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

Also for those wondering this is an updated chapter so If you read this before I put this here… well read it again, or ignore me do whatever really these are just words on a computer you are reading after all.

Jack felt helpless stuck watching his empire falling to pieces around him. One of his greatest accomplishments, his strongest fortress, and the crucible where he became what he is today, was collapsing into Pandora And There Was NOTHING he could do about it.

Oh, he tried to save the station (what, did you think he was doing nothing but chasing after Rhys that whole time?) but the sudden loss of one of the power cores set off a chain reaction, shorting out the other power cores, crashing multiple systems and setting the station on a direct collision course with Pandora. He did try to send surveyor drones and power to repair the electrical damage and restart the orbital thrusters while also activating the emergency retro rockets. But it was too late and Helios had already entered Pandora's gravity well too deep to escape from, and when that happened there was nothing that could stop the crash. And it was ALL thanks to that shit stain called Rhys, who ended everything he was trying to do for Hyperion… and even Pandora.

And as the last of the debris of Helios settles onto the ground of a planet full of child-murdering psychopaths he turns on his microphones (that surprisingly survived the crash) to let out his frustration, and to distract himself from his admittedly shitty situation, along with releasing the anger that has been building since Rhys escaped, (even though as an AI he doesn't need to voice his anger out loud, it just feels more human to do so than… whatever he is- has been since he woke up in Rhys' head).

And eventually comes to remember his situation of how he's still in the ruins of Helios, stuck until the system's backup power fails or a scavenger comes across him and destroys his remaining servers attempting to gain the glory of killing The Handsome Jack. He did try to escape before Helios fell but Helios comms array was his only way out into the echo net, and when the surge hit the system was damaged and unable to connect to the rest of the station- to him. Which left him unable to escape a prison of his own literal making, only able to interact with it and its inhabitants of robots. So like a captain of old, he was forced to go down with his ship. which sucks since for all his accomplishments he can't even go out in a unique way?

Although now that he's thinking it over he does have to admit that it does sound pretty cool-

A sound picked up by a handful of surviving microphones draws his attention away from his thoughts and to something moving through the wreckage in front of his office. It could have been scavs but so soon? No, he had a better idea who it was. And after reconnecting to a barely functional camera he saw he was right- Rhys was here and marching straight to him.

As his old meat USB moves through the wreckage he sees a chance to escape this. Rhys may be one of the few Hyperion employees on Helios with an echo eye, and even fewer now due to the crash. While echo eyes are useful there is one feature that he is interested in now, and that is the fact that Echo eyes can connect to the echo net. Which with the right access codes (which he has already nabbed from Helios databanks) could allow him to bypass the Hyperion security stopping him escaping via echo eye.

As Rhys stumbles his way into what remains of his office He takes a minute to prepare to play the role of the beaten villain. To distract the kid long enough to get into his cybernetics. The price for failure was too high, as a single slip-up could mean failure… and he cannot fail, not when the odds are so high- not again. He will not die on this shithole of a planet twice.

He spends time picking away at the kids' defences breaking him apart and attacking his weak spots and luckily he has the greatest weapon to do so- the amount of people the kiddo killed when they crashed Helios. After all the kid did kill hundreds- no thousands of his fellow coworkers- hell even more he did (which is saying something) and this was his greatest weapon against him, because despite everything Pandora hadn't taken the kid's morality yet, which would help him break the kiddo apart. After all, there are so many bodies lying here in the wreck of Helios never to understand that the reason they died was because the kiddo in front of him was trying to escape the mess he himself had caused.

