Princess Purple Pants Fluffs up another difficult spell! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!
Eridium is a strange element. The Planet of Pandora is seemingly rife with the stuff, and it's strange properties are exploited on a constant basis by vault hunters and savages alike.
Few expect, however, for there to be another world possessing this element. And what's more, few would expect that world to be inhabited by the kind of sugar-coated sickly sweet environment and inhabitants that would make a stoic and solid combatant lose his lunch.
Eridium does strange things when used by those with access to technology. But how would it react to magic?
"Perhaps it is time to teach young Twilight of the element and it's uses?"
The Princesses, Luna and Celestia were sat in the throne room, which had been emptied out, save for one royal guard, holding a small platter, upon which sat a chunk of glowing purple mineral. He knew not why he was charged with standing here and holding it as he did, but it was his duty to do so.
"And what do we teach her about it?" asked Celestia to her sister. "We know little about it ourselves!"
"This is true, but we must also confess that we know less about Magic itself than young Sparkle does. It is her element afterall. We Alicorns and the Unicorns of our world merely use it. She embodies it." said Luna, with an authority not like her usual demeanor.
"Though you are right, she is still young, inexperienced. We know too little of what this element would do when manipulated with magic as it is, but Twilight will most certainly attempt to cast a variety of spells to determine it's use, and I fear that-" but Celestia was interrupted.
"Sister, please. Who better than she to do exactly that? Your prized student is no Filly, Celly, you must see that."
With a sigh, Celestia was defeated. Her sister was right.
"Very well." she said, with a heavy heart. "Guardspony, you are to send that stone to the town of Ponyville, and ensure it reaches Princess Twilight.
"Yes, your majesty!" he said, and threw the rock into his saddlebag, before taking off.
It had taken no more than three hours for the stone to reach Twilight, and the letter that preceded it explained all. It was an important task for The Princess of Magic, and Twilight took it with an enthusiasm bordering on the obsessive. For days she studied the stone and experimented with it incessantly, discovering new things about it with each passing day. Her first discovery of the stone was that it bore strong similarities to the stones present in the Elements of Harmony, and bearing an almost identical makeup to the stone in her own tiara. Armed with this knowledge, Twilight soon after discovered the stone's ability to amplify spells' effects or durations, when cast in it's presence. It bestowed magical properties and compatabilities to simple and non-magical objects when nearby.
However, the stone was not simply a boon. It had a detriment. Spells cast in the presence of the stone could backfire, and when they did, the effects of the backfire were hazardous to a pony's health, regardless of the spell cast. What was more was that the stone reacted unpleasantly whenever Twilight attempted to lift or move the stone with her levitation. It was difficult, and in her mind's eye it was as if the stone was avoiding her magical contact.
And then there was the issue of physical contact. The stone was volatile and dangerous to flesh or fur, with Twilight's hooves bearing small burns and bald spots from where the stone had burned her upon contact. Spike was able to touch it, the scales even on his claws seemingly resistant to it's caustic touch, though he did claim that touching the stone made him feel sluggish and tired. It also made him flammable. It was unusual to see spike being vulnerable to burns but as he sneezed when holding the stone, the fact that his belly got mildly burned as a result of his fiery sneeze was proof. Further testing showed them both that this was only the case when Spike was touching the stone however, and so the little dragon's fears of a curse were abated.
After two weeks of testing and reporting on all that she could, Twilight decided for yet another test, the flow of new discoveries having come to a halt.
"Well Twilight, we're all here and we got our elements on. What was it you were tryna do again?" asked Applejack, as she and the other four elements stood infront of Twilight, all wearing their elements as she had asked them to do.
"Thank you all for coming. You're all aware of this stone that I've been studying for the past two weeks, I'm sure."
"Yea!" said Rainbow Dash, a little grumpy. "That rock is the reason you haven't come out at all to hang our or anything!"
"We uhm...we miss you Twilight." whispered Fluttershy
"I'm sorry, really. But this is important. The Princesses charged me with studying this stone, as apparently it is the most common mineral in our world and they knew so little about it. They told me it was magically charged, and I can tell you that they didn't know the half of it!"
"I'm more miffed that in all this time, you wouldn't even allow me, of all ponies, to have a look at this gemstone of yours. Moi! One would think that I would have crossed your mind at least." complained Rarity, staring at the beautiful purple stone, her mind already aflutter with ideas to fashion this stone into an ensemble.
