CHAPTER 10:
X MARKS THE SPOT
Upon arriving at Magnys Lighthouse, I was struck by the vast mountain (or was it a plateau? Geographical nomenclature was never my strong point) in the distance, with the lighthouse on top. I was also struck by the smell of burning flesh. Jack had been busy with his small army of Loaders.
Scarlett took point, with Roland right behind her, looking every inch like the Crimson Lance soldier he had once been. Moxxi and Hammerlock took up the rear, and the rest of us were in the middle.
Lilith then spoke to us over ECHO. "Hey, guys? A lot of activity up at the Lighthouse. This satellite hack you set us up with is great, Angel."
"Thanks," Angel said. "I've had a lot of practice. Sending a visual feed to Sanctuary's control room is a piece of cake. The last of the Sandman's forces are defending the Lighthouse, right?"
"Yeah. The good news is, some of them got a clue, and started using corrosive weaponry. They're not going to survive, though, but it means that you'll have less Loaders to deal with. I mean, how many Loaders can you control, Angel?"
"A few. But enough to be able to attack precisely," Angel said. "The Loaders are rather clumsy. Hell, they call their attacks a lot, even more than some people we know. But under my control, they can attack precisely, and without notifying anyone of what they are doing."
"Do you think you can wait until after Sandman's forces are depleted?" Roland asked. "I know it sounds heartless, but the weaker the enemy's forces are before we make our move…"
Angel nodded. "I understand, Roland. I was thinking the same thing. There's still some stragglers of Sandman's forces around, though, so we'll have to get moving: we'll still be coming across some resistance."
"Fine by me," Scarlett said, her sword and her revolver at the ready. "Most of Sandman took his forces from mine. I look forward to punishing some of those treacherous dogs." She blinked at her own statement. "That didn't come out right, did it? Oh, God, I sound too posh for that!"
We all laughed, despite ourselves. But soon, the time for laughter would be over. The time for bloodshed was close, too close.
"Waaaagggghhhh!" I screamed as the Anchorman's attack sent me hurtling through the air towards him. These big, overly muscled sand-pirates liked to use anchors on chains as weapons, and a few also like to be like Scorpion from the old Mortal Kombat games, using them almost as harpoons to fling us through the air, often towards them. All they were missing was a guttural snarl of 'GET OVER HERE!'
Everyone else was busy trying to fight off the survivors of Sandman's crew, even Angel, who intended to use her lightning projection purely as a last resort (in case she drained her Eridium reserves), and instead used an SMG with a grim expression. Once I reached the Anchorman, he swatted me to the ground, and chortled.
I felt the familiar sensation flow into me, for the first time for a long time, and I just let myself go. The world drained of ambiguity, and filled with simplicity. Everything was sharpened, and delineated. As the Anchorman swung his massive weapon down, I leapt to my feet and fired my Maliwan pistol, currently set to incendiary rounds, into one of the few weaknesses in his armour: just near the groin. Not actually at the groin, but because he had to walk, the armour needed to move there. But it also meant his femoral artery was, when attacked right, vulnerable. The fact that his crotch was on fire also helped.
As the Anchorman howled, I howled back, shooting round after round into the bastard, setting him on fire. As he slumped, I turned to face the rest of the battlefield, the flames silhouetting me. The battle had ceased, momentarily, with everyone staring at me. Alternative hypothesis confirmed: I was even more scary with flames at my back.
And for the memory of Krieg, I wanted to have an even hammier response before. For science, of course.
"I'M GONNA PUT MY PAIN INTO YOUR SOULS! FOR SCIENCE!" I bellowed, pointing at Sandman's pirates.
DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER
Chews Scenery, and Spits Science Out
Eventually, one of the pirates said, "What the fuck is wrong with this guy?"
"It's a long list, and we're short on time. Sorry," I apologised, before shooting him in the head. Shame to lose such an inquiring mind, but during battle, you should focus more on survival than inquiry. Less on wondering why one eats, and more on how to eat, as Douglas Adams would have put it(1).
As I shot at the enemy, I heard Hammerlock say to Gaige, "I say, so this is the infamous Sci-Zone?"
"Sure is, Hammerlock," Gaige said. The girl had a crush on Hammerlock, though unfortunately, she wasn't his type. One, she was young enough to be his granddaughter, and two, he was gay. Gaige knew this, and accepted it, but it didn't stop her from pining. "It's like a genie out of the bottle, if the genie was a mad scientist!"
"And without the whole three wishes thing," Roland said, crouching behind the shield of his currently-deployed Scorpio turret. I joined him. I was in the madness place, but I still put a premium on self-preservation. Angel was present too.
"Well, if the enemy wishes to die, and my allies wish to live, I grant them!" I said, with a predatory grin. I then shouted at them, "Hey, how many of you guys want to die? It's an experiment! You'll further the cause of science!"
Null hypothesis confirmed: no takers, although they wanted to kill me more, so I guess that is a triumph of sorts.
