Hey, dudes. I wish to apologize for not posting for a while. I've been really busy with work and some personal issues. I'll try to post more frequently from this point on. Anyways, enjoy!

O.D.S.M.


"The guns are good, no?" Asked the fat, goateed man.

Trying out his weapon to test it out, Grimm put a single hole through the head of a cardboard cutout of Handsome Jack. Fisher followed suit alongside his recon friend by unloading a barrage of lead into one of Wilhelm. Kane and Wilkes were busy inspecting their guns with Marcus.

Kane looked down the sights of his Vladof assault rifle, "Kinda shitty."

Wilkes cocked his Jakobs pump-action, "This is gonna help us take on those Calypso cunts?"

"Hey, these guns don't come cheap!" Protested a cross-armed Marcus, "Normally I'd charge you but Lilith insisted I give these to you for free!"

One turn of Fisher's head and icy glare was enough to silence Marcus's complaining.

"But uh, since we have a common goal in sticking it to the Calypsos, Marcus is happy to provide nothing but the best for erm…"

Grimm met up with Kane and Wilkes, "Outsiders!"

"Outsiders? A little pretentious, no? We get newcomers all the time."

"It's a long story."

Fisher was the last to catch up with his squadmates.

"These weapons look like the ones the COV used back on Pandora." The machine gunner noticed as he inspected his new gun.

Marcus nervously chuckled as he kept his smile, "No! These are um…high quality merchandise! Absolutely legitimate!"

Fisher gave the shady, goateed gun salesman one of his infamous glares, one that left him with a frozen spine and a zipped mouth.

"Erm…let me just do this before you go." Marcus pulled out a clipboard from the counter, "Okay. Daniel Kane, the Hero, erm…light-skinned, male, redhead, green eyes. Landon Wilkes, the Marine, brown-skinned, male, buzz cut, brown eyes. Robert Fisher, the Cold Support, light-skinned, male, black hair, blue eyes. Thomas Grimm, the Hawkeye, light-skinned, male, blonde hair, blue eyes. Okay, good."

Grimm chuckled, "Don't forget our sexy scars!"

Marcus glared at the four with a look of confusion, "What scars?"

The confusion became mutual on their part. The four looked to one another, checking each other's faces. Every pair of eyes in the squad widened when they did, save for Fisher, who was more inquisitive than anything. Using the camera on his ECHO device, Grimm snapped a single photo of himself. Taking a look, the sniper realized there and then that his face had underwent some changes. He saw that the single knife wound going down diagonally across his left cheek to his lips that gained from the Battle of Azura had disappeared. Seeing what his friend did just now, Fisher proceeded to do the same with his face, which was supposed to display two long ones going down his left side, courtesy of a drill instructor on Terra Nova who accused him of sleeping with his wife whom Fisher done a mission with. Kane started patting his left arm to feel the bullet wound on his forearm while all Wilkes needed to do was look all over himself. Both were were also as smooth as butter. The four finally looked to one another before looking down at their arms, each still glowing in all their Siren glory.

Fisher brought his focus to another subject on his mind, which was more important to him, "Why the hell do you need to document us?"

"Just keeping track of my new customers!"

He turned his head, "Customers?"

Kane took his attention away from his now-scarless body, "Sorry, Marcus. We're about to go to war with an interstellar cult. No profiting."

"No profiting?" He exclaimed, "Who are you to come here and – "

"Zeta Squad, erm…Outsiders!" Lilith called the four from their ECHO, "I need you in the Command Center, now!"

The four looked to each other in concern. Armed with their new weapons, the Outsiders followed Lilith's orders and met up with her at the front of the ship. Upon arrival, they caught a glimpse of their new destination, Promethea. As they approached the front windows, the four noticed some weird, circular spacecraft orbiting the planet, each sporting the name "MALIWAN" below a logo not known to them.

"Maliwan?" Lilith called out the name from behind.

Kane asked as he kept looking at the craft, "You know 'em?"

She answered, "They're a weapons manufacturing company. Weird."

"Weird?"

"This is an Atlas world." She said.

Fisher responded, "A corporation owns an entire planet?"

"Welcome to the Borderlands."

