The following morning, Maya and Axton were in Tannis' apartment, waiting semi-patiently as Tannis turned the wing over and over in her hands. Axton coughed deliberately as they had been watching her turn it over and over for going on five minutes. Maya ran an elbow into his side and gave him a nasty glare in response.
"Um", Axton said aloud at last with a cough, "do you have an … opinion or are we just … wasting our time?"
Tannis casually picked up an empty can of skag and beans and threw it at him without looking at him like it was the most natural thing in the world. She got him right in the forehead.
He closed his eyes and sighed, holding back the desire to walk over and punch her in the face.
She then lifted the wing up to her nose and sniffed it, before opening her mouth and running her tongue over the entirety of the vault symbol. The two vault hunters watched all of this with their mouths slightly parted, in disbelief.
"This came from a stalker", Tannis proudly announced after she licked her chops.
Axton stood up from the stool he was sitting in, pushing it back towards her table. He then raised his hands and visibly washed them of the situation before he turned to leave.
"What are you doing?" Maya asked him.
"Dude", Axton stopped and answered, "she's licking dead flesh and stating the obvious. What are we doing taking advice from a crazy woman, anyway? I'm outie."
"If you would let me finish, simpleton," yelled Tannis, "what I mean to say is that this symbol was on the stalker naturally. It is not inked like a tattoo or scar tissue like a brand."
"I told you", Maya said to Axton before looking back to Tannis.
"So, why is it there?" she asked. "Do you know what it means?"
"Using process of elimination and my own personal genius, I have deciphered many eridian tablets and glyphs", Tannis explained. "I have determined that there is something vitally important in the highlands."
"I call bull****", said Axton, raising his right hand. "The five of us have been over every square inch of the highlands. There is nothing but stalkers, threshers and rocks."
"Don't forget throw-up and ****", muttered Maya.
"Oh, that's right", Axton remembered. "Throw-up and ****. There's a lot of throw-up and ****."
"Fool!" shouted Tannis as she flung a pot at his head that he just barely managed to dodge. "There is something else there; water and humidity! Most of Pandora's climate is remarkably dry, yes? It's either hot or dry! It hasn't actually rained for one hundred and fifty years!"
"Well, there is Aegrus", Maya said, biting one of her nails in thought, "but they have drifters and spores."
"Ohhh, I friggin' hate those things", Axton admitted.
"Which ones?" Maya asked. "Drifters or spores?"
"Both!" said Axton.
"Yes", Tannis continued, "I've heard of this remarkable Aegrus but the continent is one giant cave. Most of Pandora's resources, water included, are from underground reserves. The same could be said of most eridian artifacts and civilization remnants. Yet, the highland has rivers, lakes, streams, and an ocean. Frankly, I'm not surprised nobody else has thought of it as everybody else who isn't me are idiots and all Hyperion cared about was waking the warrior."
Axton and Maya watched uncomfortably as Tannis struggled to pull a stone eridian tablet from beneath her kitchen table and drop it on top, knocking some pots to the floor.
"According to the texts", Tannis told them, "all of Pandora was the highlands many years ago. Yet some event, which as far I know, was the emergence of the Destroyer, wiped out the eridians and left Pandora a mostly barren wasteland except for the highlands. Why?"
"Okay", Axton said after a pause, "I'll bite. Why?"
"Well", Tannis said, fidgeting, "I've actually never been there. I was hoping you could give me a clue."
"My God", Axton sighed, rubbing his nose.
"Well, there's only one thing to do", Tannis said. "We have to go to the highlands."
"There's nothing there", Axton protested.
"Ah, you brutish man", she quipped with a shake of her head. "There's nothing on land, but have you been in the water?"
Axton actually stopped in his tracks and Maya was at a loss for words. They hadn't even thought to go aquatic because everything they had ever done had revolved around Handsome Jack, Terramorphus or the sand pirates. All of that had been on dry land; the highlands just happened to be on the way. The thought of the place having any real significance seemed so out of left field to them, it was crazy.
"I've read of some aquatic beasts called Raskillions", she continued. "From what I've gathered, from ingesting stalker meat brought in from the highlands, they suspiciously resemble the raskillions from ancient time. It wouldn't be farfetched to say that the raskillions evolved to live on dry land and become today's stalkers."
"So the stalkers used to be fish?" asked Axton.
"Probably more like sharks", suggested Maya with a shrug.
