14
Chapter 12: "Darkness Falling"
It moved like a comet of black fire, the size of the moon, and closing upon their world with slower speed than one might have expected now that it was so close. Indeed, it was as though the intelligent darkness was relishing the coming banquet of life. The Darken's perception rushed down to the planet below, through the clouds, to the desert, amid the cliffs, near the ocean… to the Precursor ship floating above Spargus City.
On the planet itself, it was nearing evening of the day after Seem's remarkable transformation. Blue and gray hellcats were floating steadily just ahead of the guarding wall, the buggy-garage open as dune-hoppers, sand sharks, gila stompers, and other vehicles rolled out behind the massive dune-runner Metal-Heads that were spread across the wall on the ground. Freedom League guards, armored with rifles, stood in formation with Wastelanders and medium-range Metal-Heads, especially the four-legged, silver, hunch-backed creatures with their plasma-blasting arms.
Sig stood with Torn in the center, just beyond the ranks of soldiers in front of the garage gate, which remained open for the moment. The Haven City commander had both of his pistols at his hips, ready for action as he listened to reports and gave commands over his comm. Sig kept Kleiver's force of sand-vehicles and the mobile Wastelanders organized with their battle-amulet communicators.
Flying back and forth overhead already was the desert Zoomer, its three nose-guns smoothly panning around as Tess adapted to the controls better, Keira focused as she adjusted sensors and ventilation systems. Ashelin was watching from her command hellcat, a guard on her right in the co-pilot seat, and another manning the turret in the back of the hefty Zoomer craft. She raised a comm-device to her mouth. "All hellcats, maintain formation. You've been prepping for this all day and most of your lives. Make it count, people."
And at the forefront were the Metal-Heads. Ape-type, smaller, insectoid types, Leapers, and also Metalpedes. They were like a river of glistening carapace and dark, scaly bodies in front of the blue guards and earthy Wastelanders, scattering around the dunes where Sig and Torn stood, and one more pair that would be heading the defense of Spargus City.
Her brilliant crimson eyes glistening in the late-afternoon sun, Seem looked back to the standing army with a gentle smile, her hair shifting faintly in the breeze that was moving across the sandy plane with her skirt and baggy portions of her clothing. Seeing so many disparate beings allied together, especially seeing the Metal-Heads standing as one with Wastelanders and Have City warriors, was strangely heartwarming despite the dire situation.
Looking ahead, she glanced to her left, at the dark warrior who stood out so obviously in the bright, glistening desert. With his hood up, his modified rifle vertical in his left arm, Frost was once again the dark warrior that the marauders feared so much. His glowing eyes and glistening jaw were all that was clearly visible of his face, his cloak shifting with the wind that was tugging at his beloved companion's hair.
"It is true," Seem began, looking outward. "The darker shadow becomes, the brighter the light that meets it."
Frost smiled gently. "Balanced."
With a softly amused glance to each other, they each nodded.
A comm-device hidden somewhere on Frost's shoulder garbled noise before Sig's voice was clear. "Frost, this is Sig. I've been thinking… Maia and Jalnoth could keep us pretty busy on their own… Why aren't they hitting us right now, softening us up?"
Frost focused outward, lowering his rifle into a more readily used position, gripped with both claws. "They may yet, King Sig."
Standing with the king, Torn nodded. "He's right. The Darken is close," he looked up at the smudge visible even in daylight over their heads, "but still needs some time. No reason they couldn't hit soon and still be early."
Keira cut into their conversation from her Zoomer. "It's up to Jak, anyway. We just have to hold the line."
Ashelin smirked in her hellcat. "And we will."
Indeed, at the very moment, Jak was preparing for his own part in the coming battle. He fastened his gauntlets down, adjusted the leg-armor down his shins, locked and loaded his morph-gun before slipping it back into the holster on his back, and checked his jet-board before locking it down into its compact size, then stowing it on his back. Adjusting his torso armor, he looked down to Daxter in the command center of the Precursor ship, where Seem had spoken with the leader herself, and gave his friend a confident nod and smile. Daxter was controlling his anxiety to some degree, but nodded back, and then scrambled up onto Jak's shoulder as always.
With the surfer and dummy manning the controls behind him, the leader floated up to Jak on a upside-down dome-platform, nodding sagely. "Are you prepared, Mar?"
"As much as I can be, I think," Jak answered gravely, but his body was loose, well experienced in facing deadly situations by this point in his life.
The leader continued in response, "Though it may appear so once it begins, you two will not be alone. The Darken must put some of his focus into his army, because it is part of him, and thus your friends here are very much helping you by distracting part of his power. You, however, must know that he is a deadly foe, even at his weakest. You must do all you can to defeat him as quickly as possible."
Jak nodded. "Understood."
"Don't even bother with your dark powers, they will have no effect on the Darken itself. Even your most powerful dark energies will only feed him. Your light powers are your best weapon and defense here, Mar. Remember them, and stay focused. Do not lose yourself to your rage, or we will all pay the price."
