It's for Springs. It's for Springs. It's for Springs.
She was strapped into some strange computer, about to be sent into the Fr4g-tp bot along with her other companions. The word brought an unpleasant taste into her mouth.
It's for Springs. It's for Springs.
Nisha was speaking to some kind of claptrap that was inside of Fr4g-tp, the Sub-conscious or something. No, that wasn't right was it? Was it Admin, Source Code? She couldnt remember. She didn't care, so long as she got what she wanted, so long as she got the money. Springs would forgive her if she had enough cash. Money always calmed angry hearts.
It's for Springs. It's for Springs. This is what ATLAS would have done.
As she watched Fr4g-tp's greatest fear materialize before her just to give Jack a laugh, Athena couldn't pretend that she was still the good guy.
This is what ATLAS would have done. It's for Springs. You're a monster. NO! It'sforSpringsIt'sforSpringsIt'sforSprings!!
The conscious wasn't going to help them anymore, not because they were bountyhunters, not because they had systematically destroyed several parts of his mind, but because they hated him for just trying to help them. Because they were bad people. Because they hurt someone who just wanted to help.
Monster.
Athena provided minimum suppourt during the final battle against EOS, partly because she just wasn't much use. She kept other reasons for herself. When they gave the H-source to Jack, Athena left. She didn't need to stick around. She knew what he was going to do with it, even if she pretended that she didn't.
Forgive me Janey.
-
If nothing else, Moxxi leaving Elpis was certainly lucrative for Janey, albeit not so much that she could hope to pay Nina's "debt". Apparently there were several mechanic jobs that Moxxi had secretly been working on throughout Concordia, from upgraded security for that creppy Earl guy to mantaining the generators that kept the air-dome around the city. The latter of the two was rather lucrative. Currently, she was tethered to the wall above the city's heat regulator. The device was a cylinder that stuck out of the primary ventilation system and all she needed to do was yank the old one and replace it for a rather high paycheck.
On the surface, it was ridiculously easy. In reality she had been forced to scale a verticle metal wall on a spare cable she had found, and once she managed the cimb a new 320 Kelvin problem arose. Janey simply couldn't stay up there beside the regulator for more than a few seconds, and as soon as she pulled that thing out, It was going to get much hotter.
So she bought a heat-proof shield which later turned out to be a heat-resistant shield and cost three-quarters of what she was making off this job. Which was how she ended up hanging three hundred meters above Concordia with burning hands replacing what looked like a filter filled with Suggarath methane and sludge. Once the job was done and she had finished cursing herself out Janey contacted the police force Cl4p-tp to notify him that she was finished and in dire need of her reward. What she got in response was static.
Strange, she thought to herself. The bugger is never not around to pick up and bore or annoy everything in his vicinity to death.
By the time she had found said bugger, the small unit had already been disabled and looted at least once. Janey thought many things in that moment, but all she said was "Wasted paycheck," as she walked to her imporium for a quick nap at her desk, as Nina had someone watching her apartment at all times.
-
Clearing out the wastes with a sniper rifle was perhaps the closest Athena had ever came to meditation in her life. Elpis had such low gravity, and the high-quality Jakobs rifle fired at such velocity, she didn't need to even adjust her shot, just line up the crosshairs, make sure no one was looking, and squeeze the trigger. This simple plan, along with an oxygen geyser beside her, had allowed the assassin to clear an encampment of about twenty Scavs from the next two towers away, without ever arousing suspicion.
So in short she was procrastinating. Jack had made good on his payment(with several death threats and "employment opportunities" thrown in for good measure), Athena knew what she needed to do, she had the means, and here she was sitting around taking potshots at relatively innocent scavs.
Useless. Insobordinate. Lazy. Monster.
At least she had her thoughts to keep her company.
Thoughts like how to approach a certain junk dealer. There wasn't much to it if she was being practical. Go to Concordia, give Janey the cash, explain maby, ask for forgiveness, avoid getting shot throughout. Beyond that, Athena couldn't see clearly enough to have the next move planned out, but still, it was a better plan than what she had when she took down ATLAS. That had been three steps. Attack everything she could, get help if possible, try not to die (optional).
So she had the tools, the plan (Sort of), and the desire, so what was holding her back? The truth was fear, but every time such a though would try to sneak up on her, it was shot down by the professional assassin in her mind that was the gladiator's complete inability to recognize her own feelings. So the lie she told herself was that she couldn't acess the Moon Zoomy station anymore for... some reason. She didn't know what but who knows? Maby it Janey rigged it to explode when it recognizes her as revenge. Maby it won't work anymore because Janey took her out of the system. Maby it will work just fine and a special note will show up begging her to come back and talk because Janey is just that understanding and if she just came back this could all be figured out because you don't need money or voilence to solve problems as long as you just come back and explain because please 'Thena I just want to see you again and it's okay I promise because I'm perfect.'
