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Borderlands -Varkid Variation-

Written by Leo_Todrius Commissioned by Cidius

Of the many places on Pandora, few regions were quite as active as the Tundra Express. Automated and manned Hyperion trains criss-crossed the region before heading out to destinations planet wide. It was once even the final destination before the trains took doomed vault hunters to the southern shelf to die. With the defeat of Handsome Jack, though, the company was in free fall. Stock prices were dropping and many of the trains now moved along the rails with empty cargo holds, serving only to mark the passage of time.

The perfectly even vibration moved up through the steel girders of the Varkid Ranch Observatory, tiny pebbles rattling around the cement coated roof as the trains rushed by in the distance before heading out across the landscape. It was all perfectly normal to Doctor William Adolphus, though it continued to beg the question about his research subjects. Did they like the vibrations?

The doctor lifted his cup of water to his lips and sipped. He was in his late forties with black hair parted on the left, cascading across his forehead and falling over the tips of his ears. He had rectangular glasses that were scratched and marred from his time on Pandora, though his pocketed field shirt and canvas pants indicated that he had hailed from some other planet with a touch more class.

The doctor set his water down and lifted an odd device back up. It had the scope of a sniper riffle but instead of a gun muzzle it had a camera lens beneath. The doctor lifted his device and peered down at the Varkid Ranch below, studying the insectoid creatures scurrying about. He had been invited by Doctor Samuels and her wife to come to Pandora to study the wildlife, but by the time he had raised the money to come to Pandora, he'd lost all contact with his colleague.

The only thing left to do was to study the wild life on his own and the Varkid Ranch seemed like a perfect place to start. William found the creatures truly fascinating. The larval varkid had tough exoskeletons and mouth pincers, usually four legs and small wings that could maintain flight for a short amount of time. Adult males had six legs and were usually four times larger at a bare minimum. Their wings and deadly tail were fully formed at that stage, as well as their venom sacks full of acid. William had learned that detail the hard way, owing to some burns on his arm.

While the general makeup of the varkid species was remarkable on its own, there was one fact that made them noteworthy among all the planetary systems William had ever been to - they didn't age, they mutated. William had nearly dismissed the stories at first, but observations proved the fact conclusively. When threatened, injured or at self appointed intervals, the creatures burrowed part way into the ground and formed a leathery gelatinous pod. Inside the protection of the pod, they mutated to larger and more developed versions. Larva became adults, adults became... something more.

William had also heard stories about other wildlife officianados working with the varkids, experimenting with their pods to produce variations in the wild life population. He had been surprised with the cavalier attitude to manipulate the species one was studying, but they seemed so prolific that he could sort of understand why. William hypothesized that their number was due to the fact that their nests were not nests but massive burrowed females, similar to Rakk hives. It was likely easy to replenish the population that way, though the locals had taken some steps against such a thing.

The observer peered down at the massive pyro-jets set up around the Varkid Ranch, ready to ignite swarms if they got too large. The network of fuel running under the rocky hill tops was enough to worry anyone, but it seemed to keep everything in check. It was a complex world but one that William loved... But observation from a distance could only do so much. Tomorrow the true studies would begin. Tomorrow he would try to interact directly and see what result came out of it. ****

[DAY 01]

The door to the observatory opened with a heavy groan as William moved in, carefully cradling a squirming red fleshy sack in his hands. He moved over to deposit it on one of the work tables in the building beneath a warming lamp as screeches and hisses sounded from outside. It seemed the mild mannered scientist had met with a few scrapes outside the facility. Blood trickled from gashes on his arm and his sand colored button up shirt was now missing a sleeve, torn off as the acid started to eat through it, but William had accomplished his mission all the same.

With the sack prepping under the lights, William withdrew a rectangular device and placed it onto the table. The upper half was dominated with a black and amber screen with a firm handle looped just above the screen while the lower half was devoted to a number of buttons and dials, as well as the Dahl emblem in the lower right corner. Will set the recording volume of the echo unit up a bit before he pressed record and leaned back.

"Day one; varkid research observatory. Braving life and limb, I ventured out to one of the hives today. In an effort to learn if varkid can be tamed, I procured a small pre-larval sack. The male drones guarding the female's abdomen were quite displeased by the act but I managed to succeed never the less. I had never before used a gun so frequently, though I made an effort to just scare the varkid back rather than kill them. Perhaps my terrible aim assisted more in that than my intention." William said with a slight smirk before he leaned back.

