Woah. It's been like…two weeks since the last update. Yeah, this chapter took super long to write and I also had an English presentation to do, so I had to prioritise doing that over writing. It's been really slow at the moment, but I'm trying to do it at a suitable pace. I may have planned this out, but there are still gaps where writer's block rears its ugly head.

As it seems, Matt is drawing ever closer to the Crimson Raiders – and meeting them again. Hope ya enjoy that, because their stories are finally going to align.

Hope you enjoy! It's 7k+ words.

6: Word to the Wise

The Menagerie was much clearer now. Gemini had upgraded the Friendship Gulag by the looks of it; it was now much bigger. Bigger meant more weapons and more defences, which constituted a bigger threat to them.

'We're not too far from the Menagerie now,' Matt told Amelia, who was still examining the night sky. 'We'll be there very soon.'

'It's beautiful, isn't it?' Amelia inexplicably asked him. 'The night sky.'

Matt stopped for a second and looked up. He smiled.

'Yeah, it is. There's almost nothing more beautiful than the shine of the stars.'

'That's why we have to prevent the Great Monsoon. If we don't, there won't be any stars left to shine.' Matt put his arm around Amelia.

'The Enlightener wouldn't have let us go if he didn't think we could stop it,' the Anomaly counselled her.

'He's scared, Mattie. I am too. How you are so calm?' Amelia frantically queried him.

'I'm not,' the Vault Hunter harmlessly admitted. 'Truth is, I'm absolutely terrified. I have no idea what's going to happen. I don't have precognition. I thought I did, but you and I both know where that went. For all I know, we could die tomorrow and all our efforts would have been for nothing.'

'So then why aren't you paranoid?' His sister wondered bemusedly.

'Because I don't accept that ending. I won't let it happen. I believe we will live; I believe we will succeed. Call it stupid faith if you want, I call it being human.'

'That must be nice,' Amelia replied absentmindedly. 'I'm hardly human. I had to learn to be human.'

'You are human, Amy,' the Anomaly told her confidently. 'You're flesh and blood. It's going to take time to adapt, but I'm right here along with you. I helped you recuperate in the Infinite; I'm going to help you now.'

'Really?' Amelia enquired in disbelief.

'Of course,' Matt ensured her. 'Now we should get a move o – wait a minute, what the hell?!'

He looked up atop the hill to see an army of Gemini soldiers marching across the next one in the distance.

'Why are they here?' Amelia demanded worriedly. 'I know you said they would get suspicious, but I didn't think they would send half of their workforce after us!'

'If they've captured a Vault Hunter, they probably assumed that the Raiders would be coming after them,' Matt realised, becoming alarmed. 'With a squad of their troops not responding, it didn't seem like a coincidence! They think we are the Crimson Raiders!'

'How are we supposed to get around them?!' His sister enquired hysterically.

'Uh…uh…' Matt stumbled, looking around for a way out. Eventually, his eyes fell on a small house in the Old Dahlwell Oasis. 'We can hide in there.'

'How do we get there without them noticing?' Amelia wondered. 'And won't they be searching these houses?'

'No, no, look,' Matt disagreed, pointing at the house. Two Guards left the house and nodded to their superiors, before leaving it completely. 'They've already searched that one. And as for how we can get in, well I do have Chronokinesis.'

'Can't they detect your energy signature when you give it off?' Amelia reminded him.

'They're not searching for me, they're searching for the Raiders,' he pointed out. 'Come on, we don't have much time.' Matt charged up his lightning and time slowed down around him. He picked up Amelia and made his evasive manoeuvres.

He sprinted towards the small house he had seen before, feeling the lightning enhance his vitality. He was careful to go on tip-toes with long strides, so that his footprints wouldn't be evident on the sand. Matt had to be sure to stay out the way of the Gemini soldiers, since some of the shockwaves caused by his Chronokinesis wouldn't attract their attention.

Matt turned his head to Amelia. She was remarkably unfrozen.

'Hey. How you doing?' She casually asked.

'Why aren't you frozen?' The Anomaly demanded suspiciously.

'Oh, right! I forgot to mention, I'm not affected by your Chronokinesis,' his sister elucidated, but the Anomaly still looked confused. 'Er, you know, I'm capable of tapping into specific sections of the Infinity Spectrum; it boosts your perception and sensitivity to certain Infinite energies…blah, blah, blah…Eridian science…blah, blah, blah.'

'Right. Any other powers I should know about?' The Anomaly probed.

'I could tell you, but I'd rather show you,' Amelia replied facetiously. The Anomaly sighed and continued moving at great speeds.

Eventually, Matt reached the house and entered it hastily. Amelia gave out a few invigorated breaths.

'Whew! Now that was a rush,' she described excitedly. 'Do you ever get tired of that?' Matt beamed at her.

'Nope,' he replied fondly. 'Anyway, we better be quiet. We don't want to attract their attention.'

