#Blacksite crew

[inkspottie]

What would be the Blacksite crew's opinion on this amazing piece of art?

I need fifteen of these ugly bastards

[isaacathom]

i was writing a long post about it but i wanna point out some funny lil bits from fridays session

naielles aunts art studio is getting like, seized by the state to fund the war effort. marius rocks up to evaluate the worth of the goods, and decides to evaluate things by their raw value - canvas is canvas, not art, which baffles naielle but she meekly concedes that maybe that is better on paper.

when vandervest shows up to actually start taking shit, marius again tries to help by saying there are 'items still in dispute' that must be discussed. naielle catastrophically fails to read the energy he's putting out and thus immediately reveals that marius is lying and that no disputes exist.

before marius and vandervest can start properly getting into a fight about the order of operations and the oversight of the divine, Euphemia (a swanfolk) shows up with a detachment of royal guards and arrests naielle. naielles aunt starts lighting things on fire upstairs to prevent the government getting their hands on it.

as naielle is bundled into carriage and driven off in tears, the people trying to Fix the Timeline teleport into the fires of the art studio and get quickly intercepted by Marius to stop them getting like. arrested for espionage, illegally crossing borders, whatever the FUCK is going on. everythings fine.

some time passes, and Marius is talking with the small motley crew about what they need to do, and more importantly who they need for this timeline correction operation. and thus, we get a peak

marius: we have extended the invitation to Vandervest, but if he won't accept then we move on without him. is there anyone else you believe we need to find?

ren yating: uh, yes! some uh, tan elf? looked like the lady we saw in that house.

marius: ah. in that case, had you been but a minute earlier, i think you may have gotten the chance to meet her.

ren yating: we also need a swan!

marius:

marius: are you serious.

[hadal-blacksite-system]

Hadal Blacksite: Expedition M (A Magnus Archives/Pressure crossover AU)

Warnings for this AU: TMA spoilers, body horror, cannibalism

Canon divergence: The site in this AU is much larger, being about 200 rooms plus the Ridge.

Following the death of Jurgen Leitner, a criminal investigation into the Magnus Institute led to the archive crew (plus Jonah) (no I'm not going to call him Elias. At all) being imprisoned and drafted as expendables.

Sasha lasted about 6 weeks before being dragged through a false door. She now acts as a lure/third component of the "Good People" entity group.

Tim, after 4 months, ran into a flaming room to escape an Angler and was burned to death. He was resurrected as a fire entity (Z-101: Burning Man) and hunts new Expendable groups to use as a food source for himself and other entities.

Martin survived for almost 8 months before becoming trapped inside an instance of Z-432.

Jon, the protagonist of this AU, has survived for almost a year so far. About six months into the expedition, he killed a suffocating Eyefestation and accidentally got some of its blood in his mouth. This caused mutations: gills and extra eyes.

What about Jonah?

Well, Jonah died about three weeks in, after trying to transfer his consciousness to Sebastian. This left Elias, blind and afraid but in control of his body for the first time in decades. He's been living in Sebastian's shop and trying to teach himself echolocation.

[h3ad-quarters]

OOC QUESTION !!! I wanna understand the character / blog a little more if that makes sense !!

Is your character the whole PA system? Or just 1 person?? I'm a little confused, however, I'd like to know if they're like, they man the cams and intercoms or/genq ough, sorry if this was explained already or this is random

Also do you do rps with like, not mutuals? If that makes sense [broken heart emoji, I'm so bad at wording words]

- @the-bite-of-87-lol , totally doesn't want to send an ask with its pressure oc blog, whaaaat noooo

//ooc

yeah it makes sense dont worry!!

So, my character is the voice over the PA system! this is technically a canon blog but ive got so many headcanons running around that HQ may as well be my oc at this point hfjdfds

As for his specific role, He does a lot! HQ in game honestly probably has waayyyy more ppl behind the scenes working there but for this blog its just the one silly dude !

He does;

Announcements Watches the cameras manages the EXR-P Watches over and is practically in control of Hadal Blacksite Manages different teams that are related to the blacksite (MTF, clean up crews, etc) plus a whole lot more that i cant think of off the top of my head - but all in all HQ is a VERY important dude in UrbanShade !!

And YES!!! i happily interact with just about anyone!! oc blogs, other canon blogs, mutuals, non-mutuals, blogs for different fandoms even!! there is so few things that are off limits there may as well be no off limits list!

Im more than happy for rps/general silly asks with literally anyone!! id LOVE more interaction here!!

[solacefiles]

“Might as well join the flattery crew on that note of taking you on a date.. Though I doubt we can escape the Hadal Blacksite and for me to take you out on a date. I suppose I could do the next best thing, darlin’…”

Some voice emits from the large vent that is found upon the ceiling above Sebastian within the shop, a masculine voice tethered in light-heartedness. The voice chuckles, before some long tail slides down. The tail in question is a lot thinner compared to Sebastian, ending in a shark-like fin. The tail in question has reminiscence of red, orange, and white of a koi fish. The long tail has some protusions of long fins on the sides and a leafy sea dragon-like “spikes” along the top. The tail slithered down to offer a plate of sweet curry, seeming to be cooked by this stranger. The curry was lukewarm, cooked somewhat recently but had cooled from the time this stranger had traveled here.

“Well, I’ll be on my merry way, Mr.Saboteur.. Sayonara!” The tail is pulled up, while also dropping a spoon over to Sebastian’s way as the anonymous stranger flees.

—🐉(Can I be dragon anon? Thank you.)

He looked up as the the hybrid first entered his job, his ear fins fluttering slightly at the comments made.

"Is it any place to even accept romance down here? It seems like it'd be a difficult job to even keep a relationship sustained."

Sebastians eyes squinted as he took in the appearance of the other. Another experiment, perhaps? Maybe a freak of nature. Though a hypocrite to call them such. Either way, he'd be lying to himself if he didn't say he was curious.

He glanced at the curry, taking the plate and inhaling the scent. It left a warm feel to the room - to make it feel like home.

"Just call me Sebastian. I don't go by that title." He muttered, sitting back slightly with the plate in hand. "Visit anytime. I'd appreciate the company. This smells amazing."

[high-above-and-deep-down]

⋰ Altum's introduction ⋰

-Altum's meaning: Altum can be translated in Latin by 'high', 'above', 'deep' and 'depths'. -Altum is a CROSSOVER between two (three?) pre-existing works! The game Subnautica by Unknow Worlds and... the Pressure on Roblox fanfiction serie 'Ouroboros' by @inkspottie [my apology for the tag].

-What is Altum about? Altum is about Sebastian Solace and all the Ouroboros crew's adventures but instead of being on Earth, the Hadal Blacksite is on 4546B [where Subnautica takes place]'s Site A/Sector 1. It will mix both the plot of Ouroboros and Subnautica. -Does Altum studies stuff from Subnautica: Below Zero? Nop! Altum takes place in Site A/Sector 1, which is the one from Subnautica and not Below Zero. Thought it is a bit related to Below Zero with Eve/Eyefestatio being a Chelicerate and Sebastian having Iceworm DNA. -Does the fact Sebastian & Sadao have 4546B creatures DNAs change some of their abilities? Yes, sadly. I tried to keep it as close as I could, but by means they do not possess the same abilties, and here's an exemple that won't spoil anything! Sadao kept his poison [Crab Snake] but lost his speed on land, as there's no creatures that are quite nimble on land, the two only land creatures being rather slow.

-Is Altum canon-compliant? Nah we throw canon out the window there! I don't really take in mind everything from the Subnautica Databank, as exemple I do not think canonically, Crab snakes are venomous, and yet here I am calling them such! It's a lot headcanons! -Are all Altum characters Ouroboros characters? For most, some stand-by characters or side ones that will either get killed immediately or that are only mentionned such as when Sebastian reads a file or something DO belong to me [I can't believe I did such OCs with massive developpement for them to see the public like that xD] -What should we be wary of when reading Altum? Gore and violence MOSTLY, atleast in the main story. You may also want to look out for animalistic behaviors such as courting by gifting an corpse [this is just an exemple] as this kinda feral and gory love is my kind of things! I also tend to, not purposefully make things disgustingly realistical, but I'll try to keep it a bit gut wretching without it being too much! -Disgustingly realistical how? Thought not a biology professional, I still make it a bit like how I think it would be in reality, without sugarcoating which include stuff such as organism studies [which can go from heart, to lungs, to intestines in a rather short time]. But I'll try to not put any in Altum. TRY. -Does Altum studies strange topics? As of now, there's no plans on doing anything overly disturbing or anything. But I do think about MENTIONNING about Sebastian and cannibalism, maybe maybe, I'm not exactly sure but Sebastian eating some of the guards and/or EXR-P is something I've thought of for awhile. -How often are uploads? No schedules whatsoever. I am UNABLE to stay motivated and attentive regularly, sometimes it could be twice a day [which I doubt] or once a week! It's all about luck from my motivation. -Will there be arts for every chapters? No promises! But I want to train my attention span and patience, so I'll try! -Who runs this blog and writes Altum? @arkanicdevotion does! @northen-wreck being my second blog!

