Well, here we are again. It's always such a pleasure. I'm sorry. Just kidding, no I'm not. I've returned with the fifth chapter, and I've been writing a lot. This chapter was originally going to be much longer, so I had to split it into two, the other still being quite long anyway.

So in this chapter, Fiona's in a bit of trouble. And we're getting close to Matt returning to the Crimson Raiders. His return will hopefully be a bit cool, too. Still introducing some Vault Hunters as well, however I don't want to break pacing and flow by randomly having title cards for all the Vault Hunters.

That being said, I still plan on introducing some.

Anyways, here you go. Enjoy!

5: Magnum Opus

Fifteen minutes ago…

The Artist looked disgruntledly around her. The hordes of Gemini personnel seemed…amused…of her predicament. Certainly, the Guard Commander maintained a sardonic smile. Reluctantly, she put up her hands in surrender.

'Looks like your little friends have left you,' she mocked.

Indeed, they had, but by accident. They had disappeared into purple energy, which itself dissipated and the two had gone. Gaige was pressed for time when rewiring the ESDD, so it was not surprising that something went wrong.

She stared down at the ESDD. The battery acid had leaked and corroded the surface with an orange tinge, and had cracked across the centre, revealing the fried circuitry underneath. The white button had worn away to a sharp silver shine; it was now completely impossible to press.

The Vault Hunter was almost afraid that touching the dried acid would damage her skin somehow. Best not to pick at it, then.

'I don't suppose any of you will give me a free pass?' Fiona wondered, half joking, half serious.

Annoyed, the Guard Commander merely nodded to one of her guards, and the Vault Hunter felt only a hard blow to the back of her head. Her vision went starry and disoriented.

Slowly, Fiona felt her legs being dragged roughly across the ground. Her sight was murky and the only thing the Vault Hunter could distinguish was the concrete floor.

It was strange, for them to drag them across it – rather than carry her or transport her. However, it was probably on purpose, just for some adscititious discomfort of her flesh scraping against it, just to torture her that little bit more.

'Transport of Vault Hunter in progress,' she heard a robotic voice say.

'Who is she?' Another voice asked, although she heard it as little more than radio chatter.

'Some tech expert. A master mechanic and computer scientist, or something.'

Wait, what? She wondered, still disorientated. I'm not a…they must be confusing me for…

She found herself unable to finish her sentence.

'She's a Vault Hunter, too,' the same person said. 'No wonder they're taking her to Special Containment.'

'Anything else?'

'And there's another thing. Apparently, our radar detected some movement less than a klick away from the Menagerie.'

'Yeah, so?'

'It was unauthorised.'

'Probably Spiderants or something like that.'

'They detected signatures of some unidentified form of energy. But there's a bigger kicker.'

'What is it?'

'They dubbed it an Anomalous Event.'

'That's impossible. How can they be so sure?'

'They don't think it's him. But the "unidentified" energy was the same type he used and the same one found in the Vault.'

'Isn't the boss worried?'

'Uh, yeah! He sent out a squadron of soldiers to check out the source.'

After hearing this conversation, one major question sat in the Artist's mind: what the hell was an Anomalous Event?

Of course, she didn't have time to conjure any other questions, because her vision went black.

Fiona growled primordially as a slap was thrown roughly across her face.

'Where are your friends?' The interrogator demanded harshly, with a stern expression across her face. 'What the hell was that stunt you pulled off?'

Fiona chuckled.

'As if would tell you.'

She groaned when the woman punched her in the gut.

'Some sort of ESDD? How the hell did the Raiders manage to reverse-engineer that? It's –'

'Yeah, I know, "highly confidential and highly experimental", yada-yada-yada. I'm still not telling you how my friends escaped.' The Artist shuddered in pain when a torrent of electricity flowed through her erratically.

'I wouldn't talk to your superior like that, if I were you,' the Gemini interrogator advised her superciliously.

'"Superior"?' The Vault Hunter scoffed. 'Uh, no.'

In response, the woman took out a pistol and pressed the nozzle down at Fiona's leg

'Say that again?' She taunted sadistically.

'No.'

