Okay I seriously need to apologize for not uploading sooner. I have been too tired, and I have horribly long days in the school. Aaaand I write my book a lot more than usually, AND I'm planning another fanfic.. So, yeah.

Thank you so much for reviewers and followers, and for reading this. I seriously appreciate it.

And now, enjoy!


Chapter 12 - Capture

Zer0 stood in front of Karima's house, while others were inside with injured Axton. There was a lot of things going on, and almost none of them made sense. But right now he had only two problems, which were seriously troubling him; He couldn't turn his cloaking device off, and how the hell they were going to get back to Sanctuary? That could be tough, since they couldn't just leave those Vault Key parts here.

He heard as door opened behind him, and Gaige walked outside. She looked around and tried to find him, but of course that was impossible when he was still invisible.

"I'm right here", he said.

She followed his voice, and walked next to him. Then she looked at the sky, and her expression looked really tired. "Sup?"

"I'm just thinking", he answered. Those Vault Key pieces had been pain in the ass for a too long. They couldn't fast travel because of them, and the couldn't even contact Angel with their Echo Devices. Gee, they couldn't even see map.

"That's so weird", Gaige said quietly.

He looked at her, and frowned behind his visor. "What?"

Gaige kept her eyes on the sky, and smiled tiredly. "You. I don't know if you have noticed, but you have changed. And I don't mean that Vault thing what is changing all of us, like it probably is tho'. I mean you're not even talking in haiku anymore. You are like... I dunno... More normal?"

Zer0 looked as she watched the sky. She looked it so closely, and it almost looked like she saw something over there. He tried to find what ever she was looking at, but couldn't see anything else than those clouds.

"Normal, huh? That doesn't sound so bad", he muttered. Actually it didn't sound bad at all. Maybe he even wanted to be normal. But unfortunately he couldn't feel like normal, not when those Vault Keys were disturbing him that much. He automatically scratched left hand's palm, without even noticing. Those freaking keys were messing with his head. He would probably go insane, if that would continue like that. Those things were messing with everything, and they couldn't even call anyone... - Wait, what? If those Vault Keys were effecting on those electronic devices when they were near them, would they start working if they were far enough? He took his Echo Recorder, which screen was pitch black, and started walking away from Karima's house.

"Hey, where are you going?" Gaige wondered, when she heard his footsteps walking away. She followed behind, but it was pretty hard when she didn't even see him.

Zer0 didn't answer. He was too absorbed with what he was doing - what ever it even was - to even hear her. He kept walking away from the Overlook without looking at anywhere else than his Echo Recorder. The screen started to show signs of living, when its map appeared on it. Unfortunately it started flashing couple times on the screen, until it disappeared again.

"God damn it!" He shouted frustrated, and continued walking. He almost fell over the cliff, when he wasn't focusing. Gaige had pulled him away from the cliff (he didn't even know how she had known that he was falling in a first place), and then he heard something coming out of his Echo Recorder. It was a female voice, who was talking to someone. He recognized the voice immediately.

"Lilith!" They both screamed in realization.

"Huh?" Came from other side.

"It's us, Gaige and Zer0!" Gaige said. She didn't even try to hide her cheeriness. Well, at that point he wouldn't either.

"Oh! Are you guys okay? We haven't heard a word about you since you were in Eridium Blight." They could hear the concern from her voice, and how Brick and Salvador were arguing about something in the background.

"Yeah, those Vault Key pieces did something, and we seriously don't know what. Fast Travels and our Echo Recorders didn't work. Now we are in the Highlands", Gaige explained.

"Okay. We are in some kind of village near the Isotope Reclamation Tower. You should come here, so we all can finally go back to Sanctuary." They heard a click when the call ended. They looked at each other (Gaige looked at Zer0's direction), and nodded, both very determined.

Now they just needed to go back to Overlook, check if Axton was able to leave, and then they could finally go home. Zer0 seriously almost missed that place. He would show his hand to Tannis, and he would hopefully get some answers. They all were tired of traveling around Pandora, and a tiny vacation would be nice. But somehow deep inside, he knew that wouldn't happen.


