With no additional Minions attacking on Spog's orders, the group was able to easily coast through the Tower segments ahead of them while Twilight and Nefarious worked on the Darkstar Fission Tether together to see what they could make of it. Meanwhile, Qwark and Alister focused on manipulating the various gadgets in the path to open the gates to the way forward. After a time, Qwark decided to make some conversation. "So...how goes that experimentation?" he asked Twilight.

"Not so good," Twilight admitted ruefully. "We're trying to come up with something new to do with this weapon...but everything we've come up with so far are things that can be done more efficiently with some of the older Gadgetron weapons. We don't want to repeat anything."

"Unfortunately, coming up with new ways to use lightning weapons is rather difficult," Nefarious grumbled irritably. "There's only so many ways to tame lightning. There's already been charged spheres, draining weapons, rolling electrical spheres, lightning whips, lightning wall generators, even lightning rockets. What else are we supposed to do with it?"

"It's really frustrating," Twilight confirmed, putting the weapon away. "We can't have used up all the ways to use lightning! I mean, it's frikkin' lightning!"

"Remote control Lightning Elemental drones?" Alister joked.

"I thought about that, but it doesn't work with FtF tech," Twilight countered. "No real way for the energies to combine."

"What if you made it so they could merge to become a giant lightning drone with multiple turrets?" Qwark offered.

Nefarious glowered at Qwark. "Stop having all the good ideas!" he snarled angrily.

"We'd need to stop to make those tweaks, though," Twilight admitted. "That's changing the entire nature of the weapon after all. We'll leave that till later. For now, let's keep moving. If we stop for too long, Spog will get impatient and send more minions after us."

"Good thing you're done now," Alister called out. "We're about to hit a different kind of path." He pointed forward to where a spinning swingshot target awaited.

"Right," Twilight confirmed, putting away her weapon and pulling out her swingshot.

The four latched on before letting themselves be launched through a large glass window to land grinding on another massive pipeline. As Alister, Nefarious, and Qwark rode the pipe and Twilight glided nearby, Spog floated into view. "There you are!" he proclaimed angrily. "I'll show you how I deal with interlopers around here!"

"File a report?" Qwark shouted out tauntingly.

With a scream of rage, Spog smashed the pipe ahead of them, forcing them to jump to the conveniently placed pipe nearby.

"Qwark, once the battle starts, don't taunt the enemy unless you have stable ground!" Twilight hissed angrily.

"Oops!" Qwark admitted. "Sorry!"

Spog flew ahead, dropping mines along the new pipe that the group had leapt to, forcing them to evade. As they continued, eventually Spog got angrier. "You've wasted enough of my time!" he proclaimed angrily as he sent buzzsaws down the pipe towards the group...which were still easily evaded.

"You ever get the feeling he's not really trying?" Nefarious muttered dryly. "I mean, there's not even a challenge here! I thought he was supposed to be a boss?"

"Commander, the interlopers are still alive," 'Stuart' informed Spog.

"I know they're still alive," Spog growled. "I'm rectifying the situation right now!"

"Are you sure?" 'Stuart' asked curiously. "Because that's what you said a few minutes ago. Were you being humorous?"

"Can we talk about this later?" Spog begged.

"Stuart has a point," Twilight pointed out. "If you really wanted to destroy us, you could have just smashed the pipe we were on and dropped us into the pit below. Even with jetpacks, that kind of fall would have been debilitating, if not lethal."

Spog actually managed to look somewhat awkward. "Err, well..."

"Commander Spog has already exceeded his allowed collateral damage allotment," 'Stuart' intoned. "Any further collateral damage he inflicts on the Master's construction will be deducted from his pay and marked on his record."

"So...basically you're being forced to choose between being marked down for excessive damage, or for failing to stop us?" Qwark called out as the group reached the end of the pipeline.

"Yes!" Spog cried out despairingly. "And I had a flawless record before now! I could have retired happily a few days from now with a clean slate if it weren't for you lot, and taken pride in knowing I had done the best job possible! But now, thanks to you meddling brats, my record will be forever marred!"

"Gosh...I'm really sorry about that," Qwark offered sympathetically. "I know how hard it is to live down a mistake, especially when it comes to a record of good works." He ignored Nefarious making gagging motions, much to Twilight's amusement.

"And I know how hard it is to live down the one mistake that destroys a stellar lifetime of service," Alister added, looking somewhat sorrowful as he gazed into his own memories.

Spog sniffed to himself. "You do? That...that makes me feel a bit better, thanks." He was silent for a time. "Does that mean you'll let me obliterate the three of you and capture the equine for the Master's experiments?"

"We're not that sympathetic!" Qwark snapped out.

"Hypocrite!" Spog snapped out, shifting into position as he started dropping in more assault robots.

"So much for peaceful negotiations," Nefarious joked as he hauled out his weapons.