Chapter 31

Upon our group waking up the next morning, I smiled at how Jak had his arms wrapped around me in a boy's favorite spot to touch a girl at, me smirking and nudging him awake and Jak being shocked and immediately blushing afterwards.

"Aw, you're so cute when embarrassed, Jak! You don't need to be, though, we're a couple after all," I smiled, Jak still blushing at that and Errol smirking at that while Dax and Kiki laughed a bit.

"Let's just go talk to Damas and Muse about getting our next arena fight. I want to smash some heads to get rid of this tension," Jak said with a smile, me nodding at that as we then proceeded out of the house and down to the king's quarters to meet with Damas, me kneeling before him after seeing him and him smirking at that.

"You don't need to be so modest, Sasha. You know that, right?" Damas asked, me smiling at that.

"I know, I just want to give you respect, my lordship... I feel it's required after I ruined your life all that time ago when I was in love with Praxis... how much of a fool I was," I said, my smile turning into a scowl by the end.

"You don't need to worry. I survived and made a refuse for those that are banished to the Wasteland. I save the ones that are sent to death and offer them citizenship to Spargus so long as they can fight to survive like I have," Damas said.

"Also, just an aside, but we wanted to know if we could have our next arena fights. And I wanted to talk to the queen after my fight," I smiled, Damas smiling at that.

"Of course, I can allow that. We shall meet at the arena," Damas said, our groups proceeding to the arena and me taking my turn first, seeing that there was 30 fighters again and that the arena now had 4 different platforms with 2 warrior supplying machines each. I proceeded to go Dark to start things out and proceeded to slash apart the baddies that came at me. I managed to get 15 before the platform I was on began to sink into the lava, which meant I had to move to the next platform, where I proceeded to kill the remaining 15 with my new Wave Concussor weapon as my prize from the first battle. I did so easily and then proceeded to the victory platform to meet with Damas and the Muse.

"Well done, Sasha! I'd heard you were great in combat during your time spent in Haven, but seeing it for myself is pretty impressive," Damas smiled as the Muse then jumped down to my position in her squirrel form with my prizes, those being another amulet piece and a gun upgrade for the Blaster.

"So what's this gun upgrade do?" I asked as I cocked it into my morph gun.

"It's called the Beam Refluxor. It fires ricochet bullets that bounce to a new direction after hitting an object or enemy. They disappear after 10 ricochets," Muse smiled, me smirking at that.

"Okay, thanks, my queen... can we go speak in private now?" I asked, the queen nodding as we then proceeded to the waiting wings and I then started to speak to her in her genie form.

"So what did you wish to talk to me about, Sasha?" she asked me with a smile.

"Okay... I'm just going to cut straight to the chase. I know the location of you and Damas's son, Mar," I said, the queen gasping at that.

"Y-You do?! Well spit it out!" she said, me smirking at that.

"You can't miss him. He's always got a talking orange rat on his shoulder," I said, the queen looking at me with a frown and angry eyes.

"Is this a joke?" she asked, me shaking my head no.

"Recall that Jak and Daxter came from 2 thousand years ago and that you first met them on Misty Island. Well, we sent your son, Mar, back in time to roughly 16 years before you would meet him on that island," I said, the Muse looking at me with shock and only then connecting the dots.

"S-So... Mar... Jak... they're the same person? My son... is Jak?" she asked.

"It's confusing, isn't it? Well, I was surprised when I learned it myself, right from the Metal Head Leader's mouth. Daxter has his head hanging back in Haven City at his tavern," I said, the Muse looking at me with a frown before she then grabbed me by the shoulder and sighed.

"It is... but I do believe every word of what you say... but Damas, on the other hand? I doubt he'd believe a single word. He's always believed in the bare basics for technology and he's terrified of the concept of flying vehicles like the ones that were made in Haven City... I promise that I'll keep quiet about this, but I will be more open to Jak from now on, provided Damas isn't around to cause trouble. Okay?" she said, me nodding at that.

"Sounds like a plan," I smirked at her as Kiki then finished her round up and joined me next in the wings.

"By the way, I've always wanted to ask since your arrival, but how were you able to tame a Metal Head and have it take on a very human-like appearance?" the queen asked.

"Well, miss Muse-" I was about to say before she corrected me.

"Please, call me Marigold," she said, me nodding at that.

"Marigold... Kiki was born from a Metal Head after Jak killed it back in Haven City. But because Jak was the only one around at the time, and the fact that him and I have dark eco in our bloodstream, Kiki was able to gain our traits upon being born, including morphing her more adult forms to be more humanoid to match mine and Jak's appearances. Also, despite being a Metal Head Scout upon being born, she also has quite the amazing combat abilities, as I'm sure you noticed," I smirked, Marigold nodding at that.

"That I did. You're very quick and nimble on the battlefield and those bombs are quite deadly," Marigold smiled. "Anyways, I think I could ask you to do something for me, as requested by Seem," she said, me smiling at that.

