Author's note: All is the property of Naught Dog Inc, who currently has me a bit skeptical about the Jak X game but I still keep my hopes up for their storytelling. Wohoo!
Well, I've never done a challenge fic before and this was a puzzle of several. And I'm so totally dead…
Ahem. These are the challenge pieces I strung together into this Frankenstein's Monster of a fic:
'Someone has to get lost
'Jak must walk around in his boxers for at least a small part
'Errol must admit his homosexuality
'Baron Praxis must play a small part
'One of the characters has to wear a pink dress
Well, I think that's about it. There's one "worse" cuss word in here, so I'll rate it T just to be sure.
Whoever laughs last…
The Underground HQ looked like a field of war. Well, more than usual. See, there seemed to be more weapons out in the open than there usually were.
"We have to go! We have to go right now!"
One hysterical woman is always one too many. Torn did in no way need two of them. While checking on the ammunition for the last gun, he tried to calm both Keira and Tess down at the same time. This had been the same during most of the preparations he had done in the last half hour, and he was starting to miss Ashelin with a brutal desire.
"Tess, you can't go, you're our spy at Krew's! Keira, you can't go, you can't handle a gun!"
"I don't care!"
Hysterical women chorusing is only slightly less painful than them trying to outscream each other. Which they started doing again, as soon as that brief moment of mental connect had passed.
Actually, they were pretty constantly mentally connected right then, considering they were worried about the same people. Just that their worries tipped towards a certain individual more than the other.
Torn wondered if he would have to shoot one of them, and what the Shadow(s) would do to him if he did. While the repercussions surely would be severe, it was something that sounded more negotiable by the second. For the moment he could be sure that neither of the two little green old men would notice anything, since they were both engaged in a wild discussion with Vin, via the main communicator apparatus in the HQ. The scientist's manic squeaks now and again made it past the banshee screaming, Torn's snarling and the sages' grim discussion. It sounded as if he finally was trying to hack the security cameras, but still almost wet himself in fear.
Oh wait, he was always on the verge of wetting himself in fear.
Torn inwardly groaned.
And all this because the Underground had just managed to lose their ace fighter.
Most of the resistance's soldiers went out there prepared to take their own lives if they got caught, because everyone knew that it would be far less painful than what the Baron could do. The Baron was good at making people talk when he wanted them to. Torn had seen that with his own eyes, and it had been a very strong reason for him to join the Underground. He would never again feel clean after all he had done for the Baron, but he would spend his life to try to purify himself. If needed, he would give his life up for it.
But there were a few people that were too valuable to the Underground to be left to die. Torn himself. The Shadow(s). Ashelin. Vin.
And Jak.
Whom they had lost an hour ago.
Terrific.
Torn tried to shut out the wailing of the ladies' as he put the gun down on the table and turned to the Shadows.
"Any luck?" he asked.
The younger and older sage turned around, concern written all over their light-green faces as they sadly shook their heads.
"Vin says that the new security codes are giving him a severe case of neurosis allphobia," the elder said.
This was pondered for a moment of silence – at least from the men; Tess and Keira kept screaming.
"More than usual, at least," the younger Shadow finally said.
Torn refrained from commenting, and instead focused on pacing. It would soon lead to murder if Vin did not get his freaky ass in gear and hacked into those tapes, or the agents called for this mission arrived. He tried to close his ears to the screeching still filling the air.
It was the relief of his life when the Shadows finally ran out of patience even for the cute ones.
"Please, girls, calm down!" the sages chorused, the birds fleeing both their tree stumps.
"But daddy/Shadow! It's Jak/Daxter! They might be dead!"
Now the mind connect thing was getting quite creepy, actually.
"Dead is the better option," Torn murmured, massaging his temples.
Too late he realized his mistake.
"Ohmygodno! Please, we have to save them! Now!"
He ducked behind the table and cowered from the hysteria that just had been upgraded, trying to keep telling himself that no matter who they were, the Shadows could not burn a hole in his skull with their glares alone.
