//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: Midgets take Manehattan part 2 // Story: Borderlands 2 DLC: Vault of the Consular // by NightStream //------------------------------// As Brick bolted out of Coco’s apartment and down the hall with Axton following him shortly afterwards, the only ones who looked a bit baffled by what was happening in that moment were that of Rarity, Coco and Lilith. The latter of whom helped Gaige off the floor as the mechromancer was scratching the back of her head. “So, care to explain what that was all about?” The siren asked her. “One moment, you were looking around and we were minding our own business. The next thing I know, Brick starts racing down the hall and Axton takes off after him.” “Loot midget came out of nowhere…” Gaige coughed for a moment. “My ECHO was picking something up in the room and then a ponified loot midget stormed out of here.” “Okay… well, I don’t see why-” “-It has a piece of the key.” After hearing that, the siren just looked back at the mechromancer for a brief moment, before cursing to herself. “Aw sh-” “W-what’s going on?” Coco asked, now sounding nervous about what exactly just unfolded in the middle of her living room. “No time to talk. Got a midget to catch.” The siren said, before her tattoos glowed and she disappeared from the room. Leaving Gaige as the last one to leave as she looked back at the others. “It’s a lot to explain, so… see ya!!” The mechromancer took off, leaving the unicorn and the earth pony by themselves… just as the door that Brick slammed earlier fell off its hinges. “And just when I thought Rainbow was bad when it comes to slamming doors.” The element of generosity grumbled to herself. Given everything so far, something told her that this was going to be a long afternoon. “GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE SH*T, HAHAHAHA!!!” Brick screamed in joy as he laughed and chased the midget, though he had to go back into pony form to even fit through the doorway… barely, that was also getting further and further away from him in the building. “Dammit, only if we weren’t indoors I could get a clear shot and not have to worry about others in the way.” Axton said mostly to himself as he was right behind Brick with the Bitch SMG at the ready. “Have to say though, Brick, that is one quick midget. Guess it doesn’t help it’s also a pony.” “HAHA, that’s where the fun is an-” Right then the midget then jumped out a nearby window and crashed right through to the ground below. Axton and Brick were standing there for a few seconds while looking back and forth between themselves and the broken window. “Uh… did that-” “Yep.” “Do you think-” “Nope.” Axton took a few seconds to himself before answering. “Why the hell do psychos have to be so f*cken stupid.” “Hey, at least he made a way for us to get down.” Brick said, only to shortly go through the window as well, only to then impact the ground a few seconds later followed by him yelling out. “F***************CK, THAT HURT!!” Axton just went to look out the window to see Brick slowly get up from the crater, all the while cursing and grumbling. After shaking himself off and putting the armband back on did he look for the midget. “HEY AXTON, YOU SEE HIM?” Brick asked. “ONE SEC!” Axton then pulled out his sniper, the Volcano, to look for their target. After sweeping the area for a few seconds he found it. “HEADING EAST, BE DOWN SHORTLY!” Axton took a quick second to collect himself before jumping out the window. He braced himself for impact and landed easily, while only wobbling slightly. He and Brick shared a quick nod before chasing after where the midget was last seen going. After a few minutes and turns down main streets and avoiding hitting any ponies while they were chasing the midget, they lost it in a massive crowd in a park. “Dammit, now it will be difficult to find that damn midget.” Brick then taps Axton on the shoulder and points to a nearby tree that can overlook the park. “How about up there?” Brick asked as they made their way to the tree. “Hmm…” Axton looks over the tree before coming to a decision. “Well, I would need to climb a little higher, but this will work. Boost me up.” As Axton got ready to hop up, Brick just grabbed him by the shirt and launched him up the tree. “Thanks for that.” Axton grumbled down to Brick, only to receive a smirk and a thumbs up in response. After shaking his and positioning himself