Rating: T
Warnings: Tame violence, and a few curse words.
A/N: Heeeey so I'm late for my update. Yeah, ran into a bit of trouble writing out all this and it took some time to just wait out my writers block and get to writing. Hope what I got makes up for the lateness. Can't promise I'll actually ever get my updates consistent, but I'm trying. Anyway, enjoy.
Maya, despite all her power and training, can't think of everything. Especially now on a planet so alien from hers and nothing is black and white but drying shades of blood on the sands. All her life she's had sense of direction or something to guide her no matter how skewered it was, and now she has nothing but the gun at her hip and a psycho she had all intentions of murdering just moments ago. She hadn't stopped to think that any of the other passengers would object to having a psycho on the train. It didn't even occur to her since everything had happened so fast. The rats, the train counting down and ready to go. Bringing the psycho along seemed like a crazy thing to top an even crazier morning, but it felt like a good idea at the time. And so, as they passed the Welcome Vault Hunters sign hung gaudily above them like a cheesy birthday decoration, Maya is completely unprepared when a man wearing military fatigues blocks her way.
"We got a psycho on the train!" he calls to the others, and one by one, heads turn in their direction.
Maya quickly scans the tight quarters, judging the odds of a fight if it came right down to it, and doesn't like the result. They're all armed to the teeth, one man in particular sports bandoliers as if he ate ammo, and another is armored from head to foot with a sword folded across his lap. The door shuts behind them as the train starts to move and there's no going back even if she wanted to. The psycho senses the same danger and Maya feels him tense at her side, his grip tightening on his buzz axe, and she risks a hand on his shoulder. The last thing they need is a confrontation and if he screams something crazy, she can't be sure the others won't start shooting immediately. He stills and seems to relax under her touch and thankfully, doesn't try to bite her fingers off in the process.
"No, it's okay," she holds out a hand, the universal gesture of a yield, and tries to explain. "He's not like the others. He's safe." Or as safe as she thinks he can be.
Promises are easy to make and simple to keep with your eyes closed and she knows better than to trust someone she met not minutes ago, especially a man who slaughtered five people with their blood still drying on his axe, but it's either get shot or hope he won't prove her wrong. She doesn't trust the psycho, not completely, and she can't be sure he's entirely safe, but she's spent all her life being told what she couldn't do and he has the right to do what he likes just as much as she does.
"Psychos are risky; an unpredictable foe. We won't take the chance," the man with the sword stands with the juvenile acronym GTFO flashing a mocking red on his faceplate and Maya has to restrain herself from rolling her eyes.
"Exactly," the other grins. "You on the other hand… can stay," he adds with a roguish wink and Maya does roll her eyes at that.
"This –" Maya points up towards the sign above her head. "– says it welcomes Vault Hunters. We just so happen to be Vault Hunters and I don't see any fine print saying he's not allowed."
"Eh... she's kind of right," the man with the bandoliers speaks up and it takes Maya a moment to notice the way his feet barely touch the floor. "Besides, I've seen nomads keep psychos like pets before –"
"He is not a pet." Just when Maya thinks this planet can't shock her, there's this and no one looks surprised. The psycho starts to quietly laugh at her side, as if he couldn't care less and even goes so far as to lean in closer just to whisper a breathy bark at her ear. "Seriously?" Maya hisses at him. "You are not helping my case here."
"I'm on your side," the short man continues with a shrug. "I'm just saying they can't all be so bad."
"Yeah, 'cause that makes perfect sense," the commando snorts. "So, do we gotta house train 'em too?"
Maya's temper flairs at the nerve of this asshole, but before she can get a chance chew him out, copper pigtails pop up over the edge of a seat and Maya briefly recognizes the teen on the shuttle with stripped leggings. She looks more or less the same, a few new scratches and her sleeve looks torn, but alright. If the girl remembers her, she doesn't let on that she does.
"Chill, Axton," the girl says as she hangs over the back of her seat. "I say we vote on it."
"This isn't one of your little high school debate clubs," Axton chides. "We're not gonna –"
"All in favor of voting on it?" the girl shoots her hand up in the air and gives the short man across from her a sharp look before he raises his hand up too. Maya is more than happy to play along and nudges the psycho to follow her example. "Sorry," she frowns sympathetically after glancing at all the raised hands. "Majority rules. Look's like we're voting."
