Chapter Text
Being raised in Pandora it was impossible not to get caught in the fever for the elusive Vaults and all of their legendary loot, treasures and glory. But the whole thing was so surrounded by exaggerations and straight up lies it didn't even sound real anymore. Especially after all this time, after she had made peace with the fact all of their efforts lead them nowhere… The new, fresh hope was the sweetest thing in the world.
In the Vault, with all the bright, Eridium colored walls, with those rocky stuff flying around, it felt like being in one of those stories about vaults and heroes Fiona grew up to.
“Would… you like to do the honors?” Rhys asked.
Fiona smiled, remembering the last time he asked that question. It felt like ages ago, when they first assembled what was soon going to be Gortys.
“It's the last one… It's only right that we both open it.” she shrugged “It's the best part.”
“Kinda hoping you'd say that.” Rhys was smiling like an idiot, but well, so was she. Guess that's what opening Vaults actually does to people. Makes them unable to stop smiling. She could deal with that.
Fiona nodded and put her hand on the box ahead of her, a moment later so did Rhys.
Nothing happened for a long second, long enough to have Fiona wandering if they weren't doing it wrong, maybe there was a lever or a switch somewhere and they were standing here with their hands on the box like-
The box started getting warmer under her fingers. She exchanged a look with Rhys and then looked back at the box as the sound of engines echoed around them. The top of the alien object disassembled itself into smaller parts in a smooth motion, but she couldn't see what was inside of it yet, only a blinding white light.
She couldn't believe this was happening, and started to feel a like guilty for not waiting for Sasha. Too late for regrets now, the box seemed to have finished doing... whatever it was doing.
Fiona opened her mouth to say something about how this was taking a while when without warning the world turned white. Her arms went up to shield her eyes, and she felt less pleasant feelings than the peaceful bliss from before boiling up inside of her. She expected pain to come or maybe the loud cry of another monster. None of it happened. Instead, the ground was taken away from her feet, an undignified yelp escaping her lips as she fell to her knees.
She was surrounded by darkness. Slowly, she let her arms fall to her sides and touch the cold ground. Was this supposed to happen? Did they fall on a trap?
There was water dripping from somewhere behind them and the cold air smelled funny. Like it had been still for a long, long time. Just the kind of place that would hold the riches of a vault, right?
“Fiona?” she heard Rhys whispering right beside her.
“Right here.” Fiona reached in his general direction, found his arm and gave it a quick squeeze. Just a minute ago she would have laughed at the way he startled, but now she didn't really blame him.
“Can you see anything?” she couldn't help but whisper too, something about not being able to see kinda making her not want to be seen either.
A dim blue light appeared by her side, nearly giving Fiona a heart attack. It came from the palm of Rhys robotic arm, bright enough to lighten only what was right in front of them.
“Not more than you can.” Rhys wavered the light around the room, revealing nothing but more darkness and a concrete floor. “I can't believe that thing just teleported us. Where are we even?”
“Loot room?” Fiona tried to put some hope into her voice to no avail. She sighed. “Let's try to find a light switch or something.”
“Hmm, yeah, sure. Let's do that” Rhys sounded just as confident as she did.
They got up slowly, making a conscious effort to be quiet. And then they just stood there.
“Come on, you have the light, lead the way.” Fiona demanded in a hushed whisper.
“What way?” Rhys sounded annoyed. He pointed the light at her.
Fiona looked around herself but all the sides looked the same under the weak light coming from Rhys' arm.
“I don't know. Let's go….” she pointed at a random direction “there.”
“If we die, it's on you.” his tone was light, which was kinda creepy considering their surroundings.
“Just shut up and walk” Fiona answered.
They moved with caution even though the ground was even and dry. It was hopeful thinking, that if they went too fast they might trip on a legendary weapon. Rhys stumbled on a wall before that.
“Aha! A wall! We're just a step away from-” the sound of metal scraping metal followed by the clatter of machinery shut him up before he could finish the sentence. It came from the wall, like it was remaking itself.
“What did you do?” Fiona couldn't help but sound a little panicked. Just a little.
She watched as a crack on the wall slowly grew wider, allowing a stream of light to pour into the room. She caught a glimpse of a dirty broken window on the other side.
“Opened a door, apparently?” Rhys giggled anxiously. Fiona could see his silhouette as he ran a hand though his hair. “Maybe a door that leads to our loot?”
As her eyes adjusted to the light Fiona turned around to the now well-lit room behind her. It was so tall she couldn't see the roof, but she could see most of the plain, grey walls and they guarded absolutely nothing.
Her heart fell to her stomach.
“It's empty.” she murmured in complete disbelief.
