"Remind me again why I couldn't take the exo-suit?" Axton asked. "That thing is incredible. I could kill the Vault Monster way easier with that thing."

"The experimental tech boys are workin' on a digistruct rig for it so y'don't have ta wear it everywhere." the Warden replied over the Echo. "'Sides, d'ya know how heavy that thing is? Yer in a submarine, fer cryin' out loud, d'ya really want more weight?" replied the Warden, over the submarine's comms unit.

"Who's idea was it to send it to them while I was about to enter a Vault?" Axton shot back.

"You were the one who set up this whole operation, Axton. You really shoulda thought about this."

"I'd still feel a lot safer with it."

"You'd be feelin' a whole lotta water in yer lungs."

"Still, though." Axton added.

Axton sat in the pilot seat of a Dahl Monger-class submarine pod. Its floodlights scoured the ocean floor, looking for any piece of Eridian architecture he could find. Three black briefcases, each containing a piece of the Vault Key, sat on the ground next to his pilot's chair. He was at the exact coordinates that Tannis sent him. He should have seen the Vault by now. He remembered the final confrontation with Jack, how the Warrior didn't reveal itself until after the key was assembled.

He opened the briefcases, finding the pieces of the Vault Key. In one was the cluster of wires he'd gotten from the Eridian on Gethsemane. In the other briefcases were two halves of a sphere, with dozens of small ports on their interiors. He slowly assembled it, admiring the Eridian artifact in his hands. Along the sides where the sphere had split were indentations and teeth, made to fit together. Axton held the wires between the two halves. The artifact in his hands then acted of its own accord. The stone wires moved, writhing towards the other pieces. The ends of the wires each found one of the ports to plug into, and then the wires pulled tight, slamming the sphere shut. The lines where indentation met gear vanished entirely, replaced with smooth stone. The Eridian runes on it began to glow purple, and he held the Key in his hands, admiring it for a moment before he felt the whole submersible shake. Holding onto the Key with one hand, he stood, looking out of the window to see what was happening.

The seafloor was moving. Sand, coral, and rocks were pushed out of the way as massive insectoid legs, shaped from stone and glittering with purple veins, emerged from the ocean floor. The beast was huge, bigger than the Warrior. It was a large, craboid-like creature, with ten distinct legs, a massive finned tail, and two pairs of pincers. Four eyes stood out from stone stalks. Eridian runes covered the thing, and the dark ocean floor was alight with a purple glow.
The creature inspected the tiny submersible for a moment. Axton was transfixed by the creature, utterly failing to pilot the sub as the beast suddenly lunged forward, swallowing it whole. Axton saw darkness and then nothing at all as the submersible was crushed and his lungs filled with water.

When he woke up, Axton was falling. The world around him was gone, replaced with black emptiness. He saw nothing around him, nothing above him, nothing below him except empty void.

Then, he fell onto a massive slope. It was utterly smooth and reflective, like glass. He tried to cling to it, tried driving his nails into it to slow his fall, but nothing worked. He slid down the massive slope, falling off of it. When he looked up at it, he saw that he had fallen on a massive reconstruction of Zer0's helmet. Soon it faded into the void. Then, he looked below him, seeing a massive Jack mask staring up at him. He plummeted towards the mask, putting his arms out in front of him instinctively, but when he hit the mask, he broke through it and it shattered like glass. As he fell, he saw a massive buzz axe flying through the air, only to be caught by Salvador's disembodied arm. He fell right between a massive pair of Deathtrap arms as they gave an impossibly loud thunder clap. He saw Bloodwing and Talon flying with a burning hawk. The birds perched on a miniaturized version of the Hyperion moonbase and the hawk spread its wings around Elpis, completely encasing it.

The, he saw a purple aura around his body, and his fall slowed. He felt himself lowered down onto solid ground. The aura disappeared, and he looked around. He stood on a square platform, clearly Eridian in design, in the middle of the great void. He looked above him. All of the things he had seen while he fell were gone. He fell to the ground, exhausted, and dragged himself to the edge of the platform to dry-heave into the void. When he was finished, he rolled onto his back, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to regain his composure.

Is any of this even happening? he thought. Did I die?

He opened his eyes again, seeing an Eridian standing above him.

