When I Grow Up
By Necralis and Vader
- @ -
Necralis: Ooh. Three reviews. How encouraging. But...I'll continue anyway, just because they were all GOOD reviews, which means some people like my fic. That's as good excuse as any. Thank you, people! Oh, and Kokono: It's so nice to see another Jhonen-slave. Huzzah for Zim and Nny!
Vader: And...just curious, why were you quoting Vexx? Everyone knows what a horrible g-mph!
Necralis: *with her hand over Vader's mouth* Don't talk to him about games. Microsoft's mind conditioning hasn't worn off yet. He still tries to advertise Blinx sometimes...
Vader: *fighting out of Necralis's arms* Anyway, pertaining to her insanity, she's been like that ever since...well, ever. Psychologists speculate what caused it. No-one has ever figured it out, and the theories are getting wilder and wilder...
Necralis: The ones involving jam were yummy.
Vader: ...so uh...please do not compliment her. You'll encourage her. You don't want to encourage her to do anything, except write this story.
Necralis: Which means you VOO! This here chapter delves into Miala's head a bit more than we have been... I mean, what motivated her to want to capture Jak so badly? Also, if everything goes as planned, this should be the escaping-from-the-mine chapter, so uh...we can progress a little more. Enjoy!
**DISCLAIMER** *sigh* one of these days I WILL own Naughty Dog, and the rest of this world too, and then I will give you people the right to cancel out these damn things in return for unquestioning obedience. But until then, I still have to say it: I don't own anything about Jak II, not the characters, not the story, not the locations. Just Miala. Oh, AND the techie, except for his looks. I'll explain that someday... Things in /these/ marks are flash backs, ok?
Plot belongs to me. Steal it and expect to be hung from a ceiling fan by your vital bits or hit with a whopping great lawsuit. Or just shouted at. I get to pick. Comprendè?
- ~ -
Chapter 5
Dark Jak laughed softly as he strolled almost lazily towards her. It sounded like fingernails on slate. Miala clawed madly at the door, her heart fluttering like a bird's, adrenaline saturating her system to the point where all thought flew in the face of terror, and she launched herself sideways in response to instinct just as his claws rammed through the blank metal where she had been a second earlier.
That turned out to be a godsend...Jak had jammed his claws in there so hard, he was now stuck. Leaving him pulling madly, snarling in fury as he watched her get away, she ran, slipping and skidding on the blood-slick floor, trying hard not to glance at the...bits of the Guards who had tried to go against her pursuer. She vaulted over a conveyer belt and scrambled up a ladder as with a noise like a dagger unsheathing Dark Jak ripped his claws out of their niche in the door and came ravening after her... her boots pounded on the metal catwalk as her eyes darted wildly, searching...searching for an escape route...no matter where it led...
Like the answer to a prayer, she spotted a smallish metal grate about a meter up the wall. Facilities needed people, and people needed air, and for air you needed vents, a common flaw in security. If she was fast enough, she might just be able to get inside before her demonic former comrade ripped her to shreds...
He was gaining...drawing her Pinger, she fired three quick shots on the run. The grate bent, crumpled, then disintegrated completely – one quick escape, ready for use.
One truly incredible fear assisted feat of acrobatics later, she had pulled herself into the space, noting with utter joy that the hole wasn't wide enough for him to get through. Miala was about to slump against the wall of the vent in relief when a pale, clawed hand shot into the hole and fell just short of her foot, gouging scores in the metal. That drove her straight up the notches in the wall and into the system proper, until she felt she was far enough away to relax.
"Shit..." she muttered, leaning against the wall until her heart rate returned to a speed where she could tell the individual beats apart.
'I'll never, EVER dispute a bar story again,' she thought to herself.
The adrenaline was gone now, leaving her drained, empty...tired. She let herself slump forward, too hollow to resist. As her head dropped onto her chest, she let her mind drift back to another frantic time, another twist of loyalty, another narrow escape.
Another betrayal of trust.
Her lips unconsciously formed the word "Daddy..." as she stared at the feather tattoos on her hands, the intricate design shifting before her eyes.
And suddenly she felt much younger.
- * -
/Home.
It had once been home.
Not any more though, not with her parents gone. It still looked exactly the same of course – a rather cramped looking apartment set apart from the hundreds of other identical apartments by a number and a feeling. That was it.
But now the feeling was gone.
"We'll have to stay here, Mia," the dark-haired man standing beside her stated.
She turned to stare at him. His face, familiar as the sun itself, bore a startling resemblance to her own – clearly showing they were brother and sister.
"But...with Mum and Dad..."
"We have to stay here," he repeated, flicking through a set of card keys with his fingers. Fingers tattooed with a lizard scale pattern the same way she had the feathers of a bird. "We got nowhere else to go, and anyway, I can't afford the rates on a hotel."
She tried to smile at the feeble joke, but found her eyes watering instead. Their father and mother had both died defending the city against the Metal Heads more than a month ago, but it still hurt. It hurt so badly she wanted to scream. To scream and scream and never stop, so that she wouldn't have to face living with the huge hole inside herself they had left behind.
Her throat tightened. Hot tears started to run down her cheeks.
"Hey, hey sis. Don't cry. I hate it when you cry." Her brother held her face in his hands and made her face him. "I miss them too. But you have to hold on, ok? You'll see them again. And I'm still here, right?"
"You're not them..." she said thickly.
"Oh, now that's not fair. Here, have a tissue. Your nose is running." He smiled. "See?" He struck a pose. "Matriarch and patriarch all in one!" He sobered. "Look, Mia, I can't say it doesn't hurt. Damn, it hurts me too. But you can't give up, ok? You gotta keep living. Promise?"
Miala blew her nose. "Yeah...I promise. Do you promise too?"
He hugged her. "That's right, Mia, I'll keep on trucking. Just like you, eh?"
She managed to smile. "Just like you."
"We'll take down those Metal Heads! You and me, right?"
"Right..."
"That's the spirit! Us two together! Make Mum and Dad proud, right?"
Make them proud...
He had no idea how much it meant to her. Or maybe he did...and that was why he said it. Whatever the reason, those words started to repeat themselves inside her head. /
Gotta make them proud...
/There was a whirl of colours and suddenly it was a few months later and she was watching her brother get dragged into a Hell Cat Cruiser. He was not yelling or begging like some of the other crooks. He stood up straight with all the dignity he could muster, though he did stretch to flipping the bird to the guard that was leading him before being shoved roughly into the Cruiser.
She remembered a shorter, chubbier, angry teenage girl running up to the Guards and shrieking that he was innocent; she had seen what had happened, he'd been trying to persuade them against trying to rip off the weapons. But they ignored her, one of the Guards dragging her aside and delivering a firm whack with the butt of his gun that left her sprawled and senseless on the ground.
