//------------------------------// // Interlude: Aftermath // Story: The side characters // by BoneCruncher47 //------------------------------// "Okay, so I fucked up!" Maya was sitting in the lounge room with her arms crossed in annoyance. After informing only a portion of the group of what happened, they all came down to a conclusion that Maya did this on purpose, the siren on the other hand was just annoyed at the outcome. Maya was laying back on the couch, next to the stairs, the same one that they took from the Hyperion moonbase. Zer0 was leaning against a neaby wall, with her/his back hunched, reading the newpaper, and the commando , Axton, was sitting on a nearby bench. "So, what you'e trying to say-" started the commando. "-Is that I just made her DISAPPEAR in thin air!" Maya raised her arms in exaggeration "This makes no sense, I've done this to her, including you guys, like, a thousand times, I wasn't even hurting her, I was putting her in a phase!" "-Becaue she didn't do the dishes." Axton deadpanned "So what's next? If we don't go to bed, then you'll phase lock us?" Maya just roller her eyes "Come on, you and I know at this point that I can control my powers! Besides, we all know that I wouldn't go out of my own way to murder her!" "No one stated that that you murdered her.." Zer0 spoke up in a dominating voice. "Well you guys are acting as if I did! I thought that telling you guy would be a good idea!" the siren paused "Obviously it wasn't." Zer0 sat up from its hunched position, lowering his newspaper "This does not mean that you can just go about your day as if this was some nagging issue. Gaige is a comrade in our war with Hyperion, and you made one of our strongest warriors disappear. If anything, you've put us all at a disadvantage." "Okay, first off, we have like, what? Two, three, four, FOUR, vault hunters by our side, not including us in this room," The annoyed siren took in a breath "And secondly, this is Gaige we are talking about, if she could make some floating ass robot, then I'm pretty sure she could find a way out." Zer0 paused before he spoke, "You're treating this as some sort of annoying chore, but Maya, you have to realize that this isn't about you, but the fact that lately you've not been as responsible with your powers; this isn't becoming of you." Maya just rolled her eyes "You're all treating this like a big deal, if she had died from, I don't even know, she'll just spawn right in front of the station," Maya pointed in a general direction, where the station was located "It's not like she' unfamiliar with the new U station, if she's smart enough to build a robotic arm, then she can find the nearest New U station, and come back," The blue haired siren paused "My best guess why she isn't here is because she is probably trying to pull our leg here!" Axton, who was in the background, just scratched the back of his head, thinking of something to break the tension. There was a brief silence until Zer0 questioned, "I have a question / Had this ever happened before? / I'm just curious." Maya raised a finger to her chin to remember any type of event that was similar to this, to her dismay, she shook her head. Zer0 groaned, raising the newspaper back to eye-level "Of course, more things that we don't know about sirens.." "So..., what do you have against her?" asked Axton. Maya could only look at axton with questioning eyes "Who?" The commando could only raise an eyebrow "You know, Gaige, what do you have against her?" Maya could only roll her eyes as she got up from her seat "Listen, I have nothing against her, I'm just annoyed at her, okay?" The commando could only groan "No Maya, ever since we killed Jack, and screwed up the warrior, you've been pestering her." Axton paused, looking Maya in the eyes "Is something bothering you?" Before the blue haired siren could even respond, they were interrupted by a certain redheaded siren clearing her throat. Lillith stood at the doorway of the Crimson Raiders doorway, with her signature jacket, tattered and worn. "Sup'!" The siren raised her hand to greet everybody, only to receive questionable glances from Axton and Maya. The red haired siren sighed "I just woke up from my nap" she pointed her finger towards the ceiling "And as I came down, I could hear this chatter, so.. Whats up?" Zer0 was first to speak up "You won't believe this / Maya made Gaige disappear / And as well as Krieg!" Lilith just blinked. "Mmkay.." Lilith could only scratch the back of her head as her only response "So how exactly did she do that?" "Well-" Maya was quickly cut off by Zer0. "By phase locking Gaige, the fool she is." "Oh shut up!" growled the blue haired siren. "Oh, cool." Lilith walked to the fridge the vault hunters have jammed in the corner. "It seems as if sirens take news like this lightly.." muttered the assassin under his/her/[REDACTED] breath. Lilith came back with a cold taco, and started munching on it. "What the hell is that?" asked Axton, pointing at the food in Lilith's hands. "Oh, you know, a taco" the siren took a bite out of the taco."It's two weeks old!" Zer0 sighed leaning against the wall with its hand over his helmet "So why did you inform us of your mishap?" Maya just shrugged "I don't know, as I mentioned earlier, I thought it would of been a good idea to tell you guys." The red head spoke up "Soo, what? Was it on purpose? Ooor.?" "For the love of, No! It was a complete accident, I was just doing my normal thing, then she just, DISAPPEARED!" Lilith raised a finger to her chin "I think something similar happened to me, once.." Zer0 leaned forward "Go on?" Finishing off her breakfast, Lilith began her epic tale. Crazy Earls Scrap Yard "Man, this place stinks.." Crazy Earls Scrap Yard, a place that Crazy Earl used to live, the place was literally a