"Alright, kid, I just need the artificial intelligence, along with the necessary hardware. The rest you can keep, whatever you can carry. Consider this your payment."
"Sweet as, then we've got a deal!"
Finishing his chat with Davis, Maxwell gestured for BT to approach. The metal giant knelt nearby, deducing his pilot wanted to get inside.
"BT, you'll take Angel in your cockpit." Maxwell nodded and pointed to Angel.
BT paused for a moment and extended his large, open hand to Angel. Though excited to finally get into a Titan's cockpit, she couldn't help but feel worried about Maxwell.
"Maxy, what about you?" Angel asked, her eyes alternating between BT's extended hand and Maxwell's figure.
"The kid and I are gonna rodeo BT. No need to worry about our safety, his shields will keep us sound." Emphasizing his words, he grabbed Davis, who was admiring the Titans with his mouth agape, and nimbly jumped atop BT. Davis, caught completely by surprise, let out a muffled yelp as he was lifted and placed on the metal giant's back.
BT gently grasped Angel, lifting her carefully. The cockpit hatch opened with a soft hiss, and she sat comfortably inside; the high-tech environment was a familiar scene for the girl, making her feel like a fish in water. The hatch closed.
("Alright, we can proceed.") Maxwell's voice resonated in Angel's cockpit.
The three Titans, BT with Maxwell and Davis, Minerva, and Elliot, proceeded in a heavy march towards Outlands Spur. Davis normally used a cable car to cross to the other side, as the lands were divided by a large, glowing blue, frozen river. They had to take an alternate route, as the cable car wouldn't even support the weight of a Stryder, which is considered the lightest among the three Titans present, but the cables couldn't support twenty-one tons.
Despite this, it was only a minor inconvenience, taking no more than half an hour to reach their destination. The first thing Maxwell did was go with the kid to recharge their oxygen tanks. The Titans also recharged, but it wasn't strictly necessary; their oxygen tanks were so large they were capable of keeping their pilots alive for a few days.
Proceeding, the first thing they spotted was several abandoned Dahl facilities that had various drawings written with a light blue luminescent paint. From the large words written 'SCAV', it was easy to imagine it was infested with outlaws.
Their angle allowed them to see the giant planet Pandora; something very curious was that the planet's south pole looked torn, with purple energy being expelled outwards.
The three Titans proceeded, with the Stryder and Atlas in front to ensure their leader's safety.
It didn't take long for the Scavs to notice the giant intruders. Screams and alarms echoed through the abandoned Dahl facilities. From the gloom of the structures, a barrage of gunfire and furious shouts erupted.
"Hostile targets identified, Pilot. Initiating engagement." BT's voice calmly resonated in Angel's cockpit as the giant raised its Vortex Shield, a wall of shimmering blue energy that absorbed the bullets raining down on them.
Beside them, the Atlas and the Stryder advanced without hesitation into the barrage of gunfire. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off their shields. The Scavs' resistance lasted only briefly. Like a relentless moving wall, the Titans crushed everything in their path.
It was no wonder there was a saying about Titans: When a pilot was inside a Titan, they could only be stopped by overwhelming, or equal, force.
And in Borderlands, besides the Ouroboros, no one else possessed Titans.
"Oh God! Mercy!" A Scav shrieked in horror as the Stryder's foot came down on him with full force. The bandit's body exploded under the pressure, turning into a meat paste, and its blood painted the ground like a splatter of paint on a canvas. As if that weren't enough, the Stryder's foot twisted left and right before moving away.
"Clean area," BT commented with his impassive voice as he squeezed the trigger of his XO-16 against the last Scav. His target didn't even have the chance to feel pain as his body practically evaporated into a crimson mist; the shields they used were ineffective against a caliber designed for other Titans.
Maxwell didn't need to move throughout the entire conflict, merely observing the bounty credits for the Scavs' heads being deposited directly into his account.
[+9(C)]
[+22(C)]
[+17(C)]
[x1 G2A5 Battle Rifle]
[...]
He just thought it was overkill to use Titan weapons against them; it was no different than using a railgun to kill an ant.