“Well, this room is, the loot must be somewhere else or- It's a vault, this thing must be huge...” Rhys was trying very hard to sound optimistic, failing epically too. He walked back into the room and proceeded to walk in circles with a hand running though his hair.
Fiona stared at the empty room in stunned silence at the lack of things in front of her. There were a couple of corridors leading elsewhere that were still completely dark. Nothing. All of the shit they went through for nothing. Sasha almost died to get to this empty room. Felix, the bastard, he actually did die in the mess to open the Vault.
Her head was buzzing. This was the second time she had to deal with this. She couldn't believe the “All for nothing” felling was back. At least this time she didn't think any of her friends where dead.
She looked at Rhys.
“Someone must have gotten to the Vault before we did.” Fiona guessed. The magic, unreal feeling from before was completely gone. This right here? It felt acutely real. Familiar.
“Or we're not in the right place yet.” Rhys tilted his head up to the door behind Fiona, some new found hope making his eyes glow. Or it could be tears, who knows.
He walked in the direction of the door, about to make something stupid like getting killed by a rakk in the outside when Fiona stepped in his way. She was just as lost and disappointed as he was, but she had also learned not to act purely on despair.
“Hey, stop!” she crossed her arms firmly in front of her “We can't go wandering around this place by ourselves, we need our friends and… and a plan. We don't even know where we are!”
“Well I know where we are not, and it is with our well deserved loot”
“You know what? I was wrong, this can't be it.” Fiona assured him, trying to convince them both “We can't have opened an empty vault”
“So let's go-”
“But we can't risk dying now! We need help.”
He stared at her, grimacing unhappily.
“Ok, ok, you're right.” he sighed, lighting up the arm again and going through menus, choosing things Fiona couldn't see “I'll call Vaughn”
“We can't be too far away anyway.” Fiona took a few steps back and leaned back on the ridiculously tall door. Behind it was a long corridor that ended on a door, it was one of those metal doors that were more often locked than not. They could deal with that later.
She also noticed the broken windows, floor covered in dirt, the place looked abandoned.
“Yeah, no, of course.” Rhys said absently as he flicked some more stuff.
Through the small dirty windows all she could see was a green blur, from the little she could see from the cracks she assumed it was trees. They must be further away then what she thought, maybe still inside the Vault or something.
“Hmm… Fiona?”
Fiona turned her eyes to him. He had stopped with the flickering and was now staring at her, worry covering his features.
“Oh, crap. What now?” she adjusted her hat and walked to his side to look at the blue hologram coming from his arm.
“There's no signal.” he looked down at her, looking positively freaked out.
“What do you mean there is no signal?” Fiona could feel her heart beat raising along with the volume of her voice “Why would there be no signal? I thought it reached the entire planet”
“It does.”
“Oh” Fiona let the information soak in. They were so epically fucked. “But it can… not work, right? I mean, with the whole teletransporting thing… it doesn't have to mean we're in… another… planet. Right?”
“I don't know... but it should work. I don't remember the last time I didn't have any signal like this. Something could be malfunctioning, sure, but for now...” he shut the arm down “Guess we have no choice but to… hmmm, walk around? See what we find?”
“Rhys-”
“I would rather not to either. I mean, if this really isn't Pandora… not that I like Pandora, Pandora sucks. But...”
Fiona sighed and adjusted her hat.
“Yeah, we don't have a choice.”
“Exactly.” Rhys said “I'll keep checking, who knows how alien tech works with these things. Maybe if we get outside we'll be able to talk to our friends, or at least find out where we are.”
“I guess we could try that door out there, I think it's locked but-”
“Oh, you know no door is ever locked for me” he said smugly, waving his metal arm at her. Fiona rolled her eyes.
“Sounds like an awful plan.” Fiona walked into the hallway and looked back at Rhys “Let's go. And if we die, it's on you.”
---
Getting through the locked door on the end of the hallway wasn't hard. Rhys tried to hack the systems, couldn't do it. Then pushed the electronic lock with his metal arm, which worked.
As soon as the door opened the sound of an engine filled their ears, it was loud and rhythmic, coming from somewhere above them.
The room was round and very tall, which looked like a pattern around here. A vaguely scary pattern Fiona tried not to think too hard about. The walls and floor were identical to the corridor they left behind; grey with purple details, but there were no windows in this room. The only source of light was a big tube coming from the ceiling that bathed the place in a soft purple light. It ended just a few feet above the ground. It was the only hole in the room.
“No doors here.” Rhys pointed. He had to almost scream to be heard over the loud engines.
“Maybe this purple thing does something.” Fiona walked closer to the pipe with Rhys on her tail.
