[005:] Ecruteak Inn

[brokencode]

Action: Outside the Inn

[As had become the norm, Angel had settled herself outside, seated on a bench while her Pokemon ran about. Today, Floette was facing off against Mari, while Bailey squared off with Skagbait. Each of them exchanged blows, though not particularly aggressively. Occasionally, Adorababy, who watched the fighting pairs, would reach out, adjusting the Floette's positioning. Skagbait, on the other hand, would nudge Bailey into a better stance. As far as she was concerned, it seemed that, despite Angel's own cluelessness, her Pokemon were picking up on the complexities of battle.]

[Settled behind her was her Furret, wrapped around the girl and resting his head on her lap. She scritched at the top of his head every now and again, which he responded with a loud dook or three. All in all, she was firmly enjoying her chilly afternoons. Especially if, depending on the day, she'll have ice cream in hand.]

Video/Action, Route 38

[While Angel might have called herself weak, her Pokemon thought otherwise. As she stood in the woods, with Mari facing off against a lone Hoothoot, there was an unmistakable air of confidence about her. She issued commands calmly and quickly, and while it helped that Mari was drastically over-levelled for the area, Angel's relaxed nature was certainly helping.]

[Once the Hoothoot had been dispatched, Angel turned around, then huffed at Pokemon filming her. The Pokemon let out something like a laugh, dancing backward as the girl swiped at her. It didn't take long for either of them to collapse into the ground, sounds of mirth erupting from the two of them.]

Comments

[kissmyaspis]

[It takes a moment for Athena to respond; she can't really collect herself, because hoo boy is she bad at that when she's this angry. She just makes a mental note to split off from the inn when they return later. It's been a while since she needed to take her anger out on a poor tree, but she still knew of a nice secluded spot right on the outskirts of town...

(The only reason she's not focusing on Jack is because she knows he's not stupid. After the last time she paid him a visit, there's no way he would just remain there...)]

You don't have to apologize. [There's an edge to her voice, but as her anger isn't directed at Angel, she at least tries to temper it just a bit.] I've know for years what kind of a monster Jack was, but willing using family like that... it puts him at a step beyond monster.

[Her scowl shifts to something like a cringe; it doesn't just make her angry, it makes her sick. The guilt of what she'd done to her family will always haunt her, and she hadn't had a choice in doing it. But this? Using his daughter to charge an alien device? Running the risk of her mutating into something like those Legion Eternals? He did it because of his own megalomaniacal greed and the desire to burn Pandora to ashes. Even after years of being exposed to the worst humanity has to offer, Athena just can't wrap her head around this.]

Hurting... killing family like that is a line no one should ever cross. No matter how evil or sadistic they are.

[brokencode]

[As Athena vented, Angel toyed with her fingers. She wanted to offer her some kind of comfort, but everything she was saying, the siren had said as well. There was nothing to offer, nothing to say to comfort her.]

[Except for perhaps one thing.]

He can't hurt me. Not like that, not here. [At the beginning, she'd had an unreasonable fear that he might sweep her away in the dead of the night. That he'd poke and prod at her until her siren powers burst forth once more. It'd been especially prevalent in the midst of the return of her powers.]

[But then Athena had hit a rather sore point. As if Angel was particularly innocent in all of this. She never remembered the details, but there was a shrill scream and the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal that she'd never quite been able to forget.]

I... I'm not innocent. Not really. [Angel had already revealed the most troubling detail -- what was one more thing.] I killed my mother. Back when my powers first awakened. It was an accident but...

[Rail thin arms wrapped around a slim waist, as if she were trying to hold herself together.]

I think I'm what started it. What drove Jack mad. After that he locked me away in the control core. For my protection, he told me. It wasn't until later that the eridium came but... I swear Jack wasn't like this before --

Before me.

[kissmyaspis]

Bullshit.

[Yeah, sorry Angel. Athena just has to be blunt here.]

I know what it feels like. Having the blood of a parent on your hands. [Both, in her case.] I know the pain of losing family in a horrible way. It's awful. But that gives him to excuse to do what he did.

[She shakes her head, hands clenching and unclenching. She's not quite calm, but the metaphorical fuse has died down a bit.]

That sort of grief doesn't lead you to hurting the important people you have left.

[brokencode]

[Though she knew Athena meant no harm, the siren still recoiled at her words. It was something she needed to hear, that she had no doubts of. But even if she needed it, it still didn't make her happy. She didn't have to like it.]

[Athena's affirmation only confirmed the sort of thoughts that Krieg had put into it. Jack simply didn't know how not to hurt. Worse still, it reminded her that in the end, Jack was a monster, no matter how she spun it. She so desperately wanted to believe that there was some modicum of good in him, that somehow the could make things right.]

