This Chapter update has been long overdue. Sorry it has taken me so long to touch on this story again! But without further wait here it is! Also for those who have been following this story, you might want to do a re-red of chapters 18 and 19. The other versions had more of a…sexual relationship thing with Maya and Jack after he had captured her. After reading those chapters over and over again the more I hated them and wanted to change them. I just felt like it took away from the relationship i'd built with Zero and Maya. I wanted Jack to be a complete and utter villain, with no sexual attachments to Maya. So I changed those a bit into more…torturous chapters! So if you have time give those a run through. Some may like the change, some may not. Can't please everybody. That's something I have really learned through writing these stories. Don't let people's rude or opinionated comments get you down. Trust me I've gotten my share of comments that make me roll my eyes. I'm not an excellent writer. I do this in my spare time because I have fun with it. Sometimes my stories get off tangent or shit like that. So what? They are fun porn fictions that I like to write. They are not serious stories. If I wanted to be a serious writer I'd be in college for that and not Graphic Design. So c'mon how about we be sweet to authors on here? I see too many rude comments when cruising through my have stories. We're just writing these because we are fans. We misspell things, we use incorrect grammar from time to time, hell sometimes we even leave out whole words. Don't get your panties in a wad over that. So let's stop story bashing alright kiddos? Please enjoy this next chapter!
Surrender
Maya's footsteps were muffled by the sand that she walked upon.
She walked slow, and she walked tired.
Her body was already dragging behind as her stubbornness willed her forward.
The barren wasteland stretched out before her for miles. Farther than the eye could see. The wind pelted sand across her face, stinging her like thousands of bees.
She trudged with one hand shielding her eyes from the vicious beating of the wind the other gripped her SMG. The weapon swayed at her hip, her grip on it tight and unforgiving.
She was dirty, and sore.
Sand clinging to her damp cheeks.
Damp from stupid tears, that she just couldn't make stop.
She'd left because she'd had to.
What choice did she have?
Not return to Jack and have him kill off everything she had left. She didn't have much...but she wasn't willing to lose anymore.
Hadn't she given enough?
She wouldn't let Jack have Zero.
For whatever reason he so desperately wanted the assassin, she wouldn't cater to that. She wouldn't.
She refused.
She would pretend that the previous night, had never happened.
The fit of passion that had washed over her, consumed her, would be forgotten.
The hands touching each other, the mouths pressed together, the beating hearts pounding against one another.
The feeling, the urgency, the sloppy kisses, the even clumsier fucking.
Love making the way she had remembered it to be.
So hard, rough, and needy.
How could she have been so foolish?
To have let herself revert back to what she knew she couldn't. If she wanted Zero safe, if she wanted him alive, she couldn't be with him.
She couldn't love him.
No.
She couldn't.
She'd hated him for so long, and yet now...now all she wanted...was him.
She just wanted to turn around and run back.
Run away.
Maya gritted her teeth together so hard it made her jaw ache.
She had to protect him, by leaving him behind.
The way he had left her so long ago.
Now she was the monster in danger of killing him.
She was even more of a creature than he.
She shook her head violently and kicked the dust angrily.
Why did it have to be this way!? She thought viciously.
Because the world was cruel, and Pandora was even more so.
She had to just forget him.
It was best to put him away. Like an old book. Just hide him away in a drawer somewhere. Leave him as a memory...and nothing more.
All the memories of the night before swam through her head like a river of sadness and excitement. The way his fingers felt running through her hair. The way his lips felt against hers. So warm and so hungry. Eating her alive. Consuming her heart and her soul. Taking her all in...just as she was.
She'd never felt so at home with anyone else.
She'd been away from him for so long.
Homesick for so long.
Now she'd felt the warming arms of home. The loving touch of home. The easing words of home.
Yet she could not stay.
Could not come home for good.
She had to be thrown into the wind again.
Like a paper bag, drifting on the throws of life, crumpled and worn.
Homeless she went back into the world.
