Songs: KALEO - No Good; The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright
"Yo, Lilith! Me and Talon and Nova got a nice perch out by Mount Scarab. We might've found a way up to Sanctuary!"
"Mordecai! Good to hear from you." I could hear Lilith say, just as I finished fixing my own ECHO device. Time to get back to the others. Regroup and retake Sanctuary. If that was still the plan.
"Ah, I wasn't gonna let you fight this one without us. Aw, crap! Brace yourselves - bunch of Hector's salad soldiers are headed your way!" Mordecai told them. I grabbed my rifle and went up to him.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"Hector's guys are running off towards them. I think they are, at least. Judging from the map. You got everything sorted?"
"Yeah, I'm all good. You know they'll be able to track our ECHO signature now, too?" I said to him.
"Ellie, it's time for a fight! Those defenses ready?" I heard Lilith say. She started to sound really tired.
"Almost! Could use some help getting more turrets online. V-H, there's a bashwrench on the table over there. Grab it for me, will ya?" Ellie echoed.
"Got it!" I heard a familiar voice. It was Anouk. Thank God, she was still alive and not back in Sanctuary. I wasn't too happy she was right in the middle of all the fighting, but we were on Pandora, after all. It was better than being turned into a plant monster by this Hector guy. Count your blessings and all that.
"Thank God you're alive, Anouk." I said to her.
"Nova? You out there?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm with Mordecai, we're okay for now. Be careful, okay?"
"Sure thing. You know me." she replied. I sighed. That was exactly the problem. I knew her and I knew she wouldn't be careful.
"Those things'll fix anything with a few thwacks. I set up a badass choke point just outside of camp. Get them turrets humming, Vault Hunter." Ellie instructed all of them. I just hoped those defenses were really as good as she said.
"This'll be a primo kill-zone once you fix up them turrets. Give 'em a thwack with the bashwrench. One more turret should do it." she continued. I looked down at my ECHOmap and saw a big horde of ECHO signatures approaching the camp. Had to be Hector's troops. This was bad.
"Just in time! I see them viney sumbitches comin'. Let's whack them weeds!" Ellie shouted. I let out a relieved sigh.
"Defend the camp!" Lilith ordered.
"Yeah! Defend my camp!" Vaughn agreed with her.
"Uh oh." Mordecai suddenly said. If Mordecai said 'uh oh' it was usually really, really bad. I looked up from my ECHOmap.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Get down. Can you turn off our ECHO signatures?" he replied.
"Yeah, but it'll take a second and it might not work with our ECHOs. Why? What's wrong?" I wanted to know.
"Do it. Now!" he said. I quickly turned off my ECHO signal, which meant we couldn't talk to Lilith and the others at the moment. We could still hear them. Hopefully. I then turned off the signal on Mordecai's ECHO.
"Okay, you have me freaked out. What did you see?" I asked.
"There were a few scouts out there, looked like Hector's troops." he answered.
"How many of them?"
"Just two scouts. They must have noticed the ECHO signatures in the area. Thing is, if we take them out, they'll know we're here. Only thing we can do is try and stay low for now and hope they don't notice us."
"Hell yeah! You might look and smell like a Vault Hunter, but you totally fight like a bandit... and that is the HIGHEST compliment!" I heard Vaughn say over the ECHO. He was starting to get somewhat amusing.
"Tannis, any updates?" Lilith asked.
"Well, I cannot produce an antidote. But I have traced the gas to a scientist named Cassius Leclemane." Tannis replied promptly.
"Woah, Cassius? I know that science dude! I'ma call him now!" Vaughn exclaimed. I could hear some fiddling with an ECHO device in the background.
"Yo, Cassius! Hey, it's Vaughn!"
"Vaughn, hello! Uh, I'm rather busy on a... secret project." a man answered on the other end. He sounded fairly old.
"Gotcha, gotcha. Super quick question. Uh, did you plant-monster up my bros?" Vaughn asked.
"I would never plant-monster up your bros! Hector swore that... ah, I see. I've been tricked into working for an evil megalomaniac. My bad." Cassius replied, as if it was a thing that happened regularly. Maybe it was. You never knew.