Fiona cried out as the bullet ripped through her leg muscles and narrowly missed her bones. Blood began leaking out of the hole left behind, which was dark in colour. The sight filled the Artist with some relief. She didn't puncture an artery.

More electricity flowed through her body, making Fiona grit her teeth in agony.

'How about we switch? Tell me, how'd you manage to blow up the Associated Constellations of the Great Cascade?'

She only received a slap.

'I ask the questions here,' the prober disclosed to her firmly. 'Besides, you wouldn't understand.'

'That sounds like code for "I don't actually know either",' Fiona taunted her.

A few more jolts of electricity coursed through her aggressively.

'Tell me how you got this,' she questioned, holding up an extremely damaged ESDD.

Fiona smiled.

'Stole it,' she replied, still panting over the pain she was experiencing.

'Finally, some answers,' the interrogator praised condescendingly. 'Thank you for sharing…' Her face suddenly dropped. '…information that we already knew.'

Fiona's confident act dropped.

'One of our guards woke up with their standard-issue ESDD missing from their tool belt; it was not hard to make the connection.' The woman pulled up a chair and sat down on it in front of Fiona, glaring at her menacingly. 'You must've rewired it. But it went wrong, didn't it? It teleported the Mechromancer away instead of you. However, you failed to address that all ESDDs are equipped with a tracking function.'

Fiona instinctively moved forward, to try to do something, but her chains stopped her.

'Wherever your friends went, our Deceptors more than likely followed them. Hell, they could've teleported right into Sanctuary. Then you would've provided us with a way right into the command centre of the Crimson Raiders itself.'

'What do you want with me?' The Artist demanded.

'You're networked into the entire Crimson Raider pathweb, anything you send gets distributed across the entire system. Send across a virus or I will execute your friends.'

'B-but I'm not a computer –'

'–Genius? Then how did you rework the ESDD?' She pointed out. The Vault Hunter opened her mouth to speak but the woman stopped her. 'And don't say it's because you didn't. Because if it wasn't you, then we have no use for you. Think carefully about what you say next.'

'How long do I get to do it?' The Artist asked.

'Thirty minutes, tops. If you don't complete it in the allotted time, you will be terminated with extreme prejudice.'

'I can't code if I'm dead.'

'Gemini has multiple strategies for destroying the Crimson Raiders. This method is one of many. If this fails, we will recover.'

Fiona nodded meekly. The interrogator signalled for two Gemini guards to come into the office room, with assault rifles equipped and they carefully untied the Artist's arms but kept her legs bound. They moved the electricity capacitor closer to the Holo-Reader, prompting Fiona to internally sigh.

'Feel free to shoot her in the foot if she isn't working fast enough,' the interrogator informed them, before leaving the room.

Gaige avoided the frustrated looks her Vault Hunter allies were giving her as Lilith explained the situation. Zer0 didn't have any discernible reaction, but Axton had his arms crossed and Rhys was outright glaring at her.

'Now that Fiona's been captured, we have no choice but to push forward our plans to assault the Menagerie,' Lilith concluded.

'So lemme get this straight,' Rhys said exasperatedly. 'Fiona's been taken because she' – he pointed derisively at the young woman – 'thought messing around with technology she doesn't fully understand would be a good idea?! Why couldn't you just "observe and report" like you were supposed to?!'

'Look, I'm sorry,' Gaige apologised. 'It was a mistake. I didn't think skipping one lecture to go muse at Matt's statue would be so negative. However, I won't stand taking shit I don't deserve. Maybe you weren't listening asshole, but it was Fiona who had the bright idea to save Deborah. I was under pressure to get us out of the situation, so can you blame me for messing up a bit?!'

Rhys sighed angrily, but didn't say anything. He was about to move forward to do something, but Axton stopped him.

'I understand you're mad,' the Commando recognised. 'And you have every right to be. But this isn't Gaige's fault. She did everything she could, but we know how complicated those ESDDs are. Tannis is the only one who really understands it. The fact of the matter is, Gaige made a mistake, and now she is making amends.' Rhys still kept an extremely agitated complexion.

