Here's the third chapter then! I've been so focussed on my exams that I'm honestly surprised I managed to get on with this on schedule. Writing's been a slow burn because of that, but, hey, I managed to get there. There's over 6k words in this chapter, so I think I'll take an extra week to write the next one, which also is shaping up to have over 6k too.

I'm glad that I've managed to get into this, and I enjoyed writing the Fiona/Gaige dynamic.

And there of course call-backs to the Friendship Gulag Incident from the previous book, but this one is different. I suppose it serves to show the development of Gemini (and the Vault Hunters) from Someone Else to No One Else. Because nothing is really the same.

I guess you'll have to see…

3: Fortune Favours

Gaige quickly moved forward from the Dust fast travel, purposefully avoiding Fiona's intrusive conversation. She was nice and all, but she was naïve sometimes when it came to Gaige's personal life. Number one thing: she didn't like to talk about it. Her past was not something she liked to cover much, she only sparingly commented on mild details, and especially not anything to do with Matt.

So it was annoying when Fiona would ask her what Matt was actually like.

It was great that she was interested – unlike Rhys – but she didn't seem to understand that Gaige didn't like to talk about her absentee boyfriend. Considering how Matt was forced to leave, that was understandable.

Gemini was also a no-go as well. The Mechromancer would happily tell you how vile they were, or cover basic terminology – but never the gritty details of her past with them. By gritty past, Gaige was of course referring to her torture by both Dan and Violet, as well as Three, with her demonic perhexiline.

Fiona and Rhys were misfits among the Vault Hunters, or so Gaige believed, since they were one of the newest to take up the job. At least some of the others who joined them – like Aurelia – had experience in the area for a good while prior.

Although, Aurelia stayed off-world most of the time, opting to avoid her estranged brother, Sir Hammerlock, however she elected to return to Pandora for the following week to go to Matt's ceremony. It was Lilith's suggestion, despite the fact that Aurelia had never met the Anomaly. Gaige didn't like her too much. She was quite rude and her relationship with Sir Hammerlock was strained at best. There had been evidence of her trying to repair it, but it was few and far between. The Mechromancer was of course quite fond of her arm-buddy Sir Hammerlock, so she did not like Aurelia's treatment of it: past or present.

Gaige looked around her, breathing in the hot air. Ellie's Garage was no longer so; it had been upgraded to an automatic vehicle outpost for the Raiders – complete with anti-intruder forcefield to keep bandits out. The entire place was manned by robots, droids made years ago to make up for the gap of human mechanic employment that persisted still. Now that Scooter was dead, the only mechanics around were Ellie, her "assistant" Dr Straumm, and Moxxi – and there was no way Moxxi was going to indulge herself in tools in public.

/Would you like to request a vehicle?/

Gaige turned to look at the robot which just asked her that question. She nodded.

'Yes. A normal Runner is fine, thanks. We only need two passengers.' The robot stepped back, its eyes changing from a normal green to a flickering blue.

/Digistructing Runner vehicle…

Skin: default

Cannon: Light MG/

A Runner formed from blue particles right in front of Gaige and Fiona, slowly but surely. It wasn't very tall, as they expected, but it was big enough. Bored, Gaige ran her foot across the sand to make some sort of pattern. By the time she was finished, the Dust had an extra triangle on it.

Fiona began to climb into the Runner, but Gaige stopped her.

'I'm driving.'

'What? Why?' She complained, sighing childishly.

'Well, do you know where the Gulag is?' The Mechromancer pointed out. Fiona stepped back.

'Oh, yeah. You're right.' Gaige nodded with an open mind and entered the driver's seat. Fiona climbed into the turret. Gaige twisted a few dials and pulled the key on the side to start the engine. It revved up, vibrating violently throughout the vehicle and through the two Vault Hunters' skeletons.

'Robot, open the gates!' The Mechromancer ordered.

/Affirmative./

The gate doors shuddered as they opened, revealing the scrap metal ramp that had never been moved. The entire scrap heap remained, although noticeably smaller, as some of the materials had been recycled for the robots which Ellie and Dr Straumm had kindly installed over the past few years. Ellie didn't maintain the place, since she had relocated back to Sanctuary to manage her new Garage (formerly Scooter's) and Straumm was on Elpis completing a Further Engineering course.

'Did you build those robots?' Fiona asked. Gaige sighed silently, having forgotten that Fiona was not present when the work on the Dust was initiated or when it was referred to as having initiated.

