Chapter 9: The Saltwater Dungeon:

Once again, Sonic Jr. and his friends woke up bright and early to squeeze in as much progress in their quest as they could before sundown. At the moment, they were busy scrounging through the marketplace in search of useful equipment for underwater travel, though due to the recent switch to communism, the options in terms of what they could buy were quite limited.

"Alright, so we'll definitely need something we can use to stay underwater for a prolonged amount of time." Tyco noted, "And if we can actually fucking find it somewhere, maybe some gear that will let us swim better could suffice."

"Aw, dammit! If I'd known we'd be looking for the emeralds underwater, I would've packed my bathing suit!" Jade groaned in reply.

"Yeah. Kind of a shame." Junior replied instinctively, though he quickly slapped both hands over his mouth upon realizing what he had just said.

Thankfully for him, Jade did nothing more than roll her eyes. The trio continued to browse the stands for something to aid them in their quest, but to no avail.

"Well, uh, maybe we could just buy some Aqua Shields?" Tyco suggested, "They don't affect swimming prowess all that much, but they'll at least keep us alive and dry. Plus, they're super cheap!"

"... And that's for a reason: they wear off after just one hit." Junior replied, "That emerald doesn't just happen to be underwater - it was taken there. And I'm at least 99.9% certain that it's being guarded. If we try to snag it with nothing but Aqua Shields as protection, we'd never make it."

"Psst! Hey, strangers!" A voice whispered from behind the group.

All three heroes turned around to find a short, lanky man with frizzy black hair so long that it obscured half of his face. He reciprocated their eye-contact through slightly sunken gray eyes as he smoked on a thick, obviously homemade cigar.

"So! You're going on an underwater treasure hunt, huh?" The man asked with a chuckle, "Well, I think I just might have what you need... if you're willing to trust me, that is!"

"Really? That's great!" Junior replied.

"Er... I dunno if this is a smart thing to do!" Jade whispered into his ear, "We don't exactly know this guy!"

"We'll do it!" Tyco answered in the place of the others.

After Jade rolled her eyes yet again, the trio followed him into an alley between a pair of marketplace stands. The man continuously swiveled his head around in all conceivable directions as he walked in order to make sure the group wasn't being followed. When they finally reached a dead end, he looked around once more before reaching behind a rusted green dumpster and pulling out a briefcase. He undid the two locks on the side and flipped it open, revealing a vibrant golden light that momentarily blinded the heroes before it died down. The contents of the briefcase included a set of three metallic blue earrings in the shape of brittle-starfish, alongside a few capsules containing Speed Shoes.

"Pretty neat, aren't they?" The man asked, revealing several white-gold teeth as he grinned slyly, "They're imports from Chun-Nan, and since this country's gone communist, you can probably see why I'm selling them in this manner."

"The, uh... Speed Shoes?" Junior asked hesitantly.

"Nope, but the earrings are. Not only will they keep your skin and clothes dry, but they'll also let you breathe underwater indefinitely, and provide you with crystal-clear vision without the need for goggles. Oh, and don't worry - they're clip-ons." The man explained, "Now as for the Speed Shoes, my dealer... I-I mean business partner was unable to find anything that would work similarly and permanently, so these were my only choice. Plus, I can't sell only illegal things, am I right?"

"You raise a good point, there." Junior replied, shaking the man's hand, "Alright good sir, you've got yourself a deal! Name the price!"

"Two pans of pot-brownies." The man chuckled in reply, "Naw, just messin' with ya'. One hundred rings."

"Thank God my dad's a billionaire." Junior muttered under his breath as he pulled out a large ring that was worth one hundred of the smaller variety.

"Sold! Have a nice day!" The man replied with a smile as the heroes made off with their new equipment.

"Hopefully, that'll be the last time we get assistance from a black market salesman!" Jade said after the trio had left the village, "I guess this time we were left with no choice, but... still."

"So what now? Do we just go find the temple?" Tyco asked.

"Not quite yet. First, we need to get a general idea of where it is so we're not just blindly searching for hours on end and wasting time. Besides, those Speed Shoes we got will only last for so long." Junior replied, before he suddenly felt an odd sensation.

Wordlessly, he pulled out the completed tablet, which had suddenly begun to glow radiantly.

"Whaddaya suppose that means?" Jade asked.

"Well, maybe it signifies that... !" Tyco replied, before he was interrupted by a generic ringtone that emanated from somewhere.

He pulled out the Miles Electric and tapped the screen, which immediately cut to a live news report from the local network.

