Songs: Status Quo - In The Army Now; The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary

"I think we made it through to the engine room of Sanctuary now. It's difficult to tell with all those damn vines all over the place. There's a bunch of infected bandits in here, too." I updated Lilith while I was behind cover to reload my sniper rifle.

"Find Hector. I'm on my way." Lilith told us. That was easier said than done, because we literally had no clue where Hector was. We barely had an idea where we were, so there was our first problem.

"Enjoy your last breaths, Raiders. I can feel the roots of paradise takin' hold." Hector echoed us. God, I really wanted to finally kill him. He was annoying me so much, I wasn't even sure why he got to me so much. Maybe it was because he was threatening Pandora. After all, it had been my home for over 15 years. Maybe it was because he almost got Mordecai killed. Maybe it was because he somehow reminded me of Jack with his constant teasing. Probably a combination of all those things.

"Tracking ya, VH. Looks like you're in the bowels of Sanctuary. Get ready for a right-powerful stink!" Ellie echoed us right after that. It was good to hear her voice again and it was good to know we were in the right place.

"Hi Ellie, good to know, we weren't quite sure. Thanks for the input." Axton echoed her back while he was busy dealing with an infected psycho.

"Better hurry. Sanctuary's spewing spores like a toddler on a bender. Ain't condoning it, but I've seen it." Ellie replied.

"Can you get any data on the engines? They don't really sound good. Like, they sound worse than usual." I told her. The engine sound had me quite worried at the moment. It would be a shame if Sanctuary came down while we were trying to save it. Even worse was that it would probably kill us.

"Working on it. Something is definitely up with them. I'm glad Scooter's not around to see Sanctuary like this. If that overblown gas-man Hector vined up her engines, so help me I am gonna smother him to death under a single tit." Ellie answered. I chuckled at the mental imagery.

"I'd pay to see that..." I mumbled.

"Those vines are mucking up my gears. Give 'em the old chopped salad, V-H!" Ellie said. She sounded pretty pissed.

"Shit, I see them. They're all electrified." Anouk replied. I looked up and saw what she meant. Those vines were huge!

"Maya, Gaige, you take the right vine! Anouk and I will take the left one!" I shouted over the sound of bandits dying.

"Hey, what about us?" Axton protested.

"I don't know, don't you have bandits to kill or something?" I replied. We had almost managed to get rid of all the vines.

"We're done over here!" Gaige shouted at me, as we managed to get rid of the last vine that was blocking the gears.

"Same over here!" I replied.

"You gotta stop Hector. A bunch of trees and breathable air and flowers on Pandora? It's not right, I tell ya! That ain't what Scooter woulda wanted!" Ellie said through the ECHO as we continued to make our way upwards.

"Slightly bad news, everyone." Tannis echoed next. Oh no. I didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Shit, what is it, Tannis?" I asked.

"I don't have time to mass produce the antidote. If you do not stop Hector from releasing the gas, he will cause a planetary mass extinction. I figured we had, at minimum, six or seven years before something like that." she answered. Well, shit. If that was slightly bad news for Tannis, I didn't wanna know what bad news meant. I figured planetary mass extinction was kinda high up on the bad scale.

We walked up some stairs and ended up in a somewhat familiar setting. There was a big glowing Dahl sign and in the room next to it there were loads of ammunition chests, shelves full with boxes and a crazy amount of safes. There was only one person in Sanctuary that would have that many safes.

"Guys, is this Marcus' place?" I asked.

"Yup." Axton said with a big fat grin on his face. Gaige giggled quietly.

"Remember... oh my God... remember when we ended up in the back of his shop one time and we stole all his shit?" she said with a smug grin on her face. Axton nodded quickly and grinned, before moving on.

As we walked through his storage we could see that there were vines on the walls as well. Not as many as down in the engine room, but still. Marcus wouldn't be happy about that, especially since Hector's men probably stole all his stuff, since they had been here. I almost felt bad for him.

"Hey Marcus, your shop is infested, by the way." I echoed him quickly, just to let him know. Maybe he could make his peace with that fact, before returning to Sanctuary. Which meant he wouldn't be grumpy for a few days.

"Vine-freaks in my armory? That's it! I'm not selling his soldiers any more weapons!" he answered immediately.

"What the fuck, Marcus? You sold them weapons?" Gaige replied, sounding as if she was genuinely shocked. Maybe she was, but I mean... knowing Marcus I almost expected something like this.

"I'm a businessman, young lady! How do you think I get the money to buy the weapons I'm selling you guys?" Marcus answered.

"You loot them from dead people." Gaige deadpanned.

"Yes, and some of the higher quality ones I... uh... acquire in other ways. I gotta make money somehow!" he protested. We made our way out of Marcus' shop and stepped into the streets. It didn't look too bad, there were lots of vines, but other than that, things seemed to be alright. Mostly.

There were vine freaks everywhere in the streets and we had to shoot our way through. Moxxi's bar was just ahead and since our way was blocked by vines we had to go through the bar. It was weird walking through there while literally no one else was around. It just didn't feel right.

"I can dig the vine décor, but the last thing my bar needs is a bunch of mindless freaks who can't keep their tentacles to themselves. Unless they're willing to pay for it." Moxxie echoed us, as we made our way through her bar.

"Ew." was the only thing Gaige commented. There were even more soldiers outside as we approached the town square. I don't know why, but it just felt so wrong to have these people in Sanctuary and to have the town square all overgrown with vines and empty, except for Hector's soldiers.

"Lil, this is terrible. Seeing them in the town square is terrible. Shit, I hope this goes well." I echoed her.

"Shit, I feel you. The Raiders are the only thing that ever brought this war-torn planet a shred of peace. Pandora's not perfect, but it deserves better." she replied.

