"Hollow"
by Activoid
Rayn had finally claimed her rightful place as the city's most powerful crime lord.
She had done exactly what her father had asked of her in his will, used his carefully selected racing team to flush out her rival Mizo who had been hiding in plain sight as the racing commissioner. And after all her work was accomplished, discarded the team like dirty rags when they were no longer needed. She had used her cunning and made a few acquaintances among them, even quietly deciding to spare their lives at the end of the season… the smallest service she could repay them with.
Things had worked out even better than planned. Mizo had been killed, and she had walked away clean, which was a better eventuality than she could have ever predicted. The rival gangs and loyalists would be all over Jak for doing the deed instead of her. Even the few loyalists who had come to her service upon winning Mizo's dirty business would certainly love to see him pay, regardless of whether she ordered them to disregard him and his friends or not.
And if they chose to disobey her orders, she would simply clean them up, too. It was no issue if Jak and the others were found dead one day by their hands, out of pure revenge; but the disloyalty and disobedience of such action would not be tolerated, if it ever came to pass.
Her word was now absolute law, and straying from it meant punishment and discipline.
The money she gained... the business opportunities... she was rife with a future of good fortune if she played her cards as well as her father had. And that required absolute loyalty and order if she wanted her business to succeed. Casinos, drug smuggling, Lurker trafficking, mercenaries for loan, political bribery, grand theft, money laundering, weapons dealing, illegal eco crystal acquisition, offering "protection" to some friendly neighborhoods in return for a hefty fee for such generous services… there was so much to do, and so many assets to protect.
She knew some of the racing team members had held positions of power, and coupled with a strong sense of justice, would likely be coming for her at some point.
"They were my friends, though probably not for much longer. Ah well,"
… If they ever found out that she was in cahoots with her father, that is. But that was unlikely. They would have needed access to her father's journal, and she had it moved to her new executive office sometime a few days before the end of the racing season.
An item of such importance could not afford to be so carelessly misplaced.
If they ever caught on to her operations and previous treachery, she was ready to pack up and move everything again. But for now, her dwelling and reputation amongst her associates were both safe. Or at the very least, safer than they would have been above the surface of Kras City.
Since she was a target from both the rival gangs and potentially from previous allies, she had prepared a safehouse in advance before she would be escorted to her new hidden quarters below the city streets. No one would know where she was at any given time, except for a few trusted souls, and her bodyguards. And how wonderful it was, to now be protected by bodyguards at all times, though she had some improvements to make since her father's reign.
For starters, she couldn't stand looking at her men in whatever slovenly garb they wore as they trailed her around, and instead required they wear something more formal, to clean up and look like they took their jobs seriously as men of business, and not soppy street urchins.
Second of all, she required that they do not speak to her unless it was urgent or if she was in dire need of assistance. She couldn't stand anyone who ran their mouth or held pointless conversation with her when they were meant to be focused on their job. It was unprofessional, distracting, and most of all sloppy to let their guard down for the sake of idle chatter.
Last of all, she wanted to ensure they were educated. Not like the formal education that she had received at boarding school, but well-educated on all enemies and allies alike.
She had been holding a brief meeting at the safehouse, discussing all this with her aides before handing her men a disc, telling them to read it over if they were so eager to kill their boredom while waiting to be moved again.
On the disc contained newer files that she had not previously shared with them. They were already familiar with Mizo and his high-profile cohorts from his racing team such as Razer, Shiv, and Edje. But there was new information on her recently made acquaintances. The men lazily read through the files at one of desks that had been set up in the safehouse living room.
Ashelin, they already knew as the acting governess of Haven City for the last handful of years. Most of what they read was available as public knowledge due to her status as a famous politician and member of their city's council.
Torn, they found to be fascinating. He seemed to be harsh on the surface, and his combat record was impressive during the early days of the metalhead wars under the rule of Praxis. He was a seasoned veteran who had a change of heart and defected from the very force that was the only front line in protecting the city from metalhead attacks. But he seemed wise enough to leave her family business alone, and not stick his nose where it didn't belong.
Keira seemed harmless enough to ignore after reading through her file: just a moody teenager with a knack for racing, impressive mechanical skills, and affection for Jak.
Daxter, they skipped over entirely. They didn't care about Jak's noisy pet, and were surprised that someone had actually taken the time to compile a dossier on him at all, despite its brevity.
Jak, on the other hand, had the most documentation of all of the team. And the most bizarre.
Aside from his standard bio, noting the death of his father and long list of accomplishments, there was an enormous section titled "Dark Warrior Program", that had reportedly been pilfered from the archives of Haven City's old prison labs before they were demolished, probably by a disgruntled scientist who didn't want their years of precious research to be lost forever.
They knew Jak had saved Haven City, and by extension the planet, from the threat of metalheads and the omen of the Daystar, but until now it wasn't clear to them exactly how one rowdy kid with an illegally-owned gun could accomplish such a monumental feat.
The kid was boosted, thanks to some super soldier project that he had unwillingly participated in, only four years ago.
Most people heard rumors about how he could change into some sort of monster, and that it somehow played into his banishment to the harsh desert wastes outside of Haven's walls, but Rayn had always figured it was metaphorical until this file had conveniently come into her hands right before the start of the racing season.
She understood why such information would be kept secret from the public, and why there had been such an effort to suppress this knowledge; foreign governments would likely try and create more super soldiers like him if they could access research like this.
She knew that that Grand Duchy of Aeropa was struggling to keep its enemies at bay, and wondered how much they would compensate her for a gem such as this that could turn the tide of war with their surrounding territories. Her father had specialized in weapons dealing, but imagine what she could gain by selling the very blueprints themselves.
The files on him were far more detailed than the initial biography, and perusing through them made her conclude that Jak was not one to be trifled with.
Enhanced eyesight, hearing, reflexes, well-above-average strength, and many other traits explained why he was able to take on an entire alien army and come out unscathed, but Rayn was thinking about what an invaluable asset he would be on her father's racing team when she had first seen the file months ago.
And, if that knowledge of his past were kept secret, no one could accuse him of cheating, or disqualify her team from racing because of his unnatural abilities.
He was just the man she needed to win, and he had delivered. Spectacularly.
She checked the time on her communicator. It would still be hours until she was escorted to her new home. Her bodyguards had many hours ahead of them on his file alone in the meantime.
Jak sighed. The beach was too crowded.
Ever since Haven City had torn down its walls, he had been looking forward to returning to the days where he could simply walk out on the beach and enjoy some alone time and the relaxing smell of ocean breeze.
It was the first time he had been to the ocean in months, ever since he was so busy getting caught in all the drama of Kras City. And it was the first day since the races ended that he had some actual, real time to himself.
At least, that was what he had hoped for. The weather was warm today, so everyone else also thought the beach would be a great place to hang out.
