Borderlands 2: Starlight DLC Pack

by the-pieman

Chapter 10

The group, having stopped by Sanctuary to drop off their guns and their booze, notes that the citizens are a bit twitchier than normal, but think nothing of it as Anthony says they’re fine. Claptrap just probably tried singing over the loudspeaker again.

What he was really worried about was the shield going down while they were still in Sanctuary, which would be bad news, so they hurry to the Crimson Raiders base and end up filling the Raiders’ bank up to full with all their loot. Anthony looks up at the shield above them, expecting mortars to blast through at any second.

Why hadn’t it started yet? Was Roland given enough warning to just find a new power cell? If not, the group didn’t have much time. “Alright, we’re done here. Let’s fast travel back to Ellie’s. We can drive straight from there to the Highlands.”

“Sounds good to me.” Dash says, stopping only long enough to wave goodbye to Scooter and then regroup with the other two, after Pinkie gives a hug to Moxxi before leaving.

“We’re all good to go!” Pinkie says chipperly, as Anthony activates their fast travels.

Within minutes, they’re speeding along the broken highway past the Dahlwell oasis, cutting past the presently-empty Moonshiner’s shack, and zip towards the Highlands, Dash using her boost whenever possible.

For once, Anthony was wondering if Dash was going fast enough. But since he could barely hold on as it is, he wasn’t about to risk the daredevil’s true limits. Once they get to the Highlands, they begin following the road until Anthony tells them to drive off the road. “We’re taking a shortcut. Just down here, pass a few gaps in the ground that are stalker dens and... ah shit!”

“What’s wong?” Dash asks, a bit worried, not that she’d show it. “What’s wrong.”

“That!” Anthony points forward and Dash barely registers a long drop dead ahead of them.

“Pfft! I’ve driven off higher ramps before.” Rainbow replies relaxing as she boosts for the drop, a specially-designed, red coloured Hyperion robot jumping up to the ledge in time to spray the group’s vehicle with it’s flamethrower before being crushed by the Technical.

“Not the drop, it’s what’s at the-”

The car lands and is immediately targeted by several WAR Loaders, and the car is blown to bits.

“The bottom... shit... Dash, get that Caster out, we got a bunch of Loaders coming!”

The pegasus pulls free the SMG and gets ready to fire, Anthony and Pinkie pulling free their own weapons.

Anthony sees a charging, yellow-black striped frame charging just barely too late. “EXP Loaders! Get down!”

“Wait, what?” Pinkie asks, too late, charging at the robot, only to be blasted at the same time as she fires her party cannon, sending her straight into the cliff wall they were pressed against, her shield thankfully protecting from most of the damage. “Owchies.” she mutters.

“Jeez, what’s the point of those things, they just blow themselves up!” Dash yells, gunning down one of the basic Loaders with gusto before moving to a BUL Loader and splashing it in the side with acid as it lined up to run down Anthony.

“Jack’s bots come in all forms. Even ones that seem to be pretty stupid ideas.” Anthony explains, as he is thankful for Dash’s saving him, giving him time to blast the WAR loader across the torso with his Shock rifle.

The Loaders, without any support from Constructors or Hyperion Engineers, quickly begin to fall to the onslaught of bullets, though Dash and Anthony are taking a serious beating, Pinkie blasting anything that gets near her back.

The oncoming WAR Loader comes towards the trio, and begins to unload with its mounted weapons, scattering them. The three are forced to split up and circle the Loader, who doesn’t seem to mind. As Pinkie strafes, she trips on a rock, and the Loader begins to hammer her shield with explosive shells, the detonating shots smashing apart even her impressive Blast Proof Shield.

Anthony curses and tries to think of a way to draw the WAR Loader’s attention. Then he gets one. “Dash, you wanted to test that new assault rifle. See what it does to this guy!” To give Rainbow time to switch weapons, he Sparks up and rushes for the giant robot, giving it a few elemental punches that do little but draw the monstrosity’s attention, when it slams the ground with a foot and knocks Anthony back with the shockwave, training its myriad of guns at him. “Now, not later!”

“Gotcha, sorry!” Dash yells, before laying out fire from the odd Assault Rifle. The bullets from it sound... meatier somehow. More real than the other bullets Anthony’s heard before as it tears into the Loader, who seems baffled by the way the bullets seem to ignore its metallic status.

A few more rounds to its front and a couple of pistol shots aimed directly at the robot’s eye from Anthony’s Jakobs eventually drops the robot.

The group is panting from exertion but the fight isn’t over yet as doors on either side of them open up and several more EXP Loaders and BUL Loaders pour out, backed by some HOT Loaders.

“Can’t rest yet, girls! Dash, pass me that Caster.”

With a quick throw from Rainbow, Anthony grabs the gun and trains it on the closest EXP loader to detonates, knocking back the BUL loaders, before he switches to his scout and aims for the flamethrower arms of the HOT loaders, robbing them of their main defining weapon.

<Changing assault method.> the loaders respond, and a sudden hail of grenades descends on Anthony. He turns away, ducking as he dives for cover, the explosions rippling past him and sending him rolling across the ground.

Dash and Pinkie are busy dodging their own hails of grenades and leave the EXP Loaders enough time to return to their charging, one running for Dash, whose shields would be too low to resist the blast at all... and the nearest New-U station is at least a half-hour’s worth of walking from here... on top of her not having a Stalker-proof shield.

