Chapter Ten: When in Doubt…
"Finally, everything is all fixed and EMP-proofed," Gaige announced, smiling happily as she flicked her arm and deployed Deathtrap. She had Deathtrap run through his various programs, making sure everything was okay, thankful that she was able to repair and EMP-proof all of her team's electronics.
She smiled as she looked upon Deathtrap firing off his laser and scorching a target into flames, thinking of how excited she was when she first had deployed Deathtrap. It was shortly after finding out Marci had stolen her idea, but her anger at Marci's blatant copying was overshadowed by Deathtrap's first reveal.
Over the years, she and Deathtrap, despite Deathtrap being an automated robot, had formed a tightknit relationship. She knew that he could count on Deathtrap to zap Rakks out of the sky and slash through hordes of midget psychos, and she would always repair and update Deathtrap. But in a way, it was kind of depressing to Gaige, as she knew that on Pandora, she didn't have that many friends.
Sure, the Vault Hunters (both the old and new guard) respected her, but she didn't really click with any of them like Krieg and Maya had. Axton was probably the closest to her, seeing her as a surrogate daughter and fellow wielder of mechanized death, but the others were odd for Gaige. For instance, she couldn't stand for Zero's 'mysterious ninja ways' (as Jack had described the masked man once), and Salvador literally scared the living shit out of Gaige; seriously, who was comfortable with having a self-admitted cannibal sleeping near them, and preparing most of their food?!
As for other people, well, she got along well with Sir Hammerlock (she even had a crush on the gentleman before learning he was gay), Scooter (again, building and tinkering away with robots seemed to garner her some form of friendship), Claptrap (when he wasn't being an annoying douche), and Tannis. She liked hanging out with Tannis, as Tannis always seemed to have something to say, or a quest to do. That and she remembered the night before she and the other Vault hunters took on Hero's Pass, when she and Tannis…
Gaige shook her head, getting her mind out of the past and onto the present. After dealing with the Super Badass Constructor, GREN had been debriefed by Ironwood, who was annoyed that most of the inner workings of the Constructor had been melted to slag and therefore unable to be taken apart by Atlas's scientist. He however thanked them for dealing with the Constructor and got them back to Beacon, where they had been given two day's leave from classes to make any repairs they needed.
As such, Gaige had spent most of the time repairing everything fried by the 's EMP function, as well as shielding everything from an EMP blast. Hopefully at least. Gaige incorporated the feature in the team's shield, but should the shield fall, the EMP shield would also fall, leaving any electronics exposed to the EMP blast.
"That's good," Erica replied from her bed. Gaige looked over at the black knight, who was wearing her pink pajamas again, flipping through a book about 2- handed sword fighting stances. "So, no more worrying about all my data getting fried and lost due to your emp blast?" Gaige sighed.
"It's E-M-P, not emp, god that sounds so wrong," Gaige stated authoritative. Erica tilted her head away from her book to look at Gaige.
"No, it's emp, the letters spell emp, therefore, emp," Erica argued. Gaige turned to her partner Robert, who was playing away on his scroll some naval action game.
"Robert, tell Erica I am right!" Gaige demanded. Robert raised an eyebrow, before sighing heavily in discomfort.
"Does it really, really matter?" Robert asked.
"YES!" shouted both Erica and Gaige, glaring at the team's heavy ordnance expert. Robert raised his hands in defeat, his face paling at the angered looks on his female compatriots' face. If there was a lesson that his father taught him, it was to fear an angry woman.
~Flashback to when Robert was a wee-young lad~
"Dad, sis kicked me in my balls!" bawled out a young Robert, his hands clutching at his family jewels. His father, Vincent Moran, look down at him from the table he was sitting at, setting down the newspaper. Vincent Moran was known for three things; first was that he was the CEO of the Moran Naval Yard, second was that he was extremely tall and on the heavy side (not fat, just heavy), and third, when he got frustrated, he adopted a lilt to his voice.
"What did ya do to piss ya sister right off?" Robert's father asked, immediately going on the attack. Robert shook his head.
"Nothing dad!" Robert insisted. "I just walked into her room to ask for her help with my homework, but then she starts screaming and yelling before kicking me in the balls!"
