C0unting Zer0's

Episode 1 Chapter 3

A/N: Alright Chapter 3! I honestly thought I would lose interest in this project far earlier but kudos to all of you readers and reviewers who made me jeep coming back. This probably isn't my best chapter but it is a necessary one, next time there will be some big(ish) plot reveals so bear with me. Also Zer0 wasn't featured as much as I wanted in this chapter but the next one will be mostly him.

Mmo100: It won't stop completely but I want to make the serious tone more promising.

athos-aramis: Thank you for another in depth review and I am gonna go back and fix all of the things you pointed out once I finish up episode 1.

Blake sat on the porch of his home in the New Headlands, slowly swinging on his porch swing watching his children play in the yard. Blake was out of his usual attire and instead of his usual formal suit he wore a faded Hawaiian T-shirt and a pair of khaki's. His two eight year old children played in the front yard with the swing set they had built the previous summer. He loved how the Headlands had become settled and people could live in an actual community instead of fearing a bandit raid every fifteen minutes. Of course there were still lots of troops around to make sure nothing bad happened and there was a huge wall under construction between the New Headlands and the wreckage of New Haven, a few bandits had started setting up camp and Blake didn't want to provoke a conflict. He was pulled out of his contemplation by a tap on his left shoulder "Yes hone- Agh!" Blake said falling out of his chair

"Hello Blake, we have a problem"

"T-T-Ten!" Blake stuttered fumbling to get up from the floor "How did you find me?"

"You are not a hard man to track Blake"

"You should leave, now. I don't need my children seeing you."

"Blake , scaring your children is not on my to do list, but we have an emergency."

Blake finally managed to stand up and stomped inside "Ten contacting me at my work is different but you are here at my home, scaring my family, Ten you may think you are important but this is where I draw the line. You are never supposed to meet an employers children" Blake popped open a bottle of beer and began to drink it.

"You have solid argument but forget the clause that I also have no desire to meet your family. I would not have contacted you at your place of residence if this matter was not of the utmost importance."

"What is so important Ten!"

"My brothers have heard of the struggle and are coming to Pandora"

"Didn't you say that they were on our side?"

"Unfortunately not all of my brothers are as enlightened as we are in this matter."

"So there's gonna be more of you running around Pandora? Goddammit." Said Blake sounding tired, he looked at his now empty beer bottle and said one of the wisest things that he had in a long time "I think I'm gonna need another beer."

Maya woke up with her hair sticking straight up "Jeez... What a night" she said crawling out of bed and looking around her room. Her room was in chaos and disorder as usual but something felt odd and she couldn't quite pinpoint it. "Salvador's snoring!" She said aloud snapping her fingers. She wandered towards Salvador's room after getting herself in cleaned up from her binge last night and putting some respectable clothes rather than her pajamas. Although she was the only girl on a team of "Manly Men" they all liked to pick on her for wearing them, especially Salvador. His taunting was pretty annoying until Maya managed to stop it by figuring out that Salvador still slept with his teddy bear Osolito. "Sal! Sal! Are you here?" Maya wandered down the hallway calling the others names "Axton! Sal! Lilith! Where is everybody? Brick! Mordecai! Zer0!..." Maya looked through the a few other rooms before heading upstairs. While this wasn't a terrifying experience it was a bit odd, Maya was usually the first person to get up in the morning. On top of this she honestly couldn't remember much of what happened last night, the last thing she could remember was Axton giving her drink after drink at Moxxi's last night, the pig. Maya really didn't think that he was an... attractive person but she needed to bear with her plan, she knew it was gonna work. "Tannis, have you seen anybody recently?" she said as she reached the top of the stairs. When Maya looked up she saw Axton, Salvador, and Lilith all loading up their guns and equipment. "Ummm, guys did I miss something?"

"No Maya" said Lilith "Axton said you had a rough night last night and needed some rest. We were gearing up to grab some Claptrap parts for Tannis, she had an ingenious idea to run digistruct modules through them so Kain can't hack them. The problem is that we can't discern what part we need so Tannis is gonna have to tear apart our Claptrap here.

Maya looked at Axton with a sly smile and one eyebrow raised "Really Axton" she said walking towards him "Did you think that I wanted to miss out on this mission? Miss out on a chance to smack down some of Kain's robots and rip apart some Claptraps? I don't think so buddy boy" she said smiling and patting Axton on the back. She snatched up one of Lilith's spare SMG's from a pile of guns on the table and began to load it, saying "So how much firepower are we bringing?"

