The Hook

The workers come and Zero does not struggle. Chains and restraints click around his arms and legs, and arms belonging to armor clad workers handle him far too roughly. They push and kick him like some wild animal that had been nothing but disobedient. He doesn't fight though. He is too tired and he is too worn. He will not give them the fight that they want, he will not give them a show. They want a creature, they want a monster and he will not offer that to them.

He is not sure where they are moving him to. All he hallways look the same, every door, every floor, every ceiling. It's all the same, white with Hyperion yellow accents, and the occasional grand Handsome Jack poster that grins at him with a haunting smile that causes deep anger to stir in Zero's belly. All those white teeth taunting him, those stupid eyes causing him to reel with fury. But he buries it, as he knows he should. He cannot let any emotion through, he simply must hold onto it all and keep it swallowed. For Maya's sake he has to keep all of this under control.

The siren dances across his mind slowly, her bright glittering eyes. The way her eyes had glinted when they had first met, back when he pupils had been so wondrous and full of life. Last night looking into those same orbs, it had been like looking into someone completely different. She was not that so very stubborn, so very alive, so very curios woman anymore. She had been made into stone, her heart cold, but not frozen, just iced over from a year's worth of captivity. She was still his siren, but god was she ever broken. Sharp pain ran rampant through him just thinking about it. How her touches were so familiar and yet so foreign. She was changed, and it was up to him to rescue what was left of her old self. He had to pick up the pieces, he had to drag her from this place. She was sick, and this place was the disease…Jack was the disease.

The workers hauled Zero to a massive room and brought huge metal devices down from the ceiling, hooking them to his arms and then to his ankles, the device holding him hostage, limbs spread uncomfortably. He hung against the restraints, body still so tired from the tortours of the day before, from holding off the beast, from fighting it down.

The creature was not pleased.

It sat writhing and twisting down in his ribs, angered with his unwillingness to comply. Angered by the stupidity of its host. The beast wanted free and he would not let it lose. Letting it go could ruin everything, he had to keep it from being set free. So he kept it caged deep down in the depths of himself, like a dark secret. The creature sneered and growled, baring its teeth in the back of Zero's brain, pressing against his temple uncomfortably.

'Let me go' It hissed to him.

'Let me out' It snarled viciously.

Zero shook his head slowly, weak against the heavy iron restraints, tired eyes peering through the dark lens of his helmet. The room was vast and open, walls lined with high cabinets and bars covering all the windows. The space felt dangerous, and it felt so very wrong. Some kind of dread seeped deep into Zero's bones and twisted his intestines.

'You're in danger' The creature warned.

'Let me free' It hissed.

Zero shook his head again, dirty locks slick with sweat as it pressed to his forehead behind his helmet.

'I can't' Zero thought back.

He'd been here before…so many times before he had been here. The internal conversation with the monster using him for its own benefit. Did that make him crazy? Most likely so. But here he was all over again. He'd spent so many nights like this, the beast convincing him that what had been done was right. Standing over the bodies of families, children, little souls stolen by his own hands, and the beast was there to coo whispers of why it was ok in his ear. The beast was twisted and it was dark, just an extension of the most vile parts of Zero's soul The parts that made him lust for blood. The beast had simply taken all of that and made it his own, made it stronger. The beast was the darkness in his heart that had been let loose by that fateful bite.

'You need me.' It whispered in the shell of his ear.

'No, I don't' Zero thought back screwing his eyelids shut tight and shifting his wrists in the cold bindings.

They hurt, cutting into his armor harshly, digging down to rub against skin, tearing holes in his suit as he shifted. The edges were sharp stainless steel, the kind that pinched with every little movement. Here he was, on display for his captors, so broken and wasted surrendering to everything and nothing all in the same breath. He did this for Maya. He could not forget that. He had to go through with this. This was for the best. If Jack had him, then maybe Maya would be spared. Such a foolish thought, but it was worth the passing attention. He'd do anything for her. Anything.

Zero closed his eyes for just a moment, his tired state finally finding hold of him and dragging him down into sleep.

Everything around him is dark. Like thick, black ebony that goes on forever and never finds a stopping place. It's everywhere, soaking into every breath that Zero takes, washing behind his eyeballs, invading his nostrils. His mirroring black eyes shift in the darkness, trying to grab hold of any one thing, but everything is so blurry. Everything is wild and everything is so dark. Every breath he takes is filled with the tar like blackness, his lungs rendered sticky and thick in the process. There is no light here, not a shred, not a flicker. Just darkness…so much darkness. Zero kneels crumpled there, on bare knees, hands curled in his lap, eyes staring out into the nothing, waiting, watching…for what he does not know.

But something is out there. He knows, because he can sense it. He can feel eyes upon his tattered form, scrutinizing him mercilessly, watching him as he searches for it. He feels the tingling sensations of it nearing and his heart thunders in his chest like a beating drum.

He smells it before he sees it. A scent like blood and earth, heavy with nickel and thick with danger. It's a terrifying scent as it hits his sensitive nose. The scent is so familiar. God he would know it anywhere. It's sickeningly homey to his senses, something that he is so used to, constantly surrounded by. Like an old friend that simply seems to linger.

Then he hears it. A rumbling snarl that vibrates up through his ribs and rattles all his bones. It's so primal as it washes over him, the sound haunting and unwelcome in the same sense that it is comforting. That sound is power. Raw, utterly untamed power. A power unlike anything he had ever known. A power that could build you up or tear you down in a matter of mere moments. It was a wild sound, like nails on chalkboard, like stones in a dry drum, rattling off throat and deep, rising high vicious and pitched. Zero lulls into the sound as it nears, welcomes it in with tired black orbs. He doesn't care, just let it have him, let it come.

