A/N - Hey guys, SO sorry for the extreme long delay on an update. I was writing on this, got stuck, then I went on holiday for most of the summer and after that school started and with that a whole more homework than I've been used to, which has taken up most of my spare time along with chatting with friends. So I'm sorry to have kept you waiting - hopefully at least some of you're are still with me here. Now we've just gone on a weeklong autumn break, so even though I'll be rather busy, I'll do my best to write the next part. Hope you like this one, though - it was difficult, but somewhat to write. It's not as long as it was supposed to, but I thought that I couldn't really delay much more, not after 5 month or something.

Not beta'ed, btw -still waiting for NirvanaSergai to tell me the whole mail-address.

Review-answers:

Sabulana - Well, I'm glad you appreciated the dedication (glomps back). Heh, thank you very much for liking it. Arh, yes, Torn's little mental voice - make you wonder how on earth I will keep from making him insane at the end. :P

Cursed Moon Blade - No, not really weird. The urge to slash people in shows and so can come rather early on while watching a show/playing a game, whatever.

M-Python-Girl - Well, no soon update, but I still live, so I guess you forgot about those religious fanatics (looks over her shoulder quickly)...? But NOW you've got an update, at least

GoodMorningBeautiful2005 - ASAP was late, but it's here now, so be at peace - or something (rolls eyes at herself).

The Sacred Heart - Well, yeah, I'm afraid you have to get used to them, as that's the way I believe I keep people somewhat interested in the story. This one isn't as long as I would've liked, but I wanted to update at last.

ShalBrenfan - Thank you very much. No, he can't change to light Jak yet, asthis story is set in JakII. Heh, I'll try to keep up the work and thank you, I'll have fun, then. ;)

Squirrel-under-a-bus - Well, geez, sorry. You're not the only one with an active imagination, you know. I'm sorry if I ruin it for you, but then I can always write another one, right? Heh, thank you. Well, it wouldn't really work, I think, if it switched between the two - the audience has to be left with something to wonder about, after all.

Warnings - A little OOC, but wth? I believe it fits with the story, but if you don't think so, let me know.

Disclaimer - yeeeeeeeah(points to other chapters)...?

On with the chapter, then. Title may seem like a repeat of the last, but it's for a reason, you know.

Chapter 9 - Walking down Memory Lane can be painful and bittersweet

Even though the first section of Dead Town you passed through, when you came from Haven City, seemed to be in a pretty bad state, it was nothing compared to the outskirts of the bog-infested ruined town. Almost nothing was left of the buildings and such except boulders and rubble, and the swamp and its creatures was everywhere.

Despite all of this, Torn didn't seem as disgruntled as usual. He wasn't smiling or anything like that, but his face was calm and expressionless, which was rather rare for him these days.

However, as he got closer and closer to his destination, his strides slowed and became almost reluctant, as if he wasn't sure he really wanted to get to the place he had been trying to reach, but found that he couldn't stop from going there anyway.

At last, after what seemed like days, but probably had just been a couple of hours, he reached his destination, and sank down to his knees, not caring that his pants were getting soaked with cold, filthy, stinking bog-water, or that all kinds of filth would be getting to the numerous scratches and cuts on his hands. After all, he was already soaking wet with the rain that continued to pour down and the cuts could be cleaned when he got back to his quarters.

"It's been so long," he whispered softly. "So long since I've been here. It's just – it brings back so many memories. Memories are painful, you know that, and I've always been one for avoiding pain whenever I can. I'm sorry."

Now, the tattooed elf was normally a cold, harsh person, but nobody is like that from birth. It is always brought on by something that has happened in one's life, and some times people just use the cold facade as a wall to hide behind so that they won't get hurt again. After all, to hide from the things that are hurting you are the safest and easiest way to cope with something like that.

Torn began to crawl a little further into the toppled ruins, turning rubble over carefully as he went. It was obvious, if anyone had been looking, that he was searching for something important.

He stopped, when he was so far into the ruins that he couldn't be seen from the outside, and sat down with his legs crossed on a particularly large piece of concrete. In front of him was some rubble that looked suspiciously like it had been placed there by hands and had not landed there at random.

With a soft, sad smile that had a bitter undertone to it, Torn leaned forward ever so slightly and picked up an object that lay under the arranged pile of rubble. It was with a surprising care he brought his hand out, but when he opened it and the object became visible, it also became clear why he was being so careful about it.

In that calloused, scarred palm lay a small wooden figure, carved with the greatest of tenderness and care and polished so thoroughly that it glinted even in the faint light that filtered through what was left of the building. The small figure made out of mahogany depicted a young boy with long, wild hair that seemed to billow in a wind that wasn't there. He was wearing nothing but a pair of leggings, some gloves and a strap of cloth wrapped about each of his forearms, the ends whipping in the nonexistent wind like the hair. The carving was so intricate that you could see dusting of hair on his chin and his expression was easy to read; happy, but with a dignified air to it as well. He was looking down at the three tiny crystals he was holding in his hands. One shone with a small, but bright white light, while another pulsed with a dark purple light. The third one, which was placed in the middle of the three, was sparkling with a faint, but visible green glow.

The tattooed elf let another of his rare, genuine smiles play across his features as he caressed the wood gently. Just holding the small object in his hand brought back so many memories that the rebel was thankful that he was already sitting down, or the force of remembered things, remembered feelings, would have brought him to his knees. Icy blue eyes shone slightly with unshed tears.

