[Moxxi’s Up-and-Over Bar]

“Mox, I don’t get why you can’t change the music to something more suitable.” John complained from his seat at the large round poker table that most everyone had sat at in order to get things together, even a couple of veteran Vault Hunters who were already at the bar decided to join in when they heard the group was out to stop Zarpedon.

“Look sugar, Boomer and Rang have full creative license in here, I just let them stuff my dance floor and pay them a fair dollar. They say trying to change the mood in light of that big laser would be a seriously bad idea, and I agree, just deal with it.” Moxxi, the extremely buxom and shapely matron of Concordia’s best bar and dance club: the Up-and-Over, informed. She was surprisingly thin and short for an earth pony, seemed to barely have any muscle to her at all aside from what kept her appealing under her trashy outfit and her ruddy red fur, and barely breaking five feet at that, just pointing out all her voluptuous assets even more on her small frame.

“Okay fine, just get your filthy hand off my dad’s shoulder.” Angel growled at the smaller mare, who cheekily backed away with a sultry grin on her white-dyed face which just drew as much attention away from her bosom as possible, a business tactic maybe?

“Hey~ that fling I had with your dad had no hard feelings okay sugar? I just didn’t want to drag him and you into the mess that’s my crazy life.” Moxxi purred as she turned, quite blatantly smacking John’s face with her curled chocolate brown tail, getting him to roll his eyes at the age-old ‘come hither’ tactic.

“You tapped that bro? How’d she get away?” Jack commented with his hooves up on the table, leaning back in the chair with a cold wine cooler in his hand, the sheer difference between the crass younger brother and the upright and proper older one just made the scene surreal for everyone else.

“She broke up with me, said I was too ‘normal’ for her. Pfft, I knew she just didn’t want to get me hurt or something. Also Angel hates her, so I couldn’t really make the relationship work.” John informed as he took a swig of his martini.

Just then, Trixie came in, walking backwards and dragging a limp Wilhelm. “ARMS! LIKE! NOODLES!” Wilhelm screamed, desperately trying to move his limp and heavy body as Trixie grunted and tugged him along the floor to the large poker table.

“Before anyone asks, the idiot tried to break out of one of the doors the Meriff locked down in response to the threat. Shame she wised up and added an EMP field when Scavs tried to use hacked Claptraps to get into the city.” Trixie sighed as she plopped her plot into a free chair, pulling her long tail out the gap in the back. “And your robot’s stuck out there, he can’t get in with that door set to fry him.”

“But I can hear you over Echo!” Fragtrap called over Echo. “I can’t be there, but I’m with you in spirit!”

“Oh gods no, not a Claptrap….” The second griffon at the table, a former Atlas soldier by name of Roland, groaned into a talon. He was much larger than Athena, her body more suited to her speedy combat style, but he was a veritable tank despite his average height of 6 feet, built like an APC with his broad chest, wide shoulders, and strong body all contained in a piecemeal set of combat armor and fatigues, clearly taken and repainted/dyed from the standard Crimson Lance red to dull greens and browns, which would make mistaking him for a Dahl soldier easier were he not a griffon.

“Hey I know they can be annoying Roland, but remember when that Robot Revolution rose up out of nowhere? If we have one of those things on our side, I think we have a better chance.” The, shockingly, OTHER siren at the table, was named Lilith. She wore a small top and tight jeans in complete contrast to Angel’s business suit, and her deep red fur with fiery orange mane also added contrast were it not for her similar tribal blue tattoos running over her body as well, and her horn was similarly long and sharp as Angel and Luna’s, a sign of incredible magic potency.

“Hey! Guys! Remember me?! From Fyrestone!” Fragtrap called out, and then both Roland and Lilith facepalmed.

“You were saying?” Roland asked his marefriend in annoyance, and said marefriend shrugged sheepishly. “Anyway, what’s the plan? We were just going to chill out here, but when the moon’s threatening to be blown up, you don’t exactly rest on your laurels.” The griffon asked, looking around the table, and only pausing slightly at the sight of Athena, who would not stop staring at Roland, Springs who sat next to her was actively glaring for some reason.

John stood up to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, first of all, I’ll be organizing this in place of Luna, since she’s still out of it from mana exhaustion. There’s 12 of us here-.”

“D-don’t include me! I’m not a rip-roaring badarse like the lot of you! I can only help with info, supplies and whatnot.” Springs interjected, ceasing her glare at Roland with a worried wave of her hands. “I still need to properly finish setting up shop at that, and even then I might still need some resources before I can really be of any help.”

“Understandable, you’ll get those resources since we’ll have a team delegated to it. Here’s how it’s going to go down.

“I and my daughter Angel are going to remain in Concordia. We’re going to get to the bottom of the situation with the Meriff, she’s called out for an evacuation with a bit too much speed to be normal. Angel can also act as your coordinator.”

