Ellie watched the entrance to Hodunk Speedway with the same worry and interest she had all morning. Ever since the slabs had come down to the Dust from the Eridium Blight, Ellie had to admit she was feeling sorry for the Hodunks (she had never thought she'd ever feel something like that). Brick's growing empire, and that was what it was, was merciless. They threatened to shoot every man, woman, child and skag if they didn't lay down their arms and swear allegiance to Brick. As stupid and as proud as Ellie knew the Hodunks were, she knew where that was going to go.
She couldn't believe she was doing it but she took her resident buzzard pilot/mechanic, Loggins, and the two got in a runner and headed to over to the Hodunk territories to see if they could stop any further unnecessary bloodshed. From the sound of the gunfire, lasers and screams from just inside the entrance she could tell she was too late. Above the canyon were two strange and expensive-looking, orange aircraft that looked like they were well beyond Brick's price range. Was another of them corporations invadin' 'gin?
Ellie was undeterred. As much as she hated the hodunks, she was distantly related to some of them and she was worried about Brick. The things he was doing didn't sound at all like Brick and she was incredibly pissed at those vault hunters for not doing anything about it. She had no idea where they were but she did know where Brick was. Her concentration was broken when she got an echo from Lilith of all people.
"Ellie", Lilith said. "Have you heard anything from our vault hunter friends?"
"Nope", Ellie answered. "I ain't heard nuthin'."
"They mentioned going to a new vault with Tannis and Maya told me they were shutting me out", Lilith told her. "I was wondering; did they say anything to you about it?"
Ellie was a bit surprised. She wasn't sure how vault hunters handled their partnerships but she was sure they had stabbed Lilith in the back. She wasn't sure that was how Lilith saw it but what she did know was that she touching that with a mile-long stick.
"I didn't know", Ellie said. "Hell, I ain't talked to 'em since Jack went down."
"What kind of crap is that", Lilith said, too irritated to listen to Ellie too much. "If you want to take the lead, fine then take the lead! Just leave some of the loot for me and fill me in if there's something more important than that, you know? Anyway, I haven't been able to get them on echo for a whole day. They've never been echo-silent for this long. I feel like something's wrong."
"Everything seems like it's going down the crapper", agreed Ellie.
"Yeah", said Lilith. "Brick's laying waste to the bandit clans; some high-powered outfit is blowing the crap out of everything; and our hero vault hunters are nowhere to be found. You would think that things would get better after Hyperion starts redeploying but things are getting even worse. I have enough crap to deal with, you know?"
"Yeah", agreed Ellie uncomfortably.
"Okay", Lilith said. "Just let me know if you hear something. Bye."
"Bye", Ellie said and hung up.
"Damn", she said as the two stepped out of the runner, "I thought she'd never shut up."
Loggins took a second to look at the Hodunk entrance.
"Umm", he groaned, "maybe I should just wait here 'till you come back."
She looked over the hood of the runner, giving him the stink-eye like she learned from her mama. As comical as some people saw it, they knew it was Ellie's version of being serious. Ellie was a hefty, meaty girl that weighed over three hundred pounds while Loggins was under two hundred. It wouldn't end well for him.
"Or I could come in with you", Loggins said uncomfortably. "You'll protect me, right?"
"I could leave you here, you know", she threatened as she waked away.
He reluctantly followed.
As Ellie and Loggins walked through the Hodunks' trailer park, she saw that the entire family was there. Every man, woman and child that wasn't already dead was out there, watching the scene in the village center. Brick was there of course and he was flanked by a couple of his own slabs as well as more of those orange-armored soldiers carrying some pretty, hi-tech weaponry. At Brick's feet was the current head of the Hodunk clan, Jaime. Ellie knew him; he was Tector's little brother; not nearly as smart as Tector or Jimbo but they were dead so he was all the Hodunks got. Yet, here Brick was in front of him, threatening to kill him with his sledgehammer.
"You see this hammer", Brick asked him. "I got this from the last bandit king, Sledge, five years ago. He tried to come at me and my friends with this same hammer so I beat him to death with my bare hands."
He slammed the hammer on the ground next to Jaime's head and yelled "Bam". It drew flinches from the entire crowd.
"That was what I did to his head", Brick continued with a sigh. "The moral of the story is don't screw with me. When I use the hammer, I'm taking it easy on you. Now, let me ask you again; the Hodunks are mine, right?"
"Go screw yourself, slab", Jaime retorted and spat on Brick's right boot.
One of the Helian mercenaries at Brick's side immediately stepped forward and put five rounds in the back of Jamie's head, startling all of the Hodunks gathered around. That really put some fear in the rest of the clan. The slabs had already beaten them down and then they seemed willing to kill them with little reason.
"Okay", Brick said making a T with his hands, "time out."
He motioned for his guys to follow him away from Jaime's body and the others so that they could talk in private. They followed him. He immediately turned to the Helian merc who killed Jaime, who nonchalantly stared back, totally remorseless. It wasn't like he could see his expression because they wore helmets like the stormtroopers or something.
"Okay", Brick said to the merc, "that is the third time you've done that. At first, I thought it was funny as hell but now I'm starting to think you're trying to piss me off."
"Whatever", said the merc as he looked off to the side.
"Hey", Brick said, waving an arm deliberately to regain his attention, "I'm over here, guy."
"Show some respect to our king, dick", warned one of the slabs in the circle, "or I'll cut off your fingers and make you eat them."
"Hey, guys", said another Helian merc, stepping up. "We're all bros here. Listen, King, the hodunks are scared for their lives now. We already gave them the business and now that their big boy leader is gone, they're no longer safe unless they give in. So, we did help after all."
Brick thought on that for a second and crossed his arms.
