"Not so fast, short stuff. We need to empty your backpack of all its crap first of all, and then we need to get you geared up with at least a few armaments, a shield, a couple grenade mods, and a class mod from my arsenal downstairs. And after that, I need to modify the Chopper I just purchased a short while ago and install an IV drip in my armored suit for reasons."
"Oh... You're really gonna give me all that?"
"Of course. I mean, how else are you going to do battle if you don't have the weapons to deal damage and a shield to defend yourself?"
"...You're the bestest friend one could ask for, Vic." Claptrap spouted, sounding overly emotional and on the brink of bursting into tears.
"Haha, don't go getting sappy on me now." I responded, patting his hard metal noggin.
When he recovered, I brought him downstairs to the basement, where most of my stash was stored, and left him there to select what he wanted to use, but not before giving him my old | Epic || Tediore | Impenetrable Panacea Shield, which I swapped out in favor of that unique shield I looted from Sledge's dead body. I would've given this extremely overpowered shield to my boy Claptrap, but I know I'm going to be attracting all the attention and taking all the heat in the fights to come. Hence, the increased shield capacity would serve us better having it boost my tankieness to a ridiculous extent than raising Claptrap's defensive abilities to a much lesser extent.
| Unique || Bandit | Sledge's Shield
Capacity: 6,500
Recharge Rate: 1,000
Recharge Delay: 5 Seconds
Health Boost: +60%
Health Regeneration: 5 + Level # Per Second
Now that I've taken a look at this shield's stats, I have to say it's one busted piece of kit, but I suppose that makes sense when it has the appearance of 3 shields connected as one... I wonder if I can replicate this design and improve upon it. I mean if that big simpleton could, why can't I? But that will have to occur at another time because right now I need to get this IV injection kit filled and fitted into the interior of my suit.
Leaving shield engineering for a later date, I traipsed back upstairs and opened the bag of corrosive goodies I got gifted by Dr. Zed and started draining the corrosive venom gland of a long dead badass corrosive skag.
That should be enough.
I thought as I stared at the full IV bag full of corrosive skag venom. With the bag of dangerous fluid in hand, I wandered over to my suit of armor and began to look around its insides to see where I could fit this new piece of kit. The suit was quite spacious, so it didn't take me very long to find a decent out of the way spot on the left shoulder. As soon as I found the location, I went to work with a spool of ballistic thread, ballistic fabric, and a needle I picked up in my travels and after a grinding away at it I had a nice snug little spot to fit the bag of poisonous fluid into, a connection to my H.U.D., which I can use to control the release of toxins, and a port that was awaiting connection.
Now I just need to jab this needle into me, hook it up to the port in the suit, and I'm ready to see how I'll hold up against a constant venomous drip, but before that, I want to check out how strong my health regenerative abilities are.
Curious to see how fast I can heal from flesh wounds, I disabled my shield, took my combat knife and attempted to give the meaty part of my thigh a decent but still surface-level slice. However, my skin's natural resilience stopped the sharp knife from doing jack shit.
"Hmm, this could be problematic."
Half happy, half annoyed, I was unperturbed; thus; I tried again and again and again and finally with far more oomph than any of the previous times I had some success. And the instant I brought my knife across my leg, I sliced an eighth of an inch into my leg and caused a stream of blood to start streaming down my muscular thigh.
*Urgh*
I got what I wanted now, didn't I?
The blood flow wasn't enough for concern, so I ignored the pulse of pain as I sat there and just observed the wound as it rapidly began to close, and before I knew it, it had healed shut and disappeared as if the cut had never even happened. The only thing that remained to show that it did indeed occur was the still-wet crimson blood slowly flowing down my leg and dripping onto the hard floor of my living room.
No scar, no mark, not even a speck of the human body's healing response was left behind... That's some impressive regeneration right there, if I do say so myself.
Nearly astounded by how effective my body's healing abilities were, I sat there with my thoughts for a couple dozen seconds whilst I thought of all sorts of ideas I could use this new power for.
My first thought was to use this monstrous power as a limitless steroid that I could practically abuse without limit and repercussions. But after giving it some further thought, I threw that idea out the window because I could improve far, far faster by exploring Pandora and slaughtering bandits, dangerous creatures, and whatever else stands in my way.
It doesn't make too much sense to waste time training my body that way when I can be out and about venturing across Pandora, kicking ass and making tons of money. That said, this sort of self healing power my body possesses should be able to build up resistances against nearly all poisons and toxins as long as they're unable to take me out, meaning I could become resistant if not immune to all substances that would normally be lethal to humans.
I'm not gonna lie; that would be one hell of a hidden card to possess, and since I plan on taking over Atlas one day, it's pretty much guaranteed I'll have one massive target on my head. Therefore, it wouldn't be surprising if there were squads of intergalactic assassins coming for my life on a daily basis along with all sorts of assassination plots.
