Chapter 4: Lurkers

Location: Sandover – young Jak

Jak peeked around a hut at the aqua haired girl and her mother as they walked past the fisherman's hut and up to Samos' hut; both of his and Daxter's parents were talking to the young girl's mother whose hair shown as bright as the snowcaps on top of Snowy Mountain that could be seen through Uncle's telescope. The woman's eyes were a purple/blue color and she seemed to have a calmness about her that made Jak curious. Sensing somebody behind him he smiled when he saw his bucktooth brother smiling at him and smiled back. As he turned his head back to spy on the pretty lady and her child he saw that they'd already made it up to the Sage's hut and sighed.

"Wanna go play down at Sentinel Beach?" came Daxter's voice as the two drifted away from the fisherman's hut. Jak shrugged his shoulders at this suggestion. ""Whajah mean?" he inquired as he put his face in front of Jak's. "Come on! Its yer birthday tomorrow an' yer all too mellow man!"

"Okay." Jak sighed as he followed Daxter down to the beach on the opposite side of the village that was away from the Forbidden Jungle.

"Ya know what Jak," Daxter began which made Jak turn his head towards him while they continued to walk down the beach past the broken lighthouse. "One day you and I are gonna go adventurin' and when we do, we'll make discoveries and become famous adventurers and boy oh boy will Mama and Papa be so proud of us…"Jak smiled as he continued to listen to Daxter about some grand adventure they'd have when they got older. "Hay!" Daxter yelled out and jumped out in front of Jak which caused Jak to come to a sudden stop. "Why don't we have a small adventure here! We could find a…a…a pirate's treasure!"

That got Jak's attention. "Pirate's treasure?" he asked as he looked around the beach and then looked back at Daxter with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah!" Daxter said excitedly. "You and I could go off adventurin' near the falls or…" Daxter's eyes spotted the sentinels on the other side of the cove that was filled with sea water. The sandbar that was lifted just above the water because of low tide could allow them to cross over to the other side. "I betcha there's treasure on that side of the beach." He said pointing at the large sentinels and precursor junk on the other side of the beach. "Race ya." with that said Daxter took off across the beach and sandbar that separated the two sides of the beaches.

Jak shook his head, smirked and took off after Daxter. As he passed Daxter he began laughing at the yells the other boy began giving off as he was passed by Jak. Jak came to a stop as a huge lizard like creature popped up out of the sands. He gave off a slight yell of fright as he jumped backwards, only to come crashing down onto the hot noon day sand. The creature snapped his large jaws at the boys and it took them both less than a minute to realize that the creature was stuck inside of a sandpit and couldn't reach them with its powerful jaws.

Daxter began laughing and pointed at the creature. "Ha-ha…what a stupid dummy." He giggled. "He got stuck inside of a sandpit. Hahaha…"

As soon as his heart started to beat regularly again Jak joined in on the laughter. "Come on Dax." He said as he began to climb up one of the sentinels. The stairs when high into the sky and the two both were excited to see what they'd find at the top of the steps. When they did come to the top they found a weird circulation ball that glowed with a bright light and smaller triangular doohickeys swirling around it.

"Cool we found treasure!" Daxter yelled happily. "I wonder what it is?" he peered around the strange object that was emitting a strange bell like noise that was quite calming, but at the same time a bit annoying.

"I-" Jak began as he heard a loud roar behind them and saw a reddish purple creature lumbering across the beach on this side.

Daxter's eyes widened as he spotted the creature and yanked Jak down into a crouching position. "That's a Lurker Ape." He whispered. "They're bad news." He involuntarily shivered at the last memory he had of one and couldn't help the whimper as it came out of his throat.

Jak peered over the edge of the steps and looked down at the creature as it beat its chest at the other lizard creature and then watched as the Lurker Ape attacked the lizard creature and began to beat it into the ground until it was a blood gory pulp of nothing but blood and guts. Then felt as if his stomach was going to turn as the Lurker began to lick his paws of the creature's guts. It then turned around and began to make its way back into the jungle near the waterfalls. It wasn't until the creature was gone for some time that the boys began to make their way back down from the sentinel, with their new treasure tuck under Jak's arms and made their way back to the village.

