Bordermon: A Borderlands/Pokémon merge fic (rated PG-17)

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Bordermon: A Borderlands/Pokémon merge fic (rated PG-17)

Note for mods and readers: JX Valentine went over the rating of this fanfic with me and I'll tell you to be warned that it can contain a lot of violence and risqué subject material as far as is covered by the PG-17 rating.

Another note: It is more Borderlands than Pokémon, but it should have plenty of stuff that appeals to Pokémon fans (+ it revolves around using monsters to fight + elemental powers + 'trainers'/fighters) so... I'm putting it here and hope it fits here.



Now...

Hello everyone! I figure I'll let the story speak for itself in terms of how close it is to 'original flavour' as well as let you, the reader, decide if you like what I've cooked up. You'll know what kind of uploading schedule I am going for when I put up the next part. Still, I very much appreciate some feedback, I'm here to entertain and if you have any questions that won't get me to divulge major spoilers, I'll gladly answer them (end ego trip)

Final warning: The following is for PG-17 audiences only.


Bordermon: A Borderlands/Pokémon merge fic

This is Pandora. Remarking it’s a lawless place is like remarking a toilet has germs no matter how much you flush. Many people have tried to enforce their order and justice on the inhabitants of this planet, both on the ferocious wildlife that walk on all fours and those that walk on two. Now… I wouldn’t be telling you this story if they had succeeded, would I now?

We find ourselves on the continent of Tokan where a figure clad in rags and numerous bandages was on his way to the next settlement when he suddenly got surrounded by several half-naked, tattooed psychos wearing white masks with glowing blue eyes. Yes, it’s one of ‘those’ kind of stories you’re reading. I have yet to mention that they wield buzz axes they can throw with pinpoint accuracy. It does seem that our traveler is in quite a bit of trouble.

As the psychos (hey, it’s what everyone calls them) approached, they shouted various incomprehensible lines, with one sticking out clearly as the psycho in question screamed it at the top of his lungs:

“SEEEEEEEEEEMEN!”

Maybe I misunderstood, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about sailors.

This particular psycho was the first to reach the traveler and promptly got punched in the head with a bandaged hand as a reward for his can-do attitude. Another one of the lunatics came within striking distance and got the same treatment as his fellow can-doer, while their third colleague approached. Then the traveler spoke up.

“If you’re sane enough to understand what I’m saying, back OFF!”

The bandaged up person, that was undoubtedly the badass protagonist of this tale of awesome badassery, sounded gruff and grizzled and grumpy and… gracious? With the sliver of sanity that the psycho possibly had left, he was puzzled by the traveler’s voice that didn’t fit his appearance. Curiously he asked:

“Are you a boy or a g… AAAAARGH!”

Before he could finish his sentence he was pumped full of pellets fired from a Jakobs shotgun the apparently female traveler had drawn out from underneath her rags. I introduce to you:

Reine

Don’t ask about the bandages…

In the distance a horde of psychos came running. It seems they were attracted by gun fire, not unlike zombies. Reine shook her head and threw out a metal box called a storage deck unit or SDU (we’ll be calling it that from now on) and before her a creature was rapidly built up out of what seemed like holograms, but what would turn out to do very real damage. As the light effects of the SDU’s releasing process faded, a four-legged spider creature appeared, shaking its heavily armored head and a much more vulnerable abdomen in tandem, before stretching its sturdy limbs. And so the SDU ‘digistructed’:

Buzzsaw

Your deadly neighborhood spiderant

Reine pointed to the psychos and Buzzsaw nodded. It curled itself up into a ball and revealed its next trick: it started rolling and soon got into a breakneck speed and lived up to its namesake as it cut through the psychos’ legs. Meanwhile Reine pulled out a Maliwan sniper rifle before taking shots at the psychos’ heads and slightly grinning as their heads exploded into a million pieces, which were then set on fire and carried the flames over to the other enemies turning the whole horde into an inferno of screams and odors of burning flesh.

Okay, are you still with me? Good, then let’s get to the meat (non-human, I promise) of the story.


Chapter 1: This is my rival

Reine approached Buzzsaw amidst a pool of blood the size of a small swimming pool as her gyro spiderant obediently walked up to her. Using one of the many bandages she had wrapped around her body, she wiped off some of the psychos’ blood, while making sure she didn’t touch it. She knew only too well what diseases spread amongst these lunatics. She took another glance at Buzzsaw, all cleaned up and squeaking. Despite its chipper demeanor amongst a dozen psycho corpses, Reine could see it was in bad shape. She had to move on quickly and reach that settlement she’d been heading to before she was attacked.

“I found you!” it suddenly sounded.

Oh no, not again, Reine thought as she grinded her teeth. Not that girl again. She looked up to see her standing on the side of the rocky hill, grinning as she pointed to Reine and Buzzsaw.

“We’ve locked eyes, so we must fight!” the girl said before jumping down. “Prepare to lose to Cary Loak!"

She immediately pulled out an SDU and threw it on the ground, rapidly digistructing a doglike creature that had, judging from its appearance, dived into a volcano and had the magma stick to its entire body. The thing, that the locals called a skag, roared and as it did so, opened up its face like the deadliest flower you’d ever meet. Reine shot it in the mouth and killed it on the spot.

Cary collapsed on her knees and whimpered.

“W-why would you do that! Skaggy… I just got this Bordermon…” she said between whimpers.

“That’s a stupid name,” Reine said as she kept her gun trained on the kid.

“Well it was only a temporary name until… Oh, you mean how I call these creatures? It’s the best name ever!” Cary said, jumping up excitedly.

“Look kid,” Reine said as she nodded at the Vladof assault rifle she was pointing at the girl, the brand being infamous for its high rate of fire. “This is my rifle. It will mow you down in four…” Reine looked Cary up and down for a moment and then continued: “Two and a half seconds. If you want to live to be an annoying twerp another day, I suggest you start running. Its accuracy is bad, but I’m more than able to compensate, if you understand what I’m saying.”

The girl struggled to regain the tough persona she’d equated herself with, but she managed in time.

“We shall meet again, Miss Bandage!” Cary shouted as she ran until she was just a dot on the horizon.

Reine sighed and swiftly recalled Buzzsaw to its SDU which she tucked away with the same amount of ease. The rest of the trip to the settlement was strangely uneventful and the bandaged traveler was quite grateful for it, as she had been running out of bullets. She came up to a vending machine that pictured a female doctor holding a syringe and sporting the tagline: ‘Dr. Joy, I’m all you got’.

As Reine’s high-tech backpack had automatically picked up the money that the psychos had been carrying, she could buy multiple insta-health vials which, as the name implied, instantly healed her up. She also gave some to Buzzsaw before quickly recalling him again. She was in a populated area after all and many of the more civilized people still considered spiderant meat to be a delicacy.

“Thank you! You are fighting fit! We hope to see you again!” the vending machine’s recording of Dr. Joy said eerily chipper.

It’s like she wanted people to get hurt, Reine mused. Looking at that expression of hers on her machines, she probably did. Our bandaged traveler was good at sniffing out sadists for certain reasons. With a glance she checked her remaining cash. There was enough in there to buy some ammo or an SDU, if she traded in something else to avoid weighing herself down too much. Two creatures at her beck and call would be quite handy… She decided to give it more thought and bought a few stacks of ammo from an appropriately dubbed ‘Ammo Dump’ machine before heading out.

Then a random passerby spoke up.

“Wow dude, what’s up with the bandages?”

He immediately got punched in the face for his ignorance.

“That was a warning. Next time I use my gun”, Reine grumbled.

As the psycho did before him, a guy that was nearly as out of his mind noticed Reine’s gracious voice. He remarked:

“Oh, so you’re one of those bandaged chicks. I can heal you right up you know if we…”

He paused as Reine stuck a shotgun in his face.

“I’m a painter you see,” our bandaged traveler said as she tossed the guy a nasty glare. “Wanna see what color my brush prefers?”

The guy wisely swallowed a remark of his in the style of ‘How about I show you my brush’ and quickly made himself scarce. He still glanced at the bandage-covered woman and wondered how she’d look like without them. Or any clothes for that matter. A bullet whizzed past his ear and the guy made a leap behind a hopefully bulletproof shack. Reine meanwhile figured he’d gotten the message and she had moved on. Where to now, she thought as she fixed the cloth, that had almost slipped from her nose, so it covered the latter and the bottom half of her face again.

As she rubbed the bandages on her arm, they brought back memories she had always pushed away. The only thing that had kept her going, being stuck on this hellhole of a planet, was a goal she had set herself: to come to rule over her own portion of Pandora. In order for her to ever attain a position as a, what she had jokingly called, ‘bandit queen’, she had raided bandit camps for dollars, ammo and guns for some time now, making slow progress as she quite literally blasted her way to power. Though she had little scruples, there were lines she was hesitant to cross and which she blamed time and time again for the slow pace she followed on her path of conquest. Slaughter to sovereignty. Strong-arming to having the long arm of bandit law. Visceral violating to victory.

And then the Pandora wide ECHO message came.

“HELLO CITIZENS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS OF PANDORA!” a large man with massive pecs shouted.

For your convenience, the rest of his message is not done in all caps, but hopefully you get the idea.

“This is Mister Torgue! After almost getting kicked out of my company for hosting an illegal off world death tournament on this planet sponsored by the Torgue Board without them knowing, I’ve decided to not do that again! No, instead I will be hosting an illegal off world death… Bordermon tournament on this planet sponsored by the Torgue Board without them knowing! Bordermon. Are. Aaaaaaaaaaawesome! Oh, you can only get in if you’ve defeated one billion Bordermon fighters!” Some whispering was discernible in the background. “Fine, one hundred Bordermon fighters… though you should totally try to demolish one billion Bordermon fighters, you p*ssies!”

Reine formed a pistol with her hand, put it on her temple and imagined blowing her brains out right that instant.

 

[JX Valentine]

Final warning: The following is for mature audiences only.



Also, it's bloody hilarious.

Also, it's bloody not okay to post fics that are rated R (or M) without seeking approval from a mod first.

Please send a sample of the material you think would merit an R rating to a mod, and we'll look it over to ensure that it is, in fact, actually appropriate for this otherwise family-friendly and kid-populated forum. This is doubly important, given the fact that it seems like most of the material of this chapter would merit a T rating at best (because there's no graphic violence here) except for the sex joke, which could lead to a higher rating than M, depending on how far down the metaphorical and non-euphemistic rabbit hole you went with that. In other words, please send a sample of what would net you that M rating to a mod to ensure that you're not posting porn, extremely graphic violence, or other potentially offensive material. Thank you.

That said, closing until you talk to a mod to avoid any awkward situations down the line.

Edit: Cleared up with the author! Reopening the thread and letting Scriptor do his thang.

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

For this chapter, ladies and gentlemen, we have censored profanity, a bit of graphic violence and sexual innuendos. For now, I have determined that it is very likely to be considered PG-17 still. This might change with future chapters. Without further ado, chapter 2!



Chapter 2: A shocking turn of events

Minutes before Torgue’s announcement came, a gruff looking fellow wearing a red striped mask had cornered Cary Loak. That girl sure knew how to run into trouble fast, even in a place like Pandora. Did I mention everything on it wants to kill you?

“Never should’ve come here!” he yelled as he pointed his SMG at the girl.

“I was about to say the same thing!” Cary Loak said as she pulled out an SDU. “Eh well, not really… but I suggest you better run before I unleash my Bordermon!”

The fellow, or ‘marauder’ as they called this kind of low-ranked grunt in the chaotic bandit hierarchy, shook his head in confusion for a second.

“What kind of a stupid name is that?” he said. His name is Reggie by the way, not that that should be indicative of anything…

“Okay, I warned you, go Ba…” Cary said before she looked at her beeping wristband. “Eh, I have to take this, hold on a sec.”

She threw the SDU on the ground while she was distracted and flicked on the incoming message. As Mister Torgue talked more and more, her face lit up with a mix of ecstatic joy and childish glee.

“OMG, a Bordermon tournament, this is so awesooooooome!” Cary said.

Meanwhile Reggie was occupied with trying not to get eaten by what seemed to be a giant four-legged rhinoceros beetle with chitin plates protecting its head and torso, chomping away at his face with its huge underjaws. Reggie was losing and fast.

“Get this thing off me you stupid b*tch!” poor Reggie the marauder said as he tried not to drink his own abundantly flowing blood as it sprayed all over the borok as the latter cut into Reggie’s face.

Cary turned to him and noticed what was going on. However instead of recalling the creature, she put her knuckles on her hips and leaned forward.

“Hey hey, I’ll have you know that’s a borok, one of the most ferocious creatures there is. His name is…” she said.

Reggie punched the borok in its multiple small eyes, crawled out from underneath it and with blood spraying everywhere he ran like hell, yelling:

“Psychotic b*tch, what the f*ck! What the actual…”

Etcetera etcetera, you get the idea. It’s amazing what an imminent death caused by gaping facial wounds will do to your language.

“Bye Reggie! Oh look, he left behind some money, which he most definitely did because I won the battle!” Cary said and picked up the bloody stacks of cash lying right next to the borok. She patted it on the back. “Good boy!”


Meanwhile Reine was causing a fuss at the ticket booth for interplanetary levels.

“Just give me something, anything! I’ll give anything to not be on Pandora today! Look, I’ve got these fine guns…” she said, being exceptionally good at predicting what would happen to her if she didn’t get off this planet soon.

The lady behind the fourteen sheets of bulletproof glass looked unfazed by the bandaged traveler’s request, as well as a bit distorted because of all those sheets. Then again, it was a small price to pay for staying safe on a planet full of gun-toting idiots.

“Don’t we all, sir?” the booth lady said, causing Reine to grit her teeth. “Now I’m very sorry, but these tickets are expensive and those guns will not nearly cover the expenses. Now, I do hear that those monster-trapping SDUs are becoming quite the rage, so you could sell it to me and maybe we can work out a spot in a cargo ship.”