"Besides, considering what you say about this stone, it would be a useful item for any unicorn to wear, would it not?"
"Believe me Rarity, I did think of that." assured Twilight. "But this stone still has to undergo some tests before I would even think of allowing that. The one we're going to perform today, is that we are going to subject it to the magic of our elements, to see what becomes of it. Afterall, it is important that we know what this stone would do if the need to do exactly that to it, or anypony wearing it, arose."
"She has a point..." admitted Rainbow, with the others sullenly agreeing. All of them save for Pinkie Pie, who had remained calm and silent during the entire meeting. She simply stared at the stone in wonder, a look of confusion and amazement plastered on her face. Nopony took notice of course, as as it was near unthinkable for any of them to try and figure out what went on in Pinkie's mind, especially when she was engrossed as she as.
"Well then. Let's begin the test shall we?" said Twilight, looking straight at Pinkie, who responded surprisingly quickly, and ushered herself into position just as the others did.
As the six gathered in a circle around the stone, which was perched on a display case in the middle of Twilight's library, they each closed their eyes and focused, pouring whatever emotions and energies it was they needed to, in order to get their elements to activate. As it began to work, Spike noticed the commotion. He knew about Twilight studying the stone, but he had no idea of this particular meeting, and he was all too curious to find out what was going on. Stepping into the circle, clutching a small diamond in his hands, that he was planning to eat, Spike was able to witness the instant that the spell was fired from the elements.
It was fired directly at him, as he had unwittingly placed himself between the stone and the focal point of the spell.
Immediately spike threw up his hands, his small gem put up in defense. Instead what it did was create a secondary focal point for the spell, as it hit the gem, and spread out through it. It did hit the stone however, which began to rise as the magic enveloped it. When Spike dared open his eyes and saw that his tasty diamond was now in the middle of the spell, he didn't dare move it, as the element bearers were focused on their spell and didn't appear to notice much of what was happening.
Branches of the magic spread out, in seemingly random directions, and flew out into the world. As this was happening, the spell got a reaction indeed from the stone, the magical purple mineral. In a few moments it's own colour seeped into the spell, as if it had magic of it's own that it was using on the magic of the elements. It seeped in, and hit Spike's diamond, turning that purple aswell, before spreading through it and into the elements. Again, Spike felt that heavy sluggishness, and saw that he too was being enveloped by the magic of the stone.
The residents of Ponyville definitely saw these arcs of magic flaring from the treehouse of their local librarian and resident Princess. They even witnessed one of the branches fly up into the sky and head for Canterlot in the distance. Ofcourse, none of this elicited as immediate a panic as what happened next, when the treehouse exploded, showering the town with shards of wood and burnt books.
Princess Celestia had just received her latest letter from Twilight, detailing the latest of her discoveries of the mineral, and her intentions with the elements. It was mid-morning, so Luna was fast asleep as Celestia read the letter. What she didn't expect however, was to be struck with a wayward beam of colourful magic the likes of which she recognized. Confused, but ultimately relieved that the magic didn't appear to do anything to Celestia, she immediately set about writing a letter to her pupil in order to investigate.
However, as she wrote, Celestia heard something. it sounded like a voice, though it was very far off. The Princess of the sun had no idea as to why she was hearing this, considering how telepathy of any kind had not been in her repetoir of abilities thus far. Perhaps it had something to do with that spell that had struck her, seeming to do nothing. Celestia tried to use her magic to 'locate' the source of the voice, not certain as to how exactly she would do this.
"...bought a pony made of diamonds, because I'm...."
A pony made of diamonds?
A crystal pony?
Had someone kidnapped a citizen of the crystal empire?
Immediately Celestia set about writing another letter. Her cousin Cadenza would know something of this, and Celestia could likely organize a nation-wide search for the kidnappers.
Celestia did not expect however, to explode.
Or to come to, shortly after, blind and unable to move. Or feel her body.
"Angel? C'mon Angel I need you to focus here." said a voice. It bore a resemblance to the faint one she'd heard only moments ago.
"Where am I?" Celestia said. Or tried to say. She certainly heard what sounded like her voice saying what she'd said, but Celestia could not say how she'd said it, since she could not tell if her mouth had opened, or if it was even there. Her voice had also sounded different. Artificial in a way.