Then he sees it finally. First comes one gnarled, twisted, clawed paw, slinking out of the darkness so slow and calculated. Then comes teeth, lips parted into a wicked snarl that drips with saliva and shimmers in the dark. Eyes as black as night, eyes that mimic is own so very perfectly. Skin thick and cracked, blue light shimmering though like glittering ghosts. Zero is bathed in the eerie light, eyes lifting to meet with its. They hold each other's gaze for a moment, simply staring each other down. Zero breaths out slowly, his breathe a mere whisper off his lips. Long ears are flattened back to its massive skull, long spines shifting as it changes its weight to its back haunches. It sits there, in an oddly human way, looking to Zero as Zero looks to it.

It's heartbreaking looking at the thing. Knowing what it is, who it is, what it's done. How many lives that it has taken. How many lives they have taken.

"You have always lusted for blood petty human. You cannot hide that from me. You have always been a killer. I just made you better at it." The beast growls its voice inhuman and rough as sandpaper.

Zero expels a long breath, sagging in on himself and shaking his head slowly.

"I don't kill the way you kill….you killed so many…too many. Women…children…babies…they didn't deserve to die." Zero whispered his voice low and shamed.

"They would have died eventually. It is all part of life. You will die, I will die. We all die." The beast replies its head held high and knowledgeable.

"We are not the ones to decide that though. We are not death." Zero whispered.

"We can be. We could be. We could be so powerful." The creature snarled its lip twisting up over sharp teeth for a moment.

"I don't want any of that." Zero whispered.

"Then what do you want? I can give it to you." The monster purred through bared fangs.

"I just want Maya safe. I want her home. I want her to have freedom." Zero breathed his voice shaky and low.

"The woman. You want no harm to come to her?" The creature said.

Zero nodded.

"No harm can come to her. I have so much to make up to her. I left her once, I cannot leave her again." Zero whispered his eyes soft and sulking.

"Then I shall not let her perish. She will though, if you do not let me free." It snarled, tilting its head to the side observantly.

Zero looked up to its eyes in confusion.

"She is in danger. You must save her. You must let me go. It is the only way." It explained through raspy snarls, tongue lolling lazily in its maw.

"What do you mean? I cannot let you go. You cannot be trusted." Zero argued his eyebrows shoved together in worry.

"If you want her to live, you must let me take over." The beast growled.

Zero shook his head, beginning to stand on shaky knees.

"Y-You cannot. You cannot do this. I will not let you!" Zero yelled his voice cracking miserably.

"You have to wake up now." The massive beast husked rising to its feet gracefully, hulking high over Zero's form.

Before Zero could get another word off the beast was falling upon him, jaws wide and gaping, clasping his throat within the slick teeth. Big jaws clamped on his tender throat and suddenly everything was warm and so very vibrant. Blood spilled down his front and he wanted to scream, but no sound came. He did not struggle as the creature took him, dragging him away to consume him, somehow…it was ok…it was all ok.

With that Zero awoke with a start, a loud gasp coming from his lips, frantic eyes searching over the space he occupied. He was back in the Hyperion room, still strapped to the massive machine in the center, limbs having gone numb from the positioning. There was no beast to be seen, there was no blood, no darkness. Zero sighed out in relief, allowing his eyes to close slightly.

It had just been a dream. A sick, stressful dream. He was suddenly so very thankful for that.

Suddenly Zero's eyes flicked up to the hallway, strange sounds suddenly coming from outside his new holding room. Suddenly something did not feel right. Everything felt sickeningly wrong. There was something dark stirring outside, coming toward him, and he could smell the danger in the air. He drew in a shaky breath. Something was coming. Workers maybe? Coming to off him? No…this felt worse. Something about this was worse.

Zero found himself holding his breath as finally, finally the massive hydraulic doors hissed open, giving entrance to something that was straight from Zero's worst nightmares. Zero's eyes widened behind his helmet and everything in him seemed to stop.

There Jack stood, in all his power and all his craze, one hand gripped around a tethered and bound Maya, shoving her forward in through the door. The siren hit her knees with a yelp, her head hung low in shame and woe.

Zero looked to her, then looked to Jack, the wicked smile smeared across his cheeks said it all.

He knew.

He knew about them.

Zero felt all the breath leave him in one painful moment. Jack stepped around Maya's crumpled form, his eyes honed in on Zero like a hawk watching weak prey. Wild, psychotic chuckles bubbled up from the CEO's chest, the sound pierced through Zero's ear like knives. The sound was enough to make even the most vicious of beast's blood run cold. Zero caught sight of the glinting pistol held in Jack's curled fingers the bright fluorescent light reflection in the golden surface of the Hyperion weapon. Jack's coiffed locks fell slightly, the maniacal man pausing to swoop it back into place. He shifted the gun in his fingers as if testing its weight and then his demonic eyes swept over to the man trapped before him.

"Well, well Assassin…seems like we are playing a whole new game am I right?" Jack chuckled lowly, his fingers curling in Maya's locks, yanking her head backward with an insistent tug.

The young woman cried out at the vicious movement, her eyes pricked with tears and her mouth quivering. Zero had never seen in her in such a pitiful state. She was so afraid, afraid of the man standing behind her, the man that had taken her captive, the man that had ruined her.

"Round one was rocky, but you know, I really think I've got the right strategy going on this time around, don't ya think kiddo?" Jack sneered running the sharp of his tongue over his top lip slowly.

Zero felt everything coming into brilliant light before his eyes. His blood pounded in his ears, fingers clutching into fists against his restraints.

With that Jack was cocking the gun, pulling the hammer back with long talented fingers, toothy grin flashing across to the assassin. He butted the barrel of the handgun up against the siren's temple, a small gasp coming loose from her teeth.

"So what's it gunna be assassin? You're move kiddo." Jack husked.