> Gate Hunters Wanted
>  by Useless Machine
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> You Asked For A Story, Huh? Well First You Get Exposition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The word of the day was "chaos."

Well, it wasn't actually "chaos." The word of the day was "fortune", but if one Cheerilee had anything to say about it, it would have been "chaos". (And she had something to think; fortune was the opposite of what she was seeing right now.) They had already done chaos, but it was the exact word to describe the current situation in class, and it was a situation even she was having trouble handling. This was something odd coming from somepony who had been Ponyville's sole teacher for most of her adult life, but there were some situations not even she could yet handle. And she knew that as the colts and fillies here grew up, they might get even more rambunctious.

She thought about what the class would be like in Grade 9 about as often as she thought about her manestyle 20 years ago; she tried her hardest to never do so.

Today, however, was different. Every once in a while there would be a show and tell, or a class report issued, but most of the work was done. So, today, Cheerilee was going to take advantage of this to tell her students a story that had just happened recently, one involving the newest arrivals to Equestria, and the adventures they had undergone to save the world.

Instead of doing anything to try and silence the children, Cheerilee simply looked towards the door and made a "come hither" motion with her hoof, minus all of the sensuality a "come hither" motion is implied to carry. Two ponies - more accurately, a pony and a person - entered the room, and at the sight of the two of them, the entire class fell utterly silent. A ball dropped to the floor, not having been caught. A paper airplane was hidden by a unicorn classmate.

The pony that had entered the room was known by everyone. Her indigo blue coat and wavy, starry mane and tail were less obvious codifiers of her status as an alicorn than the fact that she had wings and a horn, and stood at least a hoof taller than everyone else (or 30 centimeters, if you want to get specific). She was Princess Luna, Princess of the Night, and while she was definitely a very nice and benevolent pony, her presence was still intimidating - her massive blue eyes matched the theme of "blue mana" that she possessed to some.

But the silence was more caused by the second person that had entered the room. He was a rather portly fellow, wearing a pair of grey jeans, a set of boots, and a faded orange shirt with the sleeves rolled back. His face had visible wrinkles, and he had a flat-top haircut, a mustache, and a beard that were brown and neatly trimmed. There were gray hairs on his head as steely brown eyes surveyed the room. This man - this human - was none other than Marcus Kincaid, owner and proprietor of Marcus Munitions Limited, and controller of all Marcus Munitions and Ammo Dump vending machines on the planet of Pandora.

After the obligatory bow, Cheerilee spoke, the class finally fixating on something. "Children, I would like to introduce to you two very special ponies - and as you can clearly tell, one of them isn't even a pony! May I please present Ms. Princess Luna and Mr. Marcus Kincaid!"
"Thank you, Miss Cheerilee. It is nice to see the youth of Equestria." Princess Luna curtly nodded to her. She was telling the truth - a kid was refreshing compared to an adult, especially because they were malleable, and could easily adapt to new ideas.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all today." Marcus had a smile on - the one that was just right. While he hated dealing with kids, he loved telling stories - no man or woman in Sanctuary could spin a better yarn than Marcus did, regardless of fictional status. And that's why he was here today.

"Mr. Marcus is here to tell us a story-"
"Please, just Marcus," interjected said fat man. As much as he liked honorary titles, Marcus preferred for his reputation to be his title. "Anyways, what... Cheerilee said. I am here to tell you all a story."
A voice that Marcus could only describe as "snivelling", but that everypony else could describe as "condescending" arose from the back of the class. "Like what, the story of how you ate too many pies one day?"
Marcus locked eyes onto the pink filly that had said that. Her buttmark appeared to be a tiara. "Yeah, shut up, Ms. Prissy-Pants. Not like you're the picture of beauty yourself."
Cheerilee in turn whipped over to Marcus. "Marcus!" This didn't stop most of the class from breaking into giggles at the expense of one Ms. Diamond Tiara, who, for ten seconds, actively regretted ever having spoken up.

Marcus looked over to Cheerilee, getting the unspoken message. "I apologize for my actions." It was said in a carefully measured voice that was more monotonous than anything else. Truth be told, the CEO wasn't at all sorry, but he knew how to play people, and if ponies were any different...
"Now then," instructed Cheerilee, "Marcus and Luna are here to tell you a story, and I can easily send them off if any of you feel like misbehaving."
The class immediately got the rather unsubtle hint, and after a few seconds of silence, she turned over to Marcus. "Anyways, Marcus?"
"Right." Marcus pointed to Luna. "Truth be told, Princess Luna is only here to act as a sort of... projector. She can play out things as they happen. Think of this story as like a movie! A movie being told by me!" The class fell into a serious of "oohs" and "aahs" as Luna walked over to the back, then lowered her horn and fired a blast at the wall.

The burst of magic impacted and coalesced into what appeared to be a blank projector screen, before a secondary tendril floated over his head. Luna was obviously going to censor this a bit, but Marcus could speak his mind for the most part. He thanked whatever deities existed for the versatility of magic. "Anyways... pay attention to the screen. I would start the tale off cold, but I figure I should exposit on the Borderlands a little bit, so you all don't walk in completely clueless."

Marcus Kincaid cleared his throat.





People like me... we have all come from a planet called Pandora. Now, do not take this to mean that humanity originated from that planet - we originated from a planet called either Terra, or Earth, depending on who you are. But that's not important. What is important is that Pandora is where the stories of past have played out.

It is not a nice world. Pandora would eat up the average mare. If the heavily-armed, anarchistic bandits did not shoot her on sight to eat as food, then the ravenous wildlife, capable of eating anything they choose to pray on, would do so. Or maybe what's left of the Hyperion forces would take her in for Slag experimentation...

Psssh! Rainbow Dash could survive there any day now!

Quiet, you! I am the one telling the story here, and your precious little pegasus... well, she would stand a chance...

That's what I thought.

Oh, shut up. You're adopted.





The entire class fell into total silence. Scootaloo looked shocked, Cheerilee was also shocked, and Luna was looking at Marcus in a way that could only be described as "what were you thinking, fool?"

"What? Don't tell me she actually is a di-"

"An orphan, yes," came the response of Princess Luna.

"...oh." Truth again be told, Marcus had a somewhat soft spot for orphans. He knew what it was like - so unlike other kids, he didn't immediately write it off. Then again, he had limits, so he wasn't going to get mushy with them, but he still understood the situation better than most, and was generally willing to give them a shot.

Even if his abrasive speech towards them didn't really give it away at first.

"Sorry. I didn't know-"
"I bet you're just saying that-"
"I was an orphan too, you know! I grew up on Pandora alone and it's a miracle I survived at all!"

There was quiet.

"I might not have meant it when it came to Miss Diamond Spoon over there, but this one I actually did mean."

"...oh. It's... just... keep going."

In lieu of any further awkwardness, Marcus decided to continue with the story.





Ahem... yes, where was I...

This is not a planet of love and tolerance, and it is not a planet of magic. Pandora is a planet of blood and hellfire, where a loaded gun and a quick trigger finger make up the law. It is a planet where the weak die - and the strong thrive. And everyone in Sanctuary is one of the strong.

So what would make people come to a desolate planet, where everything but the air and the ground are trying to exterminate you? The answer is quite simple.

The Vault.

My father was one of the people who spent their lives looking for The Vault - he was a Vault Hunter. He went on and on about the Vault, up to the second he died. And there was good reason to. It was rumored to be a source of power, through many reasons. If you opened the Vault, they said, you'd gain infinite power. Fame across the six galaxies. Alien technology, advanced beyond even the wildest of imaginations. Weaponry capable of reducing your opponents to ashes. Many, many women, for reasons you will find about when you are older.

He was not the only Vault Hunter. The rumors obviously spread. I'm not sure of how, but many came to the planet as Vault Hunters - all heavily armed and looking for this mythical stash of pure power. And many died, unprepared for the wastes, felled by the creatures and the bandits, killed by other Vault Hunters who wanted to balance the odds in their favor. But there were four who came to this deserted hellhole who were stronger than the rest.

There was Roland. He... he was a good man, the leader with a Scorpio turret. A former Crimson Lance soldier, part of the former Atlas Corporation's military arm, who defected because of the corruptness contained within both.

Mordecai. The greatest sniper in the six galaxies, a man who once won a sniping contest at the age of fourteen with nothing but a scopeless revolver pistol. Accompanied by a pet bird he obtained on his travels - named Bloodwing.

Lilith. A Siren, one of six empowered women who can exist at any given time. She could temporarily shift into an alternate dimension, emerging with a flash to gun down those she had fooled.

And Brick. A massive hulk of a man, whose name describes himself perfectly. He was made of muscles and rage, and if anything could be shot up, Brick could punch it up just as effectively.

These four Vault Hunters realized the power of teamwork, and using it, they surmounted Pandora's challenges. They faced down the ravenous beasts and showed them what it was like to cross a team. They defeated the various bandit lords that had carved fiefdoms out for themselves, and went against the Crimson Lance themselves to get to the Vault and open it, guided by a mysterious Guardian Angel.

