Chapter Three:

Joining the Underground

Not even an entire block from the prison, amid the tall and filthy buildings, the newly freed 'convicts' ran into some unexpected, and unwanted, trouble.

"Protect us from these guards and I'll introduce you to someone who can help you," the old man had said. He may have given information without charge, until his life had been endangered. And that was information they both needed, considering that neither of them knew where they were.

Erin's heart beat uncontrollably as she turned to the advancing, and menacing, guards that demanded their surrender. Doing as they 'requested' would no doubt send them back to the prison, which was the last place either her or Jak wished to go.

Jak meet the guards before they confronted the old man and the child. Erin watched Jak fearfully and wished that there was something that she could do to help, but she knew nothing about fighting--

--A guard was thrown to the ground right in front of her by a strong kick from Jak, the guard's weapon landed at her feet, and at that moment a large transport flew overhead and dropped a dozen more KG's, who, within moments, had Jak surrounded. In fear for the only person that she knew in this strange place, Erin shoved away her doubts, and grabbed the strange rifle from the ground with both hands. In seconds two of the guards had hit the ground from the red laser that shot forth from the weapon, which drew attention from the remaining guards. Without missing a step Jak was back in the melee as Erin covered him from a distance.

There were about six guards left when something happened. Erin had seen it not even half an hour ago…

A guard that had fallen at Jak's feet disintegrated into dark eco right before her eyes! She had never seen anything like it before, and it gave a deep, dark feeling of foreboding. The few bodies lying around followed suit, turning the bodies around Jak into a small sea of unnatural purple goop. Once the strange phenomenon had ended, the dark eco pulled to Jak, as if being sucked into a black hole.

Jak paused with shock at the sensation, then he hunched over grabbing his stomach in pain. The purple electricity erupted from within, spewing from his very skin out to his surroundings. It was then that the dark change took over again, the deep anger that consumed him from the depths of his soul. The intense pain from the growing claws and horns only added to the deep inescapable fury. There was only one thought that emerged from the most primal parts of his brain…must kill…

With reflexes as fast as the dark lighting that devoured him, Jak cut down the remaining enemies standing before him. But he needed many more kills to slake his hunger. Much more blood was needed to paint his hands!

In the blood-fury caused by the dark eco, Jak had super-human strength. With this strength Jak threw his enemies across the square as if they were made of wadded paper. And without the fuel generated by the dead, Jak's dark side was slightly weakened, allowing for the logical Jak to reappear in his mind. But Dark Jak wouldn't leave without a fight.

Jak struggled for almost a whole minute in agony within his own mind. Dark Jak lashed out at his senses, trying to force him into submission. When Jak had finally gained control he pushed the darkness into the back of his mind, trying to lock it away, which he couldn't do completely. There was, and would always be, a dull anger waiting for its' chance to emerge again.

Jak was exhausted, and now he had a headache.

Through Jak's entire ordeal Erin froze and clenched her hands around the rifle she had, trying to keep her feet from running her as far from here as possible. The first time she had seen him change she had been behind prison bars, safe from his reach. But this time there was nothing stopping him from ripping her to pieces. This time wasn't any less scary than the first, but somehow she kept herself from running.

"Very impressive…" Erin's mind jolted away from the monstrous thoughts of her death at Kor's voice. What she was shocked about was that he didn't seem too surprised at what had taken place. His old face was thoughtful as he looked at Jak. Apparently the old don't fear death.

Erin climbed laboriously to the top bunk at the Underground hideout. She had had a physically, and mentally, exhausting day. After they had broken out of prison she couldn't stop her heart from lurching every time a Krimson Guard crossed their path. Fearing that they had somehow recognized her, which for the most part was impossible. There are so many KG's in the city, and she had only seen a few when she was in prison, Erol had his own personal guards for his disposal.