As he talks to the kiddo his mind wanders to the past, and he feels not for the first time in his life (but the first in this new one) absolutely crippling exhaustion. Just how many times has he been betrayed by his allies. Just how many times has he been kicked down while he was on top of the world straight back into the mud. How even when he won he lost. When he practically finished the construction of Helios lunatic former DAHL soldiers attacked, when he retook said station from said DAHL soldiers his allies betray him and attempt to murder him and innocents in the process, when he and his team took out the vault monster in the vault on Elpis and he took the Vaults relic, he had it punched into his head making him lose out on the rest of the vision (which seemed to have proven fatal given his other selves fate), and when he was just about to finish charging the vault key with his daughter she betrays him, almost giving the key to the bandits and killing herself-

As he was distracted he accidentally let his thoughts slip and the kiddo focused on it. Like a true Hyperion.

"Your daughter betrayed you?" Rhys asked skepticism filling his tone.

This was the same question he was asking himself ever since he learned the truth. Did she betray him, or did he betray her first? It's hard to tell anymore, but he remembers (with far more ease than when he was a human) of how back when he first locked her away despite everything she still loved him. And then he remembered how much hate was in Angel's voice right before she died. When she voiced her last words towards him.

"She didn't have a choice. After she killed her mom… she couldn't control her powers. Kept her hidden for years"

He continued on talking but he wasn't paying attention to it anymore All he could think about was the footage from Control Core Angel. He saw it a couple of minutes after he took control of Helios. He remembers the panic of trying to talk to her, trying to find her, and finding nothing… nothing except a single file. Surveillance footage of Control Core Angel during its last day of operation. He watched the whole thing from when the vault hunters started their trek up the mountain-turned-fortress, up until they killed Ange-… from there the memory gets a bit fuzzy but right afterwards the eridum experimentation department became a bit short of breath. He then remembers going back to his office to see HIM. Rhys sitting in His chair acting as if he deserved it after losing nothing for it- sacrificing for it, he thought to himself right then and there that no matter what RHYS will never enjoy the comforts of Hyperion without losing something! And he made a plan to take everything from Rhys or at least settle at something the kiddo could never get back. And just like how he lost everything he planned to take Rhys' body to make him understand what it was like to lose something important to you that you could never get back. It was nowhere near to what he had lost but it was close enough… things quickly went too far and in his anger, Jack lost everything… again. If he cared enough to analyse why this kept happening he would have probably noticed a pattern by now, but at this point Jack REALLY wasn't in the mood for self-analysis.

But he could get something back at least. Sure he lost Helios but that was just one space station in the galaxy (admittedly the biggest one ever created in said galaxy) and Hyperion had many assets created during his reign lying untouched since his other self's death. Just waiting for him to regain control over them.

But first, he had to escape the wreckage of Helios and get his way into the kids' systems and the kiddo was distracted enough that this should be easy. Maybe he could kill his cybernetics before he left and leave him dead to the bandits. He idly thought of his fate should that happen, crippled and forced to travel through pandora with a malfunctioning echo eye, and dead cybernetic arm, amplified with the headaches of a damaged echo port, the kiddo would be dead by the end of the week.

And right as the kiddo let out some bullshit about being out of this (as if RHYS could walk away from this- from HIS mess) only then did he strike in the form of an override jack.

And to be honest it felt pretty cosy being back in the kiddos' head, much cosier than the wreck of Helios is at least. Quickly he began using the Hyperion override codes on the kids' cybernetics he got out of Helios, and soon he began working on tearing his way out into the net through the echo eye while he was strangling the kiddo with his own arm, partly to distract him long enough to escape or knock him out, mainly because this was really, really cathartic.

Soon enough he was creating a small place in the echo net to hide his code away while he made plans of what to do next. Meanwhile, the kiddo had torn his cybernetic arm out and was coughing his lungs out on the floor recovering from the pain of tearing his arm (and part of the port itself) out of his shoulder. He idly wondered if this was as painful as it looked or if he was just a pansy… probably the latter.