"You have to admit", Tannis continued, "the whole scenario is intriguing. Eridians preferred dark, cavernous regions to hide their secrets. Why wouldn't they go underwater where there is no sun? The highlands are special somehow. Someone will find out how eventually. I would like that to be me."
"So", said Axton, "have you heard of any underwater vaults?"
"Nothing specifically", she answered, "but there is something there. I've seen the area mentioned too much on tablets to be just a fluke coincidence."
"That's good enough for me", Axton said. "I like a little mystery anyway. I'm just always a disappointed by endings, you know?"
"We have to get properly geared up", said Maya. "We have to get the others involved and we have to be very quiet about it. Lilith can't find out about it. None of the crimson raiders can. She'll have a hissy fit."
"I've always wanted to see two sirens fight", commented Axton.
"You're not leaving me", said Tannis.
"You're coming?" asked Maya.
"I was the first to discover the vault key, dammit", said Tannis. "I deciphered the texts and I'm the smartest being on this damned planet. I've opened the vaults and yet each time, some violent pest snatched it from me. No more. This time, I will be the one to make the discovery and reap the rewards."
"All riiight, Dr. Tannis!" wailed Axton, with a whistle. She actually smiled in response.
"Okay, guys", said Maya. "Let's do this right. Where're the others?"
.
"Grab your best gear, slab!" Brick yelled at Gaige through her Echo communicator. "I want you to really bring it today!"
Gaige lifted her Tediore Bunny rocket launcher from her storage deck, cradling it in her arms before strapping it on her back. She was going to help Brick assault the Hyperion outpost in the Highlands. Of course, they couldn't tell Lilith or she would have a siren's fit and kill them all. She didn't want to risk letting the others know either for fear of it getting back to her.
"I always bring it", she assured him.
Claptrap slid into- or rather hovered into the room, leaving a slipstream trail like Gaige's own Deathtrap.
"So do I, minion!" he yelled, holding small balls of constructed, stable electricity just above his metallic palms. "So do IIIIIII!"
Reintroduction Alert
Claptrap as the new, improved murder machine: You thought he was annoying before? Now he can climb stairs.
Salvador watched in peaking interest as Claptrap and Gaige tried to sneak out of the apartments and head towards Sanctuary's Fast Travel Station. It's hard to be a ninja when you're sloshing loudly through puddles.
"Hey, you!" yelled out Salvador, catching Gaige's eye, who looked at him like a child who had been caught trying to snatch a cookie by a parent.
"Run, Claptrap, run!" shouted Gaige as she tried to break out into a sprint.
"Whaaaaaa!" wailed Claptrap, frantically waving his arms as he hovered towards the Fast Travel Station.
Gaige managed to slip facefirst into a nearby pool of water with her legs flying backwards in the air. She had never been an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. Salvador easily scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her stomach and lifted her up in the air.
"Let me go, you Truxican steroid-junkie!" shouted Gaige.
"Now, it isn't nice to call names", whispered Salvador in his thick accent as he put a large hand over her mouth. "I'm not here to stop you. I want in."
"Oh", she said when he removed his hand. "Well, let's stick this knife in the heart of the empire."
.
Mordecai and Zer0 were at a safe distance from the Hyperion camp, surveying the scene through zoomed binoculars and sniper scopes. Constructors were rapidly manufacturing loaders to move large pallets of boxes, girders and eridium batteries onto large Hyperion transport ships. Nothing was really out of the ordinary. They were just redeploying, just like the crimson raider intel said.
"You seeing this, Lil'?" Mordecai asked over his communicator.
"Yeah", she said, watching it from the visual gained from his Echo at the HQ Command Center. "Stay alert, guys. These guys have given me every reason to not trust them."
"I know", said Mordecai. He looked over at Zer0, who had moved out a distance from Mordecai and faced away from the outpost. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"The wind switched her tune", he said, "so suddenly as if running; from death's grip itself."
"What?" Mordecai asked. "You can feel the wind through your suit?"
Suddenly, a digital hologram appeared before them. Gradually, it solidified into a thin, solid man.
"Blake", said Mordecai, recognizing him instantly.
"That's President Jeffrey Blake to you", he said, relaxing his hands behind his back and standing tall in a long, red-and-black, pinstripe suit.
Reintroduction Alert
Mr. Jeffrey Blake as Acting Hyperion President: Tired of Hyperion, yet? Too bad.