He dismounted his zoomer next to the designated parking area, and threw his towel over his shoulder, adjusting his swimming trunks and shirt after they had been bunched up from the seat and the wind. He grimaced at the crowd, who seemed to notice that he had arrived, too. As usual, they weren't particularly happy to see him; some of them even took their children by the hand and led them away, others muttering some unkind words that were barely within earshot.
He walked down the boardwalk, trying to find a spot where he could hang out without too many people around to bother him. Of course he had to listen to murmurs as he passed, and dodge unpleasant glances in his direction. He knew the unwanted attention would be even worse if he hadn't worn his shirt, and he was grateful he did.
He had saved the world twice, but that didn't make people fear him much less than they already did before his banishment. Even though Ashelin had pulled some strings and revoked the status of his exile, the citizens of Haven City were less-than-welcoming of his permanent return.
It didn't help that everyone seemed to have a different idea of what his dark side, the strange creature aptly named "Dark Jak", really was. People's perceptions of it were so widely varied, that no one really knew what was true and what was just hearsay. Hearsay only resulted in rumors.
Two distinct souls waging war in one shared body. A werebeast like one from old feudal legends. One that mysteriously appeared seemingly out of pure magic, with no known explanation. A shadow of pure evil, born from the depths of the void. Dark eco incarnate, having gained a mind of its own. An evil spirit possessing a hapless teenager.
It was none of these things, and no one knew the truth except Jak himself, the one known person on the planet who could channel all colors of eco, and one of the last living channelers at all.
Jak trusted his own knowledge and expertise in eco more than he trusted the rude words and theories of random bystanders who thought they could pass judgement on him.
He walked for what seemed like forever around the curving shoreline until he found a place he could relax without the multitude of hateful gazes burning into him, and climbed over to the other side of an artificial jetty constructed from piled rubble and remnants of the old city wall. He set up his towel on the sand, took his shirt off and threw it on top of it, starting some warm-up stretches.
His chest and back were still covered in scars from the experiments that the Baron had conducted on him years ago, and even though he had pretty much accepted his fate of never being able to resume a life of normalcy again after the torture he endured, he still felt a little self-conscious about the scars and parading around a crowded beach with his shirt off.
They didn't need to know what had been done to him. The less people who knew the unpleasant details, the better.
He went for a swim, admiring the colorful fish and seaweed that he had missed since his days as a kid. Some of the species he recognized, thankful that they hadn't all gone extinct in the hundreds of years that had passed since he had set foot on these shores.
He dove below the water and thought he even saw what looked like the tops of some old sentinel sculptures, buried under years and years of rocky sediment, algae, and barnacles. It was still home, even after all this time. But even though he was home, he had the lingering feeling that he couldn't relax yet.
He kept daydreaming about the day prior, where he had found out about the journal that Rayn had left on the tavern counter of the Bloody Hook.
After leaving the bar and overcoming his disbelief, he wanted to rip her to shreds, but she was long gone at that point, and he hadn't the faintest idea where she had disappeared to.
It would never cease to amaze him how so many people could be so evil and manipulative, while never having been corrupted or twisted with dark eco. People could be terrible all on their own, without any help.
Dark eco was a primordial ooze known for warping body and mind, but by itself was not inherently evil. Chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous. But never evil. Difficult to control, and endlessly problematic, yes. But evil, no.
People were evil... not some dumb globby substance.
As a kid, he never imagined that he would be one of the few who could harness that power for himself. Though it took him some time, a couple years to be exact, and many mistakes, to figure out exactly how that power worked.
Dark Jak was the manifestation of Jak's raw, unchecked emotions. Mainly the negative ones. The powerful ones. The primal ones. It wasn't just his rage, but it was his fear, anguish, desperation… and a few other strong feelings, as he unpleasantly and rudely discovered when he and Keira tried to share a special moment one time.
Pure, unbridled primal emotion, without restraint, would set it off. He theorized that it had something to do with the properties of dark eco itself being an uncontrollable, violent force, and some kind of congruence between both his feelings and the eco. And regardless of whether the power was called upon, or unintentionally took hold, the rational part of his mind would take a backseat to his id and he would just act on whatever he felt like doing at the time. Or react, not thinking twice about anything he was doing either way.
It wasn't until he came to his senses afterwards that he had regrets and second thoughts about his actions... Which was why he tried to avoid using that form at all, unless it was absolutely unavoidable or a life-and-death situation.
There had been too many times where he had come to, only to be covered in blood, turning back to find pieces of bodies strewn apart in a mess, charred corpses, and bits of foreign flesh stuck between his teeth and under his fingernails, and the throats of his enemies torn out.
… And sometimes the throats of unarmed innocents as well.
All things that seemed like good ideas in the moment.
Jak tried not to think about it too much, for his sanity.
Lately he sometimes found himself pulled so far into his daydreams and thoughts, to the point that he was almost living and reliving them. He had to focus back on his present surroundings and reality, and remind himself that he was just here to enjoy a warm day at the beach.
Jak swam back to the shore and decided to lay out in the sun on top of his towel to dry off. He shielded his face from the blinding light with his hand, but then decided to just close his eyes and lay spread-eagle on the ground instead, soaking up the warmth.
He had briefly considered clearing out the beach crowd on the side of the shore that he preferred... by transforming into his darker self and scaring them all away so he could enjoy the whole beach in peace and quiet... but thought better of it. He'd done it before, and changed back before he got too carried away and hurt anyone, but Ashelin had reprimanded him for it later and threatened to ban him from using the beach altogether if he tried a stunt like that again.
"Since you love sand and wide open space so much, we can always send you back into the wasteland, if you'd prefer,"
Her weighted words rang in his head. He didn't want to break her trust again, but he did want the citizens to trust him a little more, if just enough that he didn't have to deal with funny looks everywhere he went. Even if it meant having to curb all inclinations of being an asshole.
After the end of the Dark Maker war, people of Haven still feared him and what he could do, despite him having a better handle on the meaner, nastier side. Stories had made their way around the world to Kras City, the Icelands, reaching even as far as the Grand Duchy of Aeropa. Stories that probably were convoluted and full of half-truths by now, depending on how many times they had been relayed from person to person.
But just as people were wrong about his Dark side, they knew even less about the Light.
In their minds, if Dark was evil incarnate, then surely Light was pure good. After all, wasn't that how balance worked? Good vs. evil. Forever warring in balance.
Reality wasn't as metaphorical or conveniently simple as Jak would had liked. Though it held some truth to it, depending on your point of view.
The dark eco continued to eat away at Jak's body and harm him silently from the inside every time he used his powers. That didn't improve much with practice or discipline, it was just the nature of dark eco being a corrosive substance. The only balance was that the light eco protected him as much as it could in the process, and healed him afterwards. The chronic aches and pains he felt before and after transforming were gone. He did feel loads better overall.
