"Yup! We definitely got a problem!" Rhys exclaimed as he dodged an energy blast. The entire ECHO network was down because the whole place was swarmed with Eridians. He was forced to fall back mostly using the laser on his arm as well as his sword to take these things down. The others were worse off.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Gaige exclaimed as she used a shock assault rifle to drain the Eridian's shield. Gratefully, these things were soft underneath their ungodly tough shields. It was a good thing she found this. None of them could access the inventory on their ECHOs.

"How many of these things are there?" Axton said as he filled an Eridian Guardian's face full of holes. Even though he was shielded, he did not like how close those energy blades of theirs was to him moments ago.

"My guess? A lot," Gaige said, ducking more blasts and firing off bullets in return. Her ammo was very limited, so Deathtrap was doing most of the killing for her.

"That's specific," Zer0 said idly as he locked blades with an Eridian Guardian before swiftly removing the limb from the shoulder down before impaling it in its thin midsection and then slicing upward to finish it off.

After a while, the Eridians seemed to keep coming with no end in sight. They all somehow knew that the ECHO network was their main way of communicating around here, so they wanted to keep that down. That had to have been why they were hitting this place this hard.

"Gracious me. There's way too fucking many," Rhys said, using his shield to block some of the energy rounds heading his way. But then a vehicle was driven in front of his face, and it wasn't a Technical, nor was it a Runner.

"Then let us cut in," Reaper said as he armed the cannons on the vehicle. Rhys expected his design to be used for the Raiders, not an army of Eridians.

"How'd you find us?" Rhys asked.

"Not hard, given the state of the ECHO network," Reaper said simply. "It's a good thing you made these things to be fast. It would've taken a lot longer to get here otherwise."

"Nice job showing up when you did," Gaige said gratefully as the other soldiers began pulling in with cars of a similar nature and blasting the remaining Eridians to pieces. "I was almost out of ammo there."

"It's our job. From what I've seen, every inch of Pandora has come under attack by these things," Reaper told her.

"More than anything, we need to get the ECHO network back up. We need to communicate with the rest our forces and group up," Rhys said, pointing to several soldiers. "You, you, and you. Follow me while I get the network back online. The rest of you need to meet us on the other side, where the rest of the towets are. Kill any Eridians on the way. Blast them out of the sky if needed."

"Yes sir," several soldiers said. Gaige was impressed by how quickly and easily he was able to take charge. It seemed like he was trying to get the most out of his soldiers.

Rhys walked into the building, and luckily, there were very few Eridians hiding inside. Most of the action took place on the outside, and they had won that fight, so thats probably why.

"Can you fix it?" one of the soldiers asked as Rhys was looking over the console.

"Easily. But that's not the problem. This thing is rigged to blow," Rhys said as he finished looking over it.

"What?" a different soldier questioned. Rhys then stood up straight and pointed to the cylinder shaped device located on the bottom of the side of the console.

"See that thing right there? From the look of things, it's got a bunch of energy compressed on the inside. And there's some kind of alien language that keeps changing. I can only assume it's a countdown as I don't know their language. This isn't a location they need to keep standing. If anything, they can only benefit by destroying it," Rhys explained to him.

"So disarm the bomb," the third soldier suggested.

"Even if I knew how to decipher this language in order to do that, I doubt it would be that easy. It'd probably detonate upon tamper. These Eridians are an advanced alien species. I'm not going to treat them like they're idiots," Rhys said before opening up the panel at the bottom. "But there's still a way to get the ECHO network back online."

"The way the system works is that it takes the ECHO signal and bounces it between three powerful towers within this area and controlled by this one big console. It's how all of Pandora gets access to the network. It's going to be a long few weeks building the towers capable of supporting that kind of power."

"Weeks?" the first soldier questioned, his eyebrows raised in shock.

"At the very least. That's if we get just about every available worker to Old Haven to work on it. But there's a problem with that," Rhys said.

"We've got no way to contact them because the network is down," the second soldier said.

"Right. And no ECHO network means not only no communication, but no Fast Travel either. No one can access their ECHO inventories either. None of my tracking, seeking, or scanning capabilities on my cybernetics work either. Only the weaponry cause it's built into the arm," Rhys told him.

"Did we really rely that much on this one system in the hopes that no one would try and destroy it?" the third soldier questioned.

