A/N: Much thanks to every single one of you who has read this, reviewer or not. It is gratifying to see that someone is enjoying the things I come up in the middle of Geography class, but I do write for myself. Hence why most of this is written in Geography. Catch my drift?
LeiaOrganicSolo, EcoSeeker247, Caylyn, Princessofallayains, Unohoo, Camp Chess Friend, Blood Spirit and Faithless Reject. My heart goes out to you, as does this chapter. Thank you for taking the time from your busy lives to review my ramblings.
One quick thing: I realize I've been stuffing with the general timeline and geography of Jak 2. I suppose this could be slightly AU, but most other things fit. Then again, this is FanFiction. If everything fit to a T, nothing would be fun to read!
Disclaimer: I do not own the title "Jak and Daxter." Naughty Dog does!
Part Two: Chapter 10: Unadulterated Loathing
Someone who claims to be much better than everyone else is annoying. Someone who can actually do everything he claims with as much grace and skill as they claim is even more so.
It was, therefore, no wonder as to how I was slowly getting more and more unhinged by Jak. He was unintentionally targeting nerves I didn't even know I had. Sooner or later, I knew there would be something, maybe just one word that would dissolve my quiet dissimulation.
The fact that I was going to have to spend the night in a cave with him was not helping strengthen my resolve to remain calm. I was curled up underneath a small ledge by the opening, as far from him as possible. The rat (who had impolitely informed me that he was an ottsel named Daxter, not a rat with no proper label) lay slumped over Jak's shoulder, fast asleep. Jak himself was facing deeper into the cave, on watch for any enemies. The unnerving element was the fact that our adversaries were more likely to come from the cave than the outside. With that in mind, I flipped to face the wall and hugged my arms around my body even tighter.
It did not take me an exceptionally long time to establish sleep would not come easy that night. The feeling of resentment between me and Jak was mutual, and he was the more vicious of us. I tilted my head to make sure he was not sharpening a knife or reloading his gun. Satisfied that he was not going to kill me at any point in the immediate future—mind you, the rest of the night was a different story entirely—I closed my eyes and readjusted myself once more. The fabric of my clothes scratched against the rough stone.
There was an old trick for getting to bed. Like many other skills and secrets, it had been taught to me by none other than my oldest brother. But that was of no consequence. You close your eyes and picture black. Then darker black. Unfortunately, the waning lighting was such that it was hard to distinguish between open eyes and closed ones. And darkening colours were like those of Jak's eyes.
Hissing in frustration, I searched my memories for another strategy to ward off insomnia. Jak let out a low chuckle from the opposite end of the rocky section of the cave, like as not assuming I could not hear him. He was not the only one with magnified hearing sensitivity. I informed him coldly of that point.
"Just shut up and go to sleep," he said.
"Why, so you can kill me?" I asked.
Jak growled in his animal way. "I don't need you to be asleep for that."
"Try it, and we'll see." The death-threats had not been forgotten, and I doubt they would be anytime soon. As cocky as my attitude was, I still waited out a solid ten minutes of silence and stillness before resigning to sleeping again. Perhaps the problem was that I was anticipating the following day too much. Thinking of past events would be better. But since my mind wanted to live in the here and now, I had to settle with replaying the earlier adventures leading up to the cave shelter.
"I don't suppose you have enough ammo to get all of there guys, do you?" I asked Jak as we backed up towards the cliff. My plan had been to fall back to the beach and cross to the mining island. But someone had removed the bridge between the two areas, leaving us on a rapidly shrinking beach front. The Metal Heads were slowly finding ways to descend the rock face.
"Only if you could take the other half," Jak replied.
I shook my head subtly. I only had one knife, and could hit the target one time out of five on average. "I could probably take out three or four . . ." I offered.
"No good. We'll need to get out."
"Whatd'ya mean, 'get out'?" the ottsel quipped loudly. "There ain't nothin' but sand and water!"
"Swimming's out of the question," I remarked. "The water's guarded with some bot. Can't get in past your waist without getting shot."
"Then what do you propose we do, Plan Girl?" Jak inquired.
"I . . . I, uh . . . I don't know!" I exclaimed as a Metal Head as big as me hopped off the cliff and landed heavily on the beach in front of us. Jak quickly shot it down, but more were beginning to catch on. "Your turn to think of a plan!"