The Anomaly took out the radio he'd stolen from a Guard and listened to the broadcasts.

'Search for Raiders in progress.'

'Have you found anything?'

'Negative. No bogeys in sight.'

'Hmm…' Matt thought aloud. 'Maybe I can do something with this receiver.' He rummaged through his midnight blue coat and produced a screwdriver, and began manipulating the back panel.

'Has the prisoner obliged to our demands?'

'The prisoner is in progress of writing the desired program as intended.'

'They're getting Gaige to write a program?' Amelia picked out perplexedly. 'It could be anything. But it probably isn't good.'

'Mm,' Matt concurred, not really listening. He continued reworking the panel on the Gemini radio. 'Ah, there we go! See, you pick up a thing or two about Gemini technology when you use it enough.'

'What did you do?' His sister wondered, trying to get a closer look at the radio.

'I rewired the receiver so now it scrambles our location, rather than detecting radio waves from others.'

'Brilliant! So we can move around without being detected!'

'Yep.'

'And it sounds like they've passed us, too,' Amy noted. Matt nodded and walked silently to the door and opened it a crack. The wave of Gemini soldiers had passed them. He moved to the door at the other end of the room, opened it and crept out.

'C'mon, we should hurry!' The Anomaly warned her, taking her hand and sprinting towards the Menagerie. Listening to the rhythmic patterning of his feet on the ground was hypnotic for him, but Amelia remained focussed. His Chronokinesis aided in making the movement faster, even if it was rapidly draining Matt.

Eventually, Matt stopped out of exhaustion.

'We can't just waltz in,' Amelia told him.

'No,' the Anomaly panted. 'But…if Gemini keep to their protocol…there should be…a secondary, secret entrance.'

'That's standard protocol?' Amelia enquired in disbelief. 'Does Lima Base One have one?'

'Oh, yeah! Five-hundred miles from its location,' the Vault Hunter shot down. 'It didn't seem worth the walk.'

'This secret entrance…I'm assuming it'll be something obscure,' his sister deduced quickly.

'Usually.'

'And not a rusting trapdoor in the ground over there?'

'What?'

He turned to where Amelia was looking. A few meters away, in the ground and covered by sand, was a square door. It was reddened by rust, and the shine, if there was one, had since gone dull and somewhat vapid. There was an orange light on the side of the worn handle, glowing brightly but blending in with the oxidized metal.

'OK, maybe not so hidden,' he reeled, running over to it immediately, with Amelia running after him. He tried pulling open the door, but it wouldn't budge.

'Is it rusted over?' His sister asked.

'No, these doors are too robust to rust over completely,' the Vault Hunter answered, rubbing his chin in contemplation. Abruptly, he slapped his forehead. 'Oh, of course! The door's magnetised! Why didn't I realise that? There's almost no way getting past it.'

'"Almost"?' Amelia prompted with a smile.

'The metal is some Pobranium-Titanium Carbide, too. (A/N: A strong metal used for defence purposes due to its capacity to withstand extreme pressure and high temperatures.) You'd have to nuke it, twice, to get past it. The metal uses a large Neodymium magnet, funnelling the magnetic force into the door. Impossible to get through. Unless you're me.'

'Again, "almost" impossible. What's the plan?'

'With enough Infinite energy, I should be able to overload the magnetic forces before the door reboots again.'

'How much?' Amelia frowned.

'Roughly…two or three…hundred megajoules…' Matt replied awkwardly, scratching his scalp and lowering the volume of his voice as he went on.

'What?!' His sister bellowed in complete shock. 'That'll drain you almost completely!'

'My lightning yields about twenty-five megawatts,' Matt calculated. 'It should take eight to twelve seconds to bypass the lock. Tier 3 Chronokinesis will be dangerous but the only option. Tier 2 doesn't release enough energy, and Tier 4 releases too much energy. If I can focus it, hopefully any shockwaves of Infinite energy dispersed will instead be redirected into the magnetic lock.'

'This seems dangerous,' Amelia replied, before giving a devious smirk. 'Sounds fun.'

'Now you're getting it!' Matt chuckled.

Taking in a deep breath, he activated his Chronokinesis, feeling the massive amount of energy flow through his body, along with the excess Infinite power building up. He would have to discharge it before it became too much. Carefully, the Anomaly began to redirect all of the lightning into the door, connecting with it and consuming it like flies to roadkill.

Amelia watched as his eyes leaked black energy, scaring her a little, but it slowly faded, instead redirected through his hands. Blood began to drip from his body's orifices, moving slowly down his face, alerting his sister to the strain it put on his body.

There wasn't as much blood as the last time Matt unleashed this tier of his Chronokinesis, but it was still quite a profuse volume.

After nine seconds, the light beside the handle turned green, and the sound of air rushing could be heard. Understanding that his job was done, Matt stopped channelling his Chronokinesis.

