Prior to the war, as with others in their series, these machines were originally designed to aid in construction efforts. The drones would fly around the high skyscrapers in the City areas to make quick repairs--typically by welding metal beams so they’d hold until workers could get to the scene. They were also capable of lifting materials to these higher levels in the place of cranes. Now, they’d sooner swarm upon the very same people they once worked beside.
While Air Drones’ bodies are similar to wasps, they actually don’t have stingers. Instead, they attack with concentrated blasts of fusion matter from where the stinger would be. This allows them to attack from a certain distance.
Unlike the Cyber Stingers, these fusion monsters actually do have a set of legs, so cutting off their wings won’t be as effective--it’ll only slow them down. They’ll also cut and bite their victims at close range. A fusion fighter is better off keeping their distance and utilizing weapons, such as most rifles, that can fire at a longer range than the drones can. It’s also important that you stay on your feet, as once these monsters manage to pin you, they won’t waste a second to tear into you.
Their necks are typically the weakest points on their bodies, not being as heavily armored as other areas.
Sky Drones are the stronger form of Air Drones, facing a similar issue as the Tech Drones did in that they were actually much tougher to face in the Past due to the state/number of the bodies available to them. In their description, the Sky Drones are said to “think for themselves” and that they “have no master,” meaning that while they are more intelligent than other fusion monsters, they are also a little more prone to acting on their own.
However, in the Academy version of the mission “Get Reddy,” there is a third version of this type of fusion monster simply called the Suspicious Drone. We get no information about them aside from the fact that “they’re helping Fusion Eddy,” with even how they managed to get into the Peach Creek area being a complete mystery. My assumption is that this was an attempt to evolve this type of fusion monster further, having taken a small group of them away from where the Sky Drones usually hover around Tech Square and pushing them to better follow orders.
While it was never in their original programming, a trait that they seem to have mimicked after wasps--likely in great part due to the fusion hivemind--is to signal to other Air Drones in the area when one of them dies. This makes ambushing large groups of them almost impossible, as all drones are immediately put on defense. If you truly want to take them by surprise, it’s easier to manage in a team that can take down multiple targets at once.
