The Other Sniper
Chapter One
The atmosphere was dim, dark. Sanctuary sat protected in the sky, quiet waist deep in the Headquarters of the Crimson Raiders. Speaking was difficult. The four new Vault Hunters had little to say as the Vault Hunters of five years ago, the three that stood present, remained in silence.
The return from the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve had brought a terrible end to an old friend. Mordecai had no want of words, only alcohol and revenge. Lilith had nothing consoling to say to him. Roland found himself better out of any conversation concerning the death of Bloodwing.
Taking a slow breath, finding some action had to be done and that he, Roland, was still in control of his Crimson Raiders and the new four awaited a mission, he said, "I need you to deliver a letter to a friend. He owes me a favor."
Quickly, however, the moment he was done speaking, as the Vault Hunters proceeded to leave the second floor of the Headquarters, Lilith intercepted them. "I need a favor," she said softly, as they stood in the stairwell. Maya looked at her curiously, glanced to the three men, she assumed Zero was a man, behind her and then back to her fellow Siren. "There's someone I need you to find," Lilith said. "Last I heard, she was somewhere in the Dust. But it's been a few years. I need you to find her and bring her back here to Sanctuary. Her name is Sera."
Axton stared back at her, crossing arms over his chest. "What's the reward?" he asked.
"Well," Lilith replied, more herself, back to her normal tone of voice. "If she doesn't kill you. I've seen her shoot the balls off a mouse at four-hundred yards."
The Vault Hunters stilled.
"Then how the hell are we supposed to get close enough to talk to her?" Salvador grumbled.
"She'll ask you what your name is," Lilith said. "And you have to reply, I have none."
"I have none?" Maya asked.
"Yes," replied Lilith. "And then, she should ask why not. Reply, I can't remember."
"That's stupid," Axton rolled his eyes.
"Want to keep your testicles?" Maya questioned him.
With a smirk, Lilith told them, "Before you do anything else today. Bring her back to Sanctuary."
The Vault Hunters left. Just outside, Axton questioned, "Scooter's sister is in the Dust, right? Think either of them know anything."
"Worth looking into," Maya replied.
Walking briskly across Sanctuary, they opened the upper door to Scooter's Garage and as their steps made noise on the metal walkway beneath their feet, Scooter looked up. "Hey there! Good to see ya!" he shouted up at them, smiling his big dumb grin.
"Information," Zero said from behind his mask, his voice haunting.
"We're about to head into the Dust, looking for someone name Sera," Maya said in a friendlier tone as she descended the stairs to stand near the mechanic.
Scooter stilled, eyes wide. "Sera..." his voice quaked, he said nothing more, only stared in the distance, past them, as if caught in some terrible dream.
The Vault Hunters left him there. They accessed the Fast Travel device and teleported themselves to the Dust where the enormous Ellie stood waiting for them. She whispered, as if someone were listening, "Scooter says you're lookin for Sera. Why in the world are you looking for Sera?"
"Know where to find her?" Axton questioned.
Ellie frowned. "Head southwest from here. When you start seeing skeletons, you're getting into her territory. Be careful, cuties. She's dangerous. If ever there was a woman scorned, that's her. Scooter tried to get her to marry him once. And, while I believe she was super nice in turning him down compared to how she dealt with all those bandits that were after her. Uh, the bodies you'll start seeing on your way out there; she still broke his heart, though. And scared his underpants brown."
"Scary women," Salvador smirked, "there are quite a few of those around." He glanced to Maya, and while she returned no look, she smiled none the less.
"Say," Ellie began, "be real careful, alright? Oh, and don't mention that you know my momma. They're apparently not very good friends. I mean, Sera leaves me and Scoot alone well enough, we don't bother her either, but she ain't come around since I told her my momma was Moxxi. Looked like a badass skag with them glowing eyes. She was furious. I don't know what happened with that. And sure as shootin', I wasn't about to ask."
"Southwest, huh?" Axton questioned, accessing the Catch-A-Ride system and taking the wheel, waiting for the others to get in.
