|Dark Maker Ship|
They waited for a few seconds, frozen in place, until their eyes had adjusted to the dark. The trio had their back pressed against a cold, metal wall, breathing shallowly. Valentine swallowed, hoping they weren't in the middle of a room, spotlights trained to turn on the moment they so much as moved a toe. The screeching and warbling continued, sounding far off. Who knew how far away though? There was no telling how this place was built.
"Are we going to keep sitting here?" Daxter half whispered and half shouted at his friends. Valentine nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice, shattering the silence without warning.
In the dark, Jak placed a hand on Daxter's mouth, shutting off all sound. In a low voice he mumbled a warning, his other hand grabbing Valentine's.
She didn't know if Jak could see it already, but she nodded in his direction just the same. The air was damp and tasted metallic. Still, things weren't completely dark in here. A lone spark of Dark Eco pulsed along cables stretched above them, trailing up to a huge ceiling. The light revealed they were surrounded by boxes, dark and ominous, looming over them. Taking deep breaths, Valentine tried to sense where it was going. Doing this she discovered that the room they were currently in was huge, not to mention using large amounts of Dark Eco.
"Val?"
"I'm trying to find out where we are…" she whispered back, trying not to sound too panicked. The day had gotten her pretty worn out, and finding her way through the maze of rooms by using Dark Eco was taxing enough as it was. Relieved she noted they weren't too far away from what was either the main energy room or the control room. They were surrounded by different areas, as vast in space as the one they were currently hiding in.
"This place is weird though. Huge."
Muffled sounds indicated Daxter tried to say something, still clamped off by Jak's hand. Valentine shook her head at the Ottsel still the same, pressing a finger to her lips. Finally Jak let go of his friend, after warning the Ottsel to be as quiet as possible. "Did you guys forget we're on a time schedule here? That gun can go off any second, and I don't wanna be here when it does."
Ah, the wonderful time restrictions life had imposed on them. Or at least the deities, though Valentine was highly uncomfortable recognizing the furballs as a higher power. Jak nodded at her, indicating he was ready to go. Valentine took a deep breath through her nose, not keen on the taste of the air here. Slowly they rose from their crouching positions, and Valentine indicated there was a door they could use to the right. All they needed to do was cross a few meters of open space, past the crates they'd been hiding among.
Before they'd taken two steps something shuffled in front of them. They froze, looking at each other in the near dark. Shooting was obviously a bad idea, considering they were in enemy territory. But just sneaking past wouldn't be easy either.
Jak reached out to something on top of the boxes and showed her. The dark purple sheen of Eco above them caught the luster of a rope, only it wasn't made of anything she'd ever seen before. Looking above them she noted it was probably the same material as the cables that transported Eco across the ship.
When Jak mimicked strangling someone with the rope, Valentine nodded. She bent over, retrieving one of the knives she had standard in her boots. Listening intently they rounded the corner, after peeking to make sure they weren't about to be surprised.
One of the Dark Makers was standing at a control board, occasionally humming eerily to itself as buttons were pressed and meters tapped. It looked up at the ceiling in regular intervals, though Valentine was a little too preoccupied to check what it was observing.
She shuffled to the left while Jak did the same in the opposite direction. By now her heart was beating so fast, she imagined the creature would hear her coming just by that sound. They had one chance, and they'd better make it count if they didn't want to fight off an entire ship. A drop of sweat formed at her temple, tickling as it slid down. Valentine focused on that feeling, trying to keep calm.
When the Maker glanced up again, Valentine made a slight mental stir. Hardly much, about the same as when she wanted Meta's attention. It could even be mistaken as friendly. In response the Maker croaked and turned towards her. Valentine lunged forward with the blade, towards the neck. The surprise attack had served its purpose, as the knife dug deep in the creatures throat. Not enough to kill it, but enough to sever the vocal cords.
