The ancient security bot was still functional, but only barely, so its first strike was slow. Rush could see some kind of flaky coating shedding from the drones arm as it struck: not rust, but some other form of buildup that had layered on over centuries of lying inert. Rush wondered what it was, but put those thoughts aside. Right now the only thing that concerned him was the fight. While that mysterious buildup was slowing the bot down, it was also flaking off. That meant it might soon shed entirely, and the drone would be back to its prime operating state.

As the drone reoriented itself, Rush went for a punch towards its center of mass. As his fist drew close to the drone’s chassis, the air seemed to thicken around it. The punch slowed, then stopped, and Rush’s hand felt like it was encased in a solid sheet of metal. The intangible solidity vanished the moment Rush drew his hand back, and he was free again. He stepped back and headed for the other end of the hall, putting room between himself and the drone.

“That was the barrier, I’m guessing?”

“The Kellarin Technologies energy redirection field, yes,” Elvis said. “Quite a marvelous piece of technology, when it’s not trying to kill us.”

Rush tried to dodge another punch, and failed. Thankfully the drone hit one of the armor plates, which muted much of the impact. Rush retaliated, and the redirection field once again slowly trapped his hand with its energy-absorption properties.

“Any way to get around it?”

“It is possible to move past the barrier while at low speeds,” Elvis explained. “It’s how we’ve bypassed the shields on some of the mecha you’ve fought.”

Every mecha he’d fought thus far technically had such a shield, but Rush had always circumvented them by one means or another. They only disrupted high-energy attacks, and his usual approach was slow enough not to trigger the barrier’s reaction.

“Okay.”

Rush was an expert in taking things slow. The problem was trying to take it slow while his opponent was rushing into combat. After dodging a few more punches and trying (and failing) to slowly strike his opponent in return, Rush decided to try a different approach. This time, instead of dodging, he held up his arm to block the strike. The drone’s armored fist crashed against his forearm and bounced off the armor plating.

The redirection field only worked one way. Rush could not attack the drone, but it could attack him just fine. The strategy formed itself from there.

One more punch came Rush’s way, and this time he held up an open palm. The robot’s fist slammed down, and Rush latched on as soon as it made impact. Now that he had leverage, Rush planted his feet, held on tight, and swung. The heavy frame of the drone was not enough to stop it from getting lifted off the ground and slammed into a nearby wall. Unfortunately, the barrier took over once again, and by the time the drone actually hit the wall, it impacted with a dull thud and dropped gently to the ground.

“Doesn’t this thing have a battery, like we do?” Rush asked. “Will the field run out of energy eventually?”

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“Presumably, but a drone like this is likely better optimized for combat than the Scrapper suit is,” Elvis said. “It will take a significant amount of effort to completely drain its batteries.”

“And in the meantime,” Rush said, as he dodged another punch. “It can hit us all it wants.”

“Only if we let it,” Elvis said. His optimism was immediately blunted by blunt force trauma as Rush failed to dodge and took a punch to the face. The helmet of the suit absorbed most of the blow, but it put a large dent in the chin area.

Adopting his usual approach, Rush waited and watched. He danced around the drone, exploiting its slightly slower movement to stay one step ahead of it. The strange buildup was still shedding from its metal frame, but it showed no signs of speeding up just yet. A notably large flake of the buildup broke off, and Rush tracked it to the ground.

Rush put up a hand and repeated his earlier gambit, allowing the drone to strike him so he could grab it and throw it across the hallway. He used the extra breathing room to reach down and grab the fallen piece of debris. The flaky, reddish-brown material crumbled between his fingertips, but even that was confirmation enough.

“Kellcite,” Rush said. “The power core must be compromised.”

Unlike a mecha, which had a large amount of interior space for the strange mineral to grow, the interior of the drone was more cramped, so the buildup had spread across its exterior.

“Interesting, but I don’t think that substance grows fast enough to end this fight for us,” Elvis said. He still had the research info on Kellcite from the crashed space station, and knew it took years to accumulate.

“But it is conductive,” Rush said. “If I run a charge through the Kellcite, it’ll go right to the Kell Cell inside and overload it.”

“A proven strategy,” Elvis said. They had disrupted a mecha’s power cell using the same technique. “But that does require us getting our hands on the drone.”

“And on the torso, too,” Rush said. While it was easy to get a hand on the drones hands or arms, the Kellcite coating had cracked around the joints. To ensure the charge reached the core, Rush had to hit it on the intact layer of Kellcite on the torso.

“It will take some doing, but I believe it’s well within our capabilities,” Elvis said. “Do you have a plan, Mr. Rush?”

“I do.”

Rush started to walk right towards the security drone, and made no moves to defend himself when the first punch came. Elvis would’ve sighed, had he been able.

“Why do all of our fights end up like this?”

Rush tanked the first punch directly in the forehead. The punch dented the helmet and knocked Rush off his feet, and he let himself fall backwards. The drone followed him to the ground and went for another punch. Rush weaved his head side to side to make it a little harder, but his focus was no longer on the fight. As the drone kept him pinned on the ground, Rush slowly raised his hands, carefully navigating them through the energy field surrounding the drone’s body.

Once he had cold metal beneath both hands, Rush sparked up the voltaic charges and sent electricity coursing through the drone’s body. It recoiled from the sudden shock and rolled to the side, synthetic muscles suddenly tensing involuntarily as it was overloaded with power. Rush got to his feet and kept his distance as the drone went through its death throes. Eventually the sparking stopped, and the drone froze.

“We have to stop doing this,” Elvis said.

“It keeps working,” Rush said. He removed his helmet and looked at the dented surface. “With only minor damage.”

He turned the helmet around and examined the interior display. The inner screen was flexible, so it wasn’t cracked by the impacts, but it was warped around the new dents in the helmet.

“We’ll need to smooth those out somehow,” Rush said.

“Actually, Mr. Rush, I may have an alternative.”

“What’s that?”

Elvis said nothing, but Rush could feel his attention being pulled downwards, towards the fallen drone. It was roughly the same size and build as the Scrapper suit -and it had a fresh coat of armor.

“Hm.”