bakerstreet | ( quote prompt )

[ Pandora is a shithole.

There’s not much to recommend the planet in general, honestly. For one, there are any number of things that might kill a man where he stands. There’s your basics, of course: bandits crawling out of practically every dark shadow, who will slaughter a man if they like his belt buckle, or the literal psychopaths, who will kill you just for breathing. Then, there’s your not-so-basics: the giant, territorial, bloodthirsty creatures covering the planet’s surface. From giant, four-armed beasts, to dog-like, acid-spitting creatures, to giant, burrowing worms who burst from the dirt, creating vacuums to draw a man into its maw.

Pandora ain’t for the faint of heart, that’s for damn sure.

It’s not a life Faraday imagined for himself, really, but here he is anyway. Not running, exactly, but wandering his way here. A bit of a safe haven from the idiots trying to chase him down after he had swindled them of their hard-earned cash. Rare were the folks who tracked him this far, and rarer still were those who braved landing on the planet in search of revenge.

Most of the time, Faraday didn’t even have to lift a finger; the locals, man and beast alike, tended to take care of the issue for him.

But there’s good money to be made on Pandora, and folks in need of every scrap they can get. Faraday’s the exact right kind of stupid to take the jobs that others (who were probably wiser and had stronger senses of self-preservation) wouldn’t. Research and revenge and retrieval. Protection, sometimes, or a more proactive approach, paving the way with gunfire and grenades. Folks slapped the title of Vault Hunter on him, and as with most things, he shrugged into it and thought, Sure, why the hell not?

Sanctuary's decent, as far as cities go. It's far less of a dump than most of the other little shanty-towns littering the badlands are, and the presence of both the best bar and one of the best arms dealers on the godforsaken planet certainly helps its case.

Plus? The floating is neat.

Faraday steps into Moxxi's to a few fond, drunken shouts of greeting. He hasn't yet worn out his welcome, thanks to frequent trips out of Sanctuary's protective shield; he figures it's only a matter of time before he'll be forced to find his way to another planet. For now, though he offers the men a bright grin before scanning the crowd and plopping into a seat at the bar.

Right next to Maya.

They've worked together pretty often, seen a lot of the same weird shit together – from collecting little statuettes across the Dust, to burning alive crazy-ass cultists in the Frostburn Canyon, to kidnapping psychos for tea parties in the Tundra Express. That, Faraday supposes, makes them something like kindred spirits.

Mostly, he likes when she pops bastards up in an extra-dimensional kill-bubble. ]

And how's my favorite Siren today?

[ Maya loves Pandora.

It's a shithole, sure, but boy, it's a fun shithole. She has the freedom to go wherever she wants, do whatever she wants; she can learn and explore and raise hell, and there's no one around to try and bottle her up again. She burns bright and fierce, and only for herself – and heaven help anyone stupid enough to get in her way.

The planet is a wasteland of lawlessness, probably the most inhospitable place she's ever seen – but, then again, she can only compare it to Athenas, and considering she has a whole lot more freedom around Pandora and no one is trying to use her to keep an entire population in constant terror, she'll take the psychos and whatever else may want to eat her. She'll take a bullymong (primal beast? ferovore? bonerfart?) over some asshole monks any day. The best part, though, is that she's getting in plenty of practice with all those impressive skills she's been training up all her life. She finally has the opportunity to use her powers, and it's so. Damn. Fun.

Maya loves every second.

But still, she also came to Pandora to find out more about herself, to try and dig up shards of her lineage. It's not going too great, other than finding herself pointed in the direction of some alien Vault, and, well... that's netted her a whole new level of trouble. But she rolls with the punches, finds herself falling into odd jobs with odder people, and she's making do.

Of those odd people, she's at least found that one is slightly less odd. Faraday isn't the worst person she could have ended up working beside, and he's a damn good shot – not to mention, seeing the same weird shit together has kind of let them bond.

Or something.

Maya doesn't know how this friendship thing is supposed to work, but since she doesn't (always) want to shoot Faraday in the head, that probably means they're friends? They've gotten each other out of more than their fair share of tough spots, and he's still the first person she goes to when something new and weird crops up.

