AI: Apocalyptic Intelligence (Nivansrywyllian, Windsong)

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Mario cut off the music, and fed a small amount of power to the cloaking mechanism. "I could dispatch them with sentries," He suggested, as his companion clambered naked into the suit. When the helmet came on, and the link returned, Mario's bubble of emotions was stable.

It radiated calm, and readiness, mixed with traces of desire, leftover from the shower. "Partial camouflage active. Keep to the shadows, and you will be as good as invisible. This mode can be sustained for 72 hours."

After a moment, he added, "Your sidearm is at half-charge."
 
"Send the sentries." As much as she hoped they'd be friendly there were too many times she'd found out people weren't. Killing wasn't something she enjoyed or found particularly pleasurable, but it was a necessity. People scavenged off the weak, she'd never be one of the weak.

Near some plasteel crates she knelt low, looking at her arm and only seeing the lit outline thanks to the suit itself, otherwise she was well hidden. Unless they had some high grade scanning equipment she could've picked them off one by one with ease. But things happened, and she didn't want one of those new things to end her.
 
"Affirmative." Replied Mario. "I do not have direct control of the sentries, so the best I can do is to trigger an alarm and bring them running. Bringing up the video feed on your HUD."

A small window in the top right opened up, and revealed the view of an elevator, presumably from a camera mounted therein. There was no audio, but the video quality was good. Something fell across the screen, and one scrawny body dropped into view. It was a man about six feet tall, and blonde. He looked gaunt, and angry. He had an old, ballistic rifle slung over his shoulder. A second body dropped from the hatch. Another man. This one had dark hair, and was grinning. He had no rifle, but what looked to be a machete was strapped to his hip like a sword.

"I detect no armor on the intruders, but they appear to be armed."
 
"Was that a rifle?" She questioned, such a vague question came out when she was sure it looked like an antique from the museums, repurposed and brought back to the field due to the large amounts of scrap to be used in ammunition. The name eluded her too easily as she sighed. At least the helmet muffled her voice. "Trip alarm. The sentries are too well armored for that to damage them." Hopefully she was right.

As if by thought the pistol slipped off her hip into her grasp, thumbing for its safety as it let off a brief whine of powering up. He was right, half-a-charge, more than enough to drop the intruders. "Can you make the alarm silent to avoid letting them know?" Already beginning to find a good vantage of the door with the pistol aimed. The pistol was foreign to her, so she'd no idea if half it's charge would net her two shots or two hundred, if the weight was anything to judge it by it'd surely pack a nasty wallop.
 
"Affirmative. Tripping silent alarm. Sentries en route. Yes, that's a rifle. It shouldn't do the sentries any harm, but it will still hurt if you get shot." Another body was coming out of the elevator, a man in rags that looked like he used to be fat. He had a more modern rifle in his hands, but it still looked ballistic based, and was no threat to the sentries.

"If you need to shoot, brace yourself. That sidearm has a heavy propulsor, and it will have considerable kick. You have seven charges left."
 
"Seven charges." She repeated to herself with a slight bob of her head, lovely. That should be more than enough to drop anything of a threat to her, especially if they weren't armored like he said. Her heart was hammering in her ears, sweat beading on her brow that she had to blink away despite the suit being comfortable, likely needing another shower after this was all over.

Within her mind she found herself leaning towards his for comfort, it helped in a way, lowering her racing heartbeat by a few BPM at the very least. If nothing he was a set point she could hang onto if things began to slip, maybe she'd even get lucky and they'd survive together.

The elevator's door strained against their combined effort, though it was slowly giving way, a fail safe in case everything went down.
 
It was a race, between the elevator failsafe failing, and the arrival of the security drones. The drones happened upon the scene first, as a fourth body dropped into the elevator doors. The doors came open about a foot wide, to reveal the rolling drone first on the scene. It hadn't bothered with so much as a warning before it's weapon hummed to life, and began to slam energy charges through the elevator door. Screams filled the air, and the camera in the elevator flashed white with each passing energy bolt.

Mario removed the HUD feed, although he kept an eye on it himself. One of the men scrambled to get back through the roof. He made it, though his companions were not so lucky.

