Chapter XXIV: The Dead Resurrected
Muse: I'm sorry, but LES has absolutely nothing to say!
LES: (is bound and gagged)
Jak: Hey! No fair! I couldn't kill her, but you can gag her?
Muse: Ah… I am her muse… her equal. I can punish her when she needs to be punished. You can't punish her because you are a lowly fictional character that she bends at her every whim. She most certainly is in charge, and you most certainly aren't!
Jak: Can you kill her?
Muse: Nope. Anyway, on with the story!
After destroying the three Blast Bots, Jak walked into the bar to find Torn at the hologram, trying to contact Ashelin. "Ashelin? Ashelin? Can you read me? Jak's back in the City!"
Suddenly, Ashelin's holographic form appeared and she looked at Jak. "Jak? You came back? I knew that I could count on you."
Torn laughed. "With Jak back in the City, the new KG leader's probably pissing in his…" Suddenly, Ashelin's image began to flash in and out. Torn jumped forward and inspected the controls. "Someone's jamming the signal. I think…"
Suddenly, a face became clearer. Jak gasped as he recognized who it was. The face was so familiar, and yet so different. "Erol!" Jak gasped.
"I live!" Erol's form said, laughing. "I see you're still fighting for the weak link, eh Jak?"
"How the fuck did you survive?" Jak demanded.
"Ah, you see, when the Dark Eco exploded, I was in pain… a lot of it. I thought I had died. But they saved me. They changed me until I could handle Dark Eco as you do."
"You're a Channeler?" Jak asked. He was understandably upset, when Erol had constantly called him a freak, a weapon, something not Elvin for being a Channeler.
"No, actually. I was born completely normal, not a Channeling freak like yourself." Erol said.
"Genetic alteration." Jak said.
"I don't presume to understand the technology of the Greatest beings in the universe." Erol said. "You see, even the Metal-Heads and you have your biological weakness, the one flaw in our weapon design, but I'm made out of pure metal and Dark Eco! I'd love to meet you again…" With that, Erol's face disappeared.
A hologram of Samos appeared. "We must unite our forces or we're through. You've got to reach us, Jak." He said as though nothing had happened.
Ashelin's hologram joined Samos' "The KG Bots are getting stronger. That floating war factory of theirs is spitting out more Death Bots every day." Ashelin and Samos disappeared.
Torn shook his head, thinking about Erol's return. "That bastard's back."
Jak glared at the hologram where Erol's face had been. "That's a crime in itself. But… even if they managed to genetically alter him, how could they do it that fast. Erol should have been dead in an instant!"
"Who is 'they'?" Torn demanded, and then he sighed. "But we can worry about this later. We've got to find a way to break through their defenses." He paused. "You know… there is a missile, but it has no guidance system. If there is someone small, pointy, and too stupid to feel pain in our ranks to guide the missile… they could fly it into the crudely constructed force field."
As one, the two men looked down at Daxter. Daxter realized this several seconds later. He looked from Jak, to Torn, and then back at Jak. "What are you looking at me for?" He demanded.
"Well, you are small, pointy, and too stupid to feel pain." Jak pointed out.
"I am not stupid!" Daxter yelled. "But… being the heroic sort of animal that I am…"
"So, you up for a little rumble, Dax?" Jak asked.
"Fish in a barrel, baby!" Daxter said. "Fish in a barrel!"
"The missile's outside at 1300 hours." Torn said, looking up at the clock. "Ten minutes. Be prepared by then."
"You guys haven't touched my room, right?" Jak asked.
"Of course not." Torn said, then he added in an undertone when Jak left to the back rooms. "Everyone is much too frightened to go in there."
Jak walked into his old room that he hadn't seen in months. He was pleased to see that it was just the way he left it… although there was a lot of dust, proving that no one had been in the room since Jak left. The room was exactly the way it had been before his arrest.
