Well, I'm sure this is a chapter that has been anticipated for quite a while. Now, it's up and running (that's a joke, by the way). So, let's get started, shall we?
The day after the trouble at the abandoned factory, Humphrey awoke to lovely yellow light trying to come through his window's blinds. His body felt very refreshed, and he absolutely loved to wake up to such a good feeling. His clock said "8:15", but he always liked to sleep in, so maybe 15 more minutes. He closed his eyes again, but then he heard something that made him wake up in a split-second.
"Hey Humphrey, you have to come with me, now! This is amazing!" he heard a voice that he could identify anywhere; Kate was here.
Humphrey sat up, "…Ugh…Kate…? When did you get here?" he said, rubbing his eyes.
"Just now. Now, come on! This is really important!" Kate said, apparently hyperexcited. She pulled Humphrey away as he barely managed to grab his sandals before he was out the door.
"But, can't I put some clothes on? Or eat breakfast first?" He was still wearing his plain white sleeveless undershirt and black nylon shorts, nothing more.
"Well, you can eat later." Kate said, still pulling him out of his house.
Humphrey saw his parents waiting in one of the cars, which was already running.
"Good morning, Humphrey." Said Alice as Kate and Humphrey got inside the car.
"…Morning." Humphrey replied.
"Alright, let's hit it." Said William, pulling the car out of the driveway, and heading off.
"So, what's all this about…?" Humphrey asked Kate.
"…It's a surprise." Kate replied, subtly.
Humphrey continued to ask Kate for any more hints, but they all did nothing to help him guess. After ten minutes of driving, they came to a large, open field at the edge of Jasper. There were a few trucks with water tanks mounted on them, which some wolves were using to spray piles of soil off of a large, flat area. Humphrey was amazed by this; he has been past this area many times, and this large stone slab thing was never there. What could this be about?
After William parked the car, they were all introduced by Winston. "Hey, Will." He said to Humphrey's father.
"Winston, how've you been lately?" William replied, shaking hands with Winston.
Winston laughed a little bit, "Fair enough." He turned to Humphrey, "Well, Humphrey, today is quite a big day."
"Yeah, I could tell." Humphrey responded, "About that…what's going on here?"
Winston cleared his throat "Quite a lot of people have learned that the Crystal resides here in Jasper, and after spending quite of bit of time searching, we found electromagnetic frequencies centering around here. So we started digging…and found this. We think the Crystal could be under it." He motioned his arm at the stone platform. It was covered in strange symbols and hieroglyphics identical to the ones in the books Kate brought to Humphrey's, as well as patterns and illustrations.
"What we don't know, however, is how this even ended up here…and like this." Winston continued.
"Well," Kate began, "I did some research, and found out that the Crystal can influence it's surroundings. So, I guess it made this stone surface."
Winston's eyes widened, "Wow. That's pretty impressive. I didn't know you started learning about this, Kate."
Suddenly, a large pickup truck drove up and parked next to the car Kate and Humphrey came in. Garth suddenly appeared out of it, as well as his father, Tony.
Kate's jaw dropped, "What the hell are you doing here!?" she questioned Garth when he walked over to them.
Garth raised a brow and put on a smile, "We heard you found the big Atlantis Crystal, so we figured we'd check it out."
Humphrey intervened: "Forget it, Barf. This area is off-limits!"
Garth pushed him aside, "Hey, I'm in on this, too, aren't I?" he said before laughing vaguely.
Lilly suddenly appeared and came over to them, "Hey! I heard what you did to Kate! Get out of here!" she shouted some twenty feet away from Garth.
Tony stepped in the middle of the group, "Hey, play nice with Garth, alright? He's been upset enough as it is."
"Don't defend him!" Kate retaliated.
"ENOUGH!" Winston shouted, "Can't we just make the best of this?"
Everybody was unsure; Garth had caused enough problems already, but he is in on the Atlantis information, so surely he could be allowed to see the Star of Earth for himself? But finally, Kate, Humphrey, and Lilly decided to let him join. All of the hoses have been shut off, so it was safe to walk across the platform. They all managed to get a better look at the engravings in it, which were clearly Atlantean from the books Kate looked through.
