It charged at us and I did the only thing I could think of, flinging one of my drones at it, not hard enough to really damage either but for a second the creature was stunned. And with my increased thinking speed, it was all I needed.

We were trapped, Shelly was in agony, I only had three drones left and she had two. We didn’t have anything that we could use to fight this thing…

Figuratively gritting her teeth, shelly threw all the mental strength as she could muster at the monster. But her efforts only had the effect of making it stumble back slightly. This still seemed to piss the dronsumo off. It swiped at her closest drone, its long blades bisecting it and sending waves of pain through us both.

[DRONES ACCOUNTED FOR: 46]

Fueled by her anger shelly lashed out with another telekinetic blow to its head, this time not focusing on the creature itself but the air in front of its face, forming a sort of punch. This time the dronsumo definitely felt it reeling back some from the force of the attack. as it recovered. It once again charged at the nearest drone to it. That was mine this time, I just barely was able to dodge out of the path of its claws. I flew behind it but just as quickly it spun trying to cut me with its other hand I was able to get out of the way as another telekinetic drive hit it in the shoulder knocking the arm off course another blow landed in its stomach forcing its center of gravity out of place and making it lose balance, as it tried to get back to its feet shelly pushed hard with the weight of her mind. the dronsumo was send rolling but caught itself after only a few tumbles. It stood up unaffected this time by Shel’s attempts to stop it. Looking around the room the dronsumo glared at each and every one of our cameras, growling in a way that seemed to say it was done playing around.

It rushed us once again, moving much faster than its bulky body would suggest possible. It came at Shelly’s remaining drone, she rolled to the side, throwing a mental punch into its face. It just ignored it, but she still managed to keep her drone mostly intact, only losing one of the landing legs to a claw.

Still, the dronsumo’s momentum sent it careening into a dark corner of the room where it seemed to melt into the shadows and disappeared. Before we even had time to question what had happened it was back falling from one of the shadowy spots in the domed ceiling directly above one of my drones.

i was completely caught off guard and couldn’t save the drone. It was crushed by the weight of the titan.

IT HAD POWERS NOW!!! Awesome! (No! not awesome. Why the fuck did I think that.)

{How do we fight this thing now?}

“I-I don’t know… Nothing I do is working anymore…” Shelly hitting the dronsumo with another ineffective strike.

There must be something I could do to help. But I didn’t have powers. Or a weapon or… hands.

{Hands…} I thought, glancing at the dronsumo. You know who else doesn’t have hands but instead very pointy blades where they should be? tiny robotic ninjas. They might be able to do some damage. But why had they attacked us in the first place? They had left us alone when we had first entered the vents. We had seen them, although we didn’t know what they were at first. So why had they turned hostile? Because the first one started screaming? No. even if that was the reason for the rest it didn’t explain why that one had attacked us. Had we entered its territory?

Maybe but, then the others should have reacted the same way when we got close. What could I do to get them to attack the dronsumo!? Unless it wasn’t the room itself. What had happened while we were there? Going through my memory files bit by bit I came up with nothing. We were near the radiator and… radiator, heat. Had the first droninja acted up because the duct was hot?

{I have an Idea}

“Bac, I’m sort of busy fighting a knife-wielding sumo wrestler robot right now!”

{No, listen. why did the droninjas attack us.}

“I don’t know! What does that have to do wit-?”

{Because of heat!!! If they overheat, I think they become aggressive. They attacked us in the radiator because it was hot. If we can turn that aggression on the dronsumo…}

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT NAMING THINGS!!!” she cleared her ‘throat’ “also I ummm… already figured that out and- uh, totally thought of a plan exploiting that… fact”

I felt it as she sped up her mind.

“Okay, it's simple. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing while also,” a few droninjas rose from their seats and came flying at our opponent actually scratching it with their knife hands “throwing dr- dro- uhg droninjas at this big guy. What I need you to do is well, if we’re where I think we are there should be an internal valve to redirect the hot air from the radiator here I need you to find it and turn it.”

{Okay. Got it!} I sent her the mental image of a salute, making her chuckle despite her foul mood.

I began zipping around the duct looking for anything that might be a valve or a lever as shelly continued battling.

The dronsumo brought its left arm out in a straight jab, forcing shelly to reel back and its right arm came around to trisect her. The brain just evading it in a dive down and to the left, three more ninjas came flying at the sumo, it swiped them out of the air, cutting each in two with no mercy, then it fell, sinking into its own shadow to emerge behind Shelly its claws outstretched. Shelly used the parts of the broken droninjas scattered over the floor to form a quick and dirty shield, she was barely able to keep it in shape as the monster slammed into it, it’s weight belying its size.

