Author's note: This chapter will begin the story itself, starting with the brothers on the train before (almost) everyone, and ending with the train wreck. If you happen to stumble upon this fic, criticism is welcome if it's constructive (wishful thinking), that being said, there has to be something to criticize. To the story.
Copyright: The Borderlands franchise and its characters are own and created by Gearbox Software.
The Characters, Carter and Leon, belong to me.
The brothers heard about Pandora a month ago from the MWG's military leaders, the leaders were interested in the vault and rumors spread about a high amount of siren activity on Pandora and wanted the brothers to investigate.
They stepped on the train to take them to their destination. "Hey, Carter, do you think they'll be other, what did the locals call us…Vault Hunters?" Leon asked out of curiosity.
"Probably, I mean, who knows? Maybe we'll meet another siren, like mom." Carter said, with a hint of excitement in his voice.
"3 trillion humans, 6 sirens in existence. I don't think the chances of that are good." Leon remarked, skeptically.
"What about those rumors?"
"Carter, they may be just rumors." At that point, the trained had stopped and the doors opened up and a single person stepped into the train.
The figure was clad in a mostly black jumpsuit, with grey and white on the chest and arms and a black helmet, that had a slick-sweptback visor. He stood at about 6' 4", slender build, and had four fingers…wait-
"Carter, this guy has only four fingers!" Leon noted to his brother mentally via their DNI.
"So, I've noticed." Carter thought back with interest. Carter, shifted closer to the figure to introduce himself.
"Hey, I'm Carter, and this is my brother, Leon. What's your name?" Carter asked politely. He was always better with people than Leon, him working in the medical field.
The only response he received was a holographic digital zero appearing in front of the figure's face.
"So, Zero?" His guess was met with a nod. "Ha, I'm good at this." Carter stated happily. "M'yes, it's like a game of charades, excepts the hints aren't as subtle." Leon replied sarcastically.
"You watch it." Carter threatened in a joking tone. Before Carter could ask Zero more questions, the train came to another stop and two men stepped on the train.
One of them was Caucasian, stood at about 5'9", had a fauxhawk, appeared to be pre-middle aged, and had a noticeable scar on his chin and something resembling a metal sergeant rank on his head. He wore tan-green pants, tannish-brown zip up jacket with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of boots with metallic plating on them.
The second man had a Hispanic look to him and was stunted compared to the other man, standing at 5'4", dark hair and dark(tan) skin. He wore simple jeans, boots, a white tee-shirt under an orange shirt with torn sleeves and a Band-Aid on the bridge of his nose.
"Come. Socialize." Carter mentally encouraged his brother as he verbally introduced them. Leon gave an inaudible sigh and approached them, then he heard a clattering sound from further back of the train. He looked but, saw nothing, so he dropped it.
The taller man introduced himself first, "I'm Axton." "And I'm Salvador." The shorter man stated with a strong Spanish accent. It was then that Leon noticed that Axton was wearing dog tags with a ring on them.
"Military?" Leon inquired. Axton looked at him and understood what he was saying. "Oh, yeah. Dahl Private Military."
"Us too, but not so much of a private military, more galactic or federal." Leon said. Axton took interest, "Wow, for who?"
"We're both from Sol." Carter chimed in. "Uhh, aren't you guys a bit far from your AO?" Axton asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "It's a long story." The train came to another stop, however a commotion could be heard from outside, something along the lines of screaming but, Leon also heard another clatter like from before. Now he was getting curious.
"Hey, I'm going to see what's making that sound. Tell me what happens or who gets on when I come back, ok?" Leon informed his brother. "Alright, but don't take too long, I'm sure it's nothing." Carter replied.
Leon went to further to the back of the train. He passed a sign that had the face of Hyperion's CEO welcoming vault hunters to Pandora. Three minutes past and he still couldn't find the source of the noise. He decided to use his cybernetic eyes to see if he could see anything animate. His HUD started to highlight strange robots being deployed from the walls and heard combat from the front of the train.
He used the augmentations in his arm to disable the locomotor systems and digistructed a Dahl combat rifle and delivered the "killing" blow to bots. "Damn! This space is too small to spawn my Power Armor." Leon cursed to himself. A loader bot approaching him, to which he used the micro-thrusters on his exosuit to charge at the bot and effortlessly rip out its core and toss it to another group of bots, destroying most of them and temporarily disabling the rest.
