Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It is a normal day in the wastelands that compose most of Columbia’s territory.

The slugs are dragging themselves around, nibbling on the carcass of some animal or another.

A particularly big Infected slug manages to drag itself to the banquet and interrupts the others quite rudely- by shoving them into its mouth with a tentacle as the fat glutton that it is.

The sand is being sand-y, the dirt is being dirt-y, the Originium shards in the ground from a recent Catastrophe is being as Originium-y and virulent as always, the shrubs in the ground and the grass in the aforementioned dirt are as green as they were before, the sun is scalding, a traveler is dying of thirst…

Wait, what was that one?

Uh.

That feels like a sight you’d see more frequently in the Sargonian deserts, but it happens here too.

Wastelands are wastelands, and people die in them all the time. Who is this man? Likely someone stupid. Maybe someone dumped here to die.

The grievous crossbow wound in their left leg certainly supports that hypothesis.

But here's the thing: whoever that person is, it simply doesn’t matter.

Their story doesn't matter, the fact that they're here for the crime of committing the horrifying crimes of "being too competent," "making a superior look bad," and "not sucking up to your boss enough."

There's also the fact that Columbian business is goddamn cutthroat, the fact that she was in fact tossed here because someone had a hit placed on her, the fact that she narrowly escaped being assassinated and her would-be killer- one Generous J, or Jesselton Miller- thought it would be entertaining to throw her in the wasteland, the fact that she tore out the throat of another of Miller's victim with a knife in order to survive starvation... none of that matters.

This is not their story. At least, I think it isn’t.

This could be the story of the rock they place their hands on, while crawling on the ground futilely. It sounds appropriate.

A subversive story, detailing the choices of this rock. It will be very interesting and will surely be registered in the annals of history.

What an interesting, innovative and genre-defining idea. The story about a rock. How fascinating. Yes, the story will be about the rock, I’ve decided-

Oh, they still think they can escape, the idiot.

No, they really can’t. Not without a miraculous intervention or something. But that only happens in stories, doesn’t it?

Luckily for this man, or woman, who cares- is in a story. But it’s a story about a rock, so they won’t get any sort of deus ex machina, no halfassed miraculous- oh?

The rock shines pink when they touch it. Actually, it's purple, but you could see it as pink too.

The color is kind of ambiguous. The person- who is, by the way, a woman- specifically, a woman with cat ears- stares bewildered at the rock.

“Did I just touch a shard of activated Originium?” she thinks. "Fuck."

This is a reasonable conclusion, even if it is completely and utterly wrong in every single way.

It’s downright embarrassing. In fact, the rock has nothing to do with Originium. It is made of an entirely different mineral. Shame on you, corporate cat girl. Shame on you.

The fact that this mineral is toxic, grows inside of people, is infectious, connected to deep mysterious voices and tends to create mutated creatures does not matter. No, no, this pink mineral is in no way related to Originium.

It is in fact related to a mysterious precursor race known as the Eridians.

Thus, Eridium, because humanity is a species of tasteless hacks and frauds devoid of any creativity.

Anyway, this mineral is in fact something important. It is what we call a “Vault Key.”

A Vault Key is an artifact made by the ancient Eridians that possesses the power to open ancient caches of treasure they placed all over the galaxy.

Most of those treasure caches are filled with monsters. These monsters are horrifyingly deadly and hellbent on killing anything that comes close.

One might ask why people keep opening the Vaults, if they're all filled with monsters.

The thing is- the vaults also have guns.

Very, very deadly guns.

Well, very deadly compared to the guns of this planet.

If you compare them to something actually worthwhile, like a good and proper building-annihilating laser cannon or a reliable Tediore shotgun for home defense, they actually kind of suck.

You should probably just get a decent rifle from the nearest abandoned crate, it’ll outperform the Eridian gun's mediocre damage for like one millionth of the cost and effort, and it won’t take a century to recharge, have slow as shit projectiles. or the shittiest fire rate in the history of guns.