Anthony sparks up again and runs for the bot, taking the blast himself, his own shield not faring much better. “Dash, take the BUL loaders behind it!” He gives his final order as the blast blows several limbs off, and digistructing him away almost instantly.

Anthony, respawning, takes a lungful of air as he gets back to his feet. If it hadn’t hurt so much, going out from such a powerful blast was a rather interesting, if frightening, rush. No time to think about that though, he had to get back to the girls. And fast. Sparking up every time his powers recharged, he manages to cross the Highlands uninterrupted in ten minutes.

He takes a detour, running around the back of the area and rushes forward through the opposite end, Plasma Caster firing wildly at the backs of the HOT loaders who had run out of grenades and were resorting to optic blasts.

A BUL Loader turns on him and charges him, ignoring the ponies, giving Dash enough time to fire at it, though the resulting explosion knocks Anthony back, though his shield barely protects him from the weaker blast, setting him to be hurt badly but not severely.

“We... really need... better shields.” He pants as Pinkie helps him up.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Dash says, a notable bullet hole in her front leg forcing her to walk with a small gait when she tries running on all fours. “Damn... think Zed can patch this up?”

Anthony inspects the wound. “Probably, but we’d have to take you to him directly. His med hypos can’t remove bullets.”

“Damn, alright. I can take it. Just... won’t be at the top of my speed game for a while.” Dash gets back on her hind legs and readjusts her hold on the special AR. “This thing is really something.”

Pinkie nods and takes a deep breath, relaxing from the fight. Anthony is about to tell them to get a move on but looks at their tired faces, and he admits that the surprise fight took more out of him than he planned. He sighs. “A short break, then we get to the reserve. If I’m right, Mordecai should be waiting for us.”

“W- who?”

“Roland’s informant. He’s a sniper. And he’ll probably have a job for us to do while in the reserve itself.”

“Like that Tannis lady?”

“Yeah. We go see Mordy, see if he needs anything, and then head for the main reserve going in through the offices, and seeing if we can’t get any Slag samples for Tannis.”

“When you say it like that it sounds easy.” Dash comments. “And when you make things sound easy, it means we’re gonna die. A lot.”

Anthony shrugs. “Yeah, we’re gonna get our asses handed to us if we screw up.”

----- (/\) -----

The group finally makes it to the reserve’s outskirts and, as Anthony expected, they get called up by Mordecai.

“Hey guys. Roland said you were heading this way. Come up to my roost and I’ll give you a job.”

“You got it.” Anthony replies, turning to the ponies with a ‘called it.’ look.

Luckily, with the Stalker repellant shield, getting to Mordecai is a lot easier than Anthony recalls in the game. Eventually they climb a tall, twisting rock with a naturally ceiling’d outcropping at the top.

“Wow... you really are ponies... Kinda.”

“We get that a lot” Pinkie says, happily. “So what did you need?”

“Oh nothing much really. See, Jack’s guys took my bird Bloodwing during a bit of a mess and took her here. She’s tough and I’m not worried, but if someone could get down there and check on her, just confirm that they’re at least feeding her and all, y’know?”

Anthony gets a lump in his throat at the mention of Bloodwing, recalling the moment in the game that actually made him cry once. Or twice.

Dash, not having the memory Anthony did isn’t afraid and takes the job at face value. “Easy peasy. We’ll be in there and out in no time!”

“Alright. Well if you guys run into trouble on your way through, I’ll be snipin’ from here so I can offer support if things get a little hairy down there.”

Anthony nods and leads the ponies back down. “Al- Alright Angel... this is where I’m getting lost. Where do we go to get to the back entrance?”

<“Just follow these coordinates.”> she starts, before rattling off a series of instructions that leaves all three of the junior vault hunters slightly glassy-eyed. <”Ah, here... just follow the arrow, it’ll lead you to the side entrance. It’s inside a stone face. I can’t do this all the time, though, so don’t expect me to be leading you through every job you need.”> At her words, a faint arrow shows up in the centers of their vision, the transparent object pointing their way and also partially obscuring everything in their vision before shrinking up to the top sixths of their HUDs.

“Got it. Just update us when we’re getting close, then just tell us what to do.” Anthony replies, as the ponies head around the reserve, following the arrow. “But I can’t help but feel I forgot something...”

The sound of a hundred sets of four feet pounding the grassy dirt catches his attention, and a bunch of enraged Skags begin to descend upon them, all of them getting the ‘Enraged’ prefix added to their names, even the Badass Skags.

“Mordecai, we could use some of that help right about now.” Dash says over the ECHO and Mordecai responds by firing a few shots at the front row of skags.

Anthony pulls out a grenade and hurls it, the spinning wheel of fire doing little to the larger Skags, but the now-slagged pups are quickly taken out, as more of Mordecai’s slagged sniper shots find purchase in various sections of the charging horde. It’s not long before one of the skags, a flaming variety, passes its fire immunity to the rest of it’s ‘family’ rendering Anthony’s main deterrence strategy useless. “Shock and corrosive only!” Anthony shouts, pulling up the Plasma Caster and firing at the nearest, largest and also angriest of all the Skags.

