Borderlands 2: Starlight DLC Pack

by the-pieman


Chapter 6

“Wow, I never thought this’d be the story you ask about for a week straight. We finished the first one in, what, three days? Well, kid, make yourself comfortable. Because things are getting good.” Marcus pulls up the repaired chair he’d dragged into the room. “You already went to the bathroom, right?”

----- (/\) -----

“Alright!” Pinkie yells, an explosion following her exclamation. “Three Skag dens down, one to go!” Angry Skags pour out from the blasted-open den, looking around for the source of their woe before just milling around a bit.

Dash loads the next batch of dynamite into the newly-digistructed Outrunner as Anthony takes advantage of the turret to mow down the charging Skags, and eventually the skags give up and return to their milling.

“This is great! Everything is still a reasonable level and we’re actually getting some money for this!” Dash says, as she finishes preparing the final set of explosives. Pinkie hops into Anthony’s lap and gives a happy whoop as Rainbow drives them down to the location of the final skag den. This had been easy so far as most of the skags were still expecting a break before any Vault Hunters would show up.

“So what’s next, once we blow the last den?” Dash calls back, the car zipping over the terrain as Anthony consults his job page.

“Well, one guy wants us to beat the crap out of Flank Steak, the leader of the Bloodshots... but doesn’t want him dead for some reason.”

“He’s a leader? Sounds more like a porn star!” Dash shouts over the wind.

“Yeah, I know. Bandits come up with weird names. Anyways, let’s head to the Dam after this, take care of the Bloodshots. It’s likely they’ll have all respawned by now, since the others already have Roland back.”

“Ha, sounds like a good time!” Dash says, the splash of dried blood on her face crinkled along the lines of her rictus grin as Pinkie lobs the last stick of dynamite in passing into the Skag Den, blowing it wide open, and the three whoop it up as they speed away.

“Another job done! Now onto the dam!” Pinkie shouts.

“Wait, what about getting paid for the job we just did?”

Anthony shrugs. “We turn them into the same place, might as well turn the lot in at once rather than make the trip twice.”

Rainbow mulls the thought over before turning the car to head for Three Horns Valley.

----- (/\) -----

“More hunters!? We don’t even have Roland this time! Oh well, get ‘im Bad Maw!

At that, the bridge to the dam’s entrance lowers and an oversized nomad in red with a huge, spiked shield crashes down in front of the trio of Vault Hunters, the midgets chained to the shield struggling to get free and generally panicking at being used as meat shields. Again.

“Ah, that’s just not right, man! Let the little guys go!” Dash shouts from behind cover as Bad Maw fires at her.

Yeah! Yeah! Lettus go!” the high-pitched midgets chant and chorus.

Anthony pulls out his Dahl Sniper and manages to shoot off two of the three chains holding the midgets in place. At this point, the three midgets were biting at the final chain trying to break free.

Pinkie, having been sneaking around the battle and using her Jakobs pistol to drop bandits getting too close to Dash and Anthony, sighted in on the back of the shield, before chucking an unmodded grenade at Bad Maw’s feet. The nomad doesn’t even notice until it goes off, blasting the back of the chains and tearing off the man’s arm, the midgets getting free and cackling as they dart towards the bandits.

Dash unloads her SMG into Bad Maw, now that he no longer had his shield and eventually he groans, going down. As soon as he does, the bottom bar on all three of their ECHO devices flash a full cyan for the fifth time and a big yellow “Level Up!” message flashes across their visions. Dash and Anthony’s health and shields also flash to full, the level-up charge refilling them completely.

Anthony feels his heart, or at least something near it, pulse rapidly. “Guys! I think...” With a bright light, brighter than usual, Anthony’s skin turns a pale gray, and he radiates a cyan glow. “I have my powers back!”

For Anthony, it’s a little different than he remembers. His vision is a little clearer, the shadows not as deep. As well, the effect he’d normally only see shortly after using the Lyre as completely coated him, making him into a nightscape horror in tattered cold weather gear, and his fists are shrouded in crackling electricity and fire, each fist pulsing with one before alternating to the other.

As well, everything seems a little slower.

