EPIC DREAM: The Last of Peach Creek
Chapter 1: It All Start Ed When
It's gone…all gone.
Everything I ever knew…gone.
How will I go on?
What will I do? Where will I go?
Will I go here? Oh! I am!
Wait, what's going on, I feel so strange.
I…I can't remember anything, I feel like it's all going away.
Going and going and going and going…
…
One evening, a young Pokémon trainer from Kanto was hurrying to the Lumiose City airport. He and his mother had been on vacation in the Kalos region of the Pokémon world for the past week and a half visiting his grandparents, and now were ready to head back to Kanto, and they were heading to the airport for their flight. His name was Oliver.
"Man, I wish I had found a new Pokémon," Oliver remarked, "The only ones native to Kalos I found were owned by people. That Ultra Ball I brought with me is burning a hole in my pocket."
"Well, we'll come back here soon," his mother said, "Maybe you'll find one next time we come out here."
Oliver adjusted his olive green cap. He had wanted to catch a Kalos Pokémon, especially one that his grandmother had. What was it called again? Oh yeah, it was a Helioptile.
"Hurry up, Oliver," his mother called, interrupting his thoughts, "Our flight leaves in an hour."
Oliver sighed and started to follow when he saw a strange flash in some tall grass by the door to the airport.
That was weird. Curious, Oliver looked over in it.
He couldn't believe his eyes. There was a sleeping Helioptile in it! That was awfully convenient. Oliver then looked closely, and saw that the little critter looked more like he was barely conscious rather than just asleep.
"Oh man…" Oliver said, carefully picking the little guy up. The Helioptile stirred a little and made a quiet groaning noise.
"Helio…Dub…Dubba…Tile…" he squeaked.
"Oliver!" Mom called, peeking out of the door, "We're going to be late!"
"Mom, you'll never guess what I just found!" Oliver said, showing her the limp Helioptile.
"Oh the poor thing," said Mom, "Well, it looks like you have your Kalos region Pokémon, Oliver."
"Yes, but I think he's hurt," Oliver said.
"Well," Mom said, "I think we have enough time for you to run over to the Pokémon Center before we go. You can use the roller skates you bought this week. Come straight back!"
Oliver roller skated towards the Pokémon Center carrying the Helioptile.
Along the way, he heard people talking about the super nova that happened last night. Oliver had been asleep, and he wished he could have seen it.
The Helioptile stirred a little again.
"Hee…Dub…tile…" he squeaked.
"Heh," Oliver chuckled, "I think I'll call you Dub."
…
Two weeks passed after this. Oliver was at home in Viridian City carrying on life like usual. He hung out with his friends, went to school, and befriended a 17 year old young man named Waldo from Johto who had an internship at Professor Oak's Lab. Waldo liked to invent things.
There was also another supernova.
Oliver even caught a Lickitung, who he named Buddy. He kept close attention to Dub, though, especially since there seemed to be something wrong with him.
Early one morning, not very long after getting back home, Oliver was woken up by a quiet whimpering. He looked up to find that Dub, who was sleeping on the end of his bed, was squirming around making whimpering noises.
"Dub, hey bud, wake up," Oliver said, gently shaking the little guy. Dub woke up with a start and made quiet "Helio" noises.
"It's okay, Dub, it was just a bad dream." Oliver said.
But then Dub had another nightmare the next night, and then again when he took a nap the afternoon after that. Almost every time he slept, it seemed, he had a bad dream. Visits to the nearby Pokémon Center didn't cure his nightmares either.
Finally, Oliver brought up his concerns to his mom over breakfast one morning.
"Mom, I'm worried about Dub," Oliver said, "He's been having nightmares almost every day the past several days since I found him."
And that wasn't even getting into the other strange things. While Oliver's and his mom's Pokémon would do things that normal Pokémon would do, Dub would often hang around Oliver while he did his homework, sometimes grabbing papers off the table.
Oliver looked towards Dub, who was sitting in the sun in front of a window while Buddy and Mom's Jigglypuff and Psyduck were eating their own breakfasts.
"If anyone has any answers about something like this, it would be Professor Oak," Oliver eventually decided, "Mom, you don't mind if I go down to Pallet Town to see him, do you?"
