Chapter 20

Burgloth

Artemis

The lines stretched up, forming a maze of twisting paths that crossed the room, made worse by the machinery that surrounded her and stuck out of the wall in towering juts, making just getting to the lines a challenge. Thankfully she didn't see any bots in the room, they probably either weren't finished enough to be activated, or they weren't powered up yet, but either way, it was a blessing for her and she'd take whatever ones she could get.

Still, she'd have to climb, there was no other way up, so she looked around, trying to find some way over to where the lines began or barring that, to one of the machines that stretched out to them.

She knew that she couldn't go all the way to the floor, if she did that, she'd probably never be able to climb back up, there was a lack of climbable machinery there, that much she remembered from her first trip through the room.

She couldn't get to the line she'd walked on when she'd arrived, that one was a ways away and she'd had to drop off of it onto a machine to get down and over to the door anyway, so she needed another one and had to hope that it would lead to a good endpoint.

Shrugging and deciding that one route would be as good as any, she jumped out and landed on the machine below her. Rolling up she sprinted as hard as she could to the edge and leaped into space, aiming for the control panel sticking out of the side of one of the machines.

Her fingers dug in and swung her into the side of the machine. Ignoring the stinging coming from her chest, she drug herself upwards, moving sideways when she needed, till she was on the flat top of the machinery and looked around. There were two lines she could get to from where she was, one coming out of the machine she was on and the other running past the far edge. Neither one had anything on them beyond a small frame that must have been the core of the bot, and they both twisted out of sight above her, but something told her not to take the nearest one. She wondered if it was some kind of masochistic thing, that she wanted to take the hardest path, but she dismissed that, in a situation like this, it was survivability that was paramount, and her survival instinct was telling her to go past the first one, so that's what she did.

Once she'd jumped onto the line, she started climbing, which wasn't all that hard at the moment, the links in the chain that hauled the bots around proved good hand and foot holds. The main difficulty was when the line started to meander. Up and down, left and right, those were doable, but when it started to go out, then she had difficulty. Not only did she lose her feet being able to help, but she had to climb, hand over hand, upward, angling towards the back wall.

The next issue she ran into was the machinery itself, which the line ran into so that the bots could be built. The first one was fine, there was enough space for her to climb though, but the next one had stopped with the machinery in the process of working, meaning there wasn't any room for her, so she would've been forced to climb up and over it, except there weren't any handholds.

Looking around, she eventually found a way, though it required her to throw herself at the next machine over and catch the handholds of the ladder that had been welded into the side. From there she saw a much easier path, the maintenance cage. Sure, she'd have to work around the machines, but if she climbed down a ways, she could get inside above the mess the tools had made and climb up the inside and then back out at the top, which would bypass almost the entire room.

So that's what she did and when she got to the top, she sat on the side of the machine to rest for a moment. Wedging herself into a small gap, she dug out a canteen and took a swig. Just as she was putting it back, she started hearing gunfire from above.

'Gaige must be waiting for me.' She cursed in her mind the fact that she was taking so long. She started to pull herself out of her brake nook, when the building dropped another couple of feet.

Clinging to the machinery for dear life, she didn't get thrown this time, but it was still terrifying, and not just because the ground dropped, nor that if she'd been at the wrong point, say in the middle of a jump, she'd have fallen. No, what worried her the most was that it seemed that the building wasn't stable in its new position and would probably continue to tip until it fell all the way into whatever was below it, which meant she didn't have time to be sitting around.

Climbing out, she scuttled across the top of the machine until she got to the nearest line and started climbing again, heading for the next room.

It didn't take her all that long to get to the opening, though by this point the bots swinging next to her were getting worryingly close to completion, enough so that she wondered if they were going to start activating at any moment. Still, until they did, there was nothing she could do about it, or rather, that she should do about it, since attacking them might set them off and any gunfire would draw unwanted attention, so she kept climbing.

