Without all its children, or whatever they were, the fight turned relatively straightforward. Kitana, with her masterful swordsmanship, was able to easily deflect and divert the Brood Mother’s main form of attack, its bladed legs. While one of the Sidesteps was occasionally hit, it always dissolved into nothingness, revealing it was an image all along. Not even Eve could figure out which one was real. Alan, meanwhile, activated hypercognition and with Eve’s help was able to anticipate all of the movements of the machine. Aurora stood in the back, sending out the occasional ice blast while the healer stood back, arms folded, looking rather bored.

In minutes they brought the creature down to 50% HP. It sent out a signal that enraged the surrounding Spiderbots. They frantically began twitching, attempting to break free of the ice. Twin fangs emerged from the Brood Mother's mouth, dripping with a dark green poisonous looking liquid; from the top of its head a small turret appeared, and began firing lasers at the group.

The fight continued, and the group took care to avoid the additional weapons as well as the Brood Mother’s legs. Still, they were able to battle with surprising ease, continuing to avoid taking any damage at all. Alan managed to fire a lucky laser shot directly down the robot’s throat as it lunged at him with its fangs, scoring a critical hit for nearly 10x the damage. Alan let the others know about the weak point, and shortly thereafter they finally destroyed the Brood Mother as the hundreds of Spiderbots began to break free of the ice.

Alan deactivated hypercognition mode, closing the messages that popped up. He quickly looted the destroyed machine, receiving a small violet crystal about the size of his pinky and a mechanical circuit board. He only glanced at both before placing them into a side pocket of his armor. Then following Aurora, they all charged back to the cavern they began at. Alan wondered how the rest of the recruits were doing,

When Aurora came up to the entrance she came to a sudden stop. Glancing over her shoulder, Alan could see why. The floor was gone. All that was left was the familiar black abyss, a doorway into nothingness.

Glancing backwards, they could see the army of Spiderbots was forming up once more into a mighty swarm, quickly catching up to them.

“I’m going to spend the last of my energy to create a narrow bridge across to the stone pathway on the other side of the cavern. I can barely make it out, but it looks to still be there.”

“It is,” Alan assured her. He could make out the stone pathway clearly.

”Alright, once we’re all across, you’ll need to destroy this bridge, Kitana,” Aurora said. She spread her hands out once more. A steady stream of energy poured out, and an icy bridge slowly appeared, connecting the exits of the now bottomless cavern.