But there was one other aspect of the balance of Light that no one knew, and it was one that he did not wish to share, not even with Daxter, though he suspected that Daxter already knew. The logic was as follows: if Dark Jak was his powerful emotions and wanton savagery, then Light Jak was pure rational thought and complete numbness.
The opposite of heated anger that burned into his chest wasn't calmness; it was a cold, unfeeling hollowness.
A void.
Unlike his darker form, he felt no guilt, no happiness, no sadness, no fear, no anger. No love. No hate. He thought clearly, saw things categorized as only objectives and obstacles. When he would pull out his rifle and end the life of some guard or marauder who was standing in the way of his shot, it didn't matter whether it was a civilian or an enemy begging for his mercy.
And like Dark Jak, Light Jak did not care about mercy... just for different reasons. He cared about results, the most efficient, expedient way to get those results, and overcoming obstacles to said results. Sometimes those obstacles included innocent people.
They were in the way.
They were going to die someday anyway, right?
We all die eventually.
The citizens of Haven City thought they knew which side of him to fear. The infamous dark one that brought terror and horror and destruction was only a shadow, a single aspect of what unchecked instinct can do.
But on the other side of him laid another horror: the aspect of cold, unchecked rational thought without sentiment or feeling to guide it.
The light side was not a force of goodness or purity; morality was subjective, a social construct revolving around a series of agreed-upon rules amongst like-minded people. It was the conclusion he had rationalized. All he knew in that form was what he wanted, and how to exercise control to get what he wanted.
It was just as monstrous and inhuman.
One would have to do something truly unforgivable to bring that side out.
(One day ago)
After the initial shock of Rayn's betrayal, no one slept in the mobile racing garage quarters that night. Everyone was relieved to be alive, but still upset. Ashelin had taken the journal as evidence and immediately returned to Haven City with the rest of the crew. On the airtrain home, everyone shared a long silence and exhausted expressions.
They had to convince Jak to come home with them, after he had put up a stink about wanting to hunt Rayn down that very minute and tear her head off after they had left the bar. It took some time to calm him down, and now he sat on the seat glaring off into space with his arms crossed. He was tired, irritable, and slightly drunk and didn't want to talk to anyone for the rest of the flight.
The only one who managed to fall asleep was Daxter, slumped over on Jak's shoulder pad. He was the only one who felt safe, knowing Jak would protect him and take care of any problems that might arise.
Everyone else, on the other hand, had half-glazed looks in their eyes, and Keira and Ashelin made quiet conversation, keeping their voices down until they arrived back at the Port.
After landing, everyone said their goodbyes for the night and found their way back to their respective living quarters. Keira went back to her apartment outside of Mar Memorial Stadium. Torn returned to his duties as commander of the guard, and escorted Ashelin back to her newly-built manor in New Haven City. Sig went back to resume his metalhead hunting in the Wasteland and being the de facto protector of Spargus City, and tried to give Jak a fist-bump before he left, to which Jak barely summoned the energy to return.
Everyone was gone now, but Jak didn't know where he wanted to go. He wanted to enjoy the cool night air by himself, but it was still mired in pollution from all the zoomers and factories near the Port, and he could see the far-off vehicles of a press crew approaching his position. Though the rest of the world seemed to be enthusiastic about his big win as the new racing champion, the response he received from his hometown was lukewarm.
The constant media attention had worn him out, so he took the initiative to sneak away before the press and paparazzi arrived at his position to swarm him. Eventually he ended up at the Naughty Ottsel, and flipped the lightswitch for the OPEN sign off, locking the front door as soon as he was inside. At the bar counter, he gently dropped off a sleeping Daxter with Tess, who hugged him and cherished him for being alive after the terrifying ordeal with the poison. She had been so happy to see him, and holding him tightly. Jak didn't stick around too long except to smile half-heartedly at her as she thanked him, tears in her eyes. He saluted her casually and headed towards the stairs.
He was glad to be alive, too. He was glad everyone was alive. But mostly he was exhausted and wanted to sleep. Any celebration and revelry at the bar would have to wait until tomorrow, when his soft bed sounded more enticing by the minute.
But he kept thinking about Rayn, how she got away, and there was nothing he could do about it.
How she betrayed all of them.
Nearly killed everyone.
And for what?
It didn't feel like a victory to him.
He went upstairs to crash facedown on the bed in his room above the bar, but couldn't sleep that night. He was angry. Frustrated. Not just mad that she had willingly put the lives of his best friend and people he loved so dearly on the line, but that she could do it so casually, with seemingly no remorse.
It bothered him.
Jak thought he had rid the world of the worst of its worst monsters. But one of them had been sitting under everyone's noses the entire time. Holding idle conversation. Sharing moments of victory and sorrow. Drinking and celebrating. Making jokes with everyone.
Laughing.
He wondered if she was laughing. Laughing at them all, right now, for falling for it. For being gullible. For blindly trusting her.
He buried his face in his pillow and groaned.
He understood now why she forgave him so quickly, within only a few hours of learning that he was the one who murdered her father, wondering if her reaction to the revelation was just as fake as she was. In hindsight, he saw that Krew's death only opened up a position for her to slide right into, with hardly any effort required on her part except to play the victim. No wonder she wasn't too upset about it.
Either that, or she had been faking her grief, too.
He flipped over onto his back and held his pillow in his arms. Stared at the ceiling, tracing the familiar and comforting shapes of the grain of the wooden beams with his tired eyes. He sighed in exasperation.
He didn't know who was real and what was fake anymore.
The races had really pushed his friendships to the limit. Most especially with Ashelin. It didn't help that she was rude to Keira after the mechanic had accidentally learned that he and Ashelin kissed briefly in the desert. The governess had been needlessly aggressive and fixated on winning, possibly even more-so than the rest of the team, and for her unkind behavior, hadn't even taken the time to issue everyone an apology. But from her, he didn't expect one. It was a stressful time and everyone dealt with their feelings differently.
Jak and Daxter found they had been drinking far more than usual to relieve the stress during the time. It was the only way he knew how to keep the stress down when he was confined to the city streets or the racetrack; he wasn't able to disappear off into the forest or wasteland on a whim anymore and take out his pent-up feelings on some poor animals or Marauders. And the last thing anyone needed was for him to snap under the stress of everything.
Torn was more quiet and withdrawn than usual during the races. Jak assumed it was because he was worried about Ashelin, as the last time he had seen him so brooding was the last time her life was threatened, when the Baron discovered her spying. Jak didn't dare make Torn's mood worse by sharing the fact that his girlfriend had made a move behind his back and kissed him back in the desert. Though it only was a matter of time before he found out anyways, considering Daxter, Ashelin, Sig, and now Keira knew about it.
