|Outside the City|

'No, Meta. You have to stay here.' Valentine told her friend, holding out her arms so Meta wouldn't be able to sneak past her. The Metal Head let out snorts of frustration, darting around her legs freely. It seemed to be a show to demonstrate that she wouldn't be stopped from tagging along.

'Meta!' Valentine exclaimed, dropping to her knees, forcing the animal to look her in the face. 'It's dangerous in there. More for you than from me. I can't disguise you like some dog.'
Meta let out a disgusted snort at the notion.
'And I'd like for you to stay alive. Listen… as soon as this business with Praxis is finished, you can come and live with me again, okay? Hey, listen.' She grabbed Meta's face again as the Metal Head attempted to ignore her comments.
'This is important. I can't risk losing you. Stay here. Wait for me. If I have a mission where I need to go outside, you'll be able to come with me, Daxter and Jak.'

Meta let out a soft growl at the mentioning of Jak's name. Valentine let out a dejected sigh at that, sitting down on the ground with her legs crossed. She stroked Meta's head with her good hand.
'Of course you had to pick up on that. Look, it's just a tiny crush, okay? And it's totally silly, because he already has someone and he wouldn't recognize love if it was a Metal King dancing around in tights. He's only my partner for now. He keeps me alive, and I keep him alive. That's it.'

Meta snorted again, rolling her eyes. Valentine stuck out her tongue. 'As if I'm going to take advice from a Metal Head. Get real, sister.'
Meta looked towards the town gate, cocking her head from side to side.
'You're staying here. I just found out that you're alive, and I won't be standing by as some guards take a shot at you. As soon as Praxis is defeated.'
Meta let herself drop to the ground, facing the gate. When Valentine stepped through it, she made no attempt to run after her, instead whining loudly. The sound broke Valentine's heart, who almost couldn't look back.

'I promised, didn't I? As soon as the city is safe for you, you can come back in.'

In the time the gate behind her closed up and the one in front of her opened, Valentine looked at her hand with worry. The bandage was covered in filth, slime and blood, and she suspected the rest of her looked pretty much the same. She rolled her shoulder, happy that Meta had been able to bring her to the gate closest to the slums.
As the gates opened, she was greeted by a boy who seemed to be hardly of the age to grow the beginning of a mustache. It wasn't for lack of trying however, evident from the three measly hairs on his upper lip.

'Miss Valentine! My name is Reilly, miss. Pleased to meet you, miss.'
The boy practically saluted for her. She slapped his arm down. 'What the hell do you think you're doing? I'm DE-girl in public, got that?'
The boy nodded, seemingly scared by her outburst. Valentine pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling deeply. 'Never mind. Did you bring me my wig? And maybe a change of clothes?'

'Yes, mi- DE-girl, miss. Torn thought you would ask for them, so he had me bring some along.'
Valentine checked around, not too keen on being spied on by passersby. She ordered Reilly to turn around, quickly changing pants before she draped the fresh top over the old one. She ignored the pounding in her hand as she did so.
'Where's Jak?' she asked, adjusting her wig in the reflection of the two-seat Zoomer.

The boy straightened his back, clearly intimidated by the mention of Jak's name. 'He's out for a mission that Torn gave him. That's why Torn made me come, I'm the second best driver. That's what Torn said.'
Valentine gave the boy a quick up and down look, before sitting in the passenger seat.
'Then I'll be relying on you, Reilly.'

If Reilly really was the second best driver, Valentine didn't even want to know how the others drove. It was strange, because she distinctly remembered several of the drivers before Jak who, while not superb, had at least managed to stay in the same driving line. She gripped her seat belt in fear as Reilly only just in time managed to switch altitudes. She vowed to herself she would learn to handle a Zoomer, just in case. She was a damned scientist, for Precursor's sake! Surely driving a Zoomer wouldn't be that difficult?

She held back the sigh of relief when they parked near the Underground HQ entrance. When Reilly didn't get out as well, she looked back. He grinned at her, trying to make up for nearly killing both of them by running into a Patrol Car.
'Torn told me I could use this one to bring my little sisters to school today. Bye, miss DE-girl.'

Valentine rolled her eyes, walking down the steps to Torn's office. Even if she had slept soundly thanks to Meta, and the non-presence of Dark Eco, she hadn't had breakfast yet, and her hand was hurting like hell. On top of that she could hear the whispers of It in her ear, like a storm in a glass.

'Valentine!' Torn's raspy voice greeted her. Before she was able to react, the lanky man seated her on one of the bunk beds, scanning her over quickly. Samos approached as well, leaning on his staff as he did so.
'You gave us quite a fright, girl.' He said, green eyes scanning over her.

