So, you want to hear a story, eh?
One with very good plot and a deeper meaning behind it?
If yes, then too bad. I run out of stories like these.
So how about something a bit lighter, with tons of rather dark humour, one-sided battles and maybe some sex later on. 'Couse why the fuck not?
Anyway, our story begins on a planet on the borderlands of one of many different galaxies.
Pandora
A planet far from forgotten, but maybe it would be better if universe did forget about it. This is not a planet of peace and love. They said it's a complete wasteland; that it's dangerous; that only a fool would search of something of value here.
They were wrong.
The legend of the Vaults - ancient crypts left by Eridians - race that lived before any humans - containing immeasurable riches and andvanced eridian technology. With the opening of the first Vault on Pandora it's been confirmed true. And ever since after that countless of "Vault Hunters" have appeared and started searching for more.
This is the tale of a young pandoran outlaw who had enough of scavenger's life and aimed for the stars. Many have called him a fool. Many have laughed at him and kept telling him he'll never achieve anything. But they underestimated the power of an overly-emotional young boy, who, as if to just be an asshole, succeeded in opening up a Vault and proving everyone wrong. However, little did he know this would be only the beginning of his story.
Remnant
A planet with a history forgotten even by its own inhabitants, far away from any other life in the infinite universe. Populated by humans and faunus alike. Abandoned and left behind by its creators for its slow and agonizing death. But humans are rather stubborn, clinging on their lives for as long as possible, never letting go of hope, even at the verge of extinction.
...and that's where the story truly begins.
"Aww shit..." - famous first words.
He was now laying somewhere with closed eyes.
'Were I sleeping or have I passed out? Where am I? ...Aww shit, my head hurts...'
Not without any effort he managed to sit up. Slowly opening his eyes he noticed that he is in some sort of a red forest. Not a sign of life in vicinity though.
*Breath in
*Breath out
"Aw man, where the hell am I? For sure not on Pandora... There aren't any forests like these there..."
With his right hand he started inspecting his head in search of any possible wounds.
"Shit, I must've hit myself in the head somehow... I don't remember what happened... Wait, who am I, again?"
Looking down at his own clothes he realised they were all torn and covered in now dry blood. Whether that blood was his own or someone else's was a mystery. The clothes he was wearing consisted of a light brown trench coat, a makeshift T-shirt made out of a few rags sewn together as well as pants and boots made out of leather of some indefinite pandoran animals. On his right hand there was a worn fingerless driver glove, and on his left one...
"...the fuck?" - his entire left arm was covered in some silver metal. Now, at first he thought this was some sort of armor, but no, that metal was his arm.
Not believing in what he's seeing he moved the arm around, clenched a fist a couple of times and even tried pinching himself, but he didn't feel anything.
"...Holy shit... w-wait, what happened?" - one important detail he noticed was that his trench coat's left sleeve was ripped off, which made his apparently metal arm completely exposed. Looking at his shoulder he could clearly see that at some point his original arm has been either cut or ripped off, and he somehow got himself that prosthesis.
"O-okay, no need to panic... I... must've hit myself in the head and got some sort of amnesia, y-yes! That's it! I just... don't remember some things..." - although he succeeded in explaining his new arm to himself that only gave birth to more questions.
'If that's the case then how much did I forget? ...What's the last thing that I remember?'
He tried very hard to remember something, just to find a total void in his memories.
'Okay, that's not gonna work, let's start with something simple... What is my name? ...It's... Jacob, right, Jacob Rook, that's what I've been called. Now... just who is Jacob Rook? ...I'm a... pandorean, right, born and raised on Pandora. An outlaw, a thief, a gun nut and a killer. An orphan. Mercenary raised by bandits.. Yeah, that's me... But I'm not a mindless psychopath. All I ever wanted was a chance to leave this trash planet... And that's why I became a...'
"A Vault Hunter..." - he said aloud.
He tried to recollect more memories, but to no success. That's all he remembers for now.
'Okay, okay, I know who I am, but I still don't remember what exactly happened or where in the hell am I... I could be literally anywhere for all I know... Hell, if I'm unlucky enough I could be on some planet that's even worse than Pandora...'
