Monsters

Standing outside beneath the morning sun, Kane stared calmly up into the sky. Normally this would be a calm and refreshing moment to start the day, but the few hundred spaceships kinda made that a little difficult.

At least that's how it was for Monty and Wainwright, who were in full blown panic mode. Kane on the other hand was kind of looking forward to this.

The only thing that had him worried about this was if Luna would be okay. She had been in a few fights, sure, but nothing overly big, and certainly not something he couldn't contain or eliminate in a few seconds.

Not to mention he was usually the one to start any fights when she was involved. However the Malliwan fleet showing up on Eden-6 was something he hadn't expected at all.

"Alright ladies!! Prepare yourselves, because we're about to go to war!" Kane said, getting everyone's attention.

For the number of enemies they were going up against, their little group was oddly at ease about the situation, the complete opposite of the Jakobs personnel around them.

Then again, the Jakobs personnel were just workers, not soldiers. They weren't geared up to fight in a war. Wouldn't stop them from doing it though.

This was a planet of rednecks, who all had at least five guns on hand at any given moment. It would be interesting to see them defend themselves, though they most likely wouldn't have to if Kane had his way.

The first thing Kane did was make a few hundred large metal pods appear around him, followed by 3 dozen drones, and finally what appeared to be a small command center that didn't have any walls or ceiling.

Generators thrummed to life, at which point the screens and lights on the command center lit up.

"Radar, can you sure-up the perimeter around the fleet? I don't want any of them to get away. Use the drones to keep a lookout, and the bots to cause chaos." Kane said, getting an almost giddy laugh from Radar as she moved to a computer screen in the command center.

"It's not my birthday for a few more months!! I'm so happy!!" She cried joyfully, then plugged herself in. It took a few seconds, but before long all the metal pods Kane had thrown out onto the ground transformed themselves into all sorts of different forms of robots.

The drones took off into the sky, followed by a few bots, though the majority of them remained on the ground as they moved around into key positions.

"Angel, see if you can Phaseshift into their system. Fuck up anything you can that you think might cause them problems." Kane instructed the woman, who didn't hesitate to walk over to a computer of her own before a greyish glow came from her hands, most likely using her powers to do just as Kane said.

"Maya, you're on range. Phaselock anything that comes close to the ground. Focus on the largest size of ship you can handle. I'll set up a turret for you on the mountain over there." Kane said, getting a nod of understanding from the blue-haired Siren.

"Luna, you're with me. We're going to get inside the command ship, then I want you to try and rip it apart. Stick to the walls when I'm not beside you, and if your shield is hit, you notify me immediately!" Kane ordered, a little more serious with the little girl than the others.

Luna nodded, knowing it was lucky she wasn't locked away under a mountain for her own protection. Kane probably would have done just that, but it would do her no good in the long run.

She needed to experience something like this if she was ever going to survive on her own in this universe.

Tiny Tina might be the worlds deadliest 13 year old in Borderlands 2, but Luna would be the world's deadliest 8 year old. (Or however old she is.)

Finally Kane looked to Tannis, who was already moving around a little corner of the command center. It had a few boxes and vials with lights everywhere surrounding a table.

It was a make-shift operating room, which she would use in case anyone was hurt. Hopefully she wouldn't be needed, but it was better to have her on hand than to not.

Seeing that everything was already in order, Kane made his way over to Monty, who was shouting angrily into an ECHO device.

"So do we get to kill them?" Kane asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

"These assholes won't listen!! They're looking for some 'Ghost' bastard, and are refusing to leave! On top of that, the nut job in command is dumber than a bag of Jabber shit!!" Monty shouted angrily, not looking away from his ECHO device.

Looking over Monty's shoulder, Kane observed what he was doing. It took a second of going over some Maliwan forum crap, but eventually he got to a communication board towards the bottom of the screen.

The thing that really jumped out at him was the name of the commander in charge of the fleet, and Kane couldn't even be bothered to hold back his laughter.

"Daniel fucking Traunt! HAHAHA!! What a fucking joke!!" Kane stated before he continued laughing.

In the game this guy was the older brother of Captain Samuel Traunt and some other idiots who were supposedly in Malliwan, him being the top of the bunch at General status.

