Author's Notes: Borderlands belongs to Gearbox, and The Familiar of Zero belongs to various people depending on which format you read or watch it in. Either way, they don't belong to me.

- So, this idea just popped into my head. Mostly because of the pun on names. But as I thought about it, I realized I could actually make things work.

- In all honesty, if you haven't seen The Familiar of Zero... I might recommend skipping it. Read The Hill of Swords by Gabriel Blessing (on this website) instead. I enjoyed his plot and characterization better than canon.

- One thing I'd also try to avoid (without simply dumping the main characters into a ditch) is a basic problem with these sorts of fanfics in particular- especially how easily powerful characters just go along with things. I mean, yeah, becoming her familiar is the entire point of the story, but it doesn't have to happen so easily. I remember one fic involving summoning the T-1000 Terminator and... um... let's say it was a lot nicer and accepted the idea of magic very easily.

- Lastly, if anything's confusing you, let me know! I'm seeing if I can make this fic accessible to people who haven't experienced one or the other (I'm pretty sure Borderlands and ZnT don't have a particularly large intersection of fanbases).

0 + 0 = 0

Zer0 had come to Pandora for a challenge after being disappointed at how utterly soft everything was on the Eden planets. Most of his assassinations were against rich corporate executives, and rich people enjoyed vacationing on Eden-6, Eden-4, or Eden-3. He'd done a dozen jobs there, and in between jobs the only way he could keep his skills up was fight against his own hologram. The entire system was pathetic. He needed a challenge.

He'd moved on to Promethia, often rumoured to be harsh and unforgiving. He discovered it certainly was… for everyone but him. The so-called "harsh" part was the 40-hour work days, and the "unforgiving" part was the soldiers. Zer0 was… self-employed; he set his own hours. And the soldiers were only humans. Humans were squishy. Still, it was decent practice, certainly not a bad way to re-hone his skills after all the work in the Eden system.

That was when he heard about Pandora. Pandora, a planet where everyone was insanely homicidal and even the wildlife shat bullets. This place could actually be a challenge. When he arrived, the first few hours presented him with more disappointment. These "insanely homicidal" people weren't all that crazy, just remarkably prone to violence. But then he'd wandered out of town and realized that he'd only seen the civilized parts of Pandora. If anything, the stories he heard were understatements. The bandits weren't just crazy homicidal, they were occasionally mutants that threw cars around or hid inside ammunition boxes for days just waiting to kill the next person who opened it. And the monsters? Well, a lot of them really did shit bullets and spat corrosive acid at him while dropping their lead-laden deuces.

It was enough to make him start to ask more profound questions about his life and the direction it was taking.

Questions like, "Is assassination truly the best way to go through life?" The answer, he discovered, was no. Clearly, he needed to hone his skills at killing large groups of enemies, like those damn bugs that kept swarming. His appreciation for submachine guns increased greatly. He still couldn't get used to using rocket launchers on a regular basis, though.

Then he had to ask, "Is it worth killing someone just for some money?" It was the way he used to live. And he had to answer no, again. Loot was the reason he killed things on Pandora these days. When living on a planet where the frozen cacti could electrocute you to death, people got really creative with finding ways to survive. Like linking the shield capacitors to your gloves to make explosive punches. Or stuffing medical nanites into a grenade to heal your wounds while corroding your victim's body from the inside out. Or, his personal favourite, hacking an ammo SDU into a pistol so it never ran out of bullets. Ever. He still couldn't figure out how that one worked, and Maya wouldn't let him have it. Needless to say, necessity really drove creativity on Pandora.

Which brought up another question. Couldn't he just kill her and take the gun? Well, no. She was a siren. He'd never met one before in all his life, most likely because (apparently) only six of them existed in the galaxy, and now two were dead. Curiously enough, four of them ended up on Pandora, although none of them were natives. Maya was one of them. These girls could teleport entire cities and vaporize robots with a snap of their fingers. He'd finally met someone completely out of his league. Even more surprisingly, he didn't feel any anger, regret, or inadequacy about that. In fact, it was almost… joy at knowing there would always be something out there that would be a challenge to him.

