[005:] Ecruteak Inn

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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]

[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.[

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[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?

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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.