Meeting at the Station
So, you want to hear another story, eh?
One where the very fate of Pandora hangs in the balance?
If not, too bad – I'm telling you anyway.
First, there was the Vault: an alien prison opened with a mystical key.
To the warriors who opened it, the Vault was just a container of tentacles and disappointment. They vanished into the wastelands, certain that the Vault held no treasure at all.
They were wrong.
The Vault's opening triggered the growth of Eridium, a priceless alien element.
Soon, the rare and valuable mineral emerged all across Pandora.
Its appearance attracted many. Including… the Hyperion Corporation. They came to Pandora to mine Eridium, and bring order to the savage planet. Through their excavations, Hyperion uncovered evidence of an even greater Vault.
Their leader vowed to find it – to use its power to civilise the Borderlands, once and for all.
But Hyperion weren't the only ones searching for the next Vault's alien power. The call of danger and loot is not so easily resisted.
Certain warriors came to Pandora in droves to uncover its hidden secrets.
Some would call them adventurers. Others call them fools. But I… call them Vault Hunters.
And let's not forget our old friend, the slightly insane shopkeeper and his two companions, the assistant and the Skag.
Our story begins with them, and with a man named Handsome Jack…
XXXXX
I made it to Pandora, hoping to learn more about Sirens, my powers and why I'm hearing that there can only be six existing at any time, and not a couple of days later I was walking by a strange man who handed me a pamphlet. When I read it, I saw that the leader of Hyperion, Handsome Jack was looking for Vault Hunters.
It's not like I had much choice. There were two Sirens on this planet and both had been searching for the Vault in the beginning. Though I had heard that later on after the Vault had been opened, one of the Sirens had disappeared. Deciding that waiting wasn't going to get me anywhere, I made my way to the train station.
Arriving at the station, I saw that I wasn't the only one to be invited. Standing spaced out were four individuals, three were holding pamphlets – same as mine - while the last was bent over to… scratch a Skag's head? What the fuck!?
Deciding that it was better not to pay attention to the weirdo, I took a look at the other three.
One was definitely a soldier… or he was. Instead of the stoic face that a soldier usually has, he was wearing a cocky smirk on his face. He's probably a commando… or was? Damn past and present tenses. The Fathers at the monastery glossed over that.
Next over was a short man, who was unnaturally buff. Probably drugs. On his back he carried two oversized assault rifles. Damn.
I'm pretty certain the last guy was some kind of robot, as when I looked at him, he was staring right back at me. Scary, definitely scary.
I noticed that the commando was walking over to me.
"Hey," he spoke in greeting, "What's your name?"
"Maya." I replied. He looked like the kind of guy who would keep pestering you until he got what he wanted.
"Cute name. Mine's Axton. So you got a pamphlet as well huh?" he asked. He definitely had a cocky attitude.
He was starting to get annoying, but I answered him anyway. "Yes."
He was starting to get uncomfortable with my short and quickly spoken replies. Good.
"Train's taking its time." Well at least we're thinking the same thing about the train.
"Yeah, I just wish it would hurry up and come in already." I spoke to him.
He looked like he was about to start laughing. I wonder why.
Then he spoke, "That's what she said."
After he said that he broke out in laughter, followed by chuckles from the other two. The weirdo with the Skag was too far away to hear. Still what he said was confusing.
"Yes, I know that that is what I said." In a moment, Axton suddenly stopped laughing and looked at me with wide eyes, followed by the other two. The sudden laughter and its sudden stop caught the attention of the last man who started walking in our direction.
"You don't get it?" Axton asked.
"Get what?" I replied.
"You don't get 'that's what she said'?" his confusion was evident in his voice.
I was starting to get angry now. "I said it and I am a 'she', so that is what she said.
The three looked at each other before laughing out right, the short man bellowing.
That is it. The man with the Skag must have seen the anger in my eyes, as he took a couple of steps back. My Siren tattoos glowed blue as I yelled at them in anger.
"STOP LAUGHING!"
They instantly stopped and looked at me.
"You seriously don't get it, do you?" Axton finally asked as he saw that I was calming down.
"What don't I get?" I asked in exasperation.
"It's a sex joke!" the short man tells me.
I feel my face heat up in embarrassment, and I can tell by the looks on their faces that they realised I really didn't get it.
"You don't know what a sex joke is?" Axton asked in surprise.
