As they drove through the tunnel to the Rust Commons, Mordecai examined the revolver Erin had gotten to replace the one she broke. It was actually better than the one he had before, all the way around. He also found that the extra inventory space was useful as well. He didn't realize his inventory was full until she had fixed his echo. Erin certainly didn't waste any time trying to prove herself as useful.
What he found interesting was that she also equipped a revolver herself, a rather nice incendiary Tidiore razor. Light weight, easy to use, reloads fast, slits throats, and sets shit on fire. He didn't typically care for the brand since the gun's weren't powerful or accurate, but it was good for when you needed to move quickly.
He did wonder why she had bothered to have one on her person now, since she didn't have one even before
"Need something, niña?"
Erin's eyebrows slammed together, and she flipped him off before pressing her foot down on the gas pedal to get further away. He chuckled.
"Mordecai, you picking a fight with her again?" Brick asked from the driver's seat.
The hunter leaned back in the gunner seat, resting his foot against the bar, "It was an honest question. She was staring at me like she wanted to say something."
"Well you did shoot at her before we left."
Mordecai remembered how pissed off she looked and snickered, "she was moving too slow."
"Man, she was saying good-bye to her skag. You gotta respect that shit. And you freaked out Luka too."
The hunter sighed, "I don't get what's so good about that skag."
"Luka is the best damn skag I've ever met. When I took him for a walk, he killed seven bandits after smashing their guns into pieces. He even stepped in front of gunfire for me." Brick argued.
'Pet like owner,' Mordecai thought, "Wait, he tried to block the bullets from hitting you?"
"Yeah, even though I had a full shield, he tried to protect me. Me! I only knew him for one day!"
He wondered if she trained the skag to protect against bullets. From how she acted when she was with the beast he doubted it. When they left New Haven, he saw how she when it went to sit in the shade she got off of her bike to hug it. The sight was so sweet it almost made him sick.
Mordecai took his foot from the bar and leaned forward, "Hey Brick, if she cares so much about that thing, why doesn't she take him with her? Something wrong with him?"
"Luka might attack us too. When I met with Roland and Lilith he almost mistook them for bandits."
"What stopped him from attacking them?"
"Erin gave me extra treats for them to give Luka. She was serious about not using guns around him. He just goes berserk and attacks anyone that packs heat and uses it."
Mordecai had a hard time wrapping his head around it, but it could explain why Erin didn't use a gun herself. In order to keep him from attacking her, she didn't use a gun around him. It made sense, but she seemed to have exceptionally good control over the Skag, considering how obedient he was for an animal still in adolescence.
She really didn't deserve that Skag.
"There's another reason too, but…"
He was interrupted when Erin drove back around and called out to them.
"Roland just reminded me that you guys haven't come across a spiderant before!" She said. Mordecai groaned. He didn't need some guide to help him kill shit.
"What's a spiderant?" Brick asked.
Erin pointed forward, a smile forming on her lips. "One of those!"
Brick and Mordecai looked to where she pointed and saw a large group of insect-like creatures with four legs and elongated heads crawling along the walls of the tunnel. Erin reared her bike back when one fell, and flipped a switch causing blades to jut out of her bike's front wheel, then brought it down on it, both slicing and smashing it as she continued to drive. She backed up to be even with Brick.
"They're pretty easy to just run over, but I'd be careful of them dropping on your vehicle because they'll cause problems!"
Mordecai shot in the head when it landed next to him, but it didn't do much, just knocked it away. Erin stabbed it in the abdomen when it fell towards her. She flung the dead body behind her.
"Aim for its abdomen!" Erin called, "their heads are covered in a thick carapace and they're naturally resistant to- "
Mordecai growled and shot at her bike, "get lost! You're being a distraction and I don't need your help!"
Erin swerved out of the wat and glared at him then shrugged, "if you say so Dreads! Just don't get left too far behind!" She sped forward, leaving them alone.
"Oh, hell man, why'd you have to scare her off?"
"She causes too many problems."