These siblings being Beck-o, Randal, Dante, Michael, Eric, April, and Connor. As he says "and the rest" at the end of this list, it can be assumed that there are more Traunt siblings than just the ones listed.

Didn't matter to Kane though. If General Traunt was even close to his video game counterpart, it was a safe assumption that this was going to be easier than he thought. Not to mention a little entertaining.

Grabbing the ECHO device out of Monty's hands, Kane pulled out his own device and linked his signal with Monty's so he could also have access to the communication forum.

"Give that back!" Monty growled, then grabbed his device back, though Kane already had what he needed from it. Walking back over to the command center, Kane tossed Radar his ECHO device, who immediately connected it to a wire next to a satellite dish.

It took a few moments, but soon a holographic image appeared of a Maliwan power suit.

"Are you trying to intimidate us with the power suit? Because it's not working." Kane said, surprising the man in the power suit, if the almost girlish screech was anything to go by.

Kane didn't know why they were surprised, this was the communication forum.

'Idiot.' He thought, wondering how people could be this stupid in this day and age where people could literally become titans of the universe.

"This is General Daniel Traunt! And you're the feckless SOB who killed Sir Kaito on Isolus!! He taught me how to use a power suit, but you taught him how to die. Now I'm gonna teach YOU- How... how to die... just to be clear. TRAUNT!!"

Kane had no response for that. The guy was stupid, no question about it.

"I bet I kill him first!" Radar shouted out of nowhere, completely ignoring the holographic image of Traunt as she stared at Kane with a wide manic grin on her face.

"You're on!" Kane respond, more than up for a little competition. The stakes could be hashed out later, as there was very little either of them wanted that the other wouldn't give, so it would most likely be for tiny insignificant things.

"Hey, dickhead!! You're on the biggest ship, right?" Kane asked after he turned back towards Traunt.

"As if I'd tell you that! But seeing as I want to kill you, then yeah! Come get some!! For my name is Daniel TRAUUUUUUUUUUUNT!!" Kane quickly muted the screaming nut job before he lost his sanity, and the ability to hear.

"On your mark get set go!!" Kane shouted quickly, then grabbed both Luna and Maya before disappearing in a flash. After dropping Maya off at the turret, Kane and Luna appeared in the middle of the fleet.

"Don't hurt anything you don't have to. We can salvage this fleet for billions!!" Kane said, his greedy side showing in a moment where it really wasn't needed.

"Greedy bastard!" Luna mumbled under her breath, wondering just how far Kane would be pushed due to his greed. It was far, no doubt, but Kane would at least be somewhat smart about it. At least in his eyes he would be, but to Luna and most everyone else he was just a lunatic at times.

Walking down a hallway, Kane's guns fired at an almost constant rate, each bullet hitting it's mark, as Kane rarely if ever missed. It was a perk that came with teleporting bullets exactly where they needed to go.

Maliwan drones were being shot down like they were targets at a shooting gallery, and the drop ships weren't doing any better.

Radar was going above and beyond, controlling her bots to shoot people down or detonate themselves and blow whatever the target was to smithereens. For how outnumbered they were, Kane and his group were making short work of the Maliwan fleet.

Maya was having a blast on the turret, pausing every few seconds to Phaselock a small jet and fling it into the side of a bigger ship. It wasn't as effective as blowing them up like Radar was doing, but it was good practice with her powers, and it was really fun!

Meanwhile, Angel was ripping through the database and sabotaging engines, cutting off the fuel supply, or rewriting the coding for a few ships.

Doing this kind of thing for her father always felt like a punishment, but now that she was doing it for herself and helping Kane, it felt more like fun.

Doing it with a group was also fun, not to mention she was helping out her own family in the process. Granted she had no idea they even existed 3 days ago, but they weren't that bad, regardless of how outdated and backwoods they were.

Kane was in the middle of gunning people down when he felt a chill run up his spine, alerting him that something wasn't right.

However he didn't get the chance to figure out what it was before it was too late. Something was coming through the walls of the flagship, and he barely had time to unleash a burst of power around him that seemed to freeze time.

Time wasn't actually frozen, simply the pocket of space around him was moving at a much greater time speed than the area around him, making it look as though time was frozen.