'No.'

'But don't you have that Deathtrap bot?' Fiona remembered.

'D374-TP is a combat-oriented robot. The ones here are engineering robots.'

'Right, so you make robots that destroy things, and they wanted robots which create things?' Fiona asked, to which the Mechromancer duly nodded. 'But can't Deathtrap digistruct things?'

'Only certain things,' Gaige elucidated. 'Certain things for use in combat either for itself or for me. You have to code digistruction of those things, you know. I don't know how to digistruct anything or everything. Only what I learnt to do.'

'Ah. I get it now.'

'Let's just go, then.'

Gaige slammed on the pedals, and kicked up sand, although she didn't care. The Runner screeched as it drove through the gates, and up the ramp. Fiona lurched back as they flew through the air for a few seconds. As they landed, the Mechromancer swerved left, shaking the vehicle from the sudden change of direction. They ran over a few Spiderants as they drove over the hills, but it didn't really concern the two of them.

The Buzzard Camp was noticeable in the distance, perched atop the rock formation. It was no longer owned by bandits, thankfully, otherwise, there would've been a concern that they might attempt to bypass the anti-intruder forcefield. At some point down the line, the Crimson Raiders had nabbed it, in a, well, raid, and had been using it to train pilots for their workforce. Not all of them went there, though; it was mainly for those stationed on Pandora. The Buzzard workforce had tripled over the past few years, going from Brick's slab pilots to an entire armada.

It was useful now, since the Crimson Raiders were no longer a minor resistance. They were a major corporation, by Gemini's standards, and operated across the entire Medusa sector. However, everyone knew that they based themselves mainly on Pandora, since its leaders remained tethered there. Lilith hadn't left in a year and a half, but Mordecai and Brick had both been anxious to combat some of the new Vaults that they once took an express shuttle just to leave Pandora. Lilith had been mad at them for weeks, but she conceded; once the Siren understood their ambition, she was ensured of their fidelity.

Gaige, on the other hand, barely left Pandora. She had, once or twice, over the past few years. However, it never felt right and the Mechromancer was driven to remain on the planet. Whether it was due to homesickness, or because Matt hadn't returned yet, it didn't matter. Whatever it was, Lilith and Aurora seemed to think it stagnated her Vault Hunting prowess.

Gaige's life wasn't tethered to Vault Hunting alone. Merely, it was a component of who she was, not all of it. She had visited her parents, under surveillance and protection of the Crimson Raiders. Her dad was happy to see her, and Gaige remembered how ecstatic she had felt to finally see her parents again. Her mother was concerned, in that kind of quirky way she does it, but she opened up and they got to know each other.

The Mechromancer held back a chuckle at the memory of her mother's fussing around her.

If only Matt had been there. He would've loved to meet her parents. Although, Gaige supposed, it might've reminded him of his parents, whom he considered to be his own farce, some kind of red in his ledger. Nonetheless, the Anomaly wouldn't let that ruin such a big moment for Gaige. He was considerate like that.

'So, you never answered my question: have you ever been to the Friendship Gulag before?' Fiona enquired, loudly over the vociferous noise of the engine. Gaige gave her disdainful look, warning her that she didn't plan on talking about. The Artist looked hurt, but avoided the Mechromancer's line of sight to hide it. Spotting her remorse anyway, Gaige sighed and opened her mouth.

I suppose there's no harm in talking about it.

'Yeah! It was some recon with…some of the others!' She shouted at her. Fiona turned her head, bobbing almost excitedly as she looked down at her. The Vault Hunter listened intently. 'Four years ago, or so, um, Lilith had inspected the Friendship Gulag. She believed Hyperion were holding some kind of technology there – alternative shield parts, which we could possibly use for Sanctuary. So she sent us on a recon mission to find out where it was being stored.'

'And…?'

'And it turned out that there was an entire network of an underground base, hidden by a security door. So, Lilith, Mordecai, Zer0, Axton, me, and…a few others raided it together to steal the technology for ourselves.'

'Cool! So did you get it?'

'Yeah. But not before Hyperion had rigged the entire complex to blow. M…Matt was the one who found it.'

'Wait, wait…wait! Matt was there?' Fiona quizzed. Gaige sighed, slightly.

'Yep. Aurora too. When Matt found the bomb, he couldn't defuse it. I couldn't hack it, either. The only option was to get everyone out – so that's what Matt did.'