Yeah, I gotta say cultivating that kind of resistance sounds like it's going to be imperative to my long-term survival, so I'm gonna have to add that to my list of things I'm gonna have to work on a constant basis via an increasingly potent and deadly concoction of venom and toxins. But in the meantime, I'll work on triggering my skills with corrosive skag venom and building resistance to it, similar to that one crazy snake guy from Florida, who would intentionally let venomous snakes bite him, so he could develop antibodies for the venom.
Hmm, hold on a minute. All this brainstorming on the topic of antibodies has got me thinking, why don't I turn my future body's strengthened antibodies into a sort of cure-all. A medicine like that could sell for gobs of money and probably earn me far more goodwill from humans across the galaxy if I ever decided to price it low...
On second thought, it would arguably be smarter to sell the cure-all as an auction-type item every so often and have it as a benefit for those who join my corporation/side. And if I want to gather goodwill and decent profits, I can separate the different antibodies I'll accumulate in the future into their very own dedicated medicines and enter the pharmaceutical industry... That's going to cost a massive fortune to set up and I have no f'ing clue if Atlas and whatever war chest I manage to accumulate will be enough when I'm going to incur plenty of expenses when I open that Vault and word of how much Eridium Pandora has gets out.
I better start coming up with other opportunities for me to take advantage of.
As I was going through my memories of the Borderlands series, my mind eventually led me to Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel.
Hyperion is nowhere near as strong as Atlas, but they have plenty of technology I'm interested in, such as their artificial intelligence and robotics, so maybe I should go after them when they start eyeing Pandora more and are looking to claim it for themselves. I don't believe it would be that difficult for me to take them on and usurp control of the corporation.
Though that's only once I've obtained a majority stake in Atlas and have full reign over their military forces, which include Lance Assassins. Those girls are quite lethal, so it probably wouldn't be that tall of a task for them to assassinate the Hyperion board of directors and its executives. But if they can't get it done alone, I'm sure my assistance will ensure the mission's success.
Mm, there's no reason to let a nice juicy piece of meat get away when all I have to do is take the initiative.
Having set my greedy eyes on Hyperion as well, I began expanding the scope of my vision and plans for the future and, after settling my thoughts on the matter; I focused on the matter at hand.
How the fuck am I going to get this needle in me when I had to use a substantial amount of strength just to slice an eighth of an inch into my flesh... I can't really come up with anything better than making a small incision on my shoulder and sticking a small port into the open wound and letting it heal around it. Yeah, that's the only viable solution that comes to mind that could work with this speedy regeneration power of mine, so let me give that a go first before I begin brainstorming again.
Unable to think of any other bright ideas, I went ahead with the brutal one I had and positioned the port close by on the coffee table. I then took the knife, grit my teeth, and sliced into my shoulder muscles. As soon as I had cut a large enough opening, I grabbed the port and swapped my blade's position with the port and jabbed it in before the wound could heal with | Sexual Tyrannosaurus |'s increased health regeneration speed and in the blink of an eye the flesh healed around the piece.
"Fuck, that hurt." I exclaimed while I rubbed the area surrounding the port.
Finished applying the device, I approached my armor, grabbed the IV line and plugged it into the port on my body. Following that, I set the drip setting to its absolute lowest via my heads up display or H.U.D. and waited for the effects to kick in and, most of all, see how I felt. The vibrant green liquid flowed slowly through the clear see-through line but it eventually closed the distance and arrived at the port installed in my shoulder.
I wonder how long this is going to take.
The effects weren't immediately noticeable, so I just kicked back and relaxed as the minutes ticked on by. However, they eventually came with a very light throbbing burn in my shoulder region, and along with that came the improvements to my movement speed, which I was able to notice instantly thanks to it being a fat 30%.
The pain isn't too bad nor distracting, but I'll wait around for another 5 minutes to see if it gets any worse, and whilst I'm passing the time, I'm gonna get used to my new and improved reload speed.
With not a lot to do while I was connected to my suit via an IV line, I practiced my reloading with my Atlas machine gun and my two machine pistols that I have holstered on my hips pretty much at all times. The minutes flew by as I went through the motions, and before long I discovered the pain had lessened an incredibly small sum and spread further out from my shoulder. Unconcerned about the results of my test, I started putting on my suit of armor, and simultaneously as I was doing this; I watched the IV line retract as my shoulder fit snugly into place.
"Ahh, I don't think I'll ever stop enjoying the feeling of improvement."
Grinning to myself, I moved onto the next bit of my preparations before it was time to head it out, and that was upgrading my newly purchased Vladof Chopper. Excited, I headed to the garage next door and set the hefty weapon on one of the workbenches and began wracking my brain in an attempt to figure out what I could do to improve the weapon at this current moment with the limited resources I had on hand.
