Chapter Text
Things can get pretty hectic over the span of a few hours. One hour, you're offered a chance to hunt down a vault, the next, you’re on a train into the Hyperion capital with a sibling, the next, Hyperion bots attack, then, Eli herself sends the train to high hell, including your sister.
Certainly not the best day ever for Honoka. Not one damn bit.
“Great, yet another pair of dead Vault Hunters. Eli’s been busy.”
Honoka’s eyes took a few second to adjust to the new terrain, the empty whiteness of snowfall, then a whole scene of an iced over wasteland and then the small robot that had stopped digging, seemingly digging a grave.
“Wait a minute, you’re not dead! YES! I can get off this damn glacier!”
Honoka looked at the strange bot, rather confused over its moment of triumph.
“Glacier? I was on a train to Opportunity…” she thought to herself.
“Allow me to introduce myself! I’m a CL4P-TP steward bot! Claptrap to my friends! Well…they would, if they were actually still alive. Or even existed!” the bot, Claptrap, moved towards a hand that stuck out from underground, grabbing an ECHO device from the former living person’s hand.
From Yukiho's hand.
“Here! Take this ECHO communicator that I didn’t loot from your sister’s buried corpse! It comes decked out with a neat mini-map! Now come on! Let’s get you inside!”
“Yukiho’s…corpse?” Honoka whispered, shaking as she held the ECHO device.
Honoka wasn’t sure how to feel. Sure, she remembered when her father had been killed by Bandits and how bad it was, but this was her little sister, the smarter of two Kousaka sisters.
Honoka’s grip grew stronger, she gritted her teeth in anger, “Eli.Will.Pay.”
She booted up the ECHO device.
BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
INITIALIZING…DIGITAL MAP MODULE
The map itself was…as empty as the land scape she was standing in.
She thought to herself, “May as well follow that oddly perky Claptrap.”
“Man, this is great! Now that I found myself a living Vault Hunter, I can finally join the resistance in Sanctuary, and carry out my vengeance on Eli for discontinuing my bot line. And get my central processors repaired, but vengeance!”
A sudden loud burst of static came from the ECHO device.
A voice followed, “I’ll explain everything soon, but please, know that you’re alive for a reason, and I want to help you.”
A strange voice offering guidance? Honoka’s bad day could only get weirder from meeting a bubbly robot that acted like comic relief that seemed too perky about discontinuation. Honoka thought that may putting a little faith in some stranger was not the best idea, but she honestly had no other person to count on, so…just this once, she’d trust the woman behind the echo.
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The walk to Claptrap’s place was short-lived, a journey lasting a minute.
“Well done! Your power in walking short distances while staying alive will surely be Eli’s downfall!”
Claptrap turned its attention to the locked door in front of it. Opening its small arms wide as if to say ‘Open sesame!’
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand open!”
There was a slight loud creaking noise as the obviously rusted steel door opened slowly, as if revealing a vault.
“So cool!” Honoka had exclaimed.
“Just a small security protocol. Gotta have some way of keeping those damn Bullymongs at bay, or they’ll rip your eyes out!”
Honoka watched as the small robot wheeled itself into the small abode, proceeding to follow it inside.
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The place was a dump, like something she’d see in the Dust. Either some big Bullymong had busted the place up, or Claptrap was just a massive slob, not that she could judge. There was mostly weapon crates placed upside down or just dumped among robot parts, from Hyperion no less. They were empty, aside from a few that contained ammo…Which she couldn’t use without a damn gun.
“Sorry about the mess,” Claptrap apologised, its tone certainly not showing that, “Everything Eli kills gets dumped here like last week’s lunch. Bandits, Vault Hunters, Claptrap units…If I sound happy about this, it’s only because of how the programmers made my default tone! I’m actually quite depressed!”
“Is there…actual threat to worry about here?” Honoka asked, “Like…killer Hyperion Robots? Or you know…The person that killed Yukiho?!”
“The only thing here to worry about are the creatures around! There’s one Bullymong called Knuckle Dragger, killed everything out there! One the plus side, I keep one pistol in a cabinet for super emergencies! But we’re totally safe here!”
“That sounds like a jinx!” Honoka pointed out.
Claptrap laughed awkwardly, “Hehehehe…Well…”
The ground shook suddenly, as if an earthquake had hit. Honoka looked up at Claptrap’s roof…or lack of one, a large Bullymong, no doubt a Badass. Its large body almost casting a large shadow over Honoka and Claptrap.
“It was!” Honoka yelled.
“That was an ironic set up!” Claptrap joked, at least, Honoka thought it was joking.
The Badass Bullymong climbed down in the large beam that shot up from the middle of the room, grabbing Claptrap in the arm not holding onto the beam.
“WAAAAAAH!”
The Badass dropped down to the floor, using its now free hand to go for Claptrap’s eye, ripping it out, the wires that connected the eye to Claptrap was sparking slightly. It jumped through the “roof” again. A visit that ended quicker than it started.
“MY EYE! WHYYYYYY?!”
Honoka wasn’t too fazed at the sight of Claptrap losing its one eye. She had seen that happen on a daily basis as a Vault Hunter, even seeing that happen to Yukiho once, but that sister of hers was something else, she scrapped a new one like it was no big deal. If Vault Hunters had a Badass title, Yukiho was worthy.
Honoka shook her head, it wasn’t the time to be thinking about Yukiho when her new friend was wandering around like a blind mouse.
Honoka felt a light vibration form the ECHO device, she pulled it out.
INITIALIZING…OBJECTIVE INIDICATOR.
“Claptrap!” Honoka called, “Are you okay?!”
“The gun. Get the gun in the cabinet.”
Honoka looked all over the room, hoping to find some cabinet among the actual trash. Her ECHO device had made a light sound as she looked next to the furnace in the back. She walked quickly over to the small red cabinet, opening it carefully in case of some complex Hyperion trap.
“Aha!” Honoka was smiling at the sight of the repeater, not her usual style of gun, but at least she could defend herself.
She picked it up, taking in the feeling of holding a weapon again. She grabbed a few magazine of ammo and loaded up before she turned to Claptrap, who was blindly walking into everything in her path. Ultimately falling over the small set of steps from the furnace to the ground.
“Once upon a time, four Vault Hunters changed this planet. But thanks to Eli…that time has passed. Pandora needs a new hero. I think that’s you,” the voice from the ECHO device suddenly said.
Honoka looked over to Claptrap, not sure on how to help it in the slightest.
“Apart from the intense pain, this is great! I’ve been waiting so long to find a living Vault Hunter to get me into big ol’ Sanctuary! I will be your wise master; you shall be my fearsome minion! Hahaha!”
“M-Minion?! Shouldn’t you be mine?!” Honoka questioned, “Not fair!”
“No objections? Great!” Claptrap wheeled over to the back door, once more falling over trash and then hitting the door.
“Just let me get this door open and you’ll hunt down a Bullymong for me!”
The door opened with a quiet squeak, much nicer than the front door.
“Onward, seeing minion!” Claptrap wheeled through.
Honoka shouted, running after the faster robot, “My name is Honoka! Not Minion!”