Title: You Should Reconsider

Description: Pandora's bandits aren't gentle creatures. They're violent, murderous, thieving assholes. This is the story of one, after some interesting occurrences in his otherwise gentle life of pillaging and destroying.

Characters: Ocs almost entirely. A few Borderlands characters may or may not show up at some point. I've still yet to play Borderlands 2, so it's unlikely those characters will appear. If I do play it, I'll let you know.

Warnings: Bandits have a shitty way of dealing with women and so rape, sex slavery, and torture are all present. I will never get graphic with rape, but it is mentioned a lot. There's also generalized misogyny and a mention of teeth pulling as a torture method.

Pairing: OcxOc

Rating: M, for strong language, probably some smut, and general Borderlands crazy stuff

She put up a damn good fight.

People passed by the bandit camp all the time due to its position by the road, but rarely did they come in the camp with guns blazing. Hell, he could only remember dealing with a mercenary once, and that was a long time ago and the guy had been a pretty piss poor example of one. They had taken the merc out before he managed to take out 6 of them, a meager number compared to some horror stories he had heard from other bandit camps.

But if this girl was a merc, then she was an entirely different breed of one. She had taken out half of the camp of 50 bandits in under 10 minutes. He'd only caught a glimpse of her twice, once when she felled that crazy asshole who liked to set himself on fire when he went into battle (Jeff? He couldn't remember. Nobody cared about the psychos as individuals anyway), and again when she shot Simon between the eyes. He was kneeled down behind a pile of metal rubble, hastily reloading his gun next to Simon's corpse, wondering if the green stripe going through her white blonde hair had been intentional. The proximity to a dead body didn't bother him; he had been next to plenty before, some he had even been responsible for. Simon had always been a dick, anyway, if she hadn't shot him he probably would have a few days later.

He didn't cringe when he heard her shotgun explode and the thump of somebody falling over dead on the other side of his shelter. He didn't really even give a shit as to who was now dead. This entire camp was full of immoral assholes, himself included. He cocked his gun; a nice revolver that he had beaten the shit out of some rich dude to get about two weeks ago and hadn't put down since. He timidly peeked out from behind his cover. She stood with her back to him. Her hair was long, almost reaching her waist, and had a peculiar bright green stripe down the middle of it. She also had a really nice ass, a fact he appreciated.

His echo was picking up a pretty decently powered shield on blondie. His revolver could take it out with two shots, but by then it would be too late. His current shield was rubbish; some dick had stolen his old one from him while he was sleeping so he had to pick up a 70-er from the shit chest. He wasn't banking on a skilled merc attacking the camp when he had selected it, but damn his timing.

He dared to scoot out a fraction further from his cover to see if anybody was nearby. Beneath an overturned runner huddled somebody. He couldn't quite tell who, but he saw the orange of their mask glowing in the darkness. She didn't appear to see him, and was slowly walking forwards, gun ready to fire. He made a motion to the guy under the runner. He wanted the other guy to jump out and take a shot at her to get her shields down, and when she was vulnerable he planned to nail her in the backs of the knees with his revolver. Women were few and far between; especially ones like her. It would be a shame to kill her, and she could also give information on who hired her. People hadn't attacked this camp for a long time for a reason.

It took some creative hand motions to carry the message across, but eventually runner guy signified his understanding with a nod. Runner guy pulled out his gun and fired once from beneath the overturned car, taking out half of her shields, and runner guy sustained a few hits to his own shield before her fizzled out with a bang. Now that his mask was visible, he managed to id runner guy as Smith, one of the more decent people at the camp. Smith fired again for good measure, catching her arm. She cursed loudly and turned to take cover where he was waiting, but he fired his revolver quickly at the fleshy backs of her knees and she fell hard.

"Bastards!" she screamed, and he noticed that she had fallen on her wounded arm. Smith cackled and jogged over to her. She had been shot in her gun arm and was making a desperate struggle with her left hand to seize her weapon. Smith was on her in a second and knotted his hand in that long blonde hair to yank her off the ground. She hung pitifully by her hair, making an expression of extreme pain. "Pretty Boy! Nice shot!" Smith called to him, and he smiled back at him, despite the fact that Smith couldn't see his mouth. Pretty Boy came out from behind his cover and stooped down to look at Smith's captive. She had green eyes, similar in shade to the stripe through her hair.

