Chapter Two: Introductions
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People walking through the dock area of Haven City ignored the loud noise that came from the tall building in the middle of the area. Just by listening to the noise, people knew what was wrong and simply continued on their way.
"THAT "BOULDER" WAS A BOMB THAT WOULD HAVE KILLED US ALL IF OUR DEMOLITIONIST HADN'T SPOTTED IT!!!"
To say Jak was upset would be an understatement. Currently, everyone was standing in HQ, watching Jak screaming at a hologram of Kaye's head. The businessman looked away with wide eyes.
"I…I'm sorry." Kaye said.
"SORRY?!?! JINX DIED BECAUSE YOU SENT US ON THAT SUICIDE MISSION!!! YOU THINK THAT "SORRY" IS GOING TO CUT IT?!?!" Jak roared.
"I swear that I had no idea what was going on!" Kaye insisted. "My employees must have been trying to get rid of you."
"And why would they do that?!" Torn asked, stepping in to give Jak's vocal chords a break.
"I don't know! But then again, people in high places don't tend to like Jak that much." Kaye pointed out. "Case and point: Praxis and Veger."
Keira shuddered at the mention of the two names she had been trying to forget, but remained silent and let the others continue the argument.
"But Jak did things to anger those two." Ashelin stepped in. "We've never seen you before, and I doubt that your crooked employees are any more familiar with us."
"Maybe they were hired. I don't know." Kaye shook his head. "I'll get to the bottom of this."
"You'd better." Jak muttered.
Kaye was silent. "Look, from what you've been telling me, your demolitionist died saving you guys." He reminded. "At least you can remember him as a hero." Without giving anyone a chance to react, Kaye shut his connection off, turning off the hologram.
Sig sighed and stepped forth, placing a hand on Jak's shoulder. "He has a point, Jak." The large man reminded. "We ALL would've been toast if Jinx didn't see through the bomb's disguise when he did."
"I know…" Jak nodded, looking down. "It's just that I've never lost a friend before. I know I lost Damas, but…I never knew him that well. Jinx I've known pretty much since we ended up in Haven City when I broke out of prison."
"Jak, my boy." Samos said as he came over. "You must look on the positive side of things. Like Sig said, if Jinx didn't uncover that bomb, we'd be mourning ALL of you."
Jak forced a smile. "Yeah. You're right." He agreed.
"So what're we going to do about this whole thing, buddy?" Daxter asked as he jumped onto his friend's shoulder.
"Well, first we're going to wait for Kaye to call us back with more information." Jak replied. "Once we know the names of the scumbags that set us up, we'll go and teach them a lesson they'll never forget."
"For once, you and I are on the same wavelength." Torn chuckled.
"I can't wait to get those guys." Daxter said with a wide and twisted grin.
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Jinx groaned as his eyes fluttered open. Holding his head to block out the massive headache he had, Jinx slowly sat up, finding himself on a bed.
"Man. What happened?" Jinx asked himself.
"We brought you back here after you survived an explosion." A new voice replied.
Jinx suddenly became very awake and jumped at the new voice. Looking in the direction of the voice, Jinx saw a female monk walking into the room.
"You are quite the sleeper." The monk said with a smirk. "You've been out for hours."
"Where am I?" Jinx asked.
"You are in the Wastelands, in the temple of the monks." The monk replied.
"The monk temple?" Jinx asked. "I think Jak mentioned this place."
The monk's eyes widened. "You know Jak?" She asked as she knelt down close to the bed to be at eye-level with Jinx.
"Do you?"
The monk nodded. "He and his friend saved our temple." She replied. "I am Seem, head priestess of the temple."
"Uh…Jinx." Jinx replied. "Look…Uh…Do you have a way for me to contact my friends so I can let them know I'm alright?"
"We managed to save your communicator, but it took quite a beating." Seem replied, pointing to a large, wheeled box in the corner of the room.
Jinx's eyes widened. "My explosives cart!" He said as he got up.
"We recovered what explosives hadn't gone off as well." Seem replied as she followed Jinx over to the cart. "I apologize that we weren't able to save all of them."
Jinx looked into the explosives cart and saw that a fair amount of explosives had been saved. "Looks like the real powerful ones are still here." He said as he fished through the cart and eventually found his communicator. Jinx pulled the device from the cart, only to see that the back was smashed open and several key parts were missing.
"I know it isn't in one piece." Seem assured. "But I'm sure that they have some spare parts down in Spargus."
"Spargus?" Jinx asked. "How do you guys get all the way down there anyway?"
"We take a vehicle."
"Is that how you got me out of the desert?"
"Correct. We monks live high in the mountains, so we need a vehicle to get up here." Seem replied. "It makes trips a lot faster when going to Spargus."
"Driving a vehicle?" Jinx asked with a smirk. "No offense, but I thought that you monks would be against anything that made loud noises."
Seem chuckled. "Indeed, it sounds strange. But it's the best way to get around." She looked down timidly and gave another chuckle. "Actually, I've proven to be quite the driver."
"Man. A priestess driving a big vehicle?" Jinx asked. "This I gotta see someday."
"That day may be sooner than you think, because Spargus is the only place you'll find the pieces for your communicator."
"You'd do that?" Jinx asked, surprised.
"Of course. You need to make contact with Jak and the others." Seem nodded. "Finding the parts for your communicator is essential for getting you back to Haven City."
"Well, whenever you head down, I'd be happy to tag along." Jinx nodded.