As they walked up to their house Daxter looked at Jak. "Ya think we should tell Mama and Papa what we saw?" he asked as he looked down at his feet and twiddled with his fingers.

"Yes." Jak said with no uncertainty.

"Think we'll get into trouble fer being on that side of the beach?" Daxter's ears fell a bit at the prospect of getting punished for explorin'.

Jak sighed and then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know." He said as they both entered their hut and hid their first treasure under their bed, deciding they'd figure out what it was later.

Location: Unknown

Daxter groaned loudly as he began to come to from the head beating he'd gotten. Slowly his eyes began to open and turned suddenly as he felt nausea suddenly come over him. Something really stinks. he thought as his eyes came into focus and suddenly cursed his luck. Starring straight at him was a very large lurker ape who was grunting at him. Uh-oh! he thought as the being suddenly stood up and lumbered over to him. Fearfully he began to back himself up and gasped in pain when he tried to do so and looked over at his arm which was wrapped in leaves and was giving off the stinkiest smell he'd ever smelt in his life. It was a thousand times worse than any sewer job he and Jak had taken up in their time either Haven or Spargus. Speaking of Jak… he thought as he realized that the green haired hero was MIA and glared at the lurker ape as it suddenly crossed over his body and went behind him and grabbed him by his ruined shirt and lifted him up into its arms and began to rack back and forth with him in its arms.

Eyes wide Daxter was in shock. Holy fuckin' shit! he screamed in his mind. This thing was treatin' him like he was its baby or something. Eh, could be worse. he thought as he remembered back to the time when Jak and he had almost gotten eating by a plant in the Forbidden Jungle years ago when they were kids.

Looking upwards at the lurker ape after his heart had calmed down a bit. "Eh, ya, uh, don't happen ta know where my friends are do ya?" he asked the creature only for it to stop rocking back and forth and look down at him. "Yeah, didn't think so." He huffed as he tried to sit up, only for the lurker ape to pull him back down into the former laying position. "Great." He sighed as the creature began to rock back a forth once again and found himself actually beginning to fall asleep.

Location: Sandover

Jak looked over at Sig as he and Mar were talking about something while Jak had started a fire and began to burn the metal head bodies that were dead. Unlike the metal heads in his time these had been way easy to kill, mostly due to them not having the heavy and thick armor that they'd have in the feature. He then heard footsteps behind him and turned to see his uncle approaching him. Jak smiled at the familiar older explorer. "Uncle." He greeted as he hugged the older man.

"I knew a long time ago you'd be the one to save us one say my boy." His uncle said. "You see, years ago when Teresa and Daniel adopted you and made you their son Samos warned them of both of their son's destiny. One thing he said was that you'd save Sandover one day and suppose you just did that."

"Yeah I guess I-" Jak's eyes widened. "Who are Teresa and Daniel?" he asked as he looked at the older man whose eyes had widened.

"I guess I assumed that since you gain your voice back that you gained your memory of that day back and your memories of before as well." He paused. "Teresa and Daniel are Daxter and your parents. Well, Daxter's biological parents, your adopted."

"What happened?" Jak asked and as the older man was about to answer there was a commotion amongst the villagers. "Excuse me." Jak said as he went over to Sig and Mar to see what was going on. "What's going on?" he inquired as the two men watched as the villagers began to argue amongst themselves.

"Not sure." Sig shrugged as they watched the normally docile villagers begin pointing at the fat and obese mayor, yelling at him for something.

Jak watched as Mar walked up to the crowd and pushed them away from the mayor. "Enough!" he yelled. "Fighting won't do any good. You have to work together to put this village back together and in doing so you can't be tearing each other's throats out." He paused as he looked at the crowd and noticed that they were actually watching him now. "I know I'm a stranger amongst you and I have no right in telling you what to do; but think about it. Do you truly want to enemies after what's happened or do you want to continue being friends and neighbors?"

"We're scared of what'll happen if those creatures come back." said an older woman with lots of feathers in her hair and an oversized pair of glasses on her face.

"Dude, he's our mayor," Reggie said as he pointed at the mayor. "He's suppose to know what ta do next."