The dark cable swooped, cleaving the air in two, looping around the creature's exposed neck. Jak caught the end and yanked back. The Maker gurgled, clawing at the cable in an attempt to peel it away. Valentine wasted no time and hurried to Jak, helping him to pull it taut, digging her heels in the floor. The room was filled with choking, gurgling noises, while the two of them breathed heavily.
When the Maker stopped struggling, they held the cable in place for a while longer. Convinced it was over they let go of the cable. The body slumped to the ground, in the pool of infected blood that had spread around them. They exhaled, realizing for the first time they'd been holding their breath. As Valentine knelt to retrieve her weapon she heard Jak gasp. "Val… you really gotta see this."
"Well, fuck me and call me an ocelot," Daxter added in his usual eloquence.
Her knife retrieved with a sickening crunch, Valentine looked up to see what the fuss was about. First her brain failed to register what it was seeing, and then she found herself vehemently denying the truth. High above them, hidden in a strange cluster, was a dark mass. Occasionally Dark Eco sparks would light up the contours, dark shadows playing, hiding the true creature. Valentine's jaw dropped open, her brain resorting to trying to calculate the size of the thing above them.
"… factoring the room… and the length of those cables…" She mumbled, stringing random numbers together in an attempt to find a satisfactory answer. She'd seen Ma'al in his true form and been impressed. But this… not even Ma'al would stand a chance against this thing. This could easily destroy Spargus, probably hardly noting the city was in the way.
"I don't wanna know," Daxter groaned when he heard her calculating.
"This must be what Erol is trying to wake up. These must be the older Dark Makers," Jak added, flexing his hands as if preparing for a fight.
"Then let's be happy this ship is going to be blown up. And us with it if we don't get a move on. Let's go," Valentine said, though she couldn't help but gawk at the shape looming over them just the same. Erol thought waking this thing up was a good idea? She knew he was crazier than Praxis had ever been, but this was taking it to entire new levels. Clearly he'd never tuned in at the sci-fi channel back in Haven. Nine out of ten movies showed that waking up anything you found in space was a horrible idea.
They walked away slowly, glancing back every few steps just in case it might wake up. Things like these always woke up just when everything seems to be safe. For a few seconds she considered tampering with the Dark Eco lines connected to the Maker, but decided against it. For all she knew, that would be the thing to set it off. They moved through the door, finding themselves in a long corridor. In here there were no sounds, known or unknown. Just… silence.
"I'm liking this place less and less," Daxter said, swaying on Jak's shoulder as they walked. Both his friends grunted their approval, Jak keeping watch for potential danger while Valentine tried to navigate them through the maze. Finally she pointed at a large gate to their left.
"There. Feels like a massive collection of energy, just behind that door. I'll bet you anything we'll find Erol there."
Jak nodded, quickly running his hand past her arm. When he touched her hand she gave an affectionate squeeze, along with a lopsided smile. "We got this, right guys?"
"You betcha. Ain't nothing stopping us now," Daxter affirmed.
"We got this far. Let's see this through to the end," Jak added, squeezing her hand a bit tighter.
Entering the room was nearly enough to knock the air out of them. It seemed to be in the center of the ship, and little choice they'd had in placing it. Row upon row of huge Dark Makers sat there, though there was something off about them. None of them seemed to be breathing. The pathway they were standing on stretched to a portal, not too far from them. There wasn't that much room to stand on, and it seemed to be a long way down. Something close to them creaked harshly.
"Impressive little robots, aren't they?" A voice behind them asked, followed by a sharp, stinging pain in Valentine's right shoulder. With a grunt both she and Jak fell forward. On instinct she kicked back, but her leg got caught in what felt like a vice grip. She was pulled back, hands skimming across the smooth, metal floor.
When she dangled upside down she had to twist her head in a weird angle to see. "Erol," she spat as venomously as she could, preparing to send a nasty shock through his system. Before she could he tossed her away, sending her flying before bouncing along the floor, rolling out the momentum. For a moment her vision blurred. She shook her head, drowning out the shock residue. She'd heard a gunshot, but judging from the sounds Jak hadn't managed to finish Erol.