'He slowed time and got everyone out.'

'Nope,' Gaige shot down, resisting the urge to smile at the feat Matt had achieved that day. 'He stopped time.'

'He can do that?!'

'He couldn't control it. It drained him; he was only able to move everyone out of the room the bomb was in. The door closed on us…Matt wasn't able to get out.'

'If he couldn't get out, how did he escape the bomb?' The Artist wondered, perplexed, but she could see the grim look on the Mechromancer's face.

'He didn't.'

Gaige went silent, and Fiona knew at this point that she didn't plan on elaborating further. The rest of the ride was punctuated by a tense silence, of which Gaige was evidently keen to perpetuate. The move was already making Fiona want to return to Sanctuary, or better yet, move to Chrysanthia so she wouldn't bother the Mechromancer any further.

Fiona was older than Gaige, but neither of them acted like it. From the way it seemed, Gaige was older. She was only 22, soon to be 23, and Fiona was meant to be 32, but her ally (she choked the urge to say friend; she wasn't sure how Gaige considered their relationship) was much more mature than she was. Over the years, Fiona had recognised how her being around Rhys had made her less and less mature. She always had a fun side to her, but Rhys had an odd way of embellishing it and causing it to come to the surface more often. They were really good friends, Fiona supposed, so that might've been why.

Sasha always made Fiona want to enjoy herself more, but Rhys's "charm", as he called it, made Fiona happier.

There. That was another reason to move to Chrysanthia: Sasha was living there. Fiona thought about it initially, but her desire to continue Vault Hunting led her to the central headquarters of the Crimson Raiders (even more so than their capital city, Karabraxis) – Sanctuary. Lilith had convinced her that she would need to live in Sanctuary, if she wanted to formal training to be a Vault Hunter, but that she could always visit Chrysanthia, if she so desired.

The first round of their training involved a fight with Lilith, the leader of the Crimson Raiders. Fiona was permitted to use any and all resources to her advantage, just that she was not to kill under any circumstances. The latter part wasn't mentioned by Lilith, Gaige just decided to helpfully whisper her it in her ear. Fiona supposed the Siren was just that confident that the Artist would not be of too much risk for her.

Well, she had been right. The fight went about as well as one would expect. To be fair, Lilith expected it to be shorter, but Fiona thought it would be longer. The Siren disarmed her and then used some karate take-down to pin her, before locking her in a painful arm bar.

Not a good introduction to her new team, Fiona had thought.

Though, Rhys went down a lot faster than Fiona did, so that made her feel better. The Corporate then proceeded to go on a rant about how he was "more invested in the reformation of Atlas" and that this Vault Hunter gig was "only temporary" and was so he could defend his honour. After all, according to him, there were "a lot of people out there who wouldn't like it if Atlas came back in any capacity", so it was paramount that he could "prevent any assassinations" and throw people off his scent. To be fair, it was a pretty good point and Fiona didn't expect Rhys to be smart about, well, anything, but he surprised her.

To Rhys's credit, Atlas was very successful and without it, the Raiders wouldn't have any funding.

Gemini was a thorn in their side. After Hyperion had gone down crashing (literally) on Pandora, Fiona had expected most of their problems to end. Then, of course, the Vault of the Traveller came along, but they took care of that fiasco. After that, Fiona expected her life as a Vault Hunter to continue without growing complications, but then they touched that chest-thingy in the Vault and they were teleported to another Vault.

It was weird. They were in some sort of arena, in a void of purple energy that seemed to go on forever. There was a weird artefact on the floor, which the Artist tried to interact with, but it shocked her when she touched it and a forcefield quickly formed around it.

When they left, they were tracked by the Raiders, who detected a surge of Infinite energy – thanks to Fiona's interaction with the Artefact – and that was how they met the rest of the Raiders. Zer0, Mordecai and Brick recognised them, whom knew that Fiona identified herself as a Vault Hunter.

Lilith later explained that the Vault they were in was called "the Vault of the Dreamer", which had been invaded several months prior.

'We're coming up on the Gulag!' Gaige alerted her, breaking her Vault Hunter 'friend' from her thoughts.

'Isn't it the Gemini Menagerie now?' The Artist pointed out.

'Well, yeah, but it's still the Gulag to me,' Gaige replied, as she decelerated the Runner outside the entrance to the Menagerie. She stepped out the vehicle, coughing slightly on the sand, signalling Fiona to follow.

