A/N: THANKYOU for the reviews! We're now averaging 2.4 reviews a chapter. "Deny Thy Father..." averaged 2.48, so we're nearly there! Also, did I say "Epilogue"? I did? Frak, I'm sorry. I meant "Prologue" – the "~x~" is where I would have put the Prologue in. You know what I mean. I was tired too. I'm sorry. And JKA, don't worry about exams (midterms? What are midterms? You can tell I'm British :D), it's fine. :) Anyway. Read, review, enjoy or no Chapter 36. ~ Mika
PS:...I started writing the sequel to this story today. Like it or not, ladies and gentlemen, you's gots a trilogy on your hands. ;)
The cyborg sprang to her feet, confronting the furious veteran warrior as he kept his finger tight on the trigger, the Peacemaker charged to its fullest, ready to strike again.
"Ah, Jak Mar, we meet again!" the cyborg snarled, opening a fist and shooting a blue-white ball of electrical charge at Jak.
"Yes, Roah, and in perfect circumstances too," he snarled, leaping aside to avoid the ball, eyes filled with anger as he released the charge from the Peacemaker. "What have you done to my daughter?"
"Jakuelynn is fine, I promise. Just a few broken bones here and there...and a crushed hand..." Roah trailed off, skilfully and astoundingly managing to avoid the Peacemaker shot. She did, however, flinch as a few bolts hit whatever human flesh remained. "Shouldn't you be sitting at home taking care of your grandson? After all, he's the de facto heir to the thrones of Spargus and Haven, no?"
"You leave my grandson out of this. What do you want, Roah? How are you not dead?" Jak growled angrily, switching to the Beam Reflexor and yanking the trigger until a bruise formed on his finger. "I saw Jakuelynn put the entire magazine of a gun in your body not eight years ago,"
"Ah, but Jak, that's the thing." The cyborg smirked, wincing and hissing as the bullets successfully hit her. Jak allowed himself a smirk, which was quickly wiped off his face as Roah's left shoulder suddenly brought out a Reflexor of her own, firing straight back. "I didn't die. Not that day. Did anyone from the Underground check my vital signs after Jakuelynn, as you so eloquently put it, emptied an entire magazine in my body? Pulse? Breathing? No, you didn't. You made a mistake, Jak Mar. You did what you always do – walked away."
"Well, 'scuse ME, lady!" Daxter interjected, curling up defensively as a bullet whistled past his ears.
"What I always do?" Jak put his Light Shield up as the bullets and their ricochets streaked across the room, dissolving as they hit the shield. "No, I walk away from scum like you after I'm done with them!" He switched to the Vulcan Fury and pressed the trigger down hard, sending blue shells spraying all over the floor as smoke of the same colour filled the room.
The old enemies were so caught up in their verbal and physical fight that they didn't notice the Light Eco emerging from Jakuelynn's unconscious body and cover it completely, part-healing all the broken and crushed bones and other injuries she had claimed in the last twelve hours. It couldn't completely heal her left hand; she did not have enough. The Light Eco also somehow managed to weaken the restraints on her ankles and wrists and bring her back to consciousness.
The first thing the young woman saw was her father on the Hover Board, fighting Roah for what she was sure was the millionth time in their respective lives. A series of clicks and an arc of electricity hit the Archduchess, causing her to shudder as millions of volts zapped through her sixty per cent metal body. Jakuelynn also saw Dark Eco crackle around Jak's body and tugged on the restraints chaining her to the wall. To her utmost surprise, they broke, sending her falling to the ground.
To her combined surprise and relief, the space between the soles of her feet and the ground was not as far as she had first feared, and she landed on all fours without breaking her legs. Her left hand screamed her pain and she slammed her eyelids shut, gritting her teeth until it passed. Roah and Jak were still locked in battle. Silent as a predator, she crept behind the cyborg, managing to avoid misfires and ricochets from her father's Morph as they dug themselves into the wall on her right. She spotted a nook in the wall ahead. As she got closer, it revealed itself to be a small cave, cleverly carved so one could only see it from a certain angle.
