Chapter 17

Pandora

The 'priest's' head exploded, spraying the feet of the Twin Gods with blood and brains. The entire procession froze, staring in shock as the body slumped over. Gaige, who had been backing up, was the first to turn and spot the person standing on the second floor, her foot against the rail and her smoking sniper rifle in hand.

"Artemis" she whispered, but as she did so she noticed something glinting as it fell into the crowd, as if it had been tossed just before she had shot. Gaige's mind pondered what it could be, and just as she realized what it was and the crowd itself spotted Artemis, the grenade detonated. The initial explosion tossed something into the air while unleashing a nova of fire, lighting many unfortunate nearby bandits immediately, and then the rain of fire started, as the part that was tossed up split into three and started firing burning fireballs into the crowd.

Artemis leaped into the ensuing chaos, driving her blade into the head of a burning badass and using his body to cushion her fall before rolling to her feet and sprinting up the center aisle as fire rained down, creating a dramatic backdrop. She dodged past the bandits and psychos stumbling around her and leaped over the last row of chairs, as Gaige popped the lock on the chain around her neck, which had been part of her bad idea all along. Artemis shot one of the groomsmen that had the sense to try and attack her, and scooped his gun up and tossed it to Gaige.

"Where's our friend?' she yelled only to be met with a "Urara" from off to the side as he smashed two of the bridesmaids heads together.

"You came for me." Gaige called out, realizing how cliched that was, but smiled anyway.

"We gotta get out of here." Artemis cut her off.

"Not so fast" came a roar from the side. It seemed that Castor had got his wits about him rather quickly, he wasn't the warchief for nothing, and held out a control "Say goodbye to your robot." he snarled while he pressed the button, sending enough volts from the collar around Deathtraps' neck to fry a small ship.

Deathtrap cocked his head and casually reached up and snapped the collar, tossing it at the stunned Castors feet.

"How?" Was all he could get out as he stared in horror between the collar and Deathtrap. Deathtrap shrugged and fired a beam of electricity back at him, and would have hit, if the bride hadn't tackled her husband out of the way.

With them at least temporarily out of the way, the three interlopers made a break for the hidden door, as the clans started roaring for blood and just as she was crossing out of the temple, Artemis turned and pitched another grenade at the chasing crowd, causing them to dive for cover even as the fire spread amongst them.

They ran down the passage with no idea where it would lead them, just knowing that it was away from the bloodthirsty crowd. They turned this way and that when they came to intersections, figuring that one way was as good as any other when you didn't know anything about them.

It wasn't long before they cleared the temple building and emerged into the sun, Artemis did a quick glance at it to orientate herself and started leading them around, when the bandits started to catch up. The first ones raised shouts of alarm and soon the area was swarming with them.

Artemis spun and snapped off a shot, taking the lead one's head off before spinning back to follow Gaige, who had snapped off a few shots of her own taking out two psychos that had emerged in their path.

Dashing up to the corner of a building she crouched and turned it, spotting a bandit running for cover and took him out while yelling for Artemis to move. She did, dashing around the corner while switching her rifle to her left hand and simultaneously drawing her pistol, before leaping a small barricade to slide up to the next corner.

They continued this way, clearing corners and covering each other as they made their way across the complex. Unfortunately for them, the numbers that the clans held vastly out stripped the amount of ammo they had and it wasn't long before Artemis holstered her pistol while swearing.

"I'm almost out" she declared "I've got like two more reloads on the pistol and one for the
rifle, you?"

"Yeah, this thing's almost dry."

"Shit, cover me." and she dashed out making a bee line for the nearest bandit, who had just stepped around from his cover. He staggered back in surprise while bringing his rifle up only to have it knocked aside and a blade stabbed into his throat. As he fell, Artemis spun his rifle up and motioned for Gaige to join her.

She turned the corner and pulled the trigger, only nothing happened. Swearing she pulled back as the corner disintegrated in a hail of bullets.

"What the hell is wrong with this thing?"

"Oh, that's a C.O.V., you need to start their engine first."

"Engine?" Artemis said turning the gun and pushing the button. After a second it sputtered to life and a steady putting could be heard and felt from it.

"You've gotta be careful about them, they tend to overheat if you fire them too much, but you never have to reload them, so…"

Artemis nodded and continued pressing forward, snapping off short bursts as she went and snatching up a DAHL SMG as she went which she immediately switched to, while Gaige grabbed a C.O.V. Pistol and managed a good find when she killed a bandit with a Vladof assault rifle, they both also grabbed any ammo they could see as they ran.

