1Disclaimer: You want a disclaimer? I'll give you a disclaimer! (Flips off people looking for these things) Twirl on it!

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Chapter 28

Getting into the Palace

"This is such a stupid plan." Jak muttered, making sure that his hood hadn't fallen down. "Why can't I just wear a hat?"

"Because, you have very unique hair Jak." Raye told him, adjusting her hat. "Black is a much more common hair color than blonde with green highlights is."

"Yeah, I know." He muttered. "You okay back there Dax?" He asked. Daxter, because of the fact bright orange Ottsels were about as common in Haven City as Jak's hair, was sitting in Jak's backpack, along with his Morph Gun and JET-board.

"Just peachy." Came the muffled reply.

"Good, let's go." He walked out the door.

"Hope our disguises are good enough." Raye muttered. He grinned.

"Don't worry. If I didn't know that you were under there, I wouldn't recognize you." He tugged her hair.

"Don't do that." The trip to Main Haven was slow, faster than it would've been if they'd driven, though, because then Jak might have had to, horror of horrors, drive like a NORMAL PERSON! (insert gasp and dramatic background music here)

But back to the topic of the story, they reached Main Haven and then got captured and killed.

The End.

Just kidding, they did reach Main Haven, did not get killed, or captured, and got to the Palace. That's where things started snagging.

Jak cursed under his breath. "Torn wasn't kidding when he said they raised security." In front of the Palace, there were several lines of guards standing in front of the doors, at least ten per line.

Raye let out several violent curses under her breath. Daxter peeked out from Jak's backpack. "What, what? Let me see." His eyes widened. "We're screwed."

"Gee, thanks Daxter." Raye muttered. "Now what?"

"I don't know, you're the one who usually knows what to do." Jak muttered.

Raye bit her lip. 'But I only knew what to do because it was going along like the game. THIS was definantly NOT in the game.'

'Well how are we supposed to get in?' Ambika asked.

"Give me a minute." Raye muttered, sitting down on the edge of the fountain. She suddenly looked at Jak's backpack. "I may have an idea, but we'll need Daxter's help."

Daxter, who still had his head poked out of the pack, looked at her. "What kind of help?"

"Well..."

xXx

"No way. There is no way that I'm going to be a distraction!" Daxter protested.

"Come on, Dax. You're good at hiding and stuff, and you're so small that no one's going to catch you anyway." Jak told him.

"Nuh-uh, no chance, get yourself a new partner, 'cause I-" Raye gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Please?"

Daxter pouted. "Fine. But I expect another kiss when I get back!" He crawled out of Jak's backpack and ran out in front of the guards. "Hey losers! Look down here!"

Surprisingly, they did all look down. "It's that rat the convicts had with them. Catch it!" Almost all of the guards ran after a screaming-in-terror Daxter.

Raye grinned. "See, now three we can handle." She slid over the railing behind them and put her hands up to the back of their helmet. Two small dark eco bolts shot out of her finger tips, and the guards collapsed, unconcious. This would have attracted the attention of the other guard, if Jak hadn't already knocked him unconcious as well.

Jak slid his hood off. "That was too easy." He held the pass up to the door.

"Access approved." The doors slid open and the two elves walked inside.

Raye took off her hat and shook out her hair. "There's no one in here." They walked through a couple of rooms.

"Yeah, I know. It's getting kind of scary how much we use these abilities." Jak said. Raye nodded as the next door opened... and a turret gun started shooting. Both elves jumped to either side of the doorway.

"Well that may be a problem."

Jak laughed. "Problem? More like an annoyance." He ran into the room while the gun was facing Raye and pulled out his Vulcan. The poor turret gun was reduced to a pile of rubble.

"Will you two...(gasp, pant) wait up for just one second!" A very tired Daxter crawled into the room.

Jak ran back over. "Dax, you okay?"

The Ottsel glared at him. "No, I am NOT okay! It took me forever to lose those idiots and get back here! Not to mention I nearly got spotted by the three that you two oh-so-cleverly knocked out for like ten minutes. And I believe I'm owed a kiss!"

Raye rolled her eyes and kissed his cheek again. "There, happy?"

"Yes, much more so." Daxter grinned, climbing up to Jak's shoulder.

Jak rolled his eyes. "Let's go."

As they walked into the Throne Room, Jak cursed. "Praxis isn't here!"

The two elves heard footsteps behind them. "No, but I am."

Raye turned around. "Ashelin?" Her eyes traveled to the pistol in her hands. 'Oh shit.'

"I shouldn't have trusted you two!" The redhead growled.

Jak smirked. "Back to square one, huh?"

Ashelin walked over, a gun pointed at each. "Don't play with me. All along you've been trying to undermine our war with the Metal Heads! Whose side are you on?"

"Ashelin, you have to listen to us." Jak told her. "Your father's planning something really bad, and if-"

"My father can stop the Metal Head armies once and for all!" She yelled, shoving her pistol under Jak's chin.

"If he cracks open the Precursor Stone, the explosion will kill all of us!" Raye told her angrily, shoving the pistol out from under Jak's chin. "Don't you get it!"

Ashelin looked shocked, and Daxter smirked. "That's right. Not so hard, huh? Even I can figure this one out!"

Both started to walk away, but Ashelin leveled her pistol with them again. "Don't you two move!" She pulled out her communicator. "Vin, come in."

"What? What? I've got my hands full here you know!"

