FLY ME TO THE MOON
CHAPTER 1:
TAKE A RIDE ON THE BLACK DRAGON
When the door to the interrogation room opened, and the familiar red-haired woman with the golden eyes strode in, I leaned back in my chair. "Well, I have to give it to you. As far as interrogation rooms go, this one's pretty comfy, even homely. Clean, but not clinical or sterile. Good air conditioning." I rapped my knuckles on the desk. "Hell, the desk will give a good concussion if you decide to slam my head into it. I'll give it at least four Jack Bauers, maybe four and a half."
The woman across from me didn't share my good humour. Instead, she consulted a printout in her hands. "Zagreus. Birth name: Richard Snyder. Occupation: Mercenary, Assassin, formerly of the Crimson Lance Psychological Warfare Division, Eris Group. Adopted sister, so to speak, of former Omega Squadron Lance Assassin Athena. Deserted from the Crimson Lance two years ago…"
"…Rather violently, I believe," I interjected with a grin. "I slashed up a lot of Lance idiots while my music player was playing Otherworld(1). Good times."
The woman scowled, but continued. "Aided us in repelling General Knoxx. Joined Jack Clarke(2) in his quest for the Elpis Vault..."
"You know this," I said in a bored, sing-song tone. "You were there."
The woman finally looked into my eyes. As she glared, I scoffed. "What? Are you going to send me out to the firing squad, just because my sister and I worked with Jack? I'll be honest here, Lilith. We did more to save Elpis and Pandora than you, Roland, and Moxxi did. Jack is a dick. I won't make any bones about that. In fact, I daresay I've known him for longer than anyone in this place. But…well, you did jack, if you'll forgive the bad pun, compared to us in stopping Zarpedon." As her eyes narrowed, I asked, "Did that hurt? Good. So did nearly killing us. I mean, I thought you were a friend, along with Roland and Moxxi, until you stabbed us in the backs. You're lucky Athena told me to stand down after that bullshit with the Eye, or else I would've diced you. So tell me, why are you really here, Lilith? If it's to ask why we worked for Jack, it's because we needed the money. Because we were mercenaries, not unlike you when you hunted the Vault."
Lilith scowled once more, looking like she wanted nothing more than to set me on fire. But I did nothing but tell the truth, and she knew it. Eventually, she said, "You said you had information that could help us. We've received word that Jack has instigated a hostile takeover of Hyperion. Literally. He's throttled Tassiter, by all accounts, and intimidated the members of the board. Roland's getting people ready for war, as word on the grapevine is that Jack has New Haven in his sights. But I want answers. You said there were things that we didn't know about with Elpis, as well as claiming you knew something about the Guardian Angel. We've got enough time for you to tell the story. Plus, any insight you have into Jack and the other Vault Hunters. Wilhelm, Nisha, Lady Hammerlock…"
"Huh. By the way, where's my sister? Or Janey? Or Tim? Or Claptrap?"
"Moxxi is taking care of them. Athena is cooperating. And Tim's trying hard not to soil himself." Lilith leaned forward. "So tell me…from the beginning…why?"
"A long story. Bloody long story. After that debacle with ol' Knoxxie, Athena and I were eking out a living, as hired guns. I noticed you guys never asked us to help out with any jobs, like that whole Claptrap revolution thing. Anyway, not long ago, we got a message from a Hyperion programmer and low-level surveillance officer. He didn't know who I was at the time, that I once knew him as Uncle John, and that he knew me once as Dick. Anyway, the message said, 'Come to the Moon. Hunt a Vault. Be a hero'."
"And what did you find there?"
"What do you expect? You were there. A lot of madness, a lot of death, both of which I contributed to…and a hero. Of sorts. Until he fell, like Lucifer, though I think he didn't have far to fall. Where did it begin? Well, tough call there, but I guess it started on the rocket to Helios…"
I leaned back on the acceleration couch, scowling as the PA system pumped out some banal song. Appropriate, yes, but still banal as hell.
Fly me to the moon,
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what Spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars…
I grumbled as I looked at the status readouts on the screen in front of us. "This inflight movie is crap, isn't it?"
"Yeah," grunted a grizzled man with cybernetic limbs and a cybernetic eye, salt and pepper hair and beard giving him the air of a mercenary.
"What do you expect?" a woman about my age and with Indian features remarked. She looked like a cowboy…or rather, a cowgirl. "This is Hyperion cattle class."
"I know what will cheer things up! A good old-fashioned sing-along!" a rhomboid, yellow robot with a single eye chirped.
"No," my sister said. "Just no.(3)"
I looked at my sister, at her blue hair framing her features that were wonderfully beautiful, but set, almost perpetually, in a stoic, stern glare of concentration. She had her hood up. "Come on, sis, remember that singalong we had in the Crimson Lance brig?"
"I wish I couldn't," she groaned.