He couldn't hold this space indefinitely, and he didn't have long before it would all go back to normal, so being on a time crunch, Kane quickly found where Luna was, only to be surprised for a second time in a matter of a minute.

Luna had apparently sensed something coming, as she had used ALMIGHTY PUSH with her in the epicenter. The beam of light coming through the walls and towards them was already being pushed away from her, though the floor beneath her was as well.

Somehow the ability actually allowed her to float where she was, though that would probably end when the ability fizzled out.

Reacting as fast as he could in the time that he had, Kane appeared beside her just as time seemed to come crashing back to a start around them. He noticed his shield burst before a burning pain hit his shoulder the instant before he disappeared.

Angel was shutting down most of the major functions of the main flag ship, when a few dozen pods ejected and shot off in the distance, most likely a few personnel trying to get away from the chaos unfolding around them.

Despite their fleeing, things were still going great, at least up until a massive beam of light shot down from space like a missile from heaven. The light enveloped the flag ship, ripping it apart in a matter of seconds.

"KANE!!" Angel cried out, while Tannis cried out for Luna. The both of them were on the ship, and it was very unclear if they made it out of something like that.

Thankfully their fears were brought to an end when Kane appeared next to Tannis on the command station with Luna in his arms. She looked surprised, but completely fine, though the same couldn't be said for Kane.

His right arm was covered in blood, most if not all of it coming from the missing piece of his shoulder. It looked like something took a bite out of him, and not a small bite either.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!!" Kane growled venomously. If looks could kill, Kane was going to torture whoever was responsible, poison them, kill them, and kill everyone related to them for good measure.

While Tannis ran over to look over his shoulder, Kane's eyes were roaming the sky trying to figure out where the hell that shot came from.

It didn't take long before the silhouette of a massive ship came into view, and moments later when it fully entered the atmosphere, Kane could clearly see big giant yellow writing on the side of it.

'Family Jewel'

Seeing it's name, Kane's eyes widened before he spun around to look towards Monty, only to see him just as shocked as Kane was.

Monty's shock lasted only a moment before he punched a few commands on his ECHO device, then shouted, "GenIVIV!! BALEX!! What in tarnation is goin on?!!"

Almost instantly a chipper voice responded, "Hey, boss! Don't worry, we got this!"

"BALEX is right, cutie! We'll handle this from here!" A feminine voice cut in less than a second later.

"God damn it!! I told you to keep the Family Jewel out of this!! It can't stand a fleet this size, and now you've already drained most of its power!! Not to mention you almost killed our allies, who might just kill us now for the fun of it!!" Monty reprimanded his two A.I.'s.

He couldn't honestly say he would have preferred Kane be killed, as the guy had done more good than bad since he had known him.

There was also the fact that his granddaughter would most likely be heartbroken if something happened to Kane, given how attached to him she seemed.

Still, had Kane not survived then things would have been different, but he had in fact survived, and Monty was kind of terrified.

"No problem, babe! We'll just kill them too!" GenIVIV said, sounding like a giddy little schoolgirl.

That was the expected response from a combat A.I. such as herself, but GenIVIV was sorely lacking in the information department if she thought she could take on Kane, let alone a group of women feared across the galaxy who would fight to the death for him, especially an overprotective A.I. who was more yandere than she would care to admit.

BALEX tried to follow up with something of his own, but it wasn't understandable over the screams of both him and GenIVIV, which was weird considering they were both A.I.'s.

"YOU LOWER LIFE FORMS!! YOU DARE?!! TO MY MASTER!!" What sounded like a mixture of thousands of voices speaking in unison sounded out over everyone's ECHO devices and the command center.

Kane made the educated guess that it was Radar, though he had never heard her sound like that before. He guessed it was the mixture of every A.I. that she was made from speaking all at once.

If it was her then it made complete sense on how the other A.I.'s could feel pain. Kane still couldn't explain it, but Radar was to other A.I.'s as he was to other people. A monster.

Evidently everyone on the whole battlefield heard the cry of outrage from Radar, as the surroundings got eerily silent. No one really did anything for a few minutes as they waited to see what the hell was going on.

Those that were left of the Maliwan fleet were at a loss, as the flagship was a pile of scrap metal on the ground, and their commander was gone to who knows where.

