Chapter 6 – The First Piece
Moxxi looked at the pistol's pipe for a while. Then she raised her gaze at the masked man, who had that pistol in his hand. Many horrible ideas flashed inside her mind, about how to safe her own life, but any of them sounded too ridiculous. In all of them was a tiny risk. She could be too slow to avoid the bullet. She heard the clock ticking and the slot machine's sound started to hurt her ears. She had been so many times in this same position and always something bad happened, but not to her. But now the only thing her mind was, that this time this would end differently. The bar was empty. No one was here to safe her… Except Keith, but she didn't know where he was. In the first time she felt like she needed someone. And she didn't even care who.
Man's pistol stayed in front of her forehead, and his hand didn't even shake at all. They stood there for a while, silence surrounding them. Moxxi felt the sweat flowing slowly on her temple. She saw with a corner of her eye a shotgun, which lounged on the ground on her side of the bar. There was just one thing what held her back. Was she fast enough, or would that bullet hit her straight into forehead.
"Are you going to kill me?" She asked and tried not to ruffle her voice. She didn't want to show her nervousness to this guy. She gulped slowly and looked back at the mask.
Man tilted his head a little and it sounded like he had chuckled. Yeah, She would have fun too, if she would be on this man's position. Then a couple new horrible things flashed through her mind. What if this man was some kind of pervert? She looked at him again. Nah. She could recognize that kind of men. But there still something weird. She knew that her look couldn't help her either.
Man pointed at the picture again with his another hand, while the pistol's pipe stayed on Moxxi's forehead. Moxxi closed her eyes and tried to think some kind of escape plan. When she opened her eyes, she saw Keith behind the man. He had a chair in his hands. He put his index finger to his lips and lifted up the chair slowly. Moxxi turned her gaze back the man, who apparently hadn't noticed that someone was behind him and was planning to knock him out with that chair.
"What do you want from her?" She asked quietly, without turning her gaze away from him.
Man didn't show any signs of answering. She looked carefully back to Keith and saw as he swung fiercely the chair. The chair hit the masked man's back and broke into several pieces. But somehow the masked man stayed still, like nothing had touched him and didn't even sway. He lowered his gun and turned slowly to face Keith. He raised his other hand and took other of his black swords from his back.
"Okay… This wasn't like I planned…" Keith whispered and stepped slowly away from the man. Every step what he backed, the masked man followed. He felt horrible chills on his back, when he heard man's quiet and low laughter.
Now when that masked man was focusing at Keith, Moxxi realized that her opportunity had come. She grabbed the shotgun from the floor and jumped to other side of the bar. She raised the gun and pointed to his back with it.
"No one kills anything in my bar, except me!" She screamed and pulled the trigger. The shot hit straight to his back and made him stagger forward. Keith ran out of the way next to Moxxi.
"Good job!" he said in relief.
Moxxi chuckled. "Well…" She cut her sentence before she even started, when she saw as the masked man straightened and turned to face them again. He started to walk slowly closer to them and took his other sword from his back too. He didn't look hurt at all and even worst; now he was angry.
"Uh-oh…" They both whispered at the same time.
At the same time on Eridium Blight Axton and Maya realized one thing; They were lost. The cave was bigger labyrinth than they had thought. They had separated from the group and half an hour later they had met more crossroads and tunnels and then a few more tunnels and now they were on the start. Now they were facing again two tunnels and had to decide the right way. Again.
"I choose this time", Maya said frustrated.
Axton shook his head annoyed. "It doesn't matter what you choose. It's wrong way anyway."
"Screw you, Axton! This is your fault", she snapped.
"How this is my fault? This place is a fucking circle!"
Suddenly they heard a loud caw and they both went silent. They froze for a moment and then they looked at each other with very confused and worried expressions. Axton walked slowly in front of the left tunnel's entrance. The glowing lava trails had ended a long time ago and that tunnel was surrounded with pitch black darkness. They didn't have any flashlights so Axton didn't see anything further from his nose. He walked slowly closer to the sound. He flinched when he heard the noise again. Suddenly he saw something orange approaching him. He squinted his eyes to see better, as the orange thing came closer. Second later the he realized what that thing was. It was a swarm of burning rakks.