Daxter twitched, glancing to his friend's face. Jak did turn more grave, but only nodded again.
"Uh-oh, boss!" the dummy suddenly exclaimed in his vapid tone. "I think we got some bogeys comin' in or somethin'…"
Jak growled. "Maia and Jalnoth…"
The leader nodded, and quickly went into action. "Start preparing the defenses," he ordered the surfer, who gave a mildly formal salute, grinning at himself while adjusting more controls, "and you… keep your eyes on that scanner system." As the dummy comically tried to stand still and fierce at the controls, the leader turned back to Jak. "I will begin the transportation device's power-up. We are all working as fast as we can. For now, trust your friends."
Jak nodded, letting them work, and glanced down to the side. …Keira…
(Meanwhile…)
"We have incoming. Prepare yourselves," the leader's voice came over their comm-systems out in the desert.
Sig lowered his, looking out across the desert firmly. Torn pulled his pistols free as the dune-buggies rolled out, blasting across the sands to either side to support the flanks of the main formation. The hellcats spread further apart to reduce collateral damage if any of them went down. Under Torn and Sig's commands, the Wastelanders and guards locked and aimed ahead. Seem stood by Frost, Keira flying overhead with a rush of wind, and watched the Metal-Head leader point outward, and then raise his rifle to his shoulder. The melee Metal-Heads started to push further out, and then lingered on the sands around the dune upon which Seem and he were standing.
At the top of the cliffs South of the city, directly ahead of the defending, allied army, a dark mass was pouring down toward the desert, spreading as it reached the sand like oil falling from a damaged pipe. The ominous glistening of red sparkles revealed the small army of Prowlers, with two more obvious masses rushing forward in their midst, like the heart of a swarm. Jalnoth, bounding along with his massive legs, arms back, tail shivering with the wind of his speed, was just to the left of another figure, one that caught Frost and Seem's eyes more particularly. It was Maia, but she was altered since they'd last seen her.
Within the swarm, her change was far more obvious. An aura of purple-red energy simply emanated from her body, the shadow-gem in her chest glistening. Her crystalline armor had shifted into a disturbing mimic of Jalnoth's sinewy, chorded flesh, and her eyes no longer glowed as her own, but were solid red pools, like Jalnoth and the Prowlers'. Her hair had shifted from a thick, smooth mass, to a collection of articulated spines that hung down her back. Her expression was balefully cold, and the same haunting evil came from her eyes that filled Jalnoth's.
And around the two war-masters, the Prowlers were rushing along on all-fours, roaring and hissing as their tails lashed, their limbs thumping off the sand as their jaws fell open, wailing around their razor-tipped tendrils.
With the buggies grouped on either flank of the formation, the long-range Metal-Heads supporting and interspersed with the Wastelanders and guards near the city gate, and the close-quarters Metal-Heads filling the front-line around Frost and Seem, the battle was set to start.
Ashelin tightened her fists around the controls of her hellcat. "Once they're in-range, fire together on my signal, then at will. Remember, aim for the open mouths."
Torn touched his comm.. "Frost… you sure your … guys are okay out there?"
The former commander smiled faintly. "We'll do our part, sir."
Ironically, it was Frost and the massive dune-runners that could fire first, having the longest ranges. As the Prowlers surged over the first dune-ridge from the cliffs, Frost fired, his rifle ramming his shoulder back as a dark-power bolt ripped through the air. He was joined by a volley of shots from the dune-runners, which roared thunderously as they fired in a wave from the center, as though Frost's command was a wave ripping through them.
One Prowler took Frost's shot to the head, snapping over itself just before the entire front-line exploded in Dark Eco energy.
Sig snapped his peacemaker up. "Kleiver, hit 'em hard!"
The dune-buggies shot off from their waiting positions, the Prowlers just surging through the purple, black smoke of the opening attack in time to take a wave of high-velocity bullets and grenades from both sides. The dune-runner Metal-Heads and Frost started firing constantly, blasting gaps in the rushing formation, while the melee-Metal-Heads started surging forward, very much like the wave of Prowlers attacking them.
Torn chuckled. "Now that's a sight I thought I'd never see."
"You're tellin' me," Sig retorted in kind, charging his peacemaker as he aimed already.
Prowlers started to leap at the dune-buggies that were rushing along the front line, but at the same time, with the vehicles closing like pinchers from both sides, the Metal-Heads surged up to their aid. Ape-types leapt to meet the Prowlers before they could even hit the cars. One Prowler was flailing through the air, arcing down at one of the sand-shark dune-buggies, when two ape-type Metal-Heads slammed into it from the other side, all three rolling back into the sand as the vehicle rushed away, the driver, glancing back to the Metal-Heads that saved him. "I could get used to that, yeah," he muttered, and opened fire on a Prowlers that was trying to sneak through the center line. It flipped over under his assault, and finally exploded as he drove between two oncoming buggies, the two groups of the vehicles trading sides.