Taking inspiration from her previous actions in the vents she crushed her shielding into a large ball that she sent flying into the dronsumo’s chest. The robot was sent backward and before it could right itself, shelly sent seven more droninjas at it. They scrabbled down its body like ants their bladed arms scratching and scrapping leaving the sumo a little more damaged than it had been before

“ugh, why wasn’t I doing this in the first place” she cried out at a sudden sharp pain that would have been behind her eyes “oh yeah…”

but the dronsumo wasn’t done yet. It stood, shaking off the droninjas still left on it. With another roar, its arms began spinning rotating the blades at the end like the propellers that they once were

“BAC! ANY TIME NOW! I…I can’t do this for much longer!”

{I’m working on it.}

I was flying around the room, checking every inch of the wall for the valve or lever that we needed, I had even split my consciousness between my drones so that I could check two places at once. Still, I hadn’t found anything.

The dronsumo was lumbering towards Shelly’s final drone its spinning blades acting as a drill to any shield she tried to create. Giving up on protection. Shelly began pushing the sumo directly with telekinesis the was barely slowing it down, her endurance was clearly running low.

“B-BAC…” she whined, “HURRY UP, DAMN IT!”

Where was it? Where had I not looked? The ceiling, the walls, the floor, the only place left was…

{Ahg! Shit!}

“W-w-what?”

{it’s in the ring} I explained, {more specifically right behind our friend at the moment}

And as I thought there it was. Gleaming it a spot just inconvenient enough to be dangerous to reach. A valve behind the dronsumo.

“Oh… yeah, that is a ‘Shit’ moment.”

{keep throwing droninjas. Let’s end this.}

I rushed into the ring. Avoiding hurled droninjas and metal claws.

I closed in on the floor. The dronsumo deciding my drone was a target and doing its best to crush and/or stab it. I spun around blades and between its feet. it sliced at the ground as if it knew what would come next. It even began pushing its arms though the shadows to try to come at me from odd angles. But it was too late, and I was prepared this time activating the robotic arms retracted into the bottom of my drone I laned on the valve, and pushing my thrusters to the max, turned it.

PHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHH!!!

Air came rushing into the duct. Blowing our drones from their places onto the far wall. Droninjas were also sent tumbling through the room.

The wind started out room temperature but quickly heated, by the time it stopped coming in it was nearing 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

The droninjas began twitching and groaning. snapping from position to position and starting to shriek as if in agony.

{NOW!}

Grunting with effort shelly drudged up the last of her willpower against the pain as she lifted as many droninjas as she could possibly muster. With a cry she sent them in a single mass at the dronsumo, their cries reaching a pitch I would be unable to hear if I were using human ears. (God, I wish I couldn’t hear it.)

The droninja quickly began to attack the first things they saw. For most of them that was us, forcing us to begin dodging and evading their leaps once again. But for the group on the dronsumo, the first thing they saw that wasn’t each other was it. They sliced and spun hacking at the creature like a swarm of termites on a piece of plywood, the dronsumo doing it’s best to shake or slice them off. It got a few but mainly managed to cut itself more. What’s more, unlike the droninjas who became more aggressive the heat seemed to be slowing it down. it was becoming more sluggish as the tide of little robots tore away at it, already having ripped away chunks of its bladed armor. The sumo tried to escape into the shadows but the ninja’s sharing its power just followed. Desperate the dronsumo began simply slamming itself against the wall but only damaged is armor further and gave the droninjas more area to attack. It thrashed and growled but there was nothing it could do as more and more and more of the ninjas began swarming over its head. A few more thrashes, and with a final roar, that was the end of the dronsumo...

With the dronesumo’s death, the droninjas calmed. Despite the heat, it seemed like something had changed in them. They began ticking and slowing until each eventually came to a full stop. Then there was a ding in my head.

BIOLING!

[30 DRONINJAS ADDED TO SYSTEM

3D PRINTER TEMPLATE FOR DRONINJA ADDED TO SYSTEM

3D PRINTER TEMPLATE FOR DRONSUMO ADDED TO SYSTEM]

{huh, weird. Some of them are ours now. Also, do we have a 3D printer?}

“c-cool, let's hurry up and get out of these vents to fix that wiring, then I’m going to sleep for a few years,” she stated already set to doze off “oh, and to your question. Yeah, it’s down the hall from our lab. Why?”

{I got templets for those guys.}

“that’s…strange… we didn't put them in a scanner, did we? But I don’t have the energy to think about it. Come'on, let’s go.”

With that shelly began leading us out of the vent system in silence. with us only getting lost a few times soon we were out and in a hallway I had never seen before.