Chapter 23
Feno Phena
They arrived on the water planet of Feno Phena shortly before the appointed meeting time and made their way to the surface. They had spent hours in the workshop prepping, and though Artemis still was bemoaning the dismantling of one of her favorite guns, and Deathtrap didn't like some of the temporary add-ons, they were all relatively satisfied with the resulting upgrades. They of course wished that they could have done more, but with the limits of time and resources, they felt that they were in a good place.
After they had finished with that, they had selected their own load outs from the arsenal and then had taken a nap to be as rested as possible for the evening ahead of them.
Gaige hoisted the shotgun onto her shoulder and looked around at the district of Torin City they found themselves in. Short squarish buildings, made of something like white marble, rose three stories out of the water to surround the wide paths and bridges that crossed the area, broken up by planters with hedges and trees tastefully placed around. Thin delicate poles rose and curled to illuminate the area with hanging lights that pushed back the shadows, even as the twin moons shone down brightly in the starry sky. Overall, it was a beautiful place, and even though the clear blue water appeared black now, its surface danced and sparkled as it reflected the lights from above.
They made their way cautiously to the meeting point, which was in the more industrial side of the city, though even calling it that was a bit misleading. The plaza itself was a series of raised platforms over sunken ones. At a glance it seemed that ships would unload cargo onto the lower platforms and passengers onto the raised. Around the outer rim, across walkways were shops and kiosks where food would undoubtedly be served from some and others would sell trinkets and souvenirs during the day, though it was hard to tell since everything was closed. Though it looked a bit touristy despite the wooden shipping crates stacked up on the lower levels, it was the kind of place that Gaige thought she would like to return to at some point, to see it during the day. In fact this planet had been one she had considered for one of the weddings she had planned, though the customer had ended up going with another planet in the end.
She stopped next to one of the fountains and turned to Artemis who was decked out in purple, her shirt looked like it was made of scales that matched her hair, going from dark purple to magenta, the inside of the rolled up sleeve was a dark mottled blue that matched her torn jeans, her exposed sock and arm sleeve, which Gaige was now convinced was actually the matching sock, was black and violet and she was wearing her usual rough boots. Shadowstar dangled from her belt again. Gaige was wearing her usual red and black outfit though she had dug out her old goggles to wear.
"Before we go out there, I wanted to say something."
"If this is one of those things where you get sentimental and shit or telling me I don't need to stay…"
"What? Hell no. I just remembered that I wanted to apologize for mocking you when, you know, you asked if I wanted a new color arm. Well actually what I wanted to say is, that really is a pretty shade of purple."
"Thanks, well it's actually two colors layered."
"Really? I wanted to say, well, it looks good on you. I never could have got that look, I hate admitting it, but I think you might be a better craftswoman than me."
"Are you kidding me, is this one of those false modesty bullshit things? There's no way I could make something anywhere near as amazing as Deathtrap."
"No no, that's engineering, I've totally got you beat there, what you've got a better handle on is the craft, the construction. I mean those armor plates fit perfectly, without any adjustment needed."
"Ah that's not hard, it's like hunting, just requires patients."
"That must be why I'm not into either, I just want to get onto the next thing right away."
"Well, putting that aside, we're here and they're already waiting on us."
"Really? We're a few minutes early."
"Not them."
Gaige looked out at the plaza and sighed "Well, looks like you were right, good thing we planned for this." And then loudly bellowed "Oi, come on out, we know you're here and all that."
From behind the planters and edges more than a dozen of the black armored troops emerged, ringing the area. At the far end of the plaza came a loud clomping noise and a heavy mechanized suit came up the stairs. It was less bulky than the Vladof bear line, fitting closer to the human shape, and was sleeker than the Maliwan heavy troops. Its close-fitting gloss black plates reflecting the lamp light. The head stuck up surrounded by a glowing collar and was covered with a heavy helmet that reminded Gaige vaguely of something she had seen on Xylourgos.
The suit marched about a third of the way to them and stopped before holding out a small object, which flickered and started projecting a holo of a man's head and shoulders.
"Well well, child-killer, I can't say it's a pleasure to see you again." He had a smooth voice, youthful, to match his looks.
"Holloway" Gaige spat while glaring at the holo.
