Hello once again people. Man, school just will not stop in its quest to drive me over the edge into the dark pit known as insanity. Matter of fact, I think I am already starting to hear voices in my head. At any rate, I did manage to get this thing done, though once again I shall leave it up to you people to judge the quality of my work, or the possible lack thereof.

To those of you kind enough to review the work of this amatuer.

Light Eco Sage- Haha, loved the Shrek quote, and while I must say that blood and gore can be highly entertaining, not to mention a very good stress reliever from time to time, one can overdo it, so please let me know if I start to get close to that point.

Every Heart Bleeds- True, if the game had these scenes, I wouldn't exactly be able to write this without it being a cheap knockoff of the gaming script, but on the bright side, people would actually be able to play it whenever they wanted. As far as writer's block is concerned, I must admit that it is an evil only Satan himself could have come up with. (growls softly)

Something Stupid- Actually, Torn himself explains why he didn't shoot them. He was trying to be stealthy, so as not to jeopordize Ashelin, hence why he opted for the use of knives rather than the gun strapped on his back. And, without giving away too much of a subplot (hopefully), I'm going to say that Torn was involved with an elite black ops squadron, which why he is so skilled with weapons such as that in the first place. I realize that this probably is a little OOC for him, but other than that, I do hope that you enjoyed the chapter.

Lunatic Pandora1- I have read a few of those myself, and those are one of the reasons that actually inspired me to write this one up. While there is no doubt that some of them are quite good, I got a little tired of Dark Jak always being the same thing, so I wanted to try and present a different possibility. As for the different scenes I've created, I always thought there was so much squandered opportunity in the second game to go more into the background and such from the other characters, so I'm trying to add my own twist on things.

Shakai- Glad that you liked it, and expect to see more of Jak, as I am going to enjoy torturing him very much. (grins wickedly)

Now, legal crap.

Attention all blood sucking vermin using frivolous lawsuits to hide just how petty and pathetic they are, I own nothing of these characters whatsoever, so back, back to whatever pit you crawled out from!

(clears throat)

Okay, now that I have officially made a complete idiot out of myself, here is the next chapter, and hopefully it'll be worth your time.

&

From: The Underground, To: Baron Praxis

Jak grumbled as he paced towards the garage. He hadn't even been back from retrieving those three artifacts for Onin for more than thirty minutes, and he'd already been conscripted into another task. One would think that after spending nearly sixty hours up in the mountain forests, combing through Precursor ruins at temperatures hovering right around zero, and hacking, blasting, and otherwise fragging his was through a small army of Metal Heads, he might actually be given some time off to get some much needed rest.

"But, noooooo," he growled audibly, "we can't have that, can we now?"

It seemed that the very instant he had stumbled back through the door, Torn had descended upon him, and the next thing he and Daxter knew, they had been shanghaied into this little raid that the Underground had been planning to launch for some time now.

Of course, the dark elf thought to himself, there was absolutely nothing little about this raid. That thought was reinforced as the side of the garage wall suddenly opened and a pair of zoomers, one of them a remade transport, left the base. Torn hadn't told him much, saying that he would fill the former Channeler in on the details while the strike force was en-route, but he did know that this little raid would involve no less than twenty vehicles, a new record for the Underground.

He heard a piercing whistle above the noise of the garage, and the Eco infused elf turn to see Torn and a few other resistance members sitting in the back of a transport. The Underground commander motioned for him to come over and hop in, and Jak begrudgingly did so.

As he sat down inside of the transport, he looked around at the occupants. Torn was on his right, and across from him was another elf, a female who he actually recognized. A gaze to his shoulder revealed that Daxter had taken notice of the girl as well, as his glazed over look was a dead giveaway of what the Ottsel was thinking about. Briefly, the dark elf wondered whether or not his furry companion realized that it was the same girl who had nearly strangled him when they had first found the Underground base.