"You know all about the Precursor Stone myth, right?"

"Sure. I did my Econetic Energy Doctorate on Precurian Theoretical Physics. Why?"

"What would happen if the Precursor Stone were to be, say, violently cracked open?" She asked, shrugging a bit.

"Great! As if I didn't have enough to keep me awake at night, you give me one more thing to dread! Thank you very much!"

"Just tell her Vin." Raye called from the background. Having a pistol leveled at her head was not how she wanted to spend today.

"Okay, okay. If someone actually had the Stone, according to my calculations, a runaway eco charge from cracking it open would, theoretically, destroy everything!"

"Everything!" Ashelin asked, horrified.

"All things! Every single thing! Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go throw up. Bye-bye."

Ashelin lowered her arms to her side, shell shocked. "Trust me Ashelin. We have to find a way to stop him." Jak said.

Ashelin covered her eyes with her hand. "I'll try to find out more. But right now, my father is meeting Krew at a secret weapons factory near the Dig. Here. That's my top-level security pass." She handed him a black security pass. "It'll get you into the factory, but it won't get you back out. We never had this conversation."

The sound of footsteps, lots of heavy footsteps, reached the four's ears. "They must be coming to check on Ashelin." Raye muttered. "We'll never get back out that way."

Ashelin stopped and turned around. "There's a doorway behind the last pillar on the left. Take it out. But it won't be easy."

Jak walked over and shoved a portion of the wall away. "Nothing we do ever is."

(a/n: Now, before I get flamed for this part, let me clear this up: there will be no guards to slow Jak and Raye. Why you ask? Have you not realized that all the guards have been put out on watch duty? There are no guards to slow them down!)

Raye let go of the bar and landed next to Jak. "Okay, I can't get why the heck there aren't any guards at all in the Palace. You'd think Praxis would want to guard Ashelin from the dangerous eco freaks."

Jak scoffed. "I think he's more worried about himself. Now that Errol's gone, he's our number one target."

Raye grinned, rage shining clearly in her eyes. "Oh, hell yes. Now, what do you say to getting out of here?"

"Best suggestion I've heard in the past hour."

xXx

Thankfully, Raye and I were fast enough to get out of the Palace before the guards did. Ashelin had probably had her hands full having them scour the entire place. 'Hope she sent them to the roof. I'd kill to see those morons trying to get across in that bulky armor.' Lykaios cackled.

'Would you shut up?' I growled, making sure my hood was up again. "Jak, that's the third time you've checked your hood. Calm down." Raye muttered.

"How can you say to calm down? Have you even considered how we're going to get out of the city and to the Dig? If we try to use the transport, we'll get caught."

She sighed and pulled a couple of pieces of paper out of her pocket. "Torn gave me a couple of KG passes to get on the transport. As far as those idiots go, they'll think we're a couple of guards on our day off, just going to check in."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. We get to pretend to be the biggest idiots on the planet."

She grinned. "Just have Daxter coach you from your backpack."

"Hey!" Came the muffled protest.

"Move it, I don't want to stay in one place for too long." I told them, starting to walk off.

"Wait up! Mar, you are so impatient." Raye muttered, jogging a bit to match stride.

I shook my head. "No, you're just slow."

"You know what? Next time you get cornered by a pack of Juice Goons or something, I'm going to take my good sweet time getting over there to help you, just for that comment." Somehow, I found the scariest thing in that sentence was that she was serious.

At the Port, I found that fear replaced by a different one. One that was going to turn into fuel for Lykaios if this plan didn't work. But, it went through without much of a hitch. The guards didn't question the papers, I did have to show them the top-level security pass, and we just took off. Also fortunately: there was only one guard, and he was driving.

Unfortunately, the guard felt like chatting. "You two heard about the two freaks that are loose?"

I resisted the urge to snap his neck. "Who hasn't?"

"Yeah, good point. Poor commander Errol. Had to be a pretty bad way to die, dark eco explosion." He shuddered.

I saw Raye's fists clench by her sides. "Yeah. Must've been painful." There was a hint, okay, a BIG hint of malice under her words that clearly said 'and he deserved every second of it'.

"Yeah. I used to be on duty when the two convicts were in the Dark Warrior program." Raye and I both looked at each other. This guy had been one of the ones who'd helped destroy us for two years. "Sad thing was, they were just kids. I would've quit right then if Praxis hadn't had my family in prison for some bogus charges."

"Bogus charges?" Raye asked.

"Yeah, he had my two boys in there, they were only about twenty at the time, for 'drug smuggling'." He laughed. "I'd probably help those two kids out if I had a chance. Praxis is an asshole, and he needs to be taken down."

"You wouldn't by chance be in the Underground would you?" I asked. I could sense the heat of his body as I said that.

"Why?"

I shot Raye a look. She shrugged and mouthed go ahead. "Torn sent us."

He turned to look at us. "You two are...?" I pulled off the hood. "You're the two who escaped!" He started laughing. "Well you're right, I am with the Underground. I've been shuttling some of our men from here to Haven whenever I have a chance.

Raye pulled off her hat. "What's your name?"

"Tyro. I defaulted about the same time as Torn, after the Dead Town incident."

Raye leaned forward. "What happened?"

He started to say something, but stopped. "I'll tell you on the return trip. We're here."

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SC: Chapter 28 is done. Next up, getting through the factory and fighting Krew. That'll be tough. Yeah. Right. Tough.

Ja ne

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