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Maya abruptly jumped to the side. The next instant, a painted spear stuck into the spot where she had just stood, lifting a small cloud of clods of earth. Savages. Well, they will be... The siren managed to notice only four of them when she and her partner came here, to the foot of the cliff, to complete another mission for Sir Hammerlock. But now there were clearly more aborigines. Maya focused on the target. It's fine, there were situations worse than this, and much worse. The savage who threw that damned spear ran closer, and when Maya shot, the enemy caught fire and fell dead. This incendiary pistol was a good thing after all.
Hearing a sword slicing through the air behind her, Maya turned around. She saw her tall, mysterious teammate who — the siren bet that it was so — has been keeping invisibility until this moment and caught another aborigine by surprise, attacking him from behind. This was confirmed by a corpse lying on a bizarre wooden shield, with a huge wound in its entire back. A red glowing holograph in the form of zero flashed from the assassin's helmet. However, Maya had gotten used to many unusual things related to her partner, including his manner of expressing emotions and no less peculiar manner of speaking.
“Another savage / Has just died by my hand. So / Who'll be the next one?”
“Zer0, watch out!” Maya warned him when she noticed a savage with a machine gun on the left, hiding behind a crate and aiming right at them. Fortunately, both she and Zer0 reacted faster. The bullets did not hit Maya when she hid behind the nearest boulder, and as for the assassin, who ran away to the opposite side of her, only a part of his shield was demolished.
Having chosen the moment, the siren looked out from behind her hiding place: from the savages' camp, located at the very top of the cliff, three more aborigines came here. They waved their hands indignantly and shouted something to their fellow tribesman with a gun, and he turned his attention to them. It's time to move on. Maya already reached forward to use the Phaselock when suddenly something damaged her shield and thrusted in the back of her head like a small needle. Oddly enough, a wave of piercing pain was followed by relaxation, and Maya barely touched the thin cylinder sticking out of her neck. And then she saw a savage coming down from the big tree that was on the right side, holding a pistol of some strange shape in his hand. But Maya couldn't do anything anymore. She was so tired that she instantly fell to the ground, her eyes closed.
***
It seemed like the middle of the day. Maya stood on a hill, not looking at all in the direction of Zer0 whose presence she nevertheless sensed. A snowy plain with a scattering of bandit camps stretched below, and several rakks circled among the mountains surrounding it.
“It's time to go,” the all-too-familiar voice came, and the siren, breaking away from contemplation of the panorama, turned to her partner and froze in bewilderment. Why was he wearing a black business suit over his usual closed one? A question mark appeared opposite the helmet of Zer0, who was apparently surprised by such a reaction.
“Um... for what reason is such an outfit?” Maya finally asked.
“For the mission,” the assassin answered shortly. So, and if they go to this mission together, then... Maya looked at herself: it turned out that she also had a similar trouser suit, also business and black. Well, well.
“Okay, let's go,” the siren said and headed toward some tower. Something told her that she needed to go there.
Climbing the tower was only possible in one way — by a ladder. But for some reason that turned out to be a rope one. There were no alternatives, however, and Maya climbed first. What happened then broke her whole worldview: the day suddenly turned to night, the rope ladder turned into rope bridge, and over this bridge they now had to crawl above the river. And ahead on the shore, covered with tall grass and some strange neon-glowing flowers, there was a crowd of savages, clearly expecting something. But where did the tower go? Why did the snow disappear? It was already something utterly obscure.
“Finally!” One of the savages shouted, noticing Maya and Zer0. “We are waiting for you. After all, will you give us an excursion to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve?”
“What excursion?! We have come to kill you!” Maya snapped. At that very moment, she felt that her legs were stuck between the boards of the bridge. Then, trying in vain to free herself, she turned to her partner, “Zer0, explain to them that we are not guides!”
Then it was all over, and the darkness fell instantly.
***
Someone's hand gently touched Maya's shoulder. Opening her eyes, she saw a grating of wood in front of her and the savages' camp beyond it. In addition, something held her legs. A moment later, it became clear that she got stuck in the poles of that same grating. At least the distance between them turned out to be large enough to release without much effort, but still not enough to get out.
“Now it's much better / For you and me to be guides / Than prisoners here,” said Zer0 who was a step away from Maya.
Turning and rising from the floor, the siren became convinced that she and her partner were in something like a cave carved into a rock: there were no ways — only uneven dark gray walls, a vaulted stone ceiling, and a floor sprinkled with straw. It turns out that the aborigines locked them here while Maya was sleeping.
She immediately guessed that she was injected with a tranquillizer, but what happened to Zer0 then? Why did he get here too? And, judging by his words, he heard her talking in her sleep...
“It's good that you woke me up.” The siren said and then inquired, “They shot you with a tranquilizer dart too?”
“Yes. Such an irony,” Zer0 answered. Of course, Maya understood what he had in mind: on the mission, which they had not yet completed, they just needed to collect samples of the tranquillizer in savages' camps.
“Indeed. We took the samples still, but not quite as planned,” the siren concluded, and a smiling emoticon appeared in front of the faceplate of her partner.
Now the primary aim was to get out of here. Zer0 and Maya could not help but notice that the savages prudently took all the weapons from them — it created challenges, but still did not make the task impossible. The siren took a closer look at the situation in the camp: there were three huts nearby; behind one of them, judging by smoke, flying sparks, and characteristic cod, a bonfire was blazing. And a little further, a totem was towering, like a decorated carved giant, looking a bit creepy even in the daylight. And, oddly enough, not a single savage was visible there. All of this was suspicious.
“I don't see anyone,” Maya said. Then she caught the movement on her right with her peripheral vision — Zer0 came close to the grating.
“Me too,” he said after he looked around. Maya thought she heard a note of doubt in his voice. So, not only she considered what was happening strange.
“On the other hand, for some reason these savages have needed us alive since they locked us here. They could have killed us after all,” Maya said. “And now they apparently have better things to do than looking after us.”