on the branch he got his sniper out once again he started sweeping the area. Five minutes go by and he finds nothing, much to his annoyance. “Find anything yet?!” Brick called up to Axton. “Nothing yet.” He responded before grumbling to himself. “Of course it had have been a damn loot midget that got their little han- huh?” He then saw a bit of a disturbance a little ways off to the west. “Go to the west about twenty meters from here, something's going on over there.” Axton said to Brick, to which he got a nod. As Brick was jogging over there, Axton saw a group of ponies surrounding something with looks of concern. Before he could even begin to form a question he heard a shotgun blast ring out in the park and the ring of ponies all back away. He could see that one of the ponies is on the ground bleeding from a shotgun blast. He could see that it wasn’t deep, as if the pellets only grazed the pony. ‘Sh*t, Brick get there soon.’ Axton said to himself as he saw the midget cock the shotgun again and pointed it at the head of the pony that was hit. ‘Well I'm gonna get shit for this, but f*ck it that mare needs help now.’ Axton then steadied his aim and fired his sniper at the shotgun. While the shotgun was fired, instead of gore going flying it was only dirt this time. The midget then looked to where the shot came from and shouted something, before once again running off, with Brick hot on his heels. “GET BACK HERE!!” Brick shouted as he was gaining on the midget, to which all he got in response was more psycho speak. While Axton was getting out of the tree, Brick was making sure not to lose the midget as it suddenly went down various alleyways. Eventually he was able to corner it in a dead end. “HEHEHE, nowhere to run now.” Brick said as he was cracking his knuckles. “So be a good little boy and take your beating.” However the Loot midget just laughed and readied his shotgun again. Brick just rolled his eyes as he advanced, only to stop as he then heard multiple weapons at the ready. He looked up and found fifteen other midgets there, one of them being a midget goliath of all things. “Oh Shi-” Brick started to say as he turned back to go around a corner. Shortly after he rounded the corner did all sixteen midgets open fire. ‘The one time I need a goddamn gun i don’t have one on me, great.’ He said to himself as the hail of bullets continued on his location. Brick never even got a chance to look around the corner as he heard them advance on him. “Hey, stand in front of this!” Axton shouted from nearby as he deployed his two turrets, which their shields activated as soon as they were deployed. “Heard you might need some help, so how's it look against one little midget.” “Well smartass, there is now sixteen of them with a f*cking goliath.” Axton just stood there, remembering what happens when their helmet is gone. He then readys his Norfleet and steps over to his turrets, only to find out that the midgets scatter as soon as he rounds the corner. “Dammit, just when i wanted to blow some stuff up.” Axton then sighs as he puts his rocket away. “Well at least we can track which on- what?!” As he is looking at his ECHO to track the location of where the midget was going, sixteen trackers go off as they leave the ring surrounding Axton’s piece of the key. “FOR F*CKS SAKE SERIOUSLY?!?!” As Gaige scrambled in order to try and get a grasp on the situation, she saw a few things that looked to be consistent with one another. First, there was a trail of destruction that was left behind from the mad dash of Axton and Brick going after the midget. And second, the sound of gunfire echoed shortly afterwards along with several ponies running and applying medical attention to whoever got wounded. Looking at her ECHO device didn’t seem to help any because one moment, the commando and berserker were hot on the tail of the midget, yet they were stalled by something shortly afterwards. Thinking quickly, the mechromancer activated the comline on her ECHO device and reached out to the siren. “Lilith, things aren’t looking good. Civilians are getting caught in the crossfire down on the street.” “I know. And things aren’t looking good up here either,” The siren commented back. “I was listening in on the ECHO feed from Axton and brick. Turns out the midget’s not alone. There’s fifteen others and a goliath with them.” “That… doesn’t sound entirely bad-” “The helmet just got knocked off.” “Okay, I take that