Maxwell dismounted BT, jumping from the top of the Titan and landing softly on the ground. He approached those strange drawings on the walls of the abandoned facilities. The light blue luminescent paint was something that had caught his attention.
He ran his hand over one of the symbols, curiosity evident on his face. These drawings had never been explained anywhere, and Maxwell couldn't accept that they were simple scribbles.
"BT," Maxwell called, "take pictures of all these strange drawings. Maybe Tannis can decipher 'em."
Over the comms, Angel's voice sounded in Maxwell's helmet. ("These drawings are very strange, Maxy. They look like a diagram of some technology, or something similar. I noticed there are some calculations written too.")
"Confirmed, pilot." BT approached, recording everything and taking several photos. "The nature of the patterns and the inclusion of complex diagrams suggest a technical representation. Potentially, this is non-human technology, possibly of Eridian origin. My database contains records that the psychotic conditions observed in some inhabitants of Pandora are frequently linked to exposure to the Vaults; perhaps there is a connection between both cases."
"Someone's done their homework. Yeah, the Vaults seem to be able to influence nearby individuals. Despite having different names, Scavs are practically identical to Pandora's Psychos." Maxwell nodded.
"All thanks to Miss Angel, Pilot."
("It's not much; this info was all collected by Hyperion; I just brought it to the Ouroboros database.") Angel blushed at the praise; it was still something new for someone with only Claptrap in her social circle.
"Seriously? Is there anything correlating these scribbles with the events on Elpis?"
"Preliminary information indicates that, prior to the 'Cracking' and Dahl's eventual withdrawal from Elpis, many of their personnel and miners in locations near the Vaults were exposed to Eridian energies or influences, similar to what occurred with Zarpedon's Lost Legion, given the signs of corruption in the Lost Legion colonel's appearance."
"Hmmm, sounds a lot like Pandora's Psychos, but I don't recall Eridium being on Elpis, so how were they affected then?" Maxwell seemed to fall into deep thought. "What kind of energy was responsible for driving Elpis's miners mad?"
Davis also dismounted the Titan, cautiously approaching the drawings. "These scribbles... they were made with Moonstone!"
Maxwell was jolted from his trance, quickly turning his head to the kid. The name was familiar to him.
"Moonstone? What do you know about this rock?"
"Despite the name, it ain't just a simple rock. It's an ore, mate. Highly concentrated Core, ya know? Glows in the dark and all." Davis ran his finger over the paint and showed the substance quickly freezing a part of his glove.
"Core..." Maxwell mumbled, some memories about the ore surfacing in his mind.
Besides Borderlands TPS, this ore had been introduced again on another planet. This ore seemed to have been used by Jakobs on that planet in the creation of biological weapons; despite being said to have versatile uses, they decided to focus on bioengineering. And that was done long before the incident on the dying island, where he was thrown by Atlas when he arrived on Pandora. It had been a little over a year, but he couldn't forget those days.
"Gehenna..." Maxwell mumbled.
BT seemed to hear his pilot's murmur.
"Pilot, have you discovered anything?"
"Yeah, BT, that brought back some memories." Maxwell nodded.
That planet was etched in his memory; how could he forget? It had a different history from the usual Borderlands setting; it was bloody and chaotic, but it brought entirely new elements. Gehenna came from a DLC called Bounty of Blood, with a beautiful antagonist, Butcher Rose, a gunslinger with very strange tattoos.
"Tattoos that glow. I reckon I've seen that before." Maxwell smiled but didn't conclude that Rose was a Siren. The tattoos the woman had were manufactured, not inherited like the natural tattoos of Angel and other Sirens.
The important thing was that Gehenna also had Core, but it was different. Elpis's Core was light blue and cold, while Gehenna's Core was dark green and poisonous. He'd need to go to the planet himself and have a squiz to figure out what Core was for.
"Looks like my schedule's just gotten bigger, BT." Maxwell sighed; he hadn't even completed half of Elpis's objectives, and more were already being added to the list. "I believe this Core exposure resulted in neurological overload, but the use of Core in all the scribbles seems to mean something."
