A/N: I have returned from the world of reality to bring you Chapter 7 :D I'm really happy that I have somehow managed to increase my chpter length to at least 2k words a chapter. Once again, hope you are enjoying and will continue to do so. Please review if you can! :)
MEleeSmasher: Why thank you ^_^
Tera Tyrant Shadic: Yeah, that chapter was definitely more action-based than dialogue. The last few chapters were just mainly dialogue so I wanted to change that. As for 'Slán go foill', it means 'Goodbye for now' in Irish. :)
A father and son sat on different chairs in the garden of their home. It was late in the evening, and both of them were tired from the work they had been doing all day. They each held bottles of water and were downing it thirstily. The son was leaning back on his chair, the back of his head touching the wall behind him. The son was twelve years old at the time. He was skinny, and around the average height for his age, with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes.
"Come on, let's get inside before it gets dark," the father said, he had pretty much the same features as his son, except he was in his early forties.
The boy stood up and followed his father through the back door of their house and into the kitchen. The kitchen, like the house itself, was quite modern. The family were not the richest people in the world, but they could still afford a nice house. As the son exited the kitchen, he passed something that he saw every day of his life, yet paid little attention to. He stopped walking and looked up at the crossbow that was hanging up on the wall, protected by a thick layer of glass. As he stared at the crossbow, he began to wonder if he would ever hold it in his hands and use it like his father once had. He studied every inch of the crossbow, from the scope attached to it, right down to its black finish.
Then, the boy felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see his father staring down at him, a smile on his face.
"Looking at the bow again, huh?" His father asked. "You really got an interest in that thing."
"Yeah…" the boy sighed, "Hey Dad, would you say I'd ever be able to use it?"
His father let out a chuckle, before doing something that his son had been waiting for him to do for a long time now. The father reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He searched around until he found the one he was looking for, a small, silver key. He put it into the keyhole at the side of the case that held the crossbow. He turned the key until he heard a clicking noise. He then removed the key and the pane of glass swung open like a door. He looked down to see his son watching with wide eyes, a smile slowly growing on his face.
The father removed the crossbow from its container. He held it up for a few seconds, admiring it, before handing it to his son. The boy reached out and grabbed it eagerly. The father laughed as the son brought the scope up his eyes, aiming at his father, knowing that there was no arrow loaded, and joined in with his laughter.
Suddenly, everything in the house began to catch fire at the exact same moment. The bright, orange flames spread rapidly through the house, destroying pretty much everything in its path. As flames began to fill the scene, the father and son stayed exactly where they were, as if frozen in time. The fire inched closer and closer to the two, until eventually it engulfed them completely.
"Koooeeeennnnn!" a voice screamed amidst the flames.
The voice paused as the fire raged on.
"KOOOEEEENNNN!" The voice screamed again, even louder this time. The fire continued until there was nothing to see but bright, orange flames.
"Koen!" Gaige shouted desperately, trying to get him to wake up from his tormented sleep. They had ended up sleeping in pretty much the same spot where they had landed after jumping off the airship, under a streetlight at the side of the road in the Highlands. She had woken up only a few minutes ago to the sound of Koen speaking quite loudly in his sleep. He started to move and twitch while still asleep, until he began to freak out completely.
Koen woke with a start, sitting up incredibly fast and nearly smacking his head into Gaige's in the process. She stumbled backwards from fright and ended up on the ground beside him. Koen was sweating bullets and taking deep, ragged breaths. He quickly pulled his hoodie up over his head and took it off, he had no idea why he hadn't done that earlier. He was now wearing a worn, brown t-shirt. He then reached into his backpack beside him and pulled out the huge water canteen that had pretty much kept both of them alive in the desert. He took off the cap and poured some water over his head, before putting the top to his mouth and taking three long gulps. His breathing began to slow back down to its normal pace. He noticed for the first time since waking up, that the sky was bright, it was either late morning of early afternoon.
All this time, Gaige sat where she was, growing even more worried with each passing second until she finally saw Koen relax back to his normal self. Nobody said anything for another minute. After the silence, it was Koen who was first to speak.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice still low and shaky.
Gaige shifted closer to him until she was sitting right beside him.
"I should be asking you that!" she exclaimed, before quieting down to explain exactly what she saw. "Well, uh, you started talking in your sleep quite loudly, which kinda woke me up. I just listened for about a minute or two, not really thinking anything about it, until you started… shouting, nearly. The way you were shouting, it was scary. Most of what was coming out of your mouth was just gibberish, but I heard a few words."
Koen stared blankly at the ground as he took all of this in. This was not the first time he'd had a nightmare like that, but he never knew of what it was like from the outside. "What was I saying?" he said. Not that what he was saying mattered, he was just curious.
