So, this story has been inactive for months now. I'll be honest, I lost interest. I love Borderlands, but my interest waned, especially after the whole Epic Games Store Exclusive debacle that still pisses me off. I have this story planned out, but I can never account for the small moments where nothing happens and I get writer's block. Truthfully, I've had this story written up to the twelfth chapter, I just never got around to posting it.

As such, I cannot confirm that this story is now active again, I just figured I might as well upload the final chapters and I get on with it. I don't know if anyone is still reading this story, but I sincerely hope anyone enjoyed some of it.

So here it is.

8: HALCYON DAYS

Matt looked down at Lilith in pure confusion and bewilderment. These words the Siren was saying had to be some stupid joke.

'Training?!' He practically yelled in confusion.

'You heard me,' the Siren replied audaciously. 'You've been MIA for four years, by our standards, that proclaims you out of shape.'

'Out of shape?!' The Anomaly screeched. 'I'm perfectly fit, thank you very much – in fact, I'm even fitter than I've ever been before. You see my eyes?' He pointed to both of them. 'You see how they're golden, not brown? That's not me having some fun, dyeing my pupils, no. These eyes tell you that I'm more in tune with the Infinite than ever thought possible – than any Siren ever, actually! And you say "out of shape"?!'

'As your superior officer, I order you to go on training,' Lilith replied. 'You don't really have a choice. Besides, the world has changed over the past four years – what passes for fit then does not apply now.' Matt sighed.

'Matt, think of it as your chance to acclimatise,' the Mechromancer suggested. 'You'll understand the world around you as it is now so you don't have to go answering questions.'

'Through combat exercises?' The Anomaly criticised satirically.

'C'mon, work with me here!' Gaige moaned childishly, pouting at him.

'Ugh, fine,' Matt finally conceded. 'You know…we could go on a date later.'

'Um, maybe some other time,' Gaige avoided awkwardly. 'Just…just go.'

'If you're so certain…' Matt replied in slight confusion frowning at her behaviour.

'It can't be that bad, can it?' Rhys joked sardonically. 'That the great hero of Sanctuary has to go back to the drawing board?'

'I don't know what you're smirking about, Rhys,' Lilith spoke down to him condescendingly. 'You're going with him.'

'Wait, what?!' The Corporate immediately protested.

'Honestly, it's a miracle we let you off for this long,' the Siren replied earnestly. 'Your training was cut off and resuming it is long overdue. But as you begin to invest yourself in more missions with us, you need the physicality and battle strategy to match.'

'You mean I have to compete with him?!' Rhys assumed in disgust.

'It's not "competing"; neither of you can "win",' Lilith told him. 'But you need more than brains to keep up with the Raiders.'

'I've been doing just fine over the past few years,' Rhys averred overconfidently. Fiona failed to hold back her sardonic snigger.

'No you have not!' She protested. 'You've barely gotten used to firing a gun!'

'Thanks, Fi,' Rhys sarcastically acknowledged.

'Well, she's not wrong,' Gaige interjected. The Corporate shot her a disdainful look. 'What? The first time we went into combat, you cowered in fear from DT.'

'Wait, you were afraid of Deathtrap?' Matt chuckled light-heartedly.

'Well, have you seen those claws?!' Rhys argued.

'There's much worse on Pandora than claws,' Maya derided him.

'Believe me, I know,' the Corporate confirmed pointedly.

'No matter how much you argue about it, you have to follow my orders,' Lilith addressed firmly, folding her arms annoyedly. Matt sighed acceptingly.

'Where are you sending us, then?' The Anomaly finally asked.

'The only place with the proper training resources,' the Siren told him unclearly.

'What's that?' The Vault Hunter prompted.

'Karabraxis.'

'I've never even been there,' Matt protested, folding his arms.

'Rhys has,' Lilith pointed out, turning to the Corporate with a smirk emblazoned across her face. 'You're gonna bring him there.'

'Ugh, fine,' the Vault Hunter submitted reluctantly. Lilith suddenly beamed annoyingly at him, making the man sigh internally.

'Off you go, then,' the Siren ordered, waving her hand at her dismissively.

'Oh, and, Matt?' Gaige called. He spun around on his foot and looked at her perplexedly. 'Happy birthday.'

