Moze wakes up in her room, filled with the scent of oil and rust, wearing nothing but her khaki shorts and a dirty white sleeveless shirt, she goes to her personal bathroom and takes a cold shower, and wears her original Vladof outfit complete with her black leather jacket, her Vladof Ursa Corps shoulder pad and her Vladof bowl helmet.
With a yawn she exits her room to see Fl4k's room is locked and so as Amara's, but as she approaches the room, she can hear the sound of something being hit excessively; in short, she's just doing her usual training. Moze sighs and nonchalantly walks it off.
But outside Moxxi's bar she stops and sees the Irish operative Zane, talking to someone with his loud voice then suddenly bursts into laughter, along with a new voice she never recognized. She tries to walk past them but Zane, having the cybernetics on his eye, can clearly see Moze on the corner, "OI, MOZE! I'D LIKE YOU TO MEET SOMEONE!".
She winces to herself and turns to Zane with a frown, "CAN IT, YOU OLD GEEZER! I JUST WOKE UP!".
Zane blows a raspberry and gently helps her by gently pulling her towards them, "Ah - piss off with that face of yours! This dude right here is right up your alley, he's former Dahl! - "
" - And former Crimson Raider, don't forget that.", another voice chimed after Zane.
"LET GO OF ME! Ugh . . ." , she releases her grip from the smiling old man, looks at a man clad in a brown military jacket and dark-green cargo pants with messy hair, but not messy enough to hide his face like Fl4k and his hobo attire, but enough to see the insignia on his left eyebrow, "You're . . . a Crimson Raider? Where were you during the COV bullshit? We could've used your help!", but unfortunately, her hot-headed attitude is present early in the morning so those first impressions are thrown off the window.
"Hey, hey, easy, there. Look, I just came back after opening a Vault in Junpai-7, and now I'm here to check up on everyone around Sanctuary. I was . . . sorta sad that they left me out but they got Zer0 to help, so I figured why not. But then, Zane told me about Lilith and Maya . . . ", there was silence for a moment, but the man merely stifles a tear in his eye, and smiles at them.
"Whatever, Maya would've Phaselock-ed my balls in the air and say some wordy crap for not helpin' and Lilith would've charred my entire body inside out. Preferably in that order. I'm Axton, by the way.", he smiles as he extends his hand while smirking at Moze, clearly he's trying to hit on her.
"Moserah Hayussinian Yan-Lun al-Amir Andreyevna. Or Moze. And keep your hands to yourself, you may be a Dahl hotshot - but you're not a Crimson Raider, not to me.", she says her full name fast enough for Axton to slowly backs off his hand with a nervous smile.
As Moze leaves with a huff, Zane sighs in defeat while he cracks his head, "Don't worry, boyo, Moze is just like that; always cranky 24/7, but she's a good lass deep down. You'll get to know her soon enough, for now I'll show you around the Cockpit, your friend Zer0 is there too.", he and Axton then leaves to the Cargo Bay.
They continue the tour and eventually meet up with some familiar faces.
...
Several minutes passed in Marcus' firing range, Moze was just testing out new guns with the Lucian's Call, spraying and praying all over the targets, but she can't seem to get the tiny ones from afar. She still got a good score, but she wanted a perfect one. And instead of calming herself down, she kicks down the control panel, of which, it's connected to dangling rusty pipe and snaps out, then falls down on her.
Thankfully, an SDU was thrown at the pipe, sending it flying away from Moze, but the SDU on the ground suddenly turns into a Dahl turret. She looks at the turret then back at the owner, who is just leaning on the dark corner, watching her performance.
"You know there is a technique called "Burst Fire"? Did Vladof ever teach you that in boot camp?", Axton smiles cockily at the gunner, but Moze ignores him and restarts the firing range, letting the targets pop out and continue hosing the targets down with bullets, yet Moze ends up with the same score.
"And did Dahl ever taught you to be fucking professional?! Because I have met my fair share of cocky bastards like you and they ended up in closed caskets.", this time Axton merely chuckles as he gets up and takes out his Major Tom assault rifle, a Dahl assault rifle that performs the same function as the Lyuda sniper rifle. He activates the firing range controls and in contrast to Moze's aggressive attack pattern, Axton's hand-eye coordinated along with controlled bursts, was enough to beat Moze's high score, which was one point before the perfect score.
Axton holsters his rifle, "Like I said, I used to be Dahl. Listen, kid, I gotta clear this one out; you're from that Ursa Corps, right? Aren't you a little young to be part of them?".
Moze growls as she turns on the firing range again, now planning to beat the Dahl commando's score, "Hey, as long as I can kick your ass out of this ship, Staff Sergeant. And aren't you supposed to be with - I dunno - a death squad or whatever? I heard Dahl have quite the commandos, even though they have shitty turrets."
His eyebrow twitches at first, but Axton breathes a long sigh to calm himself down. "First off, don't talk shit about my missus. And second, I used to be one before my wife decided to divorce me and tried to kill me. Although she gave a chance to escape, sorta."
She fails another try and turns off the machine, giving up already as she has lost all of her ammo and have to buy some from Marcus later, but for now she takes her canteen and drinks from it. "Oof, sucks to be you, that's one of the reasons why I don't want a relationship yet, as for me, I was sent on a suicide mission; on Darzaran Bay. My whole squad got wiped out, and I was the only one who survived; physically, at least. Vladof may have labeled me dead, but I guess it's their way of saying; "Aight, take your mech and git."."