“I didn’t want to offer, but…” Reine said as she thought about losing the only way to keep Buzzsaw with her. She’d have to abandon it in exchange for escaping this looming fate.

Our badass, soon to be ex-protagonist (of badassery) pulled out her SDU containing Buzzsaw and said:

“Okay, how about we…”

“Is that a Bordermon SDU you’re holding there?” it sounded.

Reine turned around with a glare that could have been mistaken for two deadly laser sights.

“You’re mistaken, go back in line!” she said.

The man wasn’t backing down. His mohawk bristling in the wind, the bandit grinned before pulling out an SDU and throwing it on the ground as the line of people scattered.

“Bordermon battaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!” an illiterate loudmouth said before being shot in the knee by Reine to shut him up.

As the loudmouth whimpered and crawled away to safety, Reine eyed the mohawk bandit. In front of it, something large was being digistructed. She said:

“I might not have a Bordermon, but I still got plenty of bullets in my rifle to gut you and your pet. Now back off!”

The bandit shrugged.

“Battle’s already started, man. Good luck with my capture, he was pretty angry when I put him in there,” he said as he ran to find some cover, narrowly dodging three of Reine’s bullets, with his shield stopping a fourth before he ducked away.

Our bandaged traveler had quickly caught onto what was going on and saved the rest of her bullets for the Pandoran creature that looked to be the size of a small bus. As the digistruct lights dissipated, a ridiculously oversized leech appeared with small spindly legs to hold itself upright, two fleshy appendages that allowed it to jump considerable distances even with its current size and two huge jaws on its front. All those typical ‘in-your-face-and-then-rip-off-your-cheeks’ traits that multiple Pandoran species had paled however compared to its acquired elemental powers. Judging from its color it was a badass shock scythid. A big electric ball that it released a moment later confirmed that theory rather quickly. Reine jumped out of the way and slid a few feet on her side before picking herself up again as another attack came flying. One or two of those hits would strip her shields and then her direct flesh would be next.

“If I found out who supplied that mohawk with his SDU, I’ll f*cking kill him,” Reine muttered.

Then she remembered the thing could fly and she ran for the next house as just a few seconds later the thing touched down with a thundering thump right where she had been standing, screeching as its prey had eluded it. For now.

Reine had to keep running. If she stood still even for a few seconds, she’d be blown apart by the electrifying projectiles or tore in half by the Scythid’s jaws. However, though doing so kept her out of the monstrous thing’s grasp, it also severely hampered her accuracy as the bullets attested that went past the scythid without as much as making a flesh wound. She needed an edge and a plan, even if she craved for a beheading of that mohawk moron. Here’s to hoping she could defeat his capture and kill him. Alright, she thought, it’s time.

She turned around and immediately eyed the badass scythid as it came flying. Reine rolled under it and threw her SDU on the ground, releasing Buzzsaw.

“Get that thing away from me now!” she yelled.

Buzzsaw understood what it had to do. In an instant it had curled itself up a ball and started rolling, using a ramp to become airborne and crash into the scythid’s hind wing, sending it crashing down. As soon as it had come to a stop however, it immediately got up again and screeched at its new opponent. Buzzsaw squeaked right back before dodging a volley of more crackling projectiles the scythid sent flying at it.


“Ohohoho, that little spiderant won’t last long. Getting into that tournament will be ea…” the mohawk guy said before hearing a click right next to his head.

He looked up from his hiding spot in the trash and saw Reine hanging over him, holding a sniper rifle to his head. That would make quite a splash if she pulled the trigger and her finger seemed awfully shaky.

“Call that thing back or I’ll make sure it has you for lunch!” Reine sneered.

The guy shrugged even as the barrel of the sniper rifle moved a bit as he did so. He didn’t seem to be some ordinary moron that captured a badass death bug… it appeared he was just plain insane. He answered:

“You know man, that doesn’t sound nearly as threatening if you sound like a wo… Agh!”

After Reine had wacked him over the head twice, he seemed a bit more agreeable. Emphasis on ‘bit’.

“Okay okay, I’ll return it! … If I knew how,” he said.

“I would say come again, but I should’ve expected you to be that stupid. Give me its SDU now!” Reine yelled.

“Fine. Here,” mohawk guy said.

“Thanks,” Reine said and then shot him in the head. “Moron.”

With a glance she saw Buzzsaw rolling around like crazy, with crackles around his carapace indicating he’d been hit multiple times. Knowing he wasn’t very durable, Reine had to hurry up and do something stupid. Or genius. Whether it worked or not would decide which one it was going to be. She started running. The scythid saw her coming and instead of charging like its smaller brethren would, it sent a shotgun blast of countless shock projectiles to greet his prey. Humans tasted better electrocuted anyway.

“F*ck f*ck f*ck, f*******************************ck!” Reine said as she slid until she was just a few meters away from the scythid which looked down confused as Reine jumped towards it and smacked the SDU against it, digidestructing it back into it as it screeched and shook violently.

“Bordermon acquuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuired!” the loudmouth said.

Reine drew her sniper rifle to pop a round in him, but he seemed to have learned the lesson to do his announcer thing behind a good and thick amount of cover.

“I’ll get you next time, just you wait,” Reine said. You could take that as promise more certain than a bank CEO’s statements. Wait no, a sleazy used car salesman’s seal of approval. No err… Anyway, even if didn’t hear Reine’s promise she’d kill you, you’d be pretty damn sure she’d make good on it. She said these things regularly, yet her list was always quite short…

It had been quiet up till now, but now that the scythid had been returned to its SDU, people crawled out of their hiding places and started cheering.

“Woohoo, that was awesome!” one girl yelled and others chimed in, even though they could’ve been killed many times over by all the bullets and shock balls flying around.

“Smile!” an ECHO photographer said before taking a picture. Reine would soon find out her Bordermon fighter profile had been uploaded to the ECHOnet. Also, her picture looked horrible even without an awkward smile.

“MISTER TORGUE HERE!” said exactly the guy you think would say that. Mister Torgue… who else? “Don’t forget that it is perfectly allowed to kill other fighters and SLASH or their Bordermon! So if you don’t want to go up against tons of badass variants, kill them asap! Torgue out!”

“Ah f*ck me,” Reine said facepalming before pointing her sniper rifle at a guy that was about to speak up. “You will witness an ejection for the last time if you open up that mouth.”

Meanwhile, a large man wearing spiky armor had just finished listening to his underling’s recounting of what Mister Torgue was planning.

“Well… let’s see if we can’t get us some of these Bordermon, shall we?” the man said. “Men, it is time for the Bonecrushers to go hunting!”

To be continued…

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

In Sir Hammerlock's voice: Bah, I was a day late with posting, my apologies!

Chapter 3: Start of a franchise

Welcome to Pandora, where you can take a crap without anyone ever finding out because it’s already a sh*thole. Zing!

“Hm,” Reine said as she looked over a map of Tokan on her ECHO device. “That idiot must’ve captured the scythid near these caverns. Even if he didn’t, it’ll be more than able to fend for itself. But how did he capture it… I almost got impaled by that thing.”

She touched her left arm which still hurt from her reckless maneuver just a few hours before. She could only wrap so many bandages around it until her skin couldn’t breathe anymore. Or she cut off her veins. She could handle a lot, but not that.

“I could ditch this thing and try to get off the planet still or…” Reine said.

A short ride with the Fast-Travel network later Reine arrived. The network did exactly what you’d think it would, save for that it cut you up in a gazillion pieces and basically teleported you to another destination free of charge. And yet bullets cost hundreds of dollars. The economy of Pandora was screwed up like that, partly thanks to the guy who held a monopoly on the gun and ammo business: Marcus Kincaid.

He was also the guy that gave the mohawk bandit his monster-trapping SDU that could store a thing as large as a badass. It was also batsh*t insane to sell it to such an idiot. And since things like that could get Reine killed, her preferred course of action was killing the idiots responsible, all the way up the chain if need be.

Reine walked into the Marcus munitions store and looked at an overweight guy that was hunched over with his back turned to her. Knowing the arms dealer had many tricks up his sleeves to avoid getting the short end of the stick in his lethal business, Reine made sure not to give him any time to turn around and do something. To be sure however she asked:

“Are you Marcus Kincaid?”

“Who me?” the guy said as he turned around and startled Reine, as behind him there appeared to be a couple of preteens all holding SDU’s. “I am the friendly professor Oak.”

Professor Oak

Trust the elderly man that gives presents to kids… right


There was no doubt in Reine’s mind that this guy was in fact Marcus Kincaid, judging from his ECHO dating profile and the pictures plastered all over his vending machines. Though for some reason he’d donned a white lab coat and an eerie friendly looking smile.

Our bandaged traveler was however taken aback by this unexpected development. As she looked at the preteens, she cursed one of her crippling weaknesses: wanting to avoid shattering children’s precious psyches if she were to brutally murder this man in front of them. Then again, judging from Marcus’ twinkling eyes, this had been one of his many precautions and aims all along. There was one other reason.

“Are you here to get your first Bordermon, mister?” a girl squeaked at Reine as she held up her SDU. It was a monster-trapping one from the looks of it. “I got a Rakk. I bet it’ll murder every single skag that tries to attack me.”

That… was a creepy kid.

“It's unsafe to go out without a Bordermon of your own. Wild Bordermon live in tall grass, caves and every place you would want to explore. You need your own Bordermon for your protection… and also, get your parents to buy more SDU’s from me so you can capture even more pets,” Marcus or ‘Professor Oak’ said as his greedy eyes twinkled like fist-size nuggets of gold.

Reine shrugged. How little scrupules could a guy have?

“Professor,” a boy said as he tugged on Marcus’ sleeve, “Can’t I get a Bordermon?”

Marcus’ tone abruptly changed into his usual sleazy salesman bellowing.

“Get back when you’ve got some real scratch, kid,” he answered.

“That doesn’t sound like a nice thing to say,” Reine said slyly.

Marcus turned to her.

“You’re still here? Well then, buy something already!” he said before turning to the kids who looked kinda scared. “Eh eh I mean… What is your name?”

“Reine,” our protagonist said.

“What?”

“Reine!”

“How do you spell that?”

“Urgh, why are you… Fine. R-E-I-N-E,” Reine answered.

Marcus checked his ECHO device for a second.

“Hey I know you, you…” Marcus said with a look at the kids. “You’re the woman who defeated Jimmy and got his scythid as a ‘reward’. You must be interested in buying another SDU, am I right? Of course I am, right this way,” Oak said, foregoing a gentle salesman’s push, that one would use on a doubtful customer, for an outright shove towards Marcus’ merchandise. No… not that merchandise. Although…

“So, what do you think?” Marcus said in his sugary sweet Oak voice as he gestured to all the different models of SDU’s.

Though they all looked interesting, some for underwater species and others for trapping specific kinds of Bordermon more easily, Reine hadn’t lost track of the reason she was here for even a split second.

“I’m not interested. Now look buddy, I need to know why you sold an SDU able to store a badass to a moron with a d*ck for a…”

Marcus immediately flew to the door and shoved the kids through it. He said:

“Bye bye kids, come again soon and if you shop anywhere else I’ll have you k… castr… ah forget it.”

He then turned to Reine.

“Now. What do you want?” he said in his real voice which was gruff and heavily accented.

I’m sure there’s a joke in here about Russian villains and gun nuts in here somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.

“The badass SDU. You sold it to him, didn’t you?” Reine said as she pulled out her shotgun.

“Sure I did. I also sold that gun you’re holding to a guy a few weeks ago. Let me guess. He’s dead, right?” Marcus said. “Now… You shouldn’t underestimate a fat guy like me.”

“I’m not, he is and you’ll be joining him,” Reine said.

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said, putting on a big grin. “I’m too rich to die.”

“Well, I’ll wish you the best of luck with that after I release the badass shock scythid that he captured and that I narrowly put back into this thing,” Reine said as she held out the scythid’s SDU.

“Hold it!” Marcus said as he stepped back. “Maybe we can make a deal… How about a 0,5% discount?”

Reine made a move with the SDU towards the ground. Marcus held out his hands.

“Wow wow,” he said. “Alright I get it. You remind me of someone, though she’s more… forthcoming with her assets. Think about it. Anyway, even if I wanted to kiss this lucrative Bordermon business goodbye, it wouldn’t change anything. All kinds of illegitimate business owners are buying into this craze. I hear they even have Skagzilla condoms and Bordermon roleplay kits now. Oh and toasters that put spiderant marks in your bread. Selling like hotcakes.”

“So..” Reine said as she pulled up an eyebrow. “Killing you won’t solve anything?”

“No,” Marcus replied as his finger hovered over his desk.

“Well,” Reine said as she pointed her gun. “It’ll still make me feel g…”

With a push of a button underneath Marcus’ desk she had been teleported out of Marcus’ store and after just a few moments she landed onto the desert plains.

After grunting a few times, Reine crawled onto all fours before standing up.

“F*cker,” she whispered. She looked at her ECHO device. A message?

“Let that be a lesson for you. Nobody messes with Marcus Kincaid. But I decided that you could be useful to me. You don’t disrupt my business, I don’t kill you and I’ll give you something extra when you buy from me if you do some stuff for me. Whaddaya say, partners?”

Reine spit on the ground as a response, while knowing full well it was two-way communication.

“Yes, you definitely remind me of my ex-wife. Well one of them anyway. You ever considered wearing purple? And then taking pictures while you’re half…”

Reine gritted her teeth and interrupted him right there.

“How about I make you a promise right now that I’ll buy your SDU’s, capture a sh*t ton of murderous creatures with them and teach them to skin you alive,” she said.

It was quiet on Marcus’ end for about five minutes.

“Marry me,” he said before Reine cut off the transmission.

She reflected on the current events momentarily as she had her ECHO device determine her location. In the end, no matter how much of an amoral bastard Marcus was, he was a very successful businessman and had connections with just about everyone on the planet, some grudgingly amicable, some less so. A partnership with him would prove to be invaluable in surviving this Bordermon hype. She sent a short message: ‘Partners. Nothing else.’