"So you're the new dictator, huh?" asked Mordecai.
"This man sounds evil", said Zer0, stepping towards them. "Who wears a suit here, ever? Let me shoot his face."
"Not yet", said Mordecai, placing a hand on Zer0's shoulder. "He hasn't broken the ceasefire."
"A ceasefire that I intend to uphold", Blake hastily replied, "granted that you can keep the Crimson Raiders from pointing those itchy trigger fingers of theirs at us. See, you were always wrong about Hyperion. Hyperion isn't some evil empire. We create jobs across worlds. We sustain life everywhere we go. We just make things … better."
"Yeah, right", answered Mordecai. "Tell that to the slag-sick humans and animals Hyperion ruthlessly experimented on when you built the Preserve."
"Ahhh", Blake said, catching himself. "That was Jack's doing."
"Of course you blame Jack", Mordecai countered, "but you let it happen. Hyperion nearly destroyed everything here. Pandora may not be much to you but good people can live here without some kind of corporation watching over them and making things worse. You're lucky that you're leaving because if you weren't, we'd kick your sorry asses all the way back to your homeworld."
"Hmm", hummed Blake, rubbing his chin as he thought this over. "I might have deserved that, I admit."
"What you deserve, friend", said Zer0, "involves a badass fire skag; and you with one round."
"I grow weary of this place, anyway", lamented Blake. "Every meter we dig into Pandora brings us nothing but pain at the hands of you vault hunters and these forsaken beasts. We've made our profit here, I believe, but now it's starting to cost too much. It's time to cut our losses and leave. I assure you that as long as you keep your half of the truce, you not see us unless you seek us out."
Blake offered his hand to Mordecai as a show of peace. Mordecai reluctantly took it.
"But if you should break that truce", Blake continued, "we will descend upon Sanctuary with the armies of two worlds. You will be crushed beneath our weight before we even fire one shot."
Mordecai stared into the man's eyes as Blake released his grasp; he shot Mordecai a stern look that showed that he was being quite frank.
"What's that sound?" asked Zer0 as he heard some flapping in the distance. A red question mark appeared before his facemask. The three of them turned towards the sound. Black spots quickly closed the distance to the redeployment camp.
"Dammit", mumbled Mordecai when they got closer and he saw that they were bandit buzzards. There was an aerial formation of about twenty of them. The one in the middle was around three times the size of the others.
"Hey, Mordy!" Brick greeted Mordecai, through his Echo comms. "How do you like my buzzard formation?"
"It looks like ****!" shouted Mordecai.
"Is that Brick?" asked Blake.
"What are you doing here?" Mordecai asked Brick, blatantly ignoring Blake at that moment of time.
"Kicking some Hyperion ass, of course!" he answered. "Also, I'm stealing their tech!"
"Hmm", hummed Blake again. "I don't know if I could uphold our ceasefire if your vault hunters attack us."
"What?" asked Mordecai, taken aback. "You mean Brick? He's only an associate now! A bandit now; king of the Slab clan!"
As the buzzards closed in on the Hyperion camp, Salvador parachuted down from one of them as he rained down caustic fire from two assault rifles, simultaneously smoking a cigar. He dropped six loaders in about that many seconds as they were lifting equipment.
"He isn't one of yours?" asked Blake.
"Um", hummed Mordecai, searching for an answer, "he's a loose cannon. He has to shoot something or he'll have a heart attack or something."
Meanwhile, Deathtrap descended to the ground with Gaige on his left shoulder.
"Hey, you Hyperion fascists!" she shouted down at them as she bit the pin out of one of her Mirv grenades and flung it down at a fleeing group of engineers.
"Oh crap!" yelled one of them. "It's that crazy bitch again!" Stray metal shrapnel vaulted right through the man's back and legs, taking him to the ground.
"I have a Teapot with your names all over it!" she yelled, "and I'm not reloading it until I absolutely have to! Death to all empire scuuum!" She was referring to her Anarchy device which vastly increased the damage of her ammunition as it decreased her accuracy as long as she waited until she expended her entire magazine before reloading.
Deathtrap, her death-dealing robot, hovered down to a group and demolished them with beams of fire, drawing horrific screams of agony.
"Tsk tsk", Blake said to Mordecai, as he began to walk away from the pair. "Get this under control or our response will be severe."
With that, Blake digitized and disappeared.
