Sonic burst out of the water and into the air, gasping and flopping on the polished stones like a confused fish. Blaze slid out beside him, wringing out her hair with her hands (which, Sonic noticed, conveniently hid her expression). Pretzel held no such reservations, snickering openly at Sonic's ineptness. He stuck out his tongue at her. She returned the gesture, and Sonic blinked. Her tongue was forked. Figures.
The temple gleamed cool and dark around them, all smooth polished tiles and faint glows of… some kind of algae. Biology was never his strong suit. The glow reflected in Blaze's wide eyes as she got up and turned slowly around, taking in the sight. Sonic smiled and stood to join her. His foot landed on an indented tile, and he felt a sudden churning of fire and light in his gut. Yelping, he stumbled back as white flared in the lines between the tiles.
"What did you do?" Pretzel and Blaze demanded almost in sync. Pretzel dove back into the water with an almost silent splash as Blaze backed up to stand back-to-back with Sonic, flames snarling in her hands as the temple lit up before them.
The white glow spread like wildfire through the sky blue tiles and into the carvings on the walls, making elegant mosaics shine like neon billboards. The gleam intensified as it spread, and Sonic got the feeling he should be shielding his eyes or at least wincing, but neither he nor Blaze blinked.
A rumble made him finally jerk his gaze away, just as Pretzel burst out of the water and coiled in a puddle on the floor, wings wrapped around herself and chest heaving jerkily up and down. She looked around, wild eyed, then buried her head in her paws with a hiss.
"What's going on?" Blaze demanded, tail lashing and hands curled into fists. She turned warily in a circle, looking oddly unbalanced.
For once in a blue moon, Sonic seemed the calmest and most levelheaded in the group.
"I must've activated it with my transformation." He gestured at his fur, almost the same bright blue as the tiles, and his wings, a turquoise matching the jeweled accents in the temple.
"'Activated it'?" Blaze was looking at him as if he was the one behaving irrationally and getting worked up over a few lights.
"It's rising to the surface," Pretzel growled, her voice dark and rough like… like a cave, maybe? Sonic's was suddenly very aware of the claws on his hands. He stilled their twitching with an effort. His tail started swaying instead.
"Makes our job easier." He shrugged and walked down one of the hallways, avoiding looking at Pretzel. I'm in control, I'm in control, I'm in control. It was a lot harder to believe with the light all around him like this. I'm in control. Everything was bright and warm and at once fuzzier and sharper in his mind and his vision alike.
He looked back when the others didn't follow. "We're here for a reason, remember, guys? 'Sides, if we're going to sightsee, might as well see the whole thing." He chuckled, feeling vaguely like he made a pun. He also felt like it wasn't worth laughing about, but it made him feel more normal, less like he was slowly drowning no don't think about that, and the part of him that felt it wasn't even a pun was also the part that was too tired to care.
Blaze and Pretzel exchanged a glance.
"...yes. Of course." Blaze stepped forward cautiously, casting a suspicious glare at the glowing mosaics.
Look at the pictures himself, Sonic mused that her wariness may have something to do with how prominently dogs featured in the images. Because… she was a cat. Cat's didn't like dogs. Obviously.
The part of Sonic that was tired and headachey and just wanted to sleep for a week argued that it was very unlikely Blaze was bothered by something so trivial. The part of Sonic that was energetic and darting from picture to picture and just so excited to be in this awesome, mysterious, super cool temple politely told headachey-Sonic to shut up and go away, he'd get his time to shine at night. Excited-Sonic thought this was a hilarious pun. Headache-Sonic muttered some words he had learned from Shadow and stomped off.
Sonic paused at a fork in the path and realized that having imaginary arguments with himself was maybe not a good thing.
The temple shuddered again. Sonic tapped his foot impatiently, glancing back at Blaze and Pretzel, who were apparently too busy staring at the decor to move a little faster. Blaze met his gaze, and he immediately took off down the left path, ignoring her exasperated call.
He slowed when he heard a steady dripping sound. Was the temple… leaking? He took a step forward and grimaced as icy water splashed against his shoes. Ugh. Why did this sunken temple have to be so wet? He backed up, narrowing his eyes at the water covering the hallway ahead, calculated the distance, and lunged forward, leaping over the puddle. His quills brushed the ceiling. He landed lightly on the other side, throwing his arms out for flare. Grinning, he turned around and was mildly disappointed to see no one had witnessed his feat.
An odd pattern on the floor ahead caught his eye. It looked like… light. Distorted and dimmed by distance and water, but sunlight nonetheless. But that would have to mean… He tracked the light to its source and grinned. A window. No glass, nothing to keep the water out, and yet the whole place wasn't flooded. Magic, probably. He hesitantly reached a hand out to touch it, and something pushed back, like opposite poles on a magnet. With effort he pushed his hand through and gasped at the icy chill of the water. With a hiss he jerked it back inside.
Magic water window. Cool, but not helpful. He turned to leave.
