A/N: This is the start of the Hammerlock's Hunt story! This is also where Zer0 is introduced! I hope some people are excited for that. Also, do you want to me to include the Hammerlock side missions in this one? Let me know. Hope you enjoy.
"I'm here," I told Hammerlock dully.
"Ah, you made it old chum! I've set up a camp of some sorts nearby. Come and find me, would you?" Hammerlock asked.
"No problem," I said just as dully before jumping down. As I felt my knees buckle only slightly from the fall, I was greeted with a surprisingly fresh wave of air for a type of swampy area. I closed my eyes and let the air hit my face to try and help calm my nerves. It didn't work.
Before the memories from the night before hit my mind again, I continued towards the camp that Hammerlock marked for me on my map. The area was actually pretty nice considering it was a type of swampy area. The sunset just over hill was a really nice sight along with the terrain itself. My boots sunk slightly into the ground at times with the muddy, soft patches of ground that were under me. Even though the landscape was nice to look at, I needed to kill something to take the edge off.
At one point of me moving towards the camp, I noticed that there was a big creature with long legs that I had definitely never seen before. And my eyes were immediately set on killing it. I was hoping it would put up somewhat of a fight. Killing a creature that doesn't try to kill you back is incredibly dull, and there's no satisfaction in kills like that.
When I neared it, it turned towards me and launched an acid ball at me, which I had to dive quickly to the side to dodge before drawing my Emperor and aiming at it. A noticeable feature on the creature were some type of pus balls on the bottom of its torso, or the closest thing to a torso. It was exactly where I was going to start shooting at.
It started to bend and raise its legs erratically as if it was pissed off before moving to the side while shooting off acid balls at a faster rate. I started moving to the side to avoid getting hit by the dangerous projectiles and threw my Emperor up in the air before summoning an incendiary Phasebomb and tossing it directly in the middle of the area where the pus balls on its body. I had to throw it ahead of it to adjust for it not wanting to stand still. The explosion was enough to destroy three of the pus balls, which made it bend its legs a considerable amount in pain.
Collecting my Emperor from the fall that I threw it up in, I starting shooting at the pus balls again, my face dead serious as I was ADSing. It didn't take long for the last pus ball to burst, but it was still alive and they were all destroyed. That was excellent. Time to rethink my strategy.
I Phasewalked toward the creature and hit one of its legs with a Phaseblast before moving to the next legs swiftly and using my blade to cut the legs off. Once all of its legs were cut off, it was lowered down to a useless little creature. There was nothing was nothing else do but walk over to it, stick my blade directly in the center of its back and cut it from down the middle before slicing up and down. Then I dragged one part of its body to the side, and it was cut completely in half. Its insides looked something akin to dark green vegetable soup.
"Fucking disgusting," I said, making my sword disappear and continued towards the camp that Hammerlock marked. I easily saw the lodge that was above us and wondered were we about to take over that lodge as a base of operations. If we were, it looked comfortable enough. Definitely looked big enough to carry trophies of the creatures.
"I'm nearby," Hammerlock said as I was nearing a wide metal door. "Come find me, and we'll fight out way to the lodge together. Then it'll be nothing but a carefree weekend of hunting, companionship, and bawdy jokes about social taboos."
"Just what I need," I said idly.
I walked in between two pried open gates and saw Hammerlock was sitting on a rock next to a campfire. By the looks of things, it didn't look like that he was here long.
"Hammerlock!" I said as I waved at him. He looked up and gave me a wide smile as I approached him.
"What ho, Robert!" Hammerlock said, hopping off the crate he was sitting on. "Welcome to Aegrus!"
"Slightly disgusting, but it's beautiful in its own little way," I said, gesturing all around me.
"Yes, it doesn't have its own sort of appeal that makes it wonderful to look at. The lodge is just up this path. Stick close, and we should arrive with no trouble," Hammerlock said. I nodded as I followed him out of the cave. As I followed him, I noticed he had a beautiful looking sniper on his back.
"Ooh. That's quite the sniper on your back," I said. gesturing at it.
"Yes, quite. This is my Elephant Gun. Slow rate of fire, big recoil, and no scope all make up the negatives, but if you can master holding it in your hand, it is quite a formidable weapon," Hammerlock said.
