A/N: It's great to be back, guys! I posted it in
my last chapter, but I will repeat it here. To help
with pacing, I changed up the last bit of Chapter
13. I advise you to go back and reread it.
As always, Gearbox owns everything except my
OCs. Enjoy the chapter!
Property of Hyperion
Chapter Fourteen: Homecoming Queen
The extraction plant was a pain in my ass.
Blood dribbled down my chin where a BULLoader had caught me off guard. My head was aching as Maya did her best to pull some shrapnel from my arm. Without Anshin, and with my apparent condition of mortality, I had to be treated the old-fashioned way. Surprisingly enough, getting my arm stitched closed didn't hurt so bad. Maya questioned it at first, as did I, but there was no point making an ordeal over it. Everything behind us was dead, dying, or wishing it was dead. The plant was quiet.
Except those damned speakers. Whoever Jack hired to act as the Voice of Hyperion was probably hated and lived alone with a bunch of rakk. The bots I could handle. Being shot at and nearly killed was no problem. But that damned voice - it was driving me insane!
"Hyperion machines are dis-"
The moment Maya made the last stitch in my arm and cut the thread, I raised my shotgun. Two rounds hit the nearest megaphone dead-on with a rather satisfying kaboom! After that, there wasn't much left other than plastic shards and some wire.
Krieg laughed; it was a deep, slow chuckle that seemed to drip from his mouth as he paced beside the rest of our merry band of murderers. "Beauty is pain, pain is salvation, salvation is beauty." It was chanted under his breath in an oddly sing-song tone usually heard from children. Idly I wondered if he ever had any, but that was unlikely. Bandits didn't seem to be the type to have offspring. Regardless of his potential fatherhood status, Krieg had been at my side all day, and the backup was greatly appreciated.
Axton was the first to cross through the gate, followed by Salvador and Gaige. Zer0 had somehow made his way to the top of the gate structure and started walking along the telephone wires. Maya lead myself and Krieg, each of us with our guns drawn and on the ready.
A loud screeching caught my attention just before a massive crate crashed to the ground a few yards away. Salvador got to it first and opened it up, withdrawing a few grenades and a meager amount of money. "All for the taking."
"Do you see those lunar supply shots? We need to steal a lunar supply beacon and get the moonbase to send you an uncalibrated fast-travel until." Angel's voice came from most of the ECHO devices between us, which was a little disorienting. Except Gaige, who was still fuming and had turned off her ECHO, and mine. Though I wasn't sure why she couldn't seem to reach me. "You can use that to get Sanctuary back on the fast-travel network. Simple. Except not at all."
"Simple except not al all," Gaige mocked as she dug through another freshly fallen crate.
Zer0 sat atop one of the telephone poles, a slag sniper rifle resting on his shoulder. "Pay attention, Gaige/A blue light shining ahead/The beacon we seek."
As we neared it, following the path around old crates, the ground started to rumble. I braced myself against a toppled crate, watching. The earth itself began to roll; small tremors at first, then rougher, more adamant waves. After mere seconds, a mound of dirt formed near the beacon that quickly gave way to a giant...tentacle...monster.
I shuddered, taking a few steps back. "I've seen enough to know where this is going," I mumbled, staring as it shook the debris from its head like a skag.
Beside me, Salvador laughed. "Don't worry, amiga. I'll bet you money I can take it out with my bare hands."
Briefly, I looked him up and down. Sure, he was a bit shorter than me, but he was more than twice as wide. He probably could have brought it down with one arm tied behind his back if he so chose. "But," I started, looking back at the creature that appeared to be looking around for something. "What is it?"
"Hyperion machines are discouraged from being ingested by the thresher population." Apparently I had missed one of the loudspeakers.
He was still grinning ear to ear, eyes glued to the giant monster. "There's your answer!"
I watched the beast, captivated. I had seen threshers before, but never one that massive. Its head tilted down as if inspecting the supply beacon, and I already knew what was coming - because of course it wanted to eat the one goddamned thing we came here for. One long, vine-like arm wrapped around the beacon and dropped it into its mouth as if it were a cactus cherry. And it... generated a shield?
