Taking Stock

Staring down at Luna, Kane couldn't wrap his head around her words.

"Are you gonna get rid of me?"

The words echoed around him, and for the life of himself, he couldn't figure out how she came to that conclusion.

"No... why would you think that?" He asked, genuinely curious. She continued sobbing for a minute before she answered, "Because you're so mad at me, and I destroyed your home, and costed you so much money."

She had barely finished uttering the last word, when Kane touched her, teleporting her into his arms on the bed. "For someone so smart, you're an idiot sometimes." He said as he rubbed her back softly, but what he hoped would be in a comforting manner.

"I'm angry because... because I can't bare the thought of losing you." He was surprised when the words came out of his mouth, mostly because he meant it.

He had never had children, at least as far as he knew, and no woman he ever slept with tried contacting him for child support, so he was fairly sure he didn't have kids, but now that wasn't really the case, was it?

He treated Luna differently compared to anyone else he had met before, and he felt he would do anything to help her succeed in life.

He realized he thought of her as a version of himself when he was that age, longing for someone that cared for him, who would do anything for him, get angry on his behalf, any form of parental figure would have worked, and he just now realized he was acting out his wishes on someone who he thought might share his same wishes.

"This is just a base... home is wherever you feel most welcome, even an arena surrounded by monsters could be considered a home, so long as you feel welcome there. As for losing money, I stole everything you see around us from criminals and trash. On top of the fact, I got a few hundred times what was lost in the explosion back last night, so there really isn't a need to worry about it."

Luna starting crying even louder at his words, squeezing him as tight as her little arms could manage. "Wherever you are, that's home!!" She said after a good ten minutes of inconsolable tears, finally showing signs of calming down.

"Just so you know, you're still banned from the lab for a year." Kane said, getting a small laugh from Luna in return. "So you still care about me, even though you were so mad?" Luna asked, finally taking a peek into Kane's eyes, her lips still pouting.

"Yeah. Surprised myself, I'm not gonna lie. Plus you still gotta clean up around here." Kane answered, getting a small glare/ pout in return. "If I didn't care, I don't think I would have gotten as angry as I did." He added, hoping to appease the little Siren.

"Why would you be mad if you care?" Luna asked, still holding onto him tightly, but now she was staring at him without looking as depressed as a few minutes ago.

Kane thought for a moment on how to explain it, before saying "People die everyday, right?" She nodded, and stayed silent as he continued "Do you cry for them, even those who might be good people, and die a sad way?"

Luna thought about it, but in the end she shook her head in the negative. "That's because you don't know them, nor do you care about them. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, it just means they didn't have a place inside your heart." Kane said, pointing to where her heart would be.

Mentally Kane thought, 'It's a damn good thing Marcus isn't here. That was a little cringy even for me, so he might have died from it.'

The two of them spent a few minutes just sitting there, Luna happy to know she was loved, and Kane was still tired so he was almost back to sleep, even after the little drama show he was just through.

"What are you gonna do today?" Luna asked after almost a good hour of just laying on his bed with him. "Nothing. I plan to do absolutely nothing but be lazy and relax." Kane answered, earning a raised eyebrow in return.

"I exhausted myself a few times yesterday, and now I feel like I could sleep for days." Kane explained, causing Luna to giggle slightly at him. After all, it wasn't often that she got to see him pushed to the point of not being able to move, like he had done to her all those times.

"Want some ice-cream?" Luna asked, her attitude skyrocketing. "Did you finish your training?" Kane asked, immediately derailing her happy mood. "No...." She answered, now sounding depressed.

She knew she wasn't allowed ice-cream until she finished an hour of training and her workout session. "Well, why don't you go do that, and when you're done, we can go make ice-cream floats." Kane said, boosting her moral, causing her to rocket out of the room at a breakneck pace.

She had actually never tried something like a Root-beer float, but Kane had told her about it in a story once, so now the idea of getting to try the tasty sounding thing was too good to not finish everything as fast as she could.