"Three targets down." Mario said, keeping himself open, and firm for his partner. "The third retreated. I will keep the sentry we have now on the door until I see him leave the building."
 
That thudding flash of the energy weapons made her skin crawl and her psyche cling even harder to Mario, it was no surprise seeing as how she'd been on the receiving end of one of them just hours before. Their screams didn't help much either, but she steeled herself against that like a blast door to gunfire. Moments began to tick by at normal speed once more, and she left the hiding place behind the misplaced crate, letting the gun thud against her hip once more. She wondered if he'd grunt..

"Maybe something survived of their gear." Hopes weren't high as she saw the smoldering remains inside, wincing visibly. The first man, Angrygauntface, had gone down with a crater in his chest, likely dead before he hit the floor. The second, she couldn't even recall, got it across the side of his face, vaporizing skull and cauterizing gray matter within, his weapon melted and little more than plastic scrap.

"Has he left yet?" Head craning to look up the shaft she couldn't see him even when the visor brightened it considerably.
 
Mario was better prepared for the impact on the suit's hip this time. He keyed off the external microphones after it had occurred to him that Elly didn't need to hear the battle going on.

"You should wait for him to-" But Eleanor was already jogging toward the location of the slaughter. "-leave." Finished the AI.

"This is very foolish. You are not safe here."

The automated sentry idled a few feet away, waiting for the all-clear to signal. It wouldn't fire upon Elly.

"There will be time for looting after the compound is secure." On scolded the AI.
 
He was protective of her, somehow she'd been aware he would be. Though just to keep her mindful companion pleased she withdrew, giving the off-centered drone an odd look. That faceless thing was always the first to open fire it seemed, for a time she pondered if somehow it enjoyed discharging it's rarely used weapon. Foolish thoughts of course.

So she backed further away and looked around, nothing had changed except the few drones coming out of the woodwork to check on the alarm. None gave her a second scan as they took pre-destined spots around the first one. It'd take a small army to get through to her if they wanted to. That made her at least feel a bit smug.

"All the time in the world~." She hummed before hopping atop a counter, kicking her feet idly.
 
Mario was of course, a bit protective. Not only was she carrying him around with her, but she had also -perhaps oddly in it's rapidity- become important to him. Connections got made fast after the end of the world, it seemed.

"He's on the top floor of the compound now. He climbed quickly. He's heading for the doors." The AI's emotional core appeared to be concerned, if the bond was any guide.

"It is safe to check the remains, if you so desire. He will not be back today, I suspect."
 
Eleanor nodded her head for a moment before finding one of the few camera feeds from upstairs that he'd neglected to let her see, assuming he did. Something felt off still, a tingle down her spine of some unspeakable terror she had problems facing. An effort to ease her nerves she sought him for comfort, since no one else could manage to do it down here to begin with. "Mario.." It was when her lip began to quiver did she see it on the edge of the feed, a slight movement.

The tips of many near translucent whip-like fingers drifted on by the camera far outside, it was blurry, but her mind pieced what they lead up to quite quickly. That was when her knees began to quiver, human fear was something strange as adrenaline began to flood her system and instinct fought to kick in. When more of it filled the small feed on her HUD she began to run, slamming into a sentry, sending it skittering back a foot or so. The suit hardened to the impact at least, saving her a nasty bruise most like.

Whatever it was, it had followed her for many many leagues from where she'd seen it last months ago. Coincidence wasn't something she believed in, hard as that may sound. Yet still she ran, stumbling down the dim hallway. Her mind's ball fought for purchase and clung to nothing now.
 
"I am here, Elly, and I am tactically sound. Head to the armory." He had noticed the thing about when Elly had, so consumed with the current invaders had he been, that he hadn't noticed it's arrival. It was scaring his partner however, and that meant that it was likely in need of some extreme force. "If you are not familiar with the use of remote explosives, I will walk you through the tutorial. Arm yourself well, and we can handle anything."

Mario sounded confidant in his abilities.

"I need more information on this creature, if we will be fighting it. You have many pictures of it. Why do you fear it?" He asked, as his partner ran.
 
