Disclaimer: I don't own Borderlands

(A/N: Hello again. I'm back with a proposition. So there's no way this is going to keep you entertained for as long as I have it going on. My solution is that we're going to have an A plot and a B plot. The Tournament will become the B plot while the people who have already been eliminated or decided not to enter can take over the A plot on a mission. Sound good? Good. I've had something lined up for a while anyway courtesy of Dria'5 Broken Ca5tel5.)

Chapter 37: Reunion

Smokey and Violette formerly known as Nathen and Anya embraced each other tightly. Both of them held the other close, neither of them caring that Smokey wasn't wearing a shirt.

"God, what happened to you? Where did you go?" Violette asked as she pulled back to look him in the eye. Smokey quickly looked away with a concealing smile on his face.

"I don't want to talk about it," Violette looked at him skeptically for a moment. She could see past the façade. She could see the pain. She could see the damage. She knew it was there, but didn't know what it was. Taking a step back she decided to let it go.

"Alright I'm not going to push you to it," Saphyre sat up, intrigued by what was going on.

"Huh I wonder why we never recognized him before," Saphyre's sane side commented.

"New man, new life, new skin," Saphyre answered.

"True enough,"

"Thanks, but hey what have you been up to?" Smokey asked cheerfully. Violette smiled warmly as she rubbed the back of her head.

"Well since obviously, I wasn't just going to sit around and let that murdering bastard get away with what they did, so I've been training to be a badass vault hunter. You know the usual. Aim, strength, robotics, stamina everything I could possibly need," Violette chimed with a smile. Smokey looked to the crazy woman staring at him intently.

"So then who is this?" The sadist asked while pointing a finger at Saphyre.

"Well, you see-"The deadly engineer started, but was cut off by the static coming from all three of their echo's.

"Vault hunters, come in vault hunters," Commander Lyme's voice came over the devices. Smokey and Violette picked theirs up immediately.

"Yeah," They both responded.

"I've got a mission for you. Five people are required; if you accept meet me in the map room. First come first serve," Sarah ended the transmission there.

"Aw hell yeah! Perfect timing. You coming?" Smokey asked with enthusiasm. Violette nodded and then looked over to her insane companion who had gone back to lying flat on her back silently.

"She'll be fine, let's go," Violette dismissed as she and her brother jogged out the door.

"Heh-heh, I think we've been up staged," sane Saphyre chided. Insane Saphyre replied with two words… or maybe it's one word, who the hell knows.

"Bullshit,"

Vincent looked through his glasses at his more than formidable opponent. As a matter of fact he wondered if anyone had a fair chance against this monster of a man. Likewise Zero looked at his opponent looked at his opponent with intrigue. He had never seen the plain looking man fight before, and wondered if he could be a challenge. Torgue had already finished with his announcing if you could call it that.

"It's a shame that we must fight each other my comrade. I hope this inspires no harsh feelings between us," Vincent called out to the mysterious man across from him.

"Likewise my counterpart," Zero stated before drawing his blade and sprinting off in Vincent's direction. Vincent had plenty of time to think and acted according to the recordings he had watched from Zero's previous missions. He waited right up until the blade was at his forehead before he turned around and kicked the air behind him. He felt the resistance that would come from 130 pounds of pure tall muscle. The clone exploded into electricity, but didn't affect his transformer shield while Zero was forced out of his deception. The assassin slid back on the dirt of the arena with a smiley face emoticon on his helmet.

"Well done Vincent/ looks like you're my new challenge," Zero said as he took a fast stride too the shorter man in front of him at took several swings. Vincent dodged each of them with insane agility, striking back with kicks, punches and stabs from his twin pen knives (Unlockable through the write your own story skill tree). Unfortunately none of the stabs he took succeeded, and his martial arts could only bring the ninja's Inflammable order shield down to 50%. Zero disappeared again in the middle of a strike much to Vincent's dismay. Vincent ignored the decoy flailing around and tossed four land mine looking devices on the ground, and waited. It was only a moment or two until the slag mine went off and Zero was revealed once again. Cutting his losses Zero charged in for a lightning fast strike. Vincent raised his pen knives and crossed the blades to protect himself. The three blades met and Vincent pushed them off to the right so he could make his move. He forced the last mine that he had held onto into the assassin's chest. The column of electricity combined with the leftover slag effect to bring Zero's health bar all the way down to half dead, until he stabbed two of his kunai into the device, destroying it instantly. The effect stayed with him for a few seconds while he threw his remaining three kunai into Vincent. Vincent panicked inwardly as his shields and health dropped rapidly. The scribe built up his resolve and charged at the assassin. He dropped at the last moment at did a sweep kick, only for his leg to go right through the hologram's ankles. He looked up to see the real Zero falling from the sky, sword primed to run him through. Smiling Vincent rolled away to reveal the mine that Zero was about to land on. Zero could do nothing to change his trajectory now, as he fell on the small device which erupted into a column of acid that coated his shield. Zero rushed out of it while looking frantically for his challenge. He heard his shield break at the same time he felt two pen knives pierce his shoulders. He shook off the pain threw two of his kunai into both f Vincent's feet without even looking behind him. In one fluid motion he spun around and impaled his sword through Vincent's body and his Vladof shield. As the elements started to dissolve the scribe's legs Zero raised his word and flashed the heat emoticon before slashing Vincent in half vertically. For once Torgue was speechless…for all of five seconds.

"AS SOMONE WHO THOUGHT THAT FIGHT WOULD LAST FIVE SECONDS I STAND WILDLY CORRECTED! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE OURSELVES A WINNER!" Zero nodded to the muscular man in the booth and started to stride away.

Smokey and Violette met up with Ace, Maya, and Brick in the map room where Sarah was waiting for them to arrive.

"Looks like we have everyone. The mission should you accept it is in a place called Alagra. Alagra is a city on the Northern Shelf, that was commissioned by Anshin back when the corporations still had hopes of bringing order to this place, well before Jack anyway," She tapped on the holomap which took the shape of the city. It was big and full of giant buildings, some still standing some not. "Our sources have informed me that this building here was a research center that Anshin was using it as a research facility to develop new unique weapons. The files that our informants have found indicate that there's a very high chance of there being new technology that would be invaluable in our fight against S&S," She explained as she pointed to a building and zoomed in on it.

"Sounds simple enough, so what would have stopped bandits from raiding the place by now?" Violette asked before anyone else could.

"That brings me to our next problem," She tapped a button on the holotable, and it projected a full body image of a man wearing Eskimo clothes, goggles, and four shotguns on his back. "This is drags hot, the leader of a bandit clan that occupies half the city called the shotters," She tapped the button again and another image was projected of a fat man wearing formal clothes, a fedora, and holding a Vladof assault rifle. "And this is Grig the leader of Mirror, the rival clan to the shotters. They control the other half of the city. Both side constantly fight each other to get to the cache, but neither of them can ever muster up enough force to overpower the inhabitants of the building,"

"So who's in the building?" Maya asked.

"That's the thing. We have no idea. This is all the information I have for you aside from that if you succeed you will be greatly rewarded," The option screen came up on their echo's. "Do you except?"

(A/N: Alrighty then let me know what you thought of this, and I'll try to accommodate your needs.)