> Borderlands 2: Starlight DLC Pack
>  by the-pieman
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A large, rather rotund man sits down next to a child’s bed, makeshift and lit by a fire set outside the window. He sighs, looking down at the child, who still isn’t asleep after four games and a dozen sets of Downloadable Content worth of story time.

“Up for more eh? Don’t you get tired of these stories? Well fine, I already told one, I’ll tell a new one... with some very different sorts of Vault Hunters. At least, they think they’re Vault Hunters.

We start, actually, at the beginning of one of my other stories; you remember how I told you of the time Handsome Jack took over the entire planet of Pandora? Well, while six crazy Vault Hunters were just getting their feet under them, someone else I gave the great honor of calling my friend was on another world entirely, and had just found a very interesting object...”


----- (/\) -----


Anthony lounged in the main room of the Golden Oaks library, not sure of what to do, now that he was back from Wunderland. He just wasn’t sure how to take in what he’d seen.

He’s roused from his musings by a small, but still loud ‘boom!’ from outside town. Curiosity, if nothing else, draws his attention.

“Again!? Don’t I get a break?” Anthony sighs as he gets up, setting his book down.

“It wasn’t me this time!” Pinkie yells, popping out from behind one of the couch cushions and looking a touch panicked.

“Or me, I have an alibi!” Dash yells from a cloud just outside the window.

Anthony sighs. “Your ‘alibi’ is that you were sleeping.”

“Yep, and it’s as sturdy as a tectorantula!” Dash says, smiling wide at her infallible logic.

Rolling his eyes, the human stands and makes for the door, figuring he might as well head off the issue before it becomes too bad, and Pinkie follows him, if only so he doesn’t find out she was a second away from glitter-bombing him moments ago.

Anthony just runs along, heading towards the explosion noise, realising how counter-productive it usually is. “So what do you think it is this time?”

Rainbow Dash, flapping along, still lazily laying on her cloud, shrugs. “Idunno. Doesn’t sound loud enough for a monster, and there’s no screaming or fires. And Twilight was headed in that direction, but there’s no snakes in that field, so I don’t think it’s her.”

“Oh, oh oh! Maybe it’s aliens!” Pinkie suggests, smiling at her... amazing detective skills.

Anthony stops in his tracks mid-jog and looks at Pinkie. “Why would aliens come to Terra of all places?”

The mare shrugs, still pronking along, “Well, you asked what we thought it was, and I guessed aliens.” Anthony concedes the point.

“Ooh, are we taking bets? ‘Cuz I totally bet that Pinkie’s right.” Rainbow Dash says, grinning. Of course, she can see that there’s a crater and something in it in the field they’re heading towards, so she has a bit of an unfair advantage.

“We are not taking bets.” Twilight says as they approach the crater, having heard RD’s comment. “We’re going to study it. And don’t be silly, aliens don’t exist.”

Pinkie, pronking ahead of the others, hops straight down into the crater and slides to the bottom, the almost spherically-shaped hole warm but not hot under her hooves.

Looking over the object and ignoring Twilight’s calls of unsurety and Anthony’s calls of distress, neither of the two more scientifically-minded beings wanting to go near the grey, glowing stone. Thin, glowing lines of purple light cover the almost conical stone, the rest of it looking much like concrete or granite in appearance, though not quite like either.

As Pinkie inspects it, a violet aura wraps around it, and Pinkie too, as Twilight gingerly lifts the both of them.

“Pinkie, weren’t you listening to anything I said?”

“Well, kinda, but I was mostly looking at this! It doesn’t look like any rock I know, and my sister is Maud about rocks!” She waits for giggles, before remembering that nobody in the group has met her sister yet.

Antony looks at it. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s really familiar...” He takes it from Twilight’s grasp and looks at it in the light. “Okay, I definitely know this thing, but I can’t get a name... like a memory I haven’t recalled for years.”

“Is it something from Earth?” Twilight asks. “You have been away from home for quite a while.”

“No, no, it’s...” he sighs and hands it back to Twilight, facepalming. “It’s alien.”

“How do you know it’s not just ancient?” Twilight asks. “In fact, it seems to be magical. I think... There’s an energy input node, I can feel it... right... here...” she looks at the flat end of the cone, and looking at it, it looks a bit like an electrical socket.

Anthony feels a lightbulb go off in his head at the same time Twilight does, and they both attempt to power it with their own forms of energy at the same time, magic and cosmic energy suddenly flowing through circuits that were made to handle both.

Like an eye opening, the ‘socket’ of the device suddenly turns to a bright, luminescent purple, and a beam of light shoots from it to just behind Anthony, forming a disc of purple and black energy right between him, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash, pulling them into the portal, which promptly vanishes, taking a chunk of the turf below them with it.

The gray and purple artifact falls from the numb grip of Twilight, who stands there, shocked and confused. Only one thought goes through her mind:

‘Did I just vaporize my friends?!’

> The Adventure begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The answer, of course, is a big fat no. Though I like that ending, it’s just the beginning!” The large man settles back, a grin on his face as he settles into the story telling once more.


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


“Vault key...” Anthony says, recalling the name as he’s ejected violently out of a wormhole that, moments prior, had just obliterated the six Loaders inside of a very tight, cramped delivery pod.

The human stands up shakily, rubbing his head where he’d hit the side of the container, looking around at the rest of the six-foot-square area. Dash and Pinkie are also getting up next to him.

“Owie-zowie... that wasn’t a very fun way to win a bet at all...” Pinkie says, pulling herself off the ground.

“You said it, Pinks. Hey Anthony, you said you knew what that was? Well, where the hay are we?” she asks. The ‘room’, however, is all a uniform gray, with the one window being several feet above Anthony’s head. The central mechanism of the pod, being a series of clips to hold the Loaders, was missing, leaving just a series of safety belts for if some poor schmuck from engineering gets stuck in one before getting a ride to the surface.

<Launch in ten seconds>

“Shit...” Anthony mutters. “Strap in, the ride’s not over yet!”

“The ride? What ride?” Rainbow asks, getting ready to flap up towards the window, while Pinkie just looks confused as she begins buckling herself to the wall.

Anthony, grumbling, grabs the blue pegasus and straps her in, as he’s not sure what they’re being launched at or from, and he doesn’t want a feathery bloodstain all over the pod if it’s a bad place to go. He’s barely strapped in himself when they all feel the G-forces of an immense acceleration, though it’s nowhere near as bad as it should be, judging by the way the lights flicker past the window.

Outside that window, unbeknownst to any of the three inside, is a massive space station, shaped like a capital-H, and it just fired twenty-five pods of Loaders... and one pod with brand-new stowaways on it. Four of the pods explode in the upper atmosphere, a few skim across it to go to other locations, and three smash down into the middle of the Pandoran badlands, the sides slamming open to reveal their dangerous contents.

And two ponies and a human, of course.

The first thing any of those three hear is gunfire and screaming, and both Dash and Pinkie look both shocked and surprised and more than a little dazed, the both of them stuck sideways to their spots in the container thanks to some impressive shaking on the way down.

Grabbing his head to steady himself from the sudden stop, Anthony swears again... “Ugh... please let it be over.”

<Hostile Detected. Aiming.> A robotic voice calls forth from nearby, and the sound of whirring gears and clanging pistons approach the pod.

Robots? Anthony was confused. Wait a minute.... A realization struck him. That was a Vault Key. And robots... plus Vault Key, equals Hyperion....

“Loaders! Aim for the joints!” He yells as he ducks for cover. “Pandora. We’re on motherfucking Pandora!”

The Loader, identifying his advice as definitely hostile, speeds up and marches around the scant cover the corner of the pod provides, and sights him with its one robotic eye, leveling what looks like a pistol at his face. His life flashes before his eyes out of fear, an instinctive review of everything leading up to the moment to see if there’s anything he can do to escape this fate, but his back’s against the wall, his friends are strapped to the same wall, and there’s nothing he can-

K-BLAM

The sound of a shotgun going off and the subsequent squeal of a downed robot assaults Anthony’s eardrums, and makes Pinkie and Dash cover their ears, as the Loader ends up face planted, one leg missing and the other mangled as it begins to try crawling away, its gun laying on the ground by Anthony’s feet.

<No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.> The Loader chants as its programming recognizes the attack as one meant to incapacitate, not kill, meaning a Vault Hunter was close.

Anthony, letting his gaming instincts take over, grabs the pistol and, thankful for its easy grip, shoots a few rounds.... missing every one of them but after enough spraying, lands a bullet in the robot’s eye.

“You’re kidding me! Who stole my kill?” An angry, vaguely mexican-sounding voice calls, and the tromp of boots approaches the pod. “You a raider, or what? Come out, afore I shoot your cover fulla holes!”

Anthony walks out into clear view, hands up and dropping the pistol. “Not raiders. We got stuck in-”

“Ey, why you throwing a gun around; is disrespectful!” the angry, dwarf-like Truxican yells, and steps into view. He looks them over. “You don’ look like Hyperion. What are you doing here, and why aren’t you running around where I can shoot you?”

“We’re not Hyperion we’re...” Anthony’s mind rushes to think of what he could say. “We’re Vault Hunters. We got to the Hyperion moonbase but they launched us back out with the Loaders.”

Salvador (and it really couldn’t be anyone else) looks at him incredulously. “Huh. So... you’re a vault hunter too? Does that mean I can sh-”

“God, damnit, Salvador! That hurt! You can’t go shooting your allies in the back, or next time, so help me, I’m gonna shoot you in the face!” A caucasian man in his late twenties, early thirties climbs over a piece of wrecked car, looking down at the Truxican angrily, before looking up at Anthony. “Who’re you, shrimpy?”

“Anthony! I, er... we’re Vault Hunters... these two and me.” Anthony says, getting down slowly to pick up the Hyperion pistol. He gets Pinkie and Dash free from the wall. “Can ya walk?”

As Rainbow Dash and Pinkie get unsteadily to their hooves, Salvador gets his first look at them. “¿Qué coño estoy mirando un caramelo sin ponis?” he asks wonderingly.

Anthony, for his part, has no idea what Salvador said but got ‘pony’ out of it. “Yeah, ponies. We were warped to the Hyperion moonbase and got launched here with the Loaders.” Anthony repeats.

“Uh huh... Well... uh... huh.” the man, Axton if you go by the rank tabs stuck to his face, looks more baffled than anything. “Well, I guess I might as well give you a better ‘welcome to pandora’ than we got. We got dynamite. What the hell’re your friends?” he asks, as he checks for a couple of weak guns he was gonna sell, before just tossing them over. “And keep in mind, I’ll blow your heads off if any of you shoot me in the back.

Anthony turns back to Axton after grabbing a Tediore pistol, easily recognized by the plastic casing and rough, poorly-manufactured edges. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

“Right... listen, we’re heading to our meet-up point. Me, Salvador, and our buddies are gonna compare notes and make sure we don’t miss anything important. Maybe one of them’ll have the attention span and fucks to give to figure you three out. You know how to drive?” he asks, turning to stomp away, as the two ponies look with utter bafflement to Anthony.

“Just let me do the talking.” He says. “I’ll explain everything later. As for driving. I’ve only played video ga- er, ECHO sims.”

“Yeah, that won’t cut it ‘round here. You better hope you can learn fast, though, or you’re gonna end up a grease-stain, since neither Salvador nor Krieg like to share the gunner’s seats.” Axton says, tromping over to a forest-camo vehicle, one clearly made for quick travel. “Heh, you guys can hold onto the top, we’ll only take a minute or two... just hold on when we get to the bumps.”

“Hold on?” Rainbow Dash says, hovering into the air. “I’ll race ya!”

“No! Not now Dash.” Anthony says, teeth gritted.

A moment later, Dash cries out as her wings seem to give out. “Aw, what gives? Why can’t I fly?” she complains, rubbing her rear where she landed.

“Madre de Dios, mis hermanas would love you.” Salvador comments in awe as the blue pony talks, thinking about his family.

“Eheheheh, don’t mind them, we’ll just hold on as best we can.” Anthony says, rubbing the back of his head.

“Aw, c’mon!” Dash yells in a huff, before resigning herself to being a hang-on, and gripping it. Pinkie, meanwhile, seems to have vanished, until Salvador gets into the gunner’s seat and Pinkie pops up, a grin on her face. “It’s like a super-party-cannon, but there’s no cake! It’s almost as awesome, and I wish I had a bakery so I could add some cookies to it!” Salvador looks mildly terrified, and given that there’s barely enough room for his legs under there, it’s understandable why he’d be worried about the pony being able to fit in under him.

“Pinkie, he said not to use the gunner seat!” Anthony says, trying to find decent purchase on the two-man vehicle.

“Silly, I’m not using the gunner’s seat, I’m using Sal’s lap!” she says, beaming at her logical prowess. Salvador gives a shrug, and wraps his arms around her, as she smells like candy and food, two things he likes. “Wow, you smell like sweat and anger!” she comments as the car takes off.

“Pinkie Pie, sniffing is rude!” Anthony decides to take a different approach to reprimanding the pony, to hopefully get her to calm down. “You don’t wanna make him angry.”

“But I didn’t need to sniff!” she says, and Salvador laughs, evidently finding it funny he has BO.

“Can’t believe I can’t fly...” Rainbow mourns. “So are we going or what?”

“Oh, not fast enough for you?” Axton calls, and Anthony gets a pang of fear in his heart as he hears the tone in the man’s voice. Anthony has barely enough time to get a genuinely good grip on the roll cage of the car before Axton smashes flat the boost pedal, and the vehicle practically flies across the stones, snow, and dead scrub of the Pandoran winter’s wastes. Rainbow Dash lets loose a giddy laugh, Salvador and Axton whooping and hollering happily, as Anthony just tries not to fall off with every bounce, jolt, and shuddering tremble of the car as it hits literally anything on the road at all.

It’s not long, but eventually they come to a near-crashing halt at what looks kinda like a gas station, a few vending machines nearby a sort of garage, three other vehicles parked there.

“Never... Again...” Anthony pants as Rainbow comments on what a rush it was.

Pinkie pops out of the car and rolls around in the snow, addressing Anthony as she plays. “So, you said you’d explain later and... it’s later!”

Anthony sighs and sits down. He opens his mouth and-

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!” With a shriek like an angry, and very strangled Rakk, a third Vault Hunter leaps over a car and lunges at Rainbow Dash, literally tackling the pegasus off the top of Axton and Salvador’s car. “Omigod Omigod OmigodOmigodOmigod, you’re ado~orable! Aghdifasble!” The mechromancer, with an arm that can punch through steel, has a death grip on Rainbow Dash, and is petting her with the other, the confused and very scared speedster not even able to struggle out of the hold.

“H-help... me...”

Anthony walks up to the... she can’t be more than, what, fifteen? Fourteen? She’s young but very intimidating with the robotic prosthetic. Anyways, Anthony walks up to the girl and pats her on the shoulder. “Uh... that blue thing is mine...”

“I will pay you a zillion dollars for her, right now.” she says, looking up at him with a dead-serious expression.

“You don’t even have a million dollars, Gaige.” Axton butts in, dragging a small sled covered in guns from behind a dead bush and brushing the snow off them. He takes it closer to the vending machines.

“I’ll kill Axton and give you all his guns for her.” Gaige amends.

“I...” Anthony looks at the huge supply of guns and to an avid gamer like he was, it was a hard bargain. Or it would be except for one thing. “Sorry, she’s my friend. I’m not gonna sell her.”

Gaige tries one more time, simply giving her best pouty eyes and petting the slowly-strangling Rainbow Dash. The effect would be way better if she wasn’t decked out like a goth punk cyborg with serious anger issues, which she is.

Anthony is about to say something but eyes one of the guns in the pile. He hesitates but takes a deep breath. It just wouldn’t be right to sell Rainbow. But... “But you can borrow her if I can get that sweet Assault Rifle.”

“Traitor!” Rainbow yells, mostly strangled.

“Hey, I said borrow not keep. Besides, look at this thing! It’s got a Vladof Barrel and a Hyperion scope! This thing will be firing bullets like hell and get better the farther away the target is!”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty shitty. I mean, if you want it, keep it.” Axton says, and literally kicks the gun at Anthony, who realizes that it’s basically made out of plywood and tin, and may actually be lighter than its magazines.

“Sorry, we don’t have ECHOs, can’t really see the ‘stats’ from a distance.” Anthony says. “If it was better quality though it might be a fair trade.”

Axton shrugs and goes back to loading the items from his sled into the vending machine, digistructing them down. Salvador is doing the same, but simply attempting to jam the guns into the vending machines by force, something that is, apparently, working.

Gaige looks at Anthony and Dash curiously. “So, wait... you guys have no gear at all? Damn... wait, I think I can get you guys some, berb!”

“Uh... sure.”

Pinkie, now making a snowpony, asks what’s going on again. “You said you’d tell us.”

“Yeah. And who’s the weird girl?” RD asks, shuddering.

Anthony sits down again. “Well that thing that sent us here was a Vault Key...” Anthony gets some interested double-takes from the other Vault Hunters.

“Hold up, you have a Vault key?” Axton asks, looking over from his gun-selling. “Where’d it go?”

Anthony shrugs. “Dunno, a friend of mine touched it and I did too and it sent us here. Well, not here here, it sent us to Pandora’s resident Jackhole’s space station.” Salvador chuckles at the name.

“So that’s how you got onto the moonbase. Huh. So where’d you three come from? And how’d you train those two to talk?”

Dash responds by puffing up her cheeks angrily, a sure sign she’s about to begin yelling. Anthony, by this point, is tired and figures Dash has had a rough day so he decides to just brace for the impact of the outburst.

“He didn’t train us! I’ve always been able to talk! And I used to be the fastest flier ever until I showed up in this stupid place!”

“Pandora.” Anthony corrects her. “We’re on the gods-forsaken planet of Pandora. The armpit of the galaxy and by far the best place to go if you want a psycho to rip your head off or get shot in the face by robots led by the world’s biggest douchebag.”

“But at least it ain’t Promethea!” Gaige says, sliding back down to where the ponies are. “Here, I made three, and these two can clip into your hair. Oooh, can I brush your hair, it’s sooo pretty!” she shouts, running her hand through Rainbow Dash’s mane. Said pony just waves her hoof angrily, trying to swat the young teen’s hands away.

“No! And if you try touching my hooves and giving me a hooficure I’ll rearrange your face!”

“Rainbow Dash, don’t antagonize the chick with a robot arm.” Anthony says, sighing again.

Gaige, however, seems to like it. “Aw man, you got sass and you’ve got a pretty mane! I want you to know, pony, that Imma braid it one day... one day.” she says the last part grinning maniacally, quietly handing the ECHO to Anthony and Pinkie, and thoroughly creeping out Rainbow Dash.

Anthony helps Pinkie with the ECHO and puts his on. A health bar, ammo count for his current weapon, number of grenades and minimap appears in his vision. He quickly explains the HUD to Pinkie and Dash who get used to it after a while.

“So yeah, Pandora’s a shithole... but also the location of a vault. Vaults are... uh... well, it depends really but usually it’s a huge cache of loot.”

“Vaults are dangerous. And one hell of a challenge. It is why I’m here.” Comes a voice from thin air before a flash of light reveals a tall, lanky, faceless figure, a red ‘zero’ being projected from the face-concealing helmet. “Who are these creatures? They are curious indeed. Are they any threat?”

“No!” Anthony yells as the figure points a gun at Pinkie Pie. “They’re my friends! Don’t kill them!”

“Full of loot? You mean, like candy? *gasp* what if this vault is a giant pinata!?” Pinkie says, not really comprehending what the assassin was doing.

Anthony sighs. “No, more like a ton of money, eridium and guns.”

Rainbow slips out of Gaige’s grasp with a bit of difficulty. “You sure talk about guns a lot.”

“Welcome to Pandora, where a gun can be your best friend and nobody would think you’re weird.” Anthony says. “Well, maybe a little weird, but not that weird.” Anthony looks over to the sled of guns again and, with his ECHO, picks out a green light among all the whites.

“Why’s that one green?” Pinkie asks.
 
“It’s to show rarity and value for it’s level.” Anthony says. “Rarity scale goes White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Pearlescent.” The Green turns out to be a fairly decent pistol but a higher level than Anthony was allowed to carry unfortunately.

“Yeah, that sled’s all vendor trash.” Axton says, sighing. “Already tallied it up. Worth more than a few thousand bucks, but not all that much more.”

“You plan on living? You three won’t last long out here. What skills do you have?” Zer0 says in his typical Haiku-laced speech.

“I’m the fastest flier in Ponyville!” Rainbow says first but is muffled by Gaige.

“You live in a place called ponyville!? Omigosh that’s awesome!”

Pinkie in typical form seems to not have heard Zer0 and instead starts an entirely new conversation. “My name is Pinkie! I live in Ponyville too. D’you wanna be friends?”

Zer0 pauses, staring at Pinkie Pie, blank of any emotion behind his faceplate. The assassin makes no moves or sounds at all but after a bit the red zero projected from his helmet blinks and shows a simplistic happy face before switching back off immediately. “Back to my question.”

Anthony thinks for a second. “I’m incredibly genre savvy...”

The Vault Hunters look at Anthony in silence before laughing uproariously, save for Zer0. “That’s not what he meant. He means what have you got?” Axton clarifies.

Anthony tries to spark up but is racked with a wave of nausea and only summons a flicker of light. Holding his stomach, Anthony leans against the sled of weapons. “Ugh... used to be better than that... Vault Key must have... done something to my powers. Urp.”

“You mean you can’t go all glowy anymore?” Pinkie asks worriedly.

Axton quirks an eyebrow. “Glowy? You some kinda Siren, kid?”

“Urgh... uh, kinda, not really.”

“Huh, you must need to kill a few more things first. Anyways, you got guns, and you’re lookin’ for a Vault, and it sounds like you know that puto Jack?” Salvador says. “Sounds like you got a wa~ay better welcome party than us.”

“If you count us almost being creamed by riding one of the Loader moonshots ‘better’ then yeah.”

“Holy cow! Who’re the new users?” a slightly annoying but ultimately cheerful voice calls over the ECHO network. “I mean, there’s gotta be a glitch in here, ‘cuz it says there’s... uh... ponies! Rainbow Pony and Pink Pony! I think, this text is small and I don’t have my monocle installed.”

“Oh god...” Anthony mutters. “Of course, Claptrap...”

“Wait, you know me?” The robot sounds utterly ecstatic, above and beyond his normal voice, and every Vault hunter in the know is looking like they were hoping he wouldn’t speak up. “Wow, I’m famous! OR infamous, both’re grrreat!”

Anthony rubs his temple in annoyance. “Yes I know your model line. Weren’t you discontinued?”

“Only mostly! All my brothers and sisters were crushed and destroyed before my very eye, and now it’s an extremely touchy and emotional subject for me! So, who’re you, buddy?”

“Anthony, and didn’t your model come with a volume control?”

“Nope! At least I don’t think so, but I’ve never read my own manual. I mean, I’m not a pervert.”

“Get used to that voice, guys.” Anthony says, sighing heavily.

“I kinda like it!” Pinkie says, beaming off in a random direction. “Hiya, I’m Pinkie Pie, and I have no idea where you are, but I wanna be your friend!”

“Wow! Someone wanting to be my friend before I’ve even offered friendship? Robot heaven must be a real place! I’m in Sanctuary, and you’ve gotta check out my pad, Pinkie Pop!” Pinkie just giggles.

“Sure!” Anthony says with mock enthusiasm. “Let’s go meet the tiny one-eyed robot so he can talk our ears off in person rather than hearing him over the darned radio.”

“Oh, I’d never do that, and if I did, I’d offer superglue!” Clappy says, with entirely not mock-enthusiasm.

Dash just shakes her head. “So how the hay is he talking to us, anyways?” she rubs her ear, evidently trying to remove the annoying voice before it burrows any deeper.

“Wow, you’re from some kinda low-tech world, aren’t you?” a bored female voice says, as Maya joins the group. Her Siren’s markings glow with a soft blue light, even in the light, evidence of her readiness to use her power at a moment’s notice.

Anthony explains the ECHOnet as simply as he can to the ponies. “Think like magic but it’s electronic and... not magic.”

Pinkie salutes and smiles. “Got it! That helps not at all!”

Anthony sighs and turns to the other Hunters. “Where they come from, they haven’t even invented the microwave oven yet.”

“Geeeeeeeeeez, that’s like, the dark ages or something!” Gaige exclaims. “Bet I could show up there with Deathtrap and be all ‘I’m a wizard from the far future, rawr!’.”

Anthony grins. “You punch the big white one in the face and I’ll give you a billion dollars.”

“No way! I’d brush her mane and ride her all over the place, and install death lasers in her eyes!”

“I doubt she’d like that...” Rainbow Dash says. “Princess Celestia doesn’t like-”

“She’s a PRINCESS!? AWW YUSSS. You gotta take me with you when you get back!” Gaige says, tugging at Anthony’s arm, almost knocking him over.

“Eh, sure, why not? Might be good for a few laughs.” Anthony relents before Gaige can tear his arm off. “But first we gotta get home. And since a Vault Key brought us here I’m willing to bet we’re gonna need another key and a shitload of Eridium to power that sucker before we can get back.”

The vault hunters all nod. “No kidding, though it might not be a Vault Key, but something similar.” Maya says. “I mean, don’t rule it out or anything.”

Anthony is about to agree, when a sound interrupts him. The roar of an engine and a lot of screaming to be specific. Turning to see where the sound is coming from, the group sees a flaming car flying across the snowy wasteland, a large man, also on fire, ‘driving’ as he knocks others off, and everyone on the car is screaming, while the tagalongs and stowaways are being flung off the car.

It crashes into a rocky cliff face, throwing the entire lot to the ground, the large one popping up immediately, still on fire, and shouting, “BRAKES DON’T WORK WITH BRICKS!!!!”

Anthony just stares at the spectacle. “Is that... was that Psycho driving a car... that’s on fire, while beating the crap out of other psychos?”

Gaige pumps her fists, then pulls out a Tediore Shotgun, grinning widely. “Go Krieg! Let’s get some shooting done!” she shouts, and cackles madly, the other Vault Hunters getting equally deranged grins as they see the advancing wave of bandits and pulling out their own weapons. Zer0 has a sniper rifle of Maliwan make, Salvador has a Torgue Quad-Barrel Shotgun, Maya a Tediore SMG, Axton has pulled out a Dahl Assault Rifle, and all of them look so pleased.

“Wait, are these guys here for a party?” Pinkie asks, looking baffled.

“Eeyup.” Anthony says. “But not your kind of party. The Pandoran kind of party.” Anthony takes the Hyperion pistol he’d acquired from the Loader and prepares for battle, before... “Ah shit, I don’t have a shield! I’m gonna get perforated! Run!”

Rainbow Dash shakes her head. “No way, I’m not gonna run from-” she’s cut off by a stray bullet from the mob zipping past her cheek, drawing blood and making her cry out as she goes to her knees. “AUGH!”

“Imagine that hitting you in the knee!” Anthony yells. “Now run before the firefight gets closer!”

“You hit the rainbow pony! Kill ‘em all, Deathtrap!” Gaige yells, enraged at the shot hitting her favored pony.

Within moments, right in front of Anthony, a seven-foot-tall hovering contraption made of scrap metal and recycled CL4P-TP units digistructs, its sole eye and armored head turned towards its mistress before turning towards the enemies that had made the fatal mistake of angering her.

Next to Deathtrap, a turret pops up, digistructed out of a ‘grenade’, and the other Vault Hunters all scream and shout and begin to charge, the flaming, giant Psycho screaming obscenities and crashing into the frontlines of Bandits.

Anthony points to the vault hunters. “Unless you can do something like that, we’re running!” Rainbow looks like she’s going to argue again until a Bandit unloads a Jakobs shotgun point-blank into Krieg’s chest, and it only makes him angrier.

“Uh, gotcha,” she says with wide eyes, and grabs Pinkie, who’s staring intently at the fight as Anthony and Dash drag her to safety behind the larger vehicle parked in the ‘gas station’.

Anthony looks around for a Zed machine, hoping to purchase a shield, but the only vending machines are for guns and ammo. “Damnit, Marcus is cornering the market out here.”

“Who’s Marcus?”

“Someone you’ll learn to love once you get a damn good deal on a Jakobs sniper rifle.” Anthony says. “And I was not paid to say that.”

Rainbow Dash nods. “Of course not, that’d be ridiculous.”

Pinkie looks back and forth, wondering about their choice of words, before looking over the fighting once again. Neither Anthony nor Dash hear her whisper to herself, “I think I understand this party now...”


----- (/\) -----


Five of the Vault Hunters come back, laughing and dragging more loot than before, Krieg having ‘fun’ stomping or dancing on the back of a still-living Psycho, who’s calling out nursery rhymes as he’s trampled to death.

Anthony looks out at the field, practically all the snow stained reddish brown with blood and all sorts of insides that were now outside. Impressively, there isn’t a single dead body, each one having sat for only a few moments before digistructing away.

“Gotta say one thing for Jack. He keeps the planet from stinking like a morgue.”

Maya laugh and nods. “Yeah, no kidding! Oh, hey, you don’t have a shield, do ya?” she asks, “Or were you just practising sniping with that pea-shooter?”

“No shields. Was gonna rush in there, but, uh... yeah. Expensive to die and I’m strapped for cash.”

Maya nods. “Here, we’ve all got extras, here’s one I’ve had for a while. It’ll do ya for now.” she says, and tossed the young man a simple Tediore shield, nothing flashy or strong, but effective enough. Gaige quickly acts to give Rainbow Dash one of her own, and Pinkie gets one from Salvadore, who is showing a remarkable amount of compassion, given he’s a native of Pandora. And one with violent tendencies notable even among the crowds of Psychos and Bandits.

Anthony takes the shield and clips it to his belt, and watches as a blue bar above his health slowly, very slowly, fills up. “What’s the recharge rate on this thing?” He brings up the ECHO’s stats on his current gear and gawks at the low number.

“Yeah, that’s a low-level Tediore Turtle for ya.” Maya says. “Sorry, but it’s not often we can loot shields. The bandits don’t use ‘em that much.”

“Yeah, but hey, glad to have one in general, at least until I can get myself in the New-U station network.”

“Oh! Oh right! I forgot to tell you something!” Claptrap says, practically shouting over the ECHONet. “I can get you into that! Gimme a sec... And... Oh, no, now Elvis is gonna spawn from the- no, not the fifty-fifth president of Atlas... ah, here we go! Ant-Berry, Raindrops, and Purple Pie are all in the system now! Aren’t I a great friend!?”

Anthony sighs then whispers to Maya, “We’ll find one and do it manually.”

The Siren giggles and nods. “Yeah... we have an angel on our side for stuff like that.” she whispers back. “Like, literally, she calls herself Angel and everything.”

Anthony stops, recalling Angel from the game and exactly who she is. “Uhhh... about Angel...” He looks at Maya then decides not to ‘spoil’ everything lest the space-time continuum not like him revealing secrets. “Do you know where she is?”

“Oh, have you already met her?” Maya asks, looking a bit brighter. “We don’t know where she is, but she’s been a friend to us so far.”

“Not... personally.”

“Did the whole ‘Ghost on the Net’ thing, right? Yeah, we all got messages from her like that. I think she just likes Vault Hunters or something.” she bumps Anthony’s shoulder. “Hey, if you’re looking to get some good beginner’s loot and level up that clearance rating of yours, you’re gonna want to go raid the Bullymong colony south of here. They’re a pain, but they repopulate super-quick.” she suggests.

“Yeah, now that we’ve got weapons and protection, I think we can handle ourselves for a bit. But hey, don’t be strangers.”

Maya bids the three goodbye as they walk off, Pinkie asking why they didn’t stay together.

“Well, see, I know things that... they shouldn’t know. Not yet. And it’s probably best that we split up anyway, they’re much higher level than us and if we stick together we’d just drag them down.”

“So we gotta get tough so we can reach their level, right?” Rainbow asks. “Like one of those arcade games the foals play?”

“Wait, how do you know something they shouldn’t know? And aren’t you friends? Is it a surprise party? ‘Cuz that’s the only kinda secret you should keep from your friends.” Pinkie says.

Anthony nods at Rainbow. “Exactly like the games. And as for a surprise... it’s the biggest surprise ever. It’ll even have one of their friends... falling over.”

“Why’s he gonna fall over?” Pinkie asks, going a bit quiet as her intuition gives her an inkling of the truth.

Anthony wrings his hands. “He’s going to be really, extra-special surprised...”

“Anthony... it’s not a nice surprise party, is it?” she asks, getting an odd, puzzled look from Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah... it’s an ambush, a trap. And unless we can throw a wrench in Jack’s plans, people... good people, innocent people, are gonna die. But we can’t help those Vault Hunters. Not directly.”

Pinkie nods, but RD just shakes her head. “Wait, they gave us stuff, for free, just to be nice, and we’re not going to help them? What the heck, Anthony?”

“Rainbow, what does your ECHO say about your level? What Level are you?”

She takes a moment, trying to figure out how to access that, before realizing it’s on her HUD, and replies, “One. That means I’m number one, right? The best!”

“Backwards, actually. Imagine it like... experience points. As you get more experience here on Pandora, then that number will go up. Those guys out there that helped us, are level 15. They have fifteen times as much power as us. If we stuck with them, we’d just weigh them down.”

“O- oh... then... we gotta get strong, quick! They acted like friends, even that weird... girl. She’s a girl, right?” Anthony nods. “Yeah, even with how weird she was, she was just being nice, I know that. And I refuse to slow my friends down! Show me what to d-”

A car suddenly screeches to a halt right next to the three travellers, the slick speed car painted neon, eye-breaking pink with an arousing image of Moxxi decaled onto the side facing them. “Hey, ponies! I thought you might want these, so you can use your guns and pew-pew-pew the bad guys!” Gaige yells, chucking a quartet of what look like harnesses. “Put ‘em on and turn ‘em on, they’re exo-skeletons. You can upgrade ‘em like anything else, and they’ve got hands for you! Thumbs ro~ock!” she waves and salutes, before driving off again, with Krieg running gunner and staring menacingly at the three new Vault Hunters through the one eyehole in his mask.

“Well.” Anthony starts. “That was random.”
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Uh, I think it goes like this...”

“No, that feels weird.”

“You’re bipedal now, of course it feels weird.” Anthony says, rolling his eyes as he watches Pinkie and Dash try to help each other into the exoskeletons. They were like frames ripped out of a robot and remade to fit some sort of human-pony hybrid. Made out of robot bones.

Rainbow Dash was having the worst of it though. “First I can’t fly and now you expect me to run on two legs?”

Pinkie, for her part, seems to have mastered the device and is wearing it like a suit, her ECHO and shield hooked onto the robotic attachments. She successfully stands on two legs and starts walking and jumping around, like a child who had finally grown out of its toddler phase.

Rainbow opts to stay on all fours, though this removes her use of the built-in finger-like extremities Gaige had installed. “I just can’t run like this, not at full speed, and if I can’t fly I at least wanna be able to run.”

“Idunno Dashie, this seems pretty fun!” Pinkie pulls out a standard Jakobs pistol and aims it around, using her new thumbs.

“Pinkie, don’t wave that around!” Anthony yells, “We may have shields now, but their recharge rate and delay is crap, especially mine.”

“Okie-dokie Anthony.” Pinkie says as she returns to walking around and climbing on snowy rocks.

“So what are we doing exactly?” Dash asks, more than a little bored. “Nothing’s happening.”

Anthony shushes the pony quickly. “Don’t say that, Pandora has ears.”

“I haven’t seen any around.” Pinkie says, “Are you sure?”

Anthony sighs again. “It’s a figure of speech. If you complain about being bored, it’s likely you’ll get jumped by a bunch of bandits.”

“Doesn’t change that I’m bored.” Rainbow mumbles. “And I don’t wanna walk like a human.”

“But if you don’t, you won’t have hands free to hold a gun.” Anthony says. “But if you’re sure...”

“I’m sure.” Dash insists, set in her ways for the time being. “Besides, I won’t need a gun.”

“Yes, yes you will.” Anthony corrects. “But if you really don’t wanna to use thumbs just yet, then you’ll want a Tediore. Here, I snagged one from the pile.”

“Uh, that’s a toy, Anthony.”

“Nah, Tediore just has real low-budget stuff. That and not needing thumbs is actually one of their marketing campaigns.”

“Huh.” Rainbow takes the gun in her mouth, and makes an odd face. “Tastes awful.”

“This is Pandora, Dash, ‘clean’ is not an option out here.”

Rainbow sighs and grips the gun in her mouth, pulling the simple trigger by chewing on the gun’s handle. Several bullets later the gun clicks. “Uh, it’s broke, Anthony.”

“Nuh-uh.” Pinkie insists. “You just gotta reload it!”

Anthony stares at Pinkie and just nods slowly, a bit disturbed with how quickly Pinkie is catching on to things around here.

“How do I reload it then?”

“It’s a Tediore.” Anthony explains simply. “Chuck it.” Rainbow gives Anthony an odd look but hurls the gun, spitting it out, the gun landing a few meters away. The gun sits there for a few moments as the group stares at it. After a few seconds there’s a decently-loud ‘boom’ and the gun explodes.

“Uh, Anthony that didn’t wo-ghlable!” Rainbow was cut off by the gun reappearing in her mouth in a flash of digistruction. Dash looks at the marked ground where the gun had exploded, then down at the gun in her mouth. “Wha’ wassat?”

“Tediore. Fastest reloading guns on the market.” Anthony says. “You just throw it, and it ‘reloads’ by exploding and digistructing back into your hands. Er, mouth.”

“That... ush ahshum!” she says, before letting it go, where it gets caught by an auto-holster.

“Yeah, figured you’d like that if you don’t wanna use your thumbs. But seriously, everything on this planet is built by humans, for humans, so you’ll want to get the hang of being bipedal eventually.”

“Whatever. This is good enough for now.”

“Yeah, you say that while holding a Level one, white Tediore smig.” Anthony comments, rolling his eyes.

“Better than what you got!” Dash says. 

Anthony just quirks an eyebrow and holds up his yellow-white gun. “Better huh? This is a Hyperion pistol. The guy who makes them is a jerk to end all jerks, but it’s damn good.”

“Oh yeah, what’s it do?”

“Oh oh oh! Does it explode into confetti!?” Pinkie asks excitedly, now amusing herself by switching between four legs and two, getting better at the transition.

“Nope, doesn’t explode. It’s got reverse kick.”

“Reverse kick?” Rainbow asks, and admittedly unless you’re familiar with weapon lingo it does sound weird.

“Well, take Pinkie’s gun. It’s a Jakobs. You can fire with it, but when you do, the kick of the bullet firing makes you less accurate the more you shoot. Jakobs has by far the most kick out of all the guns. Watch.”

Pinkie hands Anthony her gun and Anthony aims at a shelf of ice, holding the gun as steady as possible. He fires two, three, four, five bullets in rapid succession, each one straying further than the last, putting scattered holes into the ice shelf where the bullets made contact. By the end of the demonstration, Anthony could barely hit the broadside of a barn, even with the ECHO’s auto-centering.

“Now watch what a semi-automatic Hyperion pistol can do.” He says, grinning as he whips out his own gun, passing the Jakobs back to Pinkie. He aims at the wall again and holds down the trigger on his own weapon and, while the bullets start off flying randomly, the gun stabilizes in his hands and starts shooting bullet after bullet right into the ice shelf, the last three bullets being consecutive bullseyes. “That’s Hyperion. Just fire for a bit and you’ll land just about every shot. As long as you keep firing. A direct opposite to other manufacturers.”

Pinkie and Rainbow are indeed impressed with the accuracy of the gun, but... “I prefer mine.” Dash says. “It’s a lot easier to... uh...”

“Reload.”

“Right, reload.”

“So what’s mine do?” Pinkie asks excitedly, handing the Jakobs back to Anthony, who takes the gun.

“A fine Jakobs pistol. When it comes to a firefight, these babies will tear through enemies. High strength, high-power bullets. And...” He walks up to the ice shelf where they had been practicing and indicates the Hyperion bullets compared to the Jakobs. “If you look here, you can see how deep the Jakobs pistol sent its bullets into the ice. It started scattering near the end but they still penetrate much deeper than the Hyperion gun did, despite its accuracy. You hit someone with a Jakobs, it’s gona do some damage.”

“Ooooooo~ooooh...” Pinkie sing-songs as she looks over the gun in her hooves.

“So what guns are the best?” Dash asks. “They seem pretty different.”

“Oh very. No two guns are alike unless specially made.” Anthony explains. “The manufacturer may determine what the gun is best at, but it’s stats are determined by the sum of its parts.”

“Parts?”

“You know how I mentioned I wanted that assault rifle earlier?”

“Yeah? Hey, you were gonna trade me for that thing! Not cool dude!”

“I was joking, I swear!” Anthony holds up his hands in defense. “Anyways, I wanted it because of its barrel, mainly.”

“You said it was...” Dash starts.

“Vladof!” Pinkie finishes, happily, recalling perfectly.

For his part, Anthony couldn’t imagine Pinkie was paying attention as she was making a snowpony at the time, but shrugs it off. “Yeah, Vladof guns are the opposite of Jakobs in a way. Instead of firing a few, high powered shots, Vladof is all about more bullets. You don’t need better aim or stronger impact, what you need is to churn out so many bullets that aim and power doesn’t matter. And those are my kind of weapons, honestly. More dakka, as they say.”

“You sure know a lot about guns.” Rainbow Dash comments warily. “I thought only gryphons had them.”

Anthony grins. “I’ve spent a good couple months of accumulated lifetime playing Borderlands. I know my way around Pandora. Mostly.”

“Anyway now that the lessons are over... what do we do?”

“We find some Bullymongs.” Anthony says, “That’s what Maya said.”

“Which one was Maya again?”

“The super-pretty lady with the glowy stuff all over her!” Pinkie says, helpfully.

“Uh, okay... and what exactly is a Bullymong?”

“Oh oh oh oh oh! Lemme guess, lemme guess! Is it a giant creature with four arms and two legs and covered in fur?”

That gives Anthony a start. “Uh, yeah. How’d you guess Pinkie?”

“Oh, there’s one right over there!” Anthony looks up to see a group of four bullymongs prowling around their dens, awakened by the gunfire. “They look angry and really fluffy.”

“Yeah! Bullymong fur is great!” Claptrap yells over the ECHO. “It’s useful for all kinds of things, especially drying up robot tears!”

“Robots don’t cry, Claptrap.” Anthony deadpans.

“Shows what you know, meatsack!” Clappy cheerfully counters.

“What did you call me, wingnut-brain!?” Anthony yells into the ECHO, unfortunately getting the attention of the bullymongs. “Claptrap, I’m going to get to Sanctuary and swap your eye with your upload port.”

“That’s really violent, and kinda offensive!” the ‘bot’s chipper voice responds. “I think I’m gonna go hide under some scrap metal instead of giving you pointers now.”

“Pfft, I can handle some stupid Bullym-ohgo-!”

“ROOOAAR!!” the first Bullymong, having been coming down the cliff, catches Anthony in the side with a hurled chunk of ice which breaks on impact, but not before slamming Anthony back several feet. If he hadn’t had a shield to take the brunt of the damage, he’d be in big trouble.

“Slingers... of fucking course.” Anthony groans as he gets up, noting that since the ponies were closer, they were the new targets. A few missed shots later, Anthony manages to land a couple bullets in the bullymong’s foot, then chest, then face and the HUD gives a flash saying ‘Critical’ signifying a direct hit. Anthony is about to continue firing when ‘click - click- click’

“Sonofa-...”

Rainbow runs up to the Bullymong and bucks it in the face, the melee attack doing significantly more damage than Anthony’s bullets. The Bullymong roars and collapses, though it’s call is heard by it’s family.

All six of the Bullymongs, including two of the midget-like young, all come thundering towards the trio, intent on ripping them apart, murder in their beady eyes.

Anthony reloads as fast as he can, which actually takes nearly a full minute due to the practice not being one he’s done in real life. Ever. Now he wished he’d grabbed a Tediore.

Speaking of, Rainbow shoots a bunch of the Bullymongs in the chest and arms, before hearing the clicking of an empty gun and chucking it... missing by a mile but hitting one of the Monglets with a direct, explosive hit.

“I uh... meant to do that!”

“Brag later, live now!” Anthony says as the bigger Bullymong is now on the ponies and followed closely by it’s friends.

Pinkie, mostly forgotten, has discovered the second property of Jakobs guns: firing as fast as you can pull the trigger. With this discovery made, she rushes around behind the charging bullymong and shoots it in the back, point-blank sending more than a few bullets through the Bullymong’s tough hide.

The Bullymong roars in pain, swatting at its own back as much as its overmuscled arms can, one of the slingers chucking ice at the pink menace. Pinkie, for her part, is giggling, as she slaps another set of bullets into her gun with an almost disturbing amount of prowess for a being who’d never even seen a gun before that day, and unloads another five rounds into the back of the Bullymong’s head, splattering blood and brains all over Rainbow Dash, who cries out in confusion and disgust at the sudden torrential downpour of gore.

“Get used to that feeling Dash.” Anthony yells as he runs forward to join Pinkie in taking care of the smaller ones. He looks up at the top of the cliff and sees a Bullymong picking a huge chunk of ice out of the ground. “Still got slingers!”

“On it!” Dash yells as she runs around the now-dead Bullymmong in front of her, and starts spraying at the one currently flinging ice at the group.

“Extra damage if you hit ‘em in the face!” Anthony reminds. “It’s their weak spot!”

Pinkie and Dash, regrouping at the start of the hill, train their fire on the slinger while Anthony aims his rapidly dwindling supply of pistol ammo at the heads of the oncoming small horde.

The three slowly back towards each other, laying down fire left and right, Rainbow Dash finally going bipedal to get a better grip on her SMG, Pinkie laying in some shockingly precise shots, and Anthony spending his bullets like they’re made of money.

After some time, the entire group is finished with the bullymongs, though the battle had taken a large toll on their resources. Panting from the unfamiliar exertion, Anthony lands in the snow. “Not... bad for... first fight.”

“That was awesome!” Rainbow yells, pumping a forehoof in the air. Adrenaline is running strong in her veins, making her heartbeat match a distressed jackrabbit’s.

“I agree, that was fun... but a little messy.” Pinkie agrees, staring at the now-brown snow. “So, now what?”

“See that bar on the bottom of your HUD?” Anthony asks, getting confirmative nods from the ponies. “When that fills up completely with cyan, you level up.”

“Yeah, part of my bar is up from a bit ago.” Pinkie says, and Dash notices the same.

“The more kills you get and the more skilled you are with the kills, the faster you level up. Also it increases based on how high level your foes are.”

“I don’t think we’d be able to do that again soon, I’m out of ammo.” Dash says, and, checking his own stores, Anthony says the same, leaving Pinkie the only one with any bullets left. “How do we refill?”

“Buy bullets, or find them.” Anthony informs. “And I don’t have any cash.”

“You think they’ll take Bits?”

“Doubtful. Just search these piles of bones and stuff.”

Dash gives an exaggerated ‘ugh’ but begins to kick over bone piles, Pinkie reaching into snow banks and rummaging through the frozen bushes, while Anthony checks out the dens, to see if the Bullymongs were all taken care of, which they had, thankfully.

“I found something!” Pinkie yells, pulling out a battered-looking Vladof assault rifle.

Anthony and Dash hop down to where Pinkie was searching and Anthony takes the Assault Rifle, placing his pistol into a pocket. He’d have to get a holster at some point. “Yeah, this’ll do us for a bit. Huh, still fully loaded too, only missing a few rounds. Bullymongs must’ve got the drop on the poor schmuck.”

Dash looks it over. “Duuude, can I try it?” she asks, holding out her hooves for it.

“I thought you said you didn’t need a gun?” Anthony taunts her.

“Yeah, but that one’s bigger! That means it’s a better gun, right?”

“Not always, actually. It’s not the size of the gun, it’s the stats, make, and manufacturer. And rarity of course. This one’s white and level one just like all our other guns. The only difference is it’s an assault rifle, which I could definitely use a bit better for medium range than the pistol.”