A few more elves piled in, before the rear hatch closed. The former Chaneler let his gaze travel towards the front of the ship as it lurched and its repulsor lifts rumbled. Imagine his surprise, when he found a pair of gold and black eyes staring back at him. It took every ounce of willpower that he possessed not to instinctively draw his weapons, as he realized just how close he was to a Lurker.

Apparently, while managing to keep his gun and Kitetsu safely within their respective sheathes, he had not been able to repress a shudder, as Torn took notice of him.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Just had some bad experiences with Lurkers," the dark elf whispered out of the side of his mouth, before hastily adding, "a few of the wild ones that aren't too happy about the elven enslavement policy."

This caused the hardened commander to chuckle, a rare sound to hear from him.

"Don't mind Brutter," he told the former Channeler, "he's pretty even tempered as far as Lurkers go, and I for one, have come to rely on him."

"What for?" Jak asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"A lot of things." Torn replied with a shrug of his shoulders "Lurkers can get into places where our resistance soldiers can't, plus, he's not bad in a firefight."

Brutter had apparently overheard their little side conversation, and while the Lurker may not have said anything, he did break into a wide smile, baring his large teeth.

"So what are we doing today?" Jak said, changing the subject abruptly.

"It's pretty straight forward." the Underground commander responded, glancing at a watch he had on. "The Krimzon Guard is moving a large convoy through the Wasteland. In about five or so hours, they're going to come across a canyon that will force the convoy into a narrow file." Torn told him, staring into Jak's eyes, before smacking his fist into his open palm. "That's where we hit em, hard. We're going to swoop down, catch em with their pants down, and wipe them out before they even know their being attacked. Leaving us with the spoils and Praxis with nothing but coal in his stocking."

"What's the convoy carrying?" the former Channeler inquired.

"Just about anything you could think of." Torn replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Eco, weapons and munitions, food supplies, and there's a transport filled with captured Lurkers in it somewhere."

The last addition caused something between a pain filled moan and an angry growl to come from Brutter.

"So, I guess it's safe to assume that it's going to be pretty heavily guarded." the dark elf mused aloud.

"Yeah, that's why we're getting in place so early, we need to set everything up." Torn responded.

"What do you mean?" Jak inquired, cocking his head to the side.

"I'll explain later." was the ex-Delta's mysterious reply.

"Come on, people, let's move it, we're on a tight schedule here!" the tattooed commander exclaimed, working furiously to attach a canopy to one of the modified zoomers. They may have arrived into position about three hours before the convoy was scheduled to turn up at their location, but they still had a lot of work to do to prep their attack craft.

The zoomers themselves had originally been medium sized two seaters, with an open flatbed in the back for hauling whatever supplies a civilian might need. However, the Underground had done quite a bit of enhancing to the hovercrafts, not the least of which had been tearing out the side passenger seat and replacing it with some radically advanced, and very much illegal, electronic equipment that ranged from radar and radio jammers, to in the case of a few, a firing mechanism for a pair of limited tracking air to air stinger missiles. They had also had their engines and airfoils modified, giving them incredible speed and maneuverability that nearly equaled a K.G. speeder bike.

Which was to say nothing about what was attached to their rears, which Jak and Tess were currently in the process of attaching. In the flatbed of each zoomer, was a massive, tri barreled energy gun. The weapon had apparently successfully completed its "testing" phase, and now stood ready to be unleashed upon the Krimzon Guard. The dark elf couldn't help but feel a bit of admiration for whatever genius had thought this baby up. Capable of unleashing an awesome six hundred rounds a minute, the M-41 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun, or vulcan, as their enigmatic maker had termed it, had stopping power that would enable it, at least in theory, to tear through even a mighty Hellcat cruiser with enough sustained fire. The LAAG was mounted on a swivel platform that had already been installed upon the selected craft, and came complete with a computerized H.U.D. that displayed a targeting reticule, ammo readings, and a readout on the amount of heat that the weapon was producing. The latter of which worked in tandem with a failsafe device programmed into the gun's internal mechanisms which would initiate an emergency shutdown of the power supply in the event of the weapon reaching a critical heat level, whereupon the user would have to wait for the LAAG to cool before being able to fire again. It also came with a safety harness, which like the newly installed canopies on the front of the craft did for the pilot, would prevent the gunner from being pitched out of the vehicle in the event of a hard turn or a barrel roll.