dump, filled with garbage from the wasteland. The dump contained garbage that ranged from empty cereal boxes, to broken down machines, to bandit scum. As by now, you can tell that this isn't the nicest place on Pandora, then again, it isn't the worst. Now you must be asking, 'so what is so significant about this place?' nothing, other than the fact that Crazy Earl held a potential vault key piece. Which is why the vault hunters were doing odd jobs for the crazy guy, until they were done, he wasn't going to give them the piece. The four original vault hunters from the first installment, Brick, Roland, Lilith, and Mordecai, were walking through a shitty scrapyard filled with bandits and spiderants. The air was putrid and they were covered in blood after having an encounter with some bandits. Brick wielded a large revolver like shotgun that fired explosive rounds, his limbering figure was enough to make their enemies have a double take before they get blown to smithereens. The hunter, Mordecai was just scratching his birds (or should I say 'bloodwings') neck, as a reward for vanquishing their former enemies. Roland on the other hand was just leading the group to their next destination, assault rifle in hand. Lilith on the other hand was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Are we done yet?" asked the sleepy siren as she continued to rub her eyes. The soldier in front of the crew turned his vision towards Lilith "No, we still have to wipe out a few more bandit groups for Earl, the next settlement is only a couple of corners away.." Lilith just rolled her eyes and glanced at the remaining scenery around her. It is also a great time to mention that during their early adventures on Pandora, Brick was much more serious. His intentions of why he came to this blasted planet was to find his sister, however, to this very day, he still hasn't found her. Most of the vault hunters believe he had given up, and gone insane over his loss, they pity him. Back to the story- After turning a corner, passing a mountain of trash, Lilith cracked her neck "I'll pace ahead; see what we're dealing with.." Without any objections, Lilith entered into phase walk, or, if you want to complicated, she entered an alternative dimension and still be present in the dimension she was formerly in, AT THE SAME TIME. Sprinting ahead, she turned around a corner, and entered a bandit camp. The camp was littered with empty bottles and tents, the smell of alcohol was present without a doubt. A bruiser was working out with a midget psycho as a weight in one arm, and his shotgun on the other. There was also a couple of marauders sharing stories of past sins over a fire pit, burning remains of useless loot. Lilith also took note of a Badass Mutant Psycho limbering past her invisible figure, completely unaware of her, mumbling something about his mother's tears. Looking at her potential competition, she took a gamble at the bruiser, not like she wasn't familiar with taking them out alone. Positioning herself, Lilith charged into the Bruiser, jabbing her fist into him. The bruiser groaned in pain, and crushed the midget in his grasp, a small cry of pain escaped the psycho before he turned into a crushed pile of flesh. The sirens attack poisoned the Bruiser, glowing green like substance was oozing out of his wound. Lilith quickly finished him off with her SMG, the bruiser fell to the ground, before the acid inside of his body slowly corroded his fallen figure. Her attack obvious drew in the attention of the other bandits; the two marauders got up from their sitting position and fired bursts into the siren; she let her shield suck in the lead from her enemies as she fired rounds into her foes. The Badass Psycho was her real threat, as he is charging towards Lilith with his Buzzaxe ready to smash her feminine figure into nothing more than flesh to bathe in. Changing her priority, she took cover behind a fallen table, and emptied the remaining rounds in her gun, unfortunately for Lilly, her SMG has no elemental effect to it, making it less effective than most weapons she used. "I'LL MAKE YOU SEE MOMMY, AND YOU WILL BE WONDERFUL!" bellowed the muscular beast as he swung his axe down into the table, easily slicing the table to two. Fortunately for Lilly, she had reloaded her SMG by the time the psycho made its way to her, and emptied the magazine into its skull. The Psycho's face was no more, with pretty much his whole face being blown off. However, that wasn't going to stop him. "I SEE EVERYTHING NOW," The psycho swung his axe, despite the fact that he cannot see anything, he had knocked Lilly's SMG out of her hands. "I SEE MOMMY, AND SHE IS CRYING!" The raging madman brought his axe down, and deeply buried it into the sirens shoulder. Lilly let out a roar of pain, the still sawing blade was driving her mad. Luckily for her, the psycho ripped out the axe, with bits of flesh on the saw; he readied himself for another swing, at this point, Lilly was on the ground, with her arm covering the wound. "I WILL MAKE MOMMY CRY TEARS OF ECSTASY, AND I WILL MAKE YOU LOVE IT!" Screamed the madman, he brought his axe down onto the siren, with the intention of finishing her off, only for the redhead to dodge his attack. She had quickly pulled back in time, before the axe missed her and got buried a few inches into the ground (Or piles of garbage in this case). Using this to her advantage, she had regained enough power to enter phase walk, so she did. Entering through to the other dimension, the siren jumped over the psycho, and finished him off by plunging her palm into his back. Normally with this, the natural outcome is that he'll explode into pieces of flesh. He didn't. ... He DISAPPEARED! "Of-figgan-course! " muttered Axton, obviously annoyed at the sirens past outcome. "He just