27 Family

"It's no wonder these things are everywhere!! *Gargling noises* They taste like shit! Not even the beast that can kill these things would eat them!" Kane shouted, rinsing his mouth out Listerine for the third time already.

They had found a T-rex easy enough, and after some impressive butchering work, they had seasoned them up and put them on the grill.

Kane wasn't expecting anything heavenly by any means, but he wasn't expecting it to taste like something he fished out of a septic tank and marinated in vomit. That wasn't even mentioning how hard the meat was, it felt as though Kane was biting into sticks.

At first Kane had thought it was just first the one he picked, getting a rotten one right off the bat, but after cooking two more, he came to the conclusion that T-rex's just weren't that tasty.

"You were the one that just had to have a Saurian for dinner!" Luna said, smirking at Kane's facial expression.

"I told you, they're T-rexs!!" Kane grumbled loudly, the foul taste still on the tip of his tongue.

"Actually, they're called Saurians. See." Radar chimed in, holding out her ECHO device that had everything the galaxy knew about Saurians, which were the things Kane was calling 'T-rexs'.

"Why do you always do that? If I'm wrong about something like this, just go along with it." Kane said, realizing Radar was usually the one to prove him wrong like this.

"If I don't prove you're wrong, you'll go on believing you're right. I'd rather you just corrected yourself, rather than pretend to be stupid because you want to be." Radar informed him, and Kane couldn't even be mad about it.

Granted it would have been a pathetic excuse to get mad, but he had done worse.

Done with scratching a dinosaur off his to eat list, Kane and the others got back on the Arcadia before setting course for the Jakobs Estate in Floodmoor Basin.

One would expect a plan of some sort on how Kane was going to go about finding the Vault Key and convincing Montgomery Jakobs to give them access to the Vault, but really he didn't have one.

He was simply going to walk right in and ask for the key fragments, then help himself to the vault. He didn't think Montgomery would agree, given the fact that he threatened Typhon Deleon away from it in the game, but Kane wouldn't be deterred.

Sure he liked Wainwright Jakobs from the game, and even enjoyed the ECHO recordings of Montgomery he listened to, but that didn't mean he would simply walk away from this.

For one, the Vault fragments were priceless resources that the Jakobs Corporation was just wasting, and he couldn't let Tyreen and the leech get their hands on it and gain more power than what they would have.

All he wanted them to do was to spur on the idiots throughout the galaxy to all gather up, at which point he could go and kill them at his leisure. Hell, he could make a game of it with Brick to see who could kill the most COV.

Radar would probably also be up for it, though he doubted Angel and the other girls would. Maya was iffy, but she was more about killing those who sought her out, not seeking people out to kill. Though she did have her moments.

Flying overhead of Floodmoor Basin, everyone got a pretty good view of the area, and needless to say, it looked like shit. The buildings they managed to see looked like they were put together with sticks and mud.

Maya was scoping out the residents of a little town called Reliance, and her opinion on them was, Redneck. More so than the Hodunk clan on Pandora, and they were about as inbred as they came.

"Can we go home?" Luna asked, already done with this place. No vault was worth being here.

"Are you kidding? We haven't even got to blow anything up, go hunting for the biggest monsters, or found the vault! Honestly, I thought Tannis was going to be the first one to start complaining." Kane said, looking disappointed in Luna.

Then again, she was more often than not on the ECHO.net, so being out in the sticks probably wasn't her cup of tea.

Tannis for her part simply shrugged her shoulders at Kane's remark. If she had to guess, she might have said herself to, as everyone else was either a Siren or a demonic A.I. monster.

"We can do most of that on Pandora! Or anywhere else for that matter!" Luna stated, though she didn't get any sympathy from Kane, not that she expected it.

Really she was simply complaining to complain. It was a good way to pass the times every now and then.

When they got to the Jakobs Estate, Kane was a little surprised, yet disappointed at the same time.

He was surprised because the Jakobs manor took up an entire mountain in its size, which was almost as big as Paradise.

The disappointment came when there was no defense protocol activation when they set down. No turrets, no missiles, no lasers, no landmines, not even Saurian traps, which Kane was somewhat expecting.

'It's no wonder the COV managed to kill Montgomery so fast.' Kane thought, wondering how the hell Jakobs were as powerful as they were.

Sure they made wicked awesome guns, but if they couldn't defend themselves against the other Corporations, they were just lambs being led to the slaughter.