"Hey Angel, wake up sweetie, you're slackin' over here. You're still in the same place you were just a minute ago, don't go playing dumb on me now."
"Angel? I do not go by that name. Why can't I see anything?"
"The hell are you talkin' about? Did an asteroid hit you or something? Helloo~ anybody home? Who's in there?"
"My name is Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and if-"
"HAH! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT!? PRINCESS WHAT NOW!? HAHA OH MY GOD! That's rich! That's fuckin' rich! I don't know WHAT's happened to you Angel but you're a hell of a lot funnier now, I'll say that much."
"Impudence! Is that you Discord!? I will have your HEAD for this if-"
"WOAH WOAH there Angel-oh, sorry, Your majesty. Haha, I don't know who this Discord fella you're talking about is, but since you insist you're not Angel, I guess I'll have to introduce myself. My name is Jack, and you are clearly my new Satellite assistant. Now, If you're not Angel, then I have one question."
With that, Celestia's vision was filled. First with a bright light, and then a sky blue glow. In amidst this lighting was a face. It was not the face of any pony Celestia had ever seen, and indeed it was not the face of a pony at all. It was an unusual creature, it's face flat save for what was clearly a nose. Those eyes however, they were something else. Small and beady, but with a depth that rivaled the universe itself.
What was worse, was that Celestia could no longer argue. She was compelled for reasons beyond her knowing, to comply with his demands. It wasn't even a struggle. Agian, the voice spoke, though it's attitude had changed, and now he was clearly very upset.
Twilight tried to focus. She couldn't see. Or move. her body felt strange. Stiff and stretched out, Twilight felt as if she was lying on her side, stretch out lengthways. But she was blind and immobile, meaning any effort to figure out where she was quickly became futile.
That was when she felt the sensation of...hands? Hands wrapping around one of her legs and another hand under her chin. This was incredibly uncomfortable, but Twilight could not find a way to open her mouth so as to speak, and protest. Instead, she simply felt the sensation of being shaken. The shaking was rythmical, almost as if she was riding on somepony's back as they walked.
After a while, she began to hear something. Sounds. Something similar to hoofsteps, but slower. There were only two of them, if the rythm was anything to go by. Twilight was in the company of a biped then. Judging by the sound of the earth beneath the creature, Twilight wagered she was somewhere in the badlands, or perhaps the desert, close to Appleoosa or Dodge City. She tried to focus, and to center her thoughts, as the sounds and sensations continued. How had she come so far from Ponyville? Why couldn't she move? What had happened with the spell? The Spell! Her friends! The elements!
Immediately Twilight's panic set her about trying to move, but she could not. Some sensations similar to feeling did come to her, however. Her body did not feel as it should. It did not even feel like her own. She tried to concentrate, pouring magic into her horn, or atleast where she hoped it would be, but nothing came to. Whatever she thought was her horn felt hollow, and cylindrical, instead of like her horn. Struggling desperately, Twilight tried to open her eyes, despite that they did not feel closed. Trying constantly, she could not see anything.
That was when she heard the sound. It was some sort of animal, a wolf or other such creature. And it was growling. That was when the hands returned, and Twilight felt the long fingers wrap around her leg and under her chin again. This time however, one of the fingers stroked what she thought was one of her ears, only to have her neck extend against her will. Up went her head, and then Twilight felt her eye open.
And she was immediately petrified. What she saw was no wolf. it was no creature that she had ever seen or even read about. It had no ears, and very small eyes, accompanied by a very craggy skin and a jaw that...that opened vertically!? It roared at her, though the sound could scarcely be called a roar, and was more of a hollow, almost metallic howl. It's back, covered in long and thin spines, almost like solid hair, rose, and whatever it was that this creature had in it's mouth was no tongue she had ever seen. It was however, whipping about in a disturbing and vicious manner.
Then another push, again on her ear, and Twilight found herself zooming forwards. Or atleast, her eye did. At this point Twilight could not tell if she still had both of her eyes even. The world she saw looked artificial, and what looked to be an alien language was floating infront of her, changing and pointing lines and circles at certain things. Certain parts of the creature before her.
But Twilight didn't have much time to contemplate any of this. Instead, she felt her leg pulled. Or what should have been her leg. In that instant, something in her bowels moved. It fired up through her stomach, up through her throat, and up past her face and out through her horn. She had just fired some sort of projectile from her bowels, and the shock of the sensation had her stunned. What only served to disgust and disturb her was that whatever she had just been made to fire had caused the creature's head to explode, if that was even it's head at all.
