Wow. More than 50 000 views... I am speechless. Thank you. *Victory dance*
The Vault Hunter ran like a madman. He needed to get to the crash site before too many curious eyes decide to show up. It could have been a generic space rock that fell on the surface on Remnant, but he still wouldn't risk it. Not to mention that it is a perfect excuse for not helping that idiot Arc. Braylon will beat him up so badly the first chance he gets. Consider it a payback for whatever bullshit he tried to do back there.
"Where do you think you're going?"
He suddenly stopped running. A figure slowly walked out from behind a tree. It was an old man dressed in red ceremonial robes that made him look like something that came out from ancient Rome or Greece. He also had a black belt with various scrolls attached on them. As for headgear, he wore a completely golden goat skull which creeped the fuck out of Braylon. The fact that he felt that same sensation from when he fought that terrible Satyr lookalike did not help inn solving the problem. But it did, however, give him a possible clue that the two are related in some way.
"There is no place you can hide yourself without us knowing about it."
"Who said I'm hiding? And who's "us"?"
The man smiled. Braylon noticed the sharp teeth this guy had.
"I will succeed where other have failed. I will bring you back... but not so fast. First, we are going to play a game. A rather interesting game."
"I have no time to play games. Whoever you are."
"You share the same fate as two thirds of your species, mortal. What makes you think you are a special case?"
The man took a scroll from his belt, opened it and tossed it on the ground. Suddenly, the object started glowing as a red circle took form between Braylon and the figure. Some time later it started expanding, becoming large enough to engulf both of them. The ground inside the circle started changing too. The grass and fallen leaves were quickly replaced by pitch black dirt, dead bushes, decaying flesh, piles of bones and a horrible stench that only sulphur is known to create. Few trees that happened to fall inside the circle were also changed, now growing purple leaves and black bark. The whole "arena" looked like it had encountered some kind of fucked up disease. The Vault Hunter stared in awe, completely clueless as to what was going on.
(AN: Play "Zeus' Wrath Divine", OST from the first God of War game.)
"No one goes in or out until the game is over for one of us. Don't bother screaming for help. We are completely isolated from this realm.", the man chuckled, "Now, for someone who was able to defeat three of my allies, I'm sure this.", he pulled out another scroll, "Will be perfect for warm-up."
The mysterious figure started chanting before tossing yet another scroll to the ground. This time though, the item started emanating black smoke which quickly split into three different parts, thus surrounding Braylon. He could now see three figures slowly emerging out of each black "hole". His jaw dropped when he was able to see them better. Two Minotaur lookalikes, similar to the ones he fought back in those ruins, plus a third, who was nothing like the two mentioned entities. A goat-like biped with red head, arms and torso, legs covered in brown fur with an addition of two black hooves. It looked like its natural diet were steroids ever since it was shot out from a cunt... whichever cunt was able to give birth to this.
The Minotaur on his left quickly grabbed him into a bone-crushing bear hug before he even got a chance to react. If he didn't do something soon, he would become a human pancake. He could hear the other monster approaching from behind while the red one was screaming as if it went berserk. He clenched his teeth and materialized his Holo Sabre. The tip of the holographic weapon found itself inside the monster's leg.
As if it cared.
Braylon then reminded himself of the item that he used to kill that Satyr fuck. It was that pendant. He materialized that thingy in his left hand and squeezed it.
Now the bastard felt pain.
The grip loosened enough for him to free his right arm. A quick glance to the right revealed a pissed off Red, raising its right fist which soon became engulfed in green fire. He had to be free. Now.
Braylon materialized Cerastes in his right hand and pointed the weapon in its face. Pulling the trigger, the ball detached itself from the grip and went straight between its eyes. The Minotaur wananbe quickly let go of Braylon, who fell on the ground, as it took a few steps back, yelling in pain. He fell just in time, as a green fireball flew above his head. It would only took a few inches and he would be roasted.
The second Minotaur was dangerously close to him for his liking, as it prepared its war axe to chop his head off. While Cerastes's ball was still in the air, he swang as hard as he could, aiming for the bastard. Out of nowhere, Braylon saw the spiky ball crashing into the left side of its head. It looked like the beast got a powerful bitch slap which caused it to turn 180 degrees, walk four steps forward only to finally crash on the ground. Braylon moved Cerastes once again. Now it hit the Minotaur in front of him right into its stomach. The spikes buried themselves into the flesh, causing some serious injuries. The ball retracted back to the grip, which caused even more damage as the Minotaur fell on its knees, wheezing and holding the stomach to prevent more blood from spilling out.
