Hi. I decided to re-do this chapter. because it was AWFUL. It probably still is. LOL. anyway fro all you new readers, enjoy. For all my old ones, DONT KILL ME! chapter 8 IS coming, its halfway done!

Enjoy!


Two candles illuminated the battered building known as the Naughty Osstle. The bar's patron, a three foot rodent, adjusted his leather head-gear in a shattered mirror. All around the room, people sat on the damaged floor, some pulling ragged blankets around their shoulders. Tess, another rodent and the waitress of the pub, carried drinks and rations to the survivors. An old woman conforted a young child, explaining Daxter picked up another tray, holding mugs filled with piping hot apple cider, and took it to his friend who was huddled in a corner.

"Jak. Jaakkkk?"

"Hmmm?" Cerulean blue eyes flicked open.

"Drink, ya not lookin' too 'ot there." The Osstle winced as he saw the scars on his friends fingertips as Jak retrieved the mug.

"Cheer up, you've just fought the gods – and Won!"

"I… Dax-" The hero was cut off by a bedraggled man.

"huh," he huffed, "Why the hell should we live with you? You're useless now, we don't need or want you. You were vicious piece of scum before – but we needed you. Now you're just scum. I mean, where the hell were you when this" he gestured to the destruction around him "when this happened? Hiding back at Sparagus? And then you have the nerve – the nerve- to trot back here, solve our problems, and expect people to hero-worship you!" He spat at Jak. "You came too late. Too late to save us."

"Shut the hell up" Snarled Daxter jumping in front of his friend. "Just shut the fuck up, Donavann. You don't know the half of it."

"Oh really" Sneered Don. "Why don't you tell us then, rat?"

"Alright, ugly, I will. It all actually starts in the wasteland…"


The large vehicle skidded to a halt on top of a dune awkwardly, it's engine idling and began sliding down the other side. Jak looked behind him coolly and kicked at the accelerator. The huge wheels gripped suddenly, sending the bulky dune buggy ricocheting down the steep slope. Behind him, the herd of colossal desert metal heads chasing him crested the hill and thundered down it, screaming and snarling in a berserk rage.

Yanking hard on the wheel, Jak sent the heavily armoured buggy into a sharp handbrake turn, swinging it between a bolder and a copse of hardy pine trees. Speeding up, he tore through the steadily narrowing mountain pass. The engine squealed in protest as sand and grit sprayed everywhere. The reckless driver gritted his teeth as the vehicle launched itself from a rocky plateau, into the deepening canyon below.

Jak threw his weight to one side as a tight corner forced the car on two wheels, leaving a tire imprint on the clay chasm walls. Behind him the stream of pursuers thundered down, followed by the rank stench of rotting flesh. Jak was now relying purely on his hearing - looking behind him was impossible at his currant speed.

Five seconds later, Jak hit the trigger for the auto targeting machine gun mounted behind his head. It spluttered to life firing round after round at the stampede, showering the suicidal driver with shining cartridges. The lead metal head took most of the rounds in its face, turning its skull into a bloody mush. It fell with an earth-shattering thud, its two-story corpse blocked the ravine, resulting in a hilarious 'pile-up' effect. Well, it would have been funny, if the remaining behemoths weren't lumbering over their comrade to rip Jak apart.

Grinning lopsidedly, Jak rammed the accelerator down once more. His bullets claimed the rest of the herd apart from two, who hung back, watching him. He hit the brakes and turned around.

Idiot.

Within those few precious seconds Jak reached several conclusions. The most important of which was about the two canons perched jauntily on the leathery backs of the metal-heads, sparking as gaseous eco built up inside the organic weapons.

Acting more on reflex than on any coherent thought, he slammed his palms together, as two purple comets smashed into the rubble-strewn ravine walls above him.

Everything stopped.

The boulders hovered in mid-air.

The Metal heads froze.

The world tinted itself a dark blue.

And through this all strode Light Jak, eyes glowing with eco. He stepped from the danger zone and calmly strode over to the metal heads. Without stopping he stooped down and pulled up two good-sized rocks, and after weighing them in his hands, took off. Literally.

With a powerful sweep of his dusty moth wings he landed on the back of the metal head, and slammed one rock into the leviathan's cannon. He did the same with the other. Admiring his work, he found to his surprise that he still had plenty of eco left. Feeling confused he paused for a second then decided to use this to his advantage.

He flapped his glowing wings once more and pulled up beside the boulders. With a few well-placed kicks and punches he sent the rocks flying (very) slowly towards the behemoths frozen under his spell.


In the city, Samos sat mediating in Haven forest.

He felt it first, the tremor in the earth that shook him into the core, caused the leaves to shiver on their branches and huge flocks of birds to take flight,

Wrenching the COMM-U unit out of his pocket, he activated it. A few seconds later, Torn picked up.

"Yeah, Samos? What the he-…what do you want?"

"Torn, Eco Surge, shut off the cities eco-grid NOW."

The commander cursed, swinging around to his computer and pulling up various files. Vin, in his holographic glory, urged him on given commands and hyperventilating. "Okay." Said Torn, purposely ignoring the ex-elf screaming in fear. "Gonna take thirty minutes. How long we got?"

"Five minutes or less, get you're best man on it." From the other end of the line, a synthetic voice howled.

"…Jaks in Sparagus." Hissed Torn, his voice lowered.

"Jak…by the precursors! Torn contact him, and warn him."

