Feeling something rubbing against his face, Sydra wakes up to find himself entangled within roots from his tree. Pulling the roots off of his body, Sydra gets up from the ground and looks around.
'That's odd, why did I pass out?' Sydra wonders, feeling a light pain in the back of his head. Reaching his hand back, Sydra starts to rub his head but stops when he hears a clicking sound. Pulling his hand back, Sydra looks at it in shock.
His hand is now covered in a light layer of bone, that is being held together by roots. Following the roots down, Sydra notices that his entire body is covered in bones held together by roots.
"What the heck?!" Sydra says, running over to one of the glass cases that he has stored in his Arbor Sanctum and looking at his reflection. In the reflection, Sydra sees that he now has a crown of bones protruding from his white hair, and his jaw is outlined with a spiky bone as well. Glancing farther down, Sydra notices that his head is resting upon a neck of roots that cover his entire body.
"At least my face is okay," Sydra says, turning back and forth to get a better look at the bones leaving his body of roots. "But why did this happen, and how do I go back to how I used to look?"
Turning around, Sydra notices that the five roots of earlier have also undergone a change. The root Sydra had chosen earlier was the one that he acquired from the death of the Bone-Tree Golem, which would explain his appearance now. However, after choosing that root, the other four shrunk in size and merged with it.
"If the roots have merged with the Bone-Tree Golem one, then what happened to my powers?" Sydra wonders, activating his fire aura as a test. Holding up his palm, Sydra conjured a small sphere of flames, only it wasn't red like it had been before. Now the fire revolving above his hand was a pale white color, and the presence it gave off seemed more dangerous than before.
"So I didn't lose my powers, they just underwent a change. I should test them out, and see what they can do now," Sydra says, leaving the tree and heading towards an open spot of land. Placing his hands on the ground, Sydra rose his surroundings to create a type of coliseum. Once the coliseum was done, Sydra created a few straw golems and had them stand in different areas.
"First, the fire," Sydra says, tossing the pale flames in his hands towards one of the straw golems, expecting something exciting to happen. However, when the flames made contact with the straw golem nothing happened, and the fire quickly died out.
'Huh? Nothing happened... What's the use of these flames then?' Sydra thinks, creating another fireball and tossing it towards another straw golem, only for the flames to disperse a few seconds later.
"I'm sure these flames can do something, but I guess I can figure it out later. The next test will be the spiders," Sydra says, activating the spider aura. On the ground a few feet away from him a miniature grey portal appeared, and a bone spider crawled out. When the bone spider saw Sydra, it began to shake before falling to the ground.
Frowning, Sydra approached the spider to get a better look. The entire spider was made from white bones, and when Sydra tried to pick it up, he found it heavier than he expected.
"Please don't tell me this thing is useless as well," Sydra says, placing the spider back on the ground. Pointing towards one of the straw golems, Sydra commands the spider to attack it as fiercely as it can. As soon as the last word of the command leaves Sydra's mouth, the spider leaps off the ground towards the straw golem, spinning through the air like a drill. When the spider is a few feet away from the golem, a bone thread shoots out of its abdomen and latches in the golem's head. Using the bone thread as an anchor, the spider spins around the golem quicker than Sydra can see, using more thread as a weapon to cut through the golem's body.
"Hmm, I wonder if it will be just as useful against something tougher than straw," Sydra says, summoning forth a metal pole and having the spider attack it instead.
As the cut pieces of the metal pole fall to the ground, Sydra smiles and tries to send the spider away. After a few seconds, Sydra becomes upset that the spider isn't dispersing as they had done before. Frowning, Sydra tosses a fireball towards the spider, curious if the pale flame will work against something made from bones.
Watching the pale flame cover the spider's body, Sydra feels a connection form with the fire. The connection tells him that he has two options at the moment, one to enhance, and the other is to devour. Choosing the devour option, Sydra watches as the flame on the spider flashes brightly, before fading away. Left behind is only a pile of the spider's ash, but it is soon swept away by a gust of wind.
"So the fire has the ability to either enhance or devour things made of bone. I guess that is useful, and I could probably use it to enhance bone armor, but other than that, it has become useless," Sydra says. "I guess I should test my wings next,"
Focusing on the aura that he used to create his crystal wings, Sydra feels his back twitch as two large wings from behind him. The wings are made from bones that resemble the branches of a tree, and they are held together by leathery bark. Flapping them, Sydra shoots up into the sky above the island.
"Wait, if my wings are now made from bones and bark, what about all the crystal creatures on the island?" Sydra says, scanning the ground below him for the creatures he saved. As his eyes sweep over the island, Sydra notices several creatures made mostly out of plants, with small spikes of bone here and there.
"I see, the creatures changed with me then," Sydra says, dropping to the ground in front of one of the creatures to get a better look. The creature used to be a crystal lizard, but now it was covered in lushes bark, with bone spikes going down its back, and stopping at the end of its tail. When the lizard notices Sydra, it immediately drops to the ground in a submissive position.
"That's the second creature that has become subservient upon seeing me... Is it because of my new form?" Sydra wonders, looking down at his bone and root hand. "Either way, I only have one more power to test out," Sydra says, before flying back into the air towards the coliseum. Once he is gone, the lizard slowly gets back up from the ground and looks toward the coliseum with reverence.
Landing back inside the coliseum, Sydra pulls his wings back into his body and raises his arm. Focusing on the area where his turtle shield would form, Sydra activates his aura, watching as a long bone shield appears instead. The bone shield goes along his arm, and at the bottom are three curved spikes of bone that Sydra can use as weapons. Swinging his arm around, Sydra tests out the weight of the shield, and how he has to shift his body to balance it out.
"It feels natural, and my body seems to balance itself automatically when I move," Sydra says, removing the bone shield from his arm and looking back at the palace, "I wonder how long I was out, I should probably head back now,"
Summoning his wings, Sydra launches himself into the air and flies towards the palace. High above the ground, Sydra notices that the children have left the palace and are feeding some of the animals that were in the cages at the Evowave base. The creatures are acting docile towards the children, but when they sense Sydra flying above them, they begin to surround the children in a protective manner.
Landing on the ground a few meters from the creatures, Sydra slowly approaches them with his hands up. "Wow, this is the treatment I receive after saving your sorry butts," Sydra says, watching as the creatures look at Sydra in confusion before recognizing him.
"Sydra? Is that you?" Jemma asks, walking out from behind the creatures. "Why do you look like that?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think I underwent an evolution. I was hoping to find a way to change back inside my library when I saw you down here," Sydra says, "I really hope I don't have to look like this for the rest of my life,"
Stepping forward, Moss looks at Sydra in uncertainty before seeming to make up her mind about something. "I... I could probably help you regain your previous look,".