Nine blinked a few times, he was so surprised by her question, before answering, ”Um…. Do you mind if I ask your age? Being tank grown makes it kind of hard to tell with us GenMods but I’m guessing it’s not been very long?” He had to assume she couldn’t be too old or she wouldn’t be talking like that. Well…. He guessed some GenMods might still talk like that for a while after awakening but most probably learned pretty quickly that GenCorp and their owners weren’t their friends. Then Nine realized further he’d always been assuming GenMods were capable of learning that much. He shook his head and decided he’d leave that much thought for another day.<br/><br/>”GenCorp isn’t going to help here, they’re the people that our keeping us out and away from Mother.” Even as he said the voice’s name he grew confused… He couldn’t figure out how he knew its name. But that was correct, somehow he knew it was, it just fit, she was Mother. ”Maya, I’m really sorry but you’re going to have to stay back when we go for Mother. I know you want to help but you’ll just slow us down like this.” He put a hand on her unharmed shoulder, truly feeling bad for telling her to stay behind, but he couldn’t watch out for her once they got inside and get to Mother.<br/><br/>--*THUMP*--<br/><br/>Nine turned toward the noise, it was too far away to see through the trees but he knew it was close, and big.<br/><br/>--*CRACK*--<br/><br/>Nine sniffed the air, trying to find out if it was friend or foe, but he couldn’t smell anything other than the horrid stench of the swamp. He growled and leaped for a tree, his claws extending to help him climb up. His balance was tested at the top of the tree as the creature knocked over another tree that was in its path and sent a miniature earthquake through the swamp, shaking the branch Nine sat on. But from his vantage point he was at least able to spot it as friendly, huge and deformed maybe, but friendly, and seemingly carrying something. Nine dropped out of the tree, hoping the huge creature was capable of dealing with the turret that was in their way, and decided he had better send up a signal for Kirk before he ran inside.<br/><br/>He took out his pistol and put the muzzle right against the tree before shielding his face with his free hand and firing. He knew it’d send some small shrapnel everywhere and he knew it was bad for his gun to fire it like that but he also knew the fire that usually creates a muzzle flash that reveals your position to enemies would also light the tree if he was lucky. It helped that the tree was dead and rotting, making it very good firewood, and Nine was quickly rewarded with the tree catching fire. He hoped he wouldn’t burn down half the swamp, but it was pretty hard to spread fire in a swamp and it was a risk he had to take anyways.<br/><br/>He turned just in time to watch the creature break another tree that was in its way and make its final approach to the base. Nine tried to yell it down, hoping it was intelligent enough for him to try and make a plan with, but even if it wasn’t he thought it’d distract the gun long enough for him to run in and disable it. Assuming he could smash a control or something when he got close…. That was a lot of assumptions, more than he liked, but he didn’t have a lot of choices. ”Hello! Over here! Don’t go towards the base yet! You’ll be shot!”<br/>