking platforms that were attached to a big cylinder in the center of said room, would definitely raise some complaints from future tenants. This would bring his five star review down to a measly two.

"Good to know these geniuses know what an elevator is." He growled and rubbed his sore chest then stared at the first platform out of many that awaited him. The closer he got to it, the less he thought he could reach it; it was about as high up as Ed if he was wearing Eddy as a hat. The platform was also about as wide as the two combined as well.

Kevin looked around the very empty room and did not notice anything he could use as a step, so he took a deep breath and jumped, grabbing the platform with his free hand. However, this proved to be a pointless endeavor, seeing as how all he could do was dangle around like a monkey.

"How in the heck is anyone supposed to climb this stupid thing?" Kevin asked as he dropped down, feeling his sore chest berate him for his previous action. Ignoring this, he once again made a jump for the platform but did not even come close to it the second time. Nor the third, not even the fourth jump let him reach the ledge. Growling like a very angry puppy, the jock looked down at his arm cannon.

"Stupid piece of junk, why can't you…" He then smacked himself "Well, duh." With a roll of his eyes, Kevin removed his trusty weapon and gently tossed it up the very patient, humming platform. With his right hand now free and sweaty, the green shirted red head finally managed to pull himself up, with his chest feeling like it was about to explode. Clutching his chest with a groan, he looked up at the remaining platforms.

"One down….eight more to go." With a sigh of contempt, Kevin armed himself and slowly made his way up, yelping every time he leapt to the next platform, almost falling several times. To his cynical surprise, nothing had appeared to try and kill him by the time he was at the final platform, something he had been anticipating since he had started this unplanned stunt. It appeared that he had a little bit of luck left after all.

As he stood on the ninth platform, that rested about ten stories from where he began, he realized that he had miscounted. There were actually ten platforms in total and the final one, which acted as the vertigo inducing doormat for his exit, was a very uncomfortable twelve feet away. If that was not bad enough, it was a little higher up than the one he was resting on. Without his sore chest and the workout from the previous platforms, this would have been an easy jump. After all, he had jumped way worse than this. Of course, fate was against him this day.

While he pondered his next move, Kevin removed his arm cannon once again and prepared to toss it. His breath shaky and his forehead coated in sweat, he gritted his teeth and felt his knees rattle. If he missed, he would have to go all the way back down and, the way he felt at the moment, he sure was not feeling up to that kind of labor. He released a deep breath and gently tossed the weapon but immediately regretted it. A sharp gasp and a small clang rang through the room and, as time itself slowed down to a crawl, the weapon bumped into the door and rolled back a few inches, stopping about two feet short of falling off.

"Man…this sucks." While he was relieved his weapon had made it across safely, he was still at odds with how he was going to make it. He weighed his options for a minute or two as he did his best to try and mentally measure the distance of the jump. He chuckled to himself and turned his hat around.

"Great, I'm turning into a dork." He then looked down at the very small floor "Well, better that than dead, I guess." His legs sore and his chest aching, Kevin prepared for a run and go. If he made it, then he would prove that he was the coolest kid on this station. Heck, on Earth even. If he missed…well he was not planning on failing anyway. Second place was for losers. And dead people, he guessed.

With those thoughts floating through his mind, he felt a small surge of confidence and took off. As soon as his foot crossed the "Ed" length of the platform, his feeling of confidence had vanished and the urge to stop overtook his body. With a loud yell, Kevin made it to the end of the platform and leapt. His hands outstretched and his chest rising, the boy closed his eyes and prayed that his hands made contact with something. The floating feeling that flowed throughout his entire being vanished as soon as his arms overshot the ledge and landed near the center of the platform, where his arm cannon rest about a foot away.

Clawing like a mad cat, the green shirted mercenary opened his eyes at the last second and seen his hands sliding farther away from the ledge. Mercifully, he felt the adrenaline kick into his system and he flailed his legs around as his screams of panic turned into growls of exertion. With near herculean strength, Kevin managed to finally pull himself up from the near death experience and hugged his arm cannon, immediately arming himself and taking aim at the door, trigger at the ready. Holding this position for at least a minute, he relaxed and took a much needed deep breath.

"Ha..ha….yeah…who's the man?" His confidence resurfacing, he took off his hat and wiped the torrent of sweat from his forehead and took one last look at the spiraling tower of platforms. He hawked a loogie toward the floor below in contempt and grinned as he waited patiently for the door to open.

After taking a small break in the orange connecting chamber, Kevin found himself face to face with yet another set of blue monitors that hang two heads high. Acting as if they did not exist, Kevin looked down the two paths before him and went down the left path. His footsteps echoing through the humming halls he, surprise, encountered another dead end. But this particular one had a small present for the jock. A door! It was a different color than the rest though, a lime green, just like his shirt.