After they had proven themselves worthy, Torn had accepted them into the Underground and gave them a mission. Jak and Erin had to travel to a different section of the city, and get outside to the pumping station and turn on the water to the Slums. The terrible Baron had turned them off just to eliminate the Underground; he was willing to kill innocent people just to stop his enemies. But the Baron's actions didn't surprise Erin or Jak. They had seen the true face of the Baron when they were in prison.

Once they had turned on the water, Erin took a shower that was months in the coming. It was her first in soooo long, and it felt so good under the warm water that was washing the filth from her body. She had taken much too long in the shower.

She lay down on the bed and covered herself with the blankets. She hadn't lain in a real bed since she was taken prisoner. The 'beds' in the prison were just slabs of steel, and these mattresses felt like heaven in comparison. As she laid her still damp hair on the pillow, she vaguely thought about how much of a mess it would be in the morning, but she was so exhausted she didn't care if she looked like Medusa in the morning; she was much too tired to wait for her hair to dry before going to bed.

It wasn't ten minutes later that Jak walked in. He had heard her get out of the shower, and he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to tell her about why he had almost attacked her when he had turned into Dark Jak, that he didn't have any control over his actions; it was like he was someone else. And maybe he could see if she had been having any bad dreams yet, or information about where she is from. If he and Daxter were transported so far from their home, couldn't the same have happened to her? Could she possibly be as lost as he was?

Any questions that rushed through his mind were silenced as he noticed that she was sleeping. In the small room they had managed to cram six bunk beds into the small amount of space. Erin had obviously got out of the shower and fell into the nearest bed possible. She was probably just as exhausted as he was. Jak felt the wave of tiredness wash over him, but instead of following Erin's example and falling into the nearest bed, he decided to take a shower first.

Darkness surrounded her; she couldn't see anything but darkness. Terrible fear radiated from her heart, but she couldn't see anything that she should fear. She was terrified for no explainable reason. Suddenly she felt a presence approaching amid the darkness. Her heartbeat thudded in her throat, whoever was coming wasn't friendly, and she could feel it. She turned and ran blindly in terror, her palms started to sweat as she sprinted as fast as she could without any notion of where she was.

Erin continued to run and still she couldn't see a thing. She stumbled and fell to her knees; she completely ignored the pain that shot through her legs. In an instant she was back on her feet, but no matter how fast she ran she could still hear someone, or something, gaining on her. Frightened, she knew it wouldn't be long until it caught up with her. She could almost imagine vicious jaws nipping at her heels.

She continued to run until exhaustion, and even still she ran. She ran until something brought her back to her knees. She felt something dive for her, and she threw herself to the ground. A deep mocking laughter sounded in the dark.

"You cannot escape me, fool!"

Erin remained on the floor, the coolness of it reassuring to her shattered and feverish mind. Through the terror she finally gathered the will to speak.

"Who are you!" Her demand was echoed, and magnified, in the darkness.

More laughter screeched in her mind. "Do you not know?"

A blinding light shown down on her; which only seemed to magnify the darkness. She pushed her hands on the floor, forcing herself to face her enemy. Still on her knees, she could see movement in the shadows, but whoever it was remained just out of the light. Erin clenched her fists against the reassuring floor and decided that she wasn't going to run anymore.

"SHOW YOURSELF!" Silence followed for what seemed like hours.

"If you insist..."

A figure cloaked all in black stepped forward into the light. A hood overshadowed the face. Erin gathered up what strength she had left and pushed herself into a sitting position. Her hair fell from across her face just as the stranger pulled down the hood.

Erin stared at the face, and recoiled in terror. She reached the edge of the circle of light and stopped, the terror of the figure warring with her terror of being alone in the dark again. She wished desperately that she hadn't asked who it was...

The voice just laughed as it advanced on her. Erin felt a cold hand on her shoulder that forced her to turn around. Forced her to face her fear...

She trembled as she looked into those hard eyes. Those eyes that felt no warmth, no compassion...no mercy. So unlike hers, but they were hers...

"Are you so afraid of what you really are?"