"You should've met this one Psycho who belonged to the Slabs," Roland said with a roll of the eyes, even as he hurled a singularity grenade at the sand pirates. "He wanted to be shot in the face. I heard Axton did the honours, so to speak."
"Aww…he would have been a great test subject!" I pouted.
Roland and Angel shared a look. Then, Angel shrugged, and used her sniper rifle to pick off another pirate. "We can't always get what we want, Ricky," she said, before firing again.
"Damn," I snarled. "I knew there was a Rolling Stones song I wanted for my music player."
Scarlett, who was firing with aplomb at her treacherous former crew, gave me a glance, before shrugging. "The sad thing is," she said, as she whirled and decapitated one of the pirates who got too close, "you're nowhere near the weirdest person I met. Not even in the top ten.(2)"
"Really?" I asked, somewhat offended. As I shot another pirate, I said, "Must try harder."
We made better time after that, but just as we came to a lift, we found Nakayama waiting for us, a quartet of Loaders flanking him, while he had the anti-respawn shotgun. "You may be good at what you do," Nakayama said, "but I won't let you get to…"
"Phase-shift activated," Angel said quietly, her eyes flaring blue briefly. And the four Loaders turned to bring their weapons to bear on Nakayama.
"…Shit," he groaned, his tone a mixture of both fear and bitter resignation. His face twisted in anger, and he snapped, "Go on, do it!"
Angel looked to Roland, and then to me. By this point, I was out of the Sci-Zone, for the moment. She then said to Nakayama, "There's going to be changes at Hyperion soon. I suggest you go back and curry favour with Vice President Blake. Put down the gun, and I'll send one of the Loaders to escort you to the Fast-Travel station. I'll be in control of the Loader, though, so no funny stuff. Just remember, I let you live. Dad wouldn't have, even if you were his biggest fan."
Nakayama seemed about to protest, before thinking better of it. He placed the anti-respawn gun on the ground, and then began to scurry away, Angel sending the Loader after him. He shot glares at us as he left, but nothing else, thankfully for him. Roland took the anti-respawn gun, and put it safely away in his storage deck.
As we ascended, we heard the last remnants of battle peter out. It seemed we had gotten here either in the nick of time…or too late. When we saw the light stab out from the lighthouse, we knew it was the latter.
"Bugger," Scarlett said, with considerable understatement.
Suddenly, from the top of the lighthouse came a scream of jet engines. And clinging to a JET Loader that sped over us was none other than Jack. I saw him look down briefly, snarling. He didn't linger, with the JET Loader continuing into the distance, but he used a general broadcast over ECHO. "Oh for fuck's sake…can't you guys get a hint? You know, DIE like normal people?"
"Language, Dad," Angel chided. Jack didn't offer any further response. I looked around the grounds of the lighthouse. It would have been considered idyllic, if it weren't for the bodies and broken Loaders. Enough Loaders were present still functioning. And some of those were JET Loaders. I used to think of them as the Loader equivalent of Starscream from those ancient Transformers cartoons, except without the innate treachery.
"Phase-shift activated," Angel said again. While most of the remaining Loaders began fighting each other, the four remaining JET Loaders came up. "Okay, two to a Loader," Angel said. "Roland, you can carry Tina as well."
Angel and I took one, Hammerlock and Gaige took another (the former bearing proximity to a fangirl most stoically, while Gaige looked like she was about to pass out), Moxxi and Tim took a third, and Roland, Scarlett, and Tina took the last one.
"Is this safe?" Tim asked as the JET Loaders transformed, and began to rise into the air.
"Not at all," Angel said cheerfully. "Just hang on tight."
Angel flew slower than she could have: she wanted to make sure nobody fell off. But it was still a fast journey, clinging to the back of a flying Loader, with no parachute. Tina and Gaige whooped in enjoyment, but the rest of us just clung on for dear life.
We finally reached the area which the lighthouse had indicated, somewhere in Wurmwater, and not far from Scarlett's ship. Jack was already there, though he was jabbing at his ECHO communicator frustratedly. The Loader with Angel and myself landed first. "Helios Station isn't sending you anything anymore, Dad," Angel said.
"This is your doing," he snarled. It wasn't quite a question.
"Blake's, actually. He couldn't stop the Loaders you already sent down, but he could put a hold on your authorisation. Phase-shift activated, by the way," Angel said, her eyes flaring blue. The Loader turned its weapons on Jack.
Jack turned to us, and sneered. "You think I'm gonna give up? You don't know Jack." With that, he activated his holo-doubles. I had to admit, as pre-battle taunts were concerned, that was pretty good.
But before battle could be joined, we felt the ground shaking beneath our feet. "Oh dear," Scarlett said, deadpan. "I think I know what's about to happen. Leviathan is coming."