"We could take over this whole planet in less than an hour. It would save us all the problems that we know are gonna come." Radar said aloud, though it was clearly to herself.

"But then we would have to stay here longer and get things in order. Make sure the guns keep getting made, the special ammunition that makes Jakobs guns what they are... no, it's too much of a hassle." She said, following up on what she said before, most likely going over how long it would take to accomplish all that.

It was a good thing Radar was a fan of certain Jakobs guns, otherwise Kane figured she'd just torture the information out of Montgomery and be done with the planet.

Speaking of Montgomery Jakobs, the man himself was walking towards the Arcadia with a not so pleased frown on his face. Kane would too if someone parked on his lawn, but he wasn't about to land at the base of the mountain in the swamp.

Walking outside to meet the man, Kane paused a few feet from him, as did Montgomery. Both of them were sizing each other up, though Kane wasn't sure if Montgomery was trying to get an understanding of him, or if he was trying to decide if Kane would fit in his mouth.

The guy looked redneck as fuck with his muttonchop sideburns and handlebar mustache, but he was big. Like Brick with Ellie's figure, only none of it looked fat.

"What in tarnation are you doin, parking that rig on my front porch?!" Montgomery shouted, not sounding all that angry, just annoyed.

Kane just stared at him for a minute, not completely sure the man wouldn't try to eat him, but still answered, "It was either here or in your house, but I figured this was the better option of the two."

Montgomery didn't look all that impressed by his answer, but didn't say anything. Instead he remained silent as his hand hovered over the butt of a pistol in the holster on his right hip.

"I'm not going to bullshit my way around this. I came here for the Vault key so I can open up the Vault your estate was built on." Kane said plainly, completely shocking Montgomery.

There were a lot of things Montgomery expected when he saw a ship land down on his lawn, but this wasn't one of them.

"What you talkin about, boy? There ain't no Vault on Eden-6!" Montgomery said, his face going from shocked to neutral.

"Really? Because when we opened the Vault on Promethea, there was an energy circuit that was joined to a Vault here. I also literally just said your estate was built on it, so I obviously already know about it, you old bastard!" Kane stated, wondering if he was really going to have to kill the old goat.

"Let's go have a drink!" Montgomery said with a frown, then turned and began walking back towards his house.

Kane wasn't really expecting that kind of turn-around from the man, but he wasn't about to say no to a drink. Granted he would be drinking his own stuff, but he still wouldn't pass up the offer.

"What are we going to do when he says no?" Radar asked curiously, her right hand tapping the butt of a revolver on her hip. She was not so subtly asking if they were going to kill everyone and be done with it.

"We're not going to kill them. At least not unless they try and make a move on us first. If the old bastard says no, I have somewhat of an idea where two of the key fragments might be." Kane answered, then began to follow after the retreating figure of Montgomery Jakobs.

Kane couldn't just say he knew where the Vault Fragments were, as he actually wasn't all that sure about it. In the game, Montgomery told Wainwright that the fragments were in the Grand Reserve, Oily Graveyard, and the Family Jewel.

The Grand reserve is Blackbarrel Cellars. It is where Jakobs family cask-ages their signature gunpowder using old booze barrels to give every shot from a Jakobs weapon the proprietary aromatic profile their customers trust and love.

Kane could remember Wainwright and Sir Hammerlock messing with some buttons or something before a barrel appeared with one of the fragments in it.

The Family Jewel was Montgomery's personal airship. The Fragment was somewhere aboard it, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. At least with Radar's help it wouldn't.

The Oily Graveyard was Ambermire, it being an old swamp area lined with abandoned oil rigs. Kane wasn't too sure where Key fragment was, as it had been found by a group called, The Rogues in the game.

If Montgomery didn't give them the key, Kane's only plan was to see if Tannis could somehow find a way to track Eridian relics like the key fragments. Knowing her, it would probably only take a few days to do it, which wouldn't be the end of the world for Kane.

Walking inside the big ass mansion, Kane's gaze roamed around the place, eyeing everything up and down. It looked very similar to how it did in the game, only it was a lot cleaner. Perks of not having Aurelia and the COV trash the place. Still looked dark and dreary though.

"Could use a bit of sprucing up, but not too bad considering the location." Maya said, which got a pointed look from Kane.

She came from the most remote place in the galaxy with the most outdated technology of all the planets, so she really couldn't say anything about other people's homes.

"Fuck you." She whispered to him with a glare. Kane always seemed to bring up how shitty Athenas was, and it was really starting to annoy her.

