Chapter 13: An Angry Maddy, a Sneezing Daxter, and an I Will Kill You, Praxis Jak ft. a Pushy Erol and a Disappointed Baron
Music: One Step Closer, by Linkin Park
'Nothing seems to go away
Over and over again
(Just like before)
Everything you say to me
Takes me one step closer to the edge
and I'm about to break
I need a little room to breathe
Cuz I'm one step closer to the edge
And I'm about to break'
Mood: Irritated.
Disclaimer: Writers lie, just like you're parents
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Now that we had enough skulls, we went to go see the Oracle again to get another 'power'. The Oracle could apparently sense us as we walked in, because it zapped us immediately when we stepped foot into the building, turning us into our Dark forms, and keeping us suspended in mid air by Dark Eco.
"The Metal Heads have always feared you, angry ones. Even now, the Metal Head leader realizes that both of you together can destroy him and save the last chance for our race. You both now have the control of another dark power!" It said, getting straight to the point. Then it zapped us both with Eco, leaving me writhing in the air from the pain.
I felt myself twist once more in the air before dropping to the ground. So I had a new power. I wondered how I was supposed to get it to work.
"Let the darkness flow through you," The Oracle said, as if reading my mind. Now that I thought about it, he probably was. But I did as I was told, and let the darkness take over, before I knew it, I was spinning about in the air, releasing massive amounts of what I looked like Dark Eco in little lightning bolts, zapping all the things in the room.
I looked at Jak who had his fist pressed to the ground, bracing himself as the darkness drained away. He looked up at me and how I was leaning against the wall breathing heavily, before saying, "You know, I like that move." He paused before saying, "I think we need to ask a favour of someone."
"Who?" I asked. I didn't like asking other people for help. We could do stuff on our own. People would always want something out of you if they did something for you.
"Vin," He said simply. "Remember what that mechanic said about the service elevator in the Palace? I bet Vin can get it working."
I sighed. He was right. So we made our way to the Power Station where Vin was frantically typing away at his keyboard.
"Vin, buddy, we need a favor." Jak said, throwing his arms out like he was happy to see him, then clasping his hands together in front of him.
"I can't help you with your eco bill." Vin said snippily.
"We need you to switch on the access elevator in one of the Palace's support towers." Jak said harshly, dropping the whole 'buddy-buddy' thing. I liked this Jak better, nice Jak was weird.
"Sheesh," Vin said, running his hands through his hair. "that's part of the old B-Zone power grid? It hasn't worked for years."
"Well, if it's too hard for you, I understand." I said casually, turning away and subtly winking at Jak, who caught on automatically.
"Yeah, we get it. Power stuff can be tricky." He said.
" Tricky?" Vin looked offended. Good, I smiled. He made and irritated 'hmmph' before he started moving across the Power Station, typing at all sorts of panels and dealing with several buttons and triggers. "I could route the B-Zone conduit lines through the bypass grid," He said, running to the other side of the circular Station, "shunting past the eco rings to connect the inductor tubes in series," He ran back over and pressed some more buttons, "then back through the outer wall indicator helix and across the resonant flux routes into the number five capacitor array." He hopped in a lift, moving up to one of the higher screen, poking around on it for a second before lowering the lift and racing it across the floor, over us, and to the other side of the room. "Assuming the circuits in the GX75B can handle the surge, I could link the phase loop lines into the primary coils, and presto!" He exclaimed, dropping the lift directly in front of us, flinging his arms out. "You've got instant lift juice!"
"Vin, you're a genius!" I exclaimed, flailing my hands a little.
"Eh, actually Mar and Sylence were the geniuses here. People said they made most of this stuff long ago - the shield-wall system, the eco grid."
"Wait." Jak cut him off, "Who's Sylence?"
"Ahh resident scientist, inventor, fighter, girlfriend, queen person. She's kind of fabled, no proof that she was there, but a lot of people mention her in all the histories, talking of how she and Mar were never apart. That the Precursors granted them powers that only worked together. Some say that's how he died, they were separated for too long, that his power stopped working, or he just disappeared. Poof." He babbled before getting back to the point. "Anyway, to get that elevator moving, you gotta find and turn on all the old B-Zone power boxes located in the city. There are five of 'em!"
" That doesn't sound so tough." Daxter grinned.
"No. Except those power boxes are guarded by motion-sensing turbo cannons!" He said, making finger guns and shooting us frantically. "But, if you can destroy the cannons, and switch the boxes on, I can do the rest. I nodded and we started walking away. "Just don't tell the Baron I ever saw ya!" He yelled as we walked out.