Growling she got back up, registering that she wasn't seriously injured. If they survived she'd be every color of the rainbow come morning. Daxter screamed, though moved fluently across Jak's shoulder, nearly dodging a punch that would have knocked him off Jak.
"Daxter, come here!" Valentine shouted. If Daxter was out of the way, that was one thing less for Jak to worry about. The Ottsel obeyed quickly enough, leaving Jak to focus on his arch enemy. Valentine looked around her, desperate for anything she could use as a weapon without getting in the way.
They were saved the trouble by a beam of light blasting through the room. Debris scattered, and the suction of air nearly knocked her off her feet again. Erol used the opportunity to smack Jak to the side. The hero slid across the floor and tumbled over the edge of the pathway. Next to her ear Daxter screamed harshly, while she was reduced to grabbing the smooth floor to avoid following after Jak.
"I'd really love to stay and chat, but I have a planet to destroy. Be sure to die while I'm away," Erol gloated as a hatch in the floor opened. Several of the robots dropped through it, though only the one Erol commandeered actually moved. After that she looked back at the spot where Jak had rolled off the railing. He couldn't really have fallen, right?
Time to think this through ticked away as oxygen was vacuumed out of the room. In the distance an alarm sounded, though the howling of the air made it almost impossible to hear. She kept low, reducing air resistance as she crawled to where they'd seen Jak topple over the edge. Daxter screamed in her ear as they got closer. "What if he's dead?"
"There's no way… he died," Valentine grunted, reaching the edge. Jak wasn't the type to just roll over a bridge and die. The wind gripped at her clothes with greedy fingers, threatening to toss her behind her lover to see what it was like. Daxter held on to her collar and hair for dear life. She called out for Jak, throwing one of her arms over the edge of the small pathway.
A few precious seconds passed, sucked away as greedily as the air was being sucked out of the room. Then cold fingers wrapped around her wrist, squeezing tightly. Relieved she gasped for air and pulled, inching away from the edge, pulling Jak with her. He emerged, pale and disheveled and more important than anything, alive. His hair fluttered in the howling wind as he raised himself up on his knees, and stood up. "We have to get out of here!"
"Gee, ya think? I thought we could throw a party while we're in here!" Daxter shouted back, visibly relieved his best friend was in front of them, relatively unharmed. Valentine pointed to the portal at the other end of the pathway. Jumping through portals without knowing where they took you was a fools task, but staying here would get them killed just the same.
As they slowly moved closer to the portal a large chunk of the ceiling broke off, hurtling in the dark void that surrounded the space ship. Valentine glanced up, seeing myriad stars and veils of untold colors outside before looking in front of her again. Every step they took threatened to lift them up and through that growing hole, tossing them out there in the freezing void of space. When she got her feet back on the ground, she was going to kill those Precursors. When Daxter nearly lost his grip she tucked him securely under her arm. He didn't protest as much as he usually did, preferring to be heavily squeezed over being lost to them.
Behind them familiar screeching and hollering grew in intensity. The other Dark Makers had made their way to this room, no doubt aiming to escape via the portal to safer havens. But the normally short pathway might as well have been spanning the Spargus desert in these conditions. While Valentine and Jak had been able to inch their way across without being in immediate danger, the Dark Makers didn't have the luxury.
When they reached the portal, Valentine activated it. Before the telltale zooming sound had completed, Jak grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her through. Behind them the ceiling of the room finally caved, the smooth metal floor they had just walked snapped in half as if it hadn't been thicker than a piece of paper. The Dark Makers screeched and grappled for something to hold onto, before the blue of the portal clouded her eyes, transporting the three of them back to more familiar, safer territory.
