That night, after returning to the mansion and eating a refreshing meal, Sonic and Lara sat down in the living room with Tom, Oskar, Tails and Sarah to discuss the progress they'd made in their quest so far.

"Aside for a few road bumps such as a few o' me rivals," Lara said happily, "I'm quite pleased that luck was on our side."

Oskar nodded, "Aye, we've worked well together and I see the relationship between you and Sonic as a couple moving forward through the land of love."

Tom raised his hand, "Once we get that statue, I suggest we use the ancient Ratakyan riches to expand upon the mansion and make it bigger than ever."

Sonic cut in, laughing a bit, "No way, I like the mansion the way it is, no need to expand it when you can let it stay the way it is or get yourself a brand new house that's just as big as this one."

Tails looked at his girlfriend as they held hands, "You know what I would do with all the riches we will soon have our hands on, I'm gonna buy a mansion, a new workshop and my own yacht."

"And where am I during all of that, handsome?" Sarah said in a seductive tone, running her fingers along her boyfriend's shoulder.

Tails took his future missus' hand, "My love, I promise you shall be by my side when I'm at my mansion or when we embark on a sea trip on my yacht."

The two foxes shared a kiss and looked into each other's eyes happily.

"Sounds neat, Tails." Lara said, "But let's not plan too far ahead, we gotta go over our progress, rest up and then go after the key before we go after our prize." She held up the Ratakyan Key Chart, which looked a bit different, maybe due to the fact there were markings on it now, colored pen markings.

Looking closer at the chart, Sonic saw that both the Golden Satuyama Key, Green Key and the Sunny Day Blue Key had been marked off with red, blue and green X's while a purple checkmark and two yellow ones marked off the areas where the keys had been located.

One issue though, the Chinese Forest Shrine had been marked off and the gang had not gotten the key there, they'd gone into Russian territory to retrieve the key from a group of Russian terrorists who were enemies of Lara.

It didn't matter anyway in the end as the terror group probably did save Sonic, Lara and their crew the trouble of going into the shrine and dealing with any possible traps the ancients set up in there a very long time ago.

Looking even closer at the map, the brave hero noticed that the water blue Ratakyan Key was surrounded by a brown circle, which made his heart pound from nervousness and goose bumps to surface beneath his fur.

The green eyed, blue speedster began to shiver.

"With the land-based keys taken care of," Lara was saying, "all we have left to do is go down to the ocean and get the Water Key." Oskar nodded, "Aye, should be interesting, I've been scuba diving since I was a lad."

Sonic stood up, chuckling nervousness, "Uh, why don't we think all of this over for a bit? Maybe we could hire a team of scuba scavengers to go get the key for us or maybe I can stay behind to keep watch for any rogues coming after us while Lara, Oskar and Tails go underwater to get the key.

"That would make things a lot easier and a bit interesting for us. Then again, why not let other people go fetch the key and then we'll take it from 'em and go after the statue."

All eyes in the room fell upon the blue hedgehog, who was doing his best to hide his shivering fear.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sonic demanded, "Hey! Quit with those weird ass stares, all I was saying was..."

He face palmed.

"Sonic?" Lara asked, "We need to talk about this, you've been acting a bit, shall we say, weird whenever we bring up the underwater key expedition."

"Just say it already." Tails groaned, "Quit trying to keep it a secret from us, its getting a bit old and annoying when it happens."

Oskar looked at Tails, "What is it Sonic's trying to keep from us a secret?"

The spikey hero raised his hands in surrender, shaking his head too, "I can't swim and I have aqua phobia. The only water I'm not afraid of is bath water, showers, hot tubs and steam pool water, but hedgehogs and big water pools don't mix. Sorry, but that's been a big, damn problemo for my entire life."

"Well, this could be an issue then." Tom said.

"Sorry if I'm letting you down guys." Sonic lowered his head, "I hope I'm not doing so and you all understand."

Lara giggled, "Its no big deal, Sonic. I know how to fix that."

"What's your idea, Lara?" Sarah asked, looking at the archeologist in the eyes.

"Its simple." Lara explained, "I took swimming lessons as a kid and I'm a great swimmer to a point where I'm not scared of water, hence us having a pool. Sonic's not a swimmer and is afraid due to lack of swimming lessons.

"So, how about I give Sonic swimming lessons, due to me being a very experienced swimmer, so that way we'll go get that last Ratakyan Key without my blue boyfriend's fear of the water causing issues?"

"Swimming lessons?" Sonic got a bit nervous, "Will it work?"

"Of course, it'll work, Sonic!" Oskar replied, "With a bit of help, you'll be over your fear of the deep blue sea and other big pools of water in no time. We'll all help you as a team, that's what friends are for, eh?"

"So when does Sonic's swim lessons begin?" Sarah asked.

Lara winked, "We'll get on with it tomorrow, after breakfast and after our food has digested. Or we could always do it in the afternoon.

"Either way, we'll use the swimming pool, that'll make things easier."

"Wouldn't it be easier to do swimming lessons the same time we're going after that key?" Sonic asked, "Just curious, would it work or would it fail."

"Uhhhh," Lara shrugged, "Lets just do swimming lessons far from the ocean, then we'll deal with the ocean afterwards."

"So when do we go after the last key?"

"Dunno, maybe tomorrow right after swimming lessons, we'll play it by ear. Now, why don't we all get some rest for tomorrow, its gonna be quite a big day."

With that, everyone except Tom headed off to their rooms to get some sleep. Sonic decided to sleep with Lara tonight, hoping that having her by his side would make him feel less nervous about tomorrow.

Reluctant at first, Lara happily shared the bed to Sonic. The two talked for a while, shared a sweet kiss and said good night.

Lara drifted off in her nightgown, her head rested in the shoulders of Sonic, who stayed awake for a bit due to nervousness.

Sleep eventually got the better of him and the blue hero drifted off into the land of dreams where strange adventures awaited him...