Matt's eyes widened. He hastily walked back down stairs with Rhys, who seemed slightly agitated.

Once they had finished speaking, Deborah stepped forward to say something. Sensing this was about Matt, Lilith stopped her.

'Deborah, go back to your post in the Stratagem Department. I'll be there soon once the Council has assembled to deal with the Menagerie clean-up.'

'But –'

'I wasn't asking,' the red-haired general stated firmly. Deborah left, but Amelia stayed behind.

'Matt may be OK with Deborah being here, but I'm not,' she told her cynically. 'If Fiona hadn't been so reckless and stupid, we wouldn't be in this situation.'

'Unfortunately for you, it isn't your choice,' Lilith responded with equal mirth. Frustrated, Amelia left the room.

Matt and Rhys walked through the streets of Sanctuary, neither of them engaging in lengthy conversation. Their dialogue was concise and stunted, never expanding further than a few utterances, mainly consisting of "yes" and "no" or simply "I don't know".

Rhys kept his head down most of the time, only looking up to make sure he concentrated on where he was going and blinked awkwardly whenever Matt tried to get his attention.

Matt could tell Rhys wasn't particularly fond of him, given his impatient rolling on his feet, the constant paced movement down the street and his excessive tendency to fold his arms every time they slowed down. He wasn't particularly sure why, but he never expected people to like him – it sort of just…happened.

Axton didn't like him, at first, but that was because their rocky past.

On the other hand, Matt had never actually met Rhys until the Menagerie operation, and that was mainly by incidence. Fiona was awed because of the ridiculously exaggerated things people had said about him, whereas Rhys seemed annoyed at his disposition.

Eventually, they walked past the central area of Sanctuary, and Matt instantly stopped.

Now he knew why Fiona had idolised him: he had a statue in the middle of Sanctuary.

'What the…I have a statue?!' He exclaimed confoundedly, his eyes widening and raising an eyebrow in scepticism.

'Yeah, you have an entire memorial,' Rhys waved off uninterestedly. 'Everyone knows who you are. You're pretty much seen as the greatest hero of Sanctuary.'

'Seriously?' Matt failed to process. '"Greatest hero" is a bit unfair to other people who sacrificed their lives for Sanctuary.'

'Yeah, whatever,' the Corporate ignored, lowering his tone of voice to a mutter. 'It's not like you care enough to do anything about it.'

'What?'

'Oh, um, nothing.'

Shaking his head at Rhys's odd behaviour, walking down the steps towards the memorial. It was taller than already quite tall buildings around it, and the base was surrounded by an encroaching amount of laurels and flowers, festering over it like some unknowable, altruistic infection.

The likeness was chilling and uncanny, but there was some sort lifelessness to it that made it feel somehow less real than it truly was. Matt doubted its presence in the centre of Sanctuary constantly was in any way heart-warming for the Vault Hunters. With how Maya reacted, along with the resounding tense silence between them, seeing his face all the time must've been painful.

As he got closer, abandoning his guilty reverie, he noticed someone was kneeling down at the plaque on the front face of the podium.

It was girl, going by her build and curvatures, although Matt only briefly paid attention to her features. She was wearing some sort of light purple dress, which seemed painted over from a previous pink colour underneath. The uneven pink lining at the end of coat indicated the haphazard modifications the owner had made to it. There was even a badge of a bunny on the back, which Matt vaguely recognised.

The Anomaly tried to think back to where he had seen it before, but the Infinite had made his memories slightly unclear. Matt still recalled all of it, but the specific details that the Vault Hunter seldom paid much attention to were murky and unfocused.

He forced his memories to reinvigorate themselves, using a few sparks of the Infinite in his brain, enhancing the speed of the electrical signals in his nerve cells and the diffusion of speed of his neurotransmitters.

Brusquely, Matt remembered where he had seen that bunny badge before, and who it belonged.

'Tina?'

(Not Tiny) Tina

EXPLOSIVE personality.

Tina shuddered for a second, but didn't turn around.

'Go away,' she told him wearily. 'You aren't real.'

'I'm quite real, Tina. I'm back.'

