Dream Energy Search: Part 1!
Lincoln led everyone to his family's van known as Vanzilla.
"Wait, can we just take Lion?" Steven suggested. "We could Steven, but if I recall, Lion will get tired if he has to carry all of us everywhere all night. And we're going to need every ounce of his portal making abilities as possible."
Lion purred in agreement.
"Fair point." Steven understood.
Lincoln then put his hands on the door's handle and pulled... but for some reason, the door didn't open.
"Lincoln, is the door..." Lucy began.
"Appears so, sis." Lincoln said. "Great."
"What's up?" Annie asked.
"The door's locked." Lincoln said as he smacked his forehead at the fact that he forgot that his father locked the van. "I can't believe I forgot about that."
"Allow me, you two." Bismuth said as she stepped up to the van's door. She then took her right index finger and transformed it into a car key, though she had shrink it down to the right size before she inserted it into the keyhole.
After a few tries, Bismuth finally got the door unlocked.
"Alright, now does anyone know how to drive?" Lincoln asked.
"I do." Steven said before he turned to his big friend. "Bismuth, I'll need your key finger."
"You got it." Bismuth said as she turned to everyone else. "Alright, everyone. Into the van."
Hilda, Lincoln, Ed, Peridot, Annie and Pony got into the van the van as soon as it was opened.
Once everyone had their butts into their seats and the seat belts were put on, and Bismuth turned on the ignition Steven pulled out of the driveway.
Once the drive was underway, something occurred in the minds of the heroes.
Where exactly was the mattress factory in Royal Woods?
Deciding to ask the two, Steven did so.
"So, Lincoln and Lucy, this is a bit awkward to ask but-"
"No worries, Steven. We already know what you're going to ask." Lucy said as she and she and her brother took out their phones.
Lucy opened up Google Maps on her phone while Lincoln opened up the Text to Speech app on his phone.
"Welcome to Google Maps, where is it that you need to go?" said a female voice from Lucy's phone.
"I want to go to the Royal Woods Mattress factory." Lucy said into her phone.
"Take a right turn." Her phone instructed.
Steven, upon hearing that, did as he was instructed as he turned right at a crossroads.
Using Lucy's phone, Lincoln chose to put his phone away, deciding that they wouldn't need it.
After at least 15 minutes of driving, the gang finally made to the factory.
As everyone began to get out of the vehicle, only Peridot stayed in it.
"Something up, Dot?" Steven asked, noticing that the green gem was still inside the transportation vehicle.
"I think I'll stay behind in case we need to make a quick getaway, so I'll keep the van running while the rest of you do your searching." The green gem explained.
"Okay, we got it. See you in a bit." Pony said.
With Peridot choosing to stay behind, the rest of the gang went to the factory.
"Alright, it looks like there's no one else in here but just in case they're hiding somewhere in this place, to cover more ground I say we should split up and search the place." Lincoln explained as he turned the light to the factory on, which lit up the large room the team was in. "Annie, you, Pony, Ed and Bismuth will search the upstairs and the rest of us will search down here. Any objections?"
"Nope." Ed said with a big ol' smile.
"Nuh uh." Bismuth said, without a second thought.
"Not really." Pony said, not really thinking on it.
"Not one." Annie said, deciding to just go along with it.
"Nah." Steven said, thinking it was a good idea.
"I don't object to this." Lucy said, choosing to trust her older brother.
"No, I don't think so." Hilda said, after thinking about it for a few seconds.
"Alright then, let's do this." Lincoln said as the gang separated to search the factory more quickly.
Lincoln then put his ghost hunting googles on in order to scan the room he was walking around in as he looked around to find any source of supernatural energy.
"Anything so far?" Hilda said, placing a hand on the Loud male's shoulder.
It was a good thing Lincoln was facing away from the blue haired adventurer caused his face was so red it looked like it was almost like a volcano was about to erupt if he didn't do something about it.