That should prevent him from getting any ideas.

I on the other hand got thinking. Soon you’ll be able to read ‘A love letter to Marcus Kincaid, the sexy pudgy arms dealer of Pandora XOXOXO’. Look for it!

Guys, where are you going, I was kidding. Kidding! Seriously! Guys!

Well, that drove off half of my reader base. That just leaves you and me Bobby so… What do you want to read?

‘More explosions.’

Good! Coming right up.

The badass shock scythid screeched as it threw its crackling balls… of electricity that is, in every direction, throwing the fourth bandit camp it had been sent out in so far in complete disarray. And it spread death everywhere as Reine finished off the rest using her Maliwan sniper rifle. Besides her on her high perch, laid Buzzsaw’s SDU displaying a hologram of it indicating she could talk to it without letting it out. Knowing how eager Pandora’s creatures were to kill any foe, this was a less cumbersome option.

“It’s nice to not have to work so hard from time to time, isn’t it Buzzsaw?”

Buzzsaw squeaked. It was unclear if he was agreeing or disappointed it couldn’t dish out some damage himself.

Reine was already making an estimate of the cash and ammo she’d be able to reap from this raid when she heard footsteps behind her and turned around.

“Aha, found you,” Cary Loak said as she took on a battle stance. “Let’s battle.”

“No,” Reine said and looked through her sniper rifle. She had no time for this microbe of an opponent.

Cary was utterly shocked and yet somehow still managed to keep talking.

“W-What do you mean, no? You can’t turn down a battle! That’s against the rules!” Cary said.

“My answer is still no. If you keep talking, I won’t be as agreeable as last time,” Reine said. And that really was saying something.

“Oh come on,” Cary said, still talking despite having dealt with Reine plenty of times before, “I gotta train more if I want to take on the Gym…”

Reine took a brief respite from her sniping and stood up. She looked down menacingly at the twerp and said: “What gym?”

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Chapter 4: According to Gym

Maybe Pandora is referred to as the ‘Borderlands’, instead of as one of the border worlds of the galaxy, because being borderline insane is the average psychological profile of the citizenry. And on the edge of insanity, all you need is a little push… to put on a mask and go running axe-crazy at people. Literally.

Cary blinked as Reine was staring at her as if she was going to eat her if she didn’t answer in the next ten seconds. Quickly shrugging off that thought, she said:

“You didn’t hear about the Gym? Oh trust me, it’s amazing, very hard, but amazing and…”

Reine scowled at her.

“Just tell me what it is!” she said.

“Eh, right,” Cary said as she eyed the sniper rifle Reine was holding. “It’s a place where you can pit your Bordermon against bandits, Hyperion mechs and other enemies before you go up against the Gym Leader, who’s usually the boss of the local faction. If you beat the Gym Leader, you get a cash prize, an official Torgue Gym Badge of Badassitude, a mystery present and a stash of slag you can use to make your Bordermon stronger. If you lose, you have to pay up. They aren’t out to kill you, since otherwise you wouldn’t be able to come back to lose to them again and Torgue pays them to have as many challengers as possible. This one guy’s pretty tough, they call him…”

“Yes yes kid, I get it. Beat them all and I can get a much needed boost. Where is this Gym?” Reine said.

Cary looked overjoyed at her rival ‘needing’ her help, at least in her eyes. Speaking of eyes, hers seemed to be positively shimmering.

“I’ll show you, follow me!” she said.

Reine threw her a death glare.

“Just pass me the ECHO coordinates,” our bandaged traveler said, almost growling as she did.

“But I could accompany…”

“Now!” Reine barked.

Hanging her head, Cary passed along the info and made herself scarce. Reine put her hand on her forehead and shook. What an odd, annoying girl.

As our traveler gathered the seemingly indestructible money from the piles of ashes that had formerly been bandits, she didn’t regret her decision one bit. There were already enough nuisances to worry about, with the primary one being…

“Get iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!” Reine yelled as she slid to right under the badass shock scythid to capture it.

As she rubbed her leg, she couldn’t help but think she was getting good at this. Furthermore however, she needed a name for this scythid since referring to it as the ‘badass shock scythid’ in her head was cumbersome to say the least and just calling it the scythid she’d come to own couldn’t quite catch its significance in keeping her on top of things. Hmmm…

She couldn’t come up with a name just yet, maybe something would come to mind as she would have it raze through the Bordermon of the Gym bandits.

If you are keeping track of the kind of luck Reine has had, you know where this is going.

In a flash Reine had been reconstructed half a mile from the coordinates she had gotten from Cary at near gun point. As she turned around to look for the Gym, her eye fell on the Fast-Travel unit she had come from. It was adorned with spikes and human bones… and covered in human blood.

“Charming,” Reine said.

As she walked along in a steady pace and towards the Gym, our bandaged traveler pondered about a name for the scythid. Zapper? No. Shocker? Definitely not. Deepfrier? Urgh, too many –ers. And as Reine looked up, she saw it getting larger and larger: an abandoned Dahl mine that had scrap metal bolted to the mountain they had gutted long ago. Though people seemed to live in houses attached to the scrap metal covering, it was of a far greater importance what was inside the mine and Reine swiftly approached the entrance. A sign was bolted above it saying: ‘Bonecrusher Dzjymm, prepare to loze’.

Typical bandit spelling, though the Bonecrusher bit had Reine worried. She had heard about this clan. They had a fearless leader they told the craziest stories about. Knowing how screwed up she was herself, our traveler knew she had to be prepared for anything. She stepped through and was greeted by a familiar looking fellow with blonde hair that she hadn’t paid much mind last time she saw him.

“New challengeeeeeeeeeeeeeer approooooooooooaches!” the loudmouth turned announcer said. “Are you here to…”

He couldn’t ask anything else since Reine punched him in the nose right there and then and left him heavily bleeding on the floor. A few bandits looked up as Reine walked into a small entrance cave that doubled as an arena. The stuttering lights that hung from the bedrock walls threw long shadows as the bandits looked at the ‘new challenger’ with unwashed grimaces.

“Who wants to battle me first?” Reine said as she rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck.

Five Bordermon fighters immediately threw their SDUs on the flattened surface of the starter’s arena and backed away as an equal number of skags appeared.

“Yuu cawn’t wuse weapwons,” the loudmouth said.

“What?” Reine said and looked as he pointed to a sign on the wall. ‘No weapons’.

“Ah hell,” she said before throwing down an SDU and quickly getting some distance, hoping the scythid would be too distracted to come after his imprisoner.

As the monstrous creature digistructed into the arena, the skags just about peed themselves. Which meant that as they eat and sh*t out of the same hole, oddly enough looked as though they were drooling at the sight of:

Coil

It’ll eat you and f*ck you sideways… in that order

“Bon appetit,” Reine said with a wave of her hand to her newly named badass shock scythid.

One of the more dimwitted bandits asked:

“Why did you just call out its name and then shouted… Oh mammy, what is that thing doing!”

Reine held up Buzzsaw’s hologram as the carnage unfolded and the spiderant was clearly angrily squeaking because it couldn’t have a go.

“Sorry buddy, maybe next time,” Reine said as she pondered who would think up a stupid ‘no weapons’ rule on a planet like Pandora.

She saw the use of it however, annoying as it was, as cutting down the local wildlife with various weaponry was crucial for the continued existence of humans on a planet were almost everything was carnivorous and was overequipped in teeth and gastric acid spewing in order to satisfy their diet. Killing the creatures was also the favorite pastime of many Pandoran citizens and bandits alike and Reine was no exception. Even if you pitted a dozen skags against her on her own, she would wipe them out with ease. The same went for the low ranking bandits ordering the Bordermon around and a Gym wouldn’t be able to go on for long if a few challengers managed to make it to the top and had no other choice than to kill every Bordermon AND their owners.

Reine couldn’t resort to sending out Coil every time however. It would get stronger every time it killed something and that meant it would be harder to survive stray hits when it would resist being captured. She had to tame it somehow. And if she ever wanted it to fight alongside her and Buzzsaw, she would need to have it respect her spiderant as well. Those were worries for later as she ran and slid as one of the bandits was jumping around:

“You won, you won! Now please, get this thing away from me! Ah!”

As Coil was trying to fry the bandit, Reine could get close and put it into its SDU. She stood up and the bandit, pointing to his arm gone limp from getting hit with a shock ball said:

“Your pet freakin’ wrecked it. Why I oughta!”

Reine leaned in and whispered:

“He’s not my pet, he’s my attack dog, so watch your mouth.”

Truth be told, Reine didn’t know its gender and she wouldn’t be inclined to check it anytime soon, but yeah, just letting you know.

Our bandaged traveler moved along to the main arena that used to be the main mass of precious metals before they mined it all. Now a huge pillar stood in the middle of a wide space that was fitted with high walls and stands where a few small groups of citizens and bandits sat as several one on one Bordermon battles were going on near the outskirts. The soil seemed awfully soft and it was unlikely that it was left over from the mining operation. It was laid here quite purposefully.

From the looks of it, fighters were considered responsible for keeping their distance and not getting eaten by any of the many bloodthirsty creatures around them. At times, they failed. And sometimes, it would turn into a battle royale. If they weren’t allowed to use weapons, which included grenades, things could go very bad very soon.

Before she could call out for a challenger, one bandit eagerly offered himself up as he jumped down from the stands and approached Reine.

“I’ll fight you. As soon as one Bordermon is killed, the other fighter wins. You can switch out with one back-up creature as much as you want. Agreed?” he said.

Reine nodded.

“Okay then, let’s fight!” he said and released a creature that immediately burrowed itself into the ground and disappeared. That wasn’t exactly fair.

“The f*ck,” Reine said as she looked at the challenger.

“Hey, it’s a creature like any other,” the bandit said before backing away as Reine released Buzzsaw. Coil would have a hard time hitting something that went underground. Besides, she had to make up to Buzzsaw for keeping him from his fun for this long.

Reine gritted her teeth at the bandit before scanning the ground with her eyes. The moment that thing resurfaced, she could target it. She just had to look out for tentacles and a head that looked like a spiky venus fly trap. One had to wonder if there wasn’t some kind of dirty joke in there.

Buzzsaw was on its guard as well and poked the ground for possible tremors, as its brethren would emerge from the ground and thus have adapted the ability to sense subterranean movement.

As Reine spotted the ground moving apart to have the thresher’s multi-eyed bulbous head come out, Buzzsaw was already rolling towards it and in an instant cut through three emerged tentacles. So, it was a feeler thresher, Reine thought. That complicated things: though it was slower and bigger and thus easier to hit than other variants, the spikes it flung could somehow home in on its target and could skewer weaker creatures.

“Go for the eyes!” Reine yelled across the arena so Buzzsaw could hear her.

The gyro spiderant accelerated as he dodged one spike launched at it after the other and used a tentacle that tried to grab it to get higher before tearing it to shreds and then slashing out half of the thresher’s eyes, causing it to scream and pull itself into the ground as it died.

Reine cracked a smile as she looked at the challenger.

“Looks like I won’t need to switch out then,” she said.

“Well well. That’s some impressive tricks you’ve learned your spiderant,” a large man covered in spiky armor said as he waved around a Torgue shotgun. “If you would be so kind as to move along to the final stage, since we both know you would wipe out every one of my henchmen’s Bordermon in time.”

“And who the f*ck are you?” Reine replied as she recalled Buzzsaw.

The man grinned. And when he realized Reine couldn’t see it because his helmet covered it, he let out a loud hearty laugh.

“I am the Gym Leader. You may call me, Fource,” the armored man said. “I challenge you to a battle with everything allowed until one of us surrenders. What do you say?”

Reine grinned.

“When do we start?” she said.

“Right now,” Fource said as he pulled out an oversized SDU and threw it on the ground.

To be continued…

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Chapter 5: Arms rage

On Pandora, there is no such thing as ‘I’ve seen it all’. Behind every corner there’s another monstrosity, humanoid… or a new and terrifying kind of beast. Sometimes both. No, usually. Did I mention they have an arsenal of weapons and grenades to raze through things like this for fun?

From the oversized SDU sprang a four-armed ape which unlike its fellow, much smaller bullymong brethren as they were called, was colored orange and had several huge bone spikes coming out of its body. Reine had only seen a ‘demong’ like this once: in the poisonous Eridium Blight. It towered above her and its already tall master alike.

Gym Leader Fource held up his arm and the demong seemed to obey. The savage looking creature would only attack when Fource gave the order. Interesting.

Around them, every single fighter had stopped their battles and had gathered around the two to form a death ring. The only way out was winning and living long enough to get patched up.

“Have you decided on a Bordermon? You might very well have to say goodbye to it, though make it quick,” Fource said before letting out another hearty laugh.

Reine tossed him a look.

“I don’t need to,” she said. “I’m going to beat you.”

She threw down an SDU and out came Coil, squeaking as it had grown hungry for another prey. Without as much as a word from Reine, it attacked the demong and Fource gave a command to start attacking. A loud thump emanated through the cave arena as the bandits cheered.

“New capture?” Fource said crossing his armored arms as in front of him his demong punched Coil in rapid barrages of four.

“Yeah,” Reine said, gritting her teeth. “You ready?”

Fource cocked his shotgun.

“I’ve been waiting for a challenger like you since before I found you on the ECHOnet. And I look forward to crushing you,” he said.

“Same here,” Reine said and immediately pulled out her Vladof assault rifle before emptying a full clip on Fource.

The Gym Leader flexed for a second as nearly all of the bullets had been eaten by his powerful looking shield. Even if Reine got through that thing, she still had to deal with the body-covering armor the guy was wearing over a massive body that wouldn’t go down easily. The bandits yelled taunts at Reine, but all she heard was: Win. Win. Win.

“I’d say that was a cheap shot but…” Fource said before aiming his Torgue shotgun and firing at Reine right past Coil. And then the shotgun’s pellets exploded. Every. Single. Pellet.

