Long time no see again. Sorry, my schedule gets crowded around this time of year. You know track and the final drill meet of the season. Plus I got pretty sick and a lot of other stuff. But if you have been paying attention to the story. (I blank out when I'm reading and read pages without even realizing I'm reading so I don't have any memory of what happened.) This is the chapter where they rescue Roland and when they rescue him Maddox departs. Well that's in this chapter. So maybe it's tear jerking, maybe it's not at all. I don't think I'm good at super emotional scenes.
Chapter 14: A Dang Fine Rescue
Gaige had slowly woken her eyes. She looked around to figure where she was at and soon remembered what happened. She looked at her wrapped up leg and winced when she tried to move it. Finally, her brain began to register that her cybernetic arm was removed, and her flesh arm… well it was taken captive by a sleeping Maddox.
He was sitting on a chair near the side of the bed. Using the bed as like a pillow as his hand held hers. Gaige smiled slightly blushing and wondered how long he had been there. But did he actually sleep? Maybe it was a natural recovery to his abilities. Just extremely slow, kinda giving him a human aspect. Part of her wanted to keep letting him sleep like that. But knowing that things needed to get done she lightly squeezed his hand.
Maddox woke up. He was a very light sleeper, then again everyone on Pandora had to be to survive. But his past 3 years may have had that on him long before Pandora. "Morning sleepyhead." Gaige greeted sweetly.
Maddox smiled before looking to her leg. "How is it?"
"Hurts to move it. I guess that means I'll be here while you're rescuing Roland." Her tone began to sadden. "Then you'll leave. I didn't know that our last mission together would be finding Lilith."
"Yea… I didn't either. I wish it wasn't but I need to do my own thing. No offense but stopping Noitalihinna before he can be awakened is a more important than…"
"...Stopping Jack. Yea I completely agree with you on that. We don't really know what he's doing anyway, just that he wants to kill us. I would join you but… I have this really bad feeling that what Jack is doing will need my resistance. Like he's doing something more than just trying to kill us."
"I know I understand. Alright it's time for me to go. See you around I guess." Maddox let go of her hand and began to leave.
"Wait!" She grabbed his wrist just before he got out of her reach. "Promise me you'll come back to see me after you get back with Roland."
"I promise." Maddox hugged her tightly.
"Be safe." Gaige hugged back.
"I will." Maddox pulled away and headed towards the headquarters.
Gaige immediately began brainstorming ways to keep him around after Roland was rescued.
Maddox knew he could heal her leg. But she was already getting treatment and he didn't want to attract the armored figure. Maddox began to realize that there was no way this armored figure was Noitalihinna. He would have killed them and destroyed the world by now. But this armored figure he wanted to keep off everyone's back. Only using his ability when absolutely necessary.
Maddox walked into the headquarters. "Oh good you're here. We're about to head out. Quickly go through the loot we found and then we gotta go. Hyperion is trying to buy Roland from the Bloodshots." Maya warned him.
Maddox quickly sorted through his pile. Finding a Blaaa, Slicer Class Mod, two Pretty Colorer Class Mods, Electronic Homing Transfusion Grenade, Silent Man Class Mod, Incendiary Back Burner, Incendiary Longbow MIRV, and Acid Addict Class Mod.
Maddox kept the Blaaa, Slicer Class Mod, and Incendiary Longbow MIRV, he kept his Incendiary Provocateur.
"I'm ready."
"Alright let's go." Axton commanded.
Dr. Zed came into the clinic. "Alright how's it doing?"
"It hurts to move it."
"It's still going to be really sore from your surgery and well getting shot. I'd say you are all a lucky bunch none of you came in with a wound until you did. Maybe Maddox is taking all of the fire." He joked.
"Yeah I guess he is." She remembered when his arm got shot up.
"Alright when you say it hurts to move is it like really bad?" He began to unwrap the bandage.
"I mean it hurts enough to cause me to wince. But not enough that it's unbearable once I get used to it."
"Well it looks likes it's healing well enough. We can try to get you moving with crutches." Zed disappeared around the curtain and brought out a pair of crutches. He wrapped her leg and helped her onto the crutches. She winced a little whenever she moved her leg.
She made it onto the crutches. Steadily, she began to move forward. Making it out of the clinic and moving back in, getting used to the crutches.
"I think they're good."
"Alright, well come back tomorrow morning."
"Ok" Gaige began to crutch her way towards headquarters. Finding her pile of things and sorting through them.
She found a Sweetheart Class Mod, two Prodigy Class Mods, a Longarm, two Jill of all Trades Class Mods, a Incendiary Blaster, Incendiary Thinking, Acidic Smig Bandit SMG.
