Keep Warm Pt 1:
The Fridge was the worst shithole on Pandora as far as Maya was concerned, and that was saying a lot. It was cold and dirty and dank to the point of revulsion and just the thought of stepping one toe past its heavy gate made her stomach turn. It was the desecrated corpse of a Dahl outpost and it had taken up demented new residents since the company bailed, turning the place into a crooked hamster cage full of feces and cannibalism that was unmatched in the badlands. It had been a mistake to take this mission but the only other option was gutting the Hyperion Friendship Gulag with the others, something which Krieg denied point blank. He'd nearly blacked out from slamming his head into the wall at HQ, repeatedly screaming 'no' when it had been suggested, so Maya decided to bite the bullet and keep him from freezing to death alone.
Now we can freeze to death together, Maya added dismally, mostly joking. Mostly.
She watched Krieg struggle with the frozen hatch from a reasonable distance and briefly considered begging him to go kill things somewhere, anywhere else instead. The thought was interrupted as he gave up tugging and melted the hatch with incendiary rounds, nearly breaking the thing in the process and definitely denting it, but sadly it twisted open with ease and Mayas hopes of escaping were shattered. Krieg turned back to her and shook his axe victoriously as the gate groaned open and Maya tried her best not to look disappointed, nodding with fabricated approval at his efforts. No turning back now.
He hovered at the threshold and Maya joined him, snickering at the comically deep bow that he offered as she passed and trying to look on the bright side. She had him.
Having a badass psycho at her side was a strange comfort but she was ready to cling to it to settle her mind, rationalizing that there was a pecking order among psychos and by similar standards Rats. She snuck a look in his direction, sizing him up. Even hunched over Krieg was a leaning tower of meat with broad shoulders and tree-trunk arms, pushing six feet tall and taller still when he straightened, towering over his psycho cousins with ease. In his massive hands he clutched a custom axe longer and girthier than her arm and swung it like it weighed nothing, but most importantly he only swung where he had to. He was intelligent above all else and Maya couldn't deny the feeling of deep understanding that he reflected back to her when she spoke to him, something that had solidified her confidence in him from the start. She was deep in thought as they walked into doom and frozen Rat shit, passing flaming barrels and nodding to herself, deciding that on the pyramid of psycho superiority, Krieg was definitely at the top.
Maya was satisfied with her logic and her eyes flicked from his pecs back to his face, surprised that his gaze was already on her. Maybe he was sizing her up in turn, or maybe he just liked her smile. She'd caught him staring at her plenty of times, but this might've been the first time he'd caught her sneaking looks. Maya had done it before, sure, but this was the first time that her eyes had lingered for as long as they had, having spent a solid minute languidly snaking her gaze up and down his formidable bulk and critically analyzing his battle potential. At least, that's what Maya told herself she was doing.
She opened her mouth indignantly ready to deny she'd been staring but swallowed the words when a sheet of metal scratched on the ice ahead and there was movement, the clamor of filthy claws on concrete and a seeping choir of hideous giggles that echoed off the cavern walls. Maya decided that she'd defend her ogling later and drew her smg, ready for the bent freaks as long as he was.
Rats scuttled into view on all fours, low to the ground and crouched in their own filth, and Maya decided that they were definitely on the bottom of the crazy power-pyramid and far removed from her friend. She opened fire and ignited their wrappings, thinking it would be best to burn them alive and sanitize the area with flames. Their screams were cathartic in a pest-extermination kind of way and she figured that the fewer rats left alive the better, taking the time to double-tap each half-melted corpse with her pistol before running to catch up with Krieg. She weaved around bodies and leapt into the groove of combat, firing at the hip and dropping rats at close range as they scrambled and dove around her, dodging the swipe of their grotesque claws and trying to keep pace with her friend.
"Hnng, time to go INSANE!" Kriegs right arm crunched and twisted and he convulsed, badass psycho out and vault-hunter gone, one gigantic arm leading the carnage that the siren followed.
For once she wished he didn't rush into battle, wished that he would stay close to her, if not to help her than only to have someone else to be freaked out with, as if that was a feeling that Krieg could empathize with. For a man of his size he was quick on his feet and even faster in the frenzy of combat. It pulled him forward, lit up his nerves red-electric with the buzz of bloodshed and emboldened him, washed over him in a heady wave and drowned out his senses.
