thedifferencebetween

[No one can ever be sure what's true and what's not. It's all filtered through Jack-O-Vision, in which Handsome Jack can do no wrong and everyone else are assholes and bandits. If nothing else, he fully believes everything he's saying is the honest truth.]

I'm a great storyteller! I'm just trying to string like ten different ones together and leave out all the extra bits.

Uh...sort of. People came after the weapon 'cause they wanted it. To destroy things with. They wanted to destroy everything. I had a girlfriend named Moxxi. We'd broken up when all this happened, she apparently has some allergy to monogamy. But we were still on okay terms, or so I thought. I asked her for some help, getting my people safe and looking after'em. She wasn't even involved in the first place! Neither were those asshole Vault Hunters! But I asked them for help. because I figured we wanted the same thing: save Pandora. Save the moon. Keep the super space laser away from the lunatics who want to wipe out everybody! They said yeah, they'd help. Moxxi said yeah, sure, this'll make us square, make up for what happened between us.

Then she decides, no, nobody should have the laser, not even me, to safely wipe out the bandits on Pandora, without having to send wave after wave of soldiers in on the surface. And do we have a discussion about this? No, of course not, she just tries to kill me!

Yeah, she's in the 'Pandora can fend for itself' camp. Which is bullshit, she escaped one of those bandit clans herself! She should understand! She's seen it! She grew up with it!

You're not doing a very good job of that, then.

[there's sarcasm to it, but the friendly kind. and Kaz starts to understand that he isn't seeing the whole picture. and that Jack is a bad person who's done some truly nasty shit, but no worse of a person than he is.]

[granted, Kaz periodically tortured a dude for months, chiefly for personal vengeance, so there isn't much further to go.]

And they all turned on you because you wanted the laser? Doesn't seem reasonable, even if you were planning on hanging onto it as a deterrent. Predictable, maybe, but... [a sigh] Nothing good ever happens around weapons of mass destruction. And I don't mean that in the obvious way.

Edited 2016-07-18 18:49 (UTC)

Time constraints! I had a real busy five years there.

These people aren't reasonable. This? This is the middle of the story. This doesn't even go into how after that, when they'd already destroyed my laser and tried to kill me, they just kept at me. They raided my trade lines. They stole from my company. They attacked and sabotaged the cities I built. They killed Nisha. They killed my little girl when they couldn't get to me. A kid who'd never even left her home, let alone hurt anybody. And then that crazy pants Siren loses it on me for retaliating?

I'm not gonna sit here and say I did everything I perfect, I never made mistakes. Could I have handled some things better? Sure. Heat of the moment decisions don't look the same in hindsight, all that. But fuck's sake, what they've done....

[He's flipped over to Frothing Rage Mode, Everyday Jack will return shortly.]

[and there goes Kaz's attempt at objectivity. he's bristling, too.]

Your girlfriend, even your kid... And everything that was yours.

No one could blame you for wanting those people dead. Or worse. Doesn't matter what you did to them, there's things in this world you can't forgive.

And Athena's one of them?

They came for me like rabid dogs. Nothing got in their way. They got a thirteen year old girl to bomb my trains. So yeah, I shot one of them in the head. While he was standing over my daughter's body. But I'm the bad guy here.

No! That's the friggin' thing! Those same people? Apparently tried to kill her, too! Just because she worked for me once! I haven't even seen her since we worked together! She's nuts. And I don't just mean she nuts for wanting me dead, she's legitimately messed up in the head.

Believe me, one of them shows up, everybody will know.

[coldly:]

Tell me their names, so I can pass them on if I ever see them.

But it's good to know she's not with them. Any luck getting her to agree to a truce? And what about the other one-- Rhys? Is a coward all he is, or is it a facade for his real motives?

Lilith. She's got red hair and blue tattoos on her right side. Mordecai, he's a hunter, got dreds tied back down his back. Brick. He matches his name, giant guy that doesn't talk much, other than with his fists.

There was Roland, but he's the one I killed. [Though Jack's not counting on that to keep the former leader of the Crimson Raiders from showing up here.]

Thanks.

Doesn't look like it, but she doesn't have her guns. I can handle her. Rhys...I dunno, I think he's just an idiot who's been through more than he can handle. He works for me, he's Hyperion, and pretty loyal. Those fancy robot bits he's got? You only get those if you've already decided to give your everything to the corp, they aren't medical or replacement parts.

I'm guessing his only motives are 'be the best Hyperion I can be!'.

Don't worry about it. Just return the favor if anyone mentions 'Cipher'. Or they're going by 'Big Boss'. Not the one already here with the shrapnel in his forehead-- a different one.

What the hell does 'everything to the corp' mean?

You got it. I probably don't have to mention that I'm the kinda guy who keeps an eye on things. You got my back, I got yours.

It means he gave up an arm and an eye to get cybernetics to make him better at his job. Because Hyperion and what we do is that important to him. Like I said: loyal. But an idiot.

IC Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject