The museum is pretty thoroughly run down, and the basement has gotten the worst of it - it seems like if it ever drained well it stopped at some point, and there's long-rotten detritus and wet patches and a persistent smell vaguely reminiscent of a swamp, or perhaps a sewer. She can navigate around the muck, though, until she reaches a somewhat jerry-rigged bunker, doors long since torn off, and an intact metal grate separating the bunker from some machinery. There's a terminal next to it, which looks pretty dubious about its chances of powering on. 

Terminal's worth a shot anyway. She's never been much good at picking locks, and she doesn't really want to tell Jade to just shoot the lock off if there's a fusion core rattling around in here somewhere. Ricochets, and all.

It takes a little whack to the side - but the terminal boots up. It's in low-power secure mode, just green text on a black background, but it works and she can get into the lock program just fine. 

Fear her wizard powers, pathetic security system. With the power of physical access, there is nothing she cannot accomplish.

Time to find a fusion core.

The storeroom is still pretty well organized! 

And there's a fusion core in its socket, still nearly fully charged. 

Excellent. Then to pop the button and release the prize.

"There's power armor on the roof," she says to Jade. "Think it could be my size?"

"Most of them were pretty one size fits all, Mistress."

"Then I'll just have to hope it brings out my eyes."

"If it dares not be flattering, I'll repaint it."

"That's my good girl."

Upwards!

The power armor is on the roof, out of what used to be a fire door. It's clearly been powered down for a long time, with thick layers of grime and bird droppings coating the outside.

And, visible from beside it - a  destroyed vertibird on the roof with a machine gun that looks intact and usable, if someone could detach and carry it.

"Give me a hand cleaning this off, Jade. At least enough to open it up."

"Yes, ma'am."

Fortunately, cleaning is part of what she's designed for, and a significant fraction of what she's had to entertain herself with the last two hundred years.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of grime. Still, she can get the sensors and visor and seams all clean.

And enough to unearth the helpful directions on the back showing where the standard-design fusion core goes. Just turn the wheel and stick it in, then crank to open the armor. Practically idiot-proof.

"Probably a necessity, Mistress, if they were designed for soldiers..."

"Fair point."

"Well. Here goes." She enters the armor.

It's weird, hissing and clanking as it adjusts to her body - and the visor is equally odd to look through, restricting her field of vision a little, washing the colors out, but highlighting shadows and movement, information about her current location and height popping up in one corner, the armor's status, the amount of ambient radiation outside (...not a ton, but), and the targeting program immediately starts trying to identify unique actors, giving each a letter and a number at random until Ellie overrides with labels. She can see a few raiders and the cat woman, currently - the cat woman's higher up on a spire, and the raiders seem to have surrendered (mostly, there's one bonus dead body).

Right then. Ellie labels Jade and the Cat, tests her range of movement briefly, then goes to grab that minigun off the vertibird.

- Possibly just in time. Her HUD is alerting her to something strange and big moving underground, about to surface - several somethings -

"Jade! Company from below!"

She takes a position on the roof edge -

And several monsters burst from the ground, two tearing the raiders they surface by into bloody shreds - they all seem to be targeting people, but most of them ready don't die immediately -

The cat curses and dives into the fray, trying to drive back the monsters enough the humans can retreat inside. 

She's having a bit of trouble, though - she needs to dodge their claws, and they're fast, and she isn't nearly as effective against them as against normal humans -

Ellie clicks through the handshaking protocol between the armor and her new minigun as quick as she can, hurrying over the edge, then-

Her gloves tighten on the trigger mechanism and she sends a stream of blazing lead at the melee below.

It's more or less just point and shoot, really. The armor does autoaiming, all she has to do is designate targets. Idiot-proof.

The interface is a bit complicated sometimes, but, well - she successfully reprogrammed Jade through a probably actively user-hostile interface. 

She doesn't immediately slaughter all the monsters - they're tough - and smart, they figure out how to take cover decently quickly, though they're aggressive enough to charge anything on two legs moving fast enough to trigger their prey instincts -

One raider woman who got through the first attack with an intact body and an ax to grind starts oddly systemically baiting them back out of hiding, but - some of them are still leery of Ellie's gun.