"Only as much as you can carry." said Lilith "All digistruct modules need to be turned off now, and kept under lock and key. We don't want Kain getting into Sanctuary again so I'm cracking down, I even had to shut down Marcus' vendors."

"Well he must be happy." said Salvador sarcastically "But what I need to know is where my hombre Zer0 is. He isn't anywhere in his cave or the HQ. I even looked all over Sanctuary and couldn't find him. Unless he got hammered at the bar last night and fell off the edge I have no idea where he could be."

"Searching for Zer0 has never been the biggest success anyway Salvador, and if you really need help I'll come along." Lilith said.

Salvador smirked and said "It's OK I don't think I'll need much backup on this one. This is just a checkup on Overlook and Lair's Burg right?

"That's right Sal, just a routine checkup."

"Then I think I'll be on my way now. Adios, and don't kill Kain without me!" Salvador said as he exited the room slowly on his stubby legs an headed towards the Fast Travel station.

"I'm gonna go buy some Insta-Health's in case we run into trouble, so Maya would you mind grabbing the parts list from Tannis?" Axton said

"Sure thing" said Maya putting on nice smile after remembering her plan from last night. Some alone time with Axton would be the perfect time to set it in motion, and when Zer0 got back and saw Axton's arm around her... What she wouldn't pay to see the reaction on his face! Or his face at all really, why couldn't she stop thinking about him... Zer0 already rejected her she shouldn't care anymore! Sometimes Maya wished she stilled lived among monks because other people were so frustrating.

Zer0 had been driving for hours, the dust and sand his speeder kicked up had worked their way into every crack and crevice of his suit. Thankfully the suit was airtight so it really didn't cause much harm but it was very irritating. "This is the first time I have ever contemplated putting windshield wipers on my helmet" Zer0 thought using his forearm to wipe away another layer of dust. Suddenly his runner started to make a whooping sound veer to the left. Zer0's quick reflexes made sure this posed no threat as he was able to right himself without much effort. "Sound like the steering column." Zer0 thought "I must pull over to make necessary repairs" Fortunately he was near Ellie's garage at the time and was able to make his runner limp its way there. Zer0 hopped out of the drivers seat and walked over towards Ellie's Garage. He poked his head in the main garage to see if she was in but Ellie's garage was desolate. Zer0 needed to stop to make some minor repairs to his vehicle after damage done by hitting skags, he didn't normally do it but taking a drive without somebody blabbing in his echo had been odd. At first he found it relaxing but over time the lack of noise had left him feeling lonely. This was not a feeling he had haven in a while but it was soon snuffed out. Maybe one day he could settle down but it was far off. Zer0 approached a crate full of replacement parts he had stashed in he back of his runner along with food, water, and ammo he had picked up from one of his bug-out bags. As he pulled the old Atlas crate of the back of his runner he was met to an odd surprise, Claptrap!

"Ah Ha! Thank you for transporting me minion!" the annoying little robot said "You have assisted me in my grand escape plan to flee from the evil Patricia Tannis who wanted to make Claptrap stew out of me!"

Zer0 looked at the robot for a few long seconds before breaking sight and turned to rifle through what few parts Claptrap had left in the box after making room for himself. "Claptrap what happened, to the parts in my runner, they are important."

"Ohh those! I ingeniously hid them all over the floor of your cave to make room for my daring escape."

Zer0 mentally let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his shoulders as he found the part he required to fix his runner. While he was running repairs and listening to Claptrap babble endlessly about his plan to finally escape Pandora, Zer0 contemplated what had made Claptrap immune to the c0rruption. He theorized that the pre-Handsome Jack Hyperion was interested in the quality rather than quantity of robots; therefore, Claptrap had been pre-programmed with anti virus software that reacted against c0rruption. The rest of the broken Claptrap's in the igloo near Lairs Burg where Claptrap lived would have this software on them so Maya and Axton wouldn't be in too much danger. Zer0 finished his repairs and hopped in the runner revving the engine and enjoying the sound it made. In a past life Zer0 could have probably been a mechanic, he loved making things work properly but never got around to really studying it. He had always been preoccupied with murder. And being a bad-ass. He had a rough childhood. Zer0 looked over at Claptrap staring at him from the side of the road.

"Zer0 are you gonna let me on, minion you need to help me you know I'm not tall enough!" Zer0 stared at the annoying little robot and wondered if he should let the poor old machine onto his runner, it was the last one of its kind and he could feel something close to sympathy for that.

