Blood. Somewhere along the line things always come down to blood. Wrap it up as you might, blood is almost always necessary.

And standing opposed to Nugget was a drop of blood that certainly was wrapped tight. Layers of metal, glass, wiring, and pipes stood between the pulsing blood inside the machine and the outside world where it stood against the chicken.

In sharp contrast, Nugget had been injured so much through this ordeal that her blood was practically already in the open. At least, what was left of it, as she had to shed quite a bit of it to even get to this point.

"System malfunction. Startup stalled at seventy-three percent." The feminine, childlike voice stated from the giant machine.

Steam hissed, gears groaned, metal strained as the giant slowly settled in place.

"Move startup sequence to secondary, prioritize functions necessary to operate." The old man commanded as his hands flew across a complex series of consoles.

"Acknowledged." the girl replied.

The groaning noise resumed even louder than before as the machine slowly raised itself up higher. It's four arms stretched out around it before it took a single step closer to Nugget. The ground shook, like a building had just collapsed, but the chick stood firm.

Nugget cocked her head to the side as she looked up at the glass dome at the top of the machine. The old man inside looked almost frantic, but even a cursory glance could see the sheer glee that practically poured off of him in waves.

Nugget closed her eyes. She took in a deep breath, and as she slowly let it out, she softly said, "Bakaw."

In a flash, she had leaped forward, and where she had just been a fist smashed down into the fractured ground. She jumped up towards one of the legs and tried to run up it. But, she couldn't get a grip, and kept sliding back down.

"Hahaha! Pathetic! You think I would leave such an obvious weakness?" he boasted.

A buzzer sound rang out. "Lower weapon B dash twenty-two is not currently operational due to its startup priority being lowered."

The man grumbled, but then a laser popped out underneath the main chassis of the robot. It followed Nugget as she continued to try and climb the leg. It began to hum, and quickly increased in intensity.

As Nugget fell from her fourth attempt, a purple laser shot out at her. She lifted her wings and flapped them down quickly. She winced as she pushed herself out of the way. But her injured wing seemed to struggle to get her much air, which sent her on a crooked path further underneath the machine.

"Tsk." he sneered. "I should've known such a low power weapon wouldn't work. Pathetic it's even on this masterpiece."

He grinned as he put his hand on a lever. His fingers fanned out as he almost lovingly gripped it. "But these things come with their own power supply. They can start up on their own and should give you some entertainment while I finish my preparations."

He yanked the switch, and a blaring siren went off. Holes opened up on the bottom of the robot, and metal balls, the size of beach balls fell through to the ground. Hundreds of them rolled around on the ground.

Then, each of the balls started to hiss. One by one they unraveled to form spider like robots with sharp legs, a glowing, a glowing red line near the top, and electricity sparked between two prongs on the front of them.

The one closest to Nugget lunged for her. As she tried to jump back, the prongs on the front flew out, like a mantis's arms and pressed into her leg. She let out a "Baaaw!" of surprise and pain as electricity coursed through her.

"I hope you didn't think this was going to be easy! These toys may be pathetic, but in such large numbers even they have their uses." He laughed.

Nugget landed but couldn't keep her balance and fell onto her side. She was shaking slightly, but the spider-like machines didn't let up. With surprising speed, they swarmed towards her. A sea of chittering feet stabbing into the ground as they made their way towards her unprotected body.

As the first one tried to pierce her chest with its leg, Nugget rolled out of the way. But, waiting for her was another of the machines, ready to stab her with its dagger like foot.

Before it could, Nugget planted her foot in the ground, and forced herself onto her feet as she hopped to the side. More and more approached as she danced around their sharp feet and extendable taser mouths.

A scrape her, a jolt of electricity there. It was clear that Nugget was not at her best. Finally, she decided to try and go up the leg of the giant machine instead of just dodging the robots on the ground.

The old man surely would have been gloating, but he was busy. In his control station he was running through various complex calculations. As he grinned, a black portal appeared to the side of the machine. He looked up at the tear in reality and smiled.

But then the hole started to wobble and waver. It quickly dissipated into nothing, and he slammed his fist onto the console. "Not enough..." he grumbled angrily. "Idiot wolf. He destroyed those sensors. Without them I...UGH!"

He slammed his fist again as a vein pulsed on his forehead.

"Perhaps you should wait for the system to come fully online." the young girl's voice suggested.

At her words his face softened. "Fine. You're right as usual Ferrah. I just need to wait..."

His face contorted angrily again as he kicked the side of the dome. "I'm just so close! My masterpiece is finally at hand. All thanks to him...and I hate it."

"You are the one who accomplished this, not him." she stated.

The old man ground his teeth as he shook his head. "Yet without his information I'd still be centuries away."

He was flung forward as the machine lurched. "What the?"

Below, Nugget had knocked the entire machine to the side. As she ran up the leg, the small robots followed her, but unlike her, they were able to pierce into the leg with their sharp feet.

She got a good way up with sheer momentum, but as she started to fall back down, the robots below her were waiting to shock her. But, as they tried, she flipped over them, and landed on their head.

Using them as a ledge, she jumped up again off of the round robot. The force of her leap knocked the tiny robot loose and caused it to fall down into the swarm as they tried to walk over each other to climb the leg after the chicken.

The first ones she jumped off of were fine, but as she got further up, the force of the fall started to damage them more and more. While the weight of so many of them concentrated on one side of a leg, caused the larger robot to shift its weight as it tried to stay upright.

Nugget's eyes were filled with determination as she pushed her pain down and slowly, but surely made her way higher and higher using the machines that had been sent against her.