Finally, it's weekend. Now I have some time to work on my story and escape reality for a little while. Here's the fourth chapter. Enjoy everyone.
Chapter 4: Prison
Sonic opened his eyes a while later and slowly sat up. He remembered being hit by some sort of tractor beam and getting pulled into a strange flying fortress. The cobalt hero shook his head to clear his blurry vision and quickly scanned his surrounding. Darkness was all that he could see.
Sonic squinted his eyes and looked harder, and he found Knuckles lying next to him. The hedgehog shook his red friend vigorously in an attempt to wake him up.
"Hey, Knuckles, wake up!"
The red echidna groaned and slowly opened his eyes. After sitting up fully, he looked at the surroundings and saw they were in some dark place with little lighting.
"What is this place?" asked Knuckles in confusion.
"Eggman kidnapped us, remember? We're probably inside his flying castle thingy."
"Can't believe we fell for that stupid trick."
"Yeah, now I know how you must feel like when you fall for Eggman's usual brand of stupid." said the hedgehog jokingly.
"If my brain weren't doing a rollercoaster ride in my head right now, I would beat the snot out of you, Sonic."
"You have a brain?" asked Sonic sarcastically.
"Tread carefully, hedgehog. You're really testing my patience here." threatened the irritated guardian.
"I don't tread, I jet."
Knuckles once again growled in annoyance. He really couldn't decide which was worse: being stuck inside Eggman's airborne base or being stuck in Eggman's airborne base WITH Sonic. The red guardian stood up and dusted himself off. He tried to locate a wall. Maybe he could punch a hole and escape through it. He quickly found the thing he was looking for, but as soon as his spiked knuckle made contact, the echidna cried out in pain.
The wall was extremely hard, too hard for him even. Knuckles grabbed his hand and blew on it rapidly like doing so would magically make the pain go away. Once the pain had somewhat disappeared, the echidna tried again…and again…and again to no avail.
Sonic actually found Knuckles' situation quite hilarious and chuckled to himself. He knew that if Eggman had had the gall to kidnap the powerhouse member of the team, he would have made sure that the prison could withstand the guardian's devastating blows, but he wasn't going to tell his companion that bit of info just for the fun of watching him try. After a series a punches, Knuckles gave up, finally realizing that even he could not break this wall. He walked back to where Sonic was sitting and sat down.
Knuckles began to blow on his knuckles like before. However, when the guardian noticed the grin on the cobalt hedgehog's face, he frowned and pointed his index finger at the hedgehog, "Not. One. Word."
Sonic drew his thumb and forefinger across his lips and acted like he threw away the key, but, in fact, he could barely contain the urge to laugh at the red echidna's face when he said that.
All of the sudden, the light lit up and made the darkness go away. Both Sonic and Knuckles were momentarily blinded by the bright light until their eyes adjusted. They looked around at the newly lit room and found that they were in a containment cell of some sort. A big computer screen lowered down and revealed Eggman's smirking face.
"Welcome aboard my glorious Egg Citadel, Sonic…and Knuckles. Tell me, how was your little nap?"
"Would have been much more comfortable with some mattresses and blankets, thank you very much." said Sonic sarcastically, "I'm giving this hotel a one out of ten."
Knuckles just shook his head at Sonic's antics and stared at the mad scientist, "What do you want with us, Eggman?"
"I'm so glad you ask, Knuckles. I only want to get you out of the way. That's all."
"By locking us in this tiny room? Sure, very original, doc." said Knuckles.
"Oh, we'll just have to break out of this tiny hole really fast, kick your sorry butt and save the day, right Knux?" said Sonic cheerfully.
"Sonic, why don't you shut up and let me do the talking?"
"Oh, no, I can…"
"I INSIST!" yelled Knuckles as he cracked his fingers, looking ready to give Sonic a knock-out blow. Sonic held up his hands in defeat, knowing not to push his luck. Knuckles once again shook his head in irritation. "One minute, he was sulking about being horrible to Tails, and the next minute, he reverts back to being an insufferable hedgehog with a mouth that never seems to rest" thought the annoyed guardian.
"Ahem, now that you've sorted out your roles, may I continue?" Eggman asked with feigned politeness. After receiving icy glares from both the hedgehog and the echidna, he smirked and continued on with his speech.
"As you may have noticed, even Knuckles can't break out of your little cell. I specifically designed it myself after all. All you need to do is sit there and relax while I commence my master plan to conquer the world. Don't worry, we have live cable in here, so I will let you see my work when the time comes."
