There Ain't No Heaven

BY

SHINSOU808

Obligatory Author's Note: Notes on Lore and Changes from standard Borderlands gameplay

This story is rated M for gratuitous use of foul language, alcohol and tobacco references, blood, and decapitated limbs. If you haven't seen them yet, I'll probably include it. In any case, you play an M-rated game. There should be no surprises.

The things that let me down the most about Borderlands were the paper thin plot, the limited scope for player character and (most of) the NPC's, and limited scope of the "planet" itself. While I try to adhere to the limited gleanings of background information from the game and the Wiki, a significant portion of it will be original or my own spin. This will include, but not limited to, original concepts such as new lands, companies, people, creatures, etc. While canon is nice (and admittedly limited), originality is even better. If the game mentions things like "Sanctuary" and "Brigadiers" but does not back it up, its fair game.

The other player characters and NPC's in the game will probably not be featured, but they will be given appropriate nods and some "flavor material" parallel to the game. Other characters may travel to this new section of Pandora, but will mainly stay in "canon lands" as I like to call it. Character history will be expanded upon compared to the paltry amount of hints and history the game provides. It's better than not being mentioned at all.

Whenever possible, ballistics will be taken into account. Rifle rounds are different from pistol rounds, which travel farther, faster, and are far more lethal. Headshots for humans are one-shot, one-kill without shields and/or tank-like Crimson Lance armor. Bullet drop, while limited, will also be in effect. Magazine capacities will probably be standardized as well, though I haven't figured out what I want to do. In short, no 6-shooter revolver will magically increase its capacity by three rounds, be able to snipe a bandit at 800 yards, or be walking away from a headshot. What can be done here will probably be translated in the story.

For the sake of a better story, the Second Wind mechanic will be limited to second tries and not third, fourth, fifth, etc. However, positions other than the default kneeling one will be utilized. Player character will be able to move in a limited direction.

Class mods and skills will have a severely downplayed effect in the environment. Automatic ammo and health regeneration, increased magazine capacities, team recoil reduction, etc. will be thrown out.

If it can be kicked down, shot up, blown up, or otherwise destroyed, it will be done. Everything has an equal and opposite reaction. Claptraps may be murdered in the making of this story.

Lastly, all trademarks belong to their respective owners, including Borderlands to 2K Games and Gearbox Software and all original concepts created by me, myself, and I.

Note: This disclaimer may change.

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Chapter 1

The Devil's Garden

I woke up in the back of the bus. It brought back a lot of memories, like I coming to this burnt out planet all over again. The hot wind that blew through here sucked. There was no fan to help. It was Marcus' same old rickety-ass bus. Most of paint was worn, like a scag had sat in a couple of the seats. I could hardly see anything out of the boarded slats for windows. His personal souvenirs that littered the floor could kill me more than his guns could. It sounded like the perfect place to rekindle old memories. But sadly, instead of a whole menagerie of assholes like before, it was just me on that bus, listening to Marcus' stories on how he neutered the great Skagzilla.

"She was a fucking beauty, wasn't she?!" Marcus cackled through the rear view mirror. "She could give birth to 9,000 new skags a minute! We could have skags for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner if their meat didn't taste like fucking shit!"

Though I wanted to laugh, I was too focused on my own thoughts. Glancing up at the mirror, I saw Marcus frown a bit, "Jesus fucking Christ! Cheer up, you turd! Here!" He tossed a pack back at my head.

I caught it looked at it suspiciously. The packaging looked liked it was soaked in a mixture of his own piss and alcohol beforehand. I flipped open the flimsy leather cover with my roughened hands. There were five cigarettes tightly squashed in like skags in their holes. I wasn't sure what to do with it.

"The hell are you lookin' at it for!? Take one! I didn't take a piss on 'em, trust me!"

I shrugged and took a joint. Lighting the thing was quite easy considering it was probably a hundred degrees outside. I took a puff. I usually don't smoke a lot but if someone offered me a cigarette to light up, who was I to refuse?

It kicked like a fucking mule. "Goddaamn! This thing is strong. What the hell did you put into it?"

He ran his hand through his greasy hair. "Nothing but the best for my best customer. Though what's in it is a trade secret," he chuckled. "Don't worry. I won't ask you why I'm taking you to Devil's Garden."