Mordecai looked up when one dropped down onto his lap. It was small, but its legs were sharp, and it stabbed him in the thigh. He cursed, grabbed it, and threw it off the vehicle. Two more fell on the vehicle, bigger this time and he knocked them off with the mounted gun. Mordecai gripped the bar when the vehicle began to swerve.
"You doing ok?" Mordecai called.
Brick threw a spiderant up and the hunter pulled out his pistol and shot it. It's insides splattering on his face.
"Oh shit, I think some of that got in my mouth!"
"Sorry!"
Six of them dropped down on the vehicle, a large one landed on the engine and it brought it's leg down on it, puncturing something.
Shit. He shot it in the head, but it only made it dazed enough to fall off the runner. He whistled for Bloodwing.
"Come 'ere boy!"
His bird landed on his arm and the hunter held him close to his chest as he turned to Brick.
"Brick! Hit the boost!"
"There's a turn coming! We'll hit the wall!"
"No we won't! Do it!"
"Hold on to something!"
Mordecai shot another spiderant that dropped and sank his body into the gunner seat, gripping onto the bar bracing himself for impact when Brick hit the boost.
The Vehicle skid as they hit the turn, and almost flipped over as Brick wrestled the wheel. Mordecai felt his body lift as it was launched into the air. Wind filled his ears, drowning out the sound of his own scream and he was almost blinded by a bright light that began to fill his vision.
They practically flew out of the tunnel, their vehicle coming at a screeching stop as Brick applied the brakes.
"Get out now!" Mordecai heard someone yell, "Your engine is burning!"
He looked back and became aware of the raising flames and jumped out as soon as he could, sprinting to the other runner hoping the driver was on his heels. He was scooped up by Brick, and they got to the rest of the group and turned just in time to see the runner explode.
Brick put Mordecai down and he checked Bloodwing.
"You alright boy?" The bird had puffed up his feathers and shook them out when the hunter allowed him to hop to his shoulder. He let out a screech, spreading out his wings and began combing out his feathers.
"You're alight. Good." He scratched under Bloodwings' chin where it let out an appreciative chirp. "Good boy."
"Well that happened." Erin said.
Mordecai felt his eye twitch and he went up to her. She was getting off of her bike, snickering.
"You knew that was going to happen."
She straightened and rose an eyebrow, "I knew what was going to happen?"
"It punctured a part of the engine. That's what caused the fire."
"One of the spiderants punctured a part of the engine? Well I guess it's not unexpected, Sis keeps telling Scooter to put something over the engine to protect it, but he never listens."
He took out his gun and pointed it at her head, and her eyes narrowed at him. Erin raised her hands.
"Cool it Dreads, you're really going to point that thing at my head again?" She asked, tilting her head to look at him. The passive and uninterested expression in her dark eyes annoyed him.
"Every problem I've had so far has been because of you."
Erin leaned back on her heel and shoved her hands into her pockets as she began to assess him.
"Why are you so eager to push all your mistakes on me? Is it your inability to accept responsibility for your own actions? I guess you're not only incompetent, you're a complete child as well. I gave you fair warning and tried to help but you told me to get lost, so I did."
Mordecai was about to pull the trigger but stiffened when Roland put a hand on his arm.
"We don't have time for this right now. Save your bullets for bigger prey."
The hunter growled at the soldier and shoved his gun back into his holster.
"I'm not leaving her be because you told me. I'm leaving her be because she might know where the vault is."
"Noted."
[E]
Erin watched as Dreads stalked away. It was clear that this feud between the two of them wasn't going to end any time soon. She crouched down, pressing her heels to the ground as much as she could and leaned her body forward, extending both her arms forward in order to stretch her back and calves. The drive through the tunnel took more time than the last time she had driven to Rust Commons West, but then again she was traveling with slower vehicles this time.
She stood when her Echo went off, and she picked it up, expecting to hear from either Scooter or Pierce.
"Hello Erin! I have an amazing opportunity for you!" She frowned. Marcus.
"No."