Maya took it all in stride and made a mental note to get payback on him for ditching her, snapping the last mutated Rats head back with a bullet and slowing to a canter. Krieg leapt over an icy cliff after his buzz axe and vanished from her sight, a R.O.U.S following close on his heel and foaming at the mouth. Maya's breath came out ragged and foggy as she released it, panting from the exertion and feeling sweat prickle on her skin in the freezing air. She didn't waltz into cold hell with him just to be left in the dust and she let the irritation bubble as she walked through the slick gore he'd left as his trail, leisurely listening to the Rats screams of terror below and for a second too burnt out to still be on edge. Maya savored the fleeting moment of calm and deftly reloaded her smg and rifle, reaching to do the same for her Two Fer Maggie-
-which wasn't there.
Time stopped and snowy air rushed around her ankles. The Jakobs pistol wasn't in its holster and that was impossible, Maya thought, panicked and patting down her pockets only to be reassured of its disappearance. She could have screamed. "Those slimy thieving Rat bastards-" She swiveled on her heel fully prepared to shuffle through corpses to find her favorite legendary but halted at the sound of a familiar gunshot past the frozen drop below. Her feet nearly slipped off the edge of the cliffside but she balanced, glaring down to the scene below through her rifles sight and seething with rage.
POV break_
Rats would be easier to kill if they didn't squirm so much, but that was half the fun. Krieg could barely keep his grip on the sniveling psychopath, fingers firmly embedded in its intestines and trying in vain to see if he remembered how to make a Jacobs Ladder. Sure his hands were bigger than the average eagle-scout but the idiot controlling them just grunted and assured himself that it'd be an A for effort and he'd get the badge anyway. A bandit would have been dead from the blood loss or the pain but Rats were warped like he was, all dulled nerves and ridiculous pain tolerance and -as Krieg was discovering- surprising flexibility.
The R.O.U.S twisted in a last ditch effort to wriggle free and Kriegs hands fumbled. "Stop wiggling or I'll make a TENT out of your ribcage!" A section of large intestine burst open in his grasp with a spray of purple guts and cut both the man's life and the knot lesson short. Purple covered his chest and he whined at the color, "GAH! I wanted to see red, RED!" Krieg withdrew disappointed, arms covered in violet streaks and oozing bite marks. He cocked his head curiously at the Rat as it wilted into the ice with a final hiss of death, surprised there was still air in its lungs after he had yanked them out through its sternum. His axe was next to the corpse laying in ice and he retrieved it after wiping it off there, adding fresh gore to the violet stain of Rat guts. God that's unnerving. Purple had no business being inside anyone and it ruined the rampage afterglow, making his insides twitch and reminding Krieg why he was in the Fridge in the first place and not destroying the Gulag with the others.
The others minus Maya. She'd agreed to keep him company and he was surprised by her willingness, remembering how vocally she'd made her distaste for the place known in the past. Krieg had a sneaking suspicion to why she gave a damn about him, why she cared whether or not he became a nipply ice sculpture, but didn't trust himself to believe it. He just hoped it was empathy and not pity that motivated her. Maybe he'd been a little dramatic back at HQ but even as controlled as he'd become since meeting her, nothing could drag him back to the Gulag unless it tore off all his limbs first. Crush be damned.
She stuck in his mind and he realized that there was an unusual lack of incinerated Rats around him. In his rush he'd jumped over a cliff without thinking and had landed wrestling with the oversized Rat, the rest of it a blur but still clear that he'd left her behind. Krieg felt a twinge of loneliness without her at his side and wondered how she was doing up there, speculations cut short by twin-bullets perforating his shoulder from behind, knocking him face-first and back into his own mess. He knew that noise and it wasn't just any pistol, it was the Maggie and it was hers. Well damn, she finally turned on me… He knew she'd be mad at him for running off but not this mad. Through the mask he whined and blew bloody bubbles from his spot lodged in a ribcage and rose with dread, not ready to see Maya angry at him and kicking himself for being so inconsiderate.
It wasn't the siren that'd shot him after all but as Krieg turned and got a good look at the Loot Goon Goliath gunning him down he felt like maybe her anger would be preferable. At least Maya was pretty when she yelled. The twin gunshots that had shattered his collar bone came from a Wee Rat perched on the fat Goliaths shoulders, a strange symbiosis reminiscent of Midge-Mong but on steroids, 10x more dangerous and leveling a pilfered legendary Jakobs at his skull. Three guns fired at him at once and Krieg tripped over his own feet running, strafing to the side and wondering just where the hell that siren had gone and how pissed she was going to be that something as vile as a Rat was fondling her favorite firearm.
A bullet from nowhere snapped the Goliath's head forward and the bucket-helmet flew off, nearly taking the Wee Rat shrieking with it and throwing the towering badass into a headless rampage, Dahl chest crashing down off his shoulders and breaking the ground where it landed. The crash of metal on ice rang through the field and a wave of scuttling claws answered in response, Rats pouring from crevices in the walls and garbage and cackling, converging on the badass. A smoking rifle barrel was perched above on the overlook and Maya reloaded with a huff, looking about as enraged as the Goliath from where Krieg was standing and glowing fiery neon against the blue ice.
