8 Skill Tree

Kane got to the Trash Coast faster than he normally would have, given the situation. Following Brick's signal, he reached a large open area surrounded by a few rocks.

The most eye catching thing though, would have to be the corpse of the enormous Rakk Hive creature... thing, and it's head resting a few meters away from it.

With just a glance, he noticed how all of it's eyes were destroyed beyond measure, and how one of it's legs was only attached by a few strings of muscle. Not too far away from the creature, Brick and the others were sitting down in some shade next to some rocks.

He was pleased to note how their chosen camp was easily defendable, and would force any attack to go through a choke point to reach them. Didn't really help if someone managed to get a grenade or RPG shot in there, but the defenders would never let an attacker get close enough to pull that off.

"KANE!!" Brick shouted, waving Kane into the rocks. Through the rocky passage, Kane saw Mordecai perched up high, his Sniper rifle at the ready with Bloodwing perched next to him. Brick was standing at the entrance to the camp, his towering frame being it's own form of deterrent.

Roland was cleaning some equipment that looked like it was dipped in an open carcass, while Lilith was sitting next to Luna, wiping a damp rag over her face, removing any foreign substance that might have gotten on her during whatever the fuck happened here.

Ignoring the others, Kane walked over to Luna and removed the clothing covering her arms and stomach, then he waved his own arm over her body, causing both of their tattoos to light up.

The next moment, the light from her tattoo's spread over her entire body for about 10 seconds before the light began to fade. When the light completely died down, Kane brought his hand over and flicked Luna's forehead as he said, "Congrats, kid. You did it."

As soon as he flicked her head, Luna's hand immediately went to where the pain originated, then her eyes began to flutter open. "I thought we talked about this!!" Luna shouted groggily, rubbing her forehead with a look of annoyance on her face.

"I figured it was better than letting you freefall from the sky." Kane said, causing Luna to stare daggers at him. "You're a dick, you know that?" She said, sitting up to take in her surroundings. "What happened?" Luna asked, looking up to meet Lilith's eyes.

Everyone kinda looked around to each other, but the momentary silence was ended by Brick. "You were AWESOME!! After absorbing that Eridium, you created a blade bigger than the Rakk Hive, as well as two massive hands!! The hands swung the sword down and sliced it's head off!!" Brick said excitedly, mimicking the movements of the sword. Luna's eyes widened as she asked, "It worked?!!"

Kane watched Brick fill in the details for Luna, and even Kane was surprised. Something Brick said caught both Luna's and Kane's attention, causing Luna to shout "I HAD WINGS?!!" Even Kane hadn't figured out how to do that.

"Yeah, big giant ones!! You floated for a minute before you passed out." Brick said, causing Luna to smile wide in victory. Turning to Kane, she shouted "HA!! IN YOUR FACE!!" Then she proceeded to do her little happy dance.

Kane was debating whether or not to give her this little victory, but in the end he just couldn't allow it. With a wave of his hand, Luna disappeared from her spot. "Where'd she go?!!" Lilith shouted out in worry. All she got for an answer was Kane pointing a finger to the sky.

Everyone looked up, and if they squinted their eyes, they could see a tiny dot falling from the sky, and off in the distance, they could hear feint screaming. "You didn't?!!" Roland asked, snapping his gaze to Kane.

Smiling wickedly, Kane didn't answer. Instead he teleported into the sky, only to return a few seconds later with a thoroughly pissed off Luna in tow. "ASSHOLE!!! We talked about this!!" Luna screamed, putting some distance between the two of them.

"You got cocky!! Had you been paying attention, you could have disrupted that, but instead you chose to gloat." Kane replied back, his wolfish smile not showing a hint of apology. What he said about Luna being able to defend against his power was true. Together, they discovered a Siren could disrupt another Siren's power with their own, the result being a minor disturbance in the air.

"YOU ARE A JERK!!" She screamed, angry at having been once again almost killed. Instead of arguing with the little girl, Kane made an orange can appear, with the words 'CRUSH' written on the side. He didn't say anything, just handed it to her and waited with a big shit eating grin.

Luna had watched Kane drink from similar cans, only they looked far different from this one. Those ones always said Budweiser or something similar, but Kane had always said they were alcoholic, and she wouldn't get to have any alcohol until she was at least 16, and even then he would supervise her, saying he would have wished someone supervised his first time.

He had told her she could drink any of the alcohol she found at any age she wanted, but she would have to wait for 16 to drink any of his. However, after hearing stories and talking about it with Marcus, she had a few nightmares about drinking, vowing to never let the stuff come into contact with her lips if she could help it.

