Chapter Text
Maya awoke to freezing cold. Disoriented and shivering, she struggled to open her eyes and could see little else save for an all-encompassing blizzard. She could hear someone talking, but between the roar of the snowstorm and the pounding in her head she couldn't make out the words or who was speaking.
How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was Roland's funeral, and Devil's Razor doesn't have any snow. Drugged and kidnapped then? It would explain why she felt so out of it, but she didn't seem to be otherwise restrained. If her hypothetical kidnappers were skilled enough to take her in the first place, surely they would have been smart enough to make sure a siren couldn't fight back when she woke up.
The fog clouding her mind was slowly fading, and she was finally able to look around and find the source of the voice. It was… Claptrap? How did he get here?
"Wait a minute—you're not dead!" Claptrap exclaimed when they made eye contact. "YES! Now I can get off this glacier! Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in!"
So it wasn't just her, Claptrap was stuck here too. Maya looked around some more and saw the other five Vault Hunters, all laying down in the snow in varying states of consciousness. No sign of any other Crimson Raiders or whoever brought them all here—yet.
"Allow me to introduce myself—I am a CL4P-TP steward bot, but my friends call me Claptrap! Or they would, if any of them were still alive. Or had existed in the first place! Oh—I've got something for you!"
What.
"Here take this ECHO communicator that I totally didn't loot from one of these corpses." She took it from his outstretched hand it without thinking. "It comes with a class 12 heads-up display. Complete with a mini map! I have enough for all of you! Now—come, come, friends. Let's get you inside."
The.
"Man! This is GREAT! Now that I've met some might Vault Hunters, I can finally join the resistance in Sanctuary, take vengeance against Jack for killing my product line, and repair my central processor so I stop thinking out loud! I wonder what it's like to have a belly button."
Fuck.
Claptrap took off in the direction of his house. She looked at the others to confirm if that really just happened or she was just hallucinating. Zer0's visor was lit up with a "O_o" while the rest shared her bewildered expression. Okay, so Claptrap did just introduce himself and imply Jack was still alive.
"Why," Axton groaned, clutching his head. "Is Claptrap acting like we just met?"
"MY HEAD SCREAMS WITH VISIONS OF BLOOD FOUNTAINS AND PUS!"
"Thank you for your insight, Krieg, but can you please keep it down? All of our heads are screaming right now," Maya asked as she stood up. The world turned beneath her and her legs threatened to give out.
"The meat cannot be silenced, but I will let the storm wash away the blood for now," Krieg answered at a reasonable volume.
"Thanks… I think?" Maya replied with a slight smile.
"This is some sort of prank, right?" Gaige asked. "Like, haha we're going to kidnap you in the middle of the night, drop you off in Windshear Waste, and have Claptrap act like you just arrived on Pandora! Haha got ya! Right?"
"I'm not too certain/His words were verbatim and/Claptrap can't lie well."
"So… what? Whoever brought us here also messed with Claptrap's memory?" Maya asked. "Is that possible?"
"Oh definitely! Reprogramming a CL4P-TP unit wouldn't be too hard for someone at least a little familiar with Hyperion tech," Gaige replied.
"Ow, mi cabeza," Salvador grumbled as he finally gathered the energy to sit up. "How much did I have to drink last night?"
"Morning, Sal. Moxxi cut you off around midnight, but it seems like that's not the only reason your head hurts. How much did you hear?" Axton offered his hand to Sal and pulled him up to stand with them.
"I heard enough. We're in the middle of a blizzard for some reason and something's wrong with Claptrap, though the last part seems a little redundant."
"Yeah, that about covers it. So far, we think whoever kidnapped us reprogrammed Claptrap and deleted his memories or something. That probably means they work for Hyperion and want revenge," Axton said.
"Either that, or we traveled back in time!" Gaige suggested. When their only response was to glare at her, she threw her arms up in the air. "What? Crazy things happen to us all the time!"
Axton gave her his best "disappointed big brother stare" and she crossed her arms and pouted.
"Fine, but can we at least continue this conversation somewhere we won't get frostbite? It's freaking cold out here!" Gaige rubbed the part of her shoulder that connected to her metal arm. It had gathered a thin layer of frost from laying buried in the snow for who knows how long.
"Gaige has a point, we won't get anything done by standing around and talking. We should go catch up with Claptrap, even if it is probably a trap," Maya conceded.
