Chapter 13

Hyperion Site: Project Odysseus: Storage Area

"Well you got that right." The man said with a smugness that even the slight echoing from his helmet couldn't hide. "I am the worst."

"Ugh" The girls groaned. "Another graduate from cheap villain school."

"So, you two must be either pretty good, or pretty lucky to have made it past my Spartoi. Those would be my troops by the way, don't expect someone of your obviously lacking..." They could feel him look them up and down before finishing "intelligence to know that."

"Ugh I wanna kill this guy so bad." Gaige muttered to Artemis.

"Good, you take him, I'll handle the invisible one."

For a second Gaige thought the other girl was joking, but a sidelong glance at her expression told her she was being deadly serious.

"It's usually some kind of shield, so use electric if you got it." She whispered while thinking 'Ah that must be this guy's secret when he fights, and she already figured it out? Damn. But how did she know? Probably just tell me something like she's a hunter or some such. Oops, that guy's still rambling, maybe I should pay attention, see if he slips up and tells me something useful.'

"Your streak of luck has ended when you found yourselves faced with the avatar of death incarnate."

'Nope, still blathering on. Jeez where do they teach this crap? Should I just shoot him and get it started? I hope Artemis is listening so I can ask her later what this putz is babbling about, cause I can see Deathtrap's starting to glaze over and is trying not to tune him out.'

"Excuse me?" Artemis apparently had listened to enough while switching to a SMG and butted in "Is this gonna take long? Or is this one of those things where you drone on and on until we either kill ourselves or fall asleep?"

"Impudent wretch, I should"

"Uh, I'm not a guy. So how can I be impudent?"

Gaige stifled a laugh and leaned over "That's impotent, impudent means cheeky or insolent."

"Oh right, sorry. That makes way more sense. My bad."

"ENOUGH! You want to die that bad? Then I will send you to the underworld myself."

"Jeez, why do they always have to be so over dramatic? 'Send you to the underworld'? What's wrong with just telling us that they're gonna try and kill us?"

"I am going to kill you."

"Nah, you're gonna try, like everyone else before you. And like them, you're gonna fail. But that's not the point, why do you feel the need to expound upon the situation with an excess of verbiage?"

"Huh?"

"I think he missed the irony you were goin for."

"Undoubtedly."

"Enough. Die. Just die already."

He brought his gun to bear as the three of them split, sending fire laced shots into the space they had just occupied. Gaige opened fire on the guy in front of her with Deathtrap backing her up with an electric beam as soon as he saw her shots hit a shield, and Artemis spun and unloaded into an empty looking patch of the room, electing shouts of surprise from the seemingly thin air she targeted.

Both of the enemies were shocked, not only had their tried and proven strategy failed, but one of these targets seemed to be able to see them. The invisible one sprinted off, trying to throw off the purple haired girls' shots, but she just kept tracking him, emptying her clip into his dodging form and tearing a good chunk out of his shield. But even more unsettling for him was that her eyes, while they followed his movements, didn't seem to be looking at him, just boredly staring in his general direction, yet she turned and hit him with virtually every shot no matter how he moved.

She slapped another clip in and continued to run as she resumed firing. Meanwhile other girl and the robot were keeping his brother occupied, and between the three of them they had broken the pincer move they had tried to start with and were now driving them further apart.

He brought his gun up, but the girl he was fighting spun back and his shots went wide, while hers sliced into his shields, dropping them dangerously low when she started talking to him in a rather nonchalant manner.

"So, let me guess, your usual fighting style would be that your partner there distracts and then you circle around and surprise them. If they're still up and fight back either he ducks behind something and you pop out wearing the same armor as him, confusing them, and making them think you can teleport or something, or if he's in trouble you both duck around something together and switch places, right? So, here's my question, why not both go invisible? Is it like your invisibility things are connected, or is there only one and you hand it off? Or am I completely wrong and it's something else, like you're absolutely hideous and use this to hide your face?"

He nearly froze, she had just laid out their entire fighting style. He couldn't believe it. How had she known? And she could see him despite being invisible. Had she somehow seen them fight before? He doubted it, they tended to not leave witnesses that could tell how they fought. So what was it?

He threw a glance at his partner to see if help would be on its way, only to find him in worse shape, if that was possible. The robot was using one of their troops shields against him and driving him back with a combination of Digi-claw strikes and well-placed lasers, while the girl danced around him firing wildly and looking more than a little crazy.

He turned his attention back to the fight at hand and managed to throw himself behind cover just as the electricity finished frying his shield, popping him back into the visible spectrum.

