Chapter 13

Pandora

"Are you the ones who've been hurting my friends?" The man asked, scratching at the tangled beard covering his face.

The girls looked at each other, trying to figure out what to tell the crazy man.

"Why would you do that?" He continued, as if he hadn't noticed the silence "Connie's not doing so well and I can't find parts for him anymore, so it's hard for him to replace them. He's so tired, he deserves a nice rest, but now he has to use up some of his last energy to fix this and for what, so you could play hero?"

The girls looked at him closer, he was wearing a faded jumpsuit that was so stained that the original color couldn't be determined under a heavy chest plate. On his back he was wearing some kind of pack, though they couldn't make it out and over the upper half of his head he had a cracked helmet of some kind. His left arm was bandaged and he kept scratching at it. His right foot twitched occasionally and his dirty beard had pieces of food stuck in it.

He looked like either a Hyperion troop that had gotten left behind and went psycho, or a psycho that had equipped himself from a Hyperion base, though the first one seemed more likely.

"So, uh, been here long?" Gaige tried.

"You hear that, she wants to know if we've been here long." He said over his shoulder at the glowing lens, cracking a smile like he heard a response "That's right, that's right. We have been here a long time. It's been that long already? Nine years? My my my."

"So, uh, what's your story?" Gaige asked, glancing around nervously.

"My story? Why do you care? You're not here to steal it, are you?"

"No, I just want to hear it."

"Is that so? Is that so? Then I suppose I can tell your friend there." He replied, looking at Artemis in a way that sent shivers up her spine. "Handsome Jack sent me here, you've heard of him, right? Handsome Jack, such an amazing man, and so dashing. He wanted me here, I know it, even though I wasn't assigned to this place, I was supposed to be helping to build Opportunity, what a wonderful place that way, and to think that he built it on this forsaken planet, what a man. So, like we were saying, I was supposed to be at Opportunity, but I needed some parts out this way and they hadn't come in yet, so I was out when the glorious city was attacked by those Crimson bastards, the cowards, the things they did, makes me so mad, and the cleanup, yeesh. I only got to see what happened briefly, but if I'd been there..." He shook his head as if to tell them that he would've changed things instead of dieing like everyone else.

"After Opportunity fell, I was sent out to the Highlands to try and restore some of the city's functions, but that town, what was it?" He looked behind himself again "Oh yeah, that's right, Overlook. They'd rebelled, joined with those Crimson jerks and set up this barrier, killed a whole bunch of our guys in the area, so I couldn't get anything from there. The next thing I know, the earthquakes go nuts, like I had to abandon my ride cause it gets swallowed whole by the ground.

"So, I stumble back to the nearest outpost, only it's been abandoned by everyone but Connie, that's where I met him by the way, he was just the cutest. But then I hear on the radio that Handsome Jack's dead. Of course I didn't believe it, I mean, who could kill the man closest to being a living god? But it seemed that everyone else believed. Fools. They abandoned everything and fell over each other to get away. Well not me, I managed to get to this base with Connie, and that's when I found him, my Jack."

The look of pure rapture on his face caused both girls to shiver in disgust. He didn't seem to notice and continued "Sure there were a few others here when I got here, but they all left pretty quickly. Which was fine, I didn't need them anyway, though I do miss the boys. But I've got Connie and I've got my loaders and I've got Jack, so I'm good."

He paused and cocked his head "You...you're a...girl?"

Artemis realized he was talking to her and slowly nodded.

"Ah, I'd thought you were a bit young for my taste, but I'd have been willing to wait, but if you're a girl, I don't need you." He scratched at his beard with renewed intensity. "Begone."

"Yeah, uh, so, we'll be leaving now, thanks for the story." Gaige said, giving him a small wave as she started backing out, only to be stopped by his laugh, which while crazy sounding, wasn't crazy enough for the situation.

"Oh, she thinks she gets to leave? No no no, you trampled on my sanctum and must now pay for your sins."

He rose from his chair and the device on his back swung around. He grabbed the long heavy arms and tugged them into place. Gaige recognized that device, even though she hadn't seen one in years, the man was a Hyperion engineer.

As he rose, the lights around the room intensified, and the loaders that had must have been waiting emerged. Gaige looked around, trying to figure out which way they should divvy up their enemies.

"You recognize him?" Came a whisper from her side.

"Never seen him before, least not that I can remember."

"Not what I was asking, I meant, do you recognize his equipment."

"Oh, yeah, he's an old Hyperion engineer."

