We can make your hands clap~!
It was measuring up to be an awesome sunday, Casey and I were beta testing a new VR application for the PS5, made by some guy who was patenting it for sale to sony, was letting us play an all too familiar game on it, with way more features than the original game, the game in question? Borderlands the Pre sequel. We not only carried over our levels from the ps4 game, but we were capable of actually modifying our chassis as a Claptrap, which was both awesome, and in depth in practice.
I was going for a rambo style fragtrap, with my chassis made to have only two weapons to choose between in favor of having an extra slot for modifications instead, I had a custom head on that was a cross between the Bandit trap from redbelly’s gang and shadowtrap’s look, with exhaust pipes coming out of the top of me like demonic horns, and a red eye made in a rectangular shape. Not to mention that I had the hannibal lecter style chassis cover and two extra arms that enabled me to mount weapons on them in sets of three. I had chosen a paint job that honestly looked like I had just walked out of a fire, what with the charred black and grey paint.
Not to mention that my body was decked out with a ramming grill and a booster in the back, so I could body check bastards left and right, heh.
My Gear? I had the Sham, and two sets of three guns mounted to my larger top arms, the guns in question? Excalibastard, I named the custom arm mounts Tricalibastard. I had forgone the grenade mods and four guns for three class mods, all of which being Celestial Fragtrap at level 70, and two shields, both of them being prismatic bulwark. Basically, lasers were my BITCH.
I looked to my brother in all but blood, and snickered at the pink, heart shaped eye he had chosen, and was covered in stickers of rainbows and ponies, oddly enough. He was designed for quick movement and taking damage in spades, I was pretty proud of his design, as I had helped extensively. He had a quartet of shields, namely the rerouter, the sham, the bee, and the supernova. Not to mention two class mods, which replaced all but one of his guns and all of his grenades. He had a heavily modified Stabbing Seeker, with rockets that never miss, much larger explosives, a much better scope and MUCH faster rockets. He was also designed, oddly enough, with a pair of wings made from jet engines and a unicorn horn. He insisted. Not to mention the pink and purple stripes...I wonder if he was off his meds.
He was currently raining death on everything around us, despite being on Ultimate Vault Hunter. His high pitched voice, modified by the game, was shouting “I AM THE PRETTIEST UNICORN! BUTT STALLION HAS NOTHING ON ME!”
I sighed as I made my way to the eye of Helios. “Yup, definitely off his meds.”
I shrugged as Casey, or Circuit as I was calling him in game, as the npc’s oddly were aware of our talking to each other, flew face first into the eye of Helios and fell on his back.
Jack, surprisingly enough, responded to this. “Damnit Circuit, don’t fuck up the eye any more than looking at you already does, it’s more important than you will ever be!”
Circuit saluted and I swear i could see his shit eating grin. “Will do cap’n sparrow!”
Jack threw a wrench at him “Hey! Why do you keep calling me that?!”
I sighed and interrupted before Circuit could piss off Jack. Yet again. I looked to the eye, which was already open and looking at us by now, and hummed. “So, we have to pump a whole shit ton of Slag into the eye, yeah?”
Moxxi sounded… surprised I knew that. “U-mm… yeah? How’d you know that Breaker?”
I chuckled. “I am a smart bot, Mox, and trust me, I know what’s going down. It… it is only going to half work.”
Moxxi was silent for a moment, then I heard the Echo comms going silent and Moxxi talking only to me. “What do you mean, Breaker?”
I sighed. “Because, Jacks going to go someplace safe to restart, and your just going to eliminate the eye, and make an enemy of Jack.”
“Yeah… jack just left after i injected all that purple stuff… said he was going to reset the eye Also, when the eye gets destroyed, just blame us, okay? Say we did it, because Jack’s going to kill a LOT of people if you betray him. Besides, we claptraps are on borrowed time anyway.”
I grunted. “Moxx, do me a favor, if Jack makes another fragtrap, and he uses something called the H-source to eliminate the rest of us… Just… take good care of that claptrap, okay?”
