Beneath the area known as Chancery Hills sat a maze of metal and concrete that had once belonged to a brilliant scientist. Hidden away from the world, the scientist had labored to advance technology and to protect their innovations from the world. One such protection was a gas that induced powerful arousal in anyone who breathed it in. This would distract the target long enough for the tentacle robot to arrive and dispatch them.

The scientist had been an odd fellow.

At the moment, the maze was under assault by an unlikely team. Two heroes, two neutral, and one villain. So far they had worked together surprisingly well. Between them, they had been able to overcome all the challenges presented to them by the dungeon. Robots, lasers, and even horny gas all failed to deter them. But now they faced their greatest challenge.

“We’re lost.” Lightforge’s shoulders sagged as he said it. He didn’t know how long the team had been wandering the concrete corridors, but he was almost certain that they were walking in circles. This wasn’t a difficult conclusion to reach; at the moment they were walking past the remains of some robots that they’d destroyed earlier.

Reluctantly, the rest of the team nodded their agreement. While the early part of the lab had a single main corridor, that had long since split into numerous paths that twisted and turned in all directions.

Sunbird groaned and said, “This sucks! Where are we even supposed to go?”

“The bottom,” Cannoneer said, “So long as we’re going down, we should be fine.”

“Sure, but we’ve been doing that. And we’re still going around in circles.”

Frustrated, the woman in white and gold sent a wave of energy shooting down the corridor. Yellow beams crashed into the walls all around them, largely doing nothing to the reinforced concrete. But one of them struck a section of wall and caused a thin layer of concrete to fall away.

Beneath the concrete was a shining steel door. The team all stared, wide-eyed, at the secret room that they’d discovered. Their shock was quickly replaced with avarice; it stood to reason that hidden rooms would be full of valuables. They hurried over to the door, which had an electronic keypad holding it closed.

That lasted about five seconds against Lightforge’s Sabotage skill. The team whooped with excitement as the door hissed and began to slide open. Their celebration was abruptly cut off when the alarm began to sound.

“Bio lab containment breach! Deploy countermeasures!”

The voice was all around them, and Lightforge’s stomach dropped. He could already hear the clatter of more robots being activated somewhere close by. They didn’t have long before they would be attacked.

“Everyone inside,” he cried, “We’ll hold them off in the doorway.”

The team rushed inside with Cannoneer leading the charge. Lightforge was last, backing into the room with his shield at the ready. He checked the door; it had slid completely into the wall, and he couldn’t see any mechanism to close it. Of course.

With one eye towards the door, the gadgeteer turned to the others and said, "Alright, this is going to get interesting. I need help holding the…"

He trailed off as he caught sight of the room's interior. To his dismay, it wasn’t full of treasure chests just waiting to be looted. It was, as the alarm had indicated, a bio lab. A bio lab that looked like it had been attacked by killer chainsaws.

There was nothing in the room that was still in one piece. The floor was covered in the scattered remains of tables, beakers, and electrical equipment. The walls and even the ceiling held dark stains that none of the team members wanted to take too close a look at.

There was a single exception to the utter destruction of the room. At some point the back wall had held a row of large glass tubes, and one of them still remained intact. It was bigger than the revival pods, and full of a dull purple liquid. Hidden in the shadows was a murky, indistinct shape.

It was moving.

Lightforge held his breath as he heard the mechanical defenses approaching from down the hall. Those could wait for now; this thing was in the room with them. The shadows twitched and rippled inside the tube, but that was all. It settled back down and he was able to breathe again.

His attention snapped to the open doorway, where the sounds of metal on concrete were getting closer. He summoned his hammer and turned to the others. He said, “Cannoneer, Sunbird, robots are headed this way. Lay down a barrage to thin them out. Gray, cover them. Circe, let’s see if we can turn any of this scrap into a door.”

No one argued; there was no time for that. Sunbird and Cannoneer stepped to the door facing opposite directions. They unleashed all the damage that they could muster, firing on the approaching enemies. Return fire came quickly, but Gray Guardian was there with their trusty barrier to protect the front line fighters.

Lightforge knelt on the ground next to Circe, sweeping together fragments of metal and glass. He willed his repair skill into effect, but this time he needed to guide the process. He wasn’t fixing things to their original state; he needed to meld them together into something else. He needed a welder.

His hands glowed, and a translucent welder appeared in his hands. As quickly as he dared, he touched the flame to the scraps of metal and melted the edges to join them. The process was much faster than it would have been in the real world, which was a great relief.

As he worked, he would occasionally reach out for another piece of metal and wrap a hand around a small metal bird instead. Apparently Circe was limited to birds for her transmogrify power, but she could turn the glass to metal. That was good for getting enough material to work with, but it wasn’t fast.

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It hadn’t been a terrible idea, but there simply wasn’t time. By the time he had something that might make a decent shield, the others were backing into the room. The enemies were too close to keep up the barrage. They would have to fight in the doorway.

Lightforge rose, glowing hammer and shield in hand. His throat was dry, but this was the role that he was meant to play on this team. He was the one to fight machines. He was the one who fought up close. He could do this.

As the others retreated back, Lightforge saw Gray Guardian come up beside him. They rested a hand on his arm for a few moments, and energy flowed into him. His HP and AP bars gained a white outline to mark the regeneration effect that he’d gained. He nodded in appreciation and stood just inside the door.