"You wanna take him then, Deathtrap can keep our back clear."

"And what'll you be doing during this time?"

"Dealing with Connie."

Gaige followed her line of sight and spotted what had been making the red glow behind the Engineer. The massive bulky frame hadn't moved, but she could now make out the shape of a Hyperion Constructor lurking behind him.

"Oh, that's just great." She whined softly.

"Any advice?"

"Yeah, if it starts Digi-structing anything, shoot it's lens. If it's not, shoot its lens. In fact, just shoot it's lens."

"Urgrr"

"Yeah, like he said, unless it's got some kinda gun turret, then take that out first."

"Got it."

"Oh, and if it launches a wave of missiles, try and take them out."

"Missiles? How many attacks does this thing have?"

"You wanna switch?"

"Tempting." Before she could say any more, the Engineer slammed the strange exoskeleton arms into the ground, launching himself at them.

The girls threw themselves out of the way as he came down where they'd just been with enough force to crack the floor.

Artemis quickly stopped thinking she'd chosen the wrong opponent and dashed away from the Engineer and his stench, heading straight for the massive Constructor. She could see that it was stationary, with stumpy little legs holding it up, but she figured that it could float away if it wanted to. As she charged, she spotted a hex-like pattern form over its lens and cursed silently as she recognized it as a shield being deployed. Since she lacked an electric weapon at hand, she did what she always did and brought her rifle up, muttering "It's times like these that I wish I had some of those Holloway grenades." Then winced at the thought of wanting anything of Holloway's, she opened fire.

The instant Artemis fired, the Engineer spun around and roared "What are you doing?" and started to make a move towards her, ignoring Gaige entirely, which annoyed her, so she leveled her shotgun and fired a blast at him, catching him in the side.

The blast did little more than stagger him, much to her annoyance, but it did seem to draw his attention back to her.

"Why are you getting in my way? Why are you attacking Connie? What do you have against us?"

"Shut it." Gaige snapped "You coulda let us walk away, but oh no, you had to attack. Well, we're gonna fight back."

"You invaded my home."

"It wasn't like you had a sign out."

"It was well guarded."

"You know what, screw you, but I'll give you a little understanding since we did kinda come in here uninvited, but you shoulda put up signs or something."

"I'll nail your corpses to the door. That should work for a sign." He shouted, throwing spittle her way.

"Eww, on both counts, eww."

He ignored her comments and stepped in to throw an augmented punch her way, forcing her back. It was taking her a bit, but she was starting to remember how to fight his kind, though she realized, it was probably better that she was a bit rusty, since he wasn't fighting like most of the others had.

As she dodged back, he activated one of the emitters on his pack, firing a bright beam that sliced through the wall behind her as she threw herself out of the way.

"Crap, I'd forgotten about those." She muttered as she came to her feet.

"Oh-ho, it seems like you've fought someone like me before."

Gaige was tempted to throw her past in his face, but decided that this wasn't the time to rile him up, especially when she wasn't winning. Not that she thought she was losing, but so far neither of them had landed any especially telling blows.

Deathtrap was trying to keep a sensor on everyone, making sure that neither of the girls got overwhelmed, but he wished they would hurry up with their opponents, cause the stream of loaders was starting to get on his circuits. He dodged another blast from the HOT loader and fired a caustic beam into its lens in retaliation. He didn't bother watching it melt, instead he spun and hacked a surveyor out of the air with a Digi-claw strike. He caught the now wingless bot and chucked it into the RPG loader that had just emerged, staggering it and giving him a chance to finish it off with another caustic blast.

Artemis kept firing at the shield, and it cracked, giving her access to the hard interior. She paused to reload her rifle, keeping an eye on the large frame in front of her. Just as she expected, it started to Digi-struct another loader, so she snapped the cylinder on her rifle closed and emptied it again into the exposed lens, disrupting the Digi-struction process.

So far she'd only had to deal with the massive Constructor, something she made a mental note to thank Deathtrap for, since she knew that he was taking most of the heat off of her. As she rapidly reloaded, she spotted the distinct signs of Digi-struction on the small wing like protrusions on the sides of the Constructor and cursed slightly, those weren't loaders being constructed, but small turrets.

Switching off from shooting the main lens, she spun her rifle up and blasted the first one before it had even finished constructing, but by the time she'd finished that, she was forced to dodge the line of blue bolts flying from the second.

Gaige leaped back from the Engineer again as he took another, increasingly frantic swing at her. It seemed that watching his loaders get taken out was having an effect on his mental state.

