Chapter 10
Zer0 awoke to the sound of his echo beeping, it was a message from Roland, it was titled 'It is time', zer0 sighed from his roof, he looked out over sanctuary, he hesitated going to the meeting with his companions, but he knew that if his employer wanted details, he'd have to go.
He approached the HQ with speed and haste, he needed to make sure he missed nothing, so he opened the front door and walked upstairs, he entered the planning room to see Roland,Lilith,Brick and Mordecai, none of the others had arrived yet.
After about 10 minutes of waiting for the others, they had all arrived, as it was early morning, most were exhausted or hungover, he noticed Maya standing close to Mordecai, he also saw Gaige creep closer to Axton before Roland began the debrief on the attack.
Just before the briefing, zer0 quickly switched the call onto his employer, who had immediatley picked up and was silent throughout the entire debrief.
"This is it everybody, Jack and his vault key are in the bunker, we're takin him out and takin his vault key, Brick is gunna give us all the support we need from the air, Lilith and Maya are our elemantal proffesionals for the attack, they will be on the front line with Brick,Salvador and Axton, Gaige you stay behind Axton and do exactly as he says, I'll be there for overwatch and support for you all should you need it and Mordecai and...Zer0, will be our snipers, any questions?"
All zer0 noted was a few worried looks as they all looked to Roland, he knew none of them doubted him and would risk their lives for him, before he could dwell on this thought however he heard Maya ask,
"Wheres claptrap gunna be?, and do we need to cover him if he's out front with us?"
Roland thought for a second and responded with,
"He will be with Gaige and Axton, keep him covered for when he deactivates the force field, i'll have the key card to get into Jacks chambers so...zer0, watch my back"
Zer0 clenched his fist at this, he respected Rolands knowledge and expertise, but who was he to order his superior?, instead zer0 simply gave a thumbs up and drew his rifle, the others drew their respective weapons also, 'This is it' he thought,' The beginning of the end of the vault hunters', he smirked slightly at this as they all headed to the fast travel and readied themselves for the biggest and most intense battle of their lives.
I
As they all digistructed in the bandit camp known as Slab Town, none dared to attack seeing as their king was there and with the vault hunters, zer0 went to a perch overlooking everything and far from the others, although he should be against these hunters and not for them, he figurd he should not risk suspicion by doing nothing throughout the fight, as he knelt down and scoped out the situation, he saw Axton and Gaige go for cover behind some old car and...ohhh...holding hands aswell,'Heh, pitiful emotions from the lesser beings', he saw Maya and Lilith creep behind a shack, just west of Axton and Gaige, he saw Roland quite a bit back and Mordecai above him on a bandit balcony, meanwhile Brick and Sal stood in the middle, waiting for a fight,Zer0 switched his helmet on again,
"They're in position and ready to take the shield down, strike now"
"Very good zer0, remember, when they're in the chambers they must stand around the vault key, you stand well back, wouldn't want you in my trap"
"May i ask, what is your reason for dispatching loaders if you want them to reach you alive?"
"I need them to know that i ain't just gunna let them in, they'll get suspicious and be on full alert in my chambers, here comes the loaders, remember keep the sirens alive"
"Do not worry, they will arrive on time and in one piece, this i am sure of"
"Good"
And with that zer0 ended the call just as the first few loaders came down, he saw that they were just regular GUN loaders, so he just shot the arms off of them, and with his first shot echoing out to the first loader, chaos followed.
As he looked upon the carnage he saw that Sal and Brick both went in, throwing all caution to the wind and going ham on the loaders, he saw a few left behind from their rampage but Mordecai picked them off along with himself and Roland, he saw Deathtrap fly out and start hacking and slashing at any and all loaders left, along with a missile barrage from Axtons turret, a flash of purple drew his attention to the badass loader caught in Mayas phaelock, and a green acidic coating from Liliths smg, he saw Roland throw his turret out and shred a few remaining loaders, as the short brake from loaders showed them that helios was loading more robots into the cannon, they rushed claptrap to the forcefield and he took it down,
"Let us move swiftly, so as we do not get attacked so soon again"
Zer0 announced over the echo, he saw everyone rush forward up to the small buildings at the bottom of the hill that the bunker stood upon, a constructor spawned in, but was quickly shot down due to the immense firepower from the vault hunters, claptrap went wheeling back to the fast travel seeing as he'd done his part, and the vault hunters pushed up the hill, coming ever closer to the chambers.
