• Published 11th Jan 2016
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Borderlands 2: Starlight DLC Pack - the-pieman



Anthony, two ponies, and an Eridian artifact. What could go wrong? Read on to find out!

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Chapter 17

Meandering through the Dust, the group drive back to Ellie’s Garage for the Fast Travel, and even from there the large black clouds from the Hodunks’ vehicle is faintly visible.

“So the next job is... helping deal with a Rakk Hive.” Pinkie reminds everyone. “But... where are the hives? Are they those big rocky mounds with holes in them?”

Anthony shakes his head. “Those’re for Spiderants, I haven't had many chances to see an actual Rakk Hive before. Usually when I see Rakk, it’s just before a swarm of them divebombs us and they're already separated from the hive itself.”

“Well, if the Rakk are like other winged creatures, likely they make their homes in the air, or on something tall.” Rainbow informs. “...Which might make dealing with said hives a bit of a problem. As fast as we can go in this thing, we can’t get airborne for long, and that’s assuming we have a ramp.”

Ellie, overhearing them as she passes by, turns in surprise. “A Rakk Hive? Them things’re tough! Scurry too, if only ‘cuza the Rakk they send atcha.” she comments. “You tryin’ ta take one out? Ah don’t think yer set up fer that, ‘less acourse yer packin’ wa~ay more firepower’n ah’m seein.” The concern in her voice makes Anthony a bit concerned in sympathy; Ellie isn’t the sort to flinch at something merely being ‘dangerous’. She lives in the Dust, after all.

“So we’ll need to have more than just an edge, we need intelligence.” Anthony thinks aloud.

“Yeah, ‘Cuz your mom is counting on us!” Pinkie says chirpily, getting a startled reaction from Ellie.

“Wait, what’sa Rakk Hive gotta do with ma?” Ellie asks.

“Apparently, her suppliers are having trouble.” Rainbow Dash says. “The Hodunks back there were part of the problem, but now there are still two more ‘jobs’ before Moxxi can get restocked. She says that she might lose her business if we don’t help!”

“Aw, shoot, it’s ‘er folks gettin’ the cheese innit?” Ellie asks, prompting Anthony to check his mission log; sure enough, the next mission is about the cheese shipments. At his nod, she sighs. “Well, iffn ya need anythin, jus’ ask.”

“We’ll need to know the general weaknesses of the hives, and how best to deal with large swarms.” Anthony surmises. “Knowing what to do is going to be more important here than just having bigger guns.”

“Hmmm... well, if it’s that biggun out by the fields ‘er folks get the cheese from, ya might be in luck. There’s an old Dahl place at the toppa tha bluff nearby. Ah’ll get the deets on yer maps, but it used ta be an airbase. Mosta the Buzzard-makers the idgits nearby use were stolen outta that base, but mah bro oughtta be able ta get it workin’ agin. He’s been all a-twitter about them new machines e’s been workin’ on.”

“Oh yeah, the Buzzard Schematics we gave him!” Dash brightens up. “If Scooter’s finished, we could use it to get up there. But... what do we do when we get to the base? What’s there that could help us?”

“Well, y’see... these standard digi-structors ain’t no good at makin’ things that fly. That air base’ll be needed ta git yerself the fliers. As fer what you’ll do ta get ridda that Rakk Hive... I’mma ship you a special present fer it.” she says, before pulling out a remote control and hitting a button on it. In place of where a vehicle would normally form inside the garage, a large, missile-shaped device took form, covered in paint to make it look like it had teeth, eyes, and a scale. “Mah brother said he made a carrier... and it’s gonna carry this baby ta the prize. But y’all’ll need ta keep the carrier safe, so bring somethin’ ta thin out the Rakk flock.” she suggests, before clapping a hand down atop Anthony’s shoulder, as she couldn’t reach either of the ponies. “An’ tell me how it goes! I wanna hear all ‘bout it!”

“No problem, Ellie. And... Hey, if we figure out how to, uh... I don’t really understand the details, but would it be possible to get you an upgrade to your Digistructor? So that it could make more of the Condor-things Scooter’s making?”

Ellie taps her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before smiling and nodding. “Y’know, there should be an ol’ Dahl chip in the digistructor pad in the air base; take it out, an’ put this in. It’ll git me the deets and codes ah need to make one mahself, an’ while yer out, ah’ll jus get around ta puttin’ in that second floor ah always talked about. Maybe trick summa tha Hodunks inta doin’ it for me fer free...”

“I’d... be careful about the Hodunks.” Rainbow advises. “When we left them, they seemed pretty mad.”

