Rating: M again
Warning(s): Violence, blood and gore (prolly gonna be a reoccurring thing here), a few swear words, and spoilers for anyone who hadn't seen the Youtube video Krieg: A Meat Bicycle Built For Two. Go see it if you haven't already. No really, like right now. It's awesome. -waits- Back? See, I told you it was awesome. Gotta trust me in this! Haha, I love our little chats.
Setting: The events leading up to where Krieg and Maya meet at the train station.
Notes: Heads up, this chapter will contain some lines from the above mentioned video. Yeah, some might think that's cheap, but I've already stated that this is a retelling of their meeting so changing things around is just gonna contradict cannon and confuse things and yeah, I'm just gonna do it anyway. Also, anyone who's heard Maya's personal ECHO recording will recognize a line from there too. It fits the situation since in the last chapter I had her documenting her progress. So... just pointing out that obviously that stuff ain't mine. As always… love it, flame it – I don't mind. Enjoy.

"Things can change, Maya," Brother Harker had said mere hours before she got on the shuttle ride out of Athenas. "You have changed everything. Stay and perhaps the order can be purified and the people thrive once more."

Maya remembers a flare of anger licking the inside of her chest at the thought of staying any longer on a world so corrupt by the very people who promised to protect it… and the bitter realization that he could be right. Things could change for the better and she could take up the role that had always been denied of her. Truly help people and shape Athenas into better world. It's funny, because in a small and ironic sort of way, she had turned out to be the 'Savior' they had always said she would be. Brother Sophis is dead and the people can be at peace, no longer fearing the Brotherhood.

"The people can look to you now for guidance and protection," he continued and she could not meet his eyes, fearing that seeing the desperation in his voice would weaken her resolve. "We need you here and now more than ever. Surely, you can not be so selfish as to –"

"Selfish?" she had scoffed, the very word was laughable. "It was selfish to use me like a tool. It was selfish of the Order to allow this corruption to keep going as long as it did. And if it was selfish of me to put a stop to it all, then you have Brother Sophis to thank for that. I'm leaving."

"Pandora is a dangerous and savage world, Maya. Most that thrive are insane and those who aren't, don't last. You will be eaten alive," he had warned, and she couldn't stand there any longer, afraid that he might convince her to stay. She had brushed past him, hand already at the door to the gates when he called out, "When the people rise up and cry out that their Savior has abandoned them, what shall I say?"

Maya had paused then, fighting a slight twinge of guilt pulling at her heart, until she remembered the faces of the victims she would have blindly murdered if she had never been selfish enough to think for herself. "Tell them... their Savior will return someday. Cults are vague like that, right?"

And she walked out the front gates and didn't look back.

Now, meditating in that stage between sleeping and waking... she wonders if he was right. That Pandora will swallow her whole and she might not last the day. One day, she'll not be so lucky. A snap of a finger, a wave of a hand, and she'll have two bullets in her skull regardless of all her power. Last night was close. But no one had dared to bother during the night and Maya did eventually sleep. It was light and uneasy, but it was something. Hopefully, she'll get better rest on the train.

Dust motes dance in the light starting to creep in through the window and Maya sits up on the bedroll, working out the kinks in her neck. The room was spartan and obviously made for more than one occupant judging by all the other bedrolls folded up in the corner of the room, but she was grateful it was clean. How the matron keeps up with a place at her age is quite an accomplishment. Suddenly, the charred corpse on the pool table she left downstairs comes to mind and Maya sighs, sincerely regretting the trouble she's caused. It's time to get moving and maybe apologize on the way out for what it's worth.

By the time Maya made her way downstairs, the bar was empty save for the old matron, fussily sweeping up the shards of broken glass and splintered wood. The body appears to have been taken away sometime during the night, and nothing but a faint black stain on the pool table remained to mark the passing of a man once named Jim. Maya tries not to think about what happened to it knowing that cannibalism is rumored to be the norm on this planet.

"Uh... hi," she says, unsure what to say now and suddenly sheepish. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your bar. "

The woman looks up from her sweeping and shrugs. "Don't worry yo'self 'bout it. Bar fights is like bread n' butter in these parts. Usually draggin' out two or three bodies a week to the skags, ain't no big thang."

"I thought these men were bounty hunters," Maya says, confused. "Why would they behave like common criminals?"

"Yo'll soon find out there ain't a true north on tha moral compass here on Pandora," she laughs and Maya wonders why the woman had bothered to try to help her in the first place. With the bounty so high on her head, she's surprised the woman hadn't tried to call in Hyperion herself.

"What about you?"

