Author's Notes: And now for the moment you all have been waiting for... (drum roll, please)
Jessie, Jak, and Daxter get to eat! *trumpet fanfare, confetti, and cheers from that crowd you can't see*
Also, they're gonna see Pecker and Onin, easily some of the more entertaining characters in this series (at least, in my opinion XD). I think Onin is one of my favorites out of all the games, simply because she's still so sassy, even though she's flipping old! She's right up there with Sig, the Blue Sage, Torn, and Erol, not in any particular order.
Thinking about it now, there aren't that many major female characters in the main story arc of the Jak and Daxter games (including Jak X and Daxter). There's just Keira, the Bird Lady, Maia, the Geologist, Ashelin, Tess, Onin, Rayn, Taryn, the muse, and Seem (who I consider a girl, because of the voice actor and the shape of her face and head), as well as any I might have missed. That's about 11 major female characters compared to... *calculating* …39 or so major male characters! That's excluding the city computer, repeated characters (aka Jak in his various incarnations, the younger Samos, and Cyber-Errol, who by all rights should be his own character), AND all the background characters in Spargus and Haven City!
What the heck, Naughty Dog? That's a pretty large female:male ratio!
I demand approximate, numerical gender equality in my video games!
Disclaimer: Y'all know what's mine and what's not.
"It's hard to say whether I like Pecker or hate him. At times, he can be helpful, but other times, I just wanna wring his little neck." -Jessie Sagai, while talking to Luna Zyan over food
Jessie drove along the winding path leading to the section of the Bazaar where Onin and Pecker were, then parked it near pylons similar to the ones at the Stadium.
"Why are we stopping? Can't we just take that road?" Jak asked, pointing at the ramp leading to a special road over the bazaar. She shook her head, switched on the parking brake, and got off.
"Nope. The Bazaar is actually split into two sections by the Palace. One part is okay for hovers, and the other isn't. We have to use the latter if we want to see Onin," the young woman replied, motioning for them to follow her past the lit-up poles.
Soon, they were standing near a stall that declared itself the only purveyor of genuine Kras City cuisine in the entire city. Jak was chewing on what the proprietor had called an egg, sausage, and potato breakfast burrito, Daxter munched down on something called French toast with maple syrup (though no one knew what French was), and Jessie inhaled a couple of egg, cheese, and sausage breakfast burritos that had gallons of hot sauce added. (Okay, not literal gallons, but you get the idea.)
Once they were done, Daxter and Jak grinned at her as they began walking through the rest of this part of the Bazaar.
"Wow, Jessie! That was really good!" Daxter exclaimed, licking the sticky remains of his late breakfast from his paws. She smirked back at them.
"I've lived here all my life. Trust me, I know my way around the city's food vendors. Plus, the lady that runs that stall is Unfilled. All of the stuff she makes is really good for you. Well, except for her chocolate ice cream bombes, but they're really tasty, so that makes up for the lack of nutritional value!" Jessie replied brightly, waving at some of the other vendors as they went. She spaced out a little, drooling slightly at the thought of the dessert.
"Watch out, Jessie. We don't want to flood the Bazaar," Jak snarked, nudging her shoulder with his hand. She shook her head and shot him a glare.
"Oh, shut up. You were thinking about them, too. I can tell," the young woman countered. The trio laughed, walking deeper into the section until they came across a dead end. That was when Jessie stopped her chuckling, the smile fading from her face. Taking up most of the space was a tent with plenty of pots and small crates around it, and a skull painted on it.
"We're here," she said tonelessly, staring at the tent like it might bite. Jak and Daxter exchanged a bemused look, but followed her inside to see a very old woman with a funny hat on her head sitting cross-legged at the far end, apparently sleeping.
"Coooool! Check out all the dead stuff!" Daxter said excitedly, poking the belly of a familiar red, blue, and yellow animal hanging by its tail from a support pole near the entrance. It bit his finger (toe?) and he yelped in pain.
"Touch the goods again, rat boy, and you'll be, arrrk, counting with your toes!" the moncaw said, pointing a feather at the ottsel in warning. He dropped and flew over to the woman's hat.
