CLEANED UP

Clean up notes for this chapter: A return to parts of the old storyline! YARG! Though once again were doing that lovely un-packing thing where the content of a single chapter takes two chapters to get through... But MEOW!

Disclaimer: I don't own Jak and Daxter.

Vacation or War
Chapter Fifty Three- A New Suit

When Loor awoke, she remembered no dreams. It was probably the first peaceful sleep she had experienced since landing in Haven, not waking with any sort of start or fear of what was going on in her head... because there was nothing going on in her head. She remembered how warm she'd felt, clinging to Jak just at the top of the stairs... and then she'd been gone. Now she woke like she did when she was home; rolling over and twisting her spine to crack her back. She didn't open her eyes just yet, twisting the other way and then swinging her legs over the side to sit up.

For a moment she imagined she was in her bed, back at home, but once she finally lifted her lids she was brought back to earth; she was in the underground, sitting on her bunk. She could guess how she'd gotten there; Jak had carried her in after she passed out in his arms. Not exactly fitting with her badass self-image, but she'd live. Wiping sleep from one eye, the other scanned the underground to see who was awake and accounted for, and who was still snoozing.

Torn and the elder Samos were at the end of the room, discussing something and hardly noticing one of their agents was awake and moving. Off to the right, in the corner of her vision, she could see Jak climbing down from his bunk. She imagined that was what woke her up; the slight swaying of the bunks that occurred when someone was moving around. She felt like she could sleep for another week and then some.

Samos broke away from Torn as Jak busied himself in getting suited up, Loor realizing she'd been laid in bed with most of her clothes on, only having to snap her juice rod onto her back and stuff her pistol back into the holster on her leg. "I see you two have finally seen fit to move. I'd like you both to go into dead town and go back to my old hut. You'll need some find some way to actually get into the building, so the underground has transported a machine called a titian suit out there for you to use. There's an object within that's attracting the metal heads to that area; it would be best to bring it into the city before they get their claws on it."

"If it's been there the whole time, I'm surprised they haven't gotten it already." Jak muttered as the old man left them, Samos sparing little more attention than that before returning to Torn. Jak was pulling on his gloves, the last of his things, while turning to get Daxter down from his bunk. The ottsel was groggy, slowly clambering onto Jak's shoulder and winding his hands into the blond hero's hair, nodding for the group to move out. He'd wake up sooner or later.

Loor got up off of her bunk, weapons in place, and fell in line as they started walking. Getting back onto the city streets, full sunlight hurting her sleepy eyes, began the process of rebooting her brain. She'd completely shut down last night, and like a CPU that hadn't been properly shut off in months, it was taking time for her to get everything back in order. Priorities came as short reminders of what she needed to be worrying about. Stay alive topped the list, followed by don't be a fucking retard around Jakkie-boy.

Thankfully, being relaxed meant she didn't jump when her comm. unit went off in her little side pouch. She answered it quickly, the boys stopping just short of commandeering the zoomer on the corner to wait for her.

"Loor! This is terrible!"

The girl blinked blearily at the video feed; Keira looked very upset. "What happened?"

"That precursor device! It's gone! Someone broke into my garage and stole it!"

That woke her up. Her brain started ticking through a list of who would do such a thing, getting a kick in the ass via a serious jolt of adrenaline... when she remembered her little talk with Morgan and Ryan the evening previous. She knew who had taken it, and it was for a good cause. "Shit..." The girl simply cursed, putting a hand to her head. "Did they take anything else? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, and the rest of the place is untouched. Jeez, I knew I should have slept here last night... do you want me to talk to Errol and try and get another one of those devices? The Baron has dug up a few..."

"Pass." Loor replied after appearing to think. "I think I already know all I could have learned from that thing."

"But I didn't even get to put the front part back together... what if-"

"We can worry about that later." She cut the mechanic off. "I'm sorry, Keira, I don't mean to be rude. Right now I got some shit to do... we'll talk about this again in a few days, when things calm down. Alright? I'm sure you've got your own stuff to be focusing on too; don't get distracted."

There was a thoughtful pause before Keira agreed. "Okay. You're right, we all got things we need to be doing. I'll see you around."

Loor hefted a long sigh as she broke the connection and slipped the device back into her pouch. Tension had returned to her shoulders and most of her back, making her wish she could just go back to the underground and curl up till the war was over. She ignored the wish though, trotting up to the boys and finding the zoomer on the corner this morning was a two-seater.

