While shorter than I expected, I liked how the quality of this chapter turned out. The title of this chapter is a reference to a chapter in my previous story where the heroes last broke into a metalhead nest. I should also tell you, in the case of my OC Calidan, whenever he is in flight mode, I will be referring to him as Eagle, just so its official.
Ch36: Blowing the Barrier
As the hero party exited HQ and met up outside with the Haven group, they went over the plan in a final huddle. Torn would be flying a stolen KG explosive transport zoomer all the way through the city to the metalhead section, while Jinx would be flying the H-cat with Jak at the gun to provide the local means of air support. Further air support would be provided by the dragons as they flew with the quarry, all to ensure Torn was not shot down or blown up prior to reaching the metalhead nest barrier.
Of course this was after Sig had confronted Torn in an attempt to make peace. Needless to say the FL commander was less than thrilled to see him in person again, but as they gave each other their part of the story, they were willing to make a temporary truce until the whole ordeal was dealt with. Sig then mounted up in the H-cat passenger seat with Jinx as the pilot. Both the Explosive transport and the H-cat were ready to fly, hovering just above the left side pond in front of Freedom HQ. As the dragons stood by ready to fly, Torn sounded off to the rest of the group.
"All set for takeoff, you guys ready?" he turned to the H-cat.
"We're all set, weapons are online, and Jakey boy's trigger finger is itching," replied Jinx pointing behind him as Jak stood inside the H-cat gun pod, the blond haired hero gave a thumbs up with Daxter sitting alert on his shoulder. Sig kept quiet while analyzing the controls. Torn then turned to the other human member of the group, seeing him still standing on the adjacent platform.
Torn ordered Calidan aboard the transport, "What are you waiting for kid? Climb aboard so we can get going!"
"Relax commander, I'm ready, I just won't be flying with you," Calidan replied smugly.
"This is no time for petty disagreements! Get your ass on board right now!" Torn shouted.
"Cal, just show him, no need for further suspense," said Sig, making Torn and Jinx curiously raise an eye to him. On the other hand, Jak and Daxter, as well as Spyro and Cynder gave each other a grin, one that matched Calidan's. The wastelander pressed the power button on his pack, and the wings unfolded from behind him, and spread themselves out as the back mounted jets activated. Torn and Jinx went wide-eyed, especially as they saw Calidan take a grip of the wing mounted controls and take to the skies.
"Eagle is airborne and ready to fly," Calidan said aloud with an unfading smirk.
"Huh, now I've seen everything," replied Jinx with a nod of his head. Torn shook his own head out of frustration and merely returned to starting his transport's engines. It came alive as its rear jets activated, coercing the dragons along with Sparx to take flight as well.
"Let's move," was Torn's final command before moving the explosive transport forward. The dragons followed right behind them, with Eagle following them, and then the H-cat bringing up the rear. They made their way around the first bend from HQ and through New Haven.
Cynder flew up alongside Torn to ask, "any idea when and where we will hit resistance?"
"Could be anytime from right now, even though the factory is gone, there are still KG remnants lying in wait. Of course that doesn't include the metalheads that are swarming everywhere else trying to get a foothold," Torn answered.
'So much for catching a break,' Sparx thought to himself as he flew as close to Spyro as he could. The escort group made their way through New Haven, with fortunately no sign of opposition. The only ones around were a few Freedom League troopers providing any additional cover. But as they made their way around the uphill corner to the New Haven exit, they knew from here on opposition was inevitable. As they made their way down the first slum alleyway, they encountered the first wave of 'resistance'. Three KG deathbots opened fire on them from atop the slum pillar, in addition to two sentries approaching from over the slum wall.