"I am Pecker!" he declared, throwing his wings wide in a dramatic display. Jak hid a smile behind one hand, and Daxter didn't even bother. This didn't faze the moncaw, who went into a brief mode of disturbed reminiscence. "Yes, yes, I know, my mother, she was... very vindictive."
Pecker recovered quickly. "I am Onin's interpreter." The old woman sitting on the ground, Onin, had woken up and was now signing with her hands in a manner few understood. "Onin welcomes you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... the usual boring salutations. She says it is good to see you again, Jak, Jessie."
"But we've never met before," Jak replied bemusedly. He smiled carelessly, replying mysteriously, "Before... after... it is all the same."
"Oh! Oh! Let me try!" Daxter cut in, jumping onto the crate between Onin and Jessie, and she rolled her eyes. So he didn't think Pecker was really interpreting her words? This was going to be entertaining.
"Ahhh... she wants a... she wants a yakow bone! A yakow bladder! No... no... I got it! For many moons... she has... waited for... a juice pop? A jewel shop? Oh... oh... I know, she's got a hairball?! A hare lip? A hairy chest?" he rattled off, paying no attention to the incredulous looks Jak and Jessie were giving him. Where was he coming up with this stuff?
"Close..." Pecker said encouragingly, nodding. "But NO! Onin says you seek answers... arrrkkk, about the Tomb of Mar." Onin's hands waved while he spoke and blue sparkles appeared in the air, shimmering lines that formed the shape of the Seal of Mar.
"So what do we need to know?" Jak asked bluntly, getting right to the heart of the matter. Pecker watched her hands and got impatient fast.
"She's going on and on about mystical energy channels, evil curses, stupid 'ooooooo' crap. Forget all that. I'm going to sum this up quickly, because now you're cutting into my siesta time," the moncaw decided, pointing an accusing feather at the three of them.
"Onin wants you to recover three artifacts from the Precursor Mountain Temple. Not two! Not four! THREE!" Onin's fingers held up those specific numbers, with her nodding when she held up three. "Use the warp gate at the northwest side of the city, and bring back the three items you find!"
Pecker closed his eyes and wrapped his wings around himself, with Onin slowly dipping her head in gentle slumber beneath him. When they showed no signs of leaving, he opened one eye and waved a wing dismissively at them. Daxter was about to say something, but Jessie put a finger over his mouth and inclined her head towards the exit, silently telling them to leave.
The young woman was about to join them outside when a swirl of blue sparkles rose up around her. She turned back to see Onin had arisen and woken Pecker up again, the moncaw shooting her a dirty look.
Her hands began moving in an intricate pattern, and Pecker sighed. "Fine, fine, I'll tell her." He cleared his throat.
"Jessie, Onin would like to tell you a few things. She says it is not her fault your, arrrk, destiny was thrust upon you at so young an age, but she would appreciate it if you didn't constantly run away from it," the moncaw interpreted. She scowled angrily and clenched her fists.
"I don't blame her. I just wish the Precursors and the Ecolians had chosen someone else besides me and Jamie," she replied bitterly. Onin nodded briefly.
"Regardless, Onin wants you to accept who you are. Your people need you, Jessie. The, arrrkkk, Eco-quan need you, too. Perhaps you should consider that before you start choosing anything."
This time, when Onin lowered her head and Pecker tucked his wings in, Jessie left swiftly. Jak and Daxter were waiting for her at the entrance to this plaza in the Bazaar, staring at her quizzically.
"What happened? You seem pretty wound up, Jessie," her human partner asked, the barest hint of concern in his voice. She sighed and gave him a tight-lipped smile.
"Nothing big. Just hearing something I already knew," she replied wearily, looking at the sky. There were few clouds in the sky, making it perfect for exploring an ancient, metallic temple. Or learning more about what exactly they were supposed to find.
"Okay, Jak, Daxter, before we go off to explore the Mountain Temple, let's check up on something," Jessie said firmly, walking back towards the Black Orchid at a swift march. Jak jogged up and caught up to her, walking beside the young woman as they left the Bazaar.
"Where are we going?" he asked curiously. She grinned at him.
"The library."
Jak groaned and let his head fall to the table. When he had heard they were visiting the library, he wasn't sure whether to be irritated or bored. Now it was clear. He was both.
