Although I was pumped to go after my target of elimination, I was nonetheless aware of the many possible dangers that lay in wait here on Pandora's ruthless and unforgiving soil, so I kept scanning the surroundings as I progressed down the road.
It's kind of a pain to be swapping my focus side to side like this constantly... Oh, you know what I can do, I can offload some of this workload onto Claptrap. I'm sure he can handle it with his new software upgrade... Mm, on second thought, let me outline specifically what I need him to look out for; otherwise, I can see him chirping all the way to Bone Head's.
"Claptrap, keep an eye on the left side for me and let me know if you see anything that can be presumed as an enemy or a possible danger to our collective wellbeing."
"Aye aye, captain." The funny little robot sounded from his sidecar.
Whilst Claptrap was keeping watch of the left side that eventually gained a large sudden dip in terrain, a relatively large bandit encampment appeared in the distance on the left side across the divide. I would've headed right for it under normal circumstances; however, that wasn't where Bone Head was holding out at, thus I made a mental note of it and kept chugging along the craggy rock wall I was riding beside.
A little more than halfway to the target's holdout, we encountered our first bit of trouble
"We have bandits watching us from the other side of the ravine, best friend." Claptrap squeaked in nervously, obviously not yet adjusted to his new combat abilities nor very confident in them.
"And bandits approaching from the front as well... This should be fun." I added beginning to get excited to let loose and run wild at the local bandits' expense.
Eyeing the squad of bandits approaching from the front, I glanced briefly to my side for a moment and scanned the number of hostiles in that direction before turning my focus to those in front. I ran a quick round of calculations in my head and soon decided to put my new and improved Chopper to the test on the presented targets.
Let's see how much damage you can do, fella.
"Claptrap, keep those bandits across distracted with suppressive fire and take some of them out if you can."
"I-I'll try my best." The little robot saluted.
"I'm sure you'll make me proud." I responded a second prior to him wielding his newly obtained 6xOPT Enhanced Liquid Thunder Sniper Rifle.
As the small automaton was taking potshots with a semi-automatic sniper rifle, I focused on the band of 13 bandits coming our way from the road ahead, hopped off the bike, and took aim with my quad-barreled machine gun. The instant I locked the scope's vibrant red digital reticle on the leftmost bandit, I pulled the trigger, sending forth a stream of glowing yellow bullets that appeared extremely volatile in nature.
Those are some hot rounds.
Following that mental comment of mine, the streams of rounds that came out of all four barrels met the first target and obliterated the bandit I locked onto in a flash. The rounds were so powerful, in fact, that they took out the poor sap's shield and went on to break his body into pieces and send those mangled pieces of bone, flesh, and guts flying in all directions.
Holy shit, that explosion is nearly as powerful as a grenade going off... Though a much smaller one from the looks of things if I consider that there are four rounds impacting at a time.
Nearly over the moon at discovering how powerful of a weapon I had just created, the fellow bandits were none too pleased by my actions; thus, they returned fire in kind, intent on burying me and my new mate right where we stood. Unfortunately for them, I was rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with and had different plans in mind. So, I shrugged off their not-so-accurate gunfire and low-tier damage with my tough energy shielding and brought my weapon to bear on them as multiple bullets impacted the coating of blue energy shielding I had protecting the entirety of my body.
Less than a fraction of a second later, I pulled the trigger once more and proceeded to draw a line over the bandits with my weapon's reticle as my mechanical companion upped his fire rate of sniper shots. Not all the bullets flying out of my modified explosive Chopper made it to the targets, but there were so many rounds spewing forth that it didn't even fucking matter. Explosive booms echoed throughout the area as my new toy made short work of the band of savages and their rounds impacted my incredibly tough energy shielding and before I could truly enjoy the combat to its fullest my targets or I should say the remains of them laid scattered and singed alongside a hell of a lot of impact craters.
"...Well, that was short-lived." I thought aloud as smoke streamed out my weapon's multiple hot muzzles.
It's not quite on the level of a bolter from Warhammer 40K, but it's really not that far off, so with time and investment into both research and stat allocation it should become something comparable in the not so distant future... That is if I don't end up investing in a whole new devastating armament.
As my thoughts were beginning to trail off in the direction of the Warhammer 40K universe and what ideas I could possibly extract from that franchise for my own benefit, the booming sounds of gunshots continued to ring along with Claptrap's plea for help, which broke me from my thoughts. "I need your assistance, Vic!"
"On it." I replied, throwing my previous thoughts to the back of my mind.
Still in the midst of a shootout, I turned my attention to the multiple bandits locking down Claptrap behind the Speedster and opened fire on the bandits on the other side. Sadly for us, they had some pretty sturdy cover at their disposal in the way of concrete half walls reinforced with rusted metal panels, which they took full advantage of.
