Borderlands X (Qant00AT x Lovely Erato)

The hills across the Highlands were long and green. Dotted with high rising mountains and rocky crevices. Civilization barely had its mark in most areas, but there were the occasional outposts left behind by Hyperion. Rising above all of the land, like Olympus in the Greek tales of old, was the floating haven of Sanctuary. It was once the last stronghold of The Crimson Raiders, a resistance to Handsome Jack and the Hyperion Corporation. Now it was a place that most free people on Pandora call home. All thanks to the Raiders and their Vault Hunter allies. One such hunter, going by the name of Zer0, was in seclusion from the rest. It was not odd for him to do such a thing as he was accustomed to sneaking away to mediate, a custom that his sensei had passed on to him.

His own private quarters was darkened to where only a flickering candle illuminated a small circumference of light. Behind it, hiding in the shadows, was Zer0. His eerie Ice Blue eyes stared and twitched at the light as his breathing was kept at a slow pace. He focused on past experiences and processed what he could from them. Mistakes, successes, failures, observations, all of it taken into account of his reflection. Dealing with Hyperion and their slag experimentation brought back unpleasant memories of his childhood. He was empathetic towards the victims of the experiments, and hearing the ECHO Logs of their torture sent chills down his spine. It gave him an edge, a much more driven purpose to take down Jack and Hyperion, and he took great pleasure in plunging his Katana through his chest. Feelings of anger, fury, aggression, pushed to the front of his brain, his frontal cortex trying to process which emotion to act on, but then a great push of calm and serenity quelled those feelings.

Though soon he would need to utilize those feelings as a looming threat watched over the floating city from the lingering H that remained in orbit of Pandora.

There had always been a certain unspoken but bond between Maya and Zer0, at least on her end. He was always so quiet but his not-so-cryptic haikus at least gave some insight to what he was thinking or his intentions were.

All of the individual Vault Hunters had their own issues with Hyperion and Handsome Jack. However it was the two of them who had lived with it most of their lives, used for one reason or another by almost everyone. The thing that sparked her curiosity most in him was the fact even as an assassin for hire, and the huge bounty on her head that he never acted on. He had boasted about trying to find a hit worthy of his talents, and while she'd never provoke him into combat, she was sure that she'd prove quite a challenge if not utterly destroying him with her Phaselock ability.

Even with Pandora safe, she knew it was only relatively. There were sure to be pocket factions out there that would just love to have their heads on a stick. Zer0 certainly would have a few people gunning after him. Even people as horrible as Jack must have had someone on his side. And well, she was a siren after all. That was what the bounty on her was all about. Like Angel before her, there were other people out there who would want to use her for their own gains.

Finally, she decided to make herself known.

"Nice night out."

Zer0 was focused on his meditation to notice the presence of the Siren in his quarters. When she made herself known he quickly blew out the candle and hid among the shadows again. He wasn't very keen on allowing anyone to see his face, that was the key to anonymity, a tactic taught to him by his master. If he was no one then no one would be searching for him and Zilla Industries was searching for the face that they created, not some masked assassin.

With the lights out he was able to sneak around and grab his helmet to put back on before throwing on the lights again. "Greetings Siren/ What do I owe this visit/ Another challenge?" The Haiku's were a mechanism to keep himself calm. He could certainly speak like a normal human being, but the Haiku's were something that gave himself a distinctive impression on people.... Plus it was pretty cool to do. Waiting for her answer, he grabbed his jacket and zipped it on. He rolled his shoulders a bit to loosen up the fabric and the plates that were locked on to the shoulders.

She couldn't help but smirk a little at his response. Zer0 was so on edge, as well he should be. From anyone else, but after all they had been through, she at least found comfort in the friendships she had built with the other Vault Hunters and various allies they had all accumulated.

"Sadly no good sir, I'm just seeking company, under the moonlight."

Maya never understood his obsession with speaking through haiku, so toying with him forming her response into a format he was more accustomed to could have been seem to some as offensive. She certainly didn't intend for it to come off that way. But then again she had been shut away from people so long, raised by monks of Impending Storm as a goddess and savior, that her people skills certainly needed polishing up on. Either way, it was quickly dropped. Taking the time trying to come up with something was too frustrating for the woman. Tonight, she just wanted to relax.

Her back turned towards him as she made her way over to a small cliff, allowing him whatever time he needed to do whatever it was he felt he needed to do. She hung her legs over the edge and looked down below. There was such a stark contrast between Sanctuary and the world below. Until a couple of months ago, this place was hard and rugged but modern technological marvels tempered the harshness. The rest of Pandora seemed to be unspoiled. Maybe it was why she liked it up here so much. Seeing what was below made her feel more like the role she had been assigned as a child. Until she found out that the Order had been using her existence as a threat to extort money out of the people of Athenas.

Maya's longing to explore hadn't been hampered by all of the Hyperion bullshit. If anything, meeting Angel and Lilith instilled the wanderlust back in her. It was said that only six Sirens ever existed at once. With Angel's death, that meant another would be being born soon enough. She laughed softly to herself. All these things running through her head when she just came out here in an attempt to lose herself.

"Anything interesting out tonight?"

Zer0 heard her use his own speech patterns and chuckled. "You know, I can copy how you talk as well."

While it was uncharacteristic of him, he did talk like a human every now and then, though only to a select few. Maya was a part of that category. The bond that he knew she felt was reciprocated towards her. During his ventures into the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve he found ECHO recordings of her time on Athenas. The Order of the Impending Storms kept her cooped up and trained until she was strong enough to exploit for money and obedience. He felt as if she suffered the same fate as him. Different types of exploitation, but they would have been used for the same purposes. He was surprised that they had both made it out of their own personal hell's intact as they were.

He joined her outside and looked down past the auras of energy that Lilith had given the city to power its floating mechanism. She sat down, but he remained standing, it allowed him to be ready at all times. The optics in his helmet allowed him to zoom in and out of various areas below Sanctuary. Nothing was happening below other than the standard bandit movements and the vicious wildlife tearing them apart.

She asked him about the night and he laughed, "Ha, try nothing interesting. Ever since we offed Jack things have been unusually quiet."

She snickered softly to herself as he quickly adjusted to stringing words together in a coherent sentence structure. Maya was at least glad to know that he was now comfortable enough with her to downgrade his own habits, if even for a short time. She looked up at him through thin veils of light blue tresses that fell over her face as he spoke. But as he did, his words had an unintended consequence. The corners of her lips turned downward as he spoke. The thoughts running through her head quickly made themselves known.

"Quiet doesn't always mean calm."

All the time she had spent in isolation when the Order had taken her, all that time she thought was passing peacefully, they were sowing seeds of malcontent and distrust. Every time she'd ask about the outside world, one of the monks would tell her that everything was fine. It was only when she released herself from confinement did she see things were the exact opposite. Just how many people were down there ready to get a leg up with Jack's corpse as their starting step? Would there be another group in the near future that they'd need to protect Pandora from? Was it even their job to do so?

Maya knew her personal recordings were scattered all across the Reserve on Pandora. For twenty-seven years she'd been raised as a planet's savior, foretold that she would fight the evil on Athenas, when the only evil was with Brother Sophis and the order. Her execution of Sophis probably only served to make those people she was raised to protect fear her more, even with the announcement she was leaving. In a way, Pandora was her new home and her teachings and emotions of wanting something, someone, to watch over never went away.

"Do you think it is over, Zer0? Are we done fighting?"