Disclaimer: I don't own the Jak and Daxter games, though I guess I do own Demon and Raleigh.
Heya peoples! Sorry if I was grouchy when I wrote my intro in the last chapter, but I was typing on four days without sleep and I get really grumpy when I haven't slept enough… but I'm better now, and will no longer be a complete and utter jack-butt. (Hope you understand the pun…)
Yeah, chapter two is up (no crud. Thank you Captain Obvious…) and I really don't think it's that great… don't be surprised if it gets ripped down, rewritten and reposted sometime in the near future.
Warning: This chapter is kinda weird. Some people out there may hate me for what I'm making Demon into, but like I said last chapter this story was never really supposed to see the light of Fanfic. I just needed something to post, so I did…
Now… ONWARD!
Chapter Two
Love Hurts…
Demon stormed into the Arena with her ever-present dagger drawn and glinting in the crimson rays of the sun's last light. The she-elf was… twitchy. It was almost like someone had force-fed her a few thousand gallons of coffee, at least nine tons of sugar and maybe some pure caffeine too. No, Demon wasn't hyper, just… twitchy. She was antsy, looking for trouble…
Executing a perfect double-jump Demon landed crouched on a platform before a throne-like chair. A tall, dark skinned man was staring askance at her, as if not understanding why she was here.
Demon stood and immediately towered over the man.
"I'm here to earn my citizenship. What do I have to do?"
"Kill twenty Marauders," Came the half-startled, deep-voiced response.
Demon's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Bring it."
The man on the throne threw her a red-marked gun and hit a switch. Almost immediately Demon stood on the Arena floor. She promptly dropped the gun and drew her dirk as a virtual tide of Marauders crashed over her, all armed to the teeth and slavering for blood.
Demon's fighting style wasn't suited to anything but one-on-one or perhaps one-on-two clashes. Now, with a good nine Marauders brandishing swords coming at her as if there was no tomorrow, Demon felt the warrior madness that was her birthright welling within her. She sheathed the dirk with a sharp jab before lunging into the fight with blades glittering.
Blood ran in rivers across the Spargus Arena as Demon cut a swathe through the Marauders. The she-elf lived up to her name, a whirling dervish of steely talons, flashing blades and crimson eyes. Even the battle-hardened Marauders backed down as Demon came upon them, many even going as far to drop their weapons as they attempted to run.
Twenty one desperate rogues entered the Arena that day. One came out. Demon rode the platform back to the throne, scrubbing her eyes clean of blood. Her forearm was sliced to the bone from a miss-parried sword blow; Demon bound the wound shut with a strip torn from her cloak, growing through the pain.
Sig, the replacement King of Spargus (though Demon didn't know it) couldn't believe what he was seeing. Those twenty Marauders hadn't been the Marauders usually sicced on newbies; they had been gladiator-class warriors meant for much better-trained warriors working on their final citizenship badge. Yet this…this girl! - had taken them down without any apparent effort, and by hand no less. There was something unusual and intriguing about her…
"That was… interesting," the one-eyed man remarked.
"Am I a citizen now?" The girl queried icily. Fighting the urge to shudder at the cold anger behind the words, Sig nodded and threw a gate pass and citizenship amulet to the girl.
Demon caught the items wordlessly before spinning on her heel and leaving the Arena. Jak, bruises already forming around his throat, waited only slightly outside the Arena with true concern on his face.
"Are you okay?" He immediately asked, falling into step behind Demon. The she-elf nodded briefly, ignoring the throbbing of her wound.
"No, you aren't. You're bleeding Demon," Raleigh corrected gently.
It was only then that Jak noticed the makeshift bandage around Demon's arm, and the dark fluid staining the cloth.
"Come on, let's go to my place. That looks pretty nasty." Demon nearly growled, insulted.
"It's a flesh wound, nothing more," She spat. "Now lets go pay the King a visit." With that Demon melted into invisibility, leaving a thoroughly startled Jak shouting her name to an empty street.
Demon's recollections of Spargus still held true. She found her way to Damas' Palace without difficulty and quickly sprinted into the lift. She stood there, panting, heart going a mile a minute but still not fast enough to force enough oxygen to her brain. Stars were dancing before Demon's eyes; the thrill of victory was upon her, and it was a dizzying feeling that made the floor seem unsteady. Finally, after seven long years of waiting, Demon would at last have her revenge against the King that had banished her.
Demon slipped off the lift, still invisible with her dirk drawn. The throne room was a work of art, adorned with water features and curving sandstone walls. The beauty and majesty was rather lost on Demon, who merely crept towards the throne. Then she realized…
No one was there.
Demon let down her invisibility and crouched wordlessly in one of the plants that were scattered around the room. She was patient; she would wait. Hell, she had waited seven years… a few more minutes was nothing important.
Little did Demon know that Damas was Sand King no more. She was waiting to assassinate someone who already walked Death's shadowed paths.
