Chapter Text
Screams and gunfire fill the dry arid air of the Pandoran desert, explosions shake the barely held together sheet metal buildings. Dust, rock, viscera, and ragdolled bodies fly through the air in wide arcs with each hit and the dying gurgles of bandits and psychos fill what little void is left.
An outsider might think an all out war is happening, but in reality it’s just four vault hunters versus an entire bandit camp. And the vault hunters are winning!
“Watch your head!” The old man shouts as he narrowly avoids being hit by a psycho, teleporting to his digiclone to shoot the attacker in the head before ducking behind cover to chuck a grenade.
“Back off!” The Partali siren leaps over the barrier to slam her eight fists into the ground, knocking back a hoard of bandits and grabbing one to throw into the side of a building.
Behind her a marauder’s head explodes as a single shot rings out from the rooftops, followed by a robotic roar as the heavy cloaked mech leaps down to land on top of another bandit. A shrill whistle has an irradiated skag leap over their back and grow in size as a hulking beast of a deformed man bursts his way out of a building. “Badass incoming!” They shout over the fray.
“I got it!!” The gunner smirks as she calls down her mech to mow down the hulking beast as well as whoever else gets in her way. “Come the fuck on, where is our mark?!” She curses as her mech has to withdraw after depleting its energy, taking cover near the assassin to wait for her shield to recharge.
“Patience, lass.” Zane pauses after yeeting another grenade over the wall to let the explosion pass. “He’s gotta be here.”
“He fucking better be!” Amara shouts as she punches another chick into a fine red mist. “This is the third camp we’ve raided in less than as many days! I want a fucking shower!” She flicks blood off her fists before narrowly dodging the swing of a buzzaxe.
They all flinch at the all too familiar sound of FL4K’s rakks dive bombing the scene, none of them used to the trio being on their side quite yet. Especially out here. But the sight of bandits running away on fire is always amusing.
“Our prey will not escape us again!” The beastmaster swings his pick down with a sickening crunch on a tink that dared to get too close to the mech, splitting his skull in half.
“Yeah, if this fucker,” she grumbles, “Pistaldick, doesn’t show up, I’m calling it quits and heading back to-”
She’s interrupted by the roar of an enraged Goliath. “It’s time to kill you to death!!!”
“Oh fuck me- Kill it!!” She hops out of hiding to lay into the beast with as many bullets as she can muster.
“Yes, YESSS!! INTO THE FRAY! FEEL THE BLOODLUST!!” The manic mech races forward with Amara, following her punches with shotgun shells to the face. Laughing maniacally all the while.
Eventually the gunfire dies down and with it the screams. Smoke and dust waft from the camp on the mild breeze as the team of beaten up and bloodied Vault Hunters pick their way through the corpse laden camp to see if anyone there resembled their mark… or if there was any loot to be gained from these poor unfortunate bastards.
It’s mostly the usual; guns, money, a few trinkets that are worth a few bucks, ammo that barely replaces what they used up...
“Anyone here matching the description of our target?” FL4K asks as they kick a few corpses onto their backs to frisk them.
“Mmmm nah. Sorry, boyo. Looks like this camp was another failure. Buuut one less camp of cannibals is good in my books. I think we can forgive the genocide.” He laughs as he drops the dead body he was examining before joining Moze and Amara in their loot search.
“God mother fucking damnit!” Moze growls as she harshly kicks a fridge. “Where the fuck is this guy?! Who’s idea was it to hunt down a mark that looks exactly like every other psycho on this fucking planet and yet is nowhere to be fucking seen?!!”
“Calm down, Moze.” Amara tries to soothe the tiny angry woman. “We will find him and we will kill him extra hard, don’t worry. He may not have been here today but he was here.” She holds up her findings, an ECHO recording she shares with the group. “This was one of his camps. Which means-“
“We are headed in the right direction! Perfect!” The assassin claps both women on the back with a wide grin. “But if you ask me, we have done enough for today. Suns gettin' real low, lassies, and our pockets are full. Let's head back to the temp base here and we can continue when the suns are up. FL4K!” He calls over to the mech to get their attention.
Where they have been frisking bodies, searching for something. A trophy perhaps? The mech has a habit of taking something from every mission as a trophy, usually a horn, tooth, bone, or a patch of skin from a difficult opponent. So the sight of them carving into a body, even a human body, isn’t too out of the ordinary.
“FL4K! Hurry up, boyo, we are heading back to base!” The man repeats, making the robot perk.
A flick of their wrist has whatever they were gathering ripping loose from the victim. They pocket the body part before standing and whistling to grab the attention of the augmented skag feasting on a corpse. “Come boy. We are leaving.” They say simply before lumbering over to the others to join them on the walk of shame back to their half broken truck.
