Chapter 9 is here, hope you all enjoy and review!


Ch9: An Unexpected Encounter

Patience, that was the key to completing any project, whether it be small or large. Patience was something that Calidan had to learn if he was to make it out in the desert, even if it often escaped him. His daily routine of scouting and foraging complete, he retreated to his workbench to envelop himself in his newest tech project. At least as much of it that he could complete, he was still missing the two critical pieces, a stabilizer and a power source. He was akin to wonder if it would ever be complete, there was only so much he could find out in the desert. None the less he was determined to get as far with it as he could, and every little bit helped. He did find some small durable connectors scavenged from a Marauder camp that would suit for a linking assemblage on the new toy just fine, and was busy connecting them one at a time. It was somewhat tedious, but it was how Cal entertained himself.

SHHHOOOMMM!

He dropped everything he was holding and it fell with a clang as he was startled with a blinding flash illuminating his entire home, it even startled Robin from his nap as he awoke with a hiss. Cal shielded his face from the illumination, mainly since it was feeding in from his lookout tower. He knew this was no coincidence, this phenomenon happening twice in one day.

"Not again! That's it, no more waiting around, I'm investigating this immediately." The light was beginning to die down as he put down his tools and immediately turned toward his gearbag and Omega Fire on the floor. He ruffled his brown hair as he put both of them over his shoulders and dropped his bandanna and goggles over his face. His green eyes were stern with determination underneath the protective film.

"Mrowr"

"You stay here Rob, hold down the fort, and here," he quickly ran up the steps to the kitchen and opened the cupboard where he kept all of his leftover food. He reached into the salt bin on the bottom and picked out a few kanga rat carcasses. He then picked up a pitcher on the shelf with fresh water. He ran back down the steps and poured the water in Robins bowl and the carcasses right in front of him.

"There, that should suffice you till I get back, just stay out of trouble okay?"

"MrrowMrrow"

"Yeah I know, look who I'm talking too," he chuckled. With that done, he headed for his main entrance. He pulled out the controller from his belt and pressed the button. The hangar door lifted open slowly with a groan, until it was high enough for Calidan to clear. He walked out onto the dune and pressed the button again, sealing his home. He turned toward the temple, which was stagnant now that the light had passed.

"Well I certainly hope curiousity doesn't kill the cat and I end up mince meat while searching the place...huh, good thing I never use that line around Robin."


The illuminating light had finally passed, and the party present in the Spargus city palace tower could only look out the window again in shock, for they never expected to see two similar ethereal events occur in the same day, it was rare if not impossible even in the wasteland.

"What was that?" asked Spyro breaking the silence.

"It appears we have yet another extraordinary event happening today, and given the fact that it has taken place at the moment of your presence here, I do not believe in coincidence," Damas replied.

"Damas, you mean that light?" asked Jak.

"Came from the temple? Yes," he replied again.

"The portal, someone has come through the portal again!" exclaimed Spyro.

"Perhaps after you purple dragon," said Damas.

"I have to go, they must be searching for me, if it pleases you your majesty, I will go investigate this and settle it," stated Spyro.

"You are free to do as you wish, but if your actions bring forth disdain to Spargus, you will not be welcomed back here," Damas warned.

"I promise I'll take care of it, and I won't bring any ill toward your people," Spyro replied.

"Well then let's roll chili peppers," Sig exclaimed.

"Not you Sig, I need you to seal that metalhead desert nest, you will take the Gila Stomper and destroy all the creatures inside, the rest of you set out for the temple, it is imperative we find out the causes behind these mysterious events," ordered Damas.

"Well Sig, guess we'll have to put the team-up on hold, time to split up," said Jak.

