Songs: Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama; Horslips - Trouble (with a capital T)

It had been a few days since we had told Athena she was free to go whenever she wanted to. She said she'd go back to Hollowpoint once she had healed up a little more, which meant that she was currently still here. Yesterday she had finished entertaining Tina with her story and just now she was finishing up her story about how Jack destroyed all the Claptraps. Tina seemed delighted.

"Helloooo, Sanctuary! Guess who's back from hunting Vaults on other planets? Did ya miss us?" a familiar voice suddenly came through the ECHO console. I blinked and went over to the console.

"Axton? That you?" I wanted to know.

"It is! We're almost back on Pandora. Got a super fast interstellar ship, so we made the trip in a few days. Would have been weeks otherwise. Aurelia's cash bought us a nice ride back."

"Holy shit, I can't believe you're back already!"

"Pshhht, and I'M the nerd? I mean, what's the deal here, you guys? First Lilith is like, 'Hunt the Vault on Epitah, and then she's like, 'Don't kill the other Vault Hunters, bring back the one chick you found, WAR IS COMING.' Tch." Gaige's voice came through the console. Tina had ran up to me now and was looking at it fascinated.

"Ooooooh, you brought back a new Vault Hunting buddy?! I wanna meet her." she squealed excitedly.

"No, you don't. Aurelia is the meanest. What's all this about Athena and some Guardian and war?" Axton asked next. I looked over at Athena, so she could tell them herself. Apparently, she wasn't expecting that, as she scurried closer to the console.

"Umm, I'm Athena. I was relating to present company the story of how Jack rose to power." she said.

"Yeah, I heard it the first time and bits and pieces of the second time she told the story." I added.

"Aww. We missed how Jack made the loaders?! Athena, tell it again." Gaige demanded, a nagging tone to her voice.

"I've already told it twice, I'm not-"

"Pleeeaaase? Deathtrap REALLY wants to hear it! They are HIS ancestors, you know." Gaige interrupted. Athena sighed and rolled her eyes at me. I just shrugged. I guess that's what happened when we were all over the place, as soon as the important stuff was happening.

"... Alright. We had just gotten to the Helios Space Station to find it under attack-" Athena started, but got interrupted again, this time by Axton.

"Wait. Is this going to be a LONG story?"

"Yeah, just give us the Bluff's Notes." Gaige added.

"The what?"

"You know, the short important parts of those really long, obnoxious novels you read in school?" Gaige said.

"Yeah, the parts where you shot people! Killed stuff!" Axton added.

"And made robots!"

"And blew up Jack's favorite toy!"

"Fine." Athena said and started telling the story again. I would have done something else this time, if I hadn't been on duty. Duty was pretty much uncalled for with Jack gone, but someone still had to stay back in the Sanctuary HQ command centre to watch out for... stuff. Anything suspicious, really.

"You know where Brick is?" Tina asked me quietly.

"Not sure, but check Thousand Cuts, maybe? I think he wanted to get some stuff from there or something." I answered.

"Cool, thanks."

"You're not gonna listen to the story again?"

"Nah, I've heard it now. Time to move on and all. Laters!" she said and ran off. Damn it. She was too fast for me to tell her to take someone with her. Either one of the Raiders who was bored or Mordecai or Lilith, depending on how busy they were. She really shouldn't be running around Thousand Cuts on her own, even though she could probably hold up well out there.

"Hey Brick, are you in Thousand Cuts?" I whispered into my ECHO device. I didn't want to interrupt Athena's story.

"I am, indeed. Why you askin'?" he replied quickly.

"Tina's on her way to you. On her own. Ran off before I could tell her to take someone with her. Can you have an eye on her, so she's safe?"

"Will do, no problem."

"Thanks, Brick." I said and ended the connection. I grabbed my data pad and sat down on one of the chairs at the table, a bit away from the ECHO console where Athena was sitting. This way I could do some reading or look through some stuff, maybe I would finally be able to buy some furniture and see if anyone would deliver stuff to Pandora.

"Oh, cool. Jump pads!" I heard Axton's voice. He sounded really excited about the fact that there were jump pads on Elpis.

"Deadlift was obsessed with jump pads. The only way we could beat him was to join him." Athena said. I tried to block out her voice while I looked at my data pad. I had no idea where to start. There were so many things I could do. Maybe looking for that furniture was a good place to start.

"After we made it to Concordia, we had to track down a jamming signal..."

"Yeah, but what about the robots?!" Gaige interrupted Athena.

"We had to build a basic constructor so Jack could prototype his robot army, but that wasn't until AFTER we-"

"The Lost Legion was supposed to be hiding out on the moon back then, weren't they?" Axton chimed in. Athena closed her eyes and took a deep breath, which made me giggle a little. Dealing with people really wasn't Athena's strong suit.

"Are you going to let me tell the story or not?"

A message popped up on my data pad. That was weird. I tapped on it to open it and saw that it was from Anouk. We had been in fairly regular contact, which I hadn't really expected after we left Artemis. But it was a good surprise.

Hey Nova, quick question, would it suit if I came to visit in say... two to three weeks? As in, to Pandora?