back, that’s bad.” Gaige widened her eyes upon hearing that piece of news from Lilith. “Do we got some kind of plan here? I know that I have Deathtrap, but it would be a wild goose chase to go after every single one.” There was a moment of silence… just before Lilith responded. Though, Gaige was not entirely thrilled by the choice of words. “Okay… I have an idea. A really bad idea. Get up to the roof and stay in your pony form.” “Please, lets not have this be a repeat of when she warped Sanctuary,” The mechromancer thought to herself, noticing the exit to a stairwell at the end of the hall. She wasn’t entirely thrilled of random teleportations. Especially the ones that Lilith did to ensure that they survived. Whether it was ten feet or several kilometers away, Gaige only felt that teleportation would be necessary if she knew where she would end up instead of landing in some random ass place. Approaching the stairs, she punched the door handle with her mechanical arm as she raced towards the top. Unfortunately, the door at the top of the stairs couldn’t exactly be opened in the same fashion. So instead, she cast her magic to pull out her conference call shotgun to blast the door lock to pieces before busting the door down. Lilith was on the other side, in her normal form with one free hand monitoring the situation on her ECHO device. “Oh good, you made it.” The siren told her. “So what’s this really bad idea of yours exactly?” Gaige now asked as she approached the siren. “Well, judging from the recent motions on the tracker, it seems like these guys are trying to somehow… what’s the term…” “Misdirect?” “Yeah,” Lilith told her. “They’re messing with ECHO frequencies in order to trick us, but I think that if you amplify the tracker a bit, you can get a visual as to where it might be. Of course, I tried with my Siren powers to no effect.” “So… you think magic might be the key?” “Exactly,” Lilith told her. “Besides, it would be more effective than just hunting down each of them individually to go straight for the source.” If she were entirely honest, Gaige was unsure whether or not this was the ‘bad’ part of her idea or not. If anything, everything seemed good so far. “Alright. So, I channel my magic, find the source and then chase them?” “No, not chase.” She replied to her. “I’m going to warp you as you jump off the building. If applied right, then they won’t know what hit them.” And there it was. As Axton and Brick were chasing some of the nearby midgets, they both heard something they didn’t want to hear. “Mistake! BIG GODDAMN MISTAKE!” Followed by the helmet of a goliath slowly rolling on the ground. “Oh sh*t! Brick, see if you can go after some of the midgets I’m gonna stay and deal with-” Axton quickly ducked out of the way as a trash can came flying towards him. “JUST GO!” “ON IT!” Brick shouted as he left, following in the direction of where the closest midget went. “Alright midget, time fo- OH GOOD GOD WHAT THE F*CK?!?!” As the midget goliath rounded the corner it, like how the others were, was in pony form. Upon seeing it raging as a pony was not something he would ever want to see again. “GET ON YOUR GODDAMN KNEES!” It screamed as it came barreling after Axton. “I think i’m gonna throw up.” Axton could only respond as he ran away towards a less populated area of the city. “STOP RUNNING!” “DON’T PLAN ON IT!” “RAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” The goliath screamed as it chased Axton. ‘Brick I hope you found some of them!!!” Meanwhile, Brick found out that two of them were right next to each other. As he slowly came up behind them he got ready to grab them both. However he decided to wait until one of them went forward a little before grabbing the one closer to him. Before the midget could even begin to wonder what happened, Brick snapped its neck. ‘One down, one to go for now.’ As he snuck up on the one that was left he punched it in the back of the head and put a boot on it’s back. The midget was struggling before realising it couldn’t get out. It then felt its right foreleg being pulled. “Please don’t break my arm!” It pleaded at Brick. “Hmm…. Okay.” The midget let out a sigh of relief, which was the last thing it ever did as Brick decided to crush its skull instead. “Hmm, I wonder how Axton’s doing right now.” Brick decided to call Axton on his ECHO. After a few seconds it went through. “Hey, how’s the Goliath doing?” “Don’t run… I’m just gonna EAT YOU ALIVE!!!” Brick faintly overheard the Goliath. “HOW THE F*CK DO YOU THINK?!?!” “How did it level up?” “Ran into a two other midgets along the way, it dealt with them far too quickly. Then again it is a pony right now, so who knows what kind of magical BS is going on right now.” “Sounds like you have it covered, I’ll check in with the others.” Brick then cut the transmission before Axton could even respond. “Hey Lilith, what's going on on your end?” Just as he said that, just as the siren herself landed on the ground. Fire like wings coming off behind her. “Sup? You called for me?” “Convenient. Yeah, just wanted to check and see how you and Gaige are doing.” Brick said as looked over to Her. “Also, Axton is dealing with a midget GOD-liath right now that is a pony.” “Ouch,” Lilith said. “Hopefully Gaige is doing better… We kind of went along with another bad idea I had…” Brick let out a long sigh at that. “What kind of bad idea, and why wasn’t I invited to it?” “It was bad… quick question by the way,” Lilith asked him. “How fast do you think a moonshot projectile is?” Elsewhere… As Gaige felt herself being thrown back down towards the ground, a part of her wanted to strangle Lilith for coming up with this insane idea in the first place. Her idea for trying to reach the other side of Manehattan was to have her be the equivalent of a flying moonshot, the equivalent of a blast from orbit by Hyperion’s Helios space station. The only good thing that she could really say about it was that her magic was acting as a buffer to protect her from anything that she came into contact with. Of course though, that anything turned out to be the side of a brick building. And there was no way to slow down her approach. “Aw sh-!” However, instead of smashing through the wall like she thought would happen, she bounced off and fell straight down. Crashing down to the ground face first, much to the mechromancer’s dismay. “Next time Lilith tells you that its a bad idea, perhaps don’t do it-” As she rose up and told herself this, she happened to notice something. Not that far from where she was at, there were several dots all gathered up in one place. Around eleven or so if she were to take a wild guess. And upon fully standing up, she now found what she was looking for. Eleven loot midgets, all of which were now staring back at her as she grit her teeth for a moment. “Heh… Just my luck…” Before the midget could ready their weapons, the mechromancer grabbed hold of the grenade she had attached to her waist and threw it. Luckily, this was the ‘Magic Missile’ hand grenade that she got from when the vault hunters were playing their game with Tiny Tina sometime back. As the grenade exploded, several slag projectiles hit the midgets. Providing an opportunity for the mechromancer to capitalize on. “To hell with the first law!” Moments after summoning Deathtrap, Gaige jumped over a set of crates that were on one side of the alleyway, getting behind the midgets as she readied her Conference Call. With Deathtrap on one side and her on the other, the midgets had nowhere to run as rounds of shotgun ammo ricocheted off the walls and had each one of the midgets drop like flies. The one that took a bit longer to kill was the one with the piece of the key, but after one of deathtrap’s claws knocked the key piece out of its bag, it soon fell like the others. Of course, it would not be a loot midget without the one thing that they would have on hand. Loot. And one of the things that happened to be scattered amongst the dead midgets was something that Gaige knew Axton would’ve wanted. “Holy sh*t, one of these guys had a Butcher?” Yes, the same shotgun that she used to free herself from the guardians that arrived at the Gala was now laying on the ground in front of her. Only differences being that it was a corrosive variant of the weapon and that it had what looked like a Jakobs sight strapped to the top of it. The commando had been jealous of her ever since getting one from Digistruct Peak, so he probably might like the fact that he can have one this time around. However, a pearlescent weapon was not the first thing that was on Gaige’s mind. Instead, it was the piece of the key. As she picked it up, the piece immediately became attached to her left arm. And with it, she began to feel rather dizzy. Possibly as a side effect from Lilith’s bad idea. But it was fine. Surely Axton could be able to handle himself, right? “SH*T, SH*T, SH*T!!!!” Axton yelled out as he finally got to an area where there were no others except himself and the midget GOD-liath. He was not having a good time at all, considering that the GOD-liath had some sort of healing to it considering whenever he shot at it its wounds would slowly heal. ‘Alright if I want this to work, I need to find a hallway or at least an alleyway.’ He was not having a good time considering the GOD-liath is basically breathing down his neck. ‘Come on, come o- there perfect!’ Axton shortly found what he was looking for and turned a hard left. He did a quick glance behind himself only to see the GOD-liath run into some trash cans before coming down the alleyway. ‘Alright, time to light it up.’ Axton then quickly launched both of his Turrets up on the wall out of reach so GOD-liath couldn’t get to them easily. “That won’t help, scroll sucker!” After it said that the turrets started unloading rockets, bullets, and slag ammo into it. Axton then pulled out his trusty shotgun, the casual SWORDSPLOSION, and kept firing until he knew the GOD-liath was down. The only way he knew it was still alive was because of the fact his turrets kept firing until they deconstructed and he had to wait until before he could use them again. “I can take it. I’LL TAKE IT ALL!” The GOD-liath screamed at Axton. ‘Time to finish it, it’s on its last legs anyway.’ Axton said to himself as he readied his grenade. As the GOD-liath was slowly healing and staggering towards him, Axton got into a pitching position. ‘At least he is still slagged.’ “Batter up!” Axton shouted as he ricocheted the Fastball grenade against the wall. It bounced a few times before hitting the GOD-liath square in the head, and thus exploding it. “And you’re OUT!!!” He then shouted as it finally went down, without a head. Then he went over to check out any loot that might have dropped from it. “Lets see what we got…. Hmm well, I don’t have this one yet, so might as well keep it.” He said to himself as he picked a MadHous! Assault Rifle. He looked it over before stashing it in his inventory, and swapping out the Bitch SMG for the Florentine, his preferred SMG. “Right, time to check the others.” Axton then decided to call up Brick. After a few seconds He picked up. “Hey Slab, so how’s the GOD-liath doing?” Brick did not sound happy at all. “Uhh, currently headless. Is something wrong?” “Oh nothing much EXCEPT FOR THE FACT I DIDN’T DO SOMETHING FUN!!” Brick shouted towards someone, only to hear Lilith. “Hey, if you wanted to end up as a bloodstain on the ground be my guest.” It sounded like this has been going on for a while, considering Lilith sounded worn out by this. “... Anyway, how’s the hunt for the other midgets going?” Brick let out a grunt before answering. “Gaige dealt with them a few minutes ago, so she has the vault key piece by now. However, we can’t reach her ECHO so we are going to her location to check up on her.” “Got it, meet you there.” Axton then headed to where the location of the other piece is. As he was making his way over there though, both of them heard another voice speak. “Hey guys, I found Gaige,” Lilith spoke over the ECHO device. “She's out cold for the moment. But still has the key piece.” “Alright, should we take her back to, uh... what was the name of Rarity’s friend again?” Axton asked as he honestly forgot. Lilith just let out a groan. “What, I actually forgot ok. I mean we only meet her for what, two minutes at most before sh*t hit the fan.” “I believe it was Coco Pommel or something-” She said, before another caller came on the line. The caller ID said that it was from Maya, but upon hearing the voice of the caller, it was anything but her. “Um… is this thing on-?” They heard, recognizing that the voice was Twilights and that Maya was talking to her in the background. “Oh okay. Guys, can you hear me?” “Twilight? I… honestly would ask how you are calling, but after hearing Maya, I think that question answered itself.” “Right. Here’s a question though,” The princess then asked them. “Why is the royal guard getting reports of civilian casualties and a monster attack in Manehattan. Something about a pony with it’s head being… loose?” There was a brief pause, but that was soon followed by Lilith asking the commando a question over the ECHO. “Would you like to tell her or should I?” “Well, we found out that one of the key pieces was here. It turned out