"Good, you remember me, I was afraid you'd forgotten."
"Like I could forget you after what you did."
"What I…You're the one who murdered my beautiful baby! You never could stand that she was smarter than you, prettier than you, more gifted than you, but still was that any reason to kill her? And in front of her mother, she… It's been hard for her."
"That why you divorced her?" Artemis threw in to distract him while she gave Gaige's hand
a squeeze to try and tell her to calm down. She caught the faint nod to her side and heard her
exhale slowly.
"Silence! You, you don't even belong here!"
Artemis marveled at the holo tech, she could see the spittle flying.
Gaige looked at him with a calm she didn't feel and said "If she was so smart, why'd you have to steal my invention for her to use in the science fair?"
"I didn't have to steal your second-rate robot, well I guess third rate is more appropriate in this case isn't it? And even if I had, that defective pile of scrap only did what you programmed it to and murdered anyone better than you."
"Wait, I'm confused" Gaige said barely managing to keep her calm, nobody insulted her buddy and got away with it, but she grit her teeth and bide her time "Is he defective or following his programming? I mean it's generally one or the other, right?" Plus it was fun to try and get under this prick's skin.
Holloway was visibly grinding his teeth and turning a funny shade. "Enough of this! It doesn't matter! You are going to die here, tonight. Both you, and that scrap heap that did your killing for you. And then I'm going to melt it down and turn it into toilets. And and" The guy in the suit holding the holo device cleared his throat softly "Enough about that, I will have enough time once you've been broken.
"Excuse me." Artemis raised her hand and stepped forward "If you're about done with all that catching up. It's just that before we get started, I've got two questions for ya."
"What do you want, traitor?"
"Three questions, and let us start with why do you guys keep calling me a traitor?"
"And what would you call someone who takes confidential information and uses it to help
the enemy?"
"Well first off, I never worked for you. And all that info was freely given, I mean you didn't even make me sign one of those DNA's"
Gaige stage whispered "NDA's"
"Right NDA's, and even if you had tried, I would have just refused and figured out what you were doing anyway."
"You still sided with my daughter's murderer against me."
"True, but I have my reasons. I mean she's better looking than you, and you're a douchebag, so I think I made the right call."
"I know what you're trying to do." Holloway managed to get out passed his clenched teeth "And it won't work."
"And what's that?"
"You're trying to waste enough time that she's free to go, but it won't work, in three minutes we attack whether you've finished asking your asinine questions or not. So feel free to waste your last few minutes alive."
"Kay. Second question. How'd you find us?"
"Easy, the idiot posted her itinerary on the ECHO. Told us exactly where to come and find her."
"Damn it, you were right" Gaige cursed "But what about Pandora?"
"That? We posted a squad on Pandora in case you showed up there trying to find help. We had a second one on Eden 5 for the same reason."
"Wait! Your goons were watching my dad? If any of you so much as…"
"Don't worry" the mech suit merc said "He had no bounty on him, it would be unprofessional to kill him, he didn't even know we were there."
'Huh' Artemis thought 'Guess there is some honor amongst douchebags after all'.
"No" Holloway said "He needs to feel it too, the pain that only a father of a dead daughter can."
"Right" Artemis said, making a hand gesture like she was picking something up and setting it aside "So what about this? How'd you know that we'd be here, tonight, now?"
"Ha ha, quite simple actually."
'Great, gotta stroke the old ego' Artemis groaned inwardly while she said "Well it would have taken a more clever hunter than me to figure this out."
"That's not saying much, but you haven't figured it out yet?"
Throwing pretense out the window she flatly declared "Look buddy, we're on a timetable, are you gonna tell us or just brag until that alarm goes off?"
"Fine. Do you know how many of my robots are out there? Do you have any idea? Billions. In the last few years Holloway Robotics has become synonymous with quality help for your business or home. No one even thinks about them anymore, trash bots, police bots, firefighters, delivery bots, floor scrubbers, hell I run the largest waste disposal service in the galaxy. They are ubiquitous with modern living, no developed planet wants to be without them. And each and every one of them is set to listen for certain keywords and phrases. Do you see now? Eyes and ears everywhere, able to go without being seen, they're just the background noise of everyday life, and they're even programmed to not know that they're recording. It all just gets sifted through in the background. And if some corporation doesn't want to use our bots, fear of security breaches and all that? I control the baristas at their local cafe, the street sweeper, the car washer, hell I probably control the vacuum in their house. So I have access to everything. That fool Jack didn't know the gift he was giving me.