“They probably think / We will not get out of here / How naive of them,” Zer0 said, touching the grating. His thoughts definitely coincided with the thoughts of the siren.
“Let's break it to hell!”
Maya was the first to strike: a violet energy clot erupted from her left hand, then crashed into that point of the grating, which seemed to the siren the weakest. However, even though the psychokinetic punch itself was quite powerful — at least Maya was sure of it — the poles did not even bend from it. Then she tried to hit again — and again to no avail.
Either this tree is too strong, or the side effect of the tranquillizer weakened my skill, Maya thought. Still, she continued to hope for the best, so she thought about what else could be done. Her thoughts were interrupted by Zer0 who, after her first unsuccessful attempt to break the grating, apparently managed to come up with his own plan of action.
“Maybe we should try / To kick this grate together? / Well, at the same time.”
“Yes, perhaps it would be better,” the siren answered his offer.
“With the running start,” the assassin added, moving farther away from the grating.
Soon Maya followed him with the thought that immediately after they got out of the confinement, they would need to find all the equipment taken from them as soon as possible, and ideally also get the last sample of the tranquillizer. The absence of the savages in the camp will undoubtedly play into their hands. And what could possibly go wrong now? The moment seemed the most favorable at all: now it only remained to run up and break this fucking grating together.
“Then on the count of three? Or somehow else?” Maya hesitated a little. She had never had to end up with Zer0 in a situation where they needed to synchronize actions so that there would be no misunderstanding: who knows if on the planet where the assassin came from, it is customary to do counting somehow differently?
“Countdown is more familiar,” Zer0 replied.
“Okay, it doesn't matter to me.”
“So, let's get ready,” the siren, like her partner, took up a starting position. “/ To regain the freedom. Five / Four, three, two, one, now!”
Both Vault Hunters rushed to the grating, scattering the straw beneath their feet. They leaped — and two kicks at once fell on between the crosshairs; the poles bent a little but withstood such pressure without breaking or even cracking. Incredibly strong wood just did not succumb to these “attacks”. Maya swore aloud when she felt an intense pain, which as if blew her foot up from the inside and then shot up in her knee. At the same time, thrown back by the force of the blow, she fell on her back, and fortunately the straw layer on the floor somehow softened her fall.
Unlike his partner, Zer0 touched the ground more successfully: he managed to do a backflip, after which he was on his feet. He clearly did not expect such a turn, which was what the “WTF” flashing in front of his helmet was speaking about. Maya, still lying on the floor, looked at the assassin with a degree of surprise and light momentary frustration. He was graceful as always. He's done that without a single awkward or clumsy movement, even now when he suddenly faced such a discouraging obstacle that impeded the implementation of his plan. If Zer0 was hurt, then he naturally tried not to show it.
The siren again looked at the grating — after all that had happened, she couldn't bring herself to call this structure wooden. It's definitely some very solid local wood species, a thought flashed through Maya's head. Zer0, once again standing next to the grating, began to inspect it, studying almost every centimeter of its constituent poles.
“I see no damage / So it's heavy-duty wood / Kinda confusing,” the assassin said after he had completed his research. Well, or not quite completed: to make sure, Zer0 rested his hands on the poles and pressed the grating with all his weight, but it did not even move. So, all these blows didn't really damage it, not even a little. Of course, this was sad, but the Vault Hunters still did not despair.
Assuming a sitting position, Maya moved her hurt leg — the pain seemed to have subsided. The siren already wanted to get up and check whether this grating has a lock. But she changed her mind as soon as she saw something that she did not attach importance to from the very beginning: the lower part of the impact resistible structure was partially dug into the ground. This meant that, firstly, there was no point in digging — it was not known how deep the poles went down, there were no suitable tools, and Maya even cut her nails not too long ago. And secondly, the grating was lowering, as on the gate of medieval castles. It seems that this type of gratings even has its own name...
“Zer0, you may not look for a lock, it's not there because... because it's a portcullis,” Maya showed off her architectural knowledge, having finally remembered that very word. Still, the hours spent in the abbey library were not in vain.
“The name of this grate / Will not help us to get out / But I am impressed.” Zer0 said, thereby causing the siren to question, “By what?”
“By your erudition.”
Well, well, what was it now? A compliment? For a moment Maya thought she had misheard. But how else to regard such an answer, coming from the mysterious assassin? He was the one who excelled — sometimes even too excelled — with self-confidence, especially during a battle, and did not miss an opportunity to declare his superiority over enemies. With all that, Zer0 could not be called talkative, so his words about Maya's erudition that impressed him meant a lot.
“Um... Thank you,” the siren could only say, still surprised at the effect. The answer was all too familiar emoticon “:)”.
Then Zer0 and Maya began to think about other ways to get out of the cave. They tried one of the ways when they tried to lift the portcullis together, but it turned out to be too heavy, plus its lower part was pretty firmly fixed in the ground and nothing could get it out of there. The second way was to contact someone and call for help, but it would not work anyway for one simple reason: the aborigines took away from Maya and Zer0 not only weapons, but also absolutely all the devices.
Also, the siren had the idea to set the grating on fire by phaselocking it. However, it had to be refused because of the great risk. Maya imagined what the consequences could be: here the poles are burning; portion of smoke comes out, and the other portion lingers in the cave, and some random spark accidentally flies off to the straw on the floor. Then the smoke fills everything, making it harder to breathe... Of course, it was necessary to act differently.
There was only a way number four: wait until at least someone appears in the camp, and already then act according to circumstances. If the savages are the first to arrive, then Maya, using the Phaselock, will be able to take away either their weapons or some other object that will somehow help her and her partner get out of here. If their associates, Axton and Salvador, are the first to arrive, then there will be no need to do anything since these two will deal with the damn grating somehow and free the siren and the assassin. The problem is that friends will start looking for them only after a few hours.