While Luna was doing her training, Kane did his morning routine, then decided another bath wouldn't hurt anything. He was so relaxed that without realizing it, he dozed off in the tub, but was brought out of his slumber by what he could only imagine was a dream.

Tannis was straddling him while he was inside the tub, using her hands to cause enough pleasure to almost reach his climax. "Tannis, wha-" Kane was silenced as Tannis put a hand over his mouth.

"You will sit here and let me relieve my pent up aggression!! I know I could have handled the situation a little better, but there is always a risk with experiments. Luna understood we were entering an unexplored area, yet she still took the risk, same as I. Your poor attitude has caused her to be depressed these last two days, and naturally they have rubbed off onto me. So now you will shut your mouth and let me do whatever I want."

Naturally, Kane wasn't going to argue his point. She wasn't wrong, but wasn't entirely right either. Kane would just have to go over some safety precautions they obviously didn't know about, but that could wait for awhile.

Right now his entire focus was on the naked woman using his body as a tool to achieve her own pleasure, and damn the world if he wasn't going to enjoy it.

Tannis was true to her word, using him solely to pleasure herself. Once she had reached her second... or was it third climax, she got up and left the room, leaving a very satisfied Kane.

He wanted to keep going, yet the damnable woman just left. He almost just pinned her to the floor and carried on until he finished again, but no matter what, he would never force himself upon her, or anyone else for that matter.

He had been witness to what that could do to people when he was a kid, and he loathed anyone who could do such a thing. Having finished again by himself, Kane left the room and wandered into the kitchen.

Tannis and Luna were already eating at the table, and he couldn't help but notice how Tannis shot him a victorious smirk, irritating him to no end.

'Crazy broad!!' Kane thought as he took a seat and helped himself to an Omelet and toast. "So, what is on the agenda for today?" Tannis asked, still smiling like she hadn't just left him.

"I am gonna be testing out a new drone so I can spy on the surrounding camps. You two can do whatever you want, minus Eridium and Slag experiments, and considering the lab is still fucked, the best you can do is study some alien tech." Kane said, rubbing a little salt into the wound, making Tannis shoot an annoyed glance his way.

With a *Humph!* sound, Tannis excused herself and left the room. "You can be a dick sometimes..." Luna stated, which only made Kane happy. "She started it." Was all he replied in defense of himself.

The rest of breakfast went by quite peacefully, then the two of them went to the common room where Kane set up a monitor for his drone, and the controls.

"I'll admit this is really awesome, and slightly creepy!" Luna said, watching the screen as Kane used the drone to watch Brick and the others working their way through Atlas soldiers. "How is this creepy?!" A defensive Kane asked, looking down at the little girl.

"We are stalking our four friends who have no idea we are watching them. If any of them have to go to the bathroom, this will be downright horrible." Luna stated, shivering at the thought of watching something so disgusting.

"We don't need to watch them. We can go spy on the bandit clans!" Kane pointed out, to which Luna stood from her seat.

"That's marginally worse!! Bandits are beyond disturbing, and I'd rather dig my eyes out of their sockets with a toothpick." Luna stated as she left the room to go make herself her promised ice-cream float, while Kane stayed and watched the show.

For hours, Kane watched as they made it through base after base, it being far easier than the game made it out to be, considering the fact that he already eliminated most of the bases.

Watching Brick hammer a soldier into the ground was something Kane found kinda cool, trying to compare the sight to a hammer striking a nail. "That's just awesome!" Kane shouted at the screen, seeing another soldier disappear.

Kane had recorded the scene numerous times now, but it was still an awesome sight every time. It was similar to watching Bloodwing swoop down and rip someone's throat out with her talons, or straight up pecking their eyes out.

Watching a little scene like that, Kane had vowed to never get on the little bird of death's bad side.

After his movie/stalking time, Kane joined Luna in having a nice big ice-cream float, then went to his storage facility and unloaded half of all the tech he had acquired from Atlas. Looking at everything all in one room, he was a bit taken aback.