She kept the Longarm, Incendiary Blaster, and Acidic Smig.
"It's a trick! Get em!" A Bandit shouted over the coms after the group had made it passed the spiked gate. The group was quickly swarmed with bandit reinforcements. Marauders, nomads and psychos coming from every direction.
Both Salvador's and Axton's shields went down immediately. Axton's shield began releasing constant fire novas. "Axton go run around while the shield is down and take out the enemies." Maya suggested.
Axton began to run around as his nova took out two of the five enemies. Maya took out her Electronic Vanquisher and fired at the Nomad Taskmaster killing him.
Salvador ran up to the midget boner and slammed him to the ground stomping on its small head.
Zero aimed at the Killer Marauder and shot him with his Sniper. This only took out its shield however.
Krieg took this moment and sliced the Marauder's throat.
Suddenly a very large nomad named Bad Maw jumped over the closed drawbridge. He had a large shield and three psycho midgets strapped to it. He immediately charged straight at Salvador who narrowly dodged out of the way.
While he was turned around, Maya began shooting at him with her Electronic Minigun. Axton also took this chance using his Acidic Peacemaker, but Maw turned around and block it with his shield striking a piece of rope that had midgets tied to it.
Maddox fired his Incendiary Provocateur hoping to burn off the rest of the rope but ended up killing one of the midgets. Zero ran up and sliced at him, Maw failed to block the sword as it made a deep cut on his free arm.
Salvador fired his shotgun catching Maw off guard. Somehow Maw was still alive. Krieg pulled out his buzz axe and threw it at Maw. Maw saw the fatal blade and moved his shield causing it to strike and kill one of the midgets.
Bad Maw knew he was pinned and needed to make a move. So he used his shotgun aiming at Maddox. Maddox took the full force of the shotgun and felt his shield give out. Maw was getting ready to shoot him again.
Maya however came to the rescue and tore off one of the ropes binding the last midget. However, the midget still struggled against the rope, and in retaliation Maw swung the shield at Maya, but he was too late.
Axton fired his Incendiary Rakeshell snapping the last rope off the shield releasing the very angry midget. The midget jumped on the head of Maw and began bashing its small hands into his eyes. Maw threw away his shield to get the midget off. The midget had crushed both of the eyes and continued to pound on him. Maw fell over defeated by his prisoner.
The midget looked up at its six heroes. Most shocked at what the tiny thing could do. Then the midget charged at them. "I NEED NEW MEAT PUPPET FRIENDS AND YOUR GOING TO BE MY-"
The midget was crushed into a blurry heap by Kriegs buzz axe. Krieg looked straight at Maya, "MY PECKS HAVE PECKS."
"Oh…" Maya reacted not quite sure how to react. "That's great honey."
"Honey?!?" Maddox asked surprised.
"Oh yeah, if you hadn't spent the night in the clinic you would have known that last night that they became a thing." Axton mocked him slightly.
"I didn't know Maya had a thing for Psychos."
"Trust me there are a lot of reasons." Maya stated.
"Quit talking/Roland in trouble/Must save him."
"He's not wrong." Axton said as he put the key into the hole and dropped the drawbridge down. They entered into the stronghold hearing Hyperion and Flanksteak (I think that's his name.) bargaining on Rolands cost through their coms. They fought through bandits with relative ease. Only a few problems with Awesome Nomads with Awesome Psychos. Eventually getting to a very big room with a vortex of probably death in the middle of it. They were easily killing the bandits in there until a bandit named Mad Mike came out of a garage door along with two awesome nomads and a seemingly endless wave of suicide psychos.
Immediately Aston's shield and Zero's shield went down from the barrage of bullet fire and rockets.
All six of them ducked behind cover trying to figure out what to do. They fought off suicide psychos while Mad Mike and his Nomads slowly made their way to them. They knew that they were running out of time.
"Ok, I… I have an idea. I don't think anyone will like it cause it takes quite the toll on me." Maddox offered.
"What is it?" Maya asked.
"Ok I can duplicate myself and can control each of my clones and myself. It's just with more clones the more information my 'brain' is receiving and well the more likely I am to well... crash. I'd also prefer if we don't get into the energy consumption too."
"No, we can't let you do that." Maya denied him.
"Sorry but I'm with Maddox on this one, unless you guys have any other ideas." Axton admitted as one of the nomads has came into view."
"What about Gaige, you know how…" Maya began.
"I know, but if I don't do anything then she'll be alone with all of us dead anyway."
Maya let out a heavy sigh knowing he was right. "Just do whatever it is you need to do."