For which the Eco infused elf was quite grateful, as he had been assigned to hold such a position, and he had no desire to test out his enhanced healing factor against the rocky walls and ground the soon to be war zone. He and Tess secured the last anchor for the anti-aircraft gun, and gave it an experiment spin. It rotated about with deceptive ease, bringing that grim smile to the face of the dark elf, and he briefly entertained visions of the Krimzon Guard's reactions as they realized they were on the business end of this very intimidating and no doubt very lethal weapon.

In fact, the only thing that truly had Jak worried about these fast attack craft, was their lack of armor plating. A few pieces of titanium-A had been welded on in the past couple of hours, but at best, that would only stop the attacks from a K.G. speeder bike. The former Channeler realized then the true danger of this mission, for if a Hellcat caught one of these zoomers in its quad-blaster sights, the only consolation the Underground members aboard would have would be that death would be so neigh instantaneous they would likely not have time to feel it.

Soon enough, the dark elf felt a vibration seeping through his boots, and a low rumble reached the ears of all present. It was show time.

"All right, people," Torn spoke up, looking at each and everyone involved in the raid, "let's go over this one more time. We're going to wait until they enter the canyon, and once they're where we want them, we take out the point and rear guards." He said before pivoting and pointing to Tess and a handful of other resistance soldiers. "Those of you with jamming devices, activate them as soon as my squad gets our missiles in the air, we can't afford to let them let the Baron know that this thing's under attack, or you'd better believe that half of the entire K.G. will be diving down on our heads before we even realize it." the tattooed commander then paused, staring around at those under his command. "As for the rest of you, the Hellcats take top targeting priority, make sure you bring them down before they get a chance to start lining us up or the only thing left of us is going to be craters of flaming wreckage." he ordered, his voice deadly serious.

The Underground soldiers nodded, and went to their respective vehicles. Torn just stared after them. How many? How many would not return, how many would die? However, the commander was quick to banish those thoughts. He was a soldier, and death was part of the job, as was being willing to sacrifice those under your command to get the job done. Wordlessly, he marched over and strapped himself into the gunner position of one craft, while Brutter climbed into the pilot area.

Jak and Tess were doing much the same thing, although the bond haired elf had been gracious enough to allow Daxter to strap himself in with her up in the cockpit of their own craft. Jak was grateful for this, as it would mean less danger for the Ottsel, and the fact that being so close to female had apparently caused the furry rodent to not engage in his usual chickening out attempts. Smiling grimly once again, the dark elf put a helmet on, and made certain hat the boom mike attached was working properly before putting himself in the safety harness.

The Krimzon Guard piloting the lead craft sighed to himself, wishing that this boring mission was over with. Oh, there was no doubt that his job was an important one, as the convoy that he and his comrades were watching over was carrying enough supplies to keep and entire division in working order for almost a month, but that didn't exactly make it exciting. After all, with a grand total of seven Hellcats and nearly three dozen speeder bikes, he felt safe in assuming that even the Metal Heads would keep a healthy distance from them.

Thus he was more than a little surprised to suddenly hear a beeping sound come from his radar. Confused, he looked down towards it. The readouts were warning him about several objects streaking towards his craft at velocities exceeding three hundred miles per hour. Then, as if to add to the dilemma, static suddenly surged over the sensor, and it shorted out. Now very much worried, he went to key his mike and tell the rest of the escort team to prepare themselves for an attack. His mind had just registered the fact that something was shorting out his communication systems, when his world went white.

