So…this is kinda like the second part to the whole "raiding the Armoury" plot thread. I'll probably be introducing some more characters in order to build up to the Vault, and knowledge on it, because that's what this story is about. After they get the weapons, they will also get a new shield. And then it will go on to fully tackling the Vault itself.

Chapter Four: Rising Shot

The Siren suggested that she drive, because she knew her way around, and where the Deep Fathoms area was. Matt approved, and stepped into the Gunner seat. Once the vehicle began moving, he started to keep a fair eye out for potential enemies.

Gemini soldiers were likely to be patrolling the area. And they were definitely well-armed, especially when compared to the Crimson Raiders. And he certainly did not want to fight any of their hired mercenaries, fighters or indeed Vault Hunters too. Some of those Vault Hunters he knew him when he was at Gemini, but half of them likely saw him as a traitor now. If Aurora was someone to go by, mainly.

She was another one of those Vault Hunters that she'd met. They used to be friends, quite good ones at that. However, as Axton had proved, if you make a simple action with serious implications, people close to you were likely to see you as an enemy. Seeing her would probably serve as a distraction: one Matt could not afford for.

Lilith drove over the bridge, approaching the old Crimson Lance outpost. She informed Matt that they were fairly close, before swearing upon noticing a few soldiers guarding the outpost just before the red light bridge. They jumped out of their vehicle, citing that their Runner gun was not accurate enough to face off against all of the soldiers.

'Gemini soldiers!' Matt warned. 'They're armoured!' He switched to his Hornet, and Lilith switched to her unique Defiler. They began firing, seeing no need to use anything other than a good pistol.

'It's the traitor!' Shrieked one of the soldiers, moments before Matt shot him in the head and burned a hole right through him. Lilith entered Phasewalk, disappearing in a purple flash.

'He's with a Siren dammit!' Announced another one of them.

'Sup,' Lilith replied, upon exiting her Phasewalk and blowing a few of them up into a million pieces. Another soldier sneaked up behind her, and was about to knock her out with his AR, before Matt shot him in the head. The soldier slumped to the ground as Lilith recognised his presence.

A few more soldiers arrived, and actively threw all their firepower at them. He pointed and fired at a few, before Lilith entered Phasewalk. Matt slowed down time, and kicked the last two of them off to the right, where Lilith exited her Phasewalk and ripped both of them to pieces.

No more of Gemini's foot soldiers appeared outside the outpost, and luckily, Matt had scrambled communications, preventing them from alerting the rest of the army.

Lilith walked up beside Matt, fist-bumping for their exceptional teamwork moments ago.

'No more should come,' he noted. 'I scrambled communications. That should allow us to take a more stealthy approach.'

'Good job, killer,' Lilith praised. 'Now we just gotta get inside.'

Matt inspected one of the bodies, seeing if he could find anything. Thankfully, there was a keycard on the body that they could use. He threw it to her, and she smiled at it.

'Perfect,' she said. Lilith ran over to the door interface, and placed the key card into the door. It looked like Gemini had decided to add this door here to prevent a security breach of the Armoury. Smart. But not smart enough.

The interface flashed green, indicating that access was granted. The door slid open, revealing a further stretch of road beyond. Lilith and Matt climbed back into their Runner vehicle. She drove them past the door and into the road leading straight to the Crimson Lance or now Gemini Corporation Armoury.

'How long's it been since you were last here?' Matt yelled over the sound of the car.

'Not since we raided the Armoury!' Lilith shouted back. 'So about five years ago!'

'OK!'

'How long has Gemini been on Pandora?'

'Not for that long!' He answered. 'A couple months or so! That's when they sent Caine down, so I can assume that's when they set up their bases on Pandora and Elpis!'

There was no way that Gemini hadn't pulled out all the stops to protect their Armoury. So infiltrating it might prove to be bit of a challenge. However, Matt would not have suggested this place unless he was certain they would be able to get through it one way or another.

They were not far from the Armoury, and it was noticeable in the immediate distance. They both got out of the vehicles and crouched behind cover. Matt produced his Volcano sniper rifle, gauging the threat they would soon face.

'Ok…I see about five foot soldiers, two Gemini Deceptors, and about eight Elites.'

'What are Deceptors and Elites?'

'Deceptors are like Hyperion Infiltrators: they can turn invisible. However, much like the rest of Gemini's army, they're armoured too. And Elites are heavily-armed, heavily-armoured, and they can create a small shock blast with their Needle Devices. I think there was one Conquistador too, and they can digistruct missiles.'

'And they're patrolling the area?' Lilith looked up over the cover. He nodded. 'What the hell?' Matt stared at her, looking for answers. She pointed to the left, where there were Loaders making their quite robotic movements across to the other side of the area. They weren't Hyperion Loaders. It was obvious by the Gemini logo on each and every one of them.

'I don't know anything about Gemini Loaders,' Matt admitted them. 'They were never a thing in my time at Gemini.'

