I do not own Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. I only own my original characters.
Welcome.
To Neverland
Ocean.
That was the first word my muddled mind pulled from the blackness. The sound of the ocean, waves crashing not too far away.
My eyes were closed and I was laying down, on my back and face upwards. Salty sea air brushed damp hair across my forehead, tickling the wet skin. I was tired. Really tired. Just the thought of opening my eyes made me want to just go back to sleep, or wherever I was before the word 'ocean' drifted across my mind. Actually moving let alone getting up was just a laughable concept.
I was content, for the moment, to lay in the sand and let the back and forth rush of the waves wash over my legs, then retreat back into itself. So calming. So soothing. I could feel sunlight across anywhere my skin was bared, warm where the water was cool. So gentle.
My hand was closed around something, I was suddenly aware. I only realized it, because whatever I was holding twitched. My grip was loose, it could have fallen out easily if that was what it wanted. And I didn't know what it was. So it was free to go. I didn't mind. No. Go. Let me . . . just sleep.
A tropical island breeze blew through my hair again, sighing across my prone body in the sand. More of my mind returned from its muddled state, allowing a big more coherent thought through the buzz. Ocean. Water plus sand plus tropical feeling usually added up to beach. Why was I on the beach, anyway? Let alone unconscious there? How did I get there? What was I holding? And why hadn't I let go yet?
Reluctantly, I came to the conclusion that it was about time to open my eyes. Just opening them would probably cause more pain than not, so I turned my head away from the direction of the sky and tried to crack the dried sand that had collected on my lashes. It took a few moments and a lot of eye-rubbing before I could finally see. And when I could, I looked down at my closed hand.
It was wrapped around another hand.
I followed that hand to a wrist. Then an arm. And a forearm. Then shoulder, a neck, and a messy nest of tangled blond hair. I stared at the blob of color, trying to force my eyes to focus, and remember just what I was looking at. Who I was looking at.
With my other hand, I reached over and pushed it over so I could see a face; the figure was laying on her- Her? Yeah, her- side, hair covering her whole head.
She was young. With a bit of an angled, small face with prominent cheek bones and thin lips. Her lashes were light, but faintly smeared with traces of what may have used to be make up, washed away by the saltwater. Those light lashes laid in a crescent shape atop her cheekbones, gentle and fluttering as she may be dreaming. Then those eyes flickered open, greenish hazel orbs looking dazed and confused. I focused on them. They focused on me.
Then she closed her eyes again, sighing, and didn't move again. Her breath came evenly, the sand and the water and the air lulling her back to sleep. I wanted to follow. Oh, so much, I wanted to follow.
I closed my eyes against the harsh sunlight again too, facing upwards again. The light from the sun made the backs of my eyelids look almost orange, a nice, brownish orange that just looked . . . warm.
Then the orange color faded to black, almost. I opened one eye. Looked up at the silhouette back lit by the big blue sky. An odd form, made up of soft triangular shapes. Funny looking. I stared at it for a few seconds. It stared at me. Just like I did with the girl.
"Hey Jak! What'd you find?"
The voice made my head hurt. It was high and annoying, like a steel pipe to my skull. Quickly I closed my eyes. And I was gone soon after.
"Do I have to do this?" She asked, the last few words breaking off into a slight whine.
"Yes." I said firmly, a wire in each hand and one more between my teeth. I glared down at my Playstation 2, in the middle of plugging it into the giant flat-screen TV sitting in the middle of Amanda's living room. It was a Friday night, January, so the sun had gone down early. Both her parents were out for various reasons, and her younger sister was across the street with the neighbor's kid. I was sitting on my knees in front of the TV, Amanda behind me and her annoyance clear as the glasses hanging off my nose. She wasn't much for video games. Being a tall, athletic blonde, her idea of fun was more of listen to music and go shopping, or hang out on the farm she worked at and oggle all the studly dudes done up like cowboys. Yeah. She was a country girl through and through, despite being raised in central Jersey.
"But why?" She demanded, and when I looked over my shoulder she was hanging off the love seat upside down. I snickered at her hair as it brushed the floor, and she rolled her dirty-green bottle-colored eyes.
"Because I asked. And since you love me, you said yes." I replied with a cheeky grin. Amanda scowled and muttered a few choice words under her breath. One of which started with the letter 'f', ended with 'uck', and definitely wasn't the word 'firetruck'. I turned my attention back onto the hunk of plastic and metal, frowning at all the damn places to plug it in. I gotten a new game the day before- one of my favorite games when I was younger. The years had sent it and all the sequels off to GodKnowsWhere, and I'd managed to talk my mother into ordering them anew. And, while I had my own flat screen TV at home but it was considerably smaller than my best friend's, I begged, and I begged, and I begged, and she finally let me bring my stuff over to play.