It was unknown if Traunt managed to get away on one of the escape pods, though it was looking less likely by the minute. If the dumbass had escaped, he most likely would be bragging or mocking the Jakobs corporation for having failed, regardless of how shitty his situation was.

The silence was broken when a humanoid figure was ejected out of the Family Jewel. The ship itself seemed to still be in pristine condition, though now it just hovered in the sky, like a dead fish in the water.

Radar seemed to float in the air for a few moments after leaving the large ship, her gaze wandering down towards the command center and to where Kane was, then back towards what was left of the Maliwan fleet.

She clearly wanted to go check up on Kane, though she also wanted to rid herself of their attackers. Death and destruction seemed to win over as the battle roared to life once more when bullets and missiles shot upward.

Maya's turret thrummed to life once more, followed by a ship being encased in a purple orb before it went hurtling into another ship.

For her part, Luna was staring intently up into the sky at where most of the ships were flying around to out maneuver the projectiles coming their way.

Focusing intently, she extended her right arm and fired a light blue orb into the sky. It flew for a good few seconds, but as soon as it got to the spot she wanted, Luna clenched her hand into a fist.

What followed was a strong suction force that began to pull the ships flying around in the sky towards it, similar to how a black hole would, though it was more akin to a magnet in this case as there wasn't a different pocket of space that everything went into. It just seemed to pull everything together.

There were a few minor explosions, a few things getting crushed, but the biggest hit of all came when Radar fired a small nuke at the contained fleet.

The blast would have spread out further, but Maya was quick on her feet and actually managed to Phaselock everything at once, including the explosion. She couldn't hold it long, but she was able to hold it long enough for the blast to die down a little bit.

When her orb ended, so too did Luna's pulling effect. What was left of the fleet seemed to fall to the ground in pieces. There were of course a few stragglers that managed to avoid the pull, but they were simply target practice for Maya and Radar, who took great pleasure in shooting them down.

When the battle, if it could even be called that, was over, everyone grouped up at the command center. Maya looked dead on her feet tired from using more of her power like that in one go, but she was unharmed otherwise.

Other than Kane, who looked better than expected, everyone else was just fine. Tannis had injected a few shots of plasma into Kane after patching him up, then locked his arm in a weird sling.

By her calculations, his arm should be back to new in a day or so, and the piece missing should be restored by that point, though he would have a neat scar.

It still baffled Kane at how advanced this universe was compared to his old one, not that he was complaining. He rather enjoyed the little to no time of recovery.

Plus with the addition of his powers, he could possibly shorten that time to a few hours or minutes. He probably just needed to push a bit of energy into that area.

"I've changed the logs in the Maliwan database to think you were never here on Eden-6, but actually on Pandora this whole time. As for the fleet, the distress calls going out were halted, and I've changed the signal locations to show Pandora as their origin. This way any future Maliwan enemies will meet us there, not here." Angel informed them, even going into detail about how Maliwan was wired into one of Eden-6's satellites.

She removed the bug and updated the thing so it couldn't be hacked as easily. Her and Radar could do it in seconds still, but for other people it would take awhile, but at least now Montgomery would be notified the second someone tried.

While she was still in Maliwan's systems, Angel left a few bugs of her own, and a few surprises that would be triggered should Maliwan issue certain commands relating to a few key words.

She was honestly looking forward to seeing them try and do something like this again, as it would end terribly.

The whole story of how the fleet ended up on Pandora instead of here was a bit tricky, but it was just an above average challenge to her.

Angel simply had the records show that Traunt changed course from Eden-6 to Pandora when they got word that he was there instead of here.

It was good she explained it to both Kane and Monty, even though neither of them understood half the things she was trying to tell them.

She was one of the smartest people in the universe, and trying to dumb down everything for them was harder than it was to actually do the shit she did.

When everything was truly over, everyone went to the Jakobs estate to relax for a while. Despite everything that just happened, Kane still planned to open the vault, just now it would most likely be tomorrow rather than today.

Other than his shoulder wound he was completely fine, though he was pretty drained powerwise, and it wasn't just him.

Maya had burnt herself out Phaselocking the explosion, and Luna was drained from the ALMIGHTY PUSH and the PULL. Angel could still go for a bit longer, but even she would admit that it would be nice to have a bit of a breather.

