EVE flew in the window and shifted WALL-E to her left arm so she could brandish her laser cannon, searching back and forth for AUTO. Not seeing him right away made her incredibly nervous, so she began to beep orders, knowing her comrades would understand;
Stick close! Stay on either side of me and look for AUTO!
HAN-S and D-FIB let their eyes swivel back and forth, searching for the wheel. The longer they stayed like that in perfect silence, the more EVE's anxiety grew. Her grip on WALL-E tightened, afraid that he would simply grow limp and disappear.
Finally, she couldn't take it anymore, "Wall-E?" she whispered.
"Huh?"
EVE sighed, her nerves calmed by the slightest of margins.
"Evah?" WALL-E wrapped his arm around her back, placing his other hand in her crevice of a neck. The touch was soothing, if for no other reason than it meant he was still alive. She lay her head on his, rubbing gently.
EVE was put more and more on edge as the silence stretched on. Was AUTO toying with them!?
"Ten seconds to-!"
On instinct, EVE turned and shot.
One side of the control panel exploded, throwing bits of metal and debris everywhere, "Launch Cancelled."
EVE lowered her weapon, feeling the heat creep to her face while WALL-E rattled faintly, shaking with fear.
EVE... D-FIB beeped.
What are you two doing? EVE scolded, trying to hide how jumpy she was, Look around! Don't let AUTO sneak up on us!
They all went back to searching. EVE's eyes were the fastest of them all, but HAN-S and D-FIB were also very fast. WALL-E was doing his best to keep up, but being an older model, he wasn't as efficient. Still, his eyes fell on something peculiar, jutting from the floor. WALL-E realized what it was and tapped EVE on the shoulder.
"Evah?"
EVE flinched, still on edge, "Hm?"
He pointed to the thing in the floor.
EVE's eyes widened, HAN-S, D-FIB, keep looking. she crept closer, realizing what it was.
She was about to shoot when it suddenly came out, causing the other two to turn. AUTO. EVE shot, but AUTO was faster, swerving to one side and reaching for WALL-E.
"NO!"
"I must follow my directive."
EVE jumped, shooting again and again, breaking more and more of the captain's cabin to the point where the floor was caving into the captain's quarters, but AUTO was annoyingly fast. EVE tried to shoot the ceiling where AUTO was headed, and where he had been, but somehow, the actual beams seemed to be made of steel. They charred, but they wouldn't break. Finally, in the struggle, AUTO tried to move in and grab WALL-E-!
"Clear!" D-FIB shocked AUTO enough to stagger him, but he was smart enough to jump back before he was really damaged. Meanwhile, HAN-S was revving, getting ready to destroy, which he did soon after D-FIB's attack. EVE took the opportunity to quick-scan the room. Her eyes fell on something interesting.
She flew to it and pointed, "Wall-E, cut."
"Oh!" he took his laser out and sliced through the set of cords she was showing him. Immediately, another loud siren blared.
"Warning. All power is terminated. Proceeding to system shut-down."
"No!" AUTO seethed, "I must follow my directive!"
He charged straight for WALL-E.
"NOOO!" EVE tugged on WALL-E's arm, AUTO having a grip on everything else.
"ACK!" WALL-E turned and sliced right through AUTO's glowing red eye.
An audible screech could be heard like holding a microphone to its speaker, and AUTO jumped back, destroying even more of the cabin.
Finally, AUTO reached beside him and pressed every button that was still intact, flooding the room with Steward-bots. Each one locked onto them and grabbed them in stasis beams. All four robots were thrown out, and then the iron shades closed, locking them out. Another voice came over the speakers;
"System shut-down cancelled. Reverting to daily protocol."
EVE set WALL-E down on the Lido Deck, checking for signs of damage, "Wall-E ok!?"
"Evah..." he stilled her arm with a slight shake of his head.
EVE shook fearfully, her hands resting first on WALL-E's shoulders, then his binocular eyes. He nodded. He was shaken, but he wasn't hurt.
She sighed, giving him a hug. She was warmed even more when WALL-E returned the hug, letting his hands rest on her back. She would definitely miss this if WALL-E was gone.
"H-hey you two..."
It was Captain McCrea, so EVE pulled away from WALL-E and faced her captain, giving a quick salute.
"Hey, there..." he replied calmly, "I didn't mean to issue an official order, but you are stubborn! Even by robot standards!"
"EH!?" She gestured to WALL-E.
"Haha! Well, I guess I just agreed with him more."
EVE huffed in annoyance.
"Listen though, we were close to going back out into space! It's possible that if we had, we would never come back! Imagine that, eh? Anyway, update on the defective Wall-E's, they are now apparently, imitating?"
EVE tilted her head in confusion.
"Well, I have no idea why or how, but they are behaving almost exactly like your Wall-E. It's so strange that they're able to do that now, like a switch was flipped."
What? She was confused. She was a robot, and a very calculative one at that, (which she was very proud of) so she knew that there was no possible way they could imitate so well without the prior knowledge of-!
Her memories.
Her eyes widened into bright, luminous circles. The machine that stole her memories. She had completely forgotten about that. She had worked her way around the memory problem, and so with WALL-E back, it just slipped to the back of her mind.
She turned to WALL-E, pointing outside, "Wall-E? Truck!"
"Evah?"
"Me too, soon." She summarized, "Wait for me." and with that, she gave him a quick kiss before dashing across the Lido Deck and into the sky.
She just had one thing she needed to check.