Crossfire II: Fragments of the Past
By: EcoJak/Lioness of Darkness
Author Note: You read it right. This fic is being written by me, and my new friend, Lioness of Darkness! We're still working on it, so be patient. Ladies and non-ladies, I give you...Crossfire II!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
21 years ago...
The cold rain poured heavily over the tall, stone building, and splashed onto its rough surface. Thunder rumbled in the distance as lightening lit up the dark, gloomy streets of Haven.
Then...something dripped off of the stone walls. Something that shouldn't have been there;
Blood. Lots of blood.
The liquidy substance was followed by a limp hand hanging off of the edge.
A small boy, probably 5 or 6, slowly made his way to the lifeless body. His clothes were soaked by the rain, as well as the tiny, green clump of hair drooping off of his leather hat.
"Mommy?" He cried softly.
He shook the woman, staining his hands with her blood in the process.
"Mommy, please! I'm scared!" He cried even harder.
The woman still remained motionless. The child dropped to his knees in horror.
His mother was dead.
"Mommy..."
From the shodows, a large figure appeared with a green Eco-Sword in his grasp. He looked at the child with 'shock'.
"Mar...what have you done?" The man whispered.
"I...I d-didn't mean to...i-it was an accident...I-" Mar was intrupted by a fat finger placed on his small lip.
"Shh..."
The man's faced turned from sympathy...to anger.
"You are not to speak of word of this to anyone." He growled.
"But I-"
"Not. A. Word. Understood?"
Mar nooded.
"There is something I need to tell you."
Mar looked around nervously, he didn't know what to do.
"Wake up, Mar...wake up.."
"W-what..?"
"Wake up...wake up.."
"WAKE UP!" Another voice shouted.
Jak awoke to a little fuzzy ottsel clinging desperately to his furry mane.
"What do you waaannntt?" Jak yawned.
"Thank God! This little bugger's drivin' me CRAZY!"
"Who?"
"Her!"
At Daxter's word, a small, golden lioness with jade hair and eyes pounced on the ottsel from behind. She smiled.
"Faith...let go of Uncle Daxter." Jak said playfully.
"Thank you!" Daxter threw his furry little arms into the air.
"Aww..." Faith wined, releasing the small creature. "But he's so cute and fuzzy!"
"I know." Jak gave Daxter a noogie. "Your mom said the same thing a whiles back."
"Yeah...wait, hey!" The ottsel shouted.
"Well, she did."
"What else'd she say?" Faith asked, excitedly.
"Oh, that he had a big mouth, he smelled, he was too hairy-"
Daxter shoved Jak's red scarf into his mouth.
"Ok...hehe..that's enough."
The lion pulled the scarf from his mouth.
"Ugly, too."
The lioness gave her father a blank look before answering with...
"So, THAT'S who the 'Ugly Ottsel' is! Mom tells me that story all the time!" Faith proclaimed.
"Hey!" Daxter shouted.
The lion changed the subject. "So, aren't you supposed to be fishing with your mother?"
"I got bored. I want to play with you, dad!"
"Um...maybe later."
"PLEASEEEEE?"
"Ok! Ok!"
"Yay!"
The lioness hopped up and down with joy as she scampered off. Jak slowly got up and walked with Daxter by his side.
"Yer gettin' old, I'm tellin' ya.."
"I'm not old. I'm only 26."
"Old."
"And, I had a dream about my past."
The ottsel hopped up on the lion's shoulder.
"Well, maybe if you actually TOLD someone instead of complaining about it, we wouldn't have this problem, now would we?"
"I know, but..." The lion trailed off.
Jak looked at his daughter who was preoccupied trying to catch a butterfly.
"I...can't. Keira's still kinda mad at me because of my 'attitude problem', and Faith doesn't even know she's not a pure lioness!"
"So? I'm not a pure ottsel, and I deal with it just fine!"
"Dax.."
"Just tell her!"
"She won't take it as well as you. Remember when you first came out of that Dark Eco pool?"
Daxter thought about this for a minute.
"Oh, yeah...that was scary." Daxter muttered.
The lion held out his paw for the ottsel to see. Dark Eco sparked wildly around his curved claws.
"And I still can't control my dark side too well; how am I supposed to teach her?"
"I know! Wait here!"
Just then, the ottsel ran into the house for a few minutes, then came back with a book called "How to Control Dark Eco, by Gol Akaron".
Jak looked at it with a puzzed expression.
"Use this!" Daxter exclaimed.
"You had this...the whole time...AND NEVER TOLD ME!"
"I forgot, ok? Just give this to the kid..."
Jak reached for the book, but Daxter pulled it away quickly.
"...if you promise to keep her outta my hair."
"Hmmmm...decisions, decisions."
"Jak!"
"Just kidding."
The lion thought about it for a while, then answered.
"Done."
"AND, give me 300 bucks?"