"I can tell," I said, not helping myself from looking at the gun more. (For the record, I know the Elephant Gun is poop. But in this story, I'm going to make it the way it should've been in the game. Not the way it is)
As we reached the end of the steps, we reached the lodge that Hammerlock was talking about. At that point, I jogged past him to get to the lodge quicker, but someone let out a loud chant in an unknown language that sounded very much nearby.
Because it was nearby. Before I knew it, some people that looked like natives to this land were teleporting up to the lodge. And they did not look friendly. Nothing ever is on this planet.
As three Warriors charged up to me, I drew my Poly-Kryten blade and my Striker shotgun before jumping at the nearest Savage. His shield blocked my sword attack, but as he raised his arm for a swing, I shot him in the side with my shotgun. The recoil on this shotgun was surprisingly smaller than I expected, and my shot was pretty spot on, blowing a large chunk out of its side.
When the Savage fell to its knees from the pain, I raised the shotgun and blasted it in the head before having to duck a blow from one of its partners.
When it came around for another swing, I made my shotgun disappear before grabbing the hand that had the weapon and I swung on at its shield on purpose so we were at a stalemate. When his teammate came around was when I revealed my real intention.
His fellow Savage attempted to swing at me, but, while still gripping the Savage's arm, jumped over his body while quickly switching the hands that I held my sword with and arm that I had restrained the second Savage's arm with so that I could stab the Savage in the back before pushing his corpse on the final Savage and Hammerlock used that opportunity to blast him in the head with his sniper while he was down.
Then I heard the chants of two more Savages that teleported behind me before summoning my Lyuda to my hand and blasting the first one with an accurate shot. Then Hammerlock blasted the second one that spawned with an accurate shot of his own. The Elephant Gun shot went through his head like it was butter with the amount of speed it maintained after going through his head.
With another chant in a different type of voice, I looked in the lodge to see that a fiery enemy with a tiki mask on was jumping up and down with a staff in its hand. It was resembling a witch doctor.
Not wanting to take any chances with an enemy like this, I Phaselocked it to try and keep in immobile while I shot it. I got three Lyuda shots to its mask that only cracked it before it fell out of Phaselock. My eyes widened at the sight of this. This thing was able to resist my Siren powers. What are those things to be able to that?
I didn't have the time to find out as more Warriors began spawning up here. Teleporting into the lodge and behind the Witch Doctor, I surrounded my entire body with electricity before picking it up and slamming it on the ground. Even with the electricity, the fire it was made of still kept eating at my shield, so I quickly took the opportunity to use my blade and decapitate it while I had it on the ground. I had to take that stupid thing out.
Turning back to the Warriors that were now aware that i was behind them, I Phasewalked directly in the center of them before letting out a large fire nova that quickly began to eat at their flesh.
Then I could hear more teleporting up here, and by the sound of things, these ones had guns.
Two of them walked up from the outside of the lodge and I swapped to my Emperor before burst firing the first Savage in the head cause he did not have a shield, and he went down easily. The second one, who was armed with a Dahl SMG, began firing at me and got a few shots on my shield before I rolled in his direction. When he was adjusting his aim so that he could hit me, I grabbed his gun arm and twisted it hard enough for it to break with a loud crunch before quickly replacing my Emperor with my Maggie and blasting him in the face. With a final shot from Hammerlock's gun, and a groan I could hear from inside the lodge, he killed the rifleman in there.
"I see you in my swamp, little moths. I know why you're here. You want what's in my ship... You want my power..." a mysterious voice said over the ECHO. I frowned. I knew instantly that he was the reason why we got attacked in the first place.
"Um, pardon. We came here to hunt. Afraid we've never heard of you before," Hammerlock said in a bewildered voice as he was advancing in the lodge.
"What? Really?" the man asked, the tone of his voice changing instantly. "Professor Nakayama? 'Hyperion's Scrooge?' I poisoned Atlas' CEO?"
"Oh, that's nice. Good for... good for you," Hammerlock said, his tone one of polite, but not serious praising.
"Wha- People are terrified of me! How do you not know what - You guys are assholes," the man said. I rolled my eyes as I turned to Hammerlock.
"We can use this lodge as a base of operations for our hunting expeditions. I'll let you do the honors. Press that switch, and let there be light!" Hammerlock said, gesturing to the open door. I walked out of the door he mentioned and saw that there was a switch on the side there. I flipped it, and the lodge came to life with power. I walked back in and looked at the place with a type of satisfaction. It looked nice.
