Borderlands is owned by Gearbox, while Worm is owned by Wildbow. I own neither.
So, like everyone else on Pandora, I've decided to keep an ECHOcast of everything I think, say or do. Hopefully, it'll keep me saner than the rest of the residents of this hellhole of a planet.
I should probably introduce myself, huh? My name is Taylor Hebert, and I'm a Vault Hunter. I wasn't always. Just a short time ago, I was a high school student. I had typical high school problems – home work, avoiding the bullies, being abandoned by my best friend. Sure, there was the ever present threat of an Endbringer attack, but that never seemed real. Now, if this is real and I'm not just tied up in an asylum somewhere, I'm a freedom fighter. A cape. A ... killer. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.
It started on a reasonably ordinary school day. My tormentors, lead by my ex-best friend Emma, had been leaving me alone. Or so I had though, anyway. The first thing I noticed when I entered the locker room was the stench. It stank like someone hadn't emptied the bin in weeks. With mounting dread, I approached my locker. Opening it, it was full of ... let's just call it garbage, yeah? I'm sure whatever you are imagining can't be quiet as bad as what was in there. Anyway, after I had finished throwing up, I felt a shove in my back. I think they were trying to trap me in my locker but instead, there was this purple flash and I landed on a metal floor, hitting my head. As I looked around groggily, I could hear some voices. I didn't really notice it then, but thinking back there was also a humming sensation on the edge of my mind.
"Whoa, Maya. Did you do that?" a man said.
"I ... um, no?" replied a woman.
"WE'RE RIDING THE POOP TRAIN! WHERE IS MY SALT!" screamed a third.
Wha...? I thought.
"Krieg, you are scaring her," the woman said, approaching me. "Here, let me help you up."
"Thanks." I mumbled as I took her left hand and stood. As I did, I noticed that she had ornate blue tattoos running up her left arm.
"Looks like you hit your head hard. This'll fix that up." She continued, before jabbing something into my arm.
"Ouch, hey, what was that for?" I yelped.
"Quick heal hypo. Anyway, I'm Maya. The soldier boy is Axton." She said, pointing to a man wearing fatigues and a metal design (a triangle above three bars, which were above another triangle, for those who care) above his left eye.
"The crazy guy is Krieg," she continued, pointing to a buff giant wearing only pants and a gas mask, "that's Gaige," this time pointing to teenage girl with her hair in pony tails and an honest-to-god cyborg arm who waved cheerily at me, "Zer0 is somewhere else in the train. So, what's your name?"
"Umm, Taylor." I replied, looking around. I'd just noticed that we were on a train, and we were travelling through an icy field. "Ummm, where am I?"
"On a train travelling to Sanctuary." Axton said.
"Uhh, ok. Because a second ago I was in school." I replied.
"School? There aren't any schools on Pandora. Explains the schoolgirl outfit, though," exclaimed Gaige.
"Pandora? Ummm, I was just on Earth," I said.
"Earth? That's like on the other side of the galaxy." Gaige said.
"Oh. Umm, we don't have space travel yet, so probably an alternate reality. We've already discovered one other alternate reality. Who's to say there isn't others." I replied.
Suddenly, a sign at the other end of the carriage fell down, revealing another sign with a picture of a guy's head and the words "To your doom!". As if this was some sort of signal, these boxy robots stormed into the carriage and started shooting everything up.
"Shit! Loaders!" Axton swore, pushing Gaige and I down. While I was content to huddle on the floor, Gaige wasn't. She quickly raised her left hand, and this floating robot made of scraps appeared and started clawing the loader with energy claws. She then pulled a rifle from ... somewhere and started firing wildly at the loaders while screaming about anarchy. Apparently Axton, Maya and Krieg were also fighting back, but hey, like I said I was huddled on the floor trying not to get shot. This continued for what felt like a few minutes before there was a massive explosion and everything went black.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the snow with a massive headache and looking at this small, inverted pyramid robot that seemed to be digging up snow while muttering to itself about dead vault hunters and some guy named "Hansom Jack". Pushing myself up and groaning caused it to stop digging, and start ranting about getting off this glacier. It then introduced itself as a CLTP-4P (or "Claptrap") robot, and started looting bodies that it had been digging up before giving me an "ECHO unit with a class 12 heads up display and minimap" and an "SDU". Luckily, the others had woken up by this time. Those of us that had survived, anyway. Everyone other than me seemed to be ignoring the robot as much as possible. Axton and a tall thin man wearing a black form fitting skin-suit and a helmet (who I later found out was "Zer0") were looting the corpses, while Maya was clutching her head.
"We should get out of the weather," Axton said, looking up from the last corpse. "Hey Claptrap, have you got somewhere out of the weather?"