Like the Warrior, for instance. In fact, it was probably a challenge for Maya, too. Good thing they were on the same team, then.

And that brings us to the current question running through Zer0's mind: does a fire-elemental weapon actually do anything to a giant monster that likes to dive into lava for cover?

Who knew? Who cared? Salvador didn't. Zer0 watched as that muscular mudget blasted away at the Warrior with a pair of fire-bullet-spewing miniguns. Along with Axton and his turret, they were doing a good job of distracting the Warrior with a hailstorm of hot flaming lead. Whether those bullets were actually harming the beast wasn't too important, because Maya was using her abilities to chip away at the Warrior's thick hide.

Zer0 didn't really care about how a siren's ability worked, just that they did. On their way here, Maya regularly used her powers to pull groups of enemies together and immediately blast them apart in vicious explosions. To be quite frank, Zer0 found it rather annoying that she could do so much without even drawing her weapon. On top of that, she left him with very little to kill. There was even more to her powers than that, though- she seemed to warp reality to a small extent. When she was using her powers, bullets would randomly turn around and strike back at the ones who shot her. Her own guns seemed to defy reality and healed people by shooting them in the face. Sometimes, when he thought he was dying, his body suddenly moved backwards in time and wounds would be reset. Not healed at a ridiculously fast rate, the way healing nanites worked- the wounds seem to never have happened in the first place. Zer0 loved and hated Maya for that. It almost felt like cheating.

The Warrior was a good challenge, though. A challenge he had to admit he couldn't take on by himself. He had to- and more importantly, knew he could- depend on Maya's ability to wreak havoc on the Warrior's defenses. As she was doing at this very moment. A giant chunk of armour- or skin- just got ripped off the Warrior's head by Maya's phaselock. It was time to move in.

As he activated his suit's Decepti0n mode, he muttered a little mantra to himself.

"A worthy challenge.
But you will now taste my blade.
Time to end the fight."

The suit automatically projected a distraction hologram- not that it was needed, since Salvador and Axton still had plenty of bullets remaining and weren't letting up. He ran to the edge of the platform, where solid rock met lava, and leapt. His suit-enhanced jump propelled him high into the air, enough to reach one of the Warrior's horns. He grabbed on, swinging himself above the Warrior's head, where Maya had exposed some softer flesh.

Zero point eight seconds left. His suit's capacitors were almost empty, while his sword's capacitors were nearly full. He pulled out his digistruct blade and released all the energy stored inside as he stabbed down. The deception ended, but the monster wasn't finished. It reared backwards and threw a ball of lava at the gunners. Axton's turret was the only thing that couldn't jump out of the way.

Zer0 held on for dear life with one hand while repeatedly stabbing down with his other. The way the Warrior flinched each time he did was a good sign. The damn thing could feel it. Three seconds left before the suit recharged.

It swiped at its own head with massive claws. Zero had to let go and dodge. Two…

The Warrior bucked back hard, throwing Zer0 into the air as it prepared to dive back down into the lava. One…

He twisted in the air and saw a rakk flying towards him. Stupid bird, thinking it could get a piece of him. Good timing, though. He kicked it, pushing himself back towards the Warrior. Zero.

"You thought you were strong.
Stronger than one, but not four.
Here's the Killing Bl0w."

Fully recharged, the suit re-activated Decepti0n mode. A burst of energy propelled him through the air, letting him catch up to the Warrior's dive into the lava. His suit analyzed the most potent place for him to stab his blade and highlighted it on his visor. This time, it was over. An additional burst of energy splattered its brains inside its own skull.

As the Warrior roared, spasmed, and finally crumpled down to the ground, the Decepti0n ended. The hologram created by the suit exploded into a storm of electricity, making the corpse twitch just a little. Zer0 rode the beast all the way down to the ground, then hopped off in front of his teammates who were already busy high-fiving each other. His helmet flashed a holographic "0" to signify the kill as he stood back, admiring his handiwork. The Warrior's head suddenly exploded as a supply crate from the Lagrangian station crashed through it.

