Naruto Fan Fiction / Sonic X Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Dimensional Warriors: Shadow's Story ❯ The Crystals ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

I woke up on a hospital bed, the man I had seen earlier was on the cot next to me.

“Don't move.” I heard one of the nurses say. “You haven't recovered completely.” I laid back down.

“How long have I been out?”

“A little over twelve hours.” That quickly? I knew I healed quickly, but that was a little insane. The nurse must have noticed my surprised look.

“It's Orihime, she's got amazing healing capabilities. She is the best healer we have, he also was treated by her. We had to sedate him though while we set up some new locks on the kitchen.” I sat up again, I ached a little, but nothing a little running wouldn't fix.

“Don't forget to report in, they want to know when you're ready to go out again!” I heard the nurse yell after me.

I found a quiet place to sit and think in the Mobian district. There were children playing in the street below. It was an odd feeling, the world outside was in such turmoil, and even under constant threat, here the people still acted like there was peace. They even had started fighting amongst each other.

I guess that was our doing. We allowed everyone here to live peacefully, and the worst of it was we enjoyed doing it. I felt alive when I fought, I guess it was what I was built to do, but the others; they were like me, just born rather than made.

I pulled myself out of my head and went to Sally to let her know I was up again.

“Hey Shadow!” I heard Sonic coming up behind me. “Yer up!”

“Yes.”

“I didn't think anything could give you that kind of smack down.” He was in front of me now.

“I wasn't in Super form, it managed to keep me from doing so.” He seemed to think for a moment.

“Still, so you know, they're starting to send out parties after the crystals. They're only sending the best though, the last team just got back.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, it was a success, but some of them didn't make it.” I raised my eyes a little, it had been tough so far, but I hadn't heard of casualties yet. He looked away and then back. “Be careful out there, the next team is doubling up in size. You're running with me.”

“What?”

“We've got two crystals now, we'll each have one.” I didn't exactly like the idea of working with him, but if there were casualties among the strongest... My mind wandered to the thing that had attacked me. The man in the hospital, Goku. He was measurably the strongest fighter here. He won, but wound up in the hospital.

“Alright, but we're going to activate them as soon as we get out of the gates.” I said, heading for the tunnels.

After a bit of a talk with Koenma I managed to get them to send Sonic and myself alone. They mainly only agreed on the fact that we could warp with the Crystals, and a larger group would begin to be unruly. The idea being we would warp in and warp out without a problem.

Seconds later we were staring over a city, our combined energy radiating out. I felt rather than saw demons scattering away from us. In our Super forms, we floated down to the crumbling streets. The sun had set on this area a while ago; the world seemed quiet, still, dead.

“Shadow.” Sonic was standing down the road a bit, pointing. Looking down the street I thought I saw a golden tan ear flickering in the light we generated. Sonic was already moving, by the time I got there he was holding her body silently.

She had been shot and left. Judging from the wounds it had happened weeks ago. Looking at her I felt anger coursing through my body. Sonic hadn't moved, I placed a hand tentatively on his shoulder.

“Cream... She's...”

“I know, we'll stop this. For her too.” I said, controlling myself fairly well.

“Must be nice...” Sonic said, slowly getting up and dusting himself off. “Not feeling anything.” He was giving me a cold look.

“Now is not the time.” His piercing stare didn't wane but he lowered his fist.

“Fine. Let's find this thing and get out of here.” I nodded, staring out into the darkness. While he had been talking we had been surrounded, I could hear the low thud of Solarus footsteps in the darkness.

“Blast!” I fired a small burst of energy, the light flew into the horde of Solarus and exploded. There must have been thousands of them. Sonic seemed to have noticed too.

“Well, this is going to be fun.”

“Break to the south.” I said, he nodded. I balled up as bullets began cutting into our energy shields. The two of us launched into the crowd, scattering and demolishing them until we were clear. Then we began running, circling the area as we went.

“When one of us finds the ball, fly up!” Sonic yelled at me, breaking off. I sped forward, driving myself back into the horde.

Just stopping scattered several of them, I fired off a series of shots, clearing a small area around a broken building. With opportunity present, I entered and began searching. Every few seconds I'd collapse a piece of the roof, or blast a hole in the floor, or destroy a Solarus that got too close.

Desks, closets, rubble, I searched everywhere I could think, before busting through the wall into the next building. By the time I had hunted through five buildings, the stray bullets had eaten away at my energy I was no longer blasting with it, using what was left to maintain a shield. My golden hue was beginning to fade, a few bullets had cut through my shield and I was already sporting a few freely bleeding wounds where I had been grazed or clipped.