"Certainly, Pilot. Whoever wrote this seems to have discovered something about this mineral."
Maxwell shook his head; he had already spent too many brain cells for today.
"Let's turn our attention back to the main objective. I don't think we'll discover more about Core for now." They were trying to make a ball of yarn from a single thread, but it was good to know there was a path forward.
They didn't walk long before being attacked by Kraggons. Kraggons are creatures native to Elpis, Pandora's moon. These rocky, crab-like beasts emerged from the terrain's fissures, their elemental carapaces gleaming.
Kraggons are difficult to kill completely, because when a large kraggon is killed, it splits into two smaller kraggons that are just as hostile as the Kraggon from which they separated.
Kraggons are exclusively elemental and take on either fire or cryo elements, depending on the environment they live in. Therefore, although it is a rare tactic, a kraggon can move away from combat to heal by drinking from lava puddles or frozen methane pools that often frequent the areas around their dens. As a general rule, all Kraggons are weak to an opposing element type.
The Kraggons could be a threat even to Vault Hunters, but Maxwell had already considered all the challenges and enemies he would face until his objective. So, they couldn't put up much resistance before the Titans decimated them all. The overwhelming force of the metal giants was too much for the elemental creatures, which exploded into fragments of rock and elemental essence before they had a chance to split or heal.
They were almost at Drakensburg; they just needed to pass through a Dahl methane refinery. Unfortunately, they had to stop again when another obstacle appeared.
"Pilot, it looks like there's a ravine in the way. Even with gravity on our side, all my calculations point to a tragic fall to the bottom." BT stopped at the edge; the drop was several meters and led to a lake of lava or a liquid Core lake. If a bit of Core managed to freeze Davis's glove, then it goes without saying what would happen if someone fell into an entire lake.
"Yeah, looks like the bridge was destroyed a long time ago." Maxwell, atop BT, pointed to the wreckage that vaguely resembled a bridge.
BT analyzed the terrain and saw pipelines supported by large steel girders to the right that led to the other side.
"I will provide access, Pilot. Please stand clear." BT moved Maxwell and Davis away and gripped one of the girders; the structure groaned under BT's titanic strength. Minerva and Elliot went to help BT carry the girders to the chasm and fashioned an improvised bridge.
("I don't know if this is a good idea.") Angel commented apprehensively over the comms when everything was ready. BT was the first to attempt crossing.
Creak
Angel felt her heart freeze when the girder bent slightly under BT's massive weight.
"Calm down, Miss Angel. I detect your heart rate has reached concerning levels. Even if something goes wrong, I will ensure your safety, trust me." BT spoke in a calming tone, his systems ready to eject Angel should the girders fail.
"Don't talk rubbish, BT, we're almost on the other side." Maxwell patted the large robot's head. The one most at risk was BT. He could save everyone, but wouldn't be able to save himself in the process.
Despite the constant sounds of creaking and groaning metal, they managed to cross. As BT was the heaviest Titan among the three, the passage of the other two was undoubtedly smooth.
There was no time for rest. As soon as they crossed to the other side, more Scavs appeared. This time, their leader was riding a colossal Ice Kraggon, a beast with sharp cryo crystals sprouting from its carapace, charging against the Titans.
The Scav vanguard attempted to flank the giants, but the Titans' impeccable coordination and the power of their armaments quickly shredded their ranks. The Ice Kraggon and its rider were put down with a combination of heavy fire and crushing attacks, unable to cause significant damage.
After dispatching all hostiles from the tetanus refinery, they arrived at a wide bridge, suspended over an enormous lake of shimmering, bubbling lava below. The heat radiated, creating a shimmering mirage in the air. Drakensburg was on the other side; its silhouette had grown even larger the closer they got.
"The Drakensburg, ex-Dahl warship, and all that, crashed before the Crackein', 'swhat they say. Now, a bunch of ripe-smelling scavs live there, led by The Bosun and his friend, who's called The Skipper. Not that anyone knows what she looks like, which makes yer head scratch." Davis spoke a little about the history of the ship. "In any case, let's go in. Don't be shy about saying 'ello to the locals along the way."
