As Erin walked down the alleyway, she felt her rage settle. She grew aware of the weight on her hip where her holster was fastened to her body, holding the gun she didn't- couldn't use. She had the gun against his throat, no one was going to stop her, and she was still too much of a coward to pull the trigger. The humiliation burned against her hip, along with the reminder of how pathetic she felt. She suddenly realized she had forgotten when she last slept. She was certain she had spent the last two cycles awake, and she began to feel her body ache from when she was thrown down the stairs and when she crashed the giant rakk into the ground. It was starting to surface, and she felt exhausted. She made her way back to the clinic.
As usual the claptrap that was there ran away the moment she arrived.
"Aww, don't run away. I fixed you up after all," she called after it.
"Maybe if you didn't chase it down to take it apart in the first place, it wouldn't be so afraid of you."
Erin turned to look at Dr. Zed who folded his arms and shook his head.
"You look terrible."
"Mind if I nap here for a few?"
He looked at her and jerked his head to the gurney in the corner of the room, her usual sleeping spot.
"You know, I don't want to say it but, maybe- "
She put her hands over her ears, "no. I'm not having this conversation with you. Not right now."
"Erin- "
"No."
He huffed a sigh as Erin wandered over to the gurney next to his desk. She paused, then pulled the repeater pistol out of her holster and the static revolver from her storage deck.
"Is that a gun?" the doctor sounded taken aback.
Erin opened the drawer in Dr. Zed's desk, "yep."
Zed folded his arms and shifted his weight, "well shit, kid, I haven't seen you use one of those in years. Is your aim as good as it used to be?"
She tossed them inside and slapped the drawer closed, "don't know. I haven't tried it out yet."
"You still can't pull the trigger?"
Not even if she really wanted to. And she really wanted to a few minutes ago. Erin folded her arms and looked away from the desk. Away from Zed. She screwed her eyes shut for a second, so she could look away from everything. Just for a second. At least for a second.
When she didn't say anything, Zed shifted his weight again and placed his hands on his hips, "Eri- "
She put up her hands and waved them, "I don't want to talk about it. I'm tired and I can't remember the last time I slept. I'm only here to take a nap."
Zed stood still for a moment, saying nothing, then sighed.
"Go to sleep, kid."
She went to the gurney and locked the wheels in place, "thank you."
Erin got on top of the gurney and lied down. She was about to pull the bloodied sheet on top of her when he began speaking again.
"I'll wake you in about an hour or two. I've got to go back up to Fyrestone to pick up a few things and check on T.K."
"You need me to watch the place? I thought you had a little claptrap to watch things for you."
"You think it can run things smoothly here?"
"No, not really."
"Alright then."
Erin pulled the sheet over her head and shut her eyes again. Shut her eyes tight. Hoping for this shitty feeling in her chest to go away. A moment passed and she heard him shuffling around the clinic. Silencing a few whirring machines by tuning them off, and the soft woosh of a privacy curtain being closed. The humming light over her head was turned off and she waited for the tell-tale screech of metal against concrete signaling her that he was sitting at his desk. Instead, she felt Dr. Zed pat her on the shoulder.
"Sleep well, kid."
Erin waited a moment longer, waited for her muscles to relax. This small partition was her safe place. With the person she trusted most on all of Pandora sitting nearby, she could, at least for a short time, relax.
Mordecai looked at the map on his Echo as he trudged up the hill to the bandit camp where he would find One-eye Jack. None of the others came with him for this one, but it suited him just fine. He preferred to just work with Bloodwing. It made things easier.
Though he wondered why he was even bothering with the job. Wondered why he bothered with traveling with three other vault hunters in the first place. No, he knew why. It was safer to travel with them versus being alone and having them as potential enemies.
When he reached the camp, he didn't enter, just shouldered his rifle, and looked through his scope. He counted the number of bandits he saw and began to climb the pile of debris that shadowed the camp. Again, he looked through his scope and re-counted.
