Chapter 31

Garden of Minos

They had quickly moved away from the wall, trying to get at least a bit of space between them and the bandits before they took a moment to inventory their gear. Most of the stuff that Gaige had picked up was junk, or was at least as bad as what they had, though she had snagged another Maliwan SMG, though this one was a purple that Jinx had never seen in a gun before, as well as a decent grenade mod.

Looking at the gun, Jinx pulled out her ECHO and quickly typed in 'What's up with that SMG?'

Gaige nodded and said something in reply, but stopped part way through and brought her hand part way to her ear before she seemed to remember that she was wearing headphones and motioned for the ECHO.

'It's a Slag. Think I told you about them. So, what's the plan?'

'Meaning?'

'Do we try and wait to see if they follow, or fight the Orochi?'

'Well, the problem is that I have no idea where we are, especially in relation to where I got injured.'

She turned to Deathtrap, but he just shook his head sadly. Jinx patted his shoulder to tell him that it was alright and turned back.

'I guess we need to move forward, at least till one of us recognizes where we are.'

'And if you don't? Do you think we should face it?'

'You mean, do I think we can win.'

Gaige nodded and raised her eyebrows to emphasize the question.

'Not great odds, but we have a chance.'

Gaige looked back at the wall in the distance and was relieved to see that no bandits were trying to climb over it at the moment. Still, she didn't want to wait around to find out if they had given up, so she stood up and looked around before turning to Artemis and motioning around them, clearly asking 'Which way?'

Jinx looked at her and sighed before typing into her ECHO and showing Deathtrap 'Can you sense the Orochi's vibrations? It should be 'singing' to try and lure us in.'

Deathtrap nodded and pointed, to which Jinx nodded and started in that direction. She moved slower than usual, mostly since she couldn't hear, so she didn't know exactly how much noise they were making, nor could she hear it if the Orochi detected them before she spotted it.

Still, they made their way closer before they started dropping down levels. When they'd made it closer, Jinx raised her hand to stop them and moved forward slowly by herself till she was at the edge of the ship. Looking down she saw a familiar sight, a ship she recognized, at least a little, though she hadn't seen it from this angle before.

From here she could tell that the deck was a patchwork of plates that were just set-in place and the figures on the deck weren't beautiful. In fact, they were only vaguely human. But despite that, it was clearly the ship that the Orochi was using as its nest.

She slid back from the edge and made her way back to where the others were waiting for her and pulled her ECHO out.

'It's down there.'

Gaige twisted like she might be able to see it from where she was sitting which caused Jinx to shake her head slowly. Soon enough Gaige realized what she was doing and turned back, cheeks tinged red and held her hand out for the ECHO.

'So, what's the plan?'

'That's what I'm trying to figure out. One wrong move could be fatal. Even if everything goes right, still could kill us all.'

'I trust you.'

Jinx blinked at that and looked up to see Gaige giving her a thin smile before she resumed typing.

'Look, no matter what you think of me, I believe in you. You're the only one that can take this down, so use us however you like.'

Deathtrap grabbed the ECHO and added 'But no sacrifices. K?'

Jinx read that and gave him a look, but he pointed to it again as if to say 'Promise.'

'Wasn't planning on it, but that said, this is going to be hard. I'll have to relocate to a closer spot, and I need you two to get close to it. Be aware that it might not be the best fighter out of all the creatures that I've faced, but it still can kill you easily.'

She saw the slightly confused look on Gaige's face so she added 'It's used to its prey just walking up to it without a struggle.'

'Is it really that...' Gaige shrugged, like she couldn't find the word to describe it.

Jinx looked at her and nodded to herself before leading them carefully over to the edge and pointing it out. Gaige looked at it confused, even at this distance the figures looked wrong somehow so she turned back and shrugged dramatically.

Jinx nodded and held up her ECHO to Deathtrap telling him 'Hold her tight.'

The robot seemed to get what she was going for and wrapped his arms around Gaige, who struggled a little, but mostly looked confused, at least until Jinx reached out and pulled one of her headphones away from her ear.

The sudden influx of sound was a shock to Gaige, but then there was the sound that dominated everything. A beautiful melody that wove its way around her thoughts, through her, that told her everything would be alright, that she would be loved, cherished, that she wouldn't have to worry any more. All her pain and worries would be gone, all she had to do was follow the song. Follow it and everything would all be alright.

She didn't feel the lax smile spread across her face, she knew that everything would be alright now. She looked down and through the slight darkness she saw them, the friends, lovers, everything she'd ever wanted. They were perfect, especially the second man from the right and the woman next to him. They were so perfect that it hurt.