Keira seemed constantly on the verge of tears; he suspected that she was crying with worry for everyone whenever she was alone, and maybe with frustration with her father. Sometimes she would be upset if one of the team's vehicles was under-performing, or if something went wrong mechanically, she would blame it on herself. Jak had never seen Keira so upset before in his life. Usually she was strong, confident, poised… but there had been times in private during the races where she had turned defeatist, and it broke his heart to see her that way.
Of all of them, Rayn never seemed to too bothered by anything, which made sense in retrospect, considering she had never actually been blackmailed with poisoning like the rest of them. She had been in on the scheme the whole time, and had far less to lose.
As cunning and shady as she was, Jak wondered if she would ever go after him or his friends again.
If it ever came to that, he wouldn't hesitate to cut her down the first chance he got.
His mind wandered and soon enough he fell asleep in his clothes, pillow still clutched to his chest.
Rayn reviewed the quality of some renovations of her living quarters in the old train tunnels under the city, which became a vast archive for various treasures and artifacts from around the world. High arching ceilings and chandeliers, the finest of museum-quality display cases, and of course a new place to display all the art and priceless artifacts from her father's legacy.
She looked at her many displays, cherishing the spectacular and glittering view. A raw eco crystal encased in precursor metal. A solid gold statuette of a woman holding a flower. Priceless and beautiful gemstones and jewelry from hundreds of years past. Oil paintings. Sculptures both modern and historical. Entire suits of gilded armor. Flintlocks inlaid with abalone and opal. An entire section just for decorative swords, many of which had been passed down through the hands of dukes and princes over several generations. One sword of which was encased in a glass case entirely by itself, supposedly robbed from the House of Praxis, having a faint green glow to its blade.
She had heard stories of her father smuggling an exceptionally large statue from Haven City, which was later destroyed in an untimely explosion. She saw an empty space in the grand hall that had not been filled with lavish artifacts yet, tapped her fingers impatiently on one of the tables as she stopped.
It would have been an excellent addition to the collection. There had been a ruby key that was part of the statue's design, and priceless precurian gem called The Heart Of Mar hidden somewhere inside its stone body. She knew the key was on display at a history museum in Haven City, and had little interest in it... but the other, more legendary gem had been completely lost and no one knew what had become of it. She knew that Jak was involved somehow, or at least that was the word on the street.
It was possible he may still have it, or know of its whereabouts.
She furrowed her brow, conflicted. If she could avoid it, she'd rather not have to contact Jak for any reason, but she also wanted to finish her father's long line of hard work by retrieving that legendary gem, as he had been looking for it for decades with no avail. Whether it had some sort of mystic power or secret behind it, she did not care. It had a place here in this collection, where many ornate stands and empty silk pillows sat patiently awaiting the day that something priceless would be set in them.
Her father wouldn't be put off by something as inconsequential as hesitation. Otherwise, he would have never been able to take what he wanted, from anyone he pleased.
She decided she would contact Jak for a lead. He seemed like a friendly and cooperative fellow, very gullible. Trusting... and trustworthy. The hug they had shared just days prior seemed genuine enough.
"Thank you, for showing me the light," She remembered her last words to him as they hugged and said their farewells in the bar. He had no reason to suspect her. And from what her father said, Jak seemed to hold a shared appreciation for art, as he was reported to be quite upset after the statue containing the gem was destroyed. Surely he would offer his assistance willingly, if the preservation of art and history was at stake.
She couldn't trust him to know where she lived, but she would certainly give him a call sometime in the coming week. At the absolute least, she would let him have some rest before calling upon any services of his.
Jak spent the rest of the week doing absolutely nothing.
After the end of the last war, and saving the world so many times, he just wanted to relax for a change, find an actual career he was good at, and hang out with his friends at the bar.
He wanted to dedicate this week to doing even less than that. And so far, that had worked out for the time being.
He had tried to make his life a little more mundane by picking up a career as a racecar driver, prior to everything that had just happened in Kras City. He'd always been good at racing, so he figured he could earn a decent living racing cars around a track all day. It kept him focused, and he got paid a salary for it, plus any earnings from winning races. It was fun, he learned some useful things about cars, and it kept him preoccupied with something to do. He needed the distraction to keep from getting lost in unwanted thoughts and overthinking things from the past.
But now he had no racing, no distraction, no action, just the dead calmness of everyday life, and he often found himself getting anxious because of it.
Everything was going great for about a year until his past came back to bite him in the ass, and Rayn stepped into the picture by inviting them all for the reading of that stupid will.
Now even the fun of racing was tainted, and it would be a while before he decided whether or not to jump back into that job again, or to move on. At least he didn't need money or a real job for a while, and would be able to live comfortably off his championship earnings for years.
Today, he went for a swim on the beach again to enjoy the view and ocean breeze, now that most of Haven's walls had been torn down. He remembered the look of sheer amazement on some citizen's faces as they saw the open ocean for the very first time earlier that year. Most of the people in Haven City hadn't been as lucky as him, to have the privilege of growing up and seeing open skies and trees everywhere, or even something as plain as a beach. Seeing the horizon for the first time, where the sea met the sky, must have been amazing for them.
After his swim, he laid in bed all day upstairs at the bar. He helped Daxter clean up a little bit, since they had let the place get a little out of control and there was trash and bottles everywhere. As he was sweeping the floor, his mind still wandered back to Rayn.
He wondered if she would ever see justice. If there was anything that Ashelin could do, or anything that anyone else could do, for that matter.
Ashelin had confiscated the journal and locked it up in some evidence room somewhere, and he figured Rayn would notice it was missing eventually. Rayn was exceptionally clever; more clever than his tiny country-boy brain could've ever imagined, and it was likely that she would put two-and-two together and realize not only did his friends have the journal, but that they likely knew of its contents.
"I wouldn't get too comfy if I were you… everyone's expendable,"
And if he was so expendable to Krew, and now his daughter, would he ever be safe? Would any of them?
He put the broom away and grabbed a rag with some soap and started to clean the booth tables and seats that had been ignored the previous night.
He wouldn't put it past Rayn to try and reclaim her father's old saloon through blackmail or extortion, too. Who knows what else she would take, or who else she would hurt, or lie to, or cheat in order to get her way. He would hate to see Daxter lose his business, something he had worked so hard on, and took great pride in.
The Naughty Ottsel saloon made Daxter happy, and he would be damned if any heir of Krew would try and take what little happiness they had earned away from his best friend.
What if she still wanted ownership of the bar and came for Daxter himself?
The thought made him angry, and the anger made him clean faster. Rayn taking the saloon back was a completely irrational scenario, but Daxter and his friends still might be collateral if she ever decided to show her face again and tie up any loose ends. She knew where they all lived, too, and yet Jak hadn't the foggiest clue where she did.