Maddox's eyes began to glow red. Suddenly, another Maddox appeared, then another, then another. Soon there were ten of them. Simultaneously all ten of them ran towards Mike and his Nomads. A nomad swung his spiked shield at one of the clones and scored a hit. This caused that clone to hit the ground and turn to dust. While the nomad was open, another clone had a blade pop out of his wrist and shoved it through the nomads skull. That clone was crushed under the weight of the nomad and now only eight remained.
Mike fired his rocket launcher and blew up two of the clones. The rest charged for the last nomad. Again the nomad knocked one aside with his shield and as the second one came up, the nomad used his free hand to knock him to the ground and shot him. A third clone slide under him and deployed a dual blade and sliced up the nomads back killing him. The nomad again fell on top of the clone.
Now only three remained and Maddox was one of them. They all rushed at Mike, Mike swung and the clone had dodged, obviously now that Maddox was only controlling three entities meant he could easily focus more on the survival of the one in most immediate danger. The clone had slid under the arm and dragged a short blade across Mike's ankle. Mike bent over and in a fit of anger picked up the clone and threw him into the vortex below. The second clone made an attempt to tackle Mike into the vortex, however Mike moved and the clone plummeted down. The last one was Maddox. Mike rushed Maddox and knocked him to the ground with his rocket launcher. Maddox's eyes violently blinking red and Maddox could feel his vision fade. Mike put his foot on Maddox's chest. Throwing all of his weight on him. "You won't last two minutes." Mike mocked as he continued to put more pressure onto Maddox's chest.
Maddox could no longer feel his lower body. He quickly felt his arms become numb and out of energy as he focused all of it to keep his chest from caving in. Maddox knew that he was running out of energy fast. Suddenly, Maya fired at Mike. Mike stumbled off of his chest. Maddox took this opportunity and grabbed Mike's ankle. Feeling his energy return as he drained Mike of his own life force. Soon Maddox was standing above Mike who began to wither as his body rapidly aged without him. Maddox finally stopped draining him and looked at Mike.
Mike was too weak to move. Struggling to look up at Maddox. "Bury me… with my stuff." Mike struggled to say out, his voice barely a whisper and rasp.
"You fought well." Maddox told him as he pushed Mike into the vortex below.
The others walked towards Maddox, who simply stared where Mike had fell. "What did you do to him?" Axton asked.
"I… drained him of his own energy. Like a vampire and blood. I can siphon the life energy out of someone. It's something I avoid doing. I don't like doing it."
"Let's uh…. just move on." Maya said walking away.
"Agreed." Zero spoke.
They continued through the stronghold. Killing wave after wave after wave of bandits. They made it to where Roland was locked up. The wall behind Roland blew up and a loader came through to grab him. Roland easily killed the loader. As a another one came through he grabbed the core of the previous loader and threw it and killed it. Roland turned back towards his cell door and a blue constructor landed behind him. Laser beams grabbed Roland and put him in a tight cage on top of it. The constructor flew away and a loader blew up the cell door in attempt to kill them. No one was injured and allowed them to chase W4RD-3N.
Bandits were either fighting loaders and getting torn apart or committing suicide. One unlucky bandit was impaled by the arm of a loader. They all watched the horrific brutality that bandits endured from the Hyperion loaders. They finally caught up to W4RD-3N, it made turrets and more powerful loaders. Including an awesome loader. The six of them, began to engage the Hyperion detachment. Maddox narrowly dodged the laser W4RD-3N produced. The loaders started to overwhelm the. Axton's turrets were damaged, Maya was growing weary of using phaselock. Salvador, was losing focus with his dual wielding. Zero's deception was only distracting enemies for a short time. Krieg's buzz axe needed cleaning bad as too many machine parts ended up inside the mechanism. Maddox knew that he'd need to use more energy in order for everyone to survive.
"Can you all cover me for a bit?" Maddox shouted to his teammates.
"How long is a 'bit'?" Axton asked dodging a swing from a PWR Loader.
"Not long… I hope." Maddox muttered the last bit under his breath.
"We can try."
Maddox leaned against his cover. Putting his weapons on the ground. He closed his eyes focusing on what he needed to do. Suddenly, his body turned to dust and rushed inside of W4RD-3N.
