Chapter 3. Meet the Chessmaster.
Meanwhile, Jak and Daxter continue their way through the forest.
They had been walking for about half an hour, and they had come across more traps that they had managed to avoid.
Daxter however, was getting impatient.
"How much longer do we have to walk Jak?" Daxter asked. "Cause it feels like we've been walking for hours."
"I have no idea how much further we need to go Daxter." Jak answered. "And I don't see why you're complaining. You're on my shoulder for most of the time."
"Fair point." Daxter sighed. "But we better not find out we're actually going the wrong way."
They continued walking in silence.
They finally emerged from the forest to find themselves near the edge of a cliff. Below it, they saw a large building that with a ton of large ships outside.
"Well, looks like we found the factory." Jak said.
Jak then grabbed the binoculars from the bag and Daxter got off his shoulder.
"Hopefully these observers work." Jak said as he looked over them.
"Well Keira did test them out before we went here, so they should." Daxter said. "Unless they somehow broke on the way here."
Jak rolled his eyes and began to look over the factory using the observers.
Somewhere in space, Dr. Nefarious was staring at Ratchet restrained to a chair through a window.
Nefarious pressed a button on his end, sending an electrical shock to the chair Ratchet was in.
Ratchet cried out in pain. Nefarious held down the button for a few seconds before releasing it.
Ratchet stopped screaming and let out several deep breath's.
Nefarious pressed the button again and Ratchet resumed screaming.
The Chessmaster then enters the room and see's what Nefarious is doing.
"Nefarious, that's enough for now." He said.
Nefarious turned to him. "Oh, you again." he said in an annoyed tone. "What do you want?"
"I need to speak to Ratchet." The Chessmaster answered. "And I don't want you to shock him while i'm doing so."
"WHAT!?" Nefarious yelled. "I finally have that lombax at my mercy, and you don't want him to die?"
"Nefarious, it is important we keep him alive. He's more useful to us."
"Fine." Nefarious growled. "Go talk to him."
The Chessmaster then opened the door and approached Ratchet.
"Hello Ratchet." The Chessmaster said.
Ratchet slowly raised his head towards him and stared at him in silence.
Ratchet wasn't looking good. Aside from the electrocutions he had to recently endure, his face was also bruised and one of his eyes was swollen shut.
Finally he spoke. "So, you must be The Chessmaster."
The Chessmaster nodded. "You went looking for me after you and your friends defeated Tenebris." he said. "Well, here I am."
"Where's Clank?" Ratchet asked.
"He's safe." The Chessmaster said. "Weather he remains that way depends on how well you cooperate."
"Look, if you want information about where the others are, you could have asked and not beat me up for no reason for a week." Ratchet replied.
"Oh, I don't want that kind of information." The Chessmaster said. "I already know what they're up to."
"Then what was the point of what happened to me?" Ratchet shouted back.
The Chessmaster said nothing to that.
"Who am I kidding, you just want more information about me. Since you finally have one of us face to face."
The Chessmaster shook his head. "Not that either. I already know everything about you."
The Chessmaster then brought up a file and opened it and began to read off it..
"Name: Ratchet. Last Name: Unknown. Father: James. Mother: Unknown. Age: 18."
Ratchet stared at The Chessmaster in silence.
"You are currently the last of your kind, at least in this dimension, as the others of your kind have fled to another one. Your father died protecting them and you ended up alone on a backwater planet."
Ratchet said nothing once again.
"Now for years, you made a ship and at around the age of 15, you made one. But it was missing one component, a robotic ignition system. Then your future friend, Clank, crashed onto the planet, you happened to be nearby, and well; you know the rest."
The Chessmaster put the file away. "Anything to say to that Ratchet?"
"If you know everything about me, why are you keeping me alive instead of just killing me?" Ratchet asked.
"It's simple, you're bait." The Chessmaster replied. "Sooner or later, they're going to realize you're missing and try to find you."
He then began to leave the room.
"Well you must not be very smart." Ratchet said as The Chessmaster left the room. "Because when they find me, we're going to stop you and whatever your plan is."
The Chessmaster stopped just outside the door.
"Finding you is what i'm counting on." The Chessmaster replied. "Stopping me on the other hand, that won't happen."
The Chessmaster closed the door behind him and stopped near Dr. Nefarious.
"Shock him one more time, then bring him back to his cell." he said to him.
The Chessmaster then left, leaving Nefarious to press the button to electrocute Ratchet.
Meanwhile, Jak and Daxter were still looking over the factory.
Jak was right now focused on the shuttle bay and watching the activity that was going on.
"Well, one things for certain, these aren't the same Krimzon Guard Bots we fought last time." Jak said as he watched.
The Robots on the shuttle were more humanoid in shape. They lacked a face though, having one red eye at the upper half of their face. And true to their name, they were red.
Right now they seamed to be loading themselves into ships. Whenever one was filled up, the shuttle doors closed.