'That's what you said the last time,' the girl insisted. 'Then I turned around and you weren't there. You're never there. Never alive, always dead. That's right. Dead. People don't come back after they die. Statues are just like that: dead eyes, dead looks. But they stay there while the real one stays gone.'

Matt jerked his head back disconcertedly, blinking quickly for a few seconds. He had gotten used to Tina's odd tangents, but this raving rant she had frenziedly produced was even more frayed and loose than he'd heard before.

'Death is so reliable. You can always count on it not to waver. No tricks. When you die, you can always rely on the fact that you won't come back. Death is promised but life is not. There are no promises truer than death. But I can also count on that you won't be there when I turn around.'

Matt wasn't sure what to say to that. He knew Tina was insane, but not this insane.

'Turn around then,' he urged her.

Tina barely moved, only shaking as she continued to stare at the plaque. Slowly, the girl began to turn around towards Matt, unbending her legs as she carefully stood up. When she saw Matt still standing there, Tina stumbled back for a moment, before stepping gradually towards him.

She leant out a hand towards him, wearily, until finally her hand landed below his shoulder. Matt held her hand against it once the girl made contact, just to ensure her that he was indeed tangible.

Tina breathed a loud sigh of relief.

'M-Mattie-boy?' She asked with a tinge of hope in her voice. The Anomaly smiled at her, stroking her hair and rubbing off a lone tear running down her cheek.

'It's me, Tina.'

Tina pulled him in tightly, silently sobbing into his chest, while she felt Matt's safe, welcoming arms enveloping her and instantly relieving her of her torment.

'It's OK; it's all gonna be OK. Just let it all out.'

Matt looked back at Rhys, who seemed absolutely gobsmacked. He probably hadn't seen such a sensitive side to the insane bomb lover, which was unsurprising, since Tina barely showed anything other than her manic cover that she called her personality. It didn't really matter who you were, everyone had a sensitive side.

Eventually, Tina stopped crying and instead began hitting him wildly.

'Where were you, sucka?' She demanded jovially, catching the Anomaly off-guard. 'I've been playing Bunkers and Badasses without ya, dude! Gets kinda boring, and Gaige clearly doesn't like streaming it with that weird ECHO earpiece-thingy.'

'You mean this?' Matt inquired cheekily, taking out his ECHOear and showing it to her with a grin.

'Yes indeedy!' Tina exclaimed childishly. 'So whatcha doing now, shawty?'

'Lilith's sending me off to Karabraxis for training,' the Anomaly professed reluctantly.

'Daaaaamn, you must be pretty bad if Lili thinks ya need training!'

'Yeah it's –'

Matt paused when he felt something being pelted at him. He looked down at his lapel, and grimaced at the sight of a lone tomato sliding down it. Hastily, wincing at it, the Anomaly peeled it off and let it drop to the ground. Turning around, the Vault Hunter saw a merchant affiliated with the Pandoran Trade, picking out food from his transportable box.

'Go back to your Vault Hunter buddies!' He barked. 'They're the only people that want you here!'

'That was a pretty good shot!' Rhys laughed, although no one else was laughing.

The merchant geared to throw another one, but this time the Anomaly held out his arm, albeit reluctantly, as lightning began to crackle from it. As another organic projectile hurtled towards him, it slowed to a stop a few feet before him, completely frozen in time, whilst everything else remained animated.

Without much warning, they started to speed up again through the air.

'I really need to get the hang of this new power,' Matt noted, before moving himself and Tina out of the way of the flying food. Satisfied but still disgruntled, the merchant grumbled and walked away.

'Wow, you are not popular,' the Corporate observed contrarily, gritting his teeth at the residue of tomato left behind on his lapel. Frantic, Tina began wiping it off as quickly as possible.

'This coat's too cool to be stained!'

'Thanks, Tina,' the Anomaly acknowledged, holding back a snigger. 'So, um, I gotta go.' When he saw her face go slightly crestfallen, Matt adlibbed. 'But I'll be back soon!'

'Make sure you stay alive so I can play some Bunkers and Badasses with ya!' Tina requested enthusiastically.

'Definitely, that game's fun incarnate! I'll make a mental note on that,' he agreed, before turning on his feet and back towards Rhys. Tina smiled at him as he left.