They soon encountered a huge door, turrets spawned at the side, but much like the constructor, were quickly shredded and left piles of metal, more loaders were waiting behind the door and they were all badass, with the exception of one which was a yellow, taller and more powerful looking one, it dug it's huge feet into the stoney floor and began to bombard shot after shot into the vault hunters, lilith and maya destroyed it with relative ease due to their abilities as the rest of the team worked on the regular badass ones, they swiftly moved as one unit throughout the small base, until they saw a huge constructor, one twice the size of regular ones get launched in from helios and launch a larger missile barrage than the smaller ones aswell, zer0 spoke out softly,
"Greetings badass, provide me my challenge"
As the others ran for cover, zer0 threw his decoy out and crept around the side of the constructor, he saw that this one had turrets on the sides and decided to dispatch them for his comrades to get an opening, after destroying the turrets with relative ease, his decepti0n ran out and he was forced back into cover, his allies drew the constructors main barrage, as zer0 felt the familiar tingling sensation through his suit to tell him his decoy was ready again, he threw it out to draw the constructors fire and he ran to the front and threw 30 kunai at the constructors eye as it was trying to construct loaders, his attack disrupted the constructing process and disabled the constructor aswell, it fell to the ground and short circuited, due to the fact that all 30 kunai had been shock ones.
His temmates shouted their respective 'Thanks' over the echo, and they all proceeded up the stairs which led to the bunker.
When they all arrived, they heard the buzzards engines and explosions, Brick then informed the group that there were auto cannons and those cannons were 'Tearing up our air support', so after a quick 5 minutes of destroying flimsy autocannons, they all heard Jack over their echos announce,
"Now do you really think i'd protect the vault key with nothing but some bots and flimsy turrets?, you see your not at the bunker right now, the bunker isn't a place-"
Zer0 and the others saw a huge hexagonal robot float up into the sky and begin to fly around and scan the battlefield,
"Thats the bunker, meet the BNK-3R, the greatest defence bot ever built, designed her myself, now do me a favor and die!"
And with Jack announcing that, he saw the bunker pull up to the outer rim of the roof that they were on, and digistruct a huge autocannon on the front of itself, it began shooting slag at the group, who quickly dispersed and fired from their respective locations, Gaige and Axton went behind some huge pillars and throw out the turret and robot, Lilith and Maya hid behind the walls and load up their corrosive smgs while Sal and Brick both pulled out shotguns, Sal pulled out two and began blasting the bot and Zer0, Mordecai and Roland all fell back to a set of stairs leading to a waterfall off the side of the mountain, Roland threw out his turret and Mordecai and Zer0 pulled out their two most powerful corrosive snipers and went for the bots eyes and targeting systems, the bunker kept flying and fleeing at certain points but after about 30 minutes of non-stop firepower on it, the bot fell from the sky and tumbled down the mountain, everyone appeared to be exhausted from the fight and almost all collapsed down and caught their breath,Roland announced,
"We're almost done guys, after this door we can kill Jack and take the vault key, and we'll be done with this shit"
Sal and Brick let out small battlecries as they started punching each other, zer0 guessed it was a Pandoran thing, Mordecai held out a picture of bloodwing and Maya went over to him and embraced him in a tight hug, zer0 almost laughed when he saw Mordecai jump when she touchd him, Axton and Gaige were in the corner, also embracing each other, but a small stage further than a hug, they were engaged in a tight kiss, zer0 looked upon this and almost felt a pang of regret for what was to come, finally his eyes set upon his siren, she was discussing something he couldn't quite make out, and zer0 himself was...alone, like he enjoyed, he stood at the back, in the cover of shadows as it was almost midnight, 'A full day we spent attacking this place, and only to fall into a tyrants trap', zer0 looked upon everyone, more Axton and Gaige, he felt...envious of their kiss, he had never experienced such a thing, it was primal and beneath 0 sighed and almost fell into sleep before Roland announced again
"Lets go everybody, we're minutes from takin this bastard down and claimin the vault key"
Zer0 had switched his helmet on to reveal this statement to his employer, his employer simply made a dark and sinister chuckle noise and ended the call.
