Prepare To Have Your Mind Blown Wide
The sun beat down harshly.
Most places on Pandora offered little cover from the sun's rage. The heat was everywhere. The only hope to stay cool was to be in a settlement with a roof or to be in one of the very few areas with trees (like Jakobs Cove, which doesn't really count because it's a zombie-infested hellhole). Another hope was to hope that clouds managed to blot out the sun, but clouds were fleeting. They never stayed in one place for long, thanks to atmospheric processes.
And much like clouds, many things on Pandora could fly. Stalkers could glide for a limited time. The few skrakk still left that the Vault Hunters missed could. Rakk, which were everywhere, also had the gift of flight. Hyperion's surveyors and the bandit-constructed Buzzards were one of the two types of flying machine made by humankind.
The third was Sanctuary.
A Dahl interplanetary mining starship, Sanctuary was abandoned when Dahl evacuated the planet due to the troublesome presence of the Crimson Lance. Sanctuary was promptly unabandoned when the few citizens of Pandora not interested in spilling blood decided to hole up there. And its unabandonedness increased further when Hyperion torched New Haven, and the Crimson Raiders needed a new home.
Of course, Sanctuary spent most of its life on Pandora in the ground. The Caustic Caverns underneath the mining ship were teeming with life and hyperacidic oceans of green goop. They also had crystals of an unknown type - most of which were on large creatures called Crystalisks, three-legged rock spiders. The Crystalisks used to be peaceful, until Dahl decided harvesting them would be a good idea.
Now, if a Crystalisk sees a human, they will fire exploding crystals and vomit rock spikes at them. And it's all Dahl's fault.
Corporate blaming aside, Sanctuary had stayed in the ground long enough that a refurbishment would be required if it were ever to lift off. Fortunately, the Crimson Raiders had a mechanic. And Roland had a backup plan in the event he had ever gone missing; Sanctuary would lift off.
Of course, the fateful day when it actually did came when the Guardian Angel betrayed the Raiders, and Sanctuary encountered zero problems as it gracefully lifted itself into the air, before Lilith and at least six pieces of raw Eridium Phasewalked the city to the Highlands - where Sanctuary has remained until today, still in the skies.
Rakk buzz the city sometimes, but they never get too close. The dead rakk corpses that accumulated in the area for a while (at least, before the Stalkers and the Threshers started eating them) sent a fairly clear message that even the rakk could understand. The presence of a Siren who, in her own words, could "phasewalk this city at the drop of a hat" prevented Hyperion's always-present, always-watching H-shaped moon base (capable of orbitally bombarding anywhere on the planet) from being able to fire moonshots at the city - without losing billions of dollars in money, at least.
And with Handsome Jack dead, the various threats of the day thwarted, and seemingly no unified Hyperion in the absence of Jack, for now the Crimson Raiders and the various sane-to-insane residents of Sanctuary could rest and take it easy.
Take it easy being relative, of course.
As at least one resident of Sanctuary decided it was a good idea to start knocking on a wall for no reason, driving the other residents insane to no end dealing with it, one Marcus Kincaid relaxed and counted the money he had earned so far from today's sales.
Marcus Kincaid (no refunds) was a salesman mastermind. He owned every weapon vending machine on Pandora, but sadly, none of the medical vendors (those were all Dr. Zed's) or the Torgue machines (owned by, rather obviously, one Mister Torgue Flexington). In addition, he also had an over-the-counter store in Sanctuary, as well as a franchise in T-Bone Junction. Tartarus Station's Marcus Munitions was outed when Hyperion began to rev up those fascists, and New Haven's Marcus Munitions, rather understandably, was razed along with the rest of New Haven.
He was going to visit T-Bone soon, but until then, he was operating the Sanctuary store. He smirked over to a bit of blood on the floor; someone had come in insisting their Jakobs revolver wasn't working the day the Vault Hunters had arrived. The fine print said any malfunctioning weapon was liable for an on-the-spot test by Marcus - using the owner as target practice.
The Jakobs shot straight, shot true, and hit hard, shattering his kneecap and necessitating a visit to Dr. Zed's and a scolding from Roland about shooting Sanctuary's citizens. Marcus didn't care, and sent a citizen to return the Iron for the customer, who now had working proof his gun wasn't malfunctioning.
He laughed a little bit to himself, before a young voice dragged him out of his thoughts full of blood and money and blood caused by money.
"Uh, what're you laughing about?" The voice belonged to one Gaige, the Mechromancer. She might only have been 18, but she was just as lethal as the rest of the Vault Hunters. Most of this lethality centered on the fact that she had built a robot two years earlier - Deathtrap. The robot wasn't out right now, but it was destructive - more heavily armored then Axton's Sabre turret, it looked like a scrap metal leviathan. It didn't have legs, instead using a hover drive similar to the one in Constructors. Deathtrap's two main attacks were accidentally-lethally-tuned Digistruct claws, which were usually used in a flurry of energetic strikes, and a tesla burst from its head.
Less often used attacks included explosive claps that stunned enemies, eye lasers, and producing a shock orb that exploded when shot - much to the chagrin, then lethality, of just about anything within zap range when it happened. On top of that, Deathtrap could also partially restore the shields of an ally (though the first time Gaige mounted that ability, sometimes it went around restoring enemy shields and giving shields to Threshers).
As for Gaige herself... nobody liked being near her in combat. Even though she was much younger than any of the fighting Vault Hunters, there were two reasons for this. The first was the fact that she'd torn the core out of a random Grade IV Maliwan shock nova shield, hooked it up to a personal power supply, and then set it to explode any time she reloaded. The second was Anarchy.
It earned its name because that's what it usually induced. Gaige's prosthetic arm (which is another story, one involving bone-deep hacksaw cuts and the opportunity to easily summon a giant death robot) carried a damage booster that increased in power when she got into fights. Unfortunately, something in the damage booster wasn't wired up right. The end result was that Gaige's adrenaline level slowly rose in a fight. Thirty seconds after calmly planning out an angle of attack, she'd be busy giving the middle finger to a group of Nomads with one hand while aiming so badly with the SMG in her other she was hitting bandits behind her with shots that caused their arms to splatter over walls. It got bad enough that once she'd accidentally shot about two feet from Axton and shattered his leg with the sheer force.
So Gaige designed Discord. It would automatically trigger after a while, or whenever she got sense knocked into her; refined, liquid Eridium would surge through the arm and temporarily interface with it in a long and technobabbly way that had the end result of temporarily cutting off the adrenaline surge. Gaige would be able to see enough sense to actually use the damage booster to great effect. One day, after a particularly bad power high, Axton tripped Discord. Gaige got so pissed off in response that when a Badass Pyre Thresher had appeared, she pulled out a Torgue shotgun and stomped towards it alone.
Everyone arrived in Sanctuary covered in thresher guts. And one arrived on fire.
"Oh, uh... I was just thinking about the money I earned today, ahah, yes!"
"You're thinking about the one dude you shot with his own gun, aren't you?"
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "How could you tell?"
"I was there when you did it. And nobody's cleaned the bloodstain since." She indicated the splatter of gore that had seamlessly worked its way into the floor.
"Yes, I was. Now what do you want, kid?"
Gaige rolled her eyes at the assumption and took a step to the side. "Just gotta get some ammo. E-Techs are awesome, but they eat bullets." She tapped at the vending machine with her hand, as Marcus took note of the Grade IV-B Tediore Refill Plasma Caster on her back. The blocky, carbon-fiber sub-machine gun coursed blue with the electrical energy imbued inside it as Gaige shoved quite a couple of SMG magazines into her Storage Deck, letting the machine sort the ammo out for her.
"Just getting some ammo. Second I get down here you're laughing about something. Can ya blame a girl for being wary?"
"It's not like I'd be able to do anything to you. You're still wearing a Black Hole." He indicated the Grade V shield she was wearing, the Black Hole - a Maliwan shield that used experimental technology (read; stolen from Hyperion) to emit a singularity when it went down, pulling enemies closer to the subject for second wind purposes.
"Yeah, but there's creepier things that don't need guns..."
"Even so, if that Plasma Caster is eating your ammunition like a skag eats flesh, might I be able to interest you in a quality Hyperion sub-machine gun? It carries more ammunition and doesn't use two rounds for one round, making it-"
"If I wanted a sales pitch for Hyperion, I'd go to Opportunity." And with that last bit of sass out of the way, Gaige left.