Anthony takes the rifle and gives the Vladof barrel a quick spin, and it makes about two rotations before jamming. “Eesh. Or I could if it was in better condition. That’s the problem with looting from bodies.”

“Wait... we’re graverobbing!?”

“No, we’re taking things that the deceased no longer need.” Anthony clarifies for Rainbow. “Big difference. And besides, they’re all just respawning anyways.”

“Define ‘respawning’ for me real quick.” Dash says, questioningly.

“Well, imagine if you died... and could come back.” Anthony says. “Your body, once registered in the New-U Station Network will be digitally reconstructed in the event that you die.”

“So we’d be rebuilt as robots!?” Pinkie asks, very excited at the idea.

“Not quite. We’d uh... well, we’d... I actually don’t know how it works. But I know it works, we just need to get into the New-U station. Claptrap said he did it for us already but since he can barely open doors half the time, I say we do it manually.”

“Hey! That is a false accusation, sir! I can open doors 78.999% of the time!”

“And the other percents, the doors lock down and shoot at you.” Anthony deadpans. 

“You have no proof, meatling. Oh, wait, I was sulking! I’m going back to that now.”

“Please do, at least you’re quiet.”

“I will give you the silent treatment!”

Anthony looks at Rainbow and Pinkie. “Thank God for that.”

“You’re kinda mean to him, Anthony.” Pinkie admonishes. “He’s just trying to be nice.”

“You haven’t had to listen to that voice call you ‘minion’ for a combined total of several hours.” Anthony folds his arms. “Anyways, we should really be looking for money and vendor trash.”

“Axton said that too, ‘vendor trash’, what is it?” Pinkie asks.

“You know what a white elephant gift is?” Anthony asks.

“A gift for an elephant with a skin problem?”

“No, it’s something you give to someone as a gift because you don’t want it. A gift that you give away not to be nice but to get rid of it. Like a battered hat or... an assault rifle that jams after two spins.”

“Oh. But why would you give that to an elephant?”

“It’s called a white elephant because... uh... well, the idea is that you can’t do much with a white elephant so it’s considered a worthless gift, so anything given as a worthless gift is called a white elephant.”

“Human speech is weird.” Dash comments, looking at Anthony strangely. “And what does that have to do with vendor trash?”

Anthony takes a deep breath to explain in simpler terms. “Vendor trash is a term we use for objects that have little value, and the only use we have for them is selling them to vendors for money. It’s trash to us, but we give it to vendors for money. So it’s vendor trash. Junk that we trade for money.”

“Oh, like a pawn shop?” Pinkie suggests. “I love browsing pawn shops! There’re all kinds of neat things ponies-”

“Yeah, like a pawn shop.” Anthony interrupts. “Only all the merchandise is guns and shields and grenade mods.”

After a bit more explanation, Dash and Pinkie catch on. “So this spinny-gun is vendor trash because it doesn’t spin?”

“Exactly! We can give it up for money which we can use to buy better stuff.”

“Ooooooooooooh, okay!” The two ponies say, finally understanding. Though Pinkie interrupts. “So why is all this stuff we find in these piles vendor trash?”

Anthony sighs. “Because it’s all used, broken or failing stuff. I mean, if a gun worked fine, don’t you think the person holding it would have killed the Bullymong instead of being killed?”

“Okay, that does make sense.” Dash admits. “But that one over there is Green, isn’t that good?”

Anthony tromps over to the pile with a green light coming from it and finds a basic grenade mod. It’s tag indicates it’s for a level three though, two levels too high. “Clearly the Bullymongs got the poor sap before he could pull the pin. But hey, finders’ keepers.” Anthony may not be able to use it now, but If he doesn’t find a better grenade mod before he is good enough to use it, he’ll have something to fall back on.

“Kill it if it’s charging at you and finders’ keepers... yeesh, what kind of place is this?”

“Welcome to Pandora, kiddos!” comes a charismatic, and very haughty voice over the ECHO. Anthony knew that voice well, better than Claptrap’s, and the sound of said voice made his blood run cold. “Woah, waitasec... are these really your names, or just what your retarded psycho friends named you? Ant-Berry? Raindrops? Purple Pie? Man, I’ve heard some doozies in my time but this beats ‘Flesh Stick’ by a long shot! You oughta just shoot yourselves in the face now... hohohoh, god. I needed a laugh. You seriously think you scum-lickers are vault hunter material? That Truxican dwarf at least has a headcount! I give you guys two minutes out there. Tell you what-”

“Jack, you shut your goddamn mouth before I rip your tongue out with a bandsaw!!” Anthony yells into the ECHO, but the yell is discarded by a bored sigh.

“Uhg... thirty three.”

“What?”

“I’ve heard that threat thirty three times now. I have this big, old-school whiteboard by the radio seat here, with tallies next to all the threats I’ve gotten, and I gotta ask... do you guys all have a big book of Vault Hunter threats you gotta make? Because I have to admit, that would make for a hilarious read.”

“...” Anthony, shocked by the fact that Jack said something that doesn’t even seem remotely scripted, is rendered speechless. This isn’t a Jack double or something with pre-programmed dialogue. He’s talking to the real Handsome Jack.

“Anyways, good luck getting to Sanctuary, you’re gonna need it. Oh, and have some presents! I’m sure you could do with a better, more... ‘bombastic’ welcome to Pandora!” He gives an evil laugh, before the connection severs.

Anthony, wide-eyed at the very-real disguised threat, gulps and turns to the ponies. “Duck and cover, now!”

The two look confused for a second before six pods, one that had, ironically, been launched with them earlier, finally stop skipping across the atmosphere to drive down at the land around them, rapidly disgorging dozens of loaders at the wildly unprepared trio of outsiders. And, to add insult to injury, a New-U station constructs out of one of the Loader pods, meaning there’s no escape, even if they were slain.

And there’s no backup coming from the other Vault Hunters this time.

“Goddamnit, Jack...”
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, last time we left off, we were at... ah... oh, right, they were about to die horribly, and probably repeatedly. Now settle down, and let’s get back to the story. No, really, sit the fuck down or I’ll stop telling you the story.”


----- (/\) -----


Rather than being allowed to slowly and consciously involve their minds with their first deaths, Anthony, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash experience their first twenty deaths all in a row, one right after another. Eventually, the group manages to escape once the loaders run out of ammunition and grenades, using the time it takes for the ‘bots to charge their optic blasts to escape.

The three, having now had plenty of tastes of what failing combat could result in, all hide behind a large rock as the Loaders blunder around, slipping and falling in the snow as they search for the two ponies and the human.

Dash, gasping for air, keeps patting down her chest and side, where she’d been shot the most. “G-gah, what the hell, Anthony?! W-what was that!?”

“D- depends.” Anthony says, holding his head, feeling a headaches onset. “The loaders, the dying, or the asshole on the ECHO?”

Pinkie whimpers. “Yes?”

“Okay, those robots are loaders, Jack’s bots. Jack, Handsome Jack, was that guy on the ECHO before he sent his robots after us. Long-story short, he wants all the Vault Hunters and rebels on Pandora dead.”

“B-but why?” Pinkie asks, sounding plaintive.

“He wants the Vault first, so he can control Pandora, and in order to do that he’s planning on wiping out everyone else on the planet so he can swoop in, control the Vault, and take over.”

“So... he wants to live here?” Rainbow Dash asks confusedly. “I thought you said this place was the pits?”

“It is. It’s also practically overflowing with Eridium, a powerful, alien element Jack wants really badly. And he’s going to turn Pandora from a barren wasteland into a... well, an even worse barren wasteland to do it.”

“Sounds like the bad guy for sure. A real villain, through and through.” Dash comments.

“Yeah, and he won’t stop until we’re dead.”

“But... aren’t we already dead? I mean, those meanie-robots... just...” Pinkie’s ears droop further. “Y’know...”

“Yeah, he just killed us. But we’re still alive because he allowed us access to the New-U stations so we would respawn. He owns the New-U stations.”

“But... if he wants us gone, why doesn’t he just take us out of the system and kill us for good?”

Anthony puts an arm around Rainbow and Pinkie each to console them from what he’s about to say. “Because he wants to keep killing us. He wants to prove that even if we were immortal, completely invincible... he’d still kill us. He’s that much better than us. That’s his game.”

The ponies think that over and shudder.

“Yeah, he’s scary.” Anthony says softly. “But that’s why we gotta beat him. Show him we’re strong and that no matter how many times we may die, we still won’t give up.”

“Show him we’re heroes!” Rainbow says, getting a bit of confidence back.

“No. Not heroes. We need to be better than heroes. We need to be Vault Hunters.”

Rainbow looks up at him, at first with confusion, until her gaze hardens into a look of steely determination. “Yeah. Yeah! We’re not just going to beat him, we’re gonna show we’re better than him in every way!” she says, smirking confidently. “That back there was just a minor setback. Let’s get to that Sanctuary place, get better guns, and blow these losers away!”

Anthony has to smile. “Look at you, pretty much made for Pandora already. What do you think Pinkie? Wanna show a bully he’s not the king of the playground?”

“I’ll throw him a party like he’s never seen before. And it’ll be perfect for his meanie-pants self. I’m gonna throw him one of his own parties. And nopony escapes a Pinkie Pie Party.”

“Yeah... let’s do this, together. We’ll find that Vault, and stop Jack before he can take it.” The three newly-hardened Vault Hunters share a three way hoof/fist-bump and head for Sanctuary.


----- (/\) -----


The three come across a group of bandits, five of them huddled around a fire, with a Marauder sitting closest of all. Before the three try to engage, Rainbow Dash notices that one of the barrels near the fire has a ‘fire’ symbol she doesn’t recognize, and pokes Anthony, to ask him what the barrel means.

“Incendiary.” He explains. “Watch this.” Anthony lines up a shot and, judging his aim carefully, hurls an unmodded grenade over to the barrel and pulls the ponies back under cover.

“I thought you said to see-” Pinkie starts, until a loud boom rocks the ground and a ‘Fwoosh!’ follows soon after and-

“Uuuuuuuugh-ohgod-ohgod!”

The ponies and Anthony lean out from their cover to see the group of bandits lying on the ground, charred to the bone, their clothes melted to their blackened skin.

Anthony is fairly disgusted by the smell and soon the smell reaches the ponies as well and the whole group spends a few minutes gagging.

“*kaff* Fire damage. Really effective, *koff* against unshielded enemies.”

“But, *gag* we have shields, so that won’t happen to us?”

“As long as *urg* our shields hold up, yeah.”

“Where’s the bastard that did this? All my crap’s on fire!” The Marauder, apparently made of tougher stuff than the other bandits, is still on fire, but is stumbling around, gun in hand, looking for the one who’d set off the barrel.

Anthony nods to the ponies, making a ‘keep quiet’ motion, then counting down on his fingers.

‘three, two, one’

“Go!”

The trio rush out of their cover, Rainbow vaulting over it, and Anthony and Pinkie coming from either side.

The Marauder never knew what hit him, mostly because having a rainbow-maned pony kick your face in is pretty unusual, even by Pandoran standards. The attacks from the other two quickly finish the man off, taking him down in a gurgle of blood, before he digistructs away.

“Come on, let’s get out of here before he respawns!” Dash says, quickly.

“Hold on, let’s see what kind of stuff he had. Like I said, in order to survive that you’d need a good shield.”

“Looting time!” Pinkie giggles, starting to get into the spirit of Pandora a bit too easily for Anthony’s comfort. Heck, she didn’t even gag once from the smell of burning flesh.

“You’re starting to creep me out, Pinkie.”

“Well, you said it was a kinda party, and I am the premiere party pony!” she says, grinning and pronking towards the devastated campsite.

“Well, guess if one of us was gonna go native first, makes sense it’d be Pinks.” Dash admits, and Anthony just nods as Pinkie confirms that the Marauder did indeed survive longer on the merits of his shield. A Green Pangolin, level two. A great find for any sort of glass-cannon type player.

“Dibs!” Rainbow calls first, and Pinkie hands the shield to the pegasus who ditches her current shield in favor of the much higher capacity.

“Alright! Now let’s see what guns they had!”

“Actually...” Anthony says, looking over the bodies. “I think the grenade plus fire barrel was too much, that shield is the only bit of gear that didn’t get roasted to high hell. Nobody’d buy this stuff either.”

“We fried the vendor trash?”

“Not fried, roasted.” Anthony corrects. “It would be fried if that was a shock barrel.”

“Oooh... Ooh, a box!” Pinkie shouts, pronking towards a green Dahl Military box. The smallish container has a simple green-button opening mechanism, easy for Pinkie’s mechanical fingers to press, and it opens to reveal... Pistol and Assault Rifle ammunition.

“Sweet. Just divvy this stuff up evenly and we’ll actually be able to shoot again.” Anthony says, loading his Hyperion up again. “Was getting tired of running on empty.”

“Where’d you get that grenade anyway?” Dash asks, confused.

“Grenade mods. Most people, when they die, forget to take the grenade out of them and so there’s usually one or two to pick up even if you don’t have clearance for the mod itself.”

“Huh. Cool.”

“Same can be said for guns. Sometimes, rarely, they have ammo still in them.”

“So we can reload even if we run out as long as we keep taking out bandits?”

“Exactly... assuming they haven’t fired every shot they have by the time we kill them.”

“So.” Pinkie says, hopping back to the group. “Is that a shock barrel?” She asks, pointing to a blue barrel, sparking wildly.

“Yeah. That’d kill a shield in a second. Shock damage eats shield power like nobody’s business, while Fire isn’t good against shields but great against unarmored guys.”

“And what’s the green one?”

“Corrosive. Same as fire, but it’s for armored and metal guys like the loaders, not fleshy guys like bandits and bullymongs.”

“So it’s Rock Paper Scissors!” Pinkie exclaims happily. “Each one is better than the last.”

“Not quite, more like each one is best for a specific scenario. And guns, usually Maliwan, have elements too.”

“So you mean I could get a shotgun that shoots electricity?” Pinkie shouts, excitedly, which, again disturbs Anthony and Dash alike.

“Uh... yeah... or a Sniper rifle that’d melt a ‘bot down to nothing.”

“This is gonna be fun! Where do we get one?”

“Loot one, or buy one, just like any other gun.” Anthony says, pointing to a Vending machine. “Though that’s an Ammo Dump. They only sell ammo and grenade mods.”

“Oooh! Wait, does that mean they only buy those things, too?” Pinkie asks.

“Nope, Marcus isn’t picky. As long as it’s good enough to have a price tag on it, he’ll buy it, refurbish it, and sell it again at one of his gun vendors.”

“Wait, you mentioned Marcus before, and said he’s super cool. But he sells more than guns?”

“Yep, he’ll sell anything you want, whether you’re a newbie Vault Hunter or a trained legal assassin.” Anthony says, walking over to the vending machine to refill on pistol ammo. “Trust me, it’ll be a cold day in hell when Marcus isn’t helping out the hired guns.”

The vending machine gives a hearty “Thanks for the scratch!” as Anthony finishes his purchase and reloads his pistol.

“Alright, locked and loaded. let’s go level up and get some more loot.”

“Yeah, but we should probably get some better shields.” Pinkie suggests.

“Speak for yourself!” Dash says, showing off her Pangolin again. “This thing’ll take more bullets than both of you combined with shields!”

“As long as you don’t let it run out that is.” Anthony warns. “Pangolin works on a risk-reward system. See that tag on its stat card? Minus forty-seven health.”

“Oh, huh... how does that even work?”

“Ya got me.” Anthony says with a shrug.

“Well, now that I have bullets for it, I can try using this assault rifle. You said they have good rate of fire, better than the smig, right?”

“Nah, SMGs put out a lot more bullets, but the Assault rifle does more damage. You can see by looking at the stats. The green arrows show a boost if you switch and red arrows are a detraction.”

“Oooh! That’s what those meant. I was wondering.”

“Yeah, now let’s see, this Assault rifle has...” Rainbow Dash stares at the gun for a good minute and a half.

“What do you think, Dash?”

“Ugh, that reload speed is nutso! I’m sticking with Tediore.”

“Suit yourself.” Anthony says. “Pass me some ammo for this guy?”

Dash passes the bullets and Anthony reloads it. “Ah yeah, this clip is Bandit make.”

“Bandits make guns?”

Anthony shrugs. “If you can’t loot one, make one, right?”

“I suppose that makes sense...” Dash says.

“So what do Bandit guns do?” Pinkie asks, staring at the clip.

“Bigger clip size, usually holds a ton more ammo, but that makes reloading slow. This thing takes about... three seconds to reload but can fire around fifty times before running out.”

“That’s a lot of bullets!” Pinkie says, wide-eyed “You could take out an entire camp with that!”

“Yeah...” Rainbow says. “But with that reload speed, you’ll be shot before you can swap mags.”

Anthony stares at the ponies debating the gun. Yesterday, just yesterday they were pacifistic mostly-vegetarian ponies. Now, they were Vault Hunters in training. “Pandora really does change people...”

“Hey, Anthony, it’s a little chilly here. Can we get coats in Sanctuary?” Pinkie asks, shaking her body from the cold. Dash isn’t affected yet, but she’s a pegasus, and they’re in the sun still. It’ll get a lot colder the next time they’re all in caves or something, or at night. And Anthony’s starting to feel the cold, too.

“Most likely... Sanctuary is a place for the rebels, a haven for Vault Hunters. The only place Jack can’t touch.” He didn’t have the heart to tell them about Jack’s plan for Sanctuary just yet.

“Well let’s get there fast. We need to go before it gets dark or I’ll be a Pinkie-sicle!”

“But how?” Anthony asks, out of ideas. “We don’t have a vehicle.”

Dash groans. “And I couldn’t fly you both at the same time if I could fly here...”

Pinkie sighs. “We’d better get walking then, shouldn’t we?” she says, sounding unhappy.

“Yeah... Hopefully we can find a Catch-A-Ride or something. They’re like the Vending Machines but-”

“Hey! This’s where the cars live, gitchu one!” comes the familiar voice of Sanctuary’s mechanic from a machine.

“Yes! The gods have not forsaken us!” Anthony runs up to the machine but realises he’s not a ‘registered user’ and so was unable to order a car. “Damnit! So close, but so far...”

“Ey! Who’s messin’ with my systems? I know it ain’t the Vault Hunters, theys already paid.  Who’re you?” Scooter’s voice comes in clear, broadcasting through the speakers at the Catch-A-Ride.

“We’re Vault Hunters!” Pinkie says.

“Uh... in training.” Anthony supplements. “How much to become registered?”

“Choo’s Vault Hunters? More of ‘em? Waitasec, how do ah know you ain’t Hyperion?”

Anthony then grins. “Because anyone from Hyperion wouldn’t have the nards to say that Jack’s the biggest dickhead in the whole darn galaxy.”

“... Fair ‘nuff. Ah don’t really charge fer the Catch-A-Rides, unless you scrap one ah my beauties, I’ll jes add you to the user base... aight! Yer good to go! Come in and say ‘hey’ when you get to Sanctuary, so ah can hit cha if you lied to me about bein’ Hyperion.”

“Sure thing, dude.” Anthony replies, “Seeya soon.”

The machine clicks off and a vehicle meant for two people spawns in, one driver, one gunner. “I’m driving!” Rainbow shouts. “You guys are too slow!”

“You don’t know how to drive, Dash.”

“Pfft, can’t be that hard.”


----- (/\) -----


Well, two crashes and a new car later, and she had it under her hooves.

Anthony taking the gunner seat, aims the turret around and, with Pinkie’s ‘help’ with aiming, manages to take out a few Bullymongs. Not many, but a few.

“How much further to Sanctuary!?” Dash yells above the roar of the engine and the wind rushing past the group as the vehicle rockets across the landscape.

“Check the m- minimap on your ECHO!” Anthony shouts back.

“Got it. Be there in a few minutes at this rate!”

“In one piece!?” Anthony asks, seriously.

“No guarantees, dude! Hey, what’s this one do?” Dash slams a pedal down as hard as she can, and the car’s boosters activate sends the car flying, almost literally, across the wastelands, Anthony having to keep a deathgrip on the turret’s handles to keep from being flung off.

“This place is amazing!” Rainbow yells, enjoying the speed she had missed with her wings being useless.

“And d-dangerous!” Anthony yells, while Pinkie just whoops and screams happily at the ride.

“Mare up, pansy!” Dash cackles, face pulled into a rictus grin of adrenaline-fueled, heart-pounding joy.

After several lightspeed minutes the group crashes hard into the wall that is Sanctuary’s main gate, leaving a large dent in it and the car alike, and the group panting as they come off the adrenaline rush. “Okay... Never again!”

“How else are we supposed to get around though?”

“...Urgh...”

Dash backs up the vehicle and the group heads over to the comm station next to Sanctuary’s gates and a holographic image of a Crimson Raider shows up. “You Bandit skaglicks won’t get in that easi- Wait, what the heck are you?”

“We’re ponies!” Pinkie says happily. “Oops, I mean, we’re Vault Hunters!”

The Crimson Raider just stares blankly at the trio through his face-covering mask. “Well... that’s a new one.”

“Just let us in, would ya? It’s getting cold out here.” Anthony pleads.

“I don’t know... well, alright but if those things start pooping all over the place we’re gonna have a serious problem.”

Dash and Pinkie look horribly offended but Anthony stands between them and the hologram. “Don’t worry, they’re house trained.”

“Fine, fine, and if you really are Vault Hunters, we could use some help with a situation.”

“Sure, we’ll help any way we can!” Dash says, as if the job was already completed.

The gate shudders and lowers into the ground until it comes to a grinding halt, the dent put into it large enough to keep it from shifting aside into its ‘open’ position.

“Uh, hold on, we’ll get someone to fix that, just sit tight. And watch out for Skags!” With that, the hologram flickers out.

“How long do you think we have to wait?”

“Long enough for us to kill ya and take yer gear!” The deep voice of a Nomad bandit calls out as a group of bandits, now alerted to the presence of self-proclaimed Vault Hunters, grab their weapons and begin firing at the trio.

“Shit, we need cover!”

“The car!” Pinkie yells as Anthony and Dash slide into position behind the car, defending them from the gunfire. “That’s not what I meant.” Pinkie says, a manic grin on her face.

With a whoop, Pinkie jumps into the turret seat and takes out several bandits simply by mowing them down by sheer amount of ammo being slammed into them.

Anthony takes the opportunity to duck down and, now leaning out the side of the car, starts shooting at the Nomad but the smarter bandit holds up his massive shield made from a blast door, blocking the turret and assault rifle fire. After a time, the nomad starts advancing on the group and taunting them.

Dash runs out and charges the Nomad who attempts to swat Dash away with a shield bash, but is snagged in the knee by a stray bullet from Anthony’s low angle shots. Dash drops an unmodded grenade at the nomad’s feet and rushes back behind the car and...

“Awwww, nuts!”

*Boom!*

The nomad, blown to bits where his shield couldn’t protect him, drops the massive blast door, unshielding the myriad bandits that were hiding behind it. Several moments of shooting continue until it peters out.

When no more bandits come, the group stops panting then Anthony stares at Dash. “Are you nuts?”

“Yeah, dunno what I was thinking!” Dash admits.

“That was amazing! Pinkie shouts! “We were like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dakka! and he was all ‘hahahaha!’ and then Dashie was all zoom and then he went ker-blooeey!”

“Yeah Pinkie.” Anthony says, laughing. “We were there.”

“Looting time!” Pinkie shouts as she flips out of the turret seat and head over to the camp. From his point, Anthony can see the pale lights of some ammo, as well as a few white beams and two green beams. Hopefully, he thinks, they’re in their level range.

“So what we got, Pinks?” Rainbow asks, walking up, as Anthony loads up with the ammo available.

“Hmm... well, there’s a shield, and it says it reduces explosion damage, a long rifle in camo colors, a shotgun that’s all red and purple, a Grenade Mod, and a colorful pistol with blue lights on it!” she says, pushing them to the front. The rest is, as you would call it, ‘Vendor Trash’!” she beams up at Anthony, looking for his approval.

“Nice, this shock pistol will help take care of any shielded bandits.” Anthony says, replacing his old Hyperion pistol with the new Maliwan. “That Grenade mod would be good for Dash, it’s a Homing Mirv.”

“Why would that be good?” Rainbow asks, confusedly.

“Okay, homing means it’ll home in on a target. Rather than having to drop a grenade at his feet, you just toss it and it’ll head right for him. The mirv part means it’s gonna make little smaller ‘nades after the initial blast and hit any other baddies nearby, blowing them up too.”

Rainbow lets out an ‘Oooooooh’ at the description and hooks the grenade mod to her exoskeleton rig.

“And what’s this one?” Pinkie asks, holding up the sniper rifle. “It looks kinda... well the stats are really weird.”

Anthony takes the gun and says “It’s a sniper. It’s meant for hitting far away targets with accuracy. And it’s Dahl make, that means it’s got burst-fire. And this Hyperion scope gives it a good view distance.”

“What’s that mean though?” Pinkie asks.

Anthony looks through the scope and picks a lonely Psycho along the road out a decent distance away. “See that psycho over there?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

Anthony gets on one knee and takes several minutes getting the position just right. Dash however gets impatient. “Just show us already!”

“Shush you, I’m not that good with snipers, never had any practice.” Anthony aims carefully and, once the psycho has sat down in the snowy sand, takes the shot.

With a loud, repeated bang-bangbangbang! the sniper rifle fires four bullets at the psycho, the first two missing, but the other two blowing its head off at the neck.

“Wowie! That’s a lot of power!”

“That’s a Dahl sniper for ya.” Anthony says, showing it to Pinkie. “Use it to pick off guys that are charging from far away.”

Pinkie salutes and the group turns to the entrance of Sanctuary as the door finally slides down far enough for the group to to step over the top of the gate.
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oy vey... the next story I’m telling you is ‘Go the fuck to sleep’.” The large man settles back into the seat, a cup of some liquid in his hand. “Alright, back to the story...”


----- (/\) -----


Pinkie and Dash both goggle at the sights of the small city as they cross the long bridge, walking bipedally to get more of a view, Anthony just happy that they’re out of the car and away from Dash’s crazy driving skills.

When they get across the long, concrete structure, Pinkie poking at the rocky material, a man in a battered suit of red and black armor, much of it patched or repaired hastily, calls for them to halt.

He looks at the two ponies striding along, saying, “Holy crap, they walk like people too!”

“And you talk like a people too!” Pinkie replies cheerfully.

“That means you’re sane. Mostly. Well, as sane as you can get on Pandora.” Anthony says before shrugging. “I digress.”

“Yeah... I comm’d up to command, and Roland says he wants to speak to you three. Said he wants to meet the new Hunters.” the man says, waving them forward. “A few quick rules: no pooping in public, pee in the bathrooms only, don’t shoot anyone unless they try to shoot you first, or steal your stuff, or insult your mother. Oh, and don’t take food from Crazy Earl. Not because you’re not allowed to, but because he’ll bite you, and you’ll lose an arm or a leg and that’s if you’re lucky.”

Anthony recalls what Scooter said about Earl before. “He ate a car. I don’t doubt it.”

Dash turns to Anthony. “He what?!”

“He ate a car.” Anthony repeats. “Yeah, with like... a fork.”

Dash looks horrified, and Anthony just keeps walking. Pinkie picks up her fellow pony, transplanting her stunned self to the second gate of Sanctuary, and sets the rainbow-maned pony down as the gate rattles open.

The first landmark any newcomers to Sanctuary would see, and Anthony is no different, is Scooter’s garage. The door is open, and Scooter is visibly hunched over the engine block of a Runner.

Figuring they might as well make good on their promise to see him ASAP, they walk in. Dash speaks first. “How fast can that thing go?” She asks, referring to the Runner Scooter was working on.

“We don’t need a car that can go faster, especially not with your crazy driving.” Anthony admonishes before turning to Scooter in time to duck a thrown wrench. “Hey man! Look, we ain’t Hyperion! We aren’t robots and we don’t eat junk outta the garbage!”

“Ah’m not blind, that wuz fer sayin you don’t need a faster car!” Scooter yells, drawing another wrench from... somewhere. Anthony dives behind a van in need of a tuneup as Dash laughs at his misfortune. The hail of digistructed wrenches eventually peters out.

“I’m sorry!”

“Durn right... now you, missy, you were the one drivin, right?” he asks, to which Dash nods. “Well, all mah cars’ve got doodads to let me see how they’re handlin, and yers was off the flippin’ charts! It was sooo awesome.” Scooter sounds truly joy-struck by the speeds involved and sounding like a certain similarly-named young pegasus back on Terra.

“I know, right?! I wanna try doin’ tricks next time, and you should totally make one with wings on it! I’d be able to fly again!” she crows, giggling with childish glee.

“I’m not sure about wings, but...” Anthony starts, climbing carefully out from behind the van, earning him another wrench. “But if you want tricks there’s a few ramps and slopes out in the Dust. There's even a raceway out there owned by those country hicks.”

“Yeah, them’s the worst, but they gotta great track. Momma won’t let me enter a car, though, says she worked too hard to get us outta there to let us go back.” Scooter says, a touch glumly. “But hey, jus’ means I’ll blow it up someday instead!”

“Yeah, the Dust is the best place to go to test out cars. And get shot at by Buzzards.”

“What’s a Buzzard?” Rainbow asks, hearing the capital lettering on the name and understanding he doesn’t mean a bird.

“Annoyin’ flyin’ pieces of shit. Ah could make one a whole load better if me or mah sister had a copy of their plans, but those a-holes on the plate-oo won’t share.”

Anthony sneaks out from behind the van, this time not getting a wrench, so he walks over to join the ponies. “Anyways, yeah, we’re Vault Hunters in training. Still looking to make names for ourselves and get some better stuff than what we can loot off the local bandits.” He notes that Pinkie is gone and sighs. “Dash, you stay here... actually wait.” Anthony messes with his ECHO device “How do you open comms with this thing?”

“Three blinks and rolls your eyes in rapid succession.” Scooter says. 

“Thanks.” Anthony does as Scooter instructs and gets an image of Pinkie Pie with a caption calling her ‘Purple Pie’ which he just shrugs off.  The lack of an accent catches Anthony a few seconds later. He gives Scooter an odd look but returns to his call. “Hey Pinkie, where’d you go? You didn’t leave Sanctuary did you?”

“Noper-doodles! I went looking to see there’s any parties in town, and I found one!” A chill goes up and down Anthony’s spine, until Pinkie clarifies, “Miss Moxxi is really nice! And she gives the bestest hugs ever! Like, twelve of the people here said so!”

“Uh... yeah...” Anthony mutters. “Anyways, you’re at Moxxi’s? Stay there, we’ll be there in a sec.”

“But I want to keep talking with Scooter! He’s cool, Anthony.” Dash says, to which Scooter grins widely.

“Fine, you can stay here, but give me a call if you’re gonna leave Sanctuary for whatever reason.”

“Why? I’m a big mare, I can handle myself.”

“I’m just saying, Jack is liable to start launching mortars at the drop of a hat, and unless you’re in Sanctuary when they hit, the shrapnel’d cut you to ribbons.”

“She’d make mighty purdy ribbons, though!” Scooter says, grinning, and Dash gives a mildly confused chuckle, evidently not sure if that’s a good comment or not.

Anthony sighs and heads out towards Moxxi’s.

While he trudges along, Pinkie is sitting at the bar, every drunkard and the bartender herself grinning and singing drinking songs.

Pinkie, at this point, has gotten herself a pair of small, orange sweatpants that Moxxi no longer wanted, which she’d fitted over her exo-frame.

Moxxi, feeling a degree of happiness she hadn’t genuinely felt since she’d first tried dating Mordecai so long ago, has picked up the pony and was petting her mane. “Oh, Pinkie, darling, you’ve gotten the whole bar dropping tips and singing! You’re such a good boost to morale!” she says, grinning widely and laughing. Pinkie giggles as well, perfectly content with the petting and snuggles.

Anthony walks in, seeing a scene that, were the bar not definitely Moxxi’s wouldn’t be out of place in Ponyville, Pinkie having cast her own special form of magic on everyone. Anthony walks up and stares Moxxi directly in the eyes. “Yeah, Pinkie’s a great pal.”

Moxxi looks over at him, smiling more saucily now that she spied him. “Well, hello there! Is this delightful pony your friend, then?” she asks.

“Yep.” He says. “It’s a long story but we’ve known each other for, well, about a year now. She’s really something, huh?”

“Oh, indeed! So, what’ll you be having, sir~?” she asks, adding a bit of a purr to her voice, saleswoman instincts kicking in at the potential business.

Anthony thinks for a moment. With his powers on the fritz he’s not sure he’d want something to drink, but... “You still got some pizza available?” He’d seen the pizza boxes all over Pandora from his gameplay and always wondered what it tasted like.

“Oh! Of course! Phew, I’d thought that was turning into a losing venture. Maybe having a Vault Hunter eating at Moxxi’s will help revitalize it, yes?” she says, grinning. “So, what’ll it be, sugar?”

“Whatever you got the most of.” Anthony says. “I haven’t eaten in...” He pauses, recalling that at this point he’d mainly let his Star Core do his ‘eating’ for him, but that was no longer an option. “Idunno, a month now?”

“Skag cheese with Slag-Shrooms. Nobody wants it, but I swear it’s edible!” Moxxi says, smiling.

Anthony pauses at ‘Skag cheese’ but... well, Moxxi may be provocative but she’s still a legitimate businesswoman. “Sure, why not? How much will, ah...” Anthony brings up his current amount of cash he’d looted. “Damn, ammo’s expensive, I’m down to my last eight-hundred bucks.”

“Hun, pizza’s only fifteen for a large, or two for a slice. Though, of course, I always welcome tips!” she gestures towards her tip jar.

“Yeah, your reputation precedes you.” He says, seeing the familiar ‘insert your tip’ note attached to the jar. “So, you plan on opening another ‘dome?”

“Hoo, you’re sure up on the gossip! Why yes I am, and every dollar counts. And I can be generous with those that’re generous with me~” she says, adding a lilt at the end of her sentence to try enticing him into spending more money, leaning forward to expose more of her cleavage, forgetting she’s got a pony in front of her body.

“Sorry, lady,” Anthony grins. “Not interested.”

Moxxi gasps, sounding offended, and a needle-scratch sound interrupts the music everyone else was listening to/singing. The entire bar is staring at Anthony in shock.

“Wait... are you gay?” Moxxi asks, sounding bewildered. “B-because even gay guys still tend to ogle, at least a little.”

“Sorry, boobs aren’t my thing.” One of the men sitting at the bar just sort of... goes limp and topples off the bar in shock. “I’ve got tastes for other areas. Lower areas, specifically.”

Moxxi breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness, I thought I’d lost my touch for a moment.” she says, leaning against the bar’s spirits shelves, forehead against the glass as the music resumes. She’s not even pointing her rear at him intentionally at this point, it’s just circumstantial.

“What can I say?” Anthony replies with a shrug. “I’m a hard fish to catch.”

She takes a few deep breaths as Pinkie slides up into the barstool next to Anthony. “Yeah! I mean, I’ve been trying, for, like, seven months and I still haven’t gotten him!” she says with a note of exasperation in her voice.

Moxxi turns around. “And strangely, that does make me feel better. Hoo... anyways, you said you wanted a Skag Cheese and Slag-Shroom, right?” Her turnaround of her emotional state was mostly deception, but one entirely appropriate for a businesswoman at the cashier’s side of the counter.

“Yeah.” Anthony passes the required money to Moxxi. He really was surprised, usually eight-hundred only got you a low-level rifle of some kind. But then, guns are expensive. In retrospect, it makes sense that you could sell a gun for a good-sized meal.

Within a few minutes, he and Pinkie are sharing a large pizza, the cheese having a musky tang that isn’t entirely pleasant. But all in all, it’s perfect edible. And generously sized for only $15, you’d better believe it.


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


Once the pizza, and a second one, had been eaten, Anthony and Pinkie Pie sit back, full and relaxed. “At least Pandora isn’t the pits when it comes to food.” Pinkie says. “With the way Anthony made it sound, I figured we’d have to eat Baked Bads.”

“Well, sugar, I am a mother of two. I had to learn to cook, or we’d have starved.”

“Speaking of family and friends.” Pinkie says. “As fun as this has been, I do wanna go home at some point.”

A chorus of ‘Amen!’s comes from the small group of off-duty Crimson Raiders, drinking their paycheck away.

“As touching as your eating and reminiscing is, I asked you three to come meet with me.” Roland’s voice says over the ECHO. “You gonna keep me waiting any longer?” There’s a well-hidden note of anger buried under years of discipline in his voice and even Moxxi sighs and begins to usher them towards the door.

Dash, meanwhile, groans and begins to make her way to the exit of the garage, now sporting a red jacket and a pair of goggles, as well as some padded pants to cover her exo’s legs.

The three of them make their ways towards the Crimson Headquarters, Dash taking longer due to getting slightly lost, and they all head to the front door.

As soon as they open the door, a woman with a crazed expression, messy, knotted hair, and a dirty lab coat greets them with a truly manic smile. “Aliens!” she cries gleefully, reaching out and snagging both Dash and Pinkie and dragging them in.

“Uh, those aren’t...” Anthony stops and thinks. “Well I guess technically since they’re not native to this planet they are aliens but... I kinda need them, miss.”

The woman, Patricia Tannis, looks up at him like a deer in the headlights, Dash’s mane in her mouth.

“Yeah, lady, let us go!” Dash says, struggling in the crazy scientist’s grip. 

“Yeah! And besides, mine’s the tasty mane!” Pinkie says, gesturing at her poof of hair.

“Anyways, we promised Roland we’d see him and we’ve made him wait enough as it is, so uh... you can always study them later, right?”

“Oh, I suppose... But that’s a promise and you’re not allowed to go back on your promise, or I’ll make you sorry!” Tannis says, letting them go and gesturing wildly at the ceiling fan. Anthony isn’t sure if she means she’ll make the fan sorry, or that she’ll use the fan to make him sorry, and he really doesn’t want to find out.

The group makes their way through the cramped hall and up the stairs to the command center, just past the bank-vault like storage for the Raiders. There stands Roland and Lilith, awaiting them.

Anthony stares at Lilith. “You’re way prettier in person... I mean, hi.”

“Wow, good way to intro after making me wait. Guess I won’t turn you into bacon.” she says, smirking. Then, her eyes slide over to the ponies, brows furrowing. “Woah, never seen something like you before. And I’ve been on some really trippy drugs before.”

“Wow! Your swirly-tattoos glow just like Maya’s!” Pinkie notices first. “What’s your name?”

“Ah, I’m Lilith... and these’re because I’m a Siren.”

“Oh, I thought you were a girl.” Anthony and Roland both Face-Palm in unison.

Lilith gives Pinkie an upset look and just walks off. “Roland wants you. He’s back in the war room.” The response is blunt and short as Lilith leaves the three to meet the man of the hour.

“Was it something I said?” Pinkie asks, looking baffled.

“Yes Pinkie, yes it was.” Anthony says, rolling his eyes. He walks up to Roland. “Sorry for the wait, we just kinda forgot, I was... guess I was enjoying normalcy for a bit.”

Roland looks at him with a concerned look. “And you found that in Moxxi’s bar? Now I kinda feel sorry for ya.” He shakes his head. “Anyways. I wanted to meet you three for myself, and see what kinda folks you are. Seems we got a speedster, a jokester, and someone very, very lost.” he says, summing up the three with ease. “Either way, you three will need to help out around here if you want to stay welcome in Sanctuary. The other six Vault Hunters are all out working to fight Jack; what do you plan on doing to help out?” A faint noise, like static or a choked-off snicker catches Anthony’s attention for a moment, before he shakes it off to answer Roland.

“Whatever we can manage, really. We know what we’re doing, but we aren’t exactly outfitted for a death-trap, which is likely what the other hunters are running into knowing Jack.”

“And how much do you know about Jack? Because, pardon the pun, we know jack about Jack.”

Anthony rolls his eyes. “What do you wanna know? What he’s got planned, or why he’s such an asshole?”

“Plans are good... if we can verify them any way. You stumble across intel or something in that pod?”

“Not really, but you could say a lot of intel was gathered before coming here, for sure. For one, Wilhelm is gonna be easy for the Hunters on purpose.”

“Wait, what?!” Roland barks, standing bolt upright, and the sound of a chair crashing over fills the room.

“Jack’s gonna do something to Wilhelm, think it was poison or something, but anyway, Wilhelm won’t be at the top of his game. The Hunters are gonna be ambushed by Wilhelm when they try to rob the train for info on the Vault Key.”

“Wait... we just found out about that train delivery. I haven’t even told the Vault Hunters about that yet; I was going to after this meeting. How did you know about it?”

“Let’s just say, I’ve seen this kind of thing before. I’m no Siren, but I have my own skills.”

“No kidding...” Roland sits down heavily in his chair, making it creak, with a faint echo. “Shit, if that’s a trap, then we can’t spring it. Or... rather, we should, just to make sure your info is right on. Yeah, I think we’ll go with that.” Roland blinks his eyes three times and rolls them, before speaking into the comms to get ahold of Mordecai.


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


Anthony, Pinkie, and Dash are sitting around the war room, each holding up a hand of cards, Roland watching the ponies with curiosity as he works on other matters, such as ensuring there’s enough supplies to survive a few more weeks of being stuck in the confines of Sanctuary.

While Anthony hadn’t explained why in-depth, he informed Roland that Sanctuary would be forced to go without imports for a while. Anthony figures that Jack would likely have a backup plan to get that power core into Sanctuary’s shields anyway and blow them sky-high if they didn’t get sky-high.

But now was not the time to worry. Anthony had just managed to prevent a lot of worry already with the reveal of Wilhelm’s ambush and definitely the scare of Wilhelm killing the other Hunters. Today may not have been the best but it definitely ended on a high note. The only thing left to do... was to get all his money back from Rainbow Dash.

The whole group startles when a cool, feminine voice speaks to all four of them at once. <”Hello? All four of you are getting this, I hope. I’m-”>

Anthony recognizes the voice, though it’s a bit glitchy. “Ah, the Guardian Angel. Was wondering when you were gonna show up. How’s it going miss ‘artificial intelligence’?”

<“Ah- uhm, have we met?”> the speaker, Angel sounds confused and very surprised. <“Because I don’t remember you, and... I have a very good memory.”>

“We haven’t met personally, but then, you haven’t met anyone in person for, what was it? Fourteen years?” The line remains silent for many seconds, and Anthony realizes he may have pushed a touchy button. “Sorry, that was out of line. Continue.”

<“I- I- How did you know?”> the voice is small, and sounds much more like a child’s voice than the confident, knowing tone Anthony’s used to.

“I know lots of things I shouldn’t.” He explains. “But more on that later. Did you need something?”

<“I- I was going to say you did a good thing, telling them about the trap. But how did you know about it?”>

“As I said, I know lots of things I shouldn’t. And that’s best discussed in private. But for now, yes I know quite a bit about what Jack has planned, though knowing him he’s cooking up a way around it as we speak.”

<“Ah, yes. Uhm, as I was saying, you did a good thing, but there’s more that you need to know. I’ve seen some of Jack’s plans; he hasn’t got as good computer security as he thinks he does, and he’s got something set up on the other side of the Dust. Do you know how to get there?”>

“Yeah, I do. So what’s this info on? We can chat while we get there. Dash?” Anthony aims the last bit at Rainbow, who looks up curiously, putting down her cards. “You’re driving.”

Dash pumps a fist joyfully. “Yessss!”

<“Very well, I’ll explain as you go. There’s something he’s setting up in the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, but he’s not ready yet, as far as I can tell. If you can get there soon, you can stop whatever it is.”>

Roland nods. “I’ll tell Mordecai to meet you there; he’s an excellent sniper, and a good source of information, when he isn’t half in the bottle.”

Anthony nods. “Come on girls, the others have a train to catch. We have a bird to save.” Roland gives him a funny look, but Anthony is too busy leaping out of the window, making good use of the lower gravity of the planet to make a roll with the landing, and not breaking anything.

He heads, initially, for the Fast Travel station but notes that the only other one available is the one near the ‘gas station’ where they met the other Hunters. “Damn, forgot, we’re really breaking the story flow like this.” Oh well, Dash was driving, no real need to worry about time.

Anthony pauses when he realizes he’s going to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve... with level three gear. “Shit! They’ll tear us apart! That’s a negative Angel, we need higher level clearance... and don’t stay silent, I know you’re listening.”

A sigh comes over the set. <“Yes, I’m here. I think I can help. This booster will increase your gains from kills, but you still need to make the kills yourself.”> she says.

Dash grins. “We just need the kills, then, right?” she puts a hoof on the Boost button.

“This’ll be easy-peasy now! Thanks, pretty lady!”

“Uh... yeah, not so easy where we’re going, but...”

“Oh? ‘Cuz I see a whole mess of Bandits on the road.” Dash says, settling in. Before Anthony can process the comment, she slams the boost button, screaming with joy as she runs down the entire milling crowd of bandits, psychos, and marauders, the muffled thumps and scrapes of metal armor on the metal car followed by wild gunfire and screaming, though it’s notable that Anthony was screaming almost as much as the victims of Dash’s maniacal murder-car rampage.

The pony fishtails around, using the dirt and gravel to knock down a wave of enemies, before boosting across another batch, Anthony clinging to the car Turret with desperation and terror.

‘At least,’ he thinks to himself, ‘we’ll get there quickly.’

Dash hits a ramp of corpses after pulling a u-turn, and laugh maniacally as she comes down on the crowd for a third pass, before jetting off towards the next zone, the massive horde of bandits now reduced to a whimpering pack of terrified four bandits who will forever fear cars from that day forward.

Anthony, for his part, is honestly surprised at how much damage the car is able to take. A normal vehicle would have popped a tire or had a dented frame. “These things are sturdy as hell!!”

Right as he says that, he sees something black and round speeding ahead of him... it’s one of the back tires.

With barely time to react, he hears ‘aw shit, not again’ go through his head before the whole vehicle practically comes apart at the seams, and throws all three of them through the barely open zone gate.

Anthony, groaning and bruised badly but thankful for Pandora’s low gravity, gets up and crumples back down again, his legs like jelly for several minutes until Dash offers him a fingered hoof up. Anthony gratefully takes the ‘hand’ and uses Dash as leverage to pull himself to his knees. Looking up and around, he sees the familiar parking lot of the Happy Pig Motel.

“Damn, we were practically breaking that thing and didn’t even notice it...”

“Uh, yeah. Cuz I’m awesome, remember?” Dash asks, cockily.

“Yeah, it’ll be a while before I forget that.”

Pinkie, for her part, is running up to the motel parking lot and notices the bounty board. “Guys! Look! Jobs!” she yells, grinning and pointing, gun in the ‘down but ready’ position.

“Fine, we can take a detour.” Anthony relents. “We are gonna need a bit more kills before we can handle the Preserve anyways.”

The group lines up by the board and Anthony notes that the board is lit up, with several jobs available, though none of them are ones he recalls.

“Odd... this place is supposed to be unpowered... Oh well, let’s see what we can do.”

The three look over the board, finally deciding to take a small batch of jobs, including one that’s... throw some dynamite into the local skag dens. Looking around, none of them can see the Skags, which is odd. Anthony would’ve expected them to be milling about like n-

The moment that clicks in his mind, he realizes he’s gotten here before the other Vault Hunters.

They’ve got pristine levelling areas with no competition.

Anthony grins and pulls out his Maliwan shock pistol. “Let’s earn some cash. Heheheh!”
> 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.”
> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony is woken up by Roland a bit earlier than he figured, realizing that when Roland said ‘dawn’ he meant it.

“You ready for those jobs?”

“Uh, yeah, just gimme a sec, bit hungry.”

Roland sighs, “Right, sorry. Forgot you’re not military.”

“Yeah, I’ll go get the girls, get a bite to eat and we’ll load up.”

“Your friends are strange, but from what I’ve uh... heard over the radio they’re good backup.”

“Yeah... Anyways, today’s the day the Hunters go after the booby-trapped train, right?”