He's unload the rest of his rifle on the disabled bots, oblivious to the one charging from behind. When he finally noticed it, he saw a set of digistruct claws rammed through it. He took notice that the claws belonged to a large, legless robot using some type of thrusters to keep itself afloat, but what caught his eye was the person behind it.
He saw a young teenage girl. She stood at about 5'4", had green eyes, and had orange hair tied in two pigtails. She wore sneaker like shoes with black and write stockings running up the entirety of her legs, she also had an adjustable wrench in a holster around her right ankle. She was wearing a red skirt that went halfway down he thighs with a belt and various tools around her waist. She was wearing a button up jean vest with a red tee-shirt with a skull on the chest and the collar of the shirt starting below her collar bone. She had a necklace and a collar(?) around her neck and goggles on her hair and clamps holding her hair in place.
After the floating bot through the loader away, Leon spoke up. "Thanks but, who are-." Leon was cut off when a rather powerful explosion went off, sending the shockwave throughout the train, derailing it. Leon crashed into the wall and blacked out.
-Meanwhile with the others-
Two individuals walked onto the train, a woman and a man. One woman, who instantly introduced herself as Maya, had a light complexion, stood at 5'7", thin but, healthy build, bright eyes, blue lipstick (I think), and blue hair. She wore something like a jumpsuit that had an opening at the top of her breast but showed more of her tattoos than anything else, it also only had a right arm cover, fully exposing her left arm. was yellow on the front and grey and black on the sides. The most noticeable feature on her body was the iconic tattoos that covered the left side of her body, she was as siren.
The man who accompanied her, when approached only replied, "I'M HERE TO SHANK AND SMILE!", to which Maya interpreted as his way of saying hello, or so she guesses. He stood at 6'2" (I'm guessing), had the build of a Greek god, and had a shaved or bald head. He wore boots with metallic toe covers, orange pants with a shin and knee guard on the right leg. He wore no shirt, had some type of harness, a bandage like wrapping on his right arm, and an arm guard on his left forearm. He wore a necklace on his neck and a mask covered all of his face except his left eye, which gave a hint of his emotions and what Carter and Maya saw, a glint of sanity.
At that moment, loaders began emerging from the walls of the cars and the welcome to Pandora sign fell and was replaced with a more menacing "To your doom...Nothing personal!"
Axton threw his sabre turret to the ceiling where it activated and began to engage the loaders in front of him, he pulled out his rocket launcher and fired it down the "hallway". Maya lifted her arms to shield her face from the heat and debris from the blast. A loader approached her but, she effortlessly lifted it up off the ground using her Phaselock ability. She then threw it out of the side of the train.
Salvador came in from the new opening, upon landing, he digistructed two combat rifles and began firing into the crowd of loaders, mowing down where they stood.
Zero stood on top of the train where two engineers pursued him. The one closest two him used his exosuit's large hand to attack him, only for it to faze through him and his image disappear. Just then, Zero appeared from behind the second engineer and stabbed him through the back with his sword. He then jumped over both engineers and drop kicked the one in the front in the other engineer, skewing them both with his sword.
Carter ran out of ammo in his revolver, and resorted to his enhancements and his Iai blade. He digistructed his blade with the sheath still on it, he assumed the Iaijutsu draw position, waiting for an opening. When one opened up, he was quick to act and, in a flash, appeared behind the group of enemies and sheath his blade, the moment the blade locked in the sheath, the soldiers and engineers fell to the ground, dead.
"Psst!" Carter heard from behind him. He turned to see Axton motioning him to come closer, Carter jogged over next to Zero. When they were ready, Axton kicked open the door. What they saw was…unwelcoming. A robotic dummy of the Hyperion CEO was sitting in the chair as it turned towards the Vault Hunters. "It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but you're not! Welcome to Pandora, Kiddos!" The explosives surrounding the chair dummy began to beep. Carter used his Limit Break to move the others away from the explosion so they wouldn't be killed by the initial detonation. He was able to get them away from the explosives, but the extensive shockwave pushed them back still yet and derailed the train. After their car hit the ground, Carter surrendered to the fatigue of using his Limit Break and the crash and blacked out.