"Long ago, there was a big project to help set up the ECHO network on Pandora. Most of the crew was killed off as a result, but they got the system working. People knew that if they destroyed it, there would be no more workers coming to this planet to build us another one. Companies hate wasting worker hands. It's the closest thing to a truce Pandora has ever had to not destroy the machine," the first soldier explained.

"Because they knew if they messed with this thing, they'd all be in the dark," Rhys said as he continued to examine the inside of the device.

"People have tried, of course, to destroy it. Idiots and psychos are a thing on this planet. But their attempts were thwarted each time. They got slaughtered and tortured by bandits for even trying," the first soldier said.

"No one's going to stand for the loss of the ECHO network. And neither will I, for that matter," Rhys said, keeping the cores of the ECHO in his pocket since his ECHO storage was unavailable. "That was just the main console powered by three of the cores with the signal. There are still three smaller ones connected to radio towers."

"We're going to have to split up. We need to get that network back up as fast as possible. We are blind if we do," the second soldier said.

"Agreed. We'll divide ourselves into groups," Rhys said right as the beeping of the device on the console intensified. "That's our cue to leave."

Immediately, the four of them broke out broke out into a large sprint from the building that was once the Crimson Fastness. Now it's just a place where the ECHO network was at. It was never really given a name after the predecessors of Atlas were done here.

Behind them, there was a loud ominous whirring before there was a feeling of suction which was immediately negated by the entire building behind them exploding in a flash of shiny purple. The four of them were thrown forward, but Rhys was the only able to recover from it by flipping to his feet using the momentum of the explosion.

"Nice save," Gaige said.

"Thanks," Rhys said.

"We're fine," the third soldier said, standing to his feet.

"So I'm guess we can't get the ECHO network back?" Gaige questioned.

"No we will. We just gotta get the rest of these things from those other radio towers," Rhys said, taking a core out of his pocket and showing them.

"There are three of those towers. We'll have to split up if we want to get this done in a reasonable amount of time," Axton said.

"Agreed. We'll divide the teams evenly," Rhys said.

"Well, you'll have to count us in for that," Lilith said as she suddenly appeared in front of them in a flash of purple, Mordecai and Brick next to her. Immediately, everyone who wasn't Rhys aimed a gun at her. Even the giant cannons on the car tanks were aimed. But even as both parties armed themselves for a fight, Rhys raised a hand for them to lower their guns.

"Boss, you can't be..."

"I am," Rhys said with no emotion as he looked at Lilith. "Extenuating circumstances?"

"Extenuating circumstances," she agreed with a nod. "How do you plan to get the network back up?"

"If I can get access to the cores, my workers can make radio towers strong enough to cover all of Pandora. It'll take weeks, and I need to get them all to Old Haven," Rhys told her.

"Old Haven? That's where he was hiding?" Lilith thought before nodding and then speaking aloud. "There were three small towers and a big..." It was then she spotted the lack of a building.

"How in the..." Mordecai trailed.

"Eridians knew about it and tried to blow it sky high. I got the cores though out of it though. All that needs to be done is getting the cores for the other ones. We need all the power we can get for those towers," Rhys said.

"Why power the entire planet? Why not just the area we need?" Mordecai questioned. Rhys was surprised that the question came out evenly.

"Because I doubt the Eridians are just attacking this area. This looks like a full on invasion, and if we're going to clear them all out, we're going to need ECHO access across every inch of this planet so we aren't limited weapon wise. You want to clear them off Pandora, right?" Rhys questioned.

"Probably more than you do," Mordecai said.

"That's debatable, but we'll agree to disagree. Now, we can divide ourselves into teams. Siren, you can take your friends and a few of my soldiers with you to the network. They know how to drive the vehicles, so they'll be able to get you there fast," Rhys told Lilith.

"You sure they won't try and shoot us?" Mordecai questioned, narrowing his eyes at the soldiers who returned the look.

"They won't as long as you won't," Rhys said, looking at both Mordecai and his soldiers with an icy look. His troops seemed to calm down, but Mordecai didn't.

"Mordecai, give it a rest," Lilith said through gritted teeth. She looked very irritated.

"She's right. We're not going to get this done with you eyeing the soldiers every two seconds," Brick told him. After a few seconds, Mordecai nodded. As much as he didn't like it, they were their best chance of taking Pandora back from these Eridians. But the idea of Eridians in this area... it brought back some memories.

