Chapter 31: Look on the Bright Side…
Music: Kill All Your Friends by My Chemical Romance
'Cuz we are all a bunch of animals
That never paid attention in school
so tell me all about your problems
I was killing before killing was cool
You're so cool, you're so cool, so cool
Cuz we all wanna part when the funeral ends
And we all get together to bury our friends'
Mood: Too hot (Like literally. I think I'm going to turn to dust cuz of this sun.)
Disclaimer: We're all a bunch of liars
We immediately made our way to the palace, still dodging guards around every corner. I flashed the Palace Security pass into the scanner when we finally made it to the building, and the wide doors swung open, letting us in.
The entrance room was empty with just a Haven flag on the wall and a few monitors over in the corner. There were two doors, but one wouldn't open, so we went to the one that led to an elevator, waiting as it rocketed upwards.
I followed Jak off the platform with caution, walking through another empty room and through a door to the Palace Room that we had seen Praxis and Erol in before. This time, though, it was empty. I branched off to the right, running my finger over a flag, mildly disappointed that we didn't find anything.
Ashelin came skidding out in front of me, pistol aimed towards Jak and a knife at my throat. I rolled my eyes, almost laughing at myself for getting caught the same way twice. Ashelin tightened the knife on my throat at the movement, but, honestly, I wasn't that scared. I knew I could get out of her hold if I wanted to. I jerked my chin up softly at Jak as aimed his gun, telling him to back down. He blinked twice, raising his eyebrows. I cocked my back to my bows. "I shouldn't have trusted you guys," Ashelin growled in an almost betrayed voice, not noticing Jak and my silent communication.
"Back where we started, huh?" Jak asked, sinister amusement shining in his eyes.
I coughed out a laugh. "Literally."
"Don't play with me!" She snapped. "All along you've been trying to undermine our war with the Metal Heads!" No shit. "Whose side are you on?"
"Our own." I said in a deadly voice, jerking my elbow back into her stomach and twisting out of her grip and back flipping to stand next to Jak, not a hair ruffled. Ashelin walked closer, waving her fufn between the two of us. She couldn't honestly think that she would get away unharmed, or even get away, against both me nnd Jak.
"Look, Ashelin," I began, pulling both my hands away from my weapons and putting them up in a peaceful gesture. "your father's planning something terrible, and if..." I continued earnestly, but I was cut off.
"My father can destroy the Metal Head armies once and for all!" She yelled, poking the barrel of her gun to my forehead. Jak growled loudly, an animalistic gesture that warned her she had stepped too far over the line. She backed off a tiny bit as Jak began talking. I kept my face blank.
"If he cracks open the Precursor Stone, the explosion will kill all of us! Don't you get it?!" He enunciated the last question by pushing away Ashelin's gun raising both his hands in the air.
"That's right! Not so hard, huh?" Daxter jumped off Jak's shoulder and walked towards redhead, putting his hands on his hips. "Even I can figure this one out!"
Jak turned to walk away, and I twisted to follow him, but Ashelin aimed her gun again. "Don't move!" She ordered.
I looked at her, my head cocked with interest at the change in her voice. I hadn't expected her to be convinced that easily. She flipped open the pocket communicator, pressing a few buttons before talking into it. "Vin?" She called into the static. "Come in."
"What? What?" Vin's voice shot out loudly and hurriedly. "I've got my hands full here, you know!"
Ashelin rolled her eyes at the communicator, getting to the point quickly. "You know all about the Precursor Stone myth, right?" She asked, raising a disbelieving brow at the three of us.
"Sure, I did my Econecic Energy Doctorate on Precurian Theoretical Physics." Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Jak and Daxter look at each other in confusion, the former shrugging. I smirked at them. "Why?"
"What would happen if the Precursor Stone were to be say..." She trailed off, continuing with a loudly, harsher voice, "violently cracked open?"
"Great!" Vin said exasperatedly. "As if I didn't have enough to keep me awake at night, you need one more thing to dread!" His voice got higher, the longer he talked. "Thank you very much! If someone actually had the Stone, according to my calculations," Ashelin circled around us, apparently trying to herd us in as Vin trailed off, looking for the right words. "a runaway eco surge from cracking it open would... theoretically... DESTROY EVERYTHING!" The scientist practically yelled the last sentence, his voice high with panic.
"Everything?" Ashelin asked in a type of shocked disbelief, her eyes widened. I almost couldn't hold off the smug smirk that was threatening my face.
"All things... every single thing..." He finished pointedly. Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go throw up! Bye bye..." The communicator clicked off. Ashelin's arm dropped, and she walked away from us, shoulders hunched in defeat.