Those in the rest of the convoy watched in horror as first one, and then a second stinger slammed into the point guard cruiser, engulfing it in flames and cremating its three man crew. Seconds later, the rear guard and one other Hellcat near the center of the formation suffered the same fate. As their flaming chasses hit the ground, and chaos began to envelope the convoy, Eco streams from the LAAGs began to scythe through the airborne vehicles, causing further confusion. Still, within seconds, the highly disciplined Krimzon Guard got their own combat vehicles ready, with bikes speeding towards the Underground attackers, while the four remaining Hellcats turned their quad-blasters in the direction of their assailants.

"Good shooting, Brutter." Torn said into his helmet mike, earning him a thumbs up from the Lurker. Quickly as he could, Torn assessed the situation, before speaking again. "Rogue seven and eight, flank out and attack the repulsor lifts on the transports, make sure they stay put!" he commanded, and the respective craft rogered and broke formation, before beginning what would doubtlessly amount to a devastating attack run. "Tess, form up on my wing, I'm going to need your help to bring those monsters down."

"Gotcha." Tess said, her voice cool and calm despite the gravity of the situation.

A bike flew towards them, its blaster sending a stream of Red Eco towards Jak's craft. The dark elf retaliated with a four second burst from the vulcan. While not all of the shots hit, Jak still watched in satisfaction as the bike and its K.G. pilot seemed to be vaporized when the thirty odd bolts impacted upon it. Not to long thereafter, another bike met a similar fate. All the while, the former Channeler was aware of his inner demon watching through his eyes, snarling over its apparent helplessness, before, if what he was sensing was correct, resigning itself to observing the situation, and more importantly, apparently learning from it.

However, marvelous as this apparently was, Jak did not have time to dwell upon it, as when he had destroyed the bikes, he had inadvertently attracted the attention of another cruiser in addition to the one they were streaking towards. Within seconds, Tess' skillful piloting was the only thing keeping their craft from being turned into their funeral pyre. More blasts streaked towards them, one so close that Jak found himself instinctively ducking as it streaked overhead. Fortunately for them, Torn and Brutter bailed them out, coming in hard and unloading upon one of the cruisers before banking off to one side, directing the gunship's attention away from them, and effectively putting a stop to the murderous crossfire.

Growling, Jak stood back up, lining the cruiser up in his sights, grinning wickedly as the targeting reticule turned red, indicating that he was within firing range. With hesitation, he opened up, the LAAG generating its high pitched whine as it spewed out a blue stream of energy. The blasts streaked forward and hit the Hellcat dead on, but while bits and pieces of the armor flaked off or was reduced to molten slag, it held for the most part, and the cruiser pivoted about, strafing and turning as best it could, returning the favor with every gun it had at its disposal.

The dark elf winced as Daxter's screaming practically blew out his eardrums, but did not stop his barrage until a warbling from his vulcan grabbed his attention. Quickly, he realized what he had done, and released the trigger to allow for the LAAG to begin its cool-down routine, cursing himself for getting so sucked into the firefight that he allowed it to overheat, thereby rendering the weapon useless until it once again reached a safe operating temperature.

The Hellcat cruiser, on the other hand, with its massive quad blaster, auxiliary point defense cannons, and twin side mounted guns, had no such problem, and kept up its own assault. More blasts streaked by, nearly clipping an engine of the assault speeder, and causing Tess to barrel roll to one side before pulling the more maneuverable craft into a tight bank to their right side, actually brining the vehicle up along the canyon walls.

Rock shards exploded all around them as Eco came within a hairsbreadth of ending their existence once and for all. Still, despite the close proximity of the blasts, and the combination of fervent prayers and expletives from the furry rodent strapped in with her, the blond haired elf managed to keep cool, and continued to pull off evasive maneuvers that would have made any senior military official proud.