“I can oversee everything and help you out remotely faster than most AI could possibly hope to.” Angel informed seriously.

“We’ll be Team Business. Jack, Wilhelm, you two will head out to Crisis Scar to find the source of the jamming signal, and shut it down. You’re Team Badass.” John informed with a grin.

“Sweet, I call the Bad part of the name, Jack’s the Ass.” Wilhelm commented from his place on the floor.

“Bite me.” Jack joked as he downed his cooler.

“Aurelia, Nisha, you’ve both proven yourselves in being good at wiping out opposition, I need you two to focus on heading out and suppressing the local scavs, help keep them out of our way. You’re Team Bitch.” John informed, getting feral grins out of the deadly femmes.

“You know us well. Do I get to watch you eat some guy’s liver again Aura?” Nisha poked at the shapely dragoness who shrugged with a mirthful grin.

“Now for the biggest team, since they’ll have the most busy-work heaped on them, Team Supply. Trixie, Athena, and Fragtrap, you’re going to do whatever Springs needs you to in order to help out our supplies and available resources.” John informed, and Trixie beamed.

“Does that include acquiring Spice for the food? That is exactly what Wilhelm and Trixie were just about to do when the lockdown happened.” Trixie stated, and Moxxi’s ears perked from over at the bar.

“Hey sugar, did I hear you right? Bring me some Shuggurath glands and I can whip up some Spice real quick. The more the better.” Moxxi stated, queuing a new quest to pop up in all their UIs which was building from John’s directives already.

“That sounds great! With some go-getters I can maybe get my Grinder running again, but I’d prefer Jack’s help with that, considering he’s an engineer and all.” Springs commented, causing Jack’s UI in specific to light up and he nodded in agreement.

“A Grinder? Hell yeah! Jack, prioritize that as soon as you take care of the jamming signal. And lastly, for the veteran Vault Hunters. You two are Team Lovebirds. I need your help scouting out a potential resource to make a robot army to counter the Legion. Tassiter’s given me his support, but our current software doesn’t facilitate combat. As further proof, Fragtrap was a personal project of mine and that was a headache and a half.” John informed, and the two nodded.

“Got it, find a factory maybe. Dahl was known for streamlining the process for their combat suits, maybe if we can find someplace like that?” Roland asked Angel, the three of them; being Angel, Lil and him, having had a very sudden talk about how they didn’t hold her manipulation of them in opening their first Vault against her, especially since they benefitted from it anyway. That said, they still knew she was the best information source available, and she quickly pulled up her Echo screen, humming.

“There is such a place, it’s out past the flats though, near the methane sea. You’ll have a hard time getting there with the train down, but I could see about fixing that.” Angel informed and everyone got up, Jack kicking a spot on Wilhelm’s chest which made him jerk, and he bolted to his paw/hoof just fine.

“WHY DID THAT HURT?!” Wilhelm yelled.

“I put in that short-out override remember? Sends a jolt through your whole body to jump-start any halted systems?” Jack reminded before turning to John. “Okay, bro, you figure out that bureaucrat bitch’s game and we’ll send the bullets flying.” Jack moved a bit closer, seeming hesitant before John huffed and hugged his brother, who hugged back.

“Get used to it bro, because I’m going to hug you whenever I can.” John teased, making Jack sheepishly smile.

“Wow, sibling embarrassment. Always wondered what it was like.” Jack joked as the group all moved to leave, Team Business heading for the front door, while the others followed Moxxi to the slot machines.

“Now don’t tell anyone how to get through here. Keep it to yourselves or direct people to me first, or you’ll wake up in a shallow grave.” Moxxi stipulated as she pushed up, rather than down on a one-armed-bandit machine, and it hit straight 7s before popping out the reward tray to reveal a remote Echo switch, and shen pressed, the curtains to the area closed before the back wall opened up into a workshop of sorts with a Hyperion Loader dissected on the worktable. “This is my personal shop, don’t touch anything, just pass on through.” Moxxi directed, a bit of a hick accent tinging her tone with a deathly glare accompanying it, and the group of 8 all hustled through, especially Roland and Lilith, who knew how dangerous she could be.

[Triton Flats]

Upon stepping out of Concordia’s atmo, the group was given a view of the lowlands off the cliff the exit let out onto. It was a new sight, especially considering Concordia as a whole more-or-less ‘faced’ the other way, spaceport and all. Only for it to be ruined by the sight of Helios firing another laser blast straight into Elpis off in the distance, sending a shockwave out that thankfully the cliff weakened before it hit them up top, and they could see the laser actually fracturing the outer crust of the moon.

“That’s bad...really bad. That thing just broke the first five meters of the moon in two blasts, enough to trigger a quake of that magnitude? I’d say she only needs to get off about...fifty or so more shots to cause Elpis to break apart.” Jack theorized hurriedly.