"Within the bowels of this continent lie dozens of creatures for us to track down. If I can repair that Catch-a-Boat over there, we shall sail into the heart of relative dimness and begin our hunt! Tally ho!" Hammerlock exclaimed.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to look around for a moment," I told him.
"That is very much fine. I shall wait for you outside," Hammerlock said.
I walked over to the vendors and looked to see if there was anything relatively interesting that caught my eye. There wasn't. I just refilled my ammo and looked around the lodge. It definitely had a homey, quaint look to it. And by the way it looked, it was so Hammerlock. The storyteller chair, the books. It was definitely a place he'd live in.
I was ready to walk out, but before I walked out, I noticed a pair of pink eyes staring at me. I looked at the door curiously and knocked.
"Hello?" I asked.
"A Vault Hunter, huh? Do you own Seraph Crystals?" the voice asked, his voice sounding snakelike.
"Seraph Crystals?" I asked.
"My only currency for my wares," the man said.
"Your only currency? No Eridium or cash? Then can I at least see what you have?" I asked.
"I accept only Seraph Crystals. You must defeat a Seraph Guardian before you are worthy enough to look at my wares," the man said, closing the visor. I frowned before following Hammerlock out of the door. Just what did a Seraph Guardian look like? Man, those wares better be worth it.
"Thank you for joining me on this expedition, by the by. One can get rather lonely on treks such as these, and with my right hand being made of metal, I am incapable of amusing myself in the way most other males would!" Hammerlock said, laughing while I made a slightly disgusted face. "Some ribald humor for you there. Positively ribald."
"Yeah, no kidding," I said as I followed him further down the path. We made it closer to the 'Catch-a-Boat' station as he called it, and it looked exactly like a Catch-a-Ride. I suppose it just spawned a boat instead of a car.
"There's the Catch-a-Boat station where you can summon a dinghy! I shall after to repair it after I take a moment to laugh at the amusing cadence of the word 'dinghy,' Hammerlock said before letting out a few laughs.
"Finished?" I asked.
"Quite. Anyhow, now that that's over with, please watch my back. Once I've repaired the station, you can summon a dinghy, travel deeper in the swamp, and start hunting some real game!" Hammerlock exclaimed, making me break out into a grin the first time since I've been here.
"That sounds delightful," I said as Hammerlock ran up to the machine.
"I fear thing are about to get hairy!" he said as he lowered down to the machine.
"You were not wrong about that," I said as I saw boats approaching from the left.
"They've got boats!" Hammerlock exclaimed as I drew my Hornet and started shooting at the first boat. "Where in damnation did they get boats?!"
"Maybe there are more these things," I said as I blew the first boat up with a few burst fire shots with my Hornet. But then there was a second one right behind it. Since it was powered by a fan, there was nothing I could shoot that would make it blow up instantly. A pity.
After the second boat came around and I managed to destroy that, Savages started spawning across the water. I swapped to my Lyuda.
"Whoever that nobody was, he certainly wants us dead," I said as I shot the Witch Doctor with half of my mag to take it down. And they were all headshots too. Just what was that mask made of? Some type of mystical wood? Not even petrified wood could take that many Lyuda shots. I've done the damage testing with this thing. These rounds are high caliber.
With a quick idea, I sparked my hand with electricity before sticking it in the pool that the Savages were wading across the get to me. With enough focus and power, I traveled the electricity all the way to the edge of the pool and electrocuted them enough to cause them to do a type of shake from the electricity traveling in their body before falling over.
"Yes!" I exclaimed as I took my hand out of the water and fist pumped with it. Then with a few more idle shots up to the vantage point that I was being shot at from, they were all dead.
"No challenge at all," I said with a smirk on my face.
"Something's wrong here Robert. Who was that overly dramatic so-and-so that sicced those Savages on us?" Hammerlock asked. My smirk disappeared and it turned into a serious one as I turned to face Hammerlock.
"I don't know, but I already know I'm not going to like the answer. You figure we ought to go after him?" I asked.
"Soon. I'll do some digging around this place. In the meanwhile, I've finished repairing this machine. Grab a dinghy and get going!" Hammerlock exclaimed. I nodded before moving to the machine. The creatures of this planet would soon know that I am the Apex Predator.
A/N: I'd say I started this chapter off fairly well. Balance of action while remaining accurate to the story. In this story, the Seraphs Guardians do not come back to life, so Seraph weapons will be a lot cheaper one or two Seraph Crystals per item. Maybe three. Anyway, until next time.