'Oh my god! Are you alright, Mattie?!' Amelia fretted, taking out a napkin and rubbing away the blood. Matt simply laughed at her perturbing.

'I'm fine, Amy. Blood is blood. I've been through worse.'

'You didn't mention you'd start bleeding!'

'I assumed you knew how my Chronokinesis worked,' the Vault Hunter replied tiredly. 'It transfers my chemical energy into Infinite energy, which I use to slow down time. Use up more energy than I have, then it will start to damage me.'

'I get that, but you made it seem so casual.'

'You were the one all like "this seems dangerous but it sounds fun."' The Anomaly pointed out.

Amelia sighed. 'Whatever. The door's open now, we might as well go.'

Matt nodded and pulled the door open, before stepping down the ladder into the tunnels. Amelia followed behind him. It was a dark tube, only lit by miniscule, yellow sodium lamps on the wall opposite the ladder itself.

The service vent shaft was welcomingly large, but not too large. It was big enough for both of them to move through it quite easily, even Matt, who was quite larger in build than his sister. He began moving through it in prone position, glad that he probably wasn't going to accidentally hit his head on the top of the vent shaft.

'Right, there're a bunch of water pipes around here,' the Anomaly noticed. 'So they're probably all leading to a filter. That is how we can get into the Menagerie.'

'How far?'

'It should take us a couple minutes, if we move fast enough.'

'Does Gaige have that kind of time?'

'Gaige is tough; she'll live. Besides, she's been tortured before.'

'Yeah, I remember,' Amelia responded awkwardly. 'I, uh, used her torture to communicate with you…'

'Hey, it's OK, I forgive you,' the Vault Hunter exonerated. 'Besides, strictly speaking, that was the Dreamer.'

'The Dreamer was hardly sentient. It needed a host to be operated: me. That "me" you saw after you destroyed the focusing gem was a side of me nonetheless.'

'Yeah, but you're better now, right?'

'Yes. But it's still a part of me.'

'That's not you anymore,' he told her earnestly. 'And if we meet the Raiders again, I'm sure they'll understand that.'

'I don't know about that,' his sister disagreed. 'I threatened to kill any one of them. I used you multiple times to get what I wanted. Can you blame them if they're upset about it?'

'I didn't say they wouldn't be upset,' the Vault Hunter immediately shot down. 'Just give them some time, and they will understand. That's what most of these kinds of things need: time.'

'OK,' his sister simply replied, breathing in deep through her nostril.

There was a trenchant silence between the two, as they crawled through the vents as silently as possible. They were only a few meters below the surface level of the Gemini Menagerie, so the water drainage likely wasn't far.

'So, uh, you've been to the Menagerie before, right?' Amelia hesitantly asked him.

'Yeah, back when it was the Friendship Gulag.'

'That was when Caine was going to blow it up, wasn't it?' His sister pursued carefully.

'Yeah, I was crushed under the rubble. Almost died, but I managed to crawl out of the wreckage.'

'How did you live through that?' Amelia inquired in absolute incredulity. 'The agony must've unendurable.'

'It was. My spine snapped, though, so I couldn't feel my legs – I guess that's a plus. But yeah, it was unimaginably excruciating.'

'Wait, what?! I didn't see what you did before you had that dream…your spine shattered?!'

'It did, but I'm fine,' the Anomaly ensured her. 'C'mon! We're close! I think I can see the exit from here!' He elevated his pace, crawling faster but not so fast as to create too much noise. Amelia sighed and chased after him.

'How close is "close"?' She asked him between pants.

'A couple meters…we'll be dropping down…now!' The Anomaly announced, moments before he fell down and disappeared from Amelia's sight. Seconds afterwards, the young woman herself dropped down through another lift shaft. She resisted the urge to yell from shock.

Slowly, she lifted herself of the ground to find herself in some sort of drainage compartment. There was another passageway at the other end of the room, which seemed to have…excrement…festering at the bottom and painting the wall.

There were several other smaller pipes, with water gushing out of them into filters at the bottom. Amelia was glad they didn't have to crawl through those wet water pipes or the large sewage pipe opposite them.

'See? Convenient ladder over there!' The Anomaly declared quite self-assuredly, pointing over to the ladder.

'Are you done enlarging your ego?' His sister deadpanned scathingly.

'Yeah, mostly,' Matt rebounded easily. He beckoned for her to follow as he climbed up the ladder.

As his head poked out the top of the manhole cover, the Anomaly carefully observed his surroundings.

'OK, so I think we're in the main barracks.' He climbed out for Amelia to see the building.

'How many of these do they have stationed around here?' His sister asked. She examined to entire building.

'Several. Enough to keep its sizeable prisoner count contained.'

Amelia looked around the sides of the building, frowning when she noticed something.

'And these places are really secure, right?' She asked him wearily.

'Yeah, usually – unless Gemini's been slacking,' Matt answered looking around the area of other ways out.