"Well, ok, but make sure you don't stay out there too long," she said.
So, after breakfast, Oliver got on his bike with Dub within the Ultraball and headed down Route One to Pallet Town.
…
Upon entering the Professor's lab, Oliver looked around for Professor Oak, but didn't see him. He did see the new intern, Waldo, who was currently trying to pull his jacket out of a Feralgatr's mouth.
"Boris, I just bought this jacket!" Waldo was shouting when he suddenly noticed Oliver coming in. Surprised, Waldo let go of his jacket and fell down into his desk with a crash.
"Hello there, Oliver," Waldo said, getting up, "Professor Oak had to go to Hoenn today and he won't be back for a few weeks. Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah," Oliver replied, "It's the Helioptile I found in Kalos a few weeks ago. He's been having nightmares almost every night since I found him."
"Sorry, Oliver," Waldo admitted, "I don't know much about Pokémon from Kalos, but…nightmares every night?"
"He also has them when he takes naps sometimes," Oliver added, "Is there anything you could do?"
Waldo looked uncertain. "I don't know," he said, but then his face lit up. "Hold it! I think there's one thing we could try! You want to try and help me make something?"
"Sure!" Oliver said.
"We'll just make a device to see people's, and Pokémon's, dreams! Maybe we'll get some answers!"
And that's what they did. Using parts from a broken computer, some odds and ends in a junk pile, and a jar of olives, they made a helmet with some large goggles attached to it over the course of an hour and a half.
"If it works the way I think it will, once we turn it on and put the goggles over your eyes, we can see just exactly what anyone is dreaming by intercepting their brain waves!" said Waldo, "We just need to test it…"
Waldo then turned to his Feralgatr. "Hey, Boris, go to sleep."
Boris lay down and starting sleeping.
After a moment, Waldo handed the helmet to Oliver. "Just look at him and let's see if we are able to see what he is dreaming."
Nervously, Oliver took his olive green cap off and put the helmet on. He looked at the Feralgatr and put the goggles over his eyes. Waldo flipped a switch on the side, and Oliver started to see something.
It was a kinda blurry, but the helmet worked for the most part. He saw Boris sleeping in a pond. Nothing seemed to be happening, until suddenly, a giant Lickilicky came over the hill. Boris cried out in horror and tried to run, but the pond turned into glue like substance. In one lick the Lickilicky suddenly swallowed Boris whole.
Boris woke up with a loud screech and pounced onto Waldo.
Wham!
"I wish you wouldn't keep doing that!" Waldo moaned, "It was fine when you were a Totodile but not so much anymore."
"He had a nightmare about a Lickilicky," Oliver reported.
"Oh yes, he had a bad experience with one that belongs to my cousin when he was a Totodile," Waldo explained, "He still has nightmares about it, but not every night, like you say your Helioptile does. Do you have him with you?"
"Yeah," Oliver said, taking out the Ultraball from his pocket. In a flash, Dub was right there.
"Does he look normal for a Helioptile?" Waldo asked.
"Yeah," Oliver replied, "My mom said he's as healthy as a Rapidash. It's whenever he sleeps that something happens."
"Well, why don't you use the helmet, then?" Waldo suggested, "Just have him go to sleep so we can see what he's dreaming, and maybe we'll get some answers."
"Helio!" Dub cried, shaking his head.
"I don't think he wants to do that." Oliver said, "But I think you might have an idea."
…
Eventually, they managed to convince Dub to go to sleep, and Oliver slipped on the helmet. He looked at Dub, and, for a moment, nothing significant happened, but something showed up eventually…and it was very strange.
It appeared to be a vibrant landscape with several people running around stretching and squishing like they were made of rubber. A loud voice suddenly shouted: "Hey…Kcccchhh…head…kccccchhh!" The helmet wasn't picking up the dialogue well at all. Oliver smacked the helmet once. The quality of the imagery dropped drastically, but the dialogue was clearer.
"I don't know what's going on," a high voice said, "Who are you? I feel like I know you but I don't."
"Just forget it!" The loud voice said, "It's time to get some moola!"
Oliver wondered if Dub was dreaming he was a criminal.
"I don't want any part in this!" the high voice said again, "I really must be going!"
