Blue Star

Part 9: The Labyrinth Zone

Sonic awoke with a start, immediately finding himself resting partway on a ledge with his legs hanging in the water below it. As he grabbed hold of a nearby carving on the wall, and pulled his wet limbs out of the warm water, he shivered, trying to remember what had happened, and, more importantly, where he was.

The room he was in was more of a narrow, vertical tunnel, filled with the sound of dripping water and the smell of old stone. The ceiling had a hole in it, through which vines and roots hung. Sonic rubbed his head, puzzled. Hadn't he just been in Spring Yard? What was he doing here, in this horribly small space that was half filled with water? He looked down at the still liquid, then back up at the hole, then around the walls, before shivering again and pulling his knees up under his chin.

He couldn't see a way to climb upwards to the hole, and even if he did, he remembered that he'd fallen a fair way before that, so it would be pretty much useless to try. Especially carrying the, what had the scientist called them? Chaos Emeralds? Carrying those would make it next to impossible.

"Oh no! Where are they?" Sonic cried out as he realised he had no leaf bag, no computer, and no singing stones to hand. He hastily looked around the ledge that he was sitting on, brushing the occasional length of plantlife that had managed to catch any light that filtered through the hole above. When he couldn't find any of the items he had fallen in with, he gave a dismayed wail, and fell over sideways to lay with his cheek against the moss-covered stone.

Great, not only was he stuck down a hole filled with water, he was stuck there without anything to do. Sonic whined and shuffled towards the edge a bit, looking miserably down through the surface of the surprisingly clear water. How was he going to get out of here? He trailed a gloved hand on the surface of the water, watching the ripples as they followed his fingers. A small fish seemingly came out of no-where to investigate this new object in its space, and promptly nibbled at the cotton in a curious manner. Sonic looked at the little red fish and pulled his hand out of the water, startling it into swimming away. He watched it as it sped downwards, followed by a little trail of bubbles, before passing through a large gap in the wall. By which a shining stone lay atop some ancient rubble.

"There it is!" Sonic scanned more of the lower level, spying the other two gemstones and the computer. He hesitated, looking up towards the hole once more. "I could just leave them... But..."

The song of the Emeralds was just reaching him through the water, and he found himself turning back. His fur stood on end as he realised he was not in control of his feet, and they were taking him off the edge of the plinth. Sonic mentally yelled at his legs to co-operate and take him back from the edge, but they weren't going to listen to him, and he soon found himself deep in the water, looking into the hole the fish had gone through. He splashed back up to the surface and spluttered, cursing his fondness for shiny things.

Thinking back to how that hole had looked more like a passageway, complete with carved walls, he frowned to himself, and resigned to the fact that he had just as much chance of getting out that way as any other one. Even if he didn't much like the option of going back underwater again. As long as there weren't any sharks down there, he decided it should be okay. A moment more hesitation, before Sonic took as large a breath as he could, diving down towards the floor. He planted his feet on the ground, gaining his bearings and allowing his eyesight to adjust to the different medium they were looking through, before purposefully swimming over to the nearest Chaos Emerald.

He picked up the stone, then paddled over to the next one. As he reached for the third, he realised he had nowhere to put them, so he tucked the first two in between the long quills on his head, and picked up the third one from its position underneath the remains of the leaf bag. With his other hand he grabbed hold of the pocket computer, not knowing if it would still work, before he kicked his way back up to the surface. He refreshed the air in his lungs, and made sure the Emeralds were tightly wedged between his spikes, then dived back under before he could have a chance to reconsider again.

Sonic's powerful legs propelled him through the still water relatively easily, and he looked inside the passage. It was clear, and appeared to open into a wider room beyond it, so he moved forwards into it. However, he was unprepared for the current rushing down from a large crack in the roof, and so was forced through the corridor at an alarming pace. Once he was propelled into the large room on the over side, he swiftly splashed up to the surface, and shook his head, even though it wasn't going to do much to dry his quills.

"I think I'm going to hate this place..." Sonic muttered, before swimming over to the nearest ledge. It took him several tries to climb onto it, due to it being slightly out of his reach, but eventually, after diving under the water and kicking his way vertically as fast as he could, he managed it.

He scrabbled back to his feet, using a nearby gargoyle that was perched on the edge of the plateau to assist him, and examined the gemstone in his hand. Not a scratch was to be seen on its surface, and the same applied to the other two when he pulled them from between his spikes and examined them. He placed them on top of the gargoyle, watching how they balanced atop eachother without so much as shifting to one side.