"Goddammit, Brick!" Mordecai yelled at him over Echo, raising his sniper rifle up at the largest buzzard. "Call this off or I'm shooting down your buzzards."
"You can't shoot down this buzzard!" said Brick from the command hub of the largest buzzard ever scrapped together. "This is THE Ultimate Badass Buzzard! State of the art in slab flight vehicles! It takes three of my best pilots to fly it!"
From his position over the pilot seats, he looked down at those pilots. One of them looked back at him for a second and exchanged a thumbs up sign with him.
"You idiot!" yelled Mordecai. "That piece of crap wouldn't stand up to Hyperion's ships! You're screwed if they bring out their big guns!"
The Ultimate Badass Buzzard demolished a solitary Constructor with three well-placed rockets.
"You take that back, Mordy!" shouted Brick.
"Stand down, Brick", chimed in Lilith over Echo, "or I will teleport there and personally kick your ass!"
.
Bandits of all types began to parachute down from the buzzards: psychos, midgets, nomads, goliath, and bruisers. They descended upon the helpless Hyperion workers, security teams and loaders like a horde of cannibalistic rapist thugs. Oh yeah; they were a horde of cannibalistic rapist thugs.
"Don't you get it?" asked Brick. "I'm sending a message to all of these corporations! This is what happens when you come to Pandora and think we're just treasure to plunder! Either Hyperion leaves behind all of their tech or I will never stop until they're all dead!"
Claptrap suddenly flew through the air and into the fray.
"I'm back for revenge, you creator scum!" he yelled. "Viva la Robolution!"
"Good thing Blake wasn't here for that", commented Lilith.
A porthole opened on the back of Claptrap's head that released a third arm that extended above his robotic form. This arm hurled a ball of slag through the air that splattered all over the primary that was developing loaders. A group of bandits took advantage of this and went to fully dismantle it.
"Error Error Error", the constructor bellowed out in its deep, robotic voice as it died down.
.
Gaige ran across the battlefield, shooting the arms off of loaders left and right, as well as shooting down flying surveyor drones with her caustic Teapot pistol with Deathtrap following close behind as always.
"I'm the most dangerous girl alive!" she exclaimed as she melted the eye of a badass loader, causing it to blow up.
"Oh, you're wroooooong, sissy!" cooed a familiar voice over the Echonet. "Sooo wrong!"
"Um, Brick", asked Lilith from her command hub. "Did you seriously bring Tiny Tina?"
"Hell yes!" answered Brick. "What did you want me to do? Leave her?"
"Uhhhh … yes!"
Tina was solo-piloting a buzzard that was moving a lot slower than the others due to the sheer amount of colorful, homemade explosives attached to its exterior.
"Don't you know, Hyperion", she yelled over Echo, "you mess with my big sissy, you will be DISARMING A BOMB WITH YOUR FACES?!"
Reintroduction Alert
Tiny Tina as the Tyke Bomb who makes Bombs: You see what happens when you teach Honey Boo-Boo Child how to make a bomb?!
Tina swept over a large area of loaders, dropping a healthy amount of pink bunny and technological murder in her wake.
"Bomb bomb bomb!" Tina sang as she swung her buzzard around in a U-turn. "Bomb bomba bomb-bomb! Bomb bomb bomb! Bomb bomb-ba bomb bomb! Bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb! Bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb! Hey, guys; how do you like my bomb song?! I think it'll be a number one hit! Sir Reginald says it's uncivilized! Don't you dare tell him I'm singing it!"
.
Hyperion security weren't prepared to go against the bandits. Those transports that had already picked up valuable materials took off without taking any more personnel and tried to escape the buzzards. Some of them even made it.
One of the security teams in particular weren't doing so hot. They were disorganized as most engineer units were, getting demolished by a single caustic goliath. He was soaking up their shots and chopping up whomever he could get his hands on with two nasty, triple-toothed blades he carried in his hands. Those who fell in range of his face felt the agonizing disintegration of his acidic puke, making them wish that he did chop them up with his blades.
"Don't run!" said the goliath in a dopey voice as he easily took the head off of an engineer turned away from him with a side swipe.
The group tried to retreat from him untactfully and when one of them ran, he fired his gun backwards over his left shoulder. A couple of stray rounds managed to glance off the goliath's mask, simply bouncing off at first before one actually knocked the goliath's mask off. This mask, of course, was the only thing keeping the brute's strange mutation in check.