"But back to you, I admit to being a bit concerned when you fell off even my expansive radar, did you know there is not one of my bots on all of Pandora, what a complete dump, but Sanctuary? Oh yes, I'm onboard with them. So when they made plans to come meet you here, here I am."
"Wait, if you've got access to Sanctuary, then why haven't you collected the bounties on them?"
"That trifling amount?"
"Don't you see, if he captures them, it might reveal that he has spies everywhere, and the other corporations are worth so much more to plunder than the few bounties on Sanctuary, right?"
"Not as dumb as you look murderer."
"So all this tech, the stuff these guys have, that was all stolen from other companies?"
"No, we just took bits and pieces, combined them and made the best in the galaxy."
"Wow, that's…"
"Genius I believe is the word you're looking for."
"I was gonna say scuzzy." Artemis then turned and looked at the mech suit "My third question was actually for you guys."
The leader pointed to himself in surprise "Yeah, I've been wondering this since I first met one of you, but why do you have a sphincter on your chest?"
"A what?"
"Sphincter. Ah man I was hoping to get an answer without having to get too crude, oh well, an anus, a butt, an asshole. Get it? I mean it's like you're announcing that you're shit to the Galaxy."
"It's not an asshole! It's the mark of our organization, the Brown Stars."
"Uh, you do know that's another euphemism for an ass, right?"
"No it's not!" He yelled, but two of his men were nodding and even the hologram of Holloway was nodding along saying "I had always thought that was weird myself."
"Wha…Damn it! Fine you know what, we're making enough money off of this job, we can re-brand ourselves afterwards. And we are not shit!"
"Yeah keep telling yourself that."
"Enough" Holloway yelled "Times up, no more questions, no more screwing around. It's time for that murdering little monster and her floating scrap heap to die."
"Right, so how do you wanna do this?" Artemis asked "Divide them up or take them as they come
or what?"
"Oh no, did you really think I would leave something this important to these, these, abject failures? At this late a stage? No. No I'm gonna be handling this myself" Holo-Holloway said and the projection cut off. The boat docked at the back of the platform suddenly split open and a cloud of smoke rolled out as the roar of rockets filled the air. Out of the smoke they could just make out the form of a massive robot as it rose out of the ship and landed on the platform. It looked like the love child between a Vladof bear and a Maliwan Arbalist or one of the Valkyrie. It sat on heavy back-bent legs, each the size of Deathtrap's torso. Its massive bulbous body swept up and out over its arms, each of which ended in a three clawed hand. On its shoulders were boil like lumps that held some kind of weapons, more of which could be seen sticking over the shoulders.
"This is the culmination of all of my research. The ultimate battlesuit. Behold your doom"
"Ah god damn it" the girls muttered.
"He had eight years to come up with something and he went with that cliché?" Gaige said turning to Artemis.
"I know right, I'm kinda surprised he didn't grow a mustache just to twirl it at you." Artemis snarked back "You two got this? I'll take the goon squad then."
They could practically hear his eye twitching as he responded "Enjoy your moment of confidence while it lasts."
"Seriously, did you go to cheap villain school or something?"
"I am not the bad guy here! I'm the victim! It was my daughter who was murdered in front of me! And after that, you still think you're the victim here? No! Tonight justice is served, tonight my baby will finally rest in peace! And then it will be a new dawn, not just for me, but for Holloway Robotics as well. And as for your little murderous pile of scrap? He will not be helping you, he will be getting crushed under my superiority. Behold the ultimate killer robot 'Deathbot 2.0'.
Before they could mock his naming, out of the ship came a dark shape that slowly floated up into the light. At a glance it looked like a rounder, sleeker looking version of Deathtrap. But as it floated closer, they got a good look at the beast, it was twice the size of Deathtrap, and it's dark skin was carved into hex patterns that subtly crackled with electricity. On each of its shoulders was a weapon mount, on each of its hands was a large glowing Digi-blade. Its six glowing eyes glowered down at them with red light.
