madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-Fazzbears out for blood-

One problem solved: the hatch above them closed automatically, cutting off their pursuers. It also cut off all light, but they could deal with that. Teqi winced as the hatch was kicked repeatedly, pounding as fast as her heart was. The ground was dusty and cold, grit sticking to her hands.

Frank must have turned back to human form, thankfully. Teqi could hear him wheezing in the dark. She was coughing as well, dust floating up from the unused passage they were squashed into.

"What now?" Frank asked quietly.

"Okay, don't freak," Leo said. "I'm going to summon a little fire, just so we can see."

"Uh..." Franks breathe caught, and Teqi could hear him shuffling away a little, but there wasn't a lot of room in the space. Teqi's legs were bunched up to her chest, and her neck was aching.

"Gimme a minute," Teqi muttered, and closed her eyes, even though she couldn't see anything with them open. She slowed her breathing, and moved forward with her mind. She couldn't figure out their surroundings, but there was a rich dark aura about a hundred feet or so away.

Teqi couldn't figure out what colour it was, all she could feel was the density of it.                                            'Precious metals', she remembered, her fingers curling around the golden bracelets she was wearing. Hazel's aura also had an odd feel around the edges, painfully reminding Teqi of the eidolons. It must've be something to do with being... well, dead.

She opened her eyes, and the cramped space around them was lit up with a glowing purple. In front of them stretched a stone tunnel with a low ceiling. Just as Hazel had predicted, it slanted down, then levelled out and went south. She turned around with a grin, both of the boys behind her wincing at the bright light coming from her eyes, "C'mon, I dunno how long it'll last."

"Well," Leo said. "It only goes in one direction."

"Let's find Hazel," Frank said.

"She's down there... somewhere." Teqi told him. They made their way down the corridor, Teqi going first with her headlight like purple eyes. Every few minutes she would close them and reach out to Hazel's aura again, just to keep her powers flowing through her veins. She cut that thought off quickly. She didn't want to think about her veins anymore. 

It would have been easier to just grow some vines, but she wasn't sure how stable the marble surrounding them was, and didn't really feel like being trapped in it.

After a hundred feet or so, they turned a corner and found Hazel. In the light of her golden cavalry sword, she was examining a door. She was so engrossed, she didn't notice them until Leo said, "Hi."

Hazel whirled, trying to swing her spatha. Fortunately for Leo's face, the blade was too long to wield in the corridor. He still had the stitched up cut along his left cheek, which would fade into a deep scar. Teqi was just glad that was the worst the dolphin pirates had done to him.

"What are you doing here?" Hazel demanded.

Leo gulped. "Sorry. We ran into some angry tourists." He told her what had happened, and Teqi fiddled with her golden knives, keeping an eye on their surroundings, and hoping they weren't about to be jumped by dead men the colour of her knives.

Hazel hissed in frustration, her hands balling into fists. "I hate eidolons. I thought Piper made them promise to stay away."

"Oh..." Frank said, like he'd just thought of something that didn't make him feel very good either. "Piper made them promise to stay off the ship and not possess any of us. But if they followed us, and used other bodies to attack us, then they're not technically breaking their vow...."