Sonic stumbled as he walked. It was kind of funny; he looked a bit like he was drunk. He rubbed his temples; his headache probably wouldn't be going away anytime soon.
"Does anyone feel that?" Sonic asked, closing his eyes tightly.
I blinked. "Feel what?"
"Like..." He paused. "A hypnotic wave of some sort. Filling my head with thoughts... And not good ones."
"No, I'm not getting that." I said, staring at him, watching for any sign of resistance from him. If he was going to turn on us, it wouldn't be good. "Tempo?"
"I'm also fine..." She stated. "And I'm not getting any sign of a 'wave' of some sort."
Sonic fell to his knees. I ran to him, grabbing his shoulders. "Are you okay?"
"No... It's taking over!" He yelled, putting his head back.
"This has to be Wily's doing." I announced.
Suddenly, he jumped up, and raised his arms up like a zombie. His eyes were crossed and he was snarling like some sort of demented beast; it was completely unlike a robot! I couldn't help but scream. Even Tempo stepped back with a somewhat frightened look on her face.
"Sonic, I-" Before I could finish my sentence, he started to laugh. I was so confused.
"The look on your faces!" He cried out. He was rolling on the floor laughing, thinking the 'joke' was just super hilarious. "Ha ha! That was priceless! I was going to crawl on the floor, but it looks like going all zombie was-"
Tempo was completely enraged. She stomped her foot on Sonic's stomach, making him cough. After that, he chuckled a bit, then looked at Tempo with a fluttering smile on his face, like he was trying incredibly hard not to laugh.
"Do you see this as a joke?" She asked, bending down towards his face. "Do you really think that was that funny?"
"Tempo, it's-" I interrupted.
"No!" She yelled. "You're impatient. I get it. You need every opportunity to entertain yourself. But we just saved your life, and that's how you repay us? By making us think Wily's taken over you again? Scaring us to death and making us believe we have to kill our friend?"
"I-" Sonic tried to say something, but Tempo wouldn't let him.
"You're lucky we don't leave you here to rot." She pushed him a bit with her foot, then went away. "We have a city to save, if you don't mind."
"Can I not even say I'm sorry?!" Sonic screamed with some anger in his voice. "For a robot with no emotions, that was pretty amazing!"
"I wouldn't believe you if you said it." She said, turning away as she did so. Her hair flung over one of her shoulders.
"I guess she didn't find it funny." I shrugged. "I mean, it wasn't exactly great for me either, but she did seem to get a little upset by it."
"A little, huh?" Sonic asked. "That wasn't just a little, Mega Man. She freaked out! Did she get checked for the virus, too?"
I froze. Either of us could have given the virus to her, and Dr. Light hadn't checked her for it. "No. Which means we need to finish this quickly.
Sonic shrugged. "As long as she doesn't lose control, I think we'll be fine."
We looked for an exit from the cave we were stuck in, and we found one. It was a tunnel, and we all had to crawl through it to get to the other side. It took some convincing Tempo to go through it; she wasn't too fond of tight spaces that could possibly crush her.
"So who goes first?" Sonic asked. "You're the one with the lemons. Maybe you should."
"They are not lemons!" I groaned. "Fine, I'll go first, Tempo will go behind, and you'll be last."
He shrugged. Tempo nodded, staring at the tunnel with wide eyes.
I crawled through, hoping it would widen quickly. But we couldn't be lucky in our mission. Ever.
"I'm tired." Sonic complained after we had been forced to go slightly uphill for a few minutes. "I'm not known for my crawling. I'm known for my running."
"We shouldn't have too much more to go." I tried to assure him. It probably wasn't easy for him, like it was for me and Tempo. Unless we were forced to go for hours without energy tanks, robots were usually okay.
We came to an unexpected fall in the ground, and we all tumbled down it like a slide. It led to another open place like the one we were in before, but the walls were of steel.
"Okay..." Sonic said. "What's this room all about?"
"It's about me!" Wily's unmistakeable voice echoed around the room. I held my blaster up in the air, waiting for Wily to show his face and whatever robot he had made.
Sonic gripped his hands into fists, letting his eyes wander around the room. "Where are you, Wily?" I shouted. "S-show yourself!"
Then there was silence. Wily always played a game, but I couldn't tell what he was doing at the moment. Was it a puzzle? Was he not really in the room?
"Watch out!" Sonic yelled, knocking me out of the way. I still couldn't see anything in the room, but there was the slight feeling of something moving right next to me.
"He's invisible?!" I gasped. "How are we-"
"Use a weapon!" Sonic yelled. "Maybe we can track it that way!"
"Good idea." I went through my list of weapons, and the best I could come up with was Quick Man's boomerangs. That way, if they stuck to the robot, maybe it would be possible to tell where it was and when it was going to attack.
The boomerang idea worked, and Sonic ran around taunting Wily to distract him from what I was doing. He made faces, stuck out his tounge, other inappropriate things to do during an intense battle...
But Tempo didn't know where he was and when to move out of the way, just like me. Sonic was too busy to think of her, and I had forgotten she was there. Something that was like a leg stabbed her against a wall, and I couldn't help but reach a hand out and yell, "No!" That made Sonic get distracted, and the same thing happened to him; except he hadn't been impaled. That would have signed our destruction.
I ran over to Tempo, cutting off whatever was trapping her with a boomerang. The invisibility on the leg gave out as it fell from the machine, revealing what looked like a spider leg, the joints replaced by bolts. "Tempo! Are you okay?!"
Her face showed that she was obviously in pain. "I'm... fine." She said. "It's only my circuits. I can be repaired."
"A little help here!" Sonic shouted.
"Can you move?" I asked. I was panicky; Tempo was my friend, and I didn't want to see her hurt and in pain. "Enough to try and dodge attacks?"
"I will... try." She said, standing and leaning against the wall.
"Any year now!" Sonic yelled. I was almost able to block his voice out. He was like a child, and sometimes, I didn't want to babysit that child. (Sure, okay, sometimes the child did save my life...)
"Go." Tempo said. "I will be fine."
I hesitated for a few seconds. Dr. Lalinde would never forgive me if Tempo was hurt in a way that meant she couldn't be repaired. But Tempo had volunteered to go with us on the mission. I just... felt like I had to protect her in any way. "You're sure?" I asked.
"Mega Man!" Sonic's voice was distorted with pain.
"Go!" She shouted. I took a last look at Tempo, then ran over to Sonic. He was pinned into a wall, making a dent in the steel. It didn't look like it felt good.
"Thanks for coming." Sonic said through gritted teeth. I cut the leg off with a boomerang, steadying Sonic before he faceplanted into the ground.
"Sorry..." I rubbed my head.
"Hello? We're in the middle of a fight." Sonic said, pointing to the middle of the room. "Fight it!'
I looked from him to the empty air. He was in pain, but that wasn't what either of us were thinking about. "You can see it?"
"Yeah...?" He replied. "You can't?"
"No!" I chuckled. He was being absolutely rediculous. "But I have an idea."
"Does that idea include running, lemons, and destroying the robot spider?"
I looked at him and nodded nervously. "I hope so."