"Great."

Lilith asked one of her crew, "Is there anyone we can reach down there?"

"Nope!"

She said to the four, "Looks like you're gonna be our scouts until we find the Calypsos. Go to Ellie, she'll take you to the drop pod."

All of Zeta Squad nodded to their new orders. Eager to get back in the fight against the Calypso Twins and their COV minions, the Marines left to go find Ellie as quick as they could. The Marines ignored all the funny looks the Crimson Raider crew were giving them. Male Sirens weren't exactly normal, let alone anyone confident enough to take on the Calypso Twins with mere military tactics and no powers. At least Zeta learned now that they might need the latter after that humiliating encounter.

Going one floor down and taking a flight of stairs, Zeta Squad met up with Ellie. She and a couple other crew members were busy working on Zeta's armor by the time they arrived. Ellie was nearly finished with Kane's armor. At first sight, the four didn't notice any changes done to their armor. They were still the same desert-camouflaged, polymer-plated shields from death they always were, which was just fine for them since they had to go.

"Ellie." Kane called to her, "Are they ready?"

She stopped doing what she was doing, "As ready as they can be!"

"Good." He approached his armor, "We're going to Promethea."

It wasn't hard for Zeta to find their respective armor. Kane's had a red cross sign on his right shoulder plate and the other an eagle as cyan as the color of his visor when turned on. Wilkes's had a bunch of explosives yet to be stolen by the Crimson Raiders or COV attached to a sling. Fisher's of course contained nothing but machine gun ammo, all kept on two straps going diagonally across his torso. His chest and shoulder plates were also thicker and bulkier compared to the others'. Grimm's contained a slightly heavier load than Kane's as most of the clips he had held rounds big enough to create a very visible hole in a man's body.

Nearly all of Zeta Squad smiled from being in their armor again. At least the Calypsos were generous enough to not take that from them. Ellie then guided the four to the drop pod ready for use. Giving her a thumbs, the squad stepped inside the orange pod. Once inside, the four looked around, becoming taken aback when they noticed there were four seats but no seatbelts to keep them from flying around. They had only one handle to cling onto in their respective seats.

"Uhh…Ellie?" Grimm nervously spoke on the comms.

"Yes, Outsider?"

"Ever hear the phrase 'buckle up'?"

Kane chimed in as he looked down on his seat of choice, "There's no seatbelts."

Ellie rolled her eyes the moment she heard that word.

"Oh, c'mon, Ma-rines!" She complained as she put one hand on a switch, "Where's your sense of adventure?"

Kane reminded her sternly, "We're on a mission, not an adventure."

"Oh, don't be a stick in the mud!" She was ready to pull the switch to release the pod, "Anyways, have fun and good luck!"

Waving bye to the Outsiders, Ellie pulled the switch, releasing the ship's grip on the drop pod. Free from the clutches of Sanctuary III, the drop pod's rockets were activated, accelerating its downward path to the surface of Promethea. Making sure they stayed in their respective seats while the pod took them to the planet, the Outsiders held onto their handles as tight as they could so that they don't experience as much trauma to their bodies than they anticipated.

"FUCK THE BORDERLANDS!" Screamed Grimm at the top of his lungs as he clung to dear life.

"LIKEWISE!" Wilkes's sentiment for this region of space was mutual.

The Outsiders continued hanging on to their handles as the pod entered Promethea's atmosphere. Never once did they ever have to enter a drop pod as poorly constructed as Ellie's. The four immediately missed the Orion Confederation Marine Corps' equipment the second the pod was released. They at least had even the basic necessities on a drop pod such as seatbelts and didn't have to deal with punk-haired egomaniacs with magical abilities.

Finally, the four made it to their destination. The drop pod crash-landed onto the surface of Promethea, unleashing a massive shockwave of dust and debris that surrounded the landing site. The hatch popped open, what came crawling out were four jumpy Marines who had survived a drop without proper safety equipment. Jumping onto the dirt created from the hard landing, the first thing the Marines did was look down at themselves for any bodily harm, only to find nothing.

"Well that was something!" Grimm quipped as he pulled up his sleeve to check his glowing, tattooed arm.