I won't be getting that Hellfire module till later today, but there's no reason not to fill the module slots, especially when there are 4 of the suckers. Now what do I want to attach... Well, one of each element could be interesting, I suppose, but I wonder what would happen if I stacked modules of the same element, like, let's say, four 4x explosive modules. I think it's worth a try, and if it doesn't lead anywhere, at least I'll know not to bother doing that again.
Okay, besides the installation of elemental modules, I'm gonna throw on a laser sight for better accuracy, swap out the red dot sight for a 2.5x zoom optic, and thread on the 4 most accurate muzzles I have. Other than those upgrades, there's not much else I can do until I start looking into gunsmithing and doing some proper research on the subject. So, I'ma handle this real quick, and then I just need to feed the pups a portion of the elemental parts I brought back and put a ton of protein and bones in front of them to chew on whilst I'm away.
Getting closer and closer to being ready to head out, I set off for the garage with Chopper but not before I grabbed the parts I needed for the upgrades from my arsenal down in the basement. Right as I set the heavy weapon on the bench, I grabbed some tools, attached the four 4x explosive elemental modules, popped off the old red dot sight and slapped on a 2.5x zoom optic, and finally secured a laser sight to one of the several rails the weapon possessed.
That was easy enough.
Finished modding the weapon to my liking, I picked it up, gave things a feel, and ended my inspection by peering down the upgraded sight and loading up the spare mags for it. Right after I filled them with belts of rifle ammunition, I slung one of the heavy 500-round box magazines on my belt and tossed the rest of them into my digital backpack.
I really should look into investing in a backpack at some point, but I can look into that later since it's time to feed the pups and see who shows the most interest in the three categories of elemental parts I brought back.
With my little weapon project completed, I returned to my five jet-black skag pups, all of whom were growing rapidly in size with each passing night. The moment I entered the room, the five began following me around, so I led them to the kitchen and began preparing the plethora of creature parts. And when I was ready to start setting them out in front of them, I prepared five large feeding bowls, two full of just protein and bones and three full of protein, bones, plus one of each of the elements.
This was going to be an experiment of sorts, so I wanted to have three of my Pandoran dogs consume a diet of only one of the elements. As for the other two, they'll be fed a normal diet, which will hopefully cause them to evolve into alpha skags and then badass alpha skags later on. And when I gain access to other elements, I can evolve one into a slag variant skag and the other into something else... Hopefully.
As soon as I set the bowls down, the pups investigated them for a few seconds before looking back up at me as if to ask where's the damn fried chicken.
"Alright, it's time for lunch, guys."
"..."
"Let's go, otherwise you five won't grow big and strong." I encouraged them.
One of them released a huff and started eating from the fire elemental dish, and this was soon followed by the rest of the pups, who assumed positions at the bowls they were most interested in.
Yeah, that's the spicy fella of the bunch, so it only makes sense he would go for the fire elemental meal.
As I watched them chow down I had another thought come to me.
It's probably time I named these five little rascals before they become the five big rascals. That said, it's hard to distinguish them right now seeing how they all pretty much look the same, so let me go grab something that can help with that.
Leaving the five ravenous pups to eat their lunch freely, I wandered to one of the bedrooms upstairs, where I spotted some dog collars left by the former, now deceased residents.
These will do nicely.
I thought to myself after I had dug through a drawer that was practically filled with old dog collars and other pet accessories. With five different colored collars in hand, I trekked back down to the second floor and waited for the pups to finish devouring their individual meals before I approached them and squatted down in front of them.
"Line up!" I ordered the skag pups.
It took them a few moments to understand what I wanted from them, but they got it… Eventually. "Sit!"
The moment each of them had their butts planted on the kitchen floor, I fitted a yellow collar on the largest of the skags, which was one of the ones that was eating a diet of protein and bones.
"Your name will be Titan since you're the largest of your litter." I told the pup, who had yet to understand that that would be his name from now on.
Giving the newly named Titan a few pets and scratches, I repeated the same process with the other pup, who would probably become the slag skag.
"Your name will be Eris." I told her as I secured the purple spiked collar to her neck.
Following that pup, I moved to the one that consumed the corrosive creature parts. "You will be Furic."
Once I was done putting on a thick green color on Furic I moved onto my future hellion with a red leather collar with a bit of thin chain running along its exterior. "As for you, feisty guy, I think Vulcan is a fitting name seeing how I plan to raise you into a fire demon."
"And you will be known as Set." I said last as I put the blue collar on the pup who ate the shock elemental food.
[ Status Changes ]
Health: 29,000 → 46,400
Health Regeneration: 207.5 HP/s → 1,224.5 HP/s
Shield Capacity: 6,000 → 13,500
Shield Recharge Rate: 1,500 → 2,550
Shield Recharge Delay: 1.25 seconds → 2.375 seconds
[ Loot Acquired ]
Ammunition: 8,424
[ Loot Changes ]
Guns: | Epic || Vladof | RD Strapped Chopper Machine Gun → | Epic || Vladof | 2.5xOPTLS Strapped 4x4 Explosive Chopper Machine Gun