"Agreed," Zer0 said.
The dizziness had mostly passed and simply the act of walking was enough to help get Maya's blood flowing and warm her up. She could just about see the giant "Welcome" sign through the snow when her blood froze for a reason completely unrelated to the temperature.
The color blue filled the center of her vision as she saw Angel's face in her mind.
"I'll explain everything soon, but know this—you're alive for a reason, and I am here to help you."
She and the blue—siren blue—disappeared with smile just as quickly as she appeared.
Angel.
Maya stopped walking. Everybody stopped walking.
"We all saw that, right?" Axton whispered, eyes a mix of shock and fear.
"Angel's still alive," Gaige whispered too, but her voice was more cautious, like simply speaking it out loud risked it being taken from her.
"'Still' is not correct/Definitely time travel/She hasn't died yet."
"Wait… are you saying you think I was right?" Gaige asked.
Zer0 responded with ":)" and a nod.
"I thought Gaige was just messing around, but I can't think of any other explanation for what just happened," Sal said. "How could someone else use Angel's powers? And how could they know exactly what Angel said to us the first time?"
"Guys this is great and all but can we pleeeeeease continue this conversation inside?" Gaige complained. She was shivering and bouncing up and down a little. "C'mon people, walk and talk!"
"I WILL RELEASE THE BURNING FLAMES OF MY TORMENT AND BATHE THE RED AND BLACK IN ASH!" Krieg screamed as he pulled out an incendiary SMG.
"Uh, no thanks, Krieg. I'll be okay, you don't need to do that," Gaige watched Krieg slowly put away his gun. She started walking towards Claptrap's place again and the rest of the Vault Hunters followed. A little while later, Gaige spoke up again. "Hey, if Angel is alive, doesn't that mean Roland is too? Do you think we can-"
"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves," Maya said, cutting her off. Honestly, she had the same thought, but there were too many unknowns. They still didn't know why or how they got here, or if they were only here temporarily. "We don't even know if we can change anything, or there may be horrible unforeseen consequences if we try. Until we know more about what's going on, we should make sure no one knows about this."
Maya looked up and could just about make out Helios Station through the snow, looming high up in orbit over Pandora. "And we shouldn't be talking about this where we could be overheard anyway."
As they got to the door, Claptrap opened the door for them and said something Maya assumed wasn't actually meant to be so insulting, but now she's known Claptrap long enough to just tune him out. He continued to ramble on about Windshear Waste and Jack and Knuckle Dragger as she and the rest of the Vault Hunters made their way inside.
Axton and Sal made themselves busy pocketing the cash on Claptrap's poker table. The dead CL4P-TP units posed around the table didn't phase them this time around; Oasis had dialed this level of crazy up to eleven, and by that point they were so used to Pandoran standards of sanity that not even Shade stood out as especially crazy. Gaige made a bee-line for the furnace and let out an over-exaggerated sigh of relief as she warmed up. Zer0 was leaned up against a short cabinet on the far side of the room, a hand resting on the handle, just waiting for Claptrap to shut up.
Maya decided to join Gaige by the fire and the warmth was a welcome relief from the blizzard outside. She thought Krieg was following her to warm up too, but when she turned around, the psycho had stopped short a few yards away in the center of the room. His head was tilted up, eyes following the furnace's chimney up higher and higher to the gap in the ice roof.
Oh shit.
Before she could stop Krieg, Knuckle Dragger crashed down through the ceiling and grabbed Claptrap in one of its four giant hands. It jumped back up, hanging onto the chimney with one hand, and roared. Krieg roared right back and threw a buzz axe at the bullymong before it could rip Claptrap's eye out. Knuckle Dragger dropped the robot and leaped down to attack Krieg. Claptrap took the opportunity to scream and run away—well, run as much as robot with a wheel could—to go hide in a corner where he could cower in fear until the fighting stopped. Everyone competent in the room meanwhile pulled out a gun to help their psycho teammate.
This time, they were armed with much more than some crappy green Dahl pistol. Maya phaselocked the bullymong before it could reach Krieg, her siren powers engulfing it in a storm of elemental damage as it was suspended in mid air. The others immediately took the opportunity of an immobile opponent to unleash a hail of bullets upon the bullymong, much more in sync with each other after all they had been through on Pandora.