"Guess ah's a bit wiser than some, comes wif bein' old," she winks and sits the broom in the corner. "Ah take it yer leavin' then?"

"Yeah, I'm catching the train north," Maya nods until she remembers that in all the commotion, she hadn't even bothered to pay for the night. "Here," she digs into her pocket. "I... actually, I should pay for the damages. It's the least I can do before I go."

"Keep yer money an' getcherse'f a gun," she shakes her head. "Hope ya find whut yer lookin' for an' mind tha psychos."

Maya stares blankly for a moment, unsure if this was some joke she wasn't privy to until she notes the serious look on the older woman's face. "Psychos?"

"They's tha ones wif tha masks. Keep yer distance, they're known t'bite on occasion."

Masked psycho cannibals. Great, this planet just keeps getting better and better.

I've lost track of time again.

It been happening a lot lately. One moment, I'll blink or maybe turn my head, and the next moment I'm where I shouldn't be with no memory of how I got there. It would be worrying, but it's the least of my problems. Right now, there's a woman crying quietly across the table from me and I'm not sure where my shirt went.

Her head has been shaved bare like mine, but she hasn't been here long by the looks of it. Muscle still supple and not yet stretched tight, all sharp angles of skin and bone. Her eyes are glazed over and far away, red and swollen, fatigue punched with purple crescents beneath her eyes. She might have been beautiful once, it's hard to say for sure. I figure I don't look like a pin-up either, but I guess my time here has been better than some. I've gotten leaner, but stronger, and whatever the lab coats have been pumping into my veins hasn't killed me, not yet.

It's funny what you can grow accustomed to. I used to shudder at the thought that I'll be rolled down the hallways on a gurney, shriveled up and twisted in death like all the others, but lately… I've found myself shuddering at the thought that I might never die. Sometimes death is its own kind of freedom.

She's still crying, but it's an eerie, silent kind of crying, where the tears are falling but she's stoic and calm. I wanna ask her where she's from, what color her hair was and maybe make some other small talk over the sound of the rest of the patients screaming or mumbling into their hands all around us. But words – people, really – have never been my strong suit, so I look down and notice it must be lunch time. Aluminum trays sit on the table between us, dolloped with a sloppy mush of whatever passes for food in this place, but it's food and even if it's shit food, I'm starving and it's all I got. I make to reach for a spoon and notice I've been restrained and bolted to the table. A thin chain stretches from wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle and meet in the middle, wrapped around my waist. This is new.

Lacking anyone else around that looks lucid enough, I ask the woman what the chains are for and it takes her a few moments before she replies. "Y-you attacked one of the doctors," her voice is strained and cracked, and she pauses briefly to clear her throat. "It was an hour ago, don't you remember?"

An hour. I've lost an hour. I narrow my eyes in concentration, patiently waiting for the memories to emerge and something pulls at the back of my mind and closes in on itself no matter how hard I try to pry it out. A glimmer, a word, a look. Something – but nothing reveals itself and I can't remember a thing.

"No, nothin'," I shrug. Whatever it is they've done to me must be the cause of all these blackouts. "Did I land a few good hits?"

"You... you bit his finger off," she says quietly. "You were a monster."

There's something unsettling when someone calls you a monster. It's a word in kids' books and fairy tales, used often to describe the horrifyingly indescribable and hearing it now sends a shiver down my spine. Me. A monster.

But no. The doctor deserved it; the real monster with a surgical grin.

"Good. Now he has one less finger to poke my brain with." Sounds almost appetizing now. I should make it a habit.

Apparently, this wasn't the right thing to say because her face twists like she's in pain and she starts to sob uncontrollably. Her whole frame convulses as she gulps for air, one hand curling at her ear, as if reaching for the comfort of her hair, the other hugging herself tightly. And for some stupid reason, I feel guilty for somehow upsetting this woman and I have no idea how to make it better. I don't know how to comfort women with sympathy or kind words. Compassion just ain't my thing.

But I try anyway. "Hey, it's gonna …" It's gonna what? Be okay? Nothing is ever gonna be okay. Not when we're trapped here with their experiments. It's almost insulting lying to her.

"They're g-going to kill us," she hiccups and takes one long shuddering breath. "And – and – I am so s-scared. I can't –" And she starts to choke on her sobs and can't get the words out, but she doesn't need to. I get it. It's a terrifying thing, waiting for death. Every time they strap you to their tables and work on you could be your last. And if you survive that, the pain after makes you wish you hadn't. Her hand darts out and closes tightly over mine, fingertips still wet with tears. But her hand is warm and the barest hint of a smile flashes briefly on her blotched face and I just don't have it in me to pull away. "I'm j-just… I hate saying it… but I'm glad I have you here with me."