"Look for the bodies," Ellie told them. "And her place is ontop of a big hill."
The drive from Ellie's began as hectic, bandit vehicles tailing and shooting. Above Buzzard helicopters roared overhead. The further away they moved, the quieter it became. The mountains rose around them, making the world seem darker. And then a sudden crunch beneath the vehicle, loud enough to cause alarm, brought Axton's foot heavily upon the brake, forcing them to a quick, violent stop. "What the hell was that?" he shouted, leaning out of the car, looking to Salvador and Zero in the back. And then he saw what they stared at. It was almost a barrier, piled three feet high, covered in sand. They had driven through it, crunching through old bones, bleached white by the sun, pecked clean by rakk.
The bone barrier extended in an arch from one cliff wall to the other. They were in what Ellie had called, Sera's Territory. Stepping out of the runner. Salvador rubbed the back of his neck. "Feels like we're bein watched," he said to his companions.
"I'm sure we are," Maya replied. Looking down the length of the canyon, a tall, singular spire of rock, not wide enough to be called a plateau, not small enough to be called a hill, rose out from nothing around it. "I'm guessing that's where we're headed."
"No quick movements," Zero said.
Slowly, moving from the car, they proceeded forward. Axton was sure that the only reason they were getting as close as they were was because they were walking, not running, and they didn't appear to look or act like bandits. The closer they got to the rock spire, the more he began to wonder if anyone was home. He was finally able to see rickety-looking stairwell that zigzagged up the right side of the rock. And then it came, a line before their feet exploded into pillars of sand. They stood very still.
"What question can you honestly never answer yes to?" they heard, a voice that didn't sound as if it were high above them, but from mere feet away. A conversational voice, not a shout, nor a sound of distress. A woman's voice. Calm and questioning.
The Vault Hunters looked between them. "No one said there were going to be riddles," Salvador growled.
"Everybody just think for a moment," Maya whispered.
Suddenly, Zero asked, "Are you asleep?"
"Close enough," they heard. "I would also accept: are you dead."
They looked up, watched a figure appear on a balcony atop the stone spire. She leaned on the railing, staring down at them. From the distance, Axton couldn't get a clear look at her. The sun sat behind her, covering any distinguishing characteristics in shadow. Maya tried to shield her eyes to see.
"Been a long time since I've had visitors," she said, this time, they heard her voice echo down from where she stood. A distant, loud sound. "What's your name?"
They looked between each other, unsure if it was the question Lilith had given them the response to, or if they were supposed to respond with their actual names. Axton heard Salvador open his mouth and he took a breath. "I don't remember," Salvador replied.
The woman above them chuckled, a short, sound that was certainly accompanied by a grin that they couldn't see for shadows. "You look like you wouldn't remember," she mocked and then added, "Come on up."
Caution followed them to the steps. Yet, as they took the long walk to the top, it dawned on Axton that it wouldn't matter if the woman at the top had intended to kill them. She could have done it once for every flight they had made their way up. It zigzagged. A bullet down or just a grenade would have sent them sky-high and back down in plenty of pieces. Not to mention, he was sure the stairs weren't her only way up or down.
Reaching the top, Salvador set hands on his knees and bent over. "Ever. Think. Of. An. Elevator?" he gasped. He wasn't the only one winded, but Zero, though he had taken the same steps up, hid his fatigue better than the others. He stood still, breathing with only the slightest quickness to his pulse.
"Sup?" they heard and looked up to see the owner of the house atop the stone spire. The one whom had put fear into Scooter and Ellie. The one Lilith had sent them to find.
She wasn't very impressive. Sera; who shot the balls off a mouse at four-hundred yards.
She sat in the far corner of the balcony on a faded blue lawn chair in a plaid red shirt and her underwear. In her left hand she held a glass of lemonade, and at her right sat a little table, a Maliwan pistol upon it and her hand resting on the trigger. She was, slim, feminine, her skin tanned by the Pandoran sun. Her hair was dark blonde, a light brown, colored with lengths of blood red and shining royal blue strands. It sat tied back, flipped over her shoulder. Her feet were bare, her legs smooth, her lips chapped.