Their first time fighting Knuckle Dragger had been full of panic and near-miss friendly fire, unused to fighting together. They had all been injured in the train crash that left them stranded on Windshear Waste with no gear—Salvador had dislocated his left shoulder, Axton and Gaige's digistruct devices had been broken, Maya herself had been too drained to use her then-unpracticed siren powers—but now they were all at full strength, any side effects of having apparently time traveled faded.
The phaselock ended and Knuckle Dragger hit the ground and let out another roar, heading right toward Maya. It was knocked back by a rocket from a turret that suddenly digistructed between them, sending Knuckle Dragger crashing through a table, poker chips flying everywhere, and enveloping Maya in the Phalanx Shield the turret surrounded itself with. Maya gave Axton a thumbs up and he responded with finger guns and a wink.
The bullymong quickly recovered and picked up a nearby couch and hurled it at the commando, but Axton simply deployed his second turret which took the impact for him. It charged again, but for who Maya couldn’t say since as soon as it started to move, Krieg chucked another buzzaxe, this one lodging itself right between its eyes, stunning it. Zer0 appeared from nowhere, his sword embedded deep in the bullymong's back. When the assassin pulled out his sword, Knuckle Dragger fell to the floor, dead.
Badass or not, Knuckle Dragger didn't stand a chance. No one even got hurt.
Axton nudged the trembling robot with his boot. "It's okay, Claptrap. Knuckle Dragger's dead."
Claptrap cautiously opened his eye and released his arms and wheel from where they were hidden inside his body like an annoying turtle coming out of its shell. He looked around, eye settling on the corpse of the badass laying on his floor.
"Holy skag balls! You guys… You… totally wrecked my house!"
He took off in a sudden burst of speed, zipping from place to place to inspect every busted shelf or pool of blood or crack in the icy walls.
"There are bullet holes everywhere! How are the walls supposed to keep out the cold with a thousand little windows that open out into a blizzard!?"
Maya rolled her eyes. She wasn't sure why she was surprised.
"There's bullymong blood soaking into the couch! Do you know how hard it is to get that stuff out of upholstery!? Because I don't, and I really hope it's easier than motor oil."
"Aren't you leaving here/To go to Sanctuary?/Why does it matter?"
Claptrap nearly fell over as he came to an abrupt stop. He regained his balance and turned to face Zer0.
"Becaaaaause, my new, ominously faceless minion: if you're going to be my army of minions, I'm going to have to teach you to have more respect for your master's property."
Gaige leaned over Axton and whispered, "Oh no, he's doing the minion thing again. Can we just leave him here this time?"
Axton let out a quiet laugh and whispered back, "Aw c'mon, he's not that bad. Plus we did actually need him a few times."
"For example!" Claptrap continued. "I have a gun in that cabinet over there for emergencies. Obviously, I was planning on wielding it myself and valiantly fighting my way to the Crimson Raiders as a one robot army. But now that I have all of you at my disposal, I don't need to bother with something so menial. I can get you chumps to do it! So someone go grab that gun, because the FleshRippers have my ship and we can't reach Sanctuary without it!"
Zer0 returned to the cabinet he had been standing by before Knuckle Dragger attacked and retrieved Claptrap's gun. They headed out the back exit and Zer0 chucked the crappy pistol over the edge of a snowbank as soon as Claptrap's back was turned.
Then Jack started talking.
If they hadn't already heard from Angel, Maya isn't sure how she would've handled a capitalist dictator essentially back from the dead hacking their ECHO's to taunt and threaten them. She wasn't sure what Handsome Jack would do with the knowledge that they were all experiencing this for the second time, but it couldn't be good. If Angel heard what they were saying when they first woke up, she had to trust she wouldn't share it with her father.
Maya looked down at the blue tattoos that swirled and twisted their way up her left arm to her chest and down her left side. She could trust Angel, right? Even though she hadn't yet begun to outwardly defy her father, she still never wanted to help him. She had to.
They had already changed things. Claptrap's eye was never stolen. They killed Knuckle Dragger in Claptrap's house instead of the entrance to the Southern Shelf. Maybe they could change important things too.
"We're going to help you," Maya whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear.