The room was the hollowed out portion at the base of a mountain, and it was nearly filled to the brim with tech. He got Radar to scan the stuff to log it into the system, so they could keep track of everything they had.

"Sir, there are people who are willing to pay top dollar for some of this stuff on the ECHO-net, and for a higher price then some of it was originally worth. To my knowledge, it is illegal to own some of this stuff unless you are one of the higher powers. There isn't really anything we can do with most of it, so if you don't mind, I could start selling a piece of this stuff every so often?" Radar informed him, causing dollar signs to appear in his eyes.

"I would love that! Take 20% of the profits and keep scouring the ECHO-net for any higher tech for Project-BFR. And before I forget, how did your visit with Marcus go?" Kane said, a little pumped at the idea of making a fortune off someone else's stuff.

"I shall allocate two of my bots to begin selling the things that won't cause a fuss on the market, right away. As for meeting Marcus, I must say I was not quite prepared. He somehow managed to talk me into selling the items for a considerable amount less than I knew the goods to be worth. He made some valuable arguments at the time, but after the deal was done, I realized the points he made didn't really matter in the value of the objects." Radar admitted, getting a boisterous laugh from Kane.

"Don't feel too bad about that. Marcus has dealings all over the entire galaxy, and is probably the greatest when it comes to haggling a price. Just make sure to learn from it, and if we can, let's try and not fall into another of his traps. I'm not ashamed to admit that I too have been duped more than once by the guy." Kane said, brushing the situation away.

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"OOOOOOHHHH!! Look at this!!" Luna shouted, holding up a shield in front of Kane's face. Averting his gaze from the sniper in his hands, Kane glanced at the shield, and the piece of paper hanging on it.

Type: Shield

Name: OMEGA

Rarity: PEARLESCENT (The only thing higher than legendary)

Description: Capable of stopping the shot of the most powerful known rifles, the OMEGA shield is one of the only known of it's rarity. Created by those of unknown origin, OMEGA is capable of recharging an unlimited amount of times, while being able to stop at maximum of 4 shots of any known hand held weapon before it needs to be recharged. Insane recharge speed.

Special Effects: Extreme recharge speed, high capacity and immunity to the shock element.

After reading the tag three times, Kane was sure he wasn't dreaming. He had never actually seen one of these in the game before, but he had read about the Pearlescent, and how only Atlas had them in the beginning, them being the top powerhouse at the time.

Kane figured Atlas found them on Promethea near the alien ruins next to their personal vault. "Let's put this in it's own pile. We'll call it, "KEEPING"." Kane said, storing it inside his inventory.

Right now he and Luna were going over all of the stuff he had robbed from the Atlas amoury, and he couldn't believe his luck so far.

He actually managed to find over a dozen known legendary weapons, and two shields, and now, one Pearlescent shield. Observing the legendary objects, he found what gave them the title.

They were all crafted of an exceedingly rare material that was basically indestructible, while Pearlescent items were forged out of an unknown metal entirely. It was no wonder the damn things were one of a kind, no one could figure out how to mold the material to their wants.

The guns also had the added benefit of being more accurate than most weapons Kane had shot, were extremely lightweight, and barring a select few, could fire bullets faster than most weapons of the same model, and had little to no risk of overheating. The material also looked as though it didn't require maintenance, so bonus.

While going over items, Kane came to realize how accurate Marcus' description over guns was. Back when he had talked with the arms dealer, Marcus had told Kane about the different in quality, and how you would almost never see certain people using weapons below a certain quality.

The Atlas soldiers he had dealt with never once used a weapon below Green (Uncommon) quality, which was a point of pride the corporations were trying to get across to people.

They never used the trash weapons the bandits and the like used, mostly because the weapon could fall apart or blow up in your face at any moment, but also because powerful weapons instilled fear into the masses.

Marcus' little lesson basically round down to,

(White) Common quality: Broken guns rebuilt with scrap and rusted parts by your average bandit.

(Green) Uncommon quality: Average gun built by your everyday gunsmith with moderate materials.