It was then that Axton spotted the pair of rifles beside her seat. One was mud brown with a scope. The other was pure white, even sitting in the shadows it almost seemed to gleam, but this one had no scope.
"Who sent you?" she asked, hand so finely relaxed upon her pistol. Maya watched her cautiously, she tried to judge if she could phaselock the woman before she could be killed.
"Lilith," Axton said.
"Lilith?" she replied, staring him down with the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Sharp, considering. "What for?"
"Didn't say," Maya replied.
"Well," Sera said, sitting forward quick enough that it caused alarm in the Vault Hunters and they raised weapons. Sera looked back at them. "Put your guns down, you bunch of ingrates," she grumbled as she rose to her feet, taking her glass of lemonade and her pistol with her as she stepped with quiet feet into the house. "Hurry up and get in here," she called behind her.
As they filed into the house atop the stone spire, the scent of warm food caught their noses and Salvador's stomach was the first to growl. "Help yourselves," Sera told them. "Ain't much. Like I said, wasn't expecting visitors that I wasn't going to have to shoot." She paused and added, "It's rakk. But I think I finally managed to cook the gamey taste out of it." She shrugged and stepped out of the room.
When she returned, she still wore the red plaid shirt, but now pair of nearly-ruined khaki shorts sat on her lower body. It wasn't appealing dress, but it was understandable for someone to be comfortable in their own home. "Haven't heard from Lilith in a few years. What's new?" she questioned as the Vault Hunters ate the warm rakk steaks and potatoes.
Between bites, Axton filled her in. She knew of Handsome Jack and his danger to Pandora. She knew of Roland's Crimson Raiders. Lilith the Firehawk. And then Axton's story came to Mordecai. Came to the events of the Preservation. Across the small room, he watched her still. Watched her hand grip to the back of the chair that Zero sat upon. He could see anger rising in her green eyes, and then, with a blink, it was gone.
"Bloodwing?" she asked.
He told her how it ended. Jack's testing. Left no detail out. Her hand raised to her mouth as if quelling sickness that raised from her gut. She settled herself with the barest shifting on her feet. Then she shook her head, a smile raising on her lips but it was anywhere near pleasant. "Something wrong?" Axton questioned.
"Just thinking," she replied. "Say, are we headed straight back to Sanctuary?"
"Mordecai asked us to hit up a few bandit caravans hauling booze," Maya told her.
"When we grabbed the first one on the way out here, Moxxi contacted us and said she'd give us a pistol if we gave the barrels to her," Salvador added, "then her and Mordecai got into an argument and he said he'd give us a sniper rifle if we took it to him." At the mention of Moxxi, the other Vault Hunters stared at Salvador.
Crossing her arms beneath her small breasts, Sera said, "Give it to Mordecai and I'll let you each take something from my armory." When they turned on her, waiting for her to continue, she said, "Now, I do this on good faith that the barrels go to Mordecai. Turn and give it to Moxxi and I'll take those same weapons out of your hands and shoot you with them. Do you understand?" Her words were level, promising.
Axton grinned. Salvador eyed her suspiciously. Zero was quiet with her at his back. Maya said, "First, let's see what you've got."
Sera turned and strode away, into a room where she called back, "This way. Elevator's not meant for so many so expect a tight squeeze."
"You did have an elevator!" Salvador grumbled.
The Vault Hunters followed her around the corner packed into the a single elevator car that would fit perhaps three comfortably.
The elevator descended slowly, quietly, the only light a little bulb above them. Time passed slowly as the box crept downward. And then it opened into a warehouse. Axton's jaw dropped at the sight of crates upon crates, boxes upon boxes. "All weapons?" he asked.
"Need a map?" Sera questioned. Behind her came a soft chuckle from Zero. "Weapons to the right, she said, "Other stuff to the left."