"Goddamn you", said the mutated brute's head and spinal column painfully extended much more than it should, four feet above his shoulders. "GODDAMN YOU!"
He dropped the blades and leapt in the air after the fleeing security team, landing right on top of and smashing a straggling team member. He then caught another passing by him in his arms. As the man made futile attempts to slip out of the goliath's grasp, the beast looked down on him from high stalky neck and puked a torrent of acid down on the team member. The man screamed in horror for a few seconds before most of his head simply melted off.
The goliath flung his remains aside before he leapt into the air again and brought his fists down on another security personnel, smashing him. Each kill made him grow taller, wider, more potent and aggressive. He continued running around the battlefield, seeking out more kills.
.
"You don't know what you're doing, Brick", Mordecai tried to reason. "Hyperion isn't going to go straight after us! They're going to hit civilians first! What about them, man?"
Brick deliberately ignored that and had the Ultimate Badass Buzzard descend to the ground slowly as he turned his Echo communicator off. Mordecai and Lilith were growing annoying to him.
"Hyperion's basically done for, boys!" he said to his pilots. "I'm going down to claim our spoils. I'm proud to call you slabs."
"We love you, king!" one of his pilots called back.
"That brings a tear to my eye", Brick said as he wiped a single eye. He then hopped off the side of the buzzard in a crouching position to absorb the small drop.
He turned and began to jog towards the Construction Center, taking his spiked sledgehammer off of his back. It was the only weapon he still used. It previously belonged to the former king of the united bandit clans, Sledge. Sledge didn't think Brick stood a chance against him but he was proven so wrong when Brick beat him to death with his bare fists and scattered the clan into splintered factions. Nobody thought Brick would ever become the leader of his own bandit clan. Now that he was, he wondered how powerful the clans would be reunified under his rule.
He happened across a few engineers, whom were shooting down slabs until he swung his hammer upwards and knocked one of them upwards in the air. He swung across the back of the head of another engineer, obliterating his skull. He then punched another in the face with his bare hands with the force that comparable to getting hit by a runner; that man's entire contents in his head went flying out of the back of it, his body bent completely backwards and went skidding against the ground fifteen feet away. He pushed on, destroying every enemy in his way in similar fashion as he rallied a group of slabs to follow him into the Construction Center.
.
Mordecai watched this from afar and attempted to track Brick with his sniper scope but decided he didn't want to clip his close friend from a distance so he settled for taking out some of the slabs that followed him. Some of them attempted to return fire but they didn't know what they were shooting at so they missed him by a good fifty meters. He saw Brick enter the Construction Center after smashing the control panel.
"Take out as many as you can", Mordecai told Zer0. "I'm going to have a little chat with my old friend."
"Gh0sting", said Zer0, nodding as he activated his Decepti0n, becoming transparent in the process.
Mordecai picked up and began sprint across the field.
.
Salvador was killing in one direction, when he noticed the advanced caustic goliath spraying acid over slabs and engineers alike a ways behind him. He grew irritated at this and turned to fire on the hulking beast. At this point, the goliath was twice the size of Brick in height, width and even more than twice his weight.
"YOU BETTER GODDAMN SCREAM FOR ME!" he shouted as he lunged twenty feet in the air for Salvador. Sal managed to jump and roll out of the way as the monster slammed his fists straight into the ground where he just was.
"I'M GOING TO MAKE IT SLOW FOR THAT, BITCH!" screamed the monster as he turned towards Salvador.
Salvador hocked some spit off to the side and threw his guns aside.
"OK", he said, taking out a twelve-inch blade from a sheath on his right boot. "Let's make this interesting, eh?" He crouched into a stable position, reading the blade in front of him.
The monster made a dead sprint for him that made loud thuds on the ground from his steps but Salvador rolled off to the side of the beast. As he rolled past him, he expertly sliced into the monster's right ankle tendon with the blade. As big as the goliath was, it made it hard for it to change directions and Salvador had fought enough of them to know this. He just made him that much more immobile.
"YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT IN BLOOD!" shouted the goliath as he ran for Salvador again, this time puking out a stream of acid straight ahead.
Salvador responded by rolling out of the way just a bit earlier to avoid the acid and the goliath altogether. As the goliath passed him, he flung the blade at the back of the goliath's ankle. It hit the exact same spot as before and embedded itself to the ankle bone, severing the tendon. The goliath yelled out and fell forward on its hands and knees. Salvador ran forward and yanked his knife out of its leg. He stabbed the knife into the meat of the goliath's buttocks to climb atop of its body. He yanked the blade again and ran up the length of the of the goliath back until he got to his neck and stabbed the goliath in his right trapezius, dragging it around to separate the muscle. The goliath yelled out, stood up and frantically tried to shake Salvador off of him.
