Maya slowly opens her eyes to see a bright sun illuminating a vast, clear sky and blinks a few times before her pupils narrow enough so that the light doesn't hurt her. She sits up, having to use her arms to help her, and a flash of pain shoots to her head as she puts her tattooed hand on the back of her head. She stumbles getting up, still holding her head in an effort to alleviate the torment and finally realizes she is in The Dust at the very edge of a steep drop and mutters to herself, "Damn, I'm never drinking again."
She gazes out at the land around her trying to get her bearings, and sluggishly makes her way to what she hopes is a catch-a-ride station. Her head pulses with agony every time she tries to recall the events of the night before and decides to abandon her thoughts until her mind was her own again. She digistructs her runner and starts heading toward Ellie's garage to fast travel to Sanctuary when she spots Krieg standing in the middle of the desert, luckily there are no enemies around. She drives up and stops in front of him before he yells, "I'm the conductor or the poop train!" at the top of his lungs.
Maya giggles softly and says, "That line again? I'm starting to think you're running out of material" when she notices that he doesn't have his buzz axe with him.
She tells him to get in the gunner seat so she can take him back to Sanctuary and as he does so he screams, "The barrel of meat monkeys has always tasted delicious!" and she can't help but giggle again but stops as soon as the pain in her head pulses again. They reach the fast travel station and get to Sanctuary, only to find that most of the usual occupants are away while Brick and Starkekrieg are having a duel out on the streets. Maya leans against a wall and Krieg stands idly by her as they watch the two hulks try to bash each other's faces in. The two eventually finish in a tie, Starkekrieg had learned to limit his force when fighting friends, and Brick notices the siren and psycho observing them.
"So what did you think, any places where I could've used a better move?" he asks Maya as he uses his arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
Maya smiles at Brick's constant desire to make himself stronger and says, "I would have stayed back and shot him while he was suspended in the air."
Brick laughs at her remark and turns to Krieg asking, "What about you slab, you're more of my kind of fighter?"
Krieg lifts his head up from a slight trance he had been in and responds with, "The bloody balloons need to pop in all the pleasant places!" as he looks up to see the surveyor flying overhead towards Southern Shelf.
Brick, never able to comprehend the psycho's speech, says, "Okay, I'll try to make that happen next time, thanks for the input." He looks back at Maya as he remembers the last time he saw her and asks, "So where did you go after you left Sanctuary slab?"
"Eh, I went a few places to try and get my mind off of the Krieg situation" she says, comfortable telling it to Brick.
Brick waits a moment as he looks at her face and asks, "Well? Did it work?"
"Yeah, just not the way I had planned it."
Brick laughs a little before saying, "Well I'm glad you're back, I'm off to go kill some Sawteeth" as he goes to the fast travel station. Maya, still feeling tired, decides to take a nap in the HQ when she is interrupted by the sound glass shattering and looks outside to see Krieg. He had just raided Moxxi's bar, an event that no one wished to see again, and stolen most of the glasses and bottles and was throwing them at the poor Sanctuary citizens. Luckily the citizens were fast enough to dodge most of his attacks, except for a few that were easily patched up by Zed, and Maya runs out to stop him but before she can do anything she realizes that this Krieg is different than the one that followed her home. She turns around to see another Krieg swinging on the ceiling of the HQ and checks her surveyor remote, where she sees the names of Liebekrieg, Feuerkrieg, and Blitzkrieg. She remembers seeing Starkekrieg just a minute ago, though the one in the HQ isn't big enough to be him anyway, and recognizes that she brought home a clone they had never seen before, a clone that doesn't even carry an axe.
Before she can think another thought a bottle of rakk ale collides with the back of her head, luckily the shield cushioned it or that would've really hurt. She immediately turns back around, slightly irked by the bottle, and phaselocks all the glass that Krieg has in his arms, which all shatters in an instant from the Helios explosion and then shower down on the disappointed psycho as he screams, "Petals fill the bloody skies!".