Ignoring Maya, Kane walked up some stairs, down a corridor, and through a living-room of sorts, then finally got to the dining room, where Montgomery was just taking a seat.

"Baldrin! Bring in some Rot Gut and some glasses!" Montgomery ordered a man who could only be his butler. With a 'Yes Sir' the guy left the room.

"Who all knows about the Vault?" Montgomery finally asked, looking up at Kane was a not so happy look.

"Besides our little group and you of course, there's about 3 others. Maybe more." Kane answered, thinking about Typhon, Tyreen, and Troy.

Tyreen and Troy would tell everyone in the known galaxy about them in a few years, but for now that was everyone Kane thought knew about the Vault.

"What do you want with the Vault? Besides opening it!" Montgomery asked, figuring he may as well hear them out, despite already having some assumptions of his own.

"To kill the monster inside of it and take anything of value." Kane answered simply, confusing Montgomery.

"Why in the hell would you wanna do that?" He asked, not seeing what all the fuss was about. Sure the weapons might be powerful inside, but they also painted a pretty target on your back.

Plus if you wanted cool stuff, this was the time period where new things were being developed on a monthly basis. Hell, there were even robots that would pleasure you for hours on end if you wanted, and they were cheaper than a real woman, and most of the time they were better too.

In answer to his question, Kane gave him a bastardized version of what he had told the others, about a Siren seeking the vaults for power and so on.

By the end of it, Montgomery looked to be deep in thought, at least he was until Baldrin came back into the room with a bottle of whiskey with a few glasses on a tray.

Kane was about ready to discard the whiskey and bring his own out, but he put that on hold once he saw the color of the stuff they had. For one it didn't share the syrup-like thickness to it, and Kane had yet to smell the foul odor that came with Rakk ale.

Bringing the glass that had been slid in front to his nose, Kane gave it a smell. It did smell gross, but not in a piss and shit kind of way that he was expecting. It was more like moonshine than anything else.

Deciding to give it a go, Kane brought the glass to his lips, then took a swallow. It burned the whole way down, and for a minute he wondered if he was drinking pure poison.

"God damn!! That'll put hair on your chest!" He shouted, putting his glass down and sliding it away from him.

Looking around, he saw Luna and Radar sitting opposite of him, neither touching the glasses in front of them, which was smart all things considered.

When he saw the glass in front of Luna, he shot the butler a look, but the man didn't so much as bat an eye. Maya actually drank hers, though she was currently having a coughing fit.

Tannis actually drank hers without so much as a blink, which surprised Kane for more than one reason. She never drank, so drinking this was odd all by itself, and the fact that she clearly didn't feel it brought up a number of questions for him, though they could wait.

Looking to where the last person in his group was supposed to be, Kane saw a glass, but no Angel. Confused, he scanned the room, finding her after a moment off in a corner, looking at something on the wall.

Getting to his feet, he walked over to see what it was, and it wasn't until he stood beside her did he realize something was wrong.

On the wall was a portrait of a pregnant woman standing beside her husband. The thing that jumped out at Kane was the man in the portrait was Handsome Jack himself.

He made a guess that the woman in the portrait was Angel's mother, though he could only speculate as it had never shown her in the game.

It was a pretty fair assumption though, as the woman and Angel shared many of the same facial features, though Kane wasn't sure what to do with this new bit of information.

"You look just like her." He said softly, a little unsure of what he was supposed to say or do.

He knew from Borderlands 3 that she had accidentally killed her mother with a bandit turret, but it wasn't her fault. She had just become a Siren, then taken prisoner by some bandit fucker. It's not her fault her powers activated on their own.

Thinking like that, Kane understood a bit more why a Siren was given the option to choose an heir.

To inherit a Siren's gift is also to inherit their curse. This is the choice of a Siren presented with death - pass on the gift and burden someone worthy, or release it, and burden an unknown soul who has no idea that the entire universe is about to want them dead. Angel was clearly the latter of the two.

Both Kane and Angel stood there for a few minutes in silence, that is until Montgomery walked over to see what the hell was going on with them.

"What in damnation are you doin over here?! I didn't say you could-!" The man said, only to freeze when a slender arm wrapped around his neck, while at the same time the barrel of a pistol was pressed to the underside of his jaw.

"Can't you see they're having a moment? It would be wise to keep your mouth shut!" Radar said, running a finger across Montgomery's neck as if it were a blade, then removed her arm entirely, though the pistol remained where it was until Angel turned towards them.

"Why do you have this here?" Angel asked with tears in her eyes as she pointed towards the portrait.

Looking from the portrait in question, then back to Angel, Montgomery frowned. He wanted to tell her it was none of her business, but with how she was reacting to it, she clearly knew one of the two people in the portrait.

"That was my daughter, Alaina, and her husband Jack." Montgomery answered, looking sad when he mentioned his daughter's name.

Angel seemed to tense up at the news, which went to show that she at least had never heard about her mother's family.

"What happened to them?" Luna asked curiously, having seemingly appeared out of nowhere beside Radar.

"My daughter and granddaughter were killed by bandits a little over a decade ago. Jack is off somewhere in Hyperion fighting the bandit scum, making the universe a better place." Montgomery answered solemnly at the beginning, then getting more serious towards the end.

Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks as she turned to look back to the portrait of her parents, not caring how most eyes in the room trained on her.

Everyone was looking at her in confusion, save for Kane who knew the reason already.

"It was an accident... the turret seemed to come alive on its own." Angel whispered softly, almost choking out the words.

"What are you talking about, woman?" Montgomery asked, unsure of what the hell Angel was getting at.

"My name is Angel. Alaina was my mother. It was an accident, but... I killed her." Angel said sadly, her words causing Montgomery to take a step back in shock.

"That's not-! That's not possible! Jack told me they both died that day!" He shouted angrily, though judging by his expression he was clearly having doubts.

It took awhile, but eventually everyone made their way back to the table, both Angel and Montgomery looking marginally worse than before.

Angel had already explained what really happened that day, how the bandits found out she was a Siren and took her, and how the turret killed everyone, including her mother, leaving just her and her father alive.

When she had told Montgomery that she had basically been imprisoned for over a decade in a satellite by her own father, the man had nearly blown his fuse.

He didn't want to believe that Jack would do such a thing, but after a quick blood test, it proved that Angel was at least telling some bit of truth.

There was also the fact that Angel was the spitting image of her mother, just with a different hair-style and different clothes.

"So... about that vault!" Kane said, feeling the depressing mood had lasted long enough.

Angel didn't seem to mind the change in topic, though Montgomery did. He looked pissed, though Kane wasn't sure if that was because of him or because of the bomb that had been dropped on him already.

"Are you outta your mind?! I just found out my granddaughter's alive, and all you can think of is the vault key!" Montgomery shouted, slamming his meaty fist on the table.

"To be fair, I was the one that saved her, and brought her here. If anything you should be thanking me. I take Vault keys." Kane said, getting a low grumble from the big man.

--------

After Montgomery made it clear that they wouldn't be discussing the matter of the Vault anymore for the day, Kane decided he would go hunting for something.

Maya, Luna, and Tannis wanted to go explore some of the places, while Radar wanted to hang back on the Arcadia to go over a new program she was working on off planet.

Angel stayed behind due to Montgomery's request, so that left Kane to go alone.

--------

(Angel POV)

(A.N. I'm just going to call Montgomery, Monty from now on!)

Pacing around the room, Monty wasn't quite sure what to say to the granddaughter he thought was dead, and by the looks of things, neither did she.

Thankfully neither of them had to be the ones to break the awkward silence, as before long the doors burst open and Wainwright appeared with a shotgun in hand.

"Where are they?!" He shouted, clearly having heard of Kane's landing on the Jakobs estate.

"Calm down, boy! Come have a seat. There's someone I wanna introduce you to!" Monty said, surprising Wainwright.

It was almost unheard of for Monty to not shout or curse when he spoke to someone, but he sounded more calm and respectful than he had ever been before.

Looking around, Wainwright spotted the only other person in the room besides Baldrin, but he had known him since he was born.

Approaching the table, Wainwright was about to ask who the woman was, but as soon as he got close enough to get a good look at her, he froze.

She looked too much like someone from his past, someone who used to tease him relentlessly before she went off to study abroad on Tantalus.

"Alaina...?" Wainwright asked, sounding as though he was speaking to a ghost.

"Her name is Angel. Alaina's daughter." Monty informed him, shocking Wainwright.

When news of his sister's death had reached them, it had been a sorry day on Eden-6. Monty had holed himself up for a few weeks, and would lash out at anyone who even brought up Alaina, it being too hard for him to think about.

It was honestly easier to go about it as if she was never there, which was the route most people had opted to go down, thus averting Monty's rage.

