Deadshot
Chapter 14
-Harry-
Honking the horn of his technical, Harry stared out at the massive gate of the Bloodshot stronghold, mildly impressed that a bandit clan had managed to keep a fortification this impressive and not let it crumble apart. "Eh," Flanksteak came onto the broadband Echo "looks like one of ours. Let 'em in while I try to get Hyperion back on the horn!" Grinning, Harry drove inside, Krieg currently in the turret as he looked the most like a bandit.
"Wat da hell?!" the Bandits shouted upon spotting the colorful crew in the back of the Technical "Intruders! Shoot 'em!"
"So kind of you to notice!" Gaige cackled as she leapt from the back, summoning out Deathtrap, the rest of the merry band of morons surging into the bandit camp, guns blazing, apart from Krieg who was happily launching barrels of explosives everywhere.
"Of fucking course there's no good sniper perches here." Harry grumbled as he started firing his revolver, heaven forbid bandits have at least an ounce of class."
"Still more class than Average Joe!" Maya offered, Harry chuckling even as Angel floated as a hologram by Harry, enjoying watching the chaotic bedlam.
"That's not really saying much!" Harry rolled his eyes, firing his pistol at one of the explosive barrels that had landed behind some bandits but not gone off, his shot triggering it as the marauders were sent flying forward, angrily calling Harry an asshole before they hit the dirt with a crunch.
"Don't worry 'Captain'," Angel purred in his ear "as far as I'm concerned, that's Pandora's ass."
"Damn it all!" Flanksteak checked back in as they continued clearing the group outside the old fortification proper, "We got an intruder! Ge 'em Badmaw!" at that shout, the drawbridge to the bandit stronghold started to lower, a massive Nomad Torturer running out, landing with a boom, their makeshift shield having three midgets strapped to the front.
"Come get sooooooooome aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" the attempt at sounding badass turned into a terrified scream as Maya just gave an unimpressed stare, floating the still human sized enemy up into her phaselock, allowing the six vault hunters to open fire when he couldn't defend himself.
"Oh, come on!" Flanksteak protested angrily over the echo "Doesn't matter, you're still not getting in here!"
"Hey, he had the key to the gate!" Gaige shouted happily, having been looting the mulch that had once been a bandit.
"Fucking damnit!" it sounded like Flanksteak was pulling out his hair at that one.
-Angel-
Feeling Jack calling her, Angel sighed and focused, appearing on a screen in the bastard's office "Yes Jack?" Angel asked with a blank expression.
"Look here Hyperion!" the voice of Flanksteak shouted on Jack's echo "I'm not askin' much for Roland! A million bucks! Hello?! This thing on?!"
"Fucking bandit." Jack scoffed dismissively, having the Echo muted so Flanksteak couldn't hear him even as he put in the order to prepare a wave of Hyperion bots and soldiers to go capture Roland themselves.
"You called Jack?" Angel pressed, not happy at being called here when she could have been with Harry and the others. Even just pretending she was part of their team was better than spending a moment in this man's presence.
"Yeah, I wanted an update on how close Flynt is to Pandora." Jack cackled, tossing a pretzel up into the air, catching it in his mouth before grimacing "Damn these things still suck."
"Then perhaps you should invest in better snacks." Angel rolled her eyes, he did have the money. She of course wouldn't mention she'd do all she could that every snack Jack ordered tasted like shit. Still, she focused, code flying across her eyes as she executed her Phase Shift, finding Zane landing "He's landed on Pandora and is heading to the DAHL plant. I would estimate given the number of bandits in the building as well as your forces he'd arrive around the time the Vault Hunters leave, either with Roland should the Hyperion robots fail or when they're chasing after the captured Roland."
"Excellent!" Jack cackled, rubbing his hands together, "Oh, this is going to be a glorious day. Roland captured, that irritating little bastard dead, and sales are up! You know, I think I'll get some new snacks after all!"
"Good for you." Angel kept her expression flat, hiding how unimpressed with Jack's joy she was.
"Okay Hyperion! A Hundred thousand bucks for Roland! Final offer! Echo me back and let's negotiate already!" Flanksteak shouted over the echo line once again, Jack continuing to ignore the bandit.
-Harry-
Stepping into a large basin like room, Harry rolled his eyes as his echo blinked to life, Average Joe's face appearing in the corner of his vision "Look at those murderous Bloodshots. Don't you think Pandora would be better off without their scum? That's all I wanna do, clean up this planet. If that means I've gotta kill bandits like you. Like the Bloodshots. Like alllll those Crimson Raider idiots in Sanctuary? Hell…I'm happy to do it."
"You're more of a bandit than we are ya whinny little Bastich." Harry rolled his eyes, shooting up at one of the bandits on the upper catwalks, the stunned murderer falling into the pool and sucked down.
"You stupid little…wait what did you call me?" the ranting Hyperion CEO trailed off, not recognizing the word.