The trio is rapidly backed into a corner, firing as fast as they can, until Angel speaks up. <“By the way, you’re back up against the door. You might want to get in there before any more Skags show up.”>

“Thanks.” Anthony mutters dryly as the group rushes for the nearest rock wall and hitting it reveals that it’s got a hollow inside. “How do we get it open?” Anthony continues, getting bitten by a flaming skag, thankful the shield is holding up it’s fire resistance. He smacks the skag with the butt of his Caster and switches to his Jakobs pistol, firing at the closest of the horde while the ponies use their special weapons, Rainbow her special AR, Pinkie her Party cannon.

<“Hit the button labeled ‘open’ behind your back.”> Anthony turns to look, realizing the odd lump he’d backed into is, in fact, a control panel poorly hidden in a rock face. Smacking the control panel with his hand makes the ‘rock face’ slide to the side almost instantly, making Rainbow Dash fall backward, as she’d been leaning on it. She and Pinkie scramble back as Anthony dives inside, the door closing behind him. <“There, not so bad, was it?”>

A single Skag pup manages to squeeze through the door before it fully closes, biting Anthony’s heel with its flaming jaws. Anthony kicks the pup off and into the wall where he kicks it down until it stops whimpering. “If that’s your definition of ‘easy’.” Anthony replies. “Now where’s that special stealth gear?”

<“Stealth gear? No, I just gave you access under fake names. You’ll have to go through the office buildings on your own. That said, it’s mostly just programmers, pencil-pushers, and a few security guards here and there. Unless Jack has been taking notes from Mr. Torgue, you shouldn’t face more than light resistance, a few pistols and the like. You will, however, need to hand over your weapons while you’re in here, because any gun with non-Hyperion parts will set off alarms. I have two pistols and a shotgun here, you’ll have to decide who gets what between you.”>

Anthony takes a pistol and, thankfully, ditches the skag-attracting shield. Pinkie, naturally, takes the shotgun first, leaving Dash with the other pistol. “Alright, we’re ready. let’s get going, I guess. So we just... what? Try to act normal, like we belong, and sneak around?”

<“At least until you encounter someone. Take out resistance as quickly as you can. Oh, and take these knives. You might need to take someone out without being heard... you know how to use them, right?”> Angel asks, as a trio of knives are dispensed as well, each a simple style with the Hyperion logo in gold on their black blades.

“Yeah, these’ll work.” Anthony says, passing a knife to each of the ponies. “You guys- No, you’ve never fought with knives, have you?”

“I’ve used knives plenty of times for chopping and dicing fruits and veggies or cutting bread.” Pinkie says, helpfully.

“Sorry, that’s not enough. And I don’t really have any training so... if we want our targets to stay quiet, make sure they can’t scream. Aim for the throat, around the front of the neck.”

“And... these are the bad guys... right?” Pinkie asks, unsure as her great imagination paints a rather gory image for her mind’s eye.

“Yeah. I know we’re supposed to be Vault Hunters, not heroes...” Rainbow starts. “But as cool as a stealth mission is, the whole ‘cutting their necks’ part seems a little... well, it’s not the kind of thing heroes do.”

“No.” Anthony replies, a melancholy tone in his voice. “No it’s not. But we need to stop Jack and this is going to help with that.” The ponies look at each other, nervous for the first time in a couple days on Pandora, but eventually nod to Anthony. “Okay... here we go.”

Anthony advances down the hallway, the lighting good, the whole atmosphere very strongly screaming ‘office building’. Simple, bland walls with meeting notices and various ‘motivational’ posters of Jack are everywhere, and the three stop at the first intersection, Anthony peering around the corner. A guy, wearing a simple white button-up shirt and khaki slacks, is running papers through a copier, the strange juxtaposition of the high tech hyperion pistol at the guy’s waist with a copier that looks like it came out of the 1990’s is rather jarring for Anthony.

The JVHs sneak past the guy, and stop when they see that the area beyond is a massive cubicle farm, a maze of paths going through it and half-visible knots of humanity working. They’ll need to sneak through the chin-high walls carefully, though the sheer number of people that look almost as tattered as Anthony gives the man a sense of reassurance that he’s not going to stick out too much. A few folks putting on various pieces of Bandit gear, though they look perfectly normal otherwise.

This isn’t just an office, Anthony realizes, it’s a staging point. And a rehearsal hall, judging from the three people practicing their ‘bandit quotes’ and correcting each other next to a water cooler.

“No man, I think it was ‘Wear your face like a hat’.”

“You sure? I’m pretty sure I heard one of them say shirt.”

“Hat makes more sense guy.”

“Yeah, but shirt means more stretching. Also these are bandits, they can’t think enough to make sense.”

“Eh, well, it’s your funeral. I just want the hazard pay so I can send it home to the kids. I’m glad Jack is so free with those bonuses.”

“Don’t lay it on so thick man... everyone knows the bonuses are just there to keep us from freaking out at the fact that we’re working with just a wall between us and a bajillion crazy animals. And the wildlife’s no picnic either.”

“No, no, I understand, but at least he’s giving us bonuses. Remember the boss from two years ago? Oh, right, you joined this year. Now that scuzzbag Tassiter was evil. Had a real ‘do it or die’ mentality. And he’d kill ya over, and over, and-”

“Jeez, I get it. Yeah, glad Jack’s not a monster, at least.” the faux bandits continue talking as Anthony gets his group moving again, all three thinking over what they’d heard.