“Yeah, cause we totally wrecked their big, laser-shooty car-thingy!” Pinkie says. “It took forever but they seemed pretty mad when we blew it to pieces.”

“Yeah, even if we might win, remind me to never dare the Hodunks into a race... ever.” Anthony sighs.

Ellie grins. “Oh, ah know... keep in mind, ah run a repair shop. Who d’ya think they’ll take their Lancer ta get it fix’d up? That’s a mighty fine hostage ta ransom...”

“Fair enough. So I guess... Hmmm...”

“Whatcha thinking, Anthony?” Pinkie asks.

“Well, I don’t know if we should. It takes away from time we could spend helping Moxxi, but it would certainly make things go much smoother afterwards. I was thinking: If we take the Condor that Scooter’s working on, fly it up to the Dahl airbase, get Ellie’s chip installed, fly the Condor back to the garage, and get it registered in the system... we could digistruct one out of the garage if anything happens to the first one. Or we could fly the Condor up, take out the Rakk hive immediately, but risk the Condor getting damaged somehow, meaning Scooter would have to fix it up before we could put it into the system.”

“Well, ya should be able ta jus’ make ‘em at the airbase itself, the Condor’s already in tha system. An’ the chip’s mostly jus’ so we kin ree-mote access it and take control. We’d’a already done that, but too many things up there like ta chew on travelers.”

“Alright, so we just need to get the Condor from Scooter, fly it from Sanctuary over to the Dahl base, put the chip in, then we deal with the Hive, right?” Dash asks, making sure she was keeping up. “That sounds easy... and that’s usually a bad thing.”

“Pfft, nah. T’ain’t gonna be a problem at all, ‘slong as there ain’t any elemental Rakk around.” Ellie says dismissively. “An’ those only come outta Badass Rakk Hives.”

Anthony sighs, already detecting the ‘jinx’ a mile away. “Well, hopefully if we come across one, we got that giant bomb, there. Still, we’re missing one key aspect of what we need to know: How to effectively drive back large swarms of Rakk all at once.” Everyone else pauses to make ‘thinking’ faces. “But I think I know someone who can answer that for us.”

“Who knows about Rakk more than... well, anyone else?” Dash asks. “They seem pretty straightforward to me, what else is there to know except just shooting them when you hear them?”

Anthony grins. “We’ll meet him while we stop by Moxxi’s. We do have our first job to turn in, and we also have to get the Condor from Scooter before we do anything else.”

The ponies agree and they all Fast Travel back to Sanctuary. Walking up to Moxxi’s bar, the three of them are given a big hug each from Moxxi. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! The spices are coming in, and it’s really making a difference! We’re all one step closer to getting this place secure once more. There anything ya need, sugars?”

“At the moment, not really. You can keep the reward for this one until we get back from all three being finished, though I think I speak for all three of us, when I say we could use Eridium more than cash at this point.” Anthony says, the ponies nodding in agreement. “Money is easier to get at this point, and Earl selling those SDU’s will kinda be important. Can’t keep the uglies down unless we got the ammo to do it with.”

“That’s absolutely reasonable; while you’re doing this next part, I’ll see if I can’t convince Earl to maybe part with a round of SDUs, too. It’s the least I can do after all of this you’re doing for me.” she says. “And make sure to stop by Zed’s before you leave, he said he had something for Pinkie.”

“Alright, we can do that.” Dash says, looking around. “So... Anthony said there’d be someone here we could talk to about the Rakk Hives?”

“Oh, you mean Hammerlock!” Moxxi grins. “He’s actually just upstairs. I’m sure he’ll get a kick outta seeing you two.” Moxxi ends by giving each of the ponies a quick petting. “Good luck out there!”

Moxxi directs the three up to the next floor, and it doesn’t take long for Anthony to recognize Sir Hammerlock’s voice through one of the doors. Hearing what sounds like the man is recording something for his radio advertisement, Anthony waits until the talking stops before knocking.

“Just a moment!” Comes the voice of a gentleman from the other side. The door opens. “Is there any way I can assist you?” The mustachioed man looks first at Anthony, but before a reply can be made, Hammerlock’s eyes fall on the ponies, going to absolutely comical proportions in moments at the sight of the brightly colored quadrupeds. “By jove! What on earth are those?!” he shouts, before shoving past Anthony to squat down in front of Rainbow Dash, a look of child-like wonder on his face as he holds out a hand. Dash leans in and takes a sniff, before cocking an eyebrow.

“Huh, your hand smells like motor oil and metal.” she comments, baffling the wildlife enthusiast again, much to his delight.