"Why? What type of surge is-" Torns question was cut off by Samos' COMM-U exploding, raining down shards on the old man, and slashing his face cruelly.


In one of the many power plants in Haven, the pistons, the gears, the filters all began to emit a low hum. Throughout the building, elves pricked their ears and several mechanics pulled open the maintenance hatches. One bright individual took one look at the machinery and yelled "SURGE!" - smacking a large button on his right labelled 'emergency stop'. But it was too little, too late. The purple tar that churned and burned in the pipes started fizzing, bubbling violently, as elves legged it, evacuating the building in droves. In the bowels of the power station gears started spinning faster and faster, until one flew off its shaft, spinning into another machine, crippling it.

The Power station exploded, incinerating all those inside. On the skyline, other factories and reactors could be located by looking the mushroom cloud of debris and eco. The sun disappeared as the sky was daubed with smoke.

People screamed and ran as the industrial section of the city was engulfed in a giant, colourful fireball, sending shrapnel thudding into the bodies of the unfortunate. Blue Eco sparked and hissed from vehicles, and liquid copper dripped from the one-time wires of machinery. The air was full of the stench of burning metal and charred meat of people and animals alike, the very air distorting as magical energy pulsed through it.

It was technological Armageddon.


Time sped up.

The metal heads screamed as half a ton of rubble suddenly decided to change direction and defy most laws of mass and speed. Light Jak watched this with something akin to pity, or disinterest.

He flinched as he felt pain in his fingertips, like someone had dragged a nail file across them. He pulled his hands from behind his back and saw claws. Dark blue, curved, nine-inch claws. Morbid fascination held him in place until his legs gave out underneath him, but he didn't fall, instead he hung in mid air, like a broken puppet on tangled strings.

And the convulsed as all the eco he had absorbed, used, and stored inside his frame sang in his veins. Sparks of red, yellow, blue, green, white and purple whirled round his body, as both white eco and dark eco strove to transform him. Tough, ridged antelope horns stabbed through his skull, only to have them twisted by the white eco and shatter like crystal. Then stab through his skull…Light Jak's wings and Dark Jak's claws followed the same pattern, punching through his skin and then retreating, again and again, until he was bleeding from the gaping wounds left, his skin having been given little time to heal. Time convulsed around him, slowing down, speeding up or stopping all together. His vision slid from blurred and hazy, to pin-point accuracy.

He threw his head back and screamed. Magical pulses span around in a blur, stinging him like glowing hornets


"What the hell's that?" Boomed Sig, leaning out of the throne room's large windows.

The pillar of multicoloured light had only seconds ago shot from the dunes, blinding him temporarily. Sparagus had not felt the effects of the Surge badly, as they mostly used wind power to generate the little electricity they needed. Only the few desert vehicles and few new COMM-U units had exploded.

"PECKER!" Roared Sig.

"Raaak! What iz it, my liege?" The monkey parrot hybrid squawked, flying down from a corner where he had been hiding.

"See that?" Sig asked, gesturing out the window. "What the HELL is it?"

"Ahh, my lord it appears to be…light? Raak."

"Well, go out there and find out what's causing it."

"Uh…you see, I'm uh allergic to sand-Raakk…and I – uh - can't go into…"

"Pecker?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."


Daxter curled into a ball, twitching under the table as the eco-powered lights fizzled away to nothing. Tess' comforting words and hasty prayers drowned the screams of zoomers spinning out of control out as she hugged her boyfriend. She was pretty sure that they were in danger, but was glad that the dark eco had stopped ravaging his tiny frame. She knew what was happening, but the experts had said over and over again that there wasn't enough eco left to cause a Surge, supposedly caused by vast amounts of eco rising to the surface. More to the point, Surges were usually only one type of eco playing silly buggers with machines and people, but all the different types of eco were going hay-wire simultaneously…the bubbling jars of eco left stacked on the shelves for Jak and Samos proved that.

A molten blob of metal crashed through the roof, setting the alcohol that dripped from shattered bottles alight. Tess screamed, pulling Daxter away from the flames, away from it all. She buried her face in his fur. Hiding her eyes from the body burning alongside the zoomers remains, she willed it all to end.

"Ello, Tessy-babe. Yew okay down there?" Jinx peered under the battered table, fag-butt clenched between his teeth. "Only I 'eard screamin' an' I figgured yew wou'dn't mind some 'elp." The addict sniggered, picking up the couple. "Didun't evun know Daxxie could go tha' 'igh."


An hour later, Samos floated into the underground hurriedly. "Is everything alright?" he asked.

Torn glared at him. "Just fine Samos," he rasped sarcastically, "the cities been reduced to rubble, I can't contact my men and Daxter just went into an epileptic fit. Yup, everything is good."

Samos harrumphed. "Is the rat okay?"

"Unfortunately."

"Jak?" Asked the Sage anxiously.

"Heard nothing."

The green sage stomped over to Torn and peered over his shoulder, who was pushing piles of paper around his desk, pinning some up, throwing others away. They were mostly hand-written reports on the damage.

"The city?"

"The industrial section was vaporised. The city's crippled without it. The rest of Haven is mostly on fire or buried under rubble. The Port has sprung a leak and the water levels here "-he jabbed at the map-"and there" He waved at another section of the city detailed on a map behind him. "Are rising. Which is impossible – should be impossible, but it is happening. I've seen it. And I don't think we can stop it."