Pandora's Box

Stag Valley was just as cold as Icepaw. If it weren’t for the noticeable drop in elevation, there’d be no telling when they actually got there, because it looked just about identical to the rest of everything in the frozen wasteland. To get Claptrap free, the Vault Hunters would need to find his friend, assuming that his friend had fire weapons. If he didn’t... they’d figure something out. As they entered Stag Valley, their ECHO devices lit up with a transmission.

“You... You Vault Hunters have my amulet, don’t you?” It was the same mare from before, Solf Blues. “Give it back...”

“Don’t even try,” Check Mate replied, making sure he secured the amulet in his coat’s pocket. “We’re not doing anything for you.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to take it from you then... It’s unfortunate that you bandits don’t listen to reason.”

Something was coming. The Vault Hunters made their way down the path, hoping it would lead them to their objective. It wasn’t long until they saw the drop barge overhead, deploying a team of Helios soldiers off at a small gap in the path. The gap was a long drop into some rather sharp looking rocks, and an old wooden bridge was the only thing connecting one side to the other.

The soldiers were just regular ponies, outfitted with the standard yellow Hyperion armour. Although outdated, the armour still proved effective, offering a greater challenge to the Vault Hunters as they neared their position. It took longer to kill the soldiers than the average bandit, but they still were able to do so. Blood Rain turned to get Check Mate’s attention.

“We’re tangling with Helios now?”

“We were tangling with Helios before,” Check told her.

“Yeah, but this is crazy.”

They were both interrupted by a new voice, shouting over their ECHOs. It was followed by gunfire, and screaming in the background.

“I’M GONNA PUT MY PAIN INTO YOUR SOUL!”

It was a one way transmission, but they heard Claptrap respond to it over their ECHOs.

“That sounds like him! You guys are getting close to him? I... Hey! Go away! Stop hitting my ice cube!”

“Claptrap?” Blood Rain wondered how the small robot was contacting them.

“Oh, I got my ECHO working again. Something must’ve knocked it loose when I got attacked, but all I have in this block of ice is time to fix it... And would you please stop hitting my block?” There was a brief pause, and then, “Don’t worry about me, just find my friend! Listen for the sound of ponies screaming, and you should be on the right track.”

“How do we know we’ve found him?”

“Oh, you’ll know him when you see him. Believe me.”

That was probably the only description they were going to get. It would be best to keep moving before more Helios soldiers showed up, but weren’t exactly sure what they’d find on the road ahead. Further down the path, the encountered a turn that led into a cave, where several Helios soldiers lay dead. Their armour was forcibly torn apart by a blade of some sort, as blood was fountaining forth from the wounds. A transmission from the assumed killer sounded over their ECHOs.

“TINY HELIOS PONIES ARE CHICKEN WINGS!”

“I’m not so sure about this...” Blood Rain started.

“You’re not so sure about anything.” Check Mate replied.

“This guy seems crazy!”

“At least he’s on our side.”

Rain shook her head, “How do you know? He could attack us too!”

Virtuous Love put a hoof on her shoulder, attempting to relax her. “If he’s Claptrap’s friend, then he won’t attack us if he realizes were with him.”

“YOU CANNOT OUT-ROBUST ME! MY MIDDLE NAME IS POTATO!” The voice roared over the ECHO.

“How do we know that he’ll recognize us?” Rain asked.

Grey Noise sighed.

“We don’t.” She said. The two words were powerful enough to get the attention of the other three. The masked pony took a step forward into the cave. Virtuous followed suit, and looked back to the frictionous duo behind them.

“You two just gonna stay here and wait for the drop-barge to dump more bad guys on you?” The changeling asked, “Or are we going to try to stick together?”

Going through the cave hadn’t been as dangerous as getting to it. It seemed to have been dug out by ponies, as several old mining drills and other gear had been seemingly abandoned on the rocky floor. No remains of these ponies were there, or if they were they were just concealed by the Helios corpses strung out across the place. As the Vault Hunters ventured deeper into the cave, they began to see large crystal formations jutting forth from the ground. The corpses weren’t as thick here, but the ones that were there could be seen impaled upon the sharper of these crystals. They seemed to be older than the ones near the entrance, as if the pony that lived here had been under attack by Helios for some time now. This also hinted at the possibility of him just recently being near the front of the cave. Perhaps he was overpowered and had to fall back?