"Nothing smart to say now?" Holloway crowed before turning and telling the merc leader "Keep that one from interfering and I'll pay you the full bounty, And I don't care what you do with her so long as she doesn't interfere with my revenge."
Artemis looked at them and held up her index finger before turning to Gaige.
"You've got this, just remember what you figured out on Pandora, I'll make sure those goons don't interfere" and then she whispered "Take out the missile launchers first."
"Duh" came the reply before she leaned in to Deathtrap "You got this babe, remember what we talked about. And never forget you're the baddest bot ever."
"Not gonna tell me to not be suicidal?"
"No, cause I wanna see you when this is over." Gaige said with a smile while lightly punching the other girl's shoulder "Happy hunting."
Artemis smiled and gave them both a thumbs up before turning back to the mercs, and with a head move indicated that they should relocate off to the side. She turned and walked over to the edge of the platform before casually stepping off and dropping onto the crates below.
Deathtrap floated off the other side to face his own challenger, leaving only Gaige and Holloway remaining. The two of them stared at each other as the wind whistled past, reminding Gaige of a
movie she had watched with her father when she was a child, a duel to the death. All that was
missing was a tumbleweed rolling between them. And then gunshots and explosions started from
over the platform's sides.
"Seems like they got the party started" She said with a smirk and threw herself to the side while whipping her pistol up. She fired three rapid shots off before hitting the ground to roll behind a planter and pop the spent clip out while sneaking a peak at the mech. As she had expected the rounds had bounced off the shield. But deep down she felt it, the old familiar bubbling warmth creeping up, that touch of madness, the rush of power.
She'd gained her first stack of Anarchy.
Holloway laughed "That's it?"
The mech lowered itself and one of the back mounted weapons arrays opened up. Gaige leaned around her cover and emptied another clip at him as the system seemed to come on line, and just as she finished reloading, it fired. She managed to get her gun up and fired, hitting the projectile each time, causing it to crash into the ground and smash apart. With a slightly perturbed noise Holloway fired twice more. This time Gaige only managed to take out one of the projectiles, but to her surprise the remaining one didn't arc towards her, instead it slammed into the ground about ten feet away from her and buried its nose in the stones. She realized what was up just before the back part of the rocket slid upward and she saw a familiar blue static dome start forming.
She pulled back behind her cover and felt the creeping sensation of every hair on her body standing on end as the wave went over her. As she sat, she switched weapons to her SMG and then cried out "What the hell?"
She stood with her left arm hanging limp "What the hell's going on? What was that?
What happened?"
"Ahahaha" Holloway cackled "Do you like that, I made it especially for you, you and that damn scrap heap of yours. Holloway Robotics proudly presents the EMP dome, kills all electronics in the area unless protected by our patented protective armor. And that's what your murderous junk pile was just hit with as well."
"Noooooooo, Babe! Is that what you were expecting me to say?" she said going from crying in anguish to flatly staring at him. She held up her cyber hand and wiggled the fingers practically hearing his jaw dropping "Outsmarted by a little girl again, that's gotta be embarrassing."
She pulled the gun up and let a full clip fly into the exposed shoulder pods. Just as she had predicted, when the EMP had activated his shields had gone down. Truth was that it was one of the things Artemis had made for her back on Jaka, a case for her shield, but it had come with a warning that the same properties that allowed it to absorb the electrical pulses, also made it absorb the shield itself. So when she had seen the missile hit she had flipped the case closed, meaning that like the giant mech in front of her, she currently had no shield, but that made this the opportune time to unload a caustic stream onto the armored carapace of the mech.
She dove behind cover just as her gun clicked empty, and as she did, she saw the first of the missile pods melt down.
"How! How is your arm still working? How are you using a Maliwan? This is impossible." Holloway ranted as he fired a few rounds into the still crackling missile, causing it to explode, just as Gaige popped back up and took out his other shoulder pod.
Once the missile was gone, the dome vanished immediately and she heard the familiar sound of a shield starting to charge back up so she flipped the case on hers back open as well, while she switched back to her pistol, though it didn't do much damage, it would build up Anarchy faster than the SMG. At this point she was wishing she had grabbed one of the sniper rifles when she had been offered. But she had a lot more pistol ammo capacity, so more ammo meant more Anarchy. More Anarchy meant more damage when she got serious, so she had what she had.