"WHOAAA!" He screamed, as he started running away from them. Two seconds later he met Maya in front of the entrance, who looked at him eyes widened.
"What?" She asked when Axton ran straight past her. She turned to look at the tunnel's side and saw dozens, maybe even hundreds of burning rakks coming closer and closer. She made a fearful yell and ran after Axton.
Axton ran far away from the tunnel and heard Maya's footsteps behind him. They ran for five minutes, and soon they didn't even know where they were. They were in some kind of tunnel again, but now in front of them was a huge wooden door and nothing else. Maya grabbed the door handle and pulled it, but unfortunately for them the door stayed closed.
"It's locked", she said in horror.
She turned around and faced the approaching rakk swarm. So many burning creatures made the air hotter and harder to breathe. She raised her hand and phaselocked one of them, at the same time when Axton deployed his Sabre Turret. Few of them cawed on horror when they were pulled to the orb, as the slag spread on them. A dozens of rakks still approached them, but at least those five faced a painful dead. Immediately after deploying, Axton's turret started to shoot several targets.
The number of those flying annoying creatures started to decrease slowly, so Maya had now an opportunity to work with that locked door. She tried to phaselock it, she shot it, she even tried to push through it like everyone did in the movies, but none of them worked.
"The door beat me", she muttered.
The situation in Sanctuary wasn't that better. Keith had realized two things in ten minutes. Flying straight through the wall hurt like hell and trying to save himself with throwing bottles of Rakk Ale wasn't helping. Now when he was a bit smarter, he hide himself under the table. He was opposite of the bar's backdoor and now his target was that door. He had witnessed something very disturbing when that masked man, who was seriously pissed off, had just grabbed the gun from Moxxi's hands had folded it in two pieces with his bare hands. After that he had threw Moxxi to the floor and her head had hit the bar table's corner. Now she was laying on that same point very unconscious. Then he had started to toss Keith. After all that, Keith had decided that his best opinion was hiding.
Man had just disappeared somewhere, so now might be his change. He had a plan. He wanted to crawl fast as he could to backroom, settle his breathe, find some kind of weapon and save Moxxi somehow. That plan sounded impossible in his head, but it was best what he had. He looked to his sides and hesitated for a moment. Then he started to crawl quickly towards the backdoor, without looking behind him. Two seconds later he was there. He stood up and saw with corner of his eye someone walking closer. He didn't need to check again who it was. He opened the door and slammed it behind him, before that maniac could get his hands on him again.
Now was the second part of his plan; calming himself. That part was completely failure and he decided to move on. He leaned his back to the door felt his heart bounding wildly, as he started to find a weapon with his eyes. He didn't even care what kind of weapon it would be. He needed something sharp.
Just as he noticed the knife on the table he heard a loud crack behind him. He turned around and saw as the hand pierced the door and made huge hole on it. He was too slow to react, when the hand grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door. The force sent him fly to other side of the bar and he smashed to the floor next to the front door. The air escaped from his lungs and he felt a sharp pain on his forehead. Then he heard footsteps behind him, and didn't want to get eviscerate like some fish, so he tried to stood up. Unfortunately, it didn't work well. Then he raised his head and noticed kind of feminine feet in front of him. He looked up and saw Lilith standing next to the front door with widened eyes and she had Salvador, Brick and Mordecai with her.
"Uh… Hi, guys…" He grunted and collapsed into unconscious.
"So… How are we going to get there?" Gaige asked inside of the volcano. They all looked at the lava and those tiny rocks, which rose from it. There wasn't any clear ground below except the hill, where that giant Rakk was laying.
"Let me show you", Zer0 said calmly and went to hole's edge.
Without hesitating he jumped on nearest the stone, above the lava. Then he started jumping forward and soon he reached the hill. He jumped on hill and looked at the Rakk. It was huge. Its other wing laid on the ground and other had sunk in the lava. Apparently the lava didn't hurt it. Huge flames flared from its head, wings and back. Zer0 noticed that air changed a lot hotter, when he walked closer that giant creature. I didn't move at all, when he approached it, like it didn't even hear him. Then the realization hit him. That burning giant was sleeping.