"I'm actually preparing to head out right now." Seem replied. "I have a couple of errands to run in Spargus."
"Okay. Let's get going." Jinx nodded as he looked at his communicator. "I know what parts are missing from this, so it shouldn't take me too long to find what I'm looking for."
Seem smiled. "Then let's head out and see if we can help you." She said.
Jinx followed Seem through the temple, constantly staring at the amazing look of the temple. He could tell that the temple had been up for centuries at least, but it was still in pretty good condition.
"How long have you monks been keeping this place up and running?" Jinx asked as he walked alongside Seem.
"My direct ancestor was the one that built this temple. My fellow monks and I have been keeping this temple in good condition for centuries." Seem replied. "My only regret is that I have never seen this temple at its finest, before some of the walls and pillars fell."
"What happened? If you monks preserved this temple as well as you did, I guess the collapse wasn't because of being so old." Jinx said.
"You guess right, Jinx." Seem nodded. "Metal Heads attacked the temple while my mother was pregnant with me. The men of Spargus fended off the attacks, but by the time I was born, the damage was done. I grew up in Spargus, but I came here every day while growing older."
"Man. That sucks." Jinx shook his head. "Then again, I wouldn't put it past those Metal Heads to attack a sacred place."
"I know. If only I had been born ten years earlier." Seem lamented. "I would have been able to witness the temple in all its might and actually remember it."
"But then again, if you HAD been born back then, you may not have been around to see the Precoursers." Jinx reminded.
"I suppose you're right." Seem said with a smile. "I never thought of it that way."
"That aside, haven't you tried rebuilding this place?" Jinx asked.
"We could never build the temple to look like the original." Seem shook her head. "There's no architect left alive that knows how to build that well."
"So you're just going to leave this place as it is?" Jinx asked.
"This place is sacred ground." Seem replied. "We consider changing its look to anything but the way it originally looked is a sin."
"But…You don't know what it looked like."
"None of the monks still alive know what it looked like." Seem shook her head. "It's truly a tragedy in our minds."
Eventually, Seem led Jinx out of the temple, where the sun was shining down brightly on the desert of the Wastelands. Seem took Jinx over to a huge vehicle sitting nearby. Jinx stepped back in shock upon seeing it.
"Is something wrong?" Seem asked as she climbed up into the driver's seat.
"This…This vehicle's huge! You actually drive this thing?!" Jinx asked.
"Of course." Seem nodded. "This vehicle is capable of jumping, has an accelerating speed of zero-to-eighty in three seconds and comes armed with a machine gun and grenade launcher."
Jinx shook his head as he got into the passenger's seat. "I don't know what's scarier: You being able to drive this thing or you actually knowing all of its attributes like it's your 'baby'." He noted.
"You couldn't count the number of times this vehicle has saved me from Marauders on two hands." Seem replied as she started the vehicle. "The only reason I know all of it is because I used everything at least once to fight off attackers."
"You can drive that well?" Jinx asked, still a little skeptical.
Seem smirked. "Buckle up, Jinx." She warned.
"Huh?"
That's when Seem floored the gas pedal and took off down the trail leading to Spargus. Jinx found himself thrown backwards due to the sudden increase of speed. Looking ahead, Jinx saw that they were approaching the ledge by the waterfall. All it took was a press of a button for Seem to make the vehicle rocket into the air and over the gap, landing on the other side.
It took a lot of effort, but Jinx managed to get his seat belt on as Seem continued to drive through the desert, making a beeline towards Spargus.
In a matter of minutes, Seem had pulled the huge vehicle into the garage of Spargus, bringing the huge machine to a screeching halt.
An overweight, balding man saw the vehicle come in and smirked. "You stopped on a dime again, Seem." The man replied. "I seriously dunno where you got this driving ability from."
"I'm not sure myself, Kleiver." Seem replied as she jumped out of the vehicle and landed on her feet. "It just came to me while I was fleeing from a Marauder."
Jinx crawled out of the vehicle and landed flat on his back. Kleiver looked down and smirked. "Looks like ya had a new passenger." He added. "He must be tough. I haven't heard a scream of fright yet."
The demolitionist slowly got to his feet and found his legs shivering. Jinx grabbed hold of his legs and managed to steady them as he walked forward with Seem.
"This is Jinx." Seem introduced. "The monks and I saved him in the desert and now he's looking for some parts to fix his communicator."
"Haven-dweller, eh?" Kleiver asked. "Lemme see that communicator for a sec, mate."
Jinx shrugged and handed the overweight man his communicator.
"Yeesh. It's pretty banged up." Kleiver noted. "Good luck finding those parts, mate. Yer gonna need a lot."
"Don't think I don't know that." Jinx shook his head. "I just hope Spargus has all of the parts."
"Probably got most of 'em." Kleiver shrugged. "I can't be too sure about some of those parts."
"Well, I need to get my errands done and you need to find those parts." Seem told Jinx. "We'd better start."
"Yeah. Let's see what Spargus has." Jinx nodded.
With that, Jinx and Seem left the garage to start the search for the parts needed to fix Jinx's communicator.
"I need to get this thing fixed fast." Jinx noted.
"You're in a hurry to let the others know you're alright?" Seem asked.
"No. They're still in danger from the guy that set that bomb."
To be continued…
Author's note: Yeah, I know Seem acted amazingly out-of-character with the vehicle. I just thought it would be an amusing picture to see a priestess like Seem tearing up the desert.