Miss.Ecofreak: today I am both a happy person and a sad person. I am sad because school has started after winter vacation, besides, two of our school's hamsters have died, including my favourite, Pepper.

But I am also happy, I've just learned that the magazine Shonen Jump (with Naruto) is coming to Norway!

Zakura: What's the big deal? You've already read far into the Naruto-series already!

Miss.Ecofreak: Only in english. You might ask what this has to do with Light Within? Nothing at all. I just wanted to say it.

Answer to Dark Mar: Don't you remember who was on the floor? Crocket the crocadog of course!

Miss.Ecofreak: And now, for yet another chapter of Light Within

CHAPTER 4

THE SECRET FORTRESS

Daxter

"Come on stupidhead! Make yourself useful for once!" I yelled.

"Give it a break Daxter; can't you see he's trying?" Tanya said, she was sitting on my head, annoyingly enough, while Crocket was sniffing at the ground.

"For all we know he might be looking for some squirrels to chase, why do I get stuck with nothing but crap when Jak gets the best sidekick there is?" I asked.

"You know, I was about to ask the same question" Tetra said.

Before I had time to give a nasty reply Crocket suddenly barked and ran of.

And seeing that I had him on a leach…

"He's found something!" Tanya said and flew after Crocket.

"Great, now all he has to do is STOP RUNNING!" I yelled as the crazy crocadog dragged me through the streets of Haven City.

But the dog had no intention of slowing down.

He dragged me through the park, into the stadium, back out, towards the slums, towards the waterslums…

"Okay. Now this is getting painful" I said as I dropped the leach and crashed into a badly fastened plank for the seventh time.

"Not that I care, but are you alright?" Tetra asked.

"I think I just broke my nose, apart from that I'm fine" I muttered.

"Good, cause we're obviously going on a field trip" the chinbit (rabbit-chinchilla-cross) said and pointed.

I looked up to see where she was pointing, there was Crocket, barking at a large metal door.

I knew exactly where that door led.

"Oh no" I sighed.
"Oh yes. The drain-pipe to the pumping station" Tetra said.

If you are not familiar with Haven City then you might wonder why a pumping station is so bad.

Well, the pumping station itself is no danger; it's where it's positioned that bothers me.

When Mar built this city long ago, he obviously found it a good idea to place the station outside the city walls.

And outside the wall means there's a lot of metalheads there, and metalheads are not good, I guess you already knew that.

So there I was, on my way out to the pumping station with no one else to help me except a mouse-sized bird, a naughty chinbit and a crazy crocadog.

The door opened as soon as we walked up to it.

I guess no one expects anyone to be stupid enough to go out there at will so they never bothered to put a lock on it.

As we walked out, I couldn't see any metalheads at first, but that didn't have to mean they were not there.

"Come on Daxter, there's nothing here" Tanya said, she had already flown out and sat in a three to get a better view.

Crocket was sniffing around to figure out where to go next.

"Perhaps we should have asked Torn for help" I said, "Or Ashelin, anyone in the freedom league guard"

"Why do we need to do that? We've got "Orange Lightning" on the team" Tetra said, "Besides, we've already made it this far".

"Getting through the city is one thing. Getting through the wasteland is a completely different matter" I said, "And in case you haven't noticed, none of us are armed".

"You worry too much" Tanya said.
"You can say that when a metalhead start chewing on your head" I said.

"Drop it, Crocket has caught up the trace" Tetra said as Crocket ran of.

We followed the dog further into the wilderness than I had ever been before.

Jak and I had been on many missions outside the walls, by the pumping station, the mountain temple, Haven Forest, the dig and even the metalhead nest.

But I had never been on my own out here, and I didn't see the two girls and the crocadog as a good replacement for Jak and his gun.

I missed him more than ever as we walked through unknown forests and every time I heard a noise behind me I feared metalheads, only to see it was just a rat.

In situations like this I even missed Dark Jak.

Suddenly our journey hit a wall, literally.

"Oh great. How are we going to get past this?" I asked as I looked up on the high brick wall.

"This wall is elven-made" Tanya said, "But who would make a large wall out here?"

"Maybe it's another city?" Tetra suggested, "Or an old one"

"Nah, there are no cities this close to Haven City. We would have known" Tanya replied, "Do you know anything about this Daxter?"
"Me? I grew up in Sandover bird-brain, hundreds of years before your time" I said.

"Can't you fly over it Tanya?" Tetra asked.

"I could always have a look" Tanya said and took of.

She flew over the wall and landed on the top of it.

"Can you see anything?" Tetra shouted.

"It's some kind of fortress here" Tanya shouted back, "This wall is very thick, it's probably one of those secret fortresses the baron built outside the walls to extra hard-to-keep prisoners".

"Why didn't they ever shut Jak in here? It was no problem breaking out of that prison" I commented.