She paused as she entered the second assembling room, checking to make sure there weren't any bots floating around, but it seemed that if there had been any there, they'd been drawn by the gunfire coming from above.

Tilting her head, Artemis could tell that Deathtrap must have met up with Gaige, since she could hear the familiar sound of his laser firing amongst all the other noises, which helped put her at ease, if Gaige wasn't alone, then she'd probably be alright until Artemis could get there. It wasn't like she didn't trust her, it was just that there was only so much that one person could do alone and considering the number of bots that she was anticipating, it would be a challenge, to say the least, to face them alone.

Still, that didn't give her any reason to not hurry to join them, so she jumped off the line and onto the floor, moving around to try and spot a good line that would take her where she wanted to go with the least amount of trouble. Unfortunately for her, the lines crossed over each other making it hard to follow, not to mention that they went through different machines, sometimes multiple lines entered the same machine making it all but impossible to tell which line went where, so rather than wasting any more time, she chose the best looking one for as far as she could see, jumped over to it and started climbing.

She was making good progress when the bot next to her lit up. Swearing, she knew that she'd been spotted so she scampered up the line as fast as she could as the bot started thrashing, attempting to free itself from the line that was still hooked into its back.

Before long the entire line was shaking as more and more bots woke, till the entire line was swaying dangerously. Then they started busting loose.

The first one snapped free from the line, which sent it careening into the next line over, smashing something vital and causing the entire line to start collapsing. Realizing the danger she was in, Artemis scrambled up the line with renewed effort as the rest of the bots started breaking free.

This time they didn't all bust into things, though a fair number still did. The ones that survived breaking free, flew out a ways and then started targeting her, each one following the same pattern of flying out about ten feet as they broke loose, hovering for a second, turning to spot her and then flinging themselves at her.

It seemed there was no communication between them, because a number of them collided in midair, but the rest started throwing themselves at her, causing her to throw herself off the line and onto the nearest machine as they smashed the line.

She dashed across the top of the machine as the remaining bots slammed into it behind her and took a flying leap to catch the next line over.

Just like the last line, the bots on this one started coming alive almost as soon as she touched it.

She climbed as fast as she could, making her way past the activating bots, which seemed to power up the instant she was near them. She knew it was an illusion, but it seemed that her presence was waking them up, like some kind of nightmarish children's story.

Not slowing down, she glanced upward and saw that she was more than half way up the room. Through the openings above her, she could see the room being illuminated with blasts of green light as well as the randomly flying caustic shots, telling her the fight was still well underway.

Continuing to climb even as the entire line shook from the bots trying to free themselves, she watched in horror as a number of the ones above spotted her and broke off their attacks on the other two and started diving at her. She really didn't think that they had the level of programming needed to think, but it certainly felt like they were both going for the easier prey and trying to free their comrades to help.

Looking around for somewhere to fight, or at the very least, dodge, she realized that she was running out of lines to climb. Thankfully there were only a couple of bots flying towards her so she might be able to deal with them, when they suddenly exploded.

"Move your ass!" Gaige shouted down through one of the openings before turning her gun back on the swirling hoard above her and moved out of sight.

Artemis's sense of relief was cut short when the entire line she was climbing started to tilt. Looking up, she quickly spotted what was wrong, between the thrashing bots attached to the line and the explosions, the line had broken off near the ceiling and was slowly peeling backwards.

Swearing she felt her legs leaving the line and gave up on keeping them secure as she started to swing with all the force she could muster. Letting go at the last second, she threw herself at one of the last remaining lines, but she was too far away.

Her hands slid past the central bar, flailing at the air only to latch onto the bot hanging below. Fingers digging into the joints she managed to stop herself from falling, but found herself face to face with the bot as its core powered up.

Driving her Digi-blade into its head, the lights went out and she used it to provide leverage to climb up to the line, even as the rest of the bots started to activate.

