Chapter 5


Back at the Naughty Ottsel...

"DAXTER!" Keira's roaring voice could be heard throughout the Port. "Clean up this mess!"

The little ottsel ignored the angry lioness, and downed another bottle of beer; not in his mouth, but his nose. Daxter tossed the empty bottle aside, got up, and staggered around 'gracefully'.

"You ain't my-HIC- mom!" Daxter slurred.

The ottsel reached for another bottle behind the bar, but fell as a result. Keira's face would have gone beet red if it could.

"Clean this up or I'll get TORN in here!"

Keira knew this would work; next to bees, telebubbies, and CareBears, Torn was his worst fear.

"Naahhhh..." Daxter slurred once again, collapsing on the hard table. Keira was pissed.

But, it took the ottsel a few minutes to realize he landed on the edge of a beer bottle.

"OW!"

"Serves you right."

(A/N: Thought we needed a little humor in this fic. )


The figure slowly krept up to the exausted lioness on all fours. A bright light glowed from its forehead, and its claws looked like daggers.

Closer and closer it came, never stopping.

Faith's tiny heart pounded harder with each sluggish step vibrating against the dusty ground.

"N-no...please.." Faith groaned.

Suddenly...it stopped.

"Huh?" She lifted her head weakly.

It picked up the lioness, and cradled it in its long, bulky arm. Through her dazed sub-conscious, she felt warm fur through the metal armour. She felt safe.

She looked over her shoulder and saw the other Metal Heads stopping as well.

She turned back to the mysterious creature and saw that it was some cross between a lion, a tiger, and a Metal Head. (I'm still developing this character, so this may seem different from what I draw)

Faith felt warm tears develop in her jade eyes.

"M-my...daddy..." She choked out. "M-my daddy's...not moving.."

The Metal-Liger sighed deeply, and held the little lioness closer. He stroked her soft hair and looked into her pleading eyes.

"H-help him...please..." She cried.

The Liger turned his attention towards the bloody Precursor-lion by his feet. He shook his large head, not knowing what to do. He knew the pain of losing someone close to him, too many times, in fact. He turned back to the kitten and rested his head against hers.

"We'll help him." The liger's voice was soothing to the kitten's ears. "I promise."

The Liger sent out a roar to the other Metal Heads, who, in response, all shot an individual beam of Dark Eco in the air to warn everyone else of Jak and his daughter's presence.


The last thing Jak remembered was being attacked by a Metal Head, then nothing. He groaned as he opened his eyes slowly.

When he awoke, Jak found himself in a sunny village; much different than the gritty streets of Haven. As Jak got up, he found that he was much shorter. His fur dissapeared, and he was actually wearing clothes.

Jak looked to his left, and found a fallen Wumpbee next by an old tree.

Wait...Wumpbees? This all seemed very familiar...

The Precursor scanned his surroundings more carefully and found himself in none other than SandOver village. Various children were being treated by their parents from the bee stings; including one Jak knew all too well.

"JAK!" A short little redhead came running up to the fallen Precursor. "Jak, are you ok? Are you alright?"

Jak went to say something, but found that he couldn't speak again.

"C'mon buddy, let's get you cleaned up."

But Jak couldn't move. His eyelids felt heavy as he quickly lost his strength, and the darkness slowly krept over the corners of his eyes. His head started to go limp in the younger Precursor's grasp.

"Jak...c'mon don't do this to me.." His voice sounded older for some reason.

Jak's vision then went completely black, but he still heard voices.

"Jak...don't go..." The voices echoed in the darkness of his mind.

"Come back...come back..." This one sounded female.

Then...Jak saw something appear out of the darkness.

Light.


Blood…

One of the most horrific things to see at such a young age, a scratch on your arm at the age of six is like an amputated limb at the age of twenty. And to see an excessive amount of blood at such a young age is absolutely horrifying!

And that was what a certain little boy had to see on his sixth birthday, down in a small alleyway, next to his mother, blood soaked his tiny hands, tears drenched his cheeks and the only sound he could make was a tiny whimper.

Then footsteps came, footsteps from a monster, a large man with a green eco sword in his right hand and metal hiding one side of his face.

"Hello young Mar," The man growled, "What happened here?"

The young boy just whimpered some more and twizzled a bit of his dead mother's hair around in his fingers. "Did you do this?" The boy looked at the older man in shock then shook his head quickly. "Of course you didn't, but if you didn't then who did?"

The boy sniffed back tears, there was nobody to comfort him anymore, no mother, no father, no friends or family, no hope. When he thought about all of this he burst out crying in his Mother's arms, but there was no comforting shushing noise, no sweet words, no warm arms to wrap around his fragile body, just a corpse.

"You killed her didn't you Mar? If it weren't for your evil doing she'd still be a happy lady, living a nice normal life, I suppose it's for the best really that she is dead, no more suffering at your hands." The man chuckled, "tell you what, if I give you a head's start you can run away from all of this, and no more shall come of it, being the energetic tyke that you are I'm sure you'd be able to outrun my slow Krimson Guards, now run Mar, run!"

And that's exactly what the young boy did, he ran from the man, from his mother, from what may have been his last flicker of normal life.


"Jak! Jak! Jak!" A female voice echoed through the Lion's head, he had been hauled back to the Naughty Ottsel and was placed in his over-sized dog basket (A.N: Keira and Jak now share a huge dog-basket, where as Faith has her own little dog basket next to Jak and Keira's aww!)

Jak's eyes stay firmly shut as his legs shot out in different directions, one caught on something, he pulled away as quickly as possible and then he heard a yelp of pain.

He opened his eyes and saw a man in his late thirties clutching his right arm, blood dripping from an open wound, he looked around and saw, Keira, Tess, a rather drunk Daxter, Faith and something he'd never seen in his very weird and complicated life, a cross between a lion, a tiger and metal head!

"Daddy!" Faith jumped onto her Father and licked his bloody face, Jak groaned in sheer agony as Faith jumped onto his chest with excitement and relief. "Shadow saved you!"

"Who?" Jak asked his voice hoarse. Faith jumped off him and went to the crossbreed who was sat down panting heavily.

"Daddy, this is Shadow, he saved me, then he saved you! He brought you back here and we called a vet, oh, um, and I think you may have hurt him." Faith tilted her head towards the vet, Tess was knelt down by his side trying to calm him down.

"Hello sir," Shadow bowed in front of Jak as though the Lion was a thing of great power, "as your daughter has said I am Shadow, I am a Metal Liger, the last of my kind, but I shall assist whenever possible, as it was my own doing which caused you to be in this state, I thought you were a threat so I warned the metal heads, tell me if there is anything you need."

Jak grinned, then Keira walked up to Jak lowered her head to Jak's level and said, "Jak, I have something important to tell you,"


EcoJak: What's Keira gonna tell Jak? Where did Shadow come from?

L.O.D.: Review to find out.