Athenas

The trip through space was still as cool as the first time, and right now Kane was jumping around in zero gravity. Luna on the other hand was strapped down in her chair, having not enjoyed floating around like a feather.

"Are you sure you don't want to try this?!" Kane asked, not sure if he was understanding this right. To him, no child in existence would pass up the opportunity to play in zero gravity, but here was Luna, proving his hypothesis wrong once again.

"No. It makes my stomach hurt." Luna said, sounding a little sick at the thought of floating again. Shrugging his shoulders, Kane zipped back and forth for a bit longer, but his fun was ruined when Radar's voice echoed over the sound system.

"There is a small spacecraft approaching our position. They know we're here, and have locked onto our signal. How do you want to proceed?" Radar asked, making Kane groan in displeasure.

"Depending on who they are, we either blow them up or make a break for it to Athenas." Kane answered as he made his way back to his seat and strapped himself in.

A screen hanging down from the roof started showing the image of the approaching ship, but Kane didn't recognize it from anywhere, and it didn't have the logo of any of the Corporations.

"They aren't friendly, are they?" Luna asked, although from her nervous demeanor, Kane figured she already knew the answer.

"I don't think so, no. Most likely space pirates or mercenaries." Kane answered calmly, taking a side glance towards Luna. He could see she was taking long deep breaths, and she kept her cool far better than he expected her too.

"You wanna help on this one?" He asked, turning his full attention to her. He couldn't hold her hand forever, and giving her more experience under his supervision would be the best course of learning she could ever get.

He would be right there with her, his main job keeping her alive. She would no doubt make mistakes, but then she would know what not to do the next time. Steeling herself, Luna nodded firmly as she replied, "Yeah!! I want to do this!"

Seeing her resolve, Kane smiled proudly. "Grab your Oz kit, and guns. Make sure they're loaded, then come back here as quickly as you can." He said, turning off the zero gravity.

She did as he told her, while he himself equipped his own gear. A foot away from him, Radar was doing the same thing. This would be her first clash in one of the Meat Suit bodies, so Kane wasn't sure how she would do.

Although even if the body was vaporized, Radar had a few more down in the hold, and Kane had at least three of the MS variants in his inventory at all times. Although they were still the 60% machine-40% human models, so he would need to update that once they got to another planet.

"Their ship is trying to make contact. What do you want me to do?" Radar asked, curious if Kane would hear someone out. So far, unless Kane was going to keep them alive, he killed people outright, not bothering to listen to the words of a dead man.

Hearing the question, Kane looked over to Luna, who had entered back into the room only seconds before. "You're in charge of this one. What should we do?" He asked, causing Luna to start sweating nervously.

This would be her first big decision, and she really didn't want to disappoint Kane, but she also kind of wanted to hear them out. "Accept the call!" Luna said, finally coming to a decision.

At her order, Radar did something, then the next minute, a screen lit up, showing a room full of lunatics with guns, axes and swords. There was some whooping and cheering, and a few shouts of "Fresh meat!!" and other fun stuff, but it quieted down fairly quickly once a heavy set man raised his hand into the air, obviously to silence everyone.

"Well! Well! Well...!! This just isn't your lucky day!! We have you outnumbered, and out gunned! Why don't you do the smart thing and surrender, and I promise we'll only torture you for a little bit before we put you out of your misery!! HAHAHA!!" The heavy set man said before he burst into uncontrollable laughter, causing the rest of his cronies to follow suit.

This was a good situation for Luna to be in, as she had yet to get over her trauma from the past. Kane figured this would be a good way for her to move on, which it very well might have been, if the seething look of hatred on Luna was anything to go by as she glared at the heavy set man on the screen.

The torture and starvation came back to her, as well as the waiting to be some Pasco's dinner. She was pissed, something Kane knew would help her get over this sooner, but wasn't quite the attitude one wanted to have when going into battle.

"Teleport us there!" Luna said, not even bothering to look at Kane for confirmation. He did just as she asked, pulling both Radar and Luna next to him, then looked out the window so he could see into the ship which was stopped about a hundred yards away from the Arcadia.