Valentine looked to the ground, ashamed at having made them worry. 'I'm sorry, sir. I never was in any danger, I can promise you that. Things just got a little hectic, that's all.'
Torn grunted, pulling out fresh bandages before undoing the ones she had on. He let out a hissing sound when he revealed her hand underneath.
The flesh had taken a variety of colors, ranging from sickly dark green to almost Dark Eco purple. One of her fingers was standing a bit crookedly, which Torn fixed quickly by snapping it back. Valentine almost clawed his eyes out as a reward for doing that.

As Torn bandaged her hand again, the two were surprisingly solemn. 'You two are being too quiet. Where are my admonishings? Where's the making me promise I'll never do something like that again, even though it was clearly none of my fault?'

When they kept silent, she let out a hiss. 'What happened?'
Torn scraped his throat. 'We've received a serious blow, in the night you were away. Apparently somebody tipped of the Guard, or they got insanely lucky, because they've taken a certain amount of our men who were coming back from one of the larger scale missions.'
'How many?' Valentine asked, thinking back about how Reilly had said Torn considered him the current second best driver.
'Enough to cripple us severely. They took twenty of our strongest, with twice as many rookies who were in a supporting position. They also got all of the drivers who were supposed to bring them to the safe houses. Only Jak managed to escape them, and he's out there now trying to find out who was the one that ratted us out.'

Valentine took a deep breath, trying to clear away the purple that swam in her eyes. 'Sixty men. They got sixty of our men. Praxis must be having a field day.'
Torn nodded, walking towards the table in the middle of the room. 'They're locked in the Palace, in the general area where you and Jak were being kept at the time. Praxis is probably pumping them for information as we're speaking. Who knows how long it will take before one of them cracks.'

'We had your friend Jared fiddly with the Dark Eco readings in the dungeons.' Samos told her. 'The torturers won't know for a while that there working with less power, but it's only a temporary measure to buy us some time.'
'Buy time for what?' Valentine asked.
'Relocation. We need to move everyone in the Underground to new safe houses, get new identities, a new HQ… the works.' Torn replied, gesturing down at the map.
'That means it will take months before we're operational again!' Valentine shouted, standing up. 'What about the mission to recover Mar's tomb? Are we just going to let Praxis waltz in there?'

'Valentine-' Torn started.
'NO!' Valentine shouted. The sparse lamps in the office started to flicker shortly. 'We are not letting Praxis kill sixty of our men! We are not letting him desecrate Mar's tomb! We are not allowing his travesty of a rule to continue a day longer!' Valentine stepped towards the desk, sweeping away everything except a map of the entire city.

'I have had it with playing by his rules. I am a Guardian of Mar, like my parents were before me. It's about Precursor's Be Damned time that I started acting like one. Praxis won't be responsible for doing to someone else what he has already done to me and Jak.'
'Child, perhaps you are being too hasty. We don't have the people to-'
'We don't need a lot of people. What we need is a diversion, something to clear out everything Praxis has. Then we have Jared clear the palace power grid, and the remainder of our trained men go in and rescue the captives.'

'Do you hear yourself talk, Valentine? There are only a few people in this town who Praxis wants enough to do that, and he won't send out all of his troops to take them.' Torn interjected, placing a hand on her shoulder.
She walked around the table, away from his touch, and pointed towards the harbor. 'Perhaps, but that's because he doesn't think we're a threat to his power. So far, all he sees us as is an individual insult. Just wait until his actual power is being threatened.'
She tapped on the center of the harbor. 'I've been having a stage built here. It's submerged most of the time, so traffic won't be hindered, but it can be let up to the surface in a matter of hours. The beauty of it is that I've been outfitting it with a modem that overrides every singly attached system in town. Every television, every radio, even Praxis' propaganda bots… they'll all be mine.'

'What are you planning on doing?' Torn asked, seeing the map and trying to see where she was going with this.
'I use the stage to give a sort of unscheduled DE-girl performance, something to lift morale. At least, that's what it will start like. At first, only the televisions and radios will be affected. After about fifteen minutes – when they've dropped their guard – Phase Two starts.
Phase Two means that I take over secured channels, propaganda bots and every singly system that has a link to the General Grid. Nothing will be independent from me anymore, except a few institutions Praxis has on separate grids. Doesn't matter, because he'll know soon enough what I'm doing.'

'Which is?' Samos asked, impressed with where she was going.
'Phase Three. I reveal myself as who I really am, and I get him pissing mad. Not so mad that he'll go full force against me, but mad enough to instate the emergency policy. The Zoomer Grid will be disabled, only military vehicles will have flight. Those, and one get-away car I've modified for the occasion. This is the same time I'll have Jared drain the Palace of most of its power, allowing the break-out.'