Marcus sighed and sat back. Not many liked him, mostly due to his greed. But he couldn't help himself! If he had to choose between money, power, and fame, he'd pick money and buy the other two. It was how he was engineered, how he was.
And yet he was still disliked by most residents of Sanctuary.
Admittedly, this one was his latest fault - even though Maya carried a Bitch and a Conference Call, and Krieg carried a Butcher, Hyperion was still very disliked. Bringing it up was okay in terms of guns - it was unanimous that if you wanted accuracy under fire, you got a Hyperion - but overenthusiastic sales pitches for the guns like what Marcus did tended to attract jeers. This was the company that killed their first leader and one of the old Vault Hunters' pets, so it was at least understandable.
Oh, well. I'll just buy their happiness later, when I have the quadrillion dollars needed to spare. And if they're still not happy, then screw that noise, I have money. And with that, the aging, portly male waited for the next customer.
As Gaige exited Sanctuary's friendly neighborhood Marcus Munitions, she made a left turn at the junction to Pierce Station and passed by Crazy Earl's Black Market. It wasn't actually a black market - some of the new Vault Hunters had gotten things from there - but nobody really told each other anything openly about the Black Market. Mostly because Crazy Earl was crazy. Only one person in all of Sanctuary, pound-for-meaty-pound, was able to match - and exceed - Earl in sheer insanity.
He was currently doing so.
"BUT WHY CAN'T I PAY YOU IN MEAT MONEY?"
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU TALKIN' 'BOUT, BOY, BUT MEAT-BUCKS AIN'T ERIDIUM! I. WANT. RID-ROCK!"
"Why should I have to collect the vile purple bricks, tainting my gun-taint with the same substance that turned her into the phantom of the blood opera! I loved the action so, but the purple stuff comes from guns, too! Why? DO YOU WANT TO BECOME AN IMMORTAL ORGAN-CRUNCHER?"
Two eyes blinked behind the steel door. "Nah."
Crazy Earl slid the visor shut as Krieg roared in rage, tore out his buzz axe, and swung it directly at the door. Gaige watched from a distance, as did another Crimson Lanceman. Nobody else really paid attention to the eight-foot-tall behemoth currently slashing away with a massive, red-hot chainsaw polearm at a titanium-strength privacy enabler.
A few minutes later he stopped, as if listening to something.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He turned the axe around and smacked himself as hard as he could. The shield took the hit. Seeing as he was no longer dangerously psychotic, Gaige closed in.
"Hey Krieg."
Krieg looked at her with unflinching rage for a second, before he realized who she was. "Robot girl! Rip the thoughts out of my head with claws and gunfire or I will find your n-"
Gaige waved her plastic hand at him. "Yeah, yeah, 'find your nephews and eat them alive after drinking their blood out of their eyes with a bendy straw', I get it."
"YOU FORGOT THE SOUL-SUCKING!"
"Oh. Right. Anyways, you been trying to get another Storage Deck off of Earl?"
Krieg nodded. "He won't accept the blood!" He ripped out what Gaige identified as the heart of a slag mutant and threw it onto the ground. It squelched on impact, a mix of blood and waste Eridium whipping off of it as it did so.
Gaige sighed. The last time he'd brought up the fact he had to collect Eridium for the Black Market she'd almost gotten her head torn off before Krieg mumbled at her in a low and unsteady voice to help him, over and over. Like the Psycho he truly was.
"One second." That times ten later, she returned with an additional Storage Deck plugin and handed it to Krieg, who threw it in.
"Huehuehuehuhuhuhuehehheheehahaaa! MORE SPACE FOR THE MEAT-HOLE PUNCHES!"
"Yeah. You're welcome, Krieg."
Krieg tilted his head for a second, trying to remember the thing he was supposed to say to give his respect to this young meatling for getting the storage device. He thought of it in lines the other thing had suggested - it was words like an axe; without it, there was no way to get the blood.
Five seconds of total silence ensued.
It's thank you, okay? Just say it to her.
"NIPPLE SALADS!"
Why do I even bother sometimes?
Gaige wandered off back to her house, leaving the violent Psycho - and his not-so-violent cohort - alone with their thoughts. Slag experimentation, courtesy of both Hyperion and the bandits, had turned Krieg from a normal Vault Hunter into what could be best described as a monster and worst as OH GOD WE CAN'T KILL IT NO PLEASE AAAHGAHGHAHAHGHAGHGHHHHHHHHHH! followed by various splatters of blood leaving your system as the unholy combination of a buzz-saw and a hatchet tore it out of you.
Krieg was a Psycho, true and true. He carried two weapons on his back - the first being a Grade V bandit-manufactured belt-fed machine gun named the "Madhous!', pried from the cold, dead hands of one Mad Dog of Lynchwood, along with copious amounts of dynamite (the better to bust open a bank vault with, but that's another story for another time). The second was his buzz-axe, which (thanks to some modifications) was currently sporting a massive buzzsaw blade whose teeth glowed red hot, and a cluster of dynamite that Krieg would light using his mask. It always seemed to have a fuse that exploded shortly after it landed in its target. Neither side of Krieg could figure out why. At least he was always able to digistruct a new axe.
In addition, he also had two personalities. The first was the obviously dominant one - one whose glory days would be spent vacating someone's ribcage of its contents manually while screaming in iambic pentameter about the squelchiness of various organs and just about everything involving blood. The second personality's best guess is that he was a hemophiliac, which explained things well.
Said second personality was who Krieg used to be before he was captured by Hyperion. Now, he's best described as being along for the ride. He can't choose what to do, but he can feel the results.
He could feel himself beginning to get bored, and Krieg let loose with a cry of "I'LL GO FOR A SPOT OF A WALK TO THE PRETTY LADY!"
Don't.
"YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Another whack with the axe. Shields taking them faithfully. Krieg's passive side thanked whatever gods there were he hadn't activated the Love Thumper's roid systems, or they'd be in pieces right now.
Look. You've bothered her three times this past hour. I want her as much as you do, but we need to be smart about it.
"BEING SMART IS FOR THE NERDS! THOSE WHO'D RATHER SIT BEHIND A DESK AND BEAT AWAY AT SLABS OF PLASTIC WITH THEIR FINGERS, CREATING A MIMETIC UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE THAT TELLS A STORY THAT CAN NEVER BE EXPERIENCED IN REALITY!"
...And we won't get her if we aren't.
"I HATE ME!" Thwack.
This is going to be a long day...
Just a couple of feet away, one could hear the techno music pouring out of the only bar in Sanctuary - Miss Moxxi's Red Light. As with all of her endeavours, half of her personal armory, and three-quarters of her vocabulary, the Red Light was an innuendo - a rather subtle one, whose meaning will go unknown via the you-aren't-old-enough-if-you-have-to-ask rule. Inside the bar was where Sanctuary felt happiest - citizens shared various alcoholic beverages, from cheap beer and rakk ale to rare whiskies and a spot of Vladof vodka, while doing such things as shooting the shit, playing darts, trying (and failing) to win a date with Moxxi, and playing the slot machines.
One of the newest entries rubbed his ears from the incessant screaming outside as he sat down and thumped the table. Moxxi's attention turned to him, as she polished a beer mug. "Hey, Sugar. How've you been doin', tonight?"
"Eh. About fine," he shrugged. "I'll have a mug of Rakk Ale." He deposited twenty dollars into Moxxi's tip jar.
"Ooh! Keep putting your things in there and I might just reward you for it." Coy as always, Moxxi began drawing some rakk ale as the occupant laughed the innuendo off and turned to the slot machines.
"Jeez. more people yanking sticks than in your place out in T-Bone."
Moxxi snorted. "Alright, Ax, I'll give you a bit of points for that one."
Axton turned his attention to Moxxi as she put down the mug of beer. "Yeah. Someone's gotta make jokes about how Jakobs-wielders are compensating for something out in the field. And if you're not out there, who else?"
"Oh, yes. Then again, I wouldn't make jokes about firearms - but guns are another question entirely."
Axton smirked at that one. Moxxi made a living off of this type of humor. It was a lucrative trade.