"Yeah? What is it?" I asked.

"I would like you two to go to the volcano and inspect whatever the heck was the cause of the monks never returning... especially since it concerns that odd purple light in the sky and that weird purple machine that fell into eastern Spargus," she said, me nodding at that.

"Want to go take a trip through the skies, Kiki?" I smirked, her smiling at that and nodding.

"Let's get out of this place and then we'll fly off immediately. Just hold on as tight as you can, mom," Kiki smirked, me smirking widely at that. We then did just that and Kiki got into position after letting out her wings. I then had her grab me with her arms and legs and she had me cling close to her before she then jetted off into the skies with her very powerful wings. We proceeded to fly through the air over the entire wasteland and then into the top of the giant volcano through a hole near the peak. Once inside, we then got onto an elevated height and I could hear some scuttling begin to happen.

"Be on alert, hon," I said, Kiki nodding as she turned on her invisibility and we proceeded with caution, me immediately getting to see something was around... and when I did see it, I was surprised. It was a whole slew of Metal Mantises!... that were just staring at us. They didn't actively try and attack and they just looked to be staring us down while making small clicking sounds.

"Kiki... are they talking?" I asked, her nodding.

"They're saying that they want you to meet their leader... I didn't know there were other Metal Head Leaders other than Kor, mom," Kiki said to me.

"I didn't either... please, lead us there. But if you attack, your dead meat," I said, the Mantises simply hopping ahead up a steep incline and me and Kiki following them over a flowing river of lava and up towards the summit, where we saw the large dark satellite that Seem mentioned earlier, along with a bunch of Monks that looked to have been turned into stone from a strange gem that one of them held, filled with Dark Eco.

But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was that there was a very large Metal Head that was on the large satellite and I could tell it was definitely a Metal Head Leader just by size alone. It was a bit bigger than a Metalpede and it had a giant Skull Gem that was on its head. But it also had a head that looked an awful lot like it was a lion's.

"So, you decide to join me at my lair, do you? It's been awfully lonely since these guys kicked the bucket," the big Metal Head said, its voice sounding very feminine, yet full of reverb at the same time.

"I... don't really know what's going on here... why aren't you trying to kill me right now?" I asked with a gulp.

"Because I know I wouldn't stand a chance... that would be reason number one, slayer of Metal Kor," the giant Metal Head said, me gulping at that. "And the second reason is... well... I need your help," she said as she pointed to the giant satellite and I tilted my head. "There are actually 3 other Metal Head Leaders other than Kor, each of us living in the four different civilized areas of this large continent. I, Metal Morah, reside here, in the Wastelands of Spargus... Kor resided outside of Haven, but you killed him effortlessly. Metal Speetunc lives in the area close to Kras City... and Metal Fridgion lives in the nomadic Icelands... and we've found a very bad problem caused by the thing you know as the Day Star," the giant Metal Head Leader said, me being a bit surprised at that.

"So... you need help to get rid of the Day Star? Why?" I asked.

"This Day Star is actually filled with creatures powered by Dark Eco... they are hoping to destroy this entire planet and are forcing our offspring to join their cause... all those Metal Heads invading Haven City and attacking the people of Spargus during treks through the desert? Those ones are being controlled in their minds to fight for their sick goals... but to be quite frank, us Metal Head Leaders have no desire to kill, with the exception of the lunatic Kor. We just want to remain either a neutral party or help you humans out. It's a common misconception that Metal Heads require eco to survive. It just speeds up our evolution process, such as your little Kiki friend," Morah said, Kiki being a bit bashful at that.

"Well... I did eat a lot to get to this point," she said bashfully.

"So how would we go about in getting the Day Star destroyed?" I asked her.

"Well, step one is for you and your boyfriend to utilize the Light Eco in your bloodstream. Go to the Precursor Temple via the warp gate where you came in from and go speak with the Precursors there. They can help you learn to use Light Eco for your endeavors," Morah said, me nodding at that as I then looked at Kiki and I decided to call Jak on his communicator on the way back.

"Hey, Jak? Where are you at right now?" I asked.

"I just got done herding some Leaper Lizards to a corral with Kliever and he gave me a vehicle with amazing jumping features. Why do you ask?" he asked me.

"I want you to meet me and Kiki at the Precursor Temple. I got a good tip that the temple could hold some secrets to share about how to use the Light Eco in our blood for good use. I'll meet you there with Kiki," I said.

"Okay, I don't know where you're going with this, but it sounds pretty cool! So who gave you the tip?" Jak asked.

"Well... that's gonna be the hard part to tell you... and Errol... and the guys in Spargus..." I said with a sigh. I just winced as I said the words out loud. "Her name is Metal Morah... she's a Metal Head Leader inside of the volcano," I said, it actually making me hurt from the wincing that came after.