A/N: Okay, okay, you all have every right to yell at me for taking so long. I'm horrible, I know it. But I have EVERY intention of seeing this through, so there! :P Now let's focus on the important thing: JAK III IS COMING OUT EARLY NEXT MONTH! throws a party I have the demo, and the game is going to ROCK! WOOOO!
Disclaimer: Own this I do not.
Dedication: This chapter is dedicated to emeraldLINX for getting me going again. I owe ya! :D
He still hurt. It was somehow more shallow though, on the surface rather than the deep ache that he could remember having been engulfed in before. His eyes opened and he stared blankly up at the shadowed ceiling looming above him. There was a dim glow in the room still, though not nearly enough to clearly illuminate anything beyond his arm's reach.
A thought came to him at the word "arm", nagging, but Daxter subconsciously forced it down. There was something important that he should be remembering, but his foggy mind did not seem to recall what it was. A sigh escaped his parted lips, eyelids fluttered, and Daxter forced himself to his feet.
Or tried to, in any case.
The second that he pushed his weight onto the balls of his feet, his vision tunneled and dizziness swamped him. It was so high up! What was going on? Before he knew it, Daxter was smashing face-first back into the hard ground, reeling all the more for the impact. He tried to flick his tail in supreme annoyance.
But there was no tail attached to his body.
Groaning, Daxter pushed himself up to his elbows and looked back over his shoulder to see what was wrong, staring uncomprehending for a minute.
His brain shut entirely down as he finally registered what he saw.
For an agonizingly long minute, Daxter stared at himself, eyes sweeping up and down the incredibly large and pale chunk flesh that he now inhabited. A smile broke out on his face as a sudden feeling of joy bubbled up within him, and he threw back his head and began to laugh aloud, voice echoing around and around the small chamber until it seemed as though the room held a hundred laughing Daxters. But there was only one, and when his happy laughter suddenly cut off in mid-chortle, silence set in and it was just him, on his hands and knees, staring at the tiny pool of ruined Eco.
Unthinking, Daxter scrambled forward and scrabbled desperately at the White Eco, trying to collect some in his fingers and only succeeding in pushing more of it into such a thin layer on the dirt that collecting it untainted would have been impossible. Eventually, fingers sore, he stopped and sat back, staring down at the ruined Eco, the ruined chance of saving Jak, and began to curse anything and everything that he could think of, from the Precursors right on down to himself.
His tirade was interrupted twenty minutes in by the loud and quite insistent grumbling of his stomach. He trailed off, looking around him but seeing nothing of any use. Daxter sucked on his teeth as he tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he crawled over to the room's entrance, then sighed and stood. He wobbled a bit but and was still dizzy, but managed to retain his footing. Step by precarious step, Daxter taught himself to walk all over again, focused only on getting out of the damned temple.
When he felt like he wouldn't fall over at least, Daxter set off for the bridges. He got quickly to the room containing the Dark Eco and started resolutely across the stone span. But he had made it only a few feet out onto the narrow span when he made one of the largest mistakes of his life and looked down.
The world tilted and swayed alarmingly before his eyes; the rippled of shadow beneath him rippled as they moved, calling out to him, reaching up for him, prickling at his skin with such tender caresses that it hurt. Daxter felt his body wanting it, moving towards it, revulsion outweighed by the need to feel that oh so familiar touch again. Touching Jak had felt like this… He was falling, falling…
Jak…
JAK!
A strangled cry escaped his mouth as his mind cleared and he realized that he was pitching headfirst towards the lake of Dark Eco. He flailed his arms wildly and his fingers miraculously caught the edge of the ledge. His fall was abruptly halted, and he swung through the air, terrified that at any instant his fingers would lose their precarious grip and he would fall. His rocking motion slowed and he took a few deep breaths, thinking he would be okay. Then his muscles, not yet strong enough in his human form, began to give, and he did indeed begin to slip. Daxter flailed madly, clawing at the ledge, pulling himself up an inch at a time until he was laying on his stomach, arms and legs wrapped around the bridge and face squashed against it.
For a time he simply lay there, extremely uncomfortable but sure as hell glad that he hadn't passed out completely. There was no way, so soon after being doused with White Eco, that he could survive the Dark Eco. It would have torn him apart.
After a moment, he started to rise but then paused, thinking better of it. Better to crawl, and crawl he did.
The following bridges were less problematic, but still not easy, and Daxter didn't even try to walk upright. He got across without more than a couple dizzying moments, and even managed to stay on his feet all the way through the junk room, which looked significantly smaller to him now, though there was still an awful lot of stuff within it. He sighed and kept going.
It was just so odd, the way everything seemed so much smaller and was so… low! It didn't seem normal to him, but Daxter decided that he liked it just the same. He was only a bit lower standing now than he was when he used to ride on Jak's shoulder. But if he could have Jak there with him, exploring the ancient temple, well and whole, he would become an ottsel again in an instant.