That was too much. The terror and disgust by all of this had built up inside Twilight until she could take no more, and she screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAH AAAAH AAAAAH! WHAT IS GOING ON I DON'T UNDERSTAND! WHO'S THERE, WHERE AM I!?"
"Be quiet." was the curt response she got, and it was an effective one. "I struggle to believe why I was sold such faulty equipment." it said. The voice was harsh, cold, and distanced. It sounded as if it was coming through a series of tin cans.
"Wh-what did you just do?" was the only question Twilight could muster.
"You do not know? When they informed me that this rifle had an A.I, they failed to mention that it was stupid."
"A what?"
"You do not know what you are? Well, this is unusual. You are a Maliwan Rifle with the eridium empowerment. You were quite expensive and I expect you to perform as advertised."
Of all these terms that the voice, the source of which she could not see still, Twilight understood only the term 'rifle', and her mind reeled at the implications. It did explain some of what had just happened, but not how it came to be. The only thing Twilight could comprehend was that possibly, her experiments with the stone had caused this, but if that was the case then it did not explain why her friends weren't here with her.
Again, Twilight was raised, and her eye set on another hideous creature. Again and again, she witnessed, up-close and zoomed-in, these hideous creatures submit to the slaughter, as their heads exploded, body parts were severed, and their thick hides covered in the pock-marks of her fire. Whoever it was that had Twilight was clearly a hunter, and he was reveling in the gore and death. If Twilight had a stomach she would've felt sick. Instead, she began to grow used to the sensation of having a trigger, it being squeeze, and a bullet firing up through her entire "body". It was just enough to keep her conscience from being guilt-wracked that Twilight reasoned with herself that she was not responsible. She was only a weapon afterall.
But that was the bizarre part of it all. Twilight was a weapon. Not a pony, any longer. Not any kind of living, sentient creature. She had been transformed, or made to inhabit, an inanimate object. She had no control or influence over the body she was in, she could only observe passively, and speak.
After several hours of hunting, Twilight was no longer bothered by the death and gore. Many creatures had fallen to her, now. Dog-like monsters, large insects somewhat reminiscent of changelings, and even...humans. Similar to the ones she'd met in the land of the mirror, these humans were far more disturbing. And blandly coloured. But their heads and limbs popped or came off all the same. The only time Twilight protested was when a splash of blood from a particularly close-up headshot got blood splatter on the scope that was her eye. It was a grim reminder of her existence now, and Twilight preferred to stay at a distance.
She even began to remark at her user's accuracy. Twilight had never imagined violence on such a precise scale before. To her the mere notion was barbaric and monsterous, yet this creature, this...human? He approached it like a science. Studious and calm, this "Zero" as he called himself, took to murder like it were an education. At the very least, Twilight could appreciate that attitude, and the common ground helped calm her some, as she resigned to her newfound existence in the hands of this Zero.
"For a confused gun" said Zero, after popping the head of a human with a smaller one attached to a shield. "You are quite the powerhouse. You grow powerful."
"Well, Mr Zero-"
"Just Zero, please."
"Well, Zero. I'm not sure if you'd believe me, but I wasn't always a...gun. I was a princess you know. Princess of all Magic, specifically. If I only had my horn I would be able to show you wonderous things, and maybe find my friends while I'm at it."
"You have allies here? A Princess and friends are guns? This is silly-talk!" he laughed.
"You think my friends are also weapons?" asked Twilight, suddenly concerned. The thought that her friends had not only come to this place, but suffered the same fate- she hadn't thought of that! So stupid! It would make sense, as much as could be made, that the same thing would happen to them! They must be in terrible peril right now.
"You are mad, princess. What kind of royal has horns? An Ogre, or troll?" he remarked.
"My name, Zero, is Twilight Sparkle, not princess, and no, I am no ogre or troll. I am an Alicorn." said Twilight, attempting an air of smugness.
"Well, Twilight Sparkle. You are a deadly rifle. Enjoy it for now." he said, as he raised her once more, and took aim.
First ought to be that you don't give a psycho a rocket-launcher.
Second ought to be that don't give a psycho a pink rocket launcher, that talks.