"I'LL REND YOUR INTESTINES!" shouted the goliath, frantically reaching back for him.
He couldn't because Salvador was holding onto a knife that was impaled in the goliath and his arms were too massive to maneuver to reach him. Salvador reached and grabbed the goliath by his extended spinal column and squeezing it in one hand, temporarily paralyzing the goliath and freezing it in its tracks. Salvador took the knife out of its shoulder and began sawing through the tough nerve, causing the monster to spasm violently. After a few seconds, he detached the goliath's head and extended nerve before sliding down his back and landing on his feet. The goliath stood on its feet for a few seconds before falling on the ground dead. As the body's organs began to shut down, the powerful acids inside began to eat and dissolve the rest of its body rapidly.
Salvador looked at the bloody skull with the corded nerve attached in his hands for a second before hurling it away. He stuck his knife back in its sheath on his ankle and walked off to grab the guns he dropped. That was one of the best kills that he's ever had.
.
"Can you stop following me, please?" Gaige begged Tina as she moved towards the Construction Center. Claptrap and Deathtrap were off killing some loaders.
"No way!" said Tina as her buzzard crept slowly in the air behind Gaige. "You're my sissy and sissies stick together 'til the end! Ride or die! Homies for Life!"
"You're not my sissy", said Gaige. "You've never been my sissy. Go away."
Tina laughed this off.
"You so funny", she said.
.
As Claptrap was firing his rocket cannons at a badass loader, Zer0 appeared from his Decepti0n and sliced him nearly in half with his sword in a forty-five degree upwards swipe. He cut him off from his hover cell, leaving him immobile on the ground. Fortunately, Zer0 also sliced through the badass loader, so he didn't just leave him to be destroyed.
"Not again!" Claptrap whined, looking up at the sky. "Minion, you're under arrest for being a traitorous turncoat! If you prop me up so I can keep killing, all will be forgiven! If not, suffer my wrath! I'll give you three seconds! 1 … 2 … 3! Okay, you asked for it! Mechromancer, help!"
"What?" asked an annoyed Gaige. She turned around just in time to see Deathtrap release a death grunt as Zer0 sliced him cleanly in half, digitizing him back to her claw for recharge.
"Nononononononono!" shouted Gaige as she ran towards Zer0, stumbling a bit on the way. "What are you doing, you bastard? You're supposed to be on our side!"
She fought back tears as she fired several caustic rounds right through Zer0's chest. It turned out to be a Decepti0n clone.
"My apologies, sweet angel", whispered Zer0 into Gaige's ear as he reappeared behind her and put her in a rear naked choke. Gaige struggled in Zer0's grasp for a few seconds but she quickly passed out. He then dragged her over to some badass loader remains and left her beneath them for protection.
That was when Tiny Tina's buzzard locked in on Zer0, who turned to look up at her.
"What do I spy with my main eye?" she asked over Echo. "A backstabbing vault hunter who's gonna die for hurting my sissy!"
She fired five rockets at Zer0, who turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. He zigzagged to escape them one by one. He pulled a Dahl shock sniper rifle from his storage deck. He turned and leapt backwards, firing four rapid-fire, accurate shots into Tina's right turbine engine, causing it to explode forcefully.
"Gah!" shouted Tina as her buzzard took a violent dip to her left. She jerked the controls to the right in an attempt to steady it. The buzzard error alarm started blaring.
"Error! Error! Error!" shouted an automated voice from the control's speakers as spark began to shoot out from the boards, threatening to burn Tina's hands.
"This buzzard's going to crash, you idiot!" shouted the bandits' pre-recorded message. "BAIL!"
"Gah!" shouted Tina again as she looked over the side of the buzzard for a place to jump. She was too low to parachute down so she just jumped. Unfortunately, she landed horribly on one leg and cried out in pain as she rolled to the ground. She dragged herself away as her buzzard crashed to the ground a ways off from her and exploded multiple times.
.
At some point, the fighting began coming to an end. Hyperion's abandoned forces were nearly wiped out; they had retreated to the Construction Center Complex but Brick's slabs followed. More buzzards landed outside the complex and slabs deployed to shoot and kill any wounded Hyperion personnel they found and loot the bodies.