"Question is, why are none of the ships taking off?"
"Eh beats me." Daxter replied. "The moment we get this info to the City Guard, they're going to make sure they don't do that."
He then turned to Jak. "Can I take a look at the factory using those observers?" he asked
Jak turned to Daxter in response. "And how can I know you won't accidently drop and break them?"
"Come on Jak, where could I possibly drop and break them?"
Jak's eyes motioned to the edge of the cliff.
"Jak, I promise you I won't go anywhere near there if you give me them."
Jak sighed and gave Daxter the observers. "Fine, but if you break them you're going to be the one to explain what happened to Keira."
Daxter began to look for the observers, looking at the shuttle bay on the factory.
At first, he didn't see anything aside from what Jak saw already.
Then something caught his eye.
He quickly focused on what he saw, which was Erol talking to a worker robot.
"You need to see this Jak." Daxter said handing the observers back to him.
"What is it?" Jak asked.
Daxter pointed in the direction he saw Erol, and Jak looked through the observers and saw what Daxter saw.
"Haven't seen you in a while." Jak said to himself as he watched Erol. "But why did you decide to pop up now?"
He pressed a button on the side of the binoculars and the sound of Erol's voice came through.
"Look, I don't care about the fact that we already have more then enough robots ready to bring Haven City down, The Chessmaster doesn't want to deploy them just yet." Erol yelled at the worker.
"But sir, what's the point of having all these ships full of robots if we can't use them?" The worker robot asked.
"Look, The Chessmaster has very specific orders. He want's to deploy them as soon as he's almost done with the rift machine." Erol yelled back. "And if you can't follow these orders, I might as well dismantle you."
Hearing enough, Jak pressed the button again and the audio stopped coming through.
"I think what we saw will more then convince the city guard to bomb this place." Jak said getting up.
"Wait, Erol mentioned someone called The Chessmaster, right." Daxter said. "Isn't that the same guy who Ratchet said was going to find and seemingly knows everything about us?"
"Probably." Jak said. "Ratchet was sending me updates on his progress. Though I didn't get one last week."
Daxter wasn't exactly listening to that last sentence as he had noticed something behind them.
"Uh, Jak." Daxter said poking Jak's leg.
"What is..." Jak began saying before he saw what Daxter was looking at.
Two robots were in front of the way they came, with their weapons pointed at them.
"Oh." Jak said.
"Target's identified." One of the robots said. "Prepare for elimination."
Jak reacted quickly. He ran over to one robot and kicked it, getting out his morph gun as he did so and shot it a few times with it's blaster function. He then turned to the other robot and made quick work of it with the arc wielder function of the morph gun.
"Time to go." Jak said to Daxter.
"I figured that much." Daxter replied as he got on his shoulder.
Jak began to run through the forest, occasionally firing his gun at any robots that followed him and Daxter.
However, in their rush, both he and Daxter had forgotten about the traps.
As such, when Jak stepped on a seemingly innocuous leaf pile, he was suddenly flipped upside down as the leg that stepped on the leaf pile was trapped in a snare.
As a result of this, Jak dropped the morph gun and Daxter fell of his shoulder.
Daxter got up and noticed Jak's predictament.
"Oh no." Daxter said quickly running over to Jak.
"Don't worry Jak, I'll have you free in no time." he said as he began to look over the leg trapped in the snare.
"No, you need to get out of here Daxter." Jak said.
"Jak, I can't leave..." Daxter said before Jak interrupted him.
"Daxter, if they find you, they'll probably capture or kill you. You need to hide now."
"But..."
"Just go."
Daxter reluctantly did so, taking the observers with him.
He hid behind a tree, poking his head out slightly to watch what was happening.
He saw his friend attempt to grab the morph gun from the ground, but it was just out of reach.
Just then Erol and two other robots came up to Jak.
"Why hello there Jak." Erol said approaching Jak with a not so friendly smile. "I haven't seen you in a while."
He then looked around. "But tell me Jak, Where is your friend?"
Jak made no answer, instead he went for another reach for the morph gun.
Erol however, grabbed the gun and handed it over to the one of the robots.
"Reckless as ever I see." Erol said calmly.
He then pressed something on his arm. "Erol here, I have Jak captured. Do you want me to kill him?"
Neither Jak or Daxter heard the reply, but judging from Erol's change of expression, he clearly didn't like it.
"Fine, but once he's no more use to you, you'll let me kill him." he said, clearly dissatisfied.
Erol then turned to the robot holding the morph gun. "Knock him out and imprison him, and make sure that morph gun comes with you."
He turned to the other robot. "And you, find that ostel."
The robot with the morph gun turned to Jak and knocked him out.
Daxter, who was watching this whole time, winced as this reminded him of a not so pleasant memory.
At this point, he decided it was best to hide as they we're most likely going to start looking for him.