"Please be a mess hall, please be a mess hall." Kevin closed his eyes and began to imagine a delicious dish of Salisbury steak, peas, some nice buttery corn, and pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes awaiting him on a nice piece of fine china. Just like his mom made it. With a happy sigh, the red head took a step towards the door and….nothing. He stepped back and stepped toward it again. It did not budge. With the drool that decorated his lips now gone, Kevin groaned and resorted to pounding on it. Like a slab of concrete that was being pushed by air, it stood steadfast against his assault.

"Alright, that's it." He activated his missile function and stepped back, hitting the door with every missile in the clip. The smoke cleared and the door appeared victorious in its constant stalemate against the jock from the stars. Thoroughly frustrated, Kevin pulled his arm cannon off and slammed it on the ground with a roar of anger. Several loud CLANGs rang through the room as it bounced off the floor and rolled to a stop near the door he had come through just down the hall.

"Dorks and their stupid locked doors!" His stomach growled louder, seeming to express its anger along with him. He rubbed his empty tummy and groaned, looking longingly at the door as he imagined the big buffet that probably awaited him beyond the locked, green portal to his food related paradise.

With a cynical sigh, the angry red head went to collect his weapon, grumbling all the while.

SKRREEEEE-BOOM!

In that instant, all sense of frustration and agitation made itself known as Kevin yelped like a little girl and scurried over to his weapon and took aim at the empty, bending hallway before him. With the horseshoe shaped design that seemed to have been copied throughout the whole facility, he could not pinpoint how close the actual crash had been without actually going to check it out. Feeling less than eager to do this, he resulted to other matters to discover the sounds location.

"I can you hear you dorks! You better come out or I'll do more than pound ya!" He fired a few shots at the ceiling for intimidation value, causing the shots to echo a little bit. Sure, he would never go that far when it came to the Ed's, but he was tired, hungry, and very frustrated, he was willing to use some scare tactics if it meant getting him off this trash heap faster.

Silence reigned for what seemed like an hour and Kevin's quick breaths did not seem to slow down in the least. He highly doubted that the Ed's were actually on this ship and, if they were, then they were probably already space food. Those three wimps could not even fight off a bunch of neighbor hood kids, let alone a bunch of robots and goat sized dinosaurs. He chuckled to himself as he imagined Eddy running in terror from a single one of those drones. Alas, his echoing threat did not seem to attract any attention.

With a hesitant sigh, he slowly walked around the bend and right past the door he had come through. Up ahead, the hall morphed into another one of those amateur skate parks he had been through twice already. Kevin had to give them credit; they sure did beat Johnny when it came to laziness.

As he neared the morphed hallway, he looked to his left and seen another one of those invincible green doors that was bathed in a blue light from a little strobe light that rested above, bathing a section of the hall with its strangely comforting light. He looked toward it for a second before shooting at it and going on his way. It looked like he was going to need a much bigger gun in order to even dent those stupid green doors.

As soon as he passed under the first pipe-arch thing, he saw a yellowish green glow emanating from around the bend of the hall and a sort of crackling sound, kind of like something you would hear at a power plant or something. Then, he heard a voice. For the first time in what felt like years, he heard another person's voice. At least, he thought it was a person. It sounded awful…mechanized though.

"Gargagg wulfurtardra vas provurt!" Upon hearing the booming gibberish that the unknown life form was spouting, Kevin quickly switched to his missile function and crept under the second pipe arch. Whatever the heck was waiting behind this curve was not something that was going to shake his hand or offer him a free time machine. Instead of being a baby and creeping up on him like Double Dork, the red hatted delinquent instantly jumped out, keeping his finger straight out and ready to fire.

Then he saw what must have been the scariest thing he had seen all day. Scratch that, the scariest thing he had ever seen, period. Even scarier than that pretender of a dinosaur.

Standing before him, looking to be about seven feet tall, was a green and black...robot…or something like that. It looked to be wearing a black helmet adorned with four green eye holes and its whole body was adorned with a black armor that covered his chest, shoulder and his legs, leaving his green biceps and weird, jelly neck exposed. It had a mouth piece that looked similar to a filter that adorns a scuba mask and its skin kind of looked kind of like green gelatin. It then turned to look at him, causing the boy to freeze up and almost wet his pants.

"Wulfurtarda? Grasjagrady!" Kevin stood steadfast in the face of the creatures nonsensical yelling. Well, he had no choice but to stand steady, seeing as how his legs were frozen in place from the pants wetting terror that was the lime jell-o robot in front of him.