“You can speak! Wondrous! Are you some form of alien, or are you native to Pandora? Are those wings fully functional? Did you make that exo-suit yourself or have it made for you? Do your bright colors indicate toxicity? Do you eat solely vegetables and fruit, an omnivorous diet, or do you prefer meat-based foodstock? Do you have any additional defenses? How fast do you gallop? What are your-”

“Woah, woah, settle down. Uh...” Rainbow tried her best to recall each question in order. “I’m... I guess I’m an alien? Yeah, the wings work, but not here. The suits were made for us. No, I’m not toxic, my hair is just awesome. I prefer hay to most things, and fish. I know several Martial Arts. And I’m the fastest thing on four legs you’ll ever see.”

Hammerlock laughs, then stops, looking thunderstruck. “Oh, dear! Please forgive my rudeness, I completely forgot to introduce myself! I am Sir Hammerlock, at your service!” he says, standing tall and proudly, the feather in his cap bouncing as he does.

Anthony steps in. “It’s great to meet you, sir. But actually, we’re here for a different reason. We’re Junior Vault Hunters, and we’re going to be tackling a rather large Rakk Hive. We were wondering what knowledge you could offer us about dealing with large swarms of Rakk.”

“Large Rakk Hive?” he asks, eyebrow heading for his hat. “I’m not sure you should be dealing with such things yet, you don’t seem like you’re ready for it. What would drive you to this scale of big game hunting?”

“Moxxi’s losing her business!” Pinkie says. “If we don’t protect her suppliers from the Rakk, she may go out of business! We can’t let that happen!”

Hammerlock gasps. “That’s an entirely different story! Give me fifteen minutes to get ready; where should we meet? I’ll back anyone who’s helping Miss Moxxi!” he says, a look of determination settling onto his features.

Anthony shares the location that is marked on his ECHO map. “That’s where the Suppliers are having trouble. I say we meet a good ways away from it first before going in. There’s an errand we have to run at the Dahl airbase near there.”

“The airbase? Is there anything left there?” Hammerlock asks in surprise.

“We’re hoping a Digistructor is left at the very least. If it is, we can get the flying vehicle Scooter’s been working on into the Catch-A-Ride. We think air-travel will make doing this job a lot easier.”

“Ah, an air raid would definitely make this easier. Yes, I’ll meet you just north of the airbase, near the cliffs overlooking the valley... yes... I’ll set up there. Now, I must get ready! There’s no time to waste!” he shouts, dashing back into his room and shutting the door, the sound of things being rummaged through, knocked over, and thrown around echoing through the faux-wood door.

“Alright, let’s see what Zed has for Pinkie, then we get the Condor from Scooter!” Rainbow says as she rushes off, her companions not far behind.

Anthony, for his part, was very excited that Sir Hammerlock was joining them on this ‘hunt’. Sure he’d played the Big Game DLC, but Hammerlock never actually aided the player in that. This time, he’d get to see the guy in action with his own eyes. The job of dealing with the Rakk was scary at first, but with both Hammerlock’s support, no ground-only disadvantage and a giant fucking missile... this may be fun after all.

Racing after the ponies, he skids to a stop just outside Zed’s, as he hears Pinkie making excited squealing noises before coming out, a metallic-looking party hat painted in bright colors clasped in a mechanical hand. “Anthony! Anthony, this is amazing! Zed made me something he called a ‘class mod’ and it’ll make me hurt people harder which at first sounded bad but then he explained that my friends would get hurt less and that sounded great to me and I loveloveloveloveit!” she says all in one burst, bouncing in place giddily. The gaily-colored cone is quickly attached to the top of her head, and she giggles more.

“Yeah... I guess I never thought about it, but I haven’t seen any Class Mods for us.”

“Class Mods?” Rainbow asks.

“Think of them as, well, little accessories that are designed to give us special abilities and improve our skills, but they only work for you if you use a Class Mod designed for your exact class.”

“Class... Mod, okay but what classes are we? How do we pick?”

“We don’t pick them per se, it’s more like... they’re used to describe how we do things. Like Zer0 is an ‘Assassin’ Class because he’s mostly about sniping, blades, deception, and other... assassin-y stuff. So... I don’t know what our classes are. I guess...” Anthony looks at his HUD and, above the EXP bar it says ‘Level 24 Starborne’. “Okay, yeah, I guess that’s my fault for not looking and pointing it out. See where it shows your level? The words above it are your class.”

Dash goes cross-eyed to look at the readout, before reading out loud, “Speed Demon...”