"I thought I taught you about the importance of listening to people when they want to offer you a job."
"I already know what you're going to ask me, and the answer is no." She hung up.
"Who was that?"
Erin looked at Roland, "Marcus. Bugging me about a job he's been trying to shove on me for that past few weeks. I keep telling him I'm not going to do it, regardless of how much he bumps up the pay."
"What's the job?" asked Lilith, interested, "I mean if he's willing to keep bumping up the pay it might be worthwhile."
Erin shook her head, "No, it's not. Trust me. It'll only cause problems and waste time."
"I don't know, money is always good."
She sighed and remembered who these people were. Vault hunters, enslaved to their desires as any demon, just as she was. For them, their desire was money. For her, knowledge.
Mordecai stalked over to the catch-a-ride system where Brick was looking for a replacement runner.
"When are you going to stop picking a fight with her? She fixed your echo, replaced your gun, and you keep shooting at her." He sounded uncharacteristically annoyed.
"Do you actually like her? She almost killed us when we first met."
The berserker shrugged, "she's alright, cute too."
Mordecai was disgusted, "she's cute? She's a kid."
"Not what I meant. She reminds me of my kid sister."
"Great, she's like family." The smaller man groaned.
Brick narrowed his eyes at the hunter, and he winced.
Mordecai knew family was a sensitive subject for the berserker, and he felt like an ass for saying it.
"I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry man."
"I appreciate it."
"We cool?"
"We're cool."
Brick turned back to the catch-a-ride system, "what does Roland say about how we're going to pick up the journals?"
Mordecai glanced over to where Erin was talking with Lilith and Roland. The girl was shaking her head as she folded her arms.
"He keeps bumping up the pay? How much is Marcus offering now?"
Erin looked away from Lilith, "It doesn't matter how much he's offering. I'm not doing it."
"Oh, come on. I gotta know how much that cheapskate is offering."
She sighed, "somewhere around 28,000 dollars."
28,000 dollars? Shit. Sounded like Marcus was desperate "and you're not taking it?" Mordecai asked.
Erin looked at him, a deadpan expression, "no."
"Why the hell not? You need the money right?"
She groaned, and pinched the bridge of her nose "look, I used to work for him when I was younger. I was the one managing the old store in Fyrestone until about six years ago. I was given every job under the sun whenever he needed someone or something killed, beat up, robbed, or blown up." She put her hands on her hips and gave the tunnel a look of spite, "unfortunately, those jobs caused more problems for me and the town, so I quit. Best decision of my life. Might have even prolonged it. I don't care about how much money he's willing to pay. I'm not doing it."
Erin seemed pretty damn adamant about it. It felt more like she was missing out on a decent amount of pay though.
She shook her head, "It doesn't matter. We need to find those journal entries," she looked at Roland, "how do you suppose we should go about it? There's a lot of ground to cover."
Mordecai had an idea, "We could split up into teams, pick up the journals separately so it'll go faster."
The girl looked at him, and he expected her to say 'I wasn't asking you' but instead cocked her head and remained silent.
Roland nodded, "I don't like the idea of splitting up with a new teammate," he looked at Erin, "especially since I haven't really seen you in action yet."
Her dark eyes flicked from Roland to Mordecai, and he could see that she actually preferred the hunter's idea.
"Actually, as much as it hurts to say, I think Dreads is right in this case. We'll be able to cover more ground in less time. Which is something we have a limited amount of."
The soldier raised an eyebrow, "are you just trying to get away from him?"
Erin didn't miss a beat, "as far and for as long as fucking possible."
Finally, Roland went along with it. The soldier kept Erin with him, along with Lilith because neither one of them had really seen her fight. As usual Mordecai was with Brick, which suited the hunter just fine. As long as that little rat wasn't around him.
He watched as their group took the road on the right, opting to go on foot because the runners wouldn't fit through the iron gate. Erin made a point about setting something on her bike before she left it behind next to the catch-a-ride system.
He didn't dwell on thinking about her for very long and picked up his Echo. He turned to the large body builder and grinned.
