Future Goals

(General POV)

It only took a few days for Kane, Radar, and now Angel to get back to Pandora from the vacation resort. The first place they went to was Paradise to check up on Luna, Maya and Tannis, but as soon as the Arcadia entered the launch room, it picked up something puzzling.

"Radar, why am I getting readings of Eridium experimentation?" Kane asked, a mild sense of alarm taking over.

"Remember, you gave Luna access to the command protocols before we left in case something happened. She in turn gave Tannis full access." Radar informed him, making Kane's eye start twitching.

"That little...!! Just wait until I get my hands on her!" Kane growled, disembarking the ship and making his way towards the lab.

"What's going on?" Angel asked Radar, who only smirked before following Kane. A few minutes later Kane was standing over the unconscious form of Tannis.

He had a whole speech prepared, but the door barely had a chance to open before he was holding a taser to the back of her neck. "Damn it..." Was all Kane said before he stored both of his Vault Keys inside his inventory where Tannis couldn't access them.

"Radar, lock Luna out of the system." Kane said, then started grumbling something unintelligible as he looked down at Tannis.

"I don't see what the big deal is. So they're doing some Eridium experiments. So what?" Angel said, not seeing the reason behind Kane's reaction.

"The last time they tried experimenting with Eridium, they almost died, and it cost a few million dollars to repair the damages." Radar answered, already locking both Luna and Tannis out of any positions of control in the system.

"But why taser her?" Angel asked, looking down at Tannis, who was now drooling all over the floor. "Anger issues?" Radar answered, not sounding so sure if that was the correct answer in this situation.

Soon they were walking down the halls to the pools, where Maya and Luna were according to what the system was showing.

"Are you sure she's gonna be okay?" Angel asked, looking down at Tannis, who was dangling over Kane's shoulder.

"She'll be fine. This might actually knock some sense into her." Kane said, not too concerned about the scientist.

Before long they entered a large spacious room with 3 large pools, and 2 hot tubs. Right away Kane noticed Luna and Maya, who in turn both realized he was there.

"How was your trip?" Luna asked, ignoring the fact that Tannis was slung over Kane's shoulder.

"Oh, it was great! Lots of fun." Kane answered plainly, staring intently at Luna, who by now at least had the decency to look a little guilty.

"I'm glad you're home safe." Luna said quietly, then let her shoulders slump down.

Letting out a tired sigh, Kane tossed Tannis into the water, who immediately awoke and began thrashing and stammering about for a minute until she got her bearings.

"You two know that Eridium experiments are forbidden. Yet you still did them anyway... Care to enlighten me as to why?" Kane asked, not getting even a glance from Luna, who looked kind of depressed.

"I'm an adult! I shouldn't need your permission!" Tannis objected, obviously having forgotten what Kane said last time.

"When it's MY Eridium, and MY Slag, in MY base, then you sure as hell need MY permission!! If you want to go kill yourself, go do it somewhere else!! I'm not stopping you!!" Kane shouted, a little upset on the matter.

Sure by this world's standards, he was indeed overreacting, but by the standards of his previous world, he wasn't reacting enough.

Hearing she would have to leave if she wanted to continue her experiments shut Tannis up pretty quick, as there was only so far she was willing to push Kane. It was well known he didn't handle things very well, and what she had done was already overstepping the boundary.

Taking a deep breath, Kane visibly calmed himself, before speaking, "You are way too irresponsible to be left here alone together. So, you will all be coming with me in a month when we set off."

His words did the trick of stumping everyone, as no one knew where it was he was going, and Angel was the first to ask what his plans were. "What is your goal, and where are we going?" She asked, getting nods from everyone else around them.

"Go open the Vault on Promethea, kill the monster inside, then loot it." Kane answered, thinking that would be enough for them, but it wasn't. At least not for the newest addition of his group.

"What else? That can't be your only goal. What are you going to do after that?" Angel asked, wanting to know more.

It did make a bit of sense. She had been a slave to a man who wanted to essentially rule the universe as a God, and now that she was free of him, she didn't want to serve someone else with the exact same goal, and judging how obsessed Kane was with the Vaults, she hadn't ruled that part out.

Angel's question had ignited the spark of curiosity in everyone else, and soon they too were staring at him expectantly, waiting to hear what he was going to do next.

Seeing they weren't going to drop this, Kane let out a sign, then pulled the Pandora Vault Key from his inventory.

