Author's note: Nail Strafer seems to have lost interest in this story. Oh, well. I don't need everyone to review my stories.
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Chapter 27: Death Egg III
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As soon as I slipped through the doorway, I noticed that the hallways were filled with robots. There was no way I would ever be able to fight them all at once, so I just had to slip by them undetected. It didn't look easy, though; there were hundreds of them.
Acting on a sudden idea, I jumped up and opened my wings, silently hovering above the floor. I then changed my wing speed to rise up above all the robots and silently cling to the ceiling. None of the robots ever looked up, so I was safe for the moment.
Quickly but carefully, I made my way across the ceilings of the hallways. Avoiding detection as I continued was both harder and easier than I expected. It was only a matter of keeping my wings moving and pausing to rest every now and then.
At one point I had a very close call. As I was about to cut through a doorway, one of my feathers escaped from my wing and began to dance about as it descended to the ground. I didn't notice it until I glanced over my shoulder.
Oh, no! I thought. If a robot finds that thing, I'm busted! I managed to pinch the feather with less than seconds to spare. After pausing to breathe a sigh of relief, I proceeded.
Still, Dr. Eggman had somehow figured out that someone was snooping around. A sudden P.A. announcement caught my attention: "Attention all robots: I suspect that there's an intruder somewhere in the Death Egg III. If you notice anything suspicious, notify me ASAP. I'll be in the mechanics lab, right next door to Sonic's holding cell. That is all."
After hearing this announcement, I knew three things. One: I knew that the robots would be more alert now. Two: I knew that being classified as an "intruder" was somehow flattering. And three: I knew where Dr. Eggman and Sonic were. At least, I knew the name of the location they were in. I had no idea where the mechanics lab was, though.
Unfortunately, the halls of the Death Egg were like a maze. There was no telling what was where or which room was what or who was going where or when or why or how. It was so confusing, I felt dizzy just thinking about it. To boot, there were no visitors' maps of the place.
An idea came to mind, though. A few more robots passed underneath me. I dropped one of my feathers, and it danced as it descended to the floor. By pure chance, it landed right in the face of one of the robots.
The robot in question retrieved the feather and examined it. It didn't say anything, but I knew that it was going to bring it to Dr. Eggman as a clue to the intruder.
As the robot changed direction, I followed it, keeping my attention on it at all times. It opened a few doors, and I flew through them, taking extreme care not to get noticed by any other robots.
It worked well until one door closed too quickly for me to get through it, and I almost hit my head on the closed door. I had to wait until another robot came through the door before I could get through it, and by the time I did, the robot I'd dropped the feather to had escaped.
Not one to give up easily, I looked around in the hopes that I was close to the mechanics lab. Unfortunately, I wasn't, so I dropped another feather. Another robot found it, examined it, and started toward Dr. Eggman to present the feathery piece of evidence to the doctor.
Just minutes later, another P.A. announcement shook me up: "Attention all robots. I have now determined the identity of the intruder mentioned in the announcement. He is Leo, the same robin who caused so much trouble for me the last couple of days. He's mostly red, but parts of his body are dyed different colors. Keep an eye out for him.
"I came to that conclusion because robot W-3279 found one of his feathers in Sector F, and I was able to positively ID them. If you find any other feathers, there is no need to bring them to me, but remember where you found them. That is all." By the time Dr. Eggman hung up, I felt like my wings were made of lead.
The robot I'd dropped the second feather to turned around and went back to his business, leaving me stranded. Luckily, there hadn't been much of a gap between the two robots, which meant that the mechanics lab was somewhere very close by.
Examining my immediate vicinity, I peeked around a corner. There was a doorway in the far wall with a staircase leading down. A plate on the doorway read MECHANICS LAB. No question about it: this was the place.
Right next to the doorway, I spotted something that looked like a prison cell. I got closer, and saw that the bars were solid steel, and that they were scratched a little, as if someone had tried to saw through them and failed miserably.
In the corner, I could see someone I recognized instantly. "Sonic!" I called out. Sonic didn't respond. I repeated my call, and he still didn't notice me, so I decided to try another approach.
Fumbling around my leg, I recovered an Ice Feather which I nocked on my wing, pulled back, and shot through the bars. It hit its target directly, causing Sonic to jump so high he almost hit his head on the ceiling. He rushed over and confronted me.
"Hey, who are you?" Sonic asked.
"Leo," I explained. "You're Sonic, right? Tails sent me to come rescue you."
"I'm glad, but there's no way to open this cell. The lock is electronic, and Dr. Eggman has the only keycard to open it. He's in the mechanics lab, so if you think you can take him down, I'd be really grateful. I don't think it'll be easy, though."
"If I couldn't do anything that wasn't easy, I wouldn't have made it this far. See you, Sonic. The doc is going down." With that, I turned my attention to the doorway to the mechanics lab.
I silently entered the room. Dr. Eggman was working on a huge mechanical … thing. Apparently this was one of his kooky "boss fight" contraptions. How he'd ever get it out of the room was beyond me, but then again, the room was large and spacious enough for use as an arena.
Slowly, I began down the staircase that led to the floor. At the bottom, I found a small control panel that was used to retract the staircase, which I did. That way, Dr. Eggman couldn't get away from me or summon reinforcements.
The noise of the staircase retracting caught Dr. Eggman's attention. He whirled around angrily and spotted me. "Leo!" he greeted me jokingly. "So delightful to see you again! I should've brought chips and dip!"
"I don't know about the chips," I quipped in response, "but the only dip in this room is you. Hand over the keycard for Sonic's cell!"
"I'll do no such thing," the doctor shot back as he reached over and started up the huge mechanism he'd just finished building. I almost fainted as I looked at the thing.
"You're impressed, aren't you?" Dr. Eggman explained as he climbed into the cockpit. "This is the Egg Dragon, my latest creation. It was made specially to get rid of pests such as yourself. I designed it to have absolutely no weaknesses."
"No weaknesses?" I repeated, nervously brushing some loose feathers off my arm. I don't know when I picked up that habit, but I did somewhere.
"No weaknesses," the doc confirmed, "not even those yellow bug-zapper feathers of yours. And the cockpit is protected by ultra-strong glass which can't be damaged by anything you can throw at me."
"We'll see about that," I hissed. My wings were open, my feet were braced against the ground, and I held up my fists in a fighting pose. "Let's dance!"
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Yeah, yeah, you know what goes here.
Quote of the Chapter:
"The scan was 61 percent complete when a shot knocked me down. Another one of those blasted Mega Turrets, left over from a recent Space Pirate investigation of the planet, had shot at me."
-Narrator, Hunters, Ch. 1