//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: Borderlands 2: Starlight DLC Pack // by the-pieman //------------------------------// After cruising around for a little while, they come to the first of the three sand-buried huts. They all look similar, and Angel couldn’t pinpoint which has the Bunker. “Alright, first stop, Bandits!” Dash calls, and a few of the aforementioned bandits peek out of the shack to investigate the noises. A nice new pair of sunglass lenses are clipped to the top of her goggles, flipped up. “Alright, let’s take these guys down.” Anthony says, pulling out his Scout. His pair of medical-grade sunglasses are over his eyes, small lenses specifically made for use with sighted weapons. “Okie-Dokie~!” Pinkie says, the dark-lensed gas mask over her face only slightly muffling her voice. Anthony, having a better grip on his Sniper rifle, manages to land some bullets in their necks, though he gets one bandit in the eye. “Man, we should have used our skill points much earlier.” He says, grinning. “I feel like I could shoot a pecan off a bandit’s head at five-hundred yards... and then hit the bandit.” “Yeah, what you said!” Pinkie hollers back, slinking around to the right of the door, waiting for another bandit to come out. Sure enough, another comes out, this time a Bruiser. Pinkie can’t suppress a giggle as she levels her shotgun at him, getting his attention in time to blow his head half off. The hefty bandit screams and gurgles, clutching his ruined face, and Dash just puts him out of their misery with a few bullets. Anthony, hopping out of the turret, begins to head for the bunker. He’d seen their insides in the games, and there wasn’t anywhere to hide the bunker entrance normally... unless it’s behind the tattered cloth that bandits normally spawn from in-game. ‘Of course, those’re real places now, not just entity locations.’ he thinks to himself, and gingerly lifts the reeking, stiff ‘cloth’ of the partition, revealing mess, filth, aging food well past its expiration date, and... a scraped, dented, blast-marked, but entirely intact floor hatch labeled ‘Dahl’ on the side. Well, at least they knew how to make reliable military-grade hardware, y’know? Pinkie and Dash stand outside guarding the place, making sure no bandits come after them. A lone Psycho attempts to rush them, but is quickly finished off by the mares. Angel speaks up, not sounding sure. <“Alright, that’s definitely a hatch, I won’t know if it’s the right one until you open it. Thankfully, the code for all three is the same: Lima-Lima-Mike-Niner, Open Sesame.”> The hatch clicks from red to green, and Anthony reaches down to grasp the spinwheel and open the hatch. Opening the hatch, the smell is a lot better than the bandit’s main living area, but still musty and stagnant. <“No, sorry, that’s not it. But there should be some decent Dahl gear. It won’t have any other parts, but I overheard Scooter saying you could make new guns at his place... I’d suggest taking any rifle stocks you find. Those were always Dahl’s best creations.”> “Deep clip, good fire rate, but overall low reload, with an okay damage output. That’s Dahl.” Anthony agrees as he slides down the ladder and picks some guns off of the weapon racks. “Kinda strange, Dahl usually stores their stuff in their green boxes. But these’re just sitting here.” <“This is an actual weapons cache; most likely, those green boxes were intercepted before they arrived at one like this.”> Angel clarifies, as Pinkie and Dash slide down, ogling the small piles of weapons, and the grenades settled carefully into small holders. There’s also ammunition galore for every type of Dahl-made weapon. A single line of dark blue in the back catches Anthony’s attention as Dash and Pinkie continue going through the others, talking and comparing parts. “Well hello there, loot.” Anthony says, walking over to the light and picking up the gun to study it. It looks like a pretty normal assault rifle... but it’s not colored like other Dahl rifles, instead just being a fairly normal dark gunmetal gray, with iron sights and an ammo counter on the top in digital blue. ‘It looks like a... what’s the term... bullpup design? That’s where the ammo’s behind the stock. And it’s different...’ Then he sees the name. “Chief’s Luck” without any prefixes. A little symbol, like a circle in another circle, but offset, is scratched into the stock. And the weirdest part? None of the parts look like ones from any manufacturer Anthony knows of. It’s labeled as made by Dahl, and has a tag in red, saying, “Don’t make a girl a promise...” And the stats are really good. Not purple-tier or anything, but thirty-two shots and actually good damage and rate of fire. No major detractions, in fact. ‘Dash might like it, the way she’s been hungering for more dakka lately.’ he reasons. Still, he’d never heard of this unique before. And a level 10 at that. Just a bit too high. But nothing they can’t grow into. Anthony decides to hold onto it for now and worry about who gets it when they’ve got the clearance to use it. “Alright, Anthony, I think we’ve got all we can carry!” Dash yells into the cache, and Anthony turns around to see that it’s been completely wiped clean. “We tied most of ‘em down in the back of the Technical. You comin’?” she calls down. Anthony climbs back up the ladder. “Yeah, saw a blue down there, but it wasn’t the shield we wanted. Level ten though, so we can’t use it yet.” “Any good parts on it?” she asks, sounding a touch greedy as they head to the vehicle. “Not sure, actually.” Anthony admits. “It says it’s Dahl and that makes sense, but I’ve never seen parts like this. It seems to be sturdier tech than Hyperion or Maliwan, really, and Dahl has never gone for the high-tech look.” “Weird... maybe it’s a prototype or something?” Dash asks. Anthony shrugs. “It’d have to be. The parts look way too... made for the gun itself to be aftermarket, that’s for sure.” “Double weird. Anyways, next place to check? This was a good haul of loot, and the racing bandits don’t seem to be bothering us much anymore.” “We keep checking these bunkers until we find the shield. Angel can’t tell the exact one it’s in so we just check them all until we find them.” Pinkie looks out at the number of possible bunker locations and groans. “But which one? I wanna get back at Jack no~ow!” “Well then, we better get moving.” Anthony replies. “But don’t you worry, we’ll get Jack. I already have a few plans on what to do with him.” “Ooh~?” Pinkie exclaims curiously, leaning towards him. As they speed to the next bunker location, Anthony decides to tell her a plan. “Well, first off I’m gonna get one of those Psycho Buzzaxes and give him a good few whacks.” “Owchie, that sounds pretty nasty. I like it!” she says, grinning widely. “Well, you can discuss more in a bit, ‘cuz we’re at the next place!” Dash says, this shack having an actual overhang covered by a downed sign, meaning that the Bandits have extra cover and making it so there’s a ninety-degree corner between Anthony, Pinkie, and Dash and the bandits themselves. A grenade comes sailing out from around the corner, blowing one of the headlights off the Technical. “Mother buckers, you dinged my paint job!” Dash says, hauling herself out of the Technical as Anthony and Pinkie do the same. Anthony gets an idea. “Hey Dash, you still got that homing Mirv mod on you?” “It slags too.” Dash confirms, tossing it out and the bandits run out of their cover as it rounds the corner of the sign. Moments later, the bandits all give out screams of pain and agony, and two stumble out into Anthony’s line of fire, his Scout blowing the guy’s head off. The others are all grunting and moaning in pain, and Pinkie begins to move towards the front, a slagged Bruiser coming out of the place, gun leveled right at her. She reacts with aplomb, pulling her Party Cannon quickly and letting loose with a shrapnel, confetti, and candy-laced blast that launches the Bruiser into the ‘roof’ of the overhang. Three multicolored candies lay on the ground, a red, a yellow, and a green just sitting there as Pinkie swaps back to her shotgun. Anthony grabs the candy from the ground, and pops the red one into his mouth. “Sweet, these pandoran candies really work!” He says as he pulls out his Assault rifle and shoots the corpse of the Bruiser, the bullets leaving the gun with an almost explosion-like bang! as they perforate the body. “Red boosts damage output.” “Swe~et” Dash says, grabbing a yellow as Pinkie takes the green and charges into the building, the sound of gunfire and cackling reaching Dash and Anthony. The two look at each other, slowly sucking on their relative treats. Pinkie comes out moments later covered in all sorts of gashes and cuts and bullet holes, but they soon heal up as she chews the Green-Apple flavored health candy. “Wowie! These are fantastic! What does yours do, Dashie?” As she speaks, flecks of shattered tooth and blood fly from her mouth as the rock candy shreds her molars and gums. Rainbow pops the yellow candy into her mouth and chews it cautiously. “I dunno, I don’t feel... well my hooves feel, lighter.” “Try doing a few laps around the place.” Anthony suggests, knowing she’ll enjoy the speed boost from the candy. She nods, jittery and fast as the candy sets in, and she sprints around the shack, a faint blur following her along the way. “Whooo-hooo~!” she cries, as Anthony grins and heads into the shack, looking around. It’s a charnel house, but a recent one from Pinkie’s attentions on the bandits within. They’d been lucky so far; none of them had died on this particular mission yet. He finds the hatch in