Rayn couldn't be trusted to carry on peacefully with the information that she knew about them, no matter how little... That trust was long broken. Even if she never ended up acting on that information herself, there was nothing stopping her from selling them out to the highest bidder, just like her father before her.
She had no real incentive to keep them alive, unless they were still useful to her somehow.
It was the only reason he could think of.
He washed his hands of the soap and put the rag away, going back upstairs to lay on his bed. That was his routine every day for the last week. Swim, do some free labor for Daxter in exchange for rent, take a nap. Hang out at the bar in the evening when business picked up. Rinse, repeat.
But that night, in the middle of his lengthy and pleasant nap, his communicator sounded and he groggily woke up, growling. He fumbled his hand into his back pocket and answered.
If he had known who was calling, he wouldn't have picked up: it was the last person he wanted to hear from.
Her.
He grumbled and narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, my apologies, Jak. You sound unwell, are you feeling alright?"
It took a few moments for the gears in his brain to start cranking and get up to speed. Why the fuck was she even calling him?
"You just woke me up, that's all," He said with annoyance, rubbing his eyes with one hand. Partially he was annoyed that his restful sleep had been needlessly disturbed, and partially that annoyance was the worst known scumbag on the face of the earth who dared call him.
He yawned, but then his mouth snapped shut in epiphany.
He realized she might not know that they have the journal.
In light of this possibility, and not wanting to give away his feelings of hostility, he curbed his attitude as much as he could, feigning friendliness with what was now his worst enemy.
"Sorry, what's up?" He sat up from the bed and stretched. Remained skeptical of her. Vigilant of anything that could hint at her motives.
Rayn was patient and didn't seem offended at his snide greeting at all, "My apologies for waking you, but I just wanted to touch base with you and see how you and our friends were doing after taking the antidote,"
Jak scoffed internally at her use of the word "our" when referring to his friends.
"We're doing good, you?"
"I've been feeling right as I've ever been, the antidote seems to have worked. I'm glad to hear that everyone else is doing well, too."
"Yeah. Yeah, me too," She couldn't have possibly called just to small-talk. Someone as business-oriented and focused as her wouldn't waste her time on small-talk. There had to be some other reason she was calling.
"While I have you on the line, though. I did have a question. I have been trying to expand my art and historic artifact collection, and was looking for a very specific gem that you might have seen at some point over the last few years. Have you heard of the Heart of Mar gem, by any chance?"
And there it was.
He was silent for a few moments. It was such a specific question. There had to be some kind of trap. He decided to play along. Maybe he would find out more about her motives. Or maybe he would find out nothing at all, since she was such a skilled liar.
"I've heard of it," He said cautiously.
"I had some sources say that the last time the gem was seen, it was in your possession. Is that true? I would be willing to pay you handsomely for it, if that were the case."
Jak paused to think about what he should say next. She was willing to offer payment for the gem, instead of outright threatening or extorting him for it. But if he told her the truth, he knew she would not believe him, and then she might not be so kind.
The reality was that he did not have the gem anymore. It was gone, sent hundreds of years into the past through a rift in the fabric of time and space.
The gem was long gone.
But that wasn't important. He'd just been handed a golden opportunity.
"... Yeah, I still have the gem. Where do you want to meet?"
Rayn heard that Jak had arrived in Kras City that evening, and that he appeared to be unarmed when he was checked and patted down by the escort she had sent to meet him. A good sign to her, it meant he didn't suspect a thing about her that could be deemed untrustworthy enough to feel the need to carry a weapon.
He even seemed to bring some street-smartness with him as well. When asked by the escort to see the gem, he supposedly showed the escort what was described to her over the communicator as a large, flat, smooth red gem. She was most pleased; the description that the escort had given her undoubtedly matched.
The escort then asked Jak to hand over the gem to him so that he could deliver it to Rayn, but Jak politely declined, insisting he wanted to receive payment first, and that the gem was far too valuable to forfeit over to anyone but Rayn herself. After all... she was a close, trusted friend of his. Though Rayn had tried to sway him into handing over the goods to her escort, she realized he would not budge because he did not express trust for anyone but her alone. While she was pleased with his assertiveness, she was also mildly annoyed because it meant they would have to lead him directly to where she resided below the city.
But that wasn't entirely terrible. Jak's request ensured that her escort did not take off with the gem on his own for whatever reason. There were always plenty of backstabbers in her line of work, so perhaps it was better to play it safe. And to play it even safer, to ensure he did not spread word of her location, she figured she may as well kill two birds with one stone while Jak was here. No one knew that he had flown out to Kras City in the middle of the night by airtrain, so no one knew he was missing.
He was alone.
And it would be a while before anyone noticed that he had disappeared… permanently.
If he ever found out about the operation she was running, she knew he'd be the one to end it, and possibly her as well. Whether by his own hands, or the powers of the governess and the guard commander, she realized that she would not be able to rest easy unless he were removed from the face of this planet entirely.
It was an opportune time to catch him off-guard and unarmed.
"Bring him in,"
In a dark alley near the shipping docks, Jak kept the arm of Rayn's escort twisted sharply behind their back, the unfortunate well-dressed man's body shoved up against the cold concrete wall. The communicator in Jak's other hand went silent.
Jak put the communicator back into the escort's coat pocket.
"Thanks for playing," Jak grumbled as he let the escort down suddenly and they stumbled, his startled eyes wide in fear, unsure of what the crazy kid was going to do next. Jak nodded to him, "You heard what she said,"
The escort was quivering, realizing he couldn't beat Jak in a fight.
He had already tried.
Worse, he knew what might happen if he made him angry. He didn't see any anger in Jak's face, but that was no guarantee that he wouldn't snap without warning and eviscerate him right there in the alley. He had to make it back to Rayn in time. To tell her. Warn her that he was coming. But he couldn't fight his way out.
Instead he ran.
"Hey!"
He ran towards one end of the alleyway, but there was a flash of light in the darkness behind him.
He skidded to a stop. Suddenly Jak had appeared in front of him, as if time and space didn't even matter to him. He was just standing there, a halo of prismatic light shattering away from his form. There was no way anyone could move that quickly. Impossible!
Gasping for breath, the escort turned heel and sprinted at full speed in the other direction out of fear, tripping over his own feet as he did. He almost fell.
But there was another flash, and a blur in the corner of his vision.
And Jak was in front of him again.
And, unexpectedly, the kid grabbed him by the collar at whirlwind speed to stop his flight from the alley. He yelped, still scrambling in place to get away. But Jak held on tight until they stopped struggling.
He looked down at him.
Stared dead in the eye.
There was no anger in Jak's cold blue eyes. No exasperation or frustration. No annoyance, even.
But as he tightened his grip on the escort, he leaned down and quietly spoke, a hint of menace bled into his voice.
"I didn't say you could leave."
