A/N: Yeah, yeah, so I lied, it took a long time lol. This is an odd chapter. It felt quite forced a lot of the time, and it's longer than the previous ones; however, it is (or rather, has become) drastically important to the plot. The ending bit after the doors speak… well, that hadn't been planned at ALL. But out it randomly popped, and I love it! It also gave me a way to end part one (though before the ending is as it stands, there was no part one lol). So yes, there is quite a bit more to come. Can't leave Jak out there all alone, now can we? ;-)
And thank you for your offer of help, Exileian, but I got lazy. Pecker just doesn't speak much! :-D
Disclaimer: I do not own this.
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Slowly, Daxter opened his eyes, blinking away the confusion of emerging from sleep. He could remember all too clearly what had happened and wished that there was something very hard nearby with which his head could connect and send him into oblivion again.
But that would not help Jak.
A commotion arose from outside, on the street below. No, he slowly realized. It had been going on all night as he had drifted fitfully in and out of sleep. Angry voices came through the walls, and Daxter stuck his head out the window and yelled at them to "shut the hell up". The guards that had been arguing before him promptly turned and started blasting holes in the wall around his head before turning back to the citizen cowering before them. The Guard's mocking voice sounded annoyingly like Pecker's.
Daxter's head shot up. Pecker! Onin! She would know what to do! She could help him!
His feet pounded against the ground as quickly as his heart thundered against the bones of his chest. "Dax? Dax, wait!" Tess called after him as he rushed out the door, but he was already gone.
The city was in chaos. It looked as though martial law had taken effect; guards roamed around bullying and shooting whomever they pleased. Not that the guards hadn't done that anyway, but now they did it without pause. Many of the citizens of Haven City were holed up in terror in their shabby little houses (or those that remained standing, anyway), though some of the braver denizens of the city remained outside, looting and pillaging to their hearts' content. For once, Daxter wished that he could just get in a zoomer and zip through the city, alternately dodging and hitting the pedestrians and other vehicles. But it would attract too much attention, something that the little ottsel could not afford with Jak's fate on the line (besides, it wasn't a pleasant experience to drive them himself in the first place, having to stretch to reach the petals and steering wheels, and then trying to see everyone all around him…). A wry grin stretched his face as he dashed from shadow to shadow; for one of the first times since his "accident", Daxter was glad that he was small.
When he arrived at Onin's hut, he stormed inside, startling Pecker so much that the bird fell off his perch with an indignant squawk. There was so much incense in the tent that Daxter was having trouble breathing, and he sneezed loudly, causing Onin to stir and Pecker to fly at him, smacking him repeatedly with his wings. "Silence!" Pecker said in an exaggerated whisper, smacking him yet again with his wing.
Onin motioned to Pecker, who gave a soft, "arrrk" and flew over to land on her head. "Speak or leave, furball."
"Stuff it, bird brain," Daxter snarled, creeped out by the somber mood in the tent. He marched straight up to Onin and opened his mouth, but it was a still-quiet Pecker that spoke first.
"She says," the bird began slowly, watching the ancient seer's hands trace paths frustratingly slowly through the air, "she says that she, arrrrrrk, knows why you have come." He paused as Onin's hands dropped shakily to her lap and she took a deep breath. There was silence. Just as Daxter was ready to leap at the old bat and shake her, her wrinkly arms rose once more.
"What do you want me to do?" Daxter cut off irritably. Every second that he spent here meant another second that he wasn't spending finding Jak.
"Do you want me to translate or not?" snapped Pecker, and Onin frowned at both of them. "She says to go to the temple. Just go." Pecker launched himself off of Onin's head and flapped his way over to Daxter, forcing him out of the door.
With only the slightest thought as to why Pecker and Onin were acting so oddly, he turned and headed for the mountain temple.
And behind him, Onin smiled, patted Pecker on the head, and finally died.
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Go to the temple. Well, he was there, the doors were sliding open before him. Now what? He hadn't the foggiest idea of what to do. With a last glance out at the city, the little ottsel let the door slide shut behind him.
If the city had been in chaos, the temple had been all but destroyed. The earthquake had sent great chunks of the mountain down the remnants of the ancient Precursor buildings.
The platform that led to the forest was gone. Not that Daxter particularly wanted to go that way- he and Jak had spent many a long hour in that forest killing Metalheads and exploring every nook and cranny. There was nothing there that they hadn't found.
That left only the problem of the inverted platform that led across the gap. Jak had always used the force of a well-aimed shot to right the thing. As the approached the platform, the ottsel tripped over a rock, stumbling and turning to kick it in frustration before he halted mid-motion and realized that it would be a perfect projectile. But the rock was a little big for him to comfortably lift. Well, not that big, but in comparison to him, he thought bitterly, it was big.
Daxter laboriously rolled it over towards the precipice and then picked it up, tottering underneath its weight. With a groan of effort, he hurled it towards the inverted platform.
