"Yes, Double Dee?" Ed replied, staring with awe at a large, shimmering portal that had opened in his basement room.
"Have you been playing with the fabric of reality again?"
"Not me, Double Dee."
The two friends were sitting on the floor of Ed's room. Various comic books and movies, as well as clothes, were strewn about his room in a disorganised mess. Double Dee, or Edd, was disgusted by his friend's messyness but had grown to tolerate it over time. What was more concerning to them at the moment (apart from the cereal bowl in the corner that was showing signs of thought) was the large purple portal that had ripped itself open in front of them, nearly devouring the TV.
"Should we touch it, Double Dee?" asked Ed, slowly walking towards the portal with his hand outstretched like a moth to flame, slightly drooling.
Before Edd could reply, a flash of light blinded them both. Rubbing his eyes, Edd blinked away the spot of light obscuring his vision to find that Ed was petting something. Or at least he HOPED Ed was petting something. Ed's back was turned to him, and he was giggling to himself.
"Ed... what are you petting?"
Ed quickly twisted around, holding a small light blue horse.
"It's a Horsey, Double Dee!" He cheered happily as said 'horsey' squirmed half heartedly in his grasp.
The horse was no taller that Edd's shin, and had a light blue and ice colored mane and tail, with purple eyes. Edd had no idea what to make of it, but saw something strange when Ed's hand stroked its head. Reaching a hand out slowly, more to not startle Ed than the horse, Double Dee parted its mane and felt a small bump on its head. Moving the mane aside, he was dumbstruck to find a nub of a horn coming from its forehead.
Blinking his disbelief away, the scientist in him started to catalogue everything he was witnessing and cross referenced those findings with his knowledge of fantasy creatures that he secretly kept underneath his carpeting in the corner of his closet.
"U-Unicorn!" Edd blurted out after finally making the connection, sitting on the ground and holding his head.
"You mean we have a magic horsey now?" Ed joyfully asked, holding the small furry horse in the air with his arms outstretched above him, causing the horse to giggle.
Wait, giggle?
"Ed... Put the horsey down..." Edd said calmly. He knew how Ed was with chickens, and didn't want to risk-
"My horsey, Double Dee!" Ed shouted, jumping on top of the washing machine in his room and pushing the small horse through the window, squeezing himself through the small gap afterwards. Ed knew this couldn't end well, but he could probably convince Ed to take the horse to Rolf's. Rolf was a foreign immigrant and the son of a shepard. He also took care of animals and a small farm in his backyard. If anyone knew about raising animals, even ones that giggled, it would be him.
"Ed, wait!" Double Dee called out, running up the stairs out of the basement to chase after Ed.
****
Rolf had many things to worry about. His crops, his animals, his income to support his family and home, and stinky EdBoys. He was certain that the knocks and shouting from his door were from those Edboys.
Opening the door, he saw the smelly one and the smart one looking excited and nervous, respectively.
"Yes, Edboys?" Rolf asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at not seeing the greedy Edboy.
"Rolf, We found a horsey!" Stinky Edboy yelled, holding a blue pony in front of him and mushing the furry creature into his face.
Not wanting to deal with the Edboys and their scams, Rolf summoned the house guardgoat.
"VIKTOR, WE HAVE GUESTS!" He shouted.
Seeing their faces melt into sheer terror was more than worth the interruption to his busy day as the Edboys ran screaming as Viktor chased after them, bleating his fury to the world.
****
Eddy was usually one to sleep in. His blankets were thrown over his head to block out the daylight, and he was sleeping in striped boxers with a stained white tank-top. Imagine his annoyance when he heard the door to his trailer all but falling off it's hinges and accompanied by frantic battering.
Eddy groaned, throwing the blanket off of him and shambled to his front door. Opening it, he was bowled over by Double Dee and Ed. Shaking his head free of stars and hearing a slam, Eddy focused his vision on the forms of his exausted scam buddies.
"So... what?" Eddy asked, scratching his head and standing up to go find his clothes for the day.
"We found a horsey, Eddy!" Ed cheered.
Poking his head out of his dressing closet, there was infact a horsey. After a moment's thought, literal money signs rang like slot machine wheels in his eyes as a scam started coming together.
"Oh, this is gonna be perfect!" Eddy grinned maliciously, rubbing his hands together with the thought of all they money they could make opening a petting zoo.
"Eddy, no!" Double Dee protested. Eddy's visions of jawbreakers vanished with a groan.
"What, Double Dee? This would be perfect!"
"I don't think it's just a horse, Eddy. It has a horn!"
Eddy took a moment to process this, before his grin returned in full force.
"But Eddy, the suits would take her away" Ed protested, clutching the small horse protectively with his sleeves leaving only 'her' head poking out from them. The horse wrinkled its nose before lightly sneezing at the dust and dirt from Ed's clothing.
"D'aawww, she's adorable." Ed cooed, petting the horse.
"Ed, how do you know it's a girl?" Eddy asked.
"Ed knows things!" Ed replied simply, petting the horse.
"Right... Eddy, can I talk with you?" Double Dee asked, walking past Eddy to the back of his trailer.
"Yeah, what about?" Eddy asked, following him.
"I think that Unicorn isn't just some animal, Eddy. It giggled." Edd said ominously, his voice hushed.
"Yeah, so?"
"Horses don't giggle, Eddy!" Edd snapped.
"Alright, jeez." Eddy looked at the unicorn and Ed, who were happily playing together and rocking the trailer a bit. "So what do we do?"
Double Dee looked at the unicorn, lost in thought for a few minutes while Eddy amused himself with a paddle ball.
"Why are we letting Ed take care of the horse again?" Eddy asked Double Dee.
