Ch 19: The Holy Crystal
"YAAAAAA!" Yelled Shadow. His whole body is platinum and is glowing intensely. He is fully charged now and is just floating in the center of the room. After about 5 minutes he dropped to the floor and turned black. He is breathing very heavy and sweat is dripping from his nose. "...fi...ve...whole...minutes...", He layed on his back and looked up at the ceiling. "That's the longest I have ever done. Time to try for longer." Shadow stood up and started to yell some more and turned super once again. This time he is going all over the place punching super fast and kicking super fast. After about 10 minutes he fell to the floor unconscious.
"This puzzle is a piece of cake. I just have to use my firesword to light up the path." Tails was halfway across the maze walkway. The walkway goes in many directions and turns a lot. He finally makes it to the other side. There is a circular platform with 5 large torches around it. They are all unlit. "So I just have to light these? Eas-wait, what is this?" He sees a diagram on the floor. It reads, FOUR LIGHTS LEAD THE WAY. "But which four?" There is a tiny scribble under the big words. Tails gets down closer. -hint, not the lake- . "Not the lake?" Tails looks at the big pool he just crossed.
"I got it! Firefuse!" Tails lights all the torches except the one closest to the pool. The area begins to shake and a hole opens in the ceiling and light shines through to the center of the circle platform. The floor begins to shake also. Tails jumps out of the way. It opens and a huge lens on a metal holder rises up. The lens is a reddish color. The light bends and hits the wall at the entrance of the room. The light is like a laser and ignites a fuse that leaves the room. "Wow, that was cool! I guess I'm done here." Tails proceeds to exit the room when the original path reappears in the middle of the pool. Tails runs across it and exits the room.
"It took you long enough! I thought you died in there." Said a platinum shadow.
"SHADOW! Your...your...super!" Tails is amazed at this.
"Yeah I know. I'm just about finished. There!" His fur turned back to black as he came back down. "That was about...half an hour ago when I transformed."
"I only thought you could do it for a few moments." Tails looked over at the light door and noticed the first torch is lit with red fire. "Oh I get it, I have to make all the torches light to enter that door. Good luck with your training Shadow." Tails left to complete the other trials. After about two more trials Tails came into the center room again and saw that Shadow is silver again and he has a bunch of food all over the place.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?" Shadow was chowing down on a loaf of bread with cheese on the inside.
"Where did you get all that food?" Tails knew something was up.
"Outside, why?" He continued to eat.
"But-the shaft-wait a minute, what did you do?" Tails walked over to him.
"While I was super I kinda got hungry. I flew up and out of the shaft and into the town. I just grabbed some stuff from the market." Shadow grabbed a sandwich and tossed it over to Tails. "Go ahead and eat something."
"I'm not eating stolen foo-", Tails' stomach just rumbled and roared. "Oh well."
"I won't get caught anyway. I led a trail of food to that bruiser guy, they'll think it was him." After about 20 minutes they were done eating.
"So, how long have you been super?"
"Three and a half hours. I'm actually used to it now, I can barely feel it. After you are done with three more trials, I'm going to try to turn hyper. If it doesn't work I'll use the fake emerald for more power. See you around." After this Tails gets up and goes to the next door. He has already beat the fire, steel, and water trials. After 5 hours Tails is done with the rest of the trials. As he comes out of the door he feels a blast of wind. He sees shadow is trying to become his hyper form. There is a sudden bright light that comes from Shadow's whole body. Tails can barely see at all. The ground is rumbling a little. As the light fades away, he sees Shadow is glowing many metallic colors. It goes in the order of platinum, blood red, deep purple, navy blue, dark green and back to platinum. His red stripes are still there, but they are metallic and glowing. After about ten seconds the glowing suddenly stops and Shadow drops like a stone and hits the hard floor.
"Shadow!", yells Tails. He runs over to him. "Are you okay!"
"Yeah...I'm... COUGH ...Fine...shit." Shadow sees that he coughed up some blood. His stomach feels like it got stomped on and burned. After a second Tails gets a goblet of water and gives some to Shadow. "Ugh...Thanks." Shadow just laid there, breathing heavily, for half an hour until he slowly came back to normal. "Man, that was harder than I thought it would be. I've never felt so drained. I guess I don't have enough experience with the emeralds yet. How did Sonic do it though?"
"I can explain that. When Sonic turned hyper he gave me the chaos emeralds because he had all 7 super emeralds. He only absorbed the emeralds power and left them in the chamber. They acted as energy storage tanks along with my emeralds. That is the reason I could turn super also. Some extra energy went into my body. Since I had no idea how to control the power, four small birds came to aid me. They were like a cap to my power so I wouldn't overheat. In other words, you need something or someone to share energy with." Tails looked tired after saying all of that.
"I think I can stand now. I never want to feel this pain again...Hey Tails, I need you to make me another fake emerald after we get the light crystal. This time make it so it can store energy instead of giving it off. Think you can do that?"
"Sure I can, I just have to reverse the polarity when creating it. C'mon let's hurry and get the crystal." As they approach the door all the different colored torches grew brighter and then the door lifts up. Up ahead is a circular room that is twice as big as the one they came from. The spirit is waiting for them in the center.
'So, you succeeded in all the trials, but first you need to do one last thing. Defeat this monster of shadows behind me, and only then the crystal will be yours.' A huge dark mass of smoke appeared behind the spirit. It has no real shape except for four legs it has on the underside. Then it sprouted two large wings on the top and the center of its round body opened a huge mouth with sharp black teeth.