Unfortunately, the Angel had tricked them, and the Vault opened - to the disappointment of all, a massive, tentacled monster that could destroy the dimension they were in. The Vault Hunters annihilated the Destroyer of Worlds and spread out into the wastes, doing a couple of odd jobs involving the undead, a colosseum, finishing off the Atlas corporation, and an uprising of the Claptrap robots that served as helpers. They eventually formed the Crimson Raiders to help keep order in the wastes.

But something happened. When the Vault opened, it triggered the growth of deposits of Eridium, a purple metal that could be used for untold amounts of energy. And with the Eridium, came the Hyperion corporation - and Handsome Jack.

He may have been handsome, but Jack was not good. He declared that everyone on the planet before he had arrived was a bandit, and that all bandits needed to be killed to ensure that Pandora would be a safe place for all. He built a massive moon base that blotted out some of the light and could be seen in the day, and his army of robotic Loaders imposed his will on all who did not surrender to him immediately.

And then Jack found the one thing that finally put conquest of Pandora in sight. He found another Vault, and inside it; an Eridian Warrior. For what purpose it was built, we will never find out. But the person that wakes the Warrior would get to control it. And he could use it to wipe out everyone on Pandora. So he hired Vault Hunters, mostly so that he could dispose of them on his way to meet them.

That was how things went on Pandora. Loaders would destroy settlements day-by-day. New Haven was burned to the ground, the Vault Hunters defeated. And Jack killed hundreds upon hundreds of Vault Hunters. But then along came six. Six who refused to die, who beat the odds and survived the betrayal.

Axton, a Dahl commando with ten years of experience and an even greater Sabre Turret.

Zer0, a mysterious assassin armed with naught but a decoy, a cloaking device, a katana, and a mysterious past.

Maya, yet another Siren. A different set of... rather constricting powers did not make her any less dangerous to cross than Lilith.

Salvador, a self-proclaimed 'Gunzerker' and native of Pandora, whose strength lets him dual-wield whatever he likes.

Gaige, an eighteen-year-old girl with a robotic arm - contained inside it; Deathtrap, a self-constructed floating annihilation machine.

And Krieg, a Psycho who seems a bit less of a bandit than the rest. Nobody knows why he joined up. All we know, is that he is very good with a buzz axe.

These six Vault Hunters battled their way to the Crimson Raiders, and under their direction, managed to overcome the wastes yet again. Facing off against the savage wildlife, the dangerous bandits, and the fascist Hyperion forces, they were betrayed by the Guardian Angel. They soon learned that Angel, as she preferred to be called, was a Siren - and Jack's daughter.

She was being used to charge the Vault Key, the item that would open the Vault itself. The Key has a natural recharge time of two hundred years - but, as Jack found, routing liquid Eridium through a Siren and directing the energies into the Key would shorten it to five. And the Key was almost charged.

Rounding up the Vault Hunters and a friendly clan of bandits known as the Slabs, they charged Angel's core, and destroyed the Eridium injectors that were keeping her alive. The battle, however, came at the cost of Roland's life - and gave Jack a new Siren catalyst; Lilith.

Fighting their way to the Vault, they discovered that Jack had already unleashed the Warrior - and he was ready to destroy everything, starting with them. But the Vault Hunters marshaled their teamwork and power, and destroyed the Warrior, before squashing Jack like the petty little bug he was on the inside. They went off and performed a few other adventures afterwards - finding the Lost Treasure of the Sands, opening yet another Vault found by the Torgue corporation, and going on a hunt with Sir Hammerlock, one of their friends - but their most recent adventure?

It had never happened until one fine Saturday afternoon, as they prepared to invade Hyperion's moon base. Fate, however, had other plans for the Vault Hunters... other plans, indeed...





"So, are any of you interested in hearing the tale further?"

"On one condition!" Scootaloo had jumped out of her chair, and her slightly-less-stubby wings were buzzing. Audibly. "I get to come sit in front of you!"
"What?"
"That'll make the story even better! And my friends get to come too!"

Marcus turned to Cheerilee, and opened his mouth to verbally explain how much he didn't believe this. The second he saw the look on the teacher's face, though, he backed down. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman, Pandora had taught him. Or, more specifically, hell hath the fury of Maya throwing a ball of Scorn.

His attention returned to Scootaloo. "...alright. Siddown and try not to make too much noise." Before he had even finished, the three of them had somehow zipped over directly in front of him. They looked god-awfully cute. He felt one of his legs begin to shrivel from diabetes.

Not that it bothered him. Three annoying little fillies were not a problem to him. He had a story to tell.

Marcus' facehole opened, and the aforementioned story began.
> 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.
> Don't Run, We Are Your Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Approximately thirty minutes later all of the Vault Hunters were gathered inside of Crimson Raider HQ. Lilith had dismissed the citizens of Sanctuary to their homes and, despite the rumors that began to spread, they were planning.

The Siren stared down the other Hunters.
"Alright. First item on the agenda; is Fast Travel still working?"
Gaige raised her hand. "Yeah. I checked in with Scooter while everyone else was there. He hit on me again, not sure if he was kidding, but in any case he did say he was able to keep the Fast Travel link calibrated. Of course, uh... how do I put this delicately..."
Lilith raised an eyebrow. One hand began subconsciously charging phase energy, before she reached for a chunk of Eridium and consumed it before the fatigue of planeswalking a city that far a distance hit her.
"...his hands are kinda swollen. And slightly chafed."
Lilith nodded, her eyes faintly glowing as she didn't even bother to hide the Eridium consumption. At least he wasn't missing an arm.

Maya decided to interject. "You know, considering the Eridium fatigue that sets in after you consume a piece, you should probably stop before it knocks you out."
"Maya, I'm probably going to get knocked out considering how I just phasewalked us. I plan to be in a bed when the fatigue hits, and I plan to sleep for two days. Which reminds me, when the fatigue hits, if I don't just die up front, Mordecai, you're in charge of the city."
Mordecai nodded, the tiny little Bloodwingling on his shoulder. "And if you do die?"
"You're still in charge."
Mordecai nodded.
"Oh, and Maya? I have third-degree burns all over my body, and it's a fight to speak like this, because I was screaming in heat and light. So please, shut the fuck up."

And with that, Lilith decided it was time to broach the Scrollophant that had made its way into the room and smothered everyone in tension. "Alright. Zer0, what can you tell us about this place?"
"It's not Pandora. But that's obvious. It seems there are aliens."
Axton gave Zer0 a look. "...any of them look like you, by coincidence?"
"Shut up."
"Zer0's home planet confirmed!" piped in Gaige.
"I don't care about the peanut gallery, so please, be quiet, now." The assassin put a bit of extra intimidation into his tone, and all quietened.
After a few seconds, he spoke again. "They're not bipedal. They look sort of like horses, or perhaps ponies."

Half the room gave Zer0 the sort of look that implies you're talking about what someone made up. Salvador decided to voice this. "Hey, ninja, the fuck is a horse?"
Maya interjected before Zer0 could throw something at the Gunzerker. "I learned about those in the Order. They were old animals from Terra, used to be used... sort of like the Sheriff's skags in Lynchwood. They weren't skags, though."
Having something to compare it to, the group nodded at the understanding of what a horse was.
"Oh, and by the way, a 'pony' is just a miniature horse." Maya figured it would probably be best to get that one out of the way before anyone asked more stupid questions.
"ALL I CARE ABOUT IS THE MEAT!" came the unrequired scream from Krieg.
...seriously? Dude. Not helping.
"PAIN GOES HERE!" Another whump as Krieg's buzz axe slammed into his head, pacifying himself. The two sitting nearest to him - Brick and Axton - edged away a bit.
Lilith quietly stared at the Psycho, who merely stared back from the one open eye-hole in his mask. "...uh... okay then. Moving on, Zer0, what's the landscape like?"
The assassin folded his arms. "Picture the Highlands. Now picture Jakobs Cove, but without the zombies."
A second's pause.
"Place them together. Very wide plains, lots of trees. Think I saw a farm."
Another pause. Nobody bothered to count; it was plainly obvious Zer0 was speaking in haiku, as the ninja-assassin was wont to do. Nobody really knew why, either. But if he wasn't speaking in haiku his verbalizations were four syllables long at the most.
"There's also a town. Looks like it's from B&B, only curvier."

Lilith's response was immediate. "You're shitting me."
"Would I lie?" was the response from the assassin, and Lilith disappeared with a flash.
Mordecai looked over to Zer0. "...apparently, you would."
Zer0 let out a quiet sigh as the room waited for the leader of the Raiders to return. Which she did, several seconds later, with another flash.
"Alright. Turns out Zer0 was right. Now, Zer0, you're an assassin, which means you're good at sneaking around. Might not be as daft with a sniper as Mordecai, but Mordecai's not as subtle. You're going to be intel gatherer. We'll... Idunno, get a rope from Scooter's, lower it down to the ground, have you slide down it while cloaked. You can skulk around for a bit, gather intelligence. That sound fine with you?"
"Affirmative."