It was a complete and utter bloodbath!! The second Kane teleported them into the enemy ship, he vanished from view and began to work his way through the people with guns, while Luna and Radar followed after him, killing with their own weapons.

Luna was using her power to shoot small energy beams around the room, killing three people at once, then shot back into cover, while at the same time throwing a flash grenade towards the far end of the room.

Radar on the other hand, didn't take any precautions with her safety whatsoever!! With reckless abandon, she ran straight into groups, firing an assault rifle like it was her first time. Which it was in that body.

There were a few stray bullets which went wild, hitting a few important parts of the ship here and there, but it was nothing that couldn't be put off for a few minutes.

The whole ordeal lasted less than a minute, at which point only the heavy-set man remained alive in the room. Like a bloodthirsty murderer, Luna fired two quick shots into his kneecaps, dropping him to the ground screaming.

He had already been disarmed by Kane, who had literally cut the man's arms off, as well as disabling his shield before he had taken it.

Seeing everything in the room taken care of, minus a screaming, armless, and now crippled man, Kane walked over to Luna. "Alright! Not bad, but we're still not done! What's the next step?" He asked expectantly, looking at Luna like she should know this, but she looked unsure.

Not knowing what she was supposed to do, she raised her pistol and shot the guy right in the face before looking back at Kane. He actually frowned at that before shaking his head, then repeated, "What is the next step?"

Again, Luna was confused. 'What's the next step?!' She shouted mentally, trying to jog her memory. "Loot the bodies?" Radar chimed in, absentmindedly messing with a small bullet hole on her torso. She had been shot at so many times, her shield could only do so much.

The bullet had only hit an unimportant fleshy part, but the blood had ruined her new shirt. She kept poking at it because despite everything she already knew about humans, she found the squishy meat stuff fun to play with.

"No!" Kane said, rejecting the idea of looting the bodies just yet, which meant Luna and Radar were both still out of the loop on what to do next.

"*Sigh!!* Check for any survivors or remaining thugs which might not have been in the room. It's a big ship, so there are most likely others on board. You should have asked the fatso how many goons he had on board, then offed him. Now we need to go hunting!" Kane said, obviously disappointed.

Luna took his disappointment a bit harder than she should have, whereas Radar just smacked her palm against her forehead as if it was so obvious.

"Like, gimme a sec, fam!!" Radar shouted, quickly making her way to a computer console. Both Luna and Kane watched as Radar pulled a cord out of her hip and plugged it into the console, before she seemed to freeze up.

A second later, Radar came back from whatever the fuck that was, before saying, "There are still 6 people on board, all of them are in the loading bay. They seem to be scrambling about, so they obviously heard the shooting. Also, a few bullets hit some internal hardware. The autopilot system is done for, and the thrusting switch is destroyed. This ship isn't going anywhere!!"

Looking at Luna once more, Kane asked, "What do you want to do?" This time, having already been told what her next step should have been, Luna answered, "Let's go kill these guys, then we'll loot the place!" Kane didn't say anything, so Luna figured it was the right call.

With Radar leading them, the three made their way down to the loading bay, and without much effort, slaughtered the poor bastards. They were all huddled close together, and that had been their undoing.

Luna had tried something she had been experimenting with, creating an area in front of her that, instead of pulling things towards it, unleashed a strong force that pushes stuff away.

When she had done it the first time during training, Kane had dubbed it, "ALMIGHTY PUSH!!"

It was a good name, and Luna thought it described the attack perfectly. Anyway, the attack had originated nearly in the center of the group, so when it went off, they were all pushed outwards without being able to stop it.

One unfortunate soul was actually pushed right into Kane's sword, skewering himself without putting up a fight. The others were all dispatched just as quickly, just not as funny.

Once all of the enemies were killed, the three of them searched the ship from one end to the other, taking anything of value. There wasn't anything to write home about, but they did find a few things that could make a decent sum.

