Vengeful Return Chapter 11: Ripping Reality
Dark mist appeared out of thin air and collected before the dark figure of Gol emerged from within and the dark mist sank within his body. The robot had been transported and as he floated over the screens confirmed that it had arrived safely at its destination. He saw Jak's rescuers rise into the air and gestured to one of the Lurkers, signalling them to activate the defence systems and hold them in place "They cannot be allowed to leave alive." he said. He turned to a table and waved, and the air above the table shimmered. Suddenly a 3D holographic image of his sister appeared who looked at him quizzically. "Almost everything is sorted on my end" he said to the hologram "My part of the robot has been transferred to Aeropa. We simply need to hold them in place; the explosion will most certainly kill them and all evidence of our plans will be obliterated."
Jak dwelled on what Gol had said "...and I think I will give you a taste of what awaits this condemned planet." What had he meant by that? Gol had made it clear that his plan was to open the silos but he wouldn't need to combine light and dark eco to destroy the people of this planet. Merely opening the silos would unleash enough dark eco to flood the world. If they weren't planning to flood the world with dark eco then what was their plan? Jak was interrupted from his musings as a detonation caught one of the nearby ships and it exploded with a flash of dark purple.
More explosions caught other ships and as Jak looked out the window a shocked lo He turned to Ashelin "They have defences! I thought you would have dealt with them already."
Ashelin shook her head, she seemed to be scolding herself mentally "We did encounter defences but they were weak, I should have realised it was a setup. We got to you way too easily, they must have set up defences knowing that we would come and rescue you. Look!" she said pointing out as a beam of dark eco shot out hitting one of the adjacent ships, instead of an explosion the ship stopped within midair, the dark eco beam holding it in place. "Dammit!" Ashelin said angrily "They mean to keep us here so we can get caught in the blast! Well I'm not going to sit here like a duck and get blown to pieces!" She began to go through evasive manoeuvres and the ship duck and wove around beams and bolts of dark eco.
Daxter looked out and saw fleets of aircrafts flying towards them he gulped "Umm guys..." he said pointing out the window. As the fleet sped on flying as fast as possible a hum could be heard in the air and a dark eco shield rose around the base. A look of shock crossed their faces before Ashelin pulled them out, barely escaping from colliding directly with the shield. Looking at the fleet they watched as a few unlucky planes crashed into the shield and exploded. As they watched the shield rose higher and higher before arching overhead, forming a dome and preventing escape.
"A bit dangerous don't you think?" Maia asked in consternation as the shield rose to trap the escaping heroes. "What if they don't find a way to make it out before the bomb explodes? Our plan cannot succeed without him!"
Gol spoke "I have no doubt that Jak can escape our trap. The boy is more resourceful then we anticipated. He has proven himself to be powerful and observant. I have no doubt he will escape and our plan will continue as expected. We have already underestimated him once; we should not do so again, dear sister. Anyway this will make it all the more believable; we cannot have the boy thinking that we let him go to easily, lest he suspect that we are manipulating him. Once he knows or suspects he is being manipulated, our whole plan will fall apart." Maia, despite the reassurance, looked dissatisfied
"Still it is an unnecessary risk but no matter, if he dies then you will be held responsible and we will simply have to go with plan B. Anyway I am just about to leave Brink Island; we have all the research we need from here. I will meet you at Aeropa." With those final words the hologram froze and the image shattered like glass. Gol closed his eyes for a moment then the dark vapour leaked out of his skin and Gol vanished within the billowing smoke.
Three of Gol's ships were after them, trailing their every move and despite the complex series of evasive manoeuvres that Ashelin tried the machine's controlling the ships had faster reflexes, dodging every stray blast, evading every shot that Ashelin fired to get rid of them and all the while trailing them and slowly narrowing the gap between them. They began to fire off blasts and despite the attempts to avoid the gunfire the wings took minor damage and the ship jolted sickeningly in the air. Daxter put a hand to his mouth and puffed his cheeks as if he were about to regurgitate the contents of his stomach.
One of the ships was now riding alongside Jak and as they watched, the ship opened to reveal a different type of Lurker. They had purple bloated bodies with white mouths and sharp fangs protruding, claws could be seen at the end of the arms and feet. These had wings not dissimilar to a bat's however they appeared to be enhanced with Precursor and Dark Maker cybernetics. The three Lurkers stood in their ship for a moment and then, in unison, jumped. They unfurled their wings and as the wind blew under their wings they flapped them to keep themselves in the air.
They blew out their cheeks and their light purple bodies took on a darker shade of colour. Then they focused on the ship and, with what seemed like contempt spat a ball of dark eco at the escaping heroes. Two of the dark projectiles missed as the ship rolled to avoid them but one of the balls of dark eco made contact and as it did so it exploded, leaving a stain of dark eco which began to eat away at the metal.
Despite the situation Jak could not help but be surprised that the Lurkers were still attempting to stop them from escaping. Despite Gol's blatant disregard for the lives of his servants they were still willing to carry out his orders and prevent Jak's escape. But perhaps it wasn't loyalty, he mused, perhaps they just don't know any better. Looking at the damage done Jak saw that the dark eco from the last projectile had done considerable damage to the ship. Left unattended it would probably eat through the entire ship and bring them crashing down.