“Your estimate is rather accurate Uncle Jack, but with my exact knowledge of the Eye of Helios’s power, and the data taken from both test shots and projected data, I’d say Zarpedon would need about 77 more direct shots in the same place with consistency to break Elpis. And with the massive firing latency of the Eye, that’d take about...two days.” Angel informed, and everyone quickly ran around the outside of this part of Concordia, to find Fragtrap waiting by the Zoomie pads.

“Which means not a lot of time! Everyone grab a Zoomie!” Fragtrap shouted since he heard everything over Echo, and moved to the console before digistructing green and purple Rocket Zoomies, since the laser cannons on the normal ones were practically useless in comparison. Thank you Torgue. “Get in! My group has the least time-sensitive priority, so you guys go first.” Fragtrap motioned to the buggies and Jack and Wilhelm claimed the green one, while Aurelia and Nisha grabbed the purple one, and they took off out onto the Triton Flats with speed, going separate ways as their UI’s dictated their destinations as different.

“So Jack...you have a big brother now.” Wilhelm commented from his place on the turret. “Thats, uh, that’s certainly… a thing. How’s it feel?”

“Really weird! I’ve been an orphan my whole life, and suddenly I have family? It kinda throws off my plans to get out of debt, get rich, and laze about the rest of my life. Cause bro’s already rich. What does that mean? I don’t want a free ride, I wanted to earn it...but I don’t want to turn away help either….” Jack mused as he expertly maneuvered the buggie over a ridge and began dodging Energized Shuggurath lasers as Wilhelm took them down with the buggy turret’s target-seeking pod rockets.

“... I meant for actual you. Ryan you, not Jack.” Wilhelm said. “You know about my family. Never got along with them, really. Hell, seems like Wilhelm’s memory says the same about him. Resentment. Heh, always wanted to be a robot. Always.”

“Well I...I don’t know, okay?! You know my family too, I had a huge family, extended even, and I knew almost everyone. 7 aunts and uncles on ONE side of the family, three on the other, both have deep family histories going back to Italy and Scotland respectively, and I don’t even remember how many cousins, nieces, and nephews I had by the time I was 15. Jack was always alone, and...and I felt so devastated when I realized that in the shower earlier. He always had his eyes on a goal, not me. I had nothing I had want for. I was happy! Jack, he...he had nothing...now here I am, in his place, taking what’s his! What part of this is in any way right James?!” Jack cried as he slowed the Zoomie down outside a gate, crying into his arms as he leaned against the steering wheel. “What right do I have? Taking this from him? Where is Jack? I can’t bear the thought that I’m stealing his life from him….”

“Listen, buddy. We’ll get through this, okay? I’m feeling the same way about Wilhelm right now, just less about how I was in the past. Seems like Wilhelm had it better than me.” Wilhelm said. “Though, I’m not letting it get the better of me. I told you about how I was raised, how it was essentially beaten into me to not cry, not to let my emotions get the better of me, even if anger always makes it out. Just, buck up, buddy. I’m in the same boat as you.”

“Did you check your flanks?” Jack’s sudden wet-voiced question caught Wilhelm by surprise. “Did you check your flanks James?”

“Um, no… Dude, I’m not gonna check out my own ass.”

“Just fucking do it!” Jack roared, standing up and dropping his jeans. Thankfully he had boxers on but Wilhelm gawked at the blank yellow thighs he saw. “Do you get it?! What this means?!”

“Um… Kind of?” Wilhelm said. “I don’t know why, but I know something’s missing. Wilhelm’s memory tells me he met Jack, and Jack had a picture on his ass… I just can’t remember what. Something tells me I had one too, something about being a late bloomer…”

Jack growled as he pulled his jeans back up. “So you don’t remember either! I know something was there, my Cutie Mark. It’s a symbol representing-!”

“Yeah, yeah. Permanent magical tattoo on our ass depicting ‘our destiny’ which is bullshit.” Wilhelm interrupted. “I remember what it is, just not what mine is or how I got it. And another thing, I’m good at a TON of things, why does this one image depict what I’m ‘the best’ at when I’m plenty good at everything?! Hell, I’m betting it was for killing, something everyone knows I’m good at. Why would that be my ‘destiny’ and not cooking? You’ve had my food! And let’s not forget my robots!”

“Dude, your mark was really weird, I can’t remember what it was either, but I know it was something to do with cooking and robots.” Jack commented, scratching his mane as he got out of the driver’s seat, and Wilhelm jumped out of the turret seat.

“... Well then.” Wilhelm said, now rendered speechless. “Maybe we have to find ourselves again? I mean, ‘us’ us. What were we good at as humans?” Wilhelm asked as they approached the atmo of the gate.