'Arguing like this / It will only divide us / Keep our unity,' Zer0 advised them. They all looked at the Assassin with mixed expressions.

Zer0 the Assassin

1010011010

'If it helps, I also managed to download the Menagerie base-code.' Rhys finally eased, breathing a sigh of relief.

'That's perfect,' Aurora agreed. 'It's much easier to access to whole base when we know its fundamental components.'

'Precisely,' Lilith concurred. 'Right, now that our disputes are over, we should get on with rescuing Fiona.'

Gaige nodded and connected her metal arm to the scanner room in HQ, syncing the data. She pulled up the 3D schematics of the Gemini Menagerie. She took it out hastily.

'There's a network of service tunnels underneath the facility,' she informed them, pointing out the map of passageways in the hologram. 'However, since they learned of our infiltration, they've got Guards patrolling the entrances and exits.

'The two main entrances are the original Gulag one, and another one they built out the side here – a secret entrance. Unfortunately, the trapdoor is magnetised so can't be opened by hand unless overloaded with energy, which we have no way of providing.

'The only option is a full frontal assault. With the base-code of the facility, I may be able to bypass the heightened security to let us through. From there, we'll have to wade through the hordes of Gemini soldiers.'

'With only five of us?' Aurora doubted. 'Don't you think that's wishful thinking?'

'There's no other option: everyone else is out on other missions,' Axton told her.

'Yeah, but we can send in some of the Raiders,' Lilith added. 'Most of them are on Elpis right now, dealing with a massive prison raid at what was Lima Base One.'

'There's been a lot of radio chatter about Fiona, too,' Rhys told them. Curious, Gaige took out her ECHO and adjusted it to the radio frequency. The audio was incredibly scrambled, but some of it was discernible.

'Who is she?' A voice wondered dubiously. although

'Some tech expert. A master mechanic and computer scientist, or something.'

'What?!' Gaige frowned disconcertedly. 'No, I'm the computer and engineering expert!'

'Looks like they confused you with Fiona,' Axton presumed.

'She's a Vault Hunter, too. No wonder they're –' The audio suddenly scrambled in complete cacophony.

'No wonder they're what?' Lilith demanded, turning to Gaige. 'Isolate the signal!

'I'm trying!' The Mechromancer insisted, messing around with the control panel and her ECHO. Slowly, the audio signal started to become clearer.

'They detected signatures of some unidentified form of energy. But there's a bigger kicker.'

'What is it?'

'They dubbed it an Anomalous Event.'

Gaige dropped her ECHO, not listening to the loud metal clattering it made on the ground. She stepped back clumsily, eyes widened and jar dropped to the floor.

'They don't think it's him,' the voice added, hardly intelligibly, but the discord caused by the precarious connection when the ECHO fell to the floor.

Tentatively, Lilith picked up the ECHO and detached it from the main scanner console. She put a hand on her shoulder.

'Gaige,' she simply called out. A lone tear fell down her face, but none of them could tell if it was exultant or crestfallen.

'No, no, I'm fine,' the Mechromancer sniffed. 'We, uh, we should prepare.'

'I'll get together my equipment,' Axton stated wearily. Rhys and Zer0 nodded in agreement, and they all left the room.

'Gaige,' Aurora addressed her. 'Are you sure you're OK?'

'No,' she replied honestly. 'This is the first Anomalous Event in four years. What if this means that…that…'

'We shouldn't get our hopes up,' Lilith advised her.

'Yeah,' Aurora agreed. 'For all we know, it could just be a surge of Infinite energy. Like a solar flare – an Infinity flare, if you will.'

'We've never had those before,' Gaige criticised. 'We can't rule out the possibility that Matt is back.'

'If Matt really was back, wouldn't he have made his way back by now?' Lilith argued.

'Maybe he knew about what was going on at the Menagerie and decided to help,' the Mechromancer replied. 'He could've heard the talk over the radio and thought it was me.'

'That's a stretch and you know it,' Aurora shot down.

'Can you blame me?' The Vault Hunter angrily retorted. 'I've been waiting so long for to have Matt back, and this is the first sign of him in years. I was beginning to think he wasn't coming back. Are you honestly surprised that I'm jumping at the possibility?'