Erin suppressed a scream as she woke from the nightmare. She sat up in bed and tried to keep herself from shaking. Breathing was difficult, she felt as if she had really ran all that distance that she had in the dream. She was hot under the blankets, so she pushed them aside, but it didn't seem to help. She decided that she didn't want to be in the dark anymore, so as quietly as she could she climbed down from the bunk and went to the main room. She knew that she couldn't have gone back to sleep even if she wanted to...

The room had many pictures on the wall, outlining the most recent missions the Underground had undertaken. The room also had a model for an experimental a-grav zoomer hanging from the ceiling along the far wall. Erin considered going outside for some fresh air, but decided against it. She was in a strange place, and didn't want to get into any unwanted trouble. Instead she took a seat at the table, which also had the outlines of many more missions and maps scattered across the surface.

Erin took in her surroundings. On the wall also was some pictures, and even if she was half asleep, she could still easily make out the faces of the Baron and Erol. Each poster had darts thrown at them, and each had a thick black mustache drawn on their faces. Despite the terror of her dream, Erin still couldn't help but giggle.

"Something funny?"

Erin went stiff, the dream still fresh in her mind, but she knew the voice and calmed herself. "Just admiring Praxis' and Erol's make-over's."

She wasn't surprised that Torn didn't laugh; he just seemed too serious a person. He circled the table and took a seat across from Erin.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asked to end the silence.

"Not really," Torn took her short answer as a hint that she didn't want to talk about it.

For the next few minutes they sat in silence.

"So where were you before you thought to join the Underground?"

Torn noticed that her face fell at his question. He hadn't the slightest idea where her, or Jak, came from when they showed up on the doorstep asking to join. They both were quite filthy and only wearing rags as clothes.

"In prison..." she answered reluctantly.

Torn decided that she was stronger than she looked. She had survived long enough in prison to find a way to escape. Very few people had seen the inside of the Haven City prison and lived to talk about it. Torn should know, he had spent some time in a particularly 'wonderful' cell when he had refused to follow the Baron's orders' and arrest a few obviously innocent people. He wouldn't have gotten out if it wasn't for a person he knew on the inside.

"How long were you in for?" He didn't bother asking what they put her in prison for; ninety-nine percent of the people in the prison were in there because of some trumped-up violation or another and didn't deserve to be in there. She obviously wasn't part of the one percent that belonged in the prison.

"Around ten months," she answered attentively.

If Torn was intrigued before, now he was dead-out impressed. Torn had been in the prison for less than a month, and by the time of his escape he was already sick from the lack of nourishing food and the filthy cell, not to mention the beatings he had received from his old comrades at the Baron's orders.

Torn just sighed and decided to let the subject drop; neither of them seemed to want to talk about it anyway.

"Well I hope that you had enough sleep to keep you on your toes, the mission I have you on today won't be easy," Torn seemed to hide any concern for his new recruit with his concern for the mission.

Erin just gave half a smile, "I guess we'll see." It shocked her that she wasn't afraid, but after what she had been through she didn't think she would fear anything for the rest of her life.

Torn took his time analyzing her response; she obviously wasn't scared of their mission. He new many men in the Underground that still would grow nervous before a mission, but Erin didn't even flinch. He became very intrigued by her. How did she become so strong?

It took him some time to realize that he had been staring at her in his thought. When she shifted uncomfortably he realized his folly and stopped. As he turned he noticed that she picked at the sleeve to her shirt, she was in the same clothes that she had worn in prison.

"Do you need some clothes? We have a lot of clothes in the store room; I'm sure you could find some that fit you."

She perked up slightly. "That would be great," she said as she gestured at her raggedy prison uniform.

Torn got up from the table and led her to the storeroom past the showers. The small room was packed to the breaking point with many boxes, crates, and chests filled with many different items. Many crates and boxes were stacked on one another up to their necks. The room was musty, and it seemed like the room was much smaller than it really was. He carefully showed her through the towers of papers and boxes to a large pile of clothes on a large crate.

"Women's clothes are in this crate; shoes and other accessories are in this chest," Torn informed her as he kicked the large shoe chest. "You have about two hours until the majority of the people in this building start to drag themselves out of bed, so you can take your time."