"Stand." the alien said. This one resembled the guardian of Jocasta's tomb, but with a slightly blue tint, though its voice was almost kinder, and this one wasn't holding a pair of weapons.

"Who the hell are you? Where am I? What was all of that?" Axton asked. A million questions were racing through his mind now, and he hoped this strange being could answer all of them.

"You may call me the Keeper, Axton." the Eridian replied. "You have journeyed far to come to the Vault of Souls. But your journey is not yet over." Axton stood, his expression changing between confused, angry, and irritated.

"Will you stop it with all this cryptic nonsense?" said Axton, standing. "Just tell me what I have to do!"

The alien let out a sound that resembled a laugh. "As you wish." It raised its hand, and massive slabs of eridium suddenly flew up from the void, encasing the platform in walls. Then, part of a wall lowered, making a doorway of sorts, into a hallway made from purple glowing eridium.

"Go." the Gatekeeper said. "What you seek is on the other side."

Axton hesitantly walked through the doorway, looking back over his shoulder to see that the Eridian had disappeared. He continued on, walking for a while and finding two different paths to take.

"Oh, God, I hate mazes." he said to himself, choosing the left pathway. It seemed that the maze was endless. All of the hallways looked the same. He tried holding his hand against the left wall as he walked. He knew it would eventually lead him out of the maze. He counted his steps, walking for what seemed like hours until he realized he was going in circles.

He screamed in frustration. He'd lost everything except the clothes on his back after the monster ate his sub. He didn't have his turrets, his guns, not even his backpack. He reached to his side, trying to grab his hatchet, when he realized that it wasn't there either.

"Aw, man! Axton-dude! How ya been?" he heard a voice he never thought he'd hear again shout. He looked around, seeing nothing. The voice spoke from behind him.

"Hey! I'm right here, dude." Axton spun around, raising his eyebrows in shock.

"Scooter?" said Axton. He looked at the Eridium wall, seeing Scooter where his reflection should have been. "How are you here?"

"Uhh, yeah. Well, sparin' a lotta the details, it's me, but, uh, it ain't really me." The revenant paused, rubbing the back of his head with oily hands. "Man, I guess that don't make a lotta sense, does it?"

"Not really, Scooter." Axton replied, giving him a smile.

"Aww, man! Did you get that fer me?" Scooter said, pointing to Axton's arm and the tire tattoo on it.

"Yeah. I missed you, man." offered Axton.

"Well, let me tell you what. That is bad freakin' ass! Oh, you got one fer Roland and Lily too? Aww, man. They gon' love it. Aw, but you gonna see them later on, y'know, and stuff."

"I'm gonna what?" Axton shot, a little more forcefully than he meant. Scooter rubbed the back of his head again.

"Oh, uh, whoops. I can't say. But, uh, man, let me tell you. Helpin' you kick Jack's ass was onea the best things I ever did, you hear?" Scooter said, grinning and adjusting his grease-stained hat.

"Yeah," Axton said, smiling back. "I hear."

"Well, I tell you what, amigo. I gotta go, but good luck! I'll be watchin' you, man!" Scooter flashed him a grin. "Catch-a-after death conversation between friends, ha-ha! Uh, yeah."

Axton blinked, and he was looking at a reflection of himself again. Then, he heard another voice.

"You know, bandit, it didn't have to be like this." Handsome Jack said. "I mean, you'd be dead, but at least you'd be in Hell with your bandit friends, right?"

Axton faced the reflection, frowning.

"You're dead," said Axton, "and I killed you."

"You - you don't even really know what the Vault of Souls is, do you?" Jack replied, laughing to himself. "'Course, I wouldn't have expected anything else from a child-killing lunatic who can't even read."

"Shut up. You're not really there. This is all...metaphorical, or a dream, or something stupid like that." Axton spat.

"Oh-hoh-hoh, go ahead and deny it all you want. Like you denied your girlfriend being dead." Axton said nothing, Jack grinning as Axton's face contorted into a hateful glare. "See, here's the difference between you and me. When I lost everything, it made me stronger. More determined. When you murdered my baby girl, it made me want to finish what I'd started more than I ever did." Jack began. "But when you lost the person that you loved, you did nothing but try to kill your liver with booze. I saw you, you know. I was watching the whole time you fell into that downward spiral. Let me tell if you something. If I ever sank as low as you, I would have put a gun in my mouth."

