"Look, I appreciate the extra sleep," Maya said. Her hair was tousled, she combed it out as she spoke. "But we agreed you'd take first watch and then wake me up."
"I didn't need to." Zer0 had their storage deck holoscreen up. They scrolled through their guns rather than face Maya. Rhys couldn't help but notice they had two pistols besides the one they'd stolen from him. "I kept watch throughout the night. / And nothing attacked."
"That's beside the point. We need everyone rested. If Jack figured out that we survived, he might send another ambush–"
"I require less sleep." They closed the holoscreen. Unlike the others, they had no camp to pack up, and they'd declined breakfast. The fact they hadn't gone on alone put their air of self-assurance in question, at least in Rhys's eyes. "And I am more observant / Than the rest of you."
The measured smile on Maya's face fell. "You understand why I can't take your word for that?"
"Yeah, I like to think I'm pretty damn observant," Axton put in as he rolled up his bedroll. "Though, I don't mind sleeping through the night, thanks, Zer0."
"The point is, if we're going to work as a team, we need to communicate better," she said.
"I'm not on your team. / We're traveling the same way. / For the time being."
"If that's the case, why stick around?"
"Because I need that," They pointed to the Claptrap, "If I want off this glacier. / Or so I've been told."
"Then work with us! We have the same goal." A light went through her tattoos. Rhys was getting the sense that this wasn't the first time they'd butted heads. He hadn't paid much mind to the other bandit's interactions, having assumed they were all in this together from the start.
"You wanted guarding. / I guarded. What's the problem? / You are still alive."
Whatever Maya was about to say was drowned out by her ECHO device.
"Hey, kiddos." The voice was unmistakable. Rhys straightened up on instinct. "Jack here–President of Hyperion. Lemme explain how things work here: Vault Hunters show up. Vault Hunters look for the new Vault. Vault Hunters get killed. By me. You seeing the problem here? You're still alive. So, if you—hold on, wait, wait wait wait, do you seriously have one of my employees with you? How the hell'd he get down there?"
And that was it. Rhys was completely, one hundred percent, ruined. He'd be branded a traitor, he could never return to Helios, and if Pandora didn't kill him, Handsome Jack would.
"Well, okay. Rhys Strongfork. From Security Propaganda? That's weird." Jack laughed. "Rogue employee going Vault hunter? That's a new one. Let me know how it turns out. Anyway, I was gonna just tell you all to kill yourselves but, Rhysie? I really wanna see what happens to a traitorous little code monkey on Pandora." The comm ended with a click.
The others were all looking at him. He tried to put on a brave face, cracking a smile. "So uh, we're definitely killing that guy, yeah?"
Dunno if it's a 'we', Strongfork." Axton clapped Rhys on the back. "But hey, I'll give you front-row seats to my badass Jack kill."
Rhys shot him a glare, even as he tried to work out a way to convince Jack he was only a prisoner. Would Jack accept that lie, even if he believed it? The man wasn't known for tolerating failure.
"He'll die by my blade," Zer0 said simply. An "uwu" projected from their visor.
"No! I will crack the fingers in my teeth!" Krieg twitched as he yelled, smacking the side of his head a few times.
"If any of us are going to kill Jack, we need to get off this glacier first," Maya said before anyone else could make their claim. "I suggest we get moving."
She'd apparently taken up leadership of the group, and the others accepted that, aside from Zer0. With a few final preparations, they were on the road again.
It was still freezing, of course, and Rhys was more sore than he'd ever been in his life, but the walking had become easier. They'd moved past the deeper, loose snow. Now Rhys's feet only went two inches through the icy crust. And the sun was out. None of that made Rhys any happier about his current situation, but at least it wasn't worse.
He tried to ignore the sound of Gaige taking long strides to catch up with him as he walked. Maybe if he didn't look at her, she wouldn't try to talk to him. She could not possibly have anything good to say.