a room very similar to the first, except that it’s got more sleeping space and less natural filth, but not by much. “Lima lima mike niner. Open sesame.” the hatch clicks to green and he opens it. Rainbow, still under the effects of the candy, enjoys her literal sugar rush by zooming down the ladder and back up, taking as many guns and grenade mods as she can carry, cleaning the place out in seconds. She finally runs out of juice when she returns for the last few weapons. “Wow, that stuff is amazing! Pinkie, you need to get more of that stuff!” “Idunno how I did it Dashie, I just got a skill that said my party cannon makes candies... I didn’t know it made candy like that though.” “Well, you gotta shoot more people with it, then!” Dash says, a manic grin on her face. “Will do!” Pinkie says, bouncing back to the Technical, carrying whatever guns Dash hadn't gotten. Anthony checks around for another unique ‘or even a legendary’ but without any luck. “Alright, place is cleaned out.” He says, “Let’s go check the next place.” Dash nods and the two climb out of the bunker and get back in the car. The next place is actually a decent distance away, giving the group time to talk. Dash asks the first question. “So what’s up with our skill trees, anyways? I tried getting one of the skills on the bottom and it wouldn’t let me!” “Oh, right.” Anthony sighs, as he realizes he forgot to explain them. Usually, Claptrap does, or starts the tutorial mission line for you. “You have to start at the top and go down. The skills at the top unlock the ones below them once you put enough points in them. You can see what skills do on the tree from your ECHO, same as where you spend your points.” Rainbow nods. “Alright, so if I got this skill called ‘Speed Freak’ and put five points into it, I’ll be able to get the one below it?” “Kinda. It works based on how many points are put into the tree itself, so if you put three points in one skill and two into another, you’ll unlock all skills on the next row. The skills can be put anywhere in the tree at all, so you can spend ten points on the first row and access the third row without needing to get anything in the second row.” Dash thinks for a moment. “So this one says it boosts my vehicle speed... does that mean that if I put points into that it’ll make this Technical go faster?” Anthony nods. “It’s a passive skill, it’ll boost the base speed of anything you’re driving.” “Even, like, Buzzards?” she asks, smiling a bit more widely. “Probably.” Anthony shrugs, unsure. “But get the skill and try it.” “Done!” Dash says happily as she allocates her first skill points and a small amount of digistruction attaches some afterburners to the car, giving it a bit more speed and pushing them along notably faster. “This is amazing! Why didn’t we do this sooner?” “We forgot, I guess.” Pinkie says. “Well, you did at least.” “Right... so how do we get more points?” “Level up.” Anthony says. “Each level we get above five, we get a point to spend and get even more badass!” Dash is about to respond when an announcement comes over the ECHO. “Cara-Van comin’ through! Stay away unless you wanna lead milkshake!” Pinkie grins “I love milkshakes!” “Alright then.” Anthony says, “Take us down the road, we’ll intercept them and loot their stuff.” “With this speed boost...” Dash begins, hitting the booster and sending them surging forward. “It’ll take no time!” A little ‘miniquest’ marker pops up in the corner of their HUDs, telling them to intercept the Cara-Van and get ‘sweet loot’. The trio bounces and jounces towards the enemy caravan, sighting them well ahead of time, and Anthony makes a point of dropping some explosive barrels right into the lap of the forward Outrunner’s driver, who screams before the whole assemblage blows sky-high. However, the other driver has now been alerted, and begins to take evasive action, maneuvering closer to have his gunner take ‘em out. Anthony tosses a barrel at the Cara-Van, stopping the vehicle while they deal with the second bodyguard, Pinkie pulling out her launcher and firing as the group passes the opposing vehicles. With a mighty explosion, part of the specially-armored outrunner is bent and sends the car swerving, while Dash makes a hasty U-Turn and sends them back around for a second drive-by. With both front sides of the armored Outrunner blasted, it slows down enough for Pinkie to jump into the gunner seat, tossing out the bandit riding in it. Once alone in the turret seat, Pinkie pulls out her shotgun and blasts the driver, the bandit screaming mostly in fear as he feels the slag effect overcome him, staring at the manic grin of what he can only describe as a pink, fluffy Psycho Midget. He screams harder, voice going hoarse as Pinkie flips back onto the Technical, unloading her Party Cannon mid-jump straight down at him, taking out his car and using the resulting explosion to lift her for a perfect landing in the bed of the Technical, snagging a yellow-candy lollipop out of midair to suck on, and reloading her launcher at a speed normally impossible for reloading such a large weapon. “I guess they can... suck on that.” she says, sunglass falling down from her mane atop of the gas mask as a bandit screams, ‘aaaaaaaugh!’ The car runs right into a wall and bounces back, flipping over. “Okay, you win!” The Cara-Van driver says over the ECHO. “Jus’ rob me an’ get it over with!” Pinkie giggles and hops out of the Technical as it pulls up alongside the van, and Dash keeps the engine going as Anthony climbs over as well. Pinkie kicks open the loot crate, and ogles the contents, as Anthony inspects the barrels lashed to the top. He recognizes them as moonshine barrels... and super valuable, if the little lights hovering over them are any indication. Well, they’re already robbing the crap outta these bandits, might as well go whole-hog about it. “So what we got?” Dash asks. “We got grenade mods.” Anthony calls back. “And booze! The good stuff!” “Aww, not the moonshine!” the driver of the Van groans, “The other Vault Hunters just took the guns and grenades!” “Yeah, the moonshine too.” Anthony says, hauling the heavy barrels of alcohol into the back of the Technical, along with the Dahl guns, leaving Pinkie just barely enough room. “Unless you wanna lead milkshake.” Anthony mocks, walking up to the hick of a driver and pulling out his Blue Jakobs. “Oh, I’m so gettin’ fired fer this one...” the driver moans. “We gotta get better guards...” Anthony nods in satisfaction and gets into his crew’s turret seat, and gives a mocking salute as they head for the next shack, and the Dahl Bunker. ----- (/\) ----- Dash coasts to a stop outside the final shack, and the group gets ready to head in, when a Goliath tromps outside. They all freeze, the helmeted behemoth walking to a sand dune, unzipping his pants, and letting loose a stream of urine. “Oh, eww. They just do that outside their home?” Dash says, the goliath cheerfully ignorant of their presence. Pinkie shrugs. “Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, right?” she says. The goliath shifts in place a little, still going. “Jeez, how much can that guy’s bladder hold?” Anthony asks in bewilderment. “He’s still going.” Dash comments. “Yeah... should we just shoot ‘im?” Pinkie asks, not sounding sure or comfortable with that. “Seems a little rude...” Anthony says. The Goliath heaves a sigh. “Seriously, how much does this guy drink?” Dash whispers. “Out here in the Dust,” Anthony starts, “enough to fill up that stomach of his.” He then reaches for a grenade and tosses it, the longbow effect sending it right at the Goliath’s feet and sending out a spinning wheel of continuous fire. “AAAAHHG! Bouncy ball burnt mah no-no square!!” the goliath screams, and Anthony winces as he realizes the rise in the dunes left the sprinkler-like fire grande right at the Goliath’s crotch height. The massive person topples, clutching himself in agony, helmet falling off. Even then, the Goliath doesn’t rage, too busy feeling agony and self-pity as the other bandits stream out of the shack like a comedy, half of them stumbling as they land on their faces, tripped by the Goliath collapsed right outside. Anthony tosses a barrel out and blows the bandits away, also taking out part of the shack’s wall. Inside he sees that there’s a desert-colored Nomad who begins barking orders to the remaining bandits, and they start to organize, with notably less complaints coming from them than usual. The three start to lay down fire into the mauraders, nomad, and the twin midget psychos pouring from the shack, the high sides of the technical giving Pinkie and Anthony the cover they need, Dash just using the entire car itself as cover from the driver’s seat. After they’ve fought for quite a while, Anthony is really beaten down, with barely any health left, and Pinkie’s only barely doing better. Dash hasn’t got a scratch on her, and the shack seems quiet. There’s a lotto machine in the corner, and the entrance to the back room next to it, the walls covered in graffiti. This was, apparently, the local HQ for these bandits. Judging by the ‘Sund Ratz Rule!’ painted on the wall, they aren’t even Hodunks, but a splinter group. Anthony quickly finds the hatch and walks into the room, when he sees something that fills him with rage. A body, a young woman, is in the corner. Given that it hasn’t digistructed away, she must’ve not been in the system, and it’s evident that the bandits were using her as a meat supply... among other uses. A sick feeling grips his stomach. Before, he’d just been killing them, because they were, y’know, the generic bad guys. The obstacles between him and the next level. This, though? This is evil. There’s no misunderstanding something like this. Now, they were confirmed murderers of the innocent, cannibals, and rapists. The kind of scum that deserved to die... and not respawn. “A-anthony? Why isn’t she respawning?” A quiet voice asks, and he turns to see Pinkie looking at the corpse as well. “I don’t think she was old enough to be in the system yet.” he says, looking at the build of the corpse. <“Getting digistructed as a clone messes with your aging... so the system will reject anyone too young.”