This length of guardrail running along the drop-off has absorbed some of the hits for us, but it's practically Swiss cheese at this point, so I better do something before the bike is next and I'm having to rough it on foot.
Intent on keeping that speedster in running condition, I held the trigger and sprayed a couple hundred rounds in their direction, and although my explosive rounds were whittling away their static defenses, the time it was taking to take them out was beginning to annoy me.
This is wasting too many rounds; time to swap to a more efficient method.
Before my aggravation could grow anymore for these sly, rat bastards, I threw my Chopper machine gun on my back and brought out my | Rare || Torgue | 4xOPT Big Steel Helix Rocket Launcher with my left hand and my | Uncommon || Eridian | Lightning Sniper Rifle with my right. As soon as I was wielding those two weapons, I pulled the trigger twice with my left hand and launched two rockets that split apart midair into three separate rockets each and spun their way to the enemy defenses.
The two helical rocket formations moved faster than my perception could register, so before I knew it, they impacted the cover the bandits were using and rocked their shit and the surrounding area.
"OOOHHHH!" Claptrap cheered as bits and pieces of concrete and rebar went sailing onto the roofs of their encampment, into the valley between us, and the rest of the surroundings.
As a handful of them lay dead and blown to bits, the remainder were busy recovering from the concussive blow I sent their way. So while that was going on, I took the liberty of reloading my launcher. Once it was fully loaded and the dust had settled some, I raised my alien sniper rifle and peered down its organic-looking sight and took aim at one of the morons who stood up moronically.
You're dead.
I thought just before I pulled the trigger and fired a single bolt of lightning at the poor pathetic bandit that was unable to do anything else than be an annoyance. The moment the rampaging bolt of electric energy arrived, it first caused the bandit to freeze up as arcs of blue danced across his frame. This was then immediately followed by the scorching of his skin on his face and, a second later, all the flesh and skin from the neck up evaporated away, leaving nothing but a partially revealed bloody red spine along with an equally red human skull.
My god that's some way to go.
Noting the nasty effect this alien weapon dished out when a lethal headshot was made, I didn't fuck around and kept firing one deadly headshot after the next. Claptrap was slacking off in the damage-dealing department either, but my accuracy was far better than his since the little guy was still getting into the swing of things and adjusting to his newfound autonomy.
With the bandits' cover practically reduced to crumbling rubble, the two of us were presented with a prime opportunity that was comparable to shooting fish in a barrel; hence, we made short work of the scum that were left. When the last bandit fell dead, I looked to my mechanical companion. "Alright, that was the last of em. Let's get to the chopper and keep making our way to Bone Head's."
"Ahahahaha, I can't wait." The little guy replied excitedly, appearing to acquire a taste for blood, death, and destruction.
I may have created a monster.
The lens of Claptrap's sensor glowed red for a split second following his comment but I didn't catch it, so we boarded the Speedster once more and headed on down the dirt road but not before we looted the remains of the bandit party I solely took care of. What I managed to scavenge from the remains wasn't anything to write home about, but I did retrieve a few uncommon drops along with some more grenades, which I stashed away in my inventory immediately.
After that run-in with the local population, I thought it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out, but we ran into another similarly sized group 10 minutes later. Luckily or unluckily, they weren't equipped with anything too wild, so the gunfight ended before Claptrap or I could begin to truly enjoy ourselves.
"Man, what a bummer... Why do you humans have to die so quickly?" My robot buddy complained whilst whacking one of the fresh corpses with the butt of his shotgun.
"There will be heartier opponents at our destination, come on."
Claptrap huffed in reply but nevertheless came along and took his place in the sidecar, and once he had, I gave the unique-looking chopper some gas and accelerated forward, moving ever closer to my target's hideaway. I traveled with Claptrap along the darkly colored rock wall to my right and an even deeper drop-off to my left and eventually came upon a break in the rough mountainous terrain to my right, a canyon.
The moment we reached this point in our journey, I slowed my roll and after a few seconds I came to a complete stop right in front of the side path. "Alright, get off; we're going to take this route to reach Bone Head."
"Aye aye." Claptrap responded in mock salute.
Paying his amusing gestures no mind, I hopped off the bike and rolled it off the road and partially into the side entrance we would be using to reach the bounty target. Right as I hid it as good as I was gonna get it, I moved further into the relatively close quarters passage with my Chopper held in my grasp and my sidearms, knife, and various grenades at the ready.
I did my due diligence way before we left Fyrestone and checked the map on my handy-dandy ECHO device ahead of time, so I knew exactly where I needed to go to reach this bandit leader. And before long, the route ahead began opening up into a scenery similar to one from the original game, though far larger in scale.
