Intergalactic, Vault Hunting Liberators
"Sitrep." Kane said.
"Hm?" Lorelei turned to Kane as they ran.
"Sitrep!"
Lorelei cocked an eyebrow in confusion over the word.
"Never mind."
Lorelei and the Outsiders took another street to avoid a large platoon of Maliwan sent to investigate the deaths of two entire squads. Lorelei suggested finding a vehicle so they can get to HQ and talk to her boss, whom she claimed can help Zeta and their Crimson Raider allies find the Vault the Calypsos were trying to reach first. Zeta was all too happy to take all the help they can get.
It didn't take long for Lorelei and the Outsiders to find a garage not too far from where they first met. The four, especially Fisher, stayed vigilant the whole way through. There may not have been as much fighting as they expected, but they did nearly get hit by an RPG after all. Slipping inside via open door, the five found the garage empty. No Maliwan trooper waiting to ambush them or civilians hiding from the battlefield. Parked conveniently inside were two buggies. Zeta only needed one, so they and Lorelei quickly jumped aboard. They were lucky enough to find the keys inside the ignition as well. Once Grimm turned it on, he hastily took off outside, off to find this supposed helper.
Lorelei, whose mind was filled with baffle over the four men's sudden and unexpected presence, couldn't resist asking them something.
"So uhh…" They hesitated to speak up at first, "Did Rhys send you guys or something?"
"Rhys?" Grimm was curious.
"My boss?" They said, keeping vigilant of any Maliwan from the back of the buggy, "CEO of Atlas? We're at war with Maliwan? You're not from around here, are you?"
Wilkes answered bluntly from the backseat, "Nope."
Fisher chimed in while in charge of the machine gun turret, "We're not even from this century."
Lorelei chuckled, "We got these maniacs running around, screaming about some Vault and now we got some men claiming to be out of time."
"Tell me about it." Kane snarked from the passenger seat.
Grimm noted, "I see the Calypsos are already getting comfy on this planet."
Lorelei laughed again, picking off a Maliwan trooper attempting to chase them in a Monowheel, "The Calypsos? Those yammering ECHOnet arseholes with the cult?"
Kane turned to Lorelei, "Wait, you already know who they are?"
"Uhh…yeah? They're quite the hit on the ECHO!"
"And you and this Rhys haven't made any preparations against them while they're being hits on this ECHOnet?"
"You really think we expected those blokes to invade us alongside Maliwan?"
"Uh, they came here looking for your Vaul – "
Suddenly, their conversation came short thanks to a barrage of gunfire flying past them from behind. Fisher and Lorelei were the first to turn around, discovering a convoy of screaming COV in pursuit of their buggy. No doubt they knew who was behind the wheel. Fisher was the first open fire with the mounted machine gun, ripping any bandit in his line of sight and their vehicle to shreds. As he fired away, two raggedy bandit buggies moved to the side and boosted ahead in hopes of flanking them from there. Lorelei tried shoot one of the vehicles down, but not much damage was done save for one scored bandit kill.
Seeing their weapons from both sides, Lorelei warned the Outsiders, "Take cover!"
The COV opened fire on the buggy. Knowing there wasn't much cover anyway, Kane, Wilkes, and Lorelei had no choice but to fire back. Kane focused on the buggy to the right while Wilkes and Lorelei's were on the left. Fisher and Grimm were a little too occupied to provide assistance at the moment. With the combined might of Wilkes's shotgun and Lorelei's assault rifle, the two managed to fuck up the steel armor of the COV's vehicle pretty good, taking chunks off the more they fired at it. Kane meanwhile, was trying to bring the other buggy down with potshots at the driver himself. Not a single round was successful. Figuring it out quickly, he decided to focus on the others and took them out individually. Despite all of them going down quickly, the driver kept on chasing them. No dead passengers were going to stop him from honoring the Twin Gods.
Out of the blue, their buggy took a turn. Grimm saw a whole blockade filled with Maliwan so he needed to take an alternate route. Seeing Grimm make a left forced the pursuing COV to do the same. Fortunately for the five, not many executed their turns properly. The buggy containing the one driver was one of them, crashing right into the blockade, crushing the bones of any Maliwan trooper unlucky enough to be in his way. The many vehicles behind that Fisher had been fighting off had suffered so much damage from his MG rounds ended up following suit, creating a chain reaction of crashes into Maliwan, including one commander who was just minding his own business drinking a cup of coffee until a COV technical rolled right into him.