"Doesn't hurt to be sure," Maya said, stepping away from the Hyperion computer console.

He heard some noise coming from behind him. Looks like Lilith finally managed to take off that weird restraint. And Jack was still alive, and ranting. Not for long, though- Lilith fried him to a crisp. Heh. Serves that jerk right. The others were all gathering around and talking about the vault key. Lilith wanted to destroy it. Zer0 didn't really care, himself, since it led to a pretty challenging fight. Exactly what he'd been looking for when he came to Pandora.

Well, it was time to start looting the place. Jack had brought piles and piles of refined eridium to the Warrior's lair to fuel Lilith's siren powers. There was plenty left over- and that was worth plenty of money. He grabbed handfuls of it, storing it as quickly as his storage deck unit could digistruct the material. And the crates! Obviously Jack had been prepared for the possibility that the Warrior wouldn't be so cooperative. There were dozens of other shipping containers dropped from Hyperion's Lagrangian station, filled to the brim with some of Hyperion's best weapons.

The first case had a shotgun in it. Not his usual style, but it was certainly a high quality weapon. Despite- or perhaps because of – Hyperion's total lack of ethics, they did manage to make some of the best weapons available on Pandora. Not to mention he needed a good gun to handle those damn swarms of bugs. He stuffed that into his SDU. He hoped he could find a stealthier SMG to replace his current one.

The next case had a sniper rifle in it. It was finely crafted, no doubt. Very clean. Very blue. He peered down the scope. Good zoom, good tracking abilities. Slag damage modifier, which was always useful. He fired off a test shot at one of the annoying rakks flying overhead. Given the way the beast vanished into a cloud of blood and guts, this rifle did some excessively heavy amounts of damage. Perfect.

"How could you waste bullets like that? You know there are children out there who can't even afford to get shot?"

Who said that? Zer0 looked around. The others were still arguing over the Vault Key, so it certainly wasn't them. But wait- the Vault Key was projecting some weird image. Planets. Dozens of planets- with vault markers. Spread all across the galaxy. It was kind of mesmerizing. He forgot about the voice immediately, entranced by the possibilities of more challenges, more ancient Eridian Warriors to defeat. One of these planets caught his eye. He didn't know why- the holographic projection wasn't particularly detailed, just a few dots to tell him the planet was in the Perseus Arm, cluster M94, second planet, and it had two moons. Really, just a bunch of dots. He couldn't stop staring, though. Everything else seemed to fade out as he walked forward, completely forgetting about the loot, or the voice, or the piles of eridium. What was so special about this planet? His hypnosis was so complete that he couldn't even feel surprised when the vault key suddenly flashed with energy, and Zer0 found himself falling into nothingness.

"Great. How can you possibly call yourself a professional killer when you can't even avoid a wormhole?"

It was the gun that said that? Well, at least it wasn't as annoying as his SMG…

What was the worst that could happen? Louise was almost shaking as she was called up for her turn in the Springtime Familiar Summoning ritual. Everybody else had already gone. The worst thing? Maybe… an ant. She'd summon an ant as a familiar. That would be embarrassing. Wait, no, that wouldn't be the worst, because regardless of how pathetic that familiar was, it would have meant she'd at least successfully summoned a familiar. No. The worst was simply what she already knew was going to happen.

She'd summon nothing at all. The same results she'd get in every class.

She'd explode the ritual circle. Just like how she blew up every demonstration spell in class.

Everyone would laugh at her. Just like they did in every class.

Except this time, she'd have to pack her bags and go home. While everyone else returned to class.

But she had to try, didn't she? Because a familiar was the proof of a magical bond, and magic was the proof of nobility. Maybe if she didn't try at all, she could keep it a mystery. Keep the hope alive. And maybe cry herself to sleep with that infinitesimally small hope that maybe she still could be a mage.