"Alright let's go," replied Sig. The dragon and the warrior nodded and headed for the elevator, with Sig right behind them. They stepped onto the elevator platform and it started to descend. They eventually reached the bottom and they all exited out of the palace entrance. Along the way to the Wasteland lock, Spyro was wondering who could have possibly come through the portal after him, his first guess was Cynder, seeing how she saw him fall through first. The other guess was it could have been more of those aliens that attacked him, and if it was true, then he better hold true his declaration to Damas, and keep them from reaching the city. He really hoped it was Cynder truly, and if it was, he was more determined than before to reach the temple and console her, since she must have been worried sick. The group finally reached the lock and Jak opened it with his gate pass. The door opened its maw, allowing them to enter the vehicle pen.

"Alright, back on the Dune Hopper," Jak told Spyro. He nodded, though he wasn't too thrilled in riding it again, he figured once they reached the temple he could jump out and fly.

"Well there is a metalhead nest with my name on it, and it requires extermination, you three take care and watch each other's backs okay?" said Sig.

"You've got it, see you later Sig," replied Jak. He, Daxter and Spyro jumped onto the Dune Hopper and belted themselves in while Sig walked over to the Gila Stomper next to them, it was much bigger than the Dune Hopper, built like a desert tank, complete with a machine gun mounted on top of the vehicle. It wasn't built for speed, but rather for head to head hunting trips, which made it the perfect metalhead hunting machine.

Jak started the engines in his vehicle and drove forward to the wasteland lock. It hissed momentarily, before opening right and left allowing them through. He hit the accelerator and the Dune Hopper and its passengers drove into the wasteland with Sig following behind them in the Gila Stomper. The wasteland would be alive with activity today, given to the presence of the two vehicles, and their passenger's respective missions.


Calidan had almost reached the temple, using his makeshift line launcher he had built from scratch. It helped him get across the first few sea platforms, and was about to reach the final one. He reached down to set his line launcher on the rock he was currently standing on. He pressed a button on the back of the device, and a line shot out back into the rock. He pressed a button on the opposite side and another line shot out in front of him, it flew until it made contact with the rock that stood as the foundation for the Precursor Monk temple. The grapple gripped firm, and he jumped down so he was hanging above the sea below. He pressed a button on the side housing of the launcher and flew across the sea toward the temple. His feet made contact and he stood firm. He pulled the trigger on the device and the grapples freed themselves from the rock and retracted.

"Now for the climb," he told himself, "guess I'll be getting my workout in for the day." Calidan started climbing the temple monolith hoping to gain some valuable insight into the day's events. This was the first time he had ever come this close to the temple, as he preferred to leave it alone. He only used the line launcher when trekking across wide gaps in the wasteland, mainly around the Marauder camp. Though as he climbed, he had to appreciate the view, he could nearly see the whole wasteland isle, not something he could see even from his lookout tower. He had just passed the halfway point up the mountain until a distant sound caught his attention. It was a rumbling hum, similar to the sound his Dune Striker gave off, and he knew what it was almost immediately. He turned around to look down at the sea platforms, and saw one of Spargus city's desert vehicles jumping across the sea platforms. He adjusted his goggles with his free hand to clear his vision and scoped out the cockpit of the vehicle.

"What the hey?" he asked as he saw the same figures from before, the blue cladded warrior, the orange furry creature and the purple lizard. The vehicle jumped across the final monolith and landed on the path at the feet of the temple base. He watched as the vehicle drove up the side of the monolith, and disappeared on the other side of the cliff.

"Well, looks like we'll have some additional company, this is turning out to be one interesting evening," said Calidan as he continued to climb.


The Dune Hopper made the final jump across the chasm and drove up toward the temple. Spyro was wishing he could have flown instead of ride. Honestly riding in one of these desert vehicles was just as disastrous an experience as the zoomers in Haven City. Jak drove up to the column gate and performed a three point turn so the zoomer was facing down the mountain. Jak killed the engines and everybody jumped out onto the sand.

"Stay vigil, we don't know what could be inside," said Jak.

"I hear you, no matter what danger seems to be around every corner," replied Spyro. They started walking toward the temple entrance, Jak brought out his blaster mod gun as they approached the entrance. Giving everything that had happened today he was extra cautious, though he also had a sense of hope, since the same event had occured when Spyro appeared, he was sure whoever had caused this would be from his world as well. As they passed through the gate, Spyro made a quick scope of the area, to him nothing seemed out of place compared to his last visit.

