Intro Notes: All of Yokai Watch and Sonic belong to Level-5 Inc. and to Sega respectively, as well as to all other respective owners.
The crack soon expanded before revealing what seemed like to be the cosmos that they were in via a portal. "I think that's our sign to get there," Fumi said.
"Then let's get going then," Natsume said as the group soon jumped through the portal. "Over there," she said getting everyone else's attention. In front of them were three other but different locations.
"I think, we now may have to choose which one of these may have at least a chaos emerald," Inaho said.
"In that case, let's split up again in our groups," Touma offered.
"But we can't lose much more time deciding on which location. We should just go to which one is closest to us," Akinori said as the group soon disassembled before each group vanished.
The Past Group
"So, was finding the chaos emeralds the first time that hard?" Keizou asked.
"Uh, not really. One of them did require a battle with Iblis's minions, but it wasn't that much of a challenge compared to what we've seen before," Shin replied.
"Don't worry, we will find them," Tae said.
"Thank you very much for your help," Fumiaki said as the group arrived at their destination: Radical Train. The setting was an empty train station, with the tracks still in decent condition for trains to be operating. The environment surrounding it were grand mountainous hills with there being a bit of sunlight shining down on the area.
"Hovernyan, would you mind checking over there to see if there are any threats we should be aware of?" Keizou asked.
"No problem," Hovernyan replied as he flew off to the other side of the station as everyone else started to inspect the area.
"Hmm, nothing over here. Just a lot of rubble," Fumiaki mumbled to himself as he went into one of the abandoned trains.
"Maybe if I went up a bit to get a better view," Keizou thought before walking up on one of the various elevated hills. He soon saw other bigger mountainous hills and seemingly, a tunnel entrance, to which he thought that was where the trains ran through, but nothing that gave him a clue about a chaos emerald being here. He was on his way down to rejoin the others, before he saw Hovernyan flying back to them.
"Good news everyone, there's no one suspicious over there. Which means if we're done here, we can go over to the other side of the station," the floating yokai said.
"Well, let's get going then. We really couldn't find much here," Tae said as everyone else nodded before the group soon went over to where Hovernyan was before.
"Woah, this kind of narrow," Nekomata said as the group soon found themselves on a path where a steep hill was resting right beside it. But it was still wide enough for them to not be in a single-line formation.
"I think we should take our time with this," Fumiaki said the group then was holding onto the rocky exterior of the hill to their other side for extra support.
"You're right about that," Shin responded before an unexpected gust of wind threw him off balance as he was taking his next step before almost falling off the path. "Help!" Shin screamed.
"Don't worry, we'll get you up," Tae said as she grabbed onto his hands causing Shin to blush a bit. With Keizou and Fumiaki grabbing onto her arms before attempting to pull him up together and Nekomata, Hovernyan, and Suu-san were pulling by grabbing onto the three's legs. "Just a bit more," she said before they managed to get Shin onto the ground.
"Whew, that was too close," Nekomata said.
"Are you alright?" Suu-san asked.
"I think so, thank you, everyone," Shin said.
"No problem," Tae said who was similarly blushing a bit like Shin as the group eventually reached the other side.
"It appears that tunnel seems to be our next investigation," Hovernyan said before the group soon entered into the cave to which there was some light, but it was still overall dim.
"Hey Keizou, can I ask you about something?" Fumiaki whispered.
"What is it?" Keizou whispered back.
"I couldn't help but notice Shin and Tae right? I mean it's clear that they care for each other," Fumiaki said silently.
"I thought so too, back then. But we should respect their privacy and leave them to their matters," Keizou responded back, as the search progressed until they were in the deepest part of the cave.
"Did you hear that?" Shin asked.
"Uh, I don't think so," Tae replied.
"Must've been a draft," Fumiaki said before seeing a light.
"Maybe it was that," Keizou said as the group was soon adjusting to the unexpected brightness of the light.
"A chaos emerald," Hovernyan said.
"We did it!" Nekomata screamed as the chaos emerald soon was in clear view, being the purple one.
"Well, we found one," Keizou said taking hold of it before the ground started to crumble beneath them.
"We need to get out," Fumiaki said as the group attempted to run out of the cave, but it was too late, as the ground collapsed dragging the group in a pitch-black abyss causing a scream among them.
The Present Group
The trio arrived in Kingdom Valley, an abandoned kingdom that apparently was the home to many people of royalty. "I say our chances are in our favor for something such as a chaos emerald are high within this castle," Inaho said.
"I mean, it's not like we have any other options for where a chaos emerald can be. Was it easy finding them?" Fumi asked as the group soon found an entrance into the castle.
"Not the worst nor difficult. I mean, one of them had us almost trapped in quicksand and one other had a battle with the supposed minions of Iblis," Inaho replied.
"I see. I think it'd be best if we split up in order to cover more ground of the castle. As regardless of which way we go, it appears that the heart of the castle seems to connect to all of the other wings of this place," Keita suggested as he was reading a map of the place, they were in.
