When Maya and Gaige had arrived from the assignment Axton gave to them, they were tired and pissed off. Axton had given Maya and Gaige a 3 day long job to go to some slag factory so he can buy himself some time to get Krieg back to Sanctuary. He made up some stupid lie about a possible siren hiding out there. Three days just wasn't enough time for him, Zero had been keeping a constant eye on Krieg just in case he was in any danger. It never happened though, he was just slicing his way through the next bandit he saw without a care in the world and with an army of psychos behind him.
"This completely sucks!" Gaige cried out. "We went all that way for nothing. There was no damn siren, the place was completely filled with old Hyperion loaders, and I got completely covered in slag!" During the trip a pipe spilled out some slag, that was still in it, all over Gaige.
"Calm down, Gaige. It'll come off once you take a bath." Maya said. The Mechromancer then stormed into HQ and slammed the door. Maya laughed a little because she knew how much she hated getting slag on her. The siren then decided to go to Scooter to see the update on the Motorcycle he was going to put in the Catch-a-Ride. Scooter had promised Maya that Motorcycle to be put into the system since she got him a date.
"Hey Scooter!" Maya yelled out. She noticed that the bike still needed some work before she would be able to use it.
"Oh hey Maya." Scooter replied. "How was that one mission Axton sent yah on with that supposed siren in that slag factory."
"It turns out there was no Siren, and we wasted our time."
"Damn, well that sucks."
"Yeah, I guess Axton got some shitty intel. Anyways I wanted to talk to you about the bike."
"Oh yeah that Motorcycle that I promised to put into the Catch-a-Ride. Its gonna be sweet.
"I bet it will. So when will it be complete?"
"Well it should have been done a couple of days ago, but I don't got the dang parts to finish her up."
"Well why don't you ask the others for help getting you the parts."
"I can't. Their either too damn busy with some other crap that they have to do or on an assignment from Axton."
"Well that's why we have Krieg, Scooter. He is rarely preoccupied with something so most of the time he'll always be there."
"Yeah well one, he kinda scares the crap out of me, yah know with him being a psycho and all, some the stuff he says is also creeps me out. And two he hasn't been here in three days." Maya was shocked to hear that Krieg, of all the residents in Sanctuary, was gone for so long.
"That's kind of weird, normally he isn't gone this long."
"Yeah well if you see him, could yah ask him to get the parts for me?"
"Uh, yeah. I'll do that. If I can find him." Maya knew that something was off and she was going to find out why the lunatic hadn't returned home in a while. Maybe Scooter was just trying to lie to her about it just so she could ask Krieg for him. While she was walking towards Moxxi's, she saw Brick playing with his new puppy Skag he got.
"I see you got a new Skag, Brick."
"Hell yeah. After what Hyperion did to my old one I felt depressed for a while, even after we stopped Jack. So I decided to get a new one." Brick was happy with his new pet. Maya showed a smile on her face at the sight of Brick being the happiest she had ever seen him.
"He looks adorable."
"Yeah. It feels great having a pet Skag again. The only bad part is feeding it when it's young."
"Why is that?"
"You can't just give it the kind of stuff we eat, not yet at least. I got to give him some parts of some of the other animals here on Pandora."
"Well you can always have Krieg help out with that." Brick laughed a bit, remembering the good times him and Krieg had fighting along sides each other.
"Yeah, I would get him to help me out. Only problem is that I haven't seen him in three days. I've been having to go searching for food for the pup myself." Maya knew that something was wrong. Krieg was usually never gone for this long, he usually goes down to other areas of Pandora to clear out some bandits and was back the same day. She knew he always stopped to eat at Moxxi's, she headed over there to see if her insane friend was there.
She entered the bar and saw Moxxi, bartending as usual, Mordecai, and Lilith having a beer, sitting next to each other. Maya looked over to see if Krieg was in his usual spot, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Hey guys." Maya called out to Moxxi, Mordecai, and Lilith. "Have you seen Krieg lately?"
"Sorry, Sugar. I haven't seen him in a while." Moxxi replied.
"Yeah, same here." Mordecai said "And even if he was here, he would normally be eating like an animal over at his usually spot."
"With all the growling and loud ass eating noises he makes, we would have noticed if he was here or not." Lilith replied.
"Okay. Now I see the pattern." Maya then turned around and headed to HQ to talk to Axton about Krieg's disappearance.
"What the heck was that about?" Mordecai wondered why the Siren became interested in the mad man's whereabouts. He then shrugged and went back to drinking.
Axton had a map of the Dust pulled up, with the current location of Krieg and Zero. Salvador was next to him, trying to figure out how they were going to get him out of there. Axton thought of different ways to lure him out, but they haven't found the most effective way to do it without luring out the other psychos. He still had doubts on whether it was worth getting him back or not. If he had reverted back into his old psycho ways, he would be a major threat to everyone in Sanctuary.
