Grasping her arm and attempting to catch her breath, Wink leaned back against the cold metal walls of the ruins for support. The formerly hostile automaton lays still on the floor across from her, now permanently deactivated by force.

The adrenaline quickly wearing off, a sharp pain radiates down from her shoulder to her elbow. Wink pulls her hand away, blood dripping from her fingers - She’s cut.

At the sudden sound of distant scraping metal, Wink instinctively leaps back into a fighting stance, her arm cannon aimed down the hall into the pitch black darkness. Silence. Then footsteps. A blue-haired elf slowly appears into vision, faintly illuminated by the glow of her sword. Wink breathes a sigh of relief, lowering her weapon and returning to her relaxed position against the wall.

The calmly approaching elf clicks the power to her blade off and magnetizes it to her belt. “They get ya?”

“Yeah, just a little cut.” Wink grits her teeth as another sharp pain shoots down her arm.

“More than a little. Let’s go back.”

Quietly making their way up through the floors of the ancient complex, the two eventually find themselves back at the service entrance they used to breach the ruins. Before them, a narrow set of rusted stairs leads back up to the surface, hints of light peeking through the damaged frame of the bulkhead doors at the top.

“You know, it’s not like you to let such a common Model get the drop on you,” the blue-haired elf remarks, breaking the silence.

“No. It’s not.” Wink replies, the frustration and disappointment clear in her tone. “You find anything?”

“They seemed… Unusually aggressive.”

Wink stops at the first stair. “But did you find anything?” she sternly repeats again.

The other elf takes the last few steps up and places her hand on the bulkhead door before pausing briefly. She sighs, lowering her head, before finally giving her answer:

No.