Lilith's attention turned to the other five. "Alright. Killers, you'll all be on guard duty. If anything bad happens all of you get ready for any imminent attacks. Gaige, that's not your job, you'll be running engine maintenance with Scooter, see if whatever the fuck I just did killed this place's engines or if we can still stay aloft for a while longer. Mordecai, Brick, you're responsible for running the city, as usual. I'll go out and make an announcement, you all stay near me for added emphasis, and then I can go and crash for forty-eight hours and all of you can do your jobs. It'll be great." The flash of her tattoos indicate she just consumed another shard of raw Eridium. "You all got your jobs?"
One resounding "Roger" sounded off from everyone in the room minus one, who spouted "FINGER FINGERS" in its place.
"Good. Let's get going. Might as well address Sanctuary.

With that, the Vault Hunters all headed outside, where there were still a lot of people present. Lilith swiped an ECHO recorder from Tannis, ignoring her cries to "give that back, you firebreathing simpleton", and set it to "broadcast" as she walked out into the city and cleared her voice. With a few more tabs at the recorder, she began to speak.
"Alright. I'm not going to lie to you, we've Phasewalked to an alien planet. But the Vault Hunters here already have jobs, and there's still a link back to Pandora, so try not to worry. In about a day we'll be able to figure out a couple more things about exactly where we are, but until then, everything's alright. Okay? Just want to make that clear again. Everything is okay."
Maya felt it before anything else. Something was... off. She couldn't tell what it was, but something about the immediate area felt strange. Her Hellfire digitized at her hip, and she grabbed it the second a large purple sphere flashed into existence and nine aliens teleported into view. They didn't look combat-ready.

Sadly, however, none of the other Vault Hunters knew this, as they all proceeded to grab their weapons. Gaige brought forth Deathtrap, Axton dropped the Sabre and hovered over the "Tag As Enemies" function for it, and Krieg tore the buzz axe from his back and muttered to himself as he readied himself for combat. Brick and Mordecai took a second to stare blithely at their fellow Vault Hunters as Zer0 drew his Rapier, Maya's tattoos glowed, Salvador raised an Unkempt Harold and a Rubi, and Lilith dropped the ECHO Recorder and stared at the horses who had the foresight to put a force-field up (seemingly powered by what she identified as the horns on Purple, White, Glowy Hair, Starry Hair, and Other White's heads).

They looked scared. They looked fearful for one second before their faces, as one (besides Yellow's, which took another second) turned resolute and several widgets they were carrying began to glow.

Lilith sighed and placed her face in her hands. "Ooooooooof course it's when everything's okay."





About ten minutes earlier, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, the world-famous international superhero wielders of powerful magical artifacts that can turn evil into vending machines, the living gods that could defeat any menace alive, were currently raptly staring at the giant floating city that had teleported into place not a second prior in the skies above.

Twilight, after opening and closing her jaw a couple of times, was the first one to speak. "Well, if the Princesses already know what's gonna happen, they'll actually be able to see it."
"Just what in tarnation is that thing?" inquired Applejack, who, as her dialogue indicated, was curious like everypony else about the massive slab of floating concrete.

Twilight studied it for a few seconds. "Hrm... it's obviously hovering, but it's not made of clouds and it doesn't seem to be levitating via magic... it does have some rotating... things near the bottom. Maybe it's a machine. A flying machine."
Rainbow Dash was the second mare from the peanut gallery to fire off her shots. "So... Cloudsdale, only it's actually Manehattan."
"That's... that's a pretty apt summary, Rainbow Dash. If it were a city, anyway."

Dash stood, proudly beaming at her discovery, as Rarity raised a forehoof to her chin. "But if I may ask a question; why has this flying machine come here? Is it run by robots, or aliens? Is it a secret test from Princess Celestia? Did the gryphons send it?"
Pinkie started bouncing at the mere mention of aliens, and immediately began launching on a tirade so fast-paced that not even Twilight was able to keep up on it. Several months later after deep analysis Twilight concluded that it was a rant about wanting to meet aliens. Well, Pinkie had gotten her wish.

Back in the present, Twilight looked over to Rarity. "Well, now that I think of it there's a fairly high chance this is an alien vessel. It's either that, or-"
"ALIEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" came the harsh squeal from Pinkie Pie as she stood as still as a rock and pointed up at the city. The rest of the Bearers followed her foreleg, and Twilight used a vision amplification spell on herself, looking exactly where she was pointing.

The creature was all black and smooth on first sight. It seemed to be bipedal, like how gryphons could be, or adolescent dragons, having two legs to balance on and two forelimbs to grasp objects with. It was a stark contrast from a quadrupedal frame - while it prevented easy sideways movement, a pony would be able to run much faster than a bipedal being such as this one would. For a second, Twilight fooled herself into thinking the black-and-grey suit it wore was its skin, until she took a look at its helmet and realized that it was likely a full-body suit of some sort. Either that, or it was a robot. Cradled in its arms was a stick... thing that seemed to have what appeared to be a sort of miniature telescope mounted atop it. It appeared to have wooden furnishings.

As she lost herself in thought about what this creature was, she didn't notice the massive flash that announced the Princesses had arrived. She was still too busy intently studying the creature/artifice before her, until, for some reason, it simply disappeared out of thin air. Her mind quickly identified it as a decoy - a simulacrum or an illusion, perhaps.

With a pat on the back, Princess Twilight Sparkle yelped, jumped a foot into the air, and decrowned herself. She spun around to face Princess Celestia and jerked back again, just in time for the royal tiara she wore to crash down, point-first,  onto her head.

"OW!" The tiara was caught with telekinetic magic before it hit the ground and returned to its rightful place as Twilight blushed heavily and bowed to Princess Celestia. "Uh... sorry, Princess Celestia..."

Though Celestia's face was grim, it lightened up for a moment upon seeing Twilight unwind like a bad physics joke about elastic potential energy, and the purple alicorn's mind heaved a sigh of relief. "It's okay, Twilight. We all have our off days, even I. But I fear this is not the place for small talk."

"Indeed!" In piped a new voice that was foreign to everyone for a moment. Upon hearing it, Celestia and Luna cringed, and most of everypony assembled turned around and stared at the newcomer.

The first responder was Rarity, who merely sighed and swore under her breath at the sight of Prince Blueblood. Blueblood's situation was... strange; he was royal enough to be given some powers, but not responsible enough to be given all of them. He was astute enough to be a great help in decoding royal laws, but he was spoiled enough that nopony gave him new positions for fear that he would abuse them to the fullest extent. The spat with Rarity had further ousted his character. Blueblood was your typical royal snob, only concerned about himself and those closest to him - and the Bearers, plus that thing floating in Equestrian skies, were definitely not close to him.

"Yes, me. Surprised?"
Princess Luna played peacemaker before the fight even broke out, stepping between the two. "You are not to touch Prince Blueblood. He is here because his presence is required." Rarity seemed to foam at the mouth, before the Monarch of the Night touched her horn to her forehead.
Rarity felt the thoughts in her head. We brought him along to shut him up. Oh, apologies for the invasive telepathy, but he would hear otherwise. Blueblood gave her a dark stare as she returned to normal pose, and Rarity set her poker face back into play.

Celestia looked up. "Alright. As you are all aware, a massive mana charge gathered early this afternoon, and it exploded into the object that is currently in our skies."
Twilight nodded. "Princess, I've taken a look at it and I believe it is some sort of flying machine. There's also a form of... well, at least a defense mechanism there. I saw a black, bipedal being carrying what looked to be some sort of strange long-range viewfinder before it disappeared entirely, so perhaps it was illusory."

Blueblood looked up to it for a second. "Then we are to go there and inform them that they are in our territory, and are legally ours to deal with."
Celestia gave Blueblood a look. "Prince, that is not how we treat guests. These could be potential friends, and personally, I would rather not have them as enemies. If they exist in the first place. Nevertheless, I do believe teleporting up to the thing to introduce ourselves would be a prudent idea."
Luna cleared her throat. "I will turn myself invisible and take a look at the slab from the sky. Then I can be responsible for teleporting us to the proper avenue."

Celestia, Blueblood, and Twilight nodded, and Luna cast an invisibility spell on herself, then teleported herself several thousand feet into the air and began gliding. Though everypony had things they wanted to say to Blueblood then and there - while some were not as hostile as thought, it would be prudent to say that nopony there really liked him that much - they held their tongue, and an awkward stare-off ensued between Blueblood and six rather riled mares.

Meanwhile, Luna slowly and carefully glided over the object, to discover it looked like some sort of retro-futuristic Mild West frontier city in the sky. It seemed to be fairly large, and had a lot of those bipedal things wandering it. Some of them had strange steel objects strapped to their sides or backs, and were carrying them; a little visual amplification and Luna identified one as a "revolver pistol". It appeared to be on a guard. For a moment, she questioned why a guard would carry an entirely ceremonial weapon, and then remembered that revolvers could fire solid slugs of steel. Slugs that travelled very fast, and that even heavy enchanted Guard armor had trouble stopping; the reason why it never saw much use. The weapon was inequestriane and its aftereffects were terrible to inspect.