disappeared, naturally, I'd came down to the conclusion that I most likely teleported him somewhere, so I never really dwelled on that event until you guys brought it up" raising her shoulders, Lilith sighed. "Why didn't you ever bring this up?" asked the other siren in the room. "Just cause." "Just ca-" Maya face palmed "You just KEPT your lips sealed about that; what the hell! What made you think that this weird outcome was NOT important for the rest of your crew to know?" Lilith shrugged "Dunno, just didn't feel important at the time, not like I made an ally disappear.." said the siren as she drew emphasis to her last few words with a cocky smile on her face. "Oh shut up.." "Aaaaaanyways," the redhead got up "I got to help Brick with some of the remaining Hyperion guys down at T-Bone Junction.." "Well good luck my friend / Use their blood to paint the walls / Leave no spot unclean!" said the assassin in his/her usual monotonic voice as he raised his hand. The commando silently waved to Lilith before she closed the door behind her. An awkward silence filled the room, but fortunately, the silence was only brief. "So," Axton started, eyeing Maya "What is the plan?" Axton sat, leaning forward, both of his hands together. The siren sighed, and whispered something under her breath "How much eridium do you have?" Axton stared at Maya before he asked "What, w-" "-221.. No, sorry, 225." Zer0 interrupted, her/his figure is frozen solid against the wall. Axton sighed, and opened his ECHO "I haaaave, 128.." closing the ECHO, the commando glanced over to Maya. Both Axton and Zer0 were staring at Maya to answer their question. Shifting around, Maya spoke up. "Okay, we got 2, or 3 options here;" the siren paused, letting her statement settle in "we could give Lilith the eridium we have, and make her do stuff with it, seeing as how I am not connected with eridium as much as her. The second option is that we ask Tannis for help, and since this will be a Siren related favor, she'll do anything for this." "And the third possible option?" asked the figure laying against a wall. "Well, both, in a way; we get Tannis and Lilith to help us out here. Since our scientist friend has research notes on Lilith, we could use her notes to perhaps exploit her siren powers; assuming that Tannis has notes like that." "Just, throwing it out there, when I said 'What was the plan' I meant as in, what do you want to do?" stated Axton. Maya sighed "Not as if I want to help her, but I want to study my siren powers more, in depth, at least here I can learn more about myself unlike those idiots at the embassy.." "Well, in that case, you and Tannis will be great friends!" chuckled the commando, earning him a glare from the blue haired siren. "Anyways, since both Lilith and Tann- actually wait." Maya looked at the surrounding area "Do ANY of you guys knows where Tannis goes at this time of day? Like seriously, I thought she hated the idea of going out there.." Zer0 could only shiver in disgust, earning him/her a few glares from its comrades. Raising his/her head, Zer0 spoke only 5 words. "You don't want to know..." A yelling could be heard above from a familiar midget "SO IT REALLY IS BETTER WITH THREE!" Meanwhile Many have reported sightings of a giant sea monster out in the ocean, many witnesses have confirmed that the fish had an indistinguishable jockey on top of it. However, many that reported the sighting were normally mentally unstable midgets who shoved knifes in their ribcage for fun. Normally at this point, nobody listen to guys like those, because, lets be honest here, would you? But anyways, in a nutshell, everybody was crazy, and nobody believed that stuff. Out west, near a beach, a small bandit camp was located just off the shore, stealing supplies off nearby boats that were unfortunate enough to steer near them. The camp wasn't that big, its main significance is that it had harpoon guns installed near the shore, mainly used to pull in boats. Other than that, it just a bunch of good ol' chaps who just murder people for the fun of it, nothing special. A lone midget wandered up to one of the harpoon guns, which was being operated by a Nomad, keeping watch on the seas. The midget in question was scrawnier than most of the other midgets, having his ribcage exposed from the lack of nutrients. The midget held out a silver coin, and raised it in the air. "P-Please midget gods, hear me out, I pray that we have a good hunt, and that you'll help me prove to these guys that I AM RIGHT!" "Shuddup, midget! Fucking piece of shit fuck head!" The small man threw his coin into the water, hoping that his wish would come true. That was until the nomad kicked the midget into the shallow water, watching him drown. "Bloody midgets" groaned the bandit, keeping watch on the ocean once again. That was until he noticed something peculiar coming towards the camp, at first glace, the nomad simple labelled it as a small boat. However, on further inspection, the boat was bouncing up and down on the water. At this point, the nomad yelled out to a nearby marauder, asking him to tell him what the hell was that. The bandit just shrugged and told the nomad to shoot it. BLEWP Firing the harpoon, the two bandits in question watched at the harpoon reached its destination. Only for it to reflect off of it, and bend the harpoon in a 90 degree angle. The two bandits looked at each other in confusion; looking back at the boat, they noticed it speeding in towards them. Playing this safely, the marauder yelled out to the rest of the camp of the boat. As the rest of the camp came by, the boat was only 50 feet away from them. It was only then that the camp realized what it was, and it sure as hell wasn't a boat. It was a giant fucking fish, with a crazy lady on top of it. "FUCK YEA SEAKING!"