'Looks like they're willing to steal ideas from even Hyperion.'

'I get the feeling they didn't steal anything.'

'You think they're in cahoots with Hyperion?'

'Well, they wouldn't save me from them, which would tell me that they at least don't want a war with them. So hell, maybe.'

'Luckily the Loaders won't be too much of a problem.'

'Maybe, if we can get past them, we might be able to deactivate the security system. Taking those weapons should be easier once the system is offline.'

Lilith nodded, and they crept along the site, noting that they would need to hurry - the Pandoran Sun was beginning to come up. Hopefully, their mission would not have to end in a scene. If Gemini were aware that he was here, and ready to draw blood, then they would do everything in their power to stop him. They were already searching for him, using Caine as a medium.

'Lilith, take this,' he handed her a small round black device. 'It's a C-Digistructor. A bit like a mini-New-U machine. Scan a body and you can assume its form.'

'Oh…and the plan is to take out two of them and pretend to be them.' Matt nodded in concurrence, and handed the device to her.

'If we can take out those two lagging behind, we should be able to sneak in undetected.'

'Great, killer.' They sneaked back along the patrol, hugging the cover so that they would not be seen. The G-SGT Loader and G-GUN Loader both paused for a second, causing Matt's heart to skip a beat. They turned around, but instead of opening fire on them as he expected, the robots instead gave an order to one of the soldiers.

'ASSUME REGULATORY FORMATION,' ordered the G-SGT Loaders.

'ORDER RECEIVED,' claimed the G-GUN Loader.

'Yeah whatever,' replied one of the Gemini Elites. They began to change formation, which alerted Matt to their narrowing window. He nodded to Lilith, and they quietly ran over to the two Gemini Deceptors at the back, pulled them into a headlock, and covered their mouths so they could not forewarn the other guards. They snapped both their necks secretly behind the corner.

Matt and Lilith scanned the bodies, copying their forms. Shortly after, he used a corrosive weapon to melt both of the bodies, quickly disposing of them. Both of them assumed their forms. Matt activated the Invisibility Capacitor on the waist to check it was working. It was, and he disappeared from sight, and momentarily reappeared. Lilith checked her Capacitor also, and disappeared and reappeared.

'Well, now I know what it's like to be Zer0,' Lilith commented, her voice now modulated. Matt was confused. 'Oh, uh…he can activate "Deception" where he goes invisible and throws out a holographic copy of himself.'

'Ah.'

They stepped out into the patrol before the others would realise their absence. Quickly, the two disguised individuals caught up with the group, and walked behind them, holding the rifles that they had also stolen from the corpses.

'DECEPTOR #1,' the G-SGT Loader addressed, looking at Lilith. 'INVESTIGATE TECHNOLOGICAL MALFUNCTION AT SECTOR 3.' The Gemini SGT Loader then moved to face Matt. 'DECEPTOR #2: PATROL LEFT WING.'

'Understood,' both of them assented, seeing this as their chance. They moved out of sight and went invisible. Lilith directed him over to a security panel inside a small hut where they would be able to deactivate the security system clandestinely. She took out her soldier keycard, but Matt stopped her.

'A simple foot soldier would not have the clearance to deactivate the security system, and the soldiers would know that. We would just be alerting everyone here that someone is trying to infiltrate the Armoury.' Matt deactivated his Invisibility Capacitor and plugged his ECHO into the port on the back of the panel, and a set of skull and crossbones appeared again on the small screen by the keycard slot.

'Need my help again, Mr Rye?' Gaige had immediately joined in an ECHO call. Lilith slightly sniggered at the surname, but Matt ignored her.

'As it seems Gaige,' he informed her, turning off the voice modulator. 'We're kinda disguised at the moment.'

'I see…' she scanned through the files that the ECHO was sending. 'So you need to deactivate the security system? Yeah, you're definitely going to need my help. Even some the highest security clearance Gemini guards wouldn't be able to get through this.'

'How'd you know this place was a Gemini location?'

'Downloaded it from your ECHO, duh!' Gaige smirked, even though she knew Matt wouldn't see it. 'I know you're at the old Crimson Lance Armoury, because, where else would you go from the T-Bone Junction?'

'Fair enough, killer. Just do your thing,' Lilith ordered.

'OK.' She began looking through the code to implant some of her own, attempting to deactivate clearance requirements secretly. It did not take long before she had found a way in. And Gemini's security was pretty terrible against Gaige. The system definitely resisted, but she prevented it from sending out any alarms, using a bit of her ingenuity, so it wasn't too much of a problem.

A minute or two later and the system deactivated, albeit silently and without alerting anyone.

Perfect. The Anomaly was evidently pleased.

'You know, after this, you owe me a drink,' Gaige noted.

'I thought you didn't drink?' Lilith chimed in.

'I'm making an exception!'

'Sure, we can get a drink when we get back,' he accepted. 'See you, Gaige.'

'Bye, Matt.' Gaige ended the call, and the male Vault Hunter reactivated his modulator.