"Kay, I managed to pick up on three things," Gaige replied, "'Dad', 'Koen', and this last one was a bit weird, but you said… 'Gaige.'"
"Gaige," Koen thought to himself. Why the hell would he say that? That nightmare had absolutely nothing to do with Gaige. He found it weird, but tried to ignore it. He didn't respond to Gaige, he instead just stood up and stretched his arms and legs.
"Come on, let's get going," he said, as he held out his hand to help Gaige up. She accepted it with her human hand and Koen pulled her to her feet. Koen then bent down to pick up his backpack, quiver and crossbow which lay on the ground where they rested.
Gaige watched him as he gathered up his things. She smiled to herself. She really liked the way his t-shirt was tight against his impressive arms. He wasn't the most muscly person in the world, Gaige thought, but he definitely wasn't bad. Gaige stopped dead in her tracks once she realised what she was thinking. She was slowly coming to the realization that she loved Koen. A lot.
She had liked him from the very first moment she saw him. She remembered hoping that he wasn't just another crazy bandit, and that they could actually form a friendship, and she had gotten just that. She was sure now that she loved him, yet she wondered if he felt the same way.
"You ready?" Koen asked, clipping his crossbow to his backpack.
"Oh, I-uh, yeah," Gaige stuttered.
Koen gave her a quick frown, before breaking into a smile.
"Well, let's get going then," he said, as the two began to walk once again. "How much further to the Arid... place?"
Gaige laughed slightly at his forgetfulness, "Honestly? No idea, we gotta get through the Highlands first."
"Are there going to be bandits here?"
"Nope, shouldn't be," Gaige replied, "You got much worse things to watch out for, take stalkers for example. They're these invisible, dragon-like thingies that like, go invisible and jump out at you and stuff-"
She was interrupted by a familiar beeping noise. She stopped walking, causing Koen to look back questioningly. She was getting a call on her ECHO device.
Maya and Lilith once again found themselves together inside the Crimson Raider's HQ in Sanctuary. There was not much to do after killing Handsome Jack and saving Pandora. Things got quite boring. Maya was sitting on one of the bottom bunks opposite Lilith.
Each day after Gaige's death became than the day before. People may have slowly been accepting her passing, but they certainly did not forget about her. Only one man in Sanctuary remained almost the same no matter how much time was given to him, and that was Axton. The other Vault Hunters were puzzled at his strange behaviour as they tried to make some sense of it. Eventually they gave up, they decided that he would get over it in time. Lately though, he seemed to be a lot better. He was spending less time in Moxxi's and more time with the Vault Hunters, but they still sensed something was off.
"So where is everyone?" Lilith asked, she was sitting in the swivel chair at Tannis' desk, staring up at the ceiling. Maya had a sudden flashback to when Gaige had asked her to help with mending her broken mechanical fingers. She pushed this memory to the back of her mind and continued.
"Well, Axton, Salvador, and I think Brick and Mordecai, are over in Moxxi's, most likely getting hammered, as per usual." Maya said.
"What?!" Lilith exclaimed, "They're only just up out of bed!"
"Doesn't stop them, apparently," Maya smiled. She didn't care if they went off to get drunk, yet she still had to wonder why they did.
"So where's Zer0 then?" Lilith said.
"Oh, he's been gone all night, he said something about a bandit camp nearby, and about how he was gonna go kill them all or something. It was a haiku, obviously, so I didn't really get what he was saying." Maya explained.
Lilith thought about this for a second. "Wait a minute, how the hell does he get up and down from Sanctuary without the Fast-Travel stations?" she wondered.
"Oh, you see," Maya said, holding in a smile, "Scooter built this massive ladder and-"
Suddenly, the door to the HQ swung open and Zer0 walked in, his bloodied katana strapped to his back, as always. He shut the door quickly and walked at a hurried pace over to Maya, where he stood over her.
"Zer0," Maya gasped, "Is something up?"
Zer0 quickly scanned the room, to see if anyone else was here. Once he was sure it was just Maya and Lilith, he turned his head back to face Maya, a ':O' illuminating on his visor.
"I have heard some news / Whispers among the bandits…" he leaned in closer before quietly uttering the last part of his haiku, "The Mechromancer."
The two women gasped at the exact same tame. Maya shot up out of her seat and faced Zer0 directly. "What about her?" she demanded.
"Bandits have seen her / A girl with a robot arm / On her way south-west," Zer0 said in his robotic, monotone voice.
Maya simply could not believe what she was hearing. Gaige, the girl who was once her friend, who Maya had watched die, and whos funeral she had gone to, was actually alive, out there somewhere. She had no idea how to feel about this. The first thought that entered her head was: why hadn't she told us yet?
