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Rebuild

Summary:

After Helios, Loaderbot finds Rhys in the wreckage of Handsome Jack's office. With some help, he'll put the pieces back together. This is a story of what comes next.

AU Where the gang reunites much earlier after the Fall of Helios.

Chapter 1: Chapter One

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

His body swayed as his one eye stared at the other in his hand.  With a shaking fist, he crushed the ECHO Eye in his fingers, letting the shards of cybernetics slip through the gaps.  Pain radiated through his skull and shoulder and he felt the blood seep into his shirt and vest.

Blackness swallowed the only vision he had left as his body pitched forward.  He hit the floor of the smoldering office, letting the darkness take him.

 


 

“Rhys.”  Darkness still surrounded him when he came to, pain shooting through his shoulder and head once more.  He let out a pitiful moan. Shards of glass bit into his cheek and the smell of burning filled his nose.

“Rhys, have you expired?”  

A disjointed robotic voice.  He opened his only eye, blinking in confusion at the bright red optic in his field of view and he tried to focus.  “Luh...Loaderbot?” He mumbled, voice rough and the words difficult to form through the pain, “Buddy, you’re alive?”  Rhys wasn’t sure if it was the burst of emotion or the unbearable pain he felt, but tears pricked at his eye.

He pushed himself up on his one arm and it shook violently.  Hands steadied him, but they felt unfamiliar. He looked at his friend again, eye widened as he looked the robot over.

Instead of the broken, battered body that Rhys remembered on Helios, there was the golden exoskeleton that Jack wanted shove violently into his body in the very office they were in.  He let out a strangled yelp, his throat hurt and it became much more difficult to breathe. His hand grabbed at the tie around his neck, threw it aside, and yanked at the collar of his shirt.

Loaderbot’s hands gripped him with desperate intensity. The metallic hands were doing to cause bruises later on, but Rhys didn’t think about that. His friend’s head was on that maniac’s ridiculous, horrifying metal body.

“Rhys, you are panicking. Try deep breathing protocols.”  

Rhys let out a strangled breath, and attempted to calm himself down.  After several minutes of staring into LB’s optic, pain knocked some sense into his addled brain.

“You need medical attention.  You have lost a lot of bodily fluids.”

He let out a shaky laugh, “Yeah...I noticed that.”  Laughing hurt. Talking hurt too. He put his hand on Loaderbot’s shoulder and attempted to get to his feet.  After several moments of attempting to gather his strength, Rhys flopped to the ground. He pressed a palm to his aching head and groaned.

“Shall I carry you?  Clearly, you cannot hold your own weight.”  His brown eye glared at the robot, but maybe LB was right.  He still felt tired and lightheaded. He’d probably die again if it wasn’t for the Loader.  Reluctantly, he nodded and waited for the Modified Loader to kneel to his level and he put his left arm around his neck.

LB lifted him in his arms, like a baby or damsel in distress.  If he wasn’t bleeding all over his friend and actually felt lucid, he would be horrified by this position.  When Loaderbot stood, the movement jostled his bleeding shoulder. He hissed.

“Sorry.”  The bot started moving forward to find a way out of the wreckage, but Rhys thought of something.  Something important.

“Wait.  LB, can you go over to that trophy case?  It’s important.” Jack’s trophy case was on its side, smashed into shards of wood, pieces of metal, and bits of glass.  It would be so easy. Loaderbot did what he was asked, and set Rhys down next to the case. Once he started digging through the splintered wood and glass, the robot behind him simply stared.

“I would recommend not staying long.  You are still injured and need medical attention.”

“I know, I know.  Give me...give me a second.”  He found it under the cowgirl hat and oversized gun.  The frame and glass was smashed to splinters as well, but that was fine.  He just needed what was on the inside. He pulled it out and shook the deed.

“Hey, LB?  What do you think about owning Atlas?”  The robot simply continued to stare at him, unimpressed.

“I think you need medical attention.”  At that, Rhys felt dizzy again and pressed his hand to his forehead.  As if he understood the man’s moment of weakness, the Loader came over to him and picked up the large shotgun, slung it over his shoulders, then picked up Rhys in his arms.  The man let out an oof of surprise.