"Trust me Ashelin." Jak said earnestly, uncrossing his arms and standing up straight. It hit me then how close our defensive stances were.
"We have to stop him." I finished, kind of for effect.
"I'll try to find out more." She finally turned around, eyes flicking between the two of us. "But right now, my father is meeting Krew at a secret Weapons Factory near the Dig." I grimaced. I knew we were going to have to have a run in with Krew eventually, but I really hadn't wanted it to be this soon. "Here." She pulled out another security card, tossing it to me. I snatched it out of the air, flipping it open, eyes scanning it before putting it away with the rest of the passes. "That's my top level security pass. It'll get you into the factory, but it won't get you back out." Cool, I thought dryly to myself, more suicide missions. "We never had this conversation." She finished, walking away to the main door, which snapped shut, locking behind her, leaving us to have to find our way out.
The only other exit in the room was a venting system that we crawled through and reached the highly guarded outer edge of the palace.
So of course, we had to fight our way through.
The outside was relatively easy, but the KGs decided to swarm us from a distance after Jak and I jumped over the moving turret.
Shots rained down around us, shattering the glass and making me have to duck to avoid getting shot. I hit the ground, shooting from the ground to the KGs on the ledge above us. When there was a break in fire, I got up, not even bothering to brush off the glass bits, sliding behind a pole and shooting.
Once Jak took out the last one we continued on, dodging another sensor turret and knocking out another round of KGs and picking up an ammo box. There was another door that lead back inside that we found after sweeping the perimeter.
I slipped in after Jak, keeping my eye on the sensor turret and we both hugged the wall to get around it. We ended up in the room before the Baron's throne room, but all doors were locked, and we had to get back outside to skim the other side of the building.
There was another vent that led outside, so we crawled through it. It led to an area with Eco pipes stretching across an empty gap that were easy to grind across. On the other side, there was another KG swarm that we took out, and another one across huge gap that I couldn't see how to get across. We couldn't quite reach the shooting guards, so we just had to dodge their shots as Jak and I both stared and tried to figure out a way across.
Daxter suggested grinding along the window, but Jak shot that down, saying it was too risky for getting across the whole way. I suggested tight rope walking, but that was shot down, too, just out of stupidity. It was Jak that pointed to the huge circle chandelier above us, and the pulleys that were holding it up.
I shot at the rope on the right with an arrow, severing the string and watching as the pulley gave, dropping the big circle, stopping only a little below the platform we were on.
Jak smirked at me. "That's less dangerous than window grinding?" Daxter asked, eyeing the circle warily. I grinned at him, getting on my JET board and jumping on the circle, using the jump as a kickstart to send me flying around the circle at a dangerous speed.
I jumped up on the other side, kicking one KG and snapping another's neck, just as Jak got off his JET board and got the other two.
There was another sensor turret the we jumped over, and a few more KGs to knock out before we finally reached the service elevator out.
We stepped into it, and it plummeted down to top speed, the doors flying open to let us out in the first room.
Luckily, the main palace door wasn't locked, so we left and made our way to the Air Train that would take us to the Weapon Factory to find Krew.
xMx
The factory itself wasn't much trouble. Jak and I stepped on the big circular platform that would take us right to the heart of the factory itself, where we would have to fight our way to the back and outside to find Krew.
Of course, it was guarded by lots and lots of KGs, and the first room was filled with them. Jak used his Peace Maker to take all of them out at once, conveniently, and we continued on without any trouble at all.
These missions were getting way too easy. It almost made me miss the missions where the only weapon Jak or I had was our fists and a mind full of anger and a body full of Eco.
The KGs seemed to have created some sort of ball-like mech robot that was periodically dispensed from a hole in the wall. They would roll around, barreling into things until we shot at it enough that it had to stop standing woozily in place, and then collapsing.
One of them had the trigger for the moving conveyor belt, and once it exploded, the running belt switched directions and let us up.
There was a few spinners to hit to change flooring to let us across the acid lake at the bottom, with KGs on all sides, but past those there wasn't much else that was a challenge, just a whole lot more KGs and another set of rolling ball like KGS.
There was a section that got dangerously close to the bubbling acid at the bottom, but we made it over that, too, and past a lot more conveyor belts, and even more KGs to a big door at the back that lead to a platform in the very back of the factory with a huge… thing on it. It looked like some sort of bomb, and I eyed it suspiciously, not surprised when Krew flew from the back of the machine.
"I knew you were special when I first met you. Both of you, mmm." Krew greeted, flying around the three of us like we were pray. "and I commend you for making it this far. We've come a long way, 'ey?" He whispered in my ear, and I growled loudly.