"No, no, no, no. I'm not going to jump there. I'm going to burn alive!" Gaige shouted from the hole.
Zer0 turned his echo on. "Shut up, Gaige. It's sleeping", he whispered.
Gaige frowned and turned to look at Alice, who was trying to contact with Maya and Axton with her echo devise.
"Darn it. They don't answer", she muttered and turned her echo off. Then she looked at Gaige, who obviously didn't want to go through that hole. "I can go first, if you want."
Gaige nodded slowly and waited still, as she jumped down on the nearest stone. Then she turned around and waved her hand.
"Okay, your turn. Don't worry, Gaige. You are not going to burn alive, if I'm here", she said softly. She didn't want to wake that giant Rakk.
Zer0 walked next to Rakk's enormous head, which was as big as two crystalisks and stretched his hand closer to the Vault Key piece. Then he felt burning pain on his hand and pulled quickly his hand back. He looked confused at the piece. It looked different, than the other Key pieces what they had found, during the fight against Jack. It looked like a piece of jigsaw puzzle and it was only as same size as riffle bullet magazine. It was deep black colored and it glowed a bit white light from the thin white trails. Those circular trails looked same as those which were on the walls, except for the color. The Key piece was bounded around the Rakk's neck with a thick metal chain. Zer0 considered different ways to cut the chain somehow and none of the sounded quiet enough.
Suddenly he quailed, when he heard Gaige's horrifying scream. He turned around and saw as she jumped on the rock and almost fell into lava. Alice made a shield around her and after that she sat on the rock relieved.
He sighed and turned back to face the Key piece. But suddenly instead of the Key piece, there were a two giant eyes looking at him. The giant burning Rakk opened it mouth and huge flames surged from there. Zer0 jumped away and the creature rose into air. It was too big to fly away from the place, so it decided to burn those Vault Hunters alive first.
"Great." He looked up, as it tried to fly forward. It looked a bit clumsy, when it almost hit the stony wall.
Rakk's enormous wings made the weather a bit windy and those two who were still standing on the rocks almost flew away. They started jumping closer to hill fast as they could, as Zer0 took his sniper from his back. The Rakk was easy to aim, but his sniper didn't make much effect.
"This is going to take forever…" He muttered.
Gaige and Alice reached the hill and started to shoot the creature too. Alice had bought a brand new rocket launcher from Marcus, and now was a great time to test it. It didn't make that much effect either, but at least it hurt... And made it a lot angrier. It flew down and swiped at their direction with its long tail. Alice jumped over it, but Gaige wasn't fast enough. The thick tail hit her and sent her flying into air.
"Gaige!" Alice screamed in horror, as she watched the girl's flight.
Zer0 had jumped over the tail too, but unfortunately he hadn't noticed the flying girl. Gaige's flight ended by hitting his back and sent him sway forward, until he fell to the ground.
"Ouch…" Gaige rasped. She laid on the ground and felt sharp pain on her stomach, where that tail had hit. She heard coughing behind her and turned to look at Zer0 who was laying next to her.
"Oh, did I hit you?" She asked and chuckled carefully, and instantly regretted of doing that. I hurt like hell.
Zer0 sat down slowly and gave the finger at her. Gaige raised her eyebrows and stood up. She picked up his sniper from the ground and aimed the approaching giant with it. The bullet went straight into its eye and it made deafening caw after that. It lost its balance and started to fly sideways.
"Holy shit! I pierced its eye!" Gaige cheered amazed. She hadn't seriously aimed anything.
Zer0 stood up next to her. An ! appeared on his visor, when he noticed the falling Rakk and they were straight below it. It was falling ON them.
"Move!" He shouted and pulled her away. His sniper fell from Gaige's hand as they ran away from the giant. It fell directly in front of them and its tail threw the sniper into the lava.
"Are you two okay?" Alice asked, after she had ran over.
Gaige looked down at herself and then at Zer0. She shrugged and smiled tiredly.