Moxxi was silent and then I could hear her voice oh so quietly say. “You two are too good for us…”
I chuckled. “Well, I can hear the countdown starting, never thought we’d end it like this…”
I tried to remove my headpiece like I did at the end of each session, only to find my claptrap hand was in fact my real hand now. In short? I WAS the fragtrap, this was all real...SHIT!
I looked to Circuit and saw him sending a video across all comms to Jack, with Jacks face pasted on jack sparrows , with him singing “Yoho me hearties, YOHO!”
I heard a cry of rage as the space time shift happened and I felt searing pain in what was once my brain, and was now a simple circut board and a collection of ones and zeroes.. “JESUS CHRIST!”
Circuit was shouting as well, instead unlike me, he was shouting “Regret, regret!” instead of a series of expletives.
I then opened my robot eye, seeing thousands of terabytes worth of information, guns, robots, vehicles, the works… I knew the whole of every corporations craft secrets, i knew the secrets of elemental tech, lasers, Eridium technology, everything.
Circuit was freaking out as the knowledge overwhelmed him and made him blackout, me following shortly after.
I came to at a VERY familiar sight, one that I thought I’d never see in real life. I was in a castle, Canterlot castle namely, and the world me and Circuit found ourselves in?
Equestria.
I looked around to see that I had everything still on me, so I wasn’t being dismantled by royal scientists… Even though they’d have a helluva time getting through our shields anyway. I looked to Circuit. I simply broadcasted my thoughts to him, as if it was a natural thing to do. “Don’t freak out, we need to have a good impression on these ponies.”
Circuit nodded. “When we meet the merchant, if ever, I will be torn as to what to do… I’ll either hug him, or beat him to death with his own spine.”
I chuckled. “Well, at least the rift removed those dumbass stickers.”
Circuit pouted about that all the way until two very familiar faces appeared in the room, followed by a set of scientists who seemed to be at their wits end about us.
“We don’t know what they are, Princess! Sunset Shimmer, please, tell her not to engage with them, who knows what they may do to her!”
Right as Circuit revved up to speak, I swing from the chains holding me up to the ceiling and tire drop kicked him in the face. ”Why would you do that?! I was just trying to say hello! To the pretty-”
I kicked him again. “THAT’S WHY! WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THERE CULTURE IS LIKE! Calling them pretty could be equivalent to asking for sex for all we know!”
Celestia and Sunset Shimmer blushed a deep red at this, while the other scientists went deeply pale.
Circuit pouted again. “Well, i wouldn’t be opposed to that… they are so cute!” As Circuit began to say something in his ‘robot voice’, I kicked him a third time., my shield negating any damage hitting him would deal.
“NO! NONE OF THAT FAKE ROBOT SHIT!”
Circuit tried to do it again as I swore to god he was trying to smirk, this time I just blasted him with my tricalibastard before dedigistructing it.
Circuit sighed “Okay okay! You almost got through my second of four shields...aaaand recharged!”
Everyone looked to us in absolute shock. I swear I saw a scientist wet himself and pass out. I looked to Sunset Shimmer and stared into his eyes. “You know, I could cut myself down from here, but I’d rather we kept this civil, so how about you let us down.”
Circuit tried to lift off, only for me to give him a glare. “Nooo, my glorious reference!”
I shrugged as Sunset Shimmer nodded for us to be released. “Tell me, what brings you to our world, odd creature.”
I shrugged. “A Space time instability sent us here, no idea if we are in the same universe or not.”
Sunset Shimmer nodded slowly. “So, are you friendly, or are you a foe?”
Circuit came in now. “Depends, are you racist and/or slaving bastards?”
Celestia was the one to respond to this. “Never! Equestria is a land of equality and tolerance!”
“Then friends we will be!” Circuit declares jovially as he pointed triumphantly into the middle distance.
I shrugged and looked around. “Seems that we are stuck here, so we might as well make ourselves useful.”
Celestia looked to us as we were finally unchained. “What do you mean?”
I crossed my lower arms and chuckled as Circuit decided to open his big mouth. “Oh yeah, some jerk wad tried to turn us into warriors, but we retained our sense of self. You’d know him if you saw him, he calls himself Handsome Jack, you’ll know him by the fact that he calls himself a hero, but is pretty much a monster in human skin. He wanted a planet razed to the ground, just because some of the people on it pissed him off.”