(Blue) Rare quality: Average designed weapon, built with top quality materials, by known guns smiths.

(Purple) Epic quality: Top weapon designs, built with high grade materials, by Top smiths.

(Orange) Legendary quality: Expertly crafted weapons of the highest known metal.

(Cyan) Pearlescent quality: Godly crafted weapons of unknown metals and origins.

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The two of them spent hours going through chests, and by the end of everything, Kane had 7 Pearlescent items, 33 Legendary items, and a few hundred of everything else.

Of the 7 Pearlescent items, he kept 4 of them. 2 shields, an SMG and a rocket launcher. The SMG was the greatest weapon of it's model that he had ever seen, so he claimed it immediately.

The rocket launcher was awesome beyond what words could describe, but Luna couldn't lift the damn thing, so he kind of had to take it.

He only could use one of the shields, cause for some reason the protective fields from other shields didn't mesh well with each other, but Luna already had one, and he wasn't about to sell off something so priceless.

Luna got a shield and 2 pistols, a revolver dubbed as ARIES and a machine pistol dubbed as STALKER.

Both weapons were small and extremely lightweight, so she could handle them simple enough, but Kane made sure to walk her through the process of how to handle each of them multiple times, while also making sure to stress the point of never revealing the fact that these were Pearlescent weapons.

They were painted, so unless you peeled the paint and studied the metal, it would be extremely hard to tell that these were made of an unknown metal.

Another thing of note, Kane had finally found guns better than his Glock 17's, but he still refused to part with them. Kane swapped out all of his previous top quality weapons for new and better ones, keeping the trend of having ten of each model of weapon, then loaded everything else back into chests, while cataloguing it.

Instead of taking it all and having Marcus sell for him, he decided he was gonna take it with him and use the weapons as bargaining chips. I mean really, he didn't just expect the organizations to just hand over their Vault Key's and let him raid the Vaults for nothing.

Although he had decided to go to Promethea and open it's Vault first considering how weakened Atlas was at the moment.

Finished with going through all his ill gotten loot, Kane stored everything away back inside his inventory, as well as set aside a few of the nicer weapons for Brick and the others.

Tomorrow he would give them to Marcus to hold on to, while also giving the man a few chests full of the lower quality weapons to sell for him.

"Excuse me, Sir. The laboratory has been repaired back to working order, and all resources are going back to the ship. I've also taken the liberty of using some of the new tech to boost my production, thus speeding up construction to 48 hours." Radar said, causing Kane to smile happily for the umpteenth time today.

"You are the best, buddy!! Buy yourself something pretty, on me!!" Kane said jokingly, but the way Radar agreed to it, Kane knew for a fact Radar would buy some obscene thing for itself.

Radar understood full well what sarcasm was, it just choose to ignore it when it could use it as a way to get something nice. "So where are we going when the ship is done?" Luna asked curiously.

"First we're going to Athenas to collect a key fragment to the Vault located on Promethea. Then we're gonna kill a member of the family that runs Malliwan and take his key fragment, then finally we are going to go to Atlas HQ on Promethea where the final fragment is located. After that, we'll open the Vault and kill the monster inside while taking anything of value." Kane said, getting a happy smile from the little girl.

"You know, have I mentioned how nice it is that you are a murdering thief?" Luna asked, a little too happy for Kane's liking. "I know why that's a good thing, but why do you think it's a good thing?" Kane asked, trying to figure out why Luna thought he was a good role model.

"I'd rather learn from the dominant predator than be the helpless little prey." She said happily, then skipped off to go and talk to Tannis, while Kane watched on in a mixture of pride and horror.

'It's not my problem who she kills in the future.' Kane thought, happy with the fact that he could outrun most beings on the planet, save for maybe Lilith after she learned to use her powers better.

Shaking the troubling thoughts of potentially creating a little monster that didn't care if the world burned out of his head, Kane went to make sure he had every known planet in the universe logged into the ships console, with a spring in his step.