True, Anthony was not a stranger to hearing Jack call himself a hero... But no, Jack was going to murder innocents in cold blood and enjoy doing it, he said so himself in no uncertain terms. Just remember that quote about him offing that one guy in New Haven. That was the real Handsome Jack.

Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, was turning it over in her head. Nightmare Moon hadn’t had any supporters but crazy cultists, and they were like the bandits, all frothing at the mouth and speaking crazy.

“They’re talking about a... different Jack... right Anthony?” Pinkie whispers a bit confused and worried.

“Yeah, a very different Jack.” Anthony nods. ‘But still the same person’ he adds in his head.

Anthony turns around a corner, Pinkie and Dash stopping behind him as he freezes, a random guy right in front of him, also freezing in place, a cup of coffee midway to his mouth. “Uh... why’s your gun out?” the guy asks, drawing eyes from every direction.

Anthony decides to play along. “Look man, have you seen what those stalkers did to the last guy who was sent in to take care of them? I swear, these walls aren’t gonna keep those things out.”

A series of ‘Yeah!’s come from around the cubicle block, before the guy shrugs. “Well, you know the rules. Guns in holsters unless an alarm is pulled.” Anthony finds it a little hard to concentrate on the conversation with the guy’s enemy tag and name ‘Hyperion Office Drone’ hovering next to his level the entire time.

“Yeah... yeah alright, but if one of those things gets ya, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Anthony says as he holsters his gun. He decides to add a bit of quiet mumbling to add to the performance.

“Don’t worry man. Just keep the paranoia on the down-low. Don’t wanna be freaking out the rookies, eh?” he gives a jovial grin and turns to his own cubicle before sitting down with a sigh and going over some figures on a high-tech screen. The office block is back to a normal hubbub, and Anthony spares a glance back to see that there’s an over-turned paper box with the hint of a pink tail poking out from under it and a pair of magenta eyes peeking out at him from the handle-hole.

Anthony gives a subtle nod and gestures for them to come along, as Anthony keeps going, his senses on high alert. The ‘box’ follows him and he hopes that it’s good enough camouflage. Their candy-colored fur not matching the white ‘coloured’ walls around him.

The next time he’s stopped, it’s by a Hyperion Security person, effectively looking like a mall security guard, but in the gold-on-black of Hyperion. “Please halt.” she says, in a bored voice. “Random checks, you know how they are.” she pulls up a device and points it at Anthony’s face, a camera-shutter noise playing from a little speaker on it. “Alright...” she says, looking over the results, as adrenaline rushes through Anthony’s system, he himself doing his best to keep a bored but slightly annoyed ‘I’m used to this’ look on his face.

She looks up to him, and says, “Alright, looks like you’re good. There was some kinda hiccup for a moment, but nothing that can’t get ironed out. Be sure to go talk with Human Resources when you get a chance, just to make sure everything’s fine. Off ya go.” she says, turning around and heading for a small security office.

Anthony’s heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way free of his chest and he takes a few deep breaths as he silently makes another small gesture for the ponies to follow along in their ‘camouflage box’.

The three make it almost halfway through the office space before a real problem occurs, and it’s nobody’s fault. An intern, late for a meeting and moving faster than he can pay attention, does not notice the box moving into his path until after he trips on it, sent sprawling and revealing the ponies to three other office personnel and a security guard.

Anthony, with a steady grip on his pistol already, sends several bullets right for the Security Guard’s face, the Hyperion gun only making a slight noise similar to a silencer as usual for Hyperion pistols.

“Well, this plan’s gone to feathers!” Dash says, whipping out her own pistol and beginning to lay out fire into the office folks, who cry out and many begin drawing their own weapons. The Guard was only level 10, and the others are all level 6 to 8, with a couple of ‘Faux Bandits’ mixed in at level 9. Pinkie pumps two shotgun blasts into the next Guard to come around, catching the man at nearly twenty feet with the hyper-precise Hyperion shotty.

“Now then...” Anthony says quietly. “If two guards couldn’t handle us, what do you gauge your chances to be?” Dash takes down another drone while Anthony gets a neck shot on one of the faux bandits and training his gun on the next faker. “Well fellas?”

The rest of the office drones look at each other and begin to run away, a couple of them stopping only to grab their fallen officemates and drag them away. Anthony pauses momentarily, something catching at his brain, but he dismisses it before getting the girls together and ushering them onwards towards their objective. They’re stopped by a few more Guards, but Anthony and Pinkie are more than a match for them.

“So Angel, you still with us?” The radio is dead, causing Anthony to curse. “Looks like we’re going in blind from here, girls.”

“As if we weren’t already.” Dash replies, rolling her eyes.

“Point taken. More blind than before though.” Anthony confirms as he continues, checking around each corner.

They keep encountering small knots of varied guards, and they keep sending them packing, Pinkie’s Party Cannon providing enough pickups to keep the group stocked and healed, since the people they’re dropping aren’t leaving behind much restocking loot, and there’s exactly zero random ammo boxes and the like around.

“And we don’t have shields either.” Anthony points out. “This is gonna be hard.”