"Enough" Cried Holloway as he switched over to his proper weapons systems. Gaige peeked around the planter and watched as the remaining back weapon opened up and raised over the shoulder revealing a large cannon that if her experience was to be relied on, was a powerful shock wave cannon.
True to her expectations a ball of light started to form in the mouth of the weapon and as she took off running, she saw it flicker slightly, when she saw that she dove into a slide, catching the edge of the next planter to stop herself behind it just as the powerful wave tore across the platform, throwing dirt out of the planter and over her. She spat a clod of dirt and peaked up to see that the area had been blasted clean of debris in a cone shape. The cannon drooped slightly, as if exhausted and she knew instinctively that it would take a little while for it to recharge. Still it was powerful and she didn't want to get caught by it, especially at close range.
She popped back up and ran while firing only to see the arms of the mech raise up and out of the left one came a jet of fire that caused her to duck, even though she was well out of range, while the right started to charge up another weapon. After a second, a large slow-moving ball of energy fired leaving a frosty trail underneath it. She changed directions and dove over another planter as the ball continued forward eventually exploding against the planter where she had been, coating it in ice.
She sighed watching the shoulder cannon start charging again, the mech seemed to be more of a close-range fighter than she had anticipated, which was probably why Artemis had told her to take out the missile pods. That said while it was dangerous to get close to, it was also extremely durable so she didn't think it would go down easily, and while it was close range, that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous on the small platform that they were fighting on, which meant one wrong move, a dodge a second to late and it would all be over. She snapped another clip into the pistol and kept fighting.
Artemis stepped off the last of the crates and turned to face the mercs that were arrayed against her. Other than the leader in his battle suit she could see three of the heavies like she had faced on Talion, and the rest of them were just goons, probably well trained, but goons nonetheless.
She scanned them with a dismissive look on her face "Is this gonna be one of those ladies first things, or are you guys gonna collect your paycheck for just standing there? That'd be fine by me and all, but if that's what we're gonna do, can I get to a place where I can see the other fights? And maybe get some popcorn?"
"You think you're gonna live after killing so many of our brothers?"
"Well they kinda sucked, I mean, are you guys any better than them? At fighting I mean."
"You'll see, now!"
And two of the goons pulled grenades, but before they left their hands Artemis had brought her rifle up and fired twice. The grenades bounced and fell off the end of the platform and with a soft splash fell into the water.
"Well that's awkward." She said "Still time to just go up there and watch ya know."
"Get her!"
"Damn it"
She fired twice more, dropping three of them before pulling her pistol while diving behind a crate. She took the second of reprieve to reload her rifle and just as she snapped the chamber closed, spun and shot the first goon to round the corner in the head. Dashing out around his falling body she slid between the legs of one of the heavies, popping her blade and slicing at his femoral artery as she did. The blade met strong resistance but cut deep enough to cause him to double over, and when he did, she leaped up on the other side of him, jumped, planted her foot on the wall of crates and spun, drawing her backup gun as she did. She slammed it into the space behind his helmet and neck guard and fired once downward, then rode the falling body till it hit the ground and rolled up to her feet, sprinting off behind the nearest crate as gun fire tore into it.
She ran part way down the length of the row before leaping and catching the edge of the crates. She pulled herself up just as goons circled around on both sides and threw herself on top only to be met with the mech suit firing a weapon at her. She didn't have time to figure out what it was, instead she rolled back off the crate she was on and fell just as where she had just been exploded in a shower of splinters. She hit the ground as the two goons opened fire. Feeling the shots tear into her shield, Artemis ran at one of them and shot him in the face, before dropping into a slide and kicking his corpse out into the main area. While the rest of the mercs fired without hesitation into the body, she spun and shot the remaining goon before taking a second to reload.
Without looking she chucked a grenade around the corner, and just before it exploded, she was showered in dirt falling from above. Ignoring it she spun around the corner
and nearly ran into one of the heavies. He took a step back in surprise, she didn't. Instead she leaped at him and drove her blade into his neck, punching the thin blade through his armor before opening the Digi-blade, nearly taking his head off. Using the blade as a fulcrum she spun, using his body as a shield she held out her pistol and fired off the whole cylinder worth killing off most of the rest of the goons before retracting the blade.