The space pirates must also have robbed or found a Dahl transport ship, because the majority of the tech and weapons were all Dahl brand. Kane didn't care one way or the other which brand the shit was, he was still making easy money.

After looting everything, Kane teleported Luna and Radar back onto the Arcadia, and just as he was about to teleport out into space to grab the enemy ship, because why not, Radar stopped him.

"There are two ships approaching our position!! They are Maliwan, and should arrive within 5 minutes!!" Radar stated, a little louder than usual, but looked as calm as always.

"Transport ships?" Kane asked, an idea already coming to mind. "They appear to be Drop ships, but I can't get a read on how many troops are on board." Radar answered, causing Kane to smile broadly.

Teleporting back to the ship they had just cleaned out, Kane filled a few rooms with enough explosives to wipe out a small town. With a quick string-line from the detonator to the door switch, Kane teleported back to the Arcadia before they quickly shot off into space, putting some distance between them and the Maliwan troops.

They were a fair distance away before they saw a small blast, although given how far away they were, the fact that they could see the blast meant it was anything but small.

"The signals from the Maliwan ships, and the pirate ship have disappeared. With that explosion, I doubt there is much to salvage, if anything." Radar announced, causing Kane to laugh a little darkly. He didn't know why he got so much amusement out of blowing up some Maliwan ships, but it felt damn good.

Soon they were back on course for Athenas before Kane called Radar and Luna to come sit next to him.

"Alright! As far as first real deadly situations go, you both handled yourselves pretty good. However, like you learned, it is most important to wipe out all threats immediately, then you can scavenge the place. And Luna!" He said, making sure he had her undivided attention.

"Radar won't always be able to scan the places for enemy signatures. If you have someone who has information that could save your life, you do whatever you need to do to get that information.

Are there others on board?!!

How many?!!

Are there traps?!!

Are there secret chests hidden about?!!

Where's the money hidden?!!

Those are all important questions, and ones you should ask any chance you can. Also, you let them get under your skin, which wasn't smart. Anger will cloud your judgement and cause you to make unwise decisions. Although, I still do that too, but it is something you should avoid."

Kane paused for a moment to let all that sink in, then added, "All in all though... I'd give you a 6/10!! Pretty good for your first time making the decisions. I didn't do nearly as well my first time."

Luna was a little bummed at first, kicking herself for her mistakes, but upon hearing Kane's praise, she lit up like a Christmas tree.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days after the space pirate incident, Arcadia was just entering the atmosphere of Athenas.

"Hey, Radar! I'm not seeing a city on the map here. Where is it?" Kane asked, while looking over a virtual map of the planet, but for the most part, the planet seemed uninhabited.

However, Kane knew from the game and the ECHO.net that there was a town here, it was just beyond small compared to a city on any other planet, save for Pandora. A city on Pandora could have a minimum population of 100 and still be called a city, but it probably wouldn't last for more than a year at best.

"There is only one town in the entirety of Athenas, which is governed by the Order of the Impending Storm. The town is located Northwest of our current position, 14,387 kilometers away!" Radar answered smoothly, then without needing to be asked, she changed their course before speeding towards their destination.

Given their speed, they would arrive in about an hour, give or take a few minutes. Curious about the planet, Luna asked, "Is there anything interesting about this place, and the 'Order of the Impending Storm'?"

Almost like she was expecting it, Radar answered, "Other than a few pieces of modern day technology, these people are basically living back in the caveman era. The only thing remotely interesting about this planet are the Eridian ruins, which the people have turned into a tourist attraction. Also, a point of note, there are less than 10,000 people currently living on Athenas, all of which are either apart of the Impending Storm or serve it!!"

There was a moment of silence before Kane said, "Huh... sounds like a dump!!"

He sounded like the place was a complete bore to him, but then as if a brilliant idea popped into his head, he added, "Although we could wipe out the Impending whatchamacallit!! They're tyrants anyway so we could take all of their stuff, and the people might actually celebrate us! I'd be down for a party!!"