Braylon jumped away from another fireball before shooting a Holo Sawblade at Red. Rather than keeping it occupied, Red merely grunted in annoyance.
He approached the kneeling Minotaur and decided to kill it.
SBAM!
Cerastes hit its head. A bit bloody. Roaring in rage.
SBAM!
The skull was slightly crushed. Blood covered most of the head. Roaring is slightly reduced.
SBAM!
Minotaur was forced to hold his upper body from the ground with its hands. Head was a mess. Grumbling. Right hand reached up.
Braylon let out a war cry as he raised his blood-covered mace.
SBAM!
Now it fell. Fucking finally.
Before he could continue his fight, braylon placed the pendant around his neck. He could feel the power flowing through his body. An explosion of violence begging to be released. At the same time the remaining Minotaur monster slowly got up, face covered in blood.
Braylon materialized his Holo Whip. He coiled the Whip around one of its legs and pulled. As soon as it fell, Braylon ran up to it and jumped, raising Cerastes up in the air only to bring it down on its abdomen with the force of a fired cannonball. The creature screamed as loud as it could before falling down one last time. As soon as he turned around, a green fireball hit him in the chest.
The pain was impossible to describe. Kinda like being set on fire and drowned in acid at the same time. It burned his clothes and skin. Braylon fell on his knees before a red fist hit him in the face. He could feel his nose getting pulverized deep into his skull as he flew like a ragdoll.
Red stomped closer to him, bringing down a hoof on his chest. Again. And again. When Red was about to bring it down for the fourth time, Braylon materialized his Holo Sabre and stabbed it right through the hoof and deep into the leg. Red roaored, enraged because this mortal dared to do something like that. Braylon caught the opportunity to stab Red once again, giving him enough time to move the fuck away from certain death.
Braylon materialized his Bullpup and fired eight shots at Red's head. When he stopped firing, the head was a mangled mess of green blood and flesh. Its jaw was barely attached with what remained of the skull and yet that creature was still alive, nevermind the horrible gurgling and demented moaning. The Vault Hunter pulled the trigger of his Cerastes once again and slammed the sphere on the head-now-squished-tomato. The head popped and the creature was dead.
"Not bad, mortal. Not bad at all. But I just started."
Another scroll was tossed on the ground. The black smoke split in three parts again. This time something different came out. Three obese, humanoid wild boars with different fur color and weapons (brown had a sword, black had an a mace and the white had a war hammer). The brown and white carried some form of primitive clothing made of, I kid you not, human skin while the black one carried a metallic armor plus few skulls (one of them was human) as trophies.
"Human!", one of them squealed, "We gonna be eatin' tonight boys!"
"Sure thing, boss!"
The young Vault Hunter swapped both his Cerastes and Bullpup for his Vulcannon, whcih he quickly changed into a flaming sword.
"Hehehe, this human thinks we can be burn'd!"
"Yeh, we are immune to fire, ya git!"
Braylon smiled, "Really? Thanks for telling me."
He grabbed the pommel, twisted and pulled, revealing a red cylindrical battery. As soon as he did this, the fire that engulfed the blade vanished. He took a white battery, placed it inside the grip and closed the opening with the pommel. The blade changed color from red to white, immediately followed by the fire of the same color.
"Then maybe this will do the trick."
He jumped forward and slashed the brown boarman. It sqeualed in surprise before becoming an ice statue which quickly shattered into millions of pieces.
"Morons!", the man yelled, "Kill him already!"
"Aye boss! RAAARGH!"
The white boarman started running towards the mortal opponent who jumped away before it could attack. The cursed sword found its way into the boarman's hip, freezing the insides. The last thing this poor idiot saw was Braylon chopping the head from the body with his Holo Sabre.
THUD!
"AARGH! I WILL KILL YOU!"
The final boarman roared as it slammed against Braylon, enraged for the loss of his allies. And while it was busy burying its head (and tusks) into his chest, he stabbed the monster in the back.
It did nothing.
He stabbed two more times. The boarman slowed down its rampage as it began to turn into ice. For a finishing move, Braylon shoved Vulcannon into boarman's forhead with such force that it went straight through the skull and into the spinal cord.
"Damn. Now that's what I call a brain freeze." he said as he got up. The man, however, had no plans for stopping.