So began the hunt. Jak dug through the general mess of things. Then, after several minutes, he found the object of his search. It was the old leather trench coat that he used to wear; now it would keep him slightly warm.
With a swirl, Jak put the coat on. It was a less-than-perfect fit, but it was doable. The black Yakkow leather had the effect of turning him from a slightly heroic-looking elf into a punk criminal.
"Having a relapse into the criminal life, are we?" Daxter asked.
"Dax, it's not the clothes that make the criminal… it's how many laws you've broken." Jak said.
"And… in your case… all of 'em." Daxter said.
"Hey, I don't think I've broken all the laws!" Jak defended himself.
"You keep thinking that." Daxter said.
"Have you even thought about how you're going to survive flying a missile into a force field?" Jak asked.
"Jakkie-Boy… you've known me for years." Daxter said. "Have you ever seen me show that kind of foresight?" He asked.
Jak laughed. "Now that you mention it… I haven't."
"The 'happy-go-lucky' attitude prevails!" Daxter said. "I plan to ride that thing, and then decide what to do before I crash." Daxter said.
Jak laughed on the outside, but on the inside he was still worried. The times when he had been reckless was when he had almost gotten himself… not to mention other people killed. Having no foresight in a dangerous situation is basically signing your own death warrant.
"I wonder where my Tessie is." Daxter wondered. Jak looked down at him. "I hope she got out of here all right."
Jak stared at Daxter, unsure of how to best handle the situation. "I'm sure she got out. She was a member of the Underground. She must be a lot tougher than she looks… I mean… all the other spineless people in Haven."
"What's happening to me?" Daxter asked suddenly.
"What's wrong?" Jak asked, worried that his little friend was sick or something.
"I don't know." Daxter said. "I have this really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach."
Jak blinked, and blinked, and blinked again. Was Daxter saying what he thought he was saying? He himself had felt that feeling more times than he could count over the past year. "Oh my God…" Jak gasped, unable to absorb the truth. It was simply too far-fetched.
"What? What?" Daxter demanded. "I'm not going to die, am I?"
"I think…" Jak rasped, for his mouth and throat had gone really dry from shock. "I think you really care about Tess!"
"Really care?" Daxter asked.
"The way that I care for Keira!"
"What… I want to have sex with her? I didn't need you to tell me that." Daxter said.
"No! It's not about the sex, it's about…" Jak searched for the word. "The connection."
"Are you… saying… what I think you're saying?" Daxter demanded. "Are you saying I… love her?"
Jak laughed out loud. "You said it, Daxter, not me."
"No, wait, that can't be right…" Daxter said. "And even if I weren't famous for being a swinger, that is against the effing laws of nature!"
"Falling in love is by chance, not choice." Jak said. "Believe me, I know. I mean, who would believe that Jak Mar, formerly banished and Haven's Most Wanted Criminal of all Time would fall in love? But it did happen, didn't it? And who would believe that a woman as perfect a Keira would love me back?"
"Stop it, Jak, you're getting all mushy."
"But it's true." Jak said. "If it can happen to a murderer freak like me, it can happen to you too."
"Stop it!" Daxter said. "It happened to you because you and Keira are practically Soul-Mates! I won't fall victim to the 'love disease'!"
Jak laughed sarcastically. "It's time for you to go play 'Ride the Missile'."
"Bring it on!" Daxter said.
Jak walked out of the Naughty Ottsel and over to the small missile that was set up on a portable launch pad. One of the Freedom League Guards took a step away from Jak and saluted. "Missile is aimed, sir."
Jak almost didn't know how to handle the situation. The Guard was looking at him with a mixture of fear and respect, the sort of one gave a higher-ranking officer.
"Were you ever in the Krimzon Guard?" Jak asked.
"No, sir." The Guard said politely, as though afraid that if he didn't show respect, Jak would disembowel him.
"Then you don't have to worry about me." Jak assured the Guard. "The only people I kill intentionally these days are Baron-loyalists and Marauders. Oh… but… don't call me 'sir'. I'm not your superior in age or rank."