"You're not going to let me on, are you?" The robot asked looking as crestfallen as a two and a half foot tall robot could. Zer0 looked at Claptrap for a few more seconds averted his eyes and drove off without him, spraying dust in his eye. He didn't even look back.

"Ha! And to think I used to feel threatened by those bullymongs" Maya announced laughing and blowing another away with a spray of bullets from her SMG.

"Holy crap Maya" said Axton "when did you get so bloodthirsty?"

"Maybe this is just the side of me you just don't know yet" Maya said running ahead.

"Well I think I want to know" Axton said reaching for his echo " Hey Sal, you there?" he asked into his transmitter.

"Ya man que pasa?"

"I was wondering if you had dibs on Maya 'cause she's really growing on me."

"No man but I think she might have something going on with Zer0."

"How so?"

"Well she's always nearby when Zer0 is doing well... Zer0 stuff like using his sword r at the firing range. She also only plays poker with me when Zer0 plays to. I don't know why because the Z man always wins."

"I hope your joking man because that sure as hell ain't dibs, and isn't Zer0 like a robot or something? I hope he is because that sonofabitch kills people so coldly that he is either a robot or as sociopath."

"Calm down hombre'! I just was filling you in, no need to get defensive."

"Ya whatever Sal. Catch you later." said Axton hanging up the echo.

"Hurry up would you!" Maya yelled back "Or I won't leave any for you."

Axton smiled devilishly as he slicked down his hair and moved towards Maya "I don't think so" he said moving towards Maya as she was struggling to open the back door to Claptrap's house.

"Axton get over here the door is stuck."

"So you need a big strong man to open the door for you?"

Maya blew a piece of her blue hair out of her eyes and gave Axton stared at him in disbelief. "Big strong man? Step aside Axton." said Maya as she stood up and walked a few feet away from the partitioned metal door. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders as she raised her left hand and the tattoos on it began to glow blue, her eyes also began to glow blue. A blue sphere of energy grew to around 3 feet in size in her hand before she flexed her arm and the sphere flew forward and hit the door. The sphere drove into the center of the door and pushed against it causing it to fold in on itself and fly across the room, being pushed up onto the wall on the other side of the room. "Still feel so bug and strong?" Maya teased waltzing her way into the room. Axton rubbed the dumb look out of his eyes and walked into Claptrap's house after Maya.

"You know Axton" Maya said starting to round a corner " I'm much more capable than you give me credit for. I mean I am a siren, I think I can handle myself. I have been on Pandora for- Oof!" Maya said as Axton tackled her to the ground. "Axton..." Maya giggled "What are you doing? This is so sudden!"

Axton's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at Maya "What are you talking about? I thought I heard some voices in the other room. I'm gonna go check, you watch my back here."

"Excuse me? Does it look like I care about a few bandits in Claptrap's old house?" Maya said pushing Axton off as she got up "I'm a pretty big girl Axton so I don't think I need you protecting me."

"Wait! Don't go in there yet!" Axton yelled, scrambling to get up off the slippery, icy floor "Maya Let me!"

Maya disregarded all of his warnings all of his warnings, simply looking back and saying "Aw little baby Axton wants to go in first? To bad." She turned the corner of the icy hallway into a huge domed igloo made of large bricks of ice and deactivated Claptrap's with a small poker table located in the center of the room with an old battery powered walky-talky with pink flowers painted all over it. Maya hesitantly walked over towards it and picked it up. "Hello?" Maya asked "Hello? Is anybody there?"

"Surprise bitch!" Said a voice over the radio with a slight truxican accent as all of the windows and the two doors of the igloo slammed shut. "No!" Yelled Maya running towards the door she had entered the room from, it was now covered in a thick metal grille as well as a blast shield behind that "Axton can you hear me!"

"Nope he can't hear you. No one can here you. No friends are near. Only Kain is here. Now lets talk."

Axton was furious "What the hell are you doing!" He yelled at a lanky truxican getting out of a runner."You wanted Zer0! This is Maya! Let her out!"