"Gaige, we're not being unreasonable here," Axton says seriously, and Maya understands more than anyone since they're not wrong in worrying about the dangers of having a psycho on board, but it's far too late to talk like that now after his flippant attitude. "This guy he's… is this about that loot chest I saw yesterday, 'cause if it is..."
"No!" Gaige snaps. "And you and I both know I saw it first. If it weren't for those spiderants – whatever. Yesterday was years go, I am so over that."
"Don't look like it."
"All in favor of letting the psycho join our team?" Gaige raises her voice over Axton's, her arm darting up in the air again. The same number of hands outvotes Axton and the silent, helmeted man's only reaction to all this is a noncommittal flash of ellipses across his faceplate. "Ouch, too bad guys. I guess he stays," she sucks her teeth gives a little 'whoops' kind of shrug before patting her seat excitedly. "Oh! I call dibs, he sits by me."
"And the victor REAPS THE MEATY SPOILS while the loser looks on with hungry envy," the psycho strolls past the commando and pauses briefly to blow what Maya thinks is a raspberry, its effect slightly diminished by the mask, and she struggles to keep from smiling.
"Oh great, I'm glad we're trusting this guy," Axton sighs to the helmeted man who simply shrugs in response.
"No hard feelings?" Maya holds out her hand. Despite Axton's reaction to her choice in traveling companions, he doesn't seem like such a bad guy. He was simply looking out for everyone else and she can appreciate that now more than ever. "I'm Maya."
"Axton," his hand slips into hers with a slow smile. "Welcome to the team, Maya."
I remember a time I would've rather pried off my nails with a rusty coat hanger than exchange small talk with anyone and the hours would stretch on where nothing needed to be said and everything was simple. Now, I'm surrounded by people we haven't gruesomely murdered for a change and there's so much to say but the words stick in my throat, lost and twisted in translation by the maniac that's taken over and scribbled crude caveman drawings in my mind.
I want to talk to them, know them, have a real conversation that doesn't include spitting random bloody syllables into the inside of my mask, but life has a passing strange kind of irony to it all and I can't. It's a strange feeling, being in a room full of people and not one of them is aware of my existence. They talk to me, look at me, but it's not me. It's this version of me raving about meat and intestines and… it's the first time I've ever truly felt insane.
The others don't seem to mind, or at least they don't show it. Confusion might wrinkle Salvador's brow, but he'll just laugh it off with some broken English, maybe sympathetic since he's stuck in the same kind of verbal lag sometimes. He's got that look of a native: full of extremes. Extremely short, extremely beefy, and no middle ground. His weapons are a mismatch of spare parts bandits salvage and make their own and it's not a far stretch to believe he might have been a bandit himself. On this train it don't matter much. He's still a bandit, just tipped the scale to the opposite extreme.
The helmeted man, Zer0, is far less patient with our outbursts and in the last few hours hasn't spoken to us directly, which is fine by me. Despite all the poetic mystery he excretes from every nick on his armor, he's about as interesting as a grammar lesson and there's something about him that rubs the psycho in me the wrong way. The rigid posture, how inhumanly still he sits. It took all my restraint to keep from leaping on the slender mans' shoulders and cracking his helmet open like a fresh egg to see what spills out. A million different theories of what could be inside flowed from my mouth instead: a meat grinder, a single giant eye, a beehive to name a few. It lasted a while until Zer0 had as much as he could stand and joined the commando down the train car. Can't say I blame him, but ain't all that bothered to try to force out an apology either. Doubt it'd come out right anyways.
The teenager, Gaige... there's something about her that reminds me of someone I used to know. The rhythm of her voice, all full of spunk with a mischievous streak miles long without being obnoxious about it. She talks with her hands and her whole face lights up with a thousand different expressions and even if it's just all geeky stuff, watching her is entertaining. And she talks a lot. Enough for the both of us and she'll sometimes pause at whatever random thing that comes out of my mouth, but laughs nonetheless. The psycho in me likes her, I think. There's no real need to be understood or say anything at all and it's almost like being normal.
Maya's laughter drifts softy over the dull thunder of the train speeding past the scenery, and Gaige's idle chatter tunes itself out. She's a few seats ahead, back against the window and facing Axton in the seat across from her as he gestures whatever tale he's spinning. He's got that con-man kind of personality; good looking and charming. Knows just what to say and probably ain't certifiably insane. That don't make him special though. Cute jokes and perfect hair don't deflect bullets and –
And a sharp slap stings the back of my hands.