"Alright Ed's! G-get out of that stupid getup and take your beatings like m-m-men!" He yelled as his voice quivered like a child who got caught with a hand in the cookie jar. An uneasy stalemate occurred as the two warriors stared each other down. In response, the creature did something that not even Double D could explain in a two hundred page essay. In the blink of an eye, the thing morphed its entire body into what appeared to be a giant, green and black caterpillar that looked to be about a foot shorter than the jell-o monsters regular form. After accomplishing something that Kevin had not even begun to process yet, it stared at our jerk jock of a hero and slithered into a hole that rested behind it, leaving him with his jaw dropped and his mind warped.

"Dude…I…" The jock whispered in shock as he pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes. If he was gripping his pocket any harder, then he would have fused his wrench with his black shorts.

I am sooo going to need a therapist after this… He lifted his hat and adjusted it back to its usual position and, watching that metal slugs exit hole like hawk, he sat down and hugged his knees as another frustration induced headache began to take hold. Let's see…if I turn back, then all I would be doing is getting some unneeded exercise. His stomach growled again and he grimaced as he gripped his sore chest.

If I go on…then I'll probably end up in that green dorks stomach or somthin' He sighed deeply and looked over his arm cannon. So…do I go out like a man or starve to death. He closed his eyes and tried to weigh the pros and cons of both. Sure, he could go for it and try to take that thing on. But in his current condition, he was lucky if he would last a minute against a titan like that.

His thoughts then drifted to Nazz and the other kids. He thought of when he and Rolf went go-karting with Johnny. A small smile formed when he remembered Rolf's difficulty in even starting the miniature car and how it took him and Johnny ten minutes to teach him how to make it move. He then laughed when he remembered when Nazz told him what transpired when they were gone. Something about golden pants and other assortments of fake gold merchandise that the Ed's made to scam them, heck, he even heard that they almost got five buck out of Jim-bo.

Oh how he wished that he was back in the cul-de-sac. Playing some basketball with Rolf and doing some of those weird aerobics that Nazz had told him about with her. Riding his bike…man he was getting sappy. If he would have showed this much emotion around them, then he would lose all of his self respect.

Still, the grin never left his face as the thoughts of them cheering him on echoed in his mind. Then, a very simple thought made itself clear in his mind after all of that reminiscing.

"That dork might know where a time machine is on this stupid ship!" He jumped to his feet and made his way toward the small entrance. Taking off his arm cannon and tucking it under his arm, he proceeded to slowly crawl into the unknown passage, ever cautious just in case that slug thing crossed his path again.

"What the heck is this thing?"

A few minutes into Kevin's crawling based expedition, our hero stumbled upon an anomaly. To be specific, it was a small, arm sized, floating glass capsule like thing that was surrounded by a blue aura. You know, just the average anomaly. For a second, the red hatted explorer just stared at the floating capsule. For some reason, he felt a sea of relief and relaxation washing over him just from looking at it.

Curiosity winning over his caution, he reached out to touch it, not knowing what to expect. Surprisingly, unlike the strange upside down pyramid that he had found earlier, this thing did not disappear on contact.

Whoa…this feels like…a sauna or somethin'. Despite the weird analogy, Kevin could not hold himself back from grabbing hold of the floating object, its blue aura following behind it as he held it closer. It was about as wide as Eddy's head but it weighed next to nothing. Maybe it was because of how incredibly strong he was? Before he could revel in the pride of this fact, his immense amount of relaxation seemed to double as he cradled the glowing capsule, making him realize a very important thing:

"Man, my knees are getting sore."

Kevin propped his hand behind him and sat down in the very cramped space. With his arm cannon setting up on the wall a few inches away, he placed the capsule between his legs and looked for a way to open it. The capsule ended in two black, screw on-looking caps and, taking a wild guess, he began to try and twist one of them off.

With a little bit of effort, a little bit equaling to "quite a lot" in his current state, he managed to succeed in twisting the cap out of its previous position. As soon as he accomplished this, the cap began to move on its own and, defying more than at least ten laws of reality, floated a short distance in front of him and opened itself up.

Before he could question life itself, the blue aura that was previously coating the tank began to pour into him, as well as a white aura that had come from within the previously closed tank. As soon as this process started, Kevin began to panic and tried desperately to reach his weapon.

Sadly, it was too late for him.

"Come on man! This isn't fair!" A sentence. Well, two sentences were all that was said by the jock who, after going through many insane trials and tribulations aboard this strange, archiving vessel, finally met the end of his suffering…..then he began to feel the best he had ever felt in his life!