With the small amount of room between them, Gaige slapped a new clip into her shotgun just as her opponent fired a series of small projectiles from his other emitter. They arched at her forcing her to dodge, only for him to launch a cutting attack at where she was rolling.

Cursing having an intelligent, or more likely, experienced opponent, she slammed her palm into the ground, shoving herself backwards and away from the attack, but felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as she did so.

She rolled it slightly to make sure it was only a sprain before opening fire again. But again, she watched as the shotgun blast seemed to bounce off his side. She knew she was forgetting something, but she couldn't remember what it was. There had been a trick to fighting these Engineers, something that wasn't all that hard to figure out once you thought about it, but he didn't seem to be giving her any chance to think as he made another leap towards her.

She jumped back again, but this time when he landed, he punched the ground, letting the jack-hammer like fists at the ends of his limbs pound the ground, causing micro-tremors, which combined with her already poor footing from the damage strewn around the area, knocked her on her butt.

She could see the Engineer smirk at this as his mechanical hands grabbed a chunk of the ground and tore it up, hefting it easily despite its considerable weight and lobbed it at her as if it were a toy.

Already in a bad spot, Gaige was forced to hurl herself to the side, rolling across the jagged ground, wincing at the way it felt like it was cutting her up, but managing to avoid the chunk of concrete that smashed where she'd been.

Her opponent took advantage of her precarious position and launched himself at her again, both exoskeleton arms held over his head, ready to smash her when a shot hit him in the back, sending sparks flying and a massive arm appeared in his path, clothes-lining him.

He spun a full rotation in the air before slamming into the ground awkwardly, giving Gaige a chance to scramble to her feet and glance around. Artemis had already spun back and was drilling more shots into the Constructor's lens, but Deathtrap shot her a thumbs up, even as he launched another scything attack on the loaders around the room.

For her part, Gaige felt grateful, humiliated, but grateful. She wished she'd stop needing rescue, but was glad that she had not one, but two companions to drag her out of danger. Still, she wished that she could be the one doing the rescuing, or better yet, that they didn't need rescuing at all, that would be a nice change of pace.

She took her frustration out on the Engineer, opening fire only to hear a shout from behind her.

"This things being a pain, anyone got a caustic I could use? Or wanna switch?" Artemis called up, as she paused to reload again.

That was it, that was what she'd forgot Gaige realized, it didn't matter that the Engineers were partially exposed, their exo-suit was still vulnerable to caustic attacks, so if she couldn't get his helmet off to blast his brains out, she could melt the suit off his back. She flipped the SMG off her pack and opened fire on the man as he tried to get up.

This time he let out a surprised yelp and tried to get away, slamming one of his power arms into the ground to throw himself a ways, but Gaige's bullets just chased after him, leaving him sizzling as the caustic material started to eat away at his rig.

For the first time, he started to worry, up until then he'd been taking damage, but it had been negligible, having been mostly absorbed by his armor, but now that armor was disintegrating rapidly and worse yet, he wasn't connecting with the girl. Even worse, the other two were destroying everything around him, with the robot casually taking out the loaders as fast as they could arrive and the other girl continually hurting Connie, even though she wasn't doing great amounts of damage, at least he didn't think so, he was having a hard time checking with the redhead constantly attacking him, even when he dodged, so he just had to hope that he could deal with her before the other one did something irreparable.

Gaige on the other hand, glanced over casually to check on the other two's progress, making sure to keep one eye on the Engineer. From what she could tell, Deathtrap had things well under control, it seemed that the caustic laser was doing wonders on the loaders and if one got through, he would swoop in and Digi-claw it. Artemis on the other hand wasn't making any noticeable progress, but Gaige could tell that the Constructor was nearing its end, something that she could only tell due to having faced off against her fair share of them back when she was Vault Hunting.

Artemis let out another sigh as she casually picked off another set of the turrets that had Digi-structed on the sides of the Constructor. It seemed to pick between them, trying to construct a loader, placing a larger gun in front of itself and firing a barrage of missiles, though it hadn't done that often, leading her to suspect that it didn't have a lot of them, or there was something wrong with it.

Just as she thought that, it launched another wave of the missiles at her. Deathtrap let out a burble and they turned the other way, him casually slicing through the wave of missiles and her dropping the next two loaders that had appeared.

Nodding to him, she called out "You wanna switch?"

"Urur" He replied, motioning to how he could see over the rail. She shrugged in response and after giving him a wave, turned back to continue chipping away at her opponent.