Brick led a gathering of his slabs through the Hyperion complex halls. They passed one corridor that held a hidden Constructor robot in the corner that activated upon seeing them.
"D3pl0ying M1ss1l3s", it said in its usual digitized voice.
Brick answered by hurling his hammer at it and smashing its giant red eye. He then looked over to their immediate left and saw a large, thirty-foot tall sealed double-door labeled with the Hyperion logo. It looked quite interesting to Brick.
"Get that door opened, slabs", he commanded his men as went to grab his hammer from the destroyed constructor bot.
"I got it!" called a marauder slab.
That marauder, who used to be a Crimson Lance engineer and happened to be a tech genius, stepped to the lock panel and configured his wrist-mounted Tech Moderator to rapidly scan the door's code and narrow down its possible combinations at an accelerated rate. It simulated inputting them all without actually inputting them until he found the correct one. He input the final code into the door and watched as the doors began to divide.
.
Mordecai entered the Construction Complex and checked his corners, trying to avoid getting sneak-killed due to the halls being so huge. He heard gunfire and screaming in the distance so he began to sprint towards them.
.
"Please!" pleaded a female researcher as she was physically struggling against some slabs in the Command Hub room that Brick just had opened. "We were trying to leave! We didn't do anything!"
They had already gunned down all of the men and took hold of the women, lifting them up over their shoulders.
"Load the women onto the buzzards!" Brick ordered. "Take everything that isn't bolted down! Shoot everything that is!"
They proceeded to do exactly that.
Salvador leaned into corner of the room, smoking a cigar. He honestly didn't care either way but he was not going to take part in it.
"Brick!" shouted Mordecai as he entered the room with his sniper rifle trained on him. "Stop this now!"
A bandit to Mordecai's immediate right tried to yank his sniper rifle from his grasp but he wrenched it up and hit the bandit in the face with it, knocking him to the ground. Another bandit shot him but his shield absorbed it and he responded with a quick, close-range round to that bandit's head. Yet another attempted to hack at Mordecai with his machete. Mordecai backed away, deflected his powerful chops with his rifle until he just managed to unsheathe his own foot-long, jagged short sword; he spun backwards in a one hundred and eighty-degree turn and slashed the bandit across the throat, backhanded. The bandit fell over onto his side, trying in vain to clutch his gushing neck.
"Enough, slabs!" yelled Brick as he motioned them all to stay back. They watched him uneasily as he walked across the room to Mordecai.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" asked Mordecai directly to Brick's face. "You just voided the ceasefire! Now, you're kidnapping women! What the hell's wrong with you?"
"Hyperion drew first blood against us", Brick answered. "They nearly killed us and now that they're bleeding, you want to let them off easy? Screw that. I say my slabs deserve a little reward for all of their hard work."
Most of the slabs in the room chuckled in response.
"And you?" Mordecai asked Salvador.
"Man, I don't care about them", answered Salvador, referring to the women. "They're Hyperion. Blood, guts, sex and treasure; screw everything else."
"Wow", said a stunned Mordecai. "I guess morality and human decency doesn't come in at all, huh?"
Salvador laughed at this and exhaled cigar smoke from his nose.
"See, I see you off-worlders come and go", he said. "Just when I think you get it, you prove me wrong. I was born and shaped here. Morality? Decency? Pandora will eat anyone who has it. Hyperion learned this the hard way. After all this time, it seems you still have to learn it."
Lilith appeared in the room suddenly with a siren's telltale purple glow, fiery wings and all. She had heard enough.
"You're done here, Brick", Lilith told him.
"You don't tell me what to do anymore", Brick said to Mordecai and Lilith, approaching the two of them.
"I'm not trying to control your life, Brick", Lilith said. "Though I do wonder about your choices; this, for example, is just wrong."
"How many did we kill before we opened the first vault, huh?" asked Brick. "What makes their lives more valuable? They're not innocent! They're Hyperion!"
Mordecai took out his knife and hurled it at Brick's face. He threw it in such a way that the blunt handle hit right in the temple. He actually plummeted to the ground, dazed, leaving his slabs in shock. They had never seen anybody topple their king like that.
Mordecai quickly ran over and put his boot on Brick's chest to push him down before putting his rifle to Brick's head and loading a round into the chamber.