After looking around she returned to the ground and decloaked. "It appears this flying machine is some sort of floating city, populated by multiple bipedal beings. None were black, but most matched their descriptions. In addition, it appears as if these beings have a method of defense. I spotted one carrying a revolver pistol with it. He looked to be a soldier."

The implication of what that meant was terribly clear. Blueblood was, as usual, the first to speak. "Then we have to get up there and show them that-"
Celestia immediately interrupted. "-we are a friendly and peaceable culture, and that so long as they are open to diplomacy, we are. We will not walk in and act superior, especially when the enemy has a very rare weapon." That shut Blueblood up but good. She nodded to Luna. "Luna, if you may please teleport us? Everypony else, please prepare a barrier spell."

The horns of all of the unicorns present charged with energy, as each of the Bearers steeled themselves for what was to come. Rainbow Dash was the first one to be ready, and Fluttershy, though she took a second, was still able to conjure up a sense of calm. Once Celestia sensed each of her little ponies was ready, she nodded towards her sister.

There was a flash, and the group assembled appeared in the midst of the city, to see nine bipedal beings - one of them being the black illusion from before - take note. Two of them immediately seemed to bring up new machines, and all brandished weapons, preparing for combat. The bubble shield appeared as some of the weapons were seen to be even larger versions of the revolvers - like fully automatic cannons. Celestia felt fear, before she felt the Elements begin to charge and her resolve hardened.

It was then that one of them - a mare, from the looks of it - placed her head into both of her paws. When she spoke, she sounded incredibly tired. "Ooooooooof course it's when everything's okay."





Lilith's mind raced as she immediately thought of how to deal with this new situation. On the one hand; shielded aliens with glowy things that most definitely didn't mean anything good. On the other hand; six very itchy Vault Hunters, begging to scratch. At least Brick and Mordecai had sense.

Without ever raising her head, and ignoring the sense of growing power in front of her, the Siren began grumbling. "Ugh. Is this really how we're going to treat aliens? Point guns at 'em the second they appear?"
"Dammit, Lilith!" Axton snapped first, surprisingly. "They teleported directly in front of us, they should have-"
"Tell me how they would have been able to know about us, Ax, I'd love to hear it."
Axton raised a finger, then thought for a moment.
"Thought so. Alright, Vault Hunters, guns down and kickass death robots back into their containers. Let's try diplomacy, shall we?"
Krieg cricked his neck and smacked himself in the face with his axe again - to the surprise (and horrified recoil) of the aliens there.
Salvador shrugged as he holstered his pistols. "Do not worry about mi amigo Krieg. He is weird like that."
"SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT UP!" Another whack.
"See?"

Lilith nodded, and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, however, she felt a bit dizzy. The Siren didn't even get the time to say "fuck" before she crumpled to the ground. The aliens, now fully weirded out, began discussing amongst themselves - to the surprise of the Raiders, in full English. Mordecai, in the meanwhile, walked over, leaned down in front of her, and checked her pulse.
"She's okay. Just knocked out. It's a long story, believe me. Krieg, make yourself useful and take Lilith to the beds, huh?"
The Psycho nodded, ran over, carefully picked Lilith up, and then began slowly walking as if taking her comfort into mind. A strange act for the insane mass murderer.

Mordecai's masked eyes swept over the group, whose artifacts and horns had stopped glowing. A second later, the force field disappeared. "Anyways, apologies over the cold welcome, but we're not exactly used to a lot of friendly contact. I'll be blunt; we pretty much lived on Hell: The Planet. If the animals didn't want to kill you, then the bandits did, and if it wasn't the bandits, it was the megacorporations trying to carve a stake on this planet because of the Eridian Vaults everywhere."
He got total and utter silence as nine pairs of eyes bored holes through him.
"But I guess we can talk about that later. Name's Mordecai. Second-in-command of the Crimson Raiders, the only free faction on Pandora."
One of them - a white unicorn with blonde hair, he blithely identified - stepped forwards. His posture implied he was not exactly happy with them for existing, and judging by how half the group was staring at him as if they wanted to beat him over the head with something nice and blunt, and the other half raised a single... flat surfacey thing to their faces in their version of a facepalm, Mordecai reminded himself that whoever this prime specimen was wasn't the emissary.
"Greetings. I am Prince Blueblood, of Equestria, and I would like to ask what you are doing in our territory."

The Hunter's eyes narrowed behind his mask. He'd seen these on his ECHO shows; pompous royals who thought they knew it all, and here he was dealing with one in the flesh. He hadn't practiced or anything, but hopefully he'd be able to take lessons from the few he actually respected.
"Our city had a slight glitch in teleportation. We musta... Idunno, jumped across universes or dimensions or something. Either way, it was beyond our control, and I'm sorry if it disturbed you."
"And how do you expect me to believe that?"
Mordecai was extremely blunt. "Blueblood, if we wanted you dead you would be a corpse right now. We are trying to be nice. You could at least return the favor."
The Prince bristled. "Was that a threat?"
It was then that the other white unicorn with wings stepped forwards, using one of its forelegs to cover Blueblood's mouth and glaring rather harshly at him. "No, that was a warning, and you would do wise not to befoul it." Her attention turned to Mordecai. "I am Princess Celestia, the co-ruler of Equestria. No relation to Blueblood. I... apologize for him."
"Eh. Got me creatively thinking about ways to deal with assholes that didn't involve guns. S'alright, I guess."
Blueblood's eyes widened, but Celestia gave him an even harsher glare. "I apologize for your city's failur-"
"Don't." Blueblood's horn lit up, and Luna fired a blast of blue magic, counterspelling whatever retort Blueblood was to bring forth. Six pairs of hands twitched to their weapons. "Really, we did all that we could, but while Lilith was teleporting it... Hyperion shot this beacon thing down at her that screwed up her powers."
Celestia was quick to interject on her own behalf. "First off, I would appreciate not being interrupted. And second... these are all terms unfamiliar to me and my sistren. Perhaps we could hold an official meeting?"
Mordecai shrugged. "Sure, why not? Me and Brick are good talkers enough. We know enough about this place to be worthwhile."

The purple one nudged Celestia.. "Celestia? If I may."
"Go ahead."
"I think we'd - me and my friends, I mean - would be able to learn more about this place if we were to meet up with the ones who aren't leaders in turn." She pointed to the rest of the Vault Hunters.
"Are you sure of this, Twilight?"
Twilight, that was her name, nodded. Celestia's attention returned to Mordecai. "Alright. Your 'Vault Hunters' will be able to... perhaps, give a tour of this city to the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony here?"
Axton nodded. "Sure thing. Least we can do after almost killing ya and all."
Celestia nodded. "And in the meanwhile, me, my sister Princess Luna, and... Blueblood, will have a meeting with you. We'll be able to learn different things this way and get a clearer picture of each other."
Mordecai nodded, almost excitedly. "Heh. A chance for conversation with new people who aren't fuckin' crazy. I'm game. Alright, Princesses, Blueblood, follow me and Brick. Vault Hunters, take the six small ones out for a spin around Sanctuary. Bring them back broken and I'll break all of you myself. Capiche?"
Six heads nodded.

"Then it's settled. Let's go."

Mordecai and Brick retreated into the building, the three members of royalty following. This left twelve people staring at each other.
Axton spoke first. "Alright. Let's get introductions out of the way. I'm Axton, team Commando and leader, nice to meet you all. Ninja dude is Zer0, team Assassin and scout."
"Greeting, aliens. I apologize for the guns, it was reflex."
Twilight looked. "You were the one spying on us with your telescope stick, and you disappeared!" Behind her, the rainbow and blue one seemed to twitch at the word 'spy'.
"A sniper rifle and holographic decoys make life very good."
The pony nodded, before she looked... stricken by something. "Wait a minute. You speak in perfect haiku!"
"Yeah, he does that," interjected Axton. "And if it's not that it's just one or two words. Don't mind it. Book Girl is Maya, team Siren, and finances manager."
"Greetings. I look forwards to talking with you all."
"...yep. Very book-smart. Short dude's Salvador. Team Gunzerker. Enough said about that."
Salvador waved very lazily. "Hola, amigos."
"The robo-arm chick is Gaige, team Mechromancer and engineer. Enough said about that."
"I say "mechro", you say "mancer." Mechro!"
A few heads tilted. The pink one went "Mancer!"
"Mechro!"
"Mancer!"
"Heh, you pony things are awesome."
Axton finished the introduction. "And the shirtless, crazy guy is Krieg. Don't think about him. He doesn't make a lot of sense. At all. Ever."
"Pretty ponies~," uttered Krieg, for now transfixed.
Yep.