"Fuck you doing out here, sweetheart?" Pretty Boy cooed, and she glared at him and tried to strike with her only good arm. He caught it and made a "tsk"ing sound from behind his mask, and smith yanked upwards on her hair. She cried out. "Now you don't wanna piss me off even more, do you? You've taken out half of my men and fucked up more than half the buildings in this camp," Pretty Boy hissed, and twisted her arm.

"Go to hell," she responded with clenched teeth. Pretty Boy laughed and twisted her arm harder, earning another cry of pain that made him feel oddly guilty inside. He usually felt no mercy for his victims, but blondie here was earning some sympathy despite being one of the most badass motherfuckers he had fought. "Didn't you get the memo? I'm already fuckin' there. Look around honey, Pandora's pretty close to whatever good ol Lucifer's got cooked up for us," he responded, releasing her now injured arm. He made a motion to Smith to drop her.

"The fuck? I did more damage than you, why can't I keep her?" Smith protested. Pretty Boy held his revolver to Smith's head. "I like how slow your shield regen is. Mind if I see what my revolver does to your face? Afterwards, I think the psychos may like to have a bout with you," Pretty Boy said casually, as if he were suggesting a Sunday stroll. Smith dropped her unceremoniously and she fell on her ruined knees, crying out again. He flipped Pretty Boy off and then retreated, spitting a "Carry the bitch yourself, then, fuck knows she can't goddamn walk."

It was true, her knees were ruined, and it would take a couple of visits to one of Zed's machines to fix them. Pretty Boy pulled a pair of handcuffs from his inventory and wrestled Blondie's hands behind her back. Even with only one arm she was unusually strong, especially for a woman of her size. Despite her strength she was injured, and Pretty Boy was not weak. He clipped the cuffs on and she let out an enraged growl-like noise, not unlike a caged skag. "Come now honey, I won't hurt you unless you make me," Pretty Boy said, leaning down in front of the girl. She spit on his mask, the droplets hitting the plastic with a thud.

"Alright," he said, wiping the spittle with his sleeve, "Guess I've gotta shut that pretty mouth of yours until I get you to a more reasonable place." He pulled a roll of duct tape from his inventory and bit off a strip. She didn't put up much of a fight this time. Pretty Boy supposed the reasoning was that she had three extremely painful injuries that had just been rubbed into the Pandora dirt. The glare she gazed upon him with was fiery as a sun. "Let's get you off of your knees, then." After a moment of pondering over how he would usually not say that to a woman crouched in front of him, he vied to throw her over his shoulder, head down, instead of carrying her bridal-style. She could get at him with her hands, which would be dangerously close to his crotch if he carried her in front of him. He kneeled down to pick her up, first taking a moment to remove that pesky shield. Whatever had regenerated fizzled out with a pop. Blondie screamed something at him from behind the duct tape. Up close like this, he could see her labored breathing, and the pain and fear in her eyes. The unusual and unwelcome feeling of guilt washed over him as he saw it.

"If you will kindly let me, I can try to fix those bullet holes in your knees after you give me some information," Pretty Boy stated, and then scooped her up. She didn't put up much of a fight once she was there, and he figured it was because of the stress on her injured knees the position created. Her breathing was jagged and she did not speak as Pretty Boy trekked across the camp to a holding cell of sorts.

It wasn't much of a holding cell in the traditional sense, but the bandits used it frequently. Blood was still splattered on the walls and on the floor where previous captives had been tortured. In the center of the room sat a slightly bloodied chair. Chains with open wrist cuffs hung above it. Pretty Boy walked over and sat Blondie in the chair, making quick work to attach the chains to her wrists, remove the original handcuffs, and suspend them above her. He then clipped the cuffs back on, just to be safe. Pretty Boy had never encountered a person with her abilities before, and therefore had no idea as to what she was capable of. She had two sets of metal things on her hands, and he doubted it would be possible to escape.

"Alright, miss, as soon as you give me just a little information I can go get the shit I need to fix your legs and your arms. It isn't every day we get mercs here, much less a woman. What the fuck's going on with that, Blondie?" Pretty boy asked, ripping the tape off of her mouth.

"Can't I just go and shoot up a camp of you good-for-nothing asshats without a goddamn motive? Nobody will care if I do a little clearing out of Pandora's scum," She hissed, after wincing from the pain of having the tape ripped away so suddenly. Her voice was full of bravado, but Pretty Boy assumed she couldn't keep the act up for long due to her multiple injuries. Pretty Boy laughed and shook his head.