Using his power, he channeled it to his right hand, then pushed it towards the key, causing a light to shoot upwards, showing a map of the stars that marked specific planets, then showed Vault symbols on them.

"What the-! Are those Vaults?!" Maya asked, pure shock in her voice.

"There are so many things you people still have yet to even begin to fathom about this universe. The Eridians, Sirens, Vaults, they're all connected, but not exactly in a good way. The true purpose of the Vaults have yet to be explained by those who made them, the Eridians. However it is noted by an ancient Siren, Nyriad, that the Eridians were far more intelligent than they knew what to do with, thus they sought out creatures and questions better left unanswered. This is what led to the discovery of The Destroyer and ultimately the fall of their civilization." Kane said, drawing all eyes away from the map and to himself.

"The Destroyer? The thing Lilith and the others killed?" Angel asked, wondering if the threat had been dealt with.

"The Destroyer is a massive, intergalactic menace being from another dimension, sealed within the Great Vault, capable of devouring stars, entire planets and civilizations. The Eridians, at the cost of their entire civilization, imprisoned The Destroyer within the Great Vault thousands of years ago, although a 'false Vault' was made to lure unsuspecting beings to sate the Destroyer's hunger. That was the thing we killed before. The real thing is akin to a God, and must never be allowed to be set free." Kane explained, puzzling everyone.

"Then why are you trying to open it?" Tannis asked, followed by Maya asking, "Whose this ancient Siren, Nyriad?"

Pacing around the room, Kane began once more "The ancient Siren, Nyriad was a Siren who lived with the Eridian people, who were destroyed; and she was the Siren responsible for both their destruction and the sealing of The Destroyer." Kane said, pausing to think back to the game.

From finding the Eridian writing, this was something he took away from it. Among other things.

Continuing, Kane spoke, "When a Siren dies, if they haven't chosen a successor, the power will find the one best suited for it, or to a host in general. Nyriad's power was something dark, something she hoped would never pass on, and though she managed to halt it, I believe her power has been passed on once more. It is for this reason I seek to find the vaults."

His words answered their questions, but at the same time brought a thousand more to mind.

"What were her powers?" Luna asked, a little scared at the answer.

"What does her powers have to do with the other vaults?" Maya asked, not finding the connection between the two.

"How do you know all of this?" Tannis asked, wondering where it was that Kane had gained this knowledge.

"How did she seal her powers? How does a Siren pass them on? Why did she destroy the Eridian people? How did she seal The Destroyer?" Angel asked, running off question after question.

The others all shouted more questions, but Kane couldn't really make sense of them.

"Shut up!!" Kane shouted, silencing the room. "I need a drink!" He started, then walked out of the room, making his way towards the bar.

In less than 10 minutes, everyone was sitting at the bar, waiting quietly as Kane poured himself a drink.

"Nyriad's powers were Phaseleech. She could absorb the power of anything with energy, and that includes people. The energy could be used to increase her longevity, speed, strength, and anything else she could think of!" Kane said, pausing to down swallow a mouthful of his drink.

"Now.. Imagine what would happen if someone with her power was evil, and rather than help people, they went about absorbing anything to increase their strength. Now imagine what would happen if they absorbed the monsters in the vaults, who have more power than thousands of people put together. Or another Siren!" Kane added, finishing off the last part by glaring at each person.

"Whether or not the one who inherited her powers is evil or not, I don't know. I'm not exactly an expert on the subject of being good. All I know is, her power is active once more, and that is not a good thing. Sirens are drawn to Pandora, and I'll bet my life that she'll be here someday." Kane said, then downed the rest of his glass.

"You still haven't answered all of the questions." Radar oh so helpfully pointed out, much to Kane's annoyance.

"Whose side are you on?!" He asked, looking at the one thing in the universe who he should have been able to count on. "Yours. But I still want to know too!" Radar said, leaning forward expectantly, waiting to hear more.

Sighing, Kane started speaking again. "I'm not certain, but I think she sealed her powers in a vault. The Vaults are separate dimensions, something like pockets of space. From what I read, she said she was going to go into a Vault to die. All someone would have to have done would be to open the Vault and go inside for her powers to latch onto them, even after thousands of years."

(A.N. Like a certain Vault Hunter and his woman who went inside and got freaky!! Thus the powers latched onto the fetus, creating Siren Tyreen and the leech Troy!)