There is a reason most companies stopped producing E-Tech weapons and just made use of some technology principles, that reason being that, by doing so, they could make cool guns without being burdened with the Eridians' terrible design decisions.

It’s likely very humiliating for this ancient precursor species to get outclassed so easily by a bandit playing with duct tape and nails, or at least you would think so. However, the Eridians don't care about what humans think of their weaponry, because they're Eridians and too busy being all cryptic and mysterious and stuff.

Well, the vaults also have money, for some reason, money that you can use to buy actually good guns.

Money that happens to be perfectly acceptable modern legal tender even though those Vaults were sealed like 12 billion years ago or something. Downright suspicious.

It’s probably a coincidence. Maybe the Eridians just happened to use the same exact currency as modern-day humans. That sounds like a plausible explanation.

Anyway, returning to the Vault Key.

The catgirl touching it does not know it is a Vault Key. Absolutely no one in her planet even has any idea of what the fuck a Vault Key is even supposed to be.

The Eridian technology simply wasn’t found, because archaeologists were too busy looking at these other precursors that are completely unrelated to the Eridians but somehow still there.

Also the rocks that fell from the sky and most of the Eridian sites on the planet.

By pure coincidence, I assure you. Just strange winds at high altitudes. There is nothing wrong with Terra’s atmosphere at all. I assure you that those stars are perfectly normal, sir.

These black rocks are also normal. Just forget they’re here too.

When this catgirl touches the Vault Key, it shines.

It does look like a key if you squint. If you don’t squint, however, it looks like a spear made out of gray rock, with lines made of this strange shining pink rock.

If you broke a Key into pieces- something that everyone and their mother can do nowadays- you’d notice that the rock is just a covering and the actual thing is made entirely of pink rock.

Eridium.

Luckily- or perhaps unluckily- the key is, indeed, broken, so you can notice its shiny innards by simply flipping the piece of rock around.

This is not a complete Key- but rather, a Vault Key piece.

Anyway, the interior of the Key shines brightly, and someone's foot touches the Key alongside the woman.

This second person was literally not here a second ago.

The wisps of pink energy dissipating around their body, the fading light from the Key and the utterly dumbfounded look on the person’s face suggest that they’re surprised to be here and did not intend to get here.

But…

Who is this person? Who is this person, with the bloodsoaked shoes and the mask? Who could it be?

Alas, their identity is to remain unknown, for this clever man occults it with a well-placed mustache- a masterful disguise that not one person could pierce through.

No one will be any wiser, except for people with eyes.

The dramatic tension is building up- it's time for a good old-fashioned intro. It's a tradition when introducing a new character, you see. This summer…

This man- Dr. Ned Blanco, who is absolutely different from Dr. Zed Blanco, you see, they're twins, they're different- blinks.

"Uh?" he says. "What?"

This is very peculiar, even for his standards.

Why, just a second ago he was getting help to pry one of his vending machines out of these vines covering Sanctuary so he could take his merchandise out of it, and now he's here…

But what is this place?

He looks around.

The wildlife seems unconcerned at his presence, but Zed has never seen any of these particular abominations of nature before.

His native planet- Pandora- doesn't have Originium Slugs.

They're too slow, they'd be crushed by a crystalisk, eaten by a skag pack or a whole bunch of painful deaths.

Maybe some of the more mutated specimens could make a living in that hellhole, but the average slug? Nope.

Anyway, Ned was taking a look around the area, somehow not noticing the woman dying of thirst right below his feet.

"...where the hell am I?" he muttered, before looking down and realizing his situation.

The catgirl at his feet tries to say something, probably a desperate plea for help or for water, but the thirst and the exhaustion get to her, and she falls unconscious.

Ned stares at the unconscious woman for a second, and considers just leaving her there. But no, he's a doctor, he can't just leave a dying patient in the middle of nowhere without even trying to save them.

He has some integrity, even if he doesn't have a medical license. She's even covered in blood, she's probably a victim of a nasty mauling by one of those creatures. Besides, what's that thing she's holding?