"Yeah!" Wilkes cocked his new Jakobs shotgun, "A real fucking shit show."

"You guys alright?" Lilith asked from the comms.

Kane answered politely, "Fine and dandy."

She chuckled, "I see those new abilities are starting to pay off. Now go find the Calypsos and stop the COV."

"Will do." Kane followed her command.

Looking around, Zeta Squad found themselves in a small crater in the middle of the street of some city. Neon lights, expensive-looking cars, and skyscrapers taller than Earth's own star elevator. They all reminded them of their lives back in the Sol System…if it all wasn't in flames and weren't surrounded by sounds of war. Gunfire and explosions were the first thing to bring their focus back to the mission: Find the Calypsos.

The four began their trek down the street they landed onto. Each of them kept an eye out for any holes or windows they spotted on the way. Any one of them could've been occupied by COV snipers eager to crack a shot at their new top enemies. For the first few minutes of their trek, they found no signs of human life despite hearing all the fighting. Their expectations finally became real once they came across a three-way intersection. As soon as they heard chatter from somebody up ahead, Zeta quickly split up and took cover behind two thrashed vehicles. Kane and Fisher hid behind one of the left side while Wilkes and Grimm did the same behind one on the right. As they hid, the four scoped out who was ahead, seeing four white-armored men walking across the street. They made note of the Maliwan logo on their shoulder pads.

"Can't believe we gotta work with'em." One complained as he was busy scanning the area for hostiles.

"With who?" Asked one of his buddies.

"Those damn Calypsos and their COV!" He revealed, "The hell is Katagawa thinking?"

"Making alliances?" A third guessed.

The guy complaining huffed, "You don't know?"

"Not really."

"Oh, man, you're in for a surprise." He said before huffing again, "I'm sure that Tyreen Calypso is real happy after what she did."

Zeta Squad looked to one another from across the ravaged cars in wonder of what they meant. Grimm, on the other hand, was snickering to himself as he had his sights on the Maliwan troopers.

"She's real happy she got to fuck this Katagawa dude!" He joked.

Wilkes couldn't resist smirking, "What up, my superfans!? God-Slut Tyreen ready to fuck every man in the Borderlands now that I got the power of the Great Vault!"

Kane turned to Wilkes with a look of non-amusement while Fisher kept his eyes on Maliwan, particularly the fourth one, who was twitching more than a coffee addict.

"Do you hear that!?" Asked the one Fisher was observing with great panic.

His squadmates all sighed.

"Hear what?"

"You don't hear them!?"

The three shrugged.

"I hear two guys talking over there!" He pointed to the car Wilkes and Grimm just so happened to have been taking cover behind.

Wilkes and Grimm made sure to keep their heads as low as possible. They didn't want the glowing visors on their helmets to be a dead giveaway.

"You really gotta slow down on that coffee, amigo!" The squad leader said, "That shit'll screw with your heart if you have too much of it!"

The four Marines couldn't agree any more. Having a strung-out man with a gun is recipe for disaster.

After hearing their conversation, it was pretty clear who the enemy was and they needed to be stopped. On Kane's signal, Grimm took the first shot at Maliwan, their first target being the coffee addict. BOOM! One bullet from Grimm's Jakobs sniper rifle put him to a permanent sleep. "Shit!" The squad leader panicked once he and his buddies heard the shot, prompting them to take cover behind a destroyed tank in the middle of the intersection. Fisher provided a suppressing fire as they ran but was unsuccessful at hitting any of them. Taking this into play, Wilkes took out a grenade, pressed the detonate button, and tossed it over to the side where the enemy squad hid, forcing them to run out of cover as the grenade exploded. At that point, the enemy squad retaliated by unleashing a swarm of bullets toward the four, all of whom still had the luxury of cover.

As Maliwan fired away, Fisher checked the little monitor on his machine gun. Seeing he still had sixty-seven rounds left, he decided to be ballsy. Rising out of cover, Fisher blasted back with his own barrage of bullets, gunning down two of the Maliwan troopers, leaving just one alive.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" He shouted at the top of his lungs after seeing his friends die in battle, "YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR THAT!"