“Oh hell yeah! I’m back, and better than ever!” Anthony pumps a fiery fist in the air as he recalls Level Five being the point where you get your main skill. And his was a more powerful, if limited duration, version of his powers.

Pinkie and Dash, also having gotten to Level five, earned their special skills as well.

“So girls, what can you do?” Anthony asks, giddily, as he speeds forward and fire-punches a Psycho in the face and melting the mask to his flesh.

“I got my cannon back!” Pinkie yells, followed by an ear-shattering BOOM and the screams of half a dozen bandits, marauders, and nomads all getting thrown through the air by Pinkie’s little cannon, which now has a cheerful, slag-purple ‘flames’ paint job around the muzzle, along with the electrical hazard and biochemical hazard symbols in their respective colors on either side of the little cannon.

“Feel the Rainboom, Motherbuckers!” Dash yells as she rushes forward faster than the eye can see, a rainbow afterimage searing itself into the retinas of everyone in range, followed by a muffled boom and a ring of rainbow light that literally chops two bandits in half and knocks aside a few others. As well, she travelled nearly thirty feet in under a second, from a standing start.

Now we’re Vault Hunters!” Anthony yells, happily as he rushes over to a psycho Dash had missed and zaps it until it despawns, yelling a deranged cry as electricity shoots through its body.

After a bit, the trio clears out the rest of the bandits and Anthony grabs the gate key from Bad Maw, who’d already despawned. Just as the gate lowers, Anthony powers down.

“Hey, what gives!?” Dash yells, no longer able to pull off the Rainboom anymore.

“Our skills need time to cool down. So we can do that again once enough time goes by.”

“Well I dunno what happened to my party cannon, but if I can use it like that I’d say it’s worth the wait!”

“Yeah, now come on,” Anthony says, gesturing inside the dam. “we got a Steak to fry.”

The ponies chuckle darkly as they enter the dam, guns out and loaded.

The trio passes a Fast Travel station and Anthony gives a brief explanation that they can now warp there from Sanctuary at any time. “It’s pretty useful, and best of all it’s free.”

“Eh, I prefer driving, it’s a blast!”

“In more ways than one, hee hee!” Pinkie agrees, giggling.

“Still, it’ll help when we can’t drive somewhere at least. Now let’s get some ammo from those vending machines and start taking out these Bloodshots.”

Once reloaded with ammunition, the group checks out the Zed machine. So far there’s nothing really available that’s any good, other than the Item of the Day, a green turtle shield.

“What do you think? Should we spring for it before it’s gone?” The timer ticks down as they speak. “Only three minutes left.”

“Well, it’s a load better than my current shield... and leagues better than yours, Anthony.”

“Yeah... I’ll take it.” Anthony nods as he buys and immediately equips the shield.

“So who’s Zed, anyway?”

“Eh, we can meet him in person when we get back to Sanctuary. For now let’s beat up some Bloodshots.”

“And then kill them, right?” Pinkie asks.

“Yep, then kill them.” Pinkie grins and claps her hoof-hands together.

The three head into the first part of the Bloodshot’s dam-based fortress, and are soon greeted with their first Bruiser, a large bandit wearing a heavy face mask and rippling with muscles, holding a shotgun and advancing on the group.

“Head shots won’t work on this guy that well.” Anthony notes calmly.

“Pfft, like that matters.” Dash rolls her eyes as she tosses her Homing Mirv at the Bruiser who ducks behind cover just for the grenade to follow him around the corner. “Cake.”

With a loud ‘BOOM!’ the grenade explodes, and sends a dozen smaller unmodded grenades flying out in a shower, hitting the Bruiser for a second round of explosions, finishing it off.

The sound alerts the rest of the bandits in the area and the three are rushed by a bunch of psychos carrying grenades.

“Suicide Psychos!” Anthony yells as he takes out his Maliwan and sends a few electrically-charged bullets at them, causing the psychos to convulse and drop their grenades, which explode, hitting the row of maurauders behind them.

“These guys are stupid.” Dash comments,.

“Easy kills!~” Pinkie singsongs as she pulls out her slag Shotgun.

