AN: I am super happy everyone is still enjoying the story, despite the craziness going on in our world right now. I'm sorry the updates have been shoddy, I've been dealing with a ton at work. Still trying to fit the writing in where I can, bear with me and we will get this story finished :) please, enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 28: Taking down the Sawteeth

Hands, soft and gentle, were picking her up from under her arms. But they weren't her lovers hands, and that realization made her heart break all over again. She had no idea how long she had been on the floor of that storeroom, and she didn't care. The ground was a blur, but she felt herself being steered away, one foot in front of the other up a set of stairs.

"What the?! How the hell you get back there? Friggin' vault hunters." Was that Marcus?

She blinked away her tears and looked to her companion. It was Axton, thank the heavens, and she hugged her arm around him tighter, and he squeezed her back in kind.

"Come on Maya, that's it. Were going to the HQ, Mordecai and Brick are waiting for us there. We're gonna figure this out."

Her lip trembled, she tried to speak but only a wracking sob came out. It was hopeless.

"Shhhh, it's going to be okay. Were gonna get her back," he said with resolve. All she could do was shake her head. Utterly hopeless.

Her echo began to crackle, and she ducked out from under Axtons arm, her heart racing. Could it be?

"Maya-" Axton began to protest, but she held her finger up, listening intently.

"Maya, are you okay? Did I get you to Sanctuary?" Lilith's voice was trembling, she didn't sound like herself.

Maya released a breath she was holding, and did her best to keep her voice even. She had to be strong for her. Lilith needed her.

"Lilith! Oh God Lilith I'm sorry," her voice was shaking and tears began to fall. "I'm coming for you baby, I'm gonna get to you. Please hold on, I need you," her voice cracked.

"I feel…wrong…this device Jack's using on me…" the echo went silent.

Maya felt utterly helpless. She shook her echo in frustration, "hello?! Lilith?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

Silence.

"No no NO NO NO!" Axton once again took a hold of her.

"we have to go Axton now!" she cried. "please Axton she needs us PLEASE!" Maya was hysterical. Lilith sounded like she was in pain, and she couldn't help her lover.

"Maya please! Were gonna get her! Come on let's get to the HQ so we can figure out what to do next, quick!"

Spurred on by Liliths voice, knowing she was still alive, they took off in a run to the HQ together. They burst through the door to see a very solemn Brick and Mordecai standing over the map in the War room.

"Guys," Mordecai started, "you're all we got left. Jack killed Roland. He killed Bloodwing. But he is not going to kill Lilith. Jack still needs time to charge the Vault Key. We just need to find out where the Warriors buried. Theres only one place on Pandora that would have that kind of info, the Hyperion Info Stockade. Get there."

There was no time to waste. They were tired, but they couldn't rest, hungry, but they couldn't eat. Time was against them, they had to leave now.

Maya sniffed and wiped at her eyes. She needed to focus and stop letting her emotions get in the way. It was not the time to dwell on her regrets or worry. They had to save Lilith.

"People of Pandora," Jack's gloomy voice came on the echo. It took all of Maya's resolve to not throw it across the room, "My daughter is dead. Murdered. By the Vault Hunters. So I've decided to rescind the bounty on the Vault Hunters. If you should kill those child murdering sonsofbitches before I do, I will find you, and you will regret denying me my vengeance."

The room said nothing. Maya chose to ignore Jack's message, for she would soon show him what real pain feels like. She wouldn't stop until the life went from his cold, dead eyes.

"Where will we find this stockade?" she asked, her voice sounding strange and foreign to her own ears.

"Eridium Blight."

"Axton, on me, let's go."

The pair fast traveled to The Dust, but the would have to drive from there. It was a quiet drive, Maya sat in the back as Axton manned the vehicle. He glanced back at her, "Maya, we got about a half hour till' we reach Eridium Blight. You should think about trying to sleep a little yeah?"

Maya said nothing and continued to stare out the window. She could not rest until she had Lilith back and Jack was no more. The aching, empty feeling inside her was enough to make her sick. Just what would she do if they arrived too late? With Lilith already gone? The thought made her stomach lurch and she tried to put that thought away as quickly as it came. She would cry, had she any tears left.

"We gotta get her back Axton…" she said, the pain evident in her voice.

"We will," he said firmly, "I promise."

After the rest of the drive in silence, save for the impatient jittering of Maya's leg, they had finally exited the tunnel leading to Eridium Blight. They continued down the paved road through the mountains, the hills were pulsing and lively with violet, glowing ore jutting from the rocks. Maya might have been able to marvel in the wonder of it all, had they been under different circumstances. It might even be a beautiful place had it not been for the ghastly dark sky, which added to the already gloomy appearance. To their right sat a catch a ride station, sitting outside a large concrete wall with one of the big Hyperion metal doors in the center. A small group of bullymongs straddled the cliff where the wall had met rock.

"Welcome to the Eridium Blight. Before Hyperion this place was…huh, well it was still a shithole. But it wasn't this bad," Mordecai echoed them. "Head to Arid Nexus, I'm gonna mark it on your maps."