“Damn! It seems like we're stuck here,” Maya was indignant, barely restraining herself so as not to kick the grating — she did not want to cripple herself after all. Instead, the siren began raking the straw scattered around her feet in one pile. And when she considered that the volume of the resulted mow was quite enough, she sat down in it as in a beanbag. But being busy, she did not notice how her partner was staring at her, standing aside like a silent shadow. He was looking at her so absorbedly that an emoticon had accidentally displayed in front of his helmet. Maya, alas, did not have time to make it out. All that she was able to see once she was in her improvised chair and looked up is a reddish gleam on the black reflective surface of the faceplate, but even that instantly disappeared.
“I understand you perfectly,” Maya said. In fact, it was not sarcasm. The siren just suggested that, according to the situation, Zer0 with a high degree of probability showed a sad emoticon. “I'm also less than enthusiastic about the fact that we have to just sit back here for heaven knows how long.”
After these words of Maya, the assassin flashed a question mark. And what part of her phrase was incomprehensible to him? Or is it not about the phrase? The siren guessed she got it...
“Wait, haven't you shown a sad emoticon? It was something else, right?” Maya voiced her hunch. And she hit the mark: Zer0 nodded slightly. But when he did this, she gazed steadily at his faceplate, and the question what kind of emoticon the assassin displayed was never asked. Now the siren was more interested in her own reflection. Her blue hair was in disarray, and moreover, straw, which stuck out in different directions, was tangled in them, making a hairstyle comparable to an explosion at a pasta factory.
“Did I look like this all this time?!” Maya touched the “explosive composition”. “Zer0, why didn't you tell me anything?”
“You look good like this / That's why I don't see the point / In messing this up,” the assassin replied.
“But you won't mess up what is already messed up. And I don't want to appear like this in front of our team,” the siren did not let up. She immediately imagined possible situation: Salvador and Axton enter the camp, see her in the cave with Zer0 and pay attention first to the straw in her hair, and second to the rumpled mow on behind. It is hard to explain in such a situation that there was nothing between her and Zer0.
Nevertheless, leaving her comfy spot, Maya decided to come to her partner a little closer and ask for a favor, “Most likely, you will not like it, but since it happened... Well, could you just not move for some time? Please, I only need to see my reflection in your helmet so I can make my hair look good.”
“It's a bit uncomfortable,” Zer0 said calmly.
“Believe me, you'll survive. Just-” Maya didn't have time to finish because the assassin cut her off.
“Not for me. It's uncomfortable for you.”
“And why is that?”
“You won't see it all / Looking at the reflection / But I can help you.”
The siren thought for a moment. Damn, but the truth is, those straws that are tangled in the hair on the back of her head can be removed without assistance only by touch. But then it is doubtful of it will be possible to pull out everything, and Maya wanted that by the time she met the other Vault Hunters, there would be nothing unnecessary in her hair, especially straw. The help just offered came in handy right now.
“Alright,” the siren replied and, turning around, looked at the straw beanbag. “Then we would somehow get comfortable as it's not clear how long it will take...”
In a matter of seconds, the beanbag was turned into a relatively soft litter, on which just two could sit. Maya sat closer to the edge, bent her legs and clasped her knees with her arms, and Zer0 sat down behind her. The siren turned her head, though it was not clear to her why she had done this — maybe a reflex, or maybe a simple interest. It turned out somehow unconsciously, and she didn't manage to make out anything except the four-fingered palm, as always black-gloved, about thirty centimeters from her face.
“Now I ask you not to move,” Zer0 said. After that Maya turned away and, remaining in that position, stared through the grating at the empty camp.
“Honestly, I'm amazed,” the siren said, feeling the assassin extracting the first straw from her hair. “And no, I'm not talking about what you are doing right now. I'm surprised by the fact that we were caught by some fucking savages after everything we went through. There were much more dangerous opponents on our way, and we survived after all, we did away with them. But now we are captured by the savages, who have neither real weapons nor technologies...”
“The whole Hyperion / Can't come close to the savages / They are much cooler,” Zer0 said with a slightly obvious grin, throwing aside a few extracted straws, and Maya, laughing, supported his joke.
“Right! And it's still strange why didn't Jack think of making robots from this wood?” the siren pointed to the portcullis, and then she heard a quiet “heehee” from behind her.
A few more straws fell to the floor. Maya never ceased to be amazed at how many of them stuck to her. Sometimes she felt light touches of Zer0's fingers to her head, and this even somehow reassured her. The siren was visited by the thought that a month and a half ago, when their team of Vault Hunters had just gathered, she was suspicious of the assassin. Then she could not even imagine that one day, left alone with him, she would sit so quietly waiting while he fixes her hair. Over time, of course, Zer0 justified the trust of his teammates because he was on the same side with them and often helped them out in difficult situations. And, more than that, he saved Maya's life more than once. Apparently, since then, she has become interested in him... And now these thoughts were eclipsed by pain for a moment.
“Aw! You pulled my hair,” Maya said in a displeased tone.
“Sorry,” the assassin said, disentangling another straw from her hair.
“Are there many of them?”
“No, not so many.”
The siren stretched out her legs and felt something under her left heel. Then she moved this something closer to her. The found object turned out to be a piece of chalk — Maya figured it out not only by color, but also by the white line that was left on the floor. The first thought was, Maybe draw something? But then a slightly different idea came up. Maya didn't have time to voice it: she heard a cracking mixed with a rattle from somewhere higher up. Zer0 too was distracted by the sound, judging by the fact that he stopped manipulation with her hair for a little while.
Everything was quiet for about a minute, and then the strange sound was repeated, and from above, hitting the poles of the grating, small stones began to crumble with a thud. Thinking that the portcullis was nonetheless damaged, Maya wanted to check if this really was so. However, her partner, perhaps assuming the same thing, was the first to get up from his seat and headed for the grating. Having joined the assassin, the siren said, “If this time nothing works, then I'll use the last method I know.”