“Yeah. If that tip you gave us is good, you just spared us a losing venture. Not to mention helped us prepare for a fight we didn’t expect. Tina’s preparing the equipment now for taking the train.”

“Assuming the bombs don’t get stolen by some bandits before the other hunters get there.” Roland looks at Anthony, a look of ‘I know you know more, but I’m not prying.’ across his face. “Anyways, I’m gonna get something to eat, you can update us on the jobs while we’re getting ready.”

Roland nods and Anthony heads downstairs and gets Pinkie and Dash on the comms. 

“You guys up yet?”All he gets in response are snoring sounds. It was dawn after all, and Anthony was the only one who had someone who got up at that hour to wake him.

While Marcus’ shop itself was closed, the vending machines outside the Raider HQ were still functional as usual, so he browsed the available weaponry, hoping to see if he couldn’t get geared up the way Dash was yesterday.

With the stuff she had, she just dominated that WAR Loader. And if Anthony was gonna catch up to the other Hunters and be of any use to the main missions, he’d have to up his arsenal.

After hunting around, Anthony finds some pretty decent weapons and a good grenade mod, and packs them all away to hand out as needed.

Pinkie will get a new launcher, not corrosive but much more effective than the one she had found. All that was left was to find somewhere to eat that was open. Anthony decides to head over and see how late Moxxi was open. He was surprised to find it was, and he sees a Loader behind the counter. Apparently Moxxi had her reprogrammed Innuendobot do the late-night bartending while she slept.

Anthony ignores the bad dirty jokes the bot makes as he orders a medium pizza of the same variety he’d had before. He would likely have to live on pizza for the time being until more eating options showed up around Sanctuary. But hey, it had cheese, tomato-like sauce, mushrooms... that’s your daily requirement of dairy and veggies, right?

After eating slowly for several minutes, Anthony’s attention is caught by a couple of sets of footsteps making their way down a creaky staircase behind the bar, and a fresh-faced Moxxi and a sleepy-looking Pinkie make their way inside.

“Well, howdy hon. Didn’t expect to see you in here so early. Roland wake you at the crack of dawn?”

“Eh, I’m not used to sleeping much anyways. But yeah. So, how was Pinkie last night?” Anthony asks, smiling at Moxxi. “Comfy, isn’t she?”

“Oh yes~ But more than that, we had a wonderful heart to heart... y’know, some girl talk.” Moxxi says, giving Anthony a grin that has more than a hint of predatory nature.

Pinkie, for her part, mostly just sleepily stumbles over to Anthony, and slumps over on him, snuggling against him while standing up.

“She’s not exactly my idea of Girlfriend material, but she’s sure snuggly.” Anthony says, picking up the pony and laying her on his lap. “By the by, that ‘bot needs some reprogramming.”

“Oh?” Moxxi asks.

“It tried offering me a log of meat. Needs some work if it’s gonna replace you at night.”

Moxxi harrumphs. “Well, it’s the best I could do in under a minute, okay?”

“Chill, wasn’t meaning anything by it, just saying.” Anthony says, mildly confused. As he recalled, Moxxi was a bit perturbed by the bot’s lackluster performance. Must not have been going on long enough at this point. “So while the other Hunters are busy throwing wrenches in Jack’s plans, the girls and I are gonna do some odd jobs around Sanctuary and the Highlands to build our own rep. So, any news about low-level jobs coming down the grapevine?”

“Sorry hun, nobody comes to me asking about jobs. They usually want other things.”

“Gotcha. Still, if you have any itches that need scratching, just say so.”

Moxxi chuckles. “Leave the dirty banter to someone who knows what to say, sugar... but alright.”

“Sweet. Anyways, give me a call when Pinks wakes up, I got something for her, and we’re heading out to do some stuff for Roland.”

“Nooo... I’ goin w’you...” Pinkie says, holding onto his torso via hug power. She may be half asleep, but she’s still as huggy as ever.

“Alright. Well I got you a new launcher, but we’re gonna have to sell the one you got yesterday. That is if we want the money to have you and Dash eat too.” Anthony says, getting up and hoisting Pinkie over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry as he heads for Scooter’s place.

Pinkie gives a tired ‘yayyyyyy...” before going back to snoring, apparently able to sleep even with the vaguely uncomfortable position Anthony had her in.

Dash, for her part, was sound asleep, in a hammock Scooter had rigged up hastily, out of some old laundry and some fishing line.

“Come on Dash, we’re gonna do some more jobs today.” He’s greeted by even louder snoring from Dash. “Sigh, fine, but that means you stay here while we go off and-”

“You are not leaving me behind!” Rainbow says, angrily.

“Ahhhh so you are awake!”

“Of course I am, I’m used to getting up at dawn to plan the day’s weather, but I don’t have to do that here, so I’m sleeping in.”

Anthony sighs again. “Alright, but the longer you sleep the more you miss, and that means Pinkie and I get all the loot again.”

“Nah... nah I’m comin’ just... wait a second.” Dash’s head hits the makeshift pillow again. “Do me a... a solid an’ get me sum food, wouldya?”

“I already ate, but fine, I’ll go get you something.”


----- (/\) -----


“So, what’s our first job?” Dash asks, finally awake now that she had something in her stomach.

“Roland wants us to take out some assassins hiding out in the Southpaw Steam and Power building. They’re supposed to be Hyperion spies working undercover as bandits.”

“Oh. So, wait, couldn’t we just go in and reveal ‘em? I mean, wouldn’t the Bandits tear ‘em apart for us?” Dash questions.

“Sure, if the bandits gave us the chance to out them, which I doubt.”

“So we just run in and kill everyone like usual?” Pinkie asks.

“Yep, the usual.”

“In my professional medical opinion... E-Tech weapons are friggin’ dope!” a scratchy voice says over each of their ECHOs simultaneously.

“Oh yeah, you wanted to know Zed, right?” Anthony recalls. “That was him. You wanna stop by the hospital before we head out?”

“Maybe later. But what’s E-Tech?” Dash asks.

“You remember that Eridium stuff I said Jack wanted?” At the girls nodding he continues. “Well it’s got plenty of applications, from making Slag weapons with its runoff, to making Eridium Tech, or E-Tech, weapons. Imagine a pistol that shoots energy blasts, or a sniper that fires like a railgun instead of normal bullets.”

Dash raises a hoof. “Uh, what’s a raingun?”

“Railgun.” Anthony clarifies. “And if we’re lucky we’ll be able to test one out for ourselves. The main point is that E-Tech weapons consume double ammo per shot, but have special effects no other kind of weapon can do. Mix them with elemental effects like a Maliwan Plasma Caster and you’ve got an SMG that’ll literally melt holes in them instead of just plugging them full of bullet holes.”

“So where can we get some E-Tech weapons?” Pinkie asks. “And what does it change in Shotguns?”

“E-Tech Shotguns are called Splatguns for hopefully obvious reasons.” Anthony explains. “But only Hyperion, Bandits, and Tediore make them, so you won’t find one that shoots explosive ammo unless it’s special.”

“But if it’s a slag weapon, like my current Shotty...” Pinkie trails off to let Anthony finish.

“Each bullet in the spray will have a splash effect allowing you to coat an area in Slag. Pull out a standard launcher after that and anybody in the range of the launcher blast... is totally done for.”

Pinkie gets a maniacal grin on her face at the idea. “I want an E-Tech gun!”

“Alright, if we find one you can try it first. But they’re rare so you gotta share. E-Tech is classified as ‘Purple’ rarity.”

“That’s...” Rainbow thinks out loud. “Third best, under orange and then...”

“Pearlescent.” Pinkie finishes.

“Yep. Anyway, let’s head for Southpaw.”

“On it!” Dash yells, already rushing for the nearest Catch-a-Ride. “Wait... what’s this?”

“What’s what, Dashie?” Pinkie asks, confused.

“This says instead of a turret, the Outrunner can come equipped with a Rocket Launcher...”

“Get that one!” Pinkie yells and pushes Dash’s hoof, making Dash hit the button, and an Outrunner, with a missile launcher pod, digistructs in front of them.

“Oooooooooh, neat.” Dash says. “Man, isn’t Scooter the best!?”

Anthony nods and helps himself to the turret seat and getting used to the slightly different controls. Pinkie hops into Anthony’s lap as usual and hits a button, sending a rocket flying off into the distance where it lands and a loud scream is heard. “My leg!”

“Welp, it works!” Pinkie confirms, smiling as she returns the controls to Anthony.

Dash revs the engine twice and the group shoots off through Sanctuary’s secondary, then main gate. With a loud whoop, the three head for their next destination.

“Where we headed again?” Dash yells over the engine.

“Three Horns Valley, same place as the Bloodshot dam and the Happy Pig!” Anthony shouts back.

“Gotcha!” Dash shouts back, slamming the booster and zooming down the road.


-----(/\) -----


“The first assassin, Wot, is not easily taken care of.” Roland says over the ECHO. “That said, the job says if you can finish him with a pistol you’ll be paid extra.”

“Harder kill, better reward.” Anthony confirms. “Shouldn’t be that hard.” After the initial bandits in the building, the group comes to a door which opens to reveal their first target... and a badass Psycho. “Shit, he’s got backup.”

Pinkie nods. “I’ll distract the guard, you two get the assassin.” she gives a slightly manic giggle, and Anthony notices with worry that her pupils have shrunk to pinpricks, and she levels her brand-new Torgue Assault rifle, before leaping out to one side, shouting, “Yo, big, mean, and lopsided! I’ve got a present for yaaa~!”

Wot, notably a coward and letting the psycho do all the work, immediately runs for cover... where Dash and Anthony are waiting. “Nice shield.” Dash notes as Anthony aims his new Shock AR at Wot. “Seen better.”

Several shock rounds later and several more directly to the face, Wot runs off.

“Damnit, the job is to kill you, stand still!” Anthony yells, as his HUD informs him that Wot’s shield may have been broken easily, but has an incredible recharge rate. “Dash, you still got that Fire SMG on you?”

“You know it!”

“I’ll drop his shield again, you go in and take his health down some. I’ll finish him off with my Jakobs”

“Right!” Dash says as she Rainbooms over to where Wot was hiding and circles around, using melee combat to push him out of his cover. Anthony unloads another round of electrified bullets at Wot, bringing his shield down once more. A hail of fiery bullets from Dash later and Wot is on the ground, burning and screaming. Anthony casually walks up to Wot and gives him a pity-headshot from his pistol, ending the first assassin.

Off to the side, Pinkie is whooping giddily as she ‘handles’ the Badass Psycho all by herself, blowing off the psycho’s only good arm with her Assault rifle. The psycho tries resorting to kicking the pony, but Pinkie’s naturally cartoonish speed allows her to zip around and leap on top of the Psycho, riding on it’s shoulders as she uses her launcher, point-blank, to blow a hole in the Psycho’s head. The badass collapses, making gurgled cries of pain. “This’ll be the last thing I say...”

“Nice job, Pinkie.” Anthony says, receiving a high-five from the pink pony. “Next on the list is Oney.”

“So.” Rainbow says, starting a conversation as they walk. “What are all of their names?”

“Uh, Oney, Wot, Reeth, and Rouf.”

“So... they’re just messed up names of One Two Three and Four? And Jack said our names are stupid.”

“Not to mention he got our names wrong!” Pinkie complains. “Do I look purple to you?”

“Not in the slightest.” Anthony says, “And we’ll get Jack back for that shit he put us through soon enough, for now, we have this guy to deal with.”

As he ends his sentence another door opens and out comes Oney, all alone, no backup like Wot’s psycho. Oney was a Nomad, big and bulky with his face mostly covered, but there was one problem. He was wearing his shield on his back, which meant there was no chance of a sneak attack.

“We gotta fight him directly!” Anthony warns, as Pinkie runs up, and loads another rocket into her launcher, firing at Oney. When the dust clears... Oney is still standing and not even scratched.

“Uh oh.” Pinkie says as she looks down at her hooves and sees a grenade Oney had thrown during the confusion.

With a blast, Pinkie’s shield is taken out and a leg had been blown off from the force of the explosion. She’d have to respawn to get it back.

“Wow...” Pinkie says quietly. “Dying is... cold...” something she’d chalked up to the snow from earlier. She looks mostly confused, not angry or afraid or anything.

Pinkie despawns after a few moments, sending Dash into a frenzy. “You’re gonna pay for that you son of a bi-” Dash is cut off by a shotgun blast straight to the gut. The pegasus collapses with a grunt, blood everywhere.

Oney definitely wasn’t going down as easily as Wot. Anthony switches to his Scout, and takes careful aim but is forced to run and find cover as Oney tosses another grenade. “This guy isn’t giving us a break! We need an opening!” The nomad named Oney simply laughs and levels his gun once more.

Anthony swaps to his Pistol again, the same one he’d used to finish Wot and gets a decent gut shot on Oney, but with the bandit’s thick coat and skin, it doesn’t do much more than make Oney pause.

“Need more firepower!” He yells, Pinkie running up to rejoin them, Dash’s shield is recharging but the amount of blood lost is enough to keep her off her feet.

“Argh, why can’t we just blow him up?” Dash gurgles, then pauses. “Wait, why haven’t we been using our freakin’ powers?!” she yells, and stands up. Oney turns towards her, and she bellows, zipping across the huge gap to land a devastating gut-stomp at Rainboom speeds, the elemental rainbow slathering the large nomad with various effects and making him scream in agony.

“Good thinking, Dash.” Anthony mutters as he pulls his Scout up again and takes another shot, the sniper bullet finding purchase in the Nomad’s upper chest, the Rainboom’s slag effect allowing for a high enough damage boost to end it, making the secondary objective of finishing Oney with a Sniper shot a success. Rainbow limps back to the group. Not damaged enough to warrant death but certainly she’d seen better days.

“Damn... this hurts... Any way to get that blood back in me?” She asks, looking a bit pale.

Anthony searches around the base opening various containers and eventually finding a single med hypo. “Damn, only one. It’ll have to do.”

“Whassat gonna do?” Dash slurs, staring at the needle, which Anthony passes to Pinkie. 

“Give that to her, it’s some of Zed’s healing stuff.”

Pinkie salutes and gives Dash an apologetic look as she sticks the needle in Rainbow’s haunch. “Yow! I thought that was supposed to help... oh... wow...” Dash’s voice picks up as the medicine works quickly. “Don’t feel exactly a hundred percent but... that Zed guy sure knows what he’s doing...”

“Yeah,” Anthony says, handing a few rockets he’d found to Pinkie. “Zed’s hypos may not be the easiest meds to take and hard to find around, but they work.”

Reloading on ammo, the group gets back to the next assassin. “Reeth. Number three.”

The next door that opens has a pair of Psychos running out at the group, though one, Reeth, looks much fiercer and isn’t wearing a mask like the Psycho following behind him, a marauder with an SMG shooting wildly at the group.

“Pinkie, Dash, split up. I’ll take the marauder.” Anthony suggests as the trio each goes for their own foe, Pinkie taking Reeth herself, as Dash handles the standard Psycho.

Anthony, for his part, is tagged by several bullets from the marauder, and Reeth seems to have other ideas, avoiding Pinkie and rushing at Anthony whose shield is effectively shut down by Reeth’s melee attacks, taking a bullet to the chest from the Marauder.

“Get that marauder.” Anthony says, holding his chest. Anthony Sparks up and rushes away from Reeth, taking care of the other Psycho with a few rapid electrified punches. Before hitting the floor, another round of spraying from the marauder catching Anthony in the knees. “Shit...” Anthony grumbles as he hits the ground face-first.

Pinkie and Dash split up, Dash giving Reeth a kick to the jaw while Pinkie tosses her singularity at the marauder, pulling him from the cover he’d taken and blowing him into the air. Once he’s in the air, Pinkie lets loose a blast with her Party Cannon, sending bandit giblets all over one side of the room.

Anthony, with two barely useful legs, grits his teeth against the pain and crawls for a green Dahl container, hoping to find his own healing hypo as Dash continues trading blows with Reeth, his flaming buzzaxe doing significant damage to Dash’s shield despite the fire resistance. She was doing good but would need help.

The pegasus is doing more dodging than fighting, but it’s obvious she’s better trained for it than Anthony or Pinkie. And that really shows when Pinkie pops up behind the unmasked Psycho with a manic grin and a ‘Hello~!’ before blasting another time with her cannon.

Reeth lets out a groan as the cannon hits him square in the back, launching him forward... right into a direct buck from Dash, caving in his face and leaving him barely able to move. A punch and then a stomp from Dash finishes him and the ponies begin searching for a hypo for Anthony.

“Nice tactics big guy.” Rainbow compliments. “But you need to work on your evasion.”

“Yeah...” Anthony says, teeth still ground together. “Damn this hurts...”

“Is there any other way to fix it?” Dash asks, looking at his legs with concern.

“Yeah, but it’s another type of med hypo. So best you keep looking. I can hold on long enough.” Anthony lies, feeling his legs get weaker. “Might have to off myself though if I want to fix it fast.”

“How you gonna do that?” Pinkie asks worriedly.

Anthony shrugs and pulls out his Hyperion pistol and aims it at his head. “Like this.”

“Nah, just hold on dude, we’ll help ya.” Rainbow consoles him. “But that looks pretty bad. You sure Zed’s stuff is good enough to fix that?”

“Ain’t you heard my radio commercial?” Zed asks over the ECHO. “‘If you've got the money, I'll save your gol-dern life!’”

“Yeah...” Anthony mutters. “That. Check and see if there’s a medical vending machine somewhere. Zed sells shields and med hypos from there.”

Dash and Pinkie begin to search around, and Anthony is left sitting around, when he notices a pair of what looks like elevator shafts, with an ‘up/down’ button panel on the left side. Best of all, it’s within reach, and something he’d never seen in the games. An experimental tap on the button shows it makes the left one go up, but the right one go down.

A quick peek over the side reveals it’s full of hot air, rising from a molten metal of some kind, far below, just in range to completely submerge whichever platform he lowers... and both platforms look like they have guns on them.

E-Tech guns.

Well, without anything better to do but wait for the ponies to get back from the medical machine at the building’s entrance, he pushes the button to send one platform high enough to reach in and grab a plasma caster, the other one, a splatgun, lowering into the molten material with a hiss-fizz, and rapidly melting away.

Inspecting the gun, Anthony readjusts himself so his back is against the wall with the buttons on it, allowing his knees to rest from the rather painful kneeling position he’d been in.

His greatest fear was a bandit coming by, doing rounds, before the girls could get back to him so he just loaded the Caster with some spare SMG ammo he’d picked up and aims it around from his sitting position.

He notes that it’s a Tediore, and that as a weapon the only thing exceptional one could do with a Tediore Plasma Caster is to fire a single shot and reload-throw the gun for massive damage.

Soon enough, he sees Dash run around a corner and bring a healing needle to Anthony. “This one said it was a ‘Rejuvenation’ hypo, whatever that means. It said it heals more than the other one, though.”

Anthony indicates for her to stick it in his outer thigh and he tells Dash to keep holding it there. “Rejuve healers do heal more but it...” He pauses to hiss in pain as his brain physically rejects the thought of a needle in his leg. “It takes time...”

The hypo, once empty and all the ‘medicine’ put in his bloodstream, he does feel better. Even able to run, let alone stand on his legs.

“Oh yeah, Zed’s got this covered.” He groans as he gets feeling back into his feet. “Ah, there we go. Okay, one more guy to go.”

Pinkie rounds the same corner Dash came around and rejoins the group. “And then we turn in this job... and the ones from yesterday.”

“Right.” Dash says, remembering. “We never got back to the Happy Pig board to turn in that skag-den job.”

“Yeah, we deal with Rouf, and then we head by the Hotel before reporting back to Roland.”

“Wear your face like a condom!” comes the scream of a psycho, the bandit making its rounds as Anthony had worried.

“Who wants to try out a Plasma Caster first?” He asks, turning to the girls, holding out the E-Tech SMG.

Pinkie grabs the gun and aims it at the Psycho, launching out a few balls of green-tinted glowing blasts that travel lazily (for a bullet that is) towards the psycho, hitting him in the chest the corrosive damage of the Caster taking effect and effectively melting a hole in the Psycho.

“Give me my hit-points back!” The psycho screams in pain as Pinkie lands a burst shot in the bandit’s face, ending it quickly.

“Wow... this is fun!” Pinkie says. 

“A bit lower fire rate than a normal smig though.” Dash notes, looking over the gun. “Dang, that’s a deep clip though for a Tediore.”

“It eats two ammo per shot, though. Try throwing it after a single shot.” Anthony suggests.

“Will do.” Dash says, taking the gun to use for her turn with it. “So, onto the fourth guy, right?”

“Right.” The group continues on, Dash checking out the sight on the Caster. “Huh, not bad. I could actually use this from a decent range with the scope on this. Shame it’s got such a low bullet speed.”

Pinkie shrugs. “Eh, it could be worse. I mean, it could be going so slow you can aim it through the scope with, like, telekinesis or something.”

“Yeah, still, I’d rate it as a backup smig in a firefight, not a main weapon.”

“Keep it in your pack and take it out when you need to.” Anthony suggests. “S’what I do with my sniper.”

Dash nods, and pulls out her preferred weapons instead. Minigun in hand, she sneaks forward, acting as the scout.

The final door opens and out comes a plus-sized Rat, flanked by Nomad Taskmasters, their shields aimed to either side of Rouf as he aims his laser-sighted shotgun around the room, loping around the way all Rats do.

“Says we get paid extra if we finish him with a Shotgun.” Anthony whispers to his group. “Pinkie, you still got one on you?”

“Yep! It’s the slag one though, not a primary weapon...”

Anthony furrows his brow as he thinks it over. “Well, we’ll just have to take him down with poke damage and get him weak enough to finish with that.” He pulls out his Hyperion pistol and aims for the head of one of the Nomads but the Taskmaster shifts his shield, just happening to cut off Anthony’s shot, alerting the bandits to their position.

“I’m getting sick of this sneaking around and all these easy bucking shots!” Dash curses as she rushes out into the open, only to take a shotgun blast from the second Taskmaster, and Rouf begins immediately rushing for cover.

Anthony rubs his head at Dashes hyperactivity and Pinkie seems to feel the same, hurling her longbow grenade right at the door. The singularity effect pulls the bandits towards it, getting both nomads and Rouf in the back with a blast of fire.

“Nice thinking Pinks.” Dash shouts as she aims her Assault Rifle at a taskmaster, sending several dozen rounds flying at the Taskmaster and ending him fairly effectively. “Huh, not bad, guess these Vladof rifles aren’t so bad after all.”

Anthony grins as he aims his own grenade at the second nomad. “Told ya so.”

“Heh, yeah... I think I like guns like this.” she says, taking vague aim and peppering the far wall with as many bullets as she had left in her gun, only a few hitting near enemy position, but sending Rouf diving for cover instead of continuing to harass the trio.

Anthony’s grenade, a longbow similar to Pinkie’s, flies over to land behind Rouf’s cover and releases a spinning wheel of continuous fire, setting the Rat on fire. “Now, Pinkie!”

Pinkie nods and takes a running leap past Rouf’s cover once the grenade cools down and delivers a shotgun blast directly to Rouf’s face, as Rouf hits Pinkie in the barrel with his own shotgun. Pinkie’s shield takes the shot pretty well, the corrosive effect not being very good at cracking shields. Rouf falls over and drops the gun he’d shot Pinkie with, gurgling and sputtering as his brain registers the slag-infected bullets inside his head.

“Sweet moves, Pinkie!” Anthony cheers as Pinkie continues flying from the effect of Rouf’s gun, knocking her into a wall which she bounces back from easily.

“Lookit what he dropped!”

Anthony picks up the weapon and looks it over, the triple barrel and corrosive effect equalling only one possible response. “Damn, this thing will just chew through Loaders, hold onto that one.”

“Hey, why’s it got some red text on it’s card?” Pinkie asks in confusion.

“Secondary effect.” Anthony explains. “It’s got special stuff on it that standard guns of similar parts wouldn’t. They’re after-market guns.”

Pinkie looks it over, then smiles. “I like it! Hey, we should make our own, some time!” Pinkie says, “I mean, if the Bandits do it, why not us?”

“Because I can fire a gun, but I don’t know how to make one.” Anthony explains. “Most of these Bandits are left here after the Dahl corporation pulled up it’s mining gear and left Pandora when they thought it was useless. They’re engineers by profession until they were just dumped here.”

“Well, shoot, ah could teach ya how to make ‘em.” Scooter says over the ECHO, making all three of them jump at the sudden interjection.

“Seriously!?” Dash asks in disbelief. “Man is there anything you can’t do?”

“Ah still haven’t figger’d out pulse-wave geometries, or sublight engines for in-system travel yet.” he replies.

“I don’t even know what those are!” Dash says gleefully.

“Still, if you can show us how to make more guns, that’d be awesome!” Pinkie adds. “No more picking through vendor trash to find useful stuff!”

“Actually, you’d still need ta do that. Ah mean, yer not just gonna be makin’ parts outta nothin’. You gather up parts ‘n bring ‘em to my garage, and you kin use the work table there to put ‘em together. I’ll show the whatsits and whatfors when you git here next.”

“Thanks, Scooter!” Dash says, gleefully as the group leaves the area. “We’ll be over there once we turn in these jobs.”

“No probs, Dashie. Ah just wish the other Vault Hunters were interested in makin’ guns, too... Ah don’t get many friends that do.”
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So.” Anthony says, walking back to the group’s Outrunner. “We got some cash for that Skag den job, and the assassin job we’ll turn in to Roland in a bit. In the meantime, we now have some spare cash. But if I’m right, the Hunters should be reaching Tundra Express and chatting with Tina.”

“Who?” Pinkie asks. “I don’t think we’ve met anyone with that name.”

Anthony just laughs “You haven’t, but I know her. She’s gonna help with robbing the train.”

“The one you said was booby-trapped by that Wilhelm guy, right?”

Anthony nods and settles into the gunner seat of the car. “Fight won’t be impossible, but it won’t be easy. Jack doesn’t want Wilhelm to be too easy, otherwise it’d raise suspicion.”

“Why not just ignore the train completely then?” Pinkie asks. “I mean, we don’t want to put them through a fight they could avoid, right? They are our friends...”

“Yeah.” Anthony nods. “But best they take care of Wilhelm while he’s weak and get him out of the way. We don’t want Jack to be able to use him later for a real job, not just a trap.”

“Yeah, that does sound like a good idea. But you’re sure they can handle Wilhelm? The way you build him up he sounds really strong.” Dash comments.

“Oh they’ll die for sure, but they’ll take him out eventually, but as I said, if they fight him this time it’ll be possible to beat him. If they don’t take the chance now and Jack fixes Wilhelm up, there’s no guarantees that Wilhelm will be beatable.”

“I’m still a bit iffy about the whole ‘dying and coming back’ thing. Can’t Jack just shut them off whenever he wants and kill us for good at the drop of a hat?”

“Sure he could.” Anthony says, but smiling. “But remember? That’s how he’s getting most of his income, we put money in his pocket each time we die, and considering Vault Hunters tend to get a good amount of cash by profession, he’d be insane to throw away a perfectly good money source like that. Besides, those Loaders and stuff are not cheap, especially with Hyperion needing every cent it can get to maintain a strong presence here.”

“So, even if we die, he can still make money off us?” Dash says, looking disgusted. “The Canterlot nobles are kinda... okay, really vicious with deals but that’s just kinda sick.”

“No no.” Anthony corrects. “It’s good business sense. The fact that he laughs at us each time we die and rubs it in our faces is sick.”

“Ah... I see.” Dash says, still sounding grouchy about it.

“But hey, there’s incentive not to die still. Sure we’d still be alive anyways, but at least we won’t be putting money in Jack’s pocket. Staying alive is just a lot harder out here.”

The ponies nod as they approach Sanctuary. Hopping out, they head to the Raider HQ. “Alright, the spies have been taken care of.”

“What were they spies of anyway?” Pinkie asks. “I mean, I know they were working for Jack but... what did they know that we had to keep them from talking about?”

“As far as we knew, they knew where I was.” Lilith says, leaning on the far wall of the war room. “The other bandits in Frostburn Canyon wouldn’t out me, they never even met me, but, well... since I made a lot of commotion out there dealing with the Bloodshots...”

“It was only a matter of time before they figured they were dealing with a Siren.” Roland finishes. “That job may not have been too high on our priority list since Lilith is staying here instead of Frostburn canyon, but we still didn’t want Jack getting any clues that she’s even alive yet. But that’s a job for another time.”

“Yeah.” Anthony says, leaning on the war-room’s holographic map table. “So we are gonna take Angel’s job of heading over to the Preserve, but the problem is that we’re way underprepared to handle the bulk of Jack’s security out there. And even with the level-up boost Angel’s giving us, it might still be a while.”

<“Oh! I didn’t tell you... right, sorry. I wasn’t going to send you in the front.”>

“That...” Anthony starts. “Would make things a lot easier. So if our job isn’t to go in there and help trash the place in general, what are we gonna do?”

<“Well, Jack’s notes mentioned some sort of experiments going on in there. The other Vault Hunters are meant to be lured in, and I think I’m supposed to be the one to let them in, there’s a timer attached to the mail counting something down for a few days from now. I was thinking, since Jack doesn’t really know anything about you, I could sneak you in a side entrance under false credentials, and have you go through the office block. In there, you’d only have to face some support personnel and a few guards, nothing too challenging, and make your way to the underside of the labs. From there, you can sabotage the entire reserve, before Jack’s plans come to fruition.”>

“I like the sound of that plan.” Anthony says, turning to Roland, who nods. “Alright, we’ll do it your way. Of course subtlety might be hard to pull off with Pinkie and Rainbow around. What do we say? They’re Skags who ended up with some really interesting Slag transfusions?”

<“Actually, if you come in first, Anthony, you can shoot down anyone before they can raise an alarm. All the people working there are very sure that no vault hunters can get in, and none of the alarms are automatic, in case of traitors. You should only face them a few at a time, maybe up to a dozen or so in the main cubicle farm.”>

“But we’ll be undercover for a good part of it, meaning sneaking around. And no explosives, I assume.”

<“Yeah. In fact, you won’t be able to bring most of your guns, I’m afraid. I can divert a few Hyperion-made weapons, but it won’t be more than some pistols and maybe a shotgun. I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do without sending up red flags all over. I can also loop the security footage to keep anyone from seeing the ponies.”>

“Gotcha. Thanks Angel. We should talk some later though. Right now, we got a job. Just tell us where to get the special guns. I can lead us to the reserve.” Anthony explains. “It should be easy, aside from the Stalkers all over the highlands. We... won’t need to gear up long before we actually start the mission will we? Sorry, but I’m not gonna run into a bunch of Stalkers without something stronger than a pistol.”

<“Don’t worry. I know a place you can get an experimental shield type that will repel Stalkers without having to fight them. It’ll be a bit dangerous, though, at your current gear levels. Are you alright with that?”>

Before Anthony can respond, Dash yells, “Heck yeah! We can do this, just fine. I mean, there’ll be loot, and we can level up, and maybe not die as often on this run. I’m kinda sick of being low on money.”

“Yeah, is there a way to keep some of our cash out of your d-” Anthony catches himself. “Jack’s pockets? Even just, Idunno, a ten-percent discount?”

“Hmm... I think I can point you in a good direction, but that won’t be a place you can survive any time soon. You’ll need much higher-level gear than you have to make it through the Arid Nexus.”

“Yeah. So I’ll assume we should, to reduce suspicion, head through the Dust entrance to the Highlands. If we try trekking through the Outwash, Jack’s little base out there will definitely blow our cover since there’s so many cameras around.”

<“Most likely, yes. Also... I will want to talk to you privately, but later. Turn in your jobs, and I’ll lead you to the shield. There’s only one, so you’ll have to stay close together.”>

“We can do that.” Anthony says, fairly sure of himself. “We’ll just be a while since the Dust will have some pretty tough customers. It’ll be a chore getting to the Highlands through it, but shorter and less likely we’ll go through any of Jack’s stuff.”

Dash and Pinkie nod to him.

“Hey, and ya’ll can meet mah sister while yer there!” Scooter’s voice chimes over the ECHOs, making all three jump.

“Yeah...” Anthony fakes checking the map by his hands. “Ellie’s garage?”

“Tha’s the one. And Dash, she’ll be able to give ya that tune-up Ah told ya about, jes bring ‘er the schee-may-tick I gave ya.” Dash nods at Scooter’s words.

“Alright, guess we’ll be in the Dust a bit longer than we planned a few moments before, but I think we’ll still have time.” Anthony says. “What do you think Angel, time enough for a detour or two?”

<“Yes. The shield is actually in an old Dahl substation in the Dust, so this works out just fine. You seem to know the area fairly well; do you know about the little houses and bunkers in the Dust, near the old road?”>

“Yeah, the Hodunks used them as ramps and such before they made their racetrack I think.”

<“Well, one of them, I’m not sure which, has a back room with a hatch under it. I know for a fact none of the local bandits have gotten into it yet, and I can give you the passcode, but you’ll need to figure out which one it is, first.”>

“Should be easy enough to find.” Anthony nods. “We’ll be going now then. Oh, and Roland.” When Anthony gets Roland’s attention he continues. “Look a Hyperion gift horse in the mouth. Every time.” Anthony wasn’t going to specify the rigged power core, but he was hoping it was specific enough for Roland to know what to expect.

Roland just nods and Anthony leads the ponies down the stairs. They’re about to leave when Tannis blocks their way. “I couldn’t help but hear... well, actually I could but I don’t care, but I hear you’re heading to the Exploitation Reserve, yes?”

“Uh, ye-”

“While you’re there, I would be greatly appreciative if you could get some samples of the slag they are using on the local wildlife. I was going to give this job to the other vault hunters but you seem to be going sooner.”

Anthony shrugs. “Maybe. Depends on a few variables, but we’ll get some if we can.”

“Splendid. Just get that done and bring them to me when you’re finished with whatever irrelevant thing you’re doing at the time.”

“Will do.” Pinkie salutes and rushes out the door, Anthony and Dash running to catch up.

“Remember Pinkie, get all your energy out while we’re in the Dust. Once we get to the Reserve we need to be quiet.”

“Oh, Anthony. I can be completely stealthy. There’s only two ponies that’ve ever seen my surprise parties coming, and those were my parents the fifteenth time I threw them one in the same week.”

“Alright, just don’t yell ‘Surprise’ until we’re done. That said, we’re gonna need to do some car-on-car combat out in the Dust.”

Dash shivers with anticipation. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Anthony grins. “Yep, but those Bandit Stinger vehicles are serious business. We’re gonna need to be pretty maneuverable to avoid them before we can take some shots of our own.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, Anthony.” Dash says, confidently. “Trust me. After some of the hookup augs Scooter gave my Exo, I think I can really get some performance outta these things.”

“Good, we’re gonna need it.” Anthony says. “Alright, to the Dust.”

“Right!” Dash says, hopping into the Outrunner, Anthony and Pinkie taking their usual positions. “Just tell me where it is.”

“Head to the Bloodshot stronghold in the old Memorial Dam. It’s just past that.”

“Gotcha.” The engine revs, and the three zoom off in a blast of heat and engine exhaust.


----- (/\) -----


It doesn’t take more than a few hours, but the group is at the entrance to the Dust and as soon as they round the corner and take in the enormity of the desert, Dash sees all the rocks and outcroppings in the sand, perfectly smoothed and made for doing car tricks.

“We go see Ellie first, right?” Dash asks, to which Anthony nods.

“It’s dead ahead and on your right.”

“On it!” Dash says, slamming the gas pedal back down and zooming forward fast enough to blow Anthony back and almost out were he not holding onto the missile controls with a deathgrip.

She slaloms through the junk, hitting several Spiderants, and scattering the small pack that keeps assembling in front of Ellie’s, cyan blood coating the front of the car, giving it a splattered ‘paint job’.

She screeches to a stop, coming in sidelong right in front of the titanic woman known as Ellie, who seems delighted to see them. “Hoo-ee! Y’all’re real ponies! Scooter wudn’t shittin’ me!”

“You bet we’re real!” Pinkie says, hopping out of Anthony’s lap and running up to say hello. “I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“Ooh, aint-chu just the sweetus little thang. An you, yer th one mah littler bro said had to get a fixer-upper fer her Exo?” she says, pointing at Dash, who hops out of the car, nodding.

“Yeah, he said you could help me get more landspeed outta the frame, something about a lighter material?”

“Sure thing, hun! And you, shuga, what’s yer name~?” she says, sing-songing at Anthony.

“Anthony.” he says, noticing a Bandit Stinger off in the distance. He spins the turret around and launches a missile and misses, but the knock of the blast tips the bandit car over where it explodes. Satisfied once the cyan bar on his HUD flash with the signal of an experience boost, hops out of the car. “And how are you doing?”

“Oh, ah’m jes fine, shuga~” she says, tittering.

Anthony nods. “Well, we’ll be out here for a little bit until we find what we’re looking for but in the meantime we have some time to do some jobs if you have any.”

“Hmm... yea, ah gotta few. Fer one, ah wanna git ridda those spiderants. They’re driving away customers! Ah hear there’s this super-stuff in the reserve that repels ‘em. Git it, an I’ll pay ya well.”

“We’re headed that way anyways!” Pinkie says happily. “We’re gonna go in there all sneaky and then... uh... What exactly did Angel mean by sabotage, Anthony? What are we gonna be breaking?”

“Probably everything. I hope.” Dash says, as Ellie goes over the schematics the pony handed her. 

“Well, fer a closer job, kin ya git summa them figurines off the hoodsa those Hodunk’s Technicals, an’ ah’ll getcha somethin nice.”

“We’ll get those for you then.” Anthony says. “Shouldn’t be hard if we can... hold up. I just had an idea.”

“Go ahead, hansum~” Ellie says, ogling him over the top of the schematic.

“Well, if you got us one of those Bandit Technicals for ourselves, we could have enough room for Pinkie to use her launcher, the turret, and the drivers’ guns. Those cars the Hodunks are driving wouldn’t stand a chance!”

“Ah like the way ya think.” Ellie says. “Ah’ll add the Technicals to yer profiles in the Catch-A-Ride. And a special paint job, jess fer you~”

Anthony smiles, thinking to himself. ‘Everything is going better than expected. And maybe, if Sanctuary makes it without needing to be sent sky-high... this will go perfectly.’

“Thanks Ell, you’ve saved us a lotta trouble dealing with those cars.”

Ellie just gives Anthony a smile and walks into her garage, and after a few minutes she calls out that it’s ready. Dash heads over to the machine and selects the Technical. “Oooooh, man, this is a hard choice.”

“What is, Dashie?” Pinkie asks, hopping up and down excitedly.

“Well, the Technical’s turret can either fire giant saw blades, or launch exploding barrels.”

“Exploding barrels!” Pinkie yells, and Anthony agrees.

“Alright then, barrels it is.” Dash says, selecting the car, and the vehicle is digistructed before their eyes right in the garage.

The vehicle looks just like a normal bandit car, excepting the special paint job Ellie talked about. It has a blood-splatter paint job across the front and the wheel wells, and the tires are painted to have similar ‘splatters’ in a circular pattern. And the main body of the car is a bright, eye-catching pink. On the wide hood of the car is a portrait of Ellie, blowing a kiss at the viewer with a wink.

“Ohhhh yeah.” Dash says, looking the car over. “This’ll do.”

“Alright.” Anthony says, hopping into the turret, holding a thumb out far in front of him to judge the barrel’s arc and distance. He’d need to test it, but he’d get at least a good guess based on the position of the launcher. “Yeah, this is perfect. Alright Pinkie, you get the back.”

“Roger dodger!” she says, performing a flip into the back, looking eagerly around. “Wow, it’s so much roomier in here! Though, I kinda liked sitting on your lap, Anthony.”

“Yeah well, this time there’s room for you to use your launcher, so make good use of that room.”

With a happy, “I will!” Pinkie pulls out her rocket launcher, aiming it around in practice.

“Everypony ready? ‘Cause once I start going, this thing isn’t stopping for nothing but to grab those ornament things.”

The two affirm their readiness, Pinkie using a clip line to secure herself in the back. “Let’s-a go!” She shouts, bracing herself.

Dash slams on the gas and the group shoots out of the garage, Dash hitting the boost soon after, launching them all off the metal ramp just outside the outer area of Ellie’s place, giving the group a sense of temporary weightlessness, before landing hard on the ground, the car bouncing but steadying soon after.

“This car is amazing!” Dash yells as she heads for another ramp before Anthony reminds her of the job.

“We can do that later, and when we do I’ll show you a great spot for it, the ramps are low enough angle that you don’t go up much but you just fly forward.”

“That is awesome!” Dash yells in response. “Alright, work before pleasure it is.”

The group train their various vehicle weapons on a Stinger they come upon, the bandit driving taking a double then a triple take when he sees Dash driving, not seeing Pinkie toss a grenade into his turret seat.

The bandit looks down, as Pinkie yells, “Go, go!” and Dash hits the boost again, their car rocketing forward in time for the fiery blast to consume the car, the bandit screaming as he despawns, having had the most interesting death of his life, even more so than the one that involved three midget psychos and a bowl of salad.

The three cheer, sweeping over the wreckage as their ECHOs, keyed into the car, check for and pick up the needed figurine, another Technical and an Outrunner heading their way.

“He’s got backup!” Anthony yells, tossing a barrel out and landing it right behind the outrunner, cursing at the miss. He still wasn’t the perfect shot he was in the games. He was looking forward to getting better to the point that he could take out a Buzzard mid-escape.

Trying again, the barrel hits the outrunner dead on and sends it spinning, when Pinkie aims her launcher and gets a shot on the Technical, obliterating the front in a ball of fire.

“These things blow up really easily!” Pinkie says, giggling.

“Yeah, but they overheat like crazy.” Rainbow replies. “I mean, I can’t boost for that long or I’m afraid I’m gonna run this thing into the ground, or just blow us up.”

“Nah, don’ worry ‘bout blowin ‘em up. They don’t do that any more, I fixed that yesterday.” there’s a long pause over the ECHO while Dash gives a breath of relief. “At least, I think I did. It was on mah to-do list.”

Anthony looks worriedly at Rainbow. “You aren’t-”

“We’re trying it anyways!” Dash yells, deciding that if they were going to be forced to respawn, it might as well be while going as fast as possible.

Dash hits the booster full force and while the car does groan for a few seconds, the speed output is incredible, blowing Pinkie back a bit, sending her into a laughing frenzy yelling ‘faster’ to which Dash, somehow, manages to oblige, sending the car over a ramp to land on the Stinger of another bandit, crushing the smaller model with the heavy frame of the Technical.

After the crunch and screaming ends, the group retrieves another hood ornament, putting them at five.

“Just one more to go!” Anthony yells. This was certainly easier than in the game with its more limited physics engine.

Dash suddenly whips to the side, almost throwing Anthony out of the vehicle, a missile streaking by where they’d been, turning and slamming into the ground instead of into the car. “‘Nother outrunner! With missiles!” Dash clarifies. However, she’s not entirely right.

It’s three outrunners and another Technical, and all the bandits in them seem not just crazy but angry. The shouts of ‘they wrecks my ride!’ and ‘skin ‘em for the new seat covers!’ pretty much gave that part away.

Anthony and Pinkie look at the bandits and then each other. “Double explosion?”

“Definitely!”

Anthony launches a barrel at the front vehicle where it gets knocked into the air by the force of the explosion... where Pinkie blasts it with her launcher, a direct hit on the underbelly of the car. Had they not been going so fast, the explosion would have caught the other cars, but nevertheless, the spectacle itself had all three Vault-Hunters-in-training whooping and screaming with joy at the sheer awesomeness.

Tossing more barrels out, all but one car is taken down. And it’s the last one with an ornament, and driving spectacularly. The Echo states the name of the Vehicle as Rubber-Face’s Racer, and it’s got mounted guns instead of a turret, all pointing forward.

‘An on-road miniboss?’ Anthony thought. ‘This is exactly what was missing from the Campaign of Carnage! Fuck yes!’

“You shits’re gonna regret messing with my roadies!” the bandit leader shouts, audible even over the noises of speeding across the dunes and roads, and he starts to overtake the Technical.

The chok-chok-chok-chok of a heavy machine gun fills the air, and bullets begin to slam into the Technical the junior Vault Hunters are riding in, and the whole thing shakes as electricity runs across the metal.

Pinkie goes to fire a rocket, but quickly realizes her launcher is out, forcing her to reload, Anthony missing three barrels in a row. “He’s a dodger!” Anthony yells to Dash. “Anything you can do about that?”

“If y-you can make him stop z-zapping us!” she yells back, jittering slightly, gritting her teeth as she hauls the steering wheel towards the road again, before spotting a rise on the horizon. “Hey, Anthony, can you get the guy to come closer to us? I have an idea. Get him right next to us if you can!”

“No problem.” Anthony grins and turns back to the guy, calling him up on the ECHO. “Is that as fast as you can go? No wonder you’re being outpaced!”

The bandit racer growls, and shouts back, “I’m gonna burn ya ta cinders and use yer corpses for kindling!” before boosting, zooming up close enough for Anthony to see that the front of his Racer has a bunch of spikes and what looks like bayonets taken from Fire-elemental weapons of all sorts.

“Nice car.” Anthony replies sarcastically. “Are you sure you wanna race? You might get a scratch on that god-awful paint-job.” Rubber-face just gives an inarticulate scream of rage, and pulls up to the side, a long-handled buzz axe being put to use to menace Anthony with, until Dash hits the ramp she’d seen. It’s the edge of a buried sign, and only half the technical gets serious air, causing the entire thing to flip up and over his racer in the most magnificent barrel roll a land-bound vehicle has ever done before. A shower of grenades drops as they pass over the flabbergasted Rubber-face, who is wearing a mask made of car tire pieces.

The Technical lands, barely, on its wheels on the other side of the Racer right as it blows sky-high, the Ornament getting launched hard enough it embeds itself in the siding right next to Anthony, leaving a dent he bumps against when trying to turn.

He looks over at the racer and Pinkie, having managed to reload during the confusion, sends a rocket right at the Racer’s back tire, adding injury to... well, injury.

Anthony watches as the wheel flies off, the racer wobbling on the three it had left. “Ohhhh,” Anthony says, a semi-pained ‘o’ on his lips. “That ain’t gonna buff out.”

“No kiddin’” Pinkie agrees, grinning at the fiery wreck as ‘Level Up!’ shows up on each of their HUDs.

“Holy smokes! You guys took out Rubber Face!” Claptrap’s voice shouts in all their ears.

“I’m gonna break your face if you keep startling me like that.” Dash mutters.

“Wow, he’s been terrorizing the Dust for ages! Hey, if you go back to his ride, and search for his black box unit, I’ll reward you all handsomely when you get back to Sanctuary!”

“Not sure how Claptrap gets money...” Anthony starts. “But I got a deep wallet that needs filling. All the dying I’ve been doing lately has taken a lot of cash. Fine, take us over to Rubber Face’s racer.”

Dash nods, and takes them closer, some parts of the wreckage still letting off minor explosions as backup fuel canisters blow up. However, their ECHOs have highlighted the Black Box, some thirty yards away, with cyan light.

Anthony nods in the direction of the Black Box but calls up CLaptrap again. “Alright. Say, what do you want with his Box? I mean, unless he stores schematics on it too, knowing where he’s been and the like doesn’t seem like it’d do you much good.”

“You wouldn’t understand, meatsack, but that baby’s gonna do great things for me!” Claptrap assures him, sounding even more enthusiastic.

“Sure, bolts-for-brains.” If Claptrap had no compunctions about insulting Anthony, he wouldn’t hold back insulting the robot. Once Dash slows down, Anthony hops out of the Technical and starts searching the wreckage. “Man, this thing just got wasted. He was a good driver but his car sure couldn’t take much.”

“Nah.” Dash says, cockily. “I think it was just us.”

Anthony chuckles. “Yeah, maybe. That said, I’m out of ‘nades, you must have used all of yours and Pinkie...” Anthony does the math in his head “Must have used her second in Southpaw. We’re down to one grenade between us all, we’ll have to hit an ammo dump soon. Anthony gets nods of agreement as he starts rummaging around the wreckage. “That said, let’s see what we can get from his car...”