Twilight nodded. "Alright. I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Element of Magic. Uh... don't worry about the Princess part. Doesn't really matter much. My pink friend here is Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter... treat her like you'd treat Krieg."
"Ooh! That sounds fun!"
"...On second thought don't. Just don't question anything Pinkie does."
Nods from all present.
"This," she pointed to the white one, "is Rarity. The Element of Generosity. And fine fashionista."
"A pleasure to meet you, darlings." Rarity curtsied. "I look forwards to the chat, like your friend Maya said."
"The cowpoke here is Applejack, the Element of Honesty."
"Howdy!" Applejack waved wildly with one of her forelegs.
"My... rainbow friend is Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty-"
"And the fastest flyer in all of Equestria. Which means you don't make any funny moves or KA-POW!" She pointed at herself, then at the Vault Hunters, in a manner that clearly suggested 'I'm watching you'.
"HA!" laughed Salvador. "I like you, rainbow horse. You have spunk!"
"And last, but not least, is Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness. Uh... don't worry about her, she's not good with ponies."
Fluttershy let out a 'hello' that was barely audible. A noticeable improvement. Had this been another situation she would have hid behind Rainbow Dash.

Maya raised her hand. "One question. Why are you the Elements of Harmony?"
Twilight was quick to respond. "Simple. The Elements of Harmony are magical artifacts, each linked to the various tenets of personality that are deemed to ensure strong friendships. When six strong friends matching each of the Elements are in sync, the Elements unleash an extremely powerful thaumic energy blast that can wipe anything evil clean off the map!"
"...That sounded hokey at first, but now it sounds kinda cool. I'd totes be Laughter, suckers."
Zer0 tapped Gaige. "Understand, though, Gaige, that none of us fit Kindness. A bad metaphor."
"Why you gotta be ruinin' my fun?"
The only response the Mechromancer got was a :P from Zer0's projector.
Twilight waited until things simmered down to speak again, questioning Maya. "Alright. And why are you all called the Vault Hunters?"
"'Vault Hunter' is just a symbolic title that means you're a badass supreme. It used to refer to the other three you'd met - there was a fourth, but he passed away recently." She left no room for mourning, despite noting pupils that dilated slightly and eyes that widened the same amount. "They were referred to in that way because they were searching for an advanced alien Vault that would grant incredible power. They were the only ones to find it - so Vault Hunter is now a term for 'awesome'."
"Yeah, Maya," commented Axton, "nevermind the fact that we were hunting a Vault."
"We found it, Axton."
"Uh, darlings, not that I'd like to interrupt your conversation, but we were promised a tour of this... Sanctuary, were we not?"

Axton focused on Rarity, and immediately recalled what was said. "Yeah. Yeah, you were. C'mon, everyone, time to go see what Sanctuary has to offer."

Twelve beings began moving towards Pierce Station.
> 1001 Pandoran Nights
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sounds of footsteps filled the Sanctuary Archives as Tannis viewed the amoeba she was breeding through her microscope. She was still a little pissed, though slightly on edge as Krieg recently entered, carrying Lilith as if she'd break if he twitched the wrong way. That wasn't what Krieg did.

The clopping on the ground, however, marked the second her head shot up from the microscope, her curiosity finally overwhelming what consisted of her common sense as she stared slack-jawed at the walking horses in front of her. Ponies that looked like they came from a cartoon made for six-year olds were not supposed to exist, and she twitched.

Blueblood raised an eyebrow. "What are you staring at, ape?"
Mordecai harshly jabbed him in what he guessed was his shoulder. "That's Doctor Tannis, local scientist. Don't mind her, she's... not good with people."
Tannis let out an "eugh" as a jet of blood fired out of one of her nostrils, the beam of crimson slamming into Blueblood and painting his face with human blood. Blueblood responded by screaming and running out of the building, yelling for water as if his life depended on it. Celestia and Luna were left in shock.
"Like I said, Princesses. Not good with people. Especially with aliens."
"So," intoned Brick, "is Prince Redblood going to come back?"

Celestia managed to suppress a smirk. Luna, being the less-experienced, didn't. Celestia still responded, though. "Yes, as soon as he gets the blood off of his face. Be warned, he's probably just going to teleport in."
Mordecai shrugged. "Princesses, if you'll follow me, I'll take you to the briefing room." He headed up the stairs, Brick following. The two sisters looked at each other, and followed.

Upstairs was apparently some sort of freakish fusion of a few apartment rooms, a small armory, and a briefing area. There were multiple bunks, a couch, and a massive vault, which led into a room with what appeared to be a planning table, surrounded by several of what Celestia guessed were magic screens displaying various different things. She raised an eyebrow when she spotted one with a naked human which had evidently stopped working, but paid it not much mind. Sexuality, she knew, was something that could never be fully suppressed.
Celestia sat on her haunches as Mordecai and Brick took a seat. Blueblood teleported in, looking aghast.

Celestia started the negotiations. "Now, Mr. Mordecai, where to begin?"
"Eh. Might as well preface this with the fact we're not threats. We're armed and dangerous, kill-you-in-an-eyeblink sorta people, but unlike about ninety percent of where we come from, we don't go on murdering sprees. S'what the Crimson Raiders stand for - they stand for actual peace, freedom, and safety on this planet - which we define as "the ability to go out and have a nice walk without being shot in the face by a man without a shirt wearing a gasmask." So. Wherever or whatever the hell this Equestria is, we'll be making sure none of Pandora causes any undue harm to it."
"You see to that," replied Blueblood. Mordecai felt his ire for the blonde-haired stallion go up a bit as he continued. "Alright. Now, Pandora - I will admit, it's a dangerous and violent planet. It's a place where the strong prey on the weak, not exactly the type of planet you go to on vacation. Forty-hour days, decade-long seasons, and animals that wake up from hibernation very, very hungry."
"If I may," interjected Luna, "but why then would you settle there?"
"Because. There were rumors of a Vault left by the Eridians, the last dominant race in that part of the galaxy." At the revelation that this species was intergalactic, the Prince(sses)' eyes widened, but Mordecai continued. "The rumors were always consistent that whoever opened the Vault with its Key would gain treasure beyond their wildest imaginations. Fame, money, power, women, weapons, influence, superpowers - it all varied. Me, Brick, Lilith, and... Roland, were people called Vault Hunters - mercenaries that came to the planet looking to find the Vault."

"So you admit you are hired killers," said Blueblood, "and yet you appear in our backyard and act friendly? What's your game?"
"I have no game. We found the Vault, it contained a giant tentacle monster we killed, and we stayed on Pandora because there was little else to do. And we had our reasons."
"Blueblood," remarked Celestia, as her head swiveled to face him, "if you continue to be undulely hostile, I will evict you from this meeting provided Mr. Mordecai grants permission. I did not bring you here to accuse potential friends of crimes they haven't committed."
"But you heard him, Aunt, they're mercenaries! Privateers! Hired killers! They're no better than..."
He petered out upon seeing Celestia glare at him with a small amount of the Sun's rage. Even Brick winced.

Mordecai decided to follow it up. "Princess Celestia, I grant permission to evict Blueblood provided he proves too troublesome for you to escort."
Brick added onto that with a hefty "And if he refuses to leave, I'll toss him out myself." That cowed Blueblood into not speaking further, though nothing could dissuade his dislike of the Vault Hunters, nor the glare he tossed in their direction.
"Anyways... Pandora was relatively peaceful. Y'know, if you don't count that one zombie infestation in Jakobs Cove we stopped before it spread. Or Atlas trying to reinvade and failing, miserably, mostly due to us. Or the one time all the Claptrap bots rebelled and yet again we stopped it before they got a bit too rowdy. Compared to the absolute shitstorm that flew up around the Vault, those were peanuts. After that we actually did get what counts for peace - which is "no unified bad guys trying to start shit."

"Then," he darkly intoned, "Handsome Jack came."

At the mention of the (disputedly) Handsome one (or asshole, your choice), Mordecai's voice went audibly dark and his tone had enough bile to fill a liter jug. "Bastard was the CEO of the Hyperion corporation, and as it turns out, opening the Vault was making this stuff called Eridium come out of the ground - and he had planned for that. He wanted some sort of fascist paradise where he was the leader and had total control over everything, but he said it was alright, because he was killing "bandits" and bringing "civilization to the wastes." Jack invaded, kicked our asses, and found out about a new Vault that contained an Eridian warrior powerful enough to sterilize the planet. He wanted it. Around then's when the six pendejos you're trusting your kids to follow around showed up - we teamed up, and saved the planet. But Roland died - he got shot in the back by Jack. And so did my bird, Bloodwing."