"Good morning, citizens of The Genesis Isles!" The newscaster announced, "In a sudden phenomenon, a massive lime-green light has suddenly appeared in our beautiful waters just off the western coast of Christmas Island, mystifying countless civilians and scaring a few of them utterly shitless! Fortunately, nobody was harmed during the abrupt event, but all people have been cautioned to avoid swimming in the glowing portion of the water until proper investigations have been completed! That will be all!"

"Well, that's a plot-convenience if I ever saw one." Jade noted.

"Tell me about it." Junior replied, "But at least they're almost always useful whenever they occur! I guess that light appeared to signify that the key to the temple is nearby!"

"I suppose we should call Buck so he can take us out there?" Tyco asked.

"Nah, he just got back with his wife! We should let them bond for a while!" Junior replied, "Besides, he did tell us that the winds are only turbulent around the other islands. We should be perfectly fine as long as we stick close to this one."

Within a half-hour, the Tornado-2 (now back in its default form) was parked high in the air, and just outside the expanse of green light. All three heroes stood on the left wing, staring down at the seemingly bottomless ocean down below with determination and slight nervousness.

"Alright, I set the plane to hover inside the cloud-layer so it won't get towed again." Tyco stated, "We can jump whenever."

"Well, we could jump now, if everyone's ready." Junior replied.

"All set!" Jade replied eagerly.

"Yeah, what she said!" Tyco added.

"Welp, here goes nothing!" Junior cheered, "GERONIMO!"

Both Jade and Tyco watched as the young hedgehog (obviously showing off) performed a tuck before uncurling himself and staying upright, enabling himself to land in the water feet-first with a very minimal splash. After he popped back up and flashed a thumbs-up, they both jumped in after him. Tyco intentionally did a back-flop so he could watch the plane. Sure enough, the minute he leapt off its wing, the Tornado-2 gained a copious amount of altitude in order to hide itself among the clouds. Finally, all three heroes plunged underwater, able to breathe normally, see clearly, stay dry, and even speak amongst themselves due to the effects of the earrings.

"Okay, so we obviously can't see through this light. In that case, we'll have to follow the signal." Tyco explained, "What say we activate these things now so we can find the temple as quickly as possible?"

"I like the way you think, Tyco!" Junior replied, "Alright, on three! One... two... THREE!"

With that, all three heroes squeezed the capsules containing the Speed Shoes until they popped, causing their feet to sparkle.

"Alright, quickly guys!" Tyco announced, "We've gotta dive deeper!"

Wordlessly, the others obliged and swam after him at a greatly enhanced speed. From that point on, Tyco continued to announce various directional commands until the signal grew exponentially stronger. Without warning, the blinding light around the group suddenly died down, allowing them to take in their surroundings. The ocean floor was covered in soft, white sand, and countless shipwrecks and rocks were scattered all over it for as far as the eye could see.

"Huh. I was kind of expecting a vibrant coral reef, if I were to be completely honest." Jade said disappointedly.

"But more importantly, check this out!" Junior replied, prompting his comrades to swim towards him until they were on either side of him, "This must be that temple we've been looking for! I guess all that light died down in response to the tablet being in such close proximity to it!"

"Yeah, I guess so!" Jade replied, before her eyes widened, "Hey! Look at those symbols!"

The three stared in awe and curiosity at the massive stone door before them. It was divided into three equally-sized segments arranged in a circle, with each one possessing an image that was glowing in the same color as the one on the tablet. Speaking of which, a small, rectangular slot was positioned right at the center portion of the door where all three sections met. However, the thing that intrigued our heroes the most were the images on the door itself. On the upper-left section was an enlarged image of what appeared to be a tadpole. On the upper right was a somewhat translucent sphere, and on the bottom was a liquor bottle.

"Hmm... tadpole... pearl... liquor?" Tyco questioned, eyeing the illustrations.

"I think those are supposed to be a sperm and an egg." Jade replied.

"Wait! I remember Grandma told us about how she drank while she was pregnant with Dad and his siblings! And she also mentioned how only Dad suffered the effects of it! That can't have just been a lucky occurrence!" Junior exclaimed, "So... does this mean that my father... was some kind of legend?! Who was destined to be born and become a hero?!"

"And that image on the tablet looks just like him as well!" Jade added, "... Or at least the way he looked when he was younger!"

"Holy shit." Junior said, trying to calm himself down via a series of deep breaths, "I'm sorry, but that's a lot to take in."

Meanwhile, Tyco was looking off to the left of the door and spotted a conspicuous hole in the bedrock wall, leading to a darkened cave.

