Chapter 1

Blair Mackenzie, The Wildcard

The sun shown through my apartment window in the floating town of Sanctuary. The alarm clock started to blare (no pun intended) and I quickly shut the damn thing off before I got headache. I still must have been tired because my hand just hung on the clock for five minutes before I got up to a sitting position. I rubbed my eyes and blinked away the sleep before getting up and heading to the small dresser that held my clothes. I noticed the sweat on my sheets and pillow as they were scattered around my bed on the floor. Suddenly I remembered the nightmares from last night. I hadn't had them for awhile until my arrival on Pandora.

"Your hair is raven colored. Raven damn it. Don't let anyone else tell you other wise."

After taking a few shaky breaths and shaking my head of the thought, I was focused again.

"Another day, another round of training, fixing, hunting, and patching up wounds that would make a normal medic cringe," I mumbled.

It wasn't long before I changed and was scanning through my hidden storage chest for the gear I was going to bring in my daily routine. I decided on what I usually decide on: a fire elemental Maliwan sniper rifle, Ms. Moxxi's Bad Touch (tipping regularly has its benefits), the old red Hyperion Sniper rifle that had no elemental benefit and would have been outclassed by the future designs if I didn't keep upgrading it, and my family's blue, explosive Maliwan revolver. Call me old-school but I prefer some of the older designs that the gun manufacturers made better than some of these new ones. I grabbed some of the MIRV grenades and my shield before attaching my ECHO device. The final touch was my good old Hacker-Jacker.

"Time to see what's on today's agenda. I just wish Lilith would give me a schedule. It'd make me feel less scattered."

…...

I blinked before responding to Lilith, making sure I was emphasizing enough to receive a good answer.

"You want me...to do something the Vault Hunters can't?"

Lilith shook her head. "They're busy dealing with things in the Dust. It's not that they can't do it but they aren't in a position to where they CAN do it."

"No training the soldiers and recruits? No helping Zed? No random bout of dealing with Patricia's ECHO logs and Scooter's love interests?"

"Yeah Blair."

"You want me...to investigate some bandits transporting goods?"

"Yeah. I figured it would do you good to get out some where further than the grounds below Sanctuary. You've just seemed a bit, how do I put it, antsy," Lilith explained.

Before answering with what I was going to say, a thought crossed my mind.

"This wasn't from when I nearly killed some of your Crimson Lance veterans from laughing about my hair right? I personally patched up the guy who's leg should have been amputated because of my revolver. I'm pretty sure he was thankful for that."

"No," she replied.

"Okay. Well was it because I nearly beat a recruit when he didn't show up for training? He won't be laughing about keeping a schedule now."

The Siren sighed.

"No Blair, it's not because of your...overreactions, you've just seemed antsy. I figured you'd like to get out and you know...deal with bandits. You haven't done that for a while and I know how much you hate em."

Alright good. There isn't any reason to believe my overreactions, which I blame on my previous quirks being psychotically amplified from the crazed planet that is Pandora, and I don't have to be worried about being excommunicated or something.

"So when can I go Lilith?" I asked.

"Whenever you want to Blair. Just make sure you try to identify what they could be moving alright? I'll leave the rest of the planning up to you. I trust your capabilities to do things smoothly."

I stood straight and saluted. I tended to do that with leaders I respected and Lilith was one of them. I could say that because I fought side by side with her when she and the Crimson Raiders assaulted a large Hyperion foundry. Impressive leadership in the wake of Roland's death.

Lilith played along. She chuckled, "Dismissed Blair."

I walked out of the HQ and when the door was closed, I couldn't help jumping off the steps and clicking my feet together like the really old cartoon characters did. Needless to say I almost broke my neck coming down. I guess I had Sanctuary fever and Moxxi's pizza couldn't fix it.

…...

I had been following a small bandit convoy for hours. Espionage and stealth was never my specialty but on Pandora: it was learn or die. I was utilizing a special prototype stealth vehicle that wouldn't appear on radar and emitted very little noise. There was only one and it seated only two people but it was a keeper. I was on a hill that overlooked the plains and it was heading towards a small town, or possible outpost, seated under some mountains. Now that I look at it closer, it seems like a fort. Especially with the big building built into a portion of the mountain base. The small convoy was coming down the road. From a risky hack that made me get to close to the base for comfort, I learned they were taking a delivery first to a checkpoint and then to the holdout called Fort Holdout. Guess they aren't creative with their names. They didn't exactly say what it was though except that it came from a town they wasted. The bastards.

Click, Click

I have never liked hearing the sound of a shotgun this close to my head before.

"Turn around slowly and stay crouched or the rakks will eat brain matter today," a gruff voice ordered.

"C'mon man, let's wax him! We ain't gots ta do that ta someone since breakfast!"

As I turned I saw the one with the shotgun rifle butt the one who wanted to wax me, in the crotch.

"Shut it Asshole."

I smirked as I counted 5 bandits in total, "Now that wasn't a very nice name to call him."

The bandit pointed the shotgun back towards my head and responded, "No it was slag-head. His name is Asshole since he started responding to only that after being shot in the head."