She spun to face the remaining few mercs only to find three grenades bouncing towards her. Swearing she threw herself behind the nearest crate. To her surprise she was quickly encased in three domes of electric static.
She sat there reloading listening to the clomping of the mercs approaching.
"What nothing smart to say now?" Came the leader's mocking voice.
She sat silently waiting and was shortly rewarded as the last heavy stepped around the corner. She smiled up and slammed her back-up gun under his chin and fired. The body fell backwards and she casually stepped out over him while reloading, before switching back to her rifle.
"You should have taken me up on that just standing around thing, cause you're running out of
men for me to kill." Artemis said her eyes glittering menacingly as she casually kicked aside one
of the grenades.
"How? What?" Came the shocked commander's reply.
Artemis just kept smiling and fired twice, killing the last two goons and bouncing the bullets into the commander's mech. "Don't think I'll be that easy." He snarled.
"I hope not, this would be boring otherwise." she replied while secretly wishing that it had been.
He fired the thrusters in the back of the mech to launch himself towards her, even though his top speed wasn't all that fast, it still closed the ground before she could get off more than two shots. She dove and rolled under one of his arms before emptying her rifle into one of the jets. She rapidly reloaded as she backed away, satisfied with the damage she had inflicted. The jet sputtered and fired through the now bent thruster cone causing the mech to wobble dangerously.
She quickly finished reloading and switched to her SMG while dodging the heavy backhand from the mech. She stepped in close and brought the gun up and fired point blank into the shoulder joint. The caustic Maliwan she was carrying was an older, out of manufacture model, it was only caustic but it had no charge up time, making it ideal for close quarters.
"Damn it" the commander bellowed, swinging his other fist at her "How is that gun still working? Were the grenades defective?" He trailed off swinging his fist at her again.
She didn't respond, instead focusing on reloading, but the truth was that both Gaige's and her SMG's were in shells she had made from pieces she had made on Jaka and assembled during the past day, much like the coverings around her shield and grenade mod.
The grenades finally sputtered out and the commander suddenly changed tactics, he drew his arms in as if trying to make the mech smaller and Artemis could hear a high-pitched whine coming from within. Swearing she flicked her shield back open as she ran hard for the end of the platform and just as she jumped behind the heavy stair post, the mech seemed to open up and a shock wave emerged, throwing back everything that had been nearby, from crates to corpses.
It lasted only a moment and as soon as it was past, Artemis was out and running. She had to leap over the smashed crates that had become strewn around as she closed the distance, before hopping onto the remains of one of the piles and dashing across the top while unloading into the mech.
There was something satisfying about the way the armor bubbled and hissed as it started to melt under the stream of caustic death. It took two whole clips into one of the joints but she could now see into the mech, and she was about to switch to her sniper rifle, when the mech started chucking crates at her.
She ducked and rolled across the wall of crates she was on, feeling it shift and wobble under her as she did so. Seeing that, the commander stopped aiming at her and started trying to take out the wall.
Still cursing under her breath, even though she was starting to run out of things to call him, she jumped down and pulled her pistol. Sliding under a projectile she fired as fast as she could into the weak spot she had made, and was satisfied to see a shower of sparks fly out.
Now it was the commander's turn to curse as his mech jerked erratically. Artemis smiled and hopped up, using the momentum to climb the wall of boxes. She set her rifle on top of the wall as she spun and leaped onto the back of the mech, extending her blade as she did. She plunged it into the sparking gap in the side and just as she was about to expand the Digi-blade she felt a massive hand clamp onto her leg. The next thing she knew she was bouncing off the ground, the air forced from her lungs with an explosive gasp.
She lay there stunned, trying to get air, as the mech sparking and stuttering, stomped down at her. She managed to roll enough that it didn't land directly on her. Gasping she pulled herself forward on her belly, when the other foot came down, missing her by a hairs breadth. But it landed, as if it had been aimed, on her blade, snapping the weapon like a twig.