'So they don't usually have a huge hole in the wall, then?' Amelia continued perplexedly.

'What?' The Vault Hunter inquired bemusedly, walking over to where she was looking. She pointed at a hole in the wall a few meters down the alleyway, which had a temporary forcefield covering the whole, until Gemini had time to repair it.

Inexplicably, all the alarms to the facility went off vociferously.

'[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.]'

Amelia looked incredibly perturbed until Matt put a hand on her shoulder.

'Don't worry, I don't think that's us,' he ensured her.

'What makes you so sure?'

'Because if it was, I don't think they'd classify it as an XK-Class assault scenario. I may be a threat to them, but not that much.'

'What does "XK-Class" even mean?'

'It's the worst designation for any scenario, meaning the entire foundation of this facility is threatened. In this case, it means an army is attacking the Menagerie.'

'Then won't Gemini be on their guard?' Amelia suggested.

'In event of an XK-Class scenario, all secondary power is rerouted to the Central Core systems for defensive and offensive purposes. Most military personnel are required to leave their posts to aid in defence, while non-military subjects are evacuated.'

'Oh, I get it now,' his sister understood. 'That means that Gaige will be unguarded and under no surveillance.'

'Apart from the odd Guard, yes.'

'Right then, how do we find Special Containment?' The young woman asked him.

'Following the sign that says "Special Containment" tends to help,' the Anomaly responded snarkily, pointing at the sign he'd noticed. Without a moment's notice, he raced to the direction the sign was pointing. Amelia gave a dumb look for a second, before running after him.

There were hordes of Gemini soldiers. Wave after wave, they came. It seemed as though as one fell, two more appeared to take their place. Bullets were flying everywhere, and there was little movement between either sides of the onslaught.

Gaige flinched as a Conquistador rocket blew up in her face. She turned and shot through the head of the culprit with her rebranded Atlas Bitch SMG.

'Aurora! We're not advancing!' The Mechromancer yelled over to her.

'You didn't think I noticed?!' The Fable shrieked back.

'They're throwing everything they have at us!' Axton added unhelpfully. 'And this is just half of their military force for this facility!'

'How many left?!' Rhys hollered at them.

Gaige took a brief second to survey the battle-torn scene before them. Deathtrap was slashing at numerous Gemini Elites, throwing them back and initiating a flurry of spinning attacks. Conquistadors formed the front row of the defence, but they were getting slowly picked off. Deceptors attempted to get through the offense, but several Raiders spotted the slight curvatures in the air and minor shimmering that were quite common with Deceptors' Invisibility Capacitors. Subsequently, many Crimson Raiders took them out quickly.

'Thirty, give or take!' The Mechromancer responded, sighing at Rhys's disheartened expression once he heard her.

'And growing!' Axton observed, as Deathtrap dedigistructed. 'Anyone got any explosives left?!'

Most of the Vault Hunters shook their heads moments after searching their respective ECHOs.

'Just the one Storm Front; gotta make it count!' Aurora announced, staring at the Vladof grenade in her hand.

'Wait for them to regroup, then throw it!' The Commando ordered her. Aurora quickly moved over to where Axton was.

'Even at max radius, there's no way I can take out all of them,' the Fable told him.

'No, but we can use it to disorientate them, then the Raiders can pick them off,' Axton suggested.

'Oh, yeah. Gemini equipment is self-sustaining, but we can short it out for a few moments.'

'Exactly.'

'How are we gonna get them to regroup?' Rhys inquired confoundedly. 'No wait, maybe if we charge, it'll force them to change their position.'

'Maybe you're not as dumb as you look, Rhys,' the Fable complimented, smiling.

'You can argue that's both a good plan and a dumb plan,' Gaige laughed, as Deathtrap had finished repairing. Her robot was ready to digistruct. 'But Deathtrap's ready to go, so that will make it easier.'

'This could just reduce / Our total attacking force / And make this harder,' Zer0 advised them.

'It's either we do something, or we remain locked in an endless stalemate,' the Commando quarrelled with slight vexation.

'It's now or never,' Aurora declared, looking around at her fellow Vault Hunters and remaining Raiders. 'Charge!'

Immediately after the Fable gave the command, the Raiders nodded and broke out of their cover. They raced towards the legion of Gemini soldiers bravely but also wildly, like headless chickens. Despite how they seemed, though, they managed to pick off several of the Gemini personnel before the opposition could respond.

Once their Raider soldiers provided them cover, the Vault Hunters departed from theirs and began firing towards the soldiers. Gaige summoned Deathtrap at them; Axton threw down his trust turret, providing his allies with a shield; Zer0 threw down his hologram to sneak behind Gemini lines; Aurora took out her Eridium revolver and made several well-placed shots; and Rhys used his ECHOeye to determine the best path.

'Finally, some movement!' Gaige celebrated excitedly.

She's not usually THIS excitable, Aurora observed amusingly. That's a welcome change.

