Heyo!
Here's the next update in the ever expanding story Pandora's Vault Hunters.
This one deviates more from the cannon than the previous ones. As we go on, this'll happen more and more. I don't plan to straight up contradict cannon, but we will deviate from it more.
An Eye for An Eye
Knuckle Dragger roared at the Vault Hunters and they scattered into different directions.
Axton ran for cover and hid behind one of the junked cars, Maya ran as far from the enormous bullymong as possible and then took cover behind an ice pile and Salvador and Zer0 stood straight in its path.
Salvador digistructed a shotgun and aimed it at the creature.
"Hey! Big and ugly, say hello to my little fr-" He was stopped short when a giant ice chunk hit him square in the chest, knocking him down on his back.
Axton looked up at the direction the ice chunk had come from, standing there was a group of bullymongs holding ice balls in each free hand.
"We got more of them in the back!" Axton yelled.
He fired a few bursts at the bullymongs and they turned their attention towards him.
"Great..." He muttered.
Meanwhile, Zer0 hacked and slashed his way through the smaller bullymongs towards Knuckledragger. He jumped off the back of one and landed right in front of the badass.
He thrust his katana forward but before it could hit, Knuckledragger slammed an arm into him and knocked him over to the side.
The assassin let out a grunt as he impacted an icy wall and collapsed to the ground.
"Zer0's down." Axton yelled as he wrestled with a bullymong who was trying to tear him up with his teeth.
"I got him!" Maya yelled. "The siren ran up to the assassin and kneeled down next to him. She jabbed a syringe into his arm and pushed down the pump.
The assassin stood up warily and picked his katana back up.
"Thank you." He said running back into the fight.
Meanwhile, Salvador and Axton were cleaning up the last of the small bullymongs. Axton plunged his tomahawk into a bullymong's skull and looked up.
"That's all of the little ones!" He shouted.
"Ah!" Claptrap yelled. "They're coming out of the wall sphincters!"
"Wall sphincters?" Salvador questioned.
Suddenly another half a dozen bullymongs jumped out of various holes in the wall of the canyon.
"Son of a bitch... " Axton said.
He pulled his tomahawk back out of the dead bullymong's skull and gripped it tightly in one hand. With his other hand he reached on to his belt and grabbed a storage deck off of it.
"Hey, wanna meet my girlfriend?" He yelled as he tossed it at the bullymongs.
The storage deck hit the ground in front of them, but rather than activating it just sparked a little and a trail of smoke came out. The unit digistructed and returned to Axton.
"Well shit." He mumbled.
He grabbed his rifle and let loose on the advancing pack. With him and Salvador spraying all those rounds into them, and Zer0 sniping from behind, the bullymongs were dealt with quickly. As soon as they were taken care of, they turned back to deal with Knuckledragger. However they found the badass bullymong otherwise occupied.
Maya stood in the center of Frostbite Crevasse, Knuckledragger advancing towards her. She raised a tattooed fist up and slammed it into the bullymong's face. He recoiled and stumbled back. She took the opportunity to grab an icicle out of his hand and she jammed it into his eye. She ripped Claptrap's eye off of his neck and dug the icicle in deeper.
"An for an eye bitch..." She muttered as she pushed the icicle in further.
Suddenly Knuckledragger went limp and fell to the ground, leaving Maya alone in the center. A few remaining small bullymongs turned tail and ran away.
The other Vault Hunters stood watching her from the sides in shock and amazement.
"Chicka can fight." Salvador said in approval.
"Excellent display/Most bloody and violent/Quite the spectacle."
"Holy shit." Axton said. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"Athenis." She said. "I was trained in seventeen different forms of hand-to-hand combat."
"But no one took the time to teach you how to shoot?" He asked skeptically.
"Guns are clumsy and misfire. You know how reliable your hand is." She said crossing her arms over her chest.
"You're gonna have to teach me some of that." Axton said.