"Hey Brick, how do you feel about making twenty-eight thousand bucks?"
[L]
Lilith watched Erin as she rested her hands on her knees panting. She had to admit she really was tough for a kid, except there was a problem that became blaringly evident when they watched her fight. Erin didn't seem to either want to or know how to use a firearm. They hadn't noticed it at first, Lilith and Roland were more focused on the hundreds of Spiderants and bandits that attacked them.
When they fought the bandits at the building complex on the river Erin had shown an outstanding, near acrobatic, athletic ability that could rival that of even the most highly trained athlete. Not a single bullet was able to hit her.
Even more impressive was how clever she was. Before they approached the bandit encampment with one of the lost Echo recordings, Erin had stuck an empty hypo into some kind of sunflower looking plant and drew the fluid from it. They didn't know the purpose of the action, but she had said, 'you'll see if I decide to use it'. Erin had used it on a badass bruiser, stabbed him in the neck and injected the fluid into his body. The bruiser grabbed and threw her down a flight of stairs.
"Erin! You alright?" Roland called after shooting down the last of the lesser bandits, leaving the Bruiser as the last one to kill.
She got up, "I'm fine! It's been awhile since I fought a bruiser on foot, so I'm a little out of practice! Sorry!"
She leaped out of the way of a spray of bullets and gestured for them to take cover, which they did, expecting some kind of explosion. Ten seconds later, the badass bruiser fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing. He grasped at his throat, tore off his mask, revealing a swollen, scarred face and began scratching his face. Erin left her cover and stabbed him in the head, killing him.
"Helianthus Pandora, grow anywhere where there's water. They're a deadly allergen to human beings, often causing an anaphylactic reaction like this one should someone come in contact with them. In addition to that, the pollen acts as a hallucinogenic if it gets in your mouth, nose, or eyes. It's pretty fun for about twelve seconds until you're having an allergic reaction on top of a seizure."
She clearly had no problem with ending a life, then why didn't she shoot?
They had finally brought down the Rakkinishu, a flying enemy which was clearly Erin's weakness since she never shot a gun. It wasn't as though she ran away to hide from the fight, no, she just did the dumbest thing Lilith had ever seen. Erin grabbed onto the wing of the giant rakk when it swooped down and stabbed it, causing it to crash. It took both the siren and soldier to realize that what she had done worked. It was immobilized and made into an easy kill.
"You're insane," was what Roland said when he picked up the third part of the journal they needed.
"What's sanity?" Erin asked, straightening.
"You have a gun, why don't you use it?" he asked, getting to the point.
She shrugged, "I don't really like using guns, and mostly I'm a lousy shot. People are safer if I don't use one."
"How lousy are we talking?"
Erin tipped her head to the side and looked away. She shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
"I…" her eyes darted to the side and she rubbed the side of her neck, making an embarrassed laugh "well… can't even shoot the side a tree."
The girl was terrible liar, but the siren doubted Roland caught it. Still, she played along.
Lilith cringed, "That's… pretty bad, how are you still even alive?"
Erin kicked at the dust, folding her arms over her chest, "I get along alright without shooting, I'm fast enough on my feet to avoid most bullets fired at me and know how to handle the wildlife well enough that I haven't had too much problem with them either. It's just rakk and wings I have issues with."
"Ever think of learning?" Roland asked.
Erin gave a noncommittal grunt and shrugged. Lilith wondered if this was going to become a problem in the future.
Roland shook his head sighing, seeming to choose not to push it, "well, anyway we have three journal entries now, all we need to do now is check on Brick and Mordecai."
He picked up his Echo and contacted them.
Mordecai's voice came up on the other line, "Erin drop dead yet?"
"Mordecai, please." Roland groaned.
"It's so sweet for you to think of me, sorry to disappoint you, but I'm alive and well." Erin interjected.
The hunter made a disgusted groan.
"Anyway," Roland began, "where are you with the mission?"
"Just got the last recording. We gotta kill a few bandits before we can meet up."