The group runs forward, dealing with whatever nomads, psychos and bruisers get in their way until a door opens with a loud slam. Anthony, seeing the foe, instinctively shouts “Badass incoming!”

Pinkie empties several magazines of her shotgun into the badass Psycho, very effectively slagging him, which Dash fires at with her low-level SMG. “Ugh, this gun I have sucks!”

“Knew we forgot something in Sanctuary, we needed to stop by Marcus’ and get some real guns!”

“I dunno what this purple stuff does but it’s awesome!” Pinkie shouts as she tosses an unmodded grenade at the still charging, still slagged badass, who gets a leg blown off. To the credit of the Psycho though, it does decently by hopping on one leg.

“Still coming, Hit it harder!” Anthony shouts as he switches to his Sniper and sends some burst-shots into the Psycho, hitting it in the torso and the fourth bullet landing in its face. The badass lumbers further but eventually gives in to pain and slumps over. “Whoo... first badass down! High fives all around!”

“No time!” Dash yells a the backup arrives, seeing the Badass had failed. “Ugh, what are these guys with the masks?”

I can tassste you already!

“Does he mean us?

“Rats, sneaky bastards, and cannibalistic. Real freaks.”

“Pfft, they’d be easier if they stood still!

Anthony curses as he also misses another shot. “Yeah, these guys like to dodge.”

“Cowards!” Pinkie yells as she runs up to the Rat and bucks it in the face, her velocity plus her Earth Pony strength equalling in a loud ‘Splrtch!’ noise as the Rat’s stomach was caved in and popped.

Urghk! I taste delicious in my mouth...” the Rat mumbles as it dies.

“Switch to melee!” Anthony yells, running over to a Psycho and punching it in the face. “We need better guns!”

“Yeah, these guns we have suck!”

Those guns don’t suck!” Pinkie yells, as she takes a heavy shot from a shotgun, point-blank, her shield breaking almost instantly.

“Yeah, we just gotta kill them and loot them.” Anthony agrees. “But I’m a bit busy here, someone pass me an assault rifle?”

“Sorry!” Pinkie yells, shooting a bruiser with her slag shotgun. “They’ve all got pistols and smigs!”

“Damnit! I need more dakka, this shock pistol is doing shit.”

“You’re good with that sniper.” Dash suggests, emptying another clip and tossing her Tediore to hit a Rat in the chest with the explosion.

“Too close in here, not enough distance; we’ll have to loot after this is over.”

The firefight continues and eventually the area is free of Bloodshots, no more Rats coming in through the pipes and sewage ducts.

After a bit of searching around the base, the trio manages to find enough ammo to refill everything they had spent and a bit more. “And we’re gonna need it all.” Anthony says. “Jack’s been trying to clear these guys out too, so there’s probably some loaders around.”

“More bots? Seriously?”

“Yeah, hey, see if we can’t scrounge up a corrosive weapon, even a level two pistol would do it.”

“No luck.” Pinkie replies, “But I found an AR for ya!”

Anthony runs over and takes a look at the stats. He lets out a whistle. It may be more duct tape than metal, but it’s even in perfect condition... for a bandit weapon. “Yeah, this’ll do. Anything else of interest?”

“Uh, a good Grenade mod, and a big red box.”

“Ah, a loot chest, perfect, what do we have here?” He kicks the chest, and the top opens, the sides flapping out, holding ammo, some rockets and...

“Is that a Maliwan Rocket Launcher?” he whispers, picking up the weapon, as long as he is tall and glowing an evil, sickly green.

“I call dibs!” Pinkie shouts, darting in and snagging it from Anthony before he can look it over fully.

“Fine... So is there anything for me?” Dash asks.

Pinkie zips around the room again, but turns up empty. “Just Vendor Trash.”

“Well we can sell it and see how much we have, maybe we can head back to Sanctuary and get a good deal on a smig for ya.” Anthony offers

Rainbow sighs. “Fair enough.”

“So, we gonna go on to the next section? I mean, those robots are sure mean, and I wouldn’t want to leave ‘em waiting if I can party ‘em right into oblivion.”

“Tell you what, we’ll go on ahead and Dash can catch up.”

“What!? That’s not fair, you’ll be stealing all the kills!”

