Tiffany: Tch.
Tiffany cut down three more bots that had lept to attack and laser her. Luke crushed a few more bots and, using a stop sign, swung at a few more, sending them flying.
Luke: Alright, so what then?
Tiffany: Ken. Can you shut them down?
Ken: No. These things are insane. Most robots I've seen are only complex enough that they can be shut down if I touch them, but these things, even getting information from them, is some other kind of insane.
Tiffany: How insane?
Ken: Let's just say.... about 1500 firewalls insane.
Max, Luke, Rose, and Tiffany, in spite of what they were doing, fighting bots, giving directions, or rushing back to X-corp's vicinity, all froze for a moment before going on.
Luke: Sheesh.
Max: No kidding.
Tiffany: I see.
Tiffany cut two more up.
Ken: And that's just to get information from it. Trying to shut it down will be a whole other beast.
Tiffany: How long till you can shut it down?
Ken: About an hour?
Tiffany: An hour?
Luke smashed several more. The number of bots coming towards them was slowly increasing.
Luke: I don't think we'll be able to play defence for that long.
Tiffany: Yeah, we need another solution. Or at least a way to destroy them.
She cut up yet another trio before tossing three shuriken into three others.
Ken: I'm on it.
Ken put his entire focus into trying to find a solution. A blue holographic page appeared in front of him and he started looking into the codes that were behind it, ardently searching for a way to stop them, looking at every bit of data that could explain just as to what this robot was.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Ken: (thinking: Just who on earth could have made so many of these things?)
Meanwhile, Max was saving people from the spider bots. Each save was an odd experience for him. As per Tiffany's instructions, he would not waste time asking follow-up questions such as, "How are you?" or "Are you ok?"
He understood full well that each second wasted could mean the death of several, and so he simply accepted it. But an odd feeling was welling up in his heart with each save he made.
Rose: 100 metres. East.
Max: Right.
Max dashed again, dodging each spider bot in his path and just searching for civillians. At times, a bot would shoot ar lunge at him, but he would avoid each and every one of them and focus on the goal.
The exhilerating feeling of saving lives. It was a lot stronger than Max could have ever anticipated.
Rose: Two more, Max.
Max: Right.
Rose also felt quite antsy. Her friends were doing battle without her support, and she, like Max, was not quite so used to saving people.
Rose: 350 metres. One person.
Max rushed in and pulled out a grown woman who was hiding away from a spider bot from the inside of a building
Max appeared just in the nick of time to destroy the robot and lead her to safety.
Rose: Max, I heard shooting. Are you ok?
Max: Yeah, I'm fine. Just one more, right?
Rose: Yeah. Really far from where you are. But I can feel it. His thoughts.... He's terrified.
Max: Hmph!
Max rushed through the city once more, avoiding corpses and spider bots alike before eventually meeting the last person he had to save.
Rose: Can you see him?
Max: Yeah, I see him.
Max finally arrived just to find a man struggling to enter a car while two spider bots slowly approached him.
Man: Somebody help me!
Name: Roy Shapiro
Age: 50
Description: Your average business man
Occupation: X-corp CEO
Fact: Is a sumo fanatic.
Max: I've got you.
Max fired off a bolt that sent the spider bots near the car flying before zipping to him.
Max: Are you ok, sir?
The other spider bots immediately changed their target to Max.
Roy frightenedly looked to Max.
Roy: Errrr.... you're here to save me, right?
Max looked back at the bots and then back at the man.
Max: Yeah. You need to get out of here, now.
Rose: Max, is everything ok?
Max: Yeah, it's ok. I've got him. Just had to blast some spider bots.
Rose: Oh, be careful. Ken said that they could just regenerate.
Max: Huh. Oh yeah.
Max looked at the destroyed clumps of black and red that were initially robots. It suddenly occurred to him that while he was told that they would regenerate, he hadn't quite seen that happen before.
He picked up a piece of the robot. It had not regenerated. Not even after several seconds had passed.
Max: I guess they don't regenerate when you electrocute them hard enough.
It was at that point that Ken, Tiffany, and Luke immediately froze.
Ken: Of course. It was right in front of me the whole time. Max, your powers. Your powers are the answer.