"Yeah." I snapped. "I'm getting real teary-eyed." I crossed my arms, cocking out my hips.
"I love weapons." Krew said, almost lovingly, eyes roving over Jak's Morph Guns and all my bows, flicking back to the bomb like thing behind him. "I love how they look... how they feel... even how they smell..." He took a deep breath, flying around the machine.
"I think you need serious help." Jak said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at the fat man incredulously. My mouth pulled up in a half grin, but I schooled my expression back to blank anger soon after.
"My favorite was the impossibly powerful weapon Mar and Sylence built to blast open the Metal Head nest." Krew said, ignoring Jak's comment. "The stupid fools both died before either of them could use it, ahh well." He ran his hand over the metal of the bomb, shaking his head as if he were actually sad, but I saw write through the lies written on his greedy face. "But I have a new favorite. The Piercer Bomb I've just completed." He flew to the top, looking down at the bomb that my half my brain was already focusing on figuring out how to deactivate. "My masterpiece is powerful enough to crack open the Precursor Stone, and release the untold energy inside! As soon as the Baron shows up with the Stone, we'll hide it in the last shipment of eco and deliver it to the Metal Head nest." Daxter made the loony face, rolling his eyes at Krew, who kept talking. "A surprise dessert, 'ey? Hee hee hmmm... " He reached into a moleskin sak at his side, pulling out two attachments. "Just take these weapon upgrades and forget what you saw here.
He threw them at us, and I snatched mine out of the air, attaching it, but not moving.
"Not this time, Krew!" I sneered, not putting my bow away.
"We're done being the hired gun." Jak cocked his gun.
"Then it's war, isn't it?" Krew asked, backing away slowly.
A few electrical glob like things sprung out of the ground, and with close look they were… "They're Krew." I gasped in horrified disgust as tens of tiny little fat Krews flew all over the ground trying to shock us.
They were all weak, and kind of slow, and easy to take out with Scatter Weapons. After we took out the first round, Krew flew in front of us, taunting.
I loaded a Peace Maker arrow and shot it and the exact same moment that Jak shot his Peace Maker, creating a deadly explosion that knocked Krew backwards a hundred feet.
As he recovered, he sent out more clones, but this time they moved faster and shocked harder, but got taken out just as easily.
Krew regained himself, and taunted us again. I shot at him again, the arrow skimming him, but Jak's hit, creating a lesser effect than last time, but it was still the same; Krew got knocked back and had to send out more clones.
For a man with infinite weapon knowledge, you'd think he could do better than sending electrical mechs at us, but I guess he couldn't. Our routine continued until we finally knocked Krew to the ground, the Heart of Mar key flying out of his hands and his chair short circuiting and leaving him on the ground, scrambling for the button that was only a few short inches away, but he just couldn't grab it.
I laughed cruelly at him, picking up the gem and waving it in front of his face. His arms scrabbled desperately for it but he just couldn't reach. It felt so good to watch someone reduced to practically no power.
"Is it too late to give my notice?" Jak asked darkly.
"Yeah! We quit!" Daxter agreed, jumping on Jak's shoulder.
"The city is already dead!" Krew muttered, breathing harshly. "I've sold you all out." He started laughing loudly before breaking into a coughing fit. Well of course he did. The Underground was prepared for this sort of thing.
"Ahhh, Jak..." Daxter stuttered, staring at the bomb that's timer was steadily clicking to zero. I felt my eyes widen. "I think maybe we should be anywhere else just about NOW!"
Jak and I stared at each other, neither of us knowing what to do, and turning back to the bomb.
As I was debating on what to do to get us out of the situation, a Hellkat cruiser pulled up and I felt Jak growl. I agreed. Just what we needed; KGs.
But it turned out it wasn't KGs, "Ashelin," I said in relief, staring as the Zoomer pulled up.
"We're outta here!" She said, jerking her thumb behind her. I followed after Jak, hopping into his lap as Ashelin took off back to the city just as a huge explosion let off behind us.
I stared behind at the now decrepit factory, wondering how much of Krew's fat decorated the place now.
I grimaced at the thought all the way back till when Ashelin dropped us off at the Air Train launch pad in Haven.
"You guys find my father." She said as she pulled the police zoomer to a stop. "I'll take the Heart of Mar to Keira for you." She revved the engine as we got out, pulling off. I vaguely heard her say, "I'm sorry it's come to this." Before she was gone.
I blinked.
A/N: Sorry for the super short missions! I didn't have the means to watch them be done to describe them, so this whole chapter is pretty much dialogue and memory! I hope it doesn't bother you guys!
xMonster