A shadow flickered on the wall.
Sonic crouched, daring himself to hold still. Restless energy fluttered in his chest, but he held it, coiled. Waiting. Slowly, he turned his gaze back to the window. It had changed. The round shape was no longer filled with the dark blues and violets of the ocean. Instead it was shining yellow, with an inner circle of black. It shifted, showing an outer ring of white, and then it darted away, leaving the dark ocean behind.
An eye.
An eye bigger than his head.
Which is saying something, some chirpy voice said in the back of his mind as a great, dark shape moved outside the window. And then it wasn't a dark shape, it was radiating light and turning the midnight ocean to a noon sky.
The creature was an eel, Sonic supposed, in the sense he was a hedgehog. Its glowing pattern didn't cover its whole body, instead lighting up strips of the thing's skin in the impression of a skeleton. Or maybe it really was a skeleton. He wouldn't be surprised. The thing was long, impossibly long, and he had yet to see the tip of its tail. Its head was at least the size of a truck and shaped like a fang. Those round yellow eyes moved lazily if at all. Confident. Smug. It seemed to sense his gaze and flashed its teeth in something like a smile, fangs shining white before it snapped its jaws shut. The whole thing faded to blend with the ocean again.
Well. If Sonic hadn't been afraid of the ocean before, he was now.
"Hey Blaze!?" Sonic shouted, sprinting back the way he'd come without regard for the water on the floor.
Blaze had evidently picked up the pace, because he ran into her just around the corner. "What is it?" She snapped, tail flicking irritably.
"I don't suppose you have any giant… eel… things in your world?" Sonic shifted from one foot to the other, glancing nervously behind him.
"What do you mean?" Blaze pushed past him without waiting for an answer. She stopped at the window, and Sonic joined her just as the eel lit up again. He heard her sharp intake of breath, but was too focused on the sight himself to look at her.
It was big, and it was glowing, and had he noticed the feathers before? The sword-shaped, very sharp looking feathers that probably weren't feathers at all? And oh yeah, it was definitely giving them a smug grin.
"Moray," Pretzel observed, perched in the window because of course she was. "They normally prefer warm water. Odd that one would be here." She cocked her head as if she was observing a particularly interesting insect and not a giant fish monster snake thing.
Moray. It was a moray.
"Okay." Sonic inhaled deeply. "Okay. A moray, huh? Are those… aggressive or anything?"
"Only if disturbed." Pretzel narrowed her eyes. "Though at that size, it might see us as prey."
"How do you know so much about it?" Blaze asked curiously.
Pretzel shrugged. "Maybe I was a marine biologist?"
"This is not the time, guys!" Sonic hissed, and honestly, when did he become the voice of reason here!?
"It's obviously not a normal moray," Pretzel continued, scowling at him. "The fact that it's here at all is weird."
The moray was swimming away, and Sonic allowed himself to breathe.
"So… it was sent by Light Gaia?" Blaze said slowly.
Sonic whipped around to stare at her, eyes widening.
"Probably." Pretzel shrugged as Sonic whirled again to turn his stare on the window.
SLAM
The temple shuddered in an entirely different way. His stomach lurched. It was funny he only really noticed its ascent when it stopped. He swallowed and tried not to think about the ocean black and deep and full of monsters like that. He'd seen enough horror movies, he knew how this went.
"We need to get that thing away from the temple or we'll never reach the surface." He avoided looking Blaze in the eye. Hydrophobia probably wasn't contagious, but who knew.
"So we're going out?" Pretzel seemed way more cheered by this idea than she needed to be, considering she was the one who nearly got them both drowned not half an hour ago.
"Is that wise?" Blaze frowned. "It'll have the advantage out there."
"Well it's that or…" Sonic winced as the temple shuddered again, cracks appearing in the walls. It would break through soon, and there would be no stopping it. "Or we can reenact Jonah." Seeing the confused stares of his companions, he sighed. "Let's… let's just go." He took off down the hall, Blaze right beside him.
They paused at a fork, and Pretzel took the opportunity to shove past them, scampering down the hall at the fastest speed Sonic had seen her achieve yet. Not fast, mind you, but faster.
"Here." Pretzel sat with a splash and waved her wing at a broken door. That same invisible resistance as the window was here, and the moray was mercifully out of sight. A faint glimmer of sunlight shone invitingly above them.
"We could simply swim to the surface and leave the temple," Blaze suggested as though she had read his mind.
Sonic heaved a sigh. "No, we… we need the information in the temple. And that moray could cause trouble for the locals later. We've gotta fight it."
Blaze's mouth twitched as his morose expression, but she didn't comment.
"Okay." Sonic took a deep breath, glaring at the door as he shook out his limbs (as if that would make a difference what was he thinking he couldn't swim they were going to die). "Okay. Okay." He put his hand out in the water and allowed himself one last shudder. "Let's do this." He ironed the fear out of his voice and stepped into the dark. And the ocean was set on fire.