"Wait! Don't leave yet!" yelled a familiar voice from the distance.
"Hey it's Shauza! She must have found something." said Aqua intrigued about what Shauza discovered.
The dolphin swam forward to the group. She panted, trying to catch her breath since she was swimming as fast as she could. She tried talking even though she was tired.
"Huff… I found…someone…who could…help…" she was beginning to faint, but another voice relieved her so she could swim to the surface to catch her breath.
"Sorry I took so long Shauza. I'm getting old you know." Appeared another dolphin who was blue on the top portion of his body, with a gold stripe, like a common dolphins'. He had green eyes that glittered. "hello everybody. I'm honored to meet you all. You see, I'm Shauza's father, Kitel. You can call me Kit."
"Nice to meet you Kit. I'm Ecco, and this is Aqua, the whale, Coral, Hammer, and the glowy seahorse is Shard." Replied Ecco. "so your daughter said you could help? How?"
"Well for starters I'm the head engineer for the Atlantian Defense group. We're the ones who research new ways to make the ocean world exciting, and more protective for our planet and keeping the Guardian running." Replied Kit. Shard just rolled his eyes and became careless.
"You did a good job on the Guardian part." said the seahorse sarcastically. Kit was silent for a moment and replied from the remark.
"Well I'm sure you already know about the crystals we use to power it up. We ran out for it's yearly feeding decades ago. It was also the worst time to run out, since the Guardian was losing power rapidly after a tremor in Atlantis a hundred years ago. Then I heard a famous dolphin and his friends found a crystal as a quest from the Guardian, and I thought I swim over to help you out."
"You still didn't answer Ecco's question. How could you help us? We got everything planed out." Said Coral.
"Yeah. Besides Kit, after finding enough crystals, the Guardian will create a glyph to transport us and…" Aqua was interrupted by Kitel who had a better answer.
"…and he would lose a mass amount of his power on one transport glyph. You see I'm working on a program that'll send you to anywhere in the ocean world, without using most of the Guardian's power. It's in progress, and entering its final stages of development. We only need to use a power glyph the Guardian can create that'll serve as the programs batteries. How many crystals have you collected?" asked the common dolphin.
"Sadly…one. We're on our way to collect another from a group of sharks near a cave in a nearby reef." Answered Ecco ready to go. Kit thought for second and began making a small grin out of his teeth.
"There's more than one. I used to swim in there to steal a crystal when we're low. Those sharks are jewel hunters."
"Looks like this adventure just got easier!" Coral said with a simile of joy. Hammer felt upset even though he's for the crystal hunt.
"Who said sharks are easy? There could be tens of sharks swimming in there." Replied the hammerhead.
"He does have point. We could be totally outnumbered in number and strength." Said Aqua feeling concerned about what lies ahead. Kit just shook his head with his grin growing bigger. He chuckled a little.
"There's only one shark. He's young and has a strange choice of words. I think Hammer might know him very well." Hammer just looked at the dolphin with a strange look. He realized the only other shark he hung out with was… "I think I might know the name. Lets see… Smash? No… Bam? Nah-uh…Crash?" Hammer immediately answered Kit's problem.
"Crush?" he answered. Kit's eyes opened wide.
"That's right… Crush! I remember seeing you sleeping near the cave, while Crush took crystals and putted them in the cave." Everyone else looked at Hammer concerned that he didn't tell them about Crush's stash. Coral immediately charged at the shark and wrapped her fins on his throat.
"You idiot! Why didn't tell us about them!? We could've had a head start!! Aaaagghhh!!!" she began trying to choke him harder, but she couldn't go any further. Aqua charged over to break up the fight. He had them separated, but Coral was still reaching her fins at the dazed sharks head.
"Coral! He didn't know about Crush's hobby. I'm sure he'll hand over his collection for the sake of earth. Got that!?!" Aqua yelled at Coral staring into her eyes, making her calm down. She just swam away from the two and mumbled. Ecco swam in front of the group and clicked as loud as he could. He got everybody's attention.
"I think we should pay our buddy a visit at his cave. Let's hurry. It's almost getting dark." The group nodded and turned towards their next path which leads them to the bay which is were the cave is located.
The path was wide, and the bay was filed with coral. Many glittered. Many spat air bubbles. Most of them were filled with fish, which made everyone's mouth water. They were all surgeon fish. They were as blue as sapphires. Shard swam in the way of their "new" direction and smiled at the hungry group.
"Let's grab the loot and then we eat." Aqua looked upset since he was in charge of carrying the crystals in his mouth.
"But how will I eat? How am I supposed to eat fish if I have more than one crystal in my mouth?" he had a hunch of what Shard was about to say. He decided to let him speak first.
"Like you need to eat." Aqua just rolled his eyes and carried on swimming into the cave with the rest of the group.
The cave inside was dark jet-black and the lighting of many glowing fish which brightened the cave. Ecco noticed a large green glow not far off from where they were. He charged forward after to light which became bigger as he sped faster. He was anxious of his discovery.
Finally he found his light. Nine crystals were laying there, glowing as bright as the sun itself, and its color as beautiful as an emerald. As soon as he took out a crystal a voice appeared.
"Dude Ecco! What are you doing here? What are you doing with my gems? You weren't gonna take them?" Crush swam out of the darkness with a glow from a couple of glow fish. Ecco felt bad for taking his friends hard earned collection, even though there were more jewels and gems glittering around him. The power crystals were nice, but the others were nicer. Aqua and Coral were the next behind Ecco who gasped as they were caught for the theft.
"Listen Crush… buddy. We got the emergency at Atlantis under control. You see these gems are power-ups for the Guardian. I'm sure you could spare us these crystals. It's not like you don't have any at all."
Crush picked one up and began stroking it like a kitten.
"It took me three days to find this one. And a week for that one." He furiously turned around at the three angry. "You can't have them! I worked day and night to find them!" he yelled at them like total strangers. He almost sounded like he cared for the crystal than his friendship.
"Crush if we don't collect them and give them to the Guardian, earth will be in great danger! No more friends…no more fish…no more, uh… no more…" Aqua tried to convince Crush desperately with his begging, which caught very little concern. Coral thought a greater way to convince him with the best idea.
"No more gems to collect in the ocean" she said. She grabbed one of the nicer pieces of his collection and shook it in front of his face in a mocking way. Crush panicked and gave in.
"Alright. Alright! Man you guys are tough to ignore." Crush said handing over a crystal and putting it into Aqua's mouth. He held one fin to his face trying to not look at what he's doing.
"Sorry we barged in, since caves don't have doors." Ecco said.
"As long it's for a good cause. Right? Ya know, you could've asked." Said the reef shark sighing as he calmed down to his normal tone again.
"Mew smeed it!" Aqua said trying to speak with nine crystals in his mouth.
"C'mon guys lets go. Shauza and Kit are waiting for us. Let's hurry before Aqua gags on one." Said Ecco as the rest swam away from the exit. Crush swam out as we'll disappearing from sight and screamed,
"If I find more of these crystals I'll let you know!"
Now 10 crystals have been found. Still, they have a long way to go before hope comes into full effect. There's still many left in the seas of Tranquility.