No questions were answered as they ventured through the cave, the sunlight starting to fade, and the path beginning to be lit by torches place along the walls. These were another guide to their target. Eventually, they came to an opening in the cave where a large crystal in the center of the chamber glowed brilliantly with just the nearby torchlight. A small team of three Helios soldiers had a single pony cornered against the crystal. This pony had a mahogany colored coat, and wore a yellow face mask. On its right side, a small filter indicated it served as a gas mask. His entire body was covered in blood, and his cutie mark was a flaming stick of dynamite. His body was very robust; this pony was definitely a bandit.

The cornered pony did not look like he was defenseless, though, for he was currently removing the sharp end of an axe from the head of a dead soldier. The axe’s blade was serrated, and was revealed to be a chainsaw blade. It buzzed violently on the end of the axe as the pony swung it out at the nearest enemy. Flames began to engulf the end of the weapon, and in turn the soldier. Strangely enough, the pony wielding the vicious weapon caught fire as well, but the burn only seemed to fuel his rage. The buzzaxe hacked into the flaming soldier, and then found itself slicing through the next soldier’s stomach. Their armor protected them against the fire, until it was cut open by the weapon.

This crazy bandit, this psycho, who, still engulfed in a raging fire, towered over the last soldier, who shrunk down onto the ground in fear.

“YOUR CUPCAKES WILL NOT SUFFICE MY FLAMING HUNGER!” The bandit roared, the soldier squealing in terror. The bandit exhaled on the shriveling stallion, but instead of a regular breath, a jet of fire erupted from his mask.

Krieg, as an insane bandit.

Embers engulfed the soldier as his attacker sawed off the locks on his helmet and ripped it off. The axe’s blade slashed across the now exposed throat, killing him almost instantly. He looked up at the Vault Hunters as he let the body drop, and seemed to glare at them under his mask. The bandit seemed to realize that they were not hostile, and lowered his weapon. The fire about him was extinguished as well.

“... No! The grains are not here!” He sternly told somepony that only he could see. Addressing the Vault Hunters, he thrust a foreleg at them. “You small ponies are my new KILLING BUDDIES!”

There was an awkward silence.

“I’m assuming that you know Claptrap?” Virtuous Love was the first to speak to this savage bandit.

“You’re talking about the yellow SALT SHAKER?”

“Uhh...”

“The robot is my metal SOULMATE! HE is the leader of MANY MINIONS!”

“Claptrap sure has some weird friends...” Rain mumbled.

“Claptrap is in trouble, frozen in a block of ice. He told us that you have fire weapons.” The changeling looked around the chamber, not finding anything in particular but rocks and dead bodies.

“Weapons? I AM THE FIRE WEAPON! I AM KRIEG!” He howled.

“I guess that means you’ll help us?” Virtuous Love extended a hoof for a hoofshake. In response, Krieg threw his weapon into the rock, embedding it there, and grabbed the surprised changeling in a tight embrace. Instead of a hug of friendship, Krieg bashed his head into Virtuous’s.

“You are solid. Metal gear solid! I will give you a MEAT SHIELD FROM THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES!”

“Good... I think...” Virtuous shook his head, attempting to clear it from the sudden test of pain tolerance.

On the walk back, Krieg explained through a series of short grunts, shouts, and random phrases about blood cocktails that he had been under attack by Helios for quite some time. He thought he was safe hiding out in Stag Valley until the Vault Hunters drew Helios’s attention to him. Some of his unintelligible babble contained phrases like “sirens”, “lava lizard”, and “bleeding angels”. This pony had obviously been through a lot, and it showed through his insanity.

Claptrap had been contacted when they reached the entrance of the cave, reporting that he was okay, and that this psychotic bandit was indeed the one they were looking for. Claptrap also seemed to have something trying to break his ice cube, but couldn’t seem to describe it. Hopefully he wasn’t in any danger.

“Those Vault Hunters have my amulet...” Solf Blues sat at her hologram table. A blue cascade of lights illuminated a three-dimensional overview of the continent of Pandora, currently zoomed in on the town of Icepaw and it’s surrounding areas. The rest of the room was dark, for Blues liked to have her hologram be the only source of light. As such she was startled by the sudden entrance of a messenger pony, who had a concerned look across his face.