"Where is Adam", Brick said, crossing his arms, "I want to talk to him about this."
"I don't think we should bother Commander Blitzfield with this", the merc reasoned.
"I do", Brick answered. "Where is he?"
They all paused for a second before the merc lowered his head and attempted to give Brick a hug. Brick responded by stopping him with a palm on his chest.
"You keep trying to do that", Brick observed. "You Helios guys are so weird; one second you're taking some guy's heads off and the next you're trying to hug it out."
"Duality is our nature", the mercenary explained with a shrug. "We're not monsters. We have to do something to offset all of the bloody stuff we do but we never hurt people who don't deserve it."
The Helian mercenaries nodded in agreement. Brick and his slabs looked around at them awkwardly.
"I know we're all supposed to be one happy family", Brick said to them, "but Blitzfield seriously has you messed up. I'm no expert by any means but you guys are like ten chicken buckets of crazy."
"What's a chicken bucket", asked one of the confused slabs.
Their little sidebar was cut short by the tempered murmuring and shouting amongst the surviving Hodunks behind them. They turned to see none other than Ellie shoving her way through the crowd to get to the real culprits. It took Brick a second to realize her eyes were dead-set on him. Everybody was caught off guard and most were knocked right off their feet; there was no stopping her.
When she caught up to him, she hooked him so hard in the jaw that he momentarily stumbled and his vision was temporarily blurred. He had never been hit so hard by a single blow in his life, discounting monsters, sirens and explosions of course.
He quickly jumped back in the fray, blocking Ellie from the Helians' field of vision. His slabs knew better than to gun down a friend in Ellie, but to Helios she was nobody. Helios lowered their weapons at Brick's gesture, though Ellie was focused on Brick so she paid them no mind.
"You gotta a lotta nerve, Brick", she hollered as she attempted to get another piece of Brick but was held by six slabs and she was even moving them. "You're holdin' kids at gunpoint! 'Fore they can learn any better? You're 'posed to be a vault hunter! You're not even a man! What kind of man does that?"
"Ellie, just calm down a second", Brick soothed.
"Don't tell me to calm down you…you…yellow-bellied, skaglick", she screamed and spat in his direction. "First you go on and break the truce with Hyperion, almost starting the war all over 'gin; now, you're shooting everybody 'cluding women, children and their skags. What do you have to say for yerself?"
"Sorry", tried Brick half-heartedly to appease her.
"Sorry ain't gonna cut it", decided Ellie. "Now, here's what's gonna happen; you gonna say yer farewells to these orange-armored gentlemen, "good luck with yer future endeavors" and what-not; then yer going to call our Axton n' them, and make everything right by them; then, yer going to return the bandit clans' lands back to them 'cuz you actin' like a power-hungry sumbitch n' I don't like it!"
Neither noticed one of the Helian mercs auto-loading a highly potent tranquilizer round into his handgun with the simple push of a button. While Ellie was letting Brick have it, he maneuvered around them and shot it directly into Ellie's jugular.
"What the hell", shouted Brick.
"Clear the area", shouted the mercenary.
Ellie stumbled around, swinging her arms for any of the bandits and mercenaries. However, they all moved a sufficient distance out of the way and watched her stumble down facefirst in the dust.
"If she's hurt, I'm cracking skulls", warned Brick as he checked her pulse.
"Don't worry", the mercenary said, auto-loading his usual stun rounds, "we know you're soft on her. We only put her out for a few hours. Don't ask us to move her; that wasn't in the orders. You're welcome."
Brick got in that mercenary's face, towering over the man but somehow not intimidating him in the slightest.
"I'm sick of this crap", Brick spat. "I'm tired of talking to the Indians. I want the chief."
Some of his own slabs gave him a perplexed, confused puppy-dog look.
"I mean Blitzfield", Brick clarified for his guys. "I want to talk to Adam Blitzfield."
"Oooh", they moaned realized in sudden, mutual understanding.
An Arch-Guardian crossed its wrist-mounted, plasma-based blades together, causing its power to surge. It was a being made of Eridian bio-metal, glass and energy; it varied from the other guardians only slightly in its function. The guardians' main function was to protect the vault but as the master that conjured it demanded it destroy her enemies, it had to obey. Its blades were hot and sharp enough to saw through flesh and bone like a knife slicing through a fresh cake.
They were already starting to attack the rats, propelling through mid-air and descending upon them. The rats scattered and tried to shoot them down but every round just bounced off of their metallic bodies.
Calime reached down and clutched Maya by the back of her neck and lifted her up in the air like an owner does their kitten or puppy. Maya fruitlessly struggled against her.
"I want you to see, siren", Calime whispered into her ear. "This is what happens to those who stand against me."
Salvador wasn't doing so well and Axton dragging him backwards to get him out of the fray probably wasn't helping. Salvador couldn't even properly scream anymore; he only shook and grunted and squeezed his loose intestines in his hands.
"This isn't good, Gaige", Axton shouted over echo through the shooting and shouting. "We need Maya's healing for Sal!"
Gaige rolled out of the way of the slashing blade of an Arch Guardian and rolled right into a rat, whom she shot five times in the head.
"Don't you think I know that", she yelled back. "That Eridian has her and the guardians aren't letting us anywhere near them."
Claptrap was hovering above everybody and dumping acid on rat and guardian alike. One Arch Guardian in particular didn't take kindly to this and spotted Claptrap. Shards of energy blades were hurled up at him, three at a time. Claptrap struggled to swerve out of the way as two Sera Guardians suddenly flew up to meet him. Claptrap chuckled uneasily before turning tail and flying away; they took chase.
"I never asked for this", Claptrap complained.
