victory_road | over the river

Entry tags:

over the river

Who: Rhys, Mafuyu, Athena, Jack!
Where: New Bark Town, into Violet City.
When: Backdated to, like...the 17th of last month. Yeah.
Summary: Two buddies catching up!
Rating: PG, will change if needed.

He already doesn't like being out of that house.

It would be pretty stupid to keep lying around there, because what good would it be doing? He's got one Pokemon (and another on the way, not by his choice) and a friend(?) nearby, who both seemed to have expressed interest in moving on. Plus, Handsome Jack knew where Rhys was right now, so sticking around in hopes that he'd be 'hidden' or whatever was dumb.

Rhys has tried to hook his arm up to the network in hopes that he wouldn't have to carry this Pokegear stuff around, but of course it didn't work. At least his arm worked, so he honestly shouldn't complain. He's got that stuffed in his backpack, along with Loader in his ball and a few snacks to munch on. And a sleeping bag. And a few other things.

This was going to suck.

Rhys walks out of the house, more or less gimping along because his leg hurt. A lot. It probably happens to everyone when they're shot out of a moonbase and sent hurtling to a nearby planet, but you know. At least it wasn't amputated, or anything. He might end up cutting off his leg if this field trip with Athena goes bad. Rhys can't say that he's close with her or anything. Athena is...kind of scary. Kind of.

He'll limp up to her with his hands wrapped around the backpack's arm straps. "Okay. I'm ready as I'll ever be."

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Athena is, of course, waiting for him by the time he exists the house. She's leaning against the wall besides the door, arms crossed and Xiphos hovering by her shoulder. It's amazing that she's able to be so still, with how she's been itching to get out the moment the sun started rising. She honestly would've left already, but.... ugh. It just doesn't sit well, leaving Rhys to fend for himself.

Is this what caring for people is like? Wow, it's frustrating.

Well. Either way. She pushes herself off the wall when he closes the door behind him, slinging her bag across her shoulder and falling into step in front of him.

"Good. I've been looking at the maps of the area, and it looks like it'll only take a couple of days at most to reach the next town. You better be good on that leg."

Yeah, she noticed the limping. It's pretty obvious, there.

"Days?" That's not something that Rhys wants to hear. How in the world they got dropped into a place that doesn't have any cars, he will never know. Already he misses an easier form of transportation. "Great. So how many days are we even talking about?"

He pouts, starting for the edge of town. "You know, if you crash landed on Pandora after falling all the way from Helios, you'd probably be banged up too." If she was going to make Rhys hustle a little more all the way to Violet City, he was going to have some serious problems.

None of it would be directed to her, of course! Athena was scary. He'd just be miserable.

"You coming?"

"... I do know how that feels, actually," She says, sounding more amused than annoyed at how he's calling her out like that. "When Helios was coming under attack by the Lost Legion, and all the escape ships left or were destroyed, Jack's brilliant plan to get his Vault Hunters to Elpis was to stuff us into a cargo crate and shoot us out of the Moonshot cannon."

Ah, memories.

"As for travel time, if we can make the most of it, it should take about three days to reach the next town."

"Oh."

Well, he tried. It wasn't every day you could go up to someone and tell them that you were blasted out of space or anything. Not that it's something to brag about. Considering all that happened and the crap Rhys had to do, bragging is not an option. For anything. Period.

"I think I remember hearing about that. The Legion." He shakes his head. "That was before Jack was CEO, right?"

Maybe.

But anyway! "Isn't there some other way to get there? A way that doesn't take three whole days?"

"I want to say it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but... well. We didn't even have anything to strap us down with. So it was that bad. Even moreso when we landed in the middle of nowhere."

It... certainly was a thrill. And hey, at least that's how she met Janey. It wasn't a total disaster.

"You're correct. The Legion attacked Helios in an attempt to take control of its destructive laser. Their leader wanted to destroy the Vault on Elpis before anyone else could get their hands on it, and she thought destroying Elpis itself was the best way to do that."

