Jay and Lilith made their way east, following the cracked path that wound between rust-stained boulders and patches of dead brush. The sky overhead shimmered with that dull Pandora glow—a harsh light that wasn't quite day and wasn't quite night, the kind of light that made everything feel stretched thin.
Cortana opened with a sigh that bordered on fond exasperation. "Jay, you are vibrating. That's usually my job."
Jay flexed his fingers. The Ruin Engine hummed under his skin, excited—or maybe anxious. "First big fight jitters," he muttered.
Lilith shot him a sideways grin. "Relax. Nine-Toes is gonna like… bandit training wheels. Ugly training wheels."
"EXTREMELY ugly!" Claptrap added, rolling up behind them. "Legend says he has—wait for it—NINE TOES."
Jay blinked. "Wow."
"Terrifying," Lilith deadpanned.
Claptrap continued proudly, "And he ALSO—get this—HAS THREE BALLS."
Lilith stopped walking. "Okay, that part actually is impressive."
Jay rubbed his eyes. "Cortana?"
"No comment," she said quickly.
The closer they got to the split in the rocky cliffs, the more the air seemed to shift. The wind carried the faint smell of burning rubber and gunpowder—the scent of a bandit den.
Jay held up his Echo. "The compass says we're headed right into Skag Gully."
Claptrap panicked instantly. "OH NO. NO NO NO. I AM NOT PROGRAMMED TO ENTER SKAG-HEAVY AREAS WITHOUT SEVEN APPROVAL FORMS AND A SPARE BUTT PLATE."
Lilith pushed him gently backward. "You stay here and… make noise somewhere else."
"I AM EXCELLENT AT THAT!"
Jay nodded. "And that's exactly why you're staying."
Claptrap saluted them dramatically—then tripped over a rock and faceplanted.
Lilith whispered, "How is he alive?"
"Refuses to die out of sheer spite," Cortana answered.
Jay and Lilith advanced into the canyon proper. The walls rose high and jagged on both sides, casting deep shadows over the cracked earth. Every few steps, a loose stone would clatter and echo unnervingly.
Lilith's posture shifted subtly, relaxed-but-ready. "Stay sharp. Bandits like to nest in this area."
"Noted," Jay replied.
The Ruin Engine hums a little—an instinctive warning. Something ahead.
Cortana's voice sharpened. "Heat signatures. Four. Maybe five."
"Bandits?" Lilith asked.
"Stupid ones," Cortana confirmed.
Jay smirked. "The best kind."
They rounded a bend and—predictably—gunfire erupted.
Bandits leapt from behind busted metal barricades, screaming battle cries that sounded like someone gargling sand.
Lilith reacted first, firing a well-placed burst that took one in the shoulder.
Jay blinked forward, appearing beside another bandit before the man even registered movement. Jay slammed a ruin-forged blade into the ground—it erupted in a burst of concussive energy, throwing the bandit backward into the rocks.
"Showoff!" Lilith called.
"Practicing!" Jay shot back.
A shotgun blast tore the air near Jay's ribs. The newly equipped shield flared, absorbing the impact.
He exhaled in relief. "Okay, shields are officially my new religion."
Cortana said, "Don't get used to it. They break quite fast."
Lilith vaulted over a barricade and pistol-whipped the last bandit unconscious.
Jay raised a brow. "Alive?"
She blew on the barrel of her repeater. "For now."
They paused at an outcrop overlooking the next stretch of canyon. It descended into a crude camp—shacks of scrap metal, a few burning barrels, and distant barking.
Jay crouched, rummaging through his pack. "Found it," he muttered, pulling out the half‑busted revolver he'd been nursing since Fyrestone. He set it beside a small pile of scavenged parts: a reinforced cylinder, a sturdier firing spring, and plating he'd hammered straight the night before.
Claptrap tilted his head. "Ooooh, weapons maintenance! Human bonding ritual detected!"
"Not a ritual," Jay said quietly, tightening the new cylinder. The action clicked smooth—cleaner than anything he'd felt from the gun before. "Just… something I finally have the materials to fix."
He began to fiddle with the revolver doing the easier tasks of replacing the obviously worn-down stuff like an awkward game of Lego with one of his few lifelines after the easy stuff was done he was a bit stumped as the rest he had no clue how to fix an obviously game like gun.
"Better?" Cortana asked.
