Sorry for taking so long to post another chapter. I've been dealing with some personal problems these past couple of months. Anyways, enjoy!

Gods Don't Negotiate

"Vaughn! What the hell?" Lilith spoke to the dirty caped man. Zeta Squad could hear her from the comms, "You knew I've been looking for that map. Why didn't you bring it to me?"

The squad continued their drive through the roads of the hot Pandora Desert. They were on their way to Ascension Bluff to get the Vault Map back from the Children of the Vault, and if they get the chance, give the Calypsos a piece of their mind.

Vaughn responded to the Firehawk, "Woah, woah, woah, okay, okay! I see what's happened here! Let me explain, uh…I let the map slip into the hands of culty psychopaths, and now the galaxy is in danger!"

She then reminded him, "Yeah! That's what I was saying!"

"Okay! Same page!" Vaughn said, "You know what this calls for? Apology Push-Ups!"

"You don't have to…ugh."

Vaughn didn't bother to listen to Lilith, "Oh yeah! C'mon!"

As he gazed into the sunny desert, Fisher suggested, "You should probably do makeup sex. It might smooth things over faster."

Baffled, Lilith said over over the comms, "What?"

"Nothin."

Keeping his eyes on the road, Grimm asked Kane, "So…it's the Holy Broadcast Center, right?"

Kane inspected his rifle, "That's what the smelly guy in the dirty cape said."

"I get the feeling we're gonna experience those same kinda smells a lot more in these so-called Borderlands." Fisher noted calmly.

Wilkes retorted, "Ugh, yeah, I know! I'd rather be in my old barracks than be near that dirty motherfucker!"

Fisher also noted, "At least Lilith smells as nice as she looks."

"Don't start." Kane ordered Fisher, "We need all hands on deck so things don't get outta hand."

Wilkes laughed at Kane's comment, "Get outta hand? These Calypsos ain't causin shit! This mission'll be a fuckin cakewalk!"

After a decent drive, Grimm drove the buggy up a hill. Looking ahead, the four noticed several settlements, all of whom were obviously owned by the COV thanks to the logos and flags displaying the letters and V symbol and signs showing the heads of the Calypso Twins. The hanging corpses also were also dead giveaways. They then clocked out the big building at the end of the cliff. All four of them came to the immediate conclusion that very building was the Holy Broadcast Center of the Children of the Vault.

Once they arrived in their vicinity, the COV in the area reacted the usual way to the fresh presence of the armed outsiders with good old fashioned violence. Grimm had to the stop the buggy dead in its tracks as quick as he could. Getting out, Kane, Wilkes, Fisher, and Grimm grabbed their guns and got to cover behind the buggy. They had to prepare themselves for the current gunfight with great haste as the buggy was getting torn to shreds with lead. Once they were ready, Zeta Squad sprang into action, responding to the swarm of cultists with waves of bullets. With the Holy Broadcast center a mile away, the four traversed the sole road leading to the end of the cliff as they picked off any COV looking to make a sacrifice to the Twin Gods Wilkes was confident to have been good as dead.

Luckily, it didn't take long for Zeta to make it to the front gate of the Broadcast Center. Just like the last couple battles, the COV were no match for a squad of trained Marines out of time and space. They were no Crimson Lance, Handsome Jack's henchmen, or Maliwan after all. Little did Zeta Squad know, or luckily, they were gonna have to face at least one of those corporate monsters eventually.

After another easy fight, Zeta Squad arrived at the gate. Once they were near the entrance leading into the Holy Broadcast Center, all four of them heard static from their comms. After a few seconds, the static faded. The four looked to each other with raised eyebrows.

"What up, my bandit orphans!?" Said a mysterious woman over the comms, "God-Queen Tyreen comin at you live from the HBC! We're streamin, you're screamin, and we're all preparin to get into the Great Vault! Got some new converts today, and guess what? They brought us the sacred Vault Map! If that doesn't earn them a special place in the family, I don't know what does. But first, I wanna get real for a sec. You've all accepted me, even though I wasn't born a bandit. My first words weren't "blood feud" or "ribcage spelunker". But now we're all family. And family is forever. We'll start the ceremony after a few quick shout-outs. Stay bloodthirsty!"

Standing just by the gate, the four Marines looked at one another with curled lips.

Kane was the first to speak up, "Umm…what?"

"That's Tyreen Calypso?" Second was Grimm, "Wow! Now I gotta get my ears checked!"

Fisher muttered to himself, "And here I thought Wilkes was annoying."

The only one who had any sort of enthusiasm after hearing Tyreen's voice was Wilkes, who took the first steps through the gate cocking his shotgun.

"You see guys?" He smiled like he was at a party, "Easy fucking pickings! These Calypsos and the COV're gonna be dead in a few minutes! C'mon!"

"Wilkes, don't!" Kane shouted to his buddy as he began his charge into the Holy Broadcast Center like the fool he was.