The group soon arrived in Liarsberg, cleared out the bullymongs and bandits with no issue, met Hammerlock (again?), and turned the town's power back on. Hammerlock had some other jobs for them to do, but they already had shields and, honestly, they just wanted to be able to talk in private. The ride to Three Horns Divide on Claptrap's boat would be the perfect opportunity. So before they knew it, they had already re-killed Boom and Bewm, and were fighting their way up to Captain Flynt.
They did their best not to talk to each other. Between their silent agreement to make sure Jack didn't find out and the knowledge their every move was being watched, it was better safe than sorry. Any offhand comment that was accidentally too prescient could clue Jack into the fact that something wasn't right. Knowledge of what was going to happen was their biggest advantage and they couldn't afford to lose it.
They reached the deck of Captain Flynt's ship, all of them ready to fight the FleshRipper's leader. More bandits were pouring out of hatches and vents on the deck, ready to help. Captain Flynt jumped down from his throne at the ship's stern and became engulfed in flames. The Vault Hunters raised their weapons, but Salvador stepped in front of them and held up his hand.
"You five deal with the little ones, the big guy is all mine," the gunzerker said with a cocky grin.
"You sure, Sal?" Axton asked, but he was grinning too.
"Yeah," Sal replied, pulling out a slag pistol Moxxi had given him a while back for helping Mordecai stay sober. Personally, he had wanted to give the booze to Mordecai, but he was glad to have been overruled once he got his hands on Rubi. "I'll be fine."
Axton laughed and gave him a friendly slap on the back. "Have fun," he said and everyone other than Salvador got to work on dealing with the bandits.
"Over here, moron!" Salvador yelled, flipping off Captain Flynt with his free hand. "Bet you can't kill me!"
Once Flynt's full attention was on him, Sal pulled out his favorite gun to duel wield with Rubi, his favorite gun in general, really. Legendary Torgue pistol, the Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold. Matching grip too. It cost him a pretty penny at the Badass Crater of Badassitude, but it was so worth all the bar brawl rounds he had to do. This would be over quickly.
Sal laughed manically as Flynt used his flamethrower to douse the gunzerker in flames. He stood his ground and focused on pelting Flynt with the explosive bullets of his Harold and keeping him slagged with Rubi, not caring when the flames eventually depleted his shield and began to lick at his flesh. He couldn't even feel it, too focused on turning the living person in front of him into dead person in front of him. By the time the rest of his team had finished off the small horde of bandits, Captain Flynt was already lying dead, his flames extinguished.
"What took you guys so long?" Salvador shouted, still thrumming with adrenaline.
"Hey, we had to fight like twenty guys! You only had one!" Gaige shouted back.
"You shooting the ground/hoping for ricochet hits/was unrelated?" Zer0 asked, projecting a ":P" at her.
"It's a viable strategy! And you're one to talk, beanpole. I'm not the one who takes five million years to line up a single shot!" Gaige launched herself at the assassin, intending to tackle him, but she passed right through him. The hologram disappeared and Zer0 reappeared next to Maya, his helmet now projecting "LOL."
"Better luck next time/And killing three with one shot/is satisfying."
Maya didn't flinch when Zer0 suddenly appeared at her side. She had a feeling he enjoyed startling unsuspecting people by ending his invisibility too close to them, not that he would ever admit it. Unfortunately for Zer0, Maya knew him too well. Zer0 flitting in and out of sight like a mostly-friendly stalker was a part of Maya's life now. Axton and Krieg joined in the debate of which fighting style was the best. As she watched her friends bicker and laugh like a dysfunctional, murderous family, she knew she wouldn't have it any other way.
She slung an arm around Zer0's shoulders. "Alright guys, enough. Claptrap's waiting for us and there's a boat ride to Three Horns with our name on it. We can finish this conversation while we're on the way to Sanctuary." She gave everyone a pointed look with her last statement. Maya was anxious to sit down with everyone to talk about their situation and, more importantly, what they were going to do moving forward. Judging by the way the chatter died down immediately, she wasn't the only one.
The six of them piled into the boat's small cabin. Claptrap left them there to make his way to the bridge and the boat lurched as the chains connecting it to Flynt's ship began to slowly lower them down to the water below. Once Maya was sure Claptrap was too busy at the helm to barge in on them, she held up her ECHO and very deliberately turned it off when she was sure everyone was watching. They all followed suit and Maya took a deep breath.
"Okay. So. The universe didn't collapse," she said. "So I guess now we make a plan."