"S-So far, n-nothing to note." Lincoln said with a stutter.
Hilda giggled a bit at the boy's nervousness as she also began to blush from the physical contact she was giving her "friend" as her cheeks turned a shade of pink. Taking her hand off Lincoln's shoulder, she then asked. "You sure those googles even work at detecting ghosts?"
"Well... to be honest, these are just merchandise like I said." Lincoln said, once he made sure that his face wasn't so red anymore. "So I haven't really tested them out until, you know this whole thing with Nocturne, but hey, you never know right?"
As Lincoln and Hilda continued to search one side of the factory together, Steven and Lucy couldn't help but look on happily.
"You sense it too, don't you Steven?" Lucy whispered.
"Oh, yes, Lucy. The love is strong in those two." Steven whispered to the goth.
"Did you just quote Yoda?" Lucy asked, in surprise.
"Probably. I'm surprised you actually know of him or his franchise in general." Steven said as looked under a pile of mattresses.
"Well, I only know of it because I watched one of the movies with my brother once." Lucy admitted. "I really wouldn't call myself a fan because of one movie. I'm saying I didn't like it, I did. I just wouldn't call myself a fan of the franchise."
"It's fine. I get it." Steven whispered, easing his friend's nerves. "Everyone's entitled to their own opinion on what they like and don't like."
Lucy smiled a bit. "Thanks Steven."
"Don't mention it." Steven said as the two got back to work.
In the upper levels of the factory, Annie was leading her crew across various walkways of the factory as they used the googles that Lincoln provided to scan for for... any traces of any actual ghosts of a specific kind around here as they searched the office or the catwalks.
But alas, it appeared that nothing was there.
Deciding to regroup with the others downstairs, Ed and his team decide to do just that.
"Anything on your guy's end?" Hilda asked.
"Nope." Ed said. The factory is all ghost free."
"What about you guys?" Pony asked.
"Nothing down here, either." Lucy said. "Must've been a red herring."
Suddenly the group heard a noise coming from the upper levels of the factory as it made itself known by hopping down onto some crates and safely onto the floor as it started squeaking.
"Is that a..." Annie asked in confusion.
"Looks like it." Lucy said.
It was a small, gray rat that was squeaking rather urgently.
"Does anyone speak rat?" Ed asked the group. "Cause I am lost."
"I'm pretty sure we all are, Ed." Steven said.
"I think I can." Pony said as he stepped up to the rat. "What's so urgent little buddy?"
The rat squeaked for a bit before Pony translated for it.
"He says he has a message." Pony said before the rat let out another series of squeaks for Annie's pet to translate. "For Hilda."
"Me?" Hilda said in surprise. "What is it?"
The rat then let out a series of squeaks. When it was done, Pony translated as well as he could.
"He says that got a message from the Rat King, he said that some of his rats found some info on the Marra." Pony translated.
"And?" Hilda asked.
"They found out that some of those girls made a deal with Nocturne." Pony translated for the rat.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but what are the Marra?" Bismuth asked.
"The Marra are basically these teenage girls that live in Huldrawood, which is a forest within my hometown of Trollberg with some ghost powers." The blue haired girl explained.
"Kinda like Danny right?" Annie asked.
"In a way." Hilda answered, before she turned back to the rat. "What was the deal?"
"Give them some of Nocturne's power and the lives of those girls will be extraordinary." Pony translated for the rat after it let out a series of squeaks.
"Then what are we doing just standing here?" Ed asked. "Let's go back to the van and continue our search."
With another word, Ed rushed back to the van... by going through a wall of course.
"Oooh, that has to hurt." Bismuth cringed.
"Understatement of the year, Bismuth." Steven agreed.
Most of the group went out to the van, only leaving Annie, Pony and Hilda inside the factory as the rat to squeak again.
"Pony? Translation?" Annie asked.
"Hmm, I think he's said that he think that something usual yet awesome is going to happen to Hilda." The long necked animal translated.
