A/N: Just wanted to let you guys know I'm saving Krieg for around Sanctuary, I have a idea for him just in case someone thinks I'm neglecting Krieg.
Third Person's POV
Fighting bandits was easy. Axton knew that and so did the rest of the Vault Hunters excluding Gaige. Fighting bandits on a ship called the 'Roaring Dragon' was harder but not impossible. Fighting those bandits on that ship while dealing with two gun-happy insane people who liked murder, a sixteen year old girl who couldn't kill without going into shock, a assassin who never spoke unless it was necessary, a Siren with a temper and to top it off, a robot who constantly got into trouble was impossible.
Maya had been working on her own with Gaige and Krieg, attacking bullymong nests and even fixing Gaige's Deathtrap so that she could summon it and it would attack bandits instead of them, (long story) while Zero would never speak to them unless there was a mission, and only then it would be limited, one word answers only.
As for himself, Axton was also having difficulties working with the other Vault Hunters. He had gotten used to the solo glory style in the Dahl military and couldn't get used to the idea of teamwork. He normally ran off during missions, taking out enemies with his Vladof pistol called Anarchist. He also used a weak Jakobs shotgun when he ran out of ammo for his pistol. As he made his way up to the area where everyone assumed Flynt was he considered the fact that if he was stuck with this group for the time it took to extract his revenge on Jack, he was screwed.
Barley considering the various bandits they had killed to get to this point of the shop, including those ridiculous missions they had done for Hammerlock, Axton noticted that when there was a break in the bandits, Zero would walk slowly behind Axton, as a hunter would stalk his prey. Needless to say, Axton was irritated by this.
They arrived at a section of the ship that they hoped was the last to be filled with bandits. They ran towards the bandits, stopping sometimes to check where the next enemy was, completely ignoring Gaige who had ducked into a corner trying to block out the sound of bullets, groans and triumphant yells from Krieg and Salvador as they took new guns to replace their current weapons. Looking next to her, she saw a box that she recognized from below, remembering the gleeful look on Axton's face as he saw 'DAHL' labelled on the green box. Carefully, she opened the box to look at two new weapons that made her consider if she should pick them up or not.
Gritting her teeth, Maya saw her latest target fall onto the ground lifeless and bloody, and turned to see a large metal sheet fall on steel supports, revealing more bandits hidden behind it. As she turned to fire at them, she heard a grunt close to her, and felt Axton fall on to her, both of them sprawling out on the ground, and heard him mutter, "Damm shield, had to give out now? Just had to fall and twist my ankle don't I?"
When Axton was repelled by the force of his shield breaking and the bullets that hit him afterward, he expected to twist something, his arm or leg. What he didn't expect was a angry female voice to come from underneath him, "GET OFF ME YOU COMPLETE MORON! THIS IS THE SECOND TIME ONE OF YOU IDIOTS HAVE FALLEN ON ME NEAR SOMETHING IMPORTANT! IF ANYONE DOES IT FROM NOW ON I'M GOING TO SHOOT THEM UNTIL THEY BLEED!" Jumping in the air the moment Maya started shouting, landing on his feet and wincing when his bad ankle hit the metal. "If you two are done..." came the snarky voice of the mechromancer who came out he corner looking smug at the pair of them, "You lot should be going to kill Flynt."
Growling, Maya stood up, brushed herself off, and walked away from Axton like nothing happened. Sighing, Axton extended his arm around Gaige, who had come round to stand next to him and had offered her shoulder. "Just don't get any funny ideas Axton, I'm only 16 and Uncle Sal would kill you if you tried"
"What! You know I don't like you lie that so why would yo-" He faltered when he saw Gaige laughing silently, and all the other Vault Hunter stifling laughs as they walked ahead.
Gaige's POV
As we walked towards Captain Flynt I heard the older Vault Hunters talk about what he was like and how we were going to kill him.
"So Axton, you said he likes to play with fire? What do you mean by that?"
"He has a pistol called Flynt's Tinderbox, it's a fire elemental gun that hasn't got that much base power but it has a good chance to set you on fire and deal damage over time. We'd need someone crazy enough to distract him while everyone else tried to kill him. Sal, can you distract him and while we shoot him.