"Still. The Jakobs one always works in a pinch."
Axton heard the sound of a cloaking device disengaging next to him. He didn't even turn. Only one person in Sanctuary owned one.
"Too easy a joke, and hypocritical, too. You use the Maggie."
"Yeah, well at least I'm not carrying something that's taller than I am."
"The joke works both ways. You are as immune as I - which is to say, not."
Moxxi kept up a smile as the two of them continued what essentially amounted to an ersatz dick-swinging contest. Axton and Zer0 were exact opposites and total rivals.
One of them had actually worked for the Dahl Marines for ten years, only leaving because of the reckless actions that saved the planet - apparently the final straw involved foreign dignitaries, terrorists, and twenty pounds of super-high explosives. His military heritage was clear due to the gold-plated targeting computer on his shoulder - a Grade V Legendary Soldier class mod, manufactured by the same corporation he had escaped from. It was also clear in the two Sabre Turrets he carried - both had longbow technology that allowed them to temporarily hyperjump until they reached deployment points, and carried magnetic locks that allowed them to stick just about anywhere they could get footing.
The first one was the "scalpel" turret, as he'd called it. It was equipped with what could best be described as a mini-nuke, and a shield generator that allowed Axton cover to throw in the "sledgehammer" turret. Whereas the first turret only carried a single gun, this turret carried twin guns loaded with Slag rounds, in addition to the missile pods that allowed it to take deadly advantage of the damage accelerant/general hazardous material.
Axton was always a reckless fighter. He usually kept to cover, but for the most part darted between it with a quickness not usually found in pragmatic soldiers and was always trying to land the final blows or face down impossible odds. He was suicidal; it was in his blood to be badass.
Zer0, on the other hand, kept his pragmatism, and was a much more careful and precise fighter. The man/alien/robot loved a good challenge, and so he had installed damage boosters into his sniper rifle to boost its power from critical hits. This was part of his strategy to take advantage of the long range - with a perfectly accurate, ridiculously powerful Grade V-B Jakobs Tumtum HawkEye, and what he called Decepti0n (a mix of a general damage booster for guns and swords, combined with a cloaking device and a holographic decoy), Zer0 could shoot the flea off a Thresher's head from a thousand yards.
Unfortunately, the sheer force of the round would mean the Thresher would also suffer a horrifically painful death from the shockwaves of the round travelling by, but that's another story entirely.
Zer0 didn't spend all of his time at range, however. He was the most proficient swordsman in the entire galaxy, to the point where he could kill with his sword without ever having to grip it (the Hyperion engineers he'd killed on the Vault Hunter train would speak of his expertise, had he not gracefully murdered them). In addition, he'd also given his sword a much larger damage boost, and could take advantage of this - every sword kill evaporated his current decoy, threw out another one, and kept him cloaked for longer.
This wasn't discounting the kunai he could digistruct, engineered to apply elemental effects and fly straighter than actual kunai knives actually could. Combat tactics were simple enough at close range - go into Decepti0n, whip kunai, charge in with either his sword or his Vladof (formerly Captain Blade's) Resolute Rapier, whichever was handier, strike, and provided they didn't die from the first hit, the Death Mark applied by the kunai ensured they wouldn't survive another. It was either that, or go into Decepti0n, calculate an optimum firing solution, and fire in such a way as to let the customized extreme-penetration B0re Rounds slam through as many enemies and critical spots as possible. Zer0's combat plans were all the plans of a pragmatic, ruthlessly efficient murderer.
Which was why the two were at odds. Zer0 was the blue oni and Axton was the red. When Axton wasn't relentlessly pressing the front, he was outright charging into the fight. Zer0 always infiltrated enemy lines with stealth and grenade-induced confusion, and whenever he struck, it was with precision.
It was also why the two were close friends. Axton's belligerence provided a distraction for Zer0 to sieve targets apart, and Zer0's precise predation ensured Axton never went home in a body bag. As a team, everyone feared the Commando and the Assassin, the latter more so than the former, because at least the Commando gave you the pleasure of knowing you were about to die. The Assassin's calling card came in the form of a blade through your chest - and that was while he wasn't sniping.
"Then I guess we're brothers in the same predicament, huh?"
Zer0 nodded. "Tell the bandits that. They will point and laugh at us; we gain the first strike."
"Nah. Don't need anything negative going around 'bout the invincible Vault Hunters."
Moxxi nodded. "And besides - if anyone asks, I can personally vouch for you having very big guns."
Axton laughed. Zer0's merely let out a "Heh."
"Oh, you. So stoic. Maybe a beer wil-"
In response to Moxxi, Zer0 simply tapped his helmet. It wasn't exactly built for drinking.
"Oh. Right." She turned away and muttered under her breath, "sometimes I wonder how you live in that fancy spandex suit."
"I heard that," was the immediate response. Moxxi's cheeks turned pink as Axton continued to cackle as if he was a villain who had just squashed a dog underfoot.
"Idunno how he does it, either. I'm just gonna stick with the robot thing. You, uh..." Axton looked to Zer0. "...you're a robot, right?"
"Robot, alien, human, whichever you like. I'm still not telling."
"Ass," muttered Axton, before his attention turned back to his drink.
Across town from Moxxi's Red Light sat Scooter's Garage, the workshop of one Scooter, and the nexus of Pandora's Catch-A-Ride stations. Scattered across the world, the Catch-A-Ride provided free cars to its authorized users - or anyone proficient in hacking. Whether it was the fast Outrunner, the tanky Bandit Technical, the maneuverable Hover Skiff, or the aquatic Fanboat, the Catch-A-Ride could build it (and if one hacked it enough, the Outrunner Racer, Monster, and an old Atlas Lancer APC could be pried from its systems).
Pandora's infrastracture - non-bandit-and-Hyperion-wise - was controlled by someone who was at best an idiot outside of the mechanical realm. Which brought a smirk to Maya's face. All it would take is one flipped switch after a bad day and Pandora would find themselves with no further cars until Scooter pried himself from the hangover and bashed his fist against a Catch-A-Ride until he remembered he shut it down.
Of course, she was here for a reason. That reason being, "convince Scooter to restart the Catch-A-Ride system".
Funny how some things go, huh?
Maya knocked on the side door to the garage. With no response, she cautiously pushed the handle down and walked in. She sorely wished she was carrying a pistol, but sadly, the least weighty gun would probably be her Grade V Maliwan Impetuous Hellfire. And that needed two hands to carry, unless your name was "Salvador".
What Maya expected was a pissed off or depressed Scooter. What Maya found was an absolute mess of a garage, with vehicle parts everywhere, something looking like Badassasaurus Rex had screwed a pile of scrap metal sitting in the middle of it, with Scooter passed out and snoring right next to it.
Maya calmly headed down the steps and onto the garage's "ground level". She sidestepped various fluids - she was at least sure none of them were bodily, so there was always that - and various jagged pieces of steel that would test her Hide of Terramorphous' shield strength. She got to Scooter ten seconds later, who looked very much like he had passed out and was currently drooling on the floor.
She leaned down, and whispered, in a voice soft as silk, "Scooter... get up."
Scooter snorted.
She pulled herself into a crouch and poked the mechanic. Sharply. "Scooter. Catch-A-Rides are off. Turn 'em on. Geddup."
Scooter mumbled "catch-a" and rolled over, facing her. Maya knew in that moment what she had to do.
She leaned into his face. Lingering closer and closer until their noses were about to-
"SCOOTER! GET UP!"
The guttural scream from the top of her lungs caused Scooter to fly awake. "AHGHHAHEHCATCHABULLET" was the only intelligible part of his sentence, before Scooter shot off, grabbed a wrench, and swung it at Maya.
Maya ducked, more for Scooter's sake than her own. The Grade V bandit-manufactured Hide of Terramorphous was an excellent combat shield - an unholy fusion of Nova, Spike, and Roid that she mostly wore for the first two - and if Scooter's wrench had landed the shield's systems would have ejected an incendiary spike of energy at him.
That would not have ended well, unless you didn't like Scooter. Which meant that for one quarter of Sanctuary, it would have ended well.
"Oh. Uh, sorry Maya, ahah, thought you was Hyperion or a bandit or that monster that's been chasin' me made of underwear and dead girlfriends and-"
Maya held up her hand. "Please, Scooter. Not today."
