Note: One of the things I plan to do in my story is give Rhys a basic upgrade in psychology. Think about it… He started off with a big promotion. People might think its luck, and others skill. But Rhys and Jack I think would have as his motto: Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

So in short, Rhys would need skills in order to be good at his job. And the most powerful skill a people-person can have is charisma, being able to read people, and psychology to some degree. Not near as much as a con-artist would need, but enough to be able to judge a situation when it comes to people and reach to them.

Rhys in canon was kinda dumb in terms of this.

So what I plan to do is make him better. He won't work miracles by far. No, he's still kinda dumb. But that is more because he lacks experience with the Pandora culture and people. So he will either miss the undertones or assume the wrong undertones. But at least he will be analyzing people and the situations rather than flying by the seat of his pants.

If anything, I think that Fiora and Rhys are very very similar. They both have generally the same necessary skill. The biggest difference is that Fiora knows how to con Pandora and make fake deals . Rhys knows how to con Hyperion and steal deals. One is wild-west murderous people. The other is technological stock-market brokers/lawyers that worship a sociopath.

So, long story short. Rhys will be smarter. He will be trying to analyze situations and people. He will fail at times. But at the very least he will be trying.

Chapter 3 - Hi.

Rhys awoke to a brisk sound outside his cell. It was a sound he had grown accustomed to. A part of him shuddered to think that the yelling and insane rambling of the people around him were things he could get accustomed to. As though that was normal. For Pandora, it may be. But then for the rest of the galaxy it wasn't. It was supposed to be normal to wake up to birds or a breeze or the sound of your siblings walking around and the smell of fresh baked bread. Not to wake up to people yelling about only God knows what, and to painful screams, and to marching of boots.

The sound of marching halted just outside his door and before Rhys had time to realize they were here for him, the door was thrown open and a huge bright light was in his face effectively blinding him. He had to turn his head away and close his eyes to keep from going blind. His eyes were adjusted to darkness, not to light. The next moment rough, gloved hands were grabbing him by the upper arm and practically dragged him out of his bed. He would have walked on his own if they gave him time to put his feet down, but they didn't seem to be obliged to such a common courtesy.

They dragged him out of his cell and into the hall before he managed to stumble his feet back under him and walk at a brisk pace with them. He was lead around blindly past one door after another before being twirled around, shoved down into a chair, and having tight metal monticules put over his wrist and ankles.

Another bright light was shoved in his face. He tried to pry his eyes open to see, but all he got was eyes full of water for his trouble as cold water was dumped on him. He coughed and had a little trouble breathing. It had come so unexpectedly he had his mouth open and was breathing the water in. He shook his head, but a hand grabbed his jaw and the person on the other end inspected him briefly before he found himself being slapped hard enough to turn his head violently to the side.

"You know…" Rhys spit out water. It tasted bitter, so it must have had blood mixed in. "I'm trying to be cooperative here. If this is your idea of cooperation, I'd hate to see how you treat your enemies."

"Pretty much the same way. Only with more pleasure for me."

Rhys opened his eyes to see Lilith and her little gang back in the same position as yesterday. Mordecai and Brick showed nothing, but Lilith looked like she had a certain… vindictive pleasure out of seeing him get slapped around and dumped with water.

"You look like you had a rough night." Mordecai observed.

"Gee, you wonder why?" Rhys glared at him.

Mordecai chuckled in mirth, "Yeah, stupid question calls for stupid answer."

"Are you up to continuing?" Lilith stepped in with the no-nonsense tone she has down pat.

"Whenever you are. Where was I?" Rhys wondered.

"You were just arriving on Pandora."

Ah, yes. Well, Vaughn and I were still inside the moonshot canister when it landed. The landing was rough and we must have hovered five feet in the air after the impact, only to land a second time. Vaughn and I had already secured ourselves inside of the vehicle within the canister, and after the canister crawled to a halt, we climbed out, hit a switch to open a hatch, and drove off.

