Pandora's Box

The road to Ivory was long and winding. Claptrap joked about finding a vehicle, but it was just merely a joke. They had to go by hoof. Many bandits were killed along the way, and many camps were raided for supplies and food. Not a word was heard from Solf Blues or her following, just psycho bandit after viscous marauder. Most of them were probably just nomads, searching for food and scavengable items among the wasteland, but their hostility lead them to their deaths.

Blood Rain had just placed her hoof down onto the last centimeter of snow covered earth. They had followed the path through a mountain range, and found the other side of the mountain to be a sandy desert. The purple mare turned to look at Check Mate, with an obvious lack of hope in her eyes. She saw no point in this trip, the whole reason they had gone through that danger was because they were trying to help that stupid robot.

“What?” The large, jacketed stallion looked back into her multicoloured eyes, not sure whether to focus on the red or the blue one.

“You’re not concerned with this at all?”

“What?” He repeated, trying to read her elusive expression. Emotions and deep stuff had always given him a hard time.

“We’ve followed this robot for who knows how long? We’ve fought through dozens of bandits, almost been eaten alive by skags, lit on fire, electrocuted, nearly dissolved in acid, caught in an explosion, and covered with Celestia-knows-what and I’m sick of it!” Her expression suddenly jumped from a simple displeasure to a downright fury. This surprised Check Mate, as well as the rest of their companions.

“Rain, he's leading somewhere safe...” Check Mate began. “Can’t you stick it out just a bit longer?”

“No! How do we even know that this place is safe? You’re a fool for trusting him!”

“A fool? Do you see any other options? What, you want to just stay at that bus stop for the rest of your life?” Check Mate took a step forward. “I know how you are, you’re just unsure about him because you barely can trust anypony.”

“Me?” Blood Rain mirrored his motions. “I’ve known you for a while and-”

“And you still barely trust me!”

The two were now face to face, pressing their foreheads against each other’s. Check Mate’s horn touched her head, and she violently shoved him back. He grunted, but shoved her back a bit harder. The aggressive action caused Claptrap and Krieg to impulsively step back, as if an event had been triggered that the other two Vault Hunters watching this conflict had missed. Virtuous Love disregarded the action and began to step in to defuse the situation, but Claptrap stopped him.

“Hey, I don’t think that’s a good idea. When two Vault Hunters perform a close, aggressive action like that to each other, they’ve challenged each other to a duel,” The robot sounded as if he was reading from a manual. “And if they’ve challenged each other, you should let them fight it out.”

“But, they might hurt each other...”

“Let the ponies fight, FIGHTING IS MAGIC!” Krieg cried. When Virtuous Love cast his gaze to Grey Noise, he saw her nod her head in agreement with the other two.

Check Mate stood on the sandy ground, staring at Blood Rain. Subconsciously, he knew that they were going to brawl. With a flick of his shoulders, he threw his grey longcoat to the side. Blood Rain kept her hoodie on. The red unicorn circled around the purple mare until they were in each other’s previous positions.

“You don’t want to start a fight with me...” Blood Rain spat.

“You’re the one who started this!” Check Mate replied, deploying his shield as Rain produced her knives. The steel blades collided with the steel plating, making a horrible scraping sound and leaving a deep cut on the shield. Check Mate pushed out and shoved her back, reaching for his submachine gun. Blood Rain tossed one of her knives, catching him in the hoof and making him drop the gun. He swung his shield in a vertical motion, but she leaped into the air and landed atop of the slab of metal, swinging a foreleg to bring her other knife down on Check Mate’s back.

The weapon did not strike, though, for Rain found herself being lifted into the air by a stone wall, followed by sand and dirt being thrown with her. The toss gave her a moment to steady her mind, and she tossed her second knife down, striking Check Mate in the back left leg. Gravity took her and slammed her into the ground, where she met the cold side of Check’s shield smashing her into the stone wall.