"Perfect. We'll meet back in New Haven so we can upload them to the job board."
"Sounds good."
They hung up.
As the group made their way back to the runner Erin's echo went off.
She looked at it, made a face, and answered it. Pierce's outraged voice could be heard coming loudly from the device.
"ERIN WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO? GET BACK TO NEW HAVEN RIGHT NOW!"
The yell made Erin jump almost throw her echo. She fumbled with it and almost dropped it. She pressed a button on it, putting it to her ear and walked a short distance away.
"What's wrong?" Her voice was panicked.
"Ah… Wait. No!"
Erin paused while she listened for a while and nodded. "y-yes ma'am. I… Yes."
The girl turned around after the echo hung up, her face pale.
"did… something happen?"
Erin looked up at Lilith, "someone did something stupid and I'm going to kill him."
Oh boy.
When they got back to new haven Erin was practically dragged into Pierce's office. Whatever happened, it didn't seem to bode well.
Roland and Lilith waited a few moments before they saw the other pair ride up in the runner. A grin was plastered all over the hunter's face. Brick looked strangely worried.
Mordecai hopped out of the runner and handed the two recordings over to Roland.
"You seem to be in a good mood."
"He should be, since he just got paid twenty-eight hundred dollars." Erin growled, after she'd stalked out of Pierce's office.
Roland turned to Mordecai, "You took the job Marcus was offering?"
The hunter opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Erin
"And he used my name when he took it, making Pierce think it was me who did it," she turned on Mordecai, "do you have any idea what you've just done?"
Mordecai rocked back on his heels and shrugged, "what? it wasn't that difficult of a job. Marcus just wanted to protect his business, nothing wrong with that right? Besides, it was just a way to kill time on the way back here."
Lilith already saw the storm behind the woman's eyes and couldn't stop the girl from launching forward and punching the man in the face. The impact sent him to the ground.
Roland stepped forward and grabbed Erin before she could punch Mordecai again.
"A way to kill time? Are you fucking kidding me? You destroyed bandit property, and now everyone in New Haven is in danger thanks to you."
Erin jerked her arm out of Roland's hand as Mordecai got up, a trickle of blood running down his nose. He licked it and snarled. He began to move to attack her but froze when she pulled out her gun and pointed it at him.
Everyone grew tense as Erin's whole body began to shake, violently.
"Is this a game to you? A fucking joke? Well let me tell you something, it isn't. Not to me. You just pissed off a bandit leader named One-Eyed Jack and now he's planning on attacking New Haven to retaliate for the destruction of his ammo dumps."
"No big deal, we'll just kill the bastard. No more threat."
Erin pressed the gun against his neck, the blade puncturing his skin enough to make it bleed. Mordecai took a step back.
"The big deal is that you used my name when you accepted the job from Marcus to avoid trouble, and now Pierce thinks it's my fault and she's forbidden me from leaving New Haven, even to fight someone in order to defend my home. And why? Because some butt-hurt piece of shit."
"So, you're going to kill me?"
Erin grit her teeth, and shoved the gun back into her holster, "you know what, I'm not going to waste a bullet on trash like you. Go get killed on your own."
Mordecai licked the trickle of blood from his upper lip as Erin stormed off. Her rage really was something, and he was surprised he wasn't shot.
He looked at the others, saw them relax.
"Why, didn't you do anything when she pulled a gun on me?"
He had directed the question to Roland, who was watching her leave. The soldier looked at him, an annoyed expression on his face.
"I understand why you did it. So, I'm not going to lecture you. But you fucked up."
Claptrap's voice suddenly came up on the Echo
"Helena Pierce has a new Job for you!"
Mordecai looked at the Echo. Already guessing what Pierce wanted.
"Fix it. Mordecai." Roland hissed.
The hunter glared at him, "I don't take orders from you."
"Point is, this is your mess. You take care of it."
Mordecai held the glare from the soldier for a moment before looking away. It was another fight of dominance, one of many, and he lost. He stalked into Helena Pierce's office.