"Yessir… I mean… I won't." The Guard said awkwardly.
"Good." Jak said, and then mainly to himself. "Damn titles."
Daxter was already situating himself on the top of the missile. "One busted force field, comin' up!"
Jak jumped on a zoomer and looked at Daxter. "I'll meet you over there. Be careful, and make sure that I'm not picking up pieces." With that, Jak took off in hopes of beating Daxter to the barrier on the other side of the Port.
"All systems go." The Freedom Guard said. "We have a green light. Target selected…" Then the Guard pressed the button and the missile launched with a loud scream from Daxter as he clung to the metal for dear life.
Jak made it to the force field in question first. He stopped the zoomer and jumped off it, eying the force field. It was crudely constructed, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective. It was red in color and it rose twenty feet in the air.
Then the sound of a scream hit his ears and he spun around. Daxter was coming at the force field full speed.
Seconds before impact, Jak turned his face away from the explosion to avoid getting shrapnel in his face. He was unable to see if his friend made it or not. None of the small pieces of shrapnel hit him. Then he felt a sharp, terrible pain blossom in his stomach.
Jak got the most terrible feeling of deja-vu. He looked down, almost too afraid to look down.
What he saw made him sick. A huge chunk of metal had embedded itself in his stomach, going in through the front, all the way through his body, and out his back, by the feel of it. Jak could do nothing but stare at it. He was painfully aware that it was the same type of fatal wound that he dreamed the Metal-Head Leader would give him.
In his dreams, it was always fatal. The pain of the wound hit him and Jak let out a cry of pain, and he knew his dreams were right. This wound was not one that he'd just walk away from… a fatal wound.
The elf sank to his knees with the real realization that this was it. He had cheated death so many times, and now he was going to die in the same way that fate predicted he would long ago.
He grabbed onto the metal with the thought of at least getting it out of his body, but he found he lacked the strength or the will to remove it.
His vision was going dark. In the distance, he thought he heard someone calling his name. "Jak! Jak… Ja…" The voice faded in his ears.
"So… this is what it feels like to die?" Jak whispered, mainly to himself. "It's not so bad… not like before…" With that, Jak lost the last of his strength and he fell on his side, as to not disturb the metal in his body and cause last-minute pain.
And then he passed out from the pain and blood loss.
Daxter, who had survived the blast by leaping off the missile at the last second, was loosing his mind. It only took one look at the huge piece of metal that skewered Jak to know that his friend would not get back up… would never get back up.
"Jak! Don't you dare leave us like this!" Daxter yelled, completely hysterical. He couldn't believe it. He was the one that was supposed to be safe on this mission! He wasn't supposed to receive the wound that would kill him!
Inside Jak's shutting-down mind, he was having flashbacks of his life, as most do when they are dying.
Only one thing existed in the space that belonged to his earliest years, and it wasn't even a full memory. It was a song… a lullaby. But it was all that he remembered with any clarity. The song rang through Jak's dying mind, but with no picture to accompany the words or to show who was singing it:
"From the time when I was young
I prayed for a child to call my own
But now that the day has come to me
I wish it wasn't so
It's not that I don't love you,
My precious baby boy
But what the fates have planned for you
It rips my heart in two
How could the Fates be so cruel
To take my little boy?"
The song faded from his mind just as quickly as it had come and his mind fast forwarded to times that he could more fully remember.
He remembered being eleven years old and at the local Precursor Temple of Sandover. The only orate thing in the simple building was the stone alter that had been carved hundreds of years ago by their ancestors. It had carvings on it, depicting the Precursors from various legends.
Jak, a young silent Jak, walked up to the alter and ran a hand over the carvings. Then he dropped to his knees before it, praying to the Precursors for the one thing that he wanted more than anything else… the ability to overcome his muteness and communicate with people in the normal fashion. The young elf laid his forehead against the cold stone as silent tears ran down his face.