"Alright, now Gaige and Zer0, you're on me. The each of us will take a vehicle. Axton, you lead the rest of the soldiers," Rhys said, making the soldier nod. Then he raised a core. "Remember, scavenge the main computer until you find one of these things. If you see more than one, which I doubt you will, grab it too."

"We'll head this way. Let's meet back here once we're finished," Lilith said, making Rhys nod. The soldiers then gestured Lilith over to the back of one off the tanks, where there were four seats in the back. But the size of Brick took up two of them all at once. And he could barely fit in those.

"You two, on me," Rhys said, pointing to Gaige and Zer0. He had a look of seriousness in his eyes. "Take a vehicle and let's get going."

"Not gonna lie. Looks pretty hot when he's taking charge," Gaige thought before smothering her own embarrassment by immediately hopping in the tank. "Well, I certainly know how to prioritize situations."

The three groups then split off to go take care of their towers. There was a barrier in the way of each of the directions, but to the surprise of Lilith, Mordecai, and Brick, the vehicles were able to blow right through the barriers that blocked the way like they were made of wet clay. Their Runners hadn't been able to do that.

"No wonder he kept these things hidden," Lilith thought. The outside of these tank-like cars was tougher than the weaponry of any of their vehicles' weapons. Lilith was brought out of her analysis by the driver's voice.

"If you want to have a piece of the things, feel free to hop out. But these tanks should be able to handle them," he said.

Any trace of the outside was not visible other than a small hole in front of them. And even if there was any visibility behind them, it was practically impossible to turn around.

"Aim for that cannon!" the second soldier up front said before remembering that they had no way to contact each other because of the lack of ECHO communication. Then there was a loud boom that shook the ground.

"What the hell was that?!" Mordecai exclaimed.

"They've got some cannons! They're powerful as hell. I've never seen anything tear through these hulls until now!" the driver exclaimed. "Siren, you can teleport. Get behind those lines and get rid of those cannons, or we're all going to be smoking piles of scrap in a second!" It wasn't an order. The soldier just stated a blatant fact.

"Duly noted," Lilith said somewhat dryly before teleporting herself, Mordecai, and Brick behind the lines. Sure enough, there were two cannons lined up at the entrance, taking shots at each of the tanks. But they weren't great shots. That or the soldiers had decent enough evasive tactics.

"Coming through!" Brick exclaimed before grabbing the head of one of the Eridians behind the cannon and bashing its head against the wall several times hard enough to break its shield and its head along with it. Lilith grabbed the head of the second Eridian and channeled a bunch of energy into it, breaking down its shield before it disintegrated into nothingness.

"Let's check these buildings," Lilith said before they walked inside. They could hear the rumbling from in here, which wasn't much of a surprise, so they knew they had to act fast. Before they accidentally crumbled the building with them and the core inside of it. None of them would be surprised if it did happen.

Mordecai ducked a blade swipe from an Eridian Guardian and then unloading his revolver into its face, which barely managed to take down its shield.

With no ammo because he couldmt get more out of ECHO, Mordecai drew his sword from his back and stuck it in the Eridian's skull and dug around before taking its head off with a hard pull. It's been a long time since he bothered using this blade.

"Keep moving," Lilith said as they continued up to the roof. Up there, like Lilith suspected, there were more Eridian cannons up top, taking shots at the vehicles from the bottom. Lilith, with her eyes glowing orange, Phasewalked into the center of each of the turrets before letting out a wide plume of fire, knocking the Eridians and their turrets off the roof. They were easy pickings for the rest of the tanks at that point.

"Good. Now let's grab what we came for," Brick said before they walked back in the building. Lilith was the one to check the bottom for the core before grabbing it and holding it up.

"Let's get back to the center. That was over fairly quick," Lilith said before walking out of the building. There were no more words that needed to be traded for the rest of the short trip back.

"How'd it go?" Rhys asked.

"We lost four tanks, which means eight men. Whatever they use for those power of those cannons, they're powerful," the driver that was partnered with Lilith said.

"Yeah, we had to deal with those things too. We had to dodge like crazy to avoid being incinerated," Gaige said.

"The Eridians didn't have this tech the last time they were here. What's the deal?" Mordecai questioned.

"Those were just the Vaults that just had Eridians inside. So their numbers and tech were limited. We're dealing with invasion forces here," Lilith clarified.

"That sounds about right. Well, that Eridian that came here was right. Looks like we're heading to war," Rhys said.

