Chapter 14: Shiny, Purple, and Important

"So if these guys are telling the truth and there really is another vault here, what should we do with all the loot?" Yang wondered aloud, trying to distract herself from the boredom of driving the fan boat over the empty marshes that were too deep for any creature or savage to bother waiting around in.

"A ticket off this armpit of a planet. Air conditioning is a myth to you all, apparently, all the wildlife tastes like industrial chemicals, I think i almost died at least nine times since I got here and those are from things besides getting shot, and everything just… smells.", Weiss complained, waving her hand in front of her nose to ward off yet another whiff of the swampy odor that dominated the air.

"Got a place in mind? You could stay with me and Ruby if it comes down to it.", Yang offered out of reflex, without thinking on whether or not to make the offer.

"Ruby and I", Weiss corrected, earning an eye roll from Yang that she couldn't see since the blonde faced forward to drive the fan boat, but assumed to have been earned. "And- wait, I thought you couldn't go home.", Weiss realized, remembering why the sisters were even here in the first place. "How can you come home while Ruby's still-".

"Woah there, Ice Queen. We weren't nearly as badass as we are now when we left, there's no one on that planet that could take us now, not as long as I got these babies.", Yang countered, taking one hand off the steering wheel to point at the miniature Torgue shotguns in their holsters.

"Assuming you don't blow yourself up before anything like that comes up, those are safety hazards and you know it.", Weiss commented,adjusting her grip on the side of the fan boat and pointing at Yang's weapons.

"For the poor sap who thinks he can take me on, yeah, but not for me.", Yang argued, her face breaking out into a cheeky grin. "What do you think, Ruby? Any plans for all the loot we could get?", she called out, not noticing that Ruby had been spacing out, simply taking in the vibrant landscape of Aegrus before her raised voice snapped the younger sister out of her sightseeing.

"Huh? Wuh- oh loot! Right. Uhhh, more stuff for Crescent Rose, I guess. Maybe some strawberries. I miss strawberries…", Ruby trailed off, her stomach grumbling as if to emphasize her point.

"Oh please, I'm sure you treat that rifle well enough.", Weiss commented, perplexed at Ruby's lack of ambition. Weiss was filthy rich once, and if this vault was real and no one was conning her, she'd be filthy rich once again, and she will be damned if she, or the other three hunters don't get to enjoy it.

"Weiss you don't understand! There's no "good enough" for Crescent Rose!", Ruby whined. "They don't make rifles like her anymore and I don't know what I'd do without her! Isn't that right, sweetheart?", Ruby explained, then turned to the rifle slung on her back and petting it like she would a puppy.

"Your sister needs help.", Weiss murmured under her breath.

"Eh, she turned out fine enough.", Yang shrugged, never taking her eyes off the swamp in front of her.

"How about you, Blake? Anything special in mind?", Ruby asked, looking up at the ex assassin who had dozed off in the gunner seat, her face in another book.

"Huh? Oh, loot? I hadn't really planned on getting enough loot to think about it…", Blake admitted, still shaking off her grogginess.

"And here you are looking for an alien vault of value high enough to kill and die for.", Weiss commented.

"Well when you put it like that…, maybe a nice house on one of the quiet planets, other than that, still don't really know." Blake answered. As talented, "ninja like", as the sisters would call her, and ridiculously talented she was with both sword and shot, Blake never relished the rush of adrenaline like Yang did, or appreciated the craftsmanship of a weapon or of a battle plan like Ruby or Weiss, respectively. Her upbringing and perhaps her own natural demeanor just made her tired of it all, but she knew better than to give up. The vault was just what she needed to get off Pandora and onto somewhere where she could live a quiet life without having to slash or shoot her way through the day. Until then, however, she'd use all her skills (and all her holographic decoys) to hunt down this vault.

After a brief lull in conversation, Ruby's ECHO began to ring, showing Jaune's face as she pressed the answer button. "Hey Jaune, did something come up?", Ruby asked.

"Yeah actually, we may have kinda sorta totalled our ride, and we know the fan boats don't hold more than four and it would be a really bad idea to try and fit more, so we're heading back to the lodge to hit that center camp after we get another boat.", Jaune answered, embarrassment and annoyance creeping into his voice.

"It was not my fault!", Nora yelled, an explosion roaring through the ECHO the moment she proclaimed her innocence, followed by a distinct scream Ruby could swear she heard in a bunch of different movies.

"Okay… how about we meet you there?", Ruby offered.

