|Spargus|

There was a storm coming. Valentine could smell it in the air, the scent of copper that hailed thunder. She had thought she knew what a storm was in Haven, until she had seen her first one here. The dry land was drenched in water, turning the normally peaceful desert almost in an ocean.

Her boots clicked on the stones beneath her feet as she made her way to the Arena. There was still so much to do for her today. Apart from supervising the Arena – Mihko had allowed for her to take partial control when she was there – she was also supposed to take a check on the storages. After that she had promised to help train some new recruits. She also needed to pick up her laundry and some more bandages. Koram somehow seemed to manage scraping his knees and elbows every other day, leading her to use her previously limited nursing skills.

Almost three years. Sometimes she was hit by the amount of time that had passed since she had been captured in Haven and ended up here. Every day she thought a little bit less about her old life, though she could still be hit by flashes of longing. Spargus had very little to offer in technology for one. And she had not been able to contact Torn, Samos or Tess either since that one message which she hoped had gotten through.

A thought of Jak sent a dangerous chill down her spine, which she quickly suppressed. If there was one person that could get her blood boiling it was him. Her hand traced the flask on her hip, containing the medicine Seem kept supplying her with. She hadn't died, so they assumed it was working. She only had to be careful not to get worked up. It inside her fed on her anger, and turned it against her, corroding her body from the inside out.

With a free hand she wiped the sweat of her brow as she entered King Damos' lodge above the Arena. Here was her place, at his side, keeping him safe. And yet she was stopped dead in her tracks by the sight of someone she had never expected to see.

'Pecker?' she brought out, her blue eyes big in surprise. 'What are you doing here?' What was going on?

The feathered monkey seemed equally surprised to see her here. 'Valentine! I had a feeling we would run into you sooner or later. But it would seem you have risen to great heights, my girl.'

She grabbed him by the beak, leaving him flapping in mid-air. 'That doesn't answer my question, Pecker.'

'We found him in the desert, on our latest patrol.' Damos told her, seated on that stone torture device he called a proper viewing place. When he was inconvenienced Valentine had to sit there in his stead. That thing managed to make all feeling in her ass disappear after a measly five minutes. 'It will be useful to have someone who can amuse me.'

Valentine let go off Pecker, who flew to the sides with a gasp. Meta growled at him, causing him to choose another direction. 'You have changed quite a bit.' Pecker said to her, almost sounding accusing. 'The old you would never have mistreated me in such a way.'

Valentine leaned into the stone balcony, raising an eyebrow at him. 'Just think about what my King has told you, Pecker. Either you're useful, or you're dead weight. Now, start making yourself useful.' She snapped back at him, not feeling very sociable with someone who should have stayed in her past. Just seeing Pecker brought back memories of the Bazaar. Memories of…

Shaking her head she took a big swill of the flask. It burnt as it went down, reminding her of her taint. 'My King has kept his new pet a secret for me.' she observed, ignoring Daxter as he started to warm up the audience. 'You picked him up after your venture of a few days ago?' she continued.

The look Damos gave her was almost unreadable. Yet she caught the hint that what was going to happen next would probably be highly unpleasant for her. 'Valentine, you know that we cannot afford to throw away anything here that is useful.' He waited for her to nod before he continued. 'What we came upon in the desert was-'

Her attention for her King's words was interrupted by Pecker's voice. 'Let's hear it for Jak and his obnoxious, talking animal!'

She felt the ground sinking from beneath her feet. With those words her entire world came crashing down. This was impossible! He was supposed to be in Haven. He was never supposed to be here. Why was he here?
Her body started to burn at the thought of him being nearby. She managed to stay standing on her feet while coughing. Her head was swimming as she tried to wrap her head around this event. This had to be a nightmare!

|Arena|

Jak looked around him, up towards the people cheering and screaming things. The ceiling was almost too high for understanding, the heat nearly boiling him as soon as he stepped inside. Looking up he soon saw the man who had told him what was expected of him. And next to him…
He nearly missed a step, his mouth dropping open. Was he still suffering from overheating, or was this actually happening? Valentine was standing next to the king, her hands digging into the stone balcony as she looked down. He had almost forgotten what she looked like. Almost.

When the ground shifted underneath his feet he nearly fell down. Before he could react stone spikes shot up. He would have been impaled had he not shifted his weight to the back. Daxter started to scream loudly in his ears, grabbing on tighter to him. More stone reacted beneath him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he could see liquid, white hot stone bubbling up. What the hell was going on?

