Authors note: I meant to post this up sooner but I didn't get a chance to edit it for ages.
Some things in this chapter may seem a bit unrealistic but I hope you can think about them and see how they could work. :)
The small team of humans and ottsels managed to make their way around the mountain and up to the ice cover of the cavern with little mishap. They instantly saw the black pipe protruding from the snow at the edge of the ice. It then wound up a small rise and off up another peak of the mountain.
"That won't be easy to follow," Torn commented disdainfully.
"I'll go take a look," Jak said, and promptly changed into his light form, flapping up from ledge to ledge to climb the peak.
He reached the top which the pipe was laid over, and looked out. His eyes followed the pipe down the other side of the rise, down the rocky side of the mountain, and across the high country to...
A few seconds later Jak landed heavily in the snow in a crouch in front of his comrades. Dissipating his light power he stood up to face them.
"The pipe goes on a long way," he informed, and then turned especially to Keira, "... towards Gol and Maia's citadel." He said the last part in a solemn tone.
Keira's expression became serious. "What are they doing there?"
Jak shrugged. "We should go and check it out. But the country between here and there is too rough to cross on foot, besides trying to get down the mountain. And there are strong winds that rule out the balloon as an option."
A dismal silence ensued, broken by, surprisingly, a loud... chirp?
Everyone spun around to stare with confusion at the direction where the sound had come from. And to their surprise there was a blue and yellow blur streaking towards them. No one really had time to react as the streak crashed right into Jak, knocking him over on to his back in the snow and sending Daxter flying from his shoulder across the ice.
The apparition quickly got to its feet once more and turned in the direction that the ottsel had flown. "Maaamaaaa!" it exclaimed shrilly, and quickly ran over to where Daxter had fallen.
Everyone simply gaped as they watched the large blue and yellow bird nudge the small ottsel with its beak, chirping and cooing happily. Jak dragged himself to his feet and stared with them.
"Geta offa me you horrible animal!" Daxter cried out, trying to use his small arms to push the bird away from him, to no avail.
"The… Flut Flut bird?" said Jak in complete confusion, his head spinning. "But... can't be... Keira?" he looked over to his girlfriend.
Keira seemed just as shocked and unable to answer, but as she looked back at Jak she noticed Torn and the guards behind him pointing their guns at the bird. "No, don't! It's okay, it's a friendly creature," she explained, walking over to them and putting her hand on one of their guns, pushing the tip down and away from the bird. The bird hadn't seemed to have noticed, it was still happily pushing at Daxter with its head, while Tess looked on amused.
"What the hell is that thing?" Torn asked angrily, holstering his guns.
"It's a Flut Flut bird... you mean you have never seen one before?" she asked, intrigued. Torn shook his head.
"Urr.. I think I once saw one... a picture of one, in a book. I didn't think they were real," one of the guards piped up.
Keira rubbed her forehead. "Then the only explanation I can think of," she said as she turned back to Jak, "is that it must have followed us through the rift gate, and ended up here."
"Hey, isn't anyone gonna help me over here? This bird is crazy!" Daxter's frustrated voice sounded across the ice as he struggled under the Flut Flut's boisterous affection.
"More like followed Daxter," Jak concluded with a smirk. He walked over to the two ottsels and bird, and grabbed Daxter by the scruff of the neck, pulling him out from right under the Flut Flut's beak. He stuck the ruffled ottsel back up on his shoulder, where Daxter sagged with relief. The Flut Flut turned around and came up close to Jak, leaning down and rubbing its head against him. Jak stroked the top of the birds head with one hand softly.
"Don't do that Jak, you're encouraging it!" Daxter warned, leaning away from the bird with a disgusted look on his face. Jak smiled at that.
Keira approached them. "The poor thing, it would have been so alone up here. I wonder how long it has been here," she said sadly. The Flut Flut simply chirped and ran over to her, butting at her shoulder playfully.
"... It's been here before," Jak said simply, to a response of blank stares. "We warped it up here to help me go cross country to get a power cell... maybe it could help again..." he looked at the bird thoughtfully.
"Yeah, it can help us get to the citadel. Although... it might only be able to carry one person... at most two..." Keira replied uncertainly.
"Dax and I will go," Jak said promptly.
Keira put her hands on her hips. "Oh no you don't. You're not leaving me behind again while you go off on one of your adventures," she said sternly. "I'm coming along too."
Jak seemed surprised. "But, you would be safer with Torn," he protested.
"I'm sticking by you to the end, whether you like it or not," she pushed further.
"Alright," Jak caved, not wanting to fight anymore with her strong will. He looked at the Flut Flut. "I think it can carry us, it seems to have grown a bit since before."