Suddenly, he felt something touch his shoulder, a touch that was like a butterfly's. Jak looked over his shoulder and saw green eyes and teal hair. Keira had snuck up on him!
The young elf was suddenly painfully aware of the tears that ran down his face. He turned away from the young she-elf in shame.
"Jak…" Keira knelt down besides him. "Why do you weep?"
Jak wanted more than anything to open his mouth and tell her that everything was all right. One could lie with a voice, but not your face. He simply turned away from her. It was worse enough that she had found him, crying like a little kid.
"Please, Jak, don't turn away." She said. "I want to help you. Whatever it is… I want to help you."
The scene faded as another replaced it. He was seventeen now. He recognized the scene instantly. It was on top of the Silos, after he had defeated Gol and Maia's Precursor Robot. Jak hadn't even heard what the Sages were talking about.
Keira had led him off to the side. She embraced him and he returned the embrace, so happy were they that he was still alive. "I'm so happy you're all right!" She said. "I was worried for a while, but… oh, Jak, I'm just so glad you're alive!"
Jak smiled at Keira's words. Without any conscious thought, he pulled Keira closer to himself. Keira looked up at him, confused at first, and then she smiled. The couple leaned in to kiss… And then the memory was interrupted before it could show the rather disastrous outcome of that attempt to kiss Keira.
What followed was a long string of memories, except they were only happy memories. Nothing from prison came to his mind. And most of the scenes seemed to involve his loved ones, especially Keira. Their first kiss… the night before his predestined death date… the last few months they had spent in each other's company…
Suddenly, Jak pulled himself out of the darkness and eternal sleep of death. He couldn't allow himself to die! He had so much to live for! He had Keira, Precursors, he couldn't leave her behind!
With supreme force of will, the elf forced himself back into consciousness. The pain of his wound hit him and he cried out.
Daxter, who had been crying his eyes out ever since Jak had stopped breathing a minute before, looked up in alarm. "Jak? You're alive?" He had never expected his friend to open his eyes again.
Jak ignored him, sat up, and grit his teeth. He had to live! He grabbed onto the metal that went through his abdomen and tugged on it in an attempt to get it out of his stomach. The slightest movement hurt so much that it made him sick, but he knew the only chance he had was to get the foreign object out.
He growled as he tugged, and the metal gave about an inch. The sensation of metal sliding against tissue and organs was nauseating.
Daxter watched, transfixed, as his friend worked to pull the huge piece of metal out of his stomach. He had never seen his friend so focused and determined on a single task. Then Daxter realized that Jak wanted to live, with all his heart, mind, and body. There was no other reason to torture his near-dead body.
Another groan of pain and the shrapnel disappeared into his back, the skin closed up swiftly behind it. Then he continued to work on the metal, ignoring everything outside of the metal lodged in his body and the pain it caused from trying to remove it.
Slowly, but surely, the metal gave inch by painful inch. Only one thought remained above the pain. I've got to live! I've got to live for my loved ones!
Finally, after several agonizing minutes and with a loud roar from Jak, the metal came free. It was huge, jagged, and covered with Jak's blood. It would have easily killed anyone without the Channeler's iron-hard will.
The skin and organs that had been virtually destroyed by the metal started to heal instantly. It was only then, when he knew that the deadly shrapnel was out and that he was healing did he allow himself to slip back into the darkness and pass out.
Sometime later, Jak woke up out of the darkness. He couldn't see very clearly yet. "Wher…" He paused, trying to get his voice to work. "Where am I?"
A familiar voice answered. "You're back in the Naughty Ottsel, and you're lucky to be here." Jak's vision cleared, it was Torn. "You were clinically dead for over a minute."
"Wow…" Jak rubbed his forehead. "I've almost died more times than I can count, but I've never actually died before."
"And, what's stranger, is that I've never heard of anyone coming back from the afterlife through sheer force of will." Torn said. "What's the matter? You saw Heaven and found it not to you're liking?"