"What we do is rebuild." Jak said as he stepped into the conversation. "We rebuild and then we make defenses and be ready for the next time those monsters come back to attack us; but we've gotta be prepared. I've been…away for a little while and while away I've fought creatures like those and we've gotta build a wall, with a shield that'll push those creatures away."

"The chilipepper is right." Sig agreed. "I've fought creatures like these most of my life and I know they'll be back, but you all are in luck; Jak here's a bit of an expert when it comes to killing these bastards and we'll help in keepin' y'all safe." He looked at Mar. "An' don't think I didn't see that fancy glowing shit comin' off of you Mar."

Jak looked at Sig with a smirk. "With two channelers, I'm sure we can get this village up to snuff." This seemed to calm the crowd a bit as they began to disperse and go back to their homes to begin rebuilding.

Mar looked at Jak. "It's going to take a lot of work and a lot people to make this area safe." He said as he looked at the young man and his friend. "You said you fought these creatures before. How? I've been from the Brink to here and I've never seen anything like those creatures in any of my explorations."

"It's a long story." Jak sighed as he looked around. "I need to make a trip to get the sage's here and see if they can help us. He then thought back and I bet I know where we can find the stuff we'll need in order to get the shield wall up."

"For a shield wall we'll need lots of blue eco." Mar said as he began to walk away towards the mayor's hut.

"Where you going?" Jak asked, "The blue eco temple is in the jungle." He pointed towards the Forbidden Jungle.

"Temple?" Mar asked, "You have a temple nearby?" Jak nodded. "Precursor temples are built upon the biggest and largest eco wells." He paused and then his eyes widened as a thought came to mind. "If you show me where this temple is I could begin making blueprints that'll help us in building this eco shield. I need to know the exact measurements and outputs that this temple can handle, plus I need to know where any other temple or well may be and possibly we can introduce the other eco's into the eco shield and make it even more powerful which in turn could ward off another attack by those monsters."

Jak and Sig both blinked and Sig looked over at Jak and whispered. "Yer related to him?" he asked jokingly which gained the wastelander a glare from his companion.

"Funny Sig, very funny." Jak shook his head as he walked over to Mar and began to lead him into the Forbidden Jungle to show him where the blue eco temple was; if he remembered everything correctly nothing should be in the temple, but knowing everything that had happened to him, he knew he couldn't take the chance and gently touched his gun that was hanging off of his back and hoped he wouldn't need to use it because he really didn't want to use up his ammo and really didn't want to have to be forced to use his dark powers once again.

Location: Lurker Camp

When Daxter woke up once again he found himself no longer in the arms of the lurker ape and was happy to find that the nasty lurker healing wrap had been taken off of his arm. He also found himself capable to leave the cave he was in and walked out of it. Pulling back some fur curtains at the mouth of the cave he found himself in the center of a lurker ape camp. Big and small lurker apes were everywhere, some were the blue furred ones, and the others were the normal reddish purple furred ones. He also noticed that there were a few elves in the mix too; mostly children.

What the heck? he thought as he watched children climbing over some of the lurker's backs or running after a lurker. Daxter scratched the top of his head and then paused when he heard a panting sound behind him and spotted the lurker ape from before. "Eep!" he yelled out as he pressed himself against the wall.

The ape gave a snort at his reaction and grabbed his arm and tugged him outside to follow. Daxter did as the ape wanted and found himself being led to a tent, once there the ape nodded its head towards it. Walking forward Daxter found himself in a nice and cozy little tent that reminded him of the tents he and Jak used in the wasteland. It was small enough to be packed, yet bit enough to walk around inside. A home away from home.

"Good morning." came a feminine voice from one of the corners of the tent. Daxter looked at the young red haired woman and couldn't help but smirk at the beauty that she was. Large breasts, beautiful face and gorgeous green eyes and a figure to make any man drool. She rolled her eyes at his smirk. "Eyes up here boy." She snapped her fingers at him causing Daxter to look at her face.

"Sorry." He apologized. "Yer pretty, but I kinda have a girlfriend." He whistled. "Still can't help but appreciate the view."