She turns back to the unknown clone and begins to wonder what she should do with him, "He hasn't hurt anybody, and he doesn't even have a buzz axe with him. Maybe I can just leave him alone and no one will notice."
(Transition to when Axton ECHOed Lilith) The confused clone stops in his tracks as the assassin disappears from his sight, and then notices the hunter climbing and decides to go after him. Just as he jumps to follow the climber, Zer0 manages to get behind him, dash forward with an execution and rend his flesh from shoulder to waist. The attack stuns the clone long enough for Mordecai to get to the top and set up to shoot, then the clone recovers and goes after Zer0. The clone opens his mouth to scream at the assassin but before he can Mordecai fires and the bullet goes straight through his skull, preventing the deadly noise from escaping. Zer0 dives into the water and clings to the underside of the floor to hide while the clone is disoriented from the shot. Deprived of all other targets, the clone starts to climb up to Mordecai again and the hunter shoots him over and over to try to deter him, but the bullets have no effect as the clone had grown used to his attacks.
Fortunately the clone is not as slender as Mordecai and it takes him a while to ascend, but Mordecai knows that if the clone gets close enough, that scream will kill him even with the earplugs. He sees Zer0 trying to climb back out from under the floor and sends out Talon as he backs away from the ledge, meanwhile Gaige comes out of hiding to throw a shock grenade at the ground below the clone. When the grenade goes off, the electricity barely catches the clone, but stops his ascent for a moment while Talon digs his talons into his back and pulls him off the wall. Zer0 gets back on top of the floor and holds his sword under the descending clone, which pierces through his shoulder as he falls. Zer0 flips the body over with the sword, dislodges it from the clone's shoulder blade, and sheathes it all without saying a word.
With this the clone lay motionless on the floor, Mordecai watches from his perch at the top, Zer0 readies to cut him down again should he rise and Gaige comes out of hiding since Deathtrap has recharged. The three wait in silence for the clone to stand back up, enjoying the break from the screaming, until Axton shows up. "Lilith and Sybil can't make it, they got something else on their hands" he says before he sees the clone lying on the ground with a small, bleeding hole in his shoulder.
Mordecai calls out to him, "Did you get your earplugs amigo? You're going to need them."
Axton, only barely understanding him because of the blood in his ears, takes out his earplugs from his pocket, lifts up the cloth he wrapped around his head and slowly pushes in the earplugs hoping they would prevent any more damage being done to his ears. After he manages to get them in and settle down, Gaige turns to Zer0 and asks, "Hey, if he gets up again, don't cut him down right away, I want to try something" before Zer0 takes his hand off of the handle of his sword and backs away.
A while goes by without the clone even flinching and they all have calmed down and taken their earplugs out to hear each other. Gaige says to Axton quietly so as not to hurt his ears, "When I throw DT out, throw your turret at him. It'll be a big surprise." Just as she says that they hear the clone start to groan and they jump back in surprise. The clone slowly rises to his feet and they see that the hole in his shoulder is significantly smaller, the clone soon regains his energy and is ready to attack again as Gaige summons Deathtrap. The clone recognizes the robot and runs toward it to destroy it the same way he did last time, while Axton throws his longbow turret out at Deathtrap and waits to see what happens.
When the turret deploys, the clone is just about to scream at the robot but the nuke sends him flying backwards and grants Deathtrap explosives claws, the part that would usually be attached to the ground clings to the chest of the hovering automaton and the actual turret has changed so it aims directly at whatever is in front of Deathtrap. The clone gets back up and Deathtrap starts advancing toward him, all while the turret is firing rockets and slag bullets. The clone tries to take cover from the barrage of missiles but the maneuverability of Deathtrap makes that impossible as he follows him everywhere he tries to hide. The clone slowly loses his strength as he is subjected to lasers, electricity, explosive claws, missiles, and slag and eventually falls to the floor completely drained.