The lion gave the ottsel a sarcastic look.
"Don't push it."
Jak grabbed the book with his mouth and walked over to his daughter.
"Here Faith, a little present from Uncle Daxter."
The ottsel crossed his arms in frustration.
"You still owe me 300 bucks!" Daxter called back.
Jak looked back at Daxter and saw that the ottsel meant business when he talked about money, if he were still a human being he'd have reached into his pocket pulled out the money or threatened to give Daxter a little trip to Torn, on his own, in a small room, and Daxter would forget the money business all together.
But now it was a bit of a different story, he had no wallet and no money, he couldn't use the old 'shut up or I'll put you in a small room with Torn' trick because Torn was now not only the commander of the Krimson Guards but he was also now the governor of Haven city, as Ashelin had been mixed up with another chicken in the palaces organic food chambers and given to Torn as dinner, so the ruler of the city could always know that he had a bit of his lover in his body, all the time.
The only other option he had to get rid of Daxter was to try and strangle him, but he didn't want to appear to be a bloodthirsty assassin in front of his own daughter, so he growled deeply at Daxter and bound off to Faith who was waiting for him eager to go on an adventure. Jak paced up to Faith and grinned sheepishly, faith looked at her father and then saw a large book hidden in his scarf, she jumped up to it and using her small teeth she pulled it out, the book opened out onto a rather gory page with a demon ripping a young woman's head off blood pouring from her neck down her back and onto the pavement.
Jak expected his daughter to squeal and cry, she was only young and to see that would no doubt frighten her or upset her, but instead she simply leant forward and grinned.
"Cool! Hey Daddy where did you get the cool bedtime book? These will be soooo much better than hose boring stories uncle Daxter tells me every night! Can all humans do that? Even uncle Torn?"
Jak stared at Faith, bewildered by the out come, he stared at Daxter and the ottsel shrugged, Jak gulped then covered Faith's eyes with one paw and closed the book with the other.
"Daddy!"
"No Faith, you're too young, besides if your Mother found out that you were looking at things like that I'd be metal meat before you know it," Jak sighed, he took his paw off Faith's tiny head and placed the book back under his scarf, "And only a few elves have those powers, that's what happens when you get hit by dark eco lightning."
"But I thought uncle Daxter was a human before, did he get struck by eco lightning? Why didn't he become a demon and just little boring ottsel? Is that how the metal heads started? And what about Lurkers?" Faith trailed off into silence, by that time Jak had forgotten every question, so he just smiled placed a paw on his daughter's head and said:
"I'll tell you when you're older," Faith grumbled at this, she hated being treat like a baby, she wanted to learn everything, but anytime she asked she'd just get the same old answer of 'I'll tell you when you're older'!
"Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll take you to dead town!" Faith's eyes lit up with joy, she nodded her head quickly and ran around in circles, "and I'll tell you a story about dead town on the way there!"
At this Faith bounded off leaving Jak to follow her, he looked around, there were plenty of pedestrians about, Jak had become like a little city mascot, pretty much everyone knew him, children would climb on his back for rides around the street and even grown adults would stop and stroke his thick bushy mane! Jak crouched as though he was going to pounce then bounded after Faith as quickly as he could.
When Jak closed the gap between Faith and himself, he lowered his head to Faith's level and clamped his teeth around her neck, lifted her up and ran through the city being careful not to crash into any Lurkers or humans.
He took a few minutes to get to the gates, which separated the City of Haven from Dead town. He sat down and dropped Faith to the floor, Faith stomped her back foot impatiently. Jak then let out a loud yawn and laid out on the dirty pavement, the young Lioness cub jumped onto her Father's head and bit his ears as though they were chew toys.
"Daddy, c'mon I wanna go play!" She moaned; Jak showed no signs of pain as she bit away at his ears, he did this whenever he wanted to get out of doing something like swimming in the port or hunting desert metal heads. "You're boring!"
"Y'know," Jak started, "this is the same way one of the greatest lions looked before it died," Faith glanced over at Jak and then listened carefully, "it was seven years ago tonight, all was quiet and peaceful, these walls weren't always there, dead town used to be known as Dallun town, people who lived there were simple folk and happy with there lives, but little did they know, that was all going to change.
"A lion crept into the city at night fall, it was leading thousands of metal heads behind it, no one was out on the streets so they made it through with complete ease, then when the full moon came out the lion let out a huge roar and the metal heads charged around the town killing all! By the time they had finished killing all the civilians in that area, they claimed the town as their own, and do you know how I know about this incident," Faith shook her head in confusion, then Jak sat up, lowered his head, bared his sharp white teeth and then growled in a low hoarse voice, "because, I was that Lion!" Faith screamed and tried to run away but Jak caught her in his mouth and pretended to rip her apart.
He kept her in his mouth and they walked into Dead town, not knowing who or what they would find.
EcoJak: Review?
Lioness: Please?