Or maby it will explode. Athena didn't know, she couldn't take that risk. And she needs a ride to get back to Concordia. And of course some mystic demon of fate shows up right then to torment her with exactly what she asked for because an unsuspecting Scav rode into view on his buggy. He was too far away to see her but not far away enough for her not to hit him and it's a straight shot that she couldn't miss if she tried.
It's for Springs.
-
Athena gave the idea of sneaking in some serious thought before she remembered that she had just played a major role in the removal of both the Meriff and, more recently, the policing Cl4p-tp. It was almost surreal to just walk in. The city had, suprisingly, not fallen to complete chaos but seemed rather unchanged even though it was in more or less a state of Anarchy, giaint sky H threatening "order" notwithstanding.
The walk to Springs' apartment was quiet, with only the occasional local repeating the same two or three things to themselves. Then, Athena did not stand at the elevator for a solid four minuets contemplating her decision and finally she didn't stand right in front of Janey's door for another ten minuets.
After all that not standing around was done, Athena opend the door to the first place she had ever not wanted to leave but was to scared to stay around in her life. Only to find the entire apartment ransacked.
Athena knew a house raid when she saw one. She had taken place in enough to know the signs. The broken door latch meant that the assailants were either to stupid to sneak in or didn't care, the upturned and cut open furniture meant that they were looking for something not someone, which meant Janey was either A) safe or B) dead. Frantically, the assassin searched every room for a sign of struggle, a bloodstain, or worse, a body. However, never let it be said that luck didn't occasionally smile upon her, as the only thing she found was a note crudely stabbed into the wall.
Walking over to the peice of paper carefully Athena read the sloppily written note.
Janey Springs,
"RrrAaaghh!" the man fell from the ceiling, pinning Athena to the ground on her stomach. She bucked upwards in an attempt to free herself, but her surprise assailant was too heavy for her to shake easily. He went for something on his belt, and when she felt the shift in weight, Athena bucked again, this time turning around, still unable to free herself but landing on her back so she could see the tall brute of a man on top of her. She sent her right hand down to his waist, feigning an attempt to wrestle whatever he was reaching for on his belt. He took the bait and brought both hands down to stop her. In that moment he exposed his ribs and Athena quickly took several jabs at his liver with her left fist. The second hit of her armored gauntlet cracked a rib, and the third doubled the man over in pain. She clapped his ears and kicked up one last time, this time flipping the man over and reversing thier positions. Reaching blindly behind her for a weapon, Athena brought what was probably a rather expensive lamp down on his head, only to be partially blocked by the knife the man had finally managed to pull out of his belt. The hit was enough to daze him though, so Athena grabbed the knife from his feeble grip and brought the end down into his neck, a fountain of crimson spraying into her eyes. She noted the patch on his right arm -half a cog with a grenade in it, probably some local gang- and re-attmpted to read her letter.
Janey Springs,
My men are to pay you visit and collect debt. If you cannot pay, Nina's offer still stands. Lapushka, Nina can be very gentle. Or not. See you soon.
-Nurse Nina.
The bile that rose in her throat was not unfamiliar to Athena. It was the kind of taste she welcomed when she worked for the Crimson Lance. It was the taste that meant whoever she was going up against, whatever they were doing, they deserved what she was bringing to them. Lust-filled doctors with southernly moral compasses was a suprisingly common issue with ATLAS, and Athena had been given express premission to deal with them in whatever way she saw fit. It was one of the few times she had actually felt like she was doing something undeniably good, when she struck down someone who was clearly evil and the bile fell from her throat proving that she was doing something bad to someone worse.
She bolted out of Janey's trashed apartment, making the absolute most of Elpis's low gravity as she raced past the elevator and up the stairs, not even bothering to touch the ground on the final level, instead just bounding off the narrow stairway walls. By the time she had made it to surface level an infiltration strategy had developed in her mind.