Of all people who could have volunteered, Ed made a profound 'case' for his desires.
"The men in suits will capture sneaky horse, and feed her to the aliens!" Ed yelled from a pillow fort, throwing wads of paper at the unicorn. Said unicorn also had a pillow fort of their own, though Ed's mattress was the main wall facing Ed.
"Right..." Eddy sighed.
However eccentric Ed may be, Double Dee reasoned that a trailer wasn't the best place available to raise a unicorn. Eddy didn't really care, because he didn't want to take care of it anyway. Double Dee couldn't take care of the unicorn either, as he had an ant farm to care for, on top of his parents being home the most often. Seeing that Ed was mostly left to his own devices in his parent's basement, and the fact that he was extremely protective by default, it fell to Ed to care for the 'magic horsey'.
All of these reasons were further tempered by the fact that Ed was strong enough to sleepwalk through buildings while carrying a fridge. If anyone could protect the unicorn, he could.
"Ooh, Tricky horse!"
Said unicorn was levitating wads of paper behind Ed's pillow fort, striking him unexpectedly.
"Tix-we!" The unicorn blubbled in baby speak.
This caused the Edboys to freeze, because horses dont speak.
"Horsey has name, Eddy!" Ed bellowed, walking through his pillow fort and lifting the unicorn's mattress defense with one hand over his head. He scooped up the unicorn and hucked his entire mattress and bedframe included to it's original spot, covering his collection of comic books.
"Twix-ee!" The unicorn chirped happily, her hooves resting on Ed's chest.
"Tricky horsey's name is Trixie!" Ed announced, hugging the foal tightly. The smell from his clothing caused her nose to wrinkle, but she was otherwise happy with the discovery.
Eddy was busy thinking of all the ways he could use a talking horse to get them all some cash, but Double Dee had other ideas.
*****
For the most part, the Edboys had managed to keep Trixie a secret from the cul-de-sac. Their usual scams or pranks having all but vanished in their absence, and this lead to some of the residents wondering where they had run off.
"Sarah, where are we going again?" Jimmy asked nervously. He was following Sarah, Ed's younger sister into a nearby forest. Jimmy didn't like scary things, and a forest is scary enough on its own, let alone during the night.
"Don't be such a baby, Jimmy. We're going to find my dumb brother and drag him back home."
"B-but what if theres monsters out here?" Jimmy stammered.
Sarah turned around, pointing her flashlight upwards to illuminate her face like so many campfire ghost storytellers. "Then the mean monsters will eat us, and it will be all Ed's fault. Wooo~oooo!" She wiggled her fingers at Jimmy, spooking him.
Then a rustling of leaves caught their attention; Sarah flicking the beam of light towards the nearest bush. Jimmy clung to Sarah's side, but she was too busy getting ready to pummel whatever came out of the bush.
"Trixie, come back to Ed!" She heard her brother yell somewhere in the distance.
"You will never find the Stealthy and Sneaky Trixie!" The bush yelled in response, giggling.
Oh, Sarah HAD to see this. She parted the bushes with a hand and flashlight to see a small blue shape hiding inside. She was startled by this, expecting to find some new kid on the block, but she also didn't want to scare Jimmy anymore than he was. Her leg might lose circulation if he clung any tighter.
"Hey, what are you?" Sarah asked. She figured if the thing replied to Ed, then it could talk. Why not ask it a question?
The thing turned to look at her. Large purple colored eyes widening in alarm before it bolted away.
"Trixie is being followed by the humans in suits! Save Trixie!" It shouted, running in the direction of Ed's last yell.
"Ed will save you, Trixie!" Sarah heard her brother yell.
"S-sarah?" Jimmy asked while shivering.
"I'm done. Ed can go be stupid in the forest with animals if he wants." Sarah grumbled, walking peg legged with Jimmy clutching to her leg and refusing to let go.
*****
Trixie had taken after Ed in more than a few ways. She followed Ed's example of talking about herself in the third person, she read comic books (Ed had taught her how to read them with a combination of sound effects and alphabet soup. If she read the word in the soup correctly, she got to eat it,) and she had a tendency to get in trouble. She was also showing influences of the other Edboys as well. Eddy would teach her about scamming people to get money from them, and she had combined those lessons with Double Dee's books on Psycology to weaponise her cuteness and get cookies from Ed. The only thing that the Eds couldn't help her with was her 'magical unicorn powers' as Ed put it. She could lift objects with her mind, and turn her horn into a sparkler. This hypnotised Ed, so Trixie used that particular talent to get out of trouble if she did something wrong.
What really suprised everyone, was what happened while watching a monster movie in Ed's room. The Edboys and Trixie had gathered around Ed's Tv to watch a movie about aliens sneaking onto a ship and scaring the crew. For some reason, Trixie felt it should have been more violent and tried to use her magic on the TV to change the movie. This caused the TV's circuitry to overload and the feedback caused the screen to crack. Dissapointed, Trixie tried to make up for her mistake by putting everything she had into her Sparkler to escape, and ended up shooting several magic fireworks into the room. This both provided her an escape from being scolded for busting the TV, and commemerating the moment on both of her flanks. A blue star wand with a sparkling trail.
Double Dee had no idea what to make of it, and Eddy thought that she got a tattoo while she was out. Ed saved everyone the trouble of figuring out what it was by pointing to a white horse unicorn in his 'Magic Space Horsey' comic book. Completely seperate to the other one, he explains.
With her special talent being loosely related to 'spectacles' (not the kind you wear, Ed,) Eddy's dream of a perfect scam came into being. He was going to have the cul-de-sac watch a fireworks show, and he didn't have to pay for the fireworks! A hundred percent profit with no effort.