"There you are." The girl said like she was talking to a misbehaving kid while spinning the rifle off her back. "Time to say goodbye."

Enough was enough he decided, this wasn't the first time he'd been pushed back, and he was determined that it wouldn't be the last, so he dove behind the nearest piece of cover and leaned out while unloading his gun.

Artemis was forced to dive for one of the scant bits of cover as the newly visible man sprayed the area with abandon.

"Hey Hades" the other one yelled to him "We're still badasses right? So let's stop letting these bitches push us around."

"Damn right brother." Came the reply.

"Hey" Artemis yelled slamming a round into her opponents' head "She's the only one that gets to call me a bitch."

The shot hit him hard enough to force him to pull back with a bit of a pathetically whined "I didn't call you that."

Gaige laughed at the exchange going on in the other fight, before turning back to her own enemy, as he was currently struggling against Deathtrap who backhanded him with the shield, knocking him back and forcing him to roll behind cover while she finished her reload.

She snickered at the futility of it and bounced her Anarchy laced shots into him even as he continued to try and dodge. When he ran out from his cover she switched to shooting him directly, even though she only hit him slightly more often.

The fight was progressing well for the girls, but just as the two men's armor was getting punched through, the room exploded. The girls were forced to dive behind cover as they tried to figure out what was happening, and their opponents took full advantage of it to rush towards each other.

By the time the girls had realized what was going on, the troops that had burst in quickly surrounded the men and had formed a large dome out of their shields, with their guns poking out like quills.

The shell started turning and a moment later, the guns opened fire, throwing bullets haphazardly around the room.

The girls hugged their cover as bullets randomly hit into it, and Deathtrap had managed to get most of himself behind a solid pair of boxes near Gaige and was covering the rest of himself with the shield. Gaige was seriously unhappy with this turn of events and the instant the bullets stopped hitting her cover she popped up and snapped off a few return shots before ducking back down, though her shots just bounced off of the shield wall.

Artemis watched, peaking around her cover and bounced her head as if timing something, then once she had gotten it down, stood up and ran. The bullets flew around her but she moved without being hit, having found a blind spot in the bullets, and quickly slid in next to Gaige.

"Well this sucks." Gaige remarked bitterly.

"Yeah, but it's nothing we can't handle."

"So you got an idea? Cause corrosive would take forever to get through there."

"Yep. I think I can get some shots in between the guns and the shields, when I do, I'm gonna need you two to pry that opening open."

"Right. Give me your grenade mod."

"Wha...but"

"I'm gonna give it back, it just seems like it might be the time to use it."

"Fine, here. Ready?"

Without waiting for a reply, she jumped back up and started moving while firing shots into the enemy shell.

Gaige watched the other girl move and occasionally duck as a line of fire went over her and caught Deathtrap's eye as he stared at her "What? I could do that too if I wanted."

"Urur"

"Sure I could. I just don't want to. Oops, get ready, she's coming around."

Artemis was moving even more erratically, it seemed that the troops didn't care for someone sniping them, and had adjusted their aim. Gaige could tell that even though she was dodging most of them, her shield was starting to get worn down. And just when she was wondering how much longer the shield would hold, Artemis managed to land a head shot and drop two of the troops. While they were scrambling to plug the hole in their defenses, Gaige stood up, ignoring the hail of bullets coming her way, and lobbed a grenade into the breach.

There was a moment of scrambling and then the fire started jetting through the gaps as the grenade went off inside the dome. Almost instantaneously the organization failed, and troops scattered, trying to put themselves out.

But they had bought enough time, the two identical leaders looked at each other and nodded, before simultaneously turning invisible. Gaige swore under her breath, but Artemis just yelled to her "Fire in that direction, you should still hit him, buddy, when she hits, toast him." And then turned and tracked something "And you. You're still mine." And with that she switched back to her electric SMG and opened fire.

Things were supposed to be going better for them, they had recharged their shields, been able to activate their invisibility, not to mention the fact that their troops vastly outnumbered their opponents. So why was this going wrong? First off, the one girl was still tracking him like she could see him, to the point that she had even singled him out. And it didn't look like his brother was doing any better, his opponent seemed to be firing wildly in his direction, but even with the fact that some of the shots should hit due to probability, he was watching some of the misses bounce and hit him in the back, and when that happened the robot would launch an attack on that space. Unless things changed, and quick this would be the end of them. So, he did the only thing he could think of, he ordered all of his men to attack.

