*note: this chapter is narrated by Krieg's sane half*

Chapter 1: Krieg

I don't remember much of my past. And by past I mean before I was bat-shit insane. But I do remember that I was never really right in the head. I've always liked killing people. I think I used to get paid to kill evil men. Not the most righteous of lives but it put food on the table…table…my home. I think I may have had a wife, or a girlfriend, someone important to me. But try as I may, I can't remember a thing about her. Not her name, her voice, her face, what she was like, nothing. Did we love each other? Or were we unhappy? I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if she exists at all. The thought of me possibly having a loved one could just be the delusions of my insane mind. What I know for sure, is I had a daughter…have a daughter? But just like the woman, I can't remember her. All I know is she was a sweet little girl and I loved her as only a father could. But the description "sweet little girl" isn't going to help me find her, especially on a planet like Pandora.

My memory starts back a little before the insanity took me. Hyperion captured my daughter, the woman and me. I think I fought hard for them. I was wearing this interesting looking body armor that looks like rusted metal plates with bolts sticking out of them. But the loaders were too many. As they dragged us to the labs, my armor fell to pieces, broken in battle, just like my resolve. All that's left now is my left gauntlet and right shin guard, reminders that I used to be a good man, never killing the innocent.

At the labs, we were thrown into a room that basically looked like a public shower room, with a large spout in the ceiling. They made my daughter watch as they dumped slag on us. She didn't scream in terror for us, she was so scared she was frozen, her eyes locked on us. The slag bath felt like I was drowning and burning at the same time. That's when things become a blur. There was suddenly a hole in the wall. Did someone come to save us? Did my daughter have a grenade? Why would a little girl have a grenade? The last I remember from that day is her running through it. Where did she go? Did she even make it out? Is she alright? I have to know.

The weeks that followed were the most horrifyingly painful days of my life. I may have survived the slag bath (with the radiation sickness to prove it) but it was followed by needles, needles everywhere. My arms were left raw from the injections, needles were stabbed into my spine a thousand times, but the worst of all were the injection in my brain. The wack jobs really liked getting to my brain through my eyes. That was the most painful part. They said I was going to be an unstoppable killing machine for the glory of Hyperion and Handsome Jack. 'Not able to feel pain, unnaturally heal, stronger than a bullymong during mating season, they said. Okay, all of those things may have come true but they were still crazy. The first time they tried sticking a needle in my eye I struggled. Big mistake. The scientist missed and stuck me in my right pupil. The needle was full of highly concentrated slag and it rotted my eye out of its socket and the skin around it turned to this disgusting purple-black. At least they learned to no stick that high of a dose into my brain.

It was during those days when…He came along. Another me, born of my rage and lust for Hyperion blood. He screamed within my mind. Most of what he said made no sense, his favorite words being kill, meat, blood, or poop. But there was one phrase he said every now and then that was coherent: "Let me loose". He was trying to gain control. I could feel it. We were fighting for control over my own body and he was slowly winning.

Then one day, guards took me to a different holding cell. Inside was the woman that may have been my wife, or what was left of her. She took to the slag far worse than I. I'm glad I barely remember what she looked like then. As I looked at her half rotted-half glowing body and she cried blue tears on my shoulder, I snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. I screamed and banged on the walls, letting my rage take over felt…good. But it didn't stop. He took over and all he wanted to do is kill the closest living thing.

After He…snapped her neck, I was able to regain control. I instantly started cutting my right forearm open with the sharp edge on my gauntlet. I just kept cutting and cutting and cutting. My new healing couldn't keep up and I slipped into darkness.

I don't know how long I stayed that way, floating, weightless, in a sea of black. I thought I was dead and in hell. I easily came to terms with it. I deserve hell, I killed an innocent. But still I couldn't help but wonder about my daughter. Then suddenly I could see again, just in time to see myself cleave a man's skull in two with a buzz axe and blow off another's with a shotgun.

"BLOOD CONCHERTO!" It was Him that was screaming. It was Him that cut the next man's mid-section, spilling his intestines. He was in control.

I saw bandages covering my arm, where the countless cuts I made should be. The bandages looked ancient. How long was I out? Weeks? Months? Maybe even years. Leaving my much less hospitable half to rampage across Pandora. The realization only grew when I saw what I was wearing, or what lack thereof. I was shirtless and my body had a several scars I don't remember getting. In place of a shirt, I wore some sort of pointless harness. Any sort of protective gear was sparse. I still had my gauntlet and shin guard, but I now had a customized breathing mask that smelled of bandit. Somehow, He got hold of a digistruct pack, giving the psycho easy access to firearms, great. But that wasn't the worst part. No the worst part was the pants, annoyingly orange.

'Really? Orange pants? I just…why?' But there was no response. My other half didn't even acknowledge me with one of his ridiculous ramblings. He just started looting the mangled bisected corpses.

'Hey, I'm talking to you!' I persisted as He approached a storage chest.

"GIVE ME YOUR GUTS METAL BOX," he screamed still ignoring me. I tried to will myself back into control, but to no avail.

'I know you can hear me. Give me control of my body!' But he still ignored me, or could he really not hear me? He continued with his task and grabbed a childish looking SMG, with a shark mouth design on the barrel, and looked at his current cheap Tediore.

"But which makes the prettiest noise?" And he whirled around and started unloading their clips into a body. He concurred to take the Bandit SMG and moved on, leaving behind a shanty town, painted crimson.

Weeks passed by, then months. Every day I tried to get through to him. But he never heard me. All I could do was watch as He flayed countless people alive. I had to feel the blood on my hands as He played with his victims' entrails. I had to see myself rip a man apart and wear what was left of his torso as a hat. I had to hear myself laugh as I wore a colon like a fashionable scarf. That's all they are to Him: meat. Thankfully we have only run into bandits, psychos, murderers, rapists; anyone that deserved the axe. Not like the woman…

I've started to grow numb to the stylized murder, the gore, and the flesh of a man that's been crusted under my fingernails for six weeks. But it's still bugs me a bit. So I just try to think of other things as He goes on one of his rampages. I've started worrying about menial things like: What's my name? It's resorted to me just guessing or just saying names to myself to see if any ring a bell. I've narrowed it down to names that start with a "K". Koby? Kyle? Krister? Kraig...Krieg? That name, it seems...right. Krieg.

'What do you think,' I thought to Him. 'Krieg sound like a good name?...Still can't hear me? Fine.'

We came upon another bandit town. There was a man hanging from a rail post, dead. Considering he wasn't wearing some sort of mask with that odd upside down "V" symbol on it I'm guessing he was innocent. Who wasn't innocent was the bandits taking pot shots at the corpse. We start to charge.

'I wonder if I was into sports.' I distract myself as blood sprays from a slit neck onto my chest.

After the slaughter, we finally took a rest and sat on large rock. He started fiddling with the buzz axe again while I contemplated the hanged man.