A note from Venn...
I apologise for the lateness of this chapter. I've had a few technical difficulties as of late, the transformer of my power chord exploded. However, the power chord has now been replaced and faytalbelgrl80 has worked her betaing magic on the chapter.
Please note that I do not own the Jak & Daxter franchise or any related characters, locations, or storylines. I do however own all original elements of this story XD
Feedback is something I thrive on, especially with exams around the corner so I would be very muchobliged if you dropped me a line to tell me what you thought of the chapter.
I now present to you the second chapter of the Pure Light.
In ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep, the silent giants wait to be awakened. Deep will their slumber be, silent their once echoing voices, until the world has no memory of their beginnings. In the gloom they will watch, and they will wait.
Those who go to them for answers will return only with new questions. But there will come a time when the silence ends...
Once Upon A Time...
Daniel strode towards the natural harbour where his ship was moored, keeping a close eye on the boy beside him who twisted and turned in every direction, trying to take in the beauty and wonder of the entire forest all at once. They had left the temple hours ago, and Daniel was sure that if he had not been so enamoured of the environment surrounding their path, the boy would have been exhausted.
At last they reached the last stretch of their journey, the boy stopping and staring in wonder at the vast body of water before him. The Port Island Temple was located deep in the forest that covered the landmass, so it was no surprise that the boy had never before seen the ocean. Daniel grinned at the wonder on his new nephew's face and placing his pack beside him, knelt down to the boy's level, pointing towards where they could see his ship bobbing gently in the harbour. "That's my ship; right there. It's how we'll be getting home to Sandover, my boy."
The boy looked at him with shock. The big boat was his? Amazing.
The boy grinned suddenly before sprinting off towards where the ship was located, leaving Daniel to haul on his pack and hurry after him.
With the Krimson Guard weapons store behind him rigged to explode and the barrel of her rifle pointed directly at his heart, he had only moments to take in the mysterious woman's appearance.
She was filthy, covered with dirt and oil to the point it seemed unnatural. Perhaps it was, as the places where her sweat had streaked down her face and cleared the grime revealed that the filth hid a pale skin tone only found in the industrial and racing districts. Her hair was pulled into a fraying ponytail that in any other situation could have been considered comical, while its blue-green colouring stood out vividly against the red backdrop of the military zone.
He readjusted the grip on his weapon, pointed at her head as hers was to his heart, wondering for a moment if he should remove his guard disguise in order to avoid being shot by someone that was obviously much more confident with her weapon than he was with his. Deciding against it - spies could be anyone after all - he edged backwards slightly and allowed himself to examine her more closely, noting the various heavy stains discolouring her clothing and the reddish wetness slowly spreading down her side.
He opened his mouth to speak and the world exploded around them.
Daniel sat on the chair, deep in thought as his son, who had been waiting on board for their return, showed his nephew around the ship.
The boy was a strange one to be sure. He showed none of the tendencies towards tantrums common of a child his age, while still retaining the wild curiosity and fascination of the world that often leant itself to such behaviour in the early years. He also seemed to startle easily, as evidenced by his reaction to seeing Nicholas appear out of the cabin when they had first arrived.
There was also the fact that despite his age and the length of time the boy had spent at the temple, he still lacked a name. That fact was perhaps the most troubling of all. Naming children was a privilege traditionally given to the mother, for she was the one who had carried the child and brought it into the world. But the boy had no mother or father anymore, had perhaps never had either to call his own.
Nicholas burst into the cabin, dripping wet and grinning widely with the sheepish looking boy in tow. "The kid's pretty good at ship duties already, Dad." The boy buried his face in Nicholas' side, trying to hide his grin in the wet folds of the red tunic. "He managed to work out exactly how to retract the walkway to the shore on his own. Just needs to work on his timing a bit."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "What exactly were you doing on the walkway? You're supposed to be showing him around the ship, my boy, not running off to explore the jungle with him." Exploration was obviously something the boy would be doing a lot in his later years, as well as creating maps of the places he visited. Perhaps a name to go with that?
"Bah! Where's the fun in exploring the ship, Dad?" Exclaimed Nicholas, sending water in every direction with his movement. "We're going to be spending the next month on it on the way back to Sandover. Better to explore the jungle while we have the chance." Exploration was definitely a good premise for a name, but too much nudging towards the profession might cause his nephew to turn away from it in favour of easier tasks.