'We best get inside before anyone notices us,' Lilith advised. He nodded, running over to the large automatic door to the light bridge. The door opened and unlocked, revealing the light bridge to Road's End.

One hour had passed, and now Lilith and Matt were back in their vehicle, now driving around a bend towards what was Fort Knoxx. Where the Armoury was. Matt supposed it was now Fort Gemini, or the Gemini Corporation Armoury.

It had been quite a long drive to get there, since the place was far from any fast travel, and Matt didn't exactly want to let Lilith teleport them, and risk them ending up even further away.

The Anomaly was especially glad that they were disguised now, with a cloaking mechanism that would mean getting into the Armoury would be a lot easier. Especially considering the abundant numbers of Gemini guards that would be swarming the place. They were in many ways like zombies, a mere annoyance as one, but a threat in large numbers. Not to mention they also followed one simple directive – eliminate all threats – and acted like drones in that regard. The puppets didn't even know who they were really serving either.

When he mentioned it to Lilith, though, she laughed, telling him that she'd faced actual zombies created by some mad relative of Doctor Zed, Doctor Ned, in a place called Jakobs Cove. Matt then responded that it wasn't the first time he had heard of a brother of Doctor Zed, muttering something about someone called Doctor Ted. This left Lilith quite confused, but ultimately didn't ask questions.

Aurora helped me with the Ted business, Matt thought pleasantly to himself. Good ole 'Ora.

Caine was not exactly like Aurora. He was cold and merciless, and had this de facto appearance about him that had always made Matt dislike him. And if he found the Vault, further problems would arise. Taking on the Vault Guardian aside, the knowledge inside the Vault would be unparalleled. With that power, the Gemini Corporation would be virtually unstoppable. Eridian technology was known to be powerful, and not just from the old weapons that you used to be able to find. Or the Warrior, which was an Eridian super weapon itself.

Lilith drive over a ramp situated in the middle of the highway, and went under a small bridge, carefully dodging all the tactical cover that the Lance had planted a while back.

They were coming up on the grounds of the Fort. Lilith and Matt got out of the vehicle a fair distance away from the building.

Turning their Invisibility Capacitors on, they crept through the entrance to Fort Gemini. Sprawling the scene were copious Gemini Foots, Elites, Deceptors, Conquistadors and Loaders.

Surveying the scene was a Super Badass Loader. It had a different design to Hyperion Loaders; it was camouflaged in tiger camouflage, and it had a green eye, instead of a blue one, while not engaging targets. There was at least ten G-GUN Loaders, five G-ION Loaders, eight G-BUL Loaders, one G-EXP Loader, and two G-PWR Loaders nearby.

'Keep a low profile,' Matt suggested quietly. 'We don't want the Super Badass to see us.'

'What's it doing?'

'It's scanning. We have to move quickly.'

They moved through the compound, spotting a tunnel at the end of the pathway. Where they needed to go was off to the left, where there would be a path to the Armoury. Luckily, their deactivation of the security system earlier would mean they would be able to open the door without needing Gaige.

There were a few red energy forcefields set down by the tunnel, complete with a turret in the middle. They reminded Matt of Axton's turret, albeit smaller. Axton's sabre turret had many uses back when they both worked for Gemini, more than just gunning down enemies. Its shield was helpful, certainly, although it was easily dismantled. Additionally, it was quite disconcerting when Axton talked to it like it was his wife or something. The Commando already had an ex-wife, so no wonder he did it.

Still annoying and weird, though.

'There's the door to Armoury,' Lilith whispered.

'With about a million guards in front of it,' Matt pointed out. 'We need a distraction.'

'There's an alarm on the opposite end of the compound,' Lilith informed him. 'If we activate it, it should draw them away for a few moments.'

As if answering to their problem, the sirens on the other end of the compound abruptly went off, even though the security system was deactivated. The many guards by the doorway to the Armoury immediately abandoned their post to inspect what was going on.

'Well, that's…handy,' Matt remarked.

'I would hope so,' said a voice through an ECHO call. Gaige again. 'That was kinda the point.'

'Wow, thanks, Gaige,' he responded in bewilderment.

'I knew you'd need a diversion, so I made one,' she informed him proudly.

'But how did you know that we were literally just discussing doing the exact method of distraction that you just did?' Lilith wondered.

'Erm…I didn't,' Gaige admitted. 'I guess that was just a coincidence.'

'Alright then, killer,' Lilith accepted. 'We'll call you when we're done.' She ended their group call.

Looks like things were shaping up to be one their best missions ever – and not just because of the profit to be gained from it.

That was pretty short, to be honest. About 2,800 words, while the others 3 – 4k.

But that's not too much of a problem.

Anyways, I know mentioning what Elites and Conquistadors do may seem pointless considering they don't actually use those upgrades Gemini gave them, but they will become more important later.

Remember: this is only the fourth chapter, and I have already planned out around sixteen to twenty…