"Okay," Keira agreed, and they went back over to the others, Daxter taking refuge on Jak's head to get away from the ever loving Flut Flut who walked beside him, Tess sitting up on its saddle holding her sides with laughter.
"Keira and I will use the Flut Flut to go on ahead," Jak explained, "you guys can go back to the transport and wait for us. Call Brutter to get the luker balloon to take you down,"
"I don't like this, you going off alone. This was supposed to be a team mission," Torn muttered in frustration.
"Don't worry, we can handle is" Jak reassured, swinging up onto the back on the Flut Flut bird. Tess jumped onto Keira's shoulder and then Jak held out a hand to help Keira climb up. Once she was seated behind him he took up the reins in both hands. "We'll call as soon as we find out anything. Keep safe."
Torn grunted and nodded. "You too. You better come back alive, you hear me?"
Jak treated them to a cocky grin, before pulling on the reins and the bird took off at a run, jumping and fluttering up the rise Jak and surmounted moments before.
The Flut Flut hopped agilely from one ledge to the other, climbing down the mountain to the rough high country below. It was large expanse of jagged rocky ground littered with boulders, which could have taken ages for humans to climb across alone. It was no problem for the nimble bird though, which fluttered from one rock to another, following the trail of the large black pipe. A way along the group noticed another black pipe which came up out of the ground and then ran alongside the first.
"They must be taking out eco too," Keira assumed, looking along the new pipe. "What could they need so much for?"
Jak was scanning the area around when a sudden horrendous shriek rang through his ears. His head snapped in the direction of the noise, and he spotted a dark shape moving towards them across the rocks. It had the same agility and speed as the Flut Flut, if not superior, and was quickly gaining on them. As the creature came closer Jak noticed it had a grey shiny carapace set over black skin, and a yellow skull gem shone brightly in its head. It was raptorial in form, like a Flut Flut or leaper lizard, a new type of metal head that Jak had not encountered before. Powerful back legs pushed the metal head from one rock to another, its smaller front legs which ended in long black claws curled up near its chest and it's long straight tail balancing it. It opened its beak like snout and shrieked at him again, showing of rows of small sharp fangs.
Jak's head snapped back around to the noise of another shriek sounded from his right. Another of the raptor metal heads was gaining from that angle as well. As he turned back to the other side to check the first enemy and saw that more had joined it, running alongside. The Flut Flut squawked in fear, its dilated pupils shifting around in all directions trying to see that danger, but it didn't stop. It put some extra energy into a burst of speed, trying to stay ahead of the metal heads, but they were still gaining on them.
They finally got to the end of the rock field and onto flat dirt plains. Here the Flut Flut could pick up further speed, streaking across the plain on its strong thick legs. Unfortunately, the metal heads were also advantaged on the flat, and with their lighter weight were still gaining. As Jak watched them over his shoulder, he knew something would have to be done about the growing pack of raptors behind them.
"Watch out," Jak said, and then grabbed hold on the saddle with one hand. Then in one deft move he pushed himself out of his seat, swung around Keira and landed back on the Flut Flut, now sitting behind her.
"Take the reins," Jak said to the surprised girl, pushing gently against her back so that she would shuffle forwards in the saddle. As she took up the leather reins Jak turned himself around on the saddle so he was facing the beasts behind them. He whipped out his morph gun, changing it to the Vulcan setting and took aim at the gaining metal heads, tightening his thighs around the bird to keep his seat.
Hoping that his shots wouldn't scare the Flut Flut further, he open fired on the nearest raptor. Streaking blue bullets slammed into the chest carapace of the metal head, though many missed and flew past. "Damn," Jak said as he tried to hold the gun steady, but the up and down motion of the ride was throwing his aim off. He wished he wasn't out of dark ammo; it would have really helped in this situation. He continued to attempt to keep the monsters back with sweeping fire across the group. He managed to fell a good half of the beasts before he ran out of blue ammo.
As he changed to the standard morph, the beasts were upon him. The one in front swiped at him, and would have caught his arm had it not received a blast in the face. Its companions trampled its body as it fell to the ground, its skull gem flying out of its socket. Jak managed to keep them back with the large blast radius of the gun. He felt Keira tensing behind him since their backs were touching.
Just when Jak was becoming concerned about his ammo level, the metal heads suddenly slowed down, peeling off to the left and right, turning back the way they came. Jak sighed with relief and sunk into his seat. "They've given up," he breathed.
"Yeah, you better run, ya metal pussies!" Daxter revelled, raising a furry fist into the air. "We taught them not to mess with us."