"Agh! Open up on them!" Sig shouted out as the pelting fire hit their shields. Jak retaliated by aiming the H-cat cannon while Eagle and the dragons flew up to engage the sentries. Jak proved his weapon skills once again by destroying all three deathbots in a row as Torn flew his transport around the pillar. In the air Eagle drew the attention of the sentries fire which made them easy pickings for Spyro and Cynder. One electric stream and poison bomb finished them off, and they turned around to continue their job of providing aerial escort cover. Upon reaching the center of the slums, they encountered enemies from the other group as metalhead grunts jumped from the rooftops to pounce on the pilots.
"Watch out!" Torn yelled over the comms as one grunt let out a growl before lunging at Torn. Fortunately Jak stopped it by blowing it away with gunfire.
"Yeah! Woohoo!" cheered Sig, but the celebration was short-lived as four more grunts appeared over the adjacent rooftops and prepared to lunge. Their appearance forced Torn to detour down the next alley to the right. That didn't stop the grunts from lunging, however their attack was intercepted by Eagle dive kicking one into the building, making it drop dead. Spyro and Cynder each grabbed one in the neck with their mouth and hit them with their respective aerial attacks of spinning cutter or stomach kicking. They threw away the immobilized parasites as Jak took care of the last one with his gun as it landed on the H-cat. Once it was gone, they followed Torn down the alley and out into the final alleyway which led to the industrial section.
Before entering it, another group of five deathbots fired at them, as well as a blast bot that approached them from their center. Jak called out to Eagle, "Cal, blow the blastbot!"
Eagle complied by flying over the blastbot while avoiding its laser and dropping one of his Omega bombs on its head. He hovered above the group locking his controls in place and pressing the trigger on his adjacent gauntlet with his free hand.
BOOMM!
The blastbot blew to pieces, exposing the remaining deathbots who continued to fire at them. Unfortunately Jak couldn't fire without hitting Torn, but his other friends could.
"Spyro! Cynder! Light em up!" He yelled out to them. The dragons heard and gave a nod to him, before nodding to each other. The dragons flew down and enveloped the whole group on an electric stream combined with a sonic fear wave. Their systems shorted out before collapsing in a shutdown.
Torn made his way around the final bend into the industrial section, followed by the others with Jak bringing up the rear in the H-cat. Upon exiting the slums, Torn advised that Jinx move ahead, saying that any other enemies will be easier to hit from the front without suffering friendly fire. The Haven aircraft flew under the fallen support tower while Eagle and the dragons flew above it, before running into more problems.
More KG sentries along with several metalhead wasps came in for an aerial attack. There were four of each, enough for Eagle to send out a warning, "Jak, we have trouble in the sky up here! We'll be busy for a moment!"
"Funny, we're about to be real busy down here!" Jak called back to Eagle as he saw coming up from behind him a salvo of guided missiles, fired from an unknown location. He repositioned his sentry gun and blasted back at the missiles, the heavy damage from the bigger gun blowing them away before they reached him. Torn had entered the center junction of the section as another leftover blastbot appeared from the elevated platform and opened fire at the explosive transport.
"Take it out Jak!" Torn said over the comms. Jak quickly turned his gun around again and fired at the blastbot, eventually making it explode with a BOOM. Torn's transport had been hit and somewhat damaged, but fortunately none of the explosives had been triggered and they continued on their way.
GRAARR! Suddenly, a metalhead grunt jumped down from above the elevated walkway to surprise them.
"Incoming!" Cynder cried out before intercepting the metalhead, driving it into the wall and hitting it with fear spheres sending it into a catatonic madness. As Cynder broke away from the aerial group, Eagle and Spyro worked in tandem to dispose of the wasps and sentries above them. Eagle was able to evade their fire before retaliating with blaster fire, knocking two sentries out of the sky before Spyro came in and eliminated the rest of them along with the wasps with an aerial comet dash.
"For a newfound flyer, you're pretty adept!" Spyro said to Eagle.
"Is that your way of staying humble since you took most of them?"
"You've had wings for only a day, do you really expect to match beings right away with a natural flying instinct?" Spyro asked while raising an eye.