"-and I was always... oh. Right. So what'cha need, chickie?"
Maya shifted on the balls of her feet. "Scooter, Lilith's told me the Catch-A-Rides are down. Uh... could you turn them back on?"
"Oh! Right, I sorta had to because of the thing I was tryin' to build!" He pointed to the amorphous blob of steel currently residing in the garage.
"...uh... what is it?" Maya knew she was going to regret asking this question.
"I saw that one thing you was tryin' to fight, that giant steel dinosaur truck thing, and I was like "holy skagsuck that is awesome" so I tried to build a copy of it! But I didn't have enough raw materials so I had to shut down the Catch-A-Rides and keep 'structin' cars so I could try to make it!"
Maya pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh. So you were trying to make Badassasaurus Rex."
"Yeah! That's what 'is name was! God-damn that thing looked sick!"
"But... digistruct is technically infinite so long as there's power. So... why did the Catch-A-Rides need to be shut down?"
Scooter shook his head. "'Cause of the power draw! I had to reroute the power from all the Catch-A-Rides to this one so that I could actually scan this thing into the digistruct network. Then you can have your own nuke-launching fire-breathing badassmobile ready for whenever you feel like hittin' gas and smashin' ass!"
Okay. As much as the giant pile of scrap was ridiculously stupid and obviously not at all roadworthy, let alone scanworthy, Maya found the idea of the Vault Hunters being able to drive the Badassasaurus a bit too awesome to just let die.
"Well... maybe next time, get Gaige and have her design a Badassasaurus Two. Who knows? You might be able to make it even better."
"Hells yeah! CATCH-YER-DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH!"
Maya sighed. And just like that, Scooter had gone from "that's a good idea" to "shut up before I beat you".
"Just... just turn on the Catch-A-Rides and drop it for now, Scooter."
"Oh. Right!" Scooter walked over to a switch and flipped it. "There. All the Catch-A-Rides on Pandora should be juiced up more than a Goliath on a 'rid-binge!"
Maya nodded. "Good. Thanks, Scooter."
It only took a few more seconds to get out of the garage. Her feet were covered in various oils, and were a bit more slippery than usual. Might as well detour to HQ and wash my shoes. And my pants. Don't wanna leave a slick wherever I walk.
"I'M STARVEEN! I WANNA EAT YER-"
Doctor (self-titled) Zed Blanco wastes no time in bringing the anesthetic needle down into the Hyperion informant's chest. "Yeah, yeah, eat my babies, we get it. I've heard that five times. You'd think you could come up with something better."
He doesn't show fear in front of the bandit. It's not like he can actually do anything. Zed's strapped him down onto the table, then double and triple-strapped. There's more straps on him than one of the shirts in that ECHO sim, Acoustic Music Playing. The bandit is restrained.
Zed grabs his buzz axe - provided you know how to use it right (he does) and keep it cleaned (he doesn't), it's a useful medical tool - and begins to ponder how to get at the Eridium shard that's in his chest like the past five caught informants when the door to Dr. Zed's 24/7 Clinic swings open and in marches the man with the largest height-to-fury ratio Zed has ever seen.
The two storage deck holsters at his sides - bandit-built Grade V Legendary Berserker class mods - bear an image of Brick punching. He's only four feet tall, and yet he violently devastates built-like-tanks-wish men twice his size. He's wider than he has any right to be with that kind of build. He is the Gunzerker, but he prefers "Salvador", or, if he calls you his friend, "Sal".
"'Ey, Sal. How's it going?"
Salvador marches over to a vendor, scratches his ass, then looks at the things on sale. Nothing good. Figures.
"Not much. Getting boring, not a whole lot to shoot at."
"You just beat this dude up twenty hours ago, and you're already bored?"
Salvador shrugs. "Sue me. My counter-response is infallible." He fingered his holster.
"Mostly because people can't respond to it. Anyways, if you're bored, you could probably perform surgery on this jackhole if you want to..."
Salvador looks up. Zed sees the gleam in the stout man's eyes, and then that gleam bursts into shimmering rays.
Not good, he thinks.
"I will need a new operating theatre. Collateral damage is too high in here."
Zed sighs. The operating tables can't be moved, so he instead jabs enough morphine in the man to verge on a lethal overdose, and then unstraps him, picks him up and hands him to Salvador. Salvador sets off into the outside world, Zed following along with the concern of someone who is very worried half of Sanctuary may spontaneously disappear during 'surgery'.
They head down the stairs, passing Maya; the two Vault Hunters share a knowing nod, and Maya waves to Zed. The good doctor, never without his facemask, waves back as he stops at the steps.
Salvador steps into the plaza outside Scooter's Garage, and Zed thinks the ground should be shaking under their feet. Or maybe he's just imagining it. The midget stomps near the edge, lays the informant down, then steps back. The bandit slowly looks around, as if trying to comprehend his position in the universe, and Salvador steps a fair distance back, looking behind him. Zed isn't sure why he is, and then the storage deck whrrs and he knows why.
Salvador has drawn the single most devastating weapon on Pandora. A Grade V rocket launcher - the Maliwan Puissant Norfleet. He takes aim, looks behind him again - both times, Zed knows, he's clearing the backblast - and then he opens fire.
The fins of the launcher expand as the charge inside a specialized rocket - composing of the storage data of two - launches. The motor ignites and the rocket surges forwards into a field composed of pure Eridium, which turns part (a very large part) of the rocket's mass into energy. Arcane circuitry known only to the highest echelons of corporate holdings compresses this single rocket into a ball of pure destructive force, then splits it into thirds and hurls it out of the launcher.
The fins radiate excess heat as the three plasma balls surge out of the launcher. They travel at running speed, but there's no outrunning it.
The explosion can be heard all across Sanctuary. It's immediately obvious what it was, due to the distinctive sound of an E-Tech launcher firing beforehand. Nobody, least of all the leaders of the Crimson Raiders, pays it any heed.
When all is said and done, there is a small crater in the concrete, with naught to be seen of the bandit but ashes. Zed steps forwards to where he stood, feeling the heat that still radiates from the concrete that had a run-in with a force of nature, and he picks up the pink shard of-
Wait.
Eridium's not pink.
He studies it for a few seconds and comes to the realization that it's a Seraph Crystal. He's just about to toss it over the edge when Salvador swipes it from his hands.
"You have no use for it, si?"
"Yeah."
"Then I will take it. With this crystal I will finally be able to complete our collection of Seraph equipment from the Badass Crater! THIS DAY IS AWESOME!"
Zed shakes his head as Salvador tromps off towards the Fast Travel station to purchase the last gun from... well, wherever someone takes Seraph Crystals for weapons. He's not entirely sure what their uses are for (and also isn't aware of the covert market for them), but he does know the Vault Hunters have been keeping a Special Armory, and any unique weapon has gone into it - as well as copies of weapons of all qualities. He's not sure why.
Oh well. He'd rather not question the Vault Hunter. They know what they're doing. Dr. Zed Blanco heads back to his office. He idly spins the blade of his buzz axe as he does so.
Plasma rocket-induced complications aside, today he plans to practice medicine.
Things are quiet on the bottom level of the headquarters of the Crimson Raiders. The only noise is the sound of a radio, the ever-persistent thrum of the washing machines, and the voice of Patricia Tannis as she speaks about whatever contraption she's come up with. Or something.
Mordecai doesn't really care enough, sitting in a chair surrounding the holotable of Pandora's east coast with the surviving two Vault Hunters from before Hyperion came. It will be up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not he is simply apathetic, drunk off his ass from the latest shipment of rakk ale, or both.
The current topic of discussion across the table is how to come across a source of power cores for the shield. Obviously, there's no way to build a new power core - Pandora doesn't have that kind of still infrastructure. And there's only a limited amount of power cores to scavenge from Pandora, nonetheless the bigger issue of building an actual shield generator for the entire town.
It's around the time Brick suggests punching Hyperion to death and looting the power cores from their corpse that they remember that they have the codes to the Hyperion moonbase. They can just steal all of the power cores from the base before they turn it into a blackened streak across Pandora's moon.
"Heh. For once, my "punch-you-in-the-face-until-you-die" suggestion was actually accepted. 'Bout damn time," laughs Brick.