'Assuming makes an ass out of you and me,' the Fable wrote off dismissively. Gaige rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly. 'Look, I would love to have him back, but we need to be realistic here.'

'You were lecturing me before about how I should "have faith" that he will come back! Well, this is me, having faith!' She exclaimed furiously.

'There's a different between faith and blind belief. I believe Matt will come back, but we've had a few false returns in the past – when he thought he was back but he wasn't. This could easily be just another misfire.'

'You don't know that for sure!' The young woman disputed irreverently.

'No, we don't,' Lilith soundly agreed. 'And we're not saying this is definitely not Matt. All we're saying is that you should try not to get your hopes up. We don't want to see you miserable if it turns out not to be true.' Gaige breathed deeply and exhaled silently and calmly.

'I-I know, you're right.'

Aurora put an arm around Gaige's shoulder amicably.

'C'mon, we should probably get our equipment together,' the Fable reminded her.

'Right, yes!' The Mechromancer jumped up excitedly. 'There's just one thing I've gotta do first.' Aurora looked at her curiously, but Gaige waved it off dismissively.

She hurried to her house, moving past the crowd of Raiders and Sanctuary citizens. Abruptly, Gaige collided with someone, and the Vault Hunter hastily apologised before moving on.

Upon arrival at her home, she pulled up the shutter to reveal her workshop, where Deathtrap was hanging by chains.

'OK, two things,' Gaige remembered, activating the blue button on the back panel of her D374-TP bot.

Powering up, Deathtrap's eye went red and the aero-jets (formerly gyro-jets) activated, blowing on the air on the ground. With a few presses on her metal arm, Deathtrap dedigistructed into a haze of blue digital particles.

Silently, Gaige walked over to her metal worktop, sighing slightly at the worn red paint on the sides. She picked up Matt's ECHOear off of its surface and stared at it for a seconds.

Hastily, she stuffed the ECHOear into one of her pockets.

Matt crouched down, swiped up the sand with two fingers, and examined it as it slipped through the gaps in between them. His eyes narrowed curiously as the first and shingle.

'What's so interesting about sand?' Amelia questioned him. The Anomaly breathed deeply through his nose and stood back up.

'Nothing,' Matt replied. 'It's what it reminds me of: the dust in the Vault of the Dreamer.' His sister visibly tensed up.

'Yeah, so?'

'How did they get there?' He immediately interrogated. Amelia didn't answer. 'What is it you're not telling me?' Still, no response. 'OK, I'll figure some of it out. It wasn't there after the Dreamer went down, so it definitely wasn't your deed.

'You can't just say "time" caused it because it is highly unlikely that dust would form there in those specific spots in the exact same concentration.

'Also, the Vault closed after a while so any air that got in would have been sucked out, and the artificial atmosphere wouldn't have caused dust to form. So I'm guessing that that leaves the only possible interval of time to be when I was possessed by the Enlightener.

'So tell me, Amy, what is it that happened that you don't want to talk about?'

'It…it doesn't matter,' she lied. Matt frowned darkly.

'Don't lie to me,' he ordered her firmly. 'You're bound to me. As long as I live, you live. We're connected. We've surpassed the need for lies.' Amelia sighed, well aware that Matt was the only reason she was even alive.

'Can I tell you later?' She asked wearily. 'The Watcher told us to focus on infiltrating the Menagerie.' Reluctantly, Matt nodded.

'Fine. But we aren't done having this conversation. I didn't spend four hun–'

'Stop right there!' A voice demanded. It was digital and undefined, as though it was being passed through a filter.

Matt spun to his right to see multiple Deceptors uncloaking before them. It was an entire squadron of Gemini soldiers. Hastily, he hid his face before they could see who he was.

Dammit! The Anomaly thought. I can't let Gemini know I'm back yet.

'This is a red zone,' a Deceptor told him sternly. 'And you are unauthorised personnel. Would you kindly tell me who you are and what you're doing here?'

'Er, no thanks,' Amelia answered for him.