The car was not what I would have gone for. I would have gone after Vasquez's new toy if I had any say on the matter, but Yvette had to play the smart card and not rub it in the guy's face. She's always been more about efficency and logic than about spite…

"People like that just don't understand a good torture…" Lilith comments with a smirk.

Rhys freezes, his eyes wide. He gapes and subconsciously leans back. "Ugh…" He says unintelligently. How are you supposed to respond to that? Right now this woman is the single most scariest thing in the galaxy.

"Keep going!" She snaps.

Right! The car was a kind of armored jeep. Seats for two up front, some space in the back with a small box, and high-density glass and thick doors. The engine sits in the middle of the jeep as well between Vaughn and I. Not sure if that is a safety precaution or what, but it definitely sounds cool. Like being inside of a fat-ass racing car-tank.

Vaughn and I carry on driving down a dirt road until we come to a fork. We lean forward to get a look at the writing and glance worriedly at each other. Two of the signs on the post are dangling, and only one sign is remotely stable. The whole thing is tilting and twisted and looking like it will fall apart on us. The slightest gust of wind makes it sway.

The worrying part is the bullet holes.

"Heh…" Vaughn weakly chuckles, trying to be brave. "Not even the sign survived…"

"It was probably some guy response to being nagged about asking for directions." I respond with a smirk. "Don't worry about it."

"Right… d-don't worry about it." Vaughn tells himself. He gulps and clutches the briefcase full of money tighter. "Where are we going?"

"Pandora." I respond sarcastically. "This big wasteland planet, biggest news since sliced bread, perhaps you heard of it?."

"I know that much!" He glares at me. I chuckle.

I pull out a map through my robotic hand's holographic palm and we poke at it. Unfortunately we have no idea where we landed. We know where we need to go, but we need to see where we are first to connect the dots. I go to get out of the car, and Vaughn about has a panic attack just from me having my hands on the door handle.

"Vaughn, dude. Breathe. We only just got here."

"Do you have any idea what the life time expectancy is on this planet?!"

"Uh… no."

"Six seconds! We've already been here six minutes! That's sixty times we should have died by now!" He yells.

"Ha, dumbass!" Brick laughs. "That should be ten times. I'm smarter than the nerd!"

Mordecai chuckles. "Right."

I shake my head. "I think you're exaggerating. If it was really that bad, you wouldn't have been cool with the idea of coming here."

"There is being here, and then there is being here inside of a tank!"

I eye him a moment and frown. "Not to be the bearer of bad news or nothin', but we can't make the deal from in here, bro. You're going to have to get out at some point."

"Then I'll get out when the time comes! Not before, not after. As soon as the deal is made, I'm running back in here until Yvette picks us up. Every less second I spend out there is another second I won't be dead, or shot at, or shot at and dead!"

I continue eyeing him a moment before shaking my head. Granted, I'm scared too. But we have to do something. We can't just sit here. I get out of the car and ignore the hitch in his breathe as the door is open. I slam it shut. I walk to the sign post and pick up the dangling corners. Three different towns in three directions and the one we need to head towards is on one of them.

Well, I know one point of reference, but the map could still be flipped on its head and have us going in the wrong direction anyway. I look in the distance for anything remotely telling. A mountain perhaps. Well, there are no shortages for mountains. However, there is a sun now that I think about it. With two points of interest we can figure out which direction to go at the very least.

I return to the car and peer in through the window. "Which direction does the sun go here?"

"I don't know, why do you ask?" Vaughn raises an eyebrow.

"Well, we know a city is that way, and the way we want to go is either that way or this way. We want to head towards the one to the west, but I don't know what's west."

"I don't know about the sun, but I do know the Hyperion sits on the southern polar axis. Its south of us." He smiles helpfully. I return his grin and smack the top of the jeep.

"Good thinking." I face Hyperion. If its south, than to my right is west. I get in the car and take us down that road. Vaughn flips on the radio and 'To the Top' by Twin Shadow blares through the speakers. However they barely have time to get past the first note before I punch a key myself to turn it off.

"Hey!" He pouts.