She tried to move towards them, only to find that she couldn't, something was holding her back, denying her the happiness that she so desperately craved. She shook and tried to get loose, but whatever was holding her had an iron-like grip on her. Still, she thrashed harder and harder, until something hit her ear and all the sound vanished.

Gaige blinked a few times and looked around slowly as the color drained from her face. She looked back down at the ship, the darkness had vanished and the strangely humanoid figures were still sitting where they'd been. Slowly she reached up and patted Deathtrap's arm, at which point Jinx nodded to them and headed back to where they'd been discussing things.

Deathtrap didn't let Gaige go until he'd carried her back to the middle of the ship and even then, he kept a close eye on her, as if expecting her to make a break for it. She sat down heavily and stared at the deck for a moment before reaching out for the ECHO with shaky hands.

'That was terrifying. You actually managed to break out of that?'

'Not really, it was more of an instinctive reaction.'

'Still, not something I want to try again.'

'Well, the good news is that once it's mad, it doesn't sing.'

'Great, so we only have to get it mad?'

'Bit more than that I'm afraid. Before we go any further, you up for this?'

Gaige swallowed and glanced back at the edge but after a moment nodded.

'Right, so this is what I need you two to do.' And Jinx wrote out what they needed to do to win, even as Gaige's mouth hung open at the plan.

Still, they all agreed to it and hurried to their positions.

Once they were all in place, Deathtrap gave Gaige one last look as if to ask her if she was sure about this, but she smiled thinly and gave him a thumbs up before giving her rifle one last check and stepping off the edge of the ship.

She started walking forward slowly, as if in a daze, trying to get as close as she could to the Orochi before it figured out that she wasn't under its spell. It took everything she had to not let her knees give out under her or let the cold sweat that was soaking her back give her away. She found it easiest to not really look at the humanoid lumps wriggling like they were beckoning her, but instead, to focus beyond them, which she felt gave her an unfocused look.

She got all the way to the ship next to where the figures were when the bright red beam hit the one on the far side. Almost simultaneously the one on the other side exploded as a sniper round tore through it. Gaige snapped her rifle up at the signal and poured her fire into the closest one of the figures, even as she felt the ship beneath her shake from the power of the roar that came from the next ship over.

That was when everything exploded.

The ship in front of her seemed to come apart as the deck plates launched into the air as something large shifted beneath them. Gaige didn't waste any time waiting to see what happened next, instead she spun around and took off running the other direction as fast as she could.

Jinx watched as the ship seemed to tear itself apart, but her focus was entirely on one of the figures that seemed to be turning inside out as it turned into one of the Orochi's heads. She wasted no time emptying the clip into it, which thanks to the rate of fire the Vladof rifle had, didn't take all that long. Despite that, it seemed that the heads were more armored once they'd returned to normal as she watched the last round bounce off the scales on its back.

She cursed inwardly, her plan had required them to take out as many heads as possible before they transformed, but they'd only managed to kill three of them, though the one she'd been firing at was pretty bloody and from the look of it, was probably blind. But including that one, there were still four heads left to deal with.

'So, if we kill all of the heads, you think it'll die?' Gaige had asked her.

She'd answered as honestly as she could and told her 'I hope so.'. And that was the truth, she genuinely hoped it would work, but she had no guarantees. She'd never fought an Orochi before, let alone this particular kind. Still, she'd laid it all on the hope that, like almost everything else, if you cut off the head, the body would die.

And that had been her plan, each of them would take out a head as fast as they could, trying to get it done as close together as they could and then try and either take out a second, or at least do enough damage to it as they could before the Orochi emerged. As soon as that happened, she'd told Gaige to get out of there as fast as she could. She'd also told Deathtrap to get to Gaige's side and help keep her clear of the Orochi's wrath. Meanwhile she'd keep high and try and do as much damage as she could.

The Orochi let out a below as it shook off the deck plates and lumbered forward, giving chase to the fleeing girl. Jinx slapped a new clip in the sniper rifle and aimed at the waving heads.

Gaige ran flat out as hard as she could, at some point she'd switched from her assault rifle to the Slag SMG which she was firing as she ran, she knew it was a bit of a waste of the precious bullets, but she could see them bouncing back to strafe the Orochi that was pounding after her.

"Come on, get Slagged, get Slagged, get Slagged." She chanted as she ran, even as some part of her mind pointed out that even if it did get Slagged, she'd have no way of knowing it without turning around, something that she really didn't want to do considering that the ship she was on gave a sudden shake as if something large had just landed on it.