She scrambled to her feet, just in time to watch the Cruiser rev away in a cloud of dust, succeeding in catching a final glimpse of her brother – mouthing 'Keep on trucking' through the back window before he was yanked backwards by the collar and the Cruiser vanished around the corner, leaving the girl alone with her tears./
Then there was final dream – nightmare - the one she always dreaded, the one she tried desperately to wake herself up from but never ever succeeding.
/She had come home from work – the freakishly tedious fruit picking she hated, but needed to survive – to find her old home surrounded by Guards, marking it out in red-striped tape.
She remembered demanding to know what the hell was going on, and she remembered the commanding officer – A man with spiky orange hair dressed in a racing suit, with an insectoid mask pulled back from his face, oozing authority and contempt – telling her to vacate the area, that this place was condemned due to the suspected presence of Underground rebels.
She remembered telling him exactly what she thought of this, and being hit across the face for it.
"What that MEANS, you little filth, is you stay the hell out of my way and go back to drinking or crying or whatever it is you little girls do."
She might well have attempted to strangle him right there if, right at that moment, the first explosion had not occurred, a ball of orange fire blossoming out of her home and shattering the windows. Seconds later, she could do nothing but watch as a second gout of flame reduced the apartment to nothing but rubble, destroying all she had left of her life, her possessions... her family.
The Guards watched passively, some even whistling at the impressiveness of the explosion, then packed up and left her kneeling, head bowed, on the cracked pavement of Haven City, unable to do anything but watch the remaining fires smolder until they were nothing but smoke and the last streaks of bloody sunlight had faded from the sky./
You didn't make them proud, useless little filth...
You have to...
Can't nap on duty, daddy...
Proud...
"SHIT!" she yelled as she tried to throw herself upright, succeeding only in bashing her skull against the top of the vent. For a second the world spun then she remembered where she was and rolled over onto her stomach.
Always those words, those dreams, whenever she was tired or sad. Going around and around inside her head. Reminding her of the brother she missed. And her parents. Mocking her failures.
Failing to save her parents. Failing to prevent the arrest of her brother. Failing to even get to the bottom of Metal Head attack. Failing to save the last remnant of her old life when the KG Commander Erol blew it sky-high.
Failing, failing, failing. Damn was she tired of failing. And running. Cowardice had never been encouraged it her family.
Always, she cried in those dreams, but not in real life. Not anymore. She'd wasted her tears on her parents and her brother, leaving only fury instead. She had known perfectly well that one girl against an entire police force were very, very long odds, so instead of trying to kill the Guards...she had decided to disgrace them, by catching a guy they'd been chasing for months.
Make them proud...
"Might as well see where this leads..." she muttered to herself, trying to get that phrase and the memories of fire out of her head. She pulled herself forward on her elbows, trying to ignore the headache pounding between her temples.
It took around five minutes of crawling and another three of climbing before she found the way out...another grate, surprisingly enough. She pushed it outwards, wincing as it clanged against the floor, then dropped catlike to the floor outside the vent and surveyed the room she found herself in.
Computer flashed and dweeped from every wall...large surveillance screens loomed from the panels, most showing Jak beating the living hell out of the remaining guards. The place had more buttons than an airplane control panel, including a rather large red button. Miala had to fight the urge to press it.
"Cool..." here she would be able to pull up the blueprints of this place, hopefully showing how to successfully blow the crap out of this god- forsaken facility. She raced up to the nearest computer, pressed a few keys, and within seconds was facing a password screen.
Her shoulders slumped.
"Shit," she growled. Miala was no hacker. Neither was Jak, if the stealth thing was anything to go by. She couldn't think of anyone capable of hacking this who was close at hand. All the KG in the mine were being pounded into the ground outside, anyway they probably wouldn't have the clearance for this thing. It was the way the Baron worked – don't tell the mugs anything.
As she wavered uncertainly in front of the computer, her long, pointed ears picked up a frightened whimper behind her. She whirled in time to snag the jacket of the skinny man who'd been attempting an escape through the door. Dragging him around, she grabbed the front of his jacket and hefted him into the air, scowling into his face.
He faced her, glasses askew, gabbling in fear. Miala looked him up and down. Skinny, glasses, no armor, one gun. He was no KG - he had to be the foreman of this thing...the head honcho...that meant high-level security clearance. The green haired girl again drew her weapon, cocking it at point blank range.
He eyed it fearfully. "How...how did you get in? I locked it down..."
She smirked. "Funny thing about security, you know. Building big doors half a mile thick. All very impressive looking, but you gotta remember that people can fit through smaller spaces than you'd think." She jerked her head towards the open vent.
"I won't co-operate," he said bluntly.
"How do you know that, Poindexter?" Miala said sardonically, trying to pretend she knew what she was doing.
"You can't get into it...you need me to enter the password..." He said, eyes darting around for some method of escape. It was kind of funny, watching him gabble.
Miala raised an eyebrow. "Pretty damn brave of you, standing up to an intruder without a gun," she pointed out.
The red headed man snarled, whisking his blaster out of the holster. "I wouldn't say that!"
She grabbed his wrist and squeezed it until the blaster fell out of his nerveless fingers. "Really?" she replied calmly, picking it up and tucking it into her pouch. "I would. Although you're right. I do need you. Briefly."
His hands fell to his sides. A shrewd look appeared in his eyes. Could he turn the situation to his advantage?
"Oh, don't look so hopeful, Poindexter. I am not in the mood for haggling. Here's the deal. You hack that there console-" Miala nodded towards the screen showing the 'Enter Password' panel – "And I don't ventilate your skull."
"And what makes you think I won't just call in reinforcements?" he said shrewdly...and rather foolishly.
"You see those screens, tech-man?"
He nodded.
"You see that white-looking guy ripping up your troops?"
Again he nodded, sweat beading his brow.
The girl gave him a wolfish smile. "Guess what happened to the last guy who called in reinforcements."
He swallowed, his mind racing around and getting nowhere.
"So..." said Miala, gesturing expansively with her gun. "Do we have a deal?" Inside, her mind was yelling. 'Do you think threatening some idiot techie's going to make your heart stop hurting? Do you think that this mission is going to redeem you? You think that Eco-Freak is going to help you? You're a fool! A weak, cowardly, naïve little fool...' She shook her head and forced it to the back of her mind. Jak promised. He had promised...
"We ...have a deal," the techie muttered, looking surly.
"What was that?"
"I said I'll do it!" He pulled angrily against the grip she had on his jacket. "I need to get to the console."
"Sure thing, Poindexter." She let go of his jacket and shoved him towards the computer. "But do please be quick. I need the blueprints of this fucking place, a plan, a map. Anything like that. And any funny stuff..." she didn't finish the sentence, but the coldness in her silver eyes was eloquent enough.
The techie gave her one last glance, filled with distilled hatred. Then he started typing at the keyboard.
- * -
When Jak came to himself, he was surrounded. By corpses. Lots of them. Wincing, he pulled himself upright, trying not to look at the man right next to him who'd had his mask bashed off, his face savaged beyond all recognition.