The journey was completed in less than a minute. Thanks to their haphazard retreat the three of them landed rather ungraciously, though the desert sand was arguably softer than a steel floor. Daxter spat out a mouth of sand, glaring behind him at the portal that had taken a dull black color, telltale sign it had been deactivated. "Why did we even bother going up there if this is how things were gonna turn out?!"
Valentine moved her tongue around, the gritty texture of sand gathering in remnants of saliva. She agreed with Daxter, quickly clearing her mouth as well as she could. "We have to find Erol. He's going to do something stupid, I just know it."
"He's going after Spargus," Jak announced, stumbling up as he adjusted to the feeling of gravity once more working as it should.
"That or Haven," Valentine agreed.
Jak pointed below them, looking very convinced of his case. "No, he's after Spargus."
Valentine followed his gesture, down rolling, rocky hills that spread out beneath them. They had landed on an abandoned mountain, high enough to oversee most of the desert. Spargus gleamed in the distance, the strong walls encasing what had been her home for the past few years. Somewhere halfway between them and Spargus the Dark Maker machine had crash-landed, a deep gash in the sand indicating how poorly Erol had put it on the ground. As they watched he was piloting the legs in position, slowly cranking the machine up to a stance more suitable for death and destruction. "Oh… well, that's a fair assumption."
"There's no way we're going to catch up to him on foot!" Daxter complained, hopping back to Jak's shoulder to get a better look.
Valentine reached out with her mind, searching for Meta or Ma'al. The both of them responded at the same time, flooding her mind with images of repairs ongoing in Spargus. She interrupted, sending a visual of the robot that was getting ready to invade the town. "Ma'al and the Metals are going to provide a distraction, but that doesn't mean he won't appreciate the help."
Jak pointed to the other side of the hill. "I think I found our ride."
Below them there was a small encampment of the Marauders, the entire group gathered to look at what was happening in the distance. They jeered and hooted, clearly not realizing that after Spargus the rest of the planet would follow. Their cars stood near the foot of the hill, parked in a bend that would shelter the cars should a sand storm decide to hit. Valentine nodded, glancing back to the robot that seemed to be their final challenge.
"If you would have told me, back when we met, we'd fight Erol driving a gigantic robot in the middle of a desert, aided by Metal Heads, I would have thought you were insane."
Jak started to jog down the hill, sand sloshing from beneath his feet and billowing up in clouds. Daxter showed a toothy grin, spitting out more sand before he spoke to her. "Toots, look at what we're doing. Sane went out the window a long time ago. As far as I'm concerned, Erol is the only thing between us and a great celebration party, so let's kick some robot ass!"
Phew, new chapter is finally uploaded. In my defense, some exams got in the way, as well as a little impromptu trip to Canterbury. It's a lovely city by the way, lots of wonderful people as well. I quite like pulled pork, which is saying something seeing as how usually I dislike pork. Also, the locals quite liked me. Apparently I make a wonderful first impression no matter what group you drop me into ^^
Also, next chapter is guaranteed the last chapter, followed by epilogue (which would be a very long extra chapter thanks to the requests I got from readers, as well as me having some fun with scenarios), character design sheets for Val and Ma'al, maybe some random stuff about me if you guys would want to ask me something, lots of thank you's,... Am I forgetting something? Let me know if you'd like to see anything in the epilogue chapter ^^
Thank you to Sage once again for editing ^^
Ayylmao : Thank you for worrying about me ^^ It's okay though, only life that got in the way. But the new semester has started and I have the best lesson roster ever. No classes on mondays and fridays, which means more time to write. Or, y'know, get a part-time job, I could use the money.
Dear Guest : Hehheh, glad you liked that part of it ^^
Oblique : I'll have to save how Damas is handling everything until the epilogue, Precursors know he isn't in any condition to fight against Erol. Which is a tad sad, he would've been wonderful in that fight but I'm not sadistic enough to send an old man with a broken leg into battle. And the grand finale T.T One of the most dreaded parts of a writer, next to the beginning, because it's so Important. Send me strength, I'll get started on that in a few days T.T