Lilith and others were walking through the tiny village in Highlands. That village hadn't been there earlier. Someone had seriously started to populate Pandora again. That area looked like a poor village from some fantasy game or movie. There were only couple stores, one clothing store and pub, and several tinier houses. Everyone of them were made from cheap looking wood. It looked pretty lovely place. A bit like Gunslinger Corner, but a bit poorer and tinier. Now there wasn't any stalkers or threshers in Highlands, so children were safe at least from them. Even thought they couldn't even see any kids. There were only a few people outside, and two caravans.

They didn't know what they were going to do now, when other Vault Hunter were coming over there. Brick and Salvador wanted to rob those caravans, but Lilith didn't want to steal from civil. She wouldn't care if they would be bandits, but they probably were normal people who were transporting food and supplies. Or at least they looked like normal people. They disappeared in the pub, and only one of them was left to guard those vehicles.

Brick and Salvador muttered something, but looked a bit more excited when they decided to go to the pub too. They planned to get wasted, while Lilith and Mordecai followed behind. Lilith just went with a flow, but Mordecai didn't feel like drinking, which was obviously very weird from him. He was usually that person who was drunk all the time. His mind was wandering who knows where, and he was feeling weird. He didn't like this place somehow, like there was something wrong going on. Others probably didn't even notice anything. He looked up at the sky, when they approached the pub. Suddenly he noticed something with corner of his eye. He squinted and looked at the sky more specifically. He tried to search something that he had seen, until saw something flying above them. It was a bird. It disappeared into sky as fast as it had come, before his eyes could register it better.

"Bloodwing?" He whispered. He had seen something, but he wasn't sure what. It had looked so familiar, his old friend, who supposed to be dead. She was dead, she had to be. He couldn't believe his eyes, and somehow he even didn't. He looked at the sky, and tried to find that bird again, but unfortunately it was already gone.

"Did you say something?" Lilith asked in front of him. She turned to look at him, and raised her eyebrows.

Mordecai shook his head and sighed. "I just thought I saw something..."

He had seen something what couldn't be possible, and his eyes were lying to him. He felt a little sad. There was a tiny thought of Bloodwing to be still a live, but she couldn't be. They continued walking towards the pub, while he looked up again. There wasn't anything. He had probably just imagined everything.

"Hey, you are Vault Hunters, right?" Bartender questioned, when they entered in the pub. That pub looked pretty poor. There was only few tiny tables, and those caravanners had occupied them all. They walked in front of the bar table, and everyone except Brick sat down on the stools. He thought that those chairs wouldn't take his weight, and didn't want to pay if he would break it.

"Yeah, we are", Lilith answered, while the bartender passed a huge cups of booze to Salvador and Brick. They started drinking immediately, and drank that booze like it was only a water.

"That's cool. It's nice to have celebrities like you here."

Lilith looked at the caravanners, who were getting drunk in the corner of the pub. They all wore shabby clothes, and had same looking rifles on their back. That they had guns, was probably a good thing, because otherwise it would be pretty easy to rob them. But still something didn't seem right.

"What are they transporting?" She asked the bartender.

He glanced at the men quickly. "Oh those? They told me that they have clothes, but I dunno. They look a little suspicious."

He handed the cup of booze to her, and she took it, while still looking at the caravanners. They looked suspicious to her, too. But now there wasn't actually anything to worry right now; Zer0 and Gaige had told that they were okay, and they even had both Vault Key pieces. That masked man had left, and they probably weren't going to see him today. Everything was going great, so now she wanted to try ignore those caravanners. There was no reasons to bother her head with some pointless things.


