Before the War

A Glimpse of Stone

"The Vault is trying to open on its own."

Angel pulled up a short video in which the distinct arch of a Vault appeared to flicker in and out of existence before she spoke.

"We believe that something might be influencing it to want to appear here," Angel explained as she pulled up another video. "We've already tried monitoring for instances of robots like Gortys being in the area but so far there has been no activity."

"Maybe it's someone who's already opened it?" Fiona asked as she looked at Rhys. "After all, we know that it's possible for it to travel between universes...."

"We've been monitoring the area, if someone was trying to travel through they would have appeared by now," Theseus murmured as he typed into his computer.

"Not necessarily," Rhys declared, causing the group to all turn to look at him at once. "Uhh, I mean, when I came here I was nowhere near the Vault. I was just thrown into the wreckage of Helios..."

Angel pulled up a planet-wide scan as Rhys watched with fascination.

"Perks of being President of Atlas," Theseus boasted as he looked at Tim pointedly, who looked a little startled by the attention.

Rhys gave a low whistle of awe as the map was highlighted by little dots of different hues, all of them in constant movement. Angel scanned them over before she sighed to herself.

"There's no other Eridium signatures," she commented with a disappointed sigh.

"Signatures?" Rhys asked in interest.

"When you went through the Vault, the Eridium would have left traces on your body," Angel replied. She did something and the view narrowed down to one dot that was blinking. "This is you."

Rhys' eyes widened in surprise as Fiona frowned a little.

"So he's radioactive?" Fiona asked and Angel nodded. Fiona took a step or two away from him. He quelled the small twist in his stomach at the action.

"He's not going to spread it to you," Angel reassured her. "Your little fight isn't going to give you Eridium poisoning."

"Fight?" Thesus asked in surprise. "Why were you fighting?"

"She was trying to train me," Rhys replied.

"I thought that was Timothy's job," Theseus declared as he looked at the other man.

"Forgive me, someone kept me a little distracted," Tim replied with a small smirk and Rhys watched his double blush a little.

He knew that look and his stomach sank in dread.

Because he always knew where those kinds of infatuations ended for him, and none of them would be good.

"So what are we expected to do now?" Fiona asked as she crossed her arms. "Just wait for the Vault to settle and then...what? Plunder it for its riches?"

"What about Gortys?" Loader Bot asked, a slight tone of worry in his voice despite its monotone. Kind of impressive, actually.

"We still plan to assemble her," Theseus declared. "She needs to keep the Vault in place after all."

Rhys looked up at one of the screens in his (well, Theseus') office and frowned as he looked at the clip of the Vault appearing and then disappearing.

Because for a moment it almost looked like...

"We should get back to training, Rhys," Tim declared as he rested a hand on Rhys' shoulder, causing him to jump a little in surprise. "Just in case there's still something there."