Chapter 30: Master of the time stone
It was all over in moments. My family died twice in my own personal timeline, my friends unconscious and or dead before my eyes, and all because of me. Because this stone existed at all, my life has been a living hell beyond all hells. Unable to contain my frustration any longer, I hugged the stone once again and screamed at the top of my lungs, tears once again flowing with the rain. Suddenly the stone's markings began glowing a bright pale green light this time instead of the pale blue light that usually envelopes all of those it sends through time. "What's going on?" I asked in alarm and confusion. The light slowly faded and I found myself in a cave with silver walls. The cave looked as if it was dug out by modern machines and yet still had an air of medieval workmanship about it. It felt almost as if the past and the present existed in the same second. The cave stretched on for what seemed thirty yards and then branched off into five other directions and I could only guess that the other halls divided somewhere along the line into a veritable maze. Echoing in one particular branch of halls a heavy breathing sound, like a one hundred and thirty year old man still clinging to life, but tired and bed ridden. Not wanting to get lost, I decided to follow the breathing noise.
It led me through the leftmost corridor and I noticed that as I passed through the pathway and into the next room, the walls and ceiling began to sprout shining, clear crystals that got larger and larger the deeper into the corridor I had gotten. Inside the crystal room, the gems had grown to be about the same size as I and even reflected my image in them. It was incredible to see, but, I had no time to sight see. I continued to follow the raspy breathing noise through another corridor that changed the scenery from crystal to ruby. Then I followed the noise through another corridor that turned the crystals into an aquamarine. The next corridor changed into opal and the next corridor turned sapphire. It was in the next room that I found the source of the breathing noise. The corridor began with shining sapphire crystals that shrank in size the farther through I walked. In the dead center of the hallway the crystals ceased growing and the walls became smooth and bleached white. It was actually hard to find the sides of the walls and I was forced to place my right paw against the wall to keep from veering off course and bumping onto the wall.
Finally making it into the room to where the corridor led me I found what echoed through the walls of the cavern. It was a crippled old man that looked literally skin and bone. He wore what looked like wizard's robes that looked as if they were woven from the very fabric of space with galaxy's free floating and stars twinkling. Various watches and time keeping mechanisms used throughout the ages also free floated in and out of view on various places on his robes, disappearing the moment they reached the hem. He sat on a pearl throne, hunched forward and staring at the floor in front of him, breathing as it his life would soon be extinguished.
"How?" He finally voiced in a failing raspy voice. "Who are you? Where am I?" I asked him but instead of answering me he simply went on a rant. "Why do you still live? You who are guided by destiny. You shall not prevail. I cannot be destroyed by you! I am superior!" I was afraid now. I had figured that he was probably too old and senile to figure out which way was up until he looked at me and spoke my name. "Sunni Gummi." He said as he slowly and weakly lifted his head to gaze at me with his dark red eyes. He then slowly and weakly outstretched his right arm and held it there with the palm of his right hand faced upward as if asking for something. "My time stone. I request you give it back." He demanded with his eyes shifting from red to blue and then green and then back to red in an aurora-like fashion. "What are you?" I gasped. "I am a time wizard, the greatest time wizard of them all, and the creator of the time stone." He answered rather impatiently and egotistically. "But I thought a Great Gummi created the time stone in his sleep." I responded rather confused. "Fool. Only a time wizard can build something as powerful as the time stone. And it can only be forged by utilizing all of his/her magic. Your 'supposed' great gummi merely summoned it from my grasp, stealing it and sealing me in my chambers to rot in my immortality." His story was chilling to me and yet I still had a bad feeling about him. "So, what would you do with the time stone if you had it?" I asked. "With it I could see into the future and shape it to my liking. A vision that I had, before it was cruelly stolen from me, was of a yellow bear time traveler confronting me and destroying my power. I won't let that happen. You will not destroy me! I shall be master of all existence!" Slightly disturbed and frightened I decided to try my hand at sarcasm once more, "Have you been practicing that, because now you just sound insane." "Joke all you like, but you will give me back my time stone so that I can destroy you at last." He huffed at me.
With a threat like that I began fearing for myself and slowly backed away until I pressed myself into the room's wall. "Do you fear me little gummi?" He asked noticing me back away. "You're crazy, is all. If you want to destroy me then tell me why I should just hand you this time stone?" I yelled back in response. "You know that I speak true. Why else would my eyes shift in color and why would my robes be as a piece of time and space itself?" He asked and raised his right arm in mention of his cloak. As he spoke, his figure began to slowly reverse in age. Noticing this, I looked down at the time stone and notices that one of the characters on it was glowing crimson red. "The symbol of the past. This symbol has the power to alter past events and reverse time inflicted upon a being. Holding the time stone my power would seem instantaneous but as it stands now, all I can do is activate it with minimal power. Does this not prove that the time stone is mine to begin with?" His voice began getting more and more youthful as his age reversed. "The closer I am the more power that I can use."
With that tidbit of information, I looked for the nearest exit and ran as fast as I could away from him. It was tough to find the exit as the entire room was perfectly white and didn't show any outline whatsoever. When I finally located the hall that I came in from, I ran away from him as fast as I could. Again, half way through the hallway, the ruby red crystals began protruding out of the walls and ceiling and getting larger the farther through the hall I got. I stopped inside the ruby room when I heard a familiar giggle. My own.