Chapter 20 It's All Coming Together

Roland was a soldier, at least where it counted.

Sure, it may not be a part of the Crimson Lance anymore, in fact, Atlas might even charge him with desertion. Maybe even treason if they ever found out that he killed his last CO. Although, in his defense, the man deserved it.

Even still, he could never leave the military lifestyle he'd grown to accept, behind him. You can take the man out of the fight, but you can't take the fight out of the man. Or the rigorous training, psychological conditioning, and overall respect for those in a position of authority.

"Don't we have any bigger guns?!" His latest 'boss', however, was changing his perspective on the chain of command. Roland would almost be impressed, if he wasn't completely certain, that Lilith was doing it entirely by accident.

"If we had one, we would be using it." Roland answered dryly.

"Come on, man! Didn't Jack have something cool installed? You're out gunner! You should know this stuff!" Mordecai unhelpfully argued.

Roland rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should call him and ask."

"Okay!" Brick happily agreed, pausing from the firefight (why?!) to actually contact Jack via echo. "Hello? Boss, you there?"

"Uh, Jack's a little busy at the moment." The 'assistant' from before, Angel if he remembers correctly, informed them. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Lilith yanked the echo out of Brick's hands, much to the big man's complaints, nearly swerving the Technical dangerously onto its side. "Nope! Everything's fine! We've got it completely under control!"

What?

"Are you sure?" Even Angel was skeptical, rightfully so. "It's no trouble, really. Honestly, I'd be happy to assist."

"Yup!" Lilith steered away again, almost throwing Roland off of his turret. "Thanks, but we're good. Right guys?"

"Are you out of your mind, Lil?!" Mordecai voiced what they were all thinking. Well, close to it anyways. Personally, Roland was thinking the situation's gone FUBAR. And Brick was probably thinking…

Well, who knows? Probably something about guns or explosions. He's simple like that.

"I said we're totally fine, aren't we guys?"

"No! Haven't you been listening?! We need- mpph!" A purple glow briefly flashed, and suddenly Mordecai had a sock in his mouth. That is… very unhygienic.

"Situation…" Roland sighed. "Normal. Lilith is correct, everything is under control."

"I don't know." Brick shrugged. "I still think we could use a hand-" Well, if Lilith's using her own socks, then this might be okay for Roland. He sincerely doubted she brought any more than two.

"I see." Angel hesitated. "Then I suppose I shall leave you to it. Good luck, Vault Hunters."

The echo disconnected about the same time Mordecai got the sock out of his mouth. "Lil, what the hell are you doing?! We need Jack's help!"

"No, we don't!" Lilith shot back, annoyed. "We don't need him for everything, okay? We can do this on our own."

Brick already threw the sock that was in his mouth out of the Technical, to Lilith's dismay. Serves her right for using her only pair. "Come on, girl. What's this really about?"

Lilith continued to sputter out denials, while Roland subtly called Angel on his own device. This is the closest he's ever come to insubordination. Recently, anyway. "Angel." He spoke in a lone tone that was definitely lost to the others over the sound of gunfire and their own arguments.

And the Rakk Hive's stampede. That probably covered it up the most.

"Yes, Roland? Is something wrong?" Perceptive. Well, perhaps that's a generous term in this case. A blind man could see that something was clearly wrong here.

"Current artillery is insufficient in overpowering the target." He relayed quietly, his eyes glancing back and forth from his team and the Rakk Hive. "We're going to need something with more efficient firepower. What else has Jack installed into the Technical?"

"Hold on." Is she… is she putting him on hold? "Okay, the forms are coming up… now. I can see he had something registered with Scooter for the car, if details an ample amount of force, though I can't quite see the name. It's listed as a BFG? Does that help?"

"It might. Do you know how to deploy it?"

"Yes, repeat after me. Ahem, Optimus Prime Directive: Activate Weapons Protocol 3.0."

So, Roland did. Then his turret shifted back inside the Technical, folding under the plates of the car, and nearly throwing him out of the vehicle. Again. Jack should have seriously prioritized this thing's safety features.

"Woah!" Lilith was much more vocal at the sudden loss of their main weapons. "Where are the guns? What did you guys just do?!"

"I didn't do anything." Mordecai defended himself, Bloodwing cawing in indignation. "Not like that, Blood. I meant that all I was doing was trying to kill the big ugly monster chasing us!"

"I was also shooting at it." Brick solemnly agreed, turning back to the group wistfully.

"Oh, cool. So, it's nobody's fault. Awesome, glad we got that cleared up. Except, you know, our guns are gone! How the hell are we supposed to kill it?!" Lilith did make a fair point, Roland was wondering about that himself.