"Eh Axton, there might be bandits there as well, wanna set on them?"
"Umm sure. Gaige, can you stay out of this fight? You could set DT on them and direct it to help Krieg."
Looking up I nodded faintly and muttered "Sure." I was scared for this fight, as apart from Boom Bewm and Knuckle Dragger this was the first time we had taken someone on who was stronger than us.
We reached a metal gate next to a ammo vending machine when Axton told the others that he couldn't fight because of his ankle. Looking sympathetic towards him, Maya nodded, reloaded and led the others down onto the deck of the ship which had vents all over.
You could feel the heat coming from the deck of the ship. Axton sat down on the edge and motioned for me to do the same. As I was doing that Claptrap screamed into the air," COME ON OUT FLYNT! YOUR CLAPTRAP UNIT HAS RETURNED!" The tension after he said that began to thicken the air as I heard Axton mutter next to me, " Shut up you idiot robot. You're going to get someone killed..."
I then saw Flynt for the first time, jumping from the head of the ship to a platform beneath him as he screamed, "IT'S OUR NEW TORTURE DOLL BOYS! LET'S TURN UP THE HEAT!" Seeing his figure, I worried about the plan that Axton had drawn up on the walk to this place.
As the fight started, with bandits swarming the four Vault Hunters, I found myself being drawn into the fight watching as Krieg and Sal thisok out bandits and caused a distraction for the other Vault Hunters. I saw Sal draw his Tediore shotgun in addition to the Jakobs assault rifle in his right hand and start decimate bandits left and right. "Gaige, can you get Deathtrap to pick up my turrent and drop it in the middle of the fight?" Axton muttered quietly to me, already detaching his turrent's compressed form and handing it over to me. Nodding, I summoned Deathtrap and told him to, "Drop this somewhere near Flynt, and then help Sal and Krieg ok?"
As I was watching DT, Sal and Krieg fight I heard Axton yell out, the horror evident in his voice. "ZERO! MAYA! LOOK OUT FOR THE VENTS!"
Turning around, I saw the vent that Maya and Zero where standing on light up, and as they looked at Axton I saw a pillar of flames erupt from each vent. When the flames cleared, I saw the two Vault Hunters slumped on the ground, not moving and as I saw Sal get knocked back by Flynt, I saw a button in his hands that had to activate the vents. With a primal scream of "NO YOU DON'T YOU BASTARD" I picked up my Tediore SMG, firing wildly in Flynt's direction, not noticing the psycho behind hit me over the head with his buzz-saw axe, or the fact that Flynt had gone down a while ago and was now strafing everywhere and it took Sal hitting me on the back of the head, knocking me unconscious to get me go stop.
Gaige's Dream
I saw a girl who was about the same age as me walk in front of me. She had dark hair, covering one of her eyes, which were blue. She had a pale complexion but the most striking thing about her was her tattoos, which looked like Maya's only these ones were white. I had to admit, she looked hot. With a jump, I realized that this was the AI that had opened the door for us after we had killed Knuckle Dragger and Claptrap locked us out.
"Listen to me, we don't have much time. Jack plans to destroy all of the bandits on Pandora, including you and your friends. You need to find the Vault Key and stop him. I'll try my best to answer any questions you have, but please keep them short."
Shocked, my first question was, "Who are you?"
"I am a Siren called Angel, but please don't let anyone, especially any Vault Hunter know. If someone else knew Jack would kill them."
My anger surged as I asked, "So why tell me?"
"Because I know that you will help me destroy Jack's ambition to destroy the bandits of Pandora, to steal the Vault Key and d-destroy his catalyst."
"WHAT!" Why do you expect that of me?
"Goodbye Gaige."
Real life, Gaige's POV
As I woke up the first thing I heard was waves. That made no sense so I tried to sit up and open my eyes. As I opened them however, I saw Axton's worried face staring at me, relief evident as he saw me wake up. Suddenly a sharp pain made its way in her head and she winced instinctively. Noticing this, Axton looked at me with concern, not sure whether he was needed or not.
Gritting her teeth, she waited the pain out and as soon as it did, she asked the question that had been playing on her mind. "Where are we?"