Gaige watched and was about to comment, when the Engineer launched an attack at her, firing his cutter to get her to dodge, but then instead of attacking her, he slammed his hands into the ground and launched himself at Artemis's exposed back.

Before Gaige could shout a warning, the other girl ducked, throwing herself backwards and rolling behind him. Coming up with an irate expression, she drew her backup piece and ducked under the wild backhand he tried to deliver as he turned before slamming the barrel of the gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger.

His corpse fell backwards as she turned and shot a twitching expression at Gaige "That's why I wanted to switch."

"Yeah, yeah, show off." Gaige retorted with an eye-roll, while opening fire on the Constructor.

Artemis shot her a dirty look as she holstered her backup gun and resumed firing at the sparking and dying Constructor.

It didn't take long under their attacks for it to collapse, its lens darkening permanently.

The girls stared at it for a while to make sure it was truly finished as Deathtrap continued taking out the loaders as they started to taper off, which he took as a good sign, without leadership, they wouldn't think to set a trap to lull him into a false sense of security, not that he was going to let his guard down just cause he thought they were finished.

"Well, that was an unnecessary pain." Artemis groaned, stretching her back.

"Yeah, if only we hadn't killed his precious loaders." Gaige shot back.

"Oh, like he would've let us leave no matter what."

"I know, I just wanted to bitch."

Artemis didn't respond for a second, which made Gaige suddenly feel insecure, like she didn't know if she'd pushed things too far.

"So now what?" Was all Artemis said, when she finally spoke up.

"Huh?"

"Thought I was clear."

"You were, except which now what were you meaning."

"Wait, there's more than one?"

"Yeah, there's the now what are we going to do in regards to finding an exit, to checking to see where we're going next and the now what're we going to do between us?"

"Uh, wait, what? I was just meaning right now, what are we going to do right now, like are we going to try and look around, see if there's anything useful, like a back way out, or should we not stick around here much longer and try and rush the last loaders?"

"There shouldn't be that many loaders left."

"Maybe, but did anybody, and by that, I mean you bud, kill either of the WAR loaders?"

"Urur"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. So, knowing that, I'll ask again, now what?"

"Ah, that makes sense." Gaige said, clearly trying to stall while she thought of an answer. After a painfully long few seconds she continued "Well, since there are still WAR loaders up, that means either they can't make it down here, they're on their way, but due to their slow walk speed haven't made it yet, or more likely, they were left to defend the base, mostly cause they're less useful indoors. Which means that, if they're staying up there, then there's no harm in looking around here and seeing if there's a back way out."

"That's what I was thinking too."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Cause I wanted to see if you had any other thoughts."

"Well, I don't."

"Clearly." Artemis turned away from the devolving conversation and called up "What can you see in those rooms?"

"Uggru gruug"

"I see, well, we should check behind the Constructor, see if there's anything else down here and if not, then move up to check those out."

"Works for me, though you sure you don't want to split up and have me check up there."

"No." Artemis flatly replied, clearly telling Gaige that she didn't trust her if she found any alcohol, which she couldn't blame her for.

They headed behind the fallen Constructor and found a small room filled with junk and tools which they took to be the Engineer's workshop. Gaige did better at identifying the loader parts that were strewn around and while she found a good number of interesting parts, she didn't find anything that would be of immediate use, so they left and headed up.

They found exactly what Deathtrap had said they would, small rooms that had until recently held loaders. The Engineer must have liked having them around to talk to because they found names painted next to the doors.

At the end of the room, directly over the workshop, they found what must have been his bedroom. A filth encrusted mattress so vile that even a bandit would've tossed it away was thrown in the corner. A small vertical Hyperion ammo crate was being used as an end-table with a lamp sitting on it that seemed to have been constructed from one of the Handsome Jack statues. The only other thing of note in the room was another Handsome Jack standee propped against the wall.

"Well, this was a bust." Gaige seethed, lashing out with a kick towards the standee, hoping that would take out some of her frustration.

Her kick sent the Jack flying across the room with a completely unsatisfying flap, but that didn't matter as both girls looked at the wall that had just been exposed and the door sitting in it.

"You'd think he'd have tried to set up his throne so that he could flee." Artemis said.

"I don't think he thought much at all." Gaige retorted.

"True. So, shall we see where it goes?"

"Well, he must've hidden it for a reason, so maybe we shouldn't."

"Really?"

"No, of course not really." Gaige snapped.

"You're a nasty sober." Artemis muttered.

"Sorry." Gaige said, sounding like she meant it.

