A/N: Whoo boy, poor Keira, you guys are gonna learn some disturbing facts about what happens to her. It's so sad....but she's a tough girl now. She can deal. WEEEEE!!!!! Keira uses a gun in this chap! Not really all that exciting though.....
Summary: Keira is working at Krew's Hip Hog Heaven to survive living in Haven City.
Pairings: JxK, TxA, DxT
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Darker Still
by Ashelin Rayne
Chapter One
Life As She Knows It
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It had already been a month before Keira knew it, her waitressing days at Hip Hog Heaven had flown by so fast. For the first few weeks all she had to do was clean and take orders from customers under the scrutinizing gaze of Krew, the amazing blimp-of-a-man. The mound of fat had allowed her to stay in a tiny back room with only enough space to fit a just-barely-large-enough cot and a tiny nightstand placed at the head of the bed in between the cot and the wall. There was a space, about two feet by five feet, which she used to change her clothes at. Krew had so 'genrously' provided her with a waitressing uniform and Keira had bought another set of clothes with her first weeks pay.
She glared distastefully at her 'uniform,' but as much as she hated wearing it, it did come in handy when she talked men into buying her food. Keira sighed as she went to put it on, her almost-all-day shift starting in ten minutes. The girl slipped the skin tight, white tube top that was barely large enough to cover all of her chest over her head. Grabbing another clothing item off of her night stand, she threw on a small, black vest with navy blue lining; the bottom of the vest ended a few inches below her breasts and there were two, midnight blue buckles on each side. Her skirt, Keira had to admit, wasn't as bad as it could've been. It came down just an inch above her finger tips, although on both sides there was a slit half way up the skirt. It was black with navy blue lining and beautiful, intricate designs stitched with dark green and navy blue threads that matched her hair. Keira wore black, fishnet stockings and knee-high, black -lined with navy blue and dark green- combat boots she bought. She couldn't exactly run around the city with her old, open-toed foot wear, although she still kept it under her cot.Keira also kept her mechanics goggles around her neck, they hung below a black choker with a deep sapphire jewel hanging from it. She had her old belt on, with the suspenders that went over her shoulders. On her arms, she had gauntlets and bindings similiar to her old ones except the cloth bindings were a navy blue and the gauntlets were black with fingerless gloves attached.
There was a bang on her door and she heard Krew yelling at her about customers coming in. With a heavy sigh, Keira dragged herself out of her room and slipped a mask of indifference on. She reminded herself, without being too obvious, to always stay out of what she called the male customers' 'Groping Zone,' the girl had lost count of all the times men had flet her up or smacked her ass at around fifty.
The day dragged on and Keira was talking orders left and right, it was Saturday and the Hip Hog Heaven was filled with the sleeziest and most perverted men in Haven City, or at least thats what it seemed like to her. She winced as yet another customer smacked her ass, she snorted and continued her work. Halfway through the night, a group of men asked Krew if she could dance for them which he hastily nodded then shot Keira a look that clearly said 'You-better-get-your-ass-on-that-bar-and-start-dancing,' just a song came on. She couldn't say no, right now, whether she liked it or not, Krew was her only chance of surviving in the god-forsaken hell hole of a city.
If you want to know how
To fly high, then go now
To the place where all the concubines...
Meet and converse with them
Marvel at their pale skin
Wonder how they chew on their pointy...
Teeth and hair are beauty
They know it's their duty
To be countess in their hearts and their...
Minds that have to whisper
See in them a sister
Look into their eyes and you'll become...
Keira let her mind get swept up in the dark, gothic melody of the stringed instruments and heavy metal beat as her body began to move sensually. This was only the third time she had been asked to dance and she still felt wrong...dirty...doing it, but she figured out that if she didn't think about it, she could ignore the heated looks all the men were giving. She whimpered inwardly, she hoped her Daddy never lerned of all the things she was doing. She hoped Jak never found out....
Transylvanian Concubine.
You know what flows here like wine.
Stay here with us, it's just time.
Transylvanian Concubine.
Sorrow is their master
Cackling with laughter
Now he's having just one piece of...
Cakey is their make-up
Catholics try to shake up
All the things that form their lives, but they're...
Dead, their sighs, their songs
They know what they do is wrong.
Stay here with us, it's just time.
Transylvanian Concubine.
As she listened to the lyrics, she couldn't help but laugh bitterly to herself. She could sort of relate to the song. Keira took a deep breath of air and began to flirt, sinfully with several of the customers. Krew had said if she did a good job, she would get bonuses and bonuses were always good. One of the last bonuses she recieved was one of his old hovering 'doughnut' engines which she promptly began working on a prototype hoverboard.
Keira nearly screamed as a younger, bolder man grinded his arousal against her as her pushed her against. Keeping her cool, she playfully got out of his embrace and jumped back onto the bar to resume her dancing.
Candelabra's lighted
Satan has been sighted
Never has there been an evening like...
This is what they wanted
Always to feel hunted
You can never be too rich or too...
Thin. The blood has run out.