Canting my head, I narrowed my eyes at the thresher. Yeah, that was the blue-white sheen of a shield.
Gaige groaned and tugged at her pigtails. "How does that even happen?!"
"It probably recently swallowed a shield module recently, and the beacon acted like a power source for it," Axton supplied, scratching the back of his head.
The teenager's shoulders dropped as she turned to him, deadpanned. "How would you know that, but I didn't even think of it? I mean, no offense, but come on. You? Really?"
Axton shrugged. "I've seen weirder on Hestias."
"Uh, hello? I think we have bigger problems right now." Maya aimed her Promotional ProTarget SMG for the thresher, and I followed her eyes.
It noticed us.
The soldier nodded and started barking orders as quickly as he could. "Right. Cypher, Maya, slag it. Gaige, you and DeathTrap shock. Bullets should solve everything else. Any questions? Good."
Before he finished saying the word 'bullet', I was already rushing the Thresher, shotgun in hand. Being so far from it really took away the sense of how truly massive this thing was. One of it's arms - tiny in comparison to the rest of it - was easily as wide as Salvador who was plodding along behind me. "Please work," I prayed to myself, willing energy into my hand. Getting through the first section of the plant had used up a fair amount of my power, and there wasn't enough time to dig more Eridium from my pack without becoming a sitting duck.
Maya lifted her arm at the thresher, and a sphere of indigo surrounded its head. Hanging there, open mouthed, the monster was pretty terrifying. I could tell by the look on her face, though, that she was straining to hold it. "Holy hell this thing is strong," she grunted shortly before it broke free of her Phaselock.
It curled a lip at us and hissed.
And I fired two warning shots into its mouth. "How does lead taste, you overgrown garden hose?" As it recoiled, I concentrated my Phase into the gun and shot again. This time the slag took hold and mist rolled off the side of its face.
Maya covered me as I reloaded, pelting it where she could, and as ordered, Gaige unleashed DeathTrap and they went to work with shock weapons. Thankfully she hadn't found any more grenades to lob since the stalker incident.
With an angry screech, before the shield was overloaded, the thresher burrowed back underground and took cover.
"Target acquired."
Out of reflex, I ducked my head and about-faced. Coming from behind were more Loaders, mostly GUNLoaders and a few EXPLoaders. "Isn't a giant monster enough?" I groaned, dropping my shotgun. "Now more tin cans need attention, too?" I pulled my Crude Wyld Ass Carbene from my hip and aimed down the scope. I fired the round bursts that were characteristic of Dahl, glad their elemental effects were generally reliable.
Beside me, Salvador began to bob his head and sing a tune under his breath. It was catchy and familiar, something akin to 'All Around the Bullymong Nest'. I found myself humming along with him as he sang. "All around Ovejas, the thresher digs its tunnels. And when it thinks it's safe and sound BOOM!" And he let loose a missile towards what I could only assume was the sandworm on steroids once it rose from the ground.
And entrails began hailing down on us.
Salvador, obviously proud of himself, pointed his launcher in the air. "Anybody see that?"
"I wish I hadn't," Axton provided after putting down a couple engineers. "It'll take weeks to get the smell out of my uniform."
A struggling GUNLoader landed a shot that broke my shield, but Zer0 put it down before I could retaliate. I nodded my thanks to him, but wasn't sure he saw it until a smiley face appeared over his mask.
And... That was that?
I looked around, wondering what the catch was. There were no more threshers, and the Hyperion goons had stopped flowing our way. I looked up at the sky, wondering if it was going to start raining soon, but there were no dark clouds in sight. Granted, I was covered in thresher smoothie, but it was oddly quiet.
"Problem, feroz?" Sal stopped next to me, the beacon hoisted up on one shoulder as if he didn't even notice the various fluids and smells rolling off of it.
