Axton grabbed a nearby rag, wiping sweat off of his forehead. He'd been in a Dahl experimental weapons development facility all day, and he needed a break. He lay the wrench on the workstation, taking a sip of a cola and sighing deeply. He'd just finished assembling his masterpiece. He had Dahl send him the parts required, racking up a few thousand dollars in costs, but he'd needed something like it to kill whatever monster lurked in the Vault. Nearby, his Echo system played Pat's voice as it read out more files on the Vault and Jocasta the Siren. He looked at the gun on the workstation, whistling in admiration. It was custom-made. He'd fitted the barrel of his old rifle, the Veruc, onto a new body. He gave it Dahl's latest dual-optic scope. He could go from red-dot sights to a long-range scope just by adjusting his hold on the rifle. It could switch between semi-auto, burst fire, and full auto. Not only that, but he'd integrated Atlas smart-bullet technology into it. It was expensive, sure, but hey-he wasn't the one paying for it. He wondered if he could press his luck even further and ask for depleted Eridium rounds.
Nearby, his sentry turret sat, its safety on so Axton could work on it in peace. Scooter, bless his heart, had made some blueprints for new and interesting designs, and Ellie had kept them, sending him the blueprints over the Echonet. Even after all this time, Scooter was still helping Vault Hunters kick ass. His turret now featured three rotating minigun barrels, able to saw a psycho in half with its sheer rate of fire. It still had the old mods, too-the missile racks, the slag bullets, the Phalanx shield and longbow technology. He just had to give it a kick-ass coat of spray paint and he'd be ready to take on the world.
"Jocasta feared but one thing. Death. After killing the Pain Emperor of Elysium, the many gnarl-beasts of the Ionian Feral Kings, the putrid hordes of the Plagueeater Clan, and even her own Siren sister Queen Blud, the only fear in her heart was of the grim reaper. She had seen too much of it, too many friends and allies fall without so much as a goodbye. And as her lover died of old age, she knew she had little time left. She had grown old, too. But she assembled the Vault Key and summoned the Vault. She entered it alone, harnessed the power of the Fist and returned with her lover, the both of them young and powerful again. She had cheated death. It is said the two lived for another two hundred years before finally dying after defending the moons of Gethsemane from a massive fleet of pirates."
"God, why does everything have to be so cryptic? Can't people just write things down?" he asked.
"They can. Apparently, the way she did these things was so mind-boggling that words could not describe them. That, or they left those parts out so that authors could interpret them their own way, to represent the foggy lens of history. If she was truly over two hundred years old when she died, she already would have had a legend by then. Perhaps she even changed the story herself, or never told anybody what she truly did?" Pat replied.
"That's ridiculous! Why would they leave all of that out! I mean...summoning the Vault! What does that even mean? And the Fist, what the hell is that?" he raved.
"I do not know, Buck." Pat replied.
Axton set his cola down, shaking up a can of silver spray-paint. He gave his sentry and rifle a fresh new sheen. He grabbed yellow and black next, spraying some hazard stripes over the flatter parts of his weapons. He looked down at them, grinning.
"That looks badass." he said.
Suddenly, his Echo pinged, and he heard the Warden's voice.
"Axton! Great news. We know where the third shard a' the Key is. It's on Gethsemanny Prime, in the tomb a' the Siren Jocasta. Ah've already set up yer travel arrangements. Yer ship departs in thirty minutes. Ah hope yer achin' for a proper gunfight, cause it's lookin' like that's what yer gettin'. We sent in a team a' troops a while ago to check the place out, and all we've heard of 'em since is screamin'. Ah knew yer workin' on a new gun, but we got one we want ya ta try out, too. An' you better be lookin' yer best. We gon' have quite a few camera drones followin' ya. Now, I told the boys in marketin', I said, the commercials you boys cooked up are real good, but if y'all really wanna sell some guns, get some shots of 'em in action."
"Tell me you're not sending me in there with a prototype."