After a moment of contemplation, Will reached for his first aid kit. He pulled out a small injector filled with a pink serum and jammed it into his arm. The tube soon emptied its contents into his blood stream to assist with the healing process and to replace blood he had lost. He winced for a moment before he set it down and proceeded to start applying bandages.

"I will make an effort to tame the larval varkid that hatches, to study variations and behavior. William Adolphus, end log one." William said before he reached off and turned off the recording.

[Day 03]

Will's fingers trembled with excitement as he turned the echo recorder back on, his attention returning to the larval sack that had spontaneously started to grow, stretching from the size of a fist to two feet long, then three. William was excited, though his black and white checkered Torgue pistol remained at the ready in case he had to defend himself.

"It seems that, just like their growth, their maturation is a mutation. The sack I retrieved from the mound is growing quite quickly now, reaching the size I approximated as a larval-" Will stopped, falling silent as a yellow exo-skeleton plated leg punched through the sack, sending a mist of pod juices across Will. Will coughed and sputtered, trying to wipe it off but only managing to spread it. Soon dark brown pincers punctured the red membrane as well, starting to chew. The varkid inside cut and sliced and ate at its pod before the remnants fell away.

The insect shook its body around a bit to clear the rest of the bits of pod as it took in its surroundings with its six beady yellow eyes, blinking them independently. It turned and faced Will before it lifted its abdomen and fluttered its wings, letting out a chittering noise. Will hesitated before he tried to repeat the sound, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

The varkid paused and examined Will further, smelling varkid on him though it was still instinctively hesitant. Will reached down and pulled out Atlas canned skag meat and opened it quickly before he removed the top and turned it upside down over the table. The contents had been compressed into the can and began to slide out slowly, making a blub sound as it came loose and plopped down onto the table, the dark brown meat retaining the can shape and ridges. The varkid sniffed the air before it lunged forward, devouring the skag meat with its pincers, glancing up at William every so often before it went back to eating.

"It worked... at least so far. The larva seems to trust me. It's eating the skag meat I kept in stock until Atlas went bankrupt. This might work, it might actually work." Will whispered with glee.

[Day 23]

Will stood on a chair, hanging up strings of Xmas lights between screws on the prefabricated walls. The lights flickered a bit before they stayed on steadily and Will got down, moving over to the table. He grimaced a bit at all the blood that coated the surface of it, but he sat down in his chair and pressed the record button on the echo once more.

"Day twenty three... I still can't get over what I had to do yesterday." Will said softly, taking a few deep breaths. He nearly jumped as there was a chittering near by and the larval varkid nudged his leg. Will lifted his hands and the varkid jumped up before lying down in his lap, its wings fluttering before it closed all six eyes. Will looked back to the recorder, "I should have known it wouldn't last forever, the skag meat that is. The company was out of business for years, I had a finite supply... I ran out and Vance, my varkid, well... he was hungry."

Will paused again, looking at the table and then out through the metal slat windows at the bandit house beyond overlooking an elevator garage. He could still hear the insults, the slurs, the uneducated berating they had slung his way... and he could still feel the heat of the weapon in his hand as he fired it.

"Another bandit group tried to move into that dead Bandit's old place... I can't believe we had the same first name. Anyhow, I was just going to let them do it, but they played their music so loud and they were so crass and then they started attacking the varkids. I asked them to stop and they wouldn't do it and then I just... It was surprisingly easy to kill them and then I had all this meat, and poor Vance was so hungry... So I fed him." Will said gently, his hand stroking the varkid in his lap. He looked down for a moment before he looked back at the recorder, "And I don't regret it... This discovery, this variation in varkid behavior is worth more than convict slime that Dahl left dumped on this rock. Vance and I are like family." Will said, smiling gently before he turned off the recorder.

The scientist leaned back gently and closed his eyes, letting Vance rest in his lap. Will started to drift off before long, his chest rising and falling regularly, but Vance's six eyes opened as there was a gurgle in his stomach. The bug fluttered his wings a bit and tried to go back to sleep, but his stomach gurgled even more. He slowly stood up on his four legs before he let out a chittering noise of discomfort. Will woke up at once.

"What is it?" Will asked. Vance squirmed and shook a bit before he rolled over onto his back, his tail curled up against Will's stomach. Will worried he had fed Vance something tainted, but when the varkid opened his mouth, the answer became clear. A thick fountain of molasses brown liquid shot up into the air above Will's head before it fanned out in every direction, congealing into a translucent red material. Will tried to spring up from his chair but the leathery walls of the forming pod came down around his head and shoulders too quick, sealing to the chair and then the floor. The liquid was all encompassing, forming a heavy root around the legs of the chair and the floor. Will looked around in a panic before looking at his poor Vance.