Vincent arrived to a tiny village in Highlands. This place looked friendly and comfortable, but he felt a little suspicious. He had goose bumps, and everyone seemed to look at him in a strange way. That could be only his imagination, if he even had one. He wandered around the village, trying to find something. He didn't actually even know what he was looking for. He just wanted some hints of Hayden's location, but he felt wasn't going to find anything like this. So, then he decided to do it like in the old days. He would find a picture of Hayden from internet, and then he would copy it. Then he could wander from door to door, and ask about her. He searched for Hayden Connor, and found some weird site, which was called Facebook. He thought for a while, and realized that he had heard about that site before. That was that annoying site what almost every teenager used every day. That young kid shouldn't even have Facebook... He found a good picture where she was smiling at the camera, and her face was shown clearly. Then he saved it to his Echo Recorder. He hadn't even known that his Echo Recorder has internet.

Now he only needed something to copy that picture onto paper. His eyes wandered around the village, and then he found a tiny and old-looking bookstore. He walked inside, and noticed immediately the photocopier on the table, next to the cashbox. He walked in front of the table, and looked at the cashier who was standing behind the table. She looked nice. She was young woman, and looked like she wasn't never going to stop that smiling. She was very pretty, too.

"Hello, how can I help you?" She asked cheerfully. Her cheeriness reminded him of Hayden. He pointed at the photocopier with his intact hand.

"Okay. It costs four dollars..."

Four dollars? He asked in disbelief. He looked at her for a while, like he hadn't heard what she just said. Four dollars for copying one picture? That sounded almost like stealing.

"... But I can give you a discount", She continued with a weird tone. She winked her eye, and smiled brightly. Weird woman. Now she reminded him of that bartender from Sanctuary. She stared at him in scary way, and he was starting to feel uncomfortable.

He stepped in front of the photocopier, and took out his Echo Recorder. He was alive and self-aware computer, so it wasn't hard to send that picture to the photocopier. Actually he didn't even know what he was doing usually. Everything like that happened naturally, and he wasn't sure how. His brains did things what his mind didn't quite process. Soon the machine started to tick, and Hayden's picture whirled out of the photocopier. He took the paper and held it with his both hands, when he felt as someone touching his shoulder. He turned around quickly, and saw the cashier behind him. She smiled at him with a weird way, and he didn't like it.

"Hey, I have a great idea. You don't need to pay anything, if we - you and me - would go over there in the backroom to have some fun together", she whispered.

Excuse me? He asked, even though he did know exactly what she meant. He backed away from the woman, when she started touching his chest, and hit the table behind him. He wasn't the most social person, so he was clearly feeling pretty uncomfortable, and he was wondering how and why someone would want to have sex with a total stranger. Well, everyone has their needs, but still this woman looked pretty desperate. But after all, he was an A.I. in male human body, so he wasn't feeling too bad about this.

Then there was a sudden knock from the window. They both turned to look at the bird, who was knocking the window with her beak. Vincent's eyes widened, and he left the store without saying anything to the woman. She screamed something to his back, but he wasn't listening.

That bird, Bloodwing, was amazing. Vincent seriously hated Handsome Jack, who had been a pathetic coward. He had wanted to do something good during the war between Jack and Vault Hunters, so he had decided to free those animals from Wildlife Exploitation Preserve. Unfortunately someone had made there before him. All the trouble, would have been for nothing, if he hadn't found that weird hidden laboratory. That laboratory had been a hell of a creepy place. There were several deformed birds in huge birdcages. There were dead birds, birds without head, birds without wings or eyes, giant birds, mini birds... And then he found one tinier birdcage. Inside of it was one normal looking bird, and he learned quickly that she wasn't some ordinary bird. Her intelligent was incredible. She could understand him when even normal humans didn't, and she actually wrote her name to the sand. She always came out of nowhere when he called her, and followed him, like she wanted to pay somehow for her freedom. So, she was quite awesome.

He looked as she flew away from the window, and started flying away from him. He followed her quickly, and saw as she landed on pub's roof. Then she pointed at the one man with her beak. That man had dirty clothes, and looked like civilian, but he obviously wasn't one of them. He was standing next to the front door of the pub, and looked like he was waiting something. There were two caravans next to him, but he was alone.