-Is Altum going to be smut free? The main story for sure! I MAY, and it's a big MAY do side smut as I find it interesting to write but eh, we'll see! But what's sure is no smut in the main!

-Are there gonna be any important OCs of yours in Altum? Maybe maybe, that is for you to see! I can share some of my Pressure OCs here and ask if the interested peeps went them as 'important/main' or keep them as side! Would you like that?

[seven-ty-love]

Seven: Disguised Scavenger

[Yes, this is me adding on Seven's anomaly]

This is more of a secretive role that only Mr. Lopee and Sebastian are aware of.

Gving this a backstory, Seven and Mr. Lopee were spiritually connected back before the Blacksite was in lockdown. It was by accident, as clearly said from Mr. Lopee.

How did that happen? Nobody knows. Seven doesn't remember. And Mr. Lopee will not say.

Now it led to this: Seven is part of the background work when players would try doing runs again.

Sebastian would be the one identifying who would be revived, and Seven is the clean up crew after Lopee revives that player.

Whether the body is intact or not, Seven would be teleported near the location by Mr. Lopee so that they can quickly get anything useful in that surrounding area.

[leviathis-krade]

Janeway and crew get back home and the spiritual form of Sisko fortells to Catherine that there are rogue Founders controlling Cardassian black sites filled with Jem'Hadar/Cardassian Hybrid Clones situated within the badlands on bases that were once under the Obsidian Order.

He tells her b/c he knows she is one of the few captains that would do something the quickest.

Chakotay is reticent initially, but when Janeway name drops some of the blacksites he tells her some of the stories back in the day about "mysterious phenomena" in the region of the badlands where those planets are and those could easily have been caused by Cardassian Science projects.

Instead of Star Trek Voyager integrating the Maquis crew into Starfleet roles, what if the whole ship got radicalized by the second season and the series ends with Janeway getting the crew home just in time to obliterate several Cardassian targets

[inkspottie]

Not sure if my ask was eaten, but do u have any gender swap designs for the confluence cast (seb, sadao, anzu, gabe)? If u don't feel like doodling it out that's completely understandable, I'm perfectly fine with just short visual descriptions too LOL.

It's just cuz I thought "wow I would love to make some gender swap art of the characters. That would be cute." but l'd really like to draw ur interpretations of them.

I have this one idea of a female sadao just having the most majestic long flowing hair ever, but she always puts it into a really tight slicked back bun, so when fem Sebastian sees it for the first she's just like blown away.

Here’s some doodles of the gender swap lol

[thelastscions]

OPERATION HAMMERFALL:

Date: 1/17/22

Location: Blacksite somewhere in the US.

Hunter sat waiting for the crew the foundation had picked for him. From what he read on the briefing files it was just two mercenaries the foundation hired. While he didn't mind working with mercs, seeing as he once was a soldier of fortune after leaving the military, he note the was no information about the two. "Hmm, that not right. No names, DOB, or any information about these two." He pondered the documents amd eventually just gave up and began inspecting his equipment and weapons. Once he had his gear on he noted hearing footsteps down the hall.

@expanding-infinity

[howtohero]

#300.1: Saving the World Part 1

Prologue

The Haberdashery

“Hi, my name is Murk. I am a mud monster and a product of mad science, but I am also an accountant and a lover of classical music. For most of my existence I have tried to simply live a regular life in an increasingly strange world.”

The conference room in Hatman’s Haberdashery was filled with all manner of colorfully clad, or just plain colorful, superheroes, super-trainees, monsters, vampires, werewolves, sewer-mutants, Da Vincis and even a smattering of regular civilians who looked tired, angry, but overall fearless. According to Leonardo Da Vinci II, an android duplicate of the original from the far future, there had never been such an eclectic gathering of people in all of history. They had gathered — or been gathered — because the world, and life as they all knew it, hung in the balance. The world’s supervillains, led by a formerly low rate smuggler named Smuggles, had managed to do the unthinkable, they’d taken over the world, and in doing so they’d imprisoned most of the world’s heroes, world leaders, and superhero bloggers, in a secret prison. The oddball assembly was the Resistance, and at the moment each of them had their eyes on Murk. Some looked at him with confusion, he was by far the most eloquent mud monster they’d ever heard. Some looked at him in awe, over the past several weeks, Murk had rescued many of them from danger and had inspired them to join him in his fight. A few looked at him with pride, they knew him from before you see, and as far as they were concerned, that made his heroics their heroics.

(“I know that guy from before,”) Parenthetical Guy whispered to the warthog-mask wearing man sitting to his left. (“And as far as I’m concerned, that makes his heroics my heroics.)

{“I work with that guy, he does my taxes,”} Curly whispered, nudging Hatman who was looking forlornly toward the room’s exit. There were far too many people between him and it, and it was causing him no shortage of distress.

“When the heroes fell,” Murk continued. “It immediately became apparent that I, and many others like me, could no longer afford the luxury of standing to the side. For a long time I, and many of my ‘monstrous’ ilk have been more than happy to allow superheroes to handle the world’s problems for us. Whenever our homes, our lives, our world came under threat we all said to one another, ‘well, that looks like a job for superheroes,’ and we declined to act. When the heroes fell I saw how selfish I had been. And so I would like to be the first to extend my heartfelt thanks, and my sincerest apologies to the brave heroes who have gathered here today. I, along with my partner and friend, Lawyer Guy have gathered as many civilians as we could. Regular monsters and people who have cowered from or turned a blind eye to the acts of the villains who have dared to subjugate us, and we have come here to offer our assistance. If you’ll have us, we would like to help in any way we can.”

His speech concluded, Murk quickly sat down next to Lawyer Guy who smiled warmly at him. A few people sitting near him muttered polite words of affirmation toward the hulking mud man but everyone quickly became silent once more as somebody else strode to the head of the table.

Everybody in the room, everybody in the world, recognized the gold and white costume, the chiseled, stony features, and the piercing blue eyes of Ultiman. He was the superhero par excellence and when he clapped Murk on the shoulder and smiled widely, Murk’s ragtag civilian crew let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank you Murk,” Ultiman said. “Thank you everyone. As I’m sure you can see, our numbers are small but our members are dedicated and we are thrilled to be able to count each of you among us. I’m confident that, working together, we can depose Smuggles and his entire Consortium of Crime.”

                                                          ***

Smuggles’s Secret Prison

My name is Zachary Schechter and I’d been locked up for a while by the time anybody had made any noise about breaking out. You may know me as the creator, author, and only functioning brain behind How To Hero. Actually you definitely know me as that. It’s a very popular blog. Just take my word on this ok? I was in a secret prison because I allowed my subordinates to talk me into hiring a known supervillain to, let’s see, live in our basement and interject unwanted comments into my blog. As it would happen, this supervillain, Smuggles, took the job as part of some kind of protracted and complicated plan to take over the world. I should have seen that coming of course. That’s basically the only reason any supervillain does anything. For a few weeks I was alone there. Just sitting in a cell twiddling my thumbs. Trying to make conversation with the drones they had guarding the place. The only thing they’d given me to eat is fish. I imagine Chuck the Fish Whisperer had something to do with that. Frikkin supervillains and their sycophantic dedication to their own themes. But then a ton of superheroes ended up there with me, and I knew things on the outside had taken a decisive turn for the worse. The heroes were all stripped of their costumes and gear, and were given supervillain costumes instead. It’s all spikes, horns, and red contact lenses now. It’s a bit silly, but I think the idea is that if the heroes are dressed like villains and forced to do things like play evil charades and watch movies about heroes turning bad, then some of them might actually turn evil. Actually, I know that’s the idea, but I’ll get to that later. Eventually Cowboy Rockstar, the coolest hero of all time, decided to stage some kind of jailbreak. Which was great. And he wanted me to help him plan it, probably because of my proven expertise in all manner of superhero related topics. I bet it was my treatise on the many superheroic uses of drills that got his attention. There was just one teeny tiny problem though...

“So what do you think?” Cowboy Rockstar whispered.

“I think… I think that I designed this prison,” I whispered dejectedly.

“I beg your pardon?”

It was recreation time once again, and Giorgio the Evil Mime had selected an assortment of clips of superheroes becoming evil from various films and TV shows. It’s really shocking how many times Hollywood has returned to the well of “a superhero clad in red, white, and blue murders a person.” We must’ve watched like thirty different clips already. 