As Fource lost sight of Reine in the motherload of explosions, she tried her hardest to dodge the deadliest ones as her shield got whittled down extremely fast. She saw bright flashes through the smoke and they didn’t look like the shock balls that Coil made: the demong could spit fire at its enemies. Flesh is very weak against fire. In short, both Reine and Coil were in trouble if the former didn’t recuperate her shields and struck back at Fource fast. She needed to do… something stupid.

“What the heck is she doing?” one of the bandits screamed.

Some of the psychos waved their buzz axes and said:

“She’s getting four pounds of flesh! Look at her when she’s charging at you!”

In normal people talk, she was running blindly at her target like a psycho would. That should give you an idea as to how stupid this plan is going to be. Or genius. All depends on its success. And what you define as success… What year is this?

Running as she always did when she would attempt to recapture Coil and succeed with a couple of scratches, this time however she charged at it and instead of sliding, jumped on its back and furiously punched its side as it wrestled with the demong and its four arms, with each having the diameter of an average fat guy. Reine yelled in the scythid’s bug ear, or whatever they used to hear:

“You listen to me right now, f*ckbug! Zap that guy and maybe I won’t kill you myself!”

The scythid didn’t understand human speech, but it did get two things in life: dominance and violence. After a few seconds it wrestled free from the demong and launched a barrage of shock balls at Fource who tried to dodge them in vain as the crackling projectiles easily overloaded his shield with ease before going on to electrocuting him partly through his armor. He kneeled briefly before standing up, laughing.

“Ha! It seems I underestimated you still! Come on, DO IT!” Fource said before he gestured to his demong to ram into Coil right after Reine jumped off, made a somersault and landed on the ground.

Our bandaged traveler pulled out a corrosive pistol, being prepared for armored enemies, and fired and fired until the armor was one green mess that dug into Fource’s skin who only flinched for a couple of seconds before throwing what was left of the armor off entirely.

“It couldn’t be…” Reine said as she smiled.

The bandits went nuts and the taunts grew into a constant chanting of:

“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

“Here comes the windmill!” a psycho yelled.

“Oh what glorious a fight the knight fought but all in vain!” another one replied. “Where are you, Sancho?”

As the corrosive cloud disappeared and the armor dissolved along with his helmet, Fource struck a stance with his body and all four of his arms. His face was horribly swollen because of the mutations that his body had undergone, but his hulking, ripped arms all looked very functional, which was quite the rarity. He seemed nearly as strong as bullymongs, which could effortlessly throw cars.

Good thing there weren’t any cars around then, Reine thought. As for the rarity of his arms’ state, on Pandora great power usually came with horrible disfigurements and general insanity.

“Wuhahahaha, I’ll strangle you and rip you in half at the same time!” he bellowed as he acted out with his four arms how he was going to go about that in every detail.

Aaaaand… check.

Reine narrowly dodged another blast from the explosive shotgun Fource was still hanging onto despite the corrosion digging into his skin. Now it was time for the endgame. Reine pointed to the demong and said to Coil:

“Attack!”

Coil squeaked and eagerly dug into the fire breathing ape that narrowly missed Reine with its attacks as the latter started running. Reine noted she and Coil shared a penchant for violence, which was all they needed. She charged at Fource and fired her Maliwan sniper rifle at a ridiculous short range for such a weapon and made it appear as though it was a straight-up flamethrower. Firing directly into Fource’s face, it turned his skin into a crisp as he madly laughed, fired his shotgun and swung at this most satisfying opponent as he neared death. Then he chipped off the last bit of Reine’s shield with an explosion that narrowly missed himself as his opponent came up so close.

“I do apologize, but I’ll have to kill you now!” he roared with disconcerting glee as he reached and grabbed Reine.

He picked her up as he grinned, his distorted face looking all the more disturbing before writhing in pain: Reine had jabbed a knife as long as her arm into his wrist, causing him to let go of her.

This gave her the opening she needed to blast him with her Jakobs shotgun at point blank range. Fountains of blood sprang from Fource’s many wounds as Reine paced back to avoid getting it on her. That was that, she thought before checking herself: some of her bandaged wounds had opened up during the fight, while new ones had been made by the violent slashes of the Bordermon and Fource as well.

She put the knife on her belt as she watched Fource succumbing to his wounds. After a few moments however, she approached him as she held her gun at the ready just to make sure. Behind them the demong and Coil were still going at it. The Gym Leader was coughing up blood and the crowd had grown quiet as even the psychos looked around aimlessly. How did this happen?

“That was a good fight. I’m sorry for trying to kill you. It was just so… goooood. You should become my successor… in a moment. You earned it,” Fource said. It was getting hard for him to talk. He looked at the assault rifle in Reine’s hands. “Or you could finish it right now.”

Reine grinned.

“I have a better idea,” she said.

Fource’s bloody face immediately contorted as his eyes spewed death at Reine.

“I don’t need no mercy!” he said as he aimed his Torgue shotgun at his abdomen. “This is how I wanted to die!”

Reine pulled her stash of vials out of her backpack and applied them to Fource’s wounds.

“What are you doing!” the Gym Leader said as he reached for the things with all four of his arms, but to no avail as he was still very weak.

“I’ll need a lieutenant for what I’m planning,” Reine said as she calmly recalled Coil. She nodded to Fource who pulled out his own SDU for his demong.

As it dematerialized, its master turned to Reine, forming an uneasy smile.

“What do you want from me?” the former Gym Leader said.

“As I said, become my lieutenant. A rare specimen like you shouldn’t die in a battle against me… but for me,” Reine said as she helped Fource up. “We are going to take advantage of this Bordermon craze and dominate the competition. We… are going to build an empire. Are you in?”

Fource looked around for a moment at the countless bandits that had kneeled before Reine.

“I would be honored,” he said.

He looked confused for a moment as Reine touched him for a moment and put away a vial.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“You’re quite interesting, that’s all. Now,” Reine said as she turned to the crowd of bandits. “Let’s go find ourselves a bandit clan and wipe them the f*ck out!”

The bandits and psychos cheered and fired celebratory shots, which caused a number of rocks to fall down and squash a dozen or so of them. Reine turned to Fource.

“You didn’t quite pick the cream of the crop, did you?” she said.

“They are loyal enough to die in a battle for me and now, for you. Your wish is their command,” Fource said as he applied bandages Reine handed to him.

“Good. Now, where can I find another clan or Gym?” the new Gym Leader of Bonecrusher Dzjymm said.

“Well there are the Rammers a few miles from here, but they rule their patch with their vehicles. We’re strong, but we can’t beat that, not on their flat territory,” Fource said.

“I am in charge now. We move tomorrow. Leave the rest to me. Understood?” Reine said as she tapped on her wrist device.

“Understood, Gym Leader Reine,” Fource said cracking a smile.

With a nod to his new boss that he had yielded to surprisingly easy, he went to take further care of his wounds. He hummed as he went, still brimming with satisfaction and pumped up on adrenaline. He had the most affirmed feeling that this woman would take him and the clan to unimaginable heights. Grinning widely, he looked forward to it.

Reine meanwhile called up someone.

“So, you wanna make a deal?” Marcus said on the other end.

To be continued…

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Disclaimer: it is heavily implied a sexual activity will occur and after that that it occurred. It is however barely described and everything surrounding it is written in a PG-13 acceptable fashion.

Chapter 6: You and me… breeding

It should come as no surprise to you that the concept of a driver’s license does not exist on Pandora. Besides, even the best driver will have difficulty keeping his or her ride on the road. If there is one. That’s not all. The vehicles on this planet with many types of terrain handle like a horse with a steering wheel droven up its a** with two limp legs. But wait, there’s more. There’s also lots and lots of vehicular combat and exploding mayhem and add to that that the vehicles don’t have seatbelts or airbags, but do have the propensity to explode if you look at them funny… Look both ways before you cross the street? Better idea: stay inside… Where the cannibals are.

‘Show me what you got,’ Reine had said.

And so, Fource and the Bonecrusher minions had opened their vault for her and showed the new Gym Leader piles of bullets, grenades, ammo, weapons, shields, class mods, grenade mods, relics, elemental barrels and slag infusions, among other things.

“I’ll have everything,” Reine said with a smile.

They had spent all afternoon gearing up for the coming battle against the Rammers and their many runners and technicals. Fource admitted he had had a hard time coming up with a way to beat the bandit clan on their own territory as it was perfectly suited for insane drivers whose primary tactic, as you would have guessed by now, was ramming their opponents and the local wildlife, both for protection and bloody entertainment. With safe and high spots and caves being few and far between, the Bonecrushers had been forced to stay put and be blasted apart my explosive barrels thrown by the catapults on the bandit’s technicals or be run over by the very aptly named outrunner vehicles as the past Bonecrushers tried dashing for another safe haven they would never reach.

Reine also hadn’t divulged her solution yet, if she had even found one. She had made some calls, demanded all the information they had on the Rammers and the terrain and had looked into who provided the bandits with their technicals. So far her investigations hadn’t turned up a whole lot. She had made an errant that had taken several hours and about which she refused to share anything at all, citing the value of the element of surprise.

A guy called Scooter held the monopoly on vehicles, hence their unreliability and widespread availability, but he wasn’t responsible for the technical’s design. Even so, despite Scooter’s monopoly, the bandits were able to digistruct and repair their vehicles. You would be forgiven for not assuming that behind those blue-lit white masks and other ragged looking bandit garb, there lied some brilliant engineering minds that had slowly been driven insane by horrifying circumstances… which in part led to very poor gun safety, if the former bandit lord’s name of Nine Toes was anything to go by. It was. Oh so much.

“The men are getting restless,” Fource said.

The sun was going down and Reine had told everyone they would head out as soon as it dawned.

“They still have the few brain cells to know going up against the Rammers is a fight they can’t win,” Fource went on.

He had put on his replacement armor so as to keep his four-armed surprise for when he encountered a worthy opponent tomorrow. Though he knew someone like Reine didn’t come around too often, he too was feeling quite uneasy about going up against a hornet’s nest. With the hornets being hulking metal attack vehicles with regenerating ammo and explosives pools. He was tough, but Newton’s third law told him: not nearly as tough as a bandit technical.

“If they want to keep those few, tell them they better man up before I ram them myself… with that excavator over there,” Reine said as her eyes went from the drool on Fource’s chestplate over to the huge Dahl machine on the other side of the arena.

“Eh, right,” Fource said as he cleaned himself up. As he put on his helmet he continued: “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re keeping us in the dark because you get a rise out of it. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

He grinned before turning around and making his way to his chambers. As the hour grew late, Reine turned to her ECHO device as a lab report hologram appeared on it.

“Excellent service,” she said with a smirk.

In the distance she saw a psycho holding an apple on his head as some of his buddies cheered on a bandit to shoot it. The bandit shrugged, pulled out his shotgun and with one shot turned the apple into mousse. Along with most of the psycho’s head and shoulders.

“Face gravy!” a giant bandit with a metal helmet said.

Though his appearance made one assume the ‘goliath’ was morbidly obese, this type of bandit was heavily mutated hunk of muscle that soaked up bullets and dished out the pain. And then there was the secret weapon goliaths had when somebody shot off their helmet… There were a lot of secrets and surprises abound for tomorrow and more than half of them would be revealed by the Rammers as they used them against the Bonecrushers. The second step to becoming a bonafide bandit queen would be a big one and even Reine pondered things for a moment, as a lot of things could go terribly wrong with this dangerous clan she had impulsively decided to attack. Still, she commanded a Fource to be reckoned with.

If you’re done facepalming over that pun, let’s continue.

Speaking of the former gym leader, as Reine approached her sleeping area, she found bare-chested Fource on the bed with his armor scattered around him, the big musclebound guy looking up quite surprised.

“Did you need anything?” he said wide-eyed.

“You know,” Reine said as she took of her mouth mask, “These are now my chambers and…”

Fource immediately stood up and gestured with all four of his arms.

“My apologies, force of habit…” he said before shaking his head at his own unintended pun. “I’ll get out in a second, just have to get my armor and…”

As he sat down to gather the metal plates and his helmet, Reine went to sit beside him.

“I meant to say I decide what happens in these chambers and the Gym,” she said.

Fource paused as our bandaged traveler cast him a glance. It was all too obvious what she was after, so he felt it was necessary to say it now:

“Actually, I’m being abstinent.”

“Oh really,” Reine said as she removed her rags and bandages, revealing a startling number of scars and burn marks.

She regretted the bad luck she had, though that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get ready to sleep in the big, bone-adorned space that was the Gym Leader’s master bed room. The bed, unlike the rest of the Gym, was quite comfortable.

“I’m very serious about it,” Fource said as he turned to the budding bandit queen being in the same state of undress as him. “Nah not really, come here.”

To paraphrase another female warrior playing a punk rock girl in a movie about a friendly neighbourhood spiderant of sorts: ‘Guy with four hands. Sounds hot.’ Whatever you come up with now that I have said those six words, I’m sure I won’t be able to top it. So with that being said, I’ll give you a moment.

Alright, let’s go.

The following morning…

“I guess that’s why you took a sample of my blood,” Fource said.

“Can never be too careful with… diseases,” Reine replied.

“Will you ever tell me how you got all these scars?” Fource said.

“Will you ever tell me how you got these godlike arms?” Reine said as she touched them.

“Someday,” Fource said.

They got dressed as the first light was breaking through. In just a few minutes they stood before the dozens of Bonecrushers Reine now had under her command.

“Are you all ready to kill some goddamn Rammers!” Reine yelled.

A cacophony of coarse voices and some more reckless gunfire was her reply.

“To the Fast-Travel station!” Reine said.

After that, it was a twenty-minute wait until all of them had gone through the one blood-soaked station near them.


Meanwhile a woman with blue tattoos and hair that looked like flames had contacted Mister Torgue over the ECHOnet.

“Do you have any idea what your announcements have caused!” she said.

“HELLO LILITH! Death and destruction? And ex…” Mister Torgue said.

As usual, he yelled every single word and punctuated each. One. For. Emphasis.