Luna and Radar didn't care much for the idea of wiping out the Order of the Impending Storm, but then again, Kane was never the one to ask for permission to do anything. If he wanted to wipe out someone, he would do it without a second thought.

At Kane's words, Luna gave an uncaring shrug, while Radar seemed disinterested in the idea. The humans on this planet were stupid beyond her understanding, so wasting time here didn't sound fun in the slightest.

For almost the next hour, no one really said much to each other until the town came into view. There were a few large buildings built atop the mountains, and there appeared to be bridges connecting the mountains to one another. There was even one mountain that appeared to be hollowed out and turned into a monastery sort of thing.

It was similar to what Kane had done to create Paradise back on Pandora, except no one knew of Paradise, and it was a fucking impenetrable fortress while this place looked like it could be taken by the space pirates they had wiped out!!

"Do these idiots have any place not built on a fucking mountain!!" Kane said, a little annoyed. "Why do you even care?" Luna asked, unsure as to why Kane was even bothering with this place.

In response to her question, Kane pointed off in the distance, prompting Luna to turn her gaze to where he was pointing. What she saw took her breath away. It was basically a scene out of a fairytale.

There were waterfalls, trees, plants she had never seen before, and a massive lake. From what she had read about this planet, it was mostly covered in water, but never had it described or shown pictures like this.

"I would say they built up here to preserve the ecosystem of the planet, but that's a lie. The people here have all taken a vow of non-aggression, meaning they won't even raise up arms against the wildlife. The plants and trees are similar to that of my home planet, but the animals are similar to Pandora's. Minus the Skaggs, stalkers, and a few others, but they also have some weird 6 legged, horse-looking zebra things. There are also some dinosaur looking monsters, and birds so big you can ride them, but these people choose to stay up here! They have all of this in their backyard, yet they wanna leave it alone because they're pussies!" Kane said, obviously showing his interest in wanting to explore the place.

(A.N. Just think of the animals from Avatar! The one with the blue people, not the bald kid with a blue arrow on his head!! And the animals don't have the thing you connect your hair to to have sex!!)

As soon as they landed the space ship, all three of them disembarked. Upon stepping outside though, Kane was a little surprised because there wasn't anyone manning the port, nor was there anyone in sight.

"Strange... You would think they would have someone to greet the tourists if it was their main source of income." Kane said, a little curious about the situation, but not enough to worry over it.

Plus it wasn't like he was going to be leaving his ship here unattended. Sure he could have just brought the Arcadia with him in his inventory, but with the security and precautions that went with the ship, he chose to leave it where it was.

Radar also had a few robots under her control inside on standby, so if they needed some backup, a literal battleship would come in handy. Kane also wanted to see someone try to break into it, so he had cameras recording all around, hoping someone would be stupid enough to go anywhere near the Arcadia.

With that done, Kane and the others made their way towards the town. It wasn't long before they came to a giant stone archway with a large round wooden door. There was a large bell with a gong to ring it, but Kane didn't really pay much attention to it.

The door was closed, and there didn't appear to be anyone around to let them inside so, Kane being Kane, pulled out his sword and cut it to shreds. Compared to cutting shields, the wooden door cut like butter.

"Who was it supposed to keep out? Because even a Skagg would have broken through that pretty easily." Luna said, her opinion of the planet's inhabitants dropping by the second. Plus she could easily get a rope atop the archway, so climbing was also an option.

"With everyone here having taken the vow of non-aggression, my guess is keeping each other out." Radar replied, giving her own answer on the subject.

Upon walking through the archway, they all heard panicked screaming. Turning in the direction the screaming was coming from, they saw a man running away with his arms in the air, occasionally taking a glance over his shoulder to look at them, then running a little bit faster.

"Well... I think we could take over this planet in about an hour if this interaction is anything to go by." Kane said blankly, his face expressionless.

With that said, the three of them continued on in the direction the screaming man ran, hoping to run into someone useful.

As they walked along the cobblestone pathway, Luna asked, "Are there no modes of transportation around here?" She didn't mind walking around, but after a while she figured the locals would at least do something to speed their lives up a little bit.