“Look, Mr. Rockstar, I appreciate you coming to me and all. It’s an honor to meet you and plot in hushed voices with you and everything. But I’m like 90% certain that I designed this prison. And I don’t know about you but Iitalics certainly wouldn’t have designed a prison that people could break outitalics of.”

Cowboy Rockstar furrowed his brow, “Ah, you’re saying this prison is��� from your blog?”

I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I know how it sounds but look around you. The costumes, the robots, the charades. It’s literally ripped straight from my post about running your own unsanctioned prison.”

“You wrote a guide to running an off the books blacksite for housing criminals?” Cowboy Rockstar arched an immaculate eyebrow. “That’s not really a very superheroic activity.”

“Huh. When you put it like that it’s really no wonder that the only person who seems to have implemented any of it is a supervillain who seems to have taken over the world.”

“He had help,” I heard somebody grumble from Cowboy Rockstar’s other side.

Helm Lady was one of the only Hatman proteges to both survive to adulthood and continue her career as a superhero, so it was hardly surprising that she’d been able to sneak up on us. 

“Helm Lady, good of you to join us!” Cowboy Rockstar said. “Zach over here was just telling me about how he designed this prison to be unescapable! Isn’t that exciting.”

“Hardly,” Helm Lady said glumly.

“I gotta agree with her on this one,” I said. 

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been given a rare opportunity to outdo yourself in a grandiose and practical way! You’ve been here longer than anybody. It seems like Smuggles has some kind of vendetta against you specifically, and so he’s used your own tactics against you! Now, with our help of course, you can show everybody that you’re smarter than you!” Cowboy Rockstar was gesticulating wildly at this point drawing a sharp and reproachful glare from warden Giorgio. 

“Hm,” I said, I had already written a guide to escapology. Maybe I’d already unwittingly outwitted myself. Besides, Smuggles’s prison wasn’t actually an exact copy of the one I’d designed on the blog. He’d had to make some changes to prevent it from having any real rehabilitative value. Dressing the prisoners like villains instead of heroes for instance. And villain costumes are very different from hero costumes. They’re like eighty percent sharp edges. I looked Cowboy Rockstar up and down. The costume they had him in had spikes up and down his arms. Maybe we could use them to pick the locks on our cell? We’d still have to deal with the robot guards and who knows what else. But maybe that was a place to start.

“Ok,” I said after a moment. “I’m sure we can come up with something, after all, as I say

on my blog, when you’re in a locked room, anything can be a key.” 

Cowboy Rockstar grinned and gestured around the room at the assorted superheroes that were locked in with us, “And we’ve certainly got an eclectic bunch of keys here haven’t we.”

I smiled and looked around the room, maybe this could actually work.

                                                         ***

“If I had an iPod and a busted time machine we could do this in a snappy montage and be out in no time,” I grumbled to Cowboy Rockstar.

It was the next day, and our recreation activity was something called “evil baseball.” There’s no batters, no outfield, and the only umpire was a deranged mime. The only real resemblance it had to regular “non-evil” baseball, was the fact that there were four bases, and players could steal bases. In fact, the game was pretty much just stealing bases. Because stealing is a crime get it? Ugh, the sooner we got out of there and stopped Smuggles the better. Cowboy Rockstar was manning first base for his team, and I’d just stolen first. I suspected it was because Helm Lady, the “pitcher” for Cowboy Rockstar’s team, had allowed me to get to first so we could chat. It might have been because I’m really athletic though. It’s hard to say. 

“I don’t think that’s how anything works,” Cowboy Rockstar said.

“Oh what do you know?”

“A lot, I’ve unknotted several time paradoxes you know. Some experts even say that I ‘invented’ the current iteration of this timeline.”

“Ah, so this is all your fault.”

“Nice try, I didn’t give Smuggles access to an interdimensional warp gate so he could free his fish whispering friend from his prison.”

“Touche.”

“What have you got?”

“I was thinking, we know that Smuggles has everybody’s powers neutralized inside this prison right?”

“Yes.”

“Well not every hero has powers to begin with,” I started. “And there are few people here with relevant talents that Smuggles can’t turn off.”

“Talents such as?”

Giorgio blew his whistle. Apparently I’d spent too long dawdling at first base without even trying to steal second.

“I guess whistling doesn’t go against the mime code of silence,” I grumbled as I started to edge off of first base. 

“Talents such as?” Cowboy Rockstar repeated before I took off.

I nodded towards his team’s second baseman.

“Being a giant rock monster with seven hands,” I said before racing off toward Rockblock.

                                                         ***

The next night I laid awake, staring up at the ceiling of my cell, going over what was slowly starting to look like a plan again and again. If Cowboy Rockstar could use the many razor sharp spikes on his villain costume to pick the locks on his cell, — and he’d assured me that he could, upside down, in his sleep — and then get to the others, Rockblock could probably serve as our muscle until we got out and the other heroes got their powers back. He’d need to fight off dozens of battle drones though. No, that wasn’t much of a plan. Muscle was great, but we’d need some other way to guarantee the drones would stay off of us until we got outside. I consulted the scrap of paper I had hidden in the palm of my hand, directed away from any prying eyes or cameras. The scrap had been discretely slipped into the pocket of my hoodie by Helm Lady. She’d managed to steal a pencil during Evil Mad Libs, and had taken the liberty of jotting down everybody who we knew was imprisoned here. “Our list of keys,” as Cowboy Rockstar had called it. We needed to keep the circle of people who knew that we were planning a breakout small for now. That way there’d be less of a chance of any villains or drones getting wind of it. So Cowboy Rockstar wanted me to identify anybody who might be especially useful in the actual breakout, whereupon we’d obviously free the rest of the prisoners. I consulted the list again, mentally sorting the manifest into those who had powers, and thus were less likely to be especially useful without the use of them, and those who didn’t have powers, and therefore were pretty much operating at 100% effectiveness. There’s another thing I didn’t account for in my own designs, sucks to be you Smuggles. That’s what happens when you build your top secret superhero prison based on the musings of a comedy blog instead of doing your own work you frikkin goon. I circled a couple of names on my illicit scrap of paper and was just about ready to smugly smile myself to sleep when I noticed a faint buzzing. My first thought was wall bees. You wouldn’t believe how often strange buzzing sounds in the How To Hero office ended up being bees in the wall. But this buzzing was more mechanical and well, I guess it must have been there since I was first thrown into this dump. I had managed to sublimate it into the background noise of my time here but now in the dead of the night I was able to really listen to it finally. I tentatively got off of my threadbare cot and walked the length of my small cell. The buzzing was, as I’d feared, strongest by the door. Which could only mean one thing. Door bees! No, I’m kidding, it meant that the old fashioned deadbolt lock was either just for show, or just one part of the cell doors’ security systems. There was some kind of electronic component as well. One that probably wouldn’t be able to be thwarted with some evil-looking spikes. I looked at my scrap once more, I’d have to have a conversation with one of the other prisoners tomorrow. 

                                                         ***

“Professor Flay,” I whispered as I took a seat next to a glasses-wearing black man decked out in a purple jumpsuit with a skull belt buckle. 

“Yes?” the man said, clearly startled, “I’m sorry I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“My name’s Zach, and I’m a fan of your Big Book of Fake Science.”

“Um, are you referring to my Complete Compendium of Improbable Science,” Professor Lucius Flay replied.

“Shoot, is that what it’s called? I knew it was something like that, only my buddy lost the cover and title page in a bet with a supervillain we knew who needed them to power his cover and title page powered doomsday device,” I explained quickly.

Professor Flay flared his nostrils, “And you have the nerve to insinuate that my science is fake. Is there a point to this, I don’t want to miss this performance.”

Our villainous rehabilitation activity for the day was “evil karaoke” only songs with the word “bad” in the title were allowed to be performed. Cowboy Rockstar was currently belting out an honestly breathtaking rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. It was an especially loud and especially drawn out version of the song, so that Professor Flay and I could converse in relative peace.

“What kind of scientist would you say you are Professor?”

“If you must know, I consider myself to be more or less omnidisciplinary,” Professor Flay said.

“That means you dabble in a little bit of everything right?”

“Everything scientific.”

“And that’s not a superpower thing right? You came by all that knowledge on your own?”

Professor Flay waved a dismissive hand at me, “Of course I did. I studied for years to get to where I am today. Sure I may have had to break a few time travel regulations to do it, but otherwise, I come by my intellect fair and square.”

“Excellent!” I shouted a little too loudly. “This is the best version of ‘Bad Romance’ I’ve ever heard!” I quickly added, to cover myself.

“Yeah it’s so good that they should call it ‘Good Romance!’” Rockblock shouted, no doubt trying to help me out.