Jak gave a weak smile and closed his eyes, his body jerking around on the seat as the Flut Flut continued on. Jak straightened up again and then craned his neck around to see in front of them. The citadel, once precursor temple, loomed up in front of them, its orange metal sides gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Another precursor metal structure rose up out of the ground next to the citadel, reaching up as high into the sky. It was the dark eco silo, which contained the largest amount of dark eco in their known world. Jak turned around in his seat to get more comfortable.
Reds and oranges streaked the horizon as the Flut Flut pulled up in front of the tower, next to a round precursor door. Jak leaped off the bird's back, and then leant a hand to Keira to help her down. The large blue bird chirped and ruffled its feather. Jak and Keira turned their gazes to look at the citadel; the black pipes that had crossed the rock field and dirt plains came up to the base and then rose straight up the side of the tower, as far as the eye could see. The humans stepped up to the door, the ottsels riding on their shoulders.
Once they were about a foot away from the door way the spiralling panels that made up its surface slid away to reveal the entrance. Jak and Keira stepped forth into the dark room beyond, trying to peer around as their eyes adjusted to the dim. The smell of the place was thick and musty, as if the air had not been disturbed for a long while. Once they could see though the gloom the saw that the room lead to a staircase, descending into the earth. There seemed to be no alternate route. Keira turned to look at Jak, who simply shrugged and walked over to the staircase.
They descended into a rock cavern lit by the glow of larva which was coming from the left. Over that way was a round tunnel extending off into the distance, its bottom filled with molten rock. Hanging a way above the larva was some sort of walkway made from interweaved strips of precursor metal, which ended just near the rock ledge they now stood on. Directly across from the stair was another precursor door embedded into the rock. And to their right was a small wooden hut hanging just off the stone ledge. Next to the hut hung an inactive warp gate. Near the warp gate a ring of precursor metal was embedded into the ground, a half sphere of glowing blue in the middle of it. Floating above the blue dome was an old hover vehicle, pieced together from many different metals, a small propeller on its front.
"My Zoomer!" Keira exclaimed in delight, running across to it. She looked over her beloved machine, planning a hand on its metal side. A warm smile of adoration spread across her face. Jak smiled in turn at her behaviour. "I can't believe that it still here after all this time..."
"We can take it back with us later if you like," Jak said, trying to hide his amusement.
"Oh yes please," Keira cried happily, turning around and clasping her hands in front of her.
"Yeah, but for now, we have to try to get to the top of this tower... again," Jak said, turning to look at the precursor door. "I don't expect you to get through all those dangerous obstacles, but I think I have enough light eco left to get us up to the elevator."
Keira nodded. Though she wanted to feel as though she could be brave and do all the dangerous stuff Jak did, she wasn't nearly as athletic or agile as him, and knew she probably couldn't make those jumps. "Okay, let's go,"
"Wait a minute guys, I'm getting a real bad feeling about this!" Daxter piped in, "Remember what happened the last time we went up there? We didn't exactly get a warm welcome! And I don't think people are going to be stealing our eco for any good reason."
"That's why we have to confront them," Jak said firmly.
"Oh man, why did I ever want to tag along on this trip?" Daxter moaned, his shoulders sagging.
"You can always stay here," Jak pointed out as he walked towards the door.
"Alone? I don't think so! I don't trust this place either, I'm gonna stick with the guy with the gun," Daxter announced, though somewhat grudgingly.
"Whatever, let's get moving," Jak said, walking through the round door and into the corridor beyond.
A figure of bright light sailed through the dark air of the large citadel, transparent wings flapping strongly to lift it towards the hanging central column of precursor metal. Another figure was being carried by the first, and was trying not to look down into the dark abyss stretching out below them. The figure landed heavily on the wooden platform surrounding the column, in front of yet another round precursor door. A flash and the light was gone, Jak left rubbing his head where the light being had stood.
"Well, I'm out of light eco now," he announced.
"But… how are we supposed to get back down?" Daxter asked.
"… I hadn't thought of that. I'm sure we'll find a way… we may just have to go down the hard way…"
Daxter put his palm to his face, but didn't comment further.
"Let's just go and find out what's going on, we can worry about this later," Jak evaded the problem and stepped through the door into the elevator. Both Keira and Tess rolled their eyes, mouthing 'boys' at each other before following them.
The door closed behind them and the large round platform that they stood on started to rise, slowly at first but then more quickly, zipping up past the levels, and then slowing down as it neared the top. It came to a halt at the very top of the tower. It was a perfectly round affair, with unmarried edges surrounding. And after meeting the sight up there, the mouths of everyone in the small group standing on the elevator hung open.