>>6184465Your head jerked up. The figures were emerging from the haze more clearly. Red-robed and copper-limbed, they were assuredly skitarii, walking with their rifles braced out in front of them, helmet lenses scanning the stairway in front of them.
<span class="mu-g">+Positive contact. Neutral contact. Contact. Relations with handler adjusted-located. Callback at- callback at-</span> The lead stammered out.
“Hello? Skitarii?” You approach, nervously touching your ear. The words were pleasant, like a low murmur of static- but you weren't sure <span class="mu-i">how</span> you were hearing them. Was this too the fault of... <span class="mu-i">your</span> MIU?
<span class="mu-g">+THREAT.+</span> The other screeched and whirled on you. It raised it's rifle and pointed it at- <span class="mu-i">not</span> at you. At the skitarii in the lead. The one you were speaking to. <span class="mu-g">+Threat... lost. Threat?+</span>
The lead skitarii turned it's head to the muzzle pointing straight at it. <span class="mu-g">+Awaiting command directive.+</span> It turned it's head to you, then to the rear skitarii- a unit missing parts of it's cranial casing and a single arm, it's carapace marred with scratch marks. <span class="mu-g">+Directive?+</span>
<span class="mu-g">+Directive?+</span> It turned to look at the other.
<span class="mu-g">+Directive?+</span> Which in turn looked back at the lead.
<span class="mu-g">+Direc...+</span> It let out a low murmur of static, then twitched slightly. There was a slight hiss of pumps within it, it's limbs tensing.
Something loomed over your shoulder. Your neck started to prickle uncomfortably, and you took a step back as the skitarius jerked aggressively towards it's fellows, then back towards you. You felt fingers gripping your shoulder, and then the skitarius lunged.
You flinched, and the floor buckled. Pipes and cables and broken values streaming caustic fumes wrenched out of the floor, shattering the stone and bending, twisting around, forming an odd pillar that wrenched itself to the side, smashing itself into the skitarius' chest as it lunged towards you, sending it careening back. In an instant, it was clawing at the mass of metal, clawing away at it furiously- in fact, far more desperately than it truly needed to. The pipe was already tearing and twisting away, but the skitarius thrashed on the floor as if it was being dismantled.
It's fellows stood dumbly at it on the floor as you backed away, then the only other undamaged one twitched.
You threw yourself up the stairs as it threw itself upon it's fellow, gripping it's robe and tearing into it, letting out a bray that sounded like a recording of an animal, blasted through subdermal speakers loud enough to make your teeth vibrate oddly. Gunfire erupted as you made it to the top of the landing, throwing yourself over the top of the stairs and crawling away on your hands and knees, chest dragging across the tile, small puffs of dust erupting from the next flight as stray bullets struck.
A responding cry echoed from the next landing, and the one below you. More skitarii.
