I know, I know; these last few chapters have been coming faster than one can read them, but I have a craving for writing this thing! ^^ And I love writing big fights, exploring the possibileties in explainging all the moves, the sensations... I sort of get a rush out of it I guess. Hope you like it!
/Silverspegel
Daxter heard the dark blast go off and wanted nothing more than to check if Jak was alright, but he figured he'd be doing a lot more good if he found the back-up and brought them to the scene, so he kept on moving through the darkness of the tunnel.
He could hear the fight build up as he got further away and bit down hard on his lower lip so as not to let out the sounds of agony he felt coming though his throat for every wall-shaking blast.
He knew he had to hurry.
The look on Jak's face as he'd sent him away had terrified Daxter and made him quicken his steps even more as he thought about it. That look in his eyes...
Jak could speak with his eyes.
Daxter had spent a great deal of their shared life figuring out just what the other one had been trying to say, and during the years they'd developed a silent communication between the two of them. Jak mostly being the silent part of it.
The thing was, that he'd kept on using this way for communicating with Daxter even after he'd started talking for real.
And this time, he'd been saying something Daxter never thought he'd ever have to interpret.
Among a lot of other things, the message had been 'goodbye'.
"Don't you dare tell me goodbye before it's really over, damn it!" Daxter muttered to himself as he started running through the cave as fast as he was able to with one hand to the wall to guide him.
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"Did you hear something?" Karidi asked Sig as she jumped out of her saddle. The leaper reared and in a sudden rush of panic it squawked, turned around and ran off before she had a chance to stop it.
"What in the world...?" she muttered as the others got off their lizards as well.
"These seem a bit jumpy too, don't ya' think?" Jinx commented as he tried to keep the reins of his leaper in his hands.
As soon as they'd gotten close to the cave, the animals had been starting to get nervous.
Sig took a hold of the halter on his own animal and stared silently into one of its eyes for a few seconds before he let go of the now more or less sedated lizard.
"You just need to show them who's the boss, that's all," he said calmly as he brought forth his customary peacemaker and started charging it.
Jinx and Karidi shared a slightly stunned look before Jinx shrugged the confusion off and simply tied the reins of his lizard to the saddle of the much calmer animal Sig had now left to wander freely.
"When d'ya think we'll be getting the back-up over here?" he then asked Sig as he lit yet another cigarette.
Sig didn't even bother to look at him as he answered.
"Probably just about a minute too late, I guess," he said with a surprisingly cheery voice.
Karidi readied and loaded her own morph gun and made sure she had all the brought extra ammunition with her.
Jinx watched the two of them in silence and flicked the tip of his lighter off and on while he waited for them to get ready.
"Seriously, what do you expect we'll find in there?" he asked as they both looked like they were ready to go.
Karidi sniffed at the air and made a disgusted face. The stench of dark eco stretched out to where they were.
"We'll, I'm pretty sure we'll find a lot of metalheads," she noted.
Sig nodded.
"You better have something more useful than boom sticks in your pants if you're thinking about entering this place," he pointed out to Jinx, who simply shrugged and patted a stiff pocket on the side of his leg.
"I trust these babies more than I trust any of those fancy guns you've got, sir, no offence. Let's just see how far we get, shall we?"
To this the wastelanders simply nodded and started walking into the darkness of the cave.
A sudden raspy noise almost made Jinx jump out of his skin before he could localise the source of it as being the banged up com hanging at his belt.
He swiftly picked it up as both Sig and Kairdi had turned to look at him with surprise written all over their faces.
"This thing actually works?" he mumbled a little shocked as he lifted it to his mouth.
"Hello, this is Jinx speaking, who is this?" he said nervously and released the speaker button to open up the line for whoever it was that was trying to make contact.
"Jinx?" Keira's voice was coming out a bit scrambled from the old device, but there were no doubts about who she was.
"Keira, doll! Your voice is like an angel's music! Talk to me, baby!" Jinx responded in a chatty manner that made Karidi wrinkle her nose.
"The connection is a bit shaky at the moment, but I think I've found a way to get past the bugging signal!" the mechanic stated proudly. "Try testing your coms, they should be working now!"
Sig and Karidi brought out their own coms and switched them on, nodding in approval as they saw the green light go on indicating an open line.
"Wonderful, doll!" Jinx said with a smirk. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"Stop fooling around, Jinx! I contacted you to let you know I've fixed the problem, not to engage in small-talk," Keira snapped back at him.
Sig put his own device to his mouth.
"Keira, did you find out what was bugging the things?" he asked as Jinx and Karidi both put their coms back in their belts.
