CLEANED UP
Clean up notes for this chapter: Having some fun, some unpacking, Lyra paid us a visit as we head into a big (old) story event. This scared a lot of people last time, but since I've split up the events a bit it may not have as much impact... oh well. Meow.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jak and Daxter.
Vacation or War
Chapter Fifty Five- A Vision
Haven Forest was oddly quiet when they arrived; the reason being that it was completely empty of metal heads. Stepping off of the precursor platform that enabled them to get from the cliff overlooking the temple down to the forest itself, both teens went from high alert to relaxed. There were no metal heads to worry about on this run.
It had to be assumed that young Samos had arranged himself somewhere in the forest that was of importance; Loor already knew he was at the base of the behemoth tree with the odd walls built up around it, like an old worship area, on the other end of the woods. Jak didn't have to think about it long before he figured such things out on his own; for all they knew the life seed came from that giant tree, way the heck back when.
So it was over the river and through the woods, so to speak, to get to where the Shadow was meditating; exactly where both teenagers predicted he would be. Though clearly in a trance state, the Shadow broke out of it the moment the trouble trio approached.
Jak offered up the life seed. "Samos told me to..." he paused, reminded that this was Samos. "I mean... you told me to... or..." He tripped again, trying to figure out the right way to say it. "Well... I mean your older version... ah, whatever. We heard you needed this."
Young Samos took the seed in the same fashion Onin had, seemed to pull it out of the air as Jak lightly tossed it. "Yes. Its power will help me speak to the plants."
"Assuming they have anything important to say..." Loor couldn't help muttering. Samos put a lot of trust in the cognitive powers of greenery. Her sarcasm came from the fact that though there were no metal heads, they were about to get attacked, and she knew it.
Flying up from over the giant lake, several Krimzon Guards with jet packs were leading two large carriers. They must have been trying to track down Samos since the underground movement began; now that the man was mostly alone and basically defenseless, the Baron had sent a detachment of guards to either take him out or bring him in.
"There he is!" One of the flying guards shouted.
"I see 'em!" Another returned.
The Shadow was terrified, clearly, but unwilling to give up the urgency of his mission. "Jak, Loor, protect me from these guards! I must ask the plants vital questions about our future!"
Neither of the teens argued, both turning to face the oncoming wave of guards, whipping their appropriate weaponry out. Jak took a position directly in front of the Shadow as the short green man curled up around the seed and began to levitate with it, entering an even more intense trance than he'd been in before. The blaster mod was Jak's first choice, sharp-shooting the guards that were in the air.
Loor had both weapons in hand, her pistol leading as she dove off to one of the ramps that led up to the giant tree from the lower part of the forest on the edge of the lake. The two carriers had begun to unload at these points, dropping men at an alarming rate.
By now, Loor was counting again. Her gun drummed with her heart beat, completely blocking off the left ramp and leaving Jak to worry about whatever came from the right. Her breathing also grew rhythmic, like some sort of strange meditation, protecting her from what she was doing. Still, this time was no so desperate as the first. She was still cognitive, and she would remember quite clearly.
Slowly, she was getting used to the idea of taking human life.
Which was good, because those she faced were perfectly okay with trying to take hers. She was balanced on the front part of her foot, watching for incoming shots. Thankfully an eco slug moved a lot slower than the near instantaneous speed of a bullet back at home; she could see and dodge them. It wasn't easy, they were still fast, but it was possible... and she lacked any cover to hide behind. While the guards she was firing upon had cover, they didn't bother with it... or with attempting to get out of the way. Their armor prevented sudden jumps and hops out of the way.
She had given pause, reloading, when the carrier had dropped the last of its load. At least twenty men had been left, and even though she had just fired off an entire clip only four of them were downed. She had tried to hit them while they were still in the carrier.
Lines were formed like a firing squad, a few extras rushing out to get at her directly.
She'd slammed a new clip into her pistol, reminding those who rushed her that she had a melee weapon at her side as well. There was not enough strength in one arm to sweep a guard aside, but that didn't matter much once she activated the crystal in the weapon.
