Mordecai stopped outside of One's hut, where she was sitting at a fold-out table with a sniper rifle, a pistol, and a shotgun. Upon closer inspection, the rifle was by Jakobs that was purple in rarity, the pistol was by Maliwan and had an acidic element to it that was on the green spectrum, and the shotgun was by Torgue, surprisingly orange in it's rarity. She was cleaning the rifle with great care when Mordecai cleared his throat to attract her attention.

"Oh hey, you made it." One said with a smile. "I figured you'd take a while." She returned her attention to the rifle.

"What would I be busy doing?" Mordecai asked as he sat opposite of One.

"Talking Lilith out of another temper tantrum. I swear, she's going to be the death of Sanctuary." One said with a shake of her head. Mordecai watched her fingers toy with the barrel with a rag in her palm.

"Where'd you get this?" Mordecai asked as he gestured to the shotgun.

"A present from Torgue himself." One said with a smile. "After working for Jack and escaping to the surface, I found Torgue's business and he gave me a job as part of his security. He said that he like me for how I do my job and that I was more fun than most of his other employees, so he gave me a shotgun of his own design." She ran a hand lovingly over the pristine gun.

"What was it like working for Jack?" Mordecai asked in pure curiosity.

"Honestly, for the first month, everything seemed fine. It wasn't until he made go out and kill people who were deemed a 'threat' to his business. When he made me go after you, I couldn't. I just... left you alone. I said that Bloodwing came after me and I wasn't aware of her, so I inflicted some wounds to make it more believable. He figured out I was lying and he..." One trailed off, her eyes glazing over in thought.

"He what?" Mordecai asked with a raised brow.

"He... it doesn't matter." One said with a shake of her head. "Anyways, let's go get that shield." One stood up and holstered all three guns. Mordecai watched as she jumped into the back of his Technical, wondering just what exactly Jack did to her.

~x~x~x~x~x~

"You weren't lying when you said this isn't a solo job." Mordecai said as he peered down the scope of his rifle. Swarms of bandits and brutes crawled along the rickety structures of what they called their home.

"Why would I?" One muttered beside him, peering down her own rifle.

"How're we doing this?" Mordecai asked as he lowered his gun.

"I'll go to the other side and you stay here or get as close as humanly possible. On my mark, you shoot at who you think would be a major threat to our plan." One said as she shouldered her rifle. She tilted her head slightly and Mordecai nodded his head in response.

"Okay, I guess we'll see how this'll work." Mordecai said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Great. It'll work fine." One said as she patted his shoulder and made her way down the hill and to the other side. How her fingers lingered on his shoulder for a few seconds longer than necessary was nice and a little odd. Mordecai waited until One got to her position and signaled that everything was good. Mordecai sighed and raised his rifle back up to his eye and waited for One to give the motion to fire. After a few minutes, it became clear that this was more than a two-person job. Mordecai sent Talon down, who could only get up to four enemies at a time before he came back to his father.

"I'm gonna try something, so don't freak out if I don't say anything." One said over Mordecai's ECHO.

"Uh, go ahead." Mordecai said as a handful of psycho's made their way up the hill. He whipped out his pistol and started popping their heads off, waiting for One to swoop in and take care of them. After taking the last psycho down, it was quiet. Too quiet. Mordecai peered over the edge and saw that every bandit was dead with their blood staining the dirt. One stood in the middle of the carnage with sword in hand. It looked like Zer0's, except the blue was replaced with white.

"See any that need to be taken care of?" One asked.

"Uh... no?" Mordecai said as he took a sweeping glance around the area.

"Great! Now come help me find the shield." One said.

Mordecai made his way over to One, who was wiping the blood from the blade of her sword on her pants. She sheathed it and started shifting through piles of stolen tech, mostly from Hyperion. Mordecai started searching next to her, not really knowing what to look for. He kept trying to ask how she took care of the bandits in that short amount of time, but she didn't seem to hear or want to give an answer. After what seemed like forever, One called out that she found the shield.

"The good news is that it's salvageable. The bad is that it's taken apart so much, it'll take months before it'll be any use." One sighed as she started gathering the scraps.

"We have someone who could do it." Mordecai said as he started pocketing some of the tech.

"Teen prodigy, Gaige?" One asked with a quirk of her brow.

"Yeah, she could probably get it together before the end of the week." Mordecai said with a smile.

"Why do you talk so highly of the other Vault Hunters?" One asked as she searched the table for excess scraps.

"What do you mean?" Mordecai asked.

"You always say things about the others as if they were family." One said before turning to him. "Sorry if I offend, but I find it odd and adorable." She smiled before make her way up the hill, Mordecai close to her heels.

"We've been through hell and back." Mordecai said as they walked to Mordecai's Technical.

"I can understand." One said as she crawled into the back.

"Really?" Mordecai asked as he started to drive.