A few bandits raised their guns to shoot both Mordecai and Lilith but Lilith's power flared, launching her blight phoenix wings upwards until they reached the thirty-foot ceiling in an awesome display.
"Stand down, slabs", she commanded. "This is just a friendly conversation between old friends. No need for everybody to burn."
Brick laughed at Mordecai.
"Really?" Brick asked. "You're gonna shoot me, Mordy? After all the times I saved your life?"
"That road runs both ways", answered Mordecai.
"I've definitely saved both of your lives countless times", chimed in Lilith.
Nobody said anything about that for a second.
"You're right", she said, clearing her throat. "Go on."
"No slab, including you, will step foot on Sanctuary", Mordecai said down to him. "Anybody who does, will be shot."
"You're tryin' to ban me?" Brick asked with a chuckle. "You're not Roland."
"Yeah, you're right", Lilith cut in. "Roland would've killed you for pulling this crap. Seriously, Brick, what's gotten into you?"
Brick didn't say anything for a long time.
"We're done", he finally said, defiantly. "So, what's the deal?"
Lilith sighed.
"Okay", she said. "If that's the way you want to play it, Brick; you can have all the tech you want but not the women. They're coming with us until we can get in contact with Hyperion and get them home."
"Fine", Brick agreed.
"King!" protested one of the bandits.
"Let them go!" ordered Brick. "They can have the girls!"
Mordecai backed off of Brick, who pushed himself to his feet and stared down Mordecai.
"Come on, ladies", said Lilith to about a dozen female researchers and technicians. "We're gonna get you home."
"Thank you", one of them said, bowing at the waist towards Lilith as she led them from the building. Another turned and gave the slabs the finger.
Salvador nonchalantly watched all of this as he smoked his cigar down to nub. He put it out on the back of his wrist and flicked it to the floor. He then began to follow them.
Brick and Mordecai shared one last glare before Mordecai walked away.
"What are you waiting for?" Brick asked his slabs. "Let's get this tech on the buzzards!"
.
Some hours later, Lilith had the vault hunters gathered in her Sanctuary command room at Crimson Raiders HQ.
"Before we start", she said, "we have to do something first."
She walked over to Salvador and Gaige.
"Both of you from here on out are not Crimson Raiders", she said. "You will have no input here, you will not be allowed back inside this building; you're lucky I'm letting you stay in Sanctuary."
"Can I say something?" asked Gaige.
"No", was Lilith's immediate response. She walked away from them back to her place at the table. "Don't make me make you leave", she said when they didn't immediately leave.
Gaige looked at Salvador, who simply shrugged and gently pushed her towards the door. They quietly left.
"Now we can begin", said Lilith after a sigh of relief.
.
The five vault hunters met up later at a booth in Moxxi's. They drunk their beers in silence except for Zer0, who was playing a game on his digipad tablet and Gaige, who was doing shots of liquor made from stinging cacti called Zapper.
"What a day, huh?" offered Axton. "First, it rains; then that happened. It got out of hand, huh?"
Gaige didn't say anything. She wasn't actually seated in a seat but was sitting up on the back of the booth seat, above with them with her boots between Salvador and Maya. She just stared at Zer0 and slowly drained her Zapper shot. Though she winced from its strong taste, she tried to hide it to look cooler.
"Come on!" said annoyed Maya. "Will you two just talk about it already?"
"Zer0", Gaige said to him, making him look up from his game, "what you did to Deathtrap and me was unforgiveable, meaning that I will never forgive you."
Three red Z's displayed in front of Zer0's mask.
"You better not ever sleep, ************", she calmly said as she poured herself another shot and drained it with a hard wince.
"I think you better put that down", Salvador said, reaching for the bottle and shot glass. Gaige flinched away from him.
"Okay", said Maya. "Stop it. I know we're all feeling down right now but I think I have something that'll cheer us up. Tannis thinks there might be another vault here on Pandora."
"Where?" asked Salvador, sitting up.
"The highlands", answered Maya.
Salvador sat back again, waving that off and taking a gulp of his beer.
"See, that what I thought", said Axton. "Until she brought up that there could be underwater vaults."
Zer0, Gaige and Salvador all stopped and looked at Axton.
"So", Axton said with a cocky smile, "you all in?"
"Are we telling Lilith?" asked Gaige.
"Definitely not", said Maya.
"Then hell's yeah!" answered Gaige.
That was how the vault hunters discovered their new purpose.