"Yeah, Brick, because your style has no subtlety. Sometimes you just need to be really far away from someone, just in case you miss and they get pissed off."
Brick stares Mordecai down. Mordecai stares Brick down. Lilith sighs. The Bloodwing chick that hatched peeps from the other room, and Mordecai heads off to tend to it.
Lilith looks over to Brick. "Look, Brick, stop antagonizing Mordecai over fighting styles. Mine's a mix of both of yours and it works equally well."
Brick shrugs. "I prefer punching."
"I get that."
It's been a hectic month. Lilith has let go of Roland, and so has Tina. Bunkers and Badasses helped, despite the insane chaos it took considering each Vault Hunter had to lord over two of their own. Brick had taken Maya and Salvador, and Mordecai had taken Zer0 and Axton - leaving her to lord over Axton and Gaige. It had still been fun - even with Mister Torgue having the Vault Hunters (more realistically, Maya and Salvador) blow up Flamerock Refuge's scouting blimps, and Brick deciding to negotiate with the king of the dwarves via punching him in the face.
Mordecai still remembers the look on her face when Brick rolled a natural 20.
For now, there's quiet in the city of Sanctuary, as Mordecai whispers loving words to the bloodwing chick he's still bereft of a name for, Brick heads to the observation deck of HQ and does one-armed push-ups, and Lilith sits down and browses the ECHOnet.
Tannis' screech downstairs is the first warning that something's wrong, and before anything can be done Private Jessup sprints in through the door, panting.
"Lilith, ma'am!"
"At ease, Private. What's the sitch?" Lilith has taken to the "Commander" lifestyle better than one would think. Perhaps Roland rubbed off on her.
"We just intercepted some Hyperion communications, get to the radio-"
The voice is female, cold and robotic "Greetings, bandits. The Hyperion corporation has noticed that you have deposed Handsome Jack via a bullet to the face. At Hyperion, we believe in "an eye for an eye", and after studying Sanctuary's trajectory, our moonshots have been calibrated to impact you. Thank you, and have a nice day."
Lilith gulps. They called her bluff.
"Jessup, get everyone indoors! We're at red alert, Mordecai, grab some raw Eridium, Brick, get on the radio with the Vault Hunters!"
The HQ goes into crisis mode as Mordecai raids the Bank for pieces of raw Eridium. Not bothering with subtlety, Lilith Phasewalks, disappearing into an alternate universe as she jumps out the window and lands in the street. She sprints through the fourth dimension over to the spire in the middle of Sanctuary, and she pushes herself out of the Walk in the second before the distant vwhoomp-whoosh appears and a moonshot slams into the city.
There's an explosion, and the screaming begins.
Lilith begins channeling the Phase through her hands, waiting for the Eridium. Contrary to popular belief, Eridium is not a drug. Eridium is more like an energy drink on steroids. You absorb a chunk of raw Eridium, and you gain a massive uptick in your power level. The only problem is that once the power high runs off, a massive amount of fatigue sets in. You need another chunk of Eridium, a nap, or an extremely strong force of will to get past the fatigue.
Lilith has the latter in spades.
The Vault Hunters are on the streets, all of them directing the citizens. Nobody complains about the eighteen-year-old telling them to get to the safe zones as moonshots slam into the city and explosions impact everywhere. Mordecai runs towards Lilith, his arms full of chunks of Eridium. She takes it and begins absorbing them. By number five her tattoos are glowing brightly even though she's not doing anything, and by chunk eight she feels like God.
A momentary meta-awareness moment. So this is what being Gaige feels like.
She shunts the Phase energy more carefully this time - trying to avoid the teleportation that threw all six Vault Hunters outside of Sanctuary, and successfully does so as her power envelops the entire city. There's a thump next to her, and she only has time to look left before what looks like a heavily modified lunar beacon begins pulsing out waves of red energy, not unlike the shockwaves of an EXP Loader about to detonate.
Lilith hurries to throw Sanctuary into Phasewalk. The second she flinches in, the wave hits her.
What happens next is indescribable, if only because of the sheer agony that permeates her entire being. Lilith grasps the control over the Phasewalk, but that's all she can control, as she screams in every possible wavelength. Mordecai closes his eyes from the assault of light emanating from her as Sanctuary warps, twists, temporarily becomes something that should not be, then disappears.
The moonshots blaze idly through the air where the city used to be.
Far, far away from the wasteland that was Pandora (remember that one quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide that said how big space was? Space is peanuts to this type of distance) stood its total opposite. If Pandora is the yang, Equus was its yin. A mostly peaceful instead of mostly warlike world with one of the most peaceful and civil societies to ever be witnessed; Equestria.
Its technological development could best be described as "Renaissance", despite the fact they had skyscrapers and weather control and (in some cases) large, 1970s-era computers. The country was very schizophrenic in its adaptation of technology, mostly because at least one third of the populace, at any given time, was trained in the usage of honest-to-Celestia magic, which precluded most technological development.
The second third had flight and weather control capabilities. The third, besides increased fortitude, was otherwise unremarkable.
One particular town was an eclectic curiosity. It had seen enough shit to rightfully be leery of anything strange that headed by, and yet the town was still cheery and happy to outsiders. It had six ponies who were essentially superheroes, and one of them was essentially a god (if the low information most people possessed on the alicorn race was anything to go by). The town of Ponyville, Equestria was a nice, friendly place to be.
It was also balls-out insane. Everypony there was a pony, but they all had quirks that stood out from the rest. Ordinary folk needed an adjustment period for some of Ponyville's more eccentric inhabitants. Not to mention the fact the town stood on the Everfree Forest, the only place without weather control, where the wild things are, and often came from.
Twilight Sparkle sighed as she ruminated on what she'd learned of Ponyville so far. Even she was entirely unsure of what had brought it on. Currently, she was reading a book entitled "Straightening the Wing: How To Preen Feathers". Considering most pegasi were taught by their parents how to preen, she wasn't entirely sure why such a book existed, but she wasn't complaining. Dumped next to her were at least seven other books on the pegasus.
Twilight Sparkle loved reading. She loved books, which was why she was living in a library. She loved research, and the perfect catalyst for it was her recent "blessing" (it was a curse, in her opinion; all that extra attention, growing two inches taller, and sprouting two wings tended to upset morning routines and things she took for granted greatly); an upgrade to the status of Alicorn.
And dealing with her wings was the worst thing ever. The damn things let her fly, yes, but they were so temperamental she attempted to figure out how Rainbow Dash could even deal with them from day-to-day. She drew a blank.
She'd been at this seven hours. And she didn't tire of it. All she found annoying about this scenario was the fact that now she had to deal with two things that were almost everything, from a way to express emotions to a method of flight to erogenous zones (yeah, she was a mite embarrassed reading that part). At least she still had her horn - which had grown about two inches. The first time she'd woken up she'd slammed her horn into the ceiling and screamed.
A horn was also an erogenous zone. And like any good feel-good place, hitting it hard did not feel good at all. It felt like having your tail ripped out, only a bit less so.
Twilight sighed, before something inside her twitched. She wasn't sure what it was. At first she thought it was a natural reaction to reading about procreation, but then she realized it wasn't anything reproductive.
It was magical.
It started twitching again and again and again and she quick-cast a spell she didn't even know she knew, that she'd come up with on the spot, to figure out just what was going on. The mana in the air was growing, for some reason.
This never spelt anything good.
She looked back to her books. "...Forget it. The safety of Equestria matters more, now."
With a flash, a pink ball of energy, and a staticy-sounding fssh, Twilight Sparkle teleported off to assemble the Elements of Harmony.
First on her list: Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter. Pinkie never took a situation seriously, at all. You could point a manacannon at her face and she would smile and make faces for the camera. But it was this lack of self-preservatory instinct that served to raise morale. Pinkie was completely insane, and in the worst of times she dedicated herself to making ponies smile. She definitely headed up the "morale" part of the team.
Twilight reappeared from the Technicolour Dimension outside of Sugarcube Corner, and busted into the gingerbread-ish bakery to reveal that Pinkie was currently in the middle of the floor. To anyone outside of Ponyville, Pinkie could be described as having a seizure so debilitating spacetime itself was beginning to warp around her.