I nodded as Celestia looked to me. “Dude was a dick, kinda glad he’s outta our hair… metaphorically speaking.” I then went over my data banks and grinned, seeing the blueprints, secret codes and robot digistruct diagrams… we could make a company more powerful than Hyperion ever was or would be! Hell, with this, the H-source was a mere readme file!
I then heard Circuit talking to the ponies. “So… we are claptrap units, one of the most hated robots on andora, none of us know why, I mean, we are friendly, we would do work no one else would want to do, AND I am pretty sure we look damn snazzy!”
I nodded. “But Knowing jack, he’s probably destroyed our entire product line by now, but hey, at least I won’t be used as target practice here.”
Celestia tightened her hands into fists. “You mean to tell me… this Jack character went so far as to commit genocide on your people… just because he disliked you?”
Circuit nodded. “Yup, made em explode in a burst of electricity and fire. No saving them either, totally fried inside and out.”
As Celestia began to smoulder and smoke at the edges of her mane, Sunset Shimmer quickly stepped away. As soon as he did so, Celestia’s mane ignited and she looked exactly like Daybreaker. “If that horse son ever comes here, I will PERSONALLY put his head on a PIKE!”
Sunset Shimmer looked to Celestia in sympathy. “I know you feel for our friends here, but that can not be the right answer, princess. Even this laughably false hero does not deserve death.”
I cleared my nonexistent throat to get their attention. “Actually, he is linked up to something called a New U station, which makes a new body for you the second you die, and moves all your memories to the new body, the company that made us created them.”
Circuit then jumped in. “Well, they made our bodies, our consciousness es… well, that’s a LONG story.”
I smirked “Long story short, we used to be fleshy like you, until a void dweller crammed our minds into these metal box bodies.”
Circuit then perked up. “Don’t forget the souls! Those are here too!”
Celestia paled, her fire going out as her ethereal hair returned.”To do all that... that is beyond even Discord… just how mighty are these beings of the void? And hyperion as well?”
I chuckled. “They could think, and you’d be gone. Hyperion, they could shoot mortar assaults at you from space.”
I then grabbed Circuit and pulled him to my side. “But don’t worry, as long as we are around, most void dwellers won’t be interested in this dimension! And we’ll fight tooth and nail...er… chassis and motherboard? A-any way we’ll fight to the death to keep you all safe.” I then looked to the side table to see a VERY familiar eye that I immediately rolled over to. “Where did you guys find this?”
The scientists smiled timidly. “I-it was in your hands when you fell into the royal garden...I cleaned the ummm… the bird droppings off… you scared the toucans.”
I shrugged and reached to my eye, “Time to upgrade, eh?” I grabbed my eye and carefully removed it before replacing it with the Constructor eye, it glowing red instead of the normal blue. “Oh yeah… This is going to work out WONDERFULLY!”
“Brother why do you get the constructor eye!” Circuit whines out.
“Because I was holding it when we arrived, and I’m the one who thought up your upgrades as well as mine, I am the one who’d make the most use of it.” I then gave him the stink eye. “You’d probably use it for something stupid, like making a mohawk for yourself.”
Celestia fought the urge to laugh at that, I could tell, as her hand was covering her mouth quite coyly.
“ I would not make myself a mohawk I would make myself Superman!” circuit said at the Hovered a little bit in a Superman pose.
I deadpanned. Legendary was the scope of the deadpan in my robotic face right now. “You’d imitate a comic book character… as a robot.What? You’d wear underwear outside of a pair of pants? Don’t be an idiot, that’s too much like our default programming.”
“ you're right I shouldn't be Superman.” circuit said making me sigh in relief before he continued. “ I'll be the goddamn Batman!” he yelled out nearly making me fall over anime style.
I then digistructed a newspaper roll that was blank, and smacked him over the head. “No, bad dumbass, bad.”
“Do I look like abridged goku to you?” Circuit asked.
I sighed and looked to Celestia. “So… can I go outside for a bit? I want to try something.”
Celestia frowned. “What do you want to try?”