Deathtrap flew out over the water, dodging the beam firing out of the other robot's shoulder. He dropped low, skimming the surface, leaving broken reflections of the moons in his wake. He spun without slowing down and fired his own laser at the massive bot giving him chase, the green light of his modified beam struck along the side of it, tracing a line of corrosive energy that left the bot's hide bubbling.
This was the first modification that had been talked about by the two girls, and had required them to crack open Artemis's electro-caustic SMG, which caused the proprietary components to fry themselves, but they were able to harvest the elemental switcher and the caustic components with the combined talents of the two of them, and it was now installed in Deathtrap's laser. This allowed him to switch between the two elements of electricity and caustic with a simple thought.
He quite liked it.
The other bot didn't seem to be impressed and resumed firing its own laser. Deathtrap grumbled, the other bot wasn't all that good, but it kept firing that laser nearly constantly and didn't seem to take damage, even though its outer armor was getting marred by all the times it had been hit, it didn't seem like it was getting through. And then there was the fact that it hadn't fired its second weapon yet, although neither had he.
Even as he flew around Deathtrap was keeping an 'eye' on the other fights, the other two seemed to be doing alright, but he wanted to get this finished so he could be in a better position if he needed to step in and help. But he didn't forget all the fights he had been in up till now, nor the strategies he had developed playing games, so he didn't rush, instead he watched and waited.
Before long he was rewarded as the other robot took a break from missing him with its laser and aimed its other shoulder weapon at him. Being cautious, he prepped one of the other modifications that had been done to him, though he wasn't fond of this one.
The other bot fired and a swarm of mini-missiles flew out and at him. He wanted a mini-missile launcher. Maybe he could get the girls to make him one. As the missiles flew about with a bit of a random pattern he stopped and waited. After a few seconds, when they had gotten much closer, he fired. The Flackker that had been modified to fit on the back of his arm threw out its pellets, and the Torgue explosives created a screen in front of him that detonated the incoming missiles.
Deathtrap still wasn't fond of it, but was glad to have it. Once the smoke cleared, he looked at the other bot and gave an exaggerated shrug to mock it. Secretly he wished he could have used his death laser to end this, but with the smoke screen, he knew that it would have been a waste.
The other robot took advantage of his stillness to fire a laser off at him, one he was too slow to dodge. The beam hit him in the shoulder and…did nothing. He had been a bit surprised that the armor worked as well as it did back on Pandora. Not that he had doubted it, after all Gaige had said it would work. He had been dodging to keep the bot firing its laser in the duel hopes that first off, it would drain its power, and second, that it wouldn't use some other kind of weapon. Well the first didn't seem to be happening and the second had just happened, though he had negated it pretty effectively as well.
The problem was that they were at a stalemate, with neither one seemingly able to hurt the other, but they each had a trick up their sleeve.
The other bot moved first, giving up on range it seemed to have decided to finish things in close combat. While Deathtrap was usually fine with that, those claws looked pretty dangerous, so he flew backwards away from it while his circuits flew through plans, eventually deciding on one.
It wasn't the best plan, far from it. And it had a lot of room to go wrong, probably more than to go right. But it was his best chance, a suicidal gamble, but as someone had recently said, sometimes suicidal was really just a desperate attempt to live, or something like that.
So he found himself flying back over the plaza, and making sure that he wasn't over anything important, slowed down to face the ridiculously named Deathbot 2.0. It closed rapidly and swung at him, he casually ducked under and retaliated in kind, only he hit the other bot, slicing into the back of its hand. He did the same for the other hand when it swung. He wound up going toe to toe with the other bot in a fist fight, even though neither of them had toes.
After a desperate few minutes or seconds, one of the other bots blades flickered and the Digi-blade vanished, and then a few seconds later the other followed. The bot swung at him with a fist, completely leaving its flank open, and Deathtrap took the bait, slashing deep into its right side, only to be stopped part way as the other bot caught his arm. Deathtrap frantically tugged and spun trying to get loose, but the other robot had a vice-like grip on him. And then, it brought its other arm to play, and slammed it into his torso.
Deathtrap wailed as the other robot pulled, and then with a slight change in grip on his body, tore Deathtrap's left arm completely off, before tossing his wounded body onto the ground, where he crashed in a flickering pile of spurting oil and sparking wires.