Not only was Sheffer's attack sufficiently forceful, but striking the barricade low, as a spin only could, caused the entire group of robots to topple headfirst as they were knocked backwards, causing an impressive, bowling-pin-like mess of clunking, clattering, rolling robots, most of which suddenly had broken legs from the impact, and broken arms from falling directly on them.

The Shield Hunters were pretty much done for, but that still left a room full of regular Hunters, who all immediately started tracking and firing at the new hedgehog arrival in their space.

The six-doored hub room Sheffer found himself in hideously lacked cover. The ceiling was not that high, there were no pillars, and the eight remaining robots were scattered so that they were on almost every side. All doors were open; the one to the left looked like an open elevator, the one to the far right led back to the main prison hall (their original route in and presumed route out, full of Hunters and rioting prisoners), while the other four doors were probably best not bothered with (as they seemed... full of Hunters, and rioting prisoners, go fig).

The room had little left, between Sheffer having destroyed all the Shield Hunters plus a regular Hunter, and Rock dismantling four more regular Hunters. There were three remaining, but they could scarce accomplish anything except jostle and bump Sheffer around, and even then, their rate of fire with their rifles was going to be too slow to keep him off balance—and that didn't even account for anyone else who might have come into to help finish them off.

The main prison row, a wide, open, space of several stories of traditional-looking barred cell blocks, was like what they had just faced, except times fifty. Not only were there Hunters and Shield Hunters dropping down from the ceiling, and inmates rioting every which direction, but there were also Gun Beetles hovering around, firing their cannons, and Wing Beetles soaring through like little fighter drones, strafing the escapees. Some of the Mono Beetles, normally used for surveillance, buzzed around running into inmates and zapping them with electric shocks.

Not a whole lot of the attention from that hall had been turned there way yet, but there were beams and bullets enough flying into make anyone reconsider rushing out there.

Rock, lying on his side on the cold metal floor behind a smoldering heap of robot carcass, hesitated to try an elevator in the middle of an apparent power outage and system failure. Ace's suggestion would have been contested as absurd had it not made the primate involuntarily cast a glance back to the elevator car. It was followed by a double take.

The elevator car was abnormally long and wide, even for a large elevator, had another set of doors on the other side, and had seats along the side walls, with hand-straps hanging from the ceiling. The windowless room wasn't an elevator at all; it was a tram car with doors on its front and back.

"Covering fire!" Rock shouted back to Ace as he propped up on his knife-holding hand and let rip a suppressive-fire flurry over his cover and through the prison hall door, giving an example of exactly what he needed: lots of destructive force to keep things out. He then turned his aim into the tram car door and let it have a three-shot burst, itself, pelting the double doors on the other end.

He pushed off the floor, charged through the short interior of the tram, and kicked the marred double doors full force. They buckled outward, but still didn't give way; with his pistol holstered, he wrapped both hands around his knife in reverse grip and stabbed the fiery blade in. He squinted and looked away from the shower of sparks, spewing smoke, and loudly-screaming metal as he steadily dragged it diagonally downward with all his weight, cutting a huge, red-hot slice down through the obstacle. He stumbled back gracelessly as the knife ripped free at the other corner, then lunged forward again and gave one more vicious stomp.

With that, the tram's back doors were open, and the group was free to move into the long, straight, downward-sloped tunnel beyond. The guts of the transit system were splayed open for all to see, with a pair of steel rails below and an electrical contact rail overhead. Conduits ran along the walls. It was a little hard to see, since the only light present was dim, red backup lighting (and the area was never meant to have anyone but maintenance personnel inside), but it was a path to travel somewhere.

"This wasn't on any of the maps," remarked Rock to whoever followed him through first.

To make matters worse, a squadron of Wing Beetles swooped into the hub room they just exited, flying and firing at whoever lingered behind. At least five barreled their way through the tram car to begin pursuing the group through the tunnel, their high-caliber, but slow-firing cannons thumping with painful volume in the enclosed space.

The tunnel was pretty long, and had at least one fork in it ahead; they'd have a pretty good run, but as fast as the whole group was, they could probably make it in a minute or less as long as they didn't get shot up by their pursuers. They were sitting ducks in that coverless space.

Abruptly, a deep noise that could only be described as chunk echoed through the hub room. With a hydraulic groan, the door that separated that space from the majority of the prison riot dropped down out of its recess, and slammed into the floor with an impact that shook dust out of the ceiling.

In sequence, the rest of the doors began to close around the room, effectively cutting off any further security from following them.