“I think it’s fairly easy. Sure we’re taking a lot more direct shots than normal but the bandits have more armor than these guys, and all they have is things like winter jackets.” Dash notes.

“If that.” Pinkie adds, referring to the usually-shirtless psychos.

“Speaking of, there’s a bunch of those Faux Bandits ahead.” Anthony notes, as a quartet of them come into view right in the group’s path, taking place behind a barricade made of heavy metal filing cabinets and getting ready to fire.

“Alright, guys! Calm, controlled bursts! Don’t waste your ammo!” one of them shouts, sounding nothing at all like the usual Marauder. He’s also labeled as a level 12, and is carrying a pure-Hyperion SMG.

“You guys need a lot more practice if you’re gonna sell that.” Dash comments as she takes aim at the group, Pinkie tossing a grenade at the batch, the singularity effect not only pulling the faux bandits to the far wall but the filing cabinets too. A few moments after the filing cabinets have the ‘bandits’ pinned, they are set on fire. Dash and Anthony start pulling neck-shots to reduce the screaming.

“Man, how do you land those shots so well?” Dash asks as Anthony finishes the last shot. “My pistol can’t hit a thing until I start firing.”

“Skills.” Anthony replies. “No, really, increased accuracy and lower recoil with pistols and snipers is one of my skills.”

“Dang, that sounds useful. Can I get something like that?”

Anthony just shrugs. “No idea. Now let’s get going, we don’t want to take too long in one spot.”

“Hold up, one more question.” Dash says, very confused. “Where’d Pinkie get that grenade? I had to ditch mine.”

Pinkie just points out that singularity grenades are 100% Hyperion tech. “I mean, I’ve never seen another company that makes them, so it must have gotten through the scanners.”

“And you didn’t tell us you had them earlier?” Anthony asks.

“Well actually I forgot until just now...”

“So...” Dash and Anthony turn to look at each other before their eyes jerk back to Pinkie. “You forgot your grenade mod and... If it wasn’t Hyperion you would’ve gotten us outed before we even got inside!?”

Pinkie just shrugs. “Sorry?”

Anthony just sighs. “Alright, no time to worry about what could have been. We gotta get to the end of this place. Angel, you still AWOL?”

The static on the ECHO comm confirms that she is busy elsewhere.

Anthony just sighs again and mutters “Awesome...” sarcastically.

The three stalk with a bit of anger and stress until they get to the door they’ve been heading for, a simple hatchway like the kind found all over every Hyperion structure, and leads to a maintenance area, a series of parking-garage like rooms full of machinery and long pipes full of various substances going by overhead.

“Alright, this looks like the underside of the main part of the reserve. Here’s where we’ll find Bloodwing, those slag samples for Tannis and... whatever Angel sent us here for... honestly not too sure about the last one.”

The three of them begin to make their way, and an update for their current ‘quest’ pops in, saying to take a bunch of the incendiary hyperion grenades from a table in the area, and using them on the pipes to sabotage them, something about preventing the ‘Elemental Feeds’ from working. There’s also a timer counting down, and it’s got less than three minutes on the clock.

“Elemental Feeds?” Anthony asks himself as he looks back at the large pipes. These must be what Jack was pumping into Bloodwing right now to turn her into that thing. “We gotta move fast girls, before that stuff can get where it needs to go.”

The ponies nod and they head for the stash of grenades. Anthony then gets an idea. “You girls go ahead and get the grenades. I’ll go get Bloodwing.”

“How do you know where she is?” Dash asks confused.

Anthony just looks back at the elemental feed tubes. “Call it a hunch.” Sparking up, Anthony starts rushing to the end of the pipes, looking for where they lead to. Anthony looks around as the pipes begin leading upwards in four locations, one for the blue electricity goo, one for the green corrosive acid, one for the purple slag, and one for the orange fire plasma. Above that are tiny hatches for them to come out and activate Bloodwing, the base of a massive hydraulic platform above him. Bloodwing’s already up there, and the countdown timer is already down to a minute and a half as the first two pipes go dry, the blue and green feeds just cutting out as the pipes drain in half an instant with no resupply.

Anthony calls Mordecai up on the ECHO. “Hey, I found Blood. She’s gonna be fine, I’m gonna get her now.”

“Awesome! Thanks buddy. I knew she could handle herself.”

“Yeah. She’s fine... just fine.” Anthony repeats, with a sigh of relief as he gets up to the bird. “Hey there girl. That was close, wasn’t it?”

Bloodwing gives Anthony a hard stare of unfamiliarity, but Mordecai calls the ECHO. “Trust the Vault Hunter, Blood, you’ll get outta there in no time.”

The bird pauses but gives a squawk and flutters onto Anthony’s arm, where she digs her claws in, reminding Anthony of the extra-thick gloves Mordecai always wore.

“You know, I don’t know how you managed to figure out all this kid, but hey... now I get to kill two birds with one stone...” There’s a mad cackle over the ECHO, even as the other two Elemental feeds shut off.

“Sorry Jack.” Anthony taunts. “But you lose this round. You hear that? You lose!”

“Oh kid... I don’t lose. See you if you make it out. Oh who am I kidding? Only one of you is making it out.” At that, Bloodwing’s collar starts beeping furiously, sending Bloodwing into a panic.

