I was barreling toward the pair of giant robot chickens and if I had a nickel for every time that had happened… well I'd only have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Okay, to be completely fair, the first time it was only a single chicken spitting lightning and now it was two, slightly larger chickens, spitting fire as they stomped their way down the street surrounded by waves of droids rushing their way toward the fallen form of Perry the Pangolin.

I made a wide arc upward before barrelling down and toward the closer of the two chickens. It never even saw me coming as I slammed my fist into the air above its back, unleashing a Mass Driver that used at least half of my Stamina. The chicken's legs went out from under it as it was forced backwards toward the ground, crushing a wave of the droids that were unlucky enough to be underneath it at the time.

"New Achievement! Crushing Force! You know, as an A.I. I kind of find your treatment of those poor droids a little… hilarious. What? You crushed a bunch of robot monkeys with a giant chicken! Am I not supposed to laugh at that? You have hit over 30 enemies with a single other enemy, most of them died… or er… most were disabled? It's weird classifying them given they are just mindless hunks of metal. Oh well. This is a Platinum level achievement. Reward: You have received an A+:Tier loot box."

"Well look who finally decided to join the party," Freak called out, jumping forward and crashing into the chicken as it tried and failed to get back to its feet. It really wasn't the most elegant design and if I didn't have enough on my mind already, I might have wondered why this had been the choice Mr. Factory and Hydramental made for their kaiju sized droids.

"I couldn't let you have all the fun, now could I?" I asked, darting around the fallen chicken as Freak tore into its side, melding parts of the metal into his armor as he went. Several other droids jumped toward me, missing as they swiped and clawed at my torso when they thought I was close enough. "What's the verdict, do we know what they're after? Any eyes on Hydra- oh there's the blue one."

A jet of icy energy just barely missed me as I dodged to the side, causing the blast to smack into a Clockwork Pterodactyl that had been apparently chasing after me. It was sent tumbling down to the ground, crashing into another droid and exploding as the ice went shattering outward.

"Gotta watch your back Loophole!" I heard Hydramental call at me, a faux friendliness in his tone as I zipped past the blue form, only for yet another freezing blast to barely miss me a moment later. I didn't make out if this one hit another enemy or not, but from my point of view, it was pretty clear he had been trying to hit me.

"No clue what they're after, they all just seem to be making their way toward Perry, though they aren't exactly moving at breakneck paces," Jon reported.

"And how many of Hydramental's clones do we have eyes on?" I asked, darting low to get some of the droids between me and the closest of his clones.

I wasn't sure why Hydramental was trying to keep up some sort of Guardian facade for the general public, he had already tried to kill a large majority of the people in this very neighborhood, so it just didn't make any sense. Although… while he was still proclaiming to be a hero and "fighting" against the droids swarming down the street, it would only work to make us look bad if anyone on our team took a shot at him.

"Still just red, blue, and brown… why wouldn't the other two be here with them?" Freak asked as I heard a series of explosions coming from the first of the Clockwork Chickens. I risked a look back in time to see as Freak jumped from the wreckage, coated in the metal remains of the droid.

"Freak… you look ridiculous," I said, stifling a laugh as I activated Center of the Universe, dipping into the droids and ramping up the speed as I started to pull as many of the droids toward me as possible.

"That looks like something out of an anime in the 80s… mech robot chicken fighter or something ridiculous like that," Jon said, refusing to hide his own laugh. I darted up and toward the sky as I drug nearly a dozen different Clockwork animals away from the ground and up into the sky. I angled myself so that I would still be chasing after the horde of droids, though I kept bringing myself higher and higher into the air.

"Oh shut it, I'm not the one who decides how the armor melds to me, I just use it as it comes," Freak shot back, landing on another group of droids. "Reds on me, sneaking in shots by blasting the droids close to me. Can I just slug this asshole?"

"No that's what-" I cut myself off as I thought about it for a moment, deactivating Center of the Universe and letting the droids that I had been dragging along plummet to the ground as a realization finally hit me… Why couldn't we just fight him?

There were three of us. Five once Duskbreaker and Pinky showed up and we had all been seen actively saving the city. Our reputation wasn't the one that should be questioned. And Hydramental wasn't stable, regardless of how he appeared to be in the moment. If we did escalate the situation, how long would he be able to keep his cool?

"You know what… maybe you should go for it," I said, turning my attention back to the last of the Clockwork Chickens. "Try to make him mad first, we need him to show himself for who he is."

"Wait, who are we making mad?" Pinky asked, her icon in my squad interface lighting up as she entered the region.

"Perfect timing, we got a Hydradouche to piss off, wanna join me?" Freak said and Pinky practically squealed in delight.

"Now that's how you sweet talk a lady."

"Wait, are we sure that's the best choice?" Jon asked tentatively once Pinky settled down enough that he could get a word in.

