Borderline Dead and Electric

Chapter 4 page 18 buggy trouble

Before Zer0 could start the vehicle, I handed him a note "What's the mission for today?" He answered,
/Sir Hammerlock has requested we do an experiment for him... It will be dangerous./

I couldn't help but notice that he was dropping the haiku slowly but surely.

If I were being honest, I didn't mind the haiku, but it did complicate some conversations, and in a way, little things like this made me feel like he was warming up to me, which was nice.

I nodded as he started the vehicle and asked me,
/How was your night?/

I shrugged and wrote
"I made a fort out of scrap metal in one of the alleyways."

Zer0 slowed the vehicle down ever so slightly and looked at the note | :( | Zer0 didn't say anything.

Well, that was awkward.
A couple minutes later, we made it to the Tundra Express.

We walked with weapons out; apparently, there was a certain spot he wanted to start the mission in.

As we walked down the path, occasionally one or two varkids would come running up to attack us. Zer0 thought that this would be the perfect time for me to practice shooting.

While trying to hit them, I found out that varkids were really good at dodging. After my fifth shot, I finally tried predicting where they would try to dodge rather than shooting right at them.

Two varkids came running up. The first one tried jumping at me but I managed to kick it out of midair then I watched carefully and predict where the other one would try to dodge and shot it
I quickly looked around for the one that jumped at me.

It had landed on its back, so I aimed my weapon and shot it as well. They kind of remind me of lantern flies in a way.

I heard Zer0 behind me say /impressive./
After a few more varkids, we finally made it to our destination. Zer0 stopped me from going any further.

Ahead of us were four varkid nests | :) |
/Let me take this one./ and with that, he jumped forward, causing a horde of varkids to come from either nest as Hammerlock started giving him instructions.

Zer0 managed to injure two red varkids and one green varkid.
I watched as Zer0 killed the varkids around three red ones. I was wondering where the green one he had injured went but soon I brushed that thought off as I heard Hammerlock screaming

"KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT!!!" I looked up just in time to see Zer0 running away from two of the morphed varkids.

The third varkid landed in front of him. Zer0 stopped and stood there, staring it down.
I was starting to panic until I noticed he was starting to glitch? It was a decoy.

Zer0 disappeared just as the third varkid jumped for him, just in time for it to look up and see the second varkid stab it right in the head with one of its appendages.

The second one struggled, trying to get its arm or leg? out of its friend, but to its dismay, Zer0 was faster as he appeared behind it and shot the varkid a couple times in the abdomen as it was falling, he took a running jump onto it and jumped back, performing a killer backflip off the second varkid, and over the first Zer0 unsheathed his sword and cut the first varkid's abdomen in half.

He landed gracefully a couple feet beside it.
I stared eyes wide. It was one thing to see him do stuff like that in video game trailers, but in person, it was a whole different story.

The Varkids had dropped some loot, and Zer0 was currently kneeling down, going through it as Hammerlock was congratulating him and telling him to come back for his reward whenever he could.

While I was staring, I noticed something a few feet away from him. It was a big, red, angry-looking varkid with a tint of green.

It was crawling up to him fast, but it was too quiet for him to even notice! By the time it would make its way up to him, he wouldn't have time to react.
A metal image of Zer0 being impaled by this thing flipped a switch in my head, the same switch that made me make the reckless decision of going into the city without letting my mother know...

Before I even knew what was going on, my body had already gone into flight mode. I started running to Zer0 with a speed that I didn't know I was capable of until now.

Zer0 stood up just in time for me to grab him by the waist and throw us into a roll.
I was hoping that the momentum would throw us away from the Varkid, and sure enough, it did.

The varkid had reared back, giving me enough time to jump up and run over to it, grabbing my knife I stabbed the varkid right in the abdomen, cutting it open. I heard some gunshots overhead, and a second later it fell backwards.

I took a step back, shaking, taking everything I just did in
I heard Zer0 as he got to his feet and walked over to me.

He spoke.
/Gratitude flows deep/such an unforeseen situation/thank you, my glue./

His words were flattering, but I was still trying to process everything that just happened. Never in my life did I think I'd be doing something like that?

I was an artist, not some dare devil; doing something like that was just too much
It was so incredibly reckless... and.. exhilarating?before I could go deeper into that thought I felt Zer0's hand on my shoulder I looked up at him.

| :) | /You did well./ he reassured

(I did didn't I?)

After that we started walking back to the vehicle however halfway there, I felt something stab my ankle.

I turned around quickly and kicked whatever it was, and to my surprise, it was a purple varkid?

Zer0 was quick to shoot it before it could get back up. He looked down at me and was about to ask me something, but he was cut off by a loud scrabbling noise.

We looked up to see a horde of varkids running after us. Zer0 and I turned tail and ran the entire way back to the vehicle!

While we were running from the not so small insects my leg started burning where the varkid had stung me.

A few steps away from the vehicle, and my leg now felt heavy and was it me or was the world spinning? Next thing I knew, I was on the ground.

Everything was so blurry all of a sudden and slowly going dark.

The last thing I heard was Zer0 calling my name.