"Come on, Zero, hurry up!" That came from that stuck-up, narcissistic, stupid blonde girl that Louise hated. Montmorency. Being a water mage, she summoned a pretty pathetic little familiar- a frog that was small enough to sit on her hand. It was a useless little thing. Louise wanted to laugh at her for it, except that she had no familiar of her own.

"Hey, do you want to get us all blown up? I just summoned Flame! He'll be traumatized!" This time it was the incredibly fickle, flamboyant, slutty, stupid redhead girl that Louise also hated. Kirche. She'd summoned a perfectly respectable familiar, a fire salamander about the size of a crocodile. Not very creative with names, that girl. Louise wondered what she'd name her familiar. Then she remembered she had to summon one first.

A wooden staff tapped Kirche on the shoulder. "Loud." Kirche's friend Tabitha was practically ignoring Louise. She was sitting on the grass, reading a book instead. Of course, she totally could, because she was a tiny, four-eyed, antisocial, unfairly overpowered, not-stupid blue-haired girl that Louise couldn't help but be jealous of. She didn't summon a familiar today, but that was because she did her ritual three years early or so. She just came down here today with her DRAGON out of courtesy for everyone else. Louise hated her too.

Needless to say, Louise didn't have many friends at the academy.

"Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière!" Professor Colbert shouted her full name to get her attention. It wasn't quite as bad as when her mother did it, but it did manage to snap her out of her stupor. "It's your turn."

At least her anger was just enough to overcome her fear. She stepped up to the summoning circle. She tried to ignore the murmurs and whispers. At least Montmorency and Kirche had the decency to say it out loud. Everyone else spoke into their friends' ears. Pointing. Snickering. They didn't even have to hide it. Louise knew what they were saying, because they'd all said it before.

Hey, the Zero's performing a spell again! Better start running!

Why does she even try? She's just going to make a mess.

I'm surprised she's still allowed to stay at the academy this long!

Hey, at least we'll get proof that Louise truly is a Zero!

She gritted her teeth. She wouldn't screw this one up. She had magic. She knew she had magic. Those explosions didn't come from gunpowder, after all. She'd just force as much magic as she could into this summoning ritual and summon a massively powerful creature- a gryphon, maybe a manticore. She began to speak the ritual words.

"Pentagon of the five elemental powers…" The summoning circle began to glow. At least it was receiving her magic.

"Heed my summoning, I beg of you…" Although they were just words, begging to an inanimate object sounded a little weird. Not to Louise, though. If it guaranteed a successful summoning, she would have grovelled and kissed the dirt it was drawn on.

"Find my servant, somewhere in the universe…" The summoning circle's glow shifted colour as it grew brighter, from pure white to a slightly violet tint. Louise didn't notice; she was too busy making sure she was forcing plenty of magic into the circle while chanting the correct words. Professor Colbert made a cautious mental note. The rest of the students took this as a sign that an explosion was imminent.

"My beautiful, powerful, graceful, wonderful familiar…" Colbert frowned. She might have changed a word or two there, or left something out. Wasn't "faithful" one of the usual words? Just as he was wondering about the implications, a powerful beam of light shot up from the circle, straight into the sky. It shone past the clouds, and seemed to reach the sun. Maybe even further. He gaped.

"From the bottom of my heart, I ask you… bring him to me!"

The resulting explosion was the biggest one that Louise had ever accomplished. Even the students who'd been prepared for an explosion didn't anticipate it to be that large. Everyone was bowled over, save for Tabitha. Her dragon shielded her from the blast.

"By the Founder, how could you mess up that badly?" Someone managed to yell, despite their coughing.

"Brimir's bloody ballsack! Louise, are you trying to kill us?"

"LANGUAGE, everyone!" Colbert shouted. He was about to dispel the dust when a powerful wind blew it all away. "Thank you, Tabitha," he nodded to the small girl.

She only nodded slightly and pretended to go back to reading her book. In actuality, she was keeping her attention on the center of the summoning circle, where a… person was standing. Colbert saw the same thing, but only for a split second. It flickered, and then exploded into a storm of lightning magic.