Gaige and Deathtrap

Never having been one for stealth, Gaige was unsure of how to go about a fight against such overwhelming odds. It wasn't that she was any form of coward, but even she knew that she couldn't handle such a fleet alone, not to mention that she was in a bit of a precarious spot, sitting in the doorway halfway up the room, so she decided to take it with a bit more caution than she liked.

She supposed that the best move would be to wait until either of the others showed up, but while she could wait for Deathtrap, Artemis would be entering the room from below, directly under where the hoard was floating and there was no way they'd miss her arriving, so she needed some kind of cover.

Gaige thought about it, maybe she could wait and when they started to move, she could open fire, but quickly dismissed that idea, if she waited that long, most of them would probably stay on Artemis, who would be in a much more precarious position as she climbed.

So, without any better ideas, she started to look for a way down, if she could at least get to the ground level before being spotted, she could engage them in a running fight, she'd just have to be careful of all the junk strewn about, not to mention the openings in the floor where the assembly lines ended.

Unfortunately, unlike the receiving room, there weren't shelves directly below her, instead there had been crates, which had been smashed by the falling junk that had been on the shelves that were still attached to the wall above her. Again, she wished she'd followed Artemis's example and started carrying a cable, but since she hadn't, she looked around, wondering if there was something she could use to help get her down.

She couldn't see anything, not even with her ability to jury-rig things. She supposed she might be able to go back and dig through the piles of trash in the previous room, see if there was something, like a spool of heavy wire, but the chances of that were slim, so she kept looking around the room. She wondered if enough of the bots charged her if she could either catch one and steer it, or move down them using their bodies as makeshift stairs, like she'd see in a movie, but really only entertained the thought to cheer herself up for a second.

Getting back to the problem at hand, she was startled to the point of losing her balance when a sudden "Ugur" whispered next to her.

Her arms pinwheeled in the air as she fought in vain to keep her balance and just as she started to fall, she felt a familiar hand grip her leg. She floated down to the ground and was gently set down in the receiving room.

"Babe?" She whispered, looking around with a hand on her chest, trying to keep her heart from attempting to exit it.

"Urgurr" Came the reply from seeming empty space.

"Damn it, I've been telling Artemis to stop doing that and now you're joining it?" She snapped, a little harder than she'd meant.

"Ugrrg" Came the confused reply.

"What do ya mean, I was ignoring you? How was I supposed to tell you were there? You're still invisible, you big dummy."

She heard the sound of a hand smacking the other and could envision him hitting his fist onto his palm as he realized that and a second later he shimmered back into sight, looking a bit contrite as he made an apologetic "Uurrr"

"It's OK babe, it just scared the bejeezus outta me is all."

"Uggurr"

"Yeah, you're right, that's probably why the bots weren't attacking you, I knew I was forgettin something. So, once my heart-rate's back to normal, you wanna carry me over there and we can get started on clearing out the shipping room while we wait for our slow-ass friend to join us, I mean, she's got to be getting close by this point."

"Urru"

"Great, but can you turn invisible again after you've picked me up, it's a little weird otherwise?"

He nodded to her and scooped her up before flickering out of sight again. Despite what she'd said, it was still awfully weird to be floating like this, she could feel his solid frame and arms, but to her eyes it was like she was floating by herself, or maybe a ghost was carrying her.

As they flew up, she was suddenly struck by the weirdest sensation that the room around them dropped suddenly, like they'd suddenly shot up a foot. Looking around, she spotted the junk on the floor shifting around and turned back to Deathtrap.

"Did the building just shift again?" She asked, realizing she was talking to empty space, which made her feel ridiculous.

"Urru" He responded, agreeing that the room had indeed dropped a foot or so.

Turning away so she wouldn't be weirded out by her friend, she prepped her SMG and nodded for him to start. He might have nodded back, but since she couldn't see it, she flinched a little when he took off, flying them up and through the open door leading back to the shipping department.