> Angel says softly, a note of pain in her voice. “Yeah.” Anthony agrees. “The other way is to be rejected from the system by Hyperion. And since Jack’s the president, he can cut out anyone. Including the Crimson Raiders, which I assume he has.” <“Everyone in Sanctuary but the Vault Hunters, and I’m sure he has a way around that, he just hasn’t yet.”> Angel confirms. <“He even left Brick in the system, but I think that was mostly in case he gets deposed.”> “Who’s... who’s Brick?” Pinkie asks, clearly trying to change the subject. <“A dangerous, violent man... with a kind heart to those he likes.”> Angel says. “We’ll meet him later.” Anthony assures Pinkie. “Now let’s get to that Stalker-proof shield and get to the Reserve.” <“Oh, just to warn you: The automatic defenses in the bunker are under local control; I can’t access them from a Hyperion uplink. I can only monitor the cameras, so try not to break those as you go. The Bunker hasn’t been opened in almost 130 years, but I’ve already turned on the air recyclers. Just watch out for traps, and you’ll be perfectly fine.”> “Most of Dahl’s stuff is metal and ceramic based, similar to Hyperion though. Anyone here got a corrosive weapon?” Anthony asks his troupe. “I got that Plasma Caster you gave me. I haven’t gotten to try it out, so this’ll be great!” Dash says. Pinkie nods, pulling out the shotgun she got from the assassins. "This thing's corrosive, and it's a shotty!" <“Oh, and I’ve updated your names in the New-U system, by the way. There should be one inside the Bunker itself, and I can see that, it’ll be perfectly placed. Just try not to die too much, alright?”> “Well, with that experience booster you gave to our clearances, we’re levelling up faster than I expected. We should catch up to the other Hunters in no time at all, and once we’re at that point we should die a lot less. Though that Stalker-proof shield better be good, our shields are getting outclassed real fast.” <“Don’t worry. It’s a level ten, and you should be there by the time you get to the shield itself. Again, just... be careful, okay? I don’t like seeing my... friends die, even if they come back.”> “Dying isn’t so bad, actually. The main problem is the bullets hurting.” Anthony says, unlocking the hatch. <“Well, don’t get shot, then, okay?”> Angel says, with a bit of sarcasm in her voice. “Okie-dokie!” Pinkie says, peering into the depths. “Also, this one goes way farther down than the others. Imma slide down it!” she says, and grabs the sides before Anthony or Dash can protest, letting out a long ‘whee!’ as she descends rapidly. Dash and Anthony listen for a moment until they hear a ‘crunch’. “Owie...” “Let’s... uh, climb down, ‘kay?” Dash says to Anthony. “Yeah, let’s.” The two begin to make their way down the long ladder. At the bottom, Pinkie has crawled over to the New-U station, one of an older model, and is raising a shaky pistol to her head, both legs utterly shattered. Anthony sighs. “Yeah, be careful. Pandora has low gravity but not that low.” He takes his Jakobs and gives Pinkie a shot right in the back of the head. She whimpers when she respawns. “That was so fun except for the end...” “Yeah, but you should probably not do that again, Pinks.” Dash says, giving the other mare a hug. “Now, we’re down here, and we gotta go do the thing for Angel. So let’s get that super-shield and get outta here, alright?” she says. “Yeah. But keep that Caster at the ready. I’ll use my Assault Rifle for anything with a shield.” Anthony says, pulling out his Bandit-make AR. “And no rushing ahead. I don’t want to deal with any more broken legs.” “Gotcha. Hey, didn’t Angel says there were automagic defenses?” comes a robotic voice, a laser sight at chest height pointing out of the gloom. “Goddamnit, RD, you had to say something!” Anthony yells, diving for cover as the ‘bot begins to let loose with what seems to be a gatling gun that literally cuts Dash in two, her body despawning almost instantly and beginning to reconstruct a little later. A ‘bot, looking like a weaponized Johnny5, trundles out of the darkness on twin armored tracks, a minigun for one arm, and what looks like the spout of a flamethrower on the other. The enemy ID says it’s a ‘Basic Base Defense Drone Mk. 1 Patent Pending’. ‘Great, its name is longer than its freaking health bar.’ Anthony thinks to himself. “Dash, if you’re done respawning, we could use that Caster out here.” After a few moments, a barrage of green, glowing orb-shaped projectiles rams into the ‘bot, the corrosion taking a few minutes to settle in, but lasts long enough to take effect. “Jeez, it looks like changeling spit!” Dash yells, as the bot begins to turn towards her, minigun spinning up once more. “Aw, not again!” Pinkie dashes in, sprinting past and slowing only long enough to fire a shotgun shell of Slag into the back of its chassis, and continuing with a Cannonload of shrapnel and candy spraying into it, the candies flying out towards Anthony and Dash’s cover, as Pinkie ducks behind a wall support for cover. The BBDDMPP says. Hmm, no, it’s still a mouthful, no matter how you put it. Anthony grabs a blue candy and starts sucking on it, as he begins unloading electrified bullets into the slagged, corroded robot. With the massive clip of the bandit gun, combined with the ammunition regeneration effect of the Blue Raspberry flavored treat, Anthony succeeds in doing more to mow down the robot than just simply shoot it. The bot, finally, breaks down and collapses, dropping a veritable mountain of assault rifle ammo. “Jeez, as if I didn’t already have that candy.” Anthony says, the mentioned candy finally melting to nothing but a pleasant taste in his mouth. “Yeah, no kidding. I wish I had a decent assault rifle. Mine’s kinda... so-so.” Dash says. “And we- woah! Lookit our experience bars!” she says gesturing wildly, temporarily forgetting that everyone’s is only visible to them. And they’re nearly full already. They weren’t nearly that full before. “Almost to ten.” Anthony notes. “Tell you what, you can try out that experimental weapon. No idea why Dahl didn’t put its parts into standard production, but hey, rare is better.” “Yeah, you said it.” Dash says, taking the rifle from him and tucking it away. “Let’s see if we can find, like, something small to get us the last little bit to ten, I wanna try this out! Man, there’s so many cool guns.” she says, fangirling out a bit. “Yup, and once we get to level twenty, they start getting really awesome.” Anthony notes. “Just a little incentive to keep going... not that we needed more.” “Ni~ice” Dash says, grinning. Pinkie steps out of the gloom, the lights coming on. “Hey, guys! I found that the lights turn on when you hit this green button on the wall, but it take a moment! And you gotta see what’s in the next room!” She leads them around a corner, and there’s a full security station set up, with a booth and a little turnstile, and a fully set up gun turret, though it isn’t tracking them at the moment. It’s labeled as a ‘Simple Security Turret’ but its level is just a skull. “Definitely bad news. We should dismantle that thing ASAP.” Anthony suggests, getting a better grip on his rifle. <“Actually, wait! If you can go back to the New-U station, and grab the Hyperion transmitter from it, you can install it into the turret. That’ll let me control it, and I’ll watch your backs!”> Angel says. The turret does have full view of the entire corridor, and none of the trio can see an easy way past it without potentially setting it off. “Alright Angel, you win, but you shoot my friends in the back and I’ll do more than blast those Eridium Injectors off you.” <“The, uh, the what?”> she says, not lying convincingly, but enough that the ponies seem confused. <“I have no idea what you could be referring to at this time, Anthony.”> That one sounded more like a plea than a statement. “Nice try. We’re gonna have that private chat a bit later, but best believe we’ll be having it.” Silence over the ECHO, but he trusts she’ll be interested. Pinkie comes back a moment later, with a small orange and black box with some antenna coming out of it. “Alright, Imma just stick this on the turret... right?” <“That should do it, yes.”> Pinkie does so, and the yellow light on the turret flickers to red for a second, then to green. <“Perfect. Hmm... I can’t access the security grid still. I wonder why? Anyways, there’s more guns in the security office there, and the shield is further into the base.”