“Dammit...” she coughed, the last of her strength leaving her body. She passed out in a slump of purple fur and a swirl of blue and red mane. Check Mate winced as he looked back at the knife, which was sticking into his flank about an inch. He only fell over onto his side as he tried to remove it, his energy escaping him as well. His eyes closed, and he heard the scratchy voice of the changeling that traveled with him, Virtuous Love. He words he said, though, were drowned out by the sudden flare of pain that occurred as the piece of metal was removed from his back leg.

Through the hole in his body, the last of his will to remain awake fled. What did he do to deserve this? The bandits never did this to him.

“These new Vault Hunters, I want some background on them.” Solf Blues had her holo-table deactivated, and was using it for the purposes of a regular table. The informant who sat before her wore a full body suit of Hyperion’s standard yellow. The eyepieces glowed with a red light, but it did not bother the mare.

“This is the first one, from an old Hyperion ‘psychiatric ward’. Check Mate is the subject here, but I will have more,” the stallion answered, passing her an unmarked recording device on top of a nearly empty folder. Blues ran a hoof along the side of the small boxlike recorder before finding the playback button and pressing it. There was a crackling noise, followed by the shattering of glass. Following was a loud thump, a shout for help, loud crack and then silence.

“This is it?” Blues gave her informant a blank look.

“It’s all that we can pull from our current database. I’m sure if I led a recon team we could gather more information for you.”

“Do that then.” As the informant left her chambers, Solf Blues listened to the recording again. It didn’t seem like much, but it told her a lot about this particular Vault Hunter. He obviously was breaking out of the psych ward- she didn’t blame him, aforementioned wards during Handsome Jack’s period of control were probably just Eridium testing sites, where they ended up mutating everything and anything that had a pulse.

The only documents folders contained was a brief history of him and a list of his various mental problems. From what images the folder contained, she could tell he was a very strong pony, but that didn’t match up with the few records of him reflecting a high intellect, and very unique magical capabilities. Among various disorders, he had one called Energy Containment Disruption Disorder, which caused a reflex in the brain that normally triggered while using an energy direction spell, such as a fireball or a beam of light, to not trigger properly. If the reflex wasn’t triggered properly, then he could possibly harm himself if he casted a such a spell. That explained why he never learned any offensive magic. Solf Blues took a mental note of this, knowing that she could take advantage of this flaw.

If his intelligence matched his strength, then he would be hard to beat in a one-on-one, unless his attacker was extremely fast, but the fact that he had to rely on conventional weaponry to fight at a distance meant that he wouldn’t present any more of a challenge than a regular pony. Blues also took note that what she had wouldn’t properly reflect him in combat, because this was more of a history than a combat analysis. She would have more information coming soon, though.

Grey Noise silently walked with the others as they went on about something that wasn’t really important. Behind her mask, behind her shroud of mystery, was really just another pony with another problem. The three Vault Hunters that she had been travelling with found her and saved her from the wreckage of a shot down cargo ship, where she felt the need to repay them for saving her life. All of the time that she had known them, she rarely ever spoke. She did as she was told, and they got their work as mercenaries done. She tightened her dark grey hoodie around her body and kept walking. Sure, it was hot underneath, but at least it caught bullets slightly better than flesh did. The clothing covered her all the way to her tail, but her back legs were still exposed.

Soon enough, a small cluster of buildings was seen on the horizon. It wasn’t their destination, but it was something that Grey Noise knew would cause them trouble. Her head turned to Krieg as he made a few unintelligible grumbles. The maroon pony carried both the unconscious Blood Rain and Vanguard across his back. He was strong, to say the least. Virtuous Love had healed the bleeding and blunt trauma they had both received, but they didn’t seem to wake from their unconsciousness.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid...” Virtuous beat himself in his mind over and over again. “You shouldn’t have let them hurt each other...”

Claptrap, who led the party, pointed to a sign as they neared the buildings in the distance. It read “Lifton- 5 miles”.

“We’re nearing the town of Lifton! Hopefully no one there will try to rip us limb from limb!” Claptrap looked back across the sandy landscape to make sure those who followed them weren’t far. “Let’s go, friends!”