"Too slow!" Gaige laughs and settles her hands back under mine. Somehow in the past half hour or so, she had managed to convince the blood thirsty psycho to play a childish game of slapsies and she's been kicking our ass. "C'mon, big guy! Bring it!"
My throat works out frustrated growl and my attention is torn away from Maya. Salvador's been keeping score and we're one round away from being the Bitch Slapping Champion of the World. The psycho's convinced that the title comes with a championship belt made entirely out of sausage links and I didn't feel like correcting him. It's been more than a few hours since we've killed something and anything to pass the time is welcome right now.
"Get ready for the slap heard 'round the wooorld," she says theatrically as her fingertips tease my palms, trying to trick us into flinching away early.
The low murmur of Axton's voice mingles with Maya's and – no. Focus, don't look at her. Look down. Look down and don't flinch. We're not gonna let a teenage girl walk away the champion are we?
"HnnNG her lady fingers can't touch me! I am INCORPRIAL; the monster under the bed, the red mist on the walls of your agony and I WILL WALK TALL WITH THE BLOOD SAUSAGE OF VICTORY!" Attaboy, that's what I like to hear. Sort of.
"You are sooo... intense," Gaige says, her brows knitting briefly. "I like that." And the sharp claw of her left hand pinches my wrist, causing me to flinch away and for that brief second, she harshly slaps down my right hand. "Haha! Hell yeah!"
What!? No pinching, that's cheating.
"Cheater! Cheaters NEVER get any gold stars!" My head snaps around to Salvador for backup. "She cheated!"
Salvador, who had apparently been dozing the whole round, instantly perks in his seat and rubs his eyes. "Sorry, amigos. I was uh... blinking. Rematch?"
"Okay, okay," Gaige gives in. "We'll do it over you tattle-tale – one handed. No superior robotics this time, wouldn't want you to feel cheated."
"Watch out, pal," Axton calls down from a few seats away, having heard the commotion. "She might look sweet and innocent, but she'll cheat ya twice if you let her."
Pal? Oh, so now he's being friendly. Hey, tell Mr. Pretty over there that his hair wasn't invited to this conversation. "This is MY MEAT CIRCLE and you are NOT kosher!"
Axton's look of bewilderment brings out another laugh from Maya. "Did he just –"
"Attention all passengers," a female voice rings through the train's speakers. There's just no getting away from that bitch. She's recorded everywhere. "You are now approaching your final destination..."
"Good," Maya sighs and sends a smile my way. I still have no idea where we're heading, but I'm prepared to follow wherever she goes. "I've been needing to stretch my legs."
"Sudden painful death," the recording adds cheerfully. "Have a nice day."
"Wait, anyone catch that?" Axton frowns.
"It said, 'have a nice day'," Salvador supplies.
"I got that part, I meant –" and he pauses as a familiar metallic sound of grinding gears reaches the double doors of the train car and the blood runs cold in my veins. Hyperion Loaders. More than one judging by the heavy footfalls. The rest start to hear it too and slowly rise from their seats. "Everyone split up at my signal," Axton says quietly.
"What's the signal?" Maya asks as doors slide open.
"Don't die."
Do not use fingers to stop chainsaw blade. Remove infant before collapsing stroller. Do not get on a Hyperion train unless suicidal. These are all the black and yellow warning labels people should know, but somehow don't.
As the welcoming sign drops away to reveal one far less welcoming – but not personal – Krieg ain't all that surprised. He felt it the moment he stepped on the train like a knot in his gut; a twitch under his eye. That feeling you get when you're not supposed to be somewhere, like a meat locker filled with human corpses or the thirteenth floor to another dimension. Just something off and unsettling and now they're here to try to take him back and if it wasn't for those pretty eyes he wouldn't be here right now. He told the little man this would happen but no, no one ever listens to him and yet he's the psycho one in this parasitic existence.
Yeah, you were right and I was less right. Rub it in later and start killing.
Krieg is only too happy to oblige as the Loaders stomp into view. He's never liked Loaders much. They don't scream, they don't run, and oil makes a poor substitute for blood. Nothing beats the real thing, but his axe has been hungry for hours and the clash of metal on metal sounds like a feast. Time to put a quarter in the blood jar and make some nipple tassels out of circuit wires.
