Borderlands: Rebellion

Chapter 7: An Accident waiting to happen

June 8th 10:30

Maya nodded as I finished my story. "Makes enough sense, anyway, we need your help right now. Some Vladof asshole showed up, trying to kidnap Gaige. We need to get him tied up and questioned. You up for it?"

I nodded. Surprised she trusted me so quickly. I retrieved my SDU and wrench and then followed her back downstairs and halfway to the front of the town. The apparent landing pad for the barges. Maya turned around to find Lilith jumping off the balcony and chasing after us.

"Wait!" she called. She didn't have any weapons, and she didn't look like she had a killing intent in her eyes. She caught up to us, panted, and started to talk "Look, I'm calm now. I heard Ace's story and I understand wanting to leave your own corporation, or at least Roland did, anyway let me come with, I gotta see this new Vladof. We need as much information as possible."

"As long as you don't try to kill him" she said, turning back around and continuing to walk towards the front of town.

We reached the stairs leading down to the landing pad when a roaring was heard and a man in full, gunmetal black, armor rushed out at us. He started to run towards the edge of the pad and jump when Maya stopped him where he was.

"What are you doing, you idiot!" She yelled at him, seconds from falling to his death.

Lilith teleported to the man, getting there as the phaselock ended and catching the armored behemoth. Lilith fell from the weight comically, letting the man roll onto the floor. A second later, two brutes full of muscle came rushing out of the barge, barely fitting through and turned to see the man slowly get to his knees and stand up.

"Slab, get him!" said the man who obviously skipped leg day.

"YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!" Mr. Too Good For A Shirt yelled, rushing after the ironclad giant. Mr. TGFAS dive tackled him.

Off.

The.

Edge.

"No, Krieg!" Maya yelled, holding out her hand futily.

I burst into action, training taking over. All Combat engineers learned one crucial thing: Do whatever it takes to save your friends. Do even more to save potential allies. I jumped off the edge, hearing everyone yell a collection of "no!" and "what the hell!?" I was in my element, yet again, the edge of danger. I brought my arms together and tried to catch up to the freefalling Mr. TGFAS and the psycho who kept wanting to kill himself. As I got to them, I told Muscle Boy to grab on to my arm or leg or something. He grabbed onto my arm (almost ripping it off) and with my other, I started up Spade so he could generate some lift.

We glided down, shakily at first until Spade got used to the wait. We landed somewhere in the Highlands I believe. Around a town with a sign saying "Overlook". I realised now that this was the old Hyperion town, before the Raiders liberated it. I warned everyone at the nearby Hyperion base that the Vault Hunter was coming. At the time, I never knew I'd go and help them. Muscley let go of me and nodded to me before throwing the suicidal titan over his back.

The man pulled out his ECHO recorder and in a western-ish voice spoke into it. "This is-" he sighed before continuing "-Krieg. The new guy and I have the prisoner. We'll be using the fast travel to get back up. See you soon." He put it away, cleared his throat and bellowed "LET'S GO, THE MEAT IS GETTING SPOILED!"

"Ummm, okay" I said, backing away from Krieg. I scrolled through the fast travel menu and went to Sanctuary.

After a blinding light hit us both in the face, we digistructed inside Sanctuary and started walking to the city archives. We got a chair for Mr. Vladof and tied him up. He woke up moments later and started screaming at us in a different language. We asked him a lot of questions, even smacked him around a bit. No use.

I raised my voice over the din of the Crimson Raiders prying him for information. I asked for silence, watching as everyone looked at me, puzzled. I strided over to the man and got down on one knee. I looked at his gas mask, near where his eyes would be. I raised my hands and removed my own helmet.

"I'm Ace" I said, giving the helmet to Patricia who smiled and said she'd make some modifications to it. "If I might ask, who are you?"

He stared at me for a while before saying anything. When he did, it came out raspy and death-like "Zak...Zakhar."

"Zakhar? Interestting name. Could you tell me more about you? Like why you're here and everything?"

"I'm Vladof. I come from a highly respected war family. All the men joined the war. I just came back from one when some rebels attacked..." Zakhar calmed as he began to tell us all his story.