Damn, did she shoot his helmet off on purpose? He didn't have time to consider it while the Rats closed in, a lone psycho against a hoard of freaks and one fat bastard without a neck, barreling towards him with only his fists and boiling blood. Rats leapt onto the Goliath as he ran and sunk their teeth in, hanging on and coming along for the ride as he raged.
Get out of there, now! A dead man spoke in his ear but Krieg roared with glee instead, rushing to meet the badass in the middle with his axe in one hand and explosives in the other, ignoring his better instinct and drooling, itching to taste the sweet loot inside the fat man's gut and screaming all the way, "Someone delivered a FEAST!"
POV Break_
She hadn't intended to knock the Goliaths helmet clean off and was aiming for the Wee Rat, but all the better that she did, gleaning a little satisfaction from Kriegs double-take. Maya let out a smug 'Ha' seeing Krieg jump at the sight of the badass, almost satisfying enough to calm her fury at losing her pistol. She knew he'd be fine -probably elated- to kill a Goliath anyway but still felt a little sore for him running off, figuring that he could make it up to her by retrieving her Maggie, that is, if it didn't blow his head off in the process.
The siren stayed put with her rifle while chaos ensued below, taking pot shots at the little pistol thief as its ride zeroed-in on Krieg, unable to get a clear shot in the fray of scrambling Rats and blood. From her rifle sights her friend seemed small, puny in comparison to a jumbo pissed Goliath but psychotically on the offense, taunting the badass with manic screaming and rushing at him with lit dynamite in his fist. It never ceased to amaze her how reckless he could be but this was pushing it.
Krieg's joy culminated when he practically catapulted into the Goliaths arms, grabbing its exposed spinal column in the same hand as the dynamite and stuffing the lit sticks down the hole of its former neck. He was laughing loud enough to be heard from her distance and Maya winced as he bellowed 'BOOM!' only a second before the blast.
She shielded her eyes when the fuse ran out but whipped her head back to the scene, the smoke cloud left behind rendering her blind to what was happening below. A sniper rifle wasn't going to be enough she realized, watching the swarm of rats rushing into the cloud and knowing that she needed to get in there. Maya switched to her smg and slid down the iced slope, outstretching an arm to freeze the Goliath where it stood poised over Kriegs prone body, looking ready to tear him in two before being heaved into the air. The Wee Rat had been thrown from its shoulders by the detonation and Maya saw it yank its head out of a patch of ice beyond the fight. Its hands were empty. Maya found her anger again, screaming in frustration.
"Oh come on, where the hell is my gun?" Maya shouted the question at no one and her phaselock smoldered in the air, engulfing the Goliath in flames that roared and burned hot with her rage. Maya added gasoline to the fire with her smg, soaking her victim in slag and giving the crowd of bent freaks a taste before switching back to her incendiary Maliwan. The Rats were mesmerized by the fire and threw themselves at her orb, burning their faces off trying to clamp their salivating maws around meat from the Goliath as it cooked in her power. Their mindlessness only spurred Maya on, overwhelmed by disgust and gagging at the cannibalism. Krieg shook himself off and limped back to her side before her phaselock ran dry and dropped the half-eaten badass onto a bed of incinerated Rat corpses. The bastard was somehow still alive with bones jutting out of its limbs, pulling Rats off like leeches and popping their skulls like grapes in his palms.
Kriegs hand fell on her shoulder and she pulled her eyes away from the horror, confused as his hands trailed down her arm and covered her hand, pointing her gun at his chest with her finger still on the trigger. Maya was still shell shocked and it took her a minute to understand what he wanted before he spoke.
"Gotta keep WARM," he muttered, elemental energy from the barrel slashing his visage in light, "I wanna feel it all, I wanna touch your HEAT, I wanna embrace the flames, Oh god, lemme have a taste of yours!" The Goliath ran out of Rats to smash and turned back to the pair stronger than ever, a God-liath steaming and charred and pissed beyond all hell. Maya wasn't going to argue Kriegs logic in the face of death and did as he said, firing into his chest point-blank and gasping as the flames consumed him.
Hyperions claws bored holes into Kriegs psyche but they'd warped his outsides as much as his innards and somehow made him uniquely fireproof. Maya saw it at the Bloodshot dam when he turned himself into a human pyre and stoked the flame with his own bullets, at one point chugging a stray bottle of mystery liquor and breathing a cone of fire at a Bruiser like it was a carnival trick. Krieg delighted at the burning warmth and let his head hang back and his eyes close, savoring the chaotic ecstasy. He held his axe aloft and presented himself to the Goliath with open arms and a bubbling cackle.
