Enemies Merge (A Sonic / Mega Man Crossover)

XXVIII. Mega Man

I reached for her hand, but it was pointless. I almost reached the end of her rope, but my fingers just barely skimmed over it. All of that seemed to go in slow motion.

"Sonic, we're falling!" I yelled.

"Tell me something I don't know!" He replied. "You got anything to stop it?"

I shook my head and swallowed. "Not even any powers to slow it down!"

"Okay, okay, don't panic or anything." He answered calmly.

"Don't panic? Don't panic?!" I shouted. "We're falling to our deaths and you're telling me not to panic?!"

"For once," Sonic said, his tone suggesting a bit of a sigh, "I have a bit of a plan."

He grabbed my hands, which I found kind of weird. "What, do you want to take me on a date or something?!"

"I said not to panic!" Sonic repeated. "Now here... Let go of this hand... and wrap your foot around mine. Then kind of stretch out your other hand - no, your other hand..."

For once, Sonic had something organized. I was in a state of panic, and he had things under control, like it was something he had done a million times. Once we were all linked together, we were side by side, and it slowed our fall dramatically.

But we were still falling. Even as Sonic looked determinedly into the pit, I could sense that he, too, was afraid. And I thought I could see the bottom approaching us finally.

I didn't want to look as we went splat, so I closed my eyes, squinted hard, and tensed up. I was sure I was crushing Sonic's hand and foot, but in a matter of seconds, those would be the least of his worries, if he had any.

"Here we go..." I sighed, tensing up even more. But a second after I said that, we were suddenly slowed and jerked around.

"Tempo?" I said, opening my eyes. She must have let go, then jumped off the wall at the perfect time. She had grabbed the little remains of our ropes, and we were again hanging off the wall.

"Yes." She wasn't as excited now that her plan was over. That it had failed probably didn't matter. Her attitude would have changed eventually, but it was still a big step.

"Nice save, man!" Sonic shouted.

"I am still not a man." She replied simply. "I am a robot programmed to look and process-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did she break again, Mega Man?"

"Uh..." I stammered. "She was never broken."

"Well, at least she fights." He said, his expression becoming a bit more serious. "We're wherever here is."

The ground finally came, and Tempo let go. Sonic and I winced as the our feet hit something. It felt good to finally stand on something, rather than be hanging from a wall.

"So..." Sonic said, his hands on his hips. "Where do we go next?"

I looked around. I didn't know what I was going to find when I got to the bottom. "There's a little hollow spot over there." I said, pointing to it.

He shrugged. "Sure."

So we walked over to the little hollow spot. And we almost got killed.

It was a small little dome, but we didn't know if there was going to be a tunnel that led to somewhere else inside of it, so we decided to give it a chance. I didn't think it was that obviously a trap.

Once we were inside, I shrugged, and we were about to walk out. But the floor started to rumble. Tempo's eyes went wide. She grabbed her arms and sat on the ground.