Looking himself over, Kevin found that, not only were his sore muscles healed, he seen that his shirt had been repaired! As a bonus that still puzzled him, he did not feel weak or hungry anymore. He felt like he did almost every day: awesome and ready to take on the world!

"Well, that was convenient….And totally awesome!" He would have done a dance of joy, or even giggled like a school girl. But that was for dorks. And for people who were not currently in a small passageway that required crawling. A smirk firmly implanted on his face, the green shirted jock sat there for a second, testing out his used to be sore limbs, and continued his crawl through the small passageway.

Not even a minute later, near the end of his long, cramped journey, Kevin heard a familiar buzzing sound coming from the exit that waited just ahead. The perfect ambush spot for that green dork. Well, it would have been if he had not let those stupid droids do it for him.

Arming himself, Kevin crept his way along very slowly with his free hand.

"You dorks think you are soooo smart?" He whispered as he poked his head out. He looked ahead and seen that the hall was just like one he had just left, yet another one of those stupid skate park halls. He looked ahead and seen one of his many drone friends floating ahead near one of those pipe arches.

Donning a crazy smile, Kevin lined up his shot while slowly stepping out of his rabbit hole, so to speak. He fired a few shots and ended its existence. Before he could even think about doing a victory dance, he seen a familiar yellow ball zoom past his head and impact the ground in front of him, barely missing his head.

"Dude!" Catching only a quick glance at his two attackers, the black shorts wearing adventurer ducked right back into his hole as the two drones maneuvered above and, thanks to the see through floor that was hopefully plasma proof, Kevin could observe their every move before he made his. One good thing on this ship and it was the floor. At least those "Alimbic" dorks did something right.

Alright, I don't think these morons can read more than one move at a time. Seeing as how they have to stop and charge their shots like that. Planning was never really Kevin's forte, except when it came to stunts and parties for his friends, but while it was manlier to go in and plan on the fly, it was an option he could not afford to take. Well, at least no one would be around to see him being a wimp.

With his orange tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Kevin crept out again, making extra sure to keep an eye on the two troublemakers above him. As soon as his head was sticking out, he went into a roll and, after landing on one knee, quickly used his other leg to spin himself around. The droids, who seemed to have short term memory, did not notice the jock until one of them had been reduced to junk. This left the remaining one confused and angered, as judging by its red eye and how it began to charge a shot.

Unfortunately, for the little droid, Kevin had already destroyed it before it could even form an opinion or charge its little beam. He then proceeded to quickly observe the rest of the environment to see if anything else was waiting to give him the red carpet treatment. Luckily, and somewhat unfortunately, he was alone once again and he pulled himself up to the upper floor.

Letting out a yawn and a long, much needed stretch; the green shirted athlete adjusted his hat and took a small stroll down the curving hallway. Not even four steps into his leisurely walk, Kevin stumbled upon something he was surprised to see: A regular, good old fashion, triangle door. He quickly leaned against the wall next to it, as if preparing to breach it.

"Bet that green loser is waiting just behind this door for me." He gritted his teeth and quickly jumped in front of the now open passage, giving a loud "Ah ha!" as he did so. However, his counter ambush was foiled when he seen that a green and brown connecting passage way awaited him. Rolling his eyes at his own hasty action, Kevin ditched all of plans of an ambush and simple charged right at the door ahead which hopefully contained his current nemesis.

"Alright you dork! Tell me where the….time..machine…is."

Behind the previously feared door was something even worse than one hundred of the armored titan. Even worse than one hundred Eddys. It was a copy and paste of the same spiraling platform room that he had almost died in not even two rooms ago. Not only that, but that glass dome jelly fish had made a comeback as a six man band rather than a solo act. They swarmed around the six blue tinted platforms, making Kevin's shoulders droop lower than they already were.

THUMP!

The thump heard round the room echoed for a second, but no longer than needed as the low hums of the six floating fish bowls continued to harmonize with each other. The green shirted jock's arm cannon rolled a few inches away from his dangling arms, stopping as it bumped into his black sneakers. A low growl emitted from the intergalactic traveler and it soon turned into an opera of pure, raw emotion.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

First, I would like to apologize for waiting a whole year before updating this story. But, that is like a speed run for me, to be honest! Anyway, I would like to say that I will be posting updates on my profile regarding when a new chapter of this story, or edFAMOUS, will be published.

Second, I know that having Kevin find an energy tank the tunnel that Kanden goes through is kind of a deus ex machina, but I figured that since he missed the first one in the room before the orange fan room, I figured that it would be a good place to put one. By the way, energy tanks will not give Kevin more energy; it will simply restore him to full health and make him complain less about hunger. It's kind of like I am making this up as I go along…..which I am totally doing.

Thanks for reading, reviewing and being patient!