The realization that I mean something to this woman stabs me right in the gut and I don't know what to say. Her thumb rubs small circles in the palm of my hand I don't know what's worse: that she actually cares for me, or that I can't recall her name.

Something must have shown on my face because she suddenly stills and pulls away, her weak smile gone. "Y-you don't remember me either, do you?"

Somewhere, a beeping monitor starts to echo my heartbeat and I can't think or form the right words as bits and pieces of names and faces and pointless conversations start to blur as it beeps faster. Flashes of red hit the back of my eyes like a moving, living thing, and I press the heels of my hands into them until it fades away.

"Uh yeah... yeah, it's just been a long day." I don't tell her I think I've been slowly losing my mind since I got here, I figure she already knows.

"Then what's my name?" A fresh flood of tears streak down her face and her throat works slowly to choke them down. "Say it."

She's getting loud and I risk a glance at the Hyperion personnel never far from every door and worry she'll attract attention. "Hey, calm down. They're gonna take us back to our cells –"

"Say it!"

And something starts to shift under my skin, behind my eyes, over my mouth as everything starts to flatline and I can't breathe. Like a zombie reflex alive in the mind, my hands start to claw at my face and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Flesh starts to tear as she screams for a name I can't remember and when the skin falls away, all that's left is a mask slick with blood right below the surface as she –

He wakes up with a strangled shout, breaths short and gasping.

It's not often we dream, and this makes the first time we've ever dreamed together. But that was no dream. It was real – she – was real. I knew her once, long before they took my mind with their scalpels and needles and turned me into this. Even now, all the little details of her face start to fade away the more I try to focus. Her eyes, the set of her jaw, the way her tears tracked down her cheeks... all smeared away like an artist's brushstroke; wiped clear and empty. I can't shake the feeling that something important happened at that table and brief flashes of random things break through the surface of my thoughts. The nervous flutter of her hand as it closes over a fork. The sound of chains shifting on the pristine linoleum floor. All indistinct and irrelevant but with the same familiar urgency of something right at the tip of my tongue...

I used to think it was just the experimentation I've gone through that punched the holes in my memory, but lately… I'm not so sure and I'm starting to think he doesn't want us to ever get better. Every time something starts to slowly unfold, he's there closing it up and burying it down with blood and salt. Maybe, there's nothing worth remembering but pain and death. Or maybe, he's afraid to shrink away and disappear to nothing. Hell, I guess I can relate but that don't make it right.

You don't want me to remember, do you?

"Shut UP!" he snaps and rolls over on his side to get comfortable again, but I just laugh because it's so obvious now.

Yeah, I get it now. You think that as long as I don't remember, you're safe. Don't get too comfortable though. You're just keeping the seat warm for me.

"Quit kickin' the seat or I'm gonna TURN this car around and NO ONE GETS A RIDE!"

Getting seriously sick of his shit and if I could roll my eyes, I would right about now. Seeing that we're wide awake, he slowly gets up and shoulders the axe. The stars have long ago faded away and light starts to pour in from the open doorway of the shack we crashed in last night. Ducking under the doorway, he makes his way outside and the first thing I see is a corpse of a dead man hanging by the wrist from the remains of some metal ruin. It must've been too dark to see last night and the body was probably meant as a warning to any passerby.

I don't know the dead man. Probably didn't deserve what he got. Don't make him special though. All kinds of people die out here. The innocent... and the not so innocent.

"...or maybe I'll prove Brother Harker right and take a bullet to the head five minutes from now," Maya adds into the ECHO device. "We'll see how my week goes."

Maya turns off the recorder with more venom than she normally and sighs. It's not that she expected everything to be easy, no. But rather, she expected a planet with no visible sun to feel less like an oven. Her morning was rather uneventful. She had looked into getting a vehicle to save herself the walk to the train station, but found the car port locked to her. The Catch-A-Ride station as they're called here, are all apparently monopolized by an obnoxious sounding redneck and she didn't have enough money to register for a runner if she wanted to be securely armed. It was just a minor annoyance, but as the day wore on and the sweat started to trickle uncomfortably between her shoulders and no amount of tugging at her collar gave her relief, it really started to grate on her nerves.

Having finally arrived at the train station, all she has left to do is sit back and wait. The station was nothing more than a small building better served as shade than a station. In fact, it looked empty besides an ammo and gun dispenser and a Hyperion tourist kiosk welcoming new Vault Hunters to Pandora. It went on into vague detail about fame, fortune, and all the perks that comes with the job, but Maya didn't buy into it. Hyperion's out there hunting down any known Sirens after all. If her path to find out more about her lineage does lead her to the Vault, then sure. Call her a Vault Hunter all day. But for now, she's got her own reasons for being here. She did however, take Hyperion's complimentary ride for the train. At least they're good for something.