This Dark Jak rampage was bad. This one would give him nightmares - next time he actually got the chance to sleep. Not a good thing. Not when Praxis had labeled you as a Public Enemy. Jak felt like he should feel some sense of victory. After all, he hated the Guards more than anything else in the world. But instead of some dark satisfaction, all he felt was exhaustion.
True...they were KG. As stupid and hypocritical as the Baron they served. But not all of them were bastards...Ashlin and Torn (sorta...) were cases in point.
But until he got his hands on Praxis, they were the only things on which he could vent his rage. After he'd done that...well, then he would forgive them for their idiocy. He might even apologize for decimating their ranks so severely that the Baron had started drafting anyone who protested.
But first he would get his own revenge...everything else was just an afterthought.
Getting slowly to his feet, he winced slightly at how drained he felt. Always, after he went Dark Jak, he would feel exhausted for hours afterwards...it seemed to suck away his last reserves of energy.
"Oh, shit, where's that crazy girl got to?" he said suddenly, looking around the aftermath. The last time he'd seen Miala, she'd been looking at him with concern. He completely lost self-awareness in his dark form...suppose he'd killed her?
Damn it, he'd never had trouble like this with Daxter – the ottsel had never had to run away in the middle of a fire-fight, being relatively safe on his companion's shoulder. Having a partner who could move separately brought on a whole new list of problems and consequences – such as losing them in a fight.
Frantically he searched among the smoking, mangled bodies of the Guard. It was stomach-churning work, but he could deal...he seen (and done) much worse in his time. She wasn't there. That meant she'd been smart enough to run...which was a relief, he supposed. Although she probably wouldn't want anything to do with him now. People feared monsters.
"Hey, girl! Miala!" he called, wondering if she had not simply deserted him in the middle of this facility. He sincerely hoped she wasn't that cowardly.
His eyes traveled across the walls, searching for some clue, a door, a window, something. The entrance they'd used was as solidly shut as ever... however, there were footprints. A trail of red footprints, running from the door to a ladder. Climbing it led him to a thin bridge across the chamber, then to a tiny vent in the wall. The hatch had been blown off, and there were deep claw marks in the vent itself...
Well, now he knew where she'd gone. For all the good it did him. He couldn't follow her, as he was surprised that someone with even her slim build could get in there – he certainly didn't have a chance. He didn't even know where the vent led.
Suddenly it hit him and he whacked himself in the head in frustration at his own slow wits. The communicator. He had forgotten all about the communicator.
He pulled out the tiny com and, after a second's muttering numbers, tuned it to Miala's frequency, hit 'call' and waited.
The thing crackled for a second, then Miala's voice came over the line, broken by static and sounding annoyed.
"Girl in Green here."
'Good grief.' "You can stop with the fucking codenames, Miala, you know who I am."
"Mar's Ass, haven't you ever heard of a little something called 'Style'?"
Jak shook his head; hardly able to believe he had actually WORRIED about this girl for even a second. "No, and I couldn't care less. Where the hell are you?"
There was a pause.
"Miala? Still talking?"
"I'm trying to decide whether I should tell you." Abruptly her voice changed, losing her joking tone, sounding icy cold, maybe even a little afraid. "After all, I don't want some crazed Eco-Freak ripping me apart."
"Son of a-!" Jak exclaimed, glaring at the radio. What had he done to deserve being saddled with her? "Shit, I should have seen this coming."
"I don't CARE what you should have SEEN, I want to know what you should have TOLD ME. You know, little things like the fact that you can turn into some weird thing that tried to KILL ME and can't be shot, restrained or controlled?" Her tone was sarcastic, angry – obviously she had had quite a run in with his demonic alter ego.
Jak took a deep breath, paced back and forth a few steps, wondering how to explain it. "Ok," he began, "You remember when I told you that Praxis arrested me and did some weird Dark Eco experiments?"
The com was silent for a second. "Yeah, now that you mention it. Did that have something to do with it?"
"That had everything to do with it. He'd been doing that to a whole bunch of prisoners before me, only I was the only one to survive it."
He didn't explain why that was. He didn't know himself. No one did.
"I didn't even know about it until I...changed...for the first time. What you saw...that was me...only I can't think or anything when I'm like that. Sometimes it feels like another mind inside mine, only it sort of...wakes up whenever I'm angry, or tired. So I change."
There was silence for a long time.
"That's pretty damn bizarre," Miala said unnecessarily.
"Yeah. I hate it."
"But can you control it?"
Jak hesitated before answering. "No. I can't. But I've run out of charge now, so I guess I'll be safe for a while. Until I find some more Eco."
"So...I guess I can tell you where I am? Without having to worry about...the thingy?"
Jak felt a faint ripple of anger. Did she think he was some kind of rabid monster? "We call it Dark Jak. Yeah, I'm safe. Unless you're afraid I'll shoot you when I find you because you think I'm still trying to kill you."
He could almost hear her wince. "Ok, I deserved that. Sorry. I'm in the Techie Box. With," she added proudly (and evilly), "the techie."
Jak could feel a crooked smile curving up his face. "He co-operative?"
"Oh yes." She finally sounded like she had forgotten about Dark Jak. "Very obliging. In fact he's getting the blue prints right now. ISN'T he?" she added, obviously to the techie.
"Yes," she said happily to Jak. "He's being co-operative."
"Cool. I'll be up there in a sec, just gotta figure out how to get there. Oh, and Miala..."
"Sure thing. See you in while. Girl in Green, out." The com clicked loudly.
"Nice work," Jak muttered too late.
- * -
"Five minutes, Poindexter," Miala said to the techie, as she slid her com into her pouch. "Hurry it up."
He shot her a dangerous look before tapping a few more keys, standing back and saying, "There, it's done, this is the map of this facility and the blueprints. Can I go now?"
Se didn't bother answering him, crossing the room to glare at the screen, keeping her gun trained on the man in case he got any ideas.
The map was a matrix of green lines on black, outlining the structure of the mine and a fair chunk of the ground it was built on. As she'd thought, it was dug deep into the forest floor, allowing them to hollow out as much as they liked without worrying about running out of space.
She switched to the blueprints, noting with a demonic smile the structure of the place – it had one large pillar in the middle for support. Take out that pillar, and the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Of course, it was solid titanium...you would need something really, REALLY powerful to take it apart...
"Damn it, Miala, I leave you alone for half an hour and already you're holding someone else at gunpoint," someone said behind her. She turned.
"Hey," Jak said, leaning against the doorframe. Miala stared incredulously for a second.
"How did you...? I thought that door was supposed to be locked," the techie said, suddenly forgetting that there was a gun barrel inches from his face.
"You shut up," Jak said to him. "What's that? The blueprints?" he elbowed Miala aside, ignoring her cry of "Hey!".
"Okay...fairly standard set up...nothing I can't take apart..."
"Uh...with what, exactly? Those bombs you had..."
"Pleco bombs. Short for Plasmite and Eco. The most...second most powerful bomb in the world. I got two of 'em." Jak said with a twisted grin.
