Songs: Iron & Wine - Slow Black River; The Prodigy - Breathe

We got back to the camp and I was still shaken about what happened. About how close I had come to losing Mordecai and how that was still possible if we couldn't find an antidote fast enough.

"What, did you think I'd leave my flank exposed to counterattack? That's basic military strategy. I already reinforced that door with three feet of solid tritanium, you dumb-dumbs. Point, Hector!" Hector echoed us the instant we got back to the camp. I helped Mordecai sit down somewhere sheltered.

"This guy's a four-star asshole, but again, he's right. That gate's too thick for me to phase through. Come on back to camp, and we'll figure it out."Lilith told the Vault Hunters. She looked at Mordecai and me.

"I'm gonna go and get Zed, you guys wait here." she said.

"Thanks, Lil." I answered with a weak voice. She gave me a reassuring smile and disappeared. I knew it was a fake smile. Lilith usually put on some fake confidence in situations like that and I couldn't possibly blame her.

"Hi, uh... I'm Vaughn." I suddenly heard a voice behind me. I turned around and saw a small guy standing there. He had glasses on, messy brown hair and a beard. So he was the guy from Helios that we had been doing recon on. I recognized the face and stature, they were pretty unique.

"Hi Vaughn." I answered with a smile.

"Is... is he okay?" he wanted to know.

"Not really. I hope he will be, though." I said, squeezing Mordecai's hand in my own. He looked down at both of us.

"I'm right here, you know?" he replied and coughed violently.

"How are you feeling, Mordy? Really?" I wanted to know.

"The recoil hit me right in the ribs again. I think one of them hit my leg. Feeling kinda dizzy, not sure if that's from the leg wound, from being infected or because I'm really tired." he told me.

"That sounds bad. You'll be okay, though. Lilith's gone to get Zed over here, he can help you with most of that, hopefully. Vault Hunters should be back any second, hopefully we can make a plan to get that antidote as soon as possible." I said.

"Okay, that's... that's good."

"So, uhm... you guys been going out for a long time?" Vaughn suddenly chimed in. He was probably trying to lighten the mood and make some small talk, but damn, was he bad at it. At least he tried, though.

"About six years. Or seven? I don't know at this stage." Mordecai answered and coughed. I raised an eyebrow.

"More like one or two years. We weren't really going out back then."

"Yeah, we were."

"We were friends with benefits or whatever."

"Yeah, almost the same thing. Fact is, we both had a crush on each other at the time, so it counts, right?"

"I dunno..."

"Oh my God, it doesn't count unless you had the talk. Zed, there's Mordecai. Knock yourself out, but don't hurt him." Lilith chimed in. She had just gotten back and Zed was following her, an almost childish smile on his face. Of course he was looking forward to this. As I looked up, I could see the Vault Hunters approaching the camp.

"They're back." I said to Lilith. She nodded.

"Yo, killers. Over here." she echoed them. They came jogging over to us, looking pretty exhausted from the fight.

"Anyone got a quick plan on how to get through that door right now?" Lilith asked. No one said anything. She sighed and shrugged.

"Guess that's a no. Okay, how about we all go and take some time to come up with an idea. Don't take too long, though." she said to them.

"Vault Hunters! Could you help me out with a recruitment drive?" Vaughn blurted out, once Lilith was finished. She gave him an annoyed look which made the poor man flinch a little. Lilith really didn't like it when someone questioned her authority.

"I mean, they're not gonna come up with anything by just sitting around and being miserable." he said quietly. Lilith sighed again.

"Fine. I guess you're right. They're all yours." she said.

"Cool. So, that attack pretty much killed or mutated my whole clan, the Helios Hellions. Could you show the bandits in the area that we're the best by, y'know, slaying enemy bandit leaders and staking claim to their territory? Basic stuff. That's a real let down. There were some tough ol' bastards in the crew... But hey! Comes with the territory, right? Bandit liiiife!" Vaughn said to the other Vault Hunters while Lilith went to sit down. She buried her head in her hands and just stayed like that.

"Sure. I can go and do that. Anyone coming with me?" Anouk offered. I raised an eyebrow. I felt like I should be going with her on that. But I also didn't want to leave Mordecai behind. What if this was the last bit of time I could spend with him?

"Nova, you go with Anouk." Lilith suddenly said from her place. I gave her a surprised look. Why did she think that was a good idea?

