Tada, here it is. Sorry I took so long – school and whatnot. Damn life, getting in my way… Anywho, I really hated that last chapter. Let's see if I can make this one any better.


"Whew!" Daxter sighed, his breath clouding slightly in the cool night air. "It's about freakin' time we got outta there! There were more stiffs at that party than the city morgue – know what I'm saying?"

Jak silently agreed. What Ashelin had described as a "short 'get-to-know-you' event" turned out to last several hours. Though Jak understood that this visit was extremely important for trade relations and that everyone needed to put his best foot forward, wasn't this a little unnecessary? Couldn't they just say, "Hi, nice to meet you, now let's get down to business?" Jak shook his head. There was a reason he politics – in all its incarnations.

Before Jak loomed an enormous Ottsel, illuminated by floodlights. He couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of it, though he saw it nearly every day. The door to the Naughty Ottsel slid open and they entered, the cool night air immediately replaced by a warm, if not a little stuffy, atmosphere. "Now this is more like it!" Daxter sighed, his eyes feasting on the familiar surroundings.

The Naughty Ottsel was nearly empty at this hour, save for two off-duty Freedom League Guards, their helmets resting beside them, who sat at the bar and nursed mugs of beer. They gave Jak a casual, though respectful, salute as he entered, which he acknowledged with a brief nod. As they crossed the room, Tess suddenly popped up from behind the counter, where she'd been unpacking a crate. When she saw Jak – or, more specifically, the small orange creature on his shoulder – a wide grin stretched across her face. "Daxter!" she squealed.

"Tess, baby!" Daxter replied, leaping from Jak's shoulder to the counter. "Gimme some love, sugar!" He thrust his backside towards Tess, who giggled and started scratching the base of his tail. The two Guards stared at Daxter and Tess incredulously, but Daxter ignored them and promptly began regaling Tess with tales of the hardships he'd endured that day.

Ignoring Daxter's complaining and Tess's sympathetic noises, Jak helped himself to a small glass of beer and leaned against the bar, staring at the grotesque Metal Head skulls mounted on the wall across from him. He was responsible for a lot of those trophies, though Sig took credit for the majority of them. Jak sipped his drink absently as his thoughts wandered. There hadn't been a Metal Head attack for some time; Jak wondered why. Even though Kor was dead, Jak thought that the survivors would still make sort of last stand, akin to the Krimzon Guards'. Strange…

Jak heard his name mentioned and snapped back to attention. "…and it gets insanely hot whenever Jak's around, so I don't know how he expects me to carry it without burning all my wonderful fur off," Daxter finished, gesticulating grandly. By now the two Guardsmen had left, leaving just Jak, Tess, and Daxter.

"I'll leave you guys alone for a bit," Jak said, setting his glass down. It was more for his benefit than theirs.

"No no no, Jak – you gotta stay here, buddy," Daxter protested. "What's a hero without his trusty sidekick always with him?"

Jak raised an eyebrow skeptically; whom did Daxter consider the "hero" and the "sidekick," he wondered? "I just need some fresh air," he answered. "You guys keep… uh… talking." He quickly walked outside before Daxter could say anything more, rubbing the back of his neck. Blasted dark Eco was flaring up again; sometimes all the aches and pains made Jak feel like a damn old man.

The streets were nearly deserted at this time of night, and most of the traffic that was around consisted of FLG Hellcats and personnel carriers. Jak hugged himself a little in the cold and stared out over the harbor pensively. So much had happened in the past few years that he was still struggling to sort it all out in his head. Had it really been only three years since he'd left his village? It seemed like decades ago…

A zoomer came to a rumbling halt in front of the Naughty Ottsel and a young woman with bluish hair hopped off. "Jak! I was hoping I'd find you here," Keira grinned, walking up to Jak. "I finished the repairs on your JET-board."

She handed the board to Jak, who examined it briefly before shrinking it and slinging it over his back. "Thanks."

"Honestly, Jak, what do you do to that thing? It shouldn't be wearing out as fast as it is."

"Hey, it's not my fault the board can't keep up with me," Jak quipped with a lopsided smile.

"Hmm. Maybe you're just expecting too much from it." Keira flipped up the collar of her leather bomber-style jacket and shivered. "How can you stand being outside without a coat on? Why aren't you inside?"

"Dax and Tess are in there," Jak replied, though it was only half of the answer.

"Oooh." Keira understood immediately. She stood next to Jak and looked over the harbor as well. After a moment of comfortable silence, she said, "I heard about what happened today in the industrial district. Are you okay?"

Jak rolled his eyes. Why were people always asking him that? "Yeah. "

Keira sighed with mild exasperation. "That's not what I meant. I meant – "

"I know what you meant, all right? And how 'okay' do you think I – " Jak stopped himself, realizing that he was losing his temper again. He mentally kicked himself. That was the second time today! "Look," he sighed, "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you…"

"No, not at me," Keira replied curtly. Jak wondered precisely what she meant by that. "Come on. Let's go inside, okay?" She put her hand on Jak's wounded arm; he repressed a flinch at the bolt of pain and let her lead him back into the Naughty Ottsel.

Tess and Daxter looked up at their entrance and shouted out hearty welcomes to Keira, who replied with equal warmth. They began chatting animatedly about nothing in particular, as old friends often do. Jak mostly listened, speaking only when spoken to first. They didn't mind; after spending the first decade and a half of his life without saying a word, Daxter and Keira were glad that Jak said anything at all, even if it wasn't much. Jak was grateful that they hadn't yet asked him why he'd remained mute for so long, as even he didn't know. And to think it had been that bastard Praxis who'd forced the first words from Jak's mouth; he'd probably still be mute if the Baron hadn't…

Jak quickly forced such thoughts from his mind. "Where's Sig?" he asked.