Maybe telling them a bit about me will take their focus of this.
"I was raised in a monastery and they didn't really teach me about sex, just glossed over it" I told them, not mentioning that most of what I learnt about sex where in some Mad Moxxi magazines. Though I am still trying to figure out what the comments about sexy carrots had to do with sex.
"You're lucky that you weren't born a boy." A voice spoke out. We all looked towards the weirdo as he continued somewhat nervously, "You know, because of what Father's do to little boys."
What he said got chuckles out of the other three, but I was still confused. I decided not to voice my confusion.
He looked to me and spoke, "Your name's Maya." How did he- "Good hearing, heard you from way over there. My name's Ichigo."
He held out his hand and, being raised by the Fathers at the monastery to be polite, I shook it.
"The pleasure is definitely all yours." Dammit, me and my damn mouth.
Ichigo just chuckled before taking a step back, allowing the others the introduce themselves.
"THE NAME'S SALVADOR!" the short one really had a voice on him.
The one that looked like a humanoid robot spoke next.
"I am one of death/In this world I slash my foes/I am known as Zero." He spoke strangely.
"What language are you speaking!?" of course it would be Salvador to yell that.
"It's a haiku." Ichigo spoke with a reminiscent smile on his face. "That takes me back to the old days."
"What the hell's a high-koo?" Axton looked like he was having trouble pronouncing the word.
Ichigo chuckled and told him, "Not high-koo, haiku. It is a form of poetry, five words then seven words, finished by another five words. It also has to have seventeen syllables all up. It's quite difficult."
He looked towards Zero, "It was good, but you had added an extra syllable."
A side-ways sad face showed up on Zero's mask. It kinda makes you feel sorry for him.
Zero looked towards Ichigo then spoke, quite normally I would say.
"It would seem I will have to work on that. For those that didn't get it, my name is Zero." He spoke in an almost normal voice, if it wasn't for the mask. There goes the robot theory.
Hang on, wasn't there a Skag with Ichigo? I looked around the platform, but didn't see it. Was I hallucinating?
Ichigo noticed my confusion. "Looking for something?"
"Um… didn't you have a Skag with you?" I asked uncertainly.
He was looking at me as if he had seen something funny. What's his problem?
"Yeah, he's on the train right behind you." He spoke, pointing behind us.
As we turned around, I heard the surprised gasps of Axton and Salvador as I saw that the train had indeed arrived. As Ichigo said, there was the Skag, just sitting there wagging its tail. When did it get there? The train, not the Skag.
Ichigo cleared his throat and spoke, humour clear in his voice. "While you guys try to understand what's happening, I'm gonna wait for you in the train."
While the others started discussing how that happened, I just gave up and got on the train, followed by the boys, who were now cracking jokes to each other.
As the boys got distracted by a sign hanging at the front of the carriage with the writing, 'WELCOME VAULT HUNTERS' next to a picture of a man with a mask on his face – most likely Handsome Jack – I walked over to the strangely dressed man.
"We're here because of Handsome Jack. Why are you here?" I asked him.
He pulled out a couple of wanted posters with mine, Axton, Salvador and Zero's faces on them.
"Someone put these posters on my shop. They were covering my damn merchandise. I heard that this train would be heading in the direction of the people that made them." He told me with irritation in his voice.
"So… you're just a shopkeeper?" I asked him.
"Mm hm." Was his reply.
"And you somehow own a tame Skag?" the confusion was definitely clear in my voice.
He looked at me unhappily. Wonder what I said?
"I don't own him. Chad has been with me for what, the last five or six years. He's been with me since he was just a pup." He told me about the Skag, Chad, with a calm smile on his face.
I was about to ask him if he's got any tips for surviving on Pandora, seeing as from what he had just said about being here for the last five or six years. But a call from Salvador caught both of our attentions.
"Hey guys, you might want to see this!"
I look towards Ichigo, who just shrugs and nods his head towards the others and leans against the wall, hanging his arm down to scratch Chad's head. Guess he'll stay there.
I walk over to the group only to see the sign welcoming us fall down only to show us another sign which read, 'TO YOUR DOOM!' and in little brackets, 'nothing personal'.
The doors to the next carriage near Ichigo opened as two loader bots entered the room with guns at the ready.
