Chapter 11: And So They Met Again

In the afternoon sun, two runners sped along the dusty roads of Pandora. Unfortunately for the drivers, the particular road that they drove on could hardly qualify as such. The wildlife of Pandora roamed the cratered and dilapidated route, and small bandit encampments dotted the edges of the place. Bullets and rockets whizzed over the runners as they swerved and weaved through the wild skags and more foolish or insane bandits.

"Remind me again. Why couldn't we have just taken a normal road?!" Jaune complained, barely averting a collision with a shield wielding nomad before sideswiping a psycho trying to climb aboard the runner he and Pyrrha were riding.

"Oh don't be such a baby! This is the fastest route to Aegrus. Besides, isn't this fun?" Nora answered through the ECHO as she manned the rocket launcher of Ren's runner and fired off grenades with Maghnild, cackling all the way.

"This isn't my idea of fun at all!" Jaune cried as he ran over a skag to dodge another salvo of rockets that exploded where Jaune was barely two seconds ago. "I almost crashed at least five times in the past two minutes!".

"But you didn't!" Pyrrha encouraged from the gunner's seat, laying down suppressing fire with the mounted machine and some thrown singularity grenades.

"Yeah! Almost!" Nora agreed.

"That doesn't make me feel better!" Jaune ranted, adrenaline running through him in response to the hail of munitions he was barely evading.

"Regardless, focus on driving. Nora and Pyrrha will keep us covered." Ren advised, his voice only slightly raised to be audible over the gunfire while taking quick glances at map on his ECHO. "We don't have long anyway; we're at the tail end of this road before we enter Aegrus."

"Oh thank god. I don't know how long I can keep this u-WALL! WALL UP AHEAD!" Jaune yelled, a sizable gated wall obstructing the road with heavy nomads on either side, their rocket launchers pointed down at the road.

"Oh no, not good not good not-... Wait! I have an idea, when I honk, we all jump!" Jaune announced hastily, continuing to race forward into the wall before getting out of the driver seat, placing his feet on the horn, and kicking off of it and out of the runner. Pyrrha followed suit, and they both walked away in as dignified of a way as they could as the now unmanned runner got totaled by a salvo of rockets, the ensuing explosion causing Jaune to panic and scramble away.

Meanwhile Ren and Nora, having received Jaune's instructions, prepared for their exit. Ren packed up his ECHO and stealthily dismounted from the driver seat, sneaking off as far away as he could while Nora dropped a magazine from Maghnild's receiver into the gunner seat along with a few Torgue cluster bombs before making a show of leaping out of the gunner seat. Then, while the nomads reloaded, Ren and Nora's runner smashed into the gate before exploding in an unusually large storm of heat and shrapnel, killing the nomads near the blast, incapacitating the ones further away, and leaving a gaping hole in the makeshift wall. While the bandits stared at the massive explosion, the team of vault hunters dived for cover behind one of the rickety vacant shacks, unnoticed by the bandits.

"Alright, I'll look for a way to flank them so we can go through the hole. Ren, you can sneak up on any heavy guys." Jaune instructed, having become the team's unofficial tactician after a run in with some old Hyperion bots revealed his strategic talent.

"Will you need cover Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.

"Uh, yeah, probably. So you'll watch my back, Pyrrha, and Nora…" Jaune trailed off, noticing Nora's trademark too-wide smile, her eyes gleaming and full of excitement.

"Hammer" Jaune finally said.

"Can do!" Nora yelled, extending the handle on her grenade launcher as she rushed into the fray. Ren dashed off to look for a flank, while Jaune, with his old rifle in hand, looked for an unguarded route to the tunnel, trailed closely by Pyrrha scoping out the battlefield with Milo.

While Jaune and Pyrrha sneaked around, Nora was acting as a distraction, launching herself with Maghnild and spewing explosives every which way, either with Maghnild, or with her cluster bombs. One particularly brave bandit shot her point blank with an electric pistol, expecting that to incapacitate the diminutive berserker. However, the only response from Nora was a grin and a crackling sound akin to lightning as capacitors in her clothes charged up in response to the electric bullet, granting her a burst of energy which she used to smash a tightly gathered mass of psychos through the undamaged portion of the wall, leaving people shaped holes along with the one caused by the rigged runner. At the same time, Ren stalked the bandits with a stronger sense of self-preservation that tried to stand back and take potshots at Nora. As soon as they drew a bead on Nora, they would receive either a spray of gunfire or a quick slash to the throat. However, Ren was forced out of hiding when Nora, in her one woman demolition spree, blew the helmet off a goliath, causing him to fly into a rage. The goliath made short work of his former comrades and began to grow more powerful, beginning its search for more victims, at which point he noticed Ren and leaped after him.