Unfortunately though, that was the wrong thing to say. Giorgio the Mime certainly couldn’t allow anything gooditalics to happen in this evil facility, so he quickly put the kibosh on Cowboy Rockstar’s performance, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the room. I thought I even saw a drone flash a frowny face. The drones then started ferrying us out of the room and back to our individual cells.

“How much do you know about electronic locks?” I quickly asked as I pressed my scrap of paper in between Professor Flay’s belt and jumpsuit. 

Realization flashed across Professor Flay’s face. 

“Ah,” he said. “Enough.”

I hoped he was right.

                                                         ***

The next day our recreational activity was evil baking. There were several different stations set up in the auditorium, each with ingredients set up to make different evil foods. I ambled past “exploding pies”, “sentient food that will actively beg for its life as you eat it”, and “kale cookies” before taking a seat next to Cowboy Rockstar at the “general poisons” table. Helm Lady and Rockblock were already there, and I noticed Helm Lady was taking special care not to touch any of the ingredients on the table. Rockblock, being made entirely out of stone and cando spirit, began handling the various herbs and toxins and following the recipe. I guess they’d decided that somebody at our table had to be doing something to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. 

“Where’s Professor Flay?” I asked.

“He just walked in,” Cowboy Rockstar said, nodding toward the door, where a contingent of drones were herding in another batch of prisoners. 

“Over here!” Rockblock bellowed, waving three of his giant hands while the other four mixed and mashed various ingredients.

“Quiet,” Helm Lady snarled. I was beginning to regret bringing Rockblock in on our plans so early. 

Still, Professor Flay managed to get the message and made his way over to our table.

“Hello everybody,” he said as he sat down next to Helm Lady. He wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of what Rockblock was mixing in his bowl. “What are we making?”

“Sulfide sausages,” Rockblock replied.

“Lovely.”

“So?” I asked, raising my eyebrow inquisitively at the professor.

Professor Flay glanced around and, confident that there were no drones within listening distance, leaned in conspiratorially.

“I can build the device you described but-”

“Hey guys, sorry I didn’t come right away. I wanted to do a lap to see if there were any other cooler tables,” a pale skinned man clad in black chainmail and sporting thick rimmed glasses said as he sat down at our table.

“Er… what?” I asked.

“I know Rockblock called me over, but I’m not just going to sit down at the first table that offers me a spot, am I?” the other man replied as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Uh, I was actually talking to Professor Flay,” Rockblock said.

The bespectacled man laughed, “Oh Rockblock, I’d heard your sense of humor was legendary.”

Rockblock looked confused but Helm Lady put a hand on one of his arms.

“What do you want Glassesman?” 

“Helm Lady! Great to see you. How’s the old man?”

“We don’t talk.”

“Oh, is that right? Poor Hats never could keep a protege.” 

“Glassesman.” I said, interjecting before things escalated. “You weren’t on the list. When did you get here?”

“Oh, just recently. I wasn’t captured with the rest of you in the first wave.”

Cowboy Rockstar ignored the jab and leaned forward. “Are you saying that Smuggles has found whatever resistance there is? Where’s Ultiman?”

“Keep your ten-gallon hat on buckaroo, the resistance is fine such as it is. I was deep undercover in Smuggles’ operation, but I got found out.”

“No surprise there. You probably started handing out promotional sunglasses to all the villains as soon as you got in there,” Helm Lady muttered.

“Hey, supervillains are a market I have yet to break into. This was a rare networking opportunity for me!”

What a tool.

“Enough,” Cowboy Rockstar said, making sure to keep his voice even.

“What’s with all the hushed tones,” Glassesman said, looking us all up and down.

“Ah,” he said when he’d completed his appraisal. “You’re planning a break out.”

“No we’re n-” Helm Lady started but Glassesman held up his hand.

“Oh please, you’ve got a scientist, a jack-of-all-trades, a bruiser, a non-powered combatant and a…” he faltered when he got to me.

“Blogger,” I said curtly.

Glassesman raised an eyebrow but kept going, “So don’t try to keep me out of this, I’m non-powered too, and I can fight better than a Hatb- sorry exitalics-Hatboy any day of the week.”

Cowboy Rockstar looked as though he was going to say something to get rid of Glassesman but he just sighed and gestured to Professor Flay.

“Fine, sure. Professor you were saying?”

“Um, well, yes. I can build the… device, you asked for but I can’t do it from thin air. I need something to work from.”

We all sat in silence for a moment. I guess it was too much to ask for an omni-disciplinaryitalics super-scientist to be able to whip up an EMP device out of whatever he could find in his prison cell. I’d be sure to inform whatever board certifies omni-disciplinary scientists to amend an asterisk to Professor Flay’s credentials when we got out of here.

“Could you build it out of whatever those things are made of?” Glassesman said, jerking a thumb towards one of the drones.

Professor Flay appraised it, “It appears to run on a lithioplasmic core with a carbon-electrum chassis. Assuming there’s a terrakon multispacial chip rattling around in or near its processor… Yes, I wouldn’t even need too much of it. Just a chunk from the chest if I had to guess.”

“Excellent,” Glassesman said before he stood up and flipped over our table. “And you can tell that cap clad crank that I’m twice the hero he ever was!”

Helm Lady smirked and wordlessly lunged at him, wrapping her long fingers around his neck. Professor Flay and I quickly took cover behind the table. Flay because he was a nerd and wasn’t about to get involved in a fist fight between two highly trained combatants. And me to protect Flay naturally. We needed him fit enough to build us the EMP, I couldn’t exactly leave him. Cowboy Rockstar jumped on Glassesman’s back and tried to pull him away while Rockblock scrambled to gather up the ingredients from his poison. A stray pellet of congealed arsenic bounced over to me and I scooped it up into my hoodie. You never know, right? 

In a minute several drones were trundling over to our little group trying to break up the fight. They’d just about managed to pry Cowboy Rockstar, Glassesman and Helm Lady apart when Rockblock let out a deafening roar and joined the fray, sending a handful of drones flying as he growled something incoherent about how hard he’d been working on perfecting his recipe. By this time the other assembled heroes were all looking toward us, but before anybody else could get any ideas about joining the riot, more drones than I’d even realized were in the prison poured into the auditorium and surrounded my friends. Finally managing to pull them apart.

The rest of the heroes, myself and Professor Flay included, were now being rounded up by some of the drones while most of them were being engaged by six of Rockblock’s giant fists. As we walked by though, I noticed his seventh appendage experly flick a chunk of metal in our direction. I stumbled slightly, bending over quickly to grab the robot chunk. And then discretely passed it to Professor Flay before we were split off to return to our own cells.

“I’ll have it done before tonight,” he said to me as he palmed the misshapen blob of metal and wiring. 

I nodded and smiled, by that time tomorrow we’d be out of that forsaken prison and saving the world.

                                                         ***

Night fell, and I paced anxiously around the length of my cell. Assuming Professor Flay was able to work as quickly as he claimed he was able to. And assuming Rockblock had gotten him exactly what he needed. And assuming Cowboy Rockstar and Glassesman and Helm Lady were able to pick the locks on their cells when the time came. And assuming Rockblock could keep any guards off of us. And assuming- Well, there were a lot of assumptions before I’d be tasting fresh air. Our plan was hardly fool proof, and we had at least two or three fools on our team, depending on who you asked. We were making a few too many assumptions for my liking. But it was the best we had, so I guess that was that. There was nothing I could do except wait for something to happen. 

And when something happened, everything happened.

First there was a deafening boom, followed by a shockwave that traveled quickly throughout the cell block. If I hadn’t been deafened by the explosion, I would have noticed that the electronic buzzing I’d heard had gone silent. Professor Flay’s homebrewed EMP had worked. I ran to the door and saw several guard drones collapsed on the ground. Their cybernetic features were blank. 

Seconds later three cell doors swung open and Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, and Glassesman strode out. Glassesman looked especially smug, even though he was the last one out. The other two were such pros, they decided to let it slide. They quickly started working on picking the locks on the other cells. Helm Lady sprung Rockblock first, just in case there were any drones outside the EMP’s radius that might’ve been trundling our way. Professor Flay’s EMP was a one-shot kind of deal so we’d have to fight or evade any other drones we encountered. 

“So far so good eh?” Cowboy Rockstar grinned as he unlocked the door to my cell.

“So far, yeah,” I said anxiously. “We’re pretty much flying blind from here on out th- Woah!”

I took a step back into my cell as Cowboy Rockstar became enveloped in a brilliant white light. I stood agape as he began hovering a few inches off the ground and the light faded into his body. 

“What was that?” I asked.

Cowboy Rockstar landed adroitly on the ground and checked his pulse with two of his fingers.

“It’s… I think the EMP must have shorted out whatever device was neutralizing our powers in here,” Cowboy Rockstar said. His fists began crackling with energy.

