Hoo boy, looks like I'm in on this one for the long haul. I'm excited to write it, however, and I do hope you are excited to read it. Time will tell. Or it will lie, that bitch.
Anyhoo, Chapter 3 is up! Zleke gets slightly emo and Jak waxes about his past. Someone starts a pile of poop on fire.
Enjoy!
It was that dream again.
She could see the burning wreckage of the ruined vehicle as clearly in her minds eye as if it had been laying right in front of her. She could even smell the acrid stench of burning motor oil and rubber. Her surroundings were a dim gray fog as she ran towards the crumpled frame as she had done dozens of times before.
"Kvetch." She called in her dream. "Kvetch!"
No answer, like always. Just silence. The sound of wind blowing over the sands.
She wouldn't do it this time, some part of her sleeping mind urged. It was pointless. She knew he was dead. Nothing would change that. But her dream body pressed on.
Just like always.
With a sickening sense of dread she reached the burning hunk of twisted metal. There was a sense of practiced ease as she looked it over, always in the same order. The driver's seat. The turret. The wheels, with one turning lazily towards the sky. All smashed and useless. Then she fell to her knees and looked underneath.
Nothing.
Nothing? Her unconscious mind echoed. That had never happened before. Kvetch was supposed to be dead, and laying right here. Puzzled, she blinked and looked harder.
"Zleke." Came the soundless voice behind her. Zleke rose and turned, then inhaled sharply.
Her brother stood there, though she knew it wasn't him. He wasn't wearing his mask and there was a gray kind of mist where his eyes were supposed to be. His once proudly buffed armor was broken in places and completely stained with a thick shellac of blood. "Zleke." He repeated, spreading his ghostly hands towards her. "I died in vain, Zleke."
A long pause. "Yes." Zleke whispered, "I know." And she did know. Kvetch had died in a reckless, stupid suicide attack on Spargus's gate. He'd died believing that driving full speed into the barrier would make a difference. Obviously it hadn't. The attack had been called off before the gate could be breeched, and the life of her brother was forfeited for nothing. Their chief had brought her the news while she was tending flock. She hadn't cried, as was befitting a Marauder, but her heart had been unbearably heavy for weeks afterward.
"It doesn't have to be this way." He sounded almost pleading. "Please, Zleke."
"Please?" Zleke repeated, stepping towards her brother, to touch him, hug him, anything. "Please what, Kvetch?" Her fingers brushed his arm.
"Stop the War."
Zleke's eyes snapped open. She was sweating furiously, and her hands were clenched into fists so tight it hurt when she relaxed her fingers. It was a dream, she told herself. Just a dream. Zleke took stock of her surroundings. Her lizards were sleeping in a great lizardy pile against the cavern wall. Jak was nowhere to be seen. Odd. She pushed herself into a sitting position and sighed, like a very old man trying to cool hot soup. It sounded muffled through her mask. Damn thing was a pain. Sudden anger coursed through her veins, and she grabbed hold of its edges and yanked until the leather straps snapped free. She held her mask in her hands, fingering the eyeholes through which she had viewed the world for so long. The sudden breeze felt strange on her naked face.
Stop the War. The soundless plea of her brother echoed unbidden through her mind.
It was impossible of course. She was, after all, a shepherd. Zleke didn't even have her own vehicle for Mar's sake. There was certainly no way that all of the continually squabbling Marauder tribes would set aside their differences with each other and Spargus to form a lasting treaty just for her. There was too much pride involved, too much machismo. Wastelanders had proven time and time again that the only real lasting glory was not the protection of lives or property but the joy of strength. That was the only thing that was constant in their lives, the one thing that they could count on to form their identities around when the rest of their existence had gone to hell. Strength was their only constant. One that Zleke held in relatively short supply.
Footsteps approached behind her. Quickly she retied her mask around her head as best she could. Maybe breaking it hadn't been such a smart idea. Zleke glanced over her shoulder at Jak, who looked relatively pleased with himself. She supposed it had something to do with the two dead kanga rats he had slung over one shoulder. And the fact that he had found his gun and that weird round thing. Zleke's violet eyes darkened. She still didn't trust him, especially now that he had a weapon.
He dropped one of the dead rats in front of her with a thump, then stared at her as if he expected her to do something miraculous.
Zleke would have appeared disgusted, had she not been wearing her mask. Let us say the disgust oozed off of her in palpable waves. "Do you expect me to eat that raw, Spargan?"