Kleiver, driving his own sand-shark with its twin machine-guns on the front, was leading from the left side, just passing the other group near the center of the battle, when his vehicle jerked from some impact. He growled, and looked around, but only caught a glimpse of motion behind him. He looked up to his right, and saw a Prowler just lunging down at him from the back of the vehicle. Kleiver's hand snapped for his rifle in the passenger seat, but he heard another, very familiar roar, and looked forward. An ape-type flew from the sand, and body-slammed the Prowler off the back of his vehicle. Swerving to avoid hitting some of the insectoid types, Kleiver nodded. "Yeah, them critters are alright…"
Amidst the explosions from the dune-runners and Frost's warped rifle, there were still plenty of Prowlers rushing through, and the Metal-Heads were starting to fall, skull-gems flying into the air as more and more were overwhelmed. The desert Zoomer shot down through the air, Keira's expression grimly determined as she flew in from the East side of the battle. Tess, behind Keira at the weapon control panel she'd jury-rigged for the battle, opened fire with the nose-guns. Several Prowlers were distracted, three bursting into dark fluid and dust directly, and Metal-Heads surged in to finish the job.
Ashelin growled. "Screw this. Hellcats! Advance! Unload on those bastards!" She rammed the controls, and her hellcat shot off. The entire hellcat armada surged forward in a wave, and were just passing over Frost and Seem when they opened fire with a storm of crimson bolts, just over the arcing paths of the dune-runner shots.
As the entire front rank of the Prowler force was rammed back or obliterated under a wall of crimson bolts and dark-eco blasts, the dune-buggies were swerving back around on the far sides of the battle, boosting back toward the fray, weapons firing.
Jalnoth was just surging over a dune near the front-line battle when his eyes focused ahead. A dark-eco bolt rammed into his face, flipping the war-master over, slamming him back into the sand. Frost smirked from his dune, and switched targets, firing at Maia. The further-warped woman only glanced up, and the shot exploded from a distortion that shattered the air ahead of her. Frost frowned, and then his eyes flared as Maia pulled her hands back, floating to a stop, dark energy thundering into her palms, crackling through the air violently. Jalnoth rose up, and swept his right claw from East to West as well. A blasting wave erupted across the sand, blinding everything on the front-line.
"No!" Frost gasped, Seem watching anxiously, unsure how to help so far away.
An explosive beam of dark-eco energy shot through the sand-cloud, sending Metal-Heads flying into the air, skull-gems twirling free. One dune-buggy flew into the air, twirling so violently it was already flying apart before it exploded from its own ammo-stores.
Torn twirled his pistols. "The fight's up there. Sig!"
"On it! CHARGE!"
The two land-force commanders led the rush, weapons aimed and blazing as guards and Wastelanders surged forward in a wave of their own, weapons already firing. A constant barrage of crimson bolts from Ashelin's hellcats and the united ground forces finally halted the Prowler advance like a wall.
As the sand started to settle from Jalnoth's attack, Frost's rifle struck the sand on the top of the dune, thrown down from his claws. Pulling his hood down, Frost stepped forward, claws down at his sides. "Seem, stand back please."
Drawing further from him, her eyes tightened as she saw the deep rage in his eyes. It was the same look she'd seen before, when he felt it was his fault someone was being hurt. Now it was from the Metal-Heads dying under his command, and his allies. He suddenly roared, his body shivering as energy exploded off his limbs. Seem stood without fear, somehow completely certain the power would never harm her.
Strangely, as the allies charged, Metalpedes finally bursting into the battle, ramming Prowlers everywhere, scattering their ranks, the Prowlers seemed to hesitate, and Maia and Jalnoth focused beyond the battle… to the beacon of dark power surging on the dune with Seem. The haunting roar was starting to pulse across the entire battle with unnatural ease. Jalnoth and Maia both reached back on one side with both claws, building their own energies, but then Frost snapped his claws forward, crossing them as his body pitched from inertia, his cloak writhing up with his stretching perceptions.
The crackling power all around him surged down into a blasting beam, which erupted from his crossed limbs, emitted a ring of power from the simple release, and widened explosively, ripping through the air across the battle, everyone overcast by the sheer glow, and Maia and Jalnoth's face fell with shock as the massive power-blast split in half. They tried to defend themselves, but were struck, Frost's perceptions rushing back to normal as the shockwaves pulsed out from the impacts, the attacks driving both war-masters back into the sand, digging troughs through the desert and their ranks alike.
A small force of Prowlers broke through the center, but all at once, Keira's Zoomer twisted around in the air on the West side of the battle, Sig and Torn came dashing over the dunes, and Ashelin aimed down. A peacemaker blast ripped into the group first, knocking them back, roaring in pain. Ashelin, Keira, and Tess opened fire, blasting several into nothing, while Torn fired with both pistols as he ran, clipping two Prowlers from the charging group in the mouths, killing them, and suddenly snapping his guns to the sides, firing at Prowlers trying to crawl on dune-buggies on either side. Keira shot overhead, the Zoomer's guns ripping into the Prowlers constantly.