"All this and we get one thing a piece?" Salvador questioned.
"Don't get greedy, Big Man," Sera told him.
The Vault Hunters stepped into the room. Sera took a seat upon the stairs that led down to the warehouse floor. She watched them wander about, open a crate. They picked up weapons, set them down, moved about, scouring for something better. Mounted on the wall, high on the right side of the room, lay a rose-red sniper rifle, a long scope, a long barrel. Pristine, she sat, as if never fired.
"This one special?" Maya asked.
"I can't give you that one," Sera replied. "She's meant for somebody."
"The bullet or the gun?" Zero asked. Their host only smiled, a look that was not pleasant, but caught in thought, turning to a grimace.
"How about this," Sera suddenly called, drawing their attention, changing the subject. "If you hold your end of the deal, the booze goes to Mordecai, you can take whatever you can carry."
They were quick to respond with, "Deal!"
Stocked with new weapons, full to capacity with ammunition. Sera led them out through the ground-level exit. "Gimme a moment to get ready," she said. "I'll meet you at the bone-wall."
The walk back to the runner was full of smiles. "I thought she was supposed to be scary," Salvador scoffed as they came to stand by the vehicle. Axton hopped behind the wheel and pulled it back over the skeletons. It was there the others came to stand by him and a cloud of sand began to fill the sky, approaching from the stone pillar that was Sera's home.
At the head of the sand cloud was a two-wheeled vehicle. The long motorcycle came shattering over old skulls and stopped outside the line. Sera sat up upon the machine, a pair of dark-lens goggles over her eyes. No longer did she wear the sparse clothes of someone relaxing at home, but a uniform so similar to what all Vault Hunters seemed to wear. Oranges, browns, reds. She wore a long red scarf about her nose and mouth, around her neck. A sleeveless top of thick leather sat over her torso, ending where a pair of sun-bleached brown cargo pants began. Pockets lined from hip to ankle, each full of ammunition. The leather boots on her feet were cracked, worn from years in the Pandoran sands. On her hands, up to her elbows, were thick leather gloves that matching her boots, aged and soft.
Turning, she held out her arm and clicked a button in her hand. The world seemed to hum around them before a bright blue shield came from the rock tower and settled just in front of the skeleton wall. "You'd be surprised," she began to say, "how many of them still try and get through that shield."
"Build it yourself?" Axton questioned, assuming she had.
"On a work-trade with a friend named Tina," she replied. When she saw the Vault Hunters glance between themselves with a smile, she asked, "know her?"
"How'd that deal work out for you?" Maya grinned.
"Badass people-melting shield around my house and tea parties twice a month?" Sera shrugged. "No biggie." Straightening the scarf over her mouth and nose, she glanced to the Vault Hunters and said, "I'll meet you at Ellie's when you're done with your other business."
"Booze run!" Salvador said with excitement.
"Remember your deal," Sera told him, any friendly tones from before now vanishing.
Understanding rang through the Vault Hunters. Sera was only accommodating if her rules were followed. A deal was a deal. And they were certain that if they turned on their deal with Sera, they might not live to reap any benefits from it. If there were any. Axton wondered, if they kept their deal, if they followed through, built a partnership with the woman who had a warehouse beneath her home and was willing to share, she might let them back in. There were a few other things he had to part with, nice guns, maybe he could get them next time if he played his cards right.
She sped away on her motorcycle, laying low against the frame, almost as if she were a part of the bike, one large wheel in front of her, one large wheel behind, a cloud of dust quickly obscuring her from view.
When they caught up to her, her bike was gone as she leaned against the Fast Travel device. Upon her back lay a long brown sniper rifle, creating an "x" across it was the white rifle without a scope. At her left hip sat a red repeater, at her right, a small dark-green Tediore SMG. Ellie was nowhere to be seen.
Goggles pushed atop her head, Sera approached them as they stepped out of the runner. "Sanctuary?" she questioned.
"Where's Ellie?" Maya asked.