"Yeah, we are, but Zer0's sniper isn't", she said and pointed it. It was slowly sinking inside the lava and its pipe had already melted badly.
"I paid fortunes for it", he whispered, when he watched the sinking. Soon it was gone. He turned to look at the Rakk. It was half flying into air and laying on the ground at the same time. It looked like it had little issues of staying up. Something snapped inside his head and made him to want that annoying creature's head. If someone breaks his stuff, his going to break everything what belongs him/her/it. He took his sword in his hand and started walking closer it.
"Where are you going?" Alice shouted worried.
"To end this!" he shouted back while walking back.
She turned to look at Gaige confused. Gaige's expression wasn't that confused. It was more like scared and worried at the same time.
"Uh… His flipping", she said and looked at the siren. "We… You should help him, so he doesn't burn alive."
Zer0 walked in front of the Rakk with determined mind. It was too focused of trying to fly, so it didn't even notice the human in front of it. That pissed him off more. He wanted it to see when he was going to kill it.
"Hey, you piece of shit!" He shouted to it.
It turned its big head and looked at him puzzled. Then it opened its mouth and spitted flames from there. Unfortunately for it the flames didn't touch anything else than Zer0's hologram. Rakk's eyes widened when he appeared next to its wing. It was too slow to react, as he raised his sword and stabbed the wing with it. He swung once the sword and a huge tear appeared on the wing. It made a deafening caw again and swung fiercely its tail to his direction. He ducked down and dodged the quick tail above him. Just as he rose up the tail was swung back to his direction. This time he didn't want to dodge.
"Let's make you blind", he said and made a wicked smile behind his visor. He jumped over the tail and pierced it with his sword, before it made past him. He didn't pull his sword away from it. Instead of doing that, he held it in his both hands and squatted on the tail. The giant Rakk was too stupid to realize, that it had a passenger on its tail and continued the swinging. It managed to fly a bit with its broken wing and flew in couple feet above the ground. Zer0 pulled his sword away and crawled along the tail, toward its back. He stopped on the point where the tail ended and looked the flames, which came from Rakk's back. He rose up to squat, and pierced its lower back with his sword, to get more balance. On that point the burning and very angry Rakk noticed him. It started to fly recklessly and tried to drop him.
"Zer0, you are insane", Alice's voice said from echo. He was too busy to stay on this rodeo, so he didn't even bother to answer.
"I can make shield around you, so you don't burn yourself", she continued.
Directly after that, the glowing white circle appeared around him. The air was much cleaner and flames didn't get through the shield. He stood up slowly and kept his other hand on the sword. Then he pulled it off and started walking towards the head. The flames surrounded him and that giant started to get more nervous, as he approached its neck. He took his sword to his other hand and and knife to ither, while hesitated for a moment. Then he ran along its neck and jumped on its head. The Rakk started to shook its head furiously. He stabbed the Rakk's forehead with his knife and dropped himself to side of its head, in front of its eye. He held on the knife, which was the only thing that kept him up there. The eye turned to look at him in horror.
"Sup?"
He swung his sword and then stabbed the eye with it. Rakk started to caw from the pain, and the sound of that echoed in the cave. Now it was blind and didn't know what to do. It fell to the ground and tries to shook him off. He climbed up to its head and kept his other hand on the knife. Then he stood up carefully and jumped on its neck. He raised his sword and made his last move. He swung once the sword through the neck and jumped to the ground. Rakk looked like it hadn't realized yet what had happened.
Gaige and Alice watched amazed and eyes widened, when the Rakk's head fell down to the ground behind Zer0. The rest of its body fell couple seconds later and stayed motionless on the ground. Zer0 walked in front of the head and pulled his knife off it. Then he turned to look at the Vault Key piece, which was laying on the ground next to the head. Those trails on it glowed like a heartbeat.
"That was awesome!" Gaige cheered and jogged next to him.
He leaned closer to the Vault Key piece and looked at it confused. He had never seen anything like that, and it felt odd. There was something bad about it, but he couldn't explain what. He didn't even want to touch that thing. Gaige grabbed the piece, while still smiling excited and put it into her bag.