"Forget it." Artemis said, motioning for Deathtrap to come over.

Once he was there, she crouched down and listened to the door for a minute, before softly saying "Nothin."

"Babe, you wanna do the honors?" Gaige asked as she readied her shotgun.

Deathtrap nodded and moved to the door, gripping the handle firmly and once both girls were in position, yanked it open, revealing the dark concrete tunnel within.

Slowly the girls leaned in to see and after a long moment, Gaige asked "So, uh, you got a light?"

"Of course I do." Artemis snapped, "You saw it earlier."

"Yeah, I was just trying to be polite, no need to be such a bitch about it."

"You call me that a lot and I don't know, sometimes it sounds mean, others, well, almost affectionate."

Gaige's retort was brought up short by Deathtrap shooting her a warning look, so after a moment of mulling, she answered "Usually I mean it as a, well not nickname, but, you know, how I call Deathtrap babe. But, yes, sometimes when you're being snotty or I'm being mean, I do mean it as an insult. Sorry that I can't think of anything else to call you, but when you're being a bitch, you're being a bitch."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

"We good?"

"Eh, yeah, we're good." Artemis said without showing much emotion as she dug out her light, but Gaige knew that she was just embarrassed about it, so she let it go.

Once she'd gotten the light out, Artemis took point, moving into the tunnel. They traveled in silence for a long way, or maybe it just felt that way to them, since the tunnel had no features and seemed to go on forever to the point that they were feeling like they were stuck in a dream.

But eventually they came to a set of stairs leading up and at the top of them was another door. Stepping through it, Artemis was surprised to see that they were on the cliff-side the opposite direction from where they'd left the Technical. Looking down and to the side, she could see the base they'd just been in. From where they were, she could make out the loaders around the wall as well as the WAR loader in the courtyard.

Gaige quietly moved up next to her and clicked her tongue "Damn, we went around the wrong way."

"Wasn't like there were options."

"No, no, not that, it's just that if the tunnel had gone the other way, we could've dropped down next to the Technical and drove away. Instead, we're gonna have to go around the base again."

"Ah. So, you got a way down?"

"Yeah, I could push you." Gaige said with a smirk, but seeing the horrified look on the other girl's face, not to mention the cold look coming from Deathtrap, she quickly tried to cover herself "I'm kidding, geez, learn to take a joke you two. But seriously, we could use your cable to slide down, or we could try and find a path down, I mean, if there's an escape route up here, it'd make sense for there to be a way down."

"Urggrr"

"Yeah, I know you could carry us, but I'd rather not, we don't know what's waiting for us down there."

"Might be Stalkers." Artemis said, rolling onto her toes and stretching upward, like that would allow her to see better."

Gaige didn't respond, only felt an unconscious shiver run down her back.

"You don't like Stalkers, do you?"

"No."

"There's a story there."

"Yes."

"You gonna tell it?"

"Not here." Gaige knew she had to start opening up, but in this case, she wanted to be as far away from Stalker territory as she could when she did, like on another planet.

For her part, Artemis just nodded and leaned out a bit further, looking down "Well, I don't see any down there."

"They're invisible."

"Nah, there's a slight distortion around them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, how do you think I fought that one?"

"Hunter magic?"

Artemis blinked and let out a soft giggle "I wish."

Taken by surprise at the girlishness of that moment, Gaige stared at her, but as quickly as it happened, it was gone and Artemis was talking again "Well, I think I see the way that they were supposed to get down." She pointed to a series of shattered and crumbling stones. "Bad news is, it looks like something destroyed it."

"Probably the earthquakes." Gaige said with a knowing nod. Catching the look from Artemis she continued "Back when I was a Vault Hunter, Jack was doing a lot of Eridium mining and processing, but that was destabilizing parts of the planet, which led to some rather noticeable tremors."

"Ah."

"Anyway, history lesson's over, we should get down."

Artemis nodded and pulled the cable off of the side of her pack while looking around for something to tie it to.

As soon as she had, Gaige tossed the end over and started to descend, leaving Artemis to hurry to catch up.

Just as she got to the bottom, Gaige heard a shout of "Look out!" Right before something slammed into her side, throwing her across the ground to land in a heap.

Artemis dropped the last ways, trying to get between her fallen friend and the badass psycho that'd hit her, but before she could, another figure stepped out and she found herself facing Volupta, who was glaring at her with naked fury as she rubbed her raw cheek along the line where Artemis had slashed her.

"Well, well." She tittered in a crazy sounding voice "Look who finally returned to me."