Hopping into the passenger side, she wondered to herself if there was some sort of city maintenance crew that went around at night and put zoomers back on the various corners of streets, repairing the damaged ones and taking the broken ones for scrap metal. It would make sense, plus if they had serial numbers the city could keep track of what area damaged and destroyed zoomers most often as a way to gauge road-crime and vandalism and know where to post more police... though under the Baron's rule the answer to the question of where to post more guards was everywhere.

Disregarding the last part of that thought, she continued working on the rest in her brain until they arrived at the hole in the ground near the wall, the door below street level being the one that would lead them out into dead town. Storing the idea in the back of her head, they left the zoomer on the edge of the sharp drop down.

"Whoa... you guys being quiet enough?" Daxter questioned, making it clear he'd woken up just as the big security door was opening for them. "What did I miss last night? You two have a fight?"

"Hardly." Loor snickered before Jak could answer, though she kicked herself for it mentally. She hadn't expected him to move to explain... nor had she noticed him much on the drive over. She'd just gotten buried in her own head. What if falling asleep on him the night before made him feel awkward now? Things had been a little odd since their near-kiss, he and she tip-toeing around some conversation items for fear of upsetting the delicate balance they'd managed to create.

And she'd gone ahead and fallen asleep in his arms.

Smooth, Loor... real smooth.

He glanced at her, then shrugged. "Just the mood of the morning."

"I don't buy it..." Daxter made the hop over to Loor's shoulder, crawling on top of the girl's head to look down at her while clinging to the scarf on her forehead. "I've been getting a funny vibe between you two since the snatch-and-grab at the fortress... I pick up on this stuff!"

"It's too busy to be worrying about that sort of thing." Loor pointed out with a blunt tone of voice. "Let's just move, okay?" She gestured ahead as the first of the two heavy doors they had to pass opened up.

"What sort of thing?" Daxter blinked, lifting his head. Apparently he'd just been suggesting tension, but he quickly snapped another word in front of that. A grin appeared on his fuzzy mug. "Oooh... Hehehe... You two official and you decided not to tell me? C'mon, what happened to no secrets between friends?"

"Not even close!" Loor snapped, whipping her weapon off of her back and using it in its less dangerous, compressed form to prod the ottsel off of her head. The orange fuzzy quickly dove away, snickering at her violent reaction to his needling. "Sick son of a..." She grumbled, glaring at the door in front of them and waiting for the mechanism to finish unlocking.

"Denial?" Daxter had taken to the shoulder that was furthest away from Loor, still laughing to himself. "What a surprise. If I'm not even close, why isn't Jakkie-boy protesting one bit?"

Loor looked to Jak, multicolored eyes pleading for a bailout from Daxter's opinion. Jak met her gaze with a small and playful smile; he wasn't rescuing her from this one. "We're still working out the tiny details."

She felt herself growing infuriated with both boys, face turning faintly pink and warming along the cheeks. "I'm going to beat you both into mush..." She growled.

"Awe, look at her blush!" Dax laughed.

Loor let off a short and primal noise as she swung at them. Thankfully, the door had opened at that moment, allowing Jak to dive away from the strike and through the now open portal. She growled after them, but recognized that they were now entering the dangerous zone. A squeeze to her weapon made it expand into it's more lethal form, but she nodded ahead to show that she wanted to move along.

"Jeez... silly to serious in less than three seconds..." Daxter shook his head as Jak took out his gun to follow suit. "Jak's taught you too well, toots."

"And there's still plenty more to learn." The girl returned while coming out of the airlock and letting Jak lead the way. Ahead was the broken half-of-a-wall that they'd clambered over the last time they'd been in dead town, but that wasn't the way they needed to go if they wanted to actually get inside Samos's old hut. Jak seemed to know this fact already, because instead of going straight ahead he turned off to the left.

The damp ground dropped under a small amount of water before rising up again in another island of squishy earth and crumbling walls. Just before one of those walls, standing on what remained of a foundation, was the titian suit.

The thing was a good two and a half times taller than Jak, the central cockpit tall enough for a person to stand in but so thin that fitting them both looked nearly impossible without getting incredibly cozy. It had legs with reversed knees and wide, heavy feet for balance. The arms were lacking in elbows but the three-fingered hands were huge and milti-jointed for picking up large rocks or shifting boulders. The machine was like a giant exoskeleton for dangerous environments or to assist in heavy lifting.

Daxter seemed to be thinking the same thing as they all got over to examine the tank with feet. "Jeez... wish we'd had this thing around when we found that precursor thing... would have made movin' everything to ol' Samos's place so much easier."