Twilight audibly gulped.
If Pinkie Sense was going off like that, something very big was going to happen, and she doubted it was good.
Twilight stepped into the middle of the bakery, and as the rest of the ponies assembled watched, she poked Pinkie.
"Hey, Pinkie!"
The ensuing vibration garbles were essentially unintelligible, but at least it showed Pinkie was paying attention.
"Uh... can you move?"
Pinkie demonstrated by moving in a circular pattern around. Twilight was entirely unsure as to exactly how it was possible when every single muscle in Pinkie's body was trying to fire in both movements at the same time, but considering Pinkie could outrun Rainbow Dash, stand on clouds without any spells, and could look into a place so alien that she needed to take a year to dwell on it before she could look without being driven insane, she quietly chalked it up to Pinkie being Pinkie.
The last time she'd tried to figure out what powered Pinkie Sense, she'd taken a piano to the face.
"So I'm guessing you know something big's gonna happen!"
A vibrating chirrup.
"...I'll take that as a yes. Anyways, come outside."
Twilight cantered outside; Pinkie stuttered behind her, and the movement made Twilight actually consider a new form of propulsion involving repeated teleportation before she headed outside.
"Alright, Pinkie. We're going to get a pretty big prob-"
There was more stilted, unintelligible chatter, but it was in the "no duh" tone of voice, so she got the gist of it.
"Get to the library. I have to get the rest of the Elements, and I'll tell you about the situation with the rest of them. Okay?"
Pinkie headed off, and slowly began to pick up speed as she did.
Twilight sighed. She charged the teleport, and as it enacted, she thought she heard splintering wood and a fainting scream.
Second on the list (as she teleported, in the split-second she did not exist she fished the list out and punched a hole through the checkbox next to "Gather Pinkie") was Rarity, the Element of Generosity. Oddly, one wouldn't expect generosity out of her at first glance; she was a fashion designer who preferred to mingle with the elite of society. And yet she was still a very generous pony. Most of the time, the first piece (or, in rare cases, pieces) of clothing she made for somepony were given away at no cost. It was a business strategy, too; if the free sample was that good, chances are the paid clothing would be better.
It was that, and other examples that proved she was willing to give in order to make others happy. Twilight presumed that was why she was friends with her. Well, that, or it was the fact that beneath the style and elegance lay a pony who was just as dirty as the rest of the "peon commoners" - if a bit less eager to do so.
Snorting, Twilight shook her head at her own thoughts. They sounded eerily like they were being narrated for somepony who'd never heard of them before, or was just tuning in. Shrugging off her own thoughts and reminding herself she was becoming too much like Pinkie, Twilight opened the door of the Boutique and headed in.
"Welcome to Carou-" and that is where Rarity stopped upon noting the look on Twilight's face. Even customers had the sense to knock before entering the boutique. If Twilight had just entered, then something was likely wrong, with enough urgency that it would have to be attended to before her work.
"...oh, Twilight. What's the problem?"
"That's presuming there is one. Maybe Rainbow Dash is rubbing off on me."
"Oh, please. You two are as different as night and day, but nevermind the banter, something is up."
Twilight nodded. "I wish I could explain, but let's just say that if I don't get the rest of the Elements fast enough you might be able to deduce it on your own. Get to the library and I'll be able to tell you all the problem."
Rarity raised an eyebrow. "Secretive, hrm?"
"No. In a rush."
"Then I guess Dash is rubbing off on you. Oh well. I'll head to the library."
Twilight nodded. "One warning, though; be careful of Pinkie."
"What, any more than usual?"
"Rarity, Pinkie Sense is going off like a bomb. When I teleported here I thought I heard her smash apart a fruit stand."
Rarity nodded. Muttering something about it 'always being the fruit stand' she teleported off. Twilight closed the door for her, then did the same.
Sweet Apple Acres was a very large farm. Then again, farms did tend to be very large, so Sweet Apple Acres was only about as large as one could expect. The massiveness of the Acres and the fact the Apples could be working or (Celestia forbid) on a break meant that it represented a very large teleportation target. Fortunately, being an alicorn, Twilight had gotten a considerable boost in magical stamina, so this teleport spamming wasn't all that tiring.
That, and she knew the lay of the land. She knew exactly what sector Applejack was working in, and she knew this because she was Twilight effin' Sparkle and she makes other ponies with obsessive-compulsive disorder look downright lazy in comparison.
Unfortunately, sometimes Twilight didn't exactly understand the concept of subtlety, which was currently why Applejack was sitting on the groud, one hoof on her head. She'd teleported a bit too close to her, and in response, spooked her right into the front of the tree.
Trees are very hard plants that tend not to yield to the will and force of an unequipped fleshling. If they did, Applejack would be bucking down trees, or - better yet - bucking them in half. In a way, Twilight supposed they were like Applejack herself - as the Element of Honesty she was unwavering. She almost always told the truth, and as the Discord incident had proved, when she was lying, it was very, very easy to tell. She was also very, very stubborn - hence the one time where Mac broke a foreleg and she worked the fields alone for a week, and right now, as she was waving off Twilight and saying she was okay.
Then again, Applejack was one of the "toughies" along with Rainbow Dash. AJ made bone-shattering impacts look easy (bone-shattering on her, mind you), and Rainbow could fly into the ground so hard she caused it to explode.
"Alright. You're okay. Uh... still, sorry about sending you into the tree."
Applejack yet again waved it off. "Ehhhhhh, it's nothin'."
There was a short silence before Applejack, efficient as she was, took the initiative. "So, Twi, what brings ya to the Acres?"
"Applejack, we have a problem. I wish I could tell you now, but I'd rather get it over with at the library where you all can hear it."
Applejack, for her part, nods. She trusts Twilight implicitly. When Twi says there's a problem, and she's handling it with calmness, there's a problem.
"Uh... one question, if I could."
"Yes, Applejack?"
"...how'm I gettin' there fast?"
Sweet Apple Acres is a four-minute sprint to Ponyville.
Twilight responds by using a teleport on her before teleporting herself. Three down, two to go.
She teleports herself, instinctively, a hoof in the air above the clouds, and as she's falling she remembers oh ponyfeathers I never put a cloudwalking spell on myself and before she can cast it her wings are flapping to stabilize altitude and then she's standing on the cloud.
It takes her a second to remember that she's part pegasus, now.
...Riiiiiiiiight.
She headed towards the door and teleported past it and inside. It was rather early in the morning - 10, to be precise - which meant Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, was likely still sleeping. Dash could have her coffee. She didn't need sleep now that the world was threatened by annihilation.
The mana was getting stronger. Twilight could feel the charge without needing to actively check on it, and it was starting to get big. She was sure the Princesses knew now. They probably felt it like her, and Spike was probably telling them of the excess mana charge.
Great. Now I get to deal with misinformation no matter what I do. At least Celestia's heart is in the right place...
She opens the door to Rainbow Dash's bedroom. One of them, anyway. It's full of Wonderbolts paraphernalia and Daring-Do books - the only books to sit here, minus the old physics and aerodynamics books she rigorously studies and tells nobody about. She prefers them to see the instinctive daredevil, and yet every pegasus Twilight has ever spoken to is, if not a mastermind of aerodynamics, close enough. Rainbow Dash, she figured, was no different.
In effort, it factored into her character. She was brash, quick to jump the gun and deliver the first strike, and a tough one to get to apologize, or show emotions, or do "uncool" things, whether regularly uncool or deemed uncool by herself. And even then she showed she cared - whenever you needed help, Rainbow Dash was always there. If you needed advice, Rainbow Dash could try to give it. If you needed a shoulder, Rainbow Dash would be that shoulder (though, if you were a new friend, she'd tell you not to let anyone know. Insecurity, ho!).
Oh well. Twilight amped the Royal Canterlot Voice up to a four - the loudest she could get without ripping her vocal cords into shreds of torn muscle - and screamed, "WAKE UP, RAINBOW DASH!"
Rainbow shot through the roof of her own house, screaming, then tore down into her bed and came up in a fighting stance one would expect of minotaurs. It was very precisely practiced - it was no secret that Rainbow had a black belt. She might have been a braggart, but as she herself had said, "it's not bragging if it's true", and Rainbow had the walk to back the talk up. She almost swung at Twilight before she realized who it was.