Shaking their heads, the three had no choice but to follow their overconfident comrade Wilkes, who was the first to score a kill on the COV sworn to protect what was once an old Dahl facility. As Grimm took the lead, Kane had to provide cover fire alongside Fisher as they chased Wilkes inside the Holy Broadcast Center. Fisher expressed his disdain for his friend's blunt approach through only gritted teeth. Once they made it to the entrance of the building, the three took a sharp turn left to catch up with Wilkes. On the way, they tried making visual notes of the strange presence of corpses containing this weird, purple, crystal-like material sticking out of their bodies, but they were too focused on Wilkes to make any serious observations or report them to Lilith.

As they ran inside while taking on a bunch of crazed masked bandits, Zeta had the misfortune of hearing Tyreen speak again over the comms…

"Special shout-out to Snotworm77, who's now the record holder for Pandora's longest intestinal jump-rope!"

"Oh, great!" Said Grimm as he sniped a turret hanging from a ceiling, blowing it up, sending shrapnel to some nearby cultists, "Now we gotta hear her speak while we're fighting!"

Kane rammed the side of his assault rifle into the face of a charging cultist, knocking his ass out cold, "Just keep going, Grimm!"

Since they were on the move, Fisher could only spray his ammo with his machine gun, not that it worked well since he was taking on suicidal cultists with histories of violence. He had to switch to taking more accurate shots alongside Kane and Grimm halfway through the chase, which helped eliminate some pursuing COV bent on the deaths of the outsiders.

Eventually, Kane, Fisher, and Grimm managed to catch up with Wilkes as he stopped in front of two giant murals of a man and woman on the far side of a giant room. Now Fisher wasn't the only one to deduce that they were looking at murals of Troy and Tyreen Calypso respectively, not that they were concerned about it, especially Kane.

"The hell were you thinking, Wilkes?" Kane scolded their friend, "You could've gotten killed doing that!"

"Alright, time to welcome the Sun Smashers into our family!" Tyreen opened her mouth again at the wrongest time, "We'll post the vid later, along with some new Let's Flays! Signing off for now. Don't forget to like, follow, and obey!"

Smirking, Wilkes pointed at the murals, "Hear that? That's the sound of our inevitable victory over these COV assholes!"

Their scolding of Wilkes was interrupted by the voice of yet another big-mouthed maniac and the sound of his church organ.

"Who dares to dwell in our Holy Broadcast Center?" He said from down below as he played his organ.

The four looked down from the platform they stood on the very edge of, clocking out a single masked COV cultist getting up from his stationary instrument. Zeta also looked around the area below to see the cultist was surrounded by ton of studio equipment; stereos, lights, and LED screens. Broadcast Center indeed.

"We do!" Shouted Wilkes to the cultists, "Zeta Squad, motherfucker!"

As if his boast wasn't stupid, so was his jump down to the ground below. Much to their rolled eyes, Kane and Fisher still jumped down after him to catch up. No one fights alone in their book after all. While Grimm stayed to keep an armed eye on the whole area, the rest of Zeta Squad slowly approached the COV cultist guns drawn. As they got close, the man got up from the stool and turned around, revealing his black, LED-decorated mask, the mask worn by none other than Mouthpiece, an acolyte of the Children of the Vault.

Knowing what was coming, the cultist grabbed his shield. The shield was outfitted with an LED screen.

"YOU. WILL. DIEEEE!" Mouthpiece screamed at the top of his lungs.

Fisher was the first to open fire on Mouthpiece. The COV cultist was quick to deflect the oncoming wave of bullets with his LED shield. Keeping himself blocked from Zeta's sight, this gave Kane the queue to run around the four LED-outfitted barricades and find the Vault Key, leaving Fisher and Wilkes to deal with the zealous maniac. Fisher gave Wilkes a sneering eye as the shotgunner charged right up to Mouthpiece and jumped against his shield. Wilkes's charge did little to knock the COV cultist down as it only sent him back a couple inches, but it gave Wilkes the chance to deliver a nice blow to Mouthpiece's shield, tearing off a whole corner.

Looking at his shield, Mouthpiece shouted, "YOU WILL NOT BRING DOWN THE TWIN GODS!"

"We'll see about that, bitch!" Wilkes taunted as he looked up to Grimm, "Now!"

Wilkes and Fisher brought their attention up at the platform just in time to see Grimm in trouble. A swath of COV loons whom none of Zeta were able to kill while trying to catch up to Wilkes finally came to say hello to Pandora's new guests. Having been armed with his big sniper rifle in that moment, Grimm was only able to kill one COV while another charged him to the ground below while carrying an IED rigged to blow any second. The rest fell down with them like the suicidal fools they were. Seeing the beeping light from the one COV's bomb, Fisher immediately kicked it away from the cultist's hand as soon as she and Grimm landed on the floor. He soon grabbed Grimm and pulled him away as far as he could as BOOM! The IED went off right in the epicenter of the fallen cluster of COV, turning them all into chunky meat kibble. With three enemies now to deal with, Mouthpiece slapped Wilkes away using his shield, sending him to the wall. This prompted Fisher to light him up with his machine gun again, this time hitting Mouthpiece but he was still able to keep himself safe from the majority of bullets in the next lead wave just in time.

