There Really Ain't no Rest For The Wicked.

Having The Upper Hand

"Angel works for me." Jack says as I look into the face on the screen with horror. We all know what Angel is capable of. We know that if she wants to, she can hack into the turrets by the gates and kill us all. Anything can happen, and I felt horrified. I've felt royally fucked over by Jack, more so by Angel. She kept everything from us, and led us right into Jack's trap. She was his alibi in his master scheme. "Lowering Sanctuary's shields, Jack." Everyone was terrified that the shields were sabotaged, they were scared of what would happen to Sanctuary. No one knew that I was truly more terrified at Angel's power. 

"Executing phase shift," Angel begins as each shield generator pillar goes out one by one around the entire city. "We need to get everyone to safety, NOW!" Lilith exclaims, as she rushes towards the HQ buildings. The rest of the vault hunters follow suit and run towards the gates. I stand in my place, my legs not wanting to move. "What the hell just happened?! Did something just eat through our shields?" Roland ECHOS to the communicator on the console by the generator. I rush over and press the button to speak to him. "Roland, we've been sabotaged, we-"  "Nice work Angel, now lets kill us some vault hunters" Jack comments as a loud noise comes from Hyperion, it's laser charging its attack. A big energy bean shoots down towards Sanctuary, causing a massive explosion, along with screaming. "Shit." Roland says under his breath. "Roland, what....what do we do?" I stammered, looking for guidance. "We need to get everyone underground to the safety bunkers, there's not much we can do about the attacks...wait." Roland pauses for a moment, before speaking to Scooter. "Scooter, is that project we had started ready to go?"  "It's not ready! There's not nearly enough power to get her off the ground!" Lilith all of a sudden interjects. "Everybody, i've got a really bad idea! Scooter, get Sanctuary in the air! Roland, get me some eridium." Scooter speaks up. "If I'm gonna attempt getting this thing in the air, i'm gonna need some help!" I reply. "I'm on my way, Scoots." I rush towards the gates.

I run through the gates, running against the crowd of people rushing to get out of the gates as I run into people. Overhead an attack hits the side of a building as the impact causes the wall to crumble and fall apart. I try my best to avoid the falling debris, but get beat up pretty good. I burst through the door of the shop, rushing towards Scooter. "We gotta get towards the centre of town, try and cover me, Vault Hunter!" I do by part by getting Scooter to his destination unharmed. We sets down his tools by a block where he opens it up to start tinkering with who knows what. "If we cycle the ignition primers, it'll get us somewhere." Scooter points to two other blocks around the center piece of the engine. "Go turn on the others. Hurry!" I stand up and run to turn on the other primers, as I move around the engine, I see Lilith with her hands right on the engine itself, using her powers. I stare at her form for a moment. her whole body, not just her tattoos glow purple, an aura around her looks like it's kick-starting the engine. "Alright, we're primed. Everyone get ready-" Scooter manages as Roland lets out a scream coming from HQ. "Son of a bitch!" He exclaims. "Someone needs to go get me more eridium, I can't leave my spot! Hurry!" Lilith struggles. 

I run to HQ, and up the stairs, where Maya is there trying to lift a massive chunk of concrete off of Roland's lower half. I go to Maya's side and assist her in lifting the debris. "It's no use. The two of you can't lift this on your own. I'll be fine, go get the eridium to Lilith." Roland grunts as he gives up on trying to wiggle himself out under the wreck. "Roland, if we don't get you out of here, you're gonna get hurt, or worse, killed!" Maya stresses as she continues to lift. I put my hand on her back to get her to stop and listen. "Maya-"  "Get me some of that eridium. I have an idea." I look at the eridium nuggets on the ground, then to her with concern. "Maya, I don't know if you can handle it-"  "Just do it! I'm not leaving Roland here!" Maya insists. "Look, she may be right, It's not safe, and you've never used it before, Lilith has done years of training before she could take eridium." Maya was fed up in us not giving her what she wanted, and stopped lifting to grab it herself.  She took a second to look at the glowing purple substance in her hand, before closing her eyes to absorb it in. "Maya, stop!" Like Lilith, she emanated purple, her tattoos flickering before her whole body was so bright you could hardly see even her skin tone. Maya fell to the ground, screaming in what sounded like uncomfortable pain. I rush to tend to her when she shakily raised her hand for me to back off, as she slowly, stood up. She began to use phase-lock, and with no problem, she lifted the debris, and threw it off to the side. I instantly went to Roland and lifted him off the ground, his legs looked pretty damaged, making it hard for him to walk. "Maya, give me a hand-" I look up at Maya, who hasn't given me a response, she's just standing there, like she's off in another word. "It doesn't even seem like her anymore..." I say. I look into her eyes, where I can't even see her pupils, its just a glowing void that looks like it can go on forever. "She might be too far gone. That was way too much eridium for her to handle. I'm surprised shes not dead yet." I look at Roland, my eyebrows scrunched together from what he said. "Too far gone? What does that-" "Look, it doesn't matter at the moment, just, get the eridium to Lilith, I'll stay here with Maya." Roland tossed me some nuggets, and I head out the door. 

I find Lilith where she was before, and hand her piece after piece. "I've never used this much. You may want to hang on to something." I take a couple steps back, and Lilith concentrates her energy to make the ground shake. The energy of the eridium was so bright, It blinded my vision as I cover my eyes to try and avoid being blinded. Everything moved around me so fast that when I opened my eyes again, I was outside the city looking up at Sanctuary itself, moving through the sky. "I didn't mean to teleport you, but it's probably for the best. Besides, how cool does it look to see me making a city fly?" The city slowly lifts higher and higher off the ground, pieces of the ground that it's foundation was built on, crumbles off the sides and falls. It was beautiful. The essence of Lilith's powers flowed so calmly as it wrapped itself around Sanctuary. Meanwhile, Hyperion didn't hesitate to stop shooting, and Jack spoke. "That's the best you got? A flying city? What could you chumps POSSIBLY have that makes you think you've got a chance against me?" On my ECHO, I hear Roland snirk, then he responded. "A fucking siren." With that, the city vanishes into thin air, nowhere to be seen. "Holy shit." I gasp, the surprise evident under my breath. I look around the sky to try and find where it could have moved to. I couldn't see it where I was, and left to go find where our home has decided to settle into it's new location was.