She stopped in her tracks and simply looked out at the unforgiving wastelands. The wind whistled by her, as if whispering sad memories to her.
Whispering to her when she needed a friend.
The wind and sand were her only companion here.
She was alone.
So alone in this awful, hardened world.
She spat into the dirt and moved onward.
This planet was not her friend.
She had come here for answers and had found nothing but more questions.
Nothing but hurt.
Nothing but pain.
This planet takes bright eyed souls and turns them inside out.
Exposes them to the worst of things, and does not apologize for it.
It is not sorry.
Maya breathed out harshly.
But she was.
She was sorry for leaving without so much as a goodbye.
She was sorry for leaving Zero sleeping there, and never looking back.
She was sorry for so much...but she was most sorry for that.
Maya's eyes flicked up with the sudden sense of movement ahead of her.
She instinctively hugged a cliff to keep out of sight and squinted her eyes.
It looked to be a small bandit camp.
Two bandits lounged beside a tiny shack, their backs to the bitter wind.
Sitting proud and menacing beside them was what looked to be a buzzard.
Maya narrowed her eyes.
It was so fucking rare to see the things anymore.
Buzzards were a thing of the past, shot down out of the sky and ripped apart by Jack's army.
Jack did not like Bandit's having eyes in the sky.
Made him uncomfortable or something.
Maya tilted her head and shrugged.
It was a vehicle, she couldn't deny that, and it would get her back to opportunity.
It would have to do.
The two bandits lounged in the windy day, one flipping through a porn magazine, the other snacking on something that did not even look edible.
The smaller of the two looked up over his dirty magazine, his eyes narrowing as he strained to see out into the dust.
There was something out there.
Just barely visible through the thick sand whipping over the landscape.
"Hey chuck...man I might be seein' things...but I think there's someone out there..." The smaller bandit said lifting up off his makeshift lounge chair compiled of an old tire and some wooden planks.
The larger bandit addressed as Chuck flicked his gaze to the other bandit, and then out into the dust.
"Shit their aint nuthin out there. You're seein things. Aint nuthin alive in this hellhole, Jack done fixed that. Don't be stupid." Chuck growled chewing his meal irritably and leaning against the shack.
The smaller bandit stood warily, unmoving as he looked to his fellow bandit and then back to the dunes of sand.
He covered his eyes from the sun and squinted harder.
"Yeah... I guess so...I guess you are rig-...ARAGHHHH!" The smaller bandit started, but was viciously cut off as a mass of blue flames suddenly surrounded him and lifted him from the ground.
He hovered there for a moment screaming as the white hot flames seared him, and then in a mere second his body exploded into a mass of pieces and parts.
The flames dissipated, his entrails and limbs falling to the ground in scattered heaps.
The bigger bandit scrambled to his feet in horror, specks of his comrades blood clinging to his face.
Like a monster come to life, she came forth from the dust, glowering blue and beautiful.
Beautiful and horrifying.
He turned to run, but did not get far.
With a flick of her fingers Maya phaselocked his legs and broke them both, causing him to skid to a stop in the dirt.
She could hear him screaming, hear him sobbing, hear him begging.
Maya raised her hand and clenched her fist, causing his skull to cave in, and he then laid still.
She stood before the two bodies, or what was left of them, with a coldness in her eyes.
She didn't like it when they begged.
Begging to her was futile.
Accept death when you are at it's door, was her thoughts on the matter.
Do not beg for a better outcome, when you know there will not be one.
That was why she never begged to Jack.
She wouldn't let herself sink to that level.
Only insects beg.
Maya approached the massive mechanical machine, and opened it's heavy door.
She hauled herself inside and slammed the door shut, giving her peppered face some reprieve from the wind and sand.
She sat in the cockpit and sighed out lowly, her hands finding the two joysticks at her sides.
She closed her eyes for just a moment.
She and Zero were indeed monsters.
But monsters did not belong together.
Monsters only tear each other apart.
That was all.
She angrily began flicking toggle switches and the hulking beast came to life, it's blades spinning slow at first, then gaining in strength and speed.
