Water to an Idiot

["So, Morde, can I go ahead?"] Lilith whispers through her ECHO, an equally lower voice returns to her.

["No"]

["Anyone nearby?"]

["A Psycho on your left, 7 metres away, I'll mark it."] Lilith then sees a red dot resembling a diamond appear in her vision, it is the Psycho. The woman sighs and looks down at her slightly frosted tattoos, evident that she has overused her power.

["How many metres to go to reach the goal?"]

["About 50 metres, the door is closed and there's another Psycho on the roof."] Reply Mordecai, who was watching the entire Zephyr Substation from a mountain several hundred metres away, with a panoramic view he could see almost everything that was happening on the site, he could see a red-haired woman behind a rock hiding from the more than a dozen bandits and Psychos guarding the place.

["Don't rush Lilith, if you're discovered we'll have to fight many of them, there's also the possibility that they'll run off with the key to the mine, so be careful."] A third voice sounded on the line, it was Roland who was a little closer to Zephyr Substation than Mordecai to help Lilith if things went south, next to him was Brick, crossing his fingers that everything would go south and a bloody battle would ensue.

Lilith's eyebrows furrowed when she heard what Roland said, her tattoos were already glowing and she was ready to go into the office and get the key to the mine.

["Life is short, Roland. If you wait too long, you'll end up losing your chance to someone else."] Lilith said distractedly as she checked the charger on her SMG.

["There's no loss when there's nothing to lose"] Roland's voice sounds through the ECHO, the words provoking a scowl on Lilith's face, but the woman remains silent.

...

After several minutes of silence, only one word is spoken by Lilith.

["Understood"] 

Mordecai and Brick just shrugged, not understanding a fucking thing that had happened.

["An armed Psycho is heading your way Lilith"] Mordecai warns.

The Psycho continues making its way towards the rock, its steps hurried, when it gets behind the rock it sees nothing.

"DRAIN THE ONE-EYED SNAKE!!!" Psycho shouts before pulling down his trousers and starting to piss, unfortunately for him, this was the last thing he did before getting a dagger through his forehead.

Lilith pulls out the dagger with a flowing movement, blood begins to gush from the wound and before Psycho's dead body reaches the ground she extends her leg and prevents the body from falling hard to the ground and making a noise. She then slowly lowers her leg and lays Psycho's body down silently.

["It's now or never, their mates are going to come and check on him in a few minutes."] Mordecai's whispering voice sounds in Lilith's ECHO, the woman looks towards the office and begins to sneak as close as possible. Lilith hides behind a car wreck, two Psycho pass by the car but don't see her.

Lifting her head a little, she sees that she is very close and her blue tattoos start to glow, her body starts to turn purple and then disappears.

In Lilith's parallel dimension the woman runs quickly across the grey landscape, arriving in front of the office she places both hands on the cold metal of the door and begins to cross to the other side. Once inside the office, Lilith came out of her PhaseWalk and caught her breath, her tattoos more matte and grey.

["I got"] Lilith speaks.

["Easy"]

["Booya"]

["Great job Lilith, now look for the key to the mine, it must be somewhere"].

The woman rummages through the place, opens the drawers and cupboards but finds no key, she then looks at the papers on the table, reading them as quickly as possible.

["Guys, I don't think the key is here"]

["What? You looked everywhere?"]

["I've looked everywhere I can... are we going to torture any Psycho?"]

["No, they never know anything, did you see anything else in the office?"].

["It's an office Roland, there are only papers here."] Roland could hear Lilith's voice laced with sarcasm.

["Send some photos"] Roland asks with a serious tone.

["With clothes or without?"]

["Of the papers Lilith, the PAPERS!"] Roland speaks more specifically, his eye twitching at Lilith's out of time jokes.

["I wouldn't send them to you with clothes on, indeed"] Lilith then takes some photos of the papers and sends them to Roland.

After a few minutes of silence Roland finishes reading all the papers, his face scowling more than usual.

["Let's go out here, the key has been moved, from what's written it's implied that they've taken the key to an old Dahl bunker, the bandits have taken over the place and now call it Sledger's Safe House."]

["Bruh!"] 

["Seriously?"]

["Let's just blow up the mine gate with a rocket launcher!"]

["That's a good idea!"]

["Don't support him Lilith, if we do that we'll attract all the Psycho's and even if we beat them all, Sledger might just escape and all our effort will be for nothing or even worse, Sledge might set a trap."]

["Bla bla bla, you think too much about things Rolan- *Bang"] Suddenly a gunshot rings out from Lilith's call.

["Lilith!!"] 2x

["Oh shit!"]

The woman herself pays no attention to the screams of her companions and aims her SMG at a thug on the roof of the office and empties the comb into him, poor thug turns into a Swiss cheese cosplay with the blast of bullets as he had no shield equipped. She sighs with relief, her shield had reflected the bullet, she hadn't seen the huge hole in the roof and was surprised by a thug who was attracted by her ECHO's conversation.

["Lilith, are you all right?"]

["Affirmative"] Without wasting any time, the woman opens the door, only to see several thugs and Psycho waiting outside with their guns pointed at her.

Lilith makes a 'V' sign with her fingers, her tattoos start to glow and she disappears from everyone's sight just in time, as several shots hit the spot where she was standing.