"What are you even going to be doing, anyway? And, what am I going to be doing?" She asked with a tone that let me know she really didn't care, but she was just bored. And annoyed.
"I'll be playing Jak and Daxter, and unless you decide 'Hey! This looks fun! Can I try?' . . . you're on your own." I replied, taking the last wire out of my mouth, which I'd been talking around the past couple of minutes.
"This is my house, you know," She said dully.
"Yes. But I pretty much live here." I picked up the TV remote and tried to set it to video. I waited. Then tried again. "Fuckin' piece a . . . " I growled at it.
"Oh, give me that," Amanda rolled off the couch and got into lotus position next to me on the floor. Or criss-cross-applesauce, whichever you prefer. I pouted as she effortlessly got the big TV onto Video 1, and when the green light on my Playstation turned on, I squealed and shuffled backwards with the controller in hand. Amanda gave me a wide-eyed, disturbed little stare. "That . . . was weird."
"I'm fangirling, get used to it," I stuck my tongue out at her as she crawled after me. The first of the Jak and Daxter games had been stuck into the disk port, and I could hear it whirring as the game started up. Amanda rolled her eyes.
"Whatever. I'm going to get popcorn. You want some?" She got to her feet as the sponsor commercials came up silently.
"Please and thank you!" I called after her, snickering sadistically when I saw Daxter getting knocked over by the NaughtyDog symbol. Microwave buttons beeped as Samos started to rant, and I leaned back against the largest couch with a smile. The last time I played these games I was around five or six . . . Seeing Jak and Daxter again was like meeting up with old friends. I didn't really care that Amanda wasn't really interested. I knew video games weren't her thing, but she knew these games meant a lot to me. To the five year old still inside me.
"So how does this game work anyway?" Amanda popped a kernel of popcorn into her mouth as she walked through the dining room back to the living room. "Like, what's the point?"
"Well," I said, glancing at her then back at the game, as Jak and Daxter hid behind a group of rocks while Gol and Maia gave their rant to the lurkers. I chewed my lower lip. "Just watch. The guys went to Misty Island, even though it's forbidden because, well, it's forbidden." She snorted a laugh. Guys were guys. Video game or otherwise. "See, if you watch, they saw those two people talking to the animal-looking things- those are called lurkers. Now they're sneaking away, and see that purple gunk? Keep your eye on that."
"Okay," Amanda said slowly, brushing her sandy blond hair off her forehead. We sat there for a little while longer. I smirked, looking over at her totally weirded out expression. "Did he just turn into a weasel?"
"Yep."
"An orange weasel? With goggles?"
"Yep."
" . . . this game is weird."
"Yeah." I laughed, shaking my head as the skull-faced lurker was defeated by Jak and the boys went back to Sandover. "But I like it. One of my escapes, y'know?"
"Sure," Amanda said, and I saw her rolling her eyes. "The blond one is your Video Game lover, right?" She asked, smirking. But then she squeaked when I threw a pillow at her face.
"Shut your face, dumbass! It's a game. I'm allowed to fangirl. That's my life. I'm a fangirl." I grumbled, getting the controller ready as Jak jumped through the warp gate.
"And I'm a country girl. What a pair we make." Amanda remarked through a handful of popcorn.
I laughed, busting boxes and destroying the premade training scarecrow things, pretty much just getting my feel for the controls back. "Opposites attract, I've noticed. And hey, it's okay if I like a fictional character. It's not like I'm ever going to meet them. Fictional means fake. So it's all okay."
"Whatever makes you feel like less of a creeper," Amanda rolled her eyes. I whacked her with a pillow again. "OW!"
"That didn't hurt!" I snapped.
"Did to!"
"It's a pillow!"
"But it hurt!"
"Pillows don't hurt! That's why they're pillows! To not hurt!"
"Why I aughta-!" Amanda let out a battle cry and grabbed a pillow off her couch, proceeding to swat me over the head with it. I dropped the controller, leaving Jak and Daxter to stand there in the middle of Geyser Rock. I grabbed my own weapon, smacking her back.
"Oh, bitch, it is on!" I crowed, getting onto my knees to continue our bloody battle of couch cushions. Speaking of which . . .