While Matt and Rhys walked towards the fast travel, Rhys pondered on the Anomaly's effect on others. Rhys had never seen a personal, emotional, non-crazy side to Tina before, nor did she ever give people hugs. Matt seemed to have that effect on people, which Rhys found absurd – there was no way one guy could bring out such an unorthodox side to someone. Matt couldn't be that important.

Yet, the Anomaly managed to make both Tina and Lilith to hug him (although the latter was brief) and reduce two of the Vault Hunters to tears upon sight.

Maya seemed to be the only one out of them who had an aggressive reaction to Matt, going as far as to yell at him for a full minute. However, once the Anomaly revealed what it was light on his head, Maya appeared to shut up, but it was evident that she was still deeply affected by the destruction of her planet and by the Vault Hunter's absence.

How could Matt being gone be so devastating? He was just a man! His absenteeism would be no different from, say, Axton swanning off of his own accord.

Sure, Fiona never failed to mention how the Anomaly saved the entire universe, and was also a living Vault Key who was able to depower an entity, the Dreamer, whom was viewed as a god, like a mouse killing a human, but Rhys never overestimated his capabilities.

The Corporate didn't think much of him; he seemed perfectly ordinary. There were things about him that certainly were anomalous, but Matt's personality and predisposition didn't appear to be strange.

Now, Rhys knew how Jeffrey felt when he complained about how Gaige never looked at him twice. People never thought too much of stupid, scrawny little Rhys, and as such greatly underestimated him. No one, not even his allies, batted an eye at him more than once, believing him to be pathetically asinine.

'Nah, Rhys, you got it all wrong,' Fiona had told him once. 'LET people underestimate you so they don't suspect it when you outsmart them.'

She was right. She often was, the Corporate mused happily.

'So, you have access to Karabraxis?' Matt asked him, to which Rhys sighed and nodded.

'Of course I do.' He leant out to the fast travel machine and punched into the interface, searching through the options for the one that said "Karabraxis – Training Grounds" and pressed on it. A pop-up alerted him to an unauthorised body being transported with him, and he identified it as Matt Rye and granted him access to the location.

They dematerialised into blue digital light, disappearing from Sanctuary.

As Rhys and Matt began to materialise within Karabraxis, the Anomaly surveyed his surroundings in awe.

Across most of the area visible in the background, the buildings were modernised, with Aluminium-Pobranium mix frames and crimson reflective glass covering their main exteriors.

In the Training Grounds, mainly, the buildings were shorter and older, covering more ground rather than height and containing large open spaces populated with forests, climbing frames and aged wooden structures – all purely for training.

Every so often, a group of training Crimson Raiders jogged by, run by a regiment leader to whip them into shape. Matt could also spot a few jets and warp-shift ships parked in the hangar less than a mile away from their location, along with bands of curved plastic covering the top of them.

Rhys sighed at the Anomaly's constant exaggerative gawking.

'Are you done gaping?' He questioned him agitatedly, folding his arms over his expensive business suit. The Vault Hunter nudged him, and Matt's attention shifted to the edge of the city.

The entire metropolis was an island, albeit a huge one, man-made with a long highway leading back to the mainland – although it seemed old and Matt assumed the Raiders seldom used it. He could see the terrain of the Highlands far in the distance, as well as other coastal regions of Pandora.

He'd heard of an island like this before, but that wasn't made by the Crimson Raiders. Suddenly, the name came to him.

'Wait a minute, isn't this Opportunity?' The Anomaly recognised bemusedly.

'It used to be,' the Corporate confirmed. 'With Pandora purged of Hyperion control, Opportunity was abandoned – so the Raiders seized it for themselves and enlarged it a couple years back. Not like Hyperion was gonna waste time and money dismantling the city.'

'Just like I suggested,' Matt muttered happily. 'So where's our trainer?'

'Uh, I dunno, but she definitely knew we were coming,' Rhys ensured him.

'Got that right.'

They turned around to see a woman wearing a dark hood with streaks of grey running down it. She wore rugged, worn clothing with a fading red colour to them, and a small brown jacket over it. The woman had some armour plating on her shoulder, with a similarly worn crimson pigment, and short sleeve arms with exposed her mildly calloused skin. She had a haphazard belt worn unevenly across her waist and tight grey slacks with some more cerise plating extending down to her reddened shin plates and black boots.

