Be Quick, or be Killed

["This one is a brute, and he has a powerful shield you will need to whittle down before you can hurt him. Don't let him touch you."] Guardian Angel appeared again, her constant warnings and cautions might make one think she was very concerned for everyone's safety, but her monotone tone expressed anything but appreciation.

"Yeah, yeah, he's the leader of the entire Arid Badlands, of course, he's going to have a very powerful shield" Lilith rolls her eyes at the obvious.

"Concentrate! There he is!" Roland shouts, his gun already loaded and aimed at the first person in his sights.

The gate finally opens fully, revealing a large figure sitting on a throne at the back of the room, the seated man had his face hidden by a welding mask, a painting of a mouth full of jagged teeth at the bottom of the mask, along with pointed horns at the top, he also had iron shoulder pads full of thorns and pieces of iron, completing his look, he carried a shotgun on his back, and in his hands a large hammer made from... a car engine?

"Now you die, bounty hunter!" Sledge shouts at the top of his lungs as he slams his hammer into the ground, pulls his shotgun from his back and starts firing wildly at the vault hunters.

Lilith disappears from everyone's view while Mordecai retreats, but not before shooting Sledge. Bloodwing, however, advances to distract and try to hurt Sledge but fails when she is reflected by the shield.

Kid, Roland and Brick look for cover, taking every opportunity to shoot the big piece of meat called Sledge.

"You imbeciles! Get over here and help me kill the intruders!" Sledge shouts as he feels overwhelmed by the rain of bullets, his shield flashing momentarily, causing him to stand behind a large furnace while he waits for his shield to stabilize and recharge.

The vault hunters' advantage was lost when several bandits arrived, balancing the battle. The place was in chaos, with bullets and grenades flying around the small space. Kid is forced to change his revolver for an assault rifle from S&S munitions, weapons with large ammunition capacities, the perfect weapon for a place with so many enemies without shields. This relieved the burden on Mordecai, who was already feeling his hands getting tired from firing his sniper several times.

Sledge was currently exchanging fire with Roland and Brick, but ended up at a disadvantage against the disciplined Roland and Brick abusing his grenade launcher, Sledge's shield began to flash again and just as he was about to retreat again he felt a strong impact on his back that caused him to stumble, his shield was disabled by the excessive damage, Sledge roared in pain as he felt his throat being pierced by a dagger, two skinny hands around his neck, unfortunately for Lilith the woman had neither the strength nor the weight to strangle Sledge and was forced to disappear again as Sledge tried to grab her arms.

Sledge seems to be going into survival mode, he feels his life slowly draining out of his pierced neck, huge amounts of blood leaking out of the man. "You idiots, you're dying like flies, so at least serve as my wall of flesh!"

Sledge recoils as he pulls several syringes from his ECHO, injecting them forcefully into his arm. The bandit leader roars like a virulent animal, like a beast driven purely by instincts, but his screams are interrupted by a precise shot to the skull, the shooter being Kid, who had arrived at Sledge's side like a fleeting shadow.

Unlike the usual sight of the bodies of his enemies slowly falling to the ground after receiving a bullet in the head, what Kid saw was a Sledger firmly in his place, his mask eventually lost by the force of the bullet, leaving his ugly, deformed face showing, his mouth was tight with large amounts of saliva and foam, but the most frightening thing was the large bullet hole in Sledge's forehead, blood and brain matter oozing from the hole that was rapidly closing up.

"OH SHIT! Get away from him Kid!" Lilith screams in horror as she sees Sledge running at the blond with his big hammer raised.

The blond is surprised to see Sledge appear right in front of him almost instantly, Sledge's hammer falling quickly against Kid's head, promising to kill him without feeling any pain.

*Zooooom

1…

Returning to his little piece of eternity, Kid raises his revolver and empties the barrel of his revolver into Sledge's head, the bullets flying slowly to hit their target.

2...

Kid reloads his gun and goes to Sledge's back, grabbing the shotgun from the leader of the bandits, the blond stands in a stance ready for the kick.

3...

Kid wastes no time before he puts the gun right next to Sledge's head and pulls the trigger, and as expected, he feels like he's being kicked by a horse on steroids.

4...

Taking advantage of the remaining milliseconds to retreat, Kid has his eyes glued on Sledge and the possible outcome.

*Bang *bang *bang *bang *bang *bang

*Tchum!

Time returns to normal and the bullets hit their target, causing enormous pressure, blood splashes everywhere, Sledge's headless body slowly falls to the ground with a thud.

Shaking his head, Kid saw that the last shot had exploded Sledge's head, truly finishing off the shotgun, lowering his head Kid inspected the side of the shotgun, the lettering was a little worn but still legible.

JK .12 Hellwalker

Kid isn't a great expert on guns, but he knew he'd picked up something decent just from the logo of Jakobs, his favourite gun manufacturer.

"I'm going to call you the Devil's Kick," Kid laughs as he remembers almost having the gun fly out of his hand.

Putting away his new weapon, the Kid walks over to Sledge's body, picks up his ECHO device and checks what he has on him. His companions slowly approach the crouching Kid.

"Hey Roland, check this out," Kid calls out to Roland, tossing him the ECHO.

