Author's note: When it comes to character dialogue, I'll try my best to recreate Zero's haikus and Krieg's insane blurting. I apologize in advance if I don't quite get it. On to the story!
Carter was lying face down in the snow of the arctic landscape, when he began to regain consciousness, he heard a high-pitched, robotic voice. "Great, another dead Vault Hunter." Carter's body shifted as he tried to get up, by the time he was standing, the square-shaped, yellow robot noticed him. "Wait a minute, you're not dead! YES! Now I can get off this glacier! Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in!"
Carter's wounds began to heal as he took in his surroundings, he saw the other Vault Hunters regain their posture. Krieg helped Maya on her feet as she had a hand on the bottom of her rib cage, Salvador walked over holding his bleeding arm, Axton walked with a slight limp, and Zero didn't have any visible wound. Then he noticed that his brother was missing from the group.
"Allow me to introduce myself – I am a CL4P-TP steward bot, but my friends call me Claptrap! Or they would, if any of them were still alive. Or had existed in the first place!" They listened to Claptraps introduction as it rolled off into the direction of some bodies however, Carter's mind was preoccupied. "Leon, can you hear me?" He mentally called out to his brother.
"Oh –I've got something for you!" The bot was six holding identical items and gave each of them one. "Here – take this ECHO communicator that I totally didn't loot from these corpses! It comes with a class-twelve heads-up-display, complete with a minimap!" Their ECHO's began booting up their bio-diagnostics and HUD. Carter's vitals were normal, he figured it was due to his healing. The other weren't looking to well though.
Claptrap waited for their systems to boot up before speaking again. "Now – come, come, friend. Let's get you inside." "No, I need to find my brother." Carter objected. Maya spoke up with an empathic face. "Carter, it's a miracle that we survived, your brother might not even-."
She was cut off when a loud metallic banging sound could be heard from of the train cars. With the third bang, the door flew off of the car. Carter sighed with relief and smiled. "That's him."
Leon slowly regained his senses, his optics rebooted as his vision returned, he could tell he was still inside the train car. He tried to recall what happened and how he ended up the way he did. He remembered Loaders coming out of the holding ports in the cars and attacking him and the others, how an explosion derailed the train, and him hitting something.
He stood up and gained his bearings. "God, I don't wanna do that again." He then heard a groan inside the car he was in, then he remembered. "Wait, the girl!" He went to the source of the sound and found the same girl from before waking up.
Leon spoke softly but clearly. "Hey, you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I guess. I'm sore all over though." She spoke with a strained, yet feminine voice.
"I'm not surprised, considering we were just in a train wreck."
"Really?! Ugh, that explains so much." She stated with clear annoyance in her voice.
"My name's Leon. What's your name?"
"My name's Gaige. So what now?"
"Well, we get out of this car, for starters."
One end of the car was on top another car, so they had to climb up the car to get out, it would've been a trivial task, but Gaige's body was sore and she had a limp, something Leon took note of. "Need help?" Gaige gave out a reluctant sigh. "yeah." She extended her cybernetic arm, he grabbed it and pulled her up the rest of the way. When they reached the door, it was jammed due to the damage.
"Oh, great. It's stuck." Leon complained.
"Maybe I can help." Gaige made a raising motion with her prosthetic arm, but nothing happened, when Leon looked at her, she had a kind of awkward, dumbstruck look, which he couldn't help but to giggle at.
"Shut up, this never happened before!" Gaige exclaimed angrily.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What were you trying to do?" He asked out of curiosity.
"*sigh* I was trying to call out Deathtrap, but it's not working." She explained, a bit of disappointment in her tone.
"Maybe your arm was damaged. Here, I'll get the door." Gaige moved away from the door, giving him some space.
"So, how are you going to open the door?" Gaige asked with a hint of sass.
"Brute force." He punched the door and put a large dent in it. He punched it again and loosened it from its hinges, he punched it a final time and the door flew out from the car.