"Before or after you teach me how to shoot?" She said placing a hand on her hip.
"Funny..." He muttered.
"Minions! You've successfully reclaimed my eye! Also, I'm sorry for yelling 'wall sphincters' I do that a lot when I'm scared." He said.
"Right... Now what?" Axton asked.
"Now we have to get my eye back into my head, and, as much as I'm sure you'd love to jam your fist into my face, this sort of thing is best left to professionals. We'll go see my old buddy Sir Hammerlock in Liar's Burg. He'll be able to fix me up. Now, allons-y." He said as he rolled away.
"Hold it there Clappy, it'll be dark soon." Axton said. "We might want to rest for a little."
"That fight with Knuckle Dragger was kinda draining." Maya added. "I wouldn't mind some sleep."
"What about you Sal?" Axton asked turning around.
He turned around, only to see the gunzerker already passed out in the snow.
"Well I guess that settles it." He said. "We'll stop here for a night and move on in the morning."
"But minions!"
"We're stopping Claptrap. Either that or you can wander blindly off another cliff."
"Fine." He said grudgingly.
Axton turned around, but then looked back at the other Vault Hunters as if he just remembered something.
"Hey that reminds me." Axton said. "Anyone else having problems with their gear?"
"What do you mean?" Zer0 asked.
"My turret hasn't been working since the train crash, I think it got busted. You guys having any problems with your stuff?"
"Let me check..." Salvador said pulling himself up off the ground and pulling out a shotgun and a rifle. He turned around and fired them at an ice wall. The guns jumped around wildly in his hand as they recoiled and he dropped to the ground before he lost control of them.
"Not working." He said.
"Wait, so you can't just fire two guns at once all of the sudden?" Maya asked.
"Says the chicka that can't even shoot one gun." He fired back. "I have a stabilizer to keep the guns steady. You fire two guns at once and you'll kill yourself. You have a stabilizer, you're a fucking force of nature."
"What about you Maya? How's your skill?"
"I mean... I can still use my powers..." She said, her tattoos pulsing dully. "But I'm not sure if I can still phase lock... I have a regulator for that, it keeps the energy in check and keeps me from accidentally setting myself on fire."
"Wanna try it out?" He asked.
"Not really…" She said hesitantly. "But I need to know if its working."
Maya held out her arm and tried to create a phase lock around an ice covered boulder. The rock glowed briefly for a moment but then Maya's arm pulsed with energy and knocked her back to the ground.
"Ow..."
She stood back up and looked at Axton.
"It's not working." She said.
"So I see. Hold still for a second..." Axton mumbled.
He reached out his hand and closed two fingers around one of Maya's hairs that had managed to catch fire. There was a small sizzling noise as the fire extinguished and Maya rolled her eyes.
"If its any consolation, you're still smoking." Axton said with a grin.
Maya rolled her eyes again and, in no mood to deal with that right now, slapped Axton across the face.
"I probably deserved that."
Maya gave him a sarcastic look that said "you think so?"
"Anyway, how about you Zer0. Your suit working?"
"No."
"Well that sucks. What are we supposed to do about it?"
"Hammerlock could probably fix your gear minions." Claptrap chimed in.
"Well that's convenient." Axton said. "I guess we'll get our stuff repaired tomorrow in Liar's Burg."
A small fire burned brightly in the darkness that spread across Southern Shelf at night.
Zer0 was leaning against an ice pile, his visor showed a dull red glowing "zzz". Salvador was literally curled up next to the fire, like some sort of really big, really hairy lap dog. Claptrap had, again, blindly wandered into a hole and nobody felt like fishing him out at the moment so that's where he was. Axton was awake and tending to the fire, and Maya was next to him keeping a nervous eye on the others. Axton glanced over at the nervous looking siren.
"What's up?" He asked. "Can't sleep?"
"I don't want to sleep." She answered.
"Why not?"
"You really want to know?"
"Kinda."
