#fleshripper | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rlyc00l · 6 months ago

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Rhys is going to put his skills to work and make these people trust the crap out of him if it kills him (Actually, he doesn't want it to kill him, he's actually going to try to avoid dying). Zer0's ego goes through some stuff. Everyone could benefit from like, team building exercises or something.

Also under the cut

The first thing Rhys did, after giving up on lying sleeplessly and considering his new position, was draft a message for Vaughn and Yvette. “Hey, I’m alive, on Pandora. Vasquez tried to have me killed. Sorry for doubting you. I don’t know what he’s gonna do now, be careful. I’ll be back soon.” He paused and deleted the “soon”, replacing it with “Sorry to be vague. I’ll explain everything next time I see you.” before sending. It wouldn’t satisfy them. When he got back to Helios, he’d launch the two of them up the corporate ladder (just slightly below himself) to make it up to them. And then he’d brag about this forever.

But first, he had to secure his victory.

Step one: Gaining trust. He’d been a pro at that up on Helios. Building trust with your coworkers was one of those pillars of success in business (it went hand-in-hand with “strategic betrayal”). There was even an acronym: DARGH. Dependability, Approachability, Respect, Gratitude, and Honesty. Three out of five were easy, he could do those without trying. He’d have to do away with honesty, which left dependability. Dependability required competency, and he was far from competent in this setting. He still hadn’t even figured out how to reload. Luckily, he had the ECHOnet. He activated his ECHOeye and pulled up everything the Hyperion database could teach him about guns and shooting, and found diagrams of the two guns in his possession.

By sunrise he was outside, dry firing the pistol while aiming at distant bullymong holes, trying to get used to the gun’s auto-stabilizers.

��What are you doing?”

Rhys flinched, fumbling with the gun. It was Zer0, of course. The others were still asleep. His immediate impulse was to snap at them–why the hell were they always there? He restrained himself for the sake of DARGH and instead summoned all his Hyperion brand faux-affability.

“Oh, hey Zer0.” Fake smile. Cheery voice. “I-I’m practicing. Getting ready for today, you know? You’re welcome to join.” Goddamn, that sounded phony. He was better than this. The whole double agent thing was throwing him off his game.

Zer0 looked at him, then his gun. “There’s a camp, not far. / Living targets are better. / With a loaded gun.”

“That…I-I’m good, thanks. I’d rather conserve ammo, y’know? For those uh, those Fleshripper guys?”

“There’s a vendor, there.” They thumbed over their shoulder. An Ammo Dump vending machine leaned haphazardly against a nearby building.

“I don’t have–”

“Oh, right. Your wallet’s empty. / Save your bullets, then.” A smiley face.

“W-wait, you saw who stole my money?”

They ignored that. “Still, practice, needless. / Today, I’ll kill the bad guys. / Just stand back again.” The word “coward” didn’t fit at the end of their haiku, but it was implied. Their “>:P” made that clear.

Later, as they ventured through Fleshripper territory, he did his best not to deserve the label. At least, his best within reason. He stood back, sure, but only because he didn’t have a shield and the others did. A thrown buzzaxe bounced right off of Axton’s head when it would have split his skull open otherwise. Salvador walked right into oncoming gunfire to kill the shooter. A grenade landed at Gaige’s feet and only gave her a few scratches. A shield was undeniably a necessity, here.

Rhys checked bodies for one when he got the chance, but there was little intact for him to take. A few dollars here, some bullets there. The bandit’s actual killers got first dibs on everything. So he was forced to shoot from afar, careful to avoid his “allies”. Most of his shots missed, but sometimes they hit, and sometimes the bandits died. Those kills didn’t feel like that first time, but at least he wasn’t almost dying. Small victories.

A further small victory came for his “DARGH initiative”. With Zer0, of all people.

Bringing up the rear occasionally put him near them, when they’d switch from up-close fighting to sniping. Their sudden appearances had startled him the first few times. They seemed to teleport, but it was a clever combination of hologram and cloaking technology. Rhys found that if he paid attention, he could sometimes see when their footprints in the snow parted from the hologram. Even then, he missed it more often than not.

Zer0 may have been a total asshole, but it was pretty cool to watch. They’d appear with their sword buried in one man’s back. When the next bandit fired on them, the hologram would feign an attack from the front while they climbed a nearby roof, blowing his brains out without him ever knowing he’d been tricked. Rhys wondered if Jack knew about their method, or if he should report it. If Zer0 meant to fight Hyperion, the soldiers should be forearmed with that knowledge, the way these Fleshrippers weren’t.