“I thought we were being careful” he said “That doesn't look like careful to me”
Fiona turned to him.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
Rhys looked at the pipe and then back at her.
“I guess there could be stairs inside that thing.” he admitted reluctantly.
The two of them stepped under the pipe. It was plane and sleek on the inside as it was on the outside, no stairs. On the end of it, way up high, there was the unmistakable blue of a sky.
“There must be a way to-” before Fiona could finish she felt the ground moving beneath her. The circle under the pipe had moved up slightly, just enough to make her and Rhys loose balance. And before they could recover it, they where violently pulled up by an invisible force.
The screaming was automatic. The pipe was here and gone in a second, Fiona caught a glimpse of the sky and then Rhys, who was looking down and screaming his lungs out. Then she felt herself being pulled down. Oh no, not again. A metal grid below her and she smelled copper. This is gonna hurt.
The fall knocked the air out of her lungs. She rolled to her side, grunting and cursing this stupid place and the sadistic things that built it. As she tried to breath again, she watched her hat fall just out of her reach. Great.
She looked up and saw the gigantic hole in the roof that fooled them into thinking they were going outside. The hell-pipe had actually thrown them in a metal grid. It was round, same size as the room below. The loud machinery sounded like it was right below them now.
Fiona tried to get up, but quickly discovered her wrist was glued to the ground. Frowning, she tried to lift it again, but the thing didn't budge. She knelt and tried to pull it away to no avail. That's when she realized it wasn't her wrist that was stuck, it was her pistol.
Rhys mumbled something unintelligible from somewhere behind Fiona.
“Are you okay?” the machinery sounds were so loud now she had to scream to be heard.
Fiona stopped trying to free her arm to look at him. Rhys was lying on his back looking at her pointless efforts from the other side of the circle.
“No! I'm stuck in a giant magnet!” he cried “I have an entire arm made of metal, Fiona, I try to avoid giant magnets!”
So that's what this was, a magnet. What was even the point of this place? Fiona shook her head and rolled up her sleeve the best she could to open the pistol's lock.
“Stop being such a crybaby” She absently noticed that the grid-circle-thing was open to a hall on one side, the one closest to her, whereas the other side was surrounded by walls.
She was about to take the pistol away from her arm when something besides her snapped. At first she thought she might have broken some part of the pistol, but no. The sound had definitely come from somewhere close to her on the ground. It was faint under the engine's sound, but it was enough to get her attention. She recognized that sound but she couldn't quite place it.
“What- what are you looking at?” Rhys tried to turn around but his arm had him tightly pinned to the ground.
Fiona finally found what had snapped. It was a small leaf, fallen on the ground not very far away from her. She tilted her head back in surprise as its edges caught on fire. And that strange smell of copper-
“It's a freaking magnet... shock… killing machine!” Fiona pulled at the lock and got up in a hurry, rubbing her wrist as she watched the dirt vibrating on the ground. It was like a wave getting closer and closer to her.
Fiona remembered this one time when she was a child and they set up a trap for some insufferable psychos that had been trying to raid Hollow Point. It was a giant shock pool, people kept complaining about the snapping sounds and the foul smell. That is, until the psychos actually fell on the trap and they shut it down.
“What did you say? Fiona!”
She walked away from the metal grid without taking her eyes out of the incoming electricity.
“Why are you-”
As soon as her feet touched the concrete surrounding the grid, Fiona noticed the metal getting bluer. She also saw her hat there. She hesitated for a second before putting a foot on the shock zone and getting it into the safety of the concrete. After all the shit they had been through, she wasn't going to loose it to a freaking shocky piece of floor.
Fiona put the hat back on her head.
Looking from a distance she could see the circle was divided in smaller sections, eight of them like a big fruit cut in the middle. She watched as the section she had been in turned to the grayish color of metal. The one right next to it slowly light up in blue. If it kept this direction and rhythm the shock wave would hit Rhys, who was three parts away, in less than a minute.
“Don't panic but-”
“I'm already panicked! Tell me what's happening!”
“The floor… it sends some shock wave thingies... I don't know how to…” Fiona watched as the shock wave entered the next section “it's about to fry you! How do I stop it?”
Fiona couldn't see his reaction, but when he spoke he sounded surprisingly collected.
“Look for a… a wire or a door that-” Rhys was looking at the sky, until he tilted his head to the side and Fiona could have pinpointed the moment he lost his shit “oh crap I can see it, Fiona do something!”
She looked around herself and saw no doors or wires. It seemed pointless to look for anything in the hall, it was clearly huge and full of other rooms. Fiona remembered how fast the electric pool killed the psychos and knew she couldn't waste any time if she wanted to get Rhys out of there alive.
