CLAPTRAP COMPLETE SYSTEM DESTRUCTION IN 14:16:32:05
So the battle with the bandits attacking Nisha's mountain hadn't exactly gone to plan. At least Claptrap can say he wasn't totally at fault here, some of it belonged with Nisha. Having only one arm to work with didn't exactly work well with head-on combat. Holding, aiming, firing, dealing with the recoil, and reloading really worked better when you have two hands. Nisha grunted and groaned the entire time going down the mountain, bemoaning to herself why she didn't bother rearming the traps for the people too stupid to use the Fast-Travel.
While Nisha suffered in the KPS department, Claptrap suffered in everything else department. His newfound courage that got him up to Nisha's sniper post vanished when he saw a entire row of armed bandits came running up to them. They were pretty well armed though and as Nisha noted, they were good shots. But still, Claptrap had fought and beat entire bandit armies, moon monsters, more advanced machines than him, and a powerful army, so he shouldn't be running from these low level idiots. At least he managed to kill some dudes when he wasn't reviving himself or Nisha from being crippled.
They managed to get down to the base of the mountain in about a hour's time. Thankfully their slow progress had been shared with the bandits attempting to wire multiple explosives to blow down the mountain. Nisha took stock as she saw the demomen getting to work. Those things would crack the mountain and shake it…but not blow it down. Still, they might get more explosives and knowing Pandora, they might end up nuking the entire area in their attempt to knock down the mountain. Pulling out her new blue Hyperion rifle she picked out of a dead bandit, she laid it on top of Claptrap to better her aim. Three shots and down went the headless bodies of the demomen.
"Right, now for the boss!" Claptrap announced, pulling out yet another Jakobs shotgun. "Where is he…"
"RIGHT HERE YOU BLIND BAG OF BUSTED BOLTS!"
Claptrap jumped and wheeled behind Nisha as the loud and boisterous boss of this band of bandits came breaking through his men's lines to confront the two former Vault Hunters. He dressed in a ancient gas mask and wore some sick-looking leather armor. "YOU! ONE-ARMED BANDIT! I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU FOR TWO WEEKS, TWO HOURS, ONE MINUTES AND FIFTY SECONDS TO TRACK YOU DOWN SO I COULD MURDER YOU SOLID!"
"Not so loud…" Nisha groaned.
"CAN'T! SINCE I LOST A GOOD DEAL OF MY HEARING DUE TO A MASSIVE EXPLOSION INVOLING DYNAMITE COVERED IN SKAG SHIT AND EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF GRENADE ON THE PANDORA, I HAVE TO YELL SO I UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL I'M SAYING!" Nisha's face scrunched up after hearing the line 'dynamite covered in skag shit.' "SO MY HOARSE VOICE WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU'LL EVER HEAR AFTER I STICK MY MUD-COVERED HAND DOWN YOUR THROAT AND RIP OUT YOUR RIBCAGE!" He looked down to see Claptrap with his hand up. "YES TINY WALKING SCRAP HEAP?"
"Umm…I lack a throat and a rib cage, so how can you rip out those things?" Claptrap asked.
"FAIR POINT! INSTEAD, I'LL RIP OPEN YOUR CASE AND TEAR OUT YOUR COOLING FANS AND SHOVE THEM INTO YOUR MOTHERBOARD, HOW'S THAT!"
"Terrifying!" Claptrap clapped. "May I inquire as to the name of my potential killer?"
"MY NAME IS BILLY MAXIMUM AND INTEND TO KILL ANYMORE WHO STEALS FROM ME AND THEIR FRIENDS!" Billy pulled out a massively long buzzaxe (Taller than Billy himself) and pulled a cord back and forth for a few seconds before the weapon revved up and the buzz-saw span around insanely fast. Fast enough to cleanly cut through muscle and bone within a few seconds. "WE'RE GOING TO DO SOME WOOD-CARVING NOW BOYS!"
His men gave cheer as they threw a volley of grenades at Nisha and Claptrap. Seems like the people in this part of the world do wood-carving with explosives. The two jumped back before the MIRVs could detonate the area and make it into a crater. Billy ran forward with his chanbuzzaxe to chop down the two while they were behind cover.
