I bolted up, sweat coating my face and leaving a salty taste in my mouth. I was hyperventilating and afraid. When I began to feel light-headed, I snapped out of my state of fear and concentrated on slowing my breathing.

I closed my eyes. I had the worst nightmare ever, I thought to myself. I tried to remember what it was about, but I drew a blank. All I could remember was fear and pain. Fear and pain from what?

I tried to think back for another minute before giving up and looking around. The landscape looked like a thinned-out forest. The colors, however, were all mixed up; the ground was a rich, deep purple, going well with the emerald green of the sky. All the trees, bushes, rocks, and water, though, were black, as it they were just silhouettes.

Maybe this is still a dream. I leaned back on my arms to try spot the sun in the sky, but I only felt empty air. A yelp escaped me as I fell backwards. It was only about a foot drop, but I landed on something that didn't feel like solid rock or liquid water. It was kind of in the middle, like a trampoline or Jell-O. It looked like a lake, only with black water and purple and black shores.

I couldn't find the platform I was just sitting on.

I thought it was all a dream, so I didn't worry about it too much. I glanced around for a little while longer, wondering whether I should get up or not, when I saw a patch of the green sky between two black trees. I watched it for a while. The green seemed to be coming closer…

"Hey!" I yelled as the color suddenly flared up, burning my eyes from looking at it. The green color grew brighter until it turned white, becoming too much for me. I leaned back and turned my already-shut eyes away, shielding my face with my arms. "Turn down the lights, will ya?"

After a few seconds, the brightness of the color faded away, slowly dying down to its normal(ish) emerald. Why, I thought, is it that bright light hurts to look at and touch, and yet darkness is the evil one?

I opened my eyes and blinked before taking a chance at looking back through my arms. I saw the trees for only a second before I noticed my arms.

My tan arms.

With human skin.

I gasped as I brought my arms down, stunned. Yep, they were human limbs. I thought I had changed back to my human form, but I still had my white gloves on. They still had the cyan insignia on them. I still had my cyan bracelets and gold rings on.

Startled, I flipped around until I was on my gloved hands and knees (also human-like and covered with dark blue fabric), staring at my full-colored, mirror-like reflection in the viscous black water. I was human, alright, but only a human; I didn't recognize my reflection at all. Sure, I had my long hair and clear eyes. I had earrings on, like usual, a loose long-sleeved shirt, and a necklace. Like the rest of this distorted world, though, the colors were all wrong. My shirt was half white and half cyan, and my silver necklace was replaced with a translucent amethyst möbius strip on a silver chain. Instead of my usual gold earrings, I had a silver four-pointed star stud in one ear and a black metal dragon wrapped around the other. I reached up and rubbed my finger over its spiked mane.

While different apparel wasn't really too surprising, I was gawking at my face. My hair, instead of being burgundy-brown, was stark white, and my bangs were streaked with blue. And my eyes were normally green as a human, but they were the same blue as they were when I was a hedgehog. I stared at my reflection for a few more moments, frozen in place from the realization that I was probably some kind of human/mobian hybrid now.

Without noticing it, my aura blinked to life around me. It was still the same shade of blue, and it still caused my gloves to glow where they were patterned, but I also found out that the eyes of my dragon earring lit up ominously; so did my own eyes.

I cried out in shock and scrambled backwards from the spot on the lake, trying to get away from the twisted version of myself. My aura darkened protectively, and my now-white hair fanned out and crackled behind me. I was almost hyperventilating again as I stared at the blank surface of the black water.

"Startling, isn't it?"

My head whipped around, trying to find who had spoken. No one was in sight.

"You've been using Chaos Energy."

It was a statement, I noticed, not a question. "Yeah," I replied slowly, still scanning the area for movement. "What's it to you?"

"Because of that increased Chaos in your body," he (it sounded like a 'he') continued, "your forms have merged. Your physical form has become even more powerful."

My eyes stopped on the trees I was looking at before. I thought the voice was coming from that general area. It made sense, at least: someone usually pops out from a bright light in dreams.

"You're wise. You're witty. You're beautiful. You're powerful, and you can conquer."

I grinned against better judgment. "I would take that as a compliment, but now you sound kind of suspicious, like you want something from me."

"I don't want anything; you want everything."

"Get to the point, will ya?"

I wanted to make him frustrated with me, but it didn't work. "You know everything has a purpose," he told me.

I hesitated, but I nodded. I did think everything had its purpose, after all.

"Names have power, correct?"

I slowly nodded again. "Sure…"

I could hear the smugness in his voice. "You aren't called a Conqueror without being destined to be tasked with conquering.

"Your power should be feared throughout the world. If your beauty doesn't get you to be worshiped, your force would. You could rule armies, driving them forward for your enjoyment. When their psyche is broken, their opinions will falter, becoming at your mercy. Every person and animal is waiting to be molded by you."