"Honestly ese', I don't care." Said a tall lanky truxican with dreadlocks " Kain is getting paid per vault hunter, so even if this... whoever, isn't Zer0 its still a paycheck" The Truxican went over to the Bandit Technical he and his two men he brought and opened the trunk. He pulled out a large bazooka and stuffed a few rockets in the nozzle "Ohohoho! Kain likes this!" The Truxican known as Kain looked very, odd, to be on Pandora. Most bandit leaders were decked out in body armor and spoke in threatening catchphrases; however, Kain wore a faded green tank top with unintelligible yellow print on the front and the numeral 1 on the back along with the Truxican flag. He also wore faded blue jeans with several rips and tears around the knee and shin area. His head by far had to be the oddest part of his getup however, he wore a pair of sunglasses with a small satellite dish attached and a cross hair embedded into both the lenses. His hair was a rat's nest of dreadlocks and had several small bits of metal in them along with a few hanging from his longer dreadlocks that had blood dried onto it. "They're called Deadlocks" he would joke " you know, 'cause I kill people wit' 'em". He spoke in rapid ,accented Spanglish and unlike many people on Pandora relished his insanity. He was famous in the far west of Pandora for being the self proclaimed "King of Psychos".

"Come on Kain" Axton pleaded "Just let her out, we can cut a new deal"

"Now now Axton, no taksies backsies woth Kain. Its time for me to have some fun." Kain said with relish, he slung the rocket launcher on his back and pulled out a wickedly curved and serrated sickle. "You wanna know my favorite part of the kill?"

"Not really Kain, lets just talk this over."

"Nonononono!" Kain yelled grabbing Axton by his neck and pinning him against one of the icy walls with a mad fire in his eyes. "You want to hear my favorite part. Its the screaming. The lats moans of a dying creature or the high shrill yells our damsel in their will probably make. It tells their whole life story in a few, short agonizing seconds. And you know, I am "Dying" to get to know your pretty little girlfriend."

"I will do anything" Axton choked out trying to struggle free of Kain's iron like grip

"Do you know the Sanctuary central access code?"

"No?" Axton said confused

Kain dropped Axton and turned to his two thugs "Get ready to blow the place boys"

"Wait wait wait! I know someone who could get you access! Tannis! Dr. Patrica Tannis!"

"Ha hah ha! I knew you'd come around!" Kain yelled giving Axton a noogie "You just have to transmit them in forty eight hours and Maya find's this ordeal over. Simple enough eh ese'?"

"If you hurt her"

" You'll kill me I know I know, now get a move on soldier you're losing time already."

"Just let me-"

" One, two, three, four,"

"You aren't gonna count for the whole time are you?"

"Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

Zer0 was laying down on a ridge east of Lynchwood looking at an old wooden shanty on the outskirts of town. Right now there were three bandits and a Bad-ass Psycho outside. Zer0 set up the bi-pod on his sniper rifle and looker down the scope, Three head shots would deal with the bandits but the bad-ass would be, a challenge. Thank goodness something on this trip would challenge him.

"So what are you looking at minion?" said an annoyingly cheerful voice. Zer0 waved Claptrap away and wondered again why he drove back to Ellie's garage to pick him up. Maybe it was because he could be useful in some way, or that, Zer0 owed him from Lairs Burg back when he had just arrived, or maybe just some kind of misplaced pity. Either way he had saved that annoying robot and driven another thirty miles without killing the thing, he truly was the master of controlling emotions. Zer0 looked down the scope again and sighted in on the first bandit, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger. He used the kick from his first shot to sight in on the second and fired a bullet slightly of course piercing the second bandits neck, he then fell over against the wall of the shanty coughing blood every where. The third bandit took cover behind a rock while the psycho charged him. He fired three shots at hitting the thing twice in the chest and once in the right leg. Zer0 then slung the rifle onto his back and threw a kunai into the psycho's head. The psycho staggered a few more steps and collapsed leaving only the third bandit.

"You shall stand and fight, You must protect your honor, Or die trying punk."

The third bandit rushed Zer0 screaming and spraying bullets everywhere with no strategy so Zer0 took pity in the fool and sent him to the afterlife with a quick slash to the jugular. Zer0 then turned to face the wooden shanty he had painted with the bandits blood. It was a strange hobby of Zer0's to analyze the blood splatter his shots made. He thought of it as feedback from his gun as to improve his shot. The first shot was clean but the second bandit was was wearing shoes with slightly thinker soles than he had estimated, this is what caused it to go awry. "I must not make that mistake again" thought Zer0 as he turned to enter the door of the lopsided wooden shanty, fifty feet away from the town but with a fine beaten path to the door. Whoever lived here was an artisan, but Zer0 already knew who the resident was, it was the only person in all of the galaxy who could have sold c0rruption to Kain, the only man who had ever survived a straight fight with Zer0, one of the few who knew about his past. It was also his youngest brother.

A/N: What a cliffhanger! I will definitely have another chapter up in 1 week but I may post earlier due to Christmas vacation. Do you guys and gals want a stricter upload schedule or just put them on when I finish?

Please R&R

Adios Mustachios!