Ten bandit thugs, seven psychos, five bandit killers, three bruisers, and one badass psycho. No one-eyed Jack as far as he could see. He aimed at the badass' head and pulled the trigger. Critical hit, but not dead. Shit. How thick could his skull be? He climbed higher, placing himself behind a piece of scrap metal and looked though his scope again.
The bandits were in a frenzy, and the attack made more come out of their homes and began shooting blindly into the hill of junk. While the psychos, now numbered at eleven, began clambering up the hill. Mordecai aimed at the badass again and shot him again, this time killing him.
"I don't think he liked me," he chuckled.
He picked off the bandits, one by one, first commanding Bloodwing to take out half on the ones that came close then he took care of the rest. Almost 30 dead bodies later a unique looking psycho came out of hiding, he was toting an explosive revolver. He pointed it in Mordecai's direction and began shooting, the bullets path taking an odd helix pattern. Mordecai jumped out from cover when a bullet hit behind him, causing an explosion that drained his shield in one shot He quickly took aim while the bandit reloaded and pulled the trigger. At the very last moment his target jumped to the left, dodging the bullet. One-eyed Jack shot back, and Mordecai moved to get out of the bullet's path, but he was too slow.
His shoulder was hit, and he cursed as he started running. He pressed a hand to his shoulder as he began stumbling down the hill of scrap metal and other junk. He whistled for Bloodwing as he dove behind cover and reloaded his rifle. His bird dive bombed his target, causing only enough damage to daze him. Bandit leaders were sturdy bastards. Mordecai had to wonder again, why he was doing this. Why he was on Pandora in the first place.
When he was 17 he was banned from every interplanetary shooting contest thanks to the fact he was accused by the runner up, an asshole named Erickson, for cheating. The bastard had no proof, but he apparently had some dirt on one of the judges which lead to the decision. Angry, and perhaps a little too drunk, Mordecai responded to the accusation in a violent manner.
He was arrested for what he'd done, he didn't kill anyone (unfortunately), but the damages were expensive and placed a debt on him and his family. While he was serving his time, he'd received letters from his family. There were a couple from his mother, telling him that she sold a few of dad's old trophies, to help pay the debt, and that she'd taken on extra work. He heard more and more about things getting sold, taking on more work, until the letters stopped one day. The day he went home he discovered why. He hadn't set foot in his family home ever since
It was difficult to live on Artemis without any money or a home to live in. He'd started out ok, but somewhere along the line he'd incurred another debt and wound up on the street.
Then one day some company man approached him on the street and offered him a job as a mercenary. He didn't know the name of the company, nor did he care. They were offering better life than what was on the street, so he took it. For the first time in four years, he felt a sense stability again, but at a cost. Constantly he was at the beck and call of someone else, being told when and how to do his job, like he was someone's dog. Needless to say, he left. He might have had almost nothing, but he wasn't about to give up his sense of pride. He got the hell off that planet and began traveling from place to place.
Mordecai lost next to everything in that short time. The universe owed him for that, and he was going to find it.
He was a child when he first heard about the Legend of the Vault on Pandora, somehow those stories even reached his home planet of Artemis. Then, as he got older, he forgot about them until he met Bloodwing (it's part of a very long and convoluted story that he'd keep to himself) and decided it was just appetizing enough to go after it. Untold riches said to be held inside, and he imagined himself with so much money he never had to worry about becoming someone else's puppet ever again. He could literally fill a pool full of more tequila than he could drink. It was a fucking dream. So, he booked himself a shuttle flight to Pandora.
His first few days on the planet were… shit, for lack of a better word. The second he placed his feet on the ground he was mugged. Someone had hit him on the back of the head, knocking him out. When he came to, he was watching Bloodwing peck at the corpse of his attacker. The incident let him know he needed someone to watch his back.
He met the other three on that bus, all of which had their own reasons for being on Pandora, which they shared slowly over the course of the month they spent in the Arid Badlands. Brick was looking for his sister, Roland was stationed on Pandora by Atlas, and Lilith was trying to learn about Sirens and by extension herself.