Gaige was a taken back by what she saw. "You just punched a door off a train car!" Leon looked at her. "Uh, yeah. It's because of the…uh, exosuit I have." Gaige noticed that he was wearing an exosuit over a long sleeved jacket of some of kind and that he had a pair of tan gloves.
Leon climbed out of the car first and then helped Gaige out. Once they were both out, "TWO MORE FLESHIES JOIN US ON OUR QUEST OF WRATH!" They were startled to say the least; they saw that the source of the screaming came from a rather large man that wore a mask that hid most of his face except for left eye.
"Don't mind him, he's usually like this." They looked to the woman who was speaking.
"Hey Leon, took you long enough." Carter was standing in the snow looking at him with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. "Shut up, Carter. I didn't take that long." Leon retorted. He turned to Gaige.
"Can you get down on your own?" Gaige looked down to the ground.
"I don't think so. Could you help me?" She looked to Leon.
"Sure, hang on." He picked her up bridal style then jumped of the car, using the exosuit's thrusters to make the landing as smooth as he could.
"Here – while you were getting down here, I find these ECHO communicators that, I would like to elaborate, did not get off the bodies that surround you!" The little robot that approached them handed them the devices and they began to boot up. "Now that your ECHO device has rebooted, follow me!"
Leon spoke up. "Who's this guy?"
"Uh, his name is Claptrap, he's going to take us to his place." Axton answered.
"By the way Leon, who's your friend?" Carter inquired about the teenage girl Leon was supporting.
"Oh, this is Gaige. She was the one making the sound I heard while we were on the train."
Gaige looked at the group of Vault Hunters. "Hey there." The other introduced themselves as they followed Claptrap through the snowstorm.
"I'm Carter, Leon's brother; I'm the Guardian."
"Hey, there. My name's Axton; the Commando."
"My name is Zero/ and as to my profession/ I'm the Assassin."
"Salvador; I am the Gunzerker."
"I'm Maya; I'm a Siren."
"(Try to introduce us as Krieg, and as much as I hate to admit it, we are what they call a psycho.) I'M WAR INCARNATE, AND THE ONE YOU SEE ON THE BOXCOVER! (Close enough…)."
"Oook, I'm Leon; the Cyber-soldier."
"I'm Gaige; the Mechromancer."
All of a sudden an image of a woman appeared on their HUD and a soft voice spoke to them.
"I'll explain everything soon, but know this – you're alive for a reason, and I…am here to help you."
"Who or what was that?" Axton had asked the question that everyone was thinking.
"She might have been the Guardian Angel the stories to
ld about." Maya explained trying to come up with an answer.
Claptrap snapped them out of their thought. "Well done! Your ability to walk short distances without dying will be Handsome Jack's Downfall!" They arrived at a shack or shed of some kind, they came to the conclusion that this was Claptrap's Place. Claptrap rolled to the door. Claptrap: "Whenever you're ready, Minions." Carter: "We're ready- wait minions."
The door scanned Claptrap. "Aaaand open!" The door finished scanning him, it opened and they followed him inside. "Just a little added security. Gotta keep those Bullymongs at bay, or they'll rip your eyes out!"
"Hm, I know what that's like." Leon spoke under his breath and looked down to the ground with pain on his face. Carter enhanced hearing picked up his remark and frowned from the memory. Gaige also heard due to her being next to him, she didn't know much about him, but she knew he had experienced pain in the past.
"By the way, there's some medicine in the lockers if you need any. Can't fight Jack if you're dead!" Claptrap stated with a matter-of-fact tone in his robotic voice. Leon walked Gaige over to the locker, he opened the locker and found a insta-health injection vial. "Now this may sting, but it'll be over in a second." "Alright, I mean, it's clearly not the worst thing I've been through." She claimed as she gestured to her prosthetic arm. Leon injected the vial in her right-upper arm. He watched as most of her wounds healed instantly, hence the name.