“And let’s see you get any kills with that thing you’re carrying.” Anthony admonishes.

“I’ll punch ‘em to death!” she shouts, shaking a mechanical fist, but Anthony can see the resignation in her eyes. She sighs. “Fine... but we’re coming back once I’m all geared up. And I’m talking to Scooter about upgrading this Exo. It’s alright, but I want it to be a real combat suit.”

“Look, we’ll pool all our money together and you head back to Sanctuary. Get yourself the best sub you can find then race back here. I’ll show you how to use the Fast Travel Station. As for upgrading your suits, yeah, we should probably see if we can’t buy some SDU’s to hold more ammo. Or at least carry more guns.”

“More guns!” Pinkie says in a happy, yet demanding tone. “More guns!”

“Yup. So, we’ll run ahead, and you come back when you’re ready. As long as these guys don’t respawn in time, it should be clear for you to just run up and find us.”

Dash grits her teeth. “Yeah. I’ll be back in a flash; leave some for me, will ya?”

“No promises!~” Pinkie sings as she zips ahead.

“Careful you don’t go too far Pinkie! That Launcher is only really good against Loaders!” Anthony yells out, hoping to catch Pinkie’s ear but apparently fails. “You’re right, she has gone native already...”

Dash salutes and digistructs away, and Anthony sighs and turns to go wipe out some more loaders and bandits, and make sure Pinkie doesn’t get herself killed again out there.

----- (/\) -----

About ten minutes later, Anthony and Pinkie are dealing with a bunch of bandits, already mostly shot up from the loaders and finished easily. Soon though, explosions are heard in the distance and the clanking of robotic steps are heard.

But there’s nothing up ahead but a single GUN Loader.

“The hell? Guess Jack doesn’t care that much about the bloodshots anymore.”

“More for us!” Pinkie whoops as she blasts the loader with her launcher, sending the bot flying, melting away into goo before it even hits the wall behind it.

“Damn Pinkie, that’s a good launcher.”

“I love it!” Anthony chuckles as Pinkie hugs the large weapon as if it were a large stuffed animal.

“Come on you silly pony, let’s find Flank Steak.”

Pinkie giggles. “I’m not sure what that name means to humans, but to a pony, that name is really lewd.”

Anthony shrugs. “No idea what he was thinking, but we’re getting paid to beat him up, not rate his name choice. Or kill him, the job specifically says not to kill him.”

“Why?”

“Dunno, but I wanna get paid, so let’s follow the rules.” Anthony suggests as they continue on.

After climbing their way through the dam-slash-stronghold, the pair get through a wave of Bloodshots as well as a few broken loaders. They certainly weren’t freshly dropped from the moonbase, meaning they were stragglers the other Vault Hunters missed during their rescue of Roland.

“Oh, I hate sloppy seconds!” Pinkie complains. “well, in this case at least, I mean-”

“Pinkie, I don’t wanna hear about your sex life.” Anthony rolls his eyes, making a disgusted face. Pinkie just gives him a sultry look.

“You will one day, mister. Cuz you’re gonna be part of it.”

“I’d find that more arousing if you weren’t covered in blood and guts right now.”

“So you’d find it arousing in the first place?” Anthony just gives Pinkie a glare as he steps aside to let a shotgun-wielding Bruiser unload a quad-barrel shotgun right into Pinkie’s shield, which drops a booster. “Okay, okay, dropping subject.” She agrees as she picks up the booster her shield dropped, repairing the damage almost instantly.

Anthony swaps to his assault rifle and empties a full eighty-six-bullet magazine into the Bruiser’s chest at point blank, shredding the Bruiser’s well-muscled midsection to itty bitty shreds. A Nomad sees this and decides to give advice to the rest of the Bandits. “Throw grenades!”

A bunch of suicide psychos stop their charging to just hurl their munitions at the group, while some marauders yell out their own battle cries, ducking behind cover from which to safely “Lob some hate!” as they say.

Pinkie and Anthony, unable to hit them from behind their cover, deal with the Psychos first, splitting up to dodge the explosives. “Got any ideas, Pinkie?” Anthony calls over the explosions as he picks off the first few psychos with his Scout.