"Well, any new ideas?" Salvador asked
"I'm completely drained out of ideas." Axton replied. "I got no clue about how we are going to drag his ass out of there." Salvador then remembered that Gaige had returned from the assignment that Axton gave her and Maya. She didn't even bother talking to them, she just stormed into the bathroom to wash off all the slag that was on her.
"Hey, Axton. You know that Gaige is back, right?" Salvador asked.
"Yeah. Why…" Axton then remembered that if Gaige was back then so was Maya. "Shit! She is going to be wondering where the hell Krieg went."
"You know that she will find out, one way or another amigo." Salvador reminded him of that. It didn't matter what they did at this point, she would dig the information out of them.
Maya walked up the stairs and headed towards the conference room. Axton still had the map of the Dust pulled up, talking to Salvador on how they were going to cover this up.
"Hey Axton." As soon as Axton heard Maya's voice he quickly closed up the map and turned to face the siren.
"Hey, Maya. So how did the mission go?" Axton was starting to get nervous at this point.
"It was a waste of time, there was no siren in that old slag factory." Maya replied with an annoyed look on her face.
"Oh, well that's a shame. Well at least you made it out with Gaige alive, so I'll talk to in the morning after I get some rest, goodnight." Maya held Axton back from leaving the door.
"Hold it Axton. I still got a couple of things to ask you."
"Can it wait until the morning at least."
"No." Axton knew at this point he wouldn't be able to hide it anymore. "Why has Krieg been absent these past three days?"
"Oh, well you see…"
"He was fighting some varkids off." Salvador made up some random story to help Axton work up a lie.
"Yes. That's right, he ended up in a really nasty situation where there was nothing but ultimate badass varkids."
"We couldn't do anything to help him out without getting ourselves killed." Salvador said.
"So we decided to let him just handle it himself for the meantime. He's been taking a lot of them down, so he should be here tomorrow in the morning." Maya then smiled at his response knowing he was doing a shitty job of covering up Kriegs actual whereabouts.
"Wow, that's very interesting. So when were you two planning on cutting the bullshit and telling me where he really is?" Axton gave up on this point and finally told her the truth.
"Ok, fine. Your going to think I'm crazy for saying this though."
"I've seen a lot of crazy shit here on Pandora, I'm sure I can handle it."
"Okay. Krieg is some sort of leader of a group of psychos that have been destroying bandit camps in the Dust." For a moment there was silence between the three. Then Maya started to laugh, still thinking he was still trying to cover up Krieg's whereabouts. Axton and Salvador just shook their heads.
"That was a good bullshit cover up story, Axton. But in all seriousness, where is he?" The Guys just looked at the siren, with serious faces. Maya then realized they weren't trying to fool her, they were telling her the truth.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Maya it is all true." Salvador said. "I was there on the day Krieg became leader of the psychos. We tried to echo him, but he has his echo turned off. Were not even sure if we can get him back anymore."
"What?" Maya said.
"Look, let me show you the map of the Dust." Salvador pulled up the map he and Axton were hiding from her. "This map shows some of the locations Krieg and the other lunatics have been to. So far he has hit five bandit camps and he now has over one hundred psychos under his control. He is camped out inside this location." Salvador showed Maya a stronghold like area that Krieg was currently located in.
"Axton, why the hell were you hiding this from?" Maya was really pissed off at him, she was already tired and pissed off because of the fact there was no siren in the slag factory, and now this.
"Because I wanted to see if I could handle the situation myself." Axton replied.
"Look, I know that you have a lot of responsibility now that you are leader, but you can't just hide this type of shit from me or anyone else."
"I just want people to count on me, alright."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Ever since I became leader, there have been a lot of other people that have been doubting whether I am even going to be a good leader or not, even after the majority voted for me. This is my chance to finally prove them wrong and that I can handle a situation like this." For a moment Maya just looked at him.
"Axton, you don't need to handle a tough situation like this by yourself to prove you're a great leader. Sometimes, even the best of leaders ask for help." Axton took in all the words the siren had said, knowing that he had made a great mistake. "Right now I'm going down to the Dust to pick up Krieg."
"But chica," Salvador replied. "there are way too many psychos down there, you can get yourself killed."
"Look, Krieg saved my ass the first day we met, I am not about to abandon him like that. Don't worry about me, Salvador. I can handle it myself." Maya then looked at Axton waiting for a reply from him.
"Well it is night time, as long as they are asleep, assuming that they are, you should be fine." Axton approved Maya's departure to the Dust to do get back Krieg from the stronghold the psychos were in. Maya then headed to one of the lockers to grab her smg, similar to the one she had when she first met Krieg, and then headed to the fast travel to teleport to the Dust.
