Bijoux: Specail thanks to EcoSeeker247 for reviewing the last chapter, and consequently reminding me that I hadn't put part three of Mama Praxis up yet... So here it is, the twisted finale to Mama Praxis. Hope everyone enjoys :)
Disclaimer: Jak and Daxter belongs to Naughty Dog, any other copyrighted material/references belong to their original owners.
Palace Stories – Yo Mama Exaggerated It
Mama Praxis
Part Three
By the time Mumaxis had cried out all her tears of joy at the pool, the sun had begun to set over Haven City, and she decided it was high-time her beloved son went home for a nap. Erol, Ashelin, Veger, Torn and Jak watched them leave and gave them a 10 minute head-start before setting off home as well.
They were expecting Mumaxis to be up and about creating terror at the Palace when they got home, but were surprised when they found the place oddly quiet and serene. Further investigation told them that Mumaxis, thank the lord, had already gone home back to dear old Fataxis, following a freak accident in which Praxis' beloved father had gotten a Kellogg's Fruit Loop stuck on his finger. To make things slightly better, Praxis was fast asleep in bed, resting off the day's excitement, so Ashelin, Erol and Veger had some peace and quiet for the rest of the night.
But come next morning, when Praxis awoke fully refreshed at a record breaking 6:30 am, it became apparent that that night of peace was surely not worth the terror that followed it. For Praxis awoke with new knowledge swimming about in his head, and by the time Erol woke up 2 hours after the Baron, half the city was in shambles. Staring out over the city streets below, Erol struggled to fathom what could have possibly happened.
The answer arrived alongside a distressed looking Ashelin, who immediately started confiding in Erol that her father wasn't in bed anymore. The thought of such a thing, combined with the flaming city below, was far from a good mixture and Erol soon found himself racing through the city streets screaming out Praxis' name alongside the word dinner in the hopes of luring the beast.
But Ashelin in the meantime, had a smarter plan. A flawless plan, an epic plan, a plan of mass destruction, a plan so creative and original that it was awe-inspiring to anyone who witnessed it; and that plan was...
"Why do you people always come here as soon as Praxis starts creating havoc? Hasn't anyone told you that this morning is shared pancake breakfast day? And I can't stay in one spot longer than 3 minutes. Heaven forbid, if Kleiver saw me and tried to offer me one of the pancakes he made...if they can even be labelled pancakes..." the Desert King complained, stuffing several pancakes into his face at once, before moving to the next table where he idly observed the plate of pancakes that a large, hairy and smelly Wastelander man (other than Kleiver) had made. The smelly Wastelander looked very nervous and kept wringing sweat out of his long, red beard as Damas held one of his creations up to the sky and observed it even closer.
"But Damas-" Ashelin tried to protest, but was suddenly cut off when a large, black, swirling mass appeared several feet away. Damas too, turned to watch it, his expression suggesting that he'd seen worse things in his City before. But Ashelin, who knew better, felt suddenly horrified at what would appear to be one of Praxis' portals.
"Oh no...it's Father!" Ashelin screamed in horror. Damas suddenly looked horrified, staring wide-eyed at the portal before him for a few seconds longer, before he suddenly gasped dramatically. His nostrils flared a few times, sniffing the air for something no one else seemed to be aware of over the aroma of pancakes.
"No...It's far worse than that..." he croaked, "It's...it's...Kleiver..." he gasped, while others around him screamed and commenced in the loveable art of fleeing the vicinity.
And Damas was right, for a second or two later, shrill screams erupted from the portal and out Kleiver flew, several smaller figures gripping onto his lard for dear life. They all landed with a loud thud onto the dirt ground, and remained rather motionless for a while, someone in the background (who was apparently in need of a pair of glasses) commenting something about a mother pig suckling it's young. Ashelin heard this strange comment and found herself fighting against her gag-reflex. She ended up losing such a battle however, when she noticed that Kleiver was still wearing that hideous g-string.
Figuring they'd been sent here via the portal Praxis had created yesterday, Ashelin wondered why it had taken them so long to reappear somewhere else. Usually Praxis' portals were instantaneous, and considering the fact that Kleiver still had the same amount of children with him, it was fairly obvious that he hadn't been travelling long enough to have grown hungry, so how this worked Ashelin was unsure. She was just laying it down to poor authoring (refusing to believe that her father had mastered time travel), when Kleiver began to stir, groaning uncomfortably and wriggling his arms and legs around.
"Let's roll..." Damas suddenly declared in a final tone.
Within a few minutes, both Ashelin and Damas had raced back to Haven city. Damas observed the destruction of the Port around him with wide eyes.
"Um...I don't recall Praxis ever being this...deadly..." Damas grumbled to Ashelin, watching as the crazed Baron in the distance began to chase after a fleeing crowd, a large stereo on his shoulder playing Hannah Montana music as he screamed gibberish and 'gangsta-danced' after them, a large bottle in one hand which he was waving around in amongst his dancing.