When they reached the middle of the circular stone, there was an Atlantean "A" in the middle of three symbols in circles that made a triangle shape (which looked exactly like the symbols on the ground from Humphrey's Nova on the night of the sleepover).
"Now, this" Winston began, "is the energy seal that the Crystal resides behind. To open it, we need to place blood on the symbol here in the middle."
Everybody looked shocked. "Blood!?" Kate said.
Winston nodded, "Yes." He then turned to Humphrey, "Your blood, Humphrey."
Humphrey felt his throat go dry. But, a second later, he understood. It takes the blood of a Starsoul to open the seal. Otherwise, no one else can get to the Crystal. "…Alright. I'll do it." Humphrey finally said.
And with that, Winston pulled a fingerstick device from his pocket. Humphrey held out his hand, and Winston punctured his skin. Humphrey clenched his teeth slightly, but it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. He then rubbed his finger across the damp, cold stone, staining it with his red blood. For a second, nothing happened. Then, the Atlantean "A" began to glow a bright silver, and the ground started to shake.
"It's working." Said Winston, "Well, I'm going to leave this in your hands." He said to Kate, Humphrey, Lilly, and Garth.
"What? But, dad-" Kate began.
But Winston cut her off: "I'm sure you all can figure this out. I'm positive that you can."
A six-foot diameter circle of stone around the glowing symbol began to slowly sink beneath the earth. "Get on! All four of you!" Winston said, quickly, "Just look through this," he tossed Kate a book, "and all of your questions will be answered. Good luck!"
The stone continued to sink, making it become gradually darker. When there was a large chamber starting to appear, they thought it would be pitch-black, but a second later, they saw the red glare of magma, and were introduced to a thick steam (strangely not smoke). As they continued to descend, they saw what looked like a small mesa with water running off all sides of it. Above it was something hanging from the ceiling glowing a brilliant white, and with many stone slabs of different sizes that looked like gravestones around it.
It took them a moment to notice that the thing was not hanging, but it was floating in midair. The stone slabs were also floating slowly revolving around the light counterclockwise. They had strange glowing symbols on them; all two lines with one word each, though some of them had two words per line. The stone-elevator finally stopped at the bottom, and they all stepped off.
"So, that's it, then?" Garth said, pointing to the floating object, which they could safely assume is the Star of Earth. His voice was still audible, since the water falling on the magma wasn't making much noise, somehow.
"It's got to be…" Kate replied to Garth. All of them stared at the floating crystal-based mass surrounded by stone slabs. "But something doesn't add up." Kate continued.
"What might that be?" Humphrey asked.
"Well," Kate said, opening the book Winston gave her, "in this illustration, there's four stones around it. So, how is it that there's now…like, nine?" They all thought the same thing; it didn't seem to make sense.
Humphrey examined the stones more closely by squinting harder, and suddenly, his eyes widened, "The past Starsouls…" He whispered with awe, "The Crystal was able to keep track, all this time…"
They looked back down to see Garth walking towards the Crystal on a stone path, which lead to the spot directly under it. "Garth, wait…" Kate suddenly said, but he continued to walk. He noticed that it was emitting a beam of light straight downward on the circular platform that the path ended on. He stopped right in front of the spotted silver light, and looked up to see what looked like an enormous fortune-teller's crystal ball with a smooth surface, emitting a flaring white aura that resembled prominences coming from every side of a star.
He waved his hand through the beam, and the Crystal suddenly turned a deep, fiery crimson, and began to emit several moving light beams around the cave. It also made a very evil-sounding hum, almost like and electrical buzzing sound that changed in pitch and volume.
"Can we just hurry up?" Lilly suddenly said, "This place is giving me the creeps…"
Garth made his way back over, away from the red Crystal, "Okay, Kate, now what?" he asked.