Thankfully, the first blast had knocked most of the students well away from the summoning circle, while Colbert was skilled enough to shield himself and Louise. The miniature lightning storm continued for a few seconds before it finally died out, leaving nothing in the center of the circle. It was completely bare.

"Geez, Louise, you weren't satisfied with one explosion? You had to fry us with lightning, too?"

"Are you kidding? Lightning's at least line-class magic. There's no way the Zero could have done it!"

"Still failed her summon, though. Hey, Louise, I think it's time to go home!"

"QUIET!" Colbert shouted, casting a silencing spell over the entire class. He wanted to investigate what he'd seen, what could possibly be Louise's familiar, but now he had other responsibilities. He usually tried to stop the inordinate amount of bullying that Louise received, but given that the students only had an hour with him each day, he knew it was generally futile. He was aware they teased her at meals, in the halls, in between classes… and he had no idea how to stop it. It was rare for him to lose his temper, but when he failed at something as simple as protecting a little girl… it reminded him of his limitations, despite all his power. He turned to the little pink-haired student he was protecting. And his inability to help her became all the more obvious.

Louise stared at the empty space at the center of the crowd. There it was, nothing at all. No frog. Not even an ant. Just nothing. She was so horrified she couldn't even cry at her failure; she just sat there in shock. She was nobody. A failed mage. A zero. She'd be cast out of her family, or maybe just married off for some political gain. That's all she was good for now. A housewife. A babymaker. A trophy.

Louise fainted.

Zer0 was just finished stuffing that annoying sniper rifle into his SDU when a bright light shone in front of him. He was falling towards it without any control, but at least he was falling in a direction now. The best he could do was twist his body so that, hopefully, he'd land on his feet.

The landing was surprisingly gentle, less than the 0.1g moons. It was almost like someone had gently placed him on the ground. He couldn't say the same for the others, though. A massive explosion rocked the area, centered on him, as far as he could tell. He checked his shield- nope, that wasn't the problem. It was still fully charged. He hadn't dropped a grenade by accident, either. Targets began popping up on his visor.

"This is curious.
No longer on Pandora.
There are children here."

Pandora wasn't the type of place where people would want to raise children. At least, not well-adjusted children. Or living ones. The combination of poor sanitation, poor quality food, vicious wildlife, lack of education, and liberal application of violence to solve small disputes meant that "I'm having a baby" was understood as "I'm having it for dinner." The people who populated the planet were either insane or driven insane; usually the prisoners or homeless folk who had been rounded up by corporations to perform forced manual labour. Moxxi was the only one he could think of that actually managed to raise kids; none of them turned out completely sane, though.

So by his visor's readout, it was obvious that this couldn't possibly be Pandora. There were about four dozen lifeforms in his immediate vicinity, half of them young children, and the other half were creatures that weren't trying to eat them.

So, not Pandora, but he still needed to figure out what planet this was. Maybe it was the one he was staring when the vault key was displaying the holograms. He had no way to check, though. He needed to find out.

Good thing the explosion kicked up a lot of smoke. It would give him a good amount of time to get out of here and get a good look. He threw up Decepti0n for good measure and silently darted away from the crowd, leaving a holographic copy standing in the middle doing nothing at all. Outside of the dust cloud, he took in his surroundings It was green. Very green. Kind of like the highlands on Pandora, minus the stalkers and robots and threshers and other things that generally kept trying to kill him.

Everything was surrounded by a giant wall, though. If he had to estimate, it was probably close to ten meters tall. The castle on his left looked odd, as well. Ancient. That was the word he needed. On Pandora everything was either newly built by Hyperion, or fairly new but falling apart because it got blown up or attacked by bandits. This thing looked old. Still, it had plenty of ledges to climb. With a few more seconds of Decepti0n to go, he leapt up from ledge to ledge, reaching one of the mid-level balconies before his suit ran out of power.

He took advantage of his new vantage point. Beyond the walls were… trees. Lush green trees. He hadn't seen a tree since… Eden-4. Promethea and Pandora were both pretty devoid of plant life- at least, the type that wasn't trying to kill you.

