I do not own Jak and Daxter.
Vacation or War- Endgame
Chapter Seven- Dark Secrets
When Loor came around, she was seated against a tree. Her weapons had been laid in her lap, and Jak was crouched nearby; half looking at her, half keeping a look-out for possible attack, his own weapon still in his hands. She blinked a few times, the daylight hurting her eyes and causing the pain in her head to turn sharp as well as throbbing. "Ugh... good Christ..." She groaned while applying a hand to her brow. Her body hurt; aches spreading along almost all of her muscles, like she'd overdone it in sudden and explosive activity.
He looked to her at once, the look on his face serious. If he was happy that she was still alive, he wasn't showing it. Instead, he almost looked upset, but not with her. Nothing on his face suggested that she'd done something wrong. No, he looked guilty.
"You alright?" He asked softly, his eyes still scanning around. "We got ambushed... took care of them, but there could be more."
She nodded a little, wincing as the throb in her head began to fade. "I'm fine... I think... what happened?"
"You changed." He said simply, not adding details. To him, that seemed to be all the explanation that was needed, but she didn't understand it.
"Changed?" She questioned, wrapping her sore fingers around her weapons and getting up. She holstered the stave but kept the gun out, still squinting against the light. Stretching towards the sky she hissed against the various pains of her body, also noting that her pants had somehow gotten forced down a little in the back. Quickly, she pulled the waistband back up, looking at Jak as he got up from where he'd been keeping watch over her. "I... I don't think I understand. Jak, something happened... I blacked out, and the metal heads... their blood..."
"The eco in it made you go berserk." His voice was rough. "I... I figured you'd remember it, or recognize it." He had turned away from her by now, starting to move through the trees once more to continue on their mission, looking determined to end the conversation.
"But-!" She shook her head, almost hard enough to bring her headache back, reaching out for him and getting his elbow. Perhaps he hadn't noticed, but she'd had some kind of mental episode and was scared out of her mind. She stared at him with her mouth left slightly open, getting the creeping feeling that she'd done something in the time that she'd been forced into her head. "Jak, what's going on here? I... I lost it while fighting a couple of them... did I get hit? Why am I not hurt? They... they should have ripped me apart."
"You ripped them apart." He asserted, glaring at her. "Maybe I didn't explain it very well... I told you yesterday; the thing in your head-"
"The voice!" She cut him off, her empty hand coming back to her brow. "It... what was it? It... it seemed to know me. Jak, what's happening to me?"
He glanced around as she was practically yelling, putting a finger up to 'shush' her and coming back to corner her against the same tree she'd recently gotten up from. "I tried to explain it to you yesterday... it's part of you... when you take on enough eco it can just take over, more easily if you're not ready to fight it back. It... yours tends to co-operate with you more often than mine does, but they'll do anything to get free."
She stood there, her back pressed against the trunk of the tree she'd been resting on, staring with wide eyes at the intense look on his face. She was too scared, too focused on herself, to try and interpret it further than she already had. "Am..." She swallowed, breathing harshly through her nose. "Am I insane?"
He didn't hesitate on the answer. "We both are."
The rest of the mission went by fairly quietly. Loor had long gone silent, and only a few extra metal heads were found on the way out. They arrived at their destination, founded the group of technicians, and made their way back without incident. They reported to the guy at base-camp, and then re-entered the city through the security gate.
Despite it only being late afternoon, Loor felt quite exhausted. She could have blamed many things, including all the thoughts crashing through her mind, but another explanation was both possible and plausible, and made her worry about herself all the more. Jak hadn't looked at her since she'd questioned him in the woods, so she'd been left to her own thoughts and pondering questions.
The more she thought about it, the more frightened she became. Her memory was a massive black hole, but she had known that figure in her head. It was a creature to which she could attach a great deal of fear and apprehension. She didn't trust it, felt an obsessive reflex to figure out exactly what it was. She wanted to study it, despite being terrified. She wanted, no, needed to know what it was.