The expressions on the faces of the Princesses was that of muted sorrow. They were clearly sorry for the losses incurred, but at the same time, had seen so much of it that it didn't really matter to them. Celestia decided to speak. "I'm sorry to hear. Did you beat them?"
"Yeah," nods Mordecai, "even though Jack took control of the Warrior. Vault Hunters took it down. Reason we came here is afterwards, Hyperion started firing shells from orbit."
Luna went nuts. "From orbit? How?"
Mordecai sighed. "It's a long story, but Hyperion built a massive orbital base above Pandora. Base has a cannon right in the middle of it to fire things at Pandora - explosives, supplies, Loaders, you name it, so long as it can survive deorbiting it'll be shot out. And Jack made it look like an H. You know, Hyperion. As if that wasn't enough, it was big enough to be visible in broad daylight, the egotistical bastard."
Luna was practically glued to her seat, and looked as if she wished desperately for some popcorn.
"They fired a shot into Sanctuary which messed with Lilith's abilities - she's a Siren, only six can exist in the universe at any one time, all of them have badass superpowers, et cetera. Lilith can basically shunt herself into another dimension for a short period of time, and if she feeds on enough raw Eridium, she can take a massive amount of space with her - like this city."
Celestia absorbed the info. "And when she exited this fourth dimension, taking Sanctuary with her, it appeared in Equestrian skies.."
"As best I can tell, yes."

There was silence for a few seconds. Everyone there had the best poker faces on the planet, and nobody backed down. Blueblood finally regained enough courage to speak up - to Celestia.
"Alright. Maybe they're telling the truth, but they are hired murderers. You cannot allow them into Equestria in good faith-"
"But they have proven that they fight for something more," rebutted the Princess of the Sun, "or did you miss out on when they said they were Crimson Raiders fighting for freedom, safety, and presumably harmony?"
Blueblood's poker face evaporated. Thoroughly cowed, the prince sat back in his seat.
"With that in mind, while I will not be letting you on soil until we can arrange something, you are free to stay in our lands for the time being."

Mordecai nodded. "Thanks, Princess. Means we don't need to stress Sanctuary's engine any longer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta look after Talon."
"Talon?" Princess Luna stands up. "May I take a look?"
"Eh, why not? Try not to worry if he gets uppity - he hasn't seen anyone like you, so he's probably gonna go a bit psycho until he learns to trust you."
Brick got up and cracked his neck. "I'm off. Nice meeting with you, Princesses. And Blueblood?" The slab of a man leaned into the Prince, who recoiled a bit. Brick's voice turned dark. "You ever try to hurt any of my friends and I'll make damn sure that my fist punches your head off." He headed off to the balcony, leaving Blueblood and Celestia there.
"Your presence is no longer necessary, Blueblood. Return to the surface, address Ponyville, and tell them they are safe."
Blueblood nodded as he teleported off, leaving Celestia a couple of seconds of relaxation. She cherished them. As a Princess she was on-call twelve hours a day, for eternity. She didn't need sleep, of course - she spent an hour at night with Luna strengthening their bonds, and the other eleven offered fooling around of her own volition - but even in her off-time she was still liable to be called on. Despite what the Elements had done, she was currently the unofficial total leader of Equestria.

Nopony really trusted Luna. It would take a generation, maybe two or three, before she would get the kind of workload she did.
You had better be thankful, Lulu. In a hundred years you'll be whining about work. And I'll get to say - no, I should tell her "I told you so" so I can say it.
She got up onto all fours as her ears picked up a bird's cheeps and Luna's indignified squealing. If there was anything the great Princess Celestia knew best, it was how to blackmail your sister.

----

Meanwhile, on foot, the twelve soon-to-be-heroes-of-this-story set off.
"So," asked Applejack, "where's we all headed?"
"Couple of places around Sanctuary," came the Commando's reply. "You'll meet a nice few people, too. They won't hurt you guys or anything, they might just act suspicious."

The first stop on the tour came as they all approached a sign that said "Marcus Munitions." Twilight, being the pony smartsicle, quickly picked up on this. "...Munitions, huh? This is a weapon store?"
Fluttershy shied back a bit as Axton answered, "Yeah. Marcus Munitions LLC, lead by one Marcus Kincaid. All'a you ponies do me a favor. Trust him to give you a good gun, and never trust him for anything else ever, ever."
"Why?" came the question from Pinkie.
"Marcus is in it to get paid. He cares about nothing else, Pinkie," came the response from Zer0.
"Si. Ninja is correct. He once sold a rifle to some chump by suckering him in, saying he was some sort of grand, fabled hero, then sold it to him for ten million dollars." Salvador seemed slightly grumpy. "Pendejo's heart is made of greenbacks."
Rainbow rose a hoof into the air, and around then everyone noticed she was the only currently flying member of the group (though Fluttershy had wings, she didn't seem to prefer taking to the sky). "Pendejo?" she asked, figuring it had to be a swear.
"Asshole."
Ass seemed to mean flank. In which case, Dash had a new swear she could use. "Sweet."
Salvador turned to the others. "See? She is happy learning swears. She is taking to me already."
Maya facepalmed. "Salvador, please stop poisoning their minds."

Rarity finally brought up the obvious question. "Darlings, if I may... why do we need guns? It's not as if we're going on adventures with you, and Equestria is a rather peaceful land - besides the Everfree Forest, which we don't go into often anyways."





Six months later, as Rarity cleaned her Grade IV Maliwan Lucid Vexation, she laughed sharply to herself. "Why do we need guns... heh. I'm just thankful I've never had to use it since."





There was total silence from the rest of the Vault Hunters.
"That's... That's actually a really good point," conceded Gaige. "Hey, Ax, take 'em somewhere that's actually fun!"
"Alright, alright, fine. Pierce Station next, follow the Commando train, toot toot!"

Everyone set off, Krieg raising his buzz axe into the air and nearly scattering the Bearers with his insane cries of "MEAT TRAIN PLOUGHING THROUGH YOUR SQUISHIES! WOOOOOOOOO, WOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Look at that one. The yellow one.
Krieg cast a glance over to Fluttershy, who was currently hiding behind Salvador and staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. She was clearly scared of him.
You spooked her. You have to not do that.
"STOP HITTING MYSELF!" Krieg rammed the buzz axe into his face, earning another quiet yelp, and an internal sigh from his split personality.
I'm a real basket case, aren't I.

A couple of seconds later, everyone arrived at Pierce Station.
"Take a good, hard look, ponies," and I really just said that, didn't I, thought Axton, "this is our one link to Pandora. Welcome to Pierce Station, in honor of one of our former Crimson Lance lieutenants, Helena Pierce. Over there's the Fast Travel station that'll teleport you to various parts of Pandora."
"Really? I wanna try!" Pinkie zipped towards it, earning cries from all of the Vault Hunters somewhere along the lines of "no, Pinkie, do not use the Fast Travel". By the time they were done, she had already teleported off.

The Vault Hunters looked at each other. Salvador stepped forwards. He pulled out a Hyperion Grade V-B Practicable Interfacer and a Maliwan Grade III Expeditious Grog Nozzle, the pistol and shotgun looking tiny compared to the slab that wielded them.
"I will get her back. Give me five minutes." He hit the Fast Travel and disappeared.





Emerging at a teleporter in a massive desert, Pinkie looked around. "Jeepers, this place looks all dry, and arid, and techy." It indeed had the look of somewhere that had faded away fast. The massive desert seemed to have no end, and in the sky was a giant "H". Pinkie wondered who had it. "Ooh, a giant H! Maybe it was Harry's, or Horace's, but who cares about that? This place needs a dose of vitamin par-tay, stat! Then I can figure out who owns the giant floating H in the sky and who their name is!"

Pinkie's eyes scanned the environment, trying to figure out who could help her to party. Her eyes settled on a burrow on the ground. "Ooh! I wonder if it has animals, or people!" Having forgotten her previous mission entirely, the mare zipped on over to the burrow and stuck her head in.

"Hey, guys! Nice place you've got h-OW!" Pulling her head out with an audible pop, an Alpha Skag currently had her head trapped in all three of its jaws and was working to try and crunch it into nothingness, kill the prey, feed.

Not that it stopped Pinkie from looking around. "Why's the world so black? And why does my head feel really heavy?" The skag only then realized it was in the air, and it promptly fell to the ground. "Oh that's why! Hey puppy! Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?"
The skag gnawed and bit and yet didn't seem to get through. Roaring, the skag decided that whomever this was was either dead already or not worth the trouble, and let go, to reveal that she was perfectly fine.
"Ooh, that tickled! Do it again!"

The skag bared its teeth, and Pinkie backed up a little, as she finally realized the mortal danger that she was in. And the fact she was bleeding from the head a teensy little bit. Okay, more like a lot. "Easy, boy..."
Around then was when the skag exploded. Massive cracks filled the air as multiple intersecting rounds essentially gutted it, and Pinkie slowly began to realize maybe the thing chewing on her head hurt a bit more than it should.
She fell unconscious, and the last thing she saw was her friend Salvie screaming something.





"SHE'S NOT YOURS!"
By now the Gunzerker was sure he'd woken up the entire skag den, but he didn't care. His new friends were not going to be killed because of stupidity, and to be honest, he found them sort of cute. That alone was reason enough to charge after Pinkie.

He found her somehow surviving having her head bit off by an Alpha Skag, though it didn't look in too good a shape. Oh well. She'd live through the next few minutes, and that was all he needed to exterminate the enemy. As the entire den filed our and roared, Salvador realized they were charging for Pinkie.

They were going to tear her apart. So he did the only thing he could.