'How long have you been planning this?' Torn asked, looking at the map as she showed which zones would be affected.
'For as long as I could think straight after escaping from Praxis. I've had it with running Torn. I've had it with hiding. I want to be me, the real me, again.'

She wanted to have a family again. She wanted to be able to laugh with people who loved her in the sunshine. She wanted to take her place as Mar's guardian as his father rebuilt the city so that everyone would be able to live in happiness.
'Praxis has been looking for me for a very long time now, Torn. If he shows up, I will kill him. I don't care about careful planning, I will do justice. For the people of this city. For my parents. And for me.'

Torn scraped his throat. 'What do you need?'
'Two days time, starting from now. Privacy in my home. I'll spend today talking plans over with Jared and my uncle. Uncle Vin knows everything there is to know about the energy grids, and Jared is our inside man. I'll team up with them. You just have to assign mission leaders. Two, one for a group that goes topside, and one that goes through the sewers. A little luck, so that nobody caves in in those two days. And send Jak to me, the second he's back. He's going to be my get-away driver. If Reilly is your second best, they kid would get both of us killed, or worse, captured.'

|A Day Later|

'It hurts, uncle Vin. That's all. Just a constant, angry nagging in my stomach like I haven't eaten in four days. And my hand won't heal at all. It's just useless.'
Vin looked at her from the screen, his wrinkles magnified because of the zoomed in position.

'Have you considered resting for a while, Valentine? You have been working a lot lately, and it's not good to not take any rest while you're still healing up.'
Valentine rubbed her good hand across her face, the entire plan minutely detailed in front of her. They had been going over everything, from get-away routes to the best way to reroute the power. She had let her band know that DE-girl was going to be retiring soon. When they had pleaded with her to let them play with her one last time, she had had to refuse. They didn't have the drivers to get that many people away from the scene. Just her and Jak.

'I'll be fine.' She lied, peering over the plans one more time. Torn had called a while before, telling her that Jak had finally shown up. 'Does Jared know what he has to do?'
'Every second of it!' Jared's voice sounded metallically from the background in Vin's office. Her uncle had him on the intercom, making it easier to talk things through. Valentine wiped her eyes again, feeling as if she might cave in any second.

Half an hour later she finally said goodbye to him, leaning back in the sofa. She went over her checklist mentally. She had dropped the Kid off with Kor, and made sure that her uncle would be sent all the necessary information should the worst happen. In the same scenario the Underground would find they also inherited her substantial savings, along with a collection of musical instruments and a very fine lab.
Of course she would be fine. She'd just piss of Praxis and then ride of with Jak. And after that, she would start to put in some hardcore work to get the man thrown out of the city, no more playing it easy according to Samos' plan.

The front door slid open, and Daxter's voice was the first thing she heard.
'Good evening lovely!' his shrill voice sounded, sending stabs of pain through her head. 'Goodness, Valentine, you look like someone dragged you through a meat chopper.'
'Funny, that's how I feel.' Valentine replied, sitting up straight.

Jak followed soon after, relief visible on his face on seeing her as healthy as could be expected. He seemed to be resolved about something as well, the way he was clenching his jaw.
'Did Torn tell you guys about the plan already?' Valentine asked.
Jak nodded, sitting next to her in the sofa. 'He did. Are you serious about this Valentine? You're going to be the one in most danger tomorrow. What if something happens to you?'

She waved her injured hand around with a pained chuckle. 'I'm a tough girl, I think we already established that. As long as you're there on time, we'll be able to make it out of there without any problems. Other than the shooting and screaming, but I think we're used to that by now, aren't we?'
Jak put his warm hand on her shoulder. Valentine looked up at him in surprise, in those clear blue eyes that she shouldn't like this much.

'Valentine. I know things have been rough on you lately. And I know I haven't been there as much for you as I could – should – have been. I'm going to change that, okay?'

'What are you talking about, Jak?' she asked in surprise, not knowing where this sudden soft tone came from.
'Tomorrow, first I need to go talk to Keira, and after that I'm coming straight to you. I have something really big to tell you, and I hope you'll be happy to hear it.'

Valentine didn't know what to make of this message. What could be really big that he had to talk to Keira about, that she should be happy to hear? She frowned when she thought about it.
'Hey, no need to frown. I'm telling you, it's going to be great news. Don't worry.'

She looked at his happy smile, the way he leaned towards her in a relaxed manner. She didn't understand at all what he was trying to say, but she didn't like the sound of him having to go and see Keira before he came to her.
Unless… did he mean to propose to Keira, as some sort of way to celebrate the start of a serious battle against Praxis? It was the only option she could think of. She forced herself to keep smiling, suddenly finding tears springing up in her eyes.

'I can't wait to hear it.' She lied. 'Just… make sure you won't be late, okay?'