And again, silence came: no sounds above were heard anymore, and the stones at some moment ceased to crumble. Having their minds set on an escape, the Vault Hunters exchanged glances and silently nodded to each other, after which both pushed the grating with their shoulders. And they once again failed, even after several attempts to shake the upper part of the portcullis. The long-awaited crack did not come from above. And the stones that had previously rained from there did not fall anymore, which meant that they simply broke away from some other part of the cliff — not related to the grating, but also located above the cave.
“Well, that's it! Now I'm about to use the last method,” Maya said in desperation. “I can try to open this grating like one of our acquaintances usually opens doors.”
“Don't you remember / What happened when he tried to / How did things turn out?” Definitely, Zer0 understood who it was.
“You mean the last time? I agree, that was not the most successful attempt of his. Anyway, we have nothing to lose,” Maya waved her hand with a grin and stood right in front of the center part of the grating. The siren cleared her throat, spread her arms to the sides, and, hardly imitating the voice of Claptrap, shouted, “Aaaaaaand OPEN!”
After that, the stones again rained from somewhere above, and then outside, in the blink of an eye, the second exactly the same grating came down in front of the first one. Pointed at the bottom poles of the outer portcullis entered the earth like butter, slightly reducing the probability of leaving this place without outside help.
“Well, I told you so,” and again, Maya heard that calmness in the assassin's voice... She still could not resist and kicked the inner grating, but not so much as to hurt herself.
“Perfect. And now I'm the one to blame,” the siren said a little offended. She wanted to say how everything infuriates her, and to describe in detail what she will do with the savages when they return to the camp. As soon as Maya just opened her mouth, four digits suddenly touched her head, fingering her hair. Now it was a mistake...
“Zer0, what-” Maya turned around and saw a straw sandwiched between her partner's fingers.
“We haven't finished yet,” he said shortly as if not noticing changes in the siren's behavior. Maya exhaled noisily in response, got to the litter, and flopped down on it with a displeased look — the straw scattered around flew up into the air.
***
It felt like twenty minutes passed, or even more. The siren has lost track of time from the moment she relaxed at the touches of Zer0. Damn, it turns out that he knows how to do a head massage... And he does it well. Stop, what is going on? What massage? Since the straws do not fly to the floor anymore, then the assassin has done everything. And now he is touching her hair just like that?
“Zer0, thank you for all this, but doesn't it seem to you that you got... a little carried away?” Maya said as softly as possible. Nevertheless, she was not against these actions of his, especially since thanks to them she was able to calm down and sink into pleasant oblivion.
“Do you offer to change the activity?” the assassin asked as if nothing had happened.
“Actually,” and then the siren remembered about the chalk she had found on the floor, “I have an idea.”
Maya felt for her find where she left it, and showed it to her partner with the words, “How about playing tic-tac-toe? If you agree, I won't even ask what mark you choose.”
***
After about an hour, all the walls of the cave were covered in drawings of crossed-out grids with crosses and zeros. The game was with varying success: Maya and Zer0 had almost the same number of wins and losses. And in the end, when there no free space for drawing left on any of the walls, it was a draw.
“At least, no one is offended,” the siren concluded with a smile, throwing on the floor what was left of the chalk. “And yes, it was great!”
“I liked playing with you,” Zer0 said, shaking off the chalk from his gloves. Maya, watching his movements, paid attention to his hands once again. And after the look her thoughts went in the same direction.
Of course, she was wondering who her mysterious partner really was. Four fingers on each hand instead of five and an absence of shortness of breath while running spoke of his manifestly inhuman nature. These facts prompted everyone who had ever faced Zer0 and still survived to build a variety of theories about his origin. Some considered him an alien, and some thought he was a robot; others supposed that he was a result of some laboratory experiment... Anyway, there were a lot of theories, but not in all of them was taken into account what the assassin's teammates knew, and Maya in particular.
So, looking at Zer0 now, she clearly saw how his shoulders rose and fell. But the robots don't need to breathe at all... The siren remembered those moments when the assassin came under fire with a damaged shield: one or more bullets still hit him, leaving wounds on his body that then bleed. But can the robots bleed? Maya, knowing all this, was convinced that her partner was a living being. And she received an additional proof today when she found out that the tranquillizer of the savages had an effect on him too. Krieg, another of their teammates, of course, joked when he shouted that Zer0 was a flesh-covered robot pumped up with blood, but this was a completely different story.
Now, with her thoughts returning to the hands of the assassin, Maya imagined something very unexpected. These long fingers were so bewitching...
“Is everything okay? / Is there something in your mind? / Tell me if you want,” the voice of Zer0 made Maya return to reality. A little away from her fantasies, she replied, “I think that your fingers could be used differently.”
The assassin flashed a question mark.
“I just imagined you playing the piano,” the siren explained. “Your fingers on the keys... I think it would look nice.”
Judging by the fact that the holographic question mark was replaced by a smiling emoticon, the compliment was accepted. Then there was a pause, which, having been continued, began to become more and more awkward with every second.
Finally, Maya was the first to break the silence, asking the assassin, “Do you have any ideas what else we can do?”
Zer0 thought for a couple of seconds, then answered her question with a question, “Do you know how to meditate?”
“Sure. I was taught in the abbey: control of the powers and stuff...”
“I'm glad to hear it / We can do some meditation / While it's quiet outside.”
Indeed, why not? Maya had already forgotten when she was meditating for the last time. But she remembered that after a meditation she always felt renewed, full of strength, and her mind was not burdened by unnecessary experiences. A very pleasant state, which she now wanted to return to.
“Then what are we waiting for?” the siren went to the litter, and Zer0 followed her. They sat in the lotus position side by side and remained almost motionless. Only a latticed shadow, gradually changing its shape, continued to glide over the gray floor and the walls covered with the drawings while the Pandorian sun was declining.