Lacking anything else to do other than stare down the train rail and fan herself, she idly shops the contents in the gun machine for something that catches her eye. Maya knew her way around guns. Not enough to brag about, but enough to know what would best suit her needs and abilities. Back in the Abbey, weapons and hand to hand combat supplemented her mental training on a daily basis and she had always appreciated the elemental aspect of Maliwan guns. Submachine guns in particular. Call it strange, but there's nothing in the world quite as satisfying when a target goes up in flames or melts into a puddle at her feet.

And maybe today isn't starting out so bad after all since she finds just what she's looking for and right in her budget. The build is light, sleek, and reloading doesn't seem to be too cumbersome for an SMG. Perfect. She'll have just enough for the gun and a few clips of ammunition and then... well... and then she'll have to find a way to make some money. She'll be low on funds after this, but as she slips the bills into the machine, she guesses a gun is a good investment for now since she can't always rely on her abilities. The gun digistructs into the dispenser as she takes a few more moments shopping for ammo before loading up her new gun and tries not to worry about the fact that it may or may not have been stripped from the corpse of a previous adventurer.

The train starts to finally pull in with a screeching hiss and Maya looks up from inspecting her gun, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees some movement in the distance. Curious, she squints and makes out the figure of a man on the ground by the train rail.

A man with a mask.

"What the hell? Is that a psycho?" Maya takes a few cautious steps down the stairs, unsure. She hadn't ran into any psychos yet, nothing but skags and rakk on the walk over, so she couldn't tell. Could be he wasn't a crazed cannibal after all and gas masks were a fashion here. She might be on a lawless planet, but that doesn't mean she's going to shoot everything that moves. He dusts himself off as he stands and for a long moment, she waits for something – anything – to confirm it.

"I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!" he shouts with a wave of what looks to be an axe of all things, and that was all the confirmation Maya needs.

Time to test out her new gun.

She jumps the remaining steps, slides into cover and squeezes the trigger. He's more agile than he looks and dodges the first spray of bullets. He leaps into cover behind a boulder and Maya inwardly curses her aim. She hurriedly reloads and more bullets of electricity break against the stone. He leans out of cover briefly to shake his axe threateningly at her, shouting nonsense she couldn't quite catch over the sound of gunfire. Maya bites back her frustration as she reloads and he pops out a second time to shout out more insanity, and if she didn't know any better, she'd guess he was possibly mocking her. Really?

More bullets pepper the boulder, pieces of rock chipping away and still, he doesn't press an attack. What the hell is he waiting for? And just as soon as she thinks of maneuvering into a better position and force him out of cover, he all but stands out in the open, axe high in the air and shouts, "TURN AROUND PRETTY LADY!"

Confused, Maya hesitates as he pulls back and throws his axe in a high arc, but his aim is well away from her and … lands with a sickening thud into the face of a man she hadn't noticed sneaking up behind her over the gunfire. The buzz saw blade cuts smoothly through flesh like butter, the man still screeching in agony as the psycho charges and leaps onto the man's shoulders to tear the axe out and call it crazy, but she can't help feeling a little bit impressed.

More enemies had appeared without her realizing it seems, because as soon as the body hits the floor, the psycho savagely cuts into the next. They all start to swarm in and he moves like an animal; twisting and turning and laughing maniacally as he swings the buzz axe like a bat, knocking one into the air. Another swing and the blade cleaves into a skull so deeply, the psycho had to kick off the still twitching body to pry it free.

"I WILL PUT MY PAIN INTO YOUR SOUL!" he screams into the face of the last and apparently, that was a lot of pain to handle because the man with rat-like features drops in a feint.

The psycho makes to turn to her, maybe to continue his gory rampage and cut her open. Maybe to simply say hello, Maya can't be sure. All she knows is that she sees another one of those rat guys creep out of the building and he has no idea. There's a split second where Maya considers not warning him because she doesn't know if he'll just do what psychos do and make practical wallets out of her skin anyway. This is Pandora after all and the moral compass doesn't always point north. For a split second, she considers this... and Maya pulls the rat bastard into the air.

Psycho or not, one good turn deserves another after all.

For a moment, he stares at the captured rat screaming in the pulsating orb, perhaps admiring the view, before his gaze catches hers. There's something there, she thinks, no matter how wordless the exchange. An acknowledgment or an understanding of whatever small semblance of trust anyone can make on this planet simply because he had helped her and she had returned the favor. And perhaps that sparked something more tangible than that inside. Something real and… human.