Knowing it wouldn't be alcohol, she cracked it open and gave the orange liquid a try. The instant the liquid came into contact with her tongue, her eyes shot open in delighted surprise. "How come you've never given me this before?!!" She questioned, holding the can close to her like it would be taken if it wasn't well guarded.

"You've never asked, and there has never been an occasion where I thought you deserved it. Today you have accomplished something even I have been unable to complete, even though I think it will be sometime for you to replicate the feat, it is still worthy of praise. Plus you can now absorb Eridium, so it is to be celebrated. Also we have a new roommate staying with us, so we might be having a small feast tonight." Kane said, getting Luna to slowly smile towards him.

She was curious about who the new roommate was, but it could wait. For now, she would accept his praise, which he so rarely gave.

The two of them were so lost in their little squabble, the others around them were forgotten. Although that ended when Lilith could no longer contain herself from what she had watched Kane do. "What did you just do to her?!" Lilith asked, a little excited and far too hopeful.

She, like most other Sirens in the universe, were always trying to find out more about themselves, and why they were chosen to be a Siren. Seeing her like this, Kane figured he may as well shed some light to the woman.

"Like I told you before, absorbing too much Eridium into your body at once can be more harmful than beneficial. She absorbed more than her body could handle, thus causing it to shut down to protect her." Kane said, looking away from Lilith to Luna, making sure she was also paying close attention.

"What I did was absorb the Eridium into my body, effectively draining her power-pool to the point where her body deemed it safe, while also restoring a few internal parts of her body. I was only able to drain her pool because she was unconscious and didn't resist. Trying to do that with someone who didn't want you to, well... it wouldn't end well." Kane said, causing Luna to go wide-eyed.

Looking down at herself, she patted her body, realizing she did feel pretty good. She also noticed how she was naked from the waste up, causing herself to get a little embarrassed. She didn't freak out like some anime woman would, instead she calmly grabbed her clothes and put them on, albeit with a red face.

Lilith on the other-hand had a thoughtful look on her face. "Incredible! You know so much about Sirens!" She spoke, but it wasn't anything knew, nor was it accurate. Kane only knew the basics of what a Siren was and how to harness their powers, but he was more knowledgeable than most people in the universe, save for maybe Tyreen and Troy Calypso and Typhon Deleon.

Seeing Lilith like that, Kane figured he would shed some light on her. "Since you got to Pandora, what have you done to train your powers?" Kane asked, looking to Lilith as everyone else did the same.

Hearing the question and seeing everyone's expectant gazes, Lilith coughed lightly before answering, "Well, I figured out I have some sort of affinity to fire, so I've been trying to make a small burst of fire come out when I punch someone, hopefully dealing a bit more damage. I've also been trying to prolong the time I can run through dimensions."

Luna and the other three Vault Hunters were impressed, but Kane just had a thoughtful smile on his face. "Not bad, but there are still a few areas you need to work in. Also, you need to keep searching for new ways to use your power. The main limit to any Siren is their imagination." Kane stated, getting a confused look from Lilith.

"What do you mean?" She asked, not knowing what he was hinting at. Thinking of how to explain his point, Kane made a large pad of paper appear, then a marker before he began to write a few things down. A few minutes later, he held the notepad up for everyone, especially Luna and Lilith to see.

"There are multiple paths a Siren can take their power. Think of it like a video game of sorts." Kane said, mentally chuckling to himself before he coughed to calm himself.

"You may not know this, but each Siren can use almost every element, but they are also better at using a specific element than the other Sirens. I'm quite sure yours is fire, while my guess for Luna's would most likely be explosive."

Luna looked a little too enthralled in the lesson, as this was something Kane hadn't told her before. Lilith on the other-hand wanted to ask more questions, but she decided to wait and listen to what Kane had to say.

"If your power was like a video game, and you could go down certain branches, which road would you want to go? Naturally, you would want to know each road that is available to you. First, one you've already discovered,

*Elementalist*

-Use your powers to progress in each of the elements, using them to deal serious damage to enemies, or straight up building an immunity.

There are actually so many other uses for the Elementalist, but truth be told, I don't know much else about it yet. But anyway, back on track. Another path you could go down is a support role.

*Support/Healer*

-Channel the Eridium through yourself to act as a healing agent. Eridium can literally change the very genetics of a person, so if you train enough, you could learn to heal others. Or you could create large blasts to draw attention to yourself and act as a decoy or you could transport people.

Hearing the last part of the support branch, Lilith couldn't hold it in anymore and asked, "Wait, What?!! Teleport people?!!" She seemed to not understand the very words, regardless of how simple the statement was.