"BOMBS?!? You want to blow this place UP?!?" the techie screeched, suddenly cottoning on. "You can't do that! What abo-" abruptly he was silenced by the barrel of Jak's blaster.
"We need to get to the bottom of this place, quickly. I'm sick of it already. I'll set the bombs – I know how to do it – and you..." Jak frowned at Miala. "You make sure someone doesn't decide to blast my butt."
"What'll we do with this wuss?" Miala said, jerking her head in the direction of the techie.
Jak looked him up and down, coolly assessing him with his hard blue eyes. "Leave him. But if he wants to try anything, we might have to tie him up first."
The techie got the hint.
Miala smiled brightly. "Let's make things go boom now."
Jak groaned. "Sweet Mar, your lines are worse than Daxter's."
- * -
Jak gave the cylinder in his hands a sharp twist. It popped open with a 'scer-chink' noise, revealing the timer, the setting controls and a button marked, very clearly, 'ARM'. There was no disarming button. Krew liked things done right the first time.
"How much time?" Miala asked as she scanned the chamber.
"I'm thinking...five minutes," Jak said, keying it in. "And please don't distract me, unless you want to end up with five seconds instead."
She apologized and shut up. Jak twisted the other bomb open and set it in place next to the first, ready for calibration. He keyed in 5:00 and pressed the 'set' button.
The display flickered. Then it lit up with the numbers:
1:00
Jak frowned. It must be faulty. He pressed 'reset' and entered in 5:00.
Again it lit up: 1:00.
Now that was strange. Krew's bombs were the best in Haven – they were not supposed to fail more than once. He reset it and entered in five minutes a third time.
This time, instead of just showing the numbers, the bomb emitted a loud and insistent beep. And the display lit up with the numbers...then started flicking backwards.
1:00
0:59
0:58
Oh shit.
The bomb had armed itself. And there was no disarm.
Krew. He had set Jak up. He had long suspected the weapons dealer had been trying to kill him quietly...
'Well, Jak, now you got proof,' his brain said snidely.
Oh SHIT...
"Miala..."
"Yeah, blondey?"
0:55
0:54
0:53
"This thing was locked. At one minute. And now it's armed itself."
There was a very brief silence, broken only by the bomb's beeping.
Jak decided that standing about was not the smartest thing in the world. Pausing only to grab the frozen Miala's arm (she'd been staring at the bombs with almost comical disbelief) he dragged her towards the door, blasting the lock instead of trying to hack it.
Amazingly, it actually opened – the techie might have unlocked on his way out – and Miala and Jak pounded down the steel corridor, all too aware that the bomb's beeping was getting faster...
0:46
0:45
0:44
The second door was closed. Jak lifted his gun, fired at the lock then swore very loudly as the bullet rebounded off its armor and pinged around the walls.
Miala ran forward and started trying to unscrew the panel, fumbling in her panic. As it clanged to the floor, Jak glanced back the way they had come, urging her on with his mind while keeping track of the precious passing seconds.
0:31
0:30
0:29
Connecting and disconnecting sparking wires, Miala yelped as a spark of Eco* zapped her hand, then kicked it viciously. She gasped in utter astonishment as the door opened wide...no time for speculation...the duo leapt through the door and continued the race against time.
0:23
0:22
0:21
A few meters away from the entrance and Miala tripped and fell...Jak didn't hesitate, but grabbed her hand and almost dragged her after him. They squeezed through the gap in the door and raced up the steep slope...
0:11
0:10
0:09
They had to be far away. There was no knowing how big the blast would be. The other bomb had only had a few grams...and the radius for that one had been huge...
0:02
0:01
0:00
And then the bombs went off.
BOOOOMKEERRRAAASH!
A huge ball of orange flame blew out of the top of the mine. Flames were scattered for hundreds of feet, curling up tree trunks and racing across grassy clearings.
The entire facility imploded, its supports gone, every single pillar blowing out in an instant. It simply collapsed like a house of cards, each level crashing through the one below it, destroying a third in turn.
The debris was scattered for kilometers.
Jak collapsed thankfully on the ground.
"Well," he croaked. "That was-"
And then the SECOND explosion went off.
A spectacular sphere of white-hot brilliance bloomed, incinerating the entire mine in an instant, the metal snapping and popping and expanding within milliseconds. Tendrils of white snaked through the grass, sizzling, then shrinking away to leave ugly brown scars against the green.
A second huge ball of white bloomed – this one larger than a football field, completely engulfing the tendrils and the little remaining debris.
To say that the sound was ear splitting was an understatement. It was monstrous.
The dazzling onslaught continued for only seconds – but it seemed like an eternity – then the brilliance died down, leaving a crater like a chasm in the ground.
The silence was deafening after the noise.
There was only one phrase you could use to describe a sight like that. And Miala used it.
"Sweet Precursors."
- ~ -
Necralis: And THAT finally concludes the Mine Saga that was only meant to take up one chapter. Instead it took up two – one of them the longest I have ever written.
Vader: She can't adhere to her own limits. Useless.
Necralis: *collapses face down* Now THAT chapter took it out of me. It carries elements from many things, such as Douglas Adams' works and Matthew Reilly's action brilliance, particularly in the explosions. I love them – they sometimes help me structure my writing better.
Vader: *screeches* THEIF! PLAGIRIST!
Necralis: *panicky* No, no, I'm not! They just inspire me! I was gonna have an explosion LONG before I read 'Contest'! It just helped me describe it! *wails* Oh my head. I've being at my computer for ALMOST MY WHOLE DAY! I hope you people are happy!
Vader: See! *points* She is WEAK! Rise up and vanquish her!
Necralis: No, no, just review. I don't want to be vanquished today – it just wouldn't be a battle. Not when I have a headache.
Vader: Yeah... I guess. Well, That leaves it up to you people to review, please, and restore her to her former craziness. Then she will update.
Necralis: Yeah. What he said. Now I must bid you sayonara... Have fun reviewing...
* Now, my loyal readers, time for some explanations. The first, pertaining to swearwords. I have noticed that when phrases like 'Thank God' and 'Oh my God' need to be used, they are instead replaced with things like 'Thank Mar' and 'By the Precursors'. This actually makes sense, since they are from an entirely different world, so they wouldn't believe in God – the Precursors and Mar are the closest they get. So, I invented a few of my own swearwords, including 'Mar's Arse' (I'm weird, shoot me:P), 'Sweet Precursors' although I think that one's been used, and 'Sweet Mar'. They make sense in the context.
Vader: *cutting in* And since she's too incompetent to even tie her shoes, I'll do the next one. Well, as you know, Eco is the source of power in Jak's world, so she invented the idea that Jak's 'channeling' abilities might be like being able to stream electricity through your body without getting hurt. So, anyone who touches Blue Eco without hose abilities will get a nasty shock – like touching a bare wire. This also appears in 'Darkened Paths', so yeah – here it is, finally explained.
Necralis: Ciao...