After taking the turn, the Outsiders now had only one enemy vehicle to deal with, the one who Wilkes and Lorelei were shooting at. At that point, Grimm had had enough. Reaching into his equipment while driving, the recon pulled out a single M71 frag grenade. Pressing the button at the very top where its predecessors had their pins located, Grimm tossed it from the driver seat. With good luck and precision, the grenade had made it into the COV's buggy, landing right onto the driver herself. The driver, who just so happened to have been an Acolyte, a special high rank of the COV. Anyone lucky enough to be one of Tyreen's Acolytes or Troy's Anointed gets to be pumped full of Eridium and be used as a shock trooper against the Calypsos' top targets.
Catching sight of the grenade just in time, the Acolyte witnessed the explosive fall right down onto her seat. Her glowing purple eyes widened as she saw it land between her Eridium-sludged boots. She could barely react in time to grab the grenade, which had went off just as she took one hand off the wheel, turning her into nothing but chunks of glowing, charred meat flying out of the giant explosion created from the grenade and the buggy's engine.
"Wo-ho!" Lorelei witnessed Grimm's impressive work, "Nice one, mate!"
Grimm smiled from the compliment, "The benefits of being the best shot in the Corps!"
Kane rolled his eyes, "At ease, Grimm."
"So uhh…does anyone wanna ask where those COV back there got all that fancy weaponry?" Wilkes pointed out as he was busy refilling his shotgun with fresh shells.
"Well, we know the COV and Maliwan seem to be working together…for some reason. Pretty obvious who they got those guns from."
"Eh, whatever!" Grimm drove right into a tunnel, "I'm just glad we're not being kept in touch by them!"
"Superfan!" Said a certain woman who brought unwanted annoyance to the Outsiders.
"Aw, just had to say it, mate!" Lorelei called Grimm out as she reloaded.
"So what do you think of our first corporate sponsors?" Tyreen went on to talk, "I gotta say, so far, selling out rules!"
"Clearly you have never served a galaxy before!" Grimm commented.
Troy also decided to chime in, "We gave Maliwan an unlimited supply of screaming war meat, AKA our followers! And they gave us a bunch of crazy high-tech guns!"
"And once they take the planet, they get Atlas, and we get the Vault." Tyreen continued whatever she went on about, "So they're left playing with…a white knight, soldier boy, a hot, sexy gun-slut, and a joker! Ha-ha!"
After a minute of not hearing any more from them, Lorelei finally asked the four, "…Were they referring to me in that last part there?"
"Don't listen to'em." Kane assured their new ally, "They're not gonna succeed in their mission. We'll make sure of that."
"You got that right, mate."
As Lorelei looked in the distance ahead, their eyes widened. Looking down at the four, they pointed at a particular building ahead of them.
"That's it!" She shouted, "That's the place!"
Kane looked up at Lorelei. Pinpointing where they pointed their finger, he ordered Grimm to stop in front of the specific building. Getting out all at once, Zeta looked up, spotting the Atlas name in red neon a few stories up, that and three Maliwan troopers standing on the sidewalk. Wilkes of course took it upon himself to fire the first shot, blowing the head off the closest trooper. This of course alerted the others.
One pointed down at the squad approaching the building from the sidewalk, "It's them!" He shouted to his squadmates, "It's those Outsiders they warned us about!"
"Tell'im they're – "
"Our time to shine." Fisher said to himself as he ran toward the stairs, bringing down a second trooper with his own machine gun with seven bullets. Kane finished the last of the tiny squad by picking off the last one.
"Let's do this, Marines!" Kane ordered the others as they ran up the stairs together, "Crimson Raiders ain't gonna pay us by the hour!"
Kane, Wilkes, Fisher, Grimm, and Lorelei made their way up the stairs guns cocked. Once they made it up, their presence to known to every, who were surprisingly present at the entrance. Upon arrival, Fisher and Lorelei immediately made note of the two defense platforms overlooking the area and three blockades, all decorated in COV and regular bandit symbols of course, covering the entrance. Lorelei believed the heavy fortification to be because it was one of many command centers Atlas used to plan attacks on Maliwan before they got destroyed or taken over, but Fisher came to a different conclusion.
"THEY'RE HERE!" Screamed one of the cultists at the top of their lungs, "THE OUTSIDERS ARE HERE!"
Another screeched as she and a couple other cultists came charging, "FOR THE TWIN GODS!"