I hit Amanda with the corner of the pillow in the side, making her squeak and stumble back. I threw it into her face next, before diving behind the ottoman to grab the biggest cushion of the couch. I ripped it out, getting up and holding the weapon over my head. "BONUS POINTS equal AN UPGRADE!" I cackled like a maniac, getting up onto the ottoman and jumping over it to produce an aerial attack.
"Cheater!" She shrieked, nearly falling over when I tackled her with my new and improved pillow.
"Bigger is better, bitches!" I crowed, knocking her over and scrambling to pin her down by sitting on her back. I held my head up, triumphant.
"Get off of me!" She snapped, rolling over and pushing me off. I landed on my own back with a cry and a thud, before letting out a small whine.
"Ooooowww . . . "
Amanda got back onto her feet, brushing off her black yoga pants. "Well, you started it."
"Can't you ever let me win? Just once?" I kept whining, deciding that getting off the floor wasn't worth the effort. Amanda took martial arts, had been for the past few years. I'd hoped that surprise would work on my side for the epic pillow battle of epicness, but nope. Denied.
"Not likely," Amanda sang sarcastically, picking up the unharmed bowl of popcorn. "Are you still playing that?" She asked, and I craned my neck to see her giving the TV an annoyed, but curious look.
"Yeah," I nodded, setting my head back down. "Just let me be a lump, kay?"
I could almost feel her rolling her eyes as she put the bowl back down to get back into her spot, but before she could a loud banging noise could be heard from the front door. I raised my head curiously as Amanda groaned and straightened. "Is that Julianna?" I asked. "I thought she was spending the night with Jared across the street."
"She must have forgotten something, ugh," Amanda handed me the popcorn bowl, which I sat up to happily begin eating. "I'll let her in and get rid of her. If you're going to play the game, play it."
"I am, I am," I huffed, chomping on a handful of popped corn with enough butter to cause a heart attack. I scanned the floor for the PS2 controller as Amanda unlocked and opened the door.
"Hey, Julianna, what did you for . . . . " Her voice trailed off.
The bowl flew into the air and popcorn went everywhere as Amanda let out a sudden, ear shattering scream. I practically threw the controller onto the floor and bolted to my feet, rounding the corner and skidding to a stop. "What-?" I shouted, before I slid across the wooden floor in my socks.
A tall woman had pushed the door open, the screen hanging broken off its hinges and letting in the cold winter air. A chill went down my back, from the weather or from fear, I didn't know. She had her hand wrapped around Amanda's wrists, pining them down with one hand while holding her hair in the other. Her skin was an odd color. In the dark I couldn't quite make it out, but it was unnatural. She had long, white-blond hair and red eyes that glared almost straight through Amanda before snapping to look at me. Her ears were elfin-shaped, pointed outwards. She was dressed in a red corset, accented with black leather and almost orange-looking body armor on her breasts and knees. High heeled boots clacked on the polished wood floor as she dragged my purely terrified friend forward.
"Are you the one we are looking for?" She asked, her voice echoing like there were three people speaking through her. Her eyes pinned my body in place, and slowly my eyes began to widen as I started to recognize her. But no. That was impossible. Insane. Amanda knocked me out in the pillow fight. Right? Right?
"She is too bright." The woman sneered when I stared at her in frozen terror. "And so is this one."
A hand ran itself down my hair, weaving its fingers through and down. I shivered and screamed, whirling around. "Be patient, Sister. Her potential is all that matters now."
I stared at him, as I stepped backwards, nearly falling into Amanda's sister's fish tank. No. No no . . . !
The tall, thin man with his beady red eyes bent forwards, reaching out to run fingernails that felt like claws down the side of my face, trailing my jaw line. I shivered. " . . . no . . . " I whispered.
"We take her darkness." The man announced to the woman.
"And the lighter one?"
"Her too." He smirked, showing off wicked rows of sharp, razor sharp teeth. "I like obedience, don't you, my darling, Legacy?"
Thunder cracked as Amanda screamed again. Or was it me? Was I screaming? But that was impossible. Insane. There was no way this could have been happening.
Because there was no possible way Gol and Maia could be here, right now. The dining room flashed bright purple and blue as the world spun, careening out of control. Gol reached for me with a growl better fit for an animal than a man. I felt his talons on my neck. "Silence her!" Maia shrieked when I started to scream.
And boy, did I scream.
And screamed.
And screamed.
I was falling. Thunder cracked again. Rain started to roar on the roof of the house. The room flashed, I saw Amanda's tears.
Then I was drowning.
That's why you don't play video games during a thunderstorm, kids. Until next chapter!
~xAngel