Jinx ran along the ship even as she knew that she couldn't get ahead of the Orochi, but as soon as she got to the end of the ship, she dropped into a crouch and braced her elbow against her knee and took aim, even as the beast gained rapidly on Gaige. Jinx didn't hurry, instead she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them and letting it out before she opened fire.

The first burst tore along one of the undamaged heads, throwing a line of sparks as the bullets hit scales at a bad angle, but as the line cut over one of its eyes, it vanished in a spray of blood, causing the creature to let out a scream that caused her sternum to vibrate.

The heads all whipped around and fixed her with a glare and its massive body swung around, spinning across the deck as its talons tore deep gouges in the deck. It came to a complete stop and roared as it spotted her, she could tell that it recognized her and hadn't forgotten the small creature that had hurt it and gotten away. As its eyes fixed on her, she could even make out the mostly healed cuts across it where it had slammed into the bladed wall.

"Oh shit." She exclaimed into the silence as it exploded at her, bounding across the deck and giving a huge leap up and catching the side of the ship she was on.

Even as the ship tilted slightly under the sudden weight on one side, Jinx spun and ran for all she was worth, knowing that she couldn't afford to be caught by it again.

Gaige had felt the ship shake as the creature had spun on it and had risked a glance over her shoulder and to her relief and horror, she saw it spin away from her and go bounding after the other girl. In fact, it seemed solely interested in her.

Letting out a muttered curse, Gaige switched to the fire SMG and let loose a stream at the creatures back, even as she saw the purplish tinge reflecting in the light, telling her that she had in fact slagged the beast.

She watched as the shots traced a line across its back and the fire spread, but to her disappointment, it seemed to do nothing to deter it from its chase.

Jinx jumped off the side of the ship, dropping down to the next level while the Orochi was still climbing up the side of the ship in hopes that it would lose her, even for a moment, but the instant she hit the deck of the ship, the entire thing gave a shake as the creature landed in front of her. How it had covered that much distance, she couldn't guess, but it was now glaring down at her even as it's back burned casting it in an ominous light.

Deathtrap decided to leave Gaige as soon as the Orochi had switched targets and had flown after it, lighting it up with his caustic laser. He was trying to aim for the joint where the necks attached to the body, despite it being thicker there, they thrashed much less so his aim was truer.

He nearly flew up after it when it made its great leap, but then to his amazement, it had grabbed the side of the ship and launched itself over it, arching over and coming down on the same level as before, right after Artemis had landed.

With a great sense of desperation, Deathtrap flew as fast as he could to get a line of attack on the creature, even as he weighed his options. He quickly decided on one when he spotted a patch of scales near the base of one of the functioning heads had melted away under the combined force of the slag boosted caustic beam.

Straightening as he continued to fly, he pulled his arms back and fired his deathlaser into the weak point. The beam of red energy hit the target, causing the beast to rear back in pain, the ensuing explosion tore chunks of muscle and scales off and he finished it by diving in, Digi-claws out, to unleash a spinning attack.

Jinx watched in amazement as Deathtrap sent one of the necks crashing to the deck where it lay twitching and thrashing. The rest of the heads screamed in agony and for a moment were still.

She took advantage of that to draw the Torgue pistol from her back and fire into the inside of one of the open mouths.

Despite the slowness of the projectile, it still made a clean hit against the upper palate of the beasts' mouth and the explosion knocked the head back a bit, but despite the gore that flew out, it didn't kill it.

Instead, the mouth snapped shut and turned down to glare at her while giving off a low growl made all the more intimidating by the blood pouring between its teeth.

The heads snapped forward, two of them swinging in from the sides to prevent her from dodging and the wounded one coming straight at her. With a split second to make a choice, and knowing that she couldn't get out of the way in time, she dove forward, into the mouth.

Gaige screamed as she saw her friend get eaten. Deathtrap froze, unable to tell if the blood was just from the wounded Orochi, before renewing his attack on its neck, when the head started thrashing oddly.

Jinx for her part, had curled as small as she could to get past the teeth and as the mouth snapped shut with amazing force, she'd jammed her left fist up, driving it into the wounded spot on the Orochi's palate. She felt her hand go through the soft tissue and smash through something hard, which she figured must be bone, and had grabbed onto it for dear life.

That was when things got rough. The fist going into the roof of its mouth must have hurt, a lot, because the Orochi froze and then the head started thrashing around, swinging her from her deathgrip on its skull. She felt her feet hit the inside of its teeth, the large tongue started swinging around, trying to dislodge her, so she slammed her feet down against it, trying to keep it in place, but it kept squirming out from under her and then coming in from the side.