But there was a narrow balcony above them, the kind of thing with “Employees only – Maintenance” written all over it. There was no visible access, but there had to be one somewhere. There was also no handrail, why built a tall thing like that and not put a handrail? But Fiona shook it out of her head, the design of this freaky place was irrelevant. That balcony was her best shot.
“I think I found something, I'll be back in a second”
She ran to the hall. Besides the shocky zone there was a massive wall full of cracks and water seepage marks. Some weird ass furniture too, but Fiona didn't pay it too much attention. She ran along the wall until she reached a corner. The space between the two walls was very narrow, only had space for a door or a staircase. Or another hell-pipe.
“Stairs, please be stairs…” she muttered under her breath. “Not a pipe, not a pipe...”
She turned the corner and, well, those were technically stairs, she guessed. Just the weirdest ones to have ever existed. They consisted of three huge, never encountering, floating black rocks. Big enough to reach Fiona's waist. They looked a lot like the ones floating around the Vault, but where the rocks on the vault looked like decoration, the ones in front of Fiona lead to a door. Even better, an open door.
Looks like the right way to me.
She was very aware that by now Rhys had already endured a round of shock and that they didn't have much time. Fiona knew she had to get this right and do it fast.
The climb to the first step was awkward but easy. She used both her hands to prompt herself up and kneeled in the step.
The other rocks didn't look as promising. She would have no choice other than jump to the second step. It wasn't World's Hardest Jump but Fiona also wasn't World's Best Jumper, if she fell and hurt herself… She couldn't afford that. And if she failed to make the jump after that? Broke an arm, maybe just sprained an ankle… Both Rhys and herself would most likely end up being skag food by the end of the day.
With that in mind, she took two steps back to get a momentum and jumped.
She landed by the edge of the step, but at the step all the same. She smiled at herself. Maybe I can actually do it. The smile was washed away from her face, though, when she put her eyes on the next rock. It was much higher than the second one.
Fiona unconsciously brought a hand to her hat. This was the last one, she couldn't fuck this up.
Two steps back and the moment her feet left the ground she knew she wasn't gonna make it. The edge of the rock hit her right in the stomach and she had to make a conscious effort of keeping her lunch inside. She could feel herself slipping as her nails scratched the rock frantically. Yep, that's it, show's over. Hey, maybe death wasn't that bad anyway. She could discover all these stuff about the after life and- She got a grip. Fiona was so relieved she almost let go of the rock altogether.
With her new-found support she pushed herself up in the rock just enough so that she wasn't falling to her death anymore.
Grimacing, she managed to haul one leg to the step and then the other. She allowed herself a second to lay down on the cold rock and just breath. If I ever meet the asshole who built this place…
Fiona got up and ran through the open door to a corridor that was just way too long and had way more doors than she needed. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she took the wrong way or took too long climbing that stupid staircase and Rhys was already dead. She was honestly surprised at how much she cared, really.
She tried the door by the end of the corridor first. Locked. And this time she didn't see anything punchable, it was just a regular lock and key door. Fiona went to the next one, also locked, and so was the next one. She felt like sitting down and crying by the time one of them finally opened.
At the other side of the door was a… control room? Looked like a control room. There were a bunch of machines with levers and buttons and working screens. Fiona noticed how tall everything was, not out of her reach tall, just weirdly tall. But she didn't have time to think about it.
There was an open door besides the machinery and it seemed to lead to the handrail-less balcony she had seen before. Fiona passed through it and realized she was right. There was the hell-pipe, and her pistol, and…
“Rhys!” she yelled “Are you okay?”
It took him a moment to find her, and he looked immensely relieved when he did. The blue part of the circle was about to get to him.
“Peachy!” he answered, eyes shut as if he was bracing himself for the blow.
“Just hang in there, I'm gonna turn it off!” she ran back into the control room, vaguely aware of Rhys' answer (something along the lines of “take your time”). She should just let him die, really.
Fiona looked at all the levers and buttons with despair in her eyes. She had been expecting a nice sign written “Shut This Entire Shit Hole Off” over a single red button. She had not prepared for this mess.
“Hmmm… ok… Let me just...” Fiona saw a metal cabinet on the wall. It looked as promising as anything else in there so she opened it. There were about ten levers inside it. “This is bullshit, come on”
“Fiona, I was joking!” she heard Rhys scream. “Do something! Now!”
“I'm- I'm doing things!” she screamed back, as she helpless looked at all the different levers. “You know what? Fuck it.” Fiona pulled a random lever.