Destroying entire planets (or moons) for their own goals... hm. Sounds familiar. Athena has to admit, at least in Zarpedon's case, she could see the good intentions buried deep down there.

"As for travel, I did see some sort of fast-travel services available..." At this, she scowls. "But they only offer travel to towns and cities that you've visited before. So we're stuck doing things the old-fashioned way."

Oh wow, that is pretty bad isn't it? Rhys takes a moment to brush a lock of hair back. "Yeah, that's...not good." He did have his escape pod with him, anyway. And he had been more or less buckled in. At least he thinks so. Probably, right? The only thing he can relate with in regards to that is the fact he has no idea where he is. Rhys never really woke up to find out.

"Jesus, that's crazy." Rhys mumbles to himself, planting his hands on his hips. "Not sure what destroying the entire moon would have done, but." The Legion always did sound kind of sick to him. Maybe it was because he was more or less Hyperion. Was. Who knows?

The idea of walking for three days with Athena is kind of terrifying. But all Rhys has to do is imagine walking into Jack, and it doesn't seem so bad anymore. He has the feeling that Athena hates Jack more than he does (was hate the proper word?), so he had that working with him. Maybe Athena could be a bodyguard kind of figure.

Rhys just wouldn't tell her that.

"Might as well get started. I really want to get this over with." He shakes his head, gimping forward as best he can. "I'm not looking forward to seeing Jack again." In the flesh of all things, too.

"Destroy the moon, destroy the Vault that's inside of it. Literally, the Vault was probably pretty close to the core of the moon."

Or at least the entrance was. She's not going to pretend she knows all the details of how Vaults work, even though she's successfully tracked down two of them by now.

"Just keep reminding yourself that Jack is nothing on this planet," She can't hide the way the corners of her mouth twitch upwards at that. Oh boy, will she love to make sure he realizes that if they finally meet face-to-face... "He has no tech, none of his most trusted allies, not a single thread of his old network... no matter what he says to attempt to make you believe otherwise, he's on your level here."

Edited 2016-08-03 04:01 (UTC)

There's a part of Rhys that kind of wants to express how cool it would be to find a Vault, but...apparently, he's going to find one anyway. Pretty neat! "Did it even work? I knew Helios was under attack, but other than that? Nothing." Even in management, he was kept in the dark.

Rhys notices that through this pep-talk, Athena looks oddly amused by all of this. He's going to assume that it's more because Jack is more or less "nothing", which takes him down to her level.

"Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure Jack knows at least five ways to kill someone from strangulation alone." Ooh, he doesn't want to think about that. "He might not have been someone big to you, but I looked up to the guy for years. Being under the impression that my old hero's going to be after me once he realizes what I've done is...terrifying."

It would be at this point where Athena would begin getting irritated by all this doubtful talk, and one of her brows does twitch a little as a frown begins crossing her face, but... she does know what it's like to be brainwashed and conditioned to be incredibly loyal to her employer. Even if the Hyperion stooges didn't go through what the Crimson Lance assassins did, that doesn't mean they didn't go through their own kind of brain meddling.

It's annoying as hell, yeah, but. Ugh, whatever.

"I know all those ways and more to strangle a man, and a dozen other ways to kill someone with my bare hands," the way she says it, it'd be like a normal person discussing swapping dinner recipes... "I'll teach you, if you want. At least you'll be able to predict what he's about to do, even if you're not keen on killing the guy yourself."

Oh my god.

Athena is just as bad.

Maybe self-defense wouldn't be such a bad thing, especially if Handsome Jack was involved. But this guy ended up taking on an actual Vault Hunter. Jack wasn't someone you wanted to bullshit around with, if you had some kind of experience with self-defense or not. Rhys kind of doubts he would take on his boss even if he had the best guns Pandora could offer.

"N-No, I'm okay." Rhys shakes his head. "The idea's nice though. Thanks for that." At least Athena knew what she was doing...and wasn't afraid to get it done. "I'd rather just not get anywhere near him. At all."