"These... are no ordinary stones..." Was the understatement of the century, he realised as he said it. They sang, they glowed, they appeared to have some sort of method to attract him, more than any of the shiny objects he'd been obsessed with before. And apparently they had their own name. As he rolled the words around his mouth again, the Chaos Emeralds chimed to him.

Sonic left them balanced in their tower on top of the gargoyle, and looked at the computer again, wondering if it still worked. He flipped it open, having left it on so that he didn't have to enter the password again, and laughed, surprised that it seemed to be unaffected by the water. He browsed through it, and managed to find out where he was. A place written in the history books as Nereid City, but now known as the Labyrinth Zone. Sonic frowned, not liking the new name at all.

He flicked through the information, finding out that the Spring Yard and the Starlight Zones had been built over it because Labyrinth had proved too difficult to negotiate safely, as well as someone thinking it would be a good idea to build giant theme parks and cities to attract tourism to South Island. Whilst Sonic wasn't too happy with the idea of having complete strangers romping all over the Island, he was a bit preoccupied at the moment with the whole dilemma of finding himself underground in a partially submerged city.

He folded the apparently watertight computer shut once more, picked up the Emeralds from their place on top of the gargoyle, and started walking along the platform he was on. The gemstones remained balanced in their tower on his hand, and he frowned thoughtfully. Carrying them around like this was going to prove awkward, but with his bag shredded he didn't know what to do.

Then he spotted a narrow passage leading into the wall nearby. A tall statue almost hid it from view, so if he hadn't been as attentive as he was he would have missed it. He peered into the darkened crevice, but couldn't see due to the glow from the Emeralds throwing it into deep shadows. Looking around, and not seeing anything to worry about, he stepped into the passage and walked long it, watching the three coloured lights from the stones in his hands illuminating the moist walls. His footsteps echoed, the sound mingling with that of dripping water, and of his breathing.

The passage seemed to go on forever, until suddenly he found himself standing in a large, dark room, which was lit by luminescent fungus that grew on the walls and across the floor. He stepped between the large carpets of it that spread out from the perimeter of the room, heading over to the other side. Some anomaly in the glowing carpet drew his attention away from the doorway he saw on the wall opposite him, and he frowned.

Footprints.

That meant that someone else had been here recently, because the floor was smeared with the liquid that the carpet mushrooms contained. It was in orderly lines in and out of the door ahead of him, and there had been a large smear where the person had turned around in a hurry.

Sonic flicked his ears in all directions, listening for any signs of anyone nearby, but only heard the steady drip-drip-drip of water from the ceiling. The silence was eerie, even the Emeralds weren't singing. The hedgehog swallowed the lump in his throat down, and resumed walking towards the door, albeit more cautiously.

He kept listening for sounds of life, such as breathing or footsteps, and still heard nothing. So he braved his way forwards, and stepped through the doorway.

Another narrow passage greeted him, wider than the last, but just as dark. Sonic placed his feet slowly and quietly, walking soft-foot like a cat; a trick he had learned from his family. His fur stood on end, and the bladed quills stiffened, as he heard a rushing sound ahead of him. His ears flicked forwards, and the sound, amplified by the tunnel he was walking along, suddenly became clear to him.

It was the familiar sound of rushing water, of waterfalls. Sure, it sounded slightly different, being underground and having a slight echo to it, but the hedgehog would recognise that noise anywhere. He grumbled, and stepped out of the oncoming doorway, into a large room with an artificial river cut deeply into the floor. Through this ran the swift river he had heard, its surface surprisingly clear, apart from where it sped past large pieces of broken masonry that had fallen from the ceiling and come to rest in the crafted channel. There the water spun white as the current broke apart and collided with itself.

Sonic stepped up to the edge of the river, then walked parallel to it, first heading upstream until he saw that it was emerging from a low archway in a solid wall; obviously built for such a purpose; and upon discovering that he could not walk any further that way, he turned right and walked downstream instead. He looked tentatively at the rushing water beside him, and caught a glimpse of a reflection from the opposite bank. Something had just ducked around a dividing wall and out of his sight before he could look up.

Freezing on the spot, the hedgehog stared over the river, tucking the Emeralds into his quills for safety, and clutching the pocket computer in his left hand. He flicked his ears around, listening, before stepping backwards, away from the edge of the river channel.

"Who's there?"

Silence.

"Come on, who is there? I'm sorta... lost and I need help and I don't like people sneaking around out of my view!"

Sonic listened carefully, frowning when the silence continued. 'Hmm... maybe I was seeing things...' he thought, before turning and resuming his track downstream.