'Who are you?!' The Deceptor leader demanded. He looked closer at Matt. 'Wait a minute…you're…you're…'

Realising his cover was blown now, Matt showed them his face.

'It's the Anomaly!' One of the squad recognised. 'But he's supposed to be dead.'

'Didn't you read the file, corporal?' Their leader derided her. 'The Anomaly was scheduled to return at some point. I guess that time is now.'

'They have a whole file documenting that?' Matt asked them, with mock bliss. 'Ooh, I must be famous.'

'Stay where you are, Anomaly,' the squad leader commanded him irreverently.

'Hmm, pretty sure I don't work for Gemini anymore,' the Vault Hunter reminded them condescendingly.

'I have to report this,' the Deceptor leader said silently, but Matt still heard it. Seeing him about to take out his radio, Matt generated sparks around him of red and black lightning.

There was a flash of red trails around the Gemini soldiers. Amelia looked on stoically. It happened so fast that it didn't seem like Matt had even moved.

Once the trails stopped, as abruptly as they had begun, there was a delay. Matt stood calmly and so did the Gemini soldiers.

Then, after a little while, all of the Deceptors dropped to the ground.

'They're going to get suspicious when they don't radio a report soon,' Amelia told him.

'Yeah,' Matt agreed, bending down beside the body of the Deceptor leader. 'That's why we have to move quickly.' He picked out his radio and fiddled with the receiver antenna. The audio signals became to focus and become more concordant and the static slowly began to clear up.

'Transport of Vault Hunter in progress,' they heard an automated voice announce..

'Vault Hunter?!' Matt exclaimed worriedly.

'Who is it?' Amelia asked her.

'Dunno, trying to maintain the signal,' the Anomaly admitted, turning the dials on the control panel of the radio

'Who is she?'

'Some tech expert. A master mechanic and computer scientist, or something.'

'"Master mechanic and computer scientist"! They must mean Gaige!' Matt deduced.

'No wonder they're taking her to Special Containment.'

'So we need to get to Special Containment, then,' Amelia supposed. 'Any idea where that is?' Matt didn't respond, as he was too busy maintaining and focusing on the radio waves.

'And there's another thing. Apparently, our radar detected some movement less than a mile away from the Menagerie.'

'Ah, that must've been us,' Matt surmised sombrely.

'They detected signatures of some unidentified form of energy.' The audio went scrambled after that.

'They detected the surge of Infinite energy from our teleport, then,' Amelia realised, sighing emphatically, while Matt tried to hone back in on the signal.

'They dubbed it an Anomalous Event.'

Annoyed, Matt aggressively twisted the dial and flicked the switch to turn the radio off. (A/N: This is the last time you will hear this radio conversation, I swear!)

'We need to move fast,' the Anomaly cited quickly. 'Once they realise something's wrong, they're going to divert their resources to find out – especially if they think it's the Raiders. But I can't use my Chronokinesis; there's a high probability they'll be able to detect it.'

'My first day just keeps getting better and better,' Amelia joked cynically.

Fiona examined the text on the Holo-Reader. The two Gemini Guards, which her interrogator had stationed, stood at the back of the room with their guns firmly in their hands.

She didn't know much about computers, but she had taken a lecture in Karabraxis about coding once – but there was very little about creating viruses. Even with a lecture, Fiona was nowhere near as good at it as Gaige was. Fortunately, the Artist had managed to create a program capable of something, which could be moulded into virus, so at least they couldn't question that she wasn't doing anything.

However, it was difficult to work when her bullet wound had received minimal treatment and still hurt immensely. If Fiona was lucky, maybe it wouldn't get infected, although there didn't seem to be much opportunity for escape. It was quickly becoming apparent that Fiona would likely not be able to get the medical supplies to treat the bullet injury.

Slowly but noticeably slow, the Artist typed into her coding program. She stopped when the pain in her wound flared up, clutching it and seething from the pain.

'Hey!' One of the Guards addressed her derisively. 'We didn't say you could stop working.'

'I need medical attention,' Fiona complained. 'It's hard to work with a bullet wound!'

