(There is a brief moment of fuzz, then Gleam's face appears)

Gleam: Hi! (waves stiffly) I am Gleam! Really! Don't believe me? Here
is my muse Vader!

Vader : (from off screen) I refuse to participate in this charade.

Gleam: (looking confused) What charade? I am Gleam!

Vader: No you're not.

Gleam: Yes I am.

Vader: No you're not.

Gleam: Yes I - (head explodes in a shower of sparks)

Kyren: (comes on screen and kicks the smoking remains of Gleambot ) spontaneous combustion proof, my arse! Damn Cyberkinetics Corporation - we're not filming are we?

Vader: (happily) Of course we are. (looking suspicious) where's the real Gleam*?

Kyren: She's.uh.sick.

Vader: Uh huh. What did you inject her with this time?

Kyren: Nothing.

Shalashaska: (walking in dragging Gleam* by the ankle) Hey, Kyren! I found her. She was locked in the shed.

Vader: All right, what have you done?

Kyren: She broke. I want a new one.

Vader: She's a discontinued line. What did you do to her?

Kyren: (sighing in frustration) she was a little slow writing the next chapter, so I locked in the study and fed her on a 'flat diet' - food that fits under the door.

Vader: Oh, Kyren, you shouldn't do that to authors; it blows their memory batteries!

Gleam*: Hi Jak! Nice to meet you.happy endings, happy endings.

Kyren: well, how as I supposed to know that? Now she thinks Jak really exists -

(Jak opens the door, walks in and opens his mouth -)

Kyren: - When I've told her time and time again that he doesn't!

(Jak looks highly offended by this remark, strides out and slams the door. Kyren doesn't notice.)

Shalashaska: at least she managed to get Chapter two finished.

Kyren: I suppose. (waves vaguely at the computer) Enjoy! Oh, and review. It may be the only way to restore Gleam*'s shattered mind.

**DISCLAIMER** we wish we owned these characters. Then we could go down to Naughty Dog with a cat-o-nine tails and get them to hurry up and release Renegade. But we don't. Sad. We do, however, own Mir, the White girl (whoever she may be.I'm not tellin' until it becomes relevant. So there.) and Nithana (otherwise known as Desert Village) and the 'others'. I'm not telling you who they are until the next chapter. So, anyone stealing them without permission will end up with Shalashaska shoved down their throat.

(picture dissolves into fuzz, then reforms into-)

Jak II: The Darkened Path.

Chapter 2: Diya Consequences*.

Jak could barely believe this had once been a world of blue skies and green grass. The sky had changed to a strange, opaque black that didn't radiate light. And the landscape - it was worse. The trees and bushes were stunted and twisted and the mountains on the horizon had changed to dark threatening pinnacles that hulked like monsters.

Then a thought struck him. Where was Keira? The last place he had seen her was bidding goodbye to him as he'd entered the Citadel. And the sages, where had they gone?

His head hurt.

What could they do now? Gol and Maia clearly didn't think he'd survived the thousand-foot drop off the edge of the silo, or Lurkers would be leaping on him as he stood there. He played with the idea of going after them, but he couldn't hope to defeat them without any Eco. He wasn't even sure if Eco still existed.

While he was thinking this, Daxter had jumped off his shoulder and was prowling about, inspecting the various Dark Eco twisted plants.

"Gol and Maia sure don't have much in the way of aesthetics, do they?" he said, examining a bush that resembled nothing so much as a warped skeleton.

"What the hell do we do now?"

It was a typical Daxter question, one that the rodent himself would usually answer, but Jak had one very clear goal right now, and he wasn't going to let his loudmouth friend get in the way.

"We have to find Keira." (Author's note: I'm assuming that Younger Jak can in fact talk, but Daxter just never gave him a chance to.)

"You're thinking about joyriding? At a time like this?" The ottsel didn't seem to get it. Jak dealt him a cuff around the head that knocked him face-first into the prickly, ruined grass.

"She.might be.hurt.or something. Look, we just have to find her and make sure she's Ok, all right?"

"What about Log-Nog, could he have survived the Eco tide thing.y?

Jak shrugged. "I hope so. He and the other sages might be able to help somehow." He started walking to the glowing red-hot strip that marked the position of the Lava Tube that led back to the Volcanic Crater.

"We'll have to follow this if we want to get to the other entrance. Keira might still be at the Warp Gate."

"Jak?"

He stopped walking and spun around, looking annoyed.

"What?"

"What if she isn't?"

The elf-boy stared furiously at Daxter for a second, then said loudly, "I hope the Zoomer's still there, I don't fancy having to race across molten lava in this weather."

He strode off.

Daxter glared at the plant again in distaste, then had to race to catch up to his friend.

*

"You remember that guy who came to Sandover and lectured everybody on the importance of colours?" Daxter asked.