With grim resignation, he holstered his weapons, placed two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. The skags looked over, temporarily distracted, as Salvador made sure he had their attention, then gave all of them the middle finger from both hands, torquing his wrists to make sure he pissed all of them off. He wasn't sure how it worked, either, but not like he was complaining.

"ONE VEE ONE ME, SCRUBS!" And with that, Sal grabbed his guns and opened fire. The skags roared and charged as he held the trigger to both the Grog and the Interfacer down. The Grog was a more reserved plasma pistol that fired its strange, alcohol-and-slag infused projectiles, based on the Bunkers and Badasses game that Tina had made. It had been put into production in a remarkably short time after, with Marcus saying it was totally possible.

The health regeneration didn't hurt, either, and the Interfacer was what was dealing the main damage. The shotgun's shells were sucked into the gun, sometimes stopping, sometimes randomly filling back up as Salvador kept up a consistently blazing stream of fire that cascaded in on itself and then flew out in a wave, wiping skag after skag off of this wretched planet with an insane smile on his face.

"SHE SAID BURN!" came the cry from the walking tank as he took a moment to reload his weapons before the stream of shots continued, and somehow sped up unabated as he kept the massive amount of bang going. Within several more seconds the den had been wiped off of the map. He immediately ran over to Pinkie and snapped out of his blood rage, dropping his guns to take out an Insta-Health Vial and jam it into Pinkie's skull.

He only got a glimpse of it, and it was mangled to the point where she was lucky to be alive, but the Insta-Health worked wonders and it began to heal extremely fast. Another Insta-Health followed, and it was like she had never been bit in the first place - the Gunzerker breathed a sigh of relief, picked her up, and promptly got a bone-crushing hug (even by his brawny standards) and so many "thank yous" from her it took him a second to figure out exactly what was being said.

"Those meanies tried to eat me! I'm glad you stopped them!" She finally got to look at the bodies, and gasped.
"You... you killed them."
Salvador nodded. "Si. It was you or them, pink one. I chose you. They are animals-"
"Animals can talk and think for themselves!" Pinkie almost screeched. Salvador blinked.
"...I am guessing in magical ponyland they can? Here, if they can talk and are like us, they sure are not showing it. Please try not to worry about it too much, skags are pests anyways."
Her lip was twitching as she stared at the scene, before Salvador gently put her down. "They eat almost everything on sight, pink one. They have eaten guns. They will eat rocks. I have seen one eat a live grenade. They have no qualms against killing, at all. I did it to defend you. Please understand."
Pinkie nodded. Her hair seemed... well, still puffy, but a bit less puffy than it did before. She seemed to get why he had done it.

"Come on, pink one. We should go to Sanctuary, si? There is still a tour to finish."
"Yeah. Right!" Pinkie seemed to brighten a little bit at that fact, and the two of them headed back to the Fast Travel station, before Pinkie took a hard look at Salvador.
"Pink one, ple-"
"You forgot your guns! Over there!"
Salvador turned around, and looked at the ECHO light trails coming from his Grog and his Interfacer. Swearing under his breath, he nodded. "Go to Sanctuary. I will be there shortly." He quietly patted Pinkie on the head before setting off.
Pinkie nodded, slammed her head into the fast travel, and screamed a "Wheeeeeeeeeee~" as she teleported off.





By the time Salvador had got back Rainbow Dash was hailing him as a badass supreme, and the Bearers were half-fussing over the entirely okay but slightly shaken Pinkie and half-congratulating Salvador for bring back one of their own. All he had to say was "And don't go out there again, because next time I will send Krieg to bring you back!" That quietened down anyone.

Axton looked over his crew. "Pandora, as your friend Pinkie and my friend Salvador just demonstrated, is a damn dangerous place. The blood on her there proved it, and I'd rather you don't go there again. We don't like having to pull people's asses out of fires - we're better at throwing them in, heh." Dark looks cast across Axton for a second. "Alright alright dark humor doesn't work, c'mon, more spots!"

The Commando took the group out, the rest of the Vault Hunters following along behind, as they came across a sign that said "HOSTEL". Axton pointed to it. "That's Crazy Earl's Black Market. Not as black as you'd think - everyone goes there, but it spread by word of mouth because Crazy Earl is crazy and paranoid. He only takes Eridium - you know, the stuff that comes out of the ground here - and he deals in Storage Decks, what we use to carry our firearms and other such things, giving us upgrades for 'em. Simple stuff, next place'll be better."

Twilight nodded as they moved on. "Uh, Axton," she asked, testing out the name, "how exactly does a Storage Deck work?"
Axton was silent as he walked. "Hell if I know. Spacefuture magic shit. It's just really convenient and I'd rather not question it."
"But that's not the scientific method!"
"Dammit, Twilight, I'm a Commando, not a scientist!"
That shut Twilight up, and she mutely nodded as Axton let the gaggle onto the next location. Thumping electronic music poured out from it, as did a lot of people. Inside, a lot of beer and sex poured out, not that it was visible from where they were currently standing, but the stenches carried. Muzzles scrunched as the Vault Hunters stared in rapture at their one rest spot.

"Welcome to Moxxi's Red Light. Local bar, and fast food place, perfect for relaxing after a night of kicking ass."
Applejack sniffed once. "S'that sex, partner?"
Salvador shrugged in response. "It happens. You will just need to get used to it, Stetson."
"Oh, really, are ya namin' us after-"
"Yes." Salvador sagely nodded. "Whatever you are guessing was probably right. Get used to it."
Applejack only huffed as Axton noted the looks on their faces. "...Not really excited about the whole "Red Light" thing, huh. Well, there's other places to go. C'mon, I'll lead ya to the few other landmarks in this town. Still, any of you feel like kicking back with a cold glass of rakk ale and a pizza after you just punchsploded a flying tank, Red Light's the place." Axton immediately began moving away from the Red Light, everyone else shifting to follow. As they passed the Sanctuary Bounty Board, Twilight was surprised to note that they were only getting short glances and not much more attention than anyone else. She figured it was a Vault Hunter thing. Or the fact that the Vault Hunters were their escorts.

They ducked down a pair of steps and turned another right afterwards, emerging near a large warehouse. "Alright. Over there is Scooter's Garage. Now, Scooter means well, but he's kinda... screwed in the head and not at all good at being subtle, so..."
Before Axton could even think to move on, there was a cry from the door. And it sounded suspiciously like "OH MY GOD AN ACTUAL UNICORN AND THERE'S TWO OF THEM DAMN VAULT HUNTERS YOU MAKE MAKE MIRACLES HAPPEN!" Scooter ran out of his garage, wrench dropping onto the concrete below as he ran towards the group.
Maya facepalmed. "Scooter, were you there for the town address, because I'm pretty sure they made their presence-"
Pinkie, ever the socializer, had already darted out of the crowd and soared to Scooter. "I'm not a unicorn, could become one, though, just need a horn!"
"Smokin' Jesus titty cinnamon you little fellas are cute!"
"And awesome!" piped Rainbow Dash, before something (hand or Applejack's mouth, probably both) forced her back down.
Pinkie studied Scooter for about half a second, give or take about ten picoseconds, before spouting, "Wait, are you a mechanic?"
"I sure am, talkin' pink horse!"
"Pony! My name's Pinkie Pie nice to meet you Scooter!" Pinkie shot out her foreleg and shook with the speed of a vibrator set to "max". The strangest part, though, was that Scooter responded in kind and didn't seem fazed.

At this point the Bearers and Hunters were just staring wildly as Scooter and Pinkie seemed to convene, each speaking a mile a minute in some sort of superfast language that had no translation simply because there's no machine that could slow it down enough to translate it. Not without the pitch falling so low it became unintelligible.
"Dear Celestia I think we lost her," uttered Rarity.
"You and me both," replied Gaige.

After several seconds Pinkie nodded and returned to the group, hopping with an audible sproing in her step. Maya sprung a nosebleed from thinking too hard upon the sound hitting her brain.
Twilight stepped forwards. "Pinkie... what were you even talking about?"
"Oh, just getting to know him! He says he's trying to build something called Badassasaurus Two and I asked if I could help and he said yes and-"
Axton coughed as politely as he could manage, and Pinkie turned to him. "Oh. Right. Tour! Where next?
"Dr. Zed's 24/7 Clinic." As the group walked up the stairs, Axton began to speak. "It's obviously not the best place in town, and Zed - he's a good man, but a bad doctor. But the place has enough Insta-Health to fix any wounds you might get, so if you get really badly hurt you're probably gonna get carried in there. Might as well take you to meet him - Zed's a bit... crazed with some mad scientist stuff, but he's not all that bad."
Applejack snorted. "Sure sounds like you, Twilight."
"Hey!" Twilight pawed the ground on one of her steps. "I'll have you know I only did the one mad science experiment!"
"You still kinda blew up half of Ponyville," chimed in Rainbow Dash.
Salvador finally butted in. "Zed's experiment made a man-spider and flying skags. Whatever you did..." His brain, at that precise second, parsed the words "up" and "blew". "...okay, that is about as bad. Nevermind." Twilight growled as everyone finally decided to cut her some slack.