Vincent looked up at Bloodwing, who was still pointing at the man. She looked so determined, so this man had to be up something. Or he had someone. Vincent approached the man slowly, while his hand reached over his pistol. If this man knew something about Hayden, he didn't want to let him go easily. Man didn't saw him when he walked closer, and noticed him only when he was standing directly in front of him. He looked at Vincent very dumbly, and obviously didn't know what was going on.

"What the fuck do you want?" He uttered.

Vincent kept his other hand on his pistol, while he took Hayden's picture from his pocket with another, and showed the picture to the man. Man looked at the picture, and squinted oddly. After couple seconds he realized what he was looking at, and backed away from Vincent quickly.

"You're not taking me alive!" He exclaimed.

That was everything what he needed. This man obviously had Hayden, and Vincent wanted her back. Man looked pretty scared, and that was a good thing. Don't mess with a fucking killer A.I., motherfucker. He reached over his riffle which hang on his back, but shook too much and dropped it to the ground. Before Vincent even had a time to approach him more, he suddenly ran inside the pub. The door swung wide open, and he could see everyone who were inside, including those Vault Hunters. His eyes locked to the red-haired siren, who looked at him with widened eyes. He even saw as her lips shaped like she was saying 'What the fuck'. There were maybe seven caravanners, two civilians - bartender and some drunk old guy - , and Vault Hunters. Almost every one of them started shooting at him. He backed away from the door and took cover behind the wall.

"Kill him, boys!" One of the caravanners shouted.

That order wasn't for Lilith and others, but they were immediately on the action. Lilith took her smg, and pointed at the open door. Those caravanners were shooting and spending their bullets like maniacs. Maybe they thought that their bullets would go through the wall, and somehow even hit the target. She would want to see that. Before even had a chance do anything, she saw as Brick ran outside, and through the bullet rain. Rest of them followed, and all the bullets bounced back when they hit their shields. Soon everyone were outside the pub, and trying to shoot at the incredibly fast masked man. It looked like he just dodged all of them, or those bullets just bounced back. Or then he just didn't care of the pain... If he even felt anything. Brick was trying to run over and hit him, but he was too quick. Right now everything seemed like chaos, and those caravanners even started to shoot each others.

There was a loud a humming sound, and Vincent turned around to see as the both of the caravans had started to drive away. He ran after them, but was soon stopped by something invisible that tackled him to the ground. He stood up quickly and noticed the familiar, almost unheard footsteps.

I don't have time for this! He shouted frustrated. He looked at the caravans, that were now almost disappearing from the sight. He ignored the assassin, and sprinted after those two caravans. He didn't even remember when he had run that fast. He reached the last caravan, and jumped on top of it. There were tiny windows on the both side's of the vehicle, and he leaned over the edge to see what was inside. There was nothing. It was just full of nothingness. He let out an angry roar, and stood up. He turned to look at that other caravan, which was few feet away. He ran along the caravan, and jumped on the other vehicle. He squatted, and was going to crash that roof, when he saw a purple blast with corner of his eye. He raised his head, just in time to see that red-haired siren standing about twenty feet away in front of the caravan, and the electric rocket that she had just shot, flying towards him incredibly fast. It hit him before even had a chance to dodge it. He was dropped from the caravan and fell to the ground.

Lilith sighed and lowered her rocket launcher, while approaching his still body. She walked in front of him, tensed of the thought that he would suddenly jump up, and attack. But he didn't. He stayed on a ground motionless, without showing any sight of being alive.

"Is he... Is he dead?" Gaige, who had appeared out of nowhere, asked quietly.

That was the second thought, which was annoyingly floating in her mind. She hadn't intended to kill him, and she kind of hoped he was still alive. Well, how he even could be? She had just shot him once with her rocket launcher, so he couldn't be dead that easily.

"No, I think he's just offline", Zer0's voice came next to her.

She looked at the direction, but couldn't see him, so he had to be still in Deception. Wait, what? Had he just said offline? What that supposed to mean? Humans can't be offline? That would sound too stupid to him to say. He wouldn't say anything like that about humans. Did he mean that this masked creepy guy wasn't human? What the fuck? And what that offline means? Is he dead or not?