“What’s left of it.” Pinkie adds, and both mares share a hoof bump.

“Yeah, what’s left of it. Nice job back there.” Anthony comes up with a roll of duct tape and one of the bayonets from the car. “Not much these can do alone but we could always jury rig a blade onto a gun we make. Oh yeah, we should be looking for guns to loot for parts not just to use ourselves.”

“Right.” Pinkie says. “Hey, do you think Scooter could help us make an E-Tech gun?”

“Doubtful.” Anthony responds. “Scooter’s good, but nobody can do something that they’ve got no practice with.”

Dash seems about to rush to defend Scooter but closes her mouth. “Yeah, you’re right. No trick ever works the first time.”

After rummaging for any other salvageable pieces, Anthony comes up with one of the vehicle’s mounted guns and the Black Box. “Here’s the Box. And I think this turret can still shoot. The other ones are bent to hell, but this one looks like it could still fire. Help me load it into the back, would ya Pinkie?”

With Anthony and Pinkie working together they get the turret strapped to their truck. “So... what do we need that for?” Dash asks, as she starts driving back to Ellie’s garage.

Anthony shrugs. “It’s a gun, and a big one. Maybe we could stick it on another vehicle, weaponize it some more.”

“Oh, oh oh!” Pinkie shouts. “A second turret on the Outrunner!”

“I’m not sure there’s enough room, Pinks.” Dash says. “But maybe.”

“At the very least, if we can’t attach it to anything, we can sell it.” Anthony reasons.

The two nod agreement. “Alright, let’s get these ornaments back to Ellie, and then we can head for that Dahl bunker.”

Anthony nods and, once they get to Ellie’s, hops out of the car and heads to the nearby Fast-Travel station with the Black Box. “I’ll head over to Sanctuary, hand this to Claptrap.”

The mares nod again, and Anthony warps to Sanctuary, heading for the little trash heap that is Claptrap’s ’home’ just past Zed’s.

“So we meet. What’ll ya give me for this?” Anthony says, holding up the Black Box. “Better be good.”

“My sincere appreciation!” Claptrap says, striking a pose. At Anthony’s raised eyebrow, the little robot deflates. “Oh, alright. Here, fifteen thousand dollars for each of you, and an SDU for each of your backpacks. Take ‘em and go, I gotta get to work on this beautiful baby!”

Anthony raises the other eyebrow but takes the money and SDUs. They are actually a decent reward. At least they wouldn’t need Eridium to buy them off Crazy Earl. “Thanks, bolt-brain.” Anthony says and heads back to Sanctuary’s Fast Travel. Looking up into the sky, he sees Sanctuary’s shield shimmering slightly. They hadn’t put in the hyperion ‘power core’ yet... if they ever will. He hopes they don’t but he figures he should get out while the getting is good.

While he’s turning in the rest of their quests for them, Dash and Pinkie are with Ellie. Dash is getting her Exo-Frame replaced part by part, while Pinkie and Ellie talk.

“So why did you want those hood ornaments anyways? Why do they look like you?”

“Th’ Hodunks’re makin fun of me, or somethin’. Still, they look real nice, an they make the place look better.” she says, before holding out a hand. “Gimme that four-eights spanner.”

Pinkie grabs a random tool and, somehow being right... it’s Pinkie Pie, don’t question it, and hands it to Ellie.

“Thanks hon. So tell me ‘bout you-selves.”

“Well, we were just living in Ponyville when this thing showed up, and brought us here. Before that, I, uh, well I was gonna glitterbomb Anthony. He woulda been all sparkly... but not in the usual way.” Pinkie giggles.

“He gets sparkly? Like a vampeer?”

“Nah, he doesn’t really sparkle, but he glows. He’s a living star. He’s got a bit of an anger problem though. He’s been really happy though lately. Probably this place is so super-duper funtastic! Sure we die sometimes, but once you get used to it it’s just kinda tingly. Well, the respawning is. Bullets still hurt, a lot. Oh one time I got shot right in the eye and I thought I was crying but it turns out I was bleeding. Man there was a lot of blood, it was like my face was a giant fruit-punch spout!”

“Yeah, that does hurt a bunch. Ey Dash, the legs workin’ fine? But yea, gettin’ shot in the face is all kindsa painful, an if ya live afterwards, the New-U takes it as the dee-flat.”

With a flash, Anthony is back. “Hey guys, what’d I miss?”

“I was just telling Ellie about the time I got shot in the eye.”

Anthony shudders. “Yeah, that was pretty bad. I just shot her through the head before it started healing. Didn’t want it to stay that way, have her end up half-blind and all.”

“That would be a shame. She’s got such purdy blue eyes.” Ellie says, reaching over and scratching Pinkie’s chin.

“Oh, get her ears.” Anthony suggests. “She loves that.” Pinkie nods and, at the ear scritchings, starts her leg kicking like a puppy. Anthony and Ellie share a laugh at the spectacle as Pinkie leans into Ellie’s hand. “Anyways, anything else a few Vault Hunters could do before we head to the Highlands?”

“Ah don’t got anythin that won’t take a lotta time, but there’s a feller outside who said he wanted ta speak to yuh afore ya go.”

The group walks outside, Dash staying with Ellie to put the finishing touches on her new Exo-Frame, like rainbow flame decals. Anthony sees the guy in the pilot’s outfit and helmet. “Hey, you say you needed a Vault Hunter or three?”

“Yeah dude, I’ve been booted from my lofty perch, and now I need help getting revenge on those jerks on the cliffs! I need to ruin their volleyball game somehow, like breaking their net! But don’t just cut it, you gotta burn it, and get rid of their balls, too! And, y’know, kill the sons-a-bitches while you’re at it. Please.”

“Can do.” Anthony says. “Come on guys, let’s go raid the buzzard academy!”

“How’re we gonna get there, though?” Pinkie asks. “Buzzards are flying machines. We can’t fly.”

“Don’t remind me!” Dash moans from inside the garage. “But she’s got a point.”

Anthony just smiles. “I know a way, but we’ll need to go really fast.”

“Should be easy with an outrunner and this little thing!” Dash says, holding up an Eridian relic.

Anthony nods, grinning. “That’ll work on any vehicle, but yeah. First we gotta stop by an Ammo Dump and fill up on grenades and rockets. Pinkie should be almost out by this point.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Dash agrees. “There’s one in the garage.”

Once the group is loaded up, they all hop into an Outrunner and they head back out to the main area of the Dust. Anthony points to a huge, angled rock jutting out of the ground. “You see that ramp, Dash?”

“We’re gonna boost off that and land in their camp... aren’t we?”

“And then set the place on fire.” Anthony confirms.

“I love being a Vault Hunter!” Dash yells as she speeds for the rock formation, starting the boost and launching the group straight into the Goose’s Roost, smashing down a smaller structure in the process. “Man, that relic thingy has a lotta power to it!”

“Ya’ll put it to good use now!” Ellie says over the ECHO, to which Rainbow salutes.

“Yes ma’am!”

“Party time!” Pinkie yells as she sees some marauders storming out of their little huts.

Anthony grabs the turret controls and unloads several hundred bullets into a single marauder. “Dude!” Rainbow Dash yells, seeing the amount of ammo in one body. “I think he’s, like, more bullet than anything else!”

“That’s nothing!” Anthony says happily as he spies a Goliath. “Watch how much I can load into fatso’s stomach!”

“Mine!” Pinkie yells and gets to the Goliath first, a stray shotgun bullet knocking it’s helmet off. “Uh... my Pinkie Sense is telling me that wasn’t a headshot...”

"Mistake! BIG GOD-DAMN MISTAKE!"

“Shit,” Anthony yells as he starts firing at the now-raging Goliath. “Drop that guy, fast!”

A nomad in the camp seems to agree, yelling for all the bandits to focus on the Goliath.

“Get ready to feel my fingers in your eyeballs!" the Goliath screams, charging the incoming bandits. Several psychos get splattered and the goliath’s rage increases... as does his level.

“Shit!” Anthony repeats. “He’s a badass now!”

The Goliath then charges the next batch of bandits, who scatter like terrified pigeons, one getting a comet-drop to the head, killing him instantly.

The Goliath turns towards the Junior Vault Hunters after pulping another bandit and levelling up again. “Murdering you is gonna feel so RIGHT!" The large, portly humanoid begins to charge at high speed towards the three and their car.

“Powers!” Anthony shouts. “Now! We need to end that guy before he gets any more kills!”

“Yeah, especially since I think we’d be next on that list!” Pinkie says, diving out of the way as the Goliath takes a swing at her. Dash screams and blasts in with her Rainboom, knocking the Goliath down, though he gets up fast.

“Gonna need more than that! Pinkie, Slag him!”

Anthony readjusts his aim with the turret and starts shooting the Goliath, who was at this point Ultimate Badass Goliath level, only a few kills away from GOD-Liath. This was gonna be trouble. Pinkie turns her Cannon to him and blasts the Goliath, before pulling out her slag weapon and coating the Goliath in Slag while he’s downed.

The repeated firing from the vehicle’s turret, combined with the damage-boosting properties of the slag effect were working, in just a full minute of shooting, the Goliath was down to three-fourths of his health. “Need more firepower!” Anthony shouts, tossing his grenade at the Goliath’s feet, but the goliath jumps out of the way... towards the car, and though Anthony is able to get away in time, the car is smashed to pieces in a single body-slam, the explosion knocking the group and what bandits were left to the ground..

“Down to us.” Anthony gulps as the Goliath jumps, landing right in front of him.

In a voice of thunder and terror, the Goliath looks him in the eye, strangely, mutilated mutant head bobbling disturbingly atop his spine. “Ever been strangled with your own intestines?!”

“Nope.” Anthony admits as he, with a Spark, leaps out of the way of a gargantuan fist, and he punches the Goliath with a flaming fist... only to barely do anything, and the goliath replies with a punch of his own, knocking Anthony further into the camp, breaking his shield.

He looks up, the whole area fuzzy and wobbling, even though he’s sure he’s not moving his head. He feels pretty cold, which is odd, because whenever he’d been shot and dying before, he’d simply start shooting around, but this time, his arms feel like they’re filled with lead.

Looking down, he realizes there’s a chunk of the building he’d been thrown through, a simple metal shack, protruding out of his chest.

“O-oh. That’s why it’s col-” he blacks out, still not dead, but also not conscious.

Pinkie gets flung by the Goliath similarly to Anthony, though her naturally bouncier body takes less damage than Anthony. She also wasn’t sent through a building as it had already been demolished.

She gets up and shakes her head then looks at Anthony, shuddering. It takes her a few seconds, but then she remembers the deal with her eye. If he wasn’t killed by that and respawns... he’ll respawn cut in half. “Dashie, we need some really strong med hypos over here!”

Dash, however, is busy ducking under and around the Goliath, leaving Pinkie without help or backup. And while Dash is slowly taking down the Goliath, she’s not going to be able to help.

Pinkie looks around with worry, scrambling through the wreckage for one. Finally, she finds half a hypo, just a sharp-edged vial of red fluid, no needle. Wincing, she pulls Anthony off the wreckage, and pours the contents of the hypo, powdered glass and all, into the wound, hoping it’ll work.

Through the crashing and thundering, Pinkie waits, until the flesh of the wound knits back together, leaving a vicious-looking scar, but not a hole all the way through the guy’s chest. I mean, it wasn’t a very big hole to begin with, but a support strut through your chest’ll do some damage.

Pinkie breaths a sigh of relief, and turns back to the fight as Anthony’s body starts digistructing away. He’d respawn with just a nasty scar.

Anthony’s vision lights up after a few minutes, his body being reconstructed. He spawns back at Ellie’s garage at the New-U station, realizing too late that there wasn’t one up at the Goose’s Roost, he’d have to get another car and get back there himself. He rushes over to the Catch-A-Ride and orders an Outrunner again, leaping into it seconds after it finishes digistructing. He gets used to the driving controls, which were fairly simple. Simple enough for even a fairly-sane bandit to use for the most part, and heads back for the ramp.

“Hold on girls, I’m coming.” He mutters as he rockets up the ramp, just barely finding the booster in time to hit it, pushing him into the roost... the upper part of which was mostly demolished by the goliath’s rampage.

He lands just in time to see Pinkie blast the Goliath with her cannon again, getting its attention before hopping away.

Anthony thinks it over. From here, Dash is keeping the Goliath close to stationary, and Pinkie’s keeping it stunned... and he has a sniper rifle. This might be the time to use it.

Cursing the fact that it’s a white level 2 and such low damage, he realizes even if he somehow landed all four bullets in the Goliath’s head, it wouldn’t be enough. He yells “Slag it!” and hopes the girls are fast enough to do so without breaking pace.

Dash hears the call and takes out a grenade, hurling it at the ground where it sticks and Rainbooms past the Goliath, just in time for the grenade to go off, showering the Goliath in Slag as well as several other smaller grenades, the MIRV’s subsequent explosions on top of the slag putting it at a fourth of its health. Anthony takes several minutes to line up the shot with the tiny, wavering target, but fires. Three shots of the burst land in the Goliath’s head, but the fourth bullet misses, though Dash is fast enough to finish it off, emptying a full clip of her Assault Rifle into it’s belly.

“I'm unstop... able...” the Ultimate Badass Goliath mumbles, falling to its knees and collapsing. As it falls, piles of cash pours out of its pockets, and the monstrous human mutant gives a final groan as the last noise it makes, before the ‘Level Up!’ message flashes across the entire group’s HUD.

Anthony, for his part, is cotton-mouthed and shaking. “We...” He pauses. “We took out a level fifteen at level seven!”

He then starts laughing at the ridiculousness of the feat and soon the mares join him, as they loot the money. Unfortunately, such mirth is easily noticed by bandits and the rest of them come out, no longer afraid of getting squashed by a goliath. Newly leveled up, the group turns to the bandits. “Still got a job to do.” Dash reminds as they charge the bandits, with renewed strength and vigor.

Anthony tosses a grenade into the mass of psychos, marauders, and nomads and a continuous spinning wheel of fire starts roasting the coming bandits from the legs up, several Psychos being tripped up long enough to be taken out by Anthony and Dash’s gratuitous spraying with their assault rifles while Pinkie sends several shotgun blasts into the crowd, hitting the first row and managing to slag the second, which fall even faster.

“We just took out that huge thing by ourselves!” Dash yells over the sound of her own gun. “What makes these idiots think they have a chance?”

“No idea.” Anthony replies, then getting an idea. “Hey, I’ll work on the marauders in the back, think you can handle the front by yourself?”

“Pfft, totally. Do your thing!”

Anthony Sparks up and rushes through the horde, flaming and electrified fists out front, cutting a path through the mass and reaching the back, pulling out his Hyperion pistol and delivering continuous headshots to the Marauders in the back. The plan was working until the Nomads, catching on, order the group to spread out and stop being fish in a barrel.

Once the psychos start spreading out, they seem to get smarter, too, teaming up on Dash while the marauders aim for Pinkie, the nomads going for Anthony, and catching him in the gut with machine gun fire.

The psychos, however, finally break through Dash’s shield, activating it’s effect. “I don’t know what this is...” Dash says confused. “But I feel like I could buck down a mountain!” she finishes this by bucking a psycho in the gut and sending him flying. Rainbow Dash grins then puts her gun away as she starts punching and kicking, beating the motherloving shit out of the psychos, her shield being prevented from starting its recharge cycle and prolonging the Roid boost with each cut she gets from the psychos’ buzz axes.

By the end, she’s covered in blood, both hers and bandit alike and is gasping and panting, definitely in pain, but victorious. She picks up her Fire SMG and begins firing at the marauders that were firing at Pinkie.

Very quickly, the entire horde is dead, though Dash and Pinkie are pretty close as well. It’s pretty nasty, how much coagulated blood is all over them, and Dash is going to get a whole collection of interesting scars if she doesn’t die soon. but they’re both holding up, and killing one of them in cold blood for mere scars isn’t something that sits well with anyone in the group.

“Okay...” Anthony says, getting a chance to sit down. “We need to find where they stash their volleyballs and pop them or something. Then get some gas, cover the net with it, and burn it.”

“And see what we can snag from this place.” Pinkie adds.

Anthony nods. “If there was ever a place to find some schematics on a Buzzard for Scooter to upgrade... they’d be here.”

“Gotcha!” Dash says, nodding as the three fan out.

Within minutes, the balls are deflated, the net is ablaze, and the three have been cornered by the Shirtless Men in said men’s own rec room.

“These guys must be glad they’re out in the Dust.” Anthony says, “If these guys ever took a vacation to the Fridge, they’d be popsicles.”

“Not very tasty ones.” Pinkie says, making a disgusted face.

“Shut up and shoot, guys.” Dash says, rolling her eyes as she dodges a spray of shotgun pellets.

“Fine, fine.” Anthony rolls his eyes and aims his Hyperion pistol at the shirtless men, getting each of them in the chest with about three bullets each.

“On the other hoof, they’d be pretty tasty as is, if ya know what I mean!” Pinkie says, chortling and waggling her eyebrows.

“There are only so many ways that can go, and I doubt any would be very enjoyable in all honesty.” Anthony comments as he lands a few faceshots.

“Well, at least I have you~!” she retorts, shotgunning down another bandit minion that got too adventurous. The Shirtless Men are still up though, and have Badass-grade hit points.

“Yeah, maybe you’ll get lucky one of these days.” Anthony taunts, to which Dash just groans.

“Would you two either shut up or just kiss already?”

“Nope.”

“Ugh...” Dash rolls her eyes, before noting her gun’s out of ammo and getting ready to reload again. “Oh, dude, look!” she says, pointing into the building.

Anthony turns, seeing a desk with lots of papers and volleyball trophies on it, brightens up a bit. “Yeah, there’s a good chance for those schema-”

Dash runs over, and grabs something off the desk, and cuts him off with, “They left their keys! Hahahaha, we’re flying off this plateau!”

Anthony shrugs and gives an offhanded, “Okay,” as his shield eats a few bullets from the shirtless men.

“Stop ignoring us!”

Pinkie pulls out her launcher and just says “Okay!~” sending a rocket right at them from point-blank.

“You know the biggest problem with these guys being shirtless?”

“They look more muscley than you do?” Pinkie asks.

“Stop trying to play that game, but no, this is.” Anthony chucks a spare can of gasoline from lighting the net and douses them, setting them on fire with his incendiary grenade. They were tough though, and such an action only brought them down to half health, but they were definitely extra-crispy.

A slag grenade and a hail of bullets later, and the Shirtless Men have gone down, at last, Anthony just about out of ammo, Dash down to her last few bullets, and Pinkie has one more bullet left, hooves twitching to pull her Party Cannon instead.

“Whoo, that was quite the adventure. But let’s get outta here and turn in the job, we got the buzzard schematics-”

“And an actual Buzzard!” Dash shouts, running over to the holding bay, half torn apart from the Goliath’s rampage, and a few moments after Dash runs inside, the sound of a revving engine and spinning gyros fill the camp.

But the first one in the air is not Dash. Several marauders have taken most of the buzzards and are now circling around the camp. With the group almost out of ammunition, aside from Anthony’s sub-par Sniper, they were not equipped for this fight.

Dash eventually gets airborne, but not before the bandits opened fire on her friends, shredding through their shields, Anthony Sparking up and using the speed boost to run for cover, Pinkie getting shot enough to actually tear a limb off from the force of impact from the turrets. Swearing, Anthony gets Dash on the ECHO. “You sure you can fly that thing?”

“Hell yeah!” she crows, turning and opening fire with everything the Buzzard’s got, hitting another of the flying machines and getting the rest to back off so she can land near Anthony. “There’s handles and a seatbelt on the side, so get on, buckle up, and let’s blow this joint!”

Anthony nods, a grin on his face as he hops onto the Buzzard. He’d shot bandits off this position hundreds of times in the game, but this time he got to go for a ride. They seemed like such easy targets, but this was way too fun. He pulls out his Sniper and starts aiming around, but the Buzzard’s swaying was disorienting.. “How steady can you get us without slowing down? I can’t get a decent shot at their cockpits like this.”

“Just shoot more bullets at ‘em, don’t worry about being precise!” she responds. “These controls are really stiff, and the seat is uncomfortable as nothing else I’ve ever sat on. Whoever had the freaking brilliant idea to use Skag hides as seat leather needs to shoot themselves in the wrists and wait an hour!”

Anthony just nods as he shifts his aim from cockpits to turbines, and sends a few burst shots at the nearest Buzzard. “These things also have huge weakspots.” he says as the bullets damage the turbine and the enemy Buzzard is sent spiraling towards the ground in a trail of smoke. Anthony drops the other turbine and the machine falls hard to the ground, breaking into pieces. “Scooter better upgrade these things when he gets one. They might as well be made of freaking glass.”

“Thanks for the tip! Now hold on, Imma tornado these bastards away!” she shouts, and Anthony barely grabs on in time for the spinning to begin, Dash firing wildly and getting the other Buzzards to dive out of the way to escape the crazy flier in front of them, as Dash comes in for a landing at Ellie’s garage. It’s such a shorter ride without having to do it by foot.

A stray splash of bullets catches Anthony in the head, the critical hit location for humans kicking in and ending him just before Dash lands, drawing an enraged, “Aw, come on!!” from him as he respawns, having just died in arm’s reach of the ground.

Anthony runs over to the Ammo Dump inside the garage and, purchasing a full restock of ammunition, runs out and is about to fire away into the sky, but the enemy Buzzards escape, denying Anthony revenge as well. “You get back here you pussy sons of bitches!”

“Chill, Anthony, we can upgrade this thing and storm them later.” Dash says, hopping out of the Buzzard and contacting Scooter. “I got your flying machine, and the papers. I’m ready to fly again!”

“Well, Ellie will get it scanned inta the Catch-A-Ride, and y’all can get more outta them.” Scooter says. “Y’all did great, an I’ll get to work fixin’ the whole thing, so’s y’all can get a better ride in the sky. It’s gonna be swee~eet!”

“Scooter, you are awesome!” Dash says, and Anthony heads over to Ellie who’s petting a respawned Pinkie. 

“Got a Buzzard, and not even a scratch on it. Sure it’s not much better than the ones those crazies drive, but mint condition! Well maybe a few bullet holes but hey, they add character.”

Ellie gives Anthony a smile and Dash gets the buzzard into the garage itself where it’s quickly scanned in. Pinkie runs over to the Catch-A-Ride and spawns another one in, confirming it worked. “Yay! Flying machines!”

“An they’s only gonna get cooler once muh bro gits done with tha schee-matics.” Ellie says.

Anthony heads over to Loggins, the man who had given them the mission in the first place. “Woah, man! That’s crazy! I asked you to just set the place on fire and pop some balls. I didn’t expect ya to completely trash the place and bring back their favorite bird!”

“Heh, all in a day’s work.” Anthony says, beaming at the accomplishment.

“Yeah!” Pinkie says, jumping in. “We’re Vault Hunters!”

“I’ll say.” Loggins says, his voice a bit giddy, and he was probably smiling under his mask. “You can be my wingman anytime! And here, you guys earned these!”

Anthony takes an SMG called the 'Fervid Gospel’ while Pinkie gets an Assault Rifle, saying she’ll scrap it for parts, and Dash takes a Dahl Slag SMG, meaning Anthony was the only one without a Slag weapon.

All in all it was a good day, but the Highlands were waiting for them and they could only rest for so long before they had to go find the hidden Dahl bunker and get the experimental shield Angel mentioned. Anthony just had to hope that he dropped enough hints about what he knew to get Angel to understand she shouldn’t bullshit him like she did the others.
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After cruising around for a little while, they come to the first of the three sand-buried huts. They all look similar, and Angel couldn’t pinpoint which has the Bunker.

“Alright, first stop, Bandits!” Dash calls, and a few of the aforementioned bandits peek out of the shack to investigate the noises. A nice new pair of sunglass lenses are clipped to the top of her goggles, flipped up.

“Alright, let’s take these guys down.” Anthony says, pulling out his Scout. His pair of medical-grade sunglasses are over his eyes, small lenses specifically made for use with sighted weapons.

“Okie-Dokie~!” Pinkie says, the dark-lensed gas mask over her face only slightly muffling her voice.

Anthony, having a better grip on his Sniper rifle, manages to land some bullets in their necks, though he gets one bandit in the eye. “Man, we should have used our skill points much earlier.” He says, grinning. “I feel like I could shoot a pecan off a bandit’s head at five-hundred yards... and then hit the bandit.”

“Yeah, what you said!” Pinkie hollers back, slinking around to the right of the door, waiting for another bandit to come out. Sure enough, another comes out, this time a Bruiser. Pinkie can’t suppress a giggle as she levels her shotgun at him, getting his attention in time to blow his head half off. The hefty bandit screams and gurgles, clutching his ruined face, and Dash just puts him out of their misery with a few bullets.

Anthony, hopping out of the turret, begins to head for the bunker. He’d seen their insides in the games, and there wasn’t anywhere to hide the bunker entrance normally... unless it’s behind the tattered cloth that bandits normally spawn from in-game. ‘Of course, those’re real places now, not just entity locations.’ he thinks to himself, and gingerly lifts the reeking, stiff ‘cloth’ of the partition, revealing mess, filth, aging food well past its expiration date, and... a scraped, dented, blast-marked, but entirely intact floor hatch labeled ‘Dahl’ on the side. Well, at least they knew how to make reliable military-grade hardware, y’know?

Pinkie and Dash stand outside guarding the place, making sure no bandits come after them. A lone Psycho attempts to rush them, but is quickly finished off by the mares.

Angel speaks up, not sounding sure. <“Alright, that’s definitely a hatch, I won’t know if it’s the right one until you open it. Thankfully, the code for all three is the same: Lima-Lima-Mike-Niner, Open Sesame.”>

The hatch clicks from red to green, and Anthony reaches down to grasp the spinwheel and open the hatch. Opening the hatch, the smell is a lot better than the bandit’s main living area, but still musty and stagnant.

<“No, sorry, that’s not it. But there should be some decent Dahl gear. It won’t have any other parts, but I overheard Scooter saying you could make new guns at his place... I’d suggest taking any rifle stocks you find. Those were always Dahl’s best creations.”>

“Deep clip, good fire rate, but overall low reload, with an okay damage output. That’s Dahl.” Anthony agrees as he slides down the ladder and picks some guns off of the weapon racks. “Kinda strange, Dahl usually stores their stuff in their green boxes. But these’re just sitting here.”

<“This is an actual weapons cache; most likely, those green boxes were intercepted before they arrived at one like this.”> Angel clarifies, as Pinkie and Dash slide down, ogling the small piles of weapons, and the grenades settled carefully into small holders. There’s also ammunition galore for every type of Dahl-made weapon. A single line of dark blue in the back catches Anthony’s attention as Dash and Pinkie continue going through the others, talking and comparing parts.

“Well hello there, loot.” Anthony says, walking over to the light and picking up the gun to study it. It looks like a pretty normal assault rifle... but it’s not colored like other Dahl rifles, instead just being a fairly normal dark gunmetal gray, with iron sights and an ammo counter on the top in digital blue. ‘It looks like a... what’s the term... bullpup design? That’s where the ammo’s behind the stock. And it’s different...’

Then he sees the name. “Chief’s Luck” without any prefixes. A little symbol, like a circle in another circle, but offset, is scratched into the stock. And the weirdest part? None of the parts look like ones from any manufacturer Anthony knows of. It’s labeled as made by Dahl, and has a tag in red, saying, “Don’t make a girl a promise...”

And the stats are really good. Not purple-tier or anything, but thirty-two shots and actually good damage and rate of fire. No major detractions, in fact. ‘Dash might like it, the way she’s been hungering for more dakka lately.’ he reasons. Still, he’d never heard of this unique before. And a level 10 at that.

Just a bit too high. But nothing they can’t grow into. Anthony decides to hold onto it for now and worry about who gets it when they’ve got the clearance to use it.

“Alright, Anthony, I think we’ve got all we can carry!” Dash yells into the cache, and Anthony turns around to see that it’s been completely wiped clean. “We tied most of ‘em down in the back of the Technical. You comin’?” she calls down.

Anthony climbs back up the ladder. “Yeah, saw a blue down there, but it wasn’t the shield we wanted. Level ten though, so we can’t use it yet.”

“Any good parts on it?” she asks, sounding a touch greedy as they head to the vehicle.

“Not sure, actually.” Anthony admits. “It says it’s Dahl and that makes sense, but I’ve never seen parts like this. It seems to be sturdier tech than Hyperion or Maliwan, really, and Dahl has never gone for the high-tech look.”

“Weird... maybe it’s a prototype or something?” Dash asks. 

Anthony shrugs. “It’d have to be. The parts look way too... made for the gun itself to be aftermarket, that’s for sure.”

“Double weird. Anyways, next place to check? This was a good haul of loot, and the racing bandits don’t seem to be bothering us much anymore.”

“We keep checking these bunkers until we find the shield. Angel can’t tell the exact one it’s in so we just check them all until we find them.”

Pinkie looks out at the number of possible bunker locations and groans. “But which one? I wanna get back at Jack no~ow!”

“Well then, we better get moving.” Anthony replies. “But don’t you worry, we’ll get Jack. I already have a few plans on what to do with him.”

“Ooh~?” Pinkie exclaims curiously, leaning towards him. As they speed to the next bunker location, Anthony decides to tell her a plan.

“Well, first off I’m gonna get one of those Psycho Buzzaxes and give him a good few whacks.”

“Owchie, that sounds pretty nasty. I like it!” she says, grinning widely.

“Well, you can discuss more in a bit, ‘cuz we’re at the next place!” Dash says, this shack having an actual overhang covered by a downed sign, meaning that the Bandits have extra cover and making it so there’s a ninety-degree corner between Anthony, Pinkie, and Dash and the bandits themselves. A grenade comes sailing out from around the corner, blowing one of the headlights off the Technical. “Mother buckers, you dinged my paint job!” Dash says, hauling herself out of the Technical as Anthony and Pinkie do the same.

Anthony gets an idea. “Hey Dash, you still got that homing Mirv mod on you?”

“It slags too.” Dash confirms, tossing it out and the bandits run out of their cover as it rounds the corner of the sign.

Moments later, the bandits all give out screams of pain and agony, and two stumble out into Anthony’s line of fire, his Scout blowing the guy’s head off. The others are all grunting and moaning in pain, and Pinkie begins to move towards the front, a slagged Bruiser coming out of the place, gun leveled right at her. She reacts with aplomb, pulling her Party Cannon quickly and letting loose with a shrapnel, confetti, and candy-laced blast that launches the Bruiser into the ‘roof’ of the overhang. Three multicolored candies lay on the ground, a red, a yellow, and a green just sitting there as Pinkie swaps back to her shotgun.

Anthony grabs the candy from the ground, and pops the red one into his mouth. “Sweet, these pandoran candies really work!” He says as he pulls out his Assault rifle and shoots the corpse of the Bruiser, the bullets leaving the gun with an almost explosion-like bang! as they perforate the body. “Red boosts damage output.”

“Swe~et” Dash says, grabbing a yellow as Pinkie takes the green and charges into the building, the sound of gunfire and cackling reaching Dash and Anthony. The two look at each other, slowly sucking on their relative treats.

Pinkie comes out moments later covered in all sorts of gashes and cuts and bullet holes, but they soon heal up as she chews the Green-Apple flavored health candy. “Wowie! These are fantastic! What does yours do, Dashie?” As she speaks, flecks of shattered tooth and blood fly from her mouth as the rock candy shreds her molars and gums.

Rainbow pops the yellow candy into her mouth and chews it cautiously. “I dunno, I don’t feel... well my hooves feel, lighter.”

“Try doing a few laps around the place.” Anthony suggests, knowing she’ll enjoy the speed boost from the candy.

She nods, jittery and fast as the candy sets in, and she sprints around the shack, a faint blur following her along the way. “Whooo-hooo~!” she cries, as Anthony grins and heads into the shack, looking around. It’s a charnel house, but a recent one from Pinkie’s attentions on the bandits within. They’d been lucky so far; none of them had died on this particular mission yet.

He finds the hatch in a room very similar to the first, except that it’s got more sleeping space and less natural filth, but not by much. “Lima lima mike niner. Open sesame.” the hatch clicks to green and he opens it.

Rainbow, still under the effects of the candy, enjoys her literal sugar rush by zooming down the ladder and back up, taking as many guns and grenade mods as she can carry, cleaning the place out in seconds. She finally runs out of juice when she returns for the last few weapons. “Wow, that stuff is amazing! Pinkie, you need to get more of that stuff!”

“Idunno how I did it Dashie, I just got a skill that said my party cannon makes candies... I didn’t know it made candy like that though.”

“Well, you gotta shoot more people with it, then!” Dash says, a manic grin on her face.

“Will do!” Pinkie says, bouncing back to the Technical, carrying whatever guns Dash hadn't gotten. Anthony checks around for another unique ‘or even a legendary’ but without any luck.

“Alright, place is cleaned out.” He says, “Let’s go check the next place.”

Dash nods and the two climb out of the bunker and get back in the car. The next place is actually a decent distance away, giving the group time to talk. Dash asks the first question. “So what’s up with our skill trees, anyways? I tried getting one of the skills on the bottom and it wouldn’t let me!”

“Oh, right.” Anthony sighs, as he realizes he forgot to explain them. Usually, Claptrap does, or starts the tutorial mission line for you. “You have to start at the top and go down. The skills at the top unlock the ones below them once you put enough points in them. You can see what skills do on the tree from your ECHO, same as where you spend your points.”

Rainbow nods. “Alright, so if I got this skill called ‘Speed Freak’ and put five points into it, I’ll be able to get the one below it?”

“Kinda. It works based on how many points are put into the tree itself, so if you put three points in one skill and two into another, you’ll unlock all skills on the next row. The skills can be put anywhere in the tree at all, so you can spend ten points on the first row and access the third row without needing to get anything in the second row.”

Dash thinks for a moment. “So this one says it boosts my vehicle speed... does that mean that if I put points into that it’ll make this Technical go faster?”

Anthony nods. “It’s a passive skill, it’ll boost the base speed of anything you’re driving.”

“Even, like, Buzzards?” she asks, smiling a bit more widely.

“Probably.” Anthony shrugs, unsure. “But get the skill and try it.”

“Done!” Dash says happily as she allocates her first skill points and a small amount of digistruction attaches some afterburners to the car, giving it a bit more speed and pushing them along notably faster. “This is amazing! Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

“We forgot, I guess.” Pinkie says. “Well, you did at least.”

“Right... so how do we get more points?”

“Level up.” Anthony says. “Each level we get above five, we get a point to spend and get even more badass!”

Dash is about to respond when an announcement comes over the ECHO. “Cara-Van comin’ through! Stay away unless you wanna lead milkshake!”

Pinkie grins “I love milkshakes!”

“Alright then.” Anthony says, “Take us down the road, we’ll intercept them and loot their stuff.”

“With this speed boost...” Dash begins, hitting the booster and sending them surging forward. “It’ll take no time!”

A little ‘miniquest’ marker pops up in the corner of their HUDs, telling them to intercept the Cara-Van and get ‘sweet loot’. The trio bounces and jounces towards the enemy caravan, sighting them well ahead of time, and Anthony makes a point of dropping some explosive barrels right into the lap of the forward Outrunner’s driver, who screams before the whole assemblage blows sky-high. However, the other driver has now been alerted, and begins to take evasive action, maneuvering closer to have his gunner take ‘em out.

Anthony tosses a barrel at the Cara-Van, stopping the vehicle while they deal with the second bodyguard, Pinkie pulling out her launcher and firing as the group passes the opposing vehicles. With a mighty explosion, part of the specially-armored outrunner is bent and sends the car swerving, while Dash makes a hasty U-Turn and sends them back around for a second drive-by.

With both front sides of the armored Outrunner blasted, it slows down enough for Pinkie to jump into the gunner seat, tossing out the bandit riding in it. Once alone in the turret seat, Pinkie pulls out her shotgun and blasts the driver, the bandit screaming mostly in fear as he feels the slag effect overcome him, staring at the manic grin of what he can only describe as a pink, fluffy Psycho Midget.

He screams harder, voice going hoarse as Pinkie flips back onto the Technical, unloading her Party Cannon mid-jump straight down at him, taking out his car and using the resulting explosion to lift her for a perfect landing in the bed of the Technical, snagging a yellow-candy lollipop out of midair to suck on, and reloading her launcher at a speed normally impossible for reloading such a large weapon.

“I guess they can... suck on that.” she says, sunglass falling down from her mane atop of the gas mask as a bandit screams, ‘aaaaaaaugh!’

The car runs right into a wall and bounces back, flipping over.

“Okay, you win!” The Cara-Van driver says over the ECHO. “Jus’ rob me an’ get it over with!”

Pinkie giggles and hops out of the Technical as it pulls up alongside the van, and Dash keeps the engine going as Anthony climbs over as well.

Pinkie kicks open the loot crate, and ogles the contents, as Anthony inspects the barrels lashed to the top. He recognizes them as moonshine barrels... and super valuable, if the little lights hovering over them are any indication. Well, they’re already robbing the crap outta these bandits, might as well go whole-hog about it.

“So what we got?” Dash asks.

“We got grenade mods.” Anthony calls back. “And booze! The good stuff!”

“Aww, not the moonshine!” the driver of the Van groans, “The other Vault Hunters just took the guns and grenades!”

“Yeah, the moonshine too.” Anthony says, hauling the heavy barrels of alcohol into the back of the Technical, along with the Dahl guns, leaving Pinkie just barely enough room. “Unless you wanna lead milkshake.” Anthony mocks, walking up to the hick of a driver and pulling out his Blue Jakobs.

“Oh, I’m so gettin’ fired fer this one...” the driver moans. “We gotta get better guards...” Anthony nods in satisfaction and gets into his crew’s turret seat, and gives a mocking salute as they head for the next shack, and the Dahl Bunker.


----- (/\) -----


Dash coasts to a stop outside the final shack, and the group gets ready to head in, when a Goliath tromps outside. They all freeze, the helmeted behemoth walking to a sand dune, unzipping his pants, and letting loose a stream of urine.

“Oh, eww. They just do that outside their home?” Dash says, the goliath cheerfully ignorant of their presence.

Pinkie shrugs. “Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, right?” she says. The goliath shifts in place a little, still going.

“Jeez, how much can that guy’s bladder hold?” Anthony asks in bewilderment.

“He’s still going.” Dash comments.

“Yeah... should we just shoot ‘im?” Pinkie asks, not sounding sure or comfortable with that.

“Seems a little rude...” Anthony says. The Goliath heaves a sigh.

“Seriously, how much does this guy drink?” Dash whispers.

“Out here in the Dust,” Anthony starts, “enough to fill up that stomach of his.” He then reaches for a grenade and tosses it, the longbow effect sending it right at the Goliath’s feet and sending out a spinning wheel of continuous fire.

“AAAAHHG! Bouncy ball burnt mah no-no square!!” the goliath screams, and Anthony winces as he realizes the rise in the dunes left the sprinkler-like fire grande right at the Goliath’s crotch height. The massive person topples, clutching himself in agony, helmet falling off. Even then, the Goliath doesn’t rage, too busy feeling agony and self-pity as the other bandits stream out of the shack like a comedy, half of them stumbling as they land on their faces, tripped by the Goliath collapsed right outside.

Anthony tosses a barrel out and blows the bandits away, also taking out part of the shack’s wall. Inside he sees that there’s a desert-colored Nomad who begins barking orders to the remaining bandits, and they start to organize, with notably less complaints coming from them than usual.

The three start to lay down fire into the mauraders, nomad, and the twin midget psychos pouring from the shack, the high sides of the technical giving Pinkie and Anthony the cover they need, Dash just using the entire car itself as cover from the driver’s seat.

After they’ve fought for quite a while, Anthony is really beaten down, with barely any health left, and Pinkie’s only barely doing better. Dash hasn’t got a scratch on her, and the shack seems quiet. There’s a lotto machine in the corner, and the entrance to the back room next to it, the walls covered in graffiti. This was, apparently, the local HQ for these bandits. Judging by the ‘Sund Ratz Rule!’ painted on the wall, they aren’t even Hodunks, but a splinter group.

Anthony quickly finds the hatch and walks into the room, when he sees something that fills him with rage. A body, a young woman, is in the corner. Given that it hasn’t digistructed away, she must’ve not been in the system, and it’s evident that the bandits were using her as a meat supply... among other uses. A sick feeling grips his stomach.

Before, he’d just been killing them, because they were, y’know, the generic bad guys. The obstacles between him and the next level.

This, though? This is evil. There’s no misunderstanding something like this. Now, they were confirmed murderers of the innocent, cannibals, and rapists. The kind of scum that deserved to die... and not respawn.

“A-anthony? Why isn’t she respawning?” A quiet voice asks, and he turns to see Pinkie looking at the corpse as well.

“I don’t think she was old enough to be in the system yet.” he says, looking at the build of the corpse.

<“Getting digistructed as a clone messes with your aging... so the system will reject anyone too young.”> Angel says softly, a note of pain in her voice.

“Yeah.” Anthony agrees. “The other way is to be rejected from the system by Hyperion. And since Jack’s the president, he can cut out anyone. Including the Crimson Raiders, which I assume he has.”

<“Everyone in Sanctuary but the Vault Hunters, and I’m sure he has a way around that, he just hasn’t yet.”> Angel confirms. <“He even left Brick in the system, but I think that was mostly in case he gets deposed.”>

“Who’s... who’s Brick?” Pinkie asks, clearly trying to change the subject.

<“A dangerous, violent man... with a kind heart to those he likes.”> Angel says.

“We’ll meet him later.” Anthony assures Pinkie. “Now let’s get to that Stalker-proof shield and get to the Reserve.”

<“Oh, just to warn you: The automatic defenses in the bunker are under local control; I can’t access them from a Hyperion uplink. I can only monitor the cameras, so try not to break those as you go. The Bunker hasn’t been opened in almost 130 years, but I’ve already turned on the air recyclers. Just watch out for traps, and you’ll be perfectly fine.”>

“Most of Dahl’s stuff is metal and ceramic based, similar to Hyperion though. Anyone here got a corrosive weapon?” Anthony asks his troupe.

“I got that Plasma Caster you gave me. I haven’t gotten to try it out, so this’ll be great!” Dash says.

Pinkie nods, pulling out the shotgun she got from the assassins. "This thing's corrosive, and it's a shotty!"

<“Oh, and I’ve updated your names in the New-U system, by the way. There should be one inside the Bunker itself, and I can see that, it’ll be perfectly placed. Just try not to die too much, alright?”>

“Well, with that experience booster you gave to our clearances, we’re levelling up faster than I expected. We should catch up to the other Hunters in no time at all, and once we’re at that point we should die a lot less. Though that Stalker-proof shield better be good, our shields are getting outclassed real fast.”

<“Don’t worry. It’s a level ten, and you should be there by the time you get to the shield itself. Again, just... be careful, okay? I don’t like seeing my... friends die, even if they come back.”>

“Dying isn’t so bad, actually. The main problem is the bullets hurting.” Anthony says, unlocking the hatch.

<“Well, don’t get shot, then, okay?”> Angel says, with a bit of sarcasm in her voice.

“Okie-dokie!” Pinkie says, peering into the depths. “Also, this one goes way farther down than the others. Imma slide down it!” she says, and grabs the sides before Anthony or Dash can protest, letting out a long ‘whee!’ as she descends rapidly. Dash and Anthony listen for a moment until they hear a ‘crunch’. “Owie...”

“Let’s... uh, climb down, ‘kay?” Dash says to Anthony.

“Yeah, let’s.” The two begin to make their way down the long ladder. At the bottom, Pinkie has crawled over to the New-U station, one of an older model, and is raising a shaky pistol to her head, both legs utterly shattered.

Anthony sighs. “Yeah, be careful. Pandora has low gravity but not that low.” He takes his Jakobs and gives Pinkie a shot right in the back of the head. She whimpers when she respawns.

“That was so fun except for the end...”

“Yeah, but you should probably not do that again, Pinks.” Dash says, giving the other mare a hug. “Now, we’re down here, and we gotta go do the thing for Angel. So let’s get that super-shield and get outta here, alright?” she says.

“Yeah. But keep that Caster at the ready. I’ll use my Assault Rifle for anything with a shield.” Anthony says, pulling out his Bandit-make AR. “And no rushing ahead. I don’t want to deal with any more broken legs.”

“Gotcha. Hey, didn’t Angel says there were automagic defenses?”

<Intruder detected. Detaining with extreme prejudice.> comes a robotic voice, a laser sight at chest height pointing out of the gloom.

“Goddamnit, RD, you had to say something!” Anthony yells, diving for cover as the ‘bot begins to let loose with what seems to be a gatling gun that literally cuts Dash in two, her body despawning almost instantly and beginning to reconstruct a little later. A ‘bot, looking like a weaponized Johnny5, trundles out of the darkness on twin armored tracks, a minigun for one arm, and what looks like the spout of a flamethrower on the other. The enemy ID says it’s a ‘Basic Base Defense Drone Mk. 1 Patent Pending’.

‘Great, its name is longer than its freaking health bar.’ Anthony thinks to himself. “Dash, if you’re done respawning, we could use that Caster out here.”

After a few moments, a barrage of green, glowing orb-shaped projectiles rams into the ‘bot, the corrosion taking a few minutes to settle in, but lasts long enough to take effect.

“Jeez, it looks like changeling spit!” Dash yells, as the bot begins to turn towards her, minigun spinning up once more. “Aw, not again!”

Pinkie dashes in, sprinting past and slowing only long enough to fire a shotgun shell of Slag into the back of its chassis, and continuing with a Cannonload of shrapnel and candy spraying into it, the candies flying out towards Anthony and Dash’s cover, as Pinkie ducks behind a wall support for cover.

<Unknown damage vector detected. This assault is unlawful under Dahl doctrine. You will submit to dying.> The BBDDMPP says. Hmm, no, it’s still a mouthful, no matter how you put it.

Anthony grabs a blue candy and starts sucking on it, as he begins unloading electrified bullets into the slagged, corroded robot. With the massive clip of the bandit gun, combined with the ammunition regeneration effect of the Blue Raspberry flavored treat, Anthony succeeds in doing more to mow down the robot than just simply shoot it.

The bot, finally, breaks down and collapses, dropping a veritable mountain of assault rifle ammo.

“Jeez, as if I didn’t already have that candy.” Anthony says, the mentioned candy finally melting to nothing but a pleasant taste in his mouth.

“Yeah, no kidding. I wish I had a decent assault rifle. Mine’s kinda... so-so.” Dash says. “And we- woah! Lookit our experience bars!” she says gesturing wildly, temporarily forgetting that everyone’s is only visible to them. And they’re nearly full already. They weren’t nearly that full before.

“Almost to ten.” Anthony notes. “Tell you what, you can try out that experimental weapon. No idea why Dahl didn’t put its parts into standard production, but hey, rare is better.”

“Yeah, you said it.” Dash says, taking the rifle from him and tucking it away. “Let’s see if we can find, like, something small to get us the last little bit to ten, I wanna try this out! Man, there’s so many cool guns.” she says, fangirling out a bit.

“Yup, and once we get to level twenty, they start getting really awesome.” Anthony notes. “Just a little incentive to keep going... not that we needed more.”

“Ni~ice” Dash says, grinning. Pinkie steps out of the gloom, the lights coming on.

“Hey, guys! I found that the lights turn on when you hit this green button on the wall, but it take a moment! And you gotta see what’s in the next room!” She leads them around a corner, and there’s a full security station set up, with a booth and a little turnstile, and a fully set up gun turret, though it isn’t tracking them at the moment. It’s labeled as a ‘Simple Security Turret’ but its level is just a skull.

“Definitely bad news. We should dismantle that thing ASAP.” Anthony suggests, getting a better grip on his rifle.

<“Actually, wait! If you can go back to the New-U station, and grab the Hyperion transmitter from it, you can install it into the turret. That’ll let me control it, and I’ll watch your backs!”> Angel says. The turret does have full view of the entire corridor, and none of the trio can see an easy way past it without potentially setting it off.