Today, however, he shows up first.

She's absently swirling around a glass of whiskey – which she's kind of getting used to? sort of? not really – but she doesn't have to look over to know that Faraday's arrived. The rousing shouts have her rolling her eyes, but an amused little smile is still tugging at her lips when she looks over to Faraday. ]

Oh, you know. Killing time. Waiting for something interesting to show up so I can have an excuse to get out of here.

[ And because she hasn't made even a dent in her drink, she slides it across the bar top to leave in front of him.

Enjoy, because she's not really going to. ]

[ Apparently even this exchange is old hat by now, and he takes the offered drink without a second thought; doesn't even offer an, "Are you sure?" before he takes a healthy swig. The glass thunks dully against the bar top. ]

Well, I've got somethin' not entirely mind-numbin', if you'll settle for that.

[ He pulls an ECHO recorder from the digistruct device clipped to his belt, placing it on the countertop between them. A gruff man's voice plays through the ECHO recorder, something pained and labored; someone's dying breath, it seems like. It's a familiar story by now: someone wanting revenge on some local gang of bandits who performed some especially egregious act of perversion, likely something involving the theft of someone's most prized stuffed cat. This time, though, the dying man wants vengeance taken against the men who slaughtered his modest little town and left the man for dead.

What's most interesting, of course, is the promise of money and some prized heirloom pistol, all locked away in a hidden safe in the man's basement.

When the recording finishes, Faraday tucks the ECHO recorder back into his little magic pocket, the item dissolving from his hand in blue light. ]

So I figure we go in, kill about a couple dozen idiots, and loot the place. Sound any fun to you?

[ Leave it to Faraday to find them something fun.

And by fun, Maya means something that involves shooting assholes.

She listens intently to the ECHO with a lifted eyebrow. On the one hand, it sounds like their employer is already dead, so she's not sure how interested she happens to be. On the other, he finishes off by promising them access to whatever they can find that's been left in the wake of the townspeople's deaths – along with that nifty pistol and all the money they can scrounge up.

She tilts her head thoughtfully, mulling it over— ]

Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do.

[ And, you know. Money. ]

[ He grins at that. ]

And that's why you're my favorite.

[ And with that stellar commendation, Faraday takes the glass and downs the rest of its contents. He sighs with the familiar burn that travels down his throat, cut with whatever cheap shit Moxxi throws in as filler. Rubbing alcohol, probably.

Faraday does his best not to think too hard on it. ]

Figure we split whatever cash we find sixty-forty, with yours truly gettin' the lion's share. You can keep whatever hand-me-down we find out there.

Mostly, I just want an excuse to try this out.

[ He draws a gun from his digistruct device – a Jakob's revolver with gold inlays and a birch grip. ]

Maya, this is Ethel. Ethel, this is Maya.

You're so generous.

[ Do you hear that sarcasm, Faraday? It's probably the verbal equivalent of a seconds-long phaselock. In all likelihood, she'll give the pistol a quick look, but then it'll end up in her digistruct until she can unload it at some crappy vending machine. Maybe that'll make up the difference of that 10% Faraday is hogging for himself.

Fortunately for their partnership, Maya isn't the type to pick a fight over a few measly bucks. A more volatile personality might take issue with Faraday's immediate assumption that he should come out with the better earnings, but as long as Maya can afford something for herself in the aftermath, she won't waste her breath.

(Mainly: books. She needs something new.)

But Faraday's still talking – a skill she can almost admire, since he seems to be able to use that silver tongue to wiggle his way into and out of otherwise sticky situations. Bullshitting isn't exactly Maya's strong suit, so she can appreciate it in other people.

To a point.

She watches as he produces a new gun, and okay, it's actually pretty. She looks genuinely impressed, if a little mystified by the name. ]

What, did you come up with that yourself?

Somethin' like that.

[ And he smiles that crooked sort of smile – the one that says he's either full of shit, or that he's holding his cards close to his chest. (In many cases, it's probably both.) He twirls the gun on his finger, a flourish that's nearly mindless at this point, and tucks the gun back away into his digistruct. ]

You still in?

[ Maya casts the bar one last look – like she's actually giving it a moment of thought – and then slides out of her seat to start towards the door.