Darkness fell, yet somehow Demon didn't notice it. Finally she realized that no one was coming. Swearing like a sailor she left the throne room, randomly knifing a passing Spargus citizen in the throat as she passed the unfortunate man.
"What took ya?" Daxter's voice demanded. The little ottsel glared up at the tall she-elf, fighting an urge to run yammering back to Jak's shoulder.
"The 'King' wasn't there. He should be glad, because when I finish with him he'll wish he never outcast me.. I'll make him pay for his crimes against me…"
"You're gonna kill him then?" Daxter asked hesitantly, ears drooping.
"Don't bother trying," Jak interrupted harshly. "Damas is dead. I saw him go down."
"He is gone then?" Demon was confused. It shouldn't be all that easy for a King, especially one as fit and downright tough as Damas, to die right under his subject's noses. So how had he bitten it-some tragic twist of fate, some illness, or a killer's knife in the night?
"Yes." Jak's voice cracked, betraying the tumult of painful emotions within the young man. Sorrow was first among his feelings, followed by anger and guilt. If he hadn't been so intellectually lacking as to let the Dark Maker robots surround him, Damas would never had put his life on the line to save Jak's.
Demon's unusually mobile ears twitched out and to the side, drooping in unease and perhaps a bit of remorse.
"You ask the worst possible questions at the worst possible times," Daxter accused, jumping onto Demon's shoulder and subjecting her to the infamous and oddly threatening Glare of Death.
"I'm sorry," She replied sarcastically, unrepentant.
"Come on Dax. Let's go home. You're welcome to follow us Demon," Jak monotoned, shuffling off into the darkness. Demon followed at a fair distance, uncharacteristically uneasy about her words. Odd…
Jak's home was a four-room flat near the ocean. It was a small place, but tidy and smelling faintly of something like cinnamon, just enough to put Demon instantly at ease. The she-elf waited outside for a good five minutes before coming in. She found Jak curled in his bed, running a bloody finger repetitively over the blade of a curved dagger. Crimson was slowly trickling down his wrist, apparently unnoticed.
Shaking her head, Demon retreated to the flat roof of the house and examined the wicked gash on her arm a little more closely. The cut smelled faintly of something familiar, something sharp and pungent but pleasant.
Raleigh appeared on the roof a moment later, back in his panther form and clutching a limp kanga-rat in his teeth. "You look lonely," The Shadow Eco spirit remarked after spitting out his rodent prey.
"No more than usual. I'm just trying to figure out what's up with this cut."
Raleigh briefly sniffed at the cut before sneezing violently. "I can tell you that. You're bleeding Dark Eco." The panther's piercing eyes locked onto Demon's, practically drawing blood with their accusing intensity. "You haven't been playing with Dark Eco, have you?"
Demon was dumbfounded. She didn't know anyone stupid enough to even think about attempting to control Dark Eco, herself included: so where had Raleigh drawn that conclusion?
"I've never even seen Dark Eco Raleigh, and why the hell would I be stupid enough to use it? The stuff would kill me in a second flat!" Demon exclaimed.
Abruptly Raleigh's jaw dropped open. The Shadow Eco spirit had just remembered something. There was a Dark Eco well out in the desert… not so very far from where Demon had lived… and Dark Eco had a tendency to seep into the water table. Oh shit!
"You look like you just saw a Precursor. What're ya thinking?"
"I'm thinking that you've been altered by Dark Eco without knowing it," Raleigh replied slowly. Then his brain shifted into overdrive, recalling years-old memories and images that until then had been locked away within the recesses of his mind.
"Demon, when exactly did you start noticing that your body was changing?" Demon goggled at Raleigh, stunned by his abrupt intensity.
"About… five years ago?"
"Ksleck. Five years ago, the Metal Heads attempted to destroy a Dark Eco well out in the desert. They failed. All they succeeded in doing was adding Dark Eco to the water."
2 + 2 4. Something clicked in Demon's head.
"And that Dark Eco reached me." There was a note of finality in the she-elf's voice, a touch of determination and resignation that couldn't have said any more clearly that Demon knew she was never going to be 'normal' again.
"Yes. And… well, now we know what Dark Eco does to a person when it's ingested," Raleigh smiled weakly, reeling more than slightly. The poor puzzled panther couldn't comprehend that his friend was no longer just an unusual elf; no, now she had transcended that invisible boundary into the realm of 'creature', rather than 'elf'.
Raleigh's thoughts were displayed clearly on his face. Demon, watching him closely, sighed and leaned her head against her knees. There was no sadness in her eyes, just shock, surprise and perhaps the slightest tinge of anger. She could practically hear Raleigh's thoughts, and she didn't like what she was hearing.
"Raleigh? I'm beginning to think I should never have left the desert. Spargus doesn't trust me, and eventually, the Dark Eco inside me will try to come out… I've got no trouble killing off Marauders, but innocent people? That I don't want to do," Demon whispered. Her eyes stung viciously before Demon grubbed a fist across them and noticed that moisture twinkled on the back of her hand. Then it hit home: for the first time in seven years, Demon was crying.
