How deep was this place?
Sonic pumped the crank on his flashlight with a frown, sweeping the slender beam through the darkness.
He'd been going for almost thirty minutes now, whispers carrying from some unknown source nearby, feeling the ebb and flow of a vast organism all around him.
Inside him.
No thorns down here, but he felt something grating across his skin all the same.
Sonic walked on, slipping between bony spikes too densely packed together for him to risk running fast or far, feet splashing in the warm water that flowed ever downwards into the depths below.
Like he was being swallowed.
How many flares left? Fourteen? This was deep. He glanced over his shoulder, flashlight beam illuminating a distant spider creeping slowly towards him, his last flare a pin prick of light behind it. No threat for now. He could feel where it was anyway. Could feel all of him. Them. He shook his head, rubbing at the veins on his arms to drown the crawling sensation within.
Something big ahead, at least. Knuckles? So much more than the things creeping around him. Sonic hunkered low, heroing instincts telling him that this was it. This was what he'd come down here for… A ledge, water trickling over it in a tiny waterfall that spattered below... just too far to jump back up. A dull red light pulsed from his unseen quarry.
He twisted the cap off a flare, blue flame guttering forth, and threw it underarm over the edge. No way he was getting the element of surprise on Knuckles down there with this flashlight, might as well just go for it. The flare clattered onto rocks almost immediately, illuminating the lower level and he leapt down at full speed, hurtling towards where he knew his target was.
A shape loomed in front, pulsing eyeballs jutting from the meat of the floor, bathed in a dull red aura emanating from its surface. And he struck it a moment later, feeling like he'd been torn in half from the impact as he bounced off, his lone ring bouncing to the ground.
"Oof, what is that thing?" He rubbed his head with a dazed frown, zipping to grab the ring before it faded, flashlight locked on the pulsing growth quivering before him like it had never even been struck.
"Do you seek power?"
"Whoa!" Sonic spun around, flashlight raised to illuminate the echidna lurking in the shadows past the outgrowth, light catching glittering blue eyes that seemed undisturbed by the sudden illumination..
…Wrong echidna?
"Tikal?" Sonic raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Sonic. This one remembers you." Tikal smiled, walking towards him with a slow, swaying gait. "Remembers your strength. Do you seek to destroy the shackles? Free this place for us?"
"Of course!" Sonic gave her a thumbs up. "Freeing stuff's what I do best!"
"Interesting." Tikal didn't slow until she was right on top of him, glittering blue eyes still bright even as she slipped out of the beam of his torch to lean closer, pale orange quills taking on a ghostly quality in the light of the flare. "But it is too soon, Sonic the Hedgehog. You cannot break the chains until the guardian below is defeated. It will only break you instead."
"Uh… Wait, you're saying Knuckles is down below?"
"Should I guide you, Sonic?" Tikal stared him in the eye. Weird, she'd been shorter than him, right? "Shall I show you the power to face what lies below?"
"Nah, that's fine, Tikal, you've helped enough. This tunnel's long but there's no other turns after all." He grinned. "Why don't you get somewhere safe away from all these monsters? There's some crazy stuff down here."
"Very well, Sonic the Hedgehog. Call me when your power is not enough." She leaned in, pecking him unexpectedly on the cheek. "I will show you the way." She stepped past him, her spines brushing across his shoulder.
And when Sonic looked around she was gone.
Sonic rubbed his cheek. Weird, cold didn't normally bother him much. But in the musty warmth of this place her lips had been cold enough to hurt, leaving their lingering trace on his cheek.
He started walking, giving the eyeball growth a wide berth before he pushed back into a jog once again, warm air and water spray rushing out behind him. Knuckles was an incredible digger, just because Tikal had said he was somewhere down here didn't mean that he would be for long.
Smaller eye growths loomed ahead in the dark, too close to stop in time. He skidded through them, splattering them into chunks that yielded four red motes of light that drifted towards him of their own accord. He held up a hand to ward one off but it just flowed into him through his palm.
The bruises and scratches from his recent ordeal faded instantly, as though he'd just overdosed on rings. Sonic stretched out previously sore muscles with a nod. Not bad. Must be a science thing. He'd ask Tails when he got back with Knuckles. He'd just-
Sonic turned to walk on to find his foot dangling over blackness, a dark hollow too wide for the beam of his flashlight to reach the opposite side. Or the bottom. He couldn't even hear the trickling water hit anything below.
That was close. If there was an underground lake down there or something he would have been in big trouble. Sonic grabbed another flare, twisting off the cap and casting it to the darkness below...
"I know you're there, Sonic!" Knuckles' voice roared from the depths before the flare even reached the bottom, clattering to a halt far below. "Come, stand before me! The time is almost upon us!"
Sonic stepped out into the void, hurtling down to land feet first in the centre of the cone of flickering light the flare provided, already popping off a second and a third to hurl across the massive chamber by the time he landed.
The hulking frame of the crimson echidna slumped upon one of many eye growths, blood still pouring from his body like an endless wellspring that flowed into the puddles of water that littered the cave floor.
"You did well to survive, Sonic." Knuckles snorted, rubbing a bare thumb across his nose, only the reinforced knuckles of his gloves still remained atop his engorged fists. "And thanks to you, mother has made her claim on this place."
"I've come to stop you, Knuckles!" Sonic tossed another flare, slipping the box into hammerspace as he squared off with his longtime rival.
"You still don't understand, Sonic?" Knuckles stood from his throne of flesh, slamming his fists together with an impact hard enough to create a burst of light across the cavern. "Iog-Sotôt would damn this place in his image. Endless orbs that see, rend open the gate and release the hounds to hunt til all is no more!"
"Yeah, you seem to be doing so much better with all this stuff." Sonic placed his hand on the floor, feet revving in perfect figure eights across the meaty floor as his legs built up momentum.
"We live, Sonic. We are. We are not unmade but joined with mother! This is the only way!"
"Whatever you say, Mama's boy." Sonic scowled. "You're coming with me."
He burst forward.