“You said hopefully?” Virtuous Love asked.

“Well, last time I went through there, everypony seemed nice enough. Bandits might’ve attacked, some monster could’ve killed them all and moved in, or even worse, Helios might’ve turned up.”

“It seems like that amulet is more trouble than it’s worth...”

“Not really.” Claptrap explained, “It’s only an infinite harvestable power source. If Helios were to get their hands on it, they could probably take over Pandora.”

“It seems as if it just puts a big target over whoever has it, though. Why not just get rid of it?”

“Trust me, I’ve tried,” Claptrap threw his arms in the air for emphasis. “I’ve tried to smash it, throw it in a volcano, feed it to threshers, and crush it with a singularity , but whatever the case is made out of is pretty tough.”

“So the only option is to hide it...”

“Yeah...” Claptrap trailed off. “Say, what kind of pony are you, anyway? I haven’t seen a pony like you before.”

Virtuous Love, like any changeling, didn’t feel comfortable being called out. Ironic, since changelings were shapeshifters by nature. He tried to make himself less conscious of what he looked like while still retaining his natural form. The question made him cringe a bit as he looked himself over. If he was a normal pony, he could’ve been mistaken for any common bandit, but his hard black exoskeleton, full teal eyes, and fang filled mouth made him iconically different from said bandit.

Instinctively, he turned his attention to his front hooves. His hooves reflected his overall health. If he was deprived of love, which changelings need to survive, they would become... lacerated. Holes would begin to form all over him, starting with his hooves, and his body would eventually shrivel up and he would die of love deficiency. Fortunately, he had friends that loved him enough to give him the love he needed without him having to take it from them, so his hooves remained solid.

Although he didn’t like being asked questions about his appearance, he didn’t blame the robot if he had never encountered a changeling before. However, he didn’t know how to explain what exactly he was without sounding socially terrible, considering the changelings’ track record in Equestria. Queen Chrysalis’s strain of mindless, ravenous changelings dominated the stereotype in the land of normal ponies. It’s true that changelings are susceptible to going berserk when deprived of food, just as much as any other sentient creature, but they generally wouldn’t aim to cause harm to others.

Just the thought of Queen Chrysalis made Virtuous Love shudder.

“Hey! Are you okay, buddy?” Claptrap asked to Virtuous’s silence, “I didn’t mean anything by that question.”

“No,” Virtuous replied, “It’s fine. I’m not really a pony at all, I’m called a changeling.”

“Cool! I thought you looked a little different. I’ve never seen a changeling before. I haven’t heard of them either... You’d think for someone who’s been around for as long as I have, you’d hear about a lot of things.”

“You’re lucky...”

“I sure am!” Claptrap cheerily answered. He missed the point of the comment, but that was alright.

Now, they were just entering Lifton. There was no wall surrounding it like Icepaw, it was just a group of ragged shacks made of wooden planks and metal sheets, held together assumedly by duct tape.

“Here we are!” Claptrap announced. “Lifton! We probably won’t be able to hide anything here, because there’s not really anypony here to keep it with. Let’s look around, maybe that building up there has some stuff we could scavenge!”

Claptrap pointed to a larger building, one that didn’t look so worn down when compared to the others. It had a small sunshade out front, and a door underneath it that led inside. A sudden crack erupted from inside, causing Claptrap to suddenly retract his arms and wheel inside his body. His eye flickered out, signaling that he was no longer viewing the world through it. The robot was now a small box that clattered against the ground in fear.

“Ack! I’ll just stay out here! You go check in there and make sure it’s safe!”

“I WILL SHIELD YOUR MEAT, CLAPTRAP!” Krieg shouted.

Of course, something that would most likely kill them was in town. Krieg stayed with Claptrap as Virtuous Love leaned his side against the rugged wall of the large shack, fearing that the wall might collapse under his weight. It did not, however, and allowed him to peek his head through the doorframe and get a glance of the inside.