'Are we using the C-Digistructors now?' The Artist wondered. Gaige nodded, taking out hers. She pressed the button and assumed the form of a Gemini Deceptor. She had manipulated the form so that her metal arm was still exposed when in use. She could change it if she really needed to blend in, but she mainly used it to go invisible anyway.

Fiona pressed the button on her C-Digistructor, changing into the form of a male Deceptor.

'Woah! Ah, this is weird. My voice sounds different; it's all deep and male.'

'Press the button on the underside to turn off the voice modulator,' the Mechromancer informed to her, to which she nodded. She pressed the button and marvelled at how her voice went back to normal. 'If you want to go invisible, press the button on the belt. Careful though, it drains the battery.'

'This is awesome,' Fiona described, examining her limbs to see how they were no longer visible. 'Right, um, how are we gonna get in?'

'Leave that to me,' she advised. Gaige pressed a few buttons on her metal arm, and pulled up a hologram, which wrapped around it. Her arm connected to the Gemini Network, and allowed her to bypass the firewalls and enter the Menagerie intranet. The door to the former Gulag slid open in front of them. 'Told you.'

Good thing the security isn't set to maximum.

Gaige pressed a button and she went invisible. From Fiona's perception, she was still visible, but barely. She could make out the outlines of her body, and assumed the light frequency of the Deceptor visor had been tuned to see her. She walked up to the door and passed through. Fiona hurried behind her.

Amelia moved a strand of hair as it hit her face. The wind was blowing in her face aggressively, hindering her eyesight annoyingly.

Matt had found a Catch-A-Ride near a bandit outpost and digitised a Silent Runner (A/N: Basically, it's a Runner, but the engine is silent.) vehicle for them. Of course, the Anomaly was driving, and Amelia got into the turret. As a result, she was up higher, so more wind was hitting her than her brother. It was certainly frustrating. At least the engine wasn't so noisy that it overpowered her thoughts too.

On the plus side, they were getting the closer to where the Artefact directed them towards. Whatever it was, Matt was adamant it was important, an she was stringing Amelia along for the ride.

This is NOT how I expected to spend my first day as a real person in the real world since I died.

She really wanted to meet some of Matt's Vault Hunter friends, or maybe make some of her own, but nope, Matt wanted them to go off on some possible wild goose chase. Of all people, Amelia expected the Anomaly to be the most desperate to return to his friends, to Gaige. Instead, Matt's priorities were elsewhere.

'Something on your mind, Amy?' The Anomaly asked her. Amelia chomped down on air in frustration.

Damn. I forgot how perceptive he can be sometimes.

'Why don't you want to go back to your friends?'

'I do. But this is important.'

'What if this leads nowhere?'

'There is no "if".'

'You can't be so sure!'

'If it means I can prevent the Great Monsoon, then yes, I can!' Matt snapped, before quickly losing his anger and sighing. 'There's no point in returning to my friends if they're going to be dead later on anyway.'

'You don't know that,' Amelia replied. 'Don't you want to see Gaige again?'

'Yes! More than anything!' The Anomaly confirmed. 'But I have to prioritise what's important. This is more important; that's the ugly truth. I have to look at this situation objectively. My objective conclusion: chasing this lead that an actual Eridian matter more than blind festivities.'

'You sure you're being objective?' His sister questioned. 'Or are you just afraid to go back?' Matt scoffed.

'Why would I be –'

'Because of the way you left. It just happened, almost out of your control. And now, it's been four years. I wouldn't be surprised if you're scared to face them.'

'I'm not –'

'I don't think so,' Amelia interrupted again. 'Maybe they don't want you back. Not after being without you so long. Maybe Gaige has practically forgotten you. You don't know. And I think that's what you're afraid of.' Matt sighed, but didn't say anything.

'To be honest, I don't know what I fear. A little bit, yeah, I am scared to see them. I hate how I basically abandoned them. Yeah, it was to save them, but it felt wrong, nonetheless.'

'Matt, I am certain they will be happy to see you,' she ensured him. 'And if they're not, then I'll…talk with them myself.' Matt chuckled at her persistence, profoundly glad at his sister's considerate nature.