I certainly hoped he wouldn't ask. From what I gleaned off in the bars, Devil's Garden was a land of opportunity, an oasis from the terror from what I've been through on Pandora. The possibilities were endless; no more skags, free food that didn't taste like crap, and a smokin' hot baby girl better than the Guardian Angel herself. Part of me wished the Angel existed, but man she was annoying. If it wasn't for the Vault, I would've told her to shut up.

Marcus smiled wide enough so some of his gold teeth showed. "But ya' gotta admit, you're really lucky. I know the road to there! Most people don't know it even exists!"

"Cause most people die trying," I grumbled.

"Exactly! Then the Vault story came around and businesses were boomin'! Hahaha. Look man, I'm sorry about the Vault, I really am, but I think this'll work out better than the Vault."

"I hope you're right."

Well, for starters, I never knew all the Vault had was a giant blob monster. I was planning to leave this planet with the new fortune I would've had. Not to mention the guns, the money, or even a baby girl to keep me company. None of those. The $250,000 Tannis paid wasn't much and was certainly not enough to leave the planet. I've heard rumors about inflation or some shit but this was unbelievable. Exit costs went past a million dollars with at least half a million dollars going toward fees! Even selling some of the really powerful weapons weren't enough.

When I couldn't afford the exit fees though, I blew most of my money on the good stuff. I've got to admit, New Haven has some pretty mean booze in the evenings. The spiderant flavored stuff certainly got me with its sweet and fiery flavor. If the alcohol wasn't enough, then the guns were even more enticing. Gotta love the guns! Guns were like women, you'd just go from one to the other. I nearly spent a fortune going through them.

The bus soon screeched to a halt. Its brakes whined and squealed under the heavy foot of the man pushing it.

He craned back; smiling wide enough that his gold tooth reflected all the sunlight into my weary eyes. "We're here!" he announced. "Chesterville depot! Can't you smell the fucking roses today!?"

"Yeah, that's great. Lemme get my stuff first," I said.

I'll admit, it wasn't much. In a way though, I'm starting back all over again with my Dahl Havoc M3 machine gun, a couple grenades, enough magazines to last me through a few firefights, and enough money to not make myself bankrupt within a week. I haven't had Marcus bail me out yet but I was getting pretty close. I think he knew I was in money troubles. It was only a matter of time before he eyed me as a stoner indebted to him more than an equal partner.

Once I had gathered my belongings, I made my way past the chewed up seats to get out. I was ready for a fresh start, to finally leave the Crimson Lance behind.

"You'll be fine," Marcus said while resting his hand on the gear stick. "If you could handle the Vault, you can handle anything. We've been over this before. We just need to get some support from the locals, do some animal killing, whatever you need to do to lay the foundations for a trade network. "

"And," he winked and grinned. "I'll take care of the rest. Piece of cake!"

I smirked. "Hell yeah, this is going to be a cruise."

Marcus swatted me on the arm. "Now that's what I'm talking about! You know the drill, if you need something, there's ECHO. If you need to kill something, you have a gun." His expression suddenly turned serious. "Get to it; we've got work to do."

I stepped off the bus and watch it drive away over the horizon. Thinking of a good place to have a smoke, I searched my pockets and realized that I had left Marcus' awesome cigarettes on his bus. Damn. A smoke could wait until I figured out how to get in. The landscape certainly looked more hospitable than Pandora with a cluster of lively looking trees off toward the east. The sun reflected off of the calm pools of water. For first impressions, this was not looking so bad.

"Good morning, sir! Welcome to Chesterville!" a familiar digital voice cried out. It was unmistakably a claptrap, one of those god-awful robotic manservants that would be better off being mauled in the middle of nowhere.

I looked down and saw one of the yellow and red those things staring at me. "Your face is not recognized by the registration database, sir. Unfortunately, I cannot let you proceed without proper identification and clearance."

I kneeled down and looked into its dazed red eye. No biggie, the Vault finder was me after all. I should be able to obtain the necessary DNA clearance. "You got a DNA scan on you?"

"Yes, sir! Analyzing… pulling from global ECHO database…"

"HA…HAHAAH!" it squealed. I wanted to grab its square little ass and punt it back over to Fyrestone.

It closed its robotic arms together, like it was gasping. "Oh my god!! It's… it's you! What did the Vault look like, sir?"

"You wouldn't believe it," I said sarcastically.

"I sure wouldn't, sir. We'd all dream the Vault was going to contain the code to badassery. We could be CL4P-TP, interplanetary ninja assassins! But noooooo, we're still button mashers."