"What now?" She asked.
"There is a door", Alice said and pointed behind them. There seriously was a big wooden door, but they hadn't noticed it during the fight. It was directly on the opposite side as the hole, where they had came from. There was even a stony pathway above the lava.
They were just about to walk over the door, when suddenly they heard a loud BOOM. The door exploded to several pieces and fly into air to every direction. Then there was only a lot smoke on the door's place. They all raised their guns and sword, and were ready to fight against what ever was coming through that "door".
"That's how you open the god damn door!" They heard a familiar voice shouting.
"Shut up, Axton", Maya answered at the same time when the smoke was vanishing into air.
Zer0, Alice and Gaige lowered their weapons in relief. The duo walked closer and noticed immediately the huge head behind the group.
"What did we miss?" Axton asked and chuckled a bit, when he noticed the bruises and tiny wounds on other Vault Hunters. He and Maya had wound and bruises on themselves too, from their own fight against those tinier rakks.
"Zer0 slew a dragon!" Gaige answered happily. "You should've seen that!"
Zer0 shook his head. "It wasn't a dragon. It was a Rakk."
"At least it was big as dragon", Alice said amused and made a soft laugh. "And we got the Vault Key piece."
Maya and Axton looked at each other. They had been lost in that volcano for a long, long time. Then a they had met swarm of rakks and got stuck with them. For what? They went through everything that just to notice, that the others already had that freaking piece of Key.
"So… We came here for nothing… Great…" Axton muttered, when they started walking away.
Lilith was having a boring day, until to Moxxi's bar. She, Salvador, Brick and Mordecai had waited Angel, as she tried to find the next Vault Key piece location. After a couple hour, they gave up waiting and wanted to get wasted. But unfortunately that wasn't going to happen.
She walked with her friends to Moxxxi's and saw Keith's flight, which ended directly in front of them. There were shattered bottles and tables all over the bar, huge hole on the wall and on the back door.
"What the-..." Lilith cut her sentence, when she noticed some freaky looking masked man inside the bar. That man had obviously thrown Keith from other side of the bar. She saw Moxxi, who was laying on the ground behind the man. There were enough reasons to start a fight. She took her smg from the holster and pointed at the man with it.
"SMAAASH!" Brick roared all the sudden and ran over the man his fists raised up. He swung his other fist to man's direction, but suddenly man had vanished in front of him. He had a time to see someone appearing behind him, with corner of his eyes. But as he was turning around, the masked man kicked him to the back. The force of that kick made him smash through the wall and made a new hole to it.
"Brick!" Lilith screamed.
The masked man turned around to face the rest of the group. He had a black sword in his other hand. Salvador and Mordecai ran forward closer to him. Mordecai took his sniper and started to shoot him with it. Sniper wasn't the best gun, it the target was that close, but he didn't have his pistol with him. Somehow the masked man dodged every shot what he made and always when he disappeared, there was just a red flash on the point where he had just stood. Then suddenly he appeared in front of Mordecai and hit him straight to his lungs. Mordecai crouched from the pain and then the man hit him to his teple and stent him flying from the force too.
After he had fell into unconscious, Salvador took his shotguns into his hands and fired them both at the same time. Man disappeared again and appeared next to slot machines. He grabbed the corner of the machine and tore it from the wall. He pulled it in front of him and waited behind its safe, until Salvador's magazines went empty. Then he lifted the machine a bit and threw it to Gunzerker's direction. Lilith appeared next to him and transported them away from the machine, just as it almost hit him in front of the front door.
"What the hell is that pendejo?!" He shouted in enraged.
"I hav-… Watch out!" Lilith screamed, when she saw the other slot machine flying into air, to the direction where they were standing. She raised her hand, without even thinking and the slot machine vanished in above them. She took her smg again and started shooting that very annoying man with it, but of course he disappeared somewhere.
Then suddenly she heard a click from her echo device. "Lilith? I found-..." Angel started, but Lilith interrupted her.
"Not now, Angel. I'm a little busy… Whoaa!"