"Well said."

"Hey, this antidote stuff is really working! I think I can walk again! My stalks feel great! Just kidding." Mordecai chimed in.

"Oh my God, really? You're feeling better?" I asked. It was difficult to believe since he didn't seem to get better that quickly when I left.

"Yeah, really. I feel like new, seriously." he answered. I sighed with relief and almost got hit by a bullet. My shield was alarmingly low. I quickly got into some cover to wait until my shield had been recharged.

"Hahaha! Alright. And after the Vault Hunters take Sanctuary, we're leaving Pandora! For real this time." Brick said. Fuck. Leaving Pandora? I knew we had done this whole thing once before, but I wasn't sure if I could do that just yet. But there were more important things to do right now. Like finding and killing Hector and finally getting Sanctuary back. Who knew? Maybe it wouldn't feel right to stay after everything that had happened. Maybe it would be easier this time.

"Yeah, we better! Y'all promised me on my next birthday we'd be on some weird-ass planet, with like, seven moons, crazy li'l critters, and cupcake mountains! Maybe I made up that last one. Tina hungry." Tina commented, just as my shields had finished recharging. I got up out of cover and saw that Zero seemed to be struggling with one of the infected guys. We were pretty much surrounded at this point.

"You alright up there?" Mordecai asked while I aimed at the guy attacking Zero, trying to ignore the bullets hitting my shield.

"We're managing. Somehow." I answered and pulled the trigger. Headshot. Good. Zero's helmet showed a smiley. I didn't hear any answer from Mordecai after that, just some background noise.

"The Vault Hunters need my help! That's it, I'm going up there!" I heard Mordecai's muffled voice.

"Uh uh uh! You are confined to bed rest, young man! Now drink your soup!" Tina protested loudly.

"Uh, Tina? This is just a photo of a rock with the word soup on it. You know that, right?"

"Don't you let that get cold, mister."

"Mordy, we're alright up here. Get your rest, we'll be fine." I said to him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I think there aren't many left at the moment. We're gonna be done here soon, okay?" I replied and walked up to the others who seemed to be done with all of them. There was no one else around, but us.

"Alright, so... where do you think Hector is?" I wanted to know as I walked up to them. Maya pointed at some stairs.

"ECHO signature says he's over there." she replied.

"What are we waiting for, then?" I said and started walking up the stairs. I was so done with all of this. I wanted to go back to Mordecai. I wanted to see for myself that he was doing better. I wanted to get a good night's sleep without any nightmares. That was all I wanted for now.

When we got to the top of the stairs, we realized that we'd have to climb down some vines to get to Hector. Thank God, it was easy to avoid the thorns on those vines. It seemed like Hector had surrounded himself by a wall of vines and plants and it was really difficult to get to him.

When we had made it down into his little plant fort, he was standing in the middle of some sprouting vines and turned around to us. He seemed a little surprised to see us after all, but quickly got back to his normal self - whatever that meant for him. He grinned at us and smashed some glass vial on his shoulder pad. It released some of the weird plant gas he'd been using on everyone.

When he breathed it in he was coughing heavily for a while. It was as if he hadn't really expected this whole thing to be painful. He didn't stop coughing and finally fell to the ground and lay there for a second. None of us were really sure whether that was it or not, but we weren't guessing for long.

A massive plant thing sprouted out of the ground with Hector in the middle of it. He practically was the plant. It had huge vines that he seemed to control and it looked near impossible to get through to him. Shit. This wasn't gonna be fun. We started firing all we had at him through the leaves and vines around him, until he completely closed up and was completely protected by his vines.

"Shit. Lilith, are you seeing this?" I asked her over the ECHO. That was when I saw a bright purple flash right next to me. Lilith had made it up to Sanctuary.

"I'm right here and yeah, this isn't good." she answered and looked at the massive vines that were separating us from the rest of the group.

"Guys, the flowers! Shoot the flowers!" Axton shouted from one of the other sections. I ran over to the vines and fired some bullets at the infected flowers. As soon as all of them were gone, the vine disappeared again. Lilith shrugged and got up in the air to start raining fire on the other tentacles. Soon enough the vines that had been protecting Hector opened up again and we could get some clear shots at him.

This whole thing repeated itself a few more times, but it seemed like Hector was getting weakened more and more. He was pretty vulnerable without his vines around him. It didn't take too long until we could completely take him down. It was somewhat anticlimactic, because he just... he just collapsed.

"He's gone. You did it! Now grab the Vault Key." Lilith said. She sounded pretty suspicious of how quickly Hector had gone down. I mean, it was kind of weird. Was this it? Did we win already? Something just seemed off...

"So who's climbing up there?" Axton asked.

"I'll do it." Anouk offered and put her gun away. She quickly climbed up through the vines and grabbed the Vault Key. That's when we suddenly saw Hector move again. Lilith seemed as surprised as any of us.

"What the... Vault Hunters, get back!" she shouted. There was some electricity and Anouk screamed in pain and jumped down from the vines. I ran over to her to see if she was okay. She was already sitting up again and holding her shoulder. There was a weird purple glow around Hector and he was laughing.

"You're too late! My roots have grown into the heart of this city - and next, all of Pandora!" he said mockingly. Shit. What the hell did that mean?

"You okay?" I quietly asked Anouk.

"Yeah, just got a little wound on my shoulder, I'm fine." she answered. It kinda looked like more of a wound, but she was right. She'd survive.

"Change of plans, Vault Hunter! We have to get out of here. I'll contain the infection. Get me some Eridium! There's a big cache nearby." Lilith then said. Fuck. If she needed Eridium that meant some crazy stuff was about to go down.