It was becoming second nature; she didn't even have to think about the deflection, rolling out of the way of the stunned guards as the two who had come after her knocked into each other and went down in a heap. Two shots ensured they wouldn't get back up.
She took a hit before she could turn back and face the other guards, attacking her from a distance. She hadn't been shot since her encounter with Errol, and that wound had long since been healed and forgotten. A bullet skimmed her shoulder, perhaps a few inches from being a deadly head shot and instead taking some skin and burning her as it passed. It was only a graze, but it startled her.
Rage was ignited. It was a feeling she didn't fight as it pumped hot blood through her emotionally detached person. She was tempted to dive in, to put away the gun and go in swinging her juice rod. There were only twelve left. She could stun them.
Then she could rip them to shreds.
Loor would realize, perhaps an entire day later, that this was the sign of her psyche slipping over to Lyra's beastly mindset. The rage and intent to take care of things with her bare hands were things of the animal, but at the time she was operating on a very similar wavelength.
So the gun was tucked away. She leapt forward, yelling.
Another shot skirted her arm, the jolt of pain giving her transition a shove.
The juice rod was dropped as claws grew from the hand that had been gripping it, Loor's yell turning to a bloodthirsty roar. A creature very different from the girl had taken over, and she would hardly break a sweat over twelve Krimzon Guards... even if the full daylight prevented her from seeing properly, eyes so sensitive she had to close them and rely on her ears and nose.
No, Lyra's senses were more than sharp enough to operate quite easily like that. Her talons scarred armor and cut through the black leather it was set into, finding soft flesh beneath. Arcs of eco flew from her body as she moved, like deadly sparks of static electricity caught in the fibers of her tail, crossing the body of a guard she hadn't the chance to dig her fangs into.
The butt of a rifle found her brow, proving that blindness was more of a hindrance than she would actively admit. Another bellow of battlelust was loosed, the creature digging into the guard she thought had struck her, and then exacted revenge by exerting a powerful wave of eco energy; a shocking blast that was sure to kill any creature that wasn't adept to adsorbing or coping with the substance. The wave was something that took most of her charge to start, not at full strength, and in madness she maintained it, still clutching the body of the man who had struck her in the head.
A brief joy came to her awareness as she considered the man's body, twisted by the taint, even after death.
The blast she had let go came to an end prematurely; she whined as she found herself without the energy to continue it. Without the ability to think, she hadn't thought about the fact that the same energy she'd used to attack was also the energy that sustained her stay in the living world. She'd raised her nose to search for another target, ears forward and searching for prey. All of the people here were dead, but there were more back where she'd come from.
A second sniff made her smirk. The male was there.
She'd turned to slink in the direction of that delightfully tempting aroma... when the body she'd taken failed her.
The eco was gone.
All of it.
Jak made a run for Loor's crumpled body the moment all the guards were dead. He'd both seen and felt her change, and watched as Lyra had pointed herself in his direction... and then fallen over rather like an animal passing out from exhaustion. His first worry was that she'd been shot badly, but the two marks she had were no more than minor singes of her skin.
He then reminded himself that she had a bad habit of passing out after the change, as if it did more to her than it did to him. It was clear Lyra's emergence into the living world caused her pain after the fact; splitting headaches and body-aches to match. Those pains visited him too, and at first he assumed her pain resistance was simply pathetic... but now he was wondering if the after effects were more dramatic with her.
Either way, being reminded of such things made him calm down and pick her up. This was normal; if there was such a thing. Some time and she'd wake up and be ready to take on the world again.
He stopped a moment to pick her weapon up from where she'd dropped it and snap it to her back again before returning to the Shadow, who'd come out of his trance with a horrified look on his face. The little green dude was not happy with what the plants had to say to him.
"The life seed gave me a terrible vision!" Young Samos cried. "The Baron is planning to destroy the precursor stone! He aims to crack it open somehow! If he does this, the energy released will be beyond comprehension! It will destroy the world and more, ending all life!" The short man gasped, glancing about the woods as if he could still the voices of the plants in his head. "The plans are crying out for protection! You must stop the Baron, Jak! Stop him, however you can!"