His efforts failed. "So, Jack didn't set you up to be killed, huh?"
"What?"
"Before you were all 'Jack tried to blow me up! I was subtly undermining Jack! He didn't want to martyr me!'" She did a voice that must have meant to be Rhys's, but did not remotely sound like him. "But obviously, Jack didn't know you were here until, like, literally just now. So?"
Was he being interrogated?
"You hear the part where he called me a 'traitorous code monkey'?"
"Yeah, but like, did you actually do anything cool? Try to smash the system?"
"I did what I said I did," Rhys snapped. It was suddenly very important to him that this teenager thought he was cool and not a liar. "Maybe Jack–Maybe he didn't personally set that up for me, but someone up there wanted me dead for it. There–there's an entire organizational hierarchy up there, Jack doesn't handle everything himself."
"Fine, geez. I was just wondering…"
"Well, I'm glad to appease your curiosity, or whatever." He noticed her eyeing his right arm. "Can I help you with anything else?"
"Nope. I'm good." Gaige said, looking down at her own cybernetic arm like she was comparing the two. It was a good thing hers was on the left, he would not put it past bandits to steal a man's arm. Of course, maybe he was still in some danger from her. She had to be unstable, to end up here.
He was about to ask her to stop staring at him like a piece of machinery when a sharp pain struck him. His ECHOeye port seemed to explode into little needles as his vision blurred and flickered. He let out a cry. A dark-haired, pale young woman appeared in front of him, just for an instant, and he fell. Distantly, he heard Salvador's "I think Hyperion guy died." before things went dark.
The next thing Rhys was aware of was snow moving rhythmically below him as he passed over it. Someone's hand grasped his forearm, another on the back of his thigh. He was being carried, he realized. Groaning, he lifted his head. He made brief eye contact with Salvador, who laughed, shaking his head. "Hey, Axton, the princess is up."
"Wha…?" Rhys blinked, rubbing his head. The pain from before had turned into a soft ache. "Let…Let me down…"
"You gonna pass out again?" Axton asked.
"No? I don't think so?"
Axton slid him off his shoulders and onto the ground. He felt dizzy, but got his bearings after a few stumbled steps.
"What happened?" He asked. For a second time, he was being stared at. He caught Zer0, once again far from the others, watching him with a "LOL" projected from their helm.
"You went all twitchy and blinky and then fainted." It was Gaige who answered.
"Real elegant pose too, ass straight up in the air." Axton grinned.
"Great to know, thanks." At least they hadn't left him behind. They weren't complete savages.
He brought his hand up to his ECHOport, half expecting it to be bleeding or loose. Nothing out of place. Both eyes were functioning. His right arm moved as well as the left. He seemed okay, aside from the residual soreness from yesterday's bullymong attack.
Surreptitiously, he felt for his wallet. It was still in his front pocket, only thinner than it had been. Yep, that's about what he'd expect. Fair enough.
Only later, once they started moving again, did he get some real concern, from Maya. "Is something broken? I'm…Inexperienced with cybernetics, but I imagine they were the cause. Your eye was blinking."
"I must have hit my head harder than I realized, knocked a part loose? It…It should be fine." He had no idea if that was true, but you weren't supposed to show weakness around these types, a rule he'd already broken too many times. Maya might seem reasonable, but there had to be a good reason Jack wanted her dead. "I can fix it, once we get somewhere with a mirror and some tools." He didn't relish the thought of poking around in his own head. Maybe it was one of those one-off things, some sort of glitch that he wouldn't run into again. Maybe he could ignore it.
"Gaige seems to be an experienced mechanic. You could ask her for help."
Rhys just looked at her.
She shrugged. "Understandable. Still, try not to faint again, if possible. Claptrap's claiming that Knuckle Dragger's lair isn't much further. Supposedly, he leads a sizable pack."
They came to the lair nearly an hour later. It was up on a short ridge. The only way up was through a misaimed moonshot shipping container, both ends opened.