Fangs ruin any cute pout
Morning has come now they've flown
What have you learned from what has been shown?
She ended her dance lying across the bar with one arm over her head and the other draping across her stomach. The men all roared in appreciation as Keira hopped off the bar and resumed serving drinks and taking orders. She heard Krew cursing loudly at the other side of the bar and looked curiously at what was giving him trouble. The flying fat man swiftly struck one of the mechanical beer taps that came from storage.
"Damnable piece of machine!" He spat at it. Keira came closer to the broken machine.
"Can't you fix it?" She asked curiously, her mechanic side already assesing the problem and coming up with a quick fix solution. The obese man growled.
"No, I need a special mechanic for this piece of junk," Krew glared at the offending beer tap, "unless you've got a hidden mechanic in you somewhere, ey?" He joked. Without another word, Keira deftly set to work, taking off one of the outer coverings and fiddling with the insides. "EY! If you break that, it's coming out of your pay!" Keira ignored him as she set the covering back into place again. "Did you hear-" Krew was cut off as the girl began to operate the now-working beer tap. "Aaahhh.....so it seems you have a lot more to offer me, my little pet." Keira frowned distastfully at his pet name for her.
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Keira flopped down into one of the booths, exhausted from a full days work. It was nearing four in the morning and she had finally managed to clean up the place. She nearly groaned when she heard the familiar whirring of a floating device coming towards her. During the whole six months Keira was working in the Hip Hog Heaven, she still couldn't figure out how that small (at least small compared to the rider) floating mechanism could carry all that weight....all those mounds of fat...she shivered in disgust, it was impossible! But there he was....flying around on that little doughnut with tiny, limp feet dangling from the bottom. Keira snorted in amusement, if that what his legs looked like, she couldn't imagine how shrivled and unused his third leg must look. An instant after she thought that, she shook her head in horror.
'Oh Mar! Ick! ICK!!!! AAUGH!!! Fuck!' She screeched to herself, 'Baaaad mental image!! AUGH! THAT'S HORRENDOUSLY DISGUSTING!!!!! And the blob had the gall to have portraits of himself hanging all over....full-bodied portraits.' Keira sighed sadly, the six months she worked at Krew's bar had made her mature too early. She refused to let a tear slip down her cheek as she remembered everything she had gone through. Keira recalled everything in an instant. 'I've been felt up, beaten, molested, and raped....three times.....' She felt hollow inside, at least her heart did. Her body was beginning to betray her and she could tell her teenage hormones were raging and lusting after some of the really good lookers that came to the Hip Hog Heaven. But everytime she felt like she would lose control, she thought about Jak. He was her savior in her time in her own personal hell, she held onto what little innocence she had left when she remembered him. But then her thoughts would darken again. When she finds him, if she finds him....would she still be attracted to the shy, innocent mute? Would he still like her? Or would he despise this not-so-innocent, darker woman she was forced to grow into? Keira was brought out of her thoughts when Krew threw a morph gun onto the table in front of her, startling the young girl.
Keira looked up at the the flying obese man in confusion.
"Do you know how to use a gun, pet?" He asked, drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. She shook her head. "You don't, ey? Well, I suggest you learn fast cuz' I need you to go out to the Pumping Station. My delivery boy's vehicle carrying my precious cargo seems to have broken down, you see....and you're my only good mechanic. So, find my delivery boy, fix his vehicle, and you two ride back here...."
"You want me to go to the Pumping Station now?" She arched an eyebrow.
"You got a problem with that?" He growled as he came in close to her face. Keira just glared back and grabbed the morph gun off the table and pushed past Krew (with much difficulty).
"Just that it's four in the fuckin' morning," she growled darkly.
"Oh, and one more thing...." Krew called out and the girl stopped, "try not to get yourself killed...." He chuckled. Keira shook her head and began muttering curses under her breath and damning flying fat men to hell.
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Keira examined the morph gun in her hand, it was equipped with a Scatter mode, Blaster mode, and Vulcan mode. She aimed at objects as she made her way closer to the Pumping Station gate, trying to get comfortable with the weapon. Soon, she felt as if the gun was an extention of her own arm. Keira set three bottles against a wall, spread a good three feet apart, she backed up at least thirty feet away. Taking careful aim at the bottle farthest to the left, she switched the gun to Blaster mode and shot.
BAM!
SQWAK!!!
Keira jumped in fright as a bird fell from the sky and landed a few feet away from the bottle she was aiming at.
"How the hell....I was aiming at the bottle!" She growled and aimed again, more carefully this time, and fired.
BAM!
WARK!!!
Another bird fell somewhere near the first.
"AUGH! This is fuckin' ridiculous!" Aiming again, she began to curse Krew to hell again, momentarily picturing the bottle as his ugly mug.
BAM!
CRASH!!