Vincent Moran, not too sure if to believe his son, went to check on Robert's sister, Regina Moran. Robert only waited a few moments before his father returned, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Damn son, it wasn't your fault your sister detonated on ya," his father said. "Turns out some right tosser decided to cheat on ya sister with some harlot, and that he dumped her via a text message. Fucking prick and a half."
"Son, I'm going to give you a very important life lesson right now, so pay attention, okay?" his father stated, with Robert quickly nodding. "Now, whatever you do, never, ever, piss off a woman. If a woman's angry and she directs it at you, you defuse it the best you can. Agree with her, bribe her with what she wants; whatever it takes to survive her wrath, you do it. Because if you don't, the next thing you say or do, however innocent, could mean the difference between having a lovely day to having hell come up and spend the day with you."
~Flash back ends~
"Umm, look, they both work, technically," Robert began, fumbling on his words, hoping not to receive the ire of either woman. Gaige's robotical arm would hurt like hell to get hit by, yet Erica was trained to fight with a sword and wear heavy armor, so she would definitely be packing a mean punch.
He was thankfully saved when there was a knock on their dorm room door. Gaige and Erica lost their focus on what they were arguing about, allowing the tall engineer to let out a held up breath. Gaige opened the door, surprised to see team RWBY at the door.
"Um, what's up?" Gaige asked quietly. Apparently, this earned the ire of Weiss Schnee, who spoke up before anyone could get another word in.
"What's up, where the hell have your team been for the last two days?!" Gaige wasn't amused by that response; not at all.
"Well princesses-"
"It's Weiss Schnee!" the white hair girl interrupted. Gaige rolled her eyes.
"-Shut up, I don't care. As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, my team was called in to do a mission due to my past experiences with the suspected culprit that took out first responders from the VPD," Gaige explained. "We went in, dealt with the threat, which was as the Headmaster and his 'friend' (Gaige decided not to say that it was Ironwood that called in their help, goodness knows what kind of panic that might make) thought, and we were given two days rest to make repairs to our equipment."
"Oh," Ruby Rose said quietly. "So that's why you weren't here. So did you get the person behind whatever it was you were called in?" Gaige shook her head.
"Sadly, no; the arrogant asshole sent one of his bullshit 'care-packages' to do his dirty work," Gaige replied. "Say, since today is thankfully a weekend, want to hang out?"
Before that 'darling' little princess got to get a word in, Ruby nodded like an excited child on Christmas morning.
"Yes! By the way, can I see Deathtrap? I want to see it so badly!" Gaige saw a busty blonde behind Ruby rub her head awkwardly.
"Sorry about my sis," the blonde said to Gaige. "See is a bit of a weapon nut. I don't think we've been introduced formally; name's Yang, Yang Xiao Long."
"Nice to meet you Yang, and it's no problem," Gaige replied, effortlessly deploying Deathtrap, distracting and leading Ruby into GREN's dorm. "Almost all of my friends were in one way or another weapon nuts."
Gaige step aside, allowing Yang, 'princess' Schnee, and a black hair girl, who politely introduced herself as Blake Belladonna, inside the dorm. Robert, freed from being harassed by Erica and Gaige over the whole EMP/emp debacle, was watching Ruby while reading a book about various military warships used by the four kingdoms, whilst Erica had decided now was a good time to polish her black armor.
"Nice suit of armor," Yang complimented Erica. "Where and why do you wear that armor; most people prefer to use their aura to block incoming attacks." Gaige was partially interested in this as well.
"Well, besides protecting my flame retardant suit underneath it, I don't use my aura to block attacks. Rather I use most of it to anticipate incoming attacks. As for where I got it, I made it."
"You made this?!" Ruby said all of a sudden, lifting her attention from Deathtrap and over to Erica's suit of armor. "It must've taken you a couple of months to make this!"
"That is did," Erica said, agreeing with the young team leader. "But it has proven its worth at least a dozen times over; when paired with either my flamethrower or my sword, I become a nearly unstoppable force."
"Heh, I bet you think you could give Pyhrra Nikos a run for her money," Yang said. Weiss scoffed.
"Pyhrra Nikos has won the Mistral Tournament 4 times in a row, I seriously doubt that anyone in our year would be able to best her," Weiss said. The way she said it pissed Gaige off; it reminded her of those up-tight executives at Hyperion that didn't give a flying fuck about what happened to their employees.