Rhys let the Claptrap and Vault hunters go ahead of him. He knew he'd be useless in this fight, or worse, an outright burden. Better to stand around down here until the shooting ended.
The Claptrap started screaming immediately, and the first shots were fired. He heard roaring, more cries from the Claptrap, something large slamming into the earth. Strangely, this was starting to feel routine.
He leaned back against the side of the container and activated his arm's holographic interface. Should he take this chance to shoot a message to Vaughn and Yvette, let them know he wasn't dead, or would communicating with them implicate them as traitors? Best not to risk it. There were rumors of Jack airlocking an entire R&D team when he suspected one of betraying him.
Still, it was strange, even if they'd thought Rhys had died down here, wouldn't they at least think to ECHO him? Unless something had happened… Vasquez wouldn't try to off them, too, would he? His throat got tight, thinking about it.
Something landed on the shipping container above him with a heavy clunk. He looked up to find a bullymong staring back down at him. It was four times the size of the others he'd seen. Fresh bullet wounds covered its pelt. It wore a glowing blue sphere around its neck.
Nearby, he could still hear shooting.
Slowly, he turned to face it. Just stay calm. Back away. Don't do anything to upset it. It'll be more interested in the people who shot it.
He grabbed the stun rod, not taking his eyes off of it.
It was staring at the glow of the hand interface. He deactivated it. Wrong move, the bullymong—Knuckle Dragger, he realized—roared and leapt at him. Scampering to the side, he jabbed out at it, just like last time. Unlike last time, this one swiped the rod out of his grasp, sending it flying.
Rhys turned and ran.
Knuckle Dragger followed.
He sprinted in a wide circle, bullymong close behind. There was no way he'd outrun it for long.
His only chance was the shipping container. Knuckle Dragger was too large to fit through the opening.
With every stride he was sure he'd be caught, up until he finally leapt into the container. He slipped on the icy metal, fell forward, and felt himself being pulled back out. The bullymong had his shoe. Yelping, Rhys wriggled his foot free. He dragged himself out of reach, into the open on the other side.
Chaos lay before him. He couldn't begin to count the bullymong, alive or dead. A sharp-clawed robot—Gaige's, he realized—raked open one's chest a few feet in front of him. Somewhere, Salvador was yelling incomprehensibly. Axton was reloading his gun, covered by a turret next to him. He thought he saw Krieg dash past as he got to his feet.
"Help?!" he heard himself cry, to no response.
The crate behind him echoed as the bullymong climbed over it. Rhys did the only thing he could think to do: he darted straight through the battlefield, hoping Knuckle Dragger would turn its attention to someone else.
It didn't. And once again it was closing in.
He came to a sheer ice wall with the thing bearing down on him. To his left was a large pile of remains: an assortment of bone, cloth, and metal. He grabbed at a piece of metal in desperation, pulling it free. It was the twisted remains of a Jakobs rifle. A crude blade was affixed to one end.
He dodged a blow from the bullymong's massive fist–and blindly thrust upward with all of his strength.
The bayonet passed between the detached lower mandibles and stuck fast in the roof of its mouth. Knuckle Dragger pulled away with a choked cry, yanking the makeshift spear out of Rhys's grasp. Blood flowed down the blade, spattering the ice beneath it. Enraged, it reared up, fists balled.
Rhys shielded himself against a blow that never came.
Instead, there was a pitiful groan. Knuckle Dragger stumbled, swayed a little, and fell forward, narrowly missing Rhys.
Perched on its back was Zer0, their sword buried between its shoulder blades. They freed their blade, hopped off, and yanked the makeshift Claptrap eye necklace from Knuckle Dragger's neck.
"I…Erm…I…" Rhys stammered out, his heart still pounding in his chest.
They glanced at him, drew a pistol from their digi-holster, and tossed it to him. He fumbled as he caught it. Zer0 was gone again by the time he recognized the gun.