"Jessie, have you found it yet?" he complained, briefly noting that Daxter was now at another table with a couple of cute girls, probably regaling them with a story that was mostly exaggerated and completely untrue.
"Aha!" her voice echoed towards them from somewhere else, and she came hurrying out with a large blue volume. He sat up just in time to avoid getting the thick book deposited on his head, and watched in annoyed confusion as Jessie flipped through the pages until she came to a certain part. On it was a depiction of a small gear with three large points and three small points, a crystal set in some sort of holder with lines around the pointy spires, and a round lens of some sort.
"What's that?" he asked, his irritation fading away. Jessie grinned at him and pointed at the images. "They're what Onin wants us to get. There's three of them, they're in the Mountain Temple, and they're connected to Mar. It was Gemini who placed them there, actually, just before they all went missing. I don't know what they're for, and the book doesn't actually have much on them besides that they're pieces to something and they were made by Mar and Gemini for some secret purpose."
"Okay. So... can we go now? I'm not really into libraries," he commented drily, seeing Daxter was still talking to the girls. Lucky him.
Jessie rolled her eyes and closed the book with a soft thump, picking it back up and holding it with one arm.
"Okay. Just help me put this back. It was hard enough getting it down by myself. I don't want to deal with bringing it back up to its shelf," she replied, motioning for him to follow her with her head. Jak let out a heavy sigh and pushed his chair back, standing up and glancing around. This library kinda reminded him of Samos' hut back in Sandover Village, with its musty books and the greenery.
Thinking about Samos just brought up painful memories, so he stopped and focused on what was going on right now. Jessie was leading him into the space between two tall bookshelves, and he could see a ladder on wheels placed near the far end.
When they got to it, she handed him the book and climbed up the ladder, stopping on a rung about seven feet off the ground, and reached down. He held the book up to her and waited until it was firmly in her grasp to let go, and she slid it into the space between two books that matched it in color and thickness.
"There we go! Now we can leave," Jessie allowed, stepping down and joining him on the ground. She moved to pass him, but her arm brushed against his and both froze, each seeing the tiny purple spark that flared up at the touch.
On Jak's part, his dark side rose up ferociously at the contact, and he had to fight to keep it down. That had never happened before. Even when he accidentally brushed up against other people as he moved through the crowds of Haven City, the Dark Eco had stayed down, only threatening to take over when he got angry.
Jessie pulled away with a jerk, her eyes going wide with shock. Something in her eyes told him she had experienced something similar, and that, more than anything, worried him.
The brief moment of her arm touching Jak had been too much for Jessie. The weird feeling had swelled up and tried to take over her body and mind, and it had taken all her self-control to pull away before she did something she would certainly regret.
What was going on? This wasn't good. This was anything but good. This whole thing was all kinds of bad. She could not afford these kinds of feelings undermining her role as Jak's superior officer in the Underground. Jessie looked up at him uncertainly, noticing his eyes were as wide with shock as hers, and took brief comfort in the fact that whatever had happened wasn't just her.
That comfort dissolved into worry when she delved further into that realization. There was something going on between her and Jak, and it wasn't natural. Whatever that feeling was, it had something to do with the fact he had been experimented on with Dark Eco, and she had a sneaking suspicion there was more to it than just that. Her reactions to Eco were special, but that wasn't the usual one. It was more like...
Like what she had seen her mother experience when she sat on the Passionate Throne and channeled Umbra.
Author's Notes: Yay, reviews! And so fast, too!
UltimateGamer101 (chapter 10, Jul. 3) – Heh. With us in charge, the world would probably fall apart. Ashelin x Torn is one of my ships, too, along with a few other canon pairings, but I'm not super fond of Jak x Keira. I don't hate it, it's just that Keira gets pretty judgmental in II, and that damaged the ship for me. Also, I have a question for you. Is Kor x Maia a real ship? I need to know! *shakes laptop since I can't shake you*
Also, I just now realized, but my Ecolians are kinda like the Drej from Titan A.E. They're both made of pure energy. Of course, there is the matter of the Drej being definitely not good, but the Ecolians are more neutral than anything else. They don't want humanity destroyed. They need them, after all.
Guest (chapter 10, Jul. 3) – Yeah, they're pretty hilarious :)
Wild Cat 214, out!