It missed by a mile, as did the second, and the third, and the fourth. Discouraged, he stopped watching the fourth rock's inevitable fall and turned to find another. There was only one left, a chunk of stone nearly too big for him to lift, much less throw. Cursing his luck, Daxter wrapped his fingers around it. Tiny muscles straining, he picked it up and started running towards the edge of the cliff, spinning in circles and praying to any and every Precursor that it would make it. The force of one particularly strong spin sent Daxter flying out over the precipice, fingers still pried around the rock. The stone collided with ancient Precursor metal and Daxter dropped it as the platform flipped, scrambling for a hold. Finally the turning stopped, the floating metal rocking slowly as Daxter clung to the rounded edge with the tips of his fingers. Breathing hard and trying not to look down, he pulled himself to the top, running across it and launching himself across to the opposite cliff. For the second time in as many minutes, he found himself suspended over the gaping chasm by only the fur of his fingers. Once more, he pulled himself up, groaning as his hands and stomach were scratched by the rough lip.
One platform down, one to go. But at least the next one wasn't of the inverted, timed, having-to-jump-over-a-terrifyingly-long-and-unending-drop type, he mused to himself as he jumped onto it.
Nothing happened. He hopped, hoping that when he landed the metal would realize he was there and start its descent. But still the thing remained frustratingly immobile, other than to shake almost imperceptibly. He jumped again and again and again, pounding his feet into the surface in frustration and screaming curses at the top of his lungs. Finally, the platform abruptly groaned and took off, Daxter very nearly falling off as his bouncing came to a stop and he skidded precariously close to the edge.
"It's not worth it!"
Only it was.
But that still didn't do anything to help the fact that he had no idea where to go.
Things would have been so much easier if Jak had been there.
Jak…
Forcing painful thoughts out of his head, Daxter stepped off the platform as it halted and paused to look around. The first passage to the left had crumbled and was impassible; the left and center passages at the crossroads had crumbles away to nothing. So. Only one way to go.
"I guess I'll just explore," he muttered to himself.
He still had no idea of what exactly it was that he was supposed to be looking for. It seemed rather foolish, now that he looked back on it, just blindly running off to the temple with not even the slightest direction. All he wanted to do was find something, anything, that could help Jak. "Anything!" he suddenly yelled to the walls of the little valley he was in. His only response was the falling of a few grains of dirt and small pebbles from a nearby ledge.
He smiled at nothing and kept walking. Just as he was despairing of finding anything, he spied a large crack in the left side of the wall. The earthquake had really done a number on the temple, and, figuring that this hole was his best chance of finding anything, he took a breath and went in. It led directly around a corner and Daxter was immediately plunged into sudden darkness, forced to grope his way along. The sound of his breathing echoed off the close stone walls, rough and uneven. The earth groaned above him, wanting to shift to close in the unnatural gouge that the ottsel stumbled blindly though.
Daxter lost all sense of time as he wound his way through the crack. Wearied, he stopped and leaned against the stone after groping slightly to find it. There was a light click underneath his fingers and a soft blue illuminated the corridor.
It was old, dirty, and exceedingly dusty. The smell of ancient air assaulted his nostrils anew as he slowly continued on, and he tried his best to ignore it. The area he was in was no longer a crack in the mountain but a purposefully created tunnel of Precursor metal, complete with engraved runes all over the place which gave off the bluish light. The walls were cracked, the ancient writing often worn to the point that it was only a mass of blue.
Daxter's breath caught excitedly. So maybe that old bat had foreseen that he would find this place here! He broke into a run, jumping over fallen rocks and dodging pools of dripping water, the stone walls illuminating before him and fading after he had passed. The tunnel ran straight and at an incline, so that when Daxter finally reached his destination, the cold air made him shiver, despite having been running.
When his eyes found their way to the massive doors that stood before him, he instantly knew that this was where he needed to be. Had the doors not been broken and hanging partially off their hinges, it would have been the end of the road for Daxter, who would have had no hope of opening them, so gigantic even against his tiny proportions were they.
He took one step towards the portal, and another, peering through the dark opening that shouldn't have been there. As his foot hit the ground on the third step however, a booming voice rang thorough the small corridor, shaking dirt from the ceiling and making Daxter fear that the vibrations would cause another cave-in. "Let he who enter here take heed: no step tainted by evil or of impure heart may walk in this most holy place. For herein dwells the closing of a dream and the ending of a world; sealed away from those who did abuse our greatest gift, evil shall find no solace here. Beware."
With that, the terrible voice died, and Daxter stood frozen to the spot, the words echoing not only down the tunnel, but in his mind. No step tainted by evil… He had been around Jak a lot when his demon had surfaced… and the demon was evil… but was he? How could he tell?
But his indecision was squashed by a thrill of hope seconds later. What lay before him positively reeked of the Precursors and their ancient knowledge; if this dead race, beings of the purest light, couldn't save Jak, nothing would.
A feeling of peace washed over him then. It did not matter what happened to him. He would gladly lay down his life in an instant if only it would help Jak, and he would die with only the regret in his heart that he had not been able to do more.
Memories flooded his mind, images of the two together, meeting, playing, going on crazy adventure after crazy adventure. He treasured all of those memories, even the most painful ones, and he would never let them go. Come what would, he would stand by Jak through it all.
A gentle breeze arose and wrapped itself around him, holding him and making his small body tingle. His eyes drifted closed, gloved hands gently clasped together before his heart. There were ancient words in that magical wind, words that tickled his ears, things that he could not understand and that ought to have terrified him; but he could not push away the calmness and feeling of love that had enveloped him enough to fear.
He would belong to Jak, forever and always.
And without a single doubt, he stepped forward and over the threshold.