"Would you two stop freaking out?" Daxter yelled. Jak cringed as the high sound reached his ears. My attention was pulled back to the invaders with the brisk arrival of four quadrupedal gunners. Knife too valuable to waste by throwing, I unsheathed my weak Eco pistol and began firing.
"I could use a little help here!" I called to no response. I tried again, not daring to look away from the targets. "Hello?" No answer. "Jak!"
"Over here!" he acknowledged finally, but his voice was much farther than before. I turned around out of curiosity.
Bad move in hindsight. As my eyes focused in on Jak and the ottsel, something sharp caught me in the back, digging its claws into the skin. I cried out in pain, but managed to struggle away and towards the far end of the beach.
"Duck if you value your life!" Jak ordered, quoting from earlier. I eagerly complied, and his yellow blast found home somewhere behind me. Path clear, I forced myself to my feet and rushed over. Jak was standing at the edge of the water, looking at a small patch of land between this island and the next. I probed my back for injuries but deduced the minor amount of blood was no cause for alarm.
"Jak, you know water makes my fur all frizzy," whined the ottsel.
"Then we won't get wet," said Jak, a sly smile pulling at his mouth. It was then that I noticed the thin pipe that stretched from our beach to the land patch and from there to the mining island.
"You can't be serious," I implored.
Jak grinned a crooked smile. "Watch me."
And he hopped up onto the beam.
I expected him to fall. Lose his balance, teeter to one side and tumble into the water, not sparing enough time to swim back to shore before receiving an Eco blast through the chest. Instead, he ground down the pipe with just his boots, landing deftly on the miniscule shred of rock. My jaw hung open in bewilderment, snapping closed only when the resounding noise of gunfire registered in my peripheral hearing.
"How the . . ." I began.
"Let's go!" Jak shouted. Nodding tentatively, I inched over to the pipe, placing one foot on the bar and extending my arms for balance. Confident that I could last a bear minimum of five seconds without falling, I lifted my other booted foot and planted it on the beam behind the other. Gradually I began to slide forward, silently lecturing myself all the way about not looking down. I considered standing straighter to proceed slightly faster, but was too nervous to risk it.
"Sometime today would be nice, Ginger!" called the ottsel suddenly. I lost my equilibrium for a split second, but that was all it took. My weight teetered back and forth precariously and my arms flailed around clumsily, searching for hold. Before my knees buckled, I threw myself forward and slammed my hands into the bar, quickly wrapping my arms around it for stability.
Finding myself in an awkward position, it naturally took a second for rational thoughts to come back and encourage me to continue my descent. I folded my legs tightly around the beam and slid down on my stomach the remaining distance to the shred of land.
Jak smirked as I stood and brushed the grime off my clothes. Despite the fact that I should have been immensely relieved to be rid of the Metal Head scourge, I found it in myself to scowl in disdain.
"I'm sorry, who said we couldn't cross that?" inquired the smug ottsel.
I smacked the orange creature perched upon Jak's shoulder upside the head, narrowly missing the blond. "I did, jerk."
Without warning, strong hands slammed into my shoulders and shoved me back, causing me to stumble and collapse backwards, catching my form on my elbows rather painfully.
"Hey, watch it!" I yelled. Jak simply glared at me, his eyes darkening marginally once again.
"You watch it," he growled menacingly, and took off to the other side, alternating between bounding and stepping with a light tread along the opposite beam. He launched himself into a front flip for a dismount, leaving me flabbergasted as ever, unable to pull myself together.
I hugged the pipe and crawled up again.
When I arrived at the other side, Jak's lips were twisted into a cocky grin, eyes directed at me.
"If you get cocky, you lose," I reminded him.
"I think I'll be alright," he said bluntly. I shrugged and advanced further into the dark cave. Jak followed.
"I never did get your name," Jak stated a few minutes in. The question initially struck me as odd, but then I remembered that I had known his name from the beginning, while he had been going uninformed. No wonder he called me "Plan Girl."
"It's Shae," I announced. It was a moment before I deliberated lying and using a fake label. But how would I have been able to pull that off? The first time he used the false appellation, I would correct him instinctively. Besides; it wasn't as though the name would lead him anywhere. It was a fairly common surname in Haven City.