"Boy, do you really think we'd risk onea our most valuble assets by sendin' 'em into some ancient ruins with a gun we ain't thrown through the wringer? We done field-tested it a few times, and lemme tell you, you gon' posi-tively splatter whatever's down there."
"Thank God. Since when did this company stop being owned by idiots?"
"Can ah tell ya somethin', Axton? Company's always been owned by numbskulls. Armond Dahl is barely sixteen years old. Ain't got a hair on his chest. But, if ya get my meanin', Armond don't run mucha this company. Me an' a few others got hired 'bout five years ago ta clean up the place."
"Smart move."
"That ain't the half of it, boy. Now get ready. That Key fragment ain't gon' collect itself."
Axton smiled to himself as the call ended. He looked across the workshop at a human shape hanging from a crane arm, a tarp thrown over it. Curious, he strode over to it, throwing the tarp off. A childlike grin spread across his face.
"Oh, my God." he said.
Axton's dropship flew down from the Gethsemane atmosphere, approaching what looked like an industrial digsite. Camera drones hovered around him, getting shots of the calm before the storm.
"The tomb's just down there. Hope yer ready for a fight, boy." the Warden said over Axton's Echo. "When ya get down there, find Maurice. He's got that gun we want ya ta use."
Axton just grinned to himself. He flexed his fingers, watching as the exosuit's metal fingers flexed with him. This wasn't the industrial exoskeletons used by Hyperion's engineers. It wasn't the bulky Maliwan walking tank-suits. In the right hands, it was a lot more dangerous. This suit had lightweight armor plating over a neuro-linked endosuit. When Axton's brain fired neurons telling him to move his arm a certain way, the suit did the same. His limbs were powered by hydraulics. If he needed to, Axton could punch straight through a concrete wall. He was far more mobile, too. He had anti-grav thrusters and magnetic locks on the suit's feet. If he needed to, he could fight in the void of space completely unhindered. He couldn't fly with the thrusters, but he could jump ten feet in the air and land completely unharmed.
But the best part was the rotor cannon on his shoulder.
It wasn't as powerful as his turret, sure, but the fact that he had a small minigun on his shoulder made him feel like he could take on Terramorphous alone and still come out on top. It was auto-aiming, auto-firing, auto-loading. Axton had asked the Warden why he'd never seen suits like it employed in the field. The Warden just told him that each suit cost one hundred and four million dollars.
The dropship landed, and Axton got out, his assault rifle in his hands as he looked arouond. He saw a small tent with the Dahl logo on it and approached it. He saw a few men wearing combat armor. He recognized them as fellow commandos.
"I'm Axton. The Warden sent me. Said I was supposed to talk to Maurice." he said to the men. His exosuit's helmet switched to thermal vision, and he saw two men inside the tent as well as the men outside of it.
"That's me." one of the commandos said. Maurice was a small, wiry man-only about 5'7. He wore sunglasses and sported a beard. Maurice opened up a large black box, grabbing a gun unlike anything Axton had seen before and handing it to him. "This belongs to you."
Axton let his rifle hang at his side, admiring the new firearm in his hands.
"Dahl shotguns never sold real well, but the boys at the top done made some changes to 'em, and I can honestly say I think we got the best scatterguns in the market today. That ain't just me sayin' that 'cause Dahl hired me, neither. I used to work for Jakobs, and Torgue 'fore that. I know my shotguns, and believe you me, you gon' like this one." the Warden said over Axton's Echo.
Under his helmet, Axton grinned.
"Maurice, you're invited to my wedding. Or funeral, whichever comes first. I assume I'm supposed to go that way?" Axton said, gesturing to the dig site. A large structure featuring Eridian architecture jutted out from the ground, unearthed by Dahl's digging machines.
"Yes sir. And if you find any survivors in there, you bring 'em out safe."
Axton looked at him.
"I will. Count on it." he said before heading towards the tomb.
He knew what it felt like to be in Maurice's shoes. To be a soldier, just following orders. Just doing a job. He thought about how many Hyperion troops he'd killed on Pandora. How many soldiers just following orders and just doing a job he'd shot. Judging by all the soldiers, special ops forces, and engineers he'd interrogated, though...he didn't think there were that many. Not on Pandora, at least.