Jak nodded, but he was thinking more about how they'd go about the mission they were faced with. "Loor... you take this thing, and I'll take the ground and run interference. There's probably more metal heads wandering around, and this thing looks too clumsy to fight them off easily."

"I have no idea how to drive it." The girl pointed out, but she didn't argue. She just sheathed her weapon and began to climb up to the open cockpit. A glass cover was open to let her get to the seat... if it could be called that. It was a leather back of a chair with a narrow bit that curved forward so she had a place to rest her weight, but not a full seat. The area below was open for her legs, padded all around.

She also noted there were three different joysticks within. The curved portion of the seat turned up to lead into a middle stick that she assumed was for movement, a large red button on top that might as well said 'PRESS ME' to the average teenager. Then, to either side of where her hips would be, were smaller, horizontally placed sticks that she could only conclude were for the arms. Both of the had a trigger and a more inconspicuous black button on top.

"I don't either." Jak snickered, backing off as she looked just about ready to slide in and give it a try. "Take a bit to figure it out, and then we'll get moving."

Daxter took a flying leap as Loor turned herself to drop in. "Ooh! Lemme see! I bet I can help you piece it together."

"Uh..." The girl snickered as the ottsel skittered up to her shoulder, letting her legs down into the cockpit before allowing the rest of her to follow. The glass bubble between her and the outside world closed as she leaned back on the leather seat, and Dax moved to get in front of her and lean on the bubble, looking out. Thankfully he was short enough that he didn't obscure her vision, his tail just annoyingly close to the center stick.

A moment later the machine stood up out of it's resting position, making the girl yelp as she gained three feet in height, now looking down at Jak in front of her, looking up and smirking. She could see that his mouth was moving, but she couldn't hear him, or any other outside noises; the bubble had to be pretty thick to act as such an effective buffer. To signal her new isolated position, she tapped her ear and shook her head.

He nodded, drawing out his comm. instead; they could use the units like walky-talkies. She quickly pulled hers out to pick up once it started buzzing with the alert that he was calling her.

"Move around." He suggested. "I'm going to stand on the other island to stay out of the way while you and Dax figure it out."

"Kay." She answered, tucking the unit on the little bit of seat that stuck out from between her legs so she didn't have to hold it; she would have used the almighty boob pocket that all women had, but decided against it with Daxter around. He nodded at her through the glass, taking off to the side and out of her view. With the glass bubble she felt like she had tunnel vision, staring straight forward. Either way, she took hold of the middle stick and began to work out the controls.

She quickly learned that the titian suit did not turn and walk at the same time. It would walk straight forward, straight back, but never curved in it's path. If she wanted to turn she had to stop, and then turn the machine in place by pushing to the left or right. She then experimented with the side sticks; as assumed, they were the arms. Pushing or pulling the joystick would directly manipulate the appendage, while either trigger would cause the whole mechanism to suddenly rear back and rush forward in a violent show of force; designed to break old walls or rocks apart. The black buttons made the suit duck and stick its hands out like it meant to pick a block up, though it made a harsh noise and got back up when the hands found nothing to be there. All of these things were tested with Daxter looking over his shoulder, watching and coaching her as she did things, reminding her of her brother when he decided to be a backseat gamer.

Either way, she imagined someone got paid really well to operate one of these at a construction site.

She then looked down at the red button again. Daxter was eying it too; it wasn't labeled, which made both teen and ottsel suspect it might be dangerous. "Rule number one..." Lauren muttered. "Never press the red button."

Dax nodded. "Agreed, toots." He said while looking forward again, outside of the glass. "Let's get Jakkie-boy back over here and get moving-"

The ottsel suddenly screamed, as did Lauren, when she pressed the red button anyway.


The Author's Corner

Ah, titian suit, how I missed you. Y'know, if I could have just one thing out of the Jak and Daxter world I would be torn between the JET-board and the titian suit. Seriously, that thing would be AWESOME if you have some heavy lifting to do around the yard, or someone's car stalled out in your driveway and you just had to scoot the out of the way... or if you wanted a really bad-ass show and tell item.

But yeah; never press the big red button... unless you're Loor. Or any other person who's under forty.

Another kinda short chapter, but that's because this one had a lot of mechanical stuff in it...

For those who only follow me here on Fanfiction; be aware that a little side-chapter thing was made with Loor that is ONLY available on DA; Look me up on there under the same username; LoorTheDarkElf. The piece of writing is for a contest; it's called Raining Memories. I might later post it to FF, but for now it's exclusively over there.

My 'M' key is wearing out... that makes me sad...

Happy reading,

-Loor