"Hey! What's this?" He asked, immediately swimming towards it.

"Tyco, what are you doing?! We've got an emerald to find!" Jade called after him.

However, Tyco did not listen and swam into the hole. His two comrades swam after him, but before they could enter the cave themselves, a tremor suddenly occurred and resulted in the entrance getting blocked by several hard-to-move rocks.

"Oh no! TYCO!" Junior yelled, "TYCO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

Meanwhile, inside the cavern, Tyco (who had almost completely ignored the tremor) found his way into a surprisingly open area with walls covered in bioluminescent algae, giving the room a dreamy, almost fantastical vibe. The thing that caught his eye the most, however, was a treasure chest right in the center of the floor, which he immediately made a beeline for. Slightly struggling to open it, he reached into the glowing interior and pulled out what appeared to be three platinum bracelets, each one possessing a flat ruby attached to it, which was cased in even more platinum.

"You have acquired the Current Anklets. Now you can indefinitely swim thrice as fast as you normally could, and freely use any special abilities you may possess while underwater." Tyco read from the note attached to the roof of the chest, "Okay then."

Without hesitation, he slipped one of the anklets onto his right ankle, thankful that it was able to slip on over the one he already had on (which helped to magnify his psychokinesis).

"I should probably get out of here and give these to the others! They could definitely prove useful to them too!" Tyco added.

Just as he was about to start swimming back towards the entrance to the cave, however, he heard another tremor, which wasn't quite as strong as the previous one, but enough to send some small rubble falling down from the ceiling.

"Okay, what was that?" He asked somewhat nervously, before continuing to swim.

Soon enough, however, yet another tremor occurred. The cat-hedgehog hybrid turned around to see that the now empty treasure chest had been overturned and slightly cracked from the impact, and a thick cloud of dust had appeared right behind its previous spot, alongside more rubble.

"Alright, this is really starting to freak me out." He continued, "Alright, whoever's doing this, please cut that shit out!"

He waited for a minute more, doing his best to enter a nervous fighting-stance while the underwater environment was preventing him from finding solid footing. His patience paid off, as another tremor occurred, and this time he could see the source. A long, jet-black tentacle with a midnight purple underside lined with blood red suckers appeared from the darkness behind the dust cloud and slapped the wall of the cave.

"Aha! Caught you in the act!" Tyco cheered, "Now! Care to explain your actions?"

As he spoke, he swam closer to the dust cloud, which finally had a chance to settle down, revealing a large, crimson eye with a mustard-colored sclera staring down at him.

"Er... whoa! H-Hey there, uh, big fella!" Tyco said, almost at a complete loss for words.

Within a few more seconds, several lavender-colored photophores appeared all around the eye, alongside a midnight purple beak. The added light only allowed Tyco to appreciate the mysterious creature's immense size.

"Wait! WHAT THE FUCK?!" He exclaimed in a combination of shock and horror.

Suddenly, the creature swam upwards slightly and let out a loud hiss, baring its massive beak in Tyco's direction and revealing itself to be a humungous, predatory squid.

"Oh, fucking shit!" Tyco said, before he was forced to narrowly dodge a swing from one of its tentacles.

He let out a scream as he proceeded to swim as quickly as he could back to the cave's entrance, where he discovered to his horror that it had been locked. He nervously glanced behind him to see a tentacle continuing to pursue him through the tunnel.

Meanwhile, back outside, Junior and Jade were still hanging on the ocean floor outside the cave, waiting for Tyco to find a way out seeing how they had seemingly no way of finding another way into the cave he had ventured into. Suddenly, however, they both heard a series of muffled screams - a clear indication of just how terrified the victim was.

"Oh my God! What did he do?!" Jade asked worriedly.

"We're comin', Tyco! Just hang in there!" Junior yelled back as he proceeded to swim up to the blocked cave entrance.

However, before he could do anything, he found himself having to quickly swim away as the rocks were suddenly enveloped in a blue aura, before they were launched outwards. Before either he or Jade could comment, Tyco swam out in a panicked state and rejoined them. Behind him, the same tentacle briefly poked out of the cave and flailed around for a spell, before pulling back in.

"Guys! You're not gonna believe what happened!" He started, pulling out the remaining two Current Anklets and showing them to his friends, "I found a chest in there that contained these! But right after I got them, some squid... thing appeared out of nowhere and almost got me!"

"Really, now? You seriously think we're gonna buy... ?!" Junior asked, before he was interrupted by a massive tremor.