"So someone else out there opened a vault?!!" Maya asked, stating the obvious. "Duh!" Luna said, getting a glare in return from the older woman.

"But who could have opened the Vault?" Angel asked, looking to Kane for an answer, though it was Tannis who spoke up. "TYPHON DELEON!! He was the first Vault Hunter!!"

Tannis sounded like a little fangirl, and most everyone but Kane wondered who the hell Typhon Deleon was. After giving a little speech about who he was and what he did, Tannis looked to Kane, who in turn simply shrugged his shoulders.

"My money would be on Typhon, but the last anyone ever heard about him, he was on his way to Nekrotafeyo with some woman." Kane said, then explained how Nekrotafeyo was the Eridian home world, and how it was most likely where the Vault was where Nyriad sealed her powers.

"I'm not exactly a hundred percent sure on how to pass on your power to someone, but I think you have to believe that they have what it takes, just as the power itself would have done when choosing it's next host. For example, I couldn't just pick Brick as the next holder of my power because I wanted him to be, he would have to be suited for the power, and we all know he knows shit about space." Kane said, giving his two cents on the subject.

(A.N. Not too sure how that worked in the game. For all I know, Maya's power went to Ava because they both had blue hair.)

"Nyriad wrote down that she used a billion lives to power a machine, which I'm guessing was the machine that sealed the Destroyer in the great Vault by using the lives of the Eridians for the energy. They gave up their lives to protect the universe, and she was the key. I know all of this, because it was taught to me by the one who handed down his powers to me." Kane said, bullshitting a bit on the last part.

He couldn't just say he knew all of this shit because he learned it from a video game in a previous life, how fucking stupid would that have sounded?

As for claiming it was the one who gave him his powers, that wasn't technically a lie. God had given the chance to be a siren, while allowing him to keep his memories intact, thus giving him the knowledge of the game. Booyah!!

"Who was the guy who gave you your powers?!" Luna asked, more excited about that little tidbit of information over anything else Kane had explained so far. After all, no one knew shit about Kane's past, and she had considered it a personal mission to find out what led Kane down his path of... Kane.

"None of your business." Kane answered, done with that topic.

"You said something about Nyriad's power absorbing another Siren. What would happen if it did?" Tannis asked, being drawn to that bit of information.

"They would absorb the power of the Siren itself, though with the power being forcibly taken from its host, it would not heed the request of said Siren. For instance, they couldn't pass it on to anyone, but I guess having god-like powers is a terrifying thought already." Kane answered, driving home the point that they would all need to be careful and not too trusting of other Sirens.

"Can't there only be 6 Sirens at any given point in time? 4 of them are right here, and Lilith would make 5, so the other Siren would be the one with Phaseleech, right?" Angel said, thinking that it might not be so difficult to find, said Siren.

"Nope. There is no proof that only 6 Sirens can exist at one point in time. From Luna's book, there is mention of a Siren with the power to control animals, and one with the ability to make arms appear out of their back. There could be others as well, but I honestly don't know." Kane said, ending that train of thought.

That was new information to Angel, and she honestly wasn't sure if this was good or bad news.

Everyone needed time to digest everything Kane had told them, and he was just fine with that. Knowing it would be awhile, Kane decided he would go into town and check up on Roland and Lilith, just to make sure they were okay.

Leaving everyone else in Paradise, Kane left without another word. It took a few minutes to get into New Haven, and even less time to find Lilith and Roland. All he had to do was follow the shouting, which sounded an awful lot like a bulldozer wrecking a building.

Sure enough, once he rounded a corner, Kane saw Brick punching a building to smithereens, with Lilith, Roland, Mordeccai, and Moxxi all standing around him. There were of course a few other people standing around, Scooter, Zed, and Helena Pierce being just a few he immediately recognized, but for the most part Kane didn't really care about them.

"What's with the tantrum, Brick?" Kane asked, drawing all eyes to himself. "KANE!! You're back!" Brick shouted excitedly, his earlier anger all but gone.

"So what did I miss?" Kane asked after he got the air back in his lungs once Brick let go of him.

Lilith and Roland recounted their time away on Elpis, and how they helped Jack create his Robot army before they betrayed him, then about the Vault on the moon.

"So let me get this straight. You help this guy build an almost unlimited supply of robot soldiers which then lands him in a seat of power, and then you betray him? Real smart move their genius!" Kane said mockingly, wondering if they thought that through.