"THIS BOOM STICK DOESN'T BOOM!" protested Krieg as he fired another shot, and watched the ineffective little rocket fly out with a puff and explode ceremoniously into a shower of confetti. Frustrated, he loaded a third round, and fired it at the ground right at his feet. The soft paff of confetti showered around him, and his rocket launcher was now giggling.
"Hahahahaha! This is so fun!" it said, in a shrill and auto-tuned voice. "Shoot another one! Shoot another one!"
Instead, Krieg slammed a large button on it's side, right next to a 'Tediore' graphic, and threw it with some heft.
I know pal. The noise it makes would be excusable if it had some firepower.
The weapon Krieg had just thrown exploded with the same ineffective paff, and the same shower of confetti. The raging psycho remained unperturbed, and seemed to sigh when the weapon reappeared in his hands.
"Woooh hahaha! That was fun! Please don't do it again though! Kinda scary." it said, giggling to him. This prompted him to immediately do it again. To his confusion and slowly growing joy, like a psychological fungus spreading it's smile spores across his mind and into it's tiniest of cracks, the weapon simply laughed again.
It was during this moment of contemplation that a desert bandit truck roared past him, Krieg not even flinching at the explosive barrel that missed him.
Sure would be nice to have some kinda explosive weapon right about now, wouldn't it?
You could always try me out!
Who in the fuck?
"THE MUSHROOM OF SMILES TALKS TO MY INNER HATRED!" bellowed Krieg as he felt, in a rare moment of tactical lucidity, few other options. Out came the bright pink Tediore rocket launcher, and with a blast of a party blower and confetti strings, out popped a little rocket with a bright smile on it.
The driver of the vehicle was not privy to the knowledge that Krieg was, and turned to dodge the rocket. Unfortunately he was not successful, as the pink weapon only now displayed a homing function, causing the rocket to turn, giving chase. The eery 'fweeeeee' of the little rocket drove the operator of the barrel launcher to panic, and he fired at it, displaying the bandits' world-renown intellect and sharp aim. They were all natural snipers, really.
Alas, in what could only be described as a freak mis-calculation, the barrel missed the little rocket, and exploded just beneath the truck's rear bumper, causing it to lurch. This in turn caused the driver to be flung from his seat, into the sands of The Dust.
The sharp shooter at the helm of the barrel-launcher had lost his cool, as the little rocket struck him, with the impact of a weak punch, and 'paffed' all over him, showering him with confetti and confusion. perplexed at his apparently unharmed status, he turned in his seat just time to notice his driver being beaten to a bloody pulp by a raving lunatic. He was being beaten, specifically, with something very offensively pink.
It was as the psycho's one glaring eye turned it's attention to him that he attempted to man his weapon again. However, it was jammed. Some kind of paper ribbon caught in it's works, and as he reached into the mechanism to free it, the machine churned some more, and took his hand as penance.
His screams of pain were short-lived however, as he was abruptly strangled to death.
After a moment, Krieg sighed. His surprisingly useful weapon was quiet. Unusually quiet.
That wasn't fun at all. came a weary little voice, echoing in the mental expanse of fuck that was Krieg's mind.
You're in for a rough ride, kid. Whoever, or whatever you are, you'll wanna find a way out if you can. This here's no-man's land.
"I HEAR YOU! I HEAR YOU I HEAR YOU I HEAR YOU! COME OUT AND PLAY LITTLE MUSHROOM! MY SPINE WILL SMILE FOR YOU, I SWEAR IT ON MY TINGLER!"
If I told you he's honestly trying to be nice, would you believe me?
If you pinkie swear.
I ain't got a pinkie to swear on, but sure.
I'm a Pinkie, silly! And since you swear, I can trust you!
"SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!"
Krieg decided to pull out his confetti launcher once more, and began to thump on it.
"SPEAK, MUSHROOM! SPEAK IN THE LAND OF STRIPPED FLESH AND SALTED WOUNDS! MY PEANUT-BUTTER CASTLE HAS ONLY ONE COLLEGE STUDENT AND HE CAN'T EAT MUSHROOMS!"
"Hi!" cried the weapon, as cheery as it once was. "My name's Pinkie Pie! Or it was! I'm not sure what it is now, since I'm not the pony I used to be. Now I'm some sort of...cannon? OH! OHMYGOSH! I AM THE PARTY CANNON!"
