SATMM Ch 39 :part 1:

"Sonic and the Mystic Mage"



Chapter 39



~*part 1*~




       Miia stared around wide-eyed at her new surroundings. Everything around her sparkled like diamonds. In fact, everything around her is encrusted in diamond, though looks seemingly like ice. She looked up to the sky. The sun has already disappeared, but the sky was a dark teal, and it was very clear. No clouds, no stars, no moon, no sun. Miia couldn't even feel time flowing anymore; it was as if it had stopped with no way of knowing if it will ever resume.

She then looked down to the road pavement. It looked so perfectly smooth and shiny she could see her reflection clearly. The young tomboyish mage even walked five steps forward at a normal pace. It wasn't as slippery as ice. She then bent down and touched the diamond-encrusted ground with her two fingers. She could feel the tips of them numbing instantly. It felt cold like ice, looks like ice, but not slippery like ice. Miia could only conclude that she must have traveled to her own subconscious, though she feels that something is off about it.

"Sonic! Amy! Knuckles, Rouge, Silver! Blaze!" Miia called to her friends. "You guys okay?" There was no reply. Then she realized she was right underneath Mammogator, who was also encrusted with diamond-ice and crept out from under it with precaution.

Miia looked to her left, but barely let out a shriek when she saw her friends, yet also encrusted with the diamond ice. They had held her positions still, save for Amy and Rouge, who were frozen with diamond-ice and was held still in the air. Miia wasn't even kidding about time stopping indefinitely.

Miia took two steps slowly, but then picked up her pace to see if she could sense their auras hoping that they are still alive inside. Nothing. She scanned deep into all of their bodies, right down to their cores, but found nothing. She tried to get hold of their subconscious telepathically, but wasn't able to find any thoughts, especially the private ones. Miia sighed and bowed her head in sadness. She could only reach to the conclusion that her best Mobian friends--her soul siblings, rather--are dead frozen in the diamond-ice.

"Are you all right?" a female voice said.

Miia instantly broke her trance of sadness and looked around. "Who said that?" she called. "Show yourself!"

"I am right in front of you," the voice said again.

Miia looked around to the front of her, but then she gaped briefly just to see liquid crystal rising, to form a crystal statue which is a nude molded and melded female wearing a long topless dress, and in a ballet pose. The crystal then melted away to reveal a sprite with white skin, long ice blue hair, silver blue eyes, a long see-through dress to to mid-shin, and wears light blue ballet slippers. She even has ice blue fairy wings in the form of ice crystals. "So I ask again, are you all right?" Her voice was warm yet intimate, despite her color.

"Um..." Miia started to answer. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." She lowered her head. "I guess..."

The winged woman smiled. "Good. I am glad to hear it."

Miia jerked her head up, "But what are you, anyway, hm?"

"I am a winter sprite," the woman replied.

"I can see that, but what I mean is, what are you doing here? Did you freeze whole world into diamond-ice and stopped time too? And froze my friends in the process?"

"Yes and no," the winter sprite answered softly.

Miia exposed her nostrils. "What does that mean?"

"Yes I did, only to your eyes," the sprite replied smoothly. "But to your friends' eyes, you are only frozen solid. So that only your subconscious would be able to move freely like you are right now. The perfect time to have you frozen for 5 Earth minutes or so so that you and I could sit and... chat for a while."

"This, um, feels like a little longer than five minutes."

"In your subconscious, even in your present form, time has no meaning. Therefore, you are considered infinite. The same concept applies to your white-furred friend."

Miia sighed softly. How long will this charade last? Who is she kidding, time doesn't even flow here! Not even in her own subconscious. But then she thought about what the winter sprite said. If Silver manipulates time, then that must mean Silver would most likely to never age again. Miia is hoping desperately this same concept doesn't apply to her.

"Now, I have heard that you were having some trouble with your telekinesis," the sprite said suddenly, which made Miia's train of thought crash into a tree in her own mind.

"Uh, just how did you know that?" Miia asked, trying to be as calm as possible. "Don't tell me that you were watching over me or something."

The winter sprite grinned. "I have been watching over you since you had gotten your ice-time form. However, your flaw, in your opinion, is gaining telekinesis."

"I know, and I hated it," replied Miia. "I always keep on getting these damn seizures and blackouts."

"...I happen to have a solution for you," the sprite offered.

Miia's face beamed. "You do?"

The winter sprite grinned. "Of course I do, but I will not tell you."

"You... won't?" Miia only exposed her blank face. (She does not like showing off her blank face, mind you.) Then she changed (her expression) to suspicion, "What sort of scheme do you have up your sleeve, hm??"

The winter sprite said nothing for a short moment. Then she summoned three ice balls, which are smoothed-out diamond spheres and sent them flying towards Miia at top speed.

