Borderlands: Unnatural selection

Sledge, Smashed

I found a few more crates of packaged foodstuff, equipment and spare parts that I helped myself to since it may prove useful later. Much to his great dissatisfaction the laser weapon wasn't designed for continuous firing like what he was doing with it on his rampage. The moment he stopped the prism matrix the allowed the whole thing to function cracked as the temperature difference overcame it. I took the now broken thing back and stored it with the rest of my goodies to be thoroughly looked over at a later time.-"It was fun while it lasted!" Brick said with a huge grin.

"If it wasn't I'd be worried considering how much you were laughing as you burnt up all these bandits." I said with a chuckle.

"What are you planning to do with all that stuff you grabbed, it looked like junk to me?" Lil asked and I shrugged.

"Not sure yet. Weapons probably though with a few modifications and some Eridian metal it could probably be used to create a radiation furnace for fast reprocessing of scrap." I said casually.

"The hells a radiation furnace?" Mordy asked confused.

"A type of furnace that rather than fire and heat uses intense radiation to break down whatever is within it into it's basic elements. The best part is that it's entirely self sufficient after the first few uses as the radioactive and energy rich elements are also stripped out and compiled as fuel sources." I said with a smirk.

"Sounds too good to be true, what's the catch?" Lil asked suspicious.

"The catch is that it's Eridian tech and well, need I say more?" I asked and she shook her head.

Obviously if it was Eridian tech the catch was mostly that only I knew how to make it but I was keeping that bit of information away from our echo spying "angel". My friends had gotten used to this and played along as they were also starting to doubt the angels intentions as she hadn't been useful at all besides possessing some information that wasn't exactly common. Regardless we soon found the lift that led to the waypoint that said it was where Sledge was. The top of the way to Sledge was a narrow hallway that led to two doors sealed at either side of it.-

There was a giant skull of some sort above these doors that looked to be from some sort of massive carnivorous reptile judging from the fangs.

The angel said seriously before going quiet again.

"Sounds like a ball, shall we dance?" I asked with a grin and the rest grew grins of their own.

We entered the doors expecting a fight immediately but instead found ANOTHER fucking door that had a lever we had to pull to continue forward. as the door sank into the floor we got our first glimpse of Sledge. Not gonna lie he was built almost identically to Brick except he had different clothes on. Brick had on a shirt and leather jeans and gloves but Sledge had on a wide strapped harness that held on his spiked metal shoulder pads and had spiked metal plates on his shins and on his left thigh alone. The biggest difference was the modified welders mask that had sharp teeth painted on it's bottom and ironically metal horns welded on it's top, one of which was broken.-

"Sledge not like you! Sledge kill thing he not like!" the big man yelled as he slammed down his hammer that was a literal engine block on a fucking metal rod.

"BANG!x3" I fired three shots in quick succession at the hulking imbecile that to my surprise didn't manage to do much even after all six bullets hit his shield.

'So he really does have a good shield on him." I thought as he unloaded both rounds in his shotguns chamber.

The spread was nasty as even though most of it missed us at least one pellet clipped out shields. I wouldn't call the fight difficult though as with five different guns(Brick used his) unloading into him the guy's shield broke almost immediately and he was riddled with bullets that put him down. Some more bandits swarmed in from the sides that we quickly took care of before we approached throne of bone the guy apparently had fashioned for himself. 

"This guy really liked the whole bone theme huh?" I muttered looking at the strange giant beast skeleton that loomed over the room with the spine and skull hanging above the bone throne.

There was three out hanging bones above the throne holding a chest up that we dragged down since the waypoint said our goal was within it. We spun the latches and the chest opened up to show a bunch of cash and a gray metallic object with a curving set of glowing blue lights on the curved outside and a large blue glowing light on the concaved top.

"A vault key fragment!" I said excitedly as I picked it up and looked it over but my smile turned into a frown. 

"I thought finding a vault key fragment would be a good thing so why the face?" Mordy asked and I shook my head.

"I'll explain later." I said not wanting to clarify where the "angel" could hear.

I checked Sledge and the bandits for any good traits but they had none so I ripped out the solid 7,220 units of lifeforce from the corpses before grabbing the shield, shotgun and hammer that belonged to Sledge before we left the building.

Steele said through all our echoes almost immediately after we stepped outside the building.

"Yeah, no fuck all that noise." I said with a disdainful expression.

"Bet they'd kill us even if we did turn ourselves in." Mordy said and we all nodded in agreement.

"I wonder if she actually expects this to work or is merely using this to justify whatever she does later?" I asked and Roland surprisingly answered.

"It's a standard tactic used by the Lance to deal with unsavory elements. They make an obviously outrageous demand under some supposed authority and when the people don't comply they wipe them out without care for "collateral damage". It's basically bureaucratic banditry." he said seriously.

"Sounds like us getting this key fragment really got under her skin to go to that length or is this standard practice?" I asked curiously.

"I wish I could say it wasn't but the Lance has never shied away from force to get what they want." he said with a sigh.

"Lets head back to Zed to give him the good news whatever the case." Lil said and we all agreed.

We didn't take long to get out of the mine and on the road back to Fyrestone after that. There were a few more Skags outside the town when we arrived that we graciously ended the lives of before heading in. Zed looked surprised to see us when we walked up but was downright thrilled when we told him Sledge was dead.

"I'll drink to that! Busted up Nine-toes and beat the hell outta Sledge? You're making a name for yourselves in these parts! Give me a day or so and I'll put in word to Pierce to give you clearance to Dahl Headland. You should be able to reach New Haven when she approves it." Zed said happily.

"On that note I think I'll head into my house to relax, anyone else in?" I asked with a smirk.

It came as no surprise that literally everyone wanted in on that as my house was the best place I had seen on this crusty asshole of a planet. It was cool, dry, clean and had all sorts of amenities that made it ideal for relaxing after a hard days murdering. 

"I call dibs on the first shower!" Lil said and even Brick clicked his tongue unhappily at that.

"Feel free to use the soap, it's oak and rose scented." I said with a smile as I opened up my house behind Zed's place.

"Kinda girly isn't it?" Mordy asked and I scoffed.

"There's no such thing as a girly or manly scent other than B.O. Scents can't choose gender and just because certain genders prefer certain scents doesn't make them for that gender alone. I personally like that mixture of scents so I use it, simple as that." I said seriously.

He shrugged "Whatever makes you happy I guess. Don't think any amount of soap will get rid of the smell of Pandora though." he joked with a chuckle.