Down below, Dr. Patricia Tannis stumbled outside of her cave to see the fray before her: rats were fighting guardians, guardians were chasing Claptrap, and somewhere in the middle of that, her vault hunter friends were struggling to survive.
"Nope", commented Tannis as she turned back around and walked back into her cave.
Zer0 slid underneath the blade from an advancing guardian before scanning it with his b0re vision. Their heads were their critical weakness. The only problem was that the heads were so small and they moved so fast that getting a shot off to put it down would be difficult. Unless…
The guardian suddenly leapt on Zer0, stabbing through his entire body. The blade slid through his flesh so easily because it wasn't flesh at all, but another hologram. Zer0 whistled to the guardian's left, drawing its attention. Zer0 immediately fired his Tediore shock Shotgun Supreme buckshot right into its mask. The light within its large body began to die out as it let out a shrill scream. It then fell to its knees and began to shatter to pieces.
"Use shock scattershots", echoed Zer0 to the others.
"I have a better idea", answered Gaige. Deathtrap lowered himself down between two guardians and released one of his signature orbs of electrical right in between them. Gaige knew the cue and shot it, causing a massive electrical storm that decimated the energy core inside both guardians. Like Zer0's guardian, they broke and shattered into a hundred pieces.
Axton spied a group of six rats or more climbing all over a guardian, attempting to pull it apart. The guardian responded by spinning in circles with its blades extended, ripping most of them into pieces. Another one crawled towards it and shot it directly in the mask. The guardian lost its essence and shattered like the others. Upon seeing this, the rat crawled over to the guardian's corpse and stuck one of its shards into its mouth and began to chew on its crunchy sharpness. Even after it scratched the inside of its cheeks, it kept chewing.
"Is it good, brother", asked another rat, as he crawled up.
"Try it for yoursellllf", the rat said before crunches.
The rat did try the glass-like metal remains.
"This isn't so bad, brother", the rat said.
"I am bleeding a bit", mumbled the other rat, struggling to talk over the glass in his mouth, "but it isn't the taste that pleasures me, it's the accomplishment."
Maya could feel the tightening of Calime's hold on her, both physically and spiritually. Maya could tell just from her grip that she was getting frustrated and angry; things were not going the way she wanted. She expected her guardians to come in and kill everybody but no only were the vault hunters getting the better of her precious guardians but so were the rats. Now, that had to be embarrassing.
"It looks like my friends are stronger than your slaves", teased Maya.
Calime wasn't paying attention. She was looking upwards towards the cave ceiling and saw the rakk wildly flapping around, not attacking but instead panicking and generally going crazy.
"What's wrong with the children", Calime murmured, becoming frantic. "What's that sound?"
Maya didn't see what Calime was talking about. Then she saw something strange on the cave ceiling; A large red spot around ten yards in diameter that was growing bigger and bigger by the second. Snow was beginning to melt around the spot and Maya imagined some strange vision like her refracting a sunlight through a magnifying glass on ants, burning them to death. As the circle became bigger, the metal within the circle began to bend and malform. Suddenly, red molten metal began to leak onto some of the rakks beneath the hot spot, causing them to fall out of the sky and burning alive in screaming agony.
Then, a whole mass of molten metal spilled out onto the ground, searing a group of rats beneath its area. The rats unlucky enough to experience it screamed out in the worse pain they'd ever imagined.
Maya saw a molten hole form in the Fridge's ceiling. An orange Peacesweeper, the jet fighter weapon of Helios, began to creep through the hole that it burned through the Fridge.
Static began to come through on Maya, Gaige, Zer0 and Salvador's echo devices before it cleared out.
"-Finally found you, vault hunters", Adam Blitzfield said over echocast, "and what's this? Am I late to some kind of party? I've always hated parties."
"Oh, come on", cried Axton, who heard his voice through Salvador's echo.
Adam's peacesweeper made room in the ceiling for three more of his aerial flight.
"I want a clean sweep, Helios", Adam called over intercom to his pilots. "Dispatch anybody who isn't a vault hunter but bring those bastards to me. Oh, and release the loverbots; I love to watch them work."
A couple of the peacesweepers loomed low over the frozen battlefield and dropped a dozen of the strange, razor and laser-lined robotic monstrosities. Immediately, the red eyes in the middle of the chest plates where their hearts would be, lit up and they activated. Their arms and legs were circular saws on extendible limbs, constantly spinning inwards on themselves as they flew in the air.
"Blitzfield=God", one of them shouted as it landed behind a rat.
"We at Helios want to remind you that a life without limbs means a life without problems", said another in front of him. "Don't you want to be happy?"
Immediately and without remorse, the loverbots went to their grisly work. Two of them shot over to a rat. One went low and sawed both of his legs off in one shot. Another went to work on his arms at the shoulders as he screamed bloody murder through his gasmask.
Amongst the loverbots, actual Helios mercenaries were deployed as well. They were fully armored and capable of fighting in almost any environment and were equipped with various elemental battle rifles. Unlike the loverbots, Helios didn't have any such programming to keep them from killing outright. In fact, Adam didn't care for anybody else but the vault hunters. They were free to kill any number of the rats they chose.
"Deploying photon grenade", a mercenary said to his squad as he hurled an incredibly powerful grenade through the entrance of one of the rat nest laboratories. The entire hallway lit up like a mini-star had been deployed in the room. Any rat unlucky enough to be around was subject to feel an intense burn all over their bodies. The Helios mercs simply ran to the scorched rats and put a few rounds in each of their heads to put them out of their misery.
A team of mercenaries were trading fire with a group of rats from behind cover, when the rats decided it was best to jump into one of their rat nests where the mercs couldn't chase them. Helios showed them why that was a bad idea.