"So, do we go back through the warp gate we came from?" he asked Jak.

"No, that portal only travels one way, we have to travel through the long way," Jak explained.

"So I guess we take the path in front of us?" Spyro exclaimed.

"Correct," said Jak.

"Well no sense chatting about it, let's get this over with," yammered Daxter.

As the trio walked through the front passage, another figure appeared from above unbeknownst to them. Calidan had just reached the roof and looked down to see the trio of strangers enter the temple. Giving what he just saw, he thought to himself…'This should be interesting, though giving these guys had shown up during these obscure events, best be cautious.'

He pulled out a grapple and rope from his gearbag and took the grapple lock in his hand. He wrapped the rope around a sculpted monolith and opened and locked the rope through the grapple to secure it. With that done, he made sure his bag and his gun were secure, and took the rope in his hands, throwing the rest of it down. He watched as it fell all the way to the floor.

Calidan was satisfied to see it hit the floor, and positioned himself to start descending. He took the first jump down, gripping the rope as tight as he could, and hit the wall with his feet. Feeling secure up top, he slowly descended further down sliding on his fingerless gloves to avoid rope burn. As he approached 15 feet above the surface, an unfortunate event was happening unknown to him.

The monolith above was starting to crack, the weight starting to cripple it. That along with perhaps centuries of age was making it crumble. The crack was starting high in the back and slowly started creeping around the base. Calidan was ignorant however, as he almost reached the bottom. However, it caught his attention as he felt a jolt through the rope, followed by a low crraacck...causing him to look up in alarm

"Oh no," he said aloud.

The crack had reached its limit, and the monolith collapsed into the large canopy below. Calidan let go of the rope and fell feet first to the floor. He hit the bottom flexing his knees upon impact. He looked up in horror to see the monolith approaching bottom, and braced himself at the last second…

CRRAAAASSSSHHH!


The sound from the impact echoed throughout the temple causing the trio of Jak, Spyro and Daxter to halt their advance. They had just reached the junction atrium where two doors were present and a dark Precursor idol was mounted by the back wall.

"Okay, I'm not the only one who heard that right?" asked Daxter.

"It came from above," said Spyro.

"The upper atrium," replied Jak. They all turned around to the hallway they had just exited from, it was vacant, no sign of any abnormality, at least yet. They considered their options, they could ignore the sudden impact from above and move ahead, or they could backtrack and see what caused it in the first place. Jak pondered over the decision, and came to a conclusion.

"Let's go back, maybe whoever showed up found a way to the surface," said Jak pulling out his blaster for safe closure.

"Or something else, either way I agree let's go," replied Spyro. They turned around to head back through the hallway and up toward the entrance again.

Calidan stood up as the dust settled from the monoliths collapse, a pile of rubble in the middle of the floor was all that was left of it. He pushed the rope aside, as the remainder of it collapsed to the floor. He shook the cobwebs from his head to clear his vision.

"Great, now I've ticked off the monks," he said, "They'll have my hide if they find out, I'd best just get out of here and….no! I came here to find out what is going on, two brilliant light shows in one day is nothing short of conspicuous, so damage or not, I'm going in and solving this mystery, though it may be the last thing I ever do."

He gathered his fallen supplies, including the rope which he stuffed back into his gearbag, and the Omega Fire which he put into his back holster. His eyes then set on the entrance gate once more. He walked over to it and took his first step inside. He kept close to the right side wall since he noticed at the end there was a staircase to the right, and figured stealth was top priority now. He kept close to the wall as he neared the end, but something immediately caught his attention, silhouettes on the wall opposite the staircase were showing and growing larger. Someone or something was coming up the stairs! He immediately brought out his Omega Fire and gripped the trigger.

The shadows were getting larger and larger, Calidan waited for the right moment too...he leaped out in front of the staircase!

"FREEZE!"

"YOU FREEZE!" shouted the blue cladded warrior in front of him.