"YEEEEESSSS!" declared Krieg in what could only be described as the sound of intense satisfaction. He liked the sound of the 'Party Cannon'. He liked it very much.
College student? Buddy, you're gettin' weirder everyday.
Easy there buddy. Don't get too excited, I don't think she's that into you.
Maya the Siren warrior, one of six in the universe, was stood in what looked to be the remains of some kind of miniature town or "village" in the dust. It was like a flooding scene, except that instead of water, the buildings were buried up to their ceilings in sand.
She had just sent Krieg an echo, as she had made a rather odd discovery concerning one of her weapons. One that she felt he of all mentally damaged psychopaths would understand. Her gun had just started talking. Completely out of the blue. As far as Maya knew it was a Maliwan Corrosive SMG. What she didn't expect was for it to develop a voice and a personality if some sort after two weeks of silent compliance.
It had caught her off-guard, and she was out in the dust alone when the gun that had just dissolved a bandit shook violently in her hand, and then began screaming. It had taken her a whole minute to calm it down, if only because when you have a screaming and distraught weapon in your hands there is not much else you can think to do, and then she left an echo to Krieg.
"Hey big guy, uh, I got a bit of a problem here...and I don't know what to really do about it."
"YOU have a problem!? I don't even know what I am!" said the gun, sounding close to tears. How would a gun cry? Maya found out soon enough, as the weapon did sure enough burst into 'tears'. Those tears were bullets. The weapon was now firing of it's own free will.
It was lucky that Maya was currently alone, as the spectacle would have spooked anyone else. But Maya was a siren, and as such, she was atleast used to the idea of strange things happening around her.
"Well hey uh...calm down a bit. You uh...you have a name?"
This seemed to calm it down to the point where it atleast stopped firing at random.
"We-well uh...yes dear I suppose. I mean I don't know what I am any longer but I do still have my name, yes. I'm Rarity."
"Well uh...Rarity. I'm Maya, and as for what you are...you-you're a gun."
"Oh well yes I suppo- what is that? What is a 'gun'?"
"It uh...you fire...bullets and they...you make holes in things."
"Holes? Things? What kinds of things?"
"Li-uh..living...things?"
Even for a Siren, this conversation was bizarre. She was teaching a gun what it was. She dare not touch the gun yet, as it still seemed to be tender, if it's tone of voice was any judgement.
And right on cue, Krieg showed up to rescue the situation from sanity.
Ramping off of a small dune nearby, in his Bandit Technical truck, he came flying into the scene to the roaring fanfare of a truck's engine on ogredrive.
"I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING OVER THIS BLENDER!" he declared, as his truck landed with a crash on the sand. Maya dusted herself off and decided to belay her annoyance. For being utterly insane, Krieg was like a big puppy dog to her, though it might have had something to do with Maya being the only one to ever be happy to see him.
Rarity the gun was silent. Perhaps it was stunned by the deafeningly loud crash. Though it was somewhat muffled by sand, the truck's engine was very powerful. And loud. When the monstrous wall of man-flesh climbed out of the totaled vehicle, he had to stop for a moment.
"I think I salted too quickly..." he muttered.
"Yeah hey big fella" began Maya as he stumbled from the wreckage, clutching his head and shaking it, though whatever ailed his skull was immediately dismissed as he laid eyes on his prize; the pretty lady.
"I WILL CRACK YOUR PROBLEMS WITH A SPOON!" he roared.
"...uh yeah..." she said, as she pointed toward the smg laying on the ground. "That gun's having some kind of ah...moment"
"He-hello? Who is there now?" called out Rarity, having become accustomed enough to her situation to atleast notice when she was being spoken of. She was not accustomed to Krieg's touch however, as he approached her and roughly grabbed her by the handle and trigger, without saying so much as a word.
A talkin' gun with a fucked up attitude. Sounds familiar don't it pal?
"THIS GUN SCREAMS LIKE THE PARTY CANNON!" agreed Krieg.
You wanted me?
Hey woah a little warning when you do that
How am I supposed to warn you that I'm here if I'm not here yet? Silly!
"STOP FLAYING WITHOUT ME!" bellowed the man-beast.
Maya resisted the urge to comment, having become partially accustomed to Krieg's monologues.
Well bring me out so I can meet our new friend!
With the speechless smg in his hand, Krieg reached behind him, and with the ever helpful Hammerspace™ Tech, pulled out his new favourite, if not very useful weapon, The Party Cannon, formerly Pinkie Pie.