By Necralis and Vader
- @ -
Necralis: Ooh. Three reviews. How encouraging. But...I'll continue anyway, just because they were all GOOD reviews, which means some people like my fic. That's as good excuse as any. Thank you, people! Oh, and Kokono: It's so nice to see another Jhonen-slave. Huzzah for Zim and Nny!
Vader: And...just curious, why were you quoting Vexx? Everyone knows what a horrible g-mph!
Necralis: *with her hand over Vader's mouth* Don't talk to him about games. Microsoft's mind conditioning hasn't worn off yet. He still tries to advertise Blinx sometimes...
Vader: *fighting out of Necralis's arms* Anyway, pertaining to her insanity, she's been like that ever since...well, ever. Psychologists speculate what caused it. No-one has ever figured it out, and the theories are getting wilder and wilder...
Necralis: The ones involving jam were yummy.
Vader: ...so uh...please do not compliment her. You'll encourage her. You don't want to encourage her to do anything, except write this story.
Necralis: Which means you VOO! This here chapter delves into Miala's head a bit more than we have been... I mean, what motivated her to want to capture Jak so badly? Also, if everything goes as planned, this should be the escaping-from-the-mine chapter, so uh...we can progress a little more. Enjoy!
**DISCLAIMER** *sigh* one of these days I WILL own Naughty Dog, and the rest of this world too, and then I will give you people the right to cancel out these damn things in return for unquestioning obedience. But until then, I still have to say it: I don't own anything about Jak II, not the characters, not the story, not the locations. Just Miala. Oh, AND the techie, except for his looks. I'll explain that someday... Things in /these/ marks are flash backs, ok?
Plot belongs to me. Steal it and expect to be hung from a ceiling fan by your vital bits or hit with a whopping great lawsuit. Or just shouted at. I get to pick. Comprendè?
- ~ -
Chapter 5
Dark Jak laughed softly as he strolled almost lazily towards her. It sounded like fingernails on slate. Miala clawed madly at the door, her heart fluttering like a bird's, adrenaline saturating her system to the point where all thought flew in the face of terror, and she launched herself sideways in response to instinct just as his claws rammed through the blank metal where she had been a second earlier.
That turned out to be a godsend...Jak had jammed his claws in there so hard, he was now stuck. Leaving him pulling madly, snarling in fury as he watched her get away, she ran, slipping and skidding on the blood-slick floor, trying hard not to glance at the...bits of the Guards who had tried to go against her pursuer. She vaulted over a conveyer belt and scrambled up a ladder as with a noise like a dagger unsheathing Dark Jak ripped his claws out of their niche in the door and came ravening after her... her boots pounded on the metal catwalk as her eyes darted wildly, searching...searching for an escape route...no matter where it led...
Like the answer to a prayer, she spotted a smallish metal grate about a meter up the wall. Facilities needed people, and people needed air, and for air you needed vents, a common flaw in security. If she was fast enough, she might just be able to get inside before her demonic former comrade ripped her to shreds...
He was gaining...drawing her Pinger, she fired three quick shots on the run. The grate bent, crumpled, then disintegrated completely – one quick escape, ready for use.
One truly incredible fear assisted feat of acrobatics later, she had pulled herself into the space, noting with utter joy that the hole wasn't wide enough for him to get through. Miala was about to slump against the wall of the vent in relief when a pale, clawed hand shot into the hole and fell just short of her foot, gouging scores in the metal. That drove her straight up the notches in the wall and into the system proper, until she felt she was far enough away to relax.
"Shit..." she muttered, leaning against the wall until her heart rate returned to a speed where she could tell the individual beats apart.
'I'll never, EVER dispute a bar story again,' she thought to herself.
The adrenaline was gone now, leaving her drained, empty...tired. She let herself slump forward, too hollow to resist. As her head dropped onto her chest, she let her mind drift back to another frantic time, another twist of loyalty, another narrow escape.
Another betrayal of trust.
Her lips unconsciously formed the word "Daddy..." as she stared at the feather tattoos on her hands, the intricate design shifting before her eyes.
And suddenly she felt much younger.
- * -
/Home.
It had once been home.
Not any more though, not with her parents gone. It still looked exactly the same of course – a rather cramped looking apartment set apart from the hundreds of other identical apartments by a number and a feeling. That was it.
But now the feeling was gone.
"We'll have to stay here, Mia," the dark-haired man standing beside her stated.
She turned to stare at him. His face, familiar as the sun itself, bore a startling resemblance to her own – clearly showing they were brother and sister.
"But...with Mum and Dad..."
"We have to stay here," he repeated, flicking through a set of card keys with his fingers. Fingers tattooed with a lizard scale pattern the same way she had the feathers of a bird. "We got nowhere else to go, and anyway, I can't afford the rates on a hotel."
She tried to smile at the feeble joke, but found her eyes watering instead. Their father and mother had both died defending the city against the Metal Heads more than a month ago, but it still hurt. It hurt so badly she wanted to scream. To scream and scream and never stop, so that she wouldn't have to face living with the huge hole inside herself they had left behind.
Her throat tightened. Hot tears started to run down her cheeks.
"Hey, hey sis. Don't cry. I hate it when you cry." Her brother held her face in his hands and made her face him. "I miss them too. But you have to hold on, ok? You'll see them again. And I'm still here, right?"
"You're not them..." she said thickly.
"Oh, now that's not fair. Here, have a tissue. Your nose is running." He smiled. "See?" He struck a pose. "Matriarch and patriarch all in one!" He sobered. "Look, Mia, I can't say it doesn't hurt. Damn, it hurts me too. But you can't give up, ok? You gotta keep living. Promise?"
Miala blew her nose. "Yeah...I promise. Do you promise too?"
He hugged her. "That's right, Mia, I'll keep on trucking. Just like you, eh?"
She managed to smile. "Just like you."
"We'll take down those Metal Heads! You and me, right?"
"Right..."
"That's the spirit! Us two together! Make Mum and Dad proud, right?"
Make them proud...
He had no idea how much it meant to her. Or maybe he did...and that was why he said it. Whatever the reason, those words started to repeat themselves inside her head. /
Gotta make them proud...
/There was a whirl of colours and suddenly it was a few months later and she was watching her brother get dragged into a Hell Cat Cruiser. He was not yelling or begging like some of the other crooks. He stood up straight with all the dignity he could muster, though he did stretch to flipping the bird to the guard that was leading him before being shoved roughly into the Cruiser.
She remembered a shorter, chubbier, angry teenage girl running up to the Guards and shrieking that he was innocent; she had seen what had happened, he'd been trying to persuade them against trying to rip off the weapons. But they ignored her, one of the Guards dragging her aside and delivering a firm whack with the butt of his gun that left her sprawled and senseless on the ground.
