Another acceleration slams her back towards the other direction, pressing her back down into the padded seat. They launch upwards, propelled by a furious burst of energy. The sound of some great roar is audible all around herself, filling Pen’s ears with a violent gnashing and grinding, which is then followed by a prolonged hiss. The window lights up as all of the other displays disappear in an instant, giving her a clear and unobstructed view of the stone walls flying past them in a whirl, now in the other direction as they ascend. A flash of red catches her attention for an instant, but is gone before she has a chance to focus on it through the blurry mess that is her vision.

The bile filling her empty stomach rolls and swishes around at the sudden shift and Pen finally loses control, purging all over her front with several empty retches. A slick, yellow-green goo dribbles out from her mouth. The body of the armored bot begins to shake and vibrate in an unnerving way, another window pops up on the display, as they rise higher and higher past the destruction of the collapsed spiral staircase.

WARNING!

Reactor Status: Unstable !

They fly higher up towards parts of it that still remain, higher up past the tunnel that she had come down at first, where she had decided to go down instead of up. But now, up they go, past that too and then further still. In the mirror she sees the great, spider-like C-class just below them. Its legs are expanded out wide, spanning the width of the cylindrical room as it pursues them upwards. The body she is inside of keeps shaking though and their ascension begins to slow, until coming to close to a standstill for a brief second, as they hover in midair, having fully lost their momentum.

WARNING!

Reactor Status: CRITICAL !

Capacity: 25 - 30%

Core Temperature: 313K - 323K

Cabin mRem: 21 !

>>>Killing Vertical-hover Thrusters

“Ah, shit. Hold on!” says the man’s voice.

Through the window she sees an arm reach out in that second and grab hold of a large, metal bar protruding from one of the broken cat-walks. The metal strains and groans, easily breaking apart beneath the densely heavy weight of the knight’s body grabbing hold of it and pulling downward, as it begins to fall. It snaps off, sending them plunging down, straight towards the C-class, which is furiously howling up towards them as it readies its weapon for a third launch.

A second later, the gigantic, metal beam shoots straight up towards them, screaming as the blunt piston propels its way forward; as they fall straight down towards it, flying too fast for her to even see more than just a blur for a brief flash of an instant.

All she feels is another lurch to the side as they shift, dodging again as they’re propelled by some sidewards boost. The metal hand of the bot that she is inside of, slides along the violently upwards projected beam, which hurdles just past them once again, missing them only by an inch. The steel rod is tightly gripped in the bot’s other hand like a lance as they plunge downward, as they plunge towards the shining ruby eyes of the encroacher, which beam up towards them in that single second before impact. The furious scream of the giant spider-like monstrosity still has not stopped. They fall, the wretched cry still ringing in her ears together with her own screams as they spiral towards the source of the former; sparks and lights flicker all around them from the metal sliding against metal, letting out a searing hiss as the knight’s other outward extended hand runs along the metal beam, guiding them straight down towards the C-class’s head.

Everything is red for just a flash of a second, for just the briefest moment as they collide. The shining light from the many red eyes that stare up towards them, towards her, as if looking through the window, fills the cramped space. It is as if it were bathing her in a spray of freshly drawn blood, as they crash down into each other. Pen falls forward and only barely catches herself against the front panel. Then the light slowly fades away, as the rectangular head of the C-class beneath their feet begins to spasm and to twitch. They pull back, as the suit that she is inside of stands up straight, tearing the bent metal pole back out from the penetrated eye. It pulls the pole out from the head that it had pierced, stabbing through the weak glass shell of a single crimson pupil.

The howling stops, turning into a strange, prolonged, moaning cry. As it shifts from the tones of fury to ones of anguish, as the many eyes begin to shudder and to spasm; the glass spheres, shaking wildly in their sockets in some sort of death rattle all come to a stop. It is as if it were a wounded animal. Pen barely catches herself an instant later, as they lurch forward again, as the makeshift spear pierces into another eye, sending shards of glass flying in all directions. The metal rod, which is now bent and jagged and warped, sticks into the gaping hole. It gouges out another eye and is wedged forever firmly stuck in the skull of the giant.

The cry turns silent as the light leaves the C-class, like the drawing of a final dying breath.

A shake runs through her as the world rumbles beneath them. For a second she thinks the giant C-class bot, which was suspending itself in midair in the cylindrical shaft, is going to fall. But it only lurches a few feet and then it almost seems to lock itself into place, the C-class’ legs not giving way in either direction, as the dead body hangs in mid-air, like a giant corpse of a metal spider.

At first she thinks it's quiet. But then Pen realizes that someone is laughing. She’s laughing. Pen’s not sure why she’s laughing exactly, but she is. She’s laughing, her head hurts. Her eyes sting. Why is it so warm in here? Her body slumps down all at once and everything goes black.