Before Anthony can do anything to get the collar off, like phase it through her, the bird takes off, getting no more than a foot or two before the collar detonates hard enough to send Anthony into a wall, hitting his head and cracking his skull right open. He gets a few blurry moments of bleeding out, no targets in sight to use the Fight For Your Life trick on, as he hears Mordecai scream in pure, mental agony.

“Sorry... Blood...” Anthony manages before he Gives Up like he did at the dam and blacks out.

Anthony respawns out in the Highlands by the New-U station. ‘That’s right’, he recalls, ‘there’s only a few available in the area’, and they didn’t pass any of them in the reserve.

He’d have to hoof it fast, or find a working Catch-A-Ride if he was to get back to the group.

----- (/\) -----

Pinkie and Dash, panting as they set off the last two explosives, look at their timers, which stops and gives a ‘complete!’ response, making them smile and give a high-five. “Yeah! We beat Jack!” Pinkie says, giggling, unaware of Jack’s victory.

“I’ll bet he-”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” comes the heart-broken cry of a man losing his only real friend, shocking both of them as it nearly breaks their ears over the ECHO net.

“W-wait, was that Mordecai?” Dash asks, rubbing her ear.

“Sounded like it. What do you think happened?” Pinkie asks, but Dash is unsure. Suddenly they’re called over the ECHO by Anthony.

“Girls, get out of there as fast as you can! Now!”

“But you’re still-”

“Fine! Now go!”

The two nod and rush outside, finding a quick exit to the observatory. With their mission changing to simply ‘get out’ and the map marker pointing to the Reserve’s exit, the ponies begin a mad dash for their destination when a moonshot lands several WAR loaders at their feet, Jack calling them up.

“Ohohoho, you didn’t think you were gonna make it out alive didja?” Jack taunts over the ECHO.

Mordecai gets on the ECHO afterwards. “Ponies... get down...”

The girls do as they’re told and the WAR Loaders and all stalkers in the area are absolutely gibbed by Mordecai’s sniper shots, the loud bangs of which are only drowned out by Mordecai’s screaming. “Screw you! Screw you! Ver del Diablo you sons of bitches!”

Pinkie and Dash take the chance to get out of the reserve as fast as possible, making it back to the Highlands in a bit of time. They get out of the reserve in time to see Anthony pulling up in an Outrunner and switching to the turret seat.

“Anthony? But, how’d you-”

“I died, now get in! We need to go!”

“Why? We won, didn’t we?”

“Not yet!” come’s Lilith’s voice over the ECHO. “We could use some help up here.”

“Let’s get to Sanctuary the-”

“We can’t, not from here!” Anthony shouts, ushering the ponies into the vehicle and indicating Sanctuary, now high in the sky just above the horizon. “We need to get to Overlook, now!”

Dash’s nerves steel anew and she hops into the driver’s seat as their mission changes to ‘Head to Overlook’ as Dash asks, “How the hay is Sanctuary flying? Because that’s funky bull shrimp Anthony! Why can cities fly if I can’t?!”

“I’ll explain later.” He says in response, gunning down a stalker as it launches itself at the Outrunner. “For now, Overlook. We need to regroup with the other Hunters, and fast!”

“Gotcha!” she yells, gunning the engine and flying over the terrain. None of them notice that they’ve leveled up, only that there’s trouble, and that Anthony is emotionally kicking himself for not anticipating this turn of events.

In minutes they’re at the gate of Overlook, where all hell is breaking loose. Anthony Sparks up and leaps out of the Outrunner and runs at a GUN Loader, punching it repeatedly, twice in each arm and one in the eye once it turns around to address the threat. With the power of his punches combined with the elemental effects, Anthony manages to take it out, switching to his pistol and aiming at a farther Loader. “Girls, to my left and right, we need to clear this lane, give the other hunters support.” He looks up and sees moonshots landing in the other section of buildings. “More loaders, move fast!”

“Anthony, why’re you so angry?” Pinkie yells after him, brows furrowed in confusion as she blasts at the incoming ‘bots. The three of them are getting pushed steadily towards the crux of the V-shaped town, until a hail of withering gunfire takes the heat off them, and the three see that there’s at least three of the other Vault Hunters atop the grinder, guarding the Lunar Beacon.

“Angel, you are in big trouble!” Anthony yells as he tries to Spark Up again, but his cooldown timer flashes, alerting him he still has to wait another few moments. Cursing, he just goes back to aiming at joints and eyes, robots falling mostly to the critical hits than his rage, though his trigger finger is more than fueled by his anger.

“We were wondering when you’d get to the party, kiddos!” Salvador’s voice rings out, as he begins firing dual assault rifles into the veritable sea of Loaders, laughing as they chew through the crowd. Krieg screams something incoherent, and Dash gets a glimpse of a massive Buzz Axe go past her head, barely missing her as it smashes into the BUL Loader that was about to transform and charge her.

“No need to hold back? I have needed such a rush. Exhilarating.”

“Yeah, what he said! You ponies been doin’ good?” Gaige’s voice cuts in, the Mechromancer fighting alongside her Deathtrap gleefully firing into the metal tide.

“Uh, heck yeah!” Dash replies, kicking a HOT Loader’s knee out, leaving all its weapons pointing up.