After they all take the earplugs out, Axton reclaims his turret from Deathtrap's chest and says to Gaige, "Wow, I never thought about putting my turret on your robot, that's pretty damn cool."
Mordecai jumps down from his perch and says, "Maldita, that'll be very helpful against…..well, everything really" before softly laughing.
Gaige can't stop smiling from Mordecai's comment and says proudly, "I thought about it some time ago, but I only now got the time to perform the upgrade." When she is finished talking the surveyor suddenly comes up from behind them and hovers above Zer0.
Zer0's helmet projects a, ":(" and he says, "We vanquished our foe, that challenge is now complete, surveyor is late."
Mordecai puts his hand on the back of his neck and says, "He's right, it's no use here now that the clone can't fight."
Gaige smiles even bigger and says, "That's what you think" before she walks up to the surveyor, flips a switch, and says, "Watch this and be amazed by my talents."
The surveyor speaks in the same voice as a constructor saying, "CARGO MODE ACTIVATED" before it flies over to the unconscious clone and starts scanning it and as it does so, the clone's body starts disappearing. Everyone realizes what it is doing and compliments Gaige on her idea while the surveyor finishes and starts heading back to Sanctuary. Gaige gladly but briefly relishes in her glory before Axton mentions that Lilith and Sybil are in trouble and they all start back to the fast travel station.
(Transition to when Lilith received Axton's call) Lilith and Sybil just stand there, not able to move a muscle as they listen to the ECHO device ring. Lilith quickly presses the answer button to shut it up and brings the speaker to her ear after turning the volume down.
"Axton what the hell do you want?!" she says in an excited whisper, making the least amount of sound possible so she doesn't wake the giant any more than the ringing did. Sybil watches its eyes that have already opened but only half way and is ready to run should they open fully.
"Aaahhh damn! Not so loud I got an ear injury. We found that monster Hammerlock told us about and it turns out it is another clone, so we need Sybil to get here ASAP" Axton says as he walks back to Liar's Berg.
Lilith breathes in and out one time to help her relax and says to him more calmly, "We are a little busy at the moment, sneaking up on a humongous zombie that you just woke up. Oh and he destroyed the bridge to the fast travel station so I don't know how we are going to get to you anyway."
"A giant zombie huh, that sounds pretty bad. I'll tell the guys about it and we'll come help you when we take care of the clone" as he still clutches with one hand his other ear.
Lilith hangs up and raises her head to see the giant still not fully awake and gets out the bar of eridium and absorbs it. As she closes her hands together, she realizes she cannot hold this much siren energy in her body at the same time, but she still attempts to retain as much of it as she can to direct it at the zombie all at once. She doesn't realize it, but the energy had already started to leak out of her, purple tentacles of light surround her and whip around furiously faster and faster with the more energy she tries to contain. Sybil is powerless to do anything as the bright light quickly wakes up the giant and she grabs Lilith's shoulders and tells her to hurry up and destroy him already.
The giant stands up as fast as he can and lifts his foot to flatten the two sirens, but when it gets right above them, Lilith lets out a terrifying shriek and the purple tentacles turn to flames and wrap themselves around the giant's ankle. The giant's foot is made immobile as Lilith stands under it, seemingly overwhelmed by the power as her eyes and mouth are wide open with tentacles shooting out and she doesn't move.
The fire winds itself up the zombie's entire leg and grows in intensity, severing the appendage and causing the monster to fall backwards into the ocean. The flames incinerate the leg in almost no time, but they burn so brightly that everyone on Pandora, save for those in the farthest away areas, could not help but notice the beacon. Even those of the planets nearest Pandora could clearly see the brief coruscation of light, for many it will always be a source of legend, others an astronomical anomaly, or maybe a sign of hope in their dreary lives. Only a few on Pandora will know what truly happened, but the only one to experience it first hand is Sybil.