I looked up and down the hall of cells. Powerful glows or crumpled cell doors told me that many of the other heroes were starting to regain access to their powers. 

“Well that certainly changes the game,” I said as I began taking stock of all of the new keys we’d just acquired.

                                                         ***

We quickly divided into a few teams: 

Team One: Nightron, Foresight P. Jones, and Intangi-Bill. None of us had been outside since we’d arrived in the prison and so none of us actually knew where the exit was. Team one would use their respective speed, supervision and intangibility in concert to find a way out.

Team Two: Cowboy Rockstar, Rockblock, and Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons. Our heavy hitters. If anybody could break straight through the walls that surrounded us to the outside it was them.

Team Three: Professor Flay, Electrobug, Digitalized, Psionica. They set about trying to cobble together weapons and gear from the broken husks of the drones that we had at our disposal.

Team Four: Captain Patriot, Brad the Radioactive Man, Amphin, Glassesman, Helm Lady and the Human Wall. The best offense is a strong defense, and if any of our other teams were going to have any hope of doing what they needed to do, they’d need somebody keeping Giorgio and whatever drones he could scrounge together off of their backs. 

Team Five: Dr. Hemer, Knife Knurse, and Super Surgeon. A lot of heroes were suffering painful side-effects either from the sudden reemergence of their superpowers or the power-deprivation they’d been suffering since they’d gotten here. Anybody who had any sort of medical knowledge would tend to them until we get help on the outside.

Team Six: Just me. My job was to come up with the team names and I’m not ashamed to admit that I totally phoned it in.

I was sitting back and taking stock of the other teams’ progress when a gust of wind informed me of Nightron’s return. 

“We’re not the only prisoners here,” he said panting, parts of his supervillain costume were singed, he must have encountered other guards elsewhere in the facility.

“You’re sure?” I asked frantically. I’m not sure why it had never occurred to me that there might be other prisoners somewhere in this facility. But I had only ever seen the heroes that were in that corridor at communal recreational events.

“Positive, there are maybe five or six other cell blocks just like this one. They’ve got dozens of other superheroes here. But that’s not all. World leaders, para-folk, some civilians. I think I even saw some sort of zoo,” Nightron said.

“Probably for animal sidekicks and the like,” I mused aloud. “Were you followed back here?”

“No, but they saw who I was. I’m sure they know where I’m supposed to be. It won’t be long before we have company here.”

“You’re right. Professor, how are those weapons coming!” I shouted towards where Team Three was working.

“My EMP seems to have worked a little too well, there’s no resteoring powers to these machines, but Psionica has managed to use her telekinetic abilities to reform some chunks of metal into clubs.”

“That’ll have to do,” I said. “Nightron, grab a few of those clubs, if anybody comes you’ll join Team Four. Hit them hard and hit them fast.”

“But what about the other prisoners?” Nightron protested.

“We need to break ourselves out before we can worry about anybody else,” Glassesman said.

“I hate to admit it but he’s right,” Helm Lady agreed.

“Yeah but-” and then, in a whoosh he was gone, because it was at that moment that a platoon of drones filed into our hallway. Two of them hit the ground, their CPUs bashed in by Nightron, before the rest of us even registered what was happening but once we did, the rest of Team Four, sprung into action. 

“Zach, over here,” Professor Flay called.

I ran over to him, he passed me a makeshift club and we formed a defensive ring around our medics and the wounded along with the rest of Team Three.

“We are through!” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons cried.

We helped Team Five get to the large gap in the wall that Team Two had formed as Rockblock and Cowboy Rockstar went to join the fray in the corridor. 

“We may have problem,” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons muttered to us as we joined her outside.

Problem was an understatement. For one thing, the sky was a murky blend of purples, oranges, and reds, and I know I haven’t been doing a ton of “world-building” in this dramatic account of my escape from a supervillain run supermax, but the sky we were all used to seeing was definitely blue. The ground we were standing on was somehow both dusty and crumbly. Every step we took sent a cloud of dust and ground flakes into the air. And we couldn’t see any other signs of life or civilization anywhere at all. I had always assumed that we would be somewhere inconspicuous but local, so that Smuggles could keep an eye on us, but it appeared as though we were in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to the middle of anywhere. 

“What… What is this place?” Professor Flay said.

“Beats me,” I said with a shrug. When I designed this prison for How To Hero I recommended finding a large unused building with reinforced walls that was situated in a place that no cops would ever be caught dead anywhere near. There are literally four or five places like that within a twenty block radius of How To Hero headquarters so where the hell were we. Unless… crap.

“Atomspace,” I said. “We’ve been shrunken down and sent to a prison in Atomspace.”

“Well,” Professor Flay said, taking in our otherworldly surroundings. “That creates a wrinkle in our plans doesn’t it.”

“It certainly does,” I agreed.

And that’s when everything went black.

                                                         ***

I awoke, chained to a chair, in what may very well have been the most garishly decorated room I had ever seen. And Parenthetical Guy once painted our office neon green and creamsicle orange so that was saying something. The walls were all a deep blood red and there were various supervillainous accoutrements mounted all over the walls. Scary looking masks, futuristic blasters, esoteric looking staffs. A giant serpent’s head wearing oversized sunglasses was mounted on the wall directly opposite me. Below the serpent head sat an ornate, obsidian desk with a high backed leather chair behind it. The carpet was the color of rotting bones, which made a lot of sense when I realized that it wasn’t really a carpet at all, but rather a mat made entirely of very thin bone fragments. Bone fragments that were incredibly sharp at the ends. 

“Ouch!” I yelped as I lifted my feet slightly off of the ground.

“Well look who’s finally awake,” a snide voice to my left said.

I turned my head and my heart dropped. Joining me in this chilling chamber were the rest of my friends: Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, Professor Flay and Glassesman were chained to chairs like mine while Rockblock’s hulking form was chained to the wall on the far side of the room. The humans in the chairs also had their feet up in various positions. Rockblock was stuck standing on the bone floor, but at least he didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“We were all knocked unconscious after we broke through the prison walls,” Professor Flay explained. “Cerebral implants I’d guess.”

“You’re saying we were all chipped?” I said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. Why weren’t we all knocked out as soon as we broke out of our cells?”

“Because I wanted to see the look on your face when you realized you were in Atomspace.”

All of our heads snapped towards the door where a man wearing a dark gray catsuit, a bright orange domino mask, and heavy metal boots strode into the room. “Do you like how I’ve decorated? Greg the Skeleton King referred me to his interior design guy.”

“That explains the bones,” Helm Lady muttered.

“And the hellfire!” Cowboy Rockstar proclaimed. “From right before we were captured, I’d been wondering about that.”

“Smuggles,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Zachary,” he said curtly. “Mr. How To Hero himself, how does it feel to be so utterly defeated by someone you’ve spent years ridiculing on your infantile blog?”

“I’ll let you know when it happens,” I said.

“Always with the clever little jokes,” Smuggles said as he took a seat in the leather chair and steepled his fingers. “You have been utterly defeated though. I’ve been following your little escape attempt from the very beginning. My people are not idiots you know. We’ve been listening to every conversation, watching your every move. The riot in the cafeteria was especially amusing.” He nodded at Rockblock who just grunted in response. “Quite frankly, you got further than I expected you to. But I’m glad you did, because now you have to admit that I’ve completely bested you. You’ve been thoroughly trounced Zachary. Who’s the laughingstock now?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of a way out of this for myself and my friends, when Glassesman burst out laughing. Smuggles’s eye flashed with rage and he slammed a hand down on his desk.

“I’m sorry, is something amusing here?”

“No no… Well yeah, sorry, it’s just… You got every supervillain to band together, captured most of the superheroes, and basically took over the entire world just to get back at some low rate blogger?”

“Hey, uncalled for!” I shouted.

“I’m sorry it’s just a bit ridiculous don’t you think?” 

“Honestly, I kind of agree with him,” Helm Lady said sheepishly.

“I legitimately thought this whole thing was about me,” Cowboy Rockstar admitted. “I’m kind of a big deal you know, being a semigod and all that.”

“Don’t you mean demigod?” Professor Flay asked, doing a little wiggle shake to get his chair facing Cowboy Rockstar.

“Oh, I’m that too. But I’m talking about the cult I inadvertently inspired that has deified me,” Cowboy Rockstar explained.

Smuggles banged his fist down on his desk again.

“Enough!” he shouted, before cradling his fist in his other hand. “Now that your merry band has been epically thwarted and humiliated, I must decide on your punishment. I’m not about to risk you lot plotting another breakout.”

