(A/N: Once again, a great story gives me an idea...so thanks Dan Brown, and enjoy!)
Out of the lake, across the clearing...
Ferb wished the clearing would magically shrink. Every second they delayed was a second more for the robots to find out about Hazelton.
Isabella still looked furious at Ferb, but she had no choice but to follow him now.
They were runaways. And dangerous ones at that.
They reached the castle. Ferb pulled open the doors, not bothering about the noise it made when it slammed shut. He set off on the corridors with Isabella in tow.
Isabella's thoughts were a mess.
Is Ferb going to betray me a second time?
What should I do?
Do I even have a choice in this?
Ferb was leading her along winding passageways, taking the corners at breakneck speed.
Even if I want to turn around and flee, I can't. I can't find my way out.
So for the second time, she put her fate in Ferb's hands.
The torches Isabella saw earlier illuminated her now. They were getting close, she knew. Close to who, or what, she did not know, or care. Phineas was dead...
"Phineas is alive."Ferb cut across her thoughts.
"Don't fool me. He's dead! I saw it! And you KILLED HIM!"Isabella was losing control, being so close to Phineas, yet so far.
"Isabella, look!" Ferb pointed to a familiar tank. They were here.
"I'm going to open the tank. And I'll bring him back." Somehow Isabella didn't immediately kill him for saying that, and Ferb made his move.
He dragged Phineas out of the tank and laid him on the floor. Phineas looked very dead to both Ferb and Isabella.
But unlike Isabella, Ferb knew he wasn't dead.
After all, it was never water he was submerged in. It was oxygenated perflourocarbons.
Breathable liquid.
He started doing CPR on Phineas. Phineas still seemed very dead.
Then he started coughing.
Isabella's heart jumped. "Phineas!"
Ferb forced a lot of the liquid out of Phineas.
Then, as if by magic-
"Isabella? Ferb? Wh-where am I?'
"Phineas!" Isabella ran up to him and nearly squeezed his fragile conscience out of him in one bear-hug. Phineas seemed rather taken aback.
Ferb gave Isabella a what-did-I-tell-you? look. That's when Phineas saw Ferb.
"Ferb! You..." Phineas seemed barely strong enough to be angry.
"Relax, bro. I planned it out from start to finish."
And he quickly told Phineas what he had done to Hazelton.
"Is it true, Isabella?" The very act of speaking seemed to weaken Phineas.
Isabella nodded mutely, torn between astonishment and joy.
"But then...but then..."Phineas was tongue-tied for once.
"I'll explain it as we go, but what matters right now is that we've just pulled off The Great Escape...
At that moment, alarm bells went off in the distance. There seemed to be a huge amount of movement all around the castle.
"...or not. Sigh...they never give up, do they?"
And with that he dragged Phineas and Isabella out of the castle, deftly evading all the dead-end corridors.
They dashed out of the drawbridge of the castle, which was automatically controlled, ready to make a dash for the woods beyond the castle-
-but found his way blocked by robots, who promptly fired on them.
The three ducked. Ferb pulled them up again, and started running in a zig-zag direction-
-to the lake. They didn't even have time to put on suits.
"Phineas, I know this is asking a lot of you, but...hold your breath. It'll be faster then you think", he added quickly, seeing the alarm on Phineas' face. "Could you do it?"
Phineas nodded uncertainly. "Okay..."
A laser whizzed past them."Let's go!" Ferb shouted.
And they dived in. They reached the bottom in no time flat.
But Phineas was dangerously close to blacking out again. Ferb needed to find the secret entrance fast. A flash of light off metal, an oddly-shaped rock, anything that passed for a lever-
There!
Ferb grabbed it, hoping he was right. Indeed, the secret entrance opened before him.
They entered it, hoping the atrium was deserted. Their luck held out, and no one was there. But Ferb knew it wouldn't stay that way. So he dragged his brother and Isabella towards one of the side corridors.
"Repeat that, please. I still don't get it." Phineas said to Ferb. They were all sopping wet and all on their own in one of the corridors in the complex.
Ferb repeated himself patiently. "I tricked Hazelton into believing that I was on his side-incidentally, that's how I got this", he said, pointing to Isabella's slap mark; Isabella turned as red as the slap mark."I tricked Hazelton, then I tased him with one of the tasers I brought from our castle.I brought yours, too."
"But the liquid! How did you..."
"Oxygenated perflourocarbons. I designed the chamber, I should know. I wanted to make it more realistic but I didn't have time to finish it- it teleported here before I could modify the plastic container."
"But how did you know the castle was here?" Isabella asked.
"I didn't know. Hazelton did-beats me how he found out. Probably he found out when he walked past it or something. When he brought us there I had to think really fast, so I suggested the drowning simulator to torture the information out of you, as opposed to any of the real Gothic tortures we put there. Why we even put tasers in there I don't know-maybe as an electric torture, you know, a bit of a modern taste to a Gothic concept. Anyway, I've modified them, they should shoot like a normal revolver now-six shots before it overheats."
Phineas looked at Ferb. Was he really capable of pulling all this off? And why so chatty?
Ferb started to feel uncomfortable. "Phineas, I know you are disoriented, and that you hate me for putting you through all that, but-"
The rest of the sentence was lost in the hug Phineas gave his brother. Ferb returned the hug awkwardly. Isabella looked on, content to let Phineas hug someone else for once.
"One thing I need to ask you, Phineas said, breaking the hug, is it usual to see delusions while in there? Like maybe, images of loved ones?"
"Yes, that's why it's so potent as a torture device." Ferb's distaste was again evident.
Then there was awkward silence again.
"I seemed to have lost where I was before that." Ferb attempted to start converstaion again, even as they walked.
"Let it stay lost." Phineas said.
"Maybe you're right..."