'Fall back and regroup!' A Gemini Elite Commander ordered them. The squadron of Gemini began to fall back, and move together, now doubt to formulate a more aggressive form of defence.

'Aurora, now!' The Commando called, and the Fable nodded in compliance. She threw the Storm Front into the fray, towards the group of Gemini soldiers. It was a Longbow grenade, so it reached them immediately. (A/N: Personally, I think Longbow (+Sticky) is the only deployment method that should exist – apart from maybe Lobbed. Rubberized is too difficult to use and Homing takes too long to hit a target. Longbow is by far the most effective and versatile.)

The radius encompassed several of the Gemini soldiers, electrocuting them and stopping them in their tracks. The child grenades extended and caught the rest. They froze in place and convulsed from the torrents of electricity surging through their bodies.

Ultimately, the Raiders were able to pick off the Gemini soldiers, one by one. Eventually, only a few remained.

'Looks like we're getting somewhere!' Rhys announced victoriously.

Disconcertingly, all the lights shut off in the facility, and the only thing lighting the facility now was their own ECHO devices and the flashlights on their guns. All the doors to all containment, opened, and the prisoners escaped, causing a major distraction for the Crimson Raiders and allowing them to pick off even more.

'What the hell's going on?!' Aurora demanded confoundedly.

'[SYSTEM LOCKDOWN PROCESS: ENTERING EMERGENCY POWER.]'

'System: activate Alpha Contingency Protocol!' A high-ranking Guard Commander addressed desperately.

'[RECOGNISED: GUARD COMMANDER, 362.]

'[INITIATING ALPHA CONTINGENCY PROTOCOL.]

'[DIGISTRUCTING ITEM DESIGNATED, "PEST CONTROL".]'

There was a blue light before the Guard Commander, before an object digitised before him. It was round, bronze and biconcave. It had a button in the centre, which was red and glowing.

'Alpha Contingency?!' Aurora yelled out in disbelief. 'Don't let them activate that device!'

'What the hell is it?' Axton demanded, trying to get through the last five Gemini soldiers to get to the device.

'It's a bomb. A kamikaze bomb!' The Fable elaborated worriedly. 'It'll take a mile of this base with ease! Stop them!'

'Oh no you don't,' The Guard Commander murmured, as the device charged up fully.

The commander pressed the button.

Fiona saw her opening rather quickly. When the Guard looked away, she got to work trying to shake her switchblade out of her coat pocket. Eventually, she succeeded and she managed to catch it between her.

Now, she just had to pass it through the gaps in her chair. With her hands bound. And with concentration despite the searing pain, which her bullet wound was still providing her.

Carefully, Fiona leant down and caught her knife between her teeth. She managed to slip it through the gaps in her chair, allowing her nail-file-disguised pocket knife to drop into her hands. She flipped open the blade inside.

Hastily, she began wearing away at the rope.

Luckily, Fiona had remembered to sharpen the blade the previous morning, so it was quicker than it otherwise would've been. She wouldn't be a con artist with a blunt knife. Her blade cut through the rope with a blind man's precision, but Fiona was confident that it wouldn't matter.

She was proven correct as the rope dropped the floor, leaving her hands completely unbound.

And the Guard hasn't noticed! Fiona rejoiced in her head. She took out her hairpin and slowly inserted both it and the knife into the lock. Every few seconds, the Artist looked back to the Guard to make sure he hadn't noticed.

Eventually, the thick metal cuffs came off, almost dropping to the ground with a loud clank – though Fiona was quick enough to catch it before it did. She got to work on other one, as the sound of gunshots got louder and louder, and closer and closer.

After what felt like hours, the second cuff unlocked. Fiona paused to revel in the feeling of freedom. She looked towards the Guard.

He was too absorbed in shooting at…something…to pay attention to her.

Must be the Raiders, Fiona assumed, glad they had come to save her. The Artist picked up a wrench from one of the shelves, and crept towards the Guard.

Determined, the Vault Hunter was about to whack the Guard over the top of the head, when everything went wrong.

Abruptly, four or five Guards barged through the door, knocking the latter Guard out of the way. They pointed their guns up at their "prisoner".

'What exactly do you think you're doing, Vault Hunter?' One of them, presumably the Commander, asked her disdainfully. He turned to the latter Guard with beady eyes. 'You were meant to be guarding this prisoner, captain! Now, we've been ordered to transport this prisoner, because of your failure.'

'Y-yes, I was guarding her, commander,' the Gemini Captain replied reticently. 'B-But Special Containment became under attack, so I had to defend it.'

'There's an XK-Class assault scenario taking place, and you're just here, loitering?!' Another Guard criticised, but the Commander waved a hand at him to shut up.

'Defend it from what?!' He bellowed at the captain, gesturing out into the surroundings. 'There's no one here!'