Axton aimed a punch at Jack's face, his fist encountering only solid eridium. When he looked to where Jack was, he saw only a reflection of himself. Then, he blinked again, and Jack was there once more.

"You're only going to hurt yourself, moron." Jack smirked. "You're alone in here. But me?" he said, raising his hands. "I've made a lot of friends."

Each time Axton blinked, he saw more and more figures appear. Captain Flynt carrying his anchor, his chest bleeding and riddled with bullet holes.

"Long time no see, grinder!" He screamed, apparently not noticing the fatal wounds the Vault Hunters had dealt him years ago. He saw the Sheriff of Lynchwood grinning at him even as the bullet hole in her forehead leaked blood down her face and into her mouth, staining her smile crimson. He saw Wilhelm, barely recognizable past all the burned flesh and scar tissue. He saw Hunter Hellquist, carrying his own head in his hands. He saw Mobley and Gettle, Incinerator Clayton, Bad Maw and his midgets, Savage Lee, Boll. He saw Mortar and Mad Dog, Boom and Bewm, Smash-Head and Laney White. He saw the Hodunks and the Zafords. He saw the four assassins side-by-side with Foreman Jasper. They were all riddled with bullet holes, carrying severed limbs, disemboweled, on fire. He saw them all featuring the wounds that killed them, yet still very much alive.

Handsome Jack smiled, blood leaking out of the holes in his mask. Worse than seeing those he killed, he saw the ones he failed to save. He saw a young girl, barely eight years old, her face gaunt and pale, a noose hanging from her neck.

"Why didn't you save me, Axton?" She asked, staring up at him.

He saw his old squadmate Harper, his left eye replaced with a gaping wound that leaked blood and grey matter.

"You told me it was clear, Axton." Harper said.

Axton stumbled back, bumping into another reflection of a man with half a body. His left arm and leg were missing and his entire left half was horribly burned.

"You were supposed to rescue me!" the corpse-man said.

Axton looked around, surrounded by his own failures. All of these people he remembered from his service with Dahl. He saw men he'd shot, dying squadmates he couldn't revive, civillians he'd been forced to shoot. He saw burned corpses, mangled bodies, mounds of lifeless innocents. All around him he heard the ghosts scream at him, some taunting, others begging.

"You're ALONE, grinder!"

"You should have died on Yvris, not me!"

"You're a plague, bandit!"

"Why did you let the bad men do this, Axton?"

"I didn't even have a gun. You didn't have to kill me."

"They tortured me for hours, Axton. You were supposed to rescue me."

"Stop it!" Axton screamed. "I'm sorry! STOP!" He shut his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears as memories screamed at him, begging him for mercy or asking why he killed them. Why he couldn't have saved them. Why he wasn't there. Why he didn't do better. He stumbled blindly away, opening his eyes only to see a horde of his past failures surrounding him, covering every wall around him. He pounded his fists against the wall, trying to drown out the noise with his own screams and the pain of his knuckles impacting solid metal.

"Shut UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" he screamed, clamping his eyes shut.

"You know, has-been..." he heard one of the ghosts say. "...I have killed a lot of people. But sucking the life out of your girlfriend?"

Axton opened his eyes, staring at Troy Calypso who now stood before him. The ghosts from before were silent now, staring with hungry grins as Troy taunted him.

"That was probably my best work." The God-King said.

Axton grit his teeth and slammed his fist into the reflection of Troy's face with a scream of exertion. He knew it wouldn't do anything, but still he tried. He punched the reflective metal again, and his knuckles began to bleed. Again and again he hit the reflection of the half-Siren, who only sneered and smiled as one of Axton's fingers broke. He screamed in pain and hit the metal again, and when he pulled his fist away, he saw Troy's smile falter. There was a small crack in the wall. Axton's eyes widened, and he threw all his strength into the next blow. The crack widened, and though lances of pain were shooting through Axton's arm, he hit the wall again.

