ATWN: Chapter 9

It was now lunchtime here in Tusca. We soon zoomed in on a car that was driving down the street, heading towards the business and shopping part of the downtown area. Inside the car were Ed, Eddy, Naomi, and Amelia; they were being driven into town by Amelia's grandfather. He was a little confused about who these three boys were when he met them and how they knew his granddaughter since he had not seen them at all before today. But he could tell they were harmless for the most part, despite two of the three boys being a bit too loud to him.

Since today was Sunday, it was usually the day Amelia used to go get groceries for herself alongside her grandfather, as well as for Amelia to have some time to herself in town. The two Eds decided to take this opportunity to see what was around town in this new world, seeing exactly how different it was from their own. Since the girls said Amelia's neighborhood was quite a few miles away from town, it would take them a long time to go from here to there and back if they traveled by foot; hence why they were driving with Amelia's grandfather to get there.

Double D and Lily decided to stay behind at Amelia's house, mainly because they wanted to use her computer at home to see if they could find out more information on the show that had the Eds as the main characters. Plus, there was not any room in the car for all of them if they wanted to go, it would have been too tight for them to ride in.

Either way, let's not focus on the car. For now, let's see what Double D and Lily have found out!

"So, is this the kind of technology that would be commonly accessible in a few years from now in my world?" Double D asked as he stood beside Lily, who was sitting in Amelia's computer chair. He looked at the PC monitor, noticing how flat the screen was, along with how different the UI of the OS was compared to what he saw on the computers back home. The programs he could see on Amelia's desktop were also very eye-catching, despite a few of them being PC games that he would probably have no interest in playing, "It's very fascinating to see."

"Well, if you happen to see a company that's equivalent to Microsoft or Apple in your world, you should tell Eddy to invest some sort of stocks into them. He would be a millionaire in no time if he did," Lily said to him in a joking manner, "But I highly doubt those companies would have the same name there as they do here. Just a hunch."

Double D looked at Lily as he made a chuckle at that statement, "I'll make sure to remember that for him."

Lily opened a program called Firefox on Amelia's computer, pulling up the webpage for Google. She typed in what she wanted to search for in the search bar, 'Ed Edd n Eddy'. She hit the Enter key to see what would show up, only for the top results to be from the websites she had already looked at before; the results were mostly about the TV listings for the show on the station it aired and nothing else.

Lily kept the webpage up so Double D could look at the results, seeing if there was anything she might have missed that he would notice, "Is there anything that stands out to you?" she asked.

"Hmm…" Double D hummed a little as he looked over what he could see, "I-I don't see anything unusual here, besides the fact that there's no information about the credits for the show; not even the name of the studio you mentioned before…"

Lily made a sigh, "This is so weird," she started to say with a bit of annoyance, going back to the Google homepage as she did, "Why would this kind of stuff for a TV show be kept secret from everyone else to see? It kind of makes me wonder if it has anything to do with this weird situation. You know, on how we can now go back and forth between your homeworld and mine…"

Double D glanced at the screen once more, looking at something that got his attention when she went back to the homepage for Google, "… Lily, is there a way to pull up a map on this?"

"Huh?" Lily looked at him with a bit of surprise before seeing how serious he was, "Yes, I can pull one up," she went over to the dropdown menu to pull up Google Maps, "What do you need to search for?"

"Well, I noticed the weather on the front page said this town you live in is called Tusca, Georgia," Double D started to explain, "Can you pull up a map of your town? I want to confirm something."

Lily nodded her head, looking back to the computer screen to pull up the map of her hometown. She typed in 'Tusca, Georgia' into Google Maps, only for it to come up a second later. It showed the roads and highways that went through the somewhat big town and a few of the suburbs around it, along with a few of the notable businesses, stores, and restaurants in the area, as well as a few hangout spots and all the local schools.

Double D glanced at it again before asking, "Is there a way to zoom out this map?"

"Yeah, there is," Lily replied as she used the mouse wheel to zoom out, making it show the whole state of Georgia.