"somewhat" jay replied "I have no clue what to do to fix the rest of the gun seeing as I never needed to fix repair and maintain a firearm in my day to day life"
"shall I guide you?" cortana responded "we have suspiciously good signal so looting the web isnt super hard"
"probably for the best I dont want to know if Jakobs left a little surprise for random idiots who tinker with his product after the torgue incident" jay joked
Using borderlands version of youtube named Echotube jay kept tweaking his revolver successfully removing the dreadful burst fire mod and swapping it to single fire only and still keeping the hair trigger that all Jakobs have.
and for the final touches replacing the frame with some sort of alloy using nickel chromium and cobalt which Cortana recommended seeing as corrosion is super common and I don't have any fancy Eridian stuff any time soon as no vaults are active on pandora yet so he re-absorbs the left over parts into the engines material storage
Jay stands up feeling his joints pop from what seems like hours of hunched over tinkering
Lilith stands up brushing dust off her pants. "Let's move."
The camp ahead stirred as they approached. Two skags burst from a hole in the ground—one juvenile, one adult with tougher hide.
Lilith aimed for the smaller one. "Take the big guy!"
Jay nodded and blinked into position. The larger skag lunged, mouth splitting grotesquely. Jay threw out a barrier, which the beast smashed into. The barrier cracked but held.
Cortana calculated calmly, "Structural integrity thirty-seven percent."
"Yeah, I felt that!" Jay grunted.
He countered with a ruin-charged palm strike to the skag's neck, sending a ripple of force that staggered the creature.
Lilith finished the smaller skag, then Phasewalked briefly—emerging behind the big skag in a burst of energy that softened it up.
Jay followed up with a blink-dash slash.
It collapsed.
Lilith exhaled. "Nice teamwork."
"Starting to get the rhythm," Jay replied.
Cortana teased, "Look at my little chaos goblin learning to fight."
"Cortana," Jay whispered, mortified.
Lilith grinned. "Chaos goblin, huh?"
Jay covered his face. "Please no."
As they progressed deeper, Cortana pinged something unusual.
"Jay… I'm detecting a cave system ahead."
Lilith stopped mid-step. "Wait. The cave?"
Jay nodded slowly. "Yeah. The one Nine-Toes uses."
Cortana added, "Lots of movement inside. Skags and… something else."
Jay frowned. "Something else?"
"I can't get a clear read."
Lilith tapped her pistol. "Doesn't matter. We handle whatever's in our way."
Jay admired her confidence—and hoped he could match it.
They reached a plateau overlooking the entrance to the cave—where Nine-Toes' domain truly began.
Lilith planted her hands on her hips. "Once we go in there, it's straight to him. No backing out."
Jay rolled his shoulders. "Wasn't planning on it."
Cortana added, "Your vitals are stable. Nervous, but steady."
"Am I not allowed to be nervous," Jay muttered.
Lilith smirked. "You'll be fine. You've got me, remember?"
Jay met her gaze. "…Yeah. I do."
A beat.
Lilith cleared her throat. "Okay, enough sappy. Let's go kill a guy named after a foot deformity."
Jay laughed. "Lead the way."
Together, they approached the cave. The wind howled behind them—the last warning they'd get.
Nine-Toes was waiting.
Interlude: Angel & Jack
A soft, crystalline chime pulsed through Angel's chamber as a new regional telemetry packet resolved on her displays—ambient movement markers, seismic readings, scattered Echo broadcasts. Nothing direct. Nothing personal. Cortana's interference field made sure of that—at least when it came to anything directly tied to Jay's gear or Echo signature.
Jack leaned over her shoulder anyway, pretending he could make sense of the abstract data jittering across the screens. "So he's finally almost at Nine-Toes, right? These spikes—those are him?"
"Probably," Angel said softly. "Cortana's blocking every passive trace I try. I can still track nearby environmental disruption, movements in the region, and chatter from bandit comms—but nothing that originates from Jay himself or anything he's carrying." Her fingers hovered over ghosted-out targeting lines—feeds she used to rely on, now nothing but static.
Jack snorted. "Ugh. That AI is such a pain. A fun pain, sure, but still a pain." He tapped the console uselessly. "Can't even get a visual? A heartbeat? Anything?"
"No direct vitals. No line-of-sight taps. No Echo bleed. She's shutting down everything before it reaches me." Angel folded her hands. "All I can do is infer where he isn't dead yet."
Jack grinned. "Well, that's something. He's close to the cave?"
Angel glanced at a seismic signature—two humanoid footsteps, one slightly lighter, one slightly hesitant, entering a rocky hollow.
"Yes," she said. "They've reached the entrance. That's all I can confirm."
Jack clapped once. "Perfect. Then we just sit back and wait to see if your little wildcard survives." His tone was bright—too bright.
Angel watched the hollow point on the map, the unknown darkness swallowing two tiny dots she couldn't follow.
She whispered, barely audible: "Please… just survive this."