W4RD-3N.exe
Jets: Offline
Laser: Online
Missiles: Offline
Nuke: Offline
Construction: Offline
Containment: Online
Containment Subject: Crimson Raider Leader Roland
Orders: Hold Subject For Extraction
Allegiance: Hyperion
setChange Orders(Release Subject)
W4RD-3N.exe
Jets: Offline
Laser: Offline
Missiles: Offline
Nuke: Offline
Construction: Offline
Containment: Offline
Orders: Waiting
Allegiance: Hyperion
setChange Orders(Destroy Hyperion Personnel)
W4RD-3N.exe
Jets: Offline
Laser: Offline
Missiles: Online
Nuke: Offline
Construction: Offline
Containment: Offline
Orders: Destroy Hyperion Personnel
Allegiance: Hyperion
setChange Allegiance(Crimson Raiders)
W4RD-3N.exe
Jets: Offline
Laser: Online
Missiles: Offline
Nuke: Offline
Construction: Offline
Containment: Offline
Orders: Destroy Hyperion Personnel
Allegiance: Crimson Raiders
Maddox reformed out of the dust he became and looked to see W4RD-3N burn the awesome loader with its laser. All around were destroyed loaders, cut by lasers or destroyed by missiles. The battle was soon over, the loaders did not expect for the constructor to turn on them.
"Well… that's not very fair." Jack said surprised and disappointed.
Suddenly, a meteor came from Helios and destroyed W4RD-3N.
"Quickly, we need to get out of here before Jack launches more meteors!" Roland commanded heading for the fast travel station. Quickly everyone went through and traveled to Sanctuary.
They all followed Roland to HQ as he went upstairs to talk to Lilith. Gaige caught Maddox as he walked in behind everyone, noticing he was running fairly low on energy. "How much did you use?"
"Enough to get us out alive. Roland has a plan to take down Jack. You should go listen."
"Wait… are you leaving right now?"
"I'll wait by the entrance of Sanctuary for you to get done."
"I'm on crutches, you want me to come all the way out there on these?"
Maddox smiled realizing he was an idiot. "You're right, I'll wait down here for you."
"Okay…" Gaige left and slowly managed to get up the stairs.
Maddox leaned against the wall. He really didn't want to go. But he also had no choice. He needed to find and stop this other him. Most likely he was in a vault and Maddox would need to get his car and armor, then find a way to defeat him or it. He was definitely going to miss Gaige. He liked listening to her as she nerded out about Death Trap or any mechanical thing, he liked her company and just every single thing about her. All her flaws had made her flawless.
Gaige appeared as she slowly made it down the steps. She crutched over to Maddox as he got up. "I'll walk you to the entrance." Gaige told him.
Maddox nodded as he walked slowly so Gaige could keep up with him. "Where are you going to go? You're not leaving Pandora right?"
"No, I'm not leaving Pandora. I… was gonna head West and see where that took me."
Eventually they got to more steps and Maddox just picked her up bridal style so she didn't need to deal with them. He began to put her down but she stopped him. "No. Carry me over there."
Maddox chuckled. "What happened to walking me over there?"
"I wouldn't call using these things as walking." She indicated to her her crutches.
"True, true." They arrived at the entrance. Maddox gently set her down as she leaned against her crutches. "Well, here we are…"
"Yea…" They both looked on both trying to find an excuse to stay or get him to stay. "I really don't want you to go."
"I don't wanna go either."
"So then why are you?"
"You know I have to."
Gaige let out a defeated sigh "...yea I know. I wish things could be different. I'm so happy that I had to run to Pandora and meet you." Gaige tried to fight back tears, of course Maddox had noticed her pain. Maddox simply hugged her. Yet again no words needed to be exchanged, she couldn't hold her tears back from him. He was her shoulder, her friend, and her boyfriend. He was about to leave her, they would stay together of course. But he would be gone physically. She heard the humming of his heart. Slightly slower than it normally was. He brought her eyes to meet with his, even he had tears silently falling from his own somewhat rapidly blinking eyes. Even still he brought his finger up and wiped away her tears. Her crutches leaned up against her body as she stood on her good leg with her arms around him. He rested his hand on her cheek and she leaned her head back on him.
"Goodbye…" Gaige reluctantly said.
They began to part as Maddox returned her with a goodbye of his own. His eyes still blinking. Gaige began to smile, "Why do your eyes blink faster and your heart hum slower when you're low on energy? Shouldn't the blinking be slower or humming be faster?"
Maddox returned a smile of his own. "You know I've been this thing for three years and I still don't understand why it's like that."
"Hmm… funny." She grabbed her crutches and began to turn back for the HQ.
"What's Rolands plan?"
"Jack wants to wake up this old warrior from a vault and whoever wakes the warrior controls it and whoever controls the warrior controls the fate of the universe. Or did he say world?"
"Wait what?"
"Roland wants to open a vault with an ancient warrior before Jack does."