Behind him, Cannoneer said, “Come on, we can’t just stand here. Sunbird, float to the ceiling and shoot over his head; give him any cover you can. Circe, throw off their aim. Gray, we’ll look for any hidden exits to this room. Lightforge, just hold them back until we find a way out of here.

The group began to move again, but Lightforge was focused on his breathing. He took slow, deep breaths and tried to steady his racing heart. It was going to be up to him. He was fighting robots, but he couldn’t go slowly and hope for Sabotage to do the work for him. It took too much time, since he had to embed a weapon in the robots. Besides, it might not even work on them.

An idea crossed his mind, and it was crazy enough that it might just work. It had a very video game type logic to it, at least. And what was there to lose? Either he had a new trick up his sleeve that would help, or he didn’t. It wouldn’t actually make the job in front of him any harder if he was wrong.

The robots came into view at last. They looked like old metal trash cans with two short, stubby legs sticking out of the bottom. Arms that looked more like clubs jutted out on either side of them, and each one featured a series of guns sticking out near the top. They looked tough; while the team’s barrage might have taken out a couple of them, more looked to be only damaged.

In total there were seven, three coming from one side and four from the other. They looked like brawlers, which was good, but he would need to fight them one at a time to have a chance. With one last breath, he stepped through the doorway and into the hall.

The robots instantly took note of him, but they didn’t increase their pace. Instead they simply took aim and opened fire at him. It was the smart choice, and one that he’d been hoping they would avoid. There was a way to stop the shooting, but only because it was insane.

He continued into the middle of the passageway, and the gunfire ceased. The robots would be shooting at each other if they continued, so they were content to simply surround him instead. His hands were trembling as he turned and darted towards the smaller group.

Once again, the robots seemed to almost ignore his actions. They continued their steady advance, with the only change being to raise their club-like arms and prepare to attack as they approached. He wasn’t planning to give them the chance.

He surged forward and swung with his hammer at the nearest robot. As it struck the machine, his eyes flicked to his list of skills. Sure enough, Sabotage lit up for just a moment as he struck. This might actually work.

The momentary distraction meant that he received a glancing blow from the heavy arms of the machine as he tried to dodge. Even with the light contact he could feel the force that the heavy machines were wielding. He would be in serious trouble if he took a direct hit from one of them.

But now he had a plan. He leaped back into action and swung hard, bringing the hammer down on top of the robot with as much force as he could manage. As he swung, he focused on the inactive Sabotage skill. He made contact and mentally activated the skill at the same time.

Sparks flew as the hammer accelerated through the robot, throwing it into a wall with a sizable dent in its front. It began to recover almost immediately, but it was badly damaged from that strike alone. Lightforge couldn’t help but grin.

He charged into the approaching machines, swinging his hammer with abandon. His perspective had changed; he wasn’t a hero striking down enemies. It was much more mundane than that. He was a mechanic disassembling some malfunctioning equipment. He was simply doing so with a little extra rage in the mix.

He sprinted back and forth between the two groups of advancing robots, knocking one or two back before switching sides. He didn’t always get the timing right on his Sabotage skill, but that was alright. He was still large enough to hit hard.

Sunbird was in the doorway, firing blasts where she could. The robots were getting closer, but it was slow and they were paying dearly for every step they took. They began to adjust to fighting him, swinging continuously with their arms to try and keep him at bay. And while they were dangerous weapons, they weren’t fast.

Neither was he, so that suited him just fine. He wove between the attacks as best he could to strike at the robots’ bodies over and over. He didn’t come out unscathed, but he dealt much more damage than he took.

After three strikes, the first robot was flung away and didn’t rise. The next was the same, and the third fell after only two thanks to a timely blast of golden energy. By the time he was forced back into the doorway, only two of the machines remained.

He swung at the nearer of the two, but he failed to get the timing right. It skidded slightly, but that was all. He choked up on the hammer to make a shorter swing, stepped forward, and struck again, careful to activate the skill this time. It was flung away and collapsed into a pile of junk. One more to go.

That was when he heard the gunfire. He whirled around to look at the final robot, which had slipped behind him into the doorway. His arms were beginning to burn from the exertion, but he raised his hammer high above his head and leaped at the robot. It wasn’t ignoring him, but it was shooting into the room as it brought one arm up to intercept him.

Hammer met robotic arm, and the hammer won. The arm was smashed to pieces and hung limply at the machine’s side. Lightforge swung one last time, now with the pointed end of the hammer. The timing was perfect, and the other arm was too far away to get in the way.

The spiked hammer head crashed into the side of the robot full force and punched through as if it were cardboard. The mechanical monster collapsed in place and Lightforge stumbled past it into the room. He was tired after all of that.

He gave a thumbs up to the team, but all of their heads turned when they heard another sound. The sound of crackling glass. They looked in horror at the tube that held the shadowy monstrosity, and it had been hit by the final round of bullets. It was covered in cracks that were slowly expanding across the entire surface.

The murky form inside jerked suddenly and opened its eyes. Large red eyes glowed, their light cutting through the dark fluid and locking onto the room. And then it happened.

The monster roared and burst outward, shattering the glass tube and sending the shrapnel in all directions. It fell to the floor among the glass and fluid that it had released, glaring up at the team that had awoken it.

Lightforge could only watch, his body still aching from the robots that they’d just beaten. But apparently they weren’t done yet. He should have been thinking of a plan, but only one thing came to mind.

“Run!” he screamed. They all turned and bolted out the door. But the monster had its eyes on them; it began to pursue. They would have to fight it.