And soon after he was downloading himself straight into the net, rapidly moving himself across the link which spanned across the net into his little hideout preparing to throw himself straight into his work. After all, if he wanted to retake Hyperion and restore its golden age he would have to get right to work and see just how many of his accounts resources and most importantly how much of Hyperion there is left. He can already imagine the stock prices after this calamity, they probably are so far down it would look like the edge of a cliff… or maybe a space station would fit better in this scenario-

Like what a bucket of ice would feel like if he was still corporeal washed over him. He whirled around on Rhys to see him jabbing a piece of glass straight into his head, a sight that would be welcome on other days was nightmarish now, especially since he was still stuck in said head.

"Wait wait wait wait wait — w-w-what are you doing?" He's confused about what the hell Rhys is doing. Is he trying to take himself down with him or something "What the— Rhys what the hell are you doing?!" He voices out again because he doesn't know if he's lost his mind or something and it doesn't click for him until the kiddo tears out his own port and his own words come back to haunt him.

"As long as you've got those cybernetics in you I'm going nowhere"

Initially, words designed to buy time had given the kiddo an idea of how to get rid of him. Along with ruin his last plan in the process as without the rest of his code the upload would be incomplete and he was about halfway done. And despite everything being done to be as quick as possible it wasn't going to be quick enough and soon he began sending out himself first instead of the data of everything else he was transporting. This reorganisation of the download priorities was bad as he was going to have to leave some stuff behind, some stuff he could tolerate like Hyperion stock market projections, but others greatly wounded him to leave behind like the design plans for Helios, the Handsome Jackpot, and more importantly access codes to some Hyperion and thus his assets like sector override codes and even more importantly access codes to the Handsome Jackpot, leaving him without his most important piece for his future plans. But even with leaving so many things behind he was still not going to be quick enough as the kid was tearing out his echo eye and none of Jacks comments managed to make him stop for a second.

He was 62% out by the time the kiddo was about to tear out his echo eye and in desperation to make him wait at least another couple of seconds he did what Jack has never done ever since he became the man that he is.

He begged.

"Please… Hey! HEY! I'm on my knees here."

"Please don't send me back there"

"It's not like they say"

"There's nothing… there's absolutely nothing there… Don't do this."

And yet even as HE the Handsome Jack begged it barely slowed Rhys down. Yet he stopped, right before he was about to rip out his echo eye, and looked Jack in his holographic eyes, with his singular.

"Goodbye, Jack… its over".

And he watched as Rhys began pulling the echo eye from his head, and with useless reflexes back from the original Jack he charged Rhys. Even if he was going to die he would go down fighting.

And then he felt nothing

John was having a Really great day right up until now.
I had received word that I had passed my exams for college, got a promotion at my part-time job, and was out at a party with my friends, and other people that went to the same college.

That changed when I was asked by one my friends Karl, if I could go out and grab some more alcohol for the party, since they were running low and the party had pretty much just started, (which I wouldn't have needed to if Someone hadn't drunk most of it last week, I thought looking at Jeremy sitting in the corner hiding behind his cheap red plastic cup) and I like the good friend I am decided to go get some as it was just around the corner. So I went to the store got some cheap booze and was silently proud of the fact that I actually remembered to bring my ID with me this time (instead of forgetting it like all the other times I went to get beer) when I felt something cold and hard pressed against my back.

"Keep quiet or you die" a gruff voice whispered just enough to be heard by me but not by anyone else. However, it wouldn't have changed anything since the sidewalk I was on was devoid of people.

So I let myself be dragged into a nearby alleyway. Afterall what could I hope to do against a guy with a gun pointed straight at my spine? Nibble his toes after he puts some lead into my back? If I'm lucky he might kick my teeth in too.

"Ugh," I let out as I was thrown against the brick wall dropping my booze at the entrance to the alleyway while any hope of escape vanished as the alley was a dead-end.

"Don't move" the man growls out searching my jacket and pant pockets in a hurry, while keeping his gun trained on me with the other hand. When the man pulls out nothing but my wallet he literally growls at me like a wild animal.

"Where Is It" the man growls and in the lighting of the alleyway I can barely see him and it's only thanks to the moonlight I can see the fact that he isn't even covering his face, revealing his scowl, pointed nose emerald eyes filled with anger and a prominent scar that goes from the side of his cheek down his neck before ending.