Tess shrugged. "He's off looking for Metal Heads, of course. Says that this sudden quiet is making him uneasy – that the Metal Heads should still be putting up some sort of fight. I think he's just being paranoid."

So Sig noticed it, too? It made Jak feel better that he wasn't the only one. As he picked up his half-empty glass once again, it almost seemed inevitable that a shiver ran up and down his spine as the dark Eco inside him stirred to life. In less than a second, Jak had slammed his glass down and was halfway across the bar. He was not going to let whatever-it-was get away this time.

"Jak! What's the matter?" Keira asked, confused.

"I'll be right back," he replied hurriedly.

"Whoa! Hold on there, Jak!" Daxter said, leaping from the counter and scurrying to catch Jak. "You're not going anywhere without me." He leapt onto Jak's shoulder, struggling a bit to maintain his balance as Jak hopped over the threshold and took a sharp left. There was no hesitation in Jak's step as he ran down the street and took another left; his dark Eco was like a compass needle pointing him unerringly towards his target. "What's the big hurry?"

Instead of responding, Jak sped up until he was nearly sprinting. He was getting closer; he could feel it. As he turned down a side street, Jak spotted a small, hooded figure darting down an alley. He didn't doubt that the figure was the source of the dark Eco. Slipping briefly on a slick patch of spilled oil, Jak followed the tiny person down the alley. "Wait!" he called out, a little out of breath. Either the figure didn't hear him or didn't care, because in the next instant it crawled into a ventilation shaft protruding from a building and disappeared from sight.

"Shit," Jak cursed under his breath, skidding to a stop in front of the two-foot-square shaft. Without thinking, he grabbed at the hem of the figure's cloak as it crawled away. The little person cried out, as if in pain, and turned to fend off her attacker. It happened in only a second, but the sight that greeted Jak in that second was seared into his memory. Though the person was no bigger than a small child, her skin was as wrinkled and leathery as someone well over eighty, and her long, braided hair was white as paper. To add to her bizarre appearance, the girl's skin was tinted a light but distinctive blue, and her wide, terrified eyes were bright violet.

Taken aback by the spectacle, Jak froze, his hand still firmly gripping the hem of the girl's frayed cloak. She squirmed frantically in the confined space, practically hyperventilating with fear, and batted at his hand in a feeble attempt to fight him off. Though her blows were so week that Jak barely felt them, as soon as she touched him a jolt of electricity coursed through his veins and a spark jumped from her hand to his. Surprised, he let go, and a second later the strange little girl was gone.

"Damn it!" Jak cursed. He briefly tried squeezing after her, but from the start it was an exercise in futility and he quickly gave up.

"Whoa!" Daxter gulped. "What the heck was that! Was that what's getting you all worked up?"

"Daxter! Did you bring that vial Riddik gave us? You can use it to track – "

"No-no-no, hold on there! First thing's first – what the heck was that thing?"

Jak took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down; it was pointless to get angry at Daxter. Still... he'd been so close to solving the mystery, but it had slipped from his grasp. But thinking about it now, it would have been stupid to send Daxter in after that strange girl, wouldn't it? What would he have done once he'd found her? It would have done Jak no good, in any case. That was what he told himself, anyway. "That girl – she had dark Eco inside her," he said at last, interrupting Daxter's nervous ranting.

"What? You sure?"

Jak clenched his fists, feeling the dark Eco in his veins settle as the girl moved further and further away. "Positive."

Daxter made a disgusted face. "Does that mean you'll end up looking like that in ten years? Ew! I'll have to find a new ride – no offense, Jak, but I spend a lot of time getting extreme close-ups of your face, and it's hard enough as it is without all the wrinkles."

Ignoring the friendly insult, Jak hit the wall in a halfhearted display of frustration, and walked back to the Naughty Ottsel. Instead of going inside, however, Jak climbed on his zoomer and started back towards the castle.

Daxter watched the glowing Ottsel mascot recede into the distance with growing apprehension. "Ummm… beer and babes are that way, Jak," he said, pointing at the Naughty Ottsel.

"I know."

"You're not going that way, Jak. Why aren't you going that way?"

"There's only one way that kid could have gotten dark Eco in her body," Jak replied, taking out his communicator and flipping it open. He dialed a number and held the communicator in front of him as it projected a small hologram of Ashelin's face.

"What is it, Jak?" Ashelin asked, her voice tinny over the small speaker.

"Ashelin, do you still have the Dark Soldier Project files in the castle's database?" Jak asked, his eyes darting quickly between the road and Ashelin's face.

"Yes. We haven't been able to gain access to all of them yet – the Baron put some nasty encryption programs on them."

"Send everything you've got to the port in my room. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Why? What do you need that for?"

"Just do it. Please," Jak added as an afterthought before hanging up. He cranked open the throttle and squinted as the zoomer rocketed down the street at ever-faster speeds. It seemed that if he wanted to solve this little mystery, he would have to face some rather unpleasant memories.This will be fun.


Quick question – though romance will not be a major part of the plot (I hope), I still want a little bit of romantic interaction between Jak and someone else, but I don't know who. So, I'll leave it to you guys. Who should be Jak's love interest in this fic – Keira? Ashelin? Torn? Someone else entirely? Hell, I don't care. I'll go with whatever the popular opinion is.