As he was considering recording them for Jack, a gunshot rang off from his left and two bandits dropped dead at the same time. Zer0 appeared with their sniper rifle on a low roof next to him. “Holy crap. Did…Did you just do that?”

“Yes.” They projected a “:D”.

“That was actually pretty badass.”

They didn’t respond, only moved to a higher position, taking out another pair of bandits the same way, then a third with a headshot.

If he didn’t know better, he would have thought they were showing off. But there was no way they cared what he thought, right? It was worth testing. Rhys was well-practiced in the art of sycophancy. “You, uh, you think you could hit that guy way down there before Krieg gets to him? The one taking cover behind the crates.”

The bandit in question was on the other side of camp, firing at Krieg as he charged. Only a small portion of his head was visible.

A second after he said it, they’d shot, and the bandit’s head vanished in a spray of red. Krieg slowed to a stop, with a bellow of “Disappointed!”

“Nice!” The enthusiasm in his voice wasn’t hard to fake. He never expected Zer0 might actually be easy to win over.

“As I said before. / You need not participate. / I’ve got this handled.”

“Right, clearly.” It was the same on Helios, flattery didn’t get you respect in return. Still, if he’d swallowed his pride and sucked up to Vasquez, the man wouldn’t have tried to blow him up. Zer0 was more the “literal backstabber” type, but still, the point stood.

———

Captain Flynt, leader of the Fleshripper bandits, was the last thing standing between the Vault hunters and the mainland. He’d made his throne on a wrecked freighter sitting precariously atop an icy clifftop. Rhys lost count of how many the group had killed on the trek through the surrounding camps and the climb up to the ship’s deck. At that point, a reasonable person would surrender. Captain Flynt wasn’t a reasonable person.

Claptrap had raced in ahead of the rest of them, waiting at the top of the ramp that led to the ship’s deck. “Yoohoo! Minions, this way!” He waved them on impatiently.

Maya stopped there. “We should go in with a plan. One would have to be pretty hard to kill to lead a bandit clan of this size for more than a week, and Hammerlock claims he’s tough.”

Zer0 barely glanced at her as they moved on after Claptrap.

“I was thinking we shoot him full of bullets. Until he dies.” Salvador said, passing her.

“Yeah, that was more or less what I was gonna say?.” Axton stopped for only a moment, hesitating before jogging after Zer0. “Sorry, not about to let them get all the glory!” he called over his shoulder.

“I need to get keelhauled!” Krieg followed the other three.

“Hey, wait up!” Gaige had the decency to look guilty as she passed. “Sorry, Maya, but I mean, we have more guns?”

Rhys could only offer a shrug. “For what it’s worth, I was onboard with the ‘having a plan’ plan.”

The battle was underway by the time he and Maya caught up. Flynt wasn’t alone, at least twenty more bandits fought alongside him. He was unmistakable among his cohorts. The man dwarfed even Krieg–but part of that might have been the thick, padded suit and the tall horns atop his helmet. He wielded both a flamethrower and an entire anchor with ease. Also, he was on fire, which didn’t seem to bother him.

Yesterday, Rhys might have stayed on the ledge overlooking the deck, never directly joining battle. Today, he had a promotion and a turbomansion to look forward to, and DARGH to think of. Amazing what getting contacted personally by Handsome Jack could do to a guy. At least, it was enough to make Rhys hop down onto deck–only to slip on a patch of ice and fall on his face. Thankfully, this went unnoticed. The bandits were too occupied with those who got there before him. Each Vault hunter seemed to be fighting their own battle. Huge plumes of fire intermittently shot up from the vents in the deck, leaving thick clouds of smoke in its wake. Maya was already further up, he saw a flash of purple lift Flynt into the air. A buzzaxe-wielding bandit took notice of him as he was getting to his feet. Rhys shot him as he charged, and he stumbled to the ground and didn’t rise again. Then a second bandit was shooting at him. Bullets whizzed past his face, barely missing. Finding flimsy cover behind a wooden crate, he returned fire. Either one of Rhys’s bullets hit the mark, or someone else’s did. Regardless, that bandit fell too.