“Don’t say it, but yes. We’ve got massive casualties all over Pandora!” Lilith the tattooed lady said.

“Isn’t it great! I haven’t had this much fun since our Bunkers and Badasses campaign with all my friends! Oh and there was that other illegal tournament I organized. It’s like it’s Mercenary day every day on Pandora! I haven’t even unwrapped the last presents!” Torgue said.

“You gave countless bloodthirsty bandit clans the means to wage a full-out war! Okay, if they kill each other that’s one less thing to worry about but…” Lilith said.

“Bordermon war,” Mister Torgue corrected. “Oh really? I just wanted them to challenge fighters, but this is even better! This might very well be the best last illegal tournament I’ll hold, ever!”

“And what’s with these creatures you shipped from different continents to one another? And even from the moon? F*cking Kraggons, seriously? Have you ever even heard of a fragile ecosystem?” Lilith said.

“Eco-what?” Mister Torgue said.

Lilith sighed.

“I’ll contact you again once I’ve dealt with this mess. Just… don’t cause any more trouble,” she said.

“Question! Would trouble be a Giant Incendiary Spore that I sent to you as a present ten minutes ago? Happy birthday!” Mister Torgue said.

Lilith seethed as she struggled to reply with actual words:

“You sent a… on my birthday… Urgh! Lilith out.”

“Bye friend!” Mister Torgue said.


“Finally,” Reine said as she was dedigistructed by the Fast-Travel station and after twenty seconds she had arrived at the lone passage through the natural stone wall surrounding the Rammers’ territory.

Fource turned to her and nodded.

“I looked forward to seeing your plan in action,” he said as he looked around at all the supplies they had brought. “When will we start?”

“In a moment. I suggest you stand back,” Reine said.

As soon as everyone had done so and had spread out in a wide circle, she threw a big SDU riddled with spikes down onto the ground which soon digistructed a thundering creature that roared as its step shook mountains.

“That’ll work,” Fource said. He grinned for a few seconds before beating his chest as the other Bonecrushers followed his example. This would be one hell of a day.

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Chapter 7: Finally a challenge

Explosions, excitement, excrements! You will have all sorts of things being flung at you and you will have no way to survive it… Except if you are Reine. Did I mention this is just the beginning?

“So… where did you get this guy from?” Fource said.

“It’s a girl,” Reine said.

Fource ducked and looked under the massive creature. He came back up and Reine continued:

“Here’s how it went down.”

Hold on lady, there’s only one narrator and that is me… Having your gun pointed at my temple does make me reconsider. You tell the story, I will type it in the most epic way possible? Okay, let’s do this. And not die. That creates a plothole. And a skull hole for me.

Our incredibly badass protagonist of badassery knew she had to bring out the big guns for the assault on the Rammers and had called in a favor.

“Yes I want to make a deal. Send me one of your biggest monster trapping SDUs,” Reine had said.

Marcus had laughed haughtily for a moment.

“Oho and why what would I that?” he had asked.

“Because you know I will use it well and you love me so much,” Reine said with the most biting sarcastic wit. “No, I am going to use it to run the Rammers under my foot and take all they have. When I get access to all their money, I will need something to spend it on. All of it.”

She had been able to hear, even through the ECHOnet, that it had made Marcus’ mouth water.

“Pleasure doing business. The package is on its way. If you don’t come through on the deal, I will send some assassins. Try to survive in the meanwhile,” Marcus had said and ended the call.

“Crazy old geezer,” Reine had muttered to herself before heading out to the drop point that had popped up on her ECHO device.

In a short while she had arrived at the package’s location and opened it to reveal a box-shaped device littered with spikes and warning labels. There had also been an… interesting pic from Marcus taped to it that Reine had decided to hold onto. For blackmail purposes of course.

Only after locating a cave that could harbor the creature Reine needed, the hardest part came: actually trapping the creature. Furthermore, it was crucial that she tamed it on the spot, as it could decimate her army in a few minutes if it turned on them.

“Come on creature, I know you’re here,” Reine had said as she waved around a slab of meat larger than a bazooka.

In a flash an energy beam had cut through the darkness of the cave and flash-fried the meat slab as Reine had hastily pulled back, her shield having shorted out immediately. As a result her fingers had been turned blazing red and she had quickly tried to put on some ointment as two giant claws had reached at her. She had pulled out her shotgun and fired at the claws before the monster revealed herself in all her glory: a bus-sized skag whose roar shook the earth:

Skagzilla Jr.

It’s (not) Godzilla!

“You’re taller than I thought,” Reine had said before switching to her sniper rifle. “Now open that pretty mouth for me.”

Skagzilla Jr., which is the name the female skag would get eventually, snarled before ramming right into the spot Reine was standing right before she had jumped out of the way, causing the beast to shatter the stone wall.

“You’re… stronger than I thought,” Reine had said before throwing two SDUs further down the cave. Her shield was given little change to recharge if she kept getting hit.

Then she went running as Skagzilla Jr. shook off the rubble, put its head down and came charging. Reine had come to the cave knowing what the monster could do however and was now using that knowledge as efficiently as possible to avoid getting turned into a stain on the wall. She ran in a direction perpendicular to the Skagzilla’s charge and so narrowly avoided the beast’s very lethal head-butt. The monster curiously looked up as she heard the distinctive screeching of a scythid. Right after, a shock ball flung into her face and made her, though metaphorically, ignite in rage and she started charging the direction the ball had come from.

Heh, even when Coil’s opponent was ten times its size, it still attacked. The badass scythid was either fearless or an idiot… kinda like me, Reine thought. Now… The tough armor that covered most of a skag’s body was all the stronger in the Skagzilla’s case, but it did not have any on its underbelly. That was where Reine would aim. It was time for her to get up close and personal with her shotgun. She ran, slid and fired an entire clip as she slipped under Skagzilla Jr. and rolled out of the way as the beast rammed her side into the ground in an effort to squash the pesky fly that was trying to gut her. Another shock ball from Coil, while not very effective, made it turn its attention to the scythid and roar murderously. Reine grew wide-eyed as she saw the huge skag leap into the air towards its target.

“Coil, get the f*ck out of the way!” she had yelled.

The scythid looked up curiously as the Skagzilla came thundering down. Then something flew through the air and cut into the beast’s eyes causing it to writhe in pain and mess up his attack. It landed feet first and sent tremors through the cave, though it hadn’t made the smashing body slam it was intending to make. Buzzsaw landed next to Coil and gestured at it as if to say: At your service.

“Coil, Buzzsaw, get some distance now!” Reine had yelled.

She emptied one clip after the other of her Vladof assault rifle that she had pulled out in order to get the Skagzilla’s attention. She got it and then the thing opened its mouth for a split second. With as little effort as moving his mouth, the Skagzilla had created a massive ball of energy from between its mandibles and launched it at Reine who jumped out of the way just enough that it grazed her shoulder. As she jolted in pain, our ever more bandaged traveler exclaimed:

“I guess… I underestimated you! My apologies!”

The Skagzilla growled in delight as she saw she had weakened the hunter which had slowly been turning into its proper form: her prey. And she liked her meat almost burned to a crisp. Without warning she fired off her huge energy beam as Reine jumped and hoped her shield would keep her alive. Naturally it did, if barely. Scoffing at the creature’s inability to finish her off, the budding bandit queen threw a grenade down its mouth as it roared. It was much larger and a hell of a lot more dangerous, but it was still as stupid as its smaller brethren. The grenade, which had a new mod courtesy of the Bonecrushers Dzjymm, ignited inside the thing’s throat as it spawned seven more ‘child’ grenades which all imploded on themselves before exploding. Most people would use the effect to pull in additional enemies to have caught up in the explosion. Reine however wanted to do something else, which Skagzilla Jr. realized as she tried to fire off another beam and proceeded to have the built up energy dislocate her jaw.

“Don’t worry, we’ll set it. Now,” Reine said as she stood up. “Get iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin here!”

She power slid and with a gentle tap to the beast’s chest, it was dedigistructed and sucked into the SDU, which Marcus called an ‘Insanity level monster trapping SDU’ with the warning label simply saying, ‘You crazy bastard!’.


Fource was speechless for a moment after hearing the story. Behind him, his men were making the last preparations for the assault.

“Do you even neeeeeeeeeeeeed this thing?!” the loudmouth announcer guy said, popping up out of nowhere.

Reine snarled.

“I told you to leave!”

“I did. And now I am here to announce you… It would be an honor, Gym Leader Reine,” the loudmouth said with a nod.

Reine glared at him, but responded:

“Fine. You will sound off the attack. At least then we can properly use your obnoxious spouting.”

“Yes ma’aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!” the loudmouth responded. His name is Harry.

As Harry wandered off with a big grin on his face, Reine already doubted her decision. Fource eyed her and then the Skagzilla Jr. that was patiently waiting in front of them.

“Why is it so calm?” he said. “He, ehm, she didn’t seem all that accepting of his capture the way you told me.”

“She wasn’t,” Reine said. “But we came to an understanding after I reset her jaw and healed her up. We are going to need a lot more healing vials to keep this girl into shape. I also gave it a few buckets of charred bandit meat. Now… are you ready?”

Fource put a hand on her shoulder, the one that wasn’t singed.

“I was mutated to be ready,” he said as Reine turned her head at the tiny hint he was giving about his past.

“Let’s go then,” Reine said with a wide grin.

Soon after, Harry the loudmouth climbed the wall surrounding the Rammers’ territory and looked across all of it.

“Look at it, Zimba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom,” he said to a bandit that came up with him and offered him a megaphone. Harry declined.

“My name’s not Zimba. What are you babbling about anyway?” the bandit, whose name we still do not know after all, said.

“Zero f*cks given. Anyway, know your classics man,” Harry said before taking in as much air as possible. And then he said: “BORDERMON TEAM DEATHMATCH COMMENCE!”

“Team deathmatch?” a psycho said.

“Team deathmatch,” another one replied.

“Team deathmatch?!” a goliath said.

“Team deathmatch!” a bandit yelled as he cocked his shotgun and narrowly missed the goliath’s head.

They could have gone on for hours if they had not spotted something on the horizon and soon a lot of reflections lit up and grew brighter as a sh*t ton of thundering cars came towards them.

Reine pushed one of her pawns out of the way and proceeded to lead the assault… seated on the back of Skagzilla Jr.

“Follow me!” she yelled as the giant skag carved a path of destruction through the plains.

“Why are we needed here again?” one bandit named Reggie, wearing a rag over his half-eaten face, said to another bandit. Not named Reggie.

“To enjoy the show?” the other bandit not named Reggie said. His name was, err… Eigger. Yes. Let’s go with that.

“Don’t stand around you numbskulls! Attack!” Fource said as he cocked his shotgun.

“Y-yes sir!” Reggie and Eigger said and led the charge of dozens of psychos.

“Stupid idiots,” Fource said before turning to a group of goliaths. “Hey, come over here. I need you to do something.”

One of the goliath dopily responded:

“Yes boss man?”

Meanwhile Reine came head to head with the first group of bandit technicals that immediately wildly and inaccurately opened fire on Skagzilla Jr. A few started shooting elemental rocket launchers and launching explosive barrels from a mounted catapult all having relatively little effect as Reine knew. Skagzilla Jr. was resistant to all types of damage except normal bullets and direct hits from explosive weapons, which the Rammers had little time to whittle her down with as a quick ground pound launched them hundreds of feet away from her.

After getting hit by the energy beam, the heavier vehicles exploded with vibrant orange and yellow colors as fire consumed their drivers and gunners, as Reine grinned. She sniped plenty of drivers before they could ram their vehicle into Skagzilla Jr., but it was still quite the challenge. It would be a long and arduous battle she thought. Then a barrel exploded right above her and the shockwave blew her off Skagzilla Jr. and she slowed down her fall just enough by digging into the outer layer of the beast’s armor so she could come to a halt on the ground and break few ribs. Seriously annoyed and clasping her side, she stood up and aimed her gun at the person responsible, a bandit smaller than her holding a strange red gun. He threw down an SDU and out came a creature that looked like it was a small part of the moon that had come alive and overflowed with lava. It was a goddamn kraggon.

“Who the f*ck do you think you are!” Reine said.

To be continued…

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Anyone know any songs that go well with this story? Let me know so I can listen to them

Chapter 8: Nothing rams with orange

Okay okay, I gotta admit this place is pretty awesome. Sure, 90% of people will die less than 24 hours after they arrived. 9% will die in the first week. But after that, you’re golden… I think.

“Turn ‘em into buckram!” one of the Rammer drivers said as his fellow bandits opened fire on the troupe of skags the Bonecrushers had sent out. In less than a minute they got wiped out.

“Skaggy-kun!” one of the bandits cried.

Some of the Bonecrushers carried shields and so these ‘Nomads’ had planted these down to help shield off their allies. The crude metal plates, that were formerly car doors, would only hold for a while against the heavy caliber that the Rammer’s bandit technicals were spewing out however. The midgets that they had attached to the front of these doors already looked more like blooming flowers of meat.

“Break formation on my command!” Fource said.

“What did he say?!” Reggie said to Eigger. Yes, the name’s official now.

“I think he told us to be a total idiot!” Eigger said. “I can do that!”

“Shut it!” Fource bellowed. “Look!”

Shadows in the shape of blots traced across the ground as Bonecrushers and Rammers alike looked up. The obese goliath troop soared through the sky in graceful arcs towards the Rammers.

“Ay caramba!” a Rammer uttered.

The goliaths came crashing down onto the vehicles and stared the drivers in the eye. With their metal masks removed, they got consumed by a rage so powerful that it made their skulls shoot up out of their mouth and had them dangle on their rooted up spine as a very weird kind of stalk. Seriously, I’m not making this up, go buy the second game. And the first one. Could you also lend me a hundred bucks?

“Get ready to feel my fingers in your eyeballs!” a goliath said as it started smashing its huge fists into the technicals.

“Break formation, now!” Fource said as he retreated.

In other words, he ran like hell. Oh, did I forget to mention that goliaths cannot distinguish between friend or foe? Or that they ‘level up’ when they kill enemies? Well, now you know.