"Vaughn." I explain, "The last thing we need right now is our location being picked up off the ECHOnet. I didn't use a GPS triangulator in my arm specifically for the same reason."

"You think Vasquez will think to do that? He may be a scumbag, and got to where he is now through cunning, backstabbing, and dashing good looks, but you and I both know he isn't that bright."

"I know." I nod. "But just let me be paranoid and scared."

"Scared?" Vaughn looks at me curiously. "Of Vasquez more than Pandora?"

"I may not look it, but I know exactly how much everything wants to kill us." Even as I say so, we drive by a pack of… lizard-dogs chasing a man through the desert before jumping him like piranhas. I'm literally surrounded by death now, between a planet where everything wants to eat you and take your stuff against a guy who wants to shoot me and take my stuff while T-bagging me. Here, there are only two places. Pandora and Hyperion space station. Both are run by people that want me dead.

And to think… Jack had been here once. He was nothing. He was surrounded by a hostile Pandora on one side, a terrorist organization in control of Hyperion on the other. Jack had nothing but a few contacts and his wit, and he came out ontop ruling everything.

How hard can this be?

I continue with a smirk, "Wheras you are letting your fear shake you, dude. I'm focused. I'm in the zone. I'm in my element. Trust me."

"Uh, yeah. Sure." He responds with fair bit of skepticism.

"You are so full of it." Lilith groaned. She put a hand on her forehead and shook her head. "'I'm in the zone'? Please… You're just a Handsome-Jack nerd pretending to be full of bravado. Just hearing that hero-worshipping bull makes me sick. You would be dead now if it weren't for that car-tank you're in. I bet you wet yourself on your first fight!"

Rhys was silent a moment, ashamed of himself back then. Looking back… he was so different. He went to Pandora like a fool. He wasn't ignorant, and that made his decision foolish. "I was… But I also wasn't lying. I was in my element. I had a plan. Steal Vasquez's deal. Run away from anything that would try to eat or shoot me. I saw blood, and like a shark, I went for it. I knew I might die on the way, but I still saw a way out of it, even if that opening was small. I simply swam for it as hard as I could."

Mordecai, to Rhys' surprise, nodded in respect. Rhys didn't know, but Mordecai respected that determination to not just surrender, to fight and survive. It may not be a battlefield they wouldn't, or perhaps, couldn't, understand, but it was a battlefield of its own.

Where was I… Ah yes.

We arrive at the city in question. It looks like a place pulled straight out of a wild-west film. Everything is dirt, dust, wasteland, wooden, and had a population of thieves, scumbag, gangs, and a broken sign promising a bright future. Only instead of horses you got lizard-dogs with piranha teeth, and instead of the hootin-tootin six-shootin' weirdos, you got a city full of gangs with rocket launchers, automatic rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols of all shapes and sizes, and the occasional machete. Your typical barrel of laughs.

Vaughn gulps at the sight of a bystander being kicked and beaten by a group of thugs while another group stands by and watches. Innocence of the bystander not-withstanding. To be fair, the guy being beaten is probably no better or worse than the ones beating him. Vaughn pales at the sight regardless.

I see him fidgeting and moving out of the corner of my eye and I glance over. He has his hands all over the briefcase. "What are you doing?"

"Setting a lock." After a moment, the bright light on the case turns green under his thumb. "So if anyone tries to steal it, well… let's not get into that."

"And what if I have to open it?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it." He tries to smile reassuringly, but the sound of another punch followed by a painful moan makes his smile drop. He gulps. "I-I just r-remembered that… you know… I'm kinda chained to ten million dollars. Do we have a pistol or something?" He glances in the back. I shrug.

"I have no idea. Best not to get back and look yet. And who would shoot the thing?" He looks at me with hope, and I return his stare with narrowed eyes. "Not a chance. I've never held a gun in my life, and finger-pistol fights are not the same thing. Bro…" I put a hand on his shoulder and smile to reassure him. "Relax, okay? We'll be fine. If worst comes to worst, I hit a button and get Yvette to throw down a loader bot on my location. It may leave our location exposed to Vasquez for a bit if he is watching, but that's a risk we'll just have to take."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but I would still feel better just having something to defend myself with."