***
A blissful calm was enveloping Maya like a cotton cocoon, from which at that moment there was no desire to get out. She was surrounded not by that oppressive silence that caused boredom and memories of the abbey, but another, pacifying and as if nourishing with new energy.
“Hey savages, where are y'all?! Anybody there? Or are you just chickened? Nah, it's not even interesting!” the familiar girlish voice came somewhere in the distance, at the back of the mind. The cocoon of blissful calm was mercilessly cut... And then it was exploded. Maya opened her eyes and saw from behind two gratings the debris of something big and wooden burning in the night. Pieces of the blasted totem enveloped in flames scattered throughout the camp, dissipating sparks and illuminating the area in some places.
In this light, the siren saw a heavy, tall silhouette with four arms and four legs, moreover, one pair of legs was hanging from the broad shoulders. This creature had two heads, and they were settled one above the other. And now this thing, in appearance resembling the savage totem before the explosion, began to approach the cave where Maya and Zer0 were sitting.
“Wow. Familiar faces,” the assassin said, looking over his partner's head. Lingering her eyes on his helmet for a little while, the siren saw orange flames in the reflective surface: they, swaying and trembling, flared brighter and brighter with every moment. As Maya looked at the camp again, she spotted the thing seen earlier that was running among the huts enveloped in flames and continued to set fires. Now, when everything was lit up by the light from the conflagration, the siren was able to recognize in that totem-like creature her two teammates — Krieg the psycho and Gaige the mechromancer sitting on his shoulders.
“I must confess that I expected to see them the least,” Maya said. As far as she remembered, Krieg and Gaige hinted three days ago that they wanted to be alone, and after that no one was seen or heard from them.
“We're over here!” Zer0 said loudly enough for the other two Vault Hunters on the other side of the two gratings to be able to hear him. Krieg stopped, and Gaige jumped from his shoulders in one deft motion. Then they both looked at their locked-up teammates.
“NUMBER! BLUE TATTOO! I WILL REMOVE YOUR FLESH FROM THE STONE SHELL!” the psycho cried out and ran towards the cave, brandishing his buzz axe.
“Wait a bit, we'll pull you out!” Gaige moved closer to Zer0 and Maya. “And how did this happen to you?”
“We will tell you later, okay?” the siren suggested. Her attention shifted from the mechromancer to Krieg, who began to chop the external grating with the buzz axe.
“Fine,” Gaige apparently realized that now was not the best time for questioning. She looked somewhere to the left, and suddenly a joyful twinkle came into her green eyes. The mechromancer skipped to the object of her interest, smiling and saying, “Mechanisms, mechanisms...”
Meanwhile, Krieg was still trying to cut the outer portcullis. Traces of an axe hit left on one of the poles, but this was clearly not enough to break the solid structure.
“Here we gooooo!” happy Gaige who discovered two levers near the cave in the rock pressed both of them simultaneously. At that very moment, the psycho's axe was stuck in the outer portcullis, which then began to lift along with the inner one. Krieg, holding on to the hilt of the buzz axe, lifted along with the grating and yelled already being elevated, “ASCENSION THROUGH THE BARRIER!”
Laughter came from the cave — that were Maya and Zer0, who were amused by what had just happened. When Gaige realized what had occurred, she also burst out in chuckles. And while the rest of the group were laughing, Krieg, holding on to the grating, was trying to extract his axe from the solid wood.
“I think we should go,” Maya said through laughter. But as soon as she tried to get up, it didn't feel like laughing anymore: the siren simply lost feeling in her legs. She soon realized what was the matter. In addition, Zer0 was in the same situation: he could not get to his feet too, although he tried. And the long meditation was to blame for everything...
“Hey, why are you stuck?” Gaige looked at the siren and the assassin with a misunderstanding. “If you want to have a moment alone again, I can close the grating back!”
“Our legs fell asleep,” Maya replied with obvious irritation. “Don't you get?”
“Ok, I get it.” The mechromancer entered the cave, looking around the walls. “I see you had a good time here. Well, and who is the winner?”
“It's a draw,” Zer0 said.
Gaige wanted to say something back, but she was interrupted by a sudden cry.
“INFLAME TOGETHER WITH ME!”
Maya looked inquiringly at the mechromancer, and Zer0 showed a question mark.
“Krieg wanted to set fire to the grating in order to avenge his axe, but instead he set himself on fire,” Gaige interpreted. Her teammates sitting opposite her were not particularly surprised at such a turn.
“By the way, where have you been all this time?” the siren inquired, having managed to stretch her legs.
“Moxxi dragged us to her place and didn't let us out,” Gaige said.
“What?”
“She dragged us to her arena. And what was your guess?”
“Almost what you just said.” Maya answered evasively and decided to change the subject. “I wonder what happened to all the savages. They locked us here, but where they went after that is unknown. It's very strange.”
“Krieg and I saw only a few sentinels on the way here. But you won't see them anyway... And except for them, no one else came across us.”
“It could be one of two things: either they were all frightened of something and ran away, or they left about their business.”
“I'm ready to go / But I can wait for a while,” the siren's eyes met the assassin's visor. “/ What do you say, Maya?”
Before answering, Maya first moved her right foot, then her left one. Finally. She got feeling back in her legs, and there was no discomfort.
“I say that I'm also ready to go. And if suddenly those filthy savages return here right now, they will certainly find out what a siren is capable of in anger,” Maya stood up and reflexively tried to arm herself with the pistol, but she realized: there wasn't an inventory with her... “Goddammit! I completely forgot that they took away all our equipment.”
“Oh!” Gaige snapped her fingers. “I remember! I saw something like a warehouse nearby. Your equipment may be there, and yet from there you can collect some stuff... Okay, let's go! I'll show where it is, but first I'll help someone.”
Zer0 and Maya left the cave after the mechromancer, just in case having rounded the place where Krieg could hypothetically fall. They both looked at the burning camp: the aborigines again were nowhere to be seen. Gaige pressed one of the levers she had previously found, and the slightly charred outer portcullis fell, and with it the psycho, whose buzz axe seemed to be stuck tight.