“Alright Angel, you win, but you shoot my friends in the back and I’ll do more than blast those Eridium Injectors off you.”

<“The, uh, the what?”> she says, not lying convincingly, but enough that the ponies seem confused. <“I have no idea what you could be referring to at this time, Anthony.”> That one sounded more like a plea than a statement.

“Nice try. We’re gonna have that private chat a bit later, but best believe we’ll be having it.” Silence over the ECHO, but he trusts she’ll be interested.

Pinkie comes back a moment later, with a small orange and black box with some antenna coming out of it. “Alright, Imma just stick this on the turret... right?”

<“That should do it, yes.”> Pinkie does so, and the yellow light on the turret flickers to red for a second, then to green. <“Perfect. Hmm... I can’t access the security grid still. I wonder why? Anyways, there’s more guns in the security office there, and the shield is further into the base.”>

“Works for me.” Anthony replies shortly. “Alright let’s find that shield and get to the reserve.”

“Yup!” Pinkie says, pronking over the security checkpoint, Anthony and RD vaulting over it behind her. Inside is a couple of old, old Dahl shotguns, ones that Anthony recognizes as being from Borderlands one in design. They’ve got a good fire rate, and decent clips, but aren’t nearly as special as the more modern ones.

“Man, these shotguns suck.” Dash says, looking one over. It’s classified as a white, but has an electrical element on it.

“Yeah, but grab ‘em anyways.” Anthony suggests. “If we can make our own shotguns with parts, we should be able to upgrade these.”

“Yeah, true.” Dash says, packing the electrical one away, the rest just being standard combat shotguns.

Anthony grabs both remaining guns and sticks them in his inventory space and continues along.

“Ooh, it’s another robot!” Pinkie shouts, pointing down the hallway. A moment later, a turret on four spider-like legs walks around the corner, pausing to look at them, then calls out, <Halt! You are not permitted to be in this location. Submit for termination and disposal immediately!> It then opens fire with its long turret, the shot from it roughly equivalent to a high-caliber sniper round and coring Anthony’s forehead.

“Ohhhh, man that’s an odd feel-” Anthony mumbles as he drops to his knees and lands facefirst, his body quickly despawning.

Dash immediately begins to open fire with her ‘Caster, and Pinkie jinks to one side, opening fire with her Cannon, hoping to overwhelm the ‘Base Defense Skitter Cannon Mk3 Patent Approval Declined’ before it can take out either of them.

Anthony respawns, partially in a daze. “Man, never thought getting a hole through your brain would feel like that...” He begins to make his way back to the group, rubbing his forehead, feeling it had completely healed but was still a bit tingly from the slightly-fuzzy memory of the event.

Dash dives behind cover, barely dodging the next shot from the Skitter, Pinkie shooting again. This ‘bot, however, has a shield, and is perfectly okay with trying to fire at Pinkie now, turning towards her with menacing slowness... as she simply skips in a circle around it, unloading over and over again at the shield to overload it, and beginning to dig holes in the metal and plating underneath once she had.

Anthony arrives in time for Dash to toss her mostly-full Caster at the back of the bot, bouncing it once off the ground and hitting it on the underside instead, blasting the thing apart at the joint of the legs. It was just a crotch-shot kinda day.

“Hey Angel.” Anthony says. “How about a bit of support with the rest of them?”

<“I would love to, but there’s not much I can do. Again, I have no access to the security grid -which is odd, given what I do have access to- but you three were between the Security Turret and that robot.”> she says apologetically.

Anthony thinks for a minute and his face brightens up. “Guys, I have a plan. Let’s get the treads from the first robot and see if we can use them to wheel around the security turret. Angel can blow these guys to smithereens.”

<“I’m going to have to veto this plan. That turret needs a dedicated power supply, and the camera indicates the acid from Rainbow Dash’s caster just finished eating through the treads half a minute ago.”>

Dash shrugs. “I’m not sorry about that. It was shoot or get shot again. Getting cut in half felt weird, guys.”

“So was a shot right through the brain... Oh well, guess we’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.”

<“Sorry.”>


----- (/\) -----


The three peered around another corner, this time much more cautiously. They had died each four times when they rounded a corner right into the sights of a wall-mounted cannon in one of the camera’s blind spots. The cameras were, in fact, mounted to the turret base and pointing away from it, and were destroyed in the subsequent explosions.

Down the way, a door labeled ‘Armory’ awaits them, but a pair of suspiciously placed crates flank the doorway.

“My Pinkie sense is saying there’s a surprise waiting for us... but my common sense is telling me it’s not a happy surprise.”

“Listen to the common sense.” Anthony suggests. “We’ll die less. Speaking of which, I started this little venture with over a million bucks, now I’m down to seven-hundred. Man, Jack is one greedy bastard...”

“Yeah, I don’t even have that, and I started with almost ten mil. These turrets are freakin’ vicious.” Dash comments, and Pinkie waves them over to the next piece of cover, crouching low to stay behind a piece of piping cover jutting from the wall.

The other two shuffles closer, and do a quick rock-paper-scissors to determine who pokes their head up.

“Great, I gotta risk another headshot.” Anthony gripes, peering over them. “At least I’m level ten already...” he whispers, thankful for the extra health, in spite of having no idea how that actually works. The two crates, white metal blocks with beveled edges and corners, don’t move, and nothing shoots at him. “One of us is going to have to see if those are booby traps, or just meant to scare us into leaving ‘em alone.”

“You already lost the gamble dude.” Rainbow says. “You’re up.”

“Fine, but I’m gonna do this the smart way.” Anthony pulls up his rifle, takes a few pot-shots at the crates and ducks down behind the pipe covering.

<Shots fired. Activating.> A robotic voice calls, and the sound of something metal unfolding and gears winding fills the hall. A cautious peek around the side by Dash reveals that the two boxes have opened up, revealing themselves to be a pair of tracked bots similar to the first one they saw, but one has a minigun and a shoulder-launcher instead, and the other simply has two miniguns. The two are tracking the hallway, laser-dot beam coming from their chests to point down into the gloomy passages.

“Dash. I have a plan.” Anthony whispers, not sure if the bots can hear too.

“It had better be a better plan than your last one!” she hisses back, neither of them noticing Pinkie had snuck off and under a normal crate.

“You toss a slag grenade out and then toss your plasma caster. It’ll-”

Dash cuts him off as Pinkie sneaks closer to the bots under her crate. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve been shot enough times already. You do it.”

“I can’t, I don’t have a slag grenade that homes in around corners.” Anthony retorts, Pinkie lining up her shot, and praying that she can fire her cannon and her launcher in rapid enough succession.

“I’m not sticking one hoof outside this cover, buddy. No way.”

“Well, I’m not gonna stick my head out to get it blown off aga-” Ba-BOOM

The whole base rattles as the shots from the Cannon and the launcher in Pinkie’s grip hit one bot and send it flying into the other, knocking them both down, one scrapped and the other pinned face-down in its wreckage.

“Alright, guys! I took care of the bots!” Pinkie yells, sitting in the remains of her crate, grinning. Her mane is blasted back, and she’s bleeding from the backwash of the twin blasts hitting the inside of the crate before punching onwards. Her ears also seem to be bleeding, and she seems a little dizzy. “Woah, somepony stop the corridor, it’s spinning like crazy!” she says, sounding delirious, as she looks vaguely around, a ‘Help up your ally!’ message flashing across Dash and Anthony’s vision as they stare, stunned, over the crates at Pinkie.

<This detainment of Dahl property is unlawful. Assist this unit in regaining its balance and submit for termination!>

“Don’t think so, ya hunk of junk.” Dash says, firing her caster’s last clip of ammo into it and setting the robot to melt down under the caster’s corrosion effect and general force of ammunition.

<This is extremely painful. Submit for termination! This is extremely painful. Submit fer terminasdrrrr~---> the bot finally shuts down, and everyone jumps at the ‘Level Up!’ they get, the second in this bunker.

“Level eleven.” Anthony says. “We should have access to our second row of our chosen tree now.”

“Wait, we have to spend it all in one tree to get the next row?” Dash asks, sounding startled. “Uh oh...” Pinkie also looks surprised.

“Don’t worry, we can always head back to Sanctuary and respec our points. That way we can try out all our skills without needing to be like, level eighty or so.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Dash says, sighing. “Well, I’ll put this into High Octane for now, then. I think a little more boost is a good idea.”

“Hey, Angel, what’s the password for this door?” Pinkie asks, shouting a bit. “Also, why’s everything ringing?”

< “Actually, it’s just touch to open... also, I think you may be deaf, Pinkie Pie.”>

“Whaaat?” Pinkie calls back, and Anthony and Dash both facepalm. This needs to be fixed, and fast, before the system ‘recovers’ the damaged version of her.

Anthony sighs and sends a sniper bullet through Pinkie’s head, and she comes back to the group after a few minutes.

“What was that for?” she asks, plaintively, before getting the explanation. “Oh, yeah, being deaf woulda sucked. Thank’s Anthony~!” she says, hugging him tightly and nuzzling his chest.

“No problem.” Anthony says, returning the hug.

“Wasn’t there a reason we were down here?” Dash asks, coughing into a hoof. “A reason other than snuggling and stuff?”

“Oh, right.” Pinkie says, while Anthony blushes a little in embarrassment. The three get in, and discover a cache of older Dahl weapons, ranging from snipers to shotguns to pistols and SMGs. Nearly a hundred weapons in all, with only a few of the spots open for more, and everything is dusty, including the one shield at the end of the lane, sitting next to four other spots for shields, all empty and coated in dust.

Anthony walks up to the shield and, brushing most of the dust off, attaches it to himself, replacing his old and now far outclassed shield. “And this thing is Stalker-proof? How?” He asks, not seeing any indication of the shield being that special.

He looks over the stats, see it’s a Dahl ‘Sonic Stalker-Hunter’, and then sees the red text. ‘Hunt the hunter, stalk the Stalker.’

<“It uses sonics to drive Stalkers away. They don’t like the noise, and will avoid it. That said, the shield itself is... not very useful for any other situation. It’s why they never really saw widespread use.”> Angel says. <“Oh, and it attracts Skags, that’s something to mention. What little research I can find about it suggests they think it feels like a Craw Worm passing through, and try to attack the source.”>

“Great, so I’m Skag Bait while wearing this.”

<“Unfortunately, yes.”>

“Fantastic. Oh well, let’s get through the Highlands fast then.”

> 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.”

> Chapter 11
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking the Fast Travel station that just landed in Overlook, the entire party of Vault Hunters return to Sanctuary, the junior vault hunters worse for the wear as they all head for the Crimson Raider headquarters, ready to celebrate a victory... well, not all of them.

Mordecai just sighs, leaning on the table of the war room, Roland and Lilith chatting about their current situation.

Anthony just walks up to Mordecai and lays a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry man... I really thought Bloodwing would make it.”

Roland nods. “It really is a big loss, but us getting Sanctuary into the air and away from Jack’s mortar shots is a victory in itself. And you...” Roland turns to Anthony. “You knew that power core was rigged, you knew and that’s what you were warning us about.”

Anthony just slinks out of the war room and crashes on the couch, holding his head. “Yeah... but I was being vague just in case. Guess I should’ve just came out and said it.”

“No, no if Jack got wind of his entire plan with Wilhelm getting revealed we’d have to deal with his backup, which you probably didn’t know anything about.”

“Yeah... and I really thought I’d save Bloodwing...”

“You seem pretty torn up about losing her.” Lilith says curiously.

“Wait, what happened to Bloodwing?” Dash asks, confused. “Didn’t Anthony say he was... but then he met us outside saying he died...?”

“Blood wasn’t in the system. Animals don’t get to go in Jack’s system.” Mordecai says, sounding angry and depressed. “Hey vault hunters, I got a job for you.”

“Whatcha need?” Axton asks, looking like he’s already prepared to take on another swarm of Hyperion bots.

“Let me put it this way, amigo: Bloodwing's dead, Jack's nearly got the Vault open - I dunno about you, but I need a drink. Or, more like a lot of drinks. The Hodunks run rakk ale out of the Dust-”

“No need.” Anthony interrupts, getting up from the couch and heading over to the bank opposite him. He reaches in and hauls out one of the barrels of moonshine out from under a pile of guns and sets it down with a grunt on a side table.

Mordecai’s eyes widen behind his desert goggles. “Is that...?”

“Moonshine, right from the Hodunks’ Cara-Van. Anyone got a pair of mugs?”

“When the heck did you get that?” Gaige asks, shocked.

Anthony shrugs. “We raided the caravan while we were searching the old Dahlwell Oasis for loot and such. They had it on-board and I took the opportunity. After all, you know how grubby those hicks are with their booze.”

“Almost as bad as the Zafords.” Moxxi says over the ECHO. “Sorry sugar but I couldn’t help but overhear your good fortune, tell you what, you give the booze to me to sell at my bar I’ll give you my prized pistol Rubi.”

“Woahwoahwoah - Moxxi's giving you Rubi if you give her my booze? The friggin' -- That bimbo lost Rubi years ago and I found it! She wouldn't even have it if it weren’t for me! No no no. Give me the booze, and I'll give you one of my old sniper rifles!”

Anthony thinks for a moment but shakes his head. “Moxxi, Rubi would be a great addition to anyone’s arsenal...”

“Aww come on man!” Mordecai groans.

“But I’m not gonna break the bro code. Mordecai lost his best friend today, and that kind of man deserves a drink, no matter whatever better deal might be just down the street and around a corner.” Anthony is passed a couple of mugs and he fills them up, passing the first to Mordecai and keeping the second for himself. “To Bloodwing. Wherever she is, let’s hope she’s flying free... and tearing out some bandit’s eyes.”

“You said it, amigo.” Mordecai sighs and tips the mug to his lips as Anthony does the same.

“You boys aren’t seriously going to just get drunk and mope around are you?” Lilith asks cautiously. 

“‘Fraid so.” Moxxi replies. “Did the same thing after he and I split up, poor kid.”

“Jack is still out there, I’d save the drinks for a celebration.” Lilith advises.

“I got a second barrel in there. I’m sure well have some left over for a celebration.” Anthony replies taking another drink. “Damn this is some strong stuff.” He blinks when he realizes he can feel it beginning to hit his system almost instantly, and remembers he can’t just access his star-form to burn it off, and hasn’t eaten today.

Moxxi is silent for a bit before reopening communications. “A second barrel you say? Well, like I said before, I’m generous to those who are generous to me.~”

Anthony just takes another swig of his drink and replies honestly. “I’ll think about it.”

Mordecai nods towards Anthony. “Hey... like I said, I’d give you one of my old snipers. Here, put it to use.” With that, Mordecai pulls out a Unique sniper rifle and passes it to Anthony who gladly accepts the gift.

“Finally something to permanently replace that white level two I was hauling around.”

“Man, you were using a level two this whole time?” Mordecai asks, continuing to nurse his drink.

“Couldn’t find another rifle.” Anthony replies, doing the same. “Had to borrow one for the fight to get back to Sanctuary. Thanks, by the way.” Anthony takes the spare sniper rifle and hands it to Zer0 who takes it back wordlessly.

Roland coughs and gets everyone’s attention. “We need a plan. Jack’s getting closer and closer to digging up the Warrior, and we still don’t know where he’s got the Vault Key stashed.”

Angel comes on the main screen of the war room’s table. <”I can help you with that.”>

“You?” Roland says, not shouting but still injecting a hot vein of anger into his voice. “Damnit, we told you never to contact us again!”

<”Will you please just hear me out-”>

Lilith rolls her eyes and interrupts with a mocking tone. “Sure, let’s listen to the crazy computer that just tried to kill us. Hey, remember the time she told us the Vault was full of loot?”

<”It’s with me! I’m charging the vault key!”>

Everyone pauses but Roland responds first. “Continue.”

<”The key naturally charges itself once every two-hundred years. Jack is patient, but not that patient. He’s been using my power to forcibly charge the key with Eridium. If you find me, you find the Vault Key. The Vault Key is housed in my AI Control Core atop Thousand Cuts. It’s protected by three impassable security hurdles.”>

Anthony just sighs and chugs the rest of his drink, already showing signs of being tipsy.

<”The first is a Competitor Deterrence Field that will obliterate any non-Hyperion entity passing through it.”>

“Competitor deterrence field?” Lilith asks. “What, like, a death wall?”

<”It is a field of pure thermosonic energy programmed to atomize any unauthorized personnel.”>

“So yeah.” Roland replies. “A death wall.”

<”Beyond that lies the second hurdle: a defense bunker outfitted with the most high-tech weaponry Hyperion can afford.”>

“That doesn’t sound good.” Roland notes.

<”Past the bunker, you’ll have to get through the final hurdle: a door that will only open for Handsome Jack.”>

Lilith folds her arms. “Well that sounds even worse.”

<”This will be your only opportunity to steal the Vault Key and stop Jack from controlling the Warrior. I’m out of time. Do what you will, but promise me this: no matter what happens, do not allow Lilith into my chambers.”>

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean!?” Lilith exclaims exasperatedly.

Roland attempts to placate his friend. “If she was luring us into a trap, she would have made it sound a little bit possible.”

“If we’re taking that bitch down, I’m coming. Trap or not!”

“You tell ‘im Lilly!” Anthony says, raising a nearly-empty mug to Lilith, now fairly plastered already, Anthony clearly having drunk his share much too fast.

The group just stares at Anthony and shrugs it off. “Anyway...” Roland says trying to get everyone back on track. “If anyone’s going to shut her down, it needs to be you guys. I think I know how to get past the first hurdle.”

Anthony just shakes his head. “If you mean upgrading that annoying pile of crap Claptrap, forget it.”

Roland gives the slightest hint of a scowl. “What? Why? Mordecai-”

“I kept all my data, including the Claptrap upgrade, on Bloodwing’s collar.” Mordecai informs.

“And said collar blew when I tried to get ‘er back from captain douchebag and his wack slag experiments.” Anthony adds. “Trust me, that thing is even more long-gone than Blood. I felt my skull crack taking that explosion.” Everyone in the room winces. “Yeah, sucked hard. Anyways, you still want to upgrade Clappy, you’ll need to get your hands on another upgrade, and that means raiding Hyperion for it.”

The group thinks it over in relative silence, before Roland leans in. “Go on, Anthony. You’ve proven you’re right so far... so let us hear it. What do you know about this AI Core, and how do you suggest we go in?”

Anthony looks around, realizing everyone, even the ponies are looking at him. Mordecai’s nursing his drink, but looking as intent as he can from behind his goggles.

“Well, I honestly don’t know how to get past the first hurdle... but getting past the second would be easy with the right kind of help.”

“And I know just the man for the job.” Roland says. “But there’s still the problem of the first hurdle.”

“Then we raid Hyperion for another claptrap upgrade. Might be hard with the line discontinued and all but heck, for all we know we just need some schematics and maybe Scooter or Gaige can fix him up.”

“Pfft, cake!” Gaige replies, offhandedly. “But yeah, I’d need some plans to know where to start. I don’t update Hyperion tech I... bastardize it.”

“There we go. Just need some plans.” Anthony says, swaying a bit.

“Hyperion info stockade.” Mordecai says. “If we’re looking for anything, it’ll be there. I admit that my info on the Vault key was crap, but then, I didn’t go in there and raid it directly. We might have more luck with a hands-on approach.”

“So, who’s going to get the Info Stockade job, and who’s going to get Roland’s help with the second hurdle?” Dash asks. “I mean, I suppose we did kinda win by messing up those slag experiments.”

“But only ‘kind of’. If Jack’s trying to open the Vault, there has to be something good in there.” Roland says, pausing for a moment to look at Anthony again. “By the way, do you have any good ideas on what, precisely, is in there? There’s all sorts of rumors, and most of them are conflicting. Getting an idea from our local... psychic would help.”

Anthony just stares at Roland with a semi-glassy look. “Anyone here played ‘Diablo’? ECHO sim from way back? Nah? Fine. Imagine this giant lava monster. Straight out of Hell. Like, fire-breath, skin made of rock, the whole shebang. The kind of thing that you expect to see when you’ve kicked one too many puppies and then getting offed for good. Bad news, right? Even worse, it swims in freaking lava.”

“Sounds like he’d be great at parties.” Gaige snarks, catching Pinkie’s attention.

“Wait, parties? that’s a great idea! I know exactly how to get us into the Stockade!” she says, grinning all around.

“What, gift-wrap a bomb to Jack and have it blow up in his face?” Anthony guesses. “Because I figured when we off him it’d be a bit more dramatic but if it works...”

“No, no, no... we make a giant cake, but hollow, and fill it full of Vault Hunters...” she starts, and everyone starts laughing.

“Pinkie... you sho- so crazy...” Anthony mumbles, giving Pinkie a hug and a light noogie. “But really, what’sh yer plan?”

“Th-that is my plan...” she says, looking sad, her ears drooping. Everyone’s laughing, except Roland and Lilith who are looking at each other.

“Actually, I think it could work.” Roland says, quietly but with the force of leadership behind his words. Everyone goes silent.

“If you say so Roland...” Mordecai says, a bit hesitant but going along with the plan. “If it even does end up going through the info stockade that is. Who knows where Jack sends his mail to be checked?”

“We could go undercover again!” Dash suggests. “Sure we lost Bloodwing, but other than that the mission went perfectly! We could sneak by again, right?”

Anthony just gives Dash a half-lidded thousand-yard stare.

“A-actually, I was thinking we send the cake to the people at the Stockade. Then, they bring us in, and we can pop out and surprise them! With, y’know, grenades and bullets.” Pinkie says.

“Works for me.” Salvador says, interested in the idea. “But who gets to eat the cake afterwards?”

“It’s cardboard, not a real cake.” Maya clarifies before pausing. “It is going to be cardboard... right?”

“You insult me!” Pinkie says, puffing up her chest and trying to look, well, insulted. Mostly, she just looks adorable. “I would never substitute a cake with cardboard, unless I’m giving it to someone who actually likes eating cardboard because then it’s what they want and not gross because it would be awful to get a cake and take a bite, and then you’re all ‘eww it’s just cardboard!’ and then I’d be sad because then everybody would think I’m terrible at baking and I have a reputation to maintain!” she heaves several breaths, everyone just sort of staring.

Finally Salvador ends the silence. “I love this pony!”

“Oh, do we get to call dibs on who gets what pony? Because I call dibs on the rainbow one!” Gaige yells, grappling Dash again. “I’m still gonna braid that hair of yours...” she whispers menacingly into Dash’s ear, “And it’s gonna be awesome!”

“So... here’s an idea.” Anthony says, still in his semi-drunken state, worrying everyone. “Me and the ponies, and anyone else who wants to come... get into the cake and take the Hyperion info stockade. The other group goes and gets Roland’s backup.”

The group talks it over for a few moments, before nods go around.

“I think there should only be one more going with the ponies.” Maya says, “And they should probably be small.”

Salvador and Gaige both scream ‘DIBS!’ before glaring at each other. “I’ll fucking duel ya, shortstack!” Gaige says, jabbing a finger towards Salvador, who growls before both of them are picked up and thrown out the window to the street by Maya’s Phaselock being angled for effect.

“Roshambo!” Anthony yells at the two of them and repeats himself. “Ro-sham-bo!”

Gaige and Salvador, were it anyone else, would likely ignore him but the idea of the test being of who can withstand the most kicks to the crotch is not easy to ignore for the... ‘plucky’ vault hunters.

The two begin to wildly, and with very little coordination, flail their legs at one another, Gaige only bearing the advantage of having longer legs making Salvador’s kicks hurt proportionally less... but they still hurt from their sheer force, Salvador’s kicks bearing far more force.

“Are they seriously listening to him? When he’s drunk?” Lilith asks more in confusion than anything else. “That’s a rhetorical question by the way. They clearly are, I’m just asking why they’re listening to him while he’s drunk.”

“Heh, lightweight can’t handle his own loot.” Mordecai chuckles as he takes another light pull of the moonshine.

“Sh- seriously tho’. Who’s going to go meet Roland’s buddy and who’s goin’ in the cake?”

“Judging by Gaige jump-kicking Salvador, it looks like she is. Robot leg for the win...” Axton says, leaning out to watch.

“Isn’t it just her arm?” Maya whispers to Lilith, who nods. “Huh.”

“Ah’right then. I’m going with the horses again!” Anthony says, still clearly beyond ‘tipsy’. “Sho, for the sake of lulz, I’m just gonna pretend I don’t know we’re headed to Thousand Cuts. Yo Roland, where we headed?”

“If this is him drunk, I’d hate to see him high. On anything.” Lilith mumbles.

“To bed, you’re standing at a seventy degree angle.” he says. Outside, Salvador gets Gaige into a headlock, having been taking the kicks to the face as a distraction.

“Roger dodger, man.” Anthony says, giving a sloppy salute. “Wake me up when Brick gets he- zzzzzzzzz”

“That is by far the most idiotic genius I have ever met.” Maya states, unaware that her statement exactly mimics one of Twilight’s reports about Anthony to Princess Celestia.

“Well, assuming his info is right, and it was previously... he’s either a psychic wonder or some kind of time-traveler.” Roland says.

“Time travel? Really? That’s what you’re going with?” Lilith asks.

“I’ve been reading comics and stories for years, Lilith.” Roland admonishes her. “And considering what we’ve seen out here, I’m not going to rule out someone from the future with future knowledge.”

“Yeah, but him? Sure he’s been right, but he’s passed out on the couch, drunk.” Axton says. “True he’s been helpful in fights but he’s not exactly what I’d call responsible and isn’t that supposed to be a rule to not mess with the past?” Everyone looks at him. “Why is it that everyone’s surprised military guys read books? I’ve read Wells’ works, they’re great for their time...”

Lilith shakes her head and sighs. “Either way, from the future or psychic, he’s been... helpful. And whatever his connection to us, there is a connection. I mean, I liked Blood, but even I’m not drinking my brain out like him and Mordecai.”

“Yeah, he must have known Bloodwing somehow, and I’ve never seen that bird leave Mordecai’s shoulder except to take out a bandit and fly right back.” Roland points out. “He has to have had some connection with Bloodwing at least... and he called Brick by name and even told us where he lived now... Only Jack and us really knows him as something other than the Slab King nowadays, right?” As he’s talking, Gaige sucker-punches Salvador in the nards with her robot arm, and reverses the headlock onto him.

“Yeah... He hasn’t caused any problems for us, has only been helpful, and seems to know us like something out of a documentary.” Mordecai says with a scoff, before all the senior vault hunters stop. “Oh, shit, I never thought about that. And who’d play me in a documentary?” he asks.

“More on that later. How he knows us isn’t helping us get the Vault Key, and we already know where it is. So, the first part will be Pinkie’s cake idea, with Gaige going with the ponies-”

“Yes! I win!” Gaige interrupts Roland, the girl racing up the stairs. “Hah!”

“As I was saying, the rest of you will be going to Thousand Cuts. Deliver this note to a bandit leader known as the Slab King... or as Anthony’s revealed, his real name is Brick. Just take that note to him. He owes me a favor and I’m calling it in for help with the bunker.”

“And... what about the door that only opens for Handsome Jack?”

“We’ll think of a workaround when it comes up. Mordecai... once you’re done with this round, I need you to go see what you can find about options. If nothing comes up by the time Anthony’s group hits the Stockade for real, we’ll ask if he can grab information on that. Otherwise, we’ll work things out based on what we find.”

Mordecai nods, going back to nursing his moonshine, fifth mug of the evening and now stuck as his last... but he needs to do something right now, or he’d just fall into the bottom of the barrel.

“Alright. Let’s get moving then.” Axton takes the note, which reads ‘IOU One world saved -B’ and the group of Vault Hunters, minus Gaige and the ponies heads off.

“I guess we let this guy sleep while Pinkie and Gaige work on that cake, then.” Lilith says. “Hey Dash, you know any card games?”

“Oh, not really... you’ll hafta teach me.” she says, smiling guilelessly.


----- (/\) -----


Sixteen thousand dollars fleeced off the veteran vault hunters and four hours later, Dash is happily greeting a groggy Anthony, who is suffering his first ever real hangover. Everything is too bright, everything is too loud, and everything is too shaky.

Anthony manages to stumble his way to Moxxi’s and orders some water. “I was afraid you were here for some hair of the dog, sugar. You look pretty messed up.”

“Yeah... still, wanting to buy me off and deny a guy a drink over his best friend’s death? That’s a bit low, y’know... ugh and stop the bar from spinning.”

Moxxi laughs. “Ha, can’t do much about that... other than give you some nice, starchy pizza and let you get over it in time. Here, have a glass of Faux-range juice. It’s Tediore, but it’s the best I have that isn’t more booze.” she says, sliding over a glass of liquid so orange it’s actually glowing.

Anthony takes a big gulp and the aftertaste gets caught in his throat. “That is not Orange juice...” He notes.

“Didn’t say it was, sugar.”

“But you said... ugh, damn hangover. Is this what it’s like for everyone?”

“Oh, everyone’s first time is different... be thankful you can sit this morning~”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll take that pizza though...” Anthony slurs, shaking his head vigorously.

Moxxi just laughs again, and heads into the back to grab a box of the carb-filled pizza.

Anthony is very slowly recovering his stable vision though the shock of the Faux-range juice just made the headache worse, mostly due to the unexpectedness of the drink.

He looks around and sees Sir Hammerlock in the corner at a table. ‘I could go for an easy monster-hunting job... later’ Anthony thinks to himself. ‘Shoot some bullymongs, get paid. I do have that new sniper... sure, later.’

Another wave of his headache later and Anthony is facefirst in the pizza brought to him. It at least tastes decent enough and the smell is starting to work it’s way into his head, though this mainly serves to fog it up more.

“Don’t be too eager there sugar.” Moxxi warns with a smile. “Take it nice and slow. You’ll get farther.~”

“You’re just gonna keep trying until you finally get me to sport a random boner, aren’t you?”

Moxi just sighs, but grins. “Enjoy your pizza, hun.” She turns and saunters away, giving him an eyeful of her rear as she sashays.

“Okay, yeah, that’ll do it.” Anthony mumbles as he begins eating, the hangover not yet done with him yet.


----- (/\) -----


“Wait, how do we get in the cake without baking ourselves?” Rainbow Dash asks as Pinkie puts the cake layers into the oven, a monstrous machine put together by Scooter and Crazy Earl (though mostly Scooter) and built to heat the entire inside evenly, in spite of the material constraints and the laws of thermodynamics.

“You’ll see Dashie.” Pinkie says happily as she sets the oven, the device giving a cheerful ‘ding!’ to indicate it’s set and preheating.

Rainbow Dash is in the corner while Gaige is furiously looking through her backpack. “I know I put a hairbrush in here somewhere!”

Dash trots up to Pinkie “Do you think Anthony was serious when he said she could come back to Ponyville with us?”

“Idunno... it’d sure make her happy though!” she replies, working on her batch of icing.

“Yeah... it would. But I’ve been thinking. Maybe you wanna stay here a bit longer? You know, even after Jack is gone?”

“I don’t see why not.” Pinkie replies. “Sure I wouldn’t mind going home but once that meanie is done, we won’t have any problems figuring out a way back home, right?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So we’re just going to get in the cake and send ourselves to this Stockade place? Then what?”

<“I can help you.”> Angel suggests, the statement more of a question. <”If you still trust me that is.”>

Anthony, hearing the conversation over the ECHO, adds his two cents from the bar, mouthful of pizza muffling him only slightly. “Well, let’s see: Sche lowered Sanctuary’s shields and killed several innocent residents of Sanctuary...”

<”B- but that was Jack...”>

“And he couldn’t have done it wiffout you.”

<”And I got you back to Sanctuary and it’s safe now... right?”>

“Th’s cleaning up a mess you made, not being helpful. But fine. I’ll give her another chance. But Angel... you get my friends killed out there, for real, I’m telling everyone who you really are. And why Jack has you around his finger.”

<“... Fine. That does seem...”> she pauses for a moment. <“Reasonable. Please... I just want to help, and if you know... then you also know why I can’t disobey him directly.”> she says, which Anthony has to concede.

“Yeah. And I won’t try to keep Lilith out. She’s too hot-headed. She’d just Phasewalk out of any form of restraint and come by anyway. So... just plan on her being there, no matter how much of an upper-hand Jack could get.”

<“You’re sure she won’t stay back?”> Angel says, pausing again. <“Ah, you should probably move to a different table, by the way. I’m directly talking to you. I didn’t want others, uhm, hearing about me.”>

“Fair enough.” Anthony says, moving to a booth by the back exit of the bar. “So, let’s start with what I know, and how I know it later. It might be a bit hard to swallow. Step one, I know about the 4N631 satellite above Pandora. That’s how you ‘see’ everything from your Control Core.”

<“... Alright. What else?”>

“I’ve dropped hints, but not enough for others to piece together, but I know you’re Jack’s daughter.” Anthony looks around but the only people here aside from Moxxi and Hammerlock are busy with a dart game and not listening to the whispers of the young man who walked in hungover like no tomorrow. “And he controls you with a sort of high-tech obedience collar. You’re a siren and he’s using you to charge the Key.”

<“Also true. And the collar hurts, I just want to let you know that.”>

“Trust me, I am one-hundred and ten percent against the idea of forcing others to do things against their will. If the chance arises, I’m going to get you out of that chamber... with you alive.”

<“I... I don’t know that’s possible, but I hope it is. Anything else you know? Maybe something useful to me, or something?”> Angel asks, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah.” Anthony says, swallowing his words several times before arranging them in a decent manner. “He’s twisted. He’s insane and psychotic... but your dad loves you. More than anything else. He really does.”

A few moments pass, then a sound like someone choking. It takes several seconds for Anthony to realize it’s Angel crying.

“Yeah, if they kill you... he’s going to kill one of us. Personally. That coward you call a father will come down and personally murder Roland and admit that once you’re gone he’ll have nothing left to lose. He needs to be taken down... but the man who raised you until you lost your mother still exists... somewhere in there.”

< “Oh god... I- I don’t...”> she trails off, still crying, her surety in the need for Jack’s death broken in four words.

“I’m going to get you out of there Angel, I’ll end your slavery, but know that whether you die or not, Jack will personally come after us. Rescind the bounty on our heads simply so he doesn’t lose the chance to kill us for hurting you. But again, I’ll get you out alive if I can... I just need to figure out how.”

<“I hope you do...”> Angel whispers, unseen tears on her face.

“Yeah, now I gotta get going. My group needs me.” Angel doesn’t answer, instead, turning to look at something important, in the shadows of the AI Core.




----- (/\) -----


“This is delicious Pinkie.” Anthony says, tasting the cake.

“Thanks!”

“Hey, keep quiet, and don’t eat our cover!” Dash hisses.

“At least until it’s time for the surprise.” Pinkie agrees, smiling.

“By the way, Anthony, I might be in your lap, but I’m only thir-, uh, fourteen. And I have a robot arm. I’m off limits unless you date me first, is what I’m saying.”

“Gaige, I assure you, if you feel a lump, it’s my grenade mod for sur- ow! What was that for?”

“I am pretty sexy and you know it, don’t play coy.”

“Who’s playing- ow stop that!”

“Quiet!” Dash hisses again.

From outside the cake, the four hear a voice. “Guys! It’s an appreciation cake!”

“This better work.” Dash mutters.

“Man, who’d appreciate us? This is literally the worst job aside from playing bandit this entire planet has to offer.”

“It says it’s from... Pinkie Pie? Who the hell is that?”

“Idunno, but that’s buttercream frosting. Whoever made this must have put a fortune inta this thing!”

“How the hell do you know what buttercream is?”

“I’m gonna cream both of ‘em if they don’t take us in soon!” Dash whispers, getting impatient.

“Seconded.” Anthony says.

“Dude, it’s a three-layer cake, on Pandora.” a voice says.

“Shit, they’ve figured us out!” Gaige whispers.

“We can just shoot anyone who tries to take it from us, so let’s get it inside before a skag ruins it!” the voice continues, to a chorus of agreements.

“See?” Pinkie whispers. “Everypony loves cake!”

The two bewildered humans and Dash feel the cake get lifted and brought inside.

“Alright, guys, let’s be careful about cutting it, we wanna keep it fair. Now that it’s in the breakroom, past all the defenses, we’re going to have to share it with everyone. Just don’t tell the security crews, though, they’ll just confiscate it and keep it for themselves.” a chorus of agreements meets the words of the leader, and the three occupants of the cake get ready to burst out.

“Wait a sec, where’s Pinkie?” Anthony asks, realizing the party pony’s absence right before he hears ‘Surprise!’ get yelled by said pony, followed by a sudden boom and a lot of screaming.

Then, silence. Anthony bursts out of the cake, pistol loaded only to find the silence was due to everyone being dead, the entire breakroom decorated like a surprise party while Pinkie puts away her party cannon, the Hyperion Engineers and faculty laying on the ground, dead, shrapnel and candies lodged in them, several being literally hung from the ceiling by a streamer.

“Damn Pinkie. You sure got them...” Anthony says, helping Gaige out of the cake, the girl looking around.

“Omigosh, blood, cake, bullets and balloons! Most awesome party I’ve ever been to!” the fangirl squeals, making Anthony clutch his still slightly-hungover head.

“Tone it down. We’re undercover remember?”

“Nah, they gathered everyone in here, even Mike and Randy from the accounting department!” Pinkie reassures him, though her uncanny knowledge of their names and jobs does little to quell the little tremor of worry that goes through him.

“So Angel, where we headed from here?”

<“Actually, since your plan bypassed literally every form of security in this place, you can take a right and follow the hall until you see the sign saying ‘data core backup three’ and just extract from there. Far easier than going to the main core and raiding that... although, this one will set off alarms when you try to download from it, so be prepared to fight your way out.”>

“Gotcha. Thanks Angel. Ah damnit! I forgot, we still have crappy shields!”

<“Actually, I can fix that for one of you, at least. Turn left into the next door; also, I’m in the security cameras, if you hadn’t guessed. In the room there, there should be a new shield, experimental again, but far more powerful than normal. Hyperion doesn’t have any good shield tech, really, but this... this one might put Pangolin out of business if it goes anywhere. Set fire to the computer on your way out.”> she advises.

“Gotcha.” Anthony says, ending communications. “Left first. Dash, I suggest you take the shield. Gaige, you and Pinkie head for the backup room. We’ll catch up.”

“But I wanna go with-”

Anthony cuts off the party pony. “Fine, Pinkie, let’s go. They’ll get back to us soon.”

“Yes!” Gaige yells, glomping Rainbow Dash.

“Uh, can we do this after we’re not behind enemy lines?”

“To be fair...” Anthony begins.

“Don’t you finish that sentence. Seriously, that robo-arm is starting to leave grease stains on my neck line.”

“Sorry! But does that mean you’re mine if I mark you-”

“No!”

Anthony sighs. “Shield, remember? Go get it and meet us at the backup room. And keep your guns loaded, Gaige, don’t be afraid to let Deathtrap go wild, but try not to roast Rainbow Dash, we still need her.”

“I would never hurt her!” Gaige replies indignantly. “Besides, Deathtrap has excellent aim.”

“Alright alright, let’s get going. Though we may need help as soon as possible. So make it quick.”

Gaige groans. “Ugh, you sound like Axton but less gruff.”

“I haven’t hit ‘second puberty’ yet.” Anthony says. “Guys don’t sound like that until they’ve been through military.”

“Guys call it ‘second-puberty’?” Dash looks at Anthony weirdly.

“Well I call it that- focus! We have a job, now let’s get that shield and the Claptrap upgrade data.”

“Fine, fine.” The party heads down the hall before splitting up and getting to their respective locations at mostly the same time.

Anthony gets to the room and pauses before opening it, readying his Jakobs for a headshot just in case there was a straggler in the building who was allergic to frosting and didn’t join in on the cake.

Thankfully the room is empty save for some server banks and multiple computer towers and a main access point with holographic-projection screen. The stuff was admittedly a lot more high-tech than Anthony was used to, the only device he could figure out was the keyboard. This was why he originally had Gaige going here instead of him. She was more likely to understand what she was doing.

Going off the general basics, Anthony pulls up the operating system’s basic Run Program function and searches for CL4P-TP with the keyword ‘Upgrade’

Surprisingly, there’s no catches or anything, likely because Anthony was in the unlabeled backup room in the unlabeled third core backup, though he only finds three results... one of which looks suspiciously and frighteningly like a more militarized and coherent version of the Deathtrap ‘bot Gaige designed. And according to the data, it’ll be prepped and rolling out, made from the decommissioned Claptrap units, in a matter of months. Oh, and he found the upgrade info he actually needed.

“What the heck? They stole my design!?” Gaige yells, scaring the crap out of Anthony.

“Jeez Gaige, a little warning?!” Anthony snaps.

She mostly ignores him, going as far as to push him out of the way and finding the information on the Deathtrap fakes.

“Ohmigosh, these’re all ideas I already had! That is sadness! I just never got around to using them because I didn’t have the parts I needed. Stupid Hyperion. How ya gonna like it when I wipe your drives?”

“Don’t forget the upgrade...” Anthony reminds her.

“Yeah, and we are totally taking these Deathtrap designs too. If I can’t make my robot the best, I’m gonna steal their work so they can’t make it either.”

“Fair enough. You did make it, you probably should have put a patent on it though.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t old enough to hold a patent and my family is in it deep for Deathrap’s little ‘accident’ at the science fair. So when we’re done here, I’m gonna find the other backup rooms and trash their files there as well.”

Anthony rubs his temple. “Gaige, did you not hear Angel? As soon as we start deleting or taking out files, an alarm is going to go off!”

“So we’ll have to move fast then.” Gaige says, missing the point.

<“Uh, actually, they’re in separate structures. Each of the data banks are physically separated to prevent, well, exactly that sort of event. Sorry.”> She stops for a moment, and just before Gaige gives a furious argument back, Angel gives a further explanation. <“However, I happen to be able to force an update from one backup core to another... so if you remove the Deathtrap data here, it’ll remove itself from the others over the next two days. Does that work for you?”>

Gaige looks stunned, then a maniacal grin spreads across her face as she literally jumps for joy. “Yes! Jack isn’t gonna get my ‘bot! And that means once I’m old enough to pay off my bounty, I can put a patent on Deathtrap, give them half-decent designs, and make a killing, still keeping the best stuff for myself! You guys rock!”

For the first time, Gaige appears to be a totally normal fourteen-year-old having a ‘best day ever!’ moment and Anthony gives in and smiles along with her. “Yeah, let’s get going then. And as soon as those alarms go off, expect a firefight of huge proportions.”

<“Mostly on the way out... and I’ll only be able to delay the neurotoxin release in the computer bank itse- oh, shoot, I forgot to mention that part earlier!”>

“You forgot to mention deadly neurotoxin?” Anthony says, facepalming. “Brilliant. Gaige, get the Claptrap upgrade and we can deal with the Hyperion Deathtrap line later.”

“How much later?” Gaige asks, looking rather disappointed.

Anthony sighs again. “We can come back tomorrow or something after Angel has had a chance to vent out the neurotoxin.”

<“Just put in a data chip, download both from the complex multi-layer crystal computing system, and run. I mean, jeez, it’s only a couple terabytes of data!”> Angel says in exasperation, and while Anthony is still mildly confused, Gaige also gives a sigh of relief.

“Alright, give me... a minute.” Gaige says, pulling out a chip and rapidly typing away on the keyboard, when a warning alarm goes off and the computer screen goes red. “Okay... a minute and a half, tops.”

“Okay, we’ll cover you, then we all jet outta here, ‘kay?” Dash says, pulling her weapon up and looking at the one door to the room.

Anthony nods. “Alright... hope that shield works. If so, you’re gonna be at the front Dash. I’ve no idea what sort of firepower Hyperion has on the insides of these places.”

Yelling voices come down the hall, many shouts of ‘Bandits!’ are tossed around.

“Mostly man-power then, this I can do.” Anthony replies relaxing before the door is blasted open and a veritable ocean of fully-armored combat engineers and Hyperion soldiers flood the hallway, reducing his self-assuredness to almost nothing. “Fuck. Gaige, we’ll need some help here.”

“Gimme a minute ‘kay!?” Gaige yells back, summoning Deathtrap to aid Anthony and the ponies. “Go break some heads, Deathtrap! It’s like finals all over again, jeez...”

Anthony questions what ‘finals’ involved when a bullet breezes by his head and he ducks, narrowly avoiding several more. “They’ve got armor, use corrosive!” He shouts.

The guards, realizing they were dealing with Vault Hunters and not typical bandits, regroup and call in more reinforcements. “Get the Stealth Ops in here, now!”

“Wait, what the hell? What’re you three- four doing in my backup servers?!” Jack’s voice calls over their ECHOs, making Gaige groan angrily at the distraction.

“Can’t you tell Jack?” Anthony says, firing into the crowd with his plasma caster. “We’re fucking you over. Big time.”

“Say goodbye to your shitty deathbots!” Gaige yells as she gets closer to finishing. “Nobody gets better bots than mine!”

As if to accentuate the point, Deathtrap sends a laser blast through the crowd of engineers.

“This is easy!” Dash exclaims, happily, taking out some armored security of her own. “This bottleneck is perfect!”

As if to disappoint her in particular, several engineers tear out walls using their mech suits, creating a larger doorway.

“Dashie!” Pinkie yells unhappily.

“Remember guys, they’re smarter than bandits!” Anthony reminds them. “Don’t brag about an advantage if you can lose it.”

“Fine, fine! Jeez! How was I supposed to know they could even do that?” she asks, muttering to herself.

“Alright, I got the data, now let’s get gone!” Gaige yells, turning around and unloading all four barrels of a Torgue-barreled shotgun into an approaching engineer’s face, and beginning to lead the charge out, being almost level 20 at this point and far better equipped than Anthony or the ponies.

“Angel, how much time we got before the Neurotoxin?”

<“I’ll put a display on your ECHOs.”> she says, and a little countdown timer shows in the center of their visions, flashing red every time another ten-second interval passes.

It’s a very short timer, Anthony notes, as Rainbow Dash uses her Rainboom to propel herself forward, following close after Gaige. As well, he notices that none of the engineers nor technicians are wearing face masks, and a few are starting to cough, or twitch spasmodically mid-combat.

“Gaige, I hope you have a ton of Anarchy on you...” Anthony says. “How many stacks you at?”

“Not enough!” she screams, firing her shotgun and hitting someone directly next to her instead of where she was pointing.

Anthony hopes most of the shots find purchase in their heads through the ricochet but decides to worry about himself. Gaige seems to be doing well enough. That said, he could help her gain more faster...

Dash, meanwhile, is firing on the move, rarely stopping long enough to aim, simply unloading clips at the hapless techs and engineers, many of whom spin away with cries of pain, and she’s blazing the trail out almost as well as Gaige is, with Pinkie bringing up a fighting rearguard.

“Anthony, I’m running out of bullets!” the party pony cries, looking genuinely unhappy, “There won’t be enough to go around for everybody!”

Anthony curses and turns back to aim his Sloth at a few engineers in the distance, their lack of helmets making easy kills. “Hope your Party Cannon can dish out enough candy to get us through, they aren’t giving us a chance to pick up ammo.”

“Alright!” she yells back, stopping only to pivot and fire in the direction they’re going, sending the candies bouncing off the walls into places the group can grab them. A chocolate bar bounces off Anthony’s head, landing in his -slightly stunned- hands. It has a tag, just like the others, too.

Anthony had never seen a chocolate bar on Pandora before... he hoped it did something good. He takes a bite and trains his Plasma Caster at an oncoming engineer.

He goes to pull the trigger, and feels a strange sensation, like he’s experiencing deja vu, minus actually feeling like he’s done it before. It’s more like he’s doing it twice. And sure enough, twin Plasma bolts race down the hallway at relatively normal speeds for them, side by side, the two hitting independently and splashing his target with acid.

Taking a brief second to check his ammo count he notes that he fired two shots at once. Costing the same as a normal shot. This wasn’t the blue raspberry Ammunition regen effect but it certainly was a decent proxy, giving him a good discounted multi-shot. “Got any more of that chocolate?”