The wall shattered. Troy screamed as his reflection was reduced to shards of purple glass and dust on the ground. In the rubble of the wall, Axton saw a cracked reflection of the half-Siren's face, forever locked in a silent scream. The inside of his mouth then began to glow with an orangish light, which soon spread to his eyes and skin. His screams amplified, and when Axton looked up, he saw the other ghosts consumed in fire. The bandits and killers and dead things were burning, and even Handsome Jack's mask was alight. From behind the eridum wall they were burning, and though he knew that nothing here was real, he still felt the heat. Axton put a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the brightness. When he opened them again, he saw not a horde of corpses, but a pair of friends.

"Hey, killer." Lilith said, flashing him a friendly smile.

Axton said nothing, not really sure of what to say.

"Calm down, soldier." Roland said. "It's alright."

For a moment, Axton was quiet. Then, he spoke. "I don't understand any of this. Why do I keep seeing these things?"

Roland and Lilith only smiled.

"Axton, you won't understand for a long, long time. But we missed you." Lilith said. "Coulda used your help against the Calypsos, by the way." She flashed him a friendly smirk. Axton felt his unease melt, if only slightly.

"You could have given me a call, you know." he replied. "I'm still a Crimson Raider, even after all this time."

"You know, I didn't even think of that." said Lilith. "Besides, have you seen these new guys? They're good."

"I haven't met them yet."

"You'll like 'em." she added.

"I'm sure I will." finished Axton.

"Look, soldier." Roland interjected. "We don't have a lot of time here. We gotta go soon, but we just wanted to warn you. You might not make it out of this place."

"I knew that coming in." Axton replied. "Is...is she going to appear to me too?" he asked.

Lilith flashed him a sad smile. "No. We're...actually the last. That reminds me. We have to go now. It was good catching up, though."

"Taking down Jack by your side was an honor." Roland said. "You're a good man."

"Likewise." Axton said, smiling at his two friends.

"See you when the stars go out, killer." Lilith said, pressing her hand against the eridium wall. Roland did likewise.

Axton moved to do the same, but when his hands touched the wall, the reflections vanished. The eridium wall cracked, then shattered into a million pieces. Around him, the maze collapsed, the walls cracking and falling into the void, and Axton was standing on the platform, back where he'd begun. The Keeper stood a few feet away from him.

"Memories are a powerful thing." the alien said. "Give in to them, and you too will fade away."

"Why...why did you show me all of that?" Axton asked, more than a little upset and confused by what he'd seen in the maze.

"I showed you nothing." the Eridian replied. "The echoes of the past remain strong here. They chose to appear to you."

Axton said nothing, trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened so far.

"I wonder, what kind of echo will you leave here?" the alien mused. "Perhaps it is time to find out."

Axton was smacked to the ground by what felt like a boulder slamming into his back. He screamed in pain, looking behind him. He saw a Siren standing on a chunk of Eridum that hovered in midair. She was tall, taller than him. She had long red hair that draped down the ground. She wore golden robes which hid most of her body. Unlike all of the Sirens he'd seen before, though, this one had tattoos on the left side of her face. On her left hand was what looked like an Eridian relic in the shape of a stone gauntlet, with purple veins and runes running through it.

"You are not worthy of the power this place holds." the Siren said. "You are not one of us. You are weak, and the Fist will destroy you." She clenched the stone gauntlet into a fist and the floor came up from below Axton, sending him flying through the air and crashing onto the ground.

"Perhaps I should destroy you first." he heard the Siren say.

Axton fought to stay conscious, slowly dragging himself to his feet. His entire body screamed in protest. The Siren lowered herself onto the ground, kicking him to ground again and planting her foot to his neck, putting pressure on his throat. Axton choked, watching the Siren smile at him as he struggled to breathe. He grabbed her ankle, his arms burning with exertion as he tore her foot off of him. The Siren was thrown off balance, crashing to the ground next to him. He tried his best to respond quickly, pulling himself to his feet and aiming a kick at her ribs while she fought to stand up.

"Stop!" She screamed, eyes glowing blue as a stone wall emerged from the floor, protecting her from the kick. Axton felt the ground below him disappear. The Siren had moved the rock in the platform, forming a massive pit underneath him with nothing but her mind. Axton grabbed the edge of the pit, struggling to haul himself out. The Siren stood, grinning down at him.

"You have spirit, certainly." she said. "How long can you hold yourself there, I wonder?"