"Projects like the dark-warrior program obviously needed extra monitoring" Tetra explained, "These fortresses were checked over like once a week according to the rumors, I bet they're abounded now"

"So why don't we just go around it and see if we can find an entrance?" I said, "Hey bird-brain! Do you see any way around these rocks?"

"Not if you keep calling me bird-brain little rat" Tanya yelled back, "But if you walk back a few meters and then go to the left you should find the front door. But watch out, there are a couple of metalheads blocking the way"

"Great, what are we supposed to do about them?" I muttered.

Tanya must have noticed how disappointed I looked, because she flew down and landed on my head again.

"Don't worry Dax, they are so small even you would be able to kick their buts" she said.

So we followed Tanya's instructions, (we had to drag Crocket along because he wanted to dig a hole under the wall), and soon we saw the two metalheads.

Tanya was right; they were small, only two of those toad-like creatures who looked more scared of us than we were of them.

Or maybe they were more scared of Crocket who quickly got them both running.

"Hey, you're not so bad after all" I said and tried to pet his head, only to be bitten for the tenth time today.

It didn't take long until we found the front door.

A large wooden door… what kind of fortress-facility has wooden doors?

"Wouldn't it be easy for the prisoners to just burn this door?" I asked, "Especially if there are no guards around?"

"The baron never cared much if some prisoners escaped into the wasteland, they rarely found their way back to the city anyway" Tetra said, "They didn't have a nice tracking dog like we do", if you think her attempt at petting Crocket worked better than mine, think again.

"#¤ dog" Tetra cursed.

"Watch your language. Sure hope Crocket has rabies-vaccine" Tanya said.

"You never said that when he bit me" I commented.

"That's different. You are nuts already" Tanya said and flew over the door before I had time to catch her.

The door obviously had been burned a couple of (hundred) times, the holes had simply been closed using more planks and now they were easily removable.

"The baron died one week ago an already this place is falling apart" I said as I crawled through one of the holes. (Miss.Ecofreak: I know this was supposed to take place only the day after the big party, but I bet redecorating the Hip Hog Heaven/Naughty Ottsel can't have taken only one day)

"Maintaining other buildings than his palace has never been the baron's strong side" Tetra said.

"Watch out, someone's coming" Tanya said.

We hid behind some barrels just as a couple of guys passed by.

They were wearing parts of old Krimson guard amours, probably just some trash they found lying around.

"These guys looks like they are the baron's fan club or something" I whispered, "That kind of explains it if they kidnapped Jak, but where is he?"

Before I got an answer Crocket got loose from his leached and ran for the two men barking like there was no tomorrow.

"What the? Shoot that dog!" one of the men yelled.

"Great, that stupid crocadog is going to get us all killed" I said.

"He's just trying to protect his friend" Tanya said.

I was halfway hoping Crocket actually did get shot, but no, he bit the two elves in the arms and ran of with their guns, then he came back to us.

"Great job Crocket, give me those" Tetra said and took the guns from Crocket, she handed one to me, "You do know how to use a gun right?" she asked.

"Of course, I use Jak's morph gun all the time" I said and took the small gun in my hand.

Just then one of the elves pushed the barrel aside, probably to catch Crocket.

"More of them? Hey Jim! It's the little rat!" he yelled at his comrade.

That's the last thing he ever yelled.

"Great shooting, but we better get the other one too before he calls for aid" Tetra said.

"No problem" I said and aimed at the other guy.

Unfortunately I was only able to hit his shoulder armor.

The man ran at us and quickly grabbed me by my tail.

"What's this? Isn't it the eco-freak's little pet?" he said, "He'll be so happy to see you again"

"Let go of him or I'll…" Tetra started, only to realize her gun was out of ammo.

"Or you'll what? Throw that gun at my head?" the man, whom his dead buddy had called Jim, said and laughed.

He picked Tetra up with his other hand, after taking the gun from me.

"Two little rats and a nasty crocadog, what am I supposed to do with you?" he said with a smirk on his head.
"You could watch out!"
Tanya hit Jim in the back of his head with her beak, that hurt him enough to let us go, and we had no plans of staying put so we ran towards the buildings in the middle.

"Where would you be without me?" Tanya asked.

"That was a great rescue Tanya" Tetra said as she ran.

"Yeah. Thanks" I said.

"Wow, the almighty Daxter said thanks, I should have taped this or no one would believe me" Tanya said and laughed.

"Very funny, let's just figure out where they keep Jak and then we leave" I said.

The two girls glared at me.
"Fine, Jak and Shara. But then we go home" I said.

Miss.Ecofreak: I just wanted to say that the fortress portrayed in this chapter does not exist in the game, I just made it up as I wrote.

Zakura: why do you always have such open endings?

Miss.Ecofreak: because all the happenings in this story happens so quickly after each other, besides, cliffhangers makes it more exiting.

Zakura: how can people hanging in cliffs make it more exiting?

Miss.Ecofreak: (sighs) you just don't get it do you? Anyway, review and chapter five will be up as soon as I can write it.