Disclaimer: I don't own borderlands.

(A/N: Hello again everyone, I'm back and ready to write. To stat off thank you all for your support in my story. Thirty-one reviews for twenty-five chapters is much better than other stories I've seen on this site. One of them had fifty chapters and only five reviews. That said I'm closing in on one thousand views total, so thanks for that as well guys.

St4te of Gr4ce: You're right that is what mister Torgue would say.

The survivor and the fighter: Thank you.)

Chapter 26: A pawn at the end of the board

"Let me get this straight," Athena requested as she took a deep breath. "We went in there to investigate, and in the process of that you stole a siren and vault key to match and blew up the ship. Is that about right?" Athena asked, though Violette could not tell whether she was being rhetorical or not or if she was upset or not. She gathered up her courage in the face of the stone cold woman.

"Yes," She said with all the fake confidence in the world.

"Good work," She replied.

"Really?"

"Of course, you and your friends not only destroyed the threat's means of transportation, but also killed most of its militia and stole its means of opening the vault for itself! I'd say that was a pretty productive day's work," Little did any of them know that someone was watching them. From behind the sand dune he watched the vault hunters and heard most of their chatter echo through the otherwise silent area. He wore an original solace uniform like Clint's It was mostly black with gray trim; the uniform came with a matching gas mask that only covered the front of his face and apparently weapons judging from the sniper rifle that he currently had trained on Athena's head.

"Come on quit moving," He mumbled to himself. He took a deep breath in and held it. Just before he could tense up his trigger finger he felt a cold hard object held up to his jugulars.

"Put the gun down," Vincent commanded calmly. The Solace soldier let out a defeated sigh as he handed over his rifle. Vincent retracted his fountain pen and bound the man's hands together. "Hey look what I found," He called out as he pushed the survivor out from behind his cover.

"Nice job, we'll take him with us for questioning," The gladiatrix decided. "Alright let's get it together and roll out; we're gonna have to drive back to HQ with our guests," The gang nodded and headed down to the catch-a-ride system at the bridge to the Eridium Blight. Clint stroked his short red beard as he took in the fresh air, or at least it was fresh before the smoke from the explosion tainted it. He felt a slight tug on his free hand, and looked down at the source. Seras smiled up at him with his hand tightly held by hers and he couldn't help but smile back. He would have done anything for this little girl, because out of all the little girls in the universe this one was his. He took her hand and continued walking through the warm sand.

Vincent kept a tight grip on his prisoner's restraints with his right hand while he held the sniper rifle in his left. Ace looked over at the gun in the author's hand.

"Hey can I see that a moment, mate?" Ace asked. Without even looking up Vincent tossed the gun to Ace who just barley caught it. He looked down the sight and fired at a nearby boulder, but Instead of bullets it fired a violent burst of electricity; like a laser weapon, but in a concentrated ball instead of a beam. "Yes please!" He cheered as he put the gun in his pack.

The ride back to Sanctuary was pleasant especially for Seras. For the sheltered child this ride as chop full of new stimuli. She felt the wind blowing through her hair, it felt nice and even though the wind was cool it wasn't painfully cold, and the feeling of moving so fast gave her a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach; it felt so good that she leaned over the bed of the technical and shouted to Smokey who was driving.

"Excuse me, mister Smokey, can you go a bit faster please?" The sadist just barley heard her over the engine.

"You've got yourself a speed demon Clint," He called back with the echo turned on for good measure. "Alright hold on to something!" He then sped up about fifteen miles per hour on top of the forty he was already going.

They put their vehicles back into the digistruct system and headed to the back of town to report back. The sun was just starting to set as they walked into the familiar building. Lyme had been waiting for them in the map room and was thrown for a loop when she saw the siren markings on the little girl accompanying them. After some explaining Lyme had calmed down; the thumb drive and vault key were now on the table.

"So now we only have to worry about the survivors?" the commander asked.

"Not quite," Clint said as he ran his hands through his ginger hair. "That was only one of their ships; there's still two more filled to the brim with more soldiers and scientists."

"But there were so many people on just one of them!" Smokey exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yeah and there were even more people willing to take the deal from Solace. All of the lost legion, lance men, Hyperion, and every bandit sane enough to sign their names. They came here to open a vault and they're going to do it with or without their siren and key,"

"Are you saying that we're going to have another ten thousand soldiers storming in here to take them back?" Salvador asked.

"No, they don't know that she or I survived the explosion, and an explosion like that would've destroyed the key. Even though they could probably guess that it was you guys who blew up the ship, they wouldn't risk those kinds of losses again so soon. What I'm saying is that they're probably going to form an alliance with S&S and use their key, and as much trouble as you've caused them recently they'll take the deal too,"

"Who leads them?" Lyme asked, not getting a good feeling from this conversation.

"A counsel of five, each party has chosen a representative to make decisions collectively," he replied.

"This could be trouble," She picked up her echo. "Mister Torgue?"

"YES!?" He responded in his usual manner.

"How would you like to join the alliance?"

"DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO ASK!?"

"Welcome aboard," She thanked as she shut off her echo. "That's it for now; get some rest I'll notify when we get our prisoner to crack,"

"Let me stop you right there, I'll take of our little guest," Smokey spoke in a low tone.

"If you wish, just don't kill him. He's down the hall and to the right," Smokey practically sprinted out of the room as Church pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Come on guys, believe me you don't won't to hear what's about to happen next," And with that the vault hunters dispersed. On her way out Seras stared up into the sky where the sun hung low on the horizon, and the blue was replaced with impossibly beautiful shades of pink and red.

"It's pretty isn't it?" Clint asked, looking down at the small child. She just nodded her head and stopped walking. "Just you wait until it goes the rest of the way down, sweetheart,"

(A/N: Yeah this chapter was pretty slow, but things will pick pretty soon and in a big way.)