Double D leaned in closer to the screen to look at the map, only for him to widen his eyes in shock, "Oh my goodness… Peach Creek doesn't exist here?!"

"… I mean, even I assumed your town wasn't in this world," Lily looked at him in confusion, "Why did you think it would be?"

"B-Because Peach Creek is ALSO located in Georgia, along with Lemon Brook and Sunflower Shoal!" Double D began to explain with a bit of panic before gesturing back to the map she pulled up, pointing to the area where Tusca was located, "All three towns should be right here near Savannah. But your town is here instead, where Peach Creek and the other two small towns are supposed to be in my world! Everything else seems to be geographically correct besides this!"

"Wait, are you serious about that?!" Lily gasped as she looked back at the screen, "You're saying that our towns don't exist together while everything else in our worlds is the same?!"

"That seems to be the case…" Double D replied as he made a sigh, placing his right hand on the beanie covering his forehead while making a facepalm. He was trying to make sense of everything once again, "Now I feel like things are even more confusing than before."

There was a small pause between the two teens before Lily also made a sigh, "Oh well, we can try to find out more things later. My mind needs a rest from everything, and there's not any sort of rush for answers."

"Agreed," Double D nodded his head.

Suddenly, a small ding noise went off on Lily's cell phone, making Double D jump a little from it, "Oh, I got a text message," Lily stated as she grabbed her phone, unlocking it to see who sent her a message. She read it for a second before she began to type back a message to the sender, she had a very small hint of annoyance on her face.

It was when she finished typing her message that she turned the screen off on her phone, "Sorry about that, my older sister just asked what time she needed to pick me up from here."

"Oh?" Double D stated with a bit of interest, "You have an older sibling?"

"Yeah, her name's Valerie," Lily replied, "She's nineteen years old, but she'll be twenty in the early parts of December. She can be a bit pushy to others, but I know she means well most of the time. She's a good sister."

"I see… T-That's nice to hear," Double D said with a small smile before looking away a few seconds later, his smile faded away as he did. He began to place his right hand over his forehead around his beanie once again, like he was feeling something underneath it for a moment, 'A sister, huh…'

Lily noticed this, of course. She knew that there was something underneath Double D's hat but did not know what it was; he and the other two Eds never said what it was out loud, and the show never went into any details about it. It was a mystery that had not been solved since the show began two years ago.

Lily was always curious about what he was hiding, but it was very clear that Double D did not want anyone to see whatever it was; even the show did not want anyone else to know, 'I wonder if it's some kind of birthmark? Or it could be a scar, that would make the most sense…'

Back with the others in town, Amelia's grandfather finally arrived at their destination, parking for a moment in front of the grocery store parking lot to let Amelia's friends out of his car.

"Alright kids, we're here now," Amelia's grandad stated to them, looking at Amelia's friends sitting in his backseat, "I want you all to behave and watch over each other while I'm gone, got it?"

"Don't worry, we will!" Amelia replied with a smile as the four of them got out of the car, "You know the drill: I'll call you once we're done hanging out, and then you can help us with the groceries, okay?"

Her grandfather nodded his head before driving away to go to another part of town, leaving behind the four teens at the entrance of the store.

Amelia made a sigh of relief before turning back to the others, "Don't worry about the groceries for now. My grandad knows I like to hang out at the arcade nearby for a while before going inside. Sundays are the only time in the week that I have a chance to go there."

"Heh, good to know!" Eddy stated as he looked around at the new environment, eagerly rubbing his hands a little in a plotting way.

"There's an arcade here?!" Ed gasped as he also looked around the area, "Where is it?"

"It's a little further away from here, just follow us!" Naomi cheered with a big smile.

The four teens began to walk down a sidewalk that was close by, heading towards a place up ahead that was around the block from the grocery store. Just like Amelia said, there was a business there called Round 1 Arcade. The two Eds gawked a little at the sight of the building; the arcade was huge, bigger than they thought it would be!