"You know how we defeated Flynt?" At this I looked shocked and repulsed, remembering that I had killed Flynt in my rage. Nodding, Axton continued, "Well we boarded Claptrap's ship, thinking it would be a couple of hours until we got there, but it turns out we have to wait a good 13 hours until we get there. 13 hours with Claptrap and no way to get to land without messing up our weapons!"
"So, how long have I been out?" With this question a scowl crossed Axton's face and he said irritated, "12 hours". A loud "HA" from Gaige only furthered in annoying the commando even more.
Zero's POV
After Axton informed us that Gaige had woken up, we all let out a sigh of relief. After Maya and myself had woken up, I found myself thinking about what had happened back on The Roaring Dragon.
According to Axton and Salvador, after Gaige had been forcefully knocked out, they had made quick work of the remaining bandits. Then they had argued with Krieg about who should keep his fire tech pistol, obviously, Krieg won. Working together, Salvador and Axton had brought Gaige to the ship, making sure Krieg was in front of them so he could not grab the guns in a loot box on the way. As they had gotten Gaige to the ship however, Krieg ran back in the opposite direction, and returning with Maya over his shoulder.
After lugging me back to the ship as quickly and quietly as possible so as not to wake me, Claptrap had informed them that the road to Sanctuary was 13 hours away from the ship, eliciting a groan from the two men. An hour into the ride, I had woken up and after learning about what had happened from Axton I decided to check up on the unconscious Gaige, letting the three Vault Hunters suff- deal with Claptrap alone.
Walking back onto the deck after a while, I found the other three asleep resting on each other. Smirking, I took a picture of the three of them and saved it on the ECHOnet. This rare moment of calm amongst all the Vault Hunters provided me with a chance to reflect on my life leading up to now. My name was Frankie. I was a Specialist with the Dahl Military, serving with a man who until a month ago, I had called Sergeant Axton. On a mission to stop violent outbreaks in Promethia, we had run into the Atlas Cooperation who had set off a bomb in a nearby building, leaving me for dead. After a while, a man approached me, and nursed me back to health. Eventually he trained me as his apprentice, teaching me how to use the suit he made me to turn invisible, how to digi-struct my katana and how to become the assassin that I was today.
Suddenly I heard movement and heard Maya call out, "Where the hell am I and why do I smell like butts and dead people?"
"We're on Claptrap's ship, heading for Sanctuary. Axton, Salvador and Krieg are asleep over there, and Gaige is unconscious in the cabin over there."
"But how did we get here? Nevermind, tell me when I wake up."
"Ok"
An hour later we had landed in a (again) icy environment called Three Horns Divide. As we all jumped of the crashed boat, we saw the bridge in front of us blow up, with someone called Corporal Reiss yelling at some bandits to go home. The bandits response was to yell at the Corporal, when 3 gunshots could be heard clearly over the ECHOnet. Worried, Gaige turned to me saying,"Which one do you think got shot?" Calmly, I replied,"As long as it doesn't involve us, I don't care."
Disposing of the local bullymongs around the area, we soon came to a machine that the woman who has appeared in front of us at least twice now suddenly appeared again. She spoke about a mechanic named Scooter who had locked this machine. Looking again, I saw three plates on the ground near it, certain that this was where the cars spawned. However a problem soon arose, who was going into the bandit infested camp to pick up a single Hyperion power module? Unsurprisingly, Salvador was the first person to run off screaming towards the camp, Gaige a close second muttering that she "needed to kill something for a while and that Salvador would probably destroy the module." Naturally, after a few short minutes, Salvador and Gaige came back, laughing and hugging each other, module in hand.
Attaching it to the machine, the AI unlocked the machine not unlike the way she had opened the door back in the Southern Shelf. The machine now unlocked, it was a mad scramble to get to the machine and get the runner that they wanted. Maya got there first, smirking as she inputted the information for the three cars she wanted spawned.