Kane sighed to her as he answered, "You've literally experienced me using my powers to move all of you, so why is it so har-" That was as far as Kane got before Lilith interrupted him by shouting, "YOU'RE A SIREN?!!!"

Kane knew that was coming, but he didn't think he would get a nearly ruptured eardrum in the process. Lilith always seemed so calm and relaxed, so seeing her like a little kid at Christmas was a little weird for Kane.

Granted she was still hot as fuck, and the million dollar smile added to that, but all Kane could do was look and that was as far as it would go with them.

"*Sigh* Yeah, I'm a Siren. Big fucking deal! I'm still learning, just like any other Siren! The only difference between me and every other Siren in history, is I have a dick!!" Kane stated a little too loudly, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Hearing his tone, Lilith chose to keep quiet, hoping Kane would continue. "Anyway, like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted." Kane said, pausing to shoot a dirty look at Lilith before he continued.

"You could literally use your powers to push someone through a dimension and into say, a bandit camp. Sure there would be the lightshow from your power, but the surprise of the victims would more than make up for it. Plus if you teleported dozens or even hundreds of people in strategic spots, you could be a monster. Plus if your friends were ever in a tight spot, getting them out of there wouldn't be that hard."

Lilith was in awe as she listened to Kane's words, reading over the paper as well. "And another branch is being an Assassin." Kane said, once again getting curious gazes. Pointing to the third column, Kane explained.

*Assassin*

-Appear wherever your target is, then shoot them and disappear. The only give away to your being there is the lightshow from you stepping out of the dimension walking, but if you somehow figured out how to contain that, you would literally be a silent killer.

*Flying*

-The wings of a Siren aren't just for show. You could be an airborne sniper, picking people off from your own personal vantage point. Also, I don't know if this is a thing, but maybe dimensional flyer?

"These are just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head, and it's not even my power, although similar, it's yours, and you can do whatever you want so long as you have the right imagination. Hell, you could be a bomber!!" Kane stated with a smile as he got lost in his own thoughts.

"Imagine it! Appearing in an area, dropping a massive bomb, then leaving!! Take out a base and no one even has any idea what the fuck just happened!!" Kane added, still in his own little world.

It took a few minutes before he came back to reality and noticed how everyone was looking at him with wide eyes, but he didn't really care about what they thought.

Turning his attention back to Lilith, he spoke, "Use your powers a few times a day, enough to empty your power pool at least. Your power is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets, or in this case, the larger it gets. Although power isn't everything. If your body is too weak to handle the amount of power you have, you'll experience what Luna did, and your body will shut down."

Lilith eagerly took every word he said with a smile, writing everything on the page with the skill tree Kane had written down.

Done with teaching Lilith a thing or two about herself, Kane turned his attention to Brick.

"Brick!! I know you like pounding the shit out of people, but there are other ways to go about it. I'm not sure how you function or even what you are, but I know you have control of yourself to a certain degree. You should try learning more about using your feet as well as your fists, and maybe try grappling with people.

After all, there might be people you want to interrogate or capture before you torture them slowly, and if they're brain dead or their skull is shattered, it wouldn't be as fun right?" Kane asked, getting wide eyes from Brick as he smacked one fist into the palm of his other hand.

"That's genius!!" Brick stated, not believing he hadn't thought of that. Kane knew just what to say to get Brick to agree to anything. You had to make whatever it was appeal to the demons dark side, something Kane almost always approved of. Roland and Mordy already knew what they were going to work on, thus an explanation from Kane was unneeded.

(A.N. Plus the author didn't want to write all that shit down.)

"What about you and Luna?" Lilith asked, making everyone turn to look at him.

Kane scratched the back of his head as he answered, "It's like I said, I'm still working on it. Right now the branch I'm focusing on is teleportation, but that's because it's the easiest and most versatile. I'm hoping to be able to cut a hole in space, ripping everything near the cut apart. I already have weapons that ignore shields, but if I could cut through the very fabric of space, think of the damage that would cause." Kane said, making Roland and the others shutter at the thought.

Kane also explained that he liked the Assassin route for himself, but he wanted to branch a bit into each path, then go from there. "As for Luna, well... so far it's like a materialization with a little bit of an explosive edge...." Kane paused for a moment before he added, "I honestly haven't really got much to say on her power yet, but we're just started out."

Lilith seemed happy with that answer, and after writing a few more notes down, she tore the paper off the notepad and folded it up into her pocket. "Thanks Kane. This really helps." She said, giving Kane a smile. He knew it wasn't one of lust or anything like that, but one a friend gave to another friend after they did something huge for them.

"Don't worry about it. Just make sure you all keep this information to yourselves, and don't go talking about it with other people. If you feel the need to talk about it with each other, do it in person, and keep your ECHO's off!" Kane said, once again hinting that there might be someone listening in on them.