A whirlwind of dust kicked up around the chopper as she pushed the joysticks forward and the machine began to lift from the surface.
She would not let her own beasts tear Zero apart.
No.
She just couldn't...
The chopper rose above the whirring dust, until it met with clear skies.
Maya steered the buzzard in the direction of opportunity...and never looked back.
Zero's eyelids parted slowly, the world outside his eyes was foggy and blurred.
He blinked several times and groaned out lowly.
He rolled onto his back and stared upward, his vision overtaken by massive hanging cave rocks, adorning the ceiling like ornaments. He took in a deep, long breath, his body rising and falling as his chest filled with oxygen and then let it loose again.
His fingers ran over the stone of the cave flooring.
He forced his body upward into a sitting position and he rested his heavy head in his hands.
He didn't need to look around him.
He could sense he was alone.
Maya's scent no longer lingered in his nostrils, nor did her presence surround him anymore.
She was gone.
But then again, he'd known she would be the minute he'd closed his eyes to sleep the night before.
He'd known, and he'd accepted it.
That was the price he had to pay for the short moment of time that he'd gotten to hold her. Gotten to call her his once more.
She was just as wild as the day he'd met her. Wild things like that couldn't just belong to someone.
To one person.
One time though...so long ago...she had given herself to him.
Zero drew his knee up and rested his arm on it thoughtfully.
She had allowed him to keep her.
To have her.
To hold her.
He'd given that up when he had left that night. Even though it was for her own protection. He had relinquished that right to keep her.
That wild, beautiful, fierce being that she was.
Zero clenched his teeth together and closed his eyes tight.
No.
His eyes snapped open.
No.
He wouldn't let her go.
Not this time.
He couldn't. He would not let this happen again. There was too much left unsaid and too much left untouched. He would not loose her a second time.
He would not let this planet take her from him.
He would not let him take her.
Jack.
Zero's mind wandered to the collar around Maya's neck...the brand on her shoulder.
How dare that worthless man think that he...or all people...could have her. Could keep Maya for himself. Maya belonged to nobody.
Especially not that crazed psychopath.
He'd put a collar on her like a dog. Tried to leash her like a pet.
Zero would not stand for it.
For too long Maya had endured Jack's torture.
Zero would not let her go another moment having to live with that.
If Jack wanted him...he'd gladly hand himself over.
For Maya.
He'd give himself to Jack.
Jack was so desperate to have Zero...Zero would comply. To save Maya.
His gorgeous siren.
His siren.
Zero slammed his fists on the cave floor. For too long he had done nothing, and Maya had suffered.
No more.
He would let her suffer no more.
He had to protect her.
That was the vow he'd taken the second he'd told her he loved her.
That word was a promise that he would not take lightly.
Zero rose to his feet, fists clenched at his sides, his teeth gritted and sharpening by the second. Growing into fangs that jutted past his lips.
He'd kill Jack.
Even if he died trying.
He would fucking kill him.
Sharp claws forced past his fingertips, slicing into his balled fists.
His heavy breathing slowly deformed into rough, rasping growls that reverberated from deep within him.
His black eyes blazed as his face melted into the form of something else. The monster he used to fear, but now simply existed with. His back hunched as his muscles stretched and his bones reformed. The change had once been so painful, so drastic, so awful...now it was just like breathing. It was slow and it was calculated. Like a dance it all happened so gorgeously.
The beast stood in Zero's place, it's long pointed ears pitched forward listening to the sounds all around it's form. A low snarl rumbled up from it's chest.
The monster splayed it's long fingers out in front of it, curling his paws, testing them thoughtfully.
Jack would fall before him.
Just like any other prey.
He'd hunt him like he had hunted so many others.
He'd taste his blood and break his bones.
He'd make him suffer.
A low hollow sound came up from his chest, partially a growl partially a chuckle. It was deep and maniacal. It was crazed and deranged.
He tossed his massive head back and let loose a deafening roar that echoed through the cave's guts. It rang off the walls, shaking the hanging formations with it's intensity.