Seeing that he could not hold back against such a powerful foe, Ren dropped his pistols, leading the Goliath to stare in confusion before screaming and charging at him. Predicting the charge and the attempt to grab him, Ren ran at the goliath before sliding under its legs and slamming a palm between his legs. Even in its enraged state, the goliath doubled over in pain before trying again. Again, the goliath charged at Ren, and again, he dodged the charge, this time thrusting a palm into its back, followed by a sickening crunch. The goliath's upper half fell over, now flopping around uselessly as its legs tried again to run down Ren. This time, however, Ren stood his ground and delivered a final palm strike that the goliath ran straight into, damaging its heart to the point that the goliath could only fall over in a heap on the ground, its incessant stream of threats and obscenities finally silenced. Dusting himself off and re-equipping his pistols. Ren then continued his watch, taking down anyone who could get a shot off on Nora.

"So why did you trust me with driving again?" Jaune asked as he and Pyrrha searched for a flanking position. In response, Pyrrha involuntarily thought back to her days as an Atlas soldier. She thought back to the day she crashed three runners in one day and somehow crashed the third one while parking it. "Ah, heh. No reason in particular." replied Pyrrha, not keen on letting Jaune know she could consider herself one of the worst drivers on all of Pandora.

"Hold up." Jaune commanded, pointing to two bandits who decided to stand guard rather than attempt to enter the storm of explosions and broken legs caused by Nora. Pyrrha wasted no time in firing a clean headshot into one bandit, while Jaune's first shot bounced off one of the makeshift armor plates equipped by the second bandit before one shot entered his gut and third finally landed in the side of his head, ensuring he wouldn't call attention to his location. While Jaune grumbled in annoyance, Pyrrha smiled and nodded in approval before another one of guards approached, one of them armed to the teeth with grenades and nothing else. Jaune, frozen in shock, could barely register a strange sound before all the pins on the grenades seemed to pull themselves, prompting the bandit to rush at them in an attempt to take them down with him, only to be bashed away by the bronze edge of Pyrrha's shield, Akouo. After the explosion, Jaune and Pyrrha moved up, finally gaining entrance to the hole in the wall.

As it turned out, the sides of the road beyond the wall were lined with all sorts of weaponry. Crates of munitions, weapon racks, and a few red chests rested in piles, much to the wonder and annoyance of Jaune and Pyrrha. Wonder at the sight of so much gear, and annoyance at the fact that none of it could immediately clear out the bandits that Nora was currently distracting. "Wait… distract…" Jaune wondered, before coming to an epiphany. "That's it! We blow up this stockpile, and we can take the heat off of Nora!"

"What about the gear?" Pyrrha asked.

"I think what I've got now is doing fine, and the red chests should hold anyway." Jaune replied nonchalantly, pulling one of his plain Tediore grenades out of his pocket. "Plus, Nora's gonna love it." Jaune added with a grin.

Pyrrha giggled in response. "You wouldn't be wrong." She remarked, pulling out one of her singularity grenades.

Two distinct clicks of the pins coming out of a grenade were all that heralded Jaune and Pyrrha rushing out of the armory before slowing to a nonchalant stroll. Nora, picking up on their behavior, turned from a psycho to slam a particularly large goliath with her hammer into the hole before a massive explosion erupted in front of her, blowing the entire wall, and anything near it, sky high. It also proved an effective distraction as the remaining bandits stared in wonder, their last sight being the plume of fire and debris before they were either cut down by Ren or smashed away by Nora.

Waiting for a moment for the smoke to clear, Jaune was the first one to speak up. "Did we look cool, or did we look cool?" He asked, a big smile on his face as he could finally cross "walk away from an explosion like a total badass" off his bucket list.

"You. Were. AMAZING!" Nora cheered, zipping around Jaune and Pyrrha already singing praises in her excitement. Ren, however, wore roughly the same face he always did, save for a little smirk.

"Come on, now. No cheesy one liner? No shades? I'm a little disappointed." Ren joked. "So do you have a plan for our ride?" asked with more seriousness.

"Uh.. yeah I was just about to get to that." Jaune answered, pulling out his ECHO device and making a call. "Hey Ruby… I'm fine, how about you? Just on the road?... Okay. Well, our rides kind of got completely destroyed, so could you come over and pick us up?... Alright, we'll manage I'm sure. Thanks. See you soon." Said Jaune as he hung up. "Ruby and her friends are coming, but they only have one technical. So…"

"I'll hang on the sides!" Nora volunteered immediately.