Mordecai took aim at One-Eyed Jack and pulled the trigger. The bandit leader fell with a thud, and the hunter knew he was dead. He ambled over to the corpse and cut out the other eye.
When he got back to New Haven, his thoughts wandered to Erin, the girl who was born on this hellish planet. From how she spoke it sounded like finding the Vault was important to her. She claimed that she had been searching for it her whole life and knew its location. He wondered what she wanted from the Vault and wondered why she didn't just run off on her own. It was likely the same reason that he joined the others in the search for the Vault. He knew that if he had been alone in the Badlands, he'd be dead. Erin saw her chance and grabbed ahold of it as hard as she could. And he ripped it from her hands.
Mordecai reasoned that what he did was necessary. The girl was a threat, a danger, she could have killed him. Except she didn't. On top of fixing what she broke, she upgraded his inventory space and got him a gun that was better than the one she broke, and even apologized. It was more than she needed to do, and in return he framed her for something she didn't do. Dammit, he felt like an ass.
He handed the eye to Helena Pierce, who scrutinized it and smashed it in her robot hand.
"That's his eye alright. I'm sorry you had to clean up another one of Ryder's messes. Well, here's your pay."
Mordecai hesitated before taking the money. She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.
"What's wrong?"
He couldn't believe he was going to say this.
"It was my mess to begin with. Erin was called by Marcus and said no to taking the job he was offering. I overheard her conversation and called Marcus myself claiming that she changed her mind about the job. She had nothing to do with it."
Pierce's eyes narrowed at him as she shoved the bills back into her pocket, "I see. I appreciate you telling me this. I'll make sure to apologize to her later." She eyed the bleeding wound on his shoulder.
He hadn't been able to find a med Kit or health hypo before he came back to New Haven.
"In the meantime, go to Zed's clinic. If you leave your arm like that it'll get infected."
He simply nodded his head at the woman and stalked out of her office.
Mordecai made his way to the clinic where he saw Erin fiddling with a pen, a clipboard in her arm as she lectured a middle-aged heavy-set man.
"Look, how many times do I have to tell you this? Do not stick your fingers in the rakk ale bottles. I'm sick of cutting them off reattaching them."
She looked very different than the punk kid he'd met only the previous cycle. Instead of the oversized jacket, she wore a lab coat, bloodied in some parts, but it actually fit her body instead of swallowing her, and her hair was held back in a ponytail. Erin actually looked somewhat like a professional.
"I almost forgot you actually worked here."
Erin looked up sharply as he walked inside the clinic, and she shooed the man before turning to him.
She held the board tightly against her chest, eyeing both him and Bloodwing with suspicion, "what do you want? Dr. Zed is out."
Mordecai looked around, "know when he'll be back?"
"No." She looked at his shoulder and she cocked her head. "What happened to you?"
"One-eyed Jack has a crazy gun," was his answer.
Her dark eyes narrowed, "I've heard. How much did you get paid?"
"Nothing. I told her it was my fault to begin with."
She blinked and stared at him "What?"
He continued, "I don't know if you'll be able to leave New Haven now, but she said she'll apologize to you in a while."
Erin's mouth opened, as if to speak, but closed again as her eyes broke away from him and began searching the floor at their feet. Her lips pressed together in what looked like a struggle not to smile.
She shook her head, shoving the bubble of happiness away, looked at his shoulder, then her watch.
"Your wound needs to be treated and you shouldn't wait for too long. I'll do it"
He must have made a face because she smirked and added, "relax, clinics are meant to heal people, not kill them." A pause, "well, mostly anyway."
Bloodwing flew over to one of the IV poles as Erin walked to a sink.
She gestured to the recently vacated gurney, "go sit down and remove your shirt."
Mordecai felt himself shift uncomfortably, "can't you just give me a health hypo?"
"I could, but since you're still walking and talking you don't really need one."
He watched her as she washed her hands. She was scrubbing up to the middle of her forearm and being careful to clean under her fingernails.
"I don't need one?" What the hell was she talking about?