I
Here they were, zer0 and his companions in the elevator down into the chambers of Handsome Jack, as it set down they were presented by a huge door, Roland pulled out the keycard from the double in opportunity and scanned the door with it,
"Access Granted", a female Hyperion voice said, a sigh of relief was let loose from all vault hunters and the door opened to reveal...the vault key, in the centre of the room the vault key was there, floating innocently, the vault hunters gathered round the key, they all looked on in astonishment at the artifact, zer0 however took a step back, then another until he drew the attention of Lilith, she said to him,
"Hey, this is what we've been searchin for, don't worry it's safe"
Just as she finished her sentence, a blue forcefield shot up around them and the key, the key however was sucked through a hole in the floor and the hole quickly sealed up, Jack appeared from the doors that the vault hunters entered through, clapping slowly, he began to say,
"Heya guys, how are ya?" He stood next to Zer0 and the hunters all looked on in astonishment and shock, Roland began to say aloud,
"No, please god no, Zer0, you weren't-"
"Oh i'm afraid he was Roland, right from the start, he's been my inside man, the worm and he's helped me a great deal you know that?"Zer0 stood tall and emotionless as ever, he noticed all of his 'friends' giving him a death stare, he cared not however,
"So, Roland, i'm just afraid that you and your vault huntin buddies are gonna have to come with m-"
"YOU BASTARD, I'M GUNNA KILL YOU, YOU HEAR ME!" Zer0 looked upon Lilith, she was in a fiery rage and the hunters looked to have a look of fear on their faces,
"WE TRUSTED YOU, FROM THE START WE TRUSTED YOU, YOU BACKSTABBING PSYCHOPATH!"Zer0 was shocked, in the face of capture and possible immediate death, she screamed at him,
"Hey now sweetheart, he was in it for the money, he didn't care about what happened to you...any of you"His mismatched eyes settled on Mordecai, who still stared, but not in shock, with unmatched rage,
"You helped him kill bloodwing?, I'm gunna kill you amigo, slowly and painfully, you're gunna die"
Zer0 responded with,
"I knew nothing of bloodwings demise,i planned the capture but not the death, i was not part of that, i fed information and reports to him"
Salvador was next to speak up in a surprisingly calm tone,
"Why pendejo?, why would you help...him?"
Jack answered for zer0 this time,
"Oh sal, i just said, he was in it for the money, not for you or any others-"His eyes wandered to Lilith,
"You however, little miss redhead, he had a thing for you, anyone that normally threatened him with a gun would've been split in half, you threatened him and dragged him into bed with you and he didn't even hurt you, it shocked me too"
Zer0 looked at her, he felt a slight bit of shame, he looked upon the group, Mordecai,Brick and Lilith were in a rage, Sal,Roland and Maya looked disappointed in him and Axton was...hugging Gaige, telling her they'd get out of this' although he did look at zer0 with something that shocked him...pleading eyes, he looked to be pleading for the girl, zer0 cared very little however,
"So, now that you're all in my little trap, i guess i should tell you what my intentions are, seein as i'm gunna shoot you all anyway, Lilith doll? You're comin with me and maybe Maya too, i guess two sirens chargin a keys better than one right?"He looked to ze0 with a questioning gaze,
"Yes, they will make fine chargers"
Jack laughed at this, he pulled two collars from his pocket and handed them to zer0,
"You know what i want zer0"
Zer0 looked at the collars, then to the sirens, he nodded and took them,
"Do not make this difficult sirens, or the rest will pay for it"Zer0 said in a cold and dark tone, that was present even through his voice modulater.
The two sirens exchanged worried looks, and nodded, they pressed their necks to the forcefield and zer0 slipped them through and around their necks, seeing as they were hyperion tech, they could pass through unfazed.
With a clicking noise coming from the collars, zer0 nodded to Jack, who pulled the lights out and the field down for a second and zer0 pulled the two out as the field went back up a second later, he dragged them both to the door and motioned for Jack to follow, but Jack had a deranged look in his eyes, he stared at Roland, not the group, but the leader, and raised his pistol at him,
"You know how long i've waited to do this Roland, Sooooo long you cannot believe"
Just as Jack went to pull the trigger, a kunai lodged itself in the weapon,
"Jack, no more blood needs to be shed right now, leave them be to enjoy their last moments"
Jack sighed,
"Fine, leave them to die slower, i like the idea, Z"
Zer0 flashed a ':)' on his helmet and left the room with the two sirens, he heard Jack continue to taunt the vault hunters,
"Why zer0, why didn't you tell us?"Maya almost said through tears,
"Because...i have an idea, something that pays more than Jack could ever offer"
Lilith spoke up, traces of anger still present in her voice,
"And what would that be?"
Zer0's reaction was to flash a simple':)' on his helmet, she did not understand but zer0 knew she would in time, his idea would only pay off...if she forgave him.
Authors Note-Don't worry, the pairings still stand...i'm just prolonging the end a little...bear with me here please...soooo...yeah.