... He thinks he can get by without any sort of combat training at all. That's cute. And... still annoying. Enough that Athena reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose; god, this kid was going to be difficult, won't he. Not like Fiona...

"You know that once we get back to Pandora, you'll need to know skills like that, right? Unless you're planning to bunker down in Sanctuary, you're going to be dealing with psychos infesting almost every tow."

And she has a suspicion the Crimson Raiders might not like the idea of a Jack fanboy wanting to find shelter with them. Hoo boy.

"... But even if you want to keep dragging your feet, just... don't worry. I'm not going to let Jack do anything to anyone that shows up from Pandora or Elpis or wherever. I'm not going to let him have the satisfaction of having anyone he might know under his thumb again, and that includes you."

Hey, Rhys notices Athena pinching the bridge of her nose. It's not his fault! He crosses his arms over his chest and shifts his weight on his feet, frowning. "I..." What was he going to do when he got back? There was no Helios to go back to. No job, no home. Literally nothing. "Sanctuary?"

It's good to know that someone here has his back, whether it's because she wants to see him safe personally, or just to deny Jack the satisfaction that he has some kind of control here. If he had been pulled here a little while ago, back when he first agreed to trust in Jack, he wouldn't be feeling like this right now. But now, it's more or less a giant relief.

"Thanks." He looks over to Athena and offers a smile. "After what happened on Helios, being on Jack's side is the last thing I really want right now." Because he knows how it'll go. "If you need help with anything, count me in."

...He'll at least try.

"A town run by the Crimson Raiders. Not really somewhere an ex-Hyperion guy would be welcome right off the bat."

She doubts they'd even give him a chance to explain himself, if he tried to talk to anyone there. And Lilith? If she found out about the Jack AI? Athena doubted even the bizarre alien that saved her from execution would be able to save Rhys from Lilith's wrath, vault hunter or not.

So yeah. She's not even going to encourage the idea of him going there one tiny bit. Instead, she just focuses on his offer of help, and nods.

"If Jack is doing what Jack does and charming every gullible person on this planet, then anything I say about him will just look like the rambling of some crazy enemy soldier," Not that she's offended by that. She's kind of fully expecting everyone to consider her exactly that at this point. "But if one of his own men, who clearly looked up to him at one point, decides to back up the truth of the kind of man Jack was... that could be a huge help."

Oh god, the Crimson Raiders. That was literally spelling out trouble right then and there. Maybe Sanctuary wasn't the best place right now. Or maybe ever.

It was certainly a nice idea.

The idea of Rhys coming out in public and announcing what an asshole Jack was already didn't sit well. Just the thought of going on the network and telling the story of Handsome Jack made his stomach twist into a knot. If he did that, Jack would find him. He'd find him, and kill him on the spot. Weird new world or not, Rhys liked living. "I, I don't know." His voice is a clear giveaway of how unsure he is of the idea. "Maybe...later? Not now. Not when we're about to meet him." Jack'll find a way to get even. He always does.

That's not really Athena's style. Despite being such an accomplished assassin, she much rather prefers to just charge head-first into conflicts, and just solve any issues as they come up. But this isn't Pandora, or Elpis, or any other planet where you can just shoot your problems till they stop. She's going to have to do things differently here. Ugh.

So she nods, despite clearly not looking on-board with waiting. She will say, though...

"Just remember - the longer we wait to do something, the more time Jack has to manipulate more people to his side."

That was the problem. Jack would do anything to make himself seem like the good guy- in his head, he was that, of course. Why show people a false image of yourself? And then he'd follow up his good guy appearance with some good guy actions. It was a lose-lose situation on Rhys' side.

"I know, I know. I just...don't know what else to do."

He takes a deep breath in, deep breath out. They haven't been out of New Bark for long, but Rhys is already wishing they were near Violet. "He just...intimidates me. A bit."

A lot.

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over the river

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