“Some better weapons would be nice.” Anthony says, looting a grenade mod from a fallen Loader who had yet to pull the pin. “This better be corrosive!” He yells as he hurls it into the crowd, but alas it’s a Shock Bouncing Betty, sending it bouncing around spraying all the robots around. “More firepower! Where’s Axton and Maya!?”

“Combat is an art. One you disturb with your rage. Be one with the fight.”

“Lighten up, kid!” Salvador translates for Zer0 as he leaps back into the fray, vladof rifles spinning wildly as they eject countless bullets.

“He’s been acting weird since the Reserve!” Dash says. “A lot more angry. More like he was back in Ponyville.”

Anthony just growls as he grabs a fallen loaders gun arm and aims it at another loader, blasting it to bits before hurling the scrap at an EXP Loader that was getting too close to Pinkie for his comfort.

Grabbing his pistol again, he returns his attention to the various robots, and the group is effectively taking them down without much trouble. Jack, however, has other ideas as he yells to the group. “I’m sending everything I have at you! Everything!”

At this, several badass constructors are launched from the moonbase and begin constructing more loaders as well as firing a myriad of missiles. And backing them up is a wave of Badass Loaders, at least six, which begin soaking damage for their less powerful allies. Axton’s turret blinks in from a Longbow ‘grenade’ and begins to lay down covering fire, one of the Badass Loaders getting tugged skyward in a Phase Lock.

However, inch by inch, the nine vault hunters are pushed back towards the beacon. Unrelenting waves of metal foes march onwards, heedless of their losses or damage. Nobody even notices the three junior vault hunters hit another level up, and then another during the fight, all of them too busy to take note of the otherwise prestigious event.

They didn’t have time to celebrate their health boosts, or new skill points or anything, much less allocate skill points. Everyone in the group was focused on getting back to Sanctaury. This was made an even more difficult challenge by the fact that mostly, the robots were aiming for the supply beacon, rather than the hunters themselves, forcing them to take hits until the request could get through.

“I know you’re busy right now, Angel.” Anthony grunts as he tries taking off a loader’s arm only to have it be repaired by a surveyor instantly. “But if we could have our gear from before the reserve... We might actually stand a chance!”

There’s no reply, but a few minutes later, a moonshot from over the horizon smashes down just outside the shield, a small pylon left in the crater. It opens up, revealing the trio’s guns and such. Dash, seeing it, uses a Rainboom to get there, knocking aside Loaders left and right, and covering the rest in random elemental effects. She grabs the rest and begins hopping from Loader to loader to get back, though her shield is getting torn to shreds to do it.

“You’ve got a Roid shield.” Anthony reminds her. “If you’re gonna suffer for it at least make use of the bonuses!”

“Yeah, kick ‘em in the wingnut!” Gaige yells, more likely giving advice to her own robot than the ponies but in the hectic fray it was hard to tell.

Dash gives a roar of anger as her shield breaks, tossing the guns to Anthony and then bringing a hoof down on the ‘bot below her, the Roid Shield’s damage boost strengthening her strike to let it drive through the Loader’s casing and through its electronic brain.

All around, Vault hunters are going down, standing up, and going right back down again, and everyone’s taking only a second to grab the candies that are, slowly, beginning to litter the ground from Pinkie’s constant use of her Party Cannon when able.

Salvador seems to be absolutely loving the Blue candies, and has around six in his mouth. “I can fire theesh gunsh forevah! Thish is great!”

Axton is making use of the Green candies to boost his health while chucking grenades whenever he gets a chance to leave his turret’s protective side. Zer0 is making good use of the yellows he grabs for a speed boost.

The rest of the hunters are each doing their part, Krieg gulping down a mouthful of yellow candies all at once and going on an absolute sugar-rush-induced rampage, swinging his buzz axe around and generally throwing himself at the robots.

For their part, the junior vault hunters are doing the best they can with the gear they recovered, Dash going back to her experimental Dahl rifle once the Roid effect dissipates, and Anthony making as much use of his Scout is possible but not doing enough to match Zer0’s high-leveled equipment.

“Got a spare rifle on you I could borrow?” Anthony asks, lining up a shot only to have the kill taken by the master assassin beside him. Zer0 tosses him a rifle with a faceless look of ‘I dare you to do better.’

Which Anthony manages to do, despite the horrible reload speed of the gun, explaining why Zer0 was using another. Still, they were slowly winning- BOOM!

Landing in a massive crater is a third badass constructor who immediately sends out more surveyors to repair the failing bots.

“Jack’s not letting up!” Axton cries as his Saber Turret gets blasted to smithereens. “We need to regroup.”

“No time!” Anthony shouts back, managing to destroy a few surveyors only to have them be quickly replaced.

“Then we make time!” Maya shouts, Phase Locking a badass Loader, picking it up off the ground giving Zer0 a shot at one of the Constructor’s eyes.

The combined force of Salvador, Rainbow and Zer0 piling as much ammo into the constructor as possible manages to destroy it, but not before it activates a selfdestruct mechanism, creating a medium-sized explosion that hurls the surrounding robots closer to the group, effectively advancing the wave with its final moments.

But at least the number of surveyors that littered the sky were dwindling now.

“Pinkie! Launcher, straight up.” Axton suggests and Pinkie obliges, destroying several surveyors in one large blast, sending metal fragments raining down on the group. “Everyone, get down!”