My mind started racing for a way out. This was the first time I had come face to face with Smuggles since he’d unleashed Chuck the Fish Whisperer in the How To Hero basement. Until now I hadn’t realized just how much of what was happening revolved around me. I didn’t even realize Smuggles had been familiar with my blog before we hired him. Maybe I could work with that. 

“Do your worst Smuggles. I guarantee you it won’t be anything worse than what actual villains have done to me,” I said, affixing my most smug expression on my features.

“What are you talking about?” Smuggles said, clearly thrown.

“I mean come on. I lived with a real supervillain before. Remember Dr. Brainwave?” 

“Wait, what?” Helm Lady said. “You lived with Dr. Brainwave? We’ve been looking for him for years!” 

“Yeah well I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

“Brainwave was a sentimental hack. Killing him was child’s play.” Smuggles said through mounting anger.

I faltered for a moment. So Smuggles had been the one who had mailed that bomb to our office? He was the reason Dr. Brainwave was dead? Sure the guy was a supervillain, but at the end of the day he had been my… my friend. And he’d sacrificed his life to save mine and my friends’. The fact that I was sitting less than three feet away from his murderer was almost too much to bear. Still, there’d be plenty of time to deal with him later. Assuming my plan worked.

“Still before you killed him he made my life miserable. You’ve read my blog, I’m sure you know all about it. So I honestly doubt that anything you plan to do can compare.”

Smuggles literally shook with rage, “I can… I can killitalics you! You ever think about that?” 

Cowboy Rockstar grinned, “Good luck with that.”

Ok, honestly I’m not sure what thatitalics was about. Is Cowboy Rockstar immortal? Has anybody ever checked that? Regardless, I decided to just roll with it.

“Do your worst.” I said.

“Guys!” Glassesman shouted exasperated. “I love taunting a bad guy as much as the next guy, but maybe we should all ease up a bit!”

“Oh relax,” I said. “Smuggles is a Z-lister trying to kick it with the big kids. He can’t just shoot us or something. If he wants to be a world-dominating evil monster he’s going to have to come up with a suitably ostentatious way to kill us and honestly, he doesn’t have the imagination. Just look at his face, this is clearly eating at him.”

It was as though a lightbulb went off over Smuggles’s head. His face warped from grimace to grin and he strode around to the other side of his desk.

“I’ve already succeeded in taking over the world and routing your beloved superheroes. I hardly need to prove myself to the likes of you. You can expect to be executed in a ‘suitable ostentatious manner’ shortly.”

I was all read to shoot back a witty retort when everything went black again.

                                                         ***

I awoke to the sound of cheering, which made me feel pretty good. I don’t often get cheered for waking up. I’m sure Cowboy Rockstar was feeling pretty regular though, people cheer for everything that guy does. I was in the center of a gladiatorial arena, the stands were packed with guard drones and more than a few supervillains. The presence of so many of them here sent a shiver down my spine. Had Smuggles really been able to recruit and control so many supervillains? Next to me, my friends laid in a rumpled heap, all of them still unconscious with the exception of…

“Now look what you’ve done,” Professor Flay said sternly. 

I turned to look at him and saw the abject fear sketched across his features.

“Relax Prof, everything’s going to be ok.”

“How can you say that! Look at us! We’re in an arena surrounded by bloodthirsty supervillains for god’s sake!”

“It’s not the supervillains you should be worrying about, it’s whatever’s going to come out of that gate,” I said, pointing to a massive (well, massive relative to our shrunken selves) gate directly opposite us.

Professor Flay shuddered, “I imagine the others are still unconscious to prevent them from being able to do anything against whatever that might be.”

I nodded, “It makes sense, Smuggles doesn’t want to risk anything going wrong.”

“But I still want the satisfaction of watching at least some of you soil yourselves in fear,” Smuggles said as his smug visage appeared on a floating jumbotron that was hovering over the arena.

“You’ll never get away with this you knave!” Professor Flay shouted.

“Oh Professor, I already have. I think I’ll make today an international holiday going forward,” Smuggles said as he leaned back from the camera so we could see his entire upper body on the screen. He was sitting on a golden throne and his fingers were hovering above a big red button. I assumed whatever was waiting behind the gate would be released at the press of that button. And why prolong the inevitable.

“Why don’t you come down here so I can wipe that smug expression off of your face, you absolute goober!” I called up to Smuggles.

Smuggles frowned, “Goodbye Zach, you will not be missed.” 

His finger pressed the button. The gate started to ascend. Professor Flay sighed and rolled up his sleeves. I had to admire him, he wasn’t planning on going down without some sort of fight. As the gate rose the cheers of the crowd grew even more fevered. I think I even saw a sign that said “Cowboy Suckstar.” Rude. After what seemed like an eternity the gate was finally fully open and a ferocious roar shook the stadium as a massive beast lumbered into the arena. The ginormous monster truly had it all. Dozens of eyes, face tentacles, spikes, a flaming tail. I had to admit this would certainly be a suitably ostentatious way to die. Of course, I wasn’t about to let Smuggles get his way was I?

“Good god what is that thing?” Professor Flay said as he backed away from the giant monster. 

“It’s our way out,” I said calmly as I climbed on top of Rockblock’s comatose body, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply.

“What are you doing?” Professor Flay shouted at me as the monster began galloping towards us on all fours.

I looked down at Professor Flay and smiled, “See you on the other side Prof.”

And then the monster ate me.

[h3ad-quarters]

A camera in the feed had gone fuzzy about 20 minutes prior, but flicking back through it seems to have been fixed, showing a wall of the Blacksite with a spray painted message; Hey jackass, you want your junk? Come down here and get it yourself! Friendship ended with HQ, Sebastian's your new best friend! -💡🐋

HQ watched as the screen had gone out, and eventually fixed itself, about to tell off whatever expendable or creature for messing with more of Urbanshade equipment when he noticed the message on the wall, a frown forming on his face.

"are you kidding me? -

Z-13 is not your friend - it is not to be trusted"

He sent out the brief broadcast before making a note to send down a cleanup crew to get rid of the spray painted message.

[borderlore]

Welcome to Gehenna, Bounty Hunters!

Welcome to Gehenna, Bounty Hunters, where the frontier is wild and the people who live there are moreso! The Vault Hunters travel to the new Planet, Gehenna, to claim a bounty on a group known as The Devil Riders. While there, the Vault Hunters also visit the small town of Vestige, which The Devil Riders have been terrorizing. Through your actions in Story Missions and Crew Challenges, the town changes over the course of your time on Gehenna! 

The third Story DLC for Borderlands 3 is officially named “Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption”

Launches June 25th

Unlike the previous two DLCs, Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption has an entirely new cast of characters the Vault Hunters can meet, including an unseen narrator who narrates and interacts with the player(s) as they complete Side and Story Missions

Two other fresh faces you will meet are Rose, a warrior, and Juno, a brawler

Like previous DLCs, a new setting is introduced that boasts quite a few new changes to aid the Vault Hunters in both combat in exploration

Such examples include Traitorweed, which temporarily turns enemies into allies, and Breezebloom, which will lift you into the air and into otherwise-out-of-the-reach areas

An entirely new Vehicle is added to the DLC: the Jetbeast

The Jetbeast is the only Vehicle available on Gehenna, and features a wide array of parts that can be switched and swapped out at the player’s leisure

New Western-themed gear is to be found across the frontier, including themed cosmetic items

One such Pistol will constantly ricochet its projectiles after a Critical Hit has been achieved

For more information on the new DLC, click the link to the article here.

Takedown at the Guardian Breach

Releasing on June 4th is the newest Takedown to Borderlands 3, Takedown at the Guardian Breach, a Guardian-inspired Takedown meant to test the more intuitive of Vault Hunters.

Tannis tasks the Vault Hunters to travel to the distant Planet of Minos Prime to track down the source of a mysterious Guardian signal. However, upon arriving to the Planet, the Vault Hunters are beset by groups of rogue Guardians who have left their fellow brethren and wreaked havoc across Minos Prime.

Unlike Takedown at Maliwan’s Blacksite, the player(s) will have to solve puzzles and traverse platforming sections in order to reach the next area

Also unlike Takedown at Maliwan’s Blacksite, the Location is entirely in Low Gravity

New Guardian-themed enemies appear to try and take down the player(s)

The player(s) will have to face one Miniboss and one final Boss encounter, similar to the previous Takedown (the Valkyries and Wotan the Invincible, respectively)

Upon completion of the Takedown, the player(s) have the opportunity of being rewarded with a slew of themed gear and cosmetic items

For more information on the new Takedown, click the link to the article here.

Mayhem 2.0 Adjustments

Also on June 4th, Phase 1 of the Mayhem 2.0 adjustments will be released in a Patch. Some of the adjustments are as follows:

Adjustments will be made to over- and under-performing gear to accommodate with these changes

Under-performing Anointments will receive buffs

The location of this information is found in the same area where Anointment descriptions are

For more information on what Phase 1 will entail, click the link to the article here.