He got another glimpse of Flynt near the broken edge of the ship. Zer0 was behind him, sword bearing down at his back. Flynt turned, delivering a blow with his anchor that knocked them off their feet. He lifted the anchor, ready to bring it down on them. Flames went up. Rhys fired a few shots where he’d seen Flynt. The fire faded. Flynt was running at Salvador, whose pair of shotguns seemed to do little to slow him. No sign of Zer0.

“Krieg, come on! You’re in the way!” He heard Axton before he saw him. He was shooting over a pile of crates. His turret was perched on a crate firing at Flynt, only, Krieg was in front of its target.

Fire again. A flaming bandit came rushing out of a nearby vent, screaming in agony. Rhys backed up, pulled the trigger. Out of ammo. The bandit fell anyway. He ducked behind cover. His shotgun held only two shots in it, and he’d never actually used it before. It would be better to stay here and wait for the fighting to stop. He heard more screaming–a voice that had to be Gaige’s.

Could be a hero. That’d be worth points.

He moved along the intact edge–towards the screams, trying to keep track of Flynt. The jet of fire from his flamethrower gave him away on the far side of the ship.

When he found Gaige she was crouched behind a junk pile, reloading her submachine gun. Her robot was fighting off a bandit on the other side. Another three bandits lay dead nearby.

“You okay?” he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the battle. She was soaked in sweat and covered in ash but otherwise, she looked okay.

She gave him a strange look, then turned to finish that last bandit.

He ducked down next to her. “I–someone was screaming. Was that Maya?” It hadn’t sounded like Maya.

“Oh! Yeah, that was me! Look at this shit.” She stuck out her leg. Her nylon tights had partially burned away, revealing her calf red and blistered beneath it. “Hurt like a bitch!” She’d sounded like she was being murdered. “Right. So you’re not in any immediate trouble?”

“Nope. You’re bleeding, by the way. Like a lot.” She turned back to the battle. It was quieter now.

“Haha, what?” He looked down, not seeing any blood on him. “No, I’m not.” “Your face.”

He was so soaked in sweat, it took a moment to find the blood on the right of his face, longer to find the gash starting at his temple and ending just past his ear. He hadn’t felt it until now, but suddenly his body seemed to remember that this was supposed to hurt. “Oh jeez… How…How bad is it?” “I think you just got grazed, dude. You’re fine.”

“Owwww…” It burned.

Gaige, put away her gun, getting to her feet. “Anyway, I think we’re done?”

Clutching his head, he followed her lead. There were dead bandits everywhere. On the far side was Flynt, lying in a heap on the deck. Flames had stopped coming up from the vents. “Huh, wonder if he was like, remotely controlling the fire somehow…”

“Dunno.” Rhys couldn’t find it in himself to be that curious right now. He couldn’t remember the last time so much blood was coming out of him. “First time being shot?” Axton joined him and Gaige as they crossed the deck to meet with the others.

“Kinda hope it’s my last.” Axton laughed. “Good luck with that.” He looked him up and down. “Hell, did you ever get a shield?”

“Couldn’t find one.” “Why didn’t you say something?” Axton stopped, opening his storage deck holoscreen. He was using his left hand, his right hung at his side, covered in blood.

“Kind of got the sense that uh, begging would be a bad look?”

Axton shrugged. “This isn’t Hyperion. And I mean, a little more to the left and you’d be dead.” He’d produced a Tediore shield, handing it to Rhys.

“Thanks.” He clipped it to his belt.

They passed Salvador, looting a corpse. “Y’all see what happened to Zer0?” he asked. “Cuz if they’re dead, I already called dibs on that gun. The acid one.”

Rhys glanced at where he’d last seen them, half expecting their mangled corpse. They weren’t there, but between the sheer number of corpses and trash on deck, they could still be dead and he’d just missed them. He didn’t feel like looking so hard, his head hurt.

Maya and Krieg waited outside the deckhouse, beneath Flynt’s throne. Krieg sat on a still-panic-moded Claptrap. A buzzaxe was half buried in his shoulder, and Maya was trying to calm him enough to pull it out. She scowled when she saw them. “Couldn’t have spent a few minutes trying to coordinate an attack?”

“Hey, the guy’s dead, right? And we’re alive.” Axton radiated self-satisfaction.

“Hell yeah, you are!” Claptrap popped out of his panic-mode, almost knocking Krieg over as he rolled out to gloat over Flynt’s corpse. “Take that, Flynt! My minions are certified badasses!”

Maya ignored Claptrap, grabbing the buzzaxe’s hand with both hands. “Your turret drained Krieg’s shield.” She gritted her teeth as she yanked the blade out.