Kate looked in the book, "Alright, so it's a mass which has a similar structure to quartz, but has special, supernatural properties that enable it to change it's environment, and produce an endless amount of water; it's easy to see that both have occurred and/or are occurring.
As she spoke, however, one of the light beams passed over them, stopped on Humphrey, and it's color turned back to white again. Humphrey looked up at the Star of Earth, "Crysta…" he whispered inaudibly. His eyes began to glow as the Star of Earth accessed his mind, and he started to walk forward. Kate and Garth, meanwhile, were still talking.
"I'm not sure, the book doesn't explain what-" Kate stopped a reply to Garth as they all noticed Humphrey. His eyes were glowing, and the light beam was following him as he walked.
Garth raised a brow, "Ummm…why is the Coyote acting strange, suddenly?"
Kate flipped open the book and pointed to one of the pages, "Look, it doesn't say anything else! It only says that the Star of Earth…" she looked through the pages again, "…is conscious; alive. And it's the one thing that kept Atlantis alive. Nothing else has any elaboration!"
Garth was losing patience: "Can't you just figure anything else out without the book?" he questioned.
Kate became very stern: "Hey! Why don't you read and try to figure out what this all means!" She walked up to Humphrey, who stopped at the start of the bridge-like path, "C'mon, Humphrey, can't you back me up here?"
Humphrey slowly began to turn and spoke: "All in due time, will all be at peace, Kate Ramirez. You need not to dwell or worry." His voice was strange; his normal voice was there, but it sounded as though it was electronically layered over a deeper, heavenly voice.
Kate turned back to Lilly and Garth. "Is he flirting with you!?" Garth asked Kate, semi-agitated.
"No." Kate replied, then she turned back to Humphrey, "I don't think that was even him talking…"
Humphrey then turned back around, and slowly began to walk along the stone path, towards the Star of Earth. When he was directly under it, the stones began to move away from the Crystal, and towards the edges of the cave, making it more visible. Humphrey closed his eyes and exhaled as a white aura appeared around him, and he began to hover upwards into the Crystal. Kate, Garth, and Lilly all watched with their jaws dropped.
When Humphrey made it up to the Crystal, he actually phased through it's surface and stopped in the middle of it. The white light suddenly became slightly dimmer as the stones began to revolve around the Crystal, gradually getting faster. Much faster, almost like race cars, and then the light became blinding; the three had to turn their eyes away. After a few seconds, it dimmed down again, and a light descended out of the Crystal, which was now emitting very little light. The bright shape dimmed more to reveal Humphrey.
Humphrey's skin was covered in glowing patterns, almost like engravings, and they were mostly visible since Humphrey didn't get changed out of his undershirt and shorts. There were a few flares and flashes that came off of him. Kate looked over to see Lilly with her jaw dropped and her eyes wider than ever. Garth simply stared passively with his hands in his pockets. Humphrey then began to drift downward, and when he reached the stone floor, he didn't touch the actually ground, but hovered a few inches, and similar patterns on his skin appeared in a circle below him.
Kate longed to go over to him, but Garth stopped her, "Not your boyfriend, remember?"
Kate simply turned her head back over to him, "Humphrey!" she said loudly.
Humphrey stood for a moment, and then his eyes opened, glowing brightly.
"Humphrey…" Kate whispered as a tear streamed down her face. Although hovering in midair, Humphrey moved his legs back and forth like someone trying to paddle through water vertically, but slowly. The stones began to drop from around the Crystal, and made huge splashes. Although the water would have soaked him, it seemed to move around him like he is surrounded by a slick invisible sphere.
As he approached, a faint, high-pitched hum could be heard. Garth snickered, "This is new." He muttered.
Kate hit him in the arm, "At least don't be so cocky…"
Garth clutched his arm, "Well, excuuuuse me, Princess…"
All four of them got back onto the stone-elevator, and began to rise back out of the cave…
I pretty much recycled "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" for this part, but I thought it would work out okay. Too bad Spring Break is about to end; I might not be able to get chapters done this early. But more will come. Keep holding on…