A sudden cold draft made him throw a glance up the stair leading outside, and few sights had ever seemed sweeter than the door opening. The Underground soldiers were finally-
No…
He frowned at the two shadows staggering down the stair, the rain from outside following them inside for several steps before the door automatically slid shut. The water clung their capes onto their bodies as well, revealing their shapes quite nicely. The first figure was lithe and dragged the bulkier one along by the arm, obviously the more coordinated one. In compare the second character appeared almost blind, trying to steady himself against the wall on the way down.
"Everyone!"
The croak had them all crossing the floor in long strides – or floating above it quicker than usual. Torn could not remember if he ever had heard that voice so broken, and a cold hand gripped his heart as he reached out for the slender figure. The hood fell back, revealing Ashelin's haunted face. The rain had caused her makeup to dissolve, sending dark tears of mascara down her tattooed face and leaving the blue tint of her lips on display. Tired as she obviously was, she accepted the offered hand and reached the bottom of the stair safely.
The ice cold hand then fled from Torn's grip and reached for her companion, pushing the second hood back. The face beneath was in even worse wear than Ashelin's but its appearance still served to cause a choir of relieved shouts.
"Jak!"
He hardly reacted, only turned his head slightly at the calls. The cold had painted his skin with pale blue, but the darker parts demanded more attention. His lower lip was split and swollen, one eye black and a nasty bruise covered a large part of his jaw. Keira immediately dove for him and grabbed his other arm, helping Ashelin in the quest to steady the renegade.
"Where the hell have you been?" Torn snarled as soon as he found his voice again.
No reaction this time either. The older Shadow floated up to inspect Jak's wounds, not so gently pushing Torn aside as he passed. Waving a small hand in front of the good eye did not make it focus. However, a big bump appeared on the cloth plastered to the blonde man' s chest, and a second later a fuzzy head popped out of the collar with a huge gasp.
"Sweet merciful oxygen! I thought I was gonna suffocate! Erk!"
Daxter's last comment was added as Tess grabbed him and ripped his soaked body out of Jak's cloak for a hug. The smell of wet ottsel – and the fact that Daxter looked really, really ugly when all his fur was plastered against him – did not at all seem to bother her. And he did not complain at all, shivering with cold and pressed to a warm pair of breasts that he was. Meanwhile Ashelin gestured at herself and Jak, having to speak rather loudly to be heard above Tess' ramblings to her "poor widdle baby",
"Blankets!" the redhead growled, voice still rather hoarse, "he's wearing almost nothing under that!"
This did not bring forth the action she had hoped for. Instead the whole room pretty much paused.
Daxter and Ashelin's gazes flung between the blank faces of the other people in the room, taking note of all the eyes that seemed to glaze over with obvious mental images.
"Cut it out!" Ashelin finally shouted and smacked the air in front of Torn's face, "we're freezing to death here!"
Torn came out of his spell with a disgusted shudder, and turned away to pull a pair of blankets from the nearest bunk bed. At the sight of this Ashelin immediately peeled the cloak off herself, revealing that she at least wore her regular clothes – equally drenched – beneath the disguise. While she gratefully swept the blanket about her shoulders – Torn giving her just the slightest bit of help with wrapping herself up to which she gave just the slightest smile that piqued just the slightest bit of hope for something good later within him (the guy needs to get off'a his papers now and again, peeps!) – Samos Sr. took the other blanket. He started to reach out for the still zombified Jak, but paused and looked over his shoulder. A green eyebrow went up.
Nobody moved.
Samos Jr. cleared his throat.
Still nobody moved.
Both sages sighed.
"If you would please…?" Sr. said, rotating his pointing finger while casting meaningful looks all over the room.
"Oh…"
Some of those sounded just a wee bit too disappointed, but under the green glare everyone turned a tactful back to the scene. Shaking his head, the older Samos carefully took hold of the wet cloth and tugged it away from Jak's scarred skin.