A moment later, a bright pink runner, a blood red runner and an onyx coloured runner appeared on the three plates on the ground. There was a mad rush to get to the driver's seat of the runners, in which Maya, Axton and Salvador won, Maya in the pink, Axton in red and Salvador in onyx. Each runner had a mounted MG on it, providing support for the driver. Gaige ended up gunning for Salvador, Krieg for Maya and I was stuck gunning for Axton. Axton found a radio in the runner and called Maya and Salvador. "You guys ready? Hey Sal, race you to Sanctuary, winner gets the first gun the other finds ok?"
Agreement from Salvador was all Axton needed, he started to rev the engine while Gaige cried out from her position, loud enough for everyone to hear her. "ARE YOU READY? STEADY? GO!" With this Axton and Salvador mashed their feet on their respective pedals. With a cry of frustration, Maya copied their actions a second too late, as me and Axton had already jumped the ramp, followed closely by 'Team Midget' Salvador and Gaige.
Third Person's POV
Going into the cave system proved a challenge as Axton had built up enough speed to overtake Sal at the start, but he forgot about the sharp turn he had to do to get into the cave itself. Reversing the runner so that he could get through, he saw Maya and Krieg drive into the cave and as he slammed on the pedal, he let out a grunt as he quickly caught up with the Siren and the Psycho.
Sal was cackling with glee, as he had taken the lead from under Axton, and his gunning partner was taking out bullymongs with ease, looking back at the runner catching up to him as he screamed "YOU'LL NEVER CATCH UP AXTON!"
Suddenly he felt himself jolt forward as the car stopped. Looking in front of him he saw a massive pillar of ice blocking the way in the middle of two different ice paths. Cursing, he saw Axton and Zero take the path to his right, as Maya and Krieg took the path to his left.
Maya swore under her breath as Krieg let her know that Sal and Gaige were catching up in his own unique way. "STRANGE DWARF MAN AND ROBOT ARM COMING RIGHT UP!" Seeing Axton up ahead, an idea formed in her head. Quickly, she lined her car just behind Axton's car and on the built-in radio's she yelled at Sal, "COME AND RAM ME DWARF!" Hearing the curses fly out of Sal's mouth she knew her insult had worked. Seeing Sal come up behind her, she waited for Sal's car to be close enough and fast enough before she turned and reversed, letting Sal's car crash into Axton's and letting her go ahead of the pair of them.
She saw a opening ahead of her, with sunlight streaming out of it. Grinning, she told Krieg to open his ECHOmap and find Sanctuary. Before she could escape however, she was rammed on both sides, letting her know Axton and Sal had teamed up to get even with her. As the sandwich maneuver continued, the team found themselves jumping out of the cave at the same time, looking for a split second at the serene tranquility of Three Horns Divide, as they could see almost everything around them. Yelling out, Axton yelled out, "Follow me to get to Sanctuary!" Landing, the three teams of Vault Hunters followed Axton, as he took them straight to Sanctuary. Amazed, Maya asked him how he had done it without looking at a map. "I saw it as we jumped it, how else do you think I found it?" Seeing Sal and Maya's dumbfounded faces, he said, "Please tell me you two saw it as well." While this was going on, Gaige had pressed a button, and a hologram of a man wearing odd armor showed up.
"Stay out of Sanctuary you Bloodshot skagli- Oh you're Vault Hunters! Hang on, Commander Roland wanted to speak to you." Waiting a moment, Maya asked, "Does anyone know who this 'Commander Roland' is?"
"Yeah, he was a Vault Hunter 5 years ago, travelling Pandora with a Siren Lilith, someone called Mordecai and Brick. He formed the Crimson Raiders with them when they came to Sanctuary." While Maya, Axton and Gaige talked about Roland and the past of the Crimson Raiders, in another part of the road Sal, Zero and Krieg were arguing about who had won the race. "Even if we all got here at the same time amigo, I was the first on the ground.
"Regardless, none of us are in Sanctuary yet, so the contest is still on. We have to wait for this Commander Roland to grant us entry before the competition ends."
At that moment Roland came on the ECHO, saying that before he let us into Sanctuary we needed to find Corporal Reiss and bring back the power core that powered Sanctuary's shields. He left us with that and as we headed back to the runners, Gaige, Krieg and Zero sprinted towards the cars, getting in the drivers seats as they didn't get to drive before.