“Idunno! I just threw candy in with the razor blades! I’m just glad it didn’t ruin the blades!” she calls back.

‘I am definitely checking all the candy in the future.’

“Well next bar we get goes to Gaige, this stuff should help boost her kill count without making her magazine smaller!”

“Uh, small magazines are my thing, Noob. The more I reload the more Anarchy I get.”

As if to prove his point, Gaige gets shot in the leg while she was busy reloading.

“We don’t need more Anarchy right now, we need more Dakka.”

“Give it to me then!” Dash yells, complaining at being seemingly forgotten.

Gaige, ignoring the two, notices a green candy, and the note on it, shovelling it into her mouth and crunching down on the rock-hard candy. “Mush be’er.” she mumbles, standing up once more.

“My point being that Gaige has way better gear, and the more bullets she can put into these guys, the better off we are.” The timer for the neurotoxin ticks down another ten seconds, flashing red. “We need to get out of here fast!”

<“Good news, everybody!”> Angel’s voice comes over the ECHOs. <“I found that the easiest method for deactivating the neurotoxin is simply to go outside; the air in here is nothing but oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and the neurotoxin compound. It breaks down in a normal atmosphere almost instantly, so just get outside and you’ll be fine!”> The four Vault hunters nod at the information, Anthony getting an idea.

“Anyone got some explosives on them?”

“I’ve got some sticky Torgue grenades.” Gaige yells over her shoulder, bloody spittle flying everywhere as the last of the green candy dissolves, and her gums and teeth knit anew. “Where ya need ‘em?”

“Mirvs? Perfect! Toss ‘em behind us, blow a hole in the walls. We’ll bust our way out!”

“Aren’t we a little close to the wall, though?” Gaige asks, for once listening to her survival instinct.

“Just don’t look, and wear your coolest shades!” Pinkie responds, slipping her own down, Dash and Anthony doing the same.

“Eh, alright.” she says with a shrug, tossing the grenade behind her and pulling down her own goggles, tapping the side to make them tint themselves.

Anthony just grabs Gaige and Sparks up to dash forward.  “Rainbow, get Pinkie and dash out of here. Those grenades aren’t gonna wait for long.”

“You got i-” BOOM-boom-boom! The three-part Bonus Package explosions blow out the wall, the explosion rippling partly away from the four, though it’s still hot and painful, and Dash and Anthony jerk back as hard as they can, launching themselves out of the still-flaming hole a scant second after the explosion.

That’s when they realized they had basically just launched themselves off a bit of a cliff, and had about a hundred feet to fall.

Don’t look at me like that, they survive, I promise.
> Chapter 12
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony and the ponies land, crashing to the ground, Gaige landing near them, all four of them groaning as they sit up, only Gaige and Dash’s shields holding up. “Oh man... my everything hurts...”

“I miss flying...” Dash mumbles, rubbing the back of her head. “Where the flying haysicle are we?”

Anthony stands up only for his nose to finally be in the air and he grabs it, squeezing his nostrils shut at the toxic, chemical stench. “Wherever we are... it...” He looks up and around and sees a bunch of Varkid mounds, spiderant hives and below... a huge lake of green... stuff. “We’re screwed...”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gaige asks, getting up, her arm bent at an odd angle. Thankfully it was her mechanical arm and a few wrench turns and it’s mostly back to normal though swaying on its elbow hinge a bit. “Darnit... I’ll need a workshop to fix this. At least the fingers work so I can shoot.”

Anthony helps Pinkie up, who seems the most beaten up of the group from the fall. Luckily she didn’t break her legs this time, having landed on her side.

“We’re in the Caustic Caverns, a huge underground expanse that-”

“Smells worse than baked bads.” Pinkie replies, making a disgusted face.

“Well, let me put it this way... Sanctuary used to be up there.” Anthony says pointing up at the light filtering in from above.

“Yeah... how can the city fly again if I can’t?” Dash asks, more than a bit miffed.

“Well, if you didn’t know, Sanctuary was the name of an old Dahl mining ship.”

“So...”

Anthony looks back up towards the surface. “That ship was left here on Pandora when Dahl pulled out, leaving their employees here. Those guys that Dahl left here on Pandora had one of two choices... join the Crimson Raiders founded by Roland, or become bandits.”

“Wait wait wait... you mean some of those bandits out there are miners?” Dash asks confused.

Anthony nods, sadly. “Or engineers, or soldiers, or such. Dahl just up and left Pandora when they thought there was nothing left, but they were to first to actually find anything of worth on Pandora.”

“Eridium?” Pinkie guesses.

“Nope, Hyperion beat Dahl to the Eridium. Dahl was here for crystals and other valuable minerals. Right here... is the Sanctuary Hole. The spot that the Sanctuary ship’s crew had been mining.”

“You mean...” Dash looks confused.

“Sanctuary is a ship?” Gaige finishes, in awe.

Anthony just nods. “With Scooter’s tech-savvy and Lilith’s Eridium-charged Phasewalking Siren powers, they managed to get Sanctuary to fly again, leaving behind where Dahl had been doing its mining before they pulled out and left Pandora. All that’s left down here is a bunch of old Dahl machinery, a base of theirs, and whatever they decided wasn’t worth keeping.”

A chirrup catches their attention, and a small, cricket-like creature looks at them with large, buggy eyes. “Ah... what’s a Varkid?” Dash asks, looking at the name tag with a raised eyebrow. Gaige is fumbling for her shotgun and backpedalling, as the Larval Varkid moves cautiously towards Pinkie.

“Varkids... damn.” Anthony mumbles, his first instinct to look up expecting to see the sky littered with its usual blanket of grown, flight-capable adult Varkids.

The Varkid chirrups again, and the sounds of young wings stridulating against their casings makes both of the humans look towards the coral-like Varkid colonies nearby, as Pinkie picks up the young varkid and cuddles it.

“Pinkie, don’t, those things bite! Er, sting... they’re dangerous!”

The varkid, however, does neither. “Imma name him Squishy, and he shall be my squishy!” she says, nuzzling the varkid before stuffing him into her mane, the insectoid vanishing completely.

Gaige quietly picks her jaw up off the floor, as a living tide of other Varkids begin to erupt from the nearby hives, ranging from the youngest Larval Varkids to the formidable Badass Varkids, thankfully none further along their metamorphic track than that.

Anthony tosses his Fire burst grenade out, hitting a bunch of the ground-bound Larval staged bugs, the loud shrieking noise doing a number on the group’s ears. “I don’t have a better wide-area attack!” He says in his defense as the group covers their ears, the Badass Varkids walking through the fire just fine, their armored carapaces brushing off the flame with ease.

“Shit, this is exactly the sort of situation I hate! Too many things to kill, and I don’t have Salvador here to hand me more bullets!” Gaige yells angrily, beginning to simply unload her shotgun at the oncoming swarm, screaming incoherently and pausing only to summon Deathtrap and sic him on her enemies.

Anthony and Pinkie take out their corrosive weapons and pelt the badasses with enough goop to coat them completely, but the low level of their guns protects the Varkids from too much pain, their armor holding strong through the acid.

“We need to get through their armor somehow, it’s the only chance we have!”

“Will slag help?” Pinkie asks, not waiting for an answer and swapping her Dog for her other elemental shotgun.

The slag does indeed help, but at this point the Badass Varkids are already too close to the group. “Melee!” Anthony yells, as he’s leaped at, pinned to the ground by the screeching insect. Sparking up, he delivers a double-fisted swing at the Varkid, his electrified fists zapping the bug and knocking it back enough for Anthony to get up... just to get a gout of acid to be spewed in his face by a flying Adult Varkid divebombing the Hunters. His Alkaline shield’s corrosive resistance holds, but just barely.

“Dash, can you do something about the fliers?”

A short burst of assault rifle fire flies over his head, missing just barely and happening to hit a far-off adult Varkid. “Stop reminding me I can’t bucking fly!” she screams at the winged menaces.

“Yeah, that works. Pinkie, you got that singularity mod still?”

In a wordless response, Pinkie tosses a yellow-white grenade with red highlights at, over, and past the still-charging Varkids. The grenade lands and after a second begins to float and pulls the varkids into itself before releasing a burst of flames, still doing little to the Badasses, but at least making the unarmored Larval varkids less in number. That, and the Badasses were pulled a decent distance away from the group, giving them the range they needed to shoot.

With the badasses on fire, getting slagged and being pelted by standard gunfire and corrosive Plasma shots, their armor starts melting and they let out keening shrieks, one of them burrowing into the ground, preparing to evolve, an orange chrysalis growing out of the ground where the Badass had burrowed.

“Pop that pod, now! We can’t handle what it’s gonna turn into, not now!”

The entire group focuses on said growth, unloading everything they have into stopping it... and failing to notice that Dash had just stopped firing at another Badass, and it had begun burrowing behind the group.

“Splash and Area of Effect damage!” Anthony crise, as he realizes they needed more lasting damage on the pod in front of them. Gaige tosses another Bonus Package, several explosions going off and a fourth of a metric ton of mirv secondary grenades fall around the pod. Anthony grabs everyone nearby and turns them around, throwing them to the ground in the process. Nobody’s shields being able to withstand the onslaught, Gaige and Pinkie just barely holding on while Anthony and Dash are all badly scorched along their backs.

Anthony groans and looks up to see... the second pod that was now in front of them, twitching and pulsing. “Ah shit...” With a loud splortch, the second pod ruptures, and a Super Badass Varkid emerges, glaring death and right in the midst of the group.

“If anyone has any brilliant ideas...” Gaige suggests, Pinkie responding by pulling out her Launcher and firing it point-blank at the gigantic insect.

When the explosion stops, the Varkid has dropped to the ground and is charging at the downed group, barely any damage taken, the only sign any damage was done at all was a small sliver off it’s health bar and a blacker piece of armored chitin.

All Anthony could think of was how the last respawn point was back at the Hyperion base somewhere, which was likely filled with neurotoxin. If he or any of his friends died now, they’d keep dying until the toxin was vented out. “We’re fucked...” He mutters.

“Rgh... we are if we have that kinda attitude.” Dash replies, hoisting Pinkie up along with her so the two ponies were on their hind feet again “Come on... we’ve handled meaner and bigger!”

“Yeah... we killed an Ultimate Badass Goliath!” Pinkie says, a bit of her usual cheer shining through. “We can do this!”

As if to spite the group, Gaige is quickly pinned by the SBV and is dodging bites and stings from her limited range of movement, her mechanical hand jamming its jaws. Anthony gets up and charges at the varkid, punching it as hard as he can and... hurting his hand on the steel-hard carapace.

Pinkie and Dash run up to the varkid and give it a simultaneous buck, managing to knock it off Gaige who summons Deathtrap again as the varkid takes to the sky.

“Pinkie, give it another blast, get it back down here!” Dash yells and Pinkie attempts another shot, but the launcher’s rockets were just barely too slow for the quick-maneuvering Super Badass Varkid.

“Can’t get a good shot!” Pinkie cries, loading another rocket.

“How do we bring it down here then?” Gaige says, as Deathtrap floats up and starts trying to swipe at the Varkid, who deftly dodges, before spraying the robot with acidic saliva shots.

Anthony looks down and realizes he’d backed up to another long drop off the platform they were on, where the Varkid had flown out over. “End of the line here... wait...” A plan starts forming in his head and he jumps down, thankful for Pandora’s relatively low gravity taking him down to the ground with only a bit of hurt in his ankles at impact. “Shoulda landed on my butt...” He laments as he starts running off, past and underneath the Varkid. “Gaige, how long can Deathtrap keep that up?” He calls over the ECHO.

“Uh, not much longer, why?”

“Make him last another minute, can you do that?”

“Not from down here!” She pouts back.

“Well try. Pinkie, Dash, harry it a bit.”

At the ponies confirmation he runs to the far end of the area and crouches down taking out the Sloth he got from Mordecai. Its bullets would take about two seconds to get from here to the varkid and and if it moves to the left as often as it moves up to dodge Deathtrap... He could get a few shots on it's mostly unarmored and sensitive underside of the tail.

Peering down the scope, Anthony fires a shot and misses by a mile, having to recalculate for the bullet speed. Six shots left. Gritting his teeth he watches as Pinkie and Dash begin firing wildly at the varkid. It ducks down and- 

ka-chuck-chuck-chuck!

A burst shot lands with two shots in the tail, sending the varkid into a panic at the sudden pain before turning on Anthony. “Come and get it you piece of crap...” Anthony mutters as the Varkid charges at him full speed.

“What the hay are you doing!?” Dash yells over the ECHO.

“Improvising!” Anthony replies as the Super Badass Varkid is seconds away from hitting Anthony who braces for impact. The two are knocked into the knee-deep corrosive goop, Anthony hissing as it burns his skin through the shield and the Varkid lands in it past him, also keening in fury as its armor is eaten by the much-stronger acid. It begins to crawl towards the shore, flashing its wings violently and spraying acid everywhere, but only miring itself further into the slick, thick acid, which is beginning to do far worse than just ‘burn his skin’ to Anthony, prompting him to make a bee-line for the shore, too.

The advantage Anthony gets is his Spark form, lasting just long enough to get him to the shore, though the wading through the goo had taken a toll on him, his shields completely broken despite its resistance to acid and his health bar pulsing rapidly along with his heartbeat. He takes out his Jakobs and aims a few bullets right into the Varkid’s thrashing body, making the acid’s job easier by putting a viable hole in its undersection for the goo to flood into.

Anthony pants as his pistol clicks, clutching his legs and hissing in pain.

“You are some kinda stupid, you know that?” Gaige says as she helps the larger man up. “Ugh, and you’re heavy.”

“I killed it, didn’t I?”

Dash takes her special assault rifle and empties a full clip into the bug, now tipping itself over to keep the goo out of it’s bullet wounds, revealing it’s sensitive and now fully unarmored tail. As the clip of her gun runs dry the entire party’s bars flash with cyan as they are pushed to roughly one third of a bar to go for next Level up.

“Actually, I killed it.” Dash smugs.

“You’re an inspiration to us all, Rainbow Dash.” Anthony groans with a smirk. “Urgh, I could use some healing here.”

“Where are we gonna find any down here?” Dash asks, looking around at the area.

Anthony points to some green Dahl containers and ammo deposits. “You can find some in those occasionally. Careful of opening the bigger ones though. They uh, tend to have more Varkids in them.”

“More?!” Dash yells.

“And Loot Midgets sometimes.” Gaige chimes in, ‘helpfully’.

“Yeah, but just the little Varkids. Kill ‘em fast enough and they won’t be much trouble.”

“Still, they’ve always got crazy amounts of stuff with them. Oh, and if you ever see a Loot Goliath, hope there isn’t a Loot Midget in his box. I’ve had that happen once, no joke.” Gaige says.

“You have quite the adventures, don’t you.” Dash comments as she trots off to find some healing stuff. Around an hour and a half later, Anthony is feeling the burning sensation crawling all the way to his face, Pinkie staying with him to make sure he doesn’t scratch out his eyes. “Finally found some!” Dash calls over the ECHO. “Heading back to ya now.”

“Hurry up, please.” Pinkie says, “He’s not looking very good.”

Anthony for his part passes out a few times but wakes up when he feels a needle jabbed into his arm. “Agh, no needles!”

“This is the best way!” Dash says as Pinkie holds him down, Gaige administering the hypo. Finally the hypo works and Anthony is back in action. “Just be glad you didn’t get any of that gunk in your mouth.”

“Yeah... thanks... okay, feeling better now.” He coughs up a bit of bloody phlegm, the result of a tiny spot of unnoticed acid getting to his lungs and healing over, “Let’s get back to everyone else, they’re probably already back in Sanctuary with Brick by now.”

“That’s the third time you’ve mentioned him.” Pinkie notes. “Will he really be able to help with the bunker thingy?”

Anthony just nods, exhaling harshly as he grabs his sniper rifle and carries it on his back. “Yeah... he’ll be a big help. But we won’t be getting anywhere unless we get Claptrap upgraded.” He turns to Gaige. “You do still have the upgrade info right?”

“No duh! I wasn’t the one who swan dived into acid goop.”

“Good. Now we just gotta get out of here.” Anthony looks around at their surroundings and recognizes the area. They were on the upper platform of Dahl’s base before he had jumped off. “Alright, this way.” He says, leading them to where he remembered the exit elevator being. “But be careful, we’ll have to deal with some spider ants.”

“Those I can handle!” Dash says. “Well... if I had a car...”

“Yeah...” Anthony says, looking up at one of the old mining machines. “A car... Gaige, you think you could get that thing working? We could bash our way outta here in no-time.”

“Sure, if I had the parts, no problemo... but most of the stuff around here that isn’t junk is just spare guns and ammo. And I am not scrapping Deathtrap for parts.”

“Fine.” Anthony relents, wondering how Gaige guessed he was about to suggest just that. “Then we take the long way.”

A long trek and some hopping across pits of acid goop, the Hunters get to a large base-like area. “Wow, you mean those Dahl guys just set this up and left it here?” Dash asks. “I’m not exactly a recycling freak but that’s just wasteful.”

“They did more than set up base here...” Anthony says as he leads them inside and opens the door. After delving further, they come to another door, this one labelled ‘Deep Core Six’

Anthony pulls open the door and the stench of old, stale air rushes the group, actually being fresh compared to the rancid odor of the caves they’d been walking through. But said freshness doesn’t last as the smell of fermenting and very-old blood radiates from the walls and floor and ceiling, coated completely in the red-brown substance.

“Jeez...” Dash mumbles as the group looks around, holding their noses at the smell, Pinkie thankful for her gas-mask, though she could still smell some of the ancient viscera through its filters.

“So, uh, Anthony... you got any idea which way we’re goin’?” Gaige asks, looking at the old smears with very little interest.

“Yeah, it’s just through here.” He says, leading them through the room towards a door on the far end of the room “It’s the one on the right.”

When they come out there’s a large conveyor belt leading to a crusher, and in the distance of the cavernous room they can all hear the buzzing of more Varkids.

“Well, it’s either this or the long way...”

“And what’s the long way?” Pinkie asks.

“Varkids and spiderants. And Threshers.”

“What’s a thresher? I mean, I assume you don’t mean a grain thresher...” Dash says.

“Huge tentacly monsters.” Gaige clarifies. “Right out of some creepo’s hentai collection.”

“Aren’t you a little young to know what hentai is?” Anthony asks looking at the girl, eyebrow raised.

“Aren’t you a little old to be hanging around with candy ponies?”

“Touche.”

“What’s hentai?”

“You don’t wanna know, Pinkie, trust me.” Anthony says making placating gestures. “For now, let’s just get through here. There’s a ladder on the far end of the room. And whatever you do, don’t fall or get sucked into the crusher.”

“Gotta say one thing for Dahl. Their stuff lasts. How long do you think this conveyor belt will keep running for?” Gaige asks, inspecting the machinery. “Wow, this stuff is ancient, it’s not even electrical!”

Anthony, a bit interested, walks up behind Gaige and looks at the still-moving belt. “So, what’s it got for a power-source to keep it running all this time?”

“Uh, can we get a move on?” Dash requests, looking antsy. “I don’t know how long we’ll be able to sit around without getting noticed by the varkids up there.” As if to punctuate her statement a group of adult Varkids fly down towards the group.

A couple blasts from Gaige’s shotgun and they fall to the ground, wings damaged by the spray, leaving them in prime position to be taken out by the ponies, Anthony picking off larval varkids as they jump up. “The small ones are at least easy. Just don’t let them pod up.”

“I think we learned that lesson the hard way.”

Anthony swaps to the Sloth and lands a few shots at a pair of incoming adult varkids, too far for any other weapons to hit them. By the time the burst-fire rips through the first one the second is already spitting at Anthony, hitting the shield. It didn’t hurt but it was still slimy. “Ah man... I’m gonna need some new clothes after this.”

“Worry about that later.” Pinkie replies, firing her launcher at the second adult, blasting it to giblets while Anthony reloads his sniper. “I don’t have many more rockets left. Is there an ammo dump around?” She asks hopefully.

“Sorry, the closest one is either back the way we came or on the way back to the surface. We’ve hit the halfway point.” Anthony swaps back to his hyperion pistol and takes out several larval varkids who had leaped up onto the conveyor belt and were jumping at the group. The Jakobs had more power, but the Hyperion had a larger clip and faster reload speed, landing more shots faster.

“And... you said not to fall, right?” Dash asks, looking down over the edge and seeing a very long drop, the bottom of which was littered with varkid mounds. “Eesh, noted.”

Anthony hops onto the belt and makes a hasty leap across to the other side, making the jump easily. “It’s not that far, but you still don’t wanna fall down.”

The ponies nod as they take galloping leaps, also making the jump easily, Gaige following suit. Once they had gotten over the pit, the Varkids start swarming out of their colonies below. Some were beginning to metamorphose. Anthony tosses his last grenade down and the spinning wheel of fire burns and melts away the pods and larval varkids, though merely angering the adults. Pinkie covers the adults in slag as they pop up, Gaige’s shotgun finishing them off easily with their increased damage reception.

“See? Nothing to it. Now, let’s get out of here.” The group runs across the room as fast as they can, shooting behind them at the straggling Adults and soon they come to the ladder Anthony mentioned.

“So how exactly do you know this place like the back of your hand, anyways?” Gaige asks. “You said you just arrived a few days ago, right?”

“Yeah, we got here on the first day we met. I uh...” Anthony racks his brain for a believable lie. “I know Dahl’s tendency to make everything look the same, being all military and such. I just know what they look like on the inside. For the most part.”

Gaige just shrugs. “Okay. Well? After you.” Dash and Pinkie are already halfway up the ladder, as Anthony climbs on.

Once the group reaches the top and file out of the door, they end up back in the caverns properly again. “The exit to the surface should be just on the other end of that wall.” Anthony says, running up and giving a squeaky, rusted wheel a few turns. Failing to open it he gives up. “Anyone else think they can get it open?”

“Move aside, noobsauce.” Gaige replies, walking up to the wheel and giving it a heave. While the wheel does in fact turn, the resistance of age puts a lot of stress on Gaige’s arms, most notably her robot arm which was already in bad shape from earlier.  “There... we... go...” She says as the door begins sliding open. “Nothing to-” crack “Oh... that’s not good.” Her mechanical hand was now fully bent backwards at the wrist. “Yeah... I’m not fixing that down here...”

Anthony winces as he looks at the damage. “You’re gonna need some stuff from Sanctuary, huh?”

“Eh, no biggie, Crazy Earl should have what I need. Anyone got some Eridium?”

“Uh...” the group pauses.

“Ah darnit... Oh well, it’ll have to wait. For now at least the door’s open, right?”

“Yeah.” Anthony says as a few varkids leap out over the wall, several more charging through the now-open doorway.

They are quickly taken care of, the main problem is in their numbers. Soon enough they are finished off and the group is free to head back. “Is this it?” Pinkie asks, indicating the gigantic, vault-like door.

“Yeah, just need to... Uh oh...”

“What? What’s Uh oh? That doesn’t sound good.”

“There’s no way to open it from this side...” Anthony recalls. “The mechanism is on the other side.”

“We’re... stuck down here?”

“Unless we can get through this door by force... yeah, we’re here until someone can come for us.” The trio of girls sigh heavily, Anthony getting on the ECHO. “Hey, you guys back from Thousand Cuts?”

“Yeah, why? We were about to have some drinks at Moxxi’s. You gonna join?”

“That’s a negative. We’re a bit stuck. Let’s just say that the info stockade was a breeze, but the whole ‘leaving’ part had issues. Can you get back to where Sanctuary was before the liftoff?”

“Ah... yeah? Why?”

Anthony turns and sees a tripedal creature slowly lumbering towards them, crystals all over its body. “Well, until someone gets this door open we’re gonna be stuck. There’s no way to open it from our end. You’ll meet some bandit resistance getting to us, but nothing you can’t handle. No rush but these crystalisks down here don’t seem happy to have visitors...”

As he speaks, another begins to advance, and the four vault hunters start spreading out, all thinking to back into a more defensible position... and all thinking of different places for such a defense. A third begins to climb out of the toxic, acidic ooze towards them, and it’s not the only one, but none of them seem to be targeting Dash or Pinkie, much to everyone’s confusion until they begin to fight.

“Aim for the legs, it’s their weak spot... their only weak spot.” Anthony advises, Gaige fumbling to use her shotgun one-handed.

“Ugh, this is not working... I need parts to fix this!” she shouts angrily, calling on Deathtrap and directing him towards the Crystalisks’ weak points.

As if to respond, the crystalisk nearest to them launch a small barrage of spikes at Anthony, who manages to dodge, a stray spike however grazing his back. “The sooner you get here the better!” Anthony adds into the ECHO.

“We’ll be there ASAP.” Axton replies calmly before ending the call.

“Alright, we just have to last long enough for them to get to us.” Anthony says, dodging some more spikes, this time with less luck, his shield taking a direct hit.

“And exactly how long is that gonna take?” Dash asks.

Anthony pauses to calculate the distance from the nearest Fast Travel station, in Three Horns, to the Sanctuary Hole. “Uh, best guess for a set of five well-equipped Vault Hunters? Ten to twenty minutes.”

“Fantastic...” Dash remarks sarcastically.

“They might make five if they take a fast enough car.” he says, optimistically.

“And how close is the nearest Catch-A-Ride?” Pinkie asks, backing up against the door.

Anthony struggles to remember. “Uh, let’s see, the closest Fast Travel is by the Happy Pig, so...”

“So they’ll have a car in no time!” Gaige replies enthusiastically. “Yes, we ain’t screwed today!”

Then they get a call on the ECHO. “Uh, guys, our ETA is gonna be at least an hour...”

“What!?” comes the entire group’s response.

“Something happened by the Happy Pig, power’s down so no Catch-A-Ride. You’ll have to hold out until we can get a vehicle.”

“I think we can do that.” Anthony says, pulling out his Jakob’s and aiming at the Crystalisk’s legs, aiding Deathtrap. Anthony swears under his breath as he misses, succeeding in only ticking the creature off.

“Thanks for understanding. We’ll be there, just keep your heads.” Axton ends the call again, as the nearest Crystalisk sends a cluster of crystals that barely lands at Anthony’s feet before exploding, sending crystal shards flying like shrapnel.

After his shields recover from the damage, Anthony swaps out for his electric assault rifle and begins firing bullet after bullet his HUD indicating a critical hit each time he hits a leg with his spray, which wasn’t as often as he would’ve liked.

The Crystalisks continue their slow advance, occasionally stopping to hurl more spikes at the group. Finally Deathtrap and Anthony completely destroy the crystal casing on one of the creature's legs, knocking it back and slowing it down for a bit before the ones behind it begin charging. One slams the ground heavily and causes a minor earthquake making Gaige and Anthony stumble, Pinkie and Dash forced to go quadrupedal to stay up.

The group get back to their feet in time for another cluster of crystal bombs to land nearby, scattering them. “We need to focus on one at a time!”

“Easier said than done.” Dash says, dodging another barrage of spikes. “They aren’t giving us the chance.”

“Well, what do you suggest, then?” Anthony asks, seriously. “I’m open to ideas right now.”

“Iduuno!” Dash yells, “But for some reason, they’re only really going after you two!” she pauses. “Wait, why aren’t they going after me or Pinkie?” she asks.

“They hate humans due to what the Dahl corporation did to them.” Anthony clarifies. “But you seem fine. Guess they don’t see you as a threat yet.”

“Uh... can we sit this one out then?” she asks. “I mean, if they’re just wanting to be left alone, Anthony... what did the Dahl corporation do?”

“They came here for crystals. They found them. And tried mining them. Suffice to say that ticked them off.”

“Eesh, I don’t blame ‘em. I mean, if someone came looking for, like, my feathers and started plucking pegasi left and right, I’d be pretty peeved.” she says, backing out of the way with Pinkie, though she doesn’t look entirely sure of herself.

“Are you seriously not gonna help?” Anthony shouts exasperatedly.

“Well, they’re kinda in the right, here, Anthony.” Pinkie says. Dash furrows her brows, biting her lip.

“No they aren’t!” Anthony argues, taking a barrage of spikes in his shield, breaking it. “I didn’t do anything, they attacked first, how are they in the right!? This is self-defense!”

Dash looks like she’s wavering. “Well... maybe we can try reasoning with them? Dang, this is really the time we could use Fluttershy or Rarity here. I’m sure Rarity could distract them or Fluttershy could talk them down...” she gives a frustrated groan. “Aagh, I don’t wanna piss them off, but... oh, why can’t we just have, like, shields we can throw down or something, like the Royal Guard uses?”

“Because this is Pandora, nothing wants to just talk things out.” Gaige replies. “Miles better than Promethea, but when you got nowhere else to go, Pandora is still pretty crappy.”

“What she said. If you aren’t gonna help us, then we’ll help ourselves!” Anthony says angrily, grabbing Pinkie’s Launcher off her back and firing a rocket at the nearest Crystalisk, taking out all three legs with the only rocket in the launcher. Not having any rockets of his own, Anthony just tosses it back to Pinkie as the Crystalisk begins to burrow into the ground before exploding in a shower of golden crystal sticks.

“Still got more to go, and their legs aren’t exactly an easy target for Deathtrap.” Gaige says. “Haven’t upgraded him to go for specific crit spots.”

“Seriously? You couldn’t mention that until now?” Anthony complains.

“Look smartass, he was built as a highly-effective bully-repellant. I just added claws and lasers because they’re cool.”

Anthony just sighs. muttering to himself before going back to his AR, sending another wave of bullets towards the crystalisks as Deathtrap, true to Gaige’s words, finally starts taking enough of a beating for his master to recall him. “Hope that shotgun is good enough.”

“Hey, at least I’m trying!” Gaige bickers back. “This is a lot harder, I’m used to having more than one pair of hands as backup.”

“So am I!” Anthony calls back, sparing a second to give the ponies a look, which results in him getting hit by more spikes.

“Augh, I can’t just stand here!” Dash yells, and finally steps in, throwing a grenade at the Crystalisks, stalling them as they turn towards her. “Uh... I can go back to standing here now.” she says, fifteen Crystalisks now bearing down on her, in vengeance for their friend who had been effectively put out of commission by the mirv grenade that had auto-targeted its victim’s weak point.

“Too late. You fire a shot, you can’t take it back!” Anthony advises. “And by the way, that grenade won’t help much, they can’t be slagged.”

“Now you tell me!” Pinkie says, putting away her ‘support shotgun’. “Anything else they can’t be hurt by?”

“Uh, yeah... the list of what does hurt them is shorter. Normal bullets and standard explosives.”

“Man, Dahl really picked a bad fight...” Gaige mutters, hearing the bad news.

Another huge barrage of spikes and crystal clusters rain from the sky onto the group, taking out everyone’s shields and dealing significant health damage.

“Now what?” Anthony asks, worried.

“You’re the one with all the plans!” Gaige replies.

“She’s right, you usually have some idea.” Pinkie agrees.

“I have one idea, but it’s pretty stupid.”

Dash groans. “And I thought I’d be relieved when you finally admit you have stupid ideas...”

“Is it stupid enough to work?” Pinkie asks helpfully.

“Not sure.” Anthony admits, training his pistol at the nearest Crystalisk, breaking another leg.

“Just do it!” Gaige yells. “We’re getting creamed here!”

Anthony nods. “Pinkie, cover me”

“Wait, wha?” Before she has a chance to react Anthony dashes back behind Pinkie and begins training his Sloth on the sky. Finding his target, he takes a shot and the keening shriek of a hurt Adult Varkid echoes throughout the caverns. “Anthony what did you just do?”

“There’s only one thing Crystalisks hate more than people...” he says, as the enraged screeching of a swarm of Varkids begins to fill the caverns, and the Crystalisks begin to turn their attention towards the cavern’s roof, launching out stony spikes as a veritable carpet of angry arthropods descends towards the group. “And I just called down the storm.”

For her part, Dash was getting a brief stroke of PTSD at the giant swarm, letting out a yell of “Are you insane!?”

“Nope.” Anthony replies calmly. “I’m stupid. Now let’s get those guys really pissed.” He takes out a grenade and cooks it for a few seconds before throwing it into the sky, the spinning wheel of fire releasing moments after it rises into the cloud of varkids, the burst of fire setting several of them on fire, the loud screech hurting everyone’s ears and causing the Varkids to descend upon the group and the Crystalisks by extension.

Several flying Badass Varkids join the adults in the attack, acting as backup for their enraged family members.

“Now run!” Anthony shouts, picking up Gaige again, sparking up and taking her back inside the Dahl’s structure, leaving the door open long enough for Rainbow to Rainboom over, carrying Pinkie on her back. Once inside, and now far enough away to be ignored, Anthony sets Gaige down and slams the door, sounds of the Varkid/Crystalisk battle being audible through the decent inch and a half of steel that was their door.

“Anthony, that was crazy!” Gaige yells giving him a punch with her normal arm. She then sits down on the blood-caked floor. “But it worked I guess.”

“Yeah... Now we only have to wait it out and deal with the stragglers. The way they’re riled up out there, they should be almost done by the time or backup gets here... hopefully.”

“So that’s it? We just sit here and wait?” Rainbow asks, complaining just a bit.

“Unless you’d rather be out there then yes.”

“Fine.”


---- (/\) ----


After what feels like an eternity of listening to the angry rumblings and shrill cries of Crystalisks battling varkids, the team is getting strained in their current position.

“How long are they gonna keep going?”

“Crystalisks are tough, and Varkids are fast and more numerous. Who knows... But at least we’re safe in here.”

As if to reassure the group that this was the right plan, they get another ECHO call. “Hey, you guys still okay?”

“Yeah... a bit battered though.” Gaige replies.

“Cool. We ran into some bandits squatting in the remains of Sanctuary. Should be down in a few.” A loud explosion is heard over the ECHO. “Maybe a bit sooner. Krieg’s going absolutely nuts out here.”

“I have potatoes with your names on them!” Krieg adds into the conversation.

“Good, we’re just waiting out a little ecosystem war down here.” Anthony says, relieved that help was only minutes away. “You guys are just in time.”

“Alright... wait, what ecosystem war?”

“Varkids versus Crystalisks.”

“Eesh, sounds nasty. Real nasty. I thought that was static on your end.” Axton says sympathetically as the bunker rumbles.

“I wish. Anyways, they should be almost done by the time you get to us, just a few stragglers for us to take care of, shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Roger that. Seeya in a bit.” The ECHO goes down and Gaige is sitting in the corner trying to fix her mechanical arm but getting frustrated.

“I need to get back to Sanctuary for some parts...” She moans. “This started out going so well...”

“Welcome to my life.” Anthony says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “But hey, glad you came with. Couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“Put that on a valentine card and it’d be the nicest thing I ever got from a guy.” Gaige says, rolling her eyes.

Rainbow just stares. “Why, your arm?”

“Yeah, apparently for most guys, the whole ‘robo-arm’ is a real turn-off. Especially the cute ones.”

“Well, I knew a pegasus in flight school who had a wooden leg and everypony thought he was the coolest thing ever...”

“Oh, are we sharing stories?” Pinkie asks excitedly. “Well, one time I-” a loud blaring noise cuts her off, and the noise is followed by loud whirring and mechanical clunking. The door to the elevator room was opening. Stepping out from their hiding place, the Vault Hunters meet up with the rest of their group, clearing out the last of the Crystalisks, who had apparently won, though had lost a few numbers.

“Man are we glad to see you.” Anthony breathes. “Thanks for the backup.”

“No problem. Just returning the favor from Overlook.” Maya says as she Phaselocks a Crystalisk for Kreig to go whole-hog on its underside with his buzz-axe.

Soon enough, all the creatures are dealt with and the entire group heads over to the newly-activated Fast Travel Station, sending them to Sanctuary. Once back, the crew all heads to Moxxi’s for a celebratory drink, Anthony handed a glass of Faux-range juice. “Sorry sugar, but Roland paid me a pretty penny to make sure you don’t get buzzed again until we win this war on Hyperion.”

“No, no, he’s right. I shouldn’t be drowning myself in alcohol.” Anthony says as he takes a drink, this time expecting the strong taste. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either.

Dash is regaling Axton with the story of what happened in the caverns. “And then Anthony just... lets the badass tackle him into the goop. I thought he was suicidal for a moment but he ended up giving me the chance to take it out.”

“Heh, wow, kid, you got guts.” Axton says approvingly, slapping him on the back. “Could use some work on the brains area, but guts. Not bad.”

“Hey, a leader’s gotta do what a leader’s gotta do.”

Axton nods and raises his glass before taking another drink. “Anyways, once Gaige is fixed up, the six of us are gonna head out and do a job for Brick, something about a Hyperion moonshot landing in his neck of the woods. We’re gonna do that and take the Bunker afterwards. You guys do have what you went to get, right?”

“Yeah.” Gaige mumbles, half of her attention on her arm. “And some plans that Jack had to mass-produce a crappy-awesome version of Deathtrap. Angel says she’s gonna wipe it from the system over the next few days.”

“And in the meantime, we’ll upgrade Claptrap.”

Gaige just looks at Anthony. “Please, you wouldn’t even know where to begin, leave it to a professional.”

“You’re a professional? I wasn’t aware you had a job as well as school.”

“Okay, not a legal professional but hey, a girl’s gotta start somewhere, and there are worse ways for a thirteen year old girl to earn cash for her projects.”

“Wait, I thought you said you’re fourteen?”

“Uh, yeah, I am now. You think I started on my fourteenth birthday? Pfft, it takes time to become this awesome.”

“Anyways, fine we’ll leave Clappy to you. In the meantime, we can look for our own jobs to do. We’ll help with the Bunker too, but we’ll probably be up in the skies, helping the Slabs.” Anthony says.

“In the air?” Dash says, sounding interested, looking up from her own drink.

“Well yeah, what better time to try out whatever upgrades Scooter’s made to the Buzzard?”

“Yes! This is gonna be awesome!” Dash says getting up from her chair only pausing to throw some money Moxxi’s way, rushing out the door to head to the garage, laughing and squealing in excitement.

“Man, she sure misses flying...” Anthony says. “But I guess that’s to be expected. I’d be pretty upset if I lost my thumbs.”

Moxxi just saunters up to Anthony. “She overpaid for her drink... hand this back to her when you get the chance.”

Anthony nods and takes the money, dropping some of his own into the tip jar. “I plan on entering that ‘Dome once you rebuild it. Might as well help it get its funds paid for.”

“I’d like to see that. I hear a lot about you, but I’ve never seen you in action. Hey, here’s an idea. There’s a sort of proxy-Underdome I helped fund that’s run by a guy named Fink out in the Fridge. If you head out there and win a few rounds, I’d appreciate it if you could show Pandora that they need a real arena.”

“Fink’s Slaughterhouse.” Anthony says. “Yeah, I’ve seen posters around. I’ll enter.”

“Thanks. Unfortunately I can’t exactly offer you any kind of reward for it if you get through it, but how about I owe you a favor if you show Fink that his slaughterhouse leaves something to be desired?”

“Works for me.” Anthony says. “We’ll do a few jobs around Sanctuary, maybe check a few bounty boards around the highlands, and then head for the Fridge.”

“Thanks sugar, you’ll really be helping me out. I knew I could count on you. But you do really need to learn how to hold your liquor. Until Jack’s put six feet under, I’m cutting you off. You can have food, but no drinks.”

“Fair enough.” Anthony agrees, paying for his faux-range juice and gets up. “Seeya ‘round Moxxi. Pinkie, you coming?”

“I’ll catch up. I’m planning our ‘we beat Jack’ party!”

Anthony nods and heads out to the garage to see what Scooter had cooked up. He is also interested in what the mechanic could do to a flying machine. Anthony walks down the steps of the upper floor down to the garage proper and sees most of a Buzzard... sorta. This one is about half again as big, and appears to have a set of rocket pods under one wing, and Scooter strapped upside-down under the other, working inside of a bigger propeller setup than the Buzzards have. The crackling of electricity and the flashes of an arc welder catches Anthony’s attention.

“Listen, if you’s a Hyperion bot, gimme a few more days ta finish this, then ya kin kill me!” Scooter yells from where the upper half of his torso is inside of the housing.

Rainbow Dash is watching Scooter work with rapt attention, a small, modified visor over her eyes to protect her vision from the bright lights of the welder. For her part, she is barely sitting still, hopping from one set of hooves to another in anticipation of the new vehicle being finished.

“We’re gonna raid a bunker with this!” She squeals. “I can’t wait!”

Anthony chuckles and sits down by her, petting her to calm her down to little effect. “Yeah, we’ll be air-support. I should probably go see about a few jobs and come back in a bit. You okay here?”

Dash nods excitedly, eyes not straying from the much sturdier-looking flying machine. “I am so going to put my next set of skills into more driving stuff!”

Anthony pats Rainbow on the head and gets up, heading to the local bounty board and reads through a few jobs, most of them simple ones. At this point he was less concerned with the jobs that offered money as much as the ones that rewarded decently-levelled loot.




> Chapter 13
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony recalls the Vault Hunters remarking the Happy Pig motel going down and decides to take that job. The area should be a cakewalk for him alone, but with him and the ponies splitting up, they should handle it all really fast. Three parts, three of them, simple. Anthony checks his SDUs and notes he’s low on ammo so he heads down to Marcus’ store and buys some before browsing the man’s wares. While the guns were all quite decent and fairly levelled, he didn’t find anything he was interested in, though he almost splurged on a fire pistol.

True there wasn’t any real need to fix the abandoned motel but it would open up a Catch-A-Ride, another bounty board, and a Fast Travel station and those were all plusses. The job selected, Anthony heads down to Moxxi’s again to grab Pinkie.

Dash is a bit more of a chore to pull away from watching Scooter work on the renovated flying machine, but once she’s assured he’d be finished by the time they get back she relents and the ponies stock up on ammo. 

“So how’s this gonna go, exactly?” Pinkie asks as the three hop into a Technical.

“Simple, we just drop one of us off next to each objective and that way we can do all three at once. When we’re ready, we let each other know and Dash will come by and round us up in the Technical. Take us back to the motel and repair the steam pump.”

“Sounds easy, what’s the catch?” Rainbow asks sounding hesitant.

“Real shit pay for the job itself. We’re mainly doing this out of the goodness of our hearts and the facilities outside the motel.”

“Ugh, really? Well... it is the right thing to do I suppose and we’ve been doing this whole ‘not heroes’ thing for a while, we don’t wanna end up being the bandits Jack accuses us of being.”

“That’s the spirit, and don’t worry, the next job I’ll pick will be all about the rewards.” Anthony assures her as they arrive at the motel and pick up their current job, the ECHO recorder stuck to the powered-down bounty board.

“Pre-recorded message begins: Aaggggh! The Bloodshots are killing us! Aaggggh! Pre-recorded message ends.”

Soon after the recorder goes quiet, the mission to turn on the power comes up and the nearby steam pump, as expected, is down and is, as Scooter points out, “Broke as hell.”

“So now we just head around and get the parts. One is guarded by bandits, another by skags, and the third, bullymongs.”

“What kind of name is Bullymong anyway?” Pinkie asks. “It sounds weird.”

Anthony just laughs. “We’ll do that one next then. So who wants the bandits?”

“Me~e!” Pinkie says, raising a hoof. She hops in place several times, even as Anthony and Dash try to tell her they’re fine with it.

“Alright, you just have to head to the North. It’s right over there, so you shouldn’t have to use a vehicle.” Anthony says, pointing. “I think I’ll take the Bullymongs, and Dash can take the car to take out the skags, they’re the farthest away.”

“Alright.” Pinkie says, heading for the very close-by bandit encampment.

About the time Dash gets Anthony dropped off by a steam pump overtaken by ice, Pinkie gets on the ECHO. “Uh, it’s up there, but how do I get up there?”

“Shoot the ladder down.” Anthony advises as he hops out, Dash driving off for the remaining pump. Anthony walks up to the iced steam pump and prepares for the badass Bullymong to jump down, which it does, shaking the ground with impact.

The very pissy Bullymong, being what it is, starts off the fight by chucking two large ice blocks, then leaping into the fray directly, other brat Bullymongs closing in, but not getting in the way of their alpha.

Anthony Sparks up and runs past the Bullymong, using the speed boost to snatch the Gearbox from the Baddass’s grip and waving it in front of the creature like a prize. Holding down the trigger of his Hyperion pistol, he gets the Bullymong five times in the mouth and ten times in the eyes, effectively mutilating the creature’s face. It wasn’t that high level after all, badass or not.

Anthony grins as the brat bullymongs run off, clearly knowing their place. And a beep saying that Pinkie had acquired the second part is followed by loud screaming and a massive explosion in the distance. With a laugh, Anthony calls up Dash. “You ready to pick me up?”

“On my way now.” She says, Anthony hearing a loud, squishy crack over the ECHO, and the beep of Dash getting her part comes across.

A half-minute later, Dash rolls up to Anthony staring at the badass Bullymong, noting that Anthony was completely clean while Dash was covered in skag blood, spit, and vomit... but mostly blood.

“What is it with you and keeping deaths clean?”

“I prefer a few precise shots, don’t wanna get blood in my eyes when I’m in a fight in case it turns serious.”

“But punching and kicking is fun, especially with this Roid shield. I just stand still, let them break it, and unleash Tartarus like nopony’s business.” Pinkie, by the Motel, is waiting for the two, juggling bandit body parts that had been blown off, the rest of the camp given a big, messy ‘paint job’ and was covered in gibs.

“Alright, let’s get this place up and running again.” Anthony says, climbing up the steam pump ladder and plugging in the parts as he goes. “And there we go. Turn that valve now.” By the time Anthony is back on the ground, the steam pump is fully operational and the nearby power generator springs to life, vibrating and rumbling.

“Alright, now the Catch-A-Ride should be up and working.”

“And Scooter said he was gonna be done by now, right?” Dash asks excitedly.

“Sorry ta burst yer bubble Dashie, but I ‘spected ya to take another ten minutes ‘r so. Still puttin’ the finishin’ touches on, but once I’m done I’ll have this here whirly-bird ready for liftoff.”

“Yes!” Dash squeals more than yells. “So now what?”

“Well, now we can check out the bounty board and get some more jobs to tide us over. Now let’s see what we got here...” Instead of the usual mail delivery quest, Anthony finds a new one. Again, nothing too major, but the difficulty was quite a bit higher. It would be a good time killer.

There’s one on the board he doesn’t recognize, from yours truly.

“Huh, Marcus needs some crates of guns recovered from bandits who stole ‘em, and is willing to give up a gun from the shipments to whomever completes it, along with a small amount of cash. He is, of course, not being stingy with money, but perfectly reasonable in his assumption that I have more than enough and is not stiffing me on the cash at all.”

“Alright,” Dash says. “We’ll take it. So where are we headed?”

“Uh... oh, it’s in Shock Fossil Cavern. That’s not too far away, actually.”

“Sweet, let’s get rollin’!” Dash says as she hops into the Technical. “And when we get back to Sanctuary, let’s see if we can’t craft some guns when Scooter’s done with the Buzzard. We still have that mountain of Dahl stuff in storage.”

Anthony nods. “Yeah, I could use a better assault rifle, this zapper is really showing its age.”

“How long you had it again?” Pinkie asks, hopping in the back as Anthony takes the turret seat.

“It’s a green level five.” Anthony says, sighing. “And it’s my highest RoF weapon.”

“Jeez, no kidding.” Dash says, driving off for the new map marker the quest had placed. “Shame we can’t keep the bits that make it a shock weapon.”

“We found that other shock weapon in the Dahl bunker.” Pinkie reminds the group. “Can we scrap that and make one that’s electric?”

“Only iff’n it’s from the same weapon man-you-facter.” Scooter explains with a grunt of effort from his end. “But if ya’ll got it from a Dahl bunker yer gonna be makin’ a Dahl anyways so’s yer good. I’ll shows ya the basics when ya git back ‘ere.”

“Scooter, you are awesome!” Dash says, repeating herself from a while earlier.

Scooter gives his thanks and ends the transmission, as they arrive at the cave. Walking in, they see a large machine in the middle of the first room, sparking and sending off electricity like crazy. What the machine does or is for though, is a mystery for the ages.