She scrambled to her feet, just in time to watch the Cruiser rev away in a cloud of dust, succeeding in catching a final glimpse of her brother – mouthing 'Keep on trucking' through the back window before he was yanked backwards by the collar and the Cruiser vanished around the corner, leaving the girl alone with her tears./
Then there was final dream – nightmare - the one she always dreaded, the one she tried desperately to wake herself up from but never ever succeeding.
/She had come home from work – the freakishly tedious fruit picking she hated, but needed to survive – to find her old home surrounded by Guards, marking it out in red-striped tape.
She remembered demanding to know what the hell was going on, and she remembered the commanding officer – A man with spiky orange hair dressed in a racing suit, with an insectoid mask pulled back from his face, oozing authority and contempt – telling her to vacate the area, that this place was condemned due to the suspected presence of Underground rebels.
She remembered telling him exactly what she thought of this, and being hit across the face for it.
"What that MEANS, you little filth, is you stay the hell out of my way and go back to drinking or crying or whatever it is you little girls do."
She might well have attempted to strangle him right there if, right at that moment, the first explosion had not occurred, a ball of orange fire blossoming out of her home and shattering the windows. Seconds later, she could do nothing but watch as a second gout of flame reduced the apartment to nothing but rubble, destroying all she had left of her life, her possessions... her family.
The Guards watched passively, some even whistling at the impressiveness of the explosion, then packed up and left her kneeling, head bowed, on the cracked pavement of Haven City, unable to do anything but watch the remaining fires smolder until they were nothing but smoke and the last streaks of bloody sunlight had faded from the sky./
You didn't make them proud, useless little filth...
You have to...
Can't nap on duty, daddy...
Proud...
"SHIT!" she yelled as she tried to throw herself upright, succeeding only in bashing her skull against the top of the vent. For a second the world spun then she remembered where she was and rolled over onto her stomach.
Always those words, those dreams, whenever she was tired or sad. Going around and around inside her head. Reminding her of the brother she missed. And her parents. Mocking her failures.
Failing to save her parents. Failing to prevent the arrest of her brother. Failing to even get to the bottom of Metal Head attack. Failing to save the last remnant of her old life when the KG Commander Erol blew it sky-high.
Failing, failing, failing. Damn was she tired of failing. And running. Cowardice had never been encouraged it her family.
Always, she cried in those dreams, but not in real life. Not anymore. She'd wasted her tears on her parents and her brother, leaving only fury instead. She had known perfectly well that one girl against an entire police force were very, very long odds, so instead of trying to kill the Guards...she had decided to disgrace them, by catching a guy they'd been chasing for months.
Make them proud...
"Might as well see where this leads..." she muttered to herself, trying to get that phrase and the memories of fire out of her head. She pulled herself forward on her elbows, trying to ignore the headache pounding between her temples.
It took around five minutes of crawling and another three of climbing before she found the way out...another grate, surprisingly enough. She pushed it outwards, wincing as it clanged against the floor, then dropped catlike to the floor outside the vent and surveyed the room she found herself in.
Computer flashed and dweeped from every wall...large surveillance screens loomed from the panels, most showing Jak beating the living hell out of the remaining guards. The place had more buttons than an airplane control panel, including a rather large red button. Miala had to fight the urge to press it.
"Cool..." here she would be able to pull up the blueprints of this place, hopefully showing how to successfully blow the crap out of this god- forsaken facility. She raced up to the nearest computer, pressed a few keys, and within seconds was facing a password screen.
Her shoulders slumped.
"Shit," she growled. Miala was no hacker. Neither was Jak, if the stealth thing was anything to go by. She couldn't think of anyone capable of hacking this who was close at hand. All the KG in the mine were being pounded into the ground outside, anyway they probably wouldn't have the clearance for this thing. It was the way the Baron worked – don't tell the mugs anything.
As she wavered uncertainly in front of the computer, her long, pointed ears picked up a frightened whimper behind her. She whirled in time to snag the jacket of the skinny man who'd been attempting an escape through the door. Dragging him around, she grabbed the front of his jacket and hefted him into the air, scowling into his face.
He faced her, glasses askew, gabbling in fear. Miala looked him up and down. Skinny, glasses, no armor, one gun. He was no KG - he had to be the foreman of this thing...the head honcho...that meant high-level security clearance. The green haired girl again drew her weapon, cocking it at point blank range.
He eyed it fearfully. "How...how did you get in? I locked it down..."
She smirked. "Funny thing about security, you know. Building big doors half a mile thick. All very impressive looking, but you gotta remember that people can fit through smaller spaces than you'd think." She jerked her head towards the open vent.
"I won't co-operate," he said bluntly.
"How do you know that, Poindexter?" Miala said sardonically, trying to pretend she knew what she was doing.
"You can't get into it...you need me to enter the password..." He said, eyes darting around for some method of escape. It was kind of funny, watching him gabble.
Miala raised an eyebrow. "Pretty damn brave of you, standing up to an intruder without a gun," she pointed out.
The red headed man snarled, whisking his blaster out of the holster. "I wouldn't say that!"
She grabbed his wrist and squeezed it until the blaster fell out of his nerveless fingers. "Really?" she replied calmly, picking it up and tucking it into her pouch. "I would. Although you're right. I do need you. Briefly."
His hands fell to his sides. A shrewd look appeared in his eyes. Could he turn the situation to his advantage?
"Oh, don't look so hopeful, Poindexter. I am not in the mood for haggling. Here's the deal. You hack that there console-" Miala nodded towards the screen showing the 'Enter Password' panel – "And I don't ventilate your skull."
"And what makes you think I won't just call in reinforcements?" he said shrewdly...and rather foolishly.
"You see those screens, tech-man?"
He nodded.
"You see that white-looking guy ripping up your troops?"
Again he nodded, sweat beading his brow.
The girl gave him a wolfish smile. "Guess what happened to the last guy who called in reinforcements."
He swallowed, his mind racing around and getting nowhere.
"So..." said Miala, gesturing expansively with her gun. "Do we have a deal?" Inside, her mind was yelling. 'Do you think threatening some idiot techie's going to make your heart stop hurting? Do you think that this mission is going to redeem you? You think that Eco-Freak is going to help you? You're a fool! A weak, cowardly, naïve little fool...' She shook her head and forced it to the back of her mind. Jak promised. He had promised...
"We ...have a deal," the techie muttered, looking surly.
"What was that?"
"I said I'll do it!" He pulled angrily against the grip she had on his jacket. "I need to get to the console."
"Sure thing, Poindexter." She let go of his jacket and shoved him towards the computer. "But do please be quick. I need the blueprints of this fucking place, a plan, a map. Anything like that. And any funny stuff..." she didn't finish the sentence, but the coldness in her silver eyes was eloquent enough.
The techie gave her one last glance, filled with distilled hatred. Then he started typing at the keyboard.
- * -
When Jak came to himself, he was surrounded. By corpses. Lots of them. Wincing, he pulled himself upright, trying not to look at the man right next to him who'd had his mask bashed off, his face savaged beyond all recognition.