When the last rat jumped into the pit, a merc ran over to the hatch. He simply pressed the deploy button on his photon grenade and dropped it in while his partner closed the hatch and locked it shut. A second later, they heard a muffled scorching sound accompanied by screams.
On what was quickly turning into a warzone outside of the rat factories where the vault hunters as well as Calime were, a group of rats were teaming up and attempting to take down one Hyperion elite soldier. He was wearing a Burner suit; it was a self-healing armor, equipped to withstand a large amount of small arms fire and had access to powerful weaponry. They were basically Blitzfield's walking tanks, sacrificing mobility for firepower and invincibility.
While the rats were hitting him with about eighty dingy rounds, he raised a palm and fired a solidified beam of superheated energy that worked like a large surgical laser. Just by waving it over them, he took off their limbs, heads and half the body of one of them. The still simmering limbs simply rolled in the snow.
Calime looked upwards to the hole in the Fridge cave ceiling and realized her very own prison was breached. The magic was broken; there were no more obstacles keeping her from escape. Still, she would need the girl as both a battery and a powerful ally, whether she was willing or not. These aircraft, for all of their impressive maneuverability within an enclosed space, were quite an annoyance.
She watched as Helios swept over her battlefield, making short work of both the rats and her guardians. They had to be dealt with.
With a simple gesture, she summoned an arch guardian to her location; it simply appeared next to her and kneeled in way, presenting itself to her.
"Outdone by mere mortals", she scoffed. "Unacceptable."
She placed one of her gloved palms on the guardian's mask, causing it to convulse as its ultraviolet light began to dissipate and transfer into Calime's own body. In a second, the guardian's mask and armor were all that remained, dropping to the ground. Calime, having cannibalized the guardian's power for herself was surrounded by a field of tangible extra-dimensional energy, where visible air pockets formed around her and popped, creating a dazzling display of 'glowing bubbles'.
She raised her other palm to one of the still-hovering Peacesweepers.
"Maya", Calime whispered to her. "I want you to see."
When Maya looked, she could see the Peacesweeper rocking from side to side and begin to lose its lift. Eventually, the ship nosedived into the ground, causing a minor fire. Maya could feel what Calime had done. She had accelerated the particles composing every piece of material that made the ship. She could have made the entire thing spontaneously explode but instead she heated it up and cooked everybody and everything inside like a giant microwave. Maya imagined it was a nightmare inside the wrecked ship now. Calime's power continued to scare her; how was she supposed to fight that?
When he saw one of his aircraft collapse so suddenly, that influenced Adam's next decision.
"I'm deploying now", he announced to one of his pilots of his own Peacesweeper. "Take her low."
"Sir, are you sure", one of them asked.
"Just do it", he ordered as he went to armory to grab some weapons.
It was getting too hectic for Zer0's tastes, so he attempted to hightail to find some cover when he felt a familiar sharp burning plug in his leg that hit his thigh like a hammer. He immediately hit the snow facefirst and tried to crawl.
"I got him", exclaimed the Helios soldier that hit him through the crosshairs of his rifle. "This has gotta be worth a paid vacation!"
The soldier then got up and gave chase after him in the open battlefield with open disregard for his own wellbeing, to one of his teammate's chagrin.
"Flannery", he shouted as he exchanged fire with some rats, "get back here, dammit!"
Just as he finished the sentence, a rat jumped on his back from behind and dug its teeth into the side of neck, penetrating his helmet in a few chomps and drawing blood. He screamed and shot his gun in vain as more rats jumped in on the feast.
Flannery found Zer0, still crawling and trained his rifle right on his spine.
"Stop… moving", he yelled. "I got you now, vault hunter. My commander wants some words with you. You're going to come along willingly or I'm gonna put another round through every hanging part of you. Now, let's go round up your friends…"
Zer0 rolled over to the right three times, causing a knee-jerk reaction in causing Flannery to fire once. He missed, though because Zer0 had thrown three elemental kunai that each somehow hit their mark: the center of Flannery's forehead that even penetrated through his helmet. Flannery stood upright for another split second before falling backwards onto the snow, dead.
"You gave me time to prepare", Zer0 remarked with a zero emoticon over his mask. "Jack made the same mistake."
Gaige attempted to make it back to shelter so that she could check on Sal and Axton, when she was cut off by a Loverbot, a strange-looking, orange robot with a saw blade for legs and hands and adorned with hearts as well as the Helios symbol of an eye of Horus-type eyeball crying a tear of fire. It had some anti-gravitational drive as it hovered above the ground.
"I will wipe all horrors from this world", it said to her, "starting with you."
It went for her with one of its razor hands but she ducked and rolled beneath the swipe. Immediately after rolling behind it, she turned and plunged a hack tool into its back where its core would surely be. The loverbot began to convulse and wave its razor-sharp limbs uncontrollably, causing Gaige to jump back in shock. It then stopped suddenly and turned towards her, its eye in its chest was now green instead of red.
"Mechromancer=God", it said to her. She chuckled at that as she looked over at a squad of Helios mercenaries, struggling to find some cover. She pointed to them.
"Loverbot, maim", she ordered.
"Yes, ma'am", it responded with a salute of sorts and lunged after them to do its worse.
She saw and heard the angry whirl of its razors as it descended upon them and made a mess of them.
"Oh no", one yelled. "Oh god, noooo! It's so much worse when it's happening to you! Aaaaah!"
Satisfied with the results, she took her hack tool with her as she ran off to turn more loverbots.
Axton had taken Salvador inside a nearby facility, where he checked his pulse. He was still alive but barely there. He kept his hands on top of Sal's own, on his midsection, keeping his guts inside.
"Come on, buddy", he whispered. "Hang in there."
"He doesn't look too good", stated a dreaded voice from behind.