Opening the door with a twist of his hand, Axton led them into the clinic. It wasn't exactly the cleanest or most sanitary place - even Applejack wrinkled her nose at the aggressive smell that assaulted them. Fluttershy quietly found a nearby cardboard box, removed the smaller, yellow box from inside it, and proceeded to vomit into it; when Rainbow Dash heard it she flew over to her friend and held her hair back with her mouth. Doctor Zed turned around, and immediately noticed the disgusted looks on the faces of four of the occupants.
"Oh! Hi there. Apologies about the state of this place, but... antiseptic is impossible to come by. I'm fairly certain Sanctuary is lucky it has surgical equipment or drugs in the first place."
Twilight was the first to launch. "You call this a clinic? This is more unsanitary than drinking water fresh from a bog, and I don't even have to drink water in the first place! I feel like if any other part of me contacts any other part of this place I'll contract necrotizing fascitis!"
"Well, for most war wounds that's why Insta-Health Vials exist. Just grab one from a machine after paying the money - freshly digistructed, free of anything that might cause you to die a horribly messy death, and guaranteed to heal you up. Unlike me, Mister No Medical License."

You could practically hear the steam leaking out of Twilight's ears as she began to prepare a stun spell to make this quack shut up. Unfortunately, a hand gripped her horn - hard. The suddenness of it stopped any train of thought she would have had cold, and she ripped her horn out of the grip (a smidgen of pleasure no not now) and turned to face who had done it.
Zer0, with a clear-as-day WTF BRO emblazoned across his faceplate, returned his hand to his side, unaware of what he'd just done.
"Twilight, calm yourself. He is not a doctor, true, but he's close enough."
Twilight snorted. "Let's just ignore the fact you touched my horn - which in this case is kind of like a... um... you know..." She began to wildly gesticulate, trying to get at something that perplexed the ninja-assassin as his faceplate projected a red ?. It seemed Gaige, however, was able to translate. After several seconds of staring with her prosthetic hand scratching her chin she raised it on reflex. "Oh! Oh! I think she's trying to say it's sort of like a dick!"
Twilight immediately blushed and lowered her head. Zer0, on the other hand, looked at his hand and frantically looked around, his faceplate emitting a red EW EW EW EW as he immediately rubbed it off on Salvador's shoulder. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Gaige, and Axton lost themselves in laughter, whereas Maya and Rarity merely smirked, and Salvador shoved Zer0 as roughly as he could have, muttering something about "gringo ninja robots rubbing me".

To break the awkwardness, Zer0 composed himself and then spoke. "Sorry for the bad touch, but Zed is the best we have. No other doctors."
Twilight stared at Zer0 in disbelief, the blush quickly draining from her face at the more serious prospect being put forwards. "You... you're serious?"
Zer0 sagely nodded, and Twilight turned around.
"Apologies, Zed, but I still think this place could use a bit of a clean-up. Hay, even a sponge and water would do wonders for this..."
She surveyed the bloody clinic.
"...place."
Zed nodded as he cleaned off his buzz axe. "Well, I figured if you can't get it clean with antiseptic you ain't cleanin' it right. But... the way you put it I might save a few extra lives keeping this place tidy. God, I hate being proven wrong. Thanks, Miss..."
"Twilight Sparkle."'
"Yes, Twilight, thank you. I'll put a want ad on the Bounty Board immediately. So. Any reason you're here to show other than to show your newfound friends around my doctor's office?"
Axton spoke up. "Actually, that's... kinda it. And I think we've seen enough, judging one of our number's down for the count with a case of "weak stomach". So we'll be heading out. I was just showing the new arrivals around Sanctuary."
Zed nodded. "Ah. Have fun with that."

The six stopped momentarily outside of the clinic, where Rarity had proceeded to pull a handkerchief out of seemingly nowhere and was wiping Fluttershy's face with it.
"It's okay, Fluttershy. Not everyone's used to seeing... that. Hay, I'm not." Rainbow Dash was valiant in attempting to console Fluttershy.
"I suppose. I hope nobody needs to use this."
Zer0, in the meanwhile, walked over in a rather aloof fashion. He inspected the site around the vomit-filled box and found the smaller, yellow box on the ground next to said impromptu bile disposal. It was a Hyperion container, carrying universal pistol ammunition. He immediately picked it up and swiped it over his leg, the Storage Deck atomizing it and storing it. "There. Ammo."
Twilight, ever inquisitive, tapped a hoof on the ground. "...what, for your guns?"
"Sure!" rang a new voice, that was decidedly not any of the group. "Guns on Pandora don't have infinite ammo - besides Vladof's Infinity. So most firearms need backup ammunition for when their magazines run out!"

At the tone of the new voice it seemed all of the Vault Hunters sighed. Even Krieg seemed to show annoyance beyond his usual deadly leer, and a wedge-shaped robot wheeled on in. "Huh! Actual ponies! And you can talk! That's amazing!"
Rarity took a look at Claptrap, who was shorter than even ponies were (not by much, though - the antenna made him taller). "I fail to see how it is."
"Looking through my database of confirmed alien species, none are quadrupeds! All have some form of opposable appendage, as well as at least two limbs for walking and two limbs for grasping! The fact you even exist is a mathematical and evolutionary anomaly!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "No, it's not. We have magic, see?" She levitated the cardboard box from earlier, and a pale yellow liquid dripped out of it. Claptrap studied it for a moment.
"I thought horses didn't have a gag reflex, but clearly they're able to vomit, too!"
"Goes to show," responded Twilight, dropping the box, "that we're not your average 'horses'."
"Figures. Anyways, how are you all! I am a CL4P-TP general service bot, but what friends I would have had would call me Claptrap!"
"WAIT!" Pinkie's cry seemed to stop all of existence for a moment as her neck temporarily stretched out to a degree Mr. Fantastic would have trouble processing, before she somehow ran so fast over to Claptrap that Maya was fairly sure she teleported. "You... you have no friends!"
"Nope! Just 'cause they ain't cool enough for the Clap, baby!"
The Vault Hunters (besides Krieg) sniggered, except for Zer0, who uttered a low but no less amused "Hee."
"Uh... not sure if it exists here, but isn't the Clap a name for a sexually transmitted disease?" asked Twilight.
"Indeed," replied Maya. "Chlamydia. Not that we don't have a cure for it, but I doubt you'd find one here."
Pinkie, meanwhile, was slowly edging away from Claptrap. "Like I was gonna say before Debbie Downer here stepped in with her facts, I'd be willing to be your friend! At a distance!"
"BOO-YAH!" Claptrap jumped on its single wheel. "I actually have a friend! This... this is amazing! Gimme five!"
Pinkie looked around. "I... Kindadontwannasorrybye!" And she was off.
Claptrap seemed as if he was standing there awkwardly, despite the fact he had naught legs, but a wheel. "...was it something I said?"
Twilight nodded. "Yeah."

Claptrap seemed to fall a bit, and at that Axton spoke up. "Hey, Clappy, don't worry, she probably just headed off to get some rub-"
Pinkie seemed to zip back in. "NOIDIDNT!" With that hastily screamed she left. And with Pinkie leaving, Claptrap turned around and headed back to his cubbyhole.
"I... kinda feel a bit sorry for him," commented Twilight.
Axton shrugged. "Don't. Claptrap's an, uh... what did you say, Maya?"
"Egotistical insensitive jerk of a robot, why?"
"Yeah. An egotistical, insensitive jerk. Trust us - he's kind of an asshole. Like, a really, really huge asshole."
Rainbow Dash seemed to perk up. "He's a pendejo?"
"Si," replied Salvador. "A miserable pendejo, but a pendejo."
Axton nodded in agreement as the twelve headed back towards Raider HQ. "So. There you are. Sanctuary. How'dya like the place?"

Several different pairs of eyes looked towards each other as the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, suddenly off-put by the attention from the six hardened Vault Hunters, as they immediately raced to form an opinion.
"It's, uh..." began Twilight.
Pinkie bounced up into the air. "Fun!" Then she deflated a bit. "Kinda."
"A little... dirtier than I expected," commented Rarity as she tried to dust a hoof off on a nearby surface dirtier than she was, "but... okay?"
Applejack had to take a couple of seconds to think. "Uh... it's... pretty..."
That was around the time Gaige held her prosthetic hand up. "Alright, we get it. It's not the best city, but hell, on Pandora it's the safest place we have. Not sure where you guys come from, but if it's anything like Eden-5 then... yeah."
"No hard feelings," added Salvador. "It does hurt, but in the end I am happy with my lot. It is better than what I have seen."
"WHY'D YOU STOP?" asked Krieg, for no real reason.
There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before Axton coughed. "Uh... we should really get going, uh... might wanna see what those Princesses of yours think about us, huh?"
With multiple hasty words of agreement, our soon-to-be-but-not-quite-yet heroes trudged off towards Sanctuary Archives.