"Angel…" If the first worried tone he ever used gave away the enormous amount of stress he was feeling at the moment, no one said a word. "Where's the BFG?"

Also, what exactly is a BFG. Roland's pretty sure he's never heard of that abbreviation before.

"It should be-" Angel is cut off, by an almost orbital sized cannon, forming itself out of the plates of the car, and pieces of their engine (how does this even make sense?!). And asserting itself in the bed of the truck. Forcing poor Mordecai to scramble into the backseat, while Bloodwing flies off to Lilith's shoulder. "There." She finished, almost smugly.

Roland nodded, while the others were still staring in shock, and muttering in awe. "That'll do."

…

"Alright, just stay still." Stupid Claptraps and their stupid processors, and these stupid fricking tools. How am I supposed to do anything under these conditions?! No. No, Jack. Calm down and breathe. Nice slow, calming breaths. Sigh.

I didn't mean that. I love my tools, and I should have never called them stupid.

They're cheap, they're useful, they do what I tell them, without complaint, and they always get the job done. They are by far the best friends a good craftsman can have. They're just… working under frustrating conditions. I'm working under frustrating conditions.

Believe me, I would love to just unload all this tinkering onto one of my poor, unfortunate interns. Thing is, there's no one here I can trust to do it, or at least to do it right. People aren't as easy to use as tools.

So, I'm left with doing the job myself. Not that Claptrap's making it easy on me.

I think he's doing the robot equivalent of sleep-walking, or sleep-rolling, I guess. I strapped him down, but he is surprisingly maneuverable. Frickin clanker. Actually, I'm not really sure that derogatory works here.

In the Clone Wars, that's what they called droids, because they're metal feet were loud, and kind of clanked on their own ships. But Claptrap doesn't have feet. I'd make a joke about him being a 'roller' or whatever, but honestly, I'm a little sick of the gag.

We get it, he has a wheel instead of legs.

I'm tempted to just give him legs out of spite. But, I'll settle for giving him a working stair-capable wheel upgrade. Because the second we get to a slightly more elevated platform that doesn't have a ramp, he loses any and all usefulness.

I am gonna try to keep that door opening protocol working.

It came in pretty handy a few times over the games. Mostly for breaking into Hyperion doors, but still. Besides, you never know when you might need to stage a Corporate takeover. Or a literal takeover, considering how willing Tasiter is to bow out when I start to run this joint.

It never hurts to have backup plans.

"Aghh! Stay away you skags!" Great, Claptrap's having night terrors again. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. I mean, I get that for some reason he has a subconscious, but how in the hell does he have dreams? Isn't that a human phenomenon?

Or just, sentient animal life in general? I don't get Artificial lifeforms.

In fact, most of the time I find their personalities are annoying, and their existential questions are majorly unsettling. Why can't I make someone cool like Cortana? Or GLaDOS?

Ooh! I'm gonna save that idea for later.

Wonder if I should give her access to deadly neurotoxin?... No! That's a bad Jack thought! I can't let her kill people just because it might be funny. Unless it's really funny, and they really deserve it- aggh!

At some point, I should really go through some therapy to cope with all of the old Jack's homicidal impulses. Like, it's on my agenda. I'm just trying to hold it off for a bit, maybe wait for their service fees to plummet.

It might be a while, because I'm definitely going to have hire scores of them to even try making Pandora a more civilized, or at least, less trigger happy planet.

"Okay, at least we got the wheel upgrade installed." I muttered to myself happily, my hands practically blurring from the bot to the workbench, as I corrected the many, many flaws in Claptrap's design.

The Vault Hunter Exe. Package is still gonna be a while off. I got the original squad's skills and talents at the ready, but I want to get the other, future Vault Hunters abilities in the set, before I upload anything.

And I really don't want to miss fucking up the long term memory storage, in case I ever need him to go R2D2, and send out a 'you're my only hope' message. Like I said, it never hurts to have backup plans.

I noticed some malfunction with the short term memory storage, actually, when I was digging around in there. Which… explains a lot.

Huh.

Maybe I should go easier on the guy?

Nah.

"Dad." Turning around, I smiled widely and pulled my little girl into a hug that she half-heartedly protested. "Stop!"

"Nope." I squeezed her extra hard, before eventually releasing her, her face flushed red in embarrassment. "So, kiddo. Want to tell me why that's here." I emphasize, with an angrily pointed finger at the bound and unconscious Claptrap.