The redhead then reappears behind a metal container, trying to catch her breath. Lilith was already reaching her limits from what her almost grey tattoos showed.

"Keep running, pussy!" A Psycho saw Lilith hiding and rushed towards her with what looked like an axe-saw raised. Lilith didn't panic, and just as the Psycho's axe was about to shatter the redhead's skull, she disappeared and quickly reappeared behind the Psycho, her dagger already driven deep into the man's body.

Pale-faced Lilith sighs with relief as she hears the noise of cars and sees two runners coming down to where she was, the woman runs towards the cars, bullets whizzing past her, unluckily for her some bullets hit her, causing her to lose her balance momentarily, but she grits her teeth and keeps running, even though her right leg was numb.

Jumping in the middle of her run Lilith falls 'gracefully' into one of the runners, Mordecai was driving and Bloodwing was hanging from the barrel of the gun, her feathers flying on the wind. Lilith sits on the gunner's seat and strokes the bird.

"Let's go!" Roland shouts, the runners' tyres screech over the fiction, and they speed away from the Zephyr Substation in the leaden rain. Brick and Lilith have, of course, returned in equal measure against the cars of the bandits trying to chase them.

___________________

"♫ All day I faced

The barren waste

Without the taste of water

Cool water ♫"

"♫ Ol' Dan and I 

With throats burned dry

And souls that cry for water

Cool, clear water ♫"

"♫ Dan, can you see that big green tree 

Where the water's running free 

And it's waiting there for you and me ♫"

"♫ The night's so cool 

And I'm a fool 

Each star's a pool of water 

Cool water ♫"

Kid was humming a song from his planet while he was in the bath taking a shower, a rubber ducky floating lazily through the water carrying him out of the bath. 

"♫ But with the dawn 

I'll wake and yawn and carry on 

To wate-"

"Hey Kid, we're goin-"

"AHHHHH!" Kid is startled when someone suddenly appears in the bathroom, picking up the duckling he throws it at the intruder while pulling out his revolver.

"Ow ow, easy there! Kid, it's me Lilith" The redhead panics when she sees Kid pointing his revolver at her.

"Hmm... so it's just you, knock on the door before you go in next tim... indeed, forget what I said, don't go into anyone's bathroom even if you've knocked on the door." Kid pats his chest to calm down "So, what do you want here, or is it a hobby of yours to invade other people's private property?"

"It's not even your house Kid. Anyway, I've come to call you to come with us, we're going to a Dahl bunker infested with Sledger's henchmen." Lilith finally begins to smell a strange odour in the place.

"What's that smell?" Lilith covers her nose with her hand.

"Don't say any more... I'll be with you, wait for me outside, I'll be ready in 10 minutes." Kid then gets out of the bath, but to Lilith's misfortune, the foam has covered Kid's body.

Lilith hesitates for a moment, her tattoos begin to glow, announcing her departure, but taking courage she decides to stay, making her tattoos lose their glow, her head hung low for the entire moment. 

"Right... Hmm, Kid, about yesterday, I-I sor... I hope I didn't do anything nasty, my mind is a bit fuzzy and I can only remember ripping off your arm, the red tattoos and that I woke up at dawn throwing up everything I'd eaten that day." Kid says nothing as he realises how difficult it is for Lilith to apologise.

"Nah, don't worry about it, you were very tame last night." Kid lies between his teeth, his face not altering a single muscle.

Lilith sighs with relief, a smile growing on the young woman's face.

"Ok, see you outside!"

___________________

Leaving after getting ready, Kid meets Lilith outside her house, the woman was busy filling the magazines of her SMG with ammunition.

"Where are the others?" Kid sat down next to the woman

"The Runners are next to Marcus' shop, our mates are restocking ammunition and healing supplies, water and food." Lilith explains without her nimble fingers stopping putting bullet after bullet into the magazine.

Having completed the last magazine, Lilith puts everything away in her ECHO and they both go to meet up with their companions. Kid buys two flashbangs and a fragmentation grenade, if things go south he could stun his enemies and retreat safely.

With everything ready, they set off in their vehicles. Kid was going alone in his jetbeast because Mordecai needed someone to be his gunner and Bloodwing didn't have the hands to pull the trigger on the Runner's machine gun, so Lilith was doing the job.

They made a stop at Catch-A-Rider to top up their fuel and made their way uninterrupted to Arid Hills, the location of Dahl's bunker.

Fortunately, the pipe was big enough for the Runners to pass through, although any change of direction caused the vehicle to scratch the metal of the pipe.

After a few minutes with only the engine roaring along, they finally arrived at the end of the tunnel. The environment was not very different from the previous one, dry and desert-like, like much of Pandora.

Checking the coordinates, Roland goes ahead of everyone, with Brick as his gunner, and Mordecai and Kid following close behind. They pass a nest of Skags but only speed up, not wanting to come into conflict with the radioactive dogs.

As they continue on their way, they see a small Psycho camp in the middle of the road. With a few commands over the ECHO's voice channel, the Runners begin to massacre the poor unsuspecting bandits with their roaring machine guns.

After wiping out the camp, they quickly made their way to where the bunker are and stopped in front of the site. Making a quick assessment of their weaponry, the group of vault hunters enters the bunker.