Away from the battle itself, the dark mass, like an oily tear-drop, was constantly rushing closer to the planet. It was slowing more as it the distance closed. Within the darkness, the two, massive, clustered eyes of glittering crimson focused on the world with dark relish. …And now to begin…
The Darken suddenly froze in space, becoming an almost perfect sphere, only a few hundred kilometers from the planet's surface, directly above the battle.
In the battle, Seem looked up as the desert became dark, as if night had fallen. Though grave, she was calm, Frost picking his rifle back up and joining the battle again. "The true battle is about to begin," she whispered. Looking down, her eyes sharpened. "Frost!"
He looked to his left, and saw a dark bolt rushing toward him from Jalnoth's claw in the midst of the enemy army. He started to twist to meet it, but felt a grip on his shoulder, and looked back to Seem. Her left hand holding him, Seem focused ahead, her right hand aimed forward with its palm. Her eyes flared with white light, and the bolt scattered against a shield of blue energy all around them both. Frost couldn't help but gaze at her in soft awe as the power faded from her eyes. She looked to him apologetically, however. "I fear I am capable of more than I am doing, but I can not see how to use what has been given to me…"
Frost smiled. "Watch my back, and we'll worry about that later."
She couldn't help but smile back.
On the Precursor ship, the leader stood by gravely. "We're ready, Mar. Now it simply requires timing…"
Jak nodded, Daxter chewing his nails already.
In space, the black 'moon' suddenly burst open, the lower hemisphere writhing apart like an sea-beast spreading its tentacles to expose its beaky maw. Rather than a maw, however, the black mass unveiled a jagged, plated sphere glowing with purple light along the various creases and cracks in its form. It was all too clearly visible from the battle in the desert below, the proximity giving it almost crystal clarity despite the atmosphere's presence. Though few thought of the paradox, the massive darkness didn't appear to affect the gravity on the planet below either.
Sig took the chance to look up as the glowing mass started to flow out of the greater form. "Here it comes…" Focusing down on the battle, his peacemaker charging, he smirked. "Look sharp, people!"
The battle itself was still raging, dune-buggies, Metal-Heads, and blasts of crimson and dark-eco colliding along the Prowler front. Hellcats scattered through the air, Ashelin and Keira organizing around the attacks. Frost focused himself on the two war-masters, keeping them busy blocking and shooting power back at him, Seem defending him with walls of pure light, like Light Jak's own shield.
The jagged sphere finally slipped free of the darkness, and started to plummet toward the planet at high speed. Yet the atmosphere didn't create a plume of heat around it as it naturally would, rather the object seemed to slip through its protective forces, shooting down toward the desert between the cliffs, South of the Prowler force and the battle entirely. Maia and Jalnoth finally stopped, looking up, which allowed Frost and Seem to gaze skyward as well, watching the great black and purple object hurtle down through the darkened sky.
With a final, rushing blast, the dark mass struck the desert behind the large sand-ridge in line with the cliffs, further South than Maia and Jalnoth's force had started. The ground shook violently, causing several dune-buggies to flip over while guards and Wastelanders, finally close enough, did their best to turn the vehicles back over. Torn caught a glimpse of dark-eco power as he fired into the Prowlers near the front ranks, and finally focused past the sand-ridge, his expression falling in dark shock. "…That's not good…" he rasped warily.
The horizon had turned purple beyond the ridge. And what was disturbingly worse by context, the present Prowler force, Maia, and Jalnoth started to retreat from the battle.
Torn holstered one blaster, getting his comm open. "Fall back! Everyone pull back! Regroup. The real battle hasn't even started yet!"
Sig, Ashelin, and Frost gave similar commands in their various methods, and the surviving allied army pulled back, the Wastelanders, guards, and melee Metal-Heads more mingled just beyond the dune-line where Frost and Seem were standing. Torn and Sig stood amidst their soldiers, Sig to the West, Torn the East, while Ashelin and her hellcats panned the sky, Keira waiting by nearer Frost and Seem, Tess keeping her cross-hairs aimed to the sand-ridge, where Maia and Jalnoth's force was regrouping. Frost gestured forward with his hand, and the dune-runners, four-legged hunch-backs, and more humanoid, blaster-armed Metal-Heads moved further from the city gate, closer to the back to the army itself, giving them all a longer reach.
Abruptly, Maia and Jalnoth split, their force equally dividing and rushing apart with each of them… while a black ocean started to crest of the sand-ridge to the South, behind them. Prowlers, hundreds, possible thousands of them were rushing down into the gap left by Maia and Jalnoth's split. Worse, these Prowlers moved in ranks, ordered and disciplined, but with the same animalistic ferocity in their eyes as they waited in formation. And then they appeared. War-masters, like Jalnoth, eleven more of them. They loomed up on the ridge-line, claws slowly clenching and unclenching, shadow-gems glistening, tails lashing.