He scurried off to a heavily used New-U post where I did my business, mostly getting the system to reconstruct me in the general area instead of New Haven, Fyrestone, or god-forbid, the Eridian Promontory. I didn't want to fight Guardians and their god powers again. I knew Marcus wouldn't appreciate shuttling me back here every time I did something stupid. Besides, if it was the same as Pandora, I'd think I'd fit in well here already. Gonna be a walk in the park.

We continued down a narrow pathway, passing a few shot up signs along the way, read. The settlement was in sight. A wall of corrugated metal encircled a settlement of war damaged buildings. Smoke was rising from the center of town.

I heard a buzzing sound and thought nothing of it. The Claptrap, on the other hand, freaked out like crazy. He stood frozen in fear. His metallic arms jittered and spurted out like someone short circuited him.

"Holy shit! Not them!" he exclaimed. "Get cover, sir!"

He didn't need to repeat that again. As soon as he said that, I heard machine gun fire and barreled to the side. I caught a glimpse of that flying thing as it pulled out of its dive. Its engine coughed a bit as it struggled to push the flying scrap metal son-of-bitch higher into the sky. I instinctively squeezed off a couple of bursts from my machine gun. The bullets most likely missed their target though.

"What are those things?" I asked it.

"Those things are called 'airplanes', sir. But according the local nickname, they are called 'buzzards' among other things. As you can see, sir, airplanes are hard to take down with regular small arms fire. Dahl Corporation's guided rockets are highly recommended!"

"No shit," I said. Thanks, Captain Obvious. I could've figured out that on my own.

We were mostly quiet walking the rest of the way down, although the claptrap stumbled a few times. A couple minutes since I got off the bus and we were through, almost. Between me and the 15 foot high gate of tires and scrap metal were a group of four bandits. As long as the annoying robot didn't freak out again, my ass was going to be fine. I had my machine gun locked and loaded with grenades at the ready in case things turned ugly. Inserting one of Marcus' grenade mods crossed my mind a bit but I was sure I wouldn't be needing them.

"Hey you! Sweet bitch in there! Open the goddamned door! I got kids to feed and bills to pay!" said one.

"We won't cause trouble!" said another. "We just got big dicks!"

Any idiot that listened to their bucketload of excuses could tell that they were full of it. I immediately opened fire and found cover behind an old Dahl dumpster. My machine gun clattered like a wounded old chainsaw. The bullets flew everywhere. Some of them ricocheted off the rocks, some punched though the corrugated scrap metal like a hot knife through flesh, and some actually hit. By god, they hit! The bandits screamed and moaned in pain but I was used to these sounds since way back. It was never a problem for me but I've heard people went batshit paranoid just from hearing those.

I aimed my crude sights at the next bandit that decided to spring from his cover and shot the bastard. He screamed in pain and a fountain of blood poured from his torso. Shifting my sights, I directed a stream of bullets to another one. The bullets tore into his shoulders, but failed to rip it completely off. It was still partially attached as he collapsed and gurgled in a pool of his own blood. Losing my patience with the rest of them, I threw a grenade. Crap flew everywhere; it no doubt turned the rest of their bodies into mincemeat.

"Haha. Mowin' 'em down," I said casually.

As soon as the shooting died down, I emerged from cover and surveyed the damage. I was hoping I could find at least one of them still clinging to life so I could stomp their heads open with my boots. Since they weren't going to be using their weapons anymore, I pried their blood-stained crap off of their dead bodies. The sweet smell of righteous death permeated the air. I never got over that smell; it kept me going every time.

"Goddamnit! 'Nother varmint!" a raspy female voice exclaimed. I looked around and noticed the loudspeaker on a post just left of the gate. It looked like it was shot up a couple times but it still worked.

"You can hear me, right?"

"Of course, y'twit! If I can 'ear the firefight outside 'ma gate, I can cert'inly hear you! The hell do 'ya want?" she demanded. Christ, she must be having a stroke today.

"Open the gate, for starters," I sarcastically replied.

"I don' know your face. You look like one 'o 'dose thugs that cause chaos for shits n' giggles! W'ere 'ya from?"

I shrugged, "New Haven." Using where I originally came from wouldn't have been a good idea.

