Miss.Ecofreak: okay, the animal lover is back!
Zakura: what do you mean about animal lover the way you treat me?
Miss.Ecofreak: I can't walk around putting grass in your cage every hour, I've got schoolwork
Zakura: sure, but you can always give grass to Kiara!
Miss.Ecofreak: no I don't, first of all Kiara doesn't eat all her hay within two hours second I am not responsible for feeding any animals this week
Zakura: hmp!
Miss.Ecofreak: who would know a rabbit could get jealous? Espesially at a wild rabbit like Kiara...
Answer to Thee Slushee: Random humour usually has NOTHING to do in Light Within, I agree that was bad (as I've mentioned before but I disliked it so much I had to say it again). And I don't know when Jak wil realise Kate's secret, but I'll try to speed up a bit to make it happen soon:)
Miss.Ecofreak: but now to even more animals... FLUTBACK-RIDING!
CHAPTER 10
A DANGEROUS TRIP
Jak
It didn't take Charles long to feed fifty-seven birds (which according to Shara were the exact number of birds on the farm right now) so he soon came in along with his wife Maya (I swear that name was a coincidence) and his daughters Kiki and Mina, and Kura the wolf dog.
Shara spend most of the meal looking out of the window, at the birds feeding outside (all acting like morons) (Miss.E: too see how the flut-fluts acts during feeding time, read "Flut-fluts and crocadogs" in Growing Up In Haven City)
"Hey Charles. I don't see Spot out there" she said.
"Oh, Spot. He's fine. He just isn't here for the moment" Charles said.
"So where is he? In another pen? Doesn't Phoenix want him in the herd anymore?" Shara asked.
"Well of course. Spot and Phoenix are like brothers, they never part. But ever since Cornelius died Spot has been taking daily walks into the desert. I've tried to stop him countless times but he always finds a way out of the pen" Charles said. "But he always comes back sooner or later, so I've decided to just let him go when he wants to".
"He's looking for Cornelius" Kiki said with her mouth full of fish (Miss.Ecofreak: ew, I hate fish. Zakura: stop interrupting the story!), "It's so cute. A loyal flut searching for his disappeared owner, just like in the books".
"Aw come on. What stupid animal would spend years looking for a guy who's most likely dead anyway?" Daxter asked.
"Doesn't he get hungry? Oh… forget that" Tanya said as a blue and yellow flut-flut walked into the pen (apparently he had jumped over the fence) and towards the food-dish where one of the birds, which looked like the leader, greeted him with a peck on the beak.
"That's Phoenix out there" Shara said. "The leader of the herd and Tiny Blue's younger brother Spot. He used to be Cornelius' bird".
"That's Tiny Blue's little brother? He's twice his size" Daxter said.
"Told you Tiny was a mini" Shara said.
"How long have you been working with flut-fluts?" I asked, flut-fluts had always been my favorite animals. (Miss.E: at least they're better than leapers who die only if you crash into a wall or something)
"My family has been in the flut-flut business ever since Mar's time" Charles said. "In fact, every member of the family, even those who don't live on the farm, has their own flut-flut here. That also includes Errol and Cornelius.
"Is Cornelius part of this family too? I never would have guessed" Daxter said. "I mean, when I met Cornelius he seemed to hate the baron and Errol was his closest helper".
"Cornelius and Errol are brothers even though they don't like to admit it" Charles said. "Luckily their rivalry doesn't show on their birds. Phoenix was Errol's flut-flut and wild-caught while Spot used to be Cornelius' bird. I guess birds don't care much about the relationship between their owners."
"And that's good. I really wouldn't like it if Phoenix started taking after his owner" Tanya said and shuddered.
We slept over at the farm, Charles and Maya had many extra bedrooms.
The morning after, Shara was eager to show us all the birds.
"That's Coco over there, and there's one of Phoenix's chicks, Firebird and his mother Silver Star"
"How does she remember all their names?" Daxter asked drowsily from my shoulder.
Suddenly I noticed there was a smaller pen on the other side, which housed only one flut-flut.
"Who's that bird over there?" I asked.
Shara turned around to see where I looked.
"Oh… that's Spike. Not a very good bird" she said. "He was taken out of the herd when he started attacking the other bird. (If you want to know what happened, once again you can read Flut-fluts and crocadogs in Growing Up) Believe it or not that young bird over there is his daughter, come here Blossom!"
I wasn't really interested in meeting Blossy or whatever her name was, there was something funny about this bird on the other side so I walked over to him.
It was apparent why the bird was separated from the others as soon as I walked up to him.
I noticed he had tried to peck on every plank or tree in his small pen, and had been tied up to a log to prevent escaping.
At the moment he saw me he snarled, obviously he didn't want anything else than to tear me apart.
"This bird doesn't look at all like Chici. Let's go back to the other ones" Daxter said. "In fact, I would more like to spend the day with Crocket than to come any nearer to it".
"You can go. I want to take a closer look at this one" I said.
Daxter didn't have to be asked twice, he jumped of my shoulder and went straight back to Shara.
"Hi there Spike. What are you so upset about?" I asked.
The bird growled and tried to charge at me, however the rope tied to his neck stopped him.
"He's no pushover that one" Chares said as he walked up behind me. "I've even tried putting him to sleep a couple of times but I never came near with the needle."
"Why is he so much different from the others? Is he wild-caught or anything?" I asked.