Axton turned his head and saw Adam Blitzfield at the entrance of their facility, flanked by five of his Helios soldiers. Adam wore black fatigues and a brown-orange trench coat with two gloves marked with the sigil of Helios.
"Really he's screwed", Adam said, letting his rifle fall to his side. "You should put a bullet in him; put him out of his misery. Oh wait, you don't even have a weapon. Don't bother denying it or playing tough; I can see right through you, sweetheart."
Adam tapped the right lens of his dust goggles to show this. Yep, he was still wearing those in the Fridge.
"Dude", Axton sighed in frustration. "What do you even want with us?"
"What do I want", wondered Adam sarcastically tapping his chin. "What do I want?"
He then lifted his rifle in his arms and trained his sights right on Axton's head.
Calime pushed Maya away from her into a phaselock field of her own, locking her into a pocket dimension where she could breathe and move around but she couldn't interact with anybody or vice versa.
"Maybe then, you'll calm down and stop struggling against me", Calime remarked.
A few seconds later, Maya spread her arms apart furiously and Calime's phaselock field was separated and faded away.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you when I'm in that thing", Maya quipped.
"You're stronger than I thought, siren", Calime noted. "You're probably the most powerful siren in the universe now. Congratulations, but you're still powerless against me."
Calime sent a beam of the same cutting energy that yanked Salvador's organs right out of his body as her though at dampened force. Maya simply placed a phaselock field in front of her, redirecting it safely into her own pocket dimension.
"You're not going to kick me around anymore, Calime", Maya told her. "I shot the last person who tried to control my life, in the head."
Calime stopped her onslaught and put her hands down.
"Yes", she noted. "Sophis was a very vain man; the order believed that they discovered my presence through meditations but it was I who discovered them. Your power was promised to me. You were to serve the purpose you're fulfilling now; you're a living power source for me. The Order of Impending Storm? I am the impending storm. The rats began a cult called the Hands that hold the Vaults, but these are the only hands worthy enough to even touch a vault. You and your friends have desecrated enough of my history; it's not yours! You, alone, will only see if I allow you to; if you stop trying to anger me. Continue to do so and well…I don't exactly need your mental faculties."
In the back of her mind, she could feel Salvador's heartbeat slow down dramatically. He was slipping away. She turned to run by instinct but Calime appeared right in front of her.
"Where do you think you're going", Calime wondered. "We're not finished."
"You're still babbling", asked Maya. "I'm sorry, but I have something actually important to worry about. Now get out of my way."
"I'm sick of playing games with you, little girl", Calime said.
"Funny, I didn't know we were playing games", Maya remarked.
"Enough", shouted Calime as she raised her hands out Maya. "I hope you like vegetation."
Maya lunged at Calime herself and felt a sharp pain inside her head, accompanied by a popping noise in her ears as if the environment had a sudden change in air pressure. Strangely enough, the cylindrical key appeared right out of her grasp and levitated in mid-air between the two of them.
"What", Calime shouted as she cowered away. "How did you do that? This is impossible!"
Maya wrapped the vault key in her right palm, fixated on its ambient glow. She looked back at Calime. She couldn't see Calime's face but she could tell just by her posture and energy signature: she was scared. She was confused herself but she was glad for the edge.
"What's the matter, Calime", Maya teased, approaching her, "are you afraid of a relic of your own people? I'd laugh at you if I wasn't confused. Why?"
Calime kept her eyes on the key as she backed away from Maya, barely even noticing she had spoken.
"You put that barrier over the key, didn't you", Maya realized. "You can't touch the key physically and this Fridge is locked up like a prison. A prison…for you, maybe; and this key is really the lock that's keeping you in."
"Please, child", Calime started.
"Don't call me child", shouted Maya as he lunged for Calime with the key outstretched.
She tackled Calime to the ground as she grinded the key over her face. Calime began groaning in pain and straining beneath Maya; her eyes shone a bright, white glow.
"Your people imprisoned you and I bet I know why", shouted Maya, "because you're a freaking, evil bitch!"
"I really wish you could see life the way I see it", Adam admitted, still aiming down his battle sights at Axton. "I wish you all could. Then, you would see that all wars need to stop!"
"Dude", Axton said with his hands up in surrender, "what are you talking about? I don't care about any wars! I just want to save my friends!"
"And to plunder the vaults", finished Adam for him.
"Well", stammered Axton, "y-yeah. Duh?"
"You're pathetic", said Adam.
"Hey", Axton remarked, "there's no need for name-calling."
"Bloodshed and destruction follows you everywhere you go", Adam told him. "That's true of all of you vault hunters, but you especially. You're worse than Handsome Jack. You know that, right?"
"What do you know about Jack", wondered Axton.
"What do I know about Jack", mocked Adam. "Well, for one, I know his name wasn't really Jack and handsome, he was not. Um, I know he was a nerdy little programmer who schemed and murdered his way to the top of Hyperion, enslaved his siren daughter, and ruined what was already a barren wasteland. I knew John about as well as one could be expected to know the man they want to kill more than anything. I'd thank you if I didn't want your heads as well."
"Well, why", Axton asked. "Why do you keep coming after us?"
"It's nothing personal", shrugged Adam. "I just hate everything you are; a gloryhound badass wannabe and a vault hunter."
He shuddered visibly.
Maya sensed Salvador's failing heart again. He was about to die. It had to be stopped. She still had Calime to worry about but the eridian was barely conscious now. The fight between the rats and Helios was still raging around her but it was barely a nuisance to her. All that mattered was her friends.
"Don't you think you should **** or get off the pot", wondered Axton, still at Adam's gunpoint. "If you're going to shoot me, just shoot me!"