They moved with clear intent, the first one ran forward and attempted to grapple Artemis. She managed to duck his arms and stabbed her blade into his side, through the armpit. Another one followed close enough behind him that he actually overshot her while she was spinning around the first. As he attempted to correct himself, she struggled to switch weapons, and elected to stab him in the throat as he stepped around the first. Holding him in place she tossed her SMG against his chest and drew her pistol, rotating around the gurgling trooper and firing into the rest of them, bouncing shots as they opened fire upon her with clear disregard for the safety of their comrade.

The boss used this brief pause to line up and unload at her. She took the first couple shots in the shield before she managed to get the corpse she was holding up in the way. Swearing she holstered her empty pistol and took her SMG back from the dead guy as he started to smolder and let him drop.

She vaulted a knocked over crate and opened up on the hidden boss, while dodging around the troops that came after her, only to have one of them explode as Deathtrap entered the fray, Digi-claws first.

As he shield slammed the next one he growled at her that she should have called for help to which she replied "And let you have all the fun? Perish the thought."

Still she shot him an appreciative smile and spared a glance for Gaige, who it turned out wasn't being harassed by the remaining troops and had in fact already broke her targets shield.

With Deathtrap there handling the goons, she was able to focus on her target fully, dodging his shots and returning fire till his shield broke again and he once more emerged to sight. In response she switched back to her sniper rifle and resumed firing, each shot taking a chunk from her target's health.

He dove for one of the shields that one of the dead troops had dropped while she stopped to reload, only to have it sent spinning away as Deathtrap threw his own shield into it, leaving him laying exposed as she snapped the cylinder back in place. He rolled over just in time to take the bullet between the eyes and die, at the same time Gaige finished her own enemy off.

A few more rounds was all it took to finish off the leftover troops and the room once more fell silent.

Artemis made her way over to the others and slapped Deathtrap's offered hand with a "Thanks for the assist." before turning to the dead boss and staring.

"So who were these guys anyway?"

"Weren't you listening? He introduced himself as Hades, but then he called this guy the same thing, so I don't know if that's like a title or a collective name or what?"

"Hades?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I recognize that name, when we were looking up bounties, it's the name of one of the leaders of a gang calling themselves 'Lords of the Underworld' or 'Lords of Death' or something like that."

"Huh, they worth anything?"

"Well let's put it like this, the good news is that if we got them all, it would just about clear my debt."

"And the bad news?"

"They're worth that much money for a reason."

"So, why didn't you mention them when we were talking about it?"

"Because unlike say, Gehenna, they don't have a home base, so it would be a crapshoot to run into them."

"So, do you think that there the only members on board this place?"

"Well considering that we've already seen another style of armor, probably not."

"Well that could be good or bad. So, who are these guys?"

"Best that I could tell, seems like they were six different gangs that were brought together by a seventh member, who seems to be the one leading them now."

"So where do these two rate, in the bounty hierarchy, I mean?"

"Uh, what was it?"

"Urgr"

"That's right, nearer the bottom, fifth I think."

"Really? They were that good?"

"No. But I think they would have been a lot deadlier if you hadn't spotted the trick. How did you know that one of them was invisible anyway? And don't tell me that it was cause you are a hunter or any of that."
"Well, they made the same mistake that a lot of people make when they think you can't see them and forget that invisibility doesn't cover sound. I could hear him, his boots on the floor, the clicking of his gun tapping his breastplate, even the rustling of his clothes."

"Damn your hearing. Bet you were really freakin him out."

"Probably, who else was part of this group anyway?"

"I don't really remember that much, since it didn't look like we could find them I didn't waste time on them, so let,s see. What the?"

"What is it?"

"Can't connect to the ECHO-net."

"Probably some kind of security thing to prevent leaking secrets."

"Probably, but that sucks. No way to contact anyone on the outside if things get bad, in fact it might even interfere with normal communications if we get to far apart."

"Well that's not good. Anyway, no worrying about what we can't affect, so let's see what they had and get going."

They quickly went through the loot from the fight, both of them were particularly interested in the invisibility device that had been used, so it was with no small disappointment that they sat back and Gaige declared "Damn, this ones busted."

"Same here."

"Must have blown something when we overloaded them with the electric attacks."

"Can you fix them?"

"Maybe, but not here, I'd need a full suite of tools to even try and figure out what went wrong and if they're even fixable."

"Pity, I wanted to give one to Deathtrap."

"Now that's an idea, what do ya say babe?"

"Ur rurg"

"Yeah, well I can just shove them in my bag and we can try and figure it out later. Anything else of note?"

"Yeah, these assault rifles are really good, maybe not better for you than the one you picked up a little bit ago, but totally worth taking."