"You're just a child, aren't you?"

The slightly foreign accent in the female voice startled Sonic into spinning one hundred and eighty degrees on the spot, and he blinked at the brunette human in surprise. So there had been someone there after all! He bristled anxiously, which wasn't overdoing things, considering that his last run in with a human had ended with him falling down a very deep hole. This one had a sarcastic smirk and her gloved hands were settled on her slim hips. She was wearing a turquoise sleeveless top and khaki shorts, dark brown leather boots, and completed her outfit with a pair of blue sunglasses and a PDA attached to the belt at her waist. Her long hair was pulled back over her shoulder in a plait, and she raised an eyebrow at Sonic.

"Don't think I've ever seen a blue hedgehog before."

"Well... You... Uh... Have now!" The muscles in Sonic's legs were twitching, wanting to make him turn and run, but his brain was telling him to find out who this was.

"Why are you down here? It's a lot safer above the ground, in the Zones you know." The human spoke softly, yet the amused smirk remained.

"I... fell down here..." Sonic frowned, thinking about how the Zones he'd seen hadn't been so safe. And he said so, rapidly. "I've been running straight for several days, and this dude up there went and dropped me down here, so I don't think it's much safer up there at all. Except for all the water here... I don't get on well with water..." He shuddered.

"I can tell, you do seem to keep away from that channel there." She pointed at the river casually, and Sonic once again tried to place her accent, failing miserably at having not heard all that many.

"Well, um... ma'am... what are you doing down here, if you know it's safer up there or stuff?"

"Hmm? Oh, I love it down here. I'm more at home in these ancient ruins than I am in my own house." She stepped along the edge of the river, walking the path that Sonic had been heading down. "So what's your name?"

'Don't give your name to strangers, don't give your name to strangers!' Sonic's brain recited at him, but he decided to ignore it. "Sonic Spiritpaw..."

"Ah. Oh yes, I've heard of you. Why didn't I put two and two together?" She chuckled at his befuddled expression. "Oh don't look so confused, news spreads. You're that hedgehog who was born on the Blue Star night, correct?" When Sonic merely blinked, the human continued. "You see, I love reading up on legends and myths, and then going to check out their origins and whether they're real or not. Now, a star is a little beyond my reach, but it's a pleasure to meet you, Sonic."

"Uh..." Sonic shook the hand that she had extended, still looking puzzled. "Likewise... Um..."

"Lara Croft."

"Miss Croft..." Sonic flicked an ear again, feeling more relaxed now that he knew her name.

"Please, just call me Lara. I'm not one for titles and formalities." She nodded. "So, you say you're lost, correct?"

"Um... Yeah."

"Well, whereabouts do you want to go down here?"

"I want to get back up to the Starlight Zone." Sonic frowned. "But I have no idea where I'm going."

"That's obvious. Okay, if you go down this stream you'll reach a point where the ground slopes, and this river becomes a water-slide. Follow that down, and you'll hit a lower level eventually. You're not going to like this, because it involves swimming through the majority of the City." Lara raised an eyebrow again. "You can swim, right?"

"Yeah... As long as there aren't any nasty things down there..."

"Ah... Well watch yourself down there. You'll have to be able to swim very fast at points... Or have some sort of weapon..." Lara smiled at the worried expression. "I was joking, don't worry about it."

"That wasn't funny."

Without apologising, she continued. "You'll have to follow the current sometimes, I know I had to anchor myself to get this way, but it should be easier getting back. And if you keep following the flow of the water, eventually you'll reach a tall room. You can climb up the sides of it to get to the level nearest the surface. There's a stairwell from there that goes up. You'll be roughly east of the Starlight Zone, but I'm sure you'll find your way from there."

Sonic paused,noting it all down mentally, before nodding. "Okay. Thanks Lara."

"It's alright Sonic. Oh! Before you go!"

Sonic paused midstep and looked back at the human, watching her pull her small rucksack from her shoulders. From inside it, she withdrew a bundle of cloth, and unfolded it into a similar bag. This was offered to the hedgehog, who took it with surprise.

"You don't want to lose those gemstones of yours. No point picking up treasures if you're going to misplace them on the way."

"Um... Thank you..." Sonic pulled the Emeralds from between his spikes, and looked at them, before placing them into the bag, which he slipped over his back, shuffling it carefully into place between his quills. Reaching over his shoulder, he put the pocket computer in the top too, and jumped a few times on the spot to make sure that it was secure. "Really... Thanks." He smiled.

"Not a problem." Lara put her own backpack on again. "Just be careful Sonic. I'd like to meet you again someday."