The environment is similar to what I remember from the first release and possesses all the rough and weathered buildings but it's far larger and filled with many more structures than the games ever had... Since it shares many similarities with what I remember, that wrap around should still be a thing, meaning it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to sneak around and get a major overwatch position right on top of them.
Going with that plan will allow me to get more acquainted with my alien sniper and grind out some proficiency whilst giving my friend here the opportunity to sharpen his sniping skills all while staying in relative safety... Yeah, that doesn't sound like too bad of an idea, so I'll go with that for now but if we get caught while trying to maneuver and get into position I'll fall back to full on gun blazing.
For now, let me switch to my less noisy weaponry.
Cognizant of the fact that we would be venturing right into the home turf of a local bandit crew, I indicated to my companion to keep silent with a single universally known hand gesture and brought out my | Rare || Vladof | Workers Savage Combat Pickaxe, which I could now wield effortlessly with one hand. From there, I stepped forward slowly and as quietly as I could and did my best at a stealthy approach.
As I stepped out from beyond the side entrance, I came face to face with a bandit just chilling right up against the rocky terrain a mere handful of feet off to the right.
"WHO THE FUC-" Was all the bandit could get out before my heavy war pick met his face and brutality pierced his shield and went right into his skull and embedded itself into the wall of rock behind him.
"Phew, that was a close call." Claptrap sounded quietly as blood leaked from the lethal wound of the bandit.
"You could say that again." I agreed in a comparable volume, before I ripped my weapon from the wall, brought the body hanging onto my weapon, and kicked the corpse off the implement of my weapon right behind a shack and the barrier of rock that surrounded the entirety of this bandit camp.
The moment the freshly made corpse collapsed to the ground, I hung to the right and wandered off while the little guy rolled silently behind me and blood leaked from the gaping hole in that dead bandit's forehead.
We encountered another weakling on our way to the vantage point I had in mind, but I dealt with him before he could even respond and continued onto the walkway that would take us to our destination. The two of us crept up the elevated path constructed from weathered sheets of metal and various junk as the bandits residing here went about their activities below, and although the scene was a good bit different from what I remembered, the layout remained relatively the same.
"Alright, we're here." I announced with a whisper as we rounded the last bend and came upon a relatively tight and covered platform right smack dab in the middle of the bandit base overlooking everything.
"Mmm, where should I set up?"
"Let's get a look at the area first before we figure that out." I told the small robot, who was busy scanning the new surroundings with his single lens.
Once those words left my mouth, I approached the rusted sheet metal railing that ran the entire length of this platform and peered just over the top of it, smart enough not to reveal my whole figure. What I saw from beyond my elevated spot was a load of bandits of varying types taking it easy by several burn pits, roasting skags on a pipe going over top of a fire.
Elsewhere were random bandits brawling over presumably nothing, others fucking around with their prisoners for amusement, and right there in the middle of all of it was the boss, who had caused more than a few newbies to the series to encounter their first deaths over the sudden difficulty spike this multishot smg wielding bandit boss provided.
There's that old son of a bitch, Bone Head. I was wondering when I'd spot ya.
[ Status Changes ]
Experience Points: +935
Total Experience Points Earned: 104,705 → 105,640
Badass Tokens: 182 → 267
Machine Gun Proficiency: lvl 44 | Accuracy +44% - Cooling Rate +44% - Damage +44% - Magazine Size +44% - Recoil Reduction +44% - Reload Speed +44% - Stability +44% | → lvl 45 | Accuracy +45% - Cooling Rate +45% - Damage +45% - Magazine Size +45% - Recoil Reduction +45% - Reload Speed +45% - Stability +45% |
Heavy Weapon Proficiency: lvl 3 | Accuracy +3% - Cooling Rate +3% - Damage +3% |
Explosive Proficiency: lvl 68 | Crafting Speed +68% - Damage +68% - Element Effects +68% - Explosive Radius +68% - Shockwave Effects +68% | → lvl 69 | Crafting Speed +69% - Damage +69% - Element Effects +69% - Explosive Radius +69% - Shockwave Effects +69% |
[ Loot gained ]
Weapons: | Uncommon || All | Combat Rifles (2) - | Uncommon || All | Machine Gun (1) - | Uncommon || All | Submachine Gun (1) - | Common || All | Combat Rifles (15) - | Common || All | Machine Guns (3) - | Common || All | Pistols (19) - | Common || All | Revolvers (2) - | Common || All | Shotguns (3) - | Common || All | Submachine Guns (5)
Grenade Mods: | Common || All | Grenades (4)
Shields: | Uncommon || All | Shields (2) - Common || All | Shields (33)
Class Mods: | Common || Generic | Basic Classless Class Mods (3)
Meds: Insta-Health Vials (3) - Minor Healing Kits (7) - Minor Insta-Health Vials (21)
Ammunition: 5,946
Grenades: 34
Dollars: 13,777