"That's the weird part of it; it seems to have been some sort of signal, meant to block out every Spargan communication with the world what so ever. The thing is that it started to weaken only a few minutes ago and that's when I realised it's not an artificial signal," Keira explained quickly.
At the last statement, all three of the gathered made wide eyes.
"Come again?" Jinx blurted out, and Sig waved for him to be quiet.
"What do you mean by 'not artificial'?" he asked slowly.
"I mean that it's not a machine sending it out; it's a bunch of psychic influences controlling the radio waves, and it's getting weaker, as if whoever has been sending the signal is getting distracted or something."
Sig, Jinx and Karidi all looked up in dawning apprehension at these words.
"Then I think we better break this conversation up and go give Jak some support," Sig said through clenched teeth. He didn't wait for Keira to react to this, but simply turned off the line and put the com back where it belonged.
In one swift movement he swung the peacemaker up onto his shoulder and started walking into the cave once again, swiftly followed by the others.
"I still don't quite get this psychic-wave-thing," Jinx muttered as he jogged up to Karidi.
"My guess is we'll find out what it means eventually, just shut the fuck up and don't get in my way when the fun starts," Karidi answered snappishly and Jinx fell behind a step or two in pure self-preservation.
The stench of dark eco hung thick in the air and made them all feel a sudden urge to hurl, but they swallowed it down and kept going until they didn't think about it, and it became a part of the background.
Suddenly Karidi heard a movement and sprang forward, turning at a corner with her gun ready and pointed it straight at the cause of the sound.
"HOLY MOTHER OF FUZZ, ARE YOU CRAZY??!!" Daxter yelled out in a startled manner as he found himself facing a ready-to-blow scattergun just about one inch away from his eyes.
Sig reacted to this outburst with pushing away Karidi's gun and giving the shaken young man a brief hug.
"Sorry 'bout that, chilli-pepper. She's just anxious to get rid of some nasty buggers that's all," he said in a short chuckle, which faded away the very instant he noticed that Daxter was alone.
"Where's Jak?" he asked sternly and Daxter gasped for air as he tried to tell them everything that had happened as fast as possible, while turning around to start running back the same way he'd come.
"Just follow me and have your heavy artillery ready 'cause you'll need it big time! And you better get running, 'cause last time I checked the bad guys had a big lead!" he managed to call out over his shoulder before he set off.
With this, they all started running through the tunnel, the light of the fire-ready guns serving as an aid to not trip over one another while they tried to keep up with the former ottsel.
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Jak felt the crash as if someone had suddenly decided to go berserk across his entire back with a sledgehammer.
All air was pushed out of him in an instant and he fell numbly to the cold, hard stone floor.
As he gasped for breath he felt the taste of blood in his mouth and a stinging prickling sensation from his lower lip which had split as he'd bit down on it hard when the wall hit him.
He spit out the scarlet drops on the ground and cursed under his breath as he felt his strength being drained by the minute.
He was ready to give up any moment now; his body was starting to make loud protests against his way of shredding himself into several pieces by the violent hands of rough abuse.
Still, he felt the surge of power from the crystal as he demanded healing once again.
"Are you tired already?" Gol asked in an amused manner, slowly clicking the talons of his extra limbs against the floor as he stepped closer. "My, aren't you a disappointment," he continued as Jak didn't answer.
With a growl Jak got back up on his feet, blood still dripping from the freshly cut wounds as they healed up rapidly.
"That's more like it," Gol commented and backed off a few steps, getting ready to counter the expected attack.
Jak's dark senses tingled with a warning of something moving behind him and in a backflip he managed to surprise Maya in her attempt to jump him, she instead being the one hitting the floor as Jak flung a blow of dark eco lightning at her face.
But Gol simply laughed.
"Haven't you figured out already that you don't stand a chance against us? We are dark eco!" he belched out loudly and sent a spurt of sticky web at his enemy.
Jak dodged it and rolled over to the side, his claws ripping the floor in a screech as he steadied himself before pushing himself back in an up-right position.
He knew the Acherons' didn't take any serious damage by his attacks, but he was trying his best to buy some time for his friends to get closer.
As Maya once again lashed out at him with her poisonous stinger, he realised though that he would have to change his plans if he was ever going to have even the slightest chance of wearing them out enough for guns to harm them.
He let go of his restraints on the eco-flow in his body and suddenly his dark rage was mingled with the serene calm of the light eco's influence, the intensity of the blue, the heat of the yellow, the absolute power of the red and last, but not least, the inner strength that came with the healing powers of the green.
