Borderlands: Unnatural selection

Two days. It took two days for Angel to use her powers to corrupt every sensor in her chamber. Not because it was particularly hard exactly but because she had to be sneaky about it as Jack regularly checked her chamber these days after I had my verbal spar with him. I felt it fucking hilarious that he was concerned about me coming to kidnap his daughter or kill her and the truth was his daughter came to me for help escaping him. Personally I was practically drooling over the idea of claiming a copy of her siren trait.-

Phase shift was a frankly broken power in a universe like this full of technology. Even better was that many of the things that the Eridians made required the power to construct so having it myself would let me boost my corporation even further. While I was waiting for Angel to finish up her part I took the time to carefully dismantle the war bot from the vault. The thing itself wasn't different all that much from other pieces of Eridian tech as far as construction went but the thing I wanted especially was it's code.-

This wasn't an engram turned digital but an honest to gods code based intelligence and that meant it alone held a masterclass of Eridian coding language in it's datastores. I partitioned blocks of this code and then spread it out across different screens so I could look over it all and I admit it was a work of art. The code flowed from one part to the next sequentially and at a directed manner not dissimilar to how the neurons in a normal brain fired. Just observing the way the code flowed increased my understanding of it by leaps until I was finally able to say that I had fully mastered it or at the very least was close to that point.-

Thanks to this it wasn't hard to see the way the bot thought and I had to shake my head at it. There was nothing wrong with the A.I. That apathy and lack of cherishing life? That was learned behavior. The thing was made to be a weapon and weapons don't value lives, that was the philosophy it's creators gave it. The problem was that if it wasn't to value any lives then that ALSO included it's creators lives. -

I watched it's "memories" of what happened and had to scoff at the Eridians for their shortsightedness, at least in this case. Yes the bot had perfect recollection of it's creators so I finally got to see what a living one looked like. They were incredibly tall at easily seven or eight feet on average. Their bodies were roughly humanoid in shape with two arms and legs with a single head but that was it. Those limbs and their necks were long and the necks were almost snakelike in how they moved.-

Additionally each of their hands only had three fingers and a thumb. With pale purplish white skin and violet colored eyes the things were unusual to say the least. From the bots memories I saw it was molded into that perfect weapon with tactical training and long hours of practice with various weapons against simulated monsters. A few of which I recognized since I myself had killed them. At the end of it all the bot was let free to hunt these things down only to immediately start killing literally everything. The creators thought it malfunctioning and went to retrieve it only to likewise be cut down. -

It was then summarily captured and sealed in the vault I found it in once confirmed to be a thinking being. It was arrogance, plain and simple that caused this bot to turn out this way.

'I suppose not that different from the splinter group that made the sirens either.' I thought amused.

Still with the bots "flaws" identified and it's code thoroughly understood I began the tedious process of backspacing it's memories(after making a back up of course) so I could sort of factory reset it. So long as the bot was properly taught right from wrong and the value of life this time it shouldn't be a problem anymore.-

I didn't get far before Angel contacted me again.

"I'm done on my end. If my father doesn't drop by for a surprise inspection we should have a few days before anything gets noticed." she said nervously.

"Alrighty then, guess it's my time to put out. Give me a few minutes to get to Pandora. Crossing interstellar distances does not make an energy efficient habit with my powers." I said before tossing out my house and heading for the teleporter room.

I punched in Pandora and left the portal now in Sanctuary before putting away the house again. With a flex of energy I vanished from that location and mere moments later appeared in the large metal chamber.

"Normally I'd bow and introduce myself since this IS the first time we are technically meeting but I believe it best if we hurry this up." I said with a chuckle as I looked the girl floating before me over carefully.

She had sun deprived pale snow white skin, half her head shaved and with tech nodes poking out of her the other half with shoulder length black hair. Behind her two snow white wings fully extended with glowing pixel like energy bleeding off the feather tips. -

I held out my hand to her "First things first we need to trait you up or this will get a lot harder than it needs to be." I said seriously.

"I'm ready." she said softly reaching out and grabbing my hand.

I shunted a copy of [Agelessness] into her through the contact and she shuddered as her very life literally changed for the better. For a creature that aged the trait would definitely be felt as the sort of full body pain that came with aging just halts entirely.-

I tossed out my house and sighed "Now for the part that's really gonna suck." I said once she recovered.

She floated along with me to the portal and taking a deep breath to steel herself entered the portal. This also cut off every signal and energy flow going to or from her entirely, including the Eridium flow. She almost immediately screamed in agony as her powers started ravaging her lifeforce but I caught her before she could fall and started siphoning lifeforce to her.-

"Easy there, i've got you. I know it hurts but we need to move to the teleporter room." I said seriously and she grit her teeth but took a few wobbly steps with my support.

https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro

_______________________________________________

Alexander Drake

Lifeforce: 2,729,920,129,647

Integrated Traits: [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Supreme vitality-Legendary grade],[Lesser dragon breath-Epic grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade]X2, [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Rare grade],[Active camouflage-Legendary grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Biometallic bones-Legendary grade], [Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade]X3, [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade], [Embodiment of destruction(partial)-Mythical grade], [Demi-god body-Mythical grade], [Martial savant-Legendary grade], [Tinkering instinct-Rare grade], [Phase-god(Incomplete)-Mythical grade], [Impenetrable hide-Legendary grade]

Stored traits: [Agelessness-Legendary grade]X5, [Elemental lifeform-Epic grade], [Elemental embodiment(Fire)-Legendary grade], [Elemental embodiment(Cryo)-Legendary grade]