“No! I needed that there!” Krieg protested. The wound already began to knit together before Maya jabbed a hypo in the flesh near it. “Augh! How will I find anything now?!”

She ignored that too. “Not to mention, if I hadn’t made it in time, Salvador would have gotten crushed by that anchor. And, I have no idea where Zer0 went.”

“Another one into the pit!” That one took her a moment. “Wait, they went over the side?”

Krieg tensed, grabbed his head, and then managed an exaggerated nod. “Anchors aweigh!” Crap.” She looked around at the others. “There’s more hypos inside, get yourselves fixed up. I’m going back for Zer0.”

Inside the deckhouse was what once was a lounge for the crew, when this was still a functioning corporate cargo ship. Now, maybe it was still a lounge, but hanging from the ceiling were bouquets of human skulls, and staked to the dart board was a man’s corpse, dead at least a few weeks. After the bandit camps, this kind of decor seemed pretty standard. Rhys took a seat on one of the lopsided, threadbare couches opposite the corpse. At least it was cold enough it didn’t smell, much.

Gaige, Salvador, and Axton were going through the chests and crates that lined that wall, arguing over loot. “I did get the kill, so y’know, I think I should get the shotgun.” “You only got the kill because my turret softened him up!”

“Oh come on, you guys killed one guy, me and Deathtrap killed like, a gazillion of them while you were fighting him.”

“Those little guys? I was saving them for after.”

“Yeah, they weren’t exactly our primary objective.”

“So next time I should just let them shoot at you? Cuz I totally will.”

Rhys tuned them out, absently studying the crude map next to the dartboard corpse as he tried to distract himself from the pain. The map must have been made by one of the bandits, it was an indecipherable mess, there was no way it was to scale. Was that supposed to be the ocean? Then that there would probably be Sanctuary… But what was that thing in the center? It didn’t match up with the maps he studied in his ECHOeye, but maps of border planets tended to be lacking…

“Oh, right, Rhys!” Axton crossed the room to him, holding out a hypo. There was a bullet hole in his forearm, rapidly closing up as he offered it. “Hate to see a face like that go to necrosis.”

He took it with a “Right, thanks so much,” and a forced smile. It was only once his face started to heal that he realized Axton had probably been flirting with him. He didn’t know what to do with that fact, did it still count as a win for DARGH? Did that mean he was doing a good job winning these people over, or should he just take it as a testament to his looks?

It was then that Zer0 finally limped into the cabin, just ahead of Maya. They crossed the room without looking at any of the others. “The path is open. / We board Claptrap’s freakin’ boat. / And get out of here.” They sounded pissed.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” Claptrap said as he followed them. “Let's board me mighty vessel and kiss the shelf goodbye!”

“Woah, wait, Zer0, You alright, dude?” Axton asked.

“Yes,” they said.

“Cause I have like, one more insta-health here.” He held up another hypo, smirking.

“Give me it.” “I dunno. If you’re okay, I might save it for later. Does our untouchable assassin really need some healing?”

Zer0’s hand closed around the hilt of their sword. “You have eyes.”

“Axton, just give them the damn instahealth.” Maya stepped in.

Axton sighed, and Zer0 snatched it up. “This feels like enabling their crap, y’know?”

———

Considering that the boat they were to take belonged to Claptrap, Rhys expected the prize to be some sad little dinghy. He wasn’t well-versed on boats, but it had actually probably been some sort of fishing trawler. He wasn’t sure how a Claptrap would end up with something like that, but it had SS Claptrap spray painted on it. It was a good-sized boat, even with eight passengers there was space to spare. Sturdy, too, though that didn’t make Rhys feel much better as they lowered it into the water from a pair of cranes attached to Flynt’s wreck. He clung to the side as it was slowly lowered into the water, wondering if the shield would save him from falling to his death. Every bump felt like it might be the end, but somehow the ship touched down without incident.

“So, how long is it to the mainland?” Gaige asked when they finally got moving.

“Fifteen hours! But don’t worry chums, I’m sure it’ll pass in a flash! I know some great boat trip games!”

“Ugh. If anyone needs me I’m gonna go over there and tune up Deathtrap.”

“Yeah, uh, shouldn’t you be steering? Keep us from hitting any icebergs, or something?” Rhys tried.

“You’re absolutely right! I guess you guys can have fun, I’ll provide the background music. Just gotta load up some sea shanties, and it’ll be a party in no time!”