With that his huge paws hit the ground, and he was gone.
Gone into the wild.
Gone into the dust.
The time passed quickly with the aid of flight. The journey's many days in a land vehicle turned into just a few by air. The buzzard's blades kicked up the dirt and snow below it as Maya brought the machine down. The small brush whipped around with the wind's force. The chopper landed with a rocky thud and Maya flicked all the toggles off, letting the machine ease to a stopping point. Maya sighed as she watched the blades come die.
She'd landed the buzzard a little ways from opportunity. A little clearing just over a hill, buried in the shadows of the mountains.
She stepped out of the dying machine and walked away from it. She'd leave it here. Maybe it would help some other poor soul someday. Maybe it would help them to escape their horrors. The complete opposite of what it had done for her. The machine had only aided her in returning to her own horrors. But..maybe it would serve someone else better than it had her. She tossed the keys on the seat and left it there.
Her feet were heavy as she walked the long road toward Opportunity.
It was a walk she had made many times over.
But each time was harder than the last.
Each time was more painful.
This time more than ever before.
She stopped for a moment to look back over her shoulder. The chilled wind whipped through her hair gently. It was always so much cooler here. The day was glum and overcast, cold, and threatening rain. It reflected her mood near perfectly. The mountains rose up behind her, kissing the sky gently.
She wondered where Zero would go now...would he just wander? The way he had been...?
What was she to do now?
All she had known for an entire year...was hunting him.
But now...now she had found him and not had the will to hunt him like she was asked to do. She loved him.
More than words could say.
Her heart had always known it. Every day. Every moment.
It was the anger in her that ever thought she could possibly hunt down the one she loved.
Now all the anger was gone, and she was left with just...emptiness.
Maya looked to the looming city, and then back to the Pandoran wilderness.
She wondered...if she would ever see him again...
Ever feel his warmth again.
His touch.
Even if she did not...she would savor the time they had together. Even if it was just one night of passion.
Maya inhaled a deep breath, breathing in the fresh mountain air.
It may her be last time to ever taste fresh air again for all she knew.
She had no idea what was in store for her.
She could lie to Jack...that she could.
But she looked and smelled like a lost battle. All scraped up and beaten. Her uniform charred black in places, and blood stained. But worst of all she was returning without her target...again.
Jack's patience was wearing thin with her, and it was quite obvious she her days were numbered. Failure after failure...she couldn't go on like this.
This may be the last time she ever saw daylight. Maybe Jack would lock her up for good this time. Or just off her already.
No...he wouldn't make it that easy.
He would torture her to the brink of death again and again...but never kill her. He favored her too much to kill her. She was his little prisoner. The Siren that he had built. His Siren that could control the warrior. No...he wouldn't kill her. Just lock her up...
She let her shoulders fall and then went on. There was no use in waiting around. Best meet her fate head on, whatever that may be.
Maya shook her head and willed herself forward.
Opportunity was unusually dead. A gloomy day like such had willed most the occupants inside. Loaders wandered the streets aimlessly, patrolling and keeping intruders out. They watched Maya as passed, their lone glowing eyes observing her with fake intelligence. Maya stormed toward main headquarters.
As she mapped out the hallways with a quickened pace, she mulled over in her head exactly she would say to Jack.
Sorry I fucked the target and came back without him? Yeah that wasn't going to go over very well.
Maya shook her head in dismay and continued to walk.
It was like walking to her own funeral.
Ready for death she went strong and she went without fear.
She avoided the screening room, not wanting to run into Angel or anybody else for that matter.
She thought it best if she just talked to Jack alone. That might make things easier...maybe.
Maya's footsteps echoed off the Hyperion yellow walls. She was surrounded by massive portraits and posters all adorned with Jack's face and that shit eating grin of his.
Posters promising civilization, order, peace. All fucking lies. There was no order. No peace. The only thing Jack had done was murder this planet and the people that had always called it home. That was it.
He was a murderer. A psychopath.