It's a long winding ride back past more bandit camps, skag dens, and rakk roosts (all of which try to hunt them down and attack them along the way), leaving the team even more exhausted than before as they file out of the large vehicle and climb the ungodly amount of stairs up to the makeshift living quarters of the reclaimed bandit base.
FL4K sets up a skinned skag to roast over a fire for the humans to eat while said humans strip off their armor to clean what they can off them and start the daily ritual of self grooming. Which, in FL4K’s opinion, would go a lot faster if they allowed each other to help. But apparently that’s too intimate for most humans. It’s infuriating when they have little time to get ready, but they have the time now so the mech will stay silent on the matter today.
Instead while the humans clean off, the mech will turn their attention to the trophies they collected, taking the time to clean and treat them so they don’t rot.
Over time they all settle into their usual spots, Moze on one end of the worn out couch cleaning her guns, Amara on the other end massaging her muscles so they don’t cramp as she reviews her ECHO mail. Zane grabs whatever alcoholic beverage he can find and sits across from FL4K at the small barely held together table with his boots propped up, infuriatingly close to whatever the mech is doing at the time. Mr chew takes his favorite bone out of hiding and gets to work gnawing at it loudly at FL4K’s feet. And so goes the usual night prep with minimal chatter between the four of them, usually shared stories that Amara or Zane take the lead in retelling. Just mundane things to keep them grounded and wind down for the night.
Eventually there is a lull, which from experience means the humans will be heading to bed soon… or they all have something they want to talk about but have no idea how to approach. Unless FL4K is paying close attention to their mannerisms, it’s hard to say which is the course of today’s lull.
Static tingles along the back of their neck one too many times, making the comfortable silence turn sour. FL4K glances up from their work to catch Zane and Amara staring at them, the latter looking away quickly before clearing her throat to meet their gaze once again.
“If there is something you wish to ask, just ask. Staring at me will provide no answers.” They rumble in a low tone, unable to keep the mild annoyance out of their voice.
“No! Nope there’s nothing we want to ask! Just… just watching you work… on removing charred skin… from a human skull. Mhm, it’s just... fascinating!” Amara is quick to say with a tense smile.
FL4K’s optic shutter half closes over their neon green optic, a mildly unamused expression pointed to the Partali woman. “If you want me to stop I can put it off until you all have gone to sleep. But the skin will be harder to remove and be a lot messier.”
“Why are you even bothering with cleaning it? Usually you don’t even do that, just put the head on a hook and hang it up to drip everywhere.” Moze grumbles without looking up from her own meticulous work.
Their optic flicks to her, head tilting slightly. “The skull has interesting markings on it that the flesh covers. I want to display them.”
“Oh. I… guess that makes sense?” Amara still seems a little tense, but shakes it off. “Whatever you like, beastmaster, just clean up when you are done. The smell of corpses can only be tolerated for so long.”
“I was planning on it.” They offer the strip they just carved off to the skag at their feet.
The siren makes a soft heaving noise. “I’m going to bed and hopefully this doesn’t haunt my dreams.” She waves them off before heading deeper into the building.
“Sooo… I’m a little curious. What kind of markings did ye find, boyo?” Zane lowers his feet from the table to lean in a bit closer to see.
“A crudely carved number surrounded by deliberate markings. What was interesting is that there was only a thin scar over the site. I didn’t even know they were there until I started cleaning.”
“Well, well, well. If I didn’t know better I woulda assumed you did that on purpose. Looks like you’re working on a gift for a certain assassin back on Sanctuary.” He teases with a playful smirk.
FL4K looks at the carvings again, slowly nodding as they examine each mark once more. “Yes, this would make for a good gift. I’ve been meaning to find them something since they couldn’t come along.”
“Is that right?” The elder assassin hums softly as he strokes his beard. “Have you been spending time with the lad?”
“Not as much as I would like. But Zer0’s stories are always interesting. Short and to the point.” They reply, optic shutters forming a faint downward crescent, a soft smile.
“Are you two like a thing or is this some weird robot bonding thing?” Moze pipes up from her spot. Sounding both curious and extremely disinterested.
Their optic whirs as they narrow their shutters at her, a minuscule head tilt giving away their confusion. “Excuse me?”
She rolls her eyes so hard it looks like it hurts. “Stupid question. Never mind.” She waves them off with a hand before packing up her things and snapping the now refilled clips back into her weapons. “I’m going to bed. You two should too. Soon-ish. I want this shitstain killed by tomorrow.” She grumbles as she ducks into her shared room with Amara.
“Well… that’s food for thought.” Zane hums to himself before standing and stretching, the joints in his back and arms cracking loudly. “Well, I’ll be followin them. You should too once you’re done. Night boyo. I’m sure Zer0 would love it.” He waves them off as well before flopping down on the couch where the girls were and promptly passing out.
Leaving FL4K to watch him for a long moment, processor whirring, before they shrug to loosen their shoulder joints and get back to work skinning the skull and removing the organs.