"That mythical creature?" Jack sneered. "Oh look at me, I'm so fucking…" And then, suddenly, something reared out of the sands. I stared at it. It was like a giant sandworm of the type we had seen all around the area. And suddenly, my earlier remark about Jack being chomped by a sandworm didn't seem so funny anymore.
"You and your big fucking mouth," I groaned, just before the creature lunged.
Amazingly, we didn't die when the Leviathan swallowed us. We found ourselves somewhere within the damn thing's vast digestive tract. The moment Jack picked himself up, he ran for a sphincter that probably doubled as a door within the Leviathan. But his holo-doubles remained, firing at us with lasers.
Tim evened the odds by sending his own decoys at them. Jack had sent more than Tim(3), but the Loaders Angel took control of were enough.
Eventually, the Loaders and Tim's decoys won out, and Roland said, "After him."
We had only been gone a few minutes, but when we heard a scream of fear, and a bellow, we knew that Jack had run into trouble.
Of those present, four of us found the bellow familiar. I was one of them, and Hammerlock was another. But I didn't expect Scarlett to be the third. Her good eye widened. "Could it be? Roscoe?"
"Roscoe?" I asked.
"My pet."
"Wait, wait, wait…you have…something like that…as a pet?"
"Something like what?" Tina asked.
"Oh, you'd like it yourself, Tina," I muttered, remembering how one of her tea party guests was a varkid larva.
"Please tell me that's not what I think it is," Roland said. He was the other one present to recognise the noise.
"Sorry Roland, but I don't think today's your lucky day," I muttered, as we finally made our way into a vast chamber, perhaps some sort of stomach, given the pools of bile and digestive acid.
The chamber was just the right size for the occupant of the chamber. We couldn't see Jack, but the vast creature inside could have already killed him. Quadrupedal, with a lot of eyes, a yonic mouth that would have had Freud crap his pants, and bigger than an elephant. But it had one of those things, a howdah or whatever it was called (you know, those things they used to ride elephants back on Earth), and it looked ready for battle.
"Roscoe!" Scarlett yelped, overjoyed. "I knew you wouldn't have died so easily from the Leviathan!"
ROSCOE
Try Having THIS Pet Sit On Your Lap!
"Aw, that's sweet," came an acidic tone. Sitting up in the howdah was none other than Jack, looking a little the worse for wear. But he was still sneering down at us. "But he's not your pet anymore, sugar-bumps. He's mine." He then looked down at the beast he was riding. "Roscoe? Kill."
CHAPTER 10 ANNOTATIONS:
Well, finally some action! And the beginning of the final battle against Jack! Only this time, he's using Roscoe instead of the Destroyer. And letting Nakayama go isn't going to bite them in the arses…right?
By the way, in case you're wondering what 'yonic' means, well, to put it delicately, yonic is to women what phallic is to men. It's not a commonly used term, especially compared to phallic. If you still don't have a clue, look up the word on Wiktionary: that's probably the safest site to look it up on. It's not the only Pandoran beast to have a yonic mouth: after all, that's what the skags have, a fact that Tannis alludes to very obliquely while you're fighting digi-structed skags during the Raid on Digistruct Peak (she says that their mouths enhance their Freudian symbolism).
As I finish this chapter, I'm installing (having bought it cheaply in a physical store) the Pre-Sequel. I'm also strongly considering a new Borderlands fanfic, separate from The Ballad of Ricky and Angel. I'm going to play some of the Pre-Sequel first, in order to get a feel for Jack's pre-Borderlands 2 persona, because it will be, hopefully, an excellent what-if story: what if Jack wasn't as big a prick? What if he and Angel together helped the Vault Hunters in opening the first Vault? For their own reasons, but still for better reasons than they did? I think there's a lot of mileage in a story like that, though I'm not sure whether it has been done. It's still percolating in my head, and I want to play some of the Pre-Sequel first.
I don't know when the next update will be for this story, but the final chapters are on the way. At the moment, I'm guessing maybe two chapters, plus an epilogue to lead into the next story. Of course, this story will be shorter than Hooked on a Feeling, but the next story in the saga, tentatively titled Welcome to the Jungle, will probably be longer, partly because it combines two of the DLC campaigns.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn recently that Yasemin Arselan, the woman hired to play Lilith in the Angel-style live action footage of Lilith in Borderlands 2, is Australian! Go Aussie! :D
1. In The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel, Adams posits that civilisation goes through three phases: Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, or the How, Why, and Where phases. Applied to eating, it comes to three questions: How do we eat?, Why do we eat?, and Where shall we have lunch?
2. Keep in mind that Scarlett had Herbert on her crew, not to mention that one guy (can't remember his name offhand) that you have to douse in sauce and feed to worms, all while he's screaming charming things like using your lungs to house his children or something. Scarlett's probably seen far weirder than Snyder in the depths of the Sci-Zone.
3. In the final boss battle, if memory serves me correctly, he only sends out two or three. However, in order to make Jack more of a threat, I decided to give him more, about a dozen.