"DROP THE GUN!"

"NO YOU DROP YOURS!" Daxter was passed out on the floor from the shock of the moment.

"I won't say again! Drop it now!" yelled Calidan.

"I said you drop yours!" Jak yelled back.

Spyro had had enough, he jumped between the two of them and through up an electrical shield, which slightly stunned their hands, causing them to drop their weapons.

"Enough!" Spyro said to both of them, "Let's just calm down, we can work this out, no need for any force."

"Force?" asked Jak, "He practically forced my hand, he was the one who shouted and aimed first!"

"Me first? You guys are the ones who had shown up when everything started going crazy, sorry if I'm being a little defensive!" Calidan argued.

"You haven't seen me defensive yet, though keep talking you're getting real close!" yelled Jak.

"Don't push me punk," seethed Calidan.

"Who are you? A wastelander from Spargus? What in the world are you doing in here?" asked Jak.

"A wastelander tried and true, but I answer to no one! I'm here to get you guys to answer my questions," Calidan demanded.

"Your questions? You haven't even answered mine, WHO ARE YOU?!" Jak shouted.

"That's need to know!"

"Well I do need! Now talk!"

"ENOUGH!" yelled Spyro, silencing everyone, including Daxter who had finally regained consciousness. "This arguing is pointless, we just need to breathe a little air here."

"I just want answers from both of you," said Calidan still scowling.

"Yeah, and pointing a gun at us is supposed to help?" asked Jak angrily.

"Works for the Marauders."

"We're no Marauders!"

"Jak enough! None of this is helping," Spyro cut in, "You want answers? I'll start, my name is Spyro, and this is Jak, we've come from Spargus."

"Spargus? Since when have there been purple lizards indigenous to Spargus?" Calidan asked curious.

"I'm not from around here, but my friend Jak here is, and we came here because this place holds the secret to my being here."

"An alien? Well that's a first, even out here," said Calidan.

"As I've said, my name is Spyro, and you are?" The warrior hesitated for a moment, glancing at Jak, who was looking intently while clearly giving the silent message of 'you better tell your name since you know ours.'

"Calidan, Cal for short," he finally answered.

"Good to meet you Calidan," said Spyro with a nod.

"Yeah, been a real pleasure," added Jak.

"Could have been worse itchy fingers," Calidan told him, causing Jak to squint. Spyro, having made the conversation much more inviting, decided to continue.

"So what are you doing here? Are you investigating the strange light?" the dragon asked the wasteland human.

"Yeah you can say that, and seeing how you guys showed up while both events were taking place, I'm itching for answers," replied Calidan.

"That's what we're here to find too, perhaps we can search together? What do you say Jak?" Spyro turned to him. Jak was silent for a moment, not even close to trusting this stranger who had just arrived in an unexpected and aggravating way. His wasteland attire was enough to make him suspicious; he could be a Marauder infiltrator for all they know. Though he decided a quick question would be the icebreaker.

"Maybe, but I'd like to know what that loud crash was," he demanded.

"My entrance was uh...messy, how this place still holds together is a mystery to me," said Calidan.

"Better hope the monks don't find out, or you'll be in the sea," Jak responded.

"What they don't know can't hurt them right?" Calidan reasoned.

"Well that's settled then, come on, let's see what we can find inside," Spyro finished, turning back to the staircase leading into the temple. Jak and Calidan grabbed their guns while Daxter jumped back up on Jak's shoulder. They glared at each other for a moment before holstering their weapons on their backs. Both of them turned to walk down the staircase after Spyro.

"So now we have another gun toter following us? Just when we thought we could be in pleasant company," Daxter mouthed off. Calidan grabbed Daxter from Jak's shoulder, startling him.

"Watch your mouth hairball, or I'll feed you to my wildcat!" Calidan shouted before Jak immediately grabbed Daxter back.

"What is this? Grab the ottsel day?" Daxter complained.

"You watch it," Jak warned Calidan with a pointed finger, "he may have a big mouth, but he's my best friend, and anyone who hurts him answers to me!"