Axton chuckles, "Man, we both had it rough. Our COs and bosses just screwing us over with their fucking agendas."
"Amen to that, sergeant.", she replies as she drinks again, "Say, how about we try out each other's equipment? I've always wanted to see a Dahl-issue turret up close. See why is it so effective when it's just . . . stationary."
Axton nods, "Sure, but you'll have to let me ride on that Iron Bear mech of yours, it killed tons of Tediore troops on Sercannus-7 and I wanna fire some goddamn rockets."
...
They went to the cargo bay with Axton and Moze far from each other, Axton throws both of his turrets down, while Moze digi-structs her Iron Bear Mech and quickly gets out of it, letting the "Auto-Bear" function in the meantime.
She goes up to Axton's turrets and nods, impressed. "Woah - so those are the ones that killed many soldiers during the Corporate Wars."
"Yep, these babies have dual turrets with the one that fires Slag, a shield projector, a Mag-lock for easy positioning, ammo belts, rocket pods, Longbow-tech for long-range deployment and also a built-in Nuke. But for the sake of our safety, I had to disable it so we don't cause a vacuum here.", Axton boasts as places both of his arms on the turrets.
But then he motions at the Iron Bear Mech and whistles, "Dayum, never thought Vladof were actually serious about for the people. What can this baby do?".
Moze approaches the mech proudly with her arms on her waist, "Iron Bear, since he's from a latest issue, lucky for me, He has quite the variety of weapons to switch around the battlefield; Miniguns that can shoot fire or ice, Flamethrowers or Acidthrowers, Grenade Launchers that can be a singularity, Missiles that can be Locked-On Target or paints the target so they'll be in pain everywhere, Shock Railguns, to even up close with the Pneumatic Fists that can pull targets from far away. Ooh and Iron Bear has Nukes - much like yours."
"It's pretty sweet, but you have to take note though, with all these weapons I said, they costs a ton of Fuel, and Fuel keeps the mech going, so I have to carefully place my shots, otherwise, I'm just killing myself out there. So - yeah, we both have our drawbacks. Your turrets can't move, and I can't go all willy-nilly with my mech.", Moze crosses her arms and looking down, a bit disappointed.
Axton nods but sees something up top, "What's that over there? That a turret of sorts?".
Moze also looks up and smiles, "Eh, it's just my personal touches with Iron Bear, you can hop on top of it and assist me while I'm inside. That sounded a bit wrong - nevermind. Anyway, there's more to that little guy up there - I have built a shield for it like your turret and there's Auto Bear mode, like your turret, also it has a small boost - not like your turret."
"Yeesh - I just wish Dahl would have tons of these, and we could've cleaned Pandora within weeks. But I already know one corporation that tried that - and failed miserably.", he remembers his time in Pandora when one corporation tried to kill him and the Vault Hunters in a train.
"Maliwan? Because Katagawa's super dead back in Promethea.", Moze watches as Axton leans back on a wall, his head hanging low.
"No - Hyperion, they used to be a bunch of nerdy workers, before they upped their game when Handsome Jack came into power. Scumbag tried to tricked us and killed us more than I had sex with my wife, and she was just as hurtful as he was, only much cuter in person.". Moze was a bit uncomfortable after that, but she shrugs it off like it's the usual. "But I had someone else looking out for me - other than her. She was naive, but not too much to be falling for my looks. When I was the one giving orders, she is usually the first one to complain, I didn't listen to her, because frankly, I hated her. And when I didn't listen, she saved my ass and screamed 'I told you so'. But now - it's all quiet."
"I could've done something to prevent her from dying at the hands of those COV assholes. They're not Hyperion, and they're annoying as fuck. But I know all too well that if they did a number on us, they are equally dead to me.", Axton clenches his fists as he could've saved his former teammate.
"It wasn't your fault.", Axton hears Moze, standing while placing her hand on Iron Bear. "If they were really in a disadvantage, they would've called you and the others instantly. But you could say we got cocky . . . or Lilith didn't plan everything from the start, or if that fucking prick Ava didn't disobey Maya's orders, then her death wouldn't have happened. Though if I was Maya and seeing you all sulking like that, would she really let you be? No."
Moze turns to Axton with a blank face, but has a melancholic smile, " - she'd Phaselock-ed your balls high up. Plus, she wanted us to always have faith, Semper Fi and all that crap."
With that word from Moze, the commando thought of something from the past,
/
Sarah: Axton, the rest of the battalion ships out to Themis tomorrow, and I don't want you with us. Not as a soldier, and... not as a husband.
Axton: What? What the hell, Sarah -
Sarah: Remember Hestias? Instead of protecting the dignitary assigned to your command, you put a tracker on him, gave him to the enemy, tracked them to their base, and blew it up. With the dignitary still inside.
Axton: Yeah, which was awesome! You can't pretend that wasn't awesome.
Sarah: Demophon. Thrace. Tantalus. You've consistently prioritized personal glory over following orders. I don't need a soldier like that.
Axton: So what now? You gonna turn me over to the firing squad? Unless they've changed the rules on me, I'm pretty sure semper fi means 'forever.'
/
Axton chuckles as he looks up in the metallic ceiling, thinking of her and his team, "Yeah. Semper Fi."