Jak grunted. He was tired-they, correction, he had been running for hours. "He had all these crazy ideas about what each one meant," the ottsel doggedly continued, trying to get some conversation out of his friend. "Red was angry, orange was intelligence-" he examined his own fur, "Which means I must be the smartest .fuzzy.thing in the world. Yellow was happy, your hair is happy Jak. Blue was trust and purple was. that thing!" his rose at the end, his eyes widened and was pointing just ahead to the left.

"What thing?" Jak didn't have his friend's fuzzy animal night-vision, and it was dark. He squinted ahead, and gradually made out the twisted shape of a trunk, some branches and a few ragged leaves clinging to them. He laughed. Daxter scowled at him. "I'm telling you, I saw something moving! It was big an-and purple and it had some major cutlery."

"Cutlery?"

"Teeth! Big, huge, enormous, gargantuan. I can't think of many more synonyms, but it had nasty teeth."

Jak started to laugh again, then stopped. He had.felt something. Not heard or seen or smelt. just a faint, unsettling presence that made his skin crawl and set his teeth on edge. He quested ahead, trying to use this sense to locate the presence-

Then huge shape slammed into his back and knocked him face-first into the ground.

He rolled aside, leapt to his feet and spun a full 360°, then instantly regretted it as his head protested the twist. He looked wildly around for his attacker, caught a brief glimpse of a glowing orange eye, then was whacked off his feet again by a huge, fur-covered fist. Jak scrambled up, sidestepped a swipe of a handful of claws and took to his heels, knowing that whatever this thing was, he couldn't fight it.

He realized something was missing.

Then he heard Daxter's wail of terror.

The ottsel, it seemed, had been thrown off Jak's shoulder by the monster's first attack and had clambered up a tree, in the hopes of being left unnoticed. The purple thing was now throwing itself against the trunk, trying to dislodge Daxter, who was clinging to the topmost branches, yelling like a maniac.

Jak hesitated for a split second, then raced back, swung himself up the tree, snatched his friend from his perch and slid back down, only just avoiding the creature's snapping jaws.

Then he ran for it, dodging left and right as the monster raked it's talons across his back and neck. He hissed with pain as the claws snagged his arm, opening shallow but bloody gashes along his shoulder. He thought he caught a glimpse of a blue sparkle up ahead and felt a surge of hope - if it was Blue Eco, he might just gain enough speed to outrun his pursuer.

Just as he drew close enough to snatch the crackling ball of energy, something snagged his ankle and sent him sprawling. Whatever had him started dragging him quickly towards a dark hole in the ground. He yelled and kicked wildly, trying to dislodge the thing wrapped around his ankle, but it was too strong and he vanished into the gap. The monster chasing him had seen the boy suddenly stumble, but when it sped up to catch him, it found - nothing. The elf had fallen over and then seemingly disappeared. In the gloom of the tiny cave, a hand was pressed over his mouth and a voice hissed,

"Don't make a sound or we're both dead!"

As the purple monster - Jak finally realized it was a lurker, but bigger and more viciously armed than any he'd ever seen - stepped nearer to the hole, he saw a pair of disgusting, fur covered feet pause next to their hiding place. There was a faint click, then they heard a deep, snarling voice say, "Diya reporting. Saw the boy and the muse-thing and gave pursuit, but they seem to have disappeared." Jak couldn't believe his ears. The Lurker was talking. "No, I don't know where they went, or I wouldn't be calling, would I? They just vanished into thin-look; just send a couple of Trackers down here, they can't have gone far."

The purple feet strode off.

The trio in the hole tensed up, suspecting a trap, then relaxed when the Lurker didn't return.

Jak clambered out of the hole, dusted himself off, then retrieved a trembling Daxter from his pack.

"Hey! Hey! I'm alive and in the company of an charming young lady." The weasel attempted a suave, mature smile, only slightly spoiled by the fact that Jak was holding him by the tail. Jak stopped staring at his friend in disgust just in time to see the girl who had rescued them pull out a small, but very sharp looking knife. She examined him suspiciously, noting the lack of weapons and startled expression.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Err.I'm Jak, and this is Daxter." For once in his life Jak managed to introduce himself without Daxter's 'help'. Searching for something reassuring to say, he blurted out, "We come in peace," then cringed. Arrrgh.

"Now you know why I always do the talking," said Daxter, who had wriggled out of his friends grip and was eyeing the knife nervously.

The girl, who had black hair and blue eyes, grinned and said, "And I suppose you want me to take you to my leader?"

Jak had gone red, the colour clashing violently with his yellow-green hair. "Um, I.um."

Daxter sighed theatrically. "What tongue-tied here is trying to say, is that I'm the brains and he's the brawn," which was so wildly off the mark that it jerked Jak out of his embarrassed fog.