There was a shield on her back, which made Matt frown at the odd choice of auxiliary combat, but it looked cool enough for him not to question it. Given that she had a constant frown across her face, the Anomaly supposed questioning it to begin with would lead with aggression.

Athena the Gladiator

You spin me right round, baby right round

Rhys cleared his throat awkwardly nodding at the woman disconcertedly. He made sure not to get too close to her.

'The name's Athena,' she told them.

'R-Rhys,' Rhys awkwardly responded, causing the Gladiator to frown again.

'I already know that, idiot,' she derided. 'I was talking to him.' The Vault Hunter pointed towards Matt.

'Right, yes, um, I'm Matt. Matt Rye,' the Anomaly introduced himself with little pride, but he did admit he enjoyed to slight widening of Athena's eyes when she realised who she was talking to. He held out a hand, but Athena seldom took it.

'I thought you were supposed to be dead,' the Gladiator deadpanned with narrowed eyes.

'Well, I was – I mean, not really, but kinda, I was sorta in another dimension for a long time,' he babbled awkwardly, before recognising the tired look his trainer was giving him and he stopped. 'Sorry.'

'Maybe we should work on that gob of yours first,' she considered, half-joking but staying completely serious. 'But no, Lilith asked me to train you and I still owe her for funding my wedding – so I'm going to whip you into shape. Now follow me.'

Rhys nodded like an authority-serving soldier, but following avidly behind him. Rolling his eyes at Rhys, Matt pursued both of them.

'Here at Karabraxis, you will be pushed to your absolute limits and then some,' Athena described, as they walked through the grounds, gesturing towards various soldiers initiating in various activities, reducing them to sweat within fifteen minutes.

'Constant, exhaustive exercise? Great fun,' Rhys said mordantly.

'It is, actually,' Matt replied, with an exuberantly bright grin.

'This isn't the place for chit-chat,' Athena warned them firmly, as she opened a door for them and leading them into a room full of wood planks constructed to make a tactical scene of windows, corridors and open rooms. 'This is the first stage of your training. You will be running through the battle site and taking out the picture cut-outs representing Gemini enemies. Do not take out the hostages – only Gemini. The aim is to do this as fast as possible.'

The Anomaly opened his mouth to say something, but the Gladiator spotted and stopped him.

'No powers allowed,' she confirmed for him.

'I thought so,' the Anomaly responded. 'Who's going first, then?'

'I don't really care,' Athena stated apathetically.

'Er, I'll go first,' Rhys decided unconfidently. Athena nodded and motioned for him to enter the doorway leading to the battle site. She activated the motion-activated stopwatch on a nearby screen.

'On your marks, get set, go!' The Gladiator announced loudly, looking at the footage of the cameras as Rhys followed the arrows through the training site structure. Matt crossed his arms, interested, and surveyed the footage with her.

'So…' He began, trying to seem as unobtrusively friendly as possible. 'You're a Vault Hunter.'

'Oh, you noticed?' Athena asked sardonically.

'Ah, well, yeah,' Matt stumbled over his words awkwardly. 'Going by the age of your clothing and your post at Karabraxis, you must've been a Vault Hunter for a while.'

'Oh, you've got brains too,' the Gladiator observed condescendingly.

'Hmm…red,' he perceived, narrowing his eyes.

'What?'

'You have old red armour plating on you.'

'Well, duh, I'm a Crimson Raider.'

'Yeah, except that plating – that paint – it's too old. It outdates the Crimson Raiders by a few years,' the Anomaly observed intelligently. 'Fun fact: I used to work for Gemini. And Gemini had multiple dealings with the Crimson Lance back in the day.' He noticed how Athena tensed up at the mention of the Lance. 'That armour plating was common in Lance Assassins.'

Athena reflexively reacted aggressively, attempting to grab the back of his arm to hold him down in a lock, but Matt was faster and blocked her attempt.

'Damn smartass,' she grumbled.

'There's nothing wrong with being ex-Lance,' he assured her, careful not to strike any more nerves. 'Hell, I'm ex-Gemini. And that's a corporation with possibly a worse reputation than the Lance and Hyperion combined.'