I pouted. "You're no fun."
"What did you sing?" the Indian woman asked.
I smirked, remembering that time in the cell…
I don't think my sister and fellow prisoner was a fan of my singing skills. Well, she was a sister in all but blood. Without her, I wouldn't have survived the hell that I had been brought into when Atlas decided to bring me into their ranks. But she didn't think much of my euterpean efforts(4). Anyway, I did it more to piss off the guard than I did her.
"Jingle Bells, Mikey smells,
Knoxxie's in a rut,
Commandant Steele got tentacles
Stabbing through her gut!"
"Shut up in there, will ya?!"
I blew a raspberry at the guard, and after the last flatulent echoes died away, I began anew.
"Driving through the dust,
In a shitty Lancer red,
O'er the dunes we go,
Shooting bandits dead!
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Bones grind under wheels,
Under the sun so shining bright
Oh what fun it is to sing
A slaying song tonight!"
The door opened, with the guard coming in, ready to shut me up. Anger made him careless. But then again, half an hour of me singing songs would do that to the man. Frankly, I wasn't sure who'd snap first: my sister, or the guard. I guess I should be grateful it was the latter. I was a very good fighter, though my sister, being one of the Lance Assassins, was even better. The fight might have drawn the guard in, true, but that was a big if.
But with his attention on me, the guard's eyes were off my sister. And that was all she needed. Within a split second, her arms were around his neck. Within another split second, the man's neck was snapped, and he was on the way to oblivion. Or, if he was lucky and he had enough saved away, the nearest New-U station.
"Hey, my singing got us out of the brig. Plus, Knoxxie said he found it funny. And that's saying something, considering what a killjoy the old cigar-smoking fart was like!"
Athena sighed, and looked at Wilhelm. "You see what I have to deal with?"
I sighed myself, before looking at the other passengers, a woman with skunk-striped hair, an aristocratic air, and an ice blue outfit that seemed somewhere between a hunter's outfit and a sophisticated dress, and a man with handsome, pointed features, a prominent jaw, and a green complexion.
"Hey, did you take those ginger pills, Double Trouble?"
The man nodded. "I fucking hate travelling. I get motion sick."
"Eh, maybe some music, some good music, might help you take your mind off things," I said offhandedly, before pressing at my music player, connecting it to the ECHO device on my wrist, and then activating a special program of mine.
A scream of metal music emanated from the speakers. "Oh, good Lord," Athena murmured.
"Now this is more like it!" the grizzled cyborg said with a huge grin.
Then, the rocket shuddered, and we were beginning to move along the magnetic rail the rocket was mounted on. And as the engines roared into life, the lyrics began to come through the speakers.
If you wanna be
Really happily
Just come over here
Listen what I say
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
Room enough for everyone!
If you have the time
Be it night or day
Just to feel alive
Without any pain
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
Room enough for everyone!
Take a ride on the Black Dragon,
If you're down and need some fun!
Black Dragon!
Black Dragon!
And then, we felt ourselves being pressed into the seats more than ever as the rocket reached the end of the rail, where it curved up and arced into the sky. The artificial gravity kicked in, and while the ship was still rocking a little, we could get up in our seats a little.
As it turned out, it was somewhat necessary to do so. We heard a series of thudding noises from behind, and turned in our seats to find, much to our annoyance, we had picked up stowaways. Namely, a group of enterprising bandits who somehow boarded the rocket while it was moving, and were now set on hijacking it.
Now we couldn't have that.
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
Room enough for everyone!
Take a ride on the Black Dragon
If you're down and need some fun!
One of them twirled around a buzz axe in a manner that was probably meant to be badass. I caused him to blink when I held up a notepad with '4/10 Badass Points' on it. With a vicious snarl, he raced forward, only for the cyborg to leap from the chairs, and shoot down at him from midair. If the bullets didn't kill him, the sharpened stock of the machine gun through his chest did. The cyborg then grinned viciously, making a fist, and summoning a pair of drones. "Come get some!" he snarled.
WILHELM AS
THE ENFORCER
Likes Robots, Fights, and Steak.
Athena and I took that as our cue to jump over Wilhelm. Athena brought out her Kinetic Aspis shield, and activated it, the forcefield and hardened ceramic absorbing the force of the hail of bullets pumped into it. In a lull in the fighting, she threw the shield with a grunt, sending it into the chest of one bandit who didn't get out of the way. The shield returned to her arm.
ATHENA AS
THE GLADIATOR
Laconic. Loyal. Lethal.
I charged forward as the bandits were getting over the shock of seeing one of their own get felled by the shield, and I charged forward, cackling like the madman I was, swords in hand.
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
The first one fell before he even realised his head had been removed from his body. The next one caught a glimpse of me, the last sight he would ever see. Probably just as well: seeing me with my eyes so wide and with a grin that belonged on a shark would've probably given him nightmares for the rest of his life (Athena called it my 'Alucard' look(5)). Thankfully, that wasn't really long.