"There is walking, and what is called a Pulled Rickshaw." Radar answered helpfully. Luna was a little confused though. She had no idea what a 'Pulled Rickshaw' was, so she questioned Radar about it.

"A pulled rickshaw is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people, and gets paid to pull people from one location to another." Radar explained, causing Luna to scrunch her eyebrows in confusion.

"Didn't humans evolve past that sort of thing over a millennia ago?" She asked, wondering how far back these people actually were.

"Like I said before, they have a few pieces of modern day tech, other than that they are basically living in the stone age." Radar said, not caring about this planet more and more with every passing second.

I mean if she was going to take over a planet, she would at least want it to be advanced, with hundreds of little robot bodies she could either dominate or just use to do her bidding.

Athenas was the opposite of that, and if Radar didn't have control over a few machines in space, she would be going insane right about now.

It didn't take long for the trio to come across what appeared to be a marketplace, and a small crowd of people gathered to meet them. Kane wasn't sure if they were supposed to look intimidating or something, but if that was the case, they failed miserably.

No one had guns, and there were even a few people who were visibly shaking out of fear while some people were crying. However one man did look like he was not scared whatsoever, like he had some sort of assurance in his pocket that would guarantee his safety.

He was a tall old man with thick gray hair, sharp eyes, and carried himself like he was superior to everyone around him. Unsurprisingly, he was the one who stepped forward to talk to Kane.

"Greetings, Children!! I am Brother Sophis, a leading monk of the Order of the Impending Storm!" The guy paused, looking like he expected applause or something.

After a moment of nothing but silence, he continued, "Have you come here to bask in the presence of the spiritual power of our faith?"

Taking everything in stride, Kane put on a winning smile as he replied, "Well Sophie!! We are tourists who have heard much of the wonderful planet Athenas!! We figured we could come here, take a few souvenirs, check out the wildlife, and kill a few members of the Order!!"

Sophis looked annoyed when Kane called him, Sophie, but his attitude changed pretty quickly when Kane mentioned killing members of the Order. "Child... are you mad?" Sophis asked, wondering if Kane was right in the head.

To think this man would dare claim to go against the Order, it was blasphemy!!

"No, not really, Sophie! I'm actually in a fairly good mood, but thanks for asking!!" Kane said, trying to get a reaction out of Sophis. It worked.

Instead of holding himself like he was above everyone there, Sophis was visibly angry, trying to calm himself by taking long deep breaths with balled shaking fists at his side.

Through gritted teeth, Sophis spoke, "The Order has a Siren! Do you honestly think you could stand up to her power?!!" This must have been why he felt so confident before.

Throughout the universe, Siren's were known as insanely powerful beings who were not to be fucked with, so with just the mention of one being in the Order was enough to dissuade most people anywhere.

"A Siren? This would be what... the fourth one we'll have encountered in a month?" Kane asked, turning his attention to Radar and Luna. The way he said it made it sound like he didn't believe the Order had an actual real Siren, but really he was being dead serious.

To him, finding the elusive tattooed women wasn't very hard. Hell, he had already killed one of them since coming to this world, and it hadn't even been a year yet!

He also knew Maya was here, but he wasn't really concerned about her. Sure she was strong, and her power was nothing to scoff at either, but she still had so much to learn about her powers for her to really be a threat to him.

Plus there was the fact she would do anything to stave off her boredom, so Kane didn't think she would try and deal with them as quickly as Sophie wanted her too.

Hearing Kane's words, Sophis was visibly angry! Reaching to his side, he pushed a button on a small ECHO device, then smiled wickedly.

"You will find out soon enough the error of your words, and pay for your transgressions!!" Sophis shouted before he let out a victorious laugh.

The crowd of people around him took the news of the Siren showing up a bit differently though. Upon hearing of her imminent arrival, they all began screaming and running back to their homes, while Sophis remained where he was with his arms in the air, still cackling like a mad man.

"Hey, Sophie!!" Kane shouted, breaking the man out of his villainous state to glare at Kane for mocking him once again.