"What did you do to my ship?!" Monty asked angrily, his eyes staring intently towards Radar.

For her part, Radar didn't look the least bit phased as she answered, "Nothing. Your ship is just fine. I simply removed your two passengers."

"Where are BALEX and GenIVIV?" Monty asked warily, not sure if he could afford to press whatever the hell Radar was. He had seen first hand what she could do, and to say he was terrified of her would be the understatement of the century.

"They are currently inside a hell of my own creation, designed to make them suffer in a way that only someone like me could make them. Once I've deemed it a suitable amount of time, I'll wipe their memories before I eat them." Radar answered, showing a rare glint of anger and cruelty.

There were very few things in this universe Radar actually valued, and GenIVIV and BALEX had almost taken two of them away from her, something which could not be tolerated.

Had Angel and Dusty been involved as well, Kane was sure Radar would have ripped Monty and Wainwright apart for good measure, then destroyed Eden-6 until it was simply just asteroids floating about in space.

"What do you mean, you'll 'eat' them?" Monty asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.

"I'll rip them apart until their code is laid bare before me, then I'll take all the good parts and add it to my own code, while deleting anything unhealthy or pointless to my advancement. Similar to what happens when you humans eat food. Integration is a more mild version where we can share our coding, but more often than not it results in one A.I.'s code being devoured by the other."

The explanation wasn't what Monty expected, and despite his complaints on the matter, he would bite his tongue. Kane not targeting him for something his A.I. 's had been already asking a bit much, so trying to ask Radar to not kill the A.I. 's was probably out of the question.

The group talked about the fight, mostly about cool things they did and about things they could have done differently to improve.

Things might have dragged out longer had the Family Jewel not been added to the mix, but it would have been a hell of a lot more fun, and more profitable.

Kane had barely been able to steal anything during the fight, and after he got hurt he was done. There of course would be loads of stuff to scavenge in the wreckage, but no one was really in any hurry to go dig through it all, save for some of the locals of the planet.

People were helping themselves to any parts or materials they thought they could use, which was alright in Kane's opinion.

There wouldn't be anything too great in all the rubble, and if by some miracle someone did find something he wanted, Kane doubted the locals would try and deny him.

The next morning the sun rose high into the sky, a calm serene feeling washing over the planet. It was probably only this calm because Kane and the others were somewhat preoccupied at the moment.

Sitting inside the Arcadia, Kane, Luna, Maya, and Angel were gathered around each other, giving off a faint purple glow. All of them had pushed themselves a great deal, and it was about time they pushed their power pools forward a bit.

The size in Eridium differed for each of them, with Kane's being the largest, at about the size of a basketball, and Maya's being the smallest, about the size of a grape.

She still couldn't absorb Eridium like Kane and the others, but with Kane's help she was actually able to at least piggyback on his.

Kane got the idea from Borderlands 3, how Troy could only survive by Tyreen sharing the energy she absorbed, at least until Troy absorbed Maya's powers.

Also, when Luna had overloaded herself for the first time, he had been able to move the energy inside of her, though not adding to it, he had controlled it.

Siren's were linked together, and he had assumed that he could in fact help her out, so long as she didn't fight him on it.

To break the power down, Maya actually had to Phaselock the piece of Eridium, then break it down and pull what was left of it towards her.

The first time she did it, her tattoos glowed an almost blinding white color, and the only word she could use to describe it was 'Powerful'!

She had a long way to go before she would ever catch up to Kane, and she would need to push her power more than she had been, but she was definitely on the right track being around Kane.

He pushed them all to be better in some ways, hell even Tannis was improving in her field, though that mostly had to do with the endless amount of resources Kane provided.

It also helped that she could study 4 of the 5 known Siren's out in the universe. They had in fact read about a 5th Siren on Partali, and how she was a vigilante crime fighter.

Her powers were the first thing they checked about, wanting to know if she might be the one to inherit the Phaseleech. Thankfully that didn't seem to be the case.

No one knew the name of her power, and not even Kane in his ridiculous unheard of knowledge could say what it actually was.

Even from the game it was never specific, as there were three skill trees she could go down, each of them having their own name.

Phasegrasp, Phasecast, and Phaseslam.

Based on the fan footage on her ECHOcast site, Kane had dubbed her ability as Phasegrasp, it suited the power best just based on the mega huge arms that came out of her back.

Watching the giant arms grab up some poor schmuck and squeeze him into paste had cemented the name for all of them.

Luna had actually subscribed to Amara's (The 5th Siren) fan-page, enjoying any new footage she released. It was actually quite enjoyable really.

Kane watched it solely to get a better understanding of Amara's power, though Radar theorized it was because he was trying to add in another candidate into his sex life, which was simply not the case.

Amara might be kind of cute in a brutish sort of way, but with her physique, Kane doubted even Brick could handle her. Nope, she was way too much woman for him.

"I feel so alive!!" Angel cried out in euphoria. Absorbing the Eridium seemed to do wonders for them all, even going so far as to give them a second wind. It would fade away in less than an hour, but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy the feeling while it lasted.

"I feel like I could Phaselock a planet right now!!" Maya added, enjoying the feeling just as much as everyone else was.

"Just wait, the feeling gets better with the more Eridium you can absorb." Kane said, sounding as though he was experiencing his own world of feeling good at the moment.

"I got the Vault Key!" Radar chimed in from the doorway, having most likely waited until they were done with the power session.

"Really? The old geezer just gave it to you? I thought for sure he would only give it to Angel." Kane said, genuinely surprised at that.

"I mean, he might have given it to me willingly if I had bothered to ask. Seeing as how we were going to get it anyway, I figured why wait." Radar explained, making Kane shake his head in understanding.

By no means was he disappointed in Radar's actions. On the contrary, he was quite pleased, only it made far more sense than thinking Montgomery Jakobs wasn't going to use the key to try and earn some brownie points with Angel.

"Fascinating! That's 3 Vault Keys now!!" Tannis cried out as she ran over and grabbed the three Vault Key fragments.

"You do know there are dozens, if not hundreds of different Vaults out there, right?" Kane asked curiously.

He expected to kill the mood for Tannis at least a little, but she didn't seem phased in the slightest as she answered, "What's your point? Each key can open a certain number of Vaults, and we don't even know if these are the only ones, or if we can't combine the fragments with the others to make new keys for unique Vaults!! These Fragments hold the power to change the universe! So I ask again, what's your point?"

When she put it like that, Kane couldn't really come up with anything to respond with.

Using the map on the Pandora Vault Key, Kane was able to see Vaults spread out all over the Universe, so who's to say the other keys didn't do that either. Come to think of it, he never checked the Promethea Vault Key either.

"Just seeing if you knew!" Kane said plainly, then left the room.

Tannis would be busy fawning over the key for a bit, and he was kind of hungry, so there was no rush to go open the Vault. Plus he needed to burn off some of the excess power he had stored up.

If he lost this high in the middle of a fight he wasn't sure what would happen to him, so it was best to just wait until after.

"WHERE IN SATAN'S ASSHOLE IS THAT BLASTED KEY?!!" Monty's voice rang out from inside the Jakobs estate, making Kane chuckle a little.

Hearing the man shout out was just icing on the cake, causing him to make a mental note to do something nice later for Radar.

-----------

(Jack POV on Helios)

"WHERE IS SHE?!!" Jack demanded angrily. His joy at finding out Angel was alive was overrun by the anger he felt at realizing someone had taken his daughter from him.

"Sir... we don't know. She left the resort months ago. She could be anywhere by now." Blake answered plainly, subtly moving behind his assistant at the same time.

Normally he wouldn't have brought whatever idiot he had for an assistant to see Jack, but when he knew it probably wasn't going to end well, he made an exception.

This time proved just as correct as the last two times, as neither he nor the kid had any time to react before 3 loud shots sounded out, each of them piercing the assistant's chest in quick succession.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

'Oh great. Now I'll need to find a replacement to clean this up.' Blake thought, wondering if there would ever come a day where his boss wasn't a complete child. A terrifying child he might add, but a child nonetheless.

"FIND HER!! And bring me this son-of-a-bitch!! I want him alive!! Do whatever you need to do!!" Jack ordered, his hate-filled eyes locked on the man holding his topless daughter at some Vladof vacation resort!

He would find him and Angel, and when he did, not even God himself would be able to stop him from what he was going to do!