*Breath in
*Breath out
'...At least the atmosphere is breathable, that's good, because I don't think I have an Oz kit with me here...'
While thinking of Oz kits, he got an idea to check his inventory. He looked to his left wrist, which is where his PDA was usually attached to, which at first he wanted to facepalm, couse you know, new arm and shit, but he got double surprised when he found out that this new arm also had a different PDA attached to it. Ignoring his confusion he clicked to activate it.
Boot sequence initiated.
ECHO v 2. 109. 2391
Initializing Health Condition display module - 100%
Initializing Shield Condition display module - 100%
Initializing Weapon Status display module - Ready
Initializing Digital Bearing module - Ready
[All systems ready]
His PDA updated his vision with a HUD of sorts. In the bottom left corner of his vision he had two bars - a red one, which showed his body health status, and a blue one, which showed the condition of his shield, both at 100% right now. In the bottom middle there was a compass and in the upper right corner there was a... 'mini map' you could call it. The mini map should automatically scan his surrounding area, which will be crucial in not getting lost here. Speaking of...
"No signal?" - he said aloud. He wanted to activate the Echonet to find out on what planet he is right now, but if there is no Echonet signal here then that means he had to end up in the middle of fucking nowhere, because Echonet reached every corner of the colonised galaxies... Which means...
"I'm outside of the explored universe, aren't I?" - he said with a smile. But it wasn't a "I'm happy" type of smile, that was more of a "Holy shit I'm fucked" type of smile.
Many questions have appeared in Jay's head. For example how far away from Pandora is he exactly? How did he even end up here? Is there any intelligent life here?
*Sigh*
'No use in overthinking this... gotta go forward and hope for the best...' - and so he got up to his feet.
He stretched his arms (well, arm) and legs and once again looked around.
'...There could be some rather dangerous animals in here...' - he realised. - 'Pfft, like hell I'm going to die here!' - he scoffed.
Looking at his 'Inventory' tab in his PDA he got both happy and sad at the same time. Happy becasue he still had a shield and some guns. Sad because he had only three of them.
First:
Doc's Quad
Type: Shotgun
Manufacturer: Jakobs
Rarity: Rare (blue)
-consumes 4 ammo per shot
+50% critical hit damage
Second:
RV20-B Chimera
Type: Revolver
Manufacturer: Atlas
Rarity: Legendary (orange)
"A beast of many forms - fire, lightning and poison" - every shot causes small explosions of random elements on hit.
...and something that's rather... unusual...
The Glutton
Type: Eridian Weapon
Manufacturer: Eridian
Rarity: ERR!/Rarity/Unknown (black)
"Feed Me" - Weapon grows stronger with the user.
-Hold down the trigger to increase shot's power
The shield wasn't anything spectacular. Just a random green-rarity Tediore shield without any special effects
If Jay got surprised at the fact that he had a legendary revolver, after seeing the black one he was just flabbergasted .
'Holy fuck what is this?'
Without thinking too much he materialized it in his hand. At first glance it didn't look like anything special. A silver flintlock pistol with grey gems on both of its sides.
But after closer inspection he realised something. It wasn't silver. It was this weird material that eridian structures are made out of. Not only that, but there were some thin purple veins running around the gun that were pulsating with some purple substance inside - either liquid eridium or slag - which gave the feeling of the gun being alive. At that thought he facepalmed and shook his head.
'Yeah, right, a gun that's alive, c'mon, Jay, you hit your head bit too hard this time' - he scoffed himself in his mind.
But that created another thought - his 'metal' arm was also made out of the same material, and it also had the same 'veins'.
"Jeez looks like I forgot A LOT of things."
He was both amazed and scared at the thought - who knows what kind of trouble could he be in that he doesn't even remember right now?
"Well, whatever, the only thing I can do right now is to explore this planet and pray to god I'll find some civilization."
He tossed the Glutton from his right hand to his left one, while digistructing the Chimera in his right one. With now two guns he set off in the direction of South. Why South? Why not?