"Bullshit princess," Gaige started off. "Everyone, and I mean everyone, can lose. I mean, What does Pyhrra even use?"
"What, you don't know what she uses?!" Weiss shouted, causing Blake and Robert to wince slightly at the outburst. "She has a shifting lance/rifle/xiphos with a round shield paired with bronze armor, and she has bested former tournament champions that were larger and equipped with steel plate armor."
Gaige chuckled. It seemed like Weiss had a partial hero-worship of Pyhrra, so she would bring her down a notch.
"Well, my did princess-" "It's not princess!" "-Whatever, If it were limited to just swords, then perhaps you might have a point, but Erica has a fucking flamethrower, which has the oh so interesting effect of flowing around obstructions and lighting whatever it fucking wants on fire. Tell me, how can Pyhrra avoid becoming flambe?"
Giage wanted to laugh at the red face princess, who if she were any more angry would've had steam coming out the ears. Sadly for Gaige, Erica unwittingly came to Weiss's rescue.
"Eh, tournaments such as Mistral's prohibit the use of any weapon that cannot be made non-lethal," Erica said. "So as a result, I couldn't use my flamethrower in a tournament nor in personnel bouts at combat schools. As for a sword on sword fight, I probably use, as my saber is good for slashing, but her xiphos can slash and thrust, and she has a shield, so she has more options."
Weiss began smiling smugly, and Gaige gritted her teeth; she would put Ms. Holier-than-thou in her rightful place, come hell or high water. Whether by divine intervention to prevent any further bickering between Weiss and Gaige, Blake popped off a question that Gaige, Robert, or Erica should've expected.
"So who was the suspected culprit that you were sent to deal with?" Blake ask whilst reading a novel whose titles was obscured by a non-descript book jacket.
"Oh umm, I doubt you would've heard of him," Gaige began, while thinking that if anyone besides Ozpin, Ironwood, and the members of GREN knew of Jack, then they probably were with Jack. "His name is Jack, former computer programmer turned insane megalomaniac. He sent a… automated combat construction robot that attacked numerous people near the docks."
"But why were you and your team sent to deal with him, why couldn't the VPD or a graduated Hunter team take on the threat?" Black questioned, not cutting any losses or allowing Gaige and her team to retreat around the question.
"Other than I had experience dealing with him, not a whole lot else," Gaige admitted. "However, it didn't really matter, other than we had to deal with that annoying contraption Jack sent to the docks."
This didn't seemed to satisfy Blake, but she apparently decided to step down on her questions. Gaige smiled as she saw Ruby and Deathtrap interacting, Yang and Erica looking over Cleansing Flame, and princess looking annoyed that she wasn't the center of attention. Serves that bitch right, Gaige thought.
Ironwood sighed wearily, stepping out of his Bullhead. He hadn't gotten much rest since the incident at the docks. With a White Fang cell (while eliminated) being found in Vale, Roman Torchwick having aligned with this Handsome Jack character, and a recent alert at the facility he was now at, Ironwood was understandably tired.
Entering the facility, he walked to the lab where he was meeting Dr. Clemens and Dr. Freeman, the two lead researchers in aura-infused synthetic combat platform, or AISCP. He swiped his key card though a scanner, clearing him to enter the lab. He was expecting both doctors to be tired, but instead he saw them both rubbing their heads as though to massage a migraine.
"Dr. Clemens, Freeman, report on the status of Project Homonuclus," Ironwood ordered. Both men groaned.
"Uh, no offense to you General, but me and Freeman have finished, how to put it, debugging our second combat platform, codenamed…"
Whatever Clemens was going to say was rudely interrupted when walking in through a door that led to the assembly room was a male teenager with blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing an orange shirt with a white strip going around in the middle. Ironwood knew that it was robotic in nature, considering he could tell the trademark of the retinal scanners that made up the subject's eye.
"Helloooo General!" the robotic teenager cheerfully greeted. "I am CL4-TP Mark II AISCP, but my human name is Clapton!" Ironwood saw Freeman pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"Clapton, for the eighth FUCKING time, you just greet other people outside of this lab using your HUMAN NAME! How fucking difficult is it for you to follow that simple fucking order?!" Clemens raged at the synthetic, who shrugged.
"I'm sorry, but my central programming that you overwrote still hold precedent in several areas," Clapton replied, obviously not seeing the problem. "However, I can introduce myself as Clapton to others without using my proper designation, would that be sufficient?"