In desperation, Jinx fired her pistol at where she hoped the base of the tongue was, forgetting that she was still using the Torgue. The resulting explosion nearly made her lose her grip on the roof of the mouth, and it did cause the pistol to fly off, where it bounced off one of the teeth and then went down the creature's throat, but it also did succeed in blasting through most of the tongue, which flopped and slapped against her as the Orochi thrashed in agony.

The beast let out a pained roar, opening its mouth and blasting her with a wave of hot, moist air that sent her feet flying out past its teeth. She curled them back as fast as she could and barely managed to get them back in before the mouth snapped shut again with enough force that it hit her with a shock-wave of air.

The mouth flew open again as the Orochi thrashed and squealed in pain, it's tongue, though mostly cut off, could still feel and had gotten between its jaws as it had bit down at her.

Jinx felt a bit sorry for it and winced in sympathetic agony, even as she drew her Jakobs pistol and looked up despite the gore that rained down on her. She jammed her right hand into the opening next to her other hand and pulled the trigger as fast as she could.

By the time the cylinder clicked empty the head was waving back and forth unsteadily, before it fell limp and dead.

She didn't waste any time and jumped clear of it to land on the deck in a bloody pile. The instant her feet hit the deck, they went out from under her, sending her onto her backside.

Wincing slightly, she started to push her way up when she spotted the one fully intact head flying towards her. She knew this was it, in her position, there was no way to move, let alone dodge, so there was nothing she could do but wait the split second for the bite to end her, and to hope that it would be painless.

Just as the mouth snapped down, something hit her from the side and after sliding most of the way around her gore slicked body, managed to catch her tank top, yanking her out of the way at the last possible second.

The two girls rolled a ways before coming to a stop with Gaige on top. She hopped to her feet as fast as she could and offered the other girl a hand, which she grabbed onto and was yanked up. Jinx gave the other girl a gratefully nod even as they watched the Orochi turn its last two heads at them.

It let out another roar, but instead of snapping at them, it lunged forward at astonishing speed, leaping up and trying to catch them under its bulk.

The two of them barely had time to react as the massive frame came crashing down where they'd just been as they threw themselves off the side of the ship. It missed them by so little that the concussive force of the wind blasted them across the gap to the ship across the way as they fell.

The two of them hit the deck and rolled to their feet as fast as they could and in time to see the Orochi shake itself as it slowly got back up.

Gaige glanced at the other girl for advice on how they were going to proceed, but found herself looking at more of her then she'd intended. Amid the coating of blood and gore, chunks of which were slightly washed away by globs of saliva that oozed down her, Gaige could see that her tank top was torn mostly off, revealing a swath of pale skin across half her chest. It seemed that the only thing keeping it from entirely peeling off, was her chest guard.

Even as she sputtered and felt her face flush, she caught Artemis trying to get her attention. Focusing on her face, so she didn't have to look anywhere else, she saw the girl mouthing something. It took her repeating it again for Gaige to pick up ' T' from her even as the girl unslung her assault rifle and readied herself for the creature's next attack.

The Orochi didn't waste any time, as soon as it pulled itself up and spotted them, it threw itself down, trying to crush them again and forcing them to split up, each jumping to the ship on either side.

Deathtrap watched in relief as the two girls managed to dodge it again, but he was getting worried, each time was cutting it closer than the last and he didn't know which would give out first, the Orochi, or their luck. His only consolation was that the creature was visibly slowing down, undoubtedly from blood loss, considering how much was painting the decks of the ships by this point. Still, that didn't mean that they could ease up on their attacks, in fact it meant just the opposite, since the creature would be getting desperate, so Deathtrap let loose with another caustic beam at the base of the neck of the remaining intact head.

Even as the caustic energy sliced across the scales, sizzling and melting them, he could tell that even with the slag boost, his progress was too slow and he wasn't going to make it before the creature managed to catch up with one of the girls, so he had no choice, even though he was sure that it was too soon, that there wasn't enough damage done yet, he fired off his deathlaser as soon as the beast landed again, driving the red energy into the wound.

The resulting explosion tore chunks of scales and meat off, but like he feared, failed to tear deep enough to sever the neck, nor go deep enough for his claws to finish the job. In desperation he looked around for something, anything that could help and then his sensor landed on something and he got an idea.

The Orochi roared in pain again as the base of its last neck with a fully intact head tore open, spraying the area with even more blood. For her part Gaige didn't let up with her SMG, trying to keep away from the creature. Unfortunately, that wasn't too hard since it was entirely focused on Artemis at the moment. In fact, it hadn't seemed to take its eyes off of her since it had first spotted her, something that had allowed her and Deathtrap no small amount of safety, but had placed an awfully large burden on the other girl.