'There was, I swear! I couldn't get a clear visual, but I'm certain!' The Captain argued with evident nervousness. He looked like a scared child under angry parents.

'I don't have time for excuses,' the Commander disregarded, turning his attention to Fiona once again. 'Now then, Miss, if you'd allow us to escort you to Heavy Containment, then things don't have to get bloody.' In sequence, the other Guards prepped their guns and held them up to her head imposingly.

Reluctantly, Fiona put her hands up. She sighed pointedly.

One of the Gemini Guards approached her to cuff her again, but the Artist punched him and placed him into a headlock. She took his gun and pointed it at the remaining Guards.

'Who's next?!' Fiona taunted.

'Vault Hunter, you know you have no way out of this,' the Commander warned her. 'You fire one shot, and we riddle you with a dozen.'

'And then you've both down a man and lost your chance to destroy the Raiders,' Fiona pointed out.

'We have multiple methods for destroying the Crimson Raiders, I am certain you know that already,' the Commander countered categorically. 'And as for soldiers, well, each and every one of us would be honoured to give our lives for Gemini. Losing one man is hardly a tragedy; it's merely a statistic.'

Fiona gave no response, aside from a disgusted grimace.

'Alright, then. Fire.'

The Guards pulled the trigger, and Fiona was under the impression she would die. However, something happened.

There were crashes of lightning about the room, destroying the bulbs in the lights, even while they had been shut down to emergency power. Torrents of wind blew in less than a second, and Fiona struggled to remain standing.

Inexplicably, all the Gemini Guards were thrown about the sizeably large room, hitting the walls with a sickening crunch. The Guard that Fiona had in a headlock was violently thrown out her hands, causing the Artist to trip and fall.

Nonplussed and unbalanced, Fiona attempted to look up through her murky vision. There were two figures before her, however she could only distinguish them as two inky blots.

'Hmm…not Gaige, but definitely a Vault Hunter,' one of them described.

'So worth freeing?' The other one asked.

'Well, she's not an enemy, that's for sure,' he responded, as Fiona's sight began to clear up.

Slowly, she began to differentiate their features.

One of them was tall, six-foot two, and wearing a midnight coat that had padding around the shoulders. His trousers were slightly darker, more like cargo pants, and thoroughly worn from use. Underneath the coat was a military style black shirt, complete with cotton flecks on the outside. (A/N: Think like Roland's shirt, but black.) She could see visible padding over that too, a sort of exoskeleton of armour to protect the user from even the most forceful of blows.

His hair was a chestnut brown, accompanied with flecks of blonder, golden hair mixed in between. The strands looked dishevelled, as if neglected for a while and only attempted to be tended to recently.

Strangely, the man seemed really familiar.

Though, it was his eyes that really caught her attention. They were like nothing Fiona had ever seen before. Gold and shining, they were, however evoking some kind of welcoming trust. They had some uncanny age behind them, especially for someone who seemed younger than her, like there was some untold wisdom lying before them that no one had ever seen before.

Everything about the man's eyes was complex for such a simple construct. They told a story of tragedy, victory, defeat, love and some otherworldly understanding.

Fiona was so encapsulated by his eyes that she didn't see the younger woman next to him.

The woman, who looked no older than twenty, was wearing some sort of alien work uniform. She had a casual shirt, grey and lined with thin black strokes. She had a large grey square on the side, where Fiona guessed her nametag was meant to go. Over it, she wore a red cardigan, which seemed to starting to get too small for her, and it was so worn it must've been several years old.

Her hair was lighter than her ally's; her eyes seemed younger but much more alien in their strange purple pigment.

'Hi there, you alright?' The man asked her, leaning in with his hand to help him up. Once he appeared closer in her vision, the Artist realised who he was.

Fiona's eyes went wide.

'Wait a minute,' she requested, disconcerting him with her response. 'You're…you're…' The man crossed his arms.

Matt Rye the Anomaly

Hey, slowpoke!

Her eyes briefly shifted to the young woman beside him. She still didn't know who she was.

…and his sister, Amelia

(Doesn't like puns)

Matt rose an eyebrow.

'You're Matt Rye!' The woman recognised in complete shock.

'In the flesh,' the Anomaly replied, helping her up off the cold ground. He turned to Amelia and quietly murmured, 'I didn't know I was famous.'

'Are you honestly that surprised?' His sister muttered back.

'B-But…you're dead…' the prisoner continued in utter incredulity.

'Well I was, in a manner of speaking,' the Anomaly explicated casually. 'And you would be…?'

'R-Right, uh, I'm Fiona,' Fiona enlightened them. 'The Artist.'

'Ooh, "the Artist". I like that title,' the Anomaly complimented her.

'Really?' Fiona wondered excitedly.

'Yeah!' Matt agreed, almost wincing as Fiona squealed for second, before coughing awkwardly and trying to maintain her composure. 'Uh, well, I'm the Anomaly, and that's my sister, Amelia, over there. She doesn't have a title.' Amelia frowned.