The Winged Lurkers readied another blast and while two of them had returned back to their normal colour one had not. As they fired the next round of shots Jak noticed that the darker Winged Lurker spat bigger projectiles and as the shade of purple got darker his shots became more powerful. Jak knew that something like that wasn't good news and his suspicions were confirmed when the darker Winged Lurker flew straight at the ship. Jak tried to avoid colliding with it but it was faster and more suited for aerial manoeuvres. Desperately Jak swung the ship away from the Lurker saving them from the large blast as the Lurker detonated in mid-air but not from the small darts of dark eco which sped away from the explosion, splattering the ship with dark eco. Daxter crawled outside to try and stop the dark eco from damaging the ship and began to work on repairs, despite the Winged Lurkers and the three ships still firing off shots.
"There!" shouted Jak as he caught sight of the last of the shield generators and, after a series of complex manoeuvres, Ashelin flew away from the burning generators with only a bit of minor damage to the hull. The shield flickered and eventually shut off leaving the pathway unblocked for the Ashelin's fleet. With a jubilant cry from each of the ships the ragged remains of the fleet flew out of range of the laboratory's defences with the trailing ships and Winged Lurkers being left behind.
Just in time it seemed for deep within the laboratory the final seconds elapsed and the light and dark eco made contact. In an explosion of both light and darkness a sphere of energy expanded in all directions. It was transparent yet clearly visible, an energy that made the air itself shimmer and light bend and refract. Everything within it was distorted and as they watched whatever it touched simply ceased to exist, disappeared as if it never existed. The sphere began gathering speed as it grew larger and Ashelin's fleet simply stared, mouths agape, as the energy rushed towards them. Jak imagined that he could sense Gol's evil malevolence driving the wall of energy towards them, and then the unthinkable happened.
The relentless advance of the wall of energy froze, as if bound by some omnipotent deity's will, the energy seemed to hit a wall. The crushing energy could go no further and as they watched, the energy inside pushed outwards, as if reaching to escape and devour them all. But the force holding it in check could not be denied and the wall of energy froze and solidified, as it accepting this fact. A perfect sphere that hung in the sky, and gazing through it one would see the sky distorted, the light itself bent and twisted. The energy seemed to turn the surroundings both dark and bright, dazzling light, more blinding then the sun shone down and yet the deepest darkness engulfed them all, choking them with its oppressiveness.
Then the light faded away and the darkness dissipated, and as they watched the globe shattered like glass. Shards of crystal-like energy rained down, falling into the ocean whilst other shards simply hung in the air floating as if gravity no longer applied. The pure energy within the globe collapsed in on itself and exploded with awful finality. For a second there was simply silence... and then it hit.
The concussion was deep and hollow, feeling benevolent yet wicked, vindictive yet kind. Nevertheless the power was inescapable, it pushed hard against them, crushing the breath out of the soldiers; the reverberations could be felt by the violent shaking of the aircraft. Glass shattered, the wind screamed like a banshee and buffeted the fleet as it swirled, sucking water from the sea, even the clouds were drawn towards the point of light and darkness. As the last of the reverberations died down, the fleet gazed in wonder at the sight before them.
A globe of pure energy sat, no doubt, exactly where the light and dark had first made contact. It glowed with an eerie aura, seeming malevolent yet benign, natural yet profane. Rotating around this globule were two globes, one was formed of pure light and the other made out of pure darkness. Streaks of energy, both light and dark, could be seen emanating from the globes, looking unnervingly like lightning. The air shimmered, looking like a heat haze, some of the water had frozen into ice, before changing impossibly into lava and then changing again, looking strangely like tree sap. The clouds were sucked towards the rotating globes and the sea reached upwards, as if it too was reaching towards the globes. The laboratory had been completely obliterated and one could see strange creatures lurking beneath the waters where the light and dark shards had flown into the ocean. Despite the awesome power of all this Jak could not help but notice that the area being affected was roughly where the globe had hung. Directly outside that area the sea swished serenely and the clouds floated overhead, the picture was the embodiment of tranquillity.
Even more strange then this was the continual opening and closing of what looked like portals. Openings tore themselves open sporadically and as Jak looked within them he saw impossible scenes. One portal showed a crowd of Precursors hurrying around some sort of robot before it closed up again. Another showed Jak himself confronting Baron Praxis in Mar's Tomb when he had attempted to extract the Precursor Stone. Another depicted him riding the boat towards Misty Island, when he was just a young boy of fifteen. He was so entranced by these visions that he failed to notice something small, orange and fuzzy was hitting him with increasing speed and force and calling his name with rising volume.
"JAK! JAK! Listen to me Jak! We need to get out of here!" Daxter yelled as he attempted to wake Jak from his trance. "JAK!"
"Yes, I hear you Daxter!" said Jak, slightly annoyed by his small friend. He looked over towards Ashelin, who still looked shell-shocked "Come on" he said to her before taking a final look towards the stunning sight "Pull yourself together. We need to get out of here."