A pair of green eyebrows went up again at the sight of zebra striped boxers, but neither of the sages said anything. Sr. merely wrapped the blanket around Jak's shoulders and gently guided the dazed renegade to sit on the nearest bunk bed. Keira immediately sat down beside him, idly running her hands over his arms and shoulders to help them dry.
Deciding that the time for mysteries had run its full length, Torn crossed his arms and glared at the place where Daxter probably was. It was a bit difficult to tell however, since Tess had set the ottsel on the table and currently worked on rubbing him dry with yet another blanket.
"Hey rat," the commander called, "tell us what happened!"
A few muffled sounds that seemed to be originated from Daxter's voice was heard for a couple of seconds until Tess stopped rubbing and pulled back, revealing…
… a goggle-wearing ball of orange fluff.
There was another pause before Tess let out an almost crazy giggle and went about helping the muttering Daxter to get his fur back under control.
"Okay, okay!" the ottsel finally said, as he looked less like the stuffing of a teddy bear and more like a… teddy bear, "I'll tell ya, but…"
He threw a glance at the dead-silent Jak and shook his head.
"… but don't interrupt me, okay? Listen carefully, I'll only tell you this onZe."
He fell silent and blinked, wondering why he suddenly felt like he was part of a French resistance group and not a Haven one(1). After a moment he managed to shake it off however, and plonked down on the table, swinging his legs over the edge as he tried to figure out where to begin. Whether anybody agreed to his terms or not, he really did not have the mind left to care.
Great madness of the precursors and their architecture.
"So, uh… yeah, we were on that mission Torn gave us this morning, to pick up that mysterious package in the water slums, and all went well until some Krimzon Grunt thought that Jak just kinda sorta intentionally crashed his zoomer into the red dude's friend.
Don't lookit me like that, Dreadlock Jim.
Anyway, the alarm was off and so were we, in another vehicle. Whoo, that was some wild ride, they came from everywhere, dozens of 'em and I told Jak to lose the suckers!
Ow! Why'dya hafta do that for? Okay, okay…
Yeah, we did lose 'em after a while, but then we'd spun around so much that we'd lost track of where we were. So Jak parked for two minutes, two minutes tops ! Just to call web-face Torn here and ask for directions."
Torn slowly nodded at this. The display on the communicator screen was still freshly burnt into his mind, but he would never admit that he nearly burst something with worry for his fr- underlings.
Daxter grimaced as he went on.
"And while we were argu- discussing with Torn, well… seems them KGs were cheating today, because they were still on the prowl even though they had turned off the alarm. Is that fair? They' re supposed to follow the rules, where would we be otherwise? Ashelin, you gotta get them to act their parts!
Anyway… nasty stuff… suddenly there's this smashing sound and Jak falls over on the seat all glassy-eyed and unconscious 'cause one of them cheating buggers sneaked up and knocked him out cold with the butt of his gun. Of course I put up one heck of a fight when they tried to haul us off, but there were too many of them! They surrounded me and- what?
Party poopers. Alright, fine…
So… uhm… next thing I know, I wake up in this big, scary room and there're KGs all over. One of those brutes had me in his hand the whole while so I couldn't move and they had gagged me for some reason.
And uh… Jak was in the middle of the room and four guards had to hold him down 'cause he was cussing up a storm and trying to break free but he was still kinda woozy 'cause they had beaten him up so he couldn't go Big Dark on 'em… and uh, they'd kinda stripped him down to his underwear. Something about making sure he was unarmed and crap. And mental warfare, I think?"
"Psychological," Ashelin grimly said, pursing her lips, "making prisoners feel more vulnerable."
Daxter nodded, chewing on his lower lip.
"Bu-but Jak nearly went berserk in the next moment," he said, "'cause the Baron came marching right in."
Silence fell over the room, all gazes drawn towards the unmoving blonde. He stared straight ahead, unseeing even with his good eye.
Daxter gulped.
"And that was really creepy, I tell you!" he said, voice falling down into a croak, "Jak still couldn't seem to transform and the guards had him pressed against a wall in front of Praxis who… who… ugh, he was all:
'Excellent work, everyone. You can all expect bonuses for your accomplishment.'