The thought that Jak wasn't there thoroughly depressed him again, and, coupled with the fact that he could see no way to help Jak, it was a very surly former ottsel that approached the broken doors to the underground sanctuary.
The doors themselves looked smaller, as did the crack between them. Daxter got down on his hands and knees again and managed to slide himself sideways through the gap without sustaining massive injury. The tunnel was worse. To an ottsel, it had been completely passable; to a full-grown if rather scrawny man, it was difficult, to say the least. Had he been any larger at all, he would have been firmly stuck within the temple. As it stood, Daxter was covered from head to foot in deep scratches and bruises that made his eyes water by the time he emerged. At least the blood had helped him through the last few…
Daxter cried out and flung a bloody arm up to cover his eyes as he slid out into the open and bright midday sun assaulted his eyes. There was something wrong with the amount of light, and it took Daxter a moment to figure out what it was. It had been about this time when he had first entered the underground temple, maybe a bit earlier. Had it really been a whole day? "Go figure," he mused aloud, mouth dry from lack of water.
He managed to stumble his way to the first platform, which took him up. Again came the dizziness, but Daxter immediately sat down on the metal until the ascension was over. The next platform was decidedly less trouble as well. He threw a rock at it, took a deep breath, and took a running jump at it, praying that it would not flip over again. His feet hit and he slid, propelled by his force and the blood dripping down his body. Without bothering to slow or regain his balance, Daxter hurled himself towards the next ledge. He hit the ground hard and cried out with pain. It took him a while to stand again, but he made it through the warp gate and out the main temple doors without further incident.
He paused as the massive metal slabs ground shut behind him, marveling at the decrease in traffic, though there was still some. A sudden cough broke into his thoughts, and Daxter jumped, whirling in mid-air and nearly killing himself in the process. Pecker sat in the branches of a nearby tree, studiously avoiding looking at Daxter. Instantly, Daxter scowled, brushing away a stray strand of hair that kept falling into his eyes, pain making him irritable. "What? Here with another bright idea?" he demanded.
Pecker still refused to meet his gaze, and it was only when a light breeze picked up and made Daxter shiver that he realized why Pecker was acting funny. With everything else that was going on, Daxter had not given one single thought to his lack of clothing, especially since he hadn't had to worry about clothes for years. The sound of an appreciative whistle from a passing zoomer reached his ears and Daxter turned beet red from the roots of his hair down to the tips of his toes as he located its source: a grinning, hulking, Krimzon Guard sitting that was doing his rounds. Daxter's hands snaked down to cover his more vital parts as Pecker began to snicker. Daxter practically bolted off of the ramp and, ignoring the looks he was getting, ran over to the plants and tugged at one of them until an oversized leaf came off in his hands that he could wrap himself up in. By the time he finally got it off and sufficiently flashed everyone there, Pecker was laughing so hard he was about ready to fall out of the tree he was perched in. Awkwardly holding the leaf around his thin waist with one hand, Daxter strode over to the tree, seized Pecker around the neck, and wrenched him off of the low branch that he was sitting on as Pecker squawked indignantly. "Suff it, Birdbrain, or by the Precursors, I'll stuff YOU!" With that, Daxter released the bird and Pecker had to flap around in midair wildly for a few seconds before he was able to right himself and fly up to a branch that Daxter couldn't quite reach without jumping.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrkkk! If you don't want my help, then, arrrrrrrrrk, you won't have it!" Pecker snapped with his funny accent, then turned and began to fly away. Dropping his leaf, Daxter lunged at the bird and managed to close his fingers around Pecker's leg. They struggled for a while, Pecker buffeting Daxter with his wings and pecking his hands whenever possible while Daxter dug his heels into the dirt and tried desperately to avoid letting go while thinking that Jak had been starting to rub off on him. "No!" Daxter cried. "Tell me what you know!"
"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRKKKKK! Then let me GO!"
Daxter tugged once more for good measure then complied. Pecker flew to the branch again, looking deadly serious and breathing hard. Bitterly, Daxter spoke before Pecker had a chance to. "Well, your last advice didn't work so well, now did it? With the White Eco gone, there's no way that I can save him now!"
"Onin did not think so, and it was not, aaaaarrrk, her who ruined it!"
Daxter snorted. "Yeah, well, a lot of good it did!"
Pecker looked quite offended and immediately took off, hovering just out of Daxter's reach while he spoke. "While I doubt that, arrrrrrrrrk, there is anything a pequeño man such as yourself-" (Daxter bristled at the insult) "-can do, I suggest you stop this merry little fiesta now, before things get worse." Pecker looked meaningfully into Daxter's eyes for a moment, then turned and flew away.
Daxter dodn't try to stop him, insides clenching as he realized what Pecker had meant.
He was supposed to kill Jak.