Somehow she had begun running for the armory to begin with, it wasn't until she slammed headlong into a sentry returning to its patrol or on it's way to the area where the alarm sounded did she slide. With the wind knocked out of her she heard his words, the drone pausing in its path to wait for her to move before continuing, at least there were some gentleman left. "B-b-because! I have shot it before. It doesn't even slow down!" She hissed in a whisper, somehow fearful it might hear her deep down below.

Scrambling to get up and running with a half-limping gait, having likely bruised her leg that time towards the armory. "It can fuck right off an' leave me be." Terrified wasn't something she often was, and soon her mind was reeling itself away from the instinct that had been driving her onward. "Fuckin' shit that hurt." She added through her teeth.
 
"If bullets will not harm it, then we will have to upgrade our arsenal. I suggest retrieving a belt of grenades from the armory. I assume that the elevator is out of the question, but we can still take the stairwell. The doors will open for us. We can stop by the garage, and activate one of the combat mechs. I can plan for this Elly, but you need to be calm."

Again, the little knot of sturdy, certain emotion moved to envelope the quivering fear just short of panic that belonged to Eleanor.

"If the combat mech doesn't destroy the thing outright, it will slow it long enough for us to make our escape. Then I will trigger the building's self destruct, and bury the beast beneath three stories of rubble. We can survive this." He insisted.
 
He wanted to destroy her newly chosen home! "No! Just... Just wait.. It's gotta leave at some point.. It-- It won't linger long.." She'd was blowing smoke at him to try and avoid going near it. When last she'd seen it the thing had thrown a man around like a ragdoll and devoured him, of course it wasn't native to the planet, that's what worried her so much more.
"No-no-no.. We're not leveling this place just to try and hurt it.. There's too much here.." It was a brief begging battle with him, though she was sure he'd win out through sheer patience.

Finally she hitched her breath and took a minute to breathe outside the armory, yanking the helmet off, it felt constricting. "Please don't make me go near it."
 
It was jarring when Elly pulled the helmet off. The link vanished and it left an abruptly hollow spot within the core of Mario's being. He didn't like that one bit.

"It followed you this far. It will follow you until we kill it. And if we cannot kill it, we will bury it, and move on. This bunker will mean nothing to us if we are dead, or cornered by an alien intent on our destruction."

He paused.

If she didn't want to go near it, there was a simple solution. "Very well. Head to the garage, and plug me into the combat mech. I should be able to arm the explosives around the elevator with that, and fight if that's where it leads. Then when everything's done, you can come and put me back in the suit."
 
She shuddered, now he was willing to leave her. It didn't dawn on Eleanor how much she'd come to rely on him so quickly, he handled many of the suits functions and so many of the facilities as well. How stupid of her to act that way, alone most of her life and now she felt attached to a program. Thankfully many of these thoughts were her own, without the link he'd not have part in it.

"You promise you'll be okay and come back?" She queried, looking at the helmet and speaking to it as though it were his head, which, it really was.
 
"I don't have sufficient information to make that guarantee. Besides, you told me that you didn't want me rattling off the odds of success and failure. I will not take any unnecessary risks however. I can promise you that. Keep the helmet on while I'm working, and I should be able to communicate with you as long as you are on the same floor as I am."

The map to the stairwell that lead to the engineering garage popped up.

"There are other things I need to know. How quickly does it move? How large is it? What does it eat? Give me as much information as you can."
 
For a moment she pinched the bridge of her nose and gave it a long squeeze, a headache beginning between her eyes before she put the helmet back on. Once it hissed and sealed with the rest of the suit she began to smile briefly. "You remember things too well." She replied, beginning the slow walk towards the garage as he'd instructed. Somehow she wished that the kitchen was along the way to grab a snack, when didn't eating make things better?

"It's fairly slow.. But since it floats terrain doesn't bother it. Finding that thing in the cities is a nightmare." Neglecting to mention seeing it anywhere made it a thing of nightmares. "And its at least two stories from.. The tip to top, it's like a balloon, but puncturing it doesn't bother it. Fairly sure it eats whatever it can catch or gets too close. It might be poisonous or something.." Before long the doors loomed, the stairs having barely caused her to breathe a bit harder.
 
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