Keira blinked. She let out a huge smile and she laughed victoriously at the fallen bottle. She tried the same technique of picturing the people she had on her 'People I'm Not Fond Of' list as the targets and hit her mark on the first tries. Her victories were short lived as the gate to the Pumping Station began to open. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. 'Okay, Keira. You can't afford to screw up this time, we're not shooting at motionless bottles this time.....we're shooting at real live Metal Heads. Okay, you can do this.' For a brief and fleeting moment, Keira really wished that she had changed out of her waitressing uniform.
As soon as she stepped out into the Pumping Station, her senses were on high. Her eyes were scanning her surroundings and her ears were straining to hear any foriegn noises. Keira was at least relieved to see that it was getting lighter as the sun began to come up. She could see smoke spewing out from a distance and she knew that would be Krew's cargo. Keira stealthily made her way towards the smoke, only running into a few Metal Heads which she proudly took care of without breaking a sweat. She came upon the cargo transporter and yelped when a flowing gun was pointed at her face. The man wielding what looked like a Metal Head head with a glowing ball in its mouth slowly lowered the weapon. He was tall and dark, wearing heavy silver armor, his left eye was covered in a metal plate and replaced with a mechanical one but she noticed that his other, normal, eye was a deep green. The man stared at her warily.
"Who are you?" His voice was deep with a slight accent.
"Krew sent me," she replied, "you his delivery boy?"
"That fat bastard sent a kid to rescue me?" He looked at her in disbelief. Keira bristled when he called her 'kid' and stomped to the smoking part of the cargo transporter.
"I'm not a kid," she growled in defense, "now tell me whats wrong with your transporter."
"Don't tell me you're gonna fix it too," he looked even more shocked.
"Okay," she smirked, "I won't." Without another word, she began to work on the broken machine. After laying out all her tools from the bag on her back, that was also attactched to her finished hoverboard prototype, she easily started to fix the problem parts. "Sooooo...." she called from under the hood, "do you have a name? Or should I just call you Delivery Boy?" Keira smirked when she heard him snort.
"The name's Sig," he replied before grinning, "what about you, Kid?"
"It's Keira Hagai, gun wielding waitress and mechanic extraordinare." Sig chuckled, he was about to say something when he suddenly stopped and stood, pointing his gun at something Keira couldn't see. "What? What is it?" Sig watched as a horde of Metal Heads, at least fourty strong, climbed over the rocks thirty feet away from the transporter and began heading straight towards them.
"Kid, whatever you're doing, you better do it fast!"
Keira was almost done when she started hearing the roars of countless numbers of Metal Heads and the firing of Sig's gun. She could hear the smacking of his metal clad fist into a Metal Head body. Concentrating on screwing a bolt back in place, she wiped the sweat off her brow and tightened the bolt.
"Got it!" Keira threw all her tools into her bag and slung it back onto her back. Picking up her gun she deftly shot three Metal Heads, creeping up behind the older man,square in the Skull Gems, taking them down instantly. "Sig!"
"I hear ya', Kid." The two elves jumped into the cargo transporter and flew off towards the city.
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The room was pitch black, uneven breathing was the only sound with the occasional moan. Jak lay huddled on the floor, trying to keep himself warm. He was shirtles on the freesing floor but his body was on fire and it felt like he would explode any moment. He had overheard Erol talking and found out that he had been in theprison for six months, but it felt like he was there longer than that, he felt like he had been there for an eternity.He suffered torture andbeing experimented on andthe only way Jak could escape the pain was to let his mind slip into a different reality. A realitywhere Keira was with him, telling him that she loved him and everything would be okay, that soon the pain would stop and they would be together forever. But that escape couldn't last forever.
The dark eco found a way to seep into his fantasies and draw out the darker side of his being, the side that thrived off of the dark eco. Jak could feel it inside of him, a monster trying to claw its way out, wanting to soak its claws in the blood of everyone around him. He whimpered as the beast tried to take control but he fought against it, fought against the bloodlust. Suddenly the pain stopped and Jak relaxed, but kept alert in case it tried to surprise him. He didn't feel it try to take over his body but he did feel it probing his mind, Jak tried to shield himself but his inner demon had already gotten a hold of a collection of memories.....memories of Keira, fantasies of Keira. Jak was painfully aware that the demon had taken a sudden interest in the beautiful she-elf. He watched as his darker self created new fantasies of him and the girl he loved. Jak watched as the demon played the scenes over and over again in his head, where he was ravaging the girl as she cried his name out in pain and ecstasy. Jak screamed. He couldn't let this monster hurt Keira and vowed that he would protect her from himself.
He let a tear fall from his sad, blue eyes. Keira would never love him now, not when he's become a monster. More tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Keira..." he whispered brokenly. He soon drifted into a dreamless sleep as he pictured her smiling face above him.
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A/N: Gee hee....done with this chapter. Hmmm....It went on a lot longer than I expected. Okay, next chapter, Keira runs more errands for Krew with Sig, then gets introduced to Erol (he's gonna be a bad man in this fic) and takes a job as the mechanic for his racing team, much to Krew's displeasure, but she still runs errands for him sometimes. But the chapter after the next is when the big REUNION!!!! is. So please review and tell me what you think!