Erin looked at the large pile of clothes and gave a sigh. Torn just smiled, "Good luck to you!" And he left her to sift through the mountain of fabric.

Erin sat herself down in front of the pile in the small room that was between the other stacks and set to work. She started with a stack of shirts, if you could call them shirts. Mostly they were just strips of fabric that covered the least amount of skin possible, without leaving the wearer naked. Erin had always been a modest person, so she pushed most of the shirts aside. In a stack of about fifty shirts she only found two shirts that would cover her mid section. And of the two shirts, one of them was cut much too low in Erin's mind, which only left the one. The shirt was a light purple, and it had only one long-sleeve. At the right shoulder it cut across and down under her left arm, which would leave her left shoulder exposed. She didn't know if she liked it, but beggars can't be choosers. She just grabbed a blue bundle of straps that she assumed went over her shoulder to cover the bare one.

Then Erin moved on to pants. There were many pants of different shapes and colors under the discarded shirts. She moved the pile of shirts and started her luck on finding a pair that suited her. She found that many of them had much too much decorating on them. Much of the legs were covered in buckles and zippers with no purpose other than decoration, which just seemed like a waste. She had to think useful, not decorative. She finally settled on a pair of plain blue pants she found at the bottom of the crate.

When she had put the clothes back in, and on, the crate, she moved on to the accessories chest. She decided to start with the necessary; shoes. She pulled out many pairs of boots and shoes, and after considering all of them she decided on a nice red pair of tall boots. The boots reached up to just below her knees, and they had six decorative slits on each boot; three on each side of her calf. A nice point that they had was a thin protective bar that guarded her shin on each boot, and, most importantly, they were comfortable. Next Erin picked through a stack of gloves, her hands blistered easily, and if she was going to be fighting she would need them. She picked a pair that had the fingers cut out and a large slit on the back part of the glove, which would still protect her palms and allow for air to get in to keep her hands from sweating. She also grabbed a belt and two miss-matching forearm guards. That was all that she could think of that she would need, and so picked up her mess and headed off for a place to change.

At the door to the storage room she almost bumped into Torn and Jak, Torn was no doubt showing Jak to the men's clothes, because he was still in his prison uniform as well. Erin said good morning to the both of them and headed for the bathroom. The hall was still mostly empty; it must still be quite early.

Unsurprising, the bathroom was empty. Erin locked the door and got dressed. She slid on her blue pants to see that they had a decorative slit on the left side that showed a fraction of the skin on her leg. Erin hadn't noticed until she had put them on, but it was better than twenty buckles making a lot of noise and weighing her down. She pulled on the one-sleeved, light-purple shirt and tucked it in. She put on the belt, boots and gloves. When she was putting on the arm guards she found that the light purple one, that was made of strong metal and matched her shirt, concealed a small dagger. She pulled on the dagger, but it wouldn't budge. After some time she noticed a small button on the under side of the metal, and when you pushed it, it released the dagger from its springs and it shot up the length of the guard and stopped as it protruded from under the metal. If you pushed the button again it retracted the dagger and concealed it again. That may come in handy.

She placed the other arm guard, made of thick leather, over her long sleeve and laced it up.

Erin fiddled for several minutes with the blue bundle of straps. It was made of three think blue straps that started on a large ring and connected in the back with a metal device that she assumed held a weapon in place on your back. Once she felt that she had fit it right, with one of the large straps going over her bare shoulder, she tried to straiten out the mess with her pants. Her pants were too long, and her boots were too tall. She couldn't just stuff the remaining parts of her pant legs into the boots because her boots were too tight. After a few minutes of fighting with her pants she just ripped them into capri's and pushed the ripped end of the pant legs into the boots and tied them up with strips from the remainder of her tan prison uniform.