The guards would never come to the rescue. They had been paid off long ago to never interfere in either Mizo or Krew's family business. The escort had led him through one of Krew's old closed-down casinos and all the way into a back room behind the empty buffet, where a hidden door was opened and led down a poorly lit maintenance hallway and what looked like an old defunct escalator. Apparently the casino used to be a train station, and the dark tunnels below used to house an old subway system. It was much like Haven City's underground train tunnels that had been temporarily shut down from metalhead infestation. There were probably multiple ways in and out, too; useful to keep in mind, for when the time came to leave.
The old power grid that lit the stone and metal walls with outdated blue eco lights. He could feel the tiny amount of energy emanating from the bulbs when he walked past, different from the electric ones that didn't give him that sensation.
It was all a boon. The lack of guards, the underground tunnels, the lights...
Surrounded by nothing but potential advantages, a free ticket to do whatever he wanted, with no one to watch, with no worry about authorities intervening, or worry for the legal repercussions afterwards. He could make every last soul in this cursed hellhole of a building just disappear and no one would even bat an eye.
Plus, Kras wasn't his city. He didn't live here. If things got really hairy, it's not like they could exile him to the wasteland. The politicians here were all bought and sold, and had no authority, or jurisdiction, over someone from Haven City anyways.
At the most, they might ask him to never come back.
He didn't care. It's not like he or Daxter wanted to, after all the awful experiences they just went though.
He had no other reason to return to this shithole of a city, except to destroy Rayn.
Destroy her, then we can all live without fear.
Justice.
Daxter wasn't here, his friends weren't here, the guards of Kras City weren't here, and so no one would have to witness the atrocity he plotted to unleash within these walls.
Of course, things were never that simple.
Soon after Jak had arrived with the escort, everything quickly went to shit. They had both managed to make their way down into the tunnels after having his identity verified by Rayn herself through one of the outside security cameras, but once inside, one of Rayn's men gatekeeping the entrance to her abode had noticed something. Something that hadn't been easily seen in the low resolution of the video: that the escort was unusually sweaty, and that his pupils were dilated in fear, and his movements slightly more jerky than usual.
It was just enough to give him away.
The gatekeeper standing in front of the hall doorway looked at the blonde kid, who had his hands suspiciously in his jacket pockets, and wore a glare of annoyance.
And if it hadn't been for that one gatekeeper realizing that something was amiss, the rest of Rayn's men in the front tunnels might still be alive. The gatekeeper had tried to pull out his sidearm and shoot Jak while the escort subdued him, but the kid was too fast, and instead the escort found himself grabbed again; this time used as a conveniently placed human shield.
The commotion and shouting had, unfortunately, drawn the attention of the rest of the men nearby in the building, which was not what Jak had planned. The gatekeeper almost finished calling reinforcements on his communicator, before Jak swiftly kicked it out of his hand. The escort staggered towards Jak, trying to swing at him, but he was too injured and his movements too clumsy. All Jak had to do was sidestep enough times, and eventually the escort collapsed on the ground, gravely wounded from having been shot by his own ally.
The interrupted communicator call and sound of gunfire within their own building probably had resulted in Rayn and her closest bodyguard barricading themselves inside by now, and probably looking for an escape route.
He'd have to fight his way through.
They weren't allowed to leave, either.
Unfortunately for his opponents, mobsters and personal guards proved a lot less challenging than an entire army of armored alien creatures, or a factory of war robots, or a fortress of bloodthirsty desert warriors, even without his gun, or his armor. If anything, less weight meant he could move faster, and hit harder. And whether or not they knew about his inherent talent with eco, he didn't care. They would be destroyed just the same.
It wasn't going to be a fair fight, and that was how he wanted it.
The escort laid on the ground, bleeding out on his side, seeing through his crooked vision that Jak had a small glowing ball that looked like blue eco in his hand, and that the lights began to flicker.
The escort panicked and held a hand to his neck where a bullet had grazed him, crawling towards the body of his fallen comrade who had been kicked in the head so hard that their neck had been broken. They were ordered to dispose of Jak and take the gemstone once he reached this far in, but had vastly underestimated his unarmed combat ability, and weren't expecting any cleverness from his end.
He knew about Jak's affinity for both dark and light eco, but...
Was he channelling eco directly from the lights?!
He struggled to breathe and grab the sidearm that was still held in his dead comrade's grasp. Grabbed it, fumbling with shaking hands. It still had a few shots left.
But Jak put a boot on top of the escort's wrist, and crushed it. He dropped the gun immediately and heard his wrist cracking as the boot pressed harder and harder, to the point he yelled in agony and was twisting and writhing to get away.
Suddenly Rayn called Jak on his communicator, causing him to let off the pressure slightly, but not nearly enough for the escort to struggle free. Jak picked up with his open hand that wasn't channeling.
Jak looked into the security camera by the gate, assuming Rayn to be watching, or at the very least, listening while he had the communicator in hand, a small sphere of blue eco in the other.
She sounded just as unfazed as she did during the races, when everyone's lives were on the line, considering a few of her men were now dead, and one more was about to be.
"Jak, I didn't think you had it in you," she sounded condescending, and calm, "I'm not sure what this is all about... But surely there is some arrangement we can make that doesn't require you to needlessly kill all my best men on a whim. It's very unbecoming of you, and as someone I mistook as being more canny than this, I should inform you that this is not a good way to make friends… or keep business associates."
"Rayn…" He said slowly and levelly, with no expression on his face, long past any sense of rage he may have felt prior, "You're no friend of mine,"
He pressed his boot down harder onto the escort's wrist so she could hear that he was still alive, and in pain, when he yelled again. But Jak remained stone-faced and indifferent to his suffering, continuing.
"You threatened me. Used me. And nearly killed the only people I ever gave two shits about. You stole our peace of mind, and then lied about it, and threw us away like garbage,"
He held up the sphere up high in his hand. Rayn was getting an eerie feeling that made her tense up; a feeling that made her consider an unforeseen possibility: that today might be her last. She breathing became shallow as she listened.
"And now... you have the gall to ask me a favor… To bring you a stupid, petty trinket... then ask me to spare your men when they try to kill me? That must take a lot of nerve... I wish I had the fucking balls you do,"
"I-"
She started to speak in her defense, but he interrupted, shaking his head, "-There is nothing you can do that is going to redeem you, Rayn. Not after this. You messed up before I even had the displeasure of knowing you… And the whole world is going to be a lot better off without you."
He took off his jacket and tossed it to the side on the ground, his white racing shirt underneath, while never breaking his channelling.
She looked at him curiously through the video feed, still trying to keep her composure despite his threat, "Are you channeling blue eco?"
He smirked and looked at his hand casually, "Yeah. Not something a lot of people know about: I can channel more than just two types."
Jak let that be the last favor he would ever do for her, letting her know his secret. There would be no more favors.