“Maybe!” She yells as she swaps from one cover to another, dodging the blasts as best she can. She gets caught by a standard explosive grenade but her shield’s natural resistance to explosive damage soaks it up for her. “What’s a longbow grenade do?”

“Throw it, it’ll warp to the spot you’re looking at when you throw it.”

Pinkie nods and gets onto some scaffolding and hurls her grenade behind the bandits’ cover. They see it and leap away from the grenade, the bunch of bandits trying to get away. The fuse lasts for another half-second but the bandits would be out of the grenade’s range if it weren’t for...

With a loud, whooshing sound, a small black-hole like entity forms around the grenade, yanking the bandits off their feet and violently pulling them from their cover towards the grenade behind them which explodes in a fiery blast, roasting whoever survived the initial blast.

“Ooooooh, so that’s what a ‘singularity’ does...” Pinkie says, ahing at the effect. “You’re right Anthony, Hyperion does have fun toys!”

The Nomad, who was safely out of the grenades radius, decides to change tactics. “Charge ‘em, boys!”

The remaining suicide psychos fall back on their ‘base’ tactic, one of them running right up to Anthony and blowing up in a green cloud. His shield prevents it from doing much damage but the force of the explosion knocks him off his feet... and off the ledge he was sniping from, landing him at the feet of a charging Bruiser who picks up his gun and whacks Anthony across the face with the butt of it.

Anthony’s shield gives out and he’s left defenseless as the bruiser elivers a headbbutt to Anthony’s forehead, concussing him. “Sonofa... stand still... can’t... see straight...” Anthony attempts to shoot the looming and now spinning bruiser with his shock pistol but misses by a mile and trips over his own feet, falling face first to the ground.

Anthony, through his blurry, darkening vision, sees a rapidly decreasing timer on his HUD. He’d been knocked into Fight For Your Life mode!

“Hold on, Anthony!” Pinkie yells, looking for a fast way to get to her downed friend.

In his current state though, the little hint on his HUD telling him to ‘hold eyes closed to give up’ looks very enticing, if only to get rid of the headache. “Sorry Pinkie, not gonna... make it this time.”

Anthony goes limp and, through his closed eyes, sees the now-familiar white-cyan glow of digistruction as his body despawns. Pinkie, left alone to fight for herself at the time, blows the bruiser that downed Anthony with her Party Cannon and moves on to the nomad.

Once the nomad is lacking an upper half, the bandit’s guidance ends, leaving them to fend for themselves against the vengeful pony.

It’ssss-mine now!” comes the gleeful taunt of a Rat, who had just looted Anthony’s Minigun from his body before it fully despawns. Now holding a much more effective weapon than the Tediore pistol that had been assigned to him, the Rat celebrates his ‘find’ by training Anthony’s weapon on Pinkie, whose shield only manages to block half the magazine before breaking, leaving Pinkie to duck behind cover until her shield recharges.

Back near the entrance to the dam, Anthony finds himself at the Fast Travel/New-U station.

‘Hyperion hopes your death was a learning experience, but wouldn't mind if you made the same mistake just a few more times just to be sure.’ comes the randomly selected, recorded message each New-U is programmed to say at each respawn it performs.

Anthony, back to life and no longer concussed, rushes back to the place where he had died, only to find Pinkie cowering behind cover as a Rat fires a torrent of bullets, slowly destroying the pony’s cover. Recognizing the gun as his own, Anthony swears as he Sparks up and rushes right for the Rat. He grabs the Rat by the neck from behind and charges flames through his hands, charring the Rat’s suit.

I smell deliciousssssssss....!” The Rat hisses gleefully as his body fully ignites, Anthony’s gun being dropped to the ground.

“Ewwwww...” Anthony exclaims as he recovers the gun, covered in melted bandit. “You okay, Pinkie?”

“Y- yeah. My shield didn’t drop one of those booster thingies, why not?”

“Shitty luck, that’s all.” Anthony sighs as he trains his newly recovered gun on a marauder only to hear it click. “Damn, the last of my ammo was in this thing and the rat spent it all!”

