Chapter 25: Krew and His Resident Slimebags (But Not Sig)
Music: Headfirst for Halos by My Chemical Romance
'And I think I'll blow my brains against the ceiling!
As the fragments of my skull begin to fall,
Fall on your tongue, like pixie dust,
Just think happy thoughts.'
Mood: Awaked
Disclaimer: Writers lie, just like your parents.
"You guys are alright, and since the boss is out of it right now, I'm going to give it to you straight." Sig said worriedly. After leaving the Tombs, we had decided to stop by the saloon. Krew was taking a nap, his tiny twig legs twitching, but Sig was there, sitting at one of the many tables, so we had joined him. "I've been Krew's heavy for years, and I've done things I'm not proud of," He looked down, shaking his head. "but this time, I think Krew's gotten himself and us, into something really nasty. I'm thinking of getting out." Good for him. At least he could. We needed Krew. His connections were too valuable to give up, even if it meant having to work for that nasty slimebag and deal with his lusty, leering gazes.
Krew let out a loud snore, shuffling his feet in the air.
"Ohh... Sig's beginning to like us!" Daxter said, jumping from where he was sitting between me and Jak and onto the table, spreading his arms out. "Come here you bug lug! Hugs for everyone!"
"Knock it off!" Sig snapped. I didn't like how serious he sounded; he was usually such a chill, relaxed, happy guy. "I think Krew's trying to..." he stopped talking at the sound of shuffling and faster snores from Krew, all of our heads turning to the fat man. "Shhh... he's waking up..." He rushed, waving his hand.
"Relaaaax..." Daxter drew out, running his hand over his ears, slicking them back. They popped right back up. "watch me butter up bun boy." He jumped off the table, and went towards Krew.
"Hey there, stuffed crust." Daxter saluted looking up. "How's it feel floating on top of the food chain?" Krew looked down at him in confusion, but his expression morphed into the glare he usually had when looking at Daxter, flying over. "Whooooo... Krew meister... have you been exercising? You're looking good!" I smirked as Daxter tried to hide his revulsion as he looked at the jiggling fat and circulation tubes. "You are definitely... living large! And those legs... they're so, ah, chiseled." He said it like a question, gesticulating madly to the tiny noodles hanging off the bottom of Krew's chair that I guess could have resembled legs.
"I need you to escort three of my boys down into the sewers and visit that statue again." Krew instructed without even batting an eye. "I've heard that that statue might contain another secret, and I want you to see if the stories are true, ey?" I glanced over at Sig, who was glaring at his coffee, drinking it anyways. He slammed the cup down in anger, looking up in a sort of disappointed frustration. I gave him a sympathetic look, but he just grimaced back. "Make sure all three of my boys get to that statue, and they'll do all the rest, hmmmmn?" Krew flew away.
Sig grabbed his coffee and walked to the bar, putting it away. Taking that as our queue to leave, Jak, Daxter and I all left, heading down to the sewers to go meet with the scumbags that were working for Krew.
xMx
"Quiet!" A nasally voice said as the elevator to the sewers opened, revealing three men. "Here comes pretty boy." The same person spoke. "Oh and he's brought us a little treat. C'mere Sugar." A short skinny man with a red bandana put his hand on my arm, leering. Jak cocked his gun, pointing it at all of them, but mostly the talking one, as I just rolled my eyes, ripping my arm away. "You didn't say she was yours." He put his hands up in protest.
"Okay let's do this," Another one said. I couldn't tell which one it was, they all had bandanas over their mouths, but I thought it was the one to the left of me, with some sort of version of a Krimzon Guard mask over his face. "Krew said you'll protect us all the way to the statue."
We all got on the elevator, the three men staying behind me and Jak, letting us head forward first to whatever dangers were there.
"I've got thirty keyes of highly explosive material strapped to my back," The only voice I hadn't heard yet said, a sort of gruff grumbling.
"Yeah," The higher voiced, fatter one with the KG mask said, "Why did we sign up for this?"
"Just shut your whiny traps and keep moving!" The nasally one said, following us as we stepped off the elevator and walked down the hall behind us.
"Uhh," The fat one asked nervously, "Did you hear that?"
"We are so dead," The gruff voiced one exclaimed.
"Shut up!" The first one said. I was starting to figure out he was the leader. "I'll go ahead." He walked ahead of both of me and Jak. He was met with a Spider Metal Head, and he let out a terrified scream. "Ahh! It's a Metal Head!" He shot at it with the tiny red pistol, which only succeeded in pissing the thing off more, and back up into me. My hands twitched; he would be so easy to knock out right now. His voice was already getting to me.
Instead, I loaded my Scatter Bow, and blasted another one of the spiders.