She ran to the maintenance balcony. Rhys was being shocked, he had curled up in a ball, convulsing as the electric charge passed through his body. Nope. Wrong lever.
Fiona went back to the control room, looking at the machines and trying to find out which one was the right one. There was a big metal box with a four button menu in it, she ran to it and pressed all of them.
From the balcony she saw that the shock section had gone forward. Meaning it was still working, but at least it was away from Rhys. For now.
“Did… something happen?” she asked “Can you move?”
“No!”
Fiona went back inside. She hesitated before pulling another lever, and then the next one and the one after that. She pulled all of them.
By the balcony she could see Rhys stretching his legs again.
“What about now?” she asked.
“Nothing's changed! What are you doing up there, just turn it off!”
“I'm trying, it's not like there's a label on anything!”
Fiona ran back to the control room and just pressed all the buttons, pulled all the levers and hoped for the best. She couldn't make it any worse, right? She opened another cabinet, this one full of buttons and pressed all of them too. The computer looking machines were more tricky, she had no idea of how they worked so she just left them alone.
When she went back to the balcony Rhys was looking in the direction of the hall.
“Did it work? Can you move?” she yelled “What are you-”
He said something she couldn't understand, eyes still focused on something she couldn't see.
“Say it louder!”
Rhys widened his eyes at her, shaking his head sligthly. The shock circle was already getting close to Rhys again, she had no time for this.
“I'll take that as no.”
Fiona ran back inside and eyed the computers. She touched the screen of the closest one, nothing happened so she pressed them with more force. Nothing happened again so she punched it.
“Ow, ow, ow” she held her fist with the other hand. Bad idea.
She glanced at the screen, it had turned red. As good a sign as any other.
“What about now?” she yelled from the balcony.
Rhys didn't look away from the hall. Had the shock damaged his brain? Was that something that could happen?
“Does that mean it didn't work?” she insisted “Just shake your head yes or no”
“Fiona, shut- Oh, great, they saw me. They're coming straight at me now” he sounded hysterical. “Thanks a lot”
“What are you tal-” and then she saw it.
Three animals walked in the circle. At first she thought they were skags, but they were smaller and not as ugly. Their fur was black and they looked skinny. Hungry. They walked like blood thirsty predators, their eyes fixed on Rhys.
He started squirming, trying to get as far away from the animals as the metal arm would allow him. It wasn't much.
Fiona looked around herself for something she could throw at them, or anything that could help at all, she saw nothing but some dry leaves.
“Hey! Heeey, skags!” she jumped, waving both arms above her head “Over here!”
But the things didn't as much glance at her before focusing on Rhys again.
The section of the circle he was in was next in the shock line, but it was irrelevant now. If the electricity didn't kill him, the weird skags would.
“Maybe you should… maybe you should go now.” Rhys was hardly audible. “Or- or turn around.”
Fiona didn't move. There had to be a way.
But the weird skags weren't stopping or slowing down. They moved slowly but menacingly, predators about to pounce.
Rhys directed a quick look at her, checking if she was still there.
“Really, I- I don't want you to see this.” he started speaking hurriedly “Just find everyone and… there's nothing you can do-”
The skags jumped and Rhys covered his face with his flesh hand, it was the last thing Fiona saw before she turned away. She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't help it.
That's when she saw a single red button on the wall. It stared at her from the other edge of the balcony, mocking her. How would she tell everyone about this? Vaughn, Sasha? They would be heartbroken. How could she live with herself? When she was this close and failed him so bad. That was the only button left, it had to be it. But it was useless now.
She waited for the screams to begin. But they never did. The silence stretched on, all she could hear was the sound of machinery.
“Ah-ha-ha, I'm alive!” Rhys screamed in cheer surprise.
Fiona turned around, confused. He was intact, looking at his flesh hand as if he couldn't quite believe he still had it.
“What-” she looked at the two skags twitching on the floor inches away from Rhys' face, barely noticing the third one running away. They had jumped… on the electrified section? How-
Before she could voice her disbelief, though, or even process what had just happened, the electric field reached Rhys again. His head tilted back violently and every part of his body started spasming.
Fiona ran to the button as fast as she could. It had a glass cover. She fumbled with it for a painful few seconds and pushed the freaking button. The result was the satisfying sound of the machines turning off and finally, finally being silent.
“See, told you I'd turn it off” she said smugly, waiting for a sarcastic comeback. All she got was silence.
“Rhys?”
Still no answer.
She rushed back to her point at the balcony. He wasn't moving. At all. The shock was gone and she had no reason to believe the magnet was still holding him down, but she also couldn't be sure if he was alive.