'Shut up or it'll be two bullet wounds in a minute,' the other Guard threatened her.

Fiona wished they hadn't taken her weapons, or else she would've shot them with corrosion right in the eyes by now. Or, maybe, she'd cauterise her wound with the incendiary damage. Or overload the computers with shock damage.

She looked down at her feet, studying the chains at her ankles. The locks looked old, perhaps they worked like classic ones.

Maybe I can pick the lock… Fiona wondered, thinking of the hair pin in her hair. Making sure that the Guard wouldn't see her, she examined the inside of her coat. Hopefully they didn't take it…

Inside her zipped pocket lay her switchblade knife, disguised as a simple nail file. Luckily, Gemini couldn't recognise a hologram to save their lives.

But how am I supposed to pick the lock without the Guards noticing? She wondered hopelessly. Looks like I'm going to need a miracle right about now.

As if to answer her plight, sirens abruptly blared, louder than ever before, and all the lights within the facility began flashing a deep cerise. The Holo-Reader displayed a message about "REROUTING POWER" and promptly shut off in front of her, and the bulbs suddenly went brighter.

'[ALERT: XK-CLASS ASSAULT SCENARIO IN PROGRESS. CODE BLUE! THE MENAGERIE IS UNDER ATTACK. ALL NON-MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE ADVISED TO GO TO THE EVACUATION SHELTER OR ANY OTHER SAFE AREA UNTIL GEMINI HAVE SUCCESSFULLY NEUTRALISED THE THREAT.]' The voice was automated, robotic, and so vociferous that it echoed through Fiona's ears.

That must be the Crimson Raiders come to rescue me, she assumed, smiling to herself.

'That looks like a pretty major threat,' the Artist told the Guards. 'Looks like you gotta go deal with that.'

'Do you think we were born yesterday?' One of the Guards contemptuously barked. He walked over to her, picking up some rope from one of the drawers. 'I'm not taking any chances.'

He gruffly grabbed her wrists and pulled them round the back of the chair, and tied her wrists together and then to the chair itself.

'How am I supposed to write a virus now?' Fiona pouted superciliously.

'That Holo-Reader has no power. You couldn't use it even if you wanted to,' the Guard replied, annoyed with Fiona's sarcastic demeanour. He then turned to his fellow Gemini Guard. 'I'll stay here. You go report to the Control Core.' The Guard nodded and left.

'So you're what? Guarding me?' Fiona mocked him, sniggering to herself to ignore the pain her bullet wound was still giving her.

'I've been ordered to prevent you from escaping by any means possible,' he replied, standing back up and looking out the exit to the room. 'Which means I will not let your friends come and get you. Unfortunately, at least one out of the two Guards stationed here must report to the Control Core – I'm the one staying here. Since I'm a man down, I will be guarding the exit – not you.'

'Eh, still sounds like you're guarding me,' the Artist responded snarkily. The Guard simply picked up some masking tape and cut off a piece across her mouth.

'If you're not going to shut up, I'm going to make you shut up.'

Underneath the tape, Fiona was chuckling to herself.

Now THIS makes it easier to escape.

Gaige, Zer0, Rhys, Axton, Aurora a platoon of fifteen Crimson Raiders trudged towards the main entrance of the Gemini Menagerie. Since its days as the Friendship Gulag, it had been extended to include two Guard towers and a triple-seal deadlocked door. The Guards had been swiftly dispatched but the deadlocked door was the issue.

When Fiona and Gaige had infiltrated it earlier, the door had only a single-seal deadlock, since that was standard protocol. Now that Gemini was being paranoid, they had employed two more seals – which Gaige had no way of passing through using her technology.

Unless, of course, she had the base-code to the whole facility.

She used her ECHO device to sync with her arm and the two databanks mixed, allowing her to access the functions of both. It took a while before she could break the multi-key encryption firewalls, but luckily, she was able to access the archive of keys using the Menagerie base-code, which made it substantially quicker to do so.

'Right! I've regained access to the Menagerie intranet,' the Mechromancer announced, reading through their files. 'Strange…Gemini's diverted most of their resources to about a klick south-south-west of our location. For some reason, they seem to think we're coming from that direction.'