"Nah. I went the other way and met the devil… nice guy." Jak said. "It was really nice in hell, all the fire reminded me of the Wasteland."
"He has the ability to joke. He's gonna be okay." Another familiar voice said. It was Daxter. "So, what was the afterlife really like?"
"It wasn't that great…" Jak said with a small smile. "But there were all the topless women…"
"Topless women?" Daxter asked, drooling.
"Oh yeah, and they were all over me." Jak said. And then he saw the look on Daxter's face. "Dax, I'm kidding. I didn't see any topless women. My life passed in front of my eyes, but that's about it."
"Realize that you're going to be famous now." Torn said. "Our Guards always wonder about death because of their occupation. And it's rare for someone to come back. People are going to be asking you questions."
"Great." The Dark Elf said sarcastically. "That's just what I need, more attention. One of your men kept calling me 'sir' like I'd kill him if he called me anything else."
"Oh, and I want you to stay in here for a day." Torn said.
"What?" Jak demanded, sitting up. "A day? I'm fine! I don't have healing powers for nothing, you know!"
"Undoubtedly. But if you weren't fine, I'd make you stay longer. You died, Jak! Do you know what that means? Your heart stopped and your breathing stopped! It's only by a miracle that you came back! If I could, I'd keep you in here for a week!"
"There's no way!" Jak yelled. "I'm fine! It's not like last year when I was sick half the time anyway!"
"Don't make us have to restrain you. We still have those Precursor Metal handcuffs." Torn said.
Jak growled. He knew as well as anyone that he could never hope to bend or break the indestructible metal. He sat back. "God, I hate being out of the action."
"Not as much as I hate having my best fighter on the 'inactive' list." Torn said. "Now, if I hear that you've gone and pulled some dumb stunt like last year when you single-handedly attacked the Palace the moment you got better, I'll make sure you don't come back from where I'll send you." With that, Torn turned around and left.
Jak ran a hand through his hair. "Precursors, that was close, huh?" He sighed. "I thought that I was done for when I saw that huge chunk of metal stuck in my stomach."
"What the hell were you thinking?" Daxter demanded angrily. "How could you almost let yourself die like that? I thought I had lost you back there! Don't you ever do that to me again!"
"Hey, calm down. I'm fine, Dax." Jak said. "I'm not dead." He paused. "So… how did you survive the blast?"
"Ah… I bailed early and managed not to get hit by a freakin' huge piece of metal, which, by the way, Torn has saved. It's HUGE! It's a wonder you could survive that, let alone pulled it out yourself." Daxter paused. "Speaking of which… what in the world possessed you to come back and live?"
Jak looked down at the sheets that covered him. "My life flashed before my eyes and I realized that I had a lot to live for. I guess I just realized that I couldn't just let myself die."
"Simple as that?" Daxter asked. "You just decided that you wanted to live?"
"I guess."
"I don't know. It sounds kind of far-fetched to me." Daxter said. "So, what you're saying that I could stab myself and will myself back to life?"
"You shouldn't try it." Jak said sternly. "I have healing powers. I did die, and something made me realize that I wanted to come back."
Daxter stared at his friend. "Are you a freakin' God? Can anything kill you? You've survived the deadliest illness of all time, Dark Eco Poisoning, and you've even come back from the dead through sheer force of will!"
"Sorry to tell you, but I'm as mortal as anyone else." Jak said. "In fact, every time I have a near-death experience, I'm reminded of just how mortal I am. I'm not immortal. In fact, I'm most likely to die early."
LES: Nope, Jak doesn't die yet. Why? Cause he still has a purpose in this story. Jak dying was a last minute thing that I decided to add to the story just as I was writing it. I thought the 'Blow Up The Barrier' missions were going to be boring to write, so I just thought, 'What if Jak got mortally wounded and died?' Then of course, I had to bring him back to life.