Other Improvements

The radius in which you can revive a downed teammate in Fight for your Life! is increased drastically

As well, a downed teammate who is being revived will move much slower than before

The Borderlands Legendary Collection is coming to Nintendo Switch on May 29th

Includes Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

[Pictured above is Concept Art for the unannounced fourth Story DLC for Borderlands 3]

[omnivorousshipper]

Does Owen still hold disdain twords Luke, only tolerating him because he is his brother in-law ? Or is it just a front ? And deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deeeeep, DEEP ! Down he secretary cares about him ?

Oh gosh, the relationship between those two is very complicated

I think Owen does hate Luke to an extent once he wakes up from his coma. He blames the whole Toretto crew, including Luke, for throwing him off the plane

And I like to headcanon that when Owen woke up and was strong enough to be sent to prison, Luke personally escorted him to the blacksite. Just to rub salt in the wound, especially taunting Owen about Deckard being arrested as well

So, when Owen hears that Luke's dating Deckard, he. Is. Pissed

He can't believe the guy who chased him and nearly destroyed his family was now trying to convince Owen that he loved Deckard

Owen wasn't having any of it

And Luke completely understands why Owen hates him

He doesn't push or deny or defend himself to Owen. Luke knows that there's no way to convince a Shaw of something if they don't want to

It takes Owen a long, long, long time for him to even start looking at Luke in a positive way

At first, Owen did try to convince Deckard to dump Luke, but Deckard sends him one look and Owen doesn't bring it up again

After that, Owen simply ignores Luke when he can, and if he can't, he'll be snarky as hell

This goes on for months

It's not until Owen gets into a spot of trouble and needs help does he start to accept Luke. Because neither Deckard or Hattie were there to help, but Luke was

And he did help Owen, no strings attach

After that, Owen warms up to Luke, if only slightly

He will always mess with Luke, being snarky and a brat. But now, you'll find him cuddling up to Luke just like Deckard and Hattie

(Luke is a human heater, and the Shaws are simply cats looking for a warm spot)

So, on the surface, you would think Owen doesn't like Luke. But deep down, he sees Luke was another older brother that he can trust, but also annoy

[companionwolf]

Friday (Day 13)

b) A special resource, methods, or knowledge the faction/crew has

This faction knows the location of a PILOT blacksite in the region.

Faction description of either a new or existing faction. Be sure to make ties between factions and peoples

There is almost a split in the faction, with Old Worlders and those born into the new world. There's also subgroups by craft type.

factions23 + world23 [January 8th, 2023]

Week 2: ☢️ and 🕷

A group of humans living in a old bomb shelter.

Sunday (Day 8)

Settlement description

These humans live in a old bomb shelter underground, tucked away in the back green of a depcriated building. The grass around the entrance is overgrown, and you can't see it unless you run right into it.

b) A special resource, methods, or knowledge the faction/crew has

This faction is made up of people who all know a craft-- knitting, crochet, weaving, etc. They work together to make clothes and such for themselves and the resistance.

[mudaship39]

Alpha Centurion War:

He/she/they were arming themselves to get out a giant blacksite planet. They were in combat armor and trying to arm themselves with small arms of plasma and hard light weapons to defend themselves. “Alex/Lexi, take a look at this,” said Talia Macar. Talia Macar asked, “What did you say your parents did?” Alexandria/Alexander said, “They were just international and intergalactic Indigenous poc scientists.” He/she/they asked, “Why?” “I don’t think that’s all they did.” She hacked into the file. It was a file that said Mark Akio Puleleitte Oshiro Kaimana Kato-Smith was an agent of Enigma, Cipher, Shadow, Crypt, Spectre, & Eclipse and that Maria Garcia Bahr Alejandra Smith was an agent of Void, Spectre, Ghost, Nex, Quantum, & Scorpio. “It seems your parents did a lot more than that.” “It seems they covered up a lot more than what you thought.” “Their job description in the intergalactic paramilitary intelligence agencies they are a part of is highly classified.” “This might be why they just disappeared.” “It just might be a ruse to hide from their enemies.” “What more are you hiding from me mom and dad?” Talia asked, “Are you okay?” “Not really.” “Is this why these people are after us because of whom my parents are.” “Is the reason I was experimented on the fact that they can augment and enhance me against my will the same way?”  A memory of Alex/Lexi leading the people experimented off using a giant ship that was an intergalactic deep black project. He/she/they were holding one of the people who were experimented on my shoulder with one hand and shooting a hard light plasma sub machine gun at enemies with another. “I’ll cover you move!” “It was the first time I ever called a talisman of power.”  “I summoned a construct of a fire basilisk with my talisman.” “I had so much terror and horror at the experimentation done to me.” “I had so much fury and hatred that I lost someone I cared about to their experimentation.” “That the physical epitome of negative primal emotions possessed me as its host and avatar.” “It gave my power and strength to eclipse red, orange, yellow, & black lanterns.” Intergalactic alien slavers had came after the metahuman and superhuman child, preteen, teenage, & young adult super soldiers under Alex Smith’s/Lexi Smith’s command. “We are being boarded!” “Welcome back pilot, we missed you,” said Alpha, Prime, Sterling, & Data, Crimson Changeling’s male, female, nonbinary, & genderfluid AI’s as he/she/they entered his/her/their power armor suit. “Glad to be back Alpha, Prime, Sterling, & Data.” Crimson Changeling yelled, “Surprise assault fan out!” Talia Macar shouted, “Engaging multiple hostiles!” “Fall back, fall back!” Alex/Lexi yelled, “Go!” Alexander/Alexandria in her female form that indentified with female pronouns yelled, “I’ll cover our retreat!” Queen Talia Macar who was then Princess asked, “What about you?” “I promise I’m right behind you,” he/she/they said as he/she/they kissed her and gave her a hug. Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith knew he/she/they were shot by armor piecing, anti-personnel, & anti-material hard light plasma bullets bypassed their power armor and combat armor. He/she/they knew they were pierced by hard light energy bullets that negated his/her/their supernatural healing and supernatural durability. But he/she/they waited until the rest of their crew was out of sight. He/she/they waited until they were gone to put his/her/their hand against the slowly spreading stain of blood on their power armor and combat armor. He/she/they were trying to steady his/her/their breathing so they can follow without letting on how injured he/she/they are. Alexander/Alexandria pressed his/her/their hand against his/her/their power armor. His/her/their hand was filled with blood. It was his/her/their blood. “Fuck, they actually got me.” “Seems like someone actually made bullets that can stop supernatural healing and stop supernatural durability huh?” “Well it seems I’ve gone as far as I can go,” said Alexander Mack Smith/Alexandria Macy Smith as the enemy’s armor piecing, anti-personnel, & anti-material hard light plasma bullets bypassed their power armor and even their combat armor. They all went inside the heavy drop ships but Alex Smith/Lexi Smith stayed behind. Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith then shut the door. “Keep them safe, I’m not coming aboard Dot,” he/she/they ordered the super advanced genderfluid AI of the ships he/she/they commandeered from the giant black site planet. He/she/they had to do this. To keep them safe. To keep his/her/their family safe. He/she/they would do anything to protect them. He/she/they would do anything to keep his family safe. Even if he/she/they had to sacrifice himself/herself/themselves to do so. Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith ordered the super advanced genderfluid AI of the ship he/she/they commandeered from the giant black site planet, “Warp jump the corvette to this location now Dot!” The former child soldiers under his/her/their command asked, “What are you doing!?” Talia Macar asked, “Alex/Lexi?” “But you promised!” Don’t do this without me,” Talia yelled with tears in her eyes, “What about our agreement?!” “I’m sorry, Talia but this is the only way.” A soldier under the command of Alexander’s/Alexandria’s command asked, “What agreement?” “What is she talking about?” “We didn’t have much optimism on that giant black site planet being experimented on as part of an intergalactic compartmentalized deep black project.” “We didn’t have much of anything really.” “So we decided if we were going to die…” “Then we’d die together, me and Talia Macar.” Alexander/Alexandria told his/her/their family the metahumans and superhumans who were child, preteen, teenage, & young adult super soldiers formally under his/her/their command, “Swear to me you will take care of each other.” “Okay, promise me take care of each other.” “I love all of you,” Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith told his/her/their family as their voice broke and tears streamed down his/her/their eyes said, “I’m sorry but this is the only way I can keep you safe.” “Forgive me,” Alex/Lexi, “all of you.” “If I don’t make it out of this.” “Then please tell Dior Linh Heimana Tranh and Zhao Hokulani Ya Kaimana Keali’i that I love them both and that I’m sorry I could not keep my promise.” “I promise sir/ma’am,” said his/her/their second in command. “Let us fight with you,” said the other metahuman and superhuman child, preteen, teenage, & young adult super soldiers that used to be under his/her/their command.” “Together we can hold them off.” “Please!” “No, sorry for being selfish but it’s better this way.” “I’ll just slow you down.” “Before I die, I can take a few of those fuckers with me.” “Long ago, I swore an oath and I made a promise to take care of all of you, you are my family.” “I’m staying here.” “It was an honor to serve with all of you.” “But this is my final fight,” he/she/they said as they saluted the metahuman and superhuman child, preteen, teenage, & young adult spec ops black ops super soldiers who were once under his/her/their command with tears in his/her/their eyes. The child, preteen, teenage, & young adult metahuman and superhuman child spec ops black ops super soldiers under his/her/their command said, “The honor is ours sir/ma’am.” He/she/they yelled as their voice broke, “Warp now Dot!” Talia screamed, “No!” “Wait for me there at that location.” “If I somehow survive this, I’ll meet you there.” Alexander/Alexandria said, “Talia Macar, I love you.” The AI said, “Warp jumps in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, warp!” Talia yelled as the ships warped, “Alex/Lexi!” The corvette capable of carrying all of the people who were experimented on including the eight hundred metahuman and superhuman child, preteen, teenage, & young adult spec ops black ops super soldiers under his/her/their command escaped in time.