Two quick hops and she was atop the shop roofs above the city. Two more and she was staring down at the control panel to Nina's shop. Athena had no idea how these things actually worked, but the ways to use them to her advantage when breaching had been drilled into her mind from as far back as she could remember. With a single stroke of Xiphos she had shut the emergency airlock doors and cut the power to the shop. The crawl through the air vent was slightly more complicated than expected, but the view was worth it. Three men that might as well have been wearing t-shirts that said "hired goon", all with the same mark as the man from Janey's apartment, were all trapped inside with the less-than-honerable-pusedo-doctor. One was frantically pulling on a door latch, his sense of self-preservation apparently greater than his desire for money. The second had apparently gained the opposite idea, as he raised his rusty DAHL rifle protectively keeping Nina behind him, probably hoping for a raise if he saved her skin. He would not succeed. The third stood directly under Athena's vantage point. Doing his best to keep the other two calm and saying things that were supposed to convince the other men that they were in no danger and it was probably just a software glitch and they have nothing to be afraid of. A single red spinning overhead emergency light illuminated the room, and Athena could tell it was within arms reach of her ceiling vent.
She smiled and pushed against the vent, letting it fall through with her along with it. Once she cleared the threshold of the vent, she swung Xiphos to her right, shattering the only light. The high ceiling gave her enough time to get most of a flip in allowing the gladiator to land on her feet. Or she would have if she hadn't landed on the reassuring goon. Her foot collided solidly with the crown of his head, his neck curled back violently and with a snap he fell to the ground dead. Athena managed to turn her awkward fall into a decent combat roll, which kept her from getting shred by the hail of bullets that landed inside the goons deceased comrade's previous position . "C-carl?" The voice came from the doorway, and Athena pounced at the sound. The man had likely never fought an ATLAS supersoldier in the pitch dark before, and if he had, then he hadn't learned from it. Athena landed a hard shot to what should have been his liver, then twisted around to choke him out from behind. The man swung his head back though, catching Athena in the lip and causing her to stumble back. Athena had always been told that she had exceptional night vision even for an enhanced, as well as an excellent sense of danger, which was how she managed to notice the pistol barrel reeling around to face her in the near darkness. In two trained heartbeats she had pulled the pistol away from her, severed his arm with her sword, and in a practiced twirl decapitated the man before he could make a sound.
The third man was keeping suprisingly still, his silhouette standing confidently in a firing stance, Nina cowering behind him. Athena stepped forward silently, hoping to use the darkness to her advantage.
Only to step on a peice of discarded trash. The crunch was subtle enough that Athena thought she may have gotten lucky before the shock rounds started flying. She dived behind a counter but not before her shield ate several rounds. The electricity coursed through her for another few precoius seconds before depleting her shield entirely, and then she just had to grit her teeth until the painful convulsions passed. Footsteps were rapidly approaching her and Athena couldn't trust her legs to make a quick escape. Instead, she engaged Aspis and held the energy shield above her head. The man vaulted her improvised cover, a hail of bullets failing to breach her barrier. Eventually she heard anempty click. She threw her mighty shield, decapitating him and returning to her gauntlet in a clean move.
She took a deep breath, rose on her shakey legs, and strode up to the nurse in the corner. It was clear that Nina couldn't see her as the assassin neared. Deciding to try her luck, Athena wrapped her fingers around Nina's neck, lifting her off the ground with one hand and pinning her to the wall. Nina grabbed at the hand around her neck, but Athena took the Nurse's fingers in her hands and squeezed, the feeling of bones breaking filling her with satisfaction. "You will absolve Janey Springs of her debt, and you will never harm or threaten to harm her in any way again," her voice dripped so much venom that Nina probably didnt even know who was saying it.
Say no, she thought. Say no so I can make it hurt, so I can destroy you. Just try me. Unfortunately Nina had enough sense of self-preservation to make an atrempt to nod. Athena gripped her neck tightly, slamming the woman into the walk until she felt the larger woman go limp, because she could.
With her adrenalin fading, Athena began to feel her injuries a bit more. Her lip throbbed painfully from the headbut, and the ach of electric shock still swept through her body in regular intervals, albiet weaker. The only real injury she had sustained was a shallow gunshot wound that was already beginning to heal itself.
Lacking a twenty foot vertical jump in the standard gravity of Nina's shop, she couldn't get out the same way as she had entered, and being unable to find an emergency release to the airlock doors, it was a of hacking and slashing at the door with Xiphos until she had a hole large enough to squeeze out of.
Taking a breath, Athena realized that this would probably be the best possible time for her to track down Janey and make her attempt for redemption.
Athena went to the bar.
-
A/N: Two part apology. First and foremost, I am genuinely sorry for how long this took, the next chapter will be done by July 4th, I promise. My second apology is for the quality if this chapter. Something is definitely wrong here, but I can't tell what. I've proof read this and revised it into oblivion but I cant tell what it is. I know that this is a fanfic of a fanfic but still, I feel as if I have failed on a quality level. If any of the three to six if you have any ideas or critiques please review and have a wonderful day/night!