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With a grunt, Gaige loads the foot locker onto the deck of her sandskiff. Hayter's Folly didn't prove to be much of a haul, but she was at least to find Deathtrap some better inertia dampeners. And if she leaves now, she'll still have about four hours of night left until she'll be ready to fall asleep – plenty of time to install DT's new gear. She's about to turn the ignition on her skiff when movement at the top of the hill to her left catches her eye. She pulls out a sniper rifle to get a better look through the scope, then grins and guns the skiff up the hill.
She lets out a short exhale as her shoes hit the ground.
“Oh. Hey.”
Gaige feels herself grinning and can't bring herself to stop. “Hey Aubrey. Whatcha doin?”
Aubrey glances to her side at Gaige, then looks back through the scope of her Dahl rifle. “Nothin'.”
A flicker of faded blue light bends in front of a palm tree. Aubrey's rifle bursts, and a horizontal spray of electric laser bolts shoots out. They connect with a prowling stalker that seizes up and shakes as the electricity arcs through its body.
“Huntin' stalkers?” Gaige asks, watching the creature slump over, its webbed forelimb draped over its face. “Want any help?”
Aubrey lowers her rifle to her chest. Her lips purse in a slight frown. She takes her left hand from the stabilizer grip and flicks a lock of hair out of her face.
“I mean... not that you need any,” Gaige adds, clearing her throat.
Her calculating blue eyes looking Gaige up and down, Aubrey lets out a sigh. “When Gram-gram died her captain and crew buried her out in the clearing up ahead. Every year I come out here with something she gave me and I set it on fire over her grave.”
“Oh!” Gaige feels her grin widening. Judging by what she's heard of Grandma Callahan, this sounds like a tradition she wouldn't mind being a part of. “Well, I think I've got a pretty sweet fire grenade mod in my pack, if you wanna make a spectacle of it.”
Aubrey's lips purse for a moment. Gaige takes conscious notice of their height difference as Aubrey looks down at her. “'Kay.”
Aubrey takes long, easy strides up the hill, hair bobbing as she glances from side to side, on the lookout for more stalkers. They're like roaches , Hammerlock had told her. Wherever you see one, rest assured there's at least half a dozen more watching you from the shadows. Hence the name.
Dirt grinds behind them, and Gaige wheels around, firing off a blast from her shotgun. The venomous stalker's head explodes in a red mist, staining the dirt behind it. Aubrey lets out a snort of laughter. “Nice.”
The spray from Aubrey's E-tech rifle melts a few more stalker faces. Gaige lets herself fall back, watching Aubrey forge ahead, the snap of her aim surprisingly quick given her relaxed posture. She steps over a fallen tree and comes to a standstill. Gaige steps up beside her.
Aubrey takes in a slow breath. “Cool, we're here.”
Ahead of them sits a small pyramid formation of rocks, the side closest to them worn black with char. Gaige glances over as Aubrey saunters towards it, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. “What'd ya bring?”
Aubrey taps at the storage deck strapped to her right thigh. A short, stout wooden statue appears in her hand. “This stupid thing.”
She bends over and drops the statue at the foot of the pile of rocks. Feeling her throat go dry, Gaige tries to look away, but finds her gaze wandering back to Aubrey, bent over at the waist. She lets out a quiet breath as Aubrey straightens up and starts tapping at her storage deck again. Gaige takes a few steps closer to look at the offering.
Gaige grimaces. “Uhhh... what the fuck is that?”
The wood is striated in color ranging from deep brown to tan. It's a rounded humanoid shape, with an egg-shaped head that looks like it was smashed into the rotund body. Its thin lips pout and its eerily beady obsidian eyes glimmer with unsettling life. It's a wonder she's waited seven years to burn this monstrosity.
“Gram-gram's crew went to Aegrus once,” Aubrey says, the hint of a snarl playing at her upper lip. “Pretty sure they infected the natives there with skagpox? Anyway she brought this back from there. I think it's their god of livestock or something dumb like that. Found it at the back of my closet last week, and like... well, look at it.”
“I'd... really rather not.” But try as she might, Gaige can't turn her gaze from the statuette's pained grimace, the worry lines chiseled into the skin around its eyes.