"Hi! My name's The Party Cannon..."
"Whu-Pinkie? Is that you dear?"
..."and I hope we can be friends!" she chirped as Krieg effectively 'aimed' her at his other hand, in which lay the white smg.
"Pinkie Pie! That IS you! I know that voice!" claimed Rarity.
"RARITY! OHMYGOSH IT'S SO AWESOME TO HEAR YOUR VOICE!" chirped The Party Cannon. "But I'm not Pinkie Pie anymore! I can't be 'cause now I'm THE PARTY CANNON!"
"..oh. Well I hope you don't mind but I'm going to keep calling you Pinkie P-" "IT IS NOT THE MUSHROOM, IT IS THE PARTY CANNON!" came Krieg's defensive declaration.
Seemingly offended at the weapon's preferences of nomenclature, Krieg simply discarded the poor SMG upon the sand where he took it from, and turned to Maya.
"THE GUN IS RIPE BUT SOILED, BUT AS LONG AS YOU WASH YOUR HANDS IT CAN BE AN ASTOUNDING FOOD MEAL! JUST DON'T LET IT TOUCH MY PARTY CANNON, THAT'S NOT A KOSHER FLESH RIP!" he said, as mildly as he could muster.
"...uh, yeah. Thanks big fella. I think I can handle it." she replied, ever weary not to trigger the man's ever-sketchy psychosis, despite the growing attachment to him.
Well? You gonna ask her?
Oooh! You want to ask her something? Tell me tell me tell me!
You stay outta this.
"I HAVE TWO TICKETS TO THE RIB-CAGE SLAUGHTER! LET'S GO!" was Krieg's final outburst.
Thus, the delighted Gaige, dubbed the 'Mechromancer', was thinking of just how awesome her new gun was, due to the fact that it was also a robot that talked.
Deathtrap never talked.
The gun had taken a minute to come to terms with it's existence, but Gaige was good at that. She'd been practicing for the moment Deathtrap became self aware, which was coming soon, she was sure of it. The gun had surprised her though. It came with it's own memories of being a pony called Rainbow Dash, and it took Gaige a few minutes to convince it of the concept of memory implantation and artificial intelligence.
But she didn't go too far into detail, because this gun had an awesome personality that she wanted to keep. To this effect, Gaige agreed that the gun could keep it's name, Rainbow Dash.
"But...killing people? I'm not so sure..." mumbled Rainbow, after Gaige loaded a clip.
"Hey, c'mon. This is what you were made for! And if someone as awesome as you was made for it, with someone as awesome as me firing, it CAN'T be a bad thing! That's just too much awesome!" reasoned Gaige.
"Y-..Yeah! Yeah let's do it!" replied the gun. It was a Bandit-brand, sky-blue SMG with an iridescence that reflected more colours. Gaige thought that the name it, or she, wanted to keep was quite appropriate, since it seemed as if the paint could reflect every colour of the rainbow.
And it was fast. It fired incredibly fast, spraying lethal fire at a staggering frequency. A simple GUN-Loader target at Marcus' range was completely dissolved after just one magazine, though reloading did take some fiddling. Typical of the Bandit brand.
The faint smell of skittles that wafted from the smoking barrel however, was less so.
Stocking up on ammo, Gaige and her new favourite gun, Rainbow Dash, set off from Sanctuary to score some cash. That, and she wanted to give Dash a field demonstration of Deathtrap, thinking that the two A.Is might get along, despite Deathtrap having no real personality of it's own.
Gaige had adopted the 'animals are people too' attitude with it. Or him, as she'd say.
"I see him, I see him" reported Dash, as she adjusted to the use of her near-superfluous scope.
Gaige was working the Anarchy tree, and so fine aim was a thing of myth, but it was still useful for pre-slaughter recon.
"Think we can take him?" asked Gaige, keeping herself quiet.
"I think we can ri-riddle him fulla-a-a holes." stuttered Dashgun.
"You alright? You sounded a little glitchy there."
"I-I did? I mean I fe-eel alright...if these are e-eeeeeven feelings."
"Hm. Might've got some dust on or near your central circuitboard somewhere. I hope you can still shoot just fine 'cause I don't have anything to fix it with here and now."
"Le-Let's just d-do it!"