"Yes, for fuck sake's yes!" Freeman said. "Now, Clapton, please return to your room with your sister Penny; the General and I have plenty to discuss."
Ironwood raised an eyebrow as Clapton rubbed his neck anxiously. He knew that Penny, the first AISCP, was about as emotional as a socially akward child, but seeing Clapton using human gestures second nature was a great relief. That was until he heard what Clapton had to say.
"Well, Penny kicked me out of the room," Clapton said, chuckling nervously before continuing. "Funny story; so I was totally minding my own business when, for totally no reason at all, Penny couldn't stop jumping up and down. I managed to get her to stop, but she proceeded to smack me and told me to get out!"
"And what were you doing before you got Penny to stop jumping?" Clemens asked, his voice straining under the man's efforts to maintain his composure in front of the General, never minding the fact he already blew up once before.
"Well, I was most certainly not taking pictures of Penny's panties or her jiggling jugs," Clapton replied. "I was merely trying to determine the cause of her jumping issue, promise!"
Ironwood shot the two doctors a look.
"You made the second AISCP, which mind you costs a proverbial shit ton of Lien, with the personality of a hormone raging idiot?" Ironwood asked seriously. Both doctors shrunk under the general's withering gaze.
"Um, not exactly," Freeman stated. "We were having issues with programming a second, unique personality to use. We could've copied and pasted Penny's personality into the platform, but with the army's request for a unique personality for each unit until such times that the platforms become common knowledge, we had to make a new personality."
"Alas, a new personality proved more… difficult that initially anticipated, we only managed to get Clapton here working when, well…"
"Well what?" Ironwood snapped. Clemens cleared his throat.
"Well when a CL4-TP unit from Pandora arrived in the middle of the facility and agreed to allow us to modifiy him personality and put him into the AISCP unit," Clemens finished. "We managed to download all the information that it had, so if you want…"
"…I could read it on my own time," Ironwood finished the question for the doctor. "So how exactly did the unit end up in this secure facility in the first place?" Both either doctor could respond, Clapton took it as an opportunity to explain.
"I was sent via an Eridian artifact to find my minion Gaige and give her vital information about what Handsome Jack is up to!" Clapton stated. Ironwood paused, realizing who exactly 'Clapton' was finally.
"You're Claptrap, the robot that… aided Gaige and the other Vault Hunters on Pandora?" Ironwood asked.
"Certainly!" Clapton, formerly known as Claptrap, responded. "Now good General, would you happen to know where Gaige is; it is of the utmost importance that I find her!"
Ironwood remembered all that Gaige had told him about Claptrap; annoying, likes dancing, dubstep, and is extremely patronizing, the robot was reported to be so annoying that most of Pandora hated him with a vengeance. He sighed.
"Yes I do, however she is away at Beacon Academy while training and helping us with Handsome Jack," Ironwood said. "I can arrange for whatever data you have to be given to her in a few days' time." However, Clapton shook his head.
"Sorry, but the data is secured and I can't access them directly," Clapton replied. Ironwood raised an eyebrow.
"And why not?"
"Because the data must be unlocked via a bio-scan of Gaige," Clapton answered. "That is how the others that will be arriving shortly ensured that the data couldn't be found and removed from my unit by outside parties."
Ironwood sighed, but he had to admit; the idea was pretty brilliant. By making the password be the recipient's bio-signature, it would prove to be an unbreakable safety system.
"Very well, than I will arrange for you to go to Vale for the upcoming Vytal festival so you can meet with Gaige, along with testing your platform. Now, if there is somewhere you can go, I need a word with the good doctor's here." Clapton nodded.
"Alright, then I will head to the computer room and see about how to access por… I mean human interaction's database," Clapton said, not convincing anyone of his innoncence. As he left, Clemens got up and walked over to the phone.
"Hey Jerry, this is Clemens, make sure the firewalls in the computer room are up. Yeah, Clapton is 'doing research'. Thanks Jerry," Clemens hung up, turning his attention to the general. "What can we do other than offer you a stiff drink to forget about Clapton's personality?"
"Mind explaining what all Clapton can do and what his issues are?"
"There were no survivors at the Vale port," a gray hair male stated. "In addition, all the dust was apparently moved off site. It was a total loss of operations."