“You can’t kill Rambo, Rambo kills… AAAAAAAARGH! HE PULLED OUT MY LUNGS!” Rambo said, defying basic biology and physics just to say this punchline.

As Fource and the rest of his men kept some distance, he stared into the distance at Reine’s Skagzilla who was blowing up most of the back-up before it ever got to them. Fource smiled, doubly so when he saw the goliaths being engulfed in flames and still continuing their rampage. Still, they were not invincible.

“Snipers! Support them from a distance so they don’t kill them. If the goliaths manage to destroy all the Rammers on their own, well… Grenadiers, keep your launchers trained,” Fource said.

One of the grenadiers nodded and accidentally pulled the trigger, turning ten fellow bandits into a Jackson Pollock painting. With blood. On the dirt. Fource double facepalmed. How handy it is to have four arms, am I right… Well, anyway back to Reine.


The small bandit with the odd red gun stepped towards our bandaged badass as the latter struggled to get up as she held her side. The bandit spoke up as she pulled away her mask:

“I am your rival!

Cary Aramis Loak

Smell you now!”

“Did… you just shout your name out loud and a tag to go along with it?” Reine said.

“Sure did,” Cary said as she recklessly gestured with her loaded red gun.

Reine gritted her teeth.

“Junior… kill,” she said pointing at Cary.

“Oh oh,” Cary said before a Rammer slid his way in front of Skagzilla Jr. and promptly got blown up.

Reine and Cary were thrown a couple of feet away from Skagzilla and landed in a thicket of smoke.

“I am the f*cking leader of a bandit clan, a Gym Leader! I won’t be thwarted by a kid!” Reine said as she fired on the first thing that moved.

The bullets bounced off of something that sounded awfully… metallic. The thing screeched. F*ck, Reine thought, it had to be a badass varkid.

As the smoke cleared, she turned out to be right: an armored wasp-like creature the size of a couch leapt forward and Reine jerked backwards, before she realized it did not yet want to attack her.

“Heel, good boy!” Cary said before she made some clicking noises that people made at their dogs or cats. “Come here boy, who’s a good boy!”

“It’s not a bloody pet!” Reine said as she kept her gun trained on Cary. The varkid screeched as it got petted by the girl.

As soon as our bandaged traveler could send out her own Bordermon, she would shoot Cary. Otherwise, that thing would most assuredly attack.

“I’m just building a relationship with them, is that so wrong?” Cary said. Reine glared at her.

“Anyway,” she continued as she paced back and forth, oblivious that Reine’s gun was aimed squarely at her head, “I figured joining up with your opposing bandit clan was the most logical thing to do for your rival, so I did. I did have to do some convincing before they let me tell them what to do. They’re nooot particularly smart.”

“No kidding,” Reine said and slammed down two SDUs, summoning Buzzsaw and Coil.

“Oooh a Bordermon double battle, I humbly accept!” Cary said and threw down an SDU as well.

Her four-legged rhinoceros beetle or borok appeared on the field, but something was different about it compared to last time you, the reader, saw it. It had changed into a badass slag borok, as could be seen from the purple goo pulsating throughout his body. If that thing spewed slag on you, all the non-slag damage you got would be amplified... How the heck did this girl manage this.

“Listen kid,” Reine said as she cocked her shotgun as her penultimate warning, “either you’re delusional or beyond stupid. If you haven’t noticed, you’re in the middle of an all-out bandit war, you allied yourself with a batsh*t insane clan of murderers, rapists and drunk drivers and I’m going to bloody pin you to the wall for getting in my way one time too many!”

“What wall? Also, don’t worry, I’m old enough to drive,” Cary said with a sparkle in her eyes.

“That doesn’t mean anything on Pandora!” Reine said before firing a shot which the badass varkid blocked by jumping up in front of Cary.

“Did that hurt?” Cary said distressed. “Hold on, let me fix you right up.”

She aimed her red gun at the varkid and a stream of red energy went into it as the dents on its armor repaired itself with alarming speed. That girl had managed to acquire a healing gun. Healing guns did not EXIST in this universe. Until now.

“Where… did you get that gun?” Reine said as she lowered her sniper rifle.

The girl had suddenly become a lot more useful to her alive. She still wanted her dead though.

“This little thing? I made it,” Cary said laconically, as if she listed off her groceries. Then with a bit more enthusiasm that grew as she went on, “I first just tried launching health vials, but my cat did not quite ehm, survive that. So I looked into Moxxi’s guns that boosted your healing a bit and transfusion grenades…”

Transfusion grenades turned your enemies’ pain and very life into a stream of hearts that restored yours… I have no idea how that works.

“… So I improved on that and voila, got a Caritas Pick-you-Right-upper or CPR,” Cary said with a big grin plastered all over her face.

Reine needed to get her hands on that gun.

“I… see. Tell you what k… Cary, how about we work together?” Reine said and held out her hand.

Cary blinked a few times.

“An alliance with my biggest rival?” Cary said.

Reine muttered under her breath ‘she has other rivals?’.

Cary continued:

“Gee, I don’t know. I already have a pack of Rammers I can crush your bandits with, so how about… You fight me in this double battle and the loser joins the victor!”

Reine had always steamrolled this girl before, but now she had that gun and two badass bugs on her side. It also looked she had trained herself to beat her rival on this very day. Even so, our bandaged traveler was not about to let that happen.

“I accept. The person that first pulls back both her Bordermon due to injuries, loses. I wouldn’t want to waste two valuable monst… Bordermon for my army,” Reine said as she gritted her teeth saying that derpish word.

“Okay! Let’s begin!” Cary said and gestured for her badasses to attack.


Meanwhile Fource saw the bulk of the Rammers approaching them as they had gone out of their way to avoid Skagzilla Jr. It had cost them a lot of time, but now they were almost there to squash the goliaths, with the rest of the Bonecrushers being next.

“Here they come, get r…” Fource began.

“Incoming!” Harry said as five explosive barrels came flying, launched from the bandit technicals’ catapults.

“Everyone, scatter!” Fource said as he dove and fired a well-aimed shot from this Torgue shotgun at the bandit technical that was closest to them, hitting the front wheel. The shot exploded, obliterated the wheel and had the technical topple and crash into the others wiping out three gunners.

Fource grinned quite pleased under his helmet, though he worried about Reine. Harry had said she seemed to have been thrown off Skagzilla Jr. and had not made it back up there. She could handle herself but… Could she do the impossible?


Reine looked over the things she knew about both her Bordermon and Cary’s: a badass varkid had armored plating all over, making the by far quickest option to take it down her corrosive pistol. Their abdomen was also somewhat of a weak spot, though far less so than for her Buzzsaw. Cary did not seem to use any offense guns, so Buzzsaw would primarily have to deal with close range attacks from the Bordermon.

Reine also took a moment to mentally facepalm at her having to make the distinction of ‘offense guns’.

The other creature was a borok. That she knew… and nothing else. It seemed similar enough to the varkid with its chitin carapace, though its slag element set it apart as the primary target in this battle. Coil could cook its enemies given enough time, but it was far more formidable against shielded enemies. If it got slagged, it would not take a gunman too long to take it down. Again this was not something to worry about right away, as Cary did not carry… Then Reine saw the girl pull out a shotgun twice the size of her arm.

“What the f*ck!” Reine said as Cary shot at Buzzsaw and sent him flying. “You b*tch!”

Reine sprinted after Buzzsaw as she gestured to Coil to fling shock balls at Cary, which the badass varkid intercepted and took little damage from. Coil screeched annoyed and in an instant it launched itself into the air with its small wings and body slammed into the varkid, causing the borok to serve as Cary’s shield as she ordered it to slag Coil.

“Buzzsaw! Are you alright!” Reine said as the gyro spiderant struggled to move.

The surprise attack had hit him all over including in his vulnerable abdomen as the bullets had gone right through him. Buzzsaw squeaked in anguish. Reine would have to put him back in his SDU, as even if she healed him up, it would not be enough. Then Reine thought about the badass slag borok. Cary most likely did not catch it like that, which we knew but she did not, so that had to mean that those slag infusions they gave at Gyms could help ‘evolve’ certain Bordermon. Perhaps even in the span of seconds.

“Here we go buddy, hold on!” Reine said before she injected all her health vials into Buzzsaw and then added the slag infusion.

Buzzsaw first twitched, then shook and scratched the ground with its legs before scooping up mounts of dirt. He kept doing that as he grew considerably in size and its armor thickened and flashed with a sickly green before it flowed throughout his body. It now stood as tall as Fource and was as big as an outrunner. Its squeak turned into an insectoid roar as it had turned into a:

Badass. Spiderant. Corruptor.

“Corrosion suits you,” Reine said with a grin.

Buzzsaw roared before heading off towards Cary’s Bordermon.

“Hey wait for me!” Reine said and ran after him.


Meanwhile Lilith had teleported onto a ledge nearby the Rammers hideout with her Siren powers and called her contacts on the ECHOnet.

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s worse than I thought. We’re going to need all the back-up we have.”

To be BOOMtinued!

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Chapter 9: Truxican standoff, b*tches!

It was a feat that had never been recorded before. Some refuted the pictures, saying they were photoshopped and the one posting them ‘sux’ and could go ‘screw’ themselves ‘lmao’. But in the cavities their hearts never came to grow, even the ECHOnet trolls knew it to be true: there were enough explosions happening in one place for people to see it in space. Torgue was quoted as saying:
‘This sh*t is f*cking awesome, is someone f*cking filming this, seriously, c*ck t*tty Christ!’ That’s not us censoring his message by the way: the shareholders wired his voicebox with a digital censor. Why are you still reading this? Go buy the game, then read the rest of this and also maybe put a comment down there, m’kay?

“Fource, you there?” Reine said as she sounded like she was out of breath.

“Reine? Finally! Where are you?” Fource said. “The goliaths are heading towards your Skagzilla, watch your back!”

“I will, but I have a new problem to deal with. There’s a girl working with the Rammers and she’s got a healing gun. If I defeat her two badasses, she’ll join us and then the Rammers will go down very quickly,” Reine said.

“Sounds great, we’re coming your way then!” Fource said as he signaled for people to head out.

“Step on it,” Reine said. “Reine out.”

Cary held her hand above her eyes as the sun shone brightly. It was almost noon.

“What is that green thing coming over… Oooooh!” she said with glee as she saw Buzzsaw the. Badass. Spiderant. Corruptor! … Approaching!

“Coil! Regroup!” Reine said beckoning her badass shock scythid.

It hastily complied as it had large gashes in its sides from duking out with the two badass Bordermon on its own.

“Hey, we aren’t done yet!” Cary said as she held up her hand to order her borok to slag Coil.

A shot flew right past her hand. She looked over to Reine who had fired a sniper round while running.

“Hey that could’ve killed me you know, that’s not cool!” Cary said.

“Guess you aren’t a worthy rival after all then!” Reine yelled back, as she struggled to breath. Talking and running, bad combo.

Then Buzzsaw stood still before it reared its tail upward and started flinging corrosive projectiles at Cary.

“Shoot! Borbor, shield me!” Cary said.

Her borok stood on its hind legs as it gladly took all the projectiles as its varkid ally charged forward at Coil to pin him down.

What could have inspired such loyalty in Cary’s bugs? Could it have been intimidation, common goals like with Reine, Buzzsaw, Coil and Skagzilla Jr.? No, it was something else. That healing gun made her a dangerous opponent and those creatures knew it. She was already patching them up, f*ck.

Meanwhile Coil was oozing liquid from its gashes, it would not take long before it ‘bled’ out or whatever scythids did which would cause them to die. Reine had to get over there with some healing vials even as that would mean the varkid would be within striking distance. Nobody said it would be easy to become a bandit queen and that is why she wanted to become one. Time for another sliding move, now!

With an extra push by Buzzsaw, Reine slid and landed right next to Coil, give or take a few feet. She immediately jabbed all her healing vials in his insectoid skin before narrowly having her arm bitten off by the badass varkid.

“Back off!” Reine said and gave her threat force by shotgun blasting the bug at point black range.

Annoyingly, its armor proved to be thick as hell and it would not budge. Reine snarled at the varkid before pulling out a grenade, eyeing the bug and then Cary before throwing it at the latter. The varkid hesitated as its instincts told it to rip Reine and Coil to shreds, before it flew back as quick as it could to protect Cary.

“I don’t think so,” Reine said as she aimed and narrowly shot off one of the creature’s wings with a single shotgun pellet.

The varkid nosedived as Buzzsaw directed its attention to the bug and pelted it with corrosive balls. Then the grenade exploded, spewing fire everywhere before releasing seven more smaller grenades. The fire ravaged the borok as Cary struggled to stand up. Her shield had taken most of the blast and fire damage, but her borok had made sure the blast did not break through it. It screamed and Cary trembled before aiming her healing gun and taking off its limiters. A flood of red energy overwhelmed the borok as it counteracted the continuous burning. Then the red energy ran out. Reine came closer with her two Bordermon still standing and Cary's... they had about everything they could take. She knew that.

“What? No no no no…” Cary said as she fell on her knees. “I lost?”

The borok hugged Cary to comfort her… though wits sharp mandibles it only served to make her yelp and hold his big head at a safe distance, before hugging back.

“Thanks buddy,” Cary said as the varkid came crawling as well as its one good wing flittered. They all came together in a very weird kind of messy bug embrace as the smell of burnt caterpillars filled the air.

“Weird,” Reine said before calling back Buzzsaw and Coil.

They would get some well-deserved rest.

“So… you’re gonna help with defeating the Rammers?” she said.

Cary looked up to her, teary-eyed.

“I… I don’t wanna be a Bordermon fighter anymore!” she said.

“Come again,” Reine snarled.

“I don’t like seeing them hurt, they almost died! I love you guys! Borbor, Kid,” Cary said as her two Bordermon nodded.