Tears and weakness went hand-in-hand in Demon's mind- there was no room in her life for either of them. Physical pain was met with a growl, emotional pain laughed at and ignored, and mental pain was nonexistent. Demon had just ignored her own agonies for so long it shocked her that something as simple as a realization that she might end up killing people would make the tears flow.
Dawn found Demon still on the roof, fast asleep and cradled in Raleigh's arms. The transformed shadow panther was grinning quietly to himself, enjoying this moment of closeness with the hold-your-distance woman he loved. He didn't care if she had been touched by Dark Eco, she was still the Demon he had always known, and there weren't many times he could be this close to her and not be afraid for his life. Hell, this was the first time, and most likely the only- he was going to take full advantage of it.
Demon's dreams were vivid and surreal that night. She walked the path of memories back to her youth, but instead of her father a terrible monster was there to greet her as she stumbled back to the hovel she had called home. She ran for her life but in the dream, there was nowhere for her to run. Just when all seemed lost blackness fell and the monster was gone.
But the dream continued. Demon found herself in a blue-walled room surrounded by faintly glowing blue and purple shadows, armed with very real, wickedly curved blades. These shadows slowly surrounded her, pressing the diamond edges of the weapons against her bare, unprotected throat.
Two pairs of eyes appeared behind the blade-wielding shadows, one crimson, the other a glowing white-blue. Rasped words rattled in Demon's ears as those eyes came forward. Two gleaming blades, both glowing orange, appeared at hand height before the eyes.
"You and we are one, Koro. Claim the destiny that stands before you… or doom us all to death. We are Light and Dark, and we will help you if only you will seek us out."
The eyes suddenly disappeared, replaced by two elves that, while elusively familiar, cut terrifying figures that Demon couldn't place.
Demon had never before encountered pure Dark or Light, and though she kept up a façade of being fearless and unintimidated in reality she was shaking violently. The Dark red-eyed creature came forward, ebon skin and rebellious mane glowing faintly in the light cast by the glowing sword-shadows. The same dim half-light glinted off the thing's horns, talons and tail blade, all of which glowed in their own particular shade of electric purple.
Then, there was the other, the Light alter that radiated an aura of peace, calm and forgiveness. Light's broad shoulders were adorned with feathery wings matching the tail-crest, with more feathers lining her back where only hooked blades grew on the elf of Darkness. There were no talons or blades on Light, no weapons whatsoever, though the runes of Light Eco on the elf's wrists spoke otherwise…
"You were born of Darkness, just as I was," the Dark elf said in a rasping, multitoned voice that sent shivers down Demon's back. "You cannot escape your birthright… why fight against the inevitable?"
"Born of Darkness though you are, there are other powers vying for your allegiance. We will guide you… if you will only reach out and find us…"The Light elf whispered in her soft, silky purr of a voice.
"We leave you for now… find us, or I will find you and no amount of stitches will close the wounds," Dark hissed, raising one clenched fist to emphasize her point.
"Seek us out, Koro… the fate of the world rests upon your shoulders…" Then the sword-wielding shadows and the elves of Light and Dark began fading into a nondescript blur of grey…
"Wait!" Demon jerked back to consciousness, hand reaching to seize something invisible. The words of Dark and Light still spun in her head, echoing through her thoughts and completely scrambling her sense of who, what and where she was.
Raleigh saw the confusion and panic in Demon's eyes as she came back to. An evil idea occurred to the Shadow Eco spirit, so he leaned down and kissed her.
WHAM! And then the world went slowly black…
Three hours later, Raleigh awoke to find Demon glaring at him with dried blood spattered across her bare arm and enough murder in her eyes to kill a small army.
"You bastard. I wake up from the worst nightmare I've ever had, and you have to go and…you go and try to kiss me!" She hissed angrily.
Raleigh rolled to his side without realizing that this was not exactly the wisest course of action. He groaned faintly as a wave of agonizing pain washed over him drowning his thoughts in white-hot throbs.
"What'd you do to me?" Raleigh moaned, curling into a ball and cradling his head between his knees.
"Punched you, what else did you expect me to do? Nobody but nobody touches me and gets away in one piece," Demon replied irritably.
Jak's face split into a broad, half-pitying grin as he watched the whole encounter from behind a doorframe. He had finally put his finger on the source of the slight frission between Demon and Raleigh… the latter had a crush!
"I feel sorry for Raleigh… almost," Jak remarked, grinning viciously. Daxter was, for once, silent. He merely rolled his eyes.
A/N: Alright, I officially screwed up Sig's lines (both of them…) but I can't write like him to save my butt. Oh well… oh, and please, review! Anything, plot ideas, comments, spelling corrections, et cetera, but please no flames. I don't like flames…
Oh, and I'm going to Seattle tomorrow, so don't expect me to update for a while. (Then again, if no one ever reviews me I won't update anyway… Hold it, is that a good thing or a bad thing?)