The young mage shouted as she flapped her diamond wings to dodge the spheres. Has that sprite chick gone crazy?! she thought. Or what?! Better yet, just what the hell are her true intentions, hm?!

Suddenly the diamond-ice spheres turned and races towards Miia rapidly. She, with quick thinking, managed to shatter the spheres with her Ice Crystal Spear spell, making an immediate effect on the spheres. "All right!" Miia exclaimed victoriously. "Huh?"

Miia's victory ended as the spheres reformed again. "No way! They just glue themselves back together again!? Something's odd here..."

Her thinking was interrupted when one of the spheres impacted towards her. Using a time slow spell on the spheres, she managed to shatter the spheres once again with her Ice Spear spell, and getting time on the spheres to normal. "This time stay dead," Miia told the spheres with a tough tone.

The winter sprite chuckled behind her. She turned around and asked in a demanding tone, "What's so funny?"

The sprite stopped chuckling abruptly. "I must admit, that was quite remarkable. Of you destroying my ice spheres. However... would you be able to destroy this?" The sprite then summoned a large diamond-like ice sphere--larger than the rest of the spheres--then directed it towards Miia at ramming speed.

Miia dodged it in time, but then the sphere changed direction and flew towards her. "The shit?! It must be a heat-seeker, I can't outrun it!" she shouted. "In that case, I'll have to use a time-stop spell on it so that I could destroy it!"

She tries to increase her speed by flapping her wings harder and faster, but she still couldn't outrun the sphere. Awhile, she chipped off a head of an ice-encrusted lamppost with her right foot. She flinched and was nearly knocked out by the large sphere and was sent flying to the ground instead. "Ouch... my foot..." she whined.

Just then the large ice sphere began falling towards Miia top speed. "Eep!" she said as she scrambled to her feet (despite the pain inflicted to her right foot). She then put out her hand palms exposed and squeezed her eyes shut silently thinking, This is it; it's the end. Little did Miia realize that her body and mind are fully relaxed. Everything she thought about was passing by before her mentally. Even then she saw a blue bubble containing a familiar blue hedgehog winking, grinning and giving off a thumbs-up at the same time. That's...!

With that thought, Miia shot open her eyes suddenly and she sees the large ice sphere stopped immediately, with a cyan aura surrounding it. She even checked the psychic markings on her gloves. They, too, are glowing brightly. But oddly enough, there seems to be no strain on her brain as much as there was when she was using telekinesis. "Wha... what's this...?" Miia could barely ask. "Why was... why was there...?"

"A serene state of mind," the winter sprite replied.

"'Serene state of mind'?" Miia repeated.

"A type of state of mind in which a user clears all thoughts and obtains peace in oneself," the sprite explained in a soft tone. "And that is the key upon using telekinesis more properly and better."

Miia looked down briefly. So that's what her true intentions are, she thought. Then again, I knew I had to use my telekinesis properly, I just didn't know what then.

"And now, for you to pass," the sprite began. "Destroy the ice sphere. Any of your methods will do upon doing it."

Miia hesitated to nod, and then pushed the large ice sphere away from her so that she could use some space. Then she took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself (as well as keeping the "serene state of mind" concept within her) and put all telekinetic energy into her right hand. Then she imagined crumbling a piece of paper with one hand and tried to imitate the same thing in real life, by spreading out her fingers, then closed her fist slowly. As she was doing so, the ice sphere began to crack, crack, crack, and cracked some more until the sphere shattered, turning into diamond dust and snowflakes in the process. Miia could only stand here, with wide eyes, staring with awe as the sparkling dust fell to the ground. It's almost as if she was watching snow fall, except it has more sparkle than flake.

"You pave passed," the winter sprite said to Miia as she flittered towards her with her graceful ballet movements. "I will break the spell and resume time again. You will be reunited with your friends once again to defeat the Mirror Beast, and hopefully, gain another Chaos Emerald."

"Um..." Miia said as she gulped. "Th-thank you f-for helping me with this, um, test."

The winter sprite smiled. "You are welcome, child." She then touched Miia's chin with her fingers. They felt warm, though naturally, Miia would have expected her fingers to feel cold, upon assuming winter sprites must be cold to the touch. But instead the touch was so warm, so... human. "Remember, please. A serene state of mind."

The sprite then let go of Miia's chin and walked backwards at a normal, human-like pace and then surrounded herself with white-blue energy ribbons until she was engulfed in a wondrous sparkling sphere of light. Miia slowly closed her eyes as the sphere of light came towards her slowly. She couldn't wait to get out of her own subconscious so that she could finish her and her friends' fight with Eggman and the were-animals' cybernetic Mirror Beast. At first, Miia felt cold, as the sprite stated that she was frozen in ice and able to move freely in her own subconscious, but then everything around her warmed up. She could even feel the ice melting outside of her. She could even hear her friends calling out her. But mostly, she could hear the voice of someone most important to her.




T.B.C