'Stop it.'

'What?'

'This thing you're doing that Gaige always said you did all the time. You know…making people feel better.'

'You mean being kind?' Matt simplified. 'Can't help it. I'm human.'

'If you were Gemini then you'd know more than anyone that not all humans are kind,' Athena countered aggressively, folding her arms.

'I know,' Matt replied solemnly. 'But if we don't believe there are good people out there, who will?'

'Only stupidly optimistic people think like that.'

'There's nothing stupid about being optimistic.'

Athena didn't respond, but instead brought her attention back to Rhys. He was moving near the end of the training course, shooting down the Gemini cut-outs that popped up before them. He was quick on his feet but unbalanced, and inefficient, almost falling over at times before he tried to regain his stability.

There was a moment of silence, where the only movement was from Rhys. The room was dark, only lit enough for the Corporate to roughly gauge his surroundings without tripping over anything.

Then the lights all switched on, almost blinding Rhys as he adapted to the increase in light.

He heard the sound of air escaping and a spring rushing into action. Instantly, the Vault Hunter spun around and shot at the cut-out. He looked closer and saw it wasn't a Gemini.

'You just shot a civilian, Rhys!' Athena scolded angrily over the intercom.

'I noticed,' he growled back.

'Just move on, you're almost done,' she sighed pointedly.

Rhys shook his head and moved on. Athena leant back from the surveillance screen and folded her arms again, not interested in what they were displaying.

'Is everything alright?' Matt asked her thoughtfully.

'It's just strange being in the same room as a dead man,' Athena answered, avoiding eye contact with him.

'No, that's not it,' the Anomaly figured out instantly. Athena straightened her posture and looked at him coldly in the eye.

'Gaige talks about you. A lot,' she finally told him honestly. 'She makes you out like Jesus. But then, today, at your memorial, she goes on and on about how you're not Jesus and you're real. So tell me: what are you?'

Matt was silent for a few seconds before he came to a response that he deemed adequate.

'I'm just a man,' he said eventually. 'I'm not a god. I'm human. I have human weaknesses. You shoot me; I bleed. But you know Gaige, she loves to exaggerate. That, and, she's my girlfriend. Do you know what I mean? Do you have a boyfriend? Girlfriend?'

'Wife, actually.'

'Lovely. I've seen marriages before. The Eridians think love and war are closely connected. I saw it thousands of times when I was in the Infinite – along with other situations. All's fair in love and war.'

'Who are you?' Athena asked, an eyebrow risen. Matt took a deep breath in through the nose before answering.

'It's like when you're a kid, and you think going to the bottom side of the planet would make you go upside-down, and then they tell you that you'll always be right side up. You just can't quite believe it because you think you think there is a right side up in space. Your whole perception changes when you realise the truth – your whole world turns upside-down because the real world didn't. It blows your mind and you don't know what your experiences will make you into. You feel like you're facing the quantum barriers of time, in the depths of hell – and if you break through that barrier…'

He charged up his Chronokinesis and exposed it to a nearby glass window. It smashed on contact.

'That is who I am.'

Athena was left speechless, her eyes widening wildly at what Matt just told her so seriously. The Anomaly was young – too young to have come out with something like that. Yet, he did. And Athena didn't know what to say.

Her eyes drifted back to the security screen and she could see Rhys was seconds away from completing the course.

'You're coming up to the finish, Rhys!' The Vault Hunter alerted him over the intercom. 'Almost there…and…time!'

Rhys ran through the exit to their left, stopping short of them and bending down to catch his breath. Sweat plastered his face and the hair stuck to his temples somewhat greasily.

'Four minutes, twenty-six seconds,' the Gladiator told him with an indiscernible expression, looking at the screen. 'Adequate.'

'What the…hell…happened?' The Corporate panted, gesturing tiredly towards the smashed glass at the opposite end of the room.

'It's…uh…nothing,' Matt assured him awkwardly.

'I'll get someone to clean it up later,' Athena added with a similar level of discomfort.

'Everything alright?' Rhys inquired confusedly.

