Alright, update time. Here's the new chapter. Also, thank you very much for your comments.
Chapter 5: Maze
Inside the Egg Citadel's control room…
A siren suddenly went off inside the room, alerting Eggman to the security footage. The mad scientist looked at the screen and saw that Sonic and Knuckles had somehow managed to escape their confinement, a feat that he had deemed impossible, and made him throw a tantrum.
"I don't believe it!" shouted Eggman, "How on earth did they escape? I made sure that the cell would resist anything they're capable of…"
Eggman crushed a mug of coffee that he was holding and slammed his hand on the keyboard. After a few minutes, he calmed down and diverted his gaze at the security footage of the level Sonic and Knuckles were currently at.
"Never mind then. I still have a backup plan for you, hedgehog. Computer, activate Protocol NWO-7 (No way out)."
"Activating Protocol NWO-7." said a monotone computer voice.
Eggman smirked and turned his attention back to the security footage and watched his enemies intently, "Now, you'll know what's it like to be trapped like a lab rat, pests."
With that, Eggman turned away from the screen and continued with what he had been doing...
Inside the Egg Citadel…
Sonic had sped out of his and Knuckles' shared cell and was running around looking for Eggman's main control room. Along his path, the blue hedgehog was intercepted by a lot of Egg Pawns, which he quickly disposed of without much difficulty, courtesy of his infamous spin dash attack.
Knuckles had managed to catch up with Sonic by following the trail of destroyed robots. The echidna was not one to stand still and idle, either. He used his brute strength and tossed the pieces of metal lying everywhere on the ground at the security guns on the walls with impressive force. Knuckles' aims were spot-on, and the guns were smashed as soon as they were hit.
"So, any idea where we should go?" asked Knuckles as he dusted his hands. A robot snuck up on him from behind, but he smashed it with a powerful jab without so much as turning his head around.
"Beats me." replied Sonic as he sat on the head of an Egg Soldier, making it dance around in circle trying to shake the hedgehog off. When Sonic got bored, he unleashed a downward spin and split the unfortunate bot in half. "This place is one huge maze. I've been running around for a while now, and I still can't find the way out."
Knuckled looked around for a while. He noticed that something was strange. The place they were at looked like an endless corridor.
Knuckles then grabbed a piece of metal on the ground and drew a giant X on the wall. Sonic looked at the echidna and realized what he was doing.
"There. That should let us know where we start from." said Knuckles, "Now then, let's move."
Without delay, the heroes began navigating through the maze. This so-called maze was very plain, and they both wondered if it could even be called a maze at all. Basically, the place consisted of long corridors that led to some intersections, that was all. The color scheme effectively created a perfect camouflage for the Egg Pawns, not that they could use it to their advantage, however. Also, there were electronic boards attached to the walls of each passage at each intersection. It appeared they served no particular purpose beside letting Eggman communicate with the trapped heroes.
Navigating through the maze without being disturbed was hard enough, but Sonic and Knuckles had to find their way out and deal with ambushes set by Eggman's forces. At some points, the Egg Pawns would just jump out of nowhere and started throwing lethal projectiles at the heroes. Other times, automatic security guns would pop out of the wall and started shooting without warning.
Sonic and Knuckles, however, didn't have too much trouble with the robots' pathetic attempts at sneak attacks. They easily dodged and responded to every ambush using their well-honed instincts and reflexes. Sonic would take care of the annoying Egg Pawns, while Knuckles would throw the robots' remains at the guns to disable them.
The heroes had no real problem with Eggman's robots, but they were having quite a headache with the maze. For some reason, they felt like they were just walking around and around without much progress. They walked along the corridors and tried every path at each intersection, but still they couldn't locate the exit.
After what seemed like a few hours of walking, Sonic and Knuckles stopped and stared at a particular wall with their eyes wide open. It had a 'X' carved onto it, so that meant Sonic and Knuckles had successfully returned to square one.
"What the hell?" yelled Knuckles in irritation, "How did we manage to get back here?" The hot-headed guardian punched the wall with a mighty force, but his punch could only ruin the paint job of the wall, nothing more.
"It's a maze, Knux. I have to admit, the doc did something good for once." said Sonic as he looked around.
"This is no time for admiration, Sonic. We need to get out of this place. Who knows what kind of chaos Eggman is causing outside."
"How about we split up and look for the exit individually?" suggested Sonic, "The first one to get out can head to Egghead's place, beat him up and teleport us out."
"Teleport?"
"Well, he must have some sort of teleportation device. If not, we can always ask him to show us the way out…nicely." Sonic put an emphasis on the words "ask" and "nicely".
Knuckles thought for a few moments before turning back to look at Sonic, "Alright, that looks like the only option we have left. Let's do it, but how do we know if one of us has got out?"
"Tails' wristwatch doubles as a communication device. Actually, it has everything, scanner, camera, even texting functions. Use it." Sonic's voice became visibly shaken at the mention of the fox's name, but he tried his best to remain calm. He needed to get out of the maze first.
Knuckles turned on his wristwatch that Tails had given him a few months ago and searched for the communication function. Thank Chaos the fox had designed the watch to be user-friendly, so even Knuckles, who was not so good at technology (he spends his entire life on Angel Island after all) could easily find what he was looking for.
The echidna nodded and carved a bigger X mark on the wall. Once that was done, Sonic and Knuckles walked to the nearest intersection, crossing the seemingly useless electronic boards, and went separate ways.
Outside the Egg Citadel, the same figure had landed his aircraft on top of a building close to the fortress and continued hacking into Eggman's systems. The enigma opened up a number of files he had managed to download from the mad doctor's mainframe on his handheld device and clicked on a file that had "Protocols" written on it. He searched until his eyes fell on the one called "Protocol NWO-7". He opened the file and began studying the aforementioned protocol and how it worked.
In case you wonder how Knuckles managed to carve the 'X' on the wall, the metal pieces he used only ruined the paint job, not the wall itself. The walls inside the maze are extremely durable, as described in this chapter. That's all.
Since weekend is over and I have part time job and schoolwork to do, the next chapters may take a while. I already have already finished typing every chapter of the story, but I have to edit them carefully before putting them up. Please be patient. Thank you for your support.