Here's the seventh (or if you count the prologue; eighth) chapter for you plot hungry readers! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

7: Jak: Shocking revelations and 'payback' part two.

(Flashback – Night before the races).

I sighed as I fell tiredly onto my bed, the day had been long and filled with pointless hours of paper work, my right hand was a nasty shade of reddish-purple from holding a biro for too long, my head was buzzing from having to stare at a computer screen for an extra two hours, and my back was stiff from sitting in the same arched position for too long with no time to get up and stretch my legs.

"Damn paperwork." I mumbled, I decided on the spot I was going to go racing the next day to burn off some steam, nothing better than putting your own and other people's lives in jeopardy by racing around a race track at over two hundred miles per hour with a rocket launcher and machine gun.

My RTX was at the Southern Garage, I should've gone to check it for problems (the last time I didn't check up on it I nearly killed myself on a track that required brakes) but a two mile walk didn't sound too appealing and I was trying to cut back on the whole hi-jacking thing, what with 'low-profiles' to keep up and such.

So I decided to stay in the room and complain to myself, which was easy to do, considering I didn't have very much going for me at the time.

"My bed's uncomfortable, my work's tedious, my co-workers are insane, and we're all gonna be moved out of this sorry excuse for a HQ if nobody comes up with something that will amount to our bills by the end of the month." I grumbled to the ceiling, the ceiling gave no answer, obviously; otherwise I'd be scared as well as annoyed, and wondering if the tales about hallucinogenic drugs being poured into our drinking water were true.

We had two dorms in our HQ, we were welcome to either, I shared a dorm with Edje, Tess and Daxter, then Sig, Jade, Fyre and Razer shared the dorm next door, we'd asked for the wall separating the two rooms to be knocked down, but that took time, money and resources.

"Jak?"

I turned around and saw Tess stood in the doorway, I smiled, Tess usually dropped by to see how I was doing after I'd been snowed under with paper work, she knew how much I despised all things written, which was more than the average amount.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked, Tess walked over to my bunk and sat down at the edge, I shuffled up to her slowly and she flinched as I moved, so I stopped about two feet away from her.

"Jak, can you keep a secret?" Tess asked, her voice was soft and solemn. I nodded slowly. "I… I'm pregnant Jak…"

I stared at her for what seemed like days, my mouth was open with shock, I didn't know what to say.

"Wow." I finally said slowly. "Uh… I guess Edje must be happy huh?" Tess and Edje had been going out for years, they had always been close, best friends and lovers, nice set up if it weren't for the fact they were involved in one of the biggest gang wars in history.

After I said that, Tess burst into tears, I placed an arm around her shoulders for support and shushed her until her sobs died down to a light whimper, then she spoke again, her voice trembling with sadness and… fear?

"That's the problem Jak, the baby, it's not Edje's, it's… it's…" She couldn't go on, another fresh wave of tears streaming down her face; I comforted her again until she wanted to talk. "You won't tell anyone?" I nodded once again. "It's Mizo's."

I froze.

Then it all became clear to me; all those times she stiffened when she heard Mizo speak, why he'd been shooting her looks, everything.

And I'd never wanted to hurt Mizo more in my life for what he'd done.

"He told me, if I didn't agree to… you know, he'd shoot me… and then Edje too." Tess went on. "He knows I'm pregnant, he'll know if I get an abortion, and if I do get one, he'll not only kill Edje and I, he'll make sure Edje knows why he's being killed."

I had nothing to say, so I just gave Tess a quick squeeze; then she leant over and kissed me. I didn't stop her, but I didn't kiss back, I'd kissed girls in the past, but Tess was… different, she was already in love, and she was a friend, a very good friend at that.

"Thank you." Tess whispered as she broke away from me, stroked a small piece of hair out of my face with her right hand, then her fingers trailed down my cheek and under my chin, she then held my face up to hers making sure I was listening carefully. "Look Jak, I'm as good as dead, I'm never going to make it out of here, but you have a spark, you can make it, when you get to Northern HQ, when the time's right, run and don't come back."

"Where? Kras is surrounded by water, and then-" Tess put two fingers to my lips with her free hand, I shut up and then she took out a large wad of orange notes, all with precursor orbs printed on, the number ten printed in the left hand corner of each one and a short sentence written in black Precursorian text.

"I've been saving this money for an opportunity to get out of here, but Mizo has a close eye on me, there's no way I can leave now, I want you to get out, Haven, Spargus, anywhere, just stay out of Kras, forget everything about this place, this war, everything."

"You're crazy if you think I'm going to leave you here to that psycho!" I broke free of Tess' grasp and got to my feet, but then sat down quickly as she shot me one of her special 'If you want to father children later in life you'd better not cross me' looks.

