A/N: Well, hello again everyone. Yes, yes, I know I take forever with this, but I really am trying to speed up. There's no way I'm dropping this story, I think about it all the time, so there's that. I think I'm gonna aim for one chapter a week from now on, as I have a bit of a schedule going but, you know me.

amorgan6704: Here you go!

Guardian of all that exists: Yes!

Lanny-Sama: Sorry, it's what I do! xD

Lypreila: Thanks very much! And no, that psycho was not Krieg :P

Also, for the record, I don't ship KriegxMaya. Sorry.

Eden – 6

4 years ago

It was a cold, dark night in the city of Eden, the capital city of the entire planet of Eden-6. Each of the Eden planets had a capital city named Eden . The temperature over the last few days had been below freezing, which lead to heavy downfalls of snow all across the city. Ice and snow lightly blanketed the whole place, and was replenished every few days by more snow. However, on this particular night, no snow was falling, and the air was clear, yet cold. It was around 1am, so the streets were mostly quiet. The only sound came from the passing by of an odd car every so often.

The silence was suddenly broken by a loud shout from a male voice.

"Get back here you thieving bastard!"

Koen raced around a corner, and onto a deserted street in the poorer area of town. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, then looked back to what was in front of him and continued sprinting. Not three seconds after him, another teenager ran around the corner after him. The second teenager was slightly older than Koen, and had a menacing scowl on his face.

Koen had a feeling, even before, that he wasn't going to get away with this. He knew why he had to do it, he needed the money, more than anything else in the world, and was prepared to do whatever it took to get it. After all, it was the only thing that could keep him alive, considering he had no food, or shelter. He was completely homeless. Still, no matter he told himself that, it could never justify stealing from someone else.

He sprinted into a side alley, and instantly met a disappointing sight. His heart sunk as he faced a fence that was almost three times his height. He stopped running, and his initial reaction was to look for another way around it. But, as soon as he turned his head to look around, he felt rough hands grab him. Koen was spun around to face the very person he was running from. The teenager was definitely older than Koen, with light stubble, and long, light brown hair.

"Gotcha now…" The teenager growled, raising a fist.

Koen shut his eyes and turned his head away, and prepared himself for the punch, which inevitably came in full force. The fist connected straight into the middle of Koen's face. At that moment, Koen's attacker let go of him, causing Koen to stumble backwards and fall onto the ground. Koen groaned as he brought one hand up to his nose, which now had blood dripping from it. He raised his arm sideways above him, in an attempt to block any further attacks for the time being.

"You know what I want, now give it back," the teenager said angrily, and kneeled down next to Koen.

Koen looked up at him and shook his head slowly. He wasn't going to give up what he took so easily.

"No," Koen spat back.

This seemed to push the teenager over the edge. He swiftly grabbed a handful of Koen's hoodie and yanked him forward, raising his fist again to throw a second punch. Then, just in time to save Koen from another beating, a shout echoed through the alleyway.

"Hey! The hell are you two doing?!"

Both boys turned to look in the direction of the shout. Standing there, to the surprise of both of them, was a lone police officer. He stood about fifteen metres away, in the entrance to the alley. The officer was tall, taller than either of the two boys, at least. Not only that, he was rather built as well, by the looks of things. All in all, he didn't look like someone either boy wanted to mess with.

"Fuck that," Koen's attacker muttered under his breath, before letting Koen go, then standing up to run. Upon seeing this, the officer began to run towards them. Koen didn't exactly fancy sticking around to get caught either. He scrambled to his feet, looking left and right quickly for a way out of the alley.

Koen's eyes stopped on a red, metal door to his left, that was ever so slightly ajar, and decided that was his best shot.

"Follow me, quick!" Koen said to the other teenager, gesturing towards the door as he dashed towards it.

Koen never understood why he went out of his way to help his attacker. He had stolen from him first, and as much as Koen hated to admit it, he would have done the same thing had their roles been reversed. Maybe it all just came to a spur of the moment thing. Or maybe Koen was just being forgiving. That, or an idiot. Either one.

Koen threw himself at the door, and, lucky for him, the door flew right open with a very loud bang. Without even stopping to check where the officer was, or even the teenager, Koen sprinted on through. He was met with a flight of steep stairs heading upwards, and instantly began running up them. A few steps up, Koen became aware of a second set of footsteps on the stairs behind him, and hoped to God it wasn't the officer. Koen's heart and mind raced, and all he could focus on was running.

Koen came to yet another door and ran straight at it shoulder-first, like he did with the first one, and sure enough, the door opened and Koen stumbled into the room. The room looked like it hadn't been inhabited in years, and the only light source was light from the streetlights outside filtering through the dusty window panes.

The other boy came flying in only a second after Koen, taking a quick glance around the room. Koen barged past him and slammed the door shut, sliding a metal bolt on the door into place to lock it. Both of them breathed a quick sigh of relief, but they weren't entirely out of this yet. They couldn't wait in the room forever, and the officer would find a way in eventually.

"What's your name?" Koen asked the teenager quickly, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, Marshall," he replied, looking slightly confused.

By now, they could hear the officer bounding up the stairs. Even with the door safely locked, Koen and Marshall both knew they had to act fast.

"Okay, Marshall, I have an idea," Koen said, lowering his voice and leaning over to Marshall, "We're gonna give it a minute, and then you're going to open the door. When you do, you have to stand back a good bit, enough to get the officer to focus on you only. Can you do that?"

There was a loud, repetitive banging noise as the officer pounded on the door from the other side. "Open up!" he ordered.

