Chapter 35: Aeropain Torture Chamber

Date: April 23, 3658

Location: Jolly Roger / The Brink

Jak looked at the box that Barter had given her as they had left, inside were papers with coordinates and a vial of white liquid that Jak recognized as light eco. Where the lurker had gotten the stuff, she didn't know; but it'd be of use for the eco seeker. Having gotten a good two hours of sleep, more than shed gotten when working for Torn in the Underground, she'd decided to find the old man who had the eco seeker.

"Jak!" a slap on her back caused her to glare at Phoenix, the dark haired man was grinning at her. "You're now an honorary pirate."

"Hey!" Daxter yelled out from behind them. "What am I? A slab of yakow beef?"

"That sounds good," Klouse joked causing Daxter to go pale.

Jak chuckled. "Thanks, I think," she told the captain. "I'm going to go give this to the castaway," she said as she lifted the light eco. "It's for the eco seeker. It may help in getting it to work properly."

Phoenix grasped Daxter by the shoulder. "To answer your earlier question, how does helmsman sound?" he asked.

"Huh?" Daxter questioned him with a quizzed expression upon his face.

"You'll be the one to drive the ship to the coordinates that we need," Phoenix clarified with a grin. "As a special member of my crew, you are now the official helmsman. Feel free to enter coordinates and fly the ship to where you deem fit."

Daxter's eyes widened as a grin crossed his face. 'Oh hell yeah!' he thought before looking at the captain. "I still get to go with Jak on missions, right?" he inquired.

"Why of course," Phoenix answered with a sly grin. "I wouldn't have it any other way, however we've decided to hit up the research station before of the lack of eco that the seeker had."

"Sweet." Daxter eyed the instruments in front of him. "A research station?" He gained a nod. "Goodie." The scanner showed their exact location. They were a half an hour from their destination. "Ya know," he began causing Phoenix to pause in his steps as he was about to leave. "You sort of remind me of this guy I once knew. Had a bit of a swagger to him, charismatic and totally would have all the girls after him."

"Sounds like a chap I could get along with," Phoenix told the younger man.

"Hehe...yeah I bet." Daxter chuckled. "He was a prince of the once great Wasteland City," he told him.

"Impossible," Phoenix muttered. "Everyone knows that-"

"It was destroyed," Daxter clarified. "Jak and I have been through several things in our lives. One, we came from the time Sandover Village existed. Two, Jak was tortured by Baron Praxis with dark eco and survived! Three, that sexy lady has killed things several times her size, and weight, that includes the monster metal head leader, Kor."

"Sounds like quite the tale." Phoenix turned his eyes towards the glass windows.

"You want a tale? Ha!" Daxter laughed. "Perhaps one day I'll tell ya how I got turned into an ottsel, then back into an elf one day and the adventures I had while doing so."

"Now that sounds impossible." Phoenix rolled his eyes at the youth.

"It's true," came Jak's voice from behind them. "It's how our adventure began." She shared a look with Daxter who grinned at her vouching for him.

"What's an ottsel?" Klouse inquired with a frown.

"A small creature about two feet tall with orange and white fur." Daxter shook his head. "Worst three years of my life!"

"Try being tortured," Jak muttered under her breath.

Daxter's ears fell slightly. "Sorry babe," he told her.

"Well it did end with you gaining your body back, though I lost mine," she said with a shrug.

"Lost yours?" Phoenix inquired as he looked her over.

"I was born a boy," she told him. "I've come to terms with the eco turning me into a woman. There's no reversing this."

"She's even got the girl plumbing." Daxter chuckled only to get hit over the head. "What? You do!" he exclaimed as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Incredible! I never knew eco could do that!" Phoenix said with wide eyes.

"It can do a lot of things," Jak told him. "I was a channeler. I think I mentioned this. The experiments that I went under killed a lot of people. I only survived because of my heritage." She clenched her fists. "Ashelin, however, found that Praxis got those ideas from another source."

"You mean somebody else is experimenting with dark eco?" Daxter inquired, gaining a nod for an answer. "Shit. What kind of idiot is doing that?!"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I left Haven before she looked into that," she told him.

"Great," Daxter grumbled. "Not only do we have to worry about world ending problems that include dark monsters, finding other channelers to help stop them, and to find the new eco source before the world's eco runs out; but there's a madman that's way worse than Errol and Praxis that is experimenting on people with dark eco." He looked over at Jak. "Am I missing something?" he inquired with an annoyed tone.

"Nope. That pretty much covers everything," Jak told him.

"Just in time too." Phoenix stated causing both to look out the windows or look at the scanner. "We're here."

Jak's hands glowed bright purple as she threw the apes over the abyss. A hissing sound behind her caused her to find Daxter going head to head with a group of mutated, monstrous spiders. 'Daxter really hates spiders,' she thought as she recalled their adventure through the spider caves near Volcanic Crater. Chuckling she pulled out her sword and began to cut through the monsters as Daxter shot them left and right.

Both gave a sigh of relief as the last creature fell dead. First they had the mutated soldiers and crocadogs, then the apes and now spiders. Jak was wondering if this place was condemned when they came through two metal doors and suddenly she froze at the sight before her.

'Oh fuck no,' Jak heard Adriana say within her before anger began to build within her.

Walking down the catwalk towards the center of the room, she found herself staring at the torture chair that had caused her pain for two and a half years. The injections devices above the chair were so familiar that she could still feel the sting of their pain in her body as the eco was forced into her veins.

Daxter saw the torture chair and knew exactly what it was. "Jak? Babe?" he questioned as he saw her begin to give off a slight menacing glow of dark eco. Her hair was beginning to change color.

"Somebody has been experimenting with dark eco here," she growled as her eyes began changing to obsidian black. "Whoever it is should die!" Daxter winced as her claws tore the chair in half before she created a ball of eco and shucked it at the instruments above. When they cooled they were a mangled mess of metal. "I'll make it myself." By then her body had shifted back to her normal form.

After leaving the chamber it didn't take long for them to find the main control room. As Daxter was left to deal with the controls, Jak took care of the monsters as they dropped from the vents above. Daxter felt his hands tingle as eco shot out of the computers. 'Whoa,' he thought as his mind was suddenly filled with information. Moving his hands across the screens, he brought up the canister that held the eco within it. Tapping the last button, Daxter grinned as the canister was released into his hands.

"You did it!" he heard Jak exclaim.

Turning, Daxter grinned. "No, we did it!" he exclaimed as another doorway opened.

"Let's get out of here before those monsters return," Jak told him as she took off ahead of him.

"Right behind you!" he yelled out at her as he ran behind Jak across the bridge towards the exit. Neither noticing the camera's within the facility nor noticing that they were being watched by a faraway entity.

M-Angel: Yay, another chapter! I'm so proud of myself for getting another chapter out. I hope everybody had an awesome Passover/Easter holiday! ^_^

xoxoangii: And yay for double chapter postings!I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!