"W-what was-?"

"They call themselves Diya lurkers. The Dark Eco made them really dangerous. Well, more dangerous then they were before." Mir replied watching Daxter bemusedly as he chewed on his big toe. Jak looked at her and stood wondering what he was supposed to say.

" Er..Daxter isn't really a-a fuzzy.thing, the dark eco turned him into- whatever he is." The blonde youth glowered at the ottsel, who was trying to look victimized and failing spectacularly. "Whatever it did to the rest of him it didn't affect his vocal cords, unfortunately, so if you want to avoid being driven completely bonkers, you'll have to either ignore him or threaten him with death or violence."

The ottsel grinned cheesily. "He's just jealous. Chicks dig the fur! I'm the handsomest damn fuzzy animal you'll ever hope to see. I'm - "

Whatever else Daxter thought of himself was cut off with a startled 'Erk!' as Jak's foot shot out and Daxter suddenly landed facedown on the grass.

Turning back to the girl, Jak said, "Anyway, one of the things about introductions is that they're supposed to be two-way. Or three- way.whatever, but you kinda have to tell me who you are."

The girl tilted her head. She was pretty, Jak noticed with a pang. Her hair wasn't simply black, as he'd thought, it had navy blue streaks, and she was dressed mainly in cooler colours, such as purple and sapphire, though she wore white pants like his own, but longer.

"My name is Mir. I'm an astronomer.or I used to be." She glanced ruefully at the opaque sky, and Jak felt a clawing guilt as he was reminded of how badly he had fallen short.

"You're alone?"

"No. There are others who escaped the effects of Dark Eco. And many who didn't. I was with some others who were also shielded, and there were some who still seemed to be sane.or close to it. But we don't have anywhere to hide, except maybe the Precursor buildings, they seem to repel that ooze. But my village didn't have any that are still intact."

"Your village?"

"Nithana. Fancy name for a few huts on the edge of a desert, so most people just call it, well, Desert. It's even further to the north than here, beyond those mountains." Jak wondered how she had managed to get this far south, then pushed it out of his mind. Life stories could come later.

"So, where are the others?"

"Not far. I'll take you to them, if you want, on one condition."

Jak sighed. "It had better not be that I have to give you ninety Precursor Orbs, because I'm very, very sick of doing that."

Mir laughed. She had a nice laugh. "No, no, it's nothing like that. It's just. you know the area around here pretty well, right?

Daxter smirked. "We've been running around like lunatics searching for every Power Cell we can get our hands on for the past fortnight."

"I did the running, you just complained and tried to con people into giving us more than one."

Daxter waved this fact aside. "Well, regardless, Jak here could take you from Sandover to Volcanic Crater in less than a day."

Mir looked pleased. "So, you know how to get into and what's inside all the Precursor buildings and stuff?"

Jak muttered darkly, recalling all too well a certain vicious plant that resided inside the Forbidden Jungle. "Yes."

"Great!" Mir clapped her hands in joy. "So, my condition is, if I take you to meet the others, you have to find us a hiding place - one made of Precursor metal, and defendable, and have more than one way in or out. If you can find us one of those, I'll take you to see them. Agreed?"

Jak thought it over. He really wanted to find Keira. But he didn't really have any idea where she was, and the fight with the Lurker had made him realize that he would probably need help. And besides, he knew just the hiding place. "Deal."

"All right. Oh, and one last thing."

"What?"

"You like your hair the length it is, don't you?"

Very confused, Jak said, "Yes."

"Well, then duck!"

Jak threw himself to the ground, just as a dagger flew over his head.

(Gleam is laid out on a table, still giggling insanely. Kyren runs on screen holding a bottle of coke.)

Kyren: Straw!

Shalashaska: Check! (hands her a plastic straw.)

Kyren: Coaster!

Shalashaska: Check! (hands her a 'Wrath of Cortex' CD)

Kyren: Dual Shock Controller!

Shalashaska: (snatches it off Vader, who growls and tries to take it back) Check!

Kyren: (placing it on Gleam's stomach) Clear! (presses the X button. Controller vibrates.)

Vader: (trying to grab the controller) Hey! I wasn't done with that!

Kyren: (glaring at him) Do you want Gleam to regain her mind so she can finish this fic?

Vader: (sulkily) Yeah.

Kyren: So, stop playing Splinter Cell and help! (glances at camera) Sorry about the cliffhanger, but we're trying to prevent her brain from being sucked into the abyss. It'll all make sense in the next chapter, OK? (looks back at Gleam*) If we can save her brain. Reviews may be her only hope!

*Yes, we know dire is spelt wrong. It's supposed to be that way, okay? So no complaints about broken spellcheckers. If you look hard enough, there is an explanation for it, (kinda) and all (well, some, anyway) will be revealed in the next chapter.