Even with my hardening this was still extremely painful. The machinery pulled me deeper inside while trying to crush me and grind m to bits at the same time. I changed my body to try and minimize the damage where I could, yet I still ended up getting stabbed, scraped and crushed a lot.

I finally passed all that to reach a large chamber at the back of the robot. It was empty now, but I could tell it had been recently cleaned. The air was thick with a chemical smell and there was a thin film over the walls. I take a moment to repair the damage to my body before I leave the chamber to cause as much damage as I could. I had to leave my knife outside because I didn’t want to get hurt with my own weapon.

I take a look at the entrance of the chamber and find that there is a small gap between the last set of grinding teeth and the entrance for the chamber. I shrink myself as much as I can an slip through. I make my way around the guts of the device breaking as much as I can along the way.

Severing connections and ripping out wires. I cracked every circuit board I passed and disconnected everything. I came across a weird crystal that was mounted to a circuit board and pulsed with a weird energy. It gave off a weird feeling one that I was oddly drawn to. I unconsciously started reaching towards it. I was just barely an inch away when I felt the energy start flowing out of the crystal and into my body. I jumped back and immediately checked myself for anything wrong. Ultimately, I found nothing other than I actually felt a little better than before. I felt like I just had a good night’s sleep and a strong cup of coffee.

‘I guess whatever is in this crystal is good for me. There don’t seem to be any side effects so far.’

I carefully and slowly get closer to the crystal until I feel the energy draining into me again. I let the energy flow slowly just in case. It filled me with a comfortable warmth that I had never experienced before. Its like every cell in my body was being enriched at once. All too soon the experience ended and the crystal turn to dust before my eyes. I guess the energy inside was all that was holding it together. I turn my attention back to my body and I feel great. Nothing feels out of place, I just feel stronger and more sturdy.

‘I need to find more of these things. There was another one of these robots right?’

The crystal I just absorbed must be like the power source of these robots. As soon as I drained the crystal I could feel the thing stop moving. I make my way out easily now that the gears and metal teeth are no longer moving. The other robot is still wandering around while the flying ones are hovering around it. I don’t really understand what they are doing, but that doesn’t matter. I want their crystals.

I quickly find my knife that I left embedded in the robot’s exterior and targeted the big floor drone first. Since I crawled around in one already I kind of know the layout and it didn’t take me long to break into the still working floor robot. When I was messing around inside the first robot I found a tube that came out from the bottom, I assumed it was to suck up any liquids that were left on the floor. I simply climbed up this tube and cut it open to allow access to the inside. I immediately absorbed the crystal and just left. There isn’t any point wasting more time breaking everything when it is no longer a threat now. I did take some small pieces of metal that I ripped off and crushed with my tentacles till they were odd looking sharp spears. I made about 12, I don’t really know how many I’m going to need but this seems like enough for now.

Climbing out from underneath the robot with my spears, I can see the things flying around. They are my last obstacle to getting out of this lab. I pick up one of my crude spears and take aim. Putting as much strength into the throw as I could I hurl it at the drone closest to me. It sped towards the drone at high speed just before bouncing off its outer shell and falling harmlessly to the ground.

‘I don’t know what I expected’ I keep forgetting how small I am at the moment. Absorbing the crystals has me feeling stronger but I don’t think I actually gained that much strength. Oh, how I wish I had some sort of system from those stories I loved to read online.

I gave up trying to pierce the drones with my spears and instead just aimed for their rotors. The drones all had the normal setup of four rotors each. I only had about 8 spears left after my failed attempts. This time I didn’t even aim to break or pierce anything. I just wanted to at least get the spears stuck in the blades or something so they couldn’t fly right anymore. Then I could just leave without having to bother with them anymore. I aim again and throw.

*THWACK*

*WHIRRR-WHIRRRRRRR*

I wished I could laugh as it scraped along the floor spinning extremely fast as It tried to gain altitude. I took down the rest easily after my first success. After I was all done, I was left with a large pile of spinning and whirring drones on the floor. I was going to leave but then I thought about something and walked over to the nearest drone. I saw its camera and sensors swivel around to look at me. If I didn’t know better I would say it was afraid. The nerd in me got the better of me and I couldn’t help myself. I touch a tentacle to the drone.

‘Its afraid’

I look back and yell to imaginary soldiers.

‘ITS AFRAID!’

I laugh at myself in my head and move on to what I was doing in the first place.

I use my blade to help my open the drone and poke around inside for a bit before I found what I’m looking for. These drones have crystals too, they are a lot smaller though and have less energy. But I still drain them all before I move on to leave the room. Draining the last one I finally decide to move on. Growing to my maximum size of baby cockroach I scurry towards the door.

I finally make it to find out that the door is completely sealed. There is a tiny window on the door, so I look through that and find that the room is more than just sealed. There is a damn airlock outside the door.

‘How the hell am I going to get out now?’

I keep looking out the window while thinking about this. It wasn’t long before I noticed movement and realized that it wasn’t just an airlock. It was a manned security airlock.

‘This could be a good thing’ I think to myself.

I shrink down and use the now unused body mass to make my legs super long. I clean up the mess and hide the robots by putting them on the desk with the half-disassembled device I got my knife from earlier. I make it look like whoever’s used this desk got bored and decided to take everything they could find apart. After all that is done, I head back to the door and shrink down as small as I could to hide from whatever sensors were in the airlock just in case. Then I start making as much racket as I possibly can. Throwing beakers and all manner of scientific equipment from the nearest tables and smashing them against the wall. The guard immediately shot up and barged through the door. Entering the other side of the airlock and started cycling it. I stopped throwing stuff and hid above the door, waiting for the guard to come through. Once the airlock is done cycling he comes through the door and I let go of the wall and drop right onto the person with the worst dandruff I have ever seen.

‘At least it will be easy for me to hide in all this’