Lilith didn't miss the warning about being watched through her ECHO-communicator and gave a nod of confirmation, as did the others.

The little moment was ruined when Roland cleared his throat. "*Cough* Excuse me, but now that we're done here, I think we should go before we have to deal with the wildlife." Roland was correct, so Kane didn't see any reason why they should stay here.

They packed up what was left of the small camp, then with quick movements, Kane had them all high in the sky, gliding back towards New Haven. At least Brick and the others were. Kane had no intention of running into Helena Pierce again anytime soon, so he opted to just head towards his base with Luna on his back.

Along the way, they flew over top of a patrol of bandits. Kane being the kind person he was, teleported above the armored convoy and gifted them a bomb before quickly teleporting away. It wasn't until he was sure he was out of range of the blast radius that he stopped to watched the show.

*BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!*

"Was that really necessary?" Luna asked blankly. "Yeah. I need to check all branches of my own power, and bomber feels like it was made for me!" Was the answer she received before they began the journey back home.

Upon arriving at their destination, Luna finally asked, "So who is the new roommate you spoke about?" Kane had actually completely forgotten about Tannis, so upon reminder, he had to stop for a second.

"Her name is Patricia Tannis, but everyone just calls her Tannis. Some people might call her insane, but she's actually a verifiable genius, and I thought she could take care of the place when we set off to another planet." Kane said, getting a few nods from Luna.

"Okay, now that you've given your little speech, what's the real reason for bringing her here?" Luna asked, not buying his lame excuse. Looking off into the distance, Kane said "She's extremely sexy and we have fun together."

Luna knew all too well what kind of "fun" adults had together, but she felt as though she didn't ever want to experience something like that again. Kane, seeing the look in her eyes, reprimanded himself mentally as he knelt down to stare into her eyes. "I'm sorry. I-" he was interrupted as Luna brushed his hand away softly.

"Just promise me that you won't get touchy feely around me okay? I'm a big girl, I'm not gonna dwell on the past." She said, speaking silently. "Your 6 years old, you shouldn't need to be a big girl yet. Otherwise I'd have you cleaning more often." Kane said the last part trying to lighten the mood. It did seem to be working as Luna let out a small laugh.

She didn't forget that she had agreed to be his maid if he brought her along with him. He wasn't good at touchy feely moments, but he did try to be somewhat of a parental figure for her. Not that he was any good at it from his world standards, but compared to other parents on Pandora, he was top notch.

Walking through the doors of the base, they were both greeted by Radar as they continued on their way to find Tannis. It didn't take them long, nor did they have to go through some elaborate search to find the woman. She was right where Kane expected her to be, in his lab tinkering with some devices he had never seen before.

"Hey, Tannis!! I'd like you to meet, Luna." Kane said, gesturing to the little girl by his side. Tannis glanced up from her new toys and towards Luna. She looked as though she had no idea of what to say, and if Kane was correct, she was nervous.

"Greetings, small child... thing." Tannis said, coming over to stand next to Kane. "Do I pet it?" Tannis asked in a whisper, not knowing what she was suppose to do next.

"Not insane, my ass." Luna mumbled under her breath, just loud enough for Kane to hear, although Kane didn't think Tannis did. "First off, it is a she, and her name is Luna. And no, you don't pet her, she doesn't like it. I tried. Seeing as how neither of you like human contact, just wave to each other." Kane said, causing both girls to throw a curious glance towards the other.

"Do you find the touch and close proximity of people to be revolting as well?" Tannis asked Luna, who almost immediately began nodding her head.

"Humans are vile creatures who are too stupid to know what is going on around them. I would rather study the effects of a subatomic thrusting module on the ECHO-net , then have to listen to them go on about irrelevant facts about their insufferable lives." Luna said as sweetly as possible while mimicking a gun to her head with her fingers.

"OH!! Someone who isn't a Neanderthal!! How exciting! And hear I thought Kane had accomplished all this on his own, but now I see that you are the brains of this operation!" Luna could not have been more happy at that moment, showing the widest smile Kane had seen from her.

"She'll do just fine." Luna said, her and Tannis walking off to discuss something or another. Kane was still in a daze when Radar brought over a small tube of cream. "What's this for?" Kane asked, picking it up to read the label.

"Some Alvera, Sir. After all, you just got burned." Radar said, his tone a little too annoying for Kane's liking. Instead of arguing with the A.I., Kane walked back to his room to have a shower, mumbling about how he was surrounded by ungrateful bastards.