Feeling his horns and claws withdraw, Jak started to build up the energy of another dark blast, but this time enforced it with yellow and red eco.
As he released the purple fireball towards Gol, the old man was steadying himself for yet another pointless push, and found himself completely overthrown as the mixed energies hit him with full force in his stomach and sent him sprawling backwards into the wall behind him.
The intense burning and aching told him that something had changed and as he looked up to scan the area for the young man, he could see him changing yet again.
"What in the name of the precursors are you doing, boy?" he growled as he tried to deny what he realised was happening.
The power of the precursor weapon was more than he had ever imagined.
It apparently could mix the ecos, strengthen them and blend their powers to the wishes of the owner.
Greed for the power this weapon represented suddenly arose, more fierce than it had been before and he rose to his feet as his sister tried to make another move on the boy holding the weapon.
That's when the wings grew out.
Blueish white light enveloped the young warrior as he lifted from the floor in one mighty sweep of the huge wings.
He made a movement of his arms and suddenly he was floating in the air behind Maya, who was taken by surprise as the expected blow of power hit her from behind instead of from where the enemy had been only one second earlier.
The ball of red and yellow fire forced her to her knees in a gasp for air as her lungs felt like they were being burned away.
Gol finally unfroze from his aw-stricken posture at the display of power that this boy was showing them.
Using the shadows, he blended in with the environment and slipped down into the eco-pool, creeping up on Jak from behind, but completely out of sight and hearing, protected by the liquid darkness that enveloped him in its knife edged embrace.
Jak could sense something was amiss with the scenery and as he looked around he realised that he'd lost sight of the dark sage while fighting his sister.
Before he had a chance to react and put up a shield, he was hit from behind by a ball of dark energy and he fell to the ground in a crash, only a few steps away from where Maya was starting to get back on her feet.
The healing was instantaneous and Jak quickly got back up, only to get slapped across the face by one of Gol's extra limbs.
"Why won't you just give up?" Maya growled in anger as Jak once more recovered from what had hit him and took to the sky to escape yet another blow of darkness sent his way.
With a sudden impulse of joining forces, the Acherons attacked simultaneously.
Gol sent off another spurt of web, followed closely by another dark energyball and Maya lashed out with her tail so fast that Jak's eyes couldn't quite catch the movement.
The result was a devastating set-back for Jak.
While avoiding the spurt of web, he got into the very bulls-eye of the dark eco, hitting him full on and sending him in Maya's way.
As the scorpion stinger cut through the glowing blue flesh of his back, Jak screamed out in pain.
Crashing to the ground he tried not to land on his back, but little did it matter when Gol got to him.
While the sting of the poison started to get into his veins, he suddenly felt a thundering pain as the wings were being savagely ripped off his back by the dark sage.
Highly ecosaturated blood splattered the wall and Jak fought a tempting unconsciousness that was trying to knock him out as the pain grew unbearable.
Despite his resolution to not do so, he couldn't help but letting another scream of utter pain tear through him as he felt one of Gol's talons stab into the open wounds left in his back where his wings had been.
Yet more poison flowed into his blood and old memories of nightmarish experiments performed in a dark room within the walls of the Haven City prison, suddenly came up to the surface of his mind, leaving him gasping for breath as he tried with all his might to stay focused on the present, to stay sane throughout the torture.
"Just give us the weapon and we'll do this quickly," Maya whispered seductively into his ear as she pressed the tip of her poison stinger to his throat.
Jak forced his eyes open, barely remembering having shut them, and glared at the woman with bloodshot rage.
"Never," he hissed out of his sore throat and spit her in the face, making her back away and wiping her face in disgust.
The green and light eco was already working on his healing process, sped on by the aggressiveness of the dark eco that was now overtaking his entire system, leaving almost no room left for the other energies to work their natural magic through his blood.
Jak slashed with long black needlepoint claws at the baffled sage who'd up until now been pinning him to the floor by stabbing his back wounds.
When the pressure on his back due to this shifted for a second, Jak shot up from the ground, pushing himself into Gol's chest and as he felt his horns digging into the soft tissue of his opponent, the dark inside him grinned widely, revelling in the sound of his scream.
Maya lashed out with her tail but Jak dodged it just in time to make the lethal stinger hit Gol instead.
His sister staggered back in horror and screamed in rage as her brother fell to the floor in a fit of spasms as the poison started to spread in his body.
With a former unknown speed she attacked Jak with the full fury of a wounded animal and Jak moved out of the way more out of instinct than because he saw the attacks coming, having trouble to find any room in the assault to make an attack of his own.