A bandit lay half dead on the floor, and had what could only be described as a sniper rifle rammed through his belly. Above him, a deep blue pegasus mare held a syringe in her hooves. Her long mane was a swirl of pink and yellow, her tail matching as well, and the tips of her wings also followed that color scheme. The bandit struggled, crying out random phrases in an attempt to free himself as the needle slowly punctured the big vein in his neck.

“Shh...” The mare cooed, pressing the plunger of the needle in. Her voice was gentle, but at the same time strong. “It only hurts for a second...”

Whip Storm- Speak no evil. Fear no evil. Heal no evil.

She looked up, surprised to see the duo enter.“You’re not the common bandit... You must be seeking my help?”

They both stared at the pegasus, then at her victim, and then back up at her. No words could explain their swirl of reactions.

“Oh,” Whip Storm stood up, removing the needle from the lifeless body. “Where are my manners? I’m Whip Storm, Lifton’s Chief Medical Officer. I’m guessing you’re new in town? Well, I’d recommend going back to where you came, because there’s nopony here.”

“We’re actually just passing through... But we have a couple of friends who might need medical attention.”

“How bad are they? Bring them in!”

Luck was one of those things that Virtuous Love seemed to always have on his side. It just so happened that Whip Storm was the only pony left living in Lifton. Everypony else left for Equestria when Helios came through, and the bandits killed the rest. The last sane pony she talked to had gone to find a cure for his disease, the Skull Shivers. She couldn’t do anything for him without the proper medication, and she just didn’t have any on hoof. His only choice was to leave in search of what he needed, but he was never seen again. Storm told them her tale as she looked over the bodies of Check Mate and Blood Rain, who were still unconscious. They had been moved to makeshift operating tables as Storm worked.

“So you’ve just been waiting here?” Virtuous Love asked. “How long have you been here?”

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday, why?”

Whip Storm seemed to be calculating something in her head before giving an answer.

“It was thirteen months yesterday, why?”

“No reason...”

“You what?” Solf Blue’s surprise marked her face. Her hoof irritably tapped at a tray that held two soft, salty pretzels which she had meant to enjoy quite some time before a few issues came up.

“We put a bounty on her head,” Her yellow-clad informant sat before her again. What he thought had been a clever play had apparently only brought her annoyance. “We figured that if the bandits were going after her, we’d have an easier time snagging her while she was focusing on them.”

“You do realize that bandits are stupid, right?” Solf Blues asked, her tone becoming much like a bullet being chambered into a long rifle. Her informant could feel the tension building in his leader. “I’ve been having to feel up random mare’s bodies because apparently, everypony thought that it’d be a funny joke to try and fool me into thinking that they found one of the two Sirens I’m looking for.”

“I-”

“Take your helmet off,” Blues snapped. The stallion did as he was told, exposing his charcoal grey coat and cobalt blue mane to the air around him.

“Do you smell that?” The mare asked him. “That is the smell of marker fumes.”

The informant inhaled deeply, and blinked several times as the strong odor burned at the back of his eyes a little. He quickly donned his helmet to escape the impure air with the filters his head covering provided.

“I don’t have a helmet like yours, so I have to deal with that until the air filters can filter it. It is quite unpleasant.”

“I’ll see to it that there are no more... impostors sent to you. What of the Vault Hunters' files?”

"Capturing a Siren is our priority right now, you can run your recon team later.”

"Yes ma'm."

As the informant exited the room, Solf Blues looked down at her pretzels. They were probably cold by now, but she was hungry and probably should have something to eat. It would soothe her frustration, at the very least. Her teeth sunk into the salty bread, tearing off a piece and her mouth and tongue took in the flavor it had to offer. It wasn’t cold, it was room temperature. That was even worse. An equilibrium of heat and coldness was so unpleasant, because her mind couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind on whether it was more warm than cold, or vice versa. Her face twisted in disgust as she attempted to swallow the bite rather than eject it from her mouth.

“Damn...” She mumbled, the half chewed food muffling her voice. “These pretzels suck!”