"This way, minions!" the robot exclaimed before wheeling off. Looking at each other, we followed it. After a few minutes walking, we arrived at a door surrounded by, well, Claptrap corpses.
"Just a little added security." Claptrap exclaimed, rolling up to the door. "Gotta keep those bullymongs at bay, or they'll rip your eye out! ANND OPEN!"
At this, a light shone out of the door and scanned Claptrap. Apparently satisfied that the robot wasn't a "bullymong", the door opened. We then followed Claptrap into the blessed warmth of his lair.
We were soon sitting around a roaring furnace in a cave, warming up. The decorations made from dead Claptraps were creepy and the massive hole in the roof over the furnace didn't look safe, but hey, it was warm.
"So. Now what?" Maya asked, looking at the rest of us.
"We have to take stock of what we have, and then try to get off the glacier," Axton replied.
"Jack has attacked us. He will be killed by our hand. We shall have revenge," Intoned Zer0 in a distorted voice.
"Yep. Sounds good. But we need to get off the glacier first," Axton said. "Hey Taylor, what's in that SDU Claptrap gave you?"
There was a silence for a few seconds.
"Taylor?"
"I... think something is coming. I feel warmth? Fur? Taste ... blood?" I said, zoning out as the humming on my mind increased to hundreds of tiny points, all approaching in a cloud and sending me sensations.
"Ahhh, that is creepy. Now, the creatures around here are dangerous, none more than a Bullymong named Knuckledragger – killed everyone I know. He's just one more reason you've gotta help me get to the city of Sanctuary!" Claptrap stated, moving over next to the furnace. "That's why we need to head to Sanctuary, the last free town on Pandora. It's too dangerous out here! But, in here, we should be pretty safe – " Claptrap continued as the cloud of points swept in through the hole in the roof and down where the furnace's chimney would be.
The swearing and a metallic crunch snapped me out of my fugue. In front of us, holding Claptrap by his wheel in one hand and Claptrap's eye in another hand, was a massive four armed white gorilla. As the others scrambled to pull out guns, the gorilla roared, dropped Claptrap and swung back up the chimney and out of the cave. Except for Krieg. He charged it swinging some sort of axe thing screaming about salting wounds.
"What the hell was that?!" I yelled, scrambling backwards.
"Bullymong." Stated Zer0.
"That tells me nothing!"
"Whoa, calm down," said Maya. "How did you know it was coming, anyway?"
"I... I think I could feel the fleas on it. Huh, I must have triggered and become a cape. Great. My power is sensing fleas." I replied, calming down as I thought over what had happened.
"Cape?" she asked.
"Umm, yeah. About 30 years ago people on my world started getting powers. We're not sure why, though."
"Hmm. Sounds like Sirens. How many capes are there? What sort of powers do they have?" She asked.
"I'm not sure. One percent of the population? As for powers, every cape's power is different. They range from making hyper technology all the way up to flight and invulnerability. What is a Siren?" I replied.
"I am. There are apparently only six of us in the universe. From what I've read, we each have strange powers and we're born with these." She said, pointing to the ornate tattoos on her left arm. "For example, I can draw people into the air and trap them for a few seconds."
"Huh. That's cool." I replied.
"There doesn't appear to be any supplies in here, so if you ladies are finished with the exposition, we should look at moving out," Axton said, interrupting us. "So, Taylor, any guns in that SDU?"
"Umm, I don't know? And why would I want a gun?" I asked.
"Because this is Pandora. Everyone outside of a major city wants to kill you, torture you and eat you, hopefully in that order, and every animal thinks you are a snack. Look, you can use your ECHO to bring up a holographic interface for your SDU like this," He said, showing me how. "Right, you have a Jakobs sniper rifle, a Vladof rifle, and a Hyperion SMG, and ammo for each. Have you ever used a gun before?"
"Umm, no." I replied.
"Great. Just... stay behind us and leave your guns in your SDU until we get somewhere I can teach you to shoot. Hmmm, no warm clothes. Here, something I pulled off one of those guys outside. Needs a wash, but it'll do for now." He said, pulling a stained, bullet-hole riddled great coat out of his SDU. "To digistruct things in your SDU, just imagine pulling them out, and to put things in, imagine putting things in. You can store heaps of stuff in them. Not sure how they work, ask Gaige later if you care. Anyway, come on people. We'll be going to Liar's Berg, then via ferry to Sanctuary. Time to move out!"
"Yes, seeing eye minions. Follow me, to get my eye back!" cried Claptrap as he rolled blindly towards a door on the opposite side of the cave to the one we entered. "AAAAND OPEN!".
Claptrap led us down a path away from the cave and into a valley, rambling all the way. I'm not going to bother repeating it (seriously, even remembering what he said makes me feel dumber). After half an hour or so of walking, however, I started to feel more points of sensation approaching again.