"Hey, happens to the best of us, bro!" Vaugn answered laughing.
"Come to my secret entrance is through the old Dahl mine! I'll begin working on an antidote immediately." Cassius said. At least he sounded like he was an honest and upright guy.
"Okay, I'm gonna need to tell Lil we have a good view of the mine from here. Get ready to shoot." Mordecai said to me and then turned his ECHO signal back on. He took a deep breath and got back in position to watch the mine.
"I got eyes on the mine, Lilith. I'll let you know if I see anything." he echoed her. I had my SMG ready, so I could watch Mordecai's back, in case any of them went through the cave entrance before Mordecai could get them.
"Keep me posted, Mordecai . The Vault Hunter will meet you there." Lilith said. Hopefully they'd get here soon.
"Shit. They already noticed us. And they brought a bunch of friends. We're vastly outnumbered." Mordecai told me.
"Fuck. Time to run?" I asked. I saw him nodding.
"We can at least try." he replied and held out his arm for Talon. Talon came flying towards us and landed on Mordecai's arm.
"Talon, keep watch over the camp. When the Vault Hunters get here, you lead them to me and Nova, alright?" he said to him. Talon cawed and flew off again. Mordecai looked after him for a little while and then turned to me.
"Alright, let's go. We can probably make it into the bandit camp and take them out, hopefully we can wait it out there." Mordecai replied. I nodded and we climbed through a hole in the wall of rock to get out of the cave. We were pretty high up and had to quickly climb down the rocky surface.
"This way!" Mordecai said. As I looked back, I saw a whole lot of soldiers approaching the cave. This was a close call. Mordecai and I ran across the desert plain doing our best to avoid any attention. We saw Talon circling over us and the cave. Hopefully, this would go well. When we had made it to the bandit camp, we encountered the next difficulty. The thing had a locked gate.
"Shit. Let me have a look at this, might be able to crack it." I said and looked at the little control panel next to it. I took off the casing and checked the wires. I was pretty sure, the blue one would do the trick...
I took the knife I had on my belt and quickly cut the wire. Mordecai was watching out that Hector's soldiers wouldn't get to us. They seemed to be busy inspecting our old lair, though. Shortly after I had cut the wire, I heard the gate rolling up. I stood back with a smile on my face.
"There we go. Got it open." I said, a little proud of myself. My smile faded when I saw what was behind the door. It was a wall of vine-freaks, just standing there, waiting to take us down.
"Oh no." I mumbled next. Mordecai gave me a horrified look. This was not what we had signed up for.
"Hold them off for a little bit, while I run and get to a vantage point!" Mordecai shouted and started running through the masses of plant monsters that now started slowly approaching me.
"Great, yeah, let's do just that." I mumbled as I started spraying them with bullets. I didn't even aim at this point, there were way too many of them. That's when I heard Talon shrieking loudly.
"That's Talon, Mordecai's new bird. I think he's trying to tell us something. What's that, Talon? Mordecai got attacked by vine-freaks?" I heard Lilith's voice over the ECHO. Oh thank God. That meant that the Vault Hunters had to be close. I could really do with a little help.
"Vault Hunters, follow Talon!" Lilith said, just as I ran out of bullets and had to reload. The wall in front of me had thinned, but I had taken a few hits and my shield was almost down. I took a deep breath and just pushed through them, running towards a building, while I was reloading.
"Still haven't heard from Mordecai. Keep following Talon. We've lost too much already. We can't lose Mordecai. He's the best scout in the Raiders. We've been fighting together since the beginning. Mordecai, Brick, Roland... we had each other's backs, we fought together. That's how we survived for so long. When Roland died, Mordecai got me through some dark times. Couldn't have taken down Jack without him. The Crimson Raiders wouldn't be the same without Mordecai."
Lilith's words were starting to fill me with panic. I was too busy to realize before, but with the overwhelming amount of vine-freaks coming at us, there was a good chance one of us or even both of us wouldn't make it.
I got out of my hiding place and continued shooting wildly at the vine-freaks again, when I heard the sound of the gate rolling up again. I really hoped that was the Vault Hunters and not reinforcements.