That was disappointing.

He'd ended up on some soft world. With kids and plants and everything.

Well, it was time to look inside the building. He jumped through a window into an unoccupied bedroom. Was there anything useful to scrounge up? What he saw shocked him.

It was like he'd travelled back in time. He had to reassess his earlier evaluation of the castle. Maybe the building wasn't ancient. Maybe it was brand new and that was just the level of technology that these people were at.

There was a bale of hay beside a mattress. Everything was made of wood. Well, there was some metal here and there, so they must have reached the Iron Age at least. There was no chance at finding a datapad or ECHO recorder here for information. He wondered if they'd invented paper yet. Oh, wait, there was a book on the table. So they did have paper, at least. But no light switches, which meant no electricity. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Yep, burning torches lit the place up.

Well, this was bad. No electricity definitely meant no heavy industrial synthesizers, which meant no extra bullets. And no spaceships, for that matter. He had just over a hundred sniper rounds, two hundred shotgun shells, five hundred pistol bullets and a thousand SMG rounds to find a way off this planet. Now, since he had to take an ancient civilization that hadn't even discovered electricity yet and bring them up to the level of manufacturing a powerful sub-space distress beacon, that probably meant he had to take over the world to do it. He really wished he had Maya's infinite-bullet pistol now. So he had to conserve ammo. This would be a bit of a challenge… maybe even a fun one. He helped overthrow a corporate dictator not more than a few minutes ago. Taking over the world on limited ammo might be entertaining.

Perhaps he could find a library. Get a better sense at their tech level- or, at least, find a map, maybe some star charts. He walked down the hall until he saw a servant girl scrubbing the floor. Did they speak his language?

"Excuse me, girl.
Sorry for the intrusion.
Where's the library?"

He also flashed a ":)"on his helmet for good measure.

She looked up and finally noticed. She yelled some gibberish, backing away in horror. Apparently their languages weren't compatible. The hologram above his helmet turned to a ":(", causing the maid to scream again in surprise.

Well, this wasn't good. He was getting far too much attention. Time to make a quick exit. He leapt over the railing of the nearby staircase, intending to dart out the main door. When he did, he suddenly realized he was falling faster than he was used to. It was only a four-floor drop, but the ground was looking astonishingly scary.

Right. He wasn't on Pandora any more. Terminal velocity on this planet might actually hurt.

An incredibly strong, burning sensation on his hand woke Zer0 up. He was lying down on a bed, and his legs felt immensely better. Good to know that medicine in this world was far more advanced than their plumbing. It still didn't explain why his hand felt like it was he was being branded.

"Congratulations, Louise. You've completed the familiar summoning ritual."

One adult, slightly balding, had said that. He was holding Zer0's hand, scribbling some notes down as quickly as he could. Small girl, pink hair, must be the one who was called "Louise." Tall redhead, short bluehead. Oh, and the maid. And an older brunette. She looked like the medic type- as in, completely unlike Dr. Zed. She might actually have a medical license. If medical licenses existed on this planet. All of them surrounded the bed. At least they weren't hostile.

"Y-you're my familiar now, right?" Louise asked in a meek shout. It seemed like she was far too scared of him, yet was doing her best to be commanding.

"That's interesting.
I can understand you now.
Familiar? Me?"

"Yes! I'm your master now, do you understand?" This little girl started pointing a little wooden stick at him. Zer0 found it amusing.

"Master?" He wondered what she meant by that. She thought she'd command him? He never had anyone who controlled him. He had employers, sure. But when they overstepped their bounds and presumed they could force him into anything, he corrected them with a blade through the throat. Still, this was a small girl from a foreign culture on a different planet. Maybe he'd give her a few more chances.

"That's right!" Louise responded, pleased with his reply. Evidently she didn't understand the ":(" over his head. "Was that lightning storm your doing? Or are you a commoner?"