After she could put it off no longer, Erin took a deep breath and turned and looked into her reflection. She didn't even recognize herself. She hadn't seen herself for ten months; it was as if a stranger was staring back at her through the glass. Her plain brown hair had taken red roots, and her eyebrows were red as well. Her hair was longer than it had been in years, down to the middle of her back. Light marks could be seen under her eyes from the lack of sleep. She noticed, with some pride, that her muscles were very tone from the dark eco treatments. She reached up a gloved hand to her long, thin ear; they had changed the most, by far--

Erin was interrupted by a knock on the door, accompanied by a muffled voice. "Are you done, yet?"

She felt slightly guilty for keeping the bathroom occupied when someone needed it, so she grabbed what was left of her prison uniform, threw it in the trash, and opened the door, but there was no one there.

"Thank you," Daxter's voice was quite irritated as he walked between her legs to the bathroom and shut her out. Erin just smiled to herself and went back to the mission room.

Torn was looking over the map on the large, messy table. Jak was standing across the table, waiting to be briefed on their mission. It seemed everyone was waiting for her, she noticed to her chagrin. Jak had gotten dressed; he was wearing a deep blue shirt and matching gloves that had large cuffs. He had plain tan pants that stopped at the top of his dark brown boots, and he had the same three straps and metal ring as she did, except his was brown. She approached the table and waited for Torn to tell them about the mission.

Daxter materialized a minute later and then Torn started.

"Thanks to you two the Slums water is back on." Daxter gave a loud huff and commented that he helped to, but Torn just ignored him and continued. "I'd love to see the heads roll when the Baron finds out!"

Jak lost his demeanor as unexplainable anger bubbled inside, "I'm sure he's loosing a lot of sleep over this 'arm pit' of the city. We've done what you asked, so when do we see the Shadow?"

Torn's voice turned dangerous in answer, "WHEN I say so, IF I say so. But before I even think about it I want you to take care of an ammo dump we've I.D.'d in the Fortress." Torn pointed to the Fortress on the map, "lots of Krimson Guards; constant patrols. We KNOW it's vulnerable, and the Underground needs you," he gestured at both Erin and Jak, "to blow up all the ammo you find inside. Get all of it, and we'll deal a body blow to the Baron."

At this point Daxter couldn't restrain himself. "You're sending US in, tough guy, so what's with this 'WE'LL deal a body blow' stuff?"

Torn seemed to be fighting the urge to rip Daxter's head off until Jak cut in.

"That's fine. I want the Baron to know its ME who's hurting him," Jak was shocked at the words that came out of his mouth. He didn't know what made him say them...or maybe he did. He could feel the darkness in his heart. Sometimes he would get so angry for such a trivial reason. He looked at Erin; his words had stunned her.

Torn decided that it was a good idea to let them into the Underground; since they had intense anger for the Baron, they could use that anger for the important missions. Wordlessly, Torn slide two small pistols towards them. The Underground was waiting for the next shipment of larger weapons from Krew, the pistols was all they had left. Erin slid her pistol into her small holster on her belt.

Jak just grabbed the pistol and jammed it into his over packed pouch on his waist. Jak didn't like how he grew too angry, too quickly. Erin was shocked at his readiness to get revenge on the Baron and Erol. She didn't understand what he was going through, no one did. But Erin was on her way to becoming like him. She had endured the same torture, but for less time. There was no way to judge how long it would be before she changed. And as for Jak, he was angry.

Jak, Erin, and Daxter stood outside a side entrance to the Fortress, trying to keep from being suspicious. They watched to be sure that the street was empty of Krimson Guards when they slipped inside the door.

Erin had her arms crossed and she was leaning against the Fortress wall. "Didn't we just break out of this place?" She said quietly so that only Jak and Daxter heard her.

Jak just shook his head yes.

"And now we are trying to get back in?" Erin shook her head to show her disbelief, "We're out of our minds."

Jak didn't bother answering, she was just thinking out loud. He just watched as the last Krimson Guard rounded a corner and out of sight. Erin perked up as he motioned her to the door. They slid inside as fast as they could to keep from being seen.