"Don't call me slag-head. That isn't as rude but it still hurts."

Asshole pointed his rifle at me, "C'mon bro let's wax him! He can't tell you what to do Richard!"

Thump

"Don't tell me what to do Asshole! Now what are you doing shadowing our convoy? You with Hyperion? Or from the town that we cleaned out for not paying for protection?"

"Neither." I figured it would be best to stall as long as possible till I got an opening for my Hacker-Jacker.

"How about those Sanctuary bastards? You seem like the type."

I shrugged while looking up at him. "I'm just a merc man. Your convoy caught my eye so I figured I'd check it out."

He placed the dangerous end of the gun against my forehead. It was a Jakobs. Looked like it was modified to have a magazine. Probably was 7 rounds or so and it glowed green. Caustic ammo it seems. At this range it would punch right through my shields and kill me. Best case scenario would be that I end up as brain dead as Asshole over there.

"I should have blown your head off as soon as I saw you purple hair! Quit screwing around or Asshole over here is going to tear you a new one with his personal collection of slag treated torture tools!"

Suddenly I lost it. I don't know how to explain it but it was like I watched my body fight in some sort of out of body experience. I jerked my head to the side and quickly moved up, grabbing the arm and snapping it in half by bending it in two different directions. I shielded my body with his, holding him firmly by his neck (my arm wrapped around it to keep him tight). My revolver was drawn and I cranked off rounds faster than I ever have before. I put bullets in everyone but Richard and Asshole, who had actually cowered close to the ground when I started shooting. The other three bandits were missing limbs and organs that seemed to be melting as a purple substance sizzled on them. When did my revolver shoot slag? I must not have realized my pistol was out because I had it against the side of Rich and kept getting a click because of the lack of ammo in it. Finally I seemed to be in my own body again.

"Don't be such a dick, Dick," I whispered into his ears. I pushed him away and picked up his shotgun. I clubbed him in both his kneecaps, shattering them no doubt given by how he shrieked in pain, and turned the gun on his forehead. As I was about to pull the trigger, I heard a plea from Asshole.

"Please no! Don't kill ma brother!"

I stopped. Why wasn't I pulling the trigger?

"Please! He's all I have left."

I looked at him. Big sum bitch, looked like he could crush a skull with one hand, and he was begging like a child. By how he sounded in his speech and voice, he could very easily be damaged in the brain like I thought. Poor bastard. Then I sighed as I lowered the gun. I hate bandits with a passion, and on Pandora it's kill or be killed, but I don't think I could kill this guy. He seemed like Blaster from Mad Max on the Ancient Movie Channel.

"Get out of here," I smashed Richard's legs again to make my point, "Or I'm gonna tear you a new one with your own toys got it?"

A-Hole nodded and quickly picked up his broken brother and hurried away from me. Pandora brings out the crazy in people and no one could escape that fact. I turned back to my position and watched the convoy close in on the fort. The convoy had a truck that carried a large box. It looked like there were air holes but I couldn't see anything else interesting.

"Wanna go take out some bandits slag-head?"

I nearly crapped myself at the appearance of this guy riding on monstrous skag.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked pointing my empty pistol at him.

"That's not a nice way to greet a friendly."

"Who said you're friendly?"

He laughed and the skag seemed to do so as well.

"Says the guy who's been watching you for hours down the barrel of a sniper rifle and who didn't let the giant skag eat your oblivious ass. Were you trying to be stealthy? If so then you've only remained hidden from the convoy. From someone who is using military tactics, you failed to watch your back from a tail. Two of them to be precise."

I can only roll my eyes despite know he was right. I then questioned him.

"You know what's in that package these guys are carrying?"

He shrugged as he watched the convoy start driving into the outpost, "Nope. They're heavily guarded though. I was going to ambush the convoy till I noticed you had a bandit tail. Figured you'd owe me for helping you but it seemed you could handle yourself once your luck provided you an opening. So I'll ask again: you want to take on some bandits?"

I saw a big gate close behind the last truck in the convoy.

"Damn it. Not unless you want to stake out for the next group of traveling bandits. We're not going to get in unless we drop in from the mountain or something," I answered.

His skag pawed the ground and he pointed at an approaching dust cloud, "I think at the speed that guy's going we'll be able to get in. Wanna go? Because he's on a crash course to that closed gate."

He's right. There was a fuel tanker in the dust cloud and it was heading right towards Fort Holdout at probably over 150 miles an hour. Suddenly a form shot out the top of the truck's cab about 150 yards from the gate.

"Holy crap! Is that...is that a person?" I asked the skag rider.

"Looks like it," was all he said before the truck and tanker collided with the big gate and fort wall.

FWOOOOOM!

"Let's go," the two of us said simultaneously.

I hurried to my Stealth Buggy and when I was ready, I barreled down the hill and the skag kept up with astonishing speed. From what we saw the driver of the truck had safely landed and was on his feet with something in his hands. I figured it was a gun so we sped up to provide assistance to this one man assault.