She shut off the sink, "Health hypos are only meant to be used in emergency situations, not as a little pick-me-up or for a little patch job."
He could still feel the burning pain in his shoulder, and he glanced at his hap-hazard patch job. Back when he killed the bandit leader he'd managed to patch himself up a little by wrapping bandages and packing gauze on the wound. It wasn't perfect, since he'd started bleeding though the gauze, again, and the pain killers he took were already wearing off.
"This doesn't exactly feel like a little patch job."
Erin looked at him as she picked up (what he hoped) a clean towel and dried her hands. She did a sharp whistle then in moments a slightly panicked claptrap rolled in, followed by a skag that was trying to bite at it.
"Well, no, I don't imagine that it does. But using a health hypo too often can cause more problems in the long run." She dropped the towel on top of the claptrap, who groaned and tossed it in what looked like a waste basket for laundry. The skag abandoned the claptrap and was quickly hopping over to Erin, standing on its hind legs to get her attention.
Mordecai folded and unfolded his arms as he looked from the skag to her, "Problems? Like what?"
Erin snapped her fingers and pointed at the floor, which was a cue for the Skag to sit. She looked back up at him, "well first off, they lose effectiveness over time, especially if you've been using them frequently."
He folded his arms again, not wanting to admit that he'd started increasing the dosage on the hypos since he'd gotten on Pandora but nodded his head as a sign that he'd noticed.
"Alright… I guess so, but I've just been using more and that seems to work out just fine."
Erin shook her head, and he got the old frustrated, uncomfortable feeling he had when he was a kid in the doctor's office.
"Oh, what? I'm not supposed to do that when I'm almost bleeding to death?"
She sighed, "well, no. Use it in an emergency, but you need to be careful in upping your dosage." Erin brought her hand up as though to scratch her head, but made a visible, conscious effort to stop herself by grabbing her hand and pressing them together. She began to pace on the floor. Mordecai glanced at the bandage on her ear, still there from when he'd managed to hit her. He guessed she didn't use them for injuries like that either.
"let's see… how do I explain this…" she clasped and unclasped her hands as she walked in a small circle, then stopped when her back was to him, "right."
Erin turned on the balls of her feet and faced him, "so, you know how Anshin developed the health hypos right?"
Oh no, it's finally happened. Mordecai's middle school history teacher was now haunting him for the time he released the science teachers pet in the middle of class. He struggled to remember. Dammit. Classes were a blur to him, and he hadn't realized until just now how long it'd been since he'd last even been in school.
"Hell, I don't know. I don't even know if the schools on my planet even teach that stuff."
"It's related to the war from 100 years ago, and part of the reason why they don't make weapons. I'm certain that the central planets cover this."
"I'm not from one of the central planets, I'm from Artemis, it's near the asteroid belt."
She blinked, "Oh, I see. Then…" she touched her fingers to her thumb for a few seconds then clasped them together again, "basically what the hypo does is cause the cells in your body to rapidly copy themselves, similar to how- "
Mordecai grew re-aware of his wound as the last of the pain meds wore off and he groaned, "Hey, look, I can get that you like talking about this sort of stuff, but can you please do something about my shoulder?"
Erin blinked, almost confused for a second then she bit into her bottom lip.
"Oh, right." She gestured to the gurney, "sit down and I'll treat your wound."
He glanced over at the gurney, then at the still sitting Skag. The small beast was staring at him intently, occasionally shaking its head to let out a growling snort. Then it looked over to the Iv pole where Bloodwing was perched and began to eye them both with suspicion while it laid down on the floor. Resting, but still diligent. It was clear that the beast did not like either the bird or its owner. Mordecai looked over to Erin, and he felt a little unnerved by how easily she'd gotten sidetracked.
"You sure you know what you're doing?"
"I was practically raised by two doctors. I know what I'm doing."
He still felt unconvinced but felt like his shoulder didn't want to wait anymore.
Mordecai began to remove his top, "Treat me, but I'm calling Roland first."