"Inside?" Sera replied, brow raised. "We had a civilized conversation, you know, like normal people, before you guys arrived."
"We need to go to Thousand Cuts before Sanctuary," Axton told her.
Sera stood up straight, interested. "Thousand Cuts?" she repeated. Then, her excitement retreated. "Mind if I tag along?" she questioned seriously. "The Slabs out that way get a little stupid."
"You know their leader?" Salvador asked.
"We go way back," she replied with a smile, charming, beaming.
"You seem much too excited," Axton observed.
"Dust is lonely," she told him, "besides, I haven't been to Thousand Cuts in a good long while. It'd be nice to see what they did with the place." She paused and then added, "Unless they finally managed to blow themselves up... then I guess it'd be kinda boring."
Thousand Cuts was just like Sera remembered. The Vault Hunters could hear her laughing from somewhere above them as she provided cover fire against the Slabs that tried to prevent them from reaching their king.
When the king of the Slabs stepped down from his throne before the new Vault Hunters and revealed his true self, Brick, as himself, welcomed his new, honorary Slabs to the family. Axton looked among his fellow Vault Hunters and then asked Maya, "Where'd she go?"
Zero made a slight motion to the second floor, drawing everyone's attention to where Sera stood, leaning forward against the railing as a dead psycho fell to the bottom floor. She looked to Brick, and smiled. "Sup, Asshole."
Brick held his arms out wide. "SERA!" he shouted, his voice echoing. Flipping over the railing, she dropped to the floor with as much grace as someone jumping from the second story of a building could have. She strode toward him with brisk steps and before she could evade, Brick grabbed her in a tight embrace. When he let her go, he said, "What are you doing here?"
She motioned towards the new Vault Hunters and Maya held out a letter. Brick took it, read through it, laughed. "To Sanctuary?" Sera asked Brick.
"To Sanctuary," he replied. Then as they began to leave his kingdom behind, the Vault Hunters at their heels, Brick looked down past his heavy shoulder and asked, "Happy reunion?"
"Not for me," she told him. "I've still got a chip on my shoulder the size of that Rakk Hive from five years ago."
He grunted and then said, "Remember when you shot it in the ass?"
She had a brief pause in step and then continued at his side, grinning, "And it diarrhea'd all over Roland?" she chuckled.
They laughed all the way to Sanctuary. Suddenly, to them, at least for the time being, the new Vault Hunters didn't exist. And then, the arrival on the floating city brought reality crashing back. As everyone began to head toward the Crimson Raiders' Headquarters, Sera paused.
Turning, Maya asked, "Everything okay?"
"Yea," Sera said briskly. "Yeah." She followed around the road, citizens watching Salvador and Axton carrying barrels of alcohol towards the Headquarters. Walking inside, Dr. Patricia Tannis looked up from her work, stared at them. Sera stared back. Tannis said nothing.
Up the stairs, the Vault Hunters set the barrels in the small room adjacent to the strategy room. When they entered, Brick stepped out to the balcony to speak with Roland. Axton stepped forward to tell Mordecai that his booze was in the back room.
And then it happened.
Lilith saw her request granted, saw Sera standing in the doorway with Zero at her side. She wanted to greet her with open arms, but saw the look on her face, paranoia, stress, unease. Suddenly, the look was gone, replaced by confidence, a mischievous smile. "Sera?" Lilith heard and her attention darted across the room to where Mordecai stood apart from Axton, moving forward.
"Mordecai," Sera replied, attractively smirking as if she were keeping a secret while slowly pulling at the fingers of her gloves, removing them and tucking them into the waistband of her pants. She brought her green eyes up to Mordecai and the whole room stilled. Lilith winced, waiting for the explosion, holding her breath.
Roland looked through the doorway to where Sera stood, his attention shot back to Brick who grinned broadly as if everything were a grand joke. The new Vault Hunters simply remained where they stood, stuck in their places. It was quickly becoming evident that there was a story here that they were all unaware of.