I danced amongst the bandits. Poor bastards, really. They didn't stand a chance.
I skewered one, and looked him in the eye, grinning at him. "Why so serious?"
ZAGREUS AS
THE SWORD-DANCER
He Slices, He Dices, He Makes 13 Different Types of French Fry!
"'Scuse me," came the voice of the cowgirl, as she began firing her revolvers into the other bandits with a skill that had to be seen to be believed. After she was done, she poked her hat up with her still-smoking gun. "How was that for you?" she asked with a satisfied smile.
I grinned. I liked her!
NISHA KADAM AS
THE LAWBRINGER
The Most Badass Gunslinger Since Roland Deschain(6)
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
Take a ride on the Black Dragon!
One last bandit confronted the Claptrap unit. The bandit seemed bemused when first a disco ball appeared above the head of the Claptrap, and then, he seemed to get a wizard's hat and wand, before finally getting a cowboy hat of his own, and shooting a rifle into the bandit, sending them both sprawling. Only Claptrap got up again, and leapt into the air. "YES!"
CLAPTRAP AS
THE FRAGTRAP
Believe It Or Not, He's Useful!
I walked over to the other two members of our party. "Hey, Double Vision, are you still sick?"
He nodded, looking like he didn't trust himself not to vomit while trying to speak.
JACK AS
THE DOPPELGANGER
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble.
I glared at the woman. "So why didn't you help us?"
"You seemed to have it all under control. Besides, I'm enjoying the spectacle. Better than an inflight movie."
LADY AURELIA HAMMERLOCK AS
THE BARONESS
Ice Queen She May Be, But She WON'T Be Singing 'Let It Go'
Suddenly, alarms started blaring around the rocket. But not due to the intruders. We were being fired upon, from outside!
I looked Lilith in the eye. "You know, I wonder how it might have turned out if the Lost Legion hadn't attacked. Then again, considering what we learned on Elpis, maybe it was inevitable. I believe Zarpedon was trying to do something to save the universe. I just think she got the moral arithmetic wrong. But if she really had found the Vault long before we did, then it means that some sort of conflict was inevitable…"
A shrill beeping signalled that a missile had locked onto us. I stared in horror at the readout. Wilhelm shook his head in denial, while Claptrap hugged Athena, who seemed bemused by the contact, but patted the top of the robot as comfortingly as she could manage. Her eyes met mine.
This was stupid. We were going to die long before the game…I mean, the mission even started. Just before the missile hit, scattering us throughout the ship like tenpins, and sending the ship itself on a potentially lethal collision course with Helios Station, I summed the prevailing mood in five words.
"Well…this is gonna suck…"
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
And here it is: the first chapter of Fly Me to the Moon. Those of you who have read Zagreus' Song will notice a number of bits copied and pasted. There'll be more bits here and there.
I like Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, with my only real objection about it being that Lilith's character is derailed into being a total bitch. Yeah, Roland's dead, but Athena had nothing to do with that. She was a mercenary, and one who became disillusioned with Jack. If anything, Athena has more right to be angry with Lilith than Lilith does with Athena.
Anyway, I think one of the main reasons that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! got a bad rap with some people is that there was a lot of Aussie humour that many of the players (American and British) would not have gotten. I laughed when I saw 'the Grabba', but I'm sure many people outside Australia didn't get it.
The lyrics were to Fly Me to the Moon (otherwise known as In Other Words, written by Bart Howard, and made famous by both Frank Sinatra and Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Black Dragon (written and performed by the Vines). Obviously, I don't own the rights.
1. In the first chapter of Zagreus' Song, this is indeed what he plays while he and Athena escape from the Crimson Lance, Otherworld being one of the vocal songs from Final Fantasy X.
2. In You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, I gave Handsome Jack and Angel the last name of 'Clarke', after Jack's voice actor, Dameon Clarke. This tradition continues here.
3. I actually captioned a screenshot from the Pre-Sequel in the same manner, only it was Wilhelm who said 'This inflight movie is crap', and Athena who said, 'Yes', and for Nisha to say 'No' to Claptrap's offer of a singalong. The screenshot is amongst those on my Steam account. Why waste good material?
4. (Reproduced from the relevant annotation in Zagreus' Song) Euterpean is a very archaic term meaning of singing, in the same way that terpsichorean means dancing. These terms are named for the Muses of Greek myth.
5. (Reproduced from the relevant annotation in Zagreus' Song) You know how Alucard looks in the heat of battle during the events of Hellsing? All bulging eyes and a big grin filled with teeth? I think you get the idea. I imagine Zagreus' victims would be scared of it.
6. Roland Deschain, aka Roland of Gilead, is the main protagonist of Stephen King's epic fantasy series The Dark Tower.