The wounds on his back were hurting something fierce, but they were slowly healing with the aid of the light and the green eco in his veins.
But the healing made him a little bit slower than otherwise, and suddenly one of the attacks hit its goal full on as the long and thick tail swept his legs away from underneath him, making him fall to the ground.
He landed on his still healing back and a cry of pain escaped him as gravel was pressed into the closing wounds, reopening them again.
Before he had time to react and yet again move away, Maya's tail shot out with the stinger ready, driving the poisonous tip far into Jak's left shoulder.
The pain was dauntingly close to the one he'd been forced to endure during his two years in the Haven City prison, under the tender care of a mad man and his head of command.
The similarity with the sensations from that time once more brought forgotten memories to the surface and Jak found himself lost to the terror of those cold nights when he'd been recovering and waiting in his cell for the guards to once more take him out to the room for the experiments.
Jak could feel his muscles tighten as the poison spread through his veins and he could taste his own blood bubble up through his throat, foaming as he tried to cough to be able to breathe more freely.
Maya was standing over him with a wicked smile of sorrow-mixed pleasure as she looked down upon her beaten enemy while he writhed in pain.
With her tail she lifted his chin up for him to look her in the eyes, scraping the stinger tauntingly against his jugular, making him almost choke as he tried to breathe through his own blood.
"Look at the great hero now," Maya blurted out with glee as she glared at him. "You're dying, finally, and for what purpose? Nothing. No one will thank you or even remember the effort. You're alone, damaged, defiled with the darkness of my poison and of the sweet dark eco you seem to imagine have been made useful to you. You're a disgrace!" She spat him in the face, waiting for a reaction, but his eyes could no longer see anything but dark and purple spots as he gasped for breath.
Maya gritted her teeth with disappointment and bent forward to look for the pocket where she'd seen him put away the jewel that had brought such huge power to him.
Jak could feel her cold hands search about his waistline and felt a surge of fear that she might find the weapon he'd been trying to keep away from her.
This brought his mind back to full consciousness for a moment and with all the strength he could summon he reached out for the jewel with his mind, and felt the tingling sensation of the eco's waking up inside him once more to do his biddings.
With no time to lose he managed to press his hands against Mayas bent down body and set off the first surge of energy that had managed to assemble itself enough to bring out an attack.
The result was a short, but very intense shock of blue lightning mixed out with a fiery yellow that sent Maya flying through the air and away from him.
It took all his remaining will power to get up on his feet while the green eco started to work on his wounds and the light eco took on the poison still in his blood.
Jak felt it as if the world was spinning around him and he had trouble with both breathing and seeing, but he was standing upright and he didn't intend on falling back down before this fight was over with.
Maya groggily scrambled up from where she'd landed, somewhat confused by the force of the hit and annoyed to the brim of fury as she saw Jak standing up in front of her.
"Why won't you just DIE?" she lashed out at him with blood-mixed spittle flying from her mouth.
Jak could barely hear the words she'd been screaming out.
All he could do at the moment was to focus on what had to be done.
He summoned the light eco to transform him once more and with a movement brought the flow of time to a decrease of speed almost making it slow down to a complete stop.
Blue eco helped him move forward faster than he'd otherwise been able to and within what seemed like less than a second, he was standing behind his enraged enemy as the slowing of time seized.
Before Maya had time to react to the fact of her enemy having moved faster than what was possible, Jak let all his remaining reserves of light eco blend with the red, yellow and blue, giving it increased strength, speed and damage inflicting ability, before he released it in one single blast straight into the woman's back.
The force of the hit sent Jak himself into the wall behind him with a crash, and Maya was thrown in the opposite direction, landing not far away from where Gol was lying lifeless and pale from the poison of his sister's stinger.
The Acherons were finally and undeniably dead.
Not a breath or even a single movement of their bodies was seen.
Jak tried to breathe out in a relieved sigh, but ended up coughing, sending drips of pale blood sprinkling the floor with red in front of him.
He felt the sore ache of his broken ribs start throbbing as blood went through punctured and cramped veins.
Open wounds were making his skin tingle with stinging and itching pain and he could feel a sudden numbness spread up from his toes and travel to the region of his oddly twisted hips.
All the broken bones and smaller to bigger scratches was starting to make themselves known to his already overloaded neural system and Jak knew with painful clarity that the powers of the crystal had left him as there was no more meaning of healing up the all too broken body.
Slowly he closed his eyes and tried hard to breathe calmly through his nose while he waited for the darkness to take him into its arms for good and make the pain go away.
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* Le GASP* Please don't hate me! Only one more chapter left now! /Silverspegel