"Ahh, much better. Thanks for that, Leon. Now I can walk on my own." They walked into the main room of the shed and spread out to gather and supplies they could get and more Anshin. "Sorry about the mess. Everything Jack kills, he dumps here: bandits, Vault Hunters, Claptrap units… If I sound pleased about this, it's only because my programmers made this my default tone of voice! I'm actually quite depressed!"
"Now, the creatures around here are dangerous, none more than this Bullymong named Knuckle Dragger – killed everyone I know. Any who, I keep a pistol in the cabinet over there for emergencies, but in here we should be pretty safe." Claptrap proclaimed the last part with confidence, though it was short-lived. A loud roar could be heard from above the shack, then a large, four-armed creature climbed from the roof using the exhaust pipe of the furnace. It grabbed Claptrap before anyone could react.
"MY EYE! AAHHH!" Claptrap screamed as his eye was ripped from its port. The creature dropped the bot and climbed up the exhaust pipe. Gaige and Leon walked over to the damaged Claptrap. "Let me see the damage Claptrap, I'm an engineer." Leon looked at the hole where eye once was.
"The gun. The gun in the cabinet." Claptrap spoke with a low weak voice. Their HUD automatically updated with a waypoint system. Zero was closest to the before mentioned cabinet. He opened the cabinet and saw a grey, basic Dahl repeater. He presented the gun to the group.
"Only one." Maya stated, slightly annoyed by the fact.
"How do we decide who gets it?" Axton asked.
"I have an idea. Everyone; show any weapon you may have." Carter suggested. He presented his Iai blade, Zero showed his digistruck sword, Axton his hatchet, Krieg his buzzsaw ax, Salvador flexed his arms, Maya made a fist in her left hand and her tattoos glowed, Leon drew his twin machetes, and Gaige pulled out her hammer with her left arm.
"Maya, Salvador, Gaige; it should be one of you." Carter narrowed the choices.
"I'm a Siren and, even though I'm still a little weak, I still have my powers." Maya stated.
"This planet is mi casa, amigos. I can handle these beasts, even with my bare fists." Salvador said with confidence.
"My cybernetic arm can punch through concrete, but it gets damaged, so I use this hammer." Gaige said with modesty.
"I think it should go to Gaige." Leon spoke up. "Who agrees?" Everyone made a gesture of agreement. "Then it's settled." Maya slid the gun to Gaige.
"Wait, do you even know how to use a gun, girly?" Axton stated, sounding a little snarky.
"Yes, I've practiced with my dad every now and then." She retorted in defense of her skill, though she had a hurt expression when she finished her sentence.
Carter sighed "Right then, let's get going." "Apart from the excruciation pain, this is great! I've been waiting for a mighty Vault Hunter to help me reach Sanctuary! I will be your wise leader, and you shall be my fearsome minion! Ahahaha!"
"Now I know why he's called Claptrap." Leon stated to no particular person. Gaige, Maya, and Carter giggled under their breath, but the others were a little confused.
"I don't get it." Axton admitted.
"Claptrap is a noun; it means, absurd or nonsensical talk or ideas." Carter explained. At the realization, Axton blurted out laughing and Salvador chuckled.
All of a sudden, the same female from before appeared on their ECHO HUD.
"Once upon a time, four Vault Hunters changed Pandora forever. But their time has passed – thanks to Handsome Jack. Pandora needs new heroes. I know those heroes are you." And with that, she disconnected just as fast as she connected.
"Great! Just let me get this door open and we'll hunt ourselves a Bullymong." Claptrap proclaimed.
"Onward, seeing-eye minion! Let me know if I'm gonna run into anything."
"Claptra-." Maya tried to warn him, but he already ran into an ice mound. "I'll just assume you didn't see that."
They walked out of the shed, beginning their journey to bring down Handsome Jack and save Pandora.