That'd be really weird if he wasn't a robot.

"You shouldn't point at people." Angel responded with crossed arms. "It's not polite."

"First of all, Claptrap aren't people, they're mistakes." I counted on the first finger, before moving to the second and third. "Secondly, I'm the parent here, and I say pointing fingers is okay! As long as I'm the one doing it. And thirdly, don't deflect. Seriously, Angel, why, just why?"

My daughter raised an eyebrow, unsympathetically, while continuing to stare me down. I'm so proud. "Would you rather we left him on Pandora? Would you rather let Atlas have full access to his memory hardwire, so they know exactly what we've done, and what we're still planning to do, added to the fact that now you're not technically there to do it?"

I was completely speechless. Save for three words. "But… it's Claptrap."

I didn't say they were clever words.

Angel rolled her eyes. Now who's impolite? "I'm aware."

"Couldn't you have, I don't know, send him somewhere else? Somewhere far, and distant, where he can't bother anyone. Like space! That way no one could hear him." I felt that was a very fair, and just argument, but Angel looked at me disapprovingly.

"Dad…"

"I mean, I guess we still could chuck him out an airlock."

"Dad."

"No, you're right, I've already invested this much time into reprograming him, and kinking out some of the design flaws. It'd be a waste to throw him away now. Let me just finish some of the new features, like the stealth/invisibility protocols, and this mute button idea I thought of."

"Dad!"

"What? I was just kidding." No, I wasn't. Sigh. And it was such a good idea too. "So, progress report, and no, I don't mean your grades, relax. What's up with the Vault Hunters? Did they get the last fragment yet?"

Angel gave me a frown at the mention of her grades, which for the record are way better than what I had in High School, and I was a straight A student. "Not yet, but the Rakk Hive is on its last legs. I expect they'll be done soon."

"That's what I like to hear!" I cheered with a celebratory fist pump, for special occasions only. "Come on, let's get the Fast Travel ready to beam them up."

"Alright." We walked side by side, father and daughter, the whole dynamic duo shtick. A bit overdone, but when in doubt go with the classics. "Dad, why were you experimenting on Claptrap?"

Oh boy.

"For science…?"

"Dad!"

"You never let me have any fun." I pouted, bumping her shoulder childishly, which she happily returned.

…

Lilith was panting hard, could you blame her?

She was stuck in a car, driving at literal breakneck speeds, with three very clearly unbathed men, in the burning hot sun, in the desert. All while trying to stay ahead of a monster, that might've been the inspiration for the 'Goliath' of the Bible. If it didn't happen to be native to a planet, known for trying to kill its inhabitants.

So yeah, she was breathing a lot, and pretty heavily at that. Sue her, if you got such a problem with it. Preferably, after they kill the Rakk Hive.

"Roland!" Lilith snapped, frustration finally beating exhaustion, in the fight for her breath. "Will you just shoot it already!"

"It's still charging." And damn him for saying that so coolly, as if he wasn't bothered by the heat at all. If there was one thing, (there's more than one) that Lilith missed about Jack, it's that he never hid how he was really feeling.

"I don't care!" Lilith reminded him, indignantly. "It's already gonna kill him! Why are you trying to waste the battery?!"

"Because if it doesn't," Roland carries on, unintimidated. "If it survives the blast, we'd have to shoot it again. Angel forwarded the data on the BFG to me. It's effective, but it overheats after every fire. The cooldown process would take too long for us to recharge, so we have to take it out on the first and only shot. So, let it charge."

That's… fair.

Actually, she's a little jealous. Roland just kind of exudes badassery. He's probably the textbook definition of stoic. And aloof. Definitely disciplined. Super serious. Possibly a perfectionist. Or overdramatic?

Nah.

He is pretty uptight though. A state of being, that sadly, almost no amount of epicness can cure.

Such a pity.

"Well… charge faster." Lilith's order sounded weak, even to her own ears, but Roland nodded along, nonetheless. It's probably something to do with all that soldier boy, military jargon. Maybe she could do something to help with that?

How does one go about unbrainwashing someone, who's been brainwashed into being disciplined…? TV? Lilith's parents always said it would have the opposite kind of effect, so it definitely seems worth a try.

"Roland, seriously man! We don't have time for this!" Mordecai shouts back worriedly. She could see why. An empty clip is a sniper's worst nightmare. Being chased by a massive, terrifying, beast, that has a vendetta against said sniper, probably didn't help.

Go figure.

"Make time." Roland stubbornly refuses. "It's almost ready."