“Miss Blues, the detachment of troops you sent to Stag Valley were all killed...”

Blues sighed, and put a hoof to her face. As angry as she was, she wasn’t going to let it out on this messanger. She was not going to be like Handsome Jack in that way. No, the only ponies that truly deserved to die were those filthy bandits. Jack may have been doing things wrong, but that was only because he couldn’t see past his own ego to help others. That was what truly led to his downfall, not those so called ‘legendary’ Vault Hunters that took his life.

Solf Blues could see the error in Handsome Jack’s ways, and improved upon them. She was the Phoenix that rose from Hyperion’s ashes, and she would unlock the Vault on Pandora’s Box, but she needed her amulet first. The amulet was the only thing that could possibly power her only method of clearing the island of Pandora’s box of it’s poisonous waste. Experiments and research was being performed in hopes of finding a new way to power her methods, but that route wasn’t looking too bright.

“Shall we send another dispatch, Miss Blues?”

“No.” She replied, after a moment of silence. “We shouldn’t waste our resources just yet. Keep me informed on where they are going to be next. Anything else I should know?”

“The one bandit that you wanted dead has joined forces with these new Vault Hunters.”

“Which one?”

“The one named ‘Krieg’.”

The moment the name reached her ears, Solf Blues made a gesture to her table with her hooves. The map of Stag Valley and Icepaw suddenly became miniscule as it zoomed out, revealing more of the land surrounding it. She looked back up to the messenger.

“Do you have the locations of the Sirens on this continent?”

“Well, not exactly. We have their last known locations, but they may not be entirely accurate.”

“Upload the locations to my map. Give the word to prepare two heavy assault strike teams as well.”

The messenger gave a sharp salute and promptly left Blues’s chambers. It was time to capture a Siren...

Claptrap’s ice cube didn’t have a very good view of the town of Icepaw. He could only see blurred shapes, moving hooves to strike the block of ice. The poor robot couldn’t even tell what exactly it was that was hitting it, but he did know that it wasn’t responding to his shouting. Claptrap also didn’t bother ECHOing the Vault Hunters again, for the last group that he constantly ECHOed got very annoyed with him.

Muffled voices were heard, followed by muffled popping sounds, and the blurred figures closest to Claptrap’s ice cube suddenly dropped to the ground. Had they been killed by something? His eye couldn’t turn far enough to see any other blurs, and he couldn’t turn his body at all. A tall, reddish brown blur moved into his light of sight, and appeared to look back at something else. Muffled voice were heard once more, and a bright light filled Claptrap’s vision. The ice around him became very warm, and slowly turned to liquid. The source became visible as the ice melted, a fire coming from a large pony’s mouth.

“THE HAY HAS BEEN COOKED!” Krieg shouted at the conclusion of freeing Claptrap.

“Minion!” Claptrap threw his hands into the air and cheerfully spun around. “I don’t know how happy I am to see you again!”

“It’s great to see you too! I’m so happy I could just stab you!”

Grey Noise cleared the awkward silence that ensued after that comment with a cough. The other Vault Hunters that had found Krieg were standing to the side, watching this odd reunion with a mixture of curiosity, disappointment, and confusion.

“Are you alright Claptrap?” Virtuous Love asked him.

“You know it!” Claptrap replied. “Thanks again for helping me out. Do you still have the amulet?”

“It’s right here,” Check Mate produced the glowing yellow item from the inside of his right shackle, which he found to hold it quite conveniently without it falling to the ground.

“Great! Now, Krieg, we were originally going to ask you if you could keep that amulet away from Helios, but since they know where you are now, we’re probably going to have to look somewhere else.”

“LAMPPOST!”

“Great idea, we should go to Ivory!”

Blood Rain slapped herself several times internally for what she had gotten herself into.

“I agree.” Check Mate said. "I don't think anypony would think to look there."

"What's Ivory?" Virtuous Love asked.

“Ivory’s a small town where ponies who escaped the Crystal Empire when it fell went to. As you might’ve guessed, it was founded after the Crystal Empire fell. It’s a... haven, kinda like a sanctuary for those who are trying to get away from the crap going on in Equestria.”

“If it’s closer to the Crystal Empire...” Blood Rain began, “It can’t be close by.”

Claptrap nodded his body like a pony would nod his head. “We’re probably going to want to catch a ride then, huh?”