The crowd was much more animated than usual, some of them even clutching their heads, stomachs, lungs or hearts in horror, tears streaming down their faces while they begged their Baron for mercy. Usually they would just run around with their arms in the air screaming. But as Damas watched on, he could truly see where the change had come from - this Praxis was far scarier than the yelling, uncoordinated, stomping Baron he usually saw in Praxis. No...this one knew what he was doing.
This scared Damas, chilled him to the bone even, and it became apparent to Ashelin that perhaps this truly was the end. But then a thought came to her...if her father had grown "better" under the teachings of his mother, then maybe, just maybe, Damas could grow stronger from the teachings of one of his parents? This plan was just cliché enough to work...
"Damas, where do your parents live?" Ashelin hurried to ask, watching Praxis frantically as he chased the crowd further along the Port, some people jumping into the murky water in the hopes of saving themselves, only to be bomb-dived on moments later by the large Baron.
Damas turned to Ashelin and merely shrugged.
"Wha...what do you mean you don't know?" Ashelin yelled in confusion.
"Naughty Dog never created them..." Damas idly replied.
"Well that didn't stop Bijoux from making Father's parents!" Ashelin retorted.
"Yes, well, of course that oaf's parents are going to be simple enough to create. You just take the son and add a wig. My parents would be much more complex creatures..." Damas declared with dignity, looking high and mighty.
Ashelin groaned and did a face-palm at this response. Hope rapidly diminishing and despair sinking in, Ashelin could only find solace in the fact that at least she would leave a 'sizzling-hawt' corpse, and that, hey, her lifelong ambition of never returning "The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar" to the library would come true.
"Well at least I'll die doing what I love...witnessing how bad a leader Praxis truly is," Damas sighed in defeat.
Following this declaration, Ashelin broke down, her screaming and wailing soon setting off Damas like a bowl of onions would. The two of them just stood there, blubbering as screams of horror and explosions went off in the background. The world was swirling around them, falling apart at the seams, all hope was lost, everyone was going to die, and everything was going to end for them here...
"Hey Big Daddy-D, what's hangin' up in the hood?" came a cheery voice in the distance.
"Not now Jak! Can't you see I'm trying to spend my last hours dramatically?" Damas yelled angrily, before continuing his blubbering. But Ashelin did not join him this time, for suddenly a great shining light had appeared in her sights. She looked away from her father's now flaming stereo (which had caught fire due to it being quite old and quite overloaded), and hurried to scramble over to Jak.
"Jak you can do it—YOU can teach Damas the ways of your family!" she declared excitedly.
"What? That makes no sense! He's my son, remember? I created him, not the other way around!" Damas protested indignantly, marching over to Ashelin and Jak grumpily.
"True," Ashelin agreed in a smart tone. "But look at it this way Damas, if Jak truly is the Mar, and at some point in his life he has to go back in time to create this city and become its first leader, then that means his blood-line becomes monarchy. The very same monarchy that you were born into, so abiding by that logic, Jak could be your great, great, great, great grandfather!" she continued almost excitedly.
Damas and Jak stood there looking bewildered for a moment. Damas' expression gradually turned sour and he glared angrily at Ashelin.
"You've planted a horrible picture in my head that you will suffer for in the future..." he grumbled.
But nonetheless, Damas and Jak then set off for the Underground (much to Torn's horror), where the Desert King was schooled, Jak style, for the next three hours. Praxis by this stage, had chased a huge crowd of his civilians around the entire city four times, before rounding them up and into the Port where they made the mistake of diving into the water for salvation. Erol and Ashelin, who had resolved to follow the Baron to try to minimize his damage, watched on in horror as Praxis then scurried to the top of one of the two towers in the Port. He leapt off it, belly first, and plummeted into the water. The splash created by the dive was so powerful that it reached the slums and consequently swept most of the buildings away, not to mention it left the Port dry as a bone.
It was a good thing the Underground was underground for it was one of the few things that survived the Baron induced tidal wave, and within a few minutes following the disaster, the City's Hero finally emerged. Wearing a shirt and shorts that were far too big for him, sweat bands on his wrists, ankles, ears and around his head, a determined look on his face, jet-board under his arm and Torn's beloved pasta server in hand, Damas set off to do what he'd recently grown to be an expert on.
Damas took half an hour to track down the Baron in the Canals. It probably shouldn't have taken as long as it did for Damas to find Praxis, but of course the Desert King insisted on walking in a dramatic, slow-motion sort of style that Jak claimed would make him look much more heroic.