Unfortunately, that could not be said for all of the pilots, as a flash of light caught the corner of Jak's eye, which when followed by a long burst of static, meant it could have been nothing else but a fatal shot to the craft of one of the Undergrounds attack zoomers. Not five seconds later, two more brave souls left the mortal coil. The dark elf growled, while the creature within himself howled in rage. They were going to be exterminated if they didn't find a way to ground those gunships permanently. A snarl of frustration burst from Jak's lips as he glued his eyes to the H.U.D. readout on his vulcan, waiting for the weapon to fall back into an acceptable temperature.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity and a day, but was in all actuality a mere fifteen seconds since he had over heated it, the LAAG cooled sufficiently, and its failsafe deactivated. Immediately, he pulled the trigger, this time firing in rapid, quick succession bursts. Once again, he could see that he was doing damage, as several inches of armor separated itself from the Hellcat, but not enough to mortally wound it. Another burst of fire came in, and once more, Jak felt himself unable to stop himself from instinctively ducking in his harness. The bolts did come close though, and in fact, if Daxter's hearing destroying scream was correct, one had actually grazed their cockpit, leaving an angry red glow on a part of it. Ironically, that shot would prove to be the demise of the Eco infused elf's adversary.

"The canopy!" he exclaimed, at last realizing a potential Achilles' heel on the mighty gunship.

Without hesitation, he adjusted his gun's angle, aiming for the piloting area, and jammed down on the trigger for his M-41. Needless to say, the pilot and his crew were quite surprised for the entire one and a half or so seconds that their canopy held, before the stream crashed through and eviscerated them. Jerking in his death throes, the K.G. caused the doomed ship to nose dive straight into the ground, whereupon in created a nice sized crater.

Meanwhile, Torn and Brutter were having their own time trying to bring down on of the gunships, though they seemed to be fairing a little better than most. Torn's fire was accurate to the point were the tattooed commander had even managed to take care of the cruiser's point defense cannons, and the fact that he was still in the air, despite the massive barrage coming his way, was a testament to Brutter's uncanny pilot skills. The Lurker suddenly yanked back on the controls, sending the craft into a steep upward climb that rapidly turned into a summersault, placing the more nimble craft behind the K.G. behemoth. The ex-Delta smiled grimly as his H.U.D. sight indicated that he had a lock on, and pulled the trigger.

The storm of Eco that was unleashed upon the gunship would go unanswered until the quad-turret could manage to pivot itself around and reach the Underground assault craft, and by that time, Brutter had already swung the two of them out to the left side of the Hellcat, where the Underground commander continued his assault, red armor being reduced to slag from the firepower of his vulcan. However, that was not to say that they were home free, as the pilot did some mental calculations on the laws of physics, and promptly decided to attempt to ram the Hellcat up against Torn's craft. Needless to say, while the multi-ton cruiser might have suffered some damage to its paint job, the same could not be said for the Underground attack zoomer. It was all Brutter could do to maintain control of the speeder and keep it from being smashed against the rocks. Even so, one side of the craft was practically ripped away, and both the Lurker and the Underground commander realized that even if, by some miracle, they lived through this, their craft was more than likely never going to be involved in another raid.

The K.G. pilot veered his ship out again, preparing to repeat the tactic, only to have another speeder come racing in straight at it, its pilot and gunner trying to distract the Hellcat and allow for their commander to get away from his now very vulnerable position. However, Torn watched, absolutely helpless, as the quad cannons caught his comrades straight in the fuel tank, and consumed the vehicle in a small nova. Rage filled him, as he saw more of those he was responsible for die. For a brief instant memories flashed through his head, and he remembered his squad, all of them. He remembered the coup, the last time he saw any of them alive.

"Not this time." the tattooed commander growled, cold anger etched into every syllable.

Once more, he opened up, his LAAG spewing out Eco as if there was no tomorrow, while in an effort to evade any form of counter attack, Brutter abruptly switched tactics, bringing his speeder underneath the larger vessel.