Then he turns away and hacks at the helpless man until the blood on the concrete is two inches thick.

Her power spent, the body drops lifeless on the ground and he pries free his buzz axe with some difficulty. The blood drips from his axe and when he turns to face her finally, Maya hopes that his humanity wasn't just imagined. That she doesn't have to kill this man because she's no more than a few feet away from him at most and she's seen his swing.

"I'VE POWDERED MY COCKATIEL FOR THE RIBCAGE SLAUGHTER!" he shouts and Maya couldn't help but startle slightly, but since he's made no move to do anything other than stare at her sheepishly like he's slightly at a loss at what to do with himself... she thinks he might be okay.

A psycho, maybe. And perhaps not all human. But close enough.

He watches the way a slow smile curves her lips and for once, the little man riding piggyback on his retinas doesn't seem to bother so much. Krieg vaguely starts to smile back until he remembers she can't see it through the mask and shrugs. Heh, close enough.

"You have my thanks," the pretty lady says as she holsters her gun, and Krieg's just glad to have anything since this hasn't been his best of first dates and getting shot at through most of it was about as fun as banging two babies together except there's no candy. Just babies. "I apologize for shooting at you earlier. I thought you were..." she briefly threads her fingers through her hair and clears her throat. "Nevermind, I'm Maya."

Tell her my name. C'mon, you know this one, that voice echos on the surface of his thoughts and as soon as he thinks this would be an obvious thing to do... the more he realizes that since he eats the prettiest of meat steaks, drinks the thickest of blood sauce, snacks on the fear of the deserving and counts all of the calories, the little man has it all wrong. They say you are what you eat and since he's always been meat, sometimes you just gotta cut the liver out of politics and burn everything down if you want second helpings.

"I'm the Lord of the Seven Stomachs, Master of Fingerstumps, and Mayor of Meat Town, population... MEAT," Krieg bows in the most dignified way he can manage and ignores the way the little man bangs on the inside of his skull. This is the first real conversation we've had in I don't know how long and you're gonna scare her away. "WE HAVE MEAT TREES," he adds out of spite. He doesn't have any meat trees. Not yet. But soon.

Maya winces slightly at the volume but her smile doesn't falter. "I see," and she actually laughs. It's low and sweet like the first bite of red licorice and somewhere inside, the little man uncoils, clearly relieved she's not running. "I thought you –"

"Hyperion wishes to remind all passengers to check nearby for any forgotten luggage and prepare for departure in thirty seconds," a metallic sounding female voice echoes out from the station's speakers, and Krieg knows that voice all too well.

"This is it," Maya sighs and makes her way towards the door of the train and turns to look back, hand on the railing. "Aren't you coming? I thought you were here for the train before... well, before I shot at you."

No matter where she goes, follow her. But Krieg's not sure he should. He went through a lot of trouble breaking out of that Hyperion facility and there's no way in hell he's going to walk into another Hyperion trap. That train could take them anywhere and he hadn't even packed his toothbrush.

No, listen to me. Right now, she's all we have that might help us be a normal human being again. And maybe that's true, but there are so many worse things than insanity, like the taste of her blood and screams pouring down his throat and the slow drip of purple poison and there's no way he's going back to that.

Wandering the wastes won't make them pay for what they did to us.

But it won't change anything either.

"Departure in ten seconds," the voice rings out again as the train starts to hum, powering up the engines.

"Mister Conductor?" Maya waves, one foot already on the steps and he had almost forgotten she was there. "Let's get going." The shine of her eyes reflect a thousand sunsets and he thinks maybe wouldn't it be so bad. He's never ridden on a train after all and it might not be such a bad ride in such pretty company.

And he steps onto the train, ready to follow the Siren wherever she'll lead him.

A/N: Good news! Even though I might have taken longer than I should have to update, I got a head start on upcoming chapters because of all the awesome feedback I've gotten! YAY! You are all beautiful people and I was genuinely surprised that I got such an overwhelming positive response. Thank you muchly. This'll be several chapters long, all the way to the end of the game. It won't feature every mission in the game because then it would just be redundant being that y'all played it, so yeah. It'll have a Krieg/Maya romance, break into my head cannon back story for Krieg and Maya and a smattering of other plot stuffs along the way. From now on, I'll try my best to update weekly if I do 2k word long chapters, bi-weekly if it's 5k words. I'm leaning towards 5k because I've liked the pacing so far. So lemme know what ya'll think! Short and more frequent? Or is the length worth the wait? Thanks for reading!