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Outside the battle between Stone-Coats and robots raged on. Observers noticed however that more great Stone-Coats were arriving and joining the battles than were falling, and that something strange was developing: Ice-Giants including the downed ones were spitting a black tar-like substance onto their quicker attackers. Once a robot was marked in black the Stone-Coats ganged up on it, holding and pummeling it with huge diamond fists and claws that smashed it and tore it to bits!
When robots were so blackened that their sensors were blinded, they could only dodge about erratically in what must have been some sort of reflexive pre-programmed defensive maneuver. Their evasive maneuvers were quickly analyzed and overcome by the Stone-Coats.
The black substance was fibrous and strong, and also inhibited robot movement. Some robots became completely encased in black, and could only lay helpless on the ground as they were attacked mercilessly by Ice Giants. The biggest Ice Giants used their hundreds of tons of weight to crush their smaller robot foes underfoot! Several T-rex-shaped Stone-Coats employed diamond-toothed jaws to munch-off robot heads and limbs.
The green painted Ice-Giants were nearly as fast as the robot attackers, and fought them on nearly even terms. The robots, though individually better fighters than even the green painted Ice Giants, were greatly outnumbered and were before long being overwhelmed. Soon it was predominately robot parts that littered both CCNY and UN battlefields. The robot remains were mostly light but strong metals and ceramics, though like the Stone-Coats diamond was often used for fists and feet. The remaining robots still fought on ferociously, but the tide of battle had decisively turned.
At the UN, Stephens and Ricket finally breathed sighs of relief. For twenty minutes they had watched dumbfounded as the approaching army of thousands of Stone-Coats apparently turned on itself and self-destructed. Only when they were finally able to distinguish between broken Stone-Coat and robot parts did it become totally clear that the Stone-Coat legions were indeed fighting robots and not themselves. And only when a robot attacked their building until it was dragged away and crushed by an Ice Giant did it become totally clear to them that the Stone-Coats were protecting the UN, and that they were winning.
Outside the CCNY auditorium building, an attacking robot and two green-painted Ice Giants traded deadly blows, and in the process trashed several parked motor vehicles, one of them an orange-colored Humvee with NYPD plates. The rear of the Humvee was torn off, and a large metal box was broken open and partly crushed, killing at once a tenth of the worker-jants inside. The damaged warming apparatus of the box immediately stopped functioning, and the remaining jants desperately began to hibernate as the winter cold swiftly cooled what remained of the rogue colony that was Detective Frank Driscal.