He was standing with a green hair and heavily tanned woman at his side, looking at their 'boss' anxiously. Both knew of their boss's anger issue, and this wouldn't be an exception.
"You mean to tell me all those soldiers, all that dust, was lost due to Roman and that doll of his packing shop and joining forces with this Jack person?!" snarled Cinder Fall, the defacto leader of the White Fang.
She grabbed a nearby vase and threw it hard against the wall, trying to vent her anger away from Mercury and Emerald. She knew that those two were far from responsible for the incident at the port, but it didn't mean she wouldn't throw her anger at them if given but a reason to do so. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.
"So what do we know about this Jack person?" Cinder asked. "Everyone has a price, but I won't allow him to stop my efforts, nothing will stop me."
Mercury and Emerald shared a look, knowing the end goal of Cinder; domination over the four kingdoms to stop the petty in-fighting and focus on reclaiming the world from the Grimm. However, her methods currently were limited to sponsoring the White Fang and preparing for the inevitable civil war. Yet with Handsome Jack appearing…
"Not a whole lot, other than he has resources, he has personnel, and he doesn't seem afraid of us, the White Fang, or the Four Kingdoms," Mercury answered. "We don't know what is compelling him forward, we don't know his goals, and we don't know the limits of what he can and cannot do."
Cinder nodded.
"Fine, this changes quite a bit to my plans," Cinder bitterly remarked. "Without that dust or Roman to acquire more for us, we can't hope to supply the White Fang with the dust needed to wage civil war. If we are to continue with our plans we need to find a new way to acquire a large supply of Dust."
The three people in the room was quiet for a long while, musing over the situation, until Emerald finally broke the silence
"Cinder, isn't the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company currently attending Beacon?" Emerald asked. Wondering where Emerald was going, Cinder nodded.
"Yes, though what purpose does Ms. Schnee have, other than to be a target for the White Fang to go after?" Cinder asked. Emerald raised her finger up, gesturing Cinder to hear her out.
"Well, while Mr. Schnee is unbending in his hate against the Faunus, and thus we can guarantee that any dust the SDC has won't be going to aid your cause, we could try and persuade Ms. Schnee to our side, off her father, maybe pin it on one of the Kingdom's armies, and get her to supply us with dust." Emerald suggested. Cinder raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, and how exactly do we get Weiss Schnee, the jewel of the Schnee family and probably one of the biggest haters of the White Fang, to side with the White Fang?" Cinder posed. Emerald rolled her eyes.
"Well, she was kept pretty much isolated from the rest of the world, and pair that with her need to control everything, if we find someone suitable to pair her with and is loyal to us, we could control her," Emerald tried pointing out. "Besides, she is a flat-chested, egotistical, heiress who probably loathes her father secretly, so what better way than to get her to obey us than latch her with a 'bad boy'?"
Emerald glanced at Mercury, with Cinder doing the same. Mercury suddenly realized what both women in the room were thinking.
"Ah fuck me."
Author's Note: Well, short-ish chapter, but it's an aftermath chapter. Anyway, a few things to point out.
One, Claptrap's name is Clapton. Why? Well because we couldn't very well have Claptrap having a name like that; it screams 'robot person' out loud. Clapton was the first name that came to mind for a more human name for Claptrap. I will say, when he interacts with Gaige or anyone from Pandora who knew him, he will be Claptrap, otherwise he will go by Clapton.
Second, poor Mercury, he is going to be a slab of meat so that Cinder can get dust via controlling Weiss. Will it work; I do know, but I won't tell! Muwahaha! If it sounds unreasonable, that's because it is, but how else is Cinder going to acquire all the dust she wants for her civil war without Roman hijacking a shit ton of dust from Vale? She needs a plan to get rolling, and this was the first. It will be refined later, but for now, it's in the 'half-assed, hall-baked' plan category. When it's all said and done, it will be a truly treacherous plan… if it works.
Finally, why no Handsome Jack this chapter?! Simple, because we will be seeing him a lot more in a couple of chapters, and adding him in now would detract from the experience, spoil what he is up to, and honestly I would do him more injustice trying to cram him in this chapter. So be patient, the monster known as Handsome Jack will be rearing his ugly head soon enough.
As always guys, please follow, favorite, and review this story! See you in the next update!