They all walked inside, looking at all the games around them. DDR machines, fighting game cabinets, pinball tables, light gun games; every kind of game cabinet was in this place, "Whoa…" the two Eds audibly gasped once they were inside.

The four teens walked up to the counter as Amelia took out something from her back pocket, it was her wallet with a single ten-dollar bill in it, "Hey there, Mike! I would like ten dollars' worth of tokens please," she said to the employee behind the counter.

The employee perked up at his name, "Oh! Sure thing!" Mike replied as he walked over to them. He took the bill she had before grabbing the proper number of tokens from inside a locked drawer, handing over five coin rolls with ten tokens in them to her, "Make sure you bring back the unused tokens here before you leave, Amelia! You've always had a bad habit of taking them by accident."

"H-Hey! I think I've gotten better about that! It's only happened, uh… four times!" Amelia pouted a little as she took the tokens, "Don't worry though, I'll try not to forget."

Mike laughed a little before noticing Naomi and the two teen boys he did not know next to her, "Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy your date! It's almost time for my lunch break."

The four teens were silent as he walked away before Eddy reacted to his statement, processing what he said, "Wait, WHAT did he—?!"

"Shhh!" Both Amelia and Naomi shushed Eddy, "There's no need to yell, Eddy! He's just making a joke, so don't let it get to you," Amelia replied, trying to calm him down, "It's not a date, don't worry…"

"O-Oh, okay," Eddy sighed in relief.

Eddy could vividly remember the last time he went on a 'date', which turned out to be a big misunderstanding when the three Eds realized Nazz was only there for the evening to babysit him. He never did get over that traumatic interaction, making him paranoid whenever something like this came up.

Amelia then gave them one coin roll with ten tokens in them each while splitting the last coin roll she had between the two Eds, giving them each five extra tokens, "Here you go! You can play any kind of game here with these tokens."

"Oh boy, oh boy!" Ed said with giddy anticipation as he then turned to one of the games; an arcade light gun game that was about shooting zombies, "I wanna play that one first!"

"Oh, that's from the House of the Dead series. Good choice!" Naomi giggled, "I guess I'll go play it too since it has co-op. Some of the scenes are funny in it; cheesy and bad voice acting and all!"

Ed and Naomi walked off to what Ed wanted to play, leaving behind Eddy and Amelia to decide what they wanted to do, "So, what do you plan on doing first?" Amelia asked him.

"Hmm…" Eddy hummed a little before pointing to something, "I might go play with one of those weird fighting games over there."

Amelia looked to which game he was talking about; one of the fighting game cabinets for Guilty Gear Strive, "Wait, really? I didn't expect you to be the kind of guy to play fighting games."

"Uh, well it's what caught my attention the most, honestly," Eddy replied with a shrug of his shoulders, "Never seen anything like it back home."

Amelia stared at him before remembering that Eddy's world was far behind on tech than hers, despite both worlds being synced up to the year 2023. It almost made her wonder if his world even had anime or manga in it. His world certainly had comic books and a lot of B movies, as well as an equivalent to Godzilla; at least something like it based on that one episode…

"Fair enough, I guess I'll play a round with you!" Amelia said as she made a smirk, "I hope you have some popcorn ready, you're gonna be so salty when we're done!"

"Ha, I don't think so! I accept your challenge, Amelia!" Eddy said to her with confidence, puffing out his chest slightly.

It took a lot of restraint for Amelia to not burst out laughing at his cocky attitude before they began to walk over to the cabinet, 'I guess I'll teach him how to play before fighting him for real. I'm not gonna be that mean when it's his first time playing,' Amelia thought.

Author's Note (January 6th, 2024): Yay! A new chapter is done! Quite a few things were revealed in this chapter, but things are still unclear for everyone. Stay tuned to find out what this could all mean, as well as meet some new faces! And then find out who wins in these Guilty Gear Strive matches. :P

Oh yeah, I didn't post anything on the 4th here because I had nothing ready for it, but January 4th was the 25th anniversary of EEnE being aired, back in 1999. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ED BOYS!