“LOVE BRINGS PAIN!” this is how exactly Krieg reacted to the assistance provided by Gaige, and at the same time to a kick to the ground after a sharp descent.
“I thought what if we'll do it like in one fairy tale?” the mechromancer suggested. “I will pull Krieg, you, Maya, can pull me, and Zer0 will pull you, and we all together will pull the axe out of this friggin' grating! Well, let's try?”
“Or maybe it's easier to summon Deathtrap for the job?” the siren made a counteroffer, being not so confident in the impeccability of Gaige's plan.
“YESYESYES! FALLEN LIBERATION!” Krieg managed to scream these words when, unexpectedly for the rest, he fell to the ground with the buzz axe already pulled out of the grating in his hands. One problem was solved, which could not but rejoice.
Soon the Vault Hunters approached the only unburnt building in the entire camp that looked more like a barn. This was the very warehouse that the mechromancer talked about. The door to it was ajar, so it was not difficult to see from the threshold part of what was inside. Maya noticed that there were even some kind of bulbs on the ceiling, and for some reason the light coming from them seemed so familiar...
“Ha ha! That's fun. They decided to use your shields instead of bulbs!” Gaige commented on what she saw. “It's strange that I overlooked this before.”
All four did not linger at the threshold and went inside. First, Maya managed to find two ECHO communicators — both her and Zer0's — in a box with some odd junk. Then the assassin found the weapons taken from them in the very corner of the warehouse, next to several spears leaning against the wall. A little later, everything else was found, including the samples of the tranquillizer, which Zer0 and Maya managed to collect on the mission even before the savages captured them. These same samples looked like small multi-colored darts neatly folded in the organizer for a bag, so with their appearance they simply could not help attracting the attention of the mechromancer. Being distracted, she stopped rummaging through an ammunition box.
“Oh, what's this?” she immediately became interested.
“Samples of a tranquillizer,” the siren replied. “Hammerlock needs them for research, and he also said something about hunting. By the way, we'd better find the last-”
“I found it,” was heard from behind Maya and Gaige. Both girls turned and saw Zer0 holding a light green dart in his left hand. So this is what the tranquillizer because of which everything went wrong looks like.
“Well done,” Maya held out her hand, and the assassin gave her the last sample found. Then she put the find into the organizer, and that, having disappeared, moved somewhere in the bins of the inventory.
Now Gaige joined Krieg, who was looking at the savages' knives, saws, and other thrust and cutting objects hung on one of the storage walls.
“Your buzz axe is still cooler than these picks,” the mechromancer said to the psycho.
“AND I STILL HAVE THE SHINIEST MEAT BICYCLE!” Krieg exclaimed, raising his hand with the axe.
“You forgot to say, “BUILT FOR TWO!”
Gaige took Krieg by his free hand, and for a few seconds they stood just like that, saying nothing. The mechromancer tilted her head slightly to one side, tickling the man's massive shoulder with one of her red pigtails. This moment so touched Maya that she involuntarily admired.
She remembered the time when Krieg's relationship with Gaige had just begun. The siren, one might say, was the one responsible for its beginning. Having joined the team, the psycho at first began to show his attentions to Maya, but she did not always understand him. Therefore, she had needed an interpreter, who Gaige became afterwards since she understood Krieg very well. For some time, the siren and the psycho continued their communication through the intermediary. And it just so happened that Krieg began to be interested in the mechromancer more and more because they had no problems with mutual understanding. Maya was even glad of such a development of events. Although she had quite good relationship with Krieg, they did not get much closer. Besides, in that difficult period of getting used to the conditions of Pandora, she was not interested in dating someone.
“Here,” Zer0 handed Maya her shield, which had just been removed from the ceiling. Rather even it had been cut off. The siren, taking what belonged to her, paid attention to the hanging pieces of blue electrical tape (the only material of its kind that overcame space and time) just in the place where her shield had recently been. Now the assassin, who was using the sword, shredded the insulating tape with honed movements so that his own shield instantly fell from the ceiling into his hands. Maya could only stand aside and silently envy.
“So, you ready to go?” Gaige turned to her teammates, apparently not finding anything else interesting in the warehouse. The siren wanted to give her a nod, but her eyes lingered on a stack of books lying at the very exit.
“If you want, you can go, but not very fast,” Maya crouched next to the treasured stack. “I'll catch you soon.”
Gaige came out, and Krieg followed her, grabbing a pair of grenades along the way. After that, the siren began to sort out books from the stack with excitement, looking for something to take to her place. She was so absorbed in doing her own thing that she did not even bat an eye when a dark, slender figure approached her from behind and then froze next to the doorway in mute expectation. Looking at enthusiastic Maya, Zer0 almost again displayed the same emoticon that he withheld from her then in the cave. The assassin was prevented from doing so by the voices that came from the lowlands and made him wary.
The siren did not have time to examine the rest of the books from the stack, so she decided to send the publications that interested her along with the unreviewed ones to the inventory. Naturally, she also heard those voices from afar that shouted in a language incomprehensible to her.
“Attention! Savages are coming here!” not too far moving mechromancer exclaimed.
Maya was even more angry: not only because these fucking aborigines keep her locked up with her partner, they also dared to interrupt her fascinating occupation. That's it, now she will take them down...
“This is where the fun begins,” Zer0 said, arming himself with a sniper rifle.
Maya took her incendiary pistol and, leaving the warehouse, looked at the enemies approaching with torches through the magnifying glass of the scope. Having noticed a fire in their camp, the savages went on to run, though not all of them turned out to be so quick. At the very end of the group were five aborigines: they dragged a body of a wetland drifter. It looked like they returned from the hunt.