I hid behind a beam on the side of the carriage, as Axton ran at the bots before sliding past them on his knees, throwing a small hunk of mettle into the air. The word 'useless' went through my mind until it turned out to be a flying turret. Its bullets ripped through the loader bots like a hot knife through butter.
I saw two more enter behind Axton and used my Siren power that I dubbed 'Phase lock' on one of them, raising it in the air before smashing it into the other, making them both crash through the side of the train, creating a hole.
More were coming in and I noticed three heading towards Ichigo, but Salvador screaming out caught my attention. I turned to see him pull out both of his guns and blasting through the bots. He's definitely a Gunzerker.
I turned to check on Ichigo, only to find a pile of maybe ten loader bots and no Ichigo or Chad. What the hell happened there?
And where the hell is Zero? I couldn't see him anywhere in the carriage. Poking my head out of the hole, I saw him fighting two engineers in suits on either side of him. One tried to punch him, only for his fist to go through him. Zero appeared on the other side of him and pierced him through the chest with his sword. Where the hell did he hide that? He used his sword to flip himself over both engineers and kicked the other one into his sword. Okay, I'm impressed.
XXXXX
Hell to the fuckin' yeah! They're gonna die!
Shut up! I am trying to think here!
I don't care!
You will care when I come over there and shove this pole up your ass!
… Shutting up now.
Good boy.
Grrrrrrr.
I wonder when we will be released from our prison by him.
Who cares? He forgot about us and now all we can do is show up and change how things happen for only a short moment of time.
I believe he still remembers us.
But he left us here.
Oh but when we get out, we will definitely beat his ass up.
Really!?
Yes.
Well, this is going to be FUN.
XXXXX
As the door to the head carriage of the train open, we entered it. Salvador entered first, followed by Axton, then me and taking the rear was Zero. We hadn't seen Ichigo or his Skag since the beginning of the fight. We saw a chair surrounded by screens with the Hyperion logo on it. As the last one of us walked through the door, it slid shut behind us and the click we heard signalled that the door had locked itself.
The chair turned around to show fake Jack made out of metal and wires and a bomb strapped to its chest. A voice came out of nowhere, presumably Handsome Jack's.
"It's cute that ya'll think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but you're not."
Suddenly a light flashed and I saw that surrounding the chair on the ground was possibly around thirty to forty bombs.
"Welcome to Pandora, kiddos."
Just as the bombs were about to go off, I whispered one thing under my breath.
"Oh fuck me."
EXTRA
"Mikasa-san, Annie-san, wait up!"
"…Hurry up."
"You don't have to be rude Mikasa."
"I'm in a bad mood."
"Well, you had to get back to Pandora anyways, didn't you?"
"Hah… I guess you're right."
"Of course I am. Now why don't we wait up for your apprentice?"
"She is not my apprentice."
"Will you two please wait up? You do remember that I'm running away from the authorities?"
"Very well, we're here anyway."
"Um… Mikasa-san, Annie-san?"
"Yes/Yeah?"
"Thank you… for all of this."
"You're welcome… Gaige."
XXXXX
[A.N.]
Ok, so you're probably wondering why I'm uploading this when I still have the entire first game to go through. Well, I'm doing this to cement not just to you guys, but to me as well that I will not only finish Pandora's Shinigami, but that I will also do a sequel and also the Pre-Sequel.
This will either be in Maya's, Lilith's point of view or third person instead of Ichigo's as I don't want anyone to know what's going through his head.
Also to freechimchangas, as I really liked your username, if you want to you can leave a review or PM me something you would like to happen and if possible I will make it happen.
Pairings for this story
Ichigo x ?
Mikasa x Annie
Maya x Lilith
Zero x Tannis
You guys may not know this but I work better when I am typing up multiple stories, as when I get writers block for one story, I can suddenly have ideas for my other stories.
So I had these two crossovers that I would like your opinion on.
Overwatch x Bleach
I'll probably figure out where I would take this story when I start writing.
Max Payne x Bleach
An alternate universe where Max Payne and Ichigo Kurosaki are the same person.
I have only played the third game but certain things that happened in it, I think could be better. Also with this I could write a slightly more realistic Ichigo.
So tell me what you think. Love it, hate it or don't care.
Umm so yeah. I will probably at the end of this month or next month, upload the first chapter of Pandora's Shinigami: The Pre-Sequel.