To others, it may have seemed foolish for a full grown elf to sit there with tears in his eyes just because of a silly wooden figure, but they didn't know what significance it had for Torn. To him it was the most natural thing in the world, because the object in his palm was something which had been a great part of his former life – a life he normally tried to forget by burying it as deep as he possibly could in his memory. Some times he would return to this place, but those times were extremely rare, since whenever he did come back, every single thing he had tried to forget would come rushing back like a tidal wave out of control.

When the second-in-command was young, he had lived with his mother and older brother in this place. His father had been killed when he was a babe, and his mother had lost her leg due to a Metal Head attack in the main part of the city some years later. They had lived in the Bazaar, in a small apartment somewhere in an alley. His brother, who was about five years older than him, had always looked after him, whenever their mother could not, and it was he, who taught the young Torn how to defend oneself against bullies.

Torn had loved his brother very dearly and looked up to him, as younger siblings tend to do with their elder brothers or sisters. It wasn't hero-worship or anything like that; Torn would never do a thing like that with anyone, least of all his brother. It was love; the pure, simple love that exist between siblings. Not that that meant the two of them wouldn't fight. After all, what kind of siblings would they be if they didn't fight, at least now and then?

It was his brother who had suggested that he joined the Guard, like the older sibling himself had done shortly after a major attack that almost wiped out the whole Bazaar and had been very near to killing the young second-in-command of the future. Soon after their mother had told them they were going to live in what was left of the part outside the city that was known as Dead Town. Torn had agreed to join the baron's police force after some thought – he wanted to rid the city of the foul beasts that plagued it and the only way to do that was to join the Guard.

His brother was also the one to introduce him to a person with flaming red hair, tattoos all over his face and a rather scaring grin. The younger brother had been but a gangly teenager at the time, not even old enough to get his face tattooed, but even then he had sensed that there was something about this person that he didn't like; he couldn't pinpoint it even if his life depended on it, but there was something in his speech and the way he held himself that irked Torn quite a bit. His brother, though, liked the tattooed elf with the brightly coloured clothes and the strange glint in his eye – in fact, they were comrades and friends, a thing which the teenage elf hadn't understood at all.

As much as Torn didn't like his brother's friend, there was some relief that the dislike was mutual. Whenever they happened to be alone, the older elf would push the teenager, sometimes so hard that he hit the wall with a loud thud, and then start insulting him in a very clever way, so that Torn never could pinpoint what the orange-haired friend had said that had been insulting, when he was retelling the events to his brother. But he knew he was being insulted, even when the other didn't say anything, but rather stood above him, smirking down at him, that damned glimmer in the black depths of his pupils always present.

Ah, yes, Erol had indeed been a strange person, even back then.

The ex-KG's eyes misted for the briefest of moments as the memory of why he had ended up quitting the Guard reared up from the deepest, darkest corners of his mind. If only he had been able to – but such speculations were useless now. His brother had called him over the phone-set they were both equipped with and had told him that there was a large group of Metal Heads located in Dead Town, even more than usual and that they were behaving very aggressively. The older sibling was going out there with his team and wanted Torn to find Erol for him, as he hadn't been able to find him before he had to leave.

The red-head had spent quite some time looking after the commander-to-be, but to no avail. He then, completely against orders, took a zoomer and drove as fast as he could out to the deserted part of the city. Luckily he had gained the pass to get out there very shortly after he had joined the Guard and it only took him a moment to pass through the gates. When he emerged on the other side, he ran as fast as he possibly could to get to the scene, which was easy to spot due to the noise and flashes of eco-light visibly against the sky. His blood froze in his veins as, when he got closer to his target, he realised just where the fighting was taking place. He had prayed to Mar and whoever was listening up there that his fears were unfounded; that when he arrived everything would be over and that his brother would stand facing him with a big grin plastered on his blood-smeared face and an arm slung around their mother's shoulders, who would be glaring reproachfully at her eldest son.

Everything was indeed over when he got there, but that was about all that fitted with his wish. If his blood had frozen in his veins before, it was now turning to poison, which both burned and froze, as he looked at the horrible seen before him; there were bodies everywhere, both the deformed, bulky figures of the Metal Heads and in-between these heaps of black monsters lay the bloody, broken bodies of the Krimzon Guards with unseeing eyes and the small Metal Heads already swarming around them to get at their still-warm flesh. There weren't many of them – not enough to take on a single pack of the big beasts, let alone this horde that lay dead around him and flocked the area beyond that point. How anyone in their right mind could order such a small number of Guards out there was beyond the now-tattooed elf.

With the tears streaming down his face, Torn had forced his way through live Metal Heads as well as dead ones in search for his brother, a search which had frightened him, for both the prospect of finding his sibling's body in the mess and the prospect of not finding him was equally horrifying.

Therefore, when he did find it, he wasn't sure how to react. It lay in front of him, all covered in blood and the slimy substance that was the Metal Heads' blood. The head was turned to the side so Torn could only see half of the face, but even that was bad enough as the one visible eye stared at him with a hollow expression that made the young elf want to gag.

Cautiously he moved closer, hoping against all hope that it wasn't his brother, that it was just a trick of the mind that made it look like his brother.

TBC...

A/N - Well, another HUGE cliffie, I know. I'll try not to leave it hanging that much this time. I know I took a couple of liberties with the story and so, but I hope you'll all survive.With the change in Erol's name - what the HELL is it with Naughty Dog, anyway? In thesecond game they call him Erol with one 'r' in and in the third they suddenly add another 'r', so it's Errol. Geez, did getting transformed into a cyborg change his name or what? Woops, sorry, small spoiler for the tiny group of people who haven't played the third game.

Anyway, until next time, guys. See you on the review page, hopefully.