"Point," Eagle shrugged before they returned to flying down to return to their escort positions. Cynder had rejoined Torn flying into the industrial alley adjacent to the Power Room, while Jak, Jinx and Sig flew over them along the elevated walkway to allow them clearer visibility. Though as the other two flyers caught up with them, more KG enemies appeared with a blastbot firing at the H-cat from atop the walkway and several deathbots firing at them all the same.
Jak took aim again and held down the trigger, blowing away the blastbot before mowing down each of the deathbots after it. One final KG battalion stood before the entrance to the port, encompassed within a series of explosive barrels that the FL had set up as a blockade. Seizing the chance, Jak fired at the barrels igniting them, causing an explosion that shattered the whole battalion to pieces.
KABLAAAMMM!
"That was one sweet fireball!" cheered Jinx.
As great a show it was, Torn knew one major obstacle was still present awaiting them in the port. As he first entered the port alley with his escort behind him, he called out over the comm to the FL group still stationed there. Hopefully what had been ordered before leaving HQ was ready.
"This is Commander Torn to port squad…"
"Can you read me?"
"Clear as crystal Torn," said Tess on the other side. She was standing along with Captain Striker by another missile pad, stationed near the west side pillar closest to the entrance to the metalhead city section. The last barrier missile in their arsenal was loaded, ready to bust open the sealed gate to the city, and allow Torn access to blow open the nest.
"Missile is armed and ready," she said.
"What about the beacon?"
"It's covered Commander," said Striker, looking at the console that was signaling a clear connection with the beacon that had been placed on the city gate undetected, by a new experimental means.
"The reconnaissance drone came through with flying colors, we're ready when you are," concluded Striker.
"Fire" At Torn's command, Tess pulled the lever letting the missile fly, both she and Striker watched as it took off and faded from sight into the metalhead alley. Unlike the KG, the metalheads had no intercepting defenses against a missile attack, a major oversight! As the missile rounded the corner, it came upon proximity of the gate, and made contact a second later.
KAABLAAAMMM!
The sentry Striker had positioned over the wall near the gate radioed back, "Captain it worked! The gate is open!"
On the other side, Striker and Tess were more than satisfied, as the weapons girl grinned and the Captain nodded. He turned back to his communicator, "Missile break successful Commander, it's all yours now, and sir, give em hell."
Torn smirked slightly before sounding off, "Roger that."
Cynder matched his smirk having overheard the conversation while the rest of the escort followed behind them. Soon they entered the port, and were just about to reach the water when they received more aerial opposition. Three metalhead wasps and three KG sentries were swooping in ready to fire.
Eagle flew to a higher altitude before retaliating with blaster fire. Spyro fired at the KG sentries electrocuting them. Cynder's sonic scream knocked the wasps out of the sky while Jak continued to scout around for any other attackers that would come near Torn. He soon realized there was, with another missile salvo fired from the former KG city approaching the explosive transport from behind!
"Take em out Jak!" Torn radioed to Jak who immediately turned the H-cat gun turret around and opened fire on the missiles. As they neared Torn, Jak destroyed every one of them before they made contact.
They had just passed the center of the port bay, and took notice that the FL port squads on the surrounding walkways were engaging hostiles, all of them metalheads! Now that their city gate was blown open, the Freedom League was attempting to hold the monsters at bay until the explosive transport made their way inside. Unfortunately some snuck passed them, and climbed up the towers by the port walkway and onto the cables connecting them to the port bay pillars. The grunts growled out as they leaped for the transport.
Jak shot two of them down that were the closest to hitting Torn, and Sig cheered, "the metalhead hunting machine!"
Up above, there were four more grunts about to be airborne, until Spyro flew up and hit the cables they were sitting on with the electric stream. The current was carried through the metal electrocuting the whole group, and Cynder and Eagle swooped in and finished them with a wind blast or drop kick sending them to drown in the bay with a splash. The Freedom League continued to hold their ground as the explosive transport reached the port entrance to the metalhead city.