Calidan shrugged, showing that he got the message at least. They all kept walking down the hall until they reached the junction atrium again. They looked at both doors, wondering which path to take. Jak gazed at the door to the right, it was shaped like the Seal of Mar, just like the amulet he always kept with him. He walked over to it, Spyro and Calidan followed in suit. Once he was in front of it, he pulled out his seal and put it up to the door. Instantly the door opened up revealing another hallway.

"Now we're getting somewhere," said Jak.

"Alright," added Spyro, "let's see where this passage leads."


Cynder stood at the edge of the room which housed the gateway she had exited, observing her surroundings. There were the permanently placed Precursor statues sitting with their backs to each other.

"Well those statues clearly aren't of our world, nor is this temple," she said.

"Yeah, the blue swirling vortex wasn't enough of a sign," Sparx yammered.

"shush, we don't know if anyone or anything is in here, best we remain unheard until further notice," said Cynder.

"Fine, but that also doesn't include the fact that our way home has been instantly shut down!" Sparx added with an exclamated whisper, pointing toward the portal arch, which had become inactive upon their arrival.

"We'll find a way to turn it back on, right now let's find Spyro, I'm worried," said Cynder

"For once I agree with you, let's go," replied Sparx. Both of them took flight inside the canopy of the temple centrifuge. They flew around the statues, and headed over toward the one overlooking the floor with the warp gate on it.

"Hey!" said Sparx, "Haven't we seen that thing before?" pointing at the gate.

"A warp gate?" Cynder spoke the obvious, before coming to the same realization, "Elorin! Jak's world, Sparx were back on Jak's world!"

"You mean the guy with the light hair, angry demeanor and runs around with that orange furred rat on his shoulder?"

"Yes, though his name was Daxter, I'm sure he would take offense to your description," said Cynder smirking.

"Aw who cares? So we're back where we left off last time eh? I hope this doesn't start with another trip to jail," Sparx droned.

"If we can find Jak he'll definitely vouch for us, though I'm not sure where he could be, I don't remember seeing this place before," she said looking around.

Greetings noble creatures...

The echoing voice startled them, especially Sparx, "Okay? Who said that?!"

Your return to our planet is a fortuitous one, for we are in need of dire assistance.

"Who are you? Where are you?" asked Cynder.

One of my physical forms stands for eternity in this room, and you now stand before it.

She looked around and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, until she had an epiphany, the statues! She flew over toward the one she was closest too and landed at its base. She looked into the statues eyes, for they shined with a brilliant light, making the statue appear as if it were alive.

"Are you a Precursor?" she asked.

Indeed, you remember all from before.

"Of course, are you the same Precursor we saw?"

That was a herald, as am I, we all strain from the True One.

"True one?"

The One from whom all our lives branch from, but a story for another time.

"Okay then Mr. Freaky," Sparx asked, "Would you mind telling us where my purple brother would be?"

"No need to be rude Sparx," said Cynder.

The purple dragon, he is here, reunited with his fellow hero from before.

"Before?" asked Cynder, until she understood ecstatically, "Jak! He already found Jak! That's great! Isn't it Sparx?"

"Wow, agreeing with you twice in one day!" he stated, "I'll have to make a list."

Wait young one The sudden response caused Cynder to turn back toward the statue.

His arrival was not with precedence this time, there are other hands at work, it seems they are also part of the coming darkness that approaches...

Cynders excited face was replaced with confusion and worry, the Precursor that had just told her that Spyro was here safe and sound was now giving prophecies of doom. In her experience, ill prophecies did come to pass, though not always as one would expect. Sparx was worried himself, not liking where this was going one bit.

"Darkness? Hehe, don't you think that's just a little dramatic? I mean, we just stopped one and that doesn't necessarily…"

Quiet!

Sparx immediately silenced himself. At the same time, the sound of a door opening behind them caught their attention. They turned around to see…


Sorry! cliffhanger I know, but this just sets it up for the next chapter so well, so stay tuned!