'I don't do "titles",' she deadpanned. Fiona still looked frozen in delight. Matt waved a hand in front of her to snap her out of it.

'S-sorry, uh, it's just…I kinda…idolised you,' Fiona admitted, gulping slightly. She'd never really told anyone that. 'You're sort of a legend around the Crimson Raiders.'

'"Legend"?' The Vault Hunter scoffed, chuckling at the description. 'Uh, no. I'd barely settle for hero.'

'Well, Gaige always spoke highly of you.'

'Oh, right! Gaige! How could I forget?' Matt slapped his head at his own stupidity. 'Is she here? I heard over the radio that they were forcing some Vault Hunter tech expert to write some sort of program in Special Containment.'

'Um, they were talking about me,' the Artist explained vaguely. 'It was a mix-up. I think they thought I was like Gaige.'

'How did they manage to do that?!' Amelia asked inquisitively.

'It's a long story.'

Fiona began to explain exactly how they got to this moment. How Lilith had assigned her this mission with Gaige; how they infiltrated the Menagerie whilst they were on low security; how they were almost captured stealing information from a Holo-Reader; how they were found when Fiona blew a hole in the wall; all of it.

When the Artist came around to mentioning the ESDD, the Anomaly frowned.

'What's an ESDD?' He enquired.

'Emergency Spatial Displacement Device,' Fiona elucidated. 'It allows the user to move through space in event of an emergency.'

'I guess Gemini's been real busy while we were gone,' the anomalous Vault Hunter supposed. 'So if Gaige gave you the device, why did you stay and she teleported away?'

'Gaige had to rewire it under pressure; it failed and it teleported her instead of me. She wanted me to get away, but I ended up here instead.'

'Ah, just like Gaige to want to sacrifice herself,' Matt mused aloud, turning to his sister. 'The Enlightener wasn't kidding when he spoke so seriously about the Human Factor.'

Fiona then started to explain her predicament with writing a virus and her attempts to escape, but she cried out in pain when her bullet wound flared up once more. She was distracted by her idol's sudden appearance to realise that it still hurt even while it had mostly clotted.

'Ouch, bullet wound,' Amelia seethed, gritting her teeth at imagining how much it must've hurt.

'Amy, guard the exit.'

'With what?!' She demanded, but he ignored her.

'Don't worry, I carry bandages and hypos all the time,' Matt ensured her, catching her before she could fall to the ground.

Digging through his pockets, the Anomaly produced two hypos and a roll of bandages.

'This will hurt a bit.'

He injected the hypos, and Fiona jammed her jaw shut from the pain. Matt smiled as the red liquid injected into her and he began wrapping the bandage around her leg.

'See? No more pain?' The Vault Hunter told her, beaming at her.

'Thanks,' Fiona acknowledged, still not quite believing that Matt Rye was right in front of her.

'No thanks needed,' the Anomaly responded modestly. 'A friend of Gaige is a friend of mine. Besides, we Vault Hunters gotta stick together.'

'I don't understand, though,' the Artist confessed. 'How are you alive?'

'Do you know what the Infinite is?' Matt asked her. Fiona frowned.

'No.'

Matt sighed at no one in particular.

'Well, in that case, let's just say I wasn't killed physically,' Matt explained cryptically. Fiona opened her mouth to ask more question but the Anomaly shushed her. 'I'll explain later. Right now, we need to find the Crimson –'

'Freeze!' A voice demanded from outside. Finishing up with her bandages, Matt got up to see who it was.

Another squadron of Guards.

'Take another step and you're dead!'

Matt put his hand out to charge his Chronokinesis, but Amelia stopped him.

'I got this one,' she told him unhelpfully. His sister stepped forward and her arms began to glow red.

'M-Matt. Her arms are glowing!' Fiona stated, rather obviously.

'Yep, she does that,' Matt replied, narrowing his eyes at her glowing arms. 'Red. I know that one.'

'Red is the colour you use. It is responsible for controlling the timestream, either by and large or selectively,' the Enlightener had taught him. 'You expel that energy, and that is what allows you to control time.'

'And the black energy?' Matt had asked.

'It allows you to sustain the rigours of Chronokinesis at boosted capacities. Eventually, the energy you need for it becomes too high. This twin side allows you to control it.'

'So without it…?'

'You would likely cause severe damage to your body.'

From a simple observation, Amelia was using the same amount of energy as he did when using Chronokinesis at Tier 2, and there was no black energy in sight.

Matt stepped forward to stop her, but then he noticed what Amelia was actually doing.

Slowly, the Gemini soldiers began to shrivel up, their muscle mass becoming notably smaller and their skulls becoming more prominent. Eventually, the muscle wore away completely, and the eyes rotted away in their sockets.

The Guards dropped to the ground, now nothing more than a pile of useless bones and armour.