"You just wanted a chance to use my sword didn't you?" Nicholas had the decency to look embarrassed and gently put the ancient Precursan sword back on the mantle where it rested when Daniel did not have need of it. "Don't think I didn't notice it was missing. I only look stupid." It had been a love of combat that had led Nicholas to seeking a place in the Shulmyr and the young man had been overjoyed when they had accepted his eventual apprenticeship within their ranks. The nameless boy would also be extremely talented in the area of combat, he knew, if only because of his channelling powers and the monks foreshadowing of the great destiny that lay before him.
Daniel sighed before rising from his seat. "The boy's cabin isn't properly readied yet." He glanced towards where the boy was now standing on another chair, shifting through the scrolls containing the different lore and histories that Nicholas would need to know for when he joined the Shulmyr. "I trust you won't run off to explore the jungle while I'm gone?"
Nicholas shook his head balefully before moving towards the fireplace to try and dry himself a little. "I promise." Daniel smiled as his son playfully flung his wet tunic in the boy's general direction, and laughed softly to himself as Nicholas suddenly strode over to the boy and slipped his goggles around the child's head before ruffling his short green hair. It seemed the boy already had his much older cousin wrapped around his small finger, and he hadn't had to do a thing to help it along. As usual the young boy responded only by smiling and a concerned look passed over the Nicholas' face.
Twisting towards where his father had been standing only moments before, Nicholas cast his eyes towards the door and called out. "Wait a minute!" Daniel turned in the doorway, taking note of how young his son still seemed, though he was only months from reaching manhood.
For a moment Nicholas struggled with what he wanted to say, glancing at the boy who was now staring in fascination at a map of Sandover and the surrounding continent. So many questions swam through his mind, what now, why doesn't he speak, what is wrong with my new cousin and how do I help him? In the end he settled for the simplest of his many questions. "What's his name?"
The balding man's eye twinkled in an amused manner before smiling fondly at his boys. "His name is Jak." He who is loved...
From his place against the hard, uneven concrete, he gaped at the burning barracks through his now ruined plate mask as his female counterpart did the same towards the crater where the weapons store had previously been.
The alarms sounded and the two saboteurs scrambled for their weapons. The woman reached hers first, "Don't touch it." The click of the safety caused him to both curse at his earlier assumptions and to stop just short of grabbing his own weapon.
The sun rose slowly over the village as its residents slept on, undisturbed by the bright light that spilled into their huts. The only exception to this was a four year old boy camped out on the roof of the fisherman's hut, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the child who was to be the village's newest resident.
A small snore erupted from the boy before a frown crossed his face and he rolled over, murmuring small curses at the sun's brightness. Suddenly he bolted upright and seized the 'borrowed' spyglass lying next to his small rucksack. Pointing the spyglass in the wrong direction, he nodded to himself in satisfaction when he saw that the ocean was still clear of any boat traffic.
Seizing an apple from his pack and biting into it, he gazed lazily over the ocean for a few minutes before a shape rounding the crest of Misty Island caught his gaze...
"How do I avoid the patrols?" He rolled his eyes soundlessly at her demand, standing slowly but refusing to turn around lest his uneven slummers beard and lack of tattoos betray him now that his face plate had fallen from its frame and lay shattered on the ground. In three quick strides her weapon was jammed in his back, forcing him to his knees and causing a small grunt to escape from his throat.
"How do I avoid the patrols?" The tremor in her voice revealed just how out of her depth she really was, decreasing the likelihood of her being a spy more and more. The barracks had been empty due to the maneuvers that Commander Mika was putting his men through, leaving the weapons store opposite vulnerable, something that the Shade and his associates had capitalized upon immediately, sending him in to destroy it. None of them had figured on a third party taking out the barracks.
The feeling of her gun pressed hard against his back, angled into him slightly, brought him from his thoughts and back to the strange woman. "I'll ask one more time guardsman, how do I avoid the patrols?"
"If I knew the patrol routes do you really think I would have ended up in this alley?" He could feel her stiffen, the barrel of the gun shifting slightly away from him before reclaiming its new home in the small of his back.
"Don't lie, and don't you dare turn around." So, she didn't want him to get a clearer look at her than he already had, or perhaps she didn't want to remember his face if she did end up shooting him?
"Nobody move!" the whirring sound of the shock stick invaded the alley through the chaos. The obviously new guardsman stood awkwardly, not sure if he should point his meager weapon at the woman with the gun or the imposter who had obviously been skilled enough to liberate the uniform of one of the elites.