They all split, opting to make it harder to get mowed down in such tight quarters. One moment, the assassin was at his side, and the next, he's leaped up out of the train car through an opening on the roof. The short man rips open one of the side doors and climbs out as the commando flings out a turret at the incoming threat. Not wanting to leave the Siren's side, Krieg keeps his back to her in an effort to keep her safe, only to find more of them pouring in from the other end. Krieg sprints down the train car laughing maniacally, and somewhere behind him, the impact of a rocket launcher shakes the floor. His axe screeches against the nearest Loader and sparks start to fly as the buzz saw scrapes against the metal. He pounds the lumbering thing into the next train car before tackling it altogether, knocking the incoming conga line of Loaders back where they came from.
"Need some help?" Krieg looks back from the pile of robotic limbs awkwardly trying to stand and finds the teenage girl standing in the doorway, gun outstretched and crackling with electricity. "Let's start the anarchy!"
It's decided. Krieg could learn to like this girl if she'll give him axes for arms and he'll let her cheat whenever she wants at slapsies even if it wouldn't be practical slapping someone with buzz saws for hands. Details though. She talks smart enough to maybe figure out how to work around that. Best. Friends. Forever.
Heh, cute you're making friends but...
Right. The bloodless metallic husks need spanking. Buzz axe arms will have to wait. Sparks and bullets fly as electrical wiring breaks through like gory veins with each swing and Gaige keeps pace at his side, peppering the shiny yellow metal with equal ferocity. Each one that drops, another rises and just as he thinks it's starting to get good, the heavy footfalls of a twelve footer sporting six arm cannons breaks through the crowd.
"Shit," was all Gaige could say before half a dozen homing missiles kiss the floor at their feet.
The explosion was a deafening blast of metal and bright colors and suddenly, his feet can't find solid ground. Shaking off the daze, he scrambles for something to hold onto as a piercing cold wind buffets against his side. His hands find a scorched shard of metal and he clings to it like a lifeline. He glances down to find the ground speeding below him a good fifty feet, nothing but a brown and white blur. It takes every ounce of strength to hold on and the extra weight of the teenager clutching at his waist isn't making it any easier. She looks alive, but just as dazed as he is.
Tell her to climb!
"GOOD GOD, WHERE'S MY SNOW HAT!?" Krieg shouts instead over the freezing wind.
"WHAT?"
Yeah, forget your snow hat and tell her to climb up now! We're slipping! Indeed he was; his hands are slick with blood as the sharp edge of the metal cuts through his flesh and tears down his arm. He won't last much longer with the girl's added weight.
His growl of mild annoyance is stolen by the wind. "I MAKE A GOOD MEAT LADDER!"
"WHAT – NO! WE BOTH WON'T MAKE IT!" dhe shouts up at him and it takes him a full second to realize it, but the girl starts to loosen her hold on his waist and he risks letting go of one hand to grip her tightly. "LET ME GO! TRUST ME!" she pleads as she tries to pry his arm away. With her clawed hand, she pinches his ribs harsh enough for him to instinctively pull away, flailing in the wind until both hands grip the lifeline again.
No longer restrained, her arms fall away and she disappears into the blur of snow flurries. Gone.
For a few seconds, he can't think. Can't breathe. Nothing exists but the dull roar against his ears and the distant sound of Salvador's laughter. He would've gladly exchanged places with her in an instant. She didn't deserve to die. Not again and not for him.
We're still alive, the echoing voice on the surface of his thoughts reminds Krieg grimly. Right... monsters never die. He swings his body and finds a foothold into the underside of the train. Twisted shards of metal and debris have all but covered where he dropped from and there's no going back. Laboriously, he works himself to the side of the train and finds a better place to grip. A gaping hole yawns out of the train ahead, likely done by a rocket launcher or maybe even his Siren, and he inches his way towards the opening, buffeted by the wind. By the time he pulls himself over the jagged floor, the assassin drops from the ceiling above him, all neat and eerily still, and it looks as if the gunfight has died out. The others look battle-worn, but relatively unharmed as Maya helps him to his feet.
"You're bleeding," Maya points out, concern written across her face. "What happened, where's Gaige?"
And Krieg doesn't know what to say. There are no words to describe the way the girl dropped away from him, melting into the speeding tundra below. But before he could even try coming up with anything vaguely coherent, the others look past his shoulder. Krieg turns, squinting against the wind blasting in from the open mouth of jagged metal, and there's the girl. Back from the dead and riding piggyback on a hovering torso of a monstrous looking robot.
