Chapter Summary: CEO of Executive Executions, this chapter looks at Whiskey from the perspective of Pendles, everyone!

Notes: Pendles was hard, because where I had recordings of quotes for most other characters in this fic, the person who made them hasn't done anything for the characters who were added later. …and then I later added another character that I had the same problem with. Because I like making things hard on myself.

Italics means flashback here, folks.

Chapter 4: Pendakka "Pendles" Lakonna

Pendles likes Whiskey Foxtrot because he gets it.

He gets his desire to not let what he is hold him back from doing what he wants. For Whiskey, that had meant fighting and getting away anytime some RDC grunts caught up with him to put him down just because he was a defective clone. He learned how to think on his feet, just like Pendles had to on his very first job. Hell, Whiskey had learned to do that on the job they'd given him, and then been upset that he'd done that, just like him. Funny how he ran into the fella who gave it to him again, both afterwards and years later, he hadn't been happy to see him.

So, that was one other thing that Whiskey got, the knowledge that you did a job right, and somehow the person who gave it to you wasn't always going to be happy about it.

Admittedly, they'd had a somewhat… rough start. Upon hearing of his occupation, Whiskey had taken him to the kitchen, picked up a wicked looking knife to peel and julienne some carrots (he'd informed him you didn't chop carrots, you julienned them), that he barely tried to pretend wasn't to make a point. Then he'd told him that, if he took a hit on any of them, he'd cut off his other arm and serve it to him chopped up, deep fried, and served on skewers.

As far as threats went, it had honestly been one of the better ones he'd heard. And rather effective, since he was rather attached to his remaining arm (pun not intended), and if he'd hated the idea of losing due to biology… actually, no, losing it forcefully was probably an even level of hate.

Whiskey only ever brought the threat up again once, after the incident dubbed by Nova as "Toby's Friendship Raid" (they'd agreed because any name they'd come up with was worse), for obvious reason.

"Honestly, my good man, I was a bit insulted he asked. I do happen to like all of you. …and, you know, Alani would never speak to me again for killing friends." She was at the top of his list to not kill for any amount of money for a reason.

If Whiskey had an eyebrow, it'd be raised if the expression on his face had been any indicator. "So… the arm threat really had nothing to do with it?"

"…I suppose I couldn't say it didn't serve as incentive that I made the right call. Not lying when I say I actually like you lot, though," he'd added. "It's sorta fun comparing kills and seeing who has more interesting ones."

And then the conversation had moved on to "kill share story time" (Nova had called it that, once, and none of them could think of anything else).

Which was another reason he liked Whiskey Foxtrot; really interesting survival stories.

"You're pulling my leg, Trot."

"Why would I make up escaping death by going through a swarm of bees?"

Pendles leaned back in his seat, "Okay, how did they not sting you to death, then?"

Whiskey smirked, "Easy. Bees hate fast movements. All I had to do was move slowly. The morons hoping to turn me in didn't think there was a reason I was moving weird. Well, one guy did, and he was left figuring out a way to slowly drag someone when I was boarding a ship out of there." At the thoughtful look on the assassin's face, he rolled his visible eye, "You're trying to figure out a way to use that on a job, aren't you?"

"You're the one who put the idea in my head!"

"I kill a man with a f**king boat oar, and using bees to escape some chumps hoping to earn a quick buck is what impresses you?"

"You know what would really impress me? If you actually could make someone burst in to flames just by having them look at your face." Pendles took a drink and frowned, "Seriously, what's that all about?"

Whiskey looked nostalgic at the question. "Oh, man, that's a fun survival story! I'd just met up with the boss for the first time since Ekkunar, when she saved my ass during a raid, and let me tell you, I was tired. And I mean really f**king tired. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. Reyna's first official order, after smacking me on the shoulder, was for me to "let me grab the supplies and get some damn sleep, cause you look like a zombie,"" He quoted in a Reyna-ish voice. "I might have thought about disobeying, since she took a cut of the goods the last time, but she was using her "don't argue" voice. You know the one."

Pendles did know the one, and nodded in confirmation. It'd gotten him to stop taking Toby's snacks without permission and going into Ambra's room to mess with her stuff.

"Anyways," the clone continued, "Try as I might, something just kept causing my brain to wake up before I actually could, though. When finally, f**king finally, I start to fall asleep, I hear some annoyingly familiar voices asking Reyna about me." He let out a spine-tingling chuckle, "Murder containment chumps were hassling my new boss, trying to take me down, and keeping me from my beauty sleep, and I was not going to have any of that shit."

Pendles wisely kept from saying anything about the phrase "beauty sleep".

"I got out of bed, grabbed a couple bottles of booze, some rags, and a lighter. I opened the door to outside the shuttle, and one of the guys got a good look at me without my helmet before I threw the Molotov cocktails at his head, and then a grenade at the group in general just because before I pulled Reyna inside. Then I just went back to bed. She must have had the shuttle loaded already, cause we were in space when I woke up. Wasn't sure it'd happened until she told me."

If it had been anyone else, at any other time, Pendles might have called bullshit. But he's part of the Rogue faction of the Battleborn, and it was Whiskey Foxtrot. Strange and impossible things are par for the course for the former, and Whiskey is himself a strange fellow.

But he's just as much his friend as Alani is (not the same way, though, because he's known her forever, and she's his sea buddy), and really, there's nothing wrong at all with having strange friends.

Notes:

I will be so disappointed if they ever say where that rumor in his lore that says looking at his face causes you to burst into flames really came from. Because this probably isn't it.

Pendles will apparently not kill the Rogues for any price, if Toby's Friendship Raid is anything to go by.

Pendles wound up with one of the longer chapters. Not sure how that happened, beyond trying to make my word count and having ideas.

Reyna is Team Mom, guys. We all know it. And she probably has a tone of voice that you pretty much have to obey.

The bee thing came from an episode of Puss in Boots. The boat oar thing came from one of the few things about Musashi I readily remember. I think it was less "carved it into a sword" and more "beat a guy to death with it", but I like the idea of Whiskey defaulting to whatever he can grab in a fight.

I like to think some of the odder DLC names are from Nova naming them if no one else does.

Speaking of which, guess who gets chapter 5?

Comments are appreciated.