That morning, Samos and every other villager in Sandover had been awoken by the local troublemaker's excited shouting from atop the fisherman's hut. Dodging several sandals to the head and passing out several party favours of his own, the redheaded boy had finally managed to communicate the fact that the explorer's vessel was practically in the harbour.
Staring down through the window of his hut, Samos frowned deeply at fate's fickle tendencies, even as his daughter slept on in the area behind him, oblivious to the light and sound now permeating the hut.
"I won't let that future come to pass..."
Four years later...
"Keira?" When he did not immediately receive a reply, he turned to leave the room, thinking that perhaps his seven year old daughter was already in deep sleep or had run away to Jak's house for the night. He wouldn't blame her if she had. He'd been, in the words of his late wife, an absolute ass, overreacting in the way he did.
"Go 'way." A muffled, tear choked voice sounded from somewhere to his left and he sighed heavily.
At least he knew now that she was still in the hut. Moving back into the room, he finally noticed her in the corner opposite her bed by one of the larger plants, blanket over her completely, camouflaging her in the shadows cast by the moonbeam coming in through the window. A few sniffles escaped the blanket and he felt even worse than he had before.
"Keira, I-"
"Go 'way Daddy."
"No, I won't." Slowly, so as to not incite a temper he knew could be equally deadly as his own if given the right outlet, he placed a plate of food on the table and settled himself down beside the lump of blanket. "Are you going to come out of there, or am I going to have to sit here on my own?"
The only reply he received was the lump in the blanket twisting away from him.
Turning a small device over in his hands, Samos took a closer look at it in the moonlight. It was a primitive signal device of some kind, possibly a tracker or an alarm. It was something that shouldn't exist for what he thought would be a long time, and yet Keira had created it, made it work with little more than scrap metal and a bit of blue eco.
The sudden appearance of the device hadn't been what had set him off; it had needed to be invented sometime after all. No, it had been the girl who brought it to him that caused him to erupt.
Streaked with dirt and smelly black grime he suspected was a primitive lubricant, dirt and oil so thick it couldn't be normal, her hair pulled back into a rough imitation of a pony tail, green-blue on red so much happening around them, proudly showing off her small invention, fire, noise, so much heat, so much red, the sound of gunfire in the distance, always moving, never safe, stop, stop, stop, stop, STOP!
So, he had unthinkingly reacted as he usually did when things became too much for him to bear. He had yelled, he had forbidden her from creating any more of the devices or anything like it, and then he had sent her, crying, to her room while he fumed over the device he had confiscated and tried to squelch the aching in his heart.
After the old sage had calmed down enough to acknowledge to himself exactly why he had been upset, he knew he would need to apologize to his daughter once she came out again, and hope that he hadn't done any permanent damage to their relationship with his outburst. Making his apology was made harder by the fact that Keira didn't come out of her room all afternoon, not even that evening when the smell of dinner wafted through the air. Thinking that she had perhaps fallen asleep, Samos had secured her a plate and headed back to the hut, forgetting his own meal in the process.
So here he was, sitting on the floor, his daughter studiously ignoring him from beneath her blanket, and wondering just where he should start and what he should say. After a few minutes, he decided that 'the beginning' and close to 'everything' were probably the way to go.
"Keira, I'm sorry." The lump turned towards him slightly and he took it as a good sign. "Listen, I, I ah, I shouldn't had yelled at you, and the device you built is something to be praised, so don't think for a second you should stop trying to make things." The lump in the blanket had now shifted in such a way that suggested his daughter was now facing him directly. "It's just, you looked- you looked like- and it hurt, so I, I reacted badly."
Curiosity lured Keira from the security of her hot blanket. Throwing it off and smudging the lingering tearstains from her face, she peered carefully at her dejected father. "Looked like what, Daddy?"
He smiled gently at her and cupped her face fondly with his hand, swiping gently at the dirt with his thumb and smiling when she leaned in slightly, letting him know he was forgiven. "You looked- you look, just like your mother."
Diving forward, the gold-armoured man seized his weapon and shot the red-clad guardsman straight through the chest plate and in the heart, before turning to face the woman who, to her credit, simply glared evenly at him.
A much smaller, secondary explosion rocked the area and a portion of the barracks collapsed. Glancing at the burning wreckage, then at each other, they fled the alley in opposite directions. Moving steadily towards the slums, where even the worst of scum could hide in relative safety, he wondered if she would be caught. He told himself he didn't care.