"Just not with who we expected," Mordecai said making Rhys nod grimly. "Anyway, we got the cores. Now we just need to head back to Old Haven." It was here Rhys' eyes widened.

"Old... Oh, fucking hell. I didn't account for it getting invaded," he said, his eyes wide and his eyes betraying a small bit of fear.

"If they did get there, you're not going to have any resources to build those towers with," Lilith said.

"It's not just that. The soldiers there are more than likely unprepared. Those turrets I built won't help much against the weaponry they're carrying now," Rhys said, clenching his left fist.

"Enough talking. Let's just go," Reaper said impatiently before they hopped in the cars and sped off.

"You better be alive Moxxi," Rhys thought with a growl.

"Jeez, it feels like we've been waiting down here forever," Moxxi thought as she looked around at the many soldiers scattered in her lab. Whatever the Eridians that invaded this place did, they did it well. They took down the shields of the city and laid waste to many of the soldiers that were here. There weren't that many left now. Except the handful that managed to escape down here with her.

That doesn't mean they went down easy. No, many were missing limbs and still able to take a few down. But the numbers were so vast and the weaponry so powerful was that there was little chance of survival. Moxxi had to respect how strong, determined, and well trained they all were.

"The one time he isn't shut up in his lab working on stuff. The one time. Where the hell are all of you?" Moxxi thought with some level of frustration.

Time passed by. Enough time to where minutes felt like hours. Because everyone down here was waiting tensely for the Eridians to come in here and do to them what they did to the rest of the soldiers with were either disintegrated or torn apart. The waiting was over when the hatch finally opened. But in walked a familiar face.

"Oh, thank God. Are you alright?" Rhys asked as he walked forward and inspected her for wounds.

"I'm fine. As you've told me many times before," Moxxi said with a sultry smirk, making Rhys crack a small smile.

"Yup, you're alright. Come on. There have been some... extenuating circumstances," he said as he we went to walk back up to the bar area. Which, by the way, was completely trashed. Just like the rest of the city.

While Moxxi was glad to be alive unlike many of the soldiers that were posted here, she couldn't help but be somewhat put out by the waste of alcohol. But that feeling was squashed by the feeling of anger when she saw a familiar mask.

"Rhys?" Moxxi questioned in a voice of deadly calm.

"Yes?" Rhys asked.

"Why are the Raiders here?" Moxxi questioned.

"Extenuating circumstances. I told you. Besides, weren't you once a Raider?" Rhys asked.

"When they weren't completely biased," Moxxi said, eyeing Mordecai in particular. Without breaking eye contact with Mordecai, she put a hand down Rhys' back pocket. She was pleased to see that his eyes narrowed. She wasn't pleased with Rhys removing her hand.

"You two can argue like cats and dogs at another time. Right now, I need your help. We're short some workers here, so I need your help in building radio towers large enough to cover Pandora. You'll head the designs while we round up workers from our bases," Rhys explained to her.

"Then I'll get to work," Moxxi said. With one final glare at Mordecai, she walked off back towards her lab.

"Do you have any other ideas? The Eridians are likely taking over," Lilith said.

"Without the ECHO network, we are blind. We'll mostly have to wait, but we can take potshots at them every now and again. We have to play this carefully, or we will fall to this invasion," Rhys said.

"Never would've thought you as a capable leader," Lilith said.

"That's what happens when you don't actually know someone. But regardless, we have a war to win. Regardless of what happens after it's over, we will have to trust each other until then," Rhys said before swallowing slightly and holding out his hand. Lilith seemed to do something similar before holding out her hand and shaking it. Gaige looked at the pair shaking hands before looking at the sky. She was not looking forward to another war. Then again, none of them were.

A/N: And that concludes it for Flesh and Metal! For those who say I took it too hard on Mordecai and not enough on Rhys, let's look over things. Besides living at Sanctuary and working for Hyperion at one point, what has Rhys done to make any problems his fault? None that I can think of.

As for Mordecai, it was not my intention to constantly have a go at him like I did. I actually like Mordecai a lot. But I feel like out of everyone, he wouldn't be able to look too far past his prejudice of Hyperion. I have plans to work with that for the sequel. It might be a long while before I start it, but it will happen.

On a separate note, all of you are fucking awesome with the support. I made something that over a hundred people enjoy reading. That's an accomplishment for, and I'm glad I was able to make this entertaining for you all. Have a great day.