She tosses over her shoulder, ]

If this turns into another weird tea party, I'm leaving you there.

[ He snorts out a laugh, shoving away from the bar to fall into step beside her. ]

More's the pity.

[ He shrugs, shaking his head almost ruefully. ]

Guess that leaves more pretend tea for me, then.

[ He casts the slot machines at the entrance a quick glance, eyes narrowed as he considers trying his luck – but he moves on, stepping past another familiar face just as they're arriving. Ricky, if memory serves (or was it Mickey?), and the two exchange nods as they pass by.

The bandit-infested town in question is off at a distant corner of Three Horns Valley, Faraday assumes it's little more than a few tin sheets propped up together in the vague shapes of houses, maybe some hollowed out portables left behind by the old mining operations. He doesn't expect much, honestly. Once the Fast Travel spits them out at the Happy Pig Motel, Faraday starts moving over to the Catch-a-Ride terminal.

He pauses in his step, then, slowly, with the sort of haunted look of someone who's been in a Runner that's been flipped one too many times by reckless handling, ]

How 'bout I do the drivin' this time?

[ Out of Sanctuary and deposited at that rundown little motel, Maya stays a step or two behind Faraday to watch his back, keeping her eyes on their surroundings. It didn't seem to matter where she went on Pandora, everything was shitty and inhospitable and dangerous; she's had things leap out of damned boxes at her, so she's learned not to let her guard down for long.

She only looks over again to Faraday when he speaks, and she raises one brow, her hand settling at her cocked hip. ]

I'm kind of getting the impression that you have a problem with my driving.

[ ... Which is actually fine, because Maya would rather handle the shooting, but she's a perfectly decent driver, thank you.

... "Decent." ]

[ Faraday shoots her a bright, roguish smile over his shoulder. ]

Only kinda? Guess I wasn’t bein’ clear enough, then.

[ And after that, he summons the Runner. It’s a new one every time, he knows, but he still pats the vehicle’s front wheel fondly, like he’s greeting an old friend. He turns back to Maya. ]

Need help into the gunner’s seat?

[ He 100% earns the sigh he gets out of her, but as soon as he asks if she needs the help up, she doesn't bother throwing him an exasperated look. She just grabs onto the car rail, hauling herself up and plopping into the gunner's seat in the same easy, single motion.

Leaning against the gun, she looks down at Faraday. ]

Waiting on you, cowboy.

[ With the kind of tone that says he's clearly holding them up – even if a little grin gives away her good humor. If he was that much of a pain in the ass, she wouldn't have bothered tagging along. ]

“Cowboy”? [ And he repeats it back with an amused, if startled, look, peering up at her where she perches in the gunner’s seat. He lets out a snort of a laugh, climbing into the driver’s seat. ] That’s a new one.

[ He’s surprised to find he doesn’t exactly mind it.

He throws the Runner into gear, heading toward the marker left on his map where the supposedly bandit-infested town now lies. Scooter’s vehicles tended to be a little... unruly, but Faraday has always insisted they just needed a sure hand, a bit of focus, and most importantly, a dogged adherence to using the phrase, “I meant to do that.”

It’s why he hardly blinks an eye when a skag bounds into his path and finds itself roadkill underneath the Runner’s wheels.

They make it across the area without incident, though, save for a few wandering bandits and a couple more skags finding themselves unceremoniously trampled and ignored as they drive past, and when they approach the area marked out by Faraday’s map, he slows the vehicle to a stop, leaving it some distance from the little town.

As he suspected, from this distance, it looks like a handful of tin sheds interspersed with a couple of weathered prefabs. It’s hard to mark out how many men are there, though he does see movement. He stands in the driver’s seat, propping an elbow up against the turret’s edge, and he cups his chin with his hand. With his free hand, he waves toward the town. ]

Tell me, Maya. What do your sniper scope-assisted Siren eyes see?

[ Fortunately for Faraday, Maya makes a great driving partner. She shoots when she needs to, keeps any wayward idiots off their asses, and whatever he runs over, she nails with a couple bullets, just to be sure. She eases up when they near their destination, not wanting to broadcast their arrival, and she finally leaves the turret alone to inspect the tinny little hovels that apparently count as a town.