When the Titans were halfway across the bridge, blaring sirens began to wail, accompanied by red flashes of light that bathed the metal structure in hues of danger. With a massive tremor, the bridge began to retract, its side sections sliding back, revealing the incandescent abyss below.
A rusty truck, likely left there by some unlucky sod, lost its balance and plummeted into the lava lake, sinking amidst a cloud of steam and orange splashes. Maxwell and his group were forced to retreat quickly, BT taking long strides to exit the moving section before it fully separated.
("Ahoy landlubbers. You look a little too much like trouble. How about you leave now, and The Bosun won't tear you to pieces. Whaddya say?")
A woman's image appeared on Maxwell's HUD: dressed in impeccable military attire and a sailor's cap, her short blonde hair framed a lazy-faced expression, but her clear eyes carried the intelligence of a high-ranking individual.
("Ha! Called it, din' I?!")
("Think you can stop us with just this, eh? That was an old refinery; there must be consoles on both sides of the bridge.") Maxwell scoffed at the feeble attempt to stop them from crossing. He had Angel with him, so using technology against them was dumb.
("Glad you asked! The bridge has a manual override nearby. I'm uploading its location to your ECHO.")
("Is that the squealin' little thief Pickle I hear?") Bosun, who could only be described as a goblin, noticed someone else was with Davis. ("If you're with him, I've got half a mind to let you over here so I can pull your legs off and make you go jogging.")
("Listen, you and the kid should stay away. That was your one warning.") Skipper warned them without threatening them; though she seemed concerned, her voice conveyed no emotion.
("That's very kind of you, but you should be concerned about your goblin friend.")
Ignoring Skipper's warnings, Maxwell jumped from atop BT and went to the console. The path to the console room was filled with the same previous scribbles. He concluded that the refinery somehow got the tetanus from the Core, and perhaps a leak had occurred, causing everyone nearby to suffer its effects.
("BT, prepare to intercept enemy missiles; they won't let us in so easily.") Maxwell commented before extending the bridge. He knew Bosun would destroy the bridge and, consequently, force them to find a very time-consuming alternative path.
("Understood, pilot. My Multi-Target Missile System is ready.") A launch platform rose from BT's shoulder, several missiles awaiting a target.
Maxwell pressed a button on the console, and the bridge began to extend again, connecting with the other part of the bridge.
("Alright then, how about this?") Bosun's voice sounded clearly annoyed. He had such a wicked threat, so why were these rats still persisting?
Though he was keeping an eye on those robots, he didn't want anything like that entering his territory. Unable to control his fury and fear, he sent several missiles towards the bridge.
VOOOOOOOSH
The missiles flew at high speed towards the bridge where BT and the others were, but having already been warned, BT's Multi-Target Missile System locked onto the targets in an instant and fired. Smaller, yet incredibly fast, missiles emerged from the launchers and intercepted each enemy projectile.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
Multiple explosions lit up the sky above the lava abyss, disintegrating Bosun's projectiles before any of them could even scratch the bridge's surface.
("Damn piece of junk! I'll take you apart slowly if you dare to continue!") Bosun cursed BT, his voice echoing with impotent fury.
("Thank goodness. The bridge is intact— I-I mean, damn sea cockroaches.") Skipper's voice, previously inexpressive, revealed a rare tone of genuine relief. But realizing what she had said, she quickly corrected herself.
("We're gonna have a face-to-face chat, Bosun. I want something you've got, and I'm not leaving without it.")
("You know ya got no chance, pawn. I got an army and you got a precocious little arsehole and a few pieces of junk.") Although he had called the Titans trash, Bosun was dying of envy. The approach was inevitable, so it was better to set traps and maybe manage to steal those incredible mechs. ("The only conversation you will have will be with the worms in your grave.")
Maxwell cackled at the goblin's threats. He returned to the group and climbed onto BT, finally arriving at Pity's Fall, the crash site of the Drakensburg.