"Oh. It's you. Uh, Twi, why are you in my room?"
"Apologies for the invasion, but we have a serious problem."
Dash dropped to all fours and hovered off the bed. "What's up?"
"I'll tell you when I get back to the library with Fluttershy. Chances are Celestia already sent a scroll to Spike, and Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie know - be careful about Pinkie, by the way, Pinkie Sense is off the charts-"
"Twilight. What is going on." It's worded forcefully. It's worded in a manner similar to shut up egghead and tell me now.
"...The mana in the air has a latent charge, and that charge is expanding. Something very big is coming this way and I'd rather we don't get blindsided by it."
Rainbow nods. "Whatever it is, I'll kick it's flank!" She rears up and makes several jabbing motions with her forehooves.
"...look. It might be friendly, but it might not. Just get to the library."
Rainbow Dash zips off like a shot. There's a bang as air floods the space she was in previously, and she's not there to see the rainbow trail because she's already teleported herself to the Element of Kindness.
The Everfree Forest was a dangerous place. If one word could be used to describe it, that word would be 'Austrailia'. It was filled with all manner of dangerous creepy-crawlies and murderous beasts who would generally not think twice about tearing the heads off of intruders - provided they weren't big enough to simply eat said intruder with their face and not chew. So it was no small wonder that Fluttershy - who tried to avoid stepping on microbial organisms and got scared whenever she waved at a fly the wrong way - lived by it. In fact, it was actually a rather big wonder.
Perhaps it was the forest that helped the animal sanctuary she ran (read: her home) stay afloat, and perhaps she just wanted to be closer to nature. Either way, you would not find a nicer soul in the history of Equestria. (Well, maybe one or two.)
Twilight knocked on the door to Fluttershy's home and received an eager "Come in~!" from the pegasus she expected it from. She opened the door to be mobbed by a few animals that knew her and liked her, and she gave them enough time for telekinetic pats before moving on. There was business that had to be conducted.
Fluttershy was currently in the process of organizing the feed for the animals. "Oh, Twilight. I'm just figuring out where to place all of this so I - or, if I'm not home, they - can get at it."
Twilight nodded. "Alright. Look, Fluttershy, we have a bit of a situation."
Fluttershy turned around. "Oh, dear. What's going on now? Is Owliscious getting cranky because he broke a wing, again?"
"No. I had a talk with him about that, he knows not to fly dangerously unless he has to. Uh... Fluttershy, I need you at the library. The latent mana charge in the air is sort of... increasing, and I think something big's coming our way."
"Big? ...How big?" A bit of fear has creeped onto her face, but it seems she's been brushing up on the whole "assertiveness" thing, and she's sounding as confident as she can. For Fluttershy, that's an unexpected plus.
"I don't know. But I can feel it now, so it's pretty big. C'mon, Fluttershy. There isn't really time to say goodbye."
Fluttershy nodded. She stepped out into the middle as Twilight cleared the air for her, with a simple 'excuse me'.
"Uh, I have to go now... I think Equestria needs the Elements again. You all know what to do, and please don't try to destroy the place, okay?"
Most of the animals in her home nodded. It still astonished Twilight how close to nature she was, even after a year living with her.
"Alright, Fluttershy. Let's go." And with that, Twilight took flight, Fluttershy following. Twilight wasn't really that good with flying, but Fluttershy never went that fast, either, so it all evened out.
A few minutes later they arrived at the library (wings were a fast way to go). Already, there was a bit of heated discussion, and she could hear Spike's voice among them. She stepped inside, and Spike ran up to her.
"Twilight! Princess C-"
"I know, Spike. I can feel it."
Spike was actually taken aback, and stared for a second before letting out an "...oh."
"Don't worry, Spike. We'll fix this problem."
Twilight headed into the middle of the library, where everyone was having a discussion. It was fairly loud, and nopony was giving anypony else time to speak - besides Pinkie, who was content to vibrate in the corner and laugh(?) whenever one of her friends did something particularly funny to her.
The alicorn looked between the two of them, then nodded to Fluttershy. Fluttershy opened her mouth.
"Um, excuse me?"
She said it at the voice of a regular person, and that shut everypony up as they moved to pay attention to her. Recently they'd decided that if Fluttershy wanted to speak, she could. The mare never spoke much, so if she wanted to speak, they gave her the time.
"Twilight's going to explain everything now."
Twilight nodded. "Thank you, Fluttershy." She cantered over to the book that contained the Elements of Harmony. They were contained there because of the Discord incident, when Celestia had opened the box containing them - for them to not at all be there. Discord had stolen them and placed them inside a false book.
Of course, Twilight was smart, and had placed them in a book with a mana-containment spell. It was very long and complicated to synthesize, perfect, and cast, but the end result was a book that looked like any other book and contained the very keys to the country's defense system. Admittedly, Equestria, for its record of threats, didn't really have that many ways to counter threats - it was on a couple hundred Royal Guardsponies, the Princesses, and the Elements of Harmony to ensure that whatever macabre evildoer of the month didn't destroy the harmony that was Equestria.
So it was up to Twilight to attempt to compensate. Not that she wasn't complaining, but maaaybe some of that science fiction or magic fiction stuff would probably help out with ensuring that things like Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra were easier to take down (Crystal Heart and power of love besides).
She levitated out each of the necklaces with the Elements chained to them to their respective elements, before placing the tiara with the Element of Magic - the catalyst for the firepower of the Elements - on her head. The Elements of Harmony, contrary to popular belief, were not a tool to redeem the wicked. They could do that, though. It was considered more similar to a phaser from that one fiction she couldn't recall the name of at the moment (strangely). It was a very capable thing. At low power it was capable of reforming evil; at full power, there would be naught left of the evildoer but a crater in the ground. Different power levels were capable of different things - like exorcising possessions or freezing things into stone. They were a magical multi-tool and the perfection of the vanishment of all things evil, light or dark.
As she handed the Elements out, she began speaking.
"Alright. Now. As you all know, there is mana in the air around us. We can't sense it at all, only when magic is cast, because the mana sort of 'lights up' - it gets brighter as we use our own for spells. Now, the mana is getting progressively brighter, and that means the charge level is increasing. As I'm sure you all know, that means something very big is coming our way."
Rarity was the first to pose a question. "But what exactly is it?"
"I don't know, Rarity. All I know is that it has to be big - to light up the mana everywhere I can sense it, to the point I can feel it without even having to think about it? It has to be."
A bit of vibrating chirps from Pinkie.
"Sorry, Pinkie. Can't exactly understand."
An angry chirrup. Twilight shrugs.
"Where's it gonna end up?" inquired Applejack.
"I don't know that, either. I just need us all together. That way we can quickly use the Elements."
There was a bit of quiet before Applejack spoke again.
"So ya called us here, and gave us the Elements, because something big's coming, and ya think it might be bad."
"But things like this alway-"
There's a cough from Rainbow and something sounding like "zecora". "But that's different, Rainbow!"
"And how is it?"
Fluttershy steps in-between the two. "Uh, if you don't mind... I think there's bigger threats than you'd think...?"
The two of them stare at her, and she backs down, meeping out a "sorry" before they both back down.
Before anypony has any time to think, Rarity and Twilight's horns begin to slowly light up.
The two horned ponies in question immediately notice and point at each other.
"Twilight, dear, your horn-"
"Rarity, are you casting-"
And that's when the pain starts. They feel the mana sapped out of them, as if it's being torn out of their brains, and they scream as the pain in their head spikes. They bend to it, forelegs folding over their heads as Fluttershy looks around in fear, and AJ and Dash enter defence mode.
Pinkie is starting to heat up the air around her and at this point nopony can tell if she's speaking or not, and a few seconds later Dash lowers to the floor and Applejack feels a bit less strong.
They run outside, keeping a brisk pace as they notice their vision begin to darken. They look around, looking for the source of this magical poisoning, convinced that something is trying to get them out of the way.
There's a bit of blue as the sky lights up a bit despite the darkness. Pebbles and loose objects begin to levitate into the air, as Applejack's hat flies off of her head and she keeps it on with a quick whip of her foreleg.
"AJ! WHAT'S GOING ON?"