"Bastich." Harry happily answered even as Deathtrap flew him and Gaige up to the upper levels, his sister clearing those up there while Harry began sniping down at the catwalk bandits. The rest of the team charging up to pincer the Bloodshots "Half Bastard, half Bitch, it's gender neutral and sums your dumb ass up perfectly."
"Calling it now!" Gaige shouts as she merrily sprays bullets everywhere "He's gonna use that in a gun name and refuse to pay you royalties!"
"I don't take sucker's bets Gaige!" Harry called back "But let's be honest, Hyperion needs all the help it can get with that stupid Bastich in charge."
"I am not a bastich!" Joe shouted angrily.
"That's just what a bastich would say." Harry snickered as the Hyperion CEO let out another frustrated yell.
"Goddammit Hyperion! I didn't get half my guys killed kidnapping the most wanted criminal on Pandora just so you could IGNORE me! How about fifty thousand bucks?!"
"He doesn't seem to be getting the memo, does he?" Maya snorted as they walked into the next room, helping thin the Bloodshot ranks even further.
"Still, taking out half the clan by himself is certainly impressive." Harry acknowledged.
"If the rest of the Bloodshots are here-" Axton cut himself off by gunning down a group of psychos with his assault riffle "then who do you think'll take over this place once we finish clearing it out? Another bandit clan? One of the corporations? I don't know if the Raiders have the manpower to hold this place and Sanctuary."
"More bandits probably." Harry groused, "Might want to set up some traps to make it harder for them but there's no way the Raiders have enough manpower to hold both locations, not unless things changed drastically since we left."
"Doesn't matter for now." Salvador grunted, "I'm pretty sure we're getting close to the end." A shotgun blast blew up the last bandit in the room as the group continued to hurry on.
"Somebody stop those slaggunds from springin' Roland! We lose him, we lose our payday!" Flanksteak shouted over the PA system.
"Well, that confirms we're getting close." Harry smirked, entering the next room which was full of cells "…Or already there." A lazy couple bullets took out the last few bandits in the room as Harry and the others walked over to the one cell that was currently occupied.
"Vault Hunter." Roland smirked rising up from the bed where he'd been casually laying "Good to finally meet you in person. Gotta say, you did a Hell of a job fighting through those Bloodshots-" anything that the Crimson Raider Commander had been about to say was cut off as the wall behind him blew open, a Hyperion Loader bot striding in. "This'll just take a second." Roland sighed before tackling the robot to the ground, ripping out its power core with his bare hands before throwing it at the next robot about to enter as an improvised ordinance. The gun arm from the downed robot coming next as the soldier took out the Bull Loader charging his way.
"Holy-" Harry began.
"Fuck!" Gaige finished.
"Well…" Roland got up off the ground, dusting himself off "that's that. Now let's see about getting out of-"
"Behind you!" Harry shouted, sticking his revolver through the bars to shoot at the Constructor that was landing, the bullets not doing much to the areas he could hit as hard light tractor beams grabbed Roland, pulling the person they'd fought through all this shit to rescue started getting hauled off.
"Fucking Damnit!" Harry seethed, slicing through the bars, "Come on, we've got to move!"
-Omake-
-Harry-
Looking about now that Roland had fast travelled back to Sanctuary, Harry couldn't hold back a snort as the others sent him a look. "Something funny?" Maya asked as she sat on the hood of one of the many junked cars, everyone catching their breath and looking about for loot.
"We just invaded the castle 'your majesty'." Harry quipped, referencing their talk about a fantasy story "Should we loot it for spoils of war?" his friends started chuckling at the joke.
"Why indeed Captain!" Maya declared with a mock haughty nose in the air, "General Krieg, raise the colors!"
"POOP TRAIN GETS SHINY PAINT!" Krieg started throwing bandits at the tallest bit of wall he could so their blood 'painted' it.
"…That works." Maya shrugged as the rest of the group continued what they were doing, with a few other jokes made here and there. Feeling his Echo buzz Harry pulled it up and saw another message with an attached image…from Angel.
Glancing around to make sure nobody was looking at him, Harry walked a bit further away so he was out of sight, opening it to see there were two images. The first was another pin up for his 'collection', it showed Harry in fantasy soldier armor, hauling off Angel who's dressed as a bandit, the caption talking about 'enjoying the spoils of war'. The second image was a comic that, to put it bluntly, demonstrated just how he might 'enjoy said spoils'.
He hastily saved both images, hearing a giggle as he looked up to see holo-Angel posing in her skimpy bandit outfit, following him about as he gathered loot and doing her best to distract him. A role she was proving quite proficient in.
AN: Sorry for the Omake, I try to have them fit the chapter either location wise or story element wise, but I had a hard time finding one that fit better than this. Still fun but I'm looking forward to the upcoming arc which will have a lot more character bits and bonding with all the people.