The woman rolled her eyes at him. "I'm Meria," she said, "and you are?"

"Daxter." he replied as he looked around her tent.

Meria raised an eyebrow at him. "Daxter, huh?" she smiled. "Aren't you usually with another named Jak?"

Daxter paused as he touched one of her golden figurines and pulled his hand away. "Uh…yeah?" he looked at the woman.

"Does he still kill Lurkers?" she asked as her eyes narrowed at him.

"Err…not in a long time." he scratched the back of his neck. "He only killed the ones he killed because they were infected by dark eco and were controlled by the dark sages Gol and his nutcase of sister Maia." He smirked at her. "But that's been…."

"Four months and six days ago." She said as she walked around Daxter and began to drag her finger from his stomach to his chest which caused butterflies to flutter in his stomach. "That's good…cause I'd hate to kill his friend as revenge. If those lurkers were infected; that's one thing. If they weren't, that's a whole 'nother problem."

"Nope." Daxter shook his head and then paused. "Did you just say it's only been four months since the dark sage's deaths?" he inquired which got a nod from the woman as she began to trance small circles in his chest. "Hehe…I…kinda…thought." He struggled with words as her hand went lower, suddenly Daxter saw an image of Tess in his mind and moved away from the woman and panted. "No more touching." He said as he back away from her.

Chuckling Meria smiled. "Just checking to see if you are loyal." She walked back away from him to where she'd been. "Your village is Sandover, we'll be taking a trip there soon; where we'll make a treaty between the lurkers and your people."

"What makes you think those lurkers will keep such a thing?" he pointed towards the flap that if lifted would reveal the lurker camp.

"Because their leader; Goldorph, wants peace for his people." She paused. "He's allowed Elvin children to live within his people for the last ten years…" she continued but Daxter wasn't listening as he remembered the night his parents died and the attack on Sandover and looked at the woman. If this clan of lurkers wasn't the ones that killed them, then did that mean there were other lurker clans near Sandover?

"Uh…" Daxter began, "You said ten years kids have been living here with, Goldorph?" the woman nodded. "What happened to their parents?"

"Killed by a rival clan, which was killed off a few years ago." She looked at him. "Why?"

"Uh, seven, or eight years ago Sandover was attacked by lurker apes." He said as he frowned. "My parents died, my adopted brother/best friend lost his memories of that night and proceeded not to talk until recently."

The woman looked at his with shock. "I knew nothing of this." she then paused and turned from Daxter. "The rival clan began to move through this region around that time, your village must've been one of the first to be hit by them. Goldorph and his clan began to make war with this clan after Clandose Village was attacked by this rival clan." She looked at his with sadness. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Daxter looked away. "Yeah, well, Jak never remembered what happened." He sighed. "Probably a good thing too; it was pretty bloody and the village population was basically cut in half that night." He shook his head. "Why was I taken from my friends any way?" he asked as he tried to change the conversation.

Taking the hint Meria looked at the young man and cocked her head. "I don't know how you were found, but when you were brought here you were hurt badly, was unconscious and you looked like you hadn't slept in a very long time." she began to approach him again only for him to back away.

"I wanna be taken back to where I was found." He growled slightly, annoyance finally getting to him.

"I'll see what I can do." She said as she walked past him and flipped the flap of her tent open to reveal the camp was busy as always. "But for now, I suggest you get comfortable." She pointed to the sky and Daxter walked out to see if darkening. "It's going to storm before the day is over and you are still healing from whatever accident you had." She pointed towards the lurker ape that had brought him to her. "Clindra will take you back with her." She said and walked away.

"Her!" he yelled back at Meria as she vanished into her tent and felt the lurker ape give a happy grunt at being able to him back to her cave. "Hell no!" he pulled his arm away from the ape only to suddenly be thrown over the female lurker's shoulder. Jak better NEVER EVER hear about this! he groan in his thoughts. Strike that. Pecker better never hear about this! Daxter could only imagine what the monkaw would say about his current predicament and found himself groaning once again.

M-Angel: Poor Daxter, he's having a girl problem and its not even the right type of girl problem. *giggles* Please remember to review! ^_^