Axton approached the tomb complex, two camera drones following his every move. There was a pretty clear way in. A massive entrance was in the side of the huge, pyramid-like building, flanked by two ancient Eridian statues. He entered the darkness, switching his helmet optics to night vision.
He didn't make it twenty feet before the floor dropped out from under him.
He fell down into darkness, panicking for a moment before he regained composure. He saw, about thirty feet down, a slope, leading into let further darkness. He landed neatly on it, sliding down the slope and dropping into an enormous dome-like room.
The first thing he saw was a body. Then another, then another.
He looked down at the mangled corpses of the Dahl recon team. He saw severed limbs, heads. Gutted torsos. If he didn't know better, he would have thought Zer0 had done all the killing.
Then, his shoulder cannon saved his life.
It turned, sensing movement behind him. Axton instinctively dove to the side, watching as a light-construct spear passed through the air where he had just been standing. He looked back at what threw it.
It was an Eridian.
He'd only ever seen one before, at Athena's execution. Well, attempted execution. This wasn't the same one, though. It had a greenish tint to it. It clutched two light-construct scimitars, and its mask-face was angled low, as if scowling at him.
"You are not supposed to be here." the alien said, charging at Axton. His shoulder gun fired round after round at the Eridian, but the alien creature projected a forcefield around itself with a wave of its hand, and the bullets just pinged right off of it.
"I don't want to fight you!" Axton said, dodging a two-pronged sword attack.
"Then stop resisting. Your death will be painless if you do. I cannot guarantee such if you continue this foolishness."
"Where's the Key fragment?" Axton said, his anti-grav thrusters boosting him a few meters away from the alien creature.
"You will not defeat me." the alien said, not bothering to answer the question. "And even if you do, your feeble mind could not withstand even the first of the Trials."
"I don't want to have to fight you, but all this cryptic alien shit is really starting to piss me off!" Axton said, ducking and weaving as the alien attempted to disembowel and decapitate him. The camera drones hovered about, dodging and weaving between the two to get the best shots of the action.
Axton pulled the trigger of his shotgun, aiming it for the alien's center mass.
The gun didn't shoot buckshot or solid slugs. It didn't fire plasma or laser blasts. It didn't appear to have an element.
Instead, the gun fired what looked like a miniaturized black hole.
The projectile shattered the alien's forcefield, but the creature somehow avoided the blast. The Eridian disabled his shoulder gun with a well-placed sword thrust. Then, its blades slashed out, destroying the camera drones. The alien kicked Axton to the ground and pounced at him, blades aimed for his heart.
He saw the alien's swords enter his chest.
He felt...
Nothing.
He stared at the meter-long blades sticking out of his chest, the alien who crouched above him seeming equally as confused. Axton reached for one with his left hand, but his fingers just passed right through the blade.
"You are no mere intruder. It seems you are destined to hold the key, Axton the Commando." the alien said, standing up. The light-blades dissolved. The Eridian turned from Axton, walking away from him. Axton stood, running after the alien.
"Wait just a minute. Why didn't I die just then? Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, obviously." Axton shouted.
"My weapons cannot harm those who are fated to enter the Vault of Souls. The Key fragment is yours. When all is done, ensure it is kept safe. I shall come to reclaim it." the alien said, holding out a hand as ashes burned into existence in the air, coming together and forming what looked like an entangling of wires constructed from stone. Eridian runes covered the thing, and it glowed with a soft purple light.
The alien outstretched his arm, offering it to Axton.
"This belongs to you now."
Axton didn't quite know what to say. He just took it. The alien waved a hand, and Axton saw a flash of light before he was back on the surface of Gethsemane, holding the Key fragment and wondering what the hell just happened.
"Warden?" Axton Echoed in.
"You all right, son? We saw them camera drones get destroyed by that freak-a-zoid 'Ridian."
"I'm fine." he replied.
Axton grinned, looking at the Eridian artifact.
"I'm ready to open the Vault."