“Are you f*cking…” Reine said as she regained her composure. She had to handle this delicately. “I put a lot of time and effort into this, Cary. My Bordermon…” She cringed for a moment. “… were badly hurt as well, but they will keep on fighting. Meanwhile…”

Reine pointed at Skagzilla Jr. that roared as the Rammers brought an ever expanding horde of technicals against it.

“My clan is fighting the Rammers that you have been helping somehow. As you said, they aren’t exactly smart,” Reine said.

“I know, but… I thought I’d defeat you so you would respect me…” Cary said as she recalled her Bordermon. They deserved some rest as well.

Reine turned her head, quite confused for a moment. This girl seemed so dead-set on her goal, she had to be either insane or determined. On this planet, probably both. With the most sincere tone she had used since this adventure started, our bandaged badass said:

“You accomplished a lot in a short time. You now have two badass Bordermon that obey you without question and you made a healing gun the likes of which Pandora has never seen. You should be proud of yourself because… I respect you.”

Cary backed away as her jaw dropped.

“You mean that? Wow… thank you so much! But I still want to beat you!” Cary said.

“How about you train with me then?” Reine said with her positively silver tongue.

“Deal!” Cary said as she shook hands with Reine.

“Now as you would be so kind to…” Reine said as she gestured to the sea of metal surrounding Skagzilla Jr.

“I can’t, exactly, call them off,” Cary said and quickly continued as Reine glared at her. “Pyramid is still leading them, they helped me with building the healing gun in exchange for being able to mass-produce it and if I helped train Bordermon fighters.”

“Figures they wouldn’t follow you blindly… Hold on… they have more than technicals?” Reine said.

“Yeah?” Cary said.

“Come with me partner, we have a skagzilla to save!”

And so Reine had to run yet again with Cary in tow. As Junior razed the technicals with his energy beam breath, the Rammers and their vehicles exploded and flew everywhere, creating a spectacle of smoke, blood, fire and scrap metal.

“Aaaawesome,” Cary said, as she clearly did not quite get the death and destruction her new partner was creating through her command. Or maybe she did but she only cared for her bugs.

They arrived near the edge of the technicals that blocked off any route to Junior and they were too far away for Reine to shout commands through all the continuous explosions.

“He won’t last too long!” Cary said.

“How can you tell… Never mind, we need to get over there somewhere before…” Reine said before a super badass goliath landed right next to her, with the resulting shockwave throwing her and Cary several feet back and shorting out their shields as they tried to absorb the whole blast. This thing had leveled up twice and looked like it could make their insides explode with just one flurry of punches.

“What a coincidence, I was just waiting for you,” Reine said with a smile.

Just a few moments later they flew through the air on the shoulders of the super badass goliath as Reine held its stalk and skull in a tight arm lock.

“Okay, jump again!” Reine said as she pointed to Junior’s side.

“I’ll crack your skull open with my thumbs!” the goliath said.

“That doesn’t sound like a ‘yes ma’am’!” Cary said.

“Now!” she said as the goliath punched a technical out of the way.

“Die for me, b*tch!" he said before jumping as Reine had asked.

“Good boy,” Reine said with chilling delight.

They flew right into Junior and Cary and Reine quickly jumped off as the goliath dropped to the ground.

“Will he be alright?” Cary said worried.

“If he is, he’ll start coming after you when he’s done with the rest,” Reine said.

They climbed up to Junior’s ears where Reine yelled:

“Junior, retreat!” she said.

The skagzilla complied and jumped over the technical sea and back towards Fource’s forces… hehehe… that just arrived. Reine and Cary climbed off as the Bonecrushers started firing on the vehicles that came at them and commanding their Bordermon to charge. Fource looked from his Gym Leader to Cary and asked:

“New friend?”

Reine looked to Cary who trembled as she gazed up and down the hulking brute in stainless steel armor.

“Cary Loak, our new partner,” Reine said before turning to the girl. “You think you can get that thing to work again?”

“My healing gun? Yeah, just give me a minute,” Cary said as behind her the technicals started launching a hailstorm of explosive barrels.

“Shoot them out of the sky!” Fource commanded as the grenadier squad meanwhile took aim at the technicals, which were being torn apart from behind by the goliaths.

Reine recognized one as the one they were riding just a few moments before. It seemed to have leveled up again as throbbing veins popped up all over his body while it yelled:

“I AM A GOD!”

“Behind you!” a psycho yelled to the Rammers.

“Daddy was always so sneaky!” another one said.

The barrels exploded one after the other before they could hit the Bonecrushers, making a weird kind of dubstep music in the process.

“I don’t like this song!” a psycho said, as if he was sulking about being stood up on prom night. One would have to wonder what his tuxedo would look like.

“F*ck, they’re sending out packs of Bullymongs! Cary, how’s it coming!” Reine said.

“Done!” Cary said as she aimed her healing gun at Junior and out came a renewed stream of red energy.

Junior roared before firing three volleys of energy balls that wiped out the bullymongs in the blink of an eye. There were still more Bordermon coming however.

“When will this stop!” Fource said as he continuously fired and reloaded his shotgun at those technicals that came too close. He was almost down to his final ten shots.

“They’ll surrender… or we destroy them and take their hideout! Either thing works fine for me!” Reine said.

Cary looked over to Reggie who had somehow survived the first charge.

“Hey…” she said as she studied his mauled face partly covered with a rag. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Ah f*ck, get away from me you b*tch!” Reggie said as he ran away screaming.

“Well that’s not nice,” Cary said.

“Hold on, what’s that?” Fource said as he looked closer at the source of a higher amount of explosions than you would expect even with everything that was going on. Then he saw pink surges of energy followed by explosions.

“Lilith,” he said.

“What?” Reine said as she looked over to where he was aiming at. “What is she doing here?!”

“Ehm…” Cary said.

Reine looked at her as she saw a glimmer and punched a hole in the air as the space ninja broke its cloak and struck at him with his sword as he retreated to stand with a group of very, very powerful people.

Everyone abruptly stopped fighting as they looked at the small group of people that stood in the middle of the battlefield: a lean hunter covered in red shawls with a pointy grey goatee, with perched on his shoulder an alien bird; a behemoth of a man that had fists strong enough that they could blow up everything they touched; a muscle-bound, slightly less tall ‘man’, or perhaps monstrosity, with a breathing mask and who had all the tell-tale signs of a psycho but seemed infinitely more powerful…

Then there was the seventeen year old red-haired girl with a metal arm and a floating hulking robot; the space ninja that came an inch too close to Reine, that displayed a hologram of a red 0 in front of its helmet; a stoic looking woman with a hood and a high-tech looking round throwing shield; a short, heavily built man with a quiff hairstyle and generous beard, who had downed too many testosterone cocktails and at the moment proudly carried a rocket launcher in each hand…

And no, we’re still not done! There stood an ex-Dahl soldier holding two SDUs in his hand, presumably to deploy fully upgraded turrets with launch pads; a sadistic looking woman with skunk hair, a blue lady suit and freezing gauntlets; a blue-haired woman with tattoos on her left arm and a gun in her right hand who appeared to be a powerful, but relatively inexperienced Siren…

And then with a pink flash, another Siren with hair that looked like flames appeared, along with briefly shining wings of fire… Lilith, formerly the Firehawk, had brought all the Vault Hunters to end the war.

“Move out of the way, would you dear,” Reine said.

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

My sincerest apologies for the long wait due to a massive decrease in free time, though the latter thing for all the good reasons. This fanfic’s updating might become a bit less frequent and predictable as a result though:s

Chapter 10: You woke the wrong dog!

Fighting mooks was great and all and it would get most normal people killed on Pandora. There were however greater challenges lying in wait for those that survived. They called these challenges… boss fights. Was Reine ready?

“Well, you must be the new leader of the Bonecrushers. You lack the tact that kept Fource alive for this long,” Lilith said with an aside glance to the armored man standing next to Reine.

“Gym Leader, actually,” Reine said. “Now, if you could move…”

The Bonecrushers, Vault Hunters and Rammers’ eyes were all on Lilith and Reine. Our bandaged badass could not stand down now. Fource looked worried, but decided not to intervene. Cary seemed to fear the Vault Hunters, as she hid behind two marauders.

“If it’s a fight you want, it’s not what we’re here for,” Lilith said as she gestured to the numerous Vault Hunters. The dual rocket launcher toting buff guy growled loudly as he eyed the psychos. “Well, most of us anyway.”

Though her appearance and half-closed eyes made her seem like more of a seductress, Lilith had made sure to remind everyone how out of their league she was. In terms of combat ability, not, not in terms if you could date her! Though seriously, do not even try.

Reine knew all too well about the Eridium-empowered Siren and her ability to walk in and out of this dimension, releasing massive amounts of energy in her vicinity as she did so. In fact, if Lilith tried to ‘phasewalk’ as it was called right now, she could wipe away Reine in one blow. That she did not even bother with such an action, even if she had done so only two minutes ago, meant that she did not think Reine was worth expending the energy to obliterate. It was humiliating.

“If you don’t want to fight, I suggest you and your little minions get out of the way,” Reine said as she pointed at Junior, who was still standing there and aching to mow down the Vault Hunters. And everything else.

Lilith smiled. It was the kind of teeth-showing expression that hinted at her desire to explode your insides then and there. You had better hope to never piss her off that much.

“If you are trying to take over the bandit clans, I’ll tell you right now Pandora doesn’t like a single leader. You don’t want to share the fate of those that came before you,” Lilith said. “If you persist, I’ll be happy to seal your fate right now.”

Reine leaned in very close.

“Wiping out the bandit clans, now why does that sound familiar? You’re no different than those leaders, especially the last one. Last time I checked, he lost,” she said.

The other younger and blue-haired Siren, Maya, had managed to immobilize the enraged Bonecrusher goliaths before putting them in heavily fortified cages for the moment. They would have to decide what to do with them after this mess was over.

“It appears our new Gym Leader has more tact than I do,” Fource spoke up.

“So it seems,” Lilith said as she put her hand on Reine’s shoulder.

It hurt like hell, but Reine did not as much as grit her teeth. Lilith and Reine both stepped back as excited whispers went around the crowd. Lilith waved her arm before speaking up:

“How about we settle this with a one-on-one Bordermon fight?”

The crowd roared. In only a short time, Torgue had gotten people pumped for this new kind of entertainment. All aboard the hype train, Lilith thought with a shake of her head. She looked over to Reine.

“I accept,” the latter said.

“Me too,” a voice said as a man wearing something akin to an Egyptian pharaoh stepped out of the crowd. “I’ve been looking forward to watching Fource kneel. And now I can have her do the same.”

Reine cracked a smile.

“So you must be Pyramid,” she said. “If I ever kneel, it will be to turn you into a eunuch.”

“It’s settled then,” Lilith said as she gestured for the crowd to make room. “We’ll give both fighters time to prepare themselves. Whoever wins will gain control over both the Bonecrushers and the Rammers. If anyone doesn’t approve of the merger, they’ll be allowed to leave or I will personally make sure their assailants will be turned into cannibal soup.”

Several Vault Hunters groaned. They wanted to get in on some of the action as well.

“Okay so if we use Cary’s gun to heal…” Reine said to Fource before Lilith interrupted.

“Cary?” she said. “I know you’re there. Now come here.”

Cary whispered ‘Damnit!’ before coming from between the marauders and started walking towards Lilith. Reine grabbed her arm.

“What the hell is this! She knows you?” she said.

“Yeah,” Cary said with a tone indicating she thought it was by far the most normal thing on Pandora to be on what seemed like close and friendly terms with the most powerful person in existence. “She’s friends with my uncle. Mister Torgue.”

Reine shook her head in disbelief before saying:

“What the actual f*ck!”

“Cary, now,” Lilith said as Reine let go and Cary walked on over.

She quickly handed the red gun to Reine whispering:

“You earned it.”

Lilith wasted no time in scolding the girl as Reine closely followed the conversation. How many mind-boggling secrets could a teenager have?

“Cary, why the hell are you down here in a full-out bandit war? This is no place for someone as young as yourself.”

“But you brought Gaige and she’s barely older than me!” Cary said.

“She also has a metal arm, is a technical genius and oh, she can summon a giant floating robot that shoots lasers!” Lilith said.

“I could make one too! Mister Torgue helped me with finding Borbor and Kid and teaching me how to shoot!” Cary said excitedly.

“He did… yes, that sounds like something he would do!” Lilith said while facepalming. “In any case, I’m getting you back to your parents.”

Reine meanwhile recalled Junior. The problem with such a huge creature was that it needed a lot more health vials than they could procure at the moment. And if left alone it would start eating the bandits to get its daily truckload of food.

“Nooooooo, they’re on a vacation on the other side of the galaxy! Uncle Mister Torgue said I could be a Bordermon fighter, please don’t ruin this for me!” Cary said.

Lilith sighed.

“I’m going to give Torgue a stern talking to after all this,” she said. “Behave yourself during the match.”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Cary said before a glance from Lilith prompted her to study her shoes.

“Can I borrow her for a moment?” Reine said. “We’re kind of partners.”

Lilith threw her a look like she did not know what she was hearing, but just waved her hand.

“Sure, whatever,” she said.

Cary looked up with a wide smile and skipped over to Reine and Fource as they were studying the red gun or ‘CPR’ as Cary had called it. Reine looked to the teenager.

“How does this thing work?” our bandaged traveler said.

“Well first you have to choose the energy flow rate, then you need to make sure the pistons are calibrated and…” Cary said and it would seem she could go rattling on for hours.

“Just heal my Bordermon already,” Reine said.

“Alrighty!” Cary said.

And then it was time to decide this very short but intense war once and for all. Pyramid stood on the other side of the impromptu battlefield, smirking. Reine gestured as if she was holding a knife and cutting through certain frail parts of the human body.

Pyramid nervously looked the other way, towards Lilith who stood on the side with her arms crossed as some Vault Hunters behind her passed around popcorn.

“What are you looking at me for? I’m not gonna be your ring girl. As for the rules and a referee… do whatever you want,” Lilith said.