"I DON'T KNOW, SUGARCUBE!"
They can't hear, because there's a zip and a massive THRUM that reverbates through the landscape and can be heard echoing in the distance. Their vision returns to normal, the pebbles fall back to the ground, and they look up and are instantly entranced.
Twilight and Rarity teleport outside, and look up the second they see their friends. They, too, are enraptured.
"...by Celestia..."
Floating halfway between Canterlot and Ponyville, visible in the sky, is a massive hunk of what looks like concrete and metal, with spinning rings and three prongs at the bottom. It looks sort of like a flying city.
Phasewalking is an insane experience. You can see the world, but all of it is sheathed in blue as you are shunted through an alternate dimension that removes your need to breathe as it removes your air.
Now? Phasewalking is downright horrifying. The sky is downright epileptic, Lilith is beginning to melt things around her as she blinds half the city with her screams, and it's all being caused by that red moon lander thing. Nobody's fired a round during Phasewalk, and nobody is willing to as everyone stares in horror (or, in Krieg's case, awe) at the sky.
Axton can slowly feel his sanity unwind as the very nature of things becomes hostile. There's an intense sense of doom heading his way, and he feels insignificant, as if he matters nothing, like he's being pressed in on all sides and everything is tight and that's not how it works. I'm a Vault Hunter. I am a bonafide badass. And this is not how I die.
Axton forces his way forwards, being hit by brutally cold and brutally hot crosswinds and fields of gravity as his Grade V Dahl Whiskey Tango Foxtrot tries its best to ensure he is safe. He's turned off the booster function, which is good, because an IED booster now could just as easily electrocute the entire city as it could spark out and do nothing. He approaches the beacon and feels like he's staring in front of Cthulakul, the Great Old Titan, and yet he forces his way onwards because he's a motherfucking Vault Hunter and death is not how he rolls.
He steps in front of the beacon, unsheathes his compound hatchet, winds back as far as he feels he can, and begins hacking away at the beacon's antenna. That's when Mordecai steps in, screaming gutturally as he rushes the beacon and - somehow, through a fluke of luck - strikes the antenna with his razor-sharp short sword.
The antenna is sliced. The red waves stop appearing, and Lilith stops screaming and as she begins to realize she's suffered body-wide first-degree burns she is pulling the city out of Phasewalk. They can practically hear the thoughts of "out out out" and that's when they realize it's her voice, quiet.
With one more scream, the sheathe disappears, there's a massive THRUM that deafens almost everyone, and they're treated to blue skies and heart-shaped clouds. For a few seconds, each of the Vault Hunters allow themselves a respite except Mordecai, who rushes towards Lilith to catch her red-hot form as she falls, smoking from the burns inflicted on her.
"God, she's gonna nead Insta-Health!"
It's a few seconds later that Maya notes one of the clouds and begins studying it. It's shaped like a heart. Eerily like a heart. To the point where a cloud's existence like that would be a fluke of nature. She can see different things in the cloud, and realizes something made it.
"Look, guys, look at that cloud!"
Heads across town square snap up as quiet, hushed conversation begins. Mordecai looks up and blinks, before looking over to the rest of the Vault Hunters. "Zer0. You got a sniper rifle, right?"
"What kind of question is that, Mordecai? Of course. Should I go and scout?"
Mordecai nods, and Zer0 is off like a shot, tearing the HawkEye out of his Storage Deck as he runs down towards the edge of the city that used to be where the internal gate was. It takes him a few seconds to complete the transit, and then he's unloading the sniper rifle. He points it at a wall and pulls the trigger, to make sure no erstwhile rounds are wasted where he doesn't want them to go, and then he's using the scope on the sniper rifle. His right hand flicks through the flywheels, setting it into "maximum zoom" as he figures he should get the Fremington's Edge from the gun stash for this.
There's a hamlet. It doesn't even look advanced, or ramshackle like bandit communities. It looks medieval, like the sort of thing you'd find in a game of Bunkers and Badasses. Yet it looked more animate. Brighter.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he looked through the town and saw that most of the inhabitants in question - equines, miniature (or maybe regular-sized) horses - were pointing with their forelegs in ways that made the assassin think they must not care about pain. Forelegs never bent that way. Not in skags, not in stalkers, shouldn't in these.
He looks down to a group of six, wearing strange amulets and staring at the city, chatting with one another. Then one of them points up. It takes him one second to realize she's not pointing at the city.
She's pointing at him.
He edges off, quietly placing the decoy and entering Decepti0n, waiting until they look away for a second, and then he strikes a surface with his sword and to them it's as if he disappeared while they weren't looking. It's a few seconds sprint back to the square, where the Vault Hunters have their guns out and are looking at him warily, as if they need an excuse to beat things into submission.
"Ninja!" cries Salvador, in lieu of Zer0's actual name. "What is going on?"
"Yeah," adds Gaige. "What's up?"
Zer0 takes a second to think.
"Can't sum it up now. But we're not on Pandora. That's the start of it."
Mordecai swears under his breath, and that's when Zer0 realizes, with the eyes of Sanctuary staring at the faceplate currenly emoting a red ":|", that this is going to be a very long day.
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Woah, you sure know how to set things up. Looking forward to more.
stories like this i love long chapters
3091011: This entire story is meticulously planned out. You will probably love it.
Mother of god...
You gave Salvador the damn Norfleet.
All the other hunters have to do is stand behind him and he'll kill everything by himself.
3091473: Be very glad I didn't give him a second 'Fleet. Also, Word of God: Salvador is wearing the Sham.
Quake in fear. (Though the Norfleet won't be seeing much use, because Sal doesn't like shooting himself and rocket ammo is expensive).
What is horror if I am Krieg.
3091880 ....... Does he have dual Unkempt Harolds? I ask only so I can predict how much destruction Sal can bring to the ribcage slaughter.
(though the first time Gaige mounted that ability, sometimes it went around restoring enemy shields and giving shields to Threshers)
I believe You're thinking of Stalkers. Thresher's are the ones that rise up underground and they don't have shields
i laughed more than i should have.
also, can't wait til' the ponies meet Krieg
... or Moxxi... or Marcus
3092355: Just a single one. He dual-wields it with Rubi for buttloads of health-gain.
3092940: I was right the first time. That was a call back to before Buck Up got patched; Deathtrap would sometimes use Buck Up on enemies, and as far as I can recall, would give shields to enemies that had none in the first place.
3093281: They'll be meeting all of those people in maybe that exact order.
I feel the need! The Need, to Read!!!
that right there is a good analogy, as an Australian myself I can say we are VERY dangerous... more so in the natural department though (snakes, roos and bushfires oh my!)
Gaige and Krieg... I expect big things for these two, they are my favourite vault hunters (both because they can be extremely OP with the right guns and points)... so you must make a 20% cooler comment between Gaige and RD, because Gaige is OBVIOUSLY at least 20% cooler than Dash
3097853: Oh, crap, it's the guy from my old fic-writing squad! Everyone! Blow him! ...Away!
3097990: And so is the Everfree. There are animate wolves made of detritus, manticores (THE MOST FEROCIOUS BEASTS), and chances are there's also all kinda creepy-crawlies hidden away in there. I wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot-pole, if that pole exploded every time I touched something.
Yeah. Gaige and Anarchy is hilarious with Jakobs shotguns, and I have personal exprience with the monstrosity that is Krieg with a Roid Shield, a Rapier, and Release The Beast.
Also; no. To be honest I find 20% cooler is... sorta over-used. It's like "arrow to the knee" for me, it's really overstayed its welcome and yet it's still used. Often. No offense, but that's not something I'll be doing.
3101233 RIP THE FLESH!!! SALT THE WOUND!!! HELP THE ELDERLY TO CROSS THE STREET!!!
3101233 I only really made that comment due to Gaige's skill of the same name
and I know that feeling with Krieg, and don't forget his OTHER melee boosting skills, just imagine the pure carnage with empty the rage, fuel the rampage, salt the wound, silence the voices and pain is power at level 61 with the highest rapier possible (that would make something around 800% melee with full STW stacks, beast mode active and on fire...) can you handle the PAIN!?
3101700: And that's not discounting Sickle class mods that add further to base melee damage and boost melee damage-increasing skills.
3104317 very true, i forgot those hehe