'What? Why?' Axton questioned.

'It's logical to assume they sent some troops out to investigate that unknown energy reading,' Aurora deduced. 'But they wouldn't just send out half their battalion to find out, nor would they think that energy signature is us. They know Infinite energy is just as elusive to us as it is to them – apart from the fact that we know what it is.'

'But we don't know how to use it,' Gaige added, frowning in curiosity.

'Well, whatever the reason, you can't deny it's a good thing,' Rhys told them confidently. 'With Gemini distracted, it's much easier to attack this place.'

'I agree with Rhys / We may not know the reason / But it will aid us,' Zer0 concurred.

'Thanks, man!' Rhys acknowledged excitedly. The Assassin displayed a smiling face on his visor, and then a brief wink.

'Hey, fanboy!' Aurora called to him, almost sniggering when he responded to the term. 'Focus, please?'

'Er, yeah, yeah. Uh, sorry,' Rhys stumbled over his words awkwardly. He had always been a little intimidated by Aurora, probably since she helped train him a little. She always wiped the floor with him, and was the only one out of the Vault Hunters who insisted Rhys still required more training.

'While you two were squabbling, I managed to find the door locks,' Gaige scolded them. Aurora frowned at her for a second, but ultimately sighed and didn't question her definition of "squabbling". 'Unlocking…now.'

The physical locks in the door slid open quickly, creating a shunting sound before opening. Like an intricate puzzle, they opened up one by one, until finally a green bulb lit up above the entrance, signifying access.

'Unfortunately, the magnetar is on a different subsystem,' Gaige elucidated. 'It would take me hours to deactivate it to get through the trapdoor on the other side, and we don't have that kind of time.'

'It doesn't matter now,' Axton told her. 'We have access to the facility. Sneaking in would be pointless if they already knew we were coming.'

'No time like the present, then,' Gaige announced, walking up to the entrance and pressing the button on the side of the door.

The door slid open.

It revealed a row of Gemini Conquistadors before her.

'Hold it right there!' A Conquistador ordered her impertinently.

'Oh, hello there,' Gaige acknowledged casually. 'You must be an entire platoon. I love that word: platoooooon. Sounds cool, doesn't it? There's a problem with your platoon, though.' She clicked her fingers and her squadron of fifteen Raiders rushed into the Menagerie, pointing the guns at the puny seven Conquistadors. 'My one's bigger than yours.'

Gaige scratched her the back of her head curiously, glad that Salvador wasn't here to make an innuendo out of that.

'Now, I would gun you down immediately, but you probably have information on where Fiona is being held. So, to put this plainly, tell me what you know or it's a bullet to the head.'

Silence.

'Alright then, guess I'll have to find out for myself.' She nodded to the Raiders, and they fired. They were down within seconds.

'Why does that never work?' Aurora joked.

'Beats me,' the Mechromancer replied earnestly.

Sirens suddenly blared and all the lights went red. An automated message announced that the Menagerie was under attack from an XK-Class assault scenario, and that all non-soldier personnel should evacuate.

'How bad is XK-Class?' Gaige asked Aurora.

'Bad,' the Fable simply replied. 'C'mon. We need to find Fiona.'

If she was nearby, that is. If Gemini had anything to say about it, then no.

Some interesting developments, then!

Amelia and Matt possess a soul bind as a result of Matt's efforts to grant her a physical body. She has do what he says, and she is only alive if Matt is alive. Some complicated Infinite science there.

I don't know if you guys remember the Anomalous Events that Gemini created, which are events that pertain to Matt Rye. Well, these Events include the type of energy that he releases, Infinite energy, although the corporation don't exactly understand it. The energy burst came from the teleport, obviously, but they don't recognise the differences in Infinite energy – since they know nothing of the Infinity Spectrum.

Gemini also has made a major misconception about Fiona that has put her ins serious danger. If she doesn't make the virus, she'll be killed, except she can't make the virus because she doesn't know how.

Oh, and as for XK-Class Assault Scenarios – let's just say it's really, really bad.