"Not today." Said Kane as he jumped aboard the roof of the ravaged car and aimed his Vladof rifle at the last trooper's head.

BANG! One round in the Maliwan guy's chest silenced him, severing his chances of getting revenge on the Outsiders forever.

Getting out of cover alongside Wilkes, Grimm smiled to his cyan-visored friend, "Yeah, you get'em, Dane Kane!"

Kane rolled his eyes, "What did I say about calling me that, Grimm?"

"That I shouldn't ever say that again?"

"Exactly."

The four resumed their trek through the war-torn street, passing by the group of fresh corpses they laid in their wake. Zeta thought nothing of their minor skirmish with Maliwan back there. It was par for the course for what they do every day and will keep doing until their promise with Lilith is fulfilled. But at least that squad back there seemed slightly more professional than the raving lunatics they had to deal with on Pandora. Too bad they were allied with said lunatics, something the four was trying to figure out why in their heads. Why would a corporation side with a bunch of savage lunatics who knew nothing of business, let alone comprehending three-syllable words? At least the thought of some corporate overlord teaming up with two wannabes with God complexes made total sense to them.

As the four reached yet another intersection, they found themselves…alone. Just more destroyed military and civilian vehicles and corpses not created by them. The second they arrived, they thought nothing. They knew a second encounter was inevitable anyway, especially since they were invading the planet alongside the COV, but not the way it started.

"Watch out!" Kane shouted to his fellow Marines.

The Outsiders jumped to the side after seeing a rocket come soaring in their direction. All of them managed to dodge it just in time to see it land right into a civilian looking to kill and loot from them with a kitchen knife. "WHAT THE F – " Were the last words to come out of his mouth before Maliwan's RPG explosively divided him into chunks of charred meat.

"Take cover!" Kane ordered his fellow Marines as soon as the rest of Maliwan noticed their presence.

The three followed Kane's orders and took cover behind a crashed fighter on the sidewalk. As they hid, Maliwan fired off every round they had at once. It was not the right moment to pick them off yet. Fisher was at least able to deduce that there were at least seven troopers in that squad thanks to a quick glimpse of them before fleeing the gunfire. The four waited for the lead swarm to stop, which for some reason took longer than expected, but eventually it did. The four exchanged nods and sprang out of cover. But when they did, they saw the unexpected.

"What the…" Wilkes said to himself, shotgun at the ready.

The Outsiders stopped in their tracks when they saw there was nobody to fight them, because they were all dead. Each Maliwan trooper laid pools of their own blood. Fisher immediately looked up to where the rocket came from, catching sight of a single trooper laying over the railing of a platform overlooking the intersection. There was only one sign of human life before them; A single person, stood at the center of the intersection. Their purple leather jacket and teal-streaked hair flapped in the wind as they stood on top of a car.

"Ma'am!" Kane spoke up to the stranger, "This is a dangerous area! Civilians shouldn't be here!"

"Who're you calling a civilian, ya wanker?" The person responded.

Grimm chuckled with his sniper watching them, "Well, you look like a civilian!"

Fisher stayed focused, "You with Maliwan?"

"Uhh, no!" They said, "I'm trying to defend Promethea from Maliwan!"

"Huh, funny enough!" Grimm lowered his weapon, "We came out here to do the same thing!"

"Wait, you did!?" They got down from the car and walked towards the Outsiders, "That's awesome! We'll take all the help we can get! As you can see, we're taking a hell of a beating out here!"

Wilkes looked up at the aerial warfare happening about in the sky.

"Nothing Marines can't handle!" The green-visored Outsider smiled with confidence.

Kane met up with the stranger, "Don't worry. The Crimson Raiders are here to help."

"Crimson Raiders?" They smiled with excitement, "Like, from Pandora? Wait, are you Vault Hunters!? You don't look like Vault Hunters."

"Not really." Kane said, "But we are looking for a Vault." Kane and the others checked their surroundings for any more Maliwan, "Look, it's not safe here. We have to keep moving."

"Yeah, yeah! Well, since you're looking for a Vault, I know someone who can help you. Let's get you to my boss. C'mon!"

"Wait, what's your name?" Asked Kane.

"Lorelei…"