“Fine by me!” Pyramid said and immediately threw down an SDU.

The creature that materialized in front of him resembled a pterodactyl, save for its inverted dragonoid head, though because its wings were vestigial, it crawled over the ground on all fours, with long claws on each limb and a tail pointed towards its prey like a scorpion’s. Except this creature could fling spikes with its tail or scratch open your eyes before turning invisible and sneaking up on you again. Yes, Pandora has a creature that generates an electrical field that makes it turn invisible at will. What I just described by the way, was a normal ‘stalker’, as these creatures were named.

Pandoran biologists seemed to be quite practical when deciding on names for the wildlife they encountered, which presumably had something to do with said wildlife trying to eat them as they brainstormed. I am pretty sure the resulting brain smoothie was not what they had in mind.

What? Oh right, the stalker. This one was a more dangerous version of the cyclone stalker variant. You guessed it, they rapidly spin into their targets, all the while deflecting incoming projectiles. They also fling rotating spikes, because why the hell not, which cut right through you. But wait, there’s more! Pyramid somehow got his hands on a zing stalker, which is also charged with shock, giving it an immunity against that element which is the best one to use to whittle down the shields that protect the stalker’s ability to turn freaking invisible! Well, all I’m saying is, it’s gonna be a tough fight.

“I guess I’ll keep that one alive,” Reine yelled across the battlefield. “Yield quickly if you will, I wanna save on health vials.”

“F*ck you,” Pyramid replied.

I am getting this feeling Reine is disagreeing with me on purpose. Or is she ignoring me? Please don’t ignore me.

Reine threw down an SDU and out came Buzzsaw, all healed up.

“You’ll get plenty of rest after this, I promise. Now… let’s go claim us a whole bandit clan!” Reine said as she pointed her finger squarely at the zing stalker. It bellowed as its smooth, dark blue skin crackled with electricity.

Buzzsaw let out an insectoid roar and reared up its abdomen before shooting a barrage of corrosive projectiles. Pyramid smirked and issued a command to his zing stalker, which started spinning in less than three seconds and went flying at Buzzsaw, all the while shrugging off the badass spiderant’s attacks. Now it was Reine’s time to grin. She knew corrosion would not do much on a shock creature, so she ordered Buzzsaw to rear up and stand on its hind legs to come crashing down right when the zing stalker was beneath him. The creature went flying back to its master who narrowly dodged it.

“You b*tch!” he yelled before demanding a salvo of rotating spikes.

“Dodge!” Reine said but Buzzsaw’s far heavier frame had reduced his mobility enough that he did not yet get used to it and so he took half of the spikes head on, its body shuddering as the charge burrowed through its muscles.

Its armored head proved to be quite tough, so both Bordermon had barely gotten a scratch. Speaking of the zing stalker, it had disappeared while Buzzsaw was shaking off the broken off spikes.

“Invisible a**holes,” Reine muttered with clenched teeth as she looked around.

It was recharging its shield so they would have to start all over with whittling it down. If it attacked from closer by while cloaked, there would not be enough time to use the body slam tactic on it. So how could they reliably locate it…

“Acid. Spray it everywhere,” she said.

Buzzsaw understood her through some additional gestures and complied, making it rain acid across the battlefield, though it took precious time to cover every part, which gave Pyramid’s stalker time to get closer and closer. Reine looked at him briefly: he was sweating. Then a flash of green spreading out in the air and revealing a contour of the stalker.

“Got you. Now!” Reine yelled as Buzzsaw came running and trampled the stalker, the resulting blows shorting out its shield and canceling its invisibility.

“Full on attack!” Pyramid yelled.

The stalker screeched as its camouflage broke and leapt with electrified claws. Reine ordered a ground pound and right as the stalker reached Buzzsaw, he came crashing down and sent corrosive goo flying everywhere. Reine ran over to the two with the CPR in hand. As she got close, she saw that the stalker was heavily bleeding. Pyramid came running as well as Buzzsaw shivered from the shocks buzzing through him, though he was not even close to finished. Reine waited for Pyramid and he hung his head in defeat.

“You win… b*tch,” he said.

“Raise your hand and swear loyalty to me,” Reine said.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I, ugh… I Pyramid swear loyalty to Gym Leader Reine and pass my leadership of the Rammers to her,” the former Rammers leader yelled across the battlefield so everyone could hear it.

“Thank you,” Reine said and gave the stalker a jolt with the CPR, healing it up just enough that its biggest gashes disappeared in minutes.

“That’s Cary’s gun… that sl*t!” Pyramid said.

“I defeated her a few hours ago. Trust me, I’ll make good use of her, this gun and your Rammers,” Reine said with humiliating delight. “B*tch.”

“F*ck you,” Pyramid replied.

“Aaah, I have a feeling this is the start of a beautiful dominion,” Reine said.

“To be continued, initiate guitar solo meyele meyele meeeeeeeeeeee!” Torgue said, signing us off on this tenth chapter with more to come!

 

[Scriptor Scorpio]

Chapter 11: This one goes up to… TWELVE!

“How the hell can it update so slowly? This is c*ckf*cking bullsh*t!”

Mister Torgue, saying it like it is. Sorry Torgue, I have things to do, places to be and I just don’t have a lot of free time anymore.

“Well f*ck you!”

Well that’s just mean.

“Hey man, I’m sorry. It’s just, I kinda enjoy this limelight you know. Makes me feel all fuzzy inside.”

Yeah sure, enjoy it man. Now, on with the ‘plot’. What plot you say? That is an excellent question.

“I will never swear loyalty to you!” a teenager said dressed in similar but less ornate Egyptian pharaoh robes than Pyramid.

The teen ran away shaking his fists defiantly as he fled.

“And that would be…” Reine said raising an eyebrow.

“My son,” Pyramid grumbled.

“Teenagers,” Fource joined in.

“I like his outfit,” Cary said with a bubbly tone.

Reine had gotten Pyramid to show the Bonecrushers around in the Rammers’ hideout after Lilith and the Vault Hunters had left. The red-haired vixen that could crush your dirty thoughts, and most of your body, with her mind, mumbled something about ‘keep[ing] the moonbase trained on them’. Our bandaged gym leader had shrugged.

“It’s the same outfit he’s been wearing since you joined us. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Pyramid said.

“Paying what? No no, my parents pay everything,” Cary said.

Pyramid facepalmed.

“How did I ever get fooled by the likes of you!” he said.

Reine held up the CPR.

“Must’ve been this shiny gizmo you so desperately wanted to mass produce,” Reine said, cracking a smile. “You will do that… for my purposes.”

“F*ck you,” Pyramid said.

“I have someone else taking care of that, but thanks for the offer,” Reine said.

She had gotten real close to her goal, somehow without having to duke it out with the other queen of Pandora, Lilith. Our bandaged double gym leader did not quite know what to do with herself now that the only way up was conquering more territory. She managed all that in just a few short weeks, miraculously avoiding getting pulled into…

“Hello people of Pandora, this is Mister Torgue, saying that I’m one proud motherf*cker. Wait no, I love my mother but not in that way. Anyway, what was I talking about again, oh yeah! Because you’ve all been fighting each other like crazy, it’s almost time for me hosting the Illegal Off World Torgue Sponsored Death Bordermon Tournament! Or IOWTSDBT, whoohoo! See you there and now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cry manly tears of joy in my room, which is basically the same room as I’m in right now because this space truck is a cheap-a** piece of metal sh*t! Torgue out!”

And then came Torgue’s announcement for the tournament Reine had been trying to avoid getting drafted into from the beginning.

“Oh yeah, quick thing, Gym Leaders can also participate and if I were you, I would challenge Reine of the Bonecrushers because she has a freaking Skagzilla and two Gyms! Torgue out!” Torgue helpfully added.

“That muscle-bound mustache is on my list,” Reine said with barely contained fury.

“Huh… how many challengers do you think are gonna Fast-Travel here in the next fifteen minutes?” Cary said.

“I’m betting 312,” Fource said, handing Cary some money.

Cary nodded and went over to a board with a great number of bandits from both the Bonecrushers and Rammers clans gathered around. Reine approached them and yelled:

“What the hell is this!”

“It’s us betting how many challengers there will be and how quickly you’ll defeat them,” Cary said.

Reine glared at her before saying:

“514, 20 minutes.”

“That’s a lot of time per battle,” Cary noted.

“It’s not per battle,” Reine said.

“500 dollars!” Reggie yelled at Cary.

“Hi there,” she said with a gentle smile.

Reggie yelped and fell backwards, accidentally unloading his shotgun in Eigger’s behind.

Fource quadruple facepalmed. Try saying that six times in a row.

“So, anyway… Boss b*tch,” Pyramid continued, “the big guy’s called Rambo, the pale looking fellow with the fangs is Bram Stoker, Anagram’s our mission control…”

Anagram, a perky woman in her mid-twenties with headphones that seemed mostly there for esthetic reasons, winked at Reine.

“Hi sweetie,” Anagram said.

“And our cook Ramen is making some…” Pyramid went on.

“Let me guess, sushi? And he’s Japanese?” Reine said.

“What? No. He’s Italian and he’s making pasta in the kitchen,” Pyramid said. “Why would you think…”

“Never mind. What is your computer specialist called?” Reine asked.

“We don’t have one. Why?” Pyramid said.

“No reason, keep it that way. Now… Someone get me everyone’s Bordermon. I want to get this Gym Leader challenging sh*t over with,” Reine said.

The bandits quickly complied and right as Eigger, holding a hand on his sore behind, handed Reine the last SDU, a pack of thirty bandits came running into the Gym. They all sent out their Bordermon and one yelled:

“Reine of the Bonecrushers and Rammers, we’re here to…”

He got shut up promptly when he felt the still warm bits of all his group’s thirty Bordermon around his cheeks, shoulders, arms and pretty much everywhere.

“Ramen!” Pyramid called to the cook. “Hold off on that pasta, we’ve got meat to serve! Also make some sauce, we’re gonna need it for the singed parts.”

“Girate adestra, tortellini luigi!” Ramen yelled.

“Neeeeeext!” Reine said, aiming her shotgun at the first group’s speechless spokesman and gesturing for him to get a move on.

His buddies had to drag him along as Reine cracked a smile. This obliterating of foes went on for quite some time until…

“513, just one more!” Cary said before turning to see someone walk in.

The woman had an ehem, voluptuous figure barely covered in a half-naked outfit. She looked she came straight out of a fighting game. Ooooh, buuuuurn.

“I’m looking for Reine,” the woman said.

“And ehm eh… who might you be?” Fource said.

The woman winked at him as she looked Fource up and down. He had now just ditched the armor and helmet as all eyes were on Reine anyway and he proudly gestured with his four strong arms. His bare chest had not gone unnoticed by the as of yet unnamed scantily clad fighting game woman who probably had less personality than a male ant. Double burn.

“Ooooh. Are you the price? Now I’m really gonna put in the effort,” the woman said.

And still she was unnamed.

“State your name, or I’m going to call you Miss Backpain of Impending Sagging all over your Stomach,” Reine said.

“Oh so touchy. I knew that had to be padding,” the woman said, nodding at Reine’s bandaging that mostly hid any figure she had. “Anyway, the name’s Polly. Polly Gonad.”

A few bandits could not help but chuckle.

“You guys will have to wait in the back of the line if you want some Polly-gamy,” Polly said.

The bandits immediately stopped and hung their heads in eternal sadness. It was then that they realized their fleeting shreds of existence were insignificant drops against a stellar canvas that had spanned space and time since time immemorial. Then they remembered they were unnamed side characters that only had these kinds of thoughts because it was their defining and only characteristic for a one-off gag. Back to the story.

“So,” Polly said as she turned to Reine. “Would you be the A-cup I’ve been hearing so much about?”

Cary crossed her arms in front of her chest, whimpering.

“I’m A-list alright,” Reine said turning her pistol over in her hand. “I never heard as much as a whisper about you though. If you want a chance against me, I’d suggest you get some people to help…”

Fource got Reine’s attention and she paused as he pointed her to the board. Just one more opponent to beat in 5 minutes. Reine looked back to Polly.

“Well then. You wanna fight?” Reine said.

“Well I came here to turn all your guys by giving them the best time of their lives and also to fight you, to rub it in. Let’s combine the two, shall we?” Pollly said.

Reine narrowed her eyes for a moment before she summoned Coil and Buzzsaw. They both squeaked murderously.

“No Skagzilla? I’m so… disappointed,” Polly said, letting out a seductive sigh.

“This room’s a bit too small for it,” Reine said, now widely smiling.

“Why not go outside then?” Polly said.

And so, they went out into the open.

Reine sent out Skagzilla Jr. and after it roared long and hard for enough time that every other living thing scurried from the former bandit warzone, our bandaged badass said:

“You got what you wanted. Now let’s see what you have that could possibly be a match for these three killers.”

“Hmmm,” Polly said as she looked Skagzilla Jr. up and down with utter fascination. “I’ll let your two small toys play with mine…”

She sent out two Badass Bullymongs who swiftly attacked Buzzsaw and Coil before digging up an SDU from her barely-there outfit’s cleavage. She kneeled down slowly to put it down on the ground before standing up, once again very slowly as the creature digistructed in front of her and shot away as soon as it finished.

Everyone looked up to the sky and back to the seductively smiling Polly as her secret weapon was revealed: a pterodactylesque creature that was known to feed on thrash and to be very weak… if however this one did not turn out to be a big badass variant with glowing corrosive marks and huge talons.

“You checking out my rakk?” Polly asked Reine. The latter did not respond.

It immediately started raining down acid bombs onto Skagzilla Jr. as it was unsure what could possibly be hurting it. Though it was agile, it was not used to something so comparatively small; smaller than a Runner at least; hurting him at all. Besides Reine. Baaaadaaaass…

Reine grinded her teeth. It almost seemed like the perfect counter to her best Bordermon.

“You’ve been watching me, haven’t you?” Reine said.

“Almost as much as they’ve been watching me since I arrived,” Polly said and winked. “Let’s play, shall we?”