Torn snapped both pistols up, crossed and lateral as he had aimed at Maia before, in the palace, his expression flat and focused. Sig charged his peacemaker, the army locking and loading their weapons, tensing with their claws, fangs, stingers, and mandibles.
A strange sound started to ripple across the desert. A haunting, rhythmic sound that made more than one of the allied warriors look to the others around him or her. Keira's eyes tightened as she realized what she was hearing. "…Chuckling…"
The entire Darken army was chuckling in unison, thousands of voices moving as one, empowered unnaturally. In fact, only Maia wasn't chuckling, her solid eyes shivering with conflicted rage and hatred, all of it slowly focusing on Frost… and the painfully pure presence at his side. Maia's mind was clouded by another presence, but she wasn't completely dead. There was just enough of her left to be furious. How could Frost, as corrupted as she, have someone so close? How could he have comfort when she was a prisoner in her own body and mind? …I'll… rip you… apart… myself… Energy crackled in her eyes amid the cold laughter of her army.
The other war-masters started to move down into the army, Maia and Jalnoth joining them, moving toward the front-lines, evenly spread across them.
And then something else happened. Seem felt it first, but Frost was with her the next second, both turning their gaze back to Spargus. They shared, unknowingly, a distinctly similar smile.
The Precursor ship was beginning to flare with pure light, the power of the creators of the universe brimming over its metallic surface like fresh water around rocks in a river, rushing toward the sky from the base of the ship. With a sudden rush, a shock-wave of light erupted from the ship in every direction. It passed harmlessly around the city buildings and people, and even passed over the army, the Metal-Heads and Frost only wavering faintly… but when it reached the Darken force, the effect was instant. Even the war-masters, including Maia herself, were brought to their knees, squealing and roaring in pain, the Prowlers falling and writhing on the side.
Inside the Precursor ship, the leader nodded, and looked back to Jak. "We have weakened his army, they will fall from much more general harm now. He is vulnerable now, his army on the planet."
Jak just closed his eyes, and leaned back. Bright light rushed over his body, and he suddenly burst into his Light form, his wings sprouting from his back, unfurling gracefully as he looked back into the Precursor's eyes. "Send me." Daxter gripped his friend's shoulder tightly with all-four limbs, nodding himself.
The leader, nodded, aimed his staff, and Jak was blinded by fresh light for a split-second.
Seem saw a blast of pure light erupt from the Precursor ship, and rocket toward the darkness in the sky, soon vanishing from view. She nodded to herself, and focused ahead. "Frost, please tell the others. The army is now weakened, though still deadly."
Frost touched his comm., repeating as much to his own force mentally, "The Precursors have weakened the Darken army, but don't get cocky. Their armor should crack a little easier."
Ashelin smirked, gripping her controls. "Then let's put it to 'em!"
Sig fired, and started charging, Torn dashing with him. The dune-buggies charged from the flanks as Frost aimed with his rifle once more, and the entire army surged forward in the wake of the two charging commanders. The hellcats rushed forward like a spear through the air, Keira rushing along between their formation and the army below, Tess prepped and ready to fire.
Recovering enough, the war-masters roared together, Maia screaming with rage, energy crackling over her body, and the Darken army charged to meet the allies, two oceans of warriors aiming to collide with the fate of the world at stake.
Metal-Heads crashed into the front-line of charging Prowlers, this time the scales far more balanced as the Prowlers were actually torn apart or slain as fast as Metal-Heads lost their skull-gems. Metalpedes proved highly effective, simply exploding through the ranks, and sending entire groups of Prowlers flying off, most disintegrating completely. Support rushed over them from the Wastelanders, guards, and dune-buggies washing in from all forward directions.
Right in with the front-lines this time, Torn and Sig were holding their own. Torn dove into a roll as Prowlers leapt into the air around him and the closest guards. He came up firing, five blasts punching a hole through one Prowler's chest, disintegrating it, three others landing around him, one slamming a guard into the sand by his head. Torn snapped his right gun under his left arm, his left gun aimed straight, and nailed two Prowlers through the eyes, then snapped around wide, to his left, and unloaded into the Prowler that killed the guard beside him. As the beast burst into nothing, he kicked the guard's rifle into the air, caught it after holstering his right pistol, and twirled the rifle into the opening maw of another Prowler, just charging into him. "Bite down on this!" Its head blew apart before its body followed.
Sig grunted as two Prowlers simply flew away from him, the butt of his peacemaker and his right boot sending them off. He jammed the barrel-end into an oncoming Prowler's jaw, and fired an uncharged shot. It still erupted through five more Prowlers, and they all burst into void. Wastelanders came charging down a dune behind him, pushing the next rank of Prowlers back for Sig to charge a full blast and unleash with a rush of blue-white light.