'Yeah, maybe you're –'

He was drowned out by an explosion behind them. Amelia spun around on her turret to see a fleet of Bandit Technical vehicles chasing after them. Two of them had rocket pads and the other four had sub-machine guns. One of them even had an Angry Midget Psycho on the hood of the car, banging on it anxiously as they approached the two of them.

'Bandits are on our tail!' Amelia warned to Matt, who gritted his teeth in seething frustration. 'Do you think we can lose 'em?'

'Lose them? Lose them where?' The Anomaly pointed out, gesturing towards open expanse of dirt hills and sand dunes. 'You any good with aim?'

'Good enough!' Amelia responded, as she fired towards the Bandit cars with her turrets. The vehicles began to weave a bit more to dodge the bullets, but she managed to shoot off some of the Marauders in the back of the vehicles.

Matt managed to spare enough time from manoeuvring through the wide (enough) V-shaped valley to see her shots at the bandits.

'Aim at the drivers, not the passengers!' He ordered her.

'I am!' His sister confirmed indignantly.

'Yeah! Not well, apparently!'

'And you think stating the obvious is going to help?!'

Matt quickly searched through the storage within the Runner, keeping an eye on the road. He pulled out two green, cylindrical objects and handed it to her, leaving her bemused.

'Class-A Incendiary-explosive cross-element grenades. They'll blow the vehicles up and then light them up on fire.'

'Cool!'

'Be careful.'

'I know!' Amelia assured him, trying to focus on the bandits.

She threw a Class-A grenade on the ground in front of them, and it blew up in less than a second, sending one of the Bandit Technicals up into the air and leaving it on its head. It then exploded.

'Wahoo!' Matt's sister exclaimed in pure glee, throwing her arms up in the air and almost throwing away her remaining grenades. 'Heh. That was too close.' She threw another grenade at the remaining five Bandit Technicals, but they were able to dodge it and the explosion shockwave merely knocked off a few passenger bandits.

'Bad luck,' Matt described, rather unhelpfully. Amelia shot him a dirty look and he immediately shut up. As he manoeuvred around, he saw a tunnel in the side of the mountain, on their left. Curious, the Anomaly sped up to get a closer look.

'Woah!' Amelia cried, as she lost her balance on the turret. The remaining grenades fell out of her grip. They exploded, and the shockwave shook one of the Technicals and caused it to lose balance and veer off to the side of the road. It crashed into another vehicle, and they both exploded. 'Er, we've lost the grenades! You could've warned me before you sped up!'

'No, it's…' Matt didn't finish as he saw inside the tunnel. There was a train coming. '…Perfect.' He slowed down in front of the train, baiting the three Technicals to chase after them. He waited on the tracks, and the Technicals went after, and got close until Matt drove away.

Smiling, Matt watched as the vehicles were smashed with a silver train. His grin was erased when he spotted a rhombus Gemini logo on the side of the train. He frowned in confusion.

Since when did Gemini have cargo trains on Pandora?

'Mattie?' Amelia called out. 'You alright? We won! We can continue on our search now.'

'R-right,' Matt replied earnestly. 'We, uh, we should move on.'

When Gemini rebuilt the Gulag, they made it bigger than ever before. It was large; it was annoying. Gaige didn't even know her way around anymore, but it didn't feel like exploration either. She felt like a fish out of water, and Fiona didn't feel too different about the situation about it.

They moved through the complex carefully, trying to avoid the Gemini personnel who were crawling about the place. A truck passed along a road beside them, carrying multiple prisoners in back behind metal bars. There were several red-glass chrome buildings with Gemini logos on all of them, much higher than the Hyperion ones that lay there before. Many of the patrols seemed to case the area, while there also a network of roads that prisoner vehicles drove down.

'What is this place?' Fiona whispered to her.

'What did you think the Friendship Gulag was used for?' Gaige scolded quietly. 'It's where they hold prisoners.'

'Oh my god,' Fiona hissed in horror. 'What are they doing here?' She moved forward to do something, but Gaige held her back.

'This isn't a rescue mission,' the Mechromancer told her sternly. 'We're just here to observe and report. Maybe one of those offices has a computer where we can access their database.'

'You're telling me you don't want to rescue them?' Fiona argued.

'Later. Not now. I'm sure Lilith will be open for a rescue op once we know what we're dealing with here.'

'O-OK,' Fiona agreed, breathing deeply.

Gaige moved around the area, gesturing for Fiona to follow, and they manoeuvred around the Conquistadors and Guards, trying not to make too much noise. They walked around a corner when Gaige suddenly pulled her into an alleyway. Two Deceptors passed by.