"Hey", Adam yelled in response, "I am not an animal! I do not just shoot everybody I have a problem with in the head and go on like its nothing! That's something you would do. No, I have something a lot better planned for you."
A second later, Maya jaunted right behind Adam and his team of soldiers. They turned on her and saw her with wings of flame and a literal fire in her eyes that matched it. Immediately, Adam's body took on a bright, blue glow and he disappeared right before Axton's eyes. Maya then jaunted again, seemingly through the Helian soldiers. They all caught fire and struggled around their suits to try to put themselves out.
Maya turned her attention to Axton and Salvador. She ran to them and put her hands over Sal's midsection.
"Is that the key", asked Axton.
"Yes", She shouted at him with angry fire still in her eyes, "now shut up!"
She placed two palms of her signature purple energy over Sal's cavity and focused on sharing her essence with his. Sal's innards began to recoil forcefully into his body and his flesh began to reform over the cavity before Ax's eyes. A few seconds later, Sal sat up with a Jakobs revolver and began shooting the ceiling. Ax recoiled away in response.
"Sal, Sal", Maya soothed as she reached for him to calm him. "It's okay; you're good."
She pulled him towards her for a tight embrace, hoping to calm and force him to get his bearings on the situation. He stopped shooting and let his revolver hand go limp as he went slack in her embrace. His breath was unsteady and ragged.
"Did we get that bitch", he whispered into her ear.
The trio came out of the facility, expecting a fight. There was a bit of fighting but the guardians were all dismantled after Calime's weakening. They could see glass-like shards everywhere. Gaige and an injured Zer0 spotted them after looking from behind cover. They walked over to them with Claptrap and Dr. Tannis following suit.
"Just in time", Tannis said to them as they approached. "I came out to see the rest of it; Helios are beating the rats back into their mazes. The fight is heading that way."
She pointed in the distance towards the Fridge Fast Travel Station.
"They just might kill them off", Claptrap chimed in. "Good riddance, I say."
"Salvador, you're not dead", Zer0 stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah", Sal spat back, "thanks for noticing, puto."
"Dude", Gaige said, "we watched you have your guts ripped out by that Calime chick like it was nothing. Who was she and where did she go, anyway?"
"I'll explain later", Maya said, "what really matters is this."
She lifted the cylindrical key in her hands.
"There's a slot here that I think will work like a mini-doorway of sorts", Maya said, incredibly fast. "I know where it is; come on!"
She began to walk past them towards the caves.
"Wait, Maya", Axton said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine", Maya asked really loudly, "why would you ask that; doesn't matter, let's go!"
"You're shouting", Gaige pointed out. "You're also glowing and shaking really bad."
It was true. Maya's tattoos were glowing a strangely illuminant blue but she was also seriously tweaking like a kid that's been awake for five days on a sugar rush. Even her fiery red eyes were opening and closing rapidly. Her neck was cranking in opposite directions periodically seemingly involuntarily.
"You don't look good", Claptrap said, "even I can see that and I'm a robot."
"We've all been through the grinder, okay", she shouted as fiery wings shot out from her back again as high as they had ever seen them. "We have to go now or the door will shut. The remnants say there's no time!"
With that, she turned on her heels and walked away from them. Confused but absolutely interested, they followed behind her.
It was all familiar to the vault hunters. This was the same cave that was littered with hidden crystalisks and stalkers, though none showed up at the moment. They came to a turn-around at the cave, where they had once chased the midget Shorty.
Maya kept walking towards the wall. The others stopped in their tracks and exchanged glances. It looked like Maya had completely lost it.
"Maya", Sal called. "There's nothing here. We've been here a hundred…"
They watched as Maya pushed against the cave wall and half of her arm fell through as if nothing was there. They all looked dumbfounded.
"This way was only known to Calime", Maya shouted again without looking at them, "until she showed me. One of many mistakes she made. Come on."
"Maya-", Ax called after her.
It was too late. She walked through the wall as if nothing was there and then was gone. They approached it and studied it. It looked like a normal, jagged rock. A phasing doorway definitely wasn't the strangest thing they had seen on Pandora, however.
"We've come too far to just count out an invisible door", Axton admitted as he stepped towards the wall. Running his fingers over it, he thought the spot was colder than the freezing temperatures of the Fridge and that was saying something.
"This is so bizarre", he commented.
All of the vault hunters came to the sight of Calime's village; an archaic-looking civilized arrangement of stone huts with a black temple at its epicenter.
"Absolutely fascinating", murmured Tannis. "This is going in my notes."
Maya, stood in front of them and was still shaking; she raised the key. It was begging her to take it back to its resting place.
"It wants to go home", she told them.
Claptrap turned towards the others and made a twirling motion next to its optic receptor, evening accompanied by a "cuckoo" sound.
"Follow", she said without looking at them and jaunted, as in disappeared in a purple flash.
They were concerned until they saw her reappear in the middle of the temple steps. That was well over eight hundred yards away.
"I really think she's getting way too powerful for her own good", Gaige said. "There, I said it and I'm not taking it back."
"Did she actually put down that eridian chick", asked Salvador.
"Wait, what", Tannis exclaimed, leaping away from them.
"Um, that was what nearly killed me", Salvador said. "Some spellbinder chick that kind of brainwashed Maya showed up; Maya called her an eridian and she didn't deny it."
"She summoned freaking guardians", added Axton. "She was working them like puppets and the stuff she was doing; way beyond anything we've seen from Maya, Lilith or Angel. I think she was the real deal."
"You're telling me you met an eridian and never tried to find me so that I could see them for myself", Tannis shouted. "Eridian culture has become my life! You do realize that, don't you? It is why I am here. I could rip open your throats with my teeth!"
"Doctor", Zer0 cut in, "you do realize she would have slaughtered you like nothing, don't you?"