The room behind the door was a large entrance chamber, with two ways to go from there. There also was a guard desk, which was empty because the Baron had called all extra Krimson Guards to the palace for some mission briefing. The Underground didn't know what they were planning, but it was something big.

Jak chose the door that seemed to be a service entrance, there would be a less chance of coming across any KG's. As they crossed the threshold an alarm sounded.

"Unauthorized use of Fortress door."

Jak and Erin turned the sound of screeching steel on steel. The dormant tank and come to life, and it had its laser target on them. Erin and Jak jumped opposite ways from the targeting device just as the tank fired. Erin rolled, un-holstered her pistol, and in one motion shot out the target light. The tank froze for just an instant, and then just started to shoot blindly for them. Both Jak and Erin ran down the hall, but found that it was a dead end.

Erin quickly formulated a plan as the tank closed in on their position. She shot at it; its' programming calculated where the shots came from and it shot back. Since it was blind its shots were off, but it managed to land a lucky shot on Erin. The energy bullet grazed her left arm and tore her sleeve. Erin just shrugged off the pain, it was much less painful than the dark eco treatments had been. Erin angrily pushed her hair out of her face and just continued to shoot at the tank until it was right in front of them, and at the last second, they both dove out of the way, and the tank continued forward through the wall. Erin and Jak, along with Daxter, followed the tank through the hole in the wall. They dodged the sporadic shots from the tank as they climbed up to the walkway near the ceiling and made their way through to the next room using the service ramps until they came to a room labeled 'Storage Bay 4', which, according to Torn's source, was where the new shipment of ammo was being held.

They entered the room to hear voices from the floor below. Jak, Erin, and Daxter lowered themselves, quietly, to the hole-filled metal floor. Below them were two Krimson Guards. If most of the KG's were called to the Palace, what where these two doing?

"Here they come, do NOT show them any fear," One KG ordered to the other through the speaker on his helmet.

From a small service way exited two Metal Heads and they walked up to the KG's.

The leader of the two KG's pointed at a few barrels next to them. "These barrels are the latest shipment of eco; the Baron says take them and get out!"

The Metal Heads growled, tension was thick in the air. The Krimson Guards gripped their rifles and aimed for them. The Metal Heads just growled incoherently and grabbed the two barrels, lifting them like they were nothing, and exited through the door they had arrived through.

The second they had left, the leader Guard turned to the other. "I'm afraid that the Baron feels that the less witnesses, the better," he said coldly, and shot him in the chest before he had time to react.

Then the Guard removed his helmet to reveal a mat of red hair. Erol! Anger welled up inside Jak and threatened to take control. He gripped his fingers in the holed metal floor and he watched. Erol knocked on the main exit and in walked his two personal guards.

"Dispose of the body," he ordered them. His guards seemed reluctant.

"What did he do?" One managed to ask.

Erol turned angrily to the fool who dared to question his orders. "You, of all people, should know the danger of asking too many questions. You get me?" he asked with a thick layer of danger on his voice.

The guard saluted Erol, "Yes, sir!"

Erol left the room and left his guards to take care of the mess he'd made. Jak hadn't even noticed that he was holding his breathe as he stared down with anger at Erol. Jak took a careful breath to make sure the anger had passed and released his grip on the floor. He turned to Erin and Dax.

"Metal Heads in the city? Why are the guards giving them eco?"

They both just stared at him in shock. Jak was surprised as he looked down at the floor.

He saw that where his hands had been intertwined with the floor was warped and cracked. His anger had almost taken over; Jak looked down in realization to his bleeding palms.

Author's notes: Hopefully it will take less time to write my next chapter. This one took me forever because I had ACT's and I have scholorchips I'm applying for, and if it wasn't for a close friend beating it out of me, it might have taken longer...well enough of my excuses, I hope you enjoyed!

If you would like to see what Erin looks like, I had a good friend, who is a great cartoon artist, draw up what she thought Erin looked like. It looks awesome! Just go to my profile page and click on the link under my Darkness Fades story notes. Please take a look! And please review my story if you read it. I need input!