'What the hell d'you do that for?' The Artist demanded.

'Deceptors can see other Deceptors when invisible,' her ally told her. 'Their visor can see through the retro-reflective panels. Our disguises technically count. Why do you think you can see me?'

'I dunno I just thought…' Fiona's voice trailed off arbitrarily.

'It doesn't matter,' Gaige dismissed, waving her hand at her refutably. 'Let's just keep moving.'

Fiona nodded meekly and followed after the Mechromancer, who took her awkwardly compliant disposition in stride. They came to a locked door, and Gaige began working on it with her mechanical hand, trying to get through the Gemini mainframe. She groaned in frustration, and almost hit the door in anger, but she held herself back.

'It keeps locking me out,' the Mechromancer told her. 'It's a surprise it hasn't alerted all of Gemini yet; probably due to my amazingly brilliant protocols and sub-protocols which I don't have enough time to explain how they bypass all warning system code within the mainframe…'

'Lemme try,' Fiona offered, taking out a hairpin.

'It's an electronic lock,' Gaige informed her.

'Then why is there a key-shaped slot?' Fiona asked her, looking at her cheekily. The Mechromancer murmured a series of ums and ahs, but gave no discernible intelligible reply. Fiona used a knife and began to pick the lock, carefully manoeuvring them through it with untold precision. Eventually, there was a snap, as the locks aligned, and the door opened. Fiona pushed it open with a smile.

'Nice,' Gaige complimented, for once, and they stepped inside, weary not to draw the attention of anyone.

The room was an office room, but it was empty. There were four cabinets standing tall on the sides, with shelves lining the sides. There was a line of Holo-Readers at the end of the office, all displaying screensavers of the Gemini logo holographically in front of it. A door stood off to the side, labelling dubiously as "Lavatory", made out of a solid faux-wood material. The overhead light was a single strip of white light, faded into a meek grey, and the glass had cracked in several places.

'This place must be not be used much,' Fiona observed quietly. Gaige nodded.

'Gemini advanced to no longer need offices like these, but I guess they kept them as a back-up.'

There was a sound of flushing from behind the lavatory door, causing Fiona and Gaige to wince slightly. They moved to the back themselves against the wall in line with the door, as it began to open.

A loud sigh reverberated throughout the room, as a Gemini office worker stepped out and examined his surroundings once again.

'Fifteen years of service on board the CCG I gave,' he complained openly. 'Only to be stuck minding the store in a run-down office in the most run-down planet in the whole of the Medusa sector.' He sighed again, walking over to examine one of the Holo-Readers. Gaige signalled for Fiona to follow him. 'It's just my luck. And Director McCain is lavishing it up on Castor, relaxing over Gemini's victory over the Raiders a few months back. How unfair is that?'

A door beside the line of Holo-Readers, with "STORE ROOM" emblazoned across it opened and a woman stepped through.

Fiona took out her trusty handgun, but Gaige stopped her. She mouthed the words, "too loud".

'It's just the way it is, Charlie,' she begrudgingly informed her. 'We can't all be Samael McCain.' Charlie snorted at that. 'Unless you wanna end up like Commander Sharp, do you?'

As Charlie logged onto the Holo-Reader and began reading through the files, Gaige directed Fiona to take out the woman while she would handle the man.

'Where is Sharp now?' Charlie inquired.

'Rehabilitation,' she waved off. 'Trying to get some of his intelligence back. Apparently, his daughter has been caring for him.'

'Has he said anything in that time?'

'He talks naturally with his daughter. To anyone else, he rambles about some great war. He gave it a name, too.'

'What name?' Charlie wondered, shaking his head in confusion.

'The Great Monsoon.'

Charlie looked up to see his assistant on the ground, unconscious. He was about to get up to warn someone, but Gaige swiftly dispatched him with her metal arm. The two Gemini workers lay on the ground, unconscious. Gaige and Fiona moved them to the storage room, chary not to awake them.

'What was that about the "Great Monsoon"?' Fiona questioned avidly, as Gaige seated herself in front of the Holo-Reader that the office worker, Charlie, had unlocked for her.

'It's a long story, and I don't know most of it,' Gaige disdained, not even making eye contact with her. 'It hasn't even happened yet – if at all.'