When it stopped, he looked back up. Valentine seemed to be arguing about something with the King, her face clearly contorted in anger. The King remained calm, seemingly reasoning with her about something. She shook her head, pointing very decisively towards Jak. Pecker seemed to be ready to flee for his life at any given moment. Just what were they discussing up there?

|King's lounge|

'It is my right to make an end to him.' Valentine told her King, pointing down in the Arena. She could It coiling around in her stomach, urging her on to the kill. For once she didn't feel like objecting much. 'Why did you stop me?'

'You know the rules, Valentine.' Damos reminded her, leaning his head on one hand as he observed her. 'Only full warriors of Spargus may challenge one another. Until the boy earns his right to stay among us completely, you are not to lay a hand on him. No matter what harms he did to you in a past life. Everybody who comes here starts with a clean slate.'

Valentine was fuming. She thought her brain was going to explode if this continued. 'He betrayed me! He left me to be captured by Praxis, even though he knew I needed him to be there. By all our laws his life is mine to do with as I choose!'

'Only if he had done so while both of you were citizens of Spargus.' Damos said, rising from his seat. Her heels did nothing to lessen the height difference between them as her King looked down upon her. 'You are a Guardian, Valentine. If you wish to honor your title, you will stand down now and obey the laws of your King.'

Disgusted and frustrated she looked down on the Arena. Jak was looking up at them, clearly wondering what was happening. He had no right to look so innocent, not when he knew what he had done! She forced herself to tear her gaze away from him, looking back to her King. 'Even so, I cannot-'

'You will not lay a hand on him until he has proven himself as a citizen of Spargus.' Damos made clear to her in a dangerously low tone. 'After that you may challenge him to whatever you want, but until then he will be treated like any other recruit.'

Valentine straightened her back. She felt dizzy, ready to pass out. 'Permission to return to my other duties, my King.' She stated, swallowing back her pride. If she could, she would have taken Jak out without a second thought. Even the first thought would have been later than her actions. When the permission was granted, she bowed stiffly before retreating. Meta followed curtly on her heels.

|Arena|

'Pecker, that is Valentine, right?' Jak asked the hybrid when he came flying down.

Pecker looked up to where the woman was arguing with his new employer before answering the question. 'She answers to the name, but I wouldn't try to hug her just now if I were you. It would seem she has some grief against you.' he told the hero. 'Don't worry, you are safe as long as you're not a full Citizen here. If the King at least has a proper leash on her.'

Jak didn't completely follow. He would have thought she would be happy to see him as well. Was she angry because he hadn't been there on time that day? But he had only been late because he wanted to give her… them an honest chance. He facepalmed himself.

'Right now we have bigger problems than Valentine tryin' ta kill ya.' Daxter reminded him, giving a sweep to the entire Arena. 'If I remember correctly, they'll be sending in some guys pretty soon to try it first. You might want to focus on them first.'

'However much these words may seem like a lie, Daxter is right. I saw some of the earlier fights yesterday, and those were not a pretty sight.' Pecker looked a little bit green around the corners of his mouth. 'Trust me when I tell you, you don't want to get on these people's bad side.'

|Arena Entrance|

Valentine stood at the entrance, taking deep breaths. She had to stay calm, she had to stay completely level-headed. Precursor Steel, she reminded herself. She oughta stampede back there and – deep breaths… A sudden cough forced its way through her air pipe, catching her by surprise. She wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, ignoring the few red specks on the white cloth for now. She had bigger problems right now.

'You seem troubled once again.' An airy voice behind her sounded. Valentine turned, seeing Seem standing there with what almost looked like a worried expression.

'My past has caught me.' Valentine answered, trying to seem calm. 'Right now, he is in the Arena. He'll win, there's no way he'll lose. And my King has forbidden me to settle the score.'

Seem approached her, taking the handkerchief from her. She inspected the blood streaks on it with a disdained frown on her face. 'I can see what the distress has caused you already. Have you been doing the exercises I gave you?' She meant the meditations that the monks themselves did every day.

'Those help, on a normal day.' Valentine said, trying not to sound like she was ready to fall apart. 'I, I can't handle this, Seem.'

Despite their differences, the two women had actually come to a sort of friendship. Seem tried to cure Valentine, or at least keep her from going psycho and wrecking the town. In return Valentine did her best to track down Eco crystals and help out the monks with the few odd jobs that asked for a physical approach. And along that road, they had discovered that they didn't mind each other's company all that much.