that a loot midget, somehow, ended up in on of Coco’s boxes and that lead to a whole lot of stuff happening, but hey we dealt with it at least.” Axton stopped to let out a quick sigh. “Ah, this takes me back to when I was in the DAHL military. Also there weren’t too many injuries on the civilians… I think.” When he heard the tone that Twilight used, he couldn’t help but reminisce because it reminded him of his Ex which he quickly caught onto before changing the subject. “Yeah, that’s all nice and all but what about Gaige?” Brick sounded as he cut into the conversation. “I mean, are we gonna leave her there or what?” “Hell no, Brick. I’m picking her up right now,” Lilith told them. “Though, I believe there’s a pearlescent weapon here with Axton’s name on it if he hurries his ass up.” “Wait, seriously?” Maya now cut in. “What is it?” “Says here that it’s a Critical Butcher.” “...I’ll be right there.” Axton said as he then rushed over there as fast as he could. “Hehehe, yeah that will get him running.” Brick said. “HEY SHUT IT, I’ve been hoping to get that weapon for a while now!” Axton shouted at Brick in annoyance. “Is he always like this?” They heard Twilight ask Maya. “Only in this particular instance. Last time he saw that weapon, Gaige claimed first dibs and snatched it before Axton could do anything about it.” “AND SHE KNEW I WANTED THAT WEAPON! SHE JUST HAD TO SHOVE IT IN MY FACE FOR IT!” “Yeah, but didn’t you ask for a fight against her for it and she then proceeded to kick your ass?” Brick said, and Axton could tell he had a smirk on his face. “She caught me off guard.” Axton said in a weak rebuttal. “Anyways,” Lilith now interjected. “Let’s regroup and go find Rarity and Coco before heading back. Let’s just hope that the damage from Brick jumping out a building is minor-” “YOU JUMPED OUT A BUILDING!? ARE YOU BUCKING CRAZY!?!!” Was Twilight’s only response to that comment from the siren. And it was loud enough to give Axton an earache. “In my defense, the loot midget broke the window first.” “Mind toning down the volume there, Twilight?” Axton said as he was rubbing her ears. Finally he was able to meet up with Lilith and claim his weapon. “FINALLY GOT ONE, HELL YEAH!!” “Mind toning down the volume there, tough guy?” Lilith asked, pointing her head in the direction of Gaige, who was lying on the siren’s back as she carried her. “Right, sorry.” Axton cleared his throat as he put the weapon in his inventory, making sure it stays there. “Well, hopefully she won’t be out long like last time.” “Yeah, hopefully.” Lilith replied back. “Though, I’m not sure if my idea helped any.” “Oh boy… what happened this time?” Maya asked. “Well, let’s just say that I combined my siren powers with the magic she had been learning to have her accelerate to the other side of the city like a shot from a moonshot cannon.” “...... To take a page from Twilight here, are you f*cking crazy!?” “Seriously, that was your idea…? No wonder Brick wanted to do it.” Axton said as his hand met his face, hard. “Well, you two were already chasing after the midget so I had to improvise. Besides, I wouldn’t even think about trying that with Brick even if he asked.” The siren told him in response, right before feeling something behind her as she then asked a new question. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” “Yes he is, and you better believe we are doing that sometime in the future. I hope you know that.” Brick said as he then was right beside her. “At least make sure you can have a somewhat safe landing then.” Axton said with a flat look. “Tell you what… If we make it out of this in one piece and Gaige still can use magic, I’ll let you do that as you jump off the edge of Sanctuary.” Lilith told him. “Deal?” “Hmmm…” Brick contemplated for a few seconds. “Deal.” Around now, the commando really wished that there was something that could help him avoid this conversation altogether. Luckily though, that came in the form of the white unicorn that they came here with and her earth pony friend. “There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you! What the hay happened?” At that moment, all Lilith could do was just let out a deep sigh. “It’s a long story.” “So for now, let’s get back to your place Coco and we can begin there. Also because Gaige in currently unconscious as well.” Axton said with relief at having not to deal with Brick wanting to be launched like out of a moonshot cannon.