"Alright guys, you ready?"

"Ready."

"Good to go."

"Can we just play already?"

"Alright, let's do this!" 

Four avatars materialized just outside the town of Oasis on Pandora. Four players, four friends, playing together in a group. Among them was Maya, the Siren; Axton, the Commando; Zer0, the Assassin, and Gaige, the Mechromancer. They had banded together to create a badass party to take down raiders and monsters for the best loot possible in the very first expanded content story of Borderlands 2, Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty. The group sat through the introductory cutscene and narration, Gaige's player in particular bored with it all. Goooood, when did they get to kill stuff?

"Is it over?" Gaige's player could hear through the headset. The voice belonged to his friend that had chosen to play Axton. The avatar of Axton stood unmoving, while the other three had already begun heading down toward their first mission.

"What's it look like, Jamie?" came the sarcasm of the player controlling Maya. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"It took too long, I got hungry. What, I just put a burrito in the microwave."

"Enemies inbound!" shouted the player of Gaige, perhaps a little more loud than was needed. He was correct though, for at that moment a group of raiders emerged and began firing wildly at the group of Vault Hunters. 

The team split up to take on this threat. Axton and Gaige each jumped behind the cover of a land-ship that had been grounded, while Axton tossed out his Sabre turret. Maya immediately put the biggest, baddest bandit into a phase lock so that they could mow down the smaller support units before focusing on the big boy. Zer0 vanished from sight, his holographic decoy appearing on the field of battle while the player snuck into the bandits' comfort zone and began stabbing them to death.

"DIIIIIIIE!" Gaige's player cried out, firing with his Maliwan lightning SMG into the crowd. Despite his aiming reticule perfectly targeting the enemies he wanted, none were hit. "Dammit, gotta reload, cover me!"

"Why do you use that shitty-ass Anarchy build with Gaige? I swear, I spend half my time covering you!" complained Axton, meleeing a bandit to death that had wandered just a little too closely.

"You could always branch your skill out, put some points into 'close enough' so that when you miss there's a chance they bounce and hit enemies anyway," suggested the Maya player.

"Psht, yeah, for 25% reduced damage," Gaige shot back, taking aim with the SMG and firing once again. "Besides, that's cheating. All or nothing, baby! BOOYAH! [i]THAT[/i] is why I use this 'shitty' anarchy build, Jamie!"

Even though Gaige's gun had not been aiming even remotely close to the phase-locked "badass bandit," a single bullet somehow found its way toward the powerful enemy. That one bullet had somehow been enough to completely decimate the bandit's shock-resistant shield, and straight up kill him. The entire team would normally have had to focus all their firepower on an enemy like that to take them down, maybe even resort to rocket launchers.

"Alright, alright, so you killed the badass bandit," Zer0's player began. "Don't act like your play style doesn't have proble-What's going on?"

The game began to glitch around them. The environment started clipping through itself over and over again. One by one each of the player's avatars fell through the floor, and though they shouted in the comfort of their own homes, Gaige's player never heard them as his headset filled up with a head-splitting static. Finally, Gaige too fell through the scenery, into a sea of ones and zeros.

...

[color=royalblue]"Ugh... What happened?"[/color] Gaige stood up, rubbing her head with her mechanical arm, an act not nearly as uncomfortable as it sounded. What was uncomfortable was the feeling of vertigo from standing up too quickly. Gaige stumbled for a moment, then found her balance, and took a look around. Where was she? She was in some kind of large, open field, that much she could tell. It appeared to be approaching evening, and all she could see around her were a few trees sparsely populating hte field here and there, and some kind of walled structure off in the distance.

[color=royalblue]"Let's see... Last I remember, I was with Maya, Axton, and Zer0, and we were looking for some pirate chick named Captain Scarlett. There was a fight against some bandits, and then... Could they have knocked me out?"[/color] She seemed to consider the possibility for a moment, crinkling her chin while resting her thumb against her cheek. Then suddenly she declared, [color=royalblue]"Naaaaaw!"[/color] With a shrug, Gaige figured that it was better to get a move on to the only place she could see than to sit there doing nothing. No point in hanging out after dark (even if she was a grown woman and able to do what she wanted at any hour of the day, suck it adult authority figures!).