"Yeah. Zer0 and I were good friends back on..." She trailed off. "We were good friends on Nirvana. He was the only one who understood what it was like to have your family taken from you and you're all by yourself." A tear slid down her cheek and she looked up to Mordecai staring at her.

"You need a minute?" He asked carefully. She shook her head and sighed.

"Just go." Her voice was quiet and Mordecai obliged after a moment.

~x~x~x~x~x~

"Are you sure I should be in here?" One asked as Mordecai lead her up the stairs.

"Everything'll be fine." Mordecai assured her.

"Give it three minutes." One muttered. They unloaded the scraps onto the center table before One turned to leave. Just as she did, she came face to face with Lilith, who was seething.

"What're you doing here?" Lilith demanded. One looked her up and down before taking a step back.

"Mordecai said it was okay." One said as she turned to Mordecai.

"Wait... what?" Lilith asked as she took a step closer to One, who took a step back, only to hit Mordecai.

"Lilith, please don't be mad." Mordecai said, trying to ease the tension.

"Who are you?" Lilith demanded.

"I'm N... One." One stuttered. Her eyes were trained on Lilith's Siren markings.

"You're the one that kidnapped Mordecai and Zer0 and almost got most of my people killed?" Lilith's voice was raising in volume and One felt claustrophobic between the angry Siren and Mordecai.

"I didn't kidnap them." One stuttered again.

"Easy for you to say." Lilith said as she jabbed a finger at One's chest, her markings glowing intensely. One screamed before a powerful nova exploded in the room, sending Lilith and Mordecai flying.

"I did not kidnap them." One growled as the room went quiet. "I was trying to help, and you are being stubborn." Lilith's eyes were bulging in fear as One stepped closer.

"Who the hell are you?" Lilith asked.

"The one person you do not want to piss off." One said before turning to leave. "See ya around, Mordecai." She called over her shoulder. They waited until she was gone before they stood up and started to straighten the room.

"What the hell is she?" Lilith finally asked after the silence became too much to bear.

"I don't know. All I got was she has some sort of powers and that she grew up with Zer0 on a planet called Nirvana." Mordecai said as he sat down with his back to the wall.

"Didn't say anything else?" Lilith asked.

"Other than the fact she hated working for Jack and ended up working for Torgue for a while, no." Mordecai said as he ran a hand over his face.

"She worked for Jack?" Lilith asked, anger flaring up again.

"Yeah, but she said she couldn't take what he was doing. She said she was doing the work for some form of money to make it to the next planet." Mordecai said.

"Why would she stay here?" Lilith asked.

"I don't know, but some outside force is telling her to stay." Mordecai stood up. "I need something to drink. Wanna come along?" Mordecai asked. Lilith shrugged and followed Mordecai out of the building.

~x~x~x~x~x~

Mordecai walked Lilith home and went back to the HQ to look over some chores that needed to be done. Zer0 was standing in the doorway when Mordecai got inside.

"How was she?" Zer0 asked casually.

"I've been around two women today, so be a 'lil more specific." Mordecai said as he walked past him to the other room to look at a few monitors.

"One, obviously." Zer0 said.

"She's fine. Was a... little emotional." Mordecai said as he thought back to how pained One looked when she talked about her time in Hyperion and when she talked about growing up with Zer0 being her only friend.

"What do you mean?" Zer0 asked as he peered over Mordecai's shoulder.

"She told me she was supposed to kill me and didn't and inflicted wounds on herself to make it look like Blood attacked her. She told Jack and he found out she was lying... and she stopped and almost started crying. Then she mentioned how you and her grew up together and you were the only one there who actually understood what it was like to have family being taken away." Mordecai said as he turned to Zer0.

"That's all she said?" Zer0 asked in genuine concern.

"Yeah. I asked her about it and she didn't say anything." Mordecai said as he stepped around Zer0 to grab a spare ECHO.

"Well, when she first showed up to Nirvana, everyone was far more advanced than her. She was constantly beaten up and made fun of because she lacked in certain skills. Our Master, Dew, made me help her since she was so weak. She told me that her whole family and nearly her whole kind was killed. She said she wandered around her home planet, lost. An Eridian Guardian found her and sent her to Nirvana. She never said why the Guardian did send her away." Zer0 explained. "Don't tell her I said that."

"I heard." One said as she stepped into the room.

"What're you doing here?" Mordecai asked.

"Came back to see if I could get an apology from Lilith and apologize myself." One said as she looked around the room. "Where are the others?"

"Most have left to attend to the other vaults. We stayed behind because some people need guidance in this town." Zer0 said as he leaned against a wall.

"Interesting." One muttered. "So, I should come back tomorrow, or..." She trailed off.

"You don't have to leave." Zer0 said gently as he laid a careful hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you can tell us how you've been."

"I suppose." She sighed playfully before looking up at Mordecai and smiling.

~x~x~x~x~x~

So... Christmas is coming up and that means a ton of tests and less time to write. Let me know how I did and what could be changed to make this better.