The guards were licking his boots, I tell you. And then he looked Jak over like big boy was some yakow on the market and it was just disgusting… ugh.
'About time,' he said and grabbed Jak's hair, 'you've been a nuisance for long enough. But we'll make you useful yet, boy.'
Jak tried to bite him but the guards held him back…"
Ashelin turned away from everyone else, pressing a hand to her forehead. She might be a double agent of the highest level, but her main goal was the protection of Haven's people – and this was still her father being depicted as a maniac bastard. The rather cruel voice imitations and hand motions Daxter made hardly helped either. She did not want to see the sad looks she received from the others.
A deep breath filled Daxter's lungs as he attempted to steady himself against the continuation.
"I-I really thought we were goners… Jak just couldn't get free and… and then Erol' s voice came from outside."
He fell silent again.
A shudder tore through Jak's body and Keira sucked in her breath as she hugged him closer, whispering calming words to him. At least now he seemed to be more animate, even if he only used this newfound ability to bury his face in his hands while the trembling continued.
"Uhm…"
Daxter called the attention to himself once more. His legs had stopped swinging, but he was fidgeting with the fluff on his stomach.
"Just that…" he started again, "Nutjob E sounded real, real angry, even Praxis seemed a bit confused hearing it. We couldn't make anything out until h-he burst through the door and…"
A spasm took his left eye as he glanced around, showing the audience eyes that were too wide to show fake shock.
"I swear I'm not making this up! I swear!
Erol came busting in… in… in…
Uhm… he was shouting at the top of his lungs:
'Okay, whoever's responsible for this is dead!'
'Cause, 'cause, cause… he was wearing a pink dress."
Nobody moved a muscle apart from Daxter, who looked around nervously, and Jak who kept shaking.
Slowly it dawned on the audience that those weren't traumatic trembles. He was laughing, broken lip, blue eye, bruises and all, without making a single sound.
Torn felt a burning desire to reach for his dagger.
"If you're just making a joke…" he started through his teeth.
Daxter shook his head vigorously.
"No! I'm not, I swear! He really was! It was all torn up and he was cussing like a sailor on crack… didja know he's got tattoos all over his chest, too? Well…
'I finally get fed up with all the fucking rumors and admit that I'm gay, and while I sleep somebody pulls something like this!' he really roared, turning to Praxis just briefly and going 'Excuse me, Sir,' before continuing to shout at all the guards in there…
A… and in the middle of a sentence he turned around and came face to face with Jak.
Kodak moment of the millennia, people.
He went totally silent right there, and nobody else said anything either. Hot damn, that gag o' mine really hurt!
Sooo… they just stared at each other for a while, until Erol just pirouetted and walked out, mumbling something about coming back in five minutes. You should' a just heard how he started screaming as soon as the door closed. Whoa.
Took another while before anybody else moved too, and then it was Praxis who excused himself and left. You could hear him hurry off but he only got halfway down the corridor before he started laughing."
Still wrapped up in the blanket Jak fell off the bunk bed, out of Keira's slack grip, and slumped on the floor in silent hysterics. Blank stares studied this development for a few seconds until Daxter cleared his throat.
"After that, all the KGs just keeled over with laughter," he said and motioned at Jak as an example of such behavior, "but big J kept calm and wormed us outta there while everyone else was distracted. Ashelin found us just after that. Guess he went into a mute spell from the strain to not laugh before."
The thumping of Jak's fist against the floor remained the only sound for a while.
Finally Torn headed over to a dark corner in the far back of the HQ, lifted a loose brick from the wall and picked out a bottle of whiskey. Without a word he held it up to the rest of the room.
"Excellent idea," Samos Sr. conceded.
To the non-sound of Jak's laughter they all nodded and assembled around the table.
Getting drunk seemed to be the only right thing to do after hearing such a story.
(1) Catch the reference, and I love you forever.