Noticing a small hole near a tree he grabbed the observers and ran to it. Just before he covered it with a branch nearby he saw Jak being carried away to parts unknown.
Much later, at an unknown location, Jak woke up.
"Ugh, my head." he muttered as he rubbed his head.
That was when he noticed his hands cuffed to the table.
He looked down, and saw that his legs weren't cuffed but judging from the length of the chain that cuffed his hands, he clearly wasn't going to be walking very far.
He then looked around the room. It was pretty small and the only things there was the table he was cuffed to and the chair he was sitting in.
"Where am I?" he asked himself.
A door then opened and Jak sat back down and watched the person enter.
The person had grey hair and eyes, a dark beard and wearing a black trench coat.
"Hello Jak." The man said.
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" Jak asked.
"I know almost everything about you Jak." The man replied. "And i'm pretty sure you've heard a bit about me."
Jak then realized who he was talking to.
"So you're The Chessmaster." he said.
"That is correct." The Chessmaster replied.
"I'll take it you're responsible for the things that I went through for almost the past year. The universe eater and Tenebris specificly."
The Chessmaster nodded. "I am that person."
"Just a question for you. How much do you know about me? Is it just my accomplishments or my backstory?"
The Chessmaster the brought out a file. "Let me tell you myself."
He then opened it and began to read off of it.
"Name: Jak. Birth name: Mar. Current Age: 20. Mother: Unkown. Father: Damas."
He then went to another paper and continued reading. "Seperated from your father when you were very young."
He paused for a moment and looked at Jak, whose fists were clenched and was glaring at him.
"Seams like I struck a nerve there." The Chessmaster said without changing his tone.
He then continued reading. "At the age of three you were sent back to the past where you lived there for about twelve years. During then you befriended Daxter, who was turned into an otsel and stopped Gol and Maya. Shortly after, you, Daxter, Keira and Samos were sent to the future where you were captured and forced into dark eco experimentation, which gave you powers, before being rescued by Daxter."
Jak wasn't exactly listening at this point, rather he was examining the cuffs. Trying to look for a way to get out of them. So far there wasn't any visible keyhole.
"Afterwards you helped bring down Baron Praxis, defeated the metalhead leader, and sent your younger self back to the past. About a year after that you were banished to the wasteland because of your dark eco powers. You were found by your father, though you didn't know it yet. You found a way back to the city and stopped a recently revived Erol. As well as the dark makers he had teamed up with. However, your father ended up dying in the process."
The Chessmaster finished and looked back at Jak. "Your past is quite fascinating. Wouldn't you agree."
"Why didn't you just kill me?" Jak asked. "Why did you decide to keep me alive?"
"I believe you are more useful alive then dead." The Chessmaster replied.
"If you want me to betray my friends, I would never…." Jak began to say before he heard a ringing.
The Chessmaster brought out a phone like device and placed it to his ear.
"Hello." he said.
Jak didn't hear the other end of the call, but it was pretty clear The Chessmaster was disappointed by what he heard.
"Are you sure?" he asked the person on the other end.
"Fine." he said when the person answered. "I think what we have is good enough for now."
He hung up and turned to Jak.
"Looks like your friend has escaped."
Although he didn't show it, Jak was relieved. Daxter has managed to evade capture and hopefully trying to find a way to get help.
"Don't get your hopes up though, we'll find him eventually."
The Chessmaster then turned his back and walked out the door.
Seconds later, a few men wearing masks came in and approached Jak. One went over and unlocked the cuffs on him.
Seeing his chance, Jak punched the one that unlocked the cuffs and kicked another that was just about to fire a taser.
He then made a run for the door. Just as he ran out of it though he was suddenly stopped by some invisible force.
He looked and saw The Chessmaster near the door, his hand open and pointing towards him.
"You really didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?" he said.
He then moved in hand in the direction of the door and Jak was slammed back against the wall of the room he was in.
Jak saw The Chessmaster walk in view of the door. Noticing a taser gun he made a reach for it, but he was thrown back to the wall again.
"I really didn't want to do this." The Chessmaster said. "But you forced my hand and I didn't really have any other choice."
He then knocked Jak out by throwing him telekeneticly towards another wall.
He turned to one of his men. "Bring him to his cell."
Elsewhere on the ship, Ratchet was sitting in a cell. He had a few scorch marks on his fur now because Nefarious had electrocuted him a bit too long before he was taken back to his cell.
He heard the cell door open. He turned to see Dr. Nefarious standing there.
"So." Nefarious said. "Not so tough without your robot friend and weapons are you?"
Ratchet said nothing.
"What, no remark from you?"
Ratchet continued to be silent.
"Anyway, an old friend is going to be joining your cell." Dr. Nefarious said before hastily adding. "But it's someone you know from another universe."
Nefarious moved out of the way and two robots tossed the unconscious body of Jak in the cell before closing the door.