She glanced up at Jak; she'd been following him through the city, and he hadn't bothered to say where they were going in the dimming light. He still seemed pretty charged up, but she moved to catch up with him and get his attention by lightly touching his arm, as she had a few times before.
He looked, a brief glance, before locking his eyes forward again. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" She asked, keeping close to him as they entered the pedestrian traffic of New Haven streets.
"I don't talk much." He sighed, his lips making a tight frown that was almost like a grimace. "I'm not good with words... I couldn't... can't explain it well enough to you, even though I'm the same as you... If I was better at it, maybe you wouldn't..." He sighed. "You might have been ready for it, y'know? I didn't prepare you."
"You tried." She pointed out, still shaken from her own episode. "I... I still don't really get it, but you did try."
He looked at her, his expression tightening further. "She's awake again... you'll start having nightmares soon, too, I bet." His eyes lamented her coming misery.
Her jaw tightened slightly, aware that her coming days were only going to get more difficult. "I still don't... you said I changed, but... what do you mean by that? Why did my body hurt so much after? My head? My eyes? I'd feel better if I just knew what I was dealing with. I hate the unknown."
He went quiet for a while, the two of them weaving around people to slowly pass from New Haven into the slums. There was no point in getting a zoomer; he didn't actually have a destination at the moment.
"... I could show you... but that might scare you more."
"Who said I was scared?" She defied at first, growling a little before he gave her a look. He had some ability to read her as well. "Okay, yeah... I'm a bit freaked out, but that's my problem. I'm lost, and that frightens me. I just need someone to explain to me what's going on... if you can show me rather than tell me, fine. Show me."
"Are you sure?" He asked seriously. "I... I can show you what happened to you, but-"
"I need to know." She insisted, her resolve steeling her against any fear that tried to worm its way into her mind and make her feel unsure. "I have to know."
He nodded a little bit, though discomfort showed on his face. She watched carefully, almost more worried for him than she was for herself. She had to re-learn all the worst parts of her life, but she was also reminding him of what made them different than everyone else. Still, the fact was that she needed to know everything she could. It was her mind she was dealing with, and she had to have every piece of information she could get.
It didn't matter if it was scary or weird, terrifying or fantastic; she had to know.
He began to move faster, finding a zoomer and having her get on behind him instead of sending her to find her own vehicle. Now that he'd decided to show her, it seemed he wanted to just get it over with. Once again he went completely silent, speeding through city sections until they arrived in agriculture; streets and buildings faded away for grass and crops to rise up. Said crops were huge; Loor had to stare at some of the plants they sped by, noting the size of them and feeling that they were simply too huge to exist.
At early fall, most of these crops were in the process of being harvested. Loor saw some fields that were half-barren; one day's work done and the rest left for tomorrow as the sun made its way down. She wondered just how one moved such gigantic crops, but then mentally shrugged. This was a city full of machines; they surely had some sort of mechanical help.
Passing by several farms and a few animal enclosures, she still didn't see enough that would feed a city of this size. She had to assume by now that the city's food supplies were supplemented by fishing, but these farms simply didn't look big enough. Perhaps that explained the need for oversized crops, but she felt like she was learning another reason for the city's unrest; given long enough and everyone was either going to be on rations or starving. All it took was an infestation of bugs or a run of bad whether, and these crops would fail and leave the city without strength.
"Why did we seal ourselves in like this?" She spoke softly. "We're like fish in a leaky barrel..."
"You know about as well as I do." He spoke as the zoomer slowed; there was a long metal ramp up to another security door. They were going outside the wall again. "I think everyone was so desperate to keep the metal heads out, they didn't think about how it would constrict the people later on."
"Isn't there anyone else out there?" They dismounted the zoomer, and she stuck close to him, looking at the walls and wondering just what kind of world was out there.
"Nothing exists outside the wall as far as I know. The metal heads took over the world; devastated everyone else. Haven's the only place that survived."