He looked up at her.
"Wanna see something worse?"
He snapped his hand shut, and the power went out. All light had disappeared from the room.
The video feed was cut and communicator went dead.
Instead of the hum of blue eco through the walls, lighting the halls, a dead silence fell over the room. There was only pitch black darkness and the sound of the escort's choking, hurried breath.
Several shouting men burst into the room with their guns, but then they saw it.
A dim glow filled the room, but it wasn't blue eco.
The escort could see the terror in his comrade's eyes as they flinched and their mouths went agape, but couldn't see what had made them lose their composure so quickly.
What looked like a line of blue light, like some kind of tentacle, snapped in front of his vision and grabbed one of the men by the ankle, throwing them clear across the room with a terrified scream and the sickening thud of his impact. Flashes of gunfire followed. It was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.
Rayn waited for the backup generator to kick in, fumbling her way around in the dark for her pistol, which she had set in the desk drawer of her office.
She had underestimated Jak's cleverness, intuition, and ruthless resourcefulness in using the escort to find this place, and vastly underestimated his fighting skills.
And now he was coming for her, and they were trapped in the executive suite with no light, and no electricity or eco power to open the door she needed to escape. She and her bodyguard would need to open the door manually, and in less than the ten minutes that it would likely take for Jak to reach their location. But for now she needed light.
Rayn thought she had set her father's journal on this very desk a few weeks prior, and that perhaps turning on the screen would be enough to light up the room.
And then, a severe awareness had fallen over her.
The journal wasn't here.
And it was now entirely likely that it had fallen into Jak's hands at some point, thus prompting his sudden rampage through her abode.
"Shit,"
Her bodyguard picked up her voice immediately, "What is it, madam?"
Rayn felt her hands through the darkness and sat down at her chair behind the desk. Her fate had been sealed.
"I have made a grave mistake,"
The darkness was consuming. The only light Jak could see was emanating from himself. It gave him a strategic advantage.
The room was full of scum. And Rayn was scum. As long as she was left alive, she could be considered an active threat to Jak and her friends. They all had to be eliminated, eradicated, permanently removed. The world was a place where peace could only flourish if evil was completely extinguished. Peace for himself and his friends was the goal. They were the obstacle. They were in his way.
Rayn and her men were just more monsters to obstruct peace, just like the metalheads and the dark makers before them. They were no different.
It didn't matter that they looked like people.
It didn't matter that they were alive. Living, breathing creatures.
It meant nothing. He felt nothing.
Rayn gave up her right to live, as soon as she tried to take away Jak's. That was all the justification he needed.
She would play with lives no more after today.
The remains of the Escort were dragged along the floor as he walked, the victim's bloodied body having been torn messily in half by two wing tendrils, purely to frighten the others that dared to challenge him.
Not because he enjoyed it. He felt no enjoyment when he did it. He only did it because it was a rational strategy. Seeing a comrade violently torn apart in front of them would cause them to be fearful and lose morale, and fear causes weakness. Weakness creates opportunity. Opportunities taken advantage of can lead to victory.
It was the logical thing to do. A tactical advantage.
It worked.
The act stunned the men for just a second long enough to grab a knife from the back pocket of another guard with one wing tendril, and stab him in the eye with it. He moved so quickly it was like a blur to them, and they didn't know what had happened. The gunfire was useless, they could not hit him because he would suddenly be on the other side of the room, or behind them, or in front of them.
They thought they could see a blur out of the corner of their eyes where he moved, but as soon as they turned their heads, he was gone, and the man whose eye had been gouged found that his morph gun was taken right out of his hands almost immediately after.
They all found themselves with bullets in their heads before they could come up with a plan, or even react.
The blue glow opened the door and stepped out into the archive room, the vast hall of treasures, where more men had been waiting for him in the darkness, guns pointed, illuminated only by the glow itself. They, too, wore expressions of surprise. They had been expecting his darker half, the feral one that they had researched extensively from files stolen from the depths of Haven City's fortress; the half that was difficult to outpower, but easy to outsmart.
One look into Jak's hollow white eyes, and they knew with certainty that they were dealing with something even more dangerous, and more sinister, than a mindless raging animal.
The backup generator came on, creating a spectacular sight in the archive room. To see so many glittering and priceless art pieces was a beautiful and moving sight... or would have been, had Jak been in a different state of mind.
The treasure contained within the room was irrelevant to the goal. For now, he was efficient.
He was here. He was there. Unblinking. Unflinching. Every trigger pull, the loss of life.
An expressionless, inhuman mask, as he eliminated the abominations of the earth, one by one.
There was no reason to spare any of them. There was no rational excuse for that. Each one he killed only served to demoralize the remaining forces, exponentially increasing the fear, haste, and clumsiness with which they fought against him.
Each death was far from meaningless in that regard; and instead, they were a contribution to the future peace of the world. Peace of mind for himself, for when he eventually felt the need to return to his normal form. Peace of mind knowing that none of them would be able to come after him anymore, and that his friends would be safe.
"There is no such thing as true safety," he thought to himself as he looked at all the various artifacts and legendary trinkets that littered the room, some having fallen on the floor or being shattered.
"There is no safe. There is only safer."
He decided that this room of artifacts, despite their priceless worth, historical value, and immeasurable beauty, would also do well to perish with Rayn and her men. Some of which he recognized as highly dangerous if left in the wrong hands in these tunnels.
It would be in everyone's best interest if the entire tunnel system were brought down.
While he silently mused, one man had tried to sneak up behind Jak, but he had detected the presence of their life force, the green eco in their body. In one fluid motion, wings whipping behind him, he turned around to incinerate them with a blast of light from one hand.
Screams were heard before the light faded, and a charred skeleton crumpled to the ground, the smell of burnt flesh reaching his nostrils. The rug around the corpse had been singed from the heat, leaving scorch marks where his flesh had been immediately vaporized off of bone.
A new wave of four enemies entered the room from a hidden side hallway, and the light was suddenly behind them. He had flapped his wings and took flight, up to the stone piers that held the ceiling in place, getting a better vantage point of the room's layout and any more potential threats. They were all quickly silenced and gone as soon as they had come, sniped from above with his rifle as he hovered in place.
One coward was hiding behind one of the tables, using it as cover against any incoming fire. It didn't do him much good. He reloaded his gun and peeked over the table, probably not expecting to see a flying enemy.
The blue glow appeared briefly in front of him like a blur and a flicker. It had jumped across the tables, some antiques and artifacts in glass cabinets having already been knocked off from the firefight, in pieces upon hitting the ground. The coward was close enough to see its translucent body, briefly showing glowing ligaments and bones underneath the skin of whatever new monster they had encountered. It looked into his eyes, and his stomachs knotted with terror.
He was about to call for help, but it was too late, the figure flashed away in an instant and they found their neck had been broken.