Brick shrugged, and throwed the first thing he could grab at the Rakk Hive… her shoes. Lilith knew she shouldn't have taken those off. What's really bad is that she didn't bring a spare set. Now she's gonna have to trek the rest of this desert/jungle/tundra planet barefoot. Not fun.

Its stomps were actually starting to shake the Technical and given that it was close enough for her to smell it's rancid, corpse like breath, she had a feeling they were out of time. "Roland."

"Brace yourselves!" He reared back, and good thing he warned them, because the second he fired, the whole car stalled. Considering that they were going over two hundred miles per hour the second before that, it was a miracle the car wasn't completely totaled.

She'd have to give Jack credit for the safety features, they were very thorough.

When she looked up again, she could barely see anything over the rising dust cloud. But what she could make out, was the very big, very dead body of the Rakk Hive.

How does she know it's dead, you may be wondering?

On her part, it's a little assumed. But in all fairness, missing a head, via laser decapitation (or obliteration, in this particular case) seems like it would kill just about anything. "Hey, Roland…"

"Yes?"

"I think you could have fired it sooner."

"Hmmph."

…

Commandant Steele was not a patient woman.

She most certainly was not a merciful one. What she was, was effective. Intelligent, cunning, the perfect warrior, the perfect leader. Even without her powers, she would have easily excelled in the Atlas military. It's why they made her an officer, put others under her command, entrusted her with this mission. With Pandora.

She would not fail because some Hyperion лакей in a mask, tried to make a power grab for a planet he knew nothing about, with the aid of one of Dahl's many rejects. Atlas was far superior to both of these pretender corporations combined.

Steele refused to be beaten by their refuge. Even if she had to get her hands dirty.

Though, to be completely honest, she enjoyed that part rather much.

"Where is she?" She questions with a sneer, standing triumphantly and viciously over the petty little tyrant, the self-acclaimed 'bandit baron'. Peh. What need does trash have for titles?

"W-what?" 'Baron' Flynt stuttered, crawling away from her while his home burned. "W-who the hell are you talking about?!"

Steele spat at the bandit, grabbing his left leg to end his fruitless retreat. "Dr. Patricia Tannis. You know where she is. Tell me." This time she twisted the leg, bending it quite unnaturally without breaking it. There would be time for that.

"T-Tanis." Baron gasped incredulously, with a hint of hysteria. "How should I know?"

She twisted the leg back further, and he screamed. "Do not lie to me. The people of Haven have pointed you out specifically. They tell me that you are working directly under her, that they heard it from the mouth of Tannis herself."

"Tannis is the liar." Baron continued pleading, anger creeping into his voice. "Before all of this, I was just a warden, I didn't have anything to do with all that science crap, I swear! I have no idea where she is!"

"What." Steele did not release her grip, but she didn't push back further either. Too lost in thought.

A lie. A trick. A decoy. Of course. She should have suspected nothing less.

While she's been massacring bandits, her enemies have gained the upper hand, again. She really should have seen this coming. That just makes her angrier.

"Then I suppose I have no use for you." She glared down at the only immediate person capable of feeling her ire.

"Wait, wait!" Baron waved his hands frantically. "You don't want to kill me. I-I can find her."

Intriguing. "How?"

"I worked at Dahl as a warden, remember? I know all the channels! I can check the radios, maybe she'll let something slip, o-or we could track her signal." He added, as she increased the pressure.

Steele frowned. It was a pitiful lead, but with Tannis's lab empty, and the Doctor herself mysteriously vanishing into thin air, it was the only one she had had. "Very well. But know this, if you're lying, I'll break the other one before I kill you."

"The other wha-ARRGGHH!" Baron Flynt cut himself off with a scream, as he gingerly clutched his now broken leg.

She felt better about this already.

…

Tch, tch, tch. You see what happens when baddies go offscreen for a little bit?

Murder rampage. Every time.

Anyways, thank you all for tuning into this week's chapter, I apologize if it's a little short, but I've been… Not busy, but very distracted. Like, I bought a new platform game, with all of these puzzles, and it never feels long when I'm doing them, but before I know it, hours pass, and it's like, aggh! Where did the time go?!

So, yeah, again sorry about that.

In other news, there's probably not going to be a chapter for anything next week, now that there would be for this story anyway, but I'm a bit behind on some school projects (It is seriously inhumane for one teacher to assign two different projects for the same month)

Plus, I gotta take care of my Mom's dog, Betsy, while she's out on Vacation. So, that's gonna keep me busy.

But there should still be another chapter for this up in two weeks, so stay tuned people!

Until then, please Follow, Favorite, and Review!