She also spotted her clothes and Morph Gun in that nook, and dived behind the rock to get dressed in a space about a foot and a half smaller than she was. She could only breathe a sigh of relief when she strapped on the chest plate, shouldering her Morph and flattened herself against the wall as she crept out of the nook. She only stopped shuffling against the jagged edge of the cave when she was directly behind the cyborg. Her back was slashed to ribbons and she was sure the blood was seeping through her clothes, but she couldn't care any less if she tried. As she struggled to wield the Morph Gun with only one good hand, she tried to remember all the information from the books on electrical engineering she'd read whilst pregnant with Rufas. Some of them contained information on the weak spots of a cyborg and as she succeeded in her battle with the gun, she struggled to remember those weak spots. She scanned Roah's back, hoping something – anything – would jog her memory.
Day, help me, she silently begged, knowing that it wouldn't do any good.
Back of the neck, a voice in her gut said. Under the skull. Try there.
She froze, wondering if Deimin had heard her; that he was helping, or it was just her own fevered, pain-filled imagination. She was still very surprised that neither Roah nor Jak had spotted her, locked as they were in their battle.
I'm sorry, left hand, she thought as she supported the big, lumpy gun with her right hand, using her partially destroyed left hand to manage the trigger. The gun shook violently, not liking the literal change of hands, and she had trouble keeping it steady enough when aimed at the back of the half-metal skull.
Her hand suddenly steadied, anger swelling in her chest.
Guide me from above, Day Ghosten...
"Hey, Roah!" she yelled, noting with satisfaction as the cyborg half-turned, a look of surprise on her face. She caught Jak's eye and he switched back to his Peacemaker, holding it back to let it charge to its fullest. She turned her attention back to the woman who had destroyed so many lives.
"They say you only live twice...well, if I'm the last sight you see, then I'm honoured, bitch!"
...Let this shot fly straight and true.
Father and daughter nodded and released their triggers at the same time. The large bolts of electricity flew from the Peacemakers and hit Roah at the same time, causing her to let rip an unearthly, mechanical scream. Jakuelynn's shot did indeed fly straight and true, disappearing snugly under the open base of Roah's half-metal skull. Her eyes – human and mechanical – widened before her head expanded and exploded, sending bits of skull, brain, wires, bolts and metal plates flying around the cave. The rest of Roah collapsed before Jakuelynn, hot and steaming, wires sparking. Jakuelynn herself was breathing heavily as she let her gun rest on the floor, loose in her hand. There was a very long silence, broken only by the hiss of bubbling blood as it reached the sparking wires. The young woman switched to the Vulcan and pointed it at the former dictatress' body, resting the barrel on the chest and using her good hand to yank the trigger back as hard as she can before she sank to her knees, her finger loosening, her jaw set. When she was sure Roah was really dead, she dropped the gun and cradled her partially-crushed left hand in her working right, not saying a word for a long time.
It was the ever-irrepressible Daxter who broke the silence.
"So, uh...she's really dead this time, right? Not just...half dead or whatever."
Nobody answered. Jakuelynn heard her father approach and her green eyes snapped up to meet his blue ones. The smoke from the steaming body subsided, the hissing and bubbling blood cooling, dissolving into the sand.
"Jak?" she croaked hoarsely.
"Jakuelynn?" Jak asked his daughter tentatively.
"I've got a few questions for you." She struggled to her feet, using her Morph as support. "And now that Roah Praxis is finally dead and gone, I can finally get some fucking answers around here."
The harsh tone in her voice explicitly told Jak that she was not going to be fobbed off with the fabled "not now" excuse.
"What kind of questions?" he asked reluctantly.
"This one first." She was shaking, though with anger or pain, neither she nor Jak could tell. "Is Rhogan my half brother?"