All three heroes watched in horror as a large shipwreck right by the wall where the cave was began to shift around. Various spots of lavender light could be seen flickering through holes in its wooden planks, and a few black tentacles poked out from underneath. Without warning, the entire squid appeared, sending countless pieces of the wreckage flying out in all directions and revealing the entirety of its black and purple body, which appeared to be entirely robotic. Its eye shifted around for a spell before its pupil shrank upon noticing the heroes.

"THE HELL?!" Junior gawked.

"And you two didn't believe me!" Tyco snapped back.

The squid spread all its tentacles out and bared its beak as it let out another shriek.

"WAUGH! IT'S THE JAPANESE! SWIM FOR IT!" Jade exclaimed as she and the others proceeded to swim away as fast as they could.

"Quick! To the temple!" Junior exclaimed, making a beeline for the door.

However, the squid outswam the trio and halted in front of the door, clearly intending to prevent them from entering. Before anyone could react, it extended a couple of its tentacles in an attempt to grab the heroes, but they all swam away as quickly as possible. With no choice but to try and lose the squid, they proceeded to maneuver through the countless shipwrecks and rock-formations in an attempt to trap it, though all attempts failed as the squid simply shrugged off everything that hit it. During one portion of the chase, Tyco managed to catch up to Junior and slip one of the remaining anklets onto his left ankle.

"Tyco, what are you... ?" He asked, only to get cut off.

"I'll explain later!" Tyco replied dismissively.

The trio continued to flee from their mechanical predator, and eventually came across a shipwreck much larger than the others. The interior of the ship was full of large containers, alongside many tight spaces and sharp turns, enabling the trio to increase the gap between themselves and the squid. When Junior and Tyco reached the end of the wreck, they found themselves hovering above a bottomless pit right off the edge of a drop-off into the open sea. They looked behind them to see Jade catching up, though her boot was abruptly caught in a frond of kelp that was poking through some loose planks of wood. She managed to untangle her foot, but by the time she did this, the squid had caught up with her and rammed through all the obstacles between himself and her. Jade let out a scream as she was grabbed by one of his tentacles.

"JADE!" Tyco and Junior exclaimed in unison as they hurried over to try and pry her free.

Jade herself struggled to pry herself out. She briefly glanced behind her to see that the squid's massive break was getting ever closer to her and was wide open, revealing countless buzz-saw blades inside it. The only thing that was barely keeping her from getting shredded was the pulling from both of her cohorts. Eventually, Tyco proceeded to use his telekinesis to grab Jade and attempt to force her out of the squid's grip, which worked slightly more effectively, though much resistance was provided by the tentacle.

"Junior!" He said as he struggled to hold his concentration, "That anklet can let you use your powers underwater! I think you may need to take advantage of that now!"

Junior nodded and used a couple of homing attacks to try and loosen the squid's grip, but it hardly worked. Not even landing a direct hit in its eye did much to help. Finally, Tyco used his telekinesis to pull Jade in a random direction, while using his free hand to charge up a fireball. With Jade out of the way, he aimed right for the squid's hungry beak.

"Junior! Get down!" He yelled.

Junior obeyed him and swam down onto the ocean floor just as the massive fireball was launched right over his head, somehow not extinguishing due to the surrounding water. The projectile hit its mark perfectly and caused the machines within the squid's body to malfunction as several sparks and a thick cloud of smoke flew out of its beak. Its body jerked around erratically and its tentacles flailed around in a similar manner, allowing Jade to safely swim away. With one final pull from Tyco's psychokinesis, the entire shipwreck and the squid (who was trapped inside it) were launched off the cliff and sent plummeting into the dark depths of the ocean, the smoke cloud trailing behind them as they fell. All three heroes were panting slightly.

"Gee whiz! How many close calls are we gonna have on this adventure?!" Jade asked.

"I dunno. But hopefully, we don't have any more that are quite as close as this one." Junior replied.

"Well hey, at least we got some nifty new gear out of this!" Tyco replied, pulling out the last remaining Current Anklet, "Here, Jade! Put this anklet on! It'll let you swim faster and use your powers underwater with as much skill as you can on land!"

"Why didn't you give me this thing sooner?!" Jade asked as she slipped it on.

"Well, we obviously couldn't while we were being chased." Tyco replied.

Within a few more minutes, the team made their way back to the temple's entrance. Now free from any more inconveniences, Junior inserted the tablet into its slot on the door, which caused all four images to glow in a radiant lime-green sheen. Finally, all three sections of the door gave way to reveal a dark tunnel, simultaneously causing a strong, inward current to form, which sucked our heroes into the bowels of the temple, screaming as they were tossed around uncontrollably.