This Dark Jak rampage was bad. This one would give him nightmares - next time he actually got the chance to sleep. Not a good thing. Not when Praxis had labeled you as a Public Enemy. Jak felt like he should feel some sense of victory. After all, he hated the Guards more than anything else in the world. But instead of some dark satisfaction, all he felt was exhaustion.
True...they were KG. As stupid and hypocritical as the Baron they served. But not all of them were bastards...Ashlin and Torn (sorta...) were cases in point.
But until he got his hands on Praxis, they were the only things on which he could vent his rage. After he'd done that...well, then he would forgive them for their idiocy. He might even apologize for decimating their ranks so severely that the Baron had started drafting anyone who protested.
But first he would get his own revenge...everything else was just an afterthought.
Getting slowly to his feet, he winced slightly at how drained he felt. Always, after he went Dark Jak, he would feel exhausted for hours afterwards...it seemed to suck away his last reserves of energy.
"Oh, shit, where's that crazy girl got to?" he said suddenly, looking around the aftermath. The last time he'd seen Miala, she'd been looking at him with concern. He completely lost self-awareness in his dark form...suppose he'd killed her?
Damn it, he'd never had trouble like this with Daxter – the ottsel had never had to run away in the middle of a fire-fight, being relatively safe on his companion's shoulder. Having a partner who could move separately brought on a whole new list of problems and consequences – such as losing them in a fight.
Frantically he searched among the smoking, mangled bodies of the Guard. It was stomach-churning work, but he could deal...he seen (and done) much worse in his time. She wasn't there. That meant she'd been smart enough to run...which was a relief, he supposed. Although she probably wouldn't want anything to do with him now. People feared monsters.
"Hey, girl! Miala!" he called, wondering if she had not simply deserted him in the middle of this facility. He sincerely hoped she wasn't that cowardly.
His eyes traveled across the walls, searching for some clue, a door, a window, something. The entrance they'd used was as solidly shut as ever... however, there were footprints. A trail of red footprints, running from the door to a ladder. Climbing it led him to a thin bridge across the chamber, then to a tiny vent in the wall. The hatch had been blown off, and there were deep claw marks in the vent itself...
Well, now he knew where she'd gone. For all the good it did him. He couldn't follow her, as he was surprised that someone with even her slim build could get in there – he certainly didn't have a chance. He didn't even know where the vent led.
Suddenly it hit him and he whacked himself in the head in frustration at his own slow wits. The communicator. He had forgotten all about the communicator.
He pulled out the tiny com and, after a second's muttering numbers, tuned it to Miala's frequency, hit 'call' and waited.
The thing crackled for a second, then Miala's voice came over the line, broken by static and sounding annoyed.
"Girl in Green here."
'Good grief.' "You can stop with the fucking codenames, Miala, you know who I am."
"Mar's Ass, haven't you ever heard of a little something called 'Style'?"
Jak shook his head; hardly able to believe he had actually WORRIED about this girl for even a second. "No, and I couldn't care less. Where the hell are you?"
There was a pause.
"Miala? Still talking?"
"I'm trying to decide whether I should tell you." Abruptly her voice changed, losing her joking tone, sounding icy cold, maybe even a little afraid. "After all, I don't want some crazed Eco-Freak ripping me apart."
"Son of a-!" Jak exclaimed, glaring at the radio. What had he done to deserve being saddled with her? "Shit, I should have seen this coming."
"I don't CARE what you should have SEEN, I want to know what you should have TOLD ME. You know, little things like the fact that you can turn into some weird thing that tried to KILL ME and can't be shot, restrained or controlled?" Her tone was sarcastic, angry – obviously she had had quite a run in with his demonic alter ego.
Jak took a deep breath, paced back and forth a few steps, wondering how to explain it. "Ok," he began, "You remember when I told you that Praxis arrested me and did some weird Dark Eco experiments?"
The com was silent for a second. "Yeah, now that you mention it. Did that have something to do with it?"
"That had everything to do with it. He'd been doing that to a whole bunch of prisoners before me, only I was the only one to survive it."
He didn't explain why that was. He didn't know himself. No one did.
"I didn't even know about it until I...changed...for the first time. What you saw...that was me...only I can't think or anything when I'm like that. Sometimes it feels like another mind inside mine, only it sort of...wakes up whenever I'm angry, or tired. So I change."
There was silence for a long time.
"That's pretty damn bizarre," Miala said unnecessarily.
"Yeah. I hate it."
"But can you control it?"
Jak hesitated before answering. "No. I can't. But I've run out of charge now, so I guess I'll be safe for a while. Until I find some more Eco."
"So...I guess I can tell you where I am? Without having to worry about...the thingy?"
Jak felt a faint ripple of anger. Did she think he was some kind of rabid monster? "We call it Dark Jak. Yeah, I'm safe. Unless you're afraid I'll shoot you when I find you because you think I'm still trying to kill you."
He could almost hear her wince. "Ok, I deserved that. Sorry. I'm in the Techie Box. With," she added proudly (and evilly), "the techie."
Jak could feel a crooked smile curving up his face. "He co-operative?"
"Oh yes." She finally sounded like she had forgotten about Dark Jak. "Very obliging. In fact he's getting the blue prints right now. ISN'T he?" she added, obviously to the techie.
"Yes," she said happily to Jak. "He's being co-operative."
"Cool. I'll be up there in a sec, just gotta figure out how to get there. Oh, and Miala..."
"Sure thing. See you in while. Girl in Green, out." The com clicked loudly.
"Nice work," Jak muttered too late.
- * -
"Five minutes, Poindexter," Miala said to the techie, as she slid her com into her pouch. "Hurry it up."
He shot her a dangerous look before tapping a few more keys, standing back and saying, "There, it's done, this is the map of this facility and the blueprints. Can I go now?"
Se didn't bother answering him, crossing the room to glare at the screen, keeping her gun trained on the man in case he got any ideas.
The map was a matrix of green lines on black, outlining the structure of the mine and a fair chunk of the ground it was built on. As she'd thought, it was dug deep into the forest floor, allowing them to hollow out as much as they liked without worrying about running out of space.
She switched to the blueprints, noting with a demonic smile the structure of the place – it had one large pillar in the middle for support. Take out that pillar, and the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Of course, it was solid titanium...you would need something really, REALLY powerful to take it apart...
"Damn it, Miala, I leave you alone for half an hour and already you're holding someone else at gunpoint," someone said behind her. She turned.
"Hey," Jak said, leaning against the doorframe. Miala stared incredulously for a second.
"How did you...? I thought that door was supposed to be locked," the techie said, suddenly forgetting that there was a gun barrel inches from his face.
"You shut up," Jak said to him. "What's that? The blueprints?" he elbowed Miala aside, ignoring her cry of "Hey!".
"Okay...fairly standard set up...nothing I can't take apart..."
"Uh...with what, exactly? Those bombs you had..."
"Pleco bombs. Short for Plasmite and Eco. The most...second most powerful bomb in the world. I got two of 'em." Jak said with a twisted grin.