I stop at an intersection to let some people walk by. I smile to them pleasantly, and they sneer back. Nice neighborhood. I look every way, but I can't see where the place is to make the deal. The information says it's at a place called the Mansion of Mystical Mystery's.

"If it will help, there's a crate back there. You might find something." I gesture back with my head.

Vaughn frowns and thinks about it, and decides it best to crawl into the back of the car and look. I don't know what we got myself and I can't help being curious. "What we got back there?"

"Some food rations, a pistol with… one clip, toilet paper, toothbrushes, comb, shaving blades and cream-"

"Good to know we'll be able to go into a fire fight looking good."

"-a… uh… A water-filter! That what this is." I hear him continue to scrounge around and move items around, and he stops at something and climbs back to the front holding something in his hand. He is studying it closely. He has the pistol in his hands as well.

"You settled for the pistol then?"

"Yeah…" He puts down the mysterious cylinder and messes with the pistol trying to figure it out.

"That is not how you load a pistol…" Mordecai mutters. "Your friend is trying to put it in backwards."

"How the hell did you two survive here?!" Lilith asks in disbelief.

I gulp slightly at the sight of Vaughn trying to figure the pistol out. "Which end is…"

"My God…" Mordecai face palmed.

"Vaughn." I whisper urgently. "Is it on safety?"

"No idea."

"Then it's probably best not to be pointing it at your face." I whisper-yell as calm as I can while being a near-panic.

Vaughn freezes and his eyes widen fearfully. He gingerly holds it between two fingers, lowers the window, and tosses it. We both breathe a sigh of relief, only to cringe when the pistol goes off on landing. Followed by a guy screaming in pain and demanding to know who shot him in the ass.

"I think it's best for all of us if you don't go near a weapon again. I think this place is getting to you."

"Right, I know. I'm sorry! I'm just so nervous." Vaughn clenches and unclenches his hands to shake away the nerves, and resorts to leaning back and trying to be still as a statue to force himself to calm down. Just to be safe, I reach over and take the cylinder out of his lap.

No idea what this is, but with how Vaughn is a barrel of nerves, the last thing we need is to find out is that this is a lightsaber while he points it at his face.

I lean forward into the window to look around. "Its fine, just help me find this place. The Mansion of Mystical Mysteries? You have any idea?"

Vaughn helps me look as well, and after a few minutes, we come up empty.

"Perhaps we should ask for directions?" Vaughn suggests. "Perhaps someone here is… less savage." He says this while looking at a group of people standing around sharpening blades.

"What a wonderful suggestion. They have to know where this place is." I smile.

"Thanks, I thought so too." He smiles back.

"Any idea who our lucky not-so-savage is?" I look around.

"Hm… How about him?" Vaughn points to a guy at a cook-stand. "He has a cooking stand, so he must have a business permit."

"Sounds good." I park the car and climb out. I smirk with pride and stroll over. Vaughn hesitates to get out, but gathers him up little ball of courage and follows after me.

"Oh, this will be good." Mordecai chuckles mockingly.

"Finally we get some punching!" Brick exclaims.

"You're screwed." Lilith comments.

"You guys really don't have much faith in how I did, do you?" Rhys's eye twitches.

"Nope." The three of them say.

The chef is a scruffy looking guy in camouflage, several layers of jackets, and a few layers of dirt and scars. He has a five-o-clock shadow across his entire body, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is moss growing on his face. I haven't even glanced at his fingernails yet, and I am thinking I won't buy anything. The smell is bad enough.

He flips some meat on the grill and glances up at our approach. Not that he looks surprised. We parked a jeep-tank only a few feet away. Rather, he studies us from beneath his thick-eyebrows and I don't like it.