"Talon, to me!"I heard Mordecai shouting. Talon quickly sailed over my head to where Mordecai was. I looked back and saw everyone fighting through the vast amounts of vine-freaks. Maya, Zero, Gaige, Axton, Salvador and Krieg. And Anouk was with them, holding up pretty well.
"Over here, guys!" I shouted and waved at them, before emptying another magazine into the masses. It was insane how they were just everywhere. Behind every little corner, some sort of plant bandit was hiding. And I was almost out of bullets. This was my last magazine, after that it was point blank with a sniper rifle.
"You okay, Nova?" I heard Anouk's voice next to me. They had made it up to where I was and I was grateful, because I was barely holding up.
"Just about holding up. You alright? You seem to be doing well out there." I replied while smashing a psycho's head against a house wall. I was surprised that didn't bring the entire house down.
"Thanks. This isn't as hard as it looks. Or maybe it's just the adrenaline, who knows." Anouk answered. This was when I noticed I was out of SMG ammo.
"Can you cover me for a sec? I'm out of ammo." I shouted over the sound of bullets flying and people screaming.
"Sure thing!" Anouk replied, as I stowed away my SMG and got my sniper rifle ready. I would have digistructed my shotgun with the microchip in my leg, but there was no time for that now.
When I looked back up, I saw that the others had pushed on further already. Maybe I could get a chance to snipe from a safe distance. I nodded at Anouk and she went ahead towards the rest of the group, while I stayed a little behind. I couldn't really snipe from too far away, because the situation was incredibly messy and I didn't want to accidentally shoot one of the Vault Hunters.
That's when I saw Mordecai down in the middle of everything. What was he doing down there? He must have gotten ambushed at his vantage point. This was bad. There was an infected bruiser right behind him.
"Watch out, Mordecai!" I shouted, but it was too late. Mordecai turned around just in time to stumble backwards and not get hit right away. He kicked the bruiser back a little bit and loaded his rifle as the bruiser came running back at him. It killed the bruiser, but the recoil hit his ribs badly. They had healed up kind of alright during the last few weeks, but this was too much. He went down on his knees, unable to get up.
"Yo, Vault Hunter, hurry up! I'm pinned down! Need an assist!" he echoed, while he was on the ground coughing.
"Hang in there, Mordecai. The Vault Hunters are coming." Lilith replied quickly. I got up from my position and ran towards him. There weren't too many vine guys left at this point and I was worried sick about Mordecai.
"Vault Hunters, hell yeah! Let's show these salad soldiers what the Raiders can do!" he shouted while coughing and holding his ribs. He was trying to keep the remaining salad soldiers away from him, but that seemed to be all he could do at the moment. I did the best I could to keep them away from him while making my way towards Mordecai.
"Get him to his feet. I'm on my way." Lilith echoed us. I saw Krieg finishing off the last one while shouting about a meat bicycle.
"Mordecai! Shit, what were you thinking? Running ahead alone like that?" I asked while I got a health vial out of my belt pouch as quickly as my shaky hands allowed it. If I wasn't in such a panicked state, I probably would have bawled my eyes out.
"I'm sorry, querida. Thought I could do it." he replied and coughed, as I jammed the health vial into his veins. I saw a purple flash out of the corner of my eye. That had to be Lilith. I helped Mordecai back up on his feet after I had finished with the healing hypo.
"Oh, man..." he mumbled and coughed again. What was up with all that coughing? He didn't do that a minute ago.
"You alright?" Lilith asked.
"Lilith... those pendejos...crop-dusted me." Mordecai answered. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Here I was, thinking we had just about made it.
"Damn it! Mordecai's infected... this is my fault. We need that antidote. Now. I'll take him back to camp. Get through that mine and find the scientist." Lilith told the others. I was still holding onto Mordecai, too much in shock to let go of him yet.
"Excellent! I eagerly await your arrival!" Cassius echoed back.
"Good luck at that Old Dahl mine. I heard that place was haunted. Cursed haunted!" Vaughn chimed in.
"Come on. Let's get the two of you home." Lilith said to me and Mordecai. I just nodded, as we disappeared in a purple flash.