"You realize that pretty soon I'm gonna need to start tossing things if I want to carry any more stuff?"

"Then toss the assault rifle that you brought in the first place."

"But that was one of yours."

"Yeah, but this one is much better. Look, I know you get attached to your guns, but, and I hate saying this, the one I gave you wasn't really all that good, so pitch it and don't feel bad."

"I still don't know."

"Fine, it's my gun right? Give it back."

"Wha"

"Give it."

As soon as she reluctantly handed it over Gaige turned and chucked it off the edge of the area and into the large elevator pit. Artemis took a step after it and stopped at the edge looking down before letting out a soft snort of laughter.

"Well that didn't work as well as you wanted."

Gaige took a step over to see what she was talking about and found that the pit terminated only a few feet down, apparently just enough for the elevator to fit into. She sighed and turned away, shoving the new rifle into the other girl's hands and leading the way to one side, pulling out her ECHO as she went.

"Let's see, the primary route is blocked, stupid elevator, which means that we're gonna have to do this the hard way. And by we, I mean you."

"Why's that?"

"You'll see, follow along."

She walked over to one of the corners and double checked her ECHO before nodding and hanging it back on her belt. Crouching down she got to work on the panel of grating in front of her and moments later started heaving it up, only to have Deathtrap push her gently aside and casually toss it up.

"Show off." she muttered before looking into the new hole and nodding.

Artemis stepped over and looked as well and saw a large pipe running alongside a number of smaller ones. The large pipe had a green ring around it and a hatch, probably for maintenance. A bad feeling was starting to crawl up her spine as she looked at it.

"So" Gaige continued pulling her ECHO back out and bringing up the map, while indicating that Artemis should do the same "We are here, and we need to get here. Now the best way would be to go this way, but since that's blocked, the only remaining route is through this pipe."

There it was, confirmation of the bad feeling.

Gaige continued on as if she hadn't noticed the groan coming from the other girl "Now once you get through this pipe, you should find yourself in a treatment plant, here, you go through this room and then follow this duct to here, which should let you out into the power core, so you just drop down and you're there. Afterwards, you need to make your way through this door, or barring that, this vent and get into this room to redirect the power, then make your way up this elevator shaft, which should have power at that point, or if something's wrong with it, you can take the stairs. Any questions?"

"Plenty. First why me?"

"Cause you're smaller and can fit through some of those vents if things go wrong."

"Second, why can't we just go through the vents?"

"Well, if you look at it, they don't connect, that section is on a closed system and we can't get there from here."

"Fine, third, what are you gonna be doing while I do all the work?"

"We're gonna try and get to here, so that once the power is back on, we can open the doors, and try and make your route back easier."

"Forth, what's this?" She pointed to a large room underneath the entire section she would be working in.

"I think that's the trash, don't go in there unless you have to. You might not be able to get back out, and even if you do, who knows what they've thrown in there."

"Fifth, Deathtrap's gonna have to carry my bag while I'm in there, since there's no way it will fit with me, is that alright?"

"Urgru"

"Good, and last, why are you avoiding telling me what this pipe is?"

"Uh, avoiding? I wouldn't call it that. I mean"

"What. Is. It?"

"Sewage pipe."

"Sewage? Are you kidding me!"

"What? It's the only way."

Artemis gave her a hard stare that caused Gaige to squirm uncomfortably until they were interrupted by a "Urrur"

"Fine." Artemis snapped and got to work taking a few things out of her bag and stuffing them into a smaller backpack. Food, water, ammo, and some tools went in along with a weapon or two, followed by her taking off some of the things she was carrying and either stuffing them into the bag or strapping them to the outside and in a short bit she was ready, strapping a mask over her face and double checking her goggles she handed her large bag over and motioned for them to open the hatch.

The instant they did Gaige was hit by the smell, though it wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be. She stepped back as the other girl swung her feet in while pulling her hood up and dropped into the pipe, only to pause and look back.

"Yeah, seeing it up close there is no way you would have been able to fit in here with that big bot of yours."

"Stop talking about the size of my butt!"

"Urrgr"

"Big...damn it."

With a snicker Artemis ducked into the pipe only for her head to reemerge a second latter.

"Oh, and if I get one comment on how I smell, I mean anything, until I've had a chance to shower, and I mean a real shower, you're sleeping in the hold from now on."

"But, I thought that guests got the bedroom?"

"You stopped being a guest when you joined the crew." And with that she disappeared back into the darkness of the pipe.

"Erk. Babe, make sure I don't say anything. Seriously, nothing. What, you don't know how comfy that bed is."