"Oh, I'm all for a little cleaning, Blondie, but this isn't one of the camps people clean. No no, this is one of Sharkfeet's camps, you realize? People don't just fuck with Sharkfeet like that. Sharkfeet has a reputation around here for being somebody who kills mercs and anybody who gets in his way. We haven't even been all that active on raids and shit lately, so really there's no damn reason for you to have come here for that. I think you know that too, don't you," Pretty Boy stated.

"Fuck I care about some guy named Sharkfeet? And what kind of dumbass name is Sharkfeet anyway?" She barked back at him, jumping forward but wincing when the chains caught her. Pretty Boy's eyebrows raised from behind the mask. She really didn't know? "Only people who haven't heard of him around here would have to be off-worlders," Pretty Boy stated, more as a verbalized thought than a conversation point. He suddenly took a great notice in her hair, and yanked off one of his gloves. He grabbed a tuft of it before she could protest, running his fingers through it and pulling away before she could bite him.

"The fuck you think you're doing, asshole?" she snapped. He ignored her, choosing instead to voice his suspicion. "You are an off-worlder. Brand new, ain't you?" He asked. Blondie made a "tsk" noise and turned away from him. "You got that soft texture to your hair. It ain't been blasted by dirt and shit yet," Pretty Boy explained, pointing to his own hair (though you couldn't see it under the mask).

"Yeah, I didn't grow up on this shithole of a planet. And I did just get here. Atlas dumped me on this planet for my punishment. I'm a criminal," Blondie muttered. Pretty Boy laughed and motioned to himself. "A criminal? Dumped on Pandora? Un-fuckin-believable!" The bandit cried in an overdramatic tone. She made her tsk noise again and turned back towards Pretty Boy. "Yeah, I get my case ain't too special. Didn't kill anybody, so I don't know why I got such a big punishment as Pandora," She griped.

"What did you do, then?" The bandit questioned. He wasn't sure if he should be getting off of the topic at hand like this, but figured he was still in the safe zone. It's not like his interrogation of the girl was being monitored. She was interesting. In response to his question, she glared at him with those green sun-eyes. "The hell do you care? This doesn't have much to do with my attacking your camp, does it?" She snapped. Pretty Boy raised his hands in defeat. "Fine. Sorry for asking. Just was wondering.," he walked around to her other side, "and since you've brought it back up, want to explain to me what happened? Who hired you, maybe?"

In response, Blondie looked intensely down at the floor. "I'm not gonna tell you shit," she affirmed solidly. Pretty Boy sighed. She was probably protecting the person's name because she felt as if she owed him. She seemed like the sort of person to keep loyalties. Not a good type of person to be on this hellhole of a planet. He pondered over the new information for a moment, twirling his revolver on his finger.

"I've got a little theory, if you want to hear it, Blondie," He started, holstering his weapon. Blondie didn't move.

After waiting a few moments for a reply and not receiving one, he began to speak anyway. "I think that when you were dumped off of the prison transporter, you ran into the nearest town, probably being chased by skags. You were very thankful to your savior and shit, probably promised them a favor in return. They most likely asked a few questions about you and where you were from, why you were on Pandora, all of that jazz, and then realized that you had a very nice set of skills. They decided to take you up on that favor offer and lent you that super tough shield and a nice gun to go and shoot up this bandit camp for them," The bandit deduced. He crossed his arms and beamed proudly behind his mask. He was sure he had hit the nail on the head.

Blondie's face morphed into a stoic deadpan, the sun in her eyes suddenly going out. He waited a few more moments before rapping her on the head with his knuckles. She grimaced and jerked one arm forward, as if she was trying to hit him, but then seemed to think better of it and settled back down. The only sound was the jingling of the recently disturbed chains.

"How far off of the mark was that?" The bandit asked, placing a hand on his revolver to make a point. He needed answers. Blondie's head jerked up and she huffed loudly. "Most of that was..," she trailed off, digging her toe into some dirt on the floor. Pretty Boy coolly pulled the revolver out of its holster and aimed it at her foot. Blondie swiftly pulled her legs back to her, sticking her feet as far back under the chair as possible. It didn't look like a comfortable position. "Most of it was right. Yeah. Great for you. I'm so impressed." Her tone was sarcastic and her face curled into a sneer.