So began Gaige's long hike toward the... Farm? Ranch? Whatever it was, hopefully they had a map or global ECHO positioning, because Gaige didn't recognize the landscape that was being displayed on her HUD. At the very least she expected that they'd have a tractor. Something to tinker with to deal with the nerves. Yeah, they'd _at least_ have that. Boy, it sure was getting dark quickly. Oh hey, the sun was down already? It was then that Gaige heard the howling of some beast off in the distance, and it gave her pause. Howling? There weren't any creatures on Pandora that [i]howled,[/i] were there? She must have imagined it. Must be homesick. Eden 6 had plenty of dogs, so she must have imagined it to give herself some more familiar emotions. 

Just then something grabbed Gaige's ankle from the ground. Eyes open wide, the young woman looked down, her Jakobs pistol digistructing in her right hand. It was a hand. A skeletal hand. Thankfully she needn't have shot the thing, as her Maliwan Fiery Spike Shield (TM) took care of it for her, bursting the thing into an explosion of flames. The bad news was that it wasn't alone. Skeletons began unearthing themselves all around her.

[color=royalblue]"Huh. That's new. Well then let me introduce you all to a little friend of mine. His name is EAT HIGH-VELOCITY COMBUSTION PROPELLED SHRAPNEL!"[/color] Opening fire on them with her Jakobs pistol, she found them quickly and easily dispatch, a single shot took them down without problem. Within the span of two seconds, six skeletons had been felled by her bullets. Gaige smiled, blowing the smoke from the barrel as she reloaded. [color=royalblue]"If it took more than one shot, you weren't using a Jakobs!"[/color]

Another six skeletons immediately sprawled up from the ground, converging on Gaige. Taking in a quick breath, the young woman dodged to the side to avoid being boxed in and began firing at them. Again, each one was easily destroyed in a single shot, only for another to rise and take its place, much closer to Gaige. She kept firing, pulling the trigger like a madwoman, killing skeleton after skeleton, all the while running toward the ranch. It didn't take too long before her aim began to suffer. 

[color=royalblue]"It's taking more than one shot! DAMN YOU CORPORATE MARKETING ASSHOLES!"[/color] Deciding it was better to cuther losses and run, Gaige booked it full sprint. She didn't even pay attention to how the creatures that couldn't keep pace just vanished, while new ones popped up in front of her. It wasn't worth the effort to pay that sort of attention. 

After running for several minutes, Gaige came to the entrance of the ranch and happened upon a... Most interesting sight. Someone was in the ground. Like, [i]stuck[/i] in the ground. Head first. Wow. Epic fail? Looking back at the oncoming undead, Gaige shrugged in that exasperated way that only she could, and muttered, [color=royalblue]"You owe me."[/color]

[color=royalblue]"Alright DT, you pull this guy out of the ground while I hold them off!"[/color] Gaige waved her mechanical hand in front of her, blue energy surged through the wiring, and... Nothing happened. [color=royalblue]"... What? Ser... Seriously? ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?!"[/color] Gaige rushed to yank the man up from the ground herself, but found the task most difficult. She pulled, she forced, but he seemed to be content in the ground. Meanwhile, a skeleton hand clawed at her backside, and had been combusted for its efforts. She saw a small portion of her shield's power deplete. It was less damage than she anticipated, but the idea of getting swarmed while focusing on Stucky McStuckerson here wasn't the most appetizing, y'know?

That's when Gaige had an idea. [color=royalblue]"Aha!"[/color] Doy Gaige! Why are you pulling on this guy with your real hand? You have a friggin' robot arm that's way stronger and so much cooler! So she switched arms up and grabbed the man, more forcefully than she needed too, and gave a mighty pull, plopping him right with significantly less effort than she had been using before.

[color=royalblue]"Hi-I'm-Gaige-no-time-to-talk-run-now-ok-let's-catch-up-sometime-bye!"[/color] With that the teenage girl darted off directly into the ranch, where the skeletons, curiously enough, refused to follow...