The war-masters were not so easily felled, however. They were unleashing blasts of dark energy into the air, clipping several hellcats and blowing some up completely. Ashelin barrel-rolled out of one shot's path, but another took her co-pilot clear out of the vehicle, dropping his lifeless body down into the fray below. She growled in anger and sorrow, and then flared with alarm as a Prowler slammed onto the nose of her hellcat, roaring. She wrenched her fallen co-pilot's rifle out of its lock in the center of the cockpit, and rammed it straight down the creature's gullet. "Say good night." It flew apart around her hellcat, which she swerved into a sharp dive away from the front-line for another pass.
Gripping her comm device, she shouted, "All hellcats! Focus all fire on the nearest leader unit. The big black things!" she clarified before anyone asked, "Take those monsters down!" Her gunner had trouble keeping up as she swerved around violently again, and throttled back toward the battle.
Groups of hellcats started raining crimson bolts down on several war-masters. Black, crackling shields protected them while they returned fire, several hellcats crashing down into the Prowler ranks as a result, but soon their shields cracked, caving. Three war-masters died, their bodies distorting into the shadow-gems before exploding with violent shock-waves, wiping out entire ranks around them.
Shouts and hollers of victory sounded from the hellcats as they split apart and reformed on more war-masters.
Kleiver was mowing Prowlers down as he approached from the West, driving straight along the battle-line, his wheels catching any Prowlers his guns missed. One surged up over his roll-cage, however, and he jammed his rifle into its chest, firing as he drove, knocking the creature back at first, then clipping it shoulder, and finally snapping it off his vehicle, all the while more of them exploding against his sand-shark's front-end.
His vehicle suddenly jerked, spinning out violently as he barely held himself inside, and three Prowlers climbed up on his cage, one slamming its foot down into his rifle, leering at him as its maw opened… and exploded completely, the two others flying apart under a hail of fire from above. Kleiver chanced an upward look, and grinned as the desert Zoomer shot overhead, its three cannons raking down ranks of Prowlers too quickly for them to really catch her. A few leapt up to catch her, but the ship was swerving and juking as expertly as a professional racer, the guns catching the helplessly falling monsters on the way down.
To the East, the Freedom League guards were holding their own with the support from the dune-buggies and Metal-Heads. Keeping a steady stream of crimson blaster-bolts rushing into the on-coming enemy force, they only had to alter patterns when smaller groups leapt through the air, aiming to gain ground for their identical brethren. One survived the leap, crashing down into three different guards, its left claw the only extremity free as it landed. Its head snapped to the left, and it growled back at another guard, who had just rammed the butt of his rifle into its face. The creature just started to roar when another shot from a rifle directly ahead of it ripped through its neck, dropping the creature like a heap of grain.
Recovering from ramming the creature, the guard turned, looking up, and snapped his rifle up, sending three shots through the torso of another flying Prowler, blasting it to liquid and dust just as it came closer to the ground.
Across, to the West, the Wastelanders were handling themselves just as well, considering the state of the battle. Near the front-line, a dark, long-haired woman was firing away with two men at her flanks, when a Prowler suddenly burst free of a dune-buggy's sand-trail. The woman slammed onto her back, but her two comrades were taken back through the air and violently down into the sand, going limp. Growling, the woman rolled forward, narrowly dodging a snap from the Prowler's tail, and twisted as she got to her knees, ramming the barrel of her rifle straight down the creature's opening gullet, as it had rushed after her when its tail missed. She fired, blowing the creature apart, and then snapped her rifle around with a stylistic spin, firing backward, toward the main battle, watching her shot rip through two different prowlers. A grimly satisfied smirk crossed her lips before she rose to her feet and rejoined the march proper.
Mixed throughout the front-line, the Metal-Heads were taking a pounding, but buying their allies valuable leeway in the fight. An ape-type took a vicious blow to its head, slamming down into the sand. He quickly rolled away, another fist from the same Prowler ramming through the space his head had occupied. The two leapt into each other, but the ape-type squealed as he was hefted off the ground… only to fly free as a Metalpede surged straight through his attacker, lurching left and right, sending Prowlers flying. The ape-type landed, and rallied several of his fellows, a mass of Leapers, and scuttling insectoids before charging in the Metalpede's wake, keeping the living battering-ram clear on the back.
The Leapers themselves were proving one of the most valuable assets to the allies. They were weak once caught, but sprang around so easily and skillfully, their bladed limbs cutting deep and leaving Prowlers vulnerable to more powerful Metal-Heads and friendly rifle-blasts, that the Prowlers were soon giving them priority as targets. Entire ranks of the Darken army were rushing into the air with the Leapers, and skull-gems went flying before the dune-runners, blaster hunch-backs, and Frost himself could offer more direct back-up, raining firepower into the Prowlers directly beneath the Leapers between attacks.
Back on the dune near the city, Frost dropped his rifle again, gathering dark power in his claws. Two large bolts of power were rushing through the air like snakes of black fire from two war-masters. With dark lightning crackling down his body, Seem standing by a short distance to his right and behind him, Frost snapped his arms up in turn, the right to the left, the left to the right, letting two bolo-form dark-blasts twist through the air like discs from the ferocity of their release. The black snake-like blasts struck the two bolo-shots, and exploded violently, the energy dispersing over the heads of the guards and Wastelanders.
