Note that I do not own Borderlands or anything related to it (although I wish I did) I only own the OCs in this story

John felt horrible.

Like the type of horrible when you stay awake on nothing but coffee for two days studying for exams only to end up asleep in the college fountain.

He feels shivers going down his spine at that memory.

Ok maybe it wasn't my brightest idea to stay awake for two days to pass his exams- but hey he passed them all with flying colours so all of that was in his mind worth it, the sleepless nights, the hours of nonstop studying, hell even forking the cash out to get a coffee maker for his room to save money for coffee. And the cherry on top of passing his exams was the fact that his friends also managed to pass too. Which was great since one of his mates had started a bet on whether they would pass or not and at the end of it he was 20 bucks richer. And one of his other mates with their share of the money decided to host a small party-

And like a switch it all starts coming back from when he got ready, arrived, and left the party for beer, and then after when he was held at gunpoint, taken to an alleyway, and shot-

Remembering what happened to him he sits up with a jerk.

And instead of being greeted by the sight of a hospital bed, what he saw made him question if he was yet again hallucinating.

It was a black void with little white glowing boxes all different sizes 20 feet away all around the void, like stars in the night sky, and it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

"Whoah" he said amazed at the sight before him… also terrified but mostly amazed. And mesmerised he took a step towards the closest of them, and in response, it glowed even more as if beckoning him to touch it.

And soon he was right in front of it about to touch it when…

ACCESS DENIED

A giant wall of what seemed to be hexagons appeared right in front of his hand touching it.

"AAAHHHH" I screamed out very deeply (and not at all high pitched), as the barrier seemed to shock me.

I jumped back and after checking my arm to see if it was fine (it was) I looked back at the barrier and noticed that it wasn't just in front of me, it was surrounding me like I was in a box.

"Ok, so I went to get beer for a friend, got dragged into an alleyway, and was then shot" I started listing everything that had happened to me hoping for any of it to make any sense, "Hell at this point the only thing that would make any sense was if I died and was sent to heaven".

And as I said the words out loud I felt ice flow through my veins. Got shot, Woke up in a strange impossible place, and the last thing I remember is everything fading to black. With all of those things coming together, I realised what happened.

I died.

And now I'm in… I don't know… heaven? I mean it would make sense given everything that happened but I feel like there's more to it than that.

And as I'm pondering my fate a faint glint of light catches my attention.

As I turn to look at it I notice it is one of those white box things but this time inside the box I'm trapped inside of. Right in the centre of the room and unlike the others it seems cracked, and instead of a bright light emanating from it, it seems to be a small dim light almost grey instead of the bright white the others are.

And as I look at it it seems to be smaller than most of them. And after staring at it for a few seconds I decided to approach it.

As I approached it I noticed unlike the other boxes this one seemed to glow darker as I approached, as if warning not to approach it, and I ignored them and moved closer, and closer until I was within touching distance. And as I got closer to the box I began moving around it seeing if there was anything else on it. As I moved around the box I noticed on the back of it a word "Hyperion".

As I look at the name I feel familiarity rising inside of me as if I have seen that name somewhere before…

After a couple of minutes I give up trying to remember where I had heard that name before and after inspecting it one last time decide to touch it.

As I touch it it seems to pulse for a second.

And then it shatters.

As I pull my hand away from the box I feel a rush of things flowing towards me. Hatred, Sorrow, Purpose, Pride, knowledge, and memories.

It's all so much I feel like I'm about to black out.

But I don't, instead, I seem to become more awake, as if things I hadn't even known were there were beginning to wake up.

Except they weren't asleep to begin with. No, I had always been this awake before.

But I hadn't this was something else… Someone Else's memory's flowing into me.

And as I began checking them I found out who they belonged to.

Handsome Jack's.

The greatest villain of the Borderlands franchise, at one point the most powerful man in the galaxy, and one, if not the greatest video game villain of all time.

From his birth to when he was ripped out of Rhys's head.

And he was him.

Fuck.

After Checking the memories he got from Jack he figured out what the cube he was stuck in was and how to get out, as when Jack was creating this place for him to hide away in he walled (Ha get it) it off from the rest of the echo net to make sure that no programs from the net could harm him, or get to his code, which is why the barrier shocked him stopping him from getting past the barrier not knowing that he was inside the barrier. This also explained where he was.

But luckily if he wants to get out he can just input a code and go right on through what he found out in Jack's digital mind.

Right as he learned that he was running to try to input the code and get out of there and ignore the fact that he just absorbed the mind of a sociopath.

Luckily though right before he was about to begin typing in the code he also found out why that's a bad idea, as the echo net wasn't very stable and prone to crashes, shutdowns, and all the viruses running through it, which led to him trying something else.

So here he was currently coding up a way to open up a one-way door outside so I can access data from inside here.