"Whatever it is you want, I'm not helping you with it." Even as I said that, I reached up to feel my dragon ear cuff, the symbol of the Emperor in China. The dragon was also the sign of power in many places.

I couldn't help keeping what he said in mind.

"It's not about what I want. I am telling you your future." He paused. "That dragon is molded from obsidian and kyanite, fused with auric energy. Make sure it doesn't break, because it is your second self. If one loses the other, they both perish."

As soon as he finished, everything disappeared. It was like the sun went out on the place, except there was no sun in the first place. I could still feel the ground under me, but the rest was jet black. I blinked and, when nothing changed, turned around, trying to find the source of the now-really-annoying voice.

"Remember that, Krystal."

Pain shot through my stomach, as if it was hit with an arrow.

"You will always be Krystal, in any form."

I screamed and wrapped my arms around my midsection, falling to my knees. Tears clouded my vision; not like there was anything to see.

"Crystals always grow in the most amazing patterns."

I noticed a speck of red fall from my fingers and stop on the ground between my legs, the only color in the world. I cried out in anguish, doubling over as a flame ignited behind the pain, only making it much worse.

"Without the proper conditions, they form differently, for better and for worse."

The drop of scarlet stained the ground, slowly spreading out in a wide circle, away from my pitiful being. The ground was changing, from endless black to a torturous ebony and ruby. Eventually the bold colors grew fuzzy, almost unnoticeable to my pain-shocked senses.

"No matter the beginning, everything is destined to end."

I hung my head, my white hair covering the black sky. The strength to hold on was lost when I moaned and closed my eyes, dropping me into the shadows of unconsciousness as I just barely heard his last echoing whisper.

"Every crystal is destined to break."

"Krystal!"

I shot up, gasping for breath as if I was underwater for five minutes. I shut my eyes again to stop the world from spinning and pressed my hand against my forehead. Rubbing my head, I felt my fingers going through three of my quills and sighed in relief.

A hand fell on my shoulder, and I looked up at Caillech's leaf green eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked, concern and worry etched on her face. "You were sweating when we got over Europe and whimpering when we landed."

I blinked. I was? I rubbed my arms as if I was cold, feeling my gloves slide over the coat of moisture on my fur.

"And the patterns on your gloves were maroon. I thought your hands were bleeding."

Red gloves? Weren't my gloves blue? They were red when…the Chaos Emerald…

I glanced at my ring on my left hand, which seemed to pulse slightly as I watched it. My gloves were still their spotless white with blue circles, but I could believe that they weren't before. "Damn Emerald," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." I laughed, rubbing the back of my hand while thinking back to the messed-up landscape I was just in. "I just had the weirdest dream."

I had a clear picture of the green sky and purple and black ground. As if I walked into fog, though, the image immediately blurred and merged the colors, making it incomprehensible. Alarmed, I tried to think of my shocking humanoid form in the water, but as I tried to remember, it dissipated.

"It was…" I tried to tell the cat, but I could barely remember even dreaming anymore. "I remember I was human, with white hair and… Well, the colors were all…different, with…a sky and…grass." Frustrated, I wrinkled my nose, my head beginning to ache as I put together fading wisps of the memory. "All I can remember now is a dragon…made of Jell-O, I think…"

Caillech grinned. "Alright then. It probably wasn't anything important. I mean, there are skies and grass in the real world to see."

"Heh, yeah." All my annoyance at myself seemed to go away. I couldn't recall even having a dream, nightmare or not.

It probably wasn't anything important, I thought as I started to put the idea aside and look around. I was still on the Tornado II, but it had landed. Sonic and the others were standing or lying around, stretching after the long flight. The sun had just set, leaving a thin band of red under the dark starry sky. The bright lights of a city stood out a few miles away.

"We're in the Netherlands?" I asked.

"We're in the Netherlands."

I grinned, now wide awake. "Time for some Emerald hunting."

Six day update! Yeah! Well, to make up for the last chapter, which took over two months. :)

Time for Emerald hunting indeed! Does anyone live in the Netherlands? Or know someone from the Netherlands that could give me some descriptions of popular places? Good places? Send me a message for help; I haven't been to Europe, but I wanted to put an Emerald in at least one of the countries. The reason I picked that country, though: tulips and the greenery. Can you guess which Emerald it'll be? :)

Oh, and guess what? Our trip (rescheduled due to the volcano last April) to the Netherlands in March has been canceled yet again because of the "increased amount of terrorists in Europe" that make parents "nervous about the safety of the children" or something. Don't know if that's true or not, but that just sucks. :P

Anyway, I'll be busy with things that I won't get done until January, so…nothing much else to say… :/

What, only two reviews last chapter? Please tell me I'm not that bad! :)

Edit: This story'll be on hiatus for a little while. By a little while, I might mean a few months. I'm so busy now. If you want to know what I'm doing, I update my profile every week or so with news toward the top. So that'll be what I'm working on for the week. Thanks, and sorry!

~Silvershadow471