Picking up his rifle, Frost eyed the battle sternly. "We're holding our ground, but we're losing numbers rapidly."
Seem nodded. "Yes… we may be of better use on the front-line now, Frost." She looked to him with some concern.
He tipped his head. "First, though…" He pointed his right hand toward the battle, his eyes tightened with focus.
In an instant, the massive, dinosaur-like dune-runners, their cannons still firing, started to charge forward through the ranks. The allies split open for their forward charge, some groups cheering them on as the massive beasts only lost one of their number to a concentrated assault from three war-masters before they crashed into the front-line, their massive snouts rushing down and sweeping groups of Prowlers into the air, their cannons constantly firing into the deeper ranks. With the Metalpedes already carving huge gaps into the Darken army, the war-masters now had a serious problem on the front-line, and started to focus on the Metal-Heads.
Maia, however, was floating still, just watching… staring across the battle… at Frost and Seem. Glancing down, she saw the dune-runners plowing through the army, sending it swaths careening off into the air, most bursting apart under enemy fire. Locking her gaze back on Frost, a valid target, her rage and jealousy erupted in what was left of her own mind. Power stormed down her body, striking the ground beneath her feet, and she suddenly rocketed into the air, arcing in a tight, focused path straight over the battle, constantly closing on her prey…
Frost was just starting down the dune with Seem when they both sensed it, snapping their eyes up together. He could already see the fierce, glistening eyes focused on him as Maia stormed down through the air, as if she were a bolt of power herself. "Seem, get down!"
Not wanting to confuse him by disobeying his urgent command, Seem dove to the right, away from him. Maia crashed into Frost like a Zoomer at full-speed, the dune exploding around the pair of them, raining sand on the back ranks of the allied army and Seem alike. A huge trough had blown the center out of the dune, and Maia leaned back from the end, Frost half-buried in the rocky sands near the garage-gate of the city, a dark smirk on her face. "At least I get to enjoy this."
He looked up at her, tensing to free himself swiftly enough to surprise her as well. "You've looked better…"
Her eyes sharpened to slits. "Good bye, Frost." Her fists snapped down at him, and a blinding explosion of purple-red light hid them both.
(Meanwhile…)
As the war below truly began, the allies real hope had blazed into the sky as a beam of light, ripping straight into the black mass waiting ominously over their world. The light vanished within the darkness, and though disconcerting, it was only what had to occur. Within the darkness, a blinding light suddenly flared to life, and it flashed out of existence… revealing Light Jak, his wings unfolding from around his body, down to his left knee and hand, his right hand propped up on his raised knee. Daxter was clutching to his friend's shoulder even as Jak smoothly pulled up, standing with his hands clasped calmly behind him. Luminous eyes focused into the shadows beyond.
Thanks to Jak's presence, the only source of light, the massive chamber was vaguely distinguishable. The floor was solid, matte black, but the walls bulged outward in a radial, carapace-formed architecture that very much reminded Light Jak and Daxter of the Metal-Head nests of the past. Yet the very center of the cavernous chamber, which was easily a kilometer wide and tall in the center, was completely invisible with shadow, shaped into an almost flawless sphere.
Without hesitating any further, Jak snapped his peacemaker up, aiming the laser-sight into the black mass as the weapon charged. "The heart of darkness," he muttered with his ethereal voice, his eyes tightening.
Daxter huddled down onto Jak's back, just peeking over his shoulder. "Sometimes I really wish I was Keira's best friend… At least then I'd be inside a Zoomer!"
Jak faintly smiled, but immediately fired. The blue-white sphere spiraled through the air… and a titanic Prowler claw exploded out of the sphere, detonating the blast with a flash of power and arcs of energy. Light Jak was startled, but immediately took flight, rocketing into the air with a howl from Daxter as the fist kept coming. Several meters up in the air that instant, Jak looked down with his friend, wings spread, and watched the huge arm pull back leisurely, and press down into the ground nearer the sphere.
Dropping down, the two friends watched the sphere distort and warp upward and out, something much bigger than itself coming out of it. Another massive arm flowed out on the right as they looked at it, but the top bulged and warped around a much larger mass. When the compound, ruby eyes burst free of the shadows, the uniquely forged head of the Darken itself was clearly visible to them both… and more kept rising beneath it. A sinewy, articulated neck led down into broad, powerful shoulders, which started to pull the massive arms up into the air more properly. The hunched back surged up beneath the head as the chamber rumbled with titanic aggravation from the beast's chest. Rather than a single huge tail, this monstrosity's back had twelve, thick, snapping chords coiling off, six per side, with an exaggerated spinal ridge accentuating the hunched posture. Each tentacle was twice the length of his huge arms. The torso flowed down into a surprisingly narrow, emaciated mid-riff, the apparent source of the hunched posture, and then a skeletal hip section leading down into not two but four huge legs, which flowed out of the remains of the sphere with their multiple joints stretching, pressing tri-clawed feet into the ground, pushing the beast up to his full height.