She sighed. "Truth be told I'm a bit scared."
"Of what? The bullymongs? The bandits?"
"No. Those I can handle. I'm scared of them." She said pointing at Zer0 and Salvador.
"Why?" He asked.
"Have you seen Salvador's wanted poster? He's wanted for cannibalism. I don't want to fall asleep around a guy who eats people."
"Well what about Zer0?"
"He's an assassin. There are a lot of people willing to pay to kill me. How do I know that he's not working for one of them?"
"I guess you don't."
"Exactly."
"So does this mean that you do trust me?"
"Not particularly. But I'm sure that I could take you in a fight. Those two, I'm not a hundred percent on."
"Gee, I'm flattered."
"Don't kid yourself, I could melt you from the inside out before you could even draw your gun."
Axton shrugged, she was probably right.
"Well what are you going to do then? I mean about them?"
"I don't know."
"How about this, you go to sleep and I'll keep an eye on them."
"I still don't trust you though."
"Fine then, stay up all night. I'm going to sleep."
Axton opened up a storage deck and rifled around through it for a minute. He pulled out a green sleeping bag with a Dahl logo stamped on it.
"I don't suppose you have another one of those?" Maya asked.
"Maybe I do. Why do you ask?"
"Because its really cold out here and it would be nice to have one."
"That's what you get for wearing that outfit in the snow." He said pointing to her combat suit.
"It's not my fault."
"I'm pretty sure you're the one that made the conscious decision to forgo wearing something warmer, or something with a left sleeve for that matter."
"I can't wear anything on that arm. When I use my powers my tattoos heat up, they'd burn their way straight through the sleeve."
"You still could have packed something extra for when you're not in combat."
"Will you please just help me Axton?"
"I could, but that sort of depends."
"Depends on what?"
"Well, I've only got one of these so we'd have to share and I don't suppose you're willing to sleep with me?"
"I'm not sleeping with you. Ever. Under any circumstance."
Axton shrugged and went back to rummaging through the storage deck.
"What are you doing n-" Maya got cut off when Axton threw something at her and it landed on her face.
She pulled it off of her and looked at it. It was another Dahl sleeping bag.
"I thought you only had one."
"Nah, I carry at least two of everything. It's called being prepared, you should try it sometime."
"But then why did you try to get me to sleep with-" Maya paused as she realized what she was saying. "You're a pig Axton."
"Hey, whatever you think I meant when I said sleep, you're wrong. I just like to cuddle."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?"
"That you're a man who likes to cuddle? Nope, nothing weird there."
"Fuck you."
"In your dreams."
"Ah fuck it. I hope the gunzerker eats you."
Axton crawled into the sleeping bag and tried to go to sleep.
Maya sat there for a moment. She really didn't want to go to sleep, on the other hand, staying awake for the entire night probably wasn't an option.
Maybe Salvador wasn't actually a cannibal and it had been a misunderstanding that got it added to his list of offenses.
At that moment the gunzerker rolled over on the ground and in a half asleep state mumbled something that, to Maya, sounded a lot like "tasty".
She immediately got up, went over next to Axton and shook him back awake.
"What do you want?" He asked with a yawn.
"Move over, I'm sleeping with you."
"I knew you couldn't resist my devilish charm."
"Shove it soldier boy. I can still melt you from the inside out."
About twenty feet away Claptrap was still at the bottom of a hole in the ice field.
"Minions? Minions? A little help? Please? Minions…?"
Author's Note: I almost feel sorry for you guys, you have to read through all my ridiculous headcannon in this fic. But yeah, that's my official explanation on why Maya and Salvador can't use their action skills even though they're not tech based like Axton's and Zer0's.
Author's Other Note: About Maya's outfit... Seriously, every time I see her in Southern Shelf, where it's cold and snowing, and all she has is that combat outfit that exposes her arm, and part of her chest and hip. She has to be freezing. Can't she just have a coat or something?