"She's right, Nova. I know you'll only be miserable sitting here and worrying 'bout me. Go and kill bandit chiefs with your daughter. Show her the real Pandora experience. It'll distract you." Mordecai agreed.

"But... I can't leave you now... what if..."

"No. Whatever you're gonna say, it's not gonna happen. I'm gonna be fine. We'll find a way to get that antidote and I'll be fine. Go and do this, alright?" he said. I mean, he was right, but I'd feel really bad leaving him behind.

"Alright then... but if you get worse, echo me. Okay? I'll come back and I'll stay with you. Promise me you'll tell me."

"I promise. Now go and do the thing, alright?" Mordecai said.

"Okay, so. What do you want us to do, Vaughn?" I asked.

"Cool, see those banners up on the tower? Go, pick them up, then place them somewhere else. I'm sending you the locations in a minute." Vaughn told us. I nodded and looked up to the tower. There was a ladder, so at least it would be easy to get up there.

"I'll go and get them." I told Anouk and jogged over to the stairs leading up to the ladder. It didn't take me long to get all the way up there, remove the two flags, roll them up and take them down, so Anouk could pack them up.

"Here you go. Fly our colors over your victories so everyone knows it was us!" Vaughn said proudly as we left for the first location on our map. It was in the Dahl Abandon. Looked like we had quite a long way to go.

"Let's get a car for this. It'll take us hours otherwise. I don't wanna be away for too long." I told Anouk. She nodded and waited for me as I quickly went through the motions of digistructing my personal favourite type of car. Hearing Scooter's voice from the Catch-A-Ride station still made me feel quite upset. Once the car was digistructed, we hopped in.

"Hey, I'm sorry for what happened." Anouk said.

"It's alright. Stuff like that happened a million times at this stage already, I just... I just get worried every single time still." I replied.

"Yeah, no shit. I'd get worried, too. Anyone would get worried. I mean, did you see the state Lilith was in? She's done nothing but worry, since the whole thing went down." Anouk answered. I nodded.

"Yeah, she does that a lot. She thinks everything's her fault, when it's not. She takes stuff like that really hard. But well. At least you're safe for now, though. I was worried when we were all scattered around the place." I said.

"I know. I was worried, too. And I still haven't heard from Jael." Anouk replied. Oh shit. I had completely forgotten about her.

"My Helios Hellions used to be called the Children of Helios, but it sounded a little... culty? So we did some rebranding. The guys were pretty excited about it, until I told them there weren't any actual branding irons involved." Vaughn echoed us, as we got out of the car. Time to get to the camp.

"Yeah, that's Pandora for you." I answered as we made our way into the camp. I saw the place where Vaughn probably wanted the flag.

"You want me to put the banner down over there?" I asked him.

"That's the spot! Now raise the flag so everyone knows this is our turf now!" he replied quickly.

"Alright. Anouk, can you cover me?" I asked, as I loaded up my shotgun and started running into the bandit camp. I could already hear the shots from her rifle and the screams from a few bandits, as I was placing the flag.

"This is our turf!" I could hear someone shouting and all of a sudden a crowd of bandits charged at me. A good few of them died on their way to me, because Anouk took them out quickly and efficiently.

"Defend the flag, Vault Hunter!" Vaughn echoed us.

"What do you think we're doing?" I replied while reloading my shotgun. Anyone who came up too close got a shotgun blast in their face. It took a few minutes until they were all dead, but we barely even broke a sweat. Maybe me going with Anouk wasn't such a bad idea after all. Seemed like we worked well together.

"Oh, you killed that guy so hard! On to the next one!" Vaughn said. I checked my ECHOmap for the second location.

"Alright, looks like the next one isn't very far from here. Let's head there and get this over with." I said to Anouk.

"Sounds good." she replied, as we climbed back into the car.

"So. Jael's probably gonna stay here on Pandora and with the Raiders. You okay with that?" I asked her. Anouk sighed.

"Yeah, I think so. It'll take some getting used to, but it'll be fine. Gives me an excuse to come visit more often. But I know she wouldn't be happy working for a corporation or anything like that." she answered.

"You like her a lot, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. I just... hope she's okay. Well and alive out there." Anouk told me. I smiled at her.

"She'll be fine. I don't know her as well as you do, but from what I know, she'll be able to lay low and get out of any situation. We'll try our best to find out where she is, okay?" I said and stopped the car.