The larval varkid was continuing to produce incredible volumes of liquid, but the brown had lightened significantly to a greenish amber color... and the liquid was filling the pod. Will felt the hot, sticky, tingling liquid fill his boots, soak through his pants and creep ever upward. Panic rushed through his heart, but not only for himself. Sure he would likely suffocate or be eaten by a mutating varkid that he loved with all his heart, but Vance hadn't lived in the wild. He didn't know how to hunt, how to kill for food. Will suddenly felt guilty that he hadn't done more to help his pet before he died.

Will decided not to get up from the chair, not to try and slice his way out. He knew from the research that breaking a varkid pod during the mutation killed them and no matter what happened to him, hopefully it would be enough for Vance to learn from so he could survive better. Will decided to face his fate with dignity and merel pet Vance's sides as the fluid continued upward, spilling across Will's lap, submerging Vance and continuing to fill the over sized pod.

Will could barely see, but just enough light was getting through the red pod to make out shapes, vague approximations. Will felt the varkid bile climb up to his shoulders and then neck. He took in as much of the remaining air into his lungs as he could before the liquid filled up the rest of the way, soaking the doctors face and hair. Will kept his eyes and lips clenched tight, but his mind continued to turn, realizing something amazing. He would be the first one to witness the metamorphosis process in person, even if he died.

The liquid wasn't entirely unpleasant. It bubbled like a carbonated beverage, most likely the trapped air dissolved into the liquid. It was warm and thick like syrup, but tingling at the same time... and while it felt quite nice on his skin, Will could feel it having a caustic effect on everything else. His clothing felt like crumbling wax paper, the fabric dissolving and splitting apart. Even the chair he was on started to dissolve, wobbling before it splintered... but Will didn't sink, he floated in the liquid, holding Vance in his arms.

While William analyzed the entire situation, Vance had given into instincts. The larval varkid was basting in his mutational serum, soaking it all in inside and out. The varkid began to stretch, his exoskeleton stretched and splintered as his body grew longer, but the liquid rushed into the cracks and filled them in, turning him from his larval yellow color to a darker green associated with an adult.

As Vance underwent the change, his hind legs began to split in two, separating and pushing apart from one another. New joints formed to connect the extra legs, connecting to the thick plating beneath his wings... wings that were growing longer and wider, thicker and stronger, able to support immense weights without problem. Even Vance's face was changing, his pincers shifting from horizontal to vertical, reminiscent of the ancient world's beetle.

Will could barely see in the liquid and dared only to open his eyes on occasion, but he could certainly feel the shift. The three foot long creature on his lap was growing at an insane rate, stretching to four feet, then five, then six feet long. The pod bulged and stretched around them, the two now equals in size. Vance's body was still changing and refining, but as Will felt his muscles start to spasm, he wondered if it was his end as well.

William shifted, feeling like he was starting to suffocate. His arms and legs twitched and tensed. At first he thought the liquid was digesting him or acting as a nerve toxin, but then he felt it... his biceps swelled larger, his triceps grew and his legs thickened. Even his pectorals firmed and his abdomen hardened. Will realized for the first time that the liquid was changing him. The shock caused him to open his mouth inadvertently, allowing the liquid to flood in.

The human squirmed and struggled in the liquid as it engulfed him, but it had already started his change. Will could feel his skin stiffen, turning rubbery and then leathery before hardening into plates. It coated his stomach and chest like muscle shaped armor, covering his arms and legs next. His fingernails stretched out into points and the skin fused to them, forming claws with no visible seam. The glasses on his head grew loose as his ears began to shrink away, letting the glass and metal sink to the bottom of the pod before long.

Will clenched his eyes shut as they burned and tingled and throbbed, the sensation spreading out from one to six. Soon six yellow eyes in a V shape on his face opened up, seeing more clearly than ever before. He could see Vance's muscles, his body, his shape even through the liquid... and then Will felt his mouth changing. His lips pried apart as two thick black pincers pushed out, serrated on the inside and as hard as bone on the outside.