That was what the message said. I raised an eyebrow. How would she plan a whole trip in such a short time?

"How do you build a robot? You just... collect pieces and glue 'em together?" Axton wanted to know.

"It's a highly technical process requiring skill and pizazz. And, uh, sometimes glue." Gaige replied.

"We had the help of Gladstone - a scientist - and we also had a top-of-the-line military AI named Felicity." Athena explained some details of her story. Of course, that little detail wouldn't go unnoticed by Gaige.

"Oooooh, what?! What happened to her?" she wanted to know.

"We had to erase her personality. It was NOT my proudest moment." Athena answered. There was a short silence and I could only imagine how appalled Gaige had to be at hearing that.

"I could NEVER do that to Deathtrap... NEVER, NEVER, EVER." she replied, her voice sounding horrified.

"Hey, Gaige! Wanna give my turret a personality?" Axton asked, probably to distract her from the thought of someone erasing an AI's personality.

"Sure! I'm thinking... femme fatale, with a no-excuses attitude and a thirst for blood! Likes romance novels and bubble baths." she answered quickly. That was... oddly specific. But I suppose it would fit Axton's aesthetic.

I turned back to the message that was still open and that I still hadn't replied to. I suppose anytime would suit for a visit, really. It wasn't like we were up to anything and even Hyperion seemed fairly quiet lately. If anything they were busy with that new Vault, so they probably just wouldn't bother with us.

Sounds doable. Just let me know when and where you'll arrive. How long are you planning on staying?

I quickly read over the message again before sending it. I hoped it was doable. I'd probably have to go over my schedule with Lilith, but there shouldn't be a problem with moving a few shifts around anyway.

"How about that, D.T.? You're descended sort-of from a badass military AI!" I heard Gaige saying. There were some pleased noises from Deathtrap in the background and Gaige laughed quietly.

"Lilith said something about the Guardians being robots, too! Is that true?" she asked next, sounding really excited.

"Yes. From what we know about them, the Eridian Guardians are biomechanical constructs - perhaps made in the image of the Eridians themselves - but not flesh and blood." Athena told her.

"That's weird. Speaking of robo-lutionary designs though, how 'bout those Dahl powersuits? Imagine if I could mount my turret on top of one of THOSE babies!" Axton suggested. Athena decided not to comment on that and instead continued with the story.

"The Lost Legion was well outfitted and well led. Zarpedon was NOT an unworthy adversary."

There was already a new message from Anouk waiting for me. I tapped on it and it was exactly what I had suspected.

Awesome, would have been a bummer if you had said no, because I'm already on the way. Should take a week or two, we just got on the ship in the morning.

For a second I wondered why that girl reminded me so much of myself, but the answer was kinda obvious. This is exactly what I would have done, when I was her age. I figured she'd also have no backup plan whatsoever.

What would you have done if I had said no?

"It turned out that the Eye of Helios, over which we were fighting to regain control, was actually the Eye of the Destroyer." I heard Athena say. Oh wow. Were they already at that part of the story?

"The Destroyer? That crazy blob of tentacles and hatred?" Axton asked.

"To which OTHER crazy blob of tentacles and hatred would I be referring?" Athena replied in a sarcastic tone.

"His ex-fiancée!" Gaige chimed in and laughed.

"That was harsh! Sarah wasn't mean, she just... I dunno..." Axton said, trailing off slowly. He sounded kind of bummed out about her.

"Whatever, man. You are an unparalleled stud and she should never have let you go." Gaige replied.

"Aww, thanks. But the Dahl Corporation WAS trying to kill me."

"I am not surprised. Failure was not an option for Zarpedon or the Lost Legion, even though they had been trapped long enough to become completely corrupted by Eridium, and were no longer controlled by Dahl." Athena commented.

"Zarpedon didn't have tentacles, did she?" Axton asked.

"No, no tentacles, just a powersuit and a very strong belief."

I looked back on my data pad and saw another message. Had she actually come up with a backup plan?

I dunno, I would've just winged it. I've winged many holidays in my life.

I knew it! I had called it, hadn't I? Well, there would be no winging of holidays on Pandora. Not on my watch.

You haven't been to Pandora before. You better not try to wing anything here.

You've been winging ten years on Pandora, before you met Mordecai.

That was different.

Actually, it wasn't. Winging it 10 years ago was way worse. Back then there weren't too many supplies coming in. Now, we had that at least. And we had the Raiders. Things were somewhat safe.

"That's when you got to the Vault, right?" Gaige said.

"Sure." Athena agreed. She sounded pretty tired at this stage.

"So... Vaults can pretty much have anything inside of them." Gaige concluded from the end of Athena's story.

"It seems that way. This one held knowledge, a terrible secret that I wish had never been discovered."

"Pssht, the Warrior? We killed the f**k out of that thing!"

"Watch your damn language, young lady! So, you think Zarpedon should have destroyed the moon, and the Vault with it?" Axton wanted to know.

"... No. While it is tempting to think that destroying the Vault was the right path, I believe it was just the easiest."

"The easy way isn't always the right way, is it, D.T.?"