A few hours later, Kane was in the training room dodging rubber bullets fired from turrets which Radar was operating. Kane was trying to get past the restriction of having to be in contact with whatever he teleported, that way he could teleport bullets without having to use his hands as a blockers.

His power was spatial manipulation, not just teleporting, so he figured it should be possible. As a bullet came flying towards him, Kane put all of his focus into the area in front of him, trying to open a rift in space to across the room.

When the bullet passed through the space, it didn't go through any portal, but something did happen that caused Kane to lose focus on the rubber bullet, which slammed into his shield a moment later. He was lost in thought, trying to imagine how he had just done that while waiting for his shield to recharge.

After getting his barring's, Kane asked Radar to replay the scene from a few moments ago, and after observing the video carefully, Kane knew he was correct. Instead of creating a portal, he created an area of space in which time apparently moved slower, or the gravity was higher.

At any rate, progress was still progress, and as long as he was stronger than yesterday, he was stratified. Trying to recreate the same thing, Kane managed to achieve something similar, but in no way could it be called perfected.

He wanted to absorb some more Eridium into his body, hoping he just needed a little more power to achieve such a thing, but he was still a few days away from his next dose.

He had figured out that after absorbing a chunk of Eridium, it basically overloaded his pool of energy he could use for his power, and if he didn't give it enough time to settle out before he absorbed more, his body would shut down, trying to defend itself from potentially exploding.

It was what had caused Luna to pass out earlier from absorbing the Eridium. The amount of power she already had was abnormally small given the fact she was still a child, and her body was in such poor condition, so when she put over double the power she could hold, her body thought she was being attacked and put her in a coma-like state.

What Kane did was disperse the Eridium inside her, letting it heal and soothe any injury inside her. It had also given him a theory about his own wings.

Luna got hers by having so much power, her body did whatever it could to save itself, thus pushing an absurd amount of power outside her body, but why it chose to go in the form of wings was still a mystery to him. He decided he would test it out after he finished robbing Atlas blind, then he could do it.

Done with training, Kane decided it was close to dinner time, so why the hell not have dinner. Tannis and Luna were more than excited, and to give Tannis a proper welcome, Kane purchased a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, freshly baked buns, salted crackers, garden salad, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and even an apple pie with vanilla ice-cream. "WOW!! You should invite people more often!!" Luna said, already drooling onto the table.

"If I did, we would have to socialize." Kane said, burning the invitations before they were even sent. "This smells delightful!" Tannis said, as everyone began to fill their plates. For the next hour, no one said a word. Although the two girls would often let out cooing noises, letting Kane know they found the food delicious.

When they finished, they were all so full, they got to the common room area and each relaxed on their own sofa. "So when are we leaving?" Luna asked, wondering when she would get to see the stars.

"The simulations for the ship should be finished in about a day or two, then the remaining additions will be added. I'd say at the earliest, 4 days." (Earth days) Kane answered, his eyes beginning to get a little heavy.

"Cool." Luna responded as she picked up a remote and pushed a few buttons, causing the wall to slide down, revealing a 96inch screen. A few more seconds and the screen came to life, playing a cartoon show about kids using little monsters they kept in red and white balls to fight each other.

"What is this?" Tannis asked, her curiosity piqued. "It's called Pokémon. It's about a complete moron trying to be the greatest Pokémon master, but he is so stupid, it feels like you lose brain cells just listening to him. However, I enjoy it because I've been trying to replicate the pokeballs they use to store the creatures." Luna said, causing Tannis to get a little excited.

"Have you made any progress?!" Tannis asked, a little too excited. "If the creatures are artificial creatures, made of Nano-bots, then yeah it is entirely possible, but to create a device capable of storing organic matter, while still allowing the space to be livable is theoretically impossible. I'm leaning more in the direction of Nano-tech because it would save on having to care for any animal, and I can actually create identical models of the creatures from this show." Luna answered, making Tannis get a little too giddy.

"How marvelous!! I find the thought of an animal companion completely horrific, but an animal created of Nano-tech, capable of feats beyond even that of human capabilities sounds wonderful! Do you mind if I give you a hand?" Tannis asked, almost pleading.

Agreeing to have another Brainiac on the team, they both watched the show, either of them commenting on how it would have been smarter to do certain things, and how a team as stupid as Team Rocket would have died without a problem in the real world.

Kane watched all of this, thinking he might have done something bad by bringing these two people together. Also giving Tannis a mountain of resources wasn't the smartest thing in the world either. With scraps she managed to create devices and machines that changed the planet, and now she had access to the best materials money could buy.

'I'll just nuke the planet if she creates something on universe destroying level.' Kane thought, drifting off to sleep with plans of causing mayhem across the planet.