The changes continued to rack the scientist's body as his hair sloughed off, revealing a ridged skull with a trail of interlocking V scales running down the crest of his head. Will even felt his legs pushed forward as his ass started to extend, the armored flesh growing out to form a tail. The flesh honed down to a spiked tip, quivering as new muscles and organs filled it in. Will's mind was struggling to cope, to understand, barely processing... but as his shoulders rippled and the exoskeleton split, new appendages spread out like grass hopper legs, unfolding and stretching.

As the appendages moved, translucent pearl colored membrane stretched out around them. The veins pulsed with red blood before they hardened, allowing the wings to finish forming. They were long, extending from Will's shoulder blades down past his knees. Will wriggled his clawed toes and fingers, flicked his tail and blinked his six eyes, his pincers moving in the liquid... and then it all came to a sudden end.

The pod ruptured, the excess fluid gushing out and flooding the floor, the outer shell practically exploding around them. Vance dropped down onto the floor, scrambling around on his six new legs in an effort to learn how to use them, but he soon stopped and turned, looking back at his master, his friend, looking at how William had changed. The now adult varkid let out a screech of delight at what he saw.

Two muscled chittinous legs stood on either side of the broken pod root, rising up to a thick abdomen and thorax. William's soft, doughy exterior had been refined into a crisp and chiseled god. His armor glistened green in the light like Vance's and his head was barely human at all. The new creature strode over to the table, looking down at the glass screen of the echo recorder, seeing his reflection. He reached up to caress his face, his armored green insect face. He admired himself for a long moment before a claw pressed the record button on the echo.

"I... have evolved." He whispered, his voice deeper and more silky, "Vance began his metamorphosis in my lap, I was trapped in the pod... and we mutated together. The experience was beautiful, spiritual, intense... and I am better than I ever have been before, but this made me realize one thing. It is time to teach Vance to hunt, to feed, to do what varkids should do... and I will be right there with him, to help him." Vance whispered before he turned the echo off.

Vance lifted his head and let out a chittering noise. Will was surprised that he could feel Vance in his head, seeming to ask if he was alright. William grinned slowly and responded with a series of chirps that he was perfectly fine and that it was time to hunt. Vance all but danced around on his six legs before he lunged at the door, breaking it off of its hinges as he scrambled outside to the Tundra. Will followed after with a wide grin at the life they were going to share. ****

Screams and shouts echoed from the Tundra Express mine, followed soon after by the sound of rampant gun fire. Marauders screamed as they were hurtled through the air, landing in carts of unprocessed eridium. The miners had been killed, the rats had been killed, but a few nomads held on thanks to their armor and stamina.

"You're worse than a midget! I'm gonna make a coat out of you!" One nomad screamed, ducking around the corner. He watched the large green varkid tearing into one of his allies and lifted his bandit sniper riffle, peering through the beer bottle scope to line everything up, his finger moving to depress on the trigger. Just as he was about to fire, something landed in front of him.

The bandit looked up at the insect man William had become, his eyes widening. William's wings fluttered before he moved to stab the Nomad through the chest with his claws. The nomad grunted and fell onto his back before firing, the bullet cracking through William's exoskeleton. Will grunted at that and finished his killing move, stabbing the Nomad.

"At least I won't have to deal with... you monsters... anymore." Nomad murmured before he went limp. Will pulled his claws out and stumbled back, putting his hand over his wound. He looked around, realizing the camp had gone silent. They would have plenty of food to eat for many days. He moved back toward Vance, seeing his friend gorge on the food. It was a brilliant sight, although Vance looked up and sniffed the air. He smelled the blood and ran over, nudging at William before looking up at him.

"It's alright, it's... not too bad." Will lied. Vance fluttered his wings in disagreement before he rammed into Will. Will grunted, falling onto his ass. Vance climbed up onto his friend before rolling over. William realized what was going on just before Vance shot out his bile to form another pod. It was a varkid's defense against life threatening injury... and Vance only knew how to mutate if Will was there with him.

Once more the pod surrounded them and began to fill up, but this time William knew what to expect. He embraced the flood of liquid, the tingling, the warmth. He rubbed against Vance and held him, nuzzling his friend... and much to his surprise, he started to grow aroused. Two of his scales parted as his manhood began to emerge, coated in brownish green slime.

William's shaft had mutated once, turning from pink to green, slightly curved and tapering to a point... but it was changing again. It stretched longer, thicker, bulging and changing color. The rubbery flesh darkened from green to a deep black as the armor across the rest of his body began to swell and split. His biceps and triceps grew again, his legs thickened and the armor plates on his head began to stand up like spikes sloping toward the back of his skull.