Her rifle materializes from her digistruct, and she braces it against the turret's rail to start peering through her scope.

Men dot the landscape, but they're almost entirely off guard. Some chuck things into barrel fires, others are picking fights with each other over god knows what, but most are either dozing or chatting aimlessly. ]

They're being lazy assholes.

[ She says it blandly as she keeps a mental tally of everyone she picks out. ]

Looks like... maybe thirty.

[ But they've handled that before, and even more. It's hectic, inconvenient, but doable.

She doesn't pull her eye away from her scope, instead squaring up a meandering psycho in her digital assists. ]

Want me to start thinning the herd?

[ She could maybe get five or six before it swings into widespread chaos, but hey, a few less guys to deal with is never a bad thing. ]

[ He lets out a considering hum, his free hand tapping against his hip as he considers. ]

Thirty's not so bad, huh?

[ At her suggestion, he runs his hand down his beard, thinking it over, then, ]

Gimme a sec to get closer. If they start swarmin' out and you keep pickin' 'em off, that's not gonna leave me a whole lot to do, is it?

[ Be considerate, Maya.

He hops down from the Runner, picking out the husks of burnt out cars and half-walls that might have been barriers to the half-built roads. ]

Lemme get to that bit of cover over there, then you can start wreaking all the havoc your heart pleases.

Right. We wouldn't want you to get bored.

[ But she looks away from her sight to watch him hop down, following the line of the road up ahead to get an idea of where he intends to take cover. ]

I'll watch your back from here, and I'll move in before you go too deep.

[ She doesn't try to hide a crooked little smirk as she lifts one hand, letting a few bright sparks dance around her fingertips. ]

I can handle the crowd control.

[ He nods at that, apparently satisfied with the plan, bare bones as it is. Faraday wasn't much of a planner, most of the time; he was content to let others figure out strategy, while he put forth a few skeptical comments or clarifying questions.

He pushes off from the Runner when Maya puts on her little display, and he grins brightly up at her. ]

You know how much I love watchin' your kill-bubble at work.

[ And with that, he turns, making his way over to cover. Then, with one last call over his shoulder, ]

Try not to shoot me.

[ Maya extinguishes that prickling power, though she's ready to call it up at a moment's notice. Rather than point out how excellent her aim is or that she hasn't killed him yet, she settles on, ]

No promises.

[ Readying her rifle again, Maya finds her place behind the scope, lining up her first target. She's itching to get started, but she doesn't want Faraday at a disadvantage, so once she's confident he should be ready to roll, she has the bandit's head right in her crosshairs, slowly exhales, and—

The crack of the shot fills the air, and the man immediately crumples to the ground in a bloody heap. Considering he's missing about a fourth of his skull, Maya isn't too worried about him hopping up again, so she moves onto her next victim. Of course, it only takes the one to kick things into overdrive, and panicked, furious shouts rise steadily from the tin houses. It's mostly confusion as they try to figure out where the attack is coming from, and Maya uses their uncoordinated havoc to pick off another couple of assholes, watching with something like glee as they hit the ground, guns flying out of their hands.

(She makes a mental note to see if they have anything halfway decent later.) ]

[ That shot rings out just as he reaches that bit of cover, echoing through the area like a clap of thunder. Faraday doesn’t bother peeking out of his cover to see which of them she took out – he has to assume it was someone who had made the fatal mistake of wandering too close to the edges of the little settlement. He hears the confused shouts, the scrapes and thuds of footsteps on packed dirt, and he waits. A second shot, then a third, and the panic well and truly sets into the platoon of bandits.

It's then that Faraday steps out, his new Jakobs revolver in hand. A few masked bandits seem to have figured out where the shots were coming from, even with the distorted echo of Maya’s sniper rifle, and they jerk back in surprise when Faraday steps into view. He grins and winks, using the moment of surprise to pick off all three with three easy shots from his pistol. The gunshots attract attention, just as Faraday expected, and the bandits turn, at least one of them shouting slurred, drunken commands to converge on him.