"Me?" Hilda asked in surprise.
"It seems like it." Annie said. "I wonder what that something is going to be."
"So do I." Hilda said.
"Me too." The mischievous animal said.
Without another word, the three of them walked out of the factory.
After taking 15 minutes of searching the rest of the mattress factories of the respective heroes (which were took almost a few minutes due to Lion's portal making ability and driving the van through them), none of them had anything of note of Nocturne being there or any of his goons for that matter.
"Well, good news is Nocturne isn't hiding under our noses being in our respective towns." Steven said.
"That's good at least." Peridot said.
"Yeah, but we still don't know where he is?" Lincoln said.
"Yeah, and with each passing minute, he's absorbing more and more dream energy and getting stronger." Annie said.
"And by extension, his sleep walkers are getting stronger as well." Lucy said.
"I don't get it where on Earth could that dream manipulating monster be?" Ed asked outright.
The team spent a few minutes trying to figure out where to pinpoint the ghost of dreams any known possible locations as to where he could be.
Bismuth turned to Annie. "Hey, redhead. Why don't you call Phantom and bring him up to speed on our progress?"
Hearing the ghost hero's name caused the others in the van to perk up a bit as they remembered that phone call the Bramley girl made a while ago.
"Oh right, thanks for reminding me Bismuth. I can't believe that I almost forgot about that phone call I made." Annie said sheepishly as her face turned a bit red as she took her phone out, went to the recent calls menu and tapped the phone number to the Fentons. "Hello Danny, it's Annie. I'm putting you and your team on speakerphone so that my team can hear you.
"Hey Annie." The half ghost answered on the other line. "We just got the last member of our team and we're now searching for Nocturn, and so far we have not found any sign of him. Even his sleep walkers aren't around Amity Park."
"Are you using some sort of device to locate ghost energy or something?" Steven asked into the phone.
"Well yes we are um?" Danny said before realizing that he didn't know who the half gem was.
"Steven." The half gem introduced himself to his fellow supernatural hybrid. "Steven Universe."
"Well Steven, you'd be correct." Phantom said. "We are using something like that. It's one of Mr. Fenton's latest inventions in fact."
"Danny, this is Bismuth." The blacksmith gem introduced herself. "I'm going to take a while guess and say that something went wrong?"
"Yeah basically." Danny said before he let out a groan of annoyance. "The problem is that the device does work but..." He trailed off a bit before he answered. "It only detects ghosts in Amity Park, which like I said before had no recent ghost activity."
"Great, so we're basically back to square one." Hilda groaned.
"Not necessarily." Danny said. "Annie, does your team know anything about the ins and outs of the technological field like the mayor or Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, who I have on my end?"
Annie chuckled a bit. "If you're asking if we have any tech wizards, we do. It's Bismuth and Peridot."
"Actually, I'm more of a weapons maker." Bismuth admitted before gesturing to the tiny gem beside her as she pulled her into a side hug. "Tiny here is more of a tech wiz than I am."
"Good enough." Danny said. "Please put Peridot on the phone."
Annie place her phone on the ground and slid over to Peridot's position. "This is Peridot. Please to make your acquaintance, Mr. Phantom."
"Please, just call me Danny." The phantom hero said with a chuckle. "I'm giving the phone to Mr. Fenton, the man who created the device to begin with."
A few seconds later, a cheery, yet determined voice answered the phone. Hey Peridot, this is Jack Fenton. Nice to meet you."
"Before we go any further, you mind telling me where you guys are?" Peridot requested.
"Of course. Right now we're driving through Amity Park." Jack said. "How long until you and your team can get here?"
"A few seconds actually." Peridot said before gesturing to Lion, who was sitting on top of the van. "Please hold." She then told him. "Lion, please get us to Amity Park."
Lion rolled his eyes but he roared up a portal regardless, with Steven driving Vanzilla through it.
To be continued...