=> Beginning of the End [Pt.4]
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⠀ You didn’t think you’d ever be coming back to Pandora. There were so many memories here, or well… there should have been but Skaianet’s archives weren’t updated after your ‘vacation’. Instead, you just had glimpses here and there, memories salvaged from posts you’d made and the residual echoes your Aspect allowed you to scrounge out of the void.
Gearing up for Pandora was the hardest part. You spent way longer than you wanted to finding your shield, locating the weapons that would work with the ECHOnet, and decking yourself out in body armor. You don’t fit the theme this time around. Instead of a ‘Bandit Queen’ you looked more like a soldier, dressed from head to toe in carbon fiber body plating and a helmet with full HUD capabilities. You weren’t going to Pandora to sightsee, you weren’t going to romp around in the wastelands and have an adventure. You were going to hunt a dangerous Siren, a version of yourself who had presumably been living there for the past few years and had the upper-hand of Home Base.
There are no goodbyes when you set out, no notes left, just a quiet and solitary trip to your transportalizer, a grave plunking in of the coordinates, and the familiar screaming of the multiverse around you as you materialize in a universe that isn’t your own. The trip makes you feel ill, it twists your guts and you can feel them writhing back into place as you step out into the heat of Pandora.
⠀ A familiar smell of burnt rubber, skag manure, hot sandstone, and the slightly wrong mix of breathable gasses meet your nose. You should have taken something for your nerves before you left, or at least something for your queasiness, but it was far too late for that now and like hell you were going to risk anything made by Dr. Zed to soothe your insides.
You orient yourself, you get all of your tech connected and functioning, and you plug in the waypoint for where Skaianet seemed to think this other Spin was. You’re outside of what’s left of Fyrestone, beneath the now dilapidated super highway that Handsome Jack had been building the last time you were here. Much of the slag has been cleaned up, but the town is still in ruins. It’s filled with Bandits and Psychos now, you can see them roaming about inside the makeshift barricades they had set up. There couldn’t be any less interest inside of you on engaging with them right now.
Something was happening beneath your armor; all across your body is a dull burning sensation followed by a cold tingling. You feel the surge of Eridian power creeping its way back up your flesh and it brings back deeply ingrained physical memories that your consciousness isn’t quite privy to. Your HUD gives you a warning that your heart rate is elevated to dangerous levels. Yeah, you think, no shit. Panic attacks do that to you.
The swelling of your Siren powers sputter and flicker just as you feel the finalizing surge of Eridian power through you, and then all at once the burning, tingling, and discomfort stops. You knit your brows as you tuck your assault rifle under your arm and pull back as much of the sleeve of your undersuit as you could given the armor around it. The Siren markings are inert, completely dull and just a shade or two lighter than your regular skintone. Strange. Both you and the other you existing at the same time must’ve fucked with the stipulations of how Siren powers worked. Hopefully that meant that she was unable to use her Phasecontrol abilities, too.
⠀ Navigating Pandora was more difficult this time around than it had been last time. Much of the planet seemed to be inaccessible from the Fast Travel Network, either because the comms relays were down or because whoever was vying for control of Pandora at the moment was trying to limit travel. With so few options, you were going to have to travel from The Dust to Lynchwood, which wasn’t too bad of a journey as far as you could tell. Of course, you weren’t on the Updated ECHOnet, how accurate your maps are was questionable. Still, you set out, counting your bullets as you make your way to the nearest Fast Travel Station.
Travel is only interrupted two or three times, once by Skags and twice by Bandits, but your Assault Rifle makes short work of them all and you can’t dwell on the loss of human life when you still had a bounty to claim. You were no longer registered in the Catch-a-Ride system, so the journey is done on foot, and by the time you see the outskirts of Lynchwood, your legs are like jelly and you have enough sand in your boots to fill a bathtub with.
Lynchwood has grown.
You recognize aspects of the infrastructure as things you’d planned and built for L8dy’s Country years ago and all it does is confirm to you that you were nearing your target. Sweat made it hard to see as you rounded the pathway leading up towards the city only to find yourself barred out by massive walls with auto-turrets scanning for any potential hostiles. The colors on the walls, the sponsors on the buildings, seemed to be of Jakobs make. Probably one of the better manufacturers to align herself with. You’d be impressed if you weren’t already exhausted and struggling to push forward with the mission.
⠀ Taking out the turrets wasn’t that hard, they went down in only a few bullets each once you figured out where to hit. It’s the mechs that digistruct from alcoves on the barricade wall that look like they’ll be the actual challenge. You re-count your bullets. You have about 46 left so you change your assault rifle to single-shot mode and bunker down behind some wreckage nearby to watch the constructs as they patrol. After a few minutes, you have their paths figured out, and you lead some shots into their weakpoints. Your hits land critical, and with only 12 bullets spent, the pathway to the front gate is clear.
It’s as simple as walking up to the gate, bashing the butt of your rifle into a control panel, and moving inside. Lynchwood is bustling with life and you manage to blend in fine despite your attire, especially after you stop and rub some dirt and sand all over your almost pristine armor to make it look more weathered than it was. Only one person sees you doing this and he’s too drunk to do more than stare at you menacingly from where he was crumpled against a dumpster.