"Sounds like a plan, I don't think we'll be in shape to hit that camp after walking all the way ba- oh come on that was a nice shoe!, Jaune complained as Ruby heard wet noises of what she assumed was Jaune searching through the swamp for his shoe

As Jaune hung up, Ruby's ECHO rang again, showing a picture of Rhys's face.

"Hello?", Ruby greeted.

"Hey! You wouldn't have happened to see two redheads and a blonde in your area have you?", Rhys asked.

"Why? You getting lonely there, little guy?", Yang suggested, her voice dripping with distinct mischievousness, one greater than Yang's usual misbehavior.

"One, I'm taller than you.", Rhys deadpanned, causing Yang to gasp and put a hand to her heart. "Two, no. I'm asking because they broke into my little office and voluntold me to give them the coordinates to Aegrus, so just FYI."

"Oh we know them! Don't worry about it.", Ruby realized, putting two and two together and concluding that the vault hunters Rhys was talking about were Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren.

"Alright, just-, oh wait, before I go, find anything good yet? Like i said, if it's shiny and doesn't shoot bullets I could probably use it.", Rhys reminded the four, hopeful for something of value.

"Uh we found something shiny and purple.", Ruby answered.

"Great! Bring it to Fiona, she probably knows what it is, til next time you guys, I think LB wants the ECHO."

"I MUST CALL GORTYS, IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG.", Loader Bot claimed.

"It's been like three hours you ca-", Rhys argued, before Ruby hung up.

"You think he'll tell us who Gortys is?", Ruby wondered aloud.

"It's probably not important. Let's get back to the lodge.", Weiss suggested. "And more importantly, out of all this muck…"

...

"Yang was right, walking does suck.", Jaune complained, having wrestled his shoe from the mud, only find its inside caked with the brown gunk, forcing him to go the rest of the trek with one shoe and one of his favorite rocket ship socks slowly becoming a plain brown sock.

"My apologies, I should have expected that. Nora tends to get… restless.", Ren said, his fingers on his temples as if to soothe a headache.

"I was so bored! You can understand, right Ren?", Nora pleaded.

"Yes, but that doesn't make it okay that you trashed our ride.", Ren replied calmly.

"Moving on…" Pyrrha interjected, wanting to divert the topic that was reminding her of how she could be sitting on a fan boat speeding back to the lodge with their shiny purple trinket, but instead had to walk through hell and (literally) high water instead. "Are you sure about keeping that rifle, Jaune? We've come across quite a few alternatives."

"Nah, this is a family heirloom, my dad used it, and his dad, and his dad before that, and… you get the point. When we go out on the Arc adventure, we always take something special from home, and it usually happens to be this. Plus I value my life so I'm making damn sure this thing comes back home with me.", Jaune declared proudly, carrying the rifle with a little more care and ignoring the squelch of his feet in the mud.

"So Ren, you say you and Nora travel a lot? Got any new stories?", Jaune asked, hoping to kill some time.

"Well it's not exactly an adventure, but there was this one time…", Ren trailed off, thinking of the story.

...Hollow Point, Pandora (the town, not the bullet type)

"Ren can we switch? This guy's gettin kinda heavy", Nora complained, carrying a limp man on one shoulder like she would a sack of potatoes, and her trusty Maghnild on the other as they ambled into the heart of the cavern town.

"You know I'm carrying someone of about the same size, right Nora?", Ren asked.

"Yeah but this guy smells funny.", Nora shot back.

"So does this one.", Ren countered. "We're not far now, we can just leave these with the sheriff and we can do whatever afterwards."

True to Ren's word, the sheriff's office sat near the town entrance, where Ren knocked on the door.

"I'm comin', just a sec!", A gruff voice responded, followed by lazy footsteps and the sound of a key turning a lock. "You got them two rascals that've been throwing around stalker bait?", the sheriff, who failed to even reach Nora's height asked.

"Right here, deputy!" Nora exclaimed, unceremoniously dumping the man on her shoulder onto the splintered, hardwood floor along with Ren, who simply leaned forward and let the man on his shoulder fall off of him.

"Hm, alright then. Lemme get your ten thou.", the sheriff said, turning to a door that lead out of his office.

"Didn't the bounty say twenty?", Ren asked, already sensing Nora's aggression rising at the idea of getting stiffed.

"The bounty said "alive".", the sheriff explained.

"Oh, right! Don't worry, I got this!", Nora replied, crouching, laying out the two men flat on the floor and appearing to carefully plan out something on their knee before she stood up and drove her foot down on one of the men's knees, which heralded a sickening crunch.