"Gotta ask" Gaige puffed as they went "Why'd you come for me?"

"Huh?" the other girl looked genuinely confused.

"I mean, we did kinda get into it."

"What, just cause of that I should abandon you to this? And besides that was my fault, so why wouldn't I be here?"

"I don't…" Gaige couldn't figure out a retort for that, when something that had seemed wrong suddenly clarified in her brain "Wait how did you get here?"

"I met Vaughn, dude needs to wear pants, yeck."

"So he's here?"

"Naw, got him to Digi-struct me a ride."

"Wait, you drove? You?"

"Kinda sorta, I mean, I got here didn't I. Oops incoming." she said as another wave came running at them as they crossed onto a series of catwalks.

Gaige turned and shot a large tank standing to one side of the path coming in from the left, causing it to explode tearing the walkway off and sending burning chunks of metal onto the bandits swarming below. Artemis nodded and turned to the tank near the right-hand path but stopped. Just as Gaige was about to shoot it herself she heard "Wait for it, wait for it, gotcha."

Artemis fired, detonating the tank just as a badass psycho charged past it killing him and then as the entire catwalk in that area fell with a screech, she saw it land upon another group that had just rounded one of the buildings. She smiled triumphantly and turned only to get knocked forward as her shield absorbed a spray of fire from behind.

Swearing she spun and snapped off a short burst at the bandit running forward, catching him in the leg causing him to pitch forward, slamming his head on the rail. His unconscious body rolled off the walk just as a psycho leaped over him, and another bandit followed along. The two girls looked at each other and took off running again. They crossed off of the catwalk and the industrial buildings that it went over and back into the ramshackled maze of buildings that jutted up.

They turned the corner just as a badass Tink dove into a pile of scrap, Gaige cursed and turned to the nearest door, which was to a large building, like a cross between a factory and a home, and shouldered her way through the door. Staggering up, she quickly slammed it as soon as Artemis had cleared it, and while holding it shut yelled for the other girl to find something to barricade it with.

After heaving a nearby table against it, they stepped back panting as they could hear the Tink's turret start firing at the building.

Safe for the moment they took the time to examine their surroundings. The inside of the building was typical bandit aesthetic, usually whatever had been on the wall before they had liberated it from its home, then pile lockers and tables and barricades around, which always made Gaige wonder how many stubbed toes that led to. Other than that, the room they were in opened into a larger area with stairs leading to higher floors.

Moving cautiously in Artemis cast a sidelong look and asked "So, you holdin up?"

"I'm" Gaige was going to say good, but she realized this wasn't the moment for bravado so instead she sighed and answered "I'll make it. Thanks. Really."

"Yeah, well, thank me when we're out of here. But we're doing well, I mean we're getting low on ammo, but I think we've killed a couple hundred of them so far."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm positive that I've got nearly two hundred, but that does include the ones I got on my way to the wedding, as well as those that got caught by the grenades."

"Speaking of which, what were those?"

"Huh, oh I found a rare MIRV Firestorm a while back, I really like it, but it just isn't that useful on a hunt you know."

"Never seen one before, didn't know they came in MIRV's, you got any left."

"Just one."

"Wait you came with only three grenades?"

"Well yeah, I mean I'm a hunter not a fisher."

Gaige stared at her, not sure if she was joking or not.

"By the way, I haven't seen Deathtrap since we got out, you don't seem too concerned so I figure you know where he is."

"Oh yeah, he flew out over the cliff edge to throw off any pursuers and is now looking for a way out for us." she replied while riffling through the lockers "Nice, got some shotty shells, and here a few sniper rifle rounds."

"Wait, they keep ammo in these things?"

"Well yeah, where did you think they kept it?"

"In an armory, or at least in an ammo crate." she said while popping open the lockers on her side.

"Money, money, oh, rocket shells. Nothing useful here."

"Yeah no pistol or assault rifle rounds, never can find what I'm looking for."

"Well, we need to get moving, they'll be coming around very soon, and I for one don't want to be trapped here. The way I figure it, if I've got our position right in my head, if we leave out the third floor and head that way, we should be getting close to where the base meets the wall, which will put us somewhere near where I came in."

"Sounds good, if nothing else it'll limit the directions that they can come at us from."