“Wil, I have no clue. All I had a talent for as a human was reading comprehension, writing, storytelling, comedy, and playing videogames. I was never truly ‘inspired’ by any of it, it all just comes to me. The only one thing I ever wished to be was an actor, at least a voice actor, but I never got into a university so any chances of me even being mildly successful was nil.” Jack groused as they entered the atmo and groaned at the sight that greeted them.

“Halt! Nobody is allowed past this-!” Wilhelm shot the ramshackle and horribly modded Claptrap unit that was supposedly guarding the gate, when both of them could tell there weren’t any controls on this side at a glance.

“Ya know, it’s these things that make me hate the Claptrap units as a whole. To think, Fragtrap has as much potential as he does, then these things come our way. Just pisses me off.”

“I hope bro has a really good reason for the Claptrap line being such shit.” Jack rubbed his face. “Even a VI would recognize this side of the gate is inaccessible. How can any AI be such shit?”

“Because I didn’t make them.” John called over Echo, reminding the two that they could be being watched by John and Angel at any time, and they hoped their moment back there wasn’t seen. “No, Lawerence De Quidt, one of the cornerstones of Hyperion’s early days, founded the Artificial Intelligence branch of the company, and the CL4P-TP line was one of his first creations, so you can blame him, but don’t be too harsh, guy tried until the day he died to fix the issues, but yeah. Anyway, if you can’t get in that way...Angel?”

“Hold on dad, diffusing a standoff between Athena and Trixie.”

“Oh shit, that’s right, Athena hates Trixie because she’s a traitor or something and they were partnered up….” Wilhelm remembered with genuine concern. Both of them were hot, and he liked them for varied reasons.

“Don’t worry, I uh...resolved the issue. Just...wow...uh...I’m going to have that recorded for later….” Angel commented with a vivid blush over her face. “A-anyway, yes, that way is only available as an exit right now since it’s locked on the other side. The console does access the real gate guard’s communications though, maybe you can find a way in that way through a bit of guile.”

“Um… If I ask them first, can I get a copy of that?” Wilhelm asked in an uncharacteristically timid fashion.

“Maybe...wow….” Angel comment again as she was clearly multitasking in her window, and her horn sparked.

“Angel? What did I say about watching porn as you work?” John said in a gentle chastising tone.

“To not to? But dad just...LOOK!” Angle and John’s call cards showed them both sharing a card now, and John gaped as his horn sparked.

“Uh...can you...keep a copy for me sweetie?” John asked nervously.

“That’s my girl, John! Hands off!” Wilhelm shouted angrily, and Jack looked at his friend in confusion.

“But you didn’t even go on a real date yet! The laser interrupted it. Whatever, I know you get attached quickly. I’m up.” Jack cracked his knuckles as Wilhelm grumbled while John and Angel hung up, and Jack pressed a few buttons on the console. “Hey, guard guy? Your robot’s kinda...dead.”

A random scav’s helmet popped up on the Echo. “Really? Yes! RedBelly liked him for some reason so we couldn’t just offline him without getting in trouble. Who is this?”

“Some guys wanting to join your crew.” Wilhelm commented, knowing his gruff persona would add a bit of weight. This isn’t the first time they did something like this. It was, like, maybe the twelfth?

“Oh? Well I’d let you on in, but RedBelly has a requirement. You have to kill three of a rival crew’s best fighters and bring proof, it’s fine if they got Medivac access, just knowing you put them down is enough. Let’s see...how about the Darksiders?” The scav seemed to ask someone else.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Another scav could be heard a little away from the receiver. “They’re disputing winning that tork-dog contest, fuck-em.”

“Okay, the Darksiders then. Their toughest scavs carry around some fancy light-bending prisms or something, bring us three and I’ll tell you how to get into Crisis Scar. They’ve made The Grabba their home, go kill some goons and come back when you’re done.” The scav hung up, and the two groaned. They hated making detours.

“Lets just go.” Jack sighed as he and Wilhelm got into their Zoomie and easily made it back through the small canyon since Wilhelm killed most of the Shuggurath that had popped out of their holes on the way to the locked gate, and crossed a bridge that had a huge prism on it, which cast multi-colored light on the bridge as they passed under it. Their Echo read that the huge stationary crane platform to the right was ‘The Grabba’, and so they drove right on into its garage and got their guns ready.

“Let’s kill some bitches. Take our minds off our own problems for a bit.” Wilhelm stated before they activated the Grabba’s Fast Travel, and started walking into the main structure, gunfire started almost immediately.

Author's Notes:

Canonically, the next chapter is our crossover with Thunderclap's The Reluctant Gunman specifically two chapters, starting with Ponylands: The Pre-Crossover Pt.1

So yes, officially Displaced, but still beyond confused