Marshall looked at Koen and nodded a few times, "This had better work," he warned, then moved towards the door. Meanwhile, Koen scanned the floor and quickly found a thick, metal pole. Grinning to himself, he bent down and picked it up, then slid into the shadows at the corner of the room. All this time, the officer continued banging on the door.

Marshall took a deep breath, before grabbing the bolt used to the door and sliding it backwards. He then instantly jumped backwards and kept moving until he was almost at the wall on the other side. It took the officer a moment to realise the door had been unlocked, giving Marshall time to move back. Suddenly, the door swung open and the officer barged through, shining a torch directly at Marshall. As soon as the officer stepped into the room, Koen made his move. Grasping the metal pole firmly, he stood up from his crouching position and ran towards the officer. The officer heard him coming, and spun around to face Koen, but by then it was far too late. Koen had already swung the pole, aiming for the officer's head. The pole hit the officer in the side of the head, with a satisfying, metallic clang. The officer's head jerked to the side from the force of the blow. His eyes closed shut and his mouth hung open as he toppled backwards.

Koen took a few deep breaths, recovering from what he'd just done. He looked down at the pole for a second, before tossing it back onto the ground. He finally turned to look back at Marshall, whose eyes were still wide with shock. Marshall was speechless. That was pretty brutal, especially for someone that looked younger than him.

Koen laughed a little bit as he walked over to Marshall, nodding his head slightly. He then stopped and reached into his pockets, pulling out a handful of dollar bills, the same money he had stolen from Marshall. With a smile, he held his hand out, offering Marshall to take back his money.

"Koen, by the way," Koen introduced himself.

Marshall couldn't help but smile back.

A dark, cloudy purple engulfed Koen's vision, leaving him feeling dizzy and a little bit light headed. The last thing he had seen had been Lilith walking over to him, holding her hand out towards him, Gaige, and Marshall. For a second, he was completely confused, not knowing where he was or even what was going on.

Once the purple light had subsided, Koen blinked a few times before opening his eyes properly and taking in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that it was still night time. He was surprised to find they were no longer in the same place they were three seconds ago. Instead of the bloody and dimly-lit interior of the Hyperion launch station, they were standing in the middle of what looked to be the centre of a small town. It was a wide, circular area, surrounding by decaying buildings. The place was light up rather well from streetlights dotted around the place. Directly in the middle, there was a giant pillar that looked to be around twenty feet high. Around the pillar, the ground itself had opened upwards into four different sections. Koen could hear a constant, low humming noise that sounded like it came from beneath the ground. He frowned as he tried to make sense of the area.

"Koen, Marshall," Gaige smiled, taking a step forward and spinning around in a circle, stretching her arms out wide, "Welcome to Sanctuary!"

Marshall folded his arms and continued surveying the area, his eyes darting left and right every so often and taking in as much as he could. As he looked, he wondered if this was considered one of the safe places on this planet.

"Hey, that was my line," Lilith interrupted jokingly, "Whatever, come on, let's see who's around."

With that, Lilith began walking in the direction of the HQ. Gaige watched her for a second, thinking to herself. Lilith wasn't being very talkative, considering she hadn't seen her for a year. Gaige wondered what exactly the problem might be, yet, a part of her already knew. While Koen and Marshall followed behind Lilith attentively, Gaige trailed behind slightly, anxiously biting her fingernails.

Sure enough, as soon as they got within a few metres of the HQ, the inevitable happened. The door opened up, and as if on cue, Axton came storming out. Koen stopped walking and froze on the spot when he saw this. Koen could tell just from looking that Axton was not happy, and with good reason. Gaige went pale white as Axton got closer, and Marshall hadn't the first clue what was going on.

Koen realised that he'd made a big mistake allowing Gaige to come back here, in more ways than one. He could only hope Axton would understand. Though, he figured that was a long shot. Axton slowed down and finally stopped directly in front of Koen. Gaige, Marshall and Lilith all stood a few metres behind them, not wanting to intervene unless something bad happened. Axton looked Koen directly in the eyes and said nothing, but his facial expression said it all. Koen tried not to look at Axton too much as he thought about what he was going to say.

"Look, Axton, I-"

Axton interrupted Koen by throwing a full force punch straight into the left side of Koen's face. It happened so fast, Koen hardly even registered the punch before it hit him, but when it did hit, he felt it. His vision blurred, and before he knew it, he was on the ground looking up at the sky, an extreme pain in the side of his head. He could only groan and move his head slightly as Axton moved over towards him, ready to continue.

All this time, Gaige was locked in place, not able to take in what was happening out of how fast it had taken place. Marshall, on the other hand, sprang into action as soon as he saw Axton's fist move.

Axton knelt down and grabbed a handful of Koen's hoodie, yanking him forward and raising the same fist again. However, just as he was about to bring it down on the dazed teenager, another hand came in and closed around Axton's fist. Koen looked up and, sure enough, there was Marshall, doing his best to defend his friend. Still holding onto Axton's fist, Marshall used his other hand to grab Axton's left shoulder throw him backwards onto the ground. Marshall was fully prepared to follow up with a beating, but a shout stopped him in his tracks.

"Enough!" A female voice shouted. All heads turned back towards the HQ, to see Maya standing there, a purple ball of energy in her left hand.

After a tense moment, Maya got the results she wanted. With one last glance at Axton, Marshall turned back around and focused on helping Koen to his feet. Axton picked himself up off the ground, glaring at Maya.

"Now," Maya said sincerely, "How about everyone stops killing each other, and we talk this out. Agreed?"