"It's either that or we let him keep taking pot shots at us while we try to take the rest of these droids down. Whatever they want with Perry's remains, it can't be a good thing," I said, closing in on the Giant Chicken and landing on its back.

My stamina had already taken a rather huge hit and even my Combat Cadence's enhanced Stamina regen was having trouble keeping up. It had been just over two days since I had used my Tome of Many Things and I was fully intending on using the final feature of the trophy to upgrade my Stamina Management knowledge to level 6 as soon as possible. Until then, I was going to have to get by with what I had and I materialized a Superior Stamina Injector.

"Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I've finally figured out at least part of their plan, or maybe not their plan but their strategy? I don't know the right word for it and I still don't think I get what the overall goal is but... okay wait let me start over," I said, using the injector before turning and punching down into the back of the chicken, delivering a 25% Gravity Punch that made the droid briefly stop in its tracks even if it didn't go crashing to the ground like the first one had. "Hydramental seems to think that if he portrays himself as a hero, we can't touch him because it will make us look bad. He already tried to make it look like I have a grudge against him on the news and now thinks if we fight him in the middle of this mess that he'll "prove his point," but that literally only works if anyone believes that he's a hero. If we do get into a fight with him where everyone can see, we just need to make it clear he's the reason these droids were out here in the first place."

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"I don't know… it's still a pretty big leap to make especially without any clear evidence tying him to them," Jon said, slightly unsure. "I'm not saying it's the wrong decision, I can clearly see him trying to hit you guys, but all of the shots have been crossfire or splash damage, stuff he can try to talk his way out of… though you're right, he's not exactly eloquent when he gets frustrated. It would be better if we could beat him at his own game but both Pinky and Freak are more single target attackers."

"Can someone just tell me who I'm supposed to attack already!" Pinky complained and I rolled my eyes as I took flight off of the Giant Clockwork Chicken that had shaken off my initial attack and continued to stomp forward.

I wasn't positive, mostly because I had been focused on the army of droids themselves, but it actually didn't really seem like the droids were trying to damage… well… anything. Sure, they were clearly fighting back toward any one that got too close to them, but unlike when I had fought against any army of snake-man hybrids tearing through Hell's Kitchen, these droids seemed almost laser focused on getting to Perry. They couldn't move fast though, which was probably the only reason they hadn't made it to their target just yet.

"Okay, same plan, different assignments," I said, using my minimap to locate where each of my allies were on the street. Whether it had been by Jon's planning or just plain old luck, Duskbreaker had made them emerge from his portal in front of the rampaging droids, allowing Pinky to create a front line that managed to halt them in their tracks, even if she was complaining that she wasn't getting to attack anyone just yet. "Pinky and Freak you guys are on different sides of the horde here, fight toward each other and take out this giant chicken. Swan stay high and keep those songs rolling. Dusk, talk with Codex and figure out what building all of this started out of, then portal over there and see how the hell this many of them were stored there. Be careful though, there's also the chance that there was something in that building that they are trying to collect, so there might be a Hydramental there."

"Umm… okay, should I uh… let you know if I see one there? Wait… no sorry that was a stupid question," Duskbreaker said, his nerves clearly showing.

"Just let me know as soon as possible, especially if there's more than one," I said, skipping past his nerves. "I'm going to try and take a few swipes at the Hydramentals that are out here and see if I can goad him into taking a swing right for me. That alone should be enough to prove our point and it shouldn't be too hard, right? How far out is Miss Mist?"

"She should be in comms range soon, she doesn't fly that fast," Jon said. I was about to speak up, but stopped myself and instead focused on the chat until I was sure it would just be him that would hear me.

"If she's not hyperfocused on getting to Hydramental, try to direct her toward making sure there's no civilians in danger, or even to helping Dusk. If Brain's wrong and she's not compromised, I think she'd go for the kill given what he did to Pinneedle," I said as I darted down and toward the pack of droids. I wasn't aiming for any of them in particular, instead sweeping my head around as I searched for one of the Hydramentals.

"Would that be such a bad thing? You wouldn't have to be the one to do it and you'd finally be rid of your Hydramental problem," Jon said and as if to emphasize his point, a sudden pillar of rock erupted from the street, bursting through a droid right in front of my flight path. I crashed right into it and immediately instinctively rewound just a few seconds backwards just to dodge out of the way as I searched for the brown Hydramental.

"Yes… it would be," I said, my brow furrowed as I found my target. I activated Center of the Universe ramping the speed up as I dove down and toward the droids, once again scooping up the lightest of the machines in my wake as I zipped in a purposefully wide path that would take me close but not directly next to Hydramental. "This is my fault Codex, one way or another, he's like this because of the things I've done and he doesn't deserve to just die because of it. If there's a way to repair his matrix in a way that we can help him, if The First can shed any light on that at all, I need to take that chance. There has to be a way to stop him and get him the help he needs."