As soon as the group pulls up, a few psychos run out to greet them in the standard Pandoran way.

“They told me to bring a pail lunch! You look pale enough to me!”

“No dice, nutso.” Anthony replies as several bullets from his Jakobs find temporary purchase in the bandits’ heads before exiting out the back of their skulls from sheer force, the impact barely slowing them and dropping the psychos easily.

“Show off.” Dash mutters as she hops out of the vehicle and prepares her slag mirv grenade. Once the rest of the oncoming Psychos are slagged if not blown to bits, Pinkie finishes them with her corrosive shotgun. The ‘survivors’ melting alive from the DoT.

Several more marauders come out and begin firing but the group just advances, their shields taking the bullets in stride for several rounds before Rainbow’s breaks and a bullet barely misses her leg. She grins and charges at the bandits, and begins a melee frenzy, while Anthony and Pinkie work on a few nomads. Seeing an explosive barrel off to the side, he looks to Pinkie and offers a suggestion.

“Think you can hurl that at them without setting it off?”

“No problem-o!”

Pinkie runs past the nomads and bucks the barrel at them. Anthony blasts it with his Jakobs and sets it off mid-flight. The nomads turn and hold up their shields, blocking the blast completely. They begin laughing at the attempt. “What?” Anthony calls over. “Haven’t you heard of a distraction?”

The nomads immediately turn their shields towards Anthony, blocking his incoming spray of bullets. Pinkie comes up behind them and blasts them both with her party cannon, taking them out from the concussive force as well as the shrapnel. Anthony grinned at the classic ‘fake distraction/real distraction’ move. Works every time...

Dash is finished with the marauders fairly soon after and the mission changes to ‘find the stolen weapons.’

The group spreads out and eventually find six of the crates, loading them into the back of the Technical. But there was supposed to be eight, and Marcus doesn’t pay for an incomplete job. The last two are pinpointed to have been moved to somewhere within Southpaw Steam and Power.

“Isn’t that where we took out the assassins a few days ago?” Dash asks. At Anthony’s confirmative nod she cocks an eyebrow. “But, wouldn’t the assassins have respawned by now... so we’d have to clear them out again right?”

“And this time they’ll probably be expecting a raid. We kinda took them by surprise last time, but now that they know there’s a target on them for having the crates...”

“Great.” Dash replies sarcastically and sighs. “Oh well, might as well get it over with.”

“Right!” Pinkie says. “And we don’t have to do anything like finish them with specific weapons. We just need to remember their actual weaknesses and exploit them! We’ll have those crates, easy-peasy!”

“Alright then.” Anthony says, reloading his minigun. “Let’s re-assassinate them.”

Walking in, the three notice that the place seems mostly unchanged from the first time, but something catches Pinkie’s eyes... some new posters on the wall, not as yellowed as the ones of the main Vault Hunters. “Look, we’re famous!”

Anthony checks it out and notices the same. “Hah, Jack finally passed around a bounty on us. Guess fucking up his servers hit a button.” He and Dash share a low five as they inspect the rewards, just out of morbid curiosity to see how much Jack was offering for them.

Pinkie has a hefty $270,000 bounty at the moment for Extreme Violence and a Destructive Personality, Dash has nearly $400,000 in various bounties for ‘Excessive Force’, Murder (Temporary), Assault (Temporary), Maiming (Temporary), and illegal shield usage. Anthony, meanwhile, has $998,000 in bounties, most of them related to questionable activities with a minor.

Anthony, obviously, was upset at the insinuation.

“What the heck? What minor? Gaige? Hey, she was the one suggesting I’d want to try something.” He points to Dash. “She was there, she can vouch for me.” Anthony shouts at the inanimate poster.

“Chill dude.” Dash mumbles. “At least they got your good side. This is the worst picture of me ever! It doesn’t show off all my awesomeness!”

“It’s meant to be just you as normal, not ‘awesome’” Anthony clarifies. “But yeah, he did bother to get my good side. Figured he’d try and make me look like some kind of pervert.”

“Anyways, how do we get this money?” Pinkie asks, stars in her eyes.

“Uh... well, actually, this is a reward for bringing us in dead. We can’t exactly get this money ourselves. It goes to whoever offs us and keeps us from respawning.” Anthony looks closer at the posters and notices small print. “Holy hell... Jack is offering a special deal for all three of us. He’ll pay our combined bounties and double it if they turn us in all at once.” The total being 3,336,000 at present.

“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”

“And the scary part is, he can actually afford it.” Anthony says. “Anyways we have weapon crates to get back.”

“Right!” Pinkie says, pronking off further into the power plant.

As it turns out, the assassins didn’t respawn or at least had found a new hiding place. Either way, they were not there making the mission a standard ‘kill the bandits, loot the place’ mission.

“Hey, wait a second.” Dash says, as she finishes off a marauder with her special rifle. “Our level bar thingies aren’t going up.”

Anthony realizes he forgot to mention the downside to levelling up too fast. “Well... if you’re too high level for an area, you can’t advance your clearance progress by taking down enemies in said area. You just start getting diminishing returns the bigger the level gap, and eventually you just stop getting anything.”

“So aside from whatever vendor trash we sell after this, and the quest rewards, we’re getting nothing out of this?”

“Well... yeah. We’re levelling up too fast for these guys to catch up and as such, we just can’t get anything but their gear from them.”

“Yeah, and their gear sucks!” Pinkie exclaims, picking up a Bandit Smig and inspecting it, before giving it a disgusted look and tossing it behind her. “These are worse than the Dog I got last time I was here.”

“Yeah, and this caster is obliterating these guys, but doesn’t do much to guys our level unless the target has armor to melt.” Dash adds.

“We’ll have to spend our loot and quest money on better guns when we get back to Sanctuary.”

Pinkie sits up straight for a moment, ‘thinking’ face on. “Waitaminute! Why would we sell these?!” she shouts. “Scooter said he can help us make guns, and we’ve got good parts in our current ones...” she lets the words trail off to let Anthony and Rainbow Dash connect the dots.

Anthony shrugs. “I suppose, but with our limited collection there’s only so many possibilities. We could try but we’d have to salvage about three of our current guns to get a single better one. We’d be better armed, sure, but also less armed.”

“Yeah, and we need to talk with Scooter about what we’d need to do with everything.” Rainbow Dash counters. “I mean, if these parts are why the guns are so terrible, taking them with us won’t help much, Pinks.”

“But it is an idea, we’d just need to scavenge from tougher customers is all.” Anthony says, attempting to find a middle ground. “So we’ll sell these things and see how much cash we can pool together from it.”

The three continue through the Steam Plant, talking as they kill and loot bandits. “Yeah, but they aren’t worth much and there’s only so much I can carry.” Dash points out. “Is there a way to carry more stuff?”

Anthony nods. “Earl’s Black Market. The guy sells SDUs for ammunition and storage upgrades.” He pauses before revealing the caveat. “Except he won’t sell anything unless we pay in Eridium.”

“Jack wants Eridium, this Earl guy wants Eridium, some of these bandits want Eridium... what’s so special about it, really?” Dash asks frustratedly. “I mean, I get that it can do some funky stuff, but if the planet is supposedly overflowing with the stuff, why haven’t we found any?”

Anthony just shrugs. “Chalk it up to bad luck. Of course it would be more common if Jack wasn’t literally mining all of it up and pumping it into... uh... charging the Vault Key.”

The group is interrupted by a Psycho charging them. “Look at me when I’m staring at you!!”

Pinkie just shoots the guy in the head and it bursts like a watermelon. “This is getting kinda boring with how easy it is.” Pinkie complains.

“Dying sucks and all...” Dash comments, taking down a Marauder. “But Pinkie’s right, these guys are lame. Takes all the glory outta this, y’know?”

Anthony, for a change of pace, Sparks up and finishes off the remaining bandits around, sighing as the power’s relatively short timer is left long by how effective he was at this point. “We’ll finish this job and go Thresher Hunting, deal?”

“The tentacle-y things you mentioned earlier?” Pinkie asks, idly twirling her launcher around like a baton with surprising ease.

“Yeah, aside from the Tadpoles, they’re big, nasty, and have tiny critspots.”

“The harder the kill the better the loot.” Rainbow reminds them. “So let’s just get that chest for Marcus and head out.”

Continuing through the plant, the group eventually comes to a decently-sized cache of weapons. It couldn’t all be from Marcus, it had to have been hoarded. “They’re all white.” Pinkie notes as she kicks open crate after crate before finally stepping in front of the chest highlighted by the group’s ECHOs.

“Yeah, let’s just leave them or scrap ‘em. Come on, let’s get this thing back to Sanctuary.”

“Yeah... hey, I know, let’s drag these extra crates, but without all that foam crap, and stuff ‘em full of guns. That Axton guy was doing it back when we first met ‘em.”

“I like that idea!” Pinkie says, going over to one of the crates and jumps inside, throwing out all the foam packaging.

Not feeling terribly contrary, Anthony goes along with the plan and starts filling up the open crate with vendor trash. After about half an hour the entire set of crates, all twenty of them, are stocked to the brim with SMGs, Assault Rifles, and pistols of every variety. With quite a bit of trouble, they manage to get their gear and loot back to the Technical.

As they’re driving back, Pinkie is tasked with keeping their cargo on-board, there being a distinct lack of straps on the sturdy but ultimately unsafe vehicle. Rainbow was, much to her disappointment, easing off the gas, having already lost one crate to sheer speed and Anthony told her that the next one they lose they were going to turn back for. With that rule set, Rainbow drove carefully, and getting the three of them and their loot to the Happy Pig’s Fast Travel Station in about ten minutes. “I could walk this faster...”

“And carry all these weapons and grenade mods at the same time?” Anthony asks rhetorically, quirking an eyebrow.

“No... come on, let’s just grab all we can and head through, I wanna get paid.”

Scooter’s voice comes over the ECHO, talking to all three Vault Hunters at once. “Hey y’alls, I overheard you three chatting ‘bout makin’ some guns. I’ll send an offer-zay-shun to drop off right into mah garage this time.”

Taking Scooter up on the offer and using the Fast Travel station near the motel, the three get to Sanctuary and head for the garage. It would take a bit of time to learn, but making better guns was a necessity at this point. They were far outclassed.

The crates of guns, including Marcus’, are moved to their final destinations by some of the citizens for a few measly bribes, and Scooter sits down with them, grinning broadly at them as he looks them over, gesturing towards a simple workbench with a half-dozen manufacturer’s logos plastered across the hodge-podge materials.

The bench had multiple arms on it, and there’s a bar with dozens of differently-colored rolls of duct tape, the most-used one being a roll of black with flame designs on the edges.

“Alright, sit yerselfs down, and watch a master!” he said, cracking his knuckles dramatically and winced at the pops. “Okay, so ya gotta take apart each type’a gun different, an’ it’s different dependin’ on the manufacturer. Yous can find benches like this one all over Pandora, but mine’s the only Omni-bench! I worked super-hard gettin’ it to work with every manufacturer an’ not rips its own arms off.” As he spoke, he set a pair of older Vladof pistols, which the bench automatically begins to scan, identifying its very short part list, and puts up a holographic prompt asking which part should be collected for each of them.

“Now, ya gotta get only the best parts. I set this t’ scrap all these guns, since ya brought in a whole heap’a real basic weapons.” he says, “So ya’ll need’ta go through all yer stuff and find what works. Now, I’d suggest you set any greens’re blues aside as ya go, an make ‘em better with each other. Go nuts!” he says, having shown them the basic methods of using the system as he talked.

The parts, after they scrap the guns all down, result in a veritable mountain of raw scrap metal and enough actual parts to make up to fourteen pistols, six assault rifles, three sniper rifles, eight sub-machine guns, a single launcher, and four shotguns. There’s stacks of varied bayonets, laser sights, and specialty scopes and barrels enough to make a Loot Midget cream himself.

And that’s just with the basic parts. Once they’d finished with all the white-grade weapons and equipment, Scooter showed them how adding pieces to a design worked, and it turned out that lower-grade pieces could be used in higher-grade designs; as long as the majority was of a given rarity, the gun would be that rarity level. As such, they pulled out a slew of greens, taking out the cores of them when possible, and other bits when the cores weren’t worth it.

“Well, I always knew Vault Hunters were purty good at gettin’ tons’a loot, but this’s ridiculous! You could go into competition with Marcus with this many guns!”

Anthony puts up a hand. “No way, Scooter, I know what happened to the last guys who tried competing with him.” Wise kid, I can tell you that much.

“Fair ‘nough. Anywho, Marcus is who yer probably gonna be sellin’ to, when you make mosta these, but it looks like ya got enough to make a green in each weapon type to yer likin’. Everythin’ else’d be white-grade, sadly.” he says, looking over the list of parts.

He paused after going through it, looking over it again. “Hmm... I think ah kin even help ya make a special one, blue-grade. Lemme grab a core ah bin holdin’ onto fer a while, and you decide which a ya’ll’s gonna get Scooter’s Affections. That’s the gun, by the way.” he clarified, before ducking off rummage through his stuff.

“Well, white at a higher level is better than a green five, so I’ll take what I can get. I already got the Sloth from Mordy, so you girls can figure out who gets Scooter’s gun.” Anthony said, looking over the parts and, making an assault rifle purely from Dahl-only parts, he made a white that put his Electric Minigun to shame... well, aside from the clip. It was only carrying about a third the ammo that his level five held, but the boost to firepower was significant enough to make up for it.

Taking the white and scrapping the Minigun for its body, he checked what he could do if he used that part in his new gun, but alas the parts rejected each other leaving him a still-effective weapon. Taking apart his Iron for its core, he figured that combined with a few other parts he could make another blue pistol, scrapping his Inspiring Vision for higher-grade components to keep the Straight Shooter stay afloat in the Blue range.

Finally, he tore apart his Fervid Gospel, and began rebuilding it around the Maliwan core, though all he had to work with were lower grade parts. This time, he added a Maliwan-style Bayonet, the twin blades sharp and classy.

Pinkie took over the bench next, tearing apart her own weapons with a feverish intensity that shocked the others. The bandit slag shotgun was the first to be retrofitted; unfortunately, the core couldn’t be upgraded past a level-ten value, but it was a far cry from the level 3 she’d had previously. The finished project, a Sketer Room Clener, was far better than the previous iteration.

She’d taken apart her Topneaa, and decided to go a different route than normal, scrapping much of it for spare metal and the like, and began to build something entirely new: a Launcher. The corrosive core it holds had to be made from scratch, costing much of the available scrap. She also scraps her Dog, the minor weapon’s scrap needed to finish the Maliwan-designed components like the Sight.

Sadly, she couldn’t replace her Plump Root, the poorly-aging Torgue weapon now more of a keepsake than anything.

Dash, looking over her weapons with disgust, scraps all of them, except the Plasma Caster and the Chief’s Luck. Looking over what she has available, she bites her lip, Anthony leaning over to offer advice as she mumbles about rifle manufacturers.

“If you want more power to your shots, but don’t want to sacrifice fire-rate, Dahl bases work well, but they’re hard to shoot continuously when taking careful aim.”

“Hmm... What’s Jakob’s deal, then? There’s a little square in my vision flashing colors and telling me to ‘only use Jakob’s for power’.”

“Well, since you’ve been wanting higher rate of fire up to this point, Jakobs is only as fast as you can pull the trigger, which can be insanely fast... but only if you can keep it up.” Anthony explains. “So unless your Exo’s thumb and fingers can keep up with the demand, you’re better off going with something faster.”

“Oh... alright, Dahl sounds pretty good then.” she says, before grabbing pieces of scrap and feeding them into the table. Some tinkering around, and she produce an Assault Rifle, and looks over her E-Tech SMG. “Is there any way to pull out the SMG’s core? I like it, but...” she stops, looking sadly at the options given by the table, which consist of ‘cancel scrap’ and ‘scrap for materials’, no ‘remove’ option given.

With a hearty sigh, she pulls it apart for the Tediore casing and reload system, and puts it together into a new SMG. The Refill Subcompact MG was significantly more effective, as well as being Fire-based in element. However, at this point, they’d consumed most of the scrap re-creating effective components they’d come across before, leaving her not enough to even make a Tediore-style pistol.

Having no other changes to make, Anthony steps away from the table and begins heading for the city’s mission board. “We can do a few extra jobs and get some more cash, or go off on our own and level up a bit faster, what do you guys think?”

“Those both sound good to me!” Pinkie chirps. “But let’s get some more levels. I’d like to get access to some better guns and shields and stuff before we go after the big bad meanie pants boss! I’m starting to feel a teensy-weensy bit insecure after that incident in the Caustic Caverns.” She pauses for a moment. “Oh, also, what exactly to Varkids like to eat?”

Anthony pauses mid-step. “Uh... well, I’ve only really seen them come out of hive mounds and waste bins so... garbage? I guess?”

“Oh, okay!” Pinkie says, and begins to bounce out of the garage. “I’ll wait over at Moxxi’s, call me when you’re ready to go!”

As she leaves, Scooter comes back. “Hey, y’all! I gots that core Ah aforementioned before, lemme just put that thing t’gether...” he says, stepping nimbly past and getting the bench, before slapping together a pistol - blue grade and labeled ‘Scooter’s Affections’ on Anthony and Dash’s ECHOs. “Now, this here gun’s a special one - every time ya fire, it’ll change element. Ah cain’t guarantee what kind it’ll turn to after each shot, but it’ll certainly keep ‘em guessin!” he says, and Dash accepts the weapon.

It looks like a Maliwan, too, aside from the core, which slowly shifts colors everywhere but the barrel, which is currently purple.

Anthony checks the map on his ECHO and begins planning where they should go next. They were still around level thirteen so they could handle most situations... but the problem with that is that they’d have to be challenged in order to get better. They’d have to leave their comfort zone and go looking for real trouble before trying to help with the Bunker.

“Hey, Anthony, you got anywhere with a bunch of different enemy types for us to fight? I wanna see if this gun is as cool as it sounds.” Dash asks.

“Well, we could head back to the Exploitation Preserve and go through the front door this time, lots of kinds of nasties out there, a few robots and Hyperion goons as well, not to mention we’d likely find more elemental enemies due to what remains of their Slag experiments.”

“Oooh, sounds awesome! Alright, lemme go grab Pinkie, and we’ll meetcha at the travel node thingy!” Dash gets up, barely pausing to thank Scooter over her shoulder as she sprints off to get Pinkie.

Anthony shrugs and heads for the Fast Travel station, but turns to Zed’s ‘hospital’ along the way, going in to check out the various vending machines inside. Guns were useful, but if their shields didn’t cut it they wouldn’t have time to shoot anyways.

Looking over the shield options -all of which are better than the ones he has currently- he jumps in the air as a hand comes down on his shoulder, gun leveled at Zed’s head before he even registers that’s whose hand it was.

“Woah there! Jus’ comin’ over to say hi. I don’t think we’ve actually met in person yet; I’m Doctor Zed, and this, as ya might’ve guessed, is my clinic.”

“Sorry, been a little jumpy. Anyways, I need a deal on a good shield. One for me, two for my friends.” Anthony apologizes. “We’re heading back to the wildlife preserve and are needing some better equipment.”

“Oh, hey! I recognize yer voice, yer that new Vault Hunter, the one with the creepy-ass bounty on him. Yeah, I kin fix ya up with some better stuff, lemme just see the shield yer usin’ right now.” he extends a hand to accept the shield, eyes calmly confident. Also slightly glazed, but that’s not too big an issue.

Anthony sighs and offers up the level four Pangolin. “This has been doing a bad job of keeping my insides... inside, lately.”

“Ooh, I kin see why... eesh, these older models barely stand up anymore, I’m surprised it’s still gotta charge. Here, I’ll lend ya one, and you kin go out and get me some Stalker hearts ta make another. They make great capacitors, funny enough.”

Anthony nods, figuring their natural shielding has to come from somewhere, and returns his attention to the other shields available. “Still need two more.” He settles on a cheap, standard Tediore ‘Shield’ for Pinkie, and an Adaptive Shield for Dash, since she keeps getting hit with elemental attacks.

Once he’s ready, he bids Zed goodbye and heads for the Fast Travel station. Like before, the nearest station is in the Highlands, meaning they’d have to do a bit of fighting and travelling before getting to the reserve again. He wasn’t going to get anywhere without backup, Anthony leaves to get the ponies their shields. The next thing to upgrade were the grenades they were carrying. While mainly used for their secondary effects at this point, they were still falling behind. Deciding he’d let them decide on grenades for themselves he begins heading for Moxxi’s to round up Pinkie first.

On the way, he spots Pinkie and Dash both by the fast-travel station, talking animatedly with a random citizen, who’s squatting and chatting back in a lively manner. The conversation just seems to be about Pandora in general, and about the ponies, but nothing Anthony quite finds interesting. Interrupting the citizen’s ramblings, Anthony clears his throat, waiting for the ponies’ attentions.

“Oh, hey Anthony!” Dash notices him first, Pinkie still talking amiably. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, got us some protection, too. If we want better ‘nades we should get them now, but if not, we should go now.” He looks up to the sky. “I give us about five hours until sunset, and I don’t wanna be stuck there at night.”

“Alright. Hey, Mr. May, we’ve gotta go, but it’s been nice talking to ya!” she says, grinning. The man smiles happily.

“And if you happen to take any good pictures, or see any really beautiful landscapes, tell me about them next time you stop by!” he replies, as Anthony, Pinkie, and Dash prepare to transfer away to the Highlands.

> Chapter 14
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The three friends, as kitted up as they could be, travelled to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, appearing near the base of Casa de Mordecai, as the alcoholic sniper called his observation post.

“Now...” Anthony stated as the trio walked along. “We don’t have that Stalker-repelling shield, so basically the rule out here is: If you see something flicker but nothing’s there, shoot the flicker with a shock weapon.”

“Gotcha!” Pinkie and Rainbow chorus in reply, both checking their guns to ensure they’re loaded. A moment later, Pinkie pipes up, “Except, I don’t think you and Dash have shock weapons.” she points out.

Dash shakes her head. “Nah, the gun Scooter gave me has every element, so I just need to shoot ‘em more!” she says, voice full of bravado.

“And as long as I see them first, I can just shoot them anyways, the Shock weaponry is just for keeping them from turning invisible after we start firing. We should be good. The upside is that without that shield, we won’t attract every Skag in the area. But they will still attack on sight.”

Both of the ponies shudder over the thought of Skags. “Alright, either way, we’re basically just raiding them, right? So do we charge in, or should we have a strategy, or what?” Dash asks.

“Well, everything will be higher level than us out here, so while there’s no actual mission other than to rack up kills we should definitely fight smart. The Rakks will be the most annoying, but the Loaders in the dockyard will be the ones needing the most ammo to take down. The Skags that have been experimented on are the main reasons for having varied elements of guns.”

“Right, right.” Dash pauses for a moment. “Pinkie’s already gone ahead, hasn’t she?” the deadpan expression almost makes Anthony laugh, but he does note the absence of the pink party pony.

Anthony rolls his eyes. “Well as long as she doesn’t run right into a Stalker den she’ll be fine-” A whooshing noise from above precedes a sharp pain in Anthony’s shoulder and he looks up to see a Rakk just vanishing. Anthony looks around where the Rakk was, eyes focused on the area around the raised hill as he backs up. Rainbow sees a flicker first and begins shooting with little restraint, emptying about a fourth of her fire SMG which successfully breaks the Rakk’s organic shield and run off, keening from being set on fire.

Anthony takes it out before its shield can recharge and the both of them continue on, having spotted Pinkie’s marker on their minimaps. “Purple or not, Fire sucks against those shields...” Dash notes, disappointed that her newly-crafted gun wasn’t as effective as she’d hoped.

“Yeah, try the pistol instead.” Anthony says, the two heading towards their wayward friend, who was presently swapping rapidly between her Slag shotgun and her Shock assault rifle, tearing through a small pride of Stalkers at a slow rate, but steadily enough. She’d already taken a few hits, though, and her shield had broken.

Anthony is about to head down and help her, but a high shriek comes from the sky, and several Rakk divebomb him and Dash, obviously trying to keep the team separate. A sniper shot puts a hole in a wing of the first Rakk, sending it spiraling down, but the other two slam into their targets, Anthony’s shield near broken after the amp shot had drained its share. But, several shots later and the Rakk were down, solidifying their position as ‘mere nuisance’ to anyone with sufficient gear.

Down below, the group of Stalkers are all low on shields, but also closing in on Pinkie, until a well-timed Party Cannon blast chews through several of them, startling the others into backing away. The breathing room is temporary, yes, but it’s enough for Pinkie to reload her weapons fully, and for Anthony and Dash to hop down the short slope to her.

“Don’t forget.” Anthony warns. “Out here, the only New-U stations are where we came from, or deep inside the preservation facility. Dying will make us have to backtrack quite a bit. Stick close to a teammate if you can’t shoot your way out of FFYL.”

Both of the ponies nod, the three of them able to finish off the Stalkers and level up at the same time - the higher-leveled enemies are tough, but not more than their abilities and gear can handle, and worth far more to them than lower-strength foes would.

“So... has Jack forgotten about this place since last time?” Pinkie asks.

“Dunno.” Dash replies, as a glowing blue bolt flies past her, knocking her shield down completely but doing little health damage. A single Sniper shot from Anthony and the Surveyor that had been watching them was blown to shrapnel.

“If he was watching, he definitely knows now.” Pinkie points out.

“Oh well, surveyors won’t be a problem.” Dash says as her shield recharges.

“But if he decides to throw some actual firepower at us, we may be in trouble.” Anthony says scanning the skies for moonshots. None come. “Huh, maybe he was busy elsewhere. Not like he remote controls all his bots or anything.”

“Hey, there’s another group of Stalkers over there!” Dash points out, heading for them with Pinkie close behind. Anthony pauses only to collect the gibbets he’d been asked to by Dr. Zed.

Once the bits are collected, he takes aim from his standpoint and lands a few slow-moving but highly-powered sniper shots at the Stalkers. He manages to get their shields down long enough for the girls to take them out. Letting his Amp shield recharge from boosting his shots he sprints to catch up, and swapping to his newly-made Trance which coated the Stalkers in acid, the DoT keeping their shields from recharging. After more of the same, the Stalkers nearby seemed to get the message and avoided the trio unless they were feeling brave or had sufficient backup.

The Skags, on the other hand, were not so convinced of the Vault Hunters’ superiority. The first loose pack the trio comes across is a group of adults, a few pups... and an Alpha Slag Skag at their back.

Being the bigger target, Anthony is the first to get Slagged and decides against firing a shot, to preserve his shield, instead tossing out a grenade before remembering just how underleveled it was. Still, the weak grenade’s area of flames deters the Skags enough to make them try going around, and they were notably surprised by the sudden appearance of the blinking grenade.

While the beasts were making their stunned detour around the flailing streams of fiery pain, Dash and Pinkie opened fire on the non-elemental adults, pushing the pack away from Anthony. His slag effect was beginning to wear off when a Spitting Skag launched a small volley of gunk at his back, knocking him forward and taking down his shield. A pair of circling Rakk noticed the change of events and dive-bombed, this time not as afraid of the human’s high-powered shots. Turning to cover her friend, Dash aims her SMG at the sky and then reloads in the standard way for Tediore weapons, knocking the last Rakk in the midsection with the gun, blowing its wings off. Pinkie doesn’t move her attention away from the oncoming Skags and keeps firing. While the current battle was not without difficulty, the three were much more adept at prioritizing threats to each other and managed to clear out the area with little pain... but also using quite a bit of ammo, the slagged Badass Skag had taken two full rounds from both ponies before going down, while Anthony focused on melting any pups that tried straying from the pack. More gibs collected (the ones that weren’t riddled with bullets, corroded, or slagged), Anthony moves ahead.

Mid-collection, he also had to start harvesting from the Skags, as Zed called him up and added Skag Livers to the component lists, citing their use in catalysing the creature’s elemental abilities when they turn Badass.

Anthony’s pockets are getting squishy.

After a bit of ‘harvesting’ later, the trio get to the Dockyard, several loaders, engineers, and surveyors wandering about, doing their jobs. They don’t even notice the trio at first.

What they do notice is a loud noise emanating from the front gate, which had been blown open, and Pinkie wheels her Party Cannon into the main area, several surveyors darting over, only to be pegged by fire from Anthony’s Widow-Maker. A Loader runs forward into the cloud of floating debris and seconds later is running back out at double-speed, missing an arm and a powder-blue pony hot on its trail.

An Engineer looks up at the scene and, calling for backup, switches his Exo suit from ‘work’ to ‘combat’ mode and begins firing laser beams.

Pinkie, taking that as a challenge, uses the heavy metal Crates as cover and, without warning pops up from behind the Engineer to shoot him in the back with her Launcher, much to his extreme confusion and agony, though this doesn’t last long. Gooey puddles don’t tend to get confused or feel pain, after all.

The Loader chased by Dash rounds a corner behind a small building, and Dash zips around it, before yelping in surprise and backpedalling away from the now-awakening Constructor that had been lying dormant until the Loader activated it. A barrage of missiles slams into the ground a few feet behind her as she darts from cover to cover away from the heavy foe. A few shots to cycle the pistol, and she looses a slag and then acidic shot, the paired hits blinding the huge bot.

Storming in, Anthony leaps over several barricades and grabs onto the transport machine’s cargo. Following suit, Pinkie hops on expecting a fun ride, but once Anthony hits the button to start the machine...

“Can this thing move any faster?” Pinkie pouts, realizing that if there were a bridge, she could walk faster than this.

“Nope, just hold on and deal with it. Looks like the bridge controls were destroyed already.” Anthony says as he looks down at said bridge, which had its control panel clearly turned into scrap.

Back on the Dock, Dash fires a burst from her own SMG, but the fire weapon just doesn’t cut it against the heavy bots and huge Constructor. A grenade is thrown, and purely on reflex she kicks it away from her - and the explosive tears a hole in the dock beneath the Loader that threw the grenade. In a nearly comical moment, the remaining Loaders, the Constructor, and Dash all stare at the hole into the briney, short-circuit-inducing ocean.

A grin lights Dash’s face, and out come her grenades as the Loaders turn to flee.

Once they reach the other side, Anthony and Pinkie hop off and, from the control panel on the other side of the bridge, lower the platform for Dash to cross and, once regrouped, head for the main facility. It was wrecked for the most part, clearly having been taken down by the angry animals. Now the group would have to deal with both loaders and stalkers at the same time, but due to relations between the beasts and bots being so sour, it was more of a free-for-all, loaders blasting stalkers, stalkers hurling spikes at loaders.

Add in three battle-hungry Vault Hunters, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster... and lots of gore.

After almost twenty minutes of pitched battle, the addition of a large pack of fire-attuned skags and a flock of Rakk, numerous swear words being taught to impressionable young ponies, and a fortuitous moon-shot drop landing on the alpha off the previously mentioned Skag pack, the three weary, barely-functional Vault Hunters are relaxing atop a mound of corpses and robot parts, the second wave of moon-launched Loaders being dismantled before they could finish activating in several cases.

“Okay... that was fun.” Dash says, panting. “Whoo... I think we should head back; I’m almost out of ammo even after rummaging through these bots.” she says. “Also, we got, like, four levels from this part alone.”

Anthony thinks aloud. “Well, there’s an ammo dump not terribly far from the entrance over there, just down a hall and around a corner I think. We could rest for a bit, restock there, and keep going. Tannis did ask us to bring back Slag samples.”

“That does sound like a better plan, yeah.” Dash agrees, heaving herself back to her tired hooves.

“Settle down, girl.” Anthony chuckles, “this place is quiet enough, we should be good to rest here for another ten minutes before the loaders get replaced.” The mare nods, and flops back down. Pinkie, settling down onto a grassy hill, yawns a bit and begins to drift off into a very light sleep. It was only a few minutes before sundown at this point after all.

Once the group is rested, and the first hint of stars appear in the sky, the Hunters head inside the building and, though the walk is a bit further than Anthony remembered, it was still entirely unguarded and they reach the Ammo Dump machine and take the chance to restock weapons. Anthony also takes the time to see what sorts of grenade mods were available, as those were the only things they were really missing from their revamped sets of gear.

A bunch of whites of notably low level for them show up, all in the range they’d been at when they’d arrived. A single green, though, at level 16 is there, and the three do rock-paper-scissors for who gets which of the Bouncing Betty, the Mirv, and the higher-grade Transfusion grenades.



> Chapter 15
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, this one’s a Homing Mirv like my last one, but not Slag.” Rainbow says, taking her new grenade mod. Anthony grabs his, another Fire element but this time a Rubber Betty. Pinkie clips her new green grenade mod to her Exo, the Transfusion grenade being enhanced with a sticky property and resulting in slagging the target before returning health to the group via targeted, vampiric mini-nades.

All Hunters agreed they were satisfied with the upgrades they got, and continued deeper into the facility. Rounding another corner led them to a hall that ended with a smashed wall exiting out into what seemed like a plasti-glass domed chamber for Stalkers. Anthony grabs the nearby canister of experimental Slag from a desk, making him wonder what it was doing in a random office block. Still, Tannis was paying in Eridium, something the group could definitely sell for more SDUs.

Listening to the ECHO message next to it as they move on to the next enclosure, all three of them jump out of their metaphorical skins as an ear-piercingly loud buzz and cla-CHUNK alerts them to something going wrong.

The other thing that clues them into the problem is the sound of Jack laughing his ass off into the intercom as a veritable tide of specimens flood into the narrow halls.

Anthony, having expected this to occur much later, was startled by the... advancement of events. He expected this to happen further into the facility with a lower-ceilinged room, and a lot more cages.

True there were fewer animals in this case, but the Betty he was saving for the tightly-enclosed area would not be as effective in the open area of this wing.

Still, the hallway between them and the various mutated, slag-enhanced beasts was rather narrow, and that would’ve granted the Hunters the chance to take out the first half of them with relative ease if it weren’t for two things.

The monsters were much bigger due to the experiments, and didn’t allow much room for more than two, meaning even splash damage would only take out a few at a time, on top of the fact that currently, both sides were sizing up the other, in a standoff as if it was unclear at the moment who was the prey. That is, until the speakers came alive again, with Jack laughing and giving out a hideously inviting message.

“Feeding ti~ime!”

With terrifying roars and unspeakable slobber, all the creatures charged at the hunters who were unprepared for this turn of events. Anthony had one plan, but it would only get him past the horde, and he couldn’t leave the ponies behind. So he had to fall back on plan B.

“Just shoot them and hope they go down first!” He yells, pulling out his AR and pummelling the leading Badass Skag with bullets, Dash groaning.

“That’s the great plan? Really?”

“I’m open to suggestions!” Anthony replies as he continues firing into the gaping maw of the charging Skag. Before he could make much use of the vulnerable open mouth a glob of slag hits him in his chest, coating him in the purple stuff, but this slag was... different. It tingled, a very bad tingling, like a slightly-numbed jellyfish sting. Anthony could feel the slimy effects of the Slag, but there was something... else to it indicated by the tingling.

“What kind of Slag is this?” He asks aloud, feeling very much in danger, but whatever danger he was in was dormant for now.

“What kind? Kid, I do all sorts of shit down here, your guess is as good as mine!” Jack snarks over the ECHO.

Pinkie, taking her launcher and hitting the Skag right as it was about to fire another glob, dealing heavy damage, its frame starting to crumple, but it was still charging despite the temporary stumble.

At about this point, Anthony spots the skull in place of a level listed by the Skag’s readout on his ECHO hud.

Also that it’s a Badass Ultimate Alpha Skag King. ‘There is no way that’s good.’ he thinks to himself as it opens its jaws wide enough to swallow him whole, and leaps in his direction.

The girls, doing whatever they can to protect their honorary leader, begin firing wildly, Pinkie with her Electric AR and Dash tossing her half-full Tediore SMG into the Skag’s mouth. The Skag, mostly undeterred, takes a mighty leap at its targeted prey, Anthony being knocked to the ground and, going into slow motion, he watches as the Uber Skag bites both legs off. Anthony expects it to hurt significantly, but instead of increasing the received pain, the slag coating him starts shimmering.

“Wh-”

THOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A few moments later, he blinks, looking at the New-U station. He looks down at himself, looking more baffled than anything. “Ow.”

Back in the corridor, both ponies and the skag all look equally confused, the Skag having expected a meal and instead now having pudding, and the ponies in shock over their friend now covering almost thirty-one square yards of the corridor.

The next thing they hear is Jack laughing, demanding that his workers start remaking that recipe, whatever cocktail required it was going into his next line of E-Tech weapons. Then he was gonna get so rich he’d-

Pinkie, in a fit of rage, blasts the speaker nearby with her Corrosive Launcher and begins peppering the Uber Skag with cannonfire and bullets from every gun she had. Dash soon joins in and the Skag who, unable to get as good a bead on the smaller, more agile prey, was taken down. Checking the map once things had cooled down, Dash notes that Anthony was sent all the way back to the last New-U station by Casa de Mordecai. It would take him quite a while to get back without a vehicle.

“Now, I don’t want you two to get lonely, but I’m sure you’ll have plenty of company.” Jack taunts the ponies as several more cages open and, now that the alpha was ‘finished’ every animal left in the corridor headed for the ponies at once, snarling all sorts of unintelligible, bestial noises of hunger and rage, half leaping, half stumbling from their strange, mutated, and clearly much more deadly bodies.

The two pony friends grit their teeth, Pinkie taking point as they begin to unload everything they have, Pinkie sweeping up her own candies as she walks forward, refilling ammo and health, getting speed boosts, and so much more as her war face scares more than a few of the weaker-willed monstrosities back. However, it’s not enough to keep Dash going, as she hears the dreaded sound of one gun after another click dry, Pinkie failing to share any of her candy drops.

The pegasus, quickly reduced to no gun options, begins to punch and kick, her Rainboom ability useless with nothing but enemies anywhere she’d land. Backed into a corner with Pinkie rapidly getting herself surrounded, Dash can only hope Anthony gets back soon...

Of course, Anthony is dealing with his own suite of problems.

“So, Antimony, how’s it feel being a dessert plate? I mean, seriously, you could’ve been served in Old England!” Jack yells through the ECHO, making Anthony’s ears hurt from the volume. It doesn’t help that Jack keeps crunching some sort of snack right into the mic. “Also, you gotta try some of these Hyperion Chips, waay better than pretzels. Oh yeah, you did realize your friends are dying really horribly in there, right? And that I could, y’know, just tell the system to update right before they bleed out?” Jack’s voice holds a joking tone, but Anthony can almost hear the cold, dead look in the man’s eyes.

“You wouldn’t want to do that, Jack.” Anthony replies as he vaults from hill to valley, racing back to the ponies.

“Oh really?” Jack crunches some more chips. “And why wouldn’t I? You gonna swear revenge against me? Hunt me down and tell me your name and how I killed your little pets?”

Anthony, his mind racing, decides to do the one thing he can do to get Jack to shut up. Quote him from the future. “What was that saying? About not taunting a man with nothing left to lose?”

Jack is silent for several moments. “How about we trade.” he says, sounding calm, as the front door Anthony was about to go through slams shut, turning from green to locked red.

“What makes you think I’d trade with you? You lie, you cheat, you steal... The way I see it, you say you’ll give me something, and shoot me in the back.” Anthony says, angrily pounding on the door.

“Because I’m holding all the cards. And if you don’t want your friends in there to end up on autopsy tables, you’ll tell me one thing...”

Anthony snarls, but calms down. “What exactly is that? What could a stupid bandit tell you that you wouldn’t already know?”

“Who. The fuck. Are you?” Jack hisses through clenched teeth. “I know everything there is to know about every single person and thinking thing on Pandora. Except you and your candy-and-rainbows brigade. You tell me who the hell you are, and I unlock the door. I mean, you’ll still have to fight through assloads of mutated things I can’t even pronounce the lab names for, but I’ll let you at least try.”

“You know... that is a good question Jack. Who am I? Maybe I’m some fucked up variant of male Siren. Maybe I’m some sort of cosmic being. Maybe... I’m just a gamer who can’t help but play the metagame with you. But I know one thing about me. I’m more than you can handle. And honestly, hearing you freak out over one tiny rogue element, is sweeter than any crazy snack your whale-sized wallet can buy.” Anthony grins, Sparks up, and phases through the door, dashing down the hallways at painful speeds, and reaches his friends, tossing several bouncing betties into the fray and pelting the remaining horde with countless flaming bullets. “Because let’s face it Jack... in stories like this? Nobody likes a hero.”

Anthony scythes through the various monsters like a grain thresher through a wheat field, none of them turned to face him until he’s halfway through them, meeting up with Pinkie and turning to start rescuing Dash. Pinkie spits a brightly-colored ball of phlegm, sugar, tonics, and blood to the floor in passing, the poprocks-like hissing sound from her mouth entirely chemical in nature.

Anthony, getting the pegasus out of Fight For Your Life, hoists her up and tosses some of his spare ammo to Dash, having picked up a few rounds worth of SMG ammo, despite never planning to use it himself. And, a large part of him was hoping Jack would shut up and leave them alone, but a little voice in the back of his head was begging for Jack to come up with something to say that he could spit back in his face one more time.

“Y’know what? Fine, be an enigmatic prick, mr. walks-through-walls. But you stay the fuck away from Angel. I’ve heard what you’ve said about knowing who she is... and if you go near her, I’ll shoot you myself.”

“What? Not Roland?” Anthony smirks.

“...” Dead air sings over the ECHO, before cutting off, and Anthony nearly crows with delight. It seems he’s rendered Handsome Jack speechless, a feat very few others can claim.

Sighing after his minor verbal victory, Anthony turns to the girls. “Alright... let’s get the rest of those Slag samples, and get out of here.”

“So... how do you know all this stuff anyways?” Dash asks. “Seriously, I admit it’s great that you do, but... I’m getting a little lost here.”

Anthony shrugs and opens his mouth. “Oh it’s simple. But I’ll explain later.”

Dash looks a bit peeved but accepts it. “You’ll tell us when we beat Jack though, right?”

“Oh totally. And it’s a real twist.” Anthony grins. “But we haven’t won yet, we still got a whole facility to get through first.”

“Right, right... let’s get through here already!” she says. “And, I need more ammo if we’re gonna get anywhere, and the map says there’s an Ammo Dump back a little, around the corner.”

“Yeah, I’m outta rockets.” Pinkie mentions.

The trio head back and restock after their large brawl and, once they have their SDUs loaded, spend some of their well-deserved skill points.

All three of them, winded by this point, lean against their respective walls and, in Dash’s case, on the bench nearby the vending machines. Pinkie’s mane and tail have lost some of their fluff, though she’s still sporting her wide, adrenaline-fueled smile. The various scars she had were slightly visible, the red next to pink giving her a slight striped look in places. Dash on the other hand, had much more visible scars, the dark red showing well against sky-blue, making her injuries look much worse than any of the three, and Anthony was damaged as well, and in an attempt to combat potential shakiness in his hands, took skills aimed at increasing his accuracy. At this point in the ‘game’ missing a sniper shot was not an option. Dash, having looked through her bag again, puzzled over something weird with one of her guns: the Chief’s Luck had mysteriously changed from 15 to 23, her current level. With a shrug, she equipped it.

Once morning came though, and sunlight streamed into the facility through the cracked walls and ceiling, the Vault Hunters got up and groggily dragged themselves through the facility. It seems as though they woke up before some of the staff, so when they got to a more protected area, they were able to sneak by the sleeping guards with ease. Though the moment they had to take out a Loader, which exploded loudly, woke up just about every single thing in the complex, and drew it to their location.

“Out of the frying pan...” Dash mumbles, recalling the similar situation just hours ago. But the animals didn’t have guns of their own.

Thankfully, most of the staff seem plenty content to stay out of the cranky, tired, and irritable Vault Hunter’s way, ducking into side passages whenever the rolling wheels of Pinkie’s Party Cannon rumble into view. She looks, in all honesty, like she’s just waiting for the chance to unload into someone, and there isn’t a single Hyperion engineer or security officer wanting to be the one to take that shot for the team.

Anthony, for his part, signaled for the ponies to go ahead while he takes the catwalk above them, sniping any engineers and loaders who dare look up, his Sloth being a bit more effective after Dash took points in a skill meant for boosting ally firerate. Sure the bullets were still just as slow, but the aim he was able to take and the fact that he could fire an amp shot every three seconds meant any visible critspots were soon hit with precision. The vantage point also gave Anthony a better look around the larger rooms and, instructing the ponies around, they had gotten all the slag samples Tannis had asked for.

Eventually, the only area left unlooted was the Observation wing. “Maybe... maybe we skip this one and just go back the long way.” Anthony half-pleaded, the events that should have occurred there coming back to him, the memory of Bloodwing dying fresh in his mind once more.

“C’mon, really?” Dash asks. “I mean, it’s right there and then we hop down back into the reserve.”

“And then we can walk back to the Fast Travel station. It’s a shortcut!” Pinkie adds.

Anthony grits his teeth, and, unable to fight the logic, nods silently and steps onto the elevator platform beside the ponies. As the platform lifts them up, the metal whirring and screeching, Anthony looks over the area. Tired, worn out, and now rather unsteady emotionally, he steps for the edge of the observatory when he hears another screech, this one very much non-mechanical.

Looking up, a massive, green-colored Rakk with moth-like wings flaps into view. All three of the Vault Hunters stare at it, and the tag that lists it as ‘Son of Mothrakk’ as it begins to fly awkwardly in circles over the arena.

Anthony, having known of but never fought the boss, is at a loss as to its tactics. Still, he had a plan. “If you girls distract it long enough, I may have a plan for dealing with this thing.”

“Distract it? How?” Pinkie asks as the shrieking creature divebombs the group, spreading fire around the battlefield.

Rainbow, dodging out of the way, suddenly brightens with an idea which she whispers to Pinkie. Pinkie brightens up as well, a grin on her face that disturbs even Anthony just a tad. The next time the giant insectoid, bat-like monster divebombs the trio, this time heading for Anthony, Pinkie leaps into the air and fires her cannon down at the bird, a spray of candy and shrapnel digging deep into the relatively thin membrane of the wings, pinning it right wing to the ground.

Several mighty struggles later, the giant creature rips its wing away from the ground and, scattering into the sky, begins raining fireballs on the group. With their relatively decent shields though, only Anthony’s shield breaks, netting him a very severe burn, but overall, nothing more than a few burned-out nerves around his left arm. After a quick repeat of the process, the Son of Mothrakk has several gaping, bleeding holes in both wings and is hardly keeping afloat. The Vault Hunters take to their grounded foe like a pack of bandits with no regard for clip sizes, emptying all but a few bullets into the bat-mutant... and it’s over in-

Anthony checks the time on his ECHO. “Two minutes... what the fuck?”

“Seriously?” Dash ‘asked’ but then shrugged. “Well, guess I was right. When you’re mostly wings, and you lose those...”

“That was pretty smart, Dashie. And fun!” Pinkie said. “But... something’s missing.”

“A decent climax after the Uber Skag?” Anthony suggests.

“No, where’s the loot?” Pinkie whines. “It didn’t drop anything!”

“Pfft, with a difficulty like that, I doubt we’d get more than a hundred bucks each.” Dash says offhandedly. “And besides... it dropped off the cliff over there.” she says, pointing at the open-air spot just past the wall. Pinkie and Anthony peer through the bars over the edge, spotting the purple, cerise, and gold-orange of high-quality loot, ninety feet down amid the razor-sharp obsidian chunks on the beach below, also crawling with enemies.

“Well, crud.” Pinkie mutters. “We better get double-pay for the next big meanie...”

“Yeah.” Anthony agrees. “Even if we survive the fall, we wouldn’t have enough health left to deal with those monsters. We couldn’t get those guns if we tried...”

The entire trio sighs and walks into the sunrise as they leave the Preserve, wondering what sort of nasty tricks Lady Luck had planned for them next.


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


Getting back to Sanctuary is no trouble, and soon after, they get to the Crimson Raider HQ where their ECHO devices tell them Tannis is waiting for them to bring the Slag Samples.

