The circular doorway unlocked, and the fox and rabbit swiftly ran through it into the next test chamber. As they both looked at what the sign said about the chamber to the left of them, a sound came over the speakers again.
The robotic voice greeted the ears of both mammals yet again. "Due to the requirements of the testing protocol, this test chamber will remain completely unmonitored. Good luck."
Nick looked up at the ceiling. "Uh, thank you, 'mysterious voice'," he said, looking up at the ceiling where the source of the voice was.
Judy basically snickered at the words of the previous announcement. "Unmonitored my butt," she muttered faintly under her breath, "I'm pretty sure I can some mammal watching a screen from that small window above us. Probably spying on us the whole time."
The rabbit was correct in her observance; above them, the faint silhouette of a worker could be seen, more than likely watching them from the cubicle he currently occupied.
An orange portal started to take shape from behind them, only this time it seemed like nothing could pass through it. Instead, it was just a brightly-colored circle of energy upon the gray wall, completely solid in its color and leading to nowhere at all.
"Now, what do we do here?" she whispered to herself.
Looking down from above the platform that she stood on, she saw an object within the middle of the chamber that was a good jump down from where she was located. A tile block with an arrow on it pointed to the object, implying that it had importance.
She took a leap down to where she needed to go, approaching what was in front of her. Placed upon a small platform was some sort of white gadget.
"Come on, Nick," Judy said, gesturing for the fox above her to jump down. "We need to figure out what this thing is."
The vulpine huffed under his breath, not appreciating the fact that the bunny had been giving him directions, such as the one she just did, the entire time. "I see who's tryin' to run the whole show here," he muttered, casually walking along. "Can't believe I'm-"
Before the fox could finish, he ended up tripping on something that was laying on the floor. Losing balance, the vulpine clumsily fell down to where the rabbit was waiting for him.
The doe shook her head at Nick, who now laid there. "That's what you get for murmuring things under your breath," she mocked. "Now come on and check this thing out, you big klutz."
The fox got up from the cold, hard ground. A sudden sensation of pain rushed over him. "Ow, my back!" he complained. "Probably gonna have a bruise or two after that fall."
"I think you'll live."
Shaking her head in denial of how this was who was joining on her trek through the Enrichment Center, she walked up closer to the gadget that rested upon its platform. As she picked it up, she observed the heavy object in all of its glory.
Bloop!
The speakers were coming back on again. "With this device, you can create your own portals."
"Oh, that makes sense," Nick said. "I was just wondering how the heck we were gonna get back up from here if we didn't have a portal."
"Now let's see…" Judy murmured, looking at the machine to see how in the world it worked.
The fox swiped it out of her grasp. "I take it from here, Carrots."
Judy turned around immediately. "Hey! You don't know how to work that thing. That's not something to just-"
"Relax," the vulpine interrupted, pressing a button on the unique gadget, "I know what I'm doing."
"Yeah," the rabbit muttered, "I've heard that one before."
The fox eyed the device for a short time, definitely not knowing what he was doing. He tried to get the gadget aimed at where he expected it to go. Let's pray those few lessons of archery I took when I was younger pay off, he thought.
"Now let's see what this does," the vulpine murmured, pressing what looked like a sort of trigger.
Upon pressing the button, a beam of blue energy shot out from the device. Judy instinctively braced herself and backed away as the energy flew passed the room, landing on a gray wall a few paces in front of them. A portal similar to the one above them opened up, only this time it was a dark blue color instead of orange.
The fox and rabbit both started to walk up to the newly-opened portal, noticing that it lead back to the orange opening on the wall that was above them.
Nick looked over at Judy with that ever-so-sly grin forming on him. The doe looked at him and simply sighed.
"So it's as easy as just pressing a button?" she inquired, changing the subject. "That's all there is to it?"
Nick held the portal device in his grasp, the part of it that shoots out the portals aimed down at the floor as he went along. "Pretty much," he said. "I told you that I knew what I was doing."
He accidentally fumbled the button on the gadget, making a blue portal open up right underneath their paws. The fox and rabbit stuttered a moment as the unexpectedly found themselves back up at where they from.
Judy took the portal device out of Nick's paws, getting back her control of it. "Yeah, I can see that," she remarked. "You better let me handle the portal thing for awhile."
She shot a blue portal over to another gray wall on the far side of the test chamber, and it appeared to be a good jump from the ground. However, a security camera of some sort was mounted a smidge away from where she had created the portal, and it ended up breaking off upon her aiming near it. The doe didn't expect that to happen.