Grumbling, Axton, Maya and Sal climbed into the gunner seats of the cars they had driven before. As they followed the waypoint that had appeared on their minimaps, Axton noticed an ECHO device on the ground a bit ahead of them. "Zero, stop here a moment, I need to pick something up over there on the ground." As Axton picked up the ECHO device all of the Vault Hunters could hear Corporal Reiss talking into the device, obviously in pain. "Got the power core from the Bloodshots… Blew the bridge… I'm going to take cover in the Marrowfields…"
Looking at Sal, Zero asked, "Do you know where the Marrowfields are?" Looking around, the Gunzerker pointed at a collection of spikes in the ground, saying, "Over there." Walking into the area where Sal was pointing, Maya and Axton very quickly formed a plan to find Reiss.
"Ok, Maya, Sal and Zero, you go right and take out any bandits you see. Gaige, Krieg and I will go left taking out any bandits we come across ok?"
Heading left, Axton, Gaige and Krieg found three psychos beating up a figure on the ground. Roaring, Krieg charged at the biggest one, tackling him to the ground. Pulling up his Torgue shotgun, Axton fired at the other two psychos that had started running towards them. Hesitating, Gaige fired her SMG at them, killing them while Krieg was beating up the larger psycho, eventually driving his buzz-saw axe into its face blade first, killing him stone-dead. Axton bent down to the figure, trying to get his attention.
Maya, Zero and Sal found themselves near a huge structure, with a horde of bandits hiding inside. Sighing, Maya nodded to Sal who, in turn, grinned wickedly and sprinted off into the structure filled with bandits, pulling out his shotgun in addition to his Jakobs assault rifle. "Do you believe that was the correct thing to do?" Zero carefully asked. Maya replied, "I'll never forgot what the Head Monk told me right before I left the abbey. "Child you have so much left to learn" he said. I imagine he would have continued speaking, had I not pulled the trigger." Nodding, Zero ran off to find some bandits to decimate, Maya following him a second behind.
When she caught up to him, she saw a badass marauder approach them, "Hello Badass." Zero said, just before sprinting towards the badass while Maya sprinted into cover, firing bursts at the badass with her fire Maliwan SMG, reducing its shield. Maya watched in amazement as the marauder swiped at Zero, who disappeared. Suddenly, blood spurted from the marauders back, as Zero's katana emerged from thin air buried in the badass's back, a second before Zero who jumped over it, pulling out his pistol and as he landed, he said "As my ex-sergeant would say, AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!" Zero then pulled the trigger, letting the bullet embed itself in the bandits head.
Maya then saw something drop from above them. Looking up, she saw Sal killing bandits left and right, laughing manically. Looking at the object, she realized that it was the power core that they needed for Sanctuary. Frowning, she ECHO'd Axton, as she picked up the power core.
"Yeah?"
"Axton, how do we have the power core over here? Isn't supposed to be with Reiss?"
"Reiss is dead. Some psychos were beating him up when we got here, we killed them all but it was too late."
"Reiss is dead? Does R-"
"Roland know? Yeah, he wants us to return. We're at the runners, waiting for you lot."
"We're coming now, let me grab Sal."
A little over an hour later, Axton recognized Maya's group walking towards the runners. Grumbling, he yelled out, "What took you so long? It's been an hour."
"Sorry, Sal didn't want to leave."
As they got into the cars and headed back, Axton thought back to whenever he lost someone on a mission back when he was in the military and of course, Sarah. Gaige thought back to memories of her dad, still living on EDEN-5. Maya thought back to when she lived with the Order of the Impending Storm, and how she killed their leader, Brother Sophis. Sal thought of his village Ovejas, and of his beloved abuela. Zero thought of her time with her mentor, and with the Dahl military before the bomb and as they got to Sanctuary's gate, Krieg thought of nothing but of meat bicycles.
A/N: DONE! Sorry about the delay but I was with my brother at USC Santa Pod which is a HUGE car show! So anyway, thank you to all my reviewers and anyone who favorite or is following this story! Next chapter will be in Sanctuary, and will finally be in Kriegs POV!
-Avid Reader