Once the savages running ahead had climbed up stairs, the siren began to shoot indiscriminately to hit at least someone. As a result, a shield of one of the aborigines caught fire. Gaige, shouting something about metal, summoned her loyal assistant Deathtrap, and it instantly rushed into the crowd of enemies, clawing everyone who came across its arm. Three savages separated from the group rushed towards Krieg, four more hid behind the boulders and crates, intermittently firing from there.
Four bullets whizzed past Maya, and a fifth could have injured her if it hadn't been for the shield. The siren, running off the line of fire, tried to catch the shooter in the scope, but he managed to escape again. Then, without thinking twice, she shot another savage — the one who was going to throw a spear at Gaige. This shot turned out to be much more successful than the previous ones: this time the savage instantly ignited and dropped his spear. Then the mechromancer turned around and finished off the aborigine with automatic gunfire.
A savage triggerman again appeared from behind a crate, and Maya wanted to phaselock him while she had the opportunity, but someone's bullet suddenly hit her target's head. The enemy collapsed lifelessly to the ground, and at that very moment the siren heard another shot. She recognized the sound of this weapon. Well, of course, it was Zer0’s sniper rifle... And these well-aimed shots undoubtedly are his work.
“I'LL BURN YOUR WOODEN SOULS!” came the voice of Krieg who at that time was fending off two savages and caught fire again. He had already introduced the third one from the same group to his buzz axe a little earlier.
The battle was in full swing: sounds of gunshots, and whistle of flying spears, and loud cries of savages, and grenade blasts were heard... Out of nowhere, a stooped, stunted figure with a staff appeared right in the middle of the camp. A witch doctor, Maya thought right away and without hesitation took the new opponent to the Phaselock. A purple sphere with dark impregnations hung over the ground, enclosing the enemy. While the witch doctor inside the sphere was completely immobilized, the siren was shooting at him almost continuously, causing additional fire damage. Soon the Phaselock ceased, and at the same time the life of the savage was cut short. His staff now was slowly burning next to the motionless body.
Judging by the distant chopping sounds, Deathtrap managed to get to the five aborigines carrying the drifter. Meanwhile, the owner of the robot shot the last of the running savages, but most of her bullets hit the wooden shield. And she just ran out of ammo... After a couple of seconds, Gaige realized that she had no one to shoot at anymore: her opponent was now lying at her feet, and the bloodied buzz axe was sticking out of his back.
Zer0 left his hiding place and moved closer to those crates, behind which the savage triggermen killed by him had recently hid. Maya, noticing her partner, watched him passing by. Here the assassin is focusing on his target then to shoot... Seriously, stop looking at his hands already! The siren scolded herself but nonetheless continued to watch. One shot from the sniper rifle — and two enemies standing behind each other immediately fall, killed and crushed by the body of the drifter. It turned out very spectacularly.
Now, only one aborigine surrounded by the corpses of his fellow tribesmen stood in front of Deathtrap and tried to defend himself with a torch. But the fire did not stop the battle robot. With the first sweep of steel claws the savage lost his torch, which was cut into pieces, and with the second sweep he lost his life. Then Deathtrap flew up to its creator. Very satisfied with the result, Gaige said her robot was the best, and it still hovered above the ground for a while, following her before disappearing.
After the battle, which, contrary to expectations, did not last so long, the Vault Hunters did not forget to look around just in case. They quickly, so as not to linger too much, walked through the camp, dodging between burning huts and stepping over bodies of the murdered savages. However, not one of the living aborigines came their way. Zer0, Krieg and Gaige gathered a little later at the warehouse — this place was now one of the safest in the camp. Maya joined them shortly after grabbing something that attracted her attention.
“You're lucky to find so many books today,” the mechromancer said.
“This is not quite a book,” the siren said, showing the thing found among the lifeless bodies to her teammates. In appearance, it was something like a notebook or a diary. Maya opened the page that interested her the most. “Here, you see?”
“Wow! There are pictures here!” Gaige took away the find from the siren and continued to examine the image she saw with Zer0. Apparently, Krieg was not so interested in the notebook: he was distractedly looking away.
“There's a killed drifter / Savages are dancing weird / Around two people,” the assassin was commenting on everything that he saw in the picture. “They are also killed / A witch doctor got a mask / And became stronger.”
“The savages were dragging the murdered drifter here. It didn't come to the dance, because we killed them all. If I understood correctly, then after this dance a ritual murder of two people was to take place,” Maya glanced at Zer0. “I think they kept us locked up for that...”
“That was expected,” the assassin said.
“And didn't Hammerlock even bother to warn you?” Gaige surprised. “He probably knew about this savage ritual. Hell, it can't be that he didn't know!”
“Gaige, you say like Hammerlock is obliged to know absolutely everything,” the siren took the notebook from the mechromancer's hands. “Of course, I'll show him this. But you still shouldn't count on detailed explanations on his part: he specializes in animals, not savages.”
“Isn't it time for us to go?” Zer0 decided to hurry the girls.
“Yeah, yeah, it's high time.” Maya said, heading toward the stairs leading to the foot of the cliff. “In fact, I want to eat...”
***
“Hm... Interesting,” Sir Hammerlock, standing at a fireplace, was leafing through the very notebook that Maya found. “It describes how the rite of initiation of a witch doctor is conducted. To be honest, I didn't know such details. I only heard about the ritual killings of drifters, but I didn't know about the mandatory killing of two people. Not to mention the fact that this ceremony should be carried out at designated times.”
“Well, everything is clear,” said Maya who was sitting with her teammates at the bar, located in the center of the Aegrus Sophisticates' Lodge. “We just ended up in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
“Of course, I would have warned you if I had known,” Sir Hammerlock added. “And then you could have rescheduled the mission to another day. And so now all the days with rituals will have to be figured out so that in the future no one will have problems.”
“But it will be easier to peek at all the dates in the calendar of the savages, won't it?” Gaige said her piece.
“For these savages, everything is determined by the sun and by the stars,” the scientist answered. “There is no calendar in their damned tribe!”