Easily as tall as the Dark Maker machine Cyber Errol had used in his last attempt to destroy the world, the Darken was easily a hundred meters tall. Then each leg started to pull more into the center, compacting down with more ease. Resting his elbows on his front, upper-most knees, the Darken seemed to crouch and look down at Light Jak and Daxter appraisingly. Then a horrible sound thundered through the chamber, shaking Daxter's insides as much as the ground at Jak's feet. "Are you awed by my form, light-creature? Your hesitation is a weakness I will not share."
Light Jak snapped back, his arms crossing ahead of his body as his shield burst to life. Daxter wailed, clamping his hands over his head on Jak's shoulder as they were engulfed in a catastrophic blast of dark energy. With the peacemaker in his right hand, Jak's glowing eyes flared with alarm as he looked through the shield. He ducked, holstering his gun, and shot himself into the air, Darken's right fist plowing through the space he'd occupied, through the very energy the monster had unleashed, and rammed a hole through the wall.
Jak couldn't rest for an instant, the tentacles snapping at him from Darken's back. The hero dove, coiled, and yanked himself through the lightning-fast chords, his wings snapping, flowing down his back, and wrapping around his body with his rushing motions and dodges. He yanked himself into a backward somersault as one tentacle tried to impale him on its tip, only to be forced to snap his wings up to pull himself down faster, or being whipped against the wall from another. Even so, he had to snap himself into another somersault to dodge a third whip from the other side… only to take a vicious blow across his back from a fourth attack, the tentacle wider than he was tall.
Flaring his shield, which corroded the wall like acid, Jak managed to cushion his impact with his friend, and they slipped down to the ground. Darken had turned as Jak flew, and the hero landed to block another rip-rushing wave of black force, unleashed from Darken's claws as they rammed forward.
Thanks to the monster's sheer mass, Jak heard the rushing air around the roaring power, and used his wings to blitz to his left, diving and blasting his wings backward as Daxter wailed in dismay. "What are you doing?"
Daxter yelped when the space behind them exploded with the Darken's body, his own energy rushing out from his wake, the wall exploding in a huge shock-wave as four legs slammed into it. Sending one claw back to unleash a beam-blast after Light Jak, the attack arcing through the air to follow the hero, Darken's tendrils hit the ceiling, and yanked him into the air, out of the ruined wall.
Light Jak focused grimly. "Hold on, Daxter." His shield reformed, and he rolled into a tight air-somersault, the black, oily energy exploding around his shield. Jak dropped down with a reverse snap of his wings, and as he landed to a crouch, saw Darken rushing back at him from a whip-assisted lash by the ceiling.
Jak's arms ripped up, slamming together above his head. Light exploded as his perceptions warped through time, Darken seeming to slow. Regaining his shield, Light Jak braced down, his right fist clenching as he focused up at his enemy. Daxter realized what he was doing, and just huddled down near the jet-board and holstered gun on his friend's back.
With Darken rushing toward them, claws out, compound eyes glistening with malice, Jak's wings pulsed out, the tendrils of light flowing gracefully before snapping straight along with his legs, ramming the hero toward the Darken's chest, fist-first.
His eyes tightened as Jak saw Darken suddenly surge with speed, his claws rushing in as his head turned down, though Light Jak remained in his time-flash state. Jak's fist struck Darken's chest just as Darken's claws rammed into him from either side.
Their powers tore into each other from their very presence, Jak and the Darken roaring from pain… but the Darken rammed his armored face down, slamming Jak straight into the ground.
The hero struck with such violent force that Daxter was flung off, his hands clawing at the gun, ripping it out of the holster along with him. They flew off, skidding back near the wall on the right, while Jak tried to pick himself up, his wings drooped. He looked up, alerted, and flew backward, avoiding a ground-shattering stomp from Darken's forward, right foot, the talons grinding through the rubble.
Energy already building in the claws as it drew back, Darken focused on Jak, speaking as his arm rammed down. "I do not underestimate my foe." And the power exploded downward.
(Author's Note…)
This is actually only half of the chapter I drafted as chapter 12. It was a 20 page monster, so I decided to cut almost exactly in half. However, chapter 13 (12 part 2, basically), will be up very soon after this one, so fear not.
I am very appreciative of the glowing reviews, especially for chapter 11. Hearing that kind of feedback really helps keep me going, so if you are enjoying the story, you're helping it get finished by saying so. Frost and Seem are my little personal addition to the Jak universe, so I'm very glad others find them so enjoyable.
I hope these twin chapters of basically nothing but battle don't wear you out too much. And I've proofed them, but I always miss typos anyway, so my apologies.
Thanks for reviewing, critiques always welcome.
--Cy