'Yes, everything's fine, corporal,' she derided him annoyedly, frowning at his questioning. The Gladiator turned to Matt. 'You're up.' He moved towards the entrance but she stopped him. 'Ah, ah, ah! Coat: off.' He sighed, taking his long midnight-blue coat off and placing it on a nearby chair. He moved again, but Athena stopped him again. 'Not through that one.'

'What?'

'You just saw Rhys's entire course on surveillance,' she pointed out. 'If you go through it, you already know what's coming. From where I'm standing, that looks like an unfair advantage to me.'

'Yeah, that makes sense,' Matt agreed, ignoring the pompously confident smirks Rhys kept throwing his away. This wasn't a race, nor was it about winning or losing. Athena pointed towards another door, and Matt walked through it.

He saw a line of yellow tape down the hallway, which he surmised was the start line. It was a few centimetres away from a rather steep ramp heading downwards. The walls were wooden, presumably MDF, and the lights on the walls were small LEDs designed only to light the way adequately enough to see properly.

Matt winced when the sound of radio wave cacophony echoed through the structure, but it eventually softened to discernible speech.

'On your marks, get set, go!'

Instantly upon "go", the Anomaly charged down the ramp with his Double Anarchy in hand, almost losing his balance from the abrupt acceleration. At the bottom, there was a doorway, which led into a wide room with several spots for cover.

Several cut-outs popped up simultaneously, and Matt aimed his gun at all of them, checking if they were Gemini ones. Five of them were, and the remaining three were hostages. He shot down the Gemini ones as he moved and left the other ones.

The next room was narrower than the previous, with only enough space to move through the blocks of cover used for the cut-outs. As soon as he stepped through, the wood panels with pictures of Gemini personnel popped up, moving side to side on a reel.

This would be a LOT faster with my Chronokinesis, the Vault Hunter pondered. But I suppose if I moved through the whole thing at super speed, these motion sensors wouldn't be able to detect me.

He continued to move through the training course.

Athena and Rhys watched as Matt manoeuvred through the complex with speed and efficiency.

'He's doing really well,' the Gladiator observed with no apparent emotion or tone in her voice.

'Mm,' Rhys grunted in agreement, not really paying attention to the screens. He wandered around the main room, trying to find something to occupy himself with.

'You should take notes,' Athena belittled him with a ridiculing smile, prompting him to sigh pointedly.

'I know,' he grumbled. 'Matt's just perfect.' Athena sniggered at that.

'He wishes.'

'So what? You talk with him for a few minutes and suddenly you're an expert on him?'

'I can tell he knows more than he's letting on,' she commented with folded arms.

'More about what?'

'Everything. And anything. He's…different.'

'Good different, or bad different?'

'I don't know,' Athena responded honestly, breathing out awkwardly.

Dissatisfied, Rhys's eyes drifted towards Matt's long midnight-blue coat. What kind of make was that? You couldn't find that in your average apparel shop, and he doubted it could be tailored for you either. Most of the ends of his coat were scuffed and marred with old stains of mud, dust, blood, hairs and other stuff that had failed to come off when he had washed it.

Slowly, he picked it up off the chair the Anomaly had previously rested it on. It was rough on the outside, but not too rough. Although, Rhys considered if it was safe enough to be wearing a coat that could give you a paper cut from rubbing the fabric for too long. It was a surprise to him when he felt the lining of the coat. It was silky and nice to hold, and likely kept the wearer warm, but not too warm, so that walking through hot temperatures would not be too overwhelming.

'What are you doing?' Athena demanded stridently, causing Rhys to wince and almost drop the coat. She bounded over to him angrily, snatching the coat from him.

'You wanna know someone's secrets? Search their pockets,' he reasoned vacillatingly. The Gladiator's eyes narrowed at him but reluctantly handed it back to him.

'For the record, I think this is a terrible idea.'

'But you're not stopping me.'

Athena didn't respond, so Rhys began searching through the first pocket of the coat, trying to find something of worth.

'How deep is this?!' He exclaimed, taking out something.

It was a health kit, complete with hypos and bandages. It was small and compact, but well-fitted. At least that explained how Matt was able to treat Fiona's gunshot wound so efficiently. Good thing he was prepared.

