hadriel | 04 | video, based on a true ooc story tbh

[As much as Lilith's got a distaste for Fear, she loves any excuse to put on a stellar performance. She's got a palm, shimmering with purple phase energy, facing up just barely in sight at the edge of the feed, to set the mood: the wicked grin on her face is cast in shadow.]

Okay, okay, I got one. Picture this. [Lilith clears her throat, and puts her best DM voice on:]

You're on Pandora-- you and your teammates are the only people you've seen for miles and miles on the barren, dry wastes. Except for the Psychos who tried to chew your leg off. Soooo... the only sane people, I guess.

You're starving. You're tired. Two of you are almost bled out, held up by painkillers and the most minor of healing injections, numbing all the nerves in your body that're telling you to turn back and to stop chasing this next kill. But, hell, if you've come this far, you're not going to stop, are you?

And. [Dramatic pause.] At last, you find it. The Mothrakk. It's the mother of all the Rakks you've ever seen on Pandora: a span of torn-up skin wings bigger than you ever thought possible, scabbed-up flesh over its terrifying bony frame! How the hell is it flying, you ask? You don't have time to contemplate that shit, it's spitting fireballs at you, raining hellfire down from the fucking skies!

Whoops. [She's knocked the camera over while gesticulating mid-story. (You do have time to contemplate, apparently.) Lilith clears her throat and resets the camera before picking the tale right back up again.]

Over an hour of fierce battle, third degree burns, burnt-out rocket launchers, and exploded rover turrets later, the beast is dead. You've all won. The horrible creature comes down like a meteor, and it shakes the earth where it falls... a mile away.

[Lilith's phase energy blinks out.]

You walk all the way there, and it's only dropped a white-level gun.

[Is she gonna go th-- yep. She is.] A Tediore.

Dun-duh-duuuuuuun.

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-- yeah, but hold up.

[ oh god. axton actually looks kind of affronted here. ]

Tediore guns are awesome.

I want my weapon to be incendiary 'cause it's supposed to be, not 'cause it's a piece of crap that backfired and burned my hand off.

[SHOTS FIRED]

Lilith.

They explode.

They are literally exploding guns. What is there not to love about that.

You know what else explode?

Grenades, Axton. Grenades that are supposed to explode, not just 'cause they're, you know. Low quality firearms.

[ hold up here. he's doing some mental arithmetic. ]

I thought Tediore guns exploded on purpose.

...Are you telling me that Tediore accepted that their guns were so shitty, they actually kept them like that and improved on the burnout to weaponize them?

I can't even be mad. That's genius.

Oh my god. Did they not always do that? I pretty much was stuck using nothing but Dahl until my ass hit Pandora.

They didn't! [chuckling, now, she continues,] Okay, when we get back home, I'm introducing you to Maliwan.

[It's... weird, to think of being back home. She's gotten so comfortable in Hadriel-- too comfortable, in fact-- that it's been a while since she's thought about it.]

You, uh, think anyone else from our neck of the galaxy will show up? We're a dying breed, it looks like. Figuratively.

[She sure hopes figuratively.]

Nah, I've got a couple Maliwan pieces at home. Just a liiittle too flashy for me, but, y'know. If you need to melt a face, they get the job done.

[ and then axton will fail a subterfuge roll here and actually cringe a little at lilith's comment about them being a 'dying breed.'

he laughs nervously. to make up for it. of course. ]

Yeah, uh. Who knows. Definitely figuratively.