"Because of us?" She asked, remembering what the others had told her. Still, that sentence felt wrong coming out of her mouth. "O-or because of you?" She amended, the both of them starting the walk up the ramp.
"You helped." He assured, looking where she walked behind him.
"...So I was kinda a side-kick?"
He snickered as they reached the top of the ramp, waiting for the door to open. "According to Daxter, I'm the side-kick. You're my partner, someone I trust. You were pretty green when you first got out of prison, but you got better all the time, so long as you kept your head together."
"I'm getting the feeling that didn't happen very often..." She muttered, looking at her boots. "I'm guessing I scared pretty easy back then, too."
"You had a lot going on."
The door opened with a loud thump, bidding the two of them into the lock as one door shut behind them and the other began to spin its gears in order to open.
"I'm going to do better." She stated outloud, looking up and balling her fists at her sides. "I don't wanna be a burden; I won't get scared anymore."
He gave her a look, questioning how she could say that when she didn't even know what the future had in store.
"What?" She asked. "I mean... where are we even going right now, anyway? What are you going to show me?"
The door clunked open, allowing the smell of a lush forest to breeze in. He led the way out, onto a small edge of a cliff that had a warp ring on the edge. There was a chasm, and another cliff much higher in the air and quite a distance away with another ring on its edge. Loor followed, looking at the warp ring suspiciously as he went from her side to hop through it.
He vanished from one edge and went to the other, making her blink. Then, without question, she followed, taking the same hop.
Going from one edge to the other, she grabbed herself for the strange tingle that danced on her skin after the fact. Still, Jak didn't let her wait around. He was pulling on her, almost dragging her as they followed a little valley between steep faces of rock.
Soon enough, they were standing on the edge of another cliff, looking into beautiful scene of a bronze temple built into the jagged edges of the mountains, waterfalls flowing off of it and into the deep canyon below. She stared, her mouth hanging a little open, but he still didn't stop, giving her a push towards the edge of the cliff.
Floating there, without a driving force, was a little bronze platform. "What the...?" She shook her head, pushing back against him. "What are you trying to do?"
"It's okay." He assured. "We haven't even gotten to the scary stuff yet. Just... trust me, okay?"
"Why are we even out here?" She demanded, letting go of herself to back out of his grip and push away his hands. "You said you were going to show me... show me what you couldn't explain to me, what you meant when you said I changed. Why are we out here, outside the walls? Isn't it... not safe?"
He winced; as if just now realizing she wouldn't blindly trust him. Had she in the past? Not for the first time, Loor wondered what kind of person she'd been before her mind had been damaged. "I couldn't show you inside the city... and for you to just see, just to watch, he'll need something else to hunt. I'm expecting there to be metal heads out here."
"He?" She quested, looking at him critically. This time he shook his head, motioning towards the platform again instead of answering. "Okay, alright..." She sighed, stepping up to the cliff's edge again. "Fine..."
He nodded, and they both took the step onto the platform, she grabbing onto him when it suddenly began to move.
"Don't talk to me once we get down there." He spoke quickly as the platform entered the darkness of a ravine; the setting sun was already casting long shadows and left this place completely without light. "When we get off, hide and stay down. When I show you... I won't be in control. If he sees you, he'll come after you."
"You're freaking me out a little... why can't I talk to you?"
"I'll be... blocking him out so he doesn't see wherever you go to hide."
She blinked a few times, despite the fact that it was completely dark. "This is worse than a simple split personality, isn't it?"
He snickered softly as the shadows ebbed, light coming into view as they neared the end of their journey. "Now you're getting it... this is actually pretty risky... are you sure-?"
"Yes." She spoke quickly. "I have to know. I won't have any secrets, not from you, not from me, and most definitely not from my damaged brain pan. Anyway, you're the one who decided you couldn't explain."