They hurried up the stairs as they heard crashing coming from the far side of the building. Coming to the third floor they raced down the metal sided hall only to come to a halt as twin Nomads stepped in, closing the narrow hall off with their shields. The shields screeched as they scrapped down the hall completely blocking it except for a small space at the top and bottom. Gaige swore and spun around only to have to duck back as bullets flew up the stairs, but not before she got a good look at the mass
of psychos swarming up. She ran her hands through her hair before giving her pigtails a tug and turning to Artemis.

"Looks bad, sorry I got you into this."

"Shut up and shoot at their legs" the other girl snapped, tossing her head in the direction of the nomads. Gaige turned and dropped to her knee and opened fire, hitting one of them before they brought the shields down against the ground. Artemis smiled as if she had been waiting for that and chucked her grenade through the space between the shields and the ceiling. There was a brief pause then loud yelling from the other side which was cut off by the nomads screams as they were incinerated in
the firestorm.

Artemis yelled for Gaige to follow her and ran at the shields, before jumping and kicking one knocking it loose and running over it and the smoldering remains it landed on, before sprinting down the hall and out the door at the end. Not pausing she placed a foot on the rail and jumped onto the roof of the next building over and hearing the thud of Gaige landing next to her, continued on.

As they dashed across the roof, bullets started whizzing past them as bandits emerged onto the roofs of the next buildings, and the emergency door kicked open as more started emerging from it.

They jumped over the edge and landed on the next roof, surprising the bandits on it. The first one to react brought up a Maliwan and started firing from a good distance, causing glowing blue-white orbs to fly towards them. Artemis reacted instinctively and swung her left arm up to protect her face and to everyone's surprise the orb vanished on impact. The poor bandit looked at her gun in disbelief and casually pointed it at the psycho near her and after he yelped in pain as he fell over twitching, she looked back at the fleeing pair before just shaking her head and letting them go.

They quickly made it to a metal grated walkway that would lead them to the cliff wall and the buildings built up next to it. As they ran out onto it, a swarm of psychos emerged ahead of them. Artemis swore again as she switched weapons from her now dry SMG to her assault rifle and started the motor. Yelling like she was trying to intimidate them, she let loose a fire hose of lead as she ran at them mowing them down. Gaige tried to warn her that the gun would overheat just as it made a grinding click. Artemis didn't stop, instead she swung the white-hot gun up and caught the last psycho by the throat and held him against the wall as his flesh sizzled against the gun.

He salivated at them while yelling "I smell delicious." causing her to drop the gun while she stabbed him in the head.

"What the hell? Did he just say he wanted to eat himself?" she asked aghast.

"Welcome to Pandora, where that won't be the weirdest thing you hear today." Gaige replied, taking the lead.

Coming off the end of the walkway, they emerged into a large open space, on one side was a sharp drop off with only the most minimal railing imaginable, ahead buildings grew up against the rock wall and on the other side buildings led down towards the front of the complex. It was from the steps that led down, that two figures emerged from a small crowd of bandits. The first was the twitchy purple member of the brides' procession, the other was the large man who had captured Gaige.

"Well well, little wedding planner, twice in one day, I'll be getting another promotion for this, though I must say I don't know if I'm surprised or disappointed with you."

"Yeah well, get used to disappointment." Gaige said while Artemis was trying to change her gear on the sly.

"And you. I don't know you, you were not invited, yet you crash our sacred event. A wedding is supposed to be a joyous event, and now you went and killed many of our brothers and sisters. This is not right. So I must ask, why? Why would you do something so terrible as to ruin our great leader's day? And how do you plan to make it right?"

"Well you failed to settle your bill." Gaige replied in Artemis's place.

"Tell you what" Artemis chimed in "I'll make it up by letting you walk away. Right now. Turn around and just walk away. I'll let you go. That's my generous offer, take it or leave it."

The large man laughed "Ah you do amuse me, I think I'll take you both back, you can enjoy watching each other die."

"Pass."

"Yeah, hard pass from me as well."

"Oh, so you plan on trying to fight back, how cute."

"Of course we plan on fighting back, now give us a minute."

Artemis leaned in and asked "So how you wanna do this?"

"I wanna kill the big guy, you can have the other one."

"Gee thanks"

"What, I thought purple was your favorite color?"

"Yeah it is, but I gotta say, seeing someone who's all that color is a bit off putting."

"I can't argue with that, I'll give you a hand if you need."

"Good, you set? Here take this." she said, passing off the DAHL SMG "I think mine will be more use against twitchy here." she said unstrapping her Maliwan off her back and thumbing the switch to corrosive, causing the gun to light up green.

"Wait if you had that, why were you carrying the DAHL?"