“Ah, good! Bring back the samples, and put them on the table; I also need the pink one for a quick moment, there is important scientific research I need some minor assistance with.”

“Okay!” Pinkie says, hopping over to Tannis as Anthony and Dash set the various strains of slag Jack’s scientists had designed.

With lightning quick fingers, Tannis grabs a small pinch of Pinkie’s mane, yanking out the clump and eliciting a sharp yelp of pain from the pink party pony, and another yelp from Tannis as something pops out of Pinkie’s tangled locks and nips Tannis in response. Tannis backs swiftly into a corner, stuffing the hair into her mouth while staring at the vicious bite mark on her hand, which weeps blood. “Your head bit me.” she says, looking in shock at Pinkie.

Pinkie, for her part is swatting at her head. “No, bad Squishy bugsy! She just wanted some hair!” as she backs away from Tannis.

“You still have that Varkid?” Anthony asks. “Don’t you remember what they turn into?”

“Yyeeees....” she says, looking sheepish as a massive, heavily armored Varkid head peeks out from her mane, screeches, and then retreats back in. It’s a testament to the universe they’re in that nobody in the area even blinks at this, and is more concerned about the presence of the Varkid than how that presence is being achieved.

“Anyways,” Anthony derails. “About our payment...”

“Oh, uhm, yes... I hid it in the ceiling tile just above the computer I don’t use, that one there.” she says, pointing with her bloodied hand, then staring at the blood somewhat confusedly. “I seem to be bleeding. New quest, Vault hunters! Bring me a healing thingy, one that tastes of blueberries. Dr. Zed should have some in stock.” she says.

Anthony has a confused look on his face as he walks to Zeds and sighs as he walks in, handing out the various creature parts, Stalker Hearts, Skag Livers, Rakk Wings, and Varkid Cocoon Glands. And of course asking about the blueberry hypo.

“Oh, yeah, I keep a buncha them with a little blue dye in ‘em for Tannis. She refuses to put anything red back inta her body, so I just started sayin’ they’re blue-raspberry flavored. Also, thanks fer the parts, come back after ya hand off the hypo, and I’ll give ya the new shield. It’ll be dope.”

“By the way, Zed. Do you have any missions we could do to earn some refined Eridium?” Dash asks.

“Hmmm... none come ta mind, but Moxxi came in a little while ago complainin’ about somethin. I didn’t really pay attention, mostly ‘cuz I was in the middle of a delicate surgery.” He waves it off. “It didn’t go well, anyways.” he says, stepping between Anthony and a mutilated corpse on the operating table.

“Yeah... okay, thanks.” Anthony says as they decide to head for Moxxi’s bar. Once the hypo is returned to Tannis and their small sum of Eridium is obtained, they get to the restaurant and Anthony immediately notes how hungry he is. Figuring they might as well stop for breakfast, and pick up a mission or two at the same time, they take seats at the counter.

“Hey shugas, how’s it shaking?” the bar’s proprietor asks them. “Didn’t see you last night, stay out and have fun?” she finishes writing a few things up on the board, noting the new special of the day is some kind of soup, apparently a chowder made from Crab Worms. That couldn’t have been easy to get the ingredients for.

Anthony sighs, but, feeling a bit silly due to tiredness gives Moxxi a smirk and holds out his slightly-burned, red-tinged left hand. “Smell my fingers.”

Moxxi stops, balking completely. “I’m sorry?” she asks, genuinely shocked.

“Sorry, I’m running on fumes alone, and they are just... ugh.” Anthony says. “Ignore everything I say.”

Rainbow rolls her eyes. “So, Zed said you were having problems?”

“Oh, right... yes, I’ve had some issues with some of my ingredients suppliers, who’ve been dealing with being raided by bandits, and a particularly ornery Rakk Hive. If you’re up for it after some lunch, I’m willing to throw money, eridium, even a Relic to you if you’d prefer. Those suppliers are the heart of this little bar here, without them I don’t get alcohol, meat, or spices for making anything.” she says, looking a little more tired than usual. “I don’t know what’s caused the flare-up in problems right now, but I do know it needs to be taken care of as soon as possible. Zed didn’t have any mercenaries on call at this point, and none of the other Vault Hunters had returned yet.”

“Still out in... Thousand Cuts?” Pinkie guesses, and Anthony gives a sleepy nod. “Well, once Anthony is a bit more awake, we can get your supplies again.”

Moxxi looks relieved. “Thanks a ton, I can’t stand to lose this place; it’s all I’ve got right now. But if I can get funding for another Underdome, I could get back on my feet fast but...” She gestures to the Tip Jar, rather empty. “Not much luck of that happening soon.”

Pinkie and Dash both look at the jar, before shrugging and pitching in a couple hundred bucks each. Moxxi’s eyes water as she smiles. “Oh, thanks! You two really are the best!” she says, as Anthony’s head slumps forward onto the counter. “Oh... he’ll be fine, I’ve had more than a few folks sleep it off on the bar. We’ll wake him when the food’s ready; what’ll you have?”

“Well, it’s good, but pizza’s getting old. What else do you have?” Dash asks.

“And what’s a Crab Worm?” Pinkie adds.

“Oh, Crab Worms are big game from out in the old, dried-up ocean bed. Their meat’s very tasty, but they’ve been stirred up by some big beastie or another, and it’s gotten harder to hunt them safely. After all, anything bigger than a Jakob’s revolver is just going to pulp the meat, and that’s no good. The brave souls I’ve hired have to hunt them with spears, axes, and machetes, otherwise you just get goo.” Both of the ponies shudder at the reminder of what had happened to Anthony earlier. “As for food, we’ve got the soup, we’ve also got some garlic-stalk bread, and some chili made with local bean analogues. Just be careful, if you see any of the beans glow, throw it outside and I’ll get you a new bowl, it’s about to explode.”

“Sounds pretty spicy.” Pinkie jokes, before ordering the chowder. Dash going with the same, not being a fan of strong spices, ruling out both the chili and garlic-laden bread.

“So, what’s the route your suppliers take? If we know where they come from we could probably give them an escort the whole way.” Dash offers.

“Oh, that’s an excellent idea for the spice runners! The others are having troubles at the drop-off points, or where they’re gathering, so I’ll need you to help at those locations, but I’ll update your ECHOs with the route; it runs right through the Dust, on the same path as the Cara-Van, except from where it starts. You’ll see when you get there.”

“That’s no problem at all!” Pinkie says, happily, grin a little too wide. “We’ll get the stuff for you.” She then faceplants into her bowl of chowder the second it’s offered. Coming up for air, the bowl is empty, and Pinkie has most of it on her face. “That’s really tasty!”

“Thanks, shuga! I’ll give you the recipe; the easiest ways to a man’s heart is either through food or between the fourth and fifth ribs, depending on why you’re trying to get his heart.”

“Really? Huh, that’s interesting. I always imagined a heart being a little harder to get to.” Rainbow says.

“Girl, you are so right...” Pinkie mutters, giving Anthony a nudge, eliciting only a grunt.

Moxxi sets down the bowl in front of the young man, who slowly wakes up at the scent of chowder, smacking his lips and digging in the moment he’s awake enough to find the spoon. Meanwhile, Moxxi brings over a pitcher, and asks if anyone wants some Firemelon Juice. “And don’t worry, it’s all good, I’ve made sure to strain out the combustibles. They’re excellent for the backup generator anyways.”

“I’ll try some.” Pinkie says, perking up and her smile returning before stretching an extra inch. The drink is served and Pinkie passes her glass around for her friends to try.

Anthony declines, but Rainbow takes a sip, tasting it carefully.

“Mmm... that’s actually pretty good. Like a... a minty fruit juice, but there’s a bit of cinnamon flavor in there too... It’s weird, but I kinda like it.” Dash says, nodding approvingly as she speaks.

Pinkie, having passed out shares, guzzles the rest of it down in one big gulp. “Whoo! That’s good!” A few seconds pass and Pinkie rushes outside, and begins searching for a hose or sink. Moxxi chuckles, and passes over a cup of water, which Pinkie also downs.

“Alright, well once we’re all set, I guess we’re heading for the Dust.” Rainbow reminds everyone. “Dunno what I want most out of our potential rewards, but I guess anything is better than nothing.”

“Definitely Eridium, we keep running out of Ammo.” Anthony points out.

“Gotcha.” Moxxi agrees, nodding. “I’ll have a couple dozen to split between you once you get back from each mission; I won’t make you do all of them if you run out of time, or back to back.”

“Eh, give us them all now and we’ll do them as we do them.” Rainbow says. “We’ll do what we can and save the rest for later.”

“Sounds like a plan to me~!” Pinkie chirps, the two ponies getting ready to go as Anthony finishes off his chowder. “We’ll meetcha at the fast travel station, Anthony!”
> Chapter 16
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once he had finished his bowl properly, Anthony stands up and heads for the Fast Travel station. To his surprise Claptrap is there, waiting for them and looking at Pinkie who’s looking at him in return.

“Greetings, Vault Hunters! I’ve heard you’ve been very helpful to everyone here in Sanctuary, and made sure we didn’t die here - and for that, you deserve a reward!” He waves for them to follow and, bemused, Anthony consents as the little robot begins to gesticulate wildly on the way to his normal hidey-hole made of garbage and refuse near Zed’s place. “I have a secret stash hidden very, very far away from where I currently am! In order to find it, you will have to perform a series of devious challenges. First, collect a few brown rocks for me. Then, defeat a badass skag.” He claps his hands together, and tries to look serious. “Then, pilfer the lost staff of Mount Schuler. THEN you shall bring me the head of the Destroyer of Worlds, and THEN YOU SHALL DANCE FOR MY ENJOYMENT! HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA--"

As he speaks, the ponies are nodding, and the quest requirements begin to appear on all three of their HUDs.

Collect 139,377 brown rocks
Defeat Ug-Thak, Lord of Skags
Pilfer lost staff of Mount Schuler
Defeat Destroyer of Worlds
Dance, dance, baby

The two ponies nod and tear off for the Quick-Travel station once Claptrap begins to cackle, and so it’s only Anthony who’s there as the crude, ramshackle metal plating in the corner falls apart to reveal an old mechanical locker-like device.

“Ah... right... so, uhm, just pretend you didn’t see that!” Claptrap commands of Anthony, who’s too busy trying not to laugh and facepalm.

As the ‘quests’ vanish from their HUDs, the ponies confusedly walk back to Claptrap’s home and stare at the Stash machine and then at the robot. “Yeah.” Anthony mutters. “He’s a moron, just go with it.”

Rainbow Dash, of course, looks over the tiny locker. “Uh, why would we wanna use that storage? We can just leave whatever over at Scooter’s, and he’ll keep an eye on it for us.”

“And, we’ve got the Crimson Vault!” Pinkie reminds Dash. “That’s got a ton of space, too!”

Claptrap gives a weary sigh. “Well, you can use it to share weapons between my minions! Specifically the ones, that, uh, that you would control.” he pauses for a moment. “Look, it’s-”

Anthony cuts off the robot. “No meta crap, Clappy. That’s gonna wait for later.”

“What? I was going to say it’s for trading with other possible iterations of this universe! What’s meta with that?” The front of the locker falls off. “Ah, crap, I need some welder...”

“Don’t worry, it may not be of much use to us.” Anthony says, rolling his eyes. “The likelihood of us actually being able to use this is low, considering-”

RD examines the locker and, accessing it via her ECHO, finds an orange-grade shield inside, her eyes widening, and shows it off to the group. “What... where the heck did this come from?”

“Ha-ha!” Claptrap yells triumphantly. “I told you it worked, meatsack!”

Anthony for his part, just stares at the shield. This is the first time anyone’s accessed it in Sanctuary, the only way it could have anything in it is if... “Holy fuck.”

Hesitantly, he takes a spare Blue Grenade mod he’d bought and inserts it into the Stash’s inventory. Then the trio of hunters and the robot stare at it with bated breath.

For nearly a minute, nothing happens, then it looks like it’s being picked up, then just... vanishes. A stack of empty magazines falls into it, then falls out again onto the ground, all of them standard ones from the trash heap around the stash. “Oh, darnit! I tell everyone not to just throw crap into the Stash! I even told me that!” He grabs one of the magazines, scrawls something threatening-looking on it in marker, and throws it through.

Anthony sighs and returns his attention to the shield Rainbow had taken. It’s called... “What the heck is an ‘Avalanche’?” He had absolutely no idea what it was, what its specialty was... all he knew was it was their first Legendary Roid Shield by Maliwan, and they got it from... whoever was on the other side of the Stash. This raised many questions, but given the design of the shield, the one thing he knew about it was it had decent stats and was a Roid shield, a good match for Pinkie since she kept ending up in melee combat. Whoever these others were, they were helpful.

“We ought’ta give something in exchange, right?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, we kinda did, but a Blue doesn’t equal a Legendary of the same level.”

“What do we have to give though?” Pinkie replies thoughtfully. “You think they’d like Eridium? We could pay in that after we help Moxxi.”

Anthony ponders this. “Yeah, fair’s fair, but I’m not sure if we should pass off Eridium.”

“Oh, you should never put Eridium into the Stash! Idunno why, but it always makes something go weird and wrong!” Claptrap yells, waving his arms frantically. “I’ve never seen something so horrifying since the last Japanese movie I watched, and that was on the Adult network!”

“...Noted.” Anthony states. “Well, since that’s definitely out, how about cash? We could pay them the shield’s worth minus the worth of the grenade mod.”

Rainbow nods. “That sounds fair. Let’s do that.”

Once the whole party is in agreement, Anthony takes the money out of his banking SDU and transfers it into the Stash. At the shield’s level and rarity, subtracting the grenade mod, Anthony ended up shelling out around $500,000 for it. Practically nothing at this point, but it was also relatively low-level despite its rarity and, assumedly, its effectiveness.

A few moments later, the money disappears into the Stash, replaced a moment later by a piece of neatly-folded paper with the word ‘thanks’ on it in messy handwriting.

After receiving the message, the trio of Hunters, Anthony in a slight daze, head for the Quick-Travel station. Upon getting there though, Rainbow Dash notes something. “Hey, you said there was a way to... change what skills we pick? How do we do that? I want some more points in Speed Freak, but... I already spent earlier points elsewhere.”

Anthony nods and leads the group out of the small building and to the Quick-Change station, a kiosk with a large screen and several various appearances for a humanoid stick figure. “You can use this to, for a price, refund all your earned skill points and reset your trees. You can always change them to another set if you have the cash to do so.”

Pinkie looks it over, then nods, grinning. “Well, that sounds pretty neat-o!” she says, and Dash looks interested as well. Anthony didn’t feel he needed to respec; he’d been weighing his options pretty heavily on them from the beginning.

Once they were done, they head to the Fast Travel station once more to head out. “Off to the Dust!” Dash yells, hitting the interface button hard.

Moments later, they reform outside Ellie’s Garage, and she waves to them in passing as she heads for her own projects, stops, then turns back to the group.

“Hey, did y’all fergit about that spiderant repellant from the reserve?”

Anthony slaps his forehead. “Ah, damnit, that’s right, we... okay, we’ll do some missions for Moxxi and then get right on that.” Anthony says placatingly.

“‘Sno hurry, ah jess wanna clear out them bugs afore they git too bold. Ah’m a second-date-minimum kinda gal, y’know.” she says.

Anthony nods and the trio continues on, coming up on where the ECHO minimap pointed them to. They made their way across the Dust in a Technical, finally arriving at the entrance to the Highlands. Waiting there is a trio of Cara-Vans, and a lone ‘guard’ in the form of a standard outrunner, with the machine gun turret. Absolutely useless against other cars, really, unless you got the driver in the face with enough of the bullets.

“Oh, are you the mercs Miss Moxxi sent?” the lead Cara-Van driver yells, leaning out of his van nervously. “We’ve got the full shipment, mostly the pepper and the various salts and herbs from the Highlands.” he says.

“No prob.” Dash says from the driver seat, Anthony taking passenger and Pinkie in the back as usual. “When those robbers see us, they’ll flip!”

“Oh, thank goodness! Those Hodunks have come in and wrecked our last three attempts at delivery, and the harvest for most of the herbs is just about finished!” the Cara-Van driver explains. “Let’s get this show on the road, then, and keep an eye out.”

What the Hodunks want with the random seasonings is lost on Anthony. Maybe they just want revenge on Moxxi. After all, if she goes broke she’d have no choice but to go back... That’s a much more devious plan than he expected from the country hicks... Well, they wouldn’t get the chance.

With a final check that all their guns are loaded and armed, the trio gives the OK sign and their entourage begins their slow trek across the desert road.

The Vans stay in the middle, the Outrunner acting as a scout now that there’s a decent guard on hand. Several minutes into the slow drive, the roaring of incoming engines alerts the group, and the outrunner zips back, gun firing behind it as it swerves to avoid incoming fire. Four heavily modified Outrunners and a pair of Technicals, all covered in the Hodunk’s signature color scheme, are charging towards the caravan.

Over the ECHOs, Anthony hears something that stalls his brain entirely:

“Hand over them spice Cara-Vans!” Tector Hodunk shouts into the communicator, “Ah’m makin’ spiced rum, and mah beer ain’t spiced enough yet!”

Dash almost slows to a stop in surprise, looking over at Anthony in confusion. “Uh... that’s not how you make spiced rum, right?” she asks, for clarification. The young man can do nothing but shake his head in pure bafflement as Pinkie twitches all over, face contorted into rage.

“You’re ruining Miss Moxxi’s business over the wrong recipe!?”

“Papa, turn around your little strike team or the Dust will be splattered with the sheer amount of retardation your little “plan” has in it.” Anthony says, deadpan. “One chance, you fucking idiots...”

“Ah’m not an idjit, ya fuckin’ idjit!” comes the ‘witty’ retort.

With a sigh, Anthony uses the Technical’s launcher to hurl an explosive barrel at the foremost Outrunner, and uses the distraction to fire at the vehicle’s tires, the Sloth busting a big hole in the thickened tires. The Outrunner begins to swerve a bit, now having a dead wheel and a heavily dented front frame.

“Y’all won’t keep me from mah rum!”

“That’s not how you make spiced rum, you dingus!!” Pinkie screams at the Hodunks, unloading a three-round salute in the direction of the outrunners and Technicals, the rockets going all over the place as she begins screaming incoherently.

“For one...” Anthony says, adding more gunfire of his own, “You’re using beer.” His calmer attitude allowing more precise shots. The shots from his sniper not doing as much damage to the cars themselves as Pinkie’s triple-shot corrosive launcher, but what he could do was...

The words “Critical” in dark red flash across his HUD as he watches one of the Technical drivers in the back slump over, and the car the dead Hodunk member was driving swerves off to the side and almost tips over. The Hodunk in the passenger seat pushes the dead driver out of the vehicle and takes the wheel for himself, while Dash peppers the frontlining outrunners with machinegun fire from the Technical itself.

A few short, furious seconds of fighting later, and all but one of the outrunners are scrap, and only one of the Technicals is still going, but it’s smoking.

“Ah, damn you all! That’s it, Ah’m comin’ out mahself!” Tector roars, and the sound of an unearthly scream of an engine, pushed so far past its limits that it’s coming out the other side just fine, fills the air.

A massive, rebuilt Lancer skims across the sand, gigantic, deep-treaded wheels digging into the loose earth with ease as it advances with the implacable strength of a glacier and the terrible speed of a landslide.

Also, it’s better armored than every one of the defending vehicles combined.

“Okay... that’s a problem.” Anthony states, thinking about how to stop such a monstrosity. “There’s gotta be a way to do this without taking that thing head-on...”

Dash snarls. “No way am I gonna be outdone by a brick on wheels!” she declares, getting a worried look from Anthony, “Hold on tight, and get ready to shoot everything you’ve got; hammer that side panel as we come in, I’m gonna ram ‘im!” she yells, swerving around, before yelping as a zzz-OWNTCH noise comes from the turret atop the tank and a lance of crimson energy strikes the Technical, leaving a nasty scorch mark and some molten metal behind.

“We are not armored enough to take many more of those!” Anthony yells. “Put your ego aside and- ego!” Anthony grins and gets on the ECHO. “Hey, Hodunks. You wanna trade?”

“Trade what?” Tector asks after a moment, presumably to get Jimbo’s reply.

“What say we give you the spices, if you can beat us on your own raceway...?”

A short silence goes over the air. “Papa Hodunk says, ‘It’s ahwn’.”

“Alright, everybody stop.” Anthony commands. “We’ll settle this with a good old-fashioned race.”

Rainbow, looking a bit disappointed at not getting to completely wreck the other vehicle, slowly grins at the challenge of outpacing the monstrous Lancer. “And what are the rules of this race?” she asks smugly.

“Simple. First one around the track five times wins. Now then, let’s move out to the speedway.” Anthony replies. “This will be interesting to take part in.”

Anthony waves for the Cara-Vans to keep going while he does the race, and the Lancer leads the way, showing it to have surprising speed; it’s almost keeping up with the Technical, which is already more than twice as fast as normal thanks to Dash. On top of that, it’s turning on a dime, which is impressive even to Anthony.

But... Dash also had a decent boost to her Nitro due to skills and her relic, so if they needed to, they had a trump card. Best to save that for later and give them a surprise rather than play their hand right out of the gate. Besides, he had another plan, based on whether or not the main Vault Hunters had done a particular side-quest.

“Aww.... stank! Those hooligans tore up the track! I done fergot that... still, this baby’ll go right over that bridge, broke’r not.” Tector comments, his voice loud enough to be heard even without the Echo comms.

Either way, both vehicles end up on the track, barely an inch between them, the start of the racetrack broad enough for them both, if only just. Anthony, hoping his plan will work, checks the straps holding him safely into the seat he’s in.

Pinkie, not having much of a strap in the back, is instead perched on a hill of rock overlooking the track. If things went sour, she was Plan C.

“Alright, onna counta five!” one of the Hodunks shouts. “One! Two! Four! Seven! Nine! Two! Five!” he chants, throwing off the Vault Hunters in time for Tector and his Lancer to steal the lead, Dash screaming about dirty pool the whole way as she rushes to catch up. She’s barely faster, but she doesn’t dare risk getting pancaked by a side-swipe, and can’t get ahead.

Anthony, experiencing this, is more than a little nervous. They were going very fast. If she hit the nitro and didn’t make a turn in time, they’d definitely smash both the car and themselves against the solid-rock walls of the track. They couldn’t risk going too fast on any turns, which meant the more agile Lancer had the advantage yet again. Unless... “Dash, we’re smaller! We can’t take tighter turns, but we can fit between them and the wall! Max speed as soon as we make the turn and we can blast past it!”

“Idunno, Anthony; I might have to use the boost and go up the wall!” she says, sounding unsure - which is understandable, there’s a good chance that plan wouldn’t work.

“There is another option.” Anthony thinks aloud. “But I’m not sure if it would work. What do you think of our chances of the car surviving if we do take the wall?”

“Uuuh...” she thinks for a moment, the fateful turn coming closer. “Idunno, there’s a ninety percent somewhere in there, and I’m not sure it’s in our favor, but if he drifts even a little, we’re gonna be flatter than that Krieg guy’s abs!”

“Well, we still haven’t used either of our trumps, and we still have Plan B, should we risk it?” Anthony asks, figuring the speedster would be better at the snap decision.

She grits her teeth, then aims for the wall. “We’ll find out!” she floors the boost, the burst of speed insane even by their already fast-moving standards, and the whole Technical rides up the wall to make the turn with no problems - unfortunately, the cliff lining it cuts out right after that point, to make way for the first crossover point.

“This thing may not survive the fall!” Anthony says fearfully. “Is there something we can do to cushion it?”

“Nooope!” Dash screams in reply as free-fall kicks in and both Vault Hunters come screaming down (literally, in Anthony’s case) and hit the ground in a bone-jarring crash. Surprisingly, the Technical is, mostly, okay. It’s gushing a bit of smoke, and there’s a faint crackling of flames, but nothing the built-in fire suppression system can’t handle.

Both of them start whooping and hollering with glee, until they realize that they’re barely fifteen feet ahead of the massive Lancer, and the turret is lining up on them.

“Okay, we just need to avoid the turret fire and we should be able to keep this lead just long enough for the first part of this plan.” Anthony assures Dash. “Just weave a bit every once in awhile so he can’t get a good aim.”

“Gotcha!” Dash replies, “I’ll need you to tell me when and what direction to go; Ellie never installed rear-view mirrors!”

Anthony turns around and, leaping quickly into the turret seat, straps himself in there and aligns himself to face the Lancer and its turret. He didn’t have any way of returning fire other than some explosive barrels, but they’d have to do. Taking a deep breath to calm down a bit, Anthony focuses on the turret and begins relaying its movements. The thing he was most glad for about the car was the gyroscope-based turret seat, meaning he wasn’t flipped around like crazy whenever a turn was made. Hurling barrels at the Lancer and aiding in the dodging of the seemingly-endless torrent of lasers from the Lancer, they manage to keep their lead, even if it was a small one. After several more turns, the vehicles zoom up to the bridge which, as Anthony planned, was blown out due to the efforts of the other Vault Hunters during a sidequest of their own. This was trump-card one, and if it didn’t work...

The Technical, as expected, flies over the gap as it boosts, and Anthony has time to watch the Lancer speed up as well... and still not make it across, instead falling into the area beneath it. Anthony crows with victory, up until they round the corner and realize that the Lancer is now in front of them, and already turning to face the right direction.

However, Anthony spots that a few of the less-impressive welding seams on the armor appear to have snapped open. It seems the tables have, in fact, turned.

While their foe was ahead of them, and now had its turret facing forward, the Hunters were free to go on the attack. Though there was now little chance of them outpacing the Lancer, they could certainly fight back. By hurling barrel after digistructed explosive barrel, aiming for the seams and chinks in the Lancer’s outer shell.

Without warning, beeping mines begin to slide out from under the Lancer, triggering a moment before Dash’s Technical gets to them and threatening to blow the Vault Hunters sky high. As such, she starts having to swerve, Anthony calling out the mines’ locations as they come, thanks to his higher vantage point.

After dodging several mines and nearly losing their car by just barely avoiding several explosions, Anthony decides he’s had enough. Setting the barrel-launcher controls aside he pulls out his Sloth. The bullets may not be fast, but hopefully they’d do well enough.

The second he sees the next mine drop, he points it out. As Rainbow Dash swerves to avoid it, Anthony looks down his scope and, taking aim as fast as possible, pulls the trigger. The shot, while powerful enough to detonate the mine early, was too slow to trigger it directly under the Lancer. However...

He swaps weapons, and lines up his Widow Maker, waiting for the next mine. It’s no Sniper Rifle, but the bullets are far more than enough to detonate one as it’s sliding out, making the back of the entire Lancer jump a little. Evil, smug grin in place, Anthony gets ready for the next one, but no further Mines come forth. However, at this point, the Lancer is taking the wider turns, leaving just barely too little space for them to try the wall trick again on any curves; for all their idiocy, the Hodunks are fantastic racers.

Still, the Vault Hunters weren’t out of plans. Using more barrels to burst holes in the Lancer’s armor, Anthony eventually makes a hole wide enough for his next trick. “Get us close, we need to get closer!” Thankfully, the repeated usage of the order makes it clear to RD how important their next move was. Dash hits the nitro and zooms forward, and then kills the nitro early just moments before they smash headfirst into the back of the lancer. “Grenades! Throw them in!”

As they go to throw in their entire payload, a sudden blast wave emits from the Lancer, shoving the entire Technical back and nearly obliterating the front of it. It’s still running, but the cloud of smoke is chokingly thick, and streaming out right over Dash’s side of the vehicle. “Anthony, you’re gonna have to get them ready before we get that close again, another hit like that and we’re screwed!”

It was a bit early for Plan C, even at this point, so Anthony had to rethink how they could do this. Maybe... maybe they didn’t have to get very close just yet... But that would require timing and really good aim, not to mention...

“How good’s your throwing arm?” Anthony questions as he pieces together their next strike.

“Pretty good; whatcha got in mind?” she asks, waving away more of the cloying smoke from her face, trying to see well enough to drive.

“Well, if you can fastball one of your Mirvs inside that thing, we could do some serious damage. They should home in, they just need to be going fast enough.”

“Gotcha!” Dash replies, and glares through the haze, prepping her grenades. “Alright, I’m gonna speed up, you get ready to throw, too!” she says, before hitting the gas pedal and beginning to chuck the grenades as fast as her arm would allow.

Anthony, having a less maneuverable grenade mod, has to wait a bit longer before tossing his in, but with a trio of mirvs going off inside, the addition of three Rubberized Bouncing Betties would definitely cause damage in a wider area even if they’d do less initial structural damage.

Moments after the payload goes in, the Lancer begins to slow down noticeably, and Dash has to make emergency dodges as huge hunks of armor begin to fall off, being shed to reveal... a smaller, more normal-sized Lancer within the outer shell, a pissed and bloody-looking Tector on top, with a massive dual-launch missile system deploying around him, and he’s facing the Technical. His meaty hands grip the controls, and he yells something into the howling wind of the racetrack-

BA-BA-BADOOM!

A trio of corrosive rocket blasts smash into the partially unarmored front of the APC, and Tector never gets to fire his missiles, Pinkie’s triple rocket barrage obliterating the vehicle and leaving the huge man screaming in agony and fury as Rainbow Dash’s ride swerves around the pools of corrosive goo and heads for the off-ramp. They may be winning, but Dash knows the Hodunks aren’t likely to be good sports about this method of losing.

Fortunately, They still had one trick left, and they had only gone around the track three times out of the agreed five. “One more gentle speed-up!” Anthony orders and, as Dash gets up behind the now-slowing Lancer yet again, Anthony swaps to his Fire SMG and begins peppering the remaining visible Hodunks with fiery bullets, the car and crew now on fire and well on their way to becoming an inferno, Anthony gives his final order. “Now let’s get this done before they pull some trick and tear our ride apart.”

“Actually, I’m just gonna split, Anthony. Tell Pinkie to hop down at the cliff ahead, and then I’ll boost us back into the Dust!”

“Alright, alright, just figured we might as well finish the last lap and a half but whatever.” Anthony concedes. After sending Pinkie the message, Dash does just as she stated and the trio is back in the Dust, the Hodunk clan completely defeated, as well as their prize vehicle wrecked beyond any form of repair known to the local solar system.

Anthony couldn’t help but feel like bragging. Calling up Moxxi, he informs her that her spice vans won’t be having any more trouble. And the Hodunks won’t be a problem for a while either.

“Wait, you destroyed the Megatank?!” Moxxi replies in a shocked tone. “They’ve been usin’ that thing to terrorize everybody out near the Dust for ages! I’ll betcha a bunch of the other clans out there’ll be happy with you three. Stop by the bar, and I’ll give you your rewards, and the next assignment, if you want it!”

“You got it, we’ll be there in no time. And by the by, if they do start causing problems again, we’ll just have another race with them.”

“And by race, we mean totally blow the hay outta whatever crazy car they slap together!” Rainbow adds and the three Junior Vault Hunters share a high five.
> Chapter 17
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meandering through the Dust, the group drive back to Ellie’s Garage for the Fast Travel, and even from there the large black clouds from the Hodunks’ vehicle is faintly visible.

“So the next job is... helping deal with a Rakk Hive.” Pinkie reminds everyone. “But... where are the hives? Are they those big rocky mounds with holes in them?”

Anthony shakes his head. “Those’re for Spiderants, I haven't had many chances to see an actual Rakk Hive before. Usually when I see Rakk, it’s just before a swarm of them divebombs us and they're already separated from the hive itself.”

“Well, if the Rakk are like other winged creatures, likely they make their homes in the air, or on something tall.” Rainbow informs. “...Which might make dealing with said hives a bit of a problem. As fast as we can go in this thing, we can’t get airborne for long, and that’s assuming we have a ramp.”

Ellie, overhearing them as she passes by, turns in surprise. “A Rakk Hive? Them things’re tough! Scurry too, if only ‘cuza the Rakk they send atcha.” she comments. “You tryin’ ta take one out? Ah don’t think yer set up fer that, ‘less acourse yer packin’ wa~ay more firepower’n ah’m seein.” The concern in her voice makes Anthony a bit concerned in sympathy; Ellie isn’t the sort to flinch at something merely being ‘dangerous’. She lives in the Dust, after all.

“So we’ll need to have more than just an edge, we need intelligence.” Anthony thinks aloud.

“Yeah, ‘Cuz your mom is counting on us!” Pinkie says chirpily, getting a startled reaction from Ellie.

“Wait, what’sa Rakk Hive gotta do with ma?” Ellie asks.

“Apparently, her suppliers are having trouble.” Rainbow Dash says. “The Hodunks back there were part of the problem, but now there are still two more ‘jobs’ before Moxxi can get restocked. She says that she might lose her business if we don’t help!”

“Aw, shoot, it’s ‘er folks gettin’ the cheese innit?” Ellie asks, prompting Anthony to check his mission log; sure enough, the next mission is about the cheese shipments. At his nod, she sighs. “Well, iffn ya need anythin, jus’ ask.”

“We’ll need to know the general weaknesses of the hives, and how best to deal with large swarms.” Anthony surmises. “Knowing what to do is going to be more important here than just having bigger guns.”

“Hmmm... well, if it’s that biggun out by the fields ‘er folks get the cheese from, ya might be in luck. There’s an old Dahl place at the toppa tha bluff nearby. Ah’ll get the deets on yer maps, but it used ta be an airbase. Mosta the Buzzard-makers the idgits nearby use were stolen outta that base, but mah bro oughtta be able ta get it workin’ agin. He’s been all a-twitter about them new machines e’s been workin’ on.”

“Oh yeah, the Buzzard Schematics we gave him!” Dash brightens up. “If Scooter’s finished, we could use it to get up there. But... what do we do when we get to the base? What’s there that could help us?”

“Well, y’see... these standard digi-structors ain’t no good at makin’ things that fly. That air base’ll be needed ta git yerself the fliers. As fer what you’ll do ta get ridda that Rakk Hive... I’mma ship you a special present fer it.” she says, before pulling out a remote control and hitting a button on it. In place of where a vehicle would normally form inside the garage, a large, missile-shaped device took form, covered in paint to make it look like it had teeth, eyes, and a scale. “Mah brother said he made a carrier... and it’s gonna carry this baby ta the prize. But y’all’ll need ta keep the carrier safe, so bring somethin’ ta thin out the Rakk flock.” she suggests, before clapping a hand down atop Anthony’s shoulder, as she couldn’t reach either of the ponies. “An’ tell me how it goes! I wanna hear all ‘bout it!”

“No problem, Ellie. And... Hey, if we figure out how to, uh... I don’t really understand the details, but would it be possible to get you an upgrade to your Digistructor? So that it could make more of the Condor-things Scooter’s making?”

Ellie taps her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before smiling and nodding. “Y’know, there should be an ol’ Dahl chip in the digistructor pad in the air base; take it out, an’ put this in. It’ll git me the deets and codes ah need to make one mahself, an’ while yer out, ah’ll jus get around ta puttin’ in that second floor ah always talked about. Maybe trick summa tha Hodunks inta doin’ it for me fer free...”

“I’d... be careful about the Hodunks.” Rainbow advises. “When we left them, they seemed pretty mad.”

“Yeah, cause we totally wrecked their big, laser-shooty car-thingy!” Pinkie says. “It took forever but they seemed pretty mad when we blew it to pieces.”

“Yeah, even if we might win, remind me to never dare the Hodunks into a race... ever.” Anthony sighs.

Ellie grins. “Oh, ah know... keep in mind, ah run a repair shop. Who d’ya think they’ll take their Lancer ta get it fix’d up? That’s a mighty fine hostage ta ransom...”

“Fair enough. So I guess... Hmmm...”

“Whatcha thinking, Anthony?” Pinkie asks.

“Well, I don’t know if we should. It takes away from time we could spend helping Moxxi, but it would certainly make things go much smoother afterwards. I was thinking: If we take the Condor that Scooter’s working on, fly it up to the Dahl airbase, get Ellie’s chip installed, fly the Condor back to the garage, and get it registered in the system... we could digistruct one out of the garage if anything happens to the first one. Or we could fly the Condor up, take out the Rakk hive immediately, but risk the Condor getting damaged somehow, meaning Scooter would have to fix it up before we could put it into the system.”

“Well, ya should be able ta jus’ make ‘em at the airbase itself, the Condor’s already in tha system. An’ the chip’s mostly jus’ so we kin ree-mote access it and take control. We’d’a already done that, but too many things up there like ta chew on travelers.”

“Alright, so we just need to get the Condor from Scooter, fly it from Sanctuary over to the Dahl base, put the chip in, then we deal with the Hive, right?” Dash asks, making sure she was keeping up. “That sounds easy... and that’s usually a bad thing.”

“Pfft, nah. T’ain’t gonna be a problem at all, ‘slong as there ain’t any elemental Rakk around.” Ellie says dismissively. “An’ those only come outta Badass Rakk Hives.”

Anthony sighs, already detecting the ‘jinx’ a mile away. “Well, hopefully if we come across one, we got that giant bomb, there. Still, we’re missing one key aspect of what we need to know: How to effectively drive back large swarms of Rakk all at once.” Everyone else pauses to make ‘thinking’ faces. “But I think I know someone who can answer that for us.”

“Who knows about Rakk more than... well, anyone else?” Dash asks. “They seem pretty straightforward to me, what else is there to know except just shooting them when you hear them?”

Anthony grins. “We’ll meet him while we stop by Moxxi’s. We do have our first job to turn in, and we also have to get the Condor from Scooter before we do anything else.”

The ponies agree and they all Fast Travel back to Sanctuary. Walking up to Moxxi’s bar, the three of them are given a big hug each from Moxxi. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! The spices are coming in, and it’s really making a difference! We’re all one step closer to getting this place secure once more. There anything ya need, sugars?”

“At the moment, not really. You can keep the reward for this one until we get back from all three being finished, though I think I speak for all three of us, when I say we could use Eridium more than cash at this point.” Anthony says, the ponies nodding in agreement. “Money is easier to get at this point, and Earl selling those SDU’s will kinda be important. Can’t keep the uglies down unless we got the ammo to do it with.”

“That’s absolutely reasonable; while you’re doing this next part, I’ll see if I can’t convince Earl to maybe part with a round of SDUs, too. It’s the least I can do after all of this you’re doing for me.” she says. “And make sure to stop by Zed’s before you leave, he said he had something for Pinkie.”

“Alright, we can do that.” Dash says, looking around. “So... Anthony said there’d be someone here we could talk to about the Rakk Hives?”

“Oh, you mean Hammerlock!” Moxxi grins. “He’s actually just upstairs. I’m sure he’ll get a kick outta seeing you two.” Moxxi ends by giving each of the ponies a quick petting. “Good luck out there!”

Moxxi directs the three up to the next floor, and it doesn’t take long for Anthony to recognize Sir Hammerlock’s voice through one of the doors. Hearing what sounds like the man is recording something for his radio advertisement, Anthony waits until the talking stops before knocking.

“Just a moment!” Comes the voice of a gentleman from the other side. The door opens. “Is there any way I can assist you?” The mustachioed man looks first at Anthony, but before a reply can be made, Hammerlock’s eyes fall on the ponies, going to absolutely comical proportions in moments at the sight of the brightly colored quadrupeds. “By jove! What on earth are those?!” he shouts, before shoving past Anthony to squat down in front of Rainbow Dash, a look of child-like wonder on his face as he holds out a hand. Dash leans in and takes a sniff, before cocking an eyebrow.

“Huh, your hand smells like motor oil and metal.” she comments, baffling the wildlife enthusiast again, much to his delight.

“You can speak! Wondrous! Are you some form of alien, or are you native to Pandora? Are those wings fully functional? Did you make that exo-suit yourself or have it made for you? Do your bright colors indicate toxicity? Do you eat solely vegetables and fruit, an omnivorous diet, or do you prefer meat-based foodstock? Do you have any additional defenses? How fast do you gallop? What are your-”

“Woah, woah, settle down. Uh...” Rainbow tried her best to recall each question in order. “I’m... I guess I’m an alien? Yeah, the wings work, but not here. The suits were made for us. No, I’m not toxic, my hair is just awesome. I prefer hay to most things, and fish. I know several Martial Arts. And I’m the fastest thing on four legs you’ll ever see.”

Hammerlock laughs, then stops, looking thunderstruck. “Oh, dear! Please forgive my rudeness, I completely forgot to introduce myself! I am Sir Hammerlock, at your service!” he says, standing tall and proudly, the feather in his cap bouncing as he does.

Anthony steps in. “It’s great to meet you, sir. But actually, we’re here for a different reason. We’re Junior Vault Hunters, and we’re going to be tackling a rather large Rakk Hive. We were wondering what knowledge you could offer us about dealing with large swarms of Rakk.”

“Large Rakk Hive?” he asks, eyebrow heading for his hat. “I’m not sure you should be dealing with such things yet, you don’t seem like you’re ready for it. What would drive you to this scale of big game hunting?”

“Moxxi’s losing her business!” Pinkie says. “If we don’t protect her suppliers from the Rakk, she may go out of business! We can’t let that happen!”

Hammerlock gasps. “That’s an entirely different story! Give me fifteen minutes to get ready; where should we meet? I’ll back anyone who’s helping Miss Moxxi!” he says, a look of determination settling onto his features.

Anthony shares the location that is marked on his ECHO map. “That’s where the Suppliers are having trouble. I say we meet a good ways away from it first before going in. There’s an errand we have to run at the Dahl airbase near there.”

“The airbase? Is there anything left there?” Hammerlock asks in surprise.

“We’re hoping a Digistructor is left at the very least. If it is, we can get the flying vehicle Scooter’s been working on into the Catch-A-Ride. We think air-travel will make doing this job a lot easier.”

“Ah, an air raid would definitely make this easier. Yes, I’ll meet you just north of the airbase, near the cliffs overlooking the valley... yes... I’ll set up there. Now, I must get ready! There’s no time to waste!” he shouts, dashing back into his room and shutting the door, the sound of things being rummaged through, knocked over, and thrown around echoing through the faux-wood door.

“Alright, let’s see what Zed has for Pinkie, then we get the Condor from Scooter!” Rainbow says as she rushes off, her companions not far behind.

Anthony, for his part, was very excited that Sir Hammerlock was joining them on this ‘hunt’. Sure he’d played the Big Game DLC, but Hammerlock never actually aided the player in that. This time, he’d get to see the guy in action with his own eyes. The job of dealing with the Rakk was scary at first, but with both Hammerlock’s support, no ground-only disadvantage and a giant fucking missile... this may be fun after all.

Racing after the ponies, he skids to a stop just outside Zed’s, as he hears Pinkie making excited squealing noises before coming out, a metallic-looking party hat painted in bright colors clasped in a mechanical hand. “Anthony! Anthony, this is amazing! Zed made me something he called a ‘class mod’ and it’ll make me hurt people harder which at first sounded bad but then he explained that my friends would get hurt less and that sounded great to me and I loveloveloveloveit!” she says all in one burst, bouncing in place giddily. The gaily-colored cone is quickly attached to the top of her head, and she giggles more.

“Yeah... I guess I never thought about it, but I haven’t seen any Class Mods for us.”

“Class Mods?” Rainbow asks.

“Think of them as, well, little accessories that are designed to give us special abilities and improve our skills, but they only work for you if you use a Class Mod designed for your exact class.”

“Class... Mod, okay but what classes are we? How do we pick?”

“We don’t pick them per se, it’s more like... they’re used to describe how we do things. Like Zer0 is an ‘Assassin’ Class because he’s mostly about sniping, blades, deception, and other... assassin-y stuff. So... I don’t know what our classes are. I guess...” Anthony looks at his HUD and, above the EXP bar it says ‘Level 24 Starborne’. “Okay, yeah, I guess that’s my fault for not looking and pointing it out. See where it shows your level? The words above it are your class.”

Dash goes cross-eyed to look at the readout, before reading out loud, “Speed Demon...”

“Yeah, and assuming Pinkie’s is also one I’ve never heard of before, which makes sense, I guess it’s only natural there aren’t class mods for us scattered around Pandora. They don’t exist, they haven’t been made.”

“Oooh! Ooh oh ooh!” Pinkie says, pulling her party hat off and putting it back on repeatedly while crosseyed. “Mine keeps changing! Like, every time I put on the hat!”

“Yeah, worn class mods add a prefix to your class, so it indicates what sort of class mod you’ve got. In standard terms, there’s several different kinds of class mod for each class so if people like Zed who make class mods start making them for our classes, we’d be able to buy them and boost our abilities.”

“Awesome...” Dash whispers, eyes widening and sparkling a bit at the thought of her own awesome Class Mod line.

“Super cool!” Pinkie says, bright-eyed as usual, her characteristically over-wide grin a touch infectious. The possibilities are endless, that’s for sure.

“Anyways, we can get class mods, hopefully, later. Right now, we need to see Scooter about the Condor.” Anthony says. “Since we can’t digistruct them on the ground yet, we’ll likely have to fly it off of Sanctuary towards the valley.”

“Makes sense... I call pilot’s seat!” Dash says, before sprinting for Scooter’s. Pinkie is fully content to pronk after her friend, smiling and humming to herself. Anthony follows behind, thinking over everything they had to do still, making sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. Coming up empty, he walks up to the garage and sees the sizeable aviation machine sitting outside. While it surely came from a Buzzard, the resulting vehicle was very different. For one, it seemed almost too big to fit through the garage’s doors, even the building’s vaulted ceiling only having about a meter of distance between the roof’s underside and the top of the large machine.

Dash races up to the cockpit, while Anthony looks over the Condor. Overall, it looked much more stable, less fragile than the Buzzards around the Dust, and it had more for weaponry than the standard machine gun, though the turret was still there. “So, how does this thing work? Like how do you fly it exactly, controls-wise?”

Scooter, sitting atop the machine just behind and above the cockpit, points down. “Now, ah made this to be as you-nee-versal as ah could make it, so ya just put yer hoof there...” he gestures at a thick control stick, “and yer other one there...” Dash’s hoof comes down on the second stubby stick. “Now, ah put a  tutorial guide that’ll open auta-magically fer ya when ya first take off, but ya control yer height with the right one, along with yer facin’, and yer foreward-backward-left-right with the left control stick. An’ don’t worry, there’s automatic stabilizers, so iff’n ya take yer hooves off the controls, y’all’ll just stay put, not crash. Buncha the ol’ Buzzard controls might as well been installed upside-down and backwards, so ah had ta fix it.” he gripes, looking unhappy.

“Alright, so I guess all that’s left are the weapons.” Anthony says, looking over the outside and seeing that the machine had the standard turret, but was also equipped with a pair of what looked like massive missiles on the undersides of the oversized rotor pods.

“Oh, them’s easy. Ah simplified ‘em a ton, so ya just cycle ‘tween the missiles and the machine gun by hittin’ this button, and fire whatever ya got selected by pushin’ the control sticks like buttons. Best ah could do fer hooves; ah figure’d you prefer that over the mecha-thumbs.” Dash grins and nods happily. “Now, fer you two, y’all have just as important roles on this here Condor; left an’ right gunners. See these pods? Ya get in and grab the gun mount, an’ let the Condor hook inta yer gun feed. It’ll give ya ammo, but you kin use yer own gun from here. One-eighty aimin’, too, so go hog wild with it.”

“Does the ammo feed work with rockets?” Pinkie asks hopefully.

“Sorry, but no. Ah couldn’t get the rockets to hook in properly. Don’t know what the problem is, but it just refuses ta feed launchers an' stuff. Now, all that said an’ done, mah sis sent me a message ta get the type-two ready fer digistruction... the Albatross ain’t as purdy as the Condor, but it’s got way more room fer yer buddies or fer big cargo, like the Outrunners an’ Technicals.” he says, sounding proud of himself. “That beauty can lift an entire Lancer... or, it could if the Lancer were fitted with Mag Clamps, but that’s rare ‘less it’s one a’ Roland’s.”

Anthony and the ponies nod, deciding that their best bet would be to drive the Condor over to the Dahl airbase as fast as possible and getting that chip installed before the Condor could get bumped too much.