"There's only enough for one boat ticket, besides, you'll be out of Southern HQ and in Northern HQ soon, you'll have a ton of time to make your escape, by the time Mizo realises you're gone, you could be sunning yourself on Spargus beach or finding a house in Haven city." Tess had always been a pretty persuasive person, but I had also always been a pretty stubborn person, so she was going to have to try harder if she wanted me out for good.

"I could be sunning myself on a beach and I could be buying a house in Haven, or I could be shot dead by the Northerners, or by Mizo, or by a KCG or just die for my 'disguise'" I muttered.

"Negative huh?" Tess shook her head in disapproval and then took a gun out, aimed it at my head and spoke in a deeper, much more intimidating voice. "Don't think that just because I like you as a friend means I won't pull this trigger, I'm doing this for your own good, either you leave Kras, or you'll die."

"Just answer me one thing!" I bargained, Tess listened carefully to what I had to ask. "Why are you helping me? Why not Sig, or Daxter or Edje?"

"I already told you! You'll be at Northern HQ soon and I think you have what it takes to get out of here." I chuckled, Tess really couldn't have been much more unconvincing if she tried, and if she didn't have a gun to my face, I would have walked away laughing at her lack of faith in me.

"Tell the truth Tess." I sighed.

Tess didn't say anything, and I didn't think she was going to say anything to me after that, but then she took the gun from my face and spoke to me, never keeping eye contact.

"Let's just say I made a promise to someone a long time ago, and I intend to keep that promise." Jak looked at Tess puzzled by what she had just said, but he didn't pursue the question further, even though she had lowered the gun from my face, she still had it in her hand, ready to use if I got on her nerves.

"So why did Mizo sleep with you?"

But before Tess could answer, Daxter barged in, I got up quickly and went to talk to him, acting like nothing had been said, and Tess went into the small meeting room to catch up on some extra work.

(Next day, just after Jak and Keira leave the stadium.)

I ran back to HQ to warn everybody about the metal head attacks, taking a few shortcuts when necessary, down alleyways, over bridges, under countless barbed wire fencings, not caring about the increasing pain in my lungs.

I knew I wasn't far away from HQ, so I stopped for a minute to rest, we'd taken metal head attacks before, usually without too many serious casualties, I knew they wouldn't need me to help them fight the metal heads off.

I took in a few glorious gasps of oxygen and got ready to run again.

But before I could start back to HQ a large grunt jumped out in front of me, I had no guns on me – all of my weapons were either back at HQ or in the car – so I had to use my fists.

Punching metal heads isn't easy by the way, their skull gems are heavy and protect their skulls, so there's no point in punching their heads, their shoulders and back are clad in heavy metal armour, the only place you can really hurt a metal head is on its stomach, unless you have a gun, then you can shoot them twice and they'll be dead.

I managed to get it angry enough to get onto its hind legs and roar and then I took my chance to kill it. I ran forward, fists clenched and punched the metal head's soft stomach, it fell onto me, pinning me to the ground, then I remembered I wasn't completely gunless, I reached into my back pocket – the metal head had only concentrated on getting on top of me, it hadn't made any effort to stop me from using my arms – and pulled out a small hand gun, I shot the metal head through the stomach three times, it stopped, then died on top of me.

I had never realised how heavy metal heads really were until then, I thought my ribs were going to crack under the weight, but I managed to slide out from under the metal head and set off back to HQ.

I looked at my watch, it had been about an hour since I left the stadium, so I ran as fast as I could back to HQ.

Within three or four minutes I was at the door, I decided to try and find Mizo in his bedroom since he spent a lot of his time there and not where he was supposed to stay, like in his office.

As I walked into the hall I heard someone scream, then gun shots, they were coming from Mizo's bedroom, so I took my gun out and pushed open the door of Mizo's room.

There was a guy in red clothing with brown dreadlocks reaching his shoulders, stood over someone, I peered around him to see who it was.

"No." I gasped.

The man – the murderer – turned and saw me in the door way, he held his gun up to my face and fired, but I was too quick. I dodged the bullet, dropped my gun and pounced on him.

I hit his gun out of his hand with one fist, and with the other I punched his face as hard as I could, and didn't stop until he'd gone still, in fact, I think I kept punching his battered face long after he'd stopped breathing.

I then got up and sat down next to his victim.

Blood was surrounding the corpse, no sign of life, neck broken, several bullet wounds, no coming back.

I bit my lip as I felt tears pour down my face, which was already speckled with blood; I sat down by the side of the body and sighed.

"I'll make you proud Tess."

End chapter

Damn it that took forever to write, I had two ideas for this chapter, but I prefer this one, anyway, I'll try to update sooner rather than later. Read and review!