"Keep fighting for my amusement, mortal! But you won't be able to fight forever!"
This time the old fuck summoned a woman with long white hair and robes. Her bangs were completely covering her eyes, leaving only mouth and nose to be visible. Curiously, as she rose from the smoke Braylon couldn't see any legs. As for her mouth, her lips were pale as her skin. He could hear a womanly voice singing gracefully as soon as she appeared. But he was far from being a fool. He knew that this woman was a trick. A deception to lower his guard.
His point was quickly proven when said woman started moving and let me tell you that no legs, no matter how agile, could move so fast. She was floating slightly above ground.
Braylon dematerialized Vulcannon and took out his Unforgiven. The two shots he fired completely missed the target as she quickly dodged by floating to the side. When she dodged the second bullet, she decided to return the favor by blowing.
Damn.
The wind she created with her mouth resembled more of a blizzard than anything else. Half of the damn arena was quickly covered in snow and Braylon was forced to put his arms in front of his face to defend himself. The unnatural cold that was freezing his very soul (at least he felt like that) did not help him either. He needed to distract her from the attack. But how?
He slowly and carefully pointed his left arm towards her. He fired a Holo Sawblade in her direction, which she quickly dodged at the expense of sacrificing her continuous attack. Something that he was prepared for.
He shot a bullet with Unforgiven as quickly as he could, holstered it, ran up to her, grabbed her by the hair, pulled the head close enough to make her bend, hit her stomach with his right knee, jumped to her right while still holding her, pulled her hard enough to make her fall on the ground, smash her head against the ground two times and then finally removing her from play with a right punch that completely destroyed her head. Before she died, she let out an echoing scream that quickly dissapeared as soon as her body disintegrated into a pile of snow that scattered through the air. The snow present in the arena melted away.
The man became really angry. He must've pushed several buttons.
"Why?! Why don't you understand?! You can never win against us, mortal! No matter how hard you fight, that will never change! Your kind is so primitive and limited – you dance to our tune, you kill, rob and hate one another because we want you to! Even as we speak, my allies masquerade as mortals, causing chaos wherever they so desire! Your kind is only good for slaughter and manipulation! You hear me, human?! SLAUGHTER AND MANIPULATION!"
The man took a fourth scroll from his belt. Braylon had the feeling that this round would be the hardest by far.
And he was right.
Instead of throwing it on the ground, the man simply held it in his left hand and raised his right. A sphere of purple light appeared in his hand. It quickly divided itself in two smaller ones who immediately flew towards the trees. When the spheres fused with the bark, both trees started glowing before they began changing. The roots rose from the ground and morphed into legs (with roots as toes) while the branches became arms and heads. The end result was a humanoid tree with wooden faces and beards, purple leaves for hair and two branches for horns. And while their faces were unmoving and expressionless, their rage was manifested in their movements, ready to rip Braylon a new one.
But that was not all. For the man used one last trick. He brought into the arena a three-meters-tall humanoid with green skin, orange hair and beard, armor made of silver-gray fur (animal unknown) and a pair of antlers sticking out from the head.
One of the tree humanoids stomped the ground, creating a row of wooden spikes that went straight for Braylon. He was able to dodge them but the deer-man grabbed him in midair, smashed him tot he ground and tossed him towards the second walking tree, which used its hand as a hammer to bring down the flying mortal.
The pain was unbearable. Every inch of his body was bruised and burning. A torture that no man felt before. He slowly tried to get up, only to be kicked by a wooden leg as if he were some kind of a football. His body was flying as a tiny rock when you throw it at the water to see if it can bounce at the surface before drowning.
You would think this would be the end. That he would finally give up. But no, he was a stubborn son of a bitch who saw death as a rule that doesn't apply to him. He will defeat these bastards. And he knew exactly how.
While still in pain, Braylon materialized his Vulcannon in its flamethrower mode and hid it with his body while also trying to change the fuel battery from Ice Dust to Fire Dust. Because the battery required for the flamethrower mode is bigger than that for the sword mode, he had some trouble reloading without going unnoticed so he pretended he was having spasms caused by pain.
One of the tree monsters took the bait and came closer. But as soon as it did so, the young Vault Hunter revealed his weapon and pulled the trigger.
FWOOOSH!
The walking tree caught fire sooner than anything flammable known to man, panicking and waving its arms around before falling down and becoming a XXL version of Human Torch.
He felt the energy coming back to hid body as he stood up, ready to finish this damn fight that lasted for far too long.