"I would've considered it an honor", answered Tannis.
Axton threw up his hands in surrender. Suddenly, a purple aura appeared within the collective vision of all of them, followed by a bright flash. Seconds later, they all felt the need to sit down for a second. Those were the symptoms of their disorientation and it took a few more seconds to look around to realize they were standing on the top steps of their black temple. Maya was standing in the temple doorway.
"Maya", Axton said, from his knees, "did you teleport us all a thousand yards."
Maya was about to answer when she felt the approach of Calime's presence. She stopped in her tracks. She kneeled down to Axton and held out the key to him.
"Go straight down the hall", she told him. "It's darker than night but there are no traps and the key's resting place will be the only light. The key will bring you back to the vault from there."
"What the hell are you doing", Axton asked as she stood up and looked down the steps. "We're in this together!"
"It's okay", she assured him. "She can't beat me. Now go; the door won't stay open for long. It's now or never!"
"Maya, dammit", Axton began.
"Go", she shouted in his face. "There is still one more key; I'll finish her off and then I will find you. Now go."
"Come on, Ax", Sal said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She'll just phaselock you if you stay."
Begrudgingly, Ax stood up with Sal.
"You better come after us", Ax warned her, "or I'll kick your ass when I see you again."
"Noted", she said with a smile, handing him the key. He gave her a frown as he took it.
The group then walked past her into the temple. She was right; there was the brightest light in the distance, like a fire in the woods on a moonless night.
Maya looked down on Calime, who stood on the bottom of the steps. Maya jaunted to a few steps above her, eliciting a condescending clap from her.
"Amateur tricks, siren", Calime claimed. "Now, step aside."
"That's not happening, Calime", Maya answered.
"Cute", was Calime's response. "You don't have the key anymore and you have a fraction of my power even if you're at your peak. Do you really think you can defeat me?"
"In your weakened state", Maya said, "yes."
"You're starting to become more trouble than you're worth", Calime admitted.
"Well, I was always disobedient", Maya said. "Just ask Brother Sophis."
Maya raised a hand to phaselock her but Calime focused her powers on Maya herself. Maya felt herself levitate in the air against her will before getting flung to the left by Calime's invisible force, twenty feet from the temple steps.
Calime then began to float up the steps, before being stopped in her tracks by a phaselock bubble.
"You never learn", Calime said, growing frustrated. "Do you, little girl?"
"Never did", Maya admitted. "Everything I know was self-taught."
"That's why you're so weak", answered Calime as she turned and tried to manipulate Maya again. Unfortunately for her, nothing happened. She frantically tried a few more times.
"What is this", Calime actually yelled.
"Ever since I touched the new vault", answered Maya, "my power has grown in unpredictable ways. I can't just stuff people into pocket dimensions; I can now control everything within that pocket. By the way, thanks for giving back the power you stole. You never know when I might need it."
"No", shouted Calime, writhing within Maya's binds, "you don't know what you're doing, child! I can show you power and treasure beyond your wildest dreams!"
Calime felt herself doused in eridium slag and screamed as she felt acid and fire douse her robes.
"You're screwed", Maya told her. "As soon as you let me put you in a phaselock, you were more screwed than anybody has ever been. "
Maya then released her and let Calime fall to the ground. She watched her slide down the temple steps towards her. Calime was even less powerful than before she met Maya and Maya was now filled with not only her enhanced power but the power of an eridian spellbinder. Calime was now lying at Maya's feet, defeated and completely drained. This was something neither of them expected.
"Maya, please", Calime pleaded as she wrapped a hand around Maya's right ankle. "Help…me."
Maya kneeled down to Calime.
"You and I both know", Maya whispered to her, "the only reason I'm not killing you is being trapped here for centuries is worse. The only people who know you are bottom-feeding, cannibals that are less than human. You and the rats deserve each other. The remnants of your sisters send their regards."
Maya reached for Calime's robes and clutched them right above Calime's skin.
"No", Calime shouted.
With two hard tugs, Maya ripped Calime's robes right from her body and threw them behind her.
Calime was invisible when she exhaled, meaning she was probably invisible when she held her breath. Whenever she inhaled, Maya could see her true naked form. Her skin was a strange blend of either light purple or blue and her limbs were an emaciated kind of bony. There was no fat on her; in fact she didn't even look like a complete being, almost abstract in a way. The middle of her skull opened up with no type of organ, meaning a brain included inside, just a flow of purple embers that floated about constantly. There was also a gaping hole in her midsection with no blood or organs seeping through; it was just there. Then she had three fingers and a thumb on each hand, as well as two clawed feet, which reminded Maya of Zer0. Calime's form utterly confused Maya, as if she were incomplete. Calime rolled over and looked up at Maya with empty eye sockets and a face that had the shape of a mouth but no lips or really any form at all.
"Satisfied", questioned Calime, raising her body and turning her head upside down on the neck to look at Maya in the eyes, as if bones weren't what held her body together because they weren't. She spoke to Maya through a mouth-hole that held nothing but darkness.
"Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of", ordered Maya.
"This isn't over, you know", Calime warned her. "The Guardian is the protector of the borders. He could have devoured the Warrior and the Destroyer at once. You've surely already glimpsed him."
Maya thought back to the ceiling of the cave above the vault; the sounds of the constant breathing and the moving of what looked like a belly of some rock monster.
"Without me", Calime told her, "you will not avoid the Guardian's jaws. Although, who is to say you will ever see the Guardian; there is one more key you must possess and that trial is not to be dismissed so easily. If by some great tragedy, you do escape into the borders; I will not be trapped here forever. I will find a way out and I will come for you, siren. Your torment will be neverending. On second thought, I wish you well."