"HEY! He should have died when the eye exploded, but he went somewhere else at the last minute!" Moxxi stated, making Kane laugh again.

"What idiot would stand around a weapon that very well might kill them when it was rebooting?!! He's a god damned programmer!! What did you think he was going to do?!" Kane said, looking at her like she was a moron.

Scooter apparently didn't like how Kane was treating Moxxi, and in a moment of very bad judgment, he tried to move quickly on Kane while his back was turned.

He was only a few feet away from Kane when he was stopped dead in his tracks by a boulder sized fist that buried him a foot into the ground.

"Careful, Scooter. I like ya, but Kane's my friend." Brick said, cracking his fist as he looked down at the man who didn't quite look like he was all there anymore.

"Thanks Brick! Dinner is on me tonight!" Kane said, getting a wide smile from Brick. "Awesome!" Brick said, really excited now for dinner.

Moxxi looked like she wanted to say something, but after what happened on her last encounter with Kane, she felt it was better if she kept her mouth shut, though she did look over to Mordeccai, thinking he would at least stand up for her considering his massive crush he had on her.

All she got from him was a blank stare, which was basically him telling her to go fuck herself. Whether that was because he didn't feel like his odds against Kane were good, or he just liked Kane more than her, she didn't know, but either way it wasn't a very good feeling.

"So what are you guys gonna do now? There's no way Jack isn't gonna try and take his revenge on you after what you did. Wouldn't take a genius to know you're all in the only city where your life isn't in constant danger." Kane said, bringing them all back to their earlier discussion before Brick got mad.

"We were talking about activating the shields and stealth procedures. Kinda hide New Haven from anyone without a key." Roland answered, getting a thoughtful look from Kane.

He didn't know how that would work, but it didn't mean shit to him. "Is there anywhere else you could go? New Haven isn't exactly a fortress." Kane said, getting thoughtful looks all around.

"We could go-!" Brick tried to say, but was cut-off by Kane. "No!" Kane knew Brick was gonna say his place, but that was out of the question. He didn't really like 99% of the people in New Haven, and he sure as hell wasn't about to let them into his home.

"There is, Sanctuary." Helena Pierce said, drawing all eyes to her. "What's Sanctuary?" Lilith asked, a little intrigued if the name was anything to go by.

"Sanctuary is a city built on top of Dahl's prime mining ship of the same name, sent to Pandora to mine precious minerals from an area now known as the Caustic Caverns. When the Dahl corporation left Pandora after its unsuccessful ventures, they left their prize mining ship behind, still covering up the failed mining site. In other words, it is a flying fortress, with a large amount of protection." Helena answered, getting nods all around.

"There is a problem though. Before we couldn't get to it because of Baron Flynt and that infernal contraption of his out on the Salt Flats, but now there is something else. A bandit gang called the Bloodshots have taken the place over. If we want to go there, we'll need to get rid of them first." Helena said, exciting a certain mountain sized slab of meat.

"DIBS!!" Brick shouted, more than ready to go kill the Bloodshots.

"You can't just go wipe out a bandit gang, Brick." Mordeccai said, laughing a little at the thought. "Why not?" Brick asked, knowing it was in fact very easy to wipe out a bandit gang, at least if past experience was anything to go by.

"It's a fortress with defenses. It's why we wanted it in the first place. If you could just walk in and kill everybody, it wouldn't be that good of a fortress, now would it?" Mordeccai said, making Brick frown for a moment before a wide smile adorned his face.

"Then Kane will come with me!!" Brick shouted, sounding as though Kane was the key for everything. Mordeccai must have thought so too, as he simply nodded instead of rejecting the idea.

Kane didn't like where the topic was going, but he wouldn't really object to killing a few bandits before he left, and who knows. It might be fun to go kill some people with Brick.

Still, he didn't feel like he needed to be here for this shit, so he decided he would go and see what Marcus was doing. The fact that he wasn't here was a little disconcerting already, but the arms dealer never really followed anyone else's orders to begin with.

Before long, Kane was walking through the door to Marcus' shop, when right away he could tell something was wrong, if a bound Marcus was anything to by anyway.

Kane barely had time to react when something smashed into his left side, but before he could react it was already gone.

Whirling around with a pistol in hand, Kane had to pause when he saw a familiar figure smiling at him, holding up the strip of red cloth that had been tied to his left arm.

"I do believe the score is 1-1 now." Zane said, almost looking like he was gonna burst out in laughter.