“You still got that pistol?” Pinkie asks as she kicks the Marauder Anthony was going to shoot.

“Yeah, but it’s not gonna do enough.” Anthony smacks a Psycho with the butt of his rifle and zaps it to oblivion right before his Spark peters out. “And now I gotta wait for the cooldown. This just gets better.”

“According to the map, Flank Steak is just ahead and up a few flights of stairs.”

“I think I can manage that.” Anthony calls back as he swaps to his Torment and lands a few lucky face shots on a pair of charging psychos. Pinkie gets a trio of Psycho buzz-axes to the face, and her shield, luckily, drops a booster this time, preventing her from having to run for cover again.

“Dash sure is taking her sweet time.” Anthony says, more out of conversation than actual annoyance.

“Yeah, but more for us and all!” Pinkie replies.

“True.” Anthony says, “Though I may have to head back for some ammo. This thing is only really good for zapping out shields, not major combat.”

Pinkie nods. “Yeah, and Slag isn’t as good as I thought it was; it doesn’t boost slag damage, only other damages.” she says, frowning.

“Yeah but hey, that’s why you’re fighting in a group.” Anthony says, finishing off a marauder, who was spamming cheap shots from behind cover. Anthony’s Spark form made quick work of that.

Who the hell are these guys!?

“I’m Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie says, popping up from behind the second marauder, who had yelled out, watching what he could only describe as... some new form of Siren power. “And this is my boomstick!”

The bandit, now slagged, and down a third of his health, screams, mostly at the fact that the pony had seemed to pop out of literally nowhere.

Aggggh, I’m slagged!”

Hearing the cry, Anthony trains his scout on the bandit and decides to end his misery with several bullets to the chest, the final shot of the burst being an accidental headshot. The critical hit combined with the slag effect made the shot powerful enough to blow the marauder’s head off in tiny chunks.

“Wow!” Pinkie yells. “Now that’s a good shot!”

“See? Slag is good, just need some backup.” Anthony grins at Pinkie. “Speaking of.” He takes a potshot at a Rat who was sneaking up on Pinkie. “Gotta be careful, those guys aren’t the kind to announce themselves unless they forget.”

“Ooh, thanks for the save!” Pinkie says, backing up towards Anthony to make sure they aren’t separated.

The duo rushes up a few flights of stairs and eventually down a hall that leads to the Jail cells. Anthony notes a green-lit door that he recalls being only part of the scenery. Considering the game never showed Flank Steak in person, it was likely he was behind a door they didn’t have access to.

Walking in, they are greeted by a rather unfortunate sight. Flank Steak standing there with a Launcher of his own aimed directly at them, the narrow hallway negating any chances of dodging.

“I am sick, and tired, of you stupid Vault Hunters comin’ in and wrecking my p-”

THOOM-squelch

The roof caves in and from the new hole, in drops a full-sized, completely armed WAR Loader, listed as level ten with a big, red skull next to it’s Health bar on the group’s HUD. And to top it all off, it’s got a custom, hyperion super-rare-weapons paint job, all shiny gold and black. Anthony and Pinkie just sort of stare at it where it stands, atop Flank Steak’s cooling corpse.

<Targets Identified. Locking aim.>

“Well Pinks, looks like it’s back to the New-U station.”

“You two cleared the entire bucking dam without me?” an enraged, raspy voice says from behind them, and Pinkie and Anthony turn to see... an empty hall? “You better be glad I got some upgrades!” Dash’s voice calls out, and the two turn back towards the loader in time to see the equally-confused robot get an eyeful of Fire bullets, followed by Dash screaming a war-cry and flashing out from the upper catwalk with a blast of Rainboom power, driving the two-pronged bayonets of a beautiful Maliwan SMG into the Loader’s eye and knocking it backwards. Dash swaps quickly to a Vladof Minigun, and begins to unload it point-blank into the loader’s front armor.

The Loader, though, isn’t ready to just give up the fight, and shakes her off, hoping to get her into the distance where its cannons and long guns can do a better job. Anthony, seeing this plan already, gives his advice. “Forget the eye, slag it and hit its shoulders, drop its cannons!”