This time the bots noticed her flying through the air at them and started swarming upwards, only to be met by the combination of her SMG fire and Deathtrap's caustic laser.

He made short work of them as he set her down gently on the floor before taking off again, firing scything attacks through their ranks. With the density of the bots, his attacks were devastating, downing handfuls with each attack.

For her part, Gaige ran, firing away at them, easily downing them with her shots. She still didn't have enough Anarchy to make much of a difference, but she could feel it bubbling up inside her as a pleasantly warped sensation, a gleeful rejection of reality and a way to shut off her brain. The more Anarchy she had, the more things made a demented kind of sense, she didn't need to think about the world, her want of a drink, her questions about herself, where her and Artemis were going, all that mattered was the moment, the universe could suck it, so she let herself go, willing to get drunk on something other than alcohol.

"Suck it Holloway bots, stealing my design just to make such an inferior knockoff." She grumbled "Me and my robot are gonna bitch slap you back into the scrap pile, cause we're awesomer."

She danced around them as they tried to dive-bomb her, while she didn't have Deathtrap's maneuverability, nor Artemis's ridiculous agility, she wasn't bad herself. Each one that smashed into the ground was another one she didn't have to deal with, her only regret was that she wasn't getting any stacks for them, but that didn't matter at the moment, all that did was clearing out the room and waiting for the slow-poke to get here.

"Where is that girl anyway?" She grumbled, trying to look down one of the openings as she fought. Even though her ears weren't up to Artemis's level, she swore she could hear sounds of fighting coming from below, but she couldn't see anything.

Just as she thought that, she suddenly saw one of the lines break and fall across the room, bots flailing as they were drug down by the attachments in their backs.

"What the hey is goin on down there?" She nearly stopped to try and see and was only saved by a caustic laser frying the two bots that were diving at her.

"Urgurr" Came a rather curt chastisement from somewhere above.

"Sorry." She called back, firing the rest of her clip into the swirling hoard.

Slapping a new clip in, she was grateful that the bots weren't all attacking at once, if the entire room of them had dove at her, she wouldn't have been able to deal with it. She supposed her only choice would've been to dive through one of the holes in the floor and pray. But so far, she hadn't needed to since they were diving from the outside of the swarm, while the rest of them kept circling. She wondered if it was that some of them couldn't see her or if there was something in their programming that prevented them from charging all at once, maybe something to try and reserve some for other attackers or to prevent them from colliding in air. Or if it was that they were just badly programmed, which wouldn't surprise her, after all, these were Holloway Robotics products.

She watched as the bots melted, reloading as necessary and continuing to wonder where the heck Artemis was, she should've been there by then. As if in response to her thought, a couple of bots suddenly dove through one of the holes in the floor.

Cursing, she dashed over to make sure that Artemis was alright. It wasn't that she didn't have faith in the other girl, but if she was climbing, that might make it hard to defend herself. Spotting the bots diving she opened fire, watching them explode and crash into the machinery.

Spotting Artemis curled against the assembly line, Gaige felt annoyed that she was still a ways away, so she shouted down at her "Move your ass!"

Turning away before the other girl could respond, Gaige went back to firing at the thinning mass of bots above her, a number of which had taken her lack of attention as an invite to attack, forcing her to roll to the side as they slammed into the ground.

A second after they destroyed themselves, she heard the sound of metal tearing loose and falling from somewhere below her. Hoping that Artemis was alright since she wasn't able to go investigate with the bots seeming to be getting more and more worked up, Gaige was having to spend more of her time dodging around the impacting bots then she was firing. That's not to say she wasn't shooting back, she could do both at the same time thanks to her bouncing Anarchy ladened bullets, but she still preferred to aim at least a little bit, to try and get the most power out of the shots that she could and only have them bounce once they were charged up a bit more.

Still, she had no other option but to continue firing as she waited on Artemis to climb her way up. She was getting ready to just yell at Deathtrap to go grab her and get them outta there, when the floor fell out from under her.