"Nice work," The leader said, acting like he hadn't just been screaming like a girl. "Those were some nasty Metal Heads." He stopped and looked around the room, freezing in terror when he saw the Spiders coming towards all of us. There weren't even that many. "Ahh! They're crawling down the walls!" He cowered behind me as I adjusted my stance, spreading my legs and shooting at the encroaching Metal Heads that Jak wasn't getting, protecting the three goons behind me.
"We're clear, let's move," The scrawny leader moved from behind me, walking forward to the blocked off gate. I followed close behind them to make sure that they didn't die as Jak scanned the perimeter, checking for more Metal Heads. "This is where I come in," I turned to see the gruffer one handing the leader some sort of stick. "Cover your ears!" I watched in fascination as he set up a few sticks on the wall, tucking them into little crevices.
"More like cover your ass," One of the other goons responded, laughing and running away. I took a hint and went and tucked myself next to Jak, the leader following after us, crouching right next to me.
"Better keep yer head down, Sugar," He said, just as a loud boom resonated through the room, sending bits and pieces of debris about the room.
"Man Jinxx," The big one asked. I assumed the leader was Jinxx. "What'd you put in those boom sticks?"
Everyone moved forward, "Yer bad breath!" Jinxx sneered. "Let's move." Shouldn't Jak and I be the ones giving the orders?
"I love this job!" The gruff voiced one said.
We got to the end of the hall, Jak leading and me in the back when more Spider Metal Heads started dropping. "Ahh! More of those monsters!" Jinxx yelled.
"They're coming from behind too!" The big one yelled. I whipped around, bow aimed and killed the ones that I could see. There was one attacking the big guy, and he was cowering in fear, frantically shooting his pistol. I shot the thing, skewering its brains to the walls, not listening to the big guy's thanks.
I heard the faint tinging of Jak's Blaster gun being shot, so I assumed he was getting the ones in the front, and that was one less thing to be worried about
"Great, now we're trapped!" The gruff voiced one said in distress as more dropped from the ceiling, but I easily took them out.
Jak took out the last two, and waited for the rest of the party to continue on. "You're pretty handy with that iron, blondie," Jinxx said, flicking Jak's gun as he walked past. I saw Jak's twitch on the trigger.
"Maddy's my hero!" The big one wrapped his arms around me and I snarled at him, turning around so fast that he had an arrow under his chin, slicing, before he even knew what was happening. At the terrified look in his eyes, I took a deep breath, and lowered the arrow to the ground and letting the string go slack.
"Shut up, Mog!" Jinxx said, oblivious to the fact that I almost blew his friend's brain out.
I growled, but let them walk forward ahead of me, keeping a careful arrow to the ground. "I've got a bad feeling about this place," The gruff-voiced one said as he passed by me. I rolled my eyes; like he was doing anything.
"I wanna go home, Grim," Mog said mournfully, passing by me to and stepping on the elevator. I followed last, still staying in the back, ignoring the overwhelming urge to inch around to where Jak was. We wouldn't get the mission done that way.
We all got off the elevator and continued down an area with dregs of sewer water still stuck in its divots. "Here they come again!" I heard Jinxx yell, and then the snip of Jak's gun shooting.
"Shoot 'em! Shoot 'em!" Grim urged, pushing my shoudler to turn to the Spiders behind me. They were panicking too much. I easily took both of them out with four arrows, and turned to see Jak was done with his and waiting for the rest of the group.
I gave him a two-fingered salute, meaning that we were good to go, and Jak nodded, continuing down. "Nice fighting man," Jinxx complemented, smacking Jak's back. "I'm beginning to like you." What was I? Chopped liver?
Before I could even get into that train of thought, Jinxx was off complaining again, "Whoa! Beams of death!" I assumed he was talking about the blue beams on the floor, and peaking around the corner showed three spiders standing in a wall, shooting the beams, scanning the floor. I didn't even want to think about what would happen if we touched the beam. "We'll just stay right here until you take care of them."
Jak went for the spider on the far left and I went for the one on the far right, acknowledging our secret rule, switching places and both shooting at the middle spider.
"I could do that," Mog said, looking over at Jak and my perfect body language and faultless methods of dealing with enemies.
"You wish," Jinxx snorted, following after us. I didn't even bother to go back to the back yet; there was another set of Beam Spiders just around the corner that we seamlessly took out. "Good as a ballerina," The leader complemented, walking past. I let them go, following.
The whole group reached a branched off room with a blocked out door. "Keep back!" Grimm warned as we all stepped back.
"One unclogged sewer coming up," Jinxx laughed nasally, running up to us. I noticed that even now, the three were hiding behind me and Jak. Cowards.
The door blew open, and Jinxx sat there with a satisfied smirk before asking worriedly. "Ya hear that?" He looked over to the two of us. I tuned my ears in, and I heard a small click click noise, and a soft shuffling, getting progressively louder.
"Sounds like I've got gas…" Mog trailed off.