As they made their way down the alley, they were confronted by the KG's last attempt as four sentries flew in from over the walls to fire. Jak shot two out of the sky while Cynder blew away the other two into the far wall with another wind blast. But they couldn't rest yet, as three more grunts arrived by leaping from atop the adjacent wall to attack Torn's transport. Jak shot the first one that leaped, followed by the second, and then the third. The singular aviators watched on standby in case of any other sneak attacks.
Once they reached the end of the alley, Torn led the way into the now open metalhead city, with the charred rotting remains of its former gate littering its entrance. Upon approach, the dragons smelt the pungent odor from its inside and were repulsed. It also wasn't any easier upon entering Haven's former farm area, as it was now a vile repelling nest of biological parasites and their twisted ideas of decoration.
Gripping Spyro's horn and pinching his nose at the same time, Sparx said first while feeling nauseous from the metalhead environment, "man, and I thought their first nest was bad, this is so much worse."
"I hear you brother," Spyro replied. Eagle was also disgusted with what they had flown into, he always knew how filthy metalheads were. But prior to this, he had never felt so foolish to wander into any of their nests alone, what he was seeing was a good reason why! Cynder, Jak, and Daxter shared in the disgust mutually, but they all still kept watch as Torn followed the path right into metalhead territory. Having now entered their terrain, more metalhead opposition came from leaping grunts, flying wasps and even spyders firing their guns from the crude walkways on both sides of an acid pit in the center of the section.
The heroes split off to take their own group while keeping Torn covered. Eagle dive kicked grunts away from the transport and even into each other to kill two birds with one stone, no pun intended. Spyro and Cynder engaged the wasps with their own ice and wind combination attack, blowing them away just like the rest. Jak opened fire at the spyder gunners as fast as he could. They got a few hits on Torn and even the H-cat, but as they passed the halfway point in metalhead city, he was still able to shoot the last one off a split bridge into the acid below.
They were closing in on their objective, but one final hoard of metalhead grunts made the lunge for all of them. Jak shot at them as several attempted to land on his H-cat. Spyro and Cynder dived out of the way making the grunts miss and fall into the acid. Eagle did the same, although he did shoot one that appeared just over him, making it fall down dead. One final pair landed on Torn's transport and started pounding away at the hull to ground it. Torn was barely keeping it stable, until…
WOOOSSSHHH…
The grunts were blown off by Cynder into the crevice wall, before falling in the acid pit to smelt. "Your clear Torn, do it!"
Torn nodded at Cynder's aid and acknowledgement, and turned ahead to see the bio-gate at the end of metalhead city which sealed off the entrance to the nest tower above. He steered the zoomer right at the gate, gripped and locked the accelerator, and jumped and rolled left onto the walkway.
The transport flew ahead and blew away the bio-gate with a KABOOM!
Spyro and Cynder landed in front of the now open gate first. Calidan landed and retracted his wings right behind them. Finally, Jinx brought the H-cat close to touchdown right behind them, while Sig cheered out...
"Oh yeah, they're hurting now! Move and groove chili peppers!" Sig handed off another gun upgrade to Jak, the Supernova!
"Alright it's payback time, you guys ready to rock?" Jak asked after catching the mod. His fellow heroes Spyro, Cynder and Calidan each gave a confident nod, while Sparx just looked anxious while glancing at the open nest entrance where pitch black mixed with an eerie purple was present.
"You mean go in that place?" stammered Daxter also feeling nervous, "Uh Jak, maybe I'll stay here and uh...protect Sig." He leaned on the wastelander's shoulder who was by no means giving him permission to do so. Everyone else just gave a look of the unconvinced.
The metalhead city nest is open, and Jak has received his last gun mod! I can't promise it will be used next chapter, even though I'm sure many, including myself, have used it in the nest level of Jak3, but it will be used soon enough.