"B-but," Maya stammered, "I saw her die! There were no New-U stations! We even buried her body! Were they sure it was Gaige?" Maya didn't know what to believe at the moment.
"They did not know her / They described her perfectly / I'm sure it is her," Zero said.
Maya glanced back at Lilith, and saw that her jaw was hanging open in disbelief. Maya turned back to Zer0.
"Where did the bandits see her?" Maya continued to question Zer0.
"The ones in the Dust / Contacted the ones nearby / She is in the Dust," Zer0 droned in his usual voice.
"Anything else?"
Zer0 paused for a few seconds before responding. "She is not alone / Accompanied by a boy / Who wields a crossbow."
Maya rushed over to her bed and lay down on the floor, reaching under the bed. Her hand fumbled for a few seconds before she stood up, holding an ECHO device in her hands.
"What are you doing?" Lilith asked, as Zer0 stood where he was, watching Maya.
"You'll see," Maya replied. She tapped a few buttons on the ECHO device and waited. The device began to make a bunch of random beeping noises, before falling silent. Lilith glanced at the display, it read:
Gaige
Connecting…
Gaige's face went white and she began to tremble as she pulled out her ECHO device. Surely this was a mistake, nobody she knew would intentionally call her. She held the device up to her face and looked at the display, not saying a word. The screen read only one name:
Maya
"Maya?" Gaige thought, "Why the hell is she calling me? There's no way she can think…"
Gaige hit the mute button on the side of the ECHO to mute the microphone and held it away from her. Koen walked up to her and looked at the screen. He instantly recognised the name 'Maya' as one of the Vault Hunters Gaige was telling him about. This must have been one of the people who thought she was dead, well, not anymore it seems.
"Hello? Gaige?" Maya's voice called from the ECHO device. Gaige held the device away from her, staring into the distance at nothing in particular. Koen decided he should do something, he understood exactly what Gaige was thinking. He took the ECHO device from her hand, hit the unmute button, and raised it to his face. Gaige made no attempt to stop him, she just continued staring at nothing.
Koen sighed heavily. "Hello?" He said into the ECHO device." He wondered how Maya was going to reply to this.
There was a long pause from the other end, until Maya finally spoke again. "Who is this?" She asked quietly.
"None of your business," Koen grunted, "What's more important is why you called this ECHO device."
There was another pause before Maya came back again, sounding angrier this time. "Because I know Gaige is alive!"
Gaige broke out of her trance, looked at the ECHO device and then at Koen, a concerned look on her face. Koen reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. He had one more thing to say to Maya.
"Don't look for her," Koen said threateningly, and he hit the button to power off the ECHO device. He moved the ECHO device away from his face, and looked over at Gaige. He noticed that she had tears in her eyes. He put his second hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes, but instead of looking back into his eyes, Gaige bowed her head and looked down at the ground, trying to wipe the tears away.
"Hey…" Koen whispered quietly as he pulled Gaige into another embrace. She closed her arms around Koen, buried her face into his chest and began to sob lightly. He knew Gaige had been through hell getting to Pandora and been through it again while she was here. She wanted nothing more than to get off this planet.
"Don't look for her," was the last thing Maya heard before the ECHO device went silent. She guessed whoever she was talking to had turned it off. She wondered why he even answered in the first place. She now knew that Gaige was alive out there somewhere, and that she was going to find her, regardless of that the voice told her to do.
Maya tossed the ECHO device on to her bed and looked at Zer0. "Get Salvador," she said to him. Zer0 did as he was told, turning and walking out the front door. Before he exited, Maya remembered something. "Zer0, wait!" she called, and Zer0 stopped walking and spun around.
"Don't tell Axton," Maya said, and Zer0 nodded.
"Why wouldn't you tell Axton?" Lilith demanded, "I mean, he's still pretty messed up over this situation."
"That's exactly the point," Maya replied, "I have no idea how he's going to react to this. Like, I'm angry that Gaige didn't tell us she was well… alive, how do you think Axton's going to react. I'd rather tell him when I know she's safe."
"While you do have a point about Axton, I still don't know why you're chasing after Gaige. She obviously didn't tell you for a reason, maybe she wants to leave Pandora, you can tell she wanted to for a while." Lilith said.
Maya bit her lip as she considered this. "I just need to know she's okay," she said finally.
Just then, Zer0 walked back through the front door of the HQ, followed by Salvador, who was holding a bottle of rakk-ale. He took a long sip of the drink before addressing the group.
"So, what's going on amigos?" he asked.
"Salvador," Maya said sternly, "Gaige is alive somewhere on Pandora, and we're going to find her."
A/N: Review, and you can have Gaige for an hour, but after that, I want her back :P Love it, hate it, whatever it is you people do.
See you next time!