"It's already too late for you, heathen!!" he shouted towards Kane. "It's nothing like that. I was just wondering... While we wait for your Siren to show up, who's going to protect you?" Kane asked, a cruel smile adorning his lips.

Sophis actually looked confused at the question. 'What is this heathen talking about?' He wondered, but the answer came an instant later, and he didn't like it.

Kane appeared behind Sophis, bringing his boot down hard on the back of Sophis' leg, causing Sophis to fall over forward.

"*AAAAAAHHHHH!!*" Sophis screamed in agony, but it was just the beginning.

Kane dragged Sophis over to a cobblestone step, placed his mouth over the lip of the step so it looked like Sophis was trying to bite it, then stomped down on Sophis' skull. Teeth fell out, blood sprayed, and yet Kane wasn't done.

Some people might be wondering why Kane was doing what he was doing, after all he wasn't some hero who goes around fighting evil, nor was he someone who hurt others for the sake of causing pain.

(A.N. Well, that second one could be argued.)

Despite the Order being cruel tyrants who controlled the people of a Athenas through Maya's name without her knowledge, Kane didn't really care about that.

The answer for why he was doing this was much more simple than that. Kane didn't like being looked down upon by anyone, and had taken a dislike to Sophis almost instantly with the way the man was looking at him.

The Order could rule this place with an iron fist for all he cared, but if you tried to get in his way, or acted like you were his better, he would do something to get even, be it a harmless prank or crippling you for life! It depended on how you treated him, which would in turn affect the way he treated you!

When Kane finally finished with Sophis, the man was broken in a few places, while each of his joints were pulled out of their sockets before they were turned so they were facing the opposite direction. His left eye was destroyed, and his nose was pushed back into his face.

"Brick would be proud!!" Kane remarked as he turned away from the disfigured man. No one had yet to show up, and the people were all holed up back in their houses, although he did notice a few people peeking out of windows every once in a while.

Seeing no one coming just yet, Kane made a table appear before he brought out lunch for himself and Luna. For Radar, Kane brought out a puzzle box game. She liked these because it killed time, and they were quite enjoyable. It was supposedly one of the hardest ones to solve in his previous world, so he figured why the hell not!!

The three of them enjoyed themselves for a few minutes before another group of people showed up, only this time they were being led by a beautiful woman with short blue hair.

She wore a skin-tight top, which didn't have a right sleeve, more likely to show off her Siren tattoos than any sort of fashion trend. The loose fitting pants did nothing to hide her figure, which Kane was most thankful for.

She definitely had looks in spades, being a perfect 10/10 in his book. It was just too bad she was pointing a Maliwan SMG towards him, otherwise he might have been turned on. Hell, he might even still be!!

"What do you think you're doing?!!" She demanded, taking a quick glance to the broken and bloody form of Brother Sophis, her caretaker since she was a child. She never liked the man, so upon seeing his current state, she absently revealed a slight smile, although she quickly hid it.

Smiling happily, Kane answered, "Lunch!! Wanna join?" She looked at the other two occupants sitting at the table, one being a little girl, about 5 years old she guessed, while the other was obviously a woman, but other than her dark red hair, everything else looked like it was painted a silvery metal color or was covered up.

The child and the man were eating food that smelled divine even from where she was standing, while the woman was playing with a small weird looking box, acting like she didn't even know anyone else was there with her.

"I'm a Siren!!" She proclaimed, getting bored eyes in response. "Congratulations?" Kane said, sounding unsure if he was supposed to applaud or something. No one did that with him, so he wasn't going to do that with her.

There was a long moment of pause before she lowered her SMG and walked over to the table. Taking a seat, she began dishing herself a plate with a little bit of everything on it.

There were a few shouts of disbelief from the members of the Order that had accompanied her, but she paid them no mind.

For once in her life, there were people who didn't bow to her, or didn't look scared at her presence because she was a Siren.

To top it off, they had the best smelling food she had ever seen before, and there was no way she was going to pass up on that.