Jak and Daxter had to gape at the thought themselves; they both had known the precursor stone was important and powerful, but ending all life was something they hadn't thought about since Gol and Maia were trying to open dark eco silos with a precursor robot.
"Jeez... all the things he coulda done with the precursor stone, and the Baron wants to blow it up?" Daxter snorted. "No imagination."
Jak cracked a small smile. Leave it to Dax to brighten up the day. "Let's see if we can't snag it back and come up with something better." Jak snickered back, getting moving while carrying Loor bridal style. It was easiest, since he had too much stuff hooked onto his own back to do a fireman carry.
It was a quick enough trip through the woods, since the metal heads were currently cleared out. Jak and Daxter expected Loor to wake up at any time and grouse about getting carried, or some other tough-ass behavior that characterized her while she was grumpy. This didn't happen though; the girl remained unconscious and breathing slowly, long enough that both boys started to worry.
"She okay?" Daxter asked as they got to the platform that would take them back up to the warp ring and, ultimately, the city wall.
"I'm not sure." Jak answered, frowning slightly while trying to work out why he felt particularly uneasy since he'd seen her crumple, reverting from Lyra's beastly form. Something had him anxious. "I... think she should have woken up by now... but I've only seen her change a few times. Who knows what the real norm is for her?"
"Norm?" Daxter questioned. "Can anything dealing with that dark eco crap have the world 'norm' attached to it? It's all screwy."
Jak didn't have a comeback for that, but to stare at Loor's face.
"So..." Dax began as Jak stepped off of the platform and onto the cliff face it had arrived at, the warp ring only a few yards away. "Serious question. Are you two... y'know, a couple? Am I gonna have to stop calling Loor pet names and thinking about taking a nap on her exposed cleavage?"
Dax had to ask that question as Jak passed the exact spot that their almost-kiss had happened. It almost hurt to think about, but now was not the time to push at such things. "We're gonna talk about it when all of this is over. She said so."
"Thought she was gonna take off the second this was all over?" Daxter started to pick up on Jak's conflict with himself, turning the blond youth's voice rough and dark. "Jeez... girl has got to make up her mind."
Jak's agreement was silent.
"Of course..." Daxter snickered. "Could always give her a push in the right direction, if ya know how."
"Dax!" Jak protested the idea as they passed the warp ring, going from the high cliff face to the ledge that was just in front of the large door back into the city. "She was falling apart trying to figure herself out; that's why we're not talking about it till after. There's too much going on."
"Yeah, but that's because she's still trying to get it all straight." Dax had a grin on his fuzzy mug. "If you just laid it all straight for her, then you two could... y'know, ease some tension, for each other. Like me an' Tess."
"I do not want to know about what you and Tess are doing when I'm not looking."
"The girl is magic, Jak." Daxter snickered, a smitten look coming as he thought about the blond barmaid.
Jak wanted to point out how Loor was intensely different from Tess; the blond girl at least being from Haven city and not having any sort of other-worldly cosmic cataclysm hanging over her every action. Still, Loor had nearly lost it just sharing that information with him, sharing it further with Daxter would probably serve to make the girl angry... which was one emotion that she was really good at, he noticed. She had trouble laughing or simply just relaxing around people, but anger? She didn't need much of an excuse to knock someone's block off.
Jak looked down at her again as they passed through the portal back into the city. Between her small frame and blank face she didn't look all that intimidating, particularly not when she was passed out... but in another light he could think of the big smiles she occasionally flashed while bantering on with Daxter, or trying to steal his goggles.
He liked those smiles.
"So where to next?" Dax asked as they entered the city, coming down the long ramp that led up to the door to the woods.
Jak was mid-shrug when his comm. unit started sounding off.
The Author's Corner
Well, here we are at a new chapter.
And I get to work a super long shift tonight. YARG? Meow. Shwatever.
ONWARD!
Happy reading,
-Loor