He nodded tightly, silence taking once more as the platform they stood on floated in to land. They'd arrived at a platform of rock, but it quickly gave way to a thick mat of grass and wildflowers. The platform was lit; a bronze arch stood over where the platform had landed itself, a yellow gem set in the top and acting as a beacon in the darkness. She and Jak stepped off together, and he gave her a push to go off on her own into the area beyond. As she was told, she didn't try to talk to him, turning and finding her way down the tumbled rocks that made up this particular rise in the topography.
The area beyond was serene; a forest of gigantic trees, a stunning waterfall that turned pink in the sunset's light, and a thin stream winding its way through. It was still rocky, clearly a forest that had taken root among the mountains, but it still grew thick and strong. Getting down to the more even ground, Loor moved quickly to find a suitable place where she would not been seen, but could still observe most of the area.
She noted, as she moved through the stream and decided on a large bolder on the other side, that this place was far from safe. In the growing darkness, she could see spits of yellow, glowing like the gem set into the bronze arch up above; metal head skull gems, glowing an eerie yellow. Most were near the waterfall, but there had to be at least ten of them. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up as she sighted Jak in the twilight; he was down here too and looking at the group of monsters.
There was a brief pause before one of the creatures noticed him. It was a grunt, similar to one of the creatures Loor had fought that day, that sniffed at the air and turned to look at him, growling first in curiosity but then roaring as if it had found some kind of treat. It must have thought him some kind of stupid creature that had wandered out here alone and unprotected.
She stared as the one that had noticed him began to bound forward, the others beginning to move as well.
He didn't draw his weapon.
His body hunched over slightly, and she watched from a distance as he went tense. In a moment she knew something was happening to him that was going to be greater than a shift in personalities. A line of violet sparks seemed to run up his spine, vanishing into the bottom of his skull before exploding out from his body, burning her senses with the feel of eco.
The explosion hit the first metal head, knocking it back into two more that had been following too closely. Loor's eyes darted over to them, trying to take in the whole scene at once and failing. When she looked back to where Jak had been standing, she found nothing but empty space. Then her eyes flicked back to the group of metal heads, trying to disentangle and continue their attack, to see a monster in man's clothes.
Jak's shape had changed; his already impressive body engrossed with eco power, the sparks leaping off in arcs from his now ashen skin. Long black talons extended from fingers that ripped into metal head flesh, cracking bones and wrenching at tendons and veins, causing blood to spray in grotesque fountains. Even at a distance she could see fangs in his mouth, used to tare into another metal head on the pile before abandoning the now dead group to charge upon the others; there were still at least seven left. Black horns on his head were lowered and used to gore one, moving away at a frightening speed to plunge talons into another.
Black eyes under a silver spray of hair; Jak had become something else.
Loor stared on in shock, feeling the intense need to run away, to flee. He'd warned her that it would be frightening, but she didn't expect this. She didn't accept this... had her body twisted in the same way when she blacked out? Is this what the eco had done to them? She could feel her jaw hanging open, her hands leaving the rock she'd been leaning on as her feet tried to find the ground again. Her hiding place was inadequate, she felt. She needed to get further way. He'd be done with those metal heads soon, and then he'd be after her.
Her toes found ground, and she stepped away from the boulder to back away, her eyes still locked on the carnage before her. This... thing, whatever it was, was ruthless, mutilating the bodies once life had left them, almost literally bathing in the blood. The savagery both shocked and disgusted her, and she wondered just how long it would take him to stop.
He had to eventually stop, right? She had. She'd come to, but after how long? How long would he be like this?
How long until Jak came back, and hid this monster away again?
She'd come to the edge of the stream, not realizing it until she'd slipped on a wet stone. She slapped a hand over her mouth before a yelp could escape her, but that didn't stop her from falling into the water with a loud splash.
The Author's Corner
Kehehehe... I'm having so much fun right now, you people haven't a clue.
BTW, you'll note that I'm describing Haven Forest's Jak II version here. My explanation for the different forest level from Jak 3 is going to be that it's a different gate in the agricultural section, leading to a different area of the woods. Call it a cheap shot, but I'd rather rationalize the change than ignore it.
Happy reading!
-Loor