Jak pushed my chin up to the ceiling, and I looked up and jumped; there were spiders everywhere. Like literally, there had to have been hundreds. "Ahh!" Grimm exclaimed, grabbing my shoulders to stay stable. "The ceiling's crawling!"
"Jak! Maddy! Metal Heads everywhere!" Jinxx said, his eyes flicking around frantically.
"It's a trap!" Mog said sorrowfull.
Fuck these guys. I loaded my bow, aiming, back to back with Jak, waiting for the swarm. He glanced at me, and I nodded.
Spiders started dropping from all sides, in between Krew's goons, who couldn't do much with those puny pistols, and me, and in front of Jak, landing with faint splashes in the water, crawling over.
I braced my shoulder against Jak's, feeling how tense it was, and started snipping all the spiders that were getting near the terrified guys, and when I had the time, taking out ones on the ceiling before they could drop.
I think I almost shot Grim, but it was his fault for getting in the way. I had to agilely work and arrow around Mog's back and over his shoulder as he decided to take on one himself. I noticed the big guy looked extremely surprised when it actually dropped, but zoned in on the arrow sticking out of its neck.
Jak and I continued shooting, and everything was going good, and we were holding down the fort, still not having moved from our original back to back position.
Soon, the spiders started dropping at lesser speeds and in lesser amounts, until finally, they stopped dropping all together.
I let out a sigh, letting out all the tension in my body, dropping against Jak's back for just a second, before getting back up and checking on the three behind us. They were all unharmed, a little shaken, but unharmed.
"Man, I hate spiders!" I heard Grim tell Mog.
"Let's get out of here before more come out!" Jinxx order, walking through the now unclogged door. I followed close behind them, knowing that if I looked away for even a second, they would probably end up in trouble again.
The next room was the last room, though, and there was the statue of Mar and Sylence, both standing heroically, swords raised in opposite directions, standing back to back, like how Jak and I had been braced only moments before.
"Ooh, pretty statues," Mog said, walking up to it and taking off the can that was on his back. All three of the goons got close to the statues and began to work. Daxter started to follow, but came back to where Jak and I were standing in the back when Jak held his hand out, telling him to stop.
"Stand back," Jinxx warned, flicking his eyes over his shoulder at us. "We're professional." They all finished situating the little pipes on the statue which looked suspiciously like… "Alright boys, let's blow this sucker sky high!"
"Wait!..." I yelled, holding my hands out; they couldn't just blow up a statue of the founders of Haven City!
"Who told you to...?" Jak asked, the realization hitting him then.
"NO!" Our yells chorused as the men took off and the statues exploded. The blast blew me backwards, and I smacked the wall full force, making a sort of gruesome angel on the wall before falling down to the ground.
I got back up, though, ignoring the pain, making my way back to Jak and Daxter, who were climbing out of the rubble themselves.
A broken version of Mar's head slid towards us, cut off at the neck, and Jak grimaced at it angrily. We both looked up and Jinxx's sound of accomplishment. "That's what we're looking for, the Heart of Mar gem! Too bad Sylence didn't have a heart to go with it!" The man was holding a glittering red stone with gold inlays.
I heard Jak start growling, and I took a deep breath, running my hand through my hair, trying to calm myself down. If Jak was getting angry, I knew I wouldn't be much better. How could they have just done something like that? That was a brilliant statue! And they just… blew it up!
"Thanks for the escort, buddy. We'll take it back to Krew!" Jinxx turned around, leading the goons, none of them realizing the vindictive stares they were getting from me and Jak, nor the sudden burst of electric tension in the air, probably from me.
I knotted my fingers into Jak's hair, trying to calm us both down, but it didn't help much, and the only difference I noticed was his hair started to get staticy from me.
They actually just did that, and then left? I was beyond mad. I couldn't believe it. I turned my head into Jak's shoulder, biting him. I didn't mean to, but that was the least violent thing I could think of, and it seemed to work and bringing both Jak and myself down from our anger highs.
Jak took a deep breath and stopped growling, Daxter finally seeing it fit safe to jump back on Jak's shoulder again.
We all left, calmed down, not by much, but now I was less likely to go on a murderous rampage, so I'd call that better.
I actually don't know why I was so angry about it. I mean, yeah, it was a statue of our city's founders, but something in that just hit home.
I ran my hand through my hair again, checking the map. The second class race was today.
Now I had to deal with Keira while I was still bitterly angry.
Let's see how that turned out.
A/N: Aww, thank you for the compliments on my music taste, I know it's perfect 3 You should see my Itunes library lol.
LadyAmazon: I actually haven't played any FF games past FFX. I got stuck on like the last battle with Seymour and it totally blows. I hate how in practically all the FF games the cut scenes are super long in front of bosses, and then like when you die, you have to watch the whole cut scene over and over again and just GAH. And I tried cheats, but there's not really any for it, and that just totally blows :C
xMonster