The first few shots pepper his shield, and he takes out another three men before he ducks back into cover, reloading and letting his shields regenerate. ]

[ More gunfire, and Maya nails another bandit in the head before swinging her scope around to pick out Faraday. A slow grin spreads across her face in appreciation of some solidly impressive killing, but as Faraday takes cover again, she lowers her rifle in favor of extending her arm. The tattoos running along her side flash brilliantly with light, a ball of energy gathering in her palm, and in the town, a mirrored explosion of power encompasses one man. Energy drags a few nearby men into the inertia of the phaselock, screams filling the air as fire explodes out of the interdimensional bubble of pain.

”Siren!” The bandits’ panic takes on a new layer of terror, and Maya uses the opportunity to lift her gun and shoot the poor bastard suspended in the phaselock. His screams are immediately silenced, and he hangs there a moment longer, then hits the ground in a motionless heap.

More men spill out of the little houses, all moving toward Faraday. Maya sighs, but she lets her rifle dissolve back into her digistruct in favor of a shotgun.

Time to move in. ]

[ It’s a unique treat, seeing that particular example of some weird, otherworldly ability. Faraday’s always had a penchant for drama, and there was little that was more dramatic than Maya’s phaselock.

He doesn’t let it distract him, though, and as the men are pulled in by whatever force the phaselock exerts, staggering and stumbling to keep their footing, Faraday summarily puts them down. They collapse in heaps beneath the floating corpse until he, too, falls atop them all.

The more sane men find some scrap of caution, once they realize a siren is involved, and duck behind stacks of what might have been old supply crates. The less sane, of course, just keep filing out of the prefabs, shrieking and babbling at the tops of their lungs as they run into the fray. Faraday finds his own cover to reload, peeking around the corner and picking off a few of the charging psychos.

Faraday doesn’t relish senseless murder, but killing bandits and psychos – that’s a bit more like putting down rabid dogs, isn’t it? A necessary evil. By now, as well-heeled as he and Maya are, an encounter like this is reasonably trivial. He could probably get through this on his own with his hand tied behind his back and wearing a blindfold, but the company makes it less like a slaughter and more like sport.

A terrible way of thinking of things, admittedly, but Pandora has a funny way of making folks rationalize a lot of the more wicked actions taken to survive out here. ]

[ Fights like this are easy enough that sometimes, it just starts to feel like a chore. Fill a guy with a few bullets, maybe a shot to the head – it's simple. Painless.

Well. For her.

It probably helps that she's picked up some handy, nasty guns along the way, and so what if a shot happens to melt a dude's face off once it's through his shield? If it ain't broke, don't fix it – and after Marcus introduced her to the finer ways of elemental mods, there was no going back.

Shotgun at the ready, Maya moves in, closing the distance between her and the hectic stragglers quickly and gracefully. She ducks down, slides into cover to narrowly avoid a grenade tossed right overhead, but fortunately for her and Faraday, it flies off into the distance. The accompanying explosion is almost negligible, and Maya doesn't so much as flinch. Leaning around her hiding place, she knocks off a round from her shotgun, the spray spreading wide and slamming into one bandit, knicking a second.

She drops behind a metal crate, glancing Faraday's way with a smirk. ]

So, it looks like I didn't shoot you.

[ By the time Maya joins him behind the crate, Faraday is reloading his gun. He likes his new toy, it seems, judging by the quick, pleased grin he flashes her. The explosion of the grenade does little to faze him, distant as it was, though it kicks up a bit of dirt and sends it in their direction. ]

Doesn’t seem so. [ A bright agreement, though he follows it up with, ] Yet.

[ He gives the revolver’s cylinder a quick spin, though this time when a shoddy grenade comes bouncing past and explodes, Faraday does instinctively guard his head. His shield guards him from the blast, small as it was, and he snorts out a little derisively as he reaches behind him to the digistruct device hooked into his belt.

Apparently, Faraday feels it’s his turn to chuck something explosive. Which he does. And the grenade splits into eight bouncing pieces, detonating after a second or two to wet splatter and gargled cries. ]

Gotta be making a dent by now, huh?

josh faraday | the magnificent seven | ota

sticks m legy out real far

hope this is ok idk idk idk

i love everything abt this what the heck

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