Lynchwood as a whole had your particular brand of stink all throughout it, from the slot machines people were pouring their earnings into to get guns and cash, to the patrolling guards having cerulean diamond emblems on their shoulders marking their loyalty. If she were trying to hide, she was doing a piss poor job of it. Did she want to be found? If you were going to hide, you’d do a hell of a lot better at blending in and shedding your telltale attributes, but who were you to judge? How many years had she been here already? Maybe she thought she was in the clear.
You wander about Lynchwood for about 20 minutes, trying to navigate the streets that were different than you remembered and different than what your map was trying to tell you. Your best luck comes when you follow the rail line through Main Street. As far as you could recall, this place has been prettied up quite a bit since your last visit. What used to be somewhat run down has been repaired, with new buildings replacing the sand-worn structures that you would’ve been more familiar with. The most notable changes were the addition of a Fast Travel Hub smack-dab in the middle of town, and the almost corporate-like expansion of the clinic. Brilliant holographic banners displayed simple animations of new medicines and robotic prosthetics in eye–catching colors. None of the products being advertised looked like anything you had any familiarity with.
The initial thought is to raise hell and get arrested. Maybe, if she were running this place, you’d get taken straight to her if you kicked up enough of a shitstorm. You re-count your bullets. 34. Even if every hit you landed was critical, the armed town guards wandering around looked like they’d take at least 5 or 6 each. You’d probably get put down before any of them made an arrest. Your shield was basic and didn’t offer much in terms of elemental effects.
The second thought is to ask around. While it was still liable to get you into a gunfight in the wild wild waste of Pandora, it was probably the better route to take. Of course… you didn’t know what she was going by. You didn’t know what she looked like, aside from probably having a robotic arm and brown skin. You had to start somewhere though, so you follow along Main Street until you find a place called ‘Skagsbreath Bar & Grill’, which sounded way more like a family establishment than it looked once you stepped inside.
⠀ It was like walking into a grungepunk western. Several people turn to look at you from behind their mugs and shotglasses, each strapped with guns and in varying levels of bodily filth. The bartender, a tall man with an eyepatch and four robotic limbs, sizes you up before smacking a sign behind him that says ‘No Guns, No Grenades, No Greenhorns’. You’re thankful that the helmet completely obfuscates your face because the look of incredulity on it would’ve probably started the night’s fifth bar brawl.
You carefully peel your gun from yourself and flick on its safeties, unequip your grenade mod, and place them on the table by the doorway in. People watch you for a moment or two longer before you make a show of trying to digistruct any other equipped weapons and turning up with glimmering, digital nothing. Once you were fully unarmed, the majority of the patrons returned to entertaining their drinks and glowering at you from the rims of their eyes instead.
⠀ “...whisky on the rocks.” You order with no intent to drink. Your hands come down on the bartop and you smooth your fingertips along the glass-rim stained wood. The bartender sizes you up even more now that he’s heard that the voice coming out of the helmet, despite its digital compression, is unmistakably female. Still, he gets you your drink, and even starts up a chat with you while he does.
“New in town?”
“Passing through.”
“You one a’ them Vault Hunters?”
“Not even a little bit. Private mercenary, off-planet.” You try to give a scoff of a laugh at the idea of being a Vault Hunter but he doesn’t seem to buy it. He slides you the grimey, scratched tumbler full of cheap whiskey and dirty ice. A casual pan of your head to people on either side of you confirms that this isn’t the standard, it was some kind of hazing. You reach for the glass, frame its rim with your fingers, and swirl it around.
“Somethin’ wrong with yer drink, miss?” The bartender asks with feigned innocence. You recognize it immediately.
You stop swirling the drink.
“Yeah, actually, there is. I wouldn’t clean my boots with this shit. How much extra you charge to make it palatable?” If there was one thing you knew about Pandora, it was that snappy banter and quirky one-liners were the norm of conversation, especially if you wanted to make a good impression. He plants both hands on the bartop and leans in towards you, scarred face deeply lined with something between a scowl and a frown.
“You insultin’ my establishment?”
“If it’s an insult to want something I can actually drink instead of this dishwater bullcrap, then yeah, I guess I am.” You shrug, placing the tumbler down and straightening up some to make equal eye-contact with the Barkeep. You tilt your head to the side a bit.
“You make a habit of treating every new guy like this? Or am I just special?” You’re speaking with a grin and it’s carrying on your voice. You can see the veins on his dirty neck start to pop out.
⠀ Just as you’re about to say something else, your HUD flashes a bright orange-red and the world is pulled out from underneath you. Something hits you in the back of the head, hard, hard enough to clunk your helmet down into your skull and for the pain and force of it to only hit you once you’re already on the floor and unable to control your limbs.
Panic sets in underneath the throbbing, thrumming pain in your skull and you try to push your body back up just in time to see the ass-end of your Assault Rifle careening towards your face.
⠀ You hear the impact and taste blood but all you see is a screen of white.

