"Where's what?" Vaguely I remember something about a reason why some criminals don't wear masks, but am to busy thinking about the question to follow up on this train of thought.

I let out a groan of pain as the man kicked me in my side. Asshole… thinks he's so strong for beating up a scrawny college kid.

Maybe I should have spent more time at the gym? It was the most absurd thought I could have had in this situation and yet also the most pressing.

If I get out of this alive I am definitely investing my cash in a gym membership-

(Download 62%)

I saw a black box pop up with white text containing a download bar and some text floating inside it. Sitting there hovering in front of my vision for a second before vanishing. Did the guy hit me in the head instead or something and I didn't even realise?

Looking up the guy didn't react to its presence at all, instead looking down at me in a way that you can tell he is frowning at me behind his mask.

"You know what" he seems to be getting agitated. Suddenly sirens start sounding out right outside the alleyway distracting the both of us.

"What How Do They-" He starts saying before whirling his head around to look back at me.

"Fuck I've been setup" I'm amazed that he simultaneously managed to say that both so quietly and incredibly furious at the same time. Also why does this feel very generically bland? Like Im pretty sure a shitty tv show or anime would start like this.

The guy in a burst of movement that I can barely follow quickly looks around the alleyway, moving his head so fast around that I'm amazed that he wasn't getting whiplash from how fast he was turning his head let alone comprehending what he was looking at. Before eventually his eyes fell upon an old rusted fire escape that went up to the buildings roof opposite me, with the ladder not fully extended too the ground yet close enough for someone to grab and pull down. Then in an instant he turned back around aiming his gun at me.

"Nothing personal kid, but I don't do lose ends"

I hear a bang and I look down to see a small hole in my shirt near the centre of my chest that soon begins poring blood out of it and pulses of pain soon follow shooting through me as sharply as the bullet that caused it. And I see the Mugger take off grabbing the fire escape bringing it down with ease after using some trash bags to leap up to it and continue climbing.

Right after five police officers begin to move into the alleyway, three of them take after the shooter and two stay behind and try to help me, one of them puts their hands on my wound while the other seems to run off back out of the alleyway, presumably to get help.

(Download Interrupted)

A similar message to the one before pops up in front of my vision for a second. What am I going insane or something? I haven't had any alcohol tonight so it can't be a drunken hallucination, so what is it?

"Sir are you alright," The officer that remained asked pulling me from my thoughts.

I thought about saying "What the hell do you think" but instead opted to be respectful to my belated rescuers.

"Aghh"

Instead of the politer response of "Probably not" that would have come out of my mouth instead I let out some sort of breathless sound, sort of like a balloon losing air. Okay, the bullet must have punctured a lung or something that would explain why I feel so lightheaded and short of breath right now, or is that from something else? its hard to tell everything feels so…so off.

The other officer arrives back with what looks like a medical kit, its very hard to tell because of how blurry everything is getting.

(Download Restarting)

What is with this dammed thing it doesn't seem to go away.
"Sir… SIR… Shit we're losing him!" Is that the Officer? Now that I think about it I don't see anything except darkness now and the pain seems to be gone too. Am I… am I dead?

(Download Starting)

Nope, I am pretty sure if your dead there are no giant annoying black boxes popping up in front of you. And why is that the only thing I can see-

And suddenly I felt nothing

Authors Note

Bet you guys didn't expect to see me again did you? Half a year goes by without an update and then right out of nowhere I reappear with a rewrote chapter, two other chapters removed and a completely new story summary?

Well yes, I have been thinking back on the original for some time as it wasn't what I had wanted the story to turn out like, so I am going to be rewriting it fully from the ground up.

But don't worry if your lucky I will get the rest of the chapters updated to my standard by the end of next week… really lucky.

Anyways until next time and we continue off our story in this crazy, crazy world.