As he was walking he found yet another problem.
Ammo.
He doesn't have ANY in reserve. Meaning for now he has only six shots in his Chimera and one quadruple shot from his Quad. Thankfully the Glutton was an Eridian weapon, meaning it didn't use any ammunition, but instead relied on its eridian battery which could recharge itself over time. God bless Eridians.
And as if it wasn't enough he found YET ANOTHER problem.
*GROWL*
"Shit, I'm hungry..." - he said while grabbing his stomach.
'Aw, man, problems everywhere, I need to list them all.'
After a couple of clicks on his PDA he made a 'to do list' of sorts.
Lost Traveller
() get some food
() find out where you are
() get ammo and supplies
() get back to Pandora
'That should be all...'
...
As he was walking Jacob couldn't help but be amazed by his surroundings. The black trees with red leaves all around him gave him a feeling as if he was drowning in ocean of red. Also the way how leaves were slowly falling from trees gave him a weird feeling of tranquility.
'Why are they falling so slowly? Maybe there's different gravity here? Possible.'
It's a shame that he couldn't stop admiring the sight, because if he had paid more attention he would be able to notice that someone or something was creeping up on him between the bushes.
He did hear the sound of a stick cracking behind him, which made him instantly turn 180 degrees and raise his guns, but it was too late. A dark and massive figure has already jumped at him, knocking him down, causing him to drop his guns and pinning him to the ground. The monstrous figure on top of him opened its jaw, exposing its fangs. It all happened so fast the only thing he could do was to cover himself with his arms. And so he did. The creature launched its teeth at him, and bit into his arm...
...Just to immediately recoil back in surprise, as its fangs cracked after its attempt on biting Jacob's metallic arm. That was enough of an opening for him to take advantage of, as he just straight up punched the beast in its face and then kicked it away from himself with both of his legs, after which he jumped back up to his feet. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, and his heart was beating like crazy. He almost died right away. Now that the creature was more wary of him it started growling. Right now Jacob could take a proper view at his attacker. A rather big, wolf-like creature that had pitch-black fur and some sort of a skull-like helmet on its head, some white, bone-like spikes grown out of its back and its body was also covered in bone-like plates. It was just as tall as him while on its fours, and one could see the blood lust emanating from its eyes.
"Son of a bitch... You think you can just jump at me like that!? If you bite me I'll fucking bite back!" - now that all fear has left Jacob's mind he replaced it with anger.
"I fought bigger and badder things than you so come at me, bro!" - he taunted.
As if the mindless beast understood, it charged at him again. With a demonic grin on his face Jacob waited until the very last moment, and then, right before wolf jumped at him he back rolled, positioning himself directly below the now mid-air wolf, materialized his Quad and shot at the creature from below. After that he kicked it with both of his legs once again, launching it a few meters to the side. It all happened in less than a second.
'There goes my shotgun ammo...' - he stated in his mind, rather disappointed. - 'Well, at least now I have something to eat...'
But when he turned to face the corpse he saw how it turned into dust which then flew away with the wind.
'...Or you know, I can go fuck myself...' - he thought while frowning in annoyance.
He looked around in search of his handguns, which he had dropped. Thankfully he found them both, but the moment he picked them up from the ground he heard some more creatures approaching. Not wanting to be jumped at again, he instantly turned around and raised both of his handguns.
Two more of those werewolf-wannabes.
'...On the bright side its a perfect occasion to test out these babies.' - he thought with an evil grin on his face.
*BANG*
With a singular shot from chimera one of the werewolves recoiled back, grabbing its neck which got shot. Chimera's bullet also caused a small fire explosion, which caused the creature to start burning alive. Both Jacob and the other werewolf were just watching its dances of agony, until it finally burned to ashes before their eyes.
'Yeah, that gun is pretty good...' - he thought while inspecting it, after which he turned his gaze towards the last werewolf standing.
"Your turn." - it wasn't a threat, it was a fact.