Sudden firepower entered her ears, and she whirled around to see Axton had manned the machine gun and was shooting at the Bullymongs in the distance. She grabbed his arm.

"Axton what the fuck?"

"What?"

"Now is not the time," she grumbled. "We got a waypoint on our map. Sit your ass down and let's go!"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. She couldn't blame him. She too loved taking down monsters as much as he did, but they had a bigger, more dangerous monster to take out first. The one who snatched her life and lover right in front of her eyes.

They continued their drive along the paved road, a few rakks tried to give them trouble but with a runner's machine gun they didn't last very long. She had jumped on the gun and began shooting, while Axton jumped the runner off a high cliff before slamming into the ground, successfully losing and more Rakks that had been coming their way. Maya had to admit, it was always fun when Axton took the runner off jumps. She settled back into her seat and checked her map.

"We're coming up to Bruiseboulder Quarry, theres a bridge we can take there," she said pointing.

They pulled up to the bridge, "intruders detected. Locking path to Info Stockade."

That damn Hyperion bitch! A portion of the bridge rose up, effectively blocking them from continuing any further.

"FUCK!" She cried, punching the door of the runner. "Now what?"

"Damnit! Jack doesn't want us getting close to him. Brick, you got a plan to get into the Stockade?"

"Blow stuff up that's my plan! Slabs, get to Sawtooth Cauldron."

He marked it on their map. Maya gritted her teeth, "it's just one thing after another. If we gotta go here there and everywhere, it gives Jack ample time to…to…" she couldn't say the words.

"Its not going to happen Maya. We will get to Sawtooth Cauldron and get out as quick as we can. No time to waste."

He revved the runner and took off like lightening, driving through the hills of Eridium Blight in a blur. If there were enemies trying to get at the vehicle, theres no way they could catch it.

They reached the cave leading to Sawtooth Cauldron. On the other side, the sky looked more normal then it had before. She immediately saw the twisted, ugly buildings resembling bandit camps, and she knew what was coming next.

"To get to where Sawtooth bandits keep the bombs, you gotta go through Guano Grotto. You'll have to push through a fuckton of Sawteeth but hell-wouldn't be fun any other way right?" Brick said gruffly.

"Great, guess this wont be as quick as we thought."

"Not necessarily," Axton assured her. "We got tons of grenades, and you got that launcher. Bandit camps aren't built with the most stability. If we can use their poorly made buildings to our advantage, we could bring this entire place crashing down on top of them, while minimizing the risk of us getting shot."

It wasn't a bad idea, "that makes sense to me."

"Let's follow down this path; we will hold onto our explosives for now, cut down and Bandits that come our way with our firepower. Once we get down below and we have a big group of them lured out, we can let the fire works begin."

"isnt there a risk of blowing up the bombs as well though?" she questioned.

"We can lure them away from the bombs. Besides, they might not even be down here. It's just the two of us, we'll let them think they are closing in on us, that they have the upper hand. Then we will bring their shit shacks down on top of em" he sneered.

"Sounds like as good a plan as any," she said, inserting a mag into her sniper.

"Thanks love," he said winking, loading a rifle of his own. "let's go."

They moved slowly down the path, keeping an eye out for any signs of movement. Up ahead, outside of a poorly made bandit shack, they saw a few Nomads and Marauders patrolling outside.

Maya shouldered her sniper rifle and leveled her breathing; she took the shot at the closest Nomad, sending a bullet right through his jugular.

Naturally, chaos ensued as the Nomad went sprawling to the ground with streams of blood shooting from his neck. She continued to fire as Axton set up his turret, taking care of the patrol easily.

Axton checked the map. "The bombs are down there," he said, pointing towards a ledge to their right.

"Well, I'm sure they already heard the gunfire," she replied. "Let's jump?"

"Jump!" he agreed, and together they leapt over the side, tucking and rolling to their feet down below.

Immediately shouts began to ring out around them, the bandits obviously alerted of their presence. Maya tumbled over to Axton, placing a protective phaselock around them and pressing her back to him. They began shooting at incoming Marauders and psychos, the phaselock ricocheting the enemy bullets back into the hoard. Maya used a heavy duty assault rifle, easily mowing down the first wave of Sawteeth, Axton was doing the same behind her.

"I can't hold it much longer!" Maya called out. Their destination wasn't far, just behind them actually. "We need to throw these grenades and move!"

"Right! Just hold on a little longer! Explosives out!"

Axton unclipped three grenades and chucked them towards the swarming marauders. Just as planned, they exploded at the base of the shoddy buildings towering overhead, which in turn caused them to begin to crumble in a cloud of dust and debris. Screams from the terrified bandits echoed all around as they tried to scramble out of the way, but it was too late. Most were crushed by the fallen concrete, or blown to bits in the explosion. Maya's phaselock safely protected them from the explosion and any falling hunks of concrete and wood. The dust was beginning to clear, and Maya released the phaselock with an exasperated sigh. Going on no sleep, and battle after battle, her phaselocks were holding less and less and taking more and more out of her. She knew she couldn't stop though, everytime she pictured Lilith's pained face in her mind she was spurred on with renewed energy.

"Are you okay?" he said, grasping her shoulder.