"Alright then, let's do this," Inaho said as she dashed off in one direction, leaving Keita and Fumi to go in their own directions.
"Oh, what a joy to be, to live in a place so grand," Inaho said as she was admiring the interior décor of the place.
"Come on. We should try and find the chaos emerald instead of spacing out," Usapyon said.
"I know," Inaho said as she went around a corner before noticing something.
"What's got your attention?" Usapyon asked.
"This machine. It looks like one of those teleportation devices, don't you think? It even says over here that it takes you to the center of the castle, where we were supposed to go to. I have a hunch that something valuable must be placed in the center of the castle," Inaho said. "Let's see. It doesn't seem to be working, but not to worry," she said as she summoned Statiking. "Statiking, would you mind recharging this machine. It seems to be out of power," she said.
"Leave it to me," Statiking replied as he touched the device before giving it a charge of electricity, as the device soon turned on with Inaho soon thanking her yokai friend before Statiking took his leave. The two soon went into the device and teleported away.
Meanwhile with Fumi… "Maybe it's a good thing, that this place is empty," the girl thought to herself as she was walking through a corridor. "Nothing here as well. Time to check the next room," she said to herself before hearing her foot sink on a tile of the ground causing a hidden underground entrance to reveal itself. "I think this should be it," she thought taking the entrance. "Well at least, there doesn't seem to be any multiple paths," she then thought as her stroll came to an end when she came to a wall.
"Could it be?" she wondered knocking on the wall, thinking there was a way to make the wall move before deciding to push the wall. This made the wall spin around taking her to where Inaho was.
"Woah, that gave me a shock," Inaho said. "How did you get in here?" she asked.
"I think it was through some secret entrance within the walls," Fumi responded before a Mirapo appeared as Keita soon found himself in the same room as with the other two.
"I'm glad my hunch on that glowing light was correct," Keita said.
"What do you mean?" Fumi asked.
"While investigating, I entered the upper floor of the castle and from that height, I saw a green glow coming from the center part, to which I thought that it must be a chaos emerald and so, I summoned Mirapo to take me there," Keita replied.
"Well we got what we came here for," Fumi said as she took ahold of the gemstone before the three decided to exit the castle with Mirapo still there, only for the three to be immediately sucked into a portal that was right in front of them.
The Future Group
The future group arrived in a dense jungle known as Tropical Jungle. "I think we should get some elevation, to make it easier to look around the area," Natsume suggested.
"In that case, Suzaku," Akinori said summoning his yokai ally. "Would you mind observing the area from above to see if there's a chaos emerald? He asked.
"Understood," Suzaku replied before searching the area.
"We might as well look around here," Ayame suggested as the group wandered around the environment, but to only find a bunch of trees with nothing around them or hidden in them. There were also plenty of vines that were connecting the trees and the only other thing that was of notice was a stream that was flowing along, but there was nothing underneath the waters though, from where they checked.
"I found a turquoise light over there. It could be the turquoise chaos emerald. Also, there was nothing else, other than a lot of vegetation as we can see," Suzaku said descending down a bit before taking his leave after several minutes passed by.
"Thank you, Suzaku. Alright. Let's go," Akinori said as the group began heading to the east while traversing the abundant amount of hollow trees that were on fluctuating levels of ground that required the group to vine swing to various ones in order to get through the forest before crossing a bridge that took them to an open view of the forest where there weren't as many trees as from before. During this part of their search, Natsume was starting to act a bit panicked as she was starting to get ahead of everyone else by a big amount, starting to stumble a bit due to not wanting to stop for a break combined with the adrenaline rush she was feeling, which did get her friends' attention.
"I can see the light, almost there," Natsume said before she tripped and fell down.
"Are you ok?" Ayame asked.
"I'm fine, we just need to keep moving," Natsume said as she was out of breath now.
"Listen, we know how that you're feeling a lot of pain for what happened, but don't forget that we and everyone else feel the same and are here with you," Touma said trying to calm her down.
"You're right. Sorry if I worried you," Natsume said getting up before the group went for that last stretch before the turquoise chaos emerald was in their line of sight. As within the end of the stream they saw before, it ended up into a spring, where the turquoise chaos emerald was shining in a beautiful sight coupled with the water's reflection. "Alright, we got it," she said reaching her hand out to take it.
"I wonder if the other groups have managed to find one," Ayame said as the group was heading back to where they came from.
"Knowing them, I bet they have," Akinori said optimistically.
"By the way, how was your search for the three chaos emeralds before they were gone from our hands?" Natsume asked.
"It was a bit of an adventure mixed with some challenges. I'd say it's similar to what we do with our yokai detective cases," Touma replied.
"I see. Wait the portal that we came from isn't here!" Natsume said.
"Then, there must be another way," Ayame chimed in before another crack in space appeared.
"Looks like we've found a way. It's not like we have any other choice," Akinori said before the group unanimously agreed on entering the now expanded space distortion.
To Be Continued...