Getting down on his knees and pointing the vulcan as close to straight up as he could get it, Torn fired once again. While by no means the soft underbelly of a mythical being, the Hellcat still had some vulnerabilities below it. Brutter, now having realized that not having its point defenses to assist it made the large gunship completely helpless against an assault from underneath, used his ship's superior maneuverability to stay low, while his commander did a very fine job of turning the cruiser's armor into swiss cheese. Then, by sheer dumb luck, a bolt managed to sever the primary power coupling between the ships engines and its fuel tanks. Naturally, without its engines and repulsors to keep it in the air, gravity was swift in claiming the Hellcat, so swift in fact, that the rear of Torn's speeder was nearly ripped away by the plummeting vessel.

This left two Hellcat cruisers and a handful of speeder bikes against the Underground's forces. In the case of the bikes, the rebels were quick to capitalize on the superior firepower afforded them by their rear mounted LAAGs, and the bikes were soon being turned into fireworks. As for the two remaining gunships, the Underground circled and attacked them as a pack of wolves would attack a giant bull moose, chipping away at their defenses while their three or four to one odds made it difficult for the K.G. gunners manning the rotating quad turret to keep up with a single target.

Finally, trailing smoke and fire, the two gunships smashed into the ground. Control of the air, and the day itself, belonged to the resistance. Whoops of victory were soon echoing back and forth over the comm. channel, while they dove towards the crippled transports, whose own guards had already been dealt with, courtesy of the two speeders that had kept them from getting away.

The surviving resistance soldiers were quick and efficient, moving at a rapid pace to unload everything from the captured convoy. Everyone had a job to do, and even Daxter had been conscripted into hauling away some of the smaller things.

"Urrkk, so, heavy." the Ottsel grunted, trying to hoist a trio of pilfered ammunition packs in his scrawny arms.

"I'll trade out with you, if you'd like." came his compatriot's sardonic reply, as he hoisted a large box of MREs with relative ease.

"Oh sure, rub it in my face why don't you?" Daxter shot back in a perturbed voice, his limbs beginning to visibly shake from the effort of carrying the ten pounds of ammo.

Jak merely snorted, and reaching down, grabbed one of the packs from his friend, making it much easier for the foot and a half tall rodent to carry his load.

It was not long until everything had been loaded, and the assault craft stripped of their, canopies, equipment, guns, and makeshift armor. That, along with the supplies was loaded onto the Underground's own transports, the only exception being one that had been set aside for Brutter to use to ferry his captive people back to their homes with.

Torn stood at the cliff edge, surveying the damage that had been done. He knew that this would hurt the Baron's forces badly, and that someone was definitely going to be served up as a sacrificial lamb once he found out about this. Still, he was not able to smile. They had not escaped without their own losses. Three of their craft had been destroyed, while two more had been damaged so badly they would never fly again, and were currently being rigged up with C-4 to ensure that there wouldn't be enough of them left for Praxis to figure out what exactly had gone down here. But more importantly to him, was the loss of six brave people.

He knew that they knew that they were soldiers, and death was a very likely thing on these missions, but it didn't make it easier. It was so hard for him to get used to, after all, when he had been under Damas' command, he had taken pride that while wounds were somewhat commonplace, not a single member had ever been killed in action under his command, until the coup-d-etat' that is.

Sighing bitterly, he stood up, and offered a crisp, militarily precise salute to those that had fallen this day.

&

Well, there's the tenth chapter of this work, and I do hope you enjoyed it. Unfortunately, school is beginning to pile up on me, so my updates may not be quite as frequent as they used to be, but I have no intentions of letting this thing die, of that, you can be sure.

When I finally do post the next chapter, we can expect to see a yuletide celebration among the Underground, as well as a showdown between our Channeler and one of his nemeses, and I'm pretty sure you can figure out who that is.

Please, feel free to send any ideas, comments, constructive critisms (I need to know how to make this better!), or if the modd strikes you, flames, to me. Also, remember to have a great day, no matter what happens.