"No. Phoenix is the only bird on the ranch who came from the wild, and he was only a chick when he was caught" Charles explained. "In fact, Spike used to be a nice bird when he was little. But he ran away once. We caught him after only a few months, but ever since that he's never been the same."
I looked at the bird again, I couldn't shake of the feeling there was something strange about him, apart from that he was extremely aggressive.
"When did he escape?" I asked.
"I think it approximately tree years ago now, and soon after he recovered he claimed leadership over the herd until he was replaced by Phoenix about tree months ago" Charles said.
Tree years. That was before I even came to Haven City.
"Do you want to try to ride one of the birds?" Charles asked. "I've got a lot of other birds who are much nicer than that one".
Ride flut-flut? I hadn't done that for two years if not more.
"You bet" I said.
Shara didn't even ask if she could come along.
As soon as she saw Charles getting ready to put a saddle on a green flut-flut named Lucy (She's Tiny Blue and Spot's half sister) she ran out on the field and picked out an apparently random flut-flut.
The random bird turned out to be Phoenix, something which Tanya didn't take too well.
"Of all the birds on the farm, why did you have to take that one?" she asked.
"Poor Phoenix has hardly been ridden since Errol died" she said. "He's such a nice bird, aren't you Phoeni? Yes you are".
Tanya rolled her eyes, but she didn't say more.
Crocket seemed very skeptical about the large birds; he had never seen one before.
"Relax Crock, they're not dangerous" I assured him.
But the crocadog just kept barking.
"I can keep him in the dog pen while you're gone if you want me too" Charles said. "Kura usually runs around freely anyway. I'm trying to train her into becoming a herding dog."
"Thanks. But I'll take him with me" I said, jumping up on Lucy's back. "He'll only break out if you cage him anyway. Daxter! Are you coming?"
Daxter came out of the stables, wearing a kid-sized helmet.
"I don't take any chances" he said as Shara and I started laughing. "You probably won't laugh if I fell of and got a concussion".
"You look like a total jerk" Tetra said from the back of Tiny Blue.
"I would rather look stupid than becoming stupid" Daxter said. (Remember that line, everyone who rides on their bikes, horses or gigantic birds without a helmet)
He climbed up on Lucy's head and she didn't seem to mind.
I clearly thought he was overreacting.
Not once had he fallen of Chici, and she was only a few days old when she was first ridden.
Ten minutes later we were all out on the large fields near the wasteland.
Shara on Phoenix, Tetra and Tanya on Tiny Blue, Daxter and I were riding Lucy and Crocket was running behind us barking like a mad dog.
I had almost forgotten how great it felt riding a flut-flut.
Zoomers were one thing but when you really want a good ride, nothing beats a flut-flut.
Lucy seemed to enjoy herself just as much as I did; she jumped over obstacles as logs and big stones like they were nothing.
"Could you slow down?"
Clearly Daxter wasn't having fun; either that or he hid it well.
He does have a habit of complaining on practically everything.
"Hey, look who's broken out of his pen again" Tetra said.
I turned around to see Spot running towards us, then he ran past us not even stopping to say hi, or whatever fluts do when they're greeting.
"Why is he in such a hurry?" Tanya asked as Tiny Blue cried sadly after seeing his younger-yet-bigger brother run by him.
"Let's go check it out" Shara said and turned Phoenix around to follow Spot.
"You do that, meanwhile we're going back to the ranch" Daxter said.
"In your dreams" I said and drove Lucy forward.
Daxter didn't even bother complaining this time, he knows all to well it won't help.
We followed Spot into the desert where Tiny Blue refused to go farther,
"What's wrong blueboy? Suddenly you're not so keen on seeing your brother?" Tetra asked.
"He's probably scared of the desert" Shara said while trying to keep Phoenix from running straight into the desert. "Maybe we should go back"
"Oh, so when he wants to go we can go? What about my needs?" Daxter complained.
"Let's go" Shara said completely ignoring Daxter. "It's getting hot out here anyway".
"Of course it's hot! It a desert!" Daxter complained.
"Can't you please ask him to shut up?" Tetra begged me.
"What makes you think he'll listen to me?" I asked.
But as we turned around, Crocket stared barking even more intense than he had before.
And for a good reason, blocking our way was five nasty metalheads.
"Oh great, and just as I left my morph gun at the ranch" I said.
"Aw come on. You never needed the gun back in Sandover" Daxter said.
"Maybe we should try to run and hope they don't catch up with us" Tetra said and Tiny Blue seemed to agree, he was walking backwards into the desert.
"I don't know what's worse, being killed by metalheads or die in the desert" Shara said.
The metalheads growled threatening as they moved closer.
Even Crocket hid behind Phoenix's feet, which he had figured was the strongest of the birds.
"I really wished Cornelius was here right now" Tanya said.
Miss.Ecofreak: okay, raise your hands everyone who hates leapers!
Zakura: what does leapers have to do withanything?
Miss.Ecofreak: they suck! can't take a damn thing! But the flut-flut however... I wonder if she will appear in JakX?
Zakura: Dude, it's like hundreds of years after Jak and Daxter
Miss.Ecofreak: fine then, all the pictures I've seen of Combat Driving Jak drives one of the cars form Jak3. But enough of that. Now I'm going to leave you with this cliffhanger and go to bed
Zakura: hey!
Miss.Ecofreak: no I won't (giggle) I'll enter another web page and later finish the next chapter and hopefully update this some day before christmas (or way before that)please review:)