"FROM HIS MOTHER'S WOMB UNTIMELY RIPPED!", the man yelled, returning to consciousness. "Wait what's goi-oh", the man realized, staring up at the sheriff and the two bounty hunters sent after him and his friend before hearing the click of handcuffs.

"You are under arrest for disturbing the peace, endangering the pub-blah blah blah, you know what you did. Now you two.", he finished, pointing to the remaining man on the floor. "He alive?"

"Of course he is!" Nora said, repeating the same procedure he had done with the first man, only for him to remain inert. Nora brought down her foot again. Again, no reaction. Three stomps later and the man had still not awoken.

"Okay..., can we get fifteen thousand then?", Ren asked.

"Uh actually nevermind, you'll get your twenty thou, don't worry.", the sheriff replied hastily, having gotten a bad feeling about the short ginger who was stomping on a corpse.

"Holy crap, whatsyourface! You killed him!", the handcuffed man exclaimed.

"And?", Nora asked, unaware of the point the man was trying to make.

"NOOOOOOOO-", the man yelled as the sheriff carted him off.

"And that's why Nora and I check before we turn them in now.", Ren finished.

The hush that fell over the group as he told his story remained, Jaune and Pyrrha having shocked looks on their faces and staring at Nora.

"What? How else do I check if they're alive?" Nora asked defensively.

"I.. uh… nevermind.", Jaune stammered, deciding not to bother himself with Nora's past hijinks.

...

"So you're telling me you're riding with a Lance assassin and the daughter of an Atlas board member? Next thing your're gonna tell me is that you've got a dragon boyfriend, I swear.", Ruby and Yang's father, Taiyang, deadpanned over the ECHO.

"Daaaad, I'm serious! You've heard them in the background.", Ruby whined. "Here! I'll pass the ECHO to them so they can tell you.", she declared, first handing the ECHO to Weiss. "Your daughter is right, Weiss Schnee, at your service Mister Xiao Long.", the ex heiress said.

"Oh please, just call me Taiyang. I feel old enough when I look in the mirror already.", Taiyang joked. "How you getting along with my girls? Well I hope, I know they're a handful, but they mean well."

"Well, we worked it out...", Weiss answered vaguely. "I'm going to pass the ECHO to another of our friends, okay?", Weiss informed Taiyang.

"Alright, this is Blake, I assume.", Taiyang said, unable to actually see anyone through the ECHO.

"That would be me, yes.", Blake replied tersely.

"Well good to know my daughters are in good company.", Taiyang said happily. "You four get to do anything fun?"

"We're looking for one of the new vaults the Crimson Raiders found with that map from the second vault", Ruby explained. "We met another set of vault hunters and it's really been fun.

"A vault?! I thought those were all just full of tentacles and disappointment.", Taiyang commented.

"The last few ones throughout the galaxy have been full of good stuff, I'm hoping this one will be the same.", Ruby said.

"Yeah and we've been kicking tons of butt!", Yang exclaimed.

"Huh, well that goes to show how well I keep up with the merc business now.", Taiyang joked. "Alright then, it was nice to hear from you girls, love you!"

"Love you too, dad!", both Ruby and Yang exclaimed.

"Your family is certainly interesting.", Blake commented, "your uncle is the most responsible alcoholic I've met, and your father is... he's an odd one."

"Yeah he's just kind of like that.", Yang shrugged, continuing to drive the fan boat. "He just kinda-oh, wait, LAND HO!", she yelled, catching sight of the lodge.

...

"Oh hey, you're not dead.", Fiona remarked curtly, looking at the four vault hunters standing in front of the lodge. "That's more than I can say for half the other idiots after this vault."

"She mean's "hi". That's how she says "hi".", Sasha added, poking her head out the doorway.

"Yep! And we found something too! It's shiny and purple and more than just a block of eridium, so I think this is what we're looking for!", Ruby replied, fishing around in her pack for the artifact before holding it in open palms so Fiona and Sasha could get a good look at it.

"Well I'll be damned.", Fiona said in amazement at first glance before taking another look at the mysterious fragment. "Wait… oh for…", she cursed, her face in her palm. "Before I go on, promise that you won't shoot me.", she requested, her voice sinking in embarrassment along with her hat, which seemed to lower itself over her face to hide it.

"Uh, okay." Ruby agreed.

"Fine", Weiss said.

"Alright.", Blake agreed

"Well I won't shoot you, but…", Yang trailed off, cracking her knuckles and allowing the implication to fill in the rest.

"Okay, this is a fake vault key piece.", Fiona announced.

END OF CHAPTER 14