I guess I need to work on my aim a little bit better, she thought.
"Vital testing apparatus destroyed," the automated voice announced across the loud speakers.
"See that, Carrots?" Nick remarked, his words unnecessary at the moment. "You destroyed a vital testing apparatus, whatever in heaven that even is."
The rabbit grunted as she went through the orange portal behind her and came out the blue one and the other side of the room. Nick followed soon after, and with that the doors opened up to the next part of the chamber.
"You are both doing an excellent job so far."
"Yeah," Judy breathed. "That's because I'm solving most of it here."
The fox huffed in denial. "Hey, I helped some."
"If anything, I'm doing most of the thinking around here and you're just following my lead."
"Whatever you say."
They stepped inside and found a layout that was alit bit different from the rest of them. The floor underneath their paws was cold and black, the only gray walls within the room were on the ceiling.
Not even a full minute later, Judy managed to get the next portion of the test chamber solved like it was second nature. After she completed the task, her and Nick both went over to the next elevator. When the doors shut behind them, the elevator jerked a bit and started to ascend to their next route.
Bloop… "Based on your ability to solve the previous test chambers rather quickly, the succeeding tests will be increasing in complexity. The Enrichment Center congratulates you, as you are doing really, really well. Good luck."
"Great," Nick muttered. "It's gonna get harder from here. 'Cause that's what I needed."
A Few Moments Later…
The fox and rabbit darted down the halls, going straight, making a left, and then making a sharp right like they were circling the walls of a labyrinth. From what the previous robotic announcement told them as they ran through the chamber, the next test was potentially dangerous. But there was no way to easily breeze through it, so they pressed forward.
Well, more accurately, Judy pressed forward while Nick dragged along. The fox occasionally nagged about that his paws were starting to ache and that he needed a break from all of the running around.
The doe held up a paw, alerting the fox behind her to stop and stay still. "Wait a second," she whispered, peeking her head around the corner.
As she dotted her eyes to the next part of the room, staying as quiet as possible, her attention over to a sleek, thin robot of some sort that stood there idly on three metallic legs. A red laser projected from the machine for a quick moment before powering down.
"What is it?" Nick said, looking around the corner.
"I think those are called turrets," Judy informed. "There suppose to be a target that we are supposed to avoid completely whenever they're in a test."
"How do you know that? I didn't hear that voice say anything about 'em."
"I read it out of this little manual I found just lying on the floor." The doe was pertaining to a brown, worn-out little booklet was in her one paw.
"Does it say anything else in there on what to do when you see one?"
"No, it looks like a page or two was torn out of this or something." She threw the manual down and steadily tip-toed along, trying not to attract the attention of the turret.
"How convenient," the vulpine huffed. "We're walking into this blindly."
Nick casually walked along, not even attempting but steadily about anything at all. Judy held a paw out trying to get his attention and stop him.
"Nick, don't!" she exclaimed. "They just said the these tests were gonna be dangerous."
"Calm down, Fluff," Nick replied, certain of himself. "It's not like that turret or whatever that is over there is gonna try to kill me."
As the fox walked out into the middle of the small hallway, the turret turned back on pointed its red laser directly at Nick. The sides of the white robot protruded outward. "Deploying," the machine said.
Nick yelped loudly with fear as the turret opened fire. Gasping heavily and clutching his tail, he ran back over to where Judy was hiding. The fox got out of range completely unharmed (That was a close one, he suddenly thought), and the only thing the turret managed to hit was a wall that wasn't even close at all to him. While he didn't sustain any injuries at all, it was the thought of the turret's capabilities that made him panic the way that he did.
"Target lost," a robotic voice stated, coming from the turret that had its laser scanning the room.
"Okay, take back what I said," Nick said, a paw over his chest as he tried to catch his breath. "That thing is definitely going to try to kill me!"
The doe quickly turned around and placed a blue portal underneath the turret, and following it up with an orange portal in a different spot. Judy took a swift step back before she could even be detected by the machine. The robot ended up falling through the portal that the rabbit placed underneath it, getting abruptly knocked over onto its side in the process. After firing at nothing, it sounded like it completely powered down without any signs of kicking back on.
"Shutting down," the turret seemed to whisper from the distance.
"Just listen to what I say and you'll be fine, Nick," Judy remarked.
With that, the doe started running down the clear hall upon seeing that there was no other turrets hidden anywhere. "Come on!"