Maya glanced at the big plate that stood in front of her. It was full about ten minutes ago — now only half a cherry tomato was left on it. She never thought she would be so hungry... Zer0, unlike her, refused the offered food. Maya was not surprised at all since she knew about another feature of the assassin: he could easily do without food for two to three days.
“I wonder why Axton and Sal are takin' so long,” the mechromancer said thoughtfully, turning around in her chair and looking out the window. After her words, Zer0 asked Sir Hammerlock, “Have Axton and Salvador / Contacted you / In our absence?”
“Yes, they have. I spoke with them recently. I was astonished by these two today!” the scientist sighed. “In a bad way. They had to ensnare a borok into a cage on the mission, but for a long time they were not getting any result. Then they closed the cage with a creature inside of it... But their mission still was unfinished. The producer who instructed them to complete it got in touch with me and said that he had something that would cheer me up. He's been laughing out loud for too long and when he had finally calmed down, he sent me a video. Do you know what I saw there? Salvador and Axton tried to trap a drifter! Seriously, a wetland drifter! How could you confuse a borok with a drifter?! And after all, they got it: they kicked this giant into the cage and locked it. I have no words…”
Everyone who listened to Sir Hammerlock had a good laugh.
“I wanna watch this video too!” Gaige said.
The scientist continued to speak only after the laughter subsided, “Your teammates first contacted the producer to figure everything out, but he told them that the creature they had trapped was not a borok at all. And he did not say specifically what a borok looks like. Then Axton and Salvador contacted me, and I had to explain them everything. They also said that it was hard to remember the names of all those creatures. I can assume that your teammates are still luring an unfortunate borok into the cage. Unless of course, they confused this creature with something else if they didn't listen carefully to me.”
After some time, Hammerlock proceeded to the topic of the research for which he, in fact, needed the samples of the savage tranquillizer. Although his story was not so boring, by the fourth minute Krieg began to fall asleep, and soon the rest of the team heard the passed-out body hit the surface of the bar counter. That case in which the story about the object of study has the same effect as the object itself.
Gaige, on the contrary, listened to the scientist carefully, with the interest, and she did not want to miss a single part of the story. Having looked at the sleeping psycho, the mechromancer asked Sir Hammerlock not to proceed until she returned. Gaige withdrew for a short while — literally for half a minute — and came back with a black and red checkered plaid in her hands. She went to Krieg and carefully covered him, after which she was listening to the scientist again.
***
Having received enough energy after the meditation, Maya did not want to sleep at all, so she decided to take a little walk around the Aegrus Sophisticates' Lodge. Stepping out on the porch, she felt pleasant freshness of the night air. She did not look particularly at the shrouded in darkness landscape in the front and went to the right. There was enough light breaking from the windows to see the way.
In her thoughts, the siren was summing up the past day. Of course, many unexpected things happened — both bad and good. Maya focused on the positives since she and Zer0 were released from captivity, the battle with the savages was won, and the reward from Sir Hammerlock for the accomplishment of the mission was received. But there was something else... Maya could not ignore the fact that she liked how she and Zer0 spent time in the walls of the savage cave. Playing tic-tac-toe was worth it. Those jokes about savages and Hyperion seemed like a trifle, but they were remembered. And those touches of the assassin were so pleasant...
Once Maya thought about those sensations, she abruptly returned to reality. Firstly, she realized that she was stroking her head with her right hand, running her fingers through her hair, and secondly, this same hand was now covered by the other one — a four-fingered and gloved.
“Sorry to scare you / I just saw you like this and… / I couldn't resist,” was heard from behind the siren's back.
But Maya was not scared at all, moreover, she allowed Zer0 to stroke her hair when she removed her own hand from under his. Now, relying on a low fence, which apparently had appeared here just recently, the siren couldn't relax as easily as she did in the cave. Yes, she was pleased, but at that very moment she began to realize something. And then, when the assassin turned up on her left and covered her hand with his own, there already was no need for any words to understand.
Maya had suspected this before: she noticed both looks and actions, but she often did not attach any importance to them. She didn't even remember exactly when it all started. Maybe from the moment of the first joint ride in a light runner from a Catch-a-Ride station. Or maybe a little later, when the Vault Hunters began to split into pairs in order to be able to perform different missions at the same time.
Today's compliments popped up in Maya's mind, as well as all those almost casual light touches when Zer0 was handing the chalk to her. Of course, she guessed but just was not sure of the correctness of her assumptions. This whole process of understanding resembled the assembly of a puzzle: here the pieces of memories are putting together, gradually forming a single whole… And it becomes clear what exactly is depicted there, but one, the very last fragment is needed to complete the picture. And it finally appears in the form of a holographic emoticon from the visor of the assassin — the emoticon that he had been hiding so long and hard from Maya.
“Did you show this behind my back while I was raking the straw?” Maya decided to make it clear for some reason, although she already knew the answer. A holograph “<3” disappeared after a couple of seconds, and Zer0 nodded in the affirmative.
Then the siren, looking at her partner's faceplate, here and there covered with battle scratches, thought about her own feelings. Maya could not say with certainty that she was in love because she did not think about the assassin all days and nights, did not dream of him being in her bed, and was not jealous of anyone. But for some reason she liked it so much when he touched her, even if wearing gloves. She was quite happy with him as a partner and probably as a friend. Without a doubt, she trusted him. Zer0's hand still lay on top of her own, and for some reason Maya did not want to interrupt this moment. But is this how to react to the touches of friends? Gosh, why is this so complicated? The siren couldn't really understand what she was feeling. She did not know how to describe it. However, she attempted to put it all into words, “Zer0, how do I say... I like you too.”
A few long seconds passed before the assassin wrapped his arms around Maya. The siren smiled and hugged him back, and a slightly noticeable bluish glow began to emanate from her tattoos. Now she just wanted to be near Zer0, to enjoy this happy moment while she had an opportunity. And then let everything go as it should.