"DID I MENTION I HAVE A BADASS FLOATING ROBOT!?" she grins their way before falling back, struggling against the slipstream. She resurfaces again and flails an arm out for someone to grab hold. "DON'T JUST STAND THERE, HE'S NOT MEANT TO GO THIS FAST AND WON'T LAST LONG!"
Zer0 and Axton both easily pull her in before the robot disappears into nonexistence. The girl falls into Axton's arms and he thumbs away a smear of blood on her cheek. "Glad you're okay, kid."
Gaige fingers the cut at her cheek gingerly. "Aww, you do care!"
"Can we move on now? We must pull back the curtain," Zer0 nods towards the next train compartment. "Kill the bitch behind."
"He's right, let's find out who did all this and get off the train," Maya agrees.
And there it was again. That knot in his stomach. That twitch under his eye. Blood and meat are wonderful words, but shrapnel is shrapnel at the end of the day and Krieg can see the mushroom cloud rising beyond the door. There's something there that shouldn't be opened and they're all walking straight towards it. The colors of the apocalypse are beautiful and he wants to live long enough to see a rerun, but his Siren doesn't smell it coming and there's nothing he can do but follow in her footsteps. Keep her safe, that faint voice rings in his mind and Krieg vaguely muses how long he'll be able to at this rate.
The commando pauses briefly and glances back to check if they're all ready, and kicks open the door.
Maya didn't know what to expect when the door slammed open. More enemies, maybe. A chance to stop the train safely before it starts falling apart around them. That at least that sounds doable. But as her eyes scan the room and land on the lone man sitting casually in a chair surrounded by dynamite, she knows that their chances of survival aren't looking good right about now. Piles of dynamite are stacked through the whole train car haphazardly and the chair turns slowly to face them.
"It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure... but you're not," a voice drawls, and for one wild moment, she had almost mistaken the dummy in the chair for the real man. Handsome Jack, the very man who's hunting down all known Sirens. And now, he's here more or less to blow them all to hell judging by the ticking time bomb strapped to the dummy's chest. "Welcome to Pandora, kiddos!"
And the world slows to a stop.
This is your death Maya. You are going down in a blaze of glory and shrapnel with an assorted group of near strangers, all outcasts and maybe killers.
What have you done with your life?
Underdeveloped and faded like a sepia film, Maya thinks of the Abbey. Of its high walls, solemn chants, and comforting bells counting away the hours. Of Brother Sophis, tall and imposing, but always with a gentle smile when she'd run back from her lessons bursting with excitement. She loved him once, as much as any child could for an adoptive father of sorts before she grew to realize what kind of man he was. Looking back, she's not sure if he ever truly cared for her, it's hard to say for sure.
And now, all she has left – all that she is – is a list of unanswered questions, and all she has to show for it is a two day stint on a murderous planet and more questions. Child, you have so much left to learn, Brother Sophis had said before Maya pulled the trigger. And he was right. She has accomplished nothing and learned nothing and now she is going to die.
"Run," the psycho says in her ear and the world comes speeding back into focus.
Maya shakes off her fears. "Everyone, get back and take cover!" They retreat into the last compartment, trying to put as much distance between them and the dynamite as possible. Maya slams shut the door behind her, they have a minute at best before the bomb can go off and anything, even a door can make a difference.
Only they don't have a minute.
She hears the explosion before she feels it. A great thundering clash of metal that screeches and presses in all around her followed by an intense wave of heat. Arms envelope her, shielding her from the worst, and a psycho's mask comes into focus. He tucks her under his chin and then... weightlessness. Floating. The train car turning. Flashes of light, scenery, and her teammates as they're thrown, spinning into space. Bits of sound break through the ringing in her ears. A stunted scream, a groan of pain. It's a chaos of limbs and metal and she couldn't tell which way is up or down, but she's not afraid anymore. Just waiting for it to be over. Something knocks into the back of her head and she cries out as the train hits solid ground and suddenly, she's torn away from the safety of the psycho's arms.
And everything goes white.
A/N: Juuuuust shy of 5k and not entirely happy with this chapter, but eh. I tried. Went a bit AU with the opening cinematic (obviously) and decided to focus more on Krieg and Gaige since y'know, we don't see them in the cutscene. I promise more interaction with Krieg and Maya in the next chapter. Suggestions? Comments? Requests? Death threats? Lemme know what you think! Thanks for reading!