Kane fired the first shot, killing one of the oncoming bandits, "For the people of the Borderlands."
Troy muttered to himself through the ECHO, "Did he really just say that?"
Lorelei was about to fire the second shot, only to be stopped by Fisher's machine gun which killed the rest. They decided to focus their sights on the next wave jumping over the vandalized Maliwan blockade. Wilkes's sights were on them too. Using his Jakobs, the green-visored Marine put an abrupt end to the next wave of bandits looking claim his skull as a trophy, all save for one who managed to get close just as Wilkes was pumping in another shell, his last one.
Lorelei took his as their queue to finally get a shot in, "I gotchya, mate!"
Wilkes growled to the oncoming cultist, "Get the fuck away, you crazy-ass bitch!"
With no time to pull his sidearm, Wilkes had no choice but to use his bare hands. Folding one into a fist, Wilkes rammed it right into the screaming cultist, creating a spectacular sight of something none predicted.
"Woah!" Grimm shouted the moment he saw it.
"What the hell?" Kane yelled to himself, briefly taking his eyes off one of the bandits on the platforms.
Lorelei was impressed by what they saw, "Holy hell, mate! You got a killer right hook!"
Between finding himself on Pandora and landing on Promethea, Wilkes's punches became more powerful than ever. When he punched that bandit in her face, her whole head exploded into a fine pink mist, sending chunks of bone and her bandit mask everywhere. Blood of course soared all over. Wilkes was splashed with most of it while the other three Marines got droplets, giving their armor a decent coat of Borderlands Red.
"Agh! Goddamnit!" Wilkes needed to take cover to get the blood off his visor, "The hell did I just do!?"
"No idea!" Kane took cover alongside the others to avoid the two snipers up on the platforms, "But we gotta deal with these guys first! Grimm!?"
Grimm went for his DMR, "Got it!"
The red-visored recon aimed up at one of the platforms, scoping out the bandit using it. Seeing what his friend was doing, Fisher unleashed a suppressive fire at that very bandit. With a nice smirk, BOOM! Grimm took out the first bandit, sending him rolling down the ramp behind him. Before he could get the chance to brag, he had to take out the final one. However, it was too late. The last bandit, who wielded an old Dahl LMG, quickly caught on to what he was gonna do, so he focused his sniper on Grimm.
"Damnit!" He shouted after a stream of bullets whizzed by his head, "Gonna need some help here!"
Nodding, Fisher brought his LMG to the bandit. Unfortunately, age just had to catch up with the gun that very second. Right before his eyes, the entire gun collapsed. All the parts that made up that very model fell down onto the ground at once. With Grimm under fire, Fisher had to take a deep breath and not think about speeding up his plans once he got back to Sanctuary III. His friend was under fire and needed assistance. Luckily, an idea popped in his head. While the others were busy helping Grimm deal with the sniper, Fisher split from the group for just a brief second. Curious from seeing the Cold Support making his way toward the platform, Lorelei decided to follow, especially since the man had no gun despite having a sidearm, and since they were behind Fisher, they got first-class tickets to a certain view.
"Mind tellin me what you're doin, mate?" They asked Fisher.
Fisher didn't say much, and by much nothing at all. The Cold Support made his way to the back of the platform. Only then did he turn to them and silently shush them. Seeing him run up the ramp, Lorelei could swear they saw a tiny smirk on Fisher's face before he did. They stayed on guard just in case. Once he made it up, Fisher wasted no time in ending the bandit on top. Hearing the Outsider run up from behind, the bandit turned around, which was the only thing she could do in time before seeing Fisher's fist fly right into her masked face, destroying her head just like how Wilkes killed the other bandit below. The Cold Support was greeted with a generous fountain of crimson red to replace the desert camouflage color scheme on his armor.
"What the…" Kane said to himself when he saw Fisher kill that cultist.
"How the hell did you get all the way up there!?" Asked a confused Wilkes.
"Thank you!" Grimm at least showed appreciation for his friend saving his life.
Needing a new weapon ASAP, Fisher snatched the LMG off the dead cultist's hands. Looking down from the platform to see the others regroup, Fisher jumped down the ramp. Upon catching up, he could swear his jump was a little higher than usual. Even Lorelei noticed but shrugged the wonder off once all five of them regrouped.