"New Haven, huh? The only thin' good 'bout that place is that 'ya have Pierce to babysit 'ya. I still don' trust you. But since 'ya took care of some of the bandits, I'll let someone know to get 'ya in. Hang tight."

A couple of minutes later and the gate creaked open, struggling to find enough clearance for my head. Instead of finding that lady standing there, I was greeted by a very lanky figure dressed in torn green camouflage blobs that were pasted to his body. His face reminded me of Mordecai without his stupid mask, annoyingly thin and skinny. If he had a huge goatee, he could certainly pass off as him. His jittery cigar bounced up and down in the corner of his mouth. Once he took it out of his mouth, it shook violently in his hand. Burning himself seemed to always be a possibility for him.

"Oi you," he pointed at me with his ripped gloves. "Get 'yer ass in here before we have to dig 'yer ass out from the other side."

"And it's been the third time with you," he said, turning his attention to the claptrap. "My god, if you wanted to be assraped over the walls… YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SO!"

The claptrap scurried in front of me, running its motors to frantically reunite with its master. I casually walked under the straining gate, with some of the dirt and grime falling down on my forehead. There was a second wall of scrap metal just behind that lanky guy. My guess is that it was only for show; I could poke my finger through without a problem.

The gate slammed down behind us. "Your visit better be worth it, chump. I don't like raisin' the gate up too many times. She's way beyond her years," he said.

He pounded his fist on the speaker. "Work, goddamn you," he muttered. "I got 'em, Moira. I'll be sendin' in our guest here."

"As for you," he said simply, turning to the claptrap. "Come with me. I got some words for you."

"Yes, sir," the claptrap said quietly as they disappeared out of my sight beyond the maze of crap. Though I was kind of curious, I didn't it get the better of me.

I heard a squeak from the lock in front of me. "Go a'ead, its open. Pull it towards ya'."

I did exactly that. The door handle creaked open and I found myself staring at a deserted version of New Haven. I knew there were people inside those bullet riddled structures. The only question was why, but I had a feeling it had to do with the firefight earlier. Staring at the mud that rambled through the streets, I instinctively connected my steps; trying to get acquainted with my new surroundings. And where to duck in case a firefight broke out.

Finding that lady's office in the center of town wasn't hard though. There was a sign pointing the way, I could read, and follow simple directions. I walked through the door-less entrance and said a quick "Yo!" I wasn't too big on formalities and she looked like she didn't want to be either.

"Sorry 'bout the goddamn mess," she shrugged, tossing her frizzled brown hair behind her. "Just got flooded. 'Course our drainage system's crap."

I sloshed through the mess of her office, if it could be called that. My boots trampled on the books and papers that were scattered everywhere, even on the mud-soaked floor. Most of them had random scribbling on it. One book was for catnip and other papers were for a tire that crashed its way into somebody's home. I wondered if she could ever find what she needed, much less run a town.

She twirled her pen through her lanky fingers. "I don' look it, but I don' use missin' a leg and survivin' strokes as fuckin' excuses not to interact with the people. Helena may try to pull crap with her robo-arm and syn'tec skin and call it noble, but I don't. "

She threw the pen off to the side. Her eyebrows creased. "Most importantly, I can still shoot. See that varmint over'dere," she pointed out where I came in. "If I can hit 'em on a rainy day, imagine what ya' head's gonna be on a sunny day."

I didn't need a whole lot of imagination to know what that would look like. She rambled on, "But I know why you're here. It's 'cause that foo' Marcus is so damn persistent!"

I shrugged. "Well, he is the best."

"At robbin' ya' wallet full of dollars before you know what he sold 'ya," she spat on the floor. "The one thing he can't do is hire the right people. I've chased a lotta green dumbshits outta town ma'self, but you're different."

She pointed directly at me. "Like the ugly scarf around yo' head! If Marcus is gonna try to sell in my neck of the woods, he'd betta hope you're up to the task."

We discussed more about my arrival to this first stop. I think I made the right decision to start again. Hell, it might not be glamorous or pretty like in the good old days of the Crimson Lance, but it would do. Tannis must be laughing at me somewhere. I shouldn't have sold the Vault key to her. I should've milked the Vault Key's mysticism to fucking death. It is all too late now.

And Marcus, I have no choice but to trust that he's right. But if there was something I liked trusting…

It was a gun.

A/N: And that's the end of the first chapter. So what do you all think? Please tell me what you think and leave a review! Comments and criticism appreciated.