"Oh no you…kccccchhh… don't," the loud voice yelled, "Don't you want some KCCCCHHH."
"ButKCCCCCCCHoast!"
The helmet was apparently starting to malfunction, and Oliver was preparing to take it off when the image quality booted back up to something discernible, and it didn't look pretty. Dub was running from several large multi-colored monsters. One that was the closest was yellow with three antennae and another was a green dragon with a red and white stomach. Then the ground they were all running on started to crack, a white glow coming from it. Then there was a massive explosion, and Dub woke up with a loud cry. "HELIOPTILE!"
"From what I could tell, that was awful!" Oliver said as he took the helmet off.
"What happened?" Waldo asked.
Oliver explained what he had seen and what he could get out of everything.
"Man, I don't think we were able to pull anything from that at all." Waldo said after writing this down and studying it for a bit, "Say, I'll try to work on the gadget to get it working properly and I can check back up with you tomorrow. How's that sound?"
"Well, ok." Oliver said, disappointed.
After packing up his things and returning Dub to the Ultraball, he started back home.
…
Oliver returned to find that his mother had left to run some errands and had made him a steak and cheese hoagie for lunch. It was Oliver's favorite food, but he didn't feel hungry. His mind was going wild with what could happen to poor Dub if they didn't do something about his constant nightmares. Going to Pokémon Centers hadn't helped, and even actually finding out (somewhat) what his nightmares tended to consist of didn't either. Oliver was nervous that Dub would just burn out and die from mental stress.
Oliver shook these rather frightening thoughts from his mind, went to the living room with his sandwich and started watching TV. He let Dub out of his Pokeball, found Buddy, and spent a rather quiet afternoon.
An hour and a half later, Oliver's mom returned home with a box piled high with clothing.
"I went by the thrift store on the way home and got us some new clothes," she said.
Oliver got up to look at what was in the box. There were some new pairs of pants for him, a new dress for Mom, and some new winter clothes for both of them. Winter was approaching, so it made sense.
Among these winter clothes were a stripy scarf and a black wool hat intended for Oliver, according to his mother. While the scarf looked fairly new, the hat looked much older. He probably could have worn it when he was five.
He tried the hat on. It was so snug he felt like he was wearing a sock on his head. He quickly put his olive green cap back on instead.
Mom started to take the winter clothes to the closet when she gasped. "Oh no, I left my purse in the basket of my bicycle. Oliver, can you take these to the closet and put them on the top shelf?"
"Yes mam."
Oliver started walking toward the closet with Dub and Buddy following close behind when he tripped on his untied shoelace and crashed to the floor.
"Whoop!" Wham! "Ow!"
Oliver groaned and picked the clothes up. He had put the clothes in the closet when he suddenly noticed that the wool hat he tried on earlier was still on the floor. Dub was staring at it intently.
When Oliver picked it up and put it in the closet, Dub suddenly let out a loud "Tile!" and tried to get in the closet as well.
"Hold it, Dub, you don't want to hurt yourself!" Oliver said, shutting the closet door and picking him up. Dub made several more noises in protest as they went back into the living room.
…
The rest of the day went by uneventfully, nothing really happening until that night.
In the middle of the night, Buddy woke up to find Dub still awake.
"You ok, dude?" Buddy asked.
"I'm attempting to stay awake so I don't have those terrible dreams," Dub explained.
"You can't just not sleep at all!" said Buddy, "Don't you remember how put out the trainer was last Sunday when he stayed up until 3:30?"
"Yes…"
They were silent for a moment when Buddy spoke up again.
"What was the deal with you and that old hat earlier today? You were staring at it like you were having a staring contest with it or something."
Dub didn't say anything for a while.
"I'm not sure," Dub eventually answered, "I felt so strange around it…like I had seen it somewhere before."
Buddy didn't know how to answer.
After a moment, Dub got out of his bed and left Oliver's bedroom. Buddy followed after him.
"Hey, man, what are you doing now?" Buddy asked.
Dub walked up to the closet that Oliver had put the clothes in.
"I need to look at the hat again," said Dub, "I want to figure out why it has such a strange effect on me."
"Can we wait until the morning?" Buddy protested, yawning, "You'll wake the trainer and his mom up and we'll be in the doghouse!"
