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Stripping what I could from the fallen spider-bot, I considered my options. I couldn’t stay up here forever. If I moved very fast, I could run the walkway without the brain-bots below getting me. Their weaponry did not seem very accurate. But the first few yards of the catwalk had partially torn free, and sagged alarmingly. The more I looked at it, the less I wanted to put a hoof on it.

I’d never tried levitating myself before. In theory, it should work, but I’d never seen a pony do it. Focusing, I tried. I could feel the glow from my horn stretch out to envelop my entire body. Brighter it glowed as I tried to lift myself. I was shining like a dozen lanterns when I felt my body lift, just slightly, from the ground. I was sweating. This was as far as I could go, but I was doing it. Now one step forward… and another… and another…

I was halfway across when the brain-bots started firing lightning in my general direction. One of the bolts struck the catwalk, arcing along it. I felt very lucky I wasn’t actually touching it. But I was also almost spent. Ahead of me, the catwalk stopped right before the huge windows that let twice-filtered sunlight (once by the clouds and once by the dirty glass itself) onto the factory floor, supplementing the light from heavy fixtures hanging above. The catwalk shot off in both directions, running parallel to the wall. One was the direction I had come from. The other lead to a door which had been locked. Only that door didn’t have a lock to pick. Instead, it could only be opened by command from a terminal.

Another shot of lightning missed cleanly, shooting through one of the shattered windows of the observation office and frying the terminal I had just used, not five minutes ago, to unlock said door.

It was a lot of metal catwalk. And the damn bots beneath me shot lightning. I grunted with the effort that kept me aloft, feeling my vision darken at the edges. I had to stop, or I’d pass out. And that would be the end of me.

Releasing the magic, I dropped onto the catwalk. It wavered, but held. I let go of a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and started to gallop.