"Sketchy man, that is," I laughed before walking on.
There was a turret almost directly under the Power Station, just a little to the right. It proved easy to take out, not knowing which of us to shoot. So once it started shooting me, Jak ran towards it and smashed the turret and pressed the button underneath.
That alerted the KGs, though, and gave us an unwanted nuisance. KGs were really irritating. We took a Zoomer and flew around a few corners before we found the second turret, which was as easily as confused as the last one. This one shot at me too, so Jak took it out and pressed the button.
The next one was a few turns away, too, but the KGs made it a bit slower to get there. When we hopped off the Zoomer, we had not only the turret shooting at us, but the KG's. I started shooting arrows at the KG and hoped Jak could take care of the turret.
Of course he did, though, and we were on the Zoomer again in pursuit of the fourth turret.
It was a bit farther away than the last one, all the way in the Slums, but we took that one out too. I think we had lost the KGs along the way, because we weren't being chased any longer. Can I point out again how stupid they are?
Jak had to maneuver the Zoomer through the thin streets of the slums before we found the last one, which was almost all the way to the Water Slums. It, too, was easily taken out.
When we pressed the switch, Vin said, "Okay, the B-zone grid is back online. Have fun being killed in the petals." Over the transmitter, sounding nervous.
"Don't worry, Vin. I'll make sure you can't be connected to this in any way." I responded, jumping back up into the Zoomer as Jak took off.
The entrance was in Sector 3, the nicest sector, of course, and a good two or three locks had to open before we entered the elevator. Inside looked just as clean and shiny as the rest of the building. Weird, I had been expecting it to be old and dusty.
We took the elevator to the top, the platform vaulting upwards at a really high speed, leading to a room with a single door and long walk ahead on a windy looking platform-type thing. It looked really shifty.
The blades of the spinning wheels where electrified, so we had to jump over about three of those before we reached a red looking platform that was sparking suspiciously, and neither of us really wanted to test that out.
Luckily, there were two bar sticking out on the side that we swung on to get around the thing before jumping back on the platform and continuing on past another one that was identical to a turret that was shooting periodically. I shot it from afar with a Blaster Arrow.
Directly in front of the decrepit turret were a few spiky cubes, about the width of the platform we were on. They were all shifting in times, only one side of each cube remaining unspiked. We quickly jumped across those. I mean, who wants to get their feet stabbed by spikes, really.
Past that, there was another turret, and another electrified wheel. It was on a pipe, though, so it was too slippery to jump across. We had to jump down and under it, dodging collapsing platforms and jump back up, where there was another set of shifting spike cubes.
"Precursors," I exclaimed. "Can you imagine Praxis attempting to get across this?"
Jak chuckled. "I hope he falls." He said, before continuing over the spike-free square. I jumped after him. On the other end was two more electrified red square sections, and past that two revolving turrets.
There were four platforms sticking out of the building wall, so we jumped on them, and they led up to the roof of the building. It was raining but we could still see and hear through the skylight.
I looked down and saw the Baron, Erol and a flickery looking hologram of some sort of monster. "I've told you, I will have more eco by week's end. We'll transport it directly to your nest, as promised!" I heard Praxis's rough voice. I started growling without realizing it, my body already starting to flicker into my dark form out of anger. Precursors, I couldn't even hear his voice without wanting to murder a small town.
I couldn't wait until he got the revenge he deserved. This was all his fault.
Jak clamped his hand over my mouth to stop the sound, and rubbed a hand soothingly along my arm. My form stopped flickering as I looked in Jak's eyes and saw just as much anger there. If he could contain it, so could it.
"A deal is of no value if you can't deliver, my dear Baron. I grow impatient with your puny gestures. Give me the agreed upon eco soon, or the deal is off, and your precious city will pay the price!" The monster growled before the hologram vanished entirely.
" He's toying with us!" Erol yelled, and I had to bite down on my knuckles to stop the darkness from consuming me. I really really couldn't stand Erol. "Let me lead an assault on the Nest before it's too late! I can take him!"
Praxis: Patience, commander. No one has ever penetrated the Metal Head Nest. You know that." Praxis said, facing the window. "I've seen what comes of such foolish plans." He brought up one of his hands up to his face, thinking. "No! Strength is their weakness... We play helpless... We train them to eat from our hands, and then..." he paused before resuming again in a much louder voice. "Move forward with the plan! Tell Ashelin to up her patrols. I want that Tomb found!"