Lilith falls unconscious as the flames shrink back into her after untangling themselves from the giant leg that is now only ashes floating in the dark wind. Sybil doesn't know what to do except watch the giant fall into the ocean as she is amazed by her ally's ability and how the zombie is so big that the flames only reached one leg. The radial wave of murky water caused by the fall causes the hill they are standing on to become an island, and the stinging mist from the splash wakes Sybil from her trance and she tries to wake Lilith.
The giant, feeling no pain from his missing limb, takes no pause in getting up as he pushes his body up from the ocean floor and climbs back onto the surprisingly sturdy hospital. The water level lowers slightly but still traps the two vault hunters as Sybil picks Lilith up and throws her arm around her shoulder and drags her behind a tall mausoleum to hide her from the maddened monster. She herself also hides next to her friend as she doesn't know what to do, when suddenly she hears a crazed laughter coming from the direction opposite of the hospital. She sees a clone darting towards them at an impressive speed, it has a slightly dark green skin with innumerable scars and bite marks, and the bottom half of his mask had been torn away revealing a hideous grin drooling in anticipation of his soon to come meal. Sybil is too shocked by this sudden surprise that she just watches the clone come closer and closer, the rotten teeth and torn mask frighten her less than they probably should.
Sybil witnesses the clone leap into the air and closes her eyes tightly before a loud crack sounds above her head. Not a second later the clone launches from the top of the mausoleum and screams just one word at the top of his lungs. "Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaat!" is all that Sybil hears before she opens her eyes and peeks past the stone structure to see the clone hacking and slashing away at the giant who is desperately trying to squash his foe. The clone latches onto the giant's hand with his teeth as it hovers over him, riding it up above the head; instead of letting go he closes his mouth and takes a chunk out of the giant's flesh, chewing and swallowing as he falls down to the top of the head. The giant's arms are tattered from the work the clone did and when one reaches up to grab the clone, he has no problem slicing off half of the forearm.
As the second severed body part falls into the water, the clone uses his buzz axe like a pick axe on the top of the head, practically drilling into his rotten skull. The zombie's other arm is too injured and falls off into the ocean when lifted. The clone crawls into the open wound and disappears from Sybil's view, then all she can see is the pointless thrashing of the giant's stubs of limbs, and all she can hear is deep bellowing as the giant realizes he is doomed.
The giant is suddenly silenced and his head falls to the ground, some black liquid gushing out of the wound. Sybil stands up out of cover and surveys the land to see the giant, in a position almost as if he is sleeping. She slowly approaches the festering wound with putrid flesh and the sounds of chewing coming out of it, hoping that the clone is too preoccupied to notice her. She looks inside and sees the clone on his back, tearing pieces of brain mass off with both his teeth and hands, devouring it as fast as he can. Sybil puts one hand over her mouth and nose to keep from vomiting, closes her eyes, and reaches in with the other hand and places it on the clone's head. The siren glows black as she again reaches out to one of her clones' minds, at this point Lilith had woken up and was sauntering over to her friend. Sybil doesn't do much as she calms his thoughts, just takes her hand off of her face and says, "I'm so hungry, I just want to eat" in a voice that sounds like both Sybil's and Krieg's.
Sybil quickly takes her hand out of the wound and says, "Oh god that's so gross, why would I do that?" wiggling her arm around not knowing how to clean it off.
Lilith laughs softly as she sees Sybil's new personality's reaction and says, "So what's his name?"
"His name's Fleischkrieg, but that doesn't change the fact that my arm is covered in shit!" as she starts to freak out, wiping her arm on the ground.
"Well we better get him back to Sanctuary before he eats himself to death" Lilith says before she pulls the unconscious Krieg from the giant's head and onto the floor.
"Heeey!"
"Ow! Not so loud Gaige!"
Sybil turns around after ridding herself of most of the filth on her arm and sees the Axton, Gaige, Zer0, and Mordecai standing on the other side of the water.
(I give credit to the idea of the clone brought to Sanctuary by Maya to Zinc2100, as I had not thought of an aspect of Krieg that I will call "The conductor" until I find a name that fits with the pattern of the others)