"Umm, guys? I think more of those bullymongs are coming from over there." I said pointing in the direction of the points.
"Heads up people. Taylor, in the center and stay down." Axton commanded.
"Who made you boss?" Gaige demanded as I moved into the center of the group and started to hunker down next to a shivering Claptrap.
"Experience." He retorted as the bullymongs started to swarm into the valley. The fight that followed was somewhat chaotic, with Gaige summoning her robot and then firing wildly and Krieg charging around slashing with his axe while screaming. Axton, Maya, and Zer0 all seemed fairly calm, from what I saw, however. The bullymongs were taken care of quite quickly, though.
"Hey Gaige, have you ever fired a gun before?" Axton asked once the last bullymong was down.
"Before, coming here? Nope!" she replied.
"Remind me to show you how when I teach Taylor."
"You're not taking my gun away!" she retorted.
"Fine, fine. Just… keep pointing it in the direction of the enemy, yeah?" was his reply as we moved on.
About an hour later, we reached a cliff. Well, we reached it, Claptrap blindly fell over it. Landing upside down in the snow.
"Heh, watch this." Gaige commented as she jumped over the edge.
I rushed to the edge, expecting to see her body at the foot of the cliff. However, she was standing at the bottom and waving at me.
"All of the newer ECHO units protect the user from falls. It was installed recently because the megacorps were losing their customers because they kept falling over the edge of skyscrapers." Axton commented at my shocked look.
"Umm, right. Uhh, I feel some more fleas over that ridge. They seem to be the same fleas from that large bullymong that took Claptrap's eye." I said, pointing to a ridge about 100 feet from the bottom of the cliff.
"Copy that. You stay up here, we'll kill that thing. Then you can jump down." He commented, before following Gaige down. He was quickly followed by the rest of the group.
As they approached the ridge, there was a roar and a group of bullymongs charged over the ridge led by the large bullymong, who seemed to be wearing Claptrap's eye like a necklace. The smaller bullymongs were down, but the large one seemed to be soaking up bullets and was throwing around large chunks of the landscape.
I wonder… I thought, concentrating on the bugs and willing them to move towards the bullymong's eyes. Some of the points of sensation all moved up towards his head.
Awesome! That kinda worked. Now let's see… I thought, willing the bugs to start biting his eyes. As I did, he pawing at his face. This distracted the bullymong long enough for Krieg to bury his axe into its head, finally killing the thing. With it dead, I jumped over the cliff and rejoined my companions. Jumping over cliffs is a strange sensation, I'll tell you. Not really one I'll get used to.
As I approached, Gaige was poking the bullymong with a wrench while Axton freed Claptrap.
"So, what happened at the end there?" she asked.
"Turns out I can control the bugs I'm sensing. I moved them to his eyes, and then got them to start biting him. Worked well, don't you think?" I said, somewhat proudly.
"Heh, awesome." Gaige replied.
"Definitely. There are some deadly insects on this planet. It would be interesting if you could control them all." Maya commented.
"Well, let's keep moving." Axton said, as he came over to us.
"Yes, minions. Liar's Burg is just through that barge. It is Hyperion tech, so it should be a cinch to open." Claptrap exclaimed, pointing to a metal building stuck between the cliffs hemming the path.
We walked up to the "barge" and Claptrap did his "AAAAND OPEN" dance in front of a green square next to the door. To which the barge replied "Intruders detected, locking doors", causing large bolts to slam over the barge doors and the green square to become a red square with an x in the centre.
"Well, that's that. I hear being eaten alive by bullymongs is a painless way to go," was Claptrap's response. "Welp, see you guys later."
Before he could leave, however, a ghostly young lady's face appeared in the center of my ECHO's HUD.
"Lemme get that for you," a female voice spoke over my ECHO. "Executing phase shift."
The eyes moved back, showing a girl's face, the red x became a grey pair of eyes, and the door… opened. Inside was a cache of supplies.
"You're welcome! Perks of being an Artificial Intelligence. I'm networked into almost everything on this planet," the voice said. "It's a long way to Sanctuary. Please take whatever you need for the journey ahead."
"Umm, guys? What was that?" I asked.
"She said her name was Angel. She spoke to us just after the train crashed," Maya replied. "Apparently she wants to take out Jack for some reason. You mustn't have had your ECHO booted yet."
"Anyway, people. It's getting dark. There is food here, so we'll crash inside the barge for the night and carry on in the morning," Axton said. "Taylor, Gaige, why don't I show you how to shoot?"
We spent some time practicing shooting, using ammunition from the cache. Because of the snow, we concentrated on firing the assault rifle. The kick on it was impressive, though I did manage to hit my target a few times. I also spent time trying to move the fleas on the bullymong corpses, until they died of the cold that is.
Our next stop was Liar's Berg. But I've been talking on this for awhile now, so I'll continue later.