As an experienced shark, I know that look. You can tell a lot about people from how they look at you. I've seen hollow eyes from people who have fallen into a 'drone' mindset. I've seen exhausted. I've seen welcoming, bright, cheerful, innocent eyes filled with hope and wonder. I've seen the fake cheer of a money grubber that wants to be your friend while sticking his hand in your wallet. I've seen the arrogant, the humble, the friendly, the hateful, the welcoming, the unwelcoming.

His eyes are analytical. He's cautious and sees everyone, including us, in terms of predator and prey. His eyes fall on our Hyperion issued name-tags and his lips tighten in disgust.

I don't think we're going to get much out of him, if anything… I have a bad feeling about this.

Unlike me, Vaughn doesn't have my trained senses on people. Before I can stop him, Vaughn squares his shoulders, sets his jaw, walks up, looks the man square in the eyes, puffs out his chest, and says, "Hi,we'relookingfordirectionsperhapsyoucanshowuswheretogo?" In what amounts to a whimper while staring at the man's blood hatchet on his hip. Vaughn pales and swallows as blood drips from its sharp rusty edges.

The man slowly turns his eyes from me, around to Vaughn, up and down his body as if to ascertain just how scrawny he is, briefly pauses on the briefcase, and then back up to Vaughn's eyes only to stare so hard that my bro involuntarily takes a step back.

The would-be chef sniffs in disdain, pulls out his hatchet, and hacks down into the meat to effectively cut it in half. It was a thick cut too. I know it was a subtle threat that he can do the same to us, but I don't think Vaughn knows it was that way on purpose. My bro squeals and scoots over so he is half-behind me.

"Perhaps I can." The man finally says. He sniffs again and turns his glare to me, because unlike Vaughn, I'm not budging.

I really really really really really want to run for the hills screaming like a girl though.

"Where you folks headin'?" He drolls.

"Mansion of Mystical Mysteries." I reply.

"That there's quite a tongue twister." He dislodges his axe from the massive steak. "Mansion of Mystical Mysteries…" He hacks at the meat. "Mansion of Mystical Mysteries…" He hacks at the meat again, then picks it up to inspect it. Its cut into a nice plate-portion. "Has a funny ring to it."

"It does." I chuckle hollowly. "I'm sure it's part of the appeal."

"I'm sure. A place like that… hard to forget."

"So you know where it is then?" I inquire.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't." He pauses, and his eyes briefly glance toward the briefcase. "You see, this mansion of yours isn't the only one with a nice mystery. I'm sitting here, being a respectable business man, when two… Hyperion's…" he spits. "When two Hyperions show up and start asking questions, while carrying some high-tech briefcase of their own. Now, you see… that there is the true mystery to me."

I smile even while my guts clench. This could be bad. "Well then, as respectable business men, I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement."

He puts his axe back on his belt and loops his eyes together. "Now, that there's a thought. And we're nothing if not business men, are we boys?"

At his words, a group of people from all around the block pick up their weapons and surround us. Vaughn clutches the briefcase to his chest tightly at the sight. The chef walks around his stool to approach us from the side. "So, let's do a fair little trade. Mystery for mystery. You show us what is so important about that box of yours, shorty, and we might-"

I step in front of him and glare.

Mordecai whistles. "Ballsy."

His approaching Vaughn scared the ever living hell out of him, and even if it's stupid of me, no one picks on my bro unless it's me. No one. He needs to back off. Now.

As soon as my knees stop shaking…

Despite my greatest attempt yet to appear threatening, the guy just raises an eyebrow. He sees me in a slightly new light, but still has us pegged as prey.

He raises himself up, shrugs, and sniffs. "Kill 'em."

Oh. Shit.

I wish I could say the next moment was… well. Heroic. It wasn't. To my credit, I didn't scream, squeal, or emit any kind of noise to humiliate myself. I was too scared.

I've lived on the razor's edge, in my mind, my whole life. Backstabbing coworkers, building up a team of the few people I believed I could trust with my career and my life, and watching my back and my team's back from hundreds of others all waiting to smell blood and latch onto the slightest weakness. Then if they finally do get you, they ruin you. They destroy your credit, your name, your career, send you into debt, and it's only the truly ruthless ones like Vasquez that would murder.