"Commoner?" The hologram changed to a "?" as Zer0 looked around. The others seemed just as puzzled. Was she asking if he was common? Well, everyone was a very special and unique snowflake; except that most of them shared common weak spots. Eyes, throat, in between the vertebrae, unarmoured underbelly, and kneecaps if you wanted to stretch out the pain a little. It was rare for him to meet a truly special snowflake like the Warrior.

The small, blue-haired one answered for him. "Fingers."

Apparently Louise, the redhead, and the maid hadn't noticed, gasping at the revelation. The two older ones seemed to be well aware of it already. He had four fingers, each of them about twice as long as a human's. He waved his hand.

"What are you?" Louise demanded.

Zer0 just shook his head.

"What's your name, then?"

"Zer0." When he said that, he saw Louise suddenly get very angry. The redhead doubled over in laughter, while the two older ones seemed to have a little trouble hiding their shock. The small blue one was the only one who remained calm. The maid was just confused at everyone's reaction.

"Louise…" The man put his hand over hers, forcing her to drop the little wooden stick. Turning Zer0, he asked, "Is your name truly Zero?"

Zer0 nodded, displaying a ":)" now.

"So Louise the Zero summons a Zero! You couldn't ask for a better familiar!" The redhead laughed. She was on the floor now, rising only as tall as her little bluehead friend.

While Louise was still trying to calm down, the older man decided to ask a few questions of his own. "Zero, is that a suit, or your actual skin? Our water mages were able to heal your legs through the material, but we couldn't remove it at all. There are no buttons or strings or hooks…"

"Suit," Zer0 replied, shrugging. Well, it was a skintight, airtight, lightly armoured envirosuit. When he was this far ahead in technology, he couldn't blame them for thinking he was some kind of mythical beast with strange skin.

"And I presume that's not your actual head, then. It's a helmet of some kind?"

Zer0 nodded.

"May we see your face, then?"

Zer0 shook his head.

At this point, Louise decided she needed to step in. "Familiar, I order you to take off that helmet!"

Zer0 just ignored her and decided to get up instead. He easily towered over everybody else. It seemed like everyone was even shorter than the other Vault Hunters he was running with only an hour ago. Well, except Salvador. The only thing shorter than him were midgets. And maybe that blue-haired girl. Turning to the medic woman, he bowed and said, "Thanks."

"I… uh… you're welcome," she replied. "Where are you going?"

Honestly, he had no idea. Off this planet was the eventual goal, but again, he didn't know where to start. Getting used to 1g of gravity was priority one. "Away," he answered.

"Familiar, you're not going anywhere! You're staying with me, you hear?" Louise scrambled after him. "You're mine!"

"Yours?" Zero's helmet flashed ":(" again.

"Yes! I summoned you! You have to do what I say! I'm your master!" Louise huffed angrily. "Look, I'll forgive you if you just take off that helmet right now." She grabbed Zer0 by the wrist to hold him back. He kept on walking, leaving Louise to skid across the floor as she held on tight.

"Forgive?" The hologram changed to "LOL."

"That's right. I can't believe you still don't understand. I got such a doofus for a familiar. I'll explain it again. I'm your master, and you're my…"

"Minion?"

"YES! Well, it's not the best word for it, but that's close enough. Finally!"

Zer0 quickly whirled around, breaking Louise's grip with ease. He bent down until his helmet was almost touching Louise's nose.

"Just like Claptrap was:
You're cluelessly persistent.
Me? A minion? No."

Author's Chapter End Notes:

- Well, there's your introduction! I have to say it was kind of hard figuring out what kind of person Zer0 actually is. It could range anywhere from psychopath killer to honourable ninja, given how little backstory he's got. The backstory he does get in-game is really just other characters talking about how they have no idea what his backstory is. So... yeah. I hope my Zer0's acceptable.

- And like I said at the beginning, there's some things I try to avoid; that is, forcing certain plot events to happen, despite the characters' personalities (or knowledge) being completely unsuitable. For those of you who've read lots of ZnT fics, you know the next most important plot point that sort of needs to be in every fic. I'm still wondering how to approach it.