"Most of it, huh?" Pretty boy asked, and then took a step closer to her. As pretty and interesting as she was, the fact that she made him beg for the answer to every question didn't tickle his fancy. Not at all. He was sure some of the other bandits would be showing up soon and he wanted to have some more information to relay other than his correct guess. Or, well, allegedly close to correct guess. He brought up his right arm and tugged at his sleeve to reveal his watch. "You on a schedule, bandit?" Blondie taunted.

Pretty boy chuckled and nodded. "Sure am. And, according to my schedule, it's half past time for bullshit," he said cheerily, and then surged forward. He used the cuffs as leverage to lean forward into Blondie's face. He was intimately close, and Blondie's smug visage shifted to one of terror for a few seconds before taking on that deadpan look again. Pretty Boy let his voice drop low and menacing, digging his fingers into her wrists. "Guess you're going to have to stop the verbal shit-fest and answer my questions directly. Some of my friends will be stopping by soon, and they've got some special toys to make people talk. I think you'll find answerin' me now will be much more preferable." Honestly, he would prefer not to have to hear her screams of agony as Big Tim and Dentis worked their fucked-up interview magic on her.

He lingered there for a few moments, letting the meaning of his words sink in, and then released her as abruptly as he had seized her.

"Now, Blondie, what about my theory was wrong?" The sun in her eyes threatened to burst out of its lime prison and char him in the fire of her hatred. "The things chasing me were some pterodactyl fucks and the gun my savior gave me was shitty. The shotgun came from the first bandit whose brains I blew out."

Pretty Boy sarcastically applauded, and she spit at his feet. "I'll let the spit slide, since I needed to clean my boots anyway. I'm surprised! I wasn't sure if you could even answer a question outright," he proclaimed, sliding the tread of one boot over the top of the other in an attempt to evenly distribute the spit. After finishing the task, it was question time again.

"Let's try another one, then. Hell, let's get crazy and go for two!" He began to pace in a circle around her chair. "No worries though, Blondie, they're pretty similar questions." Pretty Boy came to a stop behind her and leaned in, close to her ear. She shivered as he began to speak. "First one is 'What's the name of your savior?' An' the second one is 'What's your name, Blondie?"

She writhed in her chains, trying to lean away from his head. For some reason, that seed of guilt tickled at his stomach. "Back up!" She barked. Pretty Boy didn't move. What did she expect?

"Back up and I'll tell you. Really," Blondie declared. Pretty boy took three steps backwards and clasped his hands behind his back.

Blondie side-eyed him and sighed, clenching her hands into balls in the cuffs. "I didn't catch a real name but other people called him Ricky Randal or Rickety Randal or some shit like that," she spat, 'And why does my name matter to you? You'll probably just call me Blondie anyway."

Pretty Boy laughed, this time a genuine one. "You're right, I probably will. But it's not really for me, Blondie. It's for the higher ups, so they can dig up some shit on their new prisoner before they—" he paused here. Should he tell her that she would probably be sent off directly to Sharkfeet, and he'd use her in any way he felt like using her? A Pandorian female prisoner would probably already understand what their fate was going to be, but, being an off-worlder, Blondie might have no idea of her future…employment. Something told him she wouldn't be incredibly responsive to the idea of becoming a slave. Guilt hit him like a wave as he stared at her, solar eyes, soft hair, unblemished tan skin.

Sharkfeet would destroy her. He'd rape the sun out of her eyes, chop off her hair, and riddle her skin with scars. Sharkfeet would take away her sarcasm and willingness to dance around questions. Pretty Boy had seen some of his slaves before. They were shells of women; girls with dead eyes, dead spirits, and nothing to say. The leader of this particular camp had a few slaves, but they were different. They still laughed sometimes, still objected to things they didn't wanted to do. They simply looked miserable, not like phantoms. Sharkfeet liked to break girls, crack open their insides and tear out all that made them happy and a person, riddle it with bullet holes, and stomp it into the dust.

He looked away from her confused as unexpected anger began to bubble through him. He was angry at Sharkfeet, angry at what he was going to do with Blondie, but he didn't understand why. Why did Pretty Boy give a shit about this girl, who had spit on him twice and he had shot in the legs? Whom he had barely talked to?