Axton grit his teeth, grabbing her ankle with one hand and yanking her down into the pit. As she fell, he took the opportunity to climb back up to the platform, but she rose again on a pillar of eridium only a moment later. She launched herself at him with renewed vigor, and it was all Axton could do to keep up. They traded blows, the Siren giving just as good as she got. He'd given her a broken nose even as she kicked him in the gut. His hands grabbed her left arm, reaching for the artifact, but she reached out and punched it into his face. The force of the blow was like being hit by a train. He was launched back several feet, landing on his chest, but somehow found the strength to push himself up. He spat blood as he rose, coughing once, then came for her again.

"Give it to me!" he screamed, and she raised her fists up to guard her face, but instead he drove a knee into her gut. She doubled over in pain, and he brought his knee up into her nose. Now she was the one on the floor, and Axton took the opportunity to yank the stone gauntlet off of her hand. When she looked up at him, her glare of hatred had faded, instead replaced with an impressed look.

"Who are you trying to save?" she asked. Her long red hair draped to the ground as she picked herself up again.

"Why does it matter to you?" he shot back, the runic fist still in his hands.

"Because I was after the Fist too, not so long ago." she stated, and there was something distant and longing in her voice.

Axton narrowed his eyes at her. "Jocasta?"

The Siren nodded. "The same."

"I'm Axton." he said. Axton paused, looking down at the Fist. "I want to bring back the woman I love."

"An honorable goal. When I lived, I too sought to reclaim a lost love. But..." she trailed off.

"But what?" he spat at her.

"You are no Siren, Axton." she warned. "If you wear the Fist - if you do bring back the one you love - you will surely die."

Ignoring her warnings, Axton instictively put the stone gauntlet on, then screamed in pain as the artifact burned his bare skin.

"Ah, you poor thing." Jocasta said.

He felt an intense burning pain everywhere, as if his very soul were being burned away by the immense power in the artifact. The only thing keeping him from ripping it off was the thought of Maya's blue hair waving gently in the breeze, the way she barely left any footprints when she walked, the way she would smile at him when he told a bad joke...

"Stop this, Axton." Jocasta said. "You are going to die."

Axton clenched his teeth as the white-hot pain seared through his body. He thought about Maya. He remembered the say she'd never hesitated to help the impoverished citizens of Sanctuary. He remembered the kind look on her face when she talked to the orphaned children of Pandora. He thought about how instead of treasure seeking or mercenary work, she had gone to her home planet to protect the innocent and mentor an orphan and all he'd done was shoot people for money.
Axton opened his eyes and saw his veins glowing blue underneath his skin. It felt as if they were on fire. He looked at Jocasta, and though the Eridian artifact was turning his skin to ash and burning away his very soul, he managed to choke out what he thought would be his last three words.

"Fine by me."

Axton closed his eyes, his world going dark and his body going numb.

He heard waves lapping against a shore and felt sand on his skin. His entire body ached, though somehow, he opened his eyes. He saw her kneeling above him, tears running down her cheeks.

Axton raised his right hand, touching her cheek. "Are you...real?" he asked.

Her mouth widened into a grin. "Of course I'm real, stupid." Maya said, wrapping her arms around him and pulling herself into him.

The two embraced, tears forming in their eyes as they buried their heads in each other's shoulders. He smiled, pressing his lips to hers. They cupped each other's faces in their hands, closing their eyes. After a long moment, Maya pulled away, still smiling as her grey eyes met his.

"You know, I took chastity vows forbidding that kind of thing." she said.

"Were they the until death kind?" he offered in reply, smiling at her, and she gave a quiet laugh.

"I can't believe you actually did all that for me." she said.

"I had no choice," he said, looking around. They were on a beach somewhere. Around them, Axton saw the metal remains of the Dahl submarine. There was no sign of the Vault Key anywhere, but Axton didn't care. Maya reached out and wiped a tear away from his glittering eye. He pulled her into him and kissed her forehead. She let one of her hands reach behind him and slid her fingers into his wet hair.

"Do you think we should get out of here?" Axton asked. "Maybe take a vacation?"

"I think we should see a movie." Maya replied. "Like our first date."

"Oh yeah? I have one in mind, actually. I think you'll like it." said Axton, and he kissed her.