'Yes you can.' Seem reminded her. 'You have been through much more. You have lived past the betrayal, so you shouldn't be so influenced just because the physical cause of it is near you.' Seem narrowed her eyes as she spoke, thinking of one thing that could be troublesome. This Jak was also infected by Dark Eco, but in a form unlike Valentine. And unlike Valentine, it looked like the man could still transform and tap freely into the power of the Precursors.
In short, Valentine had repented. Jak had not. And Valentine had become a friend to Seem, which warranted a certain amount of loyalty. This made it quite easy for her to report to Count Veger that Jak had arrived.

'I will go and take a look at this Jak.' Seem told her. 'You still have other duties to perform, have you not?'

Valentine nodded, tugging her long ponytail in an attempt to stay calm. 'I have some errands to run, thank the Precursors. I'm still seeing you the day after tomorrow?' She and Seem met regularly, because Seem wanted her to try different methods to perhaps increase the effectiveness of the medicine. Valentine failed to see why her running around town every night would increase the effectiveness of the medicine, but it beat the previous experiment where Seem had submerged her in ice water. The itching powder had not been that pleasant either.

Seem nodded and the two parted ways. Neither knew it, but Jak's coming would speed up events in a way nobody would have guessed.

|That Night|

Daxter found sleep unattainable that night. In the bunk next to him, Jak was softly snoring. The man's exhaustion was understandable, besides fighting in the Arena they had run around town trying to get a hold of Valentine. Whenever they asked someone if they had seen her, the answer was either no, or not recently. As if the woman was able to disappear at will or something.

He straightened himself up, thankful for his fur in the ice-cold desert night. He could already tell life here was going to be hard, if only because of the varying temperatures. He looked at his best friend, sleeping with his mouth slightly open. Jak had suffered back in Haven, all the time that they had looked on him with suspicion. The whispers behind his back. And finally the banishment. Perhaps what Jak had as a grudge against Have, Valentine had against Jak?

He walked out of the sleeping hall, deciding to go out for some air. All around him people were sleeping, a mixture of men and woman of all ages up from sixteen. Some of them hadn't been tested yet, others were only one Battle Amulet removed from full citizenship. Once they attained that they would be allowed to find a house in the city. Daxter was thankful he was counted as an animal in this city, and therefore not eligible for the Arena. From what they had done, seen and heard things wouldn't have looked good for him.

He made his way outside, sneaking past a sleepy Macie. The elderly woman seemed to regard everyone as her own child. The woman would probably have tucked him in and sung a song for him to help him get asleep. He would have slept better if Tess had been near. That woman was a gift from heaven, to love him in his current state.

He entered the square, walking towards the well in the middle of it. Perhaps taking a drink would entice him to sleep better. He was halfway there when he heard something. A rock being shifted by someone who had moved carelessly. He turned around, trying to see if someone was sneaking up on him. Not seeing anything he started to move towards the well again, this time backwards. Nobody was going to sneak up on him, not on this hero.

Something growled, again from behind him. Before he had turned another grown came from his left. This was not looking good. 'Hello?' he called out. No answer came, but something bumped against wooden crates, rattling the stack. 'Hello? Jak? This isn't funny!' Nothing. 'Valentine, if this is your idea of revenge, I don't like it.' He announced to the darkness.

More boxes rattled, and somewhere a jar shattered. He could hear a screeching noise. That sounded like one of those rodents he had chased with Jak earlier today for that Kleiver guy, Spargus very own Krew stand-in. And it also sounded further off than the other sounds. He swallowed loudly. That meant there were at least two, maybe even three or four of those things skulking about in the dark.

What was in the desert that could sneak around like this? He remembered Sig's stories about the Wasteland. Apart from the obvious Metal Heads the place was packed with poisonous plants, scorpions and spiders. If you didn't die from dehydration first before they got to you. The way the man had told it, it had seemed like he wanted nothing more than spend a vacation here.

The more he remembered the man's tales about everything that lurked in the Wasteland, the less he felt like he should be out here. He turned back from where he came, looking all around him. He tried to scream for help, but his voice was stuck in his throat. All he could produce was a shriek that was stuck in his throat, making him sound like a mosquito.

More growls sounded, and this time he could see gems lighting the darkness. Metal Heads! In Spargus? He decided he couldn't bear it anymore. He started to sprint towards the door, hoping to wake Jak and the other people sleeping. Just what the hell was wrong with this city.

Ten meters from the door a dark, great shadow swooped down from the sky. He pressed himself against the ground, vaguely hoping that it would swallow him. A gem sparkled and great teeth opened to close around him. His scream was muffled in the mouth of the beak.

And the first drops of rain started to fall down on Spargus.

|Once again, thanks for the reviews. I'm wondering if the guest reviews are the same person, or different people? Anyone care to enlighten this clueless writer?|