It was so bad, had it not been for the few portraits of her throughout the estate, no one would have ever known Alaina existed.

Wainwright was eventually told the same story as Monty, which was how the three of them ended up sitting quietly in the room.

"You wanna run the Jakobs Corporation?" Wainwright asked, completely derailing the depressing atmosphere in the room.

""Excuse me?"" Both Angel and Monty asked in confusion.

"Oh hell, Monty! You've been trying to get me to be your heir for almost 10 years now!! I told you I wasn't the man for the job, but you want it to be passed on to family! She's family!! If it'll get you off of my back, give her the company!!" Wainwright stated, getting different reactions from the other two people in the room.

Monty was a little angry at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea.

Trying to convince Wainwright to inherit was like arguing with a wall, though of the two, the wall would give in before Monty.

Angel was a little shocked at the notion, and was torn between being happy and disgusted. She was happy that they had accepted her enough to give her a family run company, but she was disgusted by the idea of actually running a Corporation, not to mention the Jakobs Corporation.

Of every Corporation out in the universe, they by far had the least amount of blood on their hands, but they definitely weren't her cup of tea. They were as backwoods as they came, and she... well she wasn't.

"Not to sound ungrateful, but there's no way I'm going to run this place." Angel said before Monty could have his say on the matter.

""Why not?!"" Monty and Wainwright asked in unison, both having thought it to be a pretty good answer to their problem.

Not to mention, if Angel became CEO of Jakobs, they would get to see her whenever they wanted.

"I know what it takes to run a Corporation, and it's just not for me. Besides, I want to live my life and travel the universe! I want to explore unknown worlds and find treasure! I want to have fun! Plus Eden-6 is like a million years behind in technology." Angel said quickly, though rather than the annoyed expressions she was expecting, she got smiles from the both of them.

"What?" She asked, confused at why they were smiling.

"Your mother said something similar when she was younger. She didn't like the swamps, and wasn't into guns either." Monty said, smiling at the memory of his daughter and how much Angel was like her.

"I like guns, just not the swampy stuff. I even have a few Jakobs weapons in my room." Angel said, getting looks of surprise from her uncle and Grandfather.

"Alaina hated guns. Wouldn't touch em to save her life! I tried to get her to kill a Jabber once, and she kicked the gun outta my hand and into the Jabber's. We had to run a few hundred yards back to the bikes with a gunslingin varmint on our tails!" Monty said, laughing at the time, then frowned.

"Course ever since then, the critters have been trying to get their hands on guns. They're smarter than you'd think, and not bad shots either." He added, sharing a little bit of the aftermath of her actions.

Angel sat there and listened to stories about her mother, and she had to say that it was one of the best times of her life.

Of course Monty wasn't about to give up on having her inherit Jakobs from him, or at the very least get her help in convincing Wainwright to.

He had even brought up giving her the vault key if she said yes, but she declined, saying she wouldn't be leaving Kane and the others, as they had been the closest thing to family she had since her mother died.

"They are the family I never knew I wanted until now. I wouldn't trade any of them for all the worlds out there." Angel said, getting a frown from Monty.

"Even that Kane, guy? He seems like a real asshole." He said, giving his opinion on what he thought of Kane, getting a soft laugh in response from Angel.

"It's all just an act. Most of the time anyway. If he wanted, he could wipe out all life on Eden-6 in a matter of hours, but he won't. He's got reasons for being the way he is, so don't be too hard on him. I wouldn't want him to kill you after all. Plus he did set me free." Angel said happily, though that didn't seem to convince Monty.

"You make this guy out to be a monster. Is he single?" Wainwright asked, hoping to score.

"Ummm... I wouldn't quite say he's single." Angel said, not obviously hiding something.

"What would you call it then?" Wainwright asked, wondering if Kane was off the market.

"He's sort of with Maya, the girl with blue hair. And... Well, me too." Angel answered, causing both Monty and Wainwright to slowly get to their feet.

"Baldrin." Monty said, causing the butler to step forward. "Yes sir?" Baldrin asked, waiting for orders.

"Go get my rifle." Wainwright got to his feet after Monty gave the order, breaking the barrel of his shotgun to check the rounds then snapped it back up.

"Now hold on!" Angel said, trying to stop the two, but they didn't seem to want to listen.

They were out for Kane, but Angel feared Kane would be out for them before long. Thinking she just found some family and now they were going to be killed, she only had one thought on her mind.

'I need a drink.'