Or trying to at least.

"Oh For Fucks Sake!".

You see the issue here wasn't that I was bad at code or anything- hell I was horrible at it back before I died but I seem to have integrated Jack's intelligence and knowledge into my own which gave me a pretty substantial boost with coding this. But the real issue was-

"This bloody Keyboard!"

The interface, which was a pain in the ass to code anything into as anything took hours to code into it due to finicky controls, made it impossible for me to code anything into it.

And after the 27th failed attempt I took a deep breath and let it out.

"Fucking Stupid Futuristic Shit Is Worse Than Stuff In My Century!".

Along with a barrage of swears and a rage-induced rant.

And while a lot of what I was saying was exaggerated, a lot of it was pretty accurate as well, as the system the echo net was based on was outdated even in my original world which is technologically way more behind than this one.

"I Swear I Need A Bloody Drink To Deal With This".

And right as I say that a beer appears right in front of me.

I sit up in an instant and simply stare at it for a moment before saying something else out loud.

"Give me a computer that works better than you".

And yet again a very futuristic computer appears in front of me, it's a small box-sized thing with two vents on the sides of it with a couple of holes for cables at the back.

I stare at it for a moment.

I then pick it up slowly observing it.

And try as hard as possible to refrain from throwing straight into the cube's wall.

I failed.

After a couple of what feels like hours of studying how this works he found out that as long as he says it out loud, or even thinks something, he could get it to spawn into the box he was in. Sadly food and drink here taste of nothing, that was a very saddening thing to learn after he tried the beer he created earlier only to find out that sad, sad, truth.

But also he could most importantly interface with the system to quickly write down code without saying a word. And after sifting through his recently gained memories he learned that is how Jack did the majority of the things his Ai did all along. Although it was easier with Hyperion software compared to the outdated software of the echo net.

And after a couple of attempts at it, he began using it to code his door into the echo net. And was very glad he discovered this easier solution to coding as the difference was night and day, with it being so much easier it was soon done and he was surfing through the echo net.

Which brings him to where he is now.

From what he had found out he was indeed in the borderlands world and any last doubt in his mind was squashed when he saw an orbital view of Pandora from a Hyperion satellite still orbiting the planet.

And that leads him to his other finding, he could connect to the Hyperion network and access its feeds- although he couldn't do much else he would need a direct connection to do anything more as the Hyperion network was to secure to be able to do so. And all of his current access was thanks to the fact that Jack had many of the passwords and documents for Hyperion stashed away in his data.

Although after checking his last memories not as much as he could have had.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts he continued looking at the rest of the data he could access and found out that it had been two years since Helios fell. Two years of Jack's code being locked away here unable to connect to the rest of him locked away in the echo eye- which he found out failed to function without being connected to someone.

Soon he noticed a particular article about Sanctuary being destroyed which means the last DLC for Borderlands 2 had just happened. He was silently cursing himself over the fact that the only Borderlands games he had played had been 2 the Pre-sequel and tales from the Borderlands, although he did dive deep into the other game's lore he was still missing way too much for his liking- especially in a world where whole moons could crack open as if its nothing.

But to get out of this he needed a plan. He thought as his brow furrowed.

Ok so Hyperion practically revered Jack and while many executives and shareholders hated him they would gladly have him back to bring them out of this slump that the company was in, but to gain the force needed to make sure they agreed he would need a base of operations, and wouldn't you just know it Opportunity had been abandoned since Jacks death.

You see in this world instead of things being like an RPG it seemed reality did work here and so instead of opportunity Jack's greatest project down on Pandora being left open to all the bandits of Pandora the bridge was repaired after a day and shut afterwards, intended to be opened again once Pandora was pacified by the Warrior instead the city was left closed until Jack died and when that happened the city was abandoned as Hyperion began pulling back its forces to Helios. And so the city has slumbered in ruins ever since.

And I was gonna wake it back up.

I had a few plans for this but first I needed to find someone to open Opportunity's network back up to me, someone who's desperate enough not to question it.

And I felt a grin appear across my face, as I had my next thought.

I know just the person who will deliver me straight to Opportunity.

Authors Note.

Now the story has started.

This was done a lot quicker than I expected to be honest, as I expected to sit on it for months and instead, not even a week has passed.

This time I managed to spellcheck my work unlike the last chapter, which I might revisit someday to redo as I'm not very impressed with my work there but for now, I'm mainly trying to get out more chapters and get more experience writing.

Also for those who think I'm skipping over the fact that John has now become Jack I'm not, as this story is told from John's perspective and he doesn't want to address the fact that a murderous Sociopath is now a part of him.

BTW can anyone guess who will help John with his plans to get into Opportunity next chapter?

Anyway, I'm going to leave you all here now so see you next chapter.