“Okay.  Okay,” He mumbled as he awkwardly shoved the Atlas deed into the pocket of his vest.  He leaned his head against Loaderbot’s metal ribs and flinched at the pain, “We need to find Vaughn, LB.”

“Noted.”  With his one eye, Rhys looked at the warped metal and glass.  The fires around them didn’t seem to want to stop, the heat licking at the robot’s feet.  The loyal bot kept Rhys away from it, lifting him higher from the flames.

He really needed to make it up to Loaderbot for everything he did for him.  For Vaughn. For Fiona. For...Sasha. He really hoped he would survive this.  He thought of Sasha and her cute face and fiery personality.

He sighed.  He wanted to see her again.

A nagging voice at the back of his head whispered, They left without you, cupcake.   Rhys shook his head.  That voice shouldn’t be in there anymore.  He was sure of it.

The movement made his head ache even more, the dizziness flashed through his head for a mere moment.  Rhys rested his head against Loaderbot’s metal shoulder and let the cold metal seep into his throbbing skull.

The jerky rhythm of the bot walking out of the wreckage made him realize how exhausted he really was and he let the darkness take him again.  

 


 

When he came to consciousness again, the jerky rhythm he felt was considerably faster.  He was no longer in the arms of a robo-skeleton either. Rhys opened his eye and immediately squinted: the sun was up?

Looking around, he found he was in the flatbed of a Pandoran bandit technical.  Someone had bandaged his shoulder and head haphazardly so he wouldn’t bleed out.  Did Loaderbot steal a car? When did that happen?

He opened his mouth to say something when the technical came to abrupt stop, making him bounce roughly on his side.  He heard the snap and click of a shotgun being loaded. The brown eye widened. Oh shit.

Rhys scrambled up, his weakness made him fall back on his face, but he tried again.  Once up, he dragged himself to the front of the vehicle. Breathless, but determined.

“LB!” He choked out, mouth dry and throat sore.  He saw the robot pointing the gun that he pilfered from Jack’s case at someone on the ground.  Loaderbot didn’t even turn to him.

“You’re awake.”  Rhys nodded, glancing at the person at the ground.  They had a blanket over their head, bright Hyperion yellow with the logos all over it, but covered in soot and tears in some places.  He had one like that, back on Helios. He remembered there was a sale on them at one point.

Rhys shook his head slightly and looked over the person again.  Their hands were raised, a Hyperion pistol in one hand, so he could see what they were wearing underneath the ripped blanket.  

An orange button-down blouse.
A black pencil skirt.

The heels were missing from the pantyhosed feet and were replaced with heavy duty boots that were probably taken from the wreck or a dead bandit.

Rhys leaned against the side of the technical and placed his hand on the barrel of Loaderbot’s shotgun and pushed down.

LB let him and lowered the gun, the red optic turned toward Rhys.  He could only guess what was going through the robot’s circuits: confusion.

“...It’s a friend.  Stand down.”

“Rhys?  Oh, thank god!”  Rhys looked toward the figure, who lowered their hood.

There, in stolen boots and a makeshift Hyperion cloak, was Yvette.  A grin stretched across her face. Her glasses were cracked and a few scratches littered her face.  There was a bruise on her dark cheek, but she didn’t seem to mind. He smiled.

“Glad you could make it, Yvette.”  With a nod toward her, she bolted to the back of the technical and scrambled onto the flatbed with him.  He inched towards her and wrapped his arm around her neck in a weak hug.

Yvette never seemed to be the touchy-feely type, but she gently wrapped her arms around him in return.

“I was worried you weren’t going to make it,” She whispered in his ear.  He squeezed her a little harder.

He let out a weak laugh, “You should know I’m hardier than that.”  She chuckled in response and pulled back from him. She took in the bloodied bandages around his head and shoulder and gripped him on his good arm.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”  He sighed.

“When we find Vaughn...definitely.”

Notes:

This is my first legitimate fan-fic in like 10 years and first time writing for Tales from the Borderlands. The idea of this came to me about a month ago and hasn't left me alone since.

Leave Kudos or write comments, I don't mind.