The next thing what the masked man sent flying was Salvador's other shotgun. He had just appeared after a red flash in front of him, grabbed the gun from his hands and threw it outside the bar. Then he grabbed him from his neck and tossed him to other side of the bar.
"But I found the second Vault Key piece!" Angel said through her echo.
"Send Vault Hunters from the Eridium Blight there. We… We got something to do right now", She said and turned her echo device off. Then she turned to look at the masked man who was fighting with Salvador and Brick. Brick had just woke up and was a pretty angry. Salvador tired his best to shoot him, but failed every time. Soon the masked man grew tired of playing. At least it looked like he was playing with them. He took his pistol and shot them both in the head. After that the due fell down to the ground and disappeared with a blue glow. At least the New-U stations were working.
Vault Hunters had just leaved from the volcano, when Angel contacted them. They were all tired and wanted to sleep, but of course that wasn't an opinion.
"I found the second part", Angel started. They all knew what that meant. More adventures…
Maya sighed tiredly. "Are you serious?" She seriously wanted sleep. They all did.
"Yes. It's in Three Horns – Divide… You can see the direct location from your maps", she said and after that she turned the echo device off.
Gaige shook her head frustrated. "What about Lilith and others? Why can't they go?"
Others shrugged.
"A guess they have a good reason", Alice said calmly. She seemed to be only one, who wasn't that frustrated.
"To the Fast Travel then!" Axton commanded and they all slowly started walking.
"Alright, let's stop this", Lilith muttered and walked closer to the masked man.
Man raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, but at the same time Lilith phasewalked away from the bullet. He stood still for a moment, a bit confused, until Lilith appeared behind him and had her smg raised. But then, he obviously wasn't here to get shot from the Firehawk and disappeared.
"Oh, god… This is going to last forever", she muttered and had same kind of feeling, as Zer0 had earlier. This was going to be very frustrating.
They disappeared and appeared for a moment until they both grew a bit frustrated. Then Lilith decided to phaseblast that guy. She had Incendiary Artifact on, so she might as try to burn the hell out of him. She phasewalked next to him and when she appeared again, a huge flames dashed from her Phase Blast. Flames spread on him, and for a moment he looked like he didn't know what to do. But that moment ended too soon and he disappeared.
"Great. That didn't work well", Lilith whispered.
She looked around and tried to find that annoying guy and fliched, when he suddenly appeared straight in front of her, without any flames. He was only few inches away from her and looked like he didn't want to fight anymore. He looked down at her, and Lilith noticed how tall he was. Not as tall as Zer0, but almost. He leaned down, closer to her, until their faces were couple inches away from each other. She felt her heart bounding and something kept her standing still. She didn't know why, but she didn't even want to back away.
"W-what…" She started, but suddenly forgot her words. They got lost into her throat, as she looked at the mask in front of her. She could see the sad emerald green eyes behind the mask. She couldn't breathe, as the man raised his hand and brushed softly her chin. Her heart started bounding faster and faster. He leaned closer, until their faces almost touched and Lilith didn't know what to do. The moment felt like it lasted ages. Suddenly something snapped in her mind. She backed away, when she didn't even wanted and raised her hand. She didn't know what she was doing anymore.
"Too close", she whispered and pointed the man with her hand, as the purple light surrounded him. Then she transported him away from the Sanctuary. She stood there alone, while the others were unconscious and still thinking what had just happened. Her heart was still bounding like hell, and she couldn't focus on anything. She didn't know what had happened, and she didn't even want to know. It was just something what she couldn't explain.
Chapter 6 done.
Oh yeah, and thanks to reviewers, viewers and readers and other different creatures (Who made their reviews, followed and stuff on my last story… That, which I accidentally removed a couple hours ago… But, now I managed finally to put them back. All of them. Including this. Fuck sake. It was frustrating. )
By the way. If something bothers some of you or you aren't understanding something in this story, feel free to ask. I'll try to explain!
To HPK , who commented to fifth chapter, before I freaking deleted it:
-I have no idea how long this story of mine is going to be. Obviously a pretty long. We have just started this journey, so this is just a start. Thanks for asking. :)