Maya stood up as Calime's form became clouded in her pocket dimensional energy and her entire body collapsed in on itself. A second later, Calime was gone.
Within the temple, the vault hunters were at Calime's altar for the key. They all watched as Dr. Tannis took the cylindrical key and put it into the pulpit's slot. A spark shot up from the stone artifact and a rippling, energy-formed window appeared in front of them. It was a window into the cave vault. However, it was unstable; starting out large but it was constantly closing in on itself.
"Guys", Gaige shouted, "that things getting smaller by the second! We gotta go now!"
"No", shouted Axton, turning towards the hallway, "we're waiting on Maya!"
"She won't make it on time", Gaige answered, getting in his face. "Do you want to swim back to the vault? Screw that; when we go for the third key, we can fast travel back for her! Come on!"
"You're seriously arguing about this now", cut in Tannis.
"She's right, amigo", Sal agreed, putting a hand on Axton's shoulder.
Axton yanked away from Sal and ran off toward's the temple entrance.
"I'll get her", shouted back Axton. "We'll catch up to you guys!"
"What the hell is wrong with that guy", asked Gaige aloud, throwing her hands up.
"You've never had a boyfriend, have you", asked Dr. Tannis.
Axton made it to the top of the steps and saw Maya at the bottom. He cupped his hands at his mouth and shouted her name, although he was out of breath. She turned to look up at him and smiled. He returned the smile. He started to run down the steps for her; he didn't even remember why. He should've waited for her but he was excited to see her there and Calime gone. She must've won, somehow.
He made it about half-way down when he noticed a teleport pod behind Maya. Almost as soon as he saw it, there was a blue flash behind her. He watched as Adam Blitzfield appeared in the flesh with his shotgun already cocked. Axton called her name and yelled for her to turn around but it was too late.
Adam put two shots in her back before she realized what happened. In her empowered state, she barely felt them but she turned with her eyes glowing and full of intent to do harm.
Adam put another in her chest, which stopped her in her tracks. Axton started to run down much faster then. Adam pulled the trigger again, catching her in the heart. The light went out in her eyes and she slipped to her knees in the snow quite unexpectedly. She looked down at her own mangled chest and the blood. It was really happening this time; she was going to die.
"Maya", shouted Axton as he began to reach the bottom of the steps.
Adam smiled up at him before he looked back down at Maya and aimed his gun at her face.
"Smile for the camera, sweetheart", Adam told her as she looked up at him with blood rolling down her chin.
Axton leapt from the sixth step from the bottom over Maya and landed right on top of Adam. Maya fell onto her side and passed out as Axton and Adam rolled over each other, struggling in the snow. The shotgun was knocked out Adam's grasp and Axton rolled on top of him.
"Are you crazy", yelled Adam. "You never rush a man with a gun without a weapon!"
Axton punched Adam twice in ribs and tried to swing for his face but had his blow deflected to the side. Adam then used his legs to flip him over him. Both of them scrambled to their feet and Axton lunged for Adam again. He grabbed Adam by the throat and then his hair and back of his neck to make sure he wasn't going anywhere. He then produced gurgles from him by strangling him hard. He wanted to choke the son of a bitch to death.
Suddenly, Axton felt a hard blow in his back that felt like getting smacked in with a sledgehammer with a spike in the middle of it.
He slipped into Adam's grasp, who turned and flung Axton, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Adam's Helian squad on standby came forward from their teleport pods, including the soldier who put a round in Axton's back.
"Area's clear, sir", said the squad leader.
Adam coughed a few times as he rubbed his throat. He looked over the bodies of Maya and Axton and attempted to howl at the cave ceiling in triumph; he failed miserably and went into a coughing fit instead.
"You", Adam croaked out at the shooter, "are in line for a promotion."
"Sir", questioned a concerned soldier.
"I'm fine", he said with a raspy voice. "Get a team to put those two on the Peacesweepers and another team to sweep that temple. I'm good for a two out of five. Let's go for a full house, huh?"
A Peacesweeper burned another hole through the cave ceiling above Calime's village so that it could get through and descended so that it could land near the black temple. A Helios team deployed so that they could round up Axton and Maya, which they did without incident. Another team went in full force to search out the temple. By the time they made it to Calime's pulpit, the vault hunters were long gone.
The squad returned to Adam outside as he was kneeling in the snow near the temple steps. He scooped up a bit of snow with Maya's blood in it. He tried to tell himself he wasn't curious but he couldn't help it. Reluctantly, he raised the snow to his face and actually took a whiff. He then hesitated but eventually stuck out his tongue and licked the blood a little bit. He just wanted to see if siren's blood tasted different. As his men returned from the temple, he quickly threw the snow away and wiped his gloves hoping that they didn't see.
"The hunters have escaped, sir", reported one of the soldiers with a salute, which Adam returned.
"I figured as much", Adam answered. "Oh well, two out of five ain't bad. We'll have the rest anyway; and the key."
"So, are we done here, sir", the NCO asked.
"I sense a little apprehension in your voice, sergeant", Adam realized.
"Can I speak freely, sir", the sergeant asked, which Adam nodded to. "Where is the endgame here? The vault hunters are not the mission. As far as I see, we should be redeploying from this hellhole."
"Well, that's why you're you and I'm me, isn't it", Adam answered. "You don't see things the way I do because you're at ground level but I see the big picture. One day, you'll understand or maybe you won't. Either way, I'm the boss of you so you have to do what I say. Na na na na na na; and all that jazz."
Adam left him to mull those words over as he walked towards the Peacesweeper.
"Okay, men", he yelled. "Mission Index; let's wrap this up!"
His men all echoed this command as everybody moved back to their ships to leave the Fridge.
"All I do is win", exclaimed Adam to himself.