"What?" She let out puzzled. "Do you mean he's a robot or something?"

"Well..." He started. He was (maybe) squatting next to the masked guy's motionless body. "He's definitely not a human... But he has a pulse. At least he's not dead."

Lilith sighed in relief, and didn't quite even know why. It should be a good thing, if he would be dead... No it would be great thing. He couldn't be creeping the hell out of her and others.

"What do we do with him now?" Gaige asked.

That was a brilliant question, and Lilith didn't know what to answer. She was the leader of Crimson Raiders, so she should know what to do in these type of situations. But unfortunately that guy had been a huge pain in the ass since they had met him first time, and he was making her feel pretty uncomfortable.

"Maybe we should take him to Sanctuary", Axton suggested. That idea would probably been most stupidest idea, if he hadn't added: "We could lock him somewhere and interrogate him. Maybe he knows something about Captain or those Vaults." Axton and others had all appeared out of nowhere, right after that madness has started. He had been hurt, but he was still capable to walk.

Gaige snorted loudly enough to everyone to hear her. "And why do you think that he would tell anything to us?" That was another great questions. Well, they didn't know, but it was worth to try. What bad could even happen? Oh yeah, he could escape, and kill everyone...

"Well, we have Zer0, don't we?" Axton asked and grinned.

"Huh?" Their lovely, and very invisible assassin's voice came from the same spot.

"If he don't talk, you are going to interrogate him on your own way. You know what I mean?" Axton said, and his grin widened even more.

"You are talking about torturing him?" Lilith asked suspiciously. She didn't like that idea at all, no matter who they were going to interrogate. Okay, maybe she would had tortured Jack if she would had a chance, but who wouldn't? Axton made a sound which told her that she had been right.

"Why everyone thinks that I'm some kind of sadistic maniac, who likes to torture people?" Zer0 muttered.

"Because you look like one", Axton answered immediately. Gaige and Salvador gave a laugh at that point, and Lilith and others just rolled their eyes.

"How are we gonna get back to Sanctuary?" Maya asked.

Lilith turned to look at the flying city. They couldn't use Fast Travel because of those Vault Key parts, so there had to be some other way. She grinned, as the idea popped in her head. "I think we should bring Sanctuary to us", she said and started walking away.

Others looked at each other in wonder, while she was talking to Scooter with her Echo Device. Then she walked back, and they all looked as the flying city started to fall slowly from the sky. It grew bigger and bigger, and came closer in every second. Soon the ground started to shake, and there was a loud thud, as Sanctuary landed in the Highlands.

"Let's go home", Lilith said with a proud smile.


"Stupid Vault Hunters", a rough voice said. That voice belonged the blacksoldier who was sitting inside the caravan. He didn't wear his suit or helmet, so he didn't look like blacksoldier. But he was. All those caravanners were. They were only disguised as civilians, so they could fool people like Vault Hunters. He started laughing with other soldier who was sitting next to him.

"He was so close", he said with a grin. They both looked at the girl, who was sitting in front of them. She was crying quietly. Her blonde hair looked like one big mess, and her face and clothes were dirty. "And then they ruined everything."

Hayden felt like she just wanted to crawl in the corner and cry. She was scared, and wanted to go home. She looked outside the window, and noticed that they were far away from Vincent now. Her eyes hurt from the crying. Everything felt like a nightmare right now. She closed her eyes, in a hope that everything would just go away. But it didn't.

"Hey, don't cry, girl." One of the blacksoldiers said. He almost sounded sorry, and his expression showed a tiny signs of pity. "Captain doesn't like when someone cries. You are gonna spend a lot of time with her, so you should know that."

After that, all the pity disappeared and they both started laughing again. Hayden closed her eyes again, wishing that someone would help her. Vincent was going to find her, she was sure of that. He was going to save her no matter what. Now she just needed to wait.


Yeah, sometimes heroes are the stupidest. - Next chapter coming out soon (At least a lot sooner than this came. Sorry for that, seriously)