The flame will cause the microbots to be fully depicted as such- that is to say, it's obvious that they're a mass of metal. Of individual metal pieces, no less, all working together and, at the moment, flattening completely against the ground as their controller looks towards the source of the light.

He's not fully obvious, he doesn't think, there's still a shadow on him, but...he makes a small hand gesture, a curling and flexing of fingers. The microbots abandon the crate, spreading outwards in individual tendrils, seeming to 'flee' in three directions at once.

None of which are towards him.