Pretty Boy bushed the candle of his inexplicable anger aside and cracked his neck. "Sorry, sudden pain. Must have been from carrying your bodacious ass," he offered, as an excuse for the pause. Blondie rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Look, just tell me your name. It's not going to hurt anything," He stated with a wave of his hand.

Blondie 's silent kicking at the ground didn't come across as a positive response, so he devised another plan. "I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours," he offered, and then immediately began to ponder over where the hell that had come from as soon as the phrase left his mouth. Blondie's furrowed brow and confused expression seemed to say that she had no idea where the hell that came from, either.

Well, words failed him, but guns rarely did.

Pretty Boy raised his revolver and aimed at her feet. "Just tell me, or I will shoot your foot. I don't have time to fuck about anymore. Really." Blondie seemed to get the message pretty clearly that time. She looked at the gun, then down at her foot, and grimaced. "I liked the other deal better," She muttered with a smirk.

Pretty Boy flicked off the safety.

" Pyrtania! My name is Pyrtania. Do you need a last name too for your "records"?" Blondie barked, her feet scuttling frantically on the floor in an attempt to move away from his gun. Pretty Boy lowered the thing, doubtful. "That your real name, or are you just bullshitting me?" He asked skeptically. Pyrtania sounded like a pretty bullshit name. How did one even spell that?

Blondie sighed and nodded. "Yeah, it's my name. It sounds a little weird but…it's mine," she confirmed. Pretty boy stood there a moment, staring at her in silence to see if she piped up with a "Just kidding!". Whenever she raised a quizzical eyebrow at him, he let his gun arm drop to his side.

"Gotta say, I like Blondie better," he stated matter-of-fact. Pyrtania frowned. "Thought you would."

The door to the cell opened with the harsh bang of metal on metal. Pretty Boy jumped, quickly raising his revolver and pointing it to the doorway, a vision of 5 Blondies storming the room and shooting him up to free their friend prancing through his mind. Instead, she saw Smith, Dentis, and Champagne standing maskless in the doorway.

Champagne was the leader of the camp, one of Sharkfeet's five most trusted men, and he was a weird fuck. Champagne was a slim man of dark complexion who had an unnatural desire for the golden bubbly every five minutes. He carried a flask of it on him at all times, and on his worst days he had a special bit of gear devised to deliver champagne straight to his mouth at the press of a button. The contraption consisted of a large tank that he wore like a backpack and a straw-headpiece. Normally, he wore a mud-stained black suit and a tophat, and his idea of a bandit mask was a velvet eye mask with a monocle built in. His only visible weapon was his jet black gun cane, but Pretty Boy knew of at least four SMGs tucked away somewhere in that suit.

Pretty Boy holstered his weapon and saluted his superior, a practice Champagne insisted on. The bandit leader offered him a curt nod and Pretty Boy dropped his hand. He hadn't known any other bandit leader who demanded that his men salute him. Then again, he didn't know of any other bandit leaders who wore a suit. Dentis stood at Champagne's right arm and smiled broadly at him. Pretty Boy had to suppress a shiver at the sight of the man's mouth.

Dentis was one of the camp's torture specialist, and he was seriously fucked up. He had an obsession with teeth and the collecting of them, and made intricate dentures from the pulled teeth of both prisoners and animals alike. Pretty Boy had heard that Dentis had yanked out his own teeth long ago to make room for his prized oral artworks. Today, the man wore dentures of what looked like the curved black teeth of a young skag. Some of the teeth stuck out from his lips, and it looked to be a struggle to keep his mouth closed. Dentis was a short, stout man with a crew cut and a long scar stretching down the middle of his face. He was perpetually moist and appeared as such. His breath always reeked of blood and skag shit.

Pyrtania's demeanor had changed noticeably when the three men walked in. She set her face into a hard, cool expression and stared pointedly ahead as Champagne approached her. The joking, sarcastic bitch she had been a few second ago was gone. She had a good sense of things, Pretty boy decided. The attitude she had adopted earlier would not work very well with Champagne, and definitely not with Dentis.

Champagne stopped three feet in front of Pyrtania's chair and folded both white-gloved hands over the top of his cane. He stood in silence for a few moments, looking her over. Pyrtania stared stubbornly ahead, not looking in his direction. Champagne turned his head towards Pretty Boy.

"This woman singlehandedly slaughtered 25 men in ten minutes. Have you been able to figure out who she is, who sent her, and why?"