"I'll handle Billy! You take out his goons!" Nisha shouted to Claptrap right before the bandits threw more grenades to flush the two out of cover. Claptrap ran away only to run right into Billy. He swung his weapon with enough force to pick up dirt and pebbles on the ground. Claptrap backed off and ran in the opposite direction of where he was supposed to go. Nisha groaned as she unloaded two barrels of buckshot into Billy's back. This got his attention away from Claptrap. Nisha ran back, fumbling over the shells to reload with the shotgun tucked under her arm.
Claptrap jumped over a boulder and ran straight into Billy's men, who reached for their guns to shot down a easy target. Claptrap responded in kind, throwing a Transfusion grenade in their direction. One of the men reactively reached out and grabbed it in midflight. For a brief minute, the bandits and Claptrap looked back forth between themselves and at the grenade, staring in complete shock of what just happened.
"GET BACK TO FIGHTING!" Nisha and Billy both yelled out loud. The bandit dropped the grenade and reached for his gun. Claptrap already gotten his pistol out and fired at the grenade, making it erupt and unleash the vampiric energy at the bandits. It ripped right through their shields and stole their vitality. Claptrap lifted his gun again and fired off multiple shots at his enemies. Two shots went into one guy's head, disabling his shield and cutting his health down a quarter. Four shots landed in another guy's body and only took down the shield. The thirteen other shots sprayed to the other three men, their shields withstanding. The rain of gunfire did take down Claptrap's own shield and wound him a bit, but the trails of healing energy came back to heal him.
While Claptrap got behind the boulder, Nisha rolled away as Billy dived down with his weapon poised to tear Nisha apart from the waist. The gunslinger realized that the weapon would most likely tear her into pieces and would just ignore the shield. Lifting up her rusty revolver, she placed three bullets into Billy's head. They 'dinged' off the gasmask. Rolling away into a hurried run, Nisha considered her new plan of action. So if this bandit was smart enough to protect his head with actual protection, she might need a corrosive weapon or rely on bodyshots.
"Craptrap!" She shouted over to her 'partner', busy fighting off the five bandits. "You got a corrosive gun I can use?!"
"I got this Maliwan gun…" Claptrap nervously stood up on his single wheel to show, right before ducking down to avoid another barrage of hot lead…not incendiary but just normal guns. Just to clarify. Claptrap withdrew another transfusion grenade to do the same thing he just did, just with more death this time.
"TOSS IT!" Nisha shouted as she jumped out the way of Billy's powerful downward swing. "Running out room here!"
"Here!" Claptrap yelled back as he tossed the green gun and the grenade by accident. Nisha reached out and ended up taking the grenade by accident, leading to the gun to skitter across the ground and go under a rock…of course. Nisha looked at the grenade and suddenly wished she could go back in time…to shove Claptrap into the blackhole they created on Helios.
Without as much as a choice, Nisha threw the grenade as hard as she could straight at the charging Billy. He instinctively swung his massive weapon at it. The grenade split open and unleashed the tendrils of energy all over. Billy watched the tendrils surround him right before they ripped into him to sap his health. "GARHR!" Billy shouted. "THIS REMINDS ME OF HOW I LOST A GREAT DEAL OF MY HEARING IN THE FIRST PLACE! I HATE THIS!" He chased after the energy with his chainbuzzsaw swinging randomly to somehow to attack the energy. As he rushed right at Nisha without caring about her, this allowed Nisha to get up close to him. She ducked under a swing and got her hand under his mask, managing to tear it off after a couple of powerful yanks.
"NOT MY BEAUTY MASK!" Billy shouted as he covered his face with both of his hands. Nisha took out her revolver, still half-loaded, and placed the remaining three shots into the back of Billy's head. This made the bandit leader stumble forward and onto his knees. Nisha threw the gun at his head as well, deciding to go with the Drake of the 99 Dragons strategy of gun reloading; tossing out a old one and switching to a fully-loaded weapon…with less armpit withdrawls.
Nisha yanked out a Dahl SMG and pulled the trigger back all the way. All forty-eight bullets went straight into Billy's brain, draining his health. Nisha preceded to throw that gun at Billy as well and switch to another pistol. "Die." She grunted as she pulled the trigger once, causing a fountain of blood to erupt out of Billy's head. "Damn you, die." She fired yet another bullet, making another hole. One could connect the holes with a marker in his head to make a horse. "Just die!" Nisha suddenly shouted as she unloaded the rest of the clip into Billy's brain.
