You looked down at the blonde standing before the, now reclaimed, Fyrestone Bounty Board; The so-called "Tiny Tina" hadn't so much outgrown her namesake in the many years you had known her, but she had at least calmed down some from that of the untenable psychopaths of which she shared her fashion sense. Or so you had thought,

"-and that's beca-What? Are you still here? Get to work already, vamoose!"

Her gaze returned from where she had been rambling off into space to fix you with an annoyed expression, momentarily allowing herself to be irritated before her utility belt popping loose from around her waist distracted her once more. As she fiddled with the hopelessly irreparable leather garment, your eyes trailed over to the conspicuous pile beside her; the discarded clothing had been steadily accumulating over the past few weeks-the earliest occurrence being a solid month back, when Moxxi's bar had suddenly shut down for unknown reasons, later revealed to be caused by her mysterious disappearance.

The loss of a popular local entertainer had set the town in low spirits but was quickly moved past by the Pandoran people. However, when two veteran Vault Hunters similarly vanished, eyebrows started to be raised and a handful of search & rescue bounties found their way to the board. Life in the Borderlands is harsh, and most knew there was little chance of finding any of the missing persons alive-those who bothered to look were more interested in claiming whatever loot said persons might have abandoned anyway.

And that's why you could do little more than sigh after a hearty belch loosed from little Tina's lips, carelessly spewing saliva over both her chin and torn dress. You, along with a few others, had managed to track down the source of the missing persons-but the rule of the wastelands decreed that unless someone was paying out, there was little point in actually punishing anyone for even the murder of several high-profile 'celebrities'. Sure, it was odd that the diminutive tinkerer had acquired a taste for her fellow humans (not so much the cannibalism, that was unfortunately common on Pandora-more that she, specifically, had developed it), and even more so that she had managed to consume them whole and alive, no less. The sad truth is that the affair was considered by most to be a novel curiosity more than anything else, and not really worth anyone's time to pursue any further.

So long as she kept her appetite to a manageable level, she was free to go after anyone she felt she could take down. The only reason you were still standing there is because while you had been cashing in your haul from the most recent bounty, the other half of your two-man party had seen fit to wander over to the wrong quest-giver. Gaige hadn't the (mis)fortune of encountering Tina when Handsome Jack still ruled Pandora all those years ago, meaning she was unfamiliar with the blonde menace-and unprepared for Tina to cram her into her gullet in less time than it takes Marcus to sucker you out of your hard-earned cash.

"We, um... we kind of need Gaige back, Lil' T..."

It wasn't likely to get you anywhere, but you were sure Gaige appreciated the attempt-she probably would have liked it more if you actually saved her from being slowly digested, but to be honest you had known Tina a lot longer, and weren't keen to stick your arm down the throat of someone who regularly eats Vault Hunters for breakfast... It was much easier to accept Tina's Rambling Spiel that Gaige had already perished-you averted your eyes from the wriggling flesh-and just learn to live with accepting both shares from the previous bounty.


This is the external version (W/Text) of an image I got from Snifer (Snipemare):

https://www.deviantart.com/snifer25

No Text Version:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/596232535244144651/972696536188321822/tina_X-ray_.PNG

The image was something I had in mind for a while (Since I played B2 a very long time ago, actually), and I got the idea to work with the artist because of a similar image ILove got from them:

https://aryion.com/g4/view/696421

I think Snifer did a pretty good job of it, I tried to get the dialogue down in a way that felt semi-believable for the character (assuming how she might talk about having just eaten one of your party members, at any rate). I may redo/replace the story at some point in the future, or probably just continue it from either Tina or Gaige's perspective-since this is really just a short blurb to give context to the image, and doesn't really showcase the consumption or digestion much (I just didn't want to post the image by itself, really).

Please login to post a comment.