She swallowed hard, "y-yeah, just give me a sec," she said breathlessly.

"You wont be fighting fit without rest sometime Maya-"

"No," she said sternly, effectively ending the conversation she knew was coming, "I'm fine. Let's go." She hauled herself to standing and grasped Axtons hand to hoist him up as well. "Any survivors?"

Axton and her took a second to look around. There was various small movement, and a few groans to be heard, but no one was getting up to fight them anytime soon. They might as well save some ammo and just leave them be. "None worth doing anything about."

They made their way to a hangar built into the wall of the cliff, which lead into an underground area known as Smoking Guano Grotto. There were no bandits to be seen inside on the catwalks and platforms, they must have been part of the group they buried under the rubble outside.

They walked through the underground platform, their footfalls echoing in the quiet. To their right, another tunnel led outside to what was called the Main Street Reservoir, but where they needed to go was up a set of stairs, which led to a catwalk then back down into another area of the underground operation. In there, they should find the elevator that allowed them to ascend Inferno Tower.

They crept along the catwalk above that stretched to the room with the elevator, when suddenly a shot rang out, pinging and ricocheting off of the railing mere inches from Maya. They both hit the deck, raising their weapons. Chaos ensued, as the room they were entering had close to ten bandits inside. Nomads and marauders alike began hooting and hollering as they sprayed the area with bullets. Maya put a phaselock around them just in case.

"We can risk destroying the elevator with a grenade, were gonna have to take em out!" Maya shouted over the gunfire.

"No worries!" Axton replied, deploying his turret and shouldering his sniper rifle. The turret made quick work of the bandits close by, while some calculated headshots from Axton swept the rest.

Once all was quiet, Maya released the phaselock, and was suddenly overcome with an intense wave of nausea. She swallowed, her mouth watering, and she glanced quickly to Axton to see if her noticed. He didn't, as he was busy reloading his rifle. She swallowed the feeling down again, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. She stood, trying to ignore the tremble in her legs.

Axton cocked his weapon and looked to her, his gaze scrutinizing.

"What?" she asked, annoyed.

"Maya…you're white as a ghost. I just think-"

"Axton, I appreciate and understand your concern, but now is not the time. Somewhere, right now, Lilith is in a worse condition than you or I. She's alone, and hurt, and…and…" she began to choke up. Curse her emotions and how deep they ran.

Axton gave her a sad smile and pulled her into an embrace. "I know Maya, I know. We are going to get through this. Just please," he said, as he stepped back from the embrace, "let me know if you cant go on. Trust me, I'm feeling the exhaustion too. But with your Siren abilities…you know I just don't want to get hurt."

"I know Axton, I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. Let's get to the elevator."

They stepped into the elevator, it was dark and damp. Maya pressed the button to go up, and-

"Awww look! It's the witty bitty Slab's trying to use the elevator! GET EM!"

Four ambush commanders, along with a handful of marauders, suddenly emerged from all around. She should have known that some sort of alarm would go off, alerting their presence on the elevator. She knew she was too weak to phaselock any of them long enough to fight the rest off. Axton was right, she was not fighting fit. She couldn't phaselock a handful of bandits, how was she to save Lilith?

Her ears were ringing with all of the gunfire, Axton was saying something, but she couldn't quite hear.

"-gonna use my turret as a distraction, and draw them away! Then we blow em up!"

Maya could only nod dumbly, as Axton chucked his turret as far from the elevator as possible. With the turret now spraying them with heavy lead, the bandits turned their attention away from the elevator, and went to close in on the turret. Axton unclipped two grenades, lobbing them in the direction of the bandits, and pulled Maya to the ground with him. They could only pray the elevator didn't get damaged in the process.

"GRENADE!" One of the bandits shouted, before he was promptly cut off by the explosion. Acid rained down on the bandits, killing the ones that didn't instantly die in the blast. Debris came close, but it didn't look like the elevator had been touched. They stood, surveying the area for survivors, but it was quiet.

Maya tried the elevator button again. Nothing.

"hmmmm, looks like the elevators not moving. You'll have to piss off Mortar so that he'll bring the elevator down. The boombringer! Mortar's prized Buzzard! Go find it!" Brick exclaimed on the echo.

Maya let out a shaky breath and slumped down the wall, "it's never that easy is it…"

Axton echoed Brick back, "We need to take a rest for a bit Brick, we cant keep going like this. I'm gonna take Maya somewhere quiet and we'll nap in shifts, only for an hour or so."

"Understandable Slab, echo me when you're ready to go."

Maya started to protest, but Axton cut her off, "Maya, you can barely stand. You'll be no use to Lilith if you're dead, and we still have a long ways to go and a lot of enemies to face. Come on, let's go under the stairs where its dark. You grab a quick nap and I'll keep watch."

She knew there was no fighting it. He was right, she was sick from exhaustion. By the time she reached Lilith it wouldn't take much to bring her down. She had to be ready for Handsome Jack, or else this would all have been for nothing.

Under the stairs, once she stretched out, her eyes immediately felt heavy. She closed them, and drifted into a fitful sleep, plagued with nightmares of a dead Roland and a screaming Lilith.