He kneels down and kicks the Vault Key shard.

"Eridium?"

He notices immediately that this is not a simple unrefined chunk of Eridium.

He's seen plenty of those, people sometimes eat them to try and get superpowers and he has to work his ass off to pry them out. He is mildly resentful of that little fact. Goddamn bandits.

Neither is it "useful" Eridium fresh out of the Atlas or Hyperion refineries.

That one has some imperfections. People eat it less often, as it's incredibly expensive and out of the budget of the average Pandoran citizen because it's not a very rich planet, but he still had to tear some shards of it out of a few stomachs.

It's true Eridium.

The kind of Eridium that you build stuff out of. Well, not you, the ancient Eridians.

They built stuff out of it, like guns, or Vaults. No one uses it anymore, mainly because it would be bananas expensive to make and because the secrets of its make are lost to history.

"No… it’s a Vault Key."

Ned reaches for his mask, and takes the fake mustache off.

"Figures. What didja get me into, girl?"

He takes the girl, slings her over his shoulder, and taps her cat ears.

They're real.

Huh. He then internally shrugs- he's not one to treat someone different for their choices in cosmetic implant. But that wound in her leg's gotta go.

Who uses crossbows nowadays? Not even these guys at Jakobs manage to be that old-fashioned. Guns are just better and everyone knows that.

After examining the wound for a second, Zed takes out a syringe filled with a very useful red liquid- his own personal blend of healing nanotech.

After injecting it into the girl's caroti artery, Zed walks away in a completely random direction, before stopping. The girl starts to twitch as the nanotechnology repairs her body.

"Right. The Key. Almost feel like I should just leave this thing here… way too much trouble."

He then returns, and places the long piece of rock inside of his ECHO storage.

It really is a marvelous piece of technology that no one really gets. It's convenient, having a pocket dimension to store your stuff in, but sometimes, Zed wishes he could actually know what this thing does.

In the distance, a creature watches. Its limbs are long and its gaze is old.

"Chik." it says. "S'slye?"

It carries a staff made of a similar material as the Vault Key.

It also shines, though its glow is entirely purple and not ambiguous like the Key's own shine.

The creature that holds it has a name that humans cannot pronounce, because it's thirty syllables long and most of the syllables are nonverbal, being supposed to be conveyed visually through vigorous gestures and epilepsy-inducing flashes of light.

But most of the time it answers by the name of "Jeff," because it likes to talk to one particular human and that's the name the human gave it.

It is a live, real-life Eridian.

Maybe.

It could also be an Eridian construct, given by armor that hides its actual skin. If it even has skin- it might have a carapace. But it’s undoubtedly Eridian.

Satisfied with what just happened, Jeff makes noises with its mouth.

They're supposed to be mysterious and cool, but the drool bubbles coming out of the orifice kinda ruin the effect. After fulfilling its quota of appropriately cryptic muttering, Jeff vanishes in a flash of purple light.

Terra is not prepared for what's going to be happening now.

But again, Terra as a whole wasn't prepared for the things that were currently on the schedule to happen, or the things that were in the middle of happening, nor was it prepared for the things that already happened, so there's not really any change.

One question is if, with all the stuff that's threatening this planet, can this stuff really end up making the situation any worse?

Terra and Pandora are very different places. Terra has fancy stuff like nations, and coherent societies, and all that jazz.

A Pandoran- the average one, anyway- would either scream incoherently or counter that Pandora has more guns, and that makes it superior.

Perhaps the opposition- in the shape of the average Terran could argue that magic is obviously superior to guns.

This would drive the average Pandoran into a murder frenzy, if they weren't in one already, which would not end well for the average Terran, who isn't actually that strong or skilled at Arts.

Maybe they'd land a few good hits and end up killing the other guy, but the average Pandoran might as well not have been hit at all, because you sorta forget about things like pain when you drink water from a river with a leakage of industrial waste, and square off daily with adult skags who can and will saw off your legs with a laser beam the first chance they get.

...now that I think of it, this is going to end up in tears.