Finally in a pile of rubble near the center of town I found the orange orb and reached for it. As I did my arm flew away, I felt the bone break as a bullet passed clean through. Looking up the Solarus were nearly on top of me. Quickly I grabbed the orb, and drew the last of my energy before launching myself into the air.

Sonic jumped out soon afterward and we used what was left between us to warp.

I woke up coughing. We had warped, but where was a hard question. I shook Sonic awake.

“Where are we?” He asked looking around at the icy landscape.

“Feels like ice floats, meaning we popped ourselves out into the middle of the most frigid part of the ocean.” I said. This wasn't good, both of us would need to recover strength before we could warp again, and the best we could hope to do in this wasteland was break even; and that would be with food. The two crystals we had were drained, and if prior knowledge served, would take a day or two to recover.

I deftly ate the last of the bread I had grabbed in case of emergency; trying to think about how to get off this rock when Sonic started wandering away.

“What are you doing?”

“Gonna go exploring.”

“Idiot, our best chance is to sit still and recover our strength to the point we can warp.”

“Yeah but I'm bored.”

“Suffer a little then!”

“Like you would know the meaning!” I realized I was seconds away from decking him, wasting precious energy.

“Fine. Go. I'll tell them there was another casualty.” I said, sitting back down. I tried to calm myself, but he sat next to me.

“Did you really not feel anything? Seeing her?”

“I watched my closest friend die before my eyes... twice. What do you think?” I was annoyed, and was probably hiding in my childhood tragedy, but I was also cold, and didn't want to think too hard.

“You know what I think? I think you do care. You just like to act tough.”

“And what about you? Always running away once the threat is over.”

“Eh, just like being free. People start relying on you too much and you loose the ability to be free.” I sighed, now I was getting bored.

“Alright, we'll do one lap around the ice floats, we might find something useful.” I said, getting up and dusting off the snow.

“Now we're talking. I'll go this way, you go that and we'll meet at the other side.”

I had to admit it felt nice, feeling the wind whipping through my spines. Even if it was frigid, my body was warming itself up with the activity. So I picked up my pace, feeling the ice crumbling from the heat my feet generated as I neared my top speed, until something physically snapped my body prone.

The orb in my pouch had locked onto something, I desperately pulled it out, to keep it from ripping its way out. My hands could barely hold it as it strained against my grip.

It flew a good few feet before crashing into the ice. For a moment nothing happened, then a pulsing green light filled my vision. Floating in the new crater was the green Chaos Crystal, 4 rusted stars sitting in the center.

“Sonic!” I called out, I knew he was close.

“Hey! I thought we were going to meet half...” He stopped as he saw the Crystal. “You found the matching Emerald!”

“Yep! Let's get home!” I said, holding the Crystal out to him.

When we got back the entire base was under alert. Apparently a new group had arrived and they were causing a bit of a ruckus. They wanted to attack, Metudo wanted to stay the defensive. Sonic and I were exhausted, we chose to sit back and watch the chaos.

Surprisingly it was the non-fighters that rose against these newcomers. Odin stepped in, as did Anatos and Metudo, but the other fighters decided to stand back and watch. I was sure we all wanted the same thing, to go and finish this. If these people had a way to win, then I was behind them.

It concluded as I had hoped, their leader, a young girl named Neko had won out in a fight against Metudo. Historically, this meant the passing of the torch. There was also some business about one of the others having a big secret that got out. I didn't care.

What I did care about was the changes over the next few days. The people were being armed, all of the fighters were being fitted for armor and weapons if desired. One of the newcomers, Thorium, had control over metals; and he was generating more than enough to fuel a war machine.

The plan was somewhat simple, we were going to launch an attack in six directions. The majority of us were going to attack from the ground, Tech was busy building up a fleet to air drop us close enough to strike.

I was asked to join at the West group. Four people were given the Crystals; Goku, Sonic, Luffy, and Ichigo. They were each put in a different group. I was running alongside Sonic, much to my dismay.

We were going to be leading the Mobian army, so I guess it made some form of sense. Everyone was armed, so long as they could fight. Only a tenth were remaining behind to defend the young and the old.

I chose to forgo armor or weapons of any kind, they would just hinder my movement. My goal was simple enough. Get to the tower, and retrieve the Crystals. Eggman had managed to gather three while we were hunting, and I could not allow whatever that black stone was to wake up.
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