Axton fires his own launcher at the second constructor, damaging it enough to keep it from spawning more surveyors. The skys were relatively clear now, but the ground forces were amassing by the second.

A group of EXP Loaders are launched from the moonbase right in front of the hunters and rushes past them to destroy the beacon.

“Gaige!” Anthony calls. “Repair that beacon, fast. We’ll never get to Sanctuary without it!” Gaige nods, leaping over to the Grinder and getting to work. “Axton, you got any more grenades?”

“You know it.” The merc replies, gunning down one of the EXP Loaders as he talks.

“Give them to Dash, her mod has slag on it. Salvador, Pinkie, spray the last two constructors.”

“On it!” they both cry, and Anthony’s orders are followed to the letter, eventually leaving the entire field of robots slagged and falling, but being quickly fixed by the remaining surveyors. Anthony trains his assault rifle on the sky and begins shooting wildly, mainly aiming to destroy the surveyors’ shields for Maya and Zer0 to take out.

“Why won’t you people just die already?!” Jack screams into their ECHOs, making all but Kreig and Axton flinch at the loud noise.

“Because you’re gonna pay for Bloodwing!” Anthony yells back, and switching to the Plasma Caster once he sees a Badass Loader had been slagged, the repetitive plasma orbs slamming into the weakened robot destroy its frame and eat at its insides. Emptying the remainder of the Tediore gun with a throw at a HOT Loader, destroys it, but not before a second HOT Loader comes from around the corner and sprays Anthony with a faceful of fire, burning his shield away and a gunshot from a GUN Loader finds itself in the middle of his chest, barely missing his heart but doing severe damage to his ribcage. He crumples to the ground and is revived by Maya, who finishes the GUN loader and HOT loader for him.

They were being taken out, but they were also winning. As long as their ammo holds out long enough.

<”I just need a few more moments!”> Angel says, and the now-fixed beacon starts beeping. <”The request is almost through, please just a little more time!”>

“Time we may not have!” Dash replies, again, Rainbooming through a row of Loaders and knocking them down, giving Salvador and Pinkie the clear path they needed to charge on the constructors.

“Idunno, I think we’re winni-” The constructor puts up an orange reflector shield, making Salvador’s ridiculous spraying bounce off, half of which lands right into Pinkie, forcing her to Respawn at the base of the hill up to overlook.

“Not winning yet!” Anthony says, angrily as he blasts another EXP Loader. “We need some support here!”

“Sorry buddy.” Axton says, “You were the cavalry.”

“Damnit!”

“Chill kid, we’ll make it out of this.” Axton says, shaking his head. “Jack’s not gonna win today.”

Anthony grits his teeth, recalling Bloodwing. “He already has won today.”

The merc’s brows furrow. “Damn, what happened back at the reserve?”

“I’ll explain la- three o'clock!” Axton swivels around in time to catch a GUN loader hurling a grenade, to which he responds by grabbing Anthony by the back of the shirt and hurling them both to the ground as the grenade sails over their heads and explodes in mid-air just mere feet away from where they’d been. “Ugh, thanks for the save.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.” Axton says, patting him on the back and hauling them both to their feet.

The two nod and go back to firing at the now-thinning crowd of robots, only one badass constructor left, along with a small swarm of surveyors, each repairing the remaining ten badass Loaders.

Anthony and Zer0 get to work on sniping the surveyors out of the sky while Krieg and Dash begin a melee onslaught on the robots’ legs, forcing them to have to choose between crawling forward and shooting, leaving Maya and Axton to use their various weapons to destroy them, Pinkie and Salvador running headlong at the final constructor. Gaige sends out Deathtrap again to aid in destroying the Badass Loader who was now suspended in the air by Maya.

With an almighty explosion that rocks the entire town, the final constructor is taken down, but not without taking all but those furthest from its explosion with it, leaving Axton, Maya, Zero, and Anthony to finish of the final Badass Loader.

A storm of bullets, grenades, and various explosions follow all slamming into the Loader at once and completely obliterating it, leaving only a single leg, which falls over as the town returns to quiescence, the battle over.

Anthony heads down to the New-U station and greets the newly-revived vault hunters as well as his pony friends. He sighs and breathes. “We did it.” as a final moonshot lands in the center of town, revealing the Fast Travel station that would take them to Sanctuary. He runs back up to the other Vault hunters and repeats himself. “We did it.”

Comments

[ShadowStar0]

...Have I ever mentioned that you write AMAZING battle scenes? Because you do.

[the-pieman]

6894013 Thanks. Anyway, add me on steam and maybe we could tag team sometime. If your computer can handle singleplayer it should be able to handle multiplayer, and I'd love to play a game or something with my fans.

[ShadowStar0]

6894047 Alright then. My Steam name is different than what I got here. You get a request from Naryx, that's me.

[jaxman147]

Oooo baby! Is just plain Jackhole Jack not enough? Are we starting to see other sides to this masked mystery man? Do I detect tiny hints of doubt? I find myself falling into a 'Jack sympathizer' category myself, especially after playing the pre-sequel. I don't necessarily agree with his methods, but I do think his heart is in the right place. The downwards escalator to Hell is wired with good intentions, or so they say.