As the former human continued to mutate, the green armor covering his body began to blanch out, turning red and gray instead of green. His knees and elbows thickened, his claws grew longer and his tail stretched in every direction, sharpening into countless blade like edges. Will's mouth was forced wider again as well as two vertical pincers pushed out, his face stretching into an insect like beak as the four pincers clattered together.

Will's cheek bones pushed out into sharp edges as well, but the most surprising change of all came from his arms. As they continued to grow wider and thicker around the outer edges, the center began to compress and crack, collapsing in on itself. The arms split apart, two limbs becoming four. The seam ran down his upper arms to his forearms, splitting his hands apart. As they split, new clawed fingers grew out from them.

The scientist writhed and basked in the changes, but his favorite change came from his stomach where his wound spontaneously healed, the hole sealing shut again. He had been saved from death from his friend, his partner... his mutating, changing partner. Will felt guilty he had been so self absorbed in his change and tried to figure out how far along Vance was. To his surprise, it seemed Vance had other things on his mind as well.

Four pincers slid along Will's mutated varkid cock, tracing them before the varkid opened as wide as he could go. The blades slid up along Will's stomach and down between his legs, the other two closing around his lap like a vice. The varkid began to suck and slurp on the cock, bobbing his head forward and back even as he grew and changed, mutating in the midst of the sexual act.

Vance's body grew longer and wider, the green exoskeleton practically melting away as his inner flesh hardened and swelled, forming a much thicker, sharper and wider red and gray plating. Vance's tail grew out like a barbed arrow head, two thick nodules full of acid forming on both sides of his tail. He stretched from six feet long to nine and then twelve, his wings thickening until they were almost opaque again. His legs grew taller and thicker and his own member emerged from its protective sheath, pulsing and pumping more fluid into their pod... a pod that was too full already.

The red leathery pod exploded outward, showering the mine with varkid juices but William and Vance stood right where they were, as red as blood and twice as hot. They had mutated into badasses, resistant to fire, to bullets, to death. William lifted his mutated head skyward and let out a mating call that echoed across the tundra as Vance pleasured him.

A clawed hand came down and held the varkid's head as he began to thrust forward and back, feeling the tongue in Vance's mouth. Will couldn't believe how strong and powerful and primal and male he felt. When he thought back to his old life it made him sick. He had been weak, pathetic, fragile and childish. He had focused on books and learning instead of living. He had been a waste of flesh, but that self hatred started to temper as he realized if he had lived any other sort of life, he wouldn't be where he was... Even if he had been some bad ass marauder of vault hunter, he still wouldn't be a varkid variation like he was. He would have been human... and humans were pathetic.

The self loathing faded away, replaced by the feeling of superiority over all humans. Will knew that humans were limited and weak, but with Vance at his side there was nothing he couldn't accomplish. He knew he and Vance could continue to mutate, to evolve, to change and become more. They could become invincible... the baddest badasses that Pandora had ever seen. As that thought matured in Will's mind, he let out one more mating call and then shot his juices down the gullet of his friend and mate.

Vance gulped at the thick yellow varkid cum, savoring it and letting it fill his stomach before he pulled off William's cock and let out a mating call of his own, ramming into the former scientist to knock him down. Will grunted as he landed on his tail and back, but he grinned as the enormous twelve foot insect curled up on his lap and laid down just as he had when he was a larva.

William reached out to pet Vance, feeling how sharp and lovely his exoskeleton was. He had seen so many life cycles of his friend but there was always more to learn, more to see, more humans to eat... William smiled at that thought and closed his eyes, although in the distance he heard a train horn... and then he felt the vibration building. Will's back slowly arched as the vibration moved through him like a deep tissue massage, getting to every part of him. He shook like jello in his armor plating.

"So THAT'S why varkid like living here..." Will murmured softly, his voice harder to understand with four pincers, though he was grinning wide. It was a great feeling, but then again all of it was. It was so good that Will didn't want to keep it to himself. He started to think about making one more echo recording about how wonderful his life was now before scattering them across the tundra for some vault hunter to find, learning about him and his life before joining them.

Will hugged Vance tighter, dreaming of the varkid variant hive they could build and the bliss that would bring to the pathetic human race. Pandora was a tough world for the weak, but it was a haven for those that could embrace the strong... and thrive. All it would take was a little mutation, a little evolution and a brand new mind set. Will let out a long, enduring hum of pleasure as he held Vance in his arms, completely content.