Jak looked momentarily shocked. "Well, uh, I thought... that is, I heard stories..."
"That we bite the heads off of live kanga rats and eat dead babies?" Zleke asked dryly. She shook her head and stood up. "We may appear barbaric to you, Jak, but we do cook our food before we eat it." Zleke reached for her bag and pulled out some steel and flint, as well as some tinder.
"How?" He looked puzzled, but curious. "There's nothing to burn."
"So you think." Zleke smirked to herself. She pulled out her yellow eco lamp from her bag and turned it on, then began scanning the ground for something as she walked. There. She gave the pile of lizard scat a kick to make sure that it was dry. Satisfied Zleke knelt down next to it and in short order had a merry little flame burning off of the dung heap. Luckily the cavern was large enough that ventilation wouldn't be a problem. She dragged one of the rats over and began to clean it with the sharp edge of the flint.
Jak watched her in silence from across the steadily increasing fire. Zleke ignored him and focused on getting the hide off of the rat in one clean piece. The flames crackled and danced in the dim chamber.
"Why did you save me?" Jak asked suddenly.
The question caught Zleke by surprise, and her makeshift knife slipped and cut through her lizardhide glove. Wincing she stripped it off and stuck her thumb in her mouth, sucking on the cut. There was a long silence as Zleke pondered the question.
"I don't know." Zleke said finally, turning her mask away from him.
"Heh." Jak crossed his arms, studying her. "Liar." There was a note of challenge in his voice.
A long pause. Zleke finished cleaning the first rat and nestled it amongst some coals. She peeled off her other bloody glove and tossed it aside, then started cleaning the second rat.
"Because I'm tired of this war." Zleke said finally, her voice curiously empty. "I'm tired of people dying for no reason. Good people. People that could have done great things." Her voice cracked slightly but she didn't care. "I'm tired of death and I'm tired of caring. And I guess I wanted to know why you survived. And why my brother didn't."
Silence. The sound of fat popping and sizzling in the flames. Zleke's eyes slid over subtly to see Jak toying with the pendant he had plucked from her earlier. Suddenly he appeared very, very old.
"It's complicated." He said at last.
Zleke snorted. "What isn't?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
So he told her. Everything he could remember, from his time in Sandover growing up with Daxter, to the dark eco treatments under Baron Praxis and his light eco gifts from the Precursors, from fighting with the Underground to fighting for his life in the Spargan battle arena. And he told her about his friends, especially Daxter, but also Keira, Ashelin, Torn, Sig, Onin and Pecker, Samos... and Damas.
When he had finished Zleke fished the charred flesh of the rat out of the fire and passed him a section. "Hell of a story you've got there." Zleke said, not really knowing what to say. He was right, she didn't really believe him, especially that bit about him being the legenday Mar and all, but she had to admit it explained quite a few things. Especially that pendant.
"Yeah." Jak took a bite of the rat and chewed it cautiously. It was surprisingly good. The two ate their meal in silence.
"Jak." Zleke said after a fashion.
"Mm?" Jak grunted thoughtfully.
"Help me end this war."
Jak shot her a sidelong glance. "Spargus has been trying to do that for years."
"Spargus," Zleke said dryly. "is full of Spargans. I am a Marauder. I know how we think."
"And if I say yes?"
"Then no more people die."
Jak snorted. "You're crazy."
"Welcome to the club." Zleke stood up and brushed herself off. "Besides, you owe me."
"What's to say I shouldn't just shoot you instead?" Jak retorted.
Zleke looked at him for a long moment, then slowly reached behind her head and pulled her mask off. It landed in the dirt with a soft thump.
"Then go ahead and shoot me." She said, her eyes boring into his.
Jak's blue eyes widened ever so slightly. Zleke held her breath.
Finally Jak shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Fine."
Zleke couldn't believe her ears. "Fine?" She repeated, deliberately squeezing her sudden sense of hope out of her voice.
"Fine. But I need to get back to Spargus. I have a few things to take care of."
Zleke nodded as calmly as she could. "Fair enough. I hope you know how to ride."
"You could say that." Jak smirked. "I hope you can keep up."
"Heh." Zleke whistled to her leaper lizards. "Meena!" She called, looking rather smug as her alpha female trotted over. "You're on." She said to the Spargan, before hopping on Meena's back and spurring her up the tunnel, and out of sight.
End Chapter 3! Good? Bad? You, the viewers decide!