'Why are you making it sound like a conspiracy theory?' The Artist inquired bemusedly. The Mechromancer gave her look that told her everything she needed to know. 'Wait, it is?'

'Er, well, kinda,' she described ineffectively. 'The Eridians already confirmed it for us. If Matt ever comes back, he'll be able to describe it for you. He knows more about it than me.'

'You think I'll actually get to meet him?' Fiona probed her, half confusion, half excitement. Gaige didn't respond, and instead continued searching through the files.

'Aha!' Gaige exclaimed, almost too loud, practically throwing her arms up in the air. 'Gemini just love to back-up their files!'

'What did you find?'

'The base-code to the entire Gemini Menagerie! It's encrypted, but I can break it. There are a thousand different keys I could use, but my arm works through that in a second. If I can do this right, then I could dismantle the entire network! I'll be able to release all the prisoners! The Raiders can use this place for themselves!'

'That's brilliant!' The Artist responded excitedly, only half-understanding what she was talking about.

'Brilliant? Yes. Conditional? That too.'

'Under what conditions?' Fiona asked her.

'Well, I can't use them here. I'd have to get into the main interface of the Menagerie to access the entire network. And there's no way we're getting past that like this. There's a bunch of security protocols in the way, one of course being a Deceptor-Negative Field. It cancels out Deceptor invisibility and it'll fry any technology connected to it.'

'So what do we do now?'

'We get the hell outta here. We've observed, now all we gotta do is report.' Gaige manipulated the data with her arm, syncing the files to her arm and copying to her preliminary database stored within the circuitry beneath the metal. 'There. Data copied. Let's go.'

They turned to leave, but they were faced with two Deceptors, who had visible smirks beneath their visors.

'Ah, OK, um, hello,' Gaige greeted awkwardly. 'D-don't mind us, we – uh – we were just leaving.'

They both tried to move, but the Deceptors stopped them. Gaige sighed.

'I don't think it's gonna be that easy, Gaige,' Fiona told her.

'You think?' She replied sardonically. The woman sighed, throwing a punch at one of the Deceptors with her metal left arm. The Deceptor fell to the ground, unconscious. The other one immediately reacted by pulling out a gun, and aiming it at the two.

'I wouldn't try that on me if I were you,' she warned, hitting Gaige with her gun. She stumbled back. The Deceptor manipulated with her communicator, holding her gun up the whole time. 'Emergency! Emergency! The Menagerie has been breached! Code R3D; initiate security protocol seven-one-two.'

Red lights began flashing about the room as sirens wailed vociferously about the complex.

'Ah, shit,' Gaige commented annoyedly. She hastily disarmed the Deceptor and knocked her out with her own gun. Fiona remained standing there, almost in shock. 'C'mon! We have to go, now!'

'Yeah, I know,' Fiona confirmed, as they both ran out the door.

The entire complex was on high alert. Guards, Conquistadors and numerous Elites charging down the streets. Gaige pulled Fiona back into the alleyway they had hid in before.

'Do you think they'll predict our return?' The Artist asked her.

'Dunno,' the Mechromancer admitted. 'As far as they know, we're renegades. They don't know we're affiliates of the Crimson Raiders, so they won't be aware of our motive or intent. If we can get out of here, fast, then we should be OK. It won't matter that we were compromised.'

'So what you're saying is: we need a little ingenuity and speed to get outta here alive,' the Artist surmised concisely. Gaige nodded.

'Yeah, pretty much. You wanna try our luck in the worst way possible?' Gaige's cheek and charm returned in full force, surprising her friend.

'Why not?'

'Do you know what, Fiona?'

'Yeah?'

'I like you,' the Mechromancer responded amicably. 'I think…I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'

'Born within the depths of a Gemini complex?' Fiona criticised light-heartedly. Gaige laughed whole-heartedly.

'Yep.'

Ah, it's nice when characters develop a friendship. It was nice to explain what happened to Fiona and Rhys after they touched that weird chest thing. They were teleported to the Vault of the Dreamer, which was supposed to cut off from the outside world. And then of course, they met the rest of the Crimson Raiders.

Fast forward four years, now they're fully-fledged members of the Raiders and Sasha (and Vaughn) are living in the residential city of the Crimson Empire. (You'll see Karabraxis and Chrysanthia later.)

So the next chapter will switch between Matt's perspective and Gaige's, but hopefully it won't seem to disorienting. It won't happen too often anyway.

Hope you readers are liking it so far!