"But your daughter has not been... agreeable." Erol said, bowing slightly.
Wait. Daughter?
" Agggg... I'll see to that problem. One way or another." He growled.
"Ashelin is the Baron's daughter?" I felt my anger drain away in the wake of my confusion, and I just shrugged questioningly.
"And find those children! If you'd spend half as much time looking for those little brats as you spend flirting with that mechanic girl, we would have pinned their royal asses to a wall long ago."
Daxter, who had been happily residing on my shoulder this whole time, apparently had to sneeze. Maybe my spike hair was tickling his nose. Who knows, but whatever happened, he started breathing heavily and making involuntary noises. I looked at him, begging him not to sneeze, but he did, and Erol immediately looked up and yelled, "What was that?" At the exact same time that I grabbed Daxter, pulling him to my chest, covering his mouth, and pushing back away from the window and on top of Jak, who wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me on top of him. I don't think any of us were breathing.
When Jak deemed it safe, he let go of my waist, and I slowly rolled off of him, taking a deep breath. Jak was giving Daxter a look that just asked, 'Really?'
xMx
To our right was a ramp that we followed down and entered a clearing with nothing but an arch that was gated off with blue electricity.
Out of nowhere, a big red mech suit started rising from our left, inside of it being Baron Praxis himself. I growled again, my anger getting the best of me again, but I focused all my thoughts on Jak's hand in mine, taking deep breaths to calm myself.
So, we have a rat in the walls, do we? A rat and his boy and his pretty girlfriend it seems! Back for a few more Dark Eco treatments?" I heard Jak let out a snarl and I felt his skin get colder, and suddenly, holding on to my sanity seemed to be a whole hell of a lot harder. "Well, allow me to put you both out of your misery!" He yelled and started shooting at us.
As he shot, a green film covered the mech. I think it was a shield. Whatever it was, it went down when the suit paused to reload, and Jak and I both got one shot in before it was back up. Praxis flew behind us and started shooting. I had to jump to avoid losing my legs, but I still managed to dodge it and get a shot in.
"You can't hurt me!" He said, flying to our right and shooting again. This time, when the shield lowered, only Jak got a shot in.
Praxis flew over to the blue glowing ball on the electrified archway, maybe to recharge his shield, before flying back and shooting again. This continued on, shoot, get shot, recharge, etc. Finally, after one last hit, the mech sparked dangerously, and the Baron flew away, through the gate, leaving it open for us to follow.
He was waiting in a clearing almost identical to the one we were just in; deserted with an electrified archway on the other end.
When Praxis saw us, the mech turned it's hand towards the air and started shooting out missiles that shot to the ground in patterns. He was too predictable. After shooting two more sets of missiles, he went and recharged, before flying over and shooting another set of missiles.
And again, just like last time, the mech started sparking and shooting out nuts and bolts. The Baron went spinning away again, through the electricity and over to the next clearing, trying to fix his suit.
We followed after him and entered a different looking clearing. It was set in a rectangle shape with no electrified arch at the end, but instead up a big set of stairs and to the left.
There were two ledges to the left and the right, and a set of stairs in the middle that Praxis was on. He started shooting, vaulting towards us before stopping and setting off six little fire tornados.
Oh, that was a new trick. Way to go, Praxis.
The tornados spun towards us, but we were too far away for them to reach, and they puttered out before they could get to us. We shot him while he was distracted by putting down the tornados.
In typical Praxis fashion, he did this two more time, recharged, and then started just barreling the mech at me and Jak separately. Which was stupid, because we were so quick to defend one another, that his suit took it's last bullet in no time.
This time, instead of just losing a few bolts, the whole thing exploded, leaving the Baron in nothing but a pod, saying, "The dark powers I gave you can't protect you forever! Since I made you, I can destroy you! We'll meet again soon!" Before flying away.
"Yeah, whatever." Daxter said casually, fluttering his hand. "Bye bye."
A/N: Hi, I'm tired. It's 6:14 am and I haven't slept yet. I don't know why I do most of my writing at ass o clock in the morning. Maybe that's why im such a terrible writer xD
Well I hope you like it. I really hope that I'm going to be able to go into the details of Sylence (guess who it is :P) In the near future.
By the way, I'm basing this story off the theory that Jak grows up to be Mar. Just saying. Important point for the future.
Also, I couldn't help but think how perfect the song for the chapter was :D Just saying.
xMonster