The ground trembled with each loud "BANG!", sending tiny pebbles scattering across the arid, broken ground. The baking-hot sun threw its rays mercilessly against leather, which, in retrospect, probably wasn't the wisest of fashion choices. A grunt punctuated every forceful beat in some monotonous rhythm, causing dull shocks to go racing up a pair of slender legs.
Zer0 shifted his weight from foot to foot, not much enjoying the vibrating sensation that was cascading through his body. Despite his discomfort, he stayed silent, instead contenting himself by crossing his arms and staring at the man before him with what he clearly thought was a reproachful glare. Of course, due in no small part to the assassin's lack of obvious emotional cues, his point fell woefully short of its mark. He remedied this by allowing himself a small, disdainful cough.
The cacophonous banging stopped, and a pair of sharp eyes turned, squinting, at him in the harsh, but quickly fading, sunlight. "You got somethin' you wanna say to me, Princess?" the gruff voice spat through a mouthful of nails. "Or are you good just standin' there an' watchin'?" The man returned his focus to the work before him: a scrappy skeleton of a hut held together by glue, duct tape, and bandit intestines. Crouching next to a jagged tear in the wall that functioned as a door, he returned to hammering away at the damage.
"Our time is wasting. / We must find the others soon, / You drunken bastard." Zer0's curt words seemed to get their desired effect, as Mordecai threw down his hammer furiously.
"Look, I get it! I crashed the ride! Big deal!" The hunter had turned on Zer0 in an instant, bearing fangs not unlike the many twisted creatures of Pandora. If Zer0 could smell through that mask of his, the overwhelming scent of cheap whiskey would have shriveled his insides. "But right now, there are bigger things to worry about. Namely, making sure we're well-protected while we wait for the others to come around." He deigned to not mention the completely fried communicator that lay abandoned a few feet away, soaked in spilt rotgut. "They'll find us. Eventually. And if you hadn't been tryin' to get all fancy on that turret, you wouldn't have gotten the attention of every psycho in the valley. So get the fuck off my back." Mordecai's rant died down to a menacing growl in his throat. So provoked was he that his forehead nearly clanked against the smooth curve of Zer0's helmet, who, to his credit, didn't so much as flinch at the intoxicated sniper's rage.
For a long moment, neither man dared to step down from the other's challenging glare, the fiery drunk versus the icy enigma, until something most unexpected flashed across Zer0's visor.
'XD'.
Mordecai recoiled back at once, his anger bubbling to a white-hot fury. "You find somethin' funny, Princess?!"
"I suppose I might / find something most humorous, / that being your face." A cold monotone had never sounded so smug.
"You suck," Mordecai sighed in defeat, turning away from his ambiguous-in-many-ways companion. He picked up the hammer once more.
Seemingly happy with his apparent victory, Zer0 stalked haughtily past Mordecai, pulling his rifle from his back and holding it in an infuriatingly complacent manner. In a few lithe jumps, he had scaled the rock-face which Mordecai was building their little fort against. After a rather vigorous chase from the wreckage of their Runner, Mordecai and Zer0 had found themselves tearing up the steep incline of one of Pandora's many tall bluffs with quite a few babbling, axe-wielding madmen in hot pursuit. In an impressive display of badassery that was only expected of Vault Hunters, the two men had effectively slaughtered a hefty portion of the horde, leaving the rest to scramble back down the slope and away. Predicting reinforcements, Mordecai immediately went to work creating a makeshift eagle's nest, not unlike the one he spent most of his off-time in nowadays. Zer0, on the other hand, scoffed at such precautions, citing the wily nature of the wasteland psychos as reason enough that they would not soon be bothered by that particular crowd.
"They scream their anger, / Mixed with absolute terror. / We need not fear them," he chided tauntingly, perched atop the rocky cliff just above Mordecai. As he spoke, he peered through his scope: not a psycho in sight.
"Oh, will you knock that warrior poet shit off for two seconds?" Mordecai said irritably, his mouth full of nails yet again. "I'm gettin' real fuckin' tired of it."
"Uncultured, uncouth, / Lacking sophistication. / What, are you jealous?"
Mordecai snorted incredulously. "Pendejo..."
"Let's play a game, then. / A test of honor and grace, / daring honesty." Zer0's unnerving voice picked up slightly, with some strain that just might have been amusement. Mordecai, taking a minute to process his last bout of cryptic nonsense, whirled about to fix him with a wild stare. His rifle lying forgotten by his side, Zer0 was settled on the edge of his roost like an overgrown bird. Behind that visor of his, whatever there might be, Mordecai was certain that Zer0 was smirking.
"Did you just ask me," Mordecai said slowly, not quite believing the ridiculousness of the situation himself, "to play truth or friggin' dare with you?"
Zer0 cocked his head in a disturbing imitation of innocence. "The tiny one says, / "Dis game da bomb, fo' shizzle." / I like bombs a lot."
"Are you fucking seri-" Mordecai didn't bother finishing his exasperated statement, rubbing his eyes wearily. Honestly, he already felt like he was going insane at that point, so what was the harm? "You know what? Fine. Whatever. Can't be any worse than any of Tina's other bright ideas. Might as well kill some time, anyways." Casting a contemptuous glance around at the 'camp', for lack of a better word, that he had set up, he found himself begrudgingly satisfied. The bluff was easily defensible by a pair of highly-skilled snipers, and the hasty barricades he had conjured up were at least passable, given the circumstances. "Yeah, sure, ya freak. Hit me with your best shot."
Zer0 offered no further reaction to his resignation than a flashing red ':D'. On the inside, however, the mind of a deadly assassin was moving in on its prey.