Rhys just hoped that Pandora wasn’t home to any horrific sea monsters. Before anything else, he found a tiny little bathroom in the boat’s cabin, a mirror on the door. There was a sink, but no water ran through it. Instead, he was stuck wiping what blood and sweat he could get off with his sleeve–Maybe Sanctuary would have actual laundry machines.

It was then that Vaughn called him back, the notification lit up in his ECHOeye. He ignored it, no telling what the Vault hunters would do if they caught him communicating with someone on Helios. A moment later he got the voicemail and played it directly into his implants.

“Holy shit, Rhys. I just saw your message. I’m so glad you’re okay. Or, I hope you’re okay. I’m gonna choose to believe you’re not answering because you are busy actively surviving that hellhole. What happened? Where are you? Can we do anything to help? Yvette can send down supplies? You, uh, you don’t have to worry about us. Get this, Vasquez disappeared, his nameplate’s gone, office cleaned out, no one knows what’s going on. But supposedly, he got called in for a meeting with Jack, and you know… Try to get back up here soon. And don’t drink the water down there! Or eat anything weird. Call me back. If you’re still alive, I mean.”

Rhys texted a reply, practicing with the ECHOeye functionality he’d used to message Jack: “Still alive. Can’t call you, I’m surrounded by bandits. We’ve reached an understanding though, they trust me. I’m not going to be in mortal danger anytime soon unless I start openly talking to someone on Helios.”

The text response from Vaughn came a minute later: “Holy shit, dude. Are you sure they’re not planning to eat you? I heard Pandora is chock full of cannibals.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, still, you should really find a Hyperion base or something.” “I’ll keep an eye out.” A lie, but he wasn’t about to give too much away.

“I gotta get back to work, Don’t want anyone else up here getting called into Jack’s office. I’ll message later. But seriously, you need anything, let me or Yvette know.” “Yep. See you later.” He had to smile–Vaughn had nothing to worry about up there, Jack had already done him a favor and gotten Vasquez out of the way. He played this right and he could get his friends comfy, safe positions before this was over.

He passed Axton on his way out of the cabin, already napping on one of the little cots.

Outside, the rest of them were keeping their distance from each other. Krieg was at the prow of the ship, yelling incoherently at the sea ahead. Maya sat on a crate nearby, somehow ignoring him enough to be reading a book. Gaige worked on her robot, disassembled parts laid out across the deck in front of her. Salvador was cleaning his shotgun. Zer0 was just leaning against the side of the boat, arms crossed, things like “B0R3D”, “...”, and “UGH” occasionally flashing over their helm.

Claptrap, at least, was too occupied with steering to bother anyone with more than singing.

Everyone still seemed too tense to approach, but he still had a lot of material on the Hyperion database that may or may not come in handy to study. He sat down leaning against the cabin’s outer wall, and pulled up an entry of their destination, Three Horns.

“Three Horns is a small region named for its three stone crags. Ringed by mountains to the east and precipitous cliffs to the west, the area is…”

“That should be removed.” Zer0’s voice interrupted his reading. They were kneeling in front of him. “Before we reach the city. / It may get you killed.”

“Wha..?” He closed out of the ECHOeye entry. “What?”

They poked his chest. “Oh. Yeah.” It barely peered out under the bandit’s jacket, only the “Hy” visible, but it was undeniably Hyperion’s logo on his vest

“In Sanctuary / I hear they find clever ways / Of killing your kind.” They projected a “;)”.

“Right…” It was a nice vest. Expensive, hardy. He couldn’t just throw the whole thing out. But he could probably cut through the stitching. “You’ve got a knife or something?”

“Yes,” they said.

He waited. They made no move to offer him anything.

“Can I use it?”

They cocked their head, seeming to consider for a moment. “No.” They stood and returned to their prior spot.

After half an hour of fighting with the label, he’d managed to pull it a third of the way off. Hyperion stitching was good. He was considering resorting to using his teeth when a folded pocket knife landed in front of him. He looked up to see Zer0, and took the knife with a “Thanks? Wish you’d given this to me before?”

The knife was marked “DAHL”.

“Er…Did…Did you steal this from Axton?”

“He is still sleeping. / If I were you, I’d work fast. / He will wake angry.” They projected a “:3”.

#zerhys #borderlands #tftbl #zer0 the assassin #rhys strongfork #fic #decepti0n

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