Intrigued, Rhys looked further and found something smoothly oval-shaped. Pulling it out, he examined a small thin Swiss army knife with worn, scratched maroon paint on the sides of the case. Fiddling with it, he accidently found one widget that digistructed a nozzle and handle into the knife, creating a spare gun. Somewhat afraid of the army knife now, the Corporate dedigistructed it and placed it back in the pocket.

'That looks hundreds of years old,' Athena realised, utterly bewildered.

'OK, maybe another pocket,' the Vault Hunter noted, finding another one to look through.

Eventually, Rhys produced an Amplifier Phone from one of the pockets, along with a lighter, an ECHO auxiliary cord and a few lock-picks.

'He really is prepared for everything,' Athena observed in surprise, looking closer at the stuff Rhys had fished out of Matt's boundlessly cavernous pockets.

'There's something square at the bottom,' he identified, leaning in to pluck it out. The Vault Hunter almost dropped it a few times, but eventually he acquired it. Perplexed, Rhys observed a small piece of paper that had yellowed almost entirely. Immediately, he began unfolding it, wondering what it was exactly. Both of their eyes widened at what it was.

On the piece of paper, there was a perfect pencil-drawn portrait of Gaige the Mechromancer. The likeness was stunning and the level of detail was astounding.

'What are you doing?' A voice demanded behind them, as an alert from the stopwatch beeped. Both of them turned around to see Matt, standing by the exit to the secondary training course, with his arms folded indignantly.

'It's, uh, not what it looks like!' The Corporate claimed, scrambling for an excuse.

'Really? Because it looks like you're rummaging through my stuff!' Matt scorned them infuriatedly.

'Oh, then, um…it's exactly what it looks like,' Rhys admitted guiltily, picking at his nails awkwardly.

'It was him not me,' Athena justified herself.

'You didn't stop him, did you?!' He yelled at her, before realising the volume of his own voice and sighing loudly at himself. 'It's fine. But it would be nice if you wouldn't search through my things. We're allies, fellow Vault Hunters, we're supposed to trust each other.'

'I guess…just…what's this?' The Corporate asked, holding up the piece of paper with Gaige's face drawn on it. His sense of frustration suddenly reinvigorated, the Anomaly stomped over to him and snatched it out of his hands, although he was careful not to tear the old paper.

'It's a portrait, Rhys,' the Anomaly derided him. 'What do you think it is?'

'I can see that. What I meant was, why do you have it?' Rhys replied with equal annoyance.

'Why does he have a drawing of the love of his life? Yeah, great question, Rhys,' Athena cut in with a glare.

'Oh…um, sorry, I guess,' he apologised disingenuously, scratching the back of his head nervously.

'Well, you try spending four-hundred years away from someone you love,' Matt disparaged contemptuously, folding his arms annoyedly.

'Wait, how long?!' The Gladiator demanded, not sure she heard correctly. Matt shook his head and ignored her.

'Drawing her face was one of the only ways I could remember what she looked like.'

There was a tense silence between them, with Athena still processing the "four-hundred years" part of the conversation. Rhys considered his own actions for a moment, but dismissed it as him simply checking if Matt was trustworthy.

'Um, three minutes thirty-two seconds,' Athena read out loud. 'Excellent result.'

'What, no, he only did better because he did a different course!' Rhys wailed, glowering at the stopwatch time.

'Both courses were meticulously designed to be the exact same size and take the exact same time to finish,' the Gladiator told him categorically. 'Matt simply did better than you.'

The Corporate continued to grumble, but Athena ignored him.

'This was only the first stage of your training. You still have a way to go.'

She was right.

Well, there we are. When I wrote this chapter some months ago, I remember really enjoying it. The cameo from Tiny Tina was fun, although it may have seemed slightly melodramatic, since her friendship with Matt was only presented through two chapters in the previous story.

Plus the Janey Springs and Athena duo was reams of fun. I love their couple, as well as the separate characters. They're great.

The last part of the puzzle of course is Gaige and Matt's relationship. It's gotten pretty tense between them, or at least distant. While it wasn't his fault he was gone so long, it still hurt. You can't just erase that pain; that's not how it works.

The next chapter, should I get around to posting it, will showcase Rhys and Matt having to work together to escape what the Anomaly finds oddly familiar…