“Yeah, and assuming Pinkie’s is also one I’ve never heard of before, which makes sense, I guess it’s only natural there aren’t class mods for us scattered around Pandora. They don’t exist, they haven’t been made.”

“Oooh! Ooh oh ooh!” Pinkie says, pulling her party hat off and putting it back on repeatedly while crosseyed. “Mine keeps changing! Like, every time I put on the hat!”

“Yeah, worn class mods add a prefix to your class, so it indicates what sort of class mod you’ve got. In standard terms, there’s several different kinds of class mod for each class so if people like Zed who make class mods start making them for our classes, we’d be able to buy them and boost our abilities.”

“Awesome...” Dash whispers, eyes widening and sparkling a bit at the thought of her own awesome Class Mod line.

“Super cool!” Pinkie says, bright-eyed as usual, her characteristically over-wide grin a touch infectious. The possibilities are endless, that’s for sure.

“Anyways, we can get class mods, hopefully, later. Right now, we need to see Scooter about the Condor.” Anthony says. “Since we can’t digistruct them on the ground yet, we’ll likely have to fly it off of Sanctuary towards the valley.”

“Makes sense... I call pilot’s seat!” Dash says, before sprinting for Scooter’s. Pinkie is fully content to pronk after her friend, smiling and humming to herself. Anthony follows behind, thinking over everything they had to do still, making sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. Coming up empty, he walks up to the garage and sees the sizeable aviation machine sitting outside. While it surely came from a Buzzard, the resulting vehicle was very different. For one, it seemed almost too big to fit through the garage’s doors, even the building’s vaulted ceiling only having about a meter of distance between the roof’s underside and the top of the large machine.

Dash races up to the cockpit, while Anthony looks over the Condor. Overall, it looked much more stable, less fragile than the Buzzards around the Dust, and it had more for weaponry than the standard machine gun, though the turret was still there. “So, how does this thing work? Like how do you fly it exactly, controls-wise?”

Scooter, sitting atop the machine just behind and above the cockpit, points down. “Now, ah made this to be as you-nee-versal as ah could make it, so ya just put yer hoof there...” he gestures at a thick control stick, “and yer other one there...” Dash’s hoof comes down on the second stubby stick. “Now, ah put a tutorial guide that’ll open auta-magically fer ya when ya first take off, but ya control yer height with the right one, along with yer facin’, and yer foreward-backward-left-right with the left control stick. An’ don’t worry, there’s automatic stabilizers, so iff’n ya take yer hooves off the controls, y’all’ll just stay put, not crash. Buncha the ol’ Buzzard controls might as well been installed upside-down and backwards, so ah had ta fix it.” he gripes, looking unhappy.

“Alright, so I guess all that’s left are the weapons.” Anthony says, looking over the outside and seeing that the machine had the standard turret, but was also equipped with a pair of what looked like massive missiles on the undersides of the oversized rotor pods.

“Oh, them’s easy. Ah simplified ‘em a ton, so ya just cycle ‘tween the missiles and the machine gun by hittin’ this button, and fire whatever ya got selected by pushin’ the control sticks like buttons. Best ah could do fer hooves; ah figure’d you prefer that over the mecha-thumbs.” Dash grins and nods happily. “Now, fer you two, y’all have just as important roles on this here Condor; left an’ right gunners. See these pods? Ya get in and grab the gun mount, an’ let the Condor hook inta yer gun feed. It’ll give ya ammo, but you kin use yer own gun from here. One-eighty aimin’, too, so go hog wild with it.”

“Does the ammo feed work with rockets?” Pinkie asks hopefully.

“Sorry, but no. Ah couldn’t get the rockets to hook in properly. Don’t know what the problem is, but it just refuses ta feed launchers an' stuff. Now, all that said an’ done, mah sis sent me a message ta get the type-two ready fer digistruction... the Albatross ain’t as purdy as the Condor, but it’s got way more room fer yer buddies or fer big cargo, like the Outrunners an’ Technicals.” he says, sounding proud of himself. “That beauty can lift an entire Lancer... or, it could if the Lancer were fitted with Mag Clamps, but that’s rare ‘less it’s one a’ Roland’s.”

Anthony and the ponies nod, deciding that their best bet would be to drive the Condor over to the Dahl airbase as fast as possible and getting that chip installed before the Condor could get bumped too much.

Comments ( 2 )

This is a good chapter...Now I know why I have not completed The Dust of missions.

And these three missions are special to the Starlight DLC pack! But yeah, I added a bunch of missions out here because the Dust itself has barely anything, in spite of you spending a lot of time *getting* to missions via the Dust.

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