“Uhhh yeah I'm gonna burn it now,” Aubrey says. A rectangular can of gas digistructs in her hand. She loosens the cap and turns it over the idol.
The sharp tang stings at Gaige's nostrils, but the sight of the portly idol, now soaked in gasoline, is the greater affront to her senses. “Please, for all our sakes, send this thing to hell where it belongs.”
Aubrey uprights the gas can, tightens the lid, and stores it back in her deck. Pursing her lips, she turns around. Gaige takes her lead. They walk to a large, flat rock some thirty feet away from her grandmother's grave marker. Aubrey sits down and stares at the idol, a furrow to her brow. “She always brought back stupid stuff from her trips and gave it to me for some dumb reason. I hated it. Like, 'Oh, thaaaaanks, Gram-gram, now I'll have this to memorialize the time you molotoved an orphanage.' She was the worst.” She lets out a quick exhale through her nose, then looks up at Gaige with a quirked eyebrow. “You got that grenade mod?”
Nodding, Gaige activates her storage deck. The hunk of metal digistructs into her palm, chilling her skin with its dense weight. She hands it to Aubrey, who holds it up in the moonlight, scrutinizing it with a blank stare.
She tosses it up and down to herself a couple times as Gaige sits down. With a sneer on her face, Aubrey rears her arm back and chucks the grenade. It sinks into the sand mere inches away from the idol.
Gaige grips the sharp corner of the rock-turned-bench. A two second fuse has never felt so long.
A jet of flame shoots up twenty feet into the air, igniting the rising vapors like a geyser of fire. The self-propelled actuators in the grenade kick in and it starts bouncing up and down in place, letting out a stream of flames in every direction as it rotates in midair. Streamers of orange fire rise and twirl up into the dark blue night sky before fizzling out of existence. The fat wooden idol is swallowed by a ball of flame, and the wood crackles and sparks in the warm summer air of the Oasis. Aubrey grunts, and a second grenade lands in the dirt by the first with a thud. After a few seconds, it too lets off a sharp crack as it activates.
Gaige sneaks a glance over at Aubrey. She crosses her right leg over her left and watches the jets of flame shoot and twist skyward, their yellow-orange reflections sparkling in her eyes and casting her face in a soft glow. Gaige thinks she can see the hint of a smile playing at Aubrey's lips. A heat spreads from the pit of Gaige’s stomach, one that is most definitely not from the grenade mods.
As the flames die down, the sculpture still smolders, the wood cracking and glowing as the heat eats through to its center.
Gaige flashes a grin at her. “Well that was fun.”
Aubrey lays her palms flat on the stone behind her and lets out a weak chuckle. “Yeah it was pretty sweet.” She casts a sideways glance at the charred idol, its burned face monstrously gnarled from the wood chipping and splintering. “I think it looks cooler this way I might actually keep it now.”
“Well hey, uh...” Gaige clears her throat and runs a hand through her hair. Her mouth has never felt so dry. “If you ever get in the mood to set some more stuff on fire, well... I'd love to join you.”
Glancing at Gaige out of the corner of her eye, Aubrey raises a brow. “Hm?”
“What I mean is, uh...” Gaige takes a deep breath. Confidence! “I like you. I think you're awesome and you're pretty and I wanna hang out with you more.”
“Oh.” Aubrey's shoulders rise and fall with a slow breath. She taps a finger as she looks Gaige up and down. “Yeah you're okay too I guess.”
Gaige is sure her smile must be as bright as her fire grenade. “Awesome!” As Aubrey's left eyebrow raises a quarter inch, Gaige clears her throat, trying to shake the exuberance out of her voice. “I mean, uh... sweet.” She scoots a bit closer, pursing her lips, trying to ignore the pressure budding at her chest. “I, um... I think I need to kiss you right now. Okay?”
Aubrey blinks and shrugs her right shoulder. Gaige presses her lips to Aubrey's and puts her right hand on her waist, her fingertips playing at the skin poking out between Aubrey's brown leather bomber jacket and her midnight blue jeans. Aubrey's teeth graze over Gaige's lower lip. Gaige's eyelids flutter and she lets out a breathless gasp as Aubrey pulls apart from her, teeth glistening in the moonlight behind slightly parted lips.
A twinkle of moonlight dances in Aubrey's eyes. One corner of her mouth turns up in a grin. “Nice.”