To his chagrin, Mouthpiece diverted his attention to Fisher, for he had fired at him twice by then. With hot, suicidal rage, Mouthpiece charged at the Cold Support, screaming his head off about the Calypsos and their supposed divinity. This time, figuring it was worth a shot, Fisher proceeded to do the same; Run straight toward the big lunatic before him. Jumping up at Mouthpiece's shield, Fisher was successful at bringing him down, forcing the COV zealot to let go of his special shield. Once Fisher kicked it away, Grimm took the opportunity to put a nice, big hole in Mouthpiece's head. BOOM came his sniper as one 50 caliber round immediately rendered Mouthpiece lifeless, and useless to the Calypsos.

"Fuck." Wilkes grunted as he attempted getting up from the ground, "Coulda had his culty ass."

With rolled eyes, Fisher walked up to Wilkes and helped him up.

"Uh huh." Fisher muttered.

Wilkes grabbed his shotgun, "What do you mean 'uh huh'?"

Catching up with his friends, Grimm chimed in with a chuckle, "He means that zealot made ya go flat on your ass!"

"Oh, fuck you!" He gave Grimm the bird before turning away, "Oh, hey, Daniel!"

The other two turned to where Wilkes was looking to see Kane was back. Smiling, Kane held a weird, cone-shaped object in his left hand.

"What is that?" Asked Wilkes.

"…The Vault Key." Kane answered his friend's question, "What Lilith told us to get."

Grimm smirked, "That big-ass ice cream cone's the Vault Map? Can't these people use a damn key card like normal people?"

For a brief second, the four Marines looked around the room, particularly the murals of Tyreen and Troy Calypso.

"You know what? Forget what I said."

In the midst of their conversation, a voice none of them were pleased to hear asked, "Did you just come all this way for that busted-ass map, or are you just here to see me?"

Suddenly, a bright blue glare emanated on the edges of their armor, prompting all four of them to turn around with a collective sigh to face the center of the area. Standing before them were two massive holographic displays of the two people they kept hearing about and of course saw on the murals: The supposed Twin Gods themselves…

"Didn't you know you were such a superfan! Well, ya missed the show!" Tyreen just had to keep talking, "Oh, right! Bet you're all like 'What's up with all those husks?' Well, it's a thing I do! Check out the – "

Finally, Wilkes interrupted, "Oh, dear God, shut the fuck up!"

"Yeah, can the dude with the big-ass arm next to you talk to us instead?" Grimm kindly requested Tyreen Calypso, "We're in kind of a hurry!"

After hearing Grimm's request, Tyreen said, "Hmm...Lemme ask him..."

Tyreen and Troy looked at each other inquisitively.

"Troy, what do you wanna do?" Tyreen jokingly asked her brother, "You wanna…do what these uptight, retro-looking soldier boys tell you?"

Soldier boys!? Wilkes's mind raged from the label.

A moment later, Troy looked down at the "soldier boys".

"Hmm…Nah!" Troy chuckled his heart out, "Gods don't listen to soldier boys!"

Tyreen ran her mouth yet again, "So what's with the retro armor anyway? Is that a new Vault Thief thing? If so, wow! I'm really missing out on your secret meetings! You have those, right? Oh! Do you tell spooky stories? Do you have pillow fights?"

After seeing Troy salute to them mockingly, Wilkes snapped at the most expected response time.

"SOLDIER BOYS!?" He shouted up at the Calypsos, "I'm a Marine, goddamnit! Not a soldier, or Vault Hunter, or Vault Thief, bank robber, whatever! You think you can call us that and get away with it? Gods? What a fucking joke! Get out here so I can ram my foot up your ass!"

"Wilkes." Fisher spoke up, "I've just lost count of the amount of times I rolled my eyes in your presence. Please shut the fuck up."

Kane asked the two, "What do you want?"

Approaching Kane, Tyreen got down on one knee and pointed directly at the Vault Map.

"What I've always deserved." She said, "True godhood."

Fisher chimed in, "Not gonna happen."

Tyreen and Troy instantly laughed from hearing Fisher's comment. Feeling like they've heard enough from the "Twin Gods", Zeta Squad started walking away from the scene, making their way to the exit. To their luck, that didn't stop the Calypsos from running their mouths.

"Don't you know, outsider?" Troy said, "Gods don't negotiate!"

Tyreen had to have the last sentence, "Come back when you got that Vault Map fixed! Byeeeee!"

Before leaving the Holy Broadcast Center for good, Fisher stopped for a second. He looked back at the Calypsos just in time to see Tyreen wave him goodbye and Troy to mock him with another salute.

Troy's last sentence resonated in Robert Fisher's mind. Gods don't negotiate…