"BOMBS?!? You want to blow this place UP?!?" the techie screeched, suddenly cottoning on. "You can't do that! What abo-" abruptly he was silenced by the barrel of Jak's blaster.
"We need to get to the bottom of this place, quickly. I'm sick of it already. I'll set the bombs – I know how to do it – and you..." Jak frowned at Miala. "You make sure someone doesn't decide to blast my butt."
"What'll we do with this wuss?" Miala said, jerking her head in the direction of the techie.
Jak looked him up and down, coolly assessing him with his hard blue eyes. "Leave him. But if he wants to try anything, we might have to tie him up first."
The techie got the hint.
Miala smiled brightly. "Let's make things go boom now."
Jak groaned. "Sweet Mar, your lines are worse than Daxter's."
- * -
Jak gave the cylinder in his hands a sharp twist. It popped open with a 'scer-chink' noise, revealing the timer, the setting controls and a button marked, very clearly, 'ARM'. There was no disarming button. Krew liked things done right the first time.
"How much time?" Miala asked as she scanned the chamber.
"I'm thinking...five minutes," Jak said, keying it in. "And please don't distract me, unless you want to end up with five seconds instead."
She apologized and shut up. Jak twisted the other bomb open and set it in place next to the first, ready for calibration. He keyed in 5:00 and pressed the 'set' button.
The display flickered. Then it lit up with the numbers:
1:00
Jak frowned. It must be faulty. He pressed 'reset' and entered in 5:00.
Again it lit up: 1:00.
Now that was strange. Krew's bombs were the best in Haven – they were not supposed to fail more than once. He reset it and entered in five minutes a third time.
This time, instead of just showing the numbers, the bomb emitted a loud and insistent beep. And the display lit up with the numbers...then started flicking backwards.
1:00
0:59
0:58
Oh shit.
The bomb had armed itself. And there was no disarm.
Krew. He had set Jak up. He had long suspected the weapons dealer had been trying to kill him quietly...
'Well, Jak, now you got proof,' his brain said snidely.
Oh SHIT...
"Miala..."
"Yeah, blondey?"
0:55
0:54
0:53
"This thing was locked. At one minute. And now it's armed itself."
There was a very brief silence, broken only by the bomb's beeping.
Jak decided that standing about was not the smartest thing in the world. Pausing only to grab the frozen Miala's arm (she'd been staring at the bombs with almost comical disbelief) he dragged her towards the door, blasting the lock instead of trying to hack it.
Amazingly, it actually opened – the techie might have unlocked on his way out – and Miala and Jak pounded down the steel corridor, all too aware that the bomb's beeping was getting faster...
0:46
0:45
0:44
The second door was closed. Jak lifted his gun, fired at the lock then swore very loudly as the bullet rebounded off its armor and pinged around the walls.
Miala ran forward and started trying to unscrew the panel, fumbling in her panic. As it clanged to the floor, Jak glanced back the way they had come, urging her on with his mind while keeping track of the precious passing seconds.
0:31
0:30
0:29
Connecting and disconnecting sparking wires, Miala yelped as a spark of Eco* zapped her hand, then kicked it viciously. She gasped in utter astonishment as the door opened wide...no time for speculation...the duo leapt through the door and continued the race against time.
0:23
0:22
0:21
A few meters away from the entrance and Miala tripped and fell...Jak didn't hesitate, but grabbed her hand and almost dragged her after him. They squeezed through the gap in the door and raced up the steep slope...
0:11
0:10
0:09
They had to be far away. There was no knowing how big the blast would be. The other bomb had only had a few grams...and the radius for that one had been huge...
0:02
0:01
0:00
And then the bombs went off.
BOOOOMKEERRRAAASH!
A huge ball of orange flame blew out of the top of the mine. Flames were scattered for hundreds of feet, curling up tree trunks and racing across grassy clearings.
The entire facility imploded, its supports gone, every single pillar blowing out in an instant. It simply collapsed like a house of cards, each level crashing through the one below it, destroying a third in turn.
The debris was scattered for kilometers.
Jak collapsed thankfully on the ground.
"Well," he croaked. "That was-"
And then the SECOND explosion went off.
A spectacular sphere of white-hot brilliance bloomed, incinerating the entire mine in an instant, the metal snapping and popping and expanding within milliseconds. Tendrils of white snaked through the grass, sizzling, then shrinking away to leave ugly brown scars against the green.
A second huge ball of white bloomed – this one larger than a football field, completely engulfing the tendrils and the little remaining debris.
To say that the sound was ear splitting was an understatement. It was monstrous.
The dazzling onslaught continued for only seconds – but it seemed like an eternity – then the brilliance died down, leaving a crater like a chasm in the ground.
The silence was deafening after the noise.
There was only one phrase you could use to describe a sight like that. And Miala used it.
"Sweet Precursors."
- ~ -
Necralis: And THAT finally concludes the Mine Saga that was only meant to take up one chapter. Instead it took up two – one of them the longest I have ever written.
Vader: She can't adhere to her own limits. Useless.
Necralis: *collapses face down* Now THAT chapter took it out of me. It carries elements from many things, such as Douglas Adams' works and Matthew Reilly's action brilliance, particularly in the explosions. I love them – they sometimes help me structure my writing better.
Vader: *screeches* THEIF! PLAGIRIST!
Necralis: *panicky* No, no, I'm not! They just inspire me! I was gonna have an explosion LONG before I read 'Contest'! It just helped me describe it! *wails* Oh my head. I've being at my computer for ALMOST MY WHOLE DAY! I hope you people are happy!
Vader: See! *points* She is WEAK! Rise up and vanquish her!
Necralis: No, no, just review. I don't want to be vanquished today – it just wouldn't be a battle. Not when I have a headache.
Vader: Yeah... I guess. Well, That leaves it up to you people to review, please, and restore her to her former craziness. Then she will update.
Necralis: Yeah. What he said. Now I must bid you sayonara... Have fun reviewing...
* Now, my loyal readers, time for some explanations. The first, pertaining to swearwords. I have noticed that when phrases like 'Thank God' and 'Oh my God' need to be used, they are instead replaced with things like 'Thank Mar' and 'By the Precursors'. This actually makes sense, since they are from an entirely different world, so they wouldn't believe in God – the Precursors and Mar are the closest they get. So, I invented a few of my own swearwords, including 'Mar's Arse' (I'm weird, shoot me:P), 'Sweet Precursors' although I think that one's been used, and 'Sweet Mar'. They make sense in the context.
Vader: *cutting in* And since she's too incompetent to even tie her shoes, I'll do the next one. Well, as you know, Eco is the source of power in Jak's world, so she invented the idea that Jak's 'channeling' abilities might be like being able to stream electricity through your body without getting hurt. So, anyone who touches Blue Eco without hose abilities will get a nasty shock – like touching a bare wire. This also appears in 'Darkened Paths', so yeah – here it is, finally explained.
Necralis: Ciao...