"Eh, the charge time is a little iffy during some of those shootouts, plus electro-caustic isn't the best against these punks. Though this guy makes me want to melt him."

"Fair enough."

"Oh, it looks like you want to go one on one, very well, Sig, that one is all yours, try to have fun and if possible, try to keep her alive, your queen would certainly like to finish her off herself."

"The current flows and I see Lieberman at the end of the rib."

Artemis looked like she was about to say something, Gaige just shook her head to tell her not to bother trying to understand what the psycho was saying and moved to the side circling the large man.

"The queen feeds" the Psycho yelled and threw his hands forward with a crackle and a blast of lightning jumped from his hand arcing towards Artemis, who again instinctively threw her left hand in its path. The lightning crackled against the surface of the cyber prosthetic and vanished.

"Hah, field test proves that the new armor works." she said with a smile as the psycho looked from her to his fist and then started slamming it into the ground.

Meanwhile Gaige was sprinting around trying to get a clean shot around the large shield. But the large man kept turning, keeping the shield between them while firing his rifle around it, a technique that, while it was obvious that he had practiced, still was terribly inaccurate. They were both getting frustrated with their lack of progress when Gaige remembered what had happened in the hall minutes before and while running, dropped into a slide and sprayed her SMG. Swearing as bullets tore into his feet the large man slammed the shield down just as Gaige popped back up and spun around it letting loose with a clean burst into his side. Yelling in pain the man swung his shield and while Gaige had expected it, his range still got the best of her and he managed to clip her, sending her sprawling.

They both recovered and slowly got to their feet glaring at each other and started circling again, only this time the large man held his shield closer to the ground.

Artemis watched the purple psycho hit the ground in frustration as she charged up her gun in short bursts letting off just before it fired, weary of what was coming. As she expected the psycho stopped and looked at her, cocking his head.

"When does the meat dance with the shadow?" he yelled and leaped at her. She sidestepped his move and point blank unloaded the SMG into his head as he landed. He yelped in pain as the rounds started sizzling and to her surprise there was a small shock wave around him and he was suddenly fifteen feet away bubbling and dripping.

"Well that's new."

He looked at her and popped again, she spun knowing where he would be, only to feel her shield buckle under the impact of him punching her in the back, rocking her forward. Stumbling she heard him laughing and as he moved forward, she hit him with another clip of caustic bullets.

Gaige watched out of the corner of her eye as the psycho started teleporting around, but her main focus was drawn by the roar from behind the shield as the large man charged. Gaige dove forward past the side of the shield as he dashed by and rolled up to get a good shot in on his back. He roared again and spun holding his gun out and sweeping it across the field not caring who he hit. Gaige threw herself onto the ground as the spray went over her head.

Artemis wasn't so lucky, not knowing what was happening as she dodged back from the psycho she caught the blast in the side, which staggered her just enough that the punch connected. She felt the shield go and the fist hit her stomach knocking her back. She managed to roll with it and came up in a crouch but the psycho was charging her with a look of triumph when a red laser hit him from the side and an explosion rocked him, throwing him into a painful pile.

As he started to rise woozily, Artemis point blank fired her last back-up gun round into the base of his skull, and to her amazement he didn't die, but instead turned into a strange purple crystal.

As she holstered her empty gun she did a quick scan to see where the shot had come from and spotted Deathtrap floating in from over the edge of the structure, the strange crystal in his head giving off a red steam as he gave a short wave. She touched two fingers to her brow in a return salute and drew her pistol while turning back to the ongoing fight.

Both sides had grown increasingly frustrated, leading Gaige to waste ammo spraying her opponents shield, which while it caused him to stagger back, wasn't doing any real damage. When suddenly a spray of shots hit him in the back of his knee, staggering him. Not missing the opportunity Gaige charged him and did a flying kick into the shield, trying to unbalance him. He took the unexpected hit and stumbled back, catching the back of his leg on the small lip and went tumbling over the edge.

She cautiously approached the edge and looked over to see the dust cloud way down where he had impacted. Only as the dust cleared, she saw that the ground had given way where he had landed and revealed a dark hole. As she wondered what it was, something impacted her from behind, knocking them both off the ledge.

As she fell, she felt the arms that had wrapped around her and realized that Artemis must have tackled her. As they fell tumbling so that she saw sky, dirt, sky, dirt, she spotted Deathtrap diving towards them and just before they impacted, she felt his strong hand grab onto her shoulder and slow her descent. Even so, they hadn't stopped falling completely by the time they entered the looming hole created by the large man.