"Sure!" Sonic mimicked Lara's smirk, then resumed his trek downstream, whilst the human headed into the doorway he had emerged from. As her footsteps echoed into the distance, he thought he heard a quiet "Carrying ... Chaos Emeralds ... Risky...", but the slightly tinny male voice soon was soon gone with Lara's footsteps.

Sonic strolled along the corridor, a bit more relaxed now that he knew the way back to the surface, yet rather upset that he'd have to go through more water to get there. The rushing of the river alongside him changed tone, and he soon reached the top of the slope that the explorer had told him about.

The roof of the room had towered above, and sunlight and vines spilled down from small holes in the ceiling, reminding him of the small room that he had first found himself in. Except that this one was much larger. He looked around the walls, examining the primitive bird carvings and the gargoyles adorning them. Whilst the walls nearby were full of crumbling gaps and broken masonry, and were presumably the method which Lara had used to climb up, the slope in front of him was strangely smooth, and had an odd scent to it. Sonic crouched down and ran his hand over the surface, frowning at the way that the glove simply slid over it.

"Some sort of wax? Either some bored nut-case had far too much time on their hands, or the people who built this place would've made a fortune in the crayon business." Sonic snorted at the surface, and stood up straight again. "Now, do I jump in the water or skate down the sides? Either way, this is gonna be one hell of a ride..."

The hedgehog sighed, and jumped onto the slope, and his shoes immediately lost traction, resulting in him sliding downwards at an increasing pace on his rear. The edge of the slope rapidly came into view, as did a second slope below. The sound of a waterfall roared ahead of him, and he swallowed nervously, before slipping sideways and into the water. The added current threw him clear of the slope, and straight into the deceptively deep channel on the second one. He was pulled along it, and tumbled over the edge, landing with a very soggy and heavy thud on the flat floor below him.

Sonic took a moment to regain his breath, wincing as he pushed himself up and his wrist cracked again. He muttered to himself discontentedly, and rubbed the once again painful joint as he got to his feet. Ahead of him the waterfall crashed down into large pool, which ran from the edge of the platform that he had landed on, to the wall opposite. Large turquoise and purple gemstones encrusted the lowest reaches of the brickwork, extending down below the surface of the water for a short distance.

He could see something moving below the surface, but assumed that it was just a fish again. Once he'd massaged the protesting out of his wrist again, he stepped backwards, took a deep breath, and ran and dived into the water. Sonic immediately started kicking himself forwards, and hurriedly scrabbled to one side as a large spear thrust up from the ground below, stopping just where he'd been a split second beforehand. He stared at it, wide-eyed, then remembered that he only had a limited air supply, and so pressed onwards.

Bubbles stirred from a crack in the ground below him after he passed several more spears, and he paused to watch them as they floated upwards to burst against the ceiling of the tunnel ahead of him. Several grew to around his size, and he prodded at them playfully as they passed. Then one rose up, carrying a red Emerald in it. Sonic instantly dived at the jewel, bursting through the bubble and pulling the air from it in as he inhaled from the shock. But the gemstone was in his hands, and he wasn't so low on air any more. So he slid the Chaos Emerald into the bag with its cousins, and resumed powering through the water.

That was, at least, until something grabbed his leg.

Sonic twisted around, and found himself staring at a hedgehog-sized robot with a drill cone for a face, and a red cap on its head. Sonic swung his free foot at it, but couldn't get enough force behind the kick to dislodge the machine's grip on his limb. Another one burst out of the floor to one size, clouding the water with debris and grabbing one of his arms. At this, Sonic started to panic, twisting and kicking, punching and biting at the robots in an effort to get them to let go. This was not a situation he wanted to be in again, and it was most definitely not one he intended on staying in. Bubbles swirled around the three figures, as Sonic twisted, managed to get his free foot onto the floor, and threw himself into the natural balled up position that hedgehogs could achieve.

The robots collided together in a bubbly explosion, which Sonic paid no heed to. All the struggling had made him blow far too many bubbles for safety, and he was more concerned with getting to the surface. He sped along the tunnel as fast as swimming would let him, and a fresh current caught him, ripping him along the narrowing passage, before violently throwing him out into open air.

It seemed, to him, that he hovered there, motionless, for an age, but he was soon beaten by gravity and pulled fast down into another lake, hitting it at such an angle that it tore the breath from his body and he sank. It took him a split second to realise it, but as soon as he did he scrabbled back up to the surface, and clambered onto the pathway that took up one side of the room. He frowned.

"Urg... All the places down here look exactly alike."

