The Twin Worgs
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Part 1
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"Odexura! Hang on! What did you do to us?"
The monk stood there in silence for a moment, unsure of what to do. He stared straight into the eyes of the girl's twin brother as he held his sister in his arms.
"I... I'm sorry... let me help before..." began the poor monk, who overreacted to the presence of dangerous, thieving marauders in the temple, only to find out too late that they were just children. He took a single timid step toward them and held one of his hands out, only to stop in his tracks at the boy's sudden outburst.
"Stay the hell away from us!" cried the boy, bellowing it with a voice that was both far too deep for a young boy's, and far too monstrous sounding for any human. The stood in place as the boy's cry echoed through the halls of the temple, alerting more monks. The monk stood there, a mix of emotions churning through him. Regret. Shame. Those were already there, but now, after the boy's monstrous bellow, fear and confusion had also found their way in his heart and mind. He looked on at the wounded girl in her brother's arms, the dark eco now appearing to course and swirl around in the epidermis of her skin on the right side of her body, leaving burns and strange, warped markings wherever they coursed. He gulped, and readjusted himself, standing with a more solid stance than he did a moment ago.
"You have to let me help you," began the monk as he untied a pouch that hung from around his waist, "The other monks have undoubtedly heard you yell, and will be here any minute. Let us help you and your sister... she'll need it now if she's to have any chance to live."
He tossed the pouch over to the children, it landing near the the boy's right knee. He eyed it warily, and looked back at the monk.
"It's green eco... just take it now, it's all I have at this moment, but we have more in this temple. When the other monks get here, we can help you and maybe save your sister."
The boy slowly picked the pouch up and opened it, revealing that it was indeed green eco. He poured it onto his fading sister, and it slowed the progress of the coursing the dark eco and slightly healed the burns. She opened her eyes for just a moment, looking up to her brother just as a handful of other monks entered the room they were in.
"A... Aerok..." she said weakly, before closing her eyes and falling unconscious again. The monks quickly assessed the situation as much as they could and approached the two children to help them. As they approached, the boy felt an intense, dark anger well up inside of him. However, his anger quickly subsided as he glanced back at his sister and saw the green eco he poured still working against the effects of the dark eco on his sister.
The monks took the girl from his arms and quickly made their way to a healing chamber with a green eco vent to administer treatment for dark eco wounds and affects. A few other monks help the boy up and tried to take him to another place.
"Wait, stop!" he cried, "Take me to my sister!"
The monks looked at each other for a moment, then back at the first monk who apparently had caused all this. He turned his head away from them slightly and looked down in shame.
"It seems that this boy is unharmed..." said one of the other monks as he looked on at the first monk.
"Let him go to his sister."
The boy ran as fast as he could after the group of monks who had his sister, and followed them into the healing chamber. The monks laid her down on small bed and began gathering green eco from a nearby vent to help her. Her brother held her hand in his own and stayed at her side the whole time...
Aerok woke up from his dream, startled. It had been only the second time that he had dream about what happened in the temple eleven long years ago. He looked up to his ceiling and thought about his upcoming meeting with Erol. Looking up at the ceiling above, he began to slowly drift back to sleep... before his alarm suddenly went of, ringing into his ears and annoying the piss out of him. In a sudden spike of anger, he knock the alarm clock of from the nearby desk and broke it. Just then, he heard someone banging on the door to his room.
"Get up," bellowed a voice behind the door. It was his sister, Odexura.
He lay in bed for another minute, wondering about the kind of person all this fuss was about. Whoever they are, they must be a real threat, or at least a real pain in the ass, if the Baron of Haven City wants to resort to getting the Twin Worgs to go after him. Of course, he and his sister would only accept the mission if it paid well enough, which is what the upcoming meeting with Erol was for, with the meeting being set up by Krew. In fact, it was Krew's handiwork that got them, a couple of Wastelanders, into Haven City, and the little run-down motel rooms that they are staying in now. Apparently, Krew had been getting entangled with the Baron and his affairs.
"Heh, that bastard," he thought to himself as he got up from his bed.
"Krew... I can't believe you got Sig to work for you. And now you've gone and gotten yourself involved with Praxis. Maybe I underestimated your ambition. Or is it just greed?"
Odexura kicked an nearby empty tomato can further down the shady alley she and her brother had been waiting in for the last half hour. Aerok sighed, and frowned even more than usual as he watch the can bump along the ground and come to a stop towards the end of the little passageway. His eyes wandered around, observing all of his surroundings for the forty-somethingth time.
"This Erol must be one of the slowest people in the world!" Odexura whined sourly. She banged her head lightly against the wall she was now leaning on, and rolled it to her left, facing the street they were expecting Erol to arrive from, while it still rested on the wall. She eyed as much of the street as she could while still staying hidden in darkness of the alley, turned back to Aerok with a long, bored face. Aerok stared back at her and sighed, not having anything to say that he hadn't already over the last thirty or so minutes of her fidgeting and complaining.