"I don't know if it counts when you take it while cashing in your bounty, but I never said it didn't before, so I guess." Kane replied, taking the loss better than Zane would have thought.

Storing away his pistol, Kane brought out 10 solid gold coins that were about half the size of a fist and about a quarter of an inch thick. On one side of the coin, there was a skull engraved onto it, while the other side had some words engraved onto it.

-------

Our life is made by the death of others

---------

"Cool!" Zane said, looking over the strange coins. "So what can I buy with one of these?" Zane asked, looking away from the coins and back to Kane.

"Gear, tech, rare alcohol, weap-!" Kane answered, but was interrupted when Zane shouted "Alcohol!!"

Though he didn't expect it, he really should have considered Zane's personality. Without wasting another glance at the man, Kane tossed him a small book, which had a wide variety of different kinds of alcohol in it.

"Each one is worth a coin." Kane said, then walked over to Marcus, who was still tied up in a chair over by his counter.

"How the hell did he catch you?" Kane asked once he removed the gag in his mouth. "Roland and Lilith asked if I'd come to a little meeting. He got me the second I left my shop." Marcus said, glaring at Zane.

"Yeah, I really should have seen this coming when I told him to find you. My bad." Kane said, earning a glare from Marcus as well.

"If you're going to use me to deal with people like him in the future, I'm gonna need something as well." Marcus said, rubbing his wrists to get the blood flowing again.

"How many cases do you want?" Kane asked, feeling it made sense Marcus should get something out of this. "No. I want access to your armory." Marcus said, making Kane frown.

"You can't sell my-" Kane tried to say, but Marcus started up again.

"I don't want to sell anything. This guy showed me that my security is a bit lacking. I want to use some of your weapons to prolong my life." Marcus said, and Kane could fully get on board with that train of thought.

"Give me a week. I'll set something up for you." Kane said, getting a smile from Marcus. "Thanks. I knew I could count on you." Marcus said, and though Kane would never believe it, Marcus truly meant that.

"I want samples!!" Zane shouted loudly as he came to stand beside Kane and Marcus, pointing at over a dozen different bottles in the brochure.

What followed was all three of them drinking barrels worth of alcohol, each. Zane was so happy, he used all 10 of his tokens on the drinks he found the best, and Kane was even nice enough to give him 2 of some bottles for the price of 1 token, as they weren't really that expensive compared to some of the other ones.

"For my favor, I want more!" Zane said, bringing up the fact that because he took Kane's armband, he now owed him the favor.

"How about I give you a list of people that are worth more coins, and you can use those to buy more?" Kane said, getting a blank stare in return from Zane.

"So let me see if I got this. You get me to go kill someone for you for your favor, but for mine, I get a list of people you want me to kill?" Zane asked, sounding as though the deal wasn't all that good.

"Yeah, pretty much!" Kane answered, not looking phased in the slightest by how Zane phrased it. "Okay, fine! You got a deal!" Zane said, extending his hand as he waited for the list.

Kane had to take a moment to rummage around in his inventory before he found two wanted posters, then grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper. The two WANTED posters were of Wilhelm and Nisha, which were no small rewards.

On the paper, Kane wrote out Jack's name, stating he was CEO of Hyperion. There was also a Katagawa Jr. on there as well, with a marginally lower price next to it. Aurelia Hammerlock was on the list too, but she was nothing compared to the others.

"I'll think of more names later. I'm gonna go home and go to bed." Kane said, slurring his words a little at the end.

Of course, he did have to go over the names a few times with Zane, mostly because he wrote so sloppy it looked like it was written by a 2 year old, but in his defense, the fact that he could write at all after how much booze he drank was already a miracle.

Bidding Marcus and Zane a goodnight, Kane teleported back to Paradise, though it took him quite a bit longer than it had in getting to New Haven.

He kept overshooting the teleport, until he finally just decided to take it a few feet at a time.

When Kane finally got to his room, he was puzzled to find that it wasn't empty. "Hmm? Who the fuck is... is... what?" Kane said, looking at something he wasn't really expecting to see.

Angel was tied to his bed, butt ass naked, while Maya was on top of her, also naked. He knew Maya was bisexual, but Angel never gave the impression she was.

Kane would have enjoyed the moment a bit more, but he was too tired to think properly, and ultimately just walked over to the bed and flopped down like a corpse.

'My dreams are the best.' He thought that being the last thing he remembered as darkness overtook him.