I twisted my mouth and frowned, but started following them towards the exit. "I don't know. Doesn't this just seem too easy? Like we're missing something."
Team ECHOs crackled to life, and Angel made another appearance. "You've got the beacon? Good. We can use that to request an uncalibrated fast-travel unit from the moonbase. You'll need a quiet place to set up the beacon. Head to the town of Overlook. Thanks to Hyperion's mining operations, the people of Overlook suffer from the skull-shivers. They won't disturb us." A few moments passed with the line still active, and she hummed as if she was trying to figure something out.
'It won't be long, now. I'll bet dad has been worried sick,' I thought to myself as I tried to imagine his face. 'Maybe we'll have cake and play music. Go down to the bar and make trouble with the Zafords like we used to. I can just taste it.'
"You said you were headed for Overlook, right," Maya asked.
I looked up to see I had fallen a bit behind. "Yeah."
She grinned. "Looks like you get off at the next stop, then."
My heart beat a little faster. She was right. Home was just over the horizon now. Close enough I could taste it. "Yeah," I whispered. "I sure do."
Most of us crowded in the back of a Bandit Technical with Axton driving and Maya riding shotgun. I sat between Salvador and Krieg, acutely aware of exactly how much body heat these two men could generate in such a short amount of time. If not for the breeze of the truck bed, I probably would have been pouring sweat. And everyone still reeked of thresher guts. Across from me, Gaige was much more comfortable, humming to herself as she watched the scenery pass. Zer0 was just... Sitting there. Not moving like Krieg, who I noticed was never sitting still. Nor humming like Gaige, possibly sleeping like Sal, but I doubted it. Was he even human? I noticed the four-fingered hands earlier, but that could have just been a birth defect. Right?
A thought occurred to me and I nudged the Mechromancer with my foot. "Hey, Gaige, why can't I hear it when people ECHO call us, but you all can?"
She peered over, furrowing her brows. "Is the broadcast signal going?"
"Uhh." I shrugged.
"Give me your wrist," she said as she grabbed my arm. I winced as she twisted the cuff this way and that, inspecting it, until she found what she had apparently been looking for. "Ah, here we go." She pushed a button that made a soft clicking noise, and a red light came to life. "I forgot to hit the broadcasting switch. You should be getting signals, now."
The sound of loud pipe music caught my attention, even over the roar of the vehicle's tires, and we pulled to a stop in front of an old bar. The CoClaire music was light and lilting from outside the bar. If I strained to hear, there was someone singing, and I knew light was not a word traditionally applied to this song. After a few lines I found myself bouncing a bit with my steps, smiling. "Crystal screens an' neon lights/kara-fuckin'-oke nights/the bouncers they can pick the fights/we'll call it a CoClaire pub." My voice grew louder as I passed under the gate. It was finally setting in that I had made it home. "Plastic cups, a polished floor/we'll hose the blood right out the door/and let the knucklers back for more/we got us a CoClaire pub!"
Axton was smiling beside me as we walked. "Nothing quite like it, huh?" There was a bitterness to his words, something I felt more than saw. Under the levity that was ingrained into his very existence, I'd have bet he knew homesickness better than most.
I nodded, still stepping to the beat of the song. "It's been so long. I wonder if anyone will recognize me. I'm sure I look nothing like they remember me."
"I thought the same thing when I was on my first liberty. I promise you. They'll know you as soon as they see you."
A rough voice came over the ECHO, and a quick glance at my wrist told me his name was Mordecai. "You found Overlook, huh? Used to be a nice little town, until Hyperion took over. Now everybody there's got the skull-shivers thanks to Jack's mining operations. Poor bastards are too sick to leave their homes."
He wasn't wrong. I had faint recollections of playing at a park near the Holy Spirits, or going to school in the single-room schoolhouse near the center of town. Once Hyperion stepped in, I watched my father slowly begin to wither away until he could no longer work. So I started working instead, delivering papers and helping in the mines. Things definitely weren't easy, but it was all I knew.