And so they did. A small camp set-up of Bloodshots, looking to advance their territory, right in the middle of Bullymong territory. They were doing well enough keeping a perimeter, but their keen eyes and sharp reflexes weren't enough to alert a bunch of cocky bandits of the quiet approach of a young girl and her brightly coloured toy gun.
Her toy gun which had the firepower to quickly flay the flesh from the entourage of psychos that first noticed, and dealt with the rest of the bandits in the same clip. All that remained was the larger-than-life Badass Psycho who had, up until that moment, been kept on a chain. Having been freed by Gaige and RainbowGun peppering his torturer keeper full of more holes than he could keep track of, the badass decided he would approach the liquid hellfire demon and ask for it's phone number.
The act of doing so involved a lot of violence, and this made perfect sense because hellfire demons understood nothing BUT violence. It was their language.
What wasn't their language, nor that of the badass, was a wall of bullets. Rainbow Dash had managed to fire so very rapidly that the bullets would knock against eachother mid-flight and form a small solid panel of travelling ammunition. The result of this event was ofcourse that the poor bastard who was faced with this wall found himself with a decently sized square hole where his ribcage used to be. The rubbery tubing that was his vascular system desperately attempted to plug the leak using excess volumes of blood, but it was to no avail, as the leak was far too large, and the blood simply dribbled out of his vacant chest cavity.
It took his legs no longer than four seconds to realize that he was encountering a system-wide shutdown, and he promptly died, hitting the ground like a sack of raw porkchops.
Despite the pep-talk and the revelation of her existence, Rainbow Dash found herself disturbed by the events that just occurred. The act of murder, justified or no, left a sour taste in her mouth, despite the fact that she lacked such an orifice at this time.
But she put it aside, and attributed it to the lingering effects of her memory programming, whatever that meant, and buried it so as to join in Gaige's revelry. She didn't want to poop the party afterall, and Gaige was certainly celebrating, pointing at the corpse's square entry-and-exit wound, and clearly found the whole deal very amusing.
She even let Deathtrap loose, and pointed out the damage to him, thrusting Rainbow Dash in his 'face', showing her off to him.
He didn't seem to care very much.
Even on the trek back to Sanctuary, with enough cash for Gaige to get herself a large and delicious meal, Deathtrap gave no signs of giving any kind of shits. He simply followed, and obeyed instructions, which were rarely anything more complex than "sick 'em!", which he understood perfectly well as meaning "Kill Everyone".
Rainbow mused on the idea of reaching out to Deathtrap, and of achieving some sort of interface with him. She felt dissatisfied with the way Deathtrap was behaving, as though he had no mind with which to think.
He was basically an egghead, like Twili-
"WAIT!" she called from Gaige's back.
"Huh?"
"WAIT! Wait a second. We need to find something out. I uh...th-this is important. It's a-a-about those memory programs you told me about."
"What about 'em? I mean we could just go see scoot-"
"Squirt!?"
"What? No, Scooter. Look, I already went through this with you. You were probably going to be used in some kinda-"
"-A.I test that Hyperion does for the sake of evil science, I know. But I wanna find something out, about Twilight and the others."
"They're not gonna be real."
"Yeah, I guess."
It pained Rainbow Dash, her feelings of loyalty smashing against the wall of reality. The impotence felt like some kind of fuzzy, static-y mess.
"Woah, someone doesn't know how to broadcast properly" said Gaige, checking her U.I
"He-....ou hear me chic-......this gun man, it-.....freaky accen-...." was the garbled mess that came through.
"Yo! Salvy is that you? Dude, you gotta get to a better transmission place!" she bellowed into the radio.
"...oohhh-.....ou smart gir-...."
A minute passed, as Gaige patiently tapped her foot, waiting.
A new transmission came through, and Rainbow Dash found herself surprised to be staring at a large and heavily punished face, with the messiest, matted beard that she had ever seen.
"H-hello?" she cautiously offered to it.
"Whaaat? Yo who's that chica?"
"Woah, you can receive transmissions? Dude that's awesome! Yo Salvy, this is my gun, Rainbow Dash! The put this A.I core into a gun man! Fake memories and everything!"
"Wohohoaaah girl, that's awesome! Yo check it out, I got one too man!"
"Woah what?"
"Yeah esé, this shotgun here. Talks funny with a cool accent I never heard before! Yo, say somethin'!"