"Protect her at all costs, guard the door!" Some men had shouted as they ran out from the door opposite of him in the corridor.
That was where he wanted to go. That was where she resided.
The men all opened fire on him at the same time with the vulcan fury mods that they had, moving and attacking like an organized unit, in an attack pattern similar to the guards of Haven City. He saw their facial tattoos and realized they were ex-guards.
But he had a morph gun of his own. He shielded the first shots from them, and flew upwards with his rifle, jumping onto the top ledge before resuming fire. He eliminated them quickly, and dove down to finish the remaining two.
At the end of his dive, he landed, rolled, and pushed one guy into the door with his wing with the force of his momentum, hearing his spine crack. All one fluid motion. Efficient.
He shielded himself from bullets from the last man standing. And a single plasmite grenade, which did an equal amount of nothing.
He had not taken one hit in the last handful of minutes since the fighting began.
The last man standing fired pathetically, out of panic, but every single shot was blocked by Jak's shield until they were out of ammunition. He stopped to reload, gritting his teeth, but found himself choked against a wall the second he looked down to search for a magazine.
The life drained from his eyes as Jak checked his inventory and borrowed one of the man's grenades.
There was only one left. Her.
Rayn heard the noisy disturbance outside in the atrium, and waited patiently with a glass of wine at the edge of her desk, while her bodyguard locked her in and barricaded the far side of room with furniture.
But then after a while all they heard was silence, and the low hum of the backup generator.
He called in on the communicator. No response. Checked in with another. Static. Silence.
No one outside was responding.
He had seen the camera footage when Jak had first arrived, saw him all the way outside at the front door only a few minutes prior before the camera feed got cut. There was no way could have made it into the end of the hall so fast, even if he ran. It would take any normal man at least 10 minutes to make their way down into the old tunnels to their quarters. He would have needed to have broken the laws of physics, bent time or space, or something else ridiculous, impossible, or inconceivable to do that. And with as many armed men as they had, it would take at least twice as long to check in to all the security points along the way. Which would have given him and Rayn ample time to evacuate through one of the many hidden exits since the generator was able to po
If it was really him behind the door right now, it meant that somehow he did it in three minutes.
Impossible.
Impossible!
But now they were holed up in the executive suite, with nowhere to run. Rayn readied a pistol behind her desk, out of sight of the intruder for when they opened the door.
If only.
Rayn was nearly blinded as the door was incinerated with a plasmite grenade blast, ears ringing, falling to the side of her desk. Dust and blood rained around her, her head spinning in dizziness from the concussion. Her eyes didn't work right. A fire had started outside on the carpet. Everything was a smouldering mess, smoke filling the room and obscuring her vision further. Her bodyguard was in pieces. Through the smoke was a strange blue glow that she couldn't discern the shape of.
She stumbled to her knee to support herself, and held up the gun in both hands, steadying herself, taking aim.
A long tendril snapped out of the smoke and wrapped itself around her gun and her wrists.
The figure then stepped through the smoke and over the rubble, revealing itself to Rayn.
It couldn't have been Jak.
It couldn't be!
But when she saw his face, and his familiar outfit, though distorted by the glow, she knew.
"So you've come… to finish me off, Jak." She said matter-of-factly, choked out between breaths. She was too weak to retaliate.
She smirked.
"Go on, then… and do it,"
He said nothing, only stepped closer. He set the morph gun down by her desk.
"Or do you want me to beg for mercy first?" She laughed weakly.
He knelt down next to her. Frowned.
Reasoned with himself.
His goal was right here, within grasp. He could end her life right there, with one hard blow from the stock of his gun. One swift punch to the head. One kick.
But... the nagging part of his mind, the balanced part, the normal part was seeping through. That part that doubted.
The part that could feel.
He stopped.
Light Jak was the same as Rayn. They each felt nothing. No regret. No remorse.
Goal-oriented. Calculating. Clever. Both given the power to end countless lives, if that was their wish. They had everything in common; the difference being who could choose to turn it off at the end of the day.
And that thought led Jak to the most profound, and the most decisive point of rational thought of them all, the final revelation of her true character... was that neither of them chose to be the way they were at all.
Rayn was a murderous sociopath who treated others as objects to be used, and was product of the life experiences and family she had been raised with, knowing nothing else, perhaps not even the love of her own father... And Jak was the product of a cosmic game that had broken him.
If she deserved to die for circumstances that were out of her control, to pay the ultimate price for her heinous actions... then so did he.
Jak lowered his head, taking the gun gently from her delicate hands. The glow of his body began to fade, until it suddenly shattered around him in a faceted display of prismatic light, and then that faded away, too.
He set his hand on top of hers.
All that was left was blue eyes full of pity and sadness.
"... I'm not going to make you beg,"
Rayn was stunned, confused, had no idea what to say in response. She thought he was going to end her life, right there. She thought it had some personal value, some importance to do so. It would only make sense, wouldn't it? Surely he wanted revenge, to protect his friends, anything. She leaned against her desk, trying to hold herself up, but found her foot to have been sprained after being knocked out of her chair. She had hoped to die with some dignity.
But the killing blow she expected never came.
He grabbed a long piece of stray torn cloth that had floated down next to Rayn from the explosion, and used it to bind her hands tightly.
"You don't have to beg... But I am going to make sure you see justice,"
Jak pulled her to her feet, but she couldn't stand. Her ankle had been badly twisted by her high heels. In shock and in pain, Rayn said nothing, only tried to stay conscious.
"Hold on," He adjusted his stance and let her lean against him for a moment, then scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.
He walked out of the destroyed halls, past the dead bodies and carnage. Rayn closed her eyes at some of it; some of the things she saw... she wish she hadn't. Jak also grimaced at the view, but mostly at all the priceless and historical artifacts and one-of-a-kind art pieces that he had carelessly obliterated.
"Why… didn't you kill me…?" She quietly asked, eyes half-lidded and consciousness fading from her.
"I was feeling sentimental," was all he said. The answer didn't make sense to her, but it didn't need to. If he hadn't changed back when he did, she likely would have been dead. But not out of sentiment; instead, it would have been murder that stemmed from the purely rational thought that the best defense was a good offense. He had gone too far in trying to protect his friends.
The real sentiment came from the taunt that followed, "If I had just killed you, then we wouldn't all get to see you suffer for the rest of your life in prison,"
They eventually reached the airtrain after a long walk, where he ordered the pilot to fly them straight to the Freedom League headquarters in Haven City.
He had an important delivery to make, and he didn't want to selfishly keep her punishment all to himself.
- END -
(A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you liked it! This was the first fanfiction I've written in probably 15 years, and first actual attempt at this style of writing in general. I'm usually used to screenwriting, which is more dry and direct, so hopefully this didn't come off as too bland. Thanks again!)