"I'll try my best." The monster charged at Tails and hit him with a wing. It knocked him back a few feet, but he got up and cut off his wing with a flaming blade. The wing shriveled up into a ball and flew back onto the body and formed a leg. "Crap." Tails' blade became electrified and he did a few slashes at the creature. The creature was almost completely shredded. As it was regenerating Tails charged up all the energy and sent a huge bolt of lightning at it. There are only a few pieces left of it. They all formed little sharp needles and flew at Tails. They were all slashed almost instantly. The pieces were still reforming.
"Oh no you don't, Icefuse!" Tails' sword became icy and a cold blue-ish wind is swirling around it. He held the blade up and it became nothing but blue wind. He hit the floor and the whole thing became frozen along with the remains of the beast. "That should do it." But before Tails could even blink a piece of the monster wrapped around his body. More and more pieces latched on until the beast was fully reformed.
"HEY! YOU BASTARD! Let him go!" Shadow is super mad. "Stop the test! Spirit! Didn't you hear me, I said stop the test!"
'I cannot do that, He must overcome the beast. I would advise you to not interfere.'
"What! Your just gonna let him die...I don't think so!" Shadow is glowing very brightly. His fur turned platinum and he is floating. He starts charging at the beast but hits a barrier. It starts electrifying him. Even being super it hurts him a little. "AHHH! I won't let this barrier stop me!" Shadow puts his hands out in front of him and shoots a huge golden energy beam at the barrier. The barrier is just nullifying the effect. "AAAHHHHH! NO...I...MUST...SAVE HIM!" The beam grows brighter and larger. 'If i had more power I could turn hyper. Where could I put some extra energy. I know, the fake emerald.' He summons even greater power from within. The emerald in the other room is glowing brightly yellow. Suddenly Shadow is glowing super bright.
The light spreads throughout the entire room. Its like a super nova. The light fades and Shadow is hyper once again. His fur and energy beam are glowing many dark colors at a high rate. The beam is still growing brighter. The barrier is actually bulging away from the beam. It is almost about to break. At the last minute the emerald in the other room explodes and shards are sent in all directions. They are imbedded in the floor, walls, and ceiling. Shadow's energy beam vanishes and he falls to the floor and turns back to normal. He is unconscious, but is almost dead.
Inside the body of the beast Tails gets a sudden twinge of energy. ' I've had enough of this! Something terrible must've happened out there...Ahhh...Shadow...you didn't...your not that stupid! I can feel it though...no...That's IT. EVERYTHINGFUSE!' The monster suddenly stopped. Golden light is just coming out of holes on the beasts body. A massive explosion destroyed it. Tails is floating there. He looks different. His fur is yellow-gold. His three hairs on his head are strait and needle-like. A golden aura is surrounding him. His arms are down at his sides along with his tails and feet. His eyes are pure white and electrified. The sword is golden with sparkles coming from it. "Hey spirit! What did you do to him! If you weren't already dead I'd...I'd." Tails' voice is echoed and deeper than normal. He quickly loses this super form and goes to the ground.
'Rest assured, your friend is still among the living, for now. You can heal him with the holy powers of the crystal, now make haste to this altar and place the blade in the slot.' Tails just did as he was told. After the sword was placed in the altar, a small white round crystal floated down from a hole in the ceiling. Once it touched the end of the handle on the sword, it became pure white and changed shape. The light faded and the sword handle looks completely different. The leather grip is light blue and the metal part is just blue. On the end of it is the round crystal with all seven of the shards around it. Each shard is the same length from eachother and is embedded halfway in the white gem. Tails pulls the sword out of the pedestal and the blade is different in color. It is slightly see through and has a bluish tint. The blade is actually five times stronger than before.
"Wow, I can feel the energy flowing right into me. It feels light as a wooden stick. But enough about that, how do I heal Shadow?" Tails walked over to him and set the side of the blade gently to his face. A sheet of light poured over the motionless hedgehog and went in him. Tails stepped back and watched. Shadow opened his eyes slowly. "Are you alright...can you move at all?"
"I'm fine, what the hell just happened. I thought you were going to die, I'd hate to have to go back and tell May that you died if I did nothing about it."
"You did save me you know. Inside the beast I felt your lifeforce suddenly dwindle. It drove me to destroy the beast. If you hadn't done what you did I wouldn't be here right now."
"I guess your right. Enough of this talk we should get out of here fas-whoa!" The whole place is shaking. It is a huge earthquake and big white stones are falling out of the ceiling. "Oh-no, Time is back to normal now. Let's go, now!" Shadow grabs tails by the wrist and turns super and blasts down the corridor, goes through the huge room and flies up the vertical shaft. Once they reach the top he sets Tails down. May is now at the entrance.
"Tails! What's happening down there, why is there an earthquake?" Before she could say anything else Tails grabbed her and they shot out of the entrance hole. They landed safely on the shaking ground. Then the entire temple falls straight down. It goes right into the sea. "Ahhh, the island is breaking apart!" A huge crack opens right in front of them. The ground starts falling. Tails grabs her and starts running.
"That will take too long, we'll fall if we run." Shadow turns super and grabs them both and jets toward the Tornado3. The island is rapidly breaking apart behind them, but it won't be long before it catches up with them. Shadow drops Tails and May in the plane. He gets behind it and starts pulling it into the water. He turns it around and pushes it with all his power. "I know the fake emerald shattered, so I'm gonna push till I get tired." They are going the speed of sound as the island behind them sinks to the depths of the sea.