Sonic lay back for a while, waiting for his breath to return properly. He glared at the distant ceiling, watching large, dragonfly-like creatures dart between the vines and crystals. 'This is all your fault.' he thought at no one in particular.

Once he felt capable of moving again, he did so, to be rewarded by his sodden quills flicking forwards and hitting him in the eyes from the sudden movement. They were flicked back behind his shoulders soon enough, but it didn't stop Sonic from swearing loudly and profusely, with his hands on his face and kicking his feet in pain. He blinked rapidly as he took his hands away, mentally noting to himself to never lean forwards with wet spikes again.

"Ow." He squinted around the ledge with one eye open, before getting up and walking through a small archway, to find himself in a tall room, just as Lara had mentioned. "Ah, so now it's a case of going up huh? Well that shouldn't be so-"

Then two things happened: He noticed the rotund Doctor Robotnik in his hovercraft, running a hand over a panel in the wall. And a large stone door slammed down behind him in the archway, cutting off any form of retreat he might have had. He watched the scientist as he turned around, looking thoroughly surprised at seeing the blue hedgehog alive and well.

"Oh ho! Sonic my boy, so glad you could make it! I was just investigating these ingenious defence systems!"

"For the last time, Robotnik. I ain't your boy!" Sonic growled at him.

"Oh come now, why the harshness? You're perfectly fine, I haven't hurt you or anything. Apart from the fact that you look like a drowned rat, there shouldn't be anything for you to worry about." Robotnik's moustache twitched as he laughed.

"I'm not a rat either!"

"Yes yes, of course."

"Oi! Where do you think you're going?" Sonic cried after the scientist as the hovercraft ascended through the tunnel at speed.

"Away from here. As much as I'd like to see these systems in action, I don't wish for them to be used on me."

Robotnik's chortle echoed piercingly back down the tunnel at Sonic, who frowned thoughtfully, trying to figure out what he meant by that. His questions were soon answered, as cold water splashed around his ankles, spilling up through grates in the flooring. Sonic yelped and darted to the wall, jumping and pulling himself up onto a narrow ledge. He noted the speed at which the water was rising, and realised that he wouldn't be able to judge his climbing. He had to get out of that tunnel.

Something was churning the water below him, and he caught glimpses of fans within the walls as he sprang up the protruding blocks of masonry. If he fell into that water, it would be impossible to get to the surface. The thought forced him upwards.

He jumped from one block to a particularly high one, misjudging it, but he managed to scrabble onto it from the position precariously dangled from the edge by his fingertips. From there he looked around. 'Where next?' he thought hastily, the next plinth was out of his reach. But then he noticed a spear as it shot from the wall, retreated, then shot out again. Sonic jumped up as it extended a third time, balancing on the narrow staff for a split second, before using the extra spring in the shaft to aid his jump to the ridge. He shimmied sideways along the narrow edge, and jumped to grab the nearest gargoyle that signalled the top of the chamber.

The water spilled across the floor of the open room, and Sonic scooped up several loose rocks. Sunlight poured in from gaping holes in the roof, and Robotnik was waiting near one in his hovercraft.

"You're trickier than I counted on, hedgehog."

"Get off South Island, Eggman!"

Sonic threw a piece of debris at the hovercraft, followed by another, followed by another. Each stone was like a missile, rocketing through the base of the hovercraft and out the other side. Robotnik glowered at the hedgehog over the rim of his glasses, and manouvered his machine out of one of the holes.

"My name, hedgehog, is Robotnik!"

"Yeah. Whatever."

Sonic strolled over to the machine nearby. Several partly finished drill-nosed robots lay beside it, along with a few fish-shaped ones. The fed up hedgehog noted the prison device was already broken, and reasoned that Lara had thought it hadn't fit in enough with the ruinous surroundings. He looked around, and saw the staircase nearby, and so walked over to it, up, and out of the ruins.

The grassy area was quite wide, with the green structures of the Starlight Zone ahead. Sonic looked around. He sighed, and noted the position of the sun. It was getting near sunset. The hedgehog sighed drowsily, and set off at a slow jog, the wind chilling his body as it pulled the water from his fur.

Well, what better time of day to visit the Starlight Zone than at twilight?

-TBC-

Author's Note: Lara Croft is © Edios. I dunno, it just seemed fitting to cameo her in this chapter :P Also, the voice that Sonic heared as she left was that of Zip, her liason back at Croft Manor from Tomb Raider Legend. Well, I hope you liked this part, it was quite a trial for me to write. I HATE the Labyrinth Zone XD

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