Dash swaps to a new weapon entirely, ignoring his advice as she pulls free a sleek, high-grade Tediore Rocket Launcher, and unloads all three shots of its clip at the Loader, all while strafing to one side, hammering it and finishing with just chucking the launcher directly at the ‘bot and pegging it explosively in the back of the head/torso and knocking it forward this time. “Have a gift, from me to you!” Dash screams, chucking a grenade straight up, where it promptly executes a tight turn to zip at the Loader, exploding and spawning eight more grenades, which detonate and completely coat the loader in purple-black slag, which rapidly begins to eat into the robot’s external frame.

Said frame crumples under the weight of four more explosions courtesy of Dash’s rocket launcher.

Shockingly, the loader still gets heavily to its feet, turning sluggishly to turn towards Dash, who only grins. “This one is for my boredom!” Dash shouts, swapping back to her Maliwan and performing another Rainboom, this time going through the Loader and blasting it to pieces with the resulting colorful explosion.

As the dust settles, she’s revealed atop the shattered mound of loader parts, back turned to the other two, gun on her shoulder. There’s some visible changes to her Exo frame, too, such as the vanes attached to her wings with what look like jet exhaust ports, accompanied by similar ones on her heels, and a better jacket covering her previous shirt.

“How did you guys even make it this far without me? I mean, c’mon, that guy was a pushover, but that can’t have all been so easy.”

“We spammed slag and found good weapons by chance.” Anthony admits, referring to Pinkie’s launcher. “So we kinda just cheesed our way through. Several deaths notwithstanding.”

“Geez, I leave for ten minutes and you guys just fall apart? Guess that explains why that key thingamajig decided to bring me along.”

“Just glad to have ya back, Dashie!” Pinkie says happily giving Rainbow a leaping glomp.

“Heh, thanks Pinkie. So, about getting paid for this...”

“That’s a big fat negative, Dash.” Anthony laments. “Job required Flank Steak stay alive and, well... that loader popped him like a balloon.”

“A big, red, squishy balloon.” Pinkie adds.

“Aw, come on...” Dash moans. “Well, at least we got some exp from a kill like that, right?”

“Yeah, I got a skill point to spend, but I’ll do that later. I wanna get back to Sanctuary and have a nap. Kinda beat.”

“Same.” Pinkie agrees. “Roland said we could always crash at the Crimson Raider base if we needed to sleep, right?”

“Yeah... We’ll rest, get outfitted like Dash here, and allocate skill points tomorrow.”

Pinkie nods. “Yeah... oh, Miss Moxxi said I should have a sleepover with her tonight, so I’ll do that, and you two sleep in the comfy, comfy cots at the Raider HQ!”

Anthony, not sure what sort of sleepover Moxxi has planned, gives Pinkie a look but shakes it off. “Alright. Let’s head a bit further and then head back to the Fast Travel station. As amazing as that was Dash, that was a lot of rockets you used, you’ll need to refill on ammo for sure.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, was a little pissed back there ‘bout being left out.” she says. “Oh, and Scooter said he wanted to check over my Exo when we get back, and that I could crash in his spare bunk, so I’ll prolly just do that.”

Anthony nods. “Alright, so we can also turn in that Skag den job tomorrow as well.” The three do a bit of looting, not finding much but Vendor trash as usual and sell it all when they get back to Sanctuary.

The trio heads in their separate directions, Dash to Scooter’s, Pinkie to Moxxi’s and Anthony to the Raider HQ.

“Hey soldier. You’ve been busy I hear.” Roland says, as Anthony falls into the bottom bunk of a cot next to the large safe. “You seem to know what you’re doing in a fight. Figured you could use these.”

Roland hands over a pair of SDUs, meant for carrying additional weapons. “Rainbow Dash already got hers. I was going to give them to you earlier but you ran off.”

“Sorry about that, just... a little antsy. First day on Pandora and all.” Anthony’s body is wracked by a heavy yawn and Roland nods.

“Well, you did good for your first day. I’ll wake you at dawn; I have a few other jobs for you if you’d like them. The other Vault Hunters refused, but I think these’re on your level.”

Thanks. We’ll take ‘em then head for the Reserve... tomorrow. I’m beat.”