"You can call me Orange Lighting!" the ottsel claimed. I nodded sarcastically. 'Rat' sounded perfectly adequate on my mental tongue.
"Or Daxter," Jak muttered. "I'm Jak."
"I know, smart one," I shot blatantly.
Then quietly cursed myself orally, not having realized there was a downside to quick-thinking. This was when things got marginally more interesting.
"What do you mean, 'you know'?" Jak questioned suspiciously. I was in for it now.
Think, think! I chided mentally. If there were ever a time to lie, it was that moment there.
"I . . . I, uh, heard it being tossed around the Underground," I tried. The moment the words were out in the open, I knew how pathetic and unconvincing they were.
Jak accelerated to fall into place with me, castigating me with an unimpressed glare. "Think you can do a little better than that?"
I scowled, but complied. "I heard the rat call you that."
The glower intensified. "One more try."
I sighed. There was no easy escape in this situation. "That's the best I can do," I resigned.
That was as far as I made it in the conscious part of my mind before sleep seemed like too much a good idea. The remainder of the events required a quick mental reminder in the morning at any rate, and this was roughly what I could recall:
Needless to say, things had not escalated in our relationship since then.
We had continued in uncomfortable silence a few moments more before arriving at the other end of the tunnel-cave, right next to the KG mining base, as I had presumed. However, there were no bombs readily at our disposal, as the last transport had already departed. The next would be back in the early morning. Since none of us were extremely keen on descending to the mining caves and raiding the stores with the slim hopes of finding something useful and explosive, we agreed to wait until the morning.
And so, there we were, concealed from normal view of the guards below us. Jak and I were both inherently adept at being quiet, but the rat on Jak's shoulder which I still refused to call by any other name—well, not so much.
"Ugh," he whined glumly. It was more of a moan, actually. "Couldn't you two geniuses have found an easier plan for us to follow? One that preferably doesn't involve us likely getting our tails whipped by an entire legion of KG? Come on, tall-dark-and-gruesome! Think of something. . . ."
I tuned out the rodent's aggravating tirade and focused on the sky. Within moments, the red KG vessel—presumably laden with the latest consignment of gun-dispatched explosive charges—materialized out of the blue.
I shushed the boys and indicated the transport. The moment we needed was close at hand. If my assumption was correct, they would unload the shipment on the landing platform, then proceed down the mining shafts to acquire some wheeled conveyer machine to bring the bombs the rest of the way. That was our window for grabbing them.
Jak nudged my shoulder with the back of his hand. I grunted in acknowledgement, but kept my eyes firmly fixated on the cargo. "What?"
"We really could've thought of a better plan than this."
I gave him a disbelieving look, unwilling to let that non-existent smile of his pull any harder at that mouth. Like many other disdainful expressions I had sported lately, it was not forced. "You're right. Let's just abandon the plan now, hope we're not seen heading back to the cave and make up a new one!" I whispered harshly.
"I'm just sayin'," Jak resigned as he moved his expression back to one I was much more confident would help us get out sooner.
"Well, you'd both be doing me a favour if you said a little less. If you hadn't stopped me with your funny arresting gig, we'd both be out of each other's hair by now!"
"For the record," Jak answered, much to my dismay, "You would have died if I hadn't intervened."
"Yeah, well—" I began, but realized he was correct. "Fine. You're right, I'm wrong. Can we all be happy we're still alive and hope it stays that way for a long time?"
I was once again the object of Jak's infamous death glare. It was impossible to maintain any expression other than fear when on the other end of it. His eyes narrowed significantly and darkened by several tones, and his green eyebrows pulled together tightly. It was a look of pure malevolence. "You might not if you keep talking like you're the leader here."
"I—I am the leader," I stammered pathetically. Why do I always end up in these situations? I mused.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
Just as I opened my mouth to answer, I heard the raised tone of voice below, heard the gun barrels click. The shots fired freely within a moment, and I barely had the time to duck behind something to avoid getting cringed by one.
"Because a leader would have seen that coming," Jak indicated.
End scene. Comments, questions, criticisms, praise? The usual, if it's not too much to ask. Thanks again to all the past reviewers. I hope you're enjoying the progress!
~Fishyicon