That's nothing. Because it's a whole new experience in danger to look into the barrel of a gun pointed at your head. It's a whole new experience in realizing how close death is when you have an axe being lifted off a guy's belt that is dripping in blood, and knowing that the next portion of blood will be your own. It's a whole new experience to hear the declaration of murder, and for it to be said so casually… as if it was like saying 'take out the trash while you're out dear.'

I thought I've been on the razor's edge… ha! I was a fool.

For probably the first time in my life, that life is on the line… and it terrifies me. Not scared or afraid, but as in actual terror.

I'm probably gaping and looking just as terrified as I feel. I also won't be needing to use the men's room for a while.

Only the feeling of Vaughn bumping into me to put a few inches of distance from the others breaks me out of my stupor. We're surrounded, and the only cover we have is the car. We don't have time to get in. The second-best option will have to do.

Not necessarily that is what I'm actually thinking. This is what my body is deciding on its own from instinct. My actual thought process is along the lines of 'WE'RE DEAD! WE'RE DEAD WE'RE DEAD WE'RE DEAD!'

I grab Vaughn by the collar and make a mad five-foot dash to the car and practically throw him under and roll under after me. The bandits around us pause, unsure what we are doing until we are actually under it. The next thing they do is surround the car and start banging on it and laughing and jeering at us.

Vaughn whimpers and says something, but I have no idea what he is saying. My mind is too busy running through options. Can't run. No weapons. Can't just sit here either because they will start shooting under the car as soon as they get bored. What do we have?

Vaughn threw away the pistol. There is a cylinder thingy on me, but I don't know what it is. And…

Yvette!

The plan was that if we needed help for me to open myself up to the holonet, broadcast my coordinates, and she would throw down a loader bot first thing armed with whatever she could get her hands on.

I broadcast my coordinates and nearly get a cuncushion as the bottom of the car bangs into my head. The bandits have resorted to jumping on it and calling us cowards and telling us to come out so they can kill us and steal our stuff, all while laughing and mocking.

The chef-guy stops by the car, with his boots only a foot away from my face. "Now, fellas. This just aint right, you hear! Stop wastin' our time and come on out from under there. Unless, of course, you'd rather us send Fido down after you."

Fido? Crap. A reptile-dog can get down here!

"Uh, no. Thanks. We're good." I reply. WHERE IS THAT LOADER BOT!?

"Alright. If you insist. FIDO!"

"Throw me in coach!" A high-pitched voice squeals.

… did Fido just respond?

"Down there is a chicken!" The chef explains to Fido. "Get the chicken!"

"CHICKEN!" Fido screams.

Without further ado, there is clawing and digging sounds as Fido comes in after us. Vaughn and I both look over our shoulders to find that Fido is, in fact, a little freak of nature with a mask. For anyone not familiar with Pandoran culture, the man is commonly nicknamed as a Lil' Psycho.

Not sure who pinned the nickname, but it fits.

"Oh, my gawd! What is that thing!" Vaughn screams. He knows what it is, but that's the terror talking.

"CHICKEN! CHICKEN! CHICKEN! I'M GONNA GET THE CHICKEN!" Fido screams and claws at the ground to get to us, and is making ground.

He manages to get closer to me than to Vaughn, and I kick at him. It does no good until I kick him with my robotic foot and it makes him disoriented briefly. But he shakes his little head and looks at me with red eyes. "I'm going to…" he roars. "LICK THE CHICKEN!"

Brick laughed.

Fido manages to squirm his way onto my and punches my chest repeatedly, vowing vengeance and mercy and hate and good, fun, happy times, somehow all at once; but then there is an explosive crash nearby that knocks the car away and leaves us in a small crater.

Vaughn coughs his lungs out, and I push a dazed Fido off me to see what happened. The car is on its side next to me, and half a dozen bandits are dead from the blast. The rest are dazed. As for me, there is a high-pitched whistle in my ears and the world is spinning.

The spinning stops after a few moments and I look up to see a robotic eye looking down at me.

"Hola."