The five charged into the entrance. Too much time was burning and they needed to contact this Rhys guy soon if they were gonna have a chance of finding the Vault first. Going up a flight of stairs, they found themselves inside a command center, which was already occupied by COV, none of whom appeared threatening. Kane cocked an eyebrow when he saw one of the six bandits inside reaching into the air like he was trying to grab something. Fisher took notice of one standing by a monitor ahead fumble around while his pants were falling off until his whole body eventually fell. He then spotted another walk like a zombie in that fallen bandit's direction until she tripped onto said bandit, leading her to fall on the floor as well.
Grimm was snickering the whole time as observed the COV's finest guard the interior. That was until he recalled what happened outside a couple minutes ago.
"So uh…does anyone wanna ask how the hell Robert and Wilkes were to…you know?"
Kane started walking up to the monitor, "Not right this second."
Lorelei followed Kane to the monitor. They took it upon themself to get communication booted up. Turning on the monitor, Lorelei started typing. The Outsiders kept watch of the intoxicated bandits while she did her thing. Fisher took this moment to sit down, take off his helmet, and comb his short, spiky hair, bringing some special attention to his cowlick. Inspired by seeing what his friend was doing, Grimm sat down to do the same to keep his quiff hair intact. With nothing else to do, Kane watched the machine gunner and sniper maintain themselves. Even while watching in contempt, it was either watch those two or Wilkes swear at his ECHO device as he attempts to use it.
Finally, to Kane's fortune, the systems booted up. Lorelei managed to get everything working again. Kane was all too happy to resume focus on the mission. Approaching the monitor, Kane looked up to see a giant holographic projection of a man looming over them. Even though he just saw him, something told Kane not to take this man seriously judging by his mustache.
"Hello!" The man greeted with a chipper attitude, "You've reached Rhys Strongfork, CEO, and wartime general of Atlas Corporation. Just a quick question…WHO THE HELL IS THIS AND HOW DID YOU GET ON MY SECURE LINE!?"
A CEO with a mustache? Yep. Don't take this man seriously. Kane thought to himself.
Lorelei spoke up, "Rhys, relax. It's Lorelei. We've managed to secure this place, with a little help. I've got – " They looked to something in the distance, "Woah…"
And just like that, they walked off, cutting their conversation mid-sentence.
Kane had to pick up the slack, "I'm sure whatever Lorelei was gonna say, it was about that thing on your face."
"Oh this?" Rhys calmed down, "This is my – siege mustache! The troops love it. Anyway, who're you? Your armor doesn't look Atlas."
"Sergeant Daniel Kane." The erm…White Knight revealed his name, "We're uhh...men out of time. It's a long story. Anyway, I'm with the Crimson Raiders. We're here to liberate Promethea and secure the Vault."
"Crimson Raid – " Rhys needed a moment, "Holy crap, YES! How many troops did you bring!? Twenty thousand!? Fifty thousand!?"
"Um…it's just the four of us, Mr. Strongfork. Me, Wilkes, Fisher, and Grimm."
"What!?" Rhys exclaimed, "Come on! I can't take back this city with a single-digit army!"
Grimm chimed in to the conversation, "Well, to be fair, I don't think we'd mesh well with the Crimson Raiders on the battlefield. We're a little better than everyone else here."
Wilkes had finally taken his attention off the ECHO, "Yeah, who needs an army when you got Zeta Squad?"
"Oh, great." Rhys facepalmed, "Arrogance. Excellent."
"They're good, Rhys!" Lorelei happily backed the team up, "Very good! And we need all the help we can get. Bandits are pouring into the city, and they're working with Maliwan. Looks like Katagawa's made a deal with the Calypsos."
"Perfect. Everybody's just piling on. Katagawa, Maliwan, bandits, the Calypsos, the Crimson Raiders, and some soldiers of fortune who claim to be out of time."
"Soldiers!?"
"At ease, Wilkes."
"One of whom is very sensitive. Well, new friends…"
"Just call us Outsiders."
"Outsiders, you showed up at the right time. My top agent was gearing up to strike at Maliwan's strategic Gigamind. If they're after the Vault, that's where the intel will be. But…
"But?"
Rhys sighed, "I can't contact him right now. And he's only one who knows the whereabouts of Gigamind!"
"There's no way you can track him or Gigamind down yourself? We really need to get to that Vault."
"I'll try."
Kane turned to his squadmates currently present, "I guess we'll have to make ourselves useful for the time being. This city's getting hammered by Maliwan as we speak. I say it could use a little liberating..."