> “Works for me.” Anthony replies shortly. “Alright let’s find that shield and get to the reserve.” “Yup!” Pinkie says, pronking over the security checkpoint, Anthony and RD vaulting over it behind her. Inside is a couple of old, old Dahl shotguns, ones that Anthony recognizes as being from Borderlands one in design. They’ve got a good fire rate, and decent clips, but aren’t nearly as special as the more modern ones. “Man, these shotguns suck.” Dash says, looking one over. It’s classified as a white, but has an electrical element on it. “Yeah, but grab ‘em anyways.” Anthony suggests. “If we can make our own shotguns with parts, we should be able to upgrade these.” “Yeah, true.” Dash says, packing the electrical one away, the rest just being standard combat shotguns. Anthony grabs both remaining guns and sticks them in his inventory space and continues along. “Ooh, it’s another robot!” Pinkie shouts, pointing down the hallway. A moment later, a turret on four spider-like legs walks around the corner, pausing to look at them, then calls out, It then opens fire with its long turret, the shot from it roughly equivalent to a high-caliber sniper round and coring Anthony’s forehead. “Ohhhh, man that’s an odd feel-” Anthony mumbles as he drops to his knees and lands facefirst, his body quickly despawning. Dash immediately begins to open fire with her ‘Caster, and Pinkie jinks to one side, opening fire with her Cannon, hoping to overwhelm the ‘Base Defense Skitter Cannon Mk3 Patent Approval Declined’ before it can take out either of them. Anthony respawns, partially in a daze. “Man, never thought getting a hole through your brain would feel like that...” He begins to make his way back to the group, rubbing his forehead, feeling it had completely healed but was still a bit tingly from the slightly-fuzzy memory of the event. Dash dives behind cover, barely dodging the next shot from the Skitter, Pinkie shooting again. This ‘bot, however, has a shield, and is perfectly okay with trying to fire at Pinkie now, turning towards her with menacing slowness... as she simply skips in a circle around it, unloading over and over again at the shield to overload it, and beginning to dig holes in the metal and plating underneath once she had. Anthony arrives in time for Dash to toss her mostly-full Caster at the back of the bot, bouncing it once off the ground and hitting it on the underside instead, blasting the thing apart at the joint of the legs. It was just a crotch-shot kinda day. “Hey Angel.” Anthony says. “How about a bit of support with the rest of them?” <“I would love to, but there’s not much I can do. Again, I have no access to the security grid -which is odd, given what I do have access to- but you three were between the Security Turret and that robot.”> she says apologetically. Anthony thinks for a minute and his face brightens up. “Guys, I have a plan. Let’s get the treads from the first robot and see if we can use them to wheel around the security turret. Angel can blow these guys to smithereens.” <“I’m going to have to veto this plan. That turret needs a dedicated power supply, and the camera indicates the acid from Rainbow Dash’s caster just finished eating through the treads half a minute ago.”> Dash shrugs. “I’m not sorry about that. It was shoot or get shot again. Getting cut in half felt weird, guys.” “So was a shot right through the brain... Oh well, guess we’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.” <“Sorry.”> ----- (/\) ----- The three peered around another corner, this time much more cautiously. They had died each four times when they rounded a corner right into the sights of a wall-mounted cannon in one of the camera’s blind spots. The cameras were, in fact, mounted to the turret base and pointing away from it, and were destroyed in the subsequent explosions. Down the way, a door labeled ‘Armory’ awaits them, but a pair of suspiciously placed crates flank the doorway. “My Pinkie sense is saying there’s a surprise waiting for us... but my common sense is telling me it’s not a happy surprise.” “Listen to the common sense.” Anthony suggests. “We’ll die less. Speaking of which, I started this little venture with over a million bucks, now I’m down to seven-hundred. Man, Jack is one greedy bastard...” “Yeah, I don’t even have that, and I started with almost ten mil. These turrets are freakin’ vicious.” Dash comments, and Pinkie waves them over to the next piece of cover, crouching low to stay behind a piece of piping cover jutting from the wall. The other two shuffles closer, and do a quick rock-paper-scissors to determine who pokes their head up. “Great, I gotta risk another headshot.” Anthony gripes, peering over them. “At least I’m level ten already...” he whispers, thankful for the extra health, in spite of having no idea how that actually works. The two crates, white metal blocks with beveled edges and corners, don’t move, and nothing shoots at him. “One of us is going to have to see if those are booby traps, or just meant to scare us into leaving ‘em alone.” “You already lost the gamble dude.” Rainbow says. “You’re up.” “Fine, but I’m gonna do this the smart way.” Anthony pulls up his rifle, takes a few pot-shots at the crates and ducks down behind the pipe covering. A robotic voice calls, and the sound of something metal unfolding and gears winding fills the hall. A cautious peek around the side by Dash reveals that the two boxes have opened up, revealing themselves to be a pair of tracked bots similar to the first one they saw, but one has a minigun and a shoulder-launcher instead, and the other simply has two miniguns. The two are tracking the hallway, laser-dot beam coming from their chests to point down into the gloomy passages. “Dash. I have a plan.” Anthony whispers, not sure if the bots can hear too. “It had better be a better plan than your last one!” she hisses back, neither of them noticing Pinkie had snuck off and under a normal crate. “You toss a slag grenade out and then toss your plasma caster. It’ll-” Dash cuts him off as Pinkie sneaks closer to the bots under her crate. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve been shot enough times already. You do it.” “I can’t, I don’t have a slag grenade that homes in around corners.” Anthony retorts, Pinkie lining up her shot, and praying that she can fire her cannon and her launcher in rapid enough succession. “I’m not sticking one hoof outside this cover, buddy. No way.” “Well, I’m not gonna stick my head out to get it blown off aga-” Ba-BOOM The whole base rattles as the shots from the Cannon and the launcher in Pinkie’s grip hit one bot and send it flying into the other, knocking them both down, one scrapped and the other pinned face-down in its wreckage. “Alright, guys! I took care of the bots!” Pinkie yells, sitting in the remains of her crate, grinning. Her mane is blasted back, and she’s bleeding from the backwash of the twin blasts hitting the inside of the crate before punching onwards. Her ears also seem to be bleeding, and she seems a little dizzy. “Woah, somepony stop the corridor, it’s spinning like crazy!” she says, sounding delirious, as she looks vaguely around, a ‘Help up your ally!’ message flashing across Dash and Anthony’s vision as they stare, stunned, over the crates at Pinkie. “Don’t think so, ya hunk of junk.” Dash says, firing her caster’s last clip of ammo into it and setting the robot to melt down under the caster’s corrosion effect and general force of ammunition. the bot finally shuts down, and everyone jumps at the ‘Level Up!’ they get, the second in this bunker. “Level eleven.” Anthony says. “We should have access to our second row of our chosen tree now.” “Wait, we have to spend it all in one tree to get the next row?” Dash asks, sounding startled. “Uh oh...” Pinkie also looks surprised. “Don’t worry, we can always head back to Sanctuary and respec our points. That way we can try out all our skills without needing to be like, level eighty or so.” “Oh, thank goodness.” Dash says, sighing. “Well, I’ll put this into High Octane for now, then. I think a little more boost is a good idea.” “Hey, Angel, what’s the password for this door?” Pinkie asks, shouting a bit. “Also, why’s everything ringing?” < “Actually, it’s just touch to open... also, I think you may be deaf, Pinkie Pie.”> “Whaaat?” Pinkie calls back, and Anthony and Dash both facepalm. This needs to be fixed, and fast, before the system ‘recovers’ the damaged version of her. Anthony sighs and sends a sniper bullet through Pinkie’s head, and she comes back to the group after a few minutes. “What was that for?” she asks, plaintively, before getting the explanation. “Oh, yeah, being deaf woulda sucked. Thank’s Anthony~!” she says, hugging him tightly and nuzzling his chest. “No problem.” Anthony says, returning the hug. “Wasn’t there a reason we were down here?” Dash asks, coughing into a hoof. “A reason other than snuggling and stuff?” “Oh, right.” Pinkie says, while Anthony blushes a little in embarrassment. The three get in, and discover a cache of older Dahl weapons, ranging from snipers to shotguns to pistols and SMGs. Nearly a hundred weapons in all, with only a few of the spots open for more, and everything is dusty, including the one shield at the end of the lane, sitting next to four other spots for shields, all empty and coated in dust. Anthony walks up to the shield and, brushing most of the dust off, attaches it to himself, replacing his old and now far outclassed shield. “And this thing is Stalker-proof? How?” He asks, not seeing any indication of the shield being that special. He looks over the stats, see it’s a Dahl ‘Sonic Stalker-Hunter’, and then sees the red text. ‘Hunt the hunter, stalk the Stalker.’ <“It uses sonics to drive Stalkers away. They don’t like the noise, and will avoid it. That said, the shield itself is... not very useful for any other situation. It’s why they never really saw widespread use.”> Angel says. <“Oh, and it attracts Skags, that’s something to mention. What little research I can find about it suggests they think it feels like a Craw Worm passing through, and try to attack the source.”> “Great, so I’m Skag Bait while wearing this.” <“Unfortunately, yes.”> “Fantastic. Oh well, let’s get through the Highlands fast then.”