"A vault? Ancient Warrior? Can decide the fate of the world and maybe the universe?" Maddox began to peace puzzles in his head.
"Yea… I just said that. Is everything ok?"
"Yes, yes. Everything is great." Maddox began to get really excited.
"What is going on?"
"You don't see it? Roland wants to open a vault. Noitalihinna might be stuck in a vault. The vault contains an ancient old warrior. Noitalihinna is extremely ancient and is a warrior. The warrior controls the fate of the universe. Noitalihinna has destroyed whole star systems and has annihilated every thing he's come across."
"Who's Noitalihinna?"
"Oh sorry, Noitalihinna is the name of this other me."
"Wait what?"
"Noitalihinna is the thing I'm trying to hunt."
"So are you saying that you won't be leaving?!" Gaige asked understanding his excitement and becoming excited herself.
"I will not be leaving!"
"That's great!" Gaige let out a happy laugh as she jumped back onto Maddox dropping her crutches and then she winced in pain as she landed on her bad leg. "Ahhoowww. That wasn't a good idea."
"No. No it wasn't. I can fix your leg though. If you want me to."
"Could you please?"
Maddox knelt down so he was eye level with her waist. He reached his hand to her calf as a soft red glow emitted from his palm. Gaige felt her calf go completely numb. It was a very odd feeling. She could feel from her knee up and ankle down. But in between there was nothing.
"Do you want it to scar?"
"Uhhh, no not really."
"Ok, no scar."
Soon the red glow faded and Maddox stood back up. Gaige slowly felt her calf again. She put some weight onto her leg and felt no pain. No soreness, she looked down and the skin was like new baby skin. "It still kinda hurts." She lied smiling.
Maddox saw right through it. "Quit lying, if you want me to carry you then say that."
Gaige blushed with a smile. "Can you carry me anyway?" She batted her eyelashes at him.
"I don't see why I can't." Maddox picked her up bridal style again and he made his way towards the HQ.
"What about the crutches?"
"Someone will give them to Zed."
Three things.
1. Yes I know I lied Maddox isn't leaving anytime soon.
2. I don't know if you guys really care that much for the paragraphs of each characters loot so I decided to just update the inventory and leave it at the end of the chapter.
3. No Noitalihinna is not The Warrior. The Warrior will still be a giant lava dragon thing. I just needed to give Maddox an excuse to stay.
Again sorry it took so long.
Inventory Update:
Axton
Rifle- Jakobs AR
Acidic Droog- Vladof Sniper
Acidic Peacemaker- Pistol
Flame of the Firehawk Shield- Maliwan Legendary (Constant Fire Nova when completely depleted)
Electronic Lobbed MIRV Grenade- Torgue
Ranger Class Mod- larger magazine and more critical hit damage
The Afterburner Relic- longer boost and faster recharge time.
Maya
Electronic Vanquisher- Vladof Launcher
Electronic Vexation- Maliwan SMG
Electronic Minigun- Dahl AR
Nova Shield- Torgue
Electronic Homing Effect Grenade- Vladof
Fox Class Mod- higher burn chance and damage
Salvador
Electronic Room Clener- Bandit Shotgun
Electronic Renegade- Vladof AR
Acidic Punishment- Maliwan Launcher
Standard Shield- Tediore
Electronic Homing Effect Grenade- Vladof
Beast Class Mod- more health and faster reload
Elemental Relic- boost fire damage
Zero
Sniper - Dahl Sniper
Incendiary Fighter- Vladof Pistol
Electronic Spread- Tediore Launcher
Explosive Spike Shield- Torgue
Weakened Rubberized MIRV Grenade- Torgue
Sniper- More Sniper rifle damage and more critical sniper damage and less shield capacity
Gaige
Electronic Rifle- Dahl AR
Acidic Ace- Tediore SMG
Hand Cannon- Torgue Pistol
Booster Shield- Dahl
Longbow Transfusion Grenade- Maliwan
Sweetheart Class Mod- more team health
Strength Relic- Stronger Melee
Krieg
Hulk- Torgue Shotgun
Incendiary Compact MG- Tediore SMG
Acidic Blaster - Vladof AR (E-Tech)
Electronic Nova Shield- Maliwan
Lobbed Acidic Effect Grenade- Vladof
Torch Class Mod- more burn damage
Maddox
Blaaa- Torgue Launcher
Acidic Projectile Convergence- Hyperion SMG
Electronic Stret Sweper- Bandit Shotgun
Explosive Spike Shield- Torgue
Weakened Sticky Homing Bettie Grenade- Dahl
Slicer Class Mod- plasma blades consume less energy