The Robotic Endgame

XIII. Mega Man

I didn't get to hear Nicole speak for more than a minute. After a moment, my leg gave out and I fell to the floor. Sonic came over and helped me up, wrapping my arm around his shoulders with a grunt. "What about your back?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it," he chuckled. "It's already starting to feel a ton better. Another hour or two and you'll never know it had gotten hurt."

"Okay..." I said hesitantly. "Put me down on the workbench in the lab. I can't really do anything with my leg."

"Uh..." Sonic said, staring at the back of my head and heading toward the lab. "You know you have a big hole in your brain?"

"I don't really have a brain, but yeah, Tempo wasn't too happy to see me..."

He lifted me onto the table, wiping his forehead. "Still, she'd drill a hole into your head? That seems harsh."

"Well, Dr. Wily does want us dead."

"True," he replied. "Hey, I have to go see what Nicole's saying, but next time you get something drilled into your head, can you tell someone?"

I laughed. "Yeah, yeah."

He ran off, and a few minutes later, Dr. Light came in. He didn't look quite as dejected as he had when we had lost Roll, but I could still tell that he was losing sleep. He looked tired and worried. He rested his hands on the table and turned toward me. "I have to shut you off for a while in order to fix your head," he said. "It shouldn't be too long."

I nodded, and with the click of a switch, everything went black.

When I woke up, the lights in the lab were all off. I sat upright, wondering if something was wrong. I touched the back of my head, which had been welded back together. My leg was fixed, and I no longer felt any pain anywhere. I jumped off the table and stepped outside the room, finding myself in darkness, my eyes the only light in the room.

Suddenly, I wondered if Shadow had come and attacked. But as I stepped into the room with the cots for Sonic and his friends to sleep on, I found them all in a nice slumber. I quickly turned my eyes away, not wanting to wake any of them up. I figured Dad was sleeping too, so I decided to go outside and stare at the stars.

I walked to a little grassy patch next to the lab and and laid down, my hands behind my head and my knees up. I stared at the small crescent that was the moon, and wondered what our next step to getting Roll back would be. She was out there somewhere, working for the only person in the entire universe that she actually hated. She was so innocent, and didn't deserve half of the things that happened to her. But she never complained. If anything, things like getting blasted by Proto Man had made her stronger.

I pictured her in my mind, wagging her finger at me for doing something wrong. I let out a chuckle as I thought about how scared she got when I had to defeat something of Dr. Wily's, thinking about how ironic it was. Now I knew how she felt whenever I went out to do something dangerous. It made me feel sick.

It made me wonder how Sonic's friends felt whenever he did something rash. Were they used to him running off to do something stupid and dangerous and heroic, or did their stomachs still churn with fear? They seemed to love him very much. And it seemed like no matter what he went through, he would get back up. I still didn't understand what the doctors had put him through, but it sounded painful and weird. And what kind of crystals from our world had Dr. Eggman found?

I shook my head. There was no use thinking about these things; an answer wasn't going to magically come to my mind. And though I wanted to go our and find Roll right that minute, it would be dangerous and stupid without Sonic. Plus, it was dark, and I doubted I would find much.