Gaige reloaded the SMG and did a quick estimate of her remaining ammo, and came back with not good. The fight was going on too long and they were losing all of their heavy hitting capacity.

Even as she thought that and as she finished slapping the clip into her gun and resuming fire, she watched as the creature took a swipe at the other girl, forcing her to abandon attacking and run for all she was worth, making Gaige have no other option but to chase after it, even as she unleashed another wave of purple shots.

The creature was too fast for them and gave a great leap just as Artemis jumped to the next ship, easily clearing her and landing on the deck in front of her. It spun with surprising speed, dropping low and using the centrifugal force to whip its heads at her like the ends of a flail.

She managed to throw herself out of the way only because she'd immediately tried to jump back as soon as the creature had jumped over her, but the wind pressure was still enough to send her sprawling on the deck and slid her into the central tower with enough force to blast the air out of her lungs.

She lay there in a daze as the Orochi stepped back across the gap and, while ignoring the stream of gunfire bouncing off of its hide, aimed to smash the girl in front of it. This time it wouldn't let her into its mouth, it was just going to squash her flat.

Its head shot forward even as Gaige ran at it, helplessly, only for her to pull to a stop as what looked to her like a comet flew down at unbelievable speed, slicing through the neck and sending the severed head to smash into the tower mere feet above its target.

Gaige shouted in joy as Deathtrap had driven one of the deck plates that had been covering the Orochi, one that he'd sharpened with a couple of swipes of his Digi-claws, through the base of its neck and deep into the deck of the ship.

The Orochi immediately let out a screech of pain and began thrashing blindly across the deck of the ship, hoping to crush anything that it could.

For his part, Deathtrap couldn't get out of the way in time and instead found himself clinging to the severed stump of a neck for dear life as the enraged creature bucked and thrashed across the deck.

Jinx swore inwardly, it wasn't that she wasn't gratefully for the timely intervention, but a blind creature was extremely dangerous. Since it was hurt and knew they were out there, it would thrash about in a literal blind panic until either it thought that it had killed everything in the area, or had ran out of energy and with the amount of blood loss that it was already suffering, she knew that it must be running on pure adrenaline by now, she had no way of knowing how long it would last, so she had to kill it, somehow.

She pulled herself up and did a quick check of her rifle before turning her attention fully to the enraged Orochi. She watched it thrash and fired off a quick shot, hitting it in the empty eye socket of the remaining head, throwing bits of bone and blood out, even as it seemed to panic the beast even further.

She moved cautiously, taking shots as fast as she could get a line of attack, each one widening the wound. The creature for its part tried to figure out where the shots were coming from and spun, using all of its limbs to try and hit her.

Jinx ran and jumped over the tail as it came scraping across the deck. It must have figured that as long as it could touch the deck, it would have a chance of hitting her. She hit the ground and rolled closer to its torso as the dead heads whipped across the deck at all different heights, but all of them went over her as she got close to its body, but immediately kicked herself back to avoid being crushed by one of its massive clawed hands.

It stopped spinning and seemed to wait, trying to see if it had managed to kill her or not.

Jinx took that moment to take off running straight for the last head, which was a few feet off the deck of the ship. It seemed to hear her since the head spun in her direction. Without hesitating, she pulled the grenade off her belt in her left hand and as the head collided with her, drove her arm as far as she could into the wounded eye socket before letting the grenade go.

The combination of the impact, and it recoiling in pain sent her flying, even as the grenade exploded deep within the Orochi's head, sending a spray of blood and bone across the deck.

But even with a huge chunk of its head missing, and its brain exposed, the Orochi refused to die, and resumed thrashing across the deck while letting out a high-pitched keening wail.

Gaige ran over to where Artemis was pushing herself back to her feet and tried to give her a hand up, but was met by the other girl grabbing her and spinning her around. She felt the hands on her back relieve her of the fire SMG and then without any acknowledgement, Artemis turned away and started firing short bursts of fire laced bullets into the Orochi's exposed brain.

It didn't take long for the last head to slam into the deck with enough force that it almost knocked Gaige off her feet. She started forward only to be stopped by Artemis holding an arm out.

She casually reloaded the SMG and walked forward a little ways and emptying the clip directly into the exposed brain.

The Orochi twitched and thrashed as she did, but then fell still again and Gaige saw the blood that had been pumping out of the severed necks suddenly slow to an oozing trickle.

Still, Artemis switched back to her assault rifle and stood there, watching it for a good few minutes before she turned to Deathtrap and only after he turned and did a quick scan before turning back and nodding to her, did she relax.