Amelia stopped, and stumbled back, unable to maintain the ability for long. Matt caught her.

'I really need to ask you about those powers later,' the Anomaly noted to her.

'Where's the…fun in that?' Amelia challenged, exhausted from the amount of energy she just used.

'What was that? Isolated control of particular timestreams?' Matt interrogated. His sister weakly nodded.

'I can…age people…or regress them back to embryos…'

'OK, I think you need to catch your breath,' Matt told her, before turning her attention back to Fiona. 'Fiona, can you guard the entrance?'

'Not without my ECHO.'

'Individuals taken to Special Containment have their equipment stored in the same room as them, in case said individual requires them at any point.'

'Where exactly do they keep it?' The Artist inquired. Matt looked the around the room and eventually found a small cabinet, which he used his Chronokinetic lightning to force open.

'Right…I'm guessing this ECHO is yours?' Matt guessed, passing it to her. She nodded and took out a non-elemental Lyuda.

'OK, if I can use the Holo-Reader, I might be able to –' He stared blankly at the depowered computer screen, before stepping back and gesturing manically at it. 'Oh, of course! It's an XK-Class assault scenario, all the power's been diverted to the main Control Core! Dammit!'

'Well how do we fix it?' The Artist prompted.

'I-I need some sort of…auxiliary power – powerful enough to withstand use for a few minutes, tops. Oh, but my lightning's too volatile!'

'Use my ECHO; it's at full charge,' Fiona suggested hopefully.

'You'll be without your ECHO systems!' Matt disagreed. 'You'll have no way of monitoring your ammo, health, shields or surroundings!'

'You look like you're doing just fine without an ECHO,' Fiona pointed out.

'Well, I'm…me! In case you missed it, I have superpowers!'

'I'll be fine. Besides, your sister over there has superpowers too.'

'Ugh, what is it with Vault Hunters and selflessness?' Matt moaned, disregarding thoughts about Caine or Violet, who were the main exceptions. 'Fine. It's not like we've got any other options here.'

Fiona tossed him her ECHO, and he began rewiring the Holo-Reader to reroute power from the ECHO, rather than the mains. He smiled when the holographic display loaded up before him.

Matt searched through the Menagerie local intranet, trying to find the controls to the facility. Unfortunately, he came to a crashing stop.

'Oh! For fuck's sake!' He susurrated angrily.

'What's the problem now?!' Amelia demanded, annoyed at his frustrations.

'In order to control anything in the facility without administrator privileges, I need the Menagerie base-code!' He complained, rubbing his forehead in annoyance.

'No, no, no: Gaige managed to copy the data files from the Menagerie onto my ECHO. She got the base-codes already!' Fiona reassured him. The Anomaly instantly grinned.

'Thank you Gaige!' He celebrated, connecting to the ECHO and using the base-codes copied into its storage data. 'Ha, ha, I am brilliant!'

'What did you do?' Fiona asked.

'I shut down the entire network. Within a few minutes, the whole facility will be in lockdown.'

'In other words, he means we can escape now,' Amelia simplified helpfully.

'Great!' Fiona beamed, as Matt got out his chair and directed for her to leave, throwing the Vault Hunter her ECHO on the way out.

'We don't have much time!' The Anomaly told them. 'We only have a few minutes before the doors lock down!' He took the lead as he ran along the roads, avoiding the shut-down automated vehicles in the middle of them. Fiona and Amelia followed close behind.

'[SYSTEM LOCKDOWN PROCESS: ENTERING EMERGENCY POWER.]'

'That's the first stage,' Matt told them, as they moved through the facility to find where the battle was going on. It had to be the Crimson Raiders.

'[INITIATING ALPHA CONTINGENCY PROTOCOL.]

'Oh no,' Matt gulped, diverting his direction to the source of the speaker.

'[DIGISTRUCTING ITEM DESIGNATED, "PEST CONTROL".]'

'What's the Alpha Contingency Protocol?' Fiona and Amelia asked in near unison.

'Bad news.'

Eventually, they found the source of the conflict. The Crimson Raiders versus Gemini. Gemini was being eliminated by Raiders accompanied by…

'Gaige?!' Matt called out, but caught himself before he yelled. He could see Axton, Zer0, Aurora and a man wearing an expensive suit leading the opposition.

Then he saw the Guard Commander with the activation device. He saw his fingers bend down to activate it.

'No!' Matt exclaimed, although too far from them to be heard. He held out a hand, as lightning began to crack around him.

Then time began to stop.

Yes, kill me for a cliff-hanger. Maybe I am using them a bit too much…

But anyway, Matt's back, and in the nick of time. I thought about him meeting Gaige first, but I rewrote it for Fiona to captured instead, since I thought that would be a better dynamic. And she idolises him a little, too. She's gotten quite immature from being around Rhys.

First mention of Violet since the last story. You might be wondering, "what does that matter?" Well, wouldn't you like to know where she is?