He was no great king, or ruler. He was just a madman.
The doors at the end of the hall were massive, they stood twice her hight, golden with murals of Jack conquering Pandora, the warrior at his side.
Maya paused at the scene.
If only they knew the real story.
The warrior wasn't Jack's ally.
The warrior was as much a prisoner as she was. Forced into Jack's command...by her own hand.
Jack alone couldn't control the beast. That was what he'd needed Maya for. He'd molded her into the perfect living key to control the monster. That was why he still needed her. Without her he could not control the warrior.
She'd awoken the beast, made it bow before Jack and made it kill for him. Then it had been caged away, deep beneath opportunity, a secret weapon to keep the planet under his thumb. In a sense the warrior and Maya were not so different. He used her just as he used the warrior. To keep the planet under his control.
Maya paused at the door, her fingers on the handle, he breath coming in short shallow pants.
She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and she blinked them away in vain. She had to be strong.
Show no weakness.
The strongest siren on the planet is not weak. She is always strong.
Maya breathed out shakily and wiped the small starts of tears away viciously.
She stood up straight and yanked the door open.
The doors banging echoed through the large office. In the middle of the room was a single desk, with a single chair large both massive in size and ornate as hell.
Maya strode toward the desk her head held high.
She knew what she would tell Jack.
She had it all planned out.
Jack was leaned back in the massive chair, his leather sneakers propped up on the desk's surface. His arms were folded back behind his head lethargically.
Those mismatched eyes instantly fell on the siren as she entered the room.
He cocked an eyebrow at her battle worn appearance and gaze her a quizzical look.
Maya stood before the huge desk, crossing her arms over her chest in an authoritative way.
She looked at Jack with a vicious expression, frown cut across her lips, eyes shimmering with intensity.
Jack leaned forward in his seat and tapped his fingers on the desk.
"Well pumpkin, don't you look like something that just came out of the meat grinder?" He commented offering her a disgusted look as his eyes swept up her and then back down again.
Maya didn't answer.
Jack shot her a dark look.
"So...I have this sinking feeling I'm not going to like the news you bring me sweetie. Am I wrong?" Jack snarled slowly rubbing his sharp chin.
Maya drew in a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak.
But the words never came.
She was cut short as sirens began wailing with ear piercing strength.
Maya whirred around, her gun at the ready, her form bathed in flashing red lights as the sirens sounded.
Jack sprang up from his desk, grabbed an echo and flipped it on.
"What the fuck is going on?" Jack bellowed into the machine.
The other line crackled and clicked before an answer came through.
"Sir we have an intruder inbound!" The voice finally answered.
"Get loaders down there NOW!" Jack barked.
Maya did not wait to hear the rest.
Her feet were already in motion, her legs pumping as fast as physically possible.
She gripped her gun tightly, the weapon swaying with her movement.
She skidded around corners, back out the hallways she had just come through. Headquarters was a madhouse. Workers scrambling here and there, sirens wailing, their sound piercing her tender ears.
Their flashing lights illuminated the walls and floors, the tile reflecting the red tint.
Maya burst out the front doors her heart racing. She looked out into the distance her eyes narrowed.
Just before the entrance to the city...was a figure.
Tall and lean, black as midnight.
Maya felt her heart stop.
Zero.
Loader's weapons were all aimed on the assassin, their mechanical voices all telling him to halt.
Zero didn't move.
Maya couldn't find the will to breathe.
It was like time itself had stopped dead.
The loader's repeated the command, warningly, their guns at the ready.
Zero stood still for what seemed like an eternity.
Then finally he slowly sunk to his knees and raised his arms into the air.
Maya felt herself crumple to her own knees as the loaders swarmed him.
The tears spilled over her cheeks as they stole his weapons and pushed him into the dirt, his helmet scraping the cement.
"Zero..." Maya whispered in disbelief, her hands shaking as she gripped her knees.
It couldn't be real.
It just couldn't.
The assassin...giving himself to Jack.
Surrendering...