"STOP!" Claptrap shouted, a bit panicky.
"What?" Nisha asked, pointing her now-empty gun at Claptrap.
"He's already dead! Stop!" He pleaded. Nisha turned back to see that Billy had already fallen over and a puddle of blood started to grow all around him. Nisha stared at the corpse for a few seconds before stepping back a few steps and pocketing her pistol. It took more seconds before she went and retrieved her guns. She turned to see that two of Claptrap's bandits were fleeing at the sight of the brutality, and other three dead on the spot.
As she slowly walked up to Claptrap, she asked, "When did he die?"
"After you beaned him in the head with the SMG." Claptrap told.
"Ah." Nisha breathed out. She looked around. Yup, this place looked like a team of Vault Hunters just passed through here. Blood covering multiple surfaces, bullet holes and black burn marks everywhere and more, bodies and various degrees of loot littering the ground and both were starting to slowly vanish and the air was eerily quiet. She looked back to Claptrap, picking up money and any gun not white-colored.
He did decently, she decided as she reached under that rock to recover that gun. Claptrap might only a short time left to live, but he was honestly doing his best. Nisha figured she might as well tag along…she could get that new arm promised and plenty of loot. Might meet some new people that could be her new deputies in the next incarnation of her law system. Make some new connections, find a better place to set up a base…and get those Vault Hunters to owe her a huge favor. If things got too hairy, she'll escape and hide out here again. Could use experience in being a one-arm gunman.
"Got everything!" Claptrap announced, breaking Nisha out of her thoughts. She looked down to see Claptrap carrying around a huge stack of guns. "We can split the loot on the way to the Fast-Travel. I still have two weeks left to live, but that doesn't mean we can't waste our time! At the pace we're going, we should have rescued the Vault Hunters within a week's time, and I can spend my remaining days living the debauched lifestyle!"
"Not a bad idea." Nisha admitted as she dug into the stack and pulled out a assault rifle with her metaphysical name on it. "Hey…we haven't heard from that Alpha gu in a while…"
"That's because I didn't want to spend a hour listening to the sound of gunfire echoing throughout my base." Alpha spoke up, followed by sound of someone swallowing liquid. "But I did watch the battle through Claptrap's eye, exciting stuff. You shot a few guys in the head, whoopee."
"Don't knock it until you tried it." Nisha summed up as she took a nasty looking bayoneted sniper rifle out of the stack. "If you're fast, you can play a little game: spot the creature in the flying blood!"
"I'll saw a turtle!" Claptrap admitted.
"Whatever." Alpha whistled. "I found someone else that can help you. Some sort of a cult leader who keeps his followers in line with lead. The reports say he has the power to make duplicates of himself…sound familiar?"
"Timothy?" Claptrap asked.
"Not Jack?" Nisha asked.
"John Boy?" Alpha mockingly asked. "I don't know! Possibly! Go found out! He's in the Tepatorl Marshes!"
"Tepatorl?"
"It's a reference to a great video game. Get going! Lillian just updated her blog saying she's going ahead with the first part of her plan." Claptrap put away the rest of the loot as the two rushed up the mountain back to the Fast Travel post. Claptrap accessed the panel…
"…oh, sorry." Alpha spoke up with a low voice. "The post also mentioned she decided to turn off world-wide support for the Fast-Travel system. Sorry."
Claptrap and Nisha stared at the now-dead console for a few seconds before looking behind them to see the long and near infinite wasteland that stretched out all around them. To them, it appeared that the entire world was just this. But even if they didn't have a mission of dire importance, they would still have to trek out there to escape the oncoming remaining members of Billy's forces. Without any choice, the two made one last stop at Nisha's mountaintop base and picked up whatever they could. Then they set out on foot into the wastelands that made Pandora so infamous in the direction of the marshes. Claptrap felt incredibly nervous; the lack of Fast Travel meant that they would be constantly moving about just to stay ahead of his last few moments of life. Nisha grunted out again as she realized this journey would be even harder and less fulfilling than she expected.
Billy opened his eyes, feeling someone nudging him. His head hurt badly, it felt like there was something rattling around in there…