"You'll wanna set up the beacon over there," Angel advised. "Once the moonbase processes our request, you should have a fast-travel station. You will need to move quickly." She paused, as if scrutinizing something. "Is there... Another Vault Hunter with you?"
"Not a Vault Hunter," I supplied. Admittedly it was a bit satisfying to be acknowledged. "They call me Cypher."
She paused. "You're a C1PH3R?" She sounded genuinely surprised. By the way my skin prickled, that didn't seem to be a good thing. Angel made a sound like she was going to say something else, but the line cut out before she could.
Salvador dropped the beacon on a raised platform and it began to unfold. A thin post sprouted from the top, and a light began to pulse.
Her voice was hushed this time, almost panicked. "It's transmitting the supply request now. We've just gotta wait a few minutes, and-"
"Angel, that's enough. You can stop pretending to help the bad-" Jack stopped as if staring at something unexpected. "Wait. Is that the missing C1PH3R Unit?"
"We don't have long until Jack realizes I'm not helping him anymore. Defend that beacon!" Her line died out completely and I stood frozen in place.
Handsome Jack continued talking. They must have been on seperate lines, after all. "Get Unit 4 back here. Quickly!"
Of course Jack, himself, was looking for me. Half of his staff was probably scrounging the planet, and I brought him to my hometown. "Shit," I snapped, and I raised my gun at the first sign of Loaders. "I'm such an idiot!"
They were arriving via moonshot, a wave of five or six GUNLoaders that were easy enough to take out. A few bursts from my SMG was all I neededd to keep up with the machines. Until the next wave of nearly twice that landed. I traded my Vladof for a Tediore pistol and tried aiming for legs. The grenade effect, what made Tediore's name in the munitions world, was just as helpful as the corrosion effect I was trying out. When my clip ran out, I chunked the gun at the nearest Loader and hoped the blast took out its knees. By the time my gun digistructed back into my hands, I was already aiming for another moving target.
Until the EXPLoaders came.
I didn't notice them at first, focusing on the machines shooting specifically for me. Gaige was the one who shouted, freaked out by how quickly they traveled. Within seconds they were at the steps of the platform, and Maya managed to suppress the first explosion with her Phase. The rest behind it, however, took the brunt of the blast.
The voice of Hyperion piped up from the beacon. "Uncalibrated fast-travel station request received. Estimated processing time: three to six weeks."
"No! No, no, no! I'll move some data around, see if I can bump you up in the queue."
"Angel," Jack demanded, "what the hell are you doing?!"
She was speaking solely to us. "I've increased your request's priority. T-Bone Junction can live without medical supplies for another few months. Just get out of there as quickly as you can."
"Send in the constructors! I want those bastards dead NOW!"
When the first Constructor landed, Krieg made a bee-line for it, axe high in the air. "Yesyesyesyesyes!" He howled repeatedly. I tried to cover him from the Surveyors that began to swarm about. If I caught them at just the right moment, they exploded and crashed into one another, giving me a bit of a break. I reached for my Phase, hoping to amp up my corrosion effect, but everything was beginning to peter out.
"I just shut off the moonbase's oxygen supply. I expect the engineers will launch your fast-travel station very soon." Something about that her status update made me laugh. Of course under threat of death they would cooperate.
Not a full minute passed before the station landed. While Gaige oversaw it, I focused on the latest wave of robots.
"Fast-travel station calibrated. Location: Sanctuary is now available for travel."
"You're not stealing what's mine, bandits." Jack's voice was oddly level, and I went cold.
Three giant grey robots landed, and my stomach dropped. My Heads-Up read only one word.
Badass.
Some footnotes: I made the Irish equivalent of the Truxicans, the CoClaires - if it's ever actually addressed in the games, I haven't found it yet. CoClaire was chosen because Gearbox made a reference to Co Clare, Ireland, and it seemed to fit. The song she hears playing is actually a slightly modified verse from An Irish Pub Song by The Rumjacks.
I never took Spanish, so if my grammar/tense/gender-ing of words is incorrect, please let me know.