"Are we here?" Anouk asked. I nodded.

"Same drill?"

"Sure."

I climbed out of the car with my shotgun in my hand while Anouk got her sniper rifle ready. We stood on top of some rocks for a while assessing the situation.

"You know what? I'll just run and gun through there and hope my shield will get me through. Once I'm up where the flag is, they won't be able to get to me that easily which should give me some time to deal with the bandit chief and then work my way back down." I said. Anouk nodded.

"Yeah, sounds good. Be careful."

"I'm always careful." I answered with a grin. Anouk raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that's why you have a robotic leg."

"Okay, that was, like, a Vault Monster which is completely different!"

"Whatever you say." Anouk said and laughed.

"Let's finish this." I replied and started running into the bandit camp. The place where Vaughn wanted the flag wasn't too far away, but there were a lot of bandits that just came running at me at full speed.

I did my best to dodge their bullets and quickly stomped up the stairs to the top of one of the buildings, so I could put down Vaughn's flag. My shield was almost depleted, but it should recharge soon.

"You know the drill! Fly that flag!" Vaughn echoed me, as I was at the flagpole. I quickly hung the flag up and turned back, just in time to see the bandit chief running at me.

"You ain't claimin' MY territory!" he screamed, as I shot at him with my shotgun. He was on his last leg when I had to reload my shotgun. Thankfully, my shield was back online and I could take a few shots. I did my best to reload quickly and managed to get it done just before my shield got depleted. I took him out with one clean shot.

"Alright, Vaughn, we're done here." I echoed back to the camp.

"Great! We already got some recruits showing up! Come on back, we need to initiate you too!" he said. Well, that wasn't part of the deal, but I guess it couldn't hurt to be part of a bandit clan. If you could call Vaughn's clan a bandit clan. It wasn't really. Not even when his people were still alive.

"Alright, let's go back. Vaughn wants to initiate us into his new clan or something." I said to Anouk as I came back to her. We got back in the car and quickly drove back to the camp. Thankfully we weren't too far out and the drive only took a few minutes. As we ran back into the camp, Vaughn walked towards us.

"Look at all these recruits! Fantastic. Now it's time for the initiation. Climb up there and follow my instructions!" he said to us and pointed at a few psychos and bandits standing there and waiting around. We went up the stairs and climbed the ladder to his initiation platform and met up with the other few people.

"Recruits! I... am the mighty bandit-king, Vaughn!" Vaughn shouted up at us from below the platform. Anouk and I exchanged a glance.

"Woo." one of the more normal looking recruits said unenthusiastically.

"Good effort, Jerry. Being a bandit means being tough as nails! Prove you've got what it takes by leaping off that thing! Vault Hunter, show 'em how it's done!" Vaughn said. Was he serious? We were supposed to jump off that thing? I sighed.

"What the hell, man." I mumbled and jumped down from the platform, making sure to land on my robotic leg. It hurt a little, but other than that I felt nothing. Good on me for having that leg. Anouk quickly followed me and rolled off on her back just before landing. It seemed to be pretty painful and her shield shattered in the process, but it looked like she'd survive with just a few scratches.

"How'd you do that without dying?" I asked her, as she sat up. She just shrugged and fumbled for a health vial.

"I'm used to a higher gravity, plus I did that rolling thing, so it wouldn't hurt too much." she replied.

"Well... if they can do it, so can I!" one of the recruits said.

"Yeah! They're not tougher than me!" another one agreed. We watched them jump off the platform quickly and get smashed into mush. It wasn't a pretty thing to watch and I wondered if Vaughn knew we'd have a shot at surviving this or if he just chanced the whole thing. He probably chanced it.

"Cooool." Vaughn commented, staring at the smashed corpses a little too long for comfort. He laughed nervously.

"Looks like they put the 'fall' in 'trust fall'! Heh. Wow, well, I am proud to welcome you to my new clan, The Vaughnguard! It's just you, though. Uh, you're the only survivors, but I guess two new clanmates is better than none, right? Anyway! Welcome to the clan! Here's your goodie bag!" he then said and handed each of us a small bag full of cash.

"Well. That was fun. Even though that's not how you recruit people." Anouk said and walked back to the rest of the group. That's when I got a message from Moxxi that went out to everyone.

"Hey, sugar. I've got something important for you."