The second tree met its doom when Braylon transformed Vulcannon in its sword mode, jumped and stabbed with it the treemination (yeah, sorry for the lame attempt at making jokes). While burning, it took took several steps back, thus coming close to the man with the scrolls.
"TIMBER!" Braylon yelled as it fell down. Shame though, that the man managed to cast a fucking force field to defend himself.
Time to deal with the deer-boy over there.
It decided to attack with the left fist. Braylon responded by stabbing said fist to the ground with his Vulcannon and blocking any further movement with it. Because its face was closer, Braylon allowed himself to throw a few punches before jumping on top of the wounded fist, picking up the sword, swiftly climbing until he reached the head and stab it from behind. He then used the sword as help for his awesome (and needless) air roll jump which in turn cracked the head open.
Hmm... I give it a 8/10.
He now stood in front of the man. His Vulcannon was raised up in the air, ready to smite this bastard. However, he raised his right hand and formed a purple force field to prevent the attack. After a brief power struggle, Braylon managed to shatter the force field, allowing him to kick the man's leg, who lost his balance. He then proceeded his execution by stabbing the blade through the man's abdomen, lifting him up and tossing the body behind him.
The man weakly stood up, staring at the newly-made hole in his body.
"Damn you, human! DAMN YOU – AAAAAH!"
As he prepared to call more of his allies, the Vault Hunter quickly ran and sliced the hand that held the scroll.
"Oh, wait. Let me give you a hand."
Braylon performed a 360 and removed the head from its body.
"Hey man. You shouldn't loose your head over for such trivial things."
Another 360 and the body was cut in two with a horizontal slash.
"There we go. Have fun in Hell."
It was done. He won.
(AN: Stop the music.)
"Before I forget, I think I'll take that.", he said as he took the scroll from the hand, "Not like you will be using it anyway."
He opened the scroll. There were four vertical lines of symbols he never saw before in his life. Hell, not even the database of his device had any info about them! Hopefully it would be something useful just like his pendant.
The circle was quickly reducing its size and Braylon noticed that. He had no idea how to get out so he raised his hands in front of himself and ran towards the borders. Surprisingly, he was able to get out. The problem was that he didn't expect that to happen and he ended up falling on his ass near a tree.
BOOM!
A white, loud flash appeared behind him. It sounded like thunder. When he turned around to see what happened...
Everything was gone.
No bodies, no anomalies, nothing.
Gone.
He sighed as he sat leaning on a tree. Another strange encounter with things he was unable to understand. And just when that damn android decided to give him troubles. Again.
The pendant stopped glowing. He knew what that meant.
New item acquired!
Contract with the Dark Ruler
"Abyssus abyssum invocat."
- Cursed Eldritch artifact
- Killing one human (or human-like being) has 5% chance to activate one of the following:
a) Distortion Field: the fabric of reality itself bends around the user, greatly decreasing Damage from enemy attacks. (Energy-based attacks are completely nullified.)
b) Spirit Reclamation: the next human (or human-like being) killed will completely heal the user
c) Mind Crush: an aura of abnormal fear radiates from the user and infects their opponents, slowing their attacks and movement. (Weaker opponents are completely paralyzed.)
d) Sixth Sense: the spirit, mind and body of the user is gifted with the ability to predict the opponent's attacks, thus greatly aiding the user in fight. (Lasts five minutes.)
- The item must be equipped to use the effects
- The user can pay 25% of their Health in order to raise the effect activation chance by 20% for the next five minutes.
I feel like I should summarize Braylon's arsenal from time to time. So here it goes.
a) Shield: The Bee
b) Grenade mods: Meganade (explosive, no prefixes)/Pandemic (Lobbed, corrosive)
c) Small Guns: Chimera (scoped), Unforgiven (scopeless, version from the first game), Hard Reboot (Shock)
d) Shotguns: Bullpup
e) Sniper Rifles: Omni-Cannon, Trespasser
f) Assault Rifles: Damned Cowboy (iron scope), Fusillade (red dot sight)
g) Rocket Launchers/Heavy Weapons: Nukem, Boreas
h) Energy Weapons: Fornax, Vulcannon, Mining Laser, Excalibastard
i) Melee Weapons: Cerastes
j) Holographic Weapon Maker Tools: Holo Sabre, Holo Claw, Holo Sawblade, Holo Whip
k) Artifacts/Other: Contract With the Dark Ruler
Wow. So many ways to kick ass...