Jacob aimed at it with the Glutton. 'Hold down the trigger for more power, right?'. And he did just that. The moment he pulled the trigger gun started visibly charging up. Indicated by his HUD he charged the shot to approximately 1/3rd of its full power, and then released the trigger. The charging process gave the werewolf enough time to prepare for the attack, but still it failed to dodge the shot. It got hit in the arm, and the shot had enough power to completely blast it off. With a howl of pain the animal dropped to the ground, even though it was wounded it still emanated blood lust and was growling at him.
"Don't look at me like that. You started this fight, I'm just finishing it." - he threw some rather meaningless words and he double tapped it with a quick shot in between its eyes.
'Yeah, Glutton ain't bad either.'
After a few second the creature started turning into dust, as Jay expected, but what he didn't expect was the fact that Glutton's gem started shining white, and all the werewolf's ashes have started getting sucked into it, as if the gem was absorbing all of it. Soon an announcement popped up on his HUD.
Beowolf - Glutton form unlocked.
'What's that?' - he raised his eyebrow. Trying to interact with it he managed to open up a new tab in his PDA - 'Skilltree'. It consisted of the Glutton's image right in the middle with a bunch of circles surrounding it. Most circles had locks on them, signifying the fact that they were locked for now, except one. The one he had just unlocked.
Both the Glutton icon and the new one had short description on them.
Glutton - Default
Attack: Charged shot
Special: None
.
Grimm Series - Beowolf
Attack: Piercing shot
Special: Intimidating Howl
Looking back and forth between the screen and the gun in his left hand he tried to activate the newly unlocked one.
And right before his eyes the rather boring looking eridian flintlock gun changed its appearance completely with a flash of white. Now, Jacob was an extreme gun-enthusiast, thanks to which he was able to identify the gun that he was looking at. It looked like a Colt M1911 that was black with white decals here and there and with that werewolf's skull painted on each side of the barrel. Oh, sorry, beowolf's, apparently.
He aimed the gun at a tree and pulled the trigger...
*CLICK*
'Huh?' - now focused on the bottom right corner of his vision he noticed an exclamation mark above his weapon status module.
0/0 [!]
'Out of ammo? But it doesn't need any... OH! I get it! The default form has infinite ammo, but not this one.' - checking out weapon's description once again he saw that, indeed, the Beowolf form required pistol ammunition to fire. Pistol, not Revolver.
*Sigh*
'Well, too bad. Whatever.'
He looked around in search for more of these beowolves, but thankfully he didn't find any.
'Let's just... continue moving forward...'
And so he walked forward in a nigh-straight line for a couple hours at this point. But it was worth it. He found the way out of the forest, and now that he wasn't surrounded by a sea of red trees anymore he could see salvation. A city on the horizon, surrounded by giant walls.
"Jackpot!" - he cheered.
To be Continued...
[PDA Data / Creatures]
Beowolf (Grimm)
A grimm creature resembling a big wolf. High speed and dexterity, has sharp teeth and claws, enhanced reflexes and smell, but no supernatural abilities. Lives in packs, but lone beowolves exist too. Found most commonly in forests.
Threat: D (singular) / C+ (pack)
[PDA Data / Weapons]
The Glutton
An unusual eridian weapon with ability to absorb a wide range of materials and create alternative forms that weaponize absorbed materials' special properties. Can absorb deceased organisms too.
[PDA Data / Personal Digistruct Module]
Equipped as a default part of the PDA, the PDM allows the user to dematerialize physical objects into energy, and store them within PDA's memory, with ability to re-materialize them afterwards.
Max Item quantity: 25
Max Item weight: 100 kg (220 lbs)
[PDA Data / People]
Jacob Rook
Race: Human [Male]
Nationality: Pandora
Age: 17
Height: 1.85 m (6')
Description: A young mercenary, and a self-proclaimed Vault Hunter. Doesn't have a preferred weapon, but can use almost any weapon given to him with decent skill. A sociopath who sees humans (including himself) as not better than animals. Intelligent and great at manipulating others. Prefers overpowering enemies over outsmarting them, but can do both.
Threat: A-
Semblance: N/A
\|||/