"Okay… now for everyone else." Jaune declared, trying to think up seating arrangements for four extra people on one technical.

Meanwhile, with Ruby

"Okay just sit tight; we're on the way… No problem, bye" Ruby said into her ECHO.

"We're picking up team JNPR. They're on the way, so we won't have to turn around." Ruby announced, Yang nodding as the map on her ECHO updated with team JNPR's location

"Who do you think crashed?" Ruby wondered aloud. "I'm thinking Nora did it.

"No, it was probably that blonde, he looked bad at just about everything." Weiss countered. Not in a harsh manner, but almost pitying.

"Eh, doesn't matter. Off we go to pick up more friends!" Ruby shouted.

Back with team JNPR

"I didn't know you could cook, Jaune!" Pyrrha exclaimed happily as she and Ren delicately picked apart a portion of skag meat that Jaune had whipped up in one of the still burning campfires in contrast to Nora, who had already scarfed down her helping and released a loud, satisfied belch.

"Well you just kind of pick these things up when you grow up with seven sisters" Jaune mentioned nonchalantly, eating up some of his portion at a relaxed pace. "Oh! Uh, if you don't mind me asking, what was that thing that happened with the grenade guy? He just seemed to kind of blow up by himself." Jaune wondered.

Internally Pyrrha was kicking herself. She had made a rule for herself to use that ability with subtlety. Half its power laid in the element of surprise, and it would do no good for her to wave it around like a fancy new gun, even if it was devastating if she went all out with it. She should have kept her cool. The surprise made her forget, and now Jaune was asking questions.

"Well." she answered, "It's sort of a secret, but I guess if we're travelling together you're all going to find out anyway." She continued as she removed her gloves to reveal two glowing cores in the palms of her hands surrounded by scar tissue. "These allow me to manipulate polarity, so if it's metal, I can control it."

"Did it… hurt? Did it hurt when you got those?" Jaune asked, partially in concern, but mostly in shock that one of his friends had Atlas technology literally grafted into her hands.

"Not really, I was out from the anesthetics." Pyrrha answered, hoping to ease Jaune's concern, but noticing his face still expressed worry. "Really, it's not a big deal. I volunteered to get these. There's nothing to worry about." Pyrrha insisted, her gloves now hiding the strange devices.

"Alright. If you say so." Jaune responded. He still didn't believe in Pyrrha's insistence that whatever those things in her hands were weren't a big deal, but he decided not to pry.

The silence that loomed over the campfire fell apart at the distinct hum of a technical engine and the screech of its tires as it skidded to a stop near team JNPR filled the air, the driver's side, and Yang, facing them. "Get in losers, we're going vault hunting!" She declared cheerfully, accompanied by a honk of the horn.

"Uh, yeah so were we, but…" Jaune trailed off, staring at the technical. "How are all eight of us going to fit?"

….

"AAAAAAGH! THIS IS NOT WHAT I PLANNED!" Jaune cried as he clung for dear life to the bars on top of the driver seat while Yang drove along at breakneck speeds.

"AH HAHAHAHAHA!" Nora cackled, also clinging onto the side of the technical, but reveling in it unlike Jaune while Ren, Pyrrha, Weiss, and Blake were all crammed in the truck bed.

"Don't worry! I did this with Ruby all the time on my bike! You've got nothing to worry abou-ohhh crap we've got something to worry about!" Yang yelled, slamming the brakes at the sight of a deep mud puddle and accidentally throwing Jaune and Nora off, causing them to land just outside the puddle.

"Wheee! Do it again! Do it again!" Nora yelled, her arms up in excitement, a stark contrast to Jaune, who laid on the ground moaning.

"Uuuugh, are we there yet?" Jaune groaned in a daze as he stumbled to his feet, only to smack his head against a makeshift sign with the bold word "AYGRUS" painted in white. "Oh, good we're here. Or at least, closer."

"Well great, what am I supposed to do with the car?" Yang groused, seeing nothing but rough terrain and mud puddles that would swallow up the technical in the same way her and Ruby's dog Zwei would gobble up his food.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. There should be a fast travel station, and we stole that technical anyway." Blake reasoned, climbing out of the gunner's seat and stretching.

"Then it's settled! Sisters! Friends! Weiss! A hunting we will go!" Ruby exclaimed, marching off into the muddy tropics of Aegrus, both teams close behind.

END OF CHAPTER 11

Like what I did with Pyrrha? I like semblances too much to just leave them out, and making Pyrrha's fit in this universe was pretty fun! Also golly gee, what's with blondes and being great drivers in this fic? Eh, probably coincidence.