He's still my father. [Her voice was feeble, fearful of the outburst that might come from the gladiator.]

[kissmyaspis]

[Maybe it's the tone of Angel's voice. Or maybe the fact that she's growing more fearful as Athena goes on. But something manages to needle past Athena's walls, and a look of guilt flashes across her face.

Shit. Shit. She knows how easily she can freak people out, and normally she doesn't care what they think... but she hadn't wanted to do that with Angel.]

... I know.

[Athena's not always a warm person. Even with their odd little thrown-together family, she's not always like that. BUt she tries to force herself into some semblance of that attitude, if just so she can stop scaring the kid.]

But father or not, you can't allow him to make you keep thinking that all of your misfortune was your fault.

[brokencode]

But part of it is my fault, Athena. [Despite the fact that her voice remained meek, there was a slightly more urgent tone to it. She knew that the gladiator had a point, but she was also tired of being absolved of all her sins.]

[Thousands of people had died by her hands. Accident or not, her mother was one of those. Without her, perhaps her mother would still be breathing. Athena was right in saying that Jack's madness didn't necessarily rest on her shoulders. It didn't mean that the rest of it couldn't be attributed to her, however.]

Do you remember New Haven. [A pair of trembling hands lifted and were held out to the woman before her. Her left hand clenched tightly into a fist.] That happened because of me. The same with Sanctuary, too, Athena.

[kissmyaspis]

[Athena sees the way Angel holds her hands out, and she understands. She'd felt that too, the first time her unit had been deployed, when she was still young enough that the Atlas brainwashing and indoctrination hadn't completely took over. She'd felt it after that final raid; it was like Jess's death had pulled back all those battered and repressed emotions Atlas had tried to torture out of her. It had brought back guilt, and since then, Athena had been uneasy at the thought of destruction on such a scale. It's why she dropped her alliance with Jack as soon as the Vault business was done.]

Jack ordered you to aid him in attacking those towns didn't he? They were his orders, and his people pulling the triggers - that wasn't you. You had no choice, with him doing all that he did to you. If you tried to resist... who knows what he might have done.

[She doesn't think her own words apply to herself, of course. Unlike Angel, before she broke her conditioning, Athena had enjoyed the thrill. She was a monster, yes. Angel? Not so much.]

I can't speak for anyone else, but... you see how Krieg treats you. If the Crimson Raiders still thought you were to blame for what happened to Sanctuary, I doubt he'd treasure you so.

[She thinks the others might feel the same, as well. When they told her their story in return for Athena telling hers, they... glazed over the Angel Core mission. Like it was a subject that was tender for them not because of anger, but because it... seemed to have hurt. The other siren, Maya, especially seemed to have a grim cloud hanging over her at that point in the story.[

[brokencode]

[The siren still had her doubts. Not in the fact that Krieg trusted her -- if anyone were to know the horrors of Hyperion, it would be him. There was no doubting that if Krieg was willing to put his faith into her, then it was a well-deserved gesture. That didn't assuage her fears entirely.]

[Krieg, and perhaps even the second generation of Vault Hunters as a whole, seemed to exist on the outer cusp of the organization. And while Krieg, Maya and the rest of their cohort might have forgiven her, they weren't there to witness the deaths of friends and allies in New Haven.]

[And then there was the obvious answer...]

He wouldn't have done anything. [From everything Jack had told her here in this world, it was that he wasn't a physical abuser. She wanted to believe that no matter how stubbornly she refused, he wouldn't have laid a hand on her.]

[The truth was likely a bit more abysmal.]

He needed me to charge the Vault Key. Lilith was deceased, as far as we knew, and Maya did not react to eridium the way we did. Killing me would have doomed his plans. I could have used that somehow.

[kissmyaspis]

[That... that startles Athena a bit. It doesn't show much, but her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen just a little. She's not unfamiliar with people who would.... so casually use their own lives like that - lord knows she has no sense of self-preservation when she throws herself so easily into the thick of intense battle - but for someone like Angel to say that... she doesn't like that idea. At all.]

... But would you have used that somehow?

[brokencode]

I did toward the end. [Her hands clasped together, clenching against themselves. During the final hour, when she had finally resigned herself to death and accepted that there would be no fixing Jack, all bets were off.] He could hurt me, did hurt me, but I could keep on living. Keep on fighting until the Vault Hunters came and made things right.

[A sigh left her lips.]

The point is that I could have done it sooner. I shouldn't have waited until the bitter end. I could have saved lives, if I had just said no.