As soon as Praxis laid eyes on the approaching Damas, he stopped dead in his tracks, his new found crowd continuing to run for their lives until they were out of sight. Wind blew across the street, carrying dust and stray papers with it as Damas and Praxis locked eyes fiercely. A tense, deafening silence descended, the only sound coming from the crackle of fires around the city and the eerie distant screams of civilians.
"Damas..." Praxis hissed, his eye narrowing. Damas said nothing for a moment, simply cleared his throat and continued to stare down his rival. When the King finally did speak his words were full of untold wisdom...
"Yo Daddy-P, don't go gettin' all up in ma grill!" Damas yelled sternly, doing gangsta hand movements in time with his words. Praxis took a step back, his expression flashed a terrified look for a mere second, before returning to looking firm. The Baron's single eye looked curious; it was a worried sort of curious that betrayed the rest of his expression, but explained the small shivers that seemed to be going down the Baron's spine.
"What...what are you doing here?" Praxis shakily demanded, taking another step back.
"I'm just up in the hood pumpin' ma flow man, chillax!" Damas declared, krumping his way towards Praxis by a few feet. The Baron leapt backwards at Damas' approach and his tough demeanour began to fade, until an air of fear surrounded him instead.
"Woowee ya'll, I'm feelin' fine!" Damas cheered, taking another step forwards with his arms raised high. A strange smell penetrated the air and Damas immediately noticed it. "Yo, someone smells up in this neck of tha woods, bro! That's rank, G!" he jeered stupidly, looking around as if someone else was the cause of the odour.
"St...stay back!" Praxis yelled, continuing to back away.
"Yo brutha, don't go givin' me no G man! I'm just here swingin' in the joint, spankin' in the crib ya'll!" Damas merrily cheered, krumping closer still.
"Go away!" Praxis begged, tripping over as he backed away, continuing to scamper backwards regardless.
"Hey man, don't go acting the fool yo, aight?" Damas continued, unrelenting in his krumping.
Somewhere along in his travels towards Praxis, Damas accidentally 'krumped' into a bin, tipping it over so rubbish spewed out all over the street. Damas turned to the mess he'd made and immediately began making gangsta hand movements whilst 'defending his case'.
"Awww no! No you didn't man, I was like totally walking there bro and you got up in ma face in the crib! I didn't create no mess here G I was just walkin' in ma hood homey G! You a dawg man to call me out on this mess like NA-HA! Ma shawty's gonna hear bout this ya'll, aight? Fully sick homey, yo!" Damas went off on his tangent, shaking his head incessantly and waving his finger at the garbage around his ankles.
Praxis, by this stage, was screaming in horror, clutching his head and rolling around on the ground as if someone was spraying him with acid. But it was one final act on Damas' behalf that sent Praxis over the edge.
"Yo homey-P, foshizzle ma nizzle, I got a itch dawg!" Damas groaned dramatically before he commenced in scratching his backside with Torn's pasta-server, all the while murmuring "ooooh yeeeaaah" and "aight".
The Baron let out on final wail of terror at this move, and mustered his strength to clamber to his feet, running off screaming in horror, all the while Damas hip-thrusting around the place in victory.
An unfamiliar feeling of peace and serenity then descended on Haven City. The screams slowly died down and the explosions ceased to occur. It was five hours later by the time all the fires had been put out and all the wounded civilians had been collected and sent home.
Erol would later find Praxis cowering back home at the Palace, sitting in the dining room, his entire body shaking as he struggled to eat what appeared to be a wedding cake all by himself. Erol sighed in relief at the now subdued Baron and made his exit, wondering whether it was too early for him to go to bed to sleep off the horror of the day's events.
On the way to his room the Commander passed Ashelin.
"Ashelin, next time one of your relatives is due to stay..." he began.
"I'll go register Animal Control in the speed dial..." Ashelin finished calmly.
"Make sure you don't accidentally remove Dominos..." Erol added.
"At any rate, let us just be grateful that once more Damas cancelled Praxis out. With any luck, they'll continue to cancel each other out until we no longer have to put up with either of them..." Ashelin sighed dramatically.
"We can only hope..." Erol murmured.
And with that, another episode of terror ended. Probably full of plot holes, grammar errors and things that just didn't make sense at all. But the inhabitants of Haven City were just grateful that at least they'd survived another chapter of this wretched story, and hopefully, with a bit of luck, Bijoux wouldn't return to create another instalment...
...
...
...
...Fat chance.
Bijoux: Now be honest, hands up how many people think my twistedly disgusting Jak/Mar-Damas theory is right. Come on, don't be shy XD Thanks to everyone who read and enjoy this chapter :)
As a reminder, I'm going through the older chapters of Palace Stories and fixing them up. Not too sure how long it'll be before the (hopefully) better chapters are up in place of the older ones, but if you'd like copies of the older chapters as they are then I suggest saving a copy of it :)