“This is how I make my last stand.” “I alone get to decide my fate.” “No one els.” “You fucking son of a bitch.” “I am no one’s slave, not even fates.” “I alone get to decide how I go out,” he/she/they said. “It’s a fucking good day to die,” said Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith as he/she/they lit and smoked an alien cigarette. He/she they then took out a photo of his/her/their deceased chosen family members that could not survive the experimentation like the others had that he/she/they kept in the pocket watch his/her/their parents gave them, “It seems I’m going to be reunited with you guys sooner than I thought,” he/she/they said as they put the photo back. He/she/they then locked and loaded all the guns they had strapped to their power armor. The alien slavers were about to breach and burst through the bomb bay doors. “Never thought I go out like this, but I ain’t backing down.” “Not without a fight, not without taking you fuckers with me to hell.” “If I go out, it’ll be on my terms.” Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith wearing combat armor and wearing power armor took out their weapons and eliminated all of the grunts of the slavers. He/she/they asked, “Are you still with me Alpha, Prime, Sterling, & Data?” “We are with you pilot, to the end,” said his/her/their super advanced male, female, nonbinary, & genderfluid artificial intelligences. He/she/they took out their weapons and fired them at the alien slavers taking out all the grunts of the alien slavers. He/she/they took out they took out their plasma hard light machete and a plasma hard light machete from one of the many alien slavers he/she/they just slain and made their desperate last stand. “Your power armor suit and your combat armor suit are at critical.” “It is futile to keep fighting metahuman and superhuman,” The alien slaver Quizar he said, “You best surrender now.” “Your men have all left and your men have all abandoned you.” “You are alone and you have no back up.” “You are outnumbered, outgunned, & outmatched.” “Tell us where you sent that ship!” Alex/Lexi thinking about them going after Talia Macer, he/she/they let out a booming war cry that shocked his/her/their enemies with a hiss, snarl, growl, & roar that was done with their shockwave stomp, ballistic scream, sonic scream, a knuckle shockwave, & enhanced roar that shook the ship. He/she/they charged at the alien slavers yelled, “Never!” Performing a war dance alone is extremely unlucky. Alexander/Alexandria roared as he/she/they shape shifted to his/her/their male form, “I’m dying here and I’m taking all you fuckers with me straight to hell!” He/she/they took out the lower ranking officers after shapeshifting into an alpha dire werewolf, a grizzly bear, a kangaroo, silverback gorilla, a polar bear, an ice age cave bear, Sasquatch, & a Yeti. After taking out several lower ranking commanding officers of the slavers with the hard-light hard machetes. The fourth in command of the alien slavers grabbed him/her/them and held him/her/them in the air and choking him/her/them by the throat. He/she/they grabbed their combat KA-BAR knife gifted to them by an Earth Space Marine Force Recon marine strapped to his/her/their chest and used both to stab the alien in the throat killing him. He/she/they took off his/her/their broken power armor helmet and his/her/their broken combat armor helmet. He/she/they them threw them both to the ground. “Well, this is how I imagined how I go out.” “Since I was just a mere child.” “Dying violently with no measure of peace at all was how I expected to go out for so long.” “I figured there was no real chance for anything else.” “That I didn’t deserve peace, that I didn’t deserve a happy ending.” Alexander Mack Smith/Alexandria Macy Smith then hissed, snarled, growled, & roared. With a feral primal smile on his/her/their face charged, jumped, & spun to fight the rest of the lower ranking officers of the alien slavers. Coughing up blood he/she/they dropped the swords and dropped to his/her/their knees clutching their wounds.

Alexander/Alexandria’s past as a supervillain was involuntary. It was by brain washing and mind control by someone that he/she/they trusted. He/she/they were mind controlled and brainwashed by his/her/their ex Empress Ziewei an evil alien extraterrestrial insect humanoid that was an anthropomorphic wasp, bee, or hornet that had the power of telepathy and empathy as an telepath and empath. They then find out that Alexander Mack Smith/Alexandria Macy Smith that everyone thought had died. The one who told them to retreat while he/she/they stayed behind to hold off the enemy forces after helping them escape was actually captured by the enemy and has been alive this whole time. He/she/they sacrificed themselves to save his/her/their chosen family and his/her/their Talia Macar who is his/her/their partner and fiance but he/she/they were captured by the enemy. He/she/they were tortured, brainwashed & mind controlled by the enemy to forget their family and friends and now only see them as the enemy. So now his/her/their partner and girlfriend are forced to fight them in a battle where both of them knows each other’s fighting styles and weaknesses but are nonetheless unequally matched because only one of them is fighting to maim and kill. Unable to hold their brainwashed love interest back indefinitely without having to hurt them. Talia Macar is the elemental with power over the elements of air, sand, storm, thunder, lightning, earth, plants, wood, rock, ice, snow, frost, & water, magma, lava, & fire. She attempts a last-ditch attempt to snap them out of it. “She says through her tears “I know you’re still in there somewhere.” You can fight this.” “Don’t let them control you.” “Snap out of it.” “I know you.” “You would never hurt me.” “Please don’t do this.” He/she/they draw back the hard-light plasma weapon in preparation to make the killing blow. Something in their expression changes. Recognition, horror, & self-loathing filling the blank neutral look in his/her/their eyes. But his/her/their face quickly hardens again and they bring their weapon down on the person they love as the enemy laughs. She drops to her knees and screams out in pain. He/she/they only break free from the brainwashing and mind control after he/she/they’ve stabbed their love interest. She coughs up blood and clutches at her stab wound from his/her/their sword. He/she/they whispers her name in agony and anguish. He/she/they stagger back dropping his/her/their hard-light plasma sword in horror at his/her/their actions. In fury and rage at what the enemy forces him/her/them to do he/she/they charge at the enemy and deals him a killing blow killing the one who mind controlled and brainwashed him/her/them. Alexander/Alexandria then slumps forward. He/she/they are leveled with shame and loathing at what he/she/they have done. All the memories of what she and he/she/they have had together as partners crashes on them all at once as he/she/they collapse on himself/herself.themselves. The love interest he/she/they have almost killed holds him/her/them as she cries too. She forgives him/her/them and doesn’t blame them as he/she/they were brainwashed and mind controlled for months. She is too relieved to have them back to feel anything else. She tenderly cups her love interest’s cheek while clutching her injury and wipes a tear from his/her/their cybernetic and bionic prosthetic left eye that is bleeding making it appear as if he/she/they are crying blood. “You can't die!” “Talia, I won't let you!” “Just hang on okay!” “It is so cold Alexander/Alexandria…” “Hey stay with me!” “I’m so tired Alex/Lexi I need to go to sleep.” “You have to stay awake!” “Medic!” “Wake up, please, wake up!” “No no no!” “Stay with me please!” “Talia!” “Sofia Muller heal her please!” “She is stable,” said Sofia Muller. “Thank you, doc,” said Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith. “Don’t blame yourself for this,” said Sofia. “She would not want you blaming yourself.” “So, who do I blame if not myself,” said Alexander Smith/Alexandria Smith. “Blame the ones who are responsible for this.” “The ones who mind controlled and brainwashed you.” “You were only the victim in this.” “You and her.” “She will be okay.” “We got to her in time.” “She will pull through.” “So, don’t you worry.” “Get some rest.” Alex/Lexi said, “Tell me when she wakes up.” “Sure thing,” said Sofia.