Maya ducked out of the way but Krieg stayed put, readying the axe like a baseball bat and meeting the charging Goliath with a heavy swing to its jugular before being knocked to the ground. The slagged badass was melting on top of him and seared flesh dropped to steam on the ice, melting into pockets of gore. Krieg allowed his head to be smashed into the ground in its grasp, giggles pouring out of him like a hyena and seeming to enjoy the head wound as much the smell of burning skin. "Hurt me more, MORE! I want to bathe in your agony!" Maya had to turn away from him when he jammed his fist into the Goliaths dripping eye sockets and reached into what must've been the things brain, something bright catching her eyes and buried under the stray limbs of a Rat. She rushed to the corpse pile and tossed limbs over her shoulder, leaving Krieg to burn.
Maggie was in her hands again, filthy and sticky but Maya didn't care, turning back to her psycho as he was pulped against the concrete and hollering over his laughter.
"Goliath!" What was left of the badasses head swung over its shoulder, barely any meat still clinging to the skull and tongue hanging free without a jaw. Maya wrapped her finger around the trigger and righteously leveled Maggie, ready for the explosion of gore and smug in her impending victory, "Meet David."
POV_
Montys wife don't take no guff.
The Goliaths head splattered against his mask and Krieg was quick to pull his legs up and out from under it before its muscles gave out and its corpse collapsed into a bloody puddle. Flames petered out around him and he panted, shaking and dizzy and seeing double from the head trauma. He let his skull rest against the cracked ice and concrete and bathed in the growing pool of red, content to lay there until the blood congealed like pudding around him before a familiar pair of combat boots padded through the muck, stopping at his side.
He stared up at her, his bloodied angel of holy fire, and her image swayed and distorted. Krieg hoped it wasn't his own fool heart tricking him again, just imagining that she cared and imagining the teasing smile lighting up her features. Maya shook her head at his sprawl, reloading her recovered pistol and almost cooing at it, and Krieg wished she was that happy to see him. Just tell her. Tell her you need her; tell her you won't leave ever again. Tell her to fill you with love and tell her you'll do the same. Do it before she runs and promise to love her, forever-
"Fill me with bullets…" Krieg breathed the wrong words from the ground, reaching a hand to brush his fingers over the toe of her shoe and grab her attention. "Fill me with sweetfire and make it blue, burn me up inside until I'm a husk for the grave and we can lie together-" He panted from the exertion and Maya bent at the knee to hover over his crumpled body, Maggie holstered firmly at her hip. She met his hand with her own and lifted it off the ground, inspecting the damage and only half-listening to the words, hoping that his head wound wasn't dire. Krieg needed her to listen to him and he needed to get the words out, puke them from his lungs so they couldn't drown him, and kiss them into her skin so she could keep them. "I need it, I need this pain so bad, I need-" Say it. Say it and rip it out of me. "I need you."
Mayas head jerked back and her mouth opened in shock at his voice, puzzled eyes searching his and wondering what the hell just happened. His voice had dropped low and into a new cadence, a tone that was tame and level but urgent. It was like the voice of another man and Maya paused, knowing this was one of the rare moments she clung to, the moments where his lucidity overshadowed his crazed rambling or bloodied hands and his eyes stared back at her from the abyss, pleading with her, understanding her. "I…"
"I need you too." She whispered the words to him and they kissed his ears, almost lost under the whirl of wind that swept her hair forward, tendrils of blue tickling the respirator on Kriegs mask. He brushed them back behind her ear, hand gentle and deliberate, eye still on hers. Maya was stunned but laughed softly at the absurdity of it all, reminded that she was supposed to hate where she was, surrounded by cannibalized bodies and kneeling in a pool of blood. But it couldn't be wrong to savor this moment, hold tight to the fleeting instance of understanding blooming between them. Maya wanted to make something clear while he was listening, speaking emphatically and clutching his hand.
"Please, don't do that again. Stay with me. Don't run off without me, not here, not-" She wanted to say 'ever' but thought that might be pushing it, biting down on her lower lip and letting her eyes drift from his to take in the carnage around them, and feeling her hatred for the Fridge swell with the sight. Maya exhaled, spent. "-not here."
Krieg took the opportunity to scoot closer, finding that her lap was much more comfortable than concrete and laying his head down there. "Mmmm oh Blue," The fear in her voice made something warm and painful burn in his chest and he wanted to always be there with her, wanted to scream the words a million times. Krieg tried to slow his beating heart, answering, promising her what she wanted and dying to say so much more. "-I won't run from you." Ever.