"Look bud I get it, I really do and I know we just talked about it this morning… but you're gambling with the lives of everyone in the city here… is that a bet you're willing to take?" he said, laying the fact on the table in a way that I had been purposefully trying to ignore.

"That's… I… Look, even now, the droids aren't trying to blow the buildings up. This is chaos, but it's organized chaos. If Hydramental threatens people again, tries to turn this into something bigger… I'll do what I have to do, but until then…" I trailed off, dodging around the swinging fist of a large Clockwork Gorilla that formed out of two smaller ones merging together as Jon let the topic drop so that I could focus on the fight at hand, or maybe he just let it drop because he knew I wasn't going to budge on how I felt about this, no matter how illogical it seemed to be. The gorilla was too large to get caught up in my moving gravity field, but several of my trapped enemies swung low enough while I dragged them behind me that they smashed into the droid, exploding on impact.

Once I was close enough, I disengaged the ability and let the remain droids drop to the ground free from my gravity manipulation. I turned and rushed toward a Clockwork Kangaroo just as it jumped into the air and pretended not to notice as the droids hit a myriad of other droids still on the ground, with one landing just close enough to the brown Hydramental that he had to actively launch himself off a pillar of rock to escape the subsequent explosion.

I began pummeling the Clockwork Kangaroo with regular punches, letting the Target debuff stack on the droid as I hit it over and over again. I instinctively let my Area Sense drift outward, which was the only reason I felt as the ground began moving underneath of me. I jumped backward just before a spike of earth and concrete pierced upward, shattering the Kangaroo into dozens of pieces. The tip of the spear had pierced the core of the kangaroo and a moment later the entire thing exploded, leaving a sharp ringing in my ears.

I managed to shake it off just in time to dodge as two monkeys jumped toward me, each being taken out by another spear of rock pushing out of the street. I took to the air again, reactivating Center of the Universe as I raced away from the slightly smaller explosions.

"Hey you got me too!" I heard Hydramental yell and I dodge to the side as a pillar of rock erupted from the ground. I looked over my shoulder as if I had just heard him, a mock look of confusion on my face as I deactivated the ability and let him go crashing down toward the ground with the droids around him. They all landed grouped up, the speed of the impact causing the droids to all explode immediately, and sure enough, the brown form burst into a flash of light, racing away from the explosions as I resisted the urge to smile, just in case there was a camera nearby.

"Hydramental?!" I yelled, trying to pretend to be confused, though even I was sure I missed the mark.

"We really need to find you a book on acting…" Angie sighed in my head as I looked around.

"Oh, I guess he's fine," I said out loud, pulling back on my "drama" just a bit as I pretended to be shocked by a blaze of fire that erupted off to the side of me. There was a rattle to the ground as the giant chicken let out another shriek of a roar, briefly drawing my attention back to it as I saw a pink streak go crashing into its chest, leaving a literal wave of droids getting flung to the side in the path she had charged through. "Guess she's doing fine too," I thought and heard Jon let out a laugh.

"She's having a blast. You got the red one incoming," he said just as I turned to continue my race toward Perry, especially now that I knew Pinky was no longer on the front line. I only made it about fifteen feet before I felt a blaze of heat erupt off to the side of me, Hydramental crashing down in the middle of a group of droids, sending them scattering and exploding in a chain.

"Nice fucking try dick," he spat, his voice raised just enough that only I could hear him, though I did look over to verify where he was and found his expression matched the obvious edge to his tone that made me want to smile.

"Sorry bud, didn't see you there, you kinda were blending in with those monkeys," I said, dropping down toward the ground before I slammed my fist into a nearby droid, throwing a Mass Driver into the mix with 1000 points of Stamina. It was more than enough to scoop several of the other nearby droids up with it, and I had tried to purposefully pick a droid that was at just the right angle so that they would be sent on a perfect collision course for the red Hydramental. I hadn't actually expected to get the angle exactly right, but whether it was just my heightened luck or actual chance, I managed to get within a relative margin of error as a group of six Clockwork droids, made up of a few monkeys and a single droid with a wolf like appearance, went spiraling backwards toward him.

I could hear him let out a curse before a torrent of flames were shot in my direction, hitting the droids barreling toward him, causing them to take critical damage and explode halfway between us. As the fire cleared however, Hydramental was completely gone. It had only been a fraction of a second, and I whipped my head around as fast as I could. Luck was once again on my side as I managed to catch the small ball of light that his clones turned into whenever they were returning to the main body, and it was heading right for the downed husk of Perry the Pangolin.

"Hydramental is retreating to Perry," I said, looking up toward the sky and finding Swan hadn't let herself get too far from me. "Codex set a timer for me, sound off every 5 seconds. I'm going after him, just want to make sure I have my safeties turned on first."

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