After that, Eggman turned off the screen and left Sonic and Knuckles to figure out how to get out of their prison cell before and stop Eggman before the mad doctor set whatever he was up to in motion.
"So, any idea?" asked Knuckles.
Sonic was about to say "Am I allowed to speak now?", but the Knuckles' face told him that he shouldn't push it. The hedgehog seemed to think for a few moments before he used his spin dash attack on the walls, but he only ended up bouncing around the cell, almost hitting Knuckles multiple times, much to the echidna's annoyance. Due to the small size of the room, Sonic couldn't stop ricocheting.
"Knuckles, catch me!" yelled the bouncing hedgehog.
Knuckles readied himself and planted his feet on the ground. When Sonic was perfectly in sight, he held his arms and stopped the hedgehog's ball form in his track, putting an end to Sonic's dangerous bouncing.
"Any more bright ideas, hedgehog?"
Once again, Sonic thought for a while, and then turned to look at Knuckles, "Try throwing me at the wall with all your strength and see if that works."
Knuckles didn't really like this plan, but it was all they had, so he decided to give it a shot. Sonic curled up into a ball and Knuckles picked him up, ready for the test. The red echidna sent all of his strength into his arm and threw Sonic at the opposite wall. The force was extremely strong, probably enough to make Sonic smash through multiple layers of metal with relative ease.
Sonic hit the wall with a loud thud, but he ended up ricocheting right in Knuckles' face, knocking him back. The guardian let out a painful cry when Sonic hit him. The force of the ricochet managed to bruise his head.
"Ouch! That hurt!" growled the angry echidna.
"Sorry about that, Knux. Looks like Eggman is right for once. We can't get out. Jeez, what is this wall made of anyway?" said Sonic as he tapped his knuckle on the wall.
"If only Tails were here, maybe he could meddle with Eggman's systems or anything and open the door for us." said Knuckles innocently, unaware of the effect the fox's name had on Sonic.
Sonic's face dropped almost immediately at the name of his best friend. Guilt came back to him and the cobalt speedster looked at his feet in shame. Running around and smashing Eggman's robots had managed to get Sonic's mind off of the morning's incident, but now that Knuckles mentioned it, the unpleasant memories flooded back.
"Tails…" muttered Sonic to himself as he hung his head in shame.
Knuckles noticed the change in Sonic's attitude and got close to his hedgehog companion, "He'll be fine. You two fight all the time, but you still make up in the end, right?"
"But this isn't like those other times. I messed up big time, and now Tails is probably having nightmares about his past. His face…when I called him that…" Sonic's voice trailed off as he spoke. The guilt was clearly eating away at his mind. The image of Tails' crying face popped back into his head, and once again, the blue blur trembled at the thought that Tails would hate him for life.
"Alright, we'll get out of here, kick Eggman's butt and get back to the workshop to see him, cool?"
"Nice plan, Knucklehead, but you missed one crucial detail: How the heck are we going to break out of this cell?" said Sonic.
As soon as Sonic finished his sentence, the room began to shake slightly, which both surprised and worried the trapped heroes. Suddenly, the wall behind Sonic split and revealed a path. Both the hedgehog and the echidna were clearly taken aback by the strange turn of event, and wondered if it was just another one of Eggman's tricks.
"What did you do, Knuckles?"
"I did nothing. I've been standing here talking to you the whole time, hedgehog." Knuckles looked at the exit suspiciously before turning back to Sonic, "So, should we?"
"I don't think we have much of a choice here, if it's a trap, then so be it." said Sonic without a second of hesitation. He quickly sped off through the exit, leaving his partner behind.
Knuckles growled in frustration. However, the guardian was wondering why Eggman would just let them go after all that trouble. A moment later, another question popped up in his head, "If it's not Eggman, then who?"
The echidna quickly shook the doubts off his head and ran after Sonic.
…
Outside the Egg Citadel's current location, an aircraft stealthily approached the flying base undetected by its numerous cameras. The pilot looked at the screen on a handheld device and it showed something that looked like schematics of the giant castle. The pilot smirked and pushed the buttons rapidly with one hand, bypassing the mad scientist's firewall and hacking into the Egg Citadel's system.
"Alright, I'm in. Time to crack this egg wide open." said the pilot as he continued his work.
So, who do you think our "mysterious" hacker is? I'm sure everyone knows who already, right? But for the sake of the story, keep it to yourselves. Please give me your thoughts and opinions.
The next chapter will be up pretty soon. In the meantime, check out my other completed stories if you have time. Thank you.