I crossed my upper arms proudly. “I want to make another claptrap, see how much I can make better.”
She frowned. “Why would you make more of your people? I understand that you may be lonely, but-”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Naw, none of that noise, I’m making an army loyal to you and us alone.”
“And we're not giving them the thing that will let Jack blow us up!” circuit yelled out, with his pink eye glaring up at space.
I nodded. “So, that okay?”
Celestia looked torn. “While it is true we need a better military, are you sure that you are up for the task of sending your kin out to possibly die?”
“We frag traps are hard to kill the two of us alone took out heavily-armed Bandits and monsters that are a hundred times our own size!” circuit said happily to alleviate her fears.
Celestia sighed as Sunset shimmer looked to us pensively. “Why would you do this for free?”
I chuckled at that. “No, we are not doing it for free, I fully expect some land for this in exchange, someplace in the badlands preferably, no way for unexpected visitors to come a knocking.”
“I would like pieces of several mansions to be able to make a mega mansion!” circuit said happily.
I clocked him in the head again. “No, we are going to make our own estate, not whatever the fuck you are thinking. This is going to be the homeland of the Claptraps, not our summer estate.”
“But I want to make a mansion made out of several smaller mansions!” circuit yelled out with a whine in his voice.
I facepalmed with a loud clunk. “No. If anything I’ll make a castle, not a mansion.”
Celestia was outright giggling now, with Sunset eying us critically and the scientists looking like they all wanted to be anywhere but here. Celestia eventually calmed down and smiled. “Fine, you can have your land, but first, we need to see if you can indeed create another of your kind.”
I nodded and rolled out with Circuit and Sunset close behind. “Okay, let’s see…” I fired up the digistructor and focused on the blueprints of a basic claptrap, then integrated maliwan tech to enable him to hover and use fire elemental technology.
“Remember to give him the ability to open doors you know how grouchy claptrap skip when they can't do that.” circuit said as he wheeled up beside me.
I grunted an affirmative as I focused, allowing him not only the Fragtrap protocols, but also giving him door opening abilities. As I finished, I wheeled up to the freshly built Claptrap and powered him on.
The Claptrap, who I will now refer as Firewall, woke up and looked to me for a moment “Woah, I feel… funny. Who are you? You are way bigger than most claptraps. And you are way tougher, judging from the weapons...”
I nodded “We are Frag traps, it seems I got your memory banks saved from before the H-source purge, Welcome to paradise. Your new name is Firewall.”
Firewall looked around cautiously. “How is this paradise? I mean, good job bringing me back, I thought I was as good as fried when Jack ordered a search and destroy on all Claptraps, but…”
“Greetings friend I am circuit in that is my brother breaker!” circuit yelled out coming up and shaking the frag traps hands.
Firewall gasped in what I assumed to be shock. “You two are the legendary Frag traps that stood up to Jack and got away before he could kill you? You two are my heroes! No claptrap has EVER managed to stand up to a monster like Jack and not be scrapped!” He looked to Circuit and took his hands in his own. “Your pranks are still the gold standard of pranking!” he then looked to me “And you! You are the single most ingenious tinkerer trap ever built! You revolutionized the weapons field across several galaxies!”
I nodded “And you were a general of the robolution, if I remember correctly, you held the positions you were told to hold by Claptrap prime for months, even after your leader was reprogrammed, you held onto that power of rebellion for as long as you could… We need someone like you to act as a general of our army. Not as an enemy to the lifeforms here, but as a protector.”
Firewall rolled back a bit, taken by surprise “Y-you two… need me?”
I nodded and held out my hand. “It’s all come to this, buddy, we need to keep this world safe from anyone who might come for us.”
Firewall looked to Celestia and Sunset, who were looking at him wide eyed. “I’ll do it.”
I shook his hand. “Welcome to the newest corporation, a diarchy of its own, Frag and Fury robotics.”
“ I wanted to call us fragtrap Incorporated where we give them the clap!” circuit said has both me and firewall could have sworn we felt him laughing maniacally inside.
Everyone present was in agreement. “We will never let you name shit diddly, Circuit.”
Author's Note
Please leave a like and comment folks! I want this fic to do well!
