Jak clamped my mouth shut, motioning to the walls ahead. I blinked as he released me. Barely visible even to my sharp animal eyes, a Metalhead crouched in a shadowy alcove near the ceiling. The only way Jak could've spotted it would be by that jewel embedded in its head. My vision is FAR superior to his, after all! And, geez- what are those Skull Gems of theirs good for, anyway? They're so shiny that you can see the stupid things coming from a mile away! Eh... on second thought, I suppose it's a bonus for us. That's nice, 'cause we need all the help we can get. Two guys against both the entirety of the Baron's forces and an army of butt-ugly creatures willing to destroy anything in their path? Yeah. Those are great odds. Have we got it good, or what?
In case it flew over your head, that was a little bit of SARCASM!!
Jak unholstered his Morph Gun with a smirk, jamming the blaster attachment onto it. Y'know, if that thing hadn't saved our butts too many times to count, I'd just toss it into whatever... uh, liquid we just rode the hoverboard over. Jak isn't supposed to smirk like that, or shoot like that, or grin toothily as the bodies of Krimzon Guard start to pile up.
The Metalhead fell after taking two of Jak's well-aimed head shots, expelling both a Skull Gem and several blobs of Dark Eco. The Eco streaked towards Jak as if he were magnetic, permeating through his skin, crackling with energy as it did so.
Y'know, Dark Eco is another thing that makes no friggin' sense! Despite the senile loghead's inane blabberings about how corrupting, how undeniably and utterly evil it is, all it did to me was change my body. The Eco didn't touch my mind at all, and I fell right into it! Then again, maybe it did... I sure don't remember what happened when I was submerged. Falling as a human one second, being tossed out an Ottsel the next...
Gol studied the junk his entire life, and sure as heck affected him! Body? Ugly as sin, sporting the voice of a hiphog with chronic bronchitis. Mind? Hoo boy, let's not even go there.
Jak had it injected into 'im for two years. Body? Eh, no real difference - unless Jak's agonizing transformation into the pale, dangerously pointy Dark Jak counts. Mind? Gimme a break. Sweet, pure, heroic Jak's first words, spat out as if poisonous, were "I'm gonna kill Praxis". If any of the old Jak is still in there, he'll have to fight off the darkness threatening to consume him. Good ol' Dark Eco.
Eh... now that I look at it, I suppose it's a very good thing I didn't absorb none of that dark-power-mumbo-jumbo junk. The side effects just don't sell the package to me, y'know?
Besides. The way I see it, Jak and I are even now. I got the fuzz. He got the insanity. I'm suffering. He's suffering.
Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself.
"You think the guards would have taken care of the Metalheads on their way down," Jak mused, absentmindedly handing the Skull Gem to me. I shoved it in his backpack while he put that stupid gun away.
"Eh, I bet it was napping when they went by. It probably saw its reflection in the muck, realized what a hideous travesty against nature it is, and tried for a little beauty sleep!"
Jak barely heard me, scanning intently for any more Metal Heads. "We don't have far to go."
I shuddered. "Not far? Yeah, right! You said that twenty minutes ago!"
We started off again, but Jak's face didn't lose its wrinkled frown. "It's too quiet. We should be hearing something, anything by now- gunfire, the guards' comm units, explosions..."
Groaning loudly, I put a hand to my forehead. "Oh, great! Thanks a lot, Jak. You said the words! 'It's too quiet'! Now we're DEAD for sure and-"
"DAX! Shut up!" he hissed, grabbing my entire head as he hurriedly tried to cover my mouth. Geez, I might have been a LITTLE loud, but still! We stood there like that for almost a full minute- me, contemplating whether biting his hand would be worth the health risks, and Jak, darting his head around this way and that in a very unusual display of nerves.
"Mggph fffg," I said, breaking the silence with a glare leveled at my best friend.
"Oh," Jak said, releasing me apologetically. "Sorry." He looked almost sheepish!
"Man! What is with you? If you're so jumpy about this mission, why'd you accept it in the first place?" I snapped. When Jak is creeped out about something, then you KNOW it's time for some major panicking.
I guess he concluded that no monsters were gonna pop out of the walls, 'cause he started walking again. "Torn offered us a new gun attachment for this job, and we need it to take down those Metalheads at the Precursor ruins."
Logic. I hate logic, and I hate it even more when it puts us right in the middle o' DANGER! "It better be a pretty friggin' amazing piece of hardware," I grumbled, "for us to stick out our necks like this."
We turned the corner to find a heap of dead guards.
"Well, that's a good sign," Jak sighed in relief. "Those are gunshot wounds, not Metalhead claw or blast marks. The rebels must still be alive."
The old Jak would never call a pile of corpses a 'good sign'.
---
When we first landed in Haven City, completely surrounded by strangers and enemies, there was only one thought on my mind: save Jak. But, I mean, c'mon - me, the handsome fuzzy one, versus half a dozen Krimzon Guard? What was I supposed to do, pray they were all deathly allergic to Ottsel fur?! My flight was strategic, darnit! As they closed in on us I dashed between the legs of one startled soldier, and looked back in horror just as Erol raised the butt of his gun to Jak's head.
Whack.
Once they took Jak out of commission, I trailed 'em. Sometimes, being thought of as a stupid animal is a pain. Other times, it's a bonus. It was a 50/50 split in this particular case. I scampered after the entourage, playing the part of the 'loyal pet', and when the guards noticed poor pathetic me they attempted target practice. Couldn't shake me, though! Hah! Eventually they gave up on that, but they did gave me a swift kick in the ribs before they hauled Jak into his new home, locking the door behind them. As I lay there in the filthy street wondering how many of my ribs were broken, a switch flipped in my mind.
To hell with this! To hell with Jak! My entire life has revolved around making him happy, and where has THAT got me?!
My eyes flashed with rage as I stood up, gave the prison one last look, and ran off into the night.
Let's see Jak suffer for once.