They would only wait a bit longer before a large Krimzon Guard Hellcat cruiser hovered to a stop directly across the street from the alleyway. It lowered itself near to the ground, and after a few moments, a handful of elite, yellow armor-clad guards hoped out of the vehicle. A young man with a commander's uniform soon followed, and the group began making their way toward the alley. As they reached the entrance to it, the commander order one of the guards to go in and check it out, while he and the rest of them waited where they were. The rest of the guards began clearing all nearby civilians away from the immediate area, and the commander waited near the entrance as the first guard went into the alley. It wasn't long before he heard a bit of a tussle, and a woman's voice calling out to him.
"Good job, you finally found us where we told you we'd be. It only took you almost an hour to do it. Bravo!"
The commander raised an eyebrow and called back to her.
"I am Erol, the man you were waiting for. I apologize for making you wait, I was... preoccupied with another matter. Now, please, send my guard back to me in one piece, and we can finalize our... arrangements."
Odexura smirked at the guard she was holding captive and disarmed, and pushed him forward toward the street. She picked up the blaster-rifle he dropped and walked to the street, stopping just short of where the light pushed back the shadows, so as to keep her concealed. She held out the blaster for Erol's guard to take back.
"Here, your little tough guy here dropped this."
The guard took it and stood ready, a little on edge after what just happened. Erol remained in his exact position, not turning to look in the direction of the alley.
"Well then," he began, "since you've come all this way from the wastelands, I assume you must be interested in the bounty." Odexura's smirk went away.
"Maybe. Only if you pay us triple the original offer."
"What? There's no way I would ever agree to that. The original offer was already more than what the Baron wanted to give, anyway."
"Is that so?" Odexura questioned, "Well then, if that's the case, then he must be pretty serious about getting rid of this guy if he was willing to pay more than he was comfortable with. Which means it would probably be disastrous if this guy wasn't 'taken care' of, yes?"
Odexura smirked again, just as Erol narrowed his eyes.
"Or, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the good Baron doesn't care too much about this guy, if he was barely even willing to offer us the original amount of money in the first place. Maybe it would be cheaper and faster to just let you and your Krimzon Guard get him, after all, I'm sure you could take him on. It's not you've already tried and failed or anything, right? You don't need us. I'm sure you'll be fine."
Erol gritted his teeth at her taunting him and the Guard, and she grinned smugly as she watched him clench his fists for a moment just before a little outburst of anger.
"Alright!" Erol yelled, "Fine. Your reward will be triple the original offer. Now just go and do it. Contact me again once you've killed him and specify the place we will meet to exchange his body for the reward. Your target was... last seen near the Stadium. I trust you can find your way there yourselves, as I'm too busy with the Metal Heads right now."
The commander quickly stormed off and called for his guards to follow. They all got back into their Hellcat, and a zoomed off as quickly as the huge armored vehicle could. Odexura watched them leave from the shadows, then turned to her brother.
"Alright, that was easy. No wonder these guys are having such trouble. They're all a bunch of fuckin' wimps."
Aerok smirked for a second and pulled a little remote control device from a pouch on his belt. He pressed a little orange button on it, and the controller made a beeping sound. Soon, another separate beeping noise was heard heading their way. A dark, armor-clad Flyer soon hovered near to them before Aerok pressed the button again to stop it from honing in on them. He hopped in the drivers seat, and waited for Odexura. She stood there and crossed her arms, looking coyly at him.
"Really? You don't want me to drive?"
"No," Aerok answered simply, "You're good, but you're too crazy. If we end up having to chase the guy we're after down in a zoomer-chase, then I may let you take the wheel. But only if he's too good for me. For now, though, I drive. I know that you'll just start breaking all sorts of traffic laws and attract too much attention to us."
Odexura hopped into the passenger seat, and began loading a sniper rifle.
"Like you know what the traffic laws in this city are. You grew up in the wastelands, where there is no law."
"I know enough to know that speeding and driving recklessly are probably against the law here. And I really don't want to have to deal with those weak, but annoying, guards."
"Fine... lets just get this shit over with. I want to see everything a city like this has to offer once we're done. Maybe gamble a little, hire a male stripper or two..."
"Fuck no. At least, don't do that around me."
Aerok switched the Flyer into the first of ten gears, indicating it's potential for greater speed than other, standard-issue Flyers, and set off toward the Stadium, where their target was last seen.
"By the way..." began Odexura as she finished loading her sniper rifle, "What's this guy's name again?"
Aerok pondered for a moment, before remembering. His eyes turned from their usual honey-brown to a deep purple for a moment as he tightened his grip on the wheel and a mix of adrenaline and dark eco briefly coursed through his veins.
"Jak."
Alright, so I hope you've enjoyed it so far. To give you an idea of when this story happens, it happens within Jak II's timeline, some time after Jak beats Erol's challenge (where they raced through the city) and before Jak and Daxter go back to Samos's hut to retrieve the life-seed. So, yea.
Aerok and Odexura have some dark eco powers... but Aerok more so. Much more so. Anyway, you'll see what they both can do soon...