"Of course? But first I think it would be wise to explain to us what it was you did." Roland asks, his tone almost demanding.

"Explain what?" Kid's head fell to the side without understanding.

"Explain your sudden change of speed! That's clearly not natural, young!" Roland raises his voice.

"And what in Pandora is considered natural?" Kid replies with a smile, clearly not wanting to give any explanation.

"..." This time Roland says nothing and just crosses his arms, his brow furrowed.

Brick and Mordecai were silent in the background and Lilith had a worried look on her face, she was about to join in the conversation to help Kid but then the blonde let out a sigh.

"All right, I'll explain, but after you turn off your ECHOs," Kid makes his demands.

Everyone looks at each other but ends up turning off their ECHOs, Kid does the same and then takes off his red coat, his prosthesis exposed for all to see, along with his red tattoos that were so faint and opaque that they bordered on pink rather than red.

Roland's eyebrows jumped at the sight of the red tattoos, Mordecai began to rub his beard in deep thought while Brick pointed his finger alternately between Lilith and Kid.

"YOU'RE A SIREN!" 3X

"Yeah, it seems strange to call a man a siren," Lilith nods, not surprised.

"What? I thought only women could be sirens?" Roland mutters to himself, finally understanding the reason for turning off his ECHOs, if this was exposed it could attract a lot of unwanted attention.

Turning his face to the blond, Roland approaches and reaches out, touching Kid's prosthesis.

"You've got a pretty good aim for someone without an arm, anyway, I apologize if I offended you, but it's not every day that you see something so supernatural like this" Roland finally calms down and quickly recomposes himself.

"Wow! A robotic arm! That's so cool. Then I want to go arm wrestling with you!" Brick shouts, fascinated more by the aggressive and strong appearance of the prosthesis than the tattoos.

Mordecai just shrugged and pulled a small bottle from his waistband, his reaction not so exaggerated, much less Bloodwing, who was more focused on eating Sledge's remaining carcass.

"Curiosity satisfied? Now I ask you not to tell anyone... not until I'm complete" Kid demands secrecy, although the last part was just a whisper to himself.

"No problem Kid, we understand the seriousness of the situation and I swear to keep it confidential as an apology" Roland is the one who speaks the most, the man feeling internally ashamed for having forced a young man to the wall.

"Conversation's good and all, but I've got a bath to take and a dry belly to fill!" Lilith said, annoyed, but the flies were already swarming around her and irritating her.

"Right, right, but first we have to search the place," Roland replies, Kid puts his red coat back on, covering his tattoos, so everyone can turn on their ECHOs again.

["Vault hunters, what happened? I lost the signal from your ECHOs for a brief moment, did something happen?"] Guardian Angel called immediately after initializing the ECHOs, her normally dull tone was tinged with nervousness.

["Just a little interference, we think it might be a technical problem on ECHOnet."] Roland lied without hesitation, his voice, mannerisms and heartbeat were calm and controlled, revealing nothing but resolute coldness.

 ["I-I understand."] Guardian Angel says, his stuttering tone leaving the group feeling awkward, could A.I. stutter?

The group refocuses on their current mission after the shock revelation about Kid, which changes the men's opinion of Kid considerably, from a simple trigger-happy young to a siren who can do the siren's magical nonsense.

While the group collected the weapons and ECHOs from the corpses on the ground, Roland was busy reading and looking for any useful information in Sledge's ECHO, the man then goes to a large container that was next to Sledge's throne, opening it, Roland covers his eyes from the sudden brightness.

"Wow?! What is this shiny thing?" Brick goes over to where Roland is standing, and the others do the same, being attracted by the object's extravagant appearance.

"Maybe it's a contemporary art sculpture?" Mordecai says

"Maybe, or maybe it's a bomb that could automatically explode when moved from its place, so, just in case, I'll stay away for a while." Kid speculates about the strange object.

"It looks strangely familiar." Lilith said distractedly as she approached. Reaching out her hands, the redhead touched the object but stepped back, as if she had felt a terrible shock. Looking at her tattoos, Lilith realizes that they have turned completely white, and a feeling of lethargy settles over her body.

"What is that thing? Did it just... suck out my energy?" Lilith recoils from the object, somewhat frightened.

["I bet you would like to know what that is. The Vault is real, what you are holding is the key that opens it… one part of it, anyways."] Guardian Angel finally appears to explain what the object is, causing everyone to open their eyes in surprise.

"What the hell? We found a part of the Vault. Kind of anticlimactic"

"I expected to spend a good 10 years looking for the Vault, but I've just arrived on the planet and in less than a week we're already so close, anyway, yee-HAW!" 

"Who's going to hold this thing? I just hope it's not radioactive"

"Calm down soldiers, this is still the first of many parts of the Vault key, we still have a lot of ground to cover."

Roland pours a bucket of cold water on everyone's warm joy, causing the group to calm down and think about the implications of being the first to find something related to the Vault.

"With Sledge dead, we can proceed quietly to the centre of the continent, we'll go back to Fyrestone for now and next dawn we'll head for New Haven." Roland plans his next steps, considering the good of the group as a whole.

"YES! Finally some real city!" Lilith moans with joy, she approaches Kid as she finally collapses into the dazed man's arms.