"We'll be as vigilant as possible," Dub said.
"Why exactly do you use such weird words like that?" Buddy asked, "Is that normal for Helioptiles?"
"I'm not certain." Dub said, "Can you open the closet door? I can't reach the doorknob!"
"Look man, can't we wait until tomorrow?" Buddy started to say, but then Dub climbed up Buddy's back and grabbed the doorknob himself.
Click!
The door opened a bit. Dub opened it a bit more to find clothes all over the place. The clothes that Oliver had put in there this afternoon were up on a high shelf.
"Man, if you cause everything to fall down, just know that it was your fault, not mine!" Buddy said.
Dub climbed up the shelves as carefully as he could without making much noise and crawled into the box. It didn't take long to find the hat as it was just on top of the pile. He dropped it onto the floor and started to climb back down…and his foot slipped.
"Augh!"
He landed headfirst into one of Mom's boots.
Buddy heard Mom stirring in her bed.
"Dude, you've got the hat! Now let's get back to bed before someone wakes up!" Buddy urged.
"What's going on?"
Buddy turned to see Mom's Jigglypuff and Psyduck walk sleepily out of Mom's room.
"Tuffy, Ducky, you don't see anything! You're dreaming! Go back to bed!" Buddy urged.
Then he noticed Dub had gotten out of the boot and was staring at the wool hat again like he had earlier.
Dub looked at the hat wondering why he felt…something he hadn't felt before other than in his many nightmares. He got a closer look at the hat and saw a worn down label on the inside.
"A label? Why is this so intriguing to me?" Dub thought.
He looked very closely at it and tried to make out the text.
"My hat. If found, please return to Eddward Spivey posthaste!"
"Eddward…" Dub ran the name over in his head several times. "Eddward, Eddward, Eddward…why does that name…oh! Oh my! What…what's happening?"
Buddy was still trying to shoo Tuffy and Ducky back to their beds when they suddenly heard Dub let out a soft whimper. They looked to see that Dub had a very pained expression on his face and was rubbing his head.
"Dub…are you okay?" Tuffy asked him.
Dub didn't answer and instead gripped his head harder, groaning.
"Hey man, what's wrong with you?" Buddy asked.
Suddenly, Dub let out a loud, pained squeak, rolled over onto the ground, and curled up in a little ball, still gripping his head.
"Helio! Heiloptile! Tile!" Dub screamed.
Dub's head hurt in a way he never felt before…like something in the back of his mind had suddenly busted loose from a prison and was running all over the place.
"Dub? Are you okay? Dub?" Dub thought he heard Oliver say.
He cracked his eyes open for a second, but everything was so blurry he couldn't make it out. Suddenly, the pain grew even bigger, and Dub fainted…
…
Dub woke up. His head still hurt vaguely, but it didn't seem to hurt as bad as it had been what felt like moments ago. His vision cleared up, and Dub realized he was in an unfamiliar room. A ceiling fan spun around on the ceiling.
Dub sat up and further observed his surroundings. He was in a room with all sorts of clutter scattered about. Everything had labels like what the hat had. The bed was labeled "Sack", and a closet was labeled as such.
Dub saw a mirror. Looking in it he saw a human kid about Oliver's age, wearing the woolen hat on his head. Dub realized that he was the human kid in question!
Curious, he took the hat off.
"Oh my goodness!"
He put it right back on.
Then there was a clicking noise from the window.
Dub got up, tried to get used to only having two legs, and stumbled over to the window.
There were the two monsters that bothered him the most in his nightmares…except they didn't look like monsters anymore. They looked just as human as he did now. One of the two boys looked almost completely bald save for three large strands of hair, and wore a yellow shirt and jean shorts. The other much larger boy had on a green jacket and striped shirt, and had yellow skin and a thick unibrow for some reason.
"Hey, Sockhead? What are you waiting for? I've got the best idea ever!" The short one yelled.
Before Dub knew it, he was in a small cul de sac where a crudely built boxing ring sat in front their houses.
Several other kids milled around there as the short kid stood outside the ring yelling like a carnival barker.
Dub couldn't make out the faces of the other kids very well, so his subconscious mind gave them all simple smiley faces.
"Step right up!" the short nearly bald kid yelled, "Think you can stay in the ring for more than eight seconds with Macho Ed? Only 25 cents!"
"I am a nature boy!" The taller boy yelled, sitting in a corner of the ring.
"Give it a rest, dorks!" One of the kids yelled. Dub recognized the voice but still couldn't place the face. What was this boy's name? Rick? Luke? Ken? Maybe…Kevin? Yes! That was it!
The boy's face changed from a smiley face to that of a jock.
The short boy grabbed another boy carrying a piece of wood which had the same smiley faces that were on everyone else's faces.
"Hey Johnny! You got what it takes?" He yelled to said boy.
"No, Eddy, I was just on my way to my house!" The boy named Johnny cried.
Dub looked at the other kids and tried to remember their names.
A girl with blonde hair? "Dudes, this isn't cool." Wasn't her name Nazz?
A blue haired boy? "In the old country, we wrestled in the contents of our outhouses instead of boxes built as carelessly as a stove!" The name "Rolf" appeared in the back of Dub's mind.
A sudden shaking of the ground interrupted his thoughts.
"Excuse me!" The tall boy said.
"That wasn't you, Lumpy!" The boy named Eddy said.
Dub then felt that the tall boy's name was similar to the name of the short boy.
"Double Dee, you're the smart boy! Tell us if that was an earthquake or not!" Eddy yelled at Dub.
"Double Dee?" Dub repeated.
"Yeah, what did you think your name was?" Eddy yelled.
Double Dee…because his name was the same as the short bald kid and the tall unibrowed kid…so everyone referred to him as…Double Dee because his normal name was Eddward, or Edd.
His head started to hurt again.
Suddenly, there was another tremor, and it lasted far longer than the last one had.
All the kids started to panic and ran for their houses. There was a very loud clap of thunder even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
"Sockhead! What are you waiting for?" Eddy yelled, "Take cover!"
Ed and Eddy ran over to Dub just in time to see the sky crack like it was made of glass. A piece broke off and fell onto someone's house, wrecking half of it as its occupants barely managed to escape.
More pieces continued to fall down as the populace of the cul de sac flew into a panic, fled their houses and ran down the street. The sky grew dark.
"It's the apocalypse!" Dub heard his voice yell even though he wasn't actually saying anything.
Then the ground started to crack like it did whenever Dub's nightmares ended, an eerie white glow emanating from it.
Before anyone could say anything, the cul de sac exploded with a deafening boom.
WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
…
Dub expected himself to be fully awake, but when he woke up again, he was in a void so dark he couldn't see himself. He felt like he was still in the human form in the previous dream however.
"Eddward Spivey, retrieved from Peach Creek. World death 10 minutes ago." A computerized voice said.
The last thing scared Dub bad enough he thought he would stop crying.
So it all made sense now, apparently he wasn't supposed to be a Helioptile, he was a human from some unknown world that had been destroyed.
"Transmutation commencing, relocating individual to 'Pokémon World'." The computer voice said.
Pokémon? That's what he thought he was supposed to be!
"Memory rewrite commencing." The computer said.
Memory overwrite? Dub didn't want to forget everything he had just learned! Not again!
"No! Don't! I'm Eddward!" Dub spun around in the dark, flailing frantically and losing the wool hat in the process. "Double Dee! Double Dee! Dubba Dee! Dub! Helio…"
…
"Oh good, he's awake."
Dub opened his eyes, still muttering "Dubba…Dubba…" He was in a Pokémon Center surrounded by Oliver, his mom, a Nurse Joy, Waldo, and the other Pokémon. He noticed he was back to being a Helioptile. He did, however, remember everything that had just happened.
"Dubba?" A voice said, "When has a Helioptile ever said Dubba?